Spider in the Corner of the Room - [18]

‘You have to understand something,’ she says to my face, her spit and hot breath on my skin, ‘they all say they’re innocent, and they’re all shooting for another taste of freedom; but what they don’t realise is this-is-it. Here. This place. No one gets out.’ She releases my fingers; I rub them. ‘And while you’re in here, something to remember.’ She whispers to my ear. ‘I’m in charge. Got it?’

She stands and jumps onto her bed. ‘Now,’ she says, resting her palms behind her head, ‘be a dear and turn off the chat. I need my beauty sleep.’

I find that I am too weary to respond.

Over an hour has passed.

I have been sitting on my bed with my notepad. Snoring, Michaela opens her mouth and groans. When she rolls to the wall, I return to my notes. I have been writing, furiously, urgently. Trial details, evidence, memories, schedules, anything and everything I think will help in an appeal, help to secure new counsel. It is my attempt at routine, at making something happen, at making my appeal become a reality. I have written about the priest, about what he discovered when I was volunteering at the convent, the paper trail that led nowhere, figuring that if I transcribe it, if I put it in black and white, I won’t forget. I won’t forget what he did for me-and what information I need to find out is where Father Reznik really went. Who he really was.

I carry on writing, absorbed in it, so waist deep in its waters that when she awakes, when she growls back to life, I do not, at first, realise.

‘What fucking time is it?’

My head shoots up, my hand instantly flinging the pad behind me.

‘I said what time is it? Were you writing?’

She rubs her eyes. I slip the notebook into my underwear. ‘I was…sitting on the bed.’

She blinks, focuses back on me. ‘You’re just fucking weird.’

For some reason, over the next ten minutes, Michaela talks. I don’t know what I am supposed to do. Listen? Answer back? Laugh? Smile? I am paralysed by the choices. The more she awakens, the more she reveals: a lover, life, parents. And all the while the corner of the notebook digs into my skin; I want to move it, but cannot. Her eyes are on me the entire time.

‘So, you Spanish, huh?’

‘Yes. I told you when we met.’ She should already know this. Normal people seem to recall very little information.

‘All right, smart fucking arse.’ She sighs. ‘I like Spain. We nearly moved out there, you know, me and my man. Then I got mixed up in some drugs bollocks and he met that cow and well…’

I move the notebook. A millimetre, that is all, but it is like pulling a thorn out of my flesh.

‘…And so I killed her, I killed his bit on the side. Ha, Jesus. That’ll serve him right for messing with me.’

When she pauses, I take it as a cue to speak. So I say, ‘Killed his bit on the side,’ because I have learnt that repeating what people say can make them believe I am conversing with them. Talking with them. Not at them. Either way, it’s all pretend.

She narrows her eyes at me. I go still again. ‘What is it with you, hey? Why do you always sound like a fucking robot? You don’t say much. And then when you do…’ She throws up a hand. ‘You just sit there, still as a bloody wall.’ She stands. Her face is suddenly flushed, contorted, and she stalks towards me, rolls her thick, tattooed shoulders. ‘Who are you, hey?’

I cannot help it. The words tumble out. ‘I am Dr Maria Martinez. Have you already forgotten?’ I try to smile, maybe that will help. It doesn’t.

Her eyes go wide like two marbles in her head, two perfect storms.

I try something else. ‘You asked me my name. I wondered if perhaps you had temporary memory loss. Prison could do that.’ I try a laugh, that’s what people sometimes do. A bit of teeth.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

I scan my brain. Is she cross? So, I drop the laugh, recall what a concerned face may look like and attempt to replicate that. ‘Women in prison are five times more likely to have mental health issues compared to the general population. In the UK.’

‘What the-’ She wipes spit from her mouth. ‘Are you saying I’m mental?’

‘No, I-’

‘You what? You fucking what?’

She leans forward, then suddenly-before I can move, think, assess-she knocks me to the floor. My notebook flies from my pants and slides out of reach. Panic. Fear. A rocket of blood pressure. My hands reach for the notepad, but Michaela jumps on me with her whole torso. Foul body odour. Clammy skin. Suffocating me. She pins me down, flies fists into my face, raining them down on me like giant hailstones. I try to move my head, tossing it from side to side, try to lift my left arm, legs, feet, hands, but she has me locked, chained by her limbs. Desperate, I feel for my notebook and, to my fleeting relief, manage to grab it as another fist hurtles towards me, but this time, somehow, I roll to the side, knee her hard in the groin. She screams. I scramble, clawing my way across the floor, but then she seizes me again, flings me to the wall like her battered prey. The notebook spins away and out of sight.

Michaela stops, her shoulders heaving, chest lurching. Thinking she will hit me again, I crouch, gulp in air. Blood trickles down my forehead.