A Very Accidental Love Story (16 page)

His main visitor these days was his mam, Imelda. Sixty-five years old and yet she’d still battle her way on two buses, plus the mile-long uphill road from bus stop to prison gates, not to mention the hour-long wait she’d then have to get through security. And all so she could just to get to see her youngest son for half an hour, one day a week. But she never once missed coming, not even when her arthritis was at her, not even last winter when she had the flu. It was heartbreaking. Always there with a weak smile for him, always putting on a brave face, never letting on how deeply ashamed she must be. Wearing her good coat and the special perfume she only ever wore either to weddings or funerals. She knew he had no one else to visit him, so she never once let him down.

Tough love was his mam’s thing, though from where Jake was sitting on the far side of the grille from her, it often felt more like soft hate. Bloody holiday camp in here, she’d gripe at him, though Jake knew her well enough to know this was her reverse psychology way of trying to cheer him up. Sure, what have you to do only lie around reading all your books all day, she’d tease him, though they both knew that was about as far from the truth as you could get. And would you just look at this place, she’d gesture around her, it’s like a three-star hotel. You sleep in a room with its own telly, where the quilt covers match the curtains and you get three hot meals served up to you a day and what’s more, you even get paid an allowance by the gobshite government for doing the time in here.

None of this was strictly true, but if it helped his mam get by imagining that he was living like a guest in the Holiday Inn, then it suited Jake to let her continue on in the fantasy.

Then just as she was leaving at the end of each visit, she’d reluctantly pull her good coat and woolly hat back on, the ones she always saved for Sunday Mass. It was a small, insignificant thing, but one that always seemed to stab right at the bottom of Jake’s heart. That his mother alone, out of everyone he knew and had ever known, had put herself out so much, that she’d even got herself all dressed up just to spend thirty short minutes with him.

Aside from her though, only solicitors had special visitors’ privileges. If you’d a trial or an appeal coming up, your solicitor could arrange to see you at any time and the wardens had no choice but to let them. Not that this had ever once happened to Jake. His trial was nearly two years ago and even then he’d been on the free legal aid, which meant he got a well-intentioned but utterly inexperienced law graduate who looked about fifteen and who almost gave himself an anxiety stroke at the very sight of a judge and jury, then got red-eyed and trembly the minute the verdict was announced. To the extent that Jake felt so sorry for the poor kid, he ended up consoling him while in handcuffs waiting to be taken off to the Cloverhill Detention Centre, the first place they sent you before a bed could be found for you in prison proper.

Would have been comical, if it hadn’t been so tragic.

So that sunny spring day not long after Easter, when Jake got a message to say there was someone to see him and that he was to head to the visitors’ room immediately, he was completely at a loss. He was certain no lawyer would be coming out all this way to see him.

Jake knew the screw that lead him down to security well, name of Cagney, a likeable fella once you stayed on his right side. Had four small kids and worked all the overtime he could get, so he was well known in here.

‘Any idea who this is?’ Jake asked him, as he was searched and patted down, then put through a security X-ray device on his way out of Block C.

Cagney shrugged.

‘Could be your parole officer?’

But Jake knew that was unlikely; for starters, his parole hearing wasn’t coming up till the end of the month, way too early for someone to be talking to him about it now. Guys from parole didn’t operate like that; they kept you sweating right up till the very last minute. Made you think you hadn’t a snowball’s chance of getting out, keep you on your toes, extract the very last drop of good behaviour out of you.

‘Because you know,’ Cagney went on in that chatty, likeable way he had, ‘and on the QT, of course, you’ve every chance of getting out of here early. If every prisoner behaved as well as you have, I can tell you, it would make my job a helluva lot easier. Between ourselves, I’ll certainly be giving you a glowing report when the time comes and that’s a promise.’

The prospect of early parole hadn’t occurred to Jake, good news rarely did. It was far safer to assume the worst in here, spared you the dull agony of disappointment when things didn’t go your way. Which in his life, was most of the time.

But when he finally cleared security and got to the visitors’ room, he saw no one he recognised and certainly no one that looked like they were from the parole board either.

He walked up and down the narrow passageway on the inmates’ side and checked the far side of each metal grille a couple of times … Not a soul that could possibly be there to see him.

And just as he was about to give up and head back, a voice suddenly stopped him in his tracks.

A woman’s voice, clipped, clear and direct.

‘Excuse me, are you by any chance Jake Keane?’

It certainly wasn’t anyone from the parole board. Instead he found a youngish woman, early thirties at a guess, whippet thin and pale as a ghost, which only made her coal-black eyes stand out even more. Fine, dark brown hair neatly tied back, wearing a smart black suit, black briefcase, black everything. Attractive, even if she did look like she hadn’t slept in about the last three years. But if she put on half a stone and got a bit of sunshine, Jake thought, she’d be something to look at: pretty, even. A solicitor, Jake guessed. She definitely had that official, formal, tense look about her that lawyers visiting here always had. Like she’d just come to say her piece, get the hell out of here then quickly head back to the comforting warmth of the law library as soon as possible.

Jake sighed deeply, knowing the type all too well. Knowing right well that this would make an interesting anecdote for her to tell her other lawyer cronies in Doheny and Nesbitts or whatever trendy watering hole the legal set hung out in these days. ‘Girlies, you won’t
beeeeelieeeeeeeve
where I had to go to see a client today!’ he could imagine this one shrieking to her other well-heeled professional pals. As if dispatching guys to rot out here was just a distasteful part of their job description, best treated as a joke in a pub. Unaware of the reality, what life in here was really like for her more unfortunate ‘clients’. Made his blood boil to even think about it, and not for the first time, he wished he could force every lawyer he’d ever had the misfortune to come across to spend just one single night in here. See how they liked it then.

But if there was one thing that doing time taught you, it was the value of silence. So Jake said nothing, just sat down opposite the grille from her and waited for this woman to talk, to explain the extraordinary reason for her being here.

‘Good morning,’ she began, clearing her throat. ‘Emm … Apologies for disturbing you, but I just wondered if I might have a moment of your time?’

‘Well, in case you hadn’t noticed,’ Jake smiled wryly through the grille at her, ‘I’ve got all the time in the world. I’m kind of what you might call a captive audience.’

Then he shoved his fair hair out of his face, folded his arms and sat back prepared to listen, taking her in from head to toe. A real hard nut, was his first outside guess about her. He could tell by the way she sat ramrod straight in front of him, like she was about to chair a meeting any second. Jake tended to classify people as either being tough or soft, and they certainly didn’t look any tougher than this one.

Then he noticed her thin, bony fingers drumming off the narrow ledge in front of her and thought no, hard is the wrong word, she just has something on her mind, that’s all: she’s here on a clear mission. So he decided to make it easy for her.

‘Look,’ he told her, more gently, ‘I’ve no idea who you are, but if you’re from Legal Aid, then you’ve had a wasted journey. I’m up for parole in a few weeks …’

‘I’m not a lawyer. My name’s Eloise Elliot,’ she explained crisply and for some reason the name rang a bell with Jake.

‘Eloise Elliot,’ he repeated, racking his brains to remember where he had heard it before.

‘Senior Editor at the
Daily Post
.’

And then it all slotted together in his head. Of course, he read the online edition every day in the prison library; he must have seen that name a thousand times on the editorial page. Okay, so now it was suddenly easier for him to get a proper handle on her. Someone married to her job, he guessed, one of those workaholics who was chained to her desk, a woman who didn’t just live for work, but who ate, drank and slept it too.

‘Anyway, here’s the thing,’ Eloise Elliot went on, in the brisk, business like way she had. ‘I’m about to commission a series of stories on former inmates and how they readjust to life on the outside, as soon as they’re released. And what I’m here to ask you, is whether you might have any interest in taking part? It would of course mean monitoring how you readjust to life outside over the next few months, how you coped, how things work out for you, that kind of thing. All done anonymously, of course, your name wouldn’t appear in the paper or anything like that. You’d just be there for deep background info to the, emm … series, nothing more than that. So, what do you think?’

Jake said nothing at first, just sat back, taking her in. Had to give the girl this much, he thought, most people on their first visit here seemed shaken to hell at the conditions around them. Particularly the women, who’d barely be able to make eye contact with you, just wanted to say their piece and get the hell out of there.

But not Miss Eloise Elliot. Instead she sat opposite him waiting on his answer, cool and composed, not seeming in the least bit fazed by where she was, or the fact that she was talking to a convict. Clearly this woman wasn’t just made of strong stuff, but had nerve endings lined with lead titanium.

For some reason, that impressed Jake.

But her coming to see him was still a mystery. What in the name of God could the editor of a huge paper like the
Post
possibly want with him? That was what he couldn’t figure; made no sense to him on any level.

‘Okay if I call you Eloise?’ Jake eventually said, looking keenly at her.

‘Of course.’

‘You mean you don’t insist on ‘Madame Editor,’ like on your letters page?’ he threw in, grinning.

‘Eloise is fine,’ she said, looking impressed that not only did he read the national paper of record, but the letters page to boot.

‘In that case Eloise, I have to tell you that what you just said sounds like the single greatest load of horse manure this side of the Grand National.’

‘
Excuse
me?’

Right then, he thought. Here’s a woman unused to being spoken to like that. But on the other hand, she’d got him all the way out here, and it sure as hell was an improvement on hanging around in his overcrowded cell. Might as well have a bit of fun while he was here, he figured.

‘Well, for starters,’ he said, lazily stretching his long legs out in front of him, like a man with all the time in the world.

‘Why in the name of God would the
Post
have the slightest interest in writing about someone like me? I read your paper day in and day out and even I’m able to tell you this much. Your readers are predominantly ABC1, am I right?’

She nodded.

‘Now if you were the editor of say, the
Chronicle
or the
Evening Tatler
, I might at least be able to understand where you were coming from, but your lot are about as far removed from tabloid readers as you could possibly get.’

‘Well, yes … but, I don’t understand what you’re driving at.’

‘Eloise, it makes damn-all sense to me why you think your average
Post
reader would possibly be interested in the likes of me. Never mind what’ll become of me on the outside. With the exception of my mother, my own family barely even care. So who do you possibly think would ever give a shite about an ex-con, back on the outside?’

‘Well for starters, I would,’ she told him firmly, returning his gaze full on. Almost, the thought hit him from out of nowhere, like she’d rehearsed her speech on the way over.

‘And you can be sure that if I would, then plenty of other people would too. Jake, it’s precisely because this is not the kind of series that’s ever been commissioned before that I want to do it. And you’re absolutely perfect for us. I called the governor to ask if he could recommend someone who I might be able to talk to and he said you were far and away the best candidate. A model prisoner, in fact, is how he described you.’

Next thing, she was whipping a notepad out of her bag and referring to some neat notes she’d made earlier.

‘Ah Jesus,’ Jake groaned. ‘Don’t tell me you’re starting now?’

‘Just look at this,’ she went on, ignoring him, and sounding far more animated. ‘The governor also mentioned that you came top of your class when you took your TEFL qualification. Jake, that’s amazing! And not only that, but apparently you’re studying for your Open University exams too. He says your chances of making parole are excellent and that you’re unlikely to re-offend …’

He sighed deeply while she talked on. Okay, so she knew all there was to know about him, presumably including what he was in for; she’d obviously done all her homework, and had somehow decided that he wasn’t a threat. But that wasn’t what bothered him – in here, the first thing you surrendered at the door was any right to privacy – he’d long since taken that for granted. But there was something else about Ms. Eloise Elliot, something a bit disconcerting. (Definitely a Ms., he decided the second he locked eyes on her. No way would this one going by the prefix Miss; he’d stake his parole on it.) Not so much what she was saying, but the utterly focused, intent way she was studying him while she said it. Like she was reading each and every one of his features, scanning his face, almost as though she recognised someone else in it.