The Jump (18 page)

‘Can I get you another coffee?’ The waitress’s voice broke into Donna’s thoughts.

‘Would you like another coffee, Caroline?’

“I’ll have one if you’re having one.’

Donna nodded at the young waitress, marvelling at how easy she felt inside herself.

‘Penny for your thoughts? I was worried we’d lost you there, Donna. I was gonna put a sign on you saying, “Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible”.’

Donna threw back her head and laughed out loud. ‘You’re funny, Caroline, do you know that? You’re also like a dose of medicine. I’m so glad I met you today, I really am.’

Caroline smiled, her face half-sad. ‘I’m glad I met you too, and thanks for treating the kids and that.’

‘Can I have some ice cream, please?’

Donna smiled at the little boy and said, ‘Today, Michael Joseph, you can have anything you want!’

He clapped his chubby hands with glee.

Georgio lay in his cell worrying. His eyes strayed to the photos of Donna on the wall by his bunk. He couldn’t believe that she had walked out on him; never in all their lives together had she done a thing like that. It was a shock to realise just how much he really needed her. Especially now, when she had the house and the businesses in her name. Everything he had worked for and built up was in her name. The house was worth a small fortune and he wanted it. It had never occurred to him that she would be rebellious; she had always done exactly what he wanted. But he had never been banged up before doing eighteen years …

Timmy crashed into the cell full of good humour. ‘All right, Georgio, my son? I had a lovely visit from the old woman and two of me girls. One of them’s pregnant, but it’s all right because the bloke’s gonna marry her, my brothers have seen to that. Family, eh? What would we do without them? Look at this.’

Timmy pushed under his nose a photograph of a girl of about twenty-one with a child in her arms. The child was a little girl about two years old and you could see they were mother and daughter.

‘That’s my Tracy. Her little girl’s called Corinne. Lovely little thing, ain’t she?’

Georgio nodded. ‘Very pretty, they both are.’ Timmy kissed the photograph and grinned. ‘Have a guess what my old woman told me. You know that young fella that just come on the Wing, BroomfieM?

them Well, he’s a nonsense. He’s in here for interfering with little kids, the piece of shite! Seems he raped a five-year-old girl. I thought he was funny, because unlike most cons he never says a word about his blag. I’ll give him fucking blag! I thought he was a nice kid, you know, quiet type. I gave him a fucking roll-up the other night. You wait until I tell Lewis. He’ll have the screws’ guts for garters for not telling him. I bet they’re waiting to segregate him somewhere. He’s even got his own cell, ain’t he! By Christ we were all dense, we should have smelt that rat before it was stinking.’

‘He’s really a nonsense?’ Georgio’s voice was disgusted.

Timmy nodded. ‘Fucking real, ain’t it? Imagine putting him in here with us. But apparently, he’s a bit schiz, like - not all the ticket. He’ll be even worse when I’ve finished with him, the ponce! He raped a little girl, a little baby. Not even at school yet. She had to have thirty stitches after he’d finished with her. No wonder he likes watching the kids’ programmes, eh? Probably gets off on them.’ And Timmy stamped from the cell to regale everyone on the Wing with the news.

Georgio was stunned. The boy was as good as dead, or at least in for a serious injury. Georgio could not find it in his heart to feel any compassion. Most of the men on the wing had children or nieces and nephews. Even the gays hated nonces. Paedophiles were the scum of the earth in this place and that was how it should be. No one had any time for the ‘social worker syndrome’; the argument that these men had been abused themselves as children. A lot of the cons came from bad homes where they’d been abused, beaten, whatever. But they worshipped their children like gods. Could not understand a mentality that said, forgive them. Even the devout Catholics couldn’t find an ounce of mercy for them.

Everyone was of the same opinion: get rid of them. Get them on the hospital wing and out of this environment. The murderer of a man in a fight was given his due; a man who murdered a girl down a lonely lane or whatever was given grief. It was how the prison set-up worked and the screws accepted this, even agreed with it. They must have been hard-pushed to put Broomfield on A Wing.

Georgio put the nonsense and his troubles out of his mind. He wasn’t worth the energy or the time.

He walked slowly to the recreation room, which was nearly empty, and sat at a small table shuffling a pack of cards aimlessly, trying to work out what to write to Donna to make her come round to his way of thinking. He had to get out - and she was the one person no one would ever suspect of helping him. He had already decided how it was to be

done. All he needed was her cooperation and he would be home and dry.

Samuel Broomfield walked into the room and smiled at Georgio, who dropped his eyes quickly, observing the boy surreptitiously as he flicked through the TV screen until he found a children’s programme. Georgio watched Broomfield watch the children, who were running round a TV studio playing a game.

Three hours of heavy traffic later, Donna pulled up outside the high-rise block of flats in East Ham.

‘Got time to come up for a quick coffee, Donna?’

‘OK then.’ She helped Caroline and the children from the car. Locking up, she followed them inside the building.

The entrance hall was full of litter, old newspapers, Coke cans and circulars. As the lift doors opened she was assailed with the stench of urine, human as well as canine.

On the seventh floor they disembarked, all giving a hearty sigh of relief and taking in a deep gulp of air. Donna was surprised to see Caroline unlock two mortice locks as well as a Chubb lock on the front door. It was dark in the lobby. Walking into the flat, Caroline turned on the hallway light.

‘We have to use the lights all year round here. Come on in, Donna. Michael Joseph, take your coat off and put it on your bed, ‘Vonne, go and put the pushchair in the cupboard. I’ll put the kettle on.’

Donna followed her down the hallway into the lounge. The kitchen led off it and Donna looked around her at the neat home. The walls of the lounge were painted pale green; a deep green Dralon-covered Chesterfield and two chairs were strategically positioned to give maximum space, and the TV was in a dark wood cabinet. The large windows had deep green, swagged velvet curtains. A small coffee table held a few ornaments and a leadlight cabinet contained books and cut glass. The total effect was delightful.

‘It’s Iqvely in here!’

‘Well, don’t sound so surprised about it!’ Caroline grinned. The and Wayne done this place up just before he was nicked. I ernulsioned the walls again a few weeks ago - keeps it looking fresh and clean.’ She disappeared into the kitchen and put oh the kettle.

‘I bet your house is nice,’ she called, ‘what with the swimming pool and everything.’

Donna followed her into the kitchen and sat at the small table under the window.

‘It’s all right. Big is the best description. But it’s not homey like this place.’

them Caroline was surprised at the honesty of the words. ‘Have you made up your mind yet what you’re gonna do?’

Donna shook her head and lit a cigarette. ‘I’ve got a lot of thinking to do about it all.’

Caroline sat opposite her. ‘He ain’t asked for a divorce, has he? Only a lot of the long-timers go through that. It’s a self-defence mechanism. Before you give him the big E, he gives it to you, like.’

Donna grinned. ‘No, it’s nothing like that, Caroline. I wish I could tell you about it, but I daren’t.’

Caroline shrugged. ‘You keep your own counsel, girl. But if ever you need an ear, you know where I am. I appreciated what you done today. It was very good of you.’

‘Believe it or not, Caroline, I enjoyed it.’

Michael Joseph came into the room, divested of his coat and also his trousers. He pulled himself up on to Donna’s lap and she kissed the top of his head.

‘Why don’t you stay for supper? It’s only ham and eggs but you’re welcome to it.’

Donna smiled. ‘All right then, Caroline, I will!’

She sat with the children and kept them amused while Caroline prepared the meal. She didn’t want to have to think just yet about what her husband had said, and Michael Joseph and Chivonne were the perfect excuse.

She enjoyed herself enormously.

Dolly heard Donna’s key in the lock at nine-thirty and she rushed out into the hallway.

‘I’ve been worried out of me brains about you!’

Donna kissed the woman’s cheek and said, ‘I met a girl, gave her a lift’home to East Ham and stayed on at her place for me tea!’

‘You what! Come away in and I’ll make you a drink and then you can tell me all about it.’

Donna sat at her scrubbed pine table and looked around the kitchen while Dolly made the coffee. She had never really had fun in this room, not like the fun she had experienced in East Ham this evening. The children had regaled her with stories of their doings, of their trips to the park and their nana’s house. About their little wants and dreams. She had envied Caroline so much as she had made them get into the bath and then their pyjamas. Her own home seemed sterile by comparison, overclean and without a crease anywhere. She knew that if she walked into her lounge, her drawing room, dining room or conservatory, there wouldn’t be a thing out of place. No evidence that people actually lived in this house …

For the first time in years she saw in her mind’s eye the baby she had lost. Its perfectly formed body lying in the bed. The deep red of the blood as it seeped from her body on to the white sheets, surrounding the small foetus like a crimson blanket. Georgio picking it up gently with kitchen roll and placing it in a small shoebox, then holding her hand as they waited for the ambulance.

The strain of the day came over her. She took a deep breath to stem the tears, but they came nonetheless. Big wracking sobs that made her ribs ache and her heart sore. She felt the hot saltiness as they ran down her face and into her mouth. Felt Dolly’s arms go around her, hold her to her big bosom and murmur endearments to her, ‘What happened love? Is it Georgio - did he upset you?’ She cried harder, remembering the hospital, the lights and the operating theatre. The knowledge that all her chances were now gone, that it was all over. Sadness mingled with a kind of relief. Georgio’s disappointed face, his tears as he had held his son’s small body. She saw her parents’ funeral, and her own wedding day, all inexplicably linked somehow. Then she saw the smiling faces of Michael Joseph and Chivonne, covered in ketchup and smelling of baby sweat and the dirt from the floor of the visiting room in Parkhurst.

Finally she saw Georgio saying to her, ‘Get me out of here.’ And then she knew she would do whatever he asked. She owed him that much.

them Chapter Eleven

Junie Dent was thirty-two, looked thirty-five and fancied herself as nineteen. Five foot two and ten stone, she had inordinately small hands and feet. Her hair was long, permed and shiny, her breasts were huge, and all her own. She suffered from a large belly, but in a nice tight girdle she thought she looked very good. She had been Danny Simmonds’s mistress for five Drears. Since Danny’s son had been knocked off his bike by a hit-and-run driver, she had gradually come to realise that she could finally get him off his wife. Lorraine was now off her shopping trolley, as Danny so succinctly put it.

As she was pushed up against the wall of her tiny hallway, holding in her belly as best she could, feeling Danny’s hands pulling open her dressing gown and grabbing at her breasts, she resigned herself to the inevitable. Danny was six two, and seventeen stone. He held her up against the wall with his hips, and she bit on her lip as he thrust his erect member inside her.

Rubbing her large breasts, he talked filth into her ear for two minutes before he said throatily, ‘I’m coming, girl, I’m fucking nearly there.’

She looked into his face and went into her usual routine. ‘Come on, Danny boy, give it to me. Go on, Danny, really shove it up me, hurt me!’ Interspersed with little moans.

Danny shuddered inside her, and for a split second Junie was frightened that he’d let her fall down on to the hall carpet, but Danny kept his grip on her as his legs gave way under him.

Tuck me, June, that’s what I call emptying the old chain locker!’

Junie smiled. Tut me down, Danny boy, before you drop me.’

He lowered her gently to the ground. Walking to the bathroom, he smiled at her. “I’ll just wash me tackle and then I’d better be off. Not bad, eh? Twice in two hours.’

Junie followed him into the bathroom. Putting her small hands on to his shoulders, she ironed out imaginary creases with the palms.

Tlove you, Danny. You know that, don’t you?’

Turning from the sink, he zipped up his trousers. The funny thing

was, he knew she really did love him. In her own way - the same way that he loved her. Her large blue eyes were bright with unshed tears, and for the first time in months Danny felt a flicker of real emotion. ‘Come here, girl, give us a cuddle.’

As he held her against him he marvelled at how short she was. Even though, in the eyes of the world, she was a hefty bird. To him she was still petite. After all, he had seven stone on her.

Kissing the top of her silky head he said sadly, Tve got to go, love, the old woman’s expecting me home. I told her I’d gone to a Masons’ do.’

Junie smiled and followed him to the front door. “I’ll watch you from the balcony, all right?’

He kissed her quickly and went down in the lift whistling to himself. Junie was his lifeline. He made the trip from his home in Silvertown to Plaistow four times a week, sometimes more. Since his son’s accident, he was relying on her increasingly. Stricken with guilt, he had grown apart from his wife, knowing in his heart that his son’s accident was his fault. Like most men of his ilk, he couldn’t live with that, so he blamed his wife. It was much easier.