Two Women (69 page)

She felt the blade slide into her skin and swallowed hard.

‘You’re cutting me, Matty. I can feel it, feel the blood.’

And she could. It was dribbling down her neck mixing with the sweat. Surely her life wasn’t going to end in a cell in Holloway prison, another victim of Matty Enderby and her psychotic fantasies?

 

Geraldine listened to what Roselle had to say and was silent. Every time she looked at Wendy she felt the pain and the horror of what the girl had done. To keep that secret for so long and then to let it out must have been so hard.

Raped by her father then responsible for killing him. Watching her mother take the can. And all the time she was crying inside, unable to be normal, unable to be a girl again.

Geraldine knew how that felt.

Hadn’t her own father been the same? Over friendly with his daughters. So friendly their mother wouldn’t leave them in a room with him on their own. But still she wouldn’t leave him and the good life he provided.

So she stayed and they had to learn to deal with him themselves as they grew older and wiser and stopped seeing it all as a big game their father played with them. It was the only time he’d shown them affection, during those awful games.

What he’d had left anyway.

Now one daughter was married to a man much like him and another was left with a hatred of men that was pathological at times. Geraldine knew she would never lose it.

‘What do you want to do, Wendy?’

She sighed heavily, her lovely young face careworn.

‘What do you think I should do?’

Geraldine took a deep draught of her brandy and coffee and shook her head.

‘I really don’t know. From a legal angle, your mother could come out tomorrow. But then, you know that. They’d take you and lock you up in her place. And you and I both know your mother didn’t go to all the trouble she did just to see that happen. I think you should go with half the truth, tell them what he did to you. I think even your mother will compromise on that now, don’t you? But are you ready to tell the world, that’s the question?’

Wendy nodded sadly.

‘All the time she’s stuck in there, I feel it. Every day, every hour, every minute. I watched them decimate us as a family. I took everything Mrs Eappen and her lot could throw at me. I tried to look out for the others but inside I wanted to lie down and die. I can’t take much more of this. Every kind act made me feel worse, every kind word made me feel a fraud, want to tell everyone to stop it. Stop being so nice because I was a terrible person. A terrible person who murdered her father with an empty bottle then let her mother take the blame. The mother of four kids who were left without her, needing her more than anything because she was all they had ever had.’

The words were spoken simply and without emotion. They were the truth.

‘If you talk, you’ll throw it all back in her face, Wendy. You know that’s true. Do what Geraldine says. Tell them what led to the murder and leave the rest,’ Roselle pleaded.

‘Mum’s sentence was because of the severity of the attack. She took Dad’s head away because I’d bitten and scratched him, that was the only reason. Because of the forensics.
No
other reason. If she’d phoned Old Bill there and then, none of the other stuff would have happened. I know that and you both know it.’

Geraldine was getting annoyed and it showed.

‘Listen, Wendy, your mother did it to stop you being put away and I’m inclined to agree with what she did. I think she was acting on instinct, looking out for you as she always had. You can’t throw that back at her now, not after it’s gone this far.’

Wendy looked at the floor. She moved her big toe in agitation and Geraldine and Roselle were reminded she was still a child, however much she’d had to grow up.

They were quiet, each collecting their thoughts.

Finally Roselle spoke.

‘Come on, love. Just enough to get your mother out and leave it at that. For Susan’s sake.’

 

Susan felt the steel sliding deeper into her skin. Swinging back one fist she knocked Matty from her with all the force she could muster. Which, in the confines of the cell, wasn’t very far.

Matty hit the dresser heavily, making the doors open and everything inside fall to the floor. It acted as wardrobe, dressing table and shelving. As it collapsed, she disappeared under books, clothes and eating utensils.

Susan dragged herself off the bunk. She saw Matty get up at the same time, heard footsteps on the landing as the POs scrambled to get to the source of the noise.

A fight in a cell might be left if the women weren’t likely to use blades. POs were reluctant to get involved in personal disputes. But if an incident occurred where someone was seriously hurt then an inquiry would be called for. So hearing the crash from Enderby’s cell made them move faster than usual.

Matty was up on her feet and swaying heavily. She was lashing out with a blade. Rushing towards Susan, she brought it up to Susan’s face and attempted to hack at her with all the force she could muster.

‘I’ll kill you, Dalston. I’ll rip your face off and watch you die. Like I watched Victor die.’

Susan was terrified. Matty looked demented in the half light - quite capable of doing what she’d threatened.

Susan grappled at Matty’s throat and half dragged, half pushed her up against the bunks, kicking out as the blade moved dangerously close to her eyes and neck. She brought her head back and butted the screaming woman with all her might.

Even as Matty’s nose collapsed under the blow, Susan felt her fingers scratching at her, and the blade in her right hand slicing by Susan’s ear giving her even more strength and adrenalin. Susan realised that Matty was gone, completely gone.

Her eyes looked red now but it was the blood pouring into them that made her look like the devil. ‘I’ll kill you, Dalston, you watch me.’

Matty brought the blade up once more in line with Susan’s face and neck. She was laughing now. ‘You’re dead, Dalston.’

Susan head-butted her again. And this time had the satisfaction of seeing Matilda Enderby drop to the floor.

As the cell door was opened Susan felt a great surge of relief. But Matty was getting up again. The blade had sliced into Matty’s hand and still she felt nothing, no pain. As she threw herself at Susan she had her teeth bared like an animal. She was a mass of blood and energy.

The POs watched in amazement as Susan drew back a meaty fist and slammed it into Enderby’s grinning face.

Finally, after what seemed an age, Matilda Enderby was out for the count. Yet she still managed to keep on her feet for a good ten seconds before she crumpled on to the floor. Nobody went near her. Fear was apparent in every face.

Susan looked at the POs and said heavily, ‘You took your fucking time.’

 

June helped settle the children back into their beds. Little Barry put his arms up for a kiss and June hesitated, then smiling, she hugged him, feeling his sturdy little body against hers. It was a wonderful feeling.

‘I love you, Nan.’

June’s eyes filled with tears. She finally understood the appeal of children. Maybe she should have had sons. She’d always preferred males.

‘I love you, little man.’ The words came out instinctively.

‘I love me mum best, though.’

June smiled. ‘Of course you do, mate. Now go to sleep.’

As she walked from the room, Debbie was outside. ‘Lovely, ain’t they, Mum?’

June nodded but didn’t answer. She was too choked to say anything.

‘If Susan gets out all this will stop, you realise that, don’t you?’

Debbie sighed tiredly.

‘I know that, Mum. But even if I don’t have them long at least they’ll know me. Know they have a second home here when they want it.’

June stared at her.

‘You know something, Debbie?’

She shook her head.

‘Tell me?’

‘You’re a nice person really.’

This was said in amazement. Debbie laughed but June was quick to notice she didn’t return the compliment.

 

Susan sat on her bunk and shivered. It was freezing with the door wide open. The night PO, Lesley Gardiner, brought Susan in a hot cup of tea. She also placed a blanket across Susan’s shoulders.

‘You’re shivering. The medics will be here in a minute, they still have Matty to deal with.’

Susan nodded.

‘Did you hit her hard?’

She looked into the other woman’s face and said tartly, ‘Of course I hit her bloody hard! She had a knife to me Gregory, didn’t she?’

The PO sighed and started again.

‘How many times did you hit her?’

‘Well, you know, it’s funny but I wasn’t counting. I was too busy trying to stop her from doing me permanent damage. Why?’

The PO raised her eyebrows.

‘Remind me never to upset you, Susan Dalston.’

‘Is she bad then?’

Gardiner smiled sadly.

‘Put it this way, she was unconscious and none of us could find a pulse. I’d say she was in a bad way, wouldn’t you?’

Susan swallowed down her fear.

‘Listen, she was at my throat, ranting and raving a load of old cod’s. She ain’t all the ticket, you know that.’

Gardiner drank her own tea and they shared a cigarette.

‘Well, you get my vote. But after they’ve given you the once over you’re for the block. At least until they hold a proper investigation.’

Susan was terrified. This was all she needed.

 

Roselle went into the bedroom and hugged Wendy through the bedclothes.

‘Are you all right now?’

She nodded. Her face seemed easier, she looked like a girl again.

‘I feel much better just getting it off me chest. I’ve been lying awake nights for so long, just seeing him. Then I see meself hitting him with the bottle. The noise, Roselle, it was such an awful noise. Like a crunch. Every time I think of it, I feel sick. Then I think of Nanny Kate and her face when she realised what he’d done to me. Such disgust in every movement of her hands and in her eyes. I felt terrible. She gave me whisky to drink and she bathed me. Scrubbed me from head to foot. Then you came, much later, when I was falling asleep and took me home with you. I was glad to go. It was awful for her seeing me and being reminded what she had brought into the world.

‘Then me mum doing what she did. When I heard I was so grateful at first, I really was. I wanted to hide away from it all. But you can’t keep things inside for ever, Roselle, no matter how much you might want to. You can’t keep things locked up.’

Roselle kissed her on the forehead.

‘I think you know more about it all than I do, darlin’. I’ll go along with you on that.’

‘Me mum ain’t capable of hurting anyone. Not even me dad. But she’s the world’s expert on hurting herself.’

 

Susan sat in her dark cell on the block. She knew she wouldn’t sleep at all now. She was too hyper.

She’d had no intention of hurting Matty Enderby, none whatsoever, but hurt her she had.

Susan closed her eyes and sighed.

It was like Barry all over again, not knowing what to do or think. It would be ironic if now she finally had the chance to get out she was done for murder or manslaughter.

Life was certainly a bitch.

But she knew Gardiner believed her; all the screws realised Matty wasn’t the full shilling and she’d already gone for Sarah.

Susan’s mind raced.

But Sarah had taken the crunch for that. Put her little hand up. What was she going to do?

Susan paced the cell again, feeling as if the walls were closing in on her. If Matty died, any hope of walking out of this place was gone.

Susan sank to the floor and cried, long bitter tears. She was back to square one. Right back where she’d started. In a cell, on her own, wondering what the hell to do.

She had a feeling that somewhere Barry was laughing at her plight.

 

Matty opened her eyes to a glare of white light and a pain in her head that was excruciating.

A young male doctor leaned over her. She could smell his aftershave and cigarette smoke.

‘At last you’re back with us.’

He had a deep voice, surprising considering his age. He looked about twenty.

She stared at him.

‘What happened?’

The doctor didn’t answer her. Instead he took her OBs and checked her chart once more.

Matty closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep.

The young doctor on the psychiatric ward shook his head in despair. She had already taken out two male nurses and a care orderly, wrecked his treatment room and bitten and scratched him. It had to be the night he was in sole charge they got a really violent one. It had taken two separate injections of Librium to calm her enough to put on the restraining straps.

He wished she’d stayed unconscious, and that the woman who had knocked her out in the first place worked on this ward.

Christ knows they could have done with her.

The last thing he wanted was Matty Enderby up and about again. She’d already done enough damage.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The whole wing was quiet. Christmas decorations hung from the ceilings and gave the grim building a festive air. A radio was playing quietly in the background. The TV was on. Women milled about, drinking coffee and smoking, talking in low murmurs as if afraid to make any noise.

Rhianna, waiting for transfer after being sentenced, walked upstairs on to the fours and paused outside Susan’s cell.

She could smell the deodorant she had used; looked at the hairbrush left carelessly on the bedclothes; smiled at the pictures of the kids on the wall.

It looked like a tip as usual.

She would miss Susan, really miss her. But she wouldn’t mind that. She would just like to see her out. They all would. Each woman in here, from the prisoners to the POs. The only thing left of Matty was her posters. It seemed she didn’t want them in Broadmoor. Apparently they had enough stuff there to keep her happy.