‘He waiting for you?’
‘No, he’s away.’
‘Away?’
‘I’ve not got him chained to the house,’ Rachel said. ‘He’s taking Haydn off, skiing and that.’
‘Skiing?’
‘Snow, slopes, long shiny planks strapped to your feet?’
Alison rolled her eyes. ‘Tea?’
‘No, ta.’
‘How come you’ve not gone?’ Alison said.
‘Work – that man who was shot and set on fire on Manorclough.’
‘In that order, I hope,’ Alison said and shuddered. ‘So, skiing.’
‘And WaterWorld,’ Rachel added, ‘staying at a Travelodge.’
‘WaterWorld!’
‘Why are you doing that?’ Rachel said.
‘What?’
‘Repeating everything.’
Alison swallowed, set down the kettle. ‘I went to see Dom yesterday.’
‘Oh.’ Rachel’s guts turned cold.
‘I know you don’t want to go and I understand why, I really do, but I need to be able to talk about him. I can’t be minding what I say.’
‘All right,’ Rachel said. Though it felt a long way from that. ‘How is he?’ she managed. She could imagine. All too clearly. Last stretch he’d done, he’d been a bum boy for the older, more powerful cons. Had to be to get by. It wouldn’t be any different this time. Except he’d gradually turn from a twenty-nine-year-old to a fifty-seven-year-old in the course of his sentence. If he lasted that long. She couldn’t bear to think about it.
‘Doing his best,’ Alison said. ‘It’s hard, of course. He’s a bit down. He’s asked to see the psychiatrist, see if he can get some medication.’
Rachel stared at the fridge, kids’ drawings up there, houses, rainbows and stick figures with smiley faces. Happy fucking families.
‘He understands,’ Alison said. ‘Your job, when you knew what he’d done, where he was going, you had to report him, he gets it.’
The room was airless, the space too small. If he’d only understood in the first place that beating someone so badly he broke their back and they died was totally wrong.
‘Why he ever thought, even for a second, even in his wildest dreams that I’d want that-’ Rachel’s eyes hurt.
Alison looked as wretched as she felt. ‘He doesn’t think,’ Alison said, ‘he never has.’ She turned back and made her drink. The clock on the wall ticked. Rachel rubbed at the back of her neck, the tension there making her head ache.
‘Maybe in time, when you’re ready,’ Alison said, ‘you could go see him. That’d help.’
‘Help who?’ Rachel snapped.
‘Both of you,’ Alison said. ‘You’re not settled with this, even if it was the only choice you had, and you’re bound to feel guilty about it.’
‘Am I?’ Rachel said. ‘You know, do you?’
‘Rachel, don’t,’ Alison said wearily.
‘Like he’s gonna want to see me.’
‘He does, he said, he always… Oh, never mind.’ Alison shook her head, picked up her cup.