Faith - Lesley Pearse [1]
1
1995
‘Dried-up auld fuckwit!’ Donna Ferguson said loudly and scathingly as she dolloped broccoli on to Laura Brannigan’s plate.
Laura had always found that particular Scottish insult amusing yet she stifled her laughter as she knew Donna, the eighteen-year-old behind the serving counter, would see that as further evidence of her dementia. But then, as Donna weighed close on twenty stone, she probably thought anyone asking for more broccoli and less mashed potato was seriously barmy.
‘I may be old and dried-up but broccoli keeps my wits sharp and my body slim,’ Laura retorted. ‘Maybe you should try it.’
As she turned away with her tray to find a seat in the dining room, she could sense the charge in the air which always came when her fellow prisoners thought a fight might kick off. But they would be disappointed today, as they had been on so many occasions when someone insulted Laura. It was tough enough to be fifty and serving a life sentence for a crime she hadn’t committed, without looking for trouble. Besides, Laura felt sorry for Donna; she was forced to act tough to make up for looking like a beached whale.
Glancing around the dining hall at the thirty or so women, Laura thought how wrong film-makers got it when they portrayed women prisoners. There were no sexy-looking beauties here, and precious little intelligence. They came in all shapes and sizes, ranging from seventeen to over sixty, but they were unified by the same dull skin, lacklustre hair, and a look of defeat. She saw the same look staring back at her each time she was foolish enough to glance in a mirror.
‘Come and sit by me, Law,’ Maureen Crosby called out. ‘Us auld fuckwits should stick together!’
Laura did smile then for it was uncharacteristic of Maureen to display a sense of humour. She was a rather dour Glaswegian of fifty-two who liked her own company and rarely involved herself in anything which was going on around her.
‘Thanks, Maureen,’ Laura said, taking her up on her offer. ‘Did I commit a cardinal sin by wanting more broccoli?’
Two years earlier, when Laura first arrived on remand in Cornton Vale, Scotland’s only women’s prison, Maureen was one of the few inmates who made no sarcastic remarks about her age, her English accent or her insistence that the police had made a terrible mistake in charging her with murder. This could have been purely because Maureen was a similar age to her, but more likely because she’d been through too much misery in her own life to wish to inflict any on anyone else. There were scars on her cheeks made by a razor and her wrist stuck out awkwardly, the result of a break which had never healed properly. Most of her teeth were broken and she had a recurring back problem.
‘You’re looking very nice today. Expecting a visitor?’ Laura said as she began to eat. Maureen was a big woman and usually slopped around in a black tracksuit which did nothing for her rotund shape or her sallow complexion. But today she was wearing a pair of smart grey trousers and a pale pink shirt. Her grey hair had been washed and blow-dried, and she’d even made up her face.
‘Aye, my Jenny’s coming,’ Maureen replied, her voice lifting from its usual dejected tone.
‘That’s great,’ Laura exclaimed. Maureen had confided in her a few weeks earlier that when she was convicted of grievous bodily harm for driving a car at her husband, her eldest daughter had vowed she’d never see her again. ‘What changed her mind?’
Maureen shrugged to imply she didn’t know exactly. ‘I done what you said and wrote and told her how I felt about her. Maybe it was that.’
Laura nodded. Maureen was on the point of leaving her abusive husband when she discovered he’d stolen the stash of money she’d been saving to make good her escape. That same evening he beat her up again, and early the following morning as she was driving home from her office-cleaning job, she spotted him