Elizabeth Kiem is the author of The Bolshoi Saga, which is like Red Sparrow, but better.
Discharge
It took him some time to locate his toothbrush, though he had placed it quite deliberately on top of a folded piece of notepaper on the sill. Discharge, he knew, would commence at noon. And though he had never, in all his years in prison, slept later than ten o’clock, and then only in the dead of winter when the light leant no indication of time passing or not, Jacob had carefully prepared for the event as if the scenario was a one-shot deal. Then he had laid awake all night, waiting for it.
When the screw came to collect him, the men were already on free-flow. A few – Handy and Pecker and Ousman – had stayed on the wing, giving up their gym time with a shrug. They wanted to play pool, they said, but Jacob knew better. None of those guys had never approached the table with anything like intent. But he was grateful for their company. They talked, again, about the meal Jacob’s mum would have ready for him. Gumbo and peas. Sorrel and oxtail. Twice Handy asked if he was sure he didn’t want to take the soapstone bird with the big tits. “Nah bruv, got no need of her now, do I,” he said. He had left the toothbrush on the sill as well, though it had been hard to do. He had become compulsively tidy in his years behind bars. Personal space and order were the only thing left in his control.
The yard, when Jacob crossed it at ten minutes to noon, was no different from any other day. He was carrying a small cardboard box of books and photos and he wore his green suit. He asked the screw again, as they walked to the front, about the warehouse in Swinden, the one they said held all the personal effects prisoners accumulate over the years. He asked whether they would deliver his clothes soon or if he would have to make the trip himself, and as he asked, Jacob thought specifically of the leather jacket that his cousin Peter had brought as a gift when he was moved from Bedford to Belmarsh in 1999.
“I’ve got a new address,” he explained. “There won’t be no one at the old address to take ‘em. My fam don’t live in Ladbroke Grove no more. They’ve moved out to Easton.”
But the guard said, “I dunno. Not my assignment. You’ll have to ask discharge.” Then when he unlocked the gate from the yard into the front annex where the number one governor and the administrative staff was housed, the guard said, “You might not want any of that stuff any more, anyway. Styles change.” They shook hands and the screw made his way back across the yard to A wing.
Melanie had arranged for the day off. She had achieved just enough seniority to sort it – even on short notice, which was all a prisoner was given even after a twenty-three year stretch, seven in D cat and a two month probationary. First thing in the morning she went out to Brixton market and bought all of the things they had talked. She bought plantains and snapper and jimaica. She bought a bag of sorrel and confirmed with the shopkeeper that she should bring it to the boil with sugar and nutmeg and leave it to steep for three hours at least.
Outside the shop she hesitated by one of the carts selling meat pies. She had never tried one; she had always been put off by the artificial orange of the pastry. But now the fish and the plantains seemed perhaps insufficient, even if added to rice and peas, which Melanie had practiced already and felt sure she could pull off. But what if she burned the fish? What if the plantain wasn’t ripe? She thought that Jacob was unlikely to care in any case. He had already suggested that they might go straight from her flat to his mother’s house, and there, in any case, there would be a veritable feast.
She bought three meat pies, just in case.
Melanie’s place was not far from the prison. “The #26 will take you door to door,” she had told him, but he chose to walk.
The last time he had walked down Brixton Hill he had been on the lookout for trouble to make, because how else could he break his mum’s heart. He could scarcely remember that now. He wrapped his fingers around the travel card they had given him at discharge, along with an NHS registration and 20 quid in new, waxy notes. He rubbed the sharp edge of the travel card and wondered if it had enough on it to get him to Easton. He wondered why he hadn’t thought to ask.
At the bottom of Brixton Hill, Jacob stood for some time looking at the place where the Roxy had been. That was a place where he had filled his head with smoke and drums and fought battles with his words but never with his fists, man – never with his fists. Now the Roxy was gone, and he watched the Indians and the Muslims file though the electric doors of a Waitrose, pushing prams so loaded that you couldn’t find the baby inside.
He turned left up Clapton Road and right on Stockwell and in ten minutes he was outside the building where Melanie lived. For a moment he stood on the pavement and wished that he had gone to Swinden first. Then he could have changed. He could have put on the leather jacket from 1999, and found, maybe, a pair of proper trousers. Then he laughed because in all these years he had never believed the legend of Swinden. “A fucking myth man, this warehouse,” he had said, “You must be outta your mind to think the government is paying to put your poxy old tracksuits in storage, bruv,” and yet here he was – fantasizing about the plenties of his wardrobe in a virtual reality.
He stepped up to the door and rang the bell. Her voice was bright. She met him at the landing. “You wore your green suit, Biscuit,” she said shyly. “I’m glad. It’s always been my favorite.”
Jacob stepped into her room and was at a loss for words. Because though Melanie had seen him a hundred times sitting in his cell in his favorite green suit, he, Jacob, had never seen Melanie outside of her uniform. He had never seen Melanie off the wing. For a moment he wondered if she had worried about what to wear and how to arrange her small home for his eyes.
Then he stepped forward and touched her cheek.