Day Thirty-Four: Exercise
Not another word passed between Rose and myself that evening, and the stony silence persisted the following morning. I lugged the slops bucket sulkily out of the cell, and kept resolutely silent on returning. I had hoped that after a night's sleep Rose might apologise, but she went about her daily rituals as though I was invisible. I was also hoping that in the struggle to shave me she might have missed a patch - that would teach her not to try to run my life, I thought. But it was not to be: Mrs Tiggywinkle and Raymond turned up, and Raymond as usual ran the back of her index finger over me.
"OK," she said. "But you are very red: you shave in the dark perhaps?"
Neither of us answered: the atmosphere in the cell was like a bad smell, and Raymond could hardly have failed to sense it, but she said nothing further.
My last hope was gone. In part I was relieved: I didn't want to admit it, but I had been afraid of what Dawes and Hardiman would do to me, and thanks to Rose I had avoided an unpleasant punishment whilst not having compromised my loyalty to Prana. But Prana would not know this. I had had many pleasant fantasies of turning up at Exercise with my head shaven, of Prana wrapping herself around me joyfully, saying Chloe, you have done this for me and Chloe, you have made me so happy, now we are twins, now we are soul mates. Now these happy anticipations were all reduced to ashes.
For this I hated Rose. I listened to her slurping her porridge, and I hated the sound she made. I listened to her using the bucket, and I hated the noise of her pissing. More than ever I regretted that Megan would not try to get me moved in with Prana.
I was not going to exercise in front of Rose, but I was not going to cower away from her either. So I lay on my back, threw off my knickers as though I hadn't a care in the world, and settled down to masturbate. Rose coughed, and cleared her throat a couple of times, but showed no signs of speaking, and presently she too took off her skirt and knickers. Instead of adopting her usual position on her back, she lay down on her stomach with her head turned away from me, and her bare bottom stuck upwards. The teeth marks, which were now surrounded by a purple bruise, stared out at me reproachfully. Had I really bitten her that hard? Then I wondered if she had adopted that position deliberately, to make me feel guilty. Well two could play at that game: my own bottom was still smarting, so I too turned over onto my stomach so that Rose could get a sighting of her handiwork.
But I couldn't bring myself off. And although Rose made a few noises, I fancied she couldn't either. Part of me was aware of how stupid this was, and wanted to go and make my peace with her - but I was still too angry.
It was a miserable day in cell twenty-nine, and I was greatly relieved when the call came for Exercise.
Without saying a word to each other Rose and I took our places in the line. As soon as we were inside the Exercise cage we separated.
The temperature had dipped that day: it was sharp and cold, and I was sure there had been a frost earlier. I caught sight of Prana almost at once, standing on her own. In her uniform her shaven head looked even more unnatural than when she had been naked and it had been all of a piece with her body. When I approached her she was shivering.
"Am I glad to see you," I said.
"And I you Chloe."
"How are you feeling?" I asked.
"I am cold," she answered. "Especially my head is cold."
I hugged her, and pulled her shaven head into my pullover trying to cradle it. "Put it up my pullover," I said, and I tried to lift the rim of the pullover over her head, but the fit was too tight, and we gave up.
"Are you coming to terms with it?" I asked.
"I can never come to terms with it," she said. "And I will never forget this."
Although she was no longer crying and trying to make herself invisible, her bitterness and unhappiness were still evident. I felt so protective towards her: I longed to make everything all right again, and thought how wonderful it would be if we could spend a whole night together, snuggle down on the narrow bed, cover ourselves with the prison blankets and sink into the cocoon of a long, dark, intimate oblivion together.
"Have you got a cellmate yet?" I asked.
"No," she said. "Just me and four walls Chloe."
"I've had a miserable time as well," I said, and was about to tell her what had happened with Rose, when our attention was caught by a strange spectacle. About fifty yards from us, half-surrounded by a small, animated crowd, stood the two new girls who had most recently been 'initiated' in the showers. The older-looking one had her arm protectively around the younger, but it was the younger one's appearance which was attracting all the attention. She was bare-legged, and in place of a prison skirt was wearing something white and bulky. Over the top half of her body, outside her prison pullover, was draped some sort of placard.
Prana and I looked at one another, then set off to investigate. As we approached we could see that the white item of clothing was in fact a nappy: a disposable nappy of the kind babies wear, but in a larger size meant for adults.
"What on earth?" I said.
"She pissed the bed," a woman said, "so they put her in a nappy."
Once we were close to the girls we could see quite clearly: not only was Lisa wearing a nappy, but the nappy had evidently been filled, for it sagged down between her legs like a soggy cow's udder. We could also see that the placard was a kind of sandwich board, comprising two white pieces of card attached at the top and bottom by string. Half-turned as she was to her companion we could not see the front: but on the rear was written in large black letters the single word: BEDWETTER.
"Oh my God," I said, as I stared in horror. "What happened?"
Lisa did not answer. She was crying, and clutching her friend: I noticed that her fingernails were bitten down to the quick. Around us women were tittering and making comments, some sympathetic, some less so. Wilson, inevitably, was one of the latter:
"Look at her!" she jeered: "Eighteen years old and pisses the bed like a baby."
"Leave her alone!" shouted the older girl. "Go away and leave us alone, all of you."
"She's got to toughen up," said another woman. "No good crying on your shoulder all day."
"What happened?" I asked again, this time of the older girl, who had jet black hair which tumbled onto her shoulders.
"She was terrified, especially after what you lot did to us in the showers," the girl said, and her eyes blazed out with resentment at everyone. "The first night here she wet the bed. Then that hideous woman came - the one who looks like an angry boar - and saw it."
"Dawes," muttered Prana.
"First she rubbed Lisa's face in it. Then she told her since she'd wet the bed she must wear a nappy. So this Dawes and another one took her skirt and pants away and put a nappy on her. They told her she must not take it off or she will be punished. Not even to use the toilet. So she must do everything in her nappy. Everything. Can you imagine that? Once a day they come and change her. It is horrible, horrible. For a whole week she has to do this.
"Then today they made her wear this placard."
As Lisa shifted I could see that the same word was written on the front of the placard. All around us women were reading it, and the single word on everyone's lips was: Bedwetter. I stepped forward and put my hand on Lisa's shoulder:
"I'm Chloe," I said, "and this is my friend Prana. I'm new here as well. I'm sorry this has happened."
Lisa turned her face to me. She was fair-skinned, with a scattering of light freckles: a kind of brittle, china-doll prettiness showed through beneath the tear-stained cheeks.