Subject 375. Nikki Owen
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mezzanine floor, suspended one storey up from the ground. I count the levels. There are four floors to this prison, all housing forty cells, each with two inmates. That is eighty multiplied by four, equalling three hundred and twenty inmates. Three hundred and twenty women with hormones. All using toilets with no doors.
Once at Dr Andersson’s office, I am instructed to wait. The guard stands by my side, glaring, eyes like slits that make me nervous. I tap my foot in response; she barks at me to stop. I scan the area and see that rooms branch off from this corridor, door upon door stretching out every way, as far as my eye can see, strong, black doors, menacing, like ground soldiers, troops on watch. In the midst of it all is one door different to the rest, red, polished. It stands out, more refined, more elegant than the others. The plaque on it is partially obscured by the glare from the strip lights, but I can just read the first line: Dr Balthazar.
To my left, Dr Andersson’s door opens.
‘Ah, Maria.’ Dr Andersson is standing in the doorway. Her hair hangs down past her shoulders, glistening like a lake, her make-up in place, lips a slice of crimson. So different to me, my bare sallow skin, my shorn hacked-at hair, bitten nails. I feel suddenly small, insignificant. Forgotten. I touch my cheek.
‘Glad to see you looking better,’ she says.
‘I do not look better,’ I answer instantly. ‘I look worse than ever.’ The guard keeps her stare on me. Dr Andersson supplies me with a brief smile.
‘So, Maria,’ Dr Andersson continues, clearing her throat, taking a few heeled steps, ‘we have our meeting now. Could you come with me?’ She nods to the guard and the three of us proceed through the corridor.
We arrive at the red door and halt. Up close it almost gleams, the polished finish reflecting like a mirror. I catch sight of myself and gasp. Eyes black with dark circles, mouth downturned, lined, hair matted to my head, shoulders dropped. Already the prison is beating me, changing me, as if the priest’s death is slowly scratching its rigor mortis into my skin.
A buzzer sounds. I jump.
Dr Andersson pushes open the door. ‘Okay, we can go in now, Maria. We are meeting Dr Ochoa—the Governor.’
I glimpse at the plaque on the door now fully visible: Dr Balthazar Ochoa. I mull the name over. Ochoa. It means ‘wolf’. It is a Spanish name—Basque.
Which means the Governor somehow, in some connection, is Spanish.
Like me.
When we enter the office, the man from the corridor when I first arrived at Goldmouth is sitting at the desk.
I immediately halt, surprised. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Maria,’ Dr Andersson whispers, ‘this is the Governor.’
I look at Dr Andersson then back to the man behind the table. ‘You are Governor Ochoa?’
He stands, looms over the table, a shadow casting across it. Up closer, he is taller, older, his skin more tanned. Two strips of grey bookend his ears and, when he smiles, wrinkles fan out from his eyes, soft, worn. And his eyes, they are deep brown, so dark that they take my breath away, remind me of something, of someone, some…I step back, once, twice. My heart shouts, perspiration pricks my palms. Why do I feel unexpectedly nervous, jittery almost?
‘Dr Martinez—Maria—please, there is nothing to be concerned about,’ he says now, his voice a ripple of waves over pebbles. ‘It is…very nice to meet you. Dr Andersson has told me a lot about you.’ He lingers on my face for a beat then clears his throat. ‘So, there are some aspects of Goldmouth I would like to talk to you about today. Will you please sit?’
He gestures to a set of chairs by his desk, smiling again, his teeth white, and I swear I can see them glow in the sunlight. I hesitate at first, unsure about him, but not knowing why, not knowing if I am safe here.
Slowly, I reach for the chair, resting my fingertips on its edge. ‘You were in the corridor on my first day,’ I say. I lower myself into the seat, perching on the edge, fists clenched. Ready. ‘You spoke to me.’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I remember.’
Dr Andersson coughs. ‘The Governor is always keen to meet new inmates. It is routine, remember? Didn’t you record it in the notepad I gave you?’ She turns to the Governor. ‘Maria has a thing for writing things down.’
‘Routine,’ I say, as if saying the word aloud, hearing it in my own voice, will make it true.
The Governor glances to Dr Andersson then looks to me. ‘Maria,’ he says, ‘do you understand why you are here?’
‘Of course. This is your office. You arranged with Dr Andersson to meet me.’
‘No.’ He lets out a breath. ‘I mean do you know why you are here—in Goldmouth?’
‘I am in Goldmouth because I was convicted.’
The Governor links his fingers, hands the size of meat slabs. He nods to Dr Andersson.
‘Maria,’ Dr Andersson says, crossing her legs, a millimetre of lace slip showing. The Governor glances at it. ‘It is common practice for us to encourage you to verbalise your conviction, so we know that you understand why you are here.’ She pauses. A smile. ‘Think of it as reassurance. We are reassured you know, and in turn we can reassure you that we are here to support you. So to speak.’
‘Maria,’ the Governor says, ‘can you tell me why you are at Goldmouth, what your conviction is?’
My conviction. I look down at my fingers. How do I talk about something I don’t recall doing? ‘I am here at Goldmouth because…‘ I clear my throat, my nerves creeping up. ‘Because I have been convicted of a category one murder under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. I received life imprisonment.’
‘And who were you convicted of killing?’
My eyes stay on my hands, on the flesh, skin, bones. All real. Above ground. ‘The priest,’ I say to him, after a few seconds. ‘I was convicted of killing the priest. He was stabbed—’ a deep breath ‘—tied up in the convent, his body splayed out by the altar in a star formation.’ A swim of remembrance: blood trickling down altar steps, an upturned crucifix. ‘There was a lot of blood. Mostly his.’ I pause, gulp a little, try to stave off the image. ‘Some mine.’
‘The priest’s name was Father O’Donnell,’ Dr Andersson says.
‘That is what I said. The priest.’ I inhale the whisper of a memory: English tea. The priest used to offer me English tea. What happened to him, I…My throat runs dry. I touch my neck, lower my head, my hands shaking. The priest tried to help me, tried to be my friend. Then he uncovered some information for me, and next he was gone.
‘Can you say his name?’ Dr Andersson asks.
I look up. ‘The priest’s?’
She nods.
Even now I still see his blood, his entrails, see the photographs. Somehow, if I say his name aloud I think I will cry, cry so much, so forcefully that I fear I will never stop, never be calm again. And I don’t know how to handle it. I don’t know how to tell anyone how I feel. So instead I tell her that I cannot say his name.
‘You have to say it, Maria.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it helps the rehabilitation process, the healing.’
But I cannot. I just cannot. Dr Andersson sighs and looks to the Governor, and when I see them, when I spot the exchange of glances, I think: I have seen this look before. My emotional training. Some people have to learn calculus. I have to learn facial expressions.
As she continues to talk, I turn and scan the room. Books. Legal textbooks. They all are housed in shelves by the walls, legions of them lined up, straight, tall, spines of golden lettering and dates and names. Bookshelves of oak, walnut, strong wood built from