Epilogue - Several months later
Joan lifted the shirt from the cupboard and held it up, admiring its dark shape against the bare blue walls. The other women personalised their rooms (they weren’t called cells in here), but she didn’t think it was wise to need too much, or declare too much about herself. She didn’t mind the shade of blue, though. It was light and vivid. Forget-me-not.
She shook the shirt out with a faint smile. It had been a long night; she was still dressed in yesterday’s clothes, but there was something about a fresh uniform that lifted the spirits. She ran her finger along the collar, testing its stiffness. The sharp points left dints in her fingertip, and she closed her eyes to relish the scent of laundry soap and starch.
The marshals were exempt from most regular duties, but they cooked for themselves and did their share of laundry detail. They each took turns on the steam press. That had been Joan’s idea.
'Show the women what has become of their precious Top Dog system.'
She hadn’t been near the press herself, though, fearing ridicule if only in her own mind. Still, she couldn’t help imagining it sometimes: the weight of the apparatus under the operator’s hand, its creaking, puffing noises, the damp billowing heat. The danger.
She turned the shirt over to inspect the cuffs for threadbare patches, missing buttons or stains. You couldn’t be too fastidious. After last month’s incident with Gambaro, Joan had been forced to consign her nice neat shirt to the incinerator. A waste, but with that level of biological hazard, what could you do?
Her lips twitched, her nostrils flaring as if at the distant smell of sizzling meat.
Finding nothing wrong, she set about folding the shirt again with mathematical precision, smoothing and tugging at the fabric until it lay flat as cardboard.
Briefly, she touched the epaulette, the woven insignia on the shoulder. How she had flinched from putting on this uniform for the first time. Was it a pitiful imitation of the real thing, a mark of traitors, laggers and criminals?
But the clothing itself had beguiled her: the crisp lines, sturdy fabrics and dark colours. The gleam and heft of those black lace-up boots, the extra inch they added to her height. The pressure of the belt around her hips, the certain swagger it seemed to require.
Not to mention the effort and time it took to get into it all: the fiddling with buttons, zippers, buckles and laces, the vigilant shaking out of creases and folding of cuffs. It was the opposite to the regular prisoners’ uniforms: shapeless elasticised things, designed to be yanked off at any moment for body searches, urine tests, medical exams and two-minute showers. Even the soft, loose feel of those old garments had humiliated Joan when she’d had to wear them. As if she were so sickly, slobbish and undisciplined that she needed something ‘comfortable’.
Her body clad in teal had been an obscene burden, a sack of bleeding, dismembered parts she’d been forced to drag around with her. But now, with every buttonhole, belt loop and eyelet, she was pulling herself back together.
‘Joan?’ A rap on the doorframe. She turned around to find Mads slouching there. ‘Count’s in ten.’ First the marshals were counted by their own doors, then they filed off to count the inmates in General.
‘I’ll be there.’ Joan remembered to nod in a way that could be read as friendly. She was learning to live with other people.
Mads was going to join the army when she got out, she reckoned; be the only one in her family to make something of herself. On her first morning in the marshals program, Joan had ventured ‘You know I used to work here?’ And Mads – five foot two of nuggetty belligerence topped with a crewcut – had snorted.
‘We’re the ones who work here. Screws are useless; always pissing off on tea breaks. Don’t think you can sit around on our time, princess.’
As welcomes went, Joan had had worse. She assured Mads with absolute sincerity that she had no intention of sitting around.
Afterwards, Joan had marched through the yard in her new uniform for the first time. Some of the women had screeched at the sight of her and started their catcalling – ‘Freak! Freak!’
In an instant, Mads had spun around with a parade-ground bellow: ‘Did we say you could talk? SHUT THE FUCK UP THEN!’
And the prisoners, who would have jeered at such orders from Linda Miles or Will Jackson, had fallen silent. Joan saw the fear in their eyes and wondered again what Cynthia had created here.
Most of the women had not needed prompting to go quiet at the sight of Joan Ferguson. On their faces she saw disbelief, horror, loathing – but she could work with those things. She had wanted her gloves that day, but afterwards felt pleased that she’d left her scarred hand exposed for all to see – red, rippled and shiny, resting on the hilt of her big black torch.
Boil me in oil, and I’m still here.
Now she laid the shirt on the bed, beside the socks (rolled into a neat tube) and the underwear (precisely folded). She took care to leave equal space between each item. Then she reached back into the cupboard for the black woollen vest, rubbing its prickly warmth between her fingers, before positioning it on the other side of the shirt. She hoped to introduce stab-vests for the marshals some day, both for protection and for their bulk and air of business.
Cynthia had scoffed that there was no money in the budget, and warned Joan not to get above herself. But Cynthia might be persuaded to change her mind.
***
Cynthia had been right, of course; Joan had taken her offer.
She’d allowed herself to be transitioned into the marshals program, escorted by new guards she didn’t recognise and inducted by the women themselves. Some knew her; some didn’t. There was no one from Smith’s old crew, and only one from Kaz’s. Joan had taken her aside straight away.
‘If we’re going to have a problem, say so now.’
The woman, Sharon, had shrugged.
‘I’m in here cos Kaz went too far and shot her mouth off in a bloody prison visitors’ room. S’pose all you did was make the call.’ Sharon turned her tanned, weathered face away. ‘I left the Reds to come here. They spat on me, but I’ve got my future to think of. Governor reckons I’ll get fast-tracked for parole in here – you fuck that up, and we will have a problem.’
Joan promised she wouldn’t, and as long as it was in her own interest she was confident she would keep that promise.
It had taken weeks of patient observation before she’d managed to establish a link between drug-affected behaviours amongst the inmates and the cell inspections rostered to a certain Trace. Trace was another of the marshals, a wiry woman with a crocodile neck-tattoo and a wizened face beneath a clump of red dreadlocks that had seen better days. Joan had begun to wonder about Trace’s habit of nipping back into a prisoner’s cell ‘to just check one last thing’ after her partner had already left.
Trace was good. It had taken precision planning and split-second timing for Joan to catch her depositing something behind the sink.
‘Find what you were looking for?’ Trace jumped as Joan seized her wrist. The younger woman’s eyes widened with outrage, but she was smart enough to keep quiet when Joan pocketed the bag with one gloved hand and mouthed to her to speak outside in the yard.
‘Are any of the others in on this?’ Joan murmured once they were outdoors, their voices whipped away discreetly by the wind.
‘Governor sent you in to fuckin’ spy on us!’ Trace spat.
‘Very perceptive. But what I tell her now is up to me.’ Joan stood at ease, hands linked behind her back, her head swivelling sideways to hold the jittery woman with her black gaze. ‘And unless you would enjoy a reunion with your old cellmates, Tracey, you would be well advised to tell me the truth. Is anyone else involved?’
Trace flinched. ‘Nuh.’
‘Who’s bringing it in?’
Trace twitched some more. ‘Nursey. Reckon she’s in debt big time, hey.’
‘Lipstick expenses, perhaps.’ Joan pondered this news for a moment, then slid one hand into her pocket, her gloved fingers closing around the bag. ‘You will get her to organise one more delivery. You will get her prints on it, and you will bring it directly to me. Understood?’
‘Why the hell should I?’
‘So that I can get my acquaintance with our nurse on a new footing. Always useful to have a friend in medical.’ Joan gave a thin smile. ‘And so I can forget to tell Ms Leach what I saw today.’
Trace kicked the concrete for a while.
‘You want in, then?’
‘No.’ Joan kept her voice low and level, even as her tone hardened. ‘That will be your last delivery, Tracey. The bar is now closed. One more drug episode, and I might just recover my memory. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Fuckin’ screw,’ Trace muttered. ‘I’ve got kids, y’know. They’re at my mum’s, but she’d rather spend her pension down the pokies than get their clothes or school lunches or–’
‘Thank you, Tracey; I think I’ll wait for your life story until it’s made into a film.’ Joan motioned the woman closer, drew out the contraband and transferred it smoothly into Trace’s pocket. ‘In the mean time, you are going to leave this somewhere for me. The governor sends you in to clean the screws’ locker room, doesn’t she?’ Trace nodded. ‘Well, luckily I still recall a few of their codes.’
Overcoming her instincts, Joan managed to reach out and pat the other woman’s shoulder, once.
‘In the mean time, Tracey, if it’s money you need, I wonder if you’ve given any thought to gambling? There are always card games and wagers going on out here.’ She nodded around at the various groups of women hunched over the tables. ‘Suppose every time the women wanted to play, they had to purchase tokens from you? The money could go into some worthy fund – purchase of new television sets for C Block or something.’ Joan looked thoughtfully across the yard. ‘But you’re not very good at arithmetic, so a few dollars might go astray.’ She shrugged. ‘Not as lucrative as drugs, but safer.’
Trace frowned.
‘Governor OK with that?’
‘Ms Leach enjoys the odd flutter herself. Just you make sure she wins.’
Trace stared up at her.
‘My life would make a good movie, you know,’ she said at last. Then, ‘Why are you doing this?’
Joan smiled.
‘I want to help you, Tracey. You’ve got ingenuity, enterprise – and contacts on the outside and the inside.’ Joan’s hand closed around Trace’s skinny shoulder, squeezing hard into the knobbly bones. ‘You work for me now.’
Later that night, Joan stood at attention against the wall in the main corridor, and watched as Linda Miles was escorted from the building by two police officers.
Weeks before, one of the other marshals, Polly, had asked around on Joan’s request and got some information about Ms Miles from an ailing Maxine Conway in hospital wing. What she'd discovered hadn't surprised Joan exactly, but it had hardened her resolve. Joan was confident a police examination of Linda’s bank account would reveal this offence to be the latest in a long line of bribes and dodgy dealings. By planting the contraband, all Joan had done was expose the woman. For the sake of the prison, it was the right thing to do.
Cynthia had been pissed off to hear the drugs were being brought in by an officer, but relieved it was nothing to do with her precious marshal program. She'd cheered up further when Joan had pointed out that she could use this as ammunition against the Board; proof that their old staff were corrupt and unreliable, and that Ms Leach should have greater autonomy over hiring and firing in the future.
‘Fucken right I will,’ Cynthia had beamed, rubbing her hands together.
So much for Linda Miles. Linda, who had helped the neanderthal Fletcher to desecrate Joan’s memories of Jianna and turn Joan and Vera against each other. Linda, who had seen Joan at her most abused and traumatised and had left her to bleed to death. But Joan didn’t die easily.
‘They forgot the silver bullet,’ she murmured to herself now, as she took the dark trousers from the cupboard and held them up to check the creases were absolutely straight.
‘Joan.’ Polly appeared in the doorway with her usual silent grace, almost blocking out the light from the hall. She was a huge Islander woman and a devout Christian, who had chosen to believe Cynthia’s promises about training qualifications and future jobs. Sometimes she asked Joan’s help with filling out forms and writing letters to her family. Joan didn’t see her as the bullying type, but Polly’s looming presence was usually enough to make aggressive inmates back down. ‘Joan, the girls are ready.’
The marshals’ utility belts, with their radios and torches, were kept in a locked cabinet when they were off duty. Previously, they’d filed by a guard every morning to collect them, but as Joan had pointed out to Cynthia, this was rather demoralising, reminding these women twice a day that they were deemed too unwell or unreliable to be trusted. Joan had suggested she sign on and off for the items after the officer had counted them, and distribute them amongst the marshals herself. Cynthia, still triumphant after her meeting with the Board, had said she couldn’t care less – go ahead, now where are my smokes?
If she’d taken the time to reflect, it might have occurred to Cynthia the gradual effect it could have on these women, to receive their tokens of power and group membership, day after day, from Joan. The subtle air of authority that could start to attach to this woman, who was older, taller and sterner than the others. The opportunities it gave Joan to point out imperfections in the marshals’ uniforms – an untied shoe here, a loose lock of hair there – and instruct them to make the necessary corrections. She took care to intersperse these rebukes with kinder remarks, too, asking after children, cousins and bad backs in a brisk, bright tone. People forgot, but Joan had once known how to make herself an agreeable leader.
‘It’s all right, having you here,’ one of the younger women, Sophie, had mumbled the night before. Sophie was thin and wild-eyed, with limbs that never stopped bouncing, old slash-marks on her arms, and a temper that could explode without warning into flung chairs, ripped sheets and smashed tiles. Any cautious and compassionate governor would have seen poor Sophie as a candidate for psych ward, not a marshals program. But Cynthia Leach was neither of those things. Even Joan felt queasy at the thought of what tasks Cynthia might have in store for this damaged fury of a woman. She told herself it was only right that she, Joan, should keep an eye on Sophie, to see that the girl’s outbursts were contained – or at least aimed in the most appropriate directions.
‘No one else gives a stuff about me,’ Sophie had breathed last night, her chewed fingers wrapped around a warm mug of Milo that Joan had made for her. ‘Can I call you Auntie?’
Joan smiled at the memory. Day by day, things were falling into place.
She collected the women’s utility belts and passed down the line, handing them out. She swapped greetings with the women who seemed to have accepted her, and with the ones who had not. Like Donna, who recalled Joan’s time as governor and glared daggers at her every day, and Bernadette, a cold-eyed, violent bully, but prissy with it. (Joan could picture her as a Catholic schoolteacher in the fifties.) So many personalities, dynamics, possibilities. Her mind was humming smoothly along in fourth gear.
‘Joan?’ Mads collected her belt and lowered her voice for once. ‘This newbie – is she going to handle it here? She seems real twitchy.’
‘She’s had a difficult time lately.’ Joan’s tone invited no further questions. ‘She’ll do well. I’ll see to it.’
Having distributed the belts, Joan made her way with a faster step than usual back to her little blue room, where the uniform lay folded on the bed.
Vera, her skin flushed and her hair damp and curling from the showers, sat beside it.
***
The first time Joan had visited Vera in protection was months ago - before she'd joined the marshals, before she'd made Cynthia any promises at all. Seeing Vera had been a pre-condition of considering Cynthia’s offer.
Inside her cell, she'd found Vera balled up on the bed, her arms wrapped around her knees. The click of the door had made the younger woman blink out of her trance. She stared up at Joan.
‘I saw what that woman did to you.’ Vera’s voice was hoarse, her eyes swollen. The air was stale and stuffy. Joan realised her own cell must smell the same way.
Joan had coaxed a shower and a fresh tracksuit out of her captors and run her fingers through her hair, but she knew she must look far from elegant. Her lip was still swollen from her fight with Cynthia, her wrist bruised, her skin white and drowned-looking. Still, she felt more collected than the woman in front of her, whose slight body rocked back and forth as she spoke.
Vera whispered ‘I thought you might be dead.’
‘You should have had more faith in me.’ Joan took a step forward. Then she hesitated. Here was the woman she had mentored, desired, failed, loathed, plotted against, fought for, and lost – and Joan could think of nothing to say. Her jaw worked silently, her hands shook.
Vera didn’t get up. She was picking at the sleeve of her tracksuit, her movements vague and blurry. Joan wondered if they’d been drugging her too, or if this concrete isolation alone was enough to fracture a woman’s mind and deaden her spirit.
At last Vera said ‘I’ve been thinking about Bea Smith.’
‘Have you?’ It wasn’t the opening Joan had hoped for.
‘Yes.’ A thread pulled loose and Vera wound it absently around the tip of her finger. ‘Smith’s first week in here, she got me into trouble. Did you know that?’ Vera didn’t look up to see Joan shake her head. ‘She brought drugs in for Doyle and I didn’t catch her. Smith was new and distressed; I felt sorry for her. I went easy on her during the body search. Meg Jackson found the contraband instead, and hauled me over the coals for it. I looked like a fool, right in front of the prisoners.’
‘I see.’ Joan didn’t really, but Vera was speaking again.
‘Smith didn’t mean to cause me trouble; I just didn’t figure in her world.’ Vera raised her free hand to rub her eyes. ‘Then later, when Smith was Top Dog and she started that riot to weaken you – she gave those prisoners their orders. She had me attacked, beaten, stabbed, infected…’ The thread was tight around Vera’s forefinger, the skin beneath it turning pale, the tip glowing red. ‘I could have died, but she didn’t hate me. She hated you, Joan.’
Vera dropped her face lower; she was studying her tormented finger. Joan caught a whiff of agitated sweat.
‘And after that – I found this out later, from talking to Fletch – Smith arranged to have your office defaced, and she set me up to take the blame. To upset you. To isolate you.’ Vera shook her head. ‘You know what she called me? “Collateral damage”.’
The thread pulled tighter. Joan wanted to rush over, rip the thread loose, gather the younger woman into her arms. But she had never done a thing like that before.
‘And when Smith died…’ Vera shrugged. ‘I don’t know what she thought was going to happen out there, but it’s clear she figured at least one of you would end up dead. And guess who would be left to take the blame?’ Vera glanced up. Her eyes were surrounded by smudge-marks; her lips were pale. ‘Do you think she felt bad about that, Joan? Did she congratulate herself for destroying my life? Or did she just not think about it at all?’
‘Vera…’ Joan stretched out a hand. ‘Stop doing that.’ Vera glanced down at her finger, and blinked. She released the thread and watched as normal colour flowed back into her skin. Joan felt herself let out a breath.
When the red and white marks had faded, Vera whispered ‘I’ve been collateral damage all my life, Joan. People used me and bullied me, and it wasn’t because they hated me. They barely noticed what they were doing. My mother believed she was doing the best she could with her useless disappointment of a daughter. Governor after governor walked all over me, stole my good ideas, blamed me for their mistakes, but most of them could barely remember my name. Fletch took advantage of me; Will insulted me; Linda betrayed me, and I don’t think any of them believed they were doing something really wrong. Jacs Holt terrorised me, but that was nothing to her. She laughed when I tried to assert myself. And during the riot? Those dogs wanted to please Smith and get at you, but I was the one they brutalised. Afterwards, I had nightmares, panic attacks, a disease that could have killed me – but do you think they even remembered which screw they’d jumped on?’
‘Possibly not.’ When Joan had rehearsed this meeting in her mind, she had assumed she would take control. But faced with Vera’s pale, obsessive musings, Joan felt oddly passive, compelled to stand and listen.
Vera was still shaking her head, relentlessly now.
‘Jake stole from me and lied to the police about me. He let me take the blame for all this. But I don’t think he wanted to do me harm; he just didn’t care. It’s like … it’s like I don’t exist, Joan.’
Vera lifted her head at last. Her eyes were huge.
‘Joan, will you tell me something? When you thought I’d tried to blackmail you and hurt you with those pictures of Jianna … did you hate me?’
Joan gazed back. Her jaw clenched until needles of pain pierced her skull.
‘Yes.’
Vera untangled her limbs and sat up straighter.
‘When I went behind your back to Bridget Westfall and the Board, did you hate me then?’
‘Yes.’ Joan’s voice was tight. She should counter, take charge of the exchange, but Vera’s desperate stare held her mesmerised. With slow, teetering movements, Vera got to her feet.
‘When I let you take the blame for a grievous bodily harm you didn’t commit, against Gambaro, did you hate me?’
‘Yes.’
‘When I tore up your letter to Shayne, did you hate me?’
‘Yes.’
‘When you were a prisoner here and I treated you as cruelly as I could, so I could convince myself that all my problems were your fault – when I insulted you, isolated you, tried to make you feel worthless and hopeless – did you hate me?’
Joan nodded helplessly, all those odd wounds exposed and scraped clean, somehow, by Vera’s soft voice.
Vera took a shaky step forward, then another. Her bare feet against the concrete must have been cold.
‘Joan, when you dreamed about getting free and taking revenge on everyone who’d gone against you – was it me you were thinking of?’
‘Yes.’
Vera’s hands closed into urgent little fists. Her eyes searched Joan’s face.
‘But especially, though? Did getting even with me, especially, mean a lot to you?’
Joan answered truthfully: ‘Sometimes the thought of getting even with you was the only thing that kept me going.’
Vera stepped closer, until her bare toes butted against Joan’s. Joan quivered but did not move away. The younger woman reached up to clasp the cheap fabric of Joan’s prison windcheater. She grasped it hard, scrunching it in rhythmic circles. Joan felt Vera’s knuckles drumming over her heart.
Vera asked ‘Did you hate me more than you hated Bea Smith?’
Joan lifted her hands to cover Vera’s cold ones.
‘Immeasurably more.’
Vera’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
***
Now, Vera sat on the edge of Joan’s bed in the marshals’ quarters, wrapped in Joan’s long black cardigan. It reached nearly to her ankles. She was naked underneath, her skin blushing pink from the showers. Joan imagined sinking her teeth into it, tracing it with her tongue.
She didn’t, not today. The two women had held back from each other, ever since the second time Joan had visited Vera in protection. That time, they’d sat together on the bed and talked in awkward little bursts, sharing things they needed to say. Vera had shaken her head as she told Joan ‘When I do the wrong thing, I get away with it every time. Seriously, you don’t even know some of the things I’ve done. It’s when I try to do the right thing that it all goes to hell. I wanted to do the right thing, I really did. And look where it landed me.’
‘Clearly you were destined for villainy,’ said Joan.
‘Fuck you,’ Vera whispered, and started to laugh, her eyes streaming. Then she catapulted herself across the bed and into Joan’s arms, and kissed her as if they were about to be dragged apart forever.
It had been too much, that kiss. A frantic friction of cold lips and hard foreheads, their noses bumping together, their chilly fingers twisting each other’s hair and scrabbling at the teal uniforms they both hated. Their mingled breath and darting tongues the only warmth in that place.
Too much closeness, and Joan had soon flinched away. But three nights later she’d managed to visit again. This time she brought a gift, which she slipped into Vera’s palm surreptitiously, in case someone outside was watching. It was a handful of rose petals, pearly white tipped with red.
‘Governor let me have an airing,’ Joan whispered. ‘For five minutes, while the inmates were inside. The yard’s even barer now, but Cynthia’s kept a patch of garden under her window. I’ll get us out of here, Vera. I promise you.’
And she’d squeezed the younger woman’s hand so that Vera would feel the plush texture of the petals, the sticky juices that seeped from them, and smell their ripe, heady scent.
***
Now, with fingers that were still not quite steady, Vera dressed herself in her new uniform. Joan didn’t look directly at the younger woman’s exposed skin; she wasn’t ready for that. But she reached over to assist with clasps and buttons, admiring the way the dark fabrics fitted around Vera’s toned limbs and narrow waist. Then she picked up the hairbrush and waited for Vera to nod her permission.
Joan turned her companion around and drew her closer, until her head came to rest briefly between Joan’s breasts. Then she began brushing Vera’s chestnut hair with firm, lingering strokes. She imagined her own energy flowing through each individual bristle as it scraped a hot rhythm over Vera’s scalp. Every movement pulled the younger woman’s hair back tighter until it was twisted around Joan’s left hand in a sleek knot.
‘See,’ Joan murmured, breathing in the scent of soap and shampoo. She didn’t kiss the top of Vera’s head, but she thought about it. Next time. ‘You’ll be all right. Everything feels better when you’re dressed properly.’
‘If you say so.’ Joan looked up to find Vera watching her in the little square of a mirror that was glued to the wall. ‘Joan, why are you really in here? What’s Cynthia making you do?’
‘You speak as if you don’t care for her, Vera.’
‘Come on, Joan.’ Vera mouthed the words. No one in here spoke openly against Governor Leach. ‘The woman’s a thug. Don’t tell me you’ve forgiven her for what she did to you.’
‘I’m not one for forgiveness.’ Joan paused and gave Vera a meaningful look. ‘Well, not usually. But Cynthia… Cynthia remembers the same things I remember. And that’s…’ Joan’s voice trailed off. How could she explain what that meant, for someone who’d been labelled a freak?
‘But what does she want, Joan?’
‘I told you.’ Joan kept her voice low. ‘Ms Leach has some information I need. If I make her happy, she has promised to disclose it.’
Vera shook her head as well as she could with her hair caught in Joan’s hand.
‘You’ve already made her happy, Joan. She’s holding out on you. She’ll make you do favour after favour…’
‘Perhaps.’ Joan reached for the elastic. She secured Vera’s hair into a tight knot, the same style she wore herself nowadays. ‘But I’m making my own contingency plans here.’ She nodded towards the neighbouring rooms, the living quarters of the other marshals, who had begun to fall into line behind her. ‘Soon Ms Leach may have little choice but to cooperate with me.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ Vera turned around. ‘Joan, these women – the marshals and the inmates in General – they all think you killed Bea Smith.’
‘Do they?’
‘You know they do.’ Vera’s hands were still shaky, but her gaze was fierce. ‘And I know you didn’t do it, because Smith’s death was ugly and messy and stupid and obvious, and that’s not you.’
‘How well you know me.’
‘But you let them think it!’ Vera grasped the older woman’s arm, leaving wrinkles in Joan’s shirt. ‘You let them think you killed the last real Top Dog!’
Joan eased her arm free.
‘Come now, Vera – heredity by the sword? We don’t do things that way any more. Besides, didn’t she cede to Proctor earlier that day?’
‘History has a way of forgetting those little details, Joan. And don’t bullshit me.’ Vera folded her arms. Joan studied her with fascination. How strange it felt to be challenged by someone who cared about her. ‘Joan…’ Vera bit her lip. ‘You are going to fight your court case, aren’t you?’
Joan blinked.
‘What do you mean? Of course. I always fight; you know me.’
Vera’s eyes narrowed. Glancing out towards the corridor where the other marshals were milling around, she said ‘You’re going native, Joan. You like it here.’
‘Don’t be absurd.’ But Joan’s words came out with less force than usual. She hesitated, then said ‘But Vera, I have been thinking. Even if I’m acquitted a second time, even if I sue the Board for wrongful dismissal … they won’t let me be governor again, will they?’ Her voice quavered; it was hard to say it, even now. ‘Not here – not anywhere. They’d rather pay any sum I cared to name, just to get rid of me.’ Joan looked down at her new boots, admiring their sheen. She polished them every night before bed. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘Maybe.’ Vera faltered. ‘Probably. But you can’t think it’s better to stay here. You still have a life to live, Joan!’
‘In my fashion.’ Joan shrugged. Then she met Vera’s gaze almost shyly. ‘You know, Julius Caesar once said he would rather be the chief of a poor barbarian village than be the second man in Rome.’
‘Well, he sounds deluded.’ Vera clicked her tongue. The brisk dismissal in her tone and the worry in her eyes made Joan’s chest fill up with a painful tenderness. She wanted to kiss Vera properly this time, get to know the younger woman’s lips and tongue and the taste of her breath. Without haste, without guilt or fear.
Instead Joan reached into her pocket and handed Vera a small black tube.
‘A welcome present. One of the perks of the marshals program.’
Vera pulled off the cap and twisted until the head slid out. She swiped it across the back of her hand and looked at the shade – according to the label, creamy coral with beige undertones. She gave a sad smile.
‘Thank you.’ But she hesitated as she held Joan’s gift to her mouth in the mirror. ‘My mother used to sneer at me for wearing makeup. She’d say “Lipstick can’t change what you were born with”.’
‘As you were born with tenacity, insight and beauty, I should think not.’ Joan arched an eyebrow. ‘Rita was threatened by how colourful you might turn out to be. Perhaps she feared you would run away and join the circus.’
‘That would have made more sense.’ Vera sighed. ‘Joan, I think I know what you’re doing here, although it scares me to death. But what the hell am I doing here?’
Joan watched in the mirror as Vera hesitantly applied the new colour and rubbed her lips together.
‘Recovering your health. Getting back ten thousand dollars that was stolen from you. Crushing false testimony against you. Eviscerating your worthless ex-lover. Clearing your name. And learning to enjoy the sight of yourself in lipstick. Surely that’s enough to be going on with?’
Vera shook her head again, but she gave a reluctant smile as she examined herself in the glass.
‘Joan, this still doesn’t feel like much of a happy ending.’
‘That’s because it’s not an ending,’ said Joan. ‘After you.’
She held open the door for the younger woman. Then she followed Vera outside and through the open gates that led to the rest of the prison. Their dark, uniformed figures moved in time together, walking upright, side by side, down the corridor and out of sight.