Letters from the Inside (17 page)

So, how’d you think I sounded, huh? Dumb for the first five minutes, I bet. I nearly lost my voice. When she gave me the phone, I thought it’d be the shrink, ’cos she said she’d ring Matron this afternoon to see how I was. Then this little voice said ‘Tracey? It’s Mandy.’ I just sat there with my mouth open. Every time I tried to say something I had to cough instead. Words wouldn’t come out. Must have sounded great to you, but my throat went all tight and sore. And when I could speak I couldn’t think of anything to say at first.

Manna, I don’t understand why you’re so good to me, when I lied to you and all that.

Anyhow, once my throat unlocked and I warmed up a bit, it was great. In fact I felt like I was gabbling, the words came so fast. Hope you didn’t mind. I’m not normally like that, but it was the first time in over a year I felt free to talk. I couldn’t believe it when they said it was half an hour and I had to stop. Seemed like five minutes.

That was good about your softball. Unbelievable in fact. The way you wrote about them, I thought they’d be more like Grandma’s Army than Mum’s. And I don’t care what you wrote in your letter, I won’t be offended. Hope it comes tomorrow but.

Manna, you sound so cool. A sort of laughing, happy voice, nervous at first, but then all husky and nice. Not like anyone in here. They all start to sound the same after a while.

Well, I’ve got to finish this, ’cos the nurse who’s posting it is going off in a minute. See you!

Heaps of love,

  
Ice-eyes

December 19

Dear Trace,

God, that was exciting. I was so nervous, but once we got going it was great. That silence after I said who I was — I thought it’d last forever. And when you said ‘Mandy?’ you sounded like some ninety-year-old. But by the end I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. I’m glad though, ’cos Miss Gruber said you hadn’t said anything much for weeks. I didn’t realize you were so, you know, out of it. You should have told me.

Ignore what I said in my last letter about being selfish — it was just an impulse.

I never thought Miss Gruber would do anything, when she took my number. I nearly died when she rang this afternoon. But the thing I was scared of was that we wouldn’t be able to talk — that there’d be this long painful silence, then we’d start discussing the weather. I thought it was a big gamble, ’cos it could have wrecked the whole thing. But I also knew that once she’d offered, I had to accept.

So how’d I sound, huh? Sexy voice? You were totally different to what I expected. I thought your voice would be really tough and rough. But you sound so cute. That’s probably an insult in A Block. You sounded like a Sunday School student giving another right answer. It makes me more curious to see what you look like.

You know, we’re heading for our first anniversary. Amazing, hey?

Anyway, get out of the Med Unit fast. And then, why don’t you put in a bit of a try-hard effort and get transferred to an easier block? Is that possible? I reckon you should go for it.

Love always,

 
M.

Dec 20

Dear Manna,

Well, the letter you’d warned me about turned up today. It wasn’t so bad, but thanks for the warning. I deserve everything you said. Of course this place makes you selfish — you’ve gotta be, or you’re dead. Trust no-one, get everything you can for yourself — that’s how it works. After a while you think about yourself so much — how to get more food, more smokes, longer showers; how to stop people hassling you; how to get the best jobs. And you get sick of everyone whingeing all the time and telling the same stories over and over, so you think about yourself even more.

I suppose they encourage it in a way, with the shrinks and all that. It’s got its good points but. I’ve learnt a bit about myself.

As for Steve. . . well, I’ve tried to say this before. I guess I owe it to you to spell it out. You see Manna, I know there are good families out there. I’ve heard about them and I’ve seen them from a distance. And they fascinate me. One of the things I hoped when I put the ad in was to get closer to one of those families, kind of get inside one. Not that it was any huge deal — I’d forgotten about the ad five minutes after I sent it off. I never paid for it either — I couldn’t. I got threatening letters from them for months. Wonder what they planned to do — arrest me?

Anyhow, when you started dropping hints about an off brother I was curious, of course. So I pestered you to tell me. But when you did, I felt sick. It was like the same old thing again — violence. I felt like I’d been born into that, grown up in it, breathed it and eaten it. I needed to know that there were families where it didn’t happen; I didn’t need to know about another one where it did. Now I’m on the verge of going further than I meant to; further than I should. I can feel it. If you’ve got any sense Manna, don’t read on. No, I’m not about to tell you my life story — I don’t think I could ever do that. But I’ll tell you a chapter or two. And like I said, be smart and stop reading now.

OK, if you’re still reading, you asked for it. I know now my father was what they call violent. I’ve only realized that lately. We never thought of him that way; we didn’t have names for it. Sometimes he’d be angry and he’d hit us and we’d be scared and try and keep out of the way, and we’d walk quietly and talk quietly. Stay in our bedrooms. See what I mean? Like if someone’s an alcoholic, their kids probably wouldn’t think that, they’d just hate it when their Mum or Dad was drunk. You don’t think of it as a condition or an illness or anything. And we were only little.

And yeah, he’d hit Mum and we’d hate that and cry and try to fight him off. Just like you see in the movies. I’ve had to walk out of some movies, like
Abbie
and
Cry Baby Cry.

By the way another thing I’ve never told you. There were only two of us kids. My brother, Simon, who’s three years older, and me. The only relatives we had were Nanna, who was Mum’s mum, and an aunt and uncle in Scotland, who I don’t know much about. I don’t remember Mum’s dad. Dad’s parents died when he was little, and he was brought up by an uncle.

Anyhow, one day when I was about eight, Nanna suddenly told me I’d be living with her for a while. I was quite pleased, but a bit puzzled. I remember asking her if Simon was coming too, and she said no, which I thought was strange.

Nanna was old then, so it wasn’t as much fun living there as I thought it would be. After a while — could have been a couple of months, I can’t remember — I asked if I could go back home. That’s when she told me that my Mum had died and my Dad had gone away. And when I said ‘What about Simon?’ she said he was being looked after by some other people.

It didn’t sink in for a while, but when it did I started to go a bit funny, I think. I don’t remember that period clearly but I know I did some stupid things, like sleeping under the bed, and crapping in cupboards at school. I always seemed to be in trouble, which was a good joke, because I’d been one of those super-suction kids up till then. Never went over the lines when I was colouring-in.

Anyhow, I got worse and worse. I ended up known as the local slut, head-banger, low-life, all of which didn’t bother me. But the good thing was, Nanna didn’t know much about it. She was pretty weak by then and couldn’t do much for herself. And I kept getting quite good marks, without doing any work.

Then one day I came home real late and she wasn’t there. I was so scared. Then the lady next door came in and told me Nanna had been knocked over by a boy on a bike and had her hip broken and was in hospital. But this lady didn’t waste any words telling me — she thought I was such a hard case that I didn’t deserve any consideration. What the hell, she was probably right.

She sure hung it on me for being so late home though. See the thing was, if I’d been there on time, I’d have gone to the shops instead of Nanna and the accident would never have happened. Any kid tried to run me over, I’d be wearing his balls around my neck on his bike chain.

Well then it went pretty much like in that story I sent you. When she came out of the operation Nanna was a space case, and after a while she died. I knew I had to get out of town fast then, or Community Services would get me. I’d cleaned the whole house up while Nanna was sick, so it was easy to pack what I wanted. I rang Raz, then got clothes and money and food and stuff, and put it all in a couple of bags.

Then I got some papers out of the bottom of Nanna’s wardrobe, where I’d seen them while I was tidying up. They were these envelopes, stuck up tight with sticky tape. They were the only papers in the house. I’d been hoping they were money. I didn’t touch them while Nanna was alive, but now that she was dead I thought it’d be all right. So I opened them.

It was just newspaper clippings, so I was disappointed. But I flicked through them anyhow. Then I saw a photo of my father. I recognized him straight away, even though it had been so long. The headline said ‘Police Praised In Murder Trial.’ I thought maybe my father had been a policeman, which surprised me a lot. Then I started reading the article and found it was my father who’d done the murder. Then I read a bit further and found he’d got 18 years. Then I read to the end and found it was my mother who he’d murdered.

A bit later Raz came round with his panel van and we went up north.

I still don’t know where Simon is. And I don’t know where my father is — probably still in the Q. Although 18 years never means what it says.

Anyhow, wherever he is, I guess he’d be proud of me, following in his footsteps. Seems like some things do run in the family.

All I can say, Manna, is I hope you stopped reading back on the first page, like I told you.

See you,

     
Tracey

Dec 21

Dear Manna,

Just to tell you that the parcel got here. God you’re a dickhead, but thanks a lot. I asked them not to give it to me till Christmas Day: if there’s anything illegal in it there’s more chance of getting it on Christmas Day. It’s a good time for bargaining.

This’ll be my second Christmas in here. Last year wasn’t too cheerful — a girl offed herself on Christmas morning. She did it with one of those flex cords from an electric jug, that she’d knocked off from the dining hall.

No-one gets too excited about Christmas here, though a lot of them have visitors. The food’s good though.

Time’s passing slowly at the moment. You don’t like classes much when they’re on, but they leave a hole when they finish. We’ve invented this new game called Points. There’s a few little balls of Blu-tack around, each one with a drawing pin in it, right? (Both the Blu-tack and the drawing pins are illegal, needless to say.) And whoever’s got one hangs onto it until she sees a good target — another slag, that is. When you see someone you chuck it at them as hard as you can, so it sticks in them. If they cry out, or make any sound at all when it hits, they lose a point. If they stay silent they get a point.

Some people are on minus five already. Ice-eyes here’s on plus three and going nowhere but up.

Well, it helps fill in the hours.

I’m reading this book at the moment called
A Place Like Home.
It’s by this woman who was brought up in an orphanage in Sydney, in the 1920s, with her sisters. Geez it’d break your heart. What those kids went through. The way they got treated, you wouldn’t think anyone would get away with it. When they went on a holiday, just once in their little lives, it was like they’d been given the universe.