Page 3 of Good Bad Girl

Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen. Sixteen.

Frankie knows the guard at the final checkpoint well enough to say hello. He’s asked her to go for a drink with him, twice. Frankie said no. She prefers to drink alone andpeoplecannot be trusted. Not trusting people was her mother’s number one rule and it is one she inherited. Frankie doesn’t know why men find her attractive, maybe it’s her prison uniform. A uniform that is nothing more than a stereotype, a fantasy, a disguise. We all play daily dress-up games, choosing which character to be when selecting something from our wardrobe. Deciding who we want others to see us as, hiding behind our clothes. The world is full of people who are good at being bad, and people who are bad at being good. She has always thought of herself as a good bad girl. Someone who made the best of the badlife she was born into, and tried to do something good with it. But when Frankie looks in the mirror these days, all she sees is a plain-looking woman in her thirties. A woman with dark circles beneath her eyes and a mess of dark curls that have always refused to be tamed. A woman who resembles someone she used to know.

A ghost.

The guard steps out of the little security hut that borders theinsideandoutside. He smiles and she feels herself shrink. His name badge says Tom but he looks like a Tim.

Thirteen steps. Or was that twelve?

Everyone calls it a hut, but it’s made of thick reinforced concrete walls, with barbed wire on the roof, and it is staffed with armed guards 24–7. Tom is a little older than Frankie. He’s tall, but his broad shoulders are always a little hunched, as though he is embarrassed by his own height.

Ten steps. Nine.

Frankie stares down at her feet to avoid his gaze—she does not like people looking at her—and notices that her shoelace has come untied. It can wait; there is no time to stop.

Five steps. Four.

Tom looks down at her, but only because he is six feet tall and she is five foot nothing.

Three.

She is close enough now to smell the tea on his breath.

Two.

Frankie pushes one of her keys into her fingertip until it hurts.

One.

She reminds herself to breathe as the guard starts to unlock the outer gate. It is camouflaged by the inescapable, tall, thick concrete ring fence that surrounds the prison. Frankie tries not to stare at the bloody white feathers that decorate the barbed wire on top. Tom smiles again and she tries to smile back, but her face won’t let her. She is relieved that he doesn’t try to start a conversation.Frankie can’t remember how to have them, and she needs to carry on counting the seventy-three steps from the gate to her van.

Life has taught her that other people should be kept at a distance.Peoplecan’t be trusted. People can’t be counted on, so she counts other things instead. Counting things that are real makes the walls of her world feel more solid. And Frankie likes walls, even the ones that surround the prison. She builds imaginary ones just like them around herself all the time, to keeppeopleout.

Frankie locks the doors as soon as she is in her ancient blue and white Volkswagen camper van. She puts her special mug on the passenger seat and wishes the person who made it was still here. Losing her daughter is the worst thing that has ever happened to Frankie. Worse than all the other worst things that happened before it.

Frankie whispers the words that sometimes make her feel better:

You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay.

We live in a world where it is too easy to lie.

She checks her Mickey Mouse watch—the same watch she had as a child—and sees that she needs to hurry or she’ll be late. It’s hard to drive away from the prison for the last time. Her job is the only thing that has kept Frankie sane recently, but she’s about to lose that too. They’ll never let her return to the library at HMP Crossroads when they find out what she’s capable of: the terrible things she has done, and the horrible thing she is about to do. The future can seem too uncertain when your past catches up with your present.

Frankie needs something to calm her down. Turning on the radio seems like a good idea, but the voices coming out of it are all talking about Mother’s Day, so she switches it off. She searches inside her handbag and finds a packet of Rolos. There are ten chocolates in total, which is good because ten is a good number. It is the Pythagorean symbol of perfection; humans have ten fingersand ten toes, there were Ten Commandments and the number ten symbolizes the completion of a cycle. It must be a sign because Frankie has come full circle. She counts each Rolo as she eats them but saves the last one for her daughter, carefully wrapping it in the gold foil, never quite willing to give up all hope. One is a lonely number. The Pythagoreans did not consider it to be a number at all, because number means plurality and one is singular. The number one reminds Frankie of how alone she is in the world.

She can feel herself starting to spiral to the darker corners of her mind, so she takes a can of Mr. Sheen from the glove compartment, squirts some of the polish onto the steering wheel, and massages it into the leather with a cloth. Frankie breathes deeply; she finds the smell of cleaning products calming. She is afraid of dirt almost as much as she fears the dark, but with good reason. When life throws enough dirt at you some always sticks. She puts the polish back and checks the other three things inside the glove compartment:

An old ten-pound note from 1999.

A newspaper clipping.

A silver ladybug ring.

She slips the ring onto her finger and notices that her mind is finally quiet and calm. She has stopped counting. Frankie knows what she needs to do and no longer cares about the consequences. The only good thing about losing everything is the freedom that comes with having nothing left to lose.

Patience

My Sunday morning shift begins with the elevator doors closing and trapping me inside. The whole thing shudders before grumbling to life, and the Victorian contraption reluctantly carries me to the top floor, groaning all the way. I stare at my reflection in the tarnished mirror and an eighteen-year-old girl glares back. Sometimes I don’t know who I am anymore. I know my name, it’s written on my badge: Patience. I know where I live: London. I know where I work: here, sadly. I know what I like to eat, to drink, to read... but I don’t knowme. I can’t remember who the real me is.

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