‘The name Michaela is Hebrew, meaning who is like the Lord. Michael is an archangel of Jewish and Christian scripture,’ I say, unable to stop myself, the words shooting out of me.
I expect her to laugh at me, as people do, but when she does not, I steal a glance. She is smiling at her stomach where a tattoo of a snake circles her belly button. She catches me staring, drops her shirt and opens her mouth. Her tongue hangs out, revealing three silver studs. She pokes her tongue out some more. I look away.
After walking to the next area, we are instructed to halt. There are still no windows, no visible way out. No escape. The strip lights on the ceiling illuminate the corridor and I count the number of lights, losing myself in the pointless calculations.
‘I think you need to move on.’
I jump. There is a middle-aged man standing two metres away. His head is tilted, his lips parted. Who is he? He holds my gaze for a moment; then, raking a hand through his hair, strides away. I am about to turn, embarrassed to look at him, when he halts and stares at me again. Yet, this time I do not move, frozen, under a spell. His eyes. They are so brown, so deep that I cannot look away.
‘Martinez?’ the guard says. ‘We’re off again. Shift it.’
I crane my head to see if the man is still there, but he is suddenly gone. As though he never existed.
The internal prison building is loud. I fold my arms tight across my chest and keep my head lowered, hoping it will block out my bewilderment. We follow the guard and keep quiet. I try to remain calm, try to speak to myself, reason with myself that I can handle this, that I can cope with this new environment just as much as anyone else, but it is all so unfamiliar, the prison. The constant stench of body odour, the shouting, the sporadic screams. I have to take time to process it, to compute it. None of this is routine.
Michaela taps me on the shoulder. Instinctively, I flinch.
‘You’ve seen him then?’ she says.
‘Who?’
‘The Governor of Goldmouth. That fella just now with the nice eyes and the pricey tan.’ She grins. ‘Be careful, yeah?’ She places her palm on my right bottom cheek. ‘I’ve done time here before, gorgeous. Our Governor, well, he has…a reputation.’
She is still touching me, and I want her to get off me, to leave me alone. I am about slap her arm away when the guard shouts for her to release me.
Michaela licks her teeth then removes her hand. My body slackens. Without speaking, Michaela sniffs, wipes her nose with her palm and walks off.
Lowering my head once more, I make sure I stay well behind her.
We are taken through to something named The Booking-In Area.
The walls are white. Brown marks are smeared in the crevices between the brickwork and, when I squint, plastic splash panels glisten under the lights. Michaela remains at my side. I do not want her to touch me again.
The guards halt, turn and thrust something to us. It’s a forty-page booklet outlining the rules of Goldmouth Prison. It takes me less than a minute to read the whole thing- the TV privileges, the shower procedures, the full body searches, the library book lending guidelines. Timetables, regimes, endless regulations-a ticker tape of instructions. I remember every word, every comma, every picture on the page. Done, I close the file and look to my right. Michaela is stroking the studs on her tongue, pinching each one, wincing then smiling. Sweat pricks my neck. I want to go home.
‘You read fast, sweetheart,’ she says, leaning into me. ‘You remember all that? Shit, I can’t remember my own fucking name half the time.’
She pinches her studs again. They could cause problems, get infected. I should tell her. That’s what people do, isn’t it? Help each other?
‘Piercing can cause nerve damage to the tongue, leading to weakness, paralysis and loss of sensation,’ I say.
‘What the-’ The letter ‘f’ forms on her mouth, but before she can finish, a guard tears the booklet from my hand.
‘Hey!’
‘Strip,’ the guard says.
‘Strip what?’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Oh, you’re a funny one, Martinez. We need you to strip. It’s quite simple. We search all inmates on arrival.’
