The Panopticon Read online

  The office door opens, and they let us in. The Officer in Charge must have been waiting on the staff finishing their changeover, but it’s obvious they havenae. There’s too many staff in here, last shifts, and this shift. I dinnae like it. I feel bare, like my skin’s missing. My skin doesnae even feel like mine half the time. They shouldnae be putting me through a handover with this many staff in the office.

  ‘Anais, sorry, I didnae introduce myself properly. I am the Officer in Charge, my name is Joan. D’ye need a drink or anything?’

  ‘No.’

  She looks at the polis and they shake their heads.

  ‘Okay, Anais, this is Eric, he is our student at the moment. This is Brenda, this is Ed, and this is your support worker, Angus.’

  They all nod in turn, smiling. Ed has a frizzy ginger mullet and wee round specs. Slick. Ginger isnae the problem (all the hottest girls are redheads), it’s not even the frizz; it’s the tone, a pissy-orange colour, and it’s waist-length and – a mullet.

  The student prick is trying to dress like he’s a casual. Twat! Brenda appears to be on Prozac and Valium, her eyes have that glazed dullness about them. My support-worker guy, Angus, has long green dreadlocks and knee-high Doc boots.

  ‘I do apologise, you’ll need tae excuse us – sorry, you caught us in between shifts. We were hoping to try and finish the changeover before you arrived,’ Joan says.

  The policeman puts my files down.

  ‘Without disclosing anything directly, of course – can you verify that Anais has been released without charge?’ she asks.

  ‘We haven’t charged Miss Hendricks, but she is under investigation. We need her school uniform in this, and you’ll need tae do it as soon as we leave. We cannae give her the opportunity tae tamper with possible evidence.’

  The policeman hands a clear plastic bag with a label on it to Joan.

  ‘D’ye not normally do this at the station?’

  ‘Miss Hendricks cited many, many regulations while she was detained. These included her right to only have her clothes removed, for a full search, if she has a female social worker present. She has this stipulated on her file.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Joan asks.

  ‘There were previous allegations from Miss Hendricks about treatment during searches. We did try to get her social worker but she is apparently abroad, and of course we are only concerned for her well-being, so we decided tae wait until we brought her here.’

  Old skelp-your-pus sounds well convincing, I almost fucking believe him myself.

  ‘That’s not a problem, officer.’

  ‘I’ve arranged for our lab technician tae come out tomorrow. She’ll do the final tests and collect Miss Hendricks’s school uniform.’

  He’s shifting from foot to foot, he wants out of here – good!

  ‘Can you tell us if the police officer’s condition is stable, at least?’ Joan asks.

  ‘For now.’

  ‘It is a coma, though?’

  ‘An acute coma.’

  ‘Is she expected to come out of it soon?’

  Joan’s not looking at me. All the staff are, carefully, not looking at me. Except the student. He’s fucking fascinated.

  ‘No, she’s not, they dinnae know if she will.’

  ‘But you didnae charge Anais?’

  ‘No. We’ve no actual evidence that Miss Hendricks was responsible for the assault. Not yet.’

  Joan puts the plastic bag in her drawer and signs a release form.

  I hold my hands out and the policewoman unlocks my cuffs. It feels so good to be able to rub my wrists. Imagine a bath – that would be too good. A great big fuck-off thing on legs with a huge window next tae it, and bubbles, and views of the sky. Imagine a bathroom like that, with fluffy white towels and a bolt on the door.

  Joan ticks more forms for the police, then they leave. Crusty reaches over to shake my hand.

  ‘Hello, Anais, I’m your support worker, Angus. I’m really pleased tae meet you.’

  ‘Hiya.’

  ‘Are you no gonnae take a seat?’ he asks.

  I sit down.

  The polis get intae their car, doors slam. The sky is azure out there now; azure means blue – it’s nothing to do with Aztecs. The pigmobile trundles up the drive. Smell ye later, wankstains. The statues on those pillars are stark against the sky – the gargoyle’s telling the flying cat a secret. His wings lift in the breeze.

  ‘So Helen – it is Helen, your social worker?’

  I nod and Joan continues.

  ‘Good, Helen is not due tae arrive for at least another few weeks. She is really, really sorry that she has been held up like this, but it is completely out of her control. She asked me tae pass on her apologies.’

  The cat’s wings flex, just lightly.

  Sit up straight and stare. It definitely moved, or it could be a flashback. There’s nae tracers, though. I get the flashbacks a lot lately, I’m beginning to worry I didnae make it back from my last bad trip.

  Mental note – quit tripping on schooldays. Keep it for special occasions: bar mitzvahs, pancake Tuesday, fucking Easter. Jay told me gangsters used tae dip their pinkies in liquid LSD so they were permanently tripping, but the clever bit was, if they got done, they only went to the nuthouse. It’s because if you’re permanently tripping, you’re legally classified as insane. In the States, even if you only take acid like ten times or something, they still reckon you’re certifiable. They’d think I was well gone.

  I hate this. Handovers. New places. Staff. Files. What I want is a hole under the ground to live in. Or a treehouse. Somewhere nobody can see me.

  My stuff’s not arrived yet; well, it isnae in this office anyway. I asked for something other than bin bags – to move my stuff in – once.

  ‘What would you like, Anais?’

  ‘Matching Italian leather suitcases? Designer. Vintage if possible. And a trunk, a big old leather one with my name on it.’

  They thought I was being wide. To be honest, I would have settled for a fucking rucksack! I’m not paying for one, though. Why the fuck should I have to pay to keep moving?

  ‘Your room is forty-nine. The fourth floor is totally out of bounds for all clients right now. You will have access tae arts groups and counselling through your support worker. We practise a holistic approach tae client care in the Panopticon.’

  Joan’s been talking at me the whole time I’ve been sat here.

  ‘Holistic?’

  ‘Aye, that means we take into consideration all the needs of our clients.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘The ones we consider healthy.’

  ‘Is it healthy getting locked up twenty-four hours a day, like?’

  ‘You know why secure units are necessary, Anais, and you are not locked up in the main unit anyway.’

  ‘Does that mean I umnay being put in the secure unit?’

  ‘We cannae place anyone in there yet; there are delays because there’s asbestos in the roof. The whole secure-unit renovation has been postponed, until we resolve funding issues.’

  ‘Right.’

  My heartbeat’s fast, fast, fast. This is a score. I was sure they were gonnae get me locked up on the top floor straight away. This buys time. Maybe I’ll no be dead for my sixteenth birthday. I’d rather be dead than locked up 24/7 – cos if that happens, the experiment will have finally, totally fucking got me.

  ‘Am I getting put up there when it opens?’

  ‘Well, let’s hope not, Anais. But if you do get placed there at some point in the future, then rest assured you would actually be in one of the best small secure units in the UK.’

  ‘Spiff-fucking-spoff.’

  She just looks at me.

  You dancer! It isnae open yet. Thank God, thank Jesus and Mary and Buddha. The student is fascinated. Subtle much? He wants tae measure me up – turn me around, knock on my head and peer inside my ear to see what’s marching around in there. What a fucking womble!

  ‘Are you
gonnae ask me if I did it?’ I ask him.

  He doesnae know where to look.

  ‘No, Anais! We are not going tae discuss it here.’ Joan stands up.

  ‘Aye? Well, he obviously wants tae, he wants tae so bad he needs put on a leash.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ she snaps.

  She’s big, Joan. If she sat on you in a restraint or in a riot, you’d fucking feel it. Mental note – avoid bowl-cut next time there’s a riot.

  Mullet’s reading a book in Chinese. He has skinny legs and knobbly fingers, and the way he holds his shoulders isnae what let me know. It’s just something that’s there. I cannae explain it, but I can usually tell on sight these days. Mullet doesnae do adults. No way. I’d put fucking money on it. Sometimes I think they should take me around schools and kids’ clubs, like a sniffer dog, but not for drugs – for paedos. They’d never believe me if I told them? Hello, my name’s Anais Hendricks and I can tell a paedo on sight – usually. Aye, right, they’d believe me! I can, though, I can tell if a lassie’s been abused just by looking at her. They wouldnae believe it, though, there’s nae point in telling them. Not about that. Not about the dreams. Not about flying cats.

  Joan has twenty different religious icons up on the office wall behind her.

  ‘Nae witch?’ I ask her.

  ‘You have a religious preference?’

  ‘Pagan. Three-parts witch, white obviously – well, sort of!’

  ‘Obviously,’ she says.

  ‘Seriously, white witch, ’cept on Sundays.’

  ‘I shan’t ask why not on Sundays.’

  ‘Best not.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see what we can do, Anais. I’m sure there’s a pagan symbol we can find tae put up for you. We dinnae want you tae feel excluded here. I know you’ve moved a lot, so maybe it’s time for you tae settle down – for a wee while?’

  I’m dizzy. I hate. Her red shoes. His ginger mullet. Paedos, polis, sniffer dogs, Chinese books, tits, dirt, the colour yellow, icons, cord-fucking-carpets. I’d rather be dead today, but I umnay – I’m fifteen and fucked.

  ‘Wanker!’ I whisper to the student, as I get up.

  Eric stands with his soft posh hand on my files and looks hurt. Joan nods at him and he lifts up a big pile of folders with my name and number printed on them; he puts them on her desk.

  ‘Brenda will show you tae your room. If you have anything sharp on you, it will be removed. And please, do not tell the other residents what you are in for!’

  2

  BRENDA HAS A fob-key thing for the rooms. I follow her through the main open-plan area; there isnae much in here, just ugly furniture, and crap carpets that urnay even a colour.

  Count the steps to each floor – there are twenty-four. Six doors on each landing, I reckon there’s about twelve of us in this unit. We go past the bathrooms and they have girl and boy signs on the doors.

  We reach the third floor, and the three lassies are waiting. Brenda walks me along towards them. Moustache’s tash is three fine brown spirals, on each cheek. She has wide brown eyes. Nae earrings – I dinnae even think she’s had hers pierced. Her hair is long and she reminds me of Frida Kahlo. I like Frida Kahlo, ay, especially her bath and feet painting, and that deer, and the ones of her dreams.

  We stop at a bedroom next to the girls, room forty-nine – it is right in the middle of the landing.

  ‘I need shampoo,’ Moustache says to Brenda.

  ‘Okay, I’ll let you into the stores in a minute.’

  Next to Moustache, the blonde girl with the pixie haircut scratches her tummy. Her tummy’s cut tae fuck. That’s beyond normal. Normal is when someone just cuts their arms, legs or sometimes thighs – not slash marks like that right across their stomach. There’s fucking hundreds of them, then there’s thick white ones under the fresh ones. She’s wearing low-slung jeans, and her hips have silvery stretch-marks. She must have a kid.

  ‘Can you hurry up? We want tae go out, like today,’ Moustache says.

  ‘I’m settling our new resident intae her room, then I’ll let you into the store. Anais, this is Tash – you choose tae be called Tash, don’t you, love?’

  The lassie nods.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Uh-huh, and this is Shortie. Shona does not like her Christian name, either.’

  The girl with the baseball cap gives me a dirty look, takes her hat off and rubs her hair. It’s curly, mousy and short. She pulls her hoody up and walks away, gesturing tae a laddie downstairs to meet her around the back.

  ‘And this is our Isla. Say hello then, girls!’

  They look, and I look, and Brenda pushes back the door to my room. I follow her in and she hands me the plastic bag. Great! Unbutton my school shirt, kick off my shoes. There’s blood on my skirt – and my socks. There’s some on my leg. Everything stinks (like the cells did for three days) of concrete, and bleach, and cold, and glass. There was a stone bog in my cell, with just enough water to flush, but no enough tae drown in.

  ‘The bedroom doors are always open, Anais, but they can be pulled partially shut if you’re getting dressed. Nobody can see in. Well, only the watchtower, and there isn’t anyone in there unless the night-nurse is on duty; she can lock all the doors from a central locking system, if necessary – for the residents’ safety!’

  She shakes her head when I stop undressing.

  ‘I need your underwear as well.’

  Step out my pants and lob them into the bag. This room is smaller than my last one. There’s banging out on the landing – that laddie must be back, he’s really wellying that balcony.

  ‘Most of the boys’ rooms are on the second-floor landing. Nobody can see you dress or undress from the floors below, as long as you get changed tae the left of your door. We like tae keep doors open, to create a more trusting environment. There are no secrets here in the Panopticon,’ Brenda adds.

  I shove the bag out to her and I’m in the scud now, so I stand behind the door with just my head poking out. I fucking hate being in the scud in new places. Imagine a big fluffy dressing gown. I’ve not had a dressing gown since I was, like, ten! I wouldnae waste my clothing allowance, though. I like vintage stuff and it’s expensive, I can barely afford even one piece a month.

  Imagine, though, ay. Imagine soft new jammies, and an open fire, and a big dog I could set on strangers if they came anywhere near my house. Imagine having your own house? Imagine having ten big dogs and a gun. Tash is tapping her fingers off the balcony, and Brenda’s trying tae ignore her.

  ‘Is your underwear in there as well, Anais?’ she whispers.

  ‘Why, d’ye want tae sniff my knick-knacks?’ I ask her.

  Isla giggles. Brenda turns the bag until she locates my scants. She smiles tightly and ties a knot in the bag. The wee laddie keeps kicking the balcony; he’s got curly hair and thick specs and he’s skinny as fuck.

  ‘Brian, you have been asked tae stop doing that.’

  ‘Aye?’

  He boots the balcony harder and she marches away towards him.

  ‘Brian, you need tae get, wait a minute …’

  Shove my door shut but it still stays open about three inches. There’s prongs in the fucking frame so I cannae close it. These doors really do only lock at night, and all from one button, up there in the watchtower! They say they dinnae use it to lock us in all the time. That’s what they say.

  I’m so pale my veins pop out all purple. My toenails are chipped. This room is cold. One window, one wardrobe. Everything’s screwed to the floor so you cannae pick it up and throw it at the staff.

  A tractor grumbles across the fields outside. Slide down the wall, drag the duvet off the bed and wrap it around me until I’m totally cocooned.

  My bin bags are here, three of them. There’s a hole at the bottom of one – I push into it with my big toe and a lipstick falls out. Pillar-box red, Dior. I bought it last week from one of the girls who go choring up town. There were three professional chores in my last unit. They’d come back, day af
ter day, with big store bags full of stuff they’d nicked. It’s a skill. I can do it but I dinnae, I have an aversion to being called a common thief. It’s only worth stealing if you’re in the big league. Diamonds. Rare artworks. Nuclear weapons. That kind of shit.

  Pick up my lipstick and take the lid off. This shade of red is absolutely perfect. I need tae get a pencil in a matching colour, or just a wee bit darker. Lips have to be outlined really, if you’re not blessed with bee-stung. It’s easy tae make a cupid’s-bow-look more pout than it is. It’s the same with a lack of right-angled cheekbones or supernatural baby blues or tawny owls. There are ways to make it work. Sometimes I make something so pretty, I dinnae even think it’s me. It’s not that I think I’m perfect. I’m so imperfect it’s offensive. Totally and utterly fucked in fact – but I like pillbox hats.

  Sun floods in my window, and a rainbow appears. I gaze up at it until the colour fades and the clouds turn grey.

  The experiment are watching.

  You can feel them, ay. In the quiet. In the room. Wherever you are – they’re there. That’s a given. Sometimes they’re right there, sometimes a wee bit further away; when I want to hurt myself but I dinnae, I can always feel them then. They want me to hurt myself. They’re sick like that. What they really want is me dead.

  My legs are going numb, and I’m getting cold, but I still cannae be arsed unpacking. It’s dark outside now. Those stars are way brighter than in the city. A bird flies by and there’s a low hoot. I’m gonnae have tae go for a piss, I cannae hold it in any longer.

  Stick my head out over the landing, there’s a notice on the office door downstairs. The staff must be in a meeting. Score! If they were in the main area then I’d have to be dressed appropriately, even to go for a pee. As it is, I can shuffle along to the bogs in this duvet and hopefully no-one’ll see me.

  There’s a girls’ bathroom and a boys’ bathroom – they just have toilets in them. I peek next door and there are two bathrooms with baths in them. Usually the staff make you bathe every day; no doubt they’ll tell me to have one after tea. I go into the girls’ toilet. Someone’s been sick in here. There’s a strong whiff of vomit, and sweat. Ming-fucking-mong.