Angel (88) Christmas

After lock-up, Pippa fingered the small bruise below her eye, more of a pointing exercise to show Angel where Georgie had punched her. ‘I’ll fuckin’ kill that cow,’ she declared.

Angel lay on her bed and murmured agreement.

Pippa stretched her neck out and open and shut her mouth like a puppet-master had his hand up her back and was making her speak. ‘You think my jaw’s broken?’

‘You wouldn’t be able to move it, if it was broken?’

‘You think?’ Pippa sat on the bed beside her.

Angel moved her feet to the side to give her more room. ‘But you do owe her, don’t you?’

‘Aye, but no’ much.’ She scrunched her face up. ‘Only for jellies, and a wee bit of tobacco.’

‘But double bubble, innit?’

 ‘She’ll get it, won’t she?  Pippa’s face brightened and she laughed, ‘Unless, of course, she slashed herself to fuck, takes another overdose, and the fuckin’ cow’s shovelled out in a plastic bag’.  

‘I fuckin’ hate Christmas.’ Angel patted the mound of her belly through her Wham t-shirt. She glanced over at photos of Adam when he was a baby and growing bigger. On his feet standing between Tony and Bruno as they swung his red wellies and feet into the air. His mouth open and a wow expression on his face and lips. She wondered who’d taken the photo.

‘I don’t mind it,’ said Pippa.   

Angel nudged her bum with her foot. ‘You don’t mind anything, but you’ve no’ got kids.’

‘I mind the gym no’ being open,’ she blew out her cheeks and looked down rubbing her non-existent belly. ‘I’ll probably put on about a stone and I mind no’ havin’ any tobacco.’

She glanced slyly at Angel.

Angel smiled. ‘Help yerself – you know where it is.’ And waved her index finger like a school mistress towards her, ‘But you’ll be paying double back’.

‘Aye, that’ll be right.’

Pippa jumped off the bed pulled open the bottom drawer of the unit which Angel kept her packet of Virginia tobacco and Rizla papers. Dextrous fingers rolled a dab of tobacco into a single skinner and she snaked a razor thin cigarette into her mouth.  The scent of burning Rizla paper and tobacco overpowered other smells in the cell. ‘I’m actually daeing you a favour. Smoking’s bad for yeh. And you’ll be interested to know this is the first smoke I’ve had since this morning,’

‘Really?’

Pippa waved away Angel’s mock sincerity and took another drag of her fag and tried to mouth smoke rings. ‘And the guards took the Christmas tree away.’ She sniggered at that. ‘You see whit they left – stupid cunts?’

‘Aye, the spiked outline of a Christmas tree wae electrical tape on the carpet tiles.’

‘They’re trying to murder Christmas,’ hooted Pippa. ‘It’s like a Taggert crime-scene. All they’ve left is the body.’

Angel sat up on the bed and swung her feet onto the floor. She put her arm around her friend’s back and pulled her closer, hugging her shoulder. ‘They said somebody was stealing all the decorations.’ She looked over at the cell window where Pippa had created an Alpine scene with fake snow, reindeer and the cut-out figure of Santa pulling the sleigh had the face of Michael Jackson taped to it.

‘I was hoping for more tinsel so I could make a life-sized crib.’ Pippa hummed Silent Night. ‘You could have the baby and we could put it inside and I could sit here playing the Virgin Mary and we could wait for the three wise men to come and let us oot.’

Angel shoved Pippa’s shoulder in a friendly way, pushing her away. ‘We’d be hard pushed to get three wise men in here,’ and then added, ‘if you’re the Virgin Mary, who am I meant to be?’

‘Och,’ Pippa kept a straight-face, ‘You’re just an ass’.

‘Aye, yeh might be right, but it wasnae me that was going about telling the girls that smoking tinsel gets you high and guarantees you a false-negative on the mandatory drugs test.’  

‘Worked for me.’

‘That’s just,’ Angel couldn’t think of the right word. ‘Shite. That’s just shite.’

‘Oh, you’re very negative. I don’t know why I room wae yeh.’

‘You don’t room wae me! We’re locked up t’gether.’

‘See,’ Pippa tutted. ‘So negative.’ She relit the cigarette and took a drag and blew smoke in Angel’s direction. ‘Whit about that appeal, you thought any more about it?’

‘Nah,’ Angel shrugged and took a deep breath and shrunk inside herself. ‘Whit’s the point in gettin’ my hope up?’

‘You need to keep occupied,’ declared Pippa. ‘I could do your hair, but we’d need to borrow straighteners…Let me see your nails.’

Angel held her hands up like she had claws and was ready to pounce on Pippa.

Pippa wasn’t impressed.  ‘Jesus, you could get a starring role in the panto as Snow White, but your nails are like – don’t know…Grumpy trying to dig the way oot of coalmine wae his fingers…No wonder yer depressed.’  

Pippa ducked under the bunkbed and brought out her goodie bag and took out a nail file. Grasping Angel’s right hand and fingers, she began at the little finger and used the pad of her thumb as a gauge, rubbing it over the top of the fingernail to check how much work it needed before she started on it with the file. She bit her lips and concentrated. It wasn’t until she’d cleaned up the other fingers and was working on her thumb when she spoke rapidly,  

‘Maybe you should go to court. You might win your appeal. You might get oot of here. You said yerself the guy was a rat-bag that raped yeh and yeh were innocent.’

‘I’ve no’ got a lawyer.’

‘You’ll get a court-appointed one.’

‘You know me. They’ll probably add two or three years to my sentence.’

Pippa pulled her left hand roughly into her lap to work on. ‘That’s whit I thought and then somebody told me about smoking tinsel and it worked for me.’

‘Aye, but your lucky. It didnae work for anybody else.’

‘Excuse me,’ Pippa seesawed the file up and down her middle finger with renewed vigour. ‘My boyfriend beat me to a pulp every night, sold me to his pals and noo I’m in here – and you’re callin’ me lucky!’

‘No, but you know whit I mean?’

‘Aye, I know whit you mean. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get, as my old mum used to say – God bless her.…But at least if you get oot, you get oot. My boyfriend’s waiting for me.’