Free Women of Courage by Tim Vicary Page A

something cold on her scalp.
    ‘The nit shampoo. Rub it in well. Then rinse your own head in the bath water.’
    Miserably, she did as they said. She understood now. She was quite naked, dripping, a baby in front of them. Covered with shampoo and dirty water in a mockery of cleanliness. And she had to co-operate with the process, wash her own hair. Each movement that she made to wash herself in this grime humiliated her more than when they had pushed and shoved and undressed her.
    After the first grimy rinse, a thin smirk of satisfaction flickered across the face of the older woman, who was still staring away from her at the wall over the taps.
    ‘All for your own good. A clean prison is Holloway. No germs, no diseases. They all learn, in time. I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble now, Miss Harkness.’
    It was always the same, on the first days. They brought you the best food, carefully cooked, to tempt you to break your fast. The porridge was in a clean china bowl on a tray, with a little jug of cream beside it, and a bowl of sugar.
    Sarah had never imagined that porridge could smell so good. Before her first prison sentence, she had scarcely thought of it, except as a solid, reliable food which she had for breakfast on cold mornings. Now, after two full days in prison without food, the steaming bowl of hot porridge filled her cell with a scent like that of the food of the ancient gods.
    She crouched at the end of her wooden bed, her knees clasped to her chin, savouring the memories the smell brought with it. It reminded her of the cold, early spring mornings on holiday in Ulster. Days when she and her sister Deborah would get up at first light to go across the fields to see their ponies. Their breath would steam in the crisp morning air, and frosty grass would crackle underfoot as they ran.
    We were such friends then, Sarah thought. And Deborah is probably walking across her own fields now, at Glenfee, while my bones ache from the cold of this wretched cell. She remembered the little girl who had run beside her, all those years ago. Deborah had always been such a cheerful, obedient child; it had been a pleasure to play with her. She had worshipped that pony, Blaze, which she had had to ride in the holidays. Probably it was then, when she was twelve and Sarah was sixteen, that Deborah had first met Charles.
    Strange, Sarah thought. For a moment a tall, handsome young man rode into her memory — a young soldier with a lopsided smile and a proud new moustache, riding a bay hunter towards them across the fields. If anyone had seen us then, they would have expected Charles to marry me, not Deborah. I was sixteen, but she was only a child — even on her pony her head only came up to Charles’s waist.
    Oh, I wish I could go there again . . .
    The cell door crashed open. A wardress came in and scowled at the uneaten porridge.
    ‘Not eating your breakfast again, I see?’
    ‘No. I told you, I shan’t eat anything until I’m free.’
    ‘We’ll see about that.’ The wardress picked up the porridge bowl and carried it out. ‘It’s a long time, six months, you know.’
    But I shan’t be in here that long, Sarah thought. Three days already. They daren’t let anyone starve to death in prison. They let me out after a week last time. I can last that long.
    If only it wasn’t so infernally cold . . .
    Resolutely, she swung her feet over the side of the bed and began her daily walk. Four paces from the window to the door, four paces back again. Already she had worn holes in the lumpy stockings, but the prison shoes were impossible to walk in — two sizes too small, and stiff as iron. The clothes were little better: a rough serge dress with arrows stamped all over it, and a ragged, yellow-stained apron and cap. Already she felt so grimy she would have welcomed a bath even as filthy as the one she had had that first day. And always she was cold. On the first day she lad huddled on her bed with her blanket round her,