The eye to the sky is chalk blue this morning. Chalk blue to go with marine blue to go with every-other-fuckin'-blue to keep you calmed the fuck down. But it's magic, eh? A magic morning arriving with this perfect little blue patch. Dust catches in the light like pixie dust. From the bunk below, hands stretched behind head, Franky Doyle takes this observation, folds it up and files it away with other unmentionable things; battles lost, hopeless sympathies, chronic nightmares. She sits up, stands, drops to the floor and begins a ritual set of push-ups. One-Two, one-two, one-two… doesn't pay to count any further. No one's going anywhere.
In her mind she keeps a map of the cells on her floor. She colours-in the ones on her side. Colours them black. She may as well go from door to door and carve into each one "F.D." Fuckin' Done. Good-bye Jacqueline.
Old Red's taken her name real seriously. What next? Ready-steady-Red and her rage – who knew she actually had it in her? That's how a mother's supposed to be, eh? One who'd kill for her kid. One to watch. Alone in the morning Franky Doyle continues shoving away and dropping back to the concrete.
One-two, one-two, one-two…
The sky is cracked that morning. Blinding yellow sun insinuates itself through the eyes and into the migraine of Erica Davidson. Caught in traffic, she attempts wincing away the throb. No use. No respite. No sleep for her the night before. It makes for a surreal world view, everything slowed, strange, muffled. She drives with automatic movements, is suspended between tears and laughter. The radio is turned down to avoid news of Wentworth Correctional Facility. Just perceptible over the airwaves is a groaning man's song;
"You've got it, just keep on pushing,
Keep on pushing,
Push the sky away…"
For the first time in memory she wishes she weren't taking the route to work. Strategy? She doesn't have a real strategy. What had Bea been thinking? She had been so close to her court date. She was a good person, had seemed familiar somehow; a someone you'd be neighbours with; who'd pass you in the grocery store and smile and give way. Then again, Erica Davidson had her groceries delivered. Shopping hours didn't coincide with late nights.
But Bea? She must have been pushed. Erica swallowed. She was well aware of who stood to gain when Jacs Holt was out of the picture. The thought drained the blood from her face. A car horn sounded behind her, shaking her. The traffic was moving again. She advances towards the red eyes of brake lights. Let today pass quickly, without incident. Let today be forgettable.
The police are present yet again. They won't have difficulty discovering the facts of the matter, Bea denies nothing. Erica watches these proceedings, walks out, watches the expressions of her subordinates, the contorting features of the women she is charged with aiding, all of it in sickening slow-motion. They call out, rattle chairs, doors, they chant:
"…Bea! Queen Bea! Queen BEA…!"
The woman at the centre of attention appears as blank as Erica feels. There is no winner here. Not really.
Keep on pushing,
keep on pushing…
At some point in the morning there is a moment when it is only the two of them, governor and murderess in the office. Erica searches the features of the woman before her. She doesn't see evil. No revelation here.
"Bea," she begins, "I don't understand. You know this will do nothing to assist in…" She loses her words. What difference did understanding have now?
In time, Bea turns her head, eyes flickering over Erica's hand, lingering on the engagement ring. She smiles almost shyly.
"He's a good man, is he?"
Erica hesitates, then nods. This line of questioning doesn't seem to go well for her.
"I hope so." Bea nods too, earnestly, sweetly even. "I hope he never hits you. Never forces you to…" She sighs. Takes a moment to watch her hands. "See, I don't have anyone waiting for me now. No one I want to see," she looks up, "not anymore."
"You can't think like that. Surely – you have parents? Family…?"
But Bea has settled to silently gazing out of the window. She looks tired. Erica watches her and feels the weight of failure.
When Bea is taken away it is without struggle.
Erica Davidson remains in her office with barely a moment to rest her head in her hands. Her deputy knocks and proceeds to enter. She has an irksome quality to her voice, something too plaintive about it.
"Miss Davidson, look, I'm not sure this is the right time, y'know, not with everything going on and – "
"What is it Vera?"
"Well it's F- . We've found some vandalism-"
"Vandalism? Really? Can't you handle it?"
"It's just – it's Franky Doyle, Miss, and her acting out at the moment, with the women so wound up-"
"Yes." Erica sighs. "Yes, send her in."
In the small time before this appointment Erica finds herself checking her reflection, then cursing such a compulsion. This need to be done. Dealt with. Gone.
Doyle arrives with swagger intact, falls into the chair on the other side of the desk in the style of an aimless teenager.
"You look tired, Miss."
"Tagging, now is it, Franky? I thought you had bigger fish to fry?"
"Me? Nah, they don't let me into the kitchen these days." Her eyes are electric. "Sweet dreams were they, Miss?"
"Cut the crap." Erica snaps.
"You first."
"Okay fine. That," she gestures to the corner of the room, "Yesterday? That never happens again. Not if you want to stay where you are."
"You threatening to move me?" Her grin is unstoppable. She places both hands, palm down onto the surface before her, veins visible. "This is a lovely big table between us Erica, you'd only have to push off some of these files – "
"I will involve the police if I have to." Erica swallows. "That's extra years to your sentence, time in the – "
"Will ya? And what will you say?"
It's a no win. The governor picks up the phone, presses the same digits, speaks in her practised voice, "Yes. Thank you Vera. You can take Franky back now."
"That it?" Says the prisoner before her.
"Yes." She nods, her mind fogging over again. Her voice is cool and clear and doesn't sound like her own. "That's it. I don't want to have you in here again, is that understood? One more incident, one more minor indiscretion that I have to deal with and you're moved. No argument."
Franky Doyle folds her arms. Smiles without meaning it and nods.
"You really can't handle it, can you?"
"Don't test me."
"Don't worry about the escort," She sneers, "I'll show myself out."
Erica Davidson, alone once more sits back in her chair. She observes that the knuckles on her fists (she is making fists!) are white, displaying the shape of her bones. That is how she feels today; enough skeleton to function, barely there to think.
Franky Doyle returns with a wildness running through her, fizzing up along her spine. Things are changing without her control. Her chest feels tight, tight exactly where Jacs cut her. Was this it then? Her final revenge? Ol' Jacs managed to make a hero out of Red, managed to turn them all to her without her even doing a thing. It had to be stopped. The blood was in her ears now. Nipped in the bud. Cut out of the future.
She struts past Bea's cell to the condemning stares of a group of ten or so women. She shrugs. They call out something, something about the rather artistic "F D" scrawled over the door. Something about it being sick. She knows better than to bite back. Bloody powder keg 'round there.
Kim skips out to greet her. Latches on, twirls around, like one of those snappy bracelets you get when you're a kid. Ah, Kimmy. A sight for sore eyes.
"Place is crawling with cops," Franky says by way of greeting. "Think I need a shower to wash off the stink." She widens her eyes comically.
Kim giggles.
"You should join me." Franky states, already walking in the direction of her cell. The fizzing in her blood has reached her brain. She feels the eyes on her, crawling, looking for an angle.
She showers are empty. Good. No creeps about. Franky Doyle undresses, steps beneath the water and has approximately 2 minutes to enjoy its sensation before she is slammed into the tiles in front of her. She goes down. Her heart-rate goes up. There are three of them. They appear blurrily through the steam and pain. There's that familiar metallic taste. Looking down she observes red, swirling into pink and down the drain. She grins.
"This one's for Bea," says a voice and a boot crunches against her throat.
Another cracks her spine.
Then another.
Another.
Another… until blackness, rich and thick and sweet, overwhelms her.
It is 8:17pm and Erica Davidson sits upon a hard plastic chair. She observes the rise and fall of the chest beside her. It is a good thing. One good thing amongst it all. She raises her hand and, if only experimentally, touches it against that of the patient. She has missed the planned dinner with friends, but it's a blessing really. She can't quite make up a witty story for her life at present. She can't quite bring herself to give a snippet from her oh-so-Interesting line of work to be dissected and devoured.
Franky Doyle's right eye, the one not swollen shut, opens after some hours under pain relief. Given the damage to her throat the croaking voice shouldn't come as a shock, but it does,
"…dreamin' am I?"
Erica pulls her hand back, unsure if it was noticed, "If this is how you dream you probably shouldn't sleep."
"So you've come to give me my marching orders?"
"I wanted to see you wake up."
"Ha… anytime."
"Franky," Erica softens her voice, "You were found in the showers. Unconscious. Bleeding."
"Pretty slippery on those tiles."
"You're lying."
"That makes two of us."
"Honestly! The doctors were concerned about brain damage! With the lack of oxygen and – "
"Weird speak I did?"
"That's not funny."
"But you're smiling. It suits you."
"You should eat something, it's late."
"Eh?" Her eye appears to register the untouched tray beside her. "Dinner, was it? Geez, Miss, should you still be here?"
Erica hesitates. Exhales. "No, actually. By now I should be at a table, surrounded by friends… cracking the top of a Crème brûlée, I suppose."
The mention of the world beyond seems to extinguish something in Franky's zeal. She winces, looks at the overhead fluorescent tube.
Erica feels like a monster.
"I just wanted to see," she says more softly, "That I hadn't managed to lose two women in as many days while they are supposed to be under my care."
Franky's lip twitches at the word care. These words echo in the room.
"I can make that, y'know?" She says finally.
"What's that?"
"Brûlée." She raises an eyebrow. "Use the little torch and everything."
"That's good." Erica speaks softly. Reality has started to melt back to her, or she into it. "That's good, Franky. Is there anyone you want me to call. Last time your Dad…?"
A snorted laugh indicates the error in suggestion. Even with features so damaged it is obvious when her defences have returned. Franky Doyle stares at the ceiling wearing a medical gown and a broken smile.
"Good night, Erica." She says flatly.
In turn, Erica stands, touches the hand of the prisoner and squeezes it briefly.
One-two.
"Good-night, Franky."
She turns. Her heels echo down the hallway.
Franky Doyle closes her empty hand over the sensation. She recalls her father's hand when it had been so much larger and rougher than hers. It squeezed just like that; one-two. He'd do that. He'd do it and say "Love ya." Then even when he didn't say it, even when he'd just squeeze, she'd know what he meant.
She takes this memory and folds it up, files it away with other unmentionable things; battles lost, hopeless sympathies, chronic nightmares.