The Matron of Redwater House – Part 1: Admission Day

Redwater House of Correction had once held two hundred and fifty prisoners and now held tourist groups on Tuesdays. After the last coach had gone, the red-brick building was silent: a long wing of cells, a stone staircase, a heavy oak door to the matron's office, and, in the office, a high desk with a lamp, a ledger and a pen.

Octavia sat behind the desk in a long dark dress with a stiff white collar and a bunch of keys at her waist. She was fifty-three, a retired headmistress with a spine like a ruler. Hugh was forty-five, a conservation architect, tall and gentle and always apologising, who had told her, over the washing-up, that the only thing that had ever stilled his mind was being told, firmly, exactly what to do.

He stood in front of the desk in his coat, hat in hand, while she wrote in the ledger.

"Name."

"Hugh Ellery."

"You may sit when you are told, Ellery."

"Yes, Matron."

She set down the pen and slid a card across the leather. Rules of the House. Two pages, signed by them both the week before. No marks. Nothing painful beyond what he had agreed. No real humiliation. No photographs. No one else in the building. The cell door had a plain iron latch on the inside. The word was Visiting Hour.

"Say it."

"Visiting Hour."

"If you say it, the Matron removes her collar. I am Octavia. We sit in the kitchen and eat toast."

"Yes, Matron."

"Good." She rose, took a grey wool shawl from the back of the chair, wrapped it round her shoulders and became, with no visible effort, someone else. Her voice, when it came, was crisp and cold and absolutely precise. "Inmate Ellery. You have been committed to this house for idleness and impertinence. You will be addressed by surname. You will walk where you are directed. You will speak when you are spoken to. Hat and coat on the peg."

He hung them up. She came round the desk and inspected him slowly, from his shoes to his collar, with a finger under his chin.

"Stand straight."

He stood straight.

"You are very untidy."

"Yes, Matron."

"We shall correct that." She turned the key on the hook beside the door. "Are you content, Ellery?"

"Content, Matron."

"Good. Follow."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Visiting Hour.