The Monstrous Heart by Oliver Emanuel
I never read a lot when I was a kid, did I ? You didn’t like books in the house. Said they were messy. Smelly.
Book Group was a revelation. We met the first Tuesday of the month in the prison library. It was run by a posh woman called Caroline. Caroline was a wee bit socially retarded but her heart was in the right place. I bloody loved the book group. You’ve got to appreciate there’s almost no rehabilitation inside. Don’t believe the media. It’s not all mindfulness and reflexology. You work in the factory. You sit in your cell. There’s very little to get your brain working. I joined Book Group and everything changed.
MAG ignores the question.
We read everything. Thrillers. Romance. Classics. We weren’t snobs. We were as happy reading fucking Middlemarch as Jack Reacher. Ever read any Jack Reacher? It’s excellent.
That first year inside was rough.
I’d done time before but not like this.
I never found it easy to make friends did I?
Reading all these books opened up other lives to me.
What’s your favourite book?
Do you want to know mine? The best book ever written. In my humble opinion.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
I’m telling you: you’ve got to read this book.
I read it twice. I got to the end then went back to the first page and started over.
I. Could. Not. Put. It. Down.
Do you know how old she was when she wrote it?
Eighteen! Can you believe that? Fuck me. To think of all the shit I was doing at that age. Mary Shelley was writing the best novel in the history of literature! But she was the daughter of writers. It was in her blood. Some of us aren’t that lucky.
She looks at MAG. Nothing.
The problem with the book group, the problem with prison, was that none of those bastards had any imagination. Their minds are rocks. They cannot imagine what it’s like to be another human being. Leave aside the fact that this is probably the reason they are inside in the first place, it makes it nearly fucking impossible to have a decent conversation about books.
This is what happened the day we did Frankenstein.
As usual, Caroline reads some stuff out that she’s pinched from Wikipedia. Historical context. Contemporary reviews, that kind of thing. Next she kicks off the discussion with a provocation, a question, to get the ball rolling. This week’s provocation: who is the real monster?
I’ll tell you something that may surprise you, Margaret. I was a bit of a star of the book group. I wasn’t very good at school was I? But this was my thing. I found myself. Not only would I read the books cover to cover, I’d do secondary reading, essays and the like, so I could fully appreciate the author’s oeuvre. It was understood that I was the boss.
Caroline asked the question and I answered it. That’s how it went down. Normally. Not this time.
This time, some uppity bitch called Safie stood up and started yelling her head off.
She shouldn’t even be in the main prison at all but the Young Offenders was full.
Safie didn’t know the rules of the book group.
She was yelling and spitting and waving the book around by its covers, scattering pages, raging. She hated Frankenstein. She hated everything about it. She didn’t understand why a young woman would write this book let alone why people would read it. It repelled her. Safie said that obviously the monster was the monster because it killed a kid. That was the worst crime. She said that the monster was born evil and anyone who said different was a fucking monster too.
Ahem, I interjected. I wanted to bring back a semblance of calm to the room. Reason and logic. Notice that I did not resort to violence or name-calling.
Ahem. Excuse me. Safie, is it? Hello, love. May I ask a question? A couple actually. Firstly, how many acts of evil must a person commit to quality as a ‘monster’? Is there a specific number? One? Two? Seventeen…? And how do you define ‘evil’? Can a person truly be ‘born evil’? Surely there was a moment - a second - when it was as innocent as a lamb. What about the doctor? Doesn't the doctor take some responsibility? Isn't her to blame for releasing the monster into the world in the first place? Couldn’t you argue, Safie love, that it is the creator not the created that is the real monster in all this?
Then Safie punched me in the face.
I should’ve seen it coming. Not the first time the book group has descended into violence. People hold their opinions very highly these days, don’t you find?
Safie punches me so I punch her then someone defends her and we’re off to the races. Mayhem. Poor Caroline gets a black eye. I get a month in solitary and am banned from book group for three more.
I bump into Safie a couple of months later. We get chatting. Turns out, Safie’s as bright as a button. An expert in computers. Serving two years for setting up a website for her sex trafficker boyfriend. Safie can basically do anything with a computer. I explain my predicament so when she’s out, Safie tracks you down. She sorts me with a passport and the tickets. Bit of a legend, our Safie.
BETH stops in front of MAG.
Reading that book got me thinking.
I wanted to ask you something.
It - it’s something I’ve wanted to know for a long time.
I know I should let it go but it’s been building inside me. I can’t forget it, I can’t sleep.
Silence. It can last as long as you like… until the answer is clear.
I knew it! I bloody well knew it!
She claps her hands, walks away from MAG who remains still.
You never loved me, did you? Not even for a second. What was it? Do you know? Was there something weird about my birth? What? Did I have a horrible birthmark? Was I born with teeth? What?
