Yours sincerely,

Snow Delaney

Silverwater Prison

Dear Ms Delaney,

Thank you for your letter.

You say that everybody knows how you got the name Snow but since I have no idea you’ll have to fill me in.

You are quite right, I do believe that you know more than you are saying about the disappearance of your sister. I’m sorry that you think that’s unfair, but you still haven’t told me precisely where I have gone wrong in my stories so I can start working on my correction.

While you are at it, why don’t you take some time to tell me how you are being treated in Silverwater because I’m also interested in your rehabilitation?

Yours sincerely,

Jack Fawcett

Journalist

The Sunday Times

Dear Jack,

God, you made me laugh just then. You’re interested in my rehabilitation?

Don’t tell me that you’re one of those people who think prison is supposed to rehabilitate people, because if you are you have less of an idea how things work than I thought.

Prison doesn’t rehabilitate. What prison does is teach people how to take drugs and how to be lesbians, and if you think I’m lying you should come here and see it for yourself.

Every single one of the women in here with me is zonked out of their head on Valium or methadone, and the ones who aren’t zonked out are cuddled up doing open-mouthed kissing with each other. The weird thing is most of them weren’t gay before they got here and I know that because they’ve got kids.

Anyway, don’t pretend you’re interested in me when all you’re really interested in is getting a scoop, not that you’re going to be able to get much of a scoop since you’re confused about everything.

You want to know what you got wrong. Well, for example I saw in your article how you drove to my old home town of Deer Park and you went around to all the old neighbours asking about me. You talked to old Mrs Andrewartha who used to live two doors up and she said, ‘Oh, we couldn’t believe it when we heard that Snow was in jail.’

She can’t believe it? I can tell you for free that I can’t believe it, Jack.

She said, ‘Oh, she was such a nice girl and she had that lovely name, Snow, and we always wondered where she got it.’

Do you know what I thought when I read that, Jack? I thought, ‘How can Mrs Andrewartha still be alive? She was already an old bag when I was a girl!’

No, I’m joking, what I actually thought was, ‘How can Mrs Andrewartha not know how I got the name Snow? Because it’s pretty obvious.

My first name is Sally.

My middle name is Narelle.

My surname before I changed it, which old Mrs Andrewartha knows since she lived next door to my mother for forty years, was Olarenshaw.

I don’t see how anyone needs to be told that when your name is Sally Narelle Olarenshaw, your initials are going to be S. . .N. . .O. SNO, Jack?