The Enemy of the Good

by Michael Arditti

  ‘Not even me?’

  ‘Not even Stick and he’s the model! If it works, it’ll make waves. Prison’s left its mark on me. I’d like to repay the compliment.’

  ‘And that guy’s your Christ?’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘He couldn’t be more different from Rafik.’

  ‘But if you shared my beliefs – which, unless you drove here via Damascus, I know you don’t – you’d see that as a plus. He’s a sweet man, though he can be something of a handful. He’s been in and out of institutions since he was twelve. He told me the other day that I didn’t understand what it was like to be sent away from home so young. “Oh, don’t I?” I said. “I was sent away at the age of eight.” “What you done then?” he asked with a wide-eyed respect, as if I were one of the Kray brothers. I hadn’t the heart to tell him that my only crime was to have been born into a fee-paying family.’

  ‘Two cultures.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s more like one and a half. But he really wants to pick himself up and do his best for his son – and I suppose for his baby. He showed me a letter he’d written to his wife who, I must admit, I’d pictured as somewhat younger. He asked me to check the spelling, which was a joke. He prayed for his son “to be kept safe mentally and fiscaly”. There was only one l, but I was amazed that he knew the word at all.’

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t physically?’

  ‘What? Oh shit!’

  ‘Don’t worry. You may be right. We’d all like to protect our loved ones from the long reach of the Revenue.’

  ‘I’m so stupid. Not his bad spelling but my twisted values.’

  For all Mike’s attempts to cheer him, Clement’s self-reproach cast a chill on the rest of the visit. He vowed to make up for his error when Stick modelled for him the next day, but his resolve was sorely tested when he walked down the landing to find him cowering from a small crowd which stood hooting at his newly bald head. His initial shock at seeing how the boyish face had been hardened turned to fury at Stick’s lack of consideration for the painting. Before he had a chance to remonstrate, Stick ran up and grabbed his T-shirt.

  ‘Sir, sir,’ he appealed, to Clement’s dismay and the crowd’s derision. ‘You’ll say you told me to do it for the picture! Promise us you will, please!’

  ‘But I didn’t. Quite the opposite. Whatever were you thinking?’

  ‘He thinks with his arse!’

  ‘Makes a change from what he usually does with it.’

  Stick’s cell-mate explained that he was in trouble with the authorities since, having shaved his head without permission, he no longer matched his photograph on the prison computer. His anger melting, Clement offered to do what he could, although he held out little hope given that many of the officers were opposed to the painting itself. Stick took heart, displaying a touching faith in the power of an Oxford accent, and started to sneer at the ‘losers’ who were off to the workshops while he earned a higher rate for standing still.

  ‘I’m gonna be famous. Have my picture in all the papers.’

  ‘Yeah. Under the headline Vicious Thug.’

  ‘No. Reward For Lost Pet.’

  ‘Reward for putting him down, more like.’

  ‘You painting him bare-arsed then? Full brooch and earrings?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ His decision that the crucified figures would be wearing prison uniform had been taken long before the governor’s red-faced request that “perhaps there shouldn’t be any nudity?”’

  ‘Thank Christ for that!’

  ‘No point anyway. Not with Stick. Nothing there.’

  ‘What about my kid? How do you make him out then, Clever Clogs?’

  ‘Don’t push it, son!’

  ‘You have two children,’ Clement interjected rapidly. ‘I saw you with a baby in the visiting room.’

  ‘That ain’t his.’

  ‘Tis too!’

  ‘It ain’t his baby, it’s his stash.’

  ‘Say hello to Charlie.’

  ‘Charlie seemed very well-behaved,’ Clement said, baffled by the burst of mocking laughter.

  ‘You should have seen what was in his nappy. Gets right up your nose, don’t it, Stick?’

  ‘Leave it out!’

  ‘Smell all that lovely white shit.’

  ‘Oh I see!’ Clement finally picked up the insinuation, understanding the reason for both Stick’s agitation and his haircut. He was awestruck at his ingenuity in finding the one hiding place that even the most zealous officer wouldn’t search. As they were led down to the art room, he thought of ways to incorporate Stick’s new image into his central figure, the nicks and cuts on his scalp becoming the scars from a latter-day crown of thorns.

  He entered the room, setting up the easel while Officer Kirkbride unlocked the supply cupboard and Stick stared vacantly out of the window, finding even the vista of matchbox houses preferable to work. The officer went out, leaving Clement to study the canvas on which the broad outline of three crucified figures was taking shape. The responsibility was daunting. In the cheerless prison chapel, the picture would be the unique focus of attention. By embodying the link between the two thieves and Christ, he would give hope to all the thieves – and thugs, frauds, rapists and murderers – in the congregation. He was taking a risk in using Stick, not least in view of his congenital inability to keep still. Nevertheless, after twenty years of choosing models, he had learnt to trust his instincts. So, after dragging him away from the window and reinstating him in the correct pose, he started to paint. He quickly found, however, that the music he had put on to keep him occupied was too distracting. Exasperated by the snapping fingers and tapping feet, he switched it off, diverting Stick’s complaints by inviting him to tell him about his son.

  ‘I don’t even know his name.’

  ‘Melvyn,’ Stick said proudly. ‘Me and Kath wanted to give him a start in life.’ He laughed. ‘He’s a case. The other day we was talking. He said to me, “Shake the phone, Dad. Are you shaking the phone?” “Yes,” I said, shit-scared my card was gonna run out. “Me too,” he said, “it’s like we’re shaking hands.” An he’s only six.’ His face clouded. ‘I remember the first ever time I picked him out of his cot. I swore I’d always be there for him. Now look at me! What good am I to him in here?’

  ‘You won’t be inside for ever.’

  ‘Seven years. Seven poxy years. An he’ll be…’

  ‘Thirteen,’ Clement said, kicking himself for his impatience. ‘Just when he needs you most.’

  ‘I got nothing off of him on Father’s Day. That’s the hardest day of the year in here.’

  ‘It wasn’t easy for me either.’

  ‘Do you have kids then? I thought you was bent.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Clement said wincing, ‘but I had a father.’

  ‘Yeah, but you topped him cos he had Old Timers.’

  ‘I suppose that’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘What if they turn Melvyn against me – Kath’s mum and dad – and he won’t let me go to his wedding, or take him down the pub when he gets his driving test?’

  ‘Why expect the worst? What about your faith? Doesn’t that help?’

  ‘Course. I give my problems to God to solve them and He does. Trouble is I’m always grabbing them back again. What a useless piece of shit!’

  ‘Wait till the painting’s finished. You’ll see yourself in a new light.’

  ‘Yeah, as a frigging thief!’

  ‘Not only.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You’ll see later. Don’t move! Hold that pose!’

  ‘Why can’t I see it now?’

  ‘Because that’s how I work. I’m superstitious. Besides we agreed.’

  ‘But it’s my face you’re using!’

  ‘Trust me, there’s nothing to get worked up about.’

  ‘Officer Willis said I had to watch out, that you painted a picture for Westminster Abbey and gave the Lord Jesus a hard-on.’ />
  ‘That’s a filthy lie!’

  ‘He said it was a filthy picture… It’s my face; I have a right to see what you’re doing!’ Too fast for Clement to stop him, Stick strode over and stared at the painting. ‘Fucking hell, it’s me three times!’

  ‘Christ and the two thieves, yes.’

  ‘Why? Couldn’t you get no other mug to stand here then?’

  ‘Quite the opposite; you’ve seen how jealous the others are of you. I’ve painted it like this because it’s what I want to say. Not just that Christ is in us, but that we are all Christ.’

  ‘You mean, like lots of gods like?’

  ‘No, like lots of bits of the same God. We aren’t separate from Him. How can we be when He created us out of Himself? Think about it: what else was there?’

  ‘The Garden of Eden?’

  ‘Long before that. Long before space, long even before nothingness. There was no blank canvas, no paint, just God. We are all of us – and now I am speaking literally – made of God’s love.’

  ‘What about the geezers in the nick?’

  ‘Love – God’s love – can’t be divided. It’s in us all.’

  ‘What about the nonces on the rule?’

  ‘Them too.’

  ‘No, they’re sick bastards who are gonna burn in Hell!’

  ‘There is no Hell. Can’t you see that it’s just being held up to frighten you? Like locking little kids in the coal shed, except that now they’re locked in there forever and the coals are burning hot.’

  ‘Officer Willis said you’d try to mess with my head.’

  ‘He’s a fine one to talk…! No, I tell a lie – ’

  ‘Yeah, at last you admit it!’

  ‘There is a Hell. Of course there is. But, in His eternal torment on the Cross, Christ is the only one in it.’

  ‘Shut it, can’t you? What are you trying to do to me?’ Clement despaired of his ineptitude in the face of Stick’s distress. ‘You said I was gonna be one of the thieves. I wanted to be the good one. I thought… I hoped that, like that, like, I could get into Heaven, even though I’d done wrong.’

  ‘And you will!’

  ‘You never said I’d be both of them.’

  ‘I was afraid you might be confused.’

  ‘I am bloody confused!’

  ‘That’s because the painting isn’t finished. If we can only get back to work, you’ll see.’

  ‘And you never said anything about how I’d be the Lord Jesus.’

  You didn’t ask.’

  ‘I never thought anyone could be so thick… When I was at nursery school, we did a Christmas play. I was going to be a shepherd but I did summet wrong and the teacher changed me into one of Herod’s soldiers.’

  ‘That was twenty years ago.’

  ‘I’ve done much, much worse since then. If I wasn’t fit to be a shepherd, I’m certainly not fit to be the Lord Jesus!’

  ‘Of course you are. That’s what I’ve been trying to explain. Christ took your flesh, like he took mine, to show once and for all that we are fit.’

  ‘You’re doing my head in!’ Stick grabbed the brush jar, slammed it against the table, broke it and brandished a shard. Clement watched aghast at the way Stick’s natural volatility had been heightened by the cocaine. Nothing in his life, not even the Roxborough protest, had prepared him for such unprovoked violence.

  ‘Come on, Stick. This isn’t you,’ he said, trying to calm him.

  ‘What do you know about me? Nothing. Think you know everything, you do!’

  ‘Not at all,’ Clement said, as the blood coursed through his veins. ‘I want to know more. Much more. Tell me about Melvyn.’ He aimed to keep Stick talking until his anger burnt itself out.

  ‘Fuck off! I’m not telling you nothing. You’ll just use it against me.’

  As Stick waved the glass in the air, it was clear that he was excited, even aroused, by his own potency. Clement feared that it would take too long to bring him down. His best hope was to make a quick dash for the door. All other concerns vanished, however, when Stick moved dangerously close to the painting.

  ‘Take care!’ he shouted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The picture. You’ll damage the picture!’

  Heedless of his own safety, Clement thrust forward, ready to grapple with Stick to protect the painting.

  ‘Come on then if you think you can take me!’ Stick taunted. ‘You think you’re hard, do you?’ he asked, wielding the glass wildly. Clement grabbed his arm, but Stick was too fast for him and slashed his face. Clement felt a searing pain and a gush of warmth on his cheek. He heard a scream, but found to his surprise that it wasn’t his. He looked up and saw, first, that Stick had slit his wrist and, then, that the blood had splattered the canvas. Aghast at the confusion of suffering, he ran to the door and jammed his hand on the bell.

  5

  Six months into his sentence, with his face newly stitched and bandaged, Clement was moved to the Vulnerable Prisoners Unit. The governor insisted that it was for his own protection, admitting when pressed that he couldn’t risk further injury to someone with such a high public profile. Dismissing Clement’s protests, he explained that the VPU not only housed sex-offenders but drug dealers and their defaulting clients, former policemen and informers, travellers and victims of intimidation. ‘That makes me feel much better, sir,’ Clement said, with an irony the governor ignored. Yet, for all the horror of his position, Clement refused to be cast down; there was a reason for his suffering this latest ignominy, which in time would become clear.

  With keys rattling more ominously than ever, Officer Henshaw unlocked the doors, first of the VPU and then of Clement’s cell which, from the feral smell, seemed to have been harbouring a pack of wild cats. Learning that his cell-mate was on a ‘pig course’, Clement seized the opportunity to explore. A cursory glance at the photographs, prayer shawl and stack of Hebrew books showed that this cell-mate was not only the first Jew he had encountered in prison but a scholar. Hoping for a lively exchange of views, he was taken aback when the door opened on a heavily built, heavily bearded man with a Chassid’s fringes poking out of his tracksuit top. With a pang of guilt, as much for his alarm as for his prying, he held out a hand and introduced himself.

  ‘Clement Granville.’

  ‘The painter?’

  ‘You know my work?’

  ‘I know your story: how a prisoner stabbed you when you forced him to take up an obscene pose.’

  ‘That’s nonsense!’

  ‘It’s no concern of mine. You Gentiles fight it out amongst yourselves! I have no interest in your religion or your art.’

  Clement felt deflated. ‘You haven’t told me your name.’

  ‘No. I remember the way it used to sound. Shlomo Marcus. There, that’s the last time you’ll hear it. At least from me.’

  Shlomo set about dividing the space. Unlike Clement’s previous cell-mates, he was scrupulously fair, resolving any imbalance in Clement’s favour and even offering to vacate the top bunk. Watching him settle down to study, Clement speculated on both his crime and the cause of his segregation, convinced that he was no sex offender, but either a racketeering landlord who had found himself locked up among his former tenants, or else the victim of militant Muslims.

  The sight of Shlomo put him in mind of his sister who, despite being the one member of his immediate family yet to visit him, had been a diligent correspondent, her letters an odd mixture of media gossip and the humdrum details of Lubavitch life. Her last had described how she and Zvi had spent a week living in a homemade hut in the garden for the festival of Sukkot. It had drizzled non-stop through the makeshift roof, but she claimed not to have cared since it was a link with the exiled Jews in the desert. Although he detected an element of bravado in her account, he had no doubts of its sincerity. He had finally accepted that Susannah would never be coming back and Shoana was here to stay. Her letters were a way both to remind him of it and to show that she wanted him to remain part
of her life.

  It suddenly struck him that this might be the reason for which he had been searching. Had God placed him with Shlomo in order to deepen his understanding of his sister’s faith? He would have to tread carefully, since it was evident that his cell-mate would not invite intimacy. So, instead of engaging him in conversation, he picked up his newspaper, but his throbbing cheek made reading impossible and he gazed wistfully at the TV, weighing his need for distraction against Shlomo’s for quiet. When the boredom grew too intense, he switched on the set, promising to keep the sound down. ‘No need,’ Shlomo said coldly, ‘after five years at a yeshiva, I’m impervious to noise.’ Flicking through a treasure hunt, horse racing and children’s cartoons, Clement opted for a chat show hosted by a former model, whose hourglass figure was running rapidly out of time. Appalled at her fatuousness, he seized on the chance to escape for tea. His hope that Shlomo would introduce him to the Unit was dashed when, barely looking up from his book, he announced that his food would be sent up later. So he made his own way to the hatch where a queue had already formed.

  To his delight, he spotted Joe and walked over to him but, instead of a hug or even a welcoming smile, he gave him a curt nod and stared at his tray. Chastened, he took his place at the end of the line. Watching Joe pick up his food and return to his cell without a single backward glance, he struggled to account for his transformation, wondering if he had been so traumatised by life on the Unit that he believed any friendship, and above all one with a gay man, must be tainted, or else if he had become so mistrustful that he saw every new arrival as a threat.

  Mourning the loss of a kindred spirit, he was doubly grateful for the cordial greeting of a plump West Indian, who appeared to have spent his entire canteen allowance on peroxide. ‘I’m Dusty,’ he said, ‘as in Springfield.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Clement.’ As he held out his hand, he was intercepted by a pug-nosed Scotsman with LOVE and HAT inked on his knuckles.

  ‘Take care! Yer don’t want to mix with that nonce!’

  ‘Oh fuck off, Ron, you cripple!’ Dusty pranced around, twiddling his little finger in mockery of Ron’s missing one, before shaking his box of breakfast cereal in his face. ‘Mm, paedo pops,’ he said, with a defiance which in ordinary circumstances might have earned Clement’s respect but here made him feel sick.