‘I can’t be responsible for how I react,’ I explained. Because I was on suicide watch the screws were meant to check on me every hour, although I think they only looked in about once a night. It was November by then and winter was getting a grip. The cell grew cold at night because the window wouldn’t shut properly, and there was only one hot pipe running through it. Sometimes the pigeons would barge their way in and shit on the beds.
As soon as everyone was locked up for the night and the screws had gone off the wing a riot of noise went up as people shouted to one another from cell to cell.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘Everyone’s doing lines.’
He explained how inmates would pass things back and forth between the windows. They would unpick threads from the blankets, which was why they were so full of holes, tie them together with a weight on one end and the drugs they wanted to pass. They’d feed it out the window on the end of a broom handle or whatever they could get and it was passed down the line from one cell to the next. My cellmate was a heroin addict, so he would get heroin sent along to him from about ten cells away.
‘Pass that line!’ the shout would go.
‘Pass the line!’
‘Where’s that fucking line?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘If you’re fucking about with my fucking gear I’m gonna fucking do yer as soon as this cell door opens.’
When his delivery finally made it he asked if I wanted some.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t do it.’
He got some foil off a Kit-Kat and a pen top and lit the heroin, sucking up the smoke, dulling whatever pain he had in his head. I remembered that feeling so well from drinking and cocaine, but I didn’t want to go back there, not when I needed to have all my wits about me. Eventually I made it into a shallow, dream-disturbed sleep.
‘What time’s breakfast?’ I asked when we woke up, imagining the toast and cereal I’d got used to at Forest Bank.
‘You have to get your breakfast the night before,’ he told me, showing me the bowl of cereal and carton of milk he’d got.
It was impossible to work out what I was meant to be doing. The screws did nothing but shout and swear and I was dependent on other inmates to explain the system, but it was just a question of survival. By the time we got into the canteen for lunch the food had virtually gone. Jimmy was working behind the servery and slapped some carrots on my plate, then winked.
‘Is that it?’ I asked, looking at the screw.
‘Yes, that is fucking it,’ he snarled. ‘Have you got a problem with that?’
‘I’m fucking hungry. I’ve had no fucking breakfast.’
‘Fucking move it, or I’ll put you on report.’
By the time I got back to my cell I was in despair. The mixture of fear and hunger reminded me so much of my childhood. I didn’t think I was going to be able to hold on to my sanity.
‘Do you want something to eat?’
I looked up and Jimmy was standing in the door in his whites. He passed me a bowl with some chips and a sort of burger in it.
‘You fucking gent, Jim.’
The next day I was moved down to the second floor to share with Jimmy and they gave me a job as a cleaner. I felt like I’d been saved by a guardian angel.
‘Told you I’d fucking sort you out.’ He grinned. ‘You’ll be all right with me. I’ve got a TV, a kettle. There’s tea and coffee in that Tupperware box. I’ve done a lot of jail, I’ll show you how it works. Uncle Jim’s here now, he’s going to look after you.’
The cell was still filthy with age, but Jimmy had done his best and at least it had a window that would shut. You were only allowed to have one pillow but Jimmy had got three on each bunk. The beds were made and the floor was polished. I immediately felt safer; I’d found myself a new father figure.
They kitted me out with a pair of overalls and some steel-capped boots. Cleaning at Strangeways was very different to Forest Bank, so much steelwork, brickwork and old floors where you had to get down on your knees and scrub. You had to climb on to the netting to polish in between the railings. In the servery I had to give out the bread and wash all the dirty pots up. The scars on my arms were still quite raw and sometimes bled, which worried me a bit when I was working in the filthy, slimy washing-up water, and when I saw the rats running around in the shadows carrying God knows what germs with them. But I didn’t care how hard the work was, I just wanted to be busy and to keep my mind distracted from the thoughts and memories and fears that competed to overwhelm me.
There was no toast in Strangeways, and it’s amazing how much you start missing little luxuries like that, especially when the normal food was so shit. Jimmy taught me how to make cheese on toast using an iron. He’d go to the office and tell them he needed to press his trousers for a visit the next day. He then secreted it in the cell, along with some greaseproof paper, and cooked us a little late-night snack — just the smell was enough to drive me wild.
He also sorted me out with a phone card so I could talk to Tracey. He phoned Mum himself to reassure her he was going to look after me. The attitude of the screws immediately seemed to change towards me, as if I’d proved myself to them simply by being a friend of Jimmy’s. But they still needed to show that they were completely in control and had power over everybody. A couple of them let me know that they were regulars in Mum’s pub and that they would look after me. One of them was a night watchman and every so often he would shove a newspaper underneath my door. Little gestures like that made a big difference. It made me think that perhaps I wasn’t quite as naughty a boy as the system was trying to make me believe.
‘You all right?’ the night watchman would ask if we passed. ‘I was in the pub last night. Your mum sends her regards.’
I felt a glimmer of hope returning; maybe everything would be all right in the end. I had all my case files with me in the cell and Jimmy and I would look through them together, trying to work out what was likely to happen once I got into court. When we got talking I told him about the babysitter who used to interfere with us. He knew him, because they’d been around the same age when we all lived in Smallshaw Lane.
‘The dirty bastard,’ he said. ‘You know his son’s in here, don’t you?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You want to know something else that’ll shock you?’
‘What?’
‘He’s called Stuart.’
Had he chosen the name because of me? I didn’t know what to make of it.
‘Can you get to him?’ I asked. ‘He might know something about his dad. God, I hope he hasn’t abused him too.’ But the kid was released before Jimmy could get to him.
Tracey was able to get in to see me each day, and even though the screws tended to make nasty remarks to her, it was bearable as long as we got to see one another.
If inmates got to hear that anyone was in there for rape or child abuse, it was never long before they got beaten up, even if they hadn’t been convicted; an accusation was enough. The place was so scary, so volatile with gangs and drugs, fights and beatings happening all the time, I could sense danger all around.
There was a young black lad who swore he was in for assault, but whispers were beginning to go about that it was rape.
‘You better get these rumours sorted out,’ I told him when we were walking back from visiting time together one day, ‘because if it comes out you are in here for rape you’ll get done. You know that and I know that.’
I was working on the servery a few nights later, sweating in the heat. I saw the same black lad come through but thought nothing of it. A minute later the bells were ringing and the keys were jangling as the screws came running in shouting.
‘Out the way! Out the way!’
I got a glimpse of the lad being taken out and there was blood everywhere. I thought no more about it, just kept serving up the dinners. Incidents like that were happening all the time.
A grey-haired security officer came
in. ‘Howarth! You! Out here!’
‘Me, boss?’
‘I’m not fucking speaking to anyone else. Out here now.’
There were two screws waiting and I was taken up to the office. ‘What the fuck’s going on with you and this black lad?’
‘What black lad?’
‘The rapist, you know the one. He’s down in the hospital now. He’s got a broken jaw. He’s been slashed across the eye. Four lads have done him in the recess with their trays.’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’
‘I’ll tell you what that’s got to do with you. He tells me the big lad on the servery with all the scars on his arms said something to him the other day about “You’d better sort it out in case you’re a rapist”. Whether he’s a rapist or not, whether he’s a nig-nog or not, we’ve got a job to do here. I looked at your file. I saw what you’re in for. You’ve been abused and you’ve killed your stepfather. I might have bloody known you’d set this up.’
‘I haven’t set anything up. I was on the servery, working. How could it have been me?’
‘There’s more to this than meets the eye. I’ve done my damnedest to keep you on this wing. A lot of people are rooting for you. I do my best for you. You should be on E Wing; you’re a potential lifer. You know you’re getting life for what you’ve done, don’t yer?’
‘Boss, I’ve not done nothing. Why are you having a go at me?’
‘Well, I’m telling yer. I’ve stuck my neck on the line for you, but you have to leave this wing. I know there’s people here who know your mother, and Jimmy’s a good lad. I’ve done my best to keep you on this wing but if you’ve gotta move you’ve gotta move.’
Yet again I was reminded how fragile my security was. At any moment I could be whisked away to another wing, full of unfamiliar and unpredictable new faces and away from the safety of Jimmy’s influence.
Chapter Seventeen
DID YOU ENJOY IT?
The chaplain started corning to see me, and it turned out she knew Seb. Seb had left Christina by then and had gone off and joined the God Squad after his accident. I didn’t mind her coming to see me, and she blessed me in my cell. She gave me a Bible and said it would be nice to see me in church. I told her I was very frightened and still had a lot of issues I needed to talk about.
‘I’ll try to get you some counselling,’ she promised.
A couple of days later I was introduced to a voluntary counsellor called Neil. I was escorted to his room and once we were alone he made me a cup of coffee in a real mug. Little gestures like that mean a lot when you’re inside. I started to cry as I talked, and I noticed he wasn’t writing anything down.
‘I don’t take notes,’ he explained. That way no one else can ever get to use them against you. I will respect your privacy and whatever you tell me in this room will stay with me.’
I immediately felt comfortable with him and started seeing him once a week.
I came back to the cell one day to find Jimmy packing. ‘Where are you going?’
‘They’re sending me on a course for alcoholics, to get me ready for going back outside.’
‘Do you have to go? Can’t you put it off?’
‘No. Don’t worry. I’ve been on them before. I’ll be back in a couple of days.’
When a screw finally came to move me to E Wing with all the ‘lifers’ I was full of fear. I knew it would mean living among killers and violent people, and I never saw myself as being one of them, even if the authorities did. The wing was divided into two halves, and the only vacancy was on the maximum security side. I got a single cell, which I asked for, but I was in amongst the most hardcore prisoners now. It might have been a buzz to hang out with notorious gangsters in the clubs, but being trapped in prison with them was terrifying. Because many of them were preparing their cases in there they were allowed to have all the evidence they needed to go over for their defences, which meant there were some gruesome photographs and autopsy reports going about, which they would show off proudly, sometimes selling their trophies off to other ghouls.
‘He’s off ’is ’ead, isn’t he?’ one man chuckled to me over lunch one day, giving me a knowing nudge.
I looked down at the photo he was holding out for me and saw the head of his victim severed from its body. He told me he’d removed it with a hacksaw. Even though I averted my eyes, the image had already burned itself into my memory and would never leave.
There were only thirty or forty people on the wing and as soon as I arrived they asked me if I wanted a cleaning job. There were all sorts of rules left over from when the place was full of IRA men, like having to change cells every twenty-eight days in case you were trying to escape. I was excused that as I was a category B prisoner, despite being on that wing. Visitors also had to come right into the prison, which Tracey found very daunting, having to walk past men who would shout obscenities at her. My cell faced out over the street, so after she had been to visit I could run back up there and wave to her as she left, prolonging the visit a few moments longer, making it feel like we were still linked outside the confines of the visitors’ room. She looked so tiny and far away in the bleak, empty streets that surround Strangeways.
There were far more screws everywhere on E Wing, many of them the hardest and meanest men in the service. The worst part for me was that they were constantly strip-searching us, before and after every visit. I’d noticed there was a sign on the wall instructing them on how to perform the searches, but they never bothered to follow the procedures or protect our privacy or dignity in any way. They were always particularly racist towards the black lads, making them squat and spread the cheeks of their arses while they just sat there eating their butties.
Sometimes they would make little comments. ‘You’re a big boy,’ one would say to me. ‘Been taking your steroids, have you?’
‘Oh look,’ another commented. ‘Your balls are all shrivelled up.’
‘Why do you have to say anything when I get undressed?’ I asked. ‘Why do you have to say anything at all?’
They just smirked.
No matter how often it happened I could never get used to it, never stop the feelings of being a small vulnerable boy again, trembling in expectation of a beating or a raping, remembering how Dad used to inspect me before he did things to me.
Padhee Singh and my barrister wanted me to have a psychiatric report because part of my defence was going to be manslaughter on the grounds of mental instability. I would come back from sessions with the psychiatrist, having been reliving the most terrifying and humiliating experiences of my childhood, talking about being raped and buggered, only to have to go through an invasive strip-search immediately afterwards as I was brought back on to the wing, having already been through one on my way out.
‘Can I just have a moment, please, boss,’ I would plead. ‘Just to get my head together.’
‘No. Get your fucking clothes off.’
I was starting to learn a lot about child abuse from the various counsellors and psychologists I was talking to, and the general consensus seemed to be that victims such as me came away from the experience suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in much the same way as soldiers returning from active duty might. The fear and insecurity experienced on a battlefield in a war zone has a similar effect to being constantly brutalized and terrorized as a child. In a way it was comforting that the experts believed that all the things I saw as being my problems were in fact explainable and understandable, once it was known what I had been through. On the other hand it also made me very angry to think that all my unhappiness — and the unhappiness I caused in the lives of those I loved — had been brought about by the one man who was supposed to love and protect me, my dad.
The cell they gave me was a hole, with a window that wouldn’t shut, no matter how hard I tried. The birds kept getting in, shitting over everything and stealing any food that I might manage to get.
I’d been receiving letters from Tracey every day, and s
uddenly they started to be delayed and I couldn’t understand why.
‘You all right, CutieP’ a screw asked one day, and the penny dropped. ‘Cutie Face’ was a pet name Tracey would use for me in my letters, and I would call her ‘Tracey Doll’. Not only were they intercepting my mail, they didn’t care if I knew it. The comments kept coming all the time, like playground taunts. I couldn’t understand why they were treating me like that. Then my canteen supplies didn’t turn up. I went down to the office to complain. I don’t think I got aggressive, but I was definitely feeling frustrated. Tuck off back to your cell,’ they told me.
The next thing I knew I’d been sacked from my cleaning job. They obviously wanted me to know that they were in charge and they could do whatever they liked to me. If I complained or tried to stand up for myself, things would just get worse. Yet again I felt like a helpless child, surrounded by unkind adults.
‘Howarth!’ a screw barked one evening. ‘You’ve got a police visit tomorrow.’
I could sense dozens of pairs of ears pricking up around me. The last thing anyone in a maximum-security wing wants to hear is that one of their fellow inmates is going to be having a chat with the police. Who knows what subjects might come up in the course of the conversation? If the police were coming to see me, it meant there was a strong possibility I was a grass, the one thing that absolutely no one in a prison will tolerate. I had been warned not to discuss my case in the cells, for fear of being overheard; paranoia is everywhere in a prison. The police actually wanted to talk to me about the case they were building up against the abusive babysitter.
I was angry with the screw for putting me in such a dangerous situation, and I told him so. He couldn’t have cared less. Sometimes they actually seemed to take pleasure in messing me about: turning up late when I had to be escorted to fetch my medication, or not turning up at all so I would miss one of my counselling sessions with Neil. They had complete power over my destiny, just like Dad had when I was a kid.
Please, Daddy, No: A Boy Betrayed Page 16