by M. J. Hyland
‘You’ll be okay,’ says Stevenson. ‘Stick with me and you’ll be okay.’
In the cell, Stevenson sits on his cot with his back against the wall and lights one cigarette from another, then wipes his hands on his trousers.
‘What are you in for?’ I say.
‘I knew you was going to ask that.’
‘You don’t have to tell me.’
He moves forward on the cot and he’s got to sit up close to the edge so as his feet can reach the floor.
I wait. He says nothing.
‘Tell me later, if you want,’ I say.
‘I’ll tell you now,’ he says. ‘I’m in for sex assault.’
He checks his cigarette packet, realises he’s already got one lit.
‘Not rape mind, just underage girls.’
He moves right up to the edge of his cot and rests his elbows on his knees, sits like a man ready for a long heart-to-heart.
‘How underage?'
‘Listen, I don’t want you getting the wrong idea. Will you try and hear me out and not jump to conclusions?'
‘Yeah.’
He holds his hand out, as though he wants me to come over and shake it.
‘You understand, mate. These are the kind of girls who look real mature for their age. Lots of make-up and kinda grown-up, well developed. You know, the type who don’t even get asked for ID when they go to clubs and stuff.’
He puts his hand in his lap, sits back a bit on the cot.
‘How old?'
‘Thirteen, twelve was the youngest. Eleven and a half she tells the court. But I don’t do children. I’m not a paedophile.’
I’m sick to the pit of my gut. I’ve got to take a deep breath to speak.
‘What did you do with them?'
‘Listen, if it’s all the same with you, I’d rather not get into the particular details.’
I lie on my back, stare up at the ceiling, try to steady my breath, slow it down.
‘Listen, Oxtoby,’ he says. ‘Basically, I get them into my car and usually they don’t even put up that much of a fight and they’re always wet once I get started. Know what I’m saying?'
As soon as I see Johnson tomorrow, I’m asking for a transfer.
‘I’m going to sleep,’ I say.
‘But it’s only eight. It’s two hours till lights out,’ he says. ‘Want to play some cards or something?'
I want to sleep, to die for a while, wake up a million miles away from this pervert.
Stevenson gets up from his cot and comes over to my cot and sits right down next to me.
I sit up.
His breath’s as bad as old vase water and his skin’s parched and lined from heavy smoking, but it’s oily too, like it’s got resin all over it.
‘I can kind of tell what you’re thinking,’ he says. ‘But I’m not as bad as all that.’
My heart’s thumping in my throat.
‘No,’ I say. ‘You seem like a decent bloke.’
‘I am that,’ he says, as he puts his hand on my leg. ‘I’m a pretty decent bloke.’
‘I can see that.’
I want his hand off me.
‘Thanks for telling me how to get on in here,’ I say.
I look him in the eyes.
He takes his hand off my leg.
‘We’re mates now,’ he says. ‘We’ve got to stick together. You’ll be in this cell with me for at least six months, maybe longer.’
‘But I’m going to have a trial soon,’ I say.
‘It’s never soon,’ he says. ‘It’ll take at least six months, maybe longer.’
‘Isn’t that some kind of miscarriage of justice?'
‘No, that’s how the law works. Slow and painful.’
He goes back to his cot, lights another cigarette and flicks the spent match into the corner near the head of my cot.
‘Listen, Oxtoby. I don’t want to upset you or nothin’, but you’ll probably die in here.’
‘I’m going to sleep,’ I say.
‘Suit yourself.’
Even when I cover my body with the two blankets, the cell’s cold.
I finally drift into sleep, but wake in the middle of the night and the blankets have fallen off and I’m very cold and my thoughts are back to what I’ve done. I’ve killed a man and there’s no going back. I did the thing regarded by the law as the worst of things and what I did adds up to no more than the act of raising and lowering a hand. My mind played hardly any part, but my body acted and, as far as the law’s concerned, my body might as well be all that I am.
I move from side to side, my bones sore and cold against the thin foam mattress, but I sleep a while.
19
At 6.30 a.m., there’s the siren, long and screeching. It takes me a few minutes to work out where I am and a few more minutes to work out that it’s Tuesday morning, that what happened was in the early hours of Saturday morning, three days ago. Hayes will probably have heard by now, probably glad I’ve solved a few of his problems. It’s just him and his nephew now, the one with my fucking ball peen hammer.
My neck hurts like hell and one of my teeth has come loose. Stevenson stands naked by the toilet bowl waiting for his morning piss to come.
We don’t speak.
His arms are thin, his arse is flat and saggy and his feet are big. He urinates with one hand on his bruised and skinny hip.
I dress and make my bed quickly, as though by moving fast I’ll be able to stop the thoughts.
When I’m done making the bed, I wait by the cell door.
Stevenson dresses, doesn’t look at me and I don’t look at him.
An officer shouts, ‘Slop-out!’ and the cell door opens. I follow Stevenson outside and stand beside him in line-up.
‘Welcome to the slammer,’ he says. ‘Slopping out, counting heads, and banging up.’
I say nothing.
‘You look confused,’ he says. ‘There used to be buckets in the cells. Still are some down the end of the ones.’
‘Right.’
I look up at the blocks above, another floor of cells and about a hundred men in line-up.
I see Johnson up ahead and fall out of line and go to him. ‘I need to make a phone call,’ I say.
‘Get back in line,’ he says. ‘You can’t stand anywhere you feel like.’
I go back to my place. Stevenson shakes his head and the prisoner behind me steps up close. He’s short, about five feet flat, and he’s got one of those homemade tattoos of a swastika on his arm.
‘You better wait your bloody turn in here,’ he says, ‘or you’ll be dead meat before you know what’s hit you.’
I nod, slow and calm, wonder if I should thank him, nod again, then turn back round and wait for the gates to open.
When we’re through the last gate, Johnson comes to the back of the line and stands close to me.
‘The first night is the worst,’ he says. ‘Did you sleep?'
I look round to see if the prisoner with the swastika is watching. He’s not. He’s at the back of the line, talking to another short guy with a shaved head.
‘Yeah. I slept a bit.’
Johnson moves in close. ‘I bet you had good dreams.’
I say nothing, move back a bit.
‘Did you?'
‘I don’t remember.’
We get to the Recess and stand in line-up waiting for permission to go into the open shower stalls.
The officer standing by the sinks shouts, ‘Five minutes.’
I do as the other men do, undress quickly and step forward. The water sprays hard from a row of shower-heads. I stand between Stevenson and another prisoner. The water isn’t hot enough and, when I say so, the prisoner next to me laughs.
‘Count yourself lucky. We used to only get one cold shower a week.’
My neighbour’s a young lad, maybe only eighteen or so, but he has warts on both eyelids.
‘Name’s Kirkness,’ he says.
‘Oxtoby,’ I say, like it’s the most
normal thing in the world.
The water stops running and a prisoner down the far end shouts for it to be turned back on and when it starts again there’s more pressure than before.
My neighbour’s washing his penis now and, instead of looking at his own, he looks at mine.
I turn round to face Stevenson, but he stares straight ahead, towards the wall, his mouth open, as though in a dream.
Breakfast in the mess hall with about a hundred other prisoners and it’s a bowl of cornflakes, two slices of bread with margarine, cold scrambled eggs and a blackened banana. I don’t eat. I’m too busy watching my back and, every time a tray gets dropped or a man raises his voice, I think I’m going to get jumped. I calm down a bit when I realise there’s nobody looking at me and, when the siren goes and we all file out, I take an apple off the table. I don’t have a pocket (no pockets, no belt, and no laces) so I try to stash the apple in my sock.
A kitchen screw stops me at the door. ‘You can’t take that fruit.’
‘Can’t I eat it in my cell?'
‘Hand it over or I’ll put you on report and you’ll go on basic.’
I give it back.
When I turn round, he clears his throat, hawks up phlegm. He wants me to think he’s going to spit on my back. I move forward in the line-up, but there’s no spit.
I turn round to look at him.
He’s gone.
Back in the cell, Stevenson takes the dirty paperback and sits on the floor. ‘You went to university,’ he says. ‘That right?’
‘Not for long.’
‘Could you help me with a letter?’
‘If you want.’
‘I’m not too good at spelling and you got me thinking last night. I saw that look on your face and I felt a bit guilty, you know?’
I say nothing.
‘I thought about writing a letter to the girls, you know, as part of that programme where inmates say sorry to their victims.’
‘Sounds like a good idea.’
‘How about I write it and then show you?’
‘If you want.’
He sits at the desk and gets out a piece of blue airmail paper, begins to write with a red biro, bows his head so low it almost touches the paper, and he writes with his left hand, his grip tight, his wrist twisted.
I lie back on the cot and close my eyes.
He lights a cigarette.
‘Will you read it for me now?'
I get up to get the letter, but the cell door opens.
Johnson’s here.
‘You can make that phone call now,’ he says.
I get the card my brief gave me from under the pillow and put it back in my sock.
Stevenson doesn’t look at me, goes on with writing.
Johnson takes me through three sets of gates. At each gate we stop and wait.
‘It’s a valve system,’ he says, ‘we can’t go through until the gate behind is shut.’
We reach the final gate.
‘We have to go up the stairs to the twos,’ he says. ‘The phones down here on the ones are all busted up.’
We walk up the metal spiral staircase to the landing above and, when we reach the top, Johnson’s out of breath. He stops in front of me to rub the rolls of fat at the back of his neck. Where the rolls meet, there’s a dark slit and he puts his finger in there.
‘You need to give me the name and number of the person you’re calling,’ he says.
There are three phones, each of them surrounded by scratched Perspex. Two of them are occupied.
I give Johnson the business card my brief gave me. ‘You don’t want this,’ he says. ‘You’re entitled to silk.’
‘What’s that mean?'
‘You’re entitled to a court appointed QC. That’s Queen’s Counsel. Anybody facing a murder charge is entitled. It’s the law.’
I nod.
‘Count yourself lucky,’ he says. ‘Not that long ago you’d have been hanged for what you did. If you were in America, you’d be up for the chair.’
‘How do I get this QC?’
‘That’ll all be sorted out in due course.’
‘Can’t you call somebody now? Can you take me to see the governor now or something?'
He runs his hand down his neck.
‘No, not now. It’ll be sorted in due course.’
‘I want to change cells.’
‘You can’t.’
‘I want to see the governor then. I can’t share my cell with him.’
‘Listen,’ he says. ‘I know it’s tough, but that’s how it is.’
‘Don’t I have the right to see the governor?'
‘In a week or so. You’ll be notified.’
I nod.
‘Stand up tall,’ he says, ‘You won’t get through this if you can’t stand up.’
He walks away. I follow.
We reach my cell and, before he opens up, he stands close. ‘I’ll get you an app,’ he says. ‘For the governor.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Try and stand tall.’
‘It won’t make much difference,’ I say. ‘They’ll come after me if they want to.’
‘Not necessarily,’ he says. ‘If you keep your nose clean.’
‘How do I do that?'
‘Don’t grass, don’t blank the wrong men, don’t thieve another man’s gear and mind your own business.’
He sends me in.
Stevenson’s lying on his cot, staring up at the ceiling, smoking.
‘All right?’ he says.
‘Yeah.’
I sit on my cot and close my eyes, but my head spins, my heart pounds, my breath’s stuck in my throat.
I sit up.
‘I think I need to go to the hospital.’
‘You sick?'
‘I can’t breathe.’
‘There’s an alarm on the cell door,’ he says. ‘It’s a call button. You can press it, but they probably won’t come.’
I go to the cell door and find the button.
‘Be careful,’ he says. ‘If it’s a false alarm, they’ll make you pay.’
‘But I can’t breathe.’
I want obliterine, something to knock me out and send me off to sleep. Not just for a night, but for a good long time.
‘Maybe you should wait for sick-parade in the morning,’ he says. ‘You could report as special-sick.’
I sit on my cot.
‘Maybe it’s a panic attack,’ he says. ‘Feels like a heart attack? Feel your heart pumping everywhere? Even in your arsehole?'
I hate that I need this man and his advice and information and, even worse, that I need him for an ally.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It feels like a heart attack.’
‘Ah, well,’ he says, throwing his voice at me as though he were a doctor. ‘It won’t last. The symptoms only last about twenty minutes. We all get them.’
And he’s right.
It doesn’t last.
‘You don’t have to read that letter I wrote,’ he says.
‘Why not?'
‘I decided it was a stupid idea.’
I say nothing.
‘Don’t you want to know why?’
‘Maybe later,’ I say.
Stevenson sits next to me during midday chow and I wish he wouldn’t. Sooner or later I’m going to get jumped by another prisoner and it can’t help that I’m keeping company with a nonce.
‘I don’t feel like talking right now,’ I say.
‘Because of why I’m in here?'
‘No.’
‘Yeah it is.’
‘I just don’t know what to say to you.’
‘Oh snickety, snick, snick,’ he says.
‘I just want to sit and not talk for a minute.’
‘You think you’re so high and mighty.’
I say nothing.
‘I’m not a sex-case,’ he says. ‘The baby-splitters are in wet cells and seg units with body belts. But not me. I’m here with you. I’m not a sex-case.’
&
nbsp; I take up a mouthful of brown beans, put the spoon back down. My nerves are too bad for eating.
Stevenson brings his chair in closer. He’s so close now I can smell his dirty clothes. He stinks of dried cum.
‘I’m not proud of myself,’ he says.
‘No?'
‘I have guilt just like the next man but I’m not the worst kind of man either.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘I used to do a good job as a janitor.’
‘Where?’ I say. ‘In a primary school?’
‘Fuck you.’
I break a slice of bread, roll the bits into balls to make it softer.
‘For your information,’ he says, ‘I was a janitor in a hospital and the patients used to talk to me for hours on end. I did my fair share of good turns and I was good to a lot of people, specially the geriatrics.’
‘That’s nice,’ I say.
I take a few balls of bread, dirty now from my fingers but not so dry after being massaged, and I stick them in my mouth.
‘Some people have more choice in life,’ he says. ‘There’s no such thing as complete freedom.’
‘So,’ I say, ‘what you did isn’t your fault?'
‘No. Is it yours?'
We’re silent for a while and Stevenson finishes off his plate of beans as though it were something tasty. The sound he makes with his mouth is like rubber boots lifting in and out of mud.
‘You gonna answer me, or what?’ he says.
‘Can’t you be quiet for a minute?'
I look round to see who might be watching, but there’s nobody who gives a shit. About a hundred prisoners, almost all of them talking, some of them laughing, just a few sitting alone, two old men who sit together but don’t talk, and the guy with the DTs.
‘Ask me what my dad did for a living,’ he says.
‘What?'
‘He worked in a paper mill. He was a foreman. I was a happy kid until he died in an accident when I was only four and then—’
‘I don’t want to talk,’ I say.
Stevenson gets up. ‘Where’s your fucking sympathy?'
He’s standing up but he’s not going anywhere. He holds his tray out like it’s got something valuable on it and looks down at me.
‘Not even any sympathy for what happened to my dad,’ he says. ‘Didn’t even let me get to the end of the story.’
‘Sorry,’ I say.
He sits down, speaks quieter, slower.