This Is How

by M. J. Hyland

  He’s got a soft, damp hand.

  ‘That’s good,’ I say. ‘I appreciate that.’

  Johnson gets an officer and the officer takes Perkins away.

  I go over and stand by the window, look out at the brick wall opposite. Johnson comes up behind me. ‘May I?’ he says.

  I don’t turn round. He’s at least a head and shoulders taller than me and he puts his hand inside my shirt, on my neck, fingers reaching down to my collarbone. I flinch a bit when he moves in so his chest is against my back, but so far it’s not much worse than what happens on a crowded bus.

  ‘I think you’ll be okay,’ he says, his voice quiet and soft. ‘That man didn’t know what he was talking about.’

  I’m stuck at the window, can’t move till he moves. His chest is pressed harder against my back now and he slides his hand further down my neck, past my collarbone, towards my nipple.

  ‘Can you turn?'

  ‘I’d rather not,’ I say.

  He takes his hand away, steps back.

  I turn and look at his face and he looks at mine, and we’re just standing, looking at each other a bit longer than people usually look.

  ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘We’re finished in here.’

  Next morning, after breakfast, Johnson comes with more news.

  ‘The Deputy Governor’s given you a library pass.’

  ‘Now?'

  He runs his hand up his neck, pushes the flesh up towards his chin.

  ‘Yes, now. I thought you said you wanted to borrow some books.’

  Stevenson lights a cigarette.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Good. We’ll go.’

  The library’s dimly lit and about the size of two cells and there are four shelves about six feet high, two desks, a long fluorescent light in the ceiling, black carpet, and one small window. But it’s warm.

  Johnson takes me to a shelf at the back wall. There’s a handwritten sign pinned to the wood: Prisoners and The Law.

  ‘You might want to start reading about this stuff,’ he says.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘you’ve only got an hour today and I’m not going to stand here like a midwife while you decide what to do.’

  I take a book off the shelf, Penology: The Arrangement of Types.

  ‘I want to read up on criminal law,’ I say.

  He goes away and comes back with a book.

  ‘Take this one as well, then,’ he says.

  He hands me Blackwell’s Criminal Law and Commentary.

  He takes me to the desk under the window and tells me to sit.

  ‘I’ll be standing right outside,’ he says.

  I put the chair at the end of the desk so I’m closer to the radiator.

  I read a bit of the book about prisoners first. I’ve got a few months to get ready for my trial and it’s probably more urgent for me to work out how to get on in here.

  The main types of prisoner are the inconspicuous ones who keep to themselves and stay out of trouble, the inmate who continuously schemes, always on the look-out for ways to make his life inside easier (usually at the expense of others), the persistently violent prisoner whose unpredictable behaviour often ends in segregation, the sadist or predator, the preyed upon, the litigious (a man always appealing his conviction), the inmate who leaks information to the officers, the inmate who peddles in the misfortune of other inmates and, finally, the inmate who’s always planning his escape.

  I get to thinking that I’m the inmate who lays low, the one who minds his own business, the safest and most common of the types.

  Johnson comes back. It’s not been an hour, only a half-hour at most.

  ‘It’s time to go,’ he says.

  ‘Can I borrow this book?'

  ‘Not that one. Only the ones with yellow stickers on. This one’s got a red sticker.’

  On the way back to the cell I ask him if I can have some paper and a pen. I don’t want to use the old red biro that Stevenson’s been chewing on.

  ‘If you’re very good,’ he says, ‘I’ll get you the apps.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  We’re up the end of the walkway, between the lights, and there’s nobody around. He leans in close, puts his mouth next to my ear and he gives me some of his breath.

  ‘I’ve never wanted to see the back of somebody,’ he says, ‘like I want to see the back of you.’

  ‘What’s that mean?'

  ‘It means I want you to walk. I want you to get out of here.’

  21

  It’s near the end of September and my mood’s rotten. My craving to get my old life back is desperate and I can’t shake the daydreams about being back in the house with Bridget, that soft bed I had in my clean room, the smell of the sea, her smiling face, that good food. And every fantasy about my old life makes the cold and stink in this place all the worse.

  If I’d not made that mistake with the hammer. Must have said this to myself a thousand times and every time the thought sends a sharper stab of poison through, and gives me the shakes.

  Three days ago, at seven o’clock in the morning, just after slop-out, Perkins came to see me.

  We sat for about half an hour in the interview room and we had a cup of tea and he said the same things over and over, every good thing cancelled by a bad thing, and he ate the ginger biscuits the officer brought us, went on eating just as though nothing important was happening.

  He told me my trial date’s been set much earlier than expected, and he told me that it’s going to be a murder or nothing trial. He told me that the Crown has refused to allow manslaughter as an alternative. The coroner’s report has come in and the cause of death was an acute subdural haematoma, the result of a blow ‘of considerable force'— or several blows—with a blunt instrument.

  I told him again that I only hit Welkin once and not very hard.

  ‘The coroner’s report suggests considerable force,’ he says. ‘But I’ll do my utmost to adduce evidence from the pathologist that there was only a single blow.’

  When I asked him about my chances he said, ‘If I had to lay a bet, I’d say fair to middling.’

  When I asked him what that means, he said, ‘I don’t want you to give up hope. There’s a very reasonable chance that with the right jury you’ll be okay.’

  I told him what I’ve read in the Blackwell’s book, that murder is the killing of a human being with malice aforethought, and that I’ve found out that the jury is not allowed to infer my intention. I told him that the judge has to direct the jury not to infer my intention.

  He said, ‘Patrick, I know the law very well and the facts point persuasively toward the conclusion that you intended to do some harm if not serious harm. The evidence strongly suggests sufficient intention.’

  He stood up from the table and offered me his hand. I shook his hand and he put his free hand over my hand and clasped me firmly, held me there, held me tight. I wanted to bawl.

  ‘Listen, Patrick. I’m presenting things in the most pessimistic light so that you’re prepared for the worst, but you mustn’t panic.’

  He held my hand for a good long while and we were both sweating and then he let go and went to the door and knocked sharply three times.

  An officer came and took him out to the corridor.

  He’d left a small, round black box on the table.

  I rushed after him. ‘You’ve left this,’ I said.

  ‘Goodness,’ he said. ‘My wig.’

  ‘I’m not the only one losing hair over this,’ I said.

  He laughed at this and so did I, but I was in an awful state, and we both knew what I’d said wasn’t funny at all and only stupid.

  I was taken back to my cell and, just before midday chow when the door opened, I had a bit of what I suppose you’d call a breakdown, one of those panic attacks, like I had before, only much worse and the panic wasn’t just about my trial and the feeling that my QC wasn’t on my side and that he’d let me down, and it was
n’t just about my sentence. It was also about being beaten and the almost constant fear of it, the way my body’s always stiff with being on guard, afraid all the time I’m going to be jumped.

  After I broke down, ended up on my cot, face down, hardly able to breathe, next thing I know I was in the infirmary and I was there for two days and I was given super-strength sedatives to help me sleep, enough for a few days, and I was given a docket so I can get more sedatives when I need them. They stop me from remembering so much.

  While I was in the infirmary, Johnson came to visit and he gave me a bag of chocolate raisins.

  ‘I’m not going till you’ve eaten them,’ he said.

  He sat with me and watched me eat.

  ‘Turns out your victim came from a rich and powerful family.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I know.’

  ‘His father’s the mayor of Brighton and his mum’s a paediatrician.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You’re pretty unlucky you are.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I think it’s time you started calling me sir,’ he said. I smiled at him, hoped he was joking, but he wasn’t.

  ‘All right, sir,’ I said. ‘I will.’

  When I got back to my cell Blackwell’s Criminal Law and Commentary was on my cot. The yellow sticker was missing and there was a stamp in the back saying it’s on loan till next June.

  It’s Sunday, midday chow, and I’m in the mess hall with Stevenson. There’s a new prisoner standing in the corner and he leans his head against the wall and cries.

  ‘Who’s that?'

  ‘Name’s Trevor Rogers,’ says Stevenson. ‘It’s his first time. A botched shop robbery. He was only an accomplice, but he’ll serve a ten stretch at least. The other bloke killed the shopkeeper.’

  I look at my plate.

  ‘Want me to save my extra pudding for you?’ he asks. ‘You can eat it later.’

  It’s a bowl of green jelly.

  ‘You eat it,’ I say.

  ‘Why don’t you want it?'

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘But I’m offering you it.’

  ‘I don’t want it. Thanks anyway.’

  ‘You still on a hunger strike?'

  ‘I’m just not hungry.’

  Stevenson eats his extra pudding, but stops when the commotion starts up.

  Trevor Rogers is on the floor and being beaten by another inmate and he hasn’t even bothered to put his hands up to cover his face and that’s where the other bloke kicks him, his foot straight at Rogers’ nose, and he’s shouting, ‘Stop your fucking bawling, you stupid fucking baby.’

  Now it’s the other bloke’s turn for a beating and he knows it, just stands back and waits for the officers to pile on and restrain him and, when it looks like he’s going to get off lightly, a fourth officer comes, a tall meat-head from Pentonville, and this one beats him with a metal bar, three blows across the back, a couple more across his shoulders, the back of his legs, and there’s a new blow with the fall of every word: ‘Not. On. Sun. Day. You. Worth. Less. Cunt.’

  The bloke’s dragged off and Rogers is left on the floor, his face bloody. Nobody goes to him. I want to go to him and I don’t want to go to him. I don’t know how to do it or when to do it. We’re all of us just staring over at him and he’s still there when the siren sounds. He’s just left there on the floor, too beaten to bother crying.

  Once we’re all standing in line-up by the door, I turn back.

  ‘Leave it,’ says the prisoner behind me. ‘Best leave it.’

  We all file out.

  We’re woken, as usual, by the 6.30 siren, but there’s no shower today, no slop-out, and there’s no breakfast.

  We’re in lockdown.

  A prisoner is dead.

  I expect it to be Rogers, but it’s not. His name was Kirkness, the one I met in the showers on my first day. He was nineteen and he had the cell two down, waiting for his trial for attempted murder.

  Every other week his mother sent him plastic model aeroplanes and he glued them together and then crashed them against the walls of his cell.

  The full story about what’s happened doesn’t get passed down the ones till somebody finds out from a screw and then the news gets sent along the cells by ‘fishing’. Somebody ties a piece of paper to the end of a length of weighted string, and casts it out like a line to the door of the next cell where the note’s collected from under the half-inch gap, then read and passed on.

  The note says. Kirk took bottle Nitric acid. Wanted city hospital. Died in sleep. Dumb fuck.

  By mid-afternoon we know that Kirkness thought nitric acid wouldn’t kill him right away, thought it’d take days, maybe weeks, that he’d have a high fever and spend enough time in the city hospital to plan and execute an escape. But he took the whole bottle and choked on his vomit during the night. The prisoner who got him the acid is in the strongbox, probably in a body belt.

  ‘I knew he were a complete barmpot,’ says Stevenson.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  I liked Kirkness. Would rather have been bunked with him than with Stevenson.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Barmpot is exactly the right word.’

  I get a few sheets of that airmail paper from Stevenson and go to the desk. It’s been more than a month since my father’s letter and I’ve definitely given him the time he asked for.

  I want to tell them what happened, all of it, but I’ve got to be careful what I say in case it’ll be used against me in court.

  I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I can say. I think I have it worked out well.

  Dear Mum and Dad

  Nothing I say will change the fact that I did what I did, which was a very stupid thing, but I want you to know that I didn’t want that man Welkin to die.

  I can’t say much in this letter because my trial’s coming up and there’ll be censors reading it, but I want you to know that I didn’t hate him and I didn’t want to kill him.

  I’m feeling pretty optimistic that the jury will work out that I didn’t intend to kill him and that I didn’t intend to do GBH, because that’s the truth. I didn’t have a motive and it wasn’t premeditated or planned in any way.

  I’ve got Queen’s Counsel to represent me and he’s very good and I don’t think I’ll get convicted of murder. To get me for murder the law requires that the prosecution must prove beyond all reasonable doubt that I intended to do GBH or that I intended to murder.

  I understand why you haven’t written again and why you haven’t come to visit me. It’s an awful place to come and I know you’re very upset and worried and shocked.

  I just want you to know that I didn’t want that man to die. I liked him. He would have been my friend if I’d given him a chance. That might sound mad to you, but it’s also the truth. Maybe that makes it even worse as far as you’re concerned, but I hope not.

  I’m not a different person just because I did something foolish. I’m still your son, I’m still Patrick, and I still love you both very much.

  Love, from C Wing, remand.

  Your son, Patrick xxx

  I’ve got tears on my face and a screw’s come to deliver food to the cell, a half-loaf of bread and two lumps of cheese.

  ‘How can I get this letter posted?’ I say. ‘I want it to go first-class.’

  ‘Give it here.’

  The screw takes the letter and leaves.

  One lump of cheese is nearly twice as big as the other.

  Stevenson’s seen I’m upset and offers me the bigger lump.

  ‘You have it,’ I say.

  ‘You look like a skeleton,’ he says.

  We sit up on our cots to eat and, as soon as we’ve eaten, lie down again.

  I doze off, but wake to hear Stevenson in the middle of a coughing fit.

  ‘Jesus,’ he says.

  I sit up. ‘You all right?'

  ‘Yeah.’

  He goes on coughing, hawks up some phlegm and takes a good look at what he
finds in the palm of his hand.

  ‘My phlegm’s not grey today. It was grey yesterday. Not today. Today it’s clear.’

  ‘Good news,’ I say.

  I lie down again.

  ‘Have you ever noticed that the sicker you are the sweeter it tastes?’ he says.

  I say nothing.

  ‘Yesterday,’ he tells me, ‘my spit was sticky and thick like glue.’

  We’re still banged up at teatime and Stevenson sits on the cell floor and eats prunes from one of the jumbo bags his sister sent in a hamper for his birthday. He’s already eaten the peanuts and the chocolates and the crisps.

  When he’s finished eating the prunes, he farts, a loud and putrid marathon, and then he sits on the toilet and, when he’s finished shitting, he leans in over the toilet bowl.

  The stench is foul.

  ‘More good news,’ he says. ‘Yesterday I had tiny black pebbles for shit, but today things are looking up. Yesterday I thought I had cancer. Today it looks like I’m fit as a fiddle.’

  He crouches down beside the toilet and puts his hands inside the bowl.

  ‘Please don’t do that,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t own this cell,’ he says.

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘But you can’t do that.’

  ‘If I want to look at my own shit, I have every right.’

  ‘I can’t stomach it.’

  ‘You don’t have to look.’

  ‘Where else can I look?'

  ‘Put the pillowcase over your head.’

  ‘Please flush the toilet.’

  He flushes the toilet and, on the way back to his cot, cocks his arse and farts in my direction, then sits with his knees up, facing me, and goes on farting.

  ‘I’m enjoying myself,’ he says. ‘Maybe you should join in. I have another bag of prunes. You can have it.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Don’t you like the smell of your own farts?’

  I say nothing.

  ‘Do you or don’t you? It’s a simple question.’

  ‘Not especially.’

  ‘Everybody does.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘That’s because you’re repressed. I noticed it the first time I saw you.’