This Is How

by M. J. Hyland

‘Jesus fucking Christ.’

  ‘You hate your own body.’

  ‘Leave it out,’ I say.

  He wants me to laugh but I get up from the cot and undress with my back to him.

  ‘I’m going to sleep,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t even understand the basics of pleasure,’ he says. ‘Fucking, shitting and farting.’

  I pretend to sleep and then Stevenson starts beating himself off. He waits a while before he starts, maybe thinks I’m still awake, and then he gets going. He starts off slow and says, ‘Mmmm’ just once and then the cot starts to rattle and he breathes faster and it takes him a good while to come and when he gets there he says, ‘Fucking hell.’

  I’m wide awake after he’s done and so is he, and we stay like this for a long while, the both of us pretending to sleep.

  Next morning, after Johnson’s fetched me for the library, I sit by the small radiator and read more about the criminal law and more of Penology: The Arrangement of Types.

  There’s nowhere in the prison as warm as this small corner of the library and it feels safer in here. There’s always an officer at the door and another lurking round the shelves.

  After a few minutes, I put my head on my hands to sleep.

  Johnson’s standing beside me when I wake.

  ‘You talked in your sleep,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah?'

  ‘You said poison.’

  ‘Did I, sir?'

  He runs his hand down his neck, wipes at the sweat that’s always there. It’s as though he’s in the tropics.

  ‘And you said friend.’

  I nod.

  ‘And you had your tongue hanging out.’

  ‘Did I?'

  He looks at my lips.

  ‘You’re not being very good,’ he says.

  ‘No, sir. I’m not. I’m tired and I feel sick.’

  ‘Still not sleeping?'

  ‘I can’t. And, when I do, the pervert wakes me with his shit-talk.’

  ‘You should put in an app for sleeping pills.’

  ‘I will then.’

  ‘I’ll get you the forms.’

  ‘Why didn’t nobody fucking tell me I could get sleeping pills before?'

  ‘You’re starting to sound like one of them. You’ve lost your manners.’

  ‘Well I’m not one of them, sir. I’m just sleep-deprived. I’m desperate for some rest.’

  ‘Let’s go. It’s time to go, time to leave.’

  He has a habit of making it sound like I’m about to go on a journey, go somewhere good, get out of here.

  ‘Get up,’ he says.

  He tells me to walk ahead of him, and that’s what I do. He wants to watch. Let him.

  Three days later, visiting hour, and Johnson comes to my cell after breakfast.

  ‘You’ve got someone coming today,’ he says. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Jim Oxtoby.’

  My heart’s never pounded so hard.

  Johnson takes me to the visiting room and puts me in box seven. There are eight boxes divided by sheets of glass and there are telephones on both sides, with two receivers on the visitors’ side. Five officers stand guard, three behind the prisoners and two at the visitors’ entrance.

  My father looks nervous and he’s wearing his usual white shirt and blue tie and his hair’s parted down the middle and it’s gone grey at the temples. He waits behind the glass, his hands flat on the bench and he speaks into the phone before I’ve had a chance to pick up the receiver.

  ‘I didn’t hear,’ I say.

  My throat’s dry and tight.

  ‘Hello,’ he says.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ I say.

  ‘You’re keeping well then?’ he says. ‘You’re well enough then?’

  ‘I’m getting more used to it,’ I say.

  He reaches into his pocket, removes a newspaper article, reads some of it, then returns it to his pocket.

  ‘There was this big article in the newspaper about the murder. Your mother saw it.’

  Is this all he’s come to say? Is that it?

  ‘When was that?’ I say.

  ‘That’s neither here nor there,’ he says. ‘It was a while back.’

  ‘I just wondered,’ I say.

  He reaches into his pocket, glad to have something to do.

  ‘I can check the date if you want to know it.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  He looks me in the eye for the first time.

  ‘Turns out there are some people who say we should bring back the death penalty for murderers.’

  I want to stop him. He’s come only to punish me. I want my mother here. But she’s not here so I’ll say to him what I’d like to say to her. I’ll say a good thing, try and soften him.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ I say. ‘I’m glad to see you.’

  He coughs for a bit. I wait for him to stop but he’s started a proper fit. One of the officers by the visitors’ entrance looks over, but does nothing.

  I turn round to the officer behind me. ‘Can’t you get him some water?'

  The officer goes out, comes straight back with a small plastic cup of water, unlocks a gate and passes the water through to the officer on the visitors’ side.

  My father drinks but, when he tries to speak again, the coughing starts up.

  It’s no good.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ I say. He puts his hand on his throat.

  ‘I’m really glad you came in, Dad,’ I say. ‘I’m really sorry about what I’ve done.’

  He’s stopped coughing.

  ‘Anyway,’ he says. ‘It’s because of your mother’s heart.’

  ‘Is she sick?'

  ‘Of course she’s sick. We’re all sick.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?'

  ‘She’s got angina, what killed your gran.’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Dad. Can you tell her I’m sorry?'

  ‘I’ll tell her. But she can’t come in to see you.’

  ‘What about Russell?'

  ‘He’ll come after the trial. He said he’ll come then.’

  ‘But I won’t be here after the trial.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Will you come?'

  ‘To the trial? I’m not sure, son.’

  The visitor next to my father laughs. He’s a young bloke, maybe eighteen, with dark shades on and earrings. He’s laughing pretty loud.

  My father looks back to me.

  ‘I might come,’ he says. ‘I’ll probably come.’

  ‘I hope you do, Dad.’

  We’re silent a moment. He looks again at the visitor next to him, seems to want to make him stop laughing.

  ‘You look tired,’ he says.

  ‘They’ve given me pills to sleep. I’m not so tired but they make me look tired.’

  ‘Be careful you don’t get addicted to those things.’ He looks at the visitor on the other side: a young blonde woman who’s crying and wiping under her nose with her fingers.

  He looks back at me.

  ‘A normal man,’ he says, ‘wouldn’t have gone to another man’s room like that with a wrench and attacked a man in his sleep.’

  ‘I know that,’ I say.

  ‘Do you?'

  ‘'Course I know that.’

  ‘And what about remorse? Are you sorry?'

  ‘'Course I am.’

  ‘You didn’t say much about that in your letter.’

  I thought I had.

  The siren sounds.

  My father gets up.

  The officer shouts ‘Time!'

  I want the doors to open for me, to go out the gate in my father’s place.

  I wish my mother had come. It’s nearly two months since I last saw her and I’ll bet she would’ve come if he’d let her. She’d have shown more sympathy. She’d have shown some love. She’d have wished me luck for the trial.

  ‘Bye, Dad,’ I say.

  ‘Goodbye, son.’

 
It’s less than a fortnight before my trial and there are two other prisoners in the library today. One of them reads standing up and the other sits at the table next to the radiator and he’s got a newspaper over his lap so as he can rub his dick.

  I sit at the other table and turn my chair away from him, face the window. I read Blackwell’s Criminal Law and Commentary.

  And the more I read of the law, the more I get to thinking that there’s real hope for me. The prosecution has to prove that I wanted Welkin dead or to injure him seriously. I didn’t want those things so how the hell can they prove it? And the judge has to direct the jury on the law so they’re not left to their own ignorant devices and he’s got to remind them about the ‘burden of proof’. The burden is on the prosecution. It has to be beyond all reasonable doubt.

  There are too many doubts in my case and therefore my chances must be pretty good. I get to thinking that Perkins is just playing it safe, not wanting to get my hopes up. It’s probably what he was taught to do. He probably signed something like a legal Hippocratic oath that binds him never to tell a man that he’ll walk free.

  22

  It’s 8 a.m., Friday, October the nineteenth. The morning of the first day of my trial.

  Perkins comes to my cell with two uniformed coppers and they’ve got my civilian clothes in a yellow plastic bag.

  ‘Take a seat,’ he says, as though there’s more than one place to sit. ‘We’ve got a few minutes while we wait for the transit van.’

  I sit on my cot.

  ‘Can I have that newspaper?’ asks Stevenson, pointing at the paper under Perkins’ arm.

  ‘No you can’t,’ says one of the coppers.

  ‘I didn’t fucking ask you,’ says Stevenson.

  Perkins takes his suit jacket off, turns it inside out, sits on it at the end of my cot, as far away from me as he can manage without falling right off.

  ‘The most important thing in the first few days is that we get the right jury,’ he says.

  He stops talking, scratches the corner of his eye.

  ‘We’re going to be okay then?’ I say.

  ‘With the right jury we might do well.’

  Stevenson lights a cigarette.

  ‘What kind of judge have I got?'

  ‘He’s not the worst you could have.’

  Johnson comes to the cell.

  ‘It’s time,’ he says. ‘The van’s here.’

  The cops cuff me.

  ‘Steady on,’ says Stevenson. ‘He’ll not fight you.’

  Stevenson puts his cigarette out, even though it’s not finished, stands, picks my shoes up off the floor and hands them to me.

  ‘Goodbye, Oxtoby,’ he says. ‘It’s been nice not knowing you.’

  The cops take an elbow each and escort me from the cell and I’m halfway down the corridor when it hits me that I’ve not said goodbye to Stevenson.

  Maybe I’ve been too afraid to risk hearing the sound of it. Maybe I’ll never see him again and what difference does it make what my reasons are? Either way, I haven’t said goodbye and it’ll never get to be said, and Stevenson’s back there in the cell, alone now, and he’s just given me my shoes and somebody should have at least thanked him.

  I’m taken through the yard and outside the gate to the transit van.

  Perkins goes to his car, a beautiful Mercedes-Benz 250C Coupé. He must know I’m watching because he turns and waves before he gets in.

  Two coppers get into the front of the transit van and a third takes me round the back.

  ‘We’ll be there in about twenty minutes,’ he says.

  He slides the door shut and fastens the bolts.

  There are four other prisoners in the van, already cuffed to the bolts in the cubicles. I say nothing to them, and the feeling’s mutual. We’re silent.

  I’ve taken two pills this morning and I’m drowsy. I fall asleep pretty much straight away and I’m only woken when the van stops outside the courtroom. Photographers shout my name and flashlights go off. I duck from view and sit with my head between my knees.

  The van makes its way into the yard and when the door slides open I’m met by two new coppers. They take me down to a small holding cell below the courthouse. They lock me in and don’t tell me how long I’ll be here.

  The holding cell is the smallest I’ve been in. There’s a sluice in the floor for hosing out, two cots, but no blankets. I sit on the cot under the barred window and wait. About an hour passes before somebody comes. It’s one of the coppers who was in the transit van.

  ‘Your trial’s not starting today,’ he says. ‘There’s been a postponement.’

  ‘When then?'

  ‘That’s not rightly known,’ he says. ‘Probably Monday.’

  He’s a redhead with a red moustache and he’s got a missing front tooth. He looks as bad as the crims.

  He closes the cell door and I go back to the cot. I wonder if any of my family have come to see me in court and, if they have, how they’ve wasted their time.

  Hours pass and I’m given no food and nothing to drink.

  I know prisoners have a right to food and water. Stevenson told me. There’s a charter of human rights for prisoners.

  I knock on the cell door and the officer takes his time coming.

  ‘Can I have something to eat and drink? And a blanket?'

  ‘Not now. You’ll be fed and watered at teatime.’

  ‘I need to go to the toilet,’ I say. ‘And I know I have a right to food and water and warmth.’

  ‘There’s a bog in the corner.’

  ‘I want to wash.’

  He sniffs the air with his flat nose.

  ‘You feel dirty,’ he says. ‘I don’t blame you.’

  He opens the door, cuffs my hands and leads me down the corridor.

  ‘Can I have the cuffs off?'

  ‘No.’

  ‘How will I wash my face then?’

  ‘You’ll figure something out.’

  I turn on the hot tap, cup my cuffed hands under the water and splash my face. The first thing I’ll do when I’m freed is take a long hot shower and use plenty of soap and after I’ve washed I’ll eat steak and hot chips until I burst.

  ‘Do you always talk to yourself like a nutcase?’ asks the guard.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ I say.

  ‘You just blabbered some shit about using soap when you’re freed.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  At six o’clock he brings me a bowl of mashed potatoes, two sausages, and a glass of water.

  He puts the bowl down by the foot of my cot and, before he leaves, he kicks it over. He kicks the water over too.

  ‘Idiot,’ he says.

  It’s Monday morning and I’ve hardly slept a wink all weekend. I’ve got to see if I can get more pills.

  The same officer comes to get me and he’s got Perkins with him.

  ‘We’re starting today,’ says Perkins. ‘And I’ve got something nice for you to wear.’

  He takes a dark suit out of a dry-cleaning bag and a pair of black socks and he’s got me a pair of black shoes in a shopping bag.

  ‘He can’t be given that belt or tie,’ says the officer. ‘You can give it to him up in the courtroom and we’ll take it off him when the court’s adjourned.’

  ‘I know that,’ says Perkins, ‘but since I’ll be with him on the way up I don’t see what harm it can do.’

  The officer shrugs and Perkins turns his back while I dress. The officer watches.

  ‘You’ll be moved in and out of the courtroom over the next few days,’ says Perkins, ‘and there’ll generally be a lot of housekeeping.’

  The shoes are too big, but the socks are clean and warm.

  ‘Time to go,’ says the officer.

  ‘I was given a docket in remand,’ I say. ‘It’s for more sleeping pills. I’m wondering if could get some in here?’

  The officer asks where the docket is.

  ‘I’ve left it behind.’

  ‘I’l
l look into it,’ he says. ‘Leave it with me.’

  I’m taken into the empty courtroom and up the three wooden steps of the dock. The dock’s door is locked by a court official and I’m told to sit between two uniformed cops, both of them already sitting and waiting.

  More court officials arrive and people stand in the aisles and chat. A pair of journalists take a look at me and make some notes. One of them makes a sketch and then they leave.

  None of my family’s here.

  ‘They’ll be back,’ says one of the coppers.

  He’s talking about the journalists.

  At 10 a.m., the court usher, who’s dressed in black, shouts into the courtroom.

  ‘All stand.’

  The judge comes through a door at the back and sits on a thronelike seat on a long bench. There are five wooden chairs behind the bench, all of them with high backs and green leather seats, and he sits in the middle.

  He’s wearing a red gown and a white wig and a white collar and he’s an old man, so stooped he’s almost bent in half and he’s got a big nose swollen with burst blood vessels and he’s got a big old head and big old hands.

  When he speaks, he doesn’t look at me. Not even once. Behind him there’s a royal coat of arms with the lion wearing a crown and the chained unicorn and the words underneath Dieu et mon droit.

  The jury gets sworn in. The process begins with twenty people, eighteen men and two women, and they’re all asked the same question, whether there’s any reason they can’t be impartial and whether they recognise any of the names of the witnesses and then I’m asked if I have any objection to any of the potential jury members and I say no and then twelve people, ten men and two women, are randomly selected from the original twenty and they’re sworn in.

  It takes half the day to do this and then the court adjourns for lunch.

  I’m taken down to the holding cell and given a cup of tea and two chicken sandwiches. An hour later, I’m taken back up.

  The usher says, ‘Will the prisoner please stand,’ and then the judge asks me how I plead.

  I plead not guilty.

  The copper in the dock tells me I can sit.

  I ask him why there are only two women on the jury and he tells me I shouldn’t talk now and that you have to be a property owner to sit on a jury.

  The judge is talking to the jury about how the trial will work and the rules about not discussing the case with anybody except other jurors. Somebody in the gallery laughs and the judge stops talking, looks up. I turn round and I see my mother.