This Is How

by M. J. Hyland

  After a minute, she stands.

  ‘Our time’s up,’ she says. ‘Will you come back?'

  ‘I mightn’t bother,’ I say.

  She laughs. ‘I’ll see you in a few days.’

  Lumsden doesn’t show up for association and I can’t risk asking anybody if they know where he is.

  I sit alone in front of the TV and watch a football match replay. But I don’t care about the score and can’t concentrate.

  If Lumsden’s been sent on the ghost train, there’d have been talk. If he’s been sent to the infirmary, or hospital, there’d have been talk of that, too. And if he was up for parole, somebody would’ve been taking bets.

  Back in the cell, I can’t sleep and, in the morning, my eyes sting with tiredness, and I’m hungry, but can’t eat.

  Farrell comes to the cell to see if I want to go to the yard or to the library and I tell him I want the library. He comes back a half-hour later and I go with him to the library and sit at the table next to the radiator and listen to two men from D Wing talking cricket and football with the other officer.

  Lumsden doesn’t come.

  I read, but take nothing in. I put my head in my hands.

  At the other table there’s an old con with a newspaper over his lap. He’s stroking his dick through his trousers.

  Back in the cell, Gardam’s smuggled in bits of potato and meat and he gives them to me. He’s got these morsels wrapped in tissue paper and the paper’s stuck to everything.

  ‘No thanks,’ I say.

  ‘I thought you were in training for the football team.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m not hungry.’

  He drops the food in the toilet and stares into the bowl, but doesn’t flush.

  ‘Do you think the fish out in the ocean will eat this?'

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Probably?'

  ‘Yeah, I think they will. I think they’ll love it. They’ll be grateful.’

  This makes Gardam strange. He smiles and nods and, when he flushes the toilet, a rush of colour travels up his neck, some pink in his usually grey face.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘They probably will be very grateful.’

  I read for a while, then take a nap.

  When I wake, Gardam’s got his head in the toilet, his arms wrapped round the seat like a hug.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I say.

  ‘Sick as a dog. What do you think?'

  I go to him.

  He pukes again, just liquid, and lots of it.

  ‘He told me it’d kill me.’

  ‘What?'

  He turns round, wipes his mouth on his hand, sits with his back against the toilet.

  ‘Johns. He said if I swallowed this stuff he gave me I’d be dead in five seconds.’

  ‘What was it?'

  ‘I didn’t ask, did I? It didn’t work and now I’ve got this cramp so bad.’

  ‘I’d offer you a glass of water, but—’

  ‘We’ve no glasses.’

  ‘Right.’

  Gardam recovers enough to go to his cot.

  When he seems right again, I get the chat going.

  ‘Do you know if anybody off F Wing’s been paroled or transferred recently?'

  ‘Don’t think so. But I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘How would you go about finding out?'

  ‘Don’t ask me. You’re the one who goes to association every night. Ask somebody there.’

  ‘It’s no big deal.’

  He goes back to the toilet, chucks again.

  Next night, Lumsden’s not in the rec-room.

  On the way back to the cell, I look at the notice board. There’s a list of men due to see Welfare tonight, but he’s not one of them. Maybe his name was just left off the list. Maybe he’s working extra hours in the deputy governor’s office this week, or maybe he’s doing one of those stupid creative writing workshops.

  I’ll see him tomorrow.

  At breakfast next day, there’s no sign of Lumsden and I get to thinking he must be gone. I bend over, put my head between my knees.

  Gardam puts his hand on my back and then a screw comes.

  ‘You going to be sick or what?'

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Did you take some of that ratsack shit too?'

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you need the infirmary?'

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then sit up and be a fucking man.’

  He goes back to his post at the door.

  ‘What’s up?’ says Gardam.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Next day, I go to the library.

  Lumsden’s not there.

  I sit for an hour and wait for him and then I get an idea to go to the place in the bookshelf where he’d kept the radio for me.

  There’s a note, addressed to me.

  I sit at the desk beside the radiator.

  My heart pounds.

  My dear friend, Patrick,

  I hope you’ll forgive me for not telling you that my parole has come through.

  I had a meeting with the Board of Visitors last week, but I couldn’t tell you. I worried that the unsaid would get said, that there’d be pressure for us to act.

  There was no easy way to say goodbye and in the end I didn’t have the guts to say it.

  As you probably know, ex-prisoners can’t visit prison, which is cruel enough, but I’ve just learnt that I won’t be allowed to write to you either.

  But I have an idea:

  Everyday, when you wake, you’ll think of me and you’ll keep thinking of me while you’re dressing and washing and eating your breakfast.

  I’ll do the same.

  Think whatever you want.

  Every morning, wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I’ll have an appointment with you, you’ll have an appointment with me.

  See you in a few years.

  Your friend, Derek Lumsden

  I read the note about a dozen times, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, forwards then backwards.

  I read it over until the siren goes.

  Gardam’s sitting up in his cot and he’s got both pillows behind his head.

  I sit right down beside his feet.

  ‘Do you have any Valium?’ I say.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you get me some?'

  ‘Yeah, in a few days. Probably Friday.’

  ‘I need something now.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Ox?'

  ‘I need sleep. I haven’t slept in days.’

  ‘If I give you one, will you do me that favour?'

  ‘No. I can’t do it.’

  ‘Then I can’t help you. Get off my cot and get off my fucking feet.’

  ‘Give me my pillow then.’

  Before he hands the pillow over, he wipes his face with it.

  34

  Today’s my last appointment with Dr Forbes.

  Farrell collects me at eleven.

  When we get to her office door, she greets me and smiles and puts her hand on my elbow and she does it all in full view of Farrell.

  He leaves.

  ‘Take a seat,’ she says.

  She sits behind her desk and I sit forward in my chair, put my elbows on my knees.

  ‘How are you?’ she says.

  I think for a minute.

  ‘Can you tell me what it’s like outside?’ I say. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I just want you to describe something.’

  ‘Would you like to stand by the window and look out?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I get to see the yard during exercise. I just want you to describe the outside for me.’

  ‘Anything?'

  ‘Yeah.’

  We both look at the window.

  A pigeon wants to sit on the windowsill but can’t because the bars are too close together and he’s too fat to squeeze through.

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘it was drizzly this morning.’

  ‘What about last night? Was there a full moon or a half-moon? What kind of moon?
What did you do? Did you go anywhere?'

  ‘I can’t tell you about my personal life.’

  ‘Okay, then describe something. The city at night-time or anything like that.’

  ‘I haven’t been in the city at night lately and I haven’t even looked at the night sky. Not lately.’

  ‘Make it up then. Or try to remember.’

  She faces me, thinks a minute, and her shoe slips from her foot. She doesn’t put it back on. She just leaves the shoe where it’s fallen, under the desk.

  ‘I was coming home from a dinner party in the countryside a few nights ago,’ she says, ‘and the moon was a strange orange colour. It was full, and it was big and orange.’

  ‘What did you have to eat?'

  ‘Salmon and…I can’t honestly remember.’

  ‘What about the sun? Was it in or out this morning? Does the sun come into your bedroom in the morning?’

  ‘Not often.’

  ‘Was it cloudy this morning when you woke up? What kind of sky was it?'

  ‘I’m sorry, Patrick,’ she says. ‘I feel a bit foolish. I suppose I wasn’t paying enough attention.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ I say. ‘I never paid enough attention.’

  She smiles. ‘I was about to say I’ll tell you more next time, but this is our last session.’

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  I move back in the chair, try to relax a bit.

  She opens the desk drawer and removes a parcel wrapped in brown paper.

  ‘This is for you,’ she says. ‘You can open it now or open it later.’

  ‘I want to open it now.’

  She laughs. ‘But it’s already been opened twice, unwrapped once and then re-wrapped.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘The censors.’

  She’s given me a small framed picture, a painting.

  I was hoping for some food. ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  ‘Aren’t you going to look at it?'

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s a print of one of my favourite paintings,’ she says. ‘It’s by Isaac van Nickele. It’s one of his paintings of the interior of Saint Bavo cathedral. It was painted in the late seventeenth century.’

  ‘I can’t take it,’ I say. ‘It’ll just get slashed or stolen.’

  ‘I want you to take it.’

  ‘My cell-mate’s a suicidal maniac. He’ll probably try and eat it, and choke to death on the frame.’

  ‘Then you write to me and I’ll send you another. It’s just a print.’ I look at it, take my time.

  It’s a picture of three priests dressed in robes and they’re standing in a dark passageway and there’s another man, in the distance, down the other end of the passageway, and he’s in brighter clothes. He’s walking toward the priests, or walking away. It’s hard to tell.

  ‘It really makes you look at it,’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  ‘Why’d you give me this?'

  ‘I think that your situation is not unlike the situation of the priests in the cloisters, you are somewhere dark but—'

  ‘—but, if I look closely,’ I say, ‘I’ll see other things, like this light here to the right, the small orange lamp on the wall and the light coming through a door, or is it a window? At the very back of the corridor, there’s light.’

  ‘Yes, at the front or at the back,’ she says.

  ‘There’s a way out?’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘There’s freedom.’

  I put the picture on the desk, calm and slow.

  ‘That’s complete fucking rubbish,’ I say.

  But she’s not the least bit ruffled. She’s no pushover.

  ‘Do you remember you told me you had a terrible day at school because you woke with a squashed ear?'

  ‘It wasn’t that,’ I say. ‘It was because I realised my ears were a bit too big for my head and I was mad because nobody else in my family has big ears.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she says. ‘And don’t you think that now you won’t let the small things get you down so much? When you get out on licence?'

  She’s smart, but she’s missed the point of what’s wrong with people. She’s missed the very point. People never get on with what they’ve got. They don’t like things enough and barely even notice things in the first place.

  ‘I’ll probably make the same mistakes,’ I say.

  ‘But not as much perhaps, and not—'

  ‘No. Not exactly the same mistakes. I’ll make different ones.’

  I take the picture off the desk and look at it.

  She checks the time.

  ‘Is there anything finally that you want to talk about?’ she says.

  I want to talk about Gardam and Lumsden, but there’s too much to say and I don’t want to be in the middle of something important and then be stopped by the clock.

  I stand up.

  She doesn’t raise the alarm.

  I go over to her, stand at the side of her desk.

  She stands and her shoulders go up and down with the deep breaths she takes.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asks.

  ‘Would it be all right if I gave you a hug?'

  She thinks. Takes a good look at me.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘All right.’

  I don’t know how to do what I want to do.

  ‘Move in,’ she says, ‘bring me to you.’

  I hold her now, not too hard, but close, really warm and really very close, and the mood of being wrapped round her, it’s a mood and feeling so great I want to bawl.

  She takes a step back.

  I let go.

  ‘Okay?’ she asks.

  I turn away and wipe my face with the heel of my hand.

  ‘How are you?’ she says.

  ‘Happy,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

  She closes her eyes and we stand in silence.

  There’s an officer outside.

  The key turns in the door.

  Farrell’s come to get me.

  Nothing more gets said and I’m taken back to my cell.

  Gardam’s sleeping.

  I go quietly to my cot but, when I sit, he wakes.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly time for chow.’ He groans.

  He doesn’t ask me about Dr Forbes.

  He never has.

  ‘Do you know that men executed in the electric chair have to wear nappies?’ he says.

  I get up and go to sit on the cot next to him.

  ‘How are you?’ I say.

  I’m sitting close, but he doesn’t move away. ‘What do you mean, how am I?’

  ‘Do you still have that knife?'

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Give it to me then. I’ll put you out of your misery.’

  ‘When?'

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘You serious?'

  ‘Why not? That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ He swallows. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Right then, give it to me.’

  He gets the knife from under the mattress, gives it to me.

  ‘When?’ he says.

  ‘I can’t give you an exact time. It’ll be a surprise.’

  ‘Right then.’

  ‘I’ll do it while you sleep.’

  ‘Tonight then?’

  ‘Yeah, tonight.’

  We go to chow together but he doesn’t speak. He’s got nothing to say. But he eats. He eats every morsel. He eats the sausages and peas and potatoes and he looks slowly round the mess hall like a man who wants to remember a good place he might not visit again, like a man looking over a place that he might miss.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, let’s get on with it.’

  ‘And you’re ready?'

  ‘Yeah. Ready for martyrdom.’

  I laugh.

  We return to our cell and lie on our cots.

  And still he doesn’t speak.

  My mouth’s dry and my heart hammers hard, must be the same for him, worse.

  Before lights-out, I check
again. ‘Are you sure you want this?'

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘If you want to change your mind, better do it now.’

  He goes to the desk, sits and looks up at the wall, smokes one cigarette after another.

  We get undressed after lights-out and I sneak a look at his body in the darkness.

  He’s very thin now and his shoulders are rounded and his stomach’s bloated from the meal. From side-on, he looks like a pig that’s been stood up after hanging belly down from a spit.

  We get into our cots, get under our blankets, and I wonder if the other men get dressed and undressed in front of each other without shame, or whether, like me and Gardam, they undress in the dark and dress with their backs turned to each other.

  He doesn’t sleep, just as I don’t sleep, stays awake, just as I stay awake.

  It’s like I thought it would be.

  Dark hour, after slow dark hour, we stay awake and pretend to sleep.

  I wait and he waits.

  And then, not long before sunrise, I get up and go quietly to his cot.

  I crouch down beside him, hold the knife over his chest, make sure my grip is tight.

  He turns onto his back and opens his eyes.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ I say.

  He goes on looking at me, doesn’t blink.

  ‘Close your eyes.’

  He won’t close his eyes.

  ‘Do you want me to stick this knife in you or what?’

  He closes his eyes and I can feel the panic coming off him in fumes.

  His breath’s fast and shallow.

  ‘What do you want?’ I say.

  He doesn’t answer, just moves across on the cot, turns to face the wall, makes room for me.

  I think, then put the knife down.

  I get in under the blankets.

  I move in close and put my hand on his chest, press down. His awful heart speeds up, then slows a bit.

  He’s relaxing now and he’s put his hand over mine.

  ‘I’d better go back to my cot,’ I say.

  ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Okay then.’

  He takes hold of my fingers.

  I don’t go.

  I’m warm and sleepy here.

  I might as well stay.

  ‘Okay?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Okay.’

  I let my head sink to its rest, but leave my hand on his chest and I feel when he goes under with me, deeper and calmer.

  I breathe as he breathes.

  Acknowledgments