by G. F. Newman
‘Most in here let you brown ’em for a bit. Gonna watch telly.’ He rose and moved across to the tv, where, with a peremptory air, he changed channels, saying ‘Watching that rubbish… This is better.’
The protests from the men in front of the tv were muted as Collins settled in one of the chairs.
‘You gonna do a bit of work, Jack?’ Parker said, taking out his tobacco. ‘You don’t have to, of course, if you’re appealing. I’m making soft toys. It helps to alleviate the boredom, especially if you’re in a decent shop working in a group. S’better than staying behind your door.’
‘To be honest, Al, I’ve been sitting on a pile of mailbags. I didn’t sew one of them.’
‘You don’t want to do that. They just give you ache, ’you do. A talent like yourn, you could get a job in the library or the administration where there’s some fiddle. Brian’s in the machine shop. S’all right, you can get on that.’
‘I’d just as soon stay behind m’ door as work for them mugs.’ He pushed his empty plate away and leaned back in his chair.
‘What do you want to do that for?’ Parker said. ‘You can earn bundles. Three pound eighty-four pence I went and earnt last week. They’ll have to cut my missus’ Social Security money.’
‘But rehabilitation is a wonderful thing, Alan,’ Brian Smith remarked. His accent, despite his attempt to disguise it, was quite polished and Lynn wondered how he ended up here.
‘Be very handy, I get out in about twelve,’ Parker said cheerfully. ‘Be no end of openings for basket weaving and stitching mailbags. Sure you don’t want none, Jack?’ putting his tobacco on offer.
‘What happened to that big fella in chokey?’ Lynn inquired. ‘Bobby Mark. D’you hear?’
Parker glanced towards the door, then said, ‘The fuckers put him in the hospital, they did.’
‘I heard the whacking they give him.’
‘He’s as simple as soap,’ Collins said from across the room.
‘He’s a nice lad, ’you talk to him sensibly,’ Dunkerton said, ‘quiet as anything.’
‘He was involved in a motorbike crash,’ Parker explained.
‘His mate on the back was killed, it tipped him over. He ought to be up the road, Broadmoor or somewhere. He gets violent now and again.’
‘Is that why they whack him?’ Lynn asked. Mark interested him, and he began to feel a curious sense of responsibility towards him. Possibly he should have protested more when he heard him being beaten, pressed on with his complaint in front of the deputy governor.
‘Those fucking screws pick on him. They know he can’t do fuck all. You run across Jordan on the block? Tall, blond-haired screw? Definitely a reincarnated Nazi, that one.’
‘What about the po down there, McClean?’
‘Cor, what a no-good slag. He’s on holiday from Ulster. Couple on this wing are all right. What it is, they’re scared, they know we ain’t got fuck all to lose. They don’t get too flash. Discipline and security is all most of them care about. You’d be better off trying to get a move to Broadmoor or somewhere. But don’t use violence to get there. Know what I mean?’ Parker winked.
This sort of talk did little to encourage Lynn. He knew a lad who had gone to Broadmoor, a right good villain who hadn’t had anything wrong with him until sent there for attacking a couple of screws. The slight sense of euphoria he had felt at being out of his cell and with people he liked was leaving him now and a feeling of depression was seeping back in. Although his seven months on remand had cushioned the impact, a lot of adjustment was still needed. All that being on remand had done was acclimatise him to his loss of liberty, while ahead of him had remained the hope that he would get a result in court. Here there was hope of getting a result on appeal, but it was less substantial to cling to. What life would be like if he didn’t get his appeal he didn’t dare to contemplate.
Free association like this was something he was more grateful for, than the prison authority would know. The opportunity to exercise freedom of choice about who you associated with was all a prisoner had left. He enjoyed talking to other prisoners, and listening to their stories, but finally choosing to leave their company to be on his own was a luxury Lynn had too long been without.
He was lying on his bed when Brian Smith appeared in the doorway. He had brought two mugs of cocoa and buns.
‘May I come in?’ he asked. Another con would’ve wandered in and waited to be told that he wasn’t wanted. He proffered a mug. ‘Cocoa. It’s not very good, I’m afraid.’
Lynn didn’t say anything, but leaned on his elbow and watched the younger man. He could see how uneasy he was.
‘It’s just about drinkable,’ Smith went on, ‘when you get used to it. It’s taken me a couple of years.’ He laughed nervously as he set down the mugs. ‘I wanted to talk to you about what you said at dinner.’ He looked at Lynn, then checked the landing before pulling the door to. ‘Were you serious about making one out if your appeal’s turned down?’
The question surprised Lynn. He hadn’t expected this sort of approach so soon, and least of all from him.
‘I think I’ll get a result all right,’ he said, noncommittally.
‘What if you don’t? Could you tolerate this for twenty years? Even for the seven years you’d need for parole eligibility?’
‘What d’you have in mind, Brian?’
‘I have a plan I’ve been working on for about a year.’
Lynn was suspicious. ‘Aren’t you and Steve together?’
He laughed and shook his head. ‘You heard how he reacted. Most are like that. They all get used to the prison regime. It tells them when to get up, what to eat, when to sleep. By going to prison we forfeit the right to make choices. That’s why we’re sent here, I suppose. But once here, if they’re here any length of time, they forget how to make any choices for themselves. Or they get so that they’re afraid to. Finally, about the only decision you can make yourself is whether you use your pot or piss your pants. That’s exactly what the system wants, Jack.’ He spoke eloquently and in a way that suggested he knew what he was talking about. ‘It isn’t interested in rehabilitating you – it can’t, it hasn’t the facilities. And what would it rehabilitate you for? Unemployment? This is where they work on you.’ He jabbed his forefinger against his head. ‘They want to mash that, then try to turn you into a well-responding, well-behaved vegetable. They don’t need to lobotomise prisoners to quieten them down. They’re achieving the same result, only in a more socially acceptable way. Look at some of the people in here, they’re no more responsible for their actions than Bobby Mark is. Unfortunately, they no longer even break the rules as he does.’
‘I don’t know,’ Lynn said, instinctively resisting what this man was saying, as if to acknowledge it openly would put more pressure on him, challenge him to do something about it. ‘Steve said he would make one.’
Brian Smith shook his head emphatically. ‘He doesn’t even believe that. He just likes to be in on everything that’s going on. He wants to control everything.’
Lynn sat on the edge of the bed and sipped his cocoa. ‘S’not all that, is it?’ he said. ‘The thing is, I got m’ appeal.’
‘Let’s hope it goes well for you,’ Smith said. But what he left unsaid impressed Lynn more.
He considered the man. ‘What d’you get nicked for, Brian?’
‘Destroying property,’ he responded defiantly, but he didn’t elaborate or lionise his deeds. Lynn liked that. ‘How come you sought me out?’
‘I heard about your reception. You sounded like you’d be the most likely to take a chance. At least I was confident you weren’t a grass,’ he said.
‘There are enough of those about,’ Lynn reflected bitterly. He would want to be part of any plan anyone half-reliable had for making one out of there in the event of his appeal not going right for him. But what he didn’t want to do at this stage was t
hink about that disastrous possibility. ‘Keep me in mind, Brian, will you?’
Smith agreed readily. ‘Of course. Who else is there?’
43
A NEW DAY IN PRISON began just like the day before, and the one before that. Prisoners came to rely on the routine more and more, from the time they were unlocked to lock-up in the evening. The reactions of both prisoners and screws alike followed regular patterns as deeply entrenched as the grooves worn in the stone landings. New inmates were given much attention, Lynn found, as they were a lifeline to the outside, coming in with new ideas and experiences.
The wake-up bell rang throughout the wing at 7.15 am, a strident, discordant noise that seemed to have no effect on prisoners other than to tell them their daily routine had started. It was part of the general noise pattern, as were the groans and coughs that followed, along with the familiar shouts of protest. ‘What was your old woman doing while you was on last night?’ was a favourite one for winding the screws up – there were too few ways of getting back at the people who kept you locked up twenty-four hours a day without punishment being involved.
Lynn rose easily, his bladder bursting from the two pints of water he drank at night. He relieved himself in his pot. He shaved in cold water in the small bowl on the wash-stand . There was no opportunity to shower first thing, and he was by now getting used to not doing so.
At 8 am, warders moved along the landings, unlocking the cells for prisoners to slop out and with familiar regularity prisoners filed out with their pots, some lapping to the brim, some having been used for dumping in during the night. Strictly, pots weren’t for prisoners to evacuate in, and Lynn never used his for that, even though getting out to the recesses after being banged up was near-impossible. A queue soon formed at the recess where the urinal, WC and tap were at the end of each landing.
‘About time!’ prisoners exclaimed on cue as they were unlocked, their tone depending on which warder was at the door.
Other prisoners impatient to be unlocked rang their bells, which only brought shouts for them to stop.
‘M’ pot’s overflowing, Mr Westbury,’ a con complained.
‘Then fucking well tread it down,’ came the reply from the overweight warder with a large head made larger by mutton-chop sideburns.
The sour smell of urine and excrement rising up through the wing never really disappeared and was only ever masked with disinfectant. After about three or four prisoners had used the recesses the smell was vile, but like everything else it was something you got used to. It was their own smell, prisoners were told if they complained. The predominant smells ever present, it seemed to Lynn, were urine and the peculiar smell of damp metal, and at meal times it was boiled cabbage, regardless of the meal.
‘Quiet!’ the principal officer shouted as he came on to the landing. ‘This is not association.’
‘Bollocks!’ from an unidentified prisoner. There was laughter from the recess queue.
‘Who said that?’ the po screamed. His name was Allen, and he liked discipline. ‘Come on, who said that?’ There was a stony silence from the queue now, interrupted only by the flushing sluice. ‘Another fucking word ’I’ll have you all behind your doors.’
Breakfast, collected from the trolley on the ground floor, was eaten in the cells. It consisted of tea, porridge made from Grade A Canadian pigmeal, one dried, shrivelled rasher of streaky bacon, unless you were vegetarian, and four slices of bread. Despite it being singularly unappetising, Lynn ate heartily.
At nine o’clock, with breakfast finished, prisoners were slopped out again, then set to work. Lynn was lying on his bed reading when the landing warder, Westbury, opened the cell door.
‘Work detail,’ Westbury announced, ‘Mailbag shop, you.’ He moved on as if expecting Lynn to go to it, but turned back, surprised when he didn’t. ‘Oi! Get yourself onto the mailbag shop detail.’
‘No fucking chance,’ Lynn said. He didn’t care for any of the jobs on offer, especially not for those poor rates of pay. He fancied mailbags least of all.
‘What did you say?’ the warder asked.
‘I ain’t working.’
‘We’ll see about that!’ he announced, then wheeled out, slamming the cell door.
When he returned with the principal officer and unlocked the cell door, Lynn was standing pissing in his pot. He ignored them until he had finished.
‘All that tea for breakfast,’ he said.
‘Mailbag sewing detail.’ po Allen’s tone suggested he wasn’t up for any argument. ‘Get to it.’
‘Not while I’m appealing against sentence.’ Lynn sat back on his bed in defiance.
‘Off that bed, before I drag you off it.’
Lynn gave him a measured look. ‘You’d regret it, ’you tried,’ he said evenly.
‘You’re on report,’ the principal officer told him and turned and went out.
‘On report,’ was the screws’ favourite expression. Lynn understood what it meant, what the outcome would be. He’d have the usual brief hearing in front of the governor, who would back the charging officer then summarily dismiss him with the appropriate amount of chokey. He didn’t regret his protest and preferred not being banged up behind the door, as he would have preferred not being in prison, but he felt an instinctive need not to allow himself to slip unnoticed into the prison routine described by Brian Smith and become like all the other cons who did their time and kept their noses clean. Having been fitted, he was determined not to do his bird, but would protest any way he could. Brian Smith was right, Lynn thought, about cons growing to rely on their bird. It was frightening.
The MO, cigarette in hand, was the next to visit him. Lynn was still on his bed reading when a screw unlocked and he stepped inside. Lynn gave the young man only a cursory glance.
‘How are you feeling?’ the doctor asked and seemed confused by the silence and looked at the screw but got no explanation. ‘You’re fit for work.’ That meant he was fit for punishment also.
This was determined at the subsequent adjudication by the deputy governor and Lynn wondered why they even bothered with the charade as he listened to their bollocks.
‘Responding to Landing Officer Westbury’s request,’ po Allen said in evidence, ‘I went to the prisoner’s cell and asked if he’d like to join the work detail. Again he refused, without giving a valid reason. His tone was disrespectful. I told him to address me as “sir” and ordered him to get off his bed. To which he replied, “You’d fucking well regret trying to make me”. I saw there was no point arguing as the prisoner was becoming increasingly hostile. I informed him that I was putting him on report, sir.’
Frustration was causing Lynn to ball his fists as he stood listening to this. He wanted to scream at them.
‘Well?’ the deputy governor said, ‘What have you to say?’ – his tone disapproving.
‘No point saying anything to that rubbish.’
‘Address the deputy governor respectfully,’ the chief officer ordered.
‘I was fitted up by the police – I’m waiting for my appeal to be heard.’ He doubted if his words were even heard.
‘You will conform to the rules and regulations governing the good order of my prison. This includes working when ordered to do so. If you are determined to wilfully resist, we will respond in kind.’ The deputy governor smiled at him. It wasn’t a friendly smile.
‘About turn!’ the chief officer rapped. ‘Move yourself.’
The officers on either side of Lynn escorted him out, leaving the deputy governor, the chief officer, and pos Allen and McClean to decide his fate – his guilt was never in question.
The upshot was seven days behind his door, with a supply of mailbags to sew, plus fourteen days’ loss of remission. Lynn was also offered a visit from the psychiatrist, whom he could refuse to see. It was a her so he didn’t refuse.
The psychiatri
st was clearly no leading light in her profession, or if she was, Lynn decided, she disguised the fact. Unlike the MO, who was resident at the prison, the psychiatrist visited. She wore a grey striped suit, which Lynn guessed she got from Marks and Spencers, and a bright red blouse with a button missing. This woman was part of the regime and therefore not someone he could have fancied, but having continued his protest for the past four days and being unshaven and unwashed, he felt uncomfortable with her. They weren’t getting along. He knew that anything he said would go down on his record.
‘Why on earth did you agree to see me if you weren’t going to co-operate?’ she asked, exasperated.
‘Relieves the boredom behind your door, dun’ it? What else are you lot any good for?’
‘Don’t you want to be helped?’
‘Some fucking chance of that. What you gonna do, recommend they let me out?’
‘That’s not why I’m here.’
‘Isn’t that the idea, get people like me rehabilitated?’
‘Isn’t one of the functions of prison to keep wrongdoers locked away from society?’
‘That’s the only fucking answer you lot have got. Bang ’em away. You’re one of them, ain’t you? I mean, you don’t even try. You can fuck off – pulling my prick’s more value.’
‘Have you always had this resentment for authority?’
‘Don’t talk to me about resenting authority. How would you feel if them slags fitted you and got you banged up for twenty?’
‘Is that why you’re determined to break the rules, to get back at “them”?’
‘S’only one thing I’m determined about, not doing my time.’
‘At any cost?’ the psychiatrist asked.
Lynn looked at her, clear-eyed, seeing what she was doing with her questions, showing he was a wrong ’un who had to stay locked up. He felt strangely reassured that she was part of the system and determined to hold him down, rather than someone who would give him an unbiased hearing. He didn’t accept that he resented authority or that the problem lay with him. The psychiatrist didn’t seem to be interested in anything other than his anger, which made Lynn more angry.