by G. F. Newman
The letter he was writing in his cell during association was taking him a long time, the exercise forcing him to think hard about his family, which in turn was causing a lot of frustration.
He looked up, welcoming the distraction as Brian Smith appeared in the doorway, bringing a paperback book.
‘Oh sorry – are you busy, Jack?’ he said uncertainly. ‘I haven’t seen much of you lately.’
‘Writing to the missus, s’all.’ He turned the standard letter sheet face down – not that there was much in it. ‘I’ll see her before I finish it at this rate.’
‘Due for a visit, are you?’
‘S’not before fucking time.’ He waited to see what the younger man had in mind.
‘S’that book on Buddhism I was telling you about.’
He slid the book into the narrow shelf over the bed and waited. Lynn watched him, sensing he was uncomfortable and wondered why he couldn’t say what he had to say.
‘You got a family who visit you, have you, Bri?’
Smith said, ‘I have a family, but they wouldn’t even visit Cowes now. It was one of their properties I destroyed. They’re very attached to property. Do you resent me for that?’
‘What? Taking a chainsaw to your ancestral home?’
‘No, coming from that background?’
‘I might if you tried pulling strokes because of it. You’re all right, I’d say.’
The cloud over Smith lifted and he smiled. ‘Did you think any more about what I mentioned?’
‘About the other thing?’ Lynn said cautiously.
Smith turned and checked the landing outside the cell. ‘It’s all clear. The thing is, Steve Collins approached me. He wants to be put in.’
‘He might be very useful to you,’ Lynn said generously. He could see Brian Smith was trying to pressure him to commit to his escape plan.
‘Possibly he wouldn’t prove terribly reliable.’
‘I do fancy it, Bri’.’ He was badly missing his family. ‘Let me think about it some more.’
Even that small commitment seemed to delight Brian Smith. He smiled and clapped his hands. ‘Yes, of course, I’d wait for you.’
Ordinarily, Lynn would have formed his own opinion about a con, and formed it quickly, knowing whether he was a wrong ’un or whether he could trust him. Brian Smith didn’t fit into the pattern of most cons who gained acceptance by virtue of the villainy they had done and the sentence they drew. On its own, Smith’s unspecified sentence wouldn’t have gained him much more than the nonces’ long sentences. But Collins had befriended him and he wasn’t considered a mug. Still, Lynn wasn’t sure if Brian Smith was just doing Collins’s bidding.
In the twenty-feet-square mailbag shop where security prisoners worked, Lynn was at one of the three benches with Alan Parker and Bobby Mark. Conversation wasn’t encouraged but condoned by most of the screws, who tended to stay at the end of the shop with the discipline screw.
‘What d’you think about Brian, Al?’ Lynn was saying, glancing towards the warder, whose attention was on Steve Collins wandering around the shop. ‘Is he a serious prospect to make one with?’ Of necessity he talked quickly, his voice barely above a whisper.
‘Serious as any, I s’pose,’ he replied. ‘He keeps well closed up.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘He’d be safe enough, Jack. The thing is, he ain’t got nothing to lose by having a go, has he?’ It wasn’t an argument against getting involved with him.
‘I ain’t exactly got a lot, have I?’ Lynn said matter-of-factly.
Alan Parker arched his eyebrows, acknowledging the point.
Their interest went to a uniformed warder who came into the shop to have a few words with a white-coated screw. Lynn knew this was about his visit, and was on his feet when the warder approached.
The movements book that went everywhere with him was something he was growing to resent more than any other single object. For that more than anything made him feel like a numbered parcel rather than a person. It went across to the visiting block with him.
The visiting arrangements here were tolerable, a large room with eighteen tables in a line. On one side of each table was a single chair, on the other side, two or sometimes three, prisoners being allowed up to three visitors. Such visits weren’t for category ‘A’ prisoners. Lynn was taken past this room and across the corridor to one of the small, secure rooms, bricked-on additions to the prison. He was put in one of these cubicles and told to sit at the table which, apart from the two chairs, was the only furniture. One concession to progress was the absence of bars; instead there were three glass brick windows, the same as most modern police cells, which were even harder to break through.
Being kept waiting, Lynn was convinced it was done to wind him up. His wife must have arrived or they wouldn’t have called him down. He tried to stay calm, but found it increasingly difficult. When the door was unlocked from the outside, he was startled. He stood as Dolly was brought in. He expected one of the screws in with them to tell him to sit, neither did.
Dolly was wearing a summer frock and looked terrific. She looked as good as he could ever remember seeing her, despite anxiety etched into her face, and the fatigue which he tried to deny to himself was there.
One of the screws spoke to his colleague. Lynn couldn’t hear what was said, but the uniform who had shown Dolly in went out. The other one was locked in with them. Lynn was acutely conscious of the man, who inhibited him as he embraced and kissed Dolly self-consciously. He wanted to press himself against her, press himself into her, feel her body against his. The sexual images he had of her were still sharp in his mind and it was Dolly he thought about when he masturbated.
‘How are you, love?’ His voice was quaking with emotion.
She tried to speak but couldn’t get beyond her greeting, and that was barely audible. Her face crumpled as though no longer able to take the strain. She turned her head but couldn’t hide her tears.
The warder directed Lynn into his chair. Physical contact wasn’t permitted other than on greeting and departing.
‘Ah, Doll,’ Lynn said after a moment, uncertain how to react. ‘Come on, love, sit down. Don’t upset yourself.’ He looked confused, instinctively knowing he had nothing to offer her. He bent over to physically comfort her.
‘Sit back there,’ the warder instructed.
Lynn looked at the uniform, having no understanding of this man or what made him do what he was doing. He wanted to protest, but resisted.
‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ Dolly said through her tears, ‘s’just, I dunno… I dunno, lovey.’
Before she had coped and helped get him through his previous prison sentences. She hadn’t enjoyed any of it, but she had been okay. Now he didn’t know if she would be. Twenty years was longer than anything before, too long for the mind to grasp or measure. The thought of her not being as much with him on the outside was tearing him apart.
‘S’murder,’ Lynn said, feeling crushed by those thoughts. ‘C’mon, Dolly, don’t upset yourself, love. Don’t give these slags the satisfaction. They nicked enough off us as it is – the no-good slags. C’mon.’ He waited as she tried to check her tears, searching for something to say that might deflect her thoughts, but nothing came to mind. Everything he wanted to say was either directly related to their present position or would simply serve as a reminder of it. Finally, he asked, ‘How are the girls?’ It was the wrong question, but then almost any question would be.
She caught her breath again. ‘They’re missing you, Jack.’
That suddenly being openly acknowledged caused him more anguish. He arched his eyebrows to try and ease the tension at the back of his eyes. ‘Both all right, are they?’ It took a lot of effort.
Dolly nodded. ‘They wanted to come down with me.’
He knew all this, having discussed it in t
heir letters, deciding it would be better to wait for a couple of visits.
‘They wanted me to give you their best, love… Sandra won’t settle to nothing, keeps asking about when you’re coming home… Christ, when I think about what them rotten fucking policemen and that judge done to you.’ Her anger came bubbling through. ‘Them girls’ll be grown up ’fore you’re out.’ She began to sob again.
‘No, they won’t, love. They won’t,’ he insisted. ‘I promise it won’t be like that.’ He could see that she wasn’t convinced and reached across to reassure her. Then, glancing at the uniform, he hesitated, withdrew his hand and looked helplessly at his wife.
‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ she said, taking a tissue from her dress pocket and pushing it against her nose and eyes. ‘Coming here, upset like this… sorry, love. It’s just… just.’
She seemed to search for the words to express what she felt, but words failed her. ‘One visit every three weeks, it’s hard to cope… I’m sorry, Jack.’
‘S’all right, love.’ He nodded wearily. ‘They wind you up so much you can’t think of nothing to say, hardly, till the time’s all gone. Does your brain in.’
‘Tommy ran me down in his cab,’ she said, wiping her eyes again and smudging her mascara. ‘He’s been so good. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for us, and my Mum. She sends her love.’
‘How is she?’
‘She’s all right, Jack, you know how she copes. I want to reach over and touch you, Jack. I want to hold you and feel you against me.’
Lynn closed his eyes and a tear slid from under each of the lids. He turned away, hoping she wouldn’t see them.
‘Tom said if there’s anything he can do for you, let him know.’
Offers like that encouraged him to think that all was not lost. Lynn nodded gratefully. ‘He’s a diamond, your Tommy, he really is.’ He paused, wondering how he might reassure her. ‘Dolly,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I won’t do the twenty, that’s a promise. We’ll have some sort of life, the girls and us, we will.’
Bewilderment came into her eyes. ‘S’all I keep thinking about, Jack. That somehow they’re gonna release you, only I don’t know how.’
‘I’ll get a nice result,’ he said firmly. ‘The brief was well-confident when I saw him. D’he say anything to you?’
‘Just about selling the house; how much I expected to raise, what was owed on it. I had some estate agents round. The market’s still not very good. But they seem to think it would sell all right.’
‘It’s got to be enough for Gladwell to do the biz,’ he said. ‘Did they say how much?’
‘Both seemed to think about fifty-five was about right.’
‘That don’t seem like much.’
‘S’what the agents said, in this climate. It might improve if the interest rates go down a bit more.’
Lynn thought about the sale price, if they could get it; how much his brief would claim for doing what he planned to do, and what there might be left for Dolly and the kids to live on. Whatever was left over, he knew it wasn’t going to be enough, any more than it was to show for all the villainy he had done.
‘Where you and the girls gonna go?’ Lynn asked.
‘We can move into m’ Mum’s, till we get another place,’ she said, practically. ‘I put m’ name down for a council house, but they’re not easy to get with so many being sold. I expect we’ll get one of them high-rise flats. We’ll be all right at Mum’s. The girls want to go there. They don’t mind. Their friends won’t be too far. They make friends all right, kids always do.’
‘Dolly,’ Lynn said, interrupting her slightly manic conversation. ‘I’ll make it up to you, losing your home and everything, I promise.’ He knew how much that meant to her. ‘After the appeal we’ll get somewhere in the country, with a real country kitchen.’ Their eyes met momentarily, then quickly glanced away, as if neither wanted the other to read the doubt there. ‘What about the Social Security people? What did they say?’
‘I had a right ruck down there. They reckon m’ money’d been stopped because of the house – till it’s sold. ’Cos we own it. Stupid, innit?’
‘They can’t do that,’ he retorted, having no control over his frustration. The warder stood off the wall. Lynn glanced at him and pulled back. ‘It might be fucking months before you sell it. They must know what the market’s like.’
‘S’what I told ’em. But they don’t listen half the time. I expect they’re just being difficult. They wouldn’t give me m’ fare down here neither.’
‘The liberty-taking bastards!’
‘S’all right, Jack, we’re managing,’ she said. ‘We are. You know me, I’ll be down those offices first thing tomorrow. They got to give us something. The way they carry on you’d think it was their money they was giving you.’
‘I’ll see if I can get the welfare in here to do something. I don’t s’pose they’ll do fuck all. But I will make them have a go.’
‘It wouldn’t matter, Jack, we wouldn’t starve. There’s been a lot of offers from your friends and different people. A lot of neighbours have stopped and asked if they can help. They’ve given a few quid an’ all, s’amazing how generous people are when you’re in trouble. Remember that old Edna Roberts round the corner – she sends her best. She gave the girls a fiver each out of her pension the other day. She ain’t got nothing herself.’
Lynn was touched by the offers, but knew this talk was a way of avoiding the things they ought to be saying instead. He glanced at the warder, whose attention was elsewhere, but Lynn still resisted reaching over to his wife. ‘If only you got a bit of privacy here. You can’t say fuck all, not how you feel or nothing without those slags listening.’ He closed his eyes and allowed his imagination to run for a moment and started to get an erection and felt worse for it. ‘How’s it been, Doll?’ he whispered. ‘You look terrific.’
‘Don’t, Jack.’ She closed her eyes, as if trying to close off her needs. ‘I can’t tell you how much I miss you.’
‘I’ll make it up to you, Dolly, I promise, love. Somehow I’ll make everything up to you and the girls. Tell them that. We’ll have our own Christmases and the birthdays what got missed, and the holidays. We’ll do ’em all when I get out, you see.’ The words had a hollow ring. The disbelief he saw in her tear-clouded eyes forced him to look away.
#
A dull ache caused by both the frustration and confusion he felt sat at the back of his head and neck as he moved along the echoing thoroughfare, on escort back to the workshop. He was thinking about his wife and his daughters. The prospect of not seeing Dolly for another three weeks was causing a turmoil of feelings; the thought of the Social Security making her struggle for what she was entitled to angered him.
‘Oi! Where the fuck d’you think you’re going? Home?’ the warder said as Lynn went on past the mailbag shop.
He spun round, as if to challenge the warder, who simply pulled open the door.
Alan Parker said nothing to him when he resumed his seat, like he knew how upset he was, and was best left. But Steve Collins showed no such consideration. If there was one prisoner who would add to his distress it was Collins. Any vulnerability he noticed was like a scab that he had to pick at until fresh spots of blood appeared.
Stopping by his bench with a pile of canvas cut for mailbags, Collins said, ‘Good visit, Jack?’
‘Yeah, terrific,’ Lynn responded as if in a coma.
‘Always nice seeing the old lady. Let me know the next time she’s coming down,’ he offered. ‘I can put you in touch with a screw over there. S’well bent,’ – glancing round, checking the warders weren’t too close. ‘Could make life real sweet for you down there. Know what I mean?’ He winked.
Lynn said dully, ‘That’s handy.’
‘He’ll even let you give her one if the price is right.’
‘Leave it out, Steve,
for fuck sake,’ Parker said. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I’m trying to do him a favour.’ Collins moved away to his own place at the bench in front.
‘He’s a no-good slag at times,’ Parker said quietly.
Lynn didn’t respond.
Thoughts troubled him as his fingers worked mechanically, stitching the thick seams of the canvas sacks, paying no attention to his work until a white-coated screw loomed before him.
‘What the fuck’s this?’ The warder produced a metal tape from his pocket, ran a length out against some of the stitches Lynn had sewn. ‘Letters’ll fall through those. The Post Office want eight stitches to the inch, no more or less. That’s eight, for your information,’ he said, holding up eight fingers. He then indicated an inch on the tape. ‘There’s an inch. Got it? Eight stitches to the inch. Get and unpick them.’ He checked a finished sack. ‘And that one.’
From the moment he became aware of what the screw was actually saying, his struggle to stay in control was lost. There in front of him was a uniform, who was rucking him, only right then he wasn’t in a fit state to take it. The rejection of his work, the earned pittance for which went no way to helping his family, seemed to epitomise his problems and their battle for survival without him. Frustration first caused tears to cloud his eyes, then his mind to fog over. Anger exploded out of him like there was no end to the pressure behind it. He hurled the work on the floor. ‘This is fucking silly,’ he screamed, hardly able to get the words out. ‘It’s silly. I got a wife out there and two kids trying to fucking well live on Social Security while I’m sewing silly fucking mailbags for some rubbish amount and you slags tell me they’re no fucking good. Why’nt you slags give us some proper work so’s we can earn a living for our families!’ He was screaming at them now, and trembling with rage, hurling material, and anything-to hand, about the room.