John Bell was now in his third month of his sentence, with three months of sleepless nights and terrifying days.
He was transferred to ‘B’ wing for one month, along with Peter Forester, Lester, Big Bear and Bradshaw assigned to more modern cell on a quieter wing which housed, cooks, dishwashers, floor sweepers and food servers. Bell was placed as a food server, with alternate jobs of dishwashing.
He soon settled in to his new dormitory-style housing, apart from being accommodated with Bradshaw. The wing was cooler, brighter and cleaner with the exception of the pervasive odour of infrequently washed bodies.
The nights were not peaceful, with the constant radios blaring from their cells and the television blasting out from the room at the end of the wing, but more peaceful than the ‘A’ wing where sleep had been impossible.
The downside of the move was one of his other two cellmates.
Paddy O’ Leary, a Northern Ireland rapist doing a ten-year stretch. He was a nice enough bloke; with a spider web tattoo across the entire front of his body that started at the top of his neck and finished at his navel. At first Bell found it a bit disconcerting but soon got used to it. What he couldn’t get used to was the way in which he blew his nose by placing a nicotine-stained thumb over his left nostril while vigorously expelling a shot of snot out of the right nostril.
Bell had an hour before he was due in the kitchen. The workers can come and go as they please. He lies on his bed and read the remainder of his book.
His first week was to scrape the remaining food off the trays and pass them on for washing. It’s not his ideal job, but it’s a start until he works his way into the library. Sadly, the prison didn’t have gardens; the only bits of greenery were in pots on the windowsills of some cells.
The exercise yard was open from seven in the morning until seven at night so he was able to get plenty of exercise and entertainment by walking around the walls, counting his steps as he walked.
Spring was not far away and a raise in temperature, the evening air was brisk and cool. A strong chilly breeze which had managed to get inside the compound brushed his face as he looked up to the late winter setting sun, quickly disappearing behind the high razor topped wall.
They all took their turns in mopping the corridors and cell floors along with the toilets and shower block, finishing off with the screws office at the end of each wing.
Bell preferred the company of the older guys who were in for life. He found they were easier to talk with about the good old days and comparisons of penal institutions where they had spent most of their lives. They weren’t interested in drugs and violence, but they would grab a venerable young skinhead, drag him to the blind spot in the yard and gang rape him.
Outside the relative safety of his cell and between kitchen duties, Bell spent most of his time in the small library while predators roam the corridors in search of new young arrivals or a sexual companion.
The young arrivals were supposed to get additional security and issued cells nearer to the screws control room, but it seldom happened. Some screws were known to interfere with the lads and force them to perform oral sex, where the screws would normally reward them with special privileges in gratitude.
The cells were regularly checked for drugs. If they are found the entire occupants of the cell are blamed, irrespective of the culprit. The penalty was five days in solitary confinement. Bell hadn’t suffered the penalty, although Nick Bradshaw kept his stash behind the toilet bowl and it was only a matter of time before it was discovered.
Most drugs enter the prison by visitors, although they pass through metal detectors but do not have a body search. Screws watch the prisoners and visitors through the one-way glass wall of an enclosed office. Signs are posted throughout, warning that prolonged kissing will result in the termination of the visit, but most drugs enter the prison this way and are difficult to detect.
John Bell had not received a visitor since he arrived. There had been no contact between him and Jennifer, not even a reply to the letter he had sent while in custody.
After his arrest and subsequent conviction, she had stayed in the house for five weeks, not even attending her beloved bible class. She would potter around the garden, which was becoming neglected and overgrown.
She would avoid sitting in the bay window, as the court case had been headlines in the local newspaper, which attracted many people staring at the house as they walked along the esplanade.
She occasionally walked over to the public gardens and the boating lake, but was cursed by the neighbours as they lifted their curtains, which made her angry. She had every reason to be.
After her evening supper, she would take to her bed early and tears somehow found their way through her closed eyes.
Beryl Parker from Bible class would visit her and often take her out in the car to do her shopping and the occasional drive in the country. No one blamed Jennifer for what had happened, many saying that it had only been a matter of time before he slipped back into his evil ways, yet Jennifer somehow blamed herself as she had introduced the vicar to John and encouraged the friendship to develop.
Another regular caller was Denis Barrow, who had been introduced to Jennifer by Sylvia. He was also a member of the bible class but had moved to Fleetwood from Southampton two months after John had been sentenced. He hadn’t personally met either John or the vicar, but was aware of what had happened. He wouldn’t mention this to Jennifer out of consideration for her feelings.
She enjoyed his visits and outings and he motivated her by calling at the house and insisting she accompanied him on his brisk coastal walks, but once back in the house, she would quickly fall back into her depression.
Beryl Parker had suggested she sell the house in view of the memories and the constant audience it attracted. She had brought her a brochure of a new building development which had just been completed at the far end of the esplanade.
The building consisted of one and two bedroom apartments with small balconies overlooking the harbour, the town centre being a two minute walk away.
Beryl had taken her to view the one bedroom flat, which impressed Jennifer, particularly the view from the second floor lounge.
She seriously considered the opportunity, but had wanted the two bedroom apartment, as John would require his own room when he returned. She had convinced herself that he would need somewhere to live when he was released, irrespective of the length of his prison term.
The ladies from the church had become concerned into Jennifer’s decline and that of her garden, so they organised a work force to cultivate and redesign it.
The ladies started as soon as conditions allowed, which was a damp Tuesday morning but comparatively mild. Two of the hardier women turned over the ground and felled the trees while the more delicate planted seeds of chrysanthemums, Jennifer’s favourite.
While they toiled every Tuesday, weather permitting, Jennifer would prepare mountainous plates of sandwiches and homemade Victoria sponge. The garden was soon transformed back to how John had left it. The ladies had done their utmost and Jennifer’s low spirits were soon heightened. The ladies were rewarded by the vicar mentioning their toils during his sermon to the congregation.
Denis Barrow would call to the house regularly and take Jennifer to the cinema, coastal walking, dancing at the weekly church tea dance or the occasional restaurant dinner. He was twenty years younger, but the age difference had been totally irrelevant.
It was over a candle lit dinner in a restaurant in St Annes, when Denis talked ungraciously about wedding arrangements before an actual proposal.
Jennifer rapidly changed the conversation before such a proposal was offered.
Once the warmer weather arrived and the garden bounced back to life, she decided not relocate to the apartment block and remain in the warm, comfort and convenience of the house, not that there was luxury or ostentation, but because John and she had purchased it together and she felt comfortable in her chair by the window.
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The bible class ladies made sure she was given plenty of attention and she soon returned to the congregation and church activities.
She had managed to manoeuvre the car, but she restricted her journeys to the supermarket and the church, with the occasional drive to the Victoria Hospital in Blackpool, visiting some of the elderly church congregation.
She had only once been to Denis Barrow’s house, when he had been unable to walk due to a sprained ankle. He lived on an estate of council houses in Layton, at the far south of Blackpool. Most of the houses had been sold to their tenants, but he rented his. The front door was peeling in places but the windows and the house were clean.
The small front lawn had been cut and the borders weeded, but hedge-clippings had been missed and the garden was surrounded by shaggy, branching privet.
The adjoining house was in a poor state of disrepair and the overgrown garden surrounded a rusty car resting on blocks where the wheels once stood.
Denis had constantly suggested he moved in with her, as he was under the impression she was in desperate need of companionship. She didn’t see him again.
On Thursday evenings, she assisted with the youth club activities, planning the programmes, coaxing, encouraging and occasionally berating the groups in the hope of getting them off the streets, avoiding petty crime.
She would still make her favourite casserole, eating in the kitchen while she watched the small white plastic television she had brought down from John’s bedroom.
The bank manager and his wife next door had always been supportive of her since her brother had been sentenced and had remained un-judgemental throughout.
Molly did not share the attitude at the other side. She refused to have any further contact with Jennifer, following the case in the local newspaper and television coverage.
Jennifer would often recall the night in Keswick on John’s sixtieth birthday and the tip to Blackpool when they were denied entering the promenade to see the crashing waves.
Although she constantly looked back at those happy times and the companionship John had given her, she knew there was no justification for killing all those people.
She could never understand why John had always been apposed to adultery, but he felt that murder was all right.
As Jennifer was now becoming more motivated with the help of the church ladies, John Bell was also motivated by the screws in the exercise yard, the gym, mopping the floors while on cleaning duties, or just walking up and down the secure corridors.
As Jennifer tucked into her lamb casserole watching the six o’clock news. Bell tucked into his cottage pie and baked beans which he ate off his tray while watching Bradshaw and O’Leary thumb a nostril to release a string of snot on the floor, listening to the yelling and screaming up and down the corridor.
He sat on his bunk and toyed with his food, looking over at Bradshaw sitting on the toilet, his head going backwards and forwards to the music coming through the headphones of his walkman. O’Leary sat on his bunk, picking his nose constantly.
The next morning Bell went to the prison chapel. He was not religious, but it relieved the boredom. Two prisoners gave out hymnbooks, which were passed from hand to hand along the rows. Bell settled back in his plastic chair, folded his arms and looked around the room at the murderers, drug dealers, paedophiles and terrorists.
There were huddled conversations going on everywhere, and despite the body searches, he saw notes and small packages being transferred from mouth to hand and from hand to mouth.
The elderly minister announced a hymn and the congregation shuffled to their feet. They were all singing at the top of their voices, their heads tilted back and their mouths wide open. Bell thought they sounded like wolves howling at the moon.
There was no work on Sunday but Bell had to clean the floors of the corridor and around the shower block. The gym was full and the exercise yard packed.
Bell was only allowed one hour a day in the gym, but some inmates were there all day and everyday.
After Bell had finished cleaning duties, he hung around on the corridor, leaning over the railings watching the prisoners lining up, being searched by the screws before they went into the exercise yard. He pushed himself off the railings and ambled slowly along, several inmates nodded to him as he passed, as they knew who he was and what he had done, as he knew of them. There were no secrets in here, everyone knew everything about everybody.
He walked out to the exercise yard, passing half a dozen of the older inmates sitting at a table playing dominos and four Jamaicans playing pool. Big Bear was with them, his hand squeezing one of the lad’s buttocks.
He walked into the gym; there were more than two dozen in there. Most of the West Indians had gathered at the weights area where Nick Bradshaw was holding court. A screw watched them from the balcony with a look of disdain. They approached a new young intake that was jogging on the treadmill and switched off the machine, which threw him to the ground. They dragged the young lad into the shower block, and ripped off his prison issue shorts. Two West Indians bent him over opening the cheeks of his white arse as Bradshaw violently fucked the lad to the chanting of the West Indians.
The screams of the young intake were heard through the gym, where the others appeared oblivious to the attack. The supervising prison office leaned over the rails and continued picking the dirt from under his nails, looking in the opposite direction.
Bell didn’t spend much time in the gym, and when he did his routine never varied. He did thirty minutes running on the treadmill, ten minutes on the bike, and whatever time was left, he’d spent it doing press-ups. The only variation came when he worked on his arms and legs. He never went near the weights area and he rarely spoke to anyone in the gym.
Nick Bradshaw was an out and out bully. He would never have to ask to use a piece of equipment, as the others would just move away as he approached, watching him race at the highest speed and highest incline on the treadmill. His deep-set black crows eyes fixed firmly on the wall as he concentrated on maintaining his rhythm. He gained respect from the others. He had a knack of intimidation to the prisoners and charm to the officers and could get anything he wanted from gym equipment, better food, smokes, drugs, to sex from anyone he fancied, normally the young vulnerable skinheads who had just arrived on the wing and hadn’t had the time to find a suitable gang or a lone protector.
He would jerk off incessantly on his bunk above Bell on the rare occasion he didn’t have someone to do it for him.
When Bell was on his own, normally in the exercise yard, his mind would whirl through memories of Jennifer, the way she would sit in the bay window, sleeping with her handkerchief hanging from the corner of her mouth as she watched the passing traffic on the esplanade and moving around the kitchen, shuffling her small feet as she prepared the meals and the look of grateful pride when he was in the garden.
Apart from Jennifer, he had come to hate the world and everyone in it.
He would watch Bradshaw as he slept, thinking of the ways he could kill him. A quick kick from his heel to break his nose, sending the bone up to his brain, as he had done to the vicar. A finger strike into his eyes. A chop to the Adam’s apple or a fist to the throbbing vein in his temple. Bell knew what it was like to kill and knew that he could take Bradshaw’s life without a moment’s regret or guilt.
Bell knew it wasn’t worth it. If he killed Bradshaw out of jealousy, he would be killed by his band of admirers and supporters within twenty-four hours or spend the rest of his life behind bars. No man was worth that, he thought.
Bradshaw would lay on his bed, sulking like a spoilt child, then express his rage. He’d lash out verbally and physically, making someone pay for what he was going through in the prison. He would bang his clenched fists on the wall, screaming,
‘I don’t want the fucking shit food, I don’t want to watch fucking television, I don’t want to clean floors or weave fucking baskets, I just want peace and quiet.’
Bell woul
d lay on his bunk with his hands over his ears.
He had repeatedly asked for a transfer, but it was always denied.
The exercise yard was Bell’s escape from Bradshaw’s violent tempers, where he could mingle in relative safety with the others. His blue prison issue baggy trousers, several sizes too big for him, the hem scuffed the floor as he walked around the yard like a trapped tiger. He had requested a new fitted uniform as the shirt was as baggy as trousers, but his request was refused due to the overcrowding.
It had been light outside for a couple of hours before the cell door was unlocked.
Bradshaw was standing at the ready by the door. As soon as it opened he rushed out and hared along the corridor. Bell heard the pounding of feet as other prisoners rushed to the showers. He felt dirty, but seeing Bradshaw had nicked his towel and he didn’t have clean clothes to change into, he didn’t see the point of showering.
He rolled off his bunk and stared at his reflection in the mirror tiles above the sink. There were dark patches under his eyes and his hair was lank and greasy. He bared his yellowing teeth. He looked as if he had been sleeping rough for a week.
He took the shaving soap and brush, lathered his face, and then shaved with the plastic razor. He cleaned his teeth with the foul-tasting toothpaste. Plastic bristles came off the brush and he spat them out. As he was rinsing his mouth, the cell door opened. It was Big Bear, carrying a dark green towel and a plum coloured prison-issue tracksuit.
Big Bear’s cellmate was in solitary confinement for fighting in the food hall along with a dozen others, and had left the garments in the cell.
John thanked him as he dried his face on the towel.
‘You know you can get pants and socks sent in from the outside,’ he said, to Bell.
‘Yes, I know, but there’s no one I can call,’ Bell replied.
‘Well, I can get a change of clothes every week, and I’m working on getting underwear also,’ Big Bear said.
Inseparable Bond Page 25