Inseparable Bond

by David Poulter

  The only trips John Bell had taken over the past two years were to the doctors, psychologists, education officers and social workers. They assessed him all on a monthly basis.

  As Jennifer was looking at the esplanade, Bell was looking at the urine and excrement he had to clean up from the broken toilet in cell 61.

  Once that was done, he had to mop the floor of the day room on the hospital wing, along with the bathrooms and kitchen.

  There were five rows of chairs across the day room and a television set at the end. Down the side of the walls was a row of chairs where the officers would sit and watch every move, but mainly to listen to the inmate’s conversation.

  The bathroom consisted of twelve baths placed side by side. Bell cleaned the floor around a bath where a guy sat naked in only six inches of water. That was the maximum amount in case he tried to drown himself. A nurse stood over him, watching his every move.

  The hospital wing was an old Victorian section of the prison which should have been condemned years ago.

  Returning back to his wing, he completed his duties with a hose down of the shower block. Young Barry Newton had just finished his shower and was sitting naked on the bench with his towel draped across his knees. His hands covered his face as he sobbed like a baby. Bell sat alongside him, placing his hand on his shoulder.

  ‘What’s all this about, Barry?’ Bell asked sympathetically.

  ‘Oh, I’m all right, I just miss my kids, that’s all,’ he replied.

  Bell got up and closed the door and went back to talk to him. ‘The worst thing about prison is the lack of contact with family,’ said Bell. ‘People don’t realise that being away from your wife and kids is punishment enough, apart from being stuck in a place like this’ he said, reassuringly.

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Barry said, wiping his eyes with his towel. ‘Have you got family on the outside, Bell,’ Barry asked.

  ‘No, I’ve only got a sister, no wife and no kids, but I understand how you feel,’ he replied.

  ‘You’re a good guy, Bell, but you need more practice on the treadmill,’ he said, smiling as Bell left the shower room.

  A fight had broken out on the wing. Guards were running all over the place to contain it before it developed into a full scale riot. The fight had started when a group of guys with HIV had purposely cut themselves on razor blades they had hidden in bars of soap and were flicking blood around some of the inmates in the gym. The officers were asking for reinforcements on their radios.

  Bell avoided the brawl as he always did, and walked up the stairs to the first floor landing and into his cell.

  Bradshaw wasn’t in; he was probably in the middle of the brawl, as he didn’t need much encouragement to get involved in the slightest of scuffles.

  Once the screws had dispersed the brawl, Bell went to the food hall to collect his evening supper. He met up with Big Bear, who had kept him a place in the queue. He went over to him in the food line and held his plate out for the lasagne to be thrown onto his tray.

  ‘I wouldn’t eat that, Bell, look who’s serving it,’ Big Bear said, looking over the hot plate at the guy with a metal spatula in his hand. It was Bulldog, a tall ugly guy with a pock marked face and deep-set eyes.

  He was if for seven years, accused of poisoning old ladies at the nursing home where he’d worked as a care assistant. He’d been given the hotplate job on the basis of his catering experience, but Big Bear reckoned that the screws got a sadistic pleasure from having him cook and serve the food to prisoners.

  Bell and Big Bear walked back to their cells with their trays of poisoned lasagne. Bradshaw was washing his hands in the sink. He looked up to wipe the blood off his neck. He was naked. His stomach glistened wetly and blood was splattered on his chest. The prisoners cheered and yelled obscenities on the corridor as two prison officers carried a guy along on a stretcher, leaving a trail of blood behind them.

  Bradshaw felt inside his mouth for any broken teeth and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

  At the side of Bradshaw’s bed was a broom handle that had been sharpened to a point. He looked over his shoulder to see Bell looking at it. He quickly put it under the mattress of his bunk. It was a killing weapon, sharp and long enough to drive through anybody’s ribs and into their heart, or through deep eyes and into the skull.

  Bradshaw was breathing heavily, his eyes were wide and staring, gearing himself up to attack after being defeated in the recent brawl. This man was a professional and not to mess around with. Everybody on the wing knew this and kept their distance.

  He opened a thermos full of hot water, kettles were not allowed in the cells. He put the thermos to his lips and drank the hot water, his lips curled into a snarl. He took a deep breath and his eyes flickered as he turned to Bell. ‘What’s your problem, you fucking cock sucker?’ he said to Bell.

  Bell ignored him and climbed onto his bunk, Bradshaw left the cell in search of more trouble or a possible victim he had in mind.

  Bell went to the landing and joined Big Bear hanging over the railings.

  Bradshaw was in conversation with two West Indians. They all turned to look up at Bell and he knew they were talking about him. He ignored them and looked away. He knew that Bradshaw would never attack him in the cell, that would be too obvious. Bell knew that as long as he was in the yard he was safe. If an attack came it would be out of sight of the officers and cameras and he wouldn’t fight single-handed.

  Inside he was a cowardly man, more of a bully than a fighter, unless provoked. It would start with a thermos of boiling water thrown into his face or threatened with a toilet brush he kept under his mattress, which he had sharpened to a point alongside his broom handle. He was storing an arsenal of weaponry in the cell, which Bell would be implicated should the screws decide to search, which was unlikely due to his ‘pay-off’ to the screws. One thing was for sure. Bradshaw wouldn’t be fighting fair because nothing in prison was fair; all that mattered to him was winning.

  Jennifer had bought two bottles of Hine brandy in the duty-free shop in New York. As she poured George a glass, she presented him with the wallet, still wrapped.

  ‘That’s beautiful, Jennifer, why did you do you this?’ he asked, looking inside.

  ‘Because of the lovely weekend, you made it perfect,’ she replied.

  The smell of chicken and vegetable casserole was drifting through to the sitting room as he watched the people passing the promenade, clutching his wallet. The damp log in the fireplace oozed blue smoke that billowed into the room irritating his eyes. He opened the window to release the smoke. The cool early evening wind soon cleared the smoke.

  Jennifer was setting the table in the dining room, which conveniently housed a serving hatch through to the kitchen. A massive carved dressing table filled the entire wall where a fireplace used to be. The plate racks were so high they nearly touched the ceiling. They were full of crockery and ornaments; the top of the drawers contained her beloved silverware. The other wall contained a row of shelves that contained books of philosophy, history, chemistry, art, dictionaries and detective stories. They were crammed together in anarchic disorder; they were all worn, stained, bent or slightly broken.

  They sat down at the table, he pulled his chair out for Jennifer and the arm came away in his hand. They roared with laughter and thumped it back into position.

  He laughed often, and when he opened his mouth it revealed a good set of strong but yellowing teeth.

  ‘I didn’t know you were a big reader, Jennifer,’ he said, looking at the array of books.

  ‘Oh, I’m not really, my brother enjoyed reading,’ she said, realising what she had said.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a brother, you haven’t mentioned him before,’ George said, looking up from his meal.

  ‘Oh, didn’t I?’ she replied, nervously.

  ‘No, I would have remembered that, you spoke of your parents but never a brother,’ he replied.

  Jennifer didn’t answer, as she tu
cked into her meal.

  ‘So whose this mysterious brother then?’ George enquired.

  ‘He’s my younger brother and lives in Leeds,’ she replied, wanting the ground to open up below her.

  ‘So that’s the relation you went to see when I called to see you, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one, but I don’t see much of him,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, next time we take a drive out, we’ll go over to Leeds, I’d like to meet him,’ George said, frowning as he looked at Jennifer who held her head down while she ate.

  George soon realised he had hit a nerve with Jennifer and considerately changed the subject.

  She cleared the plates; George helped to put them on the serving hatch. She returned with a silver cake stand containing a chocolate sponge cake. She cut a portion for George and covered it with thick double cream. George helped to clear the table and dried the pots after she had washed them. They had coffee and brandy sitting in the armchairs in the bay window, watching the sunset over the dunes.

  Back on the wing, John Bell was sitting on the end of his bunk, also eating chocolate sponge, but without the double cream or the silver cake stand. It was in a small plastic container, resembling the look of an airline dessert which had been discarded by the passenger and tasted as though it had been left uncovered after a twenty-four hour flight.

  It had been a boring day. The gym was out of bounds to all prisoners after a brawl earlier in the day. Big Bear had been innocently caught up in the fight and removed to solitary confinement for the night, along with eight others.

  A black guy had been badly injured after being battered with an iron ring. He was taken off to the hospital wing and later transferred to the general hospital under heavy guard. Someone had tried to smash his skull with the heavy appliance.

  Bradshaw was jumping up and down in the cell. ‘They got the bastard, I hope he fucking snuffs it,’ he shouted, thumping his clenched fist on his mattress.

  Bell looked up at him from his lower bunk, thinking his schizophrenia would probably have started the day he was born and sadly it was beyond his, or anyone’s control. Most schizophrenics have ancestors or relations with mental disorders. His family must be a nightmare to have as neighbours, Bell thought.

  Bell himself had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic, although his sister and parents had been sane and normal people, but he thought he was a man who didn’t need treatment.

  Bell left Bradshaw rejoicing and went out to the exercise yard for a smoke; it was packed with every other con thinking they’d do the same.

  It was dull and cold, but it didn’t seem to bother anybody as they slowly walked in a large circle, rain dripping off their noses.

  Bell thought about his mate Big Bear, locked up in solitary. It was a small room, built in the shape of a small box. It was really dark and claustrophobic. The whole room was made of concrete with a little bed in the middle and a thin blanket. There was a tiny exercise yard well away from the other prisoners, to keep them separate.

  Bell hadn’t heard from Jennifer since she last visited. He had tried to telephone her twice after searching for an available or un-vandalised public phone on the wings. There had been no answer and he hadn’t left a message on the answering machine.

  He had tried to write a letter but found it difficult and he had very little to say, as very little happened in his life, which he had chosen.

  He spent time reading, often slipping a library book under his shirt as you were not allowed to remove books.

  He was prone to getting severe spells of depression with the terrible feeling of loneliness. He felt it more now that Big Bear was in solitary and avoided going back to his cell other than to wash change and sleep.

  He went back on the wing and joined the old lifers who were playing cards on a table in the main corridor.

  The day started like any other. Bradshaw moaned and farted as he sat on the toilet while Bell shaved and brushed his teeth alongside him.

  After the brawl in the gym, tension had grown high on the wing. Extra officers had been drafted in from other wings in case of further trouble or even worse, a riot.

  The exercise yard, the gym, the library and the games room were off-limits until things calmed down, only the shower block and the food hall remained open, even then all inmates had to eat in their cells.

  Bell grabbed his towel and went down to the shower block.

  Tommy Hawthorne was hanging around as usual, ‘Peeping Tom’ as he was more commonly known. He never seemed to shower, but he was always the first in and the last out. He was a lifer, and now at the age of 72, it was doubtful he would ever see the outside again. His crimes were similar to those of Bells, teenage rape and murder. Locked up he was a harmless soul, other than creeping around the wing, peering into the young inmates’ cells or loitering around the shower block.

  Bell walked up and down the bank of telephones, which were mounted on the wall, wanting to phone Jennifer but hesitating each time he lifted the receiver. Half of the phones had been vandalised by the West Indians, who swarmed around them, irritating callers with their loud ghetto blasters.

  Bell was put on kitchen duties, mostly scooping clumps of mashed potato onto plastic trays for ungrateful customers. All prisoners must do a stretch of ninety days in the kitchen before seeking other prison employment, but you could be detailed for kitchen work at any time. Bell didn’t mind kitchen work, beats cleaning up the piss and shit from broken toilets or walking endless miles along the corridors sweeping up cigarette butts all day.

  Bell and a dozen others had been given kitchen duties due to the food hall being closed. All food trays had to be taken to the cells by the food porters.

  Bell would pass the completed trays through a small window where they were put on an airline style trolley and wheeled out onto the corridors. The food porters would go from cell to cell shoving trays of food through the slots.

  Big Bear had been due out of solitary today, but with tension running high, all prisoners in solitary confinement were kept there until things eased on the wing.

  The lock-up lasted until the next morning. The inmates fell onto the landings in their droves and raced down the stairs for their body search before getting into the exercise yard. They had been cooped up for thirty-six hours. The stench from their cells was overpowering. Big Bear and the others were released back onto the wing from solitary; the gym, library and food hall opened again and life on the wing soon returned to prison normality.

  Two prison officers walked along the landing, ticking off names on their clipboards. These are the inmates being transferred to other prisons around the county. For every prisoner who leaves, another one comes to take their place.

  The harshest of all institutions was Dartmoor. It was another Victorian prison and so isolated that family visits were few and far between.

  Bell wasn’t on the transfer list, sadly neither was Bradshaw.

  It was just before eight as Jennifer climbed out of bed. She looked out of her bedroom window to face another cloudy and miserable day. The morning sea was broodingly dark towards the horizon, as hard and cold as slate.

  The old grandfather clock which had belonged to her father, chimed downstairs on the stroke of eight, as punctually as ever.

  She was due at the charity shop today. She made a couple of ham sandwiches, packed an apple and orange into her shopping bag, slipped on her raincoat and tied her plastic rain hat tightly under her chin.

  She walked down the esplanade towards Fleetwood town centre, passed the well-kept houses, the vast majority being similar to her own. She looked at doors and windows with new curiosity, wondering about the people who lived in them. She had never wondered about them before because she knew their lives and hers would never cross.

  When she came across other walkers, she kept her head down and averted her face, which she had always done since John had been sentenced and the newspapers had been full of the court case, but after a while she had found the
courage to look up at some of them.

  She was surprised when many smiled at her and said ‘hello’; she was even more surprised when she heard herself respond.

  She was surprised to see so many people in the shop. Mrs Bellamy was rushing around stacking items on the shelves and looking through the clothes, inspecting them for cigarette burns. Some one had just dropped off five packed bin liners after clearing out their wardrobes. Customers were looking through the garments before Mrs Bellamy had time to check and price them.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness you’ve arrived, Jennifer, it’s been like this all morning, I don’t know where they’ve all come from,’ she said, looking up at her from the pile.

  Jennifer quickly took off her raincoat and went behind the counter to serve the queue of customers clutching books and garments.

  The sudden influx of customers had piled off a couple of coaches, which had arrived in the High Street on an early Christmas shopping excursion from Bradford. The cold and wet weather had driven them into the shop in search of shelter.

  After half an hour, the shop returned to normality and Jennifer made herself and Mrs Bellamy a well-earned cup of tea and the ham sandwiches she had brought with her.

  Jennifer’s face lit up as George walked into the shop. He was carrying a small carrier bag with string handles. He passed it over the counter to Jennifer.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked, as she reached into the bag.

  ‘It’s for you, I thought it would look nice on you,’ he said, smiling broadly.

  Mrs Bellamy looked over her shoulder as she placed some books on the shelf.

  It was an evening dress, predominantly red and gold but with a splash of other colours. Jennifer couldn’t deny that it was lovely.

  ‘It’s lovely George, really lovely,’ she said, as she ran her fingers across the silk garment.

  ‘You will look gorgeous in it, really gorgeous,’ George said, walking out of the shop.

  She couldn’t stop blushing, her heart pounded and she felt dizzy, but it was a good dizziness.

  Bradshaw was coughing and farting loudly as Bell tried to sleep below him, clutching a thin white sheet up to his chin. He closed his eyes to the noises coming from the other cells on the landing. Many inmates, as tough as they were, would cry themselves to sleep due to their fear and loneliness. Their cries were muffled, the sounds of pained anguish that begged for an escape and freedom.