by David Wilson
“Just one?”
She kept her head down.
The man took a chip, jabbed it into the bowl of ketchup and put it in his mouth.
“Bloody lovely,” he said. There was ketchup on his fingers.
“Fred,” said the barman. “Leave her alone.”
“Fuck off,” he said.
“You heard,” said the barman. The man wandered back to his table, sat down heavily. The barman winked at her.
The door opened and closed and a man in his fifties came into the bar. He looked around, saw the girl and hesitated. He wore a shiny orange puffa jacket with the name of an IT company printed on the front, the sort found in a charity shop or worn by a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. He went up to the bar and ordered a double scotch, no ice. When he paid she noticed a tattoo on the inside of his wrist, initials, another on his neck, a red heart. She thought he looked like an extra from an amateur porn movie. He sat at the table behind her.
“Happy days,” he said.
She swung around and he smiled. He had a puffy face and a chin beard, silver like the pelt of a large primate. He stretched his legs under the table and folded his arms as if expecting her to make the first move. She turned away, she had an instinct for drug dealers but this one eluded her. She tried to switch on her sixth sense and pluck up some courage.
“I’m ready when you are,” he said.
She wasn’t sure whether he was talking to her. The iPod was now throwing out a ballad, I’m Not in Love by 10cc, hateful. There were four men in the pub, and a bored barman, each lost in their own personal bitterness, nursing broken hearts, killing time, somewhere deep down planning revenge. It’s just a silly phase. She had her whole life ahead of her. She pushed her chair back and stood up.
“Are you talking to me?” she asked.
“No love, the world, be prepared for the worst, I always say.”
His eyes were hard, and he gripped his glass with both hands. She wanted what he had, chemical or physical, any kind of oblivion. She felt herself inexplicably opening up. He was nothing to look at but solid, there, a promise of deliverance. She was emotionally drained, rock bottom, she didn’t know if she was coming or going.
“Can you help me?” she said.
“Not right now darling.” He turned up his palms as if weighing their emptiness. “Later, if the mood grabs me, we can come to some arrangement.”
She backed into her chair and sat down, crimson with embarrassment, like the after-burn of an effusive greeting to someone who turns out to be a complete stranger.
The man sitting in front of her had soft eyes which softened further when she let out a small gasp. Her hands were trembling. He was wearing a black corduroy jacket, had fashionable unshaven stubble and longish mousy hair going grey at the sides. His lips twitched as he ran his tongue along them and he seemed eager, out of breath. He’d slipped silently into the pub and taken a chair at her table.
“I saw you in town,” he said.
“Are you stalking me?” she said. She suddenly felt exhausted. She took out her phone ready to speed dial her father.
“No, really, I know your type, I understand you.” He glanced around the pub. “I’ve got gear, it’ll lift your spirits.”
“No thanks, go away.”
His eyes began to crystallize as he focused on something far away.
“Take it from me, the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,” he said.
“Shittiest chat-up line I’ve ever heard,” she said.
“But Blake had a coherent philosophy, nourished the soul, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell unifies the physical world with human desire, sets you free. Have you read Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception?”
She had.
“It was inspired by Blake,” he said. “A mescaline trip. The Doors, you know, Jim Morrison? Named his band after the book, it’s all connected you see.”
The guy was pushing hard; she’d be a junkie before she knew it. She loved William Blake’s passion, his mind-blowing visions: “Without contraries is no progression.” She wanted to visit the other side.
“Love and innocence,” continued the man. “That’s how you were brought up wasn’t it. But they’re dead ends. “Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate are necessary to human existence.” You need to decide which side you’re on. Do you know which side I’m on?”
“I really don’t care, what have you got?”
He seemed to deflate. “There’s more to it than that,” he said, and looked away. “There is love, eventually, a hard kind of love, if you return. I saw you outside the museum, the place with the Blake. I saw two souls that wanted to become one.” He held his finger in the air, reminding her of a dancer in Saturday Night Fever. He too had a tattoo on his wrist, she noticed, two capital letters. What is it with guys: they claim the final word and stamp it on their bodies as well?
“You’re old enough to be my father, just don’t go there,” he was seriously spooking her out now. “Look, can we get this done?”
He seemed to slip into a private place. He closed his eyes. There was a look about him that was both vulnerable and capable of violence. Which side was he on? How could she know? He had strong features, some would say handsome, his earnestness defined his expressions.
“I don’t have much time,” he said, after a while. “I have a mission, an understanding.”
“Let’s hope that means a good price then,” she said.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Round the back, my car’s parked there.”
She drained her pint and followed him out of the door. It was dark outside, the street lights shivered in the cold, she could hear cars on the main road at the end of the alley, their tyres hissing and growling on the wet cobbles. They walked around the back of the pub. There was a silver BMW.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Are you kidding, no names,” she said. She was nervous, always was when she was buying, and this guy was worrying her. Maybe call it a day, bury herself under a pillow, but the goods were too enticing.
“What shall I call you then?” he said.
“How about Kate Bush.”
“But, you see, I do know your name. You’re Morag Munro, the prison governor’s daughter, the guy who runs Greenbank prison.”
“Shit,” she said. “You really do have a key to the palace of wisdom. Where’d you get that kind of info from?”
She edged away from him and started walking backwards down the side street.
“Adios, creep,” she said and turned to run.
The man caught her by the throat, slipping his hand over her mouth and held her tight.
Chapter Fourteen
John Johnsson closed the door to his office, and returned to the Prison Service Notice to Staff announcing new vacancies for governing governors. He should have been governing his own prison by now, and had spent too many years playing best man to grooms of various and often dubious abilities. It’s not easy being number two. Do you try and guide the governor, or allow him – or her – to make their own mistakes? Do you support them even when you’re convinced they’re wrong? And how do you react when someone gets parachuted in over your head to run the prison that you had been promised? Maybe not promised, but Martin Wooldridge had suggested that Greenbank was all but his for the asking. Too late now. He felt a roaring in his ears and for a brief moment a red mist clouded his vision. He’d learnt to control these surges over the years, but just in case, he carried a blister pack of diazepam wherever he went.
Johnsson knew he hadn’t been pulling his weight since Munro arrived, but who could blame him? Munro shouldn’t be running a therapeutic prison, he just didn’t have the smarts. He’d be better off governing a dispersal, where everything was black and white, clear cut, unambiguous. Greenbank was different, and Johnsson knew he’d be better than Munro at dealing with the special challenges of a therapeutic community. If you’re not careful a TC can mess with your head.
John
sson looked again at the list of vacancies. None of them appealed. Most were in the north, and that would have meant upping sticks and moving his family. No way would his wife stand for that, what with their eldest about to start his GCSE year at school. One was close by, and just about commutable, but it was an open prison, and Johnsson knew he might as well say, “I’m looking for somewhere to retire.” He wasn’t interested in retirement; he was ambitious, he had all the right credentials to do well. Isn’t that what Martin Wooldridge had written on his last annual staff report? “All the right credentials to do well.” Johnsson ran through these credentials in his mind once more. He had a criminology degree and a certificate in management from the Open University which the prison service had paid for; he was a control and restraint commander, and had sat on several national committees attempting to promote good race relations within prisons. Johnsson had even worked on the steering committee that had recommended introducing race relations management teams into every prison in the country. Surely all of this should have qualified him to become governor of Greenbank?
Johnsson folded the notice to staff, and returned it to a drawer in his desk. He’d bide his time. The way things were going Munro would be out on his ear in a matter of days, he just couldn’t cut it, and they’d come running to him and beg him to take over. Then he’d get his revenge.
Johnsson opened the right side draw of his desk and closed his hand around cold steel. We all need something to comfort us in times of stress. He was reminded of Marlon Brando in The Godfather stroking the cat while listening to pleas for help from members of the public. Johnsson liked to do the same when a prisoner or screw sat opposite him, usually giving him grief. He’d put his hand in the drawer, nothing threatening, and run his fingers up and down the corrugated handle. He’d owned it since a boy – bought it for a fiver from an army and navy store before they got heavy about selling knives to minors. His was a replica Fairbairn–Sykes commando knife, jet black. He took it out and placed the point of its seven-inch blade on his wrist, its weight comforting, the resistance minimal. William Ewart Fairbairn, one of the early developers of the knife, had written a book about how to use it as a fighting weapon. The book was entitled Get Tough!
Johnsson replaced the knife in the drawer, got up, and opened his door, uncertain what he would find or do in the prison, but quietly optimistic that his day would come, and come soon.
Chapter Fifteen
Penny had worked for Martin Wooldridge for about a year, just after he had first moved down to Dorset. She’d heard that somebody had bought the old cottage where the church curate used to live, and she had put a note through the door offering help with the cleaning – an offer that Wooldridge was happy to accept. At first he had only used the house at weekends and during the holidays, and Penny would come in once a week to get the house ready before a visit, and then tidy it up after he’d gone. He could leave the house in quite a mess. But since his retirement she had upped the number of days that she worked for him, and tended to come in for a couple of hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, although he would sometimes ask for help on the weekends if he had guests to stay.
She liked working for him. He could be a bit pompous, but he had a twinkle in his eye and a wicked sense of humour. There was something “old school” about him, gentlemanly. When he was in a good mood he could be wonderfully flamboyant, rushing here and there, making plans. At other times she detected a deep sadness as if something inside him had collapsed like a pack of cards. She once found him sitting at his desk with his head in his hands, tears running down his face like a small boy crying. He had forgotten she was coming that morning and he hurried out of the room apologizing as if he’d done an awful thing like broken something or stolen something precious. She noticed red marks on the knuckles of his right hand. She wondered what secrets lurked behind his good nature. She supposed most ambitious, successful men had something to hide. But he was always prepared to pay cash in hand, and promptly, which was helpful as Penny didn’t like to declare all of her earnings from the various cleaning jobs that she had around the village. On occasions Wooldridge would also hire Pat, Penny’s husband to cut grass in the summer, or do odd jobs about the place. Once or twice she had cooked for him, and whilst he always seemed grateful she sensed that her very country tastes were not to his liking.
Penny lived on the other side of the village, in the council houses that the farm labourers used to live in. It wasn’t far to walk to Wooldridge’s cottage, but on Thursdays she also had two other cleaning jobs – one in the neighbouring village some four miles away, and the other just down the lane from Wooldridge’s cottage, so she rode her bicycle. She always did Wooldridge’s place last, and it was about four o’clock when she parked her bike outside his gate, and walked up the path towards the front door.
He’d given her a key so she was able to come and go as she pleased. If he wanted something special to be done, and he wasn’t going to be at home, Wooldridge would leave a note on the hall table.
One time he asked her to come on a Monday to clear up after a party. There were glasses everywhere, some half full, and ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts, more in the garden. Even in this age of the iPod – Pat had bought a second-hand one from a pawn shop, it was full of awful seventies hits – there were vinyl records strewn about the lounge floor, out of their sleeves, like huge shiny black beetles. There was jazz and sixties music by bands she’d never heard of but the record left on the turntable was Touch Your Woman by Dolly Parton. She liked her music, but she didn’t have Wooldridge down as a country and western fan. There was no accounting for taste. The thing that intrigued her more though was that someone had left a lipstick kiss on the bathroom mirror. She was shocked at first, but then she tried to imagine how it got there and whether it was some sort of message. The lips seemed to glow in the light, a rich warm red, but when she touched it the mirror was stone cold.
There wasn’t a note today, so Penny shouted “Hello – it’s only me,” but no reply. She knew that on Wednesday he’d gone back to Greenbank, but she had expected him home by now. Perhaps he’d gone up to London to visit a museum or art gallery – she envied his free and easy lifestyle. No matter, there was plenty to be getting on with. For a single man, he made enough mess and yet he was very particular about the place being tidied.
Penny always started upstairs, making his bed, and tidying the spare bedroom. She felt embarrassed if she had to open his chest of drawers to put away a discarded shirt or a tie he’d thrown on the floor – she didn’t want to look too closely. She was sure she once saw a pair of handcuffs under his socks, but then she was pretty certain he used to be a copper a long time ago. It was strange piecing together someone else’s life, you almost experience it more intimately than a lover, but you’re really only snooping, like a thief. Things are lost, forgotten, hidden and she would find them. Sometimes one shouldn’t dig too deeply. In the bathroom she opened the window to let in some air. She heard a high-pitched whine coming from quite far off, getting louder and louder and then a flash of sound and colour and almost immediately another went by. They were a menace the bikers around here, worse at weekends. The twisty roads drew them like flies to honey, their death wish like something out of Mad Max. There was an odd musty smell that she couldn’t quite place in the bathroom. She sniffed to see where it was coming from. It was probably something to do with the drains. If it got worse she’d have her husband come over and take a look. She shuddered recalling a TV programme she’d seen recently about the serial killer Dennis Nilsen cutting up bodies and flushing them down the toilet. He was just an ordinary guy on the surface. She thought she heard a noise downstairs, and shouted again: “Mr. Wooldridge – it’s me,” but there was no answer.
Having finished in the bathroom she carried the Dyson downstairs. She put it back into the cupboard under the stairs, and went towards the kitchen passing the front door. She noticed a slip of paper on the doormat. That must have been the noise she he
ard, someone posting something through the letterbox. She picked it up, it was folded in half with the words Mr Martin Wooldridge Esq. written on one side. She wondered why it was such a formal address, why not just “Martin”? The handwriting was elegant, slanting to the left, the dot over the “i” circled coquettishly. Perhaps it was from a woman? She couldn’t help herself and unfolded it. She blushed a deep crimson as she read it and she refolded it quickly, her mind a whirr. There were some things people did that she could never imagine. She looked at it again. It was signed “Yours as always, Bobby Lomas.” Wasn’t he the prisoner who had escaped recently from Greenbank prison? A serial killer? It was on the news. She felt her legs go hollow and a wave of panic made her gag. Should she call the police? But then Wooldridge would know she’d read his letter and she’d get the sack. Perhaps it was a fake? How could she know anything? She went into the lounge and was about to place the note on his writing desk when she noticed red spots on the cream carpet around the chair, some splattering and more on the papers on the desk. There was a white handkerchief covered in what looked like a lot of blood. What else could it be? This won’t do she thought, she was getting in too deep already. Suddenly there was someone at the door. Penny almost whimpered with fright and looked around for somewhere to hide. A key slotted sharply into the Yale lock of the front door and it shuddered violently open on its stiff hinges and then it was slammed shut, rattling the glass in its frame.
Penny stood rooted to the spot, she still had the note in her hand. It was Wooldridge.
“Hello love, everything all right?” he said.
He looked tired and drawn and perhaps a little shaky but there was a fierce intent in his eyes.
“Oh that, sorry Penny,” he pointed to the carpet and stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket. “Nosebleed, high blood pressure I think, awfully melodramatic though, like a Tarantino movie set,” he laughed.
“This,” said Penny, holding out the note. Wooldridge took it from her and read it. He frowned and looked at his watch.