30
Warden awoke to a dull murmur. He looked around the small grey room with its neatly functional shelves, tidy beds and fresh linen, as though its inhabitants were guests at a minor seaside resort. The cell was dim. Its contours emerged in a dull sliver of light falling onto the far wall. From outside came a sound like doves’ wings beating mutely against stone. He pushed himself into a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. A bell tolled seven times.
He peered out the window where the oncoming night crept down the sky. The sound continued, wave-like, its narcotic rhythms slowly condensing into human speech. It was rest hour. The inmates had returned to their cells and were conversing across the courtyard through the windows high above.
Presently the sounds distinguished themselves into words, individual strands of conversation weaving in and out of a web of voices greeting, gossiping and warning of informers among their rank. It passed like a sad river of sound while the light slowly faded, the voices coming less and less frequently as darkness fell over the prison walls.
Wormwood Scrubs was cut off from the city, surrounded by a field and high trees, as though it had risen naturally out of the landscape. The first impression Warden had of the imposing brick walls and rounded contours was of a mosque whose majestic domes had been transported through time and space all the way from ancient Constantinople, impossible to scale its massive heights from inside or out.
Once inside, his impressions changed. There was little majestic about it. The guard ignored the jeers and whistles as he escorted Warden along the rows of cloistered cells. Warden’s cell was empty. A previous occupant had been hospitalized for hepatitis, while another had been put into confinement overnight for a mealtime infraction.
The guard pointed to a bed and secured the door behind him. Alone in his new home, he looked around. A wooden crucifix and a framed photograph of a grey-haired woman with a worried expression hung on the wall over one bed. The other wall was bare. He lay on the cot, the mattress hard against his back. He put his hands behind his head, staring at his feet at the far end where they stuck up like a distant border. His eyes closed. The rhythm of sleep took over his breathing.
The next morning, Warden joined a gang of some twenty-odd fellow prisoners doing maintenance work, tending the grounds and other light duties. They were next divided into groups of five and six, continuing their labour. At noon they were herded into a large open room with long rows of tables and benches where they ate, arguing and joking like school boys as they crammed their mouths with food. The oldest prisoners appeared to be in their forties. Others looked as if they hadn’t yet begun to shave. In their grey sartorial uniformity, they could easily have been mistaken for a squadron of soldiers or sailors.
Warden looked around. No one returned his gaze under the watchful eyes of the guards, though he knew they’d been aware of him from the hour of his arrival.
After lunch he was taken to the prison infirmary and assigned a helpmate named Steve who showed him his stocktaking duties while saying as little as possible. At 4 o’clock he was returned to his cell. The door closed with a clack of lockers. On the edge of one of the beds sat a young man with his arm in a sling, his face held in profile. Strong-boned cheeks and full lips silently refused to turn and acknowledge his arrival. Warden took a step forward.
“Hi,” he said. “My name’s Warden.”
The young man didn’t move.
“What’s your name?”
“None of your damned business.”
Warden walked over to his own bed and sat. “That’s fine. I’m not planning on staying here forever. I’ll just mind my business till I get out and you can do the same.” He lay back and cupped his hands behind his head.
“They told me I’d been stuck with a fucking wog,” the other said.
“Sorry—I’ll tell room service there’s been a mistake and they can change our rooms in the morning.”
“Don’t get cocky with me, mate. I got this scrapping with another bloke with a big mouth,” the boy said, indicating the arm in the sling. His bristling tone contained an unconcealed pride in the words. “You’ll want to watch yourself with me. I’ve got lots of friends in here and as far as they’re concerned the only good wog is a dead wog.”
“Before we spend the next few months in total silence, can you at least tell me what a wog is?” Warden asked.
The boy turned and looked at him directly for the first time. Despite his sturdy build, he was no more than nineteen or twenty. His face carried a look of disgust. “What’s a wog? A wog is a bloody foreigner! It means a worker on government service, is what it means. It’s all them bloody Arabs and other foreigners who come over here to drain our economy. That’s exactly what a wog is.”
“You’re right—I’m a wog.”
Warden lay back on his bed reading a paper, turning the pages slowly. The other boy lit a cigarette, expelling the smoke in scornful exhalations. Neither spoke for the rest of the evening.
In the morning, a grey pieta of light poured in the window. Warden lay quietly till he heard the other boy get out of bed to urinate in a bucket. Warden ignored him as he dressed. The boy picked up the pot and took it out to empty when the guards came along.
During work detail the other prisoners were no more talkative than they’d been the previous day. They worked until noon and then broke to eat. In the lunch area Warden saw his helpmate Steve from the infirmary. He managed to sit across the table from him. Steve replied to his questions in one- or two-word answers. He seemed anxious not to appear interested. Warden asked why no one would talk to him. The other boy stiffened. He looked down at his plate and stirred the yellow ooze of a broken yolk with his fork.
“I don’t know, mate,” he said. “Maybe it’s because you’re not from here.”
He hurriedly finished eating before getting up from the bench. Later in the infirmary, Warden tried to talk to him again. Steve seemed more relaxed as Warden helped him carry in several boxes of supplies, checking off the order lists and stocking the cupboards. It seemed odd, Warden said, that they were allowed to do stock control on drug shipments. Steve laughed, saying there was nothing they were handling that was worth stealing for use or trade value.
“Needles, now. They have a habit of disappearing sometimes,” he said with a wink.
They continued to open boxes and stack supplies on the shelves.
“What you were asking me about earlier,” Steve began. “What you said about nobody talking to you? It’s because they don’t know you. They think you might be a nark.”
“What’s a nark?”
“An informer. Don’t take it personally, mate—they’re just protecting themselves, you know?”
“How do I prove I’m not?” Warden asked, gathering a load of boxes into his arms.
“You can’t do anything, really. You have to let them decide for themselves if they like you or not. If you stay out of the way you’ll be all right. One thing you need to know is the guards won’t help if you get out of favour with the wrong people in here. They won’t try to save you.”
“Save me from what?”
“Whatever.”
Warden didn’t like the sound of that. It suggested many possibilities, all of them bad. “Who are the wrong people?”
“The guys on top—they run things in here. You’ll figure it out pretty quick if you keep your eyes open.”
“And who are you in this social institution?”
Steve looked cautiously around. “Me? I’m nobody. I just keep my nose clean, is all. I’m only in for another month anyway. Then I’m gone.”
“So how do I keep my nose clean?”
“Fear is good,” Steve said, smiling just a little.
Warden smiled back. “What do you do in real life, Steve?”
“What? D’you mean outside?” He paused. “I’m a mechanic. I hot-wired an automobile once—that’s why I’m in here. What are you in for?”
“Making a donation to a political party.”
Steve’s eyes grew incredulous. “Is that illegal now?”
“It was somebody else’s money.”
Steve stared at him a moment then laughed and slapped him on the back, almost making him drop the boxes he had piled up to his chest.
“You’re all right, mate. If you want any more advice on getting along in here, just ask me. I’ll tell you anything you need to know.”
“I’m having trouble with my roommate—cellmate, I guess I mean. I can’t get him to talk.”
“You’re in with Tom Skelton, aren’t you?”
“I don’t even know that—he won’t talk to me.”
“That sounds like Tom. He’s a queer one, all right. You’re lucky you didn’t come a week earlier or you might’ve ended up with Wayne the Knife. He’s one of the bad sort. I hear he caught hepatitis and had to be sent to hospital.”
“That must be the guy they shipped out before I got there. The guard said they didn’t know when he’d be back.”
“Keep your fingers crossed he won’t,” Steve said. “Did you try offering Tom a cigarette?”
“No—I don’t smoke.”
“Well, you’d better start. Cigarettes are lucre in here. You can barter for just about anything with them.”
“What will I need?”
“You’ll find something you want eventually.”
“How do I get them?”
“You have to have them sent in from outside. Whenever someone comes to visit, ask them to bring you a pack of fags. I’m serious—it’ll help.”
He hesitated then took two slightly crumpled cigarettes from his shirt front pocket and handed them to Warden. “Here. I won’t be needing these much longer—have a smoke with your lad tonight and things’ll go much better. I guarantee it.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
In the cell that evening, the other boy lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. He didn’t look over as Warden entered and sat on his own bed.
Warden took one of the cigarettes from his shirt pocket and struck a match. He lit it and blew out the match. He glanced up. “Like a cigarette?” he said.
The other boy looked suspiciously at him for a moment. “All right.”
Warden handed him the cigarette and lit it for him. The boy lay back on his elbow regarding him coolly.
“Where’d you get these, then?” he said. “I didn’t think you smoked.”
“I’m full of surprises,” Warden said. “So your name’s Tom?”
“That’s right,” the boy said, grinning for a second before his usual sullen glare took over his features again. “How’d you find that out?” he said.
“Same way you found out I was a wog—I asked.”
If Warden had hoped for a conversation he was disappointed. Tom gave curt answers to his queries, showing no curiosity about the other man sharing his cell.
“What do you do outside, Tom?”
“I’m a bricklayer.”
“And how long are you in for?” Warden asked. “Or is that too personal a thing to ask of your cellmate?”
Tom’s eyes narrowed. “If I said the word, I’d be out of here like that,” he declared, with a snap of his fingers. “It’s all who you know.”
“So why don’t you say the word?”
“I say fuck ’em—I don’t kiss anybody’s arse in here,” the boy answered, butting his cigarette on the floor.
He swung his legs onto the bed and turned his face to the wall.
31
Warden fell into the rhythm of the daily prison routine, waking at 6:30, showering and changing before being taken out to join the others. Later, there was lunch and afternoons spent in the infirmary.
He quickly learned the prison’s hierarchies, based on the size and strength of the inmates as well as the severity of their sentences. Anything involving physical violence was considered impressive and deserving of respect. His own crime placed him close to the bottom of the list. There were also the groups of blacks and Asians who hung out together at lunch.
Tom became more talkative as the days drew on. He had a penchant for singing in a rough boyish tenor, which he grew more comfortable doing as he got to know Warden better. He admitted going to the prison chapel on Sundays just to sing. In their cell, he was fond of singing Danny Boy and a comical version of King of the Road, a tune his father had taught him.
Whenever Warden asked about his life outside prison, Tom was vague. It soon became apparent he’d never had much of a family life. Warden heard the guilt in his voice when he spoke of a hard-working mother and the father who’d died while he was in prison. He’d been forced to attend the funeral in handcuffs.
Although he’d expected to hate every moment of his time there, after a month Warden came to find a reassuring peace in his cell. When he mentioned it to Tom, the other agreed.
“It’s all right. You get your needs met regular and it’s quiet,” he said. “It’s nice to know someone’s not going to just walk in on you in the middle of the night.”
Warden kept Tom amused with tales of foreign countries and lifestyles, fascination and curiosity mingling in the boy’s open face. In return, Tom let Warden in on a few secrets of prison life. One night he pulled up his sleeve and flexed his muscle. A crude bulldog tattoo shimmied on his left shoulder.
“That’s Wayne’s work,” he said. “Wayne the Knife.”
Warden recalled the name of Tom’s former-cellmate from Steve’s lecture on people to avoid in prison.
Tom quietly lifted the edge of his mattress and extracted a jagged sliver of metal from the material. He brandished it with playful pride. “We’d really catch it if they ever found us with this,” he exclaimed.
He described how Wayne had heated the edge of the blade, sketching the outline on his shoulder. He then filled it in with ink from the tip of a ballpoint pen.
“How did it feel?” Warden asked.
“It was a fucking spiritual experience!”
“Is it permanent?”
“More or less. But if I wanted to I could rub up against the concrete until it bled a couple times. Then once I had a good thick scab, I’d just pull it off quick as I can.”
He laughed at the look on Warden’s face.
“That’d get rid of it,” he said. “But I don’t want to get rid of it.”
The first time Rebekah visited she came dressed in a blue velvet coat and cape with a fur-trimmed hat. Her arrival made a minor sensation. They were separated by a window in a room where twenty or more prisoners sat conversing with visitors. Voices dropped to urgent whispers as though trying to cram everything they had to say into the appointed time.
“You look well,” she said, as she sat with a bustle of coats and dresses. “I’m glad of that, at least.”
“Thanks. And you look wonderful. Is this standard visiting garb?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“I thought I might need it to bully someone or else charm them, but apparently not. They let me right in. Before I forget, I left a carton of cigarettes for you at the front desk. You didn’t say what brand so I bought you something American. I hope that’s all right. Is it that bad in here you’ve had to take up smoking?”
“No—it’s currency,” he grinned. “Any time I want a favour I take out a cigarette. I’m told it works. I have yet to ask for anything.”
“I’ll bring you more next time I come. I thought a carton would last forever for a beginner,” she said.
Her face faltered. She looked down at her hands on the shallow ledge.
“I’m—Ivan and I—we’re sorry how things went at the trial.”
“Don’t, Rebekah. There’s no need to be sorry. I think I got off fairly easily, to tell you the truth. It’s going by fast, too. I’ll be out in no time. Then we’ll rip up the town again just for fun.”
“I never asked what made you do what you did. I … think I can understand.”
“Then maybe sometime you’ll tell me,” Wa
rden said.
She glanced at the oversize clock on the wall. “Now that I’m here I can hardly think what to say.”
“Tell me what you’ve been doing.”
“Oh, the usual. You know how it is. Ivy found a new club nobody else has heard of. It’s quite fabulous, really, and it was a new twist for us entirely—we had to pay to get in. Nothing I could say would convince the doorman to let us in for free. The thrill will wear off quickly, I suppose.” She paused. “It’s not the same without you, of course.”
Warden smiled ruefully.
“How’s life inside—or dare one ask?”
“Not as gruesome as I thought it would be, though I keep pretty much to myself. I mostly do my work and then go back to my cell. I have a cellmate a little younger than me. I call him Cruel Tom because of his sneer. He likes to talk about knives and karate and violence. In the evening he sits around smoking and singing Danny Boy. I couldn’t ask for better company, could I?”
A guard soon arrived to escort him back to his cell. Rebekah’s face broke into a complexity of guilt and misery. She smiled and touched her fingers to her lips, pressing the kiss against the glass in front of his face.
That evening Tom was in a playful mood, singing and telling jokes. He jumped on his bed and wedged himself into a corner between the shelves and the window frame, hanging on by sheer force of determination.
“Look, Warden,” he called out.
Warden lifted his eyes from his newspaper to watch.
“Gravity’s wasted on me,” he said. “I’m Spiderman.”
“You’re a bloody goon, is what you are.”
He jumped down and sat beside Warden, elbows planted on his knees. He took a butt from his sock and jammed the end in his mouth, cupping the flame from the match as though to protect it from a non-existent wind.
Warden gazed at the freckled skin emerging from the collar of his shirt. Short bristles of hair stood up on Tom’s neck, redolent of things warm and human in the spiritless grey surroundings. A guard came by and opened the viewing slot. Satisfied everything was in order, he shut it again.
A Cage of Bones Page 23