by Ted Lewis
The next day I escape and make it back to London. I phone my mother and let her think she’s persuaded me to give myself up.
But when we go for trial, I only get BT. The others have already done their borstal. They get exemplary sentences of five years each. But when I come out again, I’m a bigger man in my field than before.
Which is the important thing.
The next day the wing got an additional member. We could really have very well done without him. A real mad-head called Jerry Chimers. A mug. A half-cocked chancer who’d translated himself into a gangster by pumping off a shotgun in a Saturday night pub just to get even for a well-deserved duffing. He’d got a fifteen and was very proud of it. He expanded quickly in the wing’s new permissive atmosphere and on the first day he was walking around in his pressed tie and his sharp grey suit stirring off the screws like a veteran. The next day the suit and tie disappeared. He went off like clockwork about it but it served him fucking well right. The one consolation was that he and Karate were made for each other. That was smashing news for the rest of us.
So Tommy and I gave Chimers a day or two to flex himself before we had a proper go at the diagonal wall.
We timed it so we took our shower after all the others.
We took a small metal peg off the weight-lifting stands and began to chip away at the plaster to find the edge of a brick. Tommy was the chipper, I was the minder. I’d pull the bench out slightly from the diagonal and sit down. This gave me a good view of where the screws congregated on the bottom landing. Tommy would crouch behind me and the bench and I’d warn him if anyone started for the shower room. The diagonal we were working at was at too fine an angle to be seen from outside even if the steam hadn’t obscured it. If the screws did want to check on us or deliver a message they would just stick their heads round the door. They didn’t want to come into the wet steaming shower room in their bulled-up uniforms. When we finished a chipping stint we just pushed back the bench and that covered up where we’d been working. The screws on their rounds only checked the window and the outside wall. As far as they were concerned nobody in their right mind would try and make one where we were working.
It took us two days to chip the plaster away. Then another five days to get through all the cemented sides of the first brick. The trouble was the diagonal was two bricks thick. It was going to take quite some time. But we had plenty of that and we were on our way. We didn’t care how long it took.
The party is hot and loud and alcohol stinks out the small room. There is no room to jive but people are jiving anyway, clouting into the drinkers. I am standing by the fireplace, holding my glass to my chest, waiting for someone to bump into me. The whisky is pushing sweat out of my face and my stomach is tight with aggression. Across the room I notice two birds talking together, looking at me. I know one of them, Eileen Austen. She’s talking into the other one’s ear, grinning. The other one has auburn hair and a clever face, a self-rater. Eileen Austen begins to forge her way through the mob, grinning ever wider. The aggressive muscles relax a little and there is a shaft of excitement in my chest because this is the best part, the chatting, the recognition, the reinforcement of my feelings about myself. Later, she’ll just be any other bird, a release mechanism; someone I’ll resent giving it to, and I’ll dislike myself for being weak.
Eileen makes the introductions. This is Sheila. Sheila Moss. I’ve told her all about you, the stupid cow says. But at the same time I’m glad she has. She’ll know she’s not talking to just anybody. She tries to show she couldn’t care less, but I know. Later I walk her home, via Lowther Street and its shell houses. She’s good but otherwise she’s just like the rest. Afterwards wanting to hold hands, snuggle up, wanting me to ask if I can see her again. Her attitude is totally different to what it was before. Now she’s behaving as if I’m somebody.
Terry used to watch this boating programme on Sunday afternoons and there was this bird who used to cavort all over the place in her shorts and Terry used to drool all over the telly when she was on. One afternoon when we were all in there Ray said to Terry: “If you fancy her so bleeding strong, why don’t you drop her a line?”
“Do leave off,” Terry said.
“No, straight up. She might just write back. Might even send you a photo.”
“You must be joking,” said Terry. “Do me a favour.”
Walter seized the opportunity to come the old magnanimous bit.
“Listen, my son,” he said to Terry, “I know a bird you can write to. She’s a stripper up West. Candy her name is. A right good girl she is. You write to her and tell her you met her with me and Les one night and she’d write back. With a bit of luck she might even come and see you. On my life, a right good girl.”
“Leave it out, Wally, will you,” Terry said. “I can do my own snatching.”
This gave Tommy and me the idea to cook one up for Walter. We persuaded Terry to write a letter to this Candy, then we showed it to Walter. Walter almost creamed himself. The benefactor at work. After Walter had read the letter I pretended to go off and post it. About a week later, while we were getting our grub, Tommy and I waited for Walter to come by.
“Here, Wally,” Tommy said, “that bird of yours wrote back to Terry.”
“She ain’t,” said Wally.
“Yeah,” I said, “she sent him a load of nude photos.”
Wally’s old eyes lit up.
“He hasn’t half had a ruck to get them they’re so strong,” Tommy said. “Only the rat won’t bleeding well show us.”
“I saw the PO looking at them in his office, Wally,” I said. “It was coming out of his eyes.”
Terry timed it just right. He walked past us carrying a big envelope we’d buzzed from the office. He walked along the Twos and into his cell and then he came out again without the envelope and shut the door.
Wally did a real old fashioned double-take. Terry got his grub and we all went into the Twos TV room to eat.
After a while Walter said to Terry:
“Get a letter from Candy, then, did you, my old son?”
Terry didn’t look up from his grub.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Sent you some pictures, has she?”
Terry nodded and carried on eating.
“Don’t we get a look, then?” I said.
“I’ve already told you,” Terry said. “No.”
“Nice sort of bleeding chap you are,” Tommy said.
“Tommy,” said Terry, “do you let me read your letters?”
“Terry,” I said, “all we want to do is look at the photos.”
“Billy, if your bird sent you some nude photos would you show them to me?”
Then wily old Wally came in again now he thought he could see which way the wind was blowing.
“If Terry don’t want to show them to you then that’s up to him, isn’t it?” he said. “I mean, it’s Terry’s privilege.”
“Thanks, Wally,” Terry said.
“I told you she was a good girl,” Walter said. “She’ll visit you if you play your cards right. You keep her sweet, son.”
Terry gave us the pay-off later. Apparently Walter had sidled up to him in the shop that afternoon when nobody was about and said:
“Terry, I’m right pleased for you about Candy. It’s always nice to have someone to write to.”
“You’re right there, Wally,” Terry had said. “I really appreciate what you did.”
“Forget it. Glad to oblige.”
“If there’s anything I can do . . .”
“Well . . . seeing as I sort of set it up, like . . . how about letting us have a skerry at the photos?”
Terry had gone all hurt.
“Wally,” he’d said, “why are you any different from the others?”
“Well, I�
��m not, but, I mean . . .”
“I can’t let you see them and not the others,”
“Don’t be silly, Terry. I shan’t let them know.”
Terry had shaken his head.
“Terry, I’m your pal. I told you to write to her in the first place.”
“I know that, Walter, but that wouldn’t make it right.”
Walter had gone on at Terry for days like this until he finally twigged it. When he finally twigged it I thought he was going to turn himself inside out. He was speechless for a week. But at least his preoccupation had kept him out of mine and Tommy’s business for a while.
From the yard, I check out the back of the shop. There are no signs of Law, but I know I’m taking a chance. I haven’t much choice. The only way to find out how things are is to go in.
I cross the yard and try the stockroom door. It’s open. The smell of cardboard boxes is released and immediately I think of my father.
I close the door behind me and listen. Upstairs there is the muffled sound of the radio. A floorboard creaks. I walk over to the door that opens into the shop and turn the handle. The shop is empty. Dust everywhere. Half stocked. Shabby.
I climb the stairs. My mother is in the lounge, half- asleep, sitting by the radio. I walk over to her and tap her on the shoulder. She looks up. For a moment her face is blank. Then she starts to rise from her chair and I help her up.
After the tears comes the spiel.
“Why, Billy? Why? With only two months left?”
I let go of her and move away.
“You could have been out in two months. Home.”
“I wanted to be out now.”
I light a cigarette.
“You’ll have it to do all over again. And then what will we do, me and Linda? We were banking on it, Billy, you coming back. It’s too much for us.”
I look down into the street. Why the fuck doesn’t she shut up? Can’t she see I don’t want this? If she’d just be quiet, stop asking, maybe I’d help.
“Especially now, the way Linda is. She’s always looked to you, Billy, even when your Dad was with us. She needs you here. And so do I.”
The tears start again.
“I am here, aren’t I?” I say, because I can’t think of anything else.
My mother gives me one of her looks.
“Anyway,” I say, “what’s this about Linda? What’s she up to?”
“Billy, I don’t dare think. I’ve heard things, secondhand, but she won’t tell me anything herself.”
“What things?”
“I think she might be taking drugs.”
“Drugs?”
“Well, not real drugs. Pills. I don’t know what they are. You’ll know better than me.”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know. All I know is she’s changed. Knocking about with all sorts. She never even talks to me.”
“Where is she now?”
“In bed.”
“In bed?”
“She didn’t come in till after I’d opened the shop. She’s been out since yesterday dinnertime.”
“Go and wake her up. Tell her I want to talk to her.”
“She won’t listen.”
“Then why did you keep writing me she needed me? Christ, mother, make up your flaming mind.”
“It won’t do any good. I know.”
But nevertheless she goes into Linda’s bedroom and rouses her. I hear their arguing voices and I face the window and try and fill my mind with the noise of the traffic so that I don’t have to listen to them.
Eventually my mother comes back into the room.
“I can’t talk to her. She says she doesn’t want to see you.”
But even as my mother is speaking Linda walks through the lounge and into the kitchen and begins to make herself a cup of coffee.
I walk through into the kitchen.
“What’s the matter with you, then?” I say to her.
She ignores me and concentrates on putting coffee into the coffee cup.
“I mean, you haven’t seen me for fourteen months. Isn’t there anything you want to say?”
“Like what?”
She doesn’t look at me when she speaks.
“I thought maybe you’d be pleased to see me.”
“Are you pleased to see me?”
She takes a sip of coffee and swears as it scalds her lips.
“Linda,” I say, “I d like a talk.”
“Would you?” She begins to walk back to her bedroom. “Well, I wouldn’t. I haven’t time. I’m going out.”
I stand in front of her, blocking her way.
“Linda—”
“Will you shift yourself? I’ll be late.”
I turn to my mother and as I turn Linda goes into her bedroom and slams the door.
I shrug.
“Well, there you are,” I say. “What’s the point. She obviously couldn’t care less about what I have to say.”
Tommy’s hamster was very helpful.
We managed about three quarters of an hour a day on the wall. But the longer we went on the bigger the workings got and soon it wasn’t enough for us to push back the bench in order to obscure the chiselling. The presence of the hamster came in handy because of the adventure playground Tommy had made for it in his cell. He’d made it out of papier-mâché on one of the big three foot by two foot trays that came over from the kitchen. The natural place to keep the papier-mâché was in the shower room so that it stayed nice and damp. The bucket had been a permanent fixture in there well before we started on the hole. So when the chiselling began to really show we’d plug the hole with papier mâché. But as we worked round the second brick the dried light grey of the papier mâché began to look a bit sore against the blue of the paintwork. The only thing for us to do was to get hold of some of the same emulsion. And the only way to do this was to approach Ray. In the afternoons, if he got bored, he’d do a bit of painting on permission, re-decorating his cell. I couldn’t go to the screws for another load of paint other-wise they’d get suspicious even if they’d no idea of what they were being suspicious of. So there was only Ray. And Ray was no mug. And Walter owed him a business.
I wandered into his cell one afternoon. This particular afternoon he wasn’t decorating. He was listening to the football on his headphones. He was a great West Ham supporter and the match he was listening to was West Ham getting beaten at Liverpool. I’d listened to some of it myself earlier. So it wasn’t exactly the best moment I could have picked for chatting up Ray. But I couldn’t wait for the right moment to arise.
I sat down and waited for Ray to take off his headphones. He sat there on the edge of his pit getting blacker and blacker in the face. Eventually he pulled the headphones off his ears and flung them on his pit.
“Fucking robbers,” he said. “Bobby’d never bring anybody down in the penalty area.”
“Not unless he had to,” I said. Which was the wrong thing to have said.
“Only if he’s provoked,” Ray said. “Only against a load of fucking heavies like that lot.”
I shrugged. Ray stood up and thrust his hands in his pockets.
“Not decorating today, then?” I said.
“What the fucking hell for?”
I didn’t answer. Ray sat down again.
“I was just wondering,” I said, “whether you had any blue to spare.”
Ray looked at me.
“What for?”
“I thought I’d paint the mirror in my cell.”
There was a silence. Eventually Ray said:
“Billy, don’t take me for a fucking mug.”
“How do you mean, Ray?” I said, fishing for my cigarettes.
“You must
think I’m bleeding thick.”
“I don’t get you.”
Ray stood up again.
“Do you think I haven’t noticed all the secret service confabs you and Tommy’ve been having? Do you think I haven’t noticed all the fucking showering? You’ve blotted me out, you bastard. And you thought I was too fucking thick to tumble. You’ve got one and it’s just you and Tommy, you cunt.”
I lit up my cigarette. Ray stood there watching me, waiting for me to speak, protest, say something. But I just lit up my cigarette and threw the match on the floor and took the small jar I’d brought with me out of my pocket and put it on his table.
“I just want some paint, Ray,” I said. “Just a little bit of blue.”
“What did you think, Billy?” he said. “That I’d grass?”
“Do I get the paint?” I said.
“What’s the story, Billy?”
“No story,” I said. “I just want a bit of blue to paint up my mirror.”
Ray looked at me for a while.
“All right,” he said. “Suit your fucking self. All I hope is you come up in the Governor’s office.”
“Don’t hope too hard,” I said.
Ray gave me the paint and I went to see Tommy and told him about Ray.
“Fuck it,” Tommy said. “I knew it was going too sweet.”
“All we can do is carry on,” I said.
“Maybe we should have put him in it,” Tommy said. “Maybe we still can.”
I shook my head.
“If he’s going to tell Walter he’ll tell him whether we put him in it or not. Ray’s been slighted.”
“Do you think he will tell Walter?”
“I don’t know. I know Ray’s no Walter lover, but then he feels similar about us now he knows he’s not been took on.”