by Ted Lewis
But it didn’t happen. We’d had our luck. It had come at the right time. But we couldn’t count on any more.
We lie together on the rug in front of the electric fire. Sheila’s head is resting on my shoulder. She is asleep. I look at the colour of her hair, even more fierce in the glow of the fire. This is the time I hate most. The time she is most content. I hate it because her contentment is due to me. Her happiness makes me resentful. It’s as if she’s taking something of my character and feeding off it. And yet, recently, my resentment had been lessening. And that is even more worrying because I must be weakening. I must be growing fonder of her than I want to be. I’ve got to be alone. I can’t be the way I want to be with someone else depending on me.
I move my arm so that her head rolls a little, disturbing her doze.
“What is it?” she says. “Why move?”
“Got to,” I say. “Your folks’ll be back soon. They can’t find us like this, can they?”
Now Tommy was really getting at where the hole was coming from.
It wasn’t a small passage. It was an opening into the top corner of a cellar underneath the showers.
Tommy had cleared enough space around the air hole to work at enlarging it. Soon it was big enough for us to throw our rubble and spare bricks down through it into the cellar below. Tommy really smashed into it now. For about a week I tore my guts out snatching and jerking the big Olympic bar-bell up and down on the ones, making as much noise as I could to cover the sound of Tommy’s progress. I’d loosened the weights so that they’d chink and rattle but even though they were right next to my ears they sounded like the dull thuds that were echoing round the wing from inside the hole. Walter and Terry minded Tommy for this period. They used to give me the horrors. When I had a rest, there was always a slight lag between me putting down the weights and them telling Tommy to stop. I kept having a go at them about it but they could never seem to improve their form.
But when Tommy told me that the second hole would soon be big enough for one of us to drop through down into the cellar, I eased Terry and Walter out on to the weights; we didn’t want Walter knowing how close we were to making the drop. And the closer we got to the drop, the more tension there was between Tommy and myself. The fact that we were under the constant strain of working on our own, just using the others, knowing that there’d come a time when we’d not only have to ditch them but ditch them good and proper, that was bad enough. But there was the other thing: what happened when we got down into the cellar? Supposing there was nowhere else to go? That was the thought that nagged you all the time, and it was a strain just trying to keep it from the front of your brain.
Then one day Tommy came out of the hole and said: “There it is, then, Billy. We can go through now.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
Tommy looked at me as though I was fucking barmy.
“The hole. Into the cellar. You do know the hole I’m talking about?”
“So why didn’t you go down it?”
“You what?”
“Down the hole. Why did you come all the way back and out just to tell me that? Why didn’t you drop down yourself?”
“Because you’re bigger than me, you stupid cunt. It’ll be easier for you to get back up again.”
“Oh yes,” I said. “I’m bigger than you all right. Supposing I get stuck in the bleeding hole? What happens then?”
“You won’t get stuck. I’ve told you. It’s big enough.”
“All right then,” I said. “But I hope you’re bleeding well right. Otherwise I shall have no choice but to put it down to a touch of the old macaroni in the strides.”
I made to go through the hole. Tommy grabbed me by the arm.
“What you mean, Billy?” he said, all grim faced and full of aggravation.
“What I say, Tommy.” I moved his fingers off my arm. “And don’t come it, old son, eh? You know you haven’t got that kind of talent.”
Of course he had to swallow. Then I felt sorry I’d made him.
“Look, Tommy,” I said. “Forget it. We’re both on our nerve ends. Let’s strike that bit out, eh?”
“Are you going down the fucking hole or aren’t you?”
I left it at that and climbed in the hole. He’d get over it. Then I crawled along to the second hole and contorted myself round legs-first and tried to get through. Tommy had been wrong. I got stuck before I even got near dropping down. It took me nearly a quarter of an hour to get myself free. Which was quarter of an hour too long. All we needed was another session with the PO and without the luck. When I got out again I said to Tommy: “If you want me to go down into the cellar there’s three more days work for you on that hole.”
“You must be joking,” he said. “There’s plenty of room.”
I wasn’t exactly in the mood for a debate.
“Tommy,” I said. “I’m not asking. I’m telling.”
Tommy thought about it.
“I can’t wait that long,” he said. “I’ll take some more stuff out tomorrow and go down myself.”
“That’s up to you Tommy,” I said. “If you’re sure, that is.”
“Don’t be a cunt, Billy,” he said. “Don’t start souring it at this stage. It’s been nice and sweet so far.”
“Tommy,” I said. “You take things too seriously.”
Afternoon.
I watched Tommy disappear into the hole. Outside on the landing Walter and Gearing were busy with the weights. For about ten minutes I could hear Tommy taking out some more bricks. Then there was silence. Another ten minutes went by. If there was a check now we’d be finished. He’d never be able to get back in time. The sound of the weights clanked on outside; nobody except Tommy and me knew about the drop. The others just thought it was business as usual.
Another five minutes. Christ, I thought. Any minute now it’s going to happen. It must happen. We’d been too lucky up to now. It had to break sometime.
But it didn’t.
Tommy crawled out of the hole. He was grinning all over his face.
“Christ, Tommy,” I said. “Where’ve you been, Brighton?”
“No, but that’s where I’m going.”
“What’s the score?”
Tommy began to fill the hole up.
“Tommy, how was it?”
“Wait till I’ve finished this.”
“What are you playing at?”
“You don’t want the PO in here again with the hole gaping in his fucking face, do you?”
I began to help him.
“No,” I said, “I don’t. But just tell me.”
Tommy just grinned. I could have murdered the bastard.
We got the hole plastered and painted. Then Tommy began to take his clothes off.
“Now what are you doing?” I said.
Tommy walked into the showers.
“Just because we’re almost there,” Tommy said, turning on the water, “it doesn’t mean we stop doing things right. We’ve got to do things proper. Especially now.”
“All right. But just tell me.”
“Can’t hear you, Billy. The shower’s making too much of a noise.”
I sat down on the bench and ground my teeth. Eventually he came out.
“Now then . . .” I said. But Tommy cut straight across me.
“You don’t want Wally walking in in the middle of it, do you? Better go to my cell and get out the chess board.”
He was right, of course. But he didn’t have to enjoy it quite so much.
We walked out of the shower room. Wally dropped his bar-bell and came over.
“How’s it going, then?”
Walter’s face was a picture. He knew something was up, but he just couldn’t figure out what it was. He certainly coul
dn’t conceive that Tommy and I intended going out without him. It was that kind of knowledge that made the situation all the sweeter.
When we got to Tommy’s cell I said: “All right. Now let’s have it, for Christ’s sake.”
Tommy lit a cigarette.
“Billy,” he said. “We’ve cracked it.”
I waited.
“There’s a tunnel from the cellar to the airy in the badminton yard.”
We looked at each other. I couldn’t believe it. The badminton yard. It was perfect.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
Dear Billy,
I don’t know how I can stand to write this letter to you as I have never felt so terrible in my life before, not since your Dad died, anyway. But I have to force myself as there is nobody else who can help except you. What’s happened is that I have heard some terrible things about our Linda, and I know that they are true otherwise I would not be writing. Billy, Linda is going to the bad in the worst way she can. She is set up in a flat with two other girls in Manor Park and the rent is paid by two West Indians. Men go there day and night. Billy, I know this is true. I tried to see her by going round there the other day but she wouldn’t see me and sent one of the other girls down to see me. She told me Linda was out but I know she wasn’t. What am I going to do? I can’t do anything on my own. Please write back now and tell me what you think because I’m at my rope’s end.
I’ll be coming to see you on Saturday,
Love,
Mother
In the badminton yard, at ground level, there was a wide ventilation shaft, six foot square. It was surrounded by a seven-foot-high wall. The shaft was covered by a horizontal grille. Padlocked. Occasionally the shuttlecock would drop down the shaft and we’d have to fish it out with a weighted hook. But when we’d gone fishing nobody ever realised that this shaft connected up with Tommy’s tunnel, the one that led from the cellar. The tunnel was four foot high, and you would have to crawl about fifteen feet along it to get to the ventilation shaft in the badminton yard. The entrance from the cellars to the tunnel naturally was barred. Not padlocked. Just barred. And now it didn’t matter how many padlocks and bars there were en route. We had a way out. Padlocks and bars were beside the point. So we’d go from the shower to the cellar and along the tunnel and up the air shaft and out into the badminton court.
The badminton yard had a roof.
The roof was high, vaulted. Plastic, fibre-glass type transparent roofing. Far too high to get at from the court. But once on that roof you could drop down and it was just a rope’s throw to the top of the outside wall.
The roofing was a tight fit all round the yard. But at one point the inverted peak of the roofing ran across the face of the library window. The library so-called was just a cell with wooden shelving to hold the books and a small barred window the same as in every other cell. But this was the only window on the wing that gave any kind of access to the edge of the plastic roofing in order to make a hole in it. Which was what we planned to do. Rip a hole in the roofing, suspend a sheet rope from the library window down in to the badminton yard, up the rope, through the hole in the roof, across the office roof where it backed on to the wall, swing the hook to the top of the wall.
And over.
“The padlock’s no sweat,” I said. “We can bust that any time. What we need is a hacksaw for the bars in the cellar. The only way is to get one of the others to fetch one out of the shop, sod it.”
“No sweat,” said Tommy. “I’ve already got one. I’ve had it ever since the island. I brought it up hidden in the folds of the box I carried my gear in.”
I could have kissed the bastard.
“So we don’t even have to row in Walter for that,” I said.
“No,” said Tommy.
I lit a cigarette.
“Have you noticed how Walter’s been sticking close to us the last few days?” I said.
“He’s been living up our arseholes.”
“Right. He knows something’s on. So he’s got to be scotched. And what better way than by bringing him in?”
“How do you mean?”
“What I say. We tell him everything. We tell him about the tunnel, the shaft, exactly what we’re going to do. Except we leave out the hacksaw. We go to him and we say, Wally, it’s bloody lovely, we’ll all soon be over the wall and it’ll be fucking not wanking but there’s just this one snag, we need a hacksaw. Now as you spend a lot of time in the machine shop we reckon that one’s down to you, Wally, all right? And then while Wally’s figuring out how to get us the hacksaw, we’ve already sawn through and whenever we choose to go it won’t matter. Wally won’t be able to believe it. He’ll still be in hospital next Christmas. What do you say to that, Tommy?”
“Fair,” said Tommy. “Quite fair.”
“Fair?” I said. “It’s bleeding brilliant.”
“So there it is, Wally,” I said. “Almost there. All we need is the saw.”
Walter pursed his lips and folded his arms and generally got himself comfortable: all set to do the big thinker bit.
“Just the bars you say, Billy,” he said.
“That’s right, Walter. The padlock’s a doddle. The important part is the bars. Everything rests on getting through them.”
“Mm,” said Walter. “A hacksaw. Won’t be easy.”
“I know, Walter. But that’s what we need. That’s what you’ve got to get us.”
“Difficult,” he said.
“I know.”
“Getting one out of the shop. If they tumbled, then we’d never get out.”
“Risky.”
“Might be safer bringing one in.”
“Could be.”
“Gearing’s brother might do it.”
“Why not ask Gearing?”
“I might do that. That might be best. I’ll have a think about it.”
“Thanks, Walter.”
There was no need for us to go down into the cellar again. The next time we went we wouldn’t be coming back up. But we kept the shower hole open to stash the things we’d be taking out with us. Tommy had already cut through the bars to the tunnel and done the padlocks. All they needed was bending back. Everything was perfect. On his travels in the cellar Tommy had even found half a step-ladder that would come in handy for when we went up the shaft. I’d knocked up two sheet ropes, one for dangling out of the library window, the other for getting on the wall. I tied this rope to a broom handle which I’d attached to one of the five pound weights from the weight lifting gear. It would fix to the top of the wall a treat. But just the same I hadn’t forgotten Burnham and with Tommy minding I tried out the pendulum on the brick partition walls in the showers, just to get the feel of it.
Like everything else, it was just perfect.
“How’s the hacksaw coming, Wally?” I said.
“Gearing saw his brother on Saturday. He’s bringing one in next weekend.”
“Next weekend?” I said. “Christ, the screws might have tumbled the hole by then.”
“Well, what else can I do?”
“Dunno, Wally. But we can’t do anything till we get that hacksaw.”
“What do you want me to do? Bring one out of the shop and get us all bleeding rumbled?”
“Dunno, Wally. The hacksaw’s your department. We knew it’d be dicey. That’s why we gave the job to you.”
“Well, all right, do you want to try and bring one out of the shop?”
“Better wait for Gearing’s brother, Wally. Don’t want us all getting nicked at this late stage, do we?”
“For Christ’s sake, that’s what I’ve just been telling you!”
“So you did, Walter,” I said. “And you know what? You were dead right, as usual.”
The library was just another cell
with shelves. It was never kept locked. I was always using it so there was nothing suspicious about being in there.
I walked over to the window and looked out. The plastic roofing butted up perfectly to the window’s brick surround. I got up to the window and felt the plastic. It was very brittle stuff. The hole had to be made before we went. Breaking through it would make too much noise at night, when the nick was quiet. It had to be done now. This was our biggest risk. Tommy was minding outside the library for me, so that part was covered. The danger was a screw just off-chancing it into the badminton court below.
Feeling the roof I realised that I had to make the hole in one go. Two shots at it and we’d be dead: people hear a strange noise and they wait for it to happen again and when it doesn’t they usually dismiss it. But that doesn’t apply to a nick. The screws sniff at anything. So I had to make the hole in one then run like fuck. They might discover what had made the noise but they certainly weren’t going to discover me standing next to it.
I stuck my arms through the bars and flexed my fingers on the material. I concentrated all my power into my wrists. Then I twisted.
The roofing made a sound like machine-gun fire. The noise racketed round the well of the badminton court and bounced all over the roofing.
I hurtled out of the library. Tommy had already gone.
I found him down in his cell.
“Christ, Billy,” he said. “I thought Gabriel had farted.”
We waited.
Nothing happened. We’d pulled another one.
The Wolseley veers right and crashes into the side of the van. In front of us the Standard makes the sandwich. The bang of vehicle on vehicle echoes up the street. The car doors burst open and some of us go to work with the coshes and the handles while two others belt the back doors of the van with hammers. But two of our boys go down and the wages boys pick up their sticks and start laying into us. Two more down and the back doors are still holding. Then beyond the traffic sound comes the noise of the bell. The two at the back of the van drop their hammers and race back for the Wolseley. I shout at them to stay but then the others start to take flight too and there is only me, staving off the blows from the wages boys with a handle. The police car sways into view, in front of the Wolseley. The Wolseley is moving towards the police car. The police car swings round broadside on, leaving no room for the Wolseley to get by. The Wolseley reverses. Policemen pile out of the police car and chase after the reversing Wolseley. The Wolseley clouts the wages van. Doors fly open and everybody scrambles out again, taking off past me in the opposite direction and as they pass I get a bar over my head and I fall to the ground, spewing all over. Hands grasp my clothes and haul me to my feet and I begin to get a real fitting up but the next moment the hands release me and the punching stops and everybody stands stock still. Somebody has started exercising a shooter. Two shots. One of the coppers is rolling around on the deck, trying to hold his kneecap together, gurgling, part scream, part vomit. The other coppers make for the nearest cover, behind the wages van. Two more shots. Screams up the street, women trying to cram through shop doorways. The boys are away. I smile. Then the next thing is I get the handle over my head again and it’s all over.