Belinda Bauer - Blacklands

Steven only got two pounds a week pocket money. Sometimes not even that if the gas meter needed feeding.

He sighed and rummaged in his pocket. Over the years Lewis had borrowed what felt like hundreds of pounds from him and never paid a single penny back. Steven had brought it up once and Lewis had told him not to be so tight.

“I’ve only got one fifty.”

“That’ll do.”

Lewis paid Mr. Jacoby and pocketed the thirty pence change.

Avery had no idea it was Father’s Day until an excited ripple came back down the breakfast queue that they were having kippers.

The news reached the man ahead of him, who turned around, saw Avery was behind him, closed down his face, and turned back towards the steaming trays and the echoes of metal on metal. And so the chain of information broke right there and all the men beyond Avery were deprived of the anticipation of a rare treat.

“What’s up?” said Ellis with no great interest.

“Use your nose, Ellis!” Ryan Finlay laughed at his own joke. He had to because no one else did.

“Kippers,” said Avery.

“What?”

“We’re having kippers.”

“What for?”

“Father’s Day.”

Ellis had already picked up porridge at the first serving counter. Now Avery observed Ellis watching Finlay as he strolled down the line. As usual, Finlay twirled his keys on his porky fingers like a doomed gunslinger, then turned and headed back towards them.

Avery’s pale eyes flickered with interest between Ryan Finlay and Ellis, who had taken to focusing his slightly vacant gaze on Finlay whenever he caught sight of him.

Ellis had been a waste of time as far as the keys were concerned. In fact, even the soap was giving up on the plan, and had shrunk to the point where it was more scum than solid matter. Avery was seriously considering abandoning the soap molds as a failed experiment.

Anyway.

Since all that hoo-ha with his slag wife, Ellis had done nothing but brood. Avery had done his utmost to jolly him out of it but the man was stuck in a loop of wondering about Ryan Finlay. Did he take the photos? Did he keep them? Would he give them back? What did Avery think he did with them? Should he demand their return? Avery regretted ever having said anything to him about Finlay stealing the photos. All it had done was make the only con who would speak to him useless, boring, and time-consuming. As with the soap, Avery was about ready to give Ellis up as a bad job.

But now, with nothing to do but shuffle towards his promised kippers—and with Finlay almost level with them once more—he thought it might be fun to poke the bear with a stick.

“You got kids, Sean?”

Ellis looked vacantly at Avery. “What?”

“Father’s Day,” said Avery slowly, as if to a child. “Have you got kids? You and Hilly?”

“No,” said Ellis.

Something started to swell in the ocean of Ellis’s brain.

“Shame,” said Avery.

“Yeah,” said Ellis, frowning into his porridge but not seeing it.

Avery sighed heavily and then spoke carefully into the silence between them…

“Probably never will now.”

And suddenly, the fact that he’d been in prison for two years—and would be for at least another twelve—hit Sean Ellis like an anvil in the heart and sucked all the air from his chest like two-year-old shock.

For a moment he swayed slightly, his eyes blank and his mouth slack, holding up the breakfast line.

Ryan Finlay twirled his keys and said: “Hurry it up, Ellis!”—blissfully unaware that it was the last thing he’d ever say.

Sean Ellis swung his tin tray into Finlay’s face. The tray was not heavy and the porridge bowl was made of plastic, but the power of Ellis’s sheer fury behind it felled the officer like a dumpy tree, blood jetting from his nose like water from a trick flower.

There was a second—not even that long—when it could have gone either way. Men could have stood and watched Sean Ellis beat Ryan Finlay with his tray, porridge flying like mud, until the other screws pulled him off.

Or all hell could have broken loose.

And—after the briefest of moments—that was the way it went.

The prisoners abandoned kippers, broke ranks, and dived onto Finlay. The dozen guards, who—just moments before—had been picking their noses in boredom, ran to help, batons flailing—like a poorly trained pub football team losing its shape because they were all chasing the ball.

Some prisoners turned on them, others turned on one another—seizing the opportunity to settle old scores fast and hard and without the tiresome exchange of tobacco and sexual favors.

Whistles were blown and screams of “Lockdown! Lockdown!” rang out in panicky voices as the sound of hatred, clanging trays, and overturned Formica tables echoed through the building.

Avery adapted so fast he’d have blown a hole straight through Darwinism. Before Ryan Finlay even hit the ground, his thoughts spun from kippers and Ellis to the image of SL captured in tiny focus in the wing mirror of a car. As the other cons piled on top of Finlay, he dropped his tray over the keys which had tumbled docilely from the officer’s hand.

Nobody saw. Nobody cared. Everybody else was fighting.

You see, thought Avery calmly, this is why I don’t belong in here with all the stupid people.

Then he bent to pick up his tray, sweeping the keys along with it until he was beyond the melee, and stooping casually to scoop them up.

Despite all attention being focused elsewhere, and his own calm exterior, Avery knew he had to act fast. At any moment the guards could regain control of the kitchen and the opportunity would be lost. Even worse, the guards might not regain control of the kitchen.

Child killers were considered by the scum of the earth to be the scum of the earth, and if the violence escalated Avery knew that a good proportion of it would be directed at him and others like him.

Although he understood that speed was of the essence, Avery took a moment to look around. The civilian kitchen staff had disappeared behind the serving counters and through the KITCHEN STAFF ONLY door.

Avery swung himself over the counter and dropped down behind it to give himself another moment of contemplation.

He’d never been behind the serving counter. He glanced around him and saw he’d landed in a small pool of porridge, which had spattered his shoe. It was only a prison-issue black shoe, but Avery kept his stuff nice and irritation stabbed through him at the mess. He looked around for a cloth and saw old chips and bits of carrot under the counter. He grimaced; if he’d known how filthy this place was he’d never have eaten anything they gave him.

He grabbed something white from a low shelf under the counter, which turned out to be a chef’s tunic.

He was genuinely torn for a second between putting it on and wiping his shoe with it, but finally pulled off his grey Longmoor jersey with its royal blue strips on the ribbing, and dressed in the tunic.

Moving the tunic had revealed a box of chocolate bars on the low shelf. Twix. Avery wasn’t a chocolate person but he grabbed a half dozen bars and jammed them into the pockets of his jeans.

He also noticed another little pile of whiteness. Hats. Nasty paper hats that made the men and the women serving behind the counters all look like hairless, sexless cancer victims. Made them all look the same…

Quickly he pulled one on, yanking it down low on his face before sliding it back to drag his hair off his forehead. He peered into the dull stainless steel cupboard door and saw a dough-faced nobody looking back at him. The dough-face broke into a brief, tense grin.

Then, before standing up, Avery used his jersey to wipe the porridge off his shoe.