Brian Freemantle - The Blind Run

Between them, in the cell, the first day hostility worsened, the attitude so obvious that Hickley and Butterworth were aware of it and spread the story along the landing, which enhanced Sampson further because it meant further harassment of Charlie.

Charlie was aware of the bulge beneath Sampson’s tunic as the man entered the cell, only a token effort made at concealment. Directly inside the door, the man took the bottle from the waistband of his trousers and put it openly on the table between them. It was whisky, single malt, in a proper bottle with the cap still sealed.

‘It is whisky, isn’t it?’ said Sampson.

‘Looks like it,’ said Charlie.

‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Sampson. ‘Whisky’s your drink, isn’t it?’

Charlie stared up at the man, suspiciously. ‘Who said?’

‘Prudell,’ replied the other man. ‘Told me that’s what got you put on restrictions, for having whisky here in the cell.’

‘So what?’

Sampson’s face tightened momentarily, but only momentarily. The smile that came was patronising. ‘So I thought you might like a drink.’

‘Why?’ demanded Charlie.

‘Why not?’

‘Because it might be a set up, that’s why not. Because it’s been six weeks since I’ve been on restrictions and the bastards haven’t been able to get me for any infringement and if they caught me again, with whisky in a mug, then this time the governor wouldn’t give me the benefit of any doubt.’

‘Which would make me a grass,’ said Sampson.

‘Isn’t that what you got thirty years for?’

‘I’m trying to cross bridges, Charlie. Like I tried to cross bridges the first day.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s bloody stupid not to,’ said Sampson. ‘OK, so outside you and I wouldn’t even be aware of each other’s existence. Want to be aware of it, even. But we’re not outside. We’re in a box, fourteen feet by fourteen feet and we’re going to be forced to live together for a long time. So why don’t we face the reality of the situation? I don’t like you any more than you like me but I’m prepared to make the effort, for life to be minimally tolerable.’

The man was right of course, Charlie realised, always objective. Like Hargrave had been right. They weren’t outside, with a choice. And he wasn’t able to sit in judgment, in his own individual idea of judgment, and despise this man for being a traitor, any more than he could despise Hargrave for being a murderer or Prudell for being a vicious homosexual thug who beat up old ladies and stole their purses. Trouble was, Sampson was the smarmy, self-assured sort of sod who’d always got right up his nose. ‘You’ve been pretty successful at adjusting to the reality of the situation, haven’t you?’

Sampson refused to react to the constant challenge and went on winning because of it. ‘Right!’ he said. ‘On that first day you told me to adjust and learn to conform. And you said I’d find it bloody awful. And you’re right, it is bloody awful. It’s the most awful situation in which I’ve ever been and because it is I’ve adjusted and learned to conform as fast as I can, to make it as bearable as I can. I’ve made my peace and my arrangements with the people who matter. No one bothers me Charlie. Because I don’t bother them. I don’t practise dumb insolence to little men like Hickley and Butterworth because that’s what it would be, in a place like this. Dumb. And I acknowledge that people like Prudell are masters of their territory, just like my father acknowledged that our gamekeeper knew the grouse moors better than he did.’

Prudell broke the metal seal on the bottle top, poured whisky into his mug and held the bottle out in invitation towards Charlie, who stared at it, hoping the longing wasn’t obvious on his face. He made no effort to accept it.

‘What is it with you, Charlie?’ said Sampson, putting the bottle back on the table. ‘Pride? Arrogance? Where do you get this attitude that you can fight the world and win?’

‘I always have,’ said Charlie, carelessly.

Sampson laughed outright at him. ‘Have you?’ he jeered, gesturing around the claustrophobic cell. ‘Have you? You call this winning! You might have been good once, Charlie. I know you were good once. I’ve had the lectures about your expertise more times than I can remember. But you lost it. I don’t care whether you consider yourself a traitor or what you think you are. It doesn’t matter. OK, so maybe you were set up. It happens, in the business. Our business. And maybe you taught them a lesson. Which doesn’t often happen in the business. But they won in the end, Charlie. The establishment always does. That’s why it’s called the establishment.’

‘Bollocks,’ said Charlie, unable to think of anything better but wishing he could.

‘It isn’t bollocks. It’s reality. That’s one of the things they used to say about you: that you were a realist, able to adjust and manoeuvre faster than anyone else. What’s happened to the reality now?’

Right again, Charlie accepted, not wanting but having to. He knew it and everyone else knew it so why the hell couldn’t he accept it? Because it meant giving in! he told himself desperately. He knew all the prison rules – the written and the unwritten – and all the dodges and all the shortcuts: like objectivity, it was a necessity for survival. And he could play the part – if they’d only let him – but if it stopped being that, becoming unthinking obedience and conformity instead of an act, then it would mean he had given up. ‘I’ll settle it my way,’ he said, still careless.

‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Sampson, jeering still. ‘I thought you were good! I really did. I listened to all the stories and somehow you became a legend and when I learned I was coming here and that you were here I actually wanted to meet you! But you’re not clever or smart, not any more. You go through this bullshit routine about refusing to become institutionalised but that’s exactly what you’ve become, just like those grey-faced, shuffling zombies who’ve been here for more years than they can remember. You know what prison has made you, Charlie Muffin? It’s made you fucking stupid.’

He even swore better, the word natural and easy now, not forced, thought Charlie. He said, ‘You want a boyfriend, why not go and live with Prudell? You’ve got enough pull with the screws to make the change.’ Charlie swung away from the direct confrontation, in the familiar avoidance pose of lying out on his bunk with his hands behind his head, staring towards the noughts and crosses window pattern and hoping the movement would appear what he intended it to be, a nonchalant dismissal of boredom.

‘Twelve years, four months and four days,’ said Sampson, from the other bunk. ‘Three days if you subtract today, even though it isn’t fully over.’

Charlie swallowed, refusing to respond.

‘I know all about the calendar,’ said Sampson, ‘I know about the regime you’ve tried to establish. How you count every day off. Seen you do it, when you didn’t think I’d notice. The instructors would be proud, if they knew how well you’d remembered.’

Still Charlie gave no reaction.

‘I’m going to have another drink,’ said Sampson. ‘Sure you won’t join me?’

‘Go fuck yourself,’ said Charlie, gripped by a feeling of helplessness. The feeling worsened when he remembered that was how he had ended their last big argument.

It was a week later when Hickley came to the library, fifteen minutes before it closed. The doorway was blocked from Charlie’s view by a shelf; he was aware of some conversation and of some half-hearted, flustered warning from Hargrave but didn’t realise what it was until the prison officer appeared at the opening into the book-lined corridor.