David Mathew - O My Days

What is your earliest memory of fear? he wants to know.

If he thinks I don’t know what Prometheus and a hair-shirt is, he’s playing me for a div-kid cunt. The question, on the other hand, will need further thought. So I think about it now. I have no choice.

My earliest memory of fear stems back to when I was seven years old. It’s my earliest memory of anything at all. It’s my garden—or rather the communal garden, round the back of the flats where I grew up. I’m playing off-ground tag with my sisters and I’m stung. A bee lands on my right forearm and sperms me his worst. My muscle is inflamed for a week. It is not until this moment that I know I’m allergic to bee stings.

The second-to-last thing Dott has written is this: A million years of bee stings, Billy. Think about i t. And I do. I think about it and I read these words for a good half an hour, careful to listen out for footfalls. Obsessive compulsive. He knows, I’m thinking. But how? I am stranded on an alien island. Don’t like it. Cunt knows. But how does the cunt know?

The last thing on Dott’s pillowcase is elementary. Read your visitor’s message , it says, and take heed . I am allowed out for exercise. I do my pull-ups. I don’t get the reference to Prometheus or to the hair shirt. I await my so-called visitor’s message. And eventually it comes. It comes on the day after the Adjudication. I’m asleep. My time down block has offered me a chance to catch up on my sleep if nothing else. Most of all I miss my job in the Library. Christ alone knows what my reception will be like if I’m ever allowed back there: my reception, I mean, from Miss Patterson and Miss Thistle. For I feel that I’ve let them down. A silly sensation, maybe, but it persists.

Screw Wells is taking up my doorframe. If you imagine your stereotypical montage of what a prison officer looks like, you’re thinking of a hench hard body like Screw Wells. Who tells me now:

Slag wash, Alfreth. On your feet. You’ve got a visitor at ten.

I’m not expecting anyone, I reply, but I know that this isn’t true. I’ve been expecting someone since I took possession of Dott’s pillowcase. Who is it, sir? I ask Wells.

Even his shrug is seismic. How the fuck would I know? he tells me. And while you’re at it, empty your slops box, would you? It smells in here.

Yes, sir. By now the pillowcase is good and stained with faecal matter. Although I’m sweating like an athlete, my passing of the shit and the fabric into the chute elicits nothing more than a sneer of professional good conduct.

Bet that’s a relief, Alfreth, innit?

Oh yes, sir. More than you can imagine.

His dumbfuddled frown burning into my spine, I return to my cell with the bucket and wash my bits and pits in cold water and prison issue lubricant. The stuff is as slimy as spawn. Satisfied not to know all, Wells closes and locks my cell door. My pulse is racing and I can’t resist it any longer.

Dott! I shout out through the window slits. Dott, are you listening?

I’m listening! he calls back. Could it be that he’s been waiting to hear this question? The reply is just about loud enough for me to hear.

Who’s my visitor, waste?

There is no reply to this one. So I shout it louder—only to get a complaint from Jacob in the intervening cell. I tell him to mind his manners and make it clear that if he doesn’t do so there will be repercussions. He shuts up, but that doesn’t help me with Dott’s silence.

Dott! Who the fuck is it? Show me your hand! Show me your motherfucking currency, blood! You want me to believe you show me!

Who said I wanted you to believe anything? Dott shouts.

WHO IS IT, CUNT?

The answer is among the last things I expect. It chills the piss in my bladder and makes me tingly and numb at the extremities.

It’s your Mumsy, Billy, Dott shouts.

There can’t be any more doubt in my mind: Dott is in touch with some of the boys I roll with on road. Or worse, he’s linking with Julie. Man doesn’t even want to think about that noise.

Who is it, Dott? I’m calling now. Who you chatting?

I’m not chatting dick, Billy-Boy. I asked her to visit you.

Is it better or worse to know that Dott has got something going with my mum or with my ting? Frankly, both notions make me feel sick; for a man who wants to know so much about everything that goes on, I am suddenly doing an impression of a guy who prefers to be wilfully ignorant. I am reminded of what Dott is in for.

So much as touch her, Dott, and I swear I’ll make your life not worth living. Are you listening?

Yeah, I’m listening, Billy, he replies. And what makes you think it is?

Is what?

Worth living. Dott does not wait for an answer. That question I asked, he continues immediately. When you were stung by the bee.

How do you know about that? I demand to know.

I was there, Bill. I was the one who poured water on the sting.

It’s not often it happens, but right at this moment I am utterly speechless. I back away from the window slits and lean against the cool metal of the door. But my legs aren’t the equal of the task for long. My knees are drained of juice; as my body goes down, my gorge goes up. I vomit. Not another word passes between me and Dott. I treat myself to another slut wash at the sink. I freshen my breath on a swallow of toothpaste. No amount of rationalisation will chase from my head what Dott has told me.

And it’s summer again; I’m a boy. I have to view the pictures through the veil of pain that struck my body after the bee stung my arm. The pain is the overwhelming sense, and it takes me a few seconds to bite and kick my way back to the real memories of the event. I’m going nuts, I start to think. This can’t be right. There was a man there. There was an application of water to the afflicted area. He was a man who lived alone in one of the ground floor flats. He was in his early twenties then. I was in the communal garden and I remember his face at his flat’s kitchen window. He brought me two blue plastic beakers of chilled water. Through the residual pain I try to remember his face with more clarity, his voice with more clarity. In those pre-prison/pre-regime days it was first names we rolled with. His name was Ronald. And Dott’s first name is also Ronald. Wait. There has to be a sensible explanation. My brain can’t have distorted Dott’s age so badly, can it? That was thirteen years ago. That makes Dott in his mid-thirties at the youngest. But he looks like a twelve year-old.

Screw Wells arrives to escort me to Visits. You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Alfreth, he tells me.

I don’t know how seriously to treat the accusation.

How the fuck do you know Ronald Dott, Mum? I demand.

Mumsy appears shocked. Well, that’s a fine way to greet me, she retorts. You’re not too old to be slapped, you know. Ask Julie.

Christ. She told you?

Yes; and I’m glad she did as well, William, Mumsy tells me. What possessed you, young man? I didn’t bring you up like that.

Mum. Have you forgotten where you’re visiting me? I see it in her eyes—that look of disappointment I have inspired on so many occasions—and immediately I regret the sarcasm.

Don’t take that shirty tone with me, young man, Mumsy says.

I am only referred to as young man when disdain is on the menu. It’s her way of refraining from saying something more apt and more bitter.

Sorry.

Now. Who’s this Reginald Dott? she wants to know.

Ronald. You know when I had that bee sting when I was seven or eight? There was a guy downstairs.

You were seven.

Seven then. There was a guy downstairs.

Put water on it. I remember, boy. Why you ask?