David Mathew - O My Days

The screws make no attempt to take you by surprise. That’s what happens at some of the remand centres I’ve known: they creep to a certain lucky someone’s door. They flip back the peep slot. Catch you bashing, you’re falling down a flight of stairs sometime. Me, I’m staring at the metal door and waiting first for the movement of heavy feet, and then the club on the frame. Quite often they don’t even bother to open the slot.

Alfreth?

Gov! I answer.

You showering this morning, son?

No, sir!

Fine, son. Get ready for Movements.

Yes, sir!

Just to explain, I tend to save up my shower entitlement for the weekend. I’m not one of those filthy bruvs who can’t be arsed. I queue for my cereal. I take it back to my cell. Then I queue to dispose of the rubbish: the carton and the small pot of milk with a postage-stamp sized rectangle of cellophane over the top. It’s another day in Paradise. I listen to some Death Rap as I munch. Then it’s time to Move. At eight-thirty the doors of us fortunate to have a prison job, or a class to amble over to, or Gym, snap open, and it’s off to work we go. For me it’s the tiny Library. I work in the prison Library. And as I’m released from the Wing at nine, along with the rest of us, I cross the exercise yard, then the yard between D and E Wings—acknowledging the Wogwun s and the back slaps, shoulder crashes and reminders of favours of half a dozen yoots on the way, all the while thinking: Can’t wait to meet Dott next Tuesday.

Tuesday being the day the new boys get their thorough Library induction. The morning is as charged as a hotwired engine. Screws know it; cons know it; in about a hot minute I’m going to understand that the civilian staff from the County Library Service know it too. There’s scarcely a lip not flapping with rumour: about yesterday’s events, in the Cookery class.

Wuppan? I’m asked.

Is it true yat?

Dunno, is all I can answer. I’ve started to doubt my own eyes. But there are facts—and I do mean facts, blood—that can’t be denied. Such as: Roller and Meaney are down block, awaiting their Friday adjudication (loss of TV and Canteen privileges, is my guess; and a nice long solitary stay in a six by six, on a mattress with no bedsprings beneath it); and the fact that the screws in question in the incident—not on my Wing so I don’t know their names—have been sent home, pending a full investigation.

The Education block smells of bad vegetables, as ever. It’s into the holding area, and then through the heavy green gates, up the stairs. The Library is as big as a lounge.

Morning, Alfreth, I’m given.

Morning, Miss.

I make my way round to the business side of the counter, trying not to meet the eyes of the stranger standing next to Miss. Sit. Boot up the old PC.

Alfreth? says Miss Patterson. This is Miss Thistle.

All three of us stand up in unison.

All right, Miss? I say.

To my surprise she extends a hand for me to shake. Not only is she not, therefore, prison staff, or even civilian staff (whose hand you won’t touch either, and believe me I’ve tried), but she is something else. Another step removed. But a hand’s a hand, right? I take the opportunity: the first female flesh I’ve encountered in two years, four months and seventeen days. With hindsight, I grip it, I think. I’m confused. It’s like stepping on the moon or curtain-working an alien.

Miss Thistle is here from a university, says Miss Patterson.

Is it?

Yes. Miss Thistle can probably explain better than I can. Miss Thistle?

Yes.

And Alfreth? says Miss Patterson.

My eyes sweep from the one woman’s to her considerably older counterpart’s. And I answer, Yes, Miss?

Please let go of Miss Thistle’s hand, Alfreth.

Sorry.

So, I’m a D—I’m a Defendant—in a crime, for once, that I haven’t even contemplated. Sod’s Law if I get an extra 28 days on my sentence. Miss Thistle is more of a Miss Rose, looks-wise. To be frank, she’s still not buff, but beggars can’t be choosers. All of the pretty screws—certainly on Wings A to E—are chompers and refuse to take my mild attempts at flirting seriously. I let go of Miss Thistle’s hand. Sit down. Chat-time, is it? Seems so.

Tell me, Alfreth. That’s a Derbyshire name, isn’t it?

I nod my head as the other two women take to their twirly, expensive chairs.

Innit, is all I’m happy to offer them.

It is indeed. A town, I think, says Miss Thistle. Maybe a village.

I nod my head, thinking: lose nothing by making conversation.

Me old boy’s family from up that way, back in the day, like. Never seen it, cuz.

Alfreth, Miss Patterson warns. Do not refer to our visitor as cuz.

I swivel away to see my screen booted up. I type in the Library Staff password. I’ve heard enough, I almost say, but refrain from doing so in fear for the loss of the left-arm bicep Redband that speaks of my trustworthiness, compliance, and which has landed me the job in the first place.

Better get wriggling, I offer.

Miss Thistle is only making conversation, Alfreth, says Miss Patterson.

Angela, it’s okay.

Angela.

I turn to the two women again, aware of a breach of protocol.

Patterson is too. But it’s Thistle, blatantly trying to cover her tracks, who speaks next.

I can see that Alfreth wasn’t aware of that, Miss Patterson, she says. I apologise.

Although I can’t see any immediate mileage in knowing the Library Manager’s Christian name, it is good to see that Patterson thinks I might be able to use the information. But who is going to care?

That’s quite all right, Miss Thistle, the old girl states.

Alfreth is an Enhanced Level prisoner and as such has had to be trusted. So that’s what I’m going to do right now, Alfreth. I’m going to trust you.

Thanks, I tell her.

Because I’ll know where the information came from if it gets around, won’t I? she bangs on, point made but needing to be re-made.

You will, I tell her. Shall I get on with the orders?

I don’t want Patterson—and that’s Angela to her friends—or Thistle—first name unknown—to understand that I’m curious to learn why someone from outside has been allowed into the Library on the business side of the desk. In all my days I’ve never heard of it happening. Even the local councillors and politicians and other who-gives-a-fuck bigwigs who sometimes visit, they stay where they’re put. Swear down. As I start to tear open this week’s orders—mainly TV guides, a few bodybuilding mags, a periodical on trainspotting of all things (for one of the four-eyed wankers on Puppydog), a bit of bog-standard bash—Miss Thistle rolls her chair a half-metre closer to me. There is something she wants to say. Or needs to. I can smell her perfume, and it’s like a fresh drop of the disgusting hooch that Naylor on C Wing used to brew, before he was shipped out to Big Man Jail. The impact, I mean. Thistle’s perfume was sweet; Naylor’s hooch smelt like an enema. But they both go to the back of your head, no messing—one-way delivery. It’s the first perfume I’ve smelt in time .

Do I call you Alfreth? Miss Thistle asks. Or would you prefer I used your first name?

Angela starts typing away.

No one’s ever asked me this before.

You don’t know my first name, I inform her, perhaps a bit harshly.

Your first name is William, she says, immediately scoring a point. She’s done some research on who—it seems—she’s to be working with.

No one calls me William, I answer. Usually it’s Billy.

Then Billy it is. Billy, I’ll be working here for the next little while, on a placement. Do you know what a placement is, Billy?

Don’t play me for a cunt, I want to tell her; but instead I nod my head. It’s where you’re working for someone else and you’re getting an inside.