David Mathew - O My Days

Thank you, Gov.

My mind is pinching back together every thumbnail-sized scrap of memory that it can find—about the bee-sting day, back then. I want to call Julie tonight to tell her that she has wasted her money buying me books about mass hysteria and that bait: because she hasn’t. She’s wasted my fucking peas. My paper, my sheets, my work, fuck’s sake allow it. We’ll be talking again, she and I, but not about this subject specifically.

The hall still smells the same, not surprisingly: rinsed rat and garage oil and badly spent hope. Screw Oates introduces me. I think his name is Goodman, the one who nods his head in the little office.

Don’t worry, he tells me, I haven’t forgotten your ugly mug yet.

And then it’s me, with my sack. Half of the contents have already been distributed; it’s as light as mild push-ups in the Gym. I approach Dott’s cell. Some people disagree about the existence of déjà vu, but if you are in my head at this moment there is no doubt the cunt exists. It’s as though I’m approaching the cell on Puppydog Wing for the first time again.

Have you come back to see me, Billy Boy? Dott shouts.

I say nothing. I push his TV guide under the door.

How thoughtful! he shouts once more—and I turn my back. There are eyes and cameras on my every move and I can’t afford to waste this chance. I head back to the office and announce that I’m ready for D Wing.

Hours later, and I’m losing a game of pool with Shelley—my heart isn’t in it—and Ostrich is linking a yoot name of Gardener—I’m not listening—and nothing is making sense—the food in my belly like a tank of piranhas—and I’m wondering if I’ll manage to sleep tonight—and I suddenly feel queasy.

I run for the sink in my open cell. I pass the parcel. Head jerking to either side, worst cocaine headache I’ve ever had and I ain’t touched the shit, and I’m coughing and spluttering like the village idiot pisshead, shaking. The mirror shows me a frightening picture. I look dead. Gripping the side of the basin, I close my eyes. The image is still there, burned on like illegal pirate copies on a CD. Can’t get rid of the fucker.

Are you there, Dott? I ask in my head.

When he answers I’m always there, Billy Boy I fall down.

Because it’s not possible, innit? Mind control. Messaging. So how do I explain the fact that I hear his ghastly voice? One of the female screws is present. Her name is Blake, I think; I can hardly hear her talking as she asks me if I’m all right and if I need a visit from Health Care. All I want to do is sit still on my bed, with my hands warmly holding my head, not thinking. And the last bit’s the important bit: not thinking.

I explain that I don’t need Health Care and make it clear that I’ve just had some bad food. (That so-called lasagne was rough, to be honest.) Look of relief on Screw Blake’s face; the relaxing. She knows it will come to nothing more than I threw up prison food; she won’t have to write it up. It happens every day, with the mud and pond-life we’re expected to digest.

Couple of minutes later, here’s Ostrich. Wogwun? he asks.

I’m all right, fam, I lie. I had the lasagne. Taste like upholstery, blood.

Understandably and understandingly he nods his head.

Man need a favour, cuz, he says. Man just lose at draughts innit.

I copy his gesticulation. How much you need? I ask him.

Two burn.

On the windowsill.

Safe? You sure as rain’ll fall, blood?

Take it all, I answer (recklessly in hindsight—he might have taken me up on the invitation). His eyes are all jumpy and sad. I know why. It’s nothing to do with me, swear down. He’s been sipping the blackadder hooch that Woodward on the threes has been brewing behind his radiator. Lethal gear. You don’t so much get drunk as go straight from a position of sobriety to one of partial liver failure and temporary brain damage. It cuts out your days.

My thoughts return to Dott. I have nowhere to go to escape from them.

Bending the rules slightly, Ostrich takes a seat on the bed next to me. He’s supposed to sit on the plastic chair or on the dressing table. Not speaking dick—not speaking a single word—he uses my papers and my burn to roll one up. He licks it closed with the finesse and the frown of a true friend—or at least of someone who wants to be.

Burn, he explains unnecessarily. We go twos, he offers—equally as unnecessarily.

There are tears—no, not tears, but the stings of tears en route —in my eyes as I watch him flare the cigarette and exhale against my poster of J Lo.

I nod my head and accept. I follow the blood’s lead. What be going on? he asks.

Complicated.

Man nods his head and rinses his mouth with a yawn that he loop-spits into my sullied and browning basin. Why me? I have time to argue with myself. All I done ain’t no one’s business. But I suppose it is. Everyone’s business is some cunt’s business. Or it’s not business. We smoke our burn. Sosh time is coming to an end. Ostrich knows it although he doesn’t wear a watch—and I fucking know it because I can feel it. Because you learn it. Or because you learn to feel it. Blood times it perfectly. Saying this:

We trade, yeah? You win pool, man spill his bake beans. Now it the other way round: you offer me burn. No question. Man asking why. So man tinking, how can man help man out in return? No money. Shirt on man back? Allow it that noise. Fuck that noise. Man can creep man some rumour.

Some rumour, I repeat.

Allow it.

I’m nodding my head. Be my go-ahead guest, blood, I tell him.

And I repeat: coming back from the Seg is like returning from a foreign country. I feel like I’ve been stalled at Customs for half a week. I’m about to feel more so.

You were away, yeah, man talk about Dott and his control over time.

Somewhat jealously I agree with this. It’s part of what I’ve discussed with Kate Thistle.

There’s no such thing, I state staunchly. It’s a bit like feeling that Kate is having an affair: I wanted it to be between her and me.

Allow it. Man’s dramatically cut down on man’s reality intake, blood.

That’s one way of putting it, I tell Ostrich. What do you mean, brere?

He can mess with mandem’s head. He can take away some time .

So the secret’s out—even if it’s a bitter pill of a secret and one that I remain surprised with myself that I want to keep to myself. Then Ostrich snuffs out the burn in my toothmug; he straightens his back—it goes click —and summons up a summary of sorts. He’s a road man still, even inside the walls: a dreamer, a disbeliever—so while his road vocabulary is always fresh, up-to-date, he is about to bring to bear a collection of words to explain a phenomenon that we’re all not used to. It causes him a great deal of effort (‘Sosh Time over!’ someone shouts) and he knows he has only a few seconds.

Back to your cell, mate, Screw Blake announces from my door.

Yes, Miss, Ostrich replies. At the door jamb he turns and says: A time-vampire, blood. Suck out your time. He doesn’t wait for a reaction.

Allow it, I call back, suddenly absurdly grateful—a complete change of my emotions—to have a confidante. I’m about to find out, cuz. No. Not just a confidante: a witness before the act. Ostrich is my safety shot, I realise; my alibi, almost. And I need to tell him quickly.

What, man? he shouts when I can no longer see him from my bed.

Cookery Class back on for tomorrow! Dott’s on the Labour List!

And so am I.

They recruit you to do bare dirt for them, man! Then they spray you up with nine em-em! Shit’s not right, blood!

But a contrary contention is swiftly offered. Ah, says the other, whisking his cake-mix with a furious and a genuine passion, but he took his chance, bruv. Thirty grand is a big change!