David Mathew - O My Days

There were two other terms.

The first was Mostashifa Tamaninat . ‘Hospital.’ ‘To be motionless.’

The second was more complex. Ana mabsout beshughlak , it ran. I am happy with your work. A town called ‘I Am Happy With Your Work’.

You know those cartons of fruit drink that we get every day? The breakfast slops. You’ve probably got one in front of you right now. Study it.

There’s a picture on the front. There’s a picture of a halved mango, a halved apple, a chopped banana, diced pear; there’s a picture of a mangled kiwi and a decimated nectarine.

In the same picture is a whole—an entire—peach.

Why? Why did the peach survive bowdlerisation and viciousness? I’ll tell you why. Because the peach is the only fruit to resemble the human body.

The peach looks like a woman’s arse. Pure and simple.

Even ad campaign designers recognised this fact.

I am happy with your work, Billy Alfreth.

I have no choice but to be so. No one else has ever made the effort.

Apart from Kate.

One last thing—or ‘ting’ as you would say.

I’ve got all the time in the world—literally—but you haven’t. Rinse me clean of this disease and I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.

I’ll talk to you about time.

I love you.

Ronald Dott x

No one kicks off in the Cookery class. But violently worded debates are the order of the day. By means of a little barging I have managed to secure the stove next to Dott’s. It is usually Chellow’s place of work, and the man gives me a boysing about it, but I explain the breach of protocol in a manner that all us inmates comprehend:

Man and I’ve got beef, bruv.

Chellow nods. You wouldn’t be doing nothing stoopid now, Alfreth, would you? he warns me in his sternest-but- wouldn’t-scare-a-sparrow-type tones.

Need to link man, is all, I reply.

The Cookery Gov wants to demo. Ordinarily I enjoy this part of the lesson—as a rule I like to learn—but this time it’s all but unendurable. I can’t wait to chat to Dott. We’re doing chick fricassee. I already know how to make it. Gov understands this and wants to elicit responses from me in the way that a good teacher does. I play along. Perhaps because the class is still on a sort of probationary period, the first part of the lesson is conducted in verbal silence. And this is no use to me. I can’t stand it. So, as I say. No one kicks off in the Cookery class, but disagreements are the order of the day.

Yo, Meaney!

Wogwun, blood?

Your team play shit at the weekend, cuz, I taunt him—not only completely ignorant about his team’s performance but by no means even vaguely aware of what his team even is, or if he has one.

You on smack, Alfreth? he replies in the sky-high cadences of utter disbelief. We fucking cream ’em, blood!

The debate is slow to get going—it’s like those shows where the hench man pulls the lorry with the rope, with the harness around his torso. Once it’s in motion it’s hard to stop.

You’re chatting waffles!

As soon as the argument is good and going, I can talk to Dott. Or rather, he can talk to me.

Heard the life story then? he says. How does it work as a narrative?

Every day’s a school day, Dott.

Very philosophical.

You’re telling me , blood, I say. But who can I tell?

I’m reminded of a conversation with Kate Wollington, a few months earlier. The hour is stoned o’clock, but when you’ve got psychological problems you talk to a psychologist, right? But not a Criminal Psychologist: a Psychologist Psychologist.

Gov, I’m whining that night, can I go to Health Care, please?

When? In the morning? asks Screw Oates.

No, sir. Now please, sir.

It’s two o’clock in the bloody morning, Alfreth. You wet the bed?

I’ve got stomach cramps, sir.

His eyes are working mine something fierce; he’s thinking—well, actually, Alfreth isn’t known for pushing the night bell or clowning around. Maybe it’s real. There’s been a short epidemic of food poisoning, after all.

Get dressed, Billy, he says.

I happen to know it’s Kate Wollington’s turn to work nights. And she’s from a therapeutic background. She’s not like the Education Govs, who always play their cards close to their chests. Kate reveals—from time to time—little pieces of information. She’s got a cat named Sooty. Favourite colour is mauve. And when she does the night shift she leaves her office door open; she doesn’t like the silence or the confined space. (I could tell her her fortune, cuz. Don’t talk to a YO about confined spaces.) So she will hear us approach.

That’s the plan. But will she?

She’s playing Mahler at a discreet volume as we enter the corridor. This isn’t helpful. I do my best to make my footfalls louder; I even clutch my stomach and indulge in a pregnant moan.

Nearly there, Alfreth, I’m told.

Kate Wollington appears at her door. Workhorse that she is, she has been applying nightcream to a nasty-looking delta of eczema on her left earlobe. What’s going on? she asks.

Gut rot, Miss, the screw replies.

I catch her eye. Whether or not I have learned anything from Dott about mind control is questionable, but it’s a technique that I pray I’m at least a novice at right now as I will Kate to want to speak to me.

We’re almost past her. Then she says: If you’re feeling a bit better in a little while, Billy, I need you to pop in and sign your Psych Report from a few months back. I don’t know how I missed it.

Yes, Miss, I tell her. Thank you, Miss.

You’re welcome.

And so it is that I enter the Health Care Surgery. Salty- eyed and with a brisk moustache, sallowed by nicotine and what looks like tomato sauce from his midnight snack, the doctor’s name is Peregrine or Montgomery or something old school like that. If it’s not, it should be: he’s got a Bertram appearance about him. He’s also got a sleep-deprived appearance about him—and the sort of breath that suggests he might have stopped at the local for a few whiskies before he started his shift.

What are you thinking about? Dott asks me. You’re miles away.

Did you put it there? I reply immediately, suddenly flaky with new panic.

Put what there? Put what where?

Me and the doctor. In my head. Me and the Psychologist.

Working lazily, Dott smiles. Bless you for the compliment, he says, but I’m not sure I’m that good.

You’ve done it before.

Not a memory, Billy! Dott replies. An impulse, a thought.

Get on with your work, the Cookery Gov tells us.

We have to get back to our dishes. But the class will be nearly three hours, like all of them. I’ll have time to re-connect, to re-link.

What else did she say? Dott asks.

My first reaction is that he’s on about Kate Wollington, but of course he means Kate Thistle. All the same, I decide to keep him waiting. I have been kept waiting for long enough by him.

Clutching my midriff, I stop at Kate Wollington’s door in the middle of the early hours. I have been given an aspirin; I’ve had my mouth checked to make sure that I’ve swallowed it. My performance has not been good enough to get me sent outside the gates to go to hospital. Instead I am holding a teacup-sized bottle of water with a second aspirin dissolved in it. The consultation has taken quite a few minutes because the doctor has needed to check my medical records for notes of any allergies.

Come in, Alfreth, Kate Wollington says.

From the door I see that what she has in front of her is a standard black text-on-white paper form, and the few strides I take towards her do nothing to make me change my mind. The screw waits in the corridor.