David Mathew: O My Days

Kind of. I work for the university. She leans forward slightly and puts her elbows on her knees. Good job that although she might not have been told about forename procedures, she’s at least been informed about dress code. The beige-coloured top she wears beneath her light-grey trouser suit is a polo-neck.

She’s not worried about being in a prison and that’s strange.

I’m writing about the Young Offender experience as part of my PhD in Adult Basic Skills Education, she goes on. I want to know all about the learning pathway for Young Offenders. Not the facts, she adds quickly, in a voice that leaks out bare disgust, that I can get from any number of reports. Not the stats. The experience.

I’m with you, I reply. You want a guinea pig.

Well, not exactly.

You want a snitch, Miss Thistle, is what you want.

Alfreth, warns Patterson in her deepest voice.

I don’t snitch, I tell her categorically; but I’m thinking different things entirely. I’m thinking three different things entirely. I’m thinking: One . If you’re interested in the so-called learning pathway, then why are you sitting with someone who’s passed all his exams and not in a motherfucking classroom? Two . A letter to the Governor. Not an Education Gov, but the Gov: the Governor of the jail, Glazer, who I’m assuming has okayed this malarkey. The letter about my confusion, and which I’m already penning in my head. The one that reads and goes along the lines of:

Dear Bumberclutt,

What the fuck do you think you’re doing letting this woman into a maximum security prison, arsehole? Are you trying to mash her or something?

And three . The sense—the feeling that I can’t much describe and even less explain—that something is wrong here. Something is missing. I am certain, right now, that Miss Thistle is lying to me.

Billy, no, she continues, I don’t require a snitch. I require a mind.

Excuse me?

Someone with intelligence, who knows the workings of the Education Department inside out.

I stop tearing my way into the magazine bundle.

Still sounds like a snitch to me, Miss Thistle, I answer politely.

Call me Kate, she answers—no doubt to Angie’s disapproval—but in such a way that I know I’ve just been played.

As Ostrich might say, Man fall in love for lesser ting .

Tango One to Papa Alpha. Request permission to send Redband Alfreth from Education Block One to A Wing, over.

The screw talking is nearing retirement but he’s okay. Worn at the belt, his radio tweets and I hear: Permission granted, over . So I’m on my way, on the first leg of today’s deliveries, carrying my luminous yellow satchel of TV guides and other periodicals. The rain is coming down and I’m only in my sweats. By the time I get to the A Wing gate I’m frozen and sopping wet. I’m let in. Then it’s onwards . Albert Three to Papa Alpha. Request permission to send Redband Alfreth from Albert to Bernard, over . So it goes. Permission granted, over .

At least I don’t have to shovel shit all day with the Gardening Crew. But the rain is like nothing I’ve ever known, up here. You get used to the cameras following your every move; you get used to the constant threat of violence (accepted and doled out); yet I still haven’t got used to the weather. Swear down it rains harder up here, up in the hills. I can’t wait for Sosh. I don’t expect to find any answers to anything, but if I can at least find the way to pose the right questions I’ll be happy.

Lunch is manure in a bun.

Segregation Unit, I’m told. Tooty suite.

I don’t correct him. You don’t correct Screw Jones, unless you happen to have two weeks left to live and you’re aiming for a story that will live on longer than your own mortal bollocks do.

What’s the charge against me, sir?

Fuck off. You saw it. Join the line.

Thank you, sir.

It’s nearly ten o’clock, and I’ve long since feared my way past the point of rational self-delusion. I’m not called for the Library, so I’m going to be called for something else—and I know what the something else is. Adjudication.

Down block, bruv.

But what can I say? It’s a fight in the Cookery Room. Roller and Meaney go batshit and start the process. In come in the screws. Mashed if I’m going to mention the kissing.

They’re waiting for me. I go straight in. Jones is behind me and I walk the long, long corridor that leads to the Adjudication Court, where Governor Glazer will be waiting with his hangdog smile and his halitosis. The room is, as ever, the colour of tar-flecked phlegm. I take my seat at the bolted-down table and place my hands on the surface, knowing the drill. Look up to see Glazer looking down from his throne.

Do you know why you’re here, Alfreth? he asks.

Yes, sir.

Good. And what have you got to say?

It’s a twist-up, innit. Two yoots, two screws.

That’s not what I’m getting at and you know it.

I shrug my shoulders. Can’t explain it is it, I answer truthfully.

Were you aware of any conflict beforehand?

No, sir.

Were you aware of anything, Alfreth?

No, sir. Shit went long of a sudden. Hot minute, yat.

And you understand the results of your being found out to be lying? Grazer adds, like the bloodclot he is.

I understand, sir, I reply.

Loss of Enhanced. Loss of Redband. Loss of privileges.

Sir? I say, I don’t know dick. Much a revelation to me as to you.

I sincerely doubt that, Glazer answers. Dismissed.

I haven’t even been asked to confirm my name and prison number. There’s no doubt about it: this has shitted them up ghost-style.

I said dismissed .

Thank you, sir, I mutter.

But there’s no way I can fail to notice the woman sitting in the witness stand, as all new employees are entitled—or forced—to do, to scratch their heads about the Adjudication proceedings.

It’s Kate Thistle.

Kate Thistle is thirty-nine years old. I know because I asked her. She could have lied but she didn’t. Or so I’m assuming. Are you listening, though? I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing.

Like, she asks me, Do you regret your crime? and I’m like rah. Allow it .

And she’s like, Tell me. If you want to. And I’m like, Nappin, Miss .

You won’t think she’s thirty-nine by the looks of her, mind. She looks twenty-six, and I would . In my head, I already have.

It’s immaterial. I say to Ostrich, Man alive. I can’t wait till the weekend.

It is the weekend, he replies.

No, man. I mean tomorrow night. Saturday.

Why, what’s so explosive about Saturday night, man?

Playing Shelley at pool, innit. Three burn stake.

Ostrich whistles. Who knows about this?

You, me and him, I answer. I can trust you with this, can’t I, Ostrich?

Sure, man. Man lips as sealed as a lady panda poom-poom. But be careful, innit. They catch you gambling again, man lose his Enhanced.

I know. But he challenged me. I can’t let it get around that man challenged me and I didn’t do nothing about it. Be worse than when he stole that CD and I didn’t fight him to get it back.

That different. Everyone know you couldn’t fight him on that occasion. You just had your job. You fight, you lose it. Ostrich shrugs. You might lose. Just contemplate the ifs, innit.

I won’t lose to that fucking squirrel.

Just contemplate, man.

For a second I do so. And I arrive at the conclusion, which I voice, that losing is no biggie: it’s failing to respond to a duel, in this place, that’s the biggie. When that starts getting around, God knows what’ll occur.