David Mathew - O My Days

Wait a second, Julie. When you say Bailey’s gone .

I am pacing myself, the fists clenching a little bit once again.

Do you mean gone. As in, gone with my money?

I’m sorry, Billy.

It seems as though Julie has only been here for a few minutes—but it also seems as though she hasn’t left since the last time she was here. We haven’t moved an inch from this very table. In fact, it is the same table.

Slowly. Gone with my eighty grand? I say, searching for clarity.

I trusted him. He said he’d make it an investment, Julie tells me.

Utilising screw-antenna, screw-logic and screw-anti-wit, the screw approaches on his screw-issue screw-shoes, in his screw-blacks and his screw-tie, and looms screwishly close, anticipating screw-response. There will be none required. Instead I enlist his assistance.

Sir. Is it possible for man to see his daughter if she sick bad sick?

The screw affords me screw-shortshrift and screw- advance-denial. He says, plucking at his black tie, You know the channels, son.

Screw plods off.

What you getting at, Billy? Julie asks.

Am I smiling? I don’t know. I reply: You can’t bring her here, right? Or am I wrong?

What? Coz I think you’re gonna bray her?

Julie definitely does smile. It is not a pleasant smile, not this time; it translates like a foreign language. It’s an anti-smile, proffered in an atmosphere of garlicky disgrace.

No.

Then what are you getting at, William? Julie wants to know. She was sick. Now she’s not. But I’m not scared of bringing her to see her father.

I’m shaking my head.

Contamination, I say. Whooping cough. Listen. You got a ticket from the doctor saying whooping cough, right? Well say she’s still sick. Might get permission for compassionate leave.

Julie is stunned by the notion. Talk about that fucking vein pulsing!

You would do that? she asks. Use your daughter.

I’m eyeballing her.

Not a man in here wouldn’t do the same, I tell her. You’ll use anything, Julie, and it don’t usually work. So you wait. You wait for a good one, I say, fingers relaxed on the helmet-plastic.

And this is a good one? Julie hisses. Your daughter being sick.

It might work.

For what purpose? Julie says—and it occurs to me that nearly everything she has said today has contained some form of questioning. What are you intending to do if they let you out for a day?

See Patrice.

But what else? Forgetting the fact she’s actually getting better.

She don’t need to be, I say to Julie.

You want me to make her ill again?

Julie is leaning closer to me when you might think she would lean further away—but she hasn’t yet heard all I have to say. I have yet to think it.

It’s a chance, Julie. And by the way, I say, leaving a pause. You say I know your new boy.

You stabbed him.

This narrows it down to nine or ten possibilities, but I don’t have a watch and I don’t know how close we are to the curtain call of Visits.

Julie, please.

It comes to something, I know—it comes to impending doom, let’s be honest—when a fair-sized proportion of your sentences with your ting begin with: INSERT NAME , and then the word please . What it means, in gut-born essence, is that no fucking thing is being said. Am I losing my mind? Is my mind losing me?—There it goes, the old cunt, with its off-to-London spotted hanky of essential belongings, at the end of a pole or stick. Yeah, Charlie? Well I come from London. Go back, cat—go back, Dick—your money won’t be worth horseshit on a shovel when you arrive. It’s like something I overhear when I’m doing the Library run to one nameless classroom to another—and some yoot, long since left for Big Man Jail, says something like, In Ghana, blood, five pound and you’re a rich man . Well, you’re not in Ghana anymore, are you, I tell the man. Next three weeks he’s spitting me evils. Fuck him.

There’ll be feds all over you, says Julie, after a pause, returning to the theme of my application for a day’s compassionate release on the grounds of serious illness of a loved one.

I’m a Redband. Perhaps I’ve earned something. Who I stab? One of the boys?

No, Julie answers, and then reconsiders immediately. Well, maybe. I don’t know, Billy. Maybe he was. He says he weren’t.

Who says?

Billy.

But I’m Billy, I protest.

Julie slouches back into her chair. He’s Billy too.

What—and then you meet Billy Three? Fuck this, Julie!

That’s enough, Alfreth, warns a different screw—I think the name is Vincent—but instead of apologising to her, as I might have done, a month earlier, I offer her, in her screw-identicals, her screw-neuterings, an anti-smile.

I don’t have time for this bullshit, I say to Julie quietly. Who?

Screw Vincent lingers. Julie tries to smile her away but the effort does little to reassure her, so Julie gives up, returning her attention to me—eager with something to say. So she says it.

Billy. His name is Billy. Billy Cardman.

The shock is enough, not to make me bellow, but to make me silent. Screw Vincent doesn’t like for one moment this sudden cessation of the row. It makes her nervous. As Ostrich himself once said to me: Blood. Sometimes my threats are silences and sometimes my threats are stones . This silence is clearly a threat.

Billy Cardman is the name of the man who put me in this nick. Not saying most victims want to be victims. Not saying he’s the exception either. He’s the one I plug in the arm with my knife. I say:

Sorry.

I’m sorry to Billy Cardman (but the man wouldn’t give me what I was asking for).

I got involved in a victim support group, Billy.

This is too much, I tell her. Now you’re supporting the enemy. It’s not bad enough I’m in here because of him.

Because of yourself, Billy.

But now I’ve got to picture him fucking you? Too much, ting!

Julie is getting upset again—if she ever stopped being upset in the first place. Actually, come to think of it, if she ever stopped being upset from the moment I was sentenced.

You don’t have to picture him doing that, Billy.

How can man not? You know what he’s got? He’s got revenge, I tell her. Like I’m going to find revenge when I get granted day release to see my sick little girl. You wait and see if I don’t.

I’ll refuse you access. I’ll say you’re dangerous.

I snort. You get one thing right at least.

Julie smiles: this one seems sincere. You’re a cuddly bear and you know it, lover. Or should I keep my voice down, blood?

She waits until Screw Vincent has moved away.

But things have changed, Billy. You know they have. You’ve changed. So have I. I didn’t expect it to happen with Billy.

I’ll be a laughing stock, Julie!

Why? Who’s gonna know?

My boys!

Oh, please. Your boys, Bill? Where are they? While I’m here, where are they? Seriously. Do you think they still care about you?

This hurts. This hurts because I’ve known it to be true for some time. I lean forwards now, my hands still in the right place.

Do you know something? I ask Julie. I was like a king once, me. I was growing like a king.

What are you talking about? You been brewing hooch?

In the desert, Julie. In a place you can only dream about.

She backs away from me, saying: Well, you’re in no doubt they’re gonna let you out for a while, Bill. Problem is, it’ll be to a Psych Ward.

You don’t know anything about my past, Julie.

Her eyebrows beetle. Shut up, now, honestly. You’re scaring me.

One last favour, I say to her.

I owe you that, she admits, sounding a jot relieved if you wanna know.