Lynda Plante - The Talisman

Joe, a fat boy with hair so short it stuck up on end, complained about always getting the bottom bunk, and Tom flicked his towel at him. ‘I don’t want that arse comin’ down on me at night, so you git the bottom whether you like it or not, okay, fat man?’

Alex checked the washing facilities. There were four enamel bowls and jugs on three scrubbed corner tables, some nail brushes and four plastic mugs. On the floor were four chamber pots.

Tom swung himself up on to the top bunk and dangled his legs, looking down at Dick and Alex. Dick grinned and said he was in for armed robbery, and Tom smiled and shook his hand, saying he was in for ‘aggravated burglary’. ‘Bleedin’ aggravated, all right. They copped me, that’s all I know. Joe down there’s in for shoplifting, what yer say you were in for, Alex? Alex, is it?’

They all looked questioningly at Alex, who busied himself clearing a space on the corner table. ‘Murder... Okay, that’s my place.’

The effect was just as he’d hoped, just as it had been on Sid, even Johnny. He could see their reactions and it amused him, suddenly he was the big shot.

Tom, impressed, jumped down to stand by Alex, and picked up his chamber pot. He asked if Alex had done time before, knowing he hadn’t by the way Alex examined everything in the cell. ‘Right, then, lemme give you a piece of advice. It’s kid’s stuff in ‘ere, but yer gotta remember the golden rule. Make sure you have a shit before you’re banged up for the night, otherwise it’s terrible sleeping wiv yer own stink, even worse wiv someone else’s... If yer caught short in the night, then chuck it out the winder, wrap it in paper an’ chuck it. I mean it, yer think it’s funny but you take a look outta any nick’s windows and yer see the bombs chucked out in the night.’

The spyhole in the door was moved aside, and they turned to see an eye staring in at them. ‘Lights out!’

The lights went off and the small, claustrophobic cell went quiet. Joe let rip with a fart and laughed. Tom belted him one, but was laughing too. They settled down for the night.

They lined up for their breakfast, grabbing trays and moving along as the food was served. The enamel trays were just large enough for a bowl, a cup, and a knife and fork. They had ‘skilly’, a very thin porridge, an egg and a couple of slices of bread. Weak tea was poured from a vast pot at the end of the line. They carried it all the way back to their cages and ate hurriedly, because when the next bell rang they had to clean up the cell. The bunks had to be stripped and the sheets and blankets folded box-style. The washing bowls had to be cleaned and the clothes and towels folded, everything neat and orderly, ready for the screws to inspect.

The first morning was to be like every other. There were no classes here as there had been in the reform schools. They waited to hear where they would be put to work — some would be assigned to cleaning, some to sewing mail sacks, others to the radio repair shop. They worked from eight-thirty in the morning until twelve-thirty. Alex was pleased to be taken to the radio shop, it was considered a good job. But he soon found out that it was very boring, mundane work. He had to take old radios apart for scrap metal, and it took no brains whatsoever, a child could have done it.

The exercise periods were heavily patrolled by screws, as this was when fights usually broke out or attempts were made at escaping. Although the borstal boys were separated from the older prisoners, they would occasionally see a ‘trusty’ with a blue armband circulating the library trolley, or washing down the corridors. After exercise came tea, and then they were locked in their cells until the recreation period at six o’clock. It was a rowdy time and they played table tennis, draughts and chess.

Sid was the first person Alex saw, laughing loudly as he knocked a table-tennis ball back and forth. Alex walked slowly around the table, pushed Sid’s opponent away and took up the bat. Sid’s jaw dropped, he turned around, scared, and Alex bounced the ball up and down. ‘My serve... All right, Sid?’

‘Sure, Alex, ready when you are.’

Alex looked at his cell-mates, nodded to the recreation-room doors for them to keep watch. All the boys knew something was about to happen, and the room went silent.

Alex moved fast around the table and the bat crashed down on Sid’s head. Alex gripped him tightly. ‘What you tell the law on me for, Sid? Why’d you rat on me?’

Sid tried to wriggle free, but Alex was far bigger and stronger. ‘You know what you done to me? My mum hadda come an’ sit in the court, you know what that done to her, do you? Do you?’

Suddenly, Alex went crazy, hammering Sid over the head with the table-tennis bat. Tom yelled from the door that the screws were on the way running down the corridor. They burst into the games room. ‘Right, you — Stubbs... Come on, let him go... Stubbs!’

Alex threw the bat at one of the screws, and the next moment he was down on the ground and they were kicking the daylights out of him.

When he woke up in the hospital, Alex’s face was puffy from the beating. He had lost a front tooth, and one ear had been stitched badly, making the lobe lumpy and extremely unattractive. Alex was examined and given the all clear and two weeks’ solitary confinement on bread and water.

A naked light bulb was kept on in the cell at all times. The only way Alex could sleep was face downwards.

During the second week, the diet of bread and water making him feel shaky, he didn’t even get up from his bunk. He lay and stared at the light bulb, and stared... he began to hallucinate, shadows on the walls took on weird shapes. Suddenly it started again, the dream, the mountain, the green grass, the fragrant smell of fresh, clean air. Alex began to breathe deeply, filling his lungs, willing himself to hear once more the horse’s hooves galloping... Now he was running, running, wanting to see the man he knew was his father. The pounding became more and more insistent, he couldn’t tell whether he was awake or dreaming... He was awake, the screws were unlocking his cell to take him back to the prison. He didn’t want to go, he wanted to stay by himself, alone. The screws thought he was being difficult and dragged him out, shouting that if he didn’t behave he’d be back in solitary.

When he returned to his cell he was greeted as a hero. There were three letters waiting for him from his mother. The lads backed off, letter-reading was private, and they picked up their magazines as Alex slowly opened his letters, one by one, savouring the contact with the outside world.

Evelyne’s letters always managed to upset him. He knew she was trying to sound cheerful, but it only made things worse.

The bell rang for recreation and their cell was unlocked. The boys left Alex sitting on his bunk, reading.

The third letter made Alex even more depressed; she was to go into hospital, she had underlined that it was nothing serious and he was not to worry. Alex wanted to cry, he felt so helpless. There was his poor old mum, no one with her, dependent on neighbours. She did not mention Edward, and Alex swore, hitting the wall with his fists. ‘Bastard, didn’t even go an’ see her in ‘is ‘olidays.’

A warder knocked on the cell door with his baton. ‘Hey, Stubbs, what you think we’re runnin’, a post office? This come fer you, an’ Stubbs, there’s a message inside, all right?’

Alex took the open brown-paper parcel. Evelyne had sent him the only two leather-bound books she had left. They still bore tell-tale marks of the fire. They were Christina Rossetti’s poems and a thin volume of plays by Strindberg.

Alex was so emotionally disturbed by the books, the feel of them, the memories flooding through him, that it was a while before he even opened them. Tucked into the centre of the book was a sheet of cheap, lined notepaper. Opening it, Alex knew immediately that his mother had not written it. The writing was that of a child.