Purgatory: A Prison Diary Volume 2 (17 page)

The Home Office could do worse than invite Darren to sit on
one of their committees and advise them on prison policy. He is, after all, far
better informed than Stephen Harrison, and therefore the Home Secretary. After
a spell in Borstal, and two terms in prison, Darren would be a considerable
asset to the drugs debate. He adds that when he was first sent to jail, some
fifteen years ago, about 30 per cent of prisoners smoked canna-bis and only
about 10 per cent were on heroin.

‘And today?’
I ask.

‘Around twenty to thirty per cent are still on cannabis,
with approximately the same percentage, if not more, on heroin. And while the
present regulations are in place, there’s no hope of dealing with the problem.
Only last week, a prisoner out on his first town visit returned with five hundred
pounds’ worth of heroin stuffed up his backside, and every addict in the prison
knew about his cache within the hour. They were, if they could afford it,
smoking and jabbing themselves all night.’

‘But surely the prisoner in question, not to mention his
customers, will be caught?’

The drugs unit interviewed him the following morning. They
couldn’t prove anything, but it’s the last town visit he’ll make before he’s
released – on the grounds of ‘reasonable suspicion’.’

‘More fool him,’ says Jimmy, who goes out on a town visit
once a month. ‘Some of them will do anything—’
The
group of yobs decide to rejoin us, so I have to face another barrage of abuse.
I sometimes wish Mr Justice Potts could do just one circuit with me, but it’s
too late, my case was his last, and he was clearly determined to go out with a
bang. When we’re called back in, I’m not unhappy to return to the peace and
safety of my cell.

Sergio turns up to tell me the details of a conversation
he’s had with his brother in Bogota.

Tomorrow my brother will travel to the green mountains and
select an emerald’ declares Sergio. He will then have it valued and insured. He
will also send one gold necklace (18 carat). They sell at a tenth of the price
they charge in England. I assure him that, if I decide to buy it, I will make a
payment direct to bis bank the day after he has been deported. This means he
has to put a great deal of trust in me, which he seems happy to do. He accepts
that the transaction cannot take place while both of us are still in jail. If
he’s successful, I’ll have more confidence in his claim that he can produce a
Botero at a sensible price.

Darren lends me his copy of The Prisons Handbook – a sort of
Relais & Chateaux guide of jails in England and Wales. I accept Mr
Meanwell’s opinion that once my D-cat has been reinstated, I should apply for
Spring Hill in Buckinghamshire, which is the best-located open prison for both
London and Cambridge.

Darren and I play a couple of games of backgammon, and I’m
thankful to have found something I can beat him at. He takes revenge by
completing The Times crossword before supper.

Supper: beans on toast and an extra lemon mousse stamped
with yesterday’s sell-by date.

I watch the concluding episode of Victoria and Albert, every
moment of which I thoroughly enjoy.

I write for two hours.

Breakfast.
It’s Shredded Wheat
again. Eat one, save one.

Pottery.
I take my new book, Arts and
Artists, along to my class to while away the two-hour period. It doesn’t seem
to bother anyone that I’m not working on a sculpture as long as I’m studying
some medium of art.

Shaun appears to be depressed, which could be nothing more
than the melancholy of an artist lost in his thoughts. After an hour of
painting, he opens his sketch book to reveal an excellent drawing of a Wayland
landscape (fairly bleak) and another of a prison door. Then he confides why he
is so low. Probation
have
decided not to let him out
two months early on a tag because he failed to appear in court. However, this
two-month hold-up will pose some problems for both of us. The quality of the
paper, pencils, pastels and oils that are available at Wayland are obviously
not up to professional standards, so it may become necessary to enlist the help
of a member of the art department to purchase the materials he needs. Shaun
will have to select someone who believes in his talent, and more importantly,
he needs to trust me enough to believe I will pay him back after he’s been
released in November. A member of staff tells me later that Shaun is the most
talented prisoner they have come across since they started working in prisons.
Our conversation is interrupted by a security officer who says I’m wanted in
reception.

A senior officer from Belmarsh is waiting for me in the room
with the comfortable chairs. The governor of Belmarsh has put her in charge of
the investigation into the theft of seven pages of my diary. You will recall
that Trevor Kavanagh, the Surfs political editor, handed the script over to
Mary, who in turn passed the seven handwritten pages on to my lawyer.

The officer tells me that she has been in the Prison Service
for nearly twenty years, and adds that she isn’t on a whitewash expedition. She
makes it clear from the outset that the seven pages of script could not have
been stolen by a prisoner, as they wouldn’t have had access to a photocopier.
She goes even further and admits that they have narrowed the likely culprit
down to one of two officers.

She then hands me a photocopy of my first seven pages, and
after reading only a few lines I recall how distraught I was at Belmarsh. I
confirm that I had written these pages when I was in the medical centre on my
first day, but I have no way of knowing when they were removed or returned, or
by whom. I only recall leaving the cell once in the first twenty-four hours,
and that was for a forty-five-minute break in the exercise yard. She nods, as
if she not only knows when I left my cell, but exactly how many minutes I was
out of the room.

‘You were then escorted across to B block to begin your
induction. Did you have the script with you at the time?’

Yes, I posted the pages to my PA every three or four days,
but not before they were checked by Roy the censor, who I didn’t meet until the
third day, so it can’t have been him.’

‘No, it certainly wasn’t Roy,’ she replied, ‘because the Sun
received the material the following morning. And in any case, Roy’s bright
enough to understand the law of copyright. Whoever did this must have been
surprised and disappointed that the Sun wouldn’t touch it.’

She leaves after about an hour, promising to let me know the
outcome of her investigation.

Lunch: vegetable soup and a chocolate wafer.
Sergio slips me a banana.

In order to make up my five lessons a week, I have to attend
an education class on a Tuesday afternoon.

The Education Department is situated next to the library,
and once I’ve signed in, I report to room one as instructed. I enter a
classroom containing twenty small desks set out in a U-shape facing a teacher.
Her name is Ms Jocelyn Rimmington, and she looks as if she’s been plucked
straight out of an Evelyn Waugh novel. Her job is a difficult one, and I watch
her carry it out with consummate skill and ingenuity. She has eight charges,
including me. The prisoner she’s talking to is learning
basic
English so he can take a plumbing exam. The inmate on his right is reading
Chaucer as part of an A level course, and on his left is an inmate who is
learning to read and write. The remaining four prisoners are preparing for GCSE
English. Ms Rimmington moves slowly and methodically from desk to desk,
answering each and every question thrown at her until she reaches me.

Wendy tells me that you’re in the middle of writing another
book.’

‘Yes, I am,’ I reply.

‘And she thinks the best thing would be for you to carry on
with it, until we decide what to do with you.’

I don’t demur; after all, what’s the point of telling this
charming lady that I would prefer to do something more productive. It’s obvious
that either Wendy Sergeant, who is head of the department, or those above her,
lack the imagination of the education department at Belmarsh, who had me
conducting a creative writing class before the end of my first week.

Supper.
I eat very little because
the only gym session I can attend today is at six o’clock.

Gym.
Complete a full session,
mainly because half the regulars are out playing football. Today is the final
trial before they select the team for the first match on Sunday. As I cannot be
present at Lord’s for the one day final between Somerset and Leicestershire,
I’ll have to settle for Wayland versus RAP Methwold.

After a long press, press, press-button shower, 1 return to
the cell and dry myself with a mean little rough green towel. Sergio knocks on
the door, walks in, plonks himself on the end of the bed and without any
preamble,
starts
to give me another lecture on
emeralds.

‘Seventy per cent of the world’s emeralds come from
Colombia,’ he proclaims. ‘Over twenty thousand stones change hands in Bogota
every day. The emerald is second only in popularity and value to the
diamond,
and its size is measured in the same way (carat).
The very finest stones,’ he continues, ‘are known as ‘drops of oil’ because if
you stare into the centre of the stone, you can see what appears to be just
that. We must make sure that ours is at least four carats, and that the drop of
oil is there for all to see.

‘For one stone, the price can range according to quality’
continues Sergio, ‘from a few hundred dollars to several millions.’ He
anticipates the stone his brother selects could be on its way to London as
early as next week. Because Sergio went to the same school as the niece of the
owner of ‘the mountain’, he hopes his brother will be able to deal direct,
cutting out any middlemen. As his brother doesn’t know that Sergio is ensconced
in an English jail, I wonder why he isn’t puzzled by the fact that he can’t
call back. I don’t ask.

Pottery followed by an interview with the lady from
Belmarsh, followed by education, followed by the gym, followed by Sergio and
his lecture on emeralds, interspersed with three writing sessions. I’m
exhausted.

I fall asleep fully dressed during the Ten O’Clock News.
When I wake, it’s just after eleven. I undress, use the loo, climb into my tiny
bed, and fall asleep a second time.

I have now undergone the same three-week induction cycle at
HMP Wayland as I did at Belmarsh. My routine, compared with my life outside, is
far more regimented, conforming to a daily pattern, and then a weekly one. So I
have decided, as from today, to comment only on highlights, rather than simply
repeat the numbing routine with which you must now be familiar.

I write for two hours and then eat the other Shredded Wheat
covered in milk supplied by Sergio.

Paul, one of the tutors, brings in a set of slides to the
art class, and gives us a lecture on the Impressionists. I am stunned that
Shaun, such a talented artist, has never heard of Pissarro or Sisley. He also
admits that he has visited a gallery only two or three times in his life. The
slide show is so popular with the other prisoners that Paul promises to bring
in examples of other artists next week when he will introduce us to Magritte,
Rothko and Warhol, amongst others.

After lunch, I go to the gym. When I’ve finished my
programme, I jump on the scales to discover that I’m still losing weight –
nearly a stone since I’ve been in prison. Just as I’m leaving, the football
coach calls me into his office and asks if I would attend the first fixture of
the season on Sunday, and write a match report for the prison magazine. I readily
agree, only relieved he didn’t invite me to play.

Sergio joins me in my cell to tell me the latest on the
emerald hunt before continuing with his tutorial. The majority of emeralds
mined in Colombia come from one mountain that has been owned by the same family
for generations. Most of the stones that come out of Colombia are exported to
Japan, but Sergio is hoping, when he returns to Bogota, to start diverting some
of these gems to Europe. He is becoming more ambitious every day.

He also informs me that trading in emeralds is every bit as
dangerous as dealing in drugs. Every day eight helicopters fly back and forth
from the mountain to Bogota airport with four armed guards on each and another
twenty private police waiting for them on the runway. On the mountain there are
300 workers and 100 armed guards. A peasant (his description) can earn as much
as $50,000 a year if, and he repeats if, he is lucky enough to dig up any
high-quality gems.

‘But what about theft?’
I ask. How
do they deal with that?’ ‘One or two of the workers are stupid enough to
consider stealing the odd stone, but they quickly discover that there is no
judge or jury on the mountain.’

‘So how do they dispense justice?’

‘Instantly,’ he replies. ‘One of the guards shoots the
culprit in front of the other workers, who then bury him.’

‘But you could swallow a stone, and then sell it in Bogota,
where you’ve already told me that twenty thousand emeralds change hands in the
marketplace every day.’

‘True,’ Sergio replies. ‘But you will still be caught,
because the family has over a hundred spotters in the market, night and day. If
a dealer ever traded with a thief, they would immediately be cut off from their
source of supply. And in time the thief will have to return to the mountain if he
hopes to go on trading. In any case, the workers know they will have a far
higher standard of living than their fellow countrymen as long as they remain
employed on the mountain.’