Purgatory: A Prison Diary Volume 2 (19 page)

To my delight, I discover that our spur is unlocked first
and banged up last, giving us an extra few minutes at each end of the day. What
I enjoy most about being below stairs is the silence, or near silence, compared
with the floor above. No rap music, no window warriors and no conversations
shouted from one end of the corridor to the other. There is actually a feeling
of community on this spur.

I don’t bother to turn on the TV this evening as I am
totally engrossed in Robert Goddard’s Caught in the Light. I fall asleep fully
dressed. It’s been an exhausting day.

The first day of a new month.
After
breakfast, I arrange with Locke (GBH), the spur painter, to have my new cell
redecorated in his spare time. As the tariff has to be agreed in tobacco, and as
I have no idea of the going rate, Darren (marijuana only) has agreed to act as
my works manager for the transaction.

Once Locke has inspected my cell, he announces it will first
need an undercoat of white, which will take him two, two-hour sessions. Darren
agrees the price on a daily basis. Tomorrow he will add a coat of cream, and on
Monday the cell door, the window ledge and frame plus the square around the
wash basin will be painted beige.
As far as I can work out,
the painter will receive one pound’s worth of Golden Virginia (his choice) a
day.

So the whole job will cost me £3 – which, Darren assures me,
is the going rate. The paint, however, will be supplied by Her Majesty’s tax
payers. Please note that it was Margaret Thatcher who taught me never to say
government; ‘Governments don’t pay taxes, Jeffrey, only tax payers do.’

Locke asks me to vacate my cell while the undercoat is being
rolled on because once my bed, table and small cupboard have been pulled away
from the walls and left in the centre of the room, there will only be enough
space for one person.

I cross the corridor to join Sergio in his cell, where we
hold a board meeting. Overnight, Sergio has typed out sixteen questions which
he needs answered before he speaks to his brother again. For example: do I want
to pay the full insurance cost? – Yes. Do I want the gold necklace to be 9, 14
or 18 carat?
– 18 carat.
Will I have to pay import tax
when the chain and emerald land in London? – Don’t know, but I’ll find out

Once Sergio has asked all his questions and written out the
answers neatly in Spanish, we move onto item number two on the agenda.

I’ve received a letter from Chris Beetles, who has carried
out considerable research into which South American artists have a worldwide
market. He reports that Christie’s and Sotheby’s have two Latin American sales
a year, both held in New York. With the exception of Botero, who has recently
passed $2 million for
an oil
, only Lamand Tamayo
regularly fetches $100,000 or more under the hammer. Sergio reads the letter
slowly and places it in his file.

Exercise.
It’s Darren’s turn to be
sketched by Shaun, and he’s proving a bit of a prima donna. He’s a very private
man who doesn’t keep any photographs of himself. He’s still grumbling about his
participation as we walk out into the yard. We are greeted by Shaun, who is
holding a large art pad in his right hand, and a couple of pencils in his left.

Darren reluctantly agrees to pose, but only on two
conditions.
That the drawing is carried out on the far side
of the yard, where few inmates will see him during their perambulations.
He also insists that if he doesn’t like the result, he will be left out of the
final montage. I don’t have a lot of choice, so I agree. I can only hope that
Shaun will make such a good job of the preliminary sketch that Darren will be
converted to the whole idea.

Jimmy and I go off for a circuit while Shaun begins his
task. While we stroll round the perimeter, the talk among the inmates is only
of football. England
are
playing Germany tonight, and
Wayland are playing Methwold tomorrow. Some of the prisoners tying on the grass
against the fence wish Jimmy, our captain, good luck, while another suggests
that he couldn’t score in a brothel.

By the end of the third circuit, a likeness is appearing on
Shaun’s sketch pad, but I have no way of knowing how Darren will react. He can
be so perverse at times.

By the time we’ve completed two more circuits, the officers
in the yard are beginning to herd us back to our blocks. We stop to look at Shaun’s
effort. Darren joins us to see the outline image for the first time. It’s good,
and he knows it. He nods his grudging approval, but finally gives the game away
when, as we stroll back into
A
block, he asks, If
that’s only a sketch before Shaun does the final portrait, can I have it for my
mother?’
(See (date section.)

Standing in the lunch queue I discover from Dumsday (who,
Jimmy told me a few days earlier, had adopted an injured crow) that his crow
died early this morning, despite his sitting up all night trying to feed it a
boiled egg. I return to my cell and eat lunch standing in the middle of the
room with the smell of fresh paint all around me. I survey my £3 investment.
Locke has made a good start.

The spur is getting worked up about the match this evening
between England and Germany, which is a World Cup qualifying game. I am invited
to pull the name of an England player out of a plastic cup, and should my
selection score the first goal, I’ll win nine Mars bars. I draw Gerard who,
Jimmy assures me, has a good chance of scoring. I read in this morning’s Times
that England
haven’t
won a match on German soil since
1965. But I don’t pass on this information to a football-mad spur. I glance out
of my window to see five rabbits eating the left-over food the prisoners have
thrown out of their cell. As we are hemmed in behind a twenty-foot fine-meshed
wire fence, I wonder how the rabbits get into the prison. I’ll make enquiries.

On a Saturday, we’re banged up after supper but, as I’ve
mentioned, the enhanced spur goes last so we can roam the corridors until six
thirty – an extra thirty minutes. I check my TV listings in The Times to find
that the football is on BBC 1, but clashes with Jane Austen’s Persuasion on BBC
2. I elect to watch Persuasion while the rest of the spur settles down to
follow the match. I’m confident that, if England
score
,
the whole prison will let me know.

Just as Miss Elliot meets Captain Wentworth for the first
time, the spur erupts with cheering and shouting. I quickly switch channels and
watch a replay of Michael Owen scoring for England, which means I’ve lost a
Mars bar. I switch back and continue my vigil with Miss Elliot who, because of
her father’s financial problems, has had to move from the family’s magnificent
country home to a smaller residence in Bath. I become deeply engrossed in the
drama of lost love when there is another eruption of cheering. I switch over to
find England have scored a second goal on the stroke of half-time. I discover
that the score is 2-1 in England’s favour, so I must have missed the German
goal. It was obviously greeted by my fellow inmates in total silence.

I turn back to Persuasion to find that Captain Wentworth is
flirting (the occasional glance) with our heroine, the one we want him to
marry. There is another roar. I can’t believe it, and switch across to find our
other hero, Michael Owen, has scored again, and England are now leading three
goals to one. No sooner have I switched back than there is a further roar, so I
return to watch a replay of Owen completing his hat-trick, giving England an
unbelievable 4-1 lead.

I flick over to Jane Austen and discover that the handsome
Captain Wentworth could be about to marry the wrong girl, but then – an
explosion – can it be true? I return to BBC 1 to find Heskey has scored for
England and we now lead five goals to one with ten minutes to go. Quickly back
to Persuasion where our hero and long-suffering heroine have become engaged. No
suggestion of sex, not even a kiss. Long live Jane Austen.

I finish the Robert Goddard book and then climb into my bed
which is still in the middle of the room. I fall asleep to the smell of fresh
paint and the sound of my fellow inmates reliving every one of those five
England goals.

After writing for a couple of hours and having breakfast, I
report to the gym in my new capacity as football correspondent for the Prison
News.

The Wayland
team meet
in the changing
room where they are handed their kit: a light blue shirt, dark blue shorts,
blue socks, shin pads and a pair of football boots.
As with
the cricket match last week, the team are far better equipped than most amateur
club sides, and once again all at the tax payers’ expense.
All four
blocks also have their own strip (A block’s is yellow and black). I assume this
is normal practice for every prison across the country.

Once the team has changed, and very smart they look, we’re
joined by our coach, Gary, who delivers an unusual team talk. Because the
players have been selected from four different blocks and prisoners come and go
every week, some of them haven’t even met before. The first thing the eleven
men and three subs have to do is to announce their names and the positions
they’ll be playing in. You may well consider that this is an insuperable
barrier for any team, but not so, because the opposition also
have
several disadvantages to contend with. To start with,
all of Wayland’s fixtures are played at home – think about it – and the rival
team are not allowed to bring along any supporters, especially not girlfriends.
And when it comes to gamesmanship, our
team are
in a
class of their own, and the officers are just as bad.

The opposition
side are
met at the
gates by sniffer dogs before being searched. The players are then escorted to
the changing rooms, accompanied by
the boos
of
prisoners from all four blocks. And if that isn’t enough to contend with, they
then have to deal with our captain, Jimmy.

Now Jimmy is all charm and bonhomie as he accompanies the
opposition side from the changing room onto the pitch. But he does consider it
nothing less than his duty to inform the visitors that they should keep a wary
eye on Preston, Wayland’s main striker.

‘Why?’ asks the opposing team captain
innocently.

‘He’s in for a double murder – chopped his parents’ heads
off while they were asleep.’ Jimmy pauses. ‘Even we don’t like him. He’s
already got a twenty-five-year sentence, and as he’s only done three, the occasional
broken leg doesn’t seem to worry him too much, especially as he’s only likely
to get a yellow card.’

The truth is that our main striker is in for breaking and
entering (rather appropriate) but by the time Jimmy has reached the pitch, the
Methwold team is convinced that if Hannibal Lecter were at Wayland he would be
relegated to the subs bench.

The first half is a shambles; the ball goes up and down the
pitch with little speed and even less purpose. Wayland are trying to get to
know each other, while Methwold still aren’t sure if they dare risk the
occasional tackle. It’s 0-0 when the whistle blows for half-time, and frankly
no one deserved to score.

The second half is a complete contrast as I’m made aware of
the other advantage Wayland has: fitness. All of our team
spend
at least an hour every day in the gym, rather than at the local pub, and it
begins to show. The first goal is headed in by Carl (GBH), after an excellent
cross by our ‘double-murderer1. The second is scored by Dan (armed robbery), another
of our strikers, and the third is added by Hitch (arson). We end up winning
3-0, which augurs well for the rest of the season. Perhaps we could even win
the league cup this year. But it’s back to disadvantages, because three of the
team, including Jimmy, are due to be released before Christmas, and the side we
will field at the end of the season will bear no resemblance to the one that
lined up for the opening encounter.

Despite the team’s glorious victory, some of the officers
are irritated by the fact that they’ve been made to hang around until we return
for a late lunch. With the exception of Mr Nutbourne, who makes sure that the
team is fed, they can’t wait to get us banged up and go off duty.

The relationship between officers and prisoners is always
conducted on a tightrope which both sides walk every day. The officers on duty
that Sunday morning unwisely miss an opportunity to make their own lives
easier. A few words of praise and allowing an extra minute or two in the shower
would have paid huge dividends in the long run. Instead, the victors return to
their cells with shrivelled-up pieces of meat covered in cold gravy, unable to
shower until we are unlocked again in two hours’ time. Of course I understand
that the prison is not run for the convenience of the prisoners, but here was
an opportunity for the officers to make their own life easier in the long term.
They botched it, with the exception of Mr Nutbourne, who will get far more
cooperation and respect from the inmates in the future.

Board meeting.
Sergio has talked to
his brother in Bogota. The four emeralds that his brother initially selected
have been shortlisted to two and, along with a member of the family who owns
the
mountain,
Sergio’s brother will make the final
selection tomorrow. He has also assured him that, whichever one they choose,
the gem would retail at three times the price in a London shop. As for
paintings, Sergio’s school friend has told him that, through Sergio’s mother,
she has made an appointment with Botero’s mother, and will report back by the
end of the week. My heart leaps at the thought of finally owning a Botero.