Purgatory: A Prison Diary Volume 2 (21 page)

I watch Ian Richardson on BBC 1 playing Dr Bell in a Conan
Doyle drama described in The Times as the forerunner to Sherlock Holmes. I will
never forget his portrayal of the chief whip in Michael Dobbs’ excellent House
of Cards. I’ve known seven chief whips in my time – Willie Whitelaw, Francis
Pym, Humphrey Atkins, John Wakeham, Tim Renton, Peter Brooke, and Richard Ryder
– but even their combined talents lacked the Machiavellian skills of Francis
Urquhart, under whose gaze I certainly wouldn’t have dared to miss a vote.

I lie awake thinking about Sergio. Is he a liar, just another
two-bit con man, or is he genuinely anxious about his brother’s safety? Only
time will tell.

Locke has finished painting my cell, but is nervous about
attempting the Magritte pattern Shaun has designed for the wall. Darren, as
works manager, agrees that it’s far too elaborate, and should be cut down to
about half the original, and even then he’s not sure I’ll get away with it. But
as Darren points out, the worst they can do is make us return the paintwork to
its original colour – cost, £1. So it’s agreed that while I’m away at pottery,
the redecorating will begin, and then we’ll have to wait and see how the spur
officer reacts.

Pottery.
Today the class settles
down to do a still-life drawing. Anne, our tutor, and former Slade graduate,
has taken a lot of trouble in gathering together objects of interest to make
the drawing more of a challenge. She has set up in the centre of the room a
small card table, and placed over it a cloth with a red and white diamond
pattern. On the table she’s placed an empty wine bottle, a green vase and a
fruit bowl. In the bowl she’s carefully arranged a bunch of grapes, a
pineapple, three oranges, two apples and a peach. Paul, one of our other
tutors, has supplied a cheese board and a lump of Cheddar.

We all sit round the table in a circle and attempt to draw
what we see in front of us. Keith (kidnapper), who is sitting next to me, will
present the piece as part of his A-level submission. He understands both
perspective and shading. I, on the other hand, do not. Anne helpfully points
out – to everyone else’s amusement – that my peach is bigger than my pineapple.

After an hour, we’re given a ten-minute break, when most of
the prisoners go off for a quick drag. Shaun and I disappear with Anne into her
office to discuss some ideas for a prison landscape which I hope to include in
this book. I take up as much of her time as possible, because I can’t face
another hour of still-life drawing. However, she seems keen to get back and see
how the others are progressing.

Anne is a very easy-going person and I can’t imagine her
losing her temper. But when she walks back into the main room and sees the
still-life table, she goes berserk. All that remains of the original offering
is two apple cores, the top of a pineapple, three orange skins, a peach stone,
a
grape stalk with one grape attached and a cheese board
with just a few morsels left on it. To be fair, what is left has been
artistically arranged, and her pupils are studiously drawing the new
composition.

I burst out laughing, and it is only moments before Anne
joins in. I am happy to report that Keith’s final effort was entered as part of
his
A
level submission, and gained high marks for
originality.

Rugby.
Over fifty prisoners turn
out for the first training session of the season, which takes place on the main
field adjacent to the football pitch. For an hour our coach, Andy Harley, puts
us through passing and handling skills, and it soon becomes clear that several
prisoners have never played the game before. For the last thirty minutes, the
coach selects two sides for a game of touch rugby, which he asks me to referee.
He tells me that I had refereed him some years before when a Newmarket XV
visited Cambridge.

Because several of the prisoners didn’t know the laws of the
game, I had to be fairly liberal if I wasn’t going to have to blow the whistle
every few seconds for some minor infringement. However, I was left with little
choice when a large black man threw the ball twenty yards forward, as if he
were playing American football. I blew the whistle and awarded the blue side a
penalty. He immediately bore down on me, shouting expletives, while the others
stood around and watched. I paced ten yards towards his goal line, explaining
that in rugby you can’t swear at the referee. His language became riper, so I
advanced another ten yards, by which time he had been joined by three of his
mates who weren’t much smaller. Two of the coaches ran quickly onto the field,
and Mr Harley explained, Jeffrey is right If you argue with the referee in
rugby, it’s automatically a penalty, and you’d better get used to it, because
when we have our first match next week, a neutral ref will be even stricter.’
Many of the prisoners looking on remained silent, as no one was sure what would
happen next.

‘Sorry, Jeff,’ said the big black man, and added, ‘it’s just
that we never played it like that in Brixton.’ He then rejoined his team.

When I returned to the block, I went straight to the shower
room, and a few minutes later
was
joined by Jimmy.

‘I scored two goals,’ he informs me, before adding, ‘I’ve
just heard about you and Big Nes.’

‘Big Nes?’

‘Yeah, Big Nes from Block C.
I’ve
managed to go a whole year without speaking to him.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘He was Brixton heavyweight champion, and I once saw him
knock a prisoner out with a single blow, and no one was sure what the poor
bastard had done to annoy him.’

‘Oh Christ,’ I said, shaking under the shower, ‘I’ll never
be able to go into the exercise yard again.’

‘No, no,’ said Jimmy, ‘Big Nes is telling everyone you’re
his new friend.’

I collect my supper from the hotplate, but Sergio avoids any
eye contact.

As
it’s
Wednesday, you have to
change your sheets, blankets and towels after supper, so I was too preoccupied
to go in search of him. Darren popped in while I was making up my bed to attach
nine small mirrors to the wall using prison toothpaste as an adhesive.
Regulations allow you only one five-by-five-inch mirror, so heaven knows how
Darren got his hands on the other eight.

I go in search of Sergio, and spot him on the phone. I
return to my cell thinking he’ll probably visit me once he’s finished his call…
he doesn’t.

I’m exhausted and fall asleep fully dressed with the TV
still on. Only later do I learn that it is an offence to fall asleep fully
dressed, for which you can be put on report.

The cell is at last finished and no longer smells of paint.
Locke has run a day and a half over time, which is no more than one would expect
from any self-respecting painter and decorator. Darren comes in to pick up my
washing, sighs, and declares the new decor reminds him of a 1970s council
house. He leaves with his nose in the air and several bundles of washing over
his shoulder.

Pottery is cancelled as once a fortnight the prison officers
carry out a session of in-house – training, which means we’re banged up for the
rest of the morning. I attempt yesterday’s Times crossword, and manage to
complete three clues – quid, Turgenev and courtier. I can only improve.

Lunch.
When I go to pick up my meal
from the hotplate, Sergio welcomes me with a broad grin, so I assume that after
all those phone calls he has some news. However, I won’t have a chance to meet
up with him until after I’ve returned from the gym.

Gym.
It’s circuit day. I try to
keep up with Minnie the traveler, and manage to do ten press-ups to his
fifteen, and maintain the same ratio for sit-ups, bench presses, squats, pull
ups and back raises, but let’s face it, he’s only forty-five and in the sixth
year of an eleven-year sentence. He’s hoping for parole next year
At
the end of the session, Minnie nods. He’s a man of few
words, and a nod is considered a remarkable gesture for someone he’s only known
for a month.

Board meeting.
Sergio begins by
apologizing for not reporting back last night, but he had to call Bogota six
times and, in the process, went through nineteen phonecards (£38). To fund
this, he had to sell his radio, a cassette player and an Adidas tracksuit. I
hope I looked suitably guilty.

He tells me that the paperwork for the emerald is now
complete
(insurance, registration, authentication
certificate, export licence and tax) and it’s ready to be shipped. His brother,
as you will recall, is a senior civil servant and therefore plays everything by
the book. He has already told Sergio that he has no intention of losing his job
over one small emerald. I feel even
more guilty
as I
listen to the rest of Sergio’s Colombian report…

Darren rushes into my cell. ‘A problem,’ he announces. Mr
Meanwell has just witnessed him opening a registered parcel in reception. It
turned out to be a plate and bowl sent in by my son Will. ‘Prisoners are not
allowed to send in gifts for other inmates, as it might be construed as a
bribe, in exchange for drugs or protection.’ Darren warns me that Mr Meanwell
would be calling for me at some point, and perhaps it might be wiser if I were
to go and ‘bell the cat’. I shake my head. Meanwell is a wise old bird, and he’ll
work out that a plate and bowl doesn’t constitute a bribe, and in any case,
everyone is well aware of my views on drugs. He will also realize that I made
no attempt to hide the gift. Will’s name was printed all across the box,
together with a compliment slip from my PA, which would allow Mr Meanwell to
place the offending plate and bowl with the rest of my confiscated kit
downstairs if he was at all suspicious.
like
Nelson,
Meanwell knows when to turn a blind eye.

Exercise.
It’s the final evening
outing. The nights are drawing in and we won’t be allowed out again after six.
I perambulate around the yard with Steve (not librarian Steve) who, because
he’s a D-cat prisoner, has spent the day out with his family. I ask him if he
enjoyed the experience (9 am to 3 pm).

‘Very much,’ he replied, ‘but only thanks to some help from
the police.’

The police?’
I repeat.

He explains. One of the activities Steve most misses while
he’s in jail is a regular swim, so whenever he has a day release, he and the
family go off to the local swimming pool. On this occasion they left their Ford
in the municipal car park, and took the children to the pool. When they
returned, his wife couldn’t find her car keys, until one of the children
spotted them on the back seat. Steve ran all the way to the nearest police
station explaining his dilemma, exacerbated by the fact that if he failed to
return to Wayland by three o’clock, he would automatically lose his D-cat
status. The police happily broke into his car, and even phoned Wayland to
confirm what happened. Steve arrived back at the front gate with ten minutes to
spare.

I have now been a resident of Wayland for a month, and
Sergio will return to Colombia in a couple of weeks’ time. So with a bit of
luck he’ll be deported around the same time as I’m being transferred to a
D-cat. But will I also be in possession of an emerald?

Gym.
Friday is special needs group,
and my four new friends Alex, Robbie, Les and Paul shake hands with me as they
come through the gate. Again all four display different talents during the
training session. Les can now complete 1,650 metres on the rowing machine in
ten minutes, but can only manage one mile an hour on the treadmill, whereas
Paul can do five miles an hour on the running machine, but can’t catch a ball.
Robbie can catch anything, but hates all the machines, so only does weight
training.

The instructors rightly tell us to play to their strengths,
which results in much clapping and laughter, along with a huge sense of
achievement.

Jimmy handles them better than anyone. He remembers all
their names (over twenty came this morning) and they feel he’s a real friend.
He’d make a great PE teacher, but I have a feeling that once he’s released the
lure of easy money may be more attractive. He says he’ll never deal in drugs
again, but I wonder.

Exercise.
Cancelled
because it’s raining.

Sergio calls his brother in Bogota, but the line is engaged.

Sergio comes to my cell and continues his tutorial on the
history of Colombia. The political system is not unlike that of the United
States with a president, vice-president, Senate and Congress. However, there
are two big differences: the president and vice-president have to come from
different parties, one conservative,
one
liberal –
Colombia’s idea of democracy – whereas in truth the president has all the
power. The other big difference is that even a senator requires four
bodyguards. Sergio tells me that one presidential candidate had forty
bodyguards when he delivered a speech in Bogota, and was still assassinated.

Sergio tries his brother again.
Still
engaged.

Sergio continues his lecture, explaining that the violence
in his country makes it necessary for any presidential candidate to have an
accommodation with the guerrillas or the Mafia or the army, or all three. We
sometimes forget how fortunate we are in Britain. Our politicians only have to
deal with the trade unions, the CBI – and Messrs Paxman and Humphreys.