Not Bad for a Bad Lad (3 page)

So after a few nights in a police cell, they drove me away to this Borstal place, a sort of reform school I was told, somewhere in Suffolk. But I didn’t much care where it was. I’d never felt more miserable in all my life. Only one thing bucked me up on that
horrible
journey. It was something Miss West had said about me in the court: “He’s like all of us. He just needs to feel good about himself. He’s got good in him, I know he has. He needs a second chance. All I’m asking is that you give him that chance. He’ll come right one day, you’ll see.”

I kept her words in my head the whole way. Truth be told, I’ve kept them in my head my whole life.

There were a dozen or more of us in that Black Maria van, all lads about my age, all bad lads. None of us spoke a word the whole way. Half an hour after we arrived, they took us into the gym and told us to change into the blue uniforms they’d given us. Then in he came.

“My name’s Sir,” he barked. We found out later that he did have a proper name, Mr Roley. He looked a bit like Mr Mortimer, small with a neat little
moustache
under his nose, a bit like Hitler’s I thought,
except
it was ginger. He had a voice like a trombone. We huddled together like a flock of sheep, all of us afraid. He looked at us and shook his head in disgust. “Every one of you is a bad apple. Rotten apples, the lot of you,” he went on. “That’s why you’re here. And I’m here to cut out the bad bit, the rotten bit. Simple as that. You do as you’re told. You work hard and you behave yourselves, and you’ve got nothing to worry about. You can be happy as you like in here. But you give me any trouble, any lip, any attitude, then I’ll make you wish you’d never been born. Is that quite clear? And just to be sure I make myself clear, I’m going to do you a favour. I’m going to show you what’ll happen to any of you if you step
out of line.” Suddenly, he was pointing right at me. “You, in the front. Over here! Now!”

Ten of the best with a cane he gave me, stretched over the wooden vaulting horse. Worst beating I ever had. It hurt like hell, but I never let on. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. It went on hurting for days afterwards. But when all’s said and done, I reckon it was all my fault in the first place. I shouldn’t have been at the front, should I?

I can tell you that during those first weeks locked up in Borstal I did an awful lot of hard thinking. My head was full of questions that I couldn’t answer. How did I get to be here? Was this how I was going to spend the rest of my life from now on, behind the walls of a prison, shut off from the rest of the world? Which was I, stupid or bad, or both? Or was Miss West right? Did I have some good in me?

I don’t think I spoke a word to anyone in that place for a month or more. I felt like I was
sleepwalking
through it all, the two-mile run every morning, laying bricks for hours on end in all weathers,
making
bread in the kitchens, weeding in the vegetable
garden, Mr Roley and the others watching us like hawks the whole time. They never let up on us. We didn’t have a moment to ourselves. But the worst thing wasn’t the work, nor Mr Roley, nor the food, which was always about as disgusting as they could make it, I reckon. It was listening to one of the other lads crying himself to sleep at night. That would
always
get me going, and I’d be crying myself then. I just couldn’t help it.

There were twenty other lads in my dormitory. I didn’t want to speak to any of them in the early days. I didn’t want to know them. Some nights I turned my face to the wall and just wished I was dead.

And when I wasn’t wishing I was dead, I was
dreaming
of bunking off, doing a runner, like I sometimes used to do at St Matthias when I got into trouble. But I knew there was no point. I mean, where would I go? Ma didn’t want me at home any more, I knew that. And besides, one or two of the other lads had already tried it, and they were always brought back. True to his word, Mr Roley would have them in the gym and give them ten of the best and we’d have to stand there and watch it too.

So after a while I stopped thinking about running off and I decided I would make the best of a bad job: just do my time, keep my head down, and keep
myself
out of trouble. My favourite part of every day was the two-mile run we had to do before breakfast, because that’s when we got to go outside the walls, and even down to the beach sometimes, which was only a mile or so away. I liked running, and running fast too, running like I’d never stop. I liked the beach too, and the sea air, and the gulls, and the fishing boats out at sea. All the while I could make-believe I was free, free as the gulls. The other lads – and most of them really hated that early morning run – told me I must be mad to like it, bonkers, off my rocker, but
they could say what they liked, I didn’t mind.

There was one place on the run where I
sometimes
used to slow down to get a better look: the
stables
. It was a funny thing (and when I think about it, which I do a lot, it was a pretty wonderful thing
really
), but this Borstal place had some stables, horses’ stables, where a few of the lads used to come to work for a few hours each day.

Every time I ran past there, the horses would be
looking
out at me, with their heads over the stable doors, and their ears pricked. It was like they were waiting for me to run by. They would look at me and I would look at them. They’d have a good old whinny at me sometimes too and I’d wave back – pretty silly I know, but I could hardly whinny, could I? There was a bit of a whiff coming out of those stables, I can tell you. But I quite liked the smell of horses, always did. It reminded me of the milkman’s horse in our street. Lovely fellow he was – the horse not the milkman.

From time to time, as I ran by, I’d see this old bloke in there with the horses. I knew he was old
because
he had silvery hair and a moustache to match. Very smart and tidy he always was, the sort of fellow who looked after himself. Everyone called him Mr Alfie, but that’s all I knew about him. I’d seen a few of the lads working in there with him and I’d often  
thought that wouldn’t be a bad old job if I could get it, better than bricklaying or baking anyway.

But there was something else that really interested me every time I ran past those stables. There was
always
music. Mr Alfie would be out there in the yard, pushing a wheelbarrow, or grooming the horses, or shovelling muck, and there’d often be music playing on the radio – ‘wireless’ they called it in those days. It was big bands mostly, or jazz, and it was the kind of music I liked, lots of rhythm, and lots of
drumming
too. And when Mr Alfie had the music on I wouldn’t be running by at all, I’d be trotting, then walking, slowly, very slowly, so I could listen for as long as possible.

One day – and as it turned out it was just about the luckiest day of my life – I was out on the
morning
run as usual and coming past the stables when I heard the music playing again. I’d slowed right down to a walk and that’s when I saw this Mr Alfie bloke standing there by the fence watching me, mopping his brow with his handkerchief. He called me over, so I went.

“You like horses, son?” he asked me.

“They’re all right.” I told him. “Bit smelly.”

“Of course they are, son. But do you like them?”

“I suppose so.”

“You want to give us a hand with them then?”

“What now?”

“Tomorrow,” Mr Alfie said. “You can start
tomorrow
. I need another pair of hands. I’ll speak to Mr Roley. I’ve been watching you out on your run and I thought you liked horses. Every time you come past here, you always slow down and have a good long look.”