Hell (15 page)

After
thirty-seven years of marriage I know Mary so well that I can hear the strain
of the last few weeks in her voice. I recall
Ms
Roberts’ words the first time we met: ‘It can be just as traumatic for your
immediate family on the outside, as it is for you on the inside.’ My two-pound
BT
phonecard
is about to run out, but not before I
tell her that she’s a veritable Portia and I am no Brutus.

The moment I
put the phone down, I find another lifer, Colin (GBH), standing by my side. He
wants to have a word about his application to do an external degree at Ruskin
College, Oxford. I have already had several chats with Colin, and he makes an
interesting case study. In his youth (he’s now
thirtyfive
)
,
he was a complete wastrel and
tearaway
,
which included a period of being a professional football hooligan. In fact, he
has written a fascinating piece on the subject, in which he now admits that he
is ashamed of what he got up to. Colin has been in and out of jail for most of
his adult life, and even when he’s inside, he feels it is nothing less than his
duty to take the occasional swing at a prison officer. This always ends with a
spell in segregation and time being added to his sentence. On one occasion he
even lost a couple of teeth, which you can’t miss whenever he grins.

‘That’s
history,’ he tells me, because he now has a purpose. He wants to leave prison
with a degree, and qualifications that will ensure he gets a real job. There is
no doubt about his ability. Colin is articulate and bright, and having read his
essays and literary criticism, I have no doubt that if he wants to sit for a
degree,
it’s
well within his grasp.

And this is a
man who couldn’t read or write before he entered prison. I have a real go at
him, assuring him that he’s clever enough to take a degree and to get on with
it. I start
pummelling
him on the chest as if he was
a punch bag. He beams over to the duty officer seated behind the desk at the
far end of the room.

‘
Mr
King, this prisoner is bullying me,’ says Colin, in a
plaintive voice.

The officer smiles.
‘What have you been saying to him,
Archer?’

I repeat the
conversation word for word.

‘Quite agree
with you, Archer,’ he says, and returns to reading the
Sun

Supper.
Vegetarian fingers, overcooked and
greasy, peas that are glued together, and a plastic mug of Highland Spring
(49p).

I’ve just
finished checking over my script for the day when my cell door is opened by an
officer. Fletch is standing in the doorway and asks if he can join me for a moment,
which I welcome. He takes a seat on the end of the bed, and I offer him a mug
of blackcurrant juice. Fletch reminds me that he’s a Listener, and adds that
he’s there if I need him.

The Listeners
Who are they?

How do I
contact them?

How do I know I
can trust them?

Listeners are
inmates, just as you are, who have been trained by the
Samaritans
in both suicide awareness and befriending skills.

You can talk to
a Listener about anything in complete confidence, just as you would a
Samaritan.
Everything you say is treated
with confidentiality.

Listeners are
rarely shocked and
you don’t have to be
suicidal
to talk to one. If you have any worries or concerns, however great
or small,
they are there for you.
If
you have concerns about a friend or cellmate and feel unable to approach a
member of the spur staff or healthcare team, then please tell a Listener in
confidence.
It is not grassing and it
may save a life.

Listeners are easy to contact. Their names
are displayed on orange cards on their cell doors and on most notice boards
throughout the House-Blocks or ask any member of the spur staff.

Listeners are
all bound by a code of
confidentiality
that
doesn’t only run from House...

Block to
House-Block but also through a great number of Prisons throughout the country.
Any breach of that confidentiality would cause irreparable damage to the
benefits achieved, and because of this code Listeners are now as firmly
established as your cell door.

He then begins
to explain the role of Listeners and how they came into existence after a
fifteen-year-old boy hanged
himself
in a Cardiff jail
some ten years ago. He passes me a single sheet of paper that explains their
guidelines
.
Among
Fletch’s
responsibilities is to spot potential
bullies and – perhaps more important – potential victims, as most victims are
too frightened to give you a name because they fear revenge at a later date,
either inside or outside of prison I ask him to share some examples with me.

He tells me
that there are two heroin addicts on the spur and although he won’t name them,
it’s hard not to notice that a couple of the younger lifers on the ground floor
have needle tracks up and down their arms. One of them is only nineteen and has
tried to take his own life twice, first with an overdose, and then later when
he attempted to cut his wrist with a razor.

‘We got there
just in time,’ says Fletch.

‘After that,
the boy was billeted with me for five weeks.’

Fletch feels
it’s also vitally important to have a good working relationship with the prison
staff – he doesn’t call them screws or kangaroos – otherwise the system just
can’t work. He admits there will always be an impenetrable barrier, which he
describes as the iron door, but he has done his best to break this down by
forming a prison committee of three inmates and three officers who meet once a
month to discuss each other’s problems. He says with some considerable pride
that there hasn’t been a serious incident on
his
spur for the past eight months.

He then tells
me a story about an occasion when he was released from prison some years ago
for a previous offence. He decided to call into his bank and cash a
cheque
. He climbed the steps, stood outside the bank and
waited for someone to open the door for him. He looks up from the end of the
bed at the closed cell door. ‘You see, it doesn’t have a handle on our side, so
you always have to wait for someone to open it.
After so long
in prison, I’d simply forgotten how to open a door.’

Fletch goes on
to tell me that being a Listener gives him a reason for getting up each day.
But like all of us, he has his own problems. He’s thirty-seven, and will be my
age, sixty-one, when he is eventually released.

‘The truth is
that I’ll never see the outside world again.’ He pauses. ‘I’ll die in prison.’

He pauses
again. ‘I just haven’t decided when.’

Fletch has
unwittingly made me his Listener.

Sundays are not
a good day in prison because you spend so much time locked up in your cell.
When you ask why, the officers simply say, ‘It’s because we’re short-staffed.’

I can at least
use six of those hours writing.

Many of the
lifers have long-term projects, some of which I have already mentioned.

One is writing
a book, another taking a degree, a third is a dedicated Listener. In fact,
although I may have to spend most of today locked up in my cell, Fletch, Billy,
Tony, Paul, Andy and Del Boy all have responsible jobs which allow them to roam
around the block virtually unrestricted. This makes sense, because if a
prisoner has a long sentence, they may feel they have nothing to lose by
causing trouble, but once you’ve given
them
privileges
– and not being locked up all day is unquestionably a privilege – they’re
unlikely to want to give up that freedom easily.

I shave using a
Bic
razor supplied by HMP.

They give you a
new razor every day, and it is a punishable offence to be found with two of
them in your cell, so every evening, just before lock-up, you trade in your old
one for a new one.

As soon as the
cell door is opened, I make a dash for the shower, but four young West Indians
get there before me. One of them, Dennis (GBH), has the largest bag of
toiletries I have ever seen. It’s filled with several types of deodorant and
aftershave lotions.

He is a tall,
well-built, good-looking guy who rarely misses a gym session. When I tease him
about the contents of his bag, Dennis simply replies, ‘You’ve got to be locked
up for a long time, Jeff, before you can build up such a collection on
twelve-fifty a week.’

Another of them
eventually emerges from his shower stall and comments about my not having
flipflops
on my feet. ‘Quickest way to get
verrucas
,’ he warns me. ‘Make sure Mary sends you in a pair
as quickly as possible.’

Having
repeatedly to push the button with the palm of one hand while you soap yourself
with the other is a new skill I have nearly mastered. However, when it comes to
washing your hair, you suddenly need three hands. I wish I were an octopus.

When I’m
finally dry, my three small thin green prison towels are all soaking – I should
only have one, but thanks to Del Boy…I return to my cell, and because I’m so
clean, I’m made painfully aware of the prison smell. If you’ve ever travelled
on a train for twenty hours and then slept in a station waiting room for the
next eight, you’re halfway there. Once I’ve put back on yesterday’s clothes, I
pour myself another bowl of cornflakes. I think I can make the packet (£1.47)
last for seven helpings before I’ll need to order another one. I hear my name
being bellowed out by an officer on the ground floor, but decide to finish my
cornflakes before reporting to him – first signs of rebellion?

When I do
report,
Mr
Bentley tells me that there’s a parcel for
me in reception. This time no one escorts me on the journey, or bothers to
search me when I arrive. The parcel turns out to be a plastic bag full of
clothes sent in by Mary: two shirts, five T-shirts, seven pairs of pants, seven
pairs of socks, two pairs of gym shorts, a tracksuit, and two sweaters.
The precise allocation that prison regulations permit.
Once
back in my cell I discard my two-day-old pants and socks to put on a fresh set
of clothes, and now not only feel clean, but almost human.

I spend a
considerable time arranging the rest of my clothes in the little cupboard above
my bed and as it has no shelves this becomes something of a
challenge.*
Once
I’ve completed the exercise, I sit on the end of the bed and wait to be called
for church.

My name is
among several others bellowed out by the officer at the front desk on the
ground floor, followed by the single word ‘church’. All those wishing to attend
the service report to the middle landing and wait by the barred gate near the
bubble. Waiting in prison for your next activity is not unlike hanging around
for the next bus. It might come along in a few moments, or you may have to wait
for half an hour.
Usually the latter.

While I’m
standing there, Fletch joins me on the second-floor landing to warn me that
there’s an article in the
News of the
World
suggesting that I’m ‘lording it’ over the other prisoners. Apparently
I roam around in the unrestricted areas in a white shirt, watching TV, while
all the other prisoners are locked up. He says that although everyone on the
spur knows it’s a joke, the rest of the block (three other spurs) do not.
Fletch advises me to avoid the exercise yard today, as someone might want ‘to
make something of it’.

The more
attentive readers will recall that my white shirt was taken away from me last
week because I could be mistaken for an officer; my feeble attempt to watch
cricket on TV ended in having to follow the progress of the King George and
Queen Elizabeth Stakes; and by now all of you know how many hours I’ve been
locked in my cell. How the
News of the
World
can get every fact wrong surprises even me.

The heavy,
barred gate on the middle floor is eventually opened, and I join prisoners from
the other three spurs who wish to attend the morning service. Although everyone
is searched, they now hardly bother with me.

The process has
become not unlike going through a customs check at Heathrow. There are two
searchers on duty this morning, one male and one female officer. I notice the
queue to be searched by the woman is longer than the one for the man. One of
the lifers whispers, ‘They can’t add anything to your sentence for what you’re
thinking.’

When I enter
the chapel I return to my place in the second row. This time the congregation
is almost 80 per cent black, despite the population of the prison being around
fifty-
fifty.
The service is conducted by a white officer
from the Salvation Army, and his small
band of singers are
also all white.

When I next see
Mr
Powe
, I must remember to
tell him how many churches, not so far away from
Belmarsh
,
have magnificent black choirs and amazing preachers who encourage you to cry
Alleluia. Something else I learnt when I was candidate for Mayor.