Inseparable Bond (34 page)

Bell gazed in
disbelief at the tattoo on the lower part of his back with the
words, ‘Put it here’ and a tattooed pointed arrow went straight
down to the crack of his arse. Forester rubs soap between the
cheeks of his arse, looking over his shoulder at Bell, his eyes
searching his body and remained stationary as they reached the
sight of Bell’s cock.

After his
shower, Bell and Big Bear walked around the exercise yard,
unescorted. The yard was as big as a football field, a huge area of
crumbling asphalt but a welcome change from his claustrophobic cell
and stinking cellmate.

The walls were
higher than those at Strangeways, but with the same dual razor wire
twisted around the top. Surveillance cameras were mounted on top of
the walls twenty feet apart, the screens viewed constantly by
screws in the security room.

Big Bear
showed Bell two blind spots which the cameras couldn’t reach. These
isolated areas were used for drug deals, gang rape or beatings.

Bell looked up
to the sky, thinking of the esplanade walks he would take after a
meal with Jennifer, then suddenly being placed to walk around a
limited area with thieves, murderers and rapists, where he regarded
those types as purely troublesome in his years in Strangeways. Now
he sees them as tribal savages in the only true and stable home
they had ever known. A home which many would return to again and
again.

John Bell was
now in his third month of his sentence, with three months of
sleepless nights and terrifying days.

He was
transferred to ‘B’ wing for one month, along with Peter Forester,
Lester, Big Bear and Bradshaw assigned to more modern cell on a
quieter wing which housed, cooks, dishwashers, floor sweepers and
food servers. Bell was placed as a food server, with alternate jobs
of dishwashing.

He soon
settled in to his new dormitory-style housing, apart from being
accommodated with Bradshaw. The wing was cooler, brighter and
cleaner with the exception of the pervasive odour of infrequently
washed bodies.

The nights
were not peaceful, with the constant radios blaring from their
cells and the television blasting out from the room at the end of
the wing, but more peaceful than the ‘A’ wing where sleep had been
impossible.

The downside
of the move was one of his other two cellmates.

Paddy O’
Leary, a Northern Ireland rapist doing a ten-year stretch. He was a
nice enough bloke; with a spider web tattoo across the entire front
of his body that started at the top of his neck and finished at his
navel. At first Bell found it a bit disconcerting but soon got used
to it. What he couldn’t get used to was the way in which he blew
his nose by placing a nicotine-stained thumb over his left nostril
while vigorously expelling a shot of snot out of the right
nostril.

Bell had an
hour before he was due in the kitchen. The workers can come and go
as they please. He lies on his bed and read the remainder of his
book.

His first week
was to scrape the remaining food off the trays and pass them on for
washing. It’s not his ideal job, but it’s a start until he works
his way into the library. Sadly, the prison didn’t have gardens;
the only bits of greenery were in pots on the windowsills of some
cells.

The exercise
yard was open from seven in the morning until seven at night so he
was able to get plenty of exercise and entertainment by walking
around the walls, counting his steps as he walked.

Spring was not
far away and a raise in temperature, the evening air was brisk and
cool. A strong chilly breeze which had managed to get inside the
compound brushed his face as he looked up to the late winter
setting sun, quickly disappearing behind the high razor topped
wall.

They all took
their turns in mopping the corridors and cell floors along with the
toilets and shower block, finishing off with the screws office at
the end of each wing.

Bell preferred
the company of the older guys who were in for life. He found they
were easier to talk with about the good old days and comparisons of
penal institutions where they had spent most of their lives. They
weren’t interested in drugs and violence, but they would grab a
venerable young skinhead, drag him to the blind spot in the yard
and gang rape him.

Outside the
relative safety of his cell and between kitchen duties, Bell spent
most of his time in the small library while predators roam the
corridors in search of new young arrivals or a sexual
companion.

The young
arrivals were supposed to get additional security and issued cells
nearer to the screws control room, but it seldom happened. Some
screws were known to interfere with the lads and force them to
perform oral sex, where the screws would normally reward them with
special privileges in gratitude.

The cells were
regularly checked for drugs. If they are found the entire occupants
of the cell are blamed, irrespective of the culprit. The penalty
was five days in solitary confinement. Bell hadn’t suffered the
penalty, although Nick Bradshaw kept his stash behind the toilet
bowl and it was only a matter of time before it was discovered.

Most drugs
enter the prison by visitors, although they pass through metal
detectors but do not have a body search. Screws watch the prisoners
and visitors through the one-way glass wall of an enclosed office.
Signs are posted throughout, warning that prolonged kissing will
result in the termination of the visit, but most drugs enter the
prison this way and are difficult to detect.

John Bell had
not received a visitor since he arrived. There had been no contact
between him and Jennifer, not even a reply to the letter he had
sent while in custody.

After his
arrest and subsequent conviction, she had stayed in the house for
five weeks, not even attending her beloved bible class. She would
potter around the garden, which was becoming neglected and
overgrown.

She would
avoid sitting in the bay window, as the court case had been
headlines in the local newspaper, which attracted many people
staring at the house as they walked along the esplanade.

She
occasionally walked over to the public gardens and the boating
lake, but was cursed by the neighbours as they lifted their
curtains, which made her angry. She had every reason to be.

After her
evening supper, she would take to her bed early and tears somehow
found their way through her closed eyes.

Beryl Parker
from Bible class would visit her and often take her out in the car
to do her shopping and the occasional drive in the country. No one
blamed Jennifer for what had happened, many saying that it had only
been a matter of time before he slipped back into his evil ways,
yet Jennifer somehow blamed herself as she had introduced the vicar
to John and encouraged the friendship to develop.

Another
regular caller was Denis Barrow, who had been introduced to
Jennifer by Sylvia. He was also a member of the bible class but had
moved to Fleetwood from Southampton two months after John had been
sentenced. He hadn’t personally met either John or the vicar, but
was aware of what had happened. He wouldn’t mention this to
Jennifer out of consideration for her feelings.

She enjoyed
his visits and outings and he motivated her by calling at the house
and insisting she accompanied him on his brisk coastal walks, but
once back in the house, she would quickly fall back into her
depression.

Beryl Parker
had suggested she sell the house in view of the memories and the
constant audience it attracted. She had brought her a brochure of a
new building development which had just been completed at the far
end of the esplanade.

The building
consisted of one and two bedroom apartments with small balconies
overlooking the harbour, the town centre being a two minute walk
away.

Beryl had
taken her to view the one bedroom flat, which impressed Jennifer,
particularly the view from the second floor lounge.

She seriously
considered the opportunity, but had wanted the two bedroom
apartment, as John would require his own room when he returned. She
had convinced herself that he would need somewhere to live when he
was released, irrespective of the length of his prison term.

The ladies
from the church had become concerned into Jennifer’s decline and
that of her garden, so they organised a work force to cultivate and
redesign it.

The ladies
started as soon as conditions allowed, which was a damp Tuesday
morning but comparatively mild. Two of the hardier women turned
over the ground and felled the trees while the more delicate
planted seeds of chrysanthemums, Jennifer’s favourite.

While they
toiled every Tuesday, weather permitting, Jennifer would prepare
mountainous plates of sandwiches and homemade Victoria sponge. The
garden was soon transformed back to how John had left it. The
ladies had done their utmost and Jennifer’s low spirits were soon
heightened. The ladies were rewarded by the vicar mentioning their
toils during his sermon to the congregation.

Denis Barrow
would call to the house regularly and take Jennifer to the cinema,
coastal walking, dancing at the weekly church tea dance or the
occasional restaurant dinner. He was twenty years younger, but the
age difference had been totally irrelevant.

It was over a
candle lit dinner in a restaurant in St Annes, when Denis talked
ungraciously about wedding arrangements before an actual
proposal.

Jennifer
rapidly changed the conversation before such a proposal was
offered.

Once the
warmer weather arrived and the garden bounced back to life, she
decided not relocate to the apartment block and remain in the warm,
comfort and convenience of the house, not that there was luxury or
ostentation, but because John and she had purchased it together and
she felt comfortable in her chair by the window.

The bible
class ladies made sure she was given plenty of attention and she
soon returned to the congregation and church activities.

She had
managed to manoeuvre the car, but she restricted her journeys to
the supermarket and the church, with the occasional drive to the
Victoria Hospital in Blackpool, visiting some of the elderly church
congregation.

She had only
once been to Denis Barrow’s house, when he had been unable to walk
due to a sprained ankle. He lived on an estate of council houses in
Layton, at the far south of Blackpool. Most of the houses had been
sold to their tenants, but he rented his. The front door was
peeling in places but the windows and the house were clean.

The small
front lawn had been cut and the borders weeded, but hedge-clippings
had been missed and the garden was surrounded by shaggy, branching
privet.

The adjoining
house was in a poor state of disrepair and the overgrown garden
surrounded a rusty car resting on blocks where the wheels once
stood.

Denis had
constantly suggested he moved in with her, as he was under the
impression she was in desperate need of companionship. She didn’t
see him again.

On Thursday
evenings, she assisted with the youth club activities, planning the
programmes, coaxing, encouraging and occasionally berating the
groups in the hope of getting them off the streets, avoiding petty
crime.

She would
still make her favourite casserole, eating in the kitchen while she
watched the small white plastic television she had brought down
from John’s bedroom.

The bank
manager and his wife next door had always been supportive of her
since her brother had been sentenced and had remained
un-judgemental throughout.

Molly did not
share the attitude at the other side. She refused to have any
further contact with Jennifer, following the case in the local
newspaper and television coverage.

Jennifer would
often recall the night in Keswick on John’s sixtieth birthday and
the tip to Blackpool when they were denied entering the promenade
to see the crashing waves.

Although she
constantly looked back at those happy times and the companionship
John had given her, she knew there was no justification for killing
all those people.

She could
never understand why John had always been apposed to adultery, but
he felt that murder was all right.

As Jennifer
was now becoming more motivated with the help of the church ladies,
John Bell was also motivated by the screws in the exercise yard,
the gym, mopping the floors while on cleaning duties, or just
walking up and down the secure corridors.

As Jennifer
tucked into her lamb casserole watching the six o’clock news. Bell
tucked into his cottage pie and baked beans which he ate off his
tray while watching Bradshaw and O’Leary thumb a nostril to release
a string of snot on the floor, listening to the yelling and
screaming up and down the corridor.

He sat on his
bunk and toyed with his food, looking over at Bradshaw sitting on
the toilet, his head going backwards and forwards to the music
coming through the headphones of his walkman. O’Leary sat on his
bunk, picking his nose constantly.

The next
morning Bell went to the prison chapel. He was not religious, but
it relieved the boredom. Two prisoners gave out hymnbooks, which
were passed from hand to hand along the rows. Bell settled back in
his plastic chair, folded his arms and looked around the room at
the murderers, drug dealers, paedophiles and terrorists.

There were
huddled conversations going on everywhere, and despite the body
searches, he saw notes and small packages being transferred from
mouth to hand and from hand to mouth.

The elderly
minister announced a hymn and the congregation shuffled to their
feet. They were all singing at the top of their voices, their heads
tilted back and their mouths wide open. Bell thought they sounded
like wolves howling at the moon.