Inseparable Bond (41 page)

The hospital
wing was an old Victorian section of the prison which should have
been condemned years ago.

Returning back
to his wing, he completed his duties with a hose down of the shower
block. Young Barry Newton had just finished his shower and was
sitting naked on the bench with his towel draped across his knees.
His hands covered his face as he sobbed like a baby. Bell sat
alongside him, placing his hand on his shoulder.

‘What’s all
this about, Barry?’ Bell asked sympathetically.

‘Oh, I’m all
right, I just miss my kids, that’s all,’ he replied.

Bell got up
and closed the door and went back to talk to him. ‘The worst thing
about prison is the lack of contact with family,’ said Bell.
‘People don’t realise that being away from your wife and kids is
punishment enough, apart from being stuck in a place like this’ he
said, reassuringly.

‘Thanks for
that,’ Barry said, wiping his eyes with his towel. ‘Have you got
family on the outside, Bell,’ Barry asked.

‘No, I’ve only
got a sister, no wife and no kids, but I understand how you feel,’
he replied.

‘You’re a good
guy, Bell, but you need more practice on the treadmill,’ he said,
smiling as Bell left the shower room.

A fight had
broken out on the wing. Guards were running all over the place to
contain it before it developed into a full scale riot. The fight
had started when a group of guys with HIV had purposely cut
themselves on razor blades they had hidden in bars of soap and were
flicking blood around some of the inmates in the gym. The officers
were asking for reinforcements on their radios.

Bell avoided
the brawl as he always did, and walked up the stairs to the first
floor landing and into his cell.

Bradshaw
wasn’t in; he was probably in the middle of the brawl, as he didn’t
need much encouragement to get involved in the slightest of
scuffles.

Once the
screws had dispersed the brawl, Bell went to the food hall to
collect his evening supper. He met up with Big Bear, who had kept
him a place in the queue. He went over to him in the food line and
held his plate out for the lasagne to be thrown onto his tray.

‘I wouldn’t
eat that, Bell, look who’s serving it,’ Big Bear said, looking over
the hot plate at the guy with a metal spatula in his hand. It was
Bulldog, a tall ugly guy with a pock marked face and deep-set
eyes.

He was if for
seven years, accused of poisoning old ladies at the nursing home
where he’d worked as a care assistant. He’d been given the hotplate
job on the basis of his catering experience, but Big Bear reckoned
that the screws got a sadistic pleasure from having him cook and
serve the food to prisoners.

Bell and Big
Bear walked back to their cells with their trays of poisoned
lasagne. Bradshaw was washing his hands in the sink. He looked up
to wipe the blood off his neck. He was naked. His stomach glistened
wetly and blood was splattered on his chest. The prisoners cheered
and yelled obscenities on the corridor as two prison officers
carried a guy along on a stretcher, leaving a trail of blood behind
them.

Bradshaw felt
inside his mouth for any broken teeth and wiped his lips with the
back of his hand.

At the side of
Bradshaw’s bed was a broom handle that had been sharpened to a
point. He looked over his shoulder to see Bell looking at it. He
quickly put it under the mattress of his bunk. It was a killing
weapon, sharp and long enough to drive through anybody’s ribs and
into their heart, or through deep eyes and into the skull.

Bradshaw was
breathing heavily, his eyes were wide and staring, gearing himself
up to attack after being defeated in the recent brawl. This man was
a professional and not to mess around with. Everybody on the wing
knew this and kept their distance.

He opened a
thermos full of hot water, kettles were not allowed in the cells.
He put the thermos to his lips and drank the hot water, his lips
curled into a snarl. He took a deep breath and his eyes flickered
as he turned to Bell. ‘What’s your problem, you fucking cock
sucker?’ he said to Bell.

Bell ignored
him and climbed onto his bunk, Bradshaw left the cell in search of
more trouble or a possible victim he had in mind.

Bell went to
the landing and joined Big Bear hanging over the railings.

Bradshaw was
in conversation with two West Indians. They all turned to look up
at Bell and he knew they were talking about him. He ignored them
and looked away. He knew that Bradshaw would never attack him in
the cell, that would be too obvious. Bell knew that as long as he
was in the yard he was safe. If an attack came it would be out of
sight of the officers and cameras and he wouldn’t fight
single-handed.

Inside he was
a cowardly man, more of a bully than a fighter, unless provoked. It
would start with a thermos of boiling water thrown into his face or
threatened with a toilet brush he kept under his mattress, which he
had sharpened to a point alongside his broom handle. He was storing
an arsenal of weaponry in the cell, which Bell would be implicated
should the screws decide to search, which was unlikely due to his
‘pay-off’ to the screws. One thing was for sure. Bradshaw wouldn’t
be fighting fair because nothing in prison was fair; all that
mattered to him was winning.

Jennifer had
bought two bottles of Hine brandy in the duty-free shop in New
York. As she poured George a glass, she presented him with the
wallet, still wrapped.

‘That’s
beautiful, Jennifer, why did you do you this?’ he asked, looking
inside.

‘Because of
the lovely weekend, you made it perfect,’ she replied.

The smell of
chicken and vegetable casserole was drifting through to the sitting
room as he watched the people passing the promenade, clutching his
wallet. The damp log in the fireplace oozed blue smoke that
billowed into the room irritating his eyes. He opened the window to
release the smoke. The cool early evening wind soon cleared the
smoke.

Jennifer was
setting the table in the dining room, which conveniently housed a
serving hatch through to the kitchen. A massive carved dressing
table filled the entire wall where a fireplace used to be. The
plate racks were so high they nearly touched the ceiling. They were
full of crockery and ornaments; the top of the drawers contained
her beloved silverware. The other wall contained a row of shelves
that contained books of philosophy, history, chemistry, art,
dictionaries and detective stories. They were crammed together in
anarchic disorder; they were all worn, stained, bent or slightly
broken.

They sat down
at the table, he pulled his chair out for Jennifer and the arm came
away in his hand. They roared with laughter and thumped it back
into position.

He laughed
often, and when he opened his mouth it revealed a good set of
strong but yellowing teeth.

‘I didn’t know
you were a big reader, Jennifer,’ he said, looking at the array of
books.

‘Oh, I’m not
really, my brother enjoyed reading,’ she said, realising what she
had said.

‘I didn’t know
you had a brother, you haven’t mentioned him before,’ George said,
looking up from his meal.

‘Oh, didn’t
I?’ she replied, nervously.

‘No, I would
have remembered that, you spoke of your parents but never a
brother,’ he replied.

Jennifer
didn’t answer, as she tucked into her meal.

‘So whose this
mysterious brother then?’ George enquired.

‘He’s my
younger brother and lives in Leeds,’ she replied, wanting the
ground to open up below her.

‘So that’s the
relation you went to see when I called to see you, is it?’ he
asked.

‘Yes, that’s
the one, but I don’t see much of him,’ she replied.

‘Well, next
time we take a drive out, we’ll go over to Leeds, I’d like to meet
him,’ George said, frowning as he looked at Jennifer who held her
head down while she ate.

George soon
realised he had hit a nerve with Jennifer and considerately changed
the subject.

She cleared
the plates; George helped to put them on the serving hatch. She
returned with a silver cake stand containing a chocolate sponge
cake. She cut a portion for George and covered it with thick double
cream. George helped to clear the table and dried the pots after
she had washed them. They had coffee and brandy sitting in the
armchairs in the bay window, watching the sunset over the
dunes.

Back on the
wing, John Bell was sitting on the end of his bunk, also eating
chocolate sponge, but without the double cream or the silver cake
stand. It was in a small plastic container, resembling the look of
an airline dessert which had been discarded by the passenger and
tasted as though it had been left uncovered after a twenty-four
hour flight.

It had been a
boring day. The gym was out of bounds to all prisoners after a
brawl earlier in the day. Big Bear had been innocently caught up in
the fight and removed to solitary confinement for the night, along
with eight others.

A black guy
had been badly injured after being battered with an iron ring. He
was taken off to the hospital wing and later transferred to the
general hospital under heavy guard. Someone had tried to smash his
skull with the heavy appliance.

Bradshaw was
jumping up and down in the cell. ‘They got the bastard, I hope he
fucking snuffs it,’ he shouted, thumping his clenched fist on his
mattress.

Bell looked up
at him from his lower bunk, thinking his schizophrenia would
probably have started the day he was born and sadly it was beyond
his, or anyone’s control. Most schizophrenics have ancestors or
relations with mental disorders. His family must be a nightmare to
have as neighbours, Bell thought.

Bell himself
had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic, although his sister and
parents had been sane and normal people, but he thought he was a
man who didn’t need treatment.

Bell left
Bradshaw rejoicing and went out to the exercise yard for a smoke;
it was packed with every other con thinking they’d do the same.

It was dull
and cold, but it didn’t seem to bother anybody as they slowly
walked in a large circle, rain dripping off their noses.

Bell thought
about his mate Big Bear, locked up in solitary. It was a small
room, built in the shape of a small box. It was really dark and
claustrophobic. The whole room was made of concrete with a little
bed in the middle and a thin blanket. There was a tiny exercise
yard well away from the other prisoners, to keep them separate.

Bell hadn’t
heard from Jennifer since she last visited. He had tried to
telephone her twice after searching for an available or
un-vandalised public phone on the wings. There had been no answer
and he hadn’t left a message on the answering machine.

He had tried
to write a letter but found it difficult and he had very little to
say, as very little happened in his life, which he had chosen.

He spent time
reading, often slipping a library book under his shirt as you were
not allowed to remove books.

He was prone
to getting severe spells of depression with the terrible feeling of
loneliness. He felt it more now that Big Bear was in solitary and
avoided going back to his cell other than to wash change and
sleep.

He went back
on the wing and joined the old lifers who were playing cards on a
table in the main corridor.

The day
started like any other. Bradshaw moaned and farted as he sat on the
toilet while Bell shaved and brushed his teeth alongside him.

After the
brawl in the gym, tension had grown high on the wing. Extra
officers had been drafted in from other wings in case of further
trouble or even worse, a riot.

The exercise
yard, the gym, the library and the games room were off-limits until
things calmed down, only the shower block and the food hall
remained open, even then all inmates had to eat in their cells.

Bell grabbed
his towel and went down to the shower block.

Tommy
Hawthorne was hanging around as usual, ‘Peeping Tom’ as he was more
commonly known. He never seemed to shower, but he was always the
first in and the last out. He was a lifer, and now at the age of
72, it was doubtful he would ever see the outside again. His crimes
were similar to those of Bells, teenage rape and murder. Locked up
he was a harmless soul, other than creeping around the wing,
peering into the young inmates’ cells or loitering around the
shower block.

Bell walked up
and down the bank of telephones, which were mounted on the wall,
wanting to phone Jennifer but hesitating each time he lifted the
receiver. Half of the phones had been vandalised by the West
Indians, who swarmed around them, irritating callers with their
loud ghetto blasters.

Bell was put
on kitchen duties, mostly scooping clumps of mashed potato onto
plastic trays for ungrateful customers. All prisoners must do a
stretch of ninety days in the kitchen before seeking other prison
employment, but you could be detailed for kitchen work at any time.
Bell didn’t mind kitchen work, beats cleaning up the piss and shit
from broken toilets or walking endless miles along the corridors
sweeping up cigarette butts all day.

Bell and a
dozen others had been given kitchen duties due to the food hall
being closed. All food trays had to be taken to the cells by the
food porters.

Bell would
pass the completed trays through a small window where they were put
on an airline style trolley and wheeled out onto the corridors. The
food porters would go from cell to cell shoving trays of food
through the slots.

Big Bear had
been due out of solitary today, but with tension running high, all
prisoners in solitary confinement were kept there until things
eased on the wing.