Inseparable Bond (42 page)

The lock-up
lasted until the next morning. The inmates fell onto the landings
in their droves and raced down the stairs for their body search
before getting into the exercise yard. They had been cooped up for
thirty-six hours. The stench from their cells was overpowering. Big
Bear and the others were released back onto the wing from solitary;
the gym, library and food hall opened again and life on the wing
soon returned to prison normality.

Two prison
officers walked along the landing, ticking off names on their
clipboards. These are the inmates being transferred to other
prisons around the county. For every prisoner who leaves, another
one comes to take their place.

The harshest
of all institutions was Dartmoor. It was another Victorian prison
and so isolated that family visits were few and far between.

Bell wasn’t on
the transfer list, sadly neither was Bradshaw.

It was just
before eight as Jennifer climbed out of bed. She looked out of her
bedroom window to face another cloudy and miserable day. The
morning sea was broodingly dark towards the horizon, as hard and
cold as slate.

The old
grandfather clock which had belonged to her father, chimed
downstairs on the stroke of eight, as punctually as ever.

She was due at
the charity shop today. She made a couple of ham sandwiches, packed
an apple and orange into her shopping bag, slipped on her raincoat
and tied her plastic rain hat tightly under her chin.

She walked
down the esplanade towards Fleetwood town centre, passed the
well-kept houses, the vast majority being similar to her own. She
looked at doors and windows with new curiosity, wondering about the
people who lived in them. She had never wondered about them before
because she knew their lives and hers would never cross.

When she came
across other walkers, she kept her head down and averted her face,
which she had always done since John had been sentenced and the
newspapers had been full of the court case, but after a while she
had found the courage to look up at some of them.

She was
surprised when many smiled at her and said ‘hello’; she was even
more surprised when she heard herself respond.

She was
surprised to see so many people in the shop. Mrs Bellamy was
rushing around stacking items on the shelves and looking through
the clothes, inspecting them for cigarette burns. Some one had just
dropped off five packed bin liners after clearing out their
wardrobes. Customers were looking through the garments before Mrs
Bellamy had time to check and price them.

‘Oh, thank
goodness you’ve arrived, Jennifer, it’s been like this all morning,
I don’t know where they’ve all come from,’ she said, looking up at
her from the pile.

Jennifer
quickly took off her raincoat and went behind the counter to serve
the queue of customers clutching books and garments.

The sudden
influx of customers had piled off a couple of coaches, which had
arrived in the High Street on an early Christmas shopping excursion
from Bradford. The cold and wet weather had driven them into the
shop in search of shelter.

After half an
hour, the shop returned to normality and Jennifer made herself and
Mrs Bellamy a well-earned cup of tea and the ham sandwiches she had
brought with her.

Jennifer’s
face lit up as George walked into the shop. He was carrying a small
carrier bag with string handles. He passed it over the counter to
Jennifer.

‘What’s this?’
she asked, as she reached into the bag.

‘It’s for you,
I thought it would look nice on you,’ he said, smiling broadly.

Mrs Bellamy
looked over her shoulder as she placed some books on the shelf.

It was an
evening dress, predominantly red and gold but with a splash of
other colours. Jennifer couldn’t deny that it was lovely.

‘It’s lovely
George, really lovely,’ she said, as she ran her fingers across the
silk garment.

‘You will look
gorgeous in it, really gorgeous,’ George said, walking out of the
shop.

She couldn’t
stop blushing, her heart pounded and she felt dizzy, but it was a
good dizziness.

Bradshaw was
coughing and farting loudly as Bell tried to sleep below him,
clutching a thin white sheet up to his chin. He closed his eyes to
the noises coming from the other cells on the landing. Many
inmates, as tough as they were, would cry themselves to sleep due
to their fear and loneliness. Their cries were muffled, the sounds
of pained anguish that begged for an escape and freedom.

The cell was
dark and he wished for morning to arrive so the cries would die
down. He clasped both hands over his ears to muffle the sounds as
sweat rolled off his brow due to the heat of his dark cell.

When the
winter sun eventually brightened the cell, the cries were replaced
with shouts as the prisoners waited by their doors to be let out
for breakfast.

The familiar
screaming and shouting soon brought the wing back to its normal
routine as the screws opened the cell doors. ‘Out, out, out,’ the
screws shouted as they passed along the landing.

Bell quickly
washed and shaved before Bradshaw left his bunk. He joined the rest
of the mob as they pushed and shoved their way along the landing
towards the food hall.

He was halfway
down the corridor when he saw Big Bear coming up the stairs. He had
just been released from solitary, along with the other dozen after
the brawl in the gym.

‘Hi, Bell,
keep me a place in the queue, I’ll be there in five,’ Big Bear
shouted.

Bell waved
back and picked up two trays as he entered the food hall, pushing
his way along the queue, watched by Collins and Watson, two of the
most vicious screws on the wing who looked along the line in search
of another innocent young victim. They were well-know to use sex on
prisoners as a tool in their arsenal.

The repeated
rapes on new young intakes were not always the ultimate form of
humiliation, but the strongest method in proving their control over
them.

They weren’t
the only two guards that treated the young lands with sexual abuse,
as young controlled inmates were passed around to other out of
control guards. The lads always endured their ordeal privately in
the cells behind closed doors.

No one spoke
out about the abuse and no one reported it, but everyone knew it
went on, but they were helpless to intervene due to the severe
punishment inflicted on them.

Big Bear
passed along the impatient prisoners, stamping their feet as they
banged trays on their knees or on the heads of the guy in front,
and met up with Bell who had reached the hot plate.

The morning
sun did very little to contain the cold wind that whipped around
the exercise yard as Bell and Big Bear got their daily walk,
wearing their overcoats over their prison issue uniforms, hands
shoved in the pockets of their trousers to keep warm against the
bitter cold wind.

Even having
his mate back on the wing didn’t help to bring Bell out of his
recent state of depression. He felt he was being broken down by the
prison system, sleeping less than three hours a night, kept awake
by the crying and moaning from neighbouring cells. He ate less and
had lost interest in the gym and library and went through the
routine of his day with shuttered eyes, closed to as much around
him as possible.

Young Paddy
Crawford pushed in between them as they walked in the bitter cold.
He had recently been transferred from Dartmoor after complaining to
the governor of the constant beatings and rape he had endured at
the hands on one of the guards who had tagged him as his personal
pet. He hung around Big Bear as much as he could, feeling safe in
his company and looked up to him as a protector in view of his
large size and kindly attitude.

Paddy was a
thin 22-year-old who had been sent down for eight years for
murdering his girlfriend, but he had been saved from a life
sentence due to provocation. He walked between the two big guys;
his eyes lifeless and stripped of any vibrancy as he held his head
low against the cold wind.

Bell, Paddy
and Big Bear were among many groups who tried to stick together.
The West Indians would congregate in large groups by the telephones
and games room, some others stayed on their own with little or no
contact with others, like Bradshaw.

They walked
back into the building together, standing in line for the pat down
before they were allowed to enter.

Rumours were
flying around the wing that the guy who got battered in the gym had
died in the hospital wing. That explains the tension of the guards,
Bell thought.

Bell peered
his head around the door of the library. Bradshaw was sitting at a
small wooden table in the centre of the room, turning the pages of
a magazine. The top of his shaved head shone from the glare of the
fluorescent light overhead.

Bell quickly
moved down to the shower block with his towel under his arm.

Peeping Tom
was in his usual place; sitting at the far end of the metal bench,
sweat running down his old wrinkled face, his right hand down the
front of his trousers, playing with himself as he watching a group
of black kids soaping each other’s bodies.

Bell showered
alongside the others as they laughed and joked at peeping Tom,
bending forward and slapping their arses in front of him.

The food hall
was crowded. Inmates elbowed their way through a pasta and rice
supper. He only had twenty minutes to eat the meal, which included
the queue to get it. Guards patrolled the room, weaving in and out
of the tables with their arms behind their backs, their eyes
focused on the tables they had been assigned to watch.

Big Bear
looked down at Bell’s meal.

‘What delights
are we to eat tonight?’ he asked Bell, with a smile.

‘I don’t know
what it is, whatever it is, it’s buried under the gravy,’ Bell
replied.

‘All the meals
are covered in gravy, even the fried fish,’ he replied.

After the
meal, they played a game of cards with the old lifers before
returning to their cells for the night. Bradshaw stood at the
doorway of the cell, his arms folded across his chest, a crooked
smile on his face. His arms were covered in scratches and bite
marks from the fight. Bell pushed passed him, undressed and climbed
onto his bunk.

Dirty brown
water filtered back into the mop bucket as he washed the floors
outside the cells, occasionally leaning against the railings as
prisoners pushed by on their way to the workshops. He changed the
water before he made his way to the guard’s quarters. It smelt of
damp clothes and the floors were dusty.

Half a dozen
lockers lined the wall; a couple of settees were on the other side
with a desk at the far end. Dirty clothes were piled up on one on
the three chairs.

Hamilton sat
at the desk chewing gum; He looked over his rimless spectacles at
Bell as he wiped his mop under the desk.

Patterson was
down to his underpants as he put his uniform on and fastened his
keys and radio to his belt.

Belling was
washing his hands, already dressed in uniform and ready to start
his rounds of the corridors. Bell listened in at their conversation
as he cleaned around the furniture.

‘The transfer
list has just been sent up from the office,’ Hamilton said to the
others.

‘Is it this
week or next week?’ Belling asked, drying his hands.

‘Next week, no
movement this week,’ he replied.

‘We’ve got six
coming over from Strangeways and four from Brixton,’ Hamilton said,
flicking through the sheets on his clipboard.

‘Who’s going
then?’ Patterson said, as he hooked his tie over the neck of his
shirt.

Hamilton read
the names from the clipboard. ‘Atkinson, Butcher, Batchelor,
Bradshaw, Duckworth, Franks, Jones, Kingston, Nelson and Parker,’
he told them, in alphabetical order.

Bells heart
raced as Bradshaw’s name was read out. He was only aware of one
Bradshaw on the wing.

Hamilton took
a cigarette out of his packet and lit it with a closed book of
matches. He breathed in a large draw of smoke, and let it out
slowly through his nose, his closed jaw still chewing the gum.

‘You finished
in here, Bell?’ he said, his eyes looking around the floor.

‘All done,’
Bell answered, as he left the room, closing the door behind him. He
took a deep breath, letting air out through his mouth. His recent
state of depression was beginning to lift at the thought of
Bradshaw being transferred, hoping for the worst fate for him…
Dartmoor.

He went to the
food hall, grabbed a tray and held it over the counter while some
big black guy piled it with something unrecognisable, covering it
with gravy.

The hall was
crowded and the noise unbearable. He took his tray back to his cell
and ate his food sitting on his lower bunk. The window giving off
only hints of the night-time sky.

He looked over
at the sink and toilet, which he had cleaned to a sparkle before he
started work. The small sink was now stained with Bradshaw’s snot
and piss stains on the rim. It didn’t bother him, as he only had to
endure this animal’s filthy habits and violent temper for the next
two weeks.

Bell couldn’t
sleep that night, anxious for the transfer of Bradshaw, now snoring
and farting above him. The early morning offered little more than
blades of light filtering into the cell from the small window.

Jennifer
thought George had a destination in mind, but after a while it
seemed they were just heading aimlessly along the coast road,
taking in the scenery.

He parked
briefly and helped Jennifer up to the sea wall in Knott End to see
the truly magnificent view of the coastline and waves breaking
thunderously on the rocky shore. Jennifer stood, letting the cold
sea spray wet her face.