This Is How

by M. J. Hyland

  26

  After about twenty minutes, the van stops inside the prison gates and an officer slides the door open.

  The other four prisoners are uncuffed and taken out.

  I’m told to wait.

  ‘You’re going into Cat A, D Wing,’ says an officer. ‘The rest of them’s headed for remand.’

  I wait.

  Another officer, much younger than most, can’t be more than nineteen, comes and uncuffs me.

  ‘You can get out now.’

  We’re parked next to the yard.

  I get out and he cuffs me again, hands behind my back.

  It must be at least midday, but there are no prisoners outside. There are usually prisoners working the garden or doing a bit of exercise in the yard or on the football field.

  Something’s gone on.

  I look up at the sky. It’s pale and dull, and the air’s cold enough for snow.

  We’re waiting, but I don’t know what for.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I say.

  ‘There was an escape attempt last night,’ he says. ‘Admissions and investigations are all backed up. It’s chaos.’

  ‘Did they get out?'

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did they get far?'

  ‘They got to the perimeter wall, then the homemade ladder broke.’

  ‘How’d they plan to get over the wire?’

  ‘They had ideas. I can’t tell you any more.’

  It’s cold standing out here and the wind’s picked up, but there’s nothing to do but wait.

  ‘I hate this stinking job,’ he says.

  ‘Me too,’ I say.

  He turns to me and smiles.

  ‘You don’t sound like you belong here,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘First offence?'

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re in D Wing, Cat A, so it must be at least armed robbery?’

  ‘Yeah. It went a bit wrong.’

  I wish it were this simple, that I were an armed robber.

  ‘Aggravated then?'

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘A ten stretch?'

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What were you after?'

  ‘Jewels,’ I say. ‘Rubies, and fifty thousand in cash.’

  He nods.

  ‘There’s a guy in here,’ he says, ‘by the name of Stan. He got as far as Portugal with two million from a bank haul, then he phones his girlfriend from the airport and she turns him in for the reward.’

  ‘He’d want to kill her.’

  ‘He did. Had somebody do it for him. A pal on the outside. Now Stan’s a lifer. You’ll meet him soon enough.’

  I wish the two of us could go down the pub. I know a good one, a half a mile from here, The Red Lion, and it’s next door to Riley’s snooker hall. It’d be good and warm and we could get sausages and chips. We could play a few games and maybe even listen to a bit of music.

  An officer comes out of the main building, walks towards us, stops halfway, gives the signal.

  ‘That’s us,’ says the officer.

  Everything happens as before. I’m taken to the admissions room where I’m given my kit and then to the Recess for a shower and then the infirmary. My blood pressure’s taken and I’m checked for the clap and weighed.

  The female nurse puts me straight on watch.

  ‘You’ve lost too much weight,’ she says. ‘You’ll be put on special.’

  An officer takes me through the gates to my new cell.

  ‘You’ll be in till morning,’ he says.

  I tell him I want to appeal.

  ‘Take it up with the deputy governor.’

  ‘How do I see him?'

  ‘You’ll see him in a few days.’

  ‘How long will it take to get an appeal?'

  ‘How long’s a piece of string?'

  ‘But on average? Months? Years?'

  ‘Ask your brief.’

  ‘How do I get a new one?'

  ‘Ask the deputy governor.’

  I’m sent into my new cell.

  My cell-mate’s doing press-ups and he’s doing them off the edge of his cot. He’s swarthy, dark-skinned, has cropped hair and he’s tattooed, hands, arms and neck.

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  He doesn’t stop doing the press-ups, just looks across at me, then back down at the floor between his arms.

  ‘I’m Harper,’ he says.

  I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of defending myself against him.

  ‘I’m Oxtoby.’

  ‘Sounds like a fucking soup,’ he says. ‘Where’d you get a name like that?'

  He keeps on with his press-ups and he’s not at all short of breath.

  ‘Off a tin,’ I say.

  ‘What you done?’

  ‘Murder.’

  ‘Same here. Double.’

  I wouldn’t mind knowing if he killed two people in one go.

  ‘You?’ he asks. ‘How many you killed?'

  He stops doing press-ups, stands, stretches his arms behind his back, sits on his cot.

  ‘Just one. I killed one bloke.’

  ‘First time?'

  ‘Yeah.’

  I sit on my cot.

  ‘Welcome to life in hell,’ he says. ‘And relax. I’m not going to have you. Not my style. And we can’t shit in our own nests, right?’

  I think he’s just told me he’s not going to bugger or beat me.

  I smile. ‘Yeah. Right.’

  This cell’s as small as the cell in remand and it smells as they all do, of damp, smoke, sweat and piss. There are two cots, a bare metal desk, one metal chair with a slashed vinyl seat, a metal toilet, and a sink.

  There’s graffiti on the wall next to my cot, most of it below the line of the mattress. I lift the mattress to read it.

  I have a habitual feeling of my real life having passed. I’m leading a posthumous life. John Keats, 1820. Died of TB.

  ‘Did you write this?’ I say.

  ‘What’s it say?'

  I tell him.

  ‘Not likely. Don’t even know what it means. What’s it mean?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Harper gets off the cot, keeps on with his press-ups.

  There’s a pile of magazines on the desk. I go over to look at them.

  Even though he’s got his back to me, he knows what I’m doing.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he says.

  I take a magazine to the cot and turn the pages. It’s all about body building.

  I put it back on the desk.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d last long with that,’ he says. ‘You don’t look like you’ve ever lifted anything heavier than a cat.’

  ‘Right,’ I say.

  I should get a bit fitter. It’d be a good way to kill some time and I might as well do what most of the blokes serving long stretches do.

  ‘Is there a gym?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s real small and they won’t give you the apps for it till you’ve served a fair bit of your stretch.’

  I put the blanket over my head and try for sleep.

  I drift off and end up sleeping a half-sleep of delirium, full of thoughts of the trial, the judge’s red nose, the way he looked at me when he gave me the sentence, like he was just telling me the time, and that juror with the moustache who kept yawning.

  I wake in the middle of the night with a mouth so dry it’s stopped me from breathing.

  I go to the sink, but I don’t know if it’s drinking water. A stench of sulphur comes out when I turn the tap on.

  I get back into the cot.

  The next time I wake, it’s because the cell door’s opened and there’s a torch in my face.

  Six screws have barged in and they’ve surrounded Harper’s cot.

  I sit up.

  One of the screws gags Harper with a towel and says, ‘Keep your trap shut!'

  Harper struggles and another screw wraps a towel tight round his neck, another takes hold of his legs, and another t
akes both arms and pulls them tight behind his back. Another officer stands by the door and the sixth one packs Harper’s belongings into a cardboard box.

  I sit up.

  ‘Don’t move,’ says the screw standing guard at the door. ‘Get back into your cot.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Ghosting.’

  ‘What?'

  ‘He’s leaving on the ghost train.’

  I lie down and wait for them to leave.

  I don’t get back to sleep.

  My cell door’s not opened for slop-out and I’m not taken for breakfast.

  I lie on the cot, stare up at the low ceiling. There’s no window.

  I’m sick in the gut, the same way I was during the trial, the kind of sick I got when I was a kid and I’d gone on a fast-spinning ride after eating a sack load of sugar and threw up in front of Geoff and Daniel. Except this sick is a constant bitter sick, mixed with a fear that the sickness won’t ever end.

  But as I lie here, and even though I’m sick, I daydream Welkin’s alive, that the jury gets called back to reverse their decision, that the judge’s made a mistake, there’s an appeal and I’m set free. I can’t accept it. I can’t quit the dreams of it all being reversed.

  At 8 a.m. an officer comes. He’s rake-thin, about fifty, dark-haired and he’s got a comb-over.

  ‘My name’s Farrell,’ he says. ‘I’m taking you to see the chief officer.’

  ‘What happened to Harper?'

  ‘He’s was taken to Scrubs.’

  Wormwood.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  We walk through four sets of gates, past the admissions and past the officers’ mess.

  He sends me in, locks the door behind.

  The chief officer’s behind his desk.

  He’s chubby and bald and wears a dark suit and a fat red tie.

  ‘Sit down,’ he says.

  I sit.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The prisoner who lays low should also be polite when he speaks to officers.

  ‘Next week you’ll be seeing the deputy governor and the welfare officer.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘But you need to start eating. You won’t be taken off special-watch until you gain some weight.’

  He reads something in my file.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  I rub my forehead.

  ‘Do you need pain medication?'

  ‘Yes, please, sir.’

  ‘When the janitor comes with the trolley, I’ll get him to give you some aspirin.’

  ‘Is there any way I could get something stronger?’

  He closes my file and stands.

  ‘We’ll review your case after you’ve seen welfare,’ he says.

  There’s a gold cufflink on the floor by my feet. I reach down and pick it up.

  I hand it to him.

  ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘There it is.’

  When I was a kid, I thought I was lucky. I often found things like coins and marbles, even a skateboard once. I was sure this meant that I was lucky, that I had special powers. I used to think that as long as I went on finding things I’d go on having special powers.

  ‘I could probably find the other one for you, too,’ I say.

  He stands and heads for the door. ‘Don’t bother,’ he says. ‘I’ve got cufflinks up to my eyeballs.’

  ‘What about an appeal?’ I say.

  He’s waiting for me to get up. But I’m not moving. I’ll wait for him to answer my questions.

  ‘You’d better go now,’ he says.

  He opens the door. ‘You need to go now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but what about my appeal?'

  ‘You need to take that up with the deputy governor.’

  ‘Can I use the library?'

  ‘You’ll need special-leave and I’ll have to check your record.’

  You’ve got my fucking file. Why not check now?

  ‘What about the gym, sir?’

  ‘I’ll get welfare to look into it.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Farrell takes me back to my cell.

  ‘You’ll get your breakfast brought in later,’ he says.

  He leaves, bangs me up.

  I sit on my cot, nothing better to do than feel shit and sorry for myself.

  I should have pleaded to manslaughter. I might have got five or six years. I could have been out of here before I’m thirty. Whenever I think of what’s gone on, a constant and repetitive chain of thoughts, it’s the desperate feeling of embarrassment that gets me most upset.

  I’ve been a first-class idiot and, even though there’s nobody in the cell, when I recall that night, going into Welkin’s room, going back out to get the wrench, I turn red, a hot and raging shame crawls over my skin and it sickens me.

  I sicken myself.

  But thinking, any kind of thinking, it’ll only make the whole thing worse than it already is. I’ve got to stop going over what’s already happened and can’t be reversed.

  I get off the cot and do press-ups the way Harper did them. It’s hard work, and I can’t even manage a half-dozen, and when I stand up I’m dizzy. I lie prone on the cot, a sweat on me like I’ve done a hundred.

  The kitchen screw comes with my breakfast.

  ‘Keep the bowl and the spoon,’ he says.

  ‘Ta,’ I say.

  Both are brown and plastic.

  ‘And here’s your fork.’

  I sit up, still light-headed.

  ‘Ta.’

  ‘Your first time?'

  I wish it weren’t so obvious.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  I try to eat the porridge, but can’t get through much of it. I get the gag reflex when I put the spoon in my mouth.

  I lie down again and close my eyes.

  The observation panel slides up and down during the night. It’s the night-officer coming to check on me. This is what it means to be on special-watch. Sleep interrupted every two hours.

  At 7 a.m., a screw opens the cell door.

  ‘Get your breakfast,’ he says.

  There’s a trolley outside and the prisoners on the landing are lined up to collect their trays, and it’s noisy. About two dozen men talking and shouting at the tops of their lungs. No one says a word to me and I say nothing to them.

  It’s the same up on the twos and threes. Three landings, three floors, three lots of noisy cons getting their breakfast.

  I take the food back into my cell and sit on my cot.

  Breakfast is a bowl of cornflakes, an unripe banana and a cup of tea.

  I get nowhere with the food and think about what I could be eating if I were still at the boarding house or with Georgia in the café or at home with my mother and father and Russell. A full English with sausages, bacon and eggs, hot buttery toast.

  I had it good before. I didn’t know it, but I know it now. But now that I know what was good before, all I get is shit.

  A half-hour later, the same screw comes.

  ‘Recess,’ he says. ‘Shower and slop-out.’

  ‘I need to go on sick,’ I say.

  ‘What’s wrong?'

  ‘I’m sick.’

  ‘Out of ten?'

  ‘About a six, a seven.’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘You’re not sick enough. Get out.’

  The Recess is pretty much the same here as it was in remand, only there are more men and there are more screws standing watch and there are more older men here, probably lifers.

  I shower and mind my own business, which isn’t hard, since nobody says a word to me. A few look me over, but they look me over like they’d look at an ugly woman they can’t be bothered with.

  I’m taken back to my cell and banged up.

  ‘Back in your cell then for the rest of the day,’ says the screw. ‘You’re on basic.’

  No privileges, no exercise yard, no association.

  ‘Lunch at noon, tea at six.’


  ‘How long am I on basic?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask the dep.’

  The next morning, at 6.30, Farrell comes to my cell.

  ‘Get up,’ he says.

  I sit up.

  ‘There’s a mental health thing going on,’ he says. ‘The Home Office wants six lifers to sign up.’

  ‘Yeah?'

  ‘If you sign up, you’ll be seeing a psychologist about once or twice a month.’

  Farrell smooths his thin black hair down flat on his chalky scalp.

  ‘It’s starting soon, in the next few days. Are you in? They need one more.’

  I wonder if what I say to the psychologist will be off the record. If I say too much or the wrong thing, it could damage my appeal or chances of early parole.

  ‘I haven’t got all day,’ he says. ‘Are you interested or not?'

  I’ve no idea how I’ll pass the time and this might be a good way to get through a small part of it, might stop me from thinking so much. If I’m careful about what I say, it might help me get an appeal, get advice, get parole.

  Anything’s better than being banged up all day and night.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Good.’

  When evening chow arrives, I go out and line up and take a plate of beans and sausages, a cup of tea, take the tray back into my cell.

  But I can’t eat. I’ve got the same problem with the gag reflex and I’ve got a rotten sick gut. I wouldn’t mind some coffee. I think I could keep that down. Strong coffee, and fresh white crusty bread, and jam and salty butter. Like in Georgia’s café.

  I kill a bit of time remembering what it was like to sit in the café and to chat to Georgia. I felt good with her. It felt good.

  27

  Next morning, Farrell comes to my cell.

  I’m already awake and I think he’s taking me to see the psychologist. This is what I hope for. Even if I can’t say everything I want to say, it’ll make me feel a whole lot better to talk to somebody.

  ‘You’re moving,’ he says. ‘Pack your kit.’

  ‘Where am I going?'

  ‘Same wing, different cell.’

  ‘I’m staying on the ones?'

  ‘Yeah. Same landing.’

  I bundle my blankets, fetch my toothbrush, bowl and fork. I can’t find my spoon.

  We walk.