This Is How

by M. J. Hyland

  ‘Could I make a phone call while I’m in here?'

  ‘No, not from here.’

  ‘Can I have a pen and some paper?'

  ‘I’ll see what I can get you.’

  Even with the drugs, my sleep’s full of trouble. In gaps between nightmares, I hear birds scratching at the infirmary window and dream that I eat one of them.

  28

  The nurse comes with my evening meal and the pen and paper I asked for.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘A bit better.’

  ‘Any sleep?'

  ‘A bit.’

  He takes my blood pressure.

  ‘It’s still very low. I’m going to keep you on the drip. Try and eat some of this.’

  He takes a silver domed lid off the plate and shows me my meal.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  ‘If you can’t eat this, we’ll put you on hospital food.’

  ‘I’ll eat it.’

  It’s a tasty pork pie, mash with real butter and hot carrots and peas. Just like room service in a hotel.

  Soon after I’ve eaten, the nurse comes back.

  ‘You did much better,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t feel too great.’

  He reaches under the bed and gets a brown kidney dish.

  ‘Use this if you need it.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He checks the drip, taps the needle a couple of times, then leaves.

  I’m feeling good enough and clear-headed enough to write a proper letter home.

  My dear family, Mum, Dad and Russell (and Julie and the twins), I know it’s going to be hard to forgive me for what I did, but here’s an apology anyway. I am very sorry for what I did.

  I’d really like it if somebody could come and see me in here. I know that’s a lot to ask, but maybe if you think about how what I did was a big mistake and only took a second, and wasn’t premeditated, you might have some sympathy. Also, I didn’t want to kill Welkin. I can honestly say to you that I didn’t even want to hurt him very badly.

  I am still your son, your brother, and your friend, if you want.

  I am very, very sorry.

  I’ve been an idiot, but I’m not the same now. If I was outside now, I could never do what I did again. I can’t believe I did it at all, but I did, and I take responsibility, even if I think a life-sentence is harsh, I still think I deserve punishment.

  Love, Patrick

  After the letter, I fall into a deep sleep and when I wake I don’t know where I am. There’s sunlight coming in through the window and I can hear birds and when I sit up straight I can see into the garden.

  The nurse comes to me with breakfast.

  ‘Scrambled eggs,’ he says.

  I want to stay here in this hospital bed, get more sleep and write more letters. I owe one to Bridget and to Georgia and I definitely owe one to Welkin’s parents.

  The nurse takes my blood pressure. The eggs sit on the bed going cold.

  ‘Your blood pressure’s normal,’ he says.

  ‘But I’m not ready to go back,’ I say.

  ‘You’ll have to go back as soon as you’re well.’

  ‘I still feel sick.’

  ‘You’ll be here another night. But you’ve stabilised.’

  I fall asleep and I’ve no idea what time it is when I wake.

  Farrell comes in with the nurse.

  ‘Gardam’s been passing round that letter you got,’ he says, ‘and the psycho’s written you a consoling note.’

  In this prison, population 856, there’s only one psychopath and it’s Trevor Smith, the one Gardam told me about.

  Farrell gives me the note:

  Dear Patrick, They call me the psycho but I wud not send you a letter like that one did. We have a code here when a man is right down we stick to him. Sounds like you tride real hard to be a good man and made just one mistake. And we think that you are down bad. Rest up and Get Well Soon. Trevor

  I finish and smile.

  ‘Not a bad bloke to have on your side,’ says Farrell. ‘When he’s not out of action, he runs his landing.’

  ‘What wing’s he on?'

  ‘He’s on F, but he spends a lot of his time in the strongbox.’

  I hand the note to Farrell.

  ‘That’s yours,’ he says. ‘Keep it.’

  The nurse takes my blood pressure.

  ‘A hundred and fifteen over seventy,’ he says. ‘You’re on the mend now.’

  ‘I don’t feel a hundred percent,’ I say.

  ‘Take these and get some sleep.’

  He gives me two more of those white pills and waits for me to take them.

  They both leave.

  I’ve forgotten to ask for more paper.

  I want to sleep but I also want to enjoy the peace and clean and quiet of this room a bit longer.

  I get up and go to the window and look out at the garden a while.

  But the drugs are working on me, my eyelids are getting heavy, and I can’t resist the bed.

  I climb onto the soft mattress, stretch myself out, a good stretch, feel the crisp sheets under my back, fall into a deep sleep.

  The nurse wakes me in the morning.

  It’s a much duller day and the room’s dark.

  ‘You’re being shanghaied,’ he says.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I’m not ready to go, but he takes the needle out of my arm, pulls it out rough, without any warning.

  ‘What time is it?'

  ‘Half past six,’ he says. ‘Better get dressed. I’ll be back in a second.’

  As soon as I stand I feel sick again and have to sit.

  He comes back.

  ‘Get dressed, Oxtoby. You’ve got one minute.’

  I get dressed then fold the hospital pyjamas, put them neatly under the pillows.

  He comes back.

  ‘I got dizzy just then,’ I say.

  ‘That’s because you’ve been in bed so long.’

  Farrell comes to take me back to the cell.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  I go into the cell and the stink of smoke and sweat hits me especially badly after the fresh air in the single ward.

  Gardam’s on my bed playing solitaire.

  ‘Felt like a change of scenery,’ he says.

  He gets up and goes back to his own cot.

  ‘What’s it like in there?'

  ‘I wish I could’ve stayed.’

  ‘Thanks, Ox,’ he says. ‘I missed you, too.’

  ‘I had a whole room to myself and a view.’

  ‘Can you smoke in there?'

  He reaches for his pouch of Drum. He’s rolling his own now.

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ I say.

  ‘Oh yeah. Forgot.’

  I sit on my cot, watch him roll and then light his fag.

  ‘Are you better, or what?’

  ‘Yeah. Not so dizzy.’ ‘Did you eat?'

  ‘Yeah. Pies and casseroles and bread-and-butter pudding and icecream.’

  ‘You fucking what?'

  ‘Yeah. I got food from the officers’ mess.’

  ‘Could have brought me something.’

  ‘Where would I stash pudding or casserole? In my socks?'

  ‘You don’t know anything.’

  ‘Right.’

  I go to the sink to wash my hands and he rolls another cigarette.

  ‘Where’s the soap?'

  ‘I used it up,’ he says. ‘Get more on canteen tomorrow.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Want to play some poker?’

  ‘Sure.’

  We sit on his cot and play poker and he talks about his days while I was in the hospital. He tells me all about how he showed Smith the letter from Sarah, and how Smith wrote the note to me right there on the spot in his cell. He wants to know what I thought of the letter and whether I’m grateful.

  ‘Yeah, thanks a lot. It really cheered me up.’

  ‘Good.’

 
I let him win most of the hands, but after a couple of hours he smells a rat.

  ‘Why do you keep raising and then folding when the pot gets really big? Why do you keep throwing in your hands?’

  ‘I don’t think they’re any good.’

  ‘How can three kings not be a good hand? If it’s worth calling, it’s worth raising and it’s worth staying in for the turn.’

  ‘There’s too much that beats three kings, like a flush and a straight.’

  ‘You don’t know anything.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I don’t know how you got into university.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  The next morning, I’m granted leave to visit the library. I can go every day with Farrell if I want, but I can’t go to the yard until I’ve gained more weight and I can’t join the football team for the same reason.

  Farrell gives me a copy of my release form. Turns out I’ve been granted leave to use the library on the basis that I’m a University-educated man with hopes to return to university upon release on licence.

  ‘Who wrote this?'

  ‘I did,’ he says.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Farrell’s not like Johnson and he couldn’t care less whether I’m grateful or not. He does the usual, puts his hands in his pockets, hitches up his trousers and, on the way out, checks his reflection in the shiny black cell door.

  Next afternoon, after lunch, I’m taken to the library, a room about the size of three cells. It’s down the other end of the landing, past the canteen, past the rec-room, past the work stores.

  There are six bookcases and a couple of boxes piled with books waiting to be shelved, but it’s warm and light, and there’s no smoking allowed.

  I’m the only one in here and I sit at the small table beside the radiator and get to reading a book about psychopaths that somebody’s left behind.

  Between the pages there are bits of tobacco and flecks of dried egg yolk.

  On page 789 somebody’s written: THIS IS ME! I’M A PSCYO. On page 811, in the same handwriting: THIS FUCKING BOOK IS ALL ABOUT ME! THEY SHOULD PAY ME ROYLTIES.

  According to this book, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the symptoms of psychopathy include: parasitic lifestyle, stealing, pathological lying, substance-abuse, financial irresponsibility, proneness to boredom, cruelty (especially towards animals in early life), running away from home, promiscuity, fighting, and lack of empathy.

  I memorise as much as I can so as to use my brain a bit.

  Back in the cell, just before the trolley with the evening cups of tea and cocoa, I run through the list with Gardam. He admits to all of the symptoms, even admits to having ‘slightly’ enjoyed killing his wife.

  ‘What about remorse?’ I say.

  ‘I don’t know, Ox,’ he says. ‘All I know is I want to die.’

  ‘Do you really?'

  ‘Yeah, I do fucking really. Fucking look at me. I’m a walking corpse.’

  He re-lights his cigarette. He’s bad at rolling and he can’t keep the fags lit for more than a couple of puffs. From where I sit, and though I don’t know much about tobacco, it looks like he doesn’t unpack the tobacco enough.

  He takes a puff, looks at me.

  ‘Why don’t you save up your Valium and take an overdose?’ I say.

  ‘First, you’d need about five hundred of them to top yourself. Second, they take the edge off day-to-day while I’m waiting to die. Third, if I miss a dose, I’ll go off my nut and go into one.’

  If he goes into one, it could be me he sticks with a shiv made out of a melted toothbrush.

  ‘I get it,’ I say. ‘Best keep taking them.’

  He crushes the cigarette that’s gone out and starts over.

  Next morning, five minutes before the first siren, an officer I’ve never seen before comes to the cell.

  ‘You’re to see the deputy governor,’ he says. ‘Get dressed.’

  ‘Where’s Farrell?'

  ‘He’s on sick leave.’

  ‘Can I use the Recess first?'

  ‘You’re not at home now.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But I need to—'

  He laughs. ‘Shit?'

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then say it. Say you need to shit.’

  I won’t say it. I get dressed while he watches, then make the bed.

  ‘Fold your blankets.’

  I do what I’m told and watching me do it puts a smile on his rotten face.

  ‘Fold them neater.’

  I do it again.

  ‘Get out.’

  The deputy governor’s office is across the other side of the prison, at the back of the night officers’ sleeping quarters. I get to walk across the yard again and it’s the first clean air I’ve breathed since leaving the hospital.

  The deputy governor’s waiting at his door.

  ‘Come in and take a seat,’ he says. ‘I hear you want to appeal.’

  ‘Yes, sir. That’s correct.’

  ‘You’ll have to see your brief. Give me his name, and I’ll arrange for a phone call.’

  With his foot, he opens and closes a small cupboard under his desk.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘But I don’t want the same one. I don’t want Perkins. I want a new brief.’

  ‘I’ll get the ball rolling. But it’ll take a while. You’ll have to be patient.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I look out the window to the small private garden. There are roses in a flowerbed and thick ivy climbing the walls.

  ‘Although it’s early days, your good behaviour in remand has earned you enhanced privileges. You’ll be taken off basic and be free to use the yard for an hour every day and I’m giving you association privileges.’

  There’s an hour of association every night at eight o’clock and there’s a TV, a pool table and a table tennis table in the rec-room.

  ‘And I can still use the library?'

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘And you’ll eventually meet with the Board of Visitors who might favourably consider your circumstances.’

  I can’t believe what he’s said.

  I want to jump from my seat.

  I want him to say it again.

  My legs are light and happy as though they’ve been shot through with helium. The drugs from the infirmary are nothing compared to this.

  The hour’s come: I’ll be entitled to parole, pardon, a reprieve.

  I want to laugh but keep my voice low and steady.

  ‘There’s a good chance I’m going to be freed soon then?’

  He kicks the cupboard door shut with his foot.

  I stand up.

  ‘Please sit down,’ he says. ‘I didn’t say that.’

  He has his finger over the panic button.

  ‘You’d better sit down.’

  I sit and put my hands on my lap.

  ‘If your behaviour’s impeccable, it’s likely you’ll meet with the Board of Visitors.’

  ‘When?'

  ‘It’s up to the Home Office.’

  ‘So I might be freed soon? Go out on licence?’

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘you’re in for murder. You won’t be going out for a long time.’

  This blow is like a dose of poison in my veins, a hot sharp shot through my legs and arms, through my bowels and bladder. I’ve a mind to release a hot flood of shit and piss right where I sit. They’ll come and clean me, wrap me in a nappy, drug me, take me back to the infirmary, maybe even to the outside prison hospital for a few days.

  But I don’t piss or shit. I tighten the necessary muscles, bring my knees together.

  ‘But you made it sound like I might get freed.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘What’s a long time, then?'

  He hands me a colour pamphlet as though I’m buying a car, getting a loan from the bank.

  ‘I can’t tell you what a long time is,’ he says. ‘I want you to take thi
s away with you and read it.’

  He can’t even be bothered to look at me.

  ‘To be considered for licence, your conduct must be impeccable. Beyond reproach.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You mustn’t commit any additional offences.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘You mustn’t participate in any riots or sit-ins or escape attempts.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  He’s already finished with me and stands.

  The door’s opened by an officer.

  I’m escorted back to my cell.

  When I’ve finished reading the pamphlet, I give it to Gardam.

  ‘You can’t even have a passport when you’re on licence.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’ve just read it.’

  ‘And they can take the licence back off you whenever they like.’

  And I’ve got to see a parole officer as often as the Home Office says so, and it’s not likely I’ll be considered for licence before I’ve served ten years.

  ‘And you have to serve ten years first.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ I say. ‘It’s a whole lot better than being in here for life.’

  ‘S’pose so,’ he says.

  ‘You’ll be up for licence too, won’t you?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Forgot to tell you something.’

  ‘What?'

  ‘I stuck a guy in remand. I got him in the preliminary artery. He lost the use of his right eye.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He was my cell-mate,’ he says.

  Gardam cackles. He wants me to ask if he’s joking. He wants me to be impressed and he probably wants me to be nervous.

  I’ll show no interest.

  My silence makes him sullen again.

  ‘I wish they still hanged men for their crimes,’ he says. ‘I wish I was in America being hung.’

  ‘Maybe you should get some stronger medication,’ I say.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘But I don’t think it’d make any difference.’

  ‘Maybe it would.’

  ‘I think if I met me,’ he says, ‘I’d probably kill me.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, but I don’t know what he’s talking about.

  He laughs.

  29

  I see Farrell in the morning, and ask to use the phone.

  ‘Do you have any money?’

  ‘Yeah. Gardam gave me a few coins.’