by David Mathew
But you’re a king, Dott says to me. You should have the privilege of a shorter life.
What does he mean?
I’m as old as the hills, Billy; as old as the dunes.
I know that, Dott! Something new! Something new!
Now my voice, joking?—I’m not sure. Superficially angry: That’s King Billy to you, Dott. And Dott saying something about a thorny crown—he is constructing the very same regal item from pieces pulled loose from a rose bush embracing a small tree. The loop-the-loop of memory, bringing me back to this grass, this rose.
How do you spend your time? I ask Dott. It’s the key that’s been lost in my overcoat pocket.
Follow me with your heart, he says clearly.
Part Seven:
In the Land of Goodbyes
One.
Dear Alfreth.
Of all things, a letter from Ostrich, which I’ll punctuate on his behalf. And capitalise. And re-spell. The rest I’ll leave, although in its first draft, raw and unpolished, it took me as long to read as it does my Psych Reports and parole files.
How goes it, blood? Me, I’m shaking it, fam, he writes. You’re right, rudeboy—Big Man Jail ain’t no paradise, blood. Fucking screws are a bit more chummy but that’s it. I been already twisted up like ten time or so, but me, I’m just feeling my way and getting cock of the walk. Same time, I’m trying to go legit. Man have a LONG time to consider his actions, as them Psych bitches give it, blood. Don’t talk to me about parole. My actions my hole. We do what we need to do, I lie? If there’s another way to go, man will take that other way. But I bust the days. I join some classes, rudeboy. Arts and Crafts on a Tuesday afternoon, a full-time Motor Mechs course for the rest of the week. Big Man Jail get sponsorship from a local car dealership—good for the profile, both ways. So I work on real cars, Alfreth. I’ve learned the difference between a rotary engine and an internal combustion engine. I know what two-stroke means. I know the difference between a carburettor and a camshaft, rudeboy. I had to get out of there, Alfreth. I don’t know what it is but there’s a stink about the place. Man use to have dreams about the graveyard at the back exploding and showering us all over with bits of dead bodies. We’re in the exercise yard and deconstructed slices of dead men and women, blood, they’re raining all around. They’re twitching. They start looking for the rest of their bodies. Never home, never whole, just like us, cuz. And another dream too. I’ll tell you about it in a minute, but the one I just give—I don’t know what a dream like that might say about my state of mind, but the dreams have nearly stopped now. Now? Now I dream of nothing at all. Usually. There are exceptions to the rule, every once in a while. Maybe that’s a sign I’ve grown up, even a bit. Took my time about it, yah—go ahead and bust chuckles, blood. I’ve asked for it. Fuck knows if I’ll even send this. Never say it at the time but you were a good friend to me, Alfreth. There are things we can’t say that we are happy to say when we hit road. Why’s that? Wogwun? What are we scared of, blood? We scared if we say it, it got no place to go? The emotion’s out of our head—and our head is prison enough. It can’t escape the walls of a jail. You can’t unsay it, rudeboy. And if you start to have beef with man, you already told man you love him. What do you do then? So it’s easier to say nothing at all. But you were a friend. I have a new friend now, and I doubt you and I will hear much from each other from now on. When you hit road I’ll be thinking of you, blood—course I will. The message will get to me somehow. Prison networks. You know how the gossip goes: I’ll find out. And I’ll be jealous and I’ll be angry, and I’ll try to tell myself lies like: I’ll see you in another twenty years, maybe still. But I won’t, will I, Alfreth? If you’ve got any sense, you’ll go legit—get some shit job you hate but pays regular. Keep your nose clean. Keep the knives in the kitchen drawer. Work hard for your living. But me, I’m gonna be an old man when I get out. If I get out. My new friend is helping me with this. His name is Clarity. I think at first it’s because he sees the world with clear vision, but no, Alfreth—it’s really his name. Although he does as well see clearly. I don’t know his first name. He calls me Younger. I’m not Ostrich anymore—I’m Younger. In a Big Man Jail I’m a little boy. Clarity tells me I’ve got two addictions and I tell him yeah: hooch and zoot. He says no. Freedom and incarceration. I’m addicted to freedom but I know I won’t be able to touch that shit again, not without all but killing myself. I’m addicted to incarceration, though; there’s no way round that. Try to take me away and I think I’ll have withdrawal shakes and twitches. You should’ve seen me in the van, bringing me here, it didn’t matter how much I was looking forward to moving—I missed Dellacotte like it was in my cells. The cells of my body. In my blood, blood; in my brain. It’s a relief to be banged up again. I felt, at home, Alfreth. Tell me: are you really ready to leave? Think about it seriously. Where will you go? Back to Mumsy? Okay, and then what? That shit job I talk about—maybe it ain’t coming round to your yard a couple month. What’ll you do for peas in the meanwhile? We do what we need to do. That’s all there is to it. Be careful of wishing for freedom, Alfreth—it’s a powerful drug with no known cure. That’s what Clarity says. When I tell him I have a dream of a hamburger, he says, ‘It’s a drug.’ When I tell him I long for nice bedclothes, he says, ‘It’s a drug.’ He’s closer to fifty than forty—Clarity—and I suppose he should know. He’s been in and out since the age of fifteen. He has never had a home, a job, a family or a ting. Prison’s what he knows. He’ll be leaving in a year’s time. He’s scared to death. Not that he’ll let me see he’s scared to death, but he is. He enjoys the boredom. Once a month he sits on the Prison-Prisoner Forum Meetings, but other than that he lies around thinking. Doesn’t turn on the TV. Doesn’t open a book. He claims man can generate all the knowledge man needs, by his age. No help required. Perhaps he’s right. I used to think I was intelligent in my way, but compared to Clarity, I’m a novice, a beginner—I’m a Younger. All I’ve got to look forward to is a time when I can be as wise as he is. And I’m looking forward to the journey to that place, Alfreth. I feel it calling me. It’s like the moon seen through clouds, some days, and other days it’s as close as dinner smells and the bell in the chapel on a Sunday morning. One piece of advice he give me: kill time. I say to him: That’s rich, coming from you, lying on your bed all day—it’s an attempt at a joke. But he takes it serious. So I ask him what he mean and he tell me: ‘Burn your calendar. The increments are too small. It’s not like the run-up to Christmas—this is your life, Younger.’ So I burn my calendar. I get twisted up by a couple screws for that; they think I’m trying to set fire to my pad as a protest over something. I tell them this ain’t the case but they don’t believe me. Or they do believe me, maybe, but just fancy a fight anyway. So be it. What’s another punch? I stop watching the news. I don’t care. It’s not important. The day the war breaks out that’ll need involuntary volunteers to fight the front line and they come to my door, this is the day I’ll start watching again, to see what it is I’m supposed to be fighting for. And who I’m meant to be fighting. Other than that, the news is ‘new things’. I don’t want new things. I don’t want old things. I am happy to be here, even though it’s not really different from Dellacotte. Not really different? It must be. I contradict myself, Alfreth—I should have structured this better before I start writing. But would that have helped much? I doubt it. All I know is, the nightmares have stopped, more or less, as I say— the ones where I’m walking through a desert. I’m trying to climb the side of this fucking huge sand dune and I keep falling to the bottom and I have to start again. I’m in a circle, a loop— I can’t get out. I only have those dreams rarely now. I don’t dream of nothing anymore, but I’ve said that. What else can be new? I’ve just said I don’t want new things—but you do, Alfreth. You’ll welcome this letter and these words, I’m sure of that. Burn it afterwards. What else can I tell you? I’m looking forward to the time I finish my Motor Mechs course. When I’
m there I’m gonna follow Clarity’s lead: meditate all day. Refuse my meals from time to time, just to show the screws I have been as deeply indoctrinated as I’m sure I really have been, because a protest now and then is a good sign, from their point of view. Just a little one; even a cuss, it’s good news as far as screws are concerned. It means you’re playing the game; the brainwashing has worked, or is working. Perfect passivity, Clarity say—they don’t like that. They lose their sharp edge. But I have another reason, anyway, for not eating every single morsel. It’s not that the food is shit—it’s better than anything the Dellacotte kitchens ground out—it’s more, I feel like keeping hungry is really giving the raised middle finger up to the passing of time. I don’t want the daily punctuation. I don’t want the markers, the clues; I want the riddle. So I’m whittling away at those markers and clues, slowly but surely—catchee monkey. And already I’m making progress—I can tell you honestly, hand on heart, Mumsy’s life, I’ve no idea, right now, what day of the week we’re on. I’m not even sure of the month as I write—I know we’re approaching the end of one and the start of another. Yeah. That’s what I want. No days, no months, with luck I get to the point where I’m not a hundred per cent on what year we’re in. That’ll be bliss, and man will be bless. Until then I’ll play the game and keep my head down. Man don’t expect man to write back. I won’t read it if you do, unless I’m weak and I give in to my addictions. This is possible. Not saying I’ve got it perfect yet—not by a long chalk, rudeboy, as Clarity says—but I’m stepping in the right direction. I’m declining any visits from now on. I don’t want to know the outside world, even the ghetto girls. I only care about the moment. So by and large I’ll only do what they want me to do, without further arguments. Clean my cell, I’ll clean my cell. Time for Gym, it’s time for Gym. They say Education, I’ll go to my course—I’ll paint my pictures—my pictures of the desert, quite often—or I’ll learn about oil filters or I’ll pick up my spanner, and whatever it is I’m doing I’ll set to it. Soon I’m gonna try not to speak. If any of this, Alfreth, make you think man is broken, think again. Man is liberated by being banged up. When the door is closed at the end of the day, I lie down and think myself into a peaceful world. The night screams at Dellacotte are hardly heard, and that’s a relief; but the absence of the silence that was everywhere towards the end of my time there—that’s gone too. Cons keep their music down to respectable levels; it’s good to hear it. There are occasional shouted conversations from cell to cell, but only for a while—things forgotten to be said that can’t wait until morning, because no one has a memory here, and if they’re not said straight away they’re not said at all. And for some people that’s a wasted opportunity—a wasted thought. We need all the thoughts we can express, some might say, I’m usually asleep before midnight and at seven the next morning I exercise, wash, and get ready for my day, like a businessman putting on a suit. And in that respect, blood, I am still hogtied by time. It won’t last forever. It might not last past next week. I’m going now, Alfreth. I wish I could remember your first name. I can remember your prison number but not your first name. How stupid is that? Sometimes—swear down—I struggle to recall my own first name. My name is Maxwell, I say to myself, my name is Maxwell. I use it as a call to prayer— or even as my prayer. Don’t let go of yourself as you slide towards the other names. I don’t even know if this is making any sense.
Goodbye, Alfreth. Think of me a last time, if you will. I should be evacuating your memory anyway; everything else does—your memory and mine. You hit road and you be a good man, you hear me? Don’t get vex with nobody and nobody get vex with you. I don’t want to see you here. Best wishes for the future.
The letter is not signed.
Two.
Dizzy and sprite-like, I chase the ambulance down the hills, away from the prison; I’m a supersonic moth, in flight to touch the pimple-shaped light that crowns the ambulances roof. The siren has been silenced; the illumination has not been dimmed—casting pockets of shadow like bats’ wings from left to right, hurling darkness like sheets of soot. I catch hold. Hills banking to either side of the otherwise unoccupied road: they could, in the darkness, be sand dunes. This could be a desert. The prison, an oasis of life—still life, at least for the time being. Inside my skull I repeat, again, every word I can recall Dott using—every example, every bookish reference, every scintilla of sarcasm. Thinking harder—and how the wind punishes my sweat at this moment!—I am able to climb inside the vehicle. Dott is lying down on a gurney. Though I can’t see the condition of his body, that of his face is indication enough of the savagery of the hiding he’s received. A newly plump face, in hues of grey and cerise. I ask him if he’s all right but he decides not to answer. I repeat the question—subconscious to subconscious, like twins—and he tells me:
I’ll live.
The words take on ugly connotations, given Dott’s resolution to die.
Why do you need the hospital? I ask him.
I don’t. This is all superficial; I’ll be right as rain in a couple of weeks, he tells me. Just thought, better be out of Dellacotte when the shit descends.
What shit?
You’ll see. Tonight’s the night, Alfreth.
And silent he goes once again. No amount of geeing him up can fire further discourse. He’s saving—he’s saving his energy. But I’m still there, I think. I’m still in my cell.
Don’t worry, Billy-Boy, Dott whispers to me; you’re asleep. I’ll take this time away from you. You won’t need to see a thing.
I want to see a thing! I complained. I’ve waited so long, Dott!
As you like it. Dott waves wearily at the air.
The paramedic sitting on the other gurney wants to know if Dott’s trying to say something.
I’m thirsty, Dott croaks. Can I have some water, please?
The paramedic shakes his head. Not just yet. Very soon. We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes, he replies.
Dott’s eyelids feather closed. On either side of the ambulance, as we decline to sea level—sea level?—the trees and bushes on the hills melt into the land. The slopes appear more than ever like sand dunes I want to climb. If tonight’s the night, as Dott puts it, I want it started tout suite. What’s the sense in hanging around? And I can’t mistrust what he’s told me. If he doesn’t intend to call in what he needs to call in, why is he performing the act of goodness and kindness that will protect me from the ugly bombs landing? We know that goodness and kindness are no fucking good to the yoot.
Do it now, Dott, I stress as loudly as I can.
Oh, all right, Dott says aloud, making his carer frown confusion.
As you’ve asked nicely. Wake up, Billy! The show must go on.
Three.
Dear Julie
It shouldn’t happen like this but it has. A great but terrible realisation has come upon me and it’s taken me several days to be able to pick up my pen, let alone find the words to express how I’m feeling. But here goes. You need to be without me. I cannot support your decision to start a family with Billy Cardman. It is not right with anyone. But if I hold up my hands and accept defeat, it might be easier for all involved. Still, I need to know. Will he take care of Patrice? Please consider this question honestly. If you think the answer is yes, I will not so much walk away as stand still. It’s not as if I can move very far anyway. But I won’t interfere. I don’t think you should visit me again—and I don’t want to see Patrice either. It’s too painful. I cannot communicate with her and she cannot communicate with me. In this respect, she and I are like you and I. When she can talk—or better, when she can read—there will be a letter waiting for her. I haven’t written it yet; and even if I write it tomorrow, which I doubt I’ll be strong enough to do, I won’t send it yet. Why not? Because I can’t, and because. Cardman will destroy it, I think. Before you get angry, please don’t tell me I don’t know him. Please don’t proffer platitudes.
‘His heart’s in the right place.’ ‘He wouldn’t harm a fly.’ Both of those things are as may be. But I’ll ask you this: how much more intimate can you get than knife-craft?—than wounding? Believe me, Julie—an attack is a personal thing, even if the victim is random, as was the case with Cardman. I had nothing against him I do now, mind, but that’s my problem; he simply wouldn’t give me what I thought I had every right to claim. I think differently now, as you know. So what did I learn about him, by attacking him? I learned a brisk lesson about his stoicism and resolve. He resisted me; he resisted a knife. And now this: I can tell you that he’s strong- willed, opinionated, hurt and excited about his new adventure. He won’t want me to write to Patrice, any more than he’ll want you to come and see me. In his mind, you’re his now. And I know that you’ll hate a sentence like that, but it’s true. You will learn, very quickly, I think, about male pride and male jealousy. He will take care of you and our daughter, I hope. Only if he doesn’t will I return to your lives. Please pass this message to Billy. There really is nothing much to add. I have resigned my position as the Library Redband. I needed a change of scene, ho ho. With Christmas approaching, I wanted to begin the new year with a new job; and for once serendipity and bald good fortune were on my side. It was Ostrich who gave me the idea, but it was luck that made it happen. Ostrich—you’ve never met him, of course, but perhaps you feel you know him a little bit, seeing as I’ve talked about him often enough when you’ve come to visit and I had nothing of my own to tell you—well, he’s enrolled on the Mechanics course; and I thought—okay, I’ll try that. Unfortunately, Motor Mechs already has a Redband who’s good at his job. On the other hand, when I looked around a little more, I found out that the Bricks Workshop Redband has been transferred to another prison because of some gang connections on the out that are threatening to brew up a war inside. So the job was vacant. I applied. I am the Bricks Workshop Redband, starting on January 1 . Happy New Year! A new year and a new beginning: that’s the plan at least. All I fervently want to do, Julie, is to keep my cerebellum busy. Ride my time. It won’t be long before I’m released: this is what I endeavour to teach myself. And at the end of my time—what then? A dead five years. Five years of my transitional period between late teenage-hood and early adulthood—gone, all gone. Dust and breeze. Rain and filth. Five years of mould. So you’ll do me this favour, won’t you, Julie? Please don’t write back; and save your money on train fares or petrol—I don’t want to see you again. Not for a long, long time. Let me serve my sentence in peace. It’s a favour. And I’ll be sending a very similar letter to Mumsy, straight after this one. I am certain, if you ask her—if you really want her to—she will continue to support you with her granddaughter. Patrice is the only one she’ll have and mothers, I think, do not ever stop being mothers; they do not wish to cease caring. Irrespective of how she might moan from time to time, she will take Patrice in the pushchair—to the park, to the shop, to the doctor, to JobCentre Plus. If I may, allow me a second favour. Don’t cut Mumsy out of Patrice’s life. Please. Goodbye, Julie. In this spirit of utter candour, I will go a step further. Truthfully, I don’t know if I ever loved you; but I thought the world of you. I don’t know what love really means, but if I can convince you of anything, allow me to convince you of this: the photograph of you on Ealing High Street, by the bookshop—that photograph got me through many a tricky night. I would stare at it for hours sometimes. But I don’t anymore. And I don’t stare at the photo of you bathing Patrice in the kitchen sink either. I loved it then. I’m scared of it now. I’m scared of the outside world. People have told me that this might happen, even though I’ve still got a good chunk of my tariff left to ride. It’s my fault, Julie. It’s all my own fault. Don’t blame yourself. Kiss Patrice goodbye for me, would you?
