‘You’re a brave man, drinking that much. You kids crack me up.’
He passed me a pack of two toilet rolls.
‘Here, I should say you’ll be needing them.’
I crept out of his cell in a crouching style that, even in my frightened state, made me think of the Pink Panther. My back hugged the wall, knowing if anyone touched me the fallout would be nuclear. I almost wept when I got to my cell with my honour intact.
I stood in front of the throne and yanked my trousers and pants down in a swift move and sat down. The propulsion behind the emission was so powerful it actually raised me up and I shouted, ‘Argghhhhh.’ The toilet rolls were needed.
The next day I looked decidedly ropey. I’d had little sleep and had to ask the nurse for cream for my exhausted rear end. The guy in the queue next to me queried my haunted features.
‘You look rough, mate.’
‘I was in Lenny’s cell yesterday afternoon.’
Once he’d stopped laughing and wiped his face, which took nearly a minute, he explained.
‘That mischievous old git still up to his tricks, I see.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘His hooch really works, but there’s a harsh price to pay for being tipsy. He’s always giving it to people he doesn’t know. One guy shit himself in the visits’ hall last month. Those who know Pew, and most do, won’t touch it.’
‘What’s he in for?’
‘You’d imagine something harmless, wouldn’t you? He killed two kids about fifty years ago. I’m not sure of the details, I think they were sixteen or thereabouts. He got life with a minimum of thirty-five years. Did he get you to read the letter he just received?’
‘Yes, from Louisa.’
‘Louisa was a pen pal who wrote to him for years. She died the day before he got out. That letter’s fifteen years old. I read it to him a few years back. He went mad when he was released after waiting all that time. He couldn’t handle the conditions of his licence and the police picked him up near a school, so he got recalled to prison. If you’re a lifer, you then have to prove you’re fit to leave again.
‘He did get out five years later but still couldn’t handle it. He’s been here ever since. I suspect he’s gone crazy now. I don’t think he knows she’s dead, or if he does, he just likes the company. So, we humour him and take it in turns to read the letter.
‘Only the new arrivals drink the hooch though, and then only once.’
Chapter 42
2014 – Age 48
I accepted that I was there for another three years and made the most of it. The gym was the first port of call. Most people imagine prison gym as a bunch of shaven-headed ogres chucking weights around. I was in a sex offenders jail so it was considerably different.
There were a lot of old men for a start, trying to battle the advance of osteoarthritis and Alzheimer’s. There was the odd muscle-bound individual like Kilkenny but the rest were often kids with no idea. I used to enjoy looking at them as they returned to the wing - walking funny and all pumped up, despite their sloppy form and lack of progress.
I just got down to it. Focus on the weight and repetitions and you could forget, for at least a while, where you were. When you’re young, you exercise with vigour and enthusiasm, thinking you will look like body builders, even though you won’t. When you’re old, life has taught you differently, so what you’re really aiming for is damage limitation. So you don’t look too bad. That’s not as motivational. Still, I stuck with it and found some peace as my body grew and strengthened.
As with all parts of prison life, there was violence. The worst beating I saw was for an old pervert who didn’t go to do any exercise at all but was always having a shower when the gym posse returned. They would rush in to get clean in the final few minutes before being locked in for the night.
He’d be there. Slow eyes on young bodies. Most prisoners lack common sense but many aren’t stupid. I could still smell blood in the communal showers the next day.
Frank was dating again. New girlfriend, same slurred problems. The last time I rang him, I could hear the shouting in the background.
‘What the hell is that racket?’
‘It’s Lynsey.’
‘Is she on fire?’
‘Very funny. She saw an email from an old friend and thinks I’m cheating on her.’
‘Are you?’
‘No. Not yet anyway. I’ve made a bit of a mistake moving in with her and I am not looking forward to the leaving conversation.’
‘Have you got another nutter on your hands?’
‘Do you know what, Vinnie? She was fine, it’s me that’s messed her up. I seem to get bored and give up. That slowly drives them to dark places. I’m comparing all relationships to Mum and Dad’s, even though I now think theirs was twisted.’
He stopped talking as the shouting came closer. There seemed to be some kind of tussle with the phone, followed by more bad language. Obviously I had time to spare, so I waited.
He’d moved to Hertfordshire with her. I couldn’t remember where. Things like that weren’t important to a man like me. I wouldn’t be going there or meeting her, so the information flowed in and out.
We all said that. Our own weird bubble was all we knew. I doubted they’d be together when I got out anyway. One of the nasty parts about being a sex offender is you usually don’t get to leave and go where you like at the end of your sentence. You are likely to have to live in an approved premises first where you have to prove again that you aren’t a danger. Like a hotel for ‘wrong’uns,’ with more hoops to jump through.
When he finally picked the phone back up, he was breathing hard.
‘So, how’s prison?’
‘Frank, can’t you try harder? Be nice to her?’
‘Sure, Vinnie. I’ll try. Just sometimes I wonder if there’s something rotten running through our family.’
That wasn’t a convincing committal. He had more news to tell me though. Some of a delicate nature.
‘Vinnie, that girl who said those things about you is in prison.’
‘Really, what for?’
‘A range of stuff, shoplifting mostly. Reading between the lines she was a prostitute too.’
The words didn’t seem real. It was hard to attach them to the quiet girl who changed our lives. I knew I would feel desperately sad when I had time to process the facts. She can’t have been more than twenty. I refused to think who was to blame.
‘I’m going to the gym now. Three times a week, sometimes more. Enhanced prisoners can go more or less when they like.’
Frank didn’t care I’d changed the subject.
‘That’s a good idea. Keep your mind busy?’
‘I’ve volunteered to be a ‘Listener’ too.’
‘What’s a Listener?’
‘The Listener scheme is a peer support service which aims to reduce suicide and self-harm in prisons. Samaritan volunteers select, train and support prisoners to become Listeners. Listeners provide confidential emotional support to their fellow inmates who are struggling to cope.’
‘What does all that guff mean?’
‘I’m not sure, I just read it off a leaflet to you. The general idea is that when the prisoners want to speak to someone, they call a Listener.’
‘’Don’t you need training?’
‘They give you some beforehand. It’s not about giving advice, it’s about being there in a non-judgemental way.’
‘So, you have to listen to other people have a moan. What do you get out of it?’
‘The ability to help others. It’s lonely here. The nights can last for years when you only have your mistakes for company.’
‘Yes, very poetic. Sounds to me that they need to man up, not sob to you.’
‘I knew you’d understand.’
If you haven’t been to prison, it’s hard to get your head round the feeling of worthlessness. You drag dark emotions round like a contagious cold, infecting those you come into contact w
ith. The opportunity to do something positive, for yourself and others, is tempting.
Frank, of all people, wouldn’t get that. As those thoughts entered my mind, I remembered all the years that Frank had been at my side. After everything. We rarely know ourselves, so it’s only natural that even close family can be a mystery but I couldn’t say that he was a bad person.
I changed the subject again.
‘Do you recall much about when we were young?’
His pause was too short as if he was expecting the question. Surely, it’s a yes or no answer.
‘Some.’
‘I remember nothing before the accident. That’s not normal. I was nearly seven years old then.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘No, I have strange dreams, almost like flashbacks.’
‘Like what?'
‘There was one where there are kids on a slide and one won’t let the other off. We’re there. Did that happen?’
This time the pause is long. The response measured.
‘There was an incident, not long before your accident. You were on a slide and I was waiting. A kid couldn’t get off. Another boy was bullying him, making him stay up there. It wasn’t until he had been up there ages and he’d pissed himself that he was let down. That’s a strange thing to remember. Anything else?’
As I spoke again, the sounds of female shouting came back and this time the phone went dead. I poured myself a cup of tea in my cell, put my feet up to watch the news, and wondered if things could be worse even if you were free.
Chapter 43
They accepted me on the Listener program and I received my training. I was buoyed by my successes and became upbeat. Another con noticed and took me down a peg or two. “You only begin to enjoy it here when you’ve forgotten what the other options are.” I suspect the few moments before that conversation were the zenith of my prison career as gradually, almost imperceptibly, it began to go wrong.
The way it worked in our jail was if someone requested a Listener, the prison staff would come to your cell and ask you to do it. If it was after bang-up then they escorted you past all the closed doors. I don’t know why but I enjoyed that part of it. Maybe thinking I was better than the rest. It was strange to imagine each box containing a damaged life.
The first few times, I went with an experienced Listener and just listened myself. I’m not opinionated so I found it simple. The idea is that you ask open questions, like how did that make you feel, what could you have done differently, or just say nothing. Many wanted to rant and rage, or sob and cry, without any interaction or help. They just didn’t want to do it alone.
It sounds easy but for some it’s impossible. A few blokes on my course couldn’t stop giving their views. Wife’s cheating on you; then leave her. Son’s a junkie; chuck him out and cut him loose. Someone has mugged you off; fuck that, I don’t take shit from anyone.
Their lack of self-awareness was amusing. No doubt their forthright nature was one of the main reasons they had been removed from society in the first place. Even if you wanted to receive advice, it would be best not to get it from men like them.
All my accompanied calls were pretty simple prison stuff. Thoughts of self-harm or suicide abounded, and it was astounding to think having another human being there to listen to their problems was often enough to help those feelings pass. It was a sex offenders’ wing so many didn’t want to mention their crimes, which was fine by me.
One guy just cried and cried, for about an hour. At the end, he stood up, wiped his eyes and shook my hands the way a vicar does as you leave church. I saw him in reception a few weeks after where he gave me a warm smile and said, “Thank you.” I later found out he had been selling naked pictures of his children on the internet.
I began to have my doubts about the role. That man had seemed remarkably normal - pleasant even. I sat and thought about what he had done and the pity drained from me like tears from the newly bereaved. As I did the job longer, inmates opened up. They gave me presents afterwards, a radio once, and I became a somebody. Even something in nothing is progress.
However, the things I heard would melt stone. Horrific, sick, desperate crimes, committed against the vulnerable and unwary. I knew for certain there were sicker men than me in this world and I helped them all. I also understood the contempt people like us received. We were all the same. Just one big disgusting danger to society.
The staff recognised my skills and would use me regularly in the hope of avoiding an incident. I feared for my soul as it was fed graphic details of the worst that one human can do to another. I wilted. Sometimes officers would regard me with strange looks as I left another quiet man. What had I become? But it was curiosity, not sympathy. The trust bestowed in me made me feel normal but I wasn’t.
The final listens I did were severe. I was going back to HMP Peterborough for accumulated visits. My brother hadn’t answered his phone for a few weeks, but Silent Kevin said they had agreed to come together again. On my last evening before the move they woke me at three a.m. A man was repeatedly smashing his head against the cell door whenever he was left alone. If I couldn’t calm him, he would need to be sedated.
‘What have I done, what have I done?’
‘Perhaps you could tell me.’
I gave him a smile, even though his forehead seeped blood onto his screwed-up face. He had pulled off any kind of bandage they had tried to cover him with.
‘We were happy. I didn’t understand why she needed space. I went to see her and I don’t know what came over me. I had to have her one more time.’
A familiar need behind these wire fences.
‘It’s a blur, really. I wasn’t sure who was most surprised.’
Trust me, it was her.
‘She began to scream. I panicked.’
Then, you did the unthinkable.
I left him sobbing but quietened. Was there a large part of me that wanted to tell him he was insignificant - that he had no value? Shout at him that he was less than nothing as he had done something that could never be undone?
There was, but we all have a job to do and I did mine. They taught me that no one is all bad. Everyone has qualities to offer the world, whatever they may have done. A smile, in a place like this, is a powerful thing.
The officers looked at me in awe as they escorted me to my cell. They were relaxed though because it was such a regular occurrence. “Sleep well,” they said as my door locked. I couldn’t, in fact, hadn’t been doing for quite some time. That was how I would be remembered; like him.
I wished I could have talked to Kirsty. Ask her why she said those things. I should have gone to court because I might as well have got twenty years as opposed to eighteen. If I had seen and heard her, I would have known if those terrible events ever occurred. I remember telling her to keep our friendship between us. Secrets - what I now understand to be the currency of paedophiles.
I’d made a matchstick ashtray over many painstaking hours. I grabbed it and crushed it. There was an instant release of satisfaction and joy, but then sorrow straight after. A thing of beauty destroyed with one careless uncontrolled emotion.
Maybe that’s how it was with these criminals. They understood evil urges were in their DNA and knew they should never let their inner desires see the light. Yet they surfaced, as the urge was too strong, too powerful for them to deny what was ultimately who they were.
Then, it’s too late. Lives are ruined, people are dead, prisons are full.
The radio was my saviour through those quiet hours when I contemplated my existence. I flicked it on that depressing morning, and the past became present.
‘It’s just gone four a.m. on Isle of Wight Radio, so here’s a little number with a little culture. It’s “Vincent”, by Don McLean.’
“Starry, starry night.”
The song went on and on. My happiness depleting with each word.
“You took your life, as lovers often do.”
I’ve had long nights
in prison. That was an eon. Sara had been far from my thoughts and then, with a song that I didn’t even know was sad, I was leaving on that bus again.
I wondered how her life panned out. If she was happy, single, healthy, or maybe a parent. I allowed myself a few minutes of imagining, perhaps hoping, she thought of me. I remembered her saying I made her think of this this song. Mad that I never heard it until now, nearly thirty years later. Why didn’t I look it up, perhaps I didn’t care?
I believe that getting old is when the memories of your youth fade so you aren’t sure what’s real and what isn’t. That’s why you should stay in touch with the friends you had when you were young and keep on good terms with family. Even if that means biting down on your concerns.
Reminisce, it’s free and is one of life’s greatest gifts. Memories ground you so your future can fly. The torture of prison is wishing you were elsewhere, and that’s what brought me down.
Over the next few months, something already damaged in me finally broke.
Chapter 44
2015 – Age 49
The scary thing about returning to my home town’s prison was that it felt like nothing had changed. The staff were mostly the same and so were the clientele. As I sat in the waiting room in reception, I saw the boy from next door to our flat, Ben, walk past.
If you are on the VP (Vulnerable Persons) wing they keep you separate from mainstream prisoners. That’s where the term nonce comes from - Not On Normal Courtyard Exercise. Ben wasn’t in uniform so he must have been an inmate too. I looked down, ashamed, as he stared in my direction.
As I was escorted to the house blocks, I also saw that idiot Jake - the one who threw the golf ball through my window all those years ago. People needed protecting from him but I felt sorry for Ben. He had little chance with his booze-hound parents, and with friends such as Jake, it was almost inevitable he would end up in a place like this.
The staff were well pleased when they found out I was now a Listener. Worryingly, their previous one had attempted to kill himself a few weeks before he got out. I tried not to think too much of the implications of that.
Fifty Years of Fear Page 16
