Purgatory Read online

  I’m also depressed because the Tory party seems to have broken out into civil war, with Margaret Thatcher saying it will be a disaster if Ken Clarke wins, and John Major declaring that if IDS becomes leader well be in Opposition for another decade.

  Six years so far.

  6.00 am

  I write for two hours.

  8.15 am

  After breakfast, Darren picks up my laundry, and warns me that the tumble dryer is still not functioning.

  9.00 am

  Banged up for another two hours because the staff are having their fortnightly training session in the gym. I’m told their activities range from first-aid lessons to self-defence (secure and protect), from checking through the latest Home Office regulations to any race relations problems, plus fire training, HIV reports and likely suicide candidates. One good thing about all this is that the tax payer is saved having to fund my pottery class (PS1.20).

  11.00 am

  I watch Nassar Hussain lose the toss for the fourteenth time in a row. I must ask Mary what the odds are against that

  I walk out into the exercise yard just before the gates are closed at five past eleven. Jimmy points to Mario (not his real name) who is walking a few paces ahead of us. I hope you can recall Mario’s scam. While working on the hotplate he stole almost all the cheese. He then made Welsh rarebit, at a phone-card for two, using an iron as the toaster. Mario was caught creaming off nearly half a million a year from his fashionable London restaurant without bothering to pay any tax on his windfall. Although I have never frequented Mario’s establishment, I know it by reputation. There can be no doubt of the restaurant’s success, because it was one of those rare places that do not accept credit cards - only cash or cheques.

  While we stroll round the yard - Mario’s not into power walking - he explains that approximately half of his income was in cash, the rest cheques or accounts. However, the taxman had no way of finding out what actual percentage was cash, until two tax inspectors visited the restaurant as diners. From careful observation they concluded that nearly half the customers were paying cash, whereas Mario’s tax return showed a mere 10 per cent settled the bill this way. But how could they prove it? The inspectors paid cash themselves and requested a receipt. What they couldn’t know was that Mario declared all the bills where the customer asked for a receipt, which he then entered in his books. Bills for which no receipts were given were destroyed and the cash then pocketed.

  The taxmen couldn’t become regular customers (their masters wouldn’t allow such an extravagance) and were therefore unable to prove any wrongdoing. That was until a young, newly qualified accountant joined the Inland Revenue and came up with an ingenious idea as to how to ensnare Mario. The fresh-faced youth found out which laundry the restaurant used and over the next three months had the tablecloths and napkins counted. There were 40 per cent more tablecloths than bills and 38 per cent more napkins than customers.

  Mario was arrested and charged with falsifying his accounts. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years. He will be returning to his restaurant later this year having, in answer to customers’ enquiries, taken a ‘sabbatical’ in his native Florence.

  They’ve got it all wrong, Jeffrey,’ Mario says. The likes of you and me shouldn’t be in jail mixing with all this riff-raff. They should have fined me a million pounds, not paid out thirty-five thousand to accommodate me for a year. My regulars are livid with the police, the courts and the Inland Revenue.’ His final words are, ‘By the way, Jeffrey, do you like buck rarebit?’

  12 noon

  Lunch. Among the many things Mario briefed me on was how to select the best daily dish from the weekly menu. You must only choose dishes that are made with fresh ingredients grown on the premises and not bought in. As from next week there will be variations from my usual vegetarian fare.

  2.00 pm

  I read the morning papers. Margaret and John have placed their cutlasses back in their sheaths and both have fallen silent - for the time being. The press are describing the leadership contest as the most acrimonious in living memory, and one from which the party may never recover. Reading this page a couple of years after the event will give us all the benefit of hindsight. Is it possible that the party that governed for the longest period of time during the twentieth century will not hold office in the twenty-first? Or will Tony Blair suddenly look fallible?

  3.15 pm

  Gym. It’s the over-fifties’ spinning session - nothing to do with politics. Don’t kid yourself - it’s agony. Forty-five minutes with an instructor shouting, ‘On the straight’, ‘Up the slope’, Hill climbing’, Taster, faster. I fall off the bike at four o’clock and Darren almost carries me back to my cell.

  5.30 pm

  Australia are 208 for 1 and looking as if they could score 700. I leave the cricket to get some loo paper from the store. This must be collected between 8.15-8.30 am or 5.30-6.00 pm; one roll per person, per week. As I come out of the store room, I notice my name is chalked up on the blackboard to see the SO. I go straight to Mr Meanwell’s office. He has several registered letters for me, including one from some ladies in Northampton, who have sent me a lavender cake.

  ‘I’m afraid you’re not allowed to have it until you move prisons or have completed your sentence,’ Mr Meanwell explains.

  ‘Why not?’ I ask.

  ‘It could be laced with alcohol or drugs,’ he tells me.

  As I leave the SO’s office, I spot a new prisoner with his right arm in a sling. I go over to have a chat: injuries usually mean stories. Was he in a fight? Was he hit by a prison officer? Did he fall or was he pushed? It turns out to be an attempted suicide. He shows me his wrist which displays three long, jagged scars forming a triangle which have been sewn up like a rough tear in a Turkish carpet. I stare for about a second at the crude, mauve scars before I have to turn away. Later, I’m relieved to discover that Jimmy reacted in the same way, though he tells me that if you really want to kill yourself, you don’t cut across the artery. ‘You only do that when you’re looking for sympathy,’ he adds, ‘because the screws will always get there in time. But one long slash up the arm will sever the artery, and youH die long before they can reach you.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ I say, ‘that’s some cry for help.’ ‘Yes, his father had a heart attack last week, and he’s just arrived back from the funeral.’

  ‘How many suicides have there been at Wayland while you’ve been here?’ I ask Jimmy.

  There was one about six weeks ago,’ he replies. ‘You’ll always know when one takes place because we’re banged up for the rest of the day. No one is allowed to leave their cell until the body has been removed from the prison. Then an initial report has to be written, and because so many officers become involved, including the governor, it never takes less than three hours. This prison’s pretty good,’ he adds. ‘We only get about one suicide a year. In Norwich, where I began my sentence, it was far higher, more like one a month. We even had a prisoner sitting up on the roof with a noose round his neck, saying he’d jump unless the governor dealt with his complaint.’

  ‘Did he jump?’

  ‘No, they gave in and agreed to let him attend his mother’s funeral.’

  ‘But why didn’t they agree to that in the first place?’

  ‘Because last time they let him out, he flattened a screw with one punch and tried to escape.’

  ‘So the governor gave in?’

  ‘No, the governor refused to see him, but he did allow the prisoner to attend the funeral, double-cuffed.’

  ‘Double-cuffed?’

  ‘First they cross the prisoner’s wrists before handcuffing him. Then they handcuff him to two officers with two separate pairs of handcuffs, one on either side.’

  Thank God they didn’t do that to me when I attended my mother’s funeral.

  It’s an irony that an hour later, when going through my mail, I find a razor-blade paper attached to the top of one of my letters, with the message ‘Just in ca
se you’ve had enough.’ The blade itself had been removed by an officer.

  6.00 pm

  Exercise. Shaun (forgery) has begun to work on an outline drawing of the montage. His first model is Dale (wounding with intent), who is standing on the grass in the sun, arms folded - not a natural model (see plate section). Dale scowls as we pass him, while a few of the other prisoners shout obscenities.

  8.00 pm

  Nothing worth watching on television, so I finish Graham Greene’s The Man Within.

  10.00 pm

  I remove the newly washed clothes from all over my bed, where I had laid them out to dry. They are still wet so I hang them from every other available space - cupboard doors, the sink, my chair, even the curtain rail.

  I fall asleep, still worrying about the KPMG report and how long it will take for the police to agree that there is no case to answer. By the time you read this, Wayland will be a thing of the past. But for now, it remains purgatory.

  DAY 37 - FRIDAY 24 AUGUST 2001

  6.08 am

  I draw my newly acquired curtains to allow the rising sun to enter my cell. I discovered during exercise yesterday evening that they used to belong to Dennis (VAT fraud). No one knows how much of the 17.5 per cent he retained for himself, but as he was sentenced to six years, we have to assume it was several millions.

  Dennis applied for parole after two and a half years, having been a model prisoner. He heard nothing, so assumed that his request had been turned down. Yesterday, at 8 am, they opened his cell door and told him to pack his belongings. He was being released within the hour. The order had come from the Home Office the week before but, as his probation officer was on leave, no message had got through. Dennis had to borrow a phonecard - against prison regulations - to ask his wife to come and pick him up. He caught her just as she was leaving for work, otherwise he would have been standing outside the gates all day. That is how I inherited the fine net curtains which now adorn my cell, and when I leave they will be passed on to the new resident. I just hope I’m given a little more notice.

  Jimmy was also let out yesterday, but only for the day. He has just a few weeks left to serve before his release date, so they allow him out once a month on a town visit, from 9 am to 3 pm. This is part of the rehabilitation programme for any D-cat prisoner. Jimmy has been a D-cat, but resident in a C-cat prison, for over three months. He doesn’t want to move to an open prison because he’s coming to the end of his sentence and his family lives locally.

  Yesterday Jimmy visited Dereham. He was accompanied by an officer who, for reasons that will become clear, I shall not name. At lunchtime the officer gave Jimmy a fiver to buy them both some fish and chips (Dereham prices) while he went to the bank to cash a cheque. Jimmy collected the fish and chips, strolled over to the National Westminster and waited outside for the officer. When he didn’t appear, Jimmy began lunch without him. After the last chip had been devoured, Jimmy began to worry about what had happened to his guard. He went into the bank, but couldn’t see him, so ran out and quickly headed towards Lloyds TSB, a hundred yards away. As he turned the corner, he saw the officer running down the street towards him, an anxious look on his face. The two men fell into each other’s arms laughing; Jimmy didn’t want to be accused of trying to escape only six weeks before his release date, and the officer would have been sacked for giving a prisoner money to assist in that escape. Jimmy told me later that he’s never seen a more relieved man in his life.

  ‘Where are my fish and chips?’ demanded the officer, once he had recovered.

  ‘I had to eat them, guv,’ Jimmy explained, ‘otherwise yours would have gone cold.’ He handed over fifty pence change.

  8.00 am

  After breakfast I go in search of Stan (embezzler, PS21,000, eighteen months), the spur painter. I ask him if he’d be kind enough to come and look at my cell and see if he can recommend any way of brightening it up. I tell him I hate the white door and the black square around the basin and the black floor skirting.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he says, ‘but I can’t promise much. We only get colours that have been discontinued, or the ones no one else wants.’

  9.00 am

  Pottery. I fear this enterprise has proved to be a mistake. I simply don’t have any talent with clay. I’m going to ask Wendy if I can be transferred to the library or education. The Sun told its readers yesterday that I had applied to take Dennis’s (of curtain fame) job in the library. I didn’t even know he worked in the library, but now the Sun has put the idea in my head, I’ll ask Steve (conspiring to murder, head librarian) if there’s a vacancy. Meanwhile I go off to pottery and waste two hours talking to Shaun (forgery). To be fair, it wasn’t a complete waste of time because he brought me up to date on his progress with the book cover and the montage of prisoners (see plate section). I also discover more about his crime.

  What I hadn’t appreciated was that the forged John Lewis gift vouchers were not used simply to purchase articles from the store. Oh, no, Shaun is far brighter than that. He discovered that if you buy an item and present your gift voucher, the assistant will hand back the change in cash. Shaun also found out that if you purchase something for PS1,000 (and he saw Chris Eubank buying a television with genuine vouchers) and return the item an hour later, they don’t reimburse you with vouchers. Once again, they hand over cash.

  Armed with this information, Shaun acquired a map of England (kindly supplied by a helpful assistant) showing every John Lewis outlet in the country. He then began to travel the land, cashing vouchers in each town he passed through. He was finally caught when his co-conspirator panicked, went to the police and grassed on him (Shaun’s words).

  I wonder what Shaun will turn his mind to once he’s released. I only mention this because when the conversation changed to the clash between Ken Clarke and Iain Duncan Smith, Shaun added a piece of knowledge to the euro debate which neither of the candidates seems to have grasped.

  ‘Have you ever seen a euro note?’ Shaun asked.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ I admitted.

  It’s Monopoly money and will be quite easy to reproduce. From 1 January it will be legal tender in seventeen countries across Europe, and I’ll bet most of the shops don’t have any way of identifying a fake. Someone’s going to make a fortune.’

  I recall that Shaun has only three more weeks of his sentence to serve.

  11.15 am

  I return to my cell and find I have a beige door, a neat blue square around my basin and cream skirting. I go in search of Stan, and present him with a phonecard - value: PS2; worth: inestimable.

  11.30 am

  I call Paula (Alison is on holiday) and discover to my great relief that the last ten days’ text of this script have arrived. It doesn’t bear thinking about having to rewrite those 30,000 words. You may well ask why I didn’t make a copy. Because there isn’t a copier available. Then why don’t I hand the papers over to my wife after a visit? Because it’s against the regulations. My only chance is to rely on the Post Office, and it hasn’t let me down yet.

  12 noon

  Lunch. I mournfully watch the test match while eating my vegetable soup. Australia are piling on the runs at a rate of four an over.

  3.00 pm

  Exercise. Jimmy is chatting about his girlfriends, and don’t forget this is a man who had three women come to see him at his last visit. At some time, he tells me, he’s slept with all three of them - not at the same time, he’s not kinky, just healthy - and what’s more they didn’t leave scratching each other’s eyes out. Nevertheless, this brings me on to a taboo subject I haven’t yet mentioned: sex or the lack of it - unless you are a homosexual. Darren reminds us that in Sweden and Holland they allow conjugal visits, which I can’t see happening in this country for many years. The current solution is to put a notice on the message board (see opposite) and hope the problem will go away. It will be interesting to see which comes first: the legalization of cannabis or conjugal visits.

  OFFENSIVE AND
OBSCENE MATERIAL STATEMENT OF POLICY

  1. At HMP Wayland we feel that it is important that we provide an environment within which visitors, staff and prisoners are able to work and visit without being caused offence by the display of any material.

  2. Our aim is to ensure that the dignity of all staff, visitors and prisoners is respected. It is the duty of all staff to help to ensure that our environment remains free from the display of potentially offensive material.

  3. Therefore the public display of any material that is potentially offensive will not be permitted in any part of the Prison.

  TYPES OF MATERIAL THAT WILL BE RESTRICTED:

  4. Any sexually explicit material, eg magazines of a pornographic nature which are available from newsagents, will be allowed in possession but must not be on display.

  5. ‘Page 3’ type pictures can be placed on prisoners’ noticeboards, but pictures showing full nudity cannot. Photographs, artwork and other material may be displayed on noticeboards providing it conforms to the criteria outlined above.