A Prison Diary Purgatory (2003) Read online

  10.00 am

  I call Chris Beetles at his gallery. It’s the opening of his Cat Show, - these ones are in frames not cages - so I don’t waste a lot of his time, and promise I’ll call him back on Monday.

  On my way back to the cell I pass Darren in the corridor and stop to ask him about Sergio, whose cell is three doors away from his.

  ‘A real gentleman,’ says Darren. ‘Keeps himself to himself. In fact I don’t know much more about him now than I did when he arrived at Wayland a year ago. He’s a Colombian, but he’s one of the few prisoners who never touches drugs. He doesn’t even smoke. You’ll like him.’

  10.30 am

  When I arrive at Sergio’s cell he checks his watch as if he assumed I’d be on time. If the Archer theory is correct - namely that you can tell everything you need to know about a prisoner from his cell - then Sergio is a neat and tidy man who likes everything in its place. He offers me his chair, while he sits on the bed. His English is good, although not fluent, and it quickly becomes clear that he has no idea who I am, which helps considerably.

  When I tell him I’m a writer, he looks interested. I promise to have one of my books (Spanish translation) sent in. An hour passes before he tells me anything about himself. He makes it clear, as if he wants the world to know, that Colombians fall into two categories: those who are involved in drugs and those who are not. He and his family come into the latter group, and he seems genuinely pleased when I tell him that I have an aversion to drugs that is bordering on the manic.

  His family, he tells me, have no idea he’s in jail. In fact his weekly call to Bogota accounts for almost his entire income. He’s divorced with no children, so the only people he has to fool are his brother, his sister and his parents. They believe he has a responsible job with an import/export company in London. He will return to Bogota in five weeks’ time. There is no need for him to purchase a plane ticket, as he will be deported. Were he ever to return to Britain, he would immediately be arrested, put back in jail, and would remain locked up until he had completed the other half of his eight-year sentence. He has no plans to come back, he tells me.

  The conversation drifts from subject to subject, to see if we can find anything of mutual interest. He has a great knowledge of emeralds, coffee and bananas - three subjects of which I know virtually nothing, other than their colour. It’s then I spot a photograph of him with, he tells me, his mother and sister. A huge smile comes over my face as he removes the picture from the shelf to allow me a closer look.

  ‘Is that a Botero?’ I ask, squinting at the painting behind his mother. He cannot hide his surprise that I should ever have heard of the maestro.

  ‘Yes it is,’ he says. ‘My mother is a friend of Botero.’

  I almost leap in the air, as I have long dreamed of adding a Botero to my art collection in London or my sculpture collection in Grantchester. In fact Chris Beetles and I travelled to Calabria two years ago to visit the great man at his foundry. Sergio quickly reveals that he knows a considerable amount about Latin American art, and names several other artists including Manzu, Rivera and Betancourt. He has met Botero, and his family are friends of Manzu. I tell him I would love to own one of their works, but both artists are way out of my price range, particularly Botero, who is considered to be the Picasso of South America. The French think so highly of him that they once held an exhibition of his sculptures along the Champs-Elysees; the first time a foreigner has been so honoured.

  ‘It’s just possible I could find one of his works at a price you could afford.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ I ask.

  Sergio then explains to me at great length what he calls the ‘Colombian mentality’.

  ‘To start with, you have to accept that my countrymen only want to deal in cash. They do not trust banks, and do not believe in cheques, which is why they regularly alternate between being rich and penniless. When they are wealthy, they buy everything in sight - jewellery, yachts, cars, houses, paintings, women, anything; when they are poor they sell everything, and the women leave them. But Colombians have no fear of selling,’ he continues, ‘because they always believe that they will be rich again… tomorrow, when they will buy back everything, even the women. I know a trader in Bogota,’ he continues, ‘who bought a Botero for a million dollars, and five years later sold it for two hundred thousand cash. Give me time and I’ll come up with a Botero at the right price,’ he pauses, ‘but I would expect something in return.’

  Am I about to find out if Sergio is a con artist, or as Darren suggested, ‘a real gentleman’?

  ‘I have a problem,’ he adds. ‘I have been in jail for four years, and when I finish half my sentence I will be deported.’ I’m trying to write notes as he speaks. ‘I will be put on a plane without any presents for my three nephews and niece.’ I don’t interrupt. Would it be possible for you to get me three Manchester United shirts for the nephews - seven, ten and eleven years old - and a Lion King outfit for my eight-year-old niece?’

  ‘Anything else?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, I need a suitcase, because all I have is a HMP Wayland plastic bag, and,’ he hesitates, ‘I also need twenty pounds in phonecards so I can call Bogota and not worry about being cut off’

  ‘Is that it?’

  He hesitates once more. ‘I would like one hundred pounds put in my prison account so I can pick up one or two things for my family at the airport. I don’t want them to wonder why I don’t have any presents for them.’

  I consider his requests. For risk capital investment of around PS200 I would have an outside chance of owning a Botero I can afford. I nod to show that I agree to his terms.

  ‘If you do this for me’ he adds, ‘I will tell you more. In fact I have already told you more in an hour than I have any other prisoner in four years.’ He then writes down the name and address of a contact in London and says, ‘Give her the suitcase, the T-shirts and the one hundred pounds, and she will send them on to me at Wayland. That way you won’t be involved.’

  11.44 am

  I phone a friend who used to work in the T-shirt business, and pass on the order for Manchester United T-shirts and a Lion King outfit. He sounds intrigued, but doesn’t ask any questions. I then call my driver at home and explain that the items are to be delivered to a flat in north London, along with PS100 in cash. ‘Consider it done’ he says.

  11.51 am

  I cross the corridor to Dale’s room and tell him I need twenty pounds’ worth of phonecards.

  ‘Just like that, my lord?’

  ‘Just like that’ I reply. ‘Put it on my account and I’ll have the money sent through to you.’

  He opens a drawer and removes ten PS2 cards and passes them across. ‘You’ve wiped me out’ he says.

  ‘Then get back to work, because I have a feeling I’m going to need even more next week.’

  ‘Why? Are you calling America?’

  ‘Right idea. Wrong continent’

  I leave Dale and return to Sergio’s room. I hand over the ten phonecards and tell him that the other items will all have been delivered by this time tomorrow. He looks astonished.

  ‘How fortunate that you are sent to this jail, just as I am leaving.’

  I confess that I hadn’t seen it quite that way, and remind him that we have a deal.

  ‘One Botero, at a price you can afford, within a year,’ he confirms. ‘You’ll have it by Christmas.’

  When I leave him to return to my cell, I remember just how much I miss dealing, whether it’s for PS200 or PS2 million. I once watched Jimmy Goldsmith bargaining for a backgammon board with a street trader in Mexico. It took him all of forty minutes, and he must have saved every penny of PS10, but he just couldn’t resist it.

  12 noon

  Lunch. I devour a plate of Princes ham (49p) surrounded by prison beans while I watch England avoid the follow on.

  2.00 pm

  I head for the library - closed, followed by the gym - cancelled. So I’ll have to settle for a
forty-five-minute walk around the exercise yard.

  3.00 pm

  The man who was sketching the portrait of another prisoner yesterday is waiting for me as Darren, Jimmy and I walk out into the yard. He introduces himself as Shaun, but tells me that most inmates call him Sketch. I explain that I want a portrait of Dale (wounding with intent), Darren (marijuana only), Jimmy (Ecstasy courier), Steve (conspiracy to murder) and Jules (drug dealing) for the diary; a sort of montage. He looks excited by the commission, but warns me that he’ll have to get on with it as he’s due to be released in three weeks’ time.

  ‘Any hope of some colour?’ I ask.

  ‘Follow me,’ he says. We troop across rough grass littered with rubbish and uneaten food to end up outside a cell window on the ground floor of C wing. I stare through the bars at paintings that cover almost all his wall space. There’s even a couple on the bed. I’m left in no doubt that he’s the right man for the job.

  ‘How about a picture of the prison?’ he suggests.

  ‘Yes,’ I tell him, ‘especially if it’s from your window, because I have an almost identical view two blocks over.’ (See plate section.)

  I then ask him how he would like to be paid. Shaun suggests that as he is leaving soon, it may be easier to send a cheque directly to his home, so his girlfriend can bank it. He says he’d like to think about a price overnight and discuss it with me during exercise tomorrow; I’m not allowed to visit his cell as he resides on another block so we can only talk through his barred window.

  5.00 pm

  Supper: vegetable stir-fry and a mug of Volvic.

  I’ve negotiated two art deals today, so I feel a little better. Because the library was closed and I have finished The Glass Bead Game, I have nothing new to read until it opens again tomorrow. I spend the rest of the evening writing about Sergio.

  DAY 32 - SUNDAY 19 AUGUST 2001

  ‘talisman of my existence. I seem to be the only thing that doesn’t move.’

  When I reach the hotplate Dale gives a curt nod, a sign he needs to see me; Sergio also nods. I leave the hotplate empty-handed, bar a slice of toast and two appointments. I return to my cell and eat a bowl of my cornflakes with my milk.

  5.59 am

  First peaceful night in weeks. Yesterday I visited the three prisoners with noisy stereos and the two inmates who go on shouting at each other all through the night. But not before I had been asked to do so by several other prisoners on the spur. I got two surprises: firstly, no one was willing to accompany me - they were all happy to point out which cells they were in, but no more than that. The second surprise was that all of the transgressors, without exception, responded favourably to my courteous request with either, ‘Not me, gov,’ or, ‘Sorry, Jeff, I’ll turn it down,’ and in one case. ‘I’ll turn it off at nine, Jeff.’ Interesting.

  8.15 am

  Breakfast. A prisoner in the queue for the hotplate asks me if I’m moving cells today.

  ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘What makes you think that?’

  The name card outside your cell has disappeared, always the first sign that you’re on the move.’

  I laugh, and explain, ‘It’s been removed every day - a sort of’

  9.15 am

  Gym. The treadmill is not working again, so I start with the rower and manage 1,956 metres in ten minutes. I would have done better if I hadn’t started chatting to the inmate on the next rower. All across his back is tattooed the word MONSTER, though, in truth, he’s softly spoken and, whenever I’ve come across him in the corridor, friendly. I ask what his real name is.

  ‘Martin,’ he whispers, ‘but only my mother calls me that. Everyone else calls me Monster.’ He’s managed 2,470 metres in ten minutes despite chatting to me.

  He tells me that in January, when he arrived at Wayland, he weighed seventeen and a half stone. He is a taxi driver from Essex and admits that it was easy to put on weight in that job. Now he tips the scales at thirteen stone five pounds, and his girlfriend has to visit him every two weeks just to make sure that she’ll still recognize him when he’s released. He was sen-tenced to three years for transporting cannabis from one Ilford club to another.

  About a third of the men in this prison have been convicted of some crime connected with cannabis, and most of them will say, I repeat say, that they would never deal in hard drugs. In fact, Darren goes further and, snarling, adds that he would try to dissuade anyone who did. If cannabis were to be legalized - and for most of the well-rehearsed reasons, I remain unconvinced that it should - the price would fall by around 70 per cent, tax revenues would be enormous and prison numbers would drop overnight.

  Many young prisoners complain, ‘It’s your lot who are smoking the stuff, Jeff. In ten years’ time it won’t even be considered a crime.’ Jimmy admits that he couldn’t meet the demand from his customers, and that he certainly never needed to do any pushing. Darren adds that although he and Jimmy covered roughly the same territory in Ipswich they hadn’t come across each other until they ended up in jail, which will give you an idea of just how large the market is.

  Just in case you’ve forgotten, I’m still in the gym. Monster leaves me to join Darren and Jimmy on the bench press, where he manages to pump ten reps of 250 pounds. I also turn to the weights where I achieve ten curls at 50 pounds. This is followed by a spell on the bicycle, where I break the world record by peddling three miles in twelve minutes and fifty-four seconds. Pity it’s the world record for running.

  Mr Maiden, the senior gym instructor, reintroduces me to the medicine ball, which I haven’t come in contact with since I left school. I place the large leather object behind my head, raise my shoulders as in an ordinary sit-up, and then pass it up to him. He then drops it back on top of me. Simple, I think, until I reach my fifth attempt, by which time I’m exhausted and Mr Maiden is unable to hide his mirth at my discomfort. He knows only too well that I haven’t done this exercise for over forty years, and what the result would be.

  ‘We’ll have you doing three sets of fifteen with a minute interval between sets before you’re released,’ he promises.

  ‘I hope not,’ I tell him, without explanation. I then carry out a fifteen-minute warm down and stretching as my trainer in London (Karen) would have demanded. At the end of the session

  I am first at the gate, because I’ll have to be in and out of the shower fairly quickly if I’m to get to the library before the doors are locked.

  10.21 am

  Jog to my cell, strip, shower, change, jog to the library. Still sweating, but nothing I can do about it. Steve (conspiracy to murder) is on duty behind the desk in his position as chief librarian. Because Steve’s the senior Listener, he’s allowed to wear his own clothes and is often mistaken for a member of staff. I return Famous Trials and take out Twenty-one Short Stories by Graham Greene.

  10.50 am

  Once I’ve left the library I walk straight across the corridor to the chapel and discover there are thirty worshippers in the congregation this week. From their dress, the majority must come from the local village. The black man sitting next to me, who was among the seven prisoners who attended last week, tells me it’s the biggest turnout he’s ever seen. This week a Methodist minister called Mary conducts the service, accompanied by an Anglican vicar called Val. Mary’s sermon is topical.

  She talks about the World Athletics Championships and her feelings for those competitors who did not achieve what they had set out to do, but for many of them there will be another chance. I have now attended four consecutive church services, and the minister always pitches the message at what he or she imagines will be of interest to the inmates. Each time they have failed to treat us as if we might just be normal human beings.

  People who have not been to prison tend to fall into two categories. The majority who treat you as if you’re a ‘convict on the run’ while the minority treat you as if you are in their front room.

  After the blessing, we gather in an ante-room for coffee and biscuits with the
locals. No need to describe them as they don’t differ greatly from the kind of parishioners who attend church services up and down the country every Sunday morning. Average age double that of the prisoners. At twelve we are sent back to our cells. No search. Unaccompanied.

  12 noon

  Lunch. I haven’t had a chance to speak to Dale or Sergio yet, so I fix appointments with Dale at 2 pm and Sergio at 3 pm. I leave the hotplate with a portion of macaroni liberally covered in cheese.

  While we are waiting in the long queue, Darren tells me when it used to be almost all macaroni with little sign of any cheese. Nobody thought to comment about this, until it became clear that the allocation of cheese was becoming smaller and smaller as each week passed. Still no one did anything about it, until one week, when there was virtually no cheese, the officer on duty at last began to show some interest. The first thing he discovered was that the same cook had been on for the previous four Saturdays and Sundays, so the following weekend he kept an eye on that particular inmate. He quickly discovered that on Saturday night the prisoner in question was returning to his cell with a lump of cheese the size of a pillow (5kg). It was when three loaves of bread also went missing the same evening that the officer decided to report the incident to the governor. The following Saturday night a team of officers raided the prisoner’s cell hoping to find out what he was up to. They discovered that he was running a very successful business producing Welsh rarebit, which, when toasted, was passed from cell to cell through the bars of his little window.

  ‘And damn good they were,’ adds Jimmy, licking his lips.

  ‘How did he manage to toast them?’ I demanded.

  ‘On every wing there is a communal iron, which always ended up in Mario’s cell on a Saturday evening,’ explained Darren.

  ‘How much did the chef charge?’