Alphabet (18 page)

Meals are served in a dining room, eight big tables; one week you get the early serving, the next week the late. You sit wherever you want, any table, you can save a seat for someone, or submit to whosoever lands on you, in this case Nick.

‘Total nut house, isn't it?' Nick opines from opposite.

‘Right,' Simon says.

‘Don't think I'll be sticking it out,' Nick says. ‘Seen the shrink yet?'

‘Clarke?' Simon asks.

‘No, Mackenzie. Complete wind-up. Now –' Nick leans forwards over the table ‘– what do you think about a nice bit of a smoke, just to help get us through?' He mouths the words almost soundlessly, then grins, sucks in his breath, blows it slowly out.

‘You've got the wrong person,' Simon tells him, forking in one of the slices of samosa that have been cooling down on his plate.

‘That so?' Nick says, as a bloke, completely bald and clean-shaven, comes up and without saying anything, sits heavily down a couple of spaces away on their table. He's has a plump face, smallish nose and blobby mouth, plus no eyebrows or chin to speak of. On top of that there's a couple of rolls of fat at the back of his neck . . . Well, is it real? Or, talk about drugs, is there stuff in the water here? Or are they paying the bloke to give people a fright by going round and pretending to be some enormous great cock dressed in a shirt, hanging there over a plate of food? Or maybe most likely, Simon thinks, has he just already gone right over the edge?

23

Dr Mackenzie gets smoothly to his feet and reaches across the desk, holding out his hand to shake. He is about Simon's build and around the same age too – perhaps just a little older. He is immaculately dressed in expensive-looking, rather formal clothes – a waistcoat over his shirt, the jacket carefully arranged over the back of his chair. His hair is dark, closely cut; his glasses have thin golden frames.

‘So,' says Simon, ‘I get to meet the man behind the mirror?'

It seems worth comment: Mackenzie has, after all, been observing him for a good twelve hours prior to this appointment. It's not the normal way to start out, is it? But Mackenzie just says, ‘We'll sit over there,' and points to the area by the window. As for the office, it is at least a normal room, with no machinery, mirrors, screens or computers of any kind. The windows would look out on the football pitch but the blinds are half closed so you just get a soft blur of light. The chairs they move into are soft, the same as those in the library, upholstered dark blue. There's a childish kind of picture on the wall, by an artist called Klee.

They sit down. Mackenzie says nothing. Been here, Simon thinks, done this . . . He's seen the list of letters after the man's name, he's got qualifications coming out of his ears.
Even so, what he's thinking is: What gives you the right? But then again, what did the old-timer say in week one? You've got to be open to stuff that gets your rag up. So, he'll give it a try.

‘I seem to be meeting a doctor a day at this point,' he says.
Mackenzie nods.

‘How does that feel?'

‘I get the message I'm a weirdo, but that's not new.' Simon grins, but his hands are fisted. Another long silence follows.

‘Well,' Simon says, deliberately stretching out his fingers, ‘everyone seems to have their own agenda. One of them says he's going to give me wanking for homework . . . What's your line?'

Mackenzie considers, then says, ‘I try to look at the broad picture. Listen, make interpretations, put the pieces together.'
After they've been taken apart?

‘What will we be doing here, then?' Simon asks. Talking, of course. About? Anything Simon wants to talk about.

‘Well,' Simon says, ‘suppose there's just nothing at all that comes to mind? Suppose there's a complete blank in that department?'

‘You could start by telling me about your tattoos,' Mackenzie suggests. ‘They're certainly saying a lot. You have some on your hands. Are there others? What do they mean to you?'

‘They're words, all words,' Simon says. ‘Judgements, if you like –' Like you'll be making, he thinks, but manages to hold it back.

But then Mackenzie says,

‘So you think I will be making judgements?' And before he knows it Simon's said yes, of course you will! The fact is, he realises, that here they know how to stir you up so much that you have to talk, you need the release. Whether you want to or not, there's no way out of it. The man's got his rag up all right.

‘Have you considered having the tattoos removed?'

‘No,' Simon says. Despite the fact that they mark him out, that they draw attention to his past (what do you mean, past? Is it over yet?), despite all that, he hasn't ever considered removing them; on the contrary, there are quite a few more he'd like to add to the list.

‘It seems like the least of my problems, actually,' he tells Dr Mackenzie, then wishes he hadn't.

‘What are your more important problems then?'

‘Relationships,' Simon tells him. ‘Full stop, End Of Story.'

‘What aspect of relationships?'

‘All aspects.'

When he runs out of steam or goes up a cul de sac, Dr Mackenzie is always ready to throw him another line as in:
‘That homework from Dr Clarke, then, can you explain what you feel about that?'

‘I feel like a fucking animal!' Simon says. ‘As in
dumb
and as in
beast
. I feel like I'm so bad I'm supposed to just let you doctors right inside the private parts of me, bringing along your drills and spanners, the manual you wrote . . . all in a day's work for the experts!' There's nothing that isn't supposed to be up for grabs, no bottom line and nothing he can do for himself, that's how he feels and basically, that's how it is. But he wishes he hadn't said any of it to the man sitting opposite him and he won't make that mistake again.

Simon lies down, as instructed, presses the silver button marked
play
and waits for a muffled click, the deepening voice of the tape's hiss. Someone draws breath, a man's voice says: ‘You've had a couple of drinks in the pub and you meet up with a very attractive woman . . .' Who the hell does the voices on these tapes? It's not Clarke; it doesn't sound like Julian Bentley either. Some posh out-of-work actor type putting on a normal voice and going way over the top. He presses pause, and considers again, what exactly is
attractive
? Has he got a type? He certainly likes a woman to look like a woman, not a weight-lifter or a clothes hanger. Amanda was on the plump side, but other things about her, her uncertainties, the fact that she seemed willing to do things his way, were just as important. As regards Bernie, he thinks it's different again. The opposite from Amanda in many ways, but at the same time not dissimilar physically. It is impossible to separate her from her physical presence, her actions, words, silences. If he closes his eyes, he can still see and feel her, sitting opposite him in the stuffy Portakabin, getting to her feet . . . He opens his eyes again, turns the machine back on.

‘She's wearing a very short skirt,' the voice says, ‘and a clinging, low-cut top . . .' Bernie, of course, wouldn't. It
would be nothing like that. He thinks again of their last meeting, when they stood opposite each other and he wanted to take hold of her but couldn't.

‘You buy her a few drinks,' the tape says. ‘She seems to really like you! She invites you back to her flat, close by . . .
It's a nice place with rugs on the floor and low lighting . . .
There's music playing . . .'

Simon stays in the Portakabin. We're both pretty wired up, he thinks. Bernie is standing there near the panic button and I'm a few feet away. I can see her breath go in and out . . . I say my piece, I tell her I could become the best of me that has been hidden so long, tell her I burn with wanting to . . . I tell her I want to touch her . . . I want to. She takes a step towards me –

‘Now you've got your hand on her thigh, you lean in and kiss her . . . She starts to breathe hard. She opens her legs, she's desperate for it, you can feel under her panties if you want . . .
her hand is feeling your cock, rubbing you in a special way . . .
she unzips you . . .'

We hold each other. Simon tells himself instead. I feel her pressing against me. She's very warm. I want to slip my hand underneath her clothes, between where the sweater and the skirt join, there, reach in and touch the source of the heat, the smoothness of her skin, but I don't dare in case she doesn't mean this to be –

‘Oh, man . . . it's just how you like it!'

‘Get out of my head!' Simon rips the Walkman off, throws it against the wall.

And now Bernie says his name and rubs her cheek against his. Their lips touch; after the kiss, he cups his hand over her breasts, hears the sharp intake of her breath.

‘Supper time!' The shout goes up, spoiling things completely: this is Wentham. Life sentence.

‘Sorry,' he says to Bernie's lingering after-presence. What, he considers as he washes his hands, would the real woman think of what he's just done? If he asked her, ‘Do you mind me doing this to you in my head?'

‘I'm not keen,' is what he reckons she'd say. But she won't know, so does it matter? It bothers him but it doesn't feel like something he can discuss with Dr Mackenzie or Dr Clarke.

Perhaps the plastic the Walkman is made from is of special prison quality, because he notices as he leaves the room that there's a crack on the case but the tape is still turning round and round.

24

Small group is four mornings a week, which includes drama on Wednesdays, so like it or not, you get to know each other fast and you have to take it for granted that pots will be calling kettles black, but at least you're still allowed to say that here, eh? It seems that hardly any blacks sign themselves up for stuff like this; draw your own conclusions. And how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? And Doctor, Doctor –

‘Point is,' Steve repeats, his eyes a-glitter, his cheeks flushed even pinker than usual, ‘point is, everyone had a ride, the whole estate, it wasn't like she kept herself to herself and that's why I say it's right out of order, seven fuckin' years –' he looks around the circle to see if those who seem to be holding back on him have got it yet. ‘A chronic whore, really chronic. It's just not the same, right?'

‘Right,' a couple of them mutter into their hands. Nick, exuding the smells of soap and aftershave, grins from ear to ear.
Yesterday he said he thought the whole place was right up its own arse, and what is happening now would, in his book, certainly seem to back that up.

‘Well,' Ian comes in, his voice bright, chatty almost, ‘look at it this way. You like bacon sandwiches, don't you, but it doesn't mean you have to eat them all the time –'

‘Jewish, are you?' says Nick.

‘I mean, she might like it a lot, but not right then or not with Steve,' Ian explains. Ian still maintains that he's innocent, convicted on the strength of an identity parade and some circumstantial evidence, of something he would never do. Some of them believe him, especially at moments like this, but that's irrelevant because he'll be ghosted out soon if he refuses to take
responsibility for his offence. Catch two hundred and twenty two, he says.

Opposite Simon, Pete, the armed robber, sits arms folded, glaring at the floor. Whose side am I on, Simon asks himself.
Where do I go? Because the way they have the say-so drives you mad, but maybe it just
seems
as if the females actually run the show? Maybe it's the other way around? Sometimes, at any rate.

‘You've got a point,' he tells Ian.

‘Listen,' Steve says, ‘he's not on the planet and you're the weirdo who killed his girl because you couldn't put it in so –'

‘Steve,' officer Dave intervenes, ‘I'm going to have to stop you right there, because –'

‘OK . . .
with respect
. . . with respect, what I'm saying is, it's not as if she was a
woman
like Annie –' He turns to her. ‘She was a
slag
, right?' He isn't doing himself any favours and no one's rushing to back him up. Annie stares coolly back at him.
She's trying to keep her face neutral, Simon thinks, but she hates him, she must do. It stands to reason she does, but she's got to hold it back, for professional reasons. ‘A woman,' Steve continues, ‘who wears a skirt up to here –' His eyes fastened to Annie's face, he gives himself a kind of karate chop, just below the genitals. ‘Then she can't complain if people get the wrong impression,
that's
what I'm saying, Annie.' His face relaxes and he smiles at her, as if to say
problem solved
.

‘You're saying that you got the wrong impression?' she asks.
‘Before, you were saying that you thought it didn't matter so much that you raped Louise because she had sex with other men. Which is it, then?' She's handing him the rope to hang himself with, Simon thinks, that's what it is. Also, she's not frightened of words. He watches Steve bunch one hand into a fist, slam it into the palm of his other hand.

‘Everyone knows what I mean!' he says. ‘You're just too scared to back me up! Ask Susanna, she's on today, right?
She'll give a straight answer.' The group votes unanimously in favour. Why not? At any rate, it'll be a diversion. Susanna, a prison officer who is married with three children, is deemed to
be a representative of respectable womanhood. Annie's face is white and pinched, Greg drums his fingers on the arm of the chair as they all wait for Dave to bring her in. Steve puts out an extra chair, ceremoniously waves her into it when she arrives, explains all over again.

‘Right?' he asks. ‘Got it? There is a difference, got to be, stands to reason, hasn't there?'

‘No,' Susanna says. ‘In the past, I might have said yes to that, without thinking. But now I'd have to say no . . . Anyone should be able to choose who they get intimate with.' She gets up, smiling, her blonde curls catching the light around her head. ‘Suppose,' she adds, ‘you were in court, and the judge said, oh, he's done this kind of thing before, let's not bother with the trial . . .' She wears make-up and nail polish, plenty of rather delicate jewellery to offset the uniform. There's laughter as she leaves the room, all eyes on her until the door is closed.