Alphabet (2 page)

‘It keeps you out,' he says. Knowledge, which begins with a K, is power. Work is another right. ‘Two million unemployed!' he spits, grinding his roll-up into the ash tray. ‘How come Thatcher's still got a job?'

Simon doesn't remember anyone in his previous life actually explaining in detail how, for the most part, the letters stand for sounds, how you build up the words. They must have, but he certainly didn't take it in. He was at Burnside, and number 32, and with Iris and John Kingswell in their poxy bungalow with its brown carpet and drafty louvred window panes. He's got one big memory that does for all the schools he ever didn't attend – the smell of stew and sweat, the feeling of misery as he walked in and the bite of free air in his lungs as he slipped over the fence at half past ten, running free. So it's more than strange where he has ended up:

‘Paradoxical.' It's from the Greek, Ted says. ‘Goes both ways.'

He's got all the time in the world and it isn't like school at all. Simon remembers everything. Soon he's way beyond the alphabet and the short, sensible words like man, dog, hat. Aeroplane. Cough. Through. Enough. Paragraphs, punctuation, even a soup-song of French and scraps of Latin as
required:
et cetera
,
per se
,
ergo
,
ad infinitum
, he's picking them all up. And as for Ted, Simon feels something about him he can't remember feeling before: I've got absolutely nothing against the man, he thinks, and that's a not-bad feeling at all.

Eighteen months later, he's functional and Ted is coming mainly to chat. They discuss the news, which is nearly always bad: unemployment, privatisation, the Falklands. Then there's a message saying Ted is sick. He doesn't turn up for three weeks. Simon writes to him in his best joined-up, but it turns out that he's died.

Ted gave him a trade: he writes letters. He sits cross-legged on the bed in his six-foot-by-nine cell with a hardboard offcut to lean on and writes to lazy solicitors, members of parliament, the Home Secretary, the Parole Board; to unfaithful girlfriends, reluctant wives, sad mothers. He charges by the side, and depending on how hard it is to do. He puts a lot into it. He has designed several kinds of handwriting to suit the different tasks. He listens to what the bloke is saying, and then he cuts out the rambles, or fuzzes over the bluntness, makes it sound better. He looks words up, finds better ones, checks legal points if he can. Standing there blushing and fumbling to get the right words out is one thing but with a letter you can hit the bull's eye first time: ‘I get results,' he tells his prospects. Though not of course every time. He's seen a bloke crying over a letter he's received, then had a bear-hug from him a fortnight later. Seeing as he doesn't have his own post, he even throws in his
free envelope
now and then. Plus, the other thing he does, because he's clean as a whistle, is sell his piss when they're testing. It's not so bad, though he thinks a lot of Ted when the Iron Lady gets in again.
Landslide
.

He gets into education, big time. He cuts the letter-writing out and concentrates on coursework, assignments. He passes GCSE English, Maths, Sociology and Computers, plus RSA typing and the Certificate in Verbal Communication, before they stop him, half way through his first A level, and decide to
move him here, where they say he's had too much education and has to get to the back of the queue. Any kind of activity is a plus and has to be shared out. A bit of kitchen work. A stint in the electronics shop, assembling recycled hi-fis. So now he's been over seven years inside, twelve months in the same cell with the same wanker next door.

They told me I'm bright, he reminds himself. There's definitely truth in it because when he was sent to casualty for an abscess on one of his back teeth, he was sitting there in agony, waiting for hours with a screw chained to each arm and then finally the doctor came in and asked: ‘Which one of you is Simon?' A
doctor
, right?

I could eventually get a degree, he tells himself. It's not impossible.

3

The Portakabins smell of paint burning on radiators and whoever's been in here before. Someone moves next door, the floor shifts. There's no ventilation and probation's man of the moment, Barry, is always giving up but actually, he smokes, heavily at that.

‘How's things, Simon?' he asks. He's got a soft Welsh burr to his speech, a boyish face, though he must be forty plus.

‘Pretty standard,' Simon tells him, ‘bored witless.' Barry leans back in his chair, puts his hands behind his head. The narrow window is behind him, high up, looks right onto the prison wall. Also, it's never been cleaned. So Simon has to look at Barry, looking back at him with his serious brown eyes, or else at his own hands. He keeps his hands clean and neat, so there's not much going on there either.

‘I'm still working on Education,' Barry continues, ‘but the system's so crowded. More cuts in the pipeline too. A shame. But all the same, there is plenty else for you to think about. Did you consider what we said last time?' At this point, he comes out of his leaning back position and checks his notes, to remind himself what was said four months ago. ‘Simon,' he says, ‘you appear to be very cynical.'

‘You must be too,' Simon comes back at him.

‘You're capable of insight,' Barry persists, ‘but you're still in denial. You can't progress until you break out of it.'

‘You'd know, of course,' Simon says. ‘Been there, have you?'

‘Listen, Simon. The reason I'm here,' Barry says, ‘is that in my old job, I always wondered what happened afterwards.'
Well, Simon thinks at him, this is it! This is what happens
afterwards! He decides against saying it. There's a long silence.
Outside the Portakabin, some screws walk past, key chains jangling, and there's a sudden, staccato burst of laughter, which blanks out as the B wing door closes behind them.

‘Women are an issue for you, aren't they?' Barry throws this in casually, as if it was a matter of sugars in tea, not half the human race. ‘I've got a set of cards here, it's a way of starting up a discussion.' He shows them: the cards have a statement written on them and you have to say your gut feeling as to whether you agree or disagree.

‘Want to give it a try?'
Why should I care?
Simon thinks.
What matters to him more is when is Barry going to get out his thermos flask, as he normally does about half way through, and give them both a cup of proper coffee.

Barry hands him the first card. It's typed very large, and covered in shiny plastic laminate.

‘Women have smaller brains and are less intelligent than men,' it says.

‘Pass,' Simon says, because he'd say the opposite except that some of them do spectacularly stupid things. Like: almost all of the men in here, cons and screws, even
Barry
, are married to someone or as good as. He takes the next card.

‘Women are naturally more caring,' it says.
Naturally
is confusing.

‘Pass,' he says again. ‘I don't mind telling you what I think,' he says, ‘if you'll only get the coffee out.' He watches Barry extract the flask from his bulging briefcase and pour: the steel cup for himself, the plastic liner for Simon. Sugar from a small glass jar. The strong, bitter smell of the coffee seems to come from half a life away. The caffeine kicks in after a sip or two.

‘Women. Off the top of my head –' Simon tells Barry, ‘One:
They like to be looked at. They smell nice. Even the cross-sex-postings we have here. Two: They tend not to hit out. A woman may scare you in some way, the chances of her actually, physically hurting you are almost nil. Three: they give birth, or decide not to. Sometimes they have children without meaning to and sometimes they have them and then
they don't want them –' at this point Barry tries to interrupt but Simon is in his stride: ‘OK,' he concedes, ‘men have something to do with it, but not much. All of us have been inside a woman's body. A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to get back inside one: I'm not one of them. I'd hate to be a woman. If I was one, I'd steer completely clear of men. I'd be a lesbian! And I certainly wouldn't have something grow inside me. And another thing,' Simon tells Barry, ‘you have to use a woman's weaknesses to make her like you.' He's lost track of the numbers so he stops, and drinks down the rest of the coffee, which has cooled down to just right. He watches Barry writing down what he's said.

‘There's an awful lot in there,' Barry tells him when he's finished, ‘and, without being judgemental, because with your background it's not at all surprising, I'd say there were a lot of contradictions too . . .' He gives Simon a big smile, and takes a sip from his own cup. ‘Well, Amanda liked you, didn't she?' he says. Simon just looks through him; no one's going to catch him that way.

‘What scares you about women?' Barry asks after another long pause. ‘What is it –'

‘They have the say-so, don't they?' Simon says. ‘Teachers.
Thatcher. That Currie Woman. Madonna.'

‘It's clear that you need to feel a very high level of control over your life,' Barry tells him. Simon recognises this as a direct quote from Dr Grice.

‘Well, I'm in the right place, then, aren't I just!' he says, and cracks up, but Barry's lips don't even twitch; he says nothing for a bit, then fumbles in his bag for the Marlboros. Simon reaches out and takes one for trade. Barry lights up, then plays with the cigarette, tapping it into the white saucer he uses as an ashtray, even though it doesn't need doing yet.

‘It's up to you, Simon,' he says eventually, and they spend the next ten minutes or so talking over the football.

Simon is angry when he gets back. It's true about women, but at the same time, he thinks, Barry is top to toe absolute purest
bullshit. Up to me? Too right. So what are you and the other one paid for? Because here's his view: of course you can understand how a bicycle works, but you still have to find your actual, physical balance and learn to ride it. You could actually do that
without
the understanding. What you really need is first, a bicycle, second, time to practise. The resources available here,
vis-à-vis learning how to relate to women
, are limited, stretched to breaking point, to say the least: The screwesses, who don't count (rumour has it they may not be actual women), the chaplain's groupies, and four of the teachers in Education, where he is not allowed to go. Female members of the public are not exactly queuing up to give lessons, are they? Fair enough, he thinks, but if I want whatever it is, whatever is the opposite of here, I've got to find the way myself.

It's good to have an example. Jay Cartwell, Simon reminds himself, was only on B wing three days before he figured out how to make a noose out of plaited dental floss. He used what he had already got to get him where he wanted to go, and that, he thinks, is what I will do too.

4

First: in the adverts that you see, people put in their age, their looks, sometimes job, hobbies – all of it most probably lies, delusions or exaggeration. Then they put in what kind of person they want, size maybe, some characteristic, like lively, sensuous, sense of humour, blonde, whatever. But Simon thinks anything definite could stand against him as much as for, so he's going to keep it brief:
Man seeks woman to correspond
with, any age
. Plus, second, he won't specify looks because surely that stuff can only matter if you've got to look at the person day in day out, and hear the actual sound of their voice, very likely driving you straight up the wall. And, third, he's not saying what he wants the correspondence to lead to, because he doesn't exactly know. But it seems to him that you could well get further and closer with a letter than with talk. Sometimes, people will communicate more when they think they are on their own, and can concentrate properly on what they want to say.

I'm doing this my way, he thinks. There'll be no asking for ‘the Governor's permission if you wish to advertise for a pen friend', no putting ‘the correct address at the top of each letter', still less having his letters and replies opened for enclosures and possibly read by the idiot censor . . . This will be his very own correspondence course. All of which means, since he doesn't get visits, that he'll have to buy in help getting the letters in and out. He needs someone who gets through cash fast: Teverson, on the threes. Aggravated Burglary and GBH, fancies himself.
Normally he'd steer clear, but.

As per, Tev's wired. His sounds blast out good and loud while they talk, gobbling batteries. There's two empty Mars
wrappers and a bowl of tinned peaches on the table, plus a full ash tray. His pad is papered with women, mainly from behind.
Bums are his thing. Natural position of a woman, he tells Simon, face down. Back passage has a good grip to it and you don't need to worry about knocking her up.

‘Well, why are you here, mate?' he says. He's in his gym kit, and sweating as if he was still in there. The smell of it comes off him in waves.

Visits? His missus comes, and his sister and her sister and his mum: ‘If you want a woman,' he says, ‘why not take one of them off my hands! Nothing but hassle. Or I could get you a nice girl, friend of the wife, to come and visit, if you want something tasty to look at and think about later on, right?'

‘No.' Simon doesn't want something second hand. He's doing this his way. ‘Thanks, mate. I want letters,' he tells Teverson.

‘Well, she'd write them!' Tev says, ‘If you told her to. Save us both a lot of trouble.'

‘I want someone who
wants
to. Look, I'm doing this my way,' Simon tells Tev. ‘I'll pay. I'm after a mule. She'll have to get the letter out at a visit, then take the reply at her address, change the envelope, bring it in to you. If she gets more than one reply, well, then you tell her to bring the thickest one, and bin the rest.'