Alphabet (23 page)

B is for Bernadette, from West Cork. Bernadette knew, still knows even, how to handle me. I began to be different. It was like being turned inside out. It was frightening but delicious. I fell in love (see L). I wanted to deliver myself to her whole.
But Bernadette did not fall in love with me, she already had that post filled. Dr Max Mackenzie tells me this was not a mature relationship. It was Bernadette who sent me here (see D).

C is for courage, from the French
coeur
, for heart. We see in others what is in fact our own but still I wanted what
Bernadette said and had it tattooed across my chest: an incitement to better things, though now I have lost sight of them.

D is for despair, a shorter word than desperation. It has none of the longer word's potential for dash and glamour. Despair just is and follows you like a great big dog that won't be shaken off. You have to remind yourself it is normal in these circumstances, and then try to forget it is there . . . If I receive any better advice, I'll pass it on next time.

E must be for escape: let me know if you succeed!

Fuck. If you are a man, this means to put your cock inside someone else and move about till you come: maybe both, but first and foremost, you. Also, and often at the same time, it means to humiliate, annihilate. I have discussed this with Max Mackenzie and got nowhere, but the point is, does he never use the word? You can end up feeling like shit but it's not as if I'm the only one.

G: guilt, the condition and the feeling of guilt are separate.
You can hear the verdict, guilty, or even plead guilty, and live for years, even a whole life afterwards, without actually having the feeling of guilt. But should it come, you will know it. And G is also for God, who, his representatives say, made everything, and gave his only son as a sacrifice. The blood of this son washes away all our guilt. So, he has plenty of followers, in places like this (see E).

H is for Hazel, Amanda's mother, who used to make sure to have a cake made or bought when I was due to come around.
Imagine.

Ice cream. Intimacy.

Justice.

K is for being k-nown. Here, everything has to be known, and you'd better like it, because it's good for you. Another few months in this place and maybe I'll be the psychological equivalent of a flasher, dropping my defences at every opportunity, letting it all hang out whether you want to know me or not?

L is for love, a mystery I stand at the edges of. And letter: I used to be good at them. But now:

Dear Bernadette, Alan suggested I write. I know it is a cheek to
ask, but although I have made progress I am currently feeling very
low. I feel it might help to talk things over with you, and if you were
in a position to visit me here I would be delighted
. . .

The best I could do! Crap! No wonder she hasn't replied.
Forget the
talk
. It might help just to see her? It might not, but still I want to.

Dear Simon
, a love letter would go,
Your eyes look strong and
kind at the same time. Sad too. You are the most important person
in my life. I trust you completely. I keep your photograph beside my
bed and think about you before I go to sleep
.

Murderer.

N is for now: the present tense. I always used to hold that now was the best place to inhabit but since arriving in Wentham, I've lost the knack of staying there. Time is shapeless, flexible. The past floods in and fills us up. I even think sometimes of the distant future, when, depending on how all this goes, I may be allowed out.

Out! It's unimaginable. Out might as well be Mars, but the idea of it does make my heart beat faster all the same.

Please. Prison, aka the Wendy House, Clink, Bucket, Jug, Nick. A second home for some, an only home, even. A way of life. You see the visitors stiffen up as they cross the yard and you know they want to get back Out.

Q is for questions, such as:

But if I got out and there was to be a second chance, can you tell me what kind of life I might have?

What would I do, how would it be?

Do I want it?

Does it matter whether I do or not?

What the fuck? (see A, see F).

The Rs. Regret, remorse, rehabilitation: sufficient experience of the first two is an absolute requirement of the Review Board. How do they measure it? How do I? (See A).

Sex, see fuck. Self, the eye inside.

T, teachers. Ted Kennet. Tasmin. Typewriter. Trouble.
Touch. Time.

University, where the clever people go.

V is for Vivienne Ann Whilden, who wanted Joseph Man-derville to go to Barcelona with her. I'm still grateful.

Women (over half the human race): difficulties with, attraction to, fear of, rejection by, anger towards, ambivalence concerning, empathy with, cognitive issues relating to, as substitute mother figures, as fantasy objects, guilt feelings towards, ongoing. Also, words. They are failing me.

X marks the spot.

You, whoever you are. If you are. Still there? I can't finish this.

30

‘What's going on?' Alan asks. He reaches into the bag slung over the side of his chair, brings out the Thermos, pours out the coffee – real, filtered coffee, black, strong, with plenty of brown sugar already stirred in. He unwraps a KitKat bar, breaks it in half, slides two fingers across to Simon, who nods his thanks, and then just sits, completely still, aware of the rich odours flooding the room. He wants the chocolate, the sweetness, the crunch of the wafer inside, but at the same time, he can't be bothered to pick it up, just as sometimes he wants to say something, but can't actually get his mouth to do the work.

‘Look,' Alan says, ‘you mustn't be too knocked back by Bernadette's response. She does have a couple of very good excuses, don't you think? Here, look, she sent this along.'

There, in the colour photograph which Alan puts on the table between them, is Bernadette as Simon has never seen her:
her hair still dark chestnut but cut in a short, urchin cut, her eyes huge, darkly shadowed. She's wearing some kind of loose, shapeless white blouse. Her smile here is fuller and franker than the smiles he remembers and her breasts appear to have doubled in size. She holds one baby in the crook of her left arm, another nestled in her lap. One is dressed in white, one in blue, but otherwise they're identical.

Such darlings
, it says in the letter. Her handwriting pelts across the page, leaning to the right.
It has taken a while to get
over the operation and all this is new to me. I really don't think I can
manage the trip
,
but please know that I wish you as ever
,
the very best
,
Bernadette
.

‘They're moving back to Ireland, apparently,' Alan adds.
‘Drink some coffee,' he suggests, and watches Simon obey.
‘Mackenzie thinks you're engaged in attention-seeking behaviour,' he continues, ‘and the trouble is, Simon, if you continue like this, they can't let you stay here, that's what they're telling me. And since talking is what goes on here and you've stopped doing it, I can see their point,' he says. ‘It would be a real shame, you've made progress. What you want to hang on to is that lots of people have a real interest in you. Like me. I was concerned, I got out of bed and drove here today. I mean, it's a job, yes, but I was genuinely worried about you.' Alan checks over his shoulder where Simon appears to be looking: there's a notice pinned to the wall behind the table but the print is far too small for him to be actually reading it. ‘Wakey wakey!'
Alan says, rapping with his fingers on the table.

Simon shifts slightly in his chair, frowns. He brings up his hand and holds it out over the desk. Alan glares at the hand as if it were some kind of hallucination, clasps it dismissively, then finds that when he lets go, Simon does not. He re-engages, then after a moment manages to release himself. ‘OK?' he says, pulling away.

‘I know they don't like psychoactive medication here, but you've lost a lot of weight. It can't go on. Do you eat anything at all? Is it just depression? A hunger strike? A reaction to the work you've been doing? Are there things in your head that you are not saying? I guess I'm going to have to go and ask someone else, right?'

Physical work is the best thing. When the group is needed to cope with the first fall of leaves from the silver birches, oak and ornamental maples inside, from the tall beeches and sycamores that grow behind the perimeter fence, he's in there with the rest of them. The dry crunch of the leaves fills his head. Doggedly, he rakes, loads, shifts. They barrow the leaves into huge piles, supposedly to rot down and make a mulch, but unless it rains soon they'll pretty soon be blowing around again . . . The air is crisp enough to bite; it smells of apples and smoke. The sunlight is thickly yellow, as if making up for
its weakness with a warmer tint and the men's shadows stretch long in front of them. Their breath steams; they try to blow rings with it, take their time, muck around. Andy lies in one of the piles and lets himself be buried in leaves, then springs out of the pile just as Pete tips his barrow up.

‘Fucking leaves!' Pete says, once he's recovered. ‘If I was in charge of this place I'd cut these trees down and save everyone's breath.' They try to score hits with handfuls of thrown leaves, which always fall short. When they go back in, Steve puts his arm across Simon's shoulders. ‘OK mate? Give us a sign.'

‘Leave that idiot alone!' Ray yells at him. ‘Who cares if he talks or not? His life, isn't it? You're just playing his game.'

‘Spot on!' Nick says, brushing fragments of leaf from his sweats.

Behind the gatehouse glass, an officer presses the button that opens the final door. Annie and Greg walk out either side of Alan. The sun has gone now, but even so, everyone feels the relief of being out.

‘I think he wants to be held,' Annie says as they walk towards the car park. ‘Literally, I mean. He's suffering. If he asked, we could do it. In the group. But you can't just grab hold of a man like that, well, in my position, I can't, but I wish somebody would.'

In the courtyard Simon is settled on the bench, head back, eyes closed, his face to the square of yellow tinged sky. From deep in the wing, he can hear the preparations for serving the evening meal. Voices, laughter, the clatter of dropped saucepan lids. TV news and advertisement jingles blare out from Pete's room.

An officer takes a few steps into the courtyard, stops. ‘I'll give you five minutes to get in for supper, OK now?' It's David, the bloke with the earring. Simon keeps his eyes closed and he keeps them that way even after he hears the first strange
noise, a faint dry creak above him, and feels the disturbed air whisk past his cheek. But when two distinct, faint splashes reach him, he opens up: there's a tall, hunched bird standing just a couple of feet away in the pool closest to the reeds. Its long legs are yellow, the rest of it grey and black and white, and seems for a moment almost as big as he is, like some strange kind of alien in a suit. Its neck stretches up, bearing the small, sharp head aloft and a pair of sharp yellow ringed eyes scan the water close by. The beak is long and pointed. Slowly, the bird raises one foot and then slips it down into the water again, this time without any noise at all. You're fishing, he thinks, just as David comes back in, crunching efficiently over the stones, rattling his keys. The bird twists its neck 180 degrees and glares at them both for a moment, utters a low, angry shriek before taking a few clumsy steps and then hauling itself up and out of the courtyard, its neck neatly folded down.

‘Mr Heron a mate of yours, then?' David asks.‘ Come on now, I've got to lock this up.' Simon levers himself from the bench, then buckles and falls to his knees.

‘I thought he was going to say something,' David reports to the orderlies who are carrying Simon to the hospital on a stretcher. They pause, while he unlocks a pair of doors. ‘But then he dropped. I did more or less catch him.'

‘Horrible colour, isn't he?' comments one of the orderlies.
‘People say white as a sheet, but it's not the kind of sheet you'd want to lie on.' It's sweltering in the hospital wing and the lighting is very bright. They get him half undressed and onto a bed. ‘What the hell's he got written on him?' says the talkative orderly. ‘Put a decent woman off, that.'

‘Get some fluids into him,' the doctor orders. Simon's eyelids glide halfway up and he looks out, unseeing or uncaring. ‘Bed rest. Three meals a day,' the doctor says, adding over his shoulder as he walks away: ‘snacks, vitamin pills.'

‘Soon fix you up!' the orderly adds, supplying the bedside manner. The three of them gaze at the man on the bed in front of them, the vivid white skin, tight over bones that are
beginning to show through too much; the words, all but the one, inscribed in uneven, makeshift letters. David pulls the covers up and goes to write an incident report.

31

He dozes in a blur of white noise (no radios allowed) and wakes up only to eat. Two days later, he's back on the wing. They could have transferred him to a special observation cell, but then again, it might have set him back. He is driving everyone right up the creek, David tells him, and if he goes on like this he'll have to go, but they, or some of them, want to give him a chance.

Saturday on the wing is too noisy and distracting for sleep.
He tries to settle down with a book and the TV on without the sound but people keep coming by to look at him, to crack a joke and try to catch him out: ‘Back from the dead, eh? Better here, is it?' It's like some kind of fairy story, in which the king offers a prize to the man who can make his daughter smile.
They come from far and wide to take their chance: ‘Did you get a new tongue sewn in then? Did they give you dog or cat?'
‘What kind of dumb bastard are you, then? Ha! All right, mate, just joking! Good to have you back on board ship again . . .'
He gives out a few smiles. He's definitely getting stronger.
Even though he turns down football practice, he could have almost done it. Later, when these idiots give up on him, he might try some stretches, a couple of easy poses, things he hasn't done for weeks, even months. And surely, at some time not too far away, he'll start talking again. It'll come back.