Evil Relations (40 page)

I put the pages on top of each other again, one, two, three . . . My head hurts, why is everybody talking so loudly, who turned the volume up, the noise is deafening but there are no words, just noise. I look up and see mouths moving out of control and the place throbbing with people, thousands of them, all shouting, pouring in through the doors like water, collecting trays and still shouting.

I’m shaking from head to foot.

I can smell Maureen on the notepaper, but it feels as if the table is very far away and yet the ceiling is coming down. My fingers scramble across the Formica and I stuff the letter inside its envelope. People are still flooding into the room, yelling through mouths that gape like railway tunnels. I need to get somewhere . . . I need to be behind a closed door.

I head for the library, but it’s locked – too early in the morning for reading. I try other doors, but they stay shut, and in the end I go back to my cell, my small, blue linoleum cell. I stand with my head bent, Maureen’s letter in my hand, feeling all the bad fucking madness of the world building up. I want to think without some nosy screw or smart-arse con telling me to come out, making me lose the plot.

The plot. The plot. The fucking plot. For fuck’s sake, what fucking plot?
There’s a swarm of something hot and rotten in my head, everything is running backwards like a film reel:
Maureen, Miss Jamaica, a man lying in the street bleeding, Tom, ganja, curried goat, blowback Saturday nights and shit-faced Sunday mornings, a neon factory so cold it takes the skin off your hands, flat 18 with the heating turned up, pounding the Hattersley streets in the early hours with wild things, flashbulbs going off left, right and fucking centre through the windows of a hired car, two detectives in shirt sleeves screaming and banging their fists against walls, the raw knuckles of a youth as he crawls under a table to save what’s left of his skull, a row of miniature wine bottles and staring down the barrel of a mad man’s gun, photographic proof, I’ve got photographic proof, Myra fucking Hindley and her shark-black eyes, moonlight on a reservoir, the tiniest of white coffins going into the earth, a registry office with its wood and ink smell, standing victorious in the boxing ring at Kings Hall, a tramp with an ugly smile and words that shatter, you’re too late little boy, she’s dead, FUCK YOU ALL, cook the man his rice and beans and shove it down your fucking throats, five kisses, Maureen, why did you send me five kisses, one each: Dave, Maureen, Paul, David and John, but you forgot Angela, just like you’ve forgotten everything else because you’re a fucking Hindley and your name is shit, shit, shit
.

The pain squeezes itself tighter around my skull. I take a deep breath. I’m going to close the door now, nice and gently, no fuss. I know it’s against the rules and I don’t want it to be a problem but I really do need to close this door, just for a short time, and just to show you I want to be alone for a while, to have a little think with myself. I’ll barricade myself in but don’t let it concern you, just walk away with your keys and do not disturb, no one will get hurt, I only want to hurt myself . . .

The floor has vanished beneath a litter of shredded photographs and letters. Who did that? I don’t remember tearing them, but everything is in a million tiny pieces, including me. The razor blade glides gracefully down my arm, the red lines appearing like magic. If I place my hand over the blood, it bubbles up through the gaps in my fingers. This isn’t a problem; I like it, everything feels all right now. I’m alone in my room with my lovely clean piss-pot and I’m bleeding. Life isn’t too bad, after all – I just needed to find a way of coping and this is it. Red splashes cover the floor at my feet, small circles, slowly at first, one by one, then faster and wider. I run the blade down my arm again, and feel satisfaction at being able to follow the first cut so precisely. This pain is a good pain. I press harder into the skin and watch in fascination as the wound opens cleanly, gushing blood. How deep will I need to push before I reach the bone?

Keys rattle in the lock.
They just won’t leave you alone for five minutes in this place.
Shoulders slam against the door but the barricade holds.
Please do not disturb.
I look at the photographs on the floor, all torn and jagged, who did that, what’s happened to this day, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It’s so quiet and peaceful in the little blue room. But when I look at the photographs I feel so sad. I hear a voice coming through the door:
come on, lad, let us in, open up, we can talk, no problem is this big
. I make one more cut in my skin and then I pick up Maureen’s letter. I’m sitting on the floor and holding the letter against my bent knee. Her words vanish under my blood. I don’t have a problem with it now. I’m just so tired, so very, very tired.

I listen to the whispers outside my door and the rhythmic push of shoulders against it. My cell slate, on the other side of the door, tells everyone who I am: 806713 Smith, three years, RC. And so they fetch the priest. The Judas-hole is filled with the watery eye of God’s messenger and he talks to me, calling me David, wanting to share my pain.
Why share it, Father, when you can have it all? I never wanted it.
He asks to share my bad news too, he knows I’ve received a letter and would like to read it with me.
Isn’t that nice of him?
I genuinely think it’s nice of him. No one’s read to me in years. Then I remember it wasn’t that long ago someone read to me. No, it wasn’t that long:
should murder be punished by murder? Undoubtedly not . . .

Somewhere on the side of my neck is an important vein. I wonder how deep it is and will it hurt. I raise the blade and consider. It feels weirdly heavy as it touches my skin.

‘David, this is a priest asking you to open the door, you mustn’t hurt yourself any more, think of what that might mean, I’ll come in on my own, just me and you, nobody else, just us . . .’

I realise then, astonished, that they think I’m committing suicide. Don’t they know I only want to feel a good sort of pain for once? I only want it to hurt enough to stop me from feeling anything else. I only want to pierce this vein once and it’ll be all right. If I blow my brains out with one of the guns I used for target practice on a railway sleeper buried in the heather and dark earth, then I’ll be a free man. That’s not fucking suicide, is it? That’s just my way of dealing with the pain.

It takes seconds for the barricade to come down with an army of screws against it. But when the priest comes in, he’s alone. The screws wait silently outside, as he lifts the razor blade from my fingers and blesses me. He reads what he can of the letter and tells me the officers need to come in. I sit on the bunk and let the prison doctor attend to my arm. He asks me if I am all right. I tell him politely no, and he nods, pressing the needle into my arm. Outside I can hear the Principal Officer asking why my letter was issued to me when it had been stamped as read in the censor’s office (bad news is always referred to the doctor first). I see Mr Heywood from Walton standing in front of me like the ghost of Christmas future. He isn’t really here, but I can see him, nodding wisely and telling me, ‘Watch your back and walk away.’

They’ve got me.

I sit quietly on the bed, holding a mug of tea that’s gone stone cold. I’m foggy-headed because the sedative has taken over, but I understand that I’m to be ‘shipped out’ back to Walton today.

Today. Is it still only today . . .

A few hours later I’m standing in front of a doctor, quiet and docile. I don’t remember getting to Walton, not properly. I think I was in a car, staring out of the window. Everything seems to have happened a long time ago; hours and years have become the same. I’d like to have a hot bath and a little sleep, I’d like to be able to sleep next to a woman who loves me so much she buys me every comic on the market. I’d like to be held in her arms, tight and close.

I’m asked how I feel. Not too good – my head is like cotton wool and my mouth is very dry, very dry. The doctor tells me to relax and take a few breaths; he wants to ask me something and he’d like me to think carefully before I answer. Do I understand?

‘Yes, sir, I think I do.’

He pauses for a minute, and then asks, ‘Do you feel you want to hurt yourself?’

The question bores straight through my skull into the back of my brain where everything is dark and confused. ‘
I’ll miss you forever, love Maureen. xxxxx
.’ Five kisses: one each, but nothing for Angela.

‘Yes, I want to hurt myself.’

He writes something in my file and says he understands. I think:
what the fuck does everybody understand, all of a sudden
? Then he nods at two nurses, who take me by the arms and walk me down a corridor.

My new room has no linoleum and it isn’t pale blue; it’s white and padded. I undress and the straightjacket is brought in –
just for a while
. I’m put into it very quickly, no fuss. There’s a very thin mattress on the floor and a piss-pot, nothing else.

Roll over
,
this is just something to relax you and help you sleep
.

I smell fresh aftershave as the needle goes in.

*

I wake up and fall asleep again, I open my eyes and see a pair of boots, I feel the needle and go back to sleep, I see a tray of food and then it’s gone. I think I’ve been sick but I’m not sure. I have a permanent headache for a long time and then it’s over.

I wake and lift myself up. The straightjacket has gone and I’m wearing a surgical gown; I can feel my arse through the gaping fabric. I feel putrid. The front of the gown is stained and stiff; somewhere along the line I think I must have soiled myself. I can smell it in the air, but the piss-pot is gleamingly empty. They’ve cleaned me up, though I don’t know how many times. I prop myself up against the wall and drift in and out of sleep until my head clears. I wait for the door to open, willing it to open; I don’t want to be behind a closed door any more.

A nurse comes in and asks me gently if I’m fit to drink some tea. I ask him, ‘What day is it?’

He looks at me. ‘What day do you remember?’

I tell him, ‘It was a bad day.’

He nods. ‘Your bad day was four days ago, David.’

I nod, too. When I try to stand, my legs won’t support me.

‘Take it slowly. I’ll get you some tea.’

I sit and wonder how I’ve made it back from the edge.

I’m out of the padded cell, deemed calm enough to be moved to an ordinary hospital room within the prison. The days pass slowly but not bleakly, helped along by a few pills and a handful of deep sleeps. While I’ve been floating in a world I can’t remember, someone has been busy on my behalf: I’m to expect a ‘special’ visit with Maureen. Not a closed visit, but one where we can be together in order to talk properly.

Before then, I’m taken to meet a psychiatrist, who talks nonsense.

He wants to know if I have a ‘mother fixation’ and I stare at him, wanting to laugh.
Of course I do, you fucking idiot, I’m fixated out of my mind with her.
But I say nothing. He wants to learn whether I have a ‘persecution complex’ and I put my head on one side, looking at him.
Of course I have, you fucking moron
. Being constantly accused of murdering kids who are never seen again until they’re dug out of a bog on the moor does tend to make you feel ever so slightly persecuted.

I’m taken to see other psychiatrists, too, and so the mind games with the funny folk go on for a while. I tell them what they want to hear and they scribble away excitedly, muttering ‘excellent’ and ‘marvellous’. We play silly games with paper and patterns and it all looks like spilt ink to me, but it keeps them happy. I’ve begun to eat again and fill myself with the stodgy prison bread; two slices of that and I can’t finish my dinner.

The day of Maureen’s visit arrives. I refuse breakfast because I’m too nervous to swallow, just tea and tobacco for me. I spend ages getting myself ready, polishing my shoes to a dazzling shine. (
Christ, Dave, she’s not going to be looking at your bloody feet.
) I button up the starched prison shirt fresh from the laundry, supplied by the friendly hospital screw. I shave carefully; this time I don’t want to cut myself. The con-barber trims my hair and I clean my teeth every ten minutes because I’m smoking every five. I’ve been walking around in my undies all morning to save the best till last: grey flannel prison trousers with a razor-sharp crease. Last night I brushed the tick material and dampened the legs before laying them under the mattress and sleeping on top. I’m delighted with the results and intend to put them on only when the screw comes to get me, hoping to preserve the creases.

I tell myself it’s not over because she’s coming to see me. Why would she bother otherwise?

The door opens and the hospital screw grins at me: ‘Special open visit for Smith.’

Yes
, I think,
fucking yes
. I slip into my trousers and ask him to give me a minute. I clean my teeth again even though my gums are sore. Before the visit can take place, I have to see a doctor, and as the hospital screw walks me down the corridor to the office I feel as if I’m going for a Saturday night out. I feel fantastic, ready to whistle.

I stand clean, straight and smart in front of the doctor, polished and immaculate. Inevitably, he asks me how I feel.

‘Fine, sir. Very fine.’

He tells me he has a problem: although he’s approved the visit, he’s concerned. After all, it’s been a while and I might have trouble handling ‘things’. I nod understandingly. He gives me a deep, long look and tells me that if I find it too difficult, or if I feel uneasy or panicked in any way, then I am to go straight to the officer. It’s important that I do that, for everyone’s sake – do I understand? I grit my teeth and smile.
Yes, sir, I do fucking understand, every word you say, in my world you’re God, now just please let me see her
.

He nods, telling me to go and that he hopes the visit is good. I believe him; he’s the one who knocked me out when I got here and now I feel as if he’s lifting me up again.