Our Vinnie (29 page)

Vinnie grinned again now, as he swung his legs around and got up from his bunk. It had been such a shock, hearing a solicitor coming out with a funny like that, and he had a new-found respect for the bloke. He’d already heard that he was well known and liked amongst the criminal fraternity, and now he was starting to understand why.

He stretched and pulled the brown-paper package from his locker. It was a decent shirt, with a striking green and beige paisley pattern on it, which would look good with the mustard kipper tie his mam had chosen to go with it. Topped off with the Crombie, he knew he’d look pretty sharp. She had a good eye for fashion, no doubt about it, did his mam, though thinking about her filled his mind with the same dragging sense of guilt that had dogged him every day of the last half dozen months. He couldn’t give a fuck about the bastard who’d started what he’d eventually had to finish (and couldn’t have given a fuck when told he’d made a full recovery, except in so much that it made things better for him), but when it came to what it had put his mam and Titch through, he felt terrible.

But there was no time to dwell on what had already happened, so he put it out of his mind and tried to concentrate on the coming day as he washed and dressed. He just wanted to get the thing over with. He’d been on the remand wing at Thorp Arch prison for what felt far too long now and he just wanted to know where his next home might be. It would be another prison, rather than a borstal; of that there was no doubt: he certainly wasn’t expecting to be allowed home yet. But he would be in time, he hoped, and in the shorter term for some home visits, maybe, and one of the likely places – the main prison here – was a little too far from home. His hope was to get sentenced to a few months in Armley nick, because, being in Leeds, it was only a short train ride to Bradford, which meant his mates and family might at least be able to visit him.

If they wanted to, that was, and, in Titch’s case, he was doubtful. Her parting words to him – basically, ‘I hate you – you’re not my brother’ – rang in his ears all the time, even if the person who screamed them at him had not spoken a word to him since. Where Titch was concerned, the pang of guilt was more like a stab to his heart. Because she’d been right. Whatever the justification – and that cunt had definitely had what was coming to him – she’d been right. He’d let her down unforgivably. No surprise that she wouldn’t, then, was it?

And might never – not unless he did something to redeem himself. He remembered how helpless he’d felt when the coppers had cuffed him, trying to make her understand, trying to get her to accept his apology. But as they’d dragged him off, his mam in tears by then, his dad shaking his head, all he could see was the expression on his little sister’s face, as she stood watching his departure, stony-faced. There had been no love in that face, no care or compassion. No, all he’d seen had been hatred and scorn.

That had hurt. But it had also served to concentrate his mind. Every day of his remand he had played the game and kept his nose clean, so he could serve his time peacefully and uneventfully, and get home again, so he could right the wrongs he’d failed to right before.

Mr Malvern, the cockney screw, appeared at the cell door. ‘You ready, son?’ he said, unlocking it and giving Vinnie a once-over. ‘You’re looking dapper, young McKellan. Let’s hope the judge is a young lady, hey? Because you’ll knock her socks off in that get-up, and no mistake.’

Vinnie smiled. He liked Malvern. He was one of the few screws in Thorp Arch that had any time for the lads. ‘You after my arse, sir?’ he said. ‘Only it sounds like you fancy a bit of this for yourself.’

Mr Malvern laughed loudly. ‘You cheeky young tyke! Come on then, lad. Let’s get you down to security. You can say your goodbyes on the way.’ He paused and clapped a friendly hand across Vinnie’s back. ‘And I mean this with all sincerity, young Vincent; I hope I never have to see you again. Know what I mean?’

Vinnie nodded. He knew what was meant and he appreciated it. He also hoped he could make it a fact, too.

‘Good luck, Vin!’ came the shouts of the lads along the corridor as the pair of them made their way out. He returned their greetings – he’d made some good friends in here these last months – and also took the trouble to stick two fingers up at the screws he passed and didn’t like, before being transferred to a waiting van, cuffed to another screw and driven to court. Another four or so hours, he thought, and the waiting would be over. And another step on the road to being free again, thank God.

It had been four hours, too – almost to the minute. He’d worn his cool threads, and his family and friends had turned out in force to support and speak up for him, yet in just four hours since departing Thorp Arch, he was given the depressing news that he would be heading straight back there. And then the even more stupefying news that it would be for three fucking years! He couldn’t take it in. He’d been expecting a few months. But the judge had just sat there, banging on about making examples and how he had no choice but to come down hard when it came to his background and how he should have learned his lesson, and then had hit him with it:
three fucking years
!

The whole courtroom had been stunned into silence. A silence that was only broken by his mam starting to cry and, while she began sobbing loudly into a white handkerchief, a low rumble of dissent that soon became a cacophony, as relatives and friends started shouting obscenities from the gallery. And in the middle of it all was Titch, standing beside her mother clutching the metal handrail, white as a ghost and seeming to be saying something to him. He was trying to work out what it was when the judge banged down his gavel, startling both of them, and calling for order in the increasingly disordered court.

Vinnie’s gaze settled on his solicitor, who also looked stunned. He’d told him to prepare for the worst, but that it would be this worse was obviously a big shock for both of them. Three
years
? Three years for
that
?

It couldn’t be happening, could it? Except it seemed it was when Vinnie felt himself being tugged by the security guards who had been standing behind him, jolting him back into reality. ‘Come on, lad,’ one of them said. ‘We need to get you downstairs to the cells. Your mates and family aren’t doing you any favours, here. Come on, let’s go.’

Vinnie wrenched his wrists from the security guard’s grip. ‘Get your fucking paws off me,’ he snarled. ‘Don’t you dare fucking drag me. Not in front of my fucking mother. I’m coming, okay?’

The officers shared a glance and then stepped slightly away. ‘As you wish, lad,’ the other guard said, ‘but move it all the same. Your mother will be told she can have a short visit with you, but for that to happen we need you downstairs, so this lot calm down.’

Feeling slightly calmer himself at the prospect of seeing his mum, Vinnie dutifully turned and followed the officers out of the courtroom and down the narrow stairs to the cells. He could hear his mother wailing as he went. ‘He’s only a boy, you dirty bleeders!’ she was yelling at the judge. ‘You can’t give him three years!’

But apparently they could, and they had. And as he’d waited in the tiny holding cell, Vinnie could only shake his head in wonderment. It was a fight, that was all – one he hadn’t even started. How could they do this?
Christ
, he thought,
how had eveything changed so dramatically
? It had never really occurred to him, not even when Cordingley had pointed it out, that coming close to 18 had implications other than just meaning he was almost a man in the eyes of the law. It clearly also meant they dished out longer sentences, the bastards, as if it made any difference to what had happened that night. He wiped his palms on his trousers to get rid of the sweat that had formed on them. He felt suffocated, panicky, and ripped at his tie to loosen it while he paced the holding cell floor. He hoped his mam would come soon, and maybe bring Josie with her. Would she be allowed? She’d looked so pale, and the thought of not seeing her really troubled him.

He heard June before he saw her. And it cheered him up a little, listening to her running commentary as she rattled down the steps. She was really ranting at the officer who had the job of bringing her to him. ‘I don’t need you man-handling me, thank you very much,’ he heard her snap. ‘You’re nothing but an arsehole in a uniform, if you want the truth. Now just show me to my bleeding son, if you don’t mind.’

The cell door opened and Vinnie was invited to step outside. ‘Um, your mum’s here to see you,’ the officer told him. ‘I’ve come to take you to the visiting room.’

Vinnie straightened his tie back up and walked across the cell, taking care to keep his chest out and shoulders straight. ‘You want to be careful of my mother, mate,’ he told the officer. ‘She’d have your throat slit as soon as look at you, so I wouldn’t give her any shit if I were you.’ He then made a big show of sauntering out past the now red-faced security guard, and walked towards another tiny room down the corridor, aware of the fast clippety-clop of his mum’s shoes as she followed. He knew where he was going. He’d been here often enough before. Let the fucking guard come running in his wake.

‘Where’s our Josie?’ he asked as he walked to the table and took the seat he was directed to by another scowling security guard.

June sat down opposite him. ‘These prats would only let
me
come,’ she answered. ‘She’s alright though, Vin, really. Told me to tell you that, she did – oh, and that if you write her a letter, she promises she’ll write back.’

Vinnie nodded. Perhaps there was still hope, then.

‘Tell her I will, Mam, and that I’m sorry. Tell her I’ll sort it when I get out, I promise.’

‘I’ll tell her no such fucking thing!’ June snapped, raising a hand to jab a finger towards him angrily. ‘It’s you trying to fucking sort things that’s got you into this mess. Don’t think I haven’t heard all about it. Don’t you ever learn, son?’

Vinnie leaned close to June then and raised his own finger. ‘If you’ve heard all about it, Mother,’ he said in a low voice, ‘then you wouldn’t even fucking
question
what I did!’ He then straightened up and sat back in his chair. ‘So if I were you, Mam, I’d just leave it at that, okay? And pass on my message to my sister, alright?’

June looked like she was about to say something but thought better of it. ‘Okay, mate,’ she said. ‘Keep your hair on!’

So she didn’t know all of it. That was his guess, in any case. Or didn’t want to know, which amounted to the same thing. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘we haven’t got long, so is there anything you need sending in? I’ve got a bit put by. Not much, but if you need any baccy or owt, I can at least manage that till you sort yourself out.’

Vinnie played the game. He was good at that. His mother clearly wanted small talk for the ten precious minutes they had, and if that was so, then it suited him just fine. She was a master, he’d learned gradually as he’d grown up, at doing that. Hearing only what she wanted to hear and disregarding the rest. Which had once served good purpose as far as he was concerned – when neighbours, social workers and police had been banging at their door, he’d always been able to count on his mam to hear only his side of things. Now though, it got on his nerves. He wasn’t a boy anymore and it annoyed him that June probably did at least have some idea about what happened to Josie. But she didn’t care enough to act on it, that was the bottom line. Let it lie would have been her motto – sweep it all under the carpet. Much better than causing trouble for her and hers. And right now, with the prospect of a three-year stretch ahead of him, it looked like she was going to get her way. But after that … No, after that, things would change.

Vinnie arrived back at Thorp Arch a couple of hours later, having promised to both write and to keep out of trouble. He looked up as the transportation van turned into the entrance and was being checked in through the gates, seeing the place anew – as if arriving for the first time.

It looked so bleak. And it was something he’d never thought about before, not while he was working on the assumption that it was just a temporary stopover.
Fuck
, he thought. This place was to be home for the next three years and, while most lads could guarantee that their sentences would be cut, sometimes by as much as half, he wondered if he had a hope in hell of doing so himself. He’d never done so before. Could he now? Could he hold himself together for long enough? He hoped so. But he wasn’t stupid. He knew himself well enough to know the odds were stacked against him. You were a certain way, a certain person, and trouble had a habit of finding you. He stared out into the darkness at the forbidding, cold walls that would hold him.
It looks like a castle
, he thought, as the van moved slowly forward,
like the one Edmond got shoved in
.

The hero of
The Count of Monte Cristo
– possibly his favourite book ever – had been an innocent man, imprisoned for 14 long years before he managed to escape and play out his revenge on the ones who had wronged him. And if he could wait that long, Vinnie decided, then he could wait three.
Yeah, he could wait
, he thought as they swept inside.

Chapter 23

Vinnie stretched out on his bunk, pressing his feet against the cold bars that served as a foot board, balancing the desire for another five minutes in the sack with his increasingly pressing need to pee. Above him, his cellmate Gordon was, he knew, going through the same ritual in his own bunk. That was prison life for you: ordered, predictable, full of small but important decisions. He chose the latter and lifted his blanket from his legs.

‘Another day,’ he called up to Gordon brightly. ‘Another dollar!’

His cellmate groaned. ‘S’fucking alright for you, lad,’ he answered. ‘You’ve got it cushty in the fucking library. Some of us in this place have to do real work!’

Vinnie laughed and sat up. As cellmates went – given that you got what you were given – Gordon wasn’t too bad. He was a long timer – a big bloke of about 50, heavily tattooed, who’d already done ten years for manslaughter and expected to serve another five. And who seemed to be doing so with an attitude that Vinnie envied. Nothing fazed him and he accepted his lot without moaning about the injustice of it all, unlike the majority of the arseholes that Vinnie was banged up with.