Purgatory: A Prison Diary Volume 2 (4 page)

I compromise, scrape my food into a plastic bag and then tie
it up before dropping it in the waste-paper bin next to the lavatory. When I
look out of my cell window I notice several prisoners are throwing the remains
of their meal through the bars and out onto the grass.

Jules tells me that he’s working on a letter to the
principal officer (Mr Tinkler) about having his status changed from C-cat to
D-cat. He asks if I will go through it with him. I don’t tell him that I’m
facing the same problem.

Jules is a model prisoner and deserves his enhanced status.
He gained this while he was at Bedford where he became a listener. He’s also
quiet and considerate about my writing regime. He so obviously regrets his
involvement with drugs, and is one of the few prisoners I’ve come across who I
am convinced will never see the inside of a jail again. I do a small editorial
job on his letter and suggest that we should go over the final draft tomorrow.
I then spend the next couple of hours reading through today’s mail, which is
just as supportive as the letters I received in Belmarsh. There is, however,
one missive of a different nature that I feel I ought to share with you.

University College Hospital London

1/8/01 4.30 pm

My dear Lord Archer

Many poets and writers have written much of their best work
in prison, OWfor one. However, I cannot conceive of you having to spend four
miserable years in a maximum security prison. I spent 60 days in such a
facility in Canada on a trumped-up charge of disturbing the peace. I escaped by
a most devious means.

I can arrange for your immediate release from bondage,
however, only if you are willing to donate £15m to my charity foundation.

I can be contacted anytime at 020 7— If you would like some
company, choose three non-criminal or white-collar offenders to join with you
,foran
appropriate amount.

Yours as an artist,

I am quite unable to read the signature. In the second post
there is another letter in the same bold red hand:

1/8/01 5.05 pm

Dear Geofrey [sic]

After having sealed my letter to you I realized that I wrote
£15m instead of £1.5m So just to reassure you, I’m not an idiot, I repeat my
offer to spring you and a few other trustworthy buddies!

Yours in every greater art,

Again, I cannot read the signature.

Woken by voices in the corridor, two
officers, one of them on a walkie-talkie.
They open a cell door and take
a prisoner away. I will find out the details when my door is unlocked in a
couple of hours’ time.

Write for two hours.

Breakfast.
Sugar Puffs (prison
issue), long-life milk (mine, because it’s Sunday). Beans on burnt toast (
prison’s
).

I go to the library for the first time and sign up. You are
allowed to take out two books, a third if your official work is education. The
library is about the same size as the weight-lifting room and, to be fair, just
as well stocked. They have everything from Graham Greene to Stephen King, I,
Claudius to Harry Potter.

However, although Forsyth, Grisham, Follett and Jilly Cooper
are much in evidence, I can find none of my books on the shelves. I hope that’s
because they are all out on loan. Lifers often tell me they’ve read them all –
slowly – and in some cases several times.

I take out a copy of The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse,
which I haven’t read in years, and Famous Trials selected by John Mortimer.
Naturally I have to fill in another form, and then my choices are stamped by
the library orderly – a prisoner – to be returned by 26 August. I’m rather
hoping to have moved on by then.

Kevin, the prisoner who stamps my library card, tells me
that all my books were removed from the shelves the day they found out I was
being transferred to Wayland.

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘Direct order from the number one governor. It seems that
Belmarsh informed her that the prisoners were stealing your books, and if they
could then get you to Sign them, the black-market price is a thousand pounds.’

I believe everything except the thousand pounds, which
sounds like a tabloid figure.

I check my watch, leave the library and quickly make my way
across to the chapel on the other side of the corridor. There is no officer
standing by the entrance. It suddenly hits me that I haven’t been searched
since the day I arrived. I’m a couple of minutes late, and wonder if I’ve come
to the wrong place, as there are only three other prisoners sitting in the
pews, along with the chaplain. John Framlington is dressed in a long, black
gown and black cape with crimson piping, and welcomes me with literally open
arms.

The chapel is very impressive, with its wood-panelled walls
and small oils depicting the life of Christ. The simple altar is covered in a
cloth displaying a white cross with splashes of gold. There is also a large
wooden cross hanging from the wall behind the altar. The seating consists of
six rows of twenty wooden chairs set in a semicircle reminiscent of a small
amphitheatre. I take a seat in the third row as a group of men and women all
dressed in red T-shirts enters by the backdoor. They assemble their music on
stands while a couple
strap
on guitars and a flautist
practises a few notes. She’s very pretty. I wonder if it’s because it’s my
twenty-fifth day in prison. But that would be an ungallant thought. She is
pretty.

By ten forty-five the congregation has swelled to seven, but
we are still outnumbered by the nine-strong choir. The prisoners are all seated
to the right of the altar while the choir is standing on the left. A man, who
appears to be the group’s leader, suggests we move across and join him on their
side of the chapel. All seven of us dutifully obey. I’ve just worked out why
the congregation at Belmarsh was over two hundred, week in and week out, while
at Wayland it’s down to seven. Here you are allowed to stroll around the
buildings for long periods of time, so if you wish to make contact with someone
from another wing, it’s not all that difficult. In Belmarsh, chapel was a rare
opportunity to catch up with a friend from another block, relay messages, pass
on drugs and occasionally even pray.

The chaplain then walks up to the front, turns and welcomes
us all. He begins by introducing Shine who, he tells us, are
a
local group that perform
for several churches in the diocese.

We all join in the first hymn, ‘He Who Would Valiant Be’,
and Shine turn out to be rather good. Despite our depleted numbers, the service
still swings along. Once the chaplain has delivered the opening prayer, he
comes and sits amongst the congregation. He doesn’t conduct any other part of
the service, as that has been left in the capable hands of the leader of Shine.
Next we sing ‘Amazing Grace’, which is followed by a lesson from Luke, read by
another member of the group. Following another hymn we are addressed by the
leader of Shine. He takes his text from the first reading of the Good
Samaritan. He talks about people who walk by on the other side when you are in
any trouble. This time I do thank God for my family and friends, because so few
of them have walked by on the other side.

The service ends with a blessing from the chaplain, who then
thanks the group for giving up their time. I return to my cell and write notes
on everything I have just experienced.

I call Mary in Grantchester. How I miss my weekends with
her, strolling around the garden at the Old Vicarage: the smell of the flowers
and the grass, feeding the fish and watching students idly punting on the Cam.
Mary briefs me on what line she intends to take on the Today programme, now
that the Foreign Office and the KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party) have confirmed
how the money for the Kurds was raised and distributed. I try to think how Ms
Nicholson will spin herself out of this one.

Mary reminds me that she can’t come to see me until she
receives a VO. I confirm I sent her one yesterday. She goes on to tell me that
her own book, Photoconversion Volume One: Clean Electricity from Photovoltaics
(advance sales 1,229, price £110), has been well received by the academic
world.

We finish by discussing family matters. Although I’ve come
to the end of my twenty units, I don’t tell her that I am in possession of
another two phonecards as that might cause trouble for Dale, especially if the
conversation is being taped. I promise to call her again on Tuesday, and we
agree a time. Just in case you’ve forgotten, the calls are always one way: OUT.

My next call is to James, who is giving a lunch party for
ten friends at our apartment in London. I do miss his cooking. He tells me
who’s sitting round my table and what they are eating: Roquefort, fig and
walnut salad, spaghetti, and ice cream, followed by Brie, Stilton or Cheddar.
This will be accompanied by an Australian red and a Californian white. I begin to
salivate.

‘Dinner’ yells an
officer,
and I
quickly return to the real world.

Lunch: Chinese stir-fried vegetables (they may have been
stirred, but they are still glued together), an apple, supplemented by a Mars
bar (30p), and a glass of Evian. Guests: pre-selected.

I join Dale on the enhanced wing. I grab Darren’s Sunday
Times, and read very slowly while Dale and Jimmy play backgammon. The lead
story is the alleged rape of a girl in Essex by Neil and Christine Hamilton.
This is more graphically described in Dale’s News of the World, and the
implausible story is memorable for Christine Hamilton’s observation, ‘If I
wanted to do that sort of thing, it would be in Kensington or Chelsea, not
Essex.’

We play several games of backgammon, during which time the
assembled gathering questions me about the contest for the Tory party
leadership. Darren (marijuana only) is a fan of Michael Portillo, and asks how
I feel. I tell him that I think it might have been wise of the 1922 Committee
to let all three candidates who reached the second round – Clarke 59, Duncan
Smith 54 and Portillo 53 – be presented to the party membership. Leaving
Michael out is bound to create some bad feeling and may even cause trouble in
the future. It’s quite possible that the membership would have rejected
Portillo in any case, but I feel that they should have been allowed the
opportunity to do so.

Dale (wounding with intent) is a huge fan of Margaret
Thatcher, while Jimmy (Ecstasy courier) voted for John Major. ‘A decent bloke’
he says. It’s sometimes hard to remember that I may be sitting in a room with
an armed robber, a drug dealer, a million-pound fraudster, and heaven only
knows who else. It’s also worth mentioning that when it comes to their ‘other
world’, they never discuss anything in front of me.

Exercise: I take the long walk around the perimeter of the
prison – about half a mile – and several inmates greet me in a more friendly
fashion than they did on my first outing last Thursday. The first person to join
me is a man who is obviously on drugs. Unlike William Keane – do you remember
him from Belmarsh? – I can’t tell which drug he’s on just by looking at his
skin. His name is Darrell, and he tells me that his original sentence was for
ten years. His crime: cutting someone up in a pub with a broken bottle. He was
nineteen at the time. I take a second look. He looks about forty.

Then why are you still here?’ I ask, assuming he will
explain that he’s serving a second or third sentence for another offence. ‘Once
I ended up in prison, I got hooked on drugs, didn’t I?’ ‘Did you?’

‘Yeah, and I’d never taken a drug before I came in. But when
you’re given a ten-year sentence and then banged up for twenty-two hours a day
with prisoners who are already on skag, you sort of fall in with it, don’t you?
First I was caught smoking cannabis so the governor added twenty-eight days to
my sentence.’

Twenty-eight days for smoking cannabis? But…’

‘I then tried cocaine and finally moved on to heroin. Every
time I got caught, my sentence was lengthened. Mind you, I’ve been clean for
over a year now, Jeff. I’ve had to
be,
otherwise I’m
never going to get out of this fuckin’ shithole, am I?’

‘How long has it been?’

Twenty-one years. I’m forty-one, and over half my sentence
has been added because of being caught taking drugs while inside.’

I’m trying to take this in when we’re joined by a burly
older man of around my height,
who
looks Middle
Eastern. Darrell slips quietly away, which I fear means trouble. The new man
doesn’t bother with any small talk.

‘How would you like to make fifty grand a week while you’re
still in prison?’

‘What do you have in mind?’ I ask innocently, because he
doesn’t look like a publisher.

‘I’ve got a lorry-load of drugs stuck on the Belgian border
waiting to come into this country, but I’m a little short of cash at the
moment. Put up fifty grand and you’ll have a hundred by this time next week.’ I
quicken my pace and try to lose him, but within seconds he’s caught me up.
There would be no risk for you,’ he adds, slightly out of breath. ‘We take all
the risk. In any case, no one could pin it on you, not while you’re still in
jail.’

I stop in my tracks and turn to face him. ‘I hate drugs, and
I detest even more those people who peddle them. If you ever try to speak to me
again, I will repeat this conversation, first to my solicitor and then to the
governor. And don’t imagine you can threaten me, because they would be only too
happy to move me out of here, and my bet is your sentence would be doubled. Do
I make myself clear?’

I have never seen a more frightened man in my life. What he
didn’t know was that I was even more terrified than he was. I couldn’t forget
the punishment meted out in Belmarsh for being a grass – hot water mixed with
sugar thrown in your face – or the man with the four razor-blade scars
administered in the shower. I quickly leave the exercise yard and go back to my
cell, pull the door closed, and sit on the end of the bed, shaking.