Heaven

DAY 132 TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2001

6.11 am

One incident of huge significance took place today. In fact, it’s a short story in its own right. However, as I write, I don’t yet know, the ending. But to begin halfway through.

Do you recall Leon, the PhD who joined us about a week ago? He wants to marry an Indian girl of high caste, but her father and mother refuse to entertain the idea, and that was before he was sent to prison (driving without a licence, six months). Well, he reappeared at SMU at three o’clock this afternoon in what can only be described as an agitated state. Although we’d had ten new inductees and a labour board this morning, it was turning out to be a quiet afternoon. I sat Leon down in the kitchen while Carl made him a cup of tea. He was desperate to discover if he was going to be granted his HDC and be released early on a tag. The officer who deals with HDC was in her office, so I went upstairs to ask if she would see him.

Ten minutes later Leon reappears and says that a decision will be made tomorrow morning as to whether he can be released early.

‘Well, that’s another problem solved,’ says Carl.

‘No, it isn’t,’ says Leon, ‘because if they don’t grant my tag, it will be a disaster.’

Leon doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who would use the world ‘disaster’ lightly, so I enquire why. He then briefs us on the latest complication in his love life.

His girlfriend’s parents have found out that she plans to marry Leon as soon as he’s released from prison on 6 December. She’s even booked the register office. She told him over the phone last night that her parents have not only forbidden the match, but three men who she has never met have recently been selected as possible husbands and they will be flying in from India at the weekend. She must then select one of them before she and her intended bridegroom fly back to Calcutta to be married on 6 December.

I now fully understand Leon’s desperation; I go in search of Mr Downs, a senior officer, who is a shrewd and caring man. I find him in the officers’ room going over tomorrow’s itinerary for the director-general’s visit. I brief Mr Downs and he agrees to see Leon immediately.

After their meeting, Leon tells us that Mr Downs was most sympathetic and will report his worries direct to the governor. He has asked to see Leon again at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, one hour before the board meet to decide if he will be granted a tag. I had assumed that there would be nothing more to tell you until the outcome of that meeting. However…

7.00 pm

I finally catch up with Mary, and forty minutes later have used up both my phonecards.

I go over to the hospital to have a bath, but before doing so tell Doug about Leon. I fail to reach the bathroom because he tells me he can remember a case where special dispensation was granted to allow an inmate to be married in the prison chapel.

‘Why don’t you ask the vicar about it?’ he suggests.

‘Because by then it will be too late,’ I tell Doug, reminding him of the timetable of the board meeting at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, and the three gentlemen from India arriving in Sheffield over the weekend.

‘But the Rev Derek Johnson is over at the chapel right now,’ says Doug, ‘it’s the prison clergy’s monthly meeting.’

I leave Doug and walk quickly over to the chapel. The orderly, John (ostrich fraud), tells me that the vicar has just left, but if I run to the gate I might still catch him. At sixty-one I’m past running fast, but I do jog, and hope that as the vicar is even older than I am I’ll make it before he’s driven off. When I arrive at the gate, his car is at the barrier waiting to be let out. I wave frantically. He parks the car and joins me in the gatehouse, where I tell him the whole story. Derek listens with immense sympathy and says that he can, in certain circumstances, marry the couple in the prison chapel, and he feels confident that the governor would agree, given the circumstances. He also adds that if the young lady needed to be put up overnight, he and Mrs Johnson could supply a room for her. I thank the vicar and return to the north block in search of Leon.

I find him in his room and impart my latest piece of news. He’s delighted, and tells me that he’s spoken to his fiancée again, and she’s already arranged for the wedding to be held in a local register office as long as he’s released early. If he isn’t, we have at least come up with an alternative solution. Leon is thanking me profusely when I hear my name over the tannoy, ‘Archer to report to the south block unit office immediately.’

I leave Leon to jog over to the south block and arrive at the unit office at one minute to nine. I had, for the first time, forgotten to check in for my eight-fifteen roll-call. If I’d arrived at one minute past nine, I would have been put on report and have lost my chance of being ‘enhanced’ for another eight weeks. Mr Belford, the duty officer, who knows nothing of my nocturnal efforts, bursts out laughing.

‘I was so much looking forward to putting you on report, Jeffrey,’ he says, ‘but I was pretty sure you would come up with a good excuse as to what you were doing at eight-fifteen.’

‘I was with the vicar,’ I tell him.