Heaven

DAY 135 FRIDAY 30 NOVEMBER 2001

9.30 am

The best laid plans of mice and convicts.

I am making tea for Mr Simpson at SMU when the duty officer asks me to report to the hospital for a suicide watch. Doug has gone to Boston for his Exotic Foods interview, so they are short of an orderly.

Suicide watch is quite common in prison, and this is the second I’ve covered in three weeks. Linda and Gail have to judge whether the prisoner is genuinely considering taking his own life, or simply looking for tea and sympathy and a chance to sit and watch television.

I turn up at the hospital a few minutes later to find my charge is a man of about forty-five, squat, thick set, covered in tattoos, with several teeth missing. David is serving a six-year sentence for GBH. What puzzles me is that he is due to be released on 14 January, so he only has a few more weeks of his sentence to complete. All I’m expected to do is to keep an eye on him while Gail gets on with her other duties, which today include taking care of a prisoner who was injured after being thrown through a window at his previous jail.

David’s first request is for a glass of water, which is no problem. He then disappears into the lavatory, and doesn’t reappear again for some time, when he requests another glass of water. No sooner has he gulped that down than the vicar arrives. He sits down next to David and asks if he can help. I ask David if he wants me to leave.

‘No,’ he says, but he would like another glass of water.

He then tells the vicar about the demons that visit him during the night, insisting that he must commit more crimes, and as he wants to go straight, he doesn’t know what to do.

‘Are you a practising member of any faith?’ asks the Reverend.

‘Yeah,’ replies David, ‘I believe in God and life after death, but I’ve never been sure which religion would be best for me.’

A long and thoughtful discussion follows after which David decides he’s Church of England. The only thing of interest that comes out of the talk is that David wants to return to Nottingham jail, because he feels safer from the demons there, and more importantly they have a full-time psychiatrist who understands his problem. This also puzzles me. We have our own psychiatrist, Val, who is on duty at SMU this morning. Why would anyone want to leave NSC to return to a hell-hole like Nottingham?

Once the vicar has left, David disappears back into the lavatory and after another long period of time, returns and requests another glass of water.

Gail pops her head round the door to inform David that the governor has decided he can return to Nottingham, so he should go back to his room and pack his belongings. David looks happy for the first time. He drains the glass of water and gets up to leave. Are you also puzzled?

12 noon

Over lunch Dave (lifer), who after eighteen years has seen it all, tells me what David was really up to. Last night David was rumoured to be high on heroin, and feared having to take an MDT today. Had he failed that test, he would have had twenty-eight days added to his sentence and then been sent back to Nottingham. So we were treated to his little performance with the demons. Drinking gallons of water can flush heroin out of the system in twenty-four hours, and although David’s still off to Nottingham, he avoided the added twenty-eight days. I’m so dim. I should have spotted it.

12.30 pm

Mr Lewis (the governing governor) has received a letter from the Shadow Home Secretary, Sir Brian Mawhinney, requesting to visit me.

1.15 pm

Disaster. Doug returns from his interview with Exotic Foods and tells me that they don’t need him to start work until the middle of January. As he will be eligible for resettlement in February, and able to return to work with his own company, why should he bother? So he’s decided to stay on as hospital orderly for the next couple of months.

My only hope now is the governor of Spring Hill.