Heaven

DAY 156 FRIDAY 21 DECEMBER 2001

9.00 am

Dr Walling is on duty today. He’s full of good cheer, and brings Christmas presents for Linda and myself. Linda gets a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates, and he presents me with a bottle of Scotch. Linda quickly grabs the bottle, explaining that it’s against prison rules to offer prisoners alcohol. If I’d been caught with a bottle of whisky (actually I don’t drink spirits) I would have lost my job, and possibly have been sent to a B-cat with added days. Dr Walling looks suitably embarrassed.

12.00 pm

Simon (abduction of his son, mess orderly) drops in to deliver Linda’s sandwich lunch. While I make her a coffee, Simon tells me he’s moving room today. His room-mate, a married man with two children, asked him last night if he’d ever considered being bisexual. Simon tells me that he jumped out of bed, got dressed, left the room and demanded to be moved, as he didn’t want to be locked up with, in his words, ‘a raving faggot’.

8.00 pm

I watch Great Artists on BBC 2. The subject is Breughel, and all the little Breughels.

10.00 pm

Fall asleep in my chair, exhausted. It must be the combination of writing and hospital duties. Can’t complain though, as the days are passing far more quickly.