Purgatory

DAY 24 – SATURDAY 11 AUGUST 2001

5.07 am

I’ve managed to sleep for six hours, thanks to Jules hanging a blanket from the top bunk, so that it keeps out the fluorescent arc lights that glare through the bars all night. At 5.40 I place my feet on the linoleum floor and wait. Jules doesn’t stir. So far no snoring or talking in his sleep. Last night Jules made an interesting observation about sleep: if s the only time when you’re not in jail, and it cuts your sentence by a third. Is this the reason why so many prisoners spend so much time in bed? Dale adds that some of them are ‘gouching out’ after chasing the dragon. This can cause them to sleep for twelve to fourteen hours, and helps kill the weekend, as well as themselves.

8.15 am

The cell door is unlocked just as I’m coming to the end of my first writing session. During that time I’ve managed a little over two thousand words.

I go downstairs to the hotplate hoping to pick up a carton of milk, only to be told by Dale that it’s not available at the weekend.

9.00 am

I’m first in the queue at the office, to pick up a VO for Mary. In a C-cat you’re allowed one visit every two weeks. A prisoner can invite up to three adults and two children under the age of sixteen. The majority of prisoners are between the ages of nineteen and thirty, so a wife or partner plus a couple of young children would be the norm. As my children are twenty-nine and twenty-seven, it will be only Mary and the boys who I’ll be seeing regularly.

10.00 am

I attend my first gym session. Each wing is allowed to send twenty inmates, so after my inability to get on the list at Belmarsh, I make sure that I’m at the starting gate on time.

The main gym is taken up with four badminton matches – like snooker it’s a sport that is so popular in prison that you have to book a court a week in advance. The weight-training room next door is packed with heaving and pumping musclemen, and by the time I arrive, someone is already jogging on the one treadmill. I begin my programme with some light stretching before going on the rowing machine. I manage only 1,800 metres in ten minutes, compared with the usual 2,000 I do back in the gym on Albert Embankment. But at least that leaves me something to aim for. I manage a little light weight training before the running machine becomes free. I start at five miles an hour for six minutes to warm up, before moving up to eight miles an hour for another ten minutes. Just to give you an idea how feeble this is, Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile in 1952 was at fifteen miles an hour, and I once saw Seb Coe do twelve miles an hour for ten minutes – hold your breath – at the age of forty.

And he was only warming up for a judo session. I end with ten minutes of stretching and a gentle warm down. Most of the prisoners walk into the gym and go straight on to the heavy weights without bothering to warm up. Later they wonder why they pull muscles and are then out of action for the next couple of weeks.

I return to my cell and try out the shower on our wing. The wash room has four showers which produce twice as many jets of water as those at Belmarsh. Also, when you press the button the water continues to flow for at least thirty seconds before you have to press it again. There are two young black lads already showering who, I notice, keep their boxer shorts on (I later learn this is because they’re Muslims). However, one problem I still encounter is that I’m allowed only two small, thin towels (three by one foot) a week. If I intend to go to the gym five days a week, followed by a shower… I’ll have to speak to Dale about the problem.

I give James a call at the flat and ask him to send PS100 in postal orders to Dale at Wayland so I can buy a razor, some shampoo, a dozen phonecards as well as some extra provisions. I also ask him to phone Griston Post Office and order The Times and Telegraph every day, Sundays included. James says he’ll ask Alison to call them on Monday morning, because he’s going on holiday and will be away for a couple of weeks. I’ll miss him, even on the phone, and it won’t be that long before Will has to return to America.

12.00 noon

I skip lunch because I need to start the second draft of today’s script, and in any case, it looks quite inedible. I open a packet of crisps and bite into an apple while I continue writing.

2.00 pm

When the cell door is unlocked again at two o’clock, Dale is standing outside and says he’s been given clearance to invite me down to the enhancement wing. The officer I bumped into yesterday must be off duty.

It’s like entering a different world. We go straight to Dale’s cell, and the first thing he asks me is if I play backgammon. He produces a magnificent leather board with large ivory counters. While I’m considering what to do with a six and a three, never a good opening throw, he points to a plastic bag under the bed. I look inside: a Gillette Mach3 razor, two packets of blades, a bar of Cusson’s soap, some shaving foam, a bunch of bananas, a packet of cornflakes and five phonecards. I think it unwise to ask any questions. I thank Dale and hand him my next shopping list. I assure him funds are on the way. We shake hands on a bubble and a half. He’ll supply whatever I need from the canteen and charge me an extra 50 per cent. The alternative is to be starved, unshaven or cut to ribbons by a prison razor. This service will also include extra towels, my laundry washed every Thursday, plus a soft pillow, all at an overall expense of around PS30 a week.

We are once again joined by two other inmates, Darren (see plate section) and Jimmy (transporting Ecstasy). During the afternoon I play both of them at backgammon, win one and lose one, which seems acceptable to everyone present. Dale leaves us to check in for work as No. 1 on the hotplate, so we all move across to Darren’s cell. During a game of backgammon I learn that Darren was caught selling cannabis, a part-time occupation, supplementing his regular job as a construction contractor. I ask him what he plans to do once he leaves prison in a year’s time having completed three years of a six-year sentence. He admits he’s not sure. I suspect, like so many inmates who can make fifty to a hundred thousand pounds a year selling drugs, he’ll find it difficult to settle for a nine to five job.

Whenever he’s contemplating his next move, I try to take in the surroundings. You can learn so much about a person from their cell. On the shelves are copies of the Oxford Shorter Dictionary (two volumes), the Oxford Book of Quotations (he tells me he tries to learn one a day) and a dozen novels that are clearly not on loan from the library. As the game progresses, he asks me if Rupert Brooke owned the Old Vicarage, or just lived there. I tell him that the great war poet only resided there while working on his fellowship dissertation at King’s College.

Jimmy tells me that they’re plotting to have me moved down to the enhanced wing as soon as I’ve completed my induction. This is the best news I’ve had since arriving at Wayland. The cell door swings open, and Mr Thompson looks round.

‘Ah’ he says, when he spots me. The governor wants a word.’t

I accompany Mr Thompson to Mr Carlton-Boyce’s office.

He’s a man of about forty, perhaps forty-five. He welcomes me with a warm smile, and introduces me to the senior officer from C wing, which, he tells me, is where they plan to transfer me. I ask if they would consider me for the enhancement spur, but am told the decision has already been made. I’ve come to realize that once the machine has decided on something, it would be easier to turn the QEII around than try to get them to change their collective minds.

Mr Carlton-Boyce explains that he would quite happily move me to C wing today, but with so many press sniffing around outside, it mustn’t look as if I am being given special treatment, so I have to be the last of my intake to be moved. No need to explain to him the problem of rap music and young prisoners hollering from window to window all night, but, he repeats, the press interest is tying his hands.

4.00 pm

I return to my cell and continue writing. I’ve only managed a few pages when I’m interrupted by a knock on the cell door. It’s a young man from across the corridor who looks to be in his early twenties.

‘Can you write a letter for me?’ he asks. No one ever introduces themselves or bothers with pleasantries.

‘Yes, of course. Who is it to, and what do you want me to say?’ I reply, turning to a blank page on my pad.

‘I want to be moved to another prison,’ he tells me.

‘Don’t we all?’

‘What?’

‘No, nothing, but why should they consider moving you?’

‘I want to be nearer my mother, who’s suffering from depression.’ I nod. He tells me his name is Naz, and then gives me the name of the officer to whom he wishes to address the letter. He asks me to include the reason his request should be taken seriously. I pen the letter, reading each sentence out as I complete it. He signs along the bottom with a flourish. I can’t read his signature, so I ask him to spell his name so I can print it in capitals underneath – then the officer in question will know who it’s come from, I explain. I place the missive in an envelope, address it, and he seals it. Naz picks up the envelope, smiles and says, ‘Thank you. If you want anything, just let me know.’ I tell him I need a pair of flip-flops for the shower because I’m worried about catching verrucas. He looks anxiously at me.

‘I was only joking,’ I say, and wish him luck.

5.00 pm

Supper. I settle for a lump of cabbage and half a portion of chips, which is a normal portion in your world. The cabbage is floating around in water and reminds me of school meals, and why I never liked the vegetable in the first place. While I’m waiting in line, Jimmy tells me that he didn’t enjoy his spell of serving behind the hotplate.

‘Why not?’ I ask.

The inmates never stop complaining,’ he adds.

‘About the quality of the food?’

‘No, about not giving them large enough portions, especially when it comes to chips.’

When I return to the cell, I find over a hundred letters stacked on the end of my bunk. Jules reminds me that at weekends we’re banged up at around five thirty and will remain locked in our cells until eight fifteen the following morning. So I’ll certainly have enough time to read every one of them. Fourteen hours of incarceration, once again blamed on staff shortages. Unpleasant, but still a great improvement on Belmarsh. I say unpleasant only because when you’ve finished your meal, you’re left with dirty, smelly plastic plates littering your tiny cell all night. It might be more sensible to leave the cell doors open for another twenty minutes so that prisoners can scrape the remains of their food into the dustbins at the end of each corridor and then wash their utensils in the sink. And don’t forget that in many prisons there are three inmates to a cell with one lavatory.

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 PS15m 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 PS15m instead of PS1.5m 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.