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Please! I feel like saying to him. Spare me the details! I mean, there are some things you just don’t want to know about, aren’t there? ‘I was on remand for three weeks,’ he clucks, ‘never had a chance to do anything about it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I soothe. ‘I’m certain they’ll make allowances.’
‘O.K. you two. Out!’ The prison officer swings open the door and divides his contempt between us. I am not certain I like the way he says ‘you two’ as if we were some kind of double act.
‘Oh dear. What a shame. Just as we were getting down to brass tacks, too. It’s always the same, isn’t it?’ I ignore the bent gent’s twitter and step down to take a butcher’s at the scenery. The building we are outside looks like a modern country house with two wings and a front bit that has more windows than a Peeping Tom’s training camp. They all have bars across them but apart from that, there is nothing that shouts ‘nick’ too crudely. There is even a football pitch in the middle of the ample grounds.
‘Right. Up the steps and report to reception. The Governor will want to see you.’
‘Ooh. Aren’t you going to carry my bag?’ sniffs Fran.
‘I wouldn’t trust myself to bend down and pick it up,’ says the screw. ‘Now hop it.’ He slams the door and climbs back into the driver’s seat.
‘Charming!’ says Fran. ‘No room service and nobody to meet us. I wonder they didn’t make us walk from the gate. I’m not certain I’m going to like it here. The vibrations aren’t right. Do you ever feel like that? Maybe I’m over-sensitive. I had a friend once who –’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I say, before he can get into full spate. ‘We’d better do like the man says, hadn’t we?’ I nip up the steps and push open the door that is already ajar.
Inside, a tall bloke in blue shirt and denims is counting a roll of greasy one pound notes. He stops when he sees us and looks us up and down suspiciously.
‘We’re looking for the Governor,’ I say.
‘Oh yeah. New boys, are you?’
We nod.
‘Welcome to Sinnerama Holiday. Follow me. I think he’s free at the moment.’
‘Is it nice here?’ twitters Fran.
‘It’s bleeding lovely, mate,’ says our guide. ‘You two together, are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘No!’ I yelp. ‘We came together, that’s all.’
‘That’s all?’ trills Fran. ‘Don’t knock it, ducky!’ Before he can pursue the subject further our guide taps respectfully on one of the doors and a voice that sounds like two pieces of sand paper having it away bids us enter.
The inside of the room surprises me. I had not been expecting the state apartment at Windsor Castle but certainly something a bit more flash than this. The Playboy Calendar on the wall strikes an odd note, too. What is most unexpected is that there are bars on the windows. I puzzle about this for a minute before it occurs to me that they probably have some deep psychological significance. Maybe it helps the inmates to identify with the governor if he gives the appearance of living under the same conditions as they do. Fascinating, isn’t it? Oh well, please yourselves.
‘Two new boys, governor,’ says our guide, waving us forward.
‘Thanks, Grass,’ rasps the figure behind the desk. ‘Harvest coming in all right?’
‘Fantastic. We’ve almost got more than we can process.’
‘Excellent. Excellent. Don’t let me hold you up, then.’
Our guide withdraws and I concentrate on the governor. He is a large, squarely built man with a couple of days’ growth of stubble and tattoos going right up his arms. He, too, is wearing a blue denim shirt with rolled up sleeves so it is easy to see the artwork. ‘Mum, I love you’ says one arm. ‘Per ardua ad astra’ says the other. A nice combination of the sentimental and the intellectual, I think to myself. Very rounded personality, obviously. I never thought that a nick would go to the trouble of making it so easy for the prisoners to identify with their surroundings. Fancy, even dressing the governor up like one of the inmates. Maybe life is better under the Conservatives.
‘Hello, boys,’ says the governor cheerfully. ‘Fancy a drink, do you? I’ve got a nice drop of Spanish Burgundy here, or how about Bristol Cream?’
‘Ooh, I thought you said Bristol queen for a moment,’ squeaks Fran. ‘You almost offended me. I come from Bristol, you know. It’s a rough, manly town absolutely bursting at the seams with Jolly Jack Tars.’
‘Hello, sailor,’ says the governor. ‘Who’s your shipmate?’
‘We’d never seen each other before today,’ I yelp. Blimey, if this goes on I’ll have to get a placard printed.
‘Two orphans of the storm whom fate has thrown together,’ simpers Fran. ‘Will we be sharing a cell?’
‘No! No!’ I shout before the governor can say anything. ‘I have these terrible nightmares when I start lashing out at anything that stands in my path. I can be uncontrollably violent. I wouldn’t ask anybody to risk that.’
‘Ooh,’ says Fran, ‘I’m a great soother. I bet you, if I massage your temples every night before –’
‘No!’
‘Ooh, you’re such a spoilsport. I know you want to, really.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ says the governor, waving at Fran to belt up. ‘If you’ve got any complaints about the accommodation we’ll sort those out later. The Domestic Affairs Committee will deal with it. Now, what are you two boys in for?’
While we tell him and sip our drinks it occurs to me that it is strange that he does not know already. This must be a very free and easy place if prisoners can roll up unannounced. Maybe a lot of them escape too, so that it is difficult to keep track of numbers.
‘Do you have a large turnover?’ I ask.
‘About two hundred thou at the moment,’ says our genial governor helping himself to a generous slug of sherry. ‘But we’re pushing it up fast.’
‘Two hundred thousand prisoners?’ I gasp.
‘Two hundred thousand nicker, you berk,’ croaks the governor. ‘Blimey, you’re as green as the blokes what are supposed to be running this place.’
While I ponder that remark, the door opens and a tall pinched geezer comes in. He has watery eyes and a face so thin that you feel he must have caught his nut between a couple of mating elephants. What strikes me most about him is his clobber. He is wearing a navy blue tunic with silver buttons and two pips on the epaulettes. It is a bit dressy for this establishment and, of course, dead out of fashion. His best friend should tell him.
‘Legend!’
‘Yes, Governor?’
Are my ears deceiving me? Our tattooed friend behind the desk is addressing the newcomer as Governor. There must be some mistake.
‘There must be some mistake, Legend.’ The tone suggests that the speaker might burst into tears at any minute. ‘All prisoners – I mean, all residents reporting to the House are supposed to report to me before they go to their rooms.’
The man addressed as Legend claps his hands to his head dramatically and jumps to his feet.
‘Governor! I had no idea. Oh dear. This is awful. I can see how put out you must be. Otherwise you would never have used that nasty word.’
‘Yes. Yes,’ splutters the new governor. ‘I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.’
Legend holds up his hand. ‘Don’t say another word, Governor. We all slip up sometimes. I suppose that is why a lot of us are here.’ He says it so that you expect to see a halo come sprouting out of his bonce.
‘Of course, of course.’ The Governor seems embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry I burst out like that. It was unforgivable of me.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Governor. We forgive you, don’t we lads? Life has taught us how to turn the other cheek.’ We nod vigorously. ‘Now, go along with the Governor, lads. He’s a man we all respect. He’ll see you all right. You haven’t got time for a glass of sherry before you go, Governor?’
‘Regrettably not, Legend,’ says wafer-bonce, looking as if his moist eyes are going to start melting down his cheeks at any minute. ‘By the way, how is the spinach coming along?’
Legend’s wizened mug twinkles like the inside of an empty whelk shell.
‘Excellent, Governor, excellent. We’re very grateful for that manure you provided. It makes all the difference.’
‘And you’ve had no difficulty in finding someone to take it off your hands?’
‘No. Soap and water seems to work all right if you scrub long enough.’
‘I meant the spinach,’ says the Governor patiently.
‘Oh! That. No, Governor, no. Of course, the price isn’t all it could be, but I think it will get better when we can put more on the market.’
‘So you’re going to be a spinach baron, are you, Legend?’
Legend laughs uproariously at the joke. ‘Oh, no, Governor. Nothing like that. As long as we can scrape up enough to buy the lads a few little creature comforts, that’s all I’m interested in.’
‘Capital, Legend. Capital. Your initiative and fellow-feeling do you much credit.’ As Legend lowers his eyes humbly to the floor the Governor turns to us. ‘When I look at what’s happening in the world outside, I sometimes ask myself if the right men are behind bars.’
I think I could help him answer that one, but my natural sense of self-preservation keeps my cakehole firmly closed. Legend looks like a dab hand at instant plastic surgery. We leave him waving a couple of fingers at the Governor’s back and follow that gentleman down a long corridor and out into a courtyard which gives access to another part of the ‘Complex’ as the Governor chooses to call it. On the way he is rabbiting about ‘behavioural patterns’, ‘individual freedoms’ ‘society’s responsibility to the under-privileged’ and all that stuff you get on the telly when everyone has gone to bed, but I am not listening. I am watching the bird who has come willowing out of one of the doors on the other side of the courtyard. The fact that she is a bird and not a bloke is pretty impressive to start off with, but her own natural advantages would win wolf whistles in any company. Even with her hair in curlers and struggling under the weight of a plastic dustbin she is still mucho woman. I rush forward just as she is starting to lose a high-heeled carpet slipper and clap my mitts on the dustbin. ‘Allow me,’ I husk, giving her a look of smouldering passion calculated to perish the elastic in her knickers, should she be wearing any. ‘Where would you like me to put it?’
She holds my glance and as our eyes fuse across the top of the empty Kit-E-Kat tins, I think that this could be the start of something very beautiful.
‘Over there,’ she says and with that suppleness of movement that so characterises the Leas, I step backwards, trip over something and sit down emptying half a ton of fish-heads into my lap. It is not done in a way that would make Cary Grant envious and I sense that a magic moment has escaped for ever.
‘She looked a brazen bit, that one,’ sniffs Fran as we go on our way. ‘I didn’t think there’d be any of her type here.’
‘That’s Mrs. Sinden,’ says the Governor, whose name is Brownjob – diabolically bad luck, isn’t it? – ‘She’s married to one of the - er guardians.’
‘You mean warders?’ says Fran.
Brownjob winces. ‘We call them guardians, here, Warren. Our whole aim is to build a bridge between our community and the outside world. We want to avoid the creation of a convict mentality that cannot make its way in normal society. We eschew words like “prison”, “warder” and “cell”. You have a “room” in a “house” and are looked after by “guardians” who are there to help you. As much as possible we try to create an environment in which the house can be run by “the guests” – or yourselves. We have committees who operate in different areas and are composed of guests with a leavening of guardians to act as mediators should there be a divergence of opinions.’
I don’t understand everything he is rabbiting about but I can understand why the rozzers thought that Penhurst was a doddle. What a carve up! Brownjob spouting all that balls whilst Legend and his lads are making two hundred thousand quid flogging spinach. There must be a fantastic amount of it to earn that kind of money. Or maybe they do other things as well? They must do, if Legend reckons that they are going to expand as fast as he indicated.
To my relief, Brownjob explains that we will have individual rooms and adds, apologetically, that they will be locked at ten o’clock each night. I am dead relieved to hear it because I do not fancy Mrs. Warren’s little boy trying to massage my temples every evening. Without protection I might be tempted to respond with half a brick. We also learn that we are being allocated to a job and that I am being sent to help in the Prison laundry.
‘The irony will not be lost on you,’ chortles Brownjob as I stare at him stonily to prove it is.
Meals are self-service and eaten in a large airy cafeteria and I am amazed at how good the nosh is. I wish mum could come here to pick up a few lessons. Just to think of her cooking makes me see the label on a tube of Rennies.
Warren follows me around like I have him on a piece of string and I can see the two of us getting a few old-fashioned glances from the rest of the inmates.
‘Hello, sailor,’ says Legend every time he sees one of us and I am most distressed that he reckons me to be one half of a set of poofters.
The thought is much on my mind then next morning when I find myself despatched to collect dirty laundry from the ‘guardians’ quarters. It has now been a matter of weeks since percy last found gainful employment and to say that I am feeling frustrated is rather like describing Yul Brynner’s hairline as receding. Even Fran Warren is beginning to look like Shirley Temple and if I don’t do something fast I could be in more trouble than an octopus with smelly armpits.
I give a sharp rat-tat-tat on Mrs. Sinden’s door and look forward to the sight of a one-hundred-per-cent-red-blooded woman. In such cases it is usually my fortune to find her old man at home with flu, or half a dozen kids struggling on the doormat but this time the delectable crumpet factory flings open the door, to all intents and purposes, on her tod.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘You’ve come to empty the dustbins, have you?’
I don’t say anything because I am concentrating on her cleavage which looks deeper than a fisherman’s wader. No obstacle obstructs my peepers because her frilly housecoat sweeps across her bristols at nipple height.
‘Er, no,’ I gulp. ‘It’s your laundry I’m after.’
‘Oh, dear,’ she says. ‘I’d forgotten it was Wednesday. You’d better come in while I sort some out. Do you fancy a cup of tea?’
‘That would be very nice, if you can spare the time,’ I say.
‘No trouble at all. Come in.’
I am across the threshold before you can say ‘Bring back the Cat’ or ‘Pussy Galore’ as Ian Fleming has it.
‘I’m not certain I should let you in,’ she says archly as I settle myself down before a packet of Wonder Wheaties, ‘the cereal that put men on the moon’.
‘You mean because I’m a – a guest?’ I say. ‘I feel such a berk using that word.’
‘Because of what you’re here for,’ says Mrs. S. waggling her fingers at me roguishly. ‘I know, you know. My hubby told me all about it.’
It is indeed amazing how quickly details of my ‘crime’ seem to have spread round the camp and I have been aware of a good deal of ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink’ dogging my petal footsteps ever since I left Brownjob’s office. This, coupled to the attention of the dreary Fran has made me feel about as inconspicuous as Sammy Davis Junior at a Klu Klux Klan rally.
‘Oh. That,’ I say studying the small print on the back of the Wheaties packet: ‘build your own spacecraft. Unbelievable offer. No experience necessary. All you need is a screwdriver. Hours of good, clean fun for all the family’.
‘Yes, that,’ she says eagerly. ‘You’re a naughty boy, aren’t you? I’d never have thought it to look at you.’
‘Still waters run deep,’ I say giving her the old smoulder.
‘I don’t think I want to let you see my smalls.’
‘Depends whether you’re in them or not, doesn’t it?’
‘Cheeky!’
In her case the word ‘smalls’ is blooming ridiculous. I look at her cleavage and go weak at the knees. How much is a man supposed not to take?
‘I’d better empty the laundry basket,’ she says. ‘Make yourself at home.’
She swings out of the room and I gulp down my tea and wonder what to do next. It is always a bit tricky, this. Follow her upstairs and I could be accused of rushing things. Sit where I am and she probably reckons I don’t fancy it. What would you do? Jot down your answer on the back of a five quid note and – no, don’t bother. There isn’t time. I know! I leap to my feet and trot to the bottom of the stairs.
‘Can I use the toilet?’ I holler.
Not the most romantic invitation to a nooky carnival, but it does sound more convincing than asking if she would like to see my stag beetle.
‘First on the right at the top of the stairs,’ she shouts. ‘I’ve got something to show you when you come down.’
I am getting so excited in the khasi that I have to be very careful not to spoil the décor. What has Mrs. Sinden got to show me that I have not nearly clotted my sporran on already? I pull the chain and race downstairs reckoning that if I get to the bottom before it reaches its crescendo a spot of in and out with Mrs. S. is a certainty. I used to do the same when I was a kid only then my end was slightly different – slightly smaller, too.
