Then you’ll be first wicket down at Wayland,’ says Jimmy. ‘By the way, we haven’t won a match this year. Our two best batsmen got their D-cats at the beginning of the season and were transferred to Latchmere House in Richmond.’
After about an hour of their company, I become aware of the other big difference on the enhanced wing - the noise, or rather the lack of noise. You just don’t hear the incessant stereos attempting to out-blare each other.
At five to eight I make my way back to my cell and am met on the stairs by an officer who tells me that I cannot visit the enhanced area again as it’s off limits. ‘And if you do, Archer’ he adds, I’ll put you on report, which could mean a fortnight being added to your sentence.’
There’s always someone who feels he has to prove how powerful he is, especially if he can show off in front of other prisoners - ‘I put Archer in his place, didn’t I?’ In Belmarsh it was the young officer with his record bookings. I have a feeling I’ve just met Wayland’s.
Back in my cell, I find Jules is playing chess against a phantom opponent on his electronic board. I settle down to write an account of the day. There are no letters to read as no one has yet discovered I’m in Wayland.
8.15 pm
Dale arrives with a soft pillow and an extra blanket. He’s disappeared before I can thank him.
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.