Purgatory (A Prison Diary 2)

I cross the corridor to Dale’s room and tell him I need twenty pounds’ worth of phonecards.

‘Just like that, my lord?’

‘Just like that’ I reply. ‘Put it on my account and I’ll have the money sent through to you.’

He opens a drawer and removes ten PS2 cards and passes them across. ‘You’ve wiped me out’ he says.

‘Then get back to work, because I have a feeling I’m going to need even more next week.’

‘Why? Are you calling America?’

‘Right idea. Wrong continent’

I leave Dale and return to Sergio’s room. I hand over the ten phonecards and tell him that the other items will all have been delivered by this time tomorrow. He looks astonished.

‘How fortunate that you are sent to this jail, just as I am leaving.’

I confess that I hadn’t seen it quite that way, and remind him that we have a deal.

‘One Botero, at a price you can afford, within a year,’ he confirms. ‘You’ll have it by Christmas.’

When I leave him to return to my cell, I remember just how much I miss dealing, whether it’s for PS200 or PS2 million. I once watched Jimmy Goldsmith bargaining for a backgammon board with a street trader in Mexico. It took him all of forty minutes, and he must have saved every penny of PS10, but he just couldn’t resist it.

12 noon

Lunch. I devour a plate of Princes ham (49p) surrounded by prison beans while I watch England avoid the follow on.

2.00 pm

I head for the library - closed, followed by the gym - cancelled. So I’ll have to settle for a forty-five-minute walk around the exercise yard.

3.00 pm

The man who was sketching the portrait of another prisoner yesterday is waiting for me as Darren, Jimmy and I walk out into the yard. He introduces himself as Shaun, but tells me that most inmates call him Sketch. I explain that I want a portrait of Dale (wounding with intent), Darren (marijuana only), Jimmy (Ecstasy courier), Steve (conspiracy to murder) and Jules (drug dealing) for the diary; a sort of montage. He looks excited by the commission, but warns me that he’ll have to get on with it as he’s due to be released in three weeks’ time.

‘Any hope of some colour?’ I ask.

‘Follow me,’ he says. We troop across rough grass littered with rubbish and uneaten food to end up outside a cell window on the ground floor of C wing. I stare through the bars at paintings that cover almost all his wall space. There’s even a couple on the bed. I’m left in no doubt that he’s the right man for the job.

‘How about a picture of the prison?’ he suggests.

‘Yes,’ I tell him, ‘especially if it’s from your window, because I have an almost identical view two blocks over.’ (See plate section.)

I then ask him how he would like to be paid. Shaun suggests that as he is leaving soon, it may be easier to send a cheque directly to his home, so his girlfriend can bank it. He says he’d like to think about a price overnight and discuss it with me during exercise tomorrow; I’m not allowed to visit his cell as he resides on another block so we can only talk through his barred window.

5.00 pm

Supper: vegetable stir-fry and a mug of Volvic.

I’ve negotiated two art deals today, so I feel a little better. Because the library was closed and I have finished The Glass Bead Game, I have nothing new to read until it opens again tomorrow. I spend the rest of the evening writing about Sergio.

DAY 32 - SUNDAY 19 AUGUST 2001

‘talisman of my existence. I seem to be the only thing that doesn’t move.’

When I reach the hotplate Dale gives a curt nod, a sign he needs to see me; Sergio also nods. I leave the hotplate empty-handed, bar a slice of toast and two appointments. I return to my cell and eat a bowl of my cornflakes with my milk.

5.59 am