Purgatory (A Prison Diary 2)

8.15 am

After breakfast, Darren picks up my laundry, and warns me that the tumble dryer is still not functioning.

9.00 am

Banged up for another two hours because the staff are having their fortnightly training session in the gym. I’m told their activities range from first-aid lessons to self-defence (secure and protect), from checking through the latest Home Office regulations to any race relations problems, plus fire training, HIV reports and likely suicide candidates. One good thing about all this is that the tax payer is saved having to fund my pottery class (PS1.20).

11.00 am

I watch Nassar Hussain lose the toss for the fourteenth time in a row. I must ask Mary what the odds are against that

I walk out into the exercise yard just before the gates are closed at five past eleven. Jimmy points to Mario (not his real name) who is walking a few paces ahead of us. I hope you can recall Mario’s scam. While working on the hotplate he stole almost all the cheese. He then made Welsh rarebit, at a phone-card for two, using an iron as the toaster. Mario was caught creaming off nearly half a million a year from his fashionable London restaurant without bothering to pay any tax on his windfall. Although I have never frequented Mario’s establishment, I know it by reputation. There can be no doubt of the restaurant’s success, because it was one of those rare places that do not accept credit cards - only cash or cheques.

While we stroll round the yard - Mario’s not into power walking - he explains that approximately half of his income was in cash, the rest cheques or accounts. However, the taxman had no way of finding out what actual percentage was cash, until two tax inspectors visited the restaurant as diners. From careful observation they concluded that nearly half the customers were paying cash, whereas Mario’s tax return showed a mere 10 per cent settled the bill this way. But how could they prove it? The inspectors paid cash themselves and requested a receipt. What they couldn’t know was that Mario declared all the bills where the customer asked for a receipt, which he then entered in his books. Bills for which no receipts were given were destroyed and the cash then pocketed.

The taxmen couldn’t become regular customers (their masters wouldn’t allow such an extravagance) and were therefore unable to prove any wrongdoing. That was until a young, newly qualified accountant joined the Inland Revenue and came up with an ingenious idea as to how to ensnare Mario. The fresh-faced youth found out which laundry the restaurant used and over the next three months had the tablecloths and napkins counted. There were 40 per cent more tablecloths than bills and 38 per cent more napkins than customers.

Mario was arrested and charged with falsifying his accounts. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years. He will be returning to his restaurant later this year having, in answer to customers’ enquiries, taken a ‘sabbatical’ in his native Florence.

They’ve got it all wrong, Jeffrey,’ Mario says. The likes of you and me shouldn’t be in jail mixing with all this riff-raff. They should have fined me a million pounds, not paid out thirty-five thousand to accommodate me for a year. My regulars are livid with the police, the courts and the Inland Revenue.’ His final words are, ‘By the way, Jeffrey, do you like buck rarebit?’

12 noon

Lunch. Among the many things Mario briefed me on was how to select the best daily dish from the weekly menu. You must only choose dishes that are made with fresh ingredients grown on the premises and not bought in. As from next week there will be variations from my usual vegetarian fare.

2.00 pm

I read the morning papers. Margaret and John have placed their cutlasses back in their sheaths and both have fallen silent - for the time being. The press are describing the leadership contest as the most acrimonious in living memory, and one from which the party may never recover. Reading this page a couple of years after the event will give us all the benefit of hindsight. Is it possible that the party that governed for the longest period of time during the twentieth century will not hold office in the twenty-first? Or will Tony Blair suddenly look fallible?

3.15 pm

Gym. It’s the over-fifties’ spinning session - nothing to do with politics. Don’t kid yourself - it’s agony. Forty-five minutes with an instructor shouting, ‘On the straight’, ‘Up the slope’, Hill climbing’, Taster, faster. I fall off the bike at four o’clock and Darren almost carries me back to my cell.

5.30 pm

Australia are 208 for 1 and looking as if they could score 700. I leave the cricket to get some loo paper from the store. This must be collected between 8.15-8.30 am or 5.30-6.00 pm; one roll per person, per week. As I come out of the store room, I notice my name is chalked up on the blackboard to see the SO. I go straight to Mr Meanwell’s office. He has several registered letters for me, including one from some ladies in Northampton, who have sent me a lavender cake.

‘I’m afraid you’re not allowed to have it until you move prisons or have completed your sentence,’ Mr Meanwell explains.

‘Why not?’ I ask.

‘It could be laced with alcohol or drugs,’ he tells me.

As I leave the SO’s office, I spot a new prisoner with his right arm in a sling. I go over to have a chat: injuries usually mean stories. Was he in a fight? Was he hit by a prison officer? Did he fall or was he pushed? It turns out to be an attempted suicide. He shows me his wrist which displays three long, jagged scars forming a triangle which have been sewn up like a rough tear in a Turkish carpet. I stare for about a second at the crude, mauve scars before I have to turn away. Later, I’m relieved to discover that Jimmy reacted in the same way, though he tells me that if you really want to kill yourself, you don’t cut across the artery. ‘You only do that when you’re looking for sympathy,’ he adds, ‘because the screws will always get there in time. But one long slash up the arm will sever the artery, and youH die long before they can reach you.’

‘Nevertheless,’ I say, ‘that’s some cry for help.’ ‘Yes, his father had a heart attack last week, and he’s just arrived back from the funeral.’

‘How many suicides have there been at Wayland while you’ve been here?’ I ask Jimmy.

There was one about six weeks ago,’ he replies. ‘You’ll always know when one takes place because we’re banged up for the rest of the day. No one is allowed to leave their cell until the body has been removed from the prison. Then an initial report has to be written, and because so many officers become involved, including the governor, it never takes less than three hours. This prison’s pretty good,’ he adds. ‘We only get about one suicide a year. In Norwich, where I began my sentence, it was far higher, more like one a month. We even had a prisoner sitting up on the roof with a noose round his neck, saying he’d jump unless the governor dealt with his complaint.’

‘Did he jump?’

‘No, they gave in and agreed to let him attend his mother’s funeral.’

‘But why didn’t they agree to that in the first place?’

‘Because last time they let him out, he flattened a screw with one punch and tried to escape.’