Purgatory (A Prison Diary 2)

Jimmy, Carl, Jules, Shane and I go across to the changing rooms for the football match against Lakenheath. After last Sunday’s victory, and two good training sessions during the week, the team are buoyed up and ready for the encounter.

In my role as match reporter, I look around the benches and check to make sure I know the names of every team member. The players are becoming quite nervous, and start jumping up and down on the spot as they wait for the arrival of our coach to deliver his pep talk. Kevin Lloyd appears a few moments later, a look of despondency on his face.

‘I’m sorry, lads’ he says, ‘but the game’s off.’ A voluble groan goes round the changing room. Two of the opposition’ Kevin continues, ‘failed to bring any form of ID with them, so we couldn’t let them through the gates. I would have accepted credit cards, but they couldn’t even supply those. I am sorry,’ Kevin repeats, and there’s no doubt he’s as disappointed as we are.

While the others go off for a further training session, I have to return to my cell.

11.00 am

I call Mary, who brings me up to date on the reinstatement of my D-cat. ‘KPMG’s report is progressing slowly,’ she tells me, ‘and the police haven’t even decided if they want to interview you.’ Although the whole exercise is taking longer than she had anticipated, Mary says there is no reason to believe that they will find Ms Nicholson’s accusations anything other than spurious.

I suggest that she goes ahead with the Christmas parties that we always hold in December and let Will and James act as co-hosts. I tell her to invite everyone who has stood firm and ignore the fair-weather friends (who have in fact turned out to be very small in number). I add that if I’m in a D-cat open prison by Christmas, I’ll call up in the middle of the party and deliver a festive message over the intercom.

4.30 pm

I’m just about to leave for exercise when the spur officer tells me I’m required urgently in the SO’s office. The word ‘urgently’ surprises me, as I haven’t heard it used for the past seven weeks.

I join Mr King in his office, and am introduced to a female officer I’ve never seen before. Am I at last to meet the governor? No. The officer’s name is Sue Maiden and she explains that she’s part of the prison’s security team. She then tells me that it has been reported to her that Ellis, who resides on B block, was abusive to me in the gym yesterday. I repeat exactly what took place. She then asks me if I want special protection.

‘Certainly not,’ I reply. ‘That’s the last thing I need.’ She looks relieved.

‘I had to ask,’ she explains.

That’s all I need,’ I repeat. ‘You only have to read the story in the Sunday Mirror this morning about phonecards to see what the press would make of that.’

‘Understood, but we’ll still have to speak to Ellis.’

‘Fine, but not at my request’ I make clear. She seems to accept this proviso, and I depart to find the barred gate that leads out on to the exercise yard has already been bolted, leaving me locked inside and unable to take my daily walk around the yard.

5.00 pm

I spend the forty minutes with Sergio in his cell. He tells me that there is only one recognized carrier willing to fly in and out of Bogota, and then only on a Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Sergio mentions that it’s not easy to attract holidaymakers to a country where there are forty murders a day in the capital alone. He uses the rest of exercise time to give me a geography lesson. I am shown in Darren

’s Times atlas (he’s playing backgammon) where the emerald mountains are situated, as well as the extensive oil fields in the valleys to the east. I also discover that both the Andes and the Amazon make entrances and exits through Colombia.

6.00 pm

I drop into Darren’s cell to have a blackcurrant cordial and watch him play a game of backgammon with Jimmy. He tells me that my meeting with the security officer was timed so that I wouldn’t be able to go out into the exercise yard, as they felt it might be wise for me to cool it a little. Darren seems to know everything that’s going on, and I take the opportunity to tell him about my nocturnal sightings.

Darren laughs. ‘You’re a peeping Tom,’ he says. ‘That has to be Malcolm. Macho Malcolm.’

‘He’s even more irresistible than me,’ chips in Jimmy.

‘Do I sense a good story for the diary?’ I ask tentatively.

‘Half a dozen,’ says Darren, ‘but not tonight because we’re just about to be banged up.’ He can’t hide his pleasure at the thought of keeping me waiting for another few hours.

8.00 pm

Once I’m banged up, I start making extensive notes for my phone call to Alison, who returns from New Zealand tomorrow. I then turn to Hamlet. I am resolved to read, or reread, the entire works of Shakespeare - thirty-seven plays - by the time they transfer me to an open prison. If I succeed, I’ll move on to the Sonnets.

After a couple of acts, I switch on the TV to watch the unforgettable John Le Mesurier in Dad’s Army. What a distinguished career he had, making a virtue of letting other people take centre stage. Not something I’ve ever been good at.

DAY 54 - MONDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 2001

5.51 am

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…