Alfreth. As this has been your first serious charge since you entered this institution, I am willing to offer you the benefit of the doubt. The tone is weary, icy. You may keep your Enhanced status.
Thank you, sir. May I ask you a question, sir?
The question has him wrongfooted and distracted. He thinks he’s done me a favour but he says, Go ahead, Alfreth.
Sir, why is Miss Wollington present here today? I don’t look at her. I want to exclude her from the inquiry.
She’ll be writing your psychiatric assessment, Alfreth.
I understand that, sir.
Don’t stand up.
I’m not about to, sir. I just thought I’d mention that this is highly irregular and I would like a reason. Most psych reports go on the evidence of the court report and I’m curious why Kate Wollington is here right now.
Yeah, Charlie, I know her first name. I know yours too. I have painted him into a corner and he knows it.
He betrays a sign of weakness by asking: Are you taking the piss out of me, Alfreth?’
No, sir. Quite the opposite. I’ve shown nothing but politure.
Politure?
Yes, sir. I don’t run the risk of offending him further by defining the word although I want to. I simply wish to understand this breach of protocol.
It’s my prison, Alfreth. That’s the only sort of protocol you need to know. Do you understand me?
It’s at this point that I think it’s his arse that’s going to rise from the seat.
I understand you, perfectly, sir, I say. I turn to Kate Wollington. Please say hello to Kate Thistle, I ask her. (Yeah, I know her forename too.)
Will do, is Miss Wollington’s only contribution to the conversation.
Thank you, sir.
And I am led back to my temporary pad in the Seg. It smells like a tramp’s beard in there, but already still the officers have ceased to remark on it. I’ve heard them all—the insults.
Smells like a rat crawled into this shit-hole and died, Alfreth.
Yes, sir.
Smells like a scabby whore’s Mound of Venus, Alfreth.
Yes, sir.
Insults don’t matter here, at Dellacotte Young Offenders. Why not? Because insults are the air you breathe and you get used to them quickly.
There’s a note from Reception. It’s been pushed under my cell door, and I unwrap it immediately. It’s about the books I’ve ordered via Julie. Bless her, Julie has tried her best. For whatever reason. The books have gone straight into my Personal Belongings in Reception. All three of them. Rationale: Material not suited to a prisoner. Allow it and fuck it. I don’t need the motherfuckers anymore. Where has she got the money? That’s sixty sheets.
Eight.
Five things.
He asks two questions, but without question words, does Dott. Prometheus? he asks. Hair shirt? he asks. And then he asks a question, in blood, with a question mark. It doesn’t take a genius of memory. He insults me, bruv. Prometheus is the Titan chiefly honored for stealing fire from the gods in the stalk of a fennel plant and giving it to mortals for their use. I can read, you know, Dott. He is depicted as an intelligent and cunning figure who has sympathy for humanity. Promethean refers to events or people of great creativity, intellect and boldness. Allow it. But we’re not done. Next comes the real question, and it makes me sit down on my mattress.
What is your earliest memory of fear? he wants to know.
If he thinks I don’t know what Prometheus and a hair-shirt is, he’s playing me for a div-kid cunt. The question, on the other hand, will need further thought. So I think about it now. I have no choice.
My earliest memory of fear stems back to when I was seven years old. It’s my earliest memory of anything at all. It’s my garden—or rather the communal garden, round the back of the flats where I grew up. I’m playing off-ground tag with my sisters and I’m stung. A bee lands on my right forearm and sperms me his worst. My muscle is inflamed for a week. It is not until this moment that I know I’m allergic to bee stings.
The second-to-last thing Dott has written is this: A million years of bee stings, Billy. Think about it. And I do. I think about it and I read these words for a good half an hour, careful to listen out for footfalls. Obsessive compulsive. He knows, I’m thinking. But how? I am stranded on an alien island. Don’t like it. Cunt knows. But how does the cunt know?
The last thing on Dott’s pillowcase is elementary. Read your visitor’s message, it says, and take heed. I am allowed out for exercise. I do my pull-ups. I don’t get the reference to Prometheus or to the hair shirt. I await my so-called visitor’s message. And eventually it comes. It comes on the day after the Adjudication. I’m asleep. My time down block has offered me a chance to catch up on my sleep if nothing else. Most of all I miss my job in the Library. Christ alone knows what my reception will be like if I’m ever allowed back there: my reception, I mean, from Miss Patterson and Miss Thistle. For I feel that I’ve let them down. A silly sensation, maybe, but it persists.
Screw Wells is taking up my doorframe. If you imagine your stereotypical montage of what a prison officer looks like, you’re thinking of a hench hard body like Screw Wells. Who tells me now:
Slag wash, Alfreth. On your feet. You’ve got a visitor at ten.
I’m not expecting anyone, I reply, but I know that this isn’t true. I’ve been expecting someone since I took possession of Dott’s pillowcase. Who is it, sir? I ask Wells.
Even his shrug is seismic. How the fuck would I know? he tells me. And while you’re at it, empty your slops box, would you? It smells in here.
Yes, sir. By now the pillowcase is good and stained with faecal matter. Although I’m sweating like an athlete, my passing of the shit and the fabric into the chute elicits nothing more than a sneer of professional good conduct.
Bet that’s a relief, Alfreth, innit?
Oh yes, sir. More than you can imagine.
His dumbfuddled frown burning into my spine, I return to my cell with the bucket and wash my bits and pits in cold water and prison issue lubricant. The stuff is as slimy as spawn. Satisfied not to know all, Wells closes and locks my cell door. My pulse is racing and I can’t resist it any longer.
Dott! I shout out through the window slits. Dott, are you listening?
I’m listening! he calls back. Could it be that he’s been waiting to hear this question? The reply is just about loud enough for me to hear.
Who’s my visitor, waste?
There is no reply to this one. So I shout it louder—only to get a complaint from Jacob in the intervening cell. I tell him to mind his manners and make it clear that if he doesn’t do so there will be repercussions. He shuts up, but that doesn’t help me with Dott’s silence.
Dott! Who the fuck is it? Show me your hand! Show me your motherfucking currency, blood! You want me to believe you show me!
Who said I wanted you to believe anything? Dott shouts.
WHO IS IT, CUNT?
The answer is among the last things I expect. It chills the piss in my bladder and makes me tingly and numb at the extremities.
It’s your Mumsy, Billy, Dott shouts.
There can’t be any more doubt in my mind: Dott is in touch with some of the boys I roll with on road. Or worse, he’s linking with Julie. Man doesn’t even want to think about that noise.