Yo, Meaney!
Wogwun, blood?
Your team play shit at the weekend, cuz, I taunt him—not only completely ignorant about his team’s performance but by no means even vaguely aware of what his team even is, or if he has one.
You on smack, Alfreth? he replies in the sky-high cadences of utter disbelief. We fucking cream ’em, blood!
The debate is slow to get going—it’s like those shows where the hench man pulls the lorry with the rope, with the harness around his torso. Once it’s in motion it’s hard to stop.
You’re chatting waffles!
As soon as the argument is good and going, I can talk to Dott. Or rather, he can talk to me.
Heard the life story then? he says. How does it work as a narrative?
Every day’s a school day, Dott.
Very philosophical.
You’re telling me, blood, I say. But who can I tell?
I’m reminded of a conversation with Kate Wollington, a few months earlier. The hour is stoned o’clock, but when you’ve got psychological problems you talk to a psychologist, right? But not a Criminal Psychologist: a Psychologist Psychologist.
Gov, I’m whining that night, can I go to Health Care, please?
When? In the morning? asks Screw Oates.
No, sir. Now please, sir.
It’s two o’clock in the bloody morning, Alfreth. You wet the bed?
I’ve got stomach cramps, sir.
His eyes are working mine something fierce; he’s thinking—well, actually, Alfreth isn’t known for pushing the night bell or clowning around. Maybe it’s real. There’s been a short epidemic of food poisoning, after all.
Get dressed, Billy, he says.
I happen to know it’s Kate Wollington’s turn to work nights. And she’s from a therapeutic background. She’s not like the Education Govs, who always play their cards close to their chests. Kate reveals—from time to time—little pieces of information. She’s got a cat named Sooty. Favourite colour is mauve. And when she does the night shift she leaves her office door open; she doesn’t like the silence or the confined space. (I could tell her her fortune, cuz. Don’t talk to a YO about confined spaces.) So she will hear us approach.
That’s the plan. But will she?
She’s playing Mahler at a discreet volume as we enter the corridor. This isn’t helpful. I do my best to make my footfalls louder; I even clutch my stomach and indulge in a pregnant moan.
Nearly there, Alfreth, I’m told.
Kate Wollington appears at her door. Workhorse that she is, she has been applying nightcream to a nasty-looking delta of eczema on her left earlobe. What’s going on? she asks.
Gut rot, Miss, the screw replies.
I catch her eye. Whether or not I have learned anything from Dott about mind control is questionable, but it’s a technique that I pray I’m at least a novice at right now as I will Kate to want to speak to me.
We’re almost past her. Then she says: If you’re feeling a bit better in a little while, Billy, I need you to pop in and sign your Psych Report from a few months back. I don’t know how I missed it.
Yes, Miss, I tell her. Thank you, Miss.
You’re welcome.
And so it is that I enter the Health Care Surgery. Salty- eyed and with a brisk moustache, sallowed by nicotine and what looks like tomato sauce from his midnight snack, the doctor’s name is Peregrine or Montgomery or something old school like that. If it’s not, it should be: he’s got a Bertram appearance about him. He’s also got a sleep-deprived appearance about him—and the sort of breath that suggests he might have stopped at the local for a few whiskies before he started his shift.
What are you thinking about? Dott asks me. You’re miles away.
Did you put it there? I reply immediately, suddenly flaky with new panic.
Put what there? Put what where?
Me and the doctor. In my head. Me and the Psychologist.
Working lazily, Dott smiles. Bless you for the compliment, he says, but I’m not sure I’m that good.
You’ve done it before.
Not a memory, Billy! Dott replies. An impulse, a thought.
Get on with your work, the Cookery Gov tells us.
We have to get back to our dishes. But the class will be nearly three hours, like all of them. I’ll have time to re-connect, to re-link.
What else did she say? Dott asks.
My first reaction is that he’s on about Kate Wollington, but of course he means Kate Thistle. All the same, I decide to keep him waiting. I have been kept waiting for long enough by him.
Clutching my midriff, I stop at Kate Wollington’s door in the middle of the early hours. I have been given an aspirin; I’ve had my mouth checked to make sure that I’ve swallowed it. My performance has not been good enough to get me sent outside the gates to go to hospital. Instead I am holding a teacup-sized bottle of water with a second aspirin dissolved in it. The consultation has taken quite a few minutes because the doctor has needed to check my medical records for notes of any allergies.
Come in, Alfreth, Kate Wollington says.
From the door I see that what she has in front of her is a standard black text-on-white paper form, and the few strides I take towards her do nothing to make me change my mind. The screw waits in the corridor.
Just check what I’ve written and sign at the bottom if you would, Kate says, issuing me with a ballpoint.
Instead of picking up the form I lean over and read it on her desk, not understanding the game at all. It is quickly obvious. In the space under NAME she has written the words I can and under PRISON NUMBER she has written help you. In the box left for today’s date is her handwritten with. The rest of her message follows in the larger boxes for PSYCH HISTORY and REPORT. And it reads: your problems on the outside—with Julie, with your mother—but only if you decide to talk to me. To help me. I want to know why what you remember of the night of your crime is different from what was seen on CCTV. Was there more than one crime that night? Were you more coked up than you have told me? Help me. And I will help you.
It just needs you to sign to agree, Kate Wollington tells me.
I sign my name in a badly-shaking a scrawl as I now continue with my meal in the Cookery Class. Dott is still waiting for me to answer his question.
We were still in the Library, I reply, and I say Kings?
Two.
Kings? I repeat. Did you say kings could be grown in the desert?
That’s exactly what I said.
I don’t understand. Ducks now kings, this is insane.
Kate is appearing somewhat dreamy now. She’s reminiscing; she’s lost the hardness of fact and is soft with a different focus—the lens of memory.
Everyone there was obsessed with time. And time meant something slightly different for all of us. Time is strange in the Hola Ettaluun… She giggles naughtily. Bloody understatement of the year! Another cigarette?
The craving of a few seconds ago has already left me in its dust. We’ll get caught, I tell Kate Thistle.
You’re already in prison. What’s the worst that can happen?
Seg? Loss of earnings?
But she’s not listening. Besides, I’ll take the rap, she says, lighting up again. I decline the polite offer nonetheless.
So what did it mean for you? I ask. Time, I mean. I am struggling to hold all of the pieces in my head; it’s like holding onto pieces of a storm.