Anyway, I gather from your office that it might now be possible to arrange a visit, once I and they have filled in all sorts of bumf, and you have been given enough notice to stick a jeroboam of Krug on ice and slip into a brocade dressing-gown and fez, so I shall set that in train forthwith-if, of couurse, you agree. You are, by the way, bloody lucky not to be in that office now, these are bad days to be living at the top of a tall building next to MI6 and opposite the H of C -- and I speak as one who knows, having, as you’ll spot from the letterhead, recently moved to a house in Regent’s Park; where, from my top-floor study window as I type, I can see the Regent’s Park Mosque 500 metres to my right, and the American Ambassador’s residence 500 metres to my left. I am ground bloody zero right here: every time His Excellency’s helicopter trrobs in, we rush down to the cellar. Could by anybody, or anything. Since even I don’t know where Freiston is, I rather doubt that Osama bin Laden could find it, and you are further fortunate in the fact that, because every envelope to the clink is doubtless slit open, poked about in and generally vetted to the last square millimetre, if anybody’s going to get anthrax, it won’t be you.
Life goes on in London as normal: Anne and I have grown used to wearing our gas-masks in bed. though it’s still a bit of a bugger waking up in the night and unthinkingly reaching for a bedside drink, so there’s more nocturnal tumble-drying going on than there used to be. Giles and Victoria wish to be remembered to you, and want you to know that they’re fine, and settling down well with their foster parents in Timbuktu, where they tell me they have made lots of new friends among the other evacuees, although HP sauce is proving dificult to find. Your beloved Conservative Party has elected a new leader, who may be seen every day at the doors of the Commons handing out his business cards to MPs and officials who would otherwise think we was someone who had turned up to flog them personal pension schemes.
2
Are you writing a book about chokey?
All right -- if we must -- let’s be serious for a moment: do you need anything, is there anything I can do, anyone I can see for you, all that? I know that you have truckloads of closer -- and far more influential -- friends than I, but because it’s always on the cards that there may just be something you need that no-one else can come up with, I want you to know that I should do my very best to sort it out.
But if nothing else, do drop me the briefest of notes to let me know whether or not you’d like a visit. If you’d rather be left in peace, I should of course, understand. But it would be nice to meet for the odd laugh -- as if there could be any other kind of laugh, these days.
8.15pm
I sign in for roll-call. From tomorrow, as I will have completed my two weeks’ induction, I need only sign in at 11 am, 4 pm and 8.15 pm. Because I’ll be at work, in future, 8.15 pm will be the one time I have to appear in person. Doug says I will feel the difference immediately.
DAY 104 TUESDAY 30 OCTOBER 2001
6.01 am
Write for two hours. I’ve now completed 250,000 words since being incarcerated. Perhaps Alan Coren is right.
8.15 am
Ten new prisoners arrived yesterday. They will be seeing the doctor straight after breakfast before coming to SMU to be given their induction pack, and then be interviewed by the labour board. One by one they make an appearance. Some are cocky, know it all, seen it all, nothing to learn, while others are nervous and anxious, and full of desperate questions.
And then there’s Michael Keane (lifer, fourteen years so far, aged thirty-nine).
Those of you who’ve been paying attention for the past 250,000 words will recall my twenty days at Belmarsh, where I met William Keane on the tea-bag chain gang. His brother Michael has the same Irish charm, wit and love of literature, but never forget that all seven Keane brothers have been in jail at the same time, costing the taxpayer a million pounds a year. Michael passes on William’s best wishes, and adds that he heard today that his sister has just been released from Holloway after serving nine months for a string of credit-card crimes. Michael is hoping for parole in March, and if Irish charm were enough, he’d make it, but unfortunately, the decision has to be ratified by the Home Office, who will only read his files, and never see him face to face. His fame among the Keanes is legendary, because when he was at Belmarsh – a high-security prison – he got as far as the first outer gate while emptying dustbins. The furthest anyone has manage while trying to escape from hell.
10.20 am
A scruffy, unshaven prisoner called Potts checks into SMU to confirm that he has a meeting with his solicitor this afternoon. I check my day sheet to see that his lawyer is booked in for three o’clock. Potts, who has just come off a three-hour shift in the kitchen, smiles.
‘See you at three, Jeff.’
11.40 am
All ten inductees have been seen by the labour board, and are fixed up with jobs on the farm, in the kitchen or at the officers’ mess. One, Kevin (six years for avoiding paying VAT), has opted for full-time education as he’s in his final year of a law degree.
12 noon
Over lunch, Doug asks me if I’ve put in my takeaway order for the weekend. I realize I’m being set up, but happily play along. He then tells me the story of two previous inmates, Bruce and Roy, who were partners in crime.
Bruce quickly discovered that it was not only easy to abscond from NSC, but equally straightforward to return unobserved. So one night, he walked the six miles to Boston, purchased some fish and chips, stole a bicycle, rode back, hid the bike on the farm and went to bed. Thus began a thriving enterprise known as ‘weekend orders’. His room-mate Roy would spend the week taking orders from the other prisoners for supper on Saturday night (the last meal every day is at five o’clock, so you can be a bit peckish by nine). Armed with the orders, Bruce would then cycle into Boston immediately after the eight-fifteen roll-call, visit the local fish and chip shop, McDonalds or KFC – not to mention the pub – and arrive back within the hour so he could drop off his orders and still be seen roaming round the corridors long before the 10 pm roll-call.
This dot-con service ran successfully for several months, in the best traditions of free enterprise. Unfortunately, there’s always some dissatisfied customer who will grass, and one night two officers caught Bruce about a mile away from the prison, laden with food and drink. He was transferred to a C-cat the following morning. His room- mate Roy, aware it would only be a matter of days before he was implicated, absconded with all the cash and hasn’t been seen since.
2.50 pm
Potts returns to SMU for the meeting with his solicitor. He has shaved, washed his hair and is wearing a clean, well-ironed shirt, and his shoes are shining. I have the unenviable task of telling him that his solicitor rang a few moments ago to cancel the appointment.
