‘One Botero, at a price you can afford, within a year,’ he confirms. ‘You’ll have it by Christmas.’
When I leave him to return to my cell, I remember just how much I miss dealing, whether it’s for PS200 or PS2 million. I once watched Jimmy Goldsmith bargaining for a backgammon board with a street trader in Mexico. It took him all of forty minutes, and he must have saved every penny of PS10, but he just couldn’t resist it.
12 noon
Lunch. I devour a plate of Princes ham (49p) surrounded by prison beans while I watch England avoid the follow on.
2.00 pm
I head for the library – closed, followed by the gym – cancelled. So I’ll have to settle for a forty-five-minute walk around the exercise yard.
3.00 pm
The man who was sketching the portrait of another prisoner yesterday is waiting for me as Darren, Jimmy and I walk out into the yard. He introduces himself as Shaun, but tells me that most inmates call him Sketch. I explain that I want a portrait of Dale (wounding with intent), Darren (marijuana only), Jimmy (Ecstasy courier), Steve (conspiracy to murder) and Jules (drug dealing) for the diary; a sort of montage. He looks excited by the commission, but warns me that he’ll have to get on with it as he’s due to be released in three weeks’ time.
‘Any hope of some colour?’ I ask.
‘Follow me,’ he says. We troop across rough grass littered with rubbish and uneaten food to end up outside a cell window on the ground floor of C wing. I stare through the bars at paintings that cover almost all his wall space. There’s even a couple on the bed. I’m left in no doubt that he’s the right man for the job.
‘How about a picture of the prison?’ he suggests.
‘Yes,’ I tell him, ‘especially if it’s from your window, because I have an almost identical view two blocks over.’ (See plate section.)
I then ask him how he would like to be paid. Shaun suggests that as he is leaving soon, it may be easier to send a cheque directly to his home, so his girlfriend can bank it. He says he’d like to think about a price overnight and discuss it with me during exercise tomorrow; I’m not allowed to visit his cell as he resides on another block so we can only talk through his barred window.
5.00 pm
Supper: vegetable stir-fry and a mug of Volvic.
I’ve negotiated two art deals today, so I feel a little better. Because the library was closed and I have finished The Glass Bead Game, I have nothing new to read until it opens again tomorrow. I spend the rest of the evening writing about Sergio.
DAY 32 – SUNDAY 19 AUGUST 2001
‘talisman of my existence. I seem to be the only thing that doesn’t move.’
When I reach the hotplate Dale gives a curt nod, a sign he needs to see me; Sergio also nods. I leave the hotplate empty-handed, bar a slice of toast and two appointments. I return to my cell and eat a bowl of my cornflakes with my milk.
5.59 am
First peaceful night in weeks. Yesterday I visited the three prisoners with noisy stereos and the two inmates who go on shouting at each other all through the night. But not before I had been asked to do so by several other prisoners on the spur. I got two surprises: firstly, no one was willing to accompany me – they were all happy to point out which cells they were in, but no more than that. The second surprise was that all of the transgressors, without exception, responded favourably to my courteous request with either, ‘Not me, gov,’ or, ‘Sorry, Jeff, I’ll turn it down,’ and in one case. ‘I’ll turn it off at nine, Jeff.’ Interesting.
8.15 am
Breakfast. A prisoner in the queue for the hotplate asks me if I’m moving cells today.
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘What makes you think that?’
The name card outside your cell has disappeared, always the first sign that you’re on the move.’
I laugh, and explain, ‘It’s been removed every day – a sort of’
9.15 am
Gym. The treadmill is not working again, so I start with the rower and manage 1,956 metres in ten minutes. I would have done better if I hadn’t started chatting to the inmate on the next rower. All across his back is tattooed the word MONSTER, though, in truth, he’s softly spoken and, whenever I’ve come across him in the corridor, friendly. I ask what his real name is.
‘Martin,’ he whispers, ‘but only my mother calls me that. Everyone else calls me Monster.’ He’s managed 2,470 metres in ten minutes despite chatting to me.
He tells me that in January, when he arrived at Wayland, he weighed seventeen and a half stone. He is a taxi driver from Essex and admits that it was easy to put on weight in that job. Now he tips the scales at thirteen stone five pounds, and his girlfriend has to visit him every two weeks just to make sure that she’ll still recognize him when he’s released. He was sen-tenced to three years for transporting cannabis from one Ilford club to another.
About a third of the men in this prison have been convicted of some crime connected with cannabis, and most of them will say, I repeat say, that they would never deal in hard drugs. In fact, Darren goes further and, snarling, adds that he would try to dissuade anyone who did. If cannabis were to be legalized – and for most of the well- rehearsed reasons, I remain unconvinced that it should – the price would fall by around 70 per cent, tax revenues would be enormous and prison numbers would drop overnight.
Many young prisoners complain, ‘It’s your lot who are smoking the stuff, Jeff. In ten years’ time it won’t even be considered a crime.’ Jimmy admits that he couldn’t meet the demand from his customers, and that he certainly never needed to do any pushing. Darren adds that although he and Jimmy covered roughly the same territory in Ipswich they hadn’t come across each other until they ended up in jail, which will give you an idea of just how large the market is.
Just in case you’ve forgotten, I’m still in the gym. Monster leaves me to join Darren and Jimmy on the bench press, where he manages to pump ten reps of 250 pounds. I also turn to the weights where I achieve ten curls at 50 pounds. This is followed by a spell on the bicycle, where I break the world record by peddling three miles in twelve minutes and fifty-four seconds. Pity it’s the world record for running.
Mr Maiden, the senior gym instructor, reintroduces me to the medicine ball, which I haven’t come in contact with since I left school. I place the large leather object behind my head, raise my shoulders as in an ordinary sit-up, and then pass it up to him. He then drops it back on top of me. Simple, I think, until I reach my fifth attempt, by which time I’m exhausted and Mr Maiden is unable to hide his mirth at my discomfort. He knows only too well that I haven’t done this exercise for over forty years, and what the result would be.
‘We’ll have you doing three sets of fifteen with a minute interval between sets before you’re released,’ he promises.
‘I hope not,’ I tell him, without explanation. I then carry out a fifteen-minute warm down and stretching as my trainer in London (Karen) would have demanded. At the end of the session
I am first at the gate, because I’ll have to be in and out of the shower fairly quickly if I’m to get to the library before the doors are locked.
10.21 am
Jog to my cell, strip, shower, change, jog to the library. Still sweating, but nothing I can do about it. Steve (conspiracy to murder) is on duty behind the desk in his position as chief librarian. Because Steve’s the senior Listener, he’s allowed to wear his own clothes and is often mistaken for a member of staff. I return Famous Trials and take out Twenty-one Short Stories by Graham Greene.
10.50 am
Once I’ve left the library I walk straight across the corridor to the chapel and discover there are thirty worshippers in the congregation this week. From their dress, the majority must come from the local village. The black man sitting next to me, who was among the seven prisoners who attended last week, tells me it’s the biggest turnout he’s ever seen. This week a Methodist minister called Mary conducts the service, accompanied by an
