own toothpaste, soap, even lavatory paper. No more
There’s a knock on the cell door and Darren, Jimmy, Sergio and Steve make an entrance.
‘It’s a house-warming party,’ Darren explains, ‘and, like any good party, we come bearing gifts.’
Sergio has three five-by-five-inch steel mirrors, the regulation size. He fixes them on the wall with prison toothpaste. I can now see my head and upper body for the first time in five weeks.
Steve supplies – can you believe it – net curtains to hide my barred window, and at night tone down the glare of the fluorescent lights. Jimmy has brought all the paraphernalia needed – board, Blu-tack, etc. – to attach my family photos to the wall.
Lad Darren demands a roll of drums before he will reveal his gift, because he’s come up with every prisoner’s dream: a plug. No longer will I have to shave in my cereal bowl.
‘Anything else you require, my lord?’ Steve enquires.
‘I’m out of Evian.’
For the first time the visiting team admits defeat. A survey has been carried out and it’s been discovered that I am the only prisoner on the block who purchases bottled water from the canteen.
‘So, like the rest of us,’ says Darren, ‘if you want more water, you’ll have to turn on the tap.’
‘However,’ adds Sergio, ‘now that I’m number one on the hotplate,’ he pauses, ‘you will be able to have an extra carton of milk from time to time.’
What more could a man ask for?
7.00 pm
I read over today’s script in my silent cell and when I’ve finished editing I place the six pages in one of my new drawers. Every ten days the sheets are transferred to a large brown envelope (30,000 words) and sent off to Alison to type up.
I settle down on my bed to watch A Touch of Frost. David Jason is as consistent as ever, but the script is too flimsy to sustain itself for two hours, so I switch off the television and, for the first time in ten days, also the light, climb into my single bed and sleep. Goodbye, window warriors, may I never hear from you again.
DAY 36 – THURSDAY 23 AUGUST 2001
5.18 am
I wake, depressed about two matters. When I phoned Mary last night, she told me that the Red Cross have asked KPMG to audit the Simple Truth campaign, because some of their larger donors have been making waves and they want to dose the subject once and for all. Tony Morton-Hooper wrote to the police, pointing out that this internal audit has nothing to do with my involvement with the campaign. Mary and Tony are doing everything they can to get the police to admit that the whole enquiry is a farce and that Ms Nicholson’s accusations were made without a shred of evidence. Despite their efforts I have a feeling the police will not close their enquiry until they’ve considered his report, so it could now be months before my D-cat is reinstated.
I’m also depressed because the Tory party seems to have broken out into civil war, with Margaret Thatcher saying it will be a disaster if Ken Clarke wins, and John Major declaring that if IDS becomes leader well be in Opposition for another decade.
Six years so far.
6.00 am
I write for two hours.
8.15 am
After breakfast, Darren picks up my laundry, and warns me that the tumble dryer is still not functioning.
9.00 am
Banged up for another two hours because the staff are having their fortnightly training session in the gym. I’m told their activities range from first-aid lessons to self-defence (secure and protect), from checking through the latest Home Office regulations to any race relations problems, plus fire training, HIV reports and likely suicide candidates. One good thing about all this is that the tax payer is saved having to fund my pottery class (PS1.20).
11.00 am
I watch Nassar Hussain lose the toss for the fourteenth time in a row. I must ask Mary what the odds are against that
I walk out into the exercise yard just before the gates are closed at five past eleven. Jimmy points to Mario (not his real name) who is walking a few paces ahead of us. I hope you can recall Mario’s scam. While working on the hotplate he stole almost all the cheese. He then made Welsh rarebit, at a phone-card for two, using an iron as the toaster. Mario was caught creaming off nearly half a million a year from his fashionable London restaurant without bothering to pay any tax on his windfall. Although I have never frequented Mario’s establishment, I know it by reputation. There can be no doubt of the restaurant’s success, because it was one of those rare places that do not accept credit cards – only cash or cheques.
While we stroll round the yard – Mario’s not into power walking – he explains that approximately half of his income was in cash, the rest cheques or accounts. However, the taxman had no way of finding out what actual percentage was cash, until two tax inspectors visited the restaurant as diners. From careful observation they concluded that nearly half the customers were paying cash, whereas Mario’s tax return showed a mere 10 per cent settled the bill this way. But how could they prove it? The inspectors paid cash themselves and requested a receipt. What they couldn’t know was that Mario declared all the bills where the customer asked for a receipt, which he then entered in his books. Bills for which no receipts were given were destroyed and the cash then pocketed.
The taxmen couldn’t become regular customers (their masters wouldn’t allow such an extravagance) and were therefore unable to prove any wrongdoing. That was until a young, newly qualified accountant joined the Inland Revenue and came up with an ingenious idea as to how to ensnare Mario. The fresh-faced youth found out which laundry the restaurant used and over the next three months had the tablecloths and napkins counted. There were 40 per cent more tablecloths than bills and 38 per cent more napkins than customers.
Mario was arrested and charged with falsifying his accounts. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years. He will be returning to his restaurant later this year having, in answer to customers’ enquiries, taken a ‘sabbatical’ in his native Florence.
They’ve got it all wrong, Jeffrey,’ Mario says. The likes of you and me shouldn’t be in jail mixing with all this riff-raff. They should have fined me a million pounds, not paid out thirty-five thousand to accommodate me for a year. My regulars are livid with the police, the courts and the Inland Revenue.’ His final words are, ‘By the way, Jeffrey, do you like buck rarebit?’
12 noon
Lunch. Among the many things Mario briefed me on was how to select the best daily dish from the weekly menu. You must only choose dishes that are made with fresh ingredients grown on the premises and not bought in. As from next week there will be variations from my usual vegetarian fare.
2.00 pm
I read the morning papers. Margaret and John have placed their cutlasses back in their sheaths and both have fallen silent – for the time being. The press are describing the leadership contest as the most acrimonious in living memory, and one from which the party may never recover. Reading this page a couple of years after the event will give us all the benefit of hindsight. Is it possible that the party that governed for the longest period of time during the twentieth century will not hold office in the twenty-first? Or will Tony Blair suddenly look fallible?
3.15 pm
Gym. It’s the over-fifties’ spinning session – nothing to do with politics. Don’t kid yourself – it’s agony. Forty- five minutes with an instructor shouting, ‘On the straight’, ‘Up the slope’, Hill climbing’, Taster, faster. I fall off the bike at four o’clock and Darren almost carries me back to my cell.
5.30 pm
Australia are 208 for 1 and looking as if they could score 700. I leave the cricket to get some loo paper from the store. This must be collected between 8.15-8.30 am or 5.30-6.00 pm; one roll per person, per week. As I come out of the store room, I notice my name is chalked up on the blackboard to see the SO. I go straight to Mr Meanwell’s
