affairs and beach stones

HMP Wormwood Scrubs, February 1959

MY FINGERS SO frozen, I can hold this pen for only seconds at a time. A word, another word, then another and another. And then I must sit on my hands to coax the blood back. The ink itself may soon freeze. If it froze, would the nib burst? Would even my pen be disfigured by this place?

But I am setting down words on a page. Which is something. In here, it is close to being everything.

Where to begin? With the policeman's knock on my door at one in the morning? The night in the cells at Brighton police station? Mrs Marion Styles in court, describing me as a 'very imaginative' man? The slamming of the van door after being led from the dock? The slamming of every door since?

Begin with Bert. Bert, who has given me this gift of writing.

Anything you want hidden, Bert says, I can hide. Screws won't have a clue.

How does he know what I want? And yet he does. Bert knows everything. His petrol-green eyes may well have the ability to see through walls. He is the most feared and powerful prisoner in D Hall, and he is, he's announced, my friend.

This is because Bert likes to listen to an 'educated fucker' like me talk.

As soon as I was allowed out on association, Bert made himself known to me. I was collecting the pitiful scraps they call lunch (cabbage boiled until translucent, globs of unrecognisable meat) when someone in the queue felt the need to urge me forward with the words, 'Get a move on, queer.' Not the most original of insults, and I was ready to keep my

head down and do exactly as asked. This strategy had got me through the last three months without too much aggravation. Then Bert appeared by my side.

'Listen, fucker. This man's a friend of mine. And friends of mine ain't queer. Got it?'

His voice low. His cheek pale.

For the first time, I looked straight ahead as I walked to a table. I followed Bert, who somehow communicated that this was his wish without uttering a word or even making a gesture. Once we were seated with our trays, he nodded in my direction. 'Heard about your case,' he said. 'Diabolical liberty. They done you, just like they done me.'

I didn't contradict him. It's possible that because I don't flounce about wearing 'powder' (flour from the kitchen) and 'nail varnish' (paint lifted from the art class), Bert believes I am a normal. Many of the minorities in here are very, very blatant. I suppose they think they might as well pass the time as well as possible. The grey woollen capes we've been issued for the winter months – which fasten at the neck and fall full to the waist – do make a quite theatrical effect when swept over one shoulder in the yard. So why not make the most of them? I'm a little tempted myself. God knows they're quite the best item in the prison wardrobe. But old habits, as they say, die hard. And so Bert, if no one else, has been fooled. And no man contradicts Bert.

I'd known about him before he introduced himself. He's a tobacco baron. Every Friday he collects his profits from the men for the 'snout' that he's let out to them at a huge rate of interest. He's nothing to look at. Short, ginger-haired, stout about the middle. Tattoos up both forearms, but he's told me these were a youthful mistake, one he now regrets. 'Got them up Piccadilly,' he said, 'after me first proper tickle. Got a grand that time. Thought I was the king or summat.'

But Bert has natural leadership. It's in his soft, low voice. His all-seeing face. The way he stands as if he's grown out of the ground. As confident in his right to exist as any tree. And

it's in the way he befriends people who need him, like me, and then makes the most of them. So. Bert has agreed to hide this exercise book. He's told me himself that he can't read. And why would he lie about a thing like that?