had been good gear; Richard was still using the ‘Cerruti’ wallet. She managed to light up without smudging her perfect lipstick, then said, ‘I flaming hate seeing him in there. I really appreciate you coming today. It’ll do him good to see you. He always asks Christie if she’s seen you and how you’re doing.’
From anyone other than Debbie, that would have been a deliberate crack, a sideswipe aimed at triggering a major guilt trip. But given that her IQ and her dress size are near neighbours, I knew she’d meant exactly what she said, no more and no less. It didn’t make any difference to me; I still got the stab of guilt. In the seven weeks Dennis had been inside, I’d only got along to see him once so far, and that had been the week after he went down. Sure, I’d been stretched at work, with Bill clearing his desk before Australia. But that was only half the story. Like Debbie, I hated seeing Dennis inside Strangeways. Unlike her, nobody was going to give me a bad time for not visiting him every week. Nobody except me.
‘I’m sorry I’ve not managed more often,’ I said lamely.
‘Don’t worry about it, love,’ Debbie said. ‘If I didn’t have to go, you wouldn’t catch me within a hundred miles of the place.’
I refrained from pointing out she lived only half a dozen miles from the red-brick prison walls; I like Debbie too much. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘Not so bad now. You know how he is about drugs? Well, they’ve just opened this drug-free unit where you can get away from all the junkies and the dealers and he’s got on it. The deal is if you stay away from drugs you get unlimited access to the gym. And if you work out daily, you get extra rations. So he’s spending a lot of time on the weights. Plus the other blokes on this drug-free wing are mostly older like him, so it’s not like being stuck on a wing with a load of drugged-up idiots.’ Debbie sighed. ‘He just hates being banged up. You know he can’t be doing with anybody keeping tabs on him.’
I knew only too well. It was one of the things that united the two of us, superficially so different, but underneath disturbingly similar. ‘And time passes a lot faster on the outside than it does behind those walls,’ I said, half to myself.
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Debbie said bitterly.
In silence, I navigated my way through the city centre, catching every red light on Deansgate before we passed the new Nynex arena. It’s an impressive sight, towering over the substantial nineteenth-century edifice of Victoria Station. Unfortunately but predictably, it opened to a chorus of problems, the main one being that the seats are so steeply raked that people sitting in the top tiers have had to leave because they were suffering from vertigo.
I swung into the visitors’ car park and stared up at another impressive sight—the new round-topped wall containing Her Majesty’s Prison. The prisoners who destroyed half of Strangeways in a spectacular riot a few years ago ended up doing their successors a major favour. Instead of the horrors of the old Victorian prison—three men to a cramped cell without plumbing—they now have comfortable cells with latrines and basins. For once, the authorities listened to the people who have to run prisons, who explained that the hardest prisoners to deal with are the ones on relatively short sentences. A lifer knows he’s in there for a long time, and he wants to make sure that one day he sees the outside again. A man who’s got a ten-year sentence knows he’ll only serve five years if he keeps his nose clean, so he’s got a real incentive to stay out of trouble. But to some toerag who’s been handed down eighteen months, it’s not the end of the world to lose remission and serve the whole sentence. The short-term prisoners also tend to be the younger lads, who don’t have the maturity to get their heads down and get through it. They’re angry because they’re inside, and they don’t
From anyone other than Debbie, that would have been a deliberate crack, a sideswipe aimed at triggering a major guilt trip. But given that her IQ and her dress size are near neighbours, I knew she’d meant exactly what she said, no more and no less. It didn’t make any difference to me; I still got the stab of guilt. In the seven weeks Dennis had been inside, I’d only got along to see him once so far, and that had been the week after he went down. Sure, I’d been stretched at work, with Bill clearing his desk before Australia. But that was only half the story. Like Debbie, I hated seeing Dennis inside Strangeways. Unlike her, nobody was going to give me a bad time for not visiting him every week. Nobody except me.
‘I’m sorry I’ve not managed more often,’ I said lamely.
‘Don’t worry about it, love,’ Debbie said. ‘If I didn’t have to go, you wouldn’t catch me within a hundred miles of the place.’
I refrained from pointing out she lived only half a dozen miles from the red-brick prison walls; I like Debbie too much. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘Not so bad now. You know how he is about drugs? Well, they’ve just opened this drug-free unit where you can get away from all the junkies and the dealers and he’s got on it. The deal is if you stay away from drugs you get unlimited access to the gym. And if you work out daily, you get extra rations. So he’s spending a lot of time on the weights. Plus the other blokes on this drug-free wing are mostly older like him, so it’s not like being stuck on a wing with a load of drugged-up idiots.’ Debbie sighed. ‘He just hates being banged up. You know he can’t be doing with anybody keeping tabs on him.’
I knew only too well. It was one of the things that united the two of us, superficially so different, but underneath disturbingly similar. ‘And time passes a lot faster on the outside than it does behind those walls,’ I said, half to myself.
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Debbie said bitterly.
In silence, I navigated my way through the city centre, catching every red light on Deansgate before we passed the new Nynex arena. It’s an impressive sight, towering over the substantial nineteenth-century edifice of Victoria Station. Unfortunately but predictably, it opened to a chorus of problems, the main one being that the seats are so steeply raked that people sitting in the top tiers have had to leave because they were suffering from vertigo.
I swung into the visitors’ car park and stared up at another impressive sight—the new round-topped wall containing Her Majesty’s Prison. The prisoners who destroyed half of Strangeways in a spectacular riot a few years ago ended up doing their successors a major favour. Instead of the horrors of the old Victorian prison—three men to a cramped cell without plumbing—they now have comfortable cells with latrines and basins. For once, the authorities listened to the people who have to run prisons, who explained that the hardest prisoners to deal with are the ones on relatively short sentences. A lifer knows he’s in there for a long time, and he wants to make sure that one day he sees the outside again. A man who’s got a ten-year sentence knows he’ll only serve five years if he keeps his nose clean, so he’s got a real incentive to stay out of trouble. But to some toerag who’s been handed down eighteen months, it’s not the end of the world to lose remission and serve the whole sentence. The short-term prisoners also tend to be the younger lads, who don’t have the maturity to get their heads down and get through it. They’re angry because they’re inside, and they don’t
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