Billy Rags (14 page)

“Nice sort of bleeding chap you are,” Tommy said.

“Tommy,” said Terry, “do you let me read your letters?”

“Terry,” I said, “all we want to do is look at the photos.”

“Billy, if your bird sent you some nude photos would you show them to me?”

Then wily old Wally came in again now he thought he could see which way the wind was blowing.

“If Terry don't want to show them to you then that's up to him, isn't it?” he said. “I mean, it's Terry's privilege.”

“Thanks, Wally,” Terry said.

“I told you she was a good girl,” Walter said. “She'll visit you if you play your cards right. You keep her sweet, son.”

Terry gave us the pay-off later. Apparently Walter had sidled up to him in the shop that afternoon when nobody was about and said:

“Terry, I'm right pleased for you about Candy. It's always nice to have someone to write to.”

“You're right there, Wally,” Terry had said. “I really appreciate what you did.”

“Forget it. Glad to oblige.”

“If there's anything I can do . . .”

“Well . . . seeing as I sort of set it up, like . . . how about letting us have a skerry at the photos?”

Terry had gone all hurt.

“Wally,” he'd said, “why are you any different from the others?”

“Well, I'm not, but, I mean . . .”

“I can't let you see them and not the others,”

“Don't be silly, Terry. I shan't let them know.”

Terry had shaken his head.

“Terry, I'm your pal. I told you to write to her in the first place.”

“I know that, Walter, but that wouldn't make it right.”

Walter had gone on at Terry for days like this until he finally twigged it. When he finally twigged it I thought he was going to turn himself inside out. He was speechless for a week. But at least his preoccupation had kept him out of mine and Tommy's business for a while.

From the yard, I check out the back of the shop. There are no signs of Law, but I know I'm taking a chance. I haven't much choice. The only way to find out how things are is to go in.

I cross the yard and try the stockroom door. It's open. The smell of cardboard boxes is released and immediately I think of my father.

I close the door behind me and listen. Upstairs there is the muffled sound of the radio. A floorboard creaks. I walk over to the door that opens into the shop and turn the handle. The shop is empty. Dust everywhere. Half stocked. Shabby.

I climb the stairs. My mother is in the lounge, half- asleep, sitting by the radio. I walk over to her and tap her on the shoulder. She looks up. For a moment her face is blank. Then she starts to rise from her chair and I help her up.

After the tears comes the spiel.

“Why, Billy? Why? With only two months left?”

I let go of her and move away.

“You could have been out in two months. Home.”

“I wanted to be out now.”

I light a cigarette.

“You'll have it to do all over again. And then what will we do, me and Linda? We were banking on it, Billy, you coming back. It's too much for us.”

I look down into the street. Why the fuck doesn't she shut up? Can't she see I don't want this? If she'd just be quiet, stop asking, maybe I'd help.

“Especially now, the way Linda is. She's always looked to you, Billy, even when your Dad was with us. She needs you here. And so do I.”

The tears start again.

“I am here, aren't I?” I say, because I can't think of anything else.

My mother gives me one of her looks.

“Anyway,” I say, “what's this about Linda? What's she up to?”

“Billy, I don't dare think. I've heard things, secondhand, but she won't tell me anything herself.”

“What things?”

“I think she might be taking drugs.”

“Drugs?”

“Well, not real drugs. Pills. I don't know what they are. You'll know better than me.”

“Since when?”

“I don't know. All I know is she's changed. Knocking about with all sorts. She never even talks to me.”

“Where is she now?”

“In bed.”

“In bed?”

“She didn't come in till after I'd opened the shop. She's been out since yesterday dinnertime.”

“Go and wake her up. Tell her I want to talk to her.”

“She won't listen.”

“Then why did you keep writing me she needed me? Christ, mother, make up your flaming mind.”

“It won't do any good. I know.”

But nevertheless she goes into Linda's bedroom and rouses her. I hear their arguing voices and I face the window and try and fill my mind with the noise of the traffic so that I don't have to listen to them.

Eventually my mother comes back into the room.

“I can't talk to her. She says she doesn't want to see you.”

But even as my mother is speaking Linda walks through the lounge and into the kitchen and begins to make herself a cup of coffee.

I walk through into the kitchen.

“What's the matter with you, then?” I say to her.

She ignores me and concentrates on putting coffee into the coffee cup.

“I mean, you haven't seen me for fourteen months. Isn't there anything you want to say?”

“Like what?”

She doesn't look at me when she speaks.

“I thought maybe you'd be pleased to see me.”

“Are you pleased to see me?”

She takes a sip of coffee and swears as it scalds her lips.

“Linda,” I say, “I d like a talk.”

“Would you?” She begins to walk back to her bedroom. “Well, I wouldn't. I haven't time. I'm going out.”

I stand in front of her, blocking her way.

“Linda—”

“Will you shift yourself? I'll be late.”

I turn to my mother and as I turn Linda goes into her bedroom and slams the door.

I shrug.

“Well, there you are,” I say. “What's the point. She obviously couldn't care less about what I have to say.”

Tommy's hamster was very helpful.

We managed about three quarters of an hour a day on the wall. But the longer we went on the bigger the workings got and soon it wasn't enough for us to push back the bench in order to obscure the chiselling. The presence of the hamster came in handy because of the adventure playground Tommy had made for it in his cell. He'd made it out of papier-mâché on one of the big three foot by two foot trays that came over from the kitchen. The natural place to keep the papier-mâché was in the shower room so that it stayed nice and damp. The bucket had been a permanent fixture in there well before we started on the hole. So when the chiselling began to really show we'd plug the hole with papier mâché. But as we worked round the second brick the dried light grey of the papier mâché began to look a bit sore against the blue of the paintwork. The only thing for us to do was to get hold of some of the same emulsion. And the only way to do this was to approach Ray. In the afternoons, if he got bored, he'd do a bit of painting on permission, re-decorating his cell. I couldn't go to the screws for another load of paint other-wise they'd get suspicious even if they'd no idea of what they were being suspicious of. So there was only Ray. And Ray was no mug. And Walter owed him a business.

I wandered into his cell one afternoon. This particular afternoon he wasn't decorating. He was listening to the football on his headphones. He was a great West Ham supporter and the match he was listening to was West Ham getting beaten at Liverpool. I'd listened to some of it myself earlier. So it wasn't exactly the best moment I could have picked for chatting up Ray. But I couldn't wait for the right moment to arise.

I sat down and waited for Ray to take off his headphones. He sat there on the edge of his pit getting blacker and blacker in the face. Eventually he pulled the headphones off his ears and flung them on his pit.

“Fucking robbers,” he said. “Bobby'd never bring anybody down in the penalty area.”

“Not unless he had to,” I said. Which was the wrong thing to have said.

“Only if he's provoked,” Ray said. “Only against a load of fucking heavies like that lot.”

I shrugged. Ray stood up and thrust his hands in his pockets.

“Not decorating today, then?” I said.

“What the fucking hell for?”

I didn't answer. Ray sat down again.

“I was just wondering,” I said, “whether you had any blue to spare.”

Ray looked at me.

“What for?”

“I thought I'd paint the mirror in my cell.”

There was a silence. Eventually Ray said:

“Billy, don't take me for a fucking mug.”

“How do you mean, Ray?” I said, fishing for my cigarettes.

“You must think I'm bleeding thick.”

“I don't get you.”

Ray stood up again.

“Do you think I haven't noticed all the secret service confabs you and Tommy've been having? Do you think I haven't noticed all the fucking showering? You've blotted me out, you bastard. And you thought I was too fucking thick to tumble. You've got one and it's just you and Tommy, you cunt.”

I lit up my cigarette. Ray stood there watching me, waiting for me to speak, protest, say something. But I just lit up my cigarette and threw the match on the floor and took the small jar I'd brought with me out of my pocket and put it on his table.

“I just want some paint, Ray,” I said. “Just a little bit of blue.”

“What did you think, Billy?” he said. “That I'd grass?”

“Do I get the paint?” I said.

“What's the story, Billy?”

“No story,” I said. “I just want a bit of blue to paint up my mirror.”

Ray looked at me for a while.

“All right,” he said. “Suit your fucking self. All I hope is you come up in the Governor's office.”

“Don't hope too hard,” I said.

Ray gave me the paint and I went to see Tommy and told him about Ray.

“Fuck it,” Tommy said. “I knew it was going too sweet.”

“All we can do is carry on,” I said.

“Maybe we should have put him in it,” Tommy said. “Maybe we still can.”

I shook my head.

“If he's going to tell Walter he'll tell him whether we put him in it or not. Ray's been slighted.”

“Do you think he will tell Walter?”

“I don't know. I know Ray's no Walter lover, but then he feels similar about us now he knows he's not been took on.”

But three weeks passed and there was no noise from Walter. In that time Tommy and I had got our first brick out. After that we took a couple more out either side to expose all the sides of a brick in the second line of brick work. And when we got the first back brick out, a faint swish of cool air drifted out of the hole. This was the most exciting moment of the entire operation. Just to smell that fresh air.

What we'd got was a chimney. All sooted up and narrow, but a chimney, and it led somewhere.

Now we concentrated on the back layer of bricks. It was nothing now to get two bricks out in one session and within another week we'd cut back the second layer of bricks well beyond the facing opening, which we wanted to keep as small as possible till the last moment. You could get your arm in now and feel all the soot and rubble at the bottom of the shaft, but even with your arm right in and holding the nine-inch home-made chisel, you couldn't feel any solid bottom. We started to scoop the soot out and wash it away down the showers outflow but we needed somewhere to throw the stones and bits of bricks at the bottom of the shaft that were stopping us locating the flow of air. The bricks from the wall itself were piling up and we had no choice but to put them back in the hole which slowed everything taking them out and putting them back every session. The actual opening required only eight bricks. We'd fit them back in and wedge up with socks, then papier-mâché over to level with the plaster which we'd then paint with thin emulsion. The end result looked like a piece of wall carrying the sort of fungus that plaster sometimes gets in a damp atmosphere. The screws never gave it a second look. Everything was chugging along just right. Then Walter made his move.

I got it through Tommy. He came into my cell from the shop and said: “Walter's just asked me if I'd like to make one.”

“And you said?”

“I said: ‘Dunno, Wally. Where from?' I said.”

“Yeah?”

“And he said, ‘Digging out from the shower.' So I said, ‘‘Leave off, Wally. Where can you dig out from in the shower?' And he said, ‘Through the wall by the window.' So I said, ‘What, through three inches of granite? What are you going to use to get through that?' And he said ‘We're making a right good tool, Tommy. A right good tool.' So anyway, I told him no, leave me out. And I came back here to tell you.”

“That bastard,” I said. “I knew he'd be in, sooner or later.”