Billy Rags (17 page)

Kirk stayed where he was, wondering where to look first.

I panicked and went back into the shower. Tommy was standing in the middle of the room like a statue with nowhere to go.

“Jesus,” he said. “What the fuck do I do now?”

“You can't sneak out, that's for sure. If Kirk doesn't see you, then the others will.”

“Christ.”

I was expecting the all away cry any minute.

“Maybe if I tried to get Kirk away again,” I said.

I wasn't really talking to Tommy. My panic was giving a voice to my thoughts. I went outside and back into the office. Kirk was by the door, shouting to the other screw on the ones.

“Dugdale, have you seen Dugdale?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh no,” Kirk said. “No.”

He was in a right state, but not quite as bad as the one I was in. I didn't know what I was doing. I was walking into the office to weigh myself and I'd just supposed to have done that. In any case Kirk hadn't followed me in the first place so why should he follow me now?

Instead he walked back to the shower room and went in.

Walter and Terry hadn't moved. I walked out of the office. They looked at me and I looked at them. This was it. We were nicked. It was all over.

I walked past Walter and Terry and opened the door into the shower room.

There was less steam than before. The hole was an eye-magnet. It must have hit the PO the minute he opened the door. But the PO wasn't standing there looking at it.

He was in the showers, third stall along.

I walked over.

Tommy was jammed up in the corner, a sick discovered look on his face. He was still wearing the overalls he wore to protect his body from the rough edges of the bricks. Standing under a running shower wearing overalls. If that wasn't bad enough there were streaks of soot and dirt all over his face and his overalls.

The PO was between Tommy and me, just standing there, looking at Tommy. For a moment, the urge to chop the PO filled my mind. It wouldn't have done any good, we were finished anyway, but it seemed to be the only thing left for me to do.

Then the PO said: “You bastard, Tommy. You bloody bastard.”

Tommy stayed where he was, just staring at the PO.

“You bastard,” the PO said again. “You trying to give me heart failure or something?”

Something began to dawn in the back of my mind.

“I should have realised,” the PO said. “After the last times.”

The last times. I realised what the PO was saying. A couple of times Tommy had gone missing when there'd been a count. Just to give them a hard time. On each occasion, after turning the nick upside down, the screws had found Tommy sitting in his cell, all innocence, wondering what the bother was about. And now the PO thought the same thing had happened. That Tommy was having one of his games. The PO was so relieved he wasn't even angry. The fact that Tommy was standing under the shower in his overalls didn't seem to register with him.

Tommy cottoned to what the PO meant.

“Fooled you this time, Mr. Kirk,” he said, looking all roguish.

“You bastard,” said Kirk.

He turned away and walked past me.

Now he would see the hole.

But he didn't. He just walked out of the shower room, shaking his head from side to side, rubbing his chin as if he was appreciating a very good joke.

The door closed.

Outside, Kirk called to the others.

“It's all right, he was hiding in the showers.”

Tommy and I stared at each other.

The door opened. Walter and Terry came in. Nobody spoke. The shower sizzled on.

Eventually Tommy said: “Fucking Jesus.”

There was another silence.

“How the fuck did he miss it?” Walter said.

I shook my head.

“Tommy,” Terry said, “you've still got your overalls on.”

Tommy looked down at himself.

“Fucking hell,” he said. “I never thought.”

“But he didn't notice,” I said. “He was so fucking relieved to see you he didn't notice.”

“Jesus,” Tommy said.

“Billy,” said Terry, “never mind Tommy. Have you seen yourself?”

I looked at him.

“I tried to warn you outside,” he said. “You've got all black down your neck and back.”

I reached over my shoulder and rubbed my hand on my back. I was covered in soot from when I'd looked in the hole earlier on.

“Christ,” I said.

Tommy sat down on the bench.

“I don't know about anybody else,” he said, “but after that little miracle, we must get out. God's on our side.”

“For once,” I said.

“He won't be much longer if we don't plug up that hole sharp,” Terry said.

That jerked us back to reality. We got the tools and the spare bricks and plugged up the hole. Then we plastered it up with papier mâché and painted it.

Then, one by one, we left the shower and went back to our cells.

The hole never looked as bad to me as it did that day. It was a monster, eating into my nervous system. I kept having to drift back into the shower room to reassure myself that everything was all right. Every time I saw a screw coming towards me I was certain he was going to tell me that the hole had been discovered.

But it didn't happen. We'd had our luck. It had come at the right time. But we couldn't count on any more.

We lie together on the rug in front of the electric fire. Sheila's head is resting on my shoulder. She is asleep. I look at the colour of her hair, even more fierce in the glow of the fire. This is the time I hate most. The time she is most content. I hate it because her contentment is due to me. Her happiness makes me resentful. It's as if she's taking something of my character and feeding off it. And yet, recently, my resentment had been lessening. And that is even more worrying because I must be weakening. I must be growing fonder of her than I want to be. I've got to be alone. I can't be the way I want to be with someone else depending on me.

I move my arm so that her head rolls a little, disturbing her doze.

“What is it?” she says. “Why move?”

“Got to,” I say. “Your folks'll be back soon. They can't find us like this, can they?”

Now Tommy was really getting at where the hole was coming from.

It wasn't a small passage. It was an opening into the top corner of a cellar underneath the showers.

Tommy had cleared enough space around the air hole to work at enlarging it. Soon it was big enough for us to throw our rubble and spare bricks down through it into the cellar below. Tommy really smashed into it now. For about a week I tore my guts out snatching and jerking the big Olympic bar-bell up and down on the ones, making as much noise as I could to cover the sound of Tommy's progress. I'd loosened the weights so that they'd chink and rattle but even though they were right next to my ears they sounded like the dull thuds that were echoing round the wing from inside the hole. Walter and Terry minded Tommy for this period. They used to give me the horrors. When I had a rest, there was always a slight lag between me putting down the weights and them telling Tommy to stop. I kept having a go at them about it but they could never seem to improve their form.

But when Tommy told me that the second hole would soon be big enough for one of us to drop through down into the cellar, I eased Terry and Walter out on to the weights; we didn't want Walter knowing how close we were to making the drop. And the closer we got to the drop, the more tension there was between Tommy and myself. The fact that we were under the constant strain of working on our own, just using the others, knowing that there'd come a time when we'd not only have to ditch them but ditch them good and proper, that was bad enough. But there was the other thing: what happened when we got down into the cellar? Supposing there was nowhere else to go? That was the thought that nagged you all the time, and it was a strain just trying to keep it from the front of your brain.

Then one day Tommy came out of the hole and said: “There it is, then, Billy. We can go through now.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

Tommy looked at me as though I was fucking barmy.

“The hole. Into the cellar. You do know the hole I'm talking about?”

“So why didn't you go down it?”

“You what?”

“Down the hole. Why did you come all the way back and out just to tell me that? Why didn't you drop down yourself?”

“Because you're bigger than me, you stupid cunt. It'll be easier for you to get back up again.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “I'm bigger than you all right. Supposing I get stuck in the bleeding hole? What happens then?”

“You won't get stuck. I've told you. It's big enough.”

“All right then,” I said. “But I hope you're bleeding well right. Otherwise I shall have no choice but to put it down to a touch of the old macaroni in the strides.”

I made to go through the hole. Tommy grabbed me by the arm.

“What you mean, Billy?” he said, all grim faced and full of aggravation.

“What I say, Tommy.” I moved his fingers off my arm. “And don't come it, old son, eh? You know you haven't got that kind of talent.”

Of course he had to swallow. Then I felt sorry I'd made him.

“Look, Tommy,” I said. “Forget it. We're both on our nerve ends. Let's strike that bit out, eh?”

“Are you going down the fucking hole or aren't you?”

I left it at that and climbed in the hole. He'd get over it. Then I crawled along to the second hole and contorted myself round legs-first and tried to get through. Tommy had been wrong. I got stuck before I even got near dropping down. It took me nearly a quarter of an hour to get myself free. Which was quarter of an hour too long. All we needed was another session with the PO and without the luck. When I got out again I said to Tommy: “If you want me to go down into the cellar there's three more days work for you on that hole.”

“You must be joking,” he said. “There's plenty of room.”

I wasn't exactly in the mood for a debate.

“Tommy,” I said. “I'm not asking. I'm telling.”

Tommy thought about it.

“I can't wait that long,” he said. “I'll take some more stuff out tomorrow and go down myself.”

“That's up to you Tommy,” I said. “If you're sure, that is.”

“Don't be a cunt, Billy,” he said. “Don't start souring it at this stage. It's been nice and sweet so far.”

“Tommy,” I said. “You take things too seriously.”

Afternoon.

I watched Tommy disappear into the hole. Outside on the landing Walter and Gearing were busy with the weights. For about ten minutes I could hear Tommy taking out some more bricks. Then there was silence. Another ten minutes went by. If there was a check now we'd be finished. He'd never be able to get back in time. The sound of the weights clanked on outside; nobody except Tommy and me knew about the drop. The others just thought it was business as usual.

Another five minutes. Christ, I thought. Any minute now it's going to happen. It must happen. We'd been too lucky up to now. It had to break sometime.

But it didn't.

Tommy crawled out of the hole. He was grinning all over his face.

“Christ, Tommy,” I said. “Where've you been, Brighton?”

“No, but that's where I'm going.”

“What's the score?”

Tommy began to fill the hole up.

“Tommy, how was it?”

“Wait till I've finished this.”

“What are you playing at?”

“You don't want the PO in here again with the hole gaping in his fucking face, do you?”

I began to help him.

“No,” I said, “I don't. But just tell me.”

Tommy just grinned. I could have murdered the bastard.

We got the hole plastered and painted. Then Tommy began to take his clothes off.

“Now what are you doing?” I said.

Tommy walked into the showers.

“Just because we're almost there,” Tommy said, turning on the water, “it doesn't mean we stop doing things right. We've got to do things proper. Especially now.”

“All right. But just tell me.”

“Can't hear you, Billy. The shower's making too much of a noise.”

I sat down on the bench and ground my teeth. Eventually he came out.

“Now then . . .” I said. But Tommy cut straight across me.

“You don't want Wally walking in in the middle of it, do you? Better go to my cell and get out the chess board.”

He was right, of course. But he didn't have to enjoy it quite so much.

We walked out of the shower room. Wally dropped his bar-bell and came over.

“How's it going, then?”

Walter's face was a picture. He knew something was up, but he just couldn't figure out what it was. He certainly couldn't conceive that Tommy and I intended going out without him. It was that kind of knowledge that made the situation all the sweeter.

When we got to Tommy's cell I said: “All right. Now let's have it, for Christ's sake.”

Tommy lit a cigarette.

“Billy,” he said. “We've cracked it.”

I waited.

“There's a tunnel from the cellar to the airy in the badminton yard.”

We looked at each other. I couldn't believe it. The badminton yard. It was perfect.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

Dear Billy,

I don't know how I can stand to write this letter to you as I have never felt so terrible in my life before, not since your Dad died, anyway. But I have to force myself as there is nobody else who can help except you. What's happened is that I have heard some terrible things about our Linda, and I know that they are true otherwise I would not be writing. Billy, Linda is going to the bad in the worst way she can. She is set up in a flat with two other girls in Manor Park and the rent is paid by two West Indians. Men go there day and night. Billy, I know this is true. I tried to see her by going round there the other day but she wouldn't see me and sent one of the other girls down to see me. She told me Linda was out but I know she wasn't. What am I going to do? I can't do anything on my own. Please write back now and tell me what you think because I'm at my rope's end.