Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol: A Mystery (12 page)

‘You had him moved?’ I said, bemused.

‘The gods answered my prayers,’ trilled the voice from nowhere.

‘And where is he now?’

‘Atitis-Snake? In C.3.5. – just along the landing, but out of earshot and away from me. The gods be praised.’

‘And the man who was in this cell last?’ I asked. ‘Where is he now?’

‘He is dead. We had to make room for you, Mr Wilde. In his next life, I trust he will prove a brighter spark. He was so stupid.’

‘And who is your neighbour on your other side?’ I asked, almost fearful of the answer.

‘C.3.1. is an old man. Decrepit and deaf. When I speak he cannot hear me. When he speaks, I cannot understand him. He has been here for many years. They should move him to a lower floor. He can barely climb the stairs. He will soon be dead.’

‘And who is next to me – in C.3.4.? Do you know?’

‘The dwarf is next to you. But he does not speak. He cowers, poor wretch. He used to speak – too much. He would not be silent, jabber-jabber-jabber all the time, so the governor made an example of him. He was flogged to within an inch of his life. I do not think he will speak again.’

‘My God,’ I cried. ‘If we are caught, will we be flogged?’

My neighbour laughed. ‘It depends who catches us – and who we have to watch over us.’

‘You have your Hindu gods,’ I said.

‘Yes, I have three hundred and thirty-three million of them, while you poor Christians have just the one. I have Warder Braddle, also. I am one of his favourites. He does not have many favourites, but he has a few and we are blessed. Warder Braddle is a good man. He came to see you last night, Mr Wilde, I know. I heard him. He tried to enter your cell silently, but I heard him all the same. Did you make your peace with him, Mr Wilde? It is important that you should. Did you?’

As my neighbour asked his question, the bell for chapel began to toll and, with it, came the immediate clatter of warders’ boots on the metal stairs. ‘We speak tomorrow,’ called out my neighbour hastily. I stepped back from my cell door and pulled on my cap of shame. Across the gantry, a prisoner’s voice began to sing: ‘Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war!’ Other voices took up the chant: ‘With the cross of Jesus . . .’ A warder’s voice bellowed ‘Silence!’ – and silence fell.

When my cell door was unlocked and pushed open, I stepped out onto the landing and glanced to my right. My Indian angel with the girlish sing-song voice was just another convict now, a thin upright figure dressed in a suit of arrows, hidden behind a veil. His head was held high. He looked directly ahead. I raised my hand towards him in a kind of half-salutation, but if he saw my gesture he gave it no acknowledgement. Beyond him, I recognised the bent and shuffling figure of C.3.1. Yes, I thought, he will soon be dead. I stepped into the line. Immediately ahead of me was the dwarf (I had taken him for an ungainly boy when I had followed him to the latrines at first light); and ahead of him another upright figure – the poisoner, Atitis-Snake, I supposed, though he looked no different from the rest.

Along the gantry, down the stairs, through the ward we trudged, past the inspection hall, beneath the archway and out into the open yard where, in the grey mist of the November morning, our dismal line joined the other dismal lines snaking their way towards the prison chapel. There, in our set places, we stood, and sat, and knelt, and stood, and sat, and knelt, and stood again. Matins in the mouth of the Reverend Friend was a soulless business. At least Colonel Isaacson, before he read the lesson, cracked his knuckles with a semblance of conviction.

The futility of chapel over, we marched back to our cells. This rigmarole took an hour. It served no purpose. It did good neither to God nor man. But it passed the time. Back in my cell, I sat at my table and laid my head on my folded arms. I shut my eyes and wondered what my neighbours were doing now – at this moment. The dwarf – what was he thinking now? Was he capable of thought – or had all thought been beaten from him at the governor’s command? And my Indian friend – what filled his mind? And who was he? I had not even asked his name. And what was his offence? He had pleaded Not Guilty, but so had I.

My reverie did not last long. With a hollow clang, my cell door fell open. I looked up, bleary eyed. It was Warder Braddle, with Warder Stokes in tow. ‘Wake up, man,’ snapped Braddle. ‘Get up. It says nothing about sleep on your order sheet.’ He brandished a piece of paper in his hand. ‘It speaks only of “hard labour”. Get up. Get up now.’ I shambled to my feet. ‘Have you picked oakum before?’

‘I have, sir,’ I said, lowering my head. ‘It is not a task that suits me.’

‘God Almighty,’ cried the warder, in a sudden rage. He rushed towards me, letting his paper fall to the floor. With his right hand pressed hard against my neck he pushed me up against the cell wall and held me pinioned there. I felt the power of the man. I felt his force and fury, but I was not afraid. I closed my eyes. ‘Look at me,’ he hissed. ‘Look at me.’ I opened my eyes and stared into his. They were small and black and pitiless. ‘We’ll have no malingering here,’ he said. With his fingers clutching my collar he pulled my neck forward and beat my head against the wall.

‘I’ll put the oakum here,’ said Warder Stokes, laying the sack that he was carrying on my table.

‘You do that,’ said Braddle, releasing me. ‘And the prisoner will have it picked by supper time.’ He bent over and retrieved the piece of paper from the ground.

My head throbbed. I saw that my hands were shaking. ‘May I speak?’ I said.

‘What is it?’ asked Braddle. He looked down at the paper that he was holding. ‘I would have sent you to the pump-house, but Dr Maurice says you’ve not got the strength for it.’

‘My books,’ I said. ‘At Wandsworth I was allowed some books. I was told they would be sent after me.’

Braddle stared at me in silence. ‘That’s a matter for the governor,’ he said eventually. ‘Do you wish to see him? It can be arranged.’

‘I would be grateful for my books, that is all.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘My neighbours—’

‘Your neighbours?’ repeated Braddle. He looked at me in astonishment. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The men on either side of me. Who are they?’

‘You are a prisoner, C.3.3. You have no neighbours. This is Reading Gaol. We work the separate system here. You are alone.’

9
Punishment

B
ut Braddle was wrong. I was not alone. And just as every afternoon at Reading Gaol I wept at the same hour and for the same space of time at the recollection of the jeering mob that had surrounded me as I stood in the November rain on the centre platform of Clapham Junction, handcuffed and in convict dress for all the world to see, so every morning at Reading Gaol, for ten minutes before the tolling of the chapel bell, I stood against the cold, iron door of my cell, sometimes smiling, often laughing, in a pool of Indian sunlight. Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.

On the second morning of our curious intimacy I learnt my neighbour’s name. ‘Are you there, Mr Wilde?’ he called out. ‘I trust you were left undisturbed last night. Warder Braddle was not on duty, I know.’

‘I had nothing but my dreams to trouble me last night,’ I said, ‘thank you. And, please, do not call me “Mr Wilde”. You must call me Oscar.’

‘Oh no, sir, that would be highly disrespectful.’

‘My friends all call me by my Christian name,’ I said, ‘and I choose my friends with care.’

‘“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me.”’ When he had completed the quotation, I heard him clapping his hands with delight. ‘That is very witty, Mr Wilde. I told it to my old neighbour and he did not understand a word of it. He was oh so stupid.’

‘You know my work well,’ I said, laughing. I was as much amazed as delighted.

‘I am very well read and I have a wonderful memory. I am noted for it.’

‘What is your name, my friend? Please tell me.’

‘My name is Luck, Mr Wilde.’

‘Luck?’ I exclaimed. ‘Is this possible?’

‘Your name is Wilde, my name is Luck. The chaplain is called Friend. The poisoner is a Snake. It is interesting, is it not?’

‘It is remarkable,’ I said. ‘And what is the dwarf called? Do you know?’

‘Smith, I think,’ replied my neighbour, giggling like a schoolgirl.

‘And what would you have me call you?’ I asked. ‘Mr Luck, I suppose?’

‘No, sir,’ he answered seriously. ‘I have a rank. You should call me by my rank.’

‘A rank? You are in the army, then?’

‘I was – once upon a time. My correct name, Mr Wilde, is Private Luck.’

I held my breath. I did not know what to say. A moment later, a peal of laughter came cascading through the narrow cracks of light in the hatch in my cell door. ‘It is funny, is it not?’ cried my friend.

‘It is very charming,’ I said. ‘I am so pleased to have made your acquaintance, Private Luck.’

‘Private A. A. Luck, late of the Bombay Grenadiers. But you can call me “AA”, Mr Wilde. That’s what my master called me. My other names are Achindra Acala.’

‘Sanskrit names,’ I said.

‘Achindra means “perfect, without fault” and Acala—’

‘Means “the invisible one”. I know,’ I said.

‘You know!’ chorused my neighbour gleefully.

‘I am very well read,’ I said, smiling in the gloom of my cell, ‘and I have a wonderful memory. I am noted for it.’

‘You are so like my master!’ exclaimed AA.

‘But I am not a soldier.’

‘But you are a great man. And a man of letters. Like my master. He admired you very much, Mr Wilde. He had all your books in his library.’

‘And did I have all of his in mine?’

‘Most likely. Every man of culture and imagination has a copy of
One Thousand and One Nights
.’

‘Your master was Sir Richard Burton?’ I asked, amazed.

‘Sir Richard Burton, KCMG, FRGS. Yes,’ said AA happily, as the chapel bell began to toll, ‘I was Sir Richard Burton’s batman for almost twenty years.’

Was what my neighbour told me true? Or was it, as I suspected, part fact, part fancy? To me it did not matter. That he had a tale to tell and that he chose to tell it to me was all that I cared about. My morning ‘chinwag’ with Private Luck became the moment in the day I lived for. It was my delight – and consolation. The rest was silence.

Speech is what defines a man. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote: ‘The first duty of man is to speak: that is his chief business in the world.’ In prison, we may not speak. And conversation – in my experience of life, the only proper intoxication – is not only denied us: in prison, it is a punishable offence. At Reading Gaol, for twenty-two hours of every day we convicts are locked in our cells. We live alone, in silence. Each morning, we are let out twice: once to file, in silence, to the latrines to empty our slops, and then, a little later, with only slightly less solemnity, to make our way to our daily act of worship. As we walk in line, five paces (no more, no fewer) must separate us from the man in front and the man behind. Each afternoon we are released once more: to take exercise in the prison garden, in a stone-flagged yard set out like a gigantic carriage wheel, with twenty spokes radiating from a central hub. Each sector of the wheel is forty feet in length and, at the rim, the widest point, seven feet across. Hooded and silent, and walking five steps apart, we pace the perimeter, like caged elephants at the zoo. At the centre of the hub, on a dais, stands a warder watching our perambulation.

About six weeks after I arrived at Reading, a second prisoner spoke to me. It was during the exercise hour. As we shuffled around the ring, I heard a voice speak my name. What direction it came from I could not tell. ‘Oscar Wilde,’ said the voice, ‘I pity you because you must be suffering more than we are.’ I looked up – foolishly. I looked about me – stupidly. I said, out loud, without thinking, ‘No, my friend, we are all suffering equally.’