The Talisman (15 page)

‘My God, what a length it is, what a length, you could make a few shillings on this, you know. I tell you about Mrs Walter’s youngest, well she was sitting on the bus on the way home from school, and you know she had hair right down to the back of her knees . . . Well, she didn’t even feel a thing, didn’t even hear anything, but my God, Evie! She got off the bus with a bob! No kiddin’, some bugger had cut off her hair, somebody sitting behind her, her mother had a fit!’

Evelyne closed her eyes. She liked Mrs Harris’ chatter, and the gentle strokes of the hairbrush soothed her. ‘I wrote to Edward, and the lawyers, but I’ve not heard back.’

Mrs Harris told her, pursing her lips. She tutted and had to apologize for giving Evelyne’s hair a tug.

‘I know I said I’d keep my mouth shut, but don’t you think he should have written by now, I mean, you’ve been in here right the way over Christmas with not even a card, just that one with the Cambridge school on it, I think he should get a rap over the knuckles, that lad, I do, he should have been home and here with you, looking after you. I dunno, one lad gallivantin’ all round and the other behind bars, it’s a dreadful thing, Evie, it really is.’

Mrs Harris wished she had kept quiet when she saw Evelyne close her eyes, and she began to braid the hair, saying that she would write to them both and give them a piece of her mind, that’s what she would do.

‘No, no, don’t, best not . . . will you pass me my bag, it’s on the side there?’

Mrs Harris handed Evelyne her old brown leather handbag, and had to help her into a sitting position. As she spoke, she put her arms around Evelyne and felt her thin, frail body. She couldn’t help herself – she burst into tears. Evelyne raised her hands in a futile gesture, ‘Now you just stop that – you know you’ll have me in tears if you carry on like this. Now then, look in my handbag there. Take out that leather case – I want you to take it away with you. There’s so much coming and going in here, I don’t think it’s safe to be left. You never know who might take it in the night. They give me pills to make me sleep and I’m out for the count by nine. Here, now you keep it safe until I come home.’

Mrs Harris took the small leather case, opened it and gasped. It was the pearl necklace with the gold beads and fine, detailed work, the pearl drop earrings to match.

‘I’m going to ask you to do something for me, and you must promise me to do it – it’s very important. I want you to bury the necklace with me, with me and Freedom. They told me I should have put it in his grave when he died, but what with one thing and another I just never got around to doing it. But it’s very important, it’s his talisman and it must lie with him. Promise me?’

Mrs Harris put the leather case on the bed and grabbed Evelyne’s hand. ‘I’ll not listen to that talk. You’re coming out, of course you are, and I’ll have you at my place while you get your strength back. Now, no more of this.’

Evelyne grasped the big, raw hand tightly, lifted it to her lips and kissed it. Then, as if even that had taken all her strength from her, she let her hands fall back on to the covers. ‘No more games, you know as well as I do that I’m going. Now don’t you start the tears, just listen to me. The bell will be ringing any time and there are a few things I want to say to you.’

Mrs Harris was sweating, her mouth dry, and she was trying so hard to stop herself crying that she wanted to go to the lavatory.

‘I want to be buried with him, you’ll make sure of that, won’t you? It’s all arranged and it’s all paid for. Mr Georgeson’s the man you ask for at the funeral parlour, he has everything ready for me. I don’t want flowers or anything like that, the money would be wasted. Once, a long time ago, when we were parted, he said that while I’d been away from him he’d been dying, little by little . . . Well, I know now what he meant. Since he’s been gone I’ve not had the will, somehow – not the strength I used to have – and I’m not going to fight any more. You see, I miss him so much, I just can’t go on without him. I’m not frightened, I’m going to be with him, where I should be. We weren’t like ordinary folk, we were closer, we were blood to blood.’

The bell rang, and Evelyne smiled so peacefully that Mrs Harris felt her heart break. She stood up and had to hold on to the bed to get her balance. ‘I’ll be here next Wednesday, lovey, and I’ll take care of your necklace, now I’d best be going.’

Evelyne looked like a young girl in her white nightgown, her long hair braided in plaits on each side of her head, her strange, dark, greenish eyes so large in her pinched face that it added to the childlike effect. Mrs Harris picked up her shopping bag to leave. She couldn’t even bring herself to kiss Evelyne, she knew she would break down and sob, so she bustled around and chatted about the bus she would more than likely miss.

‘Go on with you, and give my love to Dora. Don’t look back, don’t look back, it’s unlucky. Don’t look back . . .’ But when Mrs Harris reached the double doors leading into the corridor, she couldn’t help but turn. Evelyne had raised her skinny arms above her head, both hands waving goodbye, and she was smiling. She looked so happy, so at peace with the world. The tears rolled down Mrs Harris’ fat cheeks as she mouthed, ‘Goodbye, Evie, goodbye my love.’

‘Stubbs 4566, to the Governor’s office.’

Alex brushed his hair and Tom instructed him to ask for permission to wear his own togs, he didn’t want his ma seeing him in prison overalls at the hospital.

The Governor was sitting at his desk as Alex was led in by the screws.

‘Prisoner 4566, Stubbs, Alex, sir.’

The Governor looked up, removed his glasses and indicated a chair beside his desk. He waited until Alex had sat down before he carefully laid his glasses on the desk and gave a warning look to the two warders. He coughed, hesitating before he spoke. ‘I’m afraid, Stubbs, I have some very sad news for you – your mother died last night.’

Alex never moved a muscle, but he stared at the Governor as if he hadn’t heard.

‘I am deeply sorry, even more so as it took so long for permission to be granted for you to visit her, but these things cannot be helped. It is most unfortunate.’

Alex sprang over the desk and had the Governor by the throat before either of the guards could stop him. He was like a man possessed. The Governor screamed as he felt the air being squeezed out of his throat, and his head shook as though he were a rag doll. The guards couldn’t get Alex away, he was pressing his thumbs harder and harder into the Governor’s scrawny neck. One guard pulled at his hair and another kicked him in the groin as the alarm bell sounded.

Three more guards and half an hour later, Alex was handcuffed. With blood streaming from his head where he had been beaten he was led into solitary confinement. The Governor was rushed to hospital but was released the following day, and the whole prison was agog at what had happened. The number of guards Alex had taken out tripled and the stories so embroidered that his name was on everyone’s lips. He had eighteen stitches in his head, another twenty in his face and cheek, and his already broken nose was cracked again.

Alex smashed his fists against the wall until they bled. His bread and water were pushed through a hatch in the cell door, and even that he hurled at the walls. The Governor, when informed, remarked that if he carried on that way he would remain in solitary until he was controllable. ‘If he behaves like a wild animal, we shall treat him as one, and until he quietens down, leave him.’

In the fifth week a doctor was called in. He treated Alex’s hands, which were badly infected, and made notes that the man was deeply distressed. He prescribed sedatives and said the prisoner must be properly fed, force-fed if necessary. He requested an immediate visit from a psychiatrist.

The food was refused, and Dr Gordon was called in again. No psychiatrist had been to see Alex, who just sat very quietly in his own excrement, staring vacantly at the wall in a drugged, semi-catatonic state.

They should have been suspicious when Alex meekly held out his hands to be rebandaged. As Dr Gordon cut through the plasters, Alex punched him in the face and got hold of the scissors, held them at the doctor’s neck and demanded to be released. If he wasn’t, he would slit his throat. The warders stood by helplessly and Dr Gordon ordered them out of the cell, then still with his arm twisted behind his back but with no sign of fear he talked quietly to Alex. He asked Alex what he wanted. He would do his utmost to help, but what Alex was doing was an act of madness.

Alex wanted to go to his mother’s funeral. Time appeared to have stood still for him, he didn’t realize how long he had been in solitary confinement.

‘Alex, you know that’s not possible, now lad, you know that, why don’t you release me and I’ll do what I can? I give you my word, but what you are doing now will only add to your troubles.’

Alex stood at the open door of his cell, the screws in a row in front of him. He knew it was pointless, and he suddenly dropped his arm and threw the scissors aside. He turned to walk back into the cell and the screws moved, surrounding him as the doctor begged them to stay clear, even tried to physically pull them away from the prisoner. They threw Alex against his bed and out came the truncheons.

In a fury Dr Gordon went to the Governor, demanding that Alex be removed from solitary and treated.

‘There’s a war on, men are dying every minute of the day, and you want everything here to revolve around a prisoner who has blatantly and consistently fought the rules of this establishment? He’s only got himself to blame. If I allowed every man to behave as he has and get away with it, my position would be intolerable. We are overcrowded, understaffed – the man attacked me, for Chrissake, what do you expect me to do with him?’

Stony-faced, Dr Gordon sat and told the Governor quietly that the boy was grieving, he needed time. He needed help to face up to the fact that his mother was dead.

‘That boy, as you call him, Doctor, murdered his own father! You have his records, why don’t you read them?’

Dr Gordon said of course he had read Stubbs’ reports. He was the prison doctor, and his request for a psychiatrist had been ignored.

‘If there was one available, he would have been brought to the prisoner. As I have said, Doctor, there is a war on, and we are seriously understaffed and overworked. Right now, Stubbs is a hero to the rest of the men. If he goes unpunished, we will not be able to maintain any kind of discipline.’

Alex was removed to the hospital wing and remained there for another five weeks. He was drugged to keep him subdued, and the doctor used every power he had to get him transferred to a rehabilitation programme. He had spent a long time going over Alex’s records, and found them disturbing.

Due to Dr Gordon’s persistent efforts, a psychiatrist was eventually found and, after discussing Alex with the doctor, he agreed to take on his case.

Alex would not co-operate. He didn’t want any ‘nut doc’, he wanted to go back to his cell. Dr Gordon went in to see him, in his own time and purely because he wanted to help Alex. ‘Alex, if you want to get out, lead a normal life, you have to help yourself. First, you will have to go before the prison authorities. You’ve got a list of charges as long as your arm, and even with mitigating circumstances you could get another God knows how many years on your sentence . . . Talk to the man, he only wants to help you, that’s all. Maybe we can do something for you.’

‘There’s fuck all wrong with me – I just want to get out an’ see me mother. Bastards, keeping me penned up in here. I just want out.’

‘Well, you’re going about it the wrong way. If I try to get permission for you to go to her grave, acting up like this will make them refuse to even consider it . . . Now, talk with the psychiatrist, just talk things through. Is that too much to ask? Can’t you do that for me?’

After a long pause Alex slowly nodded his head. Dr Gordon patted his shoulder. ‘Good lad . . . I’ll keep on coming, all right?’

Alex shook his hand and held it a fraction longer, as if he needed some sort of contact. He gave a strange, shy smile. ‘Thank you.’

Frank Nathan closed the cell door and winked at Alex as the key turned in the lock. He was not at all what Alex expected – his short, squat body was muscular, and the black hairs sprouting on his barrel chest were visible even though he was wearing a shirt and tie. Nathan was like a chimp, his big hands fuzzy with thick, black hair. Stubble seemed to appear on his chin as you watched him. He had a pug nose, as if he had been in the ring at one time, and a wonderful, raucous, rumbling laugh. He jerked his thumb at the cell door. ‘Looks like they don’t fuckin’ trust me, neither . . . Right, you an’ me are going to thrash a few things out. I’m here to listen. Sometimes I’ll ask you a few things, but on the whole I’m a bloody good listener. You smoke . . .? Here.’

Frank lit his cigarette and his powerful body made the chair creak alarmingly as he sat down. He folded his chubby hands over his belly and leaned forward. ‘My time’s valuable, so if you want to act like a prick, go ahead. I’ll just cross you off. There’s fellas who need me, an’ if you think you don’t, sod ya. If you don’t want to help yourself, then if you don’t mind my sayin’ so, you are well and truly fucked . . .’

Alex was taken off guard, not only by Nathan’s presence but by his gruffness, yet he liked him. There was something powerful and, more important, genuine, about the man.

‘Let’s start off with why you knocked the Guv’nor’s front teeth out.’ Nathan puffed on his cigarette and waited. Alex hesitated, and Nathan prompted him, ‘What is it, son? What do you want to say – best to get it off your chest . . .?’

Alex clasped and unclasped his hands, refusing to look up. His voice was quiet and strained, ‘She’s dead. Some way I’ve been thinking, maybe, just maybe, she’s still alive an’ you was all doing this to me to get at me. Like even you was tryin’ to deceive me.’

‘No, Alex, your mother is dead, and nobody has tried to deceive you in any way. It was just unfortunate that you couldn’t see her in hospital. No one realized how ill she was until it was too late.’

‘Aye, well, she was never one to complain – she was that sort of woman. She was a wonderful . . .’ He pressed his hands together until the knuckles were white.