Purgatory: A Prison Diary Volume 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

her that I am in possession of
another two phonecards as that might cause trouble for Dale, especially if the
conversation is being taped. I promise to call her again on Tuesday, and we
agree a time. Just in case you’ve forgotten, the calls are always one way: OUT.
    My next call is to James, who is giving a lunch party for
ten friends at our apartment in London. I do miss his cooking. He tells me
who’s sitting round my table and what they are eating: Roquefort, fig and
walnut salad, spaghetti, and ice cream, followed by Brie, Stilton or Cheddar.
This will be accompanied by an Australian red and a Californian white. I begin to
salivate.
    ‘Dinner’ yells an officer, and I
quickly return to the real world.
12.20 pm
    Lunch: Chinese stir-fried vegetables (they may have been
stirred, but they are still glued together), an apple, supplemented by a Mars
bar (30p), and a glass of Evian. Guests: pre-selected.
1.00 pm
    I join Dale on the enhanced wing. I grab Darren’s Sunday
Times, and read very slowly while Dale and Jimmy play backgammon. The lead
story is the alleged rape of a girl in Essex by Neil and Christine Hamilton.
This is more graphically described in Dale’s News of the World, and the
implausible story is memorable for Christine Hamilton’s observation, ‘If I
wanted to do that sort of thing, it would be in Kensington or Chelsea, not
Essex.’
    We play several games of backgammon, during which time the
assembled gathering questions me about the contest for the Tory party
leadership. Darren (marijuana only) is a fan of Michael Portillo, and asks how
I feel. I tell him that I think it might have been wise of the 1922 Committee
to let all three candidates who reached the second round – Clarke 59, Duncan
Smith 54 and Portillo 53 – be presented to the party membership. Leaving
Michael out is bound to create some bad feeling and may even cause trouble in
the future. It’s quite possible that the membership would have rejected
Portillo in any case, but I feel that they should have been allowed the
opportunity to do so.
    Dale (wounding with intent) is a huge fan of Margaret
Thatcher, while Jimmy (Ecstasy courier) voted for John Major. ‘A decent bloke’
he says. It’s sometimes hard to remember that I may be sitting in a room with
an armed robber, a drug dealer, a million-pound fraudster, and heaven only
knows who else. It’s also worth mentioning that when it comes to their ‘other
world’, they never discuss anything in front of me.
3.00 pm
    Exercise: I take the long walk around the perimeter of the
prison – about half a mile – and several inmates greet me in a more friendly
fashion than they did on my first outing last Thursday. The first person to join
me is a man who is obviously on drugs. Unlike William Keane – do you remember
him from Belmarsh? – I can’t tell which drug he’s on just by looking at his
skin. His name is Darrell, and he tells me that his original sentence was for
ten years. His crime: cutting someone up in a pub with a broken bottle. He was
nineteen at the time. I take a second look. He looks about forty.
    Then why are you still here?’ I ask, assuming he will
explain that he’s serving a second or third sentence for another offence. ‘Once
I ended up in prison, I got hooked on drugs, didn’t I?’ ‘Did you?’
    ‘Yeah, and I’d never taken a drug before I came in. But when
you’re given a ten-year sentence and then banged up for twenty-two hours a day
with prisoners who are already on skag, you sort of fall in with it, don’t you?
First I was caught smoking cannabis so the governor added twenty-eight days to
my sentence.’
    Twenty-eight days for smoking cannabis? But…’
    ‘I then tried cocaine and finally moved on to heroin. Every
time I got caught, my sentence was lengthened. Mind you, I’ve been clean for
over a year now, Jeff. I’ve had to be, otherwise I’m
never going to get out of this fuckin’ shithole, am I?’
    ‘How long has it been?’
    Twenty-one