It's been quite a week, one way or another. How best can I describe the whirligig of activity which has raged around me since my release? OK. Let's start at the beginning, with me standing in front of the discharge principal officer back at Littlehey prison. (Am I allowed to name it now?) There he was with a large bundle of my money, counting it out-not once, not twice, but three times-before he reluctantly handed over the brown envelope and my release licence ("to be carried with you at all times if you don't want lifting off the street, Wayne").
They very kindly arranged for a taxi to take me to the railway station. Before boarding the train I purchased a black Samsonite suitcase because all my property had been placed in industrial polythene bags bearing the legend "HM Prison Service." Feeling somewhat less conspicuous after transferring my possessions to the smart new case, I got on the train for King's Cross.
My excitement mounted as the express pulled in because dear George (who, some readers will remember, left me in the dock in that bittersweet moment at Worcester crown court late last year) was waiting at the end of the platform, bouncing from one foot to the other. He looked fit, tanned; blue eyes sparkling, snaggle-toothed smile flashing. He always promised he'd be there on the Great Day of Release. Here he was, as good as his word and twice as handsome. We embraced, and I nearly broke down with happiness.
"I've booked us into an 'otel across ver road," he said, with a mischievous grin. "It aint nuffink special but we can be alone vair an' it must be better van ver nick you've just come from."
For two days, as bona fide residents of the Hotel California, King's Cross, London, we sat on our beds and talked and ate and drank and smoked and generally made merry by spending far too much money on highly combustible substances.
This is my first summer out of prison for the past 15 years. The heat this summer is unbearable. Most of my clothes are winter garments, and most of them have been wet through with sweat from morning until night. Travelling on the London underground is one of the least tolerable of my daily experiences.
I've got my own office now on the Gray's Inn road, with a computer and a desk and people around me who really care that this time I don't screw up. But it takes such a long time to get to work in the morning. From Tulse Hill in south London, where I'm staying in a shabby hostel until I can sort out a proper flat, it takes nearly two hours to travel in to the office. I have to say it-I know I'm not exactly the first-but the London underground is a complete disgrace. I'm used to being in prison and getting a full day of work done. Out here, half the day is wasted just going backwards and forwards to the office.
There are just too many people around for my liking. The sunglasses they wear make them look like aliens from another planet.
The other day, I went to open a bank account. I walked into the National Westminster Bank in Holborn, proudly flourishing the contract from Fourth Estate which guarantees me an income for the next two and a half years. When I mentioned the P word (prison), the smiling and welcoming man behind the desk turned sour and churlish. I was, he said, welcome to fill in the forms applying for membership of this august financial institution, but he doubted whether my efforts would be successful. I left the bank feeling angry and demeaned. I'm still carrying my money around in a tatty brown envelope.
The best news I've had so far concerns the enlightened arts editor of the Independent, Ian Irving. He rang me on my state-of-the-art mobile (so small you can lose it under a credit card) to offer me a job as their occasional architecture correspondent. Would I like to review the Alexander "Greek" Thomson exhibition? (At last someone was asking me to write about something other than crime and punishment.) Yes, yes, yes, I agreed with alacrity. When and where was this exhibition? How much would I get paid? The answers I received-Glasgow, immediately, ?250-threw me into a state of joyous grace.
So that's where I've been today. I'm writing this dispatch on a train on my way back from Glasgow, City of Architecture and Design 1999. Yesterday, George (who is now acting as my unpaid PA) and I arose at about 5am to catch the 7am train north. It has been a tremendously exciting excursion, and all entirely legal and legitimate for once. I felt very proud when I was able to introduce myself to Gavin Stamp, the curator of the Thomson exhibition. "Hello, my name is Peter Wayne and I'm here on behalf of the Independent." Gavin is, of course, a true gentleman and an erudite scholar who knew exactly who I was and where I had come from. But, unlike the "personal banker" at the NatWest, he welcomed me into his beautiful exhibition and treated me as I assumed he must have treated Her Majesty the Queen, who had visited the same place earlier on the same day.
Glaswegians certainly know how to celebrate, and the city looked proud and distinguished with banners flying everywhere. We stayed at a minimalist hotel with spiky furniture, called the Brunswick. Sir Terence Conran was having dinner at the next table. After our meal, George and I got ludicrously drunk at a party where, glory hallelujah, all the booze was free. Today I have the mother of all hangovers. But there we are. It's been a while. Now they're making a television documentary about us. And oh, isn't it a wonderful world in which to be free? It's not too good to be true, is it?
