Perched on the edge of a wooden bench in Blakenhurst Prison laundry, trying to look as busy as the lack of genuine work would allow, I was tapped on the shoulder by the ruddy-cheeked, flaky-skinned instructor.
"Good news for you. Or bad news? I don't know. You're on transfer this morning. Due south. Elmley on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent."
I was glad but I was sad, too. Since George's happy release, Blakenhurst had grown lonelier. I saw his ghost everywhere, heard his voice ringing along the landing, daydreamed about him constantly and longingly. I had been pressing Allocations to move me closer to his home in London-sending them memos, reminders, impassioned pleas for removal on humanitarian grounds-for a whole month now. I could hardly believe it when George beat me to it by moving north himself. Not a week earlier he had visited to tell me he had booked himself into a hostel in Birmingham, got himself a job with a local plumbing firm and given up his flat in London to be nearer to me in the Midlands. Now here I was on what Grand Strategic Planning called an "overcrowding draft," due to be shunted 200 miles away at half an hour's notice.
The lady at the Salvation Army made an exception to the rule and put me through to George directly.
"Gettin' like musical fuckin' chairs this is. I'll be dairn to see yer before the end of the week," he chirped in cockney sparrowhawk fashion. "Promise I will. No matter what."
Since we met on that February night, George has always kept his promises. I packed, said goodbye to the Brummies, and left Blakenhurst reassured.
During our four-and-a-half hour, non-stop journey, the meatwagon pulled level with a car transporter full of Opel Vectras. The driver recognised our conveyance for what it was. Although unable to see in through the little black windows, he knew we were behind them, hemmed in, claustrophobic, in desperate need of a toilet and a bit of fresh air. The traffic jammed. The driver held up to his window the centre spread of a pornographic magazine, pointing to a hairy blonde mound of Venus. "That's what you're missing in there," he shouted through the window. Then he started licking the picture lasciviously. "Oooh. Loverly," he crooned.
Across the Queen Elizabeth bridge we trundled. We passed the 12th-century keep of Rochester Castle. The sun turned white and the land flattened.
Elmley Prison, identical to Blakenhurst architecturally but still in the public sector, stands yellowly between the caravan resorts of Laysdown and Sheerness. The day after my arrival I succeeded in cadging a telephone card from an affluent (if dishonest) Kent stockbroker. George sounded confident.
"I'll be down to see yer tomorrer."
"But you're broke, aren't you? How are you going to..."
"Don't worry about it." The phone cut off. I slept uneasily.
There is nothing worse than waiting for a visit. For two or three hours beforehand the visitee prowls the prison landings, fidgeting and fretting, imagining every conceivable disaster to have befallen his visitor. But George was as good as his word. On the dot of two my name was called. I hurried along to the visits room, wanting to waste not a moment of our time together. The screws had other ideas.
"The police 're 'ere to see yer. You'll 'ave to see them first."
It turned out that Detective Constable Brilliard and his partner had travelled all the way from Bedford to interview me about a burglary at a hotel last November while I was still in Lindholme prison. Perfect alibi established, I was allowed to join George who had been twiddling his thumbs for an hour.
"Sorry we can't 'ave a drink from the canteen. I'm brassick."
"So how the hell have you managed to get here from Birmingham?"
"Bunked the trains and blagged a cab driver in Sheerness. Learnin' from you!"
"Suppose you'd been arrested."
"I'd never bin arrested in me life before I met you. I told the cab driver I was picking up some money from the prison. I'm going to pay 'im when 'e takes me back to the station."
"But they won't let me hand any money out. Different rules here."
George was dumbstruck for several seconds. "I'll fink of somefink."
Despite our impecuniosity we had a splendid time together, although I worried like a father expecting his first child after he left. When I contacted him later at his stop-off point at a friend's in Peckham, he told me of his adventures.
"I 'ad to leave me jacket wiv the cab driver as a surety."
"Have you eaten yet?" I asked, because without a morsel of self-pity he had explained how he'd have to leave the hostel before breakfast that morning.
"I sweet-talked the price of sausage and chips out of the cabbie."
"You amaze me."
"It was an Yves St Laurent jacket. An' the fare was only twelve quid!"
"And the train? No inspectors?"
"Couldn't get round the ticket inspector at Denmark Hill so I just ran right past the ol' cunt an' didn't look back."
I am not sure whether Georgie completed his journey back to Birmingham, because now I am out of phonecards. In the meantime I am banged up with a couple of real scallywags and it looks like there will be plenty of newsworthy action during the next few months. I have signed a contract with a publisher; my interview with The Times paid off after all. My editor tells me I must concentrate on the "picaresque" novel April Fools, but I will be remaining with Prospect. Thanks for all your letters of encouragement. A special thank you to Mr Lister of Winchester, who wrote to Judge Cleaver on my behalf.
