When was it? The Friday before Christmas. The workshops at Lindholme prison had just been shut for the "holiday" period. Relieved to have a few days off, I returned to Ensign wing, wearily threw my kitbag on to my bunk and wandered off down the corridor to see my best friend Keith, aka Punky, a rugged, volatile, Lancastrian villain with a serious but endearing speech impediment, a chaotic heroin habit and a heart of gold. When we first met we had argued and fought; but after the initial explosion we grew to like each other and even raised an abandoned black kitten together, which we christened Nepal. Our friendship grew. We became close; almost intimate.
I knew something was wrong the moment I entered his room. Punky lay, ashen, supine on his cot. His cellmate sat silently on a chair beside him. I looked at them both questioningly. Then, in a burst, Punky told me the news.
"It's my m... mother," he stuttered. "She d... died last n... night."
I didn't know what to say, so I simply took him in my arms and squeezed tightly.
Punky had been called down to the chaplain's office while I'd been away at work.
"I knew wh... what was coming before I got there. Wh... what else would the chaplain have wanted me for? There was an early morning m... mist. I knew she was dead."
We passed a sad, reflective weekend. On the eve of Christmas Eve, outwardly calm, dignified, but inwardly angry at a system which had failed to arrange his final "compassionate" visit in time, Punky was taken in a taxi by two screws (double-handcuffed to one of them) to the hastily arranged funeral in Lancaster. On his return we talked into the early hours: gradually his narrative of the day's events unfolded.
They had driven through a thick Yorkshire fog which had lifted, Punky was proud to tell me, the instant they crossed into Lancashire. When they arrived at his late mother's house on the Marsh Estate, the drive was covered in a sea of wreaths and a large group of mourners was gathered outside the pub opposite; but to Punky's horror, the coffin had already been placed in the hearse. Somehow he persuaded the undertakers to take it back inside and lift off the lid; and the screws to allow him half an hour "alone" beside his mother's body.
"They dressed her in her wedding dress. Her face was m... made up an' she had a w... wig on. L... looked just like she used to. I'd forgotten all about the handcuffs. Th... that arm was just limp. N... numb. Not part of me. My eyes began to f... fill with tears. I let out a l... loud groan. C... couldn't get a w... word out at first. When I stroked her face it f... felt so cold. I kept kissing her. I put my head inside the coffin. Started to whisper into her ear."
At this stage, one of Punky's four brothers had entered the room. Theirs had been a closely bound crimino-matriarchal family. Wanting to help his mother on her way with as many creature comforts as he could summon, Punky sent his brother to the pub for two bottles of Hennessy. In his mother's right hand he placed a crystal goblet, under her wrist a single red rose. Finally he pushed down into the coffin the two bottles of fine brandy, remembering to break the seals because his mother always had trouble getting them off. When he told me all this I had visions of ancient Egyptians burying their pharaohs.
In Punky's mother's house also lived a little girl, the daughter of one of his elder brothers. A car crash had rendered her father virtually brain-dead years earlier. Punky's mother brought the girl up as her own (the real mother had done a runner), as well as nursing the invalid son until the very last week of her life. The girl entered just as the coffin lid was being screwed back down, with a letter Punky's mother had written years before. This finally brought the tears. My friend continued: "I hugged her and said, 'Sh... she's gone to a better place, but I'll be here for you wh... when I get out. F... father. Brother. Wh... whatever you w... want me to be.'"
It would be easy to descend into high Victorian pathos, to sentimentalise, perhaps even to patronise. One must handle such a story with care. While he was out, Punky managed to down three large brandies, smoke a heroin-laden joint and take delivery of a parcel of "gear" the size of a Cumberland sausage.
"It was at the ch... ch..."-he couldn't get this one out-"the church," he exploded, "that I felt a proper c... cunt. The only one in handcuffs. An' there was no music. It all seemed so rushed. If I'd have ar... ranged we'd have had 'Sweet Caroline.' That was her favourite."
At the graveside a bitter nor'wester blew, but Punky knew no cold. In a flash it was all over and he was driven back to Lindholme, where we sat and sat, talking, smoking, letting the heroin numb the pain. I told Punky I would write about his mother's funeral.
I no longer live on the same corridor: I've been in trouble and am down the block again. But I've spent today, in my isolation, remembering a staunch and trusted friend. When I get out I'm going to visit Punky and his brothers in Lancaster. As he wrote on the back of a photograph he gave me of himself, taken in Amsterdam before his arrest: "It was a good day. And there's going to be many more to come." Yeh, Punk. Not long now, mate.
