CHAPTER SIX
The worst thing about prison isn’t the hours of waiting around in your cell, or the food, or the austerity cuts and privatisation which have led to incompetent fools in cheap uniforms put in charge of serious criminals. It’s not the old, freezing buildings where rats are as prevalent as I assume they were in the Marshalsea. I honestly could stick all of these things out, with the hope that one day I’ll be freed and never forced to sleep below a woman who dots her i’s with hearts. The worst thing about prison is that, on occasion, a governor or a politician will decide that we captives need something to enrich our souls, to better ourselves, to stop being quite so rough and terrifying. From that sudden thought, a plan will emerge. This usually involves some lefty sap （you never get a Tory wanting to show us how ceramics can quash our rage problems） volunteering to run a class （which is always compulsory） where we’re encouraged to paint our feelings or some such nonsense.
They invariably only come for one class, and then either they’re too overwhelmed to come back, or they feel like they’ve done enough to virtue-signal about it for the rest of the year. If they’re really enterprising, they write a piece for the Guardian about how prisoners just need respect and education, as though they’ve been working in jails for four years rather than for one hour in a quiet work period.
Today we all filed down to the classroom wing, where we suffered through an hour-long class on spoon making. Truly, even one murder wouldn’t warrant such a punishment. The only highlight was getting my hands on a proper knife for the first time in a while. It’s a pity they count them back in so carefully. Kelly is extremely jealous that I was part of the group forced into such nonsense, and gushes over the wooden spoon I produced. She would’ve loved today’s class, she says, when I bump into her afterwards, and ‘What a fab Christmas present that spoon would make for your mum.’ I look at her blankly, wondering how long it’ll take her to remember that my mother is dead, but there is no such realisation. So instead, I toss her the spoon, and tell her to pretend she made it and to give to her own mum. She’s delighted, and I wonder, not for the first time, what kind of woman Kelly’s mother is. To be thrilled with a wonky spoon made in a jail by your grown-up convict daughter, you must have some uniquely low expectations. Her mother can add it to the cross-stitched bird she got at Easter, and the dismal sugar bowl made out of something akin to playdough she was gifted on her birthday. The only difference with the spoon is that it has some special marks on it. They look a bit like hieroglyphics, but they’re actually the initials of every person I murdered, though nobody would look that closely. Not a particularly sophisticated move, but I was finished whittling long before the other idiots in the class, and I didn’t want to waste my time with the blade. I wonder if Kelly’s mum will appreciate them?
Back in my cell, I take out the paper and pen from inside a pair of rolled-up socks. There is no privacy here, especially with a cellmate like mine. Everyone here tries to get hold of everyone else’s possessions, tries to gain their secrets as leverage, wants to know their stories. Kelly doesn’t even bother to hide her diary – that woman would tell you everything about her life if you were stupid or bored enough to ask. Once you ask Kelly a question, you’d likely never make the mistake of doing it again. Did I mention why she’s in here? Not for violence or theft, like some of us. Kelly was a blackmailer. She had a nice line in getting married men to send her photos, photos which their wives might not like too much. She started small, on dating apps, and got bolder when she discovered Twitter and targeted men with higher profiles. She’s attractive, is Kelly. Big pouty lips, which I suspect are the results of cheap filler but look all right from a distance, and lots of red hair. Sadly, her limited intelligence meant she was easy to find when a man finally plucked up the courage to stop sending her money and contacted the police. She’d had the money sent to her boyfriend’s account, the stupid cow, and has wound up doing an eighteen-month stretch as a result. Not an elegant crime, I grant you, but I have no sympathy for her victims either. If you are delusional enough to believe that anyone wants to see a grainy iPhone picture of your flaccid little friend, you deserve to get bled for it.
My paper uncurled, I settle down to write for a bit before dinner. I didn’t know whether I’d enjoy revisiting my past, but it turns out I’m quite happy to go over it all again. If anything, writing it down makes me feel proud. I remember the urgency of my youthful emotions, and the strong need to right a wrong. In the years since, I’ve not felt much of anything really, the task in hand demanded too much discipline.