proof for his well-developed theory that women were the root of all evil. He made an exception for his dead aunt and a screen goddess or two, but the rest of them were all the same. They teased men with their tight skirts and their painted faces, promising paradise with a look of the eye or a turn of the hip, and then, once they had their victims hooked, they turned them loose just to watch their pain.
‘For the fun of it, just for the fucking fun of it,’ said Eddie, whose first experience of evil women had been his tart of a mother who had abandoned him at his grandmother’s so she could carry on with the life of debauchery that her pregnancy had briefly interrupted. And then the grandmother had not been much better, beating Eddie with her stick whenever he came home late from school and dosing him with horrible homemade medications to keep his insides clean. Only his great aunt, his grandmother’s younger sister, had shown him a little kindness, but that was only when the old woman’s back was turned, and it hadn’t been enough to stop him running away at the first opportunity. He’d gone to his mother but she wouldn’t have him. And from there he’d begun a series of relationships that all ended in disaster, culminating in marriage to a cook in one of the colleges, who’d turned him in to the police when she found out he was using the basement of the matrimonial home as a warehouse for fencing stolen goods.
‘Fucking bitch. The only thing I miss about her is her apple pie,’ said Eddie, who then promptly turned and spat out the unwanted memory into a corner of the exercise yard. The night was over, giving way to a cold, miserable morning with the sun lost behind a thick blanket of grey clouds, and the prisoners of A Wing had been turfed out into the open after an unappetizing breakfast of overcooked porridge and dried toast. David shivered, wishing he’d brought his coat from the cell.
‘Visit; visit for Earle!’
One of the screws was shouting down at them from the top of the staircase leading up to the new building over beyond B Wing, the one housing the rec room and the gym.
‘Aren’t you the lucky one? That’s your second in a week,’ said David, unable to keep the envy out of his voice. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had a visit. His mother was too ashamed to come and his friends all seemed to have forgotten him. Out of sight; out of mind.
‘It’s business, Davy. I told you that before,’ said Eddie, clapping David on the shoulder as he turned to go. ‘Just because I’m banged up in here doesn’t mean I ain’t got things going on on the outside; things I need to hear about from time to time.’
Left on his own to make a final circuit of the yard, David lit his last cigarette and inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs in an effort to blot out his frustration. Eddie had business on the outside because he was going to be getting out in a year or two. He had something to look forward to, unlike David, who had a lifetime of barbed wire and prison walls in front of him. Like being buried alive, he thought bitterly.
On the way back to A Wing he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned round to find his ex-cellmate, O’Brien, towering above his head. He looked thinner than before and his eyes were sunk deep in their sockets. D Block had clearly not agreed with him.
‘You got a new cellmate, I hear,’ said O’Brien as they approached the white wrought-iron stairs leading up to the landings above.
‘Yeah, Earle; Eddie Earle. He’s all right,’ said David defensively. It wasn’t his fault O’Brien had had to move out.
‘No, he’s not all right. I know him. He’d sell your bloody grandmother if he had the chance,’ said O’Brien. There was an urgency in his voice and a wild look in his eye that David found alarming.
O’Brien moved away as they reached his landing, but, turning round, had time for one last warning before he went into his cell: ‘You watch your back, Swain, you hear me. Or he’ll have you.’
Back in his own cell, David felt unnerved by his encounter. O’Brien did seem a little crazy, but then again why should he be so worried about Eddie? The question gnawed at David for the rest of the afternoon, partly because he too had his doubts about his new cellmate. Why was he so friendly? Why was he so interested in David’s life story? Why did he seem to care so much? David needed answers. And the only way of getting them was to ask Eddie himself.
‘Good visit?’ asked David, looking up from jesus for prisoners as Eddie was let back into the cell an hour later.
‘Yeah, all right. What you been doing?’
‘Nothing much. Talking to O’Brien.’
‘Who?’
‘Irish guy who was in here before you. Big guy, into Jesus, got a temper. He doesn’t like you.’ ‘Oh?’
‘Yeah, says I ought to watch my back.’
‘And so you should, Davy. So you should. Anyone who doesn’t do that in here’s a fucking idiot.’
David couldn’t see Eddie’s expression. He had his back to the bunks, doing something over by the shelves.
‘Do you know him?’ David asked
‘Yeah, I think I know who you mean, if it’s the same guy. Jesus Joe he was called when I last saw him. Down in Winchester nick a couple of years back. We’ve crossed paths once or twice. He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him. That’s all. Nothing to write home about.’
There was a casual note in Eddie’s voice that sounded forced somehow. It was like he knew more than he was saying.
‘Why doesn’t he like you?’ asked David, persisting with his questions.
‘I don’t know. He’s stupid and I’m not. I nick stuff and he listens to the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain,’ said Eddie, imitating O’Brien’s deep Irish voice surprisingly well. ‘You know what I mean.’
Turning round, Eddie stood looking down at his cellmate for a moment and then came and sat down beside him on the bottom bunk.
‘Got you worried, has he, this Irish bloke?’ he asked, looking David in the eye.
‘No, not really. It’s not that. It’s just, well, it’s just I don’t get why you’re so interested in me, why you keep asking me all these questions, why you’re nice to me. I mean other cons aren’t like that. Some of them are all right, but . . .’
‘They’re not like me?’ said Eddie, finishing David’s question for him.
‘Yes.’
David felt good and bad all at the same time. Good because he’d got out the question that he needed to ask. Bad because he didn’t want to give Eddie offence, and he hoped he hadn’t. Eddie was the only friend he’d got in this God-forsaken place and he didn’t want to lose him.
‘So, if I say I’m nice out of the goodness of my heart, it won’t do for you?’ asked Eddie with a smile.
David shook his head, feeling relieved. At least Eddie didn’t seem to be taking it the wrong way.
Eddie eyed David meditatively for a moment. He looked like a bookmaker weighing up the odds. And then, as if making a decision, he leaned over and clapped David on the shoulder.
‘All right, Davy, I’ll tell you why I’m nice. But don’t you go blabbing if you don’t like what I say.’
He put his forefinger up to his lips, and David nodded.
‘Okay. I’m nice to you because I like you, but it’s also because I need you.’
‘Need me!’ David sounded shocked. It was the last thing he’d expected to hear. Eddie was the resourceful one, able to get almost anything he wanted from God knows where. What could he possibly need David Swain for?
‘To escape,’ said Eddie, answering the question.
Escape. It was the thought that was always at the outer edge of David’s consciousness, that he wouldn’t let in because he knew there was no way out of this hell