A Prisoner of Birth Read online

  Craig didn’t comment as he emptied what remained of the second bottle. ‘Another bottle, barman,’ he said.

  ‘The ’ninety-five, Mr Craig?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Craig. ‘Nothing but the best for my friend.’

  ‘No need to waste your money on me, old fellow,’ said Payne.

  Craig didn’t bother to tell him that it hardly mattered what was on the label, because the barman had already decided how much he was going to charge for ‘keeping shtum’, as he put it.

  Big Al was snoring, which Nick had once described in his diary as sounding like a cross between an elephant drinking and a ship’s foghorn. Nick somehow managed to sleep through any amount of rap music emanating from the nearby cells, but he still hadn’t come to terms with Big Al’s snoring.

  He lay awake and thought about Danny’s decision to give up the chain gang and join him at education. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that while Danny may not have had much of a formal education, he was brighter than anyone he’d taught during the past two years.

  Danny was rapacious about his new challenge, without having any idea what the word meant. He didn’t waste a moment, always asking questions, rarely satisfied with the answers. Nick had read about teachers who discovered that their pupils were cleverer than they were, but he hadn’t expected to come across that problem while he was in prison. And it wasn’t as if Danny allowed him to relax at the end of the day. No sooner had the cell door been slammed for the night than he was perched on the end of Nick’s bunk, demanding that even more questions were answered. And on two subjects, maths and sport, Nick quickly found out that Danny already knew far more than he did. He had an encyclopedic memory that made it quite unnecessary for Nick to look up anything in Wisden or the FA Handbook, and if you mentioned West Ham or Essex, Danny was the handbook. Although he may not have been literate, he was clearly numerate, and had a grasp for figures that Nick knew he could never equal.

  ‘Are you awake?’ asked Danny, breaking into Nick’s thoughts.

  ‘Big Al’s probably preventing anyone in the next three cells from sleeping,’ said Nick.

  ‘I was just thinkin’ that since I signed up for education, I’ve told you a lot about me, but I still know almost nothin’ about you.’

  ‘I was just thinking, and while I know almost nothing about you. You’re still dropping the g.’

  ‘Thinking. Nothing,’ said Danny.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ asked Nick.

  ‘For a start, how did someone like you end up in prison?’ Nick didn’t immediately respond. ‘Don’t tell me if you don’t want to,’ Danny added.

  ‘I was court-martialled while my regiment was serving with the NATO forces in Kosovo.’

  ‘Did you kill someone?’

  ‘No, but an Albanian died and another was injured because of an error of judgement on my part.’ It was Danny’s turn to remain silent. ‘My platoon was ordered to protect a group of Serbs who had been charged with ethnic cleansing. During my watch, a band of Albanian guerrillas drove past the compound firing their Kalashnikovs in the air, to celebrate the Serbs’ capture. When a car full of them came dangerously close to the compound, I warned their leader to stop firing. He ignored me, so my staff sergeant fired a few warning shots, which resulted in two of them ending up with gunshot wounds. Later one of them died in hospital.’

  ‘So you didn’t kill anyone?’ said Danny.

  ‘No. But I was the officer in charge.’

  ‘And you got eight years for that?’ Nick didn’t comment. ‘I once thought about going into the army,’ said Danny.

  ‘You’d have made a damn good soldier.’

  ‘But Beth was against it.’ Nick smiled. ‘Said she didn’t like the idea of my being overseas half the time when she’d be worrying herself sick about my safety. Ironic really.’

  ‘Good use of the word ironic,’ said Nick.

  ‘How come you don’t get no letters?’

  ‘Any letters. I don’t receive any letters.’

  ‘Why don’t you receive any letters?’ repeated Danny.

  ‘How do you spell receive?’

  ‘R E C I E V E.’

  ‘No,’ said Nick. ‘Try to remember, i before e except after c – R E C E I V E. There are some exceptions to that rule, but I won’t bother you with them tonight.’ There was another long silence, before Nick eventually replied to Danny’s question. ‘I’ve made no attempt to stay in contact with my family since the court martial, and they’ve made no effort to get in touch with me.’

  ‘Even your mum and dad?’ said Danny.

  ‘My mother died giving birth to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Is your father still alive?’

  ‘As far as I know, yes, but he was colonel of the same regiment I served in. He hasn’t spoken to me since the court martial.’

  ‘That’s a bit rough.’

  ‘Not really. The regiment is his whole life. I was meant to follow in his footsteps and end up as the commanding officer, not being court-martialled.’

  ‘Any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Aunts and uncles?’

  ‘One uncle, two aunts. My father’s younger brother and his wife, who live in Scotland, and another aunt in Canada, but I’ve never met her.’

  ‘No other relations?’

  ‘Relatives is a better word. Relations has a double meaning.’

  ‘Relatives.’

  ‘No. The only person I’ve ever really cared for was my grandfather, but he died a few years ago.’

  ‘And was your grandfather an army officer too?’

  ‘No,’ said Nick, laughing. ‘He was a pirate.’

  Danny didn’t laugh. ‘What sort of pirate?’

  ‘He sold armaments to the Americans during the Second World War; made a fortune – enough to retire on, buy a large estate in Scotland and set himself up as a laird.’

  ‘A laird?’

  ‘Clan leader, master of all he surveys.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re rich?’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ Nick replied. ‘My father somehow managed to squander most of his inheritance while he was colonel of the regiment – “Must keep up appearances, old boy,” he used to say. Whatever was left over went on the upkeep of the estate.’

  ‘So you’re penniless? You’re like me?’

  ‘No,’ said Nick, ‘I’m not like you. You’re more like my grandfather. And you wouldn’t have made the same mistake as I did.’

  ‘But I ended up in ’ere with a twenty-two-year sentence.’

  ‘In here. Don’t drop the h.’

  ‘In here,’ repeated Danny.

  ‘But unlike me, you shouldn’t be in here,’ said Nick quietly.

  ‘Do you believe that?’ said Danny, unable to hide his surprise.

  ‘I didn’t until I read Beth’s letter, and clearly Mr Redmayne also thinks the jury made the wrong decision.’

  ‘What’s hanging from the chain round your neck?’ asked Danny.

  Big Al woke with a start, grunted, climbed out of bed, pulled down his boxer shorts and plonked himself on the lavatory. Once he’d pulled the flush, Danny and Nick tried to get to sleep before he started snoring again.

  Beth was on a bus when she first felt the pains. The baby wasn’t due for another three weeks, but she knew at once that she would have to get to the nearest hospital somehow if she didn’t want her first child to be born on the number 25.

  ‘Help,’ she moaned when the next wave of pain hit her. She tried to stand when the bus came to a halt at a traffic light. Two older women seated in front of her turned round. ‘Is that what I think it is?’ said the first one.

  ‘No doubt about it,’ said the second. ‘You ring the bell, and I’ll get her off the bus.’

  Nick handed Louis ten cigarettes after he’d finished brushing off the hair from his shoulders.

  ‘Thank you, Louis,’ said Nick, as if he were addressing his regular barber at Trumper’s in Cur