It didn’t surprise him that he’d ended up back in Oxford. Nothing much surprised him any more. Prison was cruel, and here, locked away in the centre of his own hometown, it was just a bit more painful than anywhere else. That’s all. A few hundred yards away on the other side of a thirty-foot brick wall surmounted with barbed wire, the world he’d left behind was going on without him, impervious to his absence. In the mornings he could hear the bells ringing in Magdalen Tower and in the afternoons he could see the tallest spires of the city’s churches from the prison exercise yard. So near and yet so far; the proximity of the world outside was an exquisite torture.
And he was very different now from the man he’d been when he’d begun his sentence, less and less able to cope with the despair that was eating him up from the inside. Physically, he had survived. There had been pushes, punches, even a few kicks along the way, but he had got through them. And it could have been worse. David knew all about the mindless violence that was always waiting as a possibility around the next corner — God knows he’d seen it often enough, but so far he had avoided the worst by keeping his head down, not answering back, not getting involved.
Spiritually and emotionally, however, it was a very different story. Over time he had learnt to accept the arbitrariness of prison life: the endless petty rules that existed only to be broken, the lack of choice. And he had tried to get used to the strange combination of noise and isolation, his twin companions through the endless long days and sleep-interrupted nights. But underneath he had lost hope and purpose. His personality, already fragile and damaged at the time of his arrest, had disintegrated under the stress of prison life, and the anger and despair that raged inside him were now only kept in check by fear. He longed for someone to cling to as he sank, for someone to hold him up, and then, entirely unexpectedly one day, a friend appeared. He was called Eddie Earle.
With a smile David remembered the day that his new cellmate had arrived. He’d been alone for over a week, ever since O’Brien, the previous occupant of the top bunk, had been transferred to the punishment block in D Wing for attacking another prisoner with a pool cue in the rec room. O’Brien had not been a bad cellmate. Tall, taciturn, and religious, with a permanent furrow etched across his massive brow, he’d actually gone so far as to give David a book called JESUS FOR PRISONERS. David hadn’t yet read more than the first paragraph but he appreciated the thought. Gifts weren’t a daily occurrence in HM Prison Oxford.
O’Brien’s problem was his temper. It was what had got him put away in the first place. And he had an enemy on B Wing who’d been goading him for weeks. Something about taking too much food in the canteen, something stupid, but still O’Brien shouldn’t have reacted. He only had himself to blame. And his departure had meant that David had had to start worrying again about who would be coming in next to share his ten-by-ten cell and stinking chamber pot. Not some crazy, he prayed after lights-out to a God he had no faith in whatsoever. Not some fucking crazy psychopath. But he needn’t have worried. Eddie Earle, Easy Eddie as he liked to be known among his friends, was nothing like that at all.
Eddie had self-respect. If David had had to name one quality that singled out his new cellmate, that would’ve been the one he picked. He refused to be a number; he refused to give in to the system. David thought at first that this would lead to endless problems with the screws, problems that he could do without. But that wasn’t how it worked out. Eddie had an easy way with him — it must have been how he’d got his nickname, and the screws laughed at his jokes and didn’t seem to pick on him like they did with the other prisoners. Almost immediately this started to bring benefits for David because Eddie seemed to be able to get hold of anything he put his mind to. Soft toilet tissue, fresh fruit, magazines, and even on one memorable occasion two cans of beer appeared like magic in the cell. The screws turned a blind eye, and Eddie shared everything he got with David. ‘Because that’s what cellmates do,’ he said.
‘You’ve got to take care of yourself. That’s the secret,’ Eddie announced on that memorable afternoon when they’d sat on David’s bunk and raised their cans of Special Brew in a toast to the poster of Elizabeth Taylor in a sultry, low-cut dress that Eddie had put up on the opposite wall.
‘Liz has to, you know,’ he went on musingly. ‘Imagine the time she spends every evening with her paint bottles and stuff getting ready to go out to one of them Hollywood parties. Monty Clift’s outside, walking up and down getting all sweaty and impatient, but, oh no, she’s got to get it right. Eyebrows, makeup, lipstick. Not a fucking hair out of place. And you know why, Davy? You know why?’
It was a rhetorical question and David sat sipping his beer, halfway to heaven with the taste of it, waiting for the answer.
‘Because she cares about herself. That’s why.’
‘Not that easy in here though, is it?’ said David, sounding a note of realism. It was a long way from HM Prison Oxford to Beverly Hills, California.
‘No, it ain’t,’ said Eddie, agreeing. ‘But I’ll tell you this much — looking after yourself when you’re inside is where it’s most important. Because in here is where they’re trying to take your pride away every minute of the day. I should know — I’ve been in prison enough times. The point is, Davy, it doesn’t matter where you are — Hollywood or Her Majesty’s pleasure. You’ve got to keep your head up. That’s what I do. And it’s what you’ll do if you’ve got any sense. Why do you think I’m working out down in the gym during association? Why do I try and eat proper food?’ said Eddie, jabbing his finger over at the two rows of apples and pears carefully arranged on the rickety shelves under Elizabeth Taylor’s poster.
‘I’ve noticed you spending a lot of time looking in the mirror, Eddie. I suppose that’s the same thing,’ said David, trying to inject a lighter note into the conversation. He didn’t really disagree with Eddie’s take on how to survive prison life but it was instinctive for him to rebel a little whenever he found himself being lectured about anything. And Eddie was indeed almost obsessive about his personal appearance. He spent ages every morning stooped in front of the broken piece of glass screwed to the wall at the back of the cell, combing his jet-black hair until the parting was razor straight, and he insisted on the barber who came round to shave the prisoners every morning taking extra care with the long sideburns that he’d grown in the style of Elvis Presley. David had learnt very early in their relationship that the two great loves of Eddie’s life were America and show business.
David regretted his words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Sipping his beer, he felt more warmly disposed to Eddie than ever before at that moment and he had no wish to rock the boat or give him offence. But he needn’t have worried. Eddie had a very thick skin.
‘Yes, taking care of what you look like’s important too. Of course it is, like I said before,’ said Eddie, refusing to be put out of his stride. ‘It’s like my old auntie used to say when I was a kid — take care of your skin if you want to feel comfortable in it.’
David had begun to notice in recent days how Eddie’s aunt, like Elizabeth Taylor, was becoming an increasingly frequent visitor to their conversations.
But it wasn’t all Eddie. He knew how to listen too, and perhaps it was this quality more than any other that drew David to his new cellmate. David had two years of anger and frustration built up inside him, and it helped to let some of it out. Or rather he thought it helped. Talking about Katya and Ethan had seemed like a relief to begin with. He’d not been able to talk to anyone about how he felt until now. People didn’t discuss personal stuff in prison. It was one of the unwritten rules. But Eddie was different. He wanted to know about what had happened, every last detail of it.
Lying on their bunks after lights-out, they had long, whispered conversation into the small hours. Their positions, one on top of each other, so close and yet invisible to each other, disembodied voices in the semi-darkness, made it easier to talk somehow. And so David had told Eddie his story, or his version of it at least — about how Katya had thrown him over and how that made him feel, about Ethan, and about Katya’s coming to court and reading out his letters one after the other, looking over at him in the dock with such hatred in her eyes.