– Watching the wife, John might decide, and hoping she’d shag herself to death. And which would you prefer, being boiled alive, or being forced to eat nothing but your own excrement until you died of salmonella?
– Boiled alive, I’d say. Quicker. Which would you prefer, seeing your favourite weathercaster skewered through the liver, or –
You get the picture.
– D’you reckon they put us together as a form of torture then, mate? John said after lunch, as I sat down to work. Because you sure as fuck drive me round the twist. Prisoner 1-0-0-8-7, guaranteed to have you howling at the moon within twenty-four hours or your money back. That Malt Fucking Fishook.
You shouldn’t have applied for a transfer, then, dung for brains, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. I can’t, when my mouth’s full.
Then he changed tack.
– You’ll be sorry when I’m gone.
He was smoothing out his blindfold. He’s embroidering plastic pearls and little glittery sequins on it – an elaborate task for such a hulk, about as unlikely as a walrus filling vol-au-vent cases.
– Believe me, he went, charred remains are no substitute for the live version.
Miss him? You must be joking. He tried on the blindfold, and the sequins winked at me.
– See no evil, he said.
I kept on chewing. Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven.
Speak no evil, I thought, chewing.
Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.
Spit.
And plop, into the bucket.
Atlantica, Atlantica.
Some dark chronological force has dictated that today, twenty-four hours after Fishook’s bombshell, should be John’s birthday. My cell-mate is fifty. Looks sixty. Acts eight.
There’s a rattle at the door as Garcia unlocks.
– Here arrive you mail, he announces, and flings it on the floor. The metal door slams behind him with its usual ku-klung, followed a second later by the reverberative du-dunnnggg. John manoeuvres his weight off the upper bunk to pounce on the mail – a few letters and a parcel – but I don’t move from my leprechaun position on the bunk, next to the pulp vat, because the bottom line is that I never get letters.
– A letter for you, goes John.
A second bombshelclass="underline" it hits me like a punch.
I gulp, and accidentally swallow a mouthful of paper pulp, which feels and tastes much as you’d expect – sawdust, metal, printer’s ink, I needn’t elaborate.
– How d’you know? I ask through the aftertaste.
John can’t read.
– The number on it. It’s your number. I know numbers.
– Hand it here, I say, willing my hand not to shake.
John’s podgy face changes shape, like malicious putty.
– What do we say when we want something?
He can be a scary bastard.
– Please, Mr Henderson. He hands it and I grab, swoop my eyes across.
It’s a cream envelope. My name, number and address are in large handwriting that loops and clambers to the right-hand edge of the rectangle. Writing with no discipline, like someone learning or re-learning how to do it by hand. Bright-red biro, and more flabbergasting to me than blood.
Fortunately, John’s too busy with his own mail to bother with mine. He’s a family man, so he has greetings from his mum and his ex, though not his kids. The mum’s card has a chip in it that plays Happy Birthday To You. We listen to that a few times, and I read him the messages in the cards. There’s a gift, too; his step-nephew, Jacko, has sent him a parcel tied up with coarse yellow string. The stamps – exotic flowers – are Namibian. Jacko’s a satellite engineer, so he travels the entire globe.
– Go on then, I say to John, buying time to recover from the shock. Birthday boy. If there’s a catch in my voice he doesn’t notice.
– Still don’t know why he does it, says John, scrutinising the package.
I can’t fathom it either. The gifts started arriving last month, out of the blue. Generous, considering John’s never even met this sister’s ex’s half-brother’s son by marriage or whatever he is. Didn’t even know he existed.
– Maybe if you’re a satellite engineer, saying: My Uncle the serial killer on the floating international penitentiary makes you look the big cheese, I tell him.
– Jealous?
– Slightly, I admit.
And it’s true.
When John opens the parcel, something blocky and beige falls out and bounces on the floor. It looks like a loaf of home-made bread – irregular, with seeds and chaff in it. I pick it up, weigh it in my hand. To my surprise, it’s as light as polystyrene. It smells spicy. Organic. Like compost. I pass it to John, who puts it to his fleshy nose and snuffles at it like a professional truffle-pig. Boggles me, mate, goes the look on his face.
– Read me the postcard, then, he orders, like he’s a prince with a personal slave rather than an illiterate moron.
Happy Birthday, Uncle John, I read. Some genuine rhino shit for you. A souvenir from the savannah. Hope to meet you sometime! Regards, Jacko.
John chuckles.
– I like him, that Jacko.
– The fairy step-nephew. You’re his charity case, I tell him.
– I reckon he’s the success of the family.
And he puts the dried turd on the bedside table along with his cards, gently, like a monarch’s crown razzled with sapphires.
– Now you, mate, he goes. How long’s it been?
– As long as a piece of string, I tell him, inspecting my letter, trying to sound cool as a cucumber but all choked up just feeling the envelope, because despite my best efforts to banish her, my first thought’s been of a certain woman, and my heart’s going thunk like someone’s aimed a sledgehammer at it and swung. Memory’s a forceful thing, I’m right to avoid it.
The envelope’s so light it could be empty.
Harvey Kidd, Voyager no. 10087, Cabin B 52, Prison Ship Sea Hero.
My insides are in freefall. You don’t wait for eleven months and twenty-three days to hear from the outside world, and then get a pleasant surprise, do you. The decision’s so simple it makes itself.
– I’m not opening it, I tell John.
He laughs.
– What, never?
– Probably, I say, standing back from the idea and approving. I’d say, probably never.
– The ostrich position again, goes John, spitting on his palm and smoothing his hair down in the mirror.
– It’s a good position, I tell him. I’m comfortable in it.
Red biro. And whoever wrote it isn’t used to addressing envelopes. I can’t work it out. An Atlantican stamp, post-marked Central Post Office, Harbourville. No clues there, except that it’s home – and also, suddenly, the place we’re headed. Somehow, I don’t like either element of this combination.
– Best to leave it, I go. No news is –
I stopped. That choking thing again. My heart felt dangerous, like I had a pacemaker and it’d been put on a setting that was too fast and fibrillous for a human. I could see John’s bulbous face in the mirror. He was looking at me sideways, like he does when he’s wondering whether to buzz the crisis button. But he won’t, I thought, not after last time, when we had an ethical disagreement about chastity belts, and he ended up in solitary for false-alarming. So I just stuffed some of his Namibian wrapping paper in my mouth and began chewing.
Chew, chew, chew. Chomp, chomp, chomp. Chew, chew, chew. Et cetera.
– You know what that is, goes John, straightening himself up in front of the mirror, and indicating my papier mâché pulp with a jerk of his head. That cud of yours. That spitting habit. It’s what teenage girls do, isn’t it. Bulimia.