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 and thinking about it would send him crazy. And yet here it was, spoken aloud as if it was something possible, something that could actually happen. David felt his heart beating like a hammer inside his chest; he put out his hand and held on hard to the metal ladder leading up to the top bunk as if to prevent himself falling, even though he was sitting with his feet on the ground.
‘I need you because it’ll take two of us to get out of here, and I think you want it as much as I do. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s that you’ve got to want to escape more than anything else in the whole world if you’re going to have any chance of success. Do you want it that much, Davy? Do you?’
David didn’t answer and so Eddie went back on the attack.
‘Don’t you want to see that Katya woman one more time and tell her what you think, tell her how you feel? Or maybe you’re happy to let her sit there in that great fine house of hers laughing at you while you rot away in here?’
Eddie looked at his cellmate expectantly. David swallowed hard but he still didn’t respond. And yet Eddie knew he’d found his mark. There was a fire in David’s eyes. They were wider open than they’d been since his arrest. He’d been thinking of the world outside – of air and water and trees and grass, but now he thought of Katya and his mouth twisted in a grimace. Eddie was right. She had these things every minute of the day. Fuck her, he thought savagely. Fuck her.
‘Yes, I want out of here,’ he said. ‘I want it so much it hurts.’
‘All right,’ said Eddie, looking pleased. ‘That’s what I thought. But you’ll have to do as I say. It won’t be easy. Escaping’s no piece of cake.’
David nodded and then looked up instinctively at the tiny window set high in the back wall of the cell. It was tiny, far too small for a man to fit through, even if he could find
