hundred thousand nicker, you berk,’ croaks the governor. ‘Blimey, you’re as green as the blokes what are supposed to be running this place.’
While I ponder that remark, the door opens and a tall pinched geezer comes in. He has watery eyes and a face so thin that you feel he must have caught his nut between a couple of mating elephants. What strikes me most about him is his clobber. He is wearing a navy blue tunic with silver buttons and two pips on the epaulettes. It is a bit dressy for this establishment and, of course, dead out of fashion. His best friend should tell him.
‘Legend!’
‘Yes, Governor?’
Are my ears deceiving me? Our tattooed friend behind the desk is addressing the newcomer as Governor. There must be some mistake.
‘There must be some mistake, Legend.’ The tone suggests that the speaker might burst into tears at any minute. ‘All prisoners – I mean, all residents reporting to the House are supposed to report to me before they go to their rooms.’
The man addressed as Legend claps his hands to his head dramatically and jumps to his feet.
‘Governor! I had no idea. Oh dear. This is awful. I can see how put out you must be. Otherwise you would never have used that nasty word.’
‘Yes. Yes,’ splutters the new governor. ‘I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.’
Legend holds up his hand. ‘Don’t say another word, Governor. We all slip up sometimes. I suppose that is why a lot of us are here.’ He says it so that you expect to see a halo come sprouting out of his bonce.
‘Of course, of course.’ The Governor seems embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry I burst out like that. It was unforgivable of me.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Governor. We forgive you, don’t we lads? Life has taught us how to turn the other cheek.’ We nod vigorously. ‘Now, go along with the Governor, lads. He’s a man we all respect. He’ll see you all right. You haven’t got time for a glass of sherry before you go, Governor?’
‘Regrettably not, Legend,’ says wafer-bonce, looking as if his moist eyes are going to start melting down his cheeks at any minute. ‘By the way, how is the spinach coming along?’
Legend’s wizened mug twinkles like the inside of an empty whelk shell.
‘Excellent, Governor, excellent. We’re very grateful for that manure you provided. It makes all the difference.’
‘And you’ve had no difficulty in finding someone to take it off your hands?’
‘No. Soap and water seems to work all right if you scrub long enough.’
‘I meant the spinach,’ says the Governor patiently.
‘Oh! That. No, Governor, no. Of course, the price isn’t all it could be, but I think it will get better when we can put more on the market.’
‘So you’re going to be a spinach baron, are you, Legend?’
Legend laughs uproariously at the joke. ‘Oh, no, Governor. Nothing like that. As long as we can scrape up enough to buy the lads a few little creature comforts, that’s all I’m interested in.’
‘Capital, Legend. Capital. Your initiative and fellow-feeling do you much credit.’ As Legend lowers his eyes humbly to the floor the Governor turns to us. ‘When I look at what’s happening in the world outside, I sometimes ask myself if the right men are behind bars.’
I think I could help him answer that one, but my natural sense of self-preservation keeps my cakehole firmly closed. Legend looks like a dab hand at instant plastic surgery. We leave him waving a couple of fingers at the Governor’s back and follow that gentleman down a long corridor and out into a courtyard which gives access to another part of the ‘Complex’ as the Governor chooses to call it. On the way he is rabbiting about ‘behavioural patterns’, ‘individual freedoms’ ‘society’s responsibility to the under-privileged’ and all that stuff you get on the telly when everyone has gone to bed, but I am not listening. I am watching the bird who has come willowing out of one of the doors on the other side of the courtyard. The fact that she is a bird and not a bloke is pretty impressive to start off with, but her own natural advantages would win wolf whistles in any company. Even with her hair in curlers and struggling under the weight of a plastic dustbin she is still mucho woman. I rush forward just as she is starting to lose a high-heeled carpet slipper and clap my mitts on the dustbin. ‘Allow me,’ I husk, giving her a look of smouldering passion calculated to perish the elastic in her knickers, should she be wearing any. ‘Where would you like me to put it?’
She holds my glance and as our eyes fuse across the top of the empty Kit-E-Kat tins, I think that this could be the start of something very beautiful.
‘Over there,’ she says and with that suppleness of movement that so characterises the Leas, I step backwards, trip over something and sit down emptying half a ton of fish-heads into my lap. It is not done in a way that would make Cary Grant envious and I sense that a magic moment has escaped for ever.
‘She looked a brazen bit, that one,’ sniffs Fran as we go on our way. ‘I didn’t think there’d be any of her type here.’
‘That’s Mrs. Sinden,’ says the Governor, whose name is Brownjob – diabolically bad luck, isn’t it? – ‘She’s married to one of the - er guardians.’
‘You mean warders?’ says Fran.
Brownjob winces. ‘We call them guardians, here, Warren. Our whole aim is to build a bridge between our community and the outside world. We want to avoid the creation of a convict mentality that cannot make its way in normal society. We eschew words like “prison”, “warder” and “cell”. You have a “room” in a “house” and are looked after by “guardians” who are there to help you. As much as possible we try to create an environment in which the house can be run by “the guests” – or yourselves. We have committees who operate in different areas and are composed of guests with a leavening of guardians to act as mediators should there be a divergence of opinions.’
I don’t understand everything he is rabbiting about but I can understand why the rozzers thought that Penhurst was a doddle. What a carve up! Brownjob spouting all that balls whilst Legend and his lads are making two hundred thousand quid flogging spinach. There must be a fantastic amount of it to earn that kind of money. Or maybe they do other things as well? They must do, if Legend reckons that they are going to expand as fast as he indicated.
To my relief, Brownjob explains that we will have individual rooms and adds, apologetically, that they will be locked at ten o’clock each night. I am dead relieved to hear it because I do not fancy Mrs. Warren’s little boy trying to massage my temples every evening. Without protection I might be tempted to respond with half a brick. We also learn that we are being allocated to a job and that I am being sent to help in the Prison laundry.
‘The irony will not be lost on you,’ chortles Brownjob as I stare at him stonily to prove it is.
Meals are self-service and eaten in a large airy cafeteria and I am amazed at how good the nosh is. I wish mum could come here to pick up a few lessons. Just to think of her cooking makes me see the label on a tube of Rennies.
Warren follows me around like I have him
