‘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 on a piece of string and I can see the two of us getting a few old-fashioned glances from the rest of the inmates.
‘Hello, sailor,’ says Legend every time he sees one of us and I am most distressed that he reckons me to be one half of a set of poofters.
The thought is much on my mind then next morning when I find myself despatched to collect dirty laundry from the ‘guardians’ quarters. It has now been a matter of weeks since percy last found gainful employment and to say that I am feeling frustrated is rather like describing Yul Brynner’s hairline as receding. Even Fran Warren is beginning to look like Shirley Temple and if I don’t do something fast I could be in more trouble than an octopus with smelly armpits.
I give a sharp rat-tat-tat on Mrs. Sinden’s door and look forward to the sight of a one-hundred-per-cent-red-blooded woman. In such cases it is usually my fortune to find her old man at home with flu, or half a dozen kids struggling on the doormat but this time the delectable crumpet factory flings open the door, to all intents and purposes, on her tod.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘You’ve come to empty the dustbins, have you?’
I don’t say anything because I am concentrating on her cleavage which looks deeper than a fisherman’s wader. No obstacle obstructs my peepers because her frilly housecoat sweeps across her bristols at nipple height.
‘Er, no,’ I gulp. ‘It’s your laundry I’m after.’
‘Oh, dear,’ she says. ‘I’d forgotten it was Wednesday. You’d better come in while I sort some out. Do you fancy a cup of tea?’
‘That would be very nice, if you can spare the time,’ I say.
‘No trouble at all. Come in.’
I am across the threshold before you can say ‘Bring back the Cat’ or ‘Pussy Galore’ as Ian Fleming has it.
‘I’m not certain I should let you in,’ she says archly as I settle myself down before a packet of Wonder Wheaties, ‘the cereal that put men on the moon’.
‘You mean because I’m a – a guest?’ I say. ‘I feel such a berk using that word.’
‘Because of what you’re here for,’ says Mrs. S. waggling her fingers at me roguishly. ‘I know, you know. My hubby told me all about it.’
It is indeed amazing how quickly details of my ‘crime’ seem to have spread round the camp and I have been aware of a good deal of ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink’ dogging my petal footsteps ever since I left Brownjob’s office. This, coupled to the attention of the dreary Fran has made me feel about as inconspicuous as Sammy Davis Junior at a Klu Klux Klan rally.
‘Oh. That,’ I say studying the small print on the back of the Wheaties packet: ‘build your own spacecraft. Unbelievable offer. No experience necessary. All you need is a screwdriver. Hours of good, clean fun for all the family’.
‘Yes, that,’ she says eagerly. ‘You’re a naughty boy, aren’t you? I’d never have thought it to look at you.’
‘Still waters run deep,’ I say giving her the old smoulder.
‘I don’t think I want to let you see my smalls.’
‘Depends whether you’re in them or not, doesn’t it?’
‘Cheeky!’
In her case the