31
Terry came as early as possible that next visiting day. He seemed full of himself and very excited and said he had something important to tell me. When I asked him what, he said, with a sort of worried face I thought he’d put on for the occasion, ‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘Thinking about what?’ I always feel a certain amount of dread when people say they’ve been thinking.
‘Since you told me that I’d introduced you to crime.’
‘Well, you did.’
‘And of course I feel bad about it.’
‘You needn’t. It was quite exciting while it lasted. And Robin deserved to lose that picture anyway.’
He looked a bit nervous, as though he had a confession to make.
‘I told Mr Markby I felt bad.’
‘Do you tell Mr Markby everything?’
‘Most things, yes. So I told him I felt badly.’
‘Well, you needn’t.’
‘And now I’m going to tell him the big thing. But I’m telling you first.’
‘What big thing is that?’
It was then he began to tell me a long story about being in a Hampstead house at night and turning off a radio beside an old man sleeping and then leaving suddenly. Just clearing off home.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because I was bored with it.’
‘Bored with what?’
‘Crime. And then I made the big decision.’
‘What decision was that exactly?’
‘Just to get out of it. Once and for all.’
He looked at me with what I thought was a superior sort of smirk, as though he’d moved into a higher, better world and left me far below him in Holloway Prison.
‘Oh, that’s fine, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘That’s just great! I get into all this to understand you. To bond with you. To feel like you. So we could be together. So now you’re giving it all up, are you, to become Mr Markby’s favourite good boy, and leaving me in this dump!’ Well, it was what I felt and I had to say it.
‘I don’t want to leave you,’ Terry said. ‘I want to be with you. Always.’
‘We’ll have to see about that.’ I got up. ‘I’d better get back to the girls. They’ll be needing help with the laundry.’
So I left him looking completely surprised and ten minutes before the visiting time was over.
Later that day, I was in Recreation with Martine, watching television. I suppose I must have looked a bit down in the mouth because she asked me what the trouble was. I told her, ‘I’ve just fallen out with my boyfriend.’
‘It’s difficult to keep things like that going when you’re inside,’ she said. ‘That’s why a lot of the girls here are “prison bent”.’
‘What’s that mean exactly?’
‘They’re heterosexual with their boyfriends when they’re out. But like when they’re in here they, well, do it with each other. Have you ever thought of that?’
I promised her, as we watched Big Brother, that I’d keep it in mind.