CHRISTMAS IN PENTONVILLE

James Devoy heard few

tidings of comfort and joy inside

Thursday, 22 December WELL, that's that. Santa can't have got the V.O. No dope for Christmas. This year Bing Crosby's on a Sunday so today was the last chance for a visit. And I didn't get one. Pathetic in the yard. We're all walking around the tree because it's too cold to stand about and the screws keep appearing on the steps with bits of paper, yelling out lucky names, lucky numbers. A.nasty wind blowing and some of the cons, the new arrivals, still without socks. The tarmac littered with gobbits of white spit — the whole wing's awash with speed. Rumour says the visitors' queue stretched 200 yards down the Caledonian Road and scores of people have beeri turned away. Popular this rumour. Gives all the bullshitters an excuse for the joey that didn't arrive.

Paid this afternoon so nicotine depriva- tion temporarily delayed. Two weeks wages plus a £1 'festivity' bonus. Over £4 to squander. Me and Bill puffing 'cigars' like a couple of swells. Any roll-up thicker than a biro tube is a cigar.

Friday, 23 December BIT of a rave last night. Just as we're dropping off to sleep there's a bang against the window bars. Got all excited at first, thinking it was an escape. But it was only a plastic cup being lowered from the cell above. They haven't been paid yet on the fours and these lads were on the ponce. Great note in the cup. `Will exchange shampoo and good Wilbur Smith for burn. Help, guys. We're really clucking up here.'

Bill sent up tobacco and skins and a note highly critical of Wilbur's literary abilities. He signed it 'Black Ash' and, in brackets, `Know what I mean?' Catchphrases. We're turning into schoolkids.

Saw Angel in the slop bins rooting for butts. He was paid yesterday, too, but he owed it all out. It's double-bubble every- where in Pentonville so it's better to suffer than borrow. Bill predicts Angel will start cutting off clumps of his hair soon and smoke that. 'He's done it before.' Tobacco and the lack of it the carrot and stick of these places. It's disgusting to see new cons crack up because they can't get a smoke. Worse to realise it's official policy.

The German screw opened us up this morning and I asked him to translate the motto underneath our big wall-painting. It's a Union Jack with a huge swastika. The screw jammed the lock before coming into the cell. They always do this in case they're trapped inside. I don't think he liked the painting much but Bill swears there were tears in his eyes as he translated. 'Truth and Loyalty will always prevail.' I told Bill the Union Jack's known as the Butcher's Apron in Ireland. He was shocked. Must be the most hated symbol in the world, I added. Walked around with Kes. He doesn't like his new cell, the walls and ceiling covered with snot and thin shit. `Can't even lie on your back and dream you're somewhere else with all that crap in your face.' Speed spit everywhere, like light snow. Tony joined us, saying the bodies of those hanged here in the old days are scattered all over the grounds in unmarked graves.

Great game of touch cricket in the gym. It's crazy but things like who won and how many runs you scored really matter in here. On the way back two of the white kids got into a nasty fight. Some of the screws are perpetually frightened of the cons and we had a couple of them in our escort. Instead of wading in and breaking it up, they punched the alarm button. Forty screws from every quarter of the nick came galloping to the rescue. And did they get a verbal coating. Micky Read's right about the blacks. They shout and scream at each other, getting rid of their frustration and resentment with words and gestures. The white guys are more restrained, holding it all back, letting it go sour. The black guys dig out the screws. The white guys dig out each other. The black guys are better organised too. Woody told me that Anders, the baddest dude in the Ville, insists that all the black guys take as many showers as they can. This is supposed to kill white insults about smells. But I don't believe it. The black guys love the showers, they'd live in there if they could. Most of them are Rastas, anyway, obeying strict rules of hygiene.

Bill's made a tinder box — although we've got plenty of matches. 'We're bound to run out,' he says. 'Two weeks before we get paid again.' I'm really impressed. You just burn a bit of rag until it's completely charred. Strike a flint and the spark will make the rag smoulder again. Easy to get a light from it Sometimes you're flinting away for ten minutes before the spark catches. But there you go. We've got no important appointments.

Saturday, 24 December

ON THE landing, during morning slop- out, some of the cons start singing 'Jingle Bells'. Leading them on is Calvin, a right skanker, long hair, short temper, who likes poking his nose over the top of the doors while you're on the bog. 'A hippy in Doc Martens', Bill calls him. Today, Calvin's bullied a choir together and they're getting right into it. The screws don't smile, don't relax. There's something manic about the song, an ugly undertone, an aggression, a threat. The first line is repeated again and

again until it becomes a chant and then a challenge. It comes swelling out of the recesses and up into the tall vaulted church-like roof of the wing. The cons on the other levels join in. 'Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way'. It's trite but powerful, full of hate and mockery. The screws edge closer to the alarm buttons, fearing an 'off'. Finally, Calvin and his crew are hustled back into their peters. It's all quiet by lunchtime but there's been a bit of a knock-on effect. For the rest of the day we can hear faint echoes of 'Jingle Bells' from the Fraggle Wing.

Found out how Billy's beating me at Scrabble. On his turn he takes an illegal handful of extra letters, chooses the best ones, and slips the rejects back into the bag on his next go. Too embarrassed to front him with it. What's the point? He's the best scavenger in the nick. Without Billy cell 33 would be without burn. Anyway, even those seven-letter words he keeps produc- ing are never content, His girlfriend hasn't been in touch and he keeps thinking of all the expensive loot he could be liberating during the Christmas rush. The best time for shop-lifting, he says, is just after it's been raining. That way you can spot the shop detectives. They're the ones with dry shoes.

It's just gone one in the morning and things are beginning to quieten down. But what a night it's been. The screaming, the banging, the high-pitched eerie screechings are the normal vespers of prison life. But tonight, the cons are barking through the bars. 'Fathers missing their kids', said Billy and slept through the worst of it. They kicked the doors, rattled the beds, drum- med the pipes and generally thrashed the cells. The vibrations on the pipes made it seem the whole place was shaking. A lot of stuff was being torn up and slung through the windows, sailing across the yard to a chorus of scary yipping noises and hysteric- al laughter. Midnight was madness, a spine-tingling crescendo of drum beats, screams and animal howls. Most of them lit torches, long strips of torn sheets that they waved from the windows. It would have been quite spectacular except for the howl- ing. I woke Bill up to see the torches and asked him about the howling, the strange, strange howling. 'Christmas Eve', he said, 'Know what I mean?'

Sunday, 25 December

THE cons sullen and the screws wary. And more screws than usual it seems to me. Which doesn't make much sense. As soon as they opened up they handed each of us a Christmas card from the vicar. Ninety per cent of these cards went straight through the windows to join the debris and the shit-parcels in the yard below. 'Fucking robin can't fly,' said Billy.

Ginger, in the next cell, stuck a sock on his door last night. One of the screws has dropped in a Marathon bar. Ginger show- ing it off but all he gets back is dirty looks. The blond screw from Sheffield is wearing tinsel, gold and silver tinsel, along his key chain. He gets dirty looks as well. Not to be lightly dismissed. Some of the dirty looks you get in the boob are so ferocious they're almost psychedelic. Sublime terror.

Cornflakes for breakfast which didn't impress many. It's Sunday so we'd have got cornflakes anyway.

Dave the Gipsy slipped me a nugget of blow in the recess. What a diamond. Billy can't believe it. Couldn't be more pleased if he'd been given an Aston Martin. We're going to have a glow this Yuletide after all.

Went to church, C of E, and passed the Christmas tree on the way. It's situated right above the control centre which is always heavily guarded as from there you can gain access to the main gate. It's a no-go area, marked by huge black lines. A recorded message squeaks out of the tan- noy, constantly warning cons to stand clear of the black lines. The tree is high up on the wall almost obscuring the only clock in the nick. Ticked the right spot, didn't they?' someone cackles. The service wasn't bad. More giggles than usual, bigger crowd. The prison padre's got that smug sort of face that only comes from soft- living, but he knows how to milk the rituals. He chose the sort of carols that stretch the vocal chords and the lads let rip. A visiting Methodist gave the sermon. A stupid man, talking down to us, spouting infantile nonsense that got the shuffles and the silly noises going. But nothing nasty, nothing that the next hymn didn't put right. We all left feeling pretty chuffed but that didn't last. No sooner were we banged up again than they brought around our Christmas gift from Her Majesty The Queen. It was unbelievable — a brown cardboard box containing one Penguin, one Wagon Wheel, one 25 gram packet of KP nuts and one half pound of margarine.

The margarine was a wonder in itself. It was called Gold Blend. 'Contains no anim- al produce. Suitable for vegans. Suitable for spreading, cooking, pastry and cake- making.' The sell-by date was 30 January. But 30 January of what year? That had been obliterated. Cries of disgust and outrage echoed along the landings.

Nobody expected much from the Christ- mas dinner and nobody was disappointed. Glad I went veg. Billy's turkey looked like something that ought to have been on a quiz show. More like fish. Not even the colour of turkey. Tinned, of course, With globby chunks of jelly clinging to the edges of the pressed meat. Cake not bad, though. During slop-out, Dave the orderly wanted to dicker — a loan of his backgam- mon set for our margarine. Dave smokes his puff in a pipe so he's always short of matches. He's found out that if he sticks a wick in the marg, it'll burn for hours. Billy refused. We've got Scrabble anyway and he wants to do something disgusting with Her Majesty's spread.

Only 15 minutes for exercises but every- body too cold to complain. Calvin tried to revive the Jingle Bells choir but nobody had the heart for it. Film video for the favoured few. Escape from Alcatraz. Somebody's having a laugh. Bill won five games on the trot. Anybody up there?

Supper not worth the ink.

Pall of dull misery creeping in with the night. Thank God for the antidote. Got six jolly jays from Dave's nugget. Oh healthy, healthy gear. Bill lacks my tolerance. Could hardly get through the second, turning all philosophical. Screws, he said, were the kids at school who always had their dinner money stolen. They've all got 'A' levels in revenge. He nearly fell over having a piss. Bill's the kneeling type, takes his body to the pot. I'm a lifter. But it's so hard to hold. A real knuckle-crusher as the weight increases. Good for the head, though. The humble act, the noble thought etc. Healthy gear is right. Bill usually slips his plate under the pillow just before he goes to sleep. Once the tooth comes out he won't speak again unless he has to. It gives him a lisp, guilty consonants. But he spoke tonight before pulling the blankets over his shoulder. Grinning, whistling his sss's through the gap, he said, 'Happy birthday, baby Jesus.' I would have laughed longer only Ginger was sobbing down the pipes. So I'm smoking another joint instead.

Glossary

V.D. Visiting Order

Joey illegal package, usually drugs burn tobacco clucking suffering, term used by heroin addicts

double-bubble 100 per cent interest fraggle psychiatric case or nonce

shit-parcel faeces wrapped in newspaper blow puff cannabis, marijuana gear