Alphabet Read Online Free

says. He claps his arm round Simon’s shoulders and gives a squeeze, then a slap between the shoulder blades.
    â€˜How long you done?’ he asks. ‘Eight? That’s as long as I
reckon I’ll serve,’ he says, pleased with himself. ‘Keep busy and it’ll go in a flash. Everything’ll be hunky-dory when I get out.’
    Dear is how you begin letters, even if you don’t know the person, even if you don’t like them, and Dear is what they call you when they write back. I like that, Simon thinks, and he also likes the thought of someone making the effort to get out paper and pen, and maybe looking back over his last letter to see if there are any questions to answer or points to pick up, pausing for a while and then beginning to write. At any point they might stop or be interrupted. But the idea of him waiting to know what they have to say keeps them going until the end: yours , best wishes , keep cheerful , take care , write soon , love . . . He is not deserving of these words, but once, according to Dr Grice, he must have been. Well, perhaps he can have the ones he’s owed from back then?
    He’s waiting, just waiting, here on his bed. To the right: door, sanitary unit, ahead: table, chair, books, pens. Fifteen years, minimum. Five minutes to lockdown. Eleven hours in. Four hours till there’s any peace and quiet. Eight weeks, he figures, till he might get a reply: the ad lies around at the newspaper office for ten days or so. Then the paper comes out, then it flits around the house for a bit, nearly gets thrown out, and then late at night she’s looking through it and thinks, well, yes, I might. Then she has to actually write the letter. Then she forgets she’s done it then she doesn’t have a stamp and forgets to post it for a week and nearly doesn’t bother. Then she does and it gets to Teverson’s wife’s sister, and hides under the doormat. Sod’s law, she finds it straight after a visit, or it’s not her turn, so that’s another fortnight gone.
    It’s all relative is the thing to remember, and what he finds helps is to breathe in very slowly, hold it a bit, then out the same way. Plus, he tries to direct his thoughts the way he wants them to go. Forward, not back. What could be, not what once was. He’s thinking now how he will keep copies of the letters he writes in one half of the Adidas box that he got from the
Irishman, and the letters that he receives from her in their envelopes in the other half. He’s thinking how meantime, he’ll keep up with the hap-kid-do and the stretching exercises and of course the yogic breathing. He’ll read, and develop his imagination. One way you do this is by asking yourself questions, like, what kind of place do you think Teverson has on the outside? Easy.
    A big council maisonette, with peeling paint on the outside, and every mod con indoors. Tiger-stripe rug, big mirror, huge TV, Marantz sounds, fancy lighting. Tropical fish. Huge bed.
Sawn-off shotgun under it. Steel front door, metal grille on the windows.
    What will she be like? he thinks. I don’t know.
    Who will I become? Ditto. A leap in the dark.

5
    It is only four days since Dickie Walters called Simon to his office. What’s going on? he was thinking as he followed the officer into the Magnolia Zone, where the odour of stale food and bodily miseries ceases abruptly, replaced by the aroma of fresh coffee that floats out of the cubby hole at the end of the wing. Had they found out about the deal with Teverson? Had someone grassed him up about something as petty as this? Just the thought of it balled his hands into fists; at the same time his eyes drank in the deep red of the carpet and his ears adapted gratefully to the new, soft soundscape of low voices, typing and telephones, female laughter from behind doors left ajar.
    Get on with it! he thought as fresh-faced Walters shook his hand then sat down and