Alphabet Read Online Free Page B

be jammed together and his whole back hurt and he’d want someone to lay into him, just for the release of it and so he could hit back. The one time it happened, in the showers, some idiot laughed at one of his tattoos and he got him on the ground in two seconds flat, smashing his head on the tiles, ‘Don’t you dare laugh at me.’ Result: a lot of respect, plus five extra days for resisting the screws who pulled them apart, plus he had to do the anger-management course. That was the last time before this that he had to go to see Walters.
    â€˜Well,’ Grice said at the end of the last ‘meeting’, as he called them, ‘we can of course resume at a later date, should you change your mind . . .’ Simon was thinking: Is this some kind of joke, it must be, when are we both going to crack up laughing or have you never done it? But at the same time he was standing there in front of Grice as if he’d been turned to stone, as if somehow he couldn’t go, now that it was really over.
    Hoskins clears his throat, which sounds as if it’s full of half-cured cement with a handful or two of gravel thrown in. He’s on at least forty a day, and clearly desperate to get out of this No Smoking room. ‘Just a few minutes more,’ he says, and
Simon could leave it there but just to spite Hoskins he flicks over some more pages at random: ‘Austen is fit and attends well to personal cleanliness,’ he discovers, courtesy of the Medical Officer. What a gem! So who, exactly, is the expert here? Am I right or am I not? But does it matter one little bit?
    â€˜Crap!’ Simon barks at Hoskins.
    â€˜What’s new?’ Hoskins comments, smiling gratefully as he finally unsticks himself from the wall.
    â€˜Learn anything?’ he wheezes, bent over to lock the door behind them. I could floor the fat bastard, Simon thinks, but for some reason it doesn’t happen. ‘Back to business?’ Hoskins grins, reaching for his Embassy and gold-plated lighter. How many times has he done that in his lifetime? I could write your card, Simon thinks:
    Hoskins uses nicotine, alcohol, spouse abuse and a mildly sarcastic manner to distance himself from his environment, colleagues and charges. His unusual hobby, photographing night scenes, especially firework displays, provides relief and satisfaction . . .
    How can anyone here act normal, even remember what it is? Hoskins sighs as he lights up, and as an afterthought, offers Simon the packet. He takes two, puts one behind each ear.
    Hoskins accompanies him to the toolshed, unlocks it, watches him pull on huge red rubber gloves, like udders, and extract wheelbarrow, dustpan, brush and so on. Then he’s on his own for almost an hour. Despite his being a time-bomb, his new job requires him to be trustworthy and he gets a red band to wear on his arm while out of doors. Mornings, it’s a matter of picking up the shit-parcels thrown from the cells of those not fortunate enough to have their own sanitary unit, along with the odd sandwich, sweet paper and so on. Afternoons, sweeping up dust. The job doesn’t earn respect, not even much of a wage, but it gets him out of doors. He can walk behind the Education block and hear Marsden practising on the upright piano. He can inspect a larger bit of sky, feel scraps of wind on
his face. And at some point, he can pass by the boiler sheds where Teverson works, shovelling coal. He does it stripped to the waist, dusty and sweating, like something in a picture book about the mines a hundred years ago. He only takes the job on to keep up his fitness, he says, and he’s certainly winning there.
The screw looks on, pot-bellied, smoking.
    â€˜Got mine?’ Tev yells at Simon. ‘A big, sticky one. No paper. Sorry, couldn’t wrap it up, mate.’
    â€˜A rat ate it up,’ Simon tells him. ‘Then it died.’
    â€˜See ya!’ Tev says, seemingly satisfied, and