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[ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] happened here inside?' He smiled. 'Not a thing,' I told him. 'You got the butter, and the tea and stuff? Dawlish said it wouldn't be exactly what you had in mind, but we figured that a parcel from Harrods might be a bit too conspicuous.' 'Can't leave it alone, can you, Schlegel,' I said. 'Just couldn't resist coming in to take a look, eh?' He said nothing. He put his cigarette holder back into his top pocket. A passing warder rattled his keys against the metal railings, making a sudden loud noise, like a football rattle. Schlegel was startled. I whispered, 'Schlegel, come here.' He sat down opposite me and bent his head forward to hear better. I said, 'If you, or any of your minions, come here again, spy on me, pass me notes, send me parcels, ask for special privileges for me, ask me or even furrow your brow when my name is mentioned, I'll consider it a very, very unfriendly act I not only will screw up your goddamned Champion project but I will wreak physical vengeance upon all concerned ...' 'Now, wait just one minute ...' 'You button up your Aquascutum raincoat, Colonel, and rap on that door. You get out of here in a hurry, before I cut you into pieces small enough to squeeze through the peep-hole. And you stay away--a long, long way from me, until I make a contact--and you make sure there are no misunderstandings, because I'm a very nervous man. Remember that, very nervous.' » Schlegel got to his feet and went to the door. He was about to rap on the door to call the warder, but he stopped, his fist in midair. 'Did you hear the ruckus this morning?' 'No.' Page 95 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html 'Twelve prisoners coming back from their meal. Staged a sit-down in the offices. Threw a scare into the clerks, threw a typewriter into the yard and tore the locks off the filing cabinets: all good clean fun.' 'And?' 'It was all over in an hour or two. No sweat. They threatened to stop their TV, or cut back on the smokes, or something,' He thumped the door. 'High spirits, I guess. Don't worry, we had all the exits covered, pal.' If he was expecting some significant reaction from me, he was disappointed. I shrugged. Schlegel rapped on the door. Within a minute the door was unlocked. He tipped his hat to me, and left It was only after he'd gone that the penny dropped. Why a sit-in, and why would they break the locks off the filing cabinets, except that they wanted to read the files. There was a dossier for each of the prisoners in that office. It might simply be high spirits; or it might be an indication of how far someone was prepared to go to get a look at my prison documents. * * * I stayed in London after my release. For the first few nights, I slept at Waterloo Station. The first night, I used the waiting-room, but the railway police come round asking to see rail tickets. Out on the concourse, it's cold. The regulars steal the unsold newspapers and line the slatted benches to stop the draughts, but you have to be tough, or very tired, to get much rest there. By the third night I'd learned a thing or two. An old man they called 'the Bishop', who had arrived on foot from Winchester told me how to choose the trains. The heat comes from the front, so the residual warmth lasts longer at that end. The Bishop preferred dirty trains, because in those he'd be discovered by cleaners instead of by some railway cop who might turn him in. It was the Bishop who told me always to pretend to any inquisitive policeman that my wife had locked me out. His filthy raincoat tied with string, his broken boots and bundle of belongings, gave him no chance to try that story himself. But I used it three or four times and it worked like a charm. But now my shirt was dirty, and the sort of hasty shave I was able to have in the gent's toilet was stretching the errant-husband story thin. It was the Bishop who found me a billet on Friday night. There were three of us. We got on to platform four, where the Guildford train was about to leave, and then slipped round behind the buffers to a darkened train that would not go until morning. It was the Bishop who had the square-sectioned key that opens the guard's-van doors. The Bishop settled into the narrow pew from which the periscope gives a view along the train top, while I kipped with Fuller, wedged behind some freight. Fuller was a hatchet-faced thirty-year-old. He Page 96 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html wore a battered leather coat and a red-and-white woolly hat. He was a sociology graduate from Sussex University who 'weaseled' luggage for the boat-train passengers and was not above stealing the occasional camera or transistor radio. Such items went on sale in The Cut street-market, not thirty yards away, while the owner was still searching the taxi line to locate the Veil-spoken porter' and trying to remember when he last renewed the insurance. 'It's my back,' explained the Bishop. 'Sleeping on the floor plays merry hell with my back.' 'Spare us the details,' said Fuller. 'We know all about the state of your health.' 'You'll be old yourself someday,' said the Bishop. . 'You need a bit of exercise,' said Fuller, 'that's what you need. You come and help me with that boat-train tomorrow. It'll be a good one, they say.' 'I wish I could, but I'd do myself an injury,' said the Bishop. He wriggled into the upholstered seat and searched inside his hat He kept everything in there: paper money, cigarette stubs, string and matches. Finally he found the matches he wanted. Then he searched through his pockets until he found a tin. It was dented and all vestiges of advertising lettering had long since been polished away. Now it shone like silver, and from inside it he took a cigarette-rolling machine. 'Exercise is no good to anybody,' said the Bishop. 'Who lives to be a hundred? These fellers you see jogging down the road in a track suit at night, or those old cows with their poodles and their chauffeurs and their afternoon naps? You answer me that' 'Trust you to rationalize it out,' said Fuller, but he found no easy answer to the old man's contention. The Bishop smiled. He was like some down-at-heel Father Christmas, his beard stained with nicotine and his teeth long and yellow. And yet he did not smell: for a tramp, that was quite an achievement 'Either of you two want a smoke?' he said. He rolled them carefully, thin tubes of white paper,' marked with the Bishop's grey dabs, and spilling dried tobacco. 'Thanks, Bish,' I said. But Fuller did not smoke. Even before the Bishop had given me a light, Fuller was beginning to snore. 'First today,' said the Bishop proudly, holding the roll-up in the air. Page 97 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html 'My first for six days,' I said. 'You want to give it up, son,' he said. As he inhaled, the burning cigarette lit up his arthritic knuckles and watery eyes. 'Money going up in smoke: my old mother said it, and she was right.' 'And what did your mother do with her bread?' I said. 'Play the stock exchange?' 'You've been in nick, haven't you, son?' 'I was working the North Sea oil rigs. I told you that.' 'Yeah, you told me that,' said the Bishop. 'But I'm saying you've been doing porridge!' I pinched out the cigarette and pushed it into the top pocket of his tattered overcoat. 'Naw, no offence, son.' 'Get stuffed,' I said. 'No need to get nasty.' Think yourself lucky I didn't poke it down your throat,' I said. 'I'm old enough to be your father.' 'But not bright enough.' I turned over and closed my eyes. Page 98 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html I only dozed for a moment or two before I heard the old man's voice again. He [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] |