Goatie 17

 Graham Greene,’ she said. ‘He’s one of you, too.’

‘I thought yeh said, yeh didnae know if I hud epilepsy,’ I replied. ‘Noo, yer piling famous guys on my heid.’

The prison service was the only service where ignoring the customer was mandatory, even if you were a woman. If you were a prison nurse, the patient was always at it, trying to dupe you was a given from on high. She’d a good grounding in blanking me and having one-sided arguments with somebody else that mattered. 

‘Who’s that Greeney?’ asked Boner. ‘He a singer with Wishbone Ash?’

‘No, wrote a book.’ The memory lit up her face. ‘I read it at school—well, I didn’t really read it, I watched the film, with Richard Attenborough as Pinkie—Brighton Rock.

‘Don’t fancy it,’ a scrunched face and disapproval in his voice. He put his earplugs back in and fiddled with the radio. His eyes flickering towards the side of my head. ‘I don’t like rock.’

She rubbed at her eyes and rolled out a smile. Turning her attention back to my medical conditon. ‘I’ll get you a change of clothing and some clean blankets.’ She picked up the black bag with laundry in it and sniffed in that comical way as if expecting almond and not ammonia. ‘I should really get you to hospital for some tests. But you know what they’re like.’

‘Not really,’ I yawned, holding my hand over my mouth. I went and flipped the mattress over. Sat on the bed, and lay down on my side. Knowing I wouldn’t fall asleep, but feeling safe enough to let it happen. I closed my eyes.

I heard her wittering on about cutbacks and how if they tried to get an ambulance the call handlers would put us last in the queue, no matter the priority. It was another form of discrimination. A killer in some fucking cases, but I wasn’t sure if she swore when speaking.

‘I’m breaking the law,’ she said.

I opened my eyes and turned my head towards her. Boner, nodding his head, as if he agreed with what he was listening to on his playlist.

‘This is a medical room,’ she declared. ‘We shouldn’t have beds in it. But the governor’s turned a blind eye. If you’re too ill, you should be hospitalised. And if you’re not ill enough, you should be treated as a walk-in-patient in the medical room or, failing that, in your cell.’

He squinted in the dim light, trying to decipher her expression.

‘They’d scalp me,’ she said. ‘If they found out I was telling you.’  

But I didn’t care about that. ‘So, yer sayin I’m a nutter?’

‘No more so than many others. But without the flying pigs.’

‘It’s no pigs. Yer daeing that on purpose. Takin the piss.’

 ‘I’ve no strong feelings either way. Does it really matter?’

‘Yer meant tae make us better.’ I rubbed an itchy nostril. ‘Or at least no make us worst.’

She glanced at Boner and surveyed the grey walls. ‘I suppose I should apologise. It’s a bit like Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa. Sorry, it’s been a long shift. I’m babbling on. You know what I mean? Visions of hell.’

‘Nah.’

‘Well, it’s a picture. Death and cannibalism on the high seas. Basically, that’s the prison service.’

‘I cannae go on the high sea. I cannae even go on the low sea. I get seasick on the Renfrew ferry. I wouldnae go on a raft. Even if it was for a childish dare, and they hud a smoker’s corner on the raft.’

‘Did you used to smoke?’

I coughed. My lungs remembering nicotine. ‘Jist wan on my many and varied addictions. Did they get aff the raft?’

‘Yes.’ Then she reconsidered. ‘No.’ She scrunched her mouth. ‘I don’t know. There was a boat the size of a fingernail painted somewhere some say.’   

‘That’s cheery.’

‘I suppose the message was there was always hope on the horizon. For the Medusa, I mean, not for the prison service. Certainly not this place.’

‘Remember when yeh were young and spelled god backwards? An it was dog, and yer mum told yeh aff for being vulgar—and imagined it barked for a reason?’

‘Cheeky-chops,’ she said. ‘On the Medusa, the dog would have been eaten first. Then whoever owned the dog would be eaten next. The prison service is sinking. And government ministers like to set targets and blame us. A dog eat dog world.’

We came to agreement. ‘It’s a lot o shite.’