No Place For Civil Rights

They’ve taken our shoes and belts, our passports and bank details. They’ve checked the insides of our ears and the backs of our throats with a torch. They’ve examined the whites of our eyes, and the stains in our toilet bowls.

They've removed a large lady’s dentures. Her face deflates: lucky for her there’s no mirror. Unlucky for me: I have to look at her. They know the names of our wives, and the allergies of our children; they know that Little Tommy suffers from acne, and that Prodigal Son is not averse to hallucinogens of a Saturday night. He claims it improves his piano.

This is no place for civil rights. We’ve chosen to be here, and we've agreed to be searched like this. Some of us have paid enormous amounts for the privilege; others, like myself, are here for research. The editor wants two thousand words by Friday. He wanted pictures, too, but the cameraman was stopped at the gates. I’m on my own, me and all the other sick bastards who’ve made it through security. We’re a small group: three men, three women, and a guard assigned to each gender.

I can’t tell what the lady with the deflated face is thinking. She can’t be a relative: friends and family are forbidden to visit. Perhaps she is simply a rich eccentric with missing teeth and a lust for blood. The man in the pin-stripe suit is a journalist too, I’m sure of it. He pats his pockets, lost without a pen. The woman beside me is a well-known MP. She wears smart shoes, polished like dining-room tables. They are, in fact, polished so thoroughly that the material encasing the lower bones of her foot reflects the shadow between her upper thighs. I catch her eye and nod.

The guard counts us into the corridor.
'Nothing worth looking at here,' he says, and he’s right. We walk along the corridor and down a flight of stairs in silence. White walls, plastic floorboards. Nothing here to raise a heart rate, nothing here to quicken a pulse. The guard unlocks a door at the bottom of the stairs with a swipe card, another door, a key. He stands back to let us pass.
'I’ll be here,' he says. 'Fifteen minutes, that’s it.' The MP with the reflective gusset asks: 'Why?' Her voice is masculine and unattractive.
'Trust me,' says the guard. 'It’s the rules. Any longer, and…'
'And?'
'Fifteen minutes,' he says. 'That’s all. Don’t talk to them.'

We shuffle past the guard in an awkward group. He closes the door and folds his arms.
'Go on,' he says. Oh sweet Jesus. It’s a labyrinth. It’s a maze, and he isn’t going to let us out. I picture us all as a rotting pile of bones at the end of the corridor. The MP goes first, the journalist second. They aren’t nervous, because they don’t have a fucking idiotic imagination like I do. We separate quickly. At regular intervals along the corridor, sections of wall have been replaced with iron bars. Each section acts as a window; each ‘window’ belongs to a different cell. I approach the first of the cells with trepidation, fearing noise, violence, insults. Journo Cunt. Fat Journo Cunt. But the corridor is eerily silent, and the man inside watches with equanimity as I step up to the bars. We look at each other for a while, the prisoner and I. He is a man in his early thirties, with nothing to mark him out as a - what is he? A murderer? A pervert? A paedophile? I look him up and down, and plump for the latter, before moving a little to the left to read his framed biography.

J. Adams, I read. Born 1973, Newark. Convicted upon seventeen counts of arson, fourteen of fraud, six of rape and incest.

I look the prisoner up and down, and now I think that I can see it in his eyes. A rapist, of course! A dirty motherfucker! I could spot it a mile off. I narrow my eyes at the man and curl my lip, but he yawns and looks away. He’s got bigger things to think about. I leave J. Adams (Johnny? Joseph?) and move down the corridor. The MP cannot get the attention of a woman with a missing ear; the journalist looks a little sick. The large lady with the deflated face holds hands with a prisoner through the bars.

I make it my business to walk all the way to the end of the corridor, right to the very last cell. Do many of the visitors come this far? I doubt it. But I want to be of use. I want to be remembered, by this last prisoner, as the only one to make the effort. It hurts - really aches inside, a kick in the guts - when I see that his face is turned to the wall. I check for the guard.
Then I whisper: ‘Hey!' No answer. I rattle the bars, gently.
'Oi! Can you hear me?' He’s deaf. He doesn’t even know I’m here. I’ve come all this way, and the dumb deaf bastard doesn’t even know I’m here. Who does he think he is?

P. Clavell. Born 1932, Devon. (I pause for a moment. What kind of arsonist/murderer/pervert comes from Devon? And he’s old. Too old to be locked up here. No wonder he’s deaf.) Married to L. McCourt with two surviving children. There’s a one-line gap, and then: Accidental Manslaughter.

That’s it. That’s all it says. I read it again, top to bottom, and look for the guard, for an explanation, but he’s too far away and I don’t want to raise my voice in such noiseless surroundings.
'Excuse me?' I say, softer. 'Mr Clavell?' The old man’s shoulders slump. I don’t think he’s deaf. He sits with his face to the wall in the attitude of a man who knows there’s absolutely no point in turning round. This man is no arsonist. He’s no pervert either. Accidental Manslaughter: what does that even mean? Drink driving? Careless driving? A glass too many and he’s banged up here for an MP and a Fat Journo Cunt?
'Mr Clavell!' I hiss. He isn't even divorced. I hope he's an adulterer. I hope to God he beats his wife.
'Mr Clavell!' I say, out loud. 'Did you beat your wife?'
'No,' he says, without turning round.
'Did you cheat on her?' I say. 'Did you have an affair?' My voice is too loud for the silent corridor, and it echoes.
'No,' he says.
'Did you beat your son?' I ask him. I'm holding the bars so tightly that the steel burns my palms.
'I don’t have a son,' says the man.
‘Did you beat your daughter?'
‘No.’
'Turn around!' I shout. He doesn’t.
'Did you fuck your daughter?' My voice is not my voice: it wobbles and breaks. The old man turns, just a touch, in my direction.
'No,' he says. 'Did you?' A hand on my shoulder jerks me back to reality, the walls, the plastic corridor, my voice, the situation. It's the MP.
'Come away now,' she says. 'Time's up.' She takes my hand and leads me down the corridor. I don’t look back. Something cold and dead sits in my stomach.
I can’t even look at her shoes.