A Ladder to the Sky(119)

Now, my health. Naturally, I went through some major withdrawal symptoms from alcohol, and the prison authorities, to their credit, were extremely sympathetic and helpful in this. But the damage had been done. My liver is destroyed and my kidneys are in pretty bad shape too. The doctors say that one more drink would kill me, but that’s obviously nonsense. It would be too much of a coincidence if the moment I was forced to give up was exactly the moment that I would have been teetering on the edge of death. Anyway, I drink regularly in here – although obviously not at the same levels as I did during my later London years – in my cell with King Kong, of whom more in a moment. You’d be surprised – or maybe you wouldn’ t – at how much contraband is available in prison. Everything is banned, of course, but most of the inmates have a phone, a television, cigarettes, drugs, alcohol. There are prostitutes for those who require such services. Men or women. Whenever there’s a big boxing match on television everyone knows whose cell has the subscription services. Honestly, it’s not a bad life.

And I have a job! My first real job since I worked in the Savoy Hotel in West Berlin back in 1988. I teach a creative-writing course and conduct a bi-weekly two-hour session with fourteen inmates of varying ability. They’re a rough bunch, of course – murderers, for the most part, rapists, violent offenders – and they all like to write about crime. All but one, the aforementioned King Kong, who has been given that name because of an uncanny resemblance he bears to that cinematic simian. For almost a year he was working on a novel about an heiress in nineteenth-century Boston and, quite honestly, it would give Henry James a run for his money. He was too nervous to show it to the other classmates, but he gave it to me and I was amazed by his skill with language, his gift for characterization and his witty dialogue. I encouraged him, mentored him, supported him, and he’d just finished his fourth draft when he got into an altercation with another prisoner, leading to a dust-up in the prison yard where he was stabbed in the neck with a toothbrush that had a Stanley blade taped to its end. He bled out in minutes, poor chap.

Which left me with his manuscript. And it was eminently publishable. Really, the kind of thing that wins awards and hits the bestseller lists. So, I did another draft or two, tidied up some of the language, and sent it to a London publisher, being quite clear who I was and admitting that I would never be able to promote the book in person as I’d been committed to Belmarsh for the rest of my natural but that I had found something to fill the time while I was here, the thing that I had always enjoyed most.

Writing.

And, despite the public outcry, they published it. And, against all the odds, it’s been one of the bestselling books of the year. The longlist for this year’s Prize is being announced tomorrow and, quite honestly, I think I’m in with a very strong chance.