Perry Scrimshaw's Rite of Passage (21 page)

Martín nodded and took a seat
next to him on the bed, keeping the plant pot on his lap. It looked
odd, not a species Perry recognised, with pear shaped leaves that
were vibrantly green, thick and rubbery, sparsely dotted up the
stem.

‘
What is
that?’

‘
Is a
friendship tree. Also called jade plant. When I come here to
La Tumba
I was like you.
No accept anything. But I had a plant, different to this one. It
was something to look after and grow. It helped the time pass and
gave me another thing to care about.’

He handed it to Perry, ‘For
me?’

‘
Yes, of
course. You almost never have to water it, but you must give it
some light,’ he pointed up to the letterbox of window above Perry’s
bed, ‘the ledge perhaps.’

Perry was touched. He took the
plant off Martín and stared at the deep green, it reminded him of
the Solent on a cloudy day. He felt the leaves, spongy and
firm.

Martín stood.

‘
I see
you
mañana Inglés
.
Good old Press.’

‘
Good old
Press,’ Perry murmured, turning the plant round to appreciate the
different aspects of the friendship tree.

The following day, Perry woke
before Count and felt good. He’d slept well and couldn’t remember
feeling so rested. He sat up and checked the friendship tree up on
the ledge. The morning rays caught an edge of the plant, making the
leaves a bright shade of pea in contrast to the dark spinach colour
at the back. The depth and difference in so small a thing took his
breath away. He got out of bed and walked to his cell bars and
admired the plant from there. It was funny how something so small
could make such a difference. He hated to use the word, but it made
his cell look, almost…homely.

At Press he
checked the starting levels in the inkwell and watched Martín run
through the checks with the rest of the team. He was laughing with
Osvaldo about something and caught Perry staring. A nod;
‘
Ok
?’ Perry
returned it, Ok.

The Press started and Perry
skipped to and from the ink store, finding he could save time
leaving the tap running, filling the next ink can while he topped
up the inkwell. When Martín checked up on him an hour into the
shift, the inkwell was nearly full.

He grinned,
‘
Arriba!
’ he
yelled, ‘
Inglés es un
profesional!
’

A cheer went up from his Press
co-workers. Martín slapped him on the shoulder.

‘
You are the
best ink runner now. Congratulations.’

Perry welled up with pride and
felt a smile spread involuntarily across his face. The others
clapped, though it barely sounded like a patter next to the
grinding and hissing of the Press. Perry returned to the Store. The
claps outside died away. He flipped on the tap, filling the ink
can. And it hit him.

The smile slipped from his
face. It was all so normal, so routine. A month of his life spent
inside, lost forever and here he was feeling great because he
managed to fill up an inkwell so quickly. The thought rocked him to
the core - this is how years can slip past, accepting your lot
here, enjoying it even, like Martín did. The gloopy black liquid
swelled inside the can. He couldn’t do this. He wasn’t like them.
He just couldn’t. He had to find another way out.

23

Autumn brought
a welcome change to the oppressive heat of summer, but it was the
only welcome thing to speak of. Baring’s Bank of London had nearly
folded the previous November due to some risky Argentine
investments and somehow this news had obliged ordinary
Porteños
to beg for work
or food and when neither came, to steal what they needed in order
to survive. The papers only brought worse tidings; rumblings of
problems with the wheat crop, a formula that could only turn the
economic crisis into a catastrophe. Even the trees lining
the
calles
and
avenidas
of Buenos Aires were losing their leaves and on
Las Heras,
the few that
blew onto the penitentiary grounds, landed in chance formation on
the patio.

Perry kicked
the leaves into the air. He’d read snippets in
La Nación
and heard rumours of the
outside problems. Prison food, already lacking in taste, now also
lacked in proportion. There were rumours of the cells being doubled
up to cope with a coming influx of prisoners, which in turn meant a
judiciary backlog that stretched into years rather than months.
Perry had to thank God he was no longer pinning any hope on his
trial. He picked up one of the leaves; it made him think fondly of
Bishopstoke. The leaf was dry and brittle with white veins
offshooting throughout the brown-grey skin. If only it were as easy
for him to get out as it was for an autumn leaf to get in. He
bunched it up in his hand, enjoying the crinkle and grinding it to
smithereens. It was getting cooler; he dusted his hands off and
continued on his walk around the perimeter wall. The wall looked
fairly modern, no cracks or areas of obvious vulnerability. He
scuffed around the yard, the ground still dusty and parched from
the punishing summer. He dug his heels in; it was harder than a
Brazil nut.

Some inmates
from Kitchen and Laundry were having a makeshift game of football.
Two sacks of clothes marked the Laundry end whilst the Kitchen
goalposts were saucepans filled with water. He supposed if Press
had a team it would be the ink cans or two stacks of
La Nación
. There was a
single spectator, a sweeper from the cleaning crew, a cigarette
drooping from his mouth.

‘
What they
make the ball out of?’ Perry asked.

‘
A cabbage
sewn into a napkin.’

‘
Who’s
winning?’

‘
Laundry.
3-1.’

‘
Who are you
rooting for?’

‘
Have you
tasted the food here? Laundry of course.’

Perry watched for a minute. The
last time he’d played was with Rodney and the boys down at the
shipyard. He doubted Press would have a team and shook the thought
away. Starting a Press football team would be just the sort of
thing Martín would love him to do. He had to stay focussed on the
task at hand. He continued his circuit of the grounds.

A watchtower shadowed the
corner of the patio and as he neared the dark patch, he noticed
something he hadn’t expected to see at all. It was a huge
rectangle, as if sketched out with a twig in the dirt. As he got
closer, he realised it was a square of wood, covered in dust. His
mind raced; a hatch to something? A tunnel? Casually, he scuffed
his feet, kicking away some of the dust and caught the glint of
metal. A small handle lay flat in the groove of the wood. He
crouched down to scratch his ankles, wrapped his fingers around the
handle and gave it the smallest of tugs.

An ear-splitting shot rang
out.

Perry fell to the floor,
gritted his teeth and covered his ringing ears. No more shots came.
Cautiously, he looked up; the footballers were lying flat on the
ground, hands clasped over the back of their heads. Perry did the
same.

‘
Eh!
Vos!
’ The guard in the watchtower yelled,
‘
Vos!
’ his gun was
trained on Perry. His blood curdled.

‘
Levántate!
’

He did as told and stood up. In
a couple of heartbeats, head guard Torro was in his face.

‘
Inglés
,’ he motioned to the floor
hatch, ‘you weren’t trying to open that were you?’

‘
No sir. Had
an itchy leg. It’s the bloody mosquitos, got bites all
over.’

Perry gauged for a reaction.
Torro’s fists were bunched at his sides, his expression stony. He
knew the look, tensed up and readied himself for a blow. A beat or
two passed and it didn’t come. Torro exhaled, his beefed up frame
shrunk down a little. Perry breathed a sigh of relief. Torro’s arm
came back in a flash and whoomph. All the air jumped out of his
chest. He dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach, as if
hugging it could ease the explosion of cramping pain. Perry smacked
his hand down on the ground, thump thump thump and blinked away the
dust. He croaked in the air about him, unable to think, clutching
his rib cage and trying desperately to suck air back into his
lungs.

‘
Never touch
that hatch again!’

Perry couldn’t reply; he just
hoped God was watching.

The ache in his gut didn’t
settle. Even as he slept, it woke him up. A sneeze caused him
agony. The next day he inspected the spidery bruises on his tender
ribs and wondered if they were broken. He couldn’t stand to put any
pressure on them and found himself grimacing through his shift at
Press. He was much slower than normal and couldn’t keep pace with
the unquenchable thirst of the machine. Halfway through the morning
Osvaldo checked the ink levels.

‘
Inglés,
we will have to swap you out
for a few days. Until you’re better.’

Perry grimaced, wondering why
Martín wasn’t telling him this, and followed Osvaldo’s gaze to the
upper platform. Martín was stood in profile taking a pencil from
above his ear and noting something down on a clipboard.

‘
He doesn’t
want to talk to me does he?’

‘
Uh,’ Osvaldo
scratched the back of his neck, ‘sorry
Inglés.
’

‘
I knew he was
acting strange, all silent at breakfast. The thing in the yard with
Torro was a bloody misunderstanding, that’s all! Tell him that will
you?’

Osvaldo looked apologetic,
‘We’re going to swap you with someone in Laundry.’

‘
So I’m out?
Just like that?’

‘
You’re not
trained on anything else
Inglés.
It’s only for a few days. Give you some time to
think,’ he tipped his chin up, motioning to an extra guard
lingering at the doorway.

Perry couldn’t believe it.

‘
Thanks
Osvaldo,’ he spat with all the irony he could muster.

In Laundry the air was hot and
fizzy. He was posted at a folding station and swapped places with a
droopy-eyed Uruguayan. His task was to sort and fold the pressed
guard uniforms. He grabbed the first dark blue shirt off the pile,
folded it in the middle and tucked the arms behind. It was
monotonous work, but at least didn’t demand much movement of
him

After the guard shirts, it was
the blue guard trousers and after that it was the prisoner pyjamas.
At the end of the shift a guard counted the guard uniforms, but no
such rigour was applied to the prisoner pyjamas; with so many new
arrivals and different bathing patterns it would probably have been
impossible anyway, especially if they couldn’t even get Count
right.

Over the next
couple of days, he and Martín avoided each other as much as was
possible in a penitentiary. Perry worked out the week in Laundry.
He had to admit, he missed the noise and camaraderie of the Press.
On Sunday, he set about getting back into Martín’s good books. He
noticed
el sapo
in
the queue for confession and joined it himself. When Martín came
out of the stall, Perry coughed and shuffled a bit on the spot. It
worked. Martín spotted him, the surprise clear on his face. Perry
waited until
el sapo
had gone and left the queue. He wasn’t in the mood for it -
but at least Martín would think he’d been. He walked slowly to the
patio, enough to make his delay in arriving convincing.

Autumn had coloured the Patio
garden’s few shrubs into reds, greys and browns. Martín was walking
round the herb garden, rubbing his fingers on the herbs and then
holding them to his nose.

‘
Hey,’ Perry
said.

Martín picked up a dry brown
sprig of something and held it out for Perry to smell.

‘
In Spanish
is
Romero -
what
you call this?’

Perry was surprised by its
strong perfume, he recognised it instantly.

‘
Rosemary. Had
it a couple of times with mutton back home.’

The wind picked up, Perry
rubbed his hands together and blew on them.

‘
How is the
Jade plant? You give it too much water?’

‘
It’s fine,
I’ve only watered it once this week.’

‘
Bien,
bien,
’ Martín continued to saunter round
the herbs. ‘Confession was good?’

‘
Very,’ Perry
followed behind, ‘that’s what I wanted to talk to you about
actually-’

‘
-Perry, I
sorry for sending you from Press. Just no more
boludeces
with the guards ok?’ The
light brown in Martín’s eyes invited him to say the only thing he
could.

‘
I’m straight
up from now on. No more
boludeces
.’

He offered his hand; Martín
gave him a firm shake. Friends again.

‘
So I can come
back on Press tomorrow?’

‘
Please.
That
uruguayo
is
useless. Osvaldo caught him napping in the ink store. I send him
back to Laundry straight away if I wasn’t angry with
you.’

‘
It was stupid
I know,’ Perry felt himself loosen up, ‘I just saw the trapdoor and
the handle and just pulled it. I wasn’t thinking. How was I
supposed to know you weren’t meant to touch it?’