Perry Scrimshaw's Rite of Passage (24 page)

Perry padded
over the cold tiles looking for a space. He took the bucket over to
the pumps. A hairy-backed man he recognised from the floor below
was pumping his head there. Perry knew him by reputation – he was
not a man to appeal to for a fair turn and so he queued at the
second pump to fill the bucket up. He looked about for a good clear
spot for the three to base themselves for the wash. And there,
standing on his own, washing himself down with languid, slow
movements, was Santi. Still a little stooped and crooked, his ribs
poking out fine as a comb, but compared to the husk who stepped out
of
La Cueva
he was
more man than corpse now. He looked so pitiful. Could he really
leave this wretch in here? He couldn’t explain it, but in his heart
he knew he couldn’t.

‘
Hey Osvaldo,
why don’t you and Ricardo go twos on this one,’ he handed the
bucket over. ‘Santi’s over there on his own, I’ll see if he’ll
share with me.’

‘
Only
half-dirty water,’ Osvaldo said, ‘a real treat.’

Perry took his sponge and soap
over to Santi.

‘
Ok to share
your water?’

‘
Perry! Sure,
go ahead.’

The water was milky grey. Perry
dunked his sponge in and doused himself in the water, shuddering
with the chill. Santi faced the wall and lifted up an arm and was
washing an armpit with a rag.

‘
I did what
you said. I got you the first set. Now I need to know the
plan.’

‘
You did
well,’ Perry murmured, lathering the soap up in his
hands.

‘
So?’

‘
On Sunday you
give me the second set, we do the switch just like last time. Only
difference this time is that I need to give you back the first set
you stole last week.’

‘
Give them
back? Why?’

Perry rubbed his soapy hands
over his head and face, ‘I’ve dyed them black.’

Santi was silent for a while,
dunking his rag back in the bucket.

‘
Is it to do
with the archbishop’s visit?’

Perry squeezed the sponge and
let the water cascade over his head.

‘
Yep,’ he
wiped his eyes clear of soap. Santi was staring at him.

‘
How?’

There were still details he had
to work through but he could hardly admit to it here. ‘You just get
me the second set for now, no point talking about a plan until we
are set up to actually do it.’

‘
You’re going
to have to trust me Perry.’

‘
Santi, I do.
I’ve got what I need to escape already. I wouldn’t ask you to steal
a second set if I wasn’t planning on taking you with
me.’

‘
You better
know what you’re doing.’

‘
So we switch
on Sunday, just like last week. Simple.’

‘
Except not,’
Santi wrung out his rag. ‘Don’t you need to give me the dyed set
and I give you a second grey set for dying?’

‘
That’s
right.’

‘
It won’t work
like last time will it?’

‘
Why
not?’

‘
Think about
it. You go in first, take off your black set and stow it under the
bench. I go in confession, take my two sets off and then there are
three sets in there with me right? Two grey and one
black.’

‘
Ye-s,’ Perry
was starting to see the problem, ‘You put the black one on, then
your grey one over it and leave your spare under the
seat.’

‘
And when do
you collect it? You’ve already been in,’ Santi lifted the bucket up
and poured some of the water over his head and shook his black hair
like a dog.

‘
Shit. I
hadn’t thought of that.’

Santi grabbed his towel, a
slight smirk on his face. ‘It’s good to share isn’t it?’

‘
I’m going to
have to go into confession twice aren’t I?’

‘
Maestro, you
go it.’

Perry groaned. ‘Jesus. That’s
one more problem I don’t need.’

‘
You got other
problems?’

Santi looked eager to help. Why
not?

‘
Yeah. With
the dying. When we did the first switch it was pretty easy for me
to dye them. I was the Press ink-runner, had access to the ink
store all day but now somebody else has got the job – Martín’s hell
bent on training me up on the other duties.’

‘
Hmm,’ Santi
stroked his chin.

‘
I’ve got a
few scams that might get me in there but all pretty risky. The
Press guard is already suspicious of me, checked up on me the other
day and nearly caught me – thought I was kippered for
sure.’

‘
Perry,
hombre,
you got to be
careful. These guards don’t mess around.’

‘
I know, I
know. That’s why I’m asking. Any bright ideas how to get me in
there?’

Santi rubbed his hair with the
towel. ‘Who replaced you?’

Perry nodded over to Ricardo,
who was scrubbing vigorously at his nails - trying to get the ink
stains out. ‘Him. The stocky one.’

‘
And you’re
his back up right?’

Perry didn’t like where this
was going. ‘Er…Yes.’

‘
This one’s
easy. Just leave it with me.’

‘
Santi, he’s a
nice guy, I don’t-’

‘
Shhh. Don’t
worry. Trust me. Just be ready to dye them on Monday.’

Sunday morning: one week until
Easter. Perry got up early and put on his black pyjamas and then
his regulation ones. His stomach felt like it was full of ashy coal
embers, hot and shifting.

In the chapel, Perry sat on one
of the wings by the wall, Santi by his side.

‘
We on?’ The
words were drawled low through his lips

Perry nodded, ‘Me. You. Then I
line up again,’

‘
And if the
guard stops you?’ Santi whispered.

‘
I’ll go to
the altar and pray until you come out, then you distract
him.’

‘
How?’

‘
I don’t know,
think of something!’ hissed Perry.

‘
Hey,
silencio!’

Perry nodded at the guard and
lowered his head. He was hot, sweating slightly on the palms. He
had to keep his cool. He wanted to tell Santi to tuck the pyjamas
well under the bench in case one of the other prisoners going to
confession discovered it before he could get back in.

When it was time for
confession, he knew what he had to do.

‘
Forgive me
father for I have sinned….’

Hot, he peeled off his clothes,
glad of the cool afforded by the confessional. He spun a story to
the chaplain about stealing Ricardo’s bar of soap. When he was
done, the black set was tucked safely under the bench and his
prisoner issue pyjamas were back on.

Pleased with how the first part
of the plan had gone, he left the box. Santi was next in line and
his eyes grew wide. What was it? Santi brushed past.

‘
Neck!’ he
hissed.

A horror flushed over Perry,
had the ink run? Reflexively, he dipped his head and hurried over
to the altar. He knelt down, lifted up his collar and rubbed his
neck. His hand came back smudged black. His sweat!

Desperately he looked about
him, on the floor there was a jug; he peered inside, too dark to
tell. He dipped his finger in and tasted it. Water. Holy water? He
didn’t care. The empty front pews protected him from the confession
queue and the guard. He dunked his cuff in the water, and scrubbed
his neck. A bit of ink on his clothes wouldn’t arouse suspicion;
everyone knew he worked at Press. He just had to hope he had taken
enough off his skin. As he did up his top button he heard the
confessional door creak open. Damn! He wasn’t ready!

Perry rose. Santi ambled past
the confession line. Perry quick-footed, trying his best not to
run. He had to get to the back of the line at the same time Santi
reached the guard. Perry reached the end of the line, spun and
joined the back of the queue. He held his breath and waited for the
reprimand.

The prisoner in front of him
turned to look at him.

‘
Weren’t you
just in there?’

‘
Mind your own
business.’

The man huffed
and turned back round. Perry heard Santi’s voice, just the low
notes, like the drone of a distant engine. It stopped and he waited
for a hand to clap him on the shoulder, or the sharp yell of
‘Inglés!’
to echo round
the chapel. But it didn’t come. He tried to relax but his heart was
beating its way out of his chest.

The line ran down. Perry
wondered how much ink he’d sweated onto his skin underneath. When
it was his turn again, he went in, felt under the bench and there
it was. The second set of grey pyjamas.

28

On Monday,
Ricardo wasn’t at breakfast. When he didn’t turn up for Press,
Martín had no choice but to report him as not turning up for duty.
A strange unease settled on the Press workers.
There were mutterings.
The kid seemed
so reliable, had something bad happened to him?

Perry stepped
in and covered the ink duty and though he should have felt glad to
have the ink store to himself, he found that he too was infected
with concern for Ricardo. The void of the unknown was filled first
with the darkest thoughts.
Had Santi had
him killed?
Then the more rational,
Santi told me not to worry, he wouldn’t have said
that if he meant Ricardo harm.
Then, the
practical.
This might be my only chance to
dye these clothes and get out of here myself.

And so, Perry made the most of
having the storeroom to himself, soaking the pyjamas for an hour in
the morning and wringing them out thoroughly to give them time to
dry out before the end of the day’s shift. He hoped the shorter
soaking time would be enough. As they all left for lunch, it was
the guard who told them.

‘
Your ink boy
made Count this morning, been in sick bay since.’

‘
What
with?’

The guard
shrugged. ‘Vomiting, I don’t know, I’m not a
médico
.’

On Tuesday, Ricardo was back
and profusely apologetic for missing work the previous day.

‘
I don’t know
what it was, but it went through my body like a damn
locomotive.’

Perry didn’t know what Santi
had done but whatever it was, he was glad the second set was
successfully dyed and stowed away in his cell. Santi was as good as
his word.

That evening,
Perry returned from the
baños
to find a letter. He wasn’t expected anything. He
opened it and shook his head – it was his trial date. With all the
planning he had almost forgotten he was still to be trialled. Then,
the date. 19
^th
May 1892. Unbelievable, that was a whole year and
two months away, barely a fortnight before his eighteenth birthday.
Niels Saldrup had been right about this at least. Had he still been
pinning all his hopes on a trial, such news would have
steamrollered him. But as it was, the trial date changed nothing,
his route ahead was clear. He would escape or he would die
trying.

He was glad of the letter
though. At his desk he folded it into neat strips and carefully
ripped along the folded lines. He took the strip of white paper and
tucked it under his collar. What he’d give for a mirror.

The week flew
past and before he knew it, it was Friday and he was in the
baños
thinking that if
the plan worked, this would be the last time he’d ever wash here.
God it was a satisfying thought, to think he might be rid of this
place. He borrowed a razor off Martín and shortened his hair, doing
it randomly by touch. He probably looked like a savage but it
didn’t matter, as long as he looked a bit different, less
recognisable. Any slim advantage was one worth grasping.

When Saturday came, his nerves
arrived like an unwelcome visitor. He couldn’t think straight and
barely said a word to anyone for fear he’d say something stupid and
give himself away. The only distraction he found was walking the
yard after lunch. The sky was overcast and moody, Laundry and
Kitchen were having a rematch. The ball skittered through the dust
and the odd yell of a player calling for a pass echoed off the
walls. The ball was kicked upfield by a Laundry defender and to his
amazement the defender trapping the ball was Santi. How did he have
the nerve? Worse still, what if he hurt himself? Surely kicking a
cabbage was enough to break a toe.

When Santi spotted him, Perry
motioned for him to sub off the field.

‘
Tough game,’
said Perry.

‘
1-0 to us,
might be more if all the players knew the game plan.’

Perry didn’t have to look to
know that there were three guards watching. Two in the watchtower,
one on the wall half-watching the game and occasionally doing a
sweep of the grounds. He took a few steps away from Santi and
pretended to watch the game.

‘
Can’t believe
you’re playing football,’ he mumbled through the side of his
mouth.

Santi sat on the dirt, took off
a shoe and tapped the heel to loosen the dirt inside. ‘Less risky
than being all quiet and anxious.’