the open container of rice sitting on someone’s Collected Works, as Daniel asked me about my week and I about his. That was how many evenings, after the long show and tell, drew to a close.
My Sunday, I couldn’t help feeling, had ended up being a long immersion in other people’s pursuits and desires. I wanted to steer my thoughts elsewhere, away from bats, poems and corsets, so on the bus home I reached back in time to a correspondence of my own, the only one of my life, in fact, begun in my late adolescence and lasting into my early twenties.
Hatched not from a hobby or a mutual friend but from a pen-pal scheme I’d read about, with inmates at prisons in the UK. I filled out a form and sent it in. Based on my answers, a match was made. David Murphy was his name, an inmate at Wormwood Scrubs, a Category B prison in West London. I wrote him my first letter. Three days later, I received a reply. I no longer recall the contents, only my crackling pulse as I extracted the paper from the envelope. I sent him a second letter. A further reply. Each letter of his was a bit longer, more detailed. Soon we were writing every week.
Most of his letters described life in prison: the soul-crushing routines, glimpses of the sky through three glass panes and wire mesh, drab variations in the food, highly volatile cellmates. Days measured out in steps—five from bed to door, three from bed to window, two from window to sink. A constant twilight. Pet spiders and mice. The fitful buzz of a dying fly. Occasionally he’d half joke about his situation or draw pictures in the margins. In his previous life he had worked as a welder.
I sent photos of myself, the most flattering ones I could find, and imagined them taped to the wall by his bed or stowed under his mattress. He never told me why he was there. I never asked.
A few months into our correspondence, David Murphy changed address. He was being moved, or ghosted, to Belmarsh, a Category A prison in Greenwich for prisoners whose escape would pose a serious threat to national security. I found this out later. At the time, the name Belmarsh sounded like a stately home, much more elegant than Wormwood Scrubs, so I assumed it was a nicer place, for more refined criminals.
It was clear we would never meet. Every now and then I’d offer to visit but he never responded to my question. I finished school, started university, dropped out, moved to London and began at Compendium, then at my second job, then my third. I dated appropriate and inappropriate individuals, moved flat and flatmates. Through it all, I continued writing to David Murphy.
And then one summer’s night I was skimming the news on the BBC website when I read that two convicts, both jailed on multiple charges of murder, had escaped from Belmarsh that evening. Across the country search parties (dogs, helicopters, sirens) had been dispatched. A telephone number was provided should anyone have leads. For the first time ever, I saw his face. As a mugshot on the computer screen. It was haggard, but not in the way I’d imagined. He had lots of stubble, and his hair wasn’t as long as I’d pictured it, in fact he had a close prison shave. But his eyes were what startled me the most.
Panic set in. He knew exactly where I lived, the address of my current flat and all the ones before. Of course he would come looking for me, perhaps even ask for shelter. I packed a suitcase and went to stay with friends in Forest Hill. I checked the street, peered out of every window, was tempted to change name, job, city.
Yet David Murphy never came. In fact, I never heard from him again. A small part of me was, I admit, disappointed, and for a time I kept half hoping he would pop up somewhere, that I’d turn a corner and there he’d be. As far as I know he has yet to be caught. It’s unlikely he stayed in the country. He probably jumped on a freighter and is now in the wilds of New Zealand or Brazil, where he’s started a new,
My Sunday, I couldn’t help feeling, had ended up being a long immersion in other people’s pursuits and desires. I wanted to steer my thoughts elsewhere, away from bats, poems and corsets, so on the bus home I reached back in time to a correspondence of my own, the only one of my life, in fact, begun in my late adolescence and lasting into my early twenties.
Hatched not from a hobby or a mutual friend but from a pen-pal scheme I’d read about, with inmates at prisons in the UK. I filled out a form and sent it in. Based on my answers, a match was made. David Murphy was his name, an inmate at Wormwood Scrubs, a Category B prison in West London. I wrote him my first letter. Three days later, I received a reply. I no longer recall the contents, only my crackling pulse as I extracted the paper from the envelope. I sent him a second letter. A further reply. Each letter of his was a bit longer, more detailed. Soon we were writing every week.
Most of his letters described life in prison: the soul-crushing routines, glimpses of the sky through three glass panes and wire mesh, drab variations in the food, highly volatile cellmates. Days measured out in steps—five from bed to door, three from bed to window, two from window to sink. A constant twilight. Pet spiders and mice. The fitful buzz of a dying fly. Occasionally he’d half joke about his situation or draw pictures in the margins. In his previous life he had worked as a welder.
I sent photos of myself, the most flattering ones I could find, and imagined them taped to the wall by his bed or stowed under his mattress. He never told me why he was there. I never asked.
A few months into our correspondence, David Murphy changed address. He was being moved, or ghosted, to Belmarsh, a Category A prison in Greenwich for prisoners whose escape would pose a serious threat to national security. I found this out later. At the time, the name Belmarsh sounded like a stately home, much more elegant than Wormwood Scrubs, so I assumed it was a nicer place, for more refined criminals.
It was clear we would never meet. Every now and then I’d offer to visit but he never responded to my question. I finished school, started university, dropped out, moved to London and began at Compendium, then at my second job, then my third. I dated appropriate and inappropriate individuals, moved flat and flatmates. Through it all, I continued writing to David Murphy.
And then one summer’s night I was skimming the news on the BBC website when I read that two convicts, both jailed on multiple charges of murder, had escaped from Belmarsh that evening. Across the country search parties (dogs, helicopters, sirens) had been dispatched. A telephone number was provided should anyone have leads. For the first time ever, I saw his face. As a mugshot on the computer screen. It was haggard, but not in the way I’d imagined. He had lots of stubble, and his hair wasn’t as long as I’d pictured it, in fact he had a close prison shave. But his eyes were what startled me the most.
Panic set in. He knew exactly where I lived, the address of my current flat and all the ones before. Of course he would come looking for me, perhaps even ask for shelter. I packed a suitcase and went to stay with friends in Forest Hill. I checked the street, peered out of every window, was tempted to change name, job, city.
Yet David Murphy never came. In fact, I never heard from him again. A small part of me was, I admit, disappointed, and for a time I kept half hoping he would pop up somewhere, that I’d turn a corner and there he’d be. As far as I know he has yet to be caught. It’s unlikely he stayed in the country. He probably jumped on a freighter and is now in the wilds of New Zealand or Brazil, where he’s started a new,
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