I am on the taxi rank in the rain.
This is no surprise, it is where I had always known that I would be this evening. No matter what had happened at HMP Slade I would have been here tonight.
All the same I feel oddly shaken by the whole adventure, and glad of the quiet darkness.
The headache is finally beginning to fade. I don’t know if this is because of the absence of HMP Slade’s neon-lit flickeriness, or just because headaches have only got a certain lifespan anyway, and this one has finally worn itself out. Either way, it is slowly ebbing away, and apart from a dark glow behind my temples whenever the drugs start to wear off, I know that by tomorrow it will be gone.
Relief at this is so enormous that it is probably my major emotion at the moment. I can’t describe the wonderful liquid warmth of not having a headache. It would not be entirely true to say that ‘nothing else matters’ but it feels a bit like it. No matter what else happens in life, I can tell you now, as long as it doesn’t hurt, it is probably all right.
So I can return my thoughts to the events of the last few days. Now the headache is not occupying my entire feeling soul, I can think a bit more clearly.
As you know, I am not working at HMP Slade any more. I have been told to stay at home whilst they think about it.
I do not know what I feel about this, apart from that it is nice not to have a headache.
It is clear that those who make decisions about the prison do not want a diarist amongst them. I do not think that this is unreasonable, if I were to be in their place I probably wouldn’t either.
I know perfectly well that I would not tell the world about dreadful things like secret escape plots or rascally prisoners, but they do not know that, and they have got no way of finding out other than waiting until I tell everybody a dreadful secret.
I would not like this if I were a prison.
I have been wondering what I would do if they agreed to re-employ me on the condition that I did not write anything that I saw or heard.
In some ways I think that would be all right. I would not write about anything important.
In other ways it would be impossible.
I am a person who writes things. Trying not to write things would be a bit like shoving a cork into a blue whale’s blowhole. Sooner or later it would burst out accidentally, and there would be a dreadful mess.
I do not really write for your benefit, although it makes me feel very pleased with the world if I can make you laugh, or feel more cheerful. I write for mine, because it is a way of setting my thoughts in order. When I have written my diary I feel soothed and calmed and at peace with the world.
Before I had a diary I wrote letters, or entries on Facebook, or stories.
I wrote some poetry as well. It wasn’t very good.
The very act of writing it all down makes me able to live the rest of my life properly.
This does not mean that I will tell the world about secret things. I need to talk about the things that matter to me, like getting some new trousers. I do not feel any need to talk about other people’s important things, like the prison Governor’s Action Plan For a Perfect Prison.
That might be keeping him awake at nights, but it does not disturb my repose in the least, not nearly as much as uncomfortable trousers.
I do not think, even in the unlikely event that HMP Slade decide that they want me after all, that I could honestly make a promise not to write anything about it, ever.
This was something of a revelation to me. Until I thought about promising not to do it, I had got no idea how much it mattered to me to write things.
I talked to Mark about this today.
He is being very patient.
I am glad about this, because I have had a difficult day. I got up this morning to discover that all of my trousers have become tiresomely too big for me whilst I have been at HMP Slade, and also that all I have wanted to do for the entire day is sleep. I have slept a lot today, and I am sleepy again even as I write these words. It must have been an exciting week.
I think that I will just get on with my life quietly for a few days and see what happens.
Some gentle tranquillity might be just the thing.
