Today was The Day.
I had got to go and have an interview at the prison.
I woke up with a headache.
This was not because of the prison really, but because I have made my shoulders very stiff whilst I have been painting. Mark rubbed them for me last night, but he said that they would be sore this morning, and he was right.
Once he had gone off to climb up rural broadband masts, I took the dogs for a long walk, because they were going to be stuck on their own for the day.
When I got back I borrowed some of Mark’s expensive shoe polish, the sort that he uses on his dress suit shoes, and which we don’t use for anything else because it comes in tiny exclusive pots and costs an absolute fortune.
I cleaned my prison boots with it. It was thick and creamy, and when I had finished the boots shone with a sort of deep inner glow. Or at any rate I thought that they did, but I might just have been imagining it because of wanting my money’s worth from the upmarketness of the polish.
I had a shower and put on my prison officer’s uniform. This was a peculiar sensation, because of not feeling quite entitled to it any more. I was sad about this, because I like it, and it is comfortable, at least as long as I have got the underwear bit right. I have discovered that some underwear rubs against it and makes me fidget all day. Today I put on my thick winter vest. I did not need this, because it wasn’t especially cold, but it made me feel protectively armoured against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or at any rate against anything upsetting that anybody might say to me. Nothing can hurt you through a double-insulated fleecy vest.
I considered wearing the trousers with the pockets, because of liking them better, but decided in the end that this was just too rebellious, and I didn’t want to create a Bad Impression.
I was ready ages before I needed to be, and flapped about emptying the dishwasher and putting things away, halfheartedly, because of occupying the time. I set off early in case the roads were flooded, or traffic jammed, or otherwise impassable, and also because I had run out of things to do with myself whilst I was waiting.
The thing was, I realised, as I chugged along the interminable country roads to the prison, I was worried about it.
Despite having told myself that it does not matter, or that it is in the Lap Of The Gods, or that It Will Be Perfectly Fine, I have worked myself up into a state about it.
I know about the Lap of the Gods. It is not a safe place to leave anything. It is even worse than leaving things on the back seat of a taxi.
By the time I got there I was quaking inside.
Goodness knows why. The prison service does not do biting people.
It was because it was formal, and important, and sensible, and grown up, and I might look like a grown up but inside I still believe in fairies and secretly hope for a pony for Christmas.
The man from the union met me, and took me inside. I am not in a union, because taxi drivers do not have one, and I had only been in the prison service for three days, but the man from the union came anyway to keep me company. I thought this was very kind, and actually having him there on the same side of the table felt nice, warm and friendly and reassuring.
I sat there and trembled inwardly and had to reassure myself with the recollection of the sophisticated glow of my boots.
I had talked myself into such a state of worry that I could hardly string together coherent sentences, and at least once I called an important person by the wrong name.
Of course there was absolutely no need whatsoever for this, because none of the questions were difficult, and everybody was very nice to me. They wanted me to explain about writing diaries, which I did, in an inarticulate sort of way, and they were calm and sensible, and asked what I had learned during my training.
Of course I couldn’t remember anything helpful about this, because it was weeks ago, and the only thing that I remembered in any detail was a computer tutorial about what sort of fire extinguishers should be used for different sorts of fires. I had been interested in this, because it showed you what all the little pictures on the extinguishers meant, but I didn’t think that this was what they wanted to hear about.
It was all over in hardly any time at all.
When I was released into the cool wintry day I went to Asda, because we have run out of everything useful, and because I thought I might as well make the most of being near the civilised world.
I was not sure if you are allowed to be seen in public dressed as a prison officer. You might not be, because I have never noticed one anywhere.
I worried about this for a while, and then pulled my huge bright red Minnie Mouse jumper over the top of it all, just to be on the safe side. This worked, in that you couldn’t see any prison uniform, except the boots, obviously, only it turned out to be a bad idea in conjunction with the thick winter vest. I became very warm indeed.
By the time I had finished shopping my face matched the jumper almost perfectly.
I do not know yet if they will think that I am the right sort of person to be employed in a prison.
They will be in touch in a little while.
I wouldn’t in the least blame them if I wasn’t.
