The prisoner kneaded first
one hand, then the other, liberating his fingers from the stiffness
of the cold and the callouses on his palms. From his shirt pocket,
he took the stub of indelible pencil he'd found on the road.
He gnawed at the wooden casing until the purple lead showed
through. It was dark outside; the ten-watt bulb screwed into
the ceiling lightened the cell to a perpetual pale dusk. The
prisoner waited until the guard passed on his rounds, then got
up from his bunk, took a step to the toilet in the back corner
and pissed. The rush of his stream ricocheted tinnily through
the range. More than five hundred men and hardly a sound, just
furtive rustlings like animals restless in their stalls.
Perhaps it was the oncoming cold that
made him desperate. Perhaps it was the the sight of the Superintendent
and his conversation with the reporter that made him bold.
Or perhaps it was simply that six days of breaking stone had
not beaten the thought from his brain.
He pulled a handful of papers from the
wad suspended beside the toilet and stuffed them in his shirt.
He sat on his bunk, facing the bars to catch the first footsteps
approaching down the range, then he smoothed one thin, brown
rectangle on his knee. He licked the exposed tip of purple
lead, careful not to stain his lips.
Little friend, he began.
The burning barrel stood halfway between
the house and the shed at the back corner of the yard. On Saturdays,
it was Phyllis's job to burn the week's trash -- newspapers,
red butcher's paper, letters already answered, occasionally
scribblers filled with last year's lessons.
This morning the air was honed with
the edge of winter. Grey clouds bore down from the north,
so low they threatened to snag in the bared branches of the
trees. Phyllis could see her breath, white and wispy, as if
a fire smouldered inside her. She pressed a shoebox into the
mess in the barrel, then picked up a newspaper from the pile
on the ground, twisted it into a tight taper and lit one end
with a match. She held it at an angle until the flame crept
halfway up the shaft. Then she touched the burning tip against
an envelope, the corner of a tooth-powder box, the blue-and-yellow
rim of a soap wrapper.
She liked this chore. She liked being
outside. More than that, she liked being away from the crush
of family, alone and out of sight, nestled by the lilac hedge,
the cedars and the elm trees that shielded her from the wagons
and motorcars that clattered down King Street towards the
centre of Portsmouth village. On the other side, the property
sloped steeply through three vacant lots to Cross Street.
In theory, Rear Street connected King to Cross, but in fact,
the dirt road extended only along the back of her father's
land, a thin boundary between the last house in the village
and the prison quarry. The house itself with its large windows
and broad verandah faced King Street; no windows looked onto
the yard.
Phyllis reached into the pocket of her
coat and closed her fingers around the roll of paper, thin
as a cigarette. Lying in her palm, backlit by the flames,
it did not seem remarkable at all. Thin brown paper, striped
with faint purple markings.
For a week, the paper had lain first
in one pocket, then another, coat to schooldress to apron
to nightdress. She had picked it up in curiosity, boldly hidden
it for days, but she could not bear the burden of her secret
any longer. Whoever he was, this convict who dropped notes
by the road, she would have no part of him.
When the letter touched the flame, the
pages parted in the heat, opening like blossoms on a hot summer
day. Words, illuminated briefly, pleaded ...never fear...
...little friend ... ...trust me ..., then withered and blackened.
The embers spiralled skyward with the smoke, but the words
remained.
