Past Imperfect

by Graham Debenham

part 5 of 10

Fifteen minutes later Tommy and Nigel were standing outside the Governor’s office; dressed in the regulation two-piece grey serge uniform common to the several thousand other guests staying here at Her Majesty’s pleasure, they waited to be called in.

Back in their cell, Nigel had been trying to elicit information from Tommy about their incarceration and the reason for the meeting with the Governor. This had been somewhat difficult as he did not wish to show too much ignorance over his own history. He need not have worried. Tommy was only too pleased to relive old times with his ‘best mate’.

In ten minutes Nigel learned that he and Tommy had been arrested whilst attempting to rob a Mini-mart late one evening in Clapham. It had looked like an easy job with just the one shop assistant behind the counter. What they didn’t know was that the man was a former light-heavyweight boxing champion.

Needless to say they had suffered twice for the same offence; once at the hands of the shop assistant and secondly at the hands of Her Majesty’s unsympathetic judicial system.

During Tommy’s ten-minute trip down memory lane, it became clear to Nigel what had happened. Obviously that first day at Taplow Street had been the start of his downward spiral. By changing that one defining moment in his life, he had completely altered his own destiny.

What he had assumed would be a change for the better had turned out to be his own undoing. Instead of being enemies for a couple of years, they had become friends for life.

He could only imagine what his years at Taplow Street had been like. Tommy had been set to be the school bully and yet Nigel had defeated him on his first day.

Nigel would have been the feared one. Nigel would have been the one that others were afraid of. Nigel would have become the new Tommy Wellard.

He couldn’t believe what he was thinking. He couldn’t believe that he could have turned to the Dark Side. He couldn’t believe that he, Nigel Compton, with his academic promise could have allowed himself to become the type of person that he had always despised. He couldn’t believe that someone with a name like Nigel could be a school bully.

And what’s with this nickname ‘Speed’? He could imagine two possible explanations. One involved high-performance getaway cars; the other, amphetamines. Judging from his current location, his present company and his past history, either could be the case.

The door opened and a very stern and plain-looking woman, who Nigel later learned was Miss Crawley, the Governor’s secretary, peered myopically at them through transparent pink plastic-rimmed spectacles. “Compton!”

It was more of a statement than a question. Nigel wasn’t sure what to say, or do, so he just raised his hand.

“Don’t just stand there, man,” Miss Crawley bellowed. “Governor Hardcastle hasn’t got all day.”

She stepped to one side and indicated with a sideways tilt of her head for Nigel to enter. He looked at Tommy, who gave him a wink and a similar sideways nod.

He took a deep breath and entered the outer office. Miss Crawley closed the door and walked past him towards the door in the opposite wall adjacent to her desk. She knocked lightly on the door.

A muffled voice replied, “Come.”

She opened the door and stepped to one side, giving Nigel the sideways nod once again. He swallowed the golf-ball sized lump in his throat and walked into the Governor’s inner sanctum. He hadn’t felt such trepidation since his days at Taplow Street. Although his trips to Mr. Owen’s office had usually been of the social kind, he had nevertheless suffered a panic attack on every visit.

He had the feeling however, that in this particular existence his school day visits to the Deputy Headmaster had been somewhat less pleasant.

Governor Hardcastle sat behind his antique mahogany desk, his balding head only just visible behind the two trays of files stacked haphazardly on the green leather top. He peered over the top of his bifocals and waved his hand, beckoning Nigel forward.

Nigel walked forward apprehensively, stopping when he reached a white strip of tape stuck to the carpet approximately one metre from the front of the desk. This, he guessed, was as far as any of the inmates was permitted to advance when in the presence of ‘The Guv’nor’.

Hardcastle watched and waited until Nigel was stopped on the line. He removed his bifocals and placed them on the desk. “Well, Compton,” he said finally. “Here we are again.”

Nigel nodded. “Yes, sir... Governor.”

Hardcastle sighed and shook his head. “This is the third time you’ve been here in Wandsworth, and the third time you’ve been up for parole. For somebody in their early twenties that’s something of an achievement.”

Nigel hid his surprise quite well. Three prison terms. When it came to criminal activity, he was obviously either very unlucky or extremely inept.

“I don’t know what to say, sir,” he said eventually.

“You could try saying that this time you’ll make an effort to go straight. Try saying that your time here has taught you something. Try saying that you won’t be back.”

“Yes, sir. All of the above, sir.”

Hardcastle looked down at the file that lay open on his desk. “I’ve been reading up on you, Compton. The staff at your primary school had very high hopes for you. With your academic results they all expected you to go on to bigger and better things.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Unfortunately that all came to a grinding halt when you advanced to secondary school, or perhaps ‘advanced’ is the wrong term to use.

“You seem to have got yourself mixed up with the wrong crowd. People like Wellard seem to have followed you around like a bad smell. What happened, Compton?”

Well. governor, it’s like this. I was having such a crappy life, what with being a coward and all, that I decided to come back in time, beat up the school bully and, well, the rest, as they say, is history. “I suppose I made a few mistakes along the way, sir.”

“Yes, I suppose you did. Well, this is your last chance to correct those mistakes. The parole board meets this morning. You and Wellard are both appearing before them, and chances are you’ll both be leaving us yet again. No doubt Wellard will be back before too long, but I don’t want to see you here again. The next time you come back, it won’t just be for eighteen months. It’ll be for five years. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir. Clear as day, sir.”

Hardcastle looked at him long and hard. “Right then; well, it seems that I’m not the only one interested in your rehabilitation. Someone’s here from your barrister’s office. Something about getting you gainful employment on your release. Miss Crawley will give you a visitor authority on your way out.”

“My barrister?”

“Yes. The barrister who handled your defence at your last trial; the one who got your sentence reduced from five years to two.”

“Oh... yes, of course.”

“Just remember, Compton. This is your last chance. Make the most of it.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best, sir.”

Hardcastle nodded. “That will be all.” He dismissed Nigel with a wave of his hand.

Nigel wasn’t sure whether to bow, curtsey or throw a snappy salute; after all he’d never been dismissed by a prison governor before. Not in his own existence anyway. He settled for a quick nod of the head, turned and walked out into the outer office.

Miss Crawley — who Nigel suspected preferred an alternate lifestyle — sat at her somewhat less salubrious desk, guarding the inner sanctum from any unwanted intrusions. She looked up as he closed the door behind him.

“Take this,” she said brusquely, thrusting a piece of paper at him. “Give it to the officer in the visitor’s area. And tell Wellard to come in on your way out.”

“Yes ma’am,” Nigel said obediently.

She looked at him with a look that would melt concrete.

“Sorry... Miss.”

He walked quickly over to the outer door, Miss Crawley’s eyes burning a hole in his back. Stepping outside, he quickly closed the door, locking the lethal energy inside.

Tommy was waiting for him. “How’d it go mate?”

Nigel decided to remain in character. “The usual crap,” he replied. “You know, straighten up and fly straight. The same old spiel.”

Tommy grinned and gave him another playful jab in the arm. “Didn’t work on you though, did it Speed? Not a bad boy like you?”

A bad boy.

That’s what Nigel had become. In his own existence he had been a well-educated, well-mannered, civilized, mild-mannered human being. In this existence, orchestrated by a higher power to give him the chance to change his life for the better, he had become the idol of those he despised.

In one finger-cracking second in a secondary school toilet block, he had completely changed his life. But far from being an improvement, he had made things a whole lot worse. He had gone from pillar of the community to Bad Boy.

He gave a wry smile. “Yeah, that’s me; bad to the bone.”

* * *

Proceed to part 6...