The Florrie and Jack Dialogues : The Write Stuff : (Episode 4)

The Write Stuff

Florrie : Do you know, Jack, your Aunt Cilla was telling me Trevor has lost the will to live in that prison?

Jack : Two years is an awfully long time.

F : Too long, Jack. It will destroy the fine mind of an intellectual.

J : How is he going to cope?

F : Well, Cilla has said Trevor has joined a writer’s group.

J : That’s a new departure for him.

F : Well, it’s nothing for a genius, is it? It will be second nature to Trevor. He may even pen a blockbuster in two years. Cilla told me he met that Henning Mankell once.

J : That Swedish author?

F : Yes. Mankell had such class, Trevor said, but believe me, Jack, Trevor has just as much, class that is, and talent. He’s a burning literary bacon that contravenes continually.

J : Won’t the prisoners think that all that intellectual stuff is pansy?

F : Probably, Jack. They are hardened criminals – they were hardened to the soft feminine wiles of me and your Aunt Cilla, Jack. If any of them, and they were all strong, virile men, Jack, just happened to brush past you, you knew for a fact.

J : They are bound to be hard in prison, Mum.

F : Too true, Jack. There’s more rumours too concerning your cousin and his time in the bail hostel. Some of the men are saying he’s gay, whether he knows any bloody Henning Mankell or not.

J : Why, Mum?

F : Well, we know he can’t be, you told me yourself Caitlin was up the duff, but apparently in the bail hostel things took a different turn and there’s been a misunderstanding.

J : A misunderstanding, Mum?

F : Yes, apparently Trevor was found in the shower room naked at the bail hostel with other boys.

J : Well, he would be.

F : Yes, Jack, but he was upstairs and he should have been downstairs. The men are bad, Jack, they are saying because the boys were better looking upstairs than they were downstairs that Trevor crept up to be with them. Of course I don’t believe that. I’d say the shower was not working downstairs that’s all. What else could it be? That boy is modest, Jack. He told me he was wearing a towelling robe on the stairs. No way would Trevor flaunt himself in front of delinquent boys, Jack. Can you imagine such a thing, Jack? I certainly cannot. That boy is moral and tainted by the evil of others. It’s as simple as that.

J : I don’t think we should be niave, Mum.

F : Oh there you go again, Jack. You have no faith in academics.

J : Not really, no. Has he made a friend in there?

F : Well, apparently it is slow going, in fact it’s bloody come to a stop, but there is one man, Jack taken pity on your cousin.

J : He’s probably a renter.

F : Oh don’t be ridiculous, Jack. It will be somebody wronged as your cousin is wronged. Somebody put in there falsely. I saw the leering faces of renters on the way out of the prison and believe me, Jack, it was a terrible horror. These gay men are quite rebarbecued to me.

J : You mean rebarbative.

F : Well maybe. Anyway I don’t like them. Things have changed so drastically in society, Jack. Me and Cilla worked hard at school, Jack; none of the drug and sex culture and wasting time, and we loved, Jack, but we loved innocently, none of this free love and promised purity.

J : Half the time, Mum, it’s the girls, they don’t want it.

F : Don’t want it, Jack?

J : Yes, when I was talking to Trevor before any of this happened he told me that although there were a lot of girls on offer at Wolverhampton university there weren’t any in this hole. You could count his offers on one hand – of a double amputee.

F : Oh no, Jack, not those lesleybeens?

J : Yes.

F : And you suggested Trevor could be involved with boys, Jack, how could you do it?

J : Well, I think that’s something else. If he does like boys that isn’t gay, it’s just a bit of immaturity.

F : Yes, Jack, you are right. It is almost something holy, the beautiful beatification of a symbol of purity -  a young boy.

J : Not these days, Mum.

F : Well no, Jack. Things have deteriorated. After what I read about mayor’s tea parties and young boys renting in park toilets I can hardly believe in goodness again, unless of course it is to do with Trevor.

J :Of course, Mum.

F : It’s funny you know, Jack, but I felt different in that prison. The atmosphere was thick with the syrup of consumption.

J : You make it sound sweet.

F : Well, after what we’ve said, Jack it is for some of them, but also, Jack, there are real men in there. Men that would deflower me and your Aunt Cilla.

J : But, Mum, surely you are too old.

F : No, Jack, I don’t think so.

J : Oh, Mum, you are not thirty nine again are you, like you are in the newsagent because you fancy Ronny Hetherington behind the counter?

F : Oh don’t go on, Jack. Don’t you think I look thirty nine?

J : You were thirty nine about fifteen years ago.

F : Don’t be ridiculous, Jack, you’ve lost track of my age, and besides it’s no good being any older than Ronny Hetherington, is it, or I’d stand no chance?

J : I suppose so.

F : So, Jack, what have we come to? Me and your Aunt Cilla visiting the prison and wondering about our chances with some of the inmates.

J : Mmm, you must be moral, Mum, for Trevor’s sake. He will be living like a priest in there for the next two years.

F : Yes, Jack, I know. My poor nephew about to embark on a fantastic literary career from the twilight desk of a prison. What can be more unjust than that?

J : It sounds a bit romantic, Mum.

F : Maybe, Jack, until you get in there and all you hear is ‘let your bum go darlin’. How’s that for romance?