Free The Queen and I by Sue Townsend Page B

it was disgraceful that he, Charlie, was being forced to share a cell with him. Charles pressed against the cell door. He kept his eye on the buzzer.
    “There was this car, right? Bin in our street over free months; tyres an’ stereo went first night. Then everythin’ went, ’cludin’ engine. ’S a shell, right?”
    Charles nodded, he could see the wreck in his mind’s eye. There was one just like it in Hell Close. William and Harry played in it. “Any road up,” continued Lee. “It’s a Renault, right? An’ I got one the same. More or less the same year – so, I’m walkin’ by, right? An’ there’s kids playin’ in this wreck ’tendin’ to be Cinderella on their way to the – wassa place?”
    “Ball?” offered Charles.
    “Dance, disco,” corrected Lee. “Any road, I tell ’em to fuck off an’ I get in the front – seats are gone – an’ I’m jus’ pullin’ this knob off the top of the gear lever, right? ’Cos the knob’s missin’ off mine, see? So I want it, OK?” Charles grasped the point Lee was making.
    “When ’oo d’ ya think grabs me arm through the winder?” Lee waited. Charles stammered, “Without knowing your circumstances, Mr Christmas, your family, friends or acquaintances, it’s frightfully difficult to guess who may have …”
    “The bogus beasts ” shouted Lee indignantly. “Two coppers in plain clothes,” he explained, looking at Charles’s baffled expression. “An’ I’m arrested for thieving from this piece of shrapnel . A knob, a bleedin’ knob. Worth thirty-seven cowin’ pee.”
    Charles was appalled, “But that’s simply appalling,” he said.
    “Worse thing ’s ever ’appened to me,” said Lee. “’Cludin the dog gettin’ run over. I’m a joke in our family. When I get out of ’ere I’ll ’ave ter do summat big. Post Office or summat like that. ’Less I do, I’ll never be able to ’old me ’ead up in the Close again.”
    “Where do you live?” asked Charles.
    “Hell Close,” said Lee Christmas. “Your sister’s gonna be our nex’ door neighbour. We ’ad a letter tellin’ us not to curtsey ’n’ stuff.”
    “No, no, you mustn’t,” insisted Charles. “We’re ordinary citizens now.”
    “All the same, our mam’s ’avin’ a perm at the hairdressers, an’ she’s goin’ mad, cleanin’ an’ stuff. She’s a lazy cow, normal. She’s like your mum – never does no ’ousework.”
    There was a jangle of keys and the cell door opened and a policeman came in with a tray. He handed Lee a plate of sandwiches covered in clingfilm, saying, “’Ere Christmas, get that down your neck.”
    To Charles he said, “Tricky stuff that clingfilm, sir, allow me to remove it.”
    Before he left the cell he had addressed Charles as “sir” six times and had also wished him “a good night’s sleep” and had slipped him a mini pack of Jaffa cakes.
    Lee Christmas said, “’S true then?”
    “What’s true?” asked Charles, his mouth full of bread, cheese and pickle.
    “’S one law for the cowin’ rich and one for the cowin’ poor.”
    “Sorry,” said Charles, and he gave Lee a Jaffa cake.
    At eleven o’clock, Radio Two burst into the cell and filled the small space. Charles and Lee covered their ears against the earsplitting volume. Charles pressed the buzzer repeatedly, but nobody came, not even the deferential policeman for the tray.
    Lee bellowed, “Turn it down!” through the slot in the door. They could hear other prisoners shouting for mercy. “This is torture,” shouted Charles over “Shrimp Boats Are A Comin’”. But there was worse to come. Some unseen person adjusted the tuning knob and the radio blared out, “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands” even louder, complete with piercing static, and in the background what sounded like a Serbo-Croatian phone-in.
    Charles had often wondered how he would stand up to torture. Now he knew. Given five minutes of such audio hell, he would crack and turn his