Over The Wall

As views went, this was one that went nowhere. Just a few yards from her bedroom window, across the narrow street, the light was blocked by a massive brick wall thirty feet high.

This was the rear wall of the city prison, built in Victorian times to keep people like her safe from the worst examples of human depravity. Beyond that wall were armed robbers, murderers and rapists who could harm no-one – apart from each other, if they had a mind to. The view from the window might have been depressing, but it offered a high degree of reassurance. It also kept the rent low on her tiny terraced house built in the shadow of the prison.

As she got ready to go to bed at about ten o’clock she did what she did every night – turned on her light and drew the curtains before getting undressed. Her eyes did not usually do more than take in a cursory glimpse of the prison wall, which had after all looked exactly the same for far longer than her lifetime, but tonight there was good reason for them to take a closer look, aided by the streetlights that were now flickering on. Surely there was something moving on the wall, almost exactly opposite her house?

She stopped still and watched as her suspicion was confirmed. Something was dangling from the top of the wall. It looked like a length of rope, getting longer by the second and reaching further and further down the wall. She had scarcely taking in this extraordinary fact when she saw something even more remarkable – a figure of a man had appeared at the top of the wall and was now descending the rope. She realised to her horror that she was witnessing a prison escape, right outside her house.

Her first thought was that she had to phone the police immediately to report what she was seeing, but two things held her back. One was the belief that the prison authorities must surely know that an escape attempt was being made – the place bristled with TV cameras, including ones that scanned the entire length of the prison walls, inside and out – but the second reason was sheer fascination at what she was witnessing. Any move away from the window to grab her phone would mean that she would miss seeing what must surely be a once-in-a–lifetime experience, namely a real live prison breakout.

She was therefore able to see the man on the rope get to within ten feet or so of the ground when a second figure appeared at the top of the wall. This must be the first man’s companion. No doubt the two had been planning this escape for months - getting hold of the rope, working out how to fix it on the other side of the wall, not to mention contriving to be out of their cells at a time when their presence near the wall would not be detected.

She was still watching and working out the scenario when things took an even more dramatic turn. Something must have gone very wrong on the inside of the wall because suddenly the rope broke loose and both men fell on to the pavement. The man who had fallen nearly the full height of the wall lay motionless on the ground, but the other one was soon on his feet and looking wildly about him. He was clearly in two minds about what he should do – help his companion or make good his escape.

The woman at the window could work out for herself that there was little to be gained by trying to get the man on the ground to get up – in what light there was she could see a dark patch spreading from where his head must have been. It was clear that the other man had come to the same conclusion, although as he moved away it was also obvious that his shorter fall had had consequences – he limped badly, possibly the result of a broken ankle. He must be in considerable pain, thought the woman.

And then her emotions did a U-turn. Whereas she had always felt immense gratitude that the dregs of society were safely inside the wall and she was on the outside, now that one of their number was no longer inside she found herself hoping that he would get away. It had been like the time she had visited a turkey farm and one of the birds escaped through a hole in the fence – although no vegetarian, she could not help but wish that somebody’s Christmas dinner would be denied them.

It was now clear that the escape had been noticed by the prison authorities. Sirens wailed inside the prison, lights blazed, and police cars could be heard approaching from several directions. The escapee could hear these too, and the woman could see him panicking over what to do next. The police would surely seal off both ends of the street within seconds, so he took the only course open to him, which was to drag his injured foot though the tunnel passageway that separated the woman’s house from that of her neighbour.

“Oh my God”, she thought to herself, “did I remember to lock my back door?”

She rushed downstairs and into her kitchen, but a few seconds too late. Just as she reached it, the back door was thrown open, knocking her to the floor. When she got up she was face to face with the prisoner.

The man she saw could best be described with the word “vulnerable”. If you had asked her to sum up an average inmate of the prison, in the days before the escape, she would have produced all the usual clichés – dangerous, desperate, dregs of society, getting their just desserts – but seeing one of them in her kitchen produced very different emotions in her.

Before, when she had seen the men fall from the wall, she had empathised with them as escapees, but with no more fellow feeling than she had felt for the escaped turkey, but now she was seeing an individual person. All turkeys look alike, but this was one man, and one who was in pain and afraid.

He was also very young. There was little time for analysing the situation, but the woman could not help wondering what story lay behind this young man ending up behind bars.

They stared at each other, but he was the first one to speak.

“I didn’t do it”, he said.

And that was all he said. As might have been expected, the whole area was now awash with police and prison officers, who had wasted little time in following the young man down the passageway and to the woman’s back door. He was soon in handcuffs and being dragged away, screaming with pain as his damaged ankle was given little sympathy.

She was left with a general feeling of helplessness. She also wanted to know so much more. Perhaps every escaped prisoner claimed to be innocent, but the look in that young man’s eyes, during the brief moment they were in communication, seemed to be telling the truth.

© John Welford