A CORRECTIONAL FACILITY

Governor Class II, Frank Heptenstall, bowed very low and smiled, with what he hoped looked like affable politeness, to the beaming little man in front of him.  He took the proffered business card with another courteous bow and surreptitiously scrutinised it as he welcomed his esteemed visitor to HM Young Offenders Institution, Molton Hall.  He didn’t read Japanese, although once upon a time he had been fairly fluent in the spoken language, but it would not do to reveal that knowledge in the present situation.  His visitor’s name was Mr Nakajima, this much was apparent from the partial translation into European script on the business card, and he was, as intimated by last week’s letter from that public school idiot at the Home Office, a judge in the Japanese High Court of Justice.

Frank Heptenstall gestured to Mr Nakajima to sit down in the visitor’s chair on the other side of his rather shabby walnut veneered desk.  Frank arranged his long legs in front of his leatherette chair and steepled his fingers pensively.  What he wouldn’t give to be anywhere else at this moment.  Almost anywhere else, he corrected himself, there are some places he wouldn’t wish to return to at any price.  But that silly arse Brandon-Gore down in London had no idea of Frank Heptenstall’s personal history before he joined the Prison Service, and anyway, the opportunity to host this visit had not been presented as optional.  Frank knew he should feel honoured that Molton Hall had been chosen as a shining example of a progressive Young Offenders centre, but somehow that was not the sentiment uppermost in his mind.

“Some tea, Mr Nakajima-san?  Or perhaps you would prefer coffee?”

Mr Nakajima twinkled his eyes.  “Tea would be very fine, thank you, yes, a long and thirsty train journey from London this morning, and not good tea on the train, alas.”

Frank Heptenstall leaned forward a little to catch the heavily accented words.  His hearing wasn’t what it used to be.  Too many blows and beatings years ago had left him with a ringing in his head which asserted itself from time to time, and he found himself becoming reasonably adept at lip reading.  The doctors had told him there was little they could do and he would have to live with it.

Frank picked up his phone and dialled the front office to send some tea down.  He hoped to God that the silly woman who passed as his secretary would use her loaf for once and put out the good china for the visitor, rather than the tannin-stained Leeds United mug he usually drank from.  For once he needn’t have worried.  Glenda teetered in on her platform heels with a look of profound concentration as she placed the two rattling cups and saucers on the desk and left a tray with a teapot, milk, sugar and digestive biscuits on the side table.  She wobbled out of the office again, forgetting to close the door, and he heard her humming as she clumped off down the landing, doubtless the latest single by Slade or The Sweet.  In his job it could be useful to know who was Top of the Pops, it gave you something to talk about with the lads over a game of snooker.  Sometimes football was too dangerous a topic as there were some rival club allegiances among the lads at Molton Hall.

The two men sipped their tea in silence for a moment.  Mr Nakajima refused the offer of a biscuit.  Frank Heptenstall took one, and had it poised over his cup to dunk it, before he thought better of it and put it down on his blotter, brushing the crumbs from his fingers.

Mr Nakajima cleared his throat.  “You see, Mr Heptenstall, the Japanese justice system is changing very profoundly from an American system bequeathed to us after the War, to a British system which we now believe to be much superior indeed, and it is most important that we see the very innovative methods with which you treat your young men who have committed criminal acts, so I am here to observe and to learn.  I hope to report to my department the adjustments we can make to, ah, improve the working of our correctional facilities.”

Well, thought Frank, at least Nakajima-san had been the first one to mention World War II, which, to his mind, had loomed over the conversation from the beginning.  And he referred to it in such an offhand way, as if it had been of no consequence at all.  For Frank Heptenstall it was the most profound experience of his life.  It had been more than thirty years ago now, but many of the terrible memories were still fresh in his mind, especially at night.  By contrast, this young chap probably wasn’t born when it all started off.  Frank performed a quick calculation in his head.  No, that was wrong; Mr Nakajima looked about forty, still rather young for such a senior legal position, and would probably have been quite a small boy at the outbreak of hostilities, certainly not old enough to have been viewed by the Allies down the barrel of a gun.  What could he know of the wretched suffering of prisoners of war captured in the Far East?  The Japanese government was doing its best to deny that it had ever happened.  Frank poured more tea, apologising to his visitor that this wasn’t the sublime green beverage of his native land, but good old English tea bags, and rather stewed teabags too.

Happily, the day progressed very much according to plan.  A tour of the premises, lunch with the senior Prison Officers, a presentation from the redoubtable criminal psychologist, Dr Millington, and a lecture from Ms Kazupski, the rather hippie-looking educational officer.  Then a chance for Mr Nakajima to visit the workshops and the kitchens, and talk to some of the lads, carefully selected of course, about the new skills they were learning to help them in their return to normal society once their sentence was done.  Thankfully they behaved well in front of the exotic foreigner, and some positively revelled in the attention.  The visitor seemed impressed as they set off across the exercise yard.

“It’s all about rehabilitation, Mr Nakajima; moving them away from a rather dubious past.  These lads aren’t bad lads, they’ve just got into bad situations and made stupid mistakes.  You could blame their families, their schools, society, whatever.  Maybe they have been failed by the system.  We just need to make them see that they do have a future and a decent life ahead of them - if they can keep their noses clean.”  Mr Nakajima frowned somewhat at this last colloquialism but then smiled and nodded as they crossed the yard towards the prison chapel.

That evening, as the January drizzle formed an orange halo around the sodium lights illuminating the prison yard, Frank Heptenstall locked the prison gates behind him and his guest with a key from the large bunch that he kept on a chain in his pocket; this was to the despair of his wife who was forever stitching the pocket linings that struggled with the weight.  Together, with their coat collars turned up against the rain, the two men briskly walked the hundred or so yards down to the Governor’s house.  Frank opened the front door, sniffed appreciatively at the cooking smells within, and called out to his wife.
“Rosie!  Rosie, come and meet Mr Nakajima!”

Rosemary Heptenstall came out into the hallway with a tea towel over her arm, her hands smoothing the apron tied over her smart cocktail dress.  She patted her blonde hair which had been shampooed and set that morning, and a whiff of hairspray followed her along the corridor.  She smiled rather warily at their visitor, and Mr Nakajima shook hands and bowed for the umpteenth time that day.  Poor Rosie, thought Frank.  She had been even more indignant about this visit than he had.  She was all for calling Mr jumped-up Brandon-Gore and giving him a piece of her mind.  But, for the sake of his career, Frank had persuaded her to calm down and, with a rather poor grace, here she was, cooking a three course dinner for this somewhat unwelcome guest.

The prawn and avocado cocktail went well, as did the chicken casserole.  Rosemary was clearing the plates at the serving hatch when Mr Nakajima rose from his seat.
“Ahhh, I wonder if you would be so kind to excuse me for one moment”.
Frank understood perfectly and gestured towards the door.  “The benjo – erm, lavatory, yes certainly, down the hall on the left.”  Mr Nakajima left the dining room with another gracious bow.

At the same moment there was a clatter, as a knife and fork slid from the plate Rosemary was carrying and landed noisily on the parquet.  A floor cloth was produced from the kitchen and the Heptenstalls mopped up the spillage of chasseur sauce.  While they were crouched at table-leg level, Rosemary hissed at her husband.  “Why did you have to say “benjo” to the man?  You aren’t supposed to know any Japanese, and anyway, it is probably some terrible military slang, not a nice word at all.”

Frank looked nonplussed.  “I don’t suppose he thought anything of it, Rosa Mundi, probably never noticed anything.”  Rosemary shook her head in despair and flounced back to the kitchen to fetch the home-made strawberry gateau.

After dinner, Mr Nakajima declined coffee but agreed to the provision of more tea.  As he sipped the bitter drink, without milk or sugar, the conversation turned to more personal matters.  Mr Nakajima indicated a photograph on the sideboard of a serious young woman in school uniform.

“Your daughter?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s Diane, she is at University now.  Rosemary and I don’t get to see her as much as we would like, but, you know, we are very proud of her”.
“Do you have children, Mr Nakajima? asked Rosemary Heptenstall”.

Mr Nakajima beamed.  “One little girl, a baby.”  He fished a photo from his wallet of a smiling toddler with a teddy bear in her hand.  “Her name is Yuki.”
Frank looked puzzled.  “Yuki?  How unusual.  Doesn’t it mean ‘snow’?”
Mr Nakajima opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again.  When he did speak he smiled broadly once more.  “Yes, snow, indeed, and also the ideas brought to us by snow, purity, innocence, freshness, I think.”
“How very pretty.” said Rosemary.

Frank, however, knew something about Japanese snow.  It was not the purity of it that had stayed with him, but its cruelty during those endless winter months in prison camp.  He remembered the bandages he had used to wrap his feet when his shoes had completely disintegrated.  He could still feel the numbness of the frostbite that had taken three of his toes.  Oh yes, he would carry the innocence of Japanese snow around with him until the day he died.

After Mr Nakajima, with many thanks and bows, had left in a taxi for his city centre hotel – thankfully the Heptenstalls would not be hosting him overnight – Frank went through to the kitchen and started drying the wine glasses.  Rosemary plunged her rubber-gloved hands deeper into the washing up bubbles.
“Well, Rosa Mundi, I think that went off rather well, all things considered.”
His wife stacked the side plates in the dish rack.  “Don’t you think he might have worked something out, Frank?  He seemed like a very….”
“Ah! Don’t say it, Rosie – ‘inscrutable’ is the word you are searching for, is it not?  Well whether or not he guessed anything, it hardly matters now, the visit is over.  He’s been and he’s gone and that’s the last we are going to hear of Mr Nakajima and his correctional facilities.”

***

It was on a sunny Tuesday about six weeks later that Frank Heptenstall popped home from the office for a spot of lunch with his wife to find a large wooden packing crate in the hall.
“It came this morning, Frank, all covered in ‘fragile’ stickers.  From Japan, of all places.”
Frank was already prising off the lid and rummaging through clouds of wood shavings.  A letter in a crisp envelope lay near the top of the contents.  Frank opened it, sat back on his heels and called to his wife in wonderment.  “Rosie, listen to this, love.  It’s from Mr Nakajima, there’s a letter in it.  He says:
‘To the estimable Governor Heptenstall-san and his charming wife.
Thank you once again for your very touching hospitality during my visit to your excellent correctional facility.  I have learned much that will be very helpful to the Japanese Prisons Department as we strive to improve the standards of our justice system.
The calamity of war affects many individual persons who are unable to change its course.  Its results may persist for our whole lives.  This I learned when growing up as an orphan in the district of Nagasaki.  We must learn and profit from our experience.  Therefore please accept this gift from one noble civilisation to another.’”

Delving into the packaging, Frank Heptenstall uncovered, piece by piece, an elegant Japanese tea service.  He shook his head, marvelling at the delicate workmanship.  He held up one of the fine porcelain tea bowls to the window, where its translucence almost made it glow in the weak February sunshine.  It was as white as Japanese snow, and painted on its side in the palest of colours, was an exquisite branch of cherry blossom - the timeless symbol of a Japanese spring.