Life couldn't be better for Lucinda Purefoy. Granted it's a little embarrassing, her father being the Bishop of Aldershot, but she's got a steady boyfriend, a degree in social sciences and the offer of a job in advertising. With all this, she felt she should 'pay back her debt to society' and 'do a little good in the world'.
That's why she joined SCRAP (short for 'Social Carers, Reformers and Praeceptors'), an organization which trains girls like Lucy to become the 'guide, philosopher and friend' to ex-convicts coming out of prison, to find them a job, a home and to encourage them to kick the habit of stealing things.
And so Lucy finds herself standing outside the gates of Wormwood Scrubs, on a windy March morning, waiting to greet her first SCRAP 'client', a career-burglar called Terry Keegan. What happens next confounds expectations and produces a story full of surprises.
With a cast of characters that rivals anything in his famous Rumpole stories and a compulsive plot, Quite Honestly is a wonderfully comic novel, packed with John Mortimer's entertaining reflections on crime.
I don't know why, but I've always wanted to do some sort of good in the world.
I used to have a boyfriend, Jason, who laughed at me and called me a 'do-gooder'. 'Meet my girlfriend, Lucy,' he would say. 'She's a do-gooder, of course.' And then he'd laugh. I don't know what he wanted - a 'do-badder'? A person who sets out to do one bad turn to somebody every day? No one wants that, surely? Anyway, I got tired of being called a 'do-gooder' and Jason and I split up, which I did regret, because I found him rather attractive and quite funny at times. But I didn't know why he was so irritated by my ambition to do a bit of good in the world.
I ought to introduce myself - I'm always called Lucy, but I was born Lucinda Purefoy. 'Purejoy' Jason used to call me when he was in a good mood. Oh, and I'd better tell you this right away. When I was young my father was a vicar in a big north London parish and Mum always said that he'd been spotted as having 'bishop potential'. This made Mum laugh, because she's more than a little irresponsible and tends to OD on gin and tonic before dinner. Although she had married one, she had little time for vicars, and even Dad agreed that some of the things they got up to at the General Synod showed naked ambition at its least attractive. Anyway, Mum was right and Dad got made the bishop of a large chunk of Surrey and Hampshire. He gets into the papers quite a lot because he can't see what's wrong with gay marriages, if that's what people want. He's extremely tolerant and told me I must make up my own mind about God. I have to admit that I haven't got round to doing it yet. Probably that's because I'm always kept pretty busy. I don't want to boast, but I did manage to set four decent A levels which took me to uni (Manchester), where I tended towards politics and sociology.
It was there I got interested in crime and the causes of crime, which I put down to poverty, a failing system of education and the values of the monetarist society which regards success as owning a four-wheel drive to take the children to school in and a second home in the Dordogne. At the time I hadn't even met a criminal.
After my degree, and work experience at the Guardian, when all my friends had gone off backpacking across Australia or thumbing lifts in Thailand, I really longed to do some good in the world, but I didn't necessarily want to go to Nepal or Cambodia to do it.
What I mean to say is I'd had a lot of privileges. Although my father being a bishop was more than a little embarrassing, I had, like I say, a secure and loving family. So I felt I had to repay my debt to society. But I really had no idea how to do it until I heard about 'praeceptors' and met Terry Keegan. Quite honestly, it wasn't until then that I found a real purpose in life.
I first heard about praeceptors from my friend Deirdre Bunnage. Deirdre was one of those irritating girls at school who were always telling you about their marvellous new boyfriends or the fact that they'd been asked to spend a long weekend in Acapulco with someone who'd been on television. Anyway, I hadn't long left uni when I bumped into her in the bar of the Close-Up Club in Soho. My then boyfriend, Tom, was very keen on getting into television so he joined the Close-Up and we went to hang out there in the hope of meeting someone in a television company who wanted to give Tom a job. Most of the people we met and talked to were also hanging out in the faint hope of meeting someone from a television company with a job to offer, so Tom wasn't getting very far. I was sitting with him at the bar, making a glass of white wine last a long time, when my old school friend Deirdre came over.
'I suppose your life seems pretty empty since you finished at Manchester,' she said. She was wearing that sort of surprised smile which I always found annoying. The fact that she was accompanied by someone she introduced as a 'well-known rap artist' added considerably to my irritation.
'It's not at all empty,' I told her, not altogether truthfully. 'Tom's going to give up market research and get a job with a television production company.'
'And you?' Deirdre was still smiling. 'You probably don't know what to do with yourself.'
I told her I'd had the offer of a PA job with an advertising agency, and I really wanted to do some sort of good in the world.
To my surprise, Deirdre's smile was no longer one of lofty disdain. She seemed genuinely delighted by my do-gooding intentions.
'That's wonderful, Lucy! You're a perfect candidate for SCRAP.'
'For what?' Her suggestion didn't sound entirely complimentary.
'SCRAP. I've joined and it's fascinating work. You befriend young criminals fresh out of prison. Help them to lead an honest life. Make decent citizens out of them. You'd be perfect at it.'
'Why is it called SCRAP?'
'Social Carers, Reformers and Praeceptors. You know what a praeceptor is, don't you? Don't you remember any Latin from school? Anyway, we've got to go. Come on, Ishmael.' And with that, Deirdre went off with her rap artist, who turned out, in the fullness of time, not to be a rap artist at all.
And, in the fullness of time, I rang the office of SCRAP near to King's Cross Station on the off chance that I might be able to do some sort of good in the world.
