September, 1977, Bruche
It is the end of the first Friday of week one at Bruche. The tutor has just called time on their class, and Julie Dodson sighs deeply and turns to her fellow probationer from Rochdale Division; would-be lothario and utterly charming, he has accepted that she has no interest in him (or indeed, any men) after weeks of pestering, since they met at the first information evening for new recruits. Accordingly, they are now boozer buddies, though she's not quite sure how that happened. The two strongest personalities from their intake, perhaps. The two best Pool players, quite definitely.
"Oi, Murray! Pub?"
"You're on, I'm parched. Shall we open it up to this lot?" And without waiting for her response, he shouts out: "Pub in fifteen minutes, if anyone's interested! Let's see how the Queen's Head treats us when we're off duty." There is a general mutter of assent from the room as a whole.
oOo
An hour later, when Julie is ensconced in a booth that gives a good view of the room, she sees the slight, almost fragile-looking lass from South Manchester Division come in. She may be petite, and carefully made up, but her poise as she saunters over to a group of probationers from the same Division and demands a glass of wine almost takes Julie's breath away.
"What'cha looking at?" Dave Murray is well into his third pint by this time, and Julie has already learnt that he doesn't hold it half as well as he thinks he does. She leans into her friend and points out the figure of her attention.
"She's a bit of alright."
"Mmm." He scrutinises the bar, where it would appear that, tiny though she be, the woman has the rapt attention of everyone around her. She appears to be expounding on something the tutor said, and how she thinks otherwise.
"Dare you." Julie's eyes are twinkling as she says it, knowing he won't refuse. For the last eight weeks, when they've been out together, those words signify that the challenged one is to make themselves known to the woman in question in whatever way they see fit. It has worked quite well, although more productively for Dave, who has the luxury of being a straight man. "Go on then."
He makes a fuss of standing up, and saunters over to the bar, towards the group that has gathered around the woman. Julie makes a study of her pint, but never loses focus, so when Dave slaps the lass round the arse, she sees the reaction in full. First, she stiffens, and appears to grow three inches in height. Her shoulders positively bristle. Then - and Julie sees it as if in slow motion - she turns to Dave, easily ten inches taller than her, takes one look at his attempt at roguish charm, and opens her mouth.
Well. Julie would have no need to lip read, as the entire room could hear the dressing down that Dave Murray received that evening. It was better than telly, seeing him being brought down to size by a pint-sized WPC, who was adamant that no jack-the-lad fast-track wanker was going to so much as touch her without her say so, and heaven forbid he - or indeed any man in the room - ever do that again, because so help her God, she would see that he was never fit for cuffing a villain ever again.
The sight of a stunned Dave stammering apologies and attempting to blame it on his 'friend over there' - luckily there were a number of blokes at the booth with her - was well worth the price of the consolation pint Julie bought him afterwards. She could see the next fourteen weeks being a lot of fun, with those two in classes together.
"By the by, what's that firebrand's name? I didn't gather?"
"Gill," he muses, eyes gleaming at the prospect of a challenge. "Gill Prescott."
oOo
Friday nights become a regular session at the Queen's Head, and by the third week, Gill and Julie have been partnered together a couple of times in class, and found each to the other's liking. There are only five women, all told, in their intake - a percentage they are assured is "quite high", and the other three, they discover, seem a lot more interested in community relations and the 'gentle' side of policing.
"Fuck that!" says Gill, none too sweetly. "I'm going to be a DCI some day, taking on the big cases, the ones that make the news."
"Yeah, yeah, you and me both, lass. I bet you I make Super before you do, at any rate."
"Oh, sod off! You'll be calling me Ma'am one of these days."
"Only in your fantasy life, you daft cow."
June and the other two girls look a bit horrified at this exchange, and as they're all changing to head down the pub, busy themselves with their lockers. Julie, as the quickest changer, is already half stripped and pulling herself into her leathers when she notices Gill carefully averting her eyes. Before she can think of a way of calling her new friend on it, Gill is heading for the showers. Julie shrugs her shoulders and lets it go. She re-plaits her hair and calls "see you down there!" as a parting shot.
As always, Gill is later into the bar than the rest of them, and she joins up with Mitch, John and more of the lads from her area. Julie - along with Dave, having claimed that particular booth near the Pool table as theirs, is in the perfect spot to watch her come in, and begin to hold court.
This time, Dave is watching Julie, and she shouldn't be surprised when she hears the muttered challenge: "Dare you."
If he'd said it when she was sober, she might have chickened out. Probably not, as anything Dave Murray could do... But as it is, she's already had a couple of glasses, and given Gill's sudden modesty in the changing rooms before, it seems like an excellent idea. She grabs her pint, shakes herself up, heels giving her an easy gait as she approaches the group at the bar. Mitch catches her eye over Gill's head, and she winks, getting great amusement from his resulting blush. She takes a careful aim, but doesn't hit hard - just enough to get Gill's attention. And if her hand lingers on its target a moment longer than is normal, well, it's just enough time for Gill, without even turning round, to grasp Julie's wrist in a vice-like grip and draw breath to start her berating.
"If you don't remove that hand at once, Dave Murray, I will..." She trails off as her finger brushes against the smooth metal of Julie's pinky ring, and she realises that the flesh in her hand is not that of any man's.
"Well, Slap, I would if I could, but you're rather holding it in place."
Gill turns slowly, face momentarily ashen with a mix of shock, fury and horror at treating one of her fellow women to the tones she usually reserves for the tosspot males in their group.
"Oh. I. Er, well..." Completely nonplussed.
Julie enjoys the experience, letting the tension hang in the air almost a second too long, before coughing gently and saying, "So, my hand, if you please..."
"Oh. Of course." Gill lets go, surprisingly gently, one finger remaining on Julie's pulse just a second longer than the others. Then, swiftly, she regains herself. "But if you ever do that again...Slap, I'll..."
"What, have me castrated, as you promised Dave? You're onto a losing battle there, you mad cow." She grins raucously as she says it, and those at the bar chuckle warily, lest Gill's temper erupt again. But it doesn't; she pauses for a moment and then bursts into hysterical gales of laughter, body shaking as she gulps in air in between.
"I am, aren't I?"
oOo
December 31st, 1977.
It's the last night of their time at Bruche, and Julie has come to the conclusion that she's actually going to miss it. When she first arrived, she'd been eager to get this bit over and done with: eager to get out on the streets properly, to get to know the other cops in her area, to start actually making a difference. By now, she has realised she is actually quite fond of some of the folks from the other divisions, and is going to miss them. Or at least, she's going to miss Gill. Who has managed to persuade her not to wear her leathers, just for tonight.
"You wear them every night off we have. Have you nothing a bit smarter?"
"What, you want me to appear in the pub in a dress, like you, you daft twat?"
"No, you knob, I know we'll never see you in a skirt this side of England winning the World Cup, but surely you could see your way into something more, I dunno... tailored?"
"Start preparing for when I'm going to be your boss, you mean? Only when you start calling me 'Ma'am'."
"You're so funny I just cracked a rib. Not that I don't like the leathers, mind. But it is New Year's Eve."
"Oh, alright. But only this once. And only because I want you to know what I'll look like when I'm a Super."
"Good one, Slap. See you down there."
It has become the running joke of the entire intake that Gill takes longer than anyone to get dressed of a night, but tonight, Julie is later in. She feels strangely nervous as she stands in the shadow at the door and watches her friend cast a searching glance round the crammed pub, towards their normal booth, the Pool table, the bar.
Then a familiar voice shouts over the music: "Lost your other half, Gill? Sure I could fill in for her."
"In your dreams, Murray. You couldn't keep up with me."
Julie smirks, watching as Gill looks Dave up and down with disdain as he turns to Mitch. As she walks across the room, she can hear him.
"You see, this is why I call them the terrible twosome. The rest of us are going to have to watch our backs with this pair around. Probably a good thing we're going back to separate Divisions, though I wish you luck controlling this one!" Gill's back looks like she is just contemplating twisting his bollocks off when Julie lays a hand on her arse.
"Oi!"
"Well I couldn't resist, Slap, given you've made me go to all this effort." Even Dave looks a little stunned to see his mate so dolled up, and Julie is dead chuffed to see Gill's face as she turns around.
For the first time since they've been here, she has left her hair down. It's bum length, wavy from continual plaiting, and hints of red chestnut gleam through the warm brown. She knows it brings out a sort of golden colour in her hazel eyes, and this is caught again in the amber beads around her neck. She has remembered, from an earlier conversation, that Gill is an ardent fan of old movies, and this influenced her choice of a vintage lounge suit that she thinks looks like something Katharine Hepburn might have worn. Gill looks up at her wordlessly, and her breath catches as she tries to speak.
"Well, Ma'am, you've certainly..." She flounders for words, and Dave picks up.
"Got a flair for surprising us, hasn't she?" He's looking at her in a queer kind of way, not the way he eyed her when they first met - as a potential conquest - not even in the way he eyed her once he realised she was 'one of the lads'. If his opinion mattered to her more, Julie might have given time to it, but as it stands, she is enjoying the speechless look on Gill's face far too much to care what Dave Murray thinks, or doesn't think.
"So," Julie breaks the spell, "are you going to buy me a drink, for all the effort I've gone to at your request?" Still somewhat speechless, Gill blinks a couple of times and nods, making for the bar. Julie shouts after her, "Mine's a scotch!"
The music is good that night; the pub has got in a DJ, and they've got a few lights and a mirror ball and turned the normal lighting down a bit. From the dance floor, Julie sees Gill bring the round back to the booth, only to find her friends are up and dancing. That is to say, Mitch is shuffling uncomfortably; Dave is, tipsily, giving it all he has, and Julie, if she does say so herself, is moving perfectly in time to the music, hair swaying out behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Gill neck her drink, then saunter towards them. Quickly, she looks back to the others.
oOo
At gone ten to midnight, Dave has managed to wind himself around June, much to the disgust of half the men in the room. Mitch is up at the bar, making eyes at the bar maid - quite successfully, it would appear - and Julie is still dancing with anyone who can keep up with her. In the flashing coloured light, she spots Gill disengaging herself from the advances of one of Dave's friends. She looks like she's heading for the bar, and Julie turns back to the group she's with. She is completely oblivious to Gill coming up behind her, and jumps when she feels a smart slap to her bum. Just then, the DJ introduces the count down.
Gill grins cheekily up at Julie and quips, "Sauce for the goose and all of that."
"You can feel me up anytime, Slap." It's lightly and quickly said, in the heat of the moment - and because of the whiskey that has been drunk - but even so, Julie watches Gill's response carefully, and feels inward relief when she just grins.
"I know!" Gill quips, as they link arms in preparation for Auld Lang Syne. Even in her heels, she's still more than half a foot shorter, and as they get pressed together to fit everyone into the circle, Julie finds her elbow nestling far too comfortably on the edge of Gill's breast. But Gill doesn't seem to notice - or care - as the clock tolls, and the opening bars of music sound. Arms and legs and hands all seem to come together in one sprawling mass, the way they only can when Auld Lang Syne is danced by drunken coppers; in and out they rush, and sometimes she feels the breath of Dave, sometimes of Mitch, sometimes of Gill beside her. In and out, in and out, until the final notes die away and cheers sound. Dave turns back to June, and a number of the other blokes are wrapped round some of the local girls. Nobody is looking at the two women in the corner, as Gill reaches up on tiptoe and kisses Julie softly on the lips - swift enough that she barely has time to reciprocate before Gill is back on her own two feet, and, can it be, blushing?
Head rushing from the exertion, the booze, the excitement, Julie doesn't stop to think, but grasps Gill by the hand, moving backwards into complete shadow. She bends her head down and, uncertainly, lowers her lips to Gill's. This time it lasts longer, but it is Julie who breaks it off, unsure still. Under the continuing music, she can feel her heart pulse; she thinks she can hear ragged breath, and she's not sure if it's her own or Gill's. Next thing she knows, a hand is roughly pulling her head down, and lips are at her ear, and she knows then that it is Gill's breath that matches the beat of her own heart.
"I think we should leave, don't you?" She can barely see those green eyes in this light, but they're glowing with desire, and she's not going to refuse something that has crossed her mind many times in the last three months. They manage to slip out quietly, without saying goodbye to anyone.
