"We need a fresh start and that is out of this country to San Francisco, Helen. We need to get the hell out of here and go somewhere where we'll be properly accepted."
"Fine but how do you suggest getting the means? Storm the Home Office and threaten the nearest person till someone gives you one. We need a proper strategy."
As soon as Helen uttered the words, she knew that the words, though well meant, were ill phrased. They had far too much of a management speak feel about them at a time when Nikki's senses had just been assaulted by the Home Office on top of the refusal for her job applications.
"Strategy, strategy," Nikki exclaimed." The bastards keep trying to hold me back one way or the other. I can't get out of this country and travel where the hell I like. I'm a British citizen, for God's sake and I'm entitled to travel. I'm stuck doing this lousy job I hate for the rest of my life. I'll never get anywhere in life."
It disturbed Helen to hear Nikki talk exclusively of herself. Up till then, everything that went on in their lives had been theirs. She was trying to accept how Nikki was taking it personally but it was hard work and drained her own mental resources. She could do without all this, she thought wearily.
"You've every right to feel angry. I feel bloody angry for you. You deserve better than this but we've got to fight this the right way."
"Fight, what do you mean fight?" Nikki lashed out in an argumentative fashion.
"All right, Nikki, how about going for that reappeal, wipe off that prison sentence.
At the same time, we take this letter to Claire and see what she makes of it."
"What's she going to know that we don't?"
"We won't know if we don't try," Helen said, her patience in her voice feeling strained.
"You've still got that almighty faith in the system, Helen. You're still that wing governor mentality that thinks that everything can be neatly administered and categorized."
"You're talking absolute crap. The only way we'll beat them is through the official channels. There is no other choice."
"For God's sake, Helen leave me alone. Let me sort this out my own way."
"But you won't deal with it," pursued Helen with relentless logic while the tension between the two of them was ratcheted up, step by step, until it was Nikki who finally snapped.
"Go to hell and stay out of my way," shouted Nikki. Helen whirled on her feet and went out the door into the living room. Her body was trembling all over as the physical and mental tension that had been building up inside her finally overflowed.
The rest of the day passed in an atmosphere of gloom. Neither woman could face talking to the other and they remained at opposite ends of the flat. Neither of them felt like doing anything particularly energetic. The winter night closed in outside. Finally Nikki slipped into the living room and without saying anything switched on the TV. They shared a fairly inconsequential film until they both finally slipped into bed
All of a sudden, Helen found herself plunged into a world where she felt as unfamiliar as her surroundings. The fact that it was dark was not surprising, as she had passed through that time of the year when she set out in the dark and came home in the dark. She could relate to that experience. What she couldn't work out was why damp fog swirled round her so that she had to strain her eyes to see. Her breath turned to smoke in front of her. What she could sense of her surroundings gave her the impression that her personal space she was circumscribed either side of her by the way ahead receded into uncertainty. As her feet trod the hard tiles under her feet, a faint aftertaste of the hard clicking sound of her heels echoed and reechoed away into the distance. What worried her deep down was that she felt hideously alone. She tried to fight those feelings with her customary practical determination to deal with the situation, no matter how threateningly Gothic her surroundings felt.
She reflected on her feelings, trying to find a rational explanation for it. It wasn't as she and Nikki worked together. The working week including lunchtimes added up to forty odd hours a week out of the eighty odd waking hours. While she was working, she felt perfectly calm and secure and those around her in her job had fortunately put her in the slot of 'the exception to the rule which proves nothing', that happy rationalization for encountering the out of the ordinary, the attractive looking woman of idiosyncratic topics of conversation whom every guy on the block would love to date but who persisted in living with another woman. No, her life was running smoothly, except for Nikki's very real problems. It was only as she mulled things over that it was the strangeness of her surroundings that made Nikki's absence worrying.
She peered through the darkness and finally, the shape of a wall made a faint imprint on her senses as it slanted away into the murk. This was what she wanted, something that she could engage her senses with and figure out her bearings. As she drew closer, her leg bumped up against a solid object, about thigh height. Wincing with pain, Helen swore loudly into the echoing gloom and wondered why she hadn't she noticed it in the first place. As she crouched down and stretched out her hands to examine it, it looked like a rectangular flat object, elevated several feet off the ground, covered with a soft flat surface. A very pronounced rim ran round it with the exception of the corner where a small net hung down. As she concentrated her mind on it, the concept of it translated itself incongruously into a pool table. That discovery lightened her mind briefly as the object that had attacked her out of the gloom was really the most prosaic object she could think about.
She took her attention off it and looked closer at the wall. The appearance of it was different from her first impression, being closer to it than she had been when she first detected it. She could sense a series of doors of a slightly darker hue than the drab colourless look of the wall. There was something faintly familiar about it that she searched her memory for. As she thought, her deep-seated fears started to rise to the surface. Aside from the infernal fog, it had a disturbing resemblance to G Wing at Larkhall. That couldn't possibly be the case, Helen's powerful sense of reason asserted itself. She'd been at Larkhall, two, two and a half years and whoever heard of a prison that was as silent as the grave, no prisoners around, no prison officers, this overwhelming dark and fog that virtually blotted everything out. All that there was in the world was herself and a pool table.
She drifted along the 1s, past each cell door, and hazy memories of the past were almost as solidly real as the fog bound wing. She knew better than any stranger that each cell door tells a story. She followed the line of the barred gates and strolled towards what she knew was the corridor. Even in this highly unpromising setting, she knew where her feet were heading. Her eyesight could just about make out the poster on the wall "Drugs- don't be a victim." It was in exactly the same place as it ever was since she had last worked here, always supposing that she had ever left this place behind. Still, there was a ghostly silence that cannot have ever existed since the prison was built. The natural sounds of prisons were cell doors clanging, night calls, prison officers yelling out their orders. Finally, one sound came to her mind. It was the firm deliberate tread of footsteps, too heavy and slowly paced to be a woman's.
Distantly, she heard a voice from afar call out. It gave the impression of being hugely projected to carry through the distance from where it came. She knew that voice above all voices she'd ever known. The footsteps were sounding louder and nearer all the time.
"Helen."
"Nikki," she heard herself yell back. Panic was rising inside her, freezing her bones.
"For God's sake, Helen. Wake up."
What was Nikki telling her? Was she urging her to open her eyes so that the fog would disappear and she could see as clearly as Nikki could? That was always her point of view in all the months she'd pursued her and urged her to throw away the point of view that held her fast and just let herself go.
"Nikki, help me," she called out.
Looking desperately ahead, she came to the barred gate precisely as she expected, or remembered. She fumbled in her jacket pocket for the bunch of keys that she always carried as part of her very being. Feelings of desperation swept over her, as they weren't there where they were supposed to be. She was trapped. Her skin felt clammy and her clothes stuck awkwardly to her.
"You can't expect your girlfriend to help you, Stewart. She's locked up and there's no one else here but the two of us. You know what's going to happen," she heard an evil voice, in the lowest guttural pitch imaginable. It could only be one voice, one person. Spinning round, she looked into the face of Jim Fenner. It startled her that she could see him clearly. His face was white, ghostly looking while fog swirled all around. He was grinning all over her face. Slowly, he moved forward. She let out an almighty scream.
"Helen, for God's sake wake up."
All at once a blinding light was in her eyes. Slowly, she focused her eyes and she was conscious of lying flat on her back. Her nightie was twisted all around her. Her hair was dishevelled and she realized that she was lying on her back, a corner of a white duvet draped over her feet. Looking down into her eyes was Nikki, her face twisted with extreme concern for her. She was holding her hand and gently stroking her forehead. Helen had never seen such a radiant, wonderful sight for sore eyes in all her life. She was out of that dark pit that had engulfed her and back into the light. It felt such a long time since she'd been here.
"I've had a nightmare," Helen heard herself say, weakly.
"I should say so. You've been twisting and turning for the last ten minutes and calling out in your sleep. I've been really worried for you."
"I dreamed that I was back in Larkhall and cornered by Fenner."
Nikki shuddered. Instinct told her that this was the ultimate nightmare and must have been triggered by her temper tantrum the day before. No question, this was her fault entirely.
"Helen, I'm really, really sorry I was such a cow to you yesterday. Everything I said the other day was a complete load of bollocks. When you were being your own sweet self, I pushed you away. What I said and did was totally unforgivable. All I am asking for is your forgiveness even though I don't deserve it. I really have been a complete shit and I just want to do anything to make it up to you."
Distressed apology was written all over Nikki's expressive features and in every tone of her melting voice. It was plain that she meant every syllable and a flood of emotion swept through Helen.
"Come here, sweetheart."
The other woman flung herself eagerly into Helen's arms and she tried to sooth away Helen's distress with every touch of her fingertip and every little kiss of comfort.
"This is going to be your special day, darling, as you bloody well deserve it. I shall completely pamper you and look after you. I mean it."
Nikki straightened and smoothed down the duvet and went off to the kitchen while Helen settled off back to lie in bed. Soothing sounds of domesticity came from the kitchen. Presently, Nikki returned with a tray with two archetypally Middle English 'nice hot cups of tea' and slices of toast and marmite. They settled back and ate and drank at their leisure. The sun gave his approval by smiling at them through the kitchen window and the part open door.
"If you don't mind me asking, exactly what did happen yesterday," Helen finally asked in as level a tone as she could manage.
"I just flipped. I'm trying to work out what in hell set me off as the way I behaved scares me……now I come to think of it, a lot of stress had been building up because of this job , the job refusals and finally this stupid passport business but there's something more that I can't work out. I know that the last thing was the straw that broke the camel's back. It's funny, I could never make any sense of that figure of speech when I was at school but as I've grown older, it makes sense. It was just the last straw. I promise you that I'll never, never put you through all that shit again," came Nikki prompt reply. She lit a cigarette and meditated thoughtfully as her mind searched for the truth.
"I've finally worked out what was freaking me out. I was thinking what if I lose and get sent back to Larkhall? What if they increase my sentence…." Nikki gagged for a second as she uttered that hateful word,"….and I don't get just five years or ten? I couldn't bear being separated from you. I couldn't stand it."
Nikki's large brown eyes looked sorrowfully and soulfully at Helen. Her fear of losing was very palpable.
"Nikki," came the slow clear comforting almost maternal tones. She closed her eyes, let the remnants of her jangles fears dissolve away and lay down next to Helen.
"I'm no legal expert but there's something telling me that you can't be punished twice for the same so called offence. I'd be happier with a qualified legal opinion on it."
"We'll do everything you suggested yesterday, Helen," Nikki said softly, turning round to face her."…… that is, if you're up for it. We'll make an appointment and see Claire and Jo Mills and check that out and ask them about the passport as well."
Slowly and casually, the resolution came together. Nikki realized that, after all, she was as good as anyone at fighting her way out of a corner. She'd been doing it all her life and this time around, she had as true a friend as she could ever hope to find to help her with the battle.
The rest of the day passed in a dreamy haze where Helen gratefully surrendered to Nikki's incredibly caring qualities, both in word and deed. She was as good as her word. In some strange way, they both felt set free from their cares. It struck Helen that she had never had a lover who cared for her in such a demonstrable way.
"You know what happens when couples kiss and make up," Nikki said in her softest, sultriest tone of voice, raising her eyebrow. A gentle smile played on her lips.
"I see that I'm really going to enjoy this," Helen answered, not to be outdone.
"It definitely will, if I have anything to do with it."
With that, Nikki looped her arms round Helen's neck and kissed her softly and slowly. Soon, their clothes were scattered like leaves upon the bedroom floor and their fingers were free to delicately explore each other's skin as they lay down on the bed together. Nikki's lips and tongue gently and lovingly caressed Helen's woman's neck while her fingers delicately touched Helen's round breasts. Their lovemaking had always been a delight both of the senses and emotions but, this time, Helen sensed that Nikki was making an extra special effort both to pleasure and reassure Helen. She shivered with delight as she felt those light and sure fingers trace a path down her belly while murmuring sweet endearments. She knew that Nikki never went in for the sort of pillow talk, which would be belied the next day. On the contrary, these were the moments of the truest expression of her feelings as that beautiful face hovered close above her. A cry escaped her lips as Nikki's fingers touched that precise spot and her hips moved rhythmically as those fingers stroked her so surely and led her to her climax.
It seemed that an age had passed when Helen's breathing settled down to normal and Nikki lay on her side when her senses were delighted by that teasing Scottish accent that held her in her sway since who knows when.
"It's your turn, Nikki. Fair's fair."
She could feel Helen's body move around on top of her and that she would be true to her word.
"It feels like the first time we slept together," Helen whispered as they lay in each other's arms, spent and exhausted.
"Minus me hammering on your front door to get in and wanting us to go on the run to San Francisco. Apart from that, this is definitely similar."
Helen laughed at Nikki's droll sense of humour. It was something that had attracted her
"You aren't going to have any nightmares tonight," she halfway asked, her voice tinged with soft concern for her. Her own worries had been laid to rest and it was only fair that Helen would get some peace. The other woman stretched out the full length of the bed, a big smile spreading across her face.
"You can take it from me that I'll sleep the sleep of the just and righteous tonight."
"Then that's good enough for us," the answer whispered into Helen's ear.