Chapter Twenty Five
The repetitive banging that echoed throughout the house was enough the wake the dead; and Nikki Wade.
Nikki lifted her mussed head from the pillow and sat up on her left elbow with one bleary eye open to survey which direction the intrusive noise came from. As her faculties slowly returned to her, she turned her head and looked down at the empty side of the bed where Helen had been lying just before she had gone to sleep. The faint outline of her body remained on the crumpled duvet but she was most definitely gone.
As Nikki got up and made her way through to the kitchen, she expected to see Helen's smile greet her but her expectations were quickly dashed.
"Trisha? What are you doing here?" Nikki made an 180 degree scan of the room with her eyes but her ex partner was very much alone.
"Looking for someone?" The blonde smiled coyly.
"What? No. I'm just surprised to see you in my kitchen at this time on a Sunday morning." Nikki lied and tried to shield the hurt from her voice and keep her face as staunch as she could. Trisha could read her like a book and any hint of disappointment would be evident. "Thanks for the alarm call."
"Sorry, babe. I just came back to get the folder where I keep all my important documents. I found a flat to rent near the club but they want to see my bank statements for the last three months." She rolled her eyes as she took a sip of the coffee that she caused so much noise making. "Do you know where it is?" Organisation never had been Trisha's strong point, hence why anything administrative, both at work and at home, had always been left to Nikki to deal with.
"I keep all our paperwork in the bookshelf, that way it's easy to find." Easy to find for herself, perhaps, but a book shelf was the last place her ex would ever have gone near. She was a glossy magazine kind of gal. "Drink your coffee, I'll get it."
Flattening her bed hair down as she walked down the hallway, she took a quick peek into Ellidah's room to see if Helen was perhaps inside with their daughter, but Ellidah was still sound asleep in her bed and the room was noticeably empty. Nikki's stomach dropped at the realisation that Helen had already got up and left. She quickly tried to rationalise why but for every positive thought, there were several negatives that followed.
Her cheeks flushed as she thought back to the evenings events. They certainly weren't how she had planned them to be. She felt foolish and cringed at how forceful she must have been. You are an idiot, Wade. She shook the thoughts and mortification away as she reached to grab the file marked "wage slips/statements". As she bent her head, another manila folder lying open on the writing bureau to her side caught her attention. On it lay a single sheet of white paper, scribble with some neat handwriting.
"Maybe I am dead? H. X"
"Shit!" Nikki ran her hand across the neatly stacked hard back books and angrily scooped them from the shelf. "Fuck!" She screamed out the expletive without realising Trisha was now standing behind her.
"What's wrong?" Trisha's eyes were widened in fear. She had only very rarely seen Nikki lose her cool like this, and for it to appear so out of the blue worried her. "Nik, what's happened?" She gently placed her hand on Nikki's shoulder to steady her.
"Helen. She's read Ellidah's file." She bent down to pick up her precious books from the floor and stacked them untidily back on the shelf. Anger had now given way to helplessness.
"And that's bad because…?" Trisha was still none the wiser to what was happening in front of her. "Wasn't she supposed to read it? It's not classified information, is it?"
"Yes. No. Shit, I don't know. Look." She held up the piece of paper that Helen had written on so that Trisha could read it.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Nikki shrugged although she had a fair idea of what Helen was alluding to. She just didn't want to spend hours having an in depth discussion about it when her ex-partner. The issue of why Ellidah was given up for adoption was the one topic both Helen and Nikki had skirted around in their conversations. Neither had dared to enter a territory that was almost forbidden. "Has something happened between you two?" Trisha quizzed further, her sixth sense telling her Nikki was missing out a massive portion of the story. But to Nikki's luck, she was saved by the bell.
The familiar rapping from the brass knocker on the front door was like music to Nikki's ears. She dashed towards it in the hope that Helen ,somehow, was coming back but through the glass she could see this wasn't the case. Instead of the petite Scot, there stood her attorney, Jonathon Myres in casual attire.
"Jon. I didn't realise we had a meeting?" Nikki looked perplexed at his presence so early on a Sunday morning.
"We don't but I had to speak to you. Can I come in?" Jonathon was the kind of man whose face was always staunchly neutral - you could never read him, but today Nikki saw something in his eyes that worried her.
"Of course, go straight through to the kitchen."
"I've been trying to get a hold of you since Friday." He sounded irate but was too well-mannered to show the extent of his anger.
"Sorry, I've been busy and haven't been checking my phone…what's so urgent?" She looked worriedly at Trisha.
"I spoke to Marion, Helen's lead attorney on Friday afternoon and I think we are under prepared for what's coming in the courtroom tomorrow. Their legal team are planning to use some pretty damning evidence against you…did you know that?" Nikki shook her head as she tried to compute what she was being told.
"No, Helen never said anything."
"Well, she wouldn't, would she?" Jonathon laughed, bitterly but Nikki didn't share his cynicism. Helen had promised her almost from day one that there would be no dirty underhand tactics from her side and now Nikki was wondering if she had been so blinkered by attraction that she had managed to be reeled right in to a Machiavellian ploy. Was that why Helen was acting so shiftily? Was her conscience getting the better of her? "So now we have to try and work out a strategy for how tomorrow will commence. In the last few weeks has Ms Stewart let anything slip about her private life that could be damaging to her character?"
"No and I've told you before, if she had, I wouldn't use it against her."
"Very well," Jonathon shrugged and pushed his glasses back off the bridge of his nose. "If that's the way you want it, so be it. But I can't flog a dead horse, Nicola." He rummaged through his paperwork and settled on a set of freshly jotted notes. "I would suggest that Trisha doesn't join us tomorrow." Nikki quickly looked over to the blonde expecting a negative reaction but instead of looking offended, she amiably nodded in agreement. "Marion has dragged a woman…" he looked down at his own rather unintelligible scribbles. "a Ms Caroline Lewis, out of the woodwork and well, I expect you both know the rest." He coughed embarrassedly and continued through his untidy notations. "Judge, QC Henderson wants to speak with Ellidah before court proceeds, so we've been asked to be there at least forty five minutes beforehand."
"She has her swimming lesson…" Nikki butted in quickly before Jonathon carried on with his list of demands and expectations, ignoring her interjection.
"I'll take her afterwards if she's well enough," Trisha suggested to calm a situation she could feel was perilously close to becoming a stand off. The tension was still thick in the air but at least for the moment Nikki was appeased and quiet.
"Good. Now that that is agreed, can I also ask that you also don't bring Ms Atkins to support you. Your affiliation with her is seriously damaging to this appeal. Claire Walker was on the prosecution team at the manslaughter trial of her husband, Charlie, and if this is even remotely referred to tomorrow, it will throw up a massive red flag as to Ellidah's welfare." Nikki looked appalled at the suggestion.
"Yvonne is my friend, and a bloody good one at that! Without her I'd be nothing." Nikki seethed through clenched teeth.
"Well, with her, you may have no daughter, it's up to you." Jonathan shrugged nonchalantly and shuffled together his papers, putting them back in his briefcase, neatly. It was clear for everyone to see that this was a job to him and no more. If he felt any kind of sorrow for his client then he certainly wasn't showing it. "I am going to fight this until the end tomorrow, but Nicola, I have to warn you…my branch of law may be corporate, but never the less, I can tell when I am about to lose a case and right now, I'm not feeling at all hopeful."
"You're telling me that tomorrow I'm going to lose my daughter? Nikki's question sounded desperate and panicked and with good reason. For the first time in a long time the reality of the enormity of her situation hit her straight in the solar plexus and mentally she baulked.
"No, not necessarily." He looked up from the table to stare directly into Nikki's eyes. "But I am telling you to prepare for the worst."
Helen felt agitated. Agitated to the point where she had been home for several hours and in that time she had been around her two-bed roomed, two-bath roomed house twice and cleaned it until it sparkled like a diamond. Because if she stopped and sat down for just one minute, her brain would go into overdrive and her thoughts were perilously unsafe.
Stripping her hands of the luminous yellow marigolds, she threw herself down at the kitchen table, exhausted, physically and mentally.
A pile of unopened mail sat at her hands but all she could do was stare at the envelopes vacantly whilst in her head she took herself right back to Nikki Wade's bedroom.
They stood in the darkness; the silver moonlight from the window illuminated the bed. The only noise that could be heard was the dull, repetitive thumping of Helen's anxious heart and the stilted, amorous breaths in anticipation of what was about to occur between them.
I want you.
Helen said the words in her mind but didn't dare let them escape the lips that were now entwined in Nikki's, passionately dancing together in lust-filled bliss.
Shivers tore down her spine as a slender finger brushed lazily along her collar bone, tracing its way down the centre of her décolleté and to the curve of her breast, where she felt the top button of her shirt pop open.
"Wait," Helen held her hand over Nikki's to still her from opening any more buttons on her top.
"You want to talk again?" Nikki sounded exasperated as she reluctantly pulled herself from the warm proximity of Helen's body.
"Please don't make me feel guilty for not wanting to jump into your bed." She grasped Nikki's hand; the hand that moments before had been on the verge of driving her senses wild. "I know that I like you…a lot. But whilst we are both on opposite sides of the fence, I can't do this." She begged for Nikki's understanding.
"You can't do me, you mean?" Nikki's facial expression was that of a disappointed child and it made Helen smile warmly.
"I just don't want to rush anything. I've had a lifetime of throwing myself into mindless sex and then having to deal with the consequences after. I don't want that to be the case with us." Nikki knew what Helen was alluding to and she understood why she would be cautious. "If Ellidah wasn't in the equation, maybe things would be different, but she is, so…"
"So it's not because I'm a woman?" Helen screwed up her face and smiled again. For someone so intelligent, Nikki Wade could certainly be dense at times. Or at least, she only saw what she wanted to see…things that usually weren't there!
"I'll hold my hands up and admit that on the sexuality spectrum, I'm not too sure where I belong." Nikki bowed her head an nodded that she understood, but she didn't understand a thing. "Hey," Helen lifted Nikki's chin so that once again their eyes met. She needed Nikki to see her sincerity. "But that doesn't mean I'm not open to exploring my feelings." She reached across and took Nikki's hand back into her own. She liked the feeling of their fingers entwined together. "When the time feels right, things will be different. Until then, you'll just have to keep your hormones in check, Nikki." Helen's smile illuminated the darkened room.
"Okay, but please don't leave. Stay with me and let me get to know you better. No funny business." Nikki held up her hands to show that, against her better judgment, she would be keeping them to herself.
"Stay the night?" Helen checked she was hearing right.
"Yes. Here." Nikki patted the side of the bed Helen was now sitting on.
"Is that wise after…" She wagged her index finger between them.
"Yes, look, Helen, I know I've given the impression that I am a sex-starved teenage boy, but if anything, be flattered by it because I am never like this." As far as Nikki was concerned, Helen was as tempting as the apple in the Garden of Eden but she didn't want to have just one forbidden bite. She wanted to savour it and make it last forever.
"So, what do you want to know?" Helen shifted herself so that her back was against the headboard, she pulled her legs up to her chest and stole a pillow from Nikki's side to cuddle in to.
"You're staying then?" Nikki's elated smile was one of disbelief. She was so sure Helen would disagree with the idea and be off in a shot.
"I'll need something to sleep in…" Nikki was up and off the bed to fetch a t-shirt before Helen got to finish her sentence. Her eagerness, instead of being off-putting, warmed Helen's heart. No one had ever shown as much interest in her before now. Thomas had always been far too busy with work to pay too much attention to her needs and Sean, well, Sean had a selfish streak that ran right through the middle of him. He was always entirely certain he was putting Helen first when, in actual fact, her feelings where the least of his concerns. Their relationship was built on Sean's assumptions and Helen's willingness to allow his behaviour to go unchecked.
"Tell me more about Scotland." Nikki lay down on her back and closed over her eyes. Listening to that sweet Scottish lilt in Helen's voice was like hearing the waves crash peacefully on to the shore; a hypnotic quality that took her to a safe and relaxing place. And It wasn't long before the serenity cocooned her.
The restful, slow-paced breathing told Helen that Nikki's tired body had finally succumbed to all those sleepless nights with Ellidah. It was the most serene Helen had ever seen her face look. Not a worry nor a care showed. Her creased brow was softened and her eyelids flickered almost imperceptibly, indicating she was dreaming; Helen hoped it was about her.
Gently easing herself from the bed so as not to disturb Nikki's sleep, Helen crept on her tiptoes to the door and let herself ease through it as quietly as possible. With each squeak of the floorboard she paused and grimaced before she carried on towards the living room in search of a good book that would settle her insomnia and allow her to drift off into slumber.
Starting at the stop shelf, she browsed leisurely through the titles, stopping very occasionally at titles she had never heard of to read the blurb on the back. Most were Victorian classics, infiltrated by the occasional work of popular lesbian fiction.
Oranges are not the only fruit. Helen turned the slim book around and scanned the synopsis. It sounded like something she could relate to. Growing up in a religious household where almost every second of the day you were preached at or judged by your Father and then ultimately, by God. In her household, the gospel according to James Stewart dictated that, He was forever watching and determining if your behaviour would get you into Heaven. Helen remembered the time as a child that she had likened God to Santa Claus and received a slap across the back of the legs for her impudence. Now, as an adult, she wondered what God would think of a man of the cloth beating his child. Because that had been the first slap of many. They were always excused as ways to teach her a lesson, but she never did learn. The only thing she took away from childhood was that religion was a massive contradiction that she would never get her head around.
She slid the book back in amongst the others. The subject matter was far too raw. She wanted something light and mind numbing; something almost childlike that wouldn't make her think. For a moment she wondered if she should have gone to her daughters room in search of reading material instead, but she was looking for something a little more challenging than The Hungry Caterpillar
As she moved along the sea of paperbacks, she eyes suddenly set upon a folder with Ellidah's name written in black marker down the spine. Curiosity getting the better of her, she pulled it free to have a better look. On the front was a stamped address of the Surrey Social Work Department and then, in the corner, the familiar pink logo of the adoption agency that had placed Ellidah in Nikki Wades care.
She sat down at the writing desk that Nikki had adorned with a handful of mixed picture frames, all with their daughter in one guise or another. She opened the folder to reveal a substantial wad of paperwork, all dating back to March 24th 2009, the day after her daughter was born. The first words she read made her stomach contract quite unexpectedly and as she held her mouth and closed her eyes, she wretched.
Father: Unknown, Mother: Deceased. She freely let the tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes fall urgently down her face, until her vision was so blurred that she couldn't read any further.
Even now hours later and in the comfort of her own home, Helen felt the pain of that one word stab at her soul. Deceased. Dead. Gone. Ironically, it was true. She may always have been there in body, but the day her daughter left her, a piece of her soul died…a piece she was yet to get back.
The morning slowly drifted into afternoon and afternoon soon became early evening. A bottle of vodka sat unopened on the coffee table, the TV was on in the background yet muted, and Helen sat on the sofa with her laptop on her knee, browsing job vacancies at the Home Office. Her time away from Larkhall had proved to her that the Prison Service no longer made her happy. The fulfilment she once got from her work had long gone and it was time to jump ship before it sunk.
The sound of a car pulling up outside her window broke into the silence of her living room. It made her look down to the right hand corner of her screen. 11.14pm. It was only seeing how late it was that brought home how tired she felt. It had been a long weekend…in fact, it had been a long month. She closed over the computer and lifted the bottle of Stolichnaya to take it back to the kitchen. But as her hand grasped it, the doorbell rang and almost made her jump out of her skin.
She stood prostrate for a second to catch her breath and consider who it could be this late on a Sunday evening. She considered ignoring it until the person went away, but when the ringing became more furious, she had no option but to go see who was there. With fear in the pit of her stomach, she opened the door.
"Nikki, what the…?" Helen was flabbergasted to see Nikki standing at her front door in the rain, with a semi-asleep Ellidah in her arms. The manic, desperate glare in her brown eyes signified something was very wrong. "Come in." Her fear had gone to relief and now to anxiousness.
"You have to take her," Nikki thrust the dead weight of her daughter into Helen's arms almost winding her in the process.
"Is something wrong? Is it Trisha?" Helen wanted to beg Nikki to stop pacing around the hallway and talk to her but she seemed far too distressed for that.
"I can't handle this, Helen. I thought I was in control but I'm not." Her chin trembled forcefully and her brown puppy dog eyes filled with tears that escaped freely, cascading towards the raindrops on her jacket. "I had the reality hit me between the eyes today and I know it's for the best that you take Ellidah now. She needs to settle and get used to the move."
"And did you take anyone else into consideration during this epiphany?" Helen's eyes bulged at the absurdity of Nikki's rash and ill thought out decision. "I don't have a single thing here to accommodate a child." Helen didn't have as much as a sippy cup. Every time she had gone to buy little bits and pieces for her daughter, the silly notion that she was jinxing the outcome of the trial stopped her in her tracks. Now she wished she had ignored her irrational mind and stocked up.
"I'm sorry, Helen. About everything. About Ellidah…about us." Nikki's long legs strode back towards the front door. "I'll tell the judge tomorrow that I am relinquishing my rights as Ellidah's guardian."
"Don't do this, Nikki." Helen laid her daughter down on the sofa as gently as she could in the haste to follow Nikki's mad dash back to her car. "Nikki, wait!" Helen heard the door slam and she was momentarily torn between running out barefooted into the rain-soaked street or tending to Ellidah, whose eyes were now open and staring at her in innocent confusion. She looked back and forth between the door and the child and the pleading hazel eyes that were now tearing up won.
"'Len…I want my Mummy." Ellidah sobbed into her blanket as Helen wrapped her tightly into a loving embrace.
"Me, too, sweetheart…me too."