Scene Fifty-One
It took a lot for Margaret's rarely used alarm clock to rouse her out of her deep slumbers as the traumatic events of the previous night had taken it out of her. Vaguely, she supposed as she lay inert in her bed that she was all cried out. It took a long time before she propped herself up in bed and waited for her eyes to focus on the world. It took her an equally long time to pull herself together and get dressed by degrees. Even then, she wasn't quite ready and was still feeling out of sorts when there came the usual polite knock on the door. Slowly, she made her way towards it.
Helen and Nikki had woken up, an hour earlier than normal and equipped with Helen's neatly set out files, they zoomed over to Margaret's, expecting her usual sprightly manner. They were shocked to find her pale and drawn, looking older than they were accustomed to. They immediately focussed on their friend's troubles.
"Don't say it, darlings, I look awful. I had a bad night when pre conference nerves got me into reliving Julia's death along with those of all my dearest friends. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well," said Margaret grimly and a little throatily.
"We've got time yet," ventured Nikki tactfully.
"Look here," Margaret replied in firmer and clearer tones." Can you do me a favour and make me a not too hot cup of coffee while I finish off getting ready. Make one for yourselves if you wish. I won't be long. I've never ducked out of any crisis in my life and I'm not going to start now."
"As you wish," Helen answered, willingly giving way to her friend's authoritative manner. Such positivism from their friend was very welcome right now.
While the two women worked lightly round each other and emerged into the living room, Margaret had got ready as promised, dressed in her typical flowing dress, hair neatly piled on high and a scarf looped carelessly round her neck. Somehow, she'd miraculously transformed herself.
"How do I look?" she asked, with a particularly dramatic flair in her stance.
"Just perfect," came the positive unison reply, which made her beam with unashamed pleasure. Ten minutes of her friends' cheering company had instantly cut through her depression of the previous night. At the back of her mind, she wondered just what it was that had got her ready to focus on the challenge to hand. In no time, they drank their coffees and, on Margaret's instruction, left everything on the side. They were out of the door and the bright early morning sunshine created tones of delightful contrasts. Never had the world looked so fresh to these three women in this moment of keyed up excitement.
"You sit in the front Nikki," Margaret suggested, seeing her friend's moment of indecision, whether or not to offer her company." I'm fine in the back."
As Helen put the Renault into gear and set off rapidly down the road, Margaret could swear that her left hand was being squeezed and she could smell the familiar perfume. She was in a state of indecision whether or not to turn her head and see her lover with her perfectly shaped face, red lipstick and curly blond hair falling on her shoulders. She was suspended in delicious indecision. She wondered if she turned her head, perhaps the spirit would disappear. While her body was frozen in its present posture, all Julia's desirable self overwhelmed her as she sat in the back of the car.
"That's the spirit darling. You go out and wow them just the way you've always done," came the perfectly articulated voice, syllable perfect. Margaret was in seventh heaven.
"Julia's with you, isn't she?" stated Nikki flatly, turning round to see the expression of bliss on their friend's face.
"How did you guess?" the older woman replied to which Nikki smiled knowingly. They had become very relaxed about travelling in the fifth dimension as had their friends.
A little while later, Nikki got out her mobile phone and talked to John on his 'hands free' set and then to Jenny and Sally Anne. While they were moving forward and she had something to occupy her hands and mind, she was fine. She exchanged glances with Helen whose nervous energy was directed in getting them there on time and curving round the sharp right hand turns at traffic lights and finally swinging into a multistory car park. So driven were Nikki and Helen to get to their destination that only as they strode down the concrete staircase that Margaret was beginning to flag and fall behind the others.
"Oh I'm terribly sorry." Nikki exclaimed as she immediately slowed down from striding down the staircase and she and Helen let the out of breath woman catch up.
"It's not your fault. It comes from me acting as if I'm immortal," came the wryly humorous reply.
Soon they were at the bottom and zeroed in on the open door where an anxious middle-aged kindly man spotted them and whisked them aside.
"Elaine's tipped me off for your need for a side room. She's told me who to look out for. The room's pretty functional, I'll warn you."
"So long as it has half a dozen chairs. We'll rough it," Helen reassured the man cheerily with her winning smile.
The man warmed to their graciousness and the three women were buoyed up by their friend Elaine's old-fashioned sense of detail and this good omen. Sure enough, the room wasn't much more luxurious than the standard Larkhall 'brief's room.' It had all they wanted. Margaret sank gratefully down into the plastic chair with metal legs while Helen and Nikki paced slowly around. It was then that the older woman realized that she'd been missing something.
"Is there something wrong, darlings?"
"Nothing much," Nikki said shortly." I guess we should have said earlier on. It affects you too. The Hollambys are coming with Fenner, the slimiest, most misogynist bastard you could ever hope to meet."
"Worse still, I really don't know how much that bastard knows of the two of us,"added Helen. "You understand that he was there when I was a senior prisoner officer and Nikki a prison he'd known everything of what we'd been doing, I could have been sacked on the spot."
"I'm really sorry darlings. You've had this on your mind while I've been burdening you with my troubles," apologized Margaret with exquisite concern as she shifted her mind to trying to make practical suggestions." It's a risk but he won't be not prepared for us, as we will be for him. Perhaps he'll not want his dirty washing aired in public if you know enough of his misdeeds. If it comes to it, couldn't you pay him back in his own coin if need be and rely on your natural integrity. You're in front of the general public, not the powers that be at Larkhall. They might see the difference between immorality and merely breaking the rules."
Just as the two women hugged their friend emotionally for calming their fears, John politely put his head round the door.
"Well spoken Margaret. You have a natural flair for this kind of thing. After all, we must trust in the righteousness of our cause and ourselves. We have it in spadefuls."
Margaret smiled warmly at her friend's well-chosen calming words as he unassumingly took his seat in this shabby room. Nikki's mobile bleeped as Claire's number showed on the dial.
"Sally Anne and Trisha and Claire and Jenny are just crossing the road. They'll be with us soon."
"Good," beamed John as he started to pace restlessly round the room. His friends were starting to realize that John was slightly nervous, finding himself outside his accustomed role without his normal props. In no time at all, the door opened and the four women slipped quietly inside. Nikki carefully positioned a chair at the head of the rough wooden table for John to sit in. He smiled appreciatively at the compliment and felt more at home.
"I must warn you that as soon as I open my mouth- and I will- I'm certain that I'll be picked on and singled out. They will try and shut me up and the chairman will have the advantage of the microphone. Somehow, we'll have to work really hard, to overthrow the control the chairman will seek to impose on us."
"You're really relishing the prospects of this," grinned Helen impishly.
"I used to read Sherlock Holmes stories when I was younger and it intrigued me when he fancied himself as a highly efficient burglary in a good cause – to break into Charles Augustus Milverton's house if I remember it right."
"That's the way I recall it," said Claire, holding Jenny by the hand, looking cool and possessed." Anyway, back to the plan.
"All right, this is the way I see it," John said, quietly leading off the debate, one eye on his watch.
**********
The conference hall was rectangular shaped, set out in lines of padded chairs with a central aisle round the middle and a small stage at the end upon which a wide table was set out with a microphone in the middle behind which sat Sir Percy Thrower, the Home Office functionary. Behind him, a back projection of the slogan 'Imprisonment and Modernisation' onto a backcloth made sure to remind even the casual observer what the message was all about. It was surrounded by a glossy picture of what Helen could only suppose to be the most modern prison with plenty of smiling faces. She and Nikki snorted cynically at the graphics as it wasn't even subtle at the sugar-coated pill the organizers were trying to get a gullible audience to swallow. Right at the front of the hall, sat some anonymously dressed, glossy haired women, makeup perfect, a couple of them holding portable hand microphones. The men in their smart suits with equally airbrushed looks were similarly equipped. Helen figured out that these were the meetings facilitators. At each side were doors leading off to separate meeting rooms.
As they entered the hall, they discreetly mingled with the crowd as they moved towards their places. A casual glance around them showed a fair proportion of the rest of the conference looked like respectable looking middle class professionals but then again, that applied to a fair number of the comrades in arms. With previous experience of conferences, John took in the logistics immediately. They did their best to look as anonymous as possible, finally choosing a line of chairs about two thirds back. Helen led the way in followed by Nikki, Margaret, John, Claire, Jenny, Sally-Anne Jenny, and finally Trisha on the end seat on the left hand side of the hall. On Helen's other side was a slim middle-aged woman, with longish greying hair and fringe. Her tight denim jeans contrasted with her manner of being a professional type. While her expression was serious and intense, Helen guessed that time had softened the sharp edges of her youth.
"There's Fenner and the Bodybags," whispered Nikki to Margaret who had spotted them and giggled under her breath while John grinned broadly. They were six rows in front. John saw Sir Percy Thrower glance sideways at a black man with neatly cropped hair and a stiff blue suit. That could only be the censorious Lawrence James. Finally, he cleared his voice and started speaking.
The man stood and spoke in the style of speaking beloved of those who chair meetings in considering that the meeting was set for him to perform and orate to his heart's content. He introduced himself as Sir Percy Thrower, Permanent Secretary and a Very Important Person.
"Some achieve fame and some have fame thrust on them," muttered John ironically under his breath, drawing a grin from the others who noticed how fidgety he was. In droning his way through the domestics, what to do if there was a fire, where the toilets were and finally drew breath long enough to prepare to set his stamp on the direction of the meeting.
"Finally, we come to why we have all given up our free time to deal with an issue that public opinion has long been concerned, of why it is that the streets of Britain are menaced by muggers, why street crime is on the up and up, after there has been so much focus on being tough on crime and on the causes of crime."
Again the political mantra beloved of his party slipped into thin air without much reflection on the matter, Jenny considered with contempt. Being an overworked probation officer, she didn't need this kind of guff.
'Perhaps it might be felt that we should reconnect with ideas which, some say we have lost track of. Those ideas are of inflicting a short sharp shock for imprisoned criminals to deter them from ever committing crimes so that the streets of England can once again be made safe for the decent hardworking citizen. You have all been called forward to receive the main message of this preliminary meeting and after which, to break up into various sub meetings to break the problem down into bite sized chunks. From this, it is hoped that in the afternoon, we can draw the strands of the thinking together. At the end of the meeting, I give a solemn undertaking that the staff who work for me will embed the ideas into detailed strategies. Before I finish and allow a five-minute question and answer session, I leave you with the thought that somewhere, this society has lost its way. Way back in the nineteen fifties, a man or a woman could leave his or her front door open without the slightest suspicion that the house would be broken into. There was an instinctive respect and acceptance of rules, an unthinking deference to authority and a certain natural religious observance, which we have sadly lost. Ideally, it would be best if society could find some way in returning to this Garden of Eden. And now, my assistants with the microphone will come to anyone who wants to ask a quick question if there is anything not clear."
Trisha had been aware of her older friend's increasing restiveness and wasn't greatly surprised to see her stick up her hand. After all, Margaret would be certain to be called as she looked like such a harmless innocent old lady, the younger woman thought as she grinned to herself.
