Part One Hundred and Thirty Two
The shrill sound of the phone cracked the listless silence, which had hung on the air in the Atkins household.
"I'll get it," Yvonne's weary tones were unheard by Lauren whose glazed eyes were bored out of her brains from watching daytime television. However, as a way of escaping uncomfortable thoughts, it had its doubtful uses and made her wonder why all the brain dead idiots in the world watched it in the first place.
Looking out of the corner of her eye, her curiosity was roused to see her mother grinning from ear to ear for the first time in ages and that sparkle come back to her eyes.
"Yeah, Denny. I'll do the delivery myself personally, no problem. It won't be express pizza, though."
"You what?" Yvonne could hear Denny's bemused tones and could picture her eyebrows raise in incomprehension.
"Just a little private joke between me and Lauren who's earwigging, seeing that Dale bloody Winton is being such a twat."
"You mean…"
"On daytime television. Oh yeah, and David bleeding Beckham came round with Posh and the kids for a photoshoot for OK magazine," Yvonne's gentle and affectionate mockery made Denny smile at herself in a way that would not have been possible before Yvonne came into her life.
"Be sure to get a diversion laid on and I'll deliver," Yvonne's reassuring tones and her good word that she had never gone back on, transformed Denny into the excitable happy go lucky kid that she had learnt that she was safe to be.
The cold blue sky and the bitter wind cut through Yvonne's black leather jacket as she nonchalantly waited outside the high grey walls of Larkhall. These ramparts were topped by the ugly coiled barbed wire, carefully designed to deter the desperate from escaping. She had looked up at it more times than she cared to count when she was in the exercise yard enjoying the brief sliver of time to herself. Now she had all the time in the world, no fences, no one else's timetable to conform to. Her smile of satisfaction faded as her thoughts struggled to be expressed in words and memories that, somewhere in the grey pile of antiquity and injustice, was the woman who slipped her way too easily into her dreams and was out of reach.
Right on cue to rescue her came the ragged shouting from the other side of the walls.
"Give it back to me, you bitch," Denny's authentically menacing voice rang out.
"Now then, now then, Blood. You'll find yourself in serious trouble unless you stop it at once," Bodybag's harassed voice could be heard clearly the other side of the wall
and fell short of that hectoring note of authority, which she always aspired to.
"This is like a bleeding comedy show with the picture turned off," Smiled Yvonne to herself, as the mixture of voices appeared to speak from out of the inexpressive solid grey mass in front of her.
"You're not getting it off me, Blood. You're talking a load of pish," Al's thick Glaswegian accent was just about distinguishable. Most prisoners who had met Al had often dearly wished that her voice could be subtitled.
"Hey, Ju," Julie J's voice chimed in with that very endearingly mock innocent tone. "Al's deliberately taking what belongs to Denny. Can't have that, can we."
"If you want it, Blood, you're going to have to catch me and I'll fight ye for it," Al's defiant tones faded, as her voice seemed to move from straight-ahead to Yvonne's right.
"Good work, Julies," Yvonne thought as she could visualise the diversion being laid ready for Yvonne to play her part.
This is no time for bleeding Memory Lane, she thought to herself as her arm swung back and the object described a perfect parabola, well clear of the barbed wire which might have snagged it, up over to the highest point and dropping down out of sight behind the wall.
"All right, break it up," Karen's well-modulated voice was pitched up with perfect ease over the hubbub, which stopped as if the switch had been thrown.
"You should know how to behave yourself better, Denny," Di's petulant tones nagged away ineffectively.
"It's all right, miss. Everything's cool," Denny's voice called out loudly. "Me and Al have got everything sorted now."
"That's my girl," Yvonne muttered under her breath. "Just loud enough for me to hear." Despite all the shit that had happened, this little pantomime brought back to her all the enterprises which she had been at the heart of and how important it made her feel that she was Top Dog of Larkhall, not just for her own ego but for the way she was able to create some meaning in her life in dispensing Atkins justice, both soft and hard in the world around her. At moments like these she had felt more alive than she had ever done. Now, there was sadness to go with the happiness that she had gained with her freedom. The problem in her bleeding life was what to do with it.
"That's good then," Karen looked very closely at the crowd of prisoners. There was something about the situation that didn't seem quite right. From her experience, a grudge argument that appeared to have taken place didn't shut up as promptly as it did this time. There was no sustained glaring between Denny and Al who mysteriously had shut up and were on normal terms. "You have five minutes to the end of association and if there is any more trouble, you will all be up before me on Rule 43," She finished sternly.
Out of the corner of her eye, she took in Di Barker and Bodybag, both flushed, breathless
and floundering. Jesus, why does she have to spend her time nannying these two inneffective women. Now Fenner is gone, all the stuffing seemed to have leaked out of the pair of them.
"I'm going back to my office now. Will you both ensure that proper order is maintained on my wing? I shall be around if you need me," Karen's stern voice softened at the end to try and be helpful. She had to confess that she had great difficulty in preventing a note of sarcasm from creeping into her voice.
She had to admit that the tone in Larkhall had changed for the better. The dominant personalities amongst the prisoners maintained a rough and ready justice amongst their own and pretty well kept things running. It was a huge relief, and she ought not to speak or think ill of the dead, but Larkhall without the psychotic self centred manipulative presence of Snowball Merriman had lost that edginess and that she was happier in her mind that there wasn't some conspiracy afoot to cause mayhem. Added to this was the absence of Fenner's glowering brooding presence in the PO's room. Life nowadays at Larkhall was so much more transparent and honest and made her more relaxed. When she looked at matters straight, the man had been the source and focus of corruption in Larkhall for decades, always concealing his darker crimes, subtly working on the susceptibilities of the prisoners and prison officers alike and doing it in a totally underhand fashion. She should know, she thought ruefully, as she had been a victim of that twisted personality whom she had once foolishly loved and may have loved her for all she knew. She would never know, as his voice could not reach her from beyond the grave. That was mainly a blessing but there was a tinge of regret.
She grabbed at the files in her in tray and, while she was scanning the first of them to check progress reports, she ought to push for her staffing needs to be sorted out.
It was time she got onto Area Personnel to pull their finger out and get them the replacement Principal Officer. She had asked them to make enquiries about Gina Rossi and Dominic McAllister and, after vague promises, she hadn't heard anything more from them. She needed a good Principal Officer to pull the prisoners into shape.
"I'm sure I heard a car driving away after that incident outside," Karen said to herself and the light dawned in her mind as she could see the hand of Yvonne Atkins at work. A wealth of mixed emotions flooded back into her mind of the woman who had been the organising brains of all the dubiously legal and outright illegal activities amongst the prisoners. She held her biro mid air as she thought her eyes glazed over and the sharp workaday edges and lines in the portrait of her room dissolved into soft focus.
Yvonne Atkins was the first woman she had ever loved, she mouthed to herself and she was not ashamed of that love not could she ever be. It was not as if she was trying to reform Yvonne, to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear as that hateful phrase straight out of the spirit of Pygmalion would have it. No, she loved Yvonne for the woman she was and while she was free and out of Larkhall, they were as free to love each other as much as they permitted themselves to be. Gradually, bit by bit the defences had come down between them and their love was as precious and as sweetly unfamiliar as falling in love was for the first time when she was in her teens. The taste of the irony was as bitter in her mouth as the realisation that, for all Yvonne's criminal background, she was twenty times more honest to her than the smooth-talking bastards she had let come into her bed. It's just that they handled their lives to just fall the right side of the wobbly and crooked line that marked out the world of the legal. No matter what had gone wrong between her and Yvonne, she would never stand for any righteous citizen to criticise Yvonne's memory, both in Larkhall and outside. Sylvia had enough sense in her head not to misread the look in her eye not to fall for that one.
Denny's eyes were alight with mischief when she unwrapped the tightly wrapped parcel that she had popped into the large pocket of her green combat trousers.
"You're going to shoot your way out of Larkhall?" Al questioned Denny as the sinister shape of the revolver took vague shape from underneath the wrappings.
"You're mad, Al," Denny joked. "And screw up my chance of getting out of Larkhall? I'm keeping my nose clean now and I'm going to get out of here the right way. With my reputation, no bitch will mess with me so I don't have to get into trouble."
The realistic shape resembled a German Luger revealed its secret when Denny squeezed the plastic shape and filled it full of water. Al watched with total fascination and missed the mischievous glint in Denny's eye by a mile and her smothered cry as a jet of water hit her in the eye.
"Hey, don't wreck the pistol, man. We're going to have fun with this. What's today, Al?" Denny asked excitedly, visibly jumping for joy in anticipation.
"How the frig do I know. It's Eastenders tonight," Al said, her slow mind trying to work out what was special about just another boring day in Larkhall.
"It's Halloween Night….."
"So you're planning to go off on a broomstick, Denny?"
"It's 'trick or treat,' Al. And this is the trick. Get it?"
A slow dawning look of realisation spread over Al's face as she could see the prospect of some fun. She meekly let Denny take possession of the water pistol in the same way that she had deferred to a woman who was sharper, more decisive and who knew what they wanted. Once she was Maxi Purvis's cropped haired 'heavy' who intimidated, kicked or punched whoever got in their way or whoever looked too closely at her, who made her feel uncomfortable and seemed to be taking the piss out of her. Now, she followed meekly after the other kind hearted and understanding woman with whom she could feel relaxed and better about herself.
Karen was idly watching the prisoners chat happily amongst themselves and could feel the lightness of atmosphere and take in the good-natured banter between them. While her defences weren't entirely down, it did remind her of how on edge she had been once and how she had never questioned how unnatural it was to work that way. Her thought went out in gratitude and sympathy to Helen who had slaved so hard to try and turn Larkhall round so that prisoners are treated decently and that she was at last receiving the payoff.
Denny had dressed up in a black sleeveless T-shirt, and trousers and looked around her for Bodybag. She above all deserved to be 'trick or treated' and she desperately hoped that Bodybag would choose the trick. It would be worth a hundred cigarettes to see her pompous face splatted with water.
"This is for you, baby. I wish you were around to see it, man," She muttered under her breath and the smile on her face disappeared as she could swear that she could see Shaz's wide grin of approval of what she was about to do. No matter what happened to her in future, she knew that she would never lose her love for Shaz, for that lighthearted carefree spirit and her spiky blond hair.
Only Karen Betts was on duty of all the screws that she knew. She had a mental debate in her mind as she could remember the kindness and gentleness that she had shown when she escorted her on a golden hot summer's day to Yvonne's fabulous palace of delights. She looked at the expression on Karen's face and finally concluded that Karen was a real sport and would take it the right way.
"Trick or treat, miss?" Denny called out in that very mischievous fashion.
Instinctively, her past experience of Ross as a boy jumped into her mind as she heard a similar high pitched boyish voice many years ago. It was in that golden period when he was young and affectionate, when he clung to her as a rock before some twisted adolescent impulse drove him away. In that split second, she ducked, as a jet of water would otherwise have landed right in the middle of her face. Unfortunately, Grayling was walking right up to her from behind and received the jet of water right in his face.
There was a moment of shocked hush before first the 2 Julies burst out laughing and then laughter exploded round the wing.
"I am not going to have this prison turned into a pantomime farce. You, Miss Betts will take appropriate disciplinary action and ensure that this Wing is in proper order…"
"Hold it, Neil, I would rather have G Wing acting like a load of fourth form schoolgirls so long as they are having a bit of harmless fun rather than fighting each other and especially if there isn't some cold blooded psychopath planning to blow up G wing. It is Halloween. My son Ross tried it on all the time only I learned to duck quickly."
The way that Karen jumped in firmly on a decisive note and ended up on a confiding, humourous note, which caught the imagination of the women who saw Karen Betts the human being rather than the Wing Governor. She faced the prisoners rather than Neil as the sight of his overbearing dignity punctured by water dripping off his shirt collar would only set her off. She knew only too well that when she saw the funny side of something, the whole world knew about it.
"You're cool, Miss," Denny's very real admiration of the cool and sophisticated woman was expressed in her own style.
"Well, everybody carry on with what you were doing," Karen smiled, the relaxation obvious in her body language. There was a twinkle in her eye and Denny was very quick to notice that Karen had not asked her to promise not to do any more 'trick or treating.' As with Yvonne, it was impossible for Denny in her attachment to both women not to make a promise that she knew that she would not keep.
Bodybag sighed as she was on her rounds after having forsaken the comforts of the PO's room and being served her mug of tea by a new prisoner from whom she had made her exacting demands for milk and sugar. Laying down her petty idea of the law was one of the pleasures of the job. It was ten minutes to lockup. Looking down a corridor, she saw her least favourite, that cheeky Blood woman approaching.
"Trick or treat, miss?" Denny called.
That inflamed her anger straightaway. This was a new fangled American habit like Father's Day and music played by those prancing black men on television that her daughter Connie used to insist on.
"You're not getting any treats from me, Blood. You ought to know better."
Instantly, a jet of cold water hit her in the face and blinded her.
"What the flaming hell are you doing Blood? You're on Rule 43 and down the block for carrying an offensive weapon and being disrespectful to your betters," She spluttered, dabbing water from her face and feeling it soaking into her uniform. She hated water being splashed into her face and she was going to put her foot down.
"Oh come on, Sylvia," Karen's amused tones broke in on her, much to her intense annoyance. "You should have seen that one coming. I did when Denny aimed at me earlier on and she got Mr Grayling instead."
"If you are wanting to transform this place into Butlins Holiday Camp then I must protest. Are you trying to be 'prisoner's friend' like Miss Stewart? At the very least, I insist that you confiscate that weapon, ma'am, and see that Denny Blood is banged up in solitary so quickly that her feet don't touch the ground."
"I would be very happy to follow Helen Stewart's example. Her leaving the Prison Service was a sad loss. There are times when I wonder what to do in a situation and I ask myself how would Helen have approached it. I know that you didn't see eye to eye with her but, right now," and here, her voice shifted from the gentle and reflective through hard and determined and ending on a note of icy contempt., "I'm in charge and I'll go right on being in charge and I'll do things my way. There's noone to stop me, not you on your own, Sylvia, and you are on your own, aren't you."
Bodybag shivered inside as the deadly truth of Karen's remarks hit home. She lowered her eyes. For Karen, this was payback time and she could now afford to spell out exactly how matters stood. Fenner's death had cast a shadow over her life and others so she was quite entitled to see the positive side of it. Denny was full of delight and jubilation at her last very unexpected treat.
"Besides, didn't you do that sort of thing when you were young, Sylvia? I was pretty good with a water pistol when I was a kid. It takes me back. However Denny, perhaps you had better let me have the water pistol and be ready for lockup as normal."
"Cool, miss," Denny grinned broadly and scampered down the corridors.
When Karen was back in her office, she examined the close imitation of the Luger pistol carefully and placed it in pride of place in the office. Her grin to herself was whole souled and felt from the bottom of her soul at this innocent piece of plastic which couldn't harm anyone.
The shrill sound of the phone cracked the listless silence, which had hung on the air in the Atkins household.
"I'll get it," Yvonne's weary tones were unheard by Lauren whose glazed eyes were bored out of her brains from watching daytime television. However, as a way of escaping uncomfortable thoughts, it had its doubtful uses and made her wonder why all the brain dead idiots in the world watched it in the first place.
Looking out of the corner of her eye, her curiosity was roused to see her mother grinning from ear to ear for the first time in ages and that sparkle come back to her eyes.
"Yeah, Denny. I'll do the delivery myself personally, no problem. It won't be express pizza, though."
"You what?" Yvonne could hear Denny's bemused tones and could picture her eyebrows raise in incomprehension.
"Just a little private joke between me and Lauren who's earwigging, seeing that Dale bloody Winton is being such a twat."
"You mean…"
"On daytime television. Oh yeah, and David bleeding Beckham came round with Posh and the kids for a photoshoot for OK magazine," Yvonne's gentle and affectionate mockery made Denny smile at herself in a way that would not have been possible before Yvonne came into her life.
"Be sure to get a diversion laid on and I'll deliver," Yvonne's reassuring tones and her good word that she had never gone back on, transformed Denny into the excitable happy go lucky kid that she had learnt that she was safe to be.
The cold blue sky and the bitter wind cut through Yvonne's black leather jacket as she nonchalantly waited outside the high grey walls of Larkhall. These ramparts were topped by the ugly coiled barbed wire, carefully designed to deter the desperate from escaping. She had looked up at it more times than she cared to count when she was in the exercise yard enjoying the brief sliver of time to herself. Now she had all the time in the world, no fences, no one else's timetable to conform to. Her smile of satisfaction faded as her thoughts struggled to be expressed in words and memories that, somewhere in the grey pile of antiquity and injustice, was the woman who slipped her way too easily into her dreams and was out of reach.
Right on cue to rescue her came the ragged shouting from the other side of the walls.
"Give it back to me, you bitch," Denny's authentically menacing voice rang out.
"Now then, now then, Blood. You'll find yourself in serious trouble unless you stop it at once," Bodybag's harassed voice could be heard clearly the other side of the wall
and fell short of that hectoring note of authority, which she always aspired to.
"This is like a bleeding comedy show with the picture turned off," Smiled Yvonne to herself, as the mixture of voices appeared to speak from out of the inexpressive solid grey mass in front of her.
"You're not getting it off me, Blood. You're talking a load of pish," Al's thick Glaswegian accent was just about distinguishable. Most prisoners who had met Al had often dearly wished that her voice could be subtitled.
"Hey, Ju," Julie J's voice chimed in with that very endearingly mock innocent tone. "Al's deliberately taking what belongs to Denny. Can't have that, can we."
"If you want it, Blood, you're going to have to catch me and I'll fight ye for it," Al's defiant tones faded, as her voice seemed to move from straight-ahead to Yvonne's right.
"Good work, Julies," Yvonne thought as she could visualise the diversion being laid ready for Yvonne to play her part.
This is no time for bleeding Memory Lane, she thought to herself as her arm swung back and the object described a perfect parabola, well clear of the barbed wire which might have snagged it, up over to the highest point and dropping down out of sight behind the wall.
"All right, break it up," Karen's well-modulated voice was pitched up with perfect ease over the hubbub, which stopped as if the switch had been thrown.
"You should know how to behave yourself better, Denny," Di's petulant tones nagged away ineffectively.
"It's all right, miss. Everything's cool," Denny's voice called out loudly. "Me and Al have got everything sorted now."
"That's my girl," Yvonne muttered under her breath. "Just loud enough for me to hear." Despite all the shit that had happened, this little pantomime brought back to her all the enterprises which she had been at the heart of and how important it made her feel that she was Top Dog of Larkhall, not just for her own ego but for the way she was able to create some meaning in her life in dispensing Atkins justice, both soft and hard in the world around her. At moments like these she had felt more alive than she had ever done. Now, there was sadness to go with the happiness that she had gained with her freedom. The problem in her bleeding life was what to do with it.
"That's good then," Karen looked very closely at the crowd of prisoners. There was something about the situation that didn't seem quite right. From her experience, a grudge argument that appeared to have taken place didn't shut up as promptly as it did this time. There was no sustained glaring between Denny and Al who mysteriously had shut up and were on normal terms. "You have five minutes to the end of association and if there is any more trouble, you will all be up before me on Rule 43," She finished sternly.
Out of the corner of her eye, she took in Di Barker and Bodybag, both flushed, breathless
and floundering. Jesus, why does she have to spend her time nannying these two inneffective women. Now Fenner is gone, all the stuffing seemed to have leaked out of the pair of them.
"I'm going back to my office now. Will you both ensure that proper order is maintained on my wing? I shall be around if you need me," Karen's stern voice softened at the end to try and be helpful. She had to confess that she had great difficulty in preventing a note of sarcasm from creeping into her voice.
She had to admit that the tone in Larkhall had changed for the better. The dominant personalities amongst the prisoners maintained a rough and ready justice amongst their own and pretty well kept things running. It was a huge relief, and she ought not to speak or think ill of the dead, but Larkhall without the psychotic self centred manipulative presence of Snowball Merriman had lost that edginess and that she was happier in her mind that there wasn't some conspiracy afoot to cause mayhem. Added to this was the absence of Fenner's glowering brooding presence in the PO's room. Life nowadays at Larkhall was so much more transparent and honest and made her more relaxed. When she looked at matters straight, the man had been the source and focus of corruption in Larkhall for decades, always concealing his darker crimes, subtly working on the susceptibilities of the prisoners and prison officers alike and doing it in a totally underhand fashion. She should know, she thought ruefully, as she had been a victim of that twisted personality whom she had once foolishly loved and may have loved her for all she knew. She would never know, as his voice could not reach her from beyond the grave. That was mainly a blessing but there was a tinge of regret.
She grabbed at the files in her in tray and, while she was scanning the first of them to check progress reports, she ought to push for her staffing needs to be sorted out.
It was time she got onto Area Personnel to pull their finger out and get them the replacement Principal Officer. She had asked them to make enquiries about Gina Rossi and Dominic McAllister and, after vague promises, she hadn't heard anything more from them. She needed a good Principal Officer to pull the prisoners into shape.
"I'm sure I heard a car driving away after that incident outside," Karen said to herself and the light dawned in her mind as she could see the hand of Yvonne Atkins at work. A wealth of mixed emotions flooded back into her mind of the woman who had been the organising brains of all the dubiously legal and outright illegal activities amongst the prisoners. She held her biro mid air as she thought her eyes glazed over and the sharp workaday edges and lines in the portrait of her room dissolved into soft focus.
Yvonne Atkins was the first woman she had ever loved, she mouthed to herself and she was not ashamed of that love not could she ever be. It was not as if she was trying to reform Yvonne, to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear as that hateful phrase straight out of the spirit of Pygmalion would have it. No, she loved Yvonne for the woman she was and while she was free and out of Larkhall, they were as free to love each other as much as they permitted themselves to be. Gradually, bit by bit the defences had come down between them and their love was as precious and as sweetly unfamiliar as falling in love was for the first time when she was in her teens. The taste of the irony was as bitter in her mouth as the realisation that, for all Yvonne's criminal background, she was twenty times more honest to her than the smooth-talking bastards she had let come into her bed. It's just that they handled their lives to just fall the right side of the wobbly and crooked line that marked out the world of the legal. No matter what had gone wrong between her and Yvonne, she would never stand for any righteous citizen to criticise Yvonne's memory, both in Larkhall and outside. Sylvia had enough sense in her head not to misread the look in her eye not to fall for that one.
Denny's eyes were alight with mischief when she unwrapped the tightly wrapped parcel that she had popped into the large pocket of her green combat trousers.
"You're going to shoot your way out of Larkhall?" Al questioned Denny as the sinister shape of the revolver took vague shape from underneath the wrappings.
"You're mad, Al," Denny joked. "And screw up my chance of getting out of Larkhall? I'm keeping my nose clean now and I'm going to get out of here the right way. With my reputation, no bitch will mess with me so I don't have to get into trouble."
The realistic shape resembled a German Luger revealed its secret when Denny squeezed the plastic shape and filled it full of water. Al watched with total fascination and missed the mischievous glint in Denny's eye by a mile and her smothered cry as a jet of water hit her in the eye.
"Hey, don't wreck the pistol, man. We're going to have fun with this. What's today, Al?" Denny asked excitedly, visibly jumping for joy in anticipation.
"How the frig do I know. It's Eastenders tonight," Al said, her slow mind trying to work out what was special about just another boring day in Larkhall.
"It's Halloween Night….."
"So you're planning to go off on a broomstick, Denny?"
"It's 'trick or treat,' Al. And this is the trick. Get it?"
A slow dawning look of realisation spread over Al's face as she could see the prospect of some fun. She meekly let Denny take possession of the water pistol in the same way that she had deferred to a woman who was sharper, more decisive and who knew what they wanted. Once she was Maxi Purvis's cropped haired 'heavy' who intimidated, kicked or punched whoever got in their way or whoever looked too closely at her, who made her feel uncomfortable and seemed to be taking the piss out of her. Now, she followed meekly after the other kind hearted and understanding woman with whom she could feel relaxed and better about herself.
Karen was idly watching the prisoners chat happily amongst themselves and could feel the lightness of atmosphere and take in the good-natured banter between them. While her defences weren't entirely down, it did remind her of how on edge she had been once and how she had never questioned how unnatural it was to work that way. Her thought went out in gratitude and sympathy to Helen who had slaved so hard to try and turn Larkhall round so that prisoners are treated decently and that she was at last receiving the payoff.
Denny had dressed up in a black sleeveless T-shirt, and trousers and looked around her for Bodybag. She above all deserved to be 'trick or treated' and she desperately hoped that Bodybag would choose the trick. It would be worth a hundred cigarettes to see her pompous face splatted with water.
"This is for you, baby. I wish you were around to see it, man," She muttered under her breath and the smile on her face disappeared as she could swear that she could see Shaz's wide grin of approval of what she was about to do. No matter what happened to her in future, she knew that she would never lose her love for Shaz, for that lighthearted carefree spirit and her spiky blond hair.
Only Karen Betts was on duty of all the screws that she knew. She had a mental debate in her mind as she could remember the kindness and gentleness that she had shown when she escorted her on a golden hot summer's day to Yvonne's fabulous palace of delights. She looked at the expression on Karen's face and finally concluded that Karen was a real sport and would take it the right way.
"Trick or treat, miss?" Denny called out in that very mischievous fashion.
Instinctively, her past experience of Ross as a boy jumped into her mind as she heard a similar high pitched boyish voice many years ago. It was in that golden period when he was young and affectionate, when he clung to her as a rock before some twisted adolescent impulse drove him away. In that split second, she ducked, as a jet of water would otherwise have landed right in the middle of her face. Unfortunately, Grayling was walking right up to her from behind and received the jet of water right in his face.
There was a moment of shocked hush before first the 2 Julies burst out laughing and then laughter exploded round the wing.
"I am not going to have this prison turned into a pantomime farce. You, Miss Betts will take appropriate disciplinary action and ensure that this Wing is in proper order…"
"Hold it, Neil, I would rather have G Wing acting like a load of fourth form schoolgirls so long as they are having a bit of harmless fun rather than fighting each other and especially if there isn't some cold blooded psychopath planning to blow up G wing. It is Halloween. My son Ross tried it on all the time only I learned to duck quickly."
The way that Karen jumped in firmly on a decisive note and ended up on a confiding, humourous note, which caught the imagination of the women who saw Karen Betts the human being rather than the Wing Governor. She faced the prisoners rather than Neil as the sight of his overbearing dignity punctured by water dripping off his shirt collar would only set her off. She knew only too well that when she saw the funny side of something, the whole world knew about it.
"You're cool, Miss," Denny's very real admiration of the cool and sophisticated woman was expressed in her own style.
"Well, everybody carry on with what you were doing," Karen smiled, the relaxation obvious in her body language. There was a twinkle in her eye and Denny was very quick to notice that Karen had not asked her to promise not to do any more 'trick or treating.' As with Yvonne, it was impossible for Denny in her attachment to both women not to make a promise that she knew that she would not keep.
Bodybag sighed as she was on her rounds after having forsaken the comforts of the PO's room and being served her mug of tea by a new prisoner from whom she had made her exacting demands for milk and sugar. Laying down her petty idea of the law was one of the pleasures of the job. It was ten minutes to lockup. Looking down a corridor, she saw her least favourite, that cheeky Blood woman approaching.
"Trick or treat, miss?" Denny called.
That inflamed her anger straightaway. This was a new fangled American habit like Father's Day and music played by those prancing black men on television that her daughter Connie used to insist on.
"You're not getting any treats from me, Blood. You ought to know better."
Instantly, a jet of cold water hit her in the face and blinded her.
"What the flaming hell are you doing Blood? You're on Rule 43 and down the block for carrying an offensive weapon and being disrespectful to your betters," She spluttered, dabbing water from her face and feeling it soaking into her uniform. She hated water being splashed into her face and she was going to put her foot down.
"Oh come on, Sylvia," Karen's amused tones broke in on her, much to her intense annoyance. "You should have seen that one coming. I did when Denny aimed at me earlier on and she got Mr Grayling instead."
"If you are wanting to transform this place into Butlins Holiday Camp then I must protest. Are you trying to be 'prisoner's friend' like Miss Stewart? At the very least, I insist that you confiscate that weapon, ma'am, and see that Denny Blood is banged up in solitary so quickly that her feet don't touch the ground."
"I would be very happy to follow Helen Stewart's example. Her leaving the Prison Service was a sad loss. There are times when I wonder what to do in a situation and I ask myself how would Helen have approached it. I know that you didn't see eye to eye with her but, right now," and here, her voice shifted from the gentle and reflective through hard and determined and ending on a note of icy contempt., "I'm in charge and I'll go right on being in charge and I'll do things my way. There's noone to stop me, not you on your own, Sylvia, and you are on your own, aren't you."
Bodybag shivered inside as the deadly truth of Karen's remarks hit home. She lowered her eyes. For Karen, this was payback time and she could now afford to spell out exactly how matters stood. Fenner's death had cast a shadow over her life and others so she was quite entitled to see the positive side of it. Denny was full of delight and jubilation at her last very unexpected treat.
"Besides, didn't you do that sort of thing when you were young, Sylvia? I was pretty good with a water pistol when I was a kid. It takes me back. However Denny, perhaps you had better let me have the water pistol and be ready for lockup as normal."
"Cool, miss," Denny grinned broadly and scampered down the corridors.
When Karen was back in her office, she examined the close imitation of the Luger pistol carefully and placed it in pride of place in the office. Her grin to herself was whole souled and felt from the bottom of her soul at this innocent piece of plastic which couldn't harm anyone.