Part Twenty Four
The room was small and cramped, akin to the servants quarters in comparison to the huge dining room of a stately mansion which was the ancient and high majesty of law of the Old Bailey. Cassie's small frame and strong presence absorbed Yvonne's attention, focussed it in on her and cancelled out the room with her real solid dependability and a caring heart behind that brash exterior. Yvonne needed, more than anything else, a sympathetic presence and Cassie fitted the bill perfectly.
"Lauren's been on the stand and I know that she's going to 'fess up to everything in her life, for being an Atkins, for being my daughter and doing what she did. It scares me to death." "Yvonne, Jo Mills is the best brief you could ever find and, instead of nailing that evil cow Merriman, she'll fight like hell to defend Lauren. The judge is a really good guy, one of the best and this is me, Cassie Tyler talking." Cassie's large blue eyes looked deeply into Yvonne's watery eyes. Her choked tones could not be remotely camouflaged by her normal hard confident exterior but she smiled faintly at the little joke at the end. "I know that you want to fight Lauren's battle for her or to somehow be there for her. That's what being a mum is all about. You know you can't or shouldn't do it but that doesn't stop you wanting to protect your own from all the shit there is in the world. I get secretly worried if Michael or Niamh get picked on at school….because of me and Roisin being who we are. They aren't at secondary school yet but the time may come. It's so far, so good but sometimes I worry for their future….." A shadow crept over Cassie's sunshine features as if from an overcast cloud. Her real maternal feelings came closest to the surface for the children that had happened into her life like a miracle. Who else but a nurturer would know what a mother goes through? Cassie was painfully aware how her empathy fell short as at least her children hadn't reached the perilous rapids of teenage years but were still moving in the calmer waters of childhood.
"Your kids are younger, Cassie. They are innocent at that age. You feel that nothing can spoil them. You don't find out till later what went wrong and you could have stopped it but didn't." Yvonne's face was rigid and remote and suddenly, tears forced themselves out from underneath her tight shut eyelids that wanted to conceal her grief and fears. Visions of 'her little angel' with wide open smiling eyes and Lauren's bright laughing face and innocent smile were so real in her mind's eye. Invisibly the deliverance of two soft arms gently folded themselves round her to her huge relief. She was conscious that they belonged to Cassie as her voice soothed her and comforted her. Time passed in their forgotten part of the world before Yvonne moved away and could trust herself to speak. "You've got to trust in Lauren's strength, brains and quick thinking. You know she gets that from you and somehow she'll pull the rabbit out of the hat. If it was the other way round, I know what you would say to me, don't you? Look at it logically. You've got twelve men and women of a jury who only know the name of Atkins from the diet that's in the magazines. It's not like you're always on the front page of OK magazine like Posh and Becks - I really hate that pair after all, what is there for me? Just don't keep thinking that you're guilty before you even start." Yvonne laughed even while the last trace of a tear ran down her cheek as Cassie's unique mixture of humour and common sense finally got through to her.
"We've got the judge going for us, I know that he's a human being and dead straight. He will make a difference to what's said and done. He'll keep that prat of a prosecuting barrister in line for a start. I haven't known any caring men - men haven't exactly figured much in my life - but he's one of the good ones." "It'll take a bleeding miracle for anyone to dig Lauren out of this hole," Yvonne said unthinkingly. "Well, miracles do happen, on, Yvonne, I think they've finished." The faint creak of doors swinging back and echoing footsteps shuffling their way out was the prelude for the first of the crowd to pour out of the court among whom was Lauren, looking straight ahead with a prison officer either side of her.
For once, she wasn't in the mood for a verbal sparring match with Bodybag but let herself be led limply along back to the large black car and be sat, handcuffed between Selena and Bodybag. A kaleidoscope of images of streetlife flashed dizzyingly past her as she was driven away.
"Don't get your hopes up too high, Atkins. Your sort are bound to end up in prison sooner or later." "Why don't you just give her a break?" Selena's soothing voice brushed up against Bodybag's tetchiness. "Or at least let someone else take over on prison escort duty." "Hummph," Bodybag's grunt and pursed lips closed off the conversation. She had a mule-like genius in being awkward for awkward's sake and refusing to get involved in any solution to an argument. Others were there to put up with her. Lauren shrank into herself in an introspective gloom. It shut her in as effectively as iron bars did and carried her on through the journey and into the familiar claustrophobia and the certain routine of her prison life.
Bodybag and Selena made an ill assorted pair with only the prison uniform and a desire for a nice cup of tea in common. Happily, Beverly Tull, complete with flapping ears for random gossip, was pouring out a mug of tea or two. They were both parched.
"How's Lauren Atkins getting on today?" Dominic asked out of kindly interest after Bev finally left the room.
"Better than she'll be tomorrow when the prosecution barrister gets to work on her. they'll tear her to pieces," Bodybag gloated openly. "I'd love to be on prisoner escort tomorrow." "That will be for me to decide, Sylvia," Gina's carrying voice broke through the Heat magazine she was holding up high. "You're really looking forward to caring for Lauren Atkins for a ten to fifteen year stretch right up to when you retire. Never mind, the rest of us will be going strong by then." Colin grinned at Dominic's joking reply, which made Bodybag go red in the face. Before Dominic came to Larkhall, he had felt harassed as Di Barker, Fenner and Bodybag had ruled the roost. "This dump has gone to the dogs. What this place needs is proper experience and there's too little of it. You need years on this job to get to know what you are doing and you know what you're talking about," She moaned apparently of noone in particular but in reality everyone knew who she was venting her spleen on. "Experience of becoming a racist and a bigot?" "And how long does it take to get experience round here?" chimed in Selena a fraction after Paula's quiet retort.
"No use bitching about the trial or each other. Besides, I've been told that, as an older man, the judge is dead tasty. Perhaps I ought to check him out tomorrow for myself." "You've not changed, Gina, since you came to G Wing." "I don't think you'd be disappointed, Gina." After Selena's non-answer to Bodybag, the desultory conversation that had spluttered like a badly lit firework finally fizzled out leaving into a chilly silence. "How long is Di Barker off the wing, Gina?" "Too long," grumped Bodybag. "It's only temporary, they say. One day the powers that be will tell her that as she's settled down so well, they've made the move permanent. It's a plot, you mark my words." A collective sigh ran round the room. They could easily handle Bodybag while she was on her own, as she was stupid and ineffective. When Di Barker was around, her narrow minded but highly devious, manipulative ways set them on edge and made them permanently wary of every little thing. They were gradually letting down their collective guard and realising how wearing it had been before Di moved off the wing. They egged each other on to bitch about everything that didn't suit them and sniped at any hint of disagreement.
"I won't be sorry to see the back of Di Barker. She messed things up between me and my fella and I lost my baby thanks to her," Gina proclaimed loudly.
"You never know, she may want to stay on H wing permanently. She came from there in the first place and might catch up with old friends. We won't stand in her way out of this wing after all," Dominic's annoyingly reasonable tone of voice was belied by his faint grin and sent a spasm of fear running up and down Bodybag's spine. "Now then, Dominic, you shouldn't mock your fellow officers. Don't give me that 'butter wouldn't melt in your mouth' look. It's the quiet ones you have to watch." Gina's broad grin gave off that sexual allure which was her very unconventional but highly effective way of handling the bickering that went on.
"It's not like the old days. Everyone stuck together and had the right ideas." "Turn the record off, Sylv, before someone comes along and breaks it for you." "I'm perfectly entitled to my views," Huffed and puffed Sylvia. "Or do we all have to be 'politically correct' these days?" "You got it, Sylv." "It's all very well for you, Dominic McAllister to swan in and out of Larkhall as it pleases you but some of us have dedicated years of our lives to the service. Some of us have standards we believe in." "You mean, people like Jim Fenner running to the Governing Governor whenever something didn't suit him. Or take the way that a Wing Governor like Helen Stewart had her life made a misery. She really believed in trying to get the best out of prisoners and you and Jim Fenner ganged up on her and stabbed her in the back all the time. Spare me the memories." Dominic rolled up the copy of the Daily Mirror he had been reading and flung it down on the table in disgust. "Your problem, Sylvia, is that you've never got over not having someone around that you can moan about." "And, while we're talking about you, do you really have to speculate about everyone's sex life? What's missing in your life that you have to go on about it?" Bodybag's mouth stayed frozen open in an 'O' shape and she flushed with embarrassment as first Dominic and then Selena laid into her. These upstart young kids who had the nerve to disagree with one of the longest serving prison officers on G wing. Now that poor Jim was no longer around, she had thought that his mantle would fall naturally on her shoulders and she would be the one to uphold the old ways. You didn't need to talk about them except in an understood aside. As her Bobby first told her when she started, you watched your back, all prisoners were cons, if they misbehaved you simply banged them up and there was none of that namby pamby liberal eyewash. In her head, there was a faintly echoing chorus of voices of prison officers, long since retired who were impotent to help her right now. The 'good old days' were just out of reach. Then, the nostalgic haze in front of her eyes vanished as her world suddenly sharpened cruelly and the critical faces of the interloping newcomers sat in the chairs where the ghostly presence of her old friends once sat. They had taken over her world and they had all the youthful energy and drive on their side. The trouble was that she was getting old and tired and she hadn't got the strength to fight them. Her only form of resistance was in being too old and set in her ways to accept change in her life but, then again, had she ever really been willing to accept change? When she grew up, she had been equipped with an inexhaustible supply of homilies and platitudes by her mother, which she had absorbed without questioning. If only the world had stayed the same way as when she had grown up, she would be comfortable enough in it.
"You should try and fit in, Sylv. The good old days were never as good as they made out. You shouldn't treat prisoners like crap like some of us used to. Nikki Wade was fine once you gave it to her straight and didn't piss her about. The trouble with you is that you bring half your problems on yourself." Gina spoke more gently to Bodybag to invite her to clear away the obstacles that she had barricaded round herself. But she would never do that as her pride got in her way.
The room was small and cramped, akin to the servants quarters in comparison to the huge dining room of a stately mansion which was the ancient and high majesty of law of the Old Bailey. Cassie's small frame and strong presence absorbed Yvonne's attention, focussed it in on her and cancelled out the room with her real solid dependability and a caring heart behind that brash exterior. Yvonne needed, more than anything else, a sympathetic presence and Cassie fitted the bill perfectly.
"Lauren's been on the stand and I know that she's going to 'fess up to everything in her life, for being an Atkins, for being my daughter and doing what she did. It scares me to death." "Yvonne, Jo Mills is the best brief you could ever find and, instead of nailing that evil cow Merriman, she'll fight like hell to defend Lauren. The judge is a really good guy, one of the best and this is me, Cassie Tyler talking." Cassie's large blue eyes looked deeply into Yvonne's watery eyes. Her choked tones could not be remotely camouflaged by her normal hard confident exterior but she smiled faintly at the little joke at the end. "I know that you want to fight Lauren's battle for her or to somehow be there for her. That's what being a mum is all about. You know you can't or shouldn't do it but that doesn't stop you wanting to protect your own from all the shit there is in the world. I get secretly worried if Michael or Niamh get picked on at school….because of me and Roisin being who we are. They aren't at secondary school yet but the time may come. It's so far, so good but sometimes I worry for their future….." A shadow crept over Cassie's sunshine features as if from an overcast cloud. Her real maternal feelings came closest to the surface for the children that had happened into her life like a miracle. Who else but a nurturer would know what a mother goes through? Cassie was painfully aware how her empathy fell short as at least her children hadn't reached the perilous rapids of teenage years but were still moving in the calmer waters of childhood.
"Your kids are younger, Cassie. They are innocent at that age. You feel that nothing can spoil them. You don't find out till later what went wrong and you could have stopped it but didn't." Yvonne's face was rigid and remote and suddenly, tears forced themselves out from underneath her tight shut eyelids that wanted to conceal her grief and fears. Visions of 'her little angel' with wide open smiling eyes and Lauren's bright laughing face and innocent smile were so real in her mind's eye. Invisibly the deliverance of two soft arms gently folded themselves round her to her huge relief. She was conscious that they belonged to Cassie as her voice soothed her and comforted her. Time passed in their forgotten part of the world before Yvonne moved away and could trust herself to speak. "You've got to trust in Lauren's strength, brains and quick thinking. You know she gets that from you and somehow she'll pull the rabbit out of the hat. If it was the other way round, I know what you would say to me, don't you? Look at it logically. You've got twelve men and women of a jury who only know the name of Atkins from the diet that's in the magazines. It's not like you're always on the front page of OK magazine like Posh and Becks - I really hate that pair after all, what is there for me? Just don't keep thinking that you're guilty before you even start." Yvonne laughed even while the last trace of a tear ran down her cheek as Cassie's unique mixture of humour and common sense finally got through to her.
"We've got the judge going for us, I know that he's a human being and dead straight. He will make a difference to what's said and done. He'll keep that prat of a prosecuting barrister in line for a start. I haven't known any caring men - men haven't exactly figured much in my life - but he's one of the good ones." "It'll take a bleeding miracle for anyone to dig Lauren out of this hole," Yvonne said unthinkingly. "Well, miracles do happen, on, Yvonne, I think they've finished." The faint creak of doors swinging back and echoing footsteps shuffling their way out was the prelude for the first of the crowd to pour out of the court among whom was Lauren, looking straight ahead with a prison officer either side of her.
For once, she wasn't in the mood for a verbal sparring match with Bodybag but let herself be led limply along back to the large black car and be sat, handcuffed between Selena and Bodybag. A kaleidoscope of images of streetlife flashed dizzyingly past her as she was driven away.
"Don't get your hopes up too high, Atkins. Your sort are bound to end up in prison sooner or later." "Why don't you just give her a break?" Selena's soothing voice brushed up against Bodybag's tetchiness. "Or at least let someone else take over on prison escort duty." "Hummph," Bodybag's grunt and pursed lips closed off the conversation. She had a mule-like genius in being awkward for awkward's sake and refusing to get involved in any solution to an argument. Others were there to put up with her. Lauren shrank into herself in an introspective gloom. It shut her in as effectively as iron bars did and carried her on through the journey and into the familiar claustrophobia and the certain routine of her prison life.
Bodybag and Selena made an ill assorted pair with only the prison uniform and a desire for a nice cup of tea in common. Happily, Beverly Tull, complete with flapping ears for random gossip, was pouring out a mug of tea or two. They were both parched.
"How's Lauren Atkins getting on today?" Dominic asked out of kindly interest after Bev finally left the room.
"Better than she'll be tomorrow when the prosecution barrister gets to work on her. they'll tear her to pieces," Bodybag gloated openly. "I'd love to be on prisoner escort tomorrow." "That will be for me to decide, Sylvia," Gina's carrying voice broke through the Heat magazine she was holding up high. "You're really looking forward to caring for Lauren Atkins for a ten to fifteen year stretch right up to when you retire. Never mind, the rest of us will be going strong by then." Colin grinned at Dominic's joking reply, which made Bodybag go red in the face. Before Dominic came to Larkhall, he had felt harassed as Di Barker, Fenner and Bodybag had ruled the roost. "This dump has gone to the dogs. What this place needs is proper experience and there's too little of it. You need years on this job to get to know what you are doing and you know what you're talking about," She moaned apparently of noone in particular but in reality everyone knew who she was venting her spleen on. "Experience of becoming a racist and a bigot?" "And how long does it take to get experience round here?" chimed in Selena a fraction after Paula's quiet retort.
"No use bitching about the trial or each other. Besides, I've been told that, as an older man, the judge is dead tasty. Perhaps I ought to check him out tomorrow for myself." "You've not changed, Gina, since you came to G Wing." "I don't think you'd be disappointed, Gina." After Selena's non-answer to Bodybag, the desultory conversation that had spluttered like a badly lit firework finally fizzled out leaving into a chilly silence. "How long is Di Barker off the wing, Gina?" "Too long," grumped Bodybag. "It's only temporary, they say. One day the powers that be will tell her that as she's settled down so well, they've made the move permanent. It's a plot, you mark my words." A collective sigh ran round the room. They could easily handle Bodybag while she was on her own, as she was stupid and ineffective. When Di Barker was around, her narrow minded but highly devious, manipulative ways set them on edge and made them permanently wary of every little thing. They were gradually letting down their collective guard and realising how wearing it had been before Di moved off the wing. They egged each other on to bitch about everything that didn't suit them and sniped at any hint of disagreement.
"I won't be sorry to see the back of Di Barker. She messed things up between me and my fella and I lost my baby thanks to her," Gina proclaimed loudly.
"You never know, she may want to stay on H wing permanently. She came from there in the first place and might catch up with old friends. We won't stand in her way out of this wing after all," Dominic's annoyingly reasonable tone of voice was belied by his faint grin and sent a spasm of fear running up and down Bodybag's spine. "Now then, Dominic, you shouldn't mock your fellow officers. Don't give me that 'butter wouldn't melt in your mouth' look. It's the quiet ones you have to watch." Gina's broad grin gave off that sexual allure which was her very unconventional but highly effective way of handling the bickering that went on.
"It's not like the old days. Everyone stuck together and had the right ideas." "Turn the record off, Sylv, before someone comes along and breaks it for you." "I'm perfectly entitled to my views," Huffed and puffed Sylvia. "Or do we all have to be 'politically correct' these days?" "You got it, Sylv." "It's all very well for you, Dominic McAllister to swan in and out of Larkhall as it pleases you but some of us have dedicated years of our lives to the service. Some of us have standards we believe in." "You mean, people like Jim Fenner running to the Governing Governor whenever something didn't suit him. Or take the way that a Wing Governor like Helen Stewart had her life made a misery. She really believed in trying to get the best out of prisoners and you and Jim Fenner ganged up on her and stabbed her in the back all the time. Spare me the memories." Dominic rolled up the copy of the Daily Mirror he had been reading and flung it down on the table in disgust. "Your problem, Sylvia, is that you've never got over not having someone around that you can moan about." "And, while we're talking about you, do you really have to speculate about everyone's sex life? What's missing in your life that you have to go on about it?" Bodybag's mouth stayed frozen open in an 'O' shape and she flushed with embarrassment as first Dominic and then Selena laid into her. These upstart young kids who had the nerve to disagree with one of the longest serving prison officers on G wing. Now that poor Jim was no longer around, she had thought that his mantle would fall naturally on her shoulders and she would be the one to uphold the old ways. You didn't need to talk about them except in an understood aside. As her Bobby first told her when she started, you watched your back, all prisoners were cons, if they misbehaved you simply banged them up and there was none of that namby pamby liberal eyewash. In her head, there was a faintly echoing chorus of voices of prison officers, long since retired who were impotent to help her right now. The 'good old days' were just out of reach. Then, the nostalgic haze in front of her eyes vanished as her world suddenly sharpened cruelly and the critical faces of the interloping newcomers sat in the chairs where the ghostly presence of her old friends once sat. They had taken over her world and they had all the youthful energy and drive on their side. The trouble was that she was getting old and tired and she hadn't got the strength to fight them. Her only form of resistance was in being too old and set in her ways to accept change in her life but, then again, had she ever really been willing to accept change? When she grew up, she had been equipped with an inexhaustible supply of homilies and platitudes by her mother, which she had absorbed without questioning. If only the world had stayed the same way as when she had grown up, she would be comfortable enough in it.
"You should try and fit in, Sylv. The good old days were never as good as they made out. You shouldn't treat prisoners like crap like some of us used to. Nikki Wade was fine once you gave it to her straight and didn't piss her about. The trouble with you is that you bring half your problems on yourself." Gina spoke more gently to Bodybag to invite her to clear away the obstacles that she had barricaded round herself. But she would never do that as her pride got in her way.