Part Sixty-Two
On the Monday morning, there was a little more excitement than usual on G wing, with the event of Valentine's day, and the hopes for cards or other tokens of affection from loved ones. "Shame there ain't no one to send me piss all," Denny said gloomily, knowing that there wouldn't be any post for her. The last time she'd even bothered to acknowledge Valentine's day, was when Shaz was here. They'd pretended to be making their cards in secret, as if any privacy for doing such things could ever be had in Larkhall. They'd sneaked into the potting shed when they'd been allowed out for exercise, using the confined, warm, homely little place for a brief space in time for each other. Julie Saunders received a card and some flowers from David's father Trevor, and Julie Johnson received a very pretty card from her daughter. Selena spent the whole morning smiling secretively to herself, and Sylvia stated that real, long-lasting love, appeared to be an outdated institution that didn't seem important to the women of today. But Denny found herself returning again and again to the place where they'd planted the rose of Sharon, as though this might bring her closer to the one she still missed so badly. Karen could see the exercise yard from her office window, and when she saw Denny return to the tiny memorial a third time, she left her desk and went down to the wing.
Karen found Denny, stood in front of the now considerably larger rose bush, with tears running down her face. Taking her hand, Karen tried to lead her over to a bench to sit down, but Denny wouldn't move. "I want to stay here," She said through her tears. "All right," Karen said gently. "Apart from the day she died," Denny said miserably. "That last Valentine's day was one of the last really special days we had. You know what this place is like, you can't get a minute to yourself." Karen suddenly heard Gina calling her name. Turning, she saw her striding across the paved area towards her. "Sorry to interrupt," She said, reaching them. "But there's a John Deed here to see you. He's at the gate lodge." Inwardly cursing John's timing, Karen asked Gina if she would go down to the gate lodge herself, and escort John to the wing. "Bring a bloke in amongst this lot on Valentine's day?" Gina said with a smirk. "I hope he can look after himself." "Oh, he'll be perfectly safe," Karen replied. "You'll recognize him, it's the judge who presided over Lauren's trial." "Oh," Gina said in a meditative drawl. "Given what day it is, I might just have a crack at him myself."
When Gina had gone, Karen returned her attention to Denny. "What did you do," She asked. "On that last Valentine's day you had with Shaz?" "Bloody stupid question," Denny said, grinning lopsidedly through her tears. "Shaz still had the gardening job then, so we took advantage of the potting shed having a lock on the door during exercise. You know something, no matter how shit everything got in this place, Shaz always made me smile. Life was a bit of a laugh to her. She had the odd screw loose, just like most of us in here, but most of the time, she kept us cheerful. You don't know how precious something like that is in this place. I can't remember the last time I smiled and really meant it. Everything gets so dark and pointless, that you don't want to get up in the morning. It gets like there's no point in existing. Let's face it, what've I really got to stay around for?" "Denny," Karen said slowly, always uneasy with providing fabricated evidence to stop someone feeling so desperate. There are a lot of people who care for you, Yvonne for one. She loves you as if you were her own daughter." "Yeah, well, she won't need to in a few months, will she?" "Denny, did Yvonne care for you in the way she does now, before Lauren ended up here?" "I know it felt like she did, but sometimes it's hard to see it. Everyone, who ever said they loved me, always ended up leaving me. My mum, Shaz, Shell. So how do I know Yvonne ain't going to do the same?" Karen tried to find an appropriate response to this, but John's steady approaching footsteps distracted her.
John had been surprised to see Gina Rossi coming to meet him instead of Karen, but inwardly told himself that Karen did have a busy job to do. "She's busy with an inmate at the moment, so she asked me to come and get you," Gina said, smiling at him. "I've been asked to take you down onto the wing. But I ought to warn you, it is Valentine's day, and I can't promise you'll get away totally unscathed. Dominic's already had to put up with more than his fair share of attempts to pull him." John grinned in heartfelt sympathy. "Do female officers ever come in for the same sort of treatment?" He asked, liking the slightly wild, tempestuous look about her. "Well, over half of them switch sides, just so they can get a bit of the other. So yeah, inmates trying to lull you into breaking one of the oldest rules in the book are pretty normal really. But today isn't a happy day for some of them. It's one of the times they all want to be somewhere else and with someone else. When I left Karen, she was talking to Denny. You remember Denny, she spoke at Lauren's trial." "Yes, I remember," John interjected, thinking that no, this woman would never be his type, because her constant chatter would no doubt infuriate him after a while. "Denny lost her girlfriend in Snowball Merriman's fire, I believe." "Yeah, that's right," Gina said with surprise. "Don't tell me you did that trial as well?" "Yes. This prison doesn't go looking for trouble, trouble just seems to find it, and far too frequently." "Don't let Grayling hear you say that," Gina said with a wink. "He shies away from all the bad publicity this place has had, enough as it is."
As John walked across the exercise yard with Gina, he could see Karen talking to Denny, and that Denny was clearly upset. As they approached, John caught the tail end of Karen's words. Moving to stand on Denny's other side, he gave her a new focus for her attention. "I know Yvonne's always been like a mum to me," Denny continued, ignoring John's presence for the moment. "But it ain't like she ain't already got one daughter, is it. Why should she bother with me, once Lauren's out of here?" "Denny," John broke in quietly. "I got to know quite a lot about Yvonne during the trial, and one thing I have learned, is that if Yvonne Atkins sets out to care for someone, she doesn't ever give up, no matter how hard it gets." Karen was briefly touched at John's all too accurate description of Yvonne. "Yvonne got this brought in," Denny said, gesturing to the rose bush that in a few weeks, would begin flowering again with the arrival of spring. "When Shaz died. It's called the rose of Sharon." "Did Shaz like flowers?" He asked. "Yeah, she used to have the gardening job. She got given it after Nikki left." "Then it's a very fitting memorial." "But she shouldn't need a memorial," Denny said bitterly. "She shouldn't be dead." "Denny, if Shaz was here now," John continued gently. "She wouldn't want you to be hurting like this, would she." Oh, no, Karen thought resignedly, that was the worst thing you could have said, John Deed. "What would you know?" Denny asked furiously. "You're just a bloke who thinks he knows best, because he's one of the pricks in wigs who gets to say yes or no, to someone like my Shaz ending up in a shit hole like this!" Karen laid a warning hand on Denny's shoulder, only just managing to hide a rueful smile. "I neither convicted, nor sentenced Sharon Wiley," John persisted, trying to calm her down and patently failing. "That's all they are to you, isn't it," Denny replied scornfully, really getting into her stride. "All the poor bastards you send to a place like this, they're all just names, just a load of facts on a bit of paper. Every person you give time behind bars, is a person, a life, with feelings and fears, just like you have. Just because you ain't ever committed a crime, don't mean you know everything about how to survive." As both Karen and John stared at Denny, wondering just where all this had come from, Lauren and Tina appeared, each taking one of Denny's hands and drawing her away. "Well," Karen said dryly. "I haven't heard such a thought provoking piece of rhetoric, since Nikki Wade was here." When Gina reappeared, having observed the entire scene from a short distance away, she said, "I think you got more than you bargained for, didn't you," Looking straight at John. "You could say that," John replied. "Gina, can you put Denny on fifteen minute watch?" Karen asked seriously. "She's liable to do absolutely anything today, and I'm not taking any risks." As they walked back over to the door that led inside, Karen caught sight of Al deeply kissing one of the new girls. "McKenzie," She called in passing. "Either knock it off, or take it somewhere else." "For God's sake," Al shouted in disgust. "It's Valentine's day. Just because your very own piece of dick came to see you at work," She gestured to John. "Doesn't mean the rest of us are going to get any today. So lighten up for once." Al hardly ever exchanging more than two words with her, and only when necessary, Karen knew that something was different about Al today. "McKenzie, come here," Karen said calmly, and when Al slouched disdainfully up to her, Karen looked at her closely. "Stand still," She said, but al couldn't stop moving from foot to foot. When Karen moved to put a hand on her shoulder to keep her in one place, Al objected vehemently. "Keep your bloody hands off me," She snapped. "Look at me," Karen demanded. "And keep still." Then, after scrutinizing Al's expression carefully, she said, "Are you on the speed again?" "Think I'd tell you if I was?" Al replied scornfully. "Well, you're definitely on something, I can see it in your eyes. Gina," She called, gesturing to Al. "Take McKenzie for a drugs test, please." "Jesus, not again," Gina muttered resignedly. "Can't it wait till lock up?" Al pleaded pathetically. "Now!" Karen replied, the firmness in her tone calling for no argument.
Karen walked with John across the association area, and out through the main gate of the wing. "Do you think Denny's right?" John asked as they walked down the dingy corridor. "Yes," Karen said simply. "Though I wouldn't have put it quite in the way she did. But yes, sometimes you do think you know the answer to everything, and you don't." What did he expect, John thought ruefully. He always got the occasionally brutal, but thoroughly unvarnished truth from Karen, and he doubted that she'd ever give him anything less. When they were sitting opposite each other in her office, Karen took a cursory glance out of the window, just to make sure everything was going smoothly out there, and lit a cigarette. "So," She said, after taking a long and grateful drag. "To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?" The slight edge to her words told him in no uncertain terms that she knew exactly why he was here, and that she wasn't going to make it easy for him. "I think you know why I'm here," He said quietly, watching her as she tapped an ash. "I haven't seen or spoken to you for three weeks, John. You could be here for any number of reasons for all I know." "I can't go on like this," He said with a trace of emotion behind his words. "I know what I said on the last day of Lauren's trial hurt you, and I'm sorry for that, really I am. But I don't like not talking to you, not being able to just drop in and see you, not being able to ask for an opinion, even though I know the truth will probably hurt. I miss you, Karen. When you're not my friend, I miss you." Karen sat in silence for a moment, thoughtfully smoking. "John," She said eventually. "I haven't been spoken to like that, not for a very long time." Her thoughts briefly drifted to Mark's initial disbelief, when she'd told him about Fenner. "What you said to me, it hurt like hell. You know I couldn't tell you about George, because that had to be her decision. I would like to think, that you know me well enough, to know that picking someone up and throwing them away when I get bored, isn't how I do things. I thoroughly understand why you are so protective of George, but that isn't going to stop me sleeping with her. Just like you, she's a pretty well-adjusted adult, who is perfectly capable of making her own decisions." John took a breath to speak, but Karen held up a hand. She hadn't finished yet, and he was going to sit there, and listen to every single word. "I don't expect to be spoken to like that by anyone, John, and especially not by possibly my closest friend." "I am, really, truly, sorry," He said, spacing out his words to give them better emphasis. "I know you are," Karen said with a smile. "It's taken you three weeks to pluck up the courage to apologise, so I know you're serious about it. Just, please try not to do it again, because believe it or not, I've missed you too." Getting up from her desk, she walked round to stand in front of him. When he rose to his feet, she put her arms round him, needing the friendly, masculine hug that she'd missed far more than she cared to admit. "What made Denny say everything she did?" John asked into her hair, bringing them back onto a safer topic of conversation. Drawing back from him slightly, Karen smiled. "To quote one of the immortal lines in this place, you're just another paid up member of the 'All men are bastards' club." "Charming," He said with a broad grin. "Now I know where you get your, at times, thoroughly unlady-like vocabulary from." "What do you expect?" She said ruefully. "When you consider that I work day in day out, with women whose vocabulary is mainly made up of one-syllable, four-letter words, I think I do very well." "I suppose so. As it is Valentine's day, are you seeing George tonight?" "Yes, I am," Karen said with a soft smile. "Are you seeing Jo?" "Yes," He replied, thinking that at least now, he would be able to tell Jo that he'd apologised to Karen. "I won't hurt her, John, I promise," Karen said quietly, knowing that he needed to hear her say it. "I know you won't," He said, realising that she deserve nothing less than his faith in her integrity, both as a friend to him, and as a lover to George.
On the Monday morning, there was a little more excitement than usual on G wing, with the event of Valentine's day, and the hopes for cards or other tokens of affection from loved ones. "Shame there ain't no one to send me piss all," Denny said gloomily, knowing that there wouldn't be any post for her. The last time she'd even bothered to acknowledge Valentine's day, was when Shaz was here. They'd pretended to be making their cards in secret, as if any privacy for doing such things could ever be had in Larkhall. They'd sneaked into the potting shed when they'd been allowed out for exercise, using the confined, warm, homely little place for a brief space in time for each other. Julie Saunders received a card and some flowers from David's father Trevor, and Julie Johnson received a very pretty card from her daughter. Selena spent the whole morning smiling secretively to herself, and Sylvia stated that real, long-lasting love, appeared to be an outdated institution that didn't seem important to the women of today. But Denny found herself returning again and again to the place where they'd planted the rose of Sharon, as though this might bring her closer to the one she still missed so badly. Karen could see the exercise yard from her office window, and when she saw Denny return to the tiny memorial a third time, she left her desk and went down to the wing.
Karen found Denny, stood in front of the now considerably larger rose bush, with tears running down her face. Taking her hand, Karen tried to lead her over to a bench to sit down, but Denny wouldn't move. "I want to stay here," She said through her tears. "All right," Karen said gently. "Apart from the day she died," Denny said miserably. "That last Valentine's day was one of the last really special days we had. You know what this place is like, you can't get a minute to yourself." Karen suddenly heard Gina calling her name. Turning, she saw her striding across the paved area towards her. "Sorry to interrupt," She said, reaching them. "But there's a John Deed here to see you. He's at the gate lodge." Inwardly cursing John's timing, Karen asked Gina if she would go down to the gate lodge herself, and escort John to the wing. "Bring a bloke in amongst this lot on Valentine's day?" Gina said with a smirk. "I hope he can look after himself." "Oh, he'll be perfectly safe," Karen replied. "You'll recognize him, it's the judge who presided over Lauren's trial." "Oh," Gina said in a meditative drawl. "Given what day it is, I might just have a crack at him myself."
When Gina had gone, Karen returned her attention to Denny. "What did you do," She asked. "On that last Valentine's day you had with Shaz?" "Bloody stupid question," Denny said, grinning lopsidedly through her tears. "Shaz still had the gardening job then, so we took advantage of the potting shed having a lock on the door during exercise. You know something, no matter how shit everything got in this place, Shaz always made me smile. Life was a bit of a laugh to her. She had the odd screw loose, just like most of us in here, but most of the time, she kept us cheerful. You don't know how precious something like that is in this place. I can't remember the last time I smiled and really meant it. Everything gets so dark and pointless, that you don't want to get up in the morning. It gets like there's no point in existing. Let's face it, what've I really got to stay around for?" "Denny," Karen said slowly, always uneasy with providing fabricated evidence to stop someone feeling so desperate. There are a lot of people who care for you, Yvonne for one. She loves you as if you were her own daughter." "Yeah, well, she won't need to in a few months, will she?" "Denny, did Yvonne care for you in the way she does now, before Lauren ended up here?" "I know it felt like she did, but sometimes it's hard to see it. Everyone, who ever said they loved me, always ended up leaving me. My mum, Shaz, Shell. So how do I know Yvonne ain't going to do the same?" Karen tried to find an appropriate response to this, but John's steady approaching footsteps distracted her.
John had been surprised to see Gina Rossi coming to meet him instead of Karen, but inwardly told himself that Karen did have a busy job to do. "She's busy with an inmate at the moment, so she asked me to come and get you," Gina said, smiling at him. "I've been asked to take you down onto the wing. But I ought to warn you, it is Valentine's day, and I can't promise you'll get away totally unscathed. Dominic's already had to put up with more than his fair share of attempts to pull him." John grinned in heartfelt sympathy. "Do female officers ever come in for the same sort of treatment?" He asked, liking the slightly wild, tempestuous look about her. "Well, over half of them switch sides, just so they can get a bit of the other. So yeah, inmates trying to lull you into breaking one of the oldest rules in the book are pretty normal really. But today isn't a happy day for some of them. It's one of the times they all want to be somewhere else and with someone else. When I left Karen, she was talking to Denny. You remember Denny, she spoke at Lauren's trial." "Yes, I remember," John interjected, thinking that no, this woman would never be his type, because her constant chatter would no doubt infuriate him after a while. "Denny lost her girlfriend in Snowball Merriman's fire, I believe." "Yeah, that's right," Gina said with surprise. "Don't tell me you did that trial as well?" "Yes. This prison doesn't go looking for trouble, trouble just seems to find it, and far too frequently." "Don't let Grayling hear you say that," Gina said with a wink. "He shies away from all the bad publicity this place has had, enough as it is."
As John walked across the exercise yard with Gina, he could see Karen talking to Denny, and that Denny was clearly upset. As they approached, John caught the tail end of Karen's words. Moving to stand on Denny's other side, he gave her a new focus for her attention. "I know Yvonne's always been like a mum to me," Denny continued, ignoring John's presence for the moment. "But it ain't like she ain't already got one daughter, is it. Why should she bother with me, once Lauren's out of here?" "Denny," John broke in quietly. "I got to know quite a lot about Yvonne during the trial, and one thing I have learned, is that if Yvonne Atkins sets out to care for someone, she doesn't ever give up, no matter how hard it gets." Karen was briefly touched at John's all too accurate description of Yvonne. "Yvonne got this brought in," Denny said, gesturing to the rose bush that in a few weeks, would begin flowering again with the arrival of spring. "When Shaz died. It's called the rose of Sharon." "Did Shaz like flowers?" He asked. "Yeah, she used to have the gardening job. She got given it after Nikki left." "Then it's a very fitting memorial." "But she shouldn't need a memorial," Denny said bitterly. "She shouldn't be dead." "Denny, if Shaz was here now," John continued gently. "She wouldn't want you to be hurting like this, would she." Oh, no, Karen thought resignedly, that was the worst thing you could have said, John Deed. "What would you know?" Denny asked furiously. "You're just a bloke who thinks he knows best, because he's one of the pricks in wigs who gets to say yes or no, to someone like my Shaz ending up in a shit hole like this!" Karen laid a warning hand on Denny's shoulder, only just managing to hide a rueful smile. "I neither convicted, nor sentenced Sharon Wiley," John persisted, trying to calm her down and patently failing. "That's all they are to you, isn't it," Denny replied scornfully, really getting into her stride. "All the poor bastards you send to a place like this, they're all just names, just a load of facts on a bit of paper. Every person you give time behind bars, is a person, a life, with feelings and fears, just like you have. Just because you ain't ever committed a crime, don't mean you know everything about how to survive." As both Karen and John stared at Denny, wondering just where all this had come from, Lauren and Tina appeared, each taking one of Denny's hands and drawing her away. "Well," Karen said dryly. "I haven't heard such a thought provoking piece of rhetoric, since Nikki Wade was here." When Gina reappeared, having observed the entire scene from a short distance away, she said, "I think you got more than you bargained for, didn't you," Looking straight at John. "You could say that," John replied. "Gina, can you put Denny on fifteen minute watch?" Karen asked seriously. "She's liable to do absolutely anything today, and I'm not taking any risks." As they walked back over to the door that led inside, Karen caught sight of Al deeply kissing one of the new girls. "McKenzie," She called in passing. "Either knock it off, or take it somewhere else." "For God's sake," Al shouted in disgust. "It's Valentine's day. Just because your very own piece of dick came to see you at work," She gestured to John. "Doesn't mean the rest of us are going to get any today. So lighten up for once." Al hardly ever exchanging more than two words with her, and only when necessary, Karen knew that something was different about Al today. "McKenzie, come here," Karen said calmly, and when Al slouched disdainfully up to her, Karen looked at her closely. "Stand still," She said, but al couldn't stop moving from foot to foot. When Karen moved to put a hand on her shoulder to keep her in one place, Al objected vehemently. "Keep your bloody hands off me," She snapped. "Look at me," Karen demanded. "And keep still." Then, after scrutinizing Al's expression carefully, she said, "Are you on the speed again?" "Think I'd tell you if I was?" Al replied scornfully. "Well, you're definitely on something, I can see it in your eyes. Gina," She called, gesturing to Al. "Take McKenzie for a drugs test, please." "Jesus, not again," Gina muttered resignedly. "Can't it wait till lock up?" Al pleaded pathetically. "Now!" Karen replied, the firmness in her tone calling for no argument.
Karen walked with John across the association area, and out through the main gate of the wing. "Do you think Denny's right?" John asked as they walked down the dingy corridor. "Yes," Karen said simply. "Though I wouldn't have put it quite in the way she did. But yes, sometimes you do think you know the answer to everything, and you don't." What did he expect, John thought ruefully. He always got the occasionally brutal, but thoroughly unvarnished truth from Karen, and he doubted that she'd ever give him anything less. When they were sitting opposite each other in her office, Karen took a cursory glance out of the window, just to make sure everything was going smoothly out there, and lit a cigarette. "So," She said, after taking a long and grateful drag. "To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?" The slight edge to her words told him in no uncertain terms that she knew exactly why he was here, and that she wasn't going to make it easy for him. "I think you know why I'm here," He said quietly, watching her as she tapped an ash. "I haven't seen or spoken to you for three weeks, John. You could be here for any number of reasons for all I know." "I can't go on like this," He said with a trace of emotion behind his words. "I know what I said on the last day of Lauren's trial hurt you, and I'm sorry for that, really I am. But I don't like not talking to you, not being able to just drop in and see you, not being able to ask for an opinion, even though I know the truth will probably hurt. I miss you, Karen. When you're not my friend, I miss you." Karen sat in silence for a moment, thoughtfully smoking. "John," She said eventually. "I haven't been spoken to like that, not for a very long time." Her thoughts briefly drifted to Mark's initial disbelief, when she'd told him about Fenner. "What you said to me, it hurt like hell. You know I couldn't tell you about George, because that had to be her decision. I would like to think, that you know me well enough, to know that picking someone up and throwing them away when I get bored, isn't how I do things. I thoroughly understand why you are so protective of George, but that isn't going to stop me sleeping with her. Just like you, she's a pretty well-adjusted adult, who is perfectly capable of making her own decisions." John took a breath to speak, but Karen held up a hand. She hadn't finished yet, and he was going to sit there, and listen to every single word. "I don't expect to be spoken to like that by anyone, John, and especially not by possibly my closest friend." "I am, really, truly, sorry," He said, spacing out his words to give them better emphasis. "I know you are," Karen said with a smile. "It's taken you three weeks to pluck up the courage to apologise, so I know you're serious about it. Just, please try not to do it again, because believe it or not, I've missed you too." Getting up from her desk, she walked round to stand in front of him. When he rose to his feet, she put her arms round him, needing the friendly, masculine hug that she'd missed far more than she cared to admit. "What made Denny say everything she did?" John asked into her hair, bringing them back onto a safer topic of conversation. Drawing back from him slightly, Karen smiled. "To quote one of the immortal lines in this place, you're just another paid up member of the 'All men are bastards' club." "Charming," He said with a broad grin. "Now I know where you get your, at times, thoroughly unlady-like vocabulary from." "What do you expect?" She said ruefully. "When you consider that I work day in day out, with women whose vocabulary is mainly made up of one-syllable, four-letter words, I think I do very well." "I suppose so. As it is Valentine's day, are you seeing George tonight?" "Yes, I am," Karen said with a soft smile. "Are you seeing Jo?" "Yes," He replied, thinking that at least now, he would be able to tell Jo that he'd apologised to Karen. "I won't hurt her, John, I promise," Karen said quietly, knowing that he needed to hear her say it. "I know you won't," He said, realising that she deserve nothing less than his faith in her integrity, both as a friend to him, and as a lover to George.