That conversation only seemed like yesterday, Karen thought as she stared wide-eyed looking into the far distance through the cigarette smoke, which wafted in front of her. Her mind took her back to that gorgeous meal with George, and Nikki and Helen for company, a very low-key dinner for four.
"Well, I'm working every night this week, so Trisha shouldn't get funny about me taking Saturday off," she remembered Nikki saying almost in a tone of defiance.
"You're really not enjoying working with her, are you," she could hear herself saying.
Nikki sounded pretty pissed off with her job.
"No, but until I get any bright ideas about what to do next, it's all I've got."
Nikki had seemed resigned, philosophical, as if knowing that she was stuck inside a bad relationship. That did not mean that she or any other long suffering partner, would up sticks and move out at the drop of a hat.
Karen inhaled deeply on her cigarette while her hand hesitated as to whether or not to press the buttons on her phone which would link her in to Nikki's place of work. It was one thing to feel dissatisfied with your job but quite another thing to contemplate jacking it in and taking up a line of work which she had seen at the sharp end, especially when that sharp end cut her on many occasions. It was these doubts, which caused her to back off putting her proposition to Nikki, which she had planned, and then continuing to edit and reedit her words, which ran round at the back of her mind.
Time was not on her side in finding a permanent wing governor. Gina, bless her, had held down the job brilliantly but she had made it clear that she was not cut out for long term responsibility in general and she was dreading the idea of the prospect of conducting all the annual reports. That event was creeping up on Karen. Gina had made it clear that she hated the thought of doing the interviews and writing up the reports when she knew that she would eventually end up amongst the very prison officers that she would otherwise sit in judgement over. Telling Sylvia to piss off face to face was one thing, but to put it down in writing that Sylvia was no bloody good and make it stick was another matter altogether.
"Was Trisha all right about you having the night off?" she remembered asking her that night.
"I expect she whinged about it, but to be honest, it goes in one ear and out the other these days. I'm so bored, that I'd even consider applying for a job at Larkhall if there was one going."
It was that magic word 'Larkhall' which had switched the light bulb on in Karen's mind and, by degrees, the plan had evolved so that her pressing vacancy of a permanent Wing Governor, had been sitting right in front of her on the opposite side of George's dining table. It had seemed such a brilliantly inspirational idea at the time, but one which the proverbial morning after, she started to have her doubts as to whether she could pull off. It might have been a throwaway remark of Nikki's that she forgot about the next day.
But then she was talking about Nikki. All the time she had known her, her reputation was for the bold, radical plan of action and as a leader bar none. She had even made her feel uncomfortable when, long ago, she had pointed out that it was not the very fearful Babs who had scrawled graffiti on the walls but Shell Dockley. That memory gave her a brief burst of confidence that, even then, she had that shining quality that lifted her out of the ordinary. Unquestionably, she was beyond the reach of the plodders that were possible rival candidates for the job of wing governor on G Wing.The question was, as she finished the cigarette and stubbed it out in her ashtray, was whether Nikki would see it that way and want to apply for the job. What Helen's reaction to Nikki being willing to take the job on would be, was something that Karen dared not contemplate.
Suddenly, Karen stubbed out her cigarette with as forceful a gesture at the dawning of the moment of decision. What the hell, she had nothing to lose by trying, certainly not Nikki's friendship. Secretly, she knew that she would rise to the occasion when she was plagued by self-doubt. All it took was that length of time to work it through in her mind.
"Is that Nikki?" she heard her own crisp voice with no hesitation in any syllable.
"None other than me," That well modulated voice answered.
"I wanted to put a proposition to you that you might be interested in. Strictly business, not personal"
Karen's voice as she heard it sounded a bit blunt but how else could she put it? Her heart jumped in her mouth as she waited for the reaction.
"I'm intrigued. How do you want to take it further?"
"Can I come and talk about it in person."
"No time like the present. What say you come over to the club."
With perfect aplomb, Nikki rattled out the directions to the club, which Karen scribbled them down, not trusting to her memory in a situation like this. When Karen put the phone down, she was zooming skywards in her spirits on a high. When Nikki put the phone down, her mind was ticking over the possibilities. Karen had given away more than she thought she had. There was an obvious work connection that concerned either her or the club or both faint suspicions lurked at the back of her mind but that was too fantastic and absurd to contemplate, wasn't it?
Karen pulled her car up outside the club, which up till then was an abstraction, the symbol of what had first lifted her out of the ordinary even when she was at Larkhall. She spotted the round purple sign with "Chix" very stylishly inscribed on it. She pushed open the front door and she made her way up the flight of stairs to Nikki's office. The door was wide open as she heard angry voices raised.
"Trish, we've had a deal that you deal with all the promotional work and new ideas, hiring and firing is down to me. That's the way we've always run the club….since before I was inside, in all the years that we were together." A brief spasm of pain contorted Nikki's face as ancient wounds were brought to the surface and unsteadied her voice before she brought it under control. "That's the way it's always been. You're better at your side and I'm better at mine."
"This is a one off, Nik. I don't normally interfere but……."
"…….this time you will interfere."
"I have my reasons," Trisha said coldly, her eyes not really looking directly at the other woman.
"Oh yeah? They had better be total blinders," Nikki answered scornfully.
"You're getting emotional and starting to get things out of proportion."
Jesus, this woman is like an emotional iceberg. She's got harder and colder in the last few years than I realised. Perhaps, I've had so little to deal with her that I've never noticed, Nikki thought ruefully.
"Let's look at the facts," Nikki said evenly. "She's worked only for a few weeks but I had a tip off that she was pushing drugs in the club. I left it until I could check over the CCTV camera and sure enough, you can see the money changing hands into her pockets and it wasn't smarties that she was selling. To make it worse, she went sick on Wednesday, guess what, overdose of smarties. I had to persuade Rhiannon to cover for her. She wasn't really ready to do it but she helped pull us out of the shit. I had it out with her on Friday and it was crack cocaine that she had been selling. She was guilty as charged and I gave her the push and now I hear she sneaked behind my back and has told you a sob story……"
"She saw me this morning and said that she was really sorry and wouldn't do it again and, all things considered, I thought I'd give her one last chance."
"You cannot be real in wanting to give that tart who was pushing drugs in the club just a slap on the wrist?"
"We've run through far too many barmaids in the past year or so because they don't come up to your exacting standards. It's affecting our profits…."
"Oh, so this isn't a one off?"
"Like I say, times have changed in the club scene. You might not have noticed it while you were …away, but 'clean' drugs have become quite normal these days. If you kick out every barmaid and punter who takes a little Charlie every so often…."
"Clean drugs? You've been reading too many magazines. My three years inside told me that drugs are anything but clean and they wreck women's lives…"
"You're talking about all that horrible stuff with needles. That's for the down and outs. A little Charlie helps make any party go with a bang. It's a normal and average in clubland, dear."
Nikki saw red at this one. If there was anything that could be calculated to rouse her anger, it was that mind numbingly empty headed prattle about being normal. Jesus, she had fought against that with all the fire in her soul for so many years, right from when her enquiring mind started to take her outside the cosy boxed world of her childhood.
"So, Trisha, are you planning to join the world of the average woman, the one who is married with a man and has two point four children. God knows how it is possible for any woman to have a point four child, that always beats me. Only thing is, you're gay so you don't quite fit."
"I just don't see any need to flaunt my differences. I can get along quite nicely by joining in with the crowd and where the party is, these days. You make your sexuality something to be a martyr about. I just want to let the punters decide what they want…."
"Oh punters, Trish. Is that what you call them. They all used to be our friends, women who could come and be themselves and we provided a place that they could do that….."
"….yes, yes, yes," Trisha butted in, eager to consign the past to the past. "The club has got bigger, that's all and a lot of the old timers have moved on. We're running a business or hadn't you noticed? I simply want to save all the hassle in having to rush around getting a replacement barmaid every so often just because you've got some kind of puritan hang-up about …….."
"Drugs. That's what they call it. In case you don't know it, I did time and saw quite enough drugs and what they do to women. I've got a mate whose late husband had half the drugs trade sewn up. She told me a thing or two about what goes down."
"I'm not changing my mind, Nik," Trisha said, her blue eyes looking through that over blond hair that fell in curtains either side of her face.
Nikki had been standing up, facing Trisha while their row echoed its way through the screen of glass windows. The direction she was looking was a little angled away from where Karen was rooted to the floor. Nikki wasn't conscious of her while she fought this ding dong battle and all her anger and contempt spilled out and resounded round the plush office and echoed down the staircase.
At that last comment, something snapped within Nikki and she stormed out of the office and straight into Karen's line of vision. Visible signs of furious anger and huge relief chased each other across Nikki's very expressive features.
"Thank God you're here, Karen. We're going to the back room to talk."
"What are you doing, Nik.We haven't finished getting the club ready for tonight."
"Oh yeah, we've finished all right I'm going with a friend of mine away to the downstairs room. Don't ever think of coming after me and keep out of the way for the rest of the day."
"Wait till I tell Helen about this one," Trisha said nastily, all her pent up jealousy over the past few years finally boiling up to the surface.
"Don't worry, Nikki will tell her," cut in Karen in her best self-composed fashion. All the time that the row went on, natural reticence held her back from joining in a row that wasn't her business. Once this unpleasant woman had pulled her into the argument then she got what was coming to her.
"Come on," Nikki urged, desperate to put as many feet as she could between her and Trisha. They clattered down the staircase, Nikki pushed open the door wide and they entered the dance floor.
Even in daytime, it suggested enough of a magic world with a high ceiling, overhead spotlights and an opulent bar behind which were recesses surrounded by lines of lights which must transform the club into a magic wonderland, and one which must be tantalisingly different from the run of the mill club. Karen was truly impressed with it.
Nikki hurried on, opened the hatch and let them through to a small cosy room.
"I'm the only one to use this room so I guess it's mine," Nikki said conversationally as she dropped into a chair and gestured for Karen to do the same. "I'm sorry for that drama, Karen. You should get a better welcome to this part of my life. You deserve it."
The simple words were pure Nikki and touched Karen to the core. In all the angularities of her present life, her solid friendship was something that would never change, like Nikki herself. It was something that she was grateful for, as she was far too conscious that she had inadvertantly dropped in at a time when Nikki might make a quick impulsive decision far too easily. If Karen had anything to do with it, Nikki had to take her time to think the whole idea through for both their sakes.
"I'm not sure how to say this, but have you ever thought of changing your career?"
"After what you've seen, very easily. This row has been a long time coming Karen. You happened to drop in at a time when everything was just waiting to explode. I can't see myself running a gay club for the rest of my life. In fact, I can't see myself being involved for very much longer…..."
Nikki's voice was calm and level as she plucked these rock bottom truths out of thin air and fell into a reflective silence as she mulled over the implications. Then her memory retrieved the phone conversation she had with Karen earlier on and her very clear brown eyes focussed in on Karen as she spoke.
"You didn't come round to pass the time of day, Karen. I remember that you had this mysterious proposition to put to me."
Karen's mouth was dry as she felt Nikki's expressive eyes focus in on her. This was make or break time, in some ways worse for the gradual build up than if some medical emergency had broken out on the wing, triggering in her the surge of adrenaline for immediate action. She licked her lips to moisten them.
"Ah well, what I was leading up to Nikki…"
"…it's the longest intro that I've ever heard," Nikki interjected mischievously.
"………is how would you feel about the possibility of being G Wing's next Wing Governor?"
A strange feeling flooded through every sensation feeling part of Nikki's body. So she was on the right lines with that off the wall possibility which had lurked earlier at the back of her mind. She felt as if the foundations of the club had slid slightly askew but no, it was her foundations, which had shifted. Karen looked anxiously at Nikki's wide-open mouth and distant eyes till she found her voice.
"Can I fly to the moon?" Nikki heard her own lips utter the words faintly.
"I mean it, Nikki. There's a vacancy for a Wing Governor for G Wing and I feel certain, no I know that you would be the best person for the job."
Karen was everlastingly grateful for the way her own voice gathered firmness and conviction while her repeated words began to sink in on Nikki's consciousness.
"I can see why you didn't drop that one on me over the phone. I mean it's a huge compliment you're paying me, but……."
"……would you want to do the job?" finished Karen for her. "That's the first question."
Nikki said nothing as she breathed deeply and she started to run over the possibilities in her mind while Karen respected her silence and kept her vow not to crowd her.
"Can you tell me why you think I would be up to the job?" Nikki asked quietly as the way opened up in front of her.
"If you don't mind me saying so, you demonstrated better than my words could say just now why you are up to the job. I hope you think that I'm not trying to take advantage of the situation."
"No, go ahead," Nikki reassured her.
"The first thing is that you care about people. You've got principles, which you'll stick by and will go to the wall for, where you have to. You've got that ability to reason with people that's second to none, and you have that infallible grasp of what's around you, of people and business organization. I can see that you've had years of responsibility, and I cringe when I think how badly underrated you were, by people we knew who I don't care to mention…….." Karen paused as she collected her thoughts and to wish away unpleasant memories which her words had conjured up. "You've got that spark and drive which I can't put into words, but I know in my own mind that I can just see you doing the job like no other person could."
Karen's words came from the heart with as much intensity of conviction as if she were testifying in court from the witness stand. In turn, Nikki couldn't believe what she had heard as those kind words flowed down her like honey and released so much of the tension within her from the row with that cold mercenary stranger who was a million miles away from her in spirit. She had got on great with Karen ever since the run up to the trial had steered her back into hers and Helen's lives. In her usual self-effacing modesty, she had no idea that Karen thought so highly of her.
"I can see what you're getting at, Karen," Nikki said with a half smile as these words came straight up from her unconscious as she whittled away at her barriers to accepting Karen's offer. "But I can see myself having an odd crisis of conscience or three." It was that brutal honesty with herself that forced buried memories of her past to test this decision to the limit.
"Listen darling, I don't even know how people like you can sleep at night, if you believe in a system which locks up pregnant women." That cold anger with which she had flung these words, yes, into Helen's face echoed in her mind.
"Well, you're just going to have to trust me. I don't." Even she could see that Helen's passionate anger was directed, not at her but at herself. Could Nikki trust herself that another angry rebel would hurl that very same question in her face sometime in the future? How could a future Nikki as Wing Governor ever answer that question and how can Karen answer that question that Nikki now laid before her?
"I can see that I could end up as part of an organisation where sometimes, I'll not only disagree with what I'm supposed to do, but also with what I'm supposed to make those for whom I'm responsible do as well. How do I work my way round that?"
"There's no easy answer," Karen started to say as the highly probing questions forced her to draw upon the full depth and detail of her career in the prison service. "If you have a problem, you can always come to me, and if I can't find an answer, I'd go to Neil Grayling at Area. Besides, you have the idea that you always have to work officially. There are times, very rarely, but they do happen when you have to be prepared to work unofficially where you have to. No book about the prison service will tell you this but it's true. Remember the sit in against that attempt to privatise Larkhall that Yvonne organised with all the old lags on G Wing…..."
At this point, Karen smiled fondly at the memory.
"……By that I mean all those with nerve and determination to act rather than let everything roll over them with barely a whimper. Well, I was at the back of that as I gently hinted to Yvonne that she sabotaged the presentation."
"You really did that?" asked Nikki in total wonder, not sure who she imagined herself to be at that point, the rebel prisoner of old or the wing governor she increasingly hoped that she would be.
"Just don't forget, you're not on your own like…" Karen started to say but cut off the comparison with her present situation where, at work, she could see that Nikki was on her own no matter how helpful Helen might be at nighttime to talk things over.
Nikki shuddered at the thought as the reality of her present situation came back to her with a wallop. That week or so at Lauren Atkins' trial had been blissful in a bizarre way as she was back with an extraordinary mixed crowd of women but all with a similar sympathy. After the trial, she had lost that sense of community as the workaday trudge through week after week of late nights at the club had taken over. She was sort of her own boss but dealing with Trisha where, as she now saw, a subtle battle for control had crept in and now finally, she was losing that battle. She laughed quietly to herself.
"What's up, Nikki?"
"Just that Larkhall could be my freedom and I have to make a break from being trapped in a job and a situation that I don't believe in any more. It's time to say farewell to that part of my past. Just give me a little while so that I can think this through in my mind."
Karen knew that it was no earthly use than to let Nikki work in her own way on this. She sat back in her chair while a companionable silence descended on the two women in that little room. The club seemed a mile away where, somehow, things were being taken care of. At least nobody disturbed them.
"All right, I think I'm basically convinced," Nikki said at last, to Karen's total incredulity. She never thought that Nikki could move that quick and expected to have to wait a day or so at the least. "There's one question. Haven't you got to sell this idea to this Neil Grayling? Isn't he going to think that you've taken leave of your senses, I mean looking from his point of view?"
"That's my problem, Nikki," Karen said with perfect aplomb. "Where there's a will, there's a way."
"Well," grinned Nikki for the first time for what seemed years. "I'll drink to that. My version of this is in telling Helen and hoping she won't have a heart attack."
"Are you sure that's going to be all right?"
"Absolutely. If I had been only half convinced of this idea, there's no way I could convince her of it. Now that I am convinced, I stand a chance."
An idea started to whizz round Karen's mind about how she might help out in this respect but she couldn't pursue it right then as Nikki had to get her whole attention.
A dawning smile of understanding spread across Nikki's face as her sharp memory picked up on Karen's passing retort to Trisha upstairs.
"That's why you told that tart that I'd be telling Helen all about what we're up to."
Karen nodded her head impishly, a little smirk at the corners of her mouth. She was starting to come down off that frozen peak of sheer nerves and she felt good and relaxed inside as she senses the reality of the way the future might unfold.
"You've heaped a lot of bouquets on me that make me feel that, yes, there's something else that I could be doing with my life. It took me a long while after I left school to at least get this club together. It was an important part of my life but I can see that it has moved on and away from where I started, thanks to Trisha."
"I meant every word I said. There's one thing I forgot to say and it's that I admire the way that you're better at admitting your mistakes than I am," Karen added earnestly.
"Like me saying 'piss off like I told the other tart.' That was me opening my big gob," Nikki grinned.
"I said that you're better than me that way, not that you're perfect," Karen laughed. That first ever dramatic three corner clash of wills down there in the segregation block was transforming through time and friendship into what could be their standing joke. "To be fair to you, you had your reasons as Helen filled me in on eventually. Just as an example,
I've just had a big argument with Yvonne who criticised me in her inimitable way in letting Denny Blood have her way in seeing Shell Dockley at Ashmore. She's afraid that it will set Denny back into being the way she used to be and went on to accuse me of overcompensating towards Shell Dockley."
"And were you?" Nikki asked in her direct fashion.
Jesus, it's like having a spotlight being trained in my eyes, Karen thought. Maybe it might do me some good.
"There might be something in that point of view," Came Karen's elaborate answer.
Suddenly Nikki looked at her watch. Jesus, the afternoon seemed to be ages long but everything had happened in just one hour. Her eyes and ears flickered between Karen and the world on the other side of that door.
Karen sensed Nikki's unease. She had Trisha and the club to deal with however much her world was changing.
"I know that you've got a club to run in the meantime."
"So what happens now?"
"I'll get on to Neil at Area, drop him the news and hopefully you'll have an interview."
"The boot's on the other foot." Smiled Nikki."I normally do the interviews."
"I'll keep you posted," Karen said in her brisk businesslike fashion. Then she added in a more reflective tone. "I remember shaking your hand last time you were at Larkhall saying that you had a lot to offer the world and I hoped you had a chance to prove it. Little did I know."
"And me too."
Nikki showed Karen out into the echoing space of the dance floor and escorted Karen out of the front door. She wished she could join her but she had a job to do till then. First thing to do is to find another place for Rhiannon Dawson to work with any decent friend she could remember from the past. The way drugs were creeping into the club, she might as well be at Larkhall.
"Coming, Trisha," She called back as that voice called after her. She had work to do but her future pointed elsewhere if she could persuade Helen that she was doing the right thing.