Part One Hundred And Fifteen
On the Tuesday morning, after a very interrupted night's sleep following Nikki's revelation, Helen drove to work feeling very out of sorts. Her mood wasn't improved any further, to arrive at work, finding that two of her patients for the morning had either cancelled or changed their appointments, and that the one she was really worried about, simply hadn't shown. She could have done with an extra few hours in bed, and now she was at a loose end until the afternoon. She couldn't quite get her mind off what Nikki had told her the night before. From what Nikki had said, Karen really was serious about this. It wasn't some pie in the sky thing that Karen would dismiss at the first hurdle from area. It was something Karen had clearly thought about for a while now, something she really believed she could put into practice. It would be a marvelous opportunity for Nikki, Helen knew that, but could she really let her do it? Could she really allow Nikki to go back into the place that had given them both so much hell? Not, she realised with sudden clarity, without discussing it with Karen first. Glancing at the clock and seeing that it was just after ten, Helen picked up the phone. When Karen answered, she sounded business-like and professional, just what Helen would want in Nikki's future boss. "Karen," She said, not really knowing how to ask the question that was uppermost in her mind. "I thought I'd be hearing from you," Karen replied, after recognising the gentle Scottish burr that she could never mistake. "Are you busy?" Helen asked. "Yes, but it's nothing that can't be postponed." "Can I come and see you?" "You want to come here?" Karen asked, astounded at Helen's veiled request. "I think," Helen told her slowly. "That for me to be able to support Nikki in doing what she wants to do, I need to lay a few ghosts." "Of course," Karen said gently, understanding in an instant Helen's need to lay the past to rest. "Could you come in about half an hour?" "Sure," Helen said, feeling a little more certain of what she needed to do. "Is this really all right?" "Yes," Karen told her gently but firmly. "I think it'll do you good."
As Helen drove the familiar route to Larkhall, she wondered if she really was doing the right thing. She hadn't driven this particular route for years, not since she'd left, threatening to take Fenner down with her, but she still knew it like the back of her hand. As she approached the barrier, she remembered the day she'd arrived to the news of Carol Byatt's miscarriage. She'd been applying her mascara whilst sat in a traffic jam, and had arrived at the gatelodge with it smudged in entirely the wrong places. There'd been an interminable delay before they'd let her through, and she knew they'd all been laughing at her. But this time, she gave her name to the officer on duty, and the barrier was raised forthwith. Karen had obviously run down and told them she was coming. Driving into a space marked for visitors, Helen switched off the engine. The old place hadn't really changed, not in all the time since she'd last been here. Her eyes strayed up to the familiar cell window, almost as if she expected to see Nikki's face behind the bars. When she got out of the car, she saw Karen walking towards her, having obviously been alerted by the gatelodge. As Helen stood, her eyes again straying back up to the window that had once held the answers to her dreams, Karen reached her. "That was Nikki's window, wasn't it," She said quietly. "I used to look up at that window, every single morning," Helen said almost wistfully, giving herself a mental shake. She was here to bury old memories, not resurrect them. "It feels strange," Karen told her, as they walked towards the gatelodge. "You being here again, after all this time." "And it'll feel even stranger if Nikki comes back to be Wing Governor," Helen replied.
They were silent as they traversed the corridors up to Karen's office, and Helen briefly wondered if she would have changed it much since she'd been in residence. But when Karen pushed open the door, Helen could see that very little had changed. The only real differences were the ashtray on the desk, accompanied by a photograph that immediately caught Helen's attention, and a couple of pieces of furniture that were clearly of Karen's personal choice. Saying that she would make them some coffee, as her secretary was away, Karen briefly left Helen to it. When the door had closed, Helen picked up the photograph, examining it in great detail. How like Karen he looked, with the same blue eyes and fair complexion, and with his thick blonde hair flopping over his face. How healthy and alive he looked, nothing like the patient who had refused to show this morning, who was of a similar age to the boy in this picture, but who was a million miles from him in looks and temperament. When Karen returned, she smiled when she saw Helen looking at the photo of Ross. "Have you heard from him lately?" Helen asked, putting the photo back on the desk. "No, not for a while," Karen said, handing her a mug of coffee and sitting down on the sofa. "Which means he's obviously not desperate for money." As Helen sat down near her, she wondered how to brooch the subject of what she was doing here, but Karen introduced it for her.
"So, tell me why you're here," Karen invited, reaching for her cigarettes and offering Helen one. "Last night," Helen began, taking a long drag of the cigarette. "I couldn't believe what I was hearing. You, one of my closest friends, were actually suggesting that Nikki come back here, that she come and work in the place that made her life hell for three years. I was so angry at what I thought you were asking of her, of both of us, that I could have wrung your bloody neck when she first told me about it. But gradually, as she very slowly and carefully explained the logic of it to me, I began to see that you were right. Nikki does want to do this job, because she feels she can do it. I can't stand in the way of that, I wouldn't want too. Nikki has a drive to improve the lives of others, that you and I can only dream of. She will put everything she has into this job and more, and I'm not about to stop her doing that, just because the thought of her coming back here scares the living daylights out of me. It doesn't matter that Fenner's dead, because the fear I have of this place is completely irrational." "It is perfectly understandable that you feel like this," Karen said, gently touching Helen's hand. "You wouldn't be human if you didn't have some reaction to coming back here after everything that happened. But if seeing the crime scene of one of your worst nightmares is what you need to do, then fine, we'll do it. I know you want to support Nikki in doing this, but I also know that if you've still got the threat of Larkhall and its inhabitants hanging over you, you won't be able to support her decision." "I wouldn't blame you if you thought I'd completely lost it," Helen said with a self-deprecating smile. "Of course I don't," Karen said fondly. "And I bet there's the odd place that will trigger good memories as well as bad." "There are a couple," Helen said, not quite meeting Karen's eyes. "Then we'll visit those as well, and you can fill me in as to their secrets."
The first place they needed to go was to the G wing Governor's office, because it was only polite to inform Gina that Karen was taking a visitor down onto the wing. Gina was surprised to see Helen, and wasted no time in asking if Helen was coming back to work at Larkhall. "Not as such, Gina," Helen told her evasively, which made Gina instantly curious. "I think I might have found a replacement," Karen said, to try to assuage some of Gina's insatiable need for information. "But I can't tell you any more at the moment." Saying that it was perfectly all right with her if they went down onto the wing, Gina had to be content with knowing little more than she had before they'd appeared.
When they'd left Gina's office, Karen asked, "So, where do you want to go first?" "The art room," Helen said decisively. "Start somewhere good." "Now I really am intrigued," Karen said with a smile, leading the way through the familiar corridors, locking the gates behind them with the ever resounding clink of metal on metal. As they passed through the library that had been refurbished after Snowball's bomb, Helen felt a brief surge of fury that someone could have so ruthlessly kindled the most culturally diverse part of the prison. But when they stepped into the art room, a slow, gentle, utterly soul deep smile spread over her face. Karen watched as Helen walked meditatively round the room, taking in every inch of its space. "Not long after I came back," She began. "Me and Nikki came here for a bit of time together. It was on the day Yvonne tried to escape. I remember Nikki saying that we'd be quite safe here. Nikki started kissing me, and I told her we needed to talk. She said that talking was what you did afterwards. That was the first time we really did talk about what we were doing. Apart from when she got out on the night of Sylvia's party, I think here was one of the happiest memories I have of when Nikki was here." When Helen returned to Karen's side, they walked back through the library in silence, Karen realising that she was about to learn the answers to a whole host of unanswered questions.
When Karen let them out of a side door, and they began walking across the prison gardens, Helen said, "Nikki was always happy when she was out here. She has the same affinity with plants as Sean. I brought him here a couple of times, to give gardening classes to some of the women. He wasn't an unmitigated success with the likes of Shell Dockley." Karen laughed at this. "Nikki always used to retreat out here when everything got a bit too much." As they neared the potting shed, they saw Denny, sweat running down her face from the sun, and clearly weeding one of the flowerbeds. Taking advantage of the short heat wave, Denny had removed her T-shirt, which left her top half clad only in a very grubby bra. "Denny," Karen called out to her as they approached. "T-shirt back on, if you don't mind." "I'm just getting some sun, Miss, innit," Denny replied, grabbing her discarded T-shirt from where it hung on the open shed door, and pulling it over her head. When she was again suitably attired, she took note of who was accompanying Karen. "Miss Stewart," She said in surprise. "Are you coming back to work here?" "No, Denny, I'm not," Helen told her. "How are you?" She asked, wanting to deflect any further questions. "I'm still here, innit," Denny told her bleakly. "Do you like gardening?" "Yeah, it gets me outside, only it's still inside. Shaz used to do it. So, when she died, Miss Betts let me take over."
A little while later as they walked towards the door that led onto G wing, Karen could feel Helen's nervousness. "Are you sure you want to do this?" She asked. "I've got too," Helen said with determination in her voice. "The longer I put it off, the harder it will be." The first people they met on closing the gate of G wing behind them, were the two Julies who, having recognised Helen, had come over to see what was going on. "You remember Helen, don't you, Julies," Karen said by way of introduction. "Course we do," Julie S said in reply, giving Helen one of her broad smiles. "You come back then, Miss?" "No, Julies," Helen said with a fond smile of her own. "I'm afraid not." "Oh, that's a shame," Julie J put in. "This place wasn't the same after you left." "How's Nikki these days?" Julie S asked innocently. "We ain't heard from her in a while. Will you tell her to write to us?" "I will," Helen said with a wry grin. Nothing had ever been sacred from these two. "Julies, where's Mrs. Hollamby?" Karen asked, wanting to diffuse Helen's slight embarrassment. "Oh, she's in the office as usual," Julie J replied. "Probably got stuck into the chocolate fingers by now." "Nothing changes, does it," Helen said in an undertone as they walked towards the officers' room. But before they got there, they were accosted by Dominic. "Helen," He said in flabbergasted amazement. "What're you doing back here?" "Nice to see you too, Dominic," Helen told him in mock affrontedness. "I thought I'd come back and pay some of my old friends a visit." "You're never coming back as Gina's replacement," Dominic said in awe. "No," Helen told him in a stage whisper. "But I do know someone who might be." "But for the moment," Karen put in with a mischievous smirk. "Let Di and Sylvia think she is." "Your secret's perfectly safe with me," Dominic said, in gleeful anticipation of both Di's and Sylvia's reaction.
As they approached the door to the most formidable of Helen's battle grounds, Helen briefly hesitated. Laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder, Karen said, "He's really not still there, I promise you." When they entered the officer's room, both Di and Sylvia were taking the weight off their feet, and Karen couldn't help but smile. The Julies had been absolutely right, Sylvia was well stuck into her usual dose of chocolate fingers. But when she saw who Karen had with her, Sylvia choked on a mouthful of tea. "Miss Stewart," She said, wiping her mouth with a tissue. "The one and only, Sylvia," Helen told her dryly. "How are you?" "Oh, we're fine, aren't we, Di," She said, forcefully dragging Di into the conversation. "Still too many prisoners and not enough hours in the day, but then you left that all behind, didn't you." "So I did," Helen said with a certain amount of satisfaction in her voice, having not taken her eyes off the other occupant of the room, who had been mouthing ineffectually since their arrival. "Are you not pleased to see me, Di?" She asked, far too innocently. "After the stunt you pulled on me at Lauren Atkins' trial, I don't think so," Di responded bitterly. "You just couldn't wait, could you. I've never done anything to you, but you just had to drag up all that rubbish. That do-gooder of a barrister, wouldn't have known where to lay her hands on any of that, if you hadn't told her." "Well, Di, what ye sew, so shall ye reap, as Crystal would say." There was a stunned, awful silence, with the colour draining from Di's face. Clearly knowing that she'd lost this particular argument, Di got hurriedly to her feet and left the room. "Can you give us a minute, Sylvia?" Karen asked, jerking her head in the direction of the door. "Yes, of course," Sylvia stammered, getting up immediately and leaving the room. "You don't like to leave things unsaid, do you," Karen said ruefully, closing the door after Sylvia had left. "She was part of the reason I left the service in the first place," Helen told her. "She helped Fenner set me up. So no, I couldn't quite leave that unsaid." "Oh, it's not a criticism," Karen said lightly. "She's had that coming for a long time. How do you feel, being in here?" "You know something," Helen said firmly. "It's just a room. Yes, this is where Fenner ruled supreme, and yes, this is where he assaulted me, but it's just a room. I was so scared of coming back here, because I couldn't escape the thought that even though he was dead, his influence would still be here, still tainting everything it touched. But it's not. Fenner might still haunt my nightmares, as I'm sure he does yours, but he doesn't haunt anywhere else. He did everything possible to try to keep Nikki here, and to keep her from me, but he's lost, and she's won. Nikki coming back here in a professional capacity, would be the most fitting type of exorcism I could think of. If you were waiting for my approval before you went to area about this, you've got it. Nikki wants to do this job so badly, that I'll do anything it takes to make sure she gets it." "That was certainly some speech," Karen said softly, knowing that she and Helen were one and the same when they got onto their respective soapboxes. "I'll pay Grayling a visit this afternoon, and put everything in motion."