"Well at least I've got this evening off for tonight. It's Trisha's turn to deal with the Friday night drunks."
Nikki would have been in a dark mood if it weren't for a blessed moment that she was unexpectedly out of all that. The daily grind went on day by day regardless of the interview or so it seemed.
"It almost feels as if you're skiving off school," Helen joked. "It's strange as the club's half yours."
Nikki looked around in a dazed fashion. She was talking as if the club was another entity, separate from herself and receding rapidly into the distance.
"It feels weird, Helen." Nikki said softly, leaning her head on Helen's shoulder."I don't know what to do, where to go or who to be right now."
Helen hesitated before she spoke. Nikki was normally so definite, so grounded and assured. At that moment, she was neither of these things. It came down to Helen, in her infinite mercy, to tip Nikki in the right direction.
"Why don't we go round and see Crystal and Josh?" Helen prompted.
"Yeah?" Nikki asked vaguely. "OK, we haven't seen them for quite a while but I don't get it apart from that."
"It might be a good idea to talk to Josh as he became a prison officer after already being at Larkhall as the handyman. It's not the same as your position but it's the nearest there is. He had to go on a course which is the sort of thing you're likely to go on," Helen explained.
Nikki looked round nervously as the true impact of the future with some of it unknown was starting to sink in. She nodded her head after running her mind over the idea. She knew that all the glossy brochures in the world were like so much waste paper compared with ten minutes of practical experience from someone she could ask questions of. She had always worked that way.
They drove through the tightly packed in grid layout of terraced streets, which looked the same before they found themselves at the plain front door of Josh and Crystal's house. They hesitated on the doorstep.
"I know Josh said that it was fine to go round but I know how busy they are with two young children," Nikki said nervously.
"A promise is a promise," Helen grinned broadly. "but we can always make a polite exit if needs be." She turned to knock smartly at the door. After a significant gap in time, Josh's harassed looking face appeared through the crack in the door.
"Come in but please be quick as Zandra can move dead quick and Daniel's just learning to walk."
Both of them scrambled through the front door and found themselves in the front room and a tiny figure wobbled his way straight towards them. Crystal came into view from the
Door from the hallway and grinned broadly at them. It had seemed like a long time since they had last met as all of them had had busy lives. Daniel made a beeline straight for Helen and she gripped him automatically with surprising confidence and swung him up in the air. A huge satisfied smile split her face from ear to ear as she played with the baby.
Zandra, by contrast, held an outsize feltwriter in her tiny hand and was intent on her drawing. She was colouring in a patch of green underneath four indeterminate shapes with round noses and huge round eyes The two largest shapes were on each end, one of whom had the longest, most squiggly hair and the other one had no hair at all. The two small creatures had hair shooting outwards and upwards from the tops of their heads. Nikki's attention was caught in total fascination that it was Zandra's portrayal of her family and that Josh and Crystal were standing lumpily yet protectively beside them. So this is what a child's view of the world looked like, she thought, and somewhere in some forgotten shelf, there might be old paintings of hers stored away. A growing sense of wonder grew in her at this childlike determination to focus in on this drawing and nothing existed outside of it and wonder if her own sense of determination sprang from such deep roots.
"Hey, Zandra, watch out for the pens," She called out lightly as the sleeve of her pullover snagged the clutter of feltwriters on her table. She crouched down and picked them up as they fell on the carpet.
"A mother's work is never done," Crystal smiled. She had fastened the stairgate so that Zandra couldn't suddenly dart out and fall down the staircase. She had taken in yet another load of washing off the line, carefully folding them and stacking them for when she went upstairs later on.
"It looks good on you," Came Helen's reply. She stepped to one side as Daniel suddenly tired and flopped in her arms. As she did so, her foot stepped on something hard, some piece of leggo, but recovered her balance and slid sideways and down onto the armchair.
"You didn't come just to see the children. I thought you're both busy and all " Josh enquired.
"No but it sure helps."A brilliant smile lit up Helen's face with pure joy as this time, she was bolder, more confident. She glanced sideways and was intrigued to see Nikki starting to chat to Zandra, doing a little drawing of her own which Zandra promptly coloured in. "We did want to see you, not only for the company but Nikki wanted to ask your advice.
"It's tea time in a bit, you two," Crystal announced while her eyes took in what Helen had said. The ability to do two if not three things at a time and to be physically inexhaustible seemed to be a positive necessity. As they looked around, it wasn't the sort of house where everything is arranged just so, that precious ornaments were placed on low coffee tables which a boisterous child could smash in minutes. There was a vague clutter of toys and the odd trailing scarf and a single glove lurking in the corner of the room. The hectic yet homely family routine had gently drawn both Nikki and Helen in and they both felt how such a life might be full-time as the day drew on. They hadn't much chance to talk properly to Josh and Crystal but they both knew that this time would come to them. Unlike a childless house, it was children that gave rhythm and rhyme as to what happened and when.
Helen couldn't believe what she saw around her and it took her completely away from the cares of her job. This was something that she was becoming sure that she wanted to be a part of.
"It ain't true that you have to be born a mother to be one Helen. It's all hard work, and learning to love a part of God's creation that is so tiny. I ain't good at words. You can probably say it better than me. You're dead clever."
"For once in my life, I can't," Helen frankly admitted.
A little while later, Josh and Crystal took the children upstairs and settled them down to bed. Helen almost suggested that they come up as well but held back as they felt that they would be surplus bodies in the way. She stayed downstairs and they said little to each other. They drank in the atmosphere of calm and of being taken away from their normal surroundings, which begged them to do jobs round the house.
"So how can we help you, Nikki?" Josh enquired after the house subsided into peace and calm.
"You don't want help in fighting the Devil and all them heathens as you don't believe?" Crystal asked tactfully. She had gradually learnt tact in not using hellfire and damnation language in labelling her friends as unbelievers. She had concluded that Nikki was doing God's work even if Nikki couldn't see that it was the Holy Spirit who guided her actions.
"Well, it could get that way," Nikki answered straight facedly. "But I hope not."
Josh's expression was a picture in bewilderment as his forehead was more furrowed than a freshly ploughed field. Nikki's enigmatics had lost him altogether and Crystal wasn't much better placed.
"I'm going to be the new wing governor of G Wing at Larkhall." Nikki spelled it out.
Now it was Crystal's turn to do a double take and wonder if she imagined what her ears were telling her first time around.
"Please don't ask me to explain why I wanted the job. I've explained it once to Helen and I've just faced an interrogation squad who went through me with a fine tooth comb so I had to burn my brains out doing something like an exam paper, only spoken. Just take it that I really want the job, period, and I'm going to do it my way without getting the sack." Both Crystal and Josh picked up on how tired Nikki looked and how hard she was trying to be nice. Her sensitivity to criticism of the job she was taking on was painfully obvious in view of her past reputation. Her own defence was thanks to the way her alert ear had picked up off John the word 'cronyism' which she had plucked out of her memory during her interview. This had summed up so beautifully what she had hated about the prison service as it was and it told her how things might be different. The trouble is that she could so easily understand Crystal if she didn't understand because at one time in her life, neither would she. "Well, sister, I ain't about to argue with you. Just tell us how we can help, right." Nikki breathed a huge sigh of relief at Crystal's kindness and it freed her up to ask what she urgently wanted to know. "Josh, you have been on a prison officer's training course?" "That was a long time ago. I don't remember things so good." "Please Josh. Was there anything you had to do on the course that stuck out as opposed to what the lecturers said." Helen noted Nikki's very adroit bit of practical psychology in getting Josh to recall what he will most be able to remember. Long speeches given by instructors would have long since gone into oblivion. His face gradually cleared and he spoke at last.
"I can remember all that self defence stuff they taught me and how to hold someone without hurting them. One of them instructors landed me flat on the ground when I first tried it," Josh said ruefully accompanied by a row of sympathetic grins. He had trouble in remembering that period of his life because of too many unpleasant memories at the time and he felt that he wasn't really cut out for the job. It was Di Barker who had got him into it and he didn't want to remember more of her than he could possibly help.
"They had this cell made up and we all had to practice searching this cell and finding objects the instructors had stashed away…….the only thing I can remember that they told us was all those funny colour code things for whatever kicks off in prison……….."
Josh's words trailed off into silence as his memory failed him. Crystal stayed silent as he had only talked about the course as a one-line comment at the time and that wasn't much use.
"I can remember is that it was pretty easy. I'd worked there already so that helped. I was never too bright at learning things but you'll be loads better than me even if your course is harder."
"You'll have a nice smart suit I suppose," Crystal eventually found her voice on a fashion note.
"Hmmm, you'll look good in it, Nikki. I can see that one now I think of it," Helen joked, an attractive fantasy starting to weave itself through her senses. It was the little incidentals, which were starting to fall into place now that the good news today allowed them to dare to imagine.
"What about the screws, I mean prison officers on G Wing?"
"Well, Sylvia will be there till she's buried and she'll never change," Cut in Helen.
"You won't be able to call her Old Bodybag any more. You've got to treat her with respect."
Nikki's face was a picture of disgust especially as she recalled all the fine words she had said only a few hours ago at the interview.
"You mean I've got to give up the habit of a lifetime and call her 'Sylvia'?" came Nikki's incredulous response. Her tongue nearly stuck to the roof of her mouth in physical disgust at the thought and went on to mime the word to herself to see if it felt any better with repetition. Unfortunately, it didn't.
"Either that or Mrs. Hollamby," Grinned Helen. At that point, Nikki choked and ran to the kitchen for a glass of water.
"No way," Crystal pronounced sternly. "The sisters will never forgive you for that."
"I won't either," Came the muttered response.
"What about Di Barker, Nikki. If she's on your wing, you want to watch her."
Nikki's face turned serious at Josh's advice. In comparison, Sylvia Hollamby and how she called her was a trivial matter. After all first Helen and then Karen before her had called her that and had given her hell.
"Exactly what sort of a problem will she be?" Nikki had a pretty fair idea what sort of mischief she could create having seen her in action but she wanted to hear other people's ideas. This was the way she would have to operate more rather than the 'one woman band' who she had been when she was running the club.
"If I know her, she'll come on all friendly, all sweetness and light so that you're not thinking what she might be doing behind your back," Crystal answered from bitter experience."
"The minute you're out of the PO room and she's there, she'll be stirring it. People like her play head games with you so that you get paranoid what she might be doing and try and drive you down. They try to have you either way."
"Just like Fenner used to do with you," Nikki answered Helen's contribution. Helen was silent in contemplation. That was indeed what Fenner had done and had made her suffer.
"At least I knew that Fenner hated my guts and I hated his."
"I know you, Nikki. You're dead kind and you'll want to watch out that you don't fall for some sob story of hers and get twisted round her little finger. She knows how to turn on the tears when it suits her. It could happen."
"Sounds as if she'll want to take Fenner's place."
"She is, sister."
A bit of a gloomy silence fell on the group of friends. They ought not to be feeling this way, as it was nice to meet up with old friends.
"Poor babies," Helen said softly at last. "I never thought what it meant to bring up children in such a bad world outside." "You mean Daniel and Zandra?" Josh answered. "It wasn't something we thought about first time when Crystal was pregnant but we just got to do the best for our children. Give them something for when they're growing up." "I can see that," Helen said dreamily. "I can see why mothers in prison feel so much for their children. I knew it but not the same way I know it now." "You and me both." Nikki's soft voice answered while the four of them sat downstairs in the room where the feltwriters, pictures, fluffy toys and pieces of leggo told even the most casual visitor what this home was about.
At last Nikki and Helen had to say their farewells and as they drove off into the distance, Crystal smiled to herself and josh asked what she was thinking.
"I know something. Helen wants to have a baby."
Josh just calmly accepted it without question. After understanding and accepting that Nikki was choosing to go back to Larkhall as boss of G Wing, Helen wanting to have a baby was no big deal.