"I'm ever so sorry, Denny," Gina apologised profusely. "Your VO was definitely sent out to Yvonne at the same time as Lauren's was. I know as I've double-checked the record and it was definitely sent out. Some muppet at the post office must have messed up so that Yvonne's received only one VO and not both. Until I get that back, I'm stuck. I'm really sorry Denny but there it is."
"You'll get time more with mum. It don't matter, man. There's always a next time," Denny offered generously.
Lauren was pleased that Denny took it that way and kissed the other woman on the cheek.
"You're sure you're all right?"
"Course I am. Now push off or you'll be late."
Lauren walked away down the corridor with Gina to the visitor's room in a cheered up frame of mind. She was all the more relaxed and confident as Tuesday August 23rd 2005 was fixed for her release date, a mere seven days away. Ancient superstition had not dare let her think too much of her release date up till then in case anything would go wrong at the last minute. Besides, by that time she had spent inside, she had been mentally trussed her up in to a secure routine so that the outside was unimaginable. She did not see the expression on Denny's face as she was left behind. In Denny's downcast eyes, Lauren was living in a world where the jail bars were made of bleeding rubber that were softening up and she was already starting to move away from her. She slunk back to her cell in a disconsolate manner to lie on her bunk.
Lauren, on the other hand, was feeling on top of the world and she chatted away to Gina who handed her over to wait with the others till the door opened. This was the moment when Lauren was at her happiest. Talking on the phone was all very well but her mother's voice was never enough for her, not when she had to occasionally cup her hand over her right ear to block out the sound of the TV in the background. Her mother's wide smile greeted her as she always did as she approached Lauren. That image was fixed in her mind after so many months and she had had to get used to one intense dose of mothering, usually shared with Denny when this was the one chance of human contact.
"I'm real sorry about Denny," Yvonne apologised. "I know that Gina tried to move heaven and earth to fix it up for Denny. How did she take it?"
"She was disappointed of course but I think she took it well. She knows that there's another time," Lauren offered brightly.
Yvonne gave herself in to a huge sigh of relief. It would be so much better if they were both under her roof and they could be where they were meant to be. She visualised it all so clearly in her mind. Still, one of hers was going to be sprung out of prison, thanks to the judge with who she had, ironically had a bust up when she was only walking the dog in the park and bumped into him, as you happen to do.
"So you didn't go to the funeral?" Lauren asked in a tentatively rhetorical fashion. After Ritchie had died, such a word had a nasty feel to both of them but there simply wasn't another word they could safely use.
Yvonne drew heavily on a cigarette and finished it off.
"Can't stand funerals," Yvonne said in a tight, hard voice. "I've seen my share. I did my bit in looking after the kids of those who did go. I didn't need to go. Not after Ritchie's"
Yvonne put her hand on the table and turned it upwards. Very faint tracery lines were still visible of those three lines where she had gashed her hand when two years ago, news had been broken of her Ritchie's suicide. She had been holding a glass and had shattered it under pressure. Ironically, it was Karen who had nursed her wounds that night but they were still there, just buried. She knew how Karen felt all right.
"That was a pretty crazy time in our lives," Lauren admitted.
"You can say that again."
A hush fell on the visiting room as though the assorted conversations had been turned off like a TV remote control of an irritating programme that they wanted to distance from themselves. The two women were truly alone with their thoughts.
Lauren could remember only vague sensations of that night except that she must have put away an awful lot of booze that night.
"Have you seen much of Karen recently?"
"Not much," Lauren replied laconically. "Before…..all this happened, she always put in an appearance on the wing and laughed and joke with us from time to time. Since she's been back, we've hardly seen a trace of her. She must be shutting herself away to grieve by herself."
"That figures," Yvonne agreed. She had done the same for as long as time let herself. Karen is simply using her office as Yvonne's equivalent of her bed.
"Do you realise," Lauren said slowly and thoughtfully. "I've not had a drop of alcohol since I came in here. I used to get so pissed sometimes, especially when……"
"You're slipping, Lauren. I got my regular supply of miniatures…." Yvonne joked in a low pitched voice, effortlessly sliding the conversation onto safer ground. She was about to mention that the Costas do pretty well in their line in gin and tonic but checked herself in time. Her dormant prison instincts kicked in at precisely the same time as Lauren's foot pressed on hers just to warn her. She wasn't used to watching her words, far less her thoughts, in case they were overheard. She was slipping, not Lauren.
"It doesn't matter any more. Certainly not for the present."
"But aren't you out in a bit? Can't keep track of time these days but it can't be long."
"No one's said. Anyway ask me when I'm out and then I'll tell you how I feel. That's assuming I'll know how I feel. I'd sooner face that then and not before. You know what it's like……."
Sensible Lauren, thought Yvonne. She remembered how she felt when she first got out.
"….besides. I put away more booze that night than I care to think of. I felt so broken up inside but I reacted in typical Atkins fashion by taking it out on Karen, Miss Betts I mean……."
Lauren shook her head in confusion as the image of her mother's lover dropped out of her memory banks and the combined feelings of hatred and insecurity that she felt for her, which went with the memories, that fear of losing that one protectress who she was that good and stable factor in her life.
"……….it wasn't what happened to Ritchie that freaked me out, it was the whole Atkins thing. Mum, I'm afraid of facing everything in me when I come out. Everything's secure here in a funny way. At least I know who and where I am. I'm top of the pile here as, after all, I am an Atkins."
Yvonne pressed her still wounded hand against Lauren's to pass on that strength to Lauren who was going through that momentary flicker of uncertainty and fear for the future. Yvonne knew as surely as she knew anything that Lauren wasn't top dog on G Wing because of Charlie's violent streak and his psychopathic cruelty. No, Lauren had influence because of her own quiet wisdom and strength in her, not even because she was her daughter. Any decent screw could tell that Lauren worked for them if they only treated her with respect. Above all, Nikki and Karen were there in the background and held the strings of power in their very capable and all knowing hands.
"That's because you're my daughter," Yvonne's incredibly tender voice caressed the younger woman as much as if she had held her close. "I've watched over you since you were born from the moment the nurses at the hospital gave you to me to hold." "I'm being silly," Lauren confessed, her mood switching and smiling suddenly in that touchingly childlike way. "I'm lucky, luckier than I dare think before the trial, luckier than……." Both of them knew that Lauren was referring to Denny. Yvonne glanced at the clock on the wall, saw that the time was marching inexorably forward and carried on while there was still time.
"Don't forget what the judge said, Lauren. If I remember rightly….."Yvonne paused for thought as the words slid into place from her faultless memory banks. "…..'You
must receive whatever psychiatric treatment that may be recommended for you. However, to ensure that you sufficiently learn your lesson, the day of your release, will be the start of a five year suspended sentence. This means, that if, at any point during the ensuing five years, you commit any crime, you can be recalled to prison immediately, and this will be non-negotiable.'"
Lauren's face fell. That spectacular moment of joy and gratitude had obliterated the fine print of the judgment. She remembered the moment as if it were yesterday, standing in the dock, feeling very exposed looking up at that very kindly, wise grey haired man dressed in his red regal robes and speaking in his sonorous tones. He was the only man she had come to respect.
"The judge knows what he is doing, well most of the time. You'll bite the bullet and I'm sure that Karen will be on the ball and get everything all fixed up when your time comes up," Continued Yvonne in firm tones.
"You're sure, mum, the way she is right now?"
Yvonne had a flickering moment of hesitation and then dismissed it.
"I know Karen. She'll dot the i's and cross the t's of everything she comes across and she'll work bloody hard for you even if she's falling apart inside, too bloody hard for her own good. That's what she's like……."
Yvonne's feelings were suffused with that anxious wish to be there for her, for that woman whose strength and toughness was perilously likely to work against her
"I wish I could help Karen right now but I know she probably won't let me," She added.
"It's not because the two of you aren't together any more, are you." Lauren asked anxiously.
"Definitely not, Lauren. It's just that she is not the 'being helped' kind. You must know that. She's worse than I ever was …..."
Yvonne gave a short laugh, which wasn't really one. Being stuck with being an Atkins wasn't exactly a bleeding joke. Karen had never talked about her family to her but it crossed her mind that the clue to her must surely lie there.
"It's just that she was there for me….that was a first in my life," she added in bitter reflection of how inadequate Charlie and past lovers before him had been. "She helped me through the worst of losing Ritchie and I owe her so much in return."
"Why don't you phone her or see her?" Lauren asked simply.
Yvonne shook her head. If she was emotionally devastated as she suspected as she was, she didn't know which Karen Betts would pick up the phone or answer the door. It wasn't as easy as that.
"Tell you what, I'll talk to Nikki about her….while I'm still here. She's close to Karen."
"Do that, Lauren."
"Roisin and Cassie give their love as always, and Michael and Niamh. I ought to warn you that he's in danger of becoming a teenager," Yvonne ended on a humorous edge after a rather depressed silence.
"I hope they'll remember what I look like," Lauren asked anxiously as her face softened with real affection. Her most innocent pleasure was to play with their two adorable children. Their cards and messages over the months were her treasured possessions in her cell to be carefully read and reread. They had not changed, as they existed as how she had last seen them. They had been good for her and had helped her escape into a second childhood.
"I wish I knew then what I know now," Lauren suddenly burst out as other memories of Cassie and Roisin came to the surface. They were in their little private island, isolated as they were from the random chatter between other visitors and prisoners, dressed in their identical red bibs, which made them look alike when their lives were anything but. She remembered how she lay in bed with two pairs of warm arms, which carried her off safely to sleep that night. She had known that if this were all she ever had from these two women who had come in to her life it would do her just fine. It was months later on that when they romanced her into their bed. She would never forget that image of that bedroom which was lit by a single lamp, which cast long shadows across the room and the tender way they made love to her.
"Don't we all."
The tone in Yvonne's voice was bittersweet with knowledge of life's chances wasted and those she had not let slip through her fingers. There were only so many chances, that's all.