At the appointed time, the bedside alarm clock peeped out its urgent message and the half conscious dreaming Karen would sorely have wanted to push it away. She had had weeks of getting up when she wanted, sipping a morning cup of coffee and lingering over the first cigarette of the day. She had been used to the brilliant sunshine finding its way through the cracks of the shuttered windows as a precursor to the blasting heat of the Spanish sun. She was back in England now and everything seemed pale and washed out in contrast to her tanned skin. No more strolling round the local market and basking by the swimming pool. A flat in the middle of the East End docklands hardly allowed for such an indulgence. The bloody clock was in full nag mode and she lazily switched the alarm off with an exasperated flick of her hand.
She couldn't believe it that she was back in her flat and everything was normal, or as normal as it could be after the bittersweet way that her relationship with George had ended. That brought her back to full circle of being on her own, of truly being on her own now that…….. She promptly slid away from that one. She really didn't want to go there but for once, she didn't want to click into action as she normally did. She stared into the mirror to look at herself. A much more suntanned face surprised her from the mental image she expected and she sensed that she had looked worn and washed out before she had gone away. Her gaze focussed on her work suit, which was hung up on the rail, but it didn't fit with that suntan. She really had to make an effort to pull herself together.
Once in the car, she was shocked to encounter the hordes of cars manically jockeying for position and dominance in the London rush hour traffic. Normally, she hardly noticed it but today, it offended her inclination to lazily make her round in a car, like in Yvonne's runabout. It felt strange getting used to the traffic being on the different side of the road and to watch out for right hand turns across the stream of traffic instead of the left turn. For one second, she felt that she was sitting in the wrong seat to drive until instincts took over. Eventually, she found her way to the familiar side street for Larkhall. For a second, she felt anxious in throwing herself back into the maelstrom of her work.
"You only run the bloody place," She chided herself out loud. In the times she had spent on her own except when George had come to stay, she had got used to occasionally speaking her thoughts allowed. 'First sign of madness' was the playground saying years ago but when she came to think of it, was it any madder than some of the situations she had faced in the prison service. In her mellow mood, she couldn't see the harm in it, not in comparison with the reckless way she had gone up on the roof to save Denny. Now that she sat in the car and the prison walls had prompted her first thoughts of her actions that day, that word did jump out of her unconscious.
Wearily, she gathered her brief case and locked up the car, straightened her face to what a governing governor looked like and went through the sturdy wooden door to pass by the gate lodge.
"Morning, Karen. You look really well."
"Do I?" Karen answered vaguely, her eyes clouding over slightly.
"Course you do. You've obviously been mopping up the sun or else been at one of those health centres," Came Ken's confident reassuring tones.
"It doesn't last forever. Sooner or later, you have to catch the flight home and struggle through all the rigmarole," Sighed Karen.
Ken was genuinely glad that his boss looked a hundred times better though a little bit of his mind would have liked the sun and the sea. That 'fishing expedition' with the lads in Amsterdam which was plastered across the front page of the Sun was the last real break he'd had, if you could call it a break.
"I nearly forgot, two messages for you. One from Mr. Grayling that he's coming down at eleven o clock to see you and another from Nikki to hope everything's all right when you get in."
Karen wondered if Grayling was going to carry on the row from where he had left off when he had suspended her from duty. She really wasn't in the mood for an argument. In fact she wasn't in the mood for much except for crawling into her office and doing something pretty mundane, dull and repetitive. The message from Nikki was obviously her carefully coded professional enquiry under which was her very real personal concern for Karen. It touched her in an abstract way.
"Can you pass the general message that I'm back but I'll need a little time to settle back in. I'll be around the wings again when I'm ready."
Ken smiled briefly at her in acknowledgement of the wish and she picked up her keys as normal. She was soon swallowed up by the none too bright artificial lights of the prison. She felt that it was fortunate that the prisoners were still locked up and there weren't any well-wishers. Somehow she didn't feel that she could cope with it.
It was with a feeling of relief that she entered her office. She ran her eye over it and, while the in tray was piled up with papers, it wasn't nearly as much as she feared. There were a few scrawled noted paper clipped to some of the papers, most of it in Nikki's handwriting as to the generalised stab that had been made to deal with the matter. She clicked on her computer and heartily hoped that Neil had ploughed his way through the torrent of E mails that would have poured in. there were moments like this that she thought that electronic advances in communication were a mixed blessing. In the end, she let a moderate stream of them emerge from the cyberspace and lie there where they lay. It was, after all, her first day back and she reasoned to herself that there was no sense in breaking her back first day in. The chances were, she admitted grimly to herself, that she would be doing that in short order because what else did she have in her life right then?
She glanced sideways while she lit her first works cigarette of the day and her eyes fell upon a silver framed photograph which had mysteriously appeared, propped up to the right hand side of her desk. Immediately, her feelings of panic and desperation went into overdrive. Life was too cruel to transform the clean cut adolescent into the cold, lifeless colourless face of her son who had deserted this world and the horrific flashback of that sideways gash on the inside of his wrist. Helen had been right to shout at her not to look.
There were things in life that no human being should look at. Courage didn't come into the matter and, with that resolve, she took the photograph frame and slid it into her top drawer. It would come out when she was ready for it.
With that resolve, she summoned up the energy to attack the pile of E-mails waiting for her. No matter how taxing or tedious they were, this was something in her life that she could deal with right now.
"No news of how Karen is?" enquired Colin of Nikki in passing. She was the first person everyone thought of asking for information.
"Give her a break," Nikki told him firmly before softening her approach. "Look, I know you're genuinely concerned about her like we all are. Just give her a little time as she's been through a lot recently. She'll talk when she's ready."
Gina approached the two of them and was not so sure of this. She had worked closely with Karen when she was acting wing governor and she knew that Karen could certainly put up the professional mask when she wanted to. She spotted the flicker in Nikki's eye and the hesitancy in her speech.
"Reckon you'd get a bloody medal, Colin, if you asked her straight out. That is, if you lived to tell the tale."
There was a general laugh as Gina expertly lightened the atmosphere to Nikki's immense relief.
Karen picked up her phone for the first time that morning to be told that Grayling was on the scene.
"Oh help," She responded just after she put the phone down. There were papers all over the place as Karen had an unexpectedly unwelcome phase of indecisiveness. She grabbed at some files and looked for a place to tidy them away so that her room was ready for inspection but Grayling didn't give her enough time.
"Three out of ten for tidiness," came his carrying voice from behind her. "Never mind, I'm not some anally retentive staff inspector and I thoroughly recommend your use of the floor as the one temporary filing place so you can decide what to do with things. Unlimited space to work in. Mind you, I've had to give that up now Alison Warner is the neighbourhood spy and won't give me a moment's peace."
There was a broad grin on his face and this was his accompaniment to his indirect way of showing Karen that all was forgiven after their verbal set to.
"So what's been going on while I've been away?"
"You're asking me?"
"Well," answered Karen dryly to Grayling's exaggerated look of innocence. "Either you or Nikki are most likely to know. You've always known everything there is to know. I learnt that one years ago and later on, that if there was anyone I'd go to with a problem at work, I'd go to you."
"Well, as it happens, Nikki had got practice as your part time stand in. I really ought to give you a direct order to be well as you possibly can as I can see that there is another highly talented workaholic in the making. She really ought to learn to stick to just the one job."
Karen was touched to see that, behind that joking exterior, a real sense of warm affection for both of them flowed out from him. He could sense the incredible talent that both of them possessed and he could not find it in himself to be jealous of either of them. In turn, at a time when her sense of self worth in her home life left something to be desired, she was gratified to be told that in one area of her life, she was getting it right.
"I must talk to her some time," Came her straight faced reply before she softened her tone." I'd like to thank her for what she's done."
"Anyway, it's been the same routine as before. You'll find my 'Adam' E-mail folder significantly enlarged. I'm sorry for the mess that was left but I could not be spared last week from Area as Alison Warner had pinned me down to some urgent deadlines. The main reason I came to see you was to ask you how you are, I mean personally."
Karen was happy to chatter on about work related matters but the shutters came up when Grayling asked about her home life. She had trouble trying to work that out in her own head far less to talk to even a close and loyal friend.
"As well as can be expected," Karen answered with a blank face.
"That's not saying much. That's what they say in hospitals when…."
"I know, Neil. I used to work in one."
A silence fell on the room after Karen had edgily cut in on Grayling with less than her usual politeness. One part of his mind was racing instinctively at lightning speed to manoeuvre his way behind Karen's 'stonewalling' tactics but acute inhibitions held him back. A long time ago, when he was another person, he could appeal to greed and self-interest and know what strings to pull but this was totally different. He really cared about people these days and he was hyper conscious that he should do and say the right thing. He could so easily be indirect and camouflaged in the way he operated but at moments like these he always questioned himself. He finally resolved this inner tension by telling himself that it really wasn't doing her any good to behave the way she did and that he could not in all conscience just leave his visit with a few commonplace pleasantries, go back to area and worry on the other end of the phone.
"What sort of break have you had? I hope you've not been thinking about work? That was not the object of the exercise." He laughed lightly.
"Oh, as you can see, I've spent time in a villa in Spain. Yvonne lent it to me. I've just been sunbathing, driving around and taking it easy. It did me some good."
"Have you seen much of George recently?"
Instantly, Grayling knew that he had blundered. One look at her face and he saw a scared look in her eye before the shutter slammed down shut. What have I done, he groaned inwardly? What in hell have I said wrong? I have to know.
"What happened? I'd really would like to know as I got to like her a lot."
"Well, what can I say? I saw her recently."
"I trust she was well."
"Not exactly," Came Karen's hesitant answer to his bland question. Her eyes were flitting all over the place but she could not entirely remove herself from his intent gaze. "You really have to know, Neil," She finally said with exasperation.
"Look here, Karen. I really don't like to pry if I don't need to. I'm not like I used to be……"
It was Grayling's turn to sound unsettled, totally unlike the super smooth character he used to be once.
"……..but if there is something really troubling you, it would be better to confide in someone who I would like to think of as not only your boss but as a good friend. If you really didn't know which way to turn and you wanted to talk to someone, I'd like to think you could pick up the phone and talk to me. Or if you thought I was that formidable……"
and at this point, he laughed self deprecatingly, "……I'd be happy if you talked to Nikki or anyone close to you. It needn't be me, but I'm as good a candidate as anyone."
It was his mixture of his hypnotic voice and utter humility that took her back in a weird sense of role reversal back to when she came to make her claim as Governing Governor. It was the one thing that finally got through.
"You're as persistent as John. You'll never give up so I might as well tell you. I think that George and I finished while we were in Spain. That's all."
An incredible wave of mixed emotion broke over him, of relief that he knew and infinite pity for Karen at those flat, understated words. He closed his eyes. He was lucky he was living with Marcus and dreaded the thought of returning to his so called carefree single days. Add to that the pain of losing her son and Karen's nerve endings were so obviously red raw and exposed.
"Oh God. I never knew. I'm so sorry."
Instantly, he felt awkward to hear what he thought were very trite words but the faintest flicker of a smile soothed the lines on her face. It wasn't until you were really down that you see the good that there is around. They were facing each other, close up almost like lovers wanting to comfort each other except that they both knew that it could never be like that.