" 'I'm speaking in a capacity'…scratch that…'I'm speaking in a dual capacity, both as ex-prisoner and as current wing governor," Nikki rabbited away to a half asleep Helen at an insanely ungodly hour. "That's a load of shit. The Julies would fall about laughing if they heard me talking this pile of bollocks. I'm supposed to be speaking up for them, not sound like the suit I would have once taken the piss out of."
"You did, Nikki," Mumbled Helen as the thick fog of sleep swirled around her brain, coaxing her to surrender to the nice cosy feel of the bed. The staccato sounds emanating from some other dimension kept her from totally drifting off.
"Eh….I did? I'm sorry, Helen. I've apologised a million times since our second night together. It's just that this speech sounded great when I looked at this last night and now in the cold light of morning, I really don't like it or myself as I sound."
Helen groaned and her sense of realism prompted her to open a sleepy eye. She dare not think what the time might be but it felt very early. The spirit was willing to be the caring partner but the spirit felt very weak.
"Yes, Nikki, but we'd had more than a few to drink at the bar last night by the time we finally looked over your speech."
"So what in hell do I do now?"
"Could you just ad lib it, Nikki?"
"Yeah, that's what I normally do for everything. I work it out in my mind and rely on all the right words to fall out of my brain."
"So what's wrong this time?"
"I'm really nervous about speaking and I'm scared that my mind will just freeze over."
By then, Helen's mind had cleared and she was just able to slide out of bed and collapse into a chair.
"OK Nikki, imagine I'm the audience and you're doing the speech. I've got a copy of it You do your speech and when you come to a bit that doesn't sound right, shout out the alterations of what comes first to your mind and we'll rewrite the bloody thing."
A dawn's awakening look stole across Nikki's expressive features. This was mingbogglingly simple. This was pure genius and her stress levels started to drop dramatically. She could see that narrow pathway opening out before her clear of disaster on either side. All she had to do was to hold to nerve and trust to fate…..and Helen. That look was succeeded by one of wonder as she shook her head incredulously and her words framed her thoughts.
"Why in hell didn't I think of that before?"
Helen's smile was utterly smug but she refrained from comment.
As the second day of the conference started, there was a criss crossing of people converging on the double doors and Helen could not help noticing the physical proximity of John and Karen and, as she had said and thought to Nikki, there was a distinct resemblance to a married couple about them. John looked relaxed and wide-awake while Karen looked tense but she put that down to nerves before her speech. However, she could not let her attention stray as she had her hands full in being supportive of Nikki. A faint memory came back to her of doing the like for Thomas many years ago but he had that sort of earnest self confidence and experience whereas this was all new to Nikki. She sat at the end of the row, clutching and rustling a sheaf of papers and wondering if she was best off being early on or having to wait till later on as Karen would have to do. Looking backwards on the day, Nikki's memory was utterly blank in the period up till the chairman called on her next to speak.
'Who? Me? He must mean someone else,' Nikki thought for a confused second before her legs took her stiffly up the central aisle, crossing over to the podium. To her intense relief, the wooden structure was a solid affair that she could cling tightly onto. The time before she launched into her speech was an infinity and the first words that came out of her mind came out of her mouth.
"Well, I suppose I'm just the new kid on the block," she confessed frankly. "I'm used to saying my piece as some have found out to their cost but this one really scares me." A slight murmur of sympathy ran through the hall at Nikki's hesitant start and triggered her sheer nerves to veer into keyed up excitement, which unfroze her mind so that her delivery gradually gained both talk rapidity and fluency.
"I shouldn't suppose that everyone's heard of me round here, I'm not that famous. I'm Nikki Wade and I've done every kind of job you care to name in pubs, clubs until I got to set my own with my then partner. I hadn't the faintest experience of what it was to end up on the wrong side of the law till I went through the front door of my club and ended up taking out the policeman who was threatening to rape Trish, that's her name. I don't want to go into the gory details and I freely admit that there were plenty of them. I finally got to see what really happened at the time of my appeal, after three years inside and after I was first tried. An 'old boys' organisation' in the police force stuck together to cover up the man's previous form in raping a female police officer who was another one of his victims…..Sally Anne Howe, her name was. The CPS deliberately withheld this material evidence and, on top of that, I have to conclude that the original trial judge was prejudiced in his handling of the trial. For proof of that are the two court hearings, one which freed me and the other which wiped my record clean not just because the truth came out but the way the case was conducted. Before all that, I was blisteringly and permanently angry, at what I saw as an injustice and being imprisoned in an institution, infected as it was from top to bottom by cronyism in its worst forms was just the final straw. Whether a prison officer favoured you or not meant the difference between being locked up in a solitary cell in my case or whether another prisoner who worked the system was covered up for. In the same way, a particular prison officer who remains nameless was protected by the then governing governor who turned a deaf ear despite his long record of abusing vulnerable prisoners. I must pay tribute to the wing governor who first tried to make prisons a better and fairer place was continually stabbed in the back and victimized by those who worked for her and also by her boss for 'stepping out of line.' I got out because of her, that she believed in me when all the other prison officers painted me as a troublemaker. She got me access to some real education without which I wouldn't be speaking to you now." Nikki's voice had been carried by the forceful rhythmic intensity of her feelings, which contrasted with the rather detached academic tone of the conference. As her emotions flowed freely into her words ,she came very close to say to the audience that 'as it happens, she's in the audience right now ' but she somehow noticed Helen sitting in the fourth row and slightly shaking her head. This was Nikki's day, not Helen's she was saying and she somehow stopped herself in time. In her turn, Helen felt the tears in her eyes as she heard words that she had last heard years ago, coming out of a TV screen in some nameless pub.
Nikki's vision went into wide focus as she looked out into the audience. Even the audience, who didn't know her, was gripped by the immediacy of her experience, some of whom had heard of her case. John sat up rigid in his seat as his sensitivities were opened up by the intensity of her words that occasionally borrowed from his vocabulary. She recalled injustices that tapped directly into her memories that would never really die. Yes, thought John, she was another woman who would make a first class barrister who he would be proud to see appear before him. This time, he was in the visitor's gallery and she was speaking from on high from the podium. Karen was torn between her own nervousness and general tension and unselfish admiration and consequently her perception of the speech was if seen through a dense fog. Eventually, Nikki looked around, a bit dazed and realised that she had strayed a little way from her script. Thank heaven for Helen's last minute inspiration or she would have been really struggling between the conventional demands of formal exposition and how her heart spoke for her. She paused, focussed her eyes for the place and poised herself to resume her speech.
"What I was coming on to say is that it mainly comes down to legitimacy. You might ask me why I am personalising everything, as my experience was untypical of most prisoners' experience in so many ways, including the trial that got me free and a retrial, which wiped out my conviction. The point is, that I am speaking as a one time prisoner who went through the mill and I need that before I can understand myself as a wing governor , let alone explain what I've come to believe and why." For the first time, Nikki noticed the tumbler of water by the side of the podium, Her mouth was dry and she duly helped herself to it. "Legitimacy, that's a good word. If you're in charge, anywhere, and whoever you're in charge of, accept what you do and why, you're half way there. Without it, you're nowhere. I listened with great interest to the very good question posed by Neil Grayling yesterday and, even from my patch, I wouldn't be able to answer for sure the series of questions asked. When I stood up for someone's rights and started off a demonstration as a black prisoner called Femi was beaten up, I was really fighting for the rights without knowing it that would be eventually be mine for the granting when I went into my present job. I could get to really have the clout to try and change things so that there is one rule for all."
The expression on Grayling's face was one of immense satisfaction. She had backed to the hilt, every reason in his mind why he had backed her as wing governor in the first place. He had sat through more turgid conference speeches than he cared to think of but this was so fresh, so riveting. Thank God Nikki took it into her head to join the prison service. His gain was someone else's loss.
"Even if the prison is properly run, then a prisoner will be subject to constraints in their lives or they wouldn't remain there. At best, mothers will be separated from their children and will see them if they're lucky every so often. Your whole way of life, going out when you want, seeing a film if you want, getting up in the morning and going to bed are someone else's decision. That is what prison is about and I have been interested in what the probation officer, I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name, had to say yesterday and that's where I learned that there's only so much I can do while prisoners are in my charge. I am firmly of the opinion that we must improve on one in two prison inmates in this country who cannot read or write properly and end up drifting back into crime, such as shoplifting, prostitution, all types of theft and drug dealing. This isn't an academic treatise as they are the women I knew when I was a prisoner and another whom I can think of who I took on to work in my club for her mother's sake. So we all need each other and at this point, I think I'll stop spouting and finish."
A round of applause broke out, John, Helen and Karen at their most fervent. This was pure Nikki. Karen temporarily banished from her mind the fact that she would have to scribble out odd chunks from her own speech as Nikki had said it first. She would have to banish herself elsewhere in the lunch break.
"I'm sorry," Nikki apologized to the secretary at the table below the podium. "I think I went a bit away from my speech." In her nervousness, she hadn't realized that these would be needed for the conference report. "If I can remember what I said different, I'll tell you."
They went out to where the buffet lunch was set and Nikki felt as if she were floating down from on high and had finished some immense journey. All these feelings flowed through her body, making her more talkative than normal.
"How did it go? Did it make any sense?" jabbered Nikki, anxious for somebody to say that she had said it right. The only regret at the back of her mind was that the Julies, Denny who were still inside weren't there to hear her and others whom she knew who were on the outside. She wanted to do right by them as well as her friends who were with her.
Helen was overflowing with emotions and wrapped her arms round her in a huge hug. Nikki limply clung on to her, a huge feeling of satisfaction welling through her.
"You'll be fine, Karen. You've spoken at conferences before…." Started Nikki, awash with adrenaline, thinking that nothing was impossible
"Correction, Nikki," Karen retorted. "I've been to many conferences but I've been in the audience listening to someone else. I've never spoken before. The thought of it really worries me. I'm not exactly feeling at my best and I need help with my speech."
A handsome lecturer with dark curly wavy hair overheard the conversation and inserted himself into the conversation.
"Can I help you? Your first time can be rather nerve wracking."
"Thank you for your kind offer but I think I can help, Karen," John cut in protectively. Nikki had Helen to help her so the least he could do was to look after Karen. In John's eyes, she was definitely giving off very indefinable vibrations.
"Perhaps it would be a good idea if you two find a room where you can work. Nikki and I will bring you over a range of sandwiches."
Karen nodded gratefully and slid off with John while Nikki went to queue up at the bar. She needed that drink.
In the afternoon session, Karen took the bit between her teeth and went for it. With short, rapid strides, she headed for the podium. She dare not even look at the audience. She had her notes to hand and launched straight into her speech. "I'm in a predicament in matching the excellent speeches of everyone who has gone before so I will pick up on what seems to be left in the neck of the woods that I know. I am lucky in my position as a governing governor as the battles that have taken place for a progressive humane view of running prisons appear to be largely won, at least where I work. Other prisons may not be so fortunate. At Larkhall, the pioneering credit lies with Helen Stewart, my one time boss, the same wing governor who gave Nikki her chance and whose example I have tried to follow. Though she no longer works for the prison service and her career paths have gone separate ways, we're good friends still and would like to think that she has influenced me even today in my ideas as to how to run a prison." Karen's curiously conversational style nevertheless made her tribute as words of high praise and Helen blinked her eyes. Spoken that way and in public, she couldn't really have done what she did all those years ago. She could remember the nervous strain, the private tears and that stubborn battle of wills. She couldn't be superwoman, surely, in her private psychologist's office and her London flat. Karen casually held forth on her experiences of different points in her career ladder to show where different degrees of power lay over the prisoners in her charge. As she did so, John was able to relax his concentration and his mind was able to run free and reflect on how attractive Karen was. There was something about a conference, which enabled him to slip free from the harness of his responsibilities, such as they were. He really ought to consider that Jo and George were approximately in the area of his life that was home but he was practically free, single, without responsibilities, at least for these few days. The world did not exist outside the goldfish bowl of conference and only Karen of any fancyable women was within it. Besides, Karen needed looking after or so he reasoned. The temptations were irresistible especially to hear her melodious voice from her throne. Roles were reversed for a change.
"I must make a personal mention in the discussion yesterday afternoon about the impact of drug addiction, I don't want to use this for any dramatic effect but this is something that can come home to any professional working in the field but, tragically, my son Ross died at his own hand after being hopelessly addicted to drugs. There is a real danger in supposing that human tragedies never happen to professionals in the field but that isn't so. The person sitting next to you might be more of an authority on a particular issue than you suppose. It happens this way in life…."
A pang of instinctive sympathy went through John as he saw her try and objectify what he knew was a traumatic incident in her life and to bravely carry on regardless. There was a distinct hush of instinctive human sympathy before that not quite perfectly suppressed edge faded out of Karen's voice and she approached the finishing post of her speech.
"I can't really add any more as to what Nikki and I have said so what I really want to talk about is the way my life has changed. I've appeared in court as a witness in the stand many a time, giving evidence as to character but somehow, I never got round to thinking of barristers and judges as real people, strange though it might seem. I have been fortunate in appearing in court on a couple of occasions when the machinery of justice has impinged on me in connection with my job and it has given me a real insight into the whole theatre of justice. On a practical level, it has given me an insight to see that how that operates will make a very real difference as to whether someone brought before a court of law will be set free or found guilty and if so, what form of sentence he or she will receive. On a more personal level, I have had a relationship with a member of the legal profession and I would like to claim that John Deed who spoke so admirably to us the other day is a personal friend of mine. To finish, I would be more than happy to be part of a contact list for any similar events of this kind. We cannot leave these matters behind at the end of conference but to carry on the good work afterwards."
At that, Karen neatly ducked down to floor level with a breath of relief at the applause. She really hadn't done that badly, had she? The conference dispersed at the end of the day and Nikki, Helen, Grayling, Karen and John were fired up by the way the conference had gone and formed a huddle round a round table. The round of drinks were bought in though, regrettably, the bar was no smoking. For a while, that was not noticed by the smokers in the group. John and Grayling naturally took the 'smoke free' zone as their right.
"So you won't be grassed on to Alison Warner for letting us off the leash and open our gobs," Grinned Nikki.
"What the ear doesn't hear, the heart won't grieve over," Grayling retorted. Word would go round on the grapevine but the way Nikki and Karen had made their name would be a sure shield against any criticism. He was happy and let the evening flow.
"Want another drink, Karen?" Grayling jovially asked but Karen politely declined.
"I've hardly had a smoke all day and I know it is a terrible habit but I must find the one permitted place that I can indulge. I'll join you later, Neil."
The sidelong glance at John was not lost on him but Nikki was still on an adrenaline high and totally forgot her nicotine craving. Meanwhile the party carried on with loud voices, the crowd round the bar and the emotional release of the ideas unleashed by intellectual discourse.