Yvonne had been highly impressed by George's very classy office right near prime shopping area in Knightsbridge as she parked her car in a prized car parking space tucked at the back. She was energized into whizzing into town to do her bit for Babs while Lauren pottered around at home with Trigger. She was led upstairs by her secretary and took a seat in a really smart gaffe with plenty of books and a large painting, above the desk.
"You better let me talk to Babs about me fronting the money to get her represented. I know what she is like and she wouldn't like to think she is some sort of charity case."
"But she's been a vicar's wife?" queried George.
"Giving, not taking. There's a difference," Came the laconic reply.
Yvonne was not in her most talkative of moods this morning and George thought she knew why. George turned away to check on the files in her in tray to ensure that she was keeping tabs on the rest of the work that she was handling while Yvonne gazed vacantly out of the large windows.
"Okay, my car or yours or both."
"Mine. I know the route backward from the number of times I've driven to Larkhall over the years."
George assented to the deal and soon, Yvonne's red Ferrari cut its way through the traffic with a determination that George silently approved of. It gave George a change from expending her frustrations with the other drivers who in her more stressed up moods were either ditherers or psychopathic. She could lie back and watch the scenery while the busy city center was left behind as they approached Larkhall. Perhaps Yvonne was one of those silent drivers, reasoned George, although, on second thoughts, Yvonne might have heard about her breakup with Karen.
The sky was an ugly grey with a sharp wind whipping the first spots of what was clearly a downpour on the way. George shivered and huddled into her smart coat, which took most of the cold and the wind. There were attractions in being inside, even in the drabness of Larkhall.
"What's the score, George? How are we going to explain it to Babs that she's not going to get one high class brief but two?"
"Leave that to me, Yvonne."
"It's your call," Yvonne responded with an arm gesture, letting her lead the way.
Ken grinned at the two visitors who passed through the lodge and Yvonne smiled widely when she spotted her old adversary, Bodybag.
"Might have known that you couldn't keep yourself away from here. You would have thought that you would give up and leave us all in peace. I recognize your friend with you," Bodybag added with a suspicious look.
"Aaah, Sylvia. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or so Charlie wrote to me when I was here. You don't have to worry about our welfare, we can find our way round here."
"You've come to see our practicing Christian I suppose," Came the grumpy reply.
"You know, if you got put out to pasture, just how many mates of yours would pop round for a cup of tea unless you bribed them?" Yvonne shot back with withering scorn. The muscles on her face were perfectly rigid and she kept the sarcasm in her voice playful to not give the fat cow the pleasure that she had got to her.
George kept quiet, totally enthralled at the cut and thrust between the two of them. She admired how quick witted Yvonne was and it gave her a real insight
Bodybag just glowered in anger at the way that that gangster's moll cheeked her for the thousandth time. She always made the mistake of rising to the bait and had never learnt to change her approach after all these years.
"You wouldn't want us to complain to the management round here?" teased Yvonne allowing just enough of a pause before going in for the kill.
No love lost there, I see
Bodybag stomped away in silence while Yvonne and George made their way to the main block.
"She falls for it every time. The stupid cow never gives up," joked Yvonne. That sparring match with her old enemy had cheered her up no end.
"And I thought that the cut and thrust in court was ruthless enough," Agreed George.
"It wasn't always like this," Yvonne reflected somberly. "I'm on the outside. This place has got Karen and Nikki in charge who really care about the prisoners. I don't ever forget that, not ever."
Barbara was slightly nervous but had started to settle down to Larkhall as much as she could ever do so. The unremitting attention of the Julies and Denny had started to pay off. Perhaps it was that long talk to Jo, which had helped as she had been made very gently and kindly to confront her demons and had brought them to the surface. She had to cling on to the notion that this time was different. That was what had haunted her and dragged her down that, in the eyes of the law, she had repeated her previous offence, a court and jury would infallibly see the matter the same way as the police who arrested her clearly did. Therefore, she might as well be guilty for all the good it did.
"Barbara," Nikki gently asked her when she came over at breakfast time. "Are you feeling up to seeing George in one of the private interview rooms? Yvonne's come along to see you as well. It's going to be chucking down with rain and I don't want anyone to get soaked to the skin outside." "I'm fine, Nikki," Barbara smiled back. "I'd forgotten how kind people could be." Nikki grinned and asked Colin to do escort duty.
Yvonne's arms were outstretched and greeted her old friend with a big hug. It had been a long time since they had met or had seemed so. She could put it down to the busy nature of modern life and the tendency to lead self contained lives outside the prison walls. Nevertheless, she was here now and that was all that mattered.
"It seems strange seeing you as a visitor, Yvonne. I get confused as to if I'm not back in time to when I was last here."
"That bastard Fenner's not around, Babs. That has got to be a bigtime change and a step up in the world," Yvonne responded breezily.
That was perfectly true, Barbara thought. Why on earth did I not think of that one before?
Yvonne and Barbara chatted for a bit in a desultory way when, during a lull in the conversation, George talked quietly in Yvonne's ear to catch her attention.
"I was going to pop out in a little while and try and mend a few bridges with Karen so at least we can be friends. Might I have a word with Barbara and slip out in a bit."
As Yvonne nodded in answer, George looked directly at Barbara to engage her in conversation only Barbara got there first.
"It's nice to see you again, George, but I assume this is not just a social call," Barbara eventually said.
"Ah, thereby hangs a story. I wanted to ask your permission if I could help Jo out a bit with your case." George's smooth tones rolled off her tongue like honey. "My reasoning is entirely educational."
"My experience in law has been almost entirely commercial. It has its advantages, such as in brokering deals between large commercial corporations. Between you and me, they are run by childish men with hopelessly overgrown egos. Over the years, I have skinned them for outrageously high commissions that have left me very well provided for in life. Yvonne does not know how much I have lined my pockets over the years. However, the nature of work has changed in recent years and involved much more well paying criminal work. I have often thought to myself that I really must diversify. I am seriously out of touch and the obvious way of gaining experience is with Jo with whom I have become close to over the years. When she was talking quite by chance about your case, the opportunity of a lifetime opened up in front of my eyes. Believe you me, I would not think of accepting a commission for what is, after all, only as junior partner in this case."
George can talk the hind legs off a donkey, Yvonne grinned to herself. She's cracked it if I'm not much mistaken, Yvonne thought. She saw Barbara glance over her spectacles at George's perfectly composed expression and smile slightly.
"Besides," George continued, softening the artificial edge off her voice.
"I have got to like you and it is insufferable how those cretins with their size ten boots have perpetrated such an obvious injustice. I want to help out and I am easily in the position to do so."
Barbara was genuinely touched by George's kindness and could tell that it was real.
And bowed to the inevitable. Yvonne darted one of her sharp glances and could see that underneath all the blarney uttered in the sort of accent of the finest finishing school, George had a large heart. She could see why Karen had fallen for her.
"Well, if you are insisting, I cannot refuse your help," Barbara uttered in a highly emotional tone. She had not looked for, or expected that help like this would be offered so unselfconsciously by these three very strong, very kind women. It restored her faith in God and humanity, which had been under such strain for all those terrible months. There was a light at the end of the tunnel.
At this point, George made a polite exit and arranged to catch up with Yvonne and Barbara smiled gratefully at her.
"Everything going well, George?" Nikki grinned at George.
"So far, so good. Can you tell me if Karen is busy?" George's voice trailed off uncertainly after her confident smile.
"I'll check and take you to her room myself."
Nikki had no idea why George would be seeing Karen but a voice in her head told her to trust her instincts and to pave the way.
"Anyway, I've got some business as well," Grinned Yvonne when she was alone with Barbara. "I've fixed it with Jo that I'm going to front her bill for your defence. You do realize that, don't you?"
"But I couldn't possibly let you do that, Yvonne. It will cost a fortune on top of what it must have cost you for Lauren," Protested Barbara.
"Just relax, Babs. You've never really known just how much money I've got put away, down to the last thousand pounds give or take a few thousand."
Barbara shook her head. She had heard on the 'old girls network' about Yvonne's house and her villa in Spain but very little more. It was not talked about in that great leveling experience of prison and, outside prison, Yvonne didn't boast about her wealth. It was just there, to be ploughed into whatever was best.
"I was married to Charlie for twenty years and can you imagine the money that poured in with him as middleman for the East end drugs trade. Add in all his dodgy deals, the legit car hire trade that I still run which kept the taxman sweet, while he got away with fiddles left right and center. Even with the way that we lived, the money has been pouring in for years. You can take it from me that Jo's bill would make a bit of a dent in the bank balance but no more. I ain't the type to brag and I've never told you this before but only to convince you that I'll be all right. In any case, Lauren's earning good money these days so Jo's last bill was a sort of investment if you think of it this way."
Barbara sat back in admiration. She had thought that she had known Yvonne but she was relating specifics of her life that were vaguely there but had not been brought up into quite such hard, sharp focus. She did not know what to think.
"It's not just that, Babs. So much of the money has come from the human misery from the drugs trade. I never saw what it really meant. I was protected from all that till I came to Larkhall. I used to go on about junkies and smackheads but that was my way of covering up for the way that Charlie and I were responsible for all that. I can't get away from it. So if I see a mate of mine who needs a helping hand, I can plough in some of the money which came from human misery into something worthwhile."
There was a profound silence after Yvonne's throaty, emotional outpouring of guilt. She could see that Barbara was slowly turning what Yvonne had said over in her mind.
"It seems that I have no choice," Barbara said slowly with the faintest of smiles. In a very paradoxical way these two most unusual explanations of the sort of hard life that were not according to her upbringing contained the most golden hearted selfless propositions to help her that she had ever heard in her life. A beam of sunshine started to break through that black mist that had closed her in, something that was not lost on Yvonne.