Part Seven
As Nikki led the way up to Karen's office, George couldn't help feeling a little apprehensive. She knew that she had to see Karen and clear the air sometime, but that didn't make it a very encouraging prospect. She badly wanted to remain friends with Karen, so she knew that she would do whatever it took. "Are you sure Karen will want to see me?" She asked Nikki, suddenly needing to verbalise her uncertainty. "Of course she will," Nikki told her with an encouraging smile. "She might not admit it," She added, putting out a hand to halt George in her tracks. "But she needs her friends, probably more than she ever did." "I've treated her so badly," George said quietly, finally putting the regret she'd been feeling for weeks into words. "No, you haven't," Nikki assured her. "Not really. George, these things happen, and she will get over it."
Karen was sitting at her computer, trying to keep on top of the endless requests for statistics from area. Anyone would think she had been trained as a mathematician, not a prison officer. She'd kept popping down to G wing throughout the week, trying to keep an eye on Barbara, though she knew that Nikki had everything perfectly in hand. She had recovered from the effects of the morning after pill, which she couldn't help but think had been her punishment. She never should have slept with John, and she certainly shouldn't have done what she had done with him. That had been wrong on so many levels that it made her feel an enormous sense of shame every time she thought about it. When she'd seen Jo on Wednesday, Karen could already see just how much Barbara's case was getting to her, and it worried her more than a little that Jo might not be able to emotionally last out the course. When the knock came on her door, she bade whoever it was to enter, without a clue as to who it might be. It could have been any one of her officers or wing governors, but it was Nikki. "Someone to see you," she said, opening the door wide and gesturing the person behind her into the room. As Karen turned to face them, her eyes widened in shock. "George," was all she appeared to be able to say, stating the bloody obvious. "I thought it was about time I dropped into see you," George said, seeing the distinct uncertainty in Karen's face. "I'll leave you to it," Nikki put in, backing out of the room, all too eager to escape from the tension that could be cut with a knife. "You look tired," George observed, taking a seat in front of the desk. "No, not really," Karen told her, though this was blatantly a lie. "Just busy, that's all. How are you?" "Oh, all right," George said evasively, not entirely sure that Karen would want to hear just how happy she was with Jo. "I'm here with Yvonne," She continued. "Visiting Barbara. Jo isn't the only QC Barbara will have on her case." "She couldn't ask for anything better in the circumstances," Karen told her quietly, meaning every word. "And I'm glad you'll be taking some of the strain off Jo, because when I saw her on Wednesday, she looked as though the first hurdle had been just a little too high for comfort." "Yes," agreed George, more than a little relieved that they'd move onto a neutral topic. "I don't think emotional detachment is going to be very easy for her this time." "What about you?" Karen asked, finally meeting George's eyes. "Oh, you know me," George replied lightly. "The commitment I give to one case is the same as any other, though the fact that I already know Barbara may make this a little different. But at least it isn't going to resurrect the kind of memories for me that it will with Jo." "How are things with Jo?" Karen asked, hitting on the precise thing that George really didn't want to talk about. "Fine," she said, seeing nothing but kind interest in Karen's eyes. "Good," Karen said sincerely. "I do want it to work out for you two, you know, or should I say you three," she added with a smile. "I know you do," George replied with a smile in return. "And it is, so far."
As Karen looked into George's soft, blue eyes, the guilt at what she had done with John at the conference suddenly rose up in her, giving her the insane urge to confess all to George, to tell her again and again that she was sorry. But passing a hand in front of her face, she managed to dispel the impulse, because she knew deep down that this really wouldn't solve anything, and might in fact create far more problems than they already had. George saw the brief flash of something she didn't understand in Karen's face, but no sooner did she open her mouth to question it, than it was gone. "What have you been up to besides work?" George asked, wondering just how Karen had been filling her spare time. "Not a lot," Karen said evasively. "After taking three weeks off, I had an enormous amount to catch up on. That, and preparing for last week's conference, at which Nikki managed to prove that taking her on was possibly the one thing I've got right in the last few months." "Darling, I know that you often use work as something to hide behind," George said tentatively, unconsciously slipping into the familiarity she'd once been so used to with Karen. "But try not to make it the only thing you live for." "George, I know what you're trying to do," Karen said gently but firmly. "But work is about the only thing that keeps me going at the moment, and I think that for a while, that's how it needs to stay."
A little while later as Karen escorted George back down to the visiting area, George felt a deep seated regret that she could no longer hold Karen, that she could no longer try to take away some of the pain that was clearly still eating away at her. Karen was giving out the strongest vibe George had ever felt in her to keep off, to stay away, at least physically if nothing else. George wasn't so self-obsessed to think this was purely for her benefit, because she suspected this was Karen's way of keeping everyone she knew at a distance. But just before they reached the last set of gates, when they were still alone in the dingy corridor, George put out a hand to halt Karen in her tracks, wanting to say something more to her before they parted. "It sounds dreadfully inadequate," she said, knowing this was going to come out all wrong. "But I am really very concerned about you." "There's no need," Karen told her gently, giving her a soft smile of reassurance. "I'll survive." Impulsively putting her arms out, George gave Karen a firm embrace. "Please don't hide away from me," She said, her voice filled with all the regret she'd kept bottled up over the last few weeks. Karen had frozen at the initial contact, the physical connection with George almost being too much for her to bear, her arms bringing back so many memories that she was trying to forget. But very slowly, she raised her own arms to go around George's smaller frame, holding her almost delicately for fear of what such contact with her might achieve. "It's still very hard for me to see you," Karen said softly into George's hair. "That doesn't mean that I want you to stay away, because I don't, but you need to understand, that I am still trying not to remember everything we ever did together. It will get easier, because it has to, it just might take a while." "I'm sorry," George replied, feeling bitterly guilty that she could have hurt Karen so much. "George," Karen replied firmly, holding George slightly away from her by the shoulders. "Trust me, if there's anyone who needs to be sorry at the moment, it really isn't you." Again that rush of feelings rose up in her, because she hadn't only done John a grave injustice by sleeping with him, but both Jo and George as well. As she watched George walk through the visiting room to where Yvonne was waiting for her, Karen couldn't help but wonder whether, if George did find out about the conference, she would ever forgive her.
In the car, Yvonne could feel the silence weighing heavy on George. She had obviously talked to Karen, and it looked like things had been left as tense as they had been before. In truth, Yvonne really couldn't blame George for what had happened with Karen, because these things happened, and the course of true love, or love of any kind, never did run smooth. Seeming to realise what Yvonne was thinking, George broke the silence. "I didn't mean to hurt her, you know, Yvonne." "No, I know you didn't," Yvonne replied gently. "These things happen. Jo probably didn't tell you, but I caught her in the act of buying your birthday present." George couldn't help but laugh. "Did you?" "Yeah." Yvonne said, joining her in a smile. "She nearly had a heart attack when I crept up on her, it was hilarious." "Oh, poor Jo," George said in sympathy. Then, turning serious again, she said, "I just wish Karen wasn't hurting so much." "She'll get over it," Yvonne said with quiet certainty. "Because she hasn't really got any choice. It's funny, but if Lauren hadn't killed Fenner, you and Karen might never have happened, and if the three of you hadn't made her grass up my daughter, we might still have been together." George just stared at Yvonne, utterly aghast. How on earth did Yvonne know this? "Don't look like that," Yvonne said almost fondly. "I've known about that for quite a long time." "How?" George asked, her brain seeming to freeze with the effort of trying to work out this puzzle. "Ah, now, that would mean breaking my word of honour, which isn't something I'm about to do," Yvonne said firmly, realising that she would need to tell George that she'd slept with John if she were to go any further. "Does Karen know you know?" George asked, wondering just where Yvonne had stumbled on such sensitive information. "Yeah, she knows," Yvonne told her. "And it's something that's dead and buried now, if that isn't a particularly tasteless pun." After a moment's silence, she said, sounding kinder than George had ever heard her, "Jo told me the real reason why you're working on Barbara's case, though I have to admire the alternative reason you gave her." "If Jo ever wants Barbara to know something like that," George replied seriously. "That's for her to decide, certainly not you or me. So, I had to come up with something that sounded at least vaguely plausible." "You can talk the bleedin' hind legs off a donkey," Yvonne said with a broad smile. "Am I suppose to take that as a compliment?" George said with a laugh. "Oh, yeah," Yvonne assured her. "Always a nice little skill to find in one's lawyer." "Yvonne," George said tentatively as they arrived back in the car park of her office. "Whilst I realise that you may hold a certain amount of resentment for the way I have treated Karen, I don't want it to prevent us from working together to help Barbara." Sensing this to be the olive branch it was, Yvonne gave George a smile. "Getting Barbara out of Larkhall, is the only thing that matters," She said firmly. "Besides," She added with a raised eyebrow. "It won't be the first time Atkins money has paid your fees, now will it." "No, I suppose not," George agreed, wondering how she could ever have defended Yvonne's son and his tart, and yet now she was working on the same side as his mother. How times changed, she thought as she crossed the car park to her office, wondering just how much they would have changed again in another two years time.