Part One Hundred and Forty-Five
For the first time in her life, Karen saw that Nikki was visibly uptight as she held a sheaf of impersonally printed Home Office annual report forms in her hand. The time would shortly come when Karen would have to do Nikki's appraisal amongst the other wing governors and that was never the easiest part of her job. Right now, she had to be quite as supportive of Nikki within the walls of Larkhall as she had to be for George outside them.
"You have to explain what is bothering you, Nikki, before I can help you." Karen said gently.
"The whole bloody thing."Nikki started to say and stopped dead as her feelings overpowered her. Karen said nothing but offered Nikki a cigarette, which she accepted gratefully and inhaled deeply while she fought to get her feelings under control.
"You may have had more experience of this sort of thing than you realize, Nikki. Didn't you have to advertise barmaid jobs and put out some kind of job description"
"Yeah, I once had to work out a contract, when I started up the club. The difference was that no one thought about it a lot. The girls realized that the job had to be done my way. They would have to think of a bloody good reason to convince me any different"
"You know very well that things aren't the same here. I've allowed you enough slack for you to do things your way but there's only so far I can go." Reasoned Karen with raised eyebrow. Nikki coloured a little, took a drag of her cigarette and explained in more even, reminiscent tones.
"When I was running the club, I never had any of this rubbish about 'Officer Appraisal Notes'. I'd tell the girls that they'd been doing a great job and maybe tipped them a bottle of Moet or, if they'd been incompetent or dishonest, they'd be out depending on how bad they'd been"
"That's all very well but your system depended on two things, one that they'd work for you and two, how fair a boss you were. It's a whole lot different here, Nikki. Any one of them could be transferred to another prison. Whatever you do will be written all over their personnel file for a perfect stranger to deal with. Then again, you know very well that there simply has to be a system that works irrespective of bosses, that protects them from the bad ones. It goes the same for you as well. There has to be systems in place so that you would be treated equally as fairly if Stubberfield were your boss as much as I am"
Nikki shuddered at the very name. Since taking on the Wing Governor job, so many of Helen's stories came back to her of just how rough a ride she was given by that self important slime bag. She used to see him in the distance once or twice, going up to speak to Helen. She remembered feeling the way Helen's body would stiffen as she became aware of him. Thank God, he'd been packed off to the Sad Old Screws home and out of the prison service.
"All right, Karen, I suppose I'll go through the pantomime. I'll have to dig out the notes you sent me of the course you bullied me into going on." Grumbled Nikki with bad grace.
"That's what we all have to do." Came the patient reply. "Think of it this way, as a device, however wrapped around in bullshit as it is, so that everyone gets treated equally fairly. It focuses the mind. I get to countersign your reports, but don't be too proud to ask for my help before then. I mean it"
The tenseness began to flow out of Nikki's body. The mixture of fear and aggression was the way Nikki operated under severe pressure, when she felt vulnerable. It was strange that she had sailed into covering for Karen's job within a very short time of her arrival. It never ceased to puzzle Karen how what was easy for one person was a nightmare for another. The foibles of human nature always stopped Karen from becoming complacent. This was a resolution she had adopted ever since she had become a nurse. It gave her a grounding in learning to deal with people, as the root part of her calling.
"Why don't you start off with the easier PO's like Gina and Dominic? I know how sharp your memory is. Even if you haven't made all the notes that you should have done as you've gone along, it'll all come flooding back to you. Have faith"
A small smile appeared on Nikki's face as she started to relax a little. It was the part of the job that was always a pain but she clung to her trust in Nikki in delivering the goods. Within the constraints Karen had delicately alluded, she felt safe in letting Nikki do it her way. In Karen's eyes, she reverted to being the willing packhorse who could shoulder any responsibility with that dash of initiative and flair that so marked her style.
"Helen, I really could do with your help on this appraisal interview bollocks. You must have done it in your time"
"What's the problem, sweetheart"
"I've been reading all this paperwork on it and I think I can make some sort of sense of it but"
Helen's bright eyes and smile gave Nikki all the encouragement to continue
"I feel a total prat in talking all this bollocks"
"Let me have a look"
Nikki held out the offending material. Jesus, Helen thought, the prison service had certainly borrowed the services of some lousy psychologists in terms of the introduction. However, she zeroed in on the core of what it was asking for in terms of what the interviewee had done positively and what might be improved. The objectives had been taken off some dusty blueprint and padded out in the latest jargon and buzzwords. All Nikki need do is to paraphrase the whole thing in her words. She knew the bloody job backwards by now from both sides of the bars. She was just getting hung up on the bureaucracy of it all.
"I've got an idea." Helen said suddenly out of the long silence, a broad smile spreading across her face. "Why not try a role-play. I'll be the prison officer and you play yourself. That way, it'll make it easier."
"Oh no." moaned Nikki. "I can't ever imagine you as some meek and mild prison officer. You're too bossy for a start. If you start talking like a prison officer, all I can see in front of my eyes is that twin piece suit you used to wear"
"Don't remind me," Helen shuddered. "That was me making a gesture towards official dress"
"With that short skirt"
"Let's get back to business and relax," Helen commanded her with just that mixture of bossiness and persuasion that Nikki loved about her. "Don't worry, it won't be painful. Just trust me"
Nikki nodded mutely. She was trapped.
"Do you know that you are the first prison officer I've ever done an appraisal interview on, Dominic?" Nikki led off the interview in as breezy a fashion as she could conjure up. "I've been reading up how I'm supposed to do it but if I end up doing it my way, I hope you don't have any problems"
Dominic wasn't fooled by Nikki's manner. He had come to the meeting feeling pretty relaxed as he felt that, on the whole, he'd had a pretty good year. He could tell how uncharacteristically nervous Nikki was.
"Sounds fine to me, gov."
Nikki smiled at the very unusual title. It had connotations of the traditional male bonding 'old boys' network of cops on the beat. She knew that Dominic's cheery delivery of the word never intended it that way.
"That has to be first in my life, to be called 'gov"
"You're the same as Karen was and Helen used to be before her. It means that you're in charge and you deserve to be in charge"
The words achieved exactly what Dominic had set out to do. He could tell by the confidence with which she led into the interview.
"I'd better kick off with the formal bit, Dominic. You'll probably know at the start of the reporting cycle, Gina was your acting boss for a couple of months. I talked with her to make sure there wasn't anything I missed. One thing I've got to say is how impressed Gina was at that case conference last May after she seriously lost it and attacked Al McKenzie and Karen. You helped her through the detox to get her off the speed"
"It was nothing, Nikki. It was something any decent prison officer would have done"
Nikki's words started to come out more freely as her hand scrawled down rough notes from what was said. Besides the specifics of how Dominic had accompanied Barbara back and forth to court, the general flavour came over as to how rock solid, loyal and unassuming the man was. He had that knack of working in with all of the prison officers and that they picked up from his style, little ways of dealing with situations. He operated a natural double act with Gina and, above all, he was totally reassuring. So far, Nikki was pretty sure that she could reel off the top of her head and from her notes enough to pad out the report.
Nikki was aware that she had talked away quite freely and only glanced down at the last minute at the report itself. Slowly she read out the words in an unnatural tone as if they were detached strangers from her voice and brain. It made Dominic smile fondly at that supremely individual boss of his.
"Just to go back to the report, it says that I have to mark how well you have done the following throughout the year, 'carrying out security checks and searching procedures……….supervising prisoners, keeping account of prisoners in your charge and maintaining order …employing authorised physical control and restraint procedures where appropriate…..taking care of prisoners and their property, taking account of their rights and dignity…providing appropriate care and support for prisoners at risk of self harm….promoting anti-bullying and suicide prevention policies………..taking an active part in rehabilitation programmes for prisoners………..assessing and advising prisoners, using your own experiences and integrity…………and writing fair and perceptive reports on prisoners"
Nikki paused as her thought pulled together that image of Dominic that summed him up.
"From what we've talked about up till now, I'd say that everything you've done this year tells me that you've done everything you could possibly have done"
Suddenly Nikki's eyes glazed over as these words spoke back to her in tones that were an official but not unkind trace of Helen's voice. Her mind went back to when she was a prisoner and the question popped out into the open.
"You were here from way back when I was a prisoner. Tell me something. Was this annual report around back then? Fenner would have been hung out to dry on this job description"
"You're forgetting just how much Jim Fenner got away with Shell Dockley and for how long. Fiddling a report is dead easy to anyone bent enough to do it. In any case Stubberfield did Fenner's report when Helen was off sick"
Nikki's mouth fell open. Like Helen before her, she had not imagined how much could be bent, twisted and covered up. It showed how much Nikki had carried on the work of her predecessors in turning Larkhall into its opposite.
"…so he let that bastard off the hook and stuck her knife into Helen.'Apt to hysterical overreaction, cold and aloof with colleagues; poor judge of character…; averse to constructive criticism….' Quoted Nikki in choked tones of that report long ago"
She had been told that by Helen a long time ago but it was only now that she was doing an appraisal interview that the full force of that hatchet job came home to her.
"That was a long time ago, Nikki," Dominic reminded her simply, dragging Nikki back to the present.
When Gina came through the door, Nikki was much more relaxed and perky. Gina picked up on it straightaway.
"I suppose you picked me and Dominic first before you get to beat the crap out of Sylvia"
Nikki's grin widened at Gina's inimitable bluntness. She had learned immediately that you had to take Gina as she was or not at all.
"Hey, Gina, you know that I have to get down to business especially as it's my first time"
"So long as I got Dominic to make you less bloody nervous"
Nikki hesitated before continuing. She might have known.
"Anyway, there are quite a few things that come to mind, starting off with getting stoned on hash cookies along with Karen"
"It was all her fault." Gina said promptly, belying that with a large grin at the memory.
"You mean you were led astray"
"Something like that"
Nikki suddenly realized that in her idiosyncratic way, she had rather strayed off the script that Helen had patiently tried to instill into her. She coughed, drank from a glass of water and tried to speak in appropriately serious tones.
"What I was going to say that, unless there's anything I've missed, you couldn't have done a better job in preparing the ground for when I first came here as wing governor. I tried to kid everyone differently but it was a big step for me coming into this job"
Gina shrugged her shoulders in a self deprecating fashion. .
"I wouldn't want to leave a bloody mess behind in any job I've done, specially not for you to pick up."
Nikki knew that Gina was understating her real affection for her.
"You've also done a fine job in keeping things ticking over when I was covering for Karen when she was off work over Ross and whenever I've been on holiday. I take it that you are up for doing it for the future?"
"Fine by me. I'm OK for a bit of short term responsibility and the extra pay comes in handy." Gina reassured her with a bright smile.
Nikki relaxed more visibly and she steered the conversation effortlessly through the last year, including supervising Bodybag's punishment regime. Her scrawled notes and her agile mind brought into place Gina's impeccable presence on the wing and her visible strength. She had the knack of taking new nervous prison officers under her wing
"How are you getting on as Natalie Buxton's personal officer"
"I thought at first I'd done something to piss you off to land up with her."
"You know it's not like that."
"Well, she knows that I won't give her an inch though the crafty bitch tries it on every way. It's funny as I can talk to anyone but I know that I'll never get to work out what makes her tick"
The words gave Nikki a funny feeling as they might have said about her a long time ago. Then she blinked and remembered her own encounters with her. She knew how right Gina was.
"The most we can all do is to keep her contained. You know that I hate to write off any prisoner but I don't trust her an inch either. In case you didn't know, I gave you as her personal officer as I know that you're best placed to deal with her"
The interview rambled on in a leisurely fashion, Nikki picking through the threads of Gina's past year.
"I'm lucky, Gina." Nikki suddenly added with a flutter of emotion in her voice in a reflective silence. "I have a set of prison officers who almost without exception have backed me all the way. You don't know how that feels.
"You've worked for it, Nikki. Everyone, well nearly everyone, will give it back to you"
Nikki smiled in a self deprecating fashion. She knew she had done well but not that well. It always had needed someone else to say it for her.