Gill's sacking had been such an enormous relief for Trisha and Sally in cutting loose that manipulative background presence that had robbed them blind. So many of their friends at Chix told Trisha that she had soured the tone of the club and congratulated her for getting rid of her. It had a fortunate side effect in temporarily boosting Sally's confidence in being the strong one while Trisha had agonized over the problem. She so much wanted to give something back to her fair-haired lover. It also reassured Sally that she wasn't being paranoid. The downside was that the scale of the rip-off meant that the little luxuries that both women liked had had to be curtailed. While there was a sense of purpose in them trying to claw back the damage done, it would take a month or two for the income from the club to put them back on her feet. Trisha was more rushed off her feet than normal in making do with no replacement for Gill with less time for both of them together. They needed the security of Sally's regular wage packet much as Sally needed Trisha's steadiness under pressure.
To Sally, the run up to the trial was the terrifying 'X marks the spot' point in her life that dominated and blotted out everything by comparison. She tried to remember what her therapist had told her but found it increasingly hard to be nurtured by the ideas. She found herself imagining the questions that she might be subjected to and muttering the replies. She was crucially uncertain if her imaginary answers would be good enough. She remembered the advice George had given her at their consultation. 'We don't want someone who will just play by the laws of cricket. I suspect that the other side will play dirty.'
All at once, the thought of unknowable scary questions that she had not thought existed totally frightened her. She felt totally frightened and alone in the period that Trisha was working at the club. The more resolute part of her tried to tell her that she just had to sweat it out but it was easier said than done. She felt as if she was struggling to keep her head above water, sleeping irregularly at nights and getting tired in the daytime. In the blackness of night, she could feel Trisha's shapely body next to her but didn't have the heart to wake her.
Day after day crawled painfully by till the increasingly pale and wan Sally Anne rang louder and louder danger signals to Trisha. She suddenly decided to risk sending her lover over the edge by talking about the great unmentionable the Monday before the trial.
"Babes, I really hate to do it but I really want to talk to you about the trial. I've not said anything in case it makes you feel worse about yourself."
"What about?" came Sally's jumpy response as her pulse started racing.
"For a start, I'm sure Nikki and Helen would be only too willing to come round on your last night. Don't forget, they've been through this before."
Why didn't I think of that before, Sally asked herself in wonder? Why hadn't I thought of the obvious?
"You've been so shut up inside yourself, babes. Take a look around at those who want to be there for you, me most of all. I know your ways from living with you, more than you think," Trisha softly urged her.
She was incredibly gratified by the smile on Sally's taut face. It was not exactly cover girl material but showed more spirit than she had dared to think. Trisha wrapped her arms protectively round her lover and felt the tensed up rigidity in the Sally's body begin to loosen up.
*****
"As we haven't seen you for a bit, we've brought a couple of bottles of wine over," Helen said cheerily on Tuesday night. Trisha grinned as Helen could be relied upon to provide good spirits, alcoholic and otherwise.
"You look tanned. Have you been anywhere special," Trisha asked politely, seeing Nikki and Helen's glowing skins.
"We've just spent the weekend up at my father's house and Nikki beat my father into the ground in a theological dispute."
Trisha collapsed into laughter at the delicious thought of Nikki, hardly a recruit for the God Squad, showing such an unexpected gift of debate. It even made Sally Anne start to smile slightly as she had heard of Helen's father by reputation.
That set the tone of the lighthearted conversation while Helen generously refilled everyone's glasses. Sally drank her share of the wine but instead of making her pleasantly fuzzy round the edges, the effects of the alcohol bounced off her. A part of her was withdrawing from the conversation and it was beginning to upset her.
"OK, Sally Anne, keeping things light is working for the rest of us but not for you. We planned this evening for you so I guess we'll try another tack. You have to talk about what you're feeling. You need to do it for you."
Sally swallowed and momentarily felt that she was under pressure, the same she would surely be the next day. Then some stray thought made her feel, these are all her dearest friends. Nikki of all women has the perfect right to ask her to open up.
"I'm terrified of being powerless. I have this total dread of this authority figure who's going to beat me down again as he's always done in my life. I know you'll all be with me and everything there is going for me but I can't get past that feeling. I know I sound neurotic and irrational but I can't shut off that feeling. God knows I've tried for days," Sally Anne answered Nikki in a nervous, jerky tone of voice on the edge of hysteria.
"How did you come to agree to come forward to speak in my defence at my first appeal?" Nikki asked with knitted eyebrows. She couldn't get her head around the obvious contradiction.
"I suppose I was taking more tranquillizers at the time. I've come down a long way since then. I had some kind of buffer."
"How about controlled anger? That's a pretty effective motivating drive. Don't forget, I saw you take on that barrister and stick to your guns."
Sally sat open mouthed at that thought. It hadn't crossed her mind before.
"Listen Sally," Helen added with fierce sympathy. "I know exactly what you're going through. I used to have a boss who 'called me in for a private chat' and he used to make my nerves turn to jelly, that I was a hundred times wrong and made me feel that small," and here Helen held up the tiny space between her thumb and forefinger. "It took something I don't know where it comes from to find the words so that I began to see that he was afraid of me. You're imagining some all powerful head of personnel who has nothing to fear, that can beat you down and the police will tread all over you again. It won't be that way. You'll come across a barrister but you've faced one of them out before. You know what went on back then, he doesn't. That head of personnel has to reckon with George and I bet you anything they haven't come across anyone like her. One thing you have to hold in your thoughts and in your heart is that George believes in us just as much as Jo does. She's, one of us, don't forget it. You can do it, Sally."
Impulsively, the smaller woman wrapped her arms affectionately round Sally and stroked her hair just as a mother might. Nikki and Trisha looked on, willing their support for her and praying that some of Helen's strong will, could be bodily transferred to Sally. Nikki's large heart went out to Sally as she had been through just such an ordeal and had the advantage of having never been beaten down by the system. She silently prayed to herself that Sally would find that courage inside her, more than she knew she had and would rise to the challenge.
* * * * * *
Out of oblivion, the harsh sound of the alarm clock rudely woke them up. Sally was lying limply in the bed, feeling tired out as it had taken her longer than she liked to finally settle off. She knew that she wouldn't have slept at all last night if it hadn't been for the warm affection from her friends. The morning had finally come and there would be no more endless replays of what might happen. This was make or break time. Sally reached out for a much-needed cigarette while her eyes were trying to focus on the world. Trisha kindly found the packet and handed her a cigarette and lit it for her. The blond haired woman had given up smoking some years before but realized that such a chemical crutch was small time stuff.
"It really is the day of the trial, Trish?" she asked vaguely.
"I'm afraid it is, babes but you know that you'll have all the support in the world. You take the shower first and take as long as you like."
Sally Anne stumbled into the chamber and felt the warm water splashing down on her, marginally making her feel clean and pure as she emerged to be greeted by Trisha's tender embrace.
"You've been through this sort of thing more than I have, but it seems that we must be dressed in our finest, babes."
Throughout the morning, Trisha was thinking of every conceivable ploy that would pump up Sally's wavering sense of self-belief and the crunch came when Sally had the pill bottle in her hand and was staring at it. She was wondering if she had just extra tablet, it might calm her nerves but would it go too far and would she be breaking her resolution?
"I can't make up my mind on this, babes. Help me."
Trisha was instantly scared inside but summoned up her ability to look calm and sought the right words to say.
"Babes, if you take it and if it makes you feel woozy, you won't be in any proper shape to testify. Why don't you try all your relaxation techniques, stick on the music and wait for Helen and Nikki to come? They'll be certain to come after you went on the stand and testified for Nikki."
The blond woman's soothing words contained the magic word 'certain.' Certainties were here emotional refuge. She reached out for Trisha whose arms slipped round her and softly cuddled her. Sally didn't want to let the other woman go.
Sure enough, Helen and Nikki came round on the dot as they promised to, one more kept promise that Sally definitely wanted. Between them, they set off in Helen's Peugeot past the front door, the point of no return, Sally squashed in the back with Trisha. The dark haired woman tuned into the gentle soft flurry of words from others, in which she could lose herself while Helen steered them to their destination.
Suddenly, they arrived at the massive hulk of the Old Bailey and Helen turned into the narrow lane at the side entrance. Sally's nerves suddenly started racing as she found herself outside the protective bubble of the car and her eyes flicked round the unaccustomed blur of people passing and the threatening front entrance.
"I'm ever so pleased you're here on time with all your friends," spoke a pleasing aristocratic voice out of nowhere. Sally adjusted her vision and a small, trim blond haired woman dressed in her smart jacket and skirt. She looked immaculately confidence inspiring and her warm smile and blue eyes lit up her face. She reached forward and, surprisingly to herself, kissed Sally Anne lightly on her cheek. Suddenly Claire came into view and added her cool emotional tone to the blend of good feeling.
"Babes, you're in as good a shape as you can ever be at a moment like this. Believe me, you look good. Take a look in my hand mirror," urged Trisha in as soft and gentle a voice as she could.
Sally saw the fine boned face in the mirror, her makeup perfect and her hair swept back from her forehead. It was true. Her fears weren't visible on the surface and she looked as good as anyone here. She let the four women flank her, gently smooth her way through security and wait with George and Claire. The word was passed that the trial was due to commence and they filed through the back door. She could see the witness booth before and suddenly knew that her destiny had taken her here. However scared she had been this last week, perhaps reality could be coped with better than imaginary scenarios might be. She stepped forward towards her future.