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| Culture of Conscience, Richard; Bad Girls / Judge John Deed (5th) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 12 2010, 04:52 PM (5,877 Views) | |
| ali baba | Jan 10 2011, 12:25 PM Post #16 |
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Many thanks for the updates Richard. I couldn't help smiling at the last sentence. Sorry I haven't left comment for a while, but your stories have so much in them I have to take longer to read them. Your writing still improves over the years. |
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| richard | Jan 16 2011, 10:15 PM Post #17 |
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Hi Ali Baba83. Thanks for your very kindly post about my writing which you know is very much appreciated. It's interesting how practice does help when I look back at my early stuff. You will have a fair idea of what's coming up. Anyway I hope you and other readers like this next scene which seems very real to me. Scene Fourteen In the meantime, Karen couldn't believe herself, the way she was rivited to the sense of time creeping onwards, noting that Ross hadn't come back as promised. A whole mass of conflicted feelings rose up in her that she couldn't articulate. What if he had been run over by a car? What if he'd gone out to his friend's place and had got himself legless? What if he'd met a girl and had swanned over to her place? She knew that those big blue eyes could charm some nameless girl and get what he wanted from her. After all, she ruefully reflected how she had put up with his wayward ways for way too long and hadn't drawn the line as tight as she should have done. Maternal guilt had such a lot to answer for. "Can I knock on your door and meet the shitload of ideas you've got running around inside your head?" a distant voice interjected harshly into her closed in world. Karen blinked and saw Beth standing in front of her, hands on her hips, challenging her very status. "I'm sorry Beth but I didn't hear you," came the reply from the careworn looking fair haired woman, fiddling with a lock of her hair in a distracted fashion. Before Beth's exasperation blew to the surface, she realised that this stressed out looking woman looked a million miles different from her confident lover and confidante. "You might be surprised but I really believe you. I've seen you clockwatching for the past few hours and your cigarette intake has doubled." "So what if you are," muttered Karen, guiltily stubbing out her cigarette into the already full ashtray. "I know you're worried about Ross but you must remember that Ross is twenty years old and a grown man unless you have serious reasons that he's not acting his age," Beth offered in a tone of voice that tried to be reasonable. She founght back the temptation to be contemptuously sarcastic as a whole stream of possible advice whirled around in her mind. "Even though he acts like a spoilt brat, he should remember that you have a life of your own.....because he hadn't got the brain to leave you his mobile number doesn't mean he should run a guilt trip on you.....After dossing around and acting like you don't exist doesn't mean he can sponge off you.....you'll never see the money back that he's sponged off you.....he clearly doesn't give a shit about you so why should you care about him.....' She rejected every single one of them because, while they might all be undoubtedly true, this form of truthfulness would only backfire and fuel Karen's existing unhealthy tendency to bear all the guilt of the world upon her shoulders. She really didn't buy all this happy families crap being a proudly independent woman and an unashamed lesbian as well. If this was what 'happy families' was all about, then the entire world could stuff it, Beth reasoned as she knocked back her glass of wine and anger rose in her. It wasn't only when cooler reason started to prevail when she reined in the rush of ideas and found words to say that Karen might relate to. "The trouble is that I do have reason to believe he won't act his age. It was simpler when he was a schoolkid.It was a smaller, simpler world that he moved in. The trouble with him growing up only means that he's got the mobility to get around more, the greater ability to get himself into trouble without the maturity to make the right decision......I'm sorry, darling. I've been an antisocial git and I've shut you out of everything." "Come here, darling," Beth said, her voice soft and seductive. She really did feel desire in her feeling that her woman was back with her. Karen moved forwards into Beth's open arms who gently caressed her. The sometime mother was overwhelmed with inexpressible gratitude for Beth just being there. There was something in her large eyes, the softness of her full lips, the shape of her face and that glossy dark bobbed hairstyle that made her want to melt into her. Feelings of tenderness ran through her system that here was someone whose love was safe to receive, that didn't kick her in the teeth when help was unselfishly offered. She was such a dependable friend as well as a glorious lover. Finally Karen's fingertips were tempted to reached down to her lover's shapely backside as desires started to colour her loving feelings. She planted little kisses in gratitude along her lover's soft neck and breathed in her subtle perfume. "I tell you what, babes. Since you've comeback, what about a drink or two and a nice evening in?" Beth purred in her sexiest voice. "What could be better?" Karen responded in like vein, noting her friend's sharp observation about herself, her lips against Beth's ear. She drew herself back a little and their lips met in the way they were always meant to be. After a long while exploring the delicious texture of each other's mouths, Karen drew her lover by the hand and in the general direction of their bed. The bag lay in the corner, unregarded and irrelevant in the great scheme of things. ******* Suddenly, there was a loud repeated knocking at the door which told the two women that this wasn't someone briefly announcing her or his presence but someone demanding and insensitive. A sudden suspicion shot through Karen's mind. "Hell, I bet that's Ross again," Karen exclaimed, maternal instincts visibly kicking into gear to immediately respond to the demand. "We'll answer the door but not before we're ready," Beth interjected in decisive tones. While Karen hastily shot out of bed, Beth coolly reached for a reasonably decorous nightdress and started brushing her hair into its customary elegant bob. As she popped on her slippers, Karen feverishly wrenched on her nightie and was about to rush towards the front door when Beth laid her hand on her partner's arm. "Remember, it's our flat and even if it is your son making that bloody awful row, he can't come the spoiled brat routine. It's not as if he's been the dutiful considerate son." The dark haired woman's quiet words finally had its effect and cut through deeply buried but none the less powerful instincts. She stopped to adjust her dishevelled nightie and ran a brush briefly through her hair. "You're right, darling. Now we'll sort him out," she said her mouth set in a determined line. Karen reached the front door and flung it open, abruptly stopping her son from barging in. "What the hell were you doing making that almighty racket. We've got neighbours you know." "Most people are up at this hour though I suppose you've been screwing your bird," Ross replied with a disapproving scowl on his face. To his secret disappointment, there was noone on the landing. "Ross, come in while I set down a few boundaries around here. You're still the teenage brat that I need to make a few matters clear to,"Karen retorted, her blue eyes flashing fire and that unmistakeable mother tone in her voice, the aspect of her past persona that Ross found unwelcome and uncomfortable, not to mention the prison officer persona that she'd once been and didn't shake off at the end of her shift. Temporarily submissive, he followed his mother inside while Beth looked on with delighted interest. "Take a seat," Karen gestured curtly to the armchair while Beth followed Karen to the settee. "First thing you've got to know is that you don't ask two lesbians what they do in the privacy in their own bedroom. That is totally off limits. Secondly, you had better get it into your head that Beth, my partner is with me for the long run." "Like Steve was?"countered Ross "I remember you introducing me as your new partner. He was the one that introduced you into the prison service so you spent more and more time on late shifts so I got some childminder dumped on me that I didn't want while you were mooning after some new guy." "Ross, we're talking about the present, not the past," cut back Karen, slightly colouring at the undoubted truth of his remarks. Why the hell should she be imprisoned by her son for the mistakes of her past, she thought to herself rebelliously, fighting to not get sucked into the swamp of an infinity of guilt that could never be assuaged. "You're not some helpless child but an independent twenty year old so you'd better talk like one. Yes, I made mistakes in my choices of men, your father included but you better believe me when I say that if I'd met Beth years before, I wouldn't have got into all the messes I got into." "So you thought you'd try women for a change, like a change in fashion?" "You are totally trivialising my situation," exploded Karen, hardly believing her ears."Who the hell are you to tell me what to do with my life? If you must know, I had a lifelong lousy choice in men. Just why they turned out self centred, unreliable, dishonest with a superficial charm for which I fell hook, line and sinker, you'd better ask them not me. Beth is the real thing and they're not. You'd better get used to her being around in my life for a long, long time to come." Instinctively, Beth's hand reached out to her partner's who she admired so much for fighting back under the weight of family centred moral blackmail, something she knew to be a powerfully destructive force when it could do so much good in the world. Karen's hand moved towards hers and their fingers and palms became strongly interlinked. "I suppose you can't keep yourself off each other," Ross sneered "That's enough Ross," cut in Beth at last. "Your mother has told it like it is. You can't change our situation so you'd better accept it." "You can't tell me what to do.You're not my dad," Ross shot back, trying the oldest trick in the book. To his dismay, this frighteningly self assured woman looked back scornfully while his mum took up the cudgels with perfect controlled ease. Karen felt as comfortable here as she had done in giving evidence before the Old Bailey. "Look at it this way, Ross. You're either a brattish adolescent or a spoilt child in which case I can tell you what to do. If you're really being a man , though you sound far too much like your dad for my liking, then Beth and I have every right to make a reasoned case and you are obliged to do the same in return. Emotional manipulation is out and so is moral blackmail." "So I suppose your mind's made up, as usual. I don't get a look in." You don't see that we've been extraordinarily patient with you. This is the one and only privilege you'll get. We don't take this sort of crap from strangers, from people we know and we certainly don't take it from you, Ross. We can certainly flourish with your so- called moral disapproval. That's your problem, not ours." "So the door's shut here. I might as well piss off back to my crappy flat," Ross said sulkily, making an obvious attempt to glance round at the comfortable surroundings which were to be denied him. "The trouble is that you want to have it both ways, Ross. I'm not going to tear myself apart why you haven't made more of yourself than you have. That's for you to work out, same as I did when I joined the WRAF when I was seventeen." "We're not shutting the door, Ross,"Beth gently interjected, feeling for the sadness that her partner clearly felt."It's up to you to prove yourself if you want to come around. If we have a repetition of this bad behaviour, the door is closed." Ross saw the way that his mother's jaw was set and he'd come to the end of the line in trying to get his own way. He wanted out of here but not without one last try at getting something out of her for old times sake. "I'm a bit short of money, mum. Can you lend me a fiver till I get paid at the end of the week. I'll come back, honest." Karen got up without saying anything. Ross was watching his mother's slim legs and couldn't help noticing her sense of dignity as her nightdress covered her reasonably decorously. Her whole manner wasn't that of the floozie who had been caught in flagrente but she was his mother. She had always been strong but had always been vulnerable to his demands on her as a hardworking woman who had never been round long enough as a child and whose male partners had undercut her efforts to create a normal home. The trouble was that he had always been necessary to her as a symbol of her normality and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she didn't need that anymore. She wasn't his mother on the terms that had been and he resented her taking that power from him. It escaped his mind that he hadn't been around when she was going through living hell with a court case hanging over her for a hit and run accident she wasn't responsible for. He was off doing other things and, besides, he didn't read the papers and the TV news was part of the boring bit he didn't want to know about. In this silence, Karen found her handbag, tore it open and thrust the note angrily into his hand. "I mean a tenner. I could really do with it," he said in that wheedling tone of voice. "A fiver you asked for, a fiver you get. Don't you pull that stunt on me. This is the way it is. I really don't expect you to come back and repay the fiver but I'm willing to be proved wrong. If you do, you go up in my estimation. If I see you in a couple of months trying to cadge more money off me, the answer's no with a capital N. I could have been stuck in prison for all you cared if it hadn't been for my female friends while you were off being independent," Karen said with a sneer that cut like a knife while tightening her grip on her lover's firm clasp. "Like Beth says, it's up to you to prove yourself. That's the way things go." The young man took the money and shambled out. He couldn't think of anything else to do but to go to the boozer. It was a step up from what he'd been recently doing though he wouldn't tell his mother that. ******* "Beth, I want to take you to bed and show you that I don't need men anymore," Karen said with an undertone of desperation. This took Beth momentarily aback. She knew that Karen wanted to penetrate her in the way they normally didn't do in the daytime. If it meant that her lover would feel the better for it and it meant so much to her, she'd go along with it. she knew that there wasn't a simple straight line that instigated their lovemaking. "You mean your son as well," questioned Beth, summoning up the courage to deal with the one area in her lover's life that some would think a weakness and others would think an unbreakable obligation. "He knows by now what he needs to do with his life," Karen answered shortly. "I can't live my life through him to get him to do the right thing. Whatever claim he has on me isn't unconditional. You can't choose your family but I can choose my lover." The broad smirk with which Karen spoke the last lines showed Beth how single minded were Karen's desires for her. "Right now, I love the idea of being chosen- and everything that goes with it," came her softly spoken, downcast lidded response. She let Karen take her by the hand back to their bedroom where the fair haired woman took her in her arms and hungrily kissed her. This was the start to them disrobing each other and when they were lying naked in bed, Karen reached for their bedside cupboard and reached for her strap-on. She looked at herself with satisfaction in the way she looked and, for a second, Beth wondered if Karen's hunger to make love was going into a dimension she wasn't ready for. "Don't worry darling." Karen said, an unexpected softness in her voice. "I'm not about to ravish you- certainly not in a way you don't want." "You mean it," Beth couldn't help herself from saying. "Of course I do." Karen said gently, softly kissing her lover's eyes tenderly."Don't worry, I've been on the receiving end before. I wouldn't do that to you ever. That would be a gross betrayal." All the tension that had build up in Beth eased out of her body. Karen had felt that and it impelled her to speak. She was going to make love to her in a way both women wanted. Gently, she pressed at Beth where she was soft and yielding and to her delight, she felt her lover's legs open and be ready to receive her |
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| richard | Jan 30 2011, 01:03 PM Post #18 |
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Scene Sixteen As Nikki contemplated her situation, she sensed that there was an indirect relationship between Helen's investigations into why there were so many women lifers in Britain compared with the rest of Europe and Kristine Thorne's very interesting study into "Does giving prisoners an education decrease their chance of reoffending?" The subject matter grabbed Nikki's interest straightaway as she herself had been a direct beneficiary of what this woman was advocating. She resolved to contact this woman as she sensed that this was the answer to her problems. Accordingly, she found herself walking along Woburn Place in the Belgravia part of London at a smart clip, on a freshly biting day in very early October which forewarned of the onset of winter.The buildings ceased to be the the modern glass fronted shops you could find anywhere and became more genteel and traditional. The small park that took up a block in the grid layout of London Streets provided that pleasant bouquet of greenery that lifted her spirits and threatened to delay her timely arrival. She'd been sent an e mail with clear, precise guidance as to how to get to the Institute of Education, at the University of London and, sure enough, the flight of steps were visible halfway up the street, a hotel travelodge occupying a large space on the other side. She strode up the flight of steps and into the spacious foyer. To her left, it opened out onto a wide staircase with signposts to lecture rooms and in the further distance a typical queue for cheap coffee and chocolates. This left like studentland all right, as she took in the young men and women with deliberately faded jeans and red Che Guevera T shirts. Nikki considered ruefully that her Alma Mater was the Open University whose local source was Larkhall Prison and she'd worked on her studies alone in her dingy prison cell. "You want some assistance?" the man behind the desk asked politely, seeing the smartly dressed stranger looking vaguely around her. Nikki promptly pulled herself back to the present, handed out the printed out e mail and was politely given directions as was her due. As the lift smoothly took her up into the heart of the building, the automatic voice mildly irritated Nikki in intoning which floor she was as if she hadn't got eyes to see with. Finally, she strolled down the corridor and spotted the name on the door she wanted. She knocked politely on the door and Nikki was startled to hear a dog bark and to hear a clear voice call out for her to enter.For a split second, she wasn't sure just who it was that had granted her admission. It wasn't until she was inside that Nikki realised how startlingly different this woman was to anyone she'd come across before. Ms Kristine Thorne was a large woman in every sense of the word, wearing a long near ankle length brown dress that somehow cast her shape to the best advantage. Her face was pleasingly contoured with an upturned nose and her brown, slightly auburn hair was worn with a fringe which covered her ears. Her large eyes were brown but somehow not focussed on her. Her left hand grasped the handle of the harness which connected her to a large lively black Labrador dog whose tail whisked back and forth.It was only a little while later that Nikki took in the layout of her office which was very neatly and functionally arranged with the obligatory computer and a shelf full of large volumes which she guessed would be written in Braille.She guiltily confessed to herself that this and guide dogs was the top limit of her knowledge in this area. "Say hello to my guide dog, Jules and then we'll talk," Kristine said to Nikki with a slight smile on her face. Slowly, the penny dropped to Nikki's total embarrassment. "I'm sorry for my rudeness. I didn't know,"Nikki finally admitted and gingerly patted the dog who shook his head as he shook himself, including his floppy ears, by way of acknowledging her presence.He crossed his paws in front of himself and another pair of bright eyes were trained on Nikki. "I suppose you're thinking why didn't I tell you in my e mail that I'm blind," challenged Kristine, speaking in a cultured voice whose matter of fact manner had Nikki floored. This woman works a computer, her mind was asking? "I didn't think to wonder,"Nikki confessed, a reply that struck her as really lame but the best she could do in the circumstances. "I can hear what you're thinking, Nikki. I wanted you to see me as I am without stereotyping me. I hate the word disabled. I'll show you what I can do and then you can make up your mind if it will help. Excuse me as I'm just finishing off marking one of my less attentive student's essays and pointing out the error of his ways." Nikki was struck by the grace with which Kristine moved lightly across the floor to her computer. She adjusted the screen so that Nikki could see the text that appeared which was set up skewed to the left hand side of the screen.All at once, a voice jerkily talked away in words that Nikki could hardly distinguish and her fingers moved rapidly across the keyboard. In coloured print, Kristine commented severely on various slipshod arguments, the failure to quote the source material in the better arguments and the misquoted sources to which the student had given credit.Nikki had to admit that though her judgments were harsh, she was conscientious in backing up in what she was saying. "He really should know better not to con his way past me and use the eyes he was given. His spelling and punctuation are particularly abysmal." "Jesus, it's just as well my open university work hadn't got into your hands," Nikki frankly confessed. Just as soon as she had got her head around the fact that Kristine could work her way round a computer, she was demonstrating a pretty phenomenal grasp of detail that made her truly scary. Just how some naive, nervous nineteen or twenty year old student would react, Nikki didn't want to imagine. "It's good for his soul. He'll learn from my criticism. I'm not in this world to flatter people," Kristine replied with perfect aplomb and total self-assurance.. Bloody hell, thought Nikki. I thought that I was pretty scary and abrasive when I was first imprisoned. Fenner doesn't know how much of a pussycat I was by comparison and if he'd ever come across the very formidable Ms Kristine Thorne, he'd be eaten alive. It had crossed her mind that she'd been going through a long process of validation, starting from when Helen Stewart fought her corner against the odds. She had become progressively mild mannered and self controlled over time and had reverted to type as a dissident member of the Ms Middle England family. It started to occur to her that this woman really needed to assert who she was more than she ever had and fought her way out of the narrow range of identities prescribed to her, starting off from being a helpless victim of her ailment. "So what subjects do you teach at the university?" Nikki enquired. Kristine picked up a real interest in her work with her highly attuned hearing which enabled her to pick out delicate nuances in people's attitudes at fifty paces. Her students swore that this very determined woman functioned by extra sensory perception when she was up on the podium when delivering her thoroughly prepared lectures. "I've been teaching education studies for the last five years at this university. I'm in my second year of a PhD, studying for a combined doctorate of Education and Criminology.It all fits in very well with my M A. as I'm now looking at cases of those who have reoffended, to see what type of education they either did or didn't receive whilst they were in custody on previous occasions. I'm hoping to construct a thesis as to what type of provision of education, rehabilitation might have prevented their subsequent reoffending," Kristine said in an animated manner. "It's not all theory as I have conducted interviews at two men's prisons as part of my MA." "I can relate to that as I did a report called “An Investigation into HMP Larkhall - its implications for women’s prisons.I'm sure my approach was pretty rough and ready by comparison as I can't get away from remembering the women I shared my time with at Larkhall. It rattled some cages in the Home Office, mind you." Kristine laughed at the other woman's pleasant, unpretentious manner and how quickly she picked up on the substance of who she was and forgetting about the superficialities. Of course, she had picked up on this study which contained interesting insights. "Just as a matter of interest, how much do you know about me?"Nikki enquired. A split second later, she regretted what she'd said as she feared that Kristine might immediately fasten on that opening to amusingly demonstrate her power of observation. After all, she had the perfect right to deploy it. "I've done my research as that's one of my specialities. There's two reasons why I want to work with you. One reason is that you fought your way out of being imprisoned for life. You could have turned your back on your experiences but you didn't. I think that you're still a bit of an outcast for all your smart suit just as much as I am. The other is in talking to you, not just what you say but your voice sounds right. That's the way I judge people." Is this perceptive woman for real when she says she's blind, wondered Nikki? She remembered reading somewhere that a person deprived of one faculty, develops others to compensate. "I've read your MA dissertation and I found it really interesting. I agree with everything you say but you do come up with some real gems in your observations. For example, "The only method which penal institutions have for dealing with resentment is to suppress it."That really was the story of three years of my life, except for one very remarkable woman who was the wing governor who saw qualities in me that the cynical 'lock em up' brigade were blind to, oh I'm sorry,"Nikki finished, her hand over her mouth, hyperconscious that she'd put her foot in it. "Blind people don't go in for political correctness Nikki," Kristine said with a forgiving smile. In her mind, she'd learned to precisely focus on what mattered and what didn't. It wasn't the first time that she'd put some uninitiate through a severe learning curve and her hope was that sooner or later the sighted people in the world would finally learn to get things right from the word go and not ask dumb questions and especially, not to offer to escort her across the road, a real pet hate of hers. Suddenly Nikki's mobile phone started beeping and Nikki made a grab for it. She knew it would be Helen. "Hi darling, "Nikki said quite casually. "I'm having this most intriguing conversation with this very remarkable lecturer. To say her work is useful is the understatement of the century and, oh yes, she's blind, something I'm still struggling to get my head around as she acts like she isn't. Her guide dog's friendly though." Helen did a mental double take at the way her partner threw in that casual observation and the sounds of laughter in the background and the barking sounds. After all the guide dog had been very good while this discussion had gone on but couldn't be self-effacing forever. Helen opted to stick to business and wait for the full story later. "I'm sure you're enjoying yourself in the land of academia but I was wondering if you'd be able to pick up a recent publication on pregnancy. You know how I like to research things.If you've got a pen and paper handy, I'll give you the details." "Darling, the University of London is hardly likely to specialise in books about pregnancy," Nikki exclaimed, casting a sideways glance at Kristine to see how she was taking this, partly to show to this very unconventional woman that she could pull a few surprises out of her hat. "I know that but there's an absolutely gynormous Waterstones on Gower Street within spitting distance of the university. Trust me, I've done my research." Nikki gave in gracefully as she got out a pen and paper and started scribbling. That's two women who have done their homework, she thought ruefully to herself. "That's my girlfriend. She was once the wing governor of Larkhall prison who I told you about earlier on," Nikki said with an impish expression on her face. She had very mixed feelings when she saw how the other woman take this revelation perfectly in her stride. "I'm really pleased for you.You really must want to have a baby that much to go down the IVF route. You surely don't think I was going to disapprove of what you're doing?" Kristine replied with a mixture of surprising gentleness and her typical sharp observation. "Of course not," murmured Nikki, as she felt the spotlight trained on her once again. You always wanted to be accepted for who you are so deal with it when you find this in someone else, she told herself. "Let's compare diaries," Kristine said in meditative tones as she brought up an electronic screen on her computer whose voice reeled off details of her highly organised life. I might have known, thought Nikki, as she fished out her own dog-eared pocket diary. "Of course we'll be able to meet up at the Howard League for Penal Reform AGM, wouldn't we?" Kristine added with a winning smile." She concluded that further conversations with this very sharp-witted woman were going to be highly stimulating if she could manage to ride the very sharp learning curve. As she took her leave, she gradually realised that this woman was only twenty-eight years old, ten years younger than she was and her mouth opened wide with amazement at the thought of it. ****** Many miles away, John was busy enough at Warwick University with a free hand in shaping the outlook of the up and coming judges. He was sure in the knowledge that this time, he wasn't being relegated to the wastelands so that other judges could take over cases to which he might have given a totally different direction and that, this time around, they would act with sturdy independence from the executive. This knowledge gave him the confidence to expend his energy on his lectures The only fly in the ointment was that he felt a million miles away from Jo Mills.The first time they'd slept together, they had talked over their relationship about taking matters slowly, to ensure that no precipitate action would spark off any discord and he'd gone along with her suggestion, knowing full well that he had reason to distrust his impetuous nature. What he hadn't foreseen was that he was making a big act of renunciation in suppressing his habits of a lifetime, of wining and dining and charming some attractive woman into bed. He had always cynically dismissed the 'holier than thou' moralisings of the likes of Sir Ian and his kind in considering that virtue was very easy for them to achieve. After all, what attractive woman would look twice at them? He had been placed in a completely different position as his charm and good looks made him attractive to women so that the temptations of the flesh were much more prominent. He was beginning to consider that it was a difficult proposition for him to suddenly turn off the charm, especially that being a stand in lecturer at Warwick University was providing him with an exquisite array of attractions and temptations now that equal opportunities and ingrained feminist ideas in todays Britain meant that increasing numbers of women wanted to scale the heights of the legal profession so the presence of Jo Mills and George Channing was becoming more commonplace. He phoned Jo Mills up in what he pictured as her idyllic retreat in the house that he was so familiar with over the years, the house where she'd brought up her children who had now grown up. She was always cheerful when they talked and rattled on inconsequentially about how her life was going, in particular that an old schoolfriend had recently moved into the village. He was honour bound in not wanting her to be miserable in every moment that she was separated from him and glad for her sake that everything was going well. He knew that his spell in Warwick wouldn't last too much longer as Newton was on the mend and, by all accounts, was becoming restive and bored. He also had the prospect of addressing the Howard League of Penal Reform AGM and smiled at the droll thought of having a lesbian fan base which would ensure that his radical views would be well received. He enjoyed strolling through the greenery of Warwick University while October days meant that, while chill winds blew across the campus, the sunshine slanted low over the trees and bathed his world in a golden glow. He liked the feel of walking along the flagstones of the campus building and luxuriating in the bustling feel of students and lecturers coming and going and the pleasure of mulling his ideas over in his mind and feeling important in the great scheme of things. He was temporarily removed from the perpetual warfare that still rumbled on though both Monty and Joseph phoned him from time to time and kept him posted on developments. Life felt riotously ablaze with colour, life and promise which he was the centre of and its taste was very energising. |
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| richard | Feb 6 2011, 04:06 PM Post #19 |
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Scene Seventeen A fierce blast of cold air hit Karen and blew through her thin nylon blue nurse's uniform as she made her way across the staff car park to her little green MG. As soon as she was moving, she pictured her darling Beth on the way home on a similar journey, perhaps after, perhaps before she was starting out but she knew she would wrap her arms round her beloved and nothing and noone would stand in her way when she got home. She'd worked an intensive shift and was glad to get out of the hospital doors. Life had moved on for her right after her son Ross had briefly come back into her life and soon departed. Yes it did make her sad to think that he'd done so badly for himself but she'd got it into her head that she couldn't live his life for him and howling mistakes he'd made in his life were his responsibility, not hers. Excitedly, she clattered up the steps to their flat and pushed open the door. The flat was in darkness which meant that Beth was on her way back. A smile creased her face as she fished out her mobile phone and the text message flashed up. "Setting off in half hour. Hugs & kisses. Beth." It was the habit of both women that as soon as the first of them got home, she would open the letter box and fish out whatever was there. After she'd binned the usual junk mail, she laid the bills to one side for later. To her surprise, the last letter was a crumpled looking envelope addressed first to her old luxury flat which had been crossed out and readdressed to the terraced house where she'd lived and finally it was readdressed to her present address. Who on earth would know to send on post on two successive changes of address, Karen wondered? It was only as she vaguely studied the letter that she realised that the envelope was prison issue. God knows she'd seen enough of them when checking outgoing post when she was a prison officer which was.....a lifetime ago and before she'd changed her personality from the foundations upward. With a strange sense of foreboding, she sat down and carefully opened up the letter. As she took in the first ragged lines, she put her hand to her mouth. She really wasn't prepared for this. Karen darling I thought about writing to you for ages only I didn't know how you'd think of me after all this time. Things have got so bad that I thought in for a penny, in for a pound.. It's bloody terrible here. You wouldn't know what it's like being called an ex-screw and all the other prisoners are giving me grief with all the prison officers giving them a nod and a wink. You would think they'd give one of their own a break, someone who gave a lifetime to the service but there's no loyalty these days. I know you probably don't want to know me and I wouldn't blame you if you don't but we had something special once. I remember us going on holiday together and I can still remember the sea, the sun and your presence which made everything worthwhile. It was a real shame that things came between us- I guess working together twenty four seven didn't help and I guess that a bit of it might have been my own fault. I'm begging with you, pleading with you to do something to make things better for me. You're on the outside and it's only with being banged up for all these months that I can see that mountains can be moved from the outside wherever you are. I'm in danger of going out of my mind, the way things are going. Only you can help me out of the big black hole I'm in. You always knew how to look after me like the time Marilyn cleared off with the kids. You'll never find anyone who'll care for you like I care for you. I've never forgotten about you. Trust me. Your Jim". Instantly, her mind raced overtime gathering in the facts in a frantic fashion. It was dated June 22nd 2002, two days before Fenner committed suicide on Monday June 24th 2002 and now it was Friday October 25th 2002. How on earth did this message from the grave take so long, four months and four days to arrive? When was it checked by the prison officer? Who posted the letter? It wasn't till the thought hit her that it didn't matter how, when or why this was received, the letter was here, what should she do? How should she feel? Right from her unconscious, images of when she'd moved heaven and earth to get him out of the cell where he'd been stabbed with a broken bottle which Shell Dockley had wielded, of visiting him in hospital, of being sorry when he was going through his divorce from Marilyn, of visiting him at his bedsit of her own free will, of kissing him, of him forcing her to have sex with him when she said that she didn't want it, of her screwed up crazy behaviour afterwards, of Mark Waddle a fellow prison officer miscast as the knight in shining armour to defend her when she didn't want that either. She pressed her hands to her head as she was no longer safe in this comfortable flat but her mind was in a crazy place elsewhere. Finally, she grabbed for her phone and feverishly dialled her friends. Again and again, she heard the friendly, familiar tone of her friends reproduced in a repeating loop tell her, sorry, she wasn't available but if she left a name and message, she'd call her right back. Finally, she got through to Sally-Anne and to her inexpressible relief, Sally-Anne's calm tones answered in a real voice. Immediately she gabbled away. "Thank God you're here. Look, I need your help. I've just received this letter from Fenner and it's driving me crazy......" "Hold on Karen. I'm only too willing to help but please slow down, slow down. Keep calm, take a seat and explain what's happened," Sally-Anne said in the calmest tone of voice she could summon up. To her way of thinking, Karen sounded in a real state. Her intervention had its effect. "OK, I've just received a letter from Jim Fenner written two days before he died on June 20th 2002 that's been sent on from my last two addresses and has just reached me. He sounds in a state and wants me to help," Karen said in a more level, controlled tone of voice as she sat down on the sofa. "OK Karen, just read out the letter, slowly and calmly so I can get the sense of it." Sally's shrewd advice had its effect.Instead of hearing the way Fenner might have spoken and being deceived by the self pity and emotional manipulation, she turned off that voice within her head. Instead, Karen read the letter out slowly as if it were a news broadcast. As she spoke, every falsity came back into her mind and the way that Fenner had tried to stitch her up for a cold blooded murder which would have seen her behind bars and Fenner still working at Larkhall Prison, possibly a Wing Governor at last with all the scope for abusing his position. "And you really believe all that shit?" Sally said in acid tones. Karen could hear Trisha in the background and as Karen's breathing returned to normal, she could hear Trisha hooting in derision in the background. "The lying manipulating bastard," Karen exclaimed in passionate disgust just as she noticed that Beth had quietly opened the door and had heard the tail end of the conversation. "I can't tell you enough how I incredibly appreciate your help for just being there. I won't forget it and I'll do anything in return." "I know you would darling," Sally-Anne's incredibly warm voice sounded in her ear. "Was that your beloved coming through the front door." "It sure is. I won't keep you any longer as I know you've got things to do and I can see Beth's ears flapping," Karen replied with a broad grin, her blue eyes twinkling at her lover. "Cheeky madam," exclaimed a laughing Beth in huge relief. As she'd entered the door, she saw Karen clenching her mobile phone tightly to herself and an expression of stress and confusion on her face. She took her coat off and waited patiently for her lover to settle down as she knew that she'd hear the whole story. "Take a look at this load of shit,"Karen said grimly."The worst of it, and I blush to say it, is that for a fraction of a second, I was starting to believe it, after all he'd put me through." "You make this basstard seem like an addiction that you're well shot of," observed Beth, laying her hand on her partner's. Karen reached out to her lover, kissed her deeply and drew her down to the sofa on top of her. She loved the feel of her lover's sleek dress, her soft skin and the perfume she wore. She couldn't get enough of her and by the way her body moved against Karen's, it looked as if their evening meal was going to be seriously delayed........ A couple of hours later, Karen determined that there was one fitting act she was going to perform.. "You might think I've cracked but something I must do. I need a plate, my cigarette lighter and possibly a jug of water to be on the safe side." Beth fetched the objects without question and set them on the table. She had a shrewd idea of what was coming next. She was relaxed about the matter. "I need Fenner's bloody letter," Karen said in defiant tones, as she folded it several times into a rough pyramid and reached for her lighter. "I'm not sure if the bastard is rotting in hell but, in case he isn't, I'm going to enact this symbolically. I think there are enough folds in it without it being a health and safety risk." "You do it, darling," Beth said softly. "Do it for yourself." Very deliberately, Karen applied the flame of the lighter to the base of the pyramid. Very quickly, the flames took hold and red and yellow tongues of flame ran up the paper and toppled it over. With a whoosh and an evil smelling black odour, the paper was consumed and, with it, the last of the man's lies and deception went up in smoke. Karen stared at the flames burning out the last vestige of a hold over her and smiled in a childlike fashion at Beth who squeezed her hand. She understood. ***** "What a bastard," Trisha exclaimed when Sally-Anne told her the full story. "Still, I'm glad that you were there to help Karen out. She deserved better - and Beth also." "Have you come across any women who are real disaster areas, who are really bad for your head? You know my only experience of women has been you." "And aren't I delectable?" Trisha teased jokingly. The incident had left them in high spirits and they were dressing up, ready to open up the club. "Come on, I'm serious babes," Sally said appealingly as she sat on their bed to put on her favourite black high heeled shoes. Trisha looked thoughtfully for a moment as she finished off her makeup in the mirror and thought back over her past. Before she started living with Nikki, she had done the rounds of the lesbian scene and likewise after they had parted. Before she had met Nikki, she had engaged in casual relationships which had been sexually fulfilling but with no thought of long term commitment and, sooner or later, they had come across personality incompatibilities. After she and Nikki broke up, every girlfriend came up against the inevitable handicap of not offering the depth of relationship that she'd known with Nikki- until she'd met Sally-Anne. She couldn't say that any of her exes were actually evil. As she cast her mind far and wide, she recalled Nikki intervening on Alice's behalf over Becky Elliott. Now there was a woman who was seriously warped in her thinking who threatened to drag any woman down who got enmeshed in her perpetual dramas. Nikki had spotted that Alice was in danger of being undone by her large heart, in having her head spun round in different details. "The nearest I can think of was Becky Elliott who is Alice's ex. She was one half manic deprressive, one half neurotic. If Nikki hadn't stepped in, I had thought of barring her from the club. God help any woman who ends up with her.The only thing I can't accuse her of is being coldly calculating like this Fenner guy was like, to hear Nikki and Helen speak of her.There's good and bad in all communities, I suppose." "Talking of Nikki and Helen, they're really serious about having a baby." Trisha laughed as she ran a brush through her shoulder length blond hair.She was intent on beautifying herself, aware of her lover's admiring glances as always. "Well, you know what they're like, babes. They might as well have a Stewart-Wade family crest emblazoned 'Where there's a will, there's a way.' I never thought there was a more single minded woman than Nikki- until I met Helen. as for me, I don't know one end of a baby from another- and I don't care to." "The thought never really crossed my mind," Sally-Anne said lightly. "You'd better brush up on the knitting you learnt at school in knitting bootees or whatever you call them. I know what a planner Helen is for a start and I'm surprised we haven't been given our marching orders," teased Trisha relentlessly. "You know I'm hopeless at things like that," Sally exclaimed, tossing a random article of clothing at her."Give me woodwork tools and , well wood of course, and I might remember how to make a crib. You're the fluffy and feminine kind." "I look more the conventionally feminine type but you should know, sweetheart, that I'm into buying clothes and makeup but I always got bored at that kind of thing." Trisha retorted, approaching her partner from behind and wrapping her arms round the dark-haired woman. Sally Anne murmured in appreciation as she felt her lover's lips kiss her neck. "And pleasuring your girlfriend,"Sally Anne sighed, trying to feel round at the back of her to get her hands on her lover. Not having any luck that way, she twisted round to receive her lover's full embrace. "Darling, we'd really better get our hormones under control," said Trisha at last, disengaging herself from Sally-Anne's mouth with feelings of frustration, duty just about winning over pleasure. "It's Saturday night so when the club's closed, we can carry on this very interesting conversation where we left off. In the meantime, I'd better fix my lipstick and we'll open up. Right darling?" Trisha finished, turning the full force of her bewitching charm on Sally Anne. "Right we are," agreed Sally Anne, repairing her own lipstick before linking arms for tonight's party to start. |
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| richard | Feb 20 2011, 03:25 PM Post #20 |
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Scene Eighteen As Alice continued to stare sightlessly out of the window at her place of work, gently rotating round on her swivel chair, she felt the aftershocks of the crazed stabbing of Mrs Elliott continue to shake her foundations. It was late at night when Alice finally dragged herself home. Her professional obligations compelled her to drive along with the ambulance to oversee Mrs Elliott's admission to hospital. It took an eternity of time to confirm that she was going to be kept overnight in St Mary's for observations. She couldn't stop herself from fidgeting while she waited to hear the news so that a blond-haired nurse on duty held back from greeting her as she might have done otherwise. When she finally tore off down to the police station, she was kept waiting an eternity in reception while Becky had been held in a basement cell until the police were ready to cross examine her at length.Alice desperately wanted to accompany Becky while she was being interviewed under caution if only because she felt responsible for setting up the meeting in the first place. However, this application was forcefully refused by the sergeant in charge and Alice was helplessly aware of her lack of official status . It was only when her professional self gradually took command when she reluctantly went against the grain of her passionate nurturing instincts that no good was going to come of hanging round a cold, desolate police station with the wind whipping past the thick glass of the double swing doors. "What's happened darling?" asked George in a deeply concerned voice, gently embracing Alice as she virtually collapsed through the front door.Her sharp eye spotted how pale and drawn her partner was and the obvious agitation in her manner. "I've been round to visit Mrs Elliott, you know the manic depressive old lady who was badmouthing her daughter. I'd thought that this was some kind of paranoid fantasy and I fixed up to see both of them together and guess what, it was Becky who came through the door." "Oh no. That must have been horrible," exclaimed George in horror, conjuring up the picture of two emotionally warped women antagonistically locked together in a primal mother daughter clash of personalities. It made the years of her own daughter Charlie's alienation from her,calling her the 'ice maiden' to John, seem restrained and civilised by comparison. "Sit down with me on the settee and tell me what happened, darling. You have my complete attention." In short, ragged sentences torn out of raw emotions, Alice explained the traumatic shock of how the stabbing unreeled itself from nowhere, like a runaway cine projector gone mad. At the back of George's mind, her barrister's instincts were beginning to see how this was starting to stack up. "I have to speak up for Becky when the case comes up in court," Alice said with blind desperation, as if she weren't in control of her own thought processes. “No matter how badly behaved Becky has been, she isn't violent. I owe it to her for old times' sake. You understand how I feel, George. She's a friend," Alice pleaded. In a lightning flash, the blond-haired woman was already seeing just where this was heading. A sick feeling lodged at the pit of her stomach.What could she say to her that didn't sound harsh, unfeeling? George knew beyond doubt that there was trouble ahead. "I'm in a difficult situation, Alice. You know and I know that I cannot see Becky the same way that you do. If I remember correctly, not so long ago, she persuaded you to visit her because she had been going through some bad experiences. Knowing how kind-hearted you are, she tried to seduce you and when you didn't reciprocate, she became verbally abusive and so you had to get out of the house to come back to me." Alice never realised how much effort George put in to talk in as deliberately non offensive fashion as she could summon up and cut out every touch of abusive comment about Becky, that sly, conniving, drunken, manipulating tart for whose sake her Alice's kind hearted nature was in real danger of being taken advantage of. Why should she get dragged into some senseless drama? "You have to make allowances for her. My eyes have been opened by the way her mother reeled me in and set everything up for this disaster to happen.She's not to blame for the way she's turned out." George abruptly got up, clenched her fists and strode round the front room as rising anger and fear rose up inside her. She could feel Alice slipping away from her. God, what a demonic influence this woman has over her by playing the weak, helpless damsel in distress. It was a role that had always repelled her and even when she had gained new understanding, that side of her had never changed. None of their friends at Chix ever dreamed of playing those sort of games. "Alice, at the risk of saying the obvious, this is already a police matter and eventually will be for the courts to decide. I know that persuading damaged people to get onto the right path is your speciality and vocation but the inside of a criminal court is mine,"George replied in a tone of voice which she fought with all her strength of will to sound restrained and logical. "Don't talk about court cases. Haven't you got feelings?" Alice flashed, feeling that her partner was mentally pushing her too fast, too soon into the witness box when this wasn't what she wanted. George darted towards her handbag and lit up greedily, consciously using this device to gain time to think. "Darling, do you really, honestly want to know how I feel about the situation?" said George sharply, suddenly unmasking her pent up feelings. It was only then that Alice's training finally kicked in to get her to see beyond the boundaries of her own mental anguish.Up till then, her thought processes had been totally derailed. "You'd better get what you feel off your chest," Alice said flatly. "We can't act like characters out of a 1940s Ealing film." "All right, Alice I love you to distraction. I always have done ever since I first saw you on the dance floor at Chix and always will. Living with you is one of the best things I've ever done in my life. The trouble is that we're not carbon copies of each other. I simply cannot feel the sympathy for this woman as you still do and I can't think of her as the innocent victim." "It's because you're jealous of her," Alice found herself firing back at George.God, what have I let loose, she thought for a second as she feared that her partner's emotions would finally explode.She could feel the tension emanating from her partner in waves of passion. "A more accurate word to pick is insecure," George retorted with spring heeled precision, making it perfectly clear to Alice that this was the real thing. "Especially as she still has the knack of being able to press buttons on you that should have been disconnected long ago. I'm not saying she's guilty of wounding her mother like you think I feel. Just because I dislike her doesn't mean I think she's the devil incarnate." Alice stood open-mouthed as George spoke in very precisely articulated tones . It had never occurred to her that this very gorgeous, super confident woman could be insecure about anything. She had been hyper-sensitive to her partner being too dismissive of someone whom Alice saw as a victim of society as much as any of her clients were. Her profession was adamently opposed to superficial, judgmental loudmouths of society who despised her profession in their ignorance and it was only now that Alice realised that she'd questioned whether or not George's sympathies were more than skin deep. In one blinding moment, George showed incredible generosity of spirit and Alice fell in love with her all over again. "There's so much about you that I didn't realise. I mean you don't owe Becky any favours. That's to say, I really love you, George." George gave a half smile at Alice's very endearing awkwardness and impulsively hugged the dark haired woman.This time as they held each other, their bodies felt as if there was no strain or tension between them. "Look here, darling, you've had a dreadful day. Suppose you sit with me on the settee and we'll take it easy. I'll knock up something quick later," George said in her old familiar tender manner. A rush of feelings swept through Alice that her lover was back with her again. She felt weak at the knees partly through sheer mental exhaustion. "We could order a takeaway," Alice murmured, the tiniest trace of a smile on the corners of her lips. "Never," pronounced George with perfect aplomb. "It's against my principles." Alice let George take her by her hand and lead her to the feeling of sanctuary that she most wanted and the house felt like home again. ******* "Darling," Alice asked a couple of hours later on as she lay full length across the sofa and George's lap. The lights cast a dim glow and she could look up at the comforting dark shadows in the corners of the living room and, most of all, at her beautiful lover looking tenderly down on her. "You're really worried about me standing up in the witness box giving evidence for Becky. It's not just on her account, is it?" "So long as you never, never tell our friends how much I was in frightful tizzy about Becky. I have a reputation to maintain," George answered in her most playful tones, smiling down at her lover and feeling more secure than ever before. God, she must have been possessed earlier on and it was a wonder that she stayed so controlled. "I promise," came the gentle answer as Alice gently stroked her lover's hand. Both sighed with happiness feeling normality return. "I admit that she's not exactly a worthy cause but the problem is this. One way or the other, the knife entered Becky's mother's arm. They were both fighting for possession for the knife. Were both of them trying to stab the other, was one trying to disarm the other or was there some other explanation?" "I'm sure it wasn't Becky's doing," Alice said promptly." At least I mean I know how dysfunctional she is but trying to kill her mother breaks new ground for her." "Is that you speaking as a professional social worker or you talking as Becky's ex- lover? I'm talking as if I were the opposing barrister." Alice remained silent, feeling cold inside. She hated to admit it but this had never crossed her mind before. "You're going to be asked about your background to the case and I can't see your past relationship with Becky not coming out. I don't mind that personally but you have to understand that if you are rooting for Becky, your professional impartiality will be impugned.I can see traps ahead that are so obvious." "So had you worked all that out earlier on? Are you that much of a superwoman to have worked all that out when you had your own feelings to deal with?" Alice amazed and respectful reply made the fair haired woman laugh softly in reply as the dim light. She looked and sounded gorgeous and Alice continued to stroke her lover's hand. "Hardly that. I started to mull over the ideas when I was making dinner.I'd calmed down by then so I was able to put my thinking cap on." Alice was surprised by George's surprisingly nonchalant description of her demonstration of incisive thinking. It was starting to dawn on her that it was as well that one of them was thinking clearly. As she looked at her lover, she knew that the combination of beauty, intellect and compassion was what she really wanted in her life, not acting as mother to some spoiled child. "Come here," whispered Alice starting to move around on the sofa. "I want to kiss you- for a very long time." "That sounds like such a good idea,"George answered in her sultriest tones, her body moving around to accommodate Alice whose sole aim was to end up on top. That suited her so fine, George reflected as their mouths met for a long passionate kiss. ****** As Alice finally brought herself up to date with the present that morning she was still sitting sightlessly at her place of work. Five minutes had elapsed since she'd gone into a trancelike state, glad of finally making sense of her situation now that she'd relived it all. Her computer had been switched on and the blank screen had told her she hadn't even logged on so a colleague of hers shouted over to her. "Is there anything wrong Alice? You look really off colour." Alice shook her head decisively. While she'd been reliving the traumatic events, she probably had gone white with horror at the trap she had come close to falling into but hadn't because her very forgiving and understanding lover had pulled her back from the brink. What she was nervous about was the certain knowledge that her manager had told her to report to his office at nine-thirty and the interview wasn't going to be pleasant. He was sure to sift through the events with a fine tooth comb and it was certain to come out that she'd been in a relationship with Becky Elliot. That in itself wasn't going to go against her but her failure to put two and two together and realise that the meeting was wide open to blowing up spectacularly in her face was an unavoidable conclusion. How could she say that she had tried to expunge all thought of Becky from her mind after the way she'd tried to drag her into one of her little dramas previously? On the face of it, she should have made the connection but there were very good emotional reasons why she'd almost refused to make that link. The trouble was that, in terms of her professional obligations, her defence was insubstantial. ***** An hour later, Alice came out of the manager's office, her self-esteem shredded. She wanted to bury herself away somewhere and get home as soon as she could and to be wrapped up in George's arms to be reassured that all her bad feelings about herself would go away. "I'm all for equal opportunities as you well know and you can be absolutely assured that your relationships are thought of in a neutral, non-judgmental fashion....." Thanks a bundle, Alice had thought resentfully. This arid attempt to be politically correct sounded puny compared with the way that John and Joseph joyfully accepted her presence as George's lover, that she was welcome round their houses come Christmas and Charlie thought that she was really cool. That kind of warm friendship mattered far more to her than an hour's worth of platitudes whose purpose was surely to safeguard him from discreet attacks on her lifestyle. ".....but you simply cannot let your personal entanglements get in the way with the performance of your duties. All of us have certain standards to uphold." "All this belonged to my past. My present lover is the love of my life, someone I want to grow old with," Alice argued passionately in one fleeting moment of self-assertion."She's a high court barrister who has got her own standards of behaviour to maintain." "Indeed," the man had said without any trace of emotion. "I hope everything works out for the best but the fact remains of the serious lapse in your professional judgment. No formal disciplinery action will be taken but you can be assured that this will go down on your record......" Alice's heart had sunk. She had been shifted back onto ground where she had felt weakest. The meeting had gone from bad to worse.She had the prospect of Becky Elliott's trial coming up and, despite the reassurances of her friends at Chix last night, she did not feel good about herself. |
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| richard | Mar 6 2011, 06:40 PM Post #21 |
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Scene Twenty It was an ordinary shift to Karen and only coincidence had decided that she had been detached back to the Accident and Emergency wing of St Mary's.This was where she had started when she'd been first taken on as a permanent after working as a 'bank nurse' at all sorts of nursing establishments, including St Mary's, Larkhall Prison and various care homes. "Karen, I have some news for you that I hope you won't take amiss," Mark Williams had said to her, the besuited charmer in charge of the nurses. Karen had turned her attention to the man with a sigh. She had learned very quickly that this older man with a grown up daughter had the gift of the gab and fancied himself as still irresistable to women. Once she had laid it down the line that her sexual interests lay in a totally opposite direction, they had come to an amicable working relationship especially as she knew the guy was capable enough. He had a very irritating habit of making a mountain out of a molehill , imagining all sorts of tricky emotional situations whereas he would be far better employed to cut out the crap. By contrast, his daughter,Chrissie Williams, was Karen's immediate senior ,the Ward Sister who had summed her up in a second so incisively the first day she ever worked there as 'old school.' They got on like a house on fire from the moment they met as they were both no-nonsence blondes with strong personalities. "So what's the problem, Mark? I'm due to start my shift - with Jac Naylor on duty as well," Karen replied sharply. Normally,the man wouldn't allow any cheek from his nurses but Karen's maturity and obvious experience had placed her in a position where she could take minor liberties, especially as they agreed on how ruthlessly ambitious and selfishly domineering the senior registrar was. Unknown to them, Chrissie Williams had strolled down the ward and pretended to be preoccupied with her clipboard while making obvious her amusement at her father's expense at his inadequate attempt to be masterful and dominating. Dad, don't you ever learn, she thought to herself. "I can help you out in this case. Do you have any objection to being loaned out to Accident and Emergency for a couple of weeks as they've been running short-handed." "So why two weeks?"questioned Karen, with raised eyebrows. "Because that is the time it will take for the paperwork to go through for the replacement nurse to transfer from one of the Birmingham hospitals and there's no chance of budgets to allow for a bank nurse. Believe me, I double checked as I don't want a temporary loan to start stretching itself out indefinitely." "I was only asking Mark. Just to satisfy my curiosity, that's all," Karen replied in a bantering tone, a misleading look of innocence on her face. "Be off with you. The day management finally wake up to the fact that you could run this hospital, I'll eat my....tie," Mark said in mock scolding tones, grasping for a modern version of the traditional metaphor while he was patently lapping up all this female attention. Karen had gained a form of promotion in being allowed to mildly take the piss out of him. "Well said, Karen. The trouble is that while you're gone, there's only me to make sure my dad's kept in his place," broke in Chrissie, her hands on her hips in a familiar stance. Mark held up his hands in a 'What can I do about this?' gesture, sensibly opting for a silent reply rather than being ganged up on by these two strong women. ***** The night that made Karen sit up and take notice wouldn't have been that extraordinary for Friday night when the pubs and clubs disgorged their share of tanked up men and women who were aggressively looking for a fight with anyone, no matter the reason or alternatively, were found flat out drunk somewhere and having to be picked up by the long suffering ambulance service. It was a strange sign of the times that women these days were as bad as the men, being part of the 'ladette' culture.This is the other side of the coin, mused Karen to herself, from those landing up in prison. The likes of Al McKenzie,Tina Purvis, Denny Blood and Shell Dockley and others might have been amongst these drunken hordes several years ago so that the shifts she did on Friday nights brought her life round full circle. Karen's musings were cut short as her long strides took her to the end of the long corridor and to battle stations, or so she sensed. She found out that she wasn't far wrong as two ambulances whipped in to the parking bay at exactly the same time. Karen caught a glimpse of two paramedics bringing in the first stretcher which was swiftly logged in as a domestic quarrel between mother and daughter resulting in a knife wound to the upper arm which was going to require stitches. What transfixed her was the sight of the distraught woman with normally long elegant black hair that was tossed awry. She knew she'd seen that face before. With a sudden shock of recognition, she realised it was Alice. What on earth was she to do with this Mrs Elliott, an elderly woman unless she was one of her clients? "This one is Peter Gordon, aged 22, multiple fracture in a car accident, BP is 112 over 62. He'd had 5 milligrams of morphine. He's lost a lot of blood at the accident," called out the paramedic at rapid fire pace as the young man was wheeled in. "Karen, he's going straight up to the operating theatre and you're scrub nurse with Nic Jordan operating," rapped out the ward sister, knowing that she'd jump to it. Karen was rivited to the spot by the other accident, especially as Alice hadn't registered her presence. This was totally unlike her friend and it jarred on her that such an injury intruded into her personal life. This can't be real, she thought. "Karen, you're wanted now," called the voice from the ward sister in sharper tones. "You're needed in double quick time or he'll chew your ears off." Karen switched back to professional mode again. She knew where her duties called her and she scooted off towards the operating theatre. This was something of a compliment as the hard-driving consultant didn't just suffer fools gladly, he didn't suffer them at all and he valued her years of experience. All he wanted was that those who assisted during a complex operation slotted effortlessly into the supporting roles allowing his arrogant form of expertise to do what he knew he was best at, that of saving lives. ******** Back at the police station, Ros and Jenny were counting down the days when they would be finally reunited- in the world that claimed such a large chunk of their waking hours. The DCI had made a management decision to interchange those out on patrol with those working at the station as part of rounding experience to enhance all round experience but Ros knew that, behind all the bullshit, that bastard DI Sullivan had been as thick as thieves with the DCI.about this whole very suspect plan. There were those who loved being out on patrol and got stir crazy when taken off the road and those who loved the office environment but were useless in an averagely tricky situation and never the twain should meet. The upshot was that Jenny was stuck behind the front desk at the police station bored rigid, while Ros, with greater years of all-round experience was lumbered as DI Sullivan's very reluctant sidekick. It struck them both as less than coincidental that she and Jenny were chosen first. She figured that this was a surreptitious dig at the dykes, and that those conniving bastards planned this down to the last detail. She comforted herself with the good news that at least that bastard DI Gossard was six feet under thanks to Nikki's handiwork years ago.Not only had the the guy been very creepy, he spelled trouble as there was something gangsterish about him and all the sad sacks had thought he was the cat's whiskers , that he was Superman. What she could never understand that, while she was blond and good looking, she was rather butch in her manner. In which case, why the bloody hell did Gossard think that she would fancy him? Only when she had most forcibly threatened to knee him in the bollocks as soon as he tried it on did he drop it and instead make sarcastic cracks just out of earshot that she was some kind of man-hater. She had broad shoulders and could take the continual low level harrassment and her unexpectedly large heart, shown to very few, cried out within herself when she helplessly watched Gossard entrap and sexually abuse poor Sally-Anne Howe. When she finally made contact with Chix, she was glad to offer her support in her own gruff way. It wasn't just that once a copper, always a copper, Ros thought, even if Sally-Anne wasn't really aware of the fact. There was a soppy streak in her that was glad for the way that Trisha obviously looked after her and loved her in a way that a woman needed loving. A bit like her and Jenny, she thought in a flash of sentimentality. Returning back to the present, her background view of Sullivan confirmed that the guy had an outside ego that he had trouble getting through the door and, beneath his bluster, was as clueless as Karen, Nikki and Helen had described from their various experience of him of running up against him in court.Mind you, she'd believed the word of her mates who she knew to be sharp and on the ball. As she accompanied his ever plodding, cumbersome interviews, she kept her mouth shut except when she was expected to parrot her lines agreeing with his ponderously sarcastic observations of the unlucky suspect. Secretly she worked out in her mind the line of questioning she would have followed. One night, her imaginings came to life for real when a certain Becky Elliott was hauled in for questioning. DI Sullivan gestured to Ros with a sideways gesture of his head to accompany him. Sighing with exasperation, Ros trailed after him to receive a minimal briefing on the case so the smug bastard held all the aces in a situation where knowledge is power. She trailed into the interview room to see this very scared, nervous woman who kept fiddling with this lock of hair that trailed over the corner of her eye. If she wasn't looking so rough, Ros reckoned that she would be quite a looker.Ros perched herself on the chair at the corner of the table while DI Sullivan plonked himself down centre stage. He ponderously read over the caution and jumped head first into the questioning. "Rebecca Elliott, do you know why you're being questioned?" he asked, crossing his arms in front of him and leaning into the suspect. Ros saw the look of fear cross her face, her eyes looking every which way, her endless fidgeting with her hair. Most of all, she felt the tension in her like a solid wall while DI Sullivan was smugly self assured that this woman was easy meat. "I don't...I've done nothing wrong," she replied jerkily. "So you know nothing about the fact that, as we speak, your mother, Mrs Elliott is in St.Mary's Hospital with a hole in her arm where your knife was stuck into it?" DI Sullivan said loudly into her face. "It's not as easy as that. We had a terrible argument. We were fighting with each other," the woman said with a strange twist of aggression in her voice. "I believe you. Of course I do,"DI Sullivan said with coarse sarcasm. "Don't you, Sergeant Farmer?" "I might," Ros said in a deliberately non-committal tone of voice that drew a glare in return and this was not from Becky Elliott. "It's all the fault of that tart of a social worker. It was all her fault," muttered Becky in an almost inaudible tone of voice, eyes downcast. "Of course it was. Social workers are there to aggravate ordinary members of the public, aren't they. So you explain to me, Rebecca, just why in hell should a social worker do anything but her duty to the public?" DI Sullivan loudly hectored the woman. This disgusted Ros as she knew very well how this plonker had a low opinion of 'interfering do gooders, always making excuses for the scum of the earth.' "Because she's my no good ex. She was plotting the whole thing with my mum. She took up with that blond stuck up barrister of hers. I've seen her once though she didn't see me. She's got that voice like she thinks she's the Queen of Sheba," Becky said in a much louder voice, glaring all about her. DI Sullivan clean missed the abrupt dysfunctional change of manner that Ros felt like a tripwire to her senses.Instantly, it exploded a light bulb in Ros's mind. There couldn't be two lesbian barristers in all of London who could be described this way than George and therefore the social worker must be Alice. Ros had heard Alice describe her ex as very screwed up and seriously bad for the head and this pithy description seemed about right. "So the name of this social worker is Alice Swinburne, isn't it.?" Ros interjected, beating her very irritated DI to the punch. He didn't like sergeants acting smart on him. "How did you know....?!" Becky started to say, a flash of recognition in her eye that one of the two shapes in dark suits who up to then felt like some kind of Martian alien, had something in common with her outside the world of uniforms, rules and regulations.At that point, DI Sullivan stepped in again with both feet. "Look here lady, I really don't want to know about your sex life. That's for the porno magazines. I put it to you that for some wierd reason, you deliberately stabbed your own mother in the arm. Your dabs will be all over the knife and your mother will end up talking. The only things left are just why you did it and a signed confession out of you." "That's what I want to explain if you'd listen. Look here, I might make it worth your while if I talk to the lady on her own,"Becky said sulkily, her gaze trained purely on Ros. "Lady, you don't have the choice of who talks to you," DI Sullivan said, shouting into the woman's face. "In that case, no comment," Becky retorted, her face shutting up like a trap. An embarrassing silence fell on the room as DI Sullivan was figuring out what to say next and Ros wasn't going to help him out. Presently, DI Sullivan's pager alerted the man to take a message. "Interview is suspended while DI Sullivan and Sergeant Farmer leave the room," DI Sullivan intoned, clicking off the tape which had been quietly whirring away in its casette. "Sergeant Farmer, I've got an emergency on my plate. I'll have to drop this one which isn't going anywhere. It's just a domestic, nothing much. If I can dig up a replacement DI, can you wrap this one up and bail that crazy dyke after taking a statement, then we can decide what to do in the morning." "What's up?" Ros couldn't resist saying. "Your replacement have only wrapped their squad car round a lamppost in a high speed chase. I've got to pick up where they've left off," DI Sullivan said shortly, being surprisingly forthcoming. He could have said that it was none of her business but for some reason, he didn't. "They need me to sort out the mess. Who knows, we might spare you and PC Slater back on the beat? The interchange experiment was a short term arrangement anyway." Ros suppressed her desire to jump up and down in girlish excitement as this definitely not her natural style and would irretrievably wreck her image. In any case, she wanted to know which DI would take over the case, being certain that she would be no more than an assistant once again. She listened intently as DI Sullivan had his ear glued to his mobile as he yattered away and finally he turned his attention back to Ros. "You're getting our Ms Martin to take over the case. You bring her up to speed. You two should get on like a house on fire being the same type of women," he sneered before zooming away towards his squad car. |
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| richard | Mar 27 2011, 02:09 PM Post #22 |
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Scene Twenty-Three The sequence of roads leading to St. Mary's Hospital were now becoming a well-worn path as an area of town once peripheral to Nikki and Helen's existence was now a major centre of their lives. This time around, the series of tests were going to be more far reaching as Helen's pregnancy was more advanced. Helen was quite happy for Nikki to take the wheel and pick her up from home as she discounted the theory of having plenty to do to occupy her mind and preferred to delegate this. The receptionist welcomed the two women as Helen checked in, both displaying a superficial cheeriness that disguised their nervousness. Nikki did wonder if they were somehow pushing their luck as her life's history had been one of sudden cataclysmic reverses in fortune and struggling to regain this ground. It was only for the last months that her life had finally stabilised as their cosy domestic scene provided some peace and tranquillity. However, their spirits were buoyed up as always by the version of officialdom that treeted them nicely and actually wanted to help them and not treat them as nuisances and distractions. It felt good to both of them. While they were sitting on the hard plastic chairs waiting their turn, a sister marked out by her dark blue uniform and a nurse passed them by, chattering and laughing amongst themselves.Something felt familiar. "If it was anyone other than you, Karen, I'd say you were jealous," the self assured blond-haired sister said in joking tones. "All right, Chrissie Williams, I really think that you have a bad taste in men. Trust me. That's why I gave up and started batting for the other team," the other blonde retorted. "Hiya, Karen," Helen called out in carrying tones with a broad grin on her face. Karen Betts, or so it was her, grinned and waved back while still walking rapidly, mouthing 'can't stop now,' making a mental note to tell the very heterosexual Chrissie Williams that, no, her friend isn't the normal typical mother with a best friend for moral support. In turn, Nikki and Helen smiled appreciatively at the openness with which Karen was living her life before the double swing doors swallowed them up and, in turn, Helen disappeared into the depths of the medical wing. It was then that Nikki was aware of a dejected looking pale-faced young girl who looked as if she'd scarcely left school. Somehow, she claimed her attention. The swell of her stomach wasn't something she felt proud of as the slope of her shoulders announced her misfortune rather than a happy event.. "Your friend is very lucky to have someone like you to look after her. I couldn't help overhearing the way you're talking. My mum is furious at me being caught out. She said she doesn't want things like this second time around just when she's getting her freedom." Instantly, Nikki was all sympathy for this young girl and she tried to comfort her and persuade her that there was a world outside who would treat her kindly if she looked for it. It passed the time while Helen was facing the first of a battery of tests. As it turned out, the interaction with their friend put Helen in a pleasant frame of mind to face not only the blood and urine tests with perfect equanimity as she'd had these tests before but more searching tests this time around. This time, Helen faced the ultrasound scan in a more relaxed frame of mind as she was more prepared for it and, as time had gone on, the reality of her being a prospective mother was more tangible. This was because at her 20 weeks stage of pregnancy, it was designed to check to look for physical abnormalities of the unborn baby as a tangible being and this threw up additional concerns. It couldn't possibly happen to her, she prayed, as she put herself in the hands of the medical experts. "This is only a routine checkup," it was explained to Helen in a deliberately matter of fact casual fashion."It's best to check this out at this stage in the pregnancy.Everyone has to go through it." Helen relaxed a little at these reassuring words and bathed warmly in these kind hearted professionals would help bring in their child into the world. She knew that her physical shape and what was happening in her body was telling her as each day passed of approaching motherhood. They had come so far, Nikki and herself, that it almost seemed miraculous as to how they had got to their present point in life. ****** Back in the tightly enclosed world of Larkhall Prison, Bodybag's world wasn't getting any better. It was five months ago that Yvonne Atkins had been released from Larkhall but any positive thoughts that she'd seen the back of her chief trouble-maker and her scheming ways had been outweighed by the combination of Kris Yates and the two Julies coming to the fore. She didn't know which of them was giving her more trouble.Yates or the Julies and there were many more of them who followed their lead. At one time, Bodybag grumbled about the stroppy, moody lesbian who acted like a spoiled brat, snapping everyone's head off except Miss Geeson with whom she was suspiciously close. It meant that Yates made her fair share of enemies as she mouthed off at all and sundry and that suited Bodybag down to the ground. So long as prisoners fought among themselves, that was really all right by her so long as it didn't lead to anything serious. The maddening thing was that Yates was getting on better with the other prisoners and saving up all her venom for Bodybag. Likewise, Bodybag always saw the Julies as being as daft as a brush, getting up to all sorts of pranks but now they had the habit of looking through her with an expression of veiled contempt.She wished that she could invent a rule by which she could send them down the block for just looking in a suspicious manner. What made it worse was that Miss Myers was definitely not a friend of hers and, while everything ran smoothly, Grayling was bound to back the winning side. It wasn't fair, she whined to herself as, just for once, her moaning connected to a real irreversible downwards change in her fortunes. She almost felt as if she was locked up, along with the cons as she shuffled in through the gates and picked up her keys one more time.Her back was playing her up again but she'd pulled more than her fair share of 'sickies' and Myers was looking suspiciously at all her flowery stories.The trouble was that even they didn't work any more like they used to. Her family life with her Bobby was one of resigned coexistence punctuated with periodic fallings out with her two daughters, Gail and Constance, and doting on the apple of her eye, little Bobby Darin. "You look like you've been dug up from the grave, Sylvia," called out Gina in derisive tones as Bodybag trudged gloomily onto the wing. "Me and my fella have had a hot weekend and I mean hot." All the women laughed out loud partly with sympathy at this very human prison officer and partly against Bodybag. Kris joined in readily enough as her very conjectural relationship with Selena had been neatly solved with the help of a very convenient blind eye being turned. It did resolve the built up tension very nicely and it put a nice smile onto Selena's face when they'd finished. "You should be setting an example to the prisoners, Rossi," Bodybag retorted, glaring furiously at this loose moraled woman. "It's disgusting, the way you talk in public" "Just be a bit more cheerful for everyone's sake, Sylvia. Not much to ask for,"Gina retorted, grinning widely. She knew she was chancing her arm in mildly cheeking the older woman but she'd had a basinful of her endless grumbling. ****** On Saturday, Bodybag took herself off shopping in London and, when she'd walked her feet off, she dropped into a coffee bar and sat at her table, her large cup of coffee gradually cooling as she stared into the distance. If only life was like it used to be, she thought to herself. She remembered walking onto the wing at a sprightly pace and into the PO room. She could almost see her past before her eyes. She enjoyed accepting a morning cup of tea from some young con who knew where her bread was buttered in being allowed her red band. Suddenly a past array of prison officers came into view, all with the same training and upbringing that didn't rely on paperwork and buzz-words. All it took was being taken under the wing of a more experienced prison officer to show you the ropes, the informal do's and don'ts. In those days prisoner's rights were unheard of. If they said, yes miss, no miss, three bags full miss, then they got special privileges as opposed to the mouthy rabble. How easy it was for her to have a word in the right ear and some troublemaker got ghosted out. They didn't have to spend valuable time in overseeing education classes and, if there were prison visitors, they were kept down to a minimum. There wasn't the paperwork in those days as all the PO's knew the cons and kept all the information where it was safe, in memory form.There wasn't any politically correct language you were supposed to talk years ago. A con is a con is a con and that's all you needed to know. She thought particularly of Jim Fenner who'd been her mentor when she first joined the prison service and they'd both risen in the ranks, her to Senior Officer and him to Principal. The times they used to have in fixing this, that or the other and they used to cover each other's shift if either of them needed to slide off on personal business. No one asked awkward questions and above all, everyone stuck together against the common enemy. Her thoughts shifted to a darker mood as sights and sounds of all the awkward prisoners who had got out went through her mind. Before Atkins got out there was Hunt with her stuck up, oh so Christian ways and before all them, there was Wade. She remembered as if it were yesterday the way she'd cheeked her with her typical insolence " I'll miss Bodybag...taking the piss out of her anyway." She remembered with rising fury more of that smart alec backchat when she bumped into her and as bold as brass chimed in with "Excuse me, we’re both on the outside now. Free citizens. The rules have changed. So I don’t mind you calling me Nikki if I get to call you Sylvia.” That was about eighteen months ago and the cheeky upstart woman was dressed in a posh looking suit as if she'd never been banged up in strips more times than she'd cared to count. No doubt she was being a professional troublemaker on the outside. She was the source of all her troubles, Bodybag glowered into the distance. "Hey Bodybag, fancy meeting you again. Strange how we can't stay away from each other," called out that hated voice in louder tones than she remembered. The woman was dazed and confused as her past was so real to her as she relived it like a treasured family photograph album, brought out for special occasions. "Don't you recognise me. I'm Nikki Wade. You surely can't have forgotten me as easily as that, nor my partner Helen Stewart." The older woman's eyes opened wide with total shock and horror as first of all, that hated dark haired woman appeared out of her swimming senses. There she was, dressed to the nines in an expensive looking dark suit with a faint white pinstripe, that cheeky grin spread all over her face with her arm round a smaller woman whose bold features, wide smile and green eyes rivited Bodybag's horrified gaze. What nearly sent her into an apoplectic fit was the unmistakeable signs of a spreading waist that denoted, to her own experience, the signs of mid term pregnancy. How could that possibly be, something as unnatural as that? "I'll expect you'll want to congratulate us on the baby we're expecting, Sylvia. Who knows, we might even invite you to the Christening?" Helen teased in mocking tones, a wicked glint in her eye and an expression of unashamed amusement spreading across her face as her head rested on Nikki's. Bodybag was rendered speechless by the brazen way in which her two bitter enemies behaved. That wasn't the only deadly surprise that they would land on her. "Oh, excuse me as I'd clean forgotten to introduce our friends. The gentleman with us is John Deed a High Court judge, his ex wife and good friend George Channing and her present partner Alice Swinburne. Karen Betts you know already." "We meet again, Sylvia," Karen said sarcastically, her blue eyes flashing fire at the other woman's senses. "Life has moved on for all of us since Fenner got sent down for murdering an innocent man and trying to frame me for it." "The man committed suicide. It's a tragedy. He must have been feeling desperate. I bet you're all laughing at the idea," shouted Bodybag. The whole cafe could virtually see steam coming out of her ears as she turned red in the face, reaching for the first words that came to hand. "Even me?" questioned John in his smoothest tones. John had heard a lot about this woman during his acquaintance with his friends and, once aghain as with Fenner, they proved to be excellent judges of character. "You don't know the man,"Bodybag said scornfully. "You've never met him." "On the contrary, I was staying over at Nikki and Helens and he tried to break in and terrorise them. I sought to remonstrate with him and ended up using a right hook on him to restrain him from going berserk. I think I got a pretty good insight into his character so much so that I couldn't in all justice try him for murder of one Gerald Baker, a fellow judge did so instead." "But I prosecuted him and I must admit that it was a pleasure and a duty," interjected George in her best aristocratic accents.Bodybag's mouth remained agape as she was totally dumbstruck. There was so much that she couldn't get her head around, for a start, Nikki's distinguished circle of friends and for another this man who was friends with them all. "As for me, my life has definitely changed for the better,"chimed in Karen. "And here's my partner who's done wonders for my life in so many ways." In stepped Beth who was a little late for their meetup and Karen embraced this glamorous dark-haired woman who looked as if she had stepped off a catwalk, dressed to the nines. This was the finishing blow as she saw Karen warmly kiss her lover. At that point, Bodybag grabbed her belongings and scuttled out of the door. She wanted to put as much distance away from her worst nightmares all come together. She felt as if she were hyperventilating. A gale of laughter greeted her as she left. ************ Mr and Mrs Wade sat in their comfortable sitting room, a picture of the Battle of Trafalgar over the mantlepiece. Outside the garden, the Home Counties brand of conservatism ruled supreme in the array of white painted mock Tudor or neo Gothic spacious homes. "So what do you think of our daughter's invitation to this Howard League of Penal Reform AGM? It hardly seems like something that a died in the wool conservative like yourself would go to?" Mrs Wade said with a lurking smile on her face, turning away from her crossword.An opened envelope lay on the side table with the invitation letter, stamped addressed reply and a letter written in Nicola's excitable scrawl. "Of course you know what my answer is. I suspect Nicola has worked hard at behind the scenes and she deserves our support. We've the same reason to go as when we went to the annual sports day,"he chuckled. Nostalgic thought went back in time to when they drove over to their proud daughter's boarding school and joined the queue for lemonade and home made cakes and watched assorted teams of long jump, high jump, relay races, 100 yards and quarter mile. Taking their places in the homely but functional wooden benches, the girls wearing the same identical sports uniforms milled around until being ordered into line for the start of each race. They could pick out their own daughter, a little taller than most with shoulder length curly hair and her deep brown eyes that sparkled with pleasure and caught their gaze. She was especially proficient at high jump, the sort of race where she hurled herself high into the air to just about clear the bar. That was their Nicola all over, to go for a challenge no matter how hard it seemed. By now, their memories had learnt to skip over the painful years of exile from each other, helped by the passing months of recent intimacy.They received a phone call at random, often with the request to spend the weekend over at their house in a free and easy relationship. "I didn't think that you were greatly enamoured of conferences.'Loads of self important people gassing away, in love with the sounds of their own voices' is the way I remember you describing that sort of thing," pursued Mrs Wade. "There's no lengths to which I wouldn't go to support our daughter. It isn't about guilt over the past but that's the role we were meant to fill." "So you have no reservations about Nicola and Helen starting a family, dear?" Mrs Wade said in a conversational tone of voice. "Between you and me, Nicola's more traditional than she makes out. I am quite sure she and Helen will do fine. as for our friends, we did right in casually telling our friends as if it's the most natural thing on earth. Our only problem is that this will put John's nose out of joint but that's hardly our problem." "Then that's settled then," Mrs Wade said, turning her attention back to her crossword again |
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| richard | Apr 3 2011, 05:45 PM Post #23 |
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Scene Twenty-Four Now that John was back in London on Thursday afternoon, November 7th 2002, he settled back in to his very comfortable routine back at the digs. Monty greeted him like a long lost brother, being the one man around who could deflect his domineering wife, Vera Everard. She was oblivious to the fact that her attempts to boss her husband's life and bask in his glory were not exactly appreciated, no one being up to the alternative of bluntly telling the woman that she was a confounded busybody. The trouble was that she had the ear of Sir Ian and ran a salacious gossip hotline direct to him. The moment John came through the door to his chambers, Coope also greeted him warmly, having been loaned out in his absence to serving one of the dull humourless tediously virtuous judges. However turbulent the judge's life was, including the strain on her nerves from periodic threats from the establishment, life with the judge was never dull. The one contentious problem for John was that returning to London meant having to face up to his contentious relationship with Jo Mills.The miles from London and the pleasant cultured university campus had made this fractious relationship diminish to the status of a troubled dream. When he was nicely settled at his desk, Coope dealt him the first case from off the top of the pile ready for hearing on Friday morning so now he was back in the cut and thrust of court cases.He readily confessed to Coope to be glad to be back with the adrenaline rush the minute the trial was started as opposed to the calm tranquillity of standing up on a podium theorising to impressionable minds although he had enjoyed his stay in Warwick. The only trouble with the case was that Jo was listed as prosecution barrister and John took in a sharp intake of breath on Friday morning when he first laid sight of Jo Mills in her familiar position on the extreme right hand side of the long bench that faced him. Just what edition of her would he encounter? Life couldn't be taken for granted so much now that they'd broken down that long standing barrier that kept them apart as lovers but which kept them together as friends. It occurred to him that the closer they got, the more problematic their situation became. Fortunately, John's decision to play the case relatively safely and her unconquerable position meant that the trial played itself out smoothly to its inevitable conclusion aside from a bit of verbal sparking with Jo. The trouble was that, as soon as Friday was over, Jo rushed off in a hurry to be eager to research for a particularly complicated case for the Monday. John tried his best to say how understanding he was of Jo's predicament and hoped that his feelings of disappointment weren't too obvious. On a Saturday morning, he suddenly decided to take Mimi on a long walk, especially as the sun was shining on a cold, windless winter day. With highly attuned senses, Mimi pricked up her ears and her tail waved vigorously from side to side to see if John would reach for the leash on the hook by the front door.She stared into his eyes, hoping to bend his will to her wishes and made sure in looking particularly cute and wistful. "Come on, Mimi, we're going for a walk on Primrose Hill." The mental vision of the panoramic view of London was an irresistable one. He took his mobile phone automatically with him but some instinct prompted him to have it switched off. As John mentioned the magic word 'walk,' Mimi's ears appeared to stand up by themselves for a few minutes. Her mental vision was of an irresistable source of exploring foreigh territory, wide open spaces, fascinating smells and the opportunity to show off to other humans how cute she was and, hopefully scrounging biscuits and other delicacies off them. In particular, their final return home could be sneakily postponed with a bit of adroit handling of her master. Soon, John shot away in his car, headed for their mutual destination, Mimi panting with excitement.In no time at all, John strolled into the park and instantly, he felt free, released from all cares. ****** A group of neighbourhood mothers who frequented the park were very observant as to all the comings and goings of people as far as 'regulars' could be identified. One person who was very noticeable was the blind woman who came every Saturday to the park with her dog. Of course, they felt so sorry for the woman as it must be very hard for her to manage, especially with the large lively Labrador dog. They talked things over and agreed that it must be a job and a half for her to get out of where she lived and that this must be the one occasion that she got some fresh air. Obviously, she couldn't do the dusting and tidying away after herself and someone had to be around to cook her meals every day for her.They assumed she wasn't married and therefore she must be living at home with her parents whom, they assumed must have driven her there. They must be particularly saintly in dealing with their daughter's misfortune themselves as much as this woman was for enduring blindness. They couldn't for the life of themselves being able to manage to remember where things were let along set about cooking.It was unimaginable for any of them to set foot in a large wide open park with a dog without getting lost. The women all prided themselves in being able to pigeonhole whatever stranger came their way and knew so much more than their husbands who were out at work all day while they each held down a part time job besides looking after the children.Husbands, they agreed amongst themselves, were hopeless in doing the slightest things round the house and were careless with keys so that they looked after them.They were the ones who could sort things out and so they did, very noisily. Meanwhile, the blind woman could be seen walking along the gravel path in a stately fashion, up the steep hill and working her way towards the top of Primrose Hill. In the middle of the park, she was noticed unclipping the lead that was attached to that complicated harness that the Labrador dog wore. The women looked at each other in disbelief. Surely, she couldn't be mad enough to let the dog run all over the park she wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting the dog back. As they collected up their brood of children from the play area, they clucked to themselves that the woman wasn't their responsibilitty. If they had the ill luck in being around when she was calling out for help, they wouldn't be stuck with leading her by the hand and take her back from where she came from much less finding the dog which looked healthy enough to run a mile in no time at all. As they scolded their children to walk straight and not dawdle around, they were already working out what they had to do in the busy schedule in what they called life. ****** John came from over the brow of Primrose Hill and took in the breathtaking, panoramic view of London. It was a clear day and he could see the Post Office tower that marked the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road. In mentally working out the particular perspective, he could gauge where the Old Bailey would be whose famous scales of justice were just about visible. This viewpoint and the splendour of the park put his life in perspective, particularly on the human anthills where countless numbers beavered away with no thoughts of any rhyme or reason in their lives. Down below him he could see a clutch of mothers by the play area and they reminded him of happy times when he did the same for Charlie when she was little.In the meantime, Mimi gambolled playfully thirty yards away, craftily working out whether or not she could edge a bit further away without her master noticing. A number of times, animal cunning prevailed over the frailties of human shepherding. Finally, John walked slowly down the hill, lost in thought as the cold wind whipped past his ears while his overcoat was buttoned up to his neck, round which was wrapped a woollen scarf. He enjoyed the abstract feel of exploring empty spaces and letting his thoughts flow free. Surprisingly, there were few of his fellow countrymen around today. This was a shame as he felt that this time of the year normally saw the downward plunge into dark mornings and evenings, cold grey skies, the rain pouring endlessly down ,only illuminated by the false tinsel glitter of commercialised Christmas. A day like this was worth celebrating, or so he thought as Mimi trotted on ahead of him. Meanwhile, the big Labrador dog was back on the leash after his mistress's clear commanding tones had not let him mischievously play her up for more than a certain period of time. After all, he was a guide dog and, as such, felt obliged to demonstrate his sublime sense of superiority to the mere pets that accompanied their owners and didn't do a useful job of work. His importance in the great scheme of things had to be made really obvious in the way he carried himself. Posture and body language was everything. He had to be seen to be his mistress's guardian as he paraded around the park and eventually bringing them back to its entrance. Other dogs were in the humiliating position of being told what to do. The big Labrador's nature wasn't in the slightest way malicious. All he wanted was that his place in the pecking order of animals should be recognised and that he was Lord and Master of the universe because of his prowess. At the same time, he could mix business with pleasure, investigate a few interesting smells and generally have it both ways. Suddenly, he sensed the presence of canine company and his pace quickened. His senses led him up the hill in a straight line and finally his owner's sharp ears picked up on that very melodious voice calling out to Mimi to behave herself. She very much liked the interesting timbre of the man's voice, possessing an irresistable weakness for posh. She was as willing and as inquisitive as the Labrador to see what she might find. One thing slightly puzzled her and that was that the guy didn't appear to recognise her, even though she occasionally called out to the Labrador. "Hi, it's nice to see someone else enjoying the beauties of nature. I love the feel of fresh air this time of the year," Kristine called out. This voice attracted John's attention straightaway, dragging him away from his reveries.He blinked as this large woman of indeterminate age had suddenly appeared in front of him from out of nowhere. He decided that he definitely liked the sound of her voice, because it had no accent to speak of, and was clear, pleasant and commanding. "I couldn't agree with you more. Do you come here often?" John said with studious politeness. "That's the oldest line in the book. I've heard it said to me many a time," Kristine smirked with perfect self assurance, a challenging note in her voice. This took John Deed aback. His first instinct had been to be very sympathetic to this blind woman who unaccountably had made her way on her own from the bottom of the hill and seemed perfectly self-assured. When she spoke to him, there wasn't the slightest hint of deference to him which, he secretly admitted, he was becoming a little bored with. This large woman wasn't his normal type, and therefore challenged his perspectives and this was intriguing. She was as sharp as a razor in seeing through him straight away. This was not a common experience for him. "Well, in case you think I'm jumping the gun, perhaps we ought to introduce ourselves," John said in melodious tones "I'm John Deed." "I've heard of you. You're a high court judge," Kristine said, a dawning note of recognition in her voice. "I've recently got to know a couple of friends of yours, Helen Stewart and Nikki Wade. They sing your praises very highly as someone who's dedicated to justice and who isn't afraid of the establishment. That appeals to me. Anyway, my name's Kristine Thorne- with a K." "An individual touch," John murmured with approval. "How did you come to know Nikki and Helen ?" John continued politely. "I'm interested." "Nikki came to ask me for help about academic research in prison reform. She came to the right place as I teach Education studies at the University of London since I started my MA when I was 23," Kristine answered in her chatty, conversational way. She knew straightaway that this guy was genuinely interested and not making idle conversation. "I'm also in the second year of my PhD is a combined doctorate of Education and Criminology. It's an extension to my Master's dissertation which was "Does giving prisoners an education decrease their chance of reoffending. If you know Nikki, you can see the connection." "That gives me something in common with you, Kristine as I've spent the last two months at Warwick University lecturing in law to the judges of the future.I covered for a colleague who was laid up with an ankle injury. He was so carried away with one of his flights of oratory that he fell off the podium." Kristine laughed at this man's droll story. The laugh of this woman was clear, unafraid and John liked that. It confirmed her initial judgment that this man had the gift of the gab with women. She could handle that one. "Why on earth don't people use the eyesight they were given to look where they're going?" she answered, abstractly scolding the unobservant universe. "I thought I was going to have to be sensitive about the fact that you can't see. I'm sorry, I'm not sure if that came out right." "That's all right John," Kristine said in sympathetic tones. "I know you mean well. You shouldn’t feel sorry for me. I was lucky in my upbringing. If this slope was covered with snow, I'd have a fantastic time skiing down this slope. I was taught to go diagonally down the slope so far, turn sharply and go down the other diagonal. Mind you, there had to be a sighted person with me for obvious reasons." "That's absolutely amazing," John exclaimed, not being able to express his feelings about such unexpected independence. "I can feel Mister Man straining at the leash to have a good run. I'm dying for a cigarette anyway," Kristine answered, acknowledging the praise, noting that this man caught the ball thrown at him and ran with it. She unclipped the harness and immediately Jules bounded away off the field. John followed suit , not being altogether sure that he could command his dog to return with quite the assurance that he wanted. In the meantime, Kristine reached inside her pocket for lighter and cigarette and lit up gratefully. Jules and Mimi went through the rituals that animals go through in getting to know each other, not that dissimilar than what humans indulge in. Kristine was amused to see Mimi assert herself with Jules, knowing very well what a big softie her large lumbering dog was. "Nikki and Helen are both lovely women and they've done a lot for me- as real friends of mine. I've the highest respect for them. I've seen them in action in court and outside and they're both astonishingly strong minded." "I know what you mean John. I visited them at their flat and they really are such an item. I admire them in having the guts to start a family together," Kristine answered, smiling wistfully at the memory of them. "Nikki's persuaded me to go to the Howard League of Penal Reform annual general meeting. It's definitely in my field and of course, you'll be second speaker.You'll have to make sure you don't get upstaged." "That isn't possible. It's very hard for anyone to upstage me, least of all a Government Minister. I mean what are they? What special qualifications has he got?" John observed dismissively. "So we've got the chance to have a bit of fun. Conferences don't normally have a good reputation for that," observed Kristine, recalling self-indulgent speakers in love with the sound of their voices who insisted on dragging their excruciating speeches right up to the time limit. "That reputation has nothing to do with reality, not where my experience is concerned," John said with a wicked smile as both of them sought to attract the attention of their errant animals. |
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| GG72 | Apr 3 2011, 08:27 PM Post #24 |
G2 landing
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Very good Richard
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| richard | Apr 17 2011, 10:23 AM Post #25 |
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Enhanced
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Thanks GG72 for this one. Here's the next scene. Scene Twenty Five Scene Twenty-Five George gathered her file together after a successful day in court with a distinct smirk on her face. She had just soundly beaten one of her easier adverseries Neumann Mason-Alan, a black barrister who, like Lawrence James, affected an educated white middle class accent. In his eagerness to pursue his case, he laid himself open to criticism by the judge for asking leading questions, a habitual fault that he had never learnt to correct over the years. Worse still, he left a wide open opening in his case for George to deftly unstitch his case when it was her turn to cross-examine the witness. The result was that her client was found not guilty of the criminal charge, another case which further fine tuned her abilities as a defence advocate in criminal law. It struck her that this was a role that she would never have conceived of years ago and, after such a successful court case,a pleasant chat with her ex-husband, John Deed would go down well. She knew he was conducting a trial in a neighbouring courtroom and would cut through his case in short order. She directed a mocking smile at the sniffy court usher who had been used to see Jo Mills slipping into John's chambers to discuss cases and whose puritanical disapproval concealed an insatiable desire to keep up with the scurrilous gossip, maybe to even embellish it in her own mind. Now, she spotted the mischievous glow about George as she obviously hurried after John and she clucked disapprovingly under her breath. In reality, some instinct had driven George to seek out John's company to talk and her smiles for the outside world were not felt in her own heart. When John received the message that George was due to call, he spotted the distracted expression on her face and her sense of weariness and he cut to the chase. "You aren't quite as cheerful and glowing as I expected you to be. I expected that your equivolent of married life would suit you down to ground,"John observed dryly, subjecting George to a sharp penetrating glance. Damn the man, George thought half resentfully to herself, he sees everything in me. "What makes you think that if I look less than sparkling, it must be my love life?" George fired back in acid tones. "Do you want my relationship with Alice to fail?" "No more than you do. If you have any problems, perhaps I can help," John offered gently. "What makes you think I would go to you? I have a lot of female friends with whom I can have a heart to heart conversation?" George fired back, feeling in an argumentative mood.She wasn't up to her ex-husband to start probing her psyche with no preliminary conversation. "There you have me. I don't doubt for a minute what you say about your new circle of friends.I can only say that we've known each other a long time and the signs are obvious. It took me a while to place you in your present untouchable position, the same as Nikki and Helen. I could do without this arrangement being disturbed so that we can remain friends. I certainly have no hold over you or any rights to exercise. That went out the window a long time ago." The precisely articulated way that John spoke didn't necessarily convince George as she knew that he was far more apt to conceal his true feelings than express them when things got tricky. The side reference to Nikki and Helen did resonate with her as she knew how deeply he respected them, perhaps far more than they knew. He didn't have to speak of them but he chose to do so, so therefore, what he said should be taken at face value.Even now, it took time for George to realise that John did care about her well-being in a way that didn't intersect with his own interests.This was an entirely new facet to the man she had known for so long. "It's a long story and it's very complicated like it always is," George finally said in a stream of words that stopped abruptly. Instantly, George fumbled in her elegant handbag and fished out a cigarette packet and her lighter. She knew that John disapproved of her habit but she couldn't give a damn right then. She exhaled a cloud of smoke which John tolerated as the stress that George had repressed came pouring out as she paced round his chambers.Cigarette smoking struck him as a harmless way of release in the grand scheme of things. "You know that Alice works for Social Services, or rather she dedicates that part of her life to them that isn't with me or being her usual glamorous self at Chix.You'd have thought that she is well thought of at her place of work, being the compassionate and dedicated soul that she is,"George said in unusually, erratic phrasing that revealed her thinking processes to John as being uncharacteristically all over the place. "If Alice has a fault, she sometimes doesn't know where to draw the line, that there is only so much she can give in this world. You follow what I'm getting at, John?" "I'm perhaps not the best judge of being prudent and careful," John said with a lurking smile at the corner of his lips. “You know that maintaining boundaries isn't exactly one of my virtues." "Thank you John. That's exactly why I sought you out if you must know," George retorted as she brightened at once, playfully throwing a cushion in his general direction that sailed over his head. "Well, to get to the point, Alice took on a new client, a very schizophrenic old woman with doubtful ability to look after herself. She manoeuvred her into being pig in the middle of a domestic drama with her very neurotic daughter." "That must be an occupational hazard like vexatious litigants are in our trade," John suggested as a commentary about a fellow professional. From when he had first met Alice, he had gained a high personal regard for her and had imagined her to be equally skilled, professionally speaking. "It cuts deeper than that, John. The daughter also happened to be her equally screwed up scheming ex-partner who had previously sought to make a play for Alice and be rebuffed not so long ago." John whistled softly between his lips as his imagination etched a vivid mental picture. George wasn't overstating her case. "So what happened, George if you don't mind me asking," John asked quietly. George smiled gratefully back at John as he was obviously not in normal judicial interrogation mode in getting at the truth. This was his simple human concern. "It ended up a screaming match which Alice couldn't deal with and the mother being taken down to accident and emergency with a knife wound in her arm, not Alice's doing I might add. You can easily guess that this wasn't a private matter but had repercussions with Alice's employer. The upshot of it was that Alice was blamed for not putting two and two together in the first place in her initial investigations and forseeing the danger of getting personally involved. She was told that she should have handed the case over. The fact that it went on her record was something she took to heart and she's been down in the dumps since then." John sat back in his chair and looked at the expression on George's face. The story as told didn't make sense. He obviously grasped the fact that Alice had had a professional knock back at work but his own professional record was a strange mixture of professional brilliance, personal indiscretion and incurring the wrath of the establishment as their most relentless political opponent. Somehow, he had thrived on conflict and living dangerously. He had no doubt that Alice was as talented as George described her but this there was more to this than meets the eye. "There's something here that I don't quite understand, George. Your story makes perfect sense as far as it goes. From how I see it, all Alice's troubles need is for time to be the great healer. One unfortunate slip up in an exemplary career is something that can be lived down. After all, I'm a prime example of this." George took a long drag of the last of her cigarette, got up and searched distractedly for something to stub it out into.John retrieved a spare ashtray from a side cupboard which he kept in emergencies while George purposefully and forcefully ground out the stub. "This is where it gets complicated. You know that I love Alice to distraction and she loves me. I certainly haven't any grounds for complaint when we get home at night but she's not been the same and it's not because she'll be called as a witness to the court case and not because of the trouble at her place of work. You would have thought that Alice would have seen through that fearful ex of hers, that disaster prone drama queen who's put her through more shit than I could possibly conceive of." John's sympathies were roused by George's terse, bitter tone of voice and by the fact that she swore. This was very unusual for her even though she possessed a temper and command of the English Language that could hold down a first class row. It expressed the depths of her feelings like nothing else could. "But why on earth should she especially sympathise with her? I can't understand this at all,"John replied in passionate tones of incomprehension. "The trouble is that she's sorry for her as she thinks that her mother caused it all. Added to that, she's phoned Alice giving her the damsel in distress line that Alice is vulnerable to. Nothing like a straight sexual come on but can Alice stand by her for old time's sake with an impending court case in the offing?" "Even though she stabbed her mother?" John asked incredulously, his eyebrows threatening to rise to scalp level.. "But who first drew the knife?" counter questioned George. "If some general scrimmage broke loose, who can say who was responsible for the stabbing? I have to play devil's advocate, you know and not let my hatred blind me to the truth." "So why the devil is Alice being called as a witness? What on earth can she say except that the chances are that it's probably six of one and a half dozen of the other and that in all probability, the whole thing was an accident with no clear intention either way?" George got up and kissed John affectionately on the forehead and beamed at him in gratitude for his understanding. "Now you know why I've talked to you and nobody else," she sat at last as she sat down again on the settee. "I don't quite understand you, George," John replied, his brow furrowed. It frustrated him that he could follow George's reasoning so far and then he would lose the plot. "It's quite obvious darling if you think about it. You've known me for a long time when I've not been so nice as I am now. God I so hate that word but I can't think of a better one right now. You've known me to be selfish, grasping, mean, covetous for money and to be connected to the rich and powerful. All my friends don't see that side of me as I've changed so much. You more than anyone would be able to tell whether or not I am reverting to type, in projecting the dark side of myself onto this woman in hating her guts so much." "And fearing her as well, George.This damsel in distress routine can be pretty powerful stuff," added John. "You're right," George confessed in a tone of voice that sounded almost beaten. "Because my pride won't let me lower myself to that level, I feel at a disadvantage, that Alice will slip out of my hands if I'm not careful. I have to restrain what I say about her if she comes up in a topic of conversation. That's why I'm so glad to talk to you right now. Also, all my friends,would deny this but I'd only be totally convinced by someone who's seen me at my worst even Nikki and Helen. Besides, you're a judge who's accustomed to weighing the evidence without becoming emotionally involved." "So you think that your friends will automatically take your side and agree with you no matter what you say, possibly not for the right reason?" questioned John gently. "You've got it at last," smiled George, glad also at his understanding which softened her voice as she continued. On another occasion, she might have extracted a bit of mean satisfaction in seeing John obviously struggle. "They're lovely people and their intentions are very noble but that's not enough in this situation.. "So why on earth is Alice's ex being charged for stabbing her mother? It all seems very questionable." "Even after trying to remember how their twisted minds operate from my time with Haughton, I really don't know. There may not be any grand government conspiracy. The tabloids may smear Alice in her role as social worker for obvious reason and also her sexuality if that side of the story can be dragged in but otherwise, I think at best they're blundering around in the dark. The alternative is that there'll be a lot of sensationalist muck raking whose trail will eventually find its way back to me." "But that can't happen,"protested John at the dark tone in George's voice. "You're being accused of living with a woman whose professional client manipulated her daughter and Alice's ex-partner into a destructive row which ended up in mindless mayhem." "You're forgetting the twisted minds of the tabloid's press and the political enemies that I've incurred. I'm not talking about me as your political accomplice but me, myself, for the cases I've taken on," George replied slowly, articulating every syllable that she both thought and felt. John couldn't help but agree with the closely reasoned point. "So what's Alice's take on the situation?" "This is where the problems start," George said with a twisted grimace on her face. "She's taken her ex-partner's side as opposed to her mother and sees her as the villain of the piece. The problem is that she's half right. I don't doubt that her mother is as bad as she makes out but she ought to have realised that mother and daughter are compulsively locked together into mutual hatreds that neither of them will let go of.That's the advantage of being detached from the situation." "That sounds very logical to me, George." "You're forgetting that Alice is a social worker," laughed George without the slightest trace of amusement in her voice. "She believes that she has the power to work through another person's problems, no matter how big they are. You shouldn't criticise it as, after all, is it much different from the causes you have fought to the point where you've risked professional suicide? That's the strength of belief that I'm up against." John was aghast at the stark dilemma in George's harsh words. Never before had he faced the situation that the road to Hell could be paved with such good intentions. He'd never thought that was possible. |
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| mlbach | Apr 17 2011, 02:52 PM Post #26 |
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Keys for the handcuffs!
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Another good update, richard--I like the way you take me down new an unusual paths in areas I would never know anything about, otherwise. Thank you. |
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| GG72 | Apr 24 2011, 01:47 AM Post #27 |
G2 landing
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I can't wait to see how Alice gets out of this one, I hope nothing comes between George and Her. :rolleyes: |
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| ali baba | Apr 24 2011, 10:20 AM Post #28 |
G2 landing
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Nice updates Richard. I particularly enjoyed the scene in the park.
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| richard | May 1 2011, 10:20 AM Post #29 |
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Enhanced
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Hey, there's really nice feedback here. I'm really cheered to see the way you've picked up on scenes in the way you have and certainly the not commonly understood matters of blindness. This next scene carries on where the last scene lerft off. Enjoy. .................................................................................................................. Scene Twenty-Six In John's pause for reflection, he could see and feel everything that George was trying to communicate to him. He had to hand it to life to create such a fiendishly pitched conundrum. He let his mind run free to try and pull a loose thread from out of the twists and tangles that knotted everything together. At last, he thought he'd found one and spoke to George who had subsided down into a gloomy silence. "In all the time you've spoken of her, you've never given the woman a name," questioned John in his insatiably curious fashion.. "That's because I don't want to give the impression of having any human qualities that I can relate to. It would dignify her far too much. Her name's Becky Elliott if you must know. I don't suppose you have ever come across her with all the women you've ever slept with. Surely you realise that she doesn't bat for the right team?" George replied sarcastically. "Tell me George, have you got a photograph of her?" The words shot out of John's mouth before he had a chance to measure his words. George's mouth opened in shock at such an outrageous question. For once she was speechless. How on earth could John have dreamed up such a question? "Are you totally mad, John? Why on earth would I even dream of carrying her photograph around me, like some talisman of evil?" "That's exactly why I'm asking you George," John retorted, his blue eyes fixing George's and the power of his personality fully extended. George's mouth closed like a steel trap and she knew that John could read her thoughts. Sulkily, she reached into her handbag, drew out a brown envelope and threw it in his direction. John took the envelope which he figured that George viewed as a contamination container and slipped the photograph out sideways and studied it intensely. His capacious memory started to work and as if by some miracle, he found what he wanted. "I know her, George.I've seen her before. I've slept with her a few months back. It was at one of the discreet hotels I use. I know it," John exclaimed triumphantly, the light of discovery in his eyes. The problem was that he hadn't stopped to think how George might react to this bombshell. George pressed her hands to her head as if she was suffering from the most excruciating headache ever before finally letting rip. "John, you will have to do better than this.I wouldn't even begin to guess the number of willing and available women that you've charmed into bed. You're overlooking one very obvious problem. The woman is gay, spelt G A Y in capital letters. Watch my lips move." "That's not how she appeared to me. If you must know the sordid details, I picked her up in the sort of singles bar I used to frequent. The rest of the story must ring true to form as details of my past transgressions got back to you over the years." "Why on earth would a woman who had got used to sleeping with other women suddenly want to hang round some straight pickup joint waiting for you to chat her up? How on earth could she get inveigled into the cloistered social life that barristers and judges move in?" "You speak for yourself George. You are the living refutation of your own theory. Besides, am I am the archetypal cloistered, conservative minded judge with my background?"countered John in spirited fashion. "Besides, you're at a disadvantage in this situation. I don't doubt that Alice is honest with you but, if this woman is as devious as you say she is, who can tell what sort of life she leads that Alice doesn't know about?" George got up from her chair and started pacing around. Her conversation with John had complicated matters rather than simplified them. The worst of it was that she didn't doubt John's sincerity but couldn't square it with the situation as she understood it. "This is all totally insane, John. I mean part of me wants to believe that she can't even be an honest lesbian. I mean, I'm used to the company of women who know where they stand sexually speaking and this is unknown territory to me. Besides, even if I can get my head round this, how on earth can I convince Alice of this? She'll just die at the thought of it and I won't be any better off," George exclaimed in loud theatrical tones. "The problem is that you've never met the woman," John said slowly and steadily, fixing her with his eye contact. "You've been dependent on what Alice has told you of her. It sounds as if Alice has been confused about the situation and this is rubbing off on you. Unless you end up as defence or prosecution barrister, is there any reason on earth why you shouldn't track her down if you avoid talking about the trial?" "That's going behind Alice's back," George said in sullen tones, looking and feeling uncomfortable at the prospect. "Then say to her that if she really wants you to do the job as the caring consort in the run up to the trial, your own peace of mind is owed the need to talk to her so you know what she's dealing with. You've been at arms length, rightly or wrongly, for too long and you both need a change of strategy." The room suddenly grew quiet with sensations of serenity as George's troubled expression cleared and her features became more relaxed. John had come up trumps and found her the answer. It made her feel good in being able to take the initiative and not be dragged along by circumstances and someone else's twisted will, operating by proxy.She was infinitely grateful for this mature man in being able to sort out this jigzaw puzzle for her. "I think you're right and I'll do as you suggest. Just one thing, do you really think that Becky is bisexual? Be honest with me." "It's a distinct possibility. For the sake of argument, I shall call her Becky as I think that's what she called herself and she is one and the same woman. I can't say that sexually, she was anyway untypical. The only thing that I can add is that while she was the life and soul of the party with a real sparkle about her but, very unusually for me, when I woke up, she had already gone. I'm not saying that because she is bisexual, she is any way twisted, promiscuous, or sexually greedy....." "Perish the thought, John. I can see that in getting to know us ladies from Chix, you are becoming even more offensively 'politically correct' in certain quarters than you are now. Joke, John. I'm only teasing you. That's a backhanded compliment if you must know," George added on seeing the downcast expression spread across John's face. She felt guilty as her friends deserved better at John's hands than this. "Getting back to the point, how can you expect a woman who's psychologically at war with herself to be sexually balanced? It's just her being all over the place, nothing that much to do with her sexuality. Anyway, it all makes good reason to talk to her to find out what makes her tick and nothing more. Be patient and resist the temptation to scratch her eyes out. Sooner or later, she'll be having more trouble from life itself than anything you can land on her." John's persuasive words finally did the trick and sorted out the hopeless tangle of thoughts and emotions that had been whirling round in George's head. It drove away that feeling of helplessness that was clean against her nature and had made her so ratty. "John, you really are a friend in a million," exclaimed George enthusiastically. "Thank you so much for your support." "It's no trouble. I'm only too glad that we can remain friends and can make up for misunderstandings and conflicts upon the way." John's quiet thanks gave George reason to pause for thought. Now that the focus was off herself, she couldn't help noticing that there was something disconsolate in the tone of John's voice that led her to believe that there was more in it than met the eye. She felt ashamed to admit that she had never asked herself if John might be having any troubles of his own. "I've heard it said that you and Jo are an item these days," George offered gently. "That is somewhat premature and thereby hangs a lengthy story to that. I'm beginning to question just what an item actually is. The only definite evidence I see is in you and Alice, Nikki and Helen and all the other good female friends of mine,"John answered wearily. It troubled George deeply to see that, while John was passionately concerned and asked the most searching questions in his efforts to help her, he subsided into a state of unhappy acquiescence on his own account.Definitely, John's own life was not all right and, while in the past he had brought down his own troubles onto his own head, she was positive that this wasn't the case this time. She was aware that John had gone through changes in his personality just as much as she had in hers. She questioned whether Jo's somewhat black and white view of the world would be alert to this but she needed to gently coax the truth out of him first. "Perhaps you care to share your troubles with me as I have done with you. You know that you'll get a sympathetic ear- as an old friend," she asked gently. John stood up, put his hands into his pockets, tried to assume a jaunty devil may care demeanour as he paced round the room and when he faced her, he had a peculiarly inscrutable expression on his face before dropping down into his armchair. "As you say, it can get complicated, the best word I know for placing distance between the experience and the words used to describe it......." John stopped dead until the look of tender concern that was written all over George's face registered with him. Just enough of Nikki and Helen's crash course in expressing emotions tipped John into finally revealing all. "I really don't know where Jo and I are headed. Whenever we used to sleep together, the same pattern kept repeating itself, the night was fine but next day, Jo's peculiar sense of guilt made her blame me for everything when it wasn't really......" John started to say, pacing every word as if it were one uncertain step after another. "This time after we got back together last June, it was different and the morning after was blissful, like nothing I've ever experienced before with her." There was a curious look of innocence on John's face that touched George. She was aware that John skirted round the nature of their sexual relationship and she wasn't going to press him on the matter. All in good time if John wanted to talk or so she considered. "You don't mind me talking about Jo that way?" John suddenly asked anxiously, suddenly realising who he was talking to. "Just relax, John," George said with a warm reassuring smile on her face. "You can tell me as much or as little as you want to say. However Jo came between us in the past might as well have happened to different people the way we are placed right now.So how did things go between you from then on." "We both decided to take things slowly.She suggested it that very first morning , saying that we'd been here before and things had gone wrong. She wanted us to be sure that everything will work out fine and that we'd communicate with each other in every way possible. It seemed an eminently sensible suggestion, the way she phrased it. She put her arms around me and it felt good. I felt that we'd come home at last." "So how did the reality come to measure up to the promise?" "At first it felt good. We took things slowly, slept together at weekends. Then I went to Warwick to cover for Newton who'd fallen off his podium in a flight of dazzling oratory,"and here John briefly smiled as he uttered his deadpan joke before resuming his story in a more serious vein. As he continued talking, his delivery gathered pace and impetus and his verbal self restraints was gradually cast off. "I was very busy to start with so our weekends dropped off a bit but when I did get to talk to her this old schoolfriend called Mel dominated her conversation. She's recently moved to the village she lives in and Jo spends a lot of spare time with her. I get the feeling that I can't get a look in. Also, this matter of 'taking things slowly' has changed so it's in danger of grinding to a shuddering halt. When we do meet up, it's fine but I'm not getting out the relationship I thought I should get." "You mean sexually," came George's blunt rejoinder. She knew John well enough to talk in such frank terms. "Yeah, that's about it," came the plain and simple reply. George didn't answer as she could see that a thought was nagging away at the back of John's mind till at last he gave voice to it. "You don't think as someone who is attracted to women that there's anything between Jo and Mel?" John asked in a furtive tone of voice that she'd never known him use before. "John darling," George retorted, a glorious smile spreading across her face. "I'm not the best person to ask. I'm strictly a one woman woman. It does not give me any insight into the sexual inclinations of any woman I come across. Yes, I can see that my female friends are pretty gorgeous but I prefer to admire from afar. Jo has always come across as straight-laced sexually speaking no matter how radical her politics so I really can't get my head around the fact that she would be other than the Jo Mills that I've always known. Don't quote me or ask me to sign a document in blood but it's quite possible that she's simply catching up with lost time and, given time, she'll find more time for you." "I suppose you're right," John agreed glumly. "I can't see any other course of action to pursue. I'm just glad that you're around so that I can unburden my concerns. Regrettably, there really isn't anyone else I can talk to." "Tell me John if you don't mind me asking. Have you been unfaithful to Jo?" George suddenly asked out of the blue. "Up to date, no but you'd better believe I've been tempted, especially at Warwick University. A man cannot live like a monk forever. I don't suppose that......" "The chances of me talking to Jo on such an intimate topic, knowing Jo, isn't good but if the chance offers itself, I'll take it and damn the consequences. I can live with Jo getting furious with me," George said warmly. "Now I simply cannot keep you from your work anymore nor myself either. I must go but I'll be thinking of you." ******* George's parting kiss on John's cheek lingered on his skin as did her kindness towards him. She was a good friend, something he had always valued in life. Sighing, he turned to the court papers in his in tray. He had told the absolute truth to her as well as he was sure that he'd only flirted harmlessly with that remarkable woman he'd met in the park, as one dog owner to another. As George passed the selfsame usher again after a suspiciously long period of time in John's chambers, she couldn't help smirking at the woman. All sorts of lurid images must be going through her mind and, there they had been, trying to offer comfort to each other like old friends should do so. All the same, she didn't like the feel of the situation between him and Jo which gave her all the more impetus to set her own house in order, or rather hers and Alice's. |
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| mlbach | May 1 2011, 02:14 PM Post #30 |
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Keys for the handcuffs!
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Revealing update, Richard. Thank you. Hmm...I have a hunch about Miss Becky... :ph43r: |
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Sorry I haven't left comment for a while, but your stories have so much in them I have to take longer to read them. Your writing still improves over the years.




8:47 AM Jul 11