CHAPTER 55
Life settled down for a short while after that, but it wasn’t exactly ‘normal, as it had changed so much. I felt all the hackneyed effects of the trial, as so many weights that had hung on me fell to the ground and disappeared from my world. To be honest, life would have been immeasurably better even without those gifts, for I had my man.

That was where and how I fully understood how crippled I had been as a human being. I would never, ever, be free of the damage done to me, but Blake’s presence numbed it, sent it into the background as a distraction rather than the straitjacket it had been ever since that night.

The trials went ahead, with a flurry of jail sentences for perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to do so that put three new chums, of a far less appreciated kind than Jon and co, away for five years each, and added the same term to our original gang’s very just desserts. As for my rapist, well, let me just say that Sean and his friends stripped him to the bone, and while the sentences were academic, considering what he was already serving, they were still hefty.

That left Pritchard, and even though he had gone guilty, which saved little Tiff so much grief, she still made the trek to the court, deb and Charlie with her.

“Di, I got to do it. Got to let him see? Got to see, as well. See myself”

And so it was that I took the now-familiar seat in the public gallery to see a man who had frightened me so much locked away from decent people till he was incapable of any further harm, and to draw a line under so much of the pain that had dominated and controlled my life.

I didn’t know the judge that day, but she had clearly been warned we would attend, and while she didn’t quite have the flair for verbal excoriation that Meredith had shown, she did her best, and it was more than adequate.

The charges were read, Tiffany named correctly, and Dear old Dai looked up at the public gallery, just to check. I had to do it, and so I gave him a little wave, just to say ‘Hi!’. Tiff saw, and did the same, and I saw his face changed as he realised his life was ending.

Literally: life, minimum fifteen years. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, going down the garden to eat porridge…

Deb slapped my wrist.

“No. Keep it together. For the kids”

She half-dragged me to the café, and they did hot chocolate. I realised Tiff was staring at me, along with Charlie, and Deb turned to them in explanation.

“I think your sister here is feeling a little bit, girls. Time for you to be strong, aye? Ice cream?”

They took me by the arm and before I knew it we were in her car and heading back to the coffee and ice cream place by the lock. Orders filled, sat on the blocky benches looking out over the bay, the wind clearing the smell of Evans’ piss from my nostrils, I realised how close I had been to breaking down.

It was over. That was it. Every single one of the bastards was finally locked up for what seemed like forever. What did I have left, now? Tiff cuddled into me.

“He looked smaller, di. Not as scary”

Police, professional wasn’t working, so I pulled out ‘bloody good man to hold me tonight’.

“Sorry, love. Not being very good today, am I?”

The slender young girl, squeezed my arm, looking up into my eyes with a smile.

“Yeah, we know, but we’ve done it, now. You’ve done it, sister of mine. Without you, nothing, yeah? Nana was saying how easy it gets, just being the victim, hiding in your little hole, in the house like we been doing? Not being you, just being …. Look. She said we are all people in a book, a film, and we can either let ourselves be the victims, the extras, yeah? Someone else’s story? Or we can be the main feature, the one the story’s about. You did that, Di”

Charlie was to my other side, sniff firmly and explosively in place.

“Yeah, and you nailed it, woman, and you did the showdown, and you got the fella, and…”

I realised she was crying, and that overrode my self-pity, soft touch that I am.

“What is it, love?”

“Promise us you ain’t just going to fuck off, yeah? Ride off into the bloody sunset like in some stupid film?”

I hugged her, pulling Tiff to me as well.

“Shit, girls, look at me, yeah? Just getting myself on my feet again after, yeah… My strength, comes from you. How could I give that up? How could I cope without it?”

I made a snap decision.

“We are planning a celebration, me and my team, been on the cards ages. Just needed to get the trials out of the way, get it all finished. You want to come? I know you aren’t eighteen yet, not all of you, but it won’t just be a piss-up. You up for a family night out?”

We started at Las Iguanas, where the girls, Deb, Tiff, Charlie, Gemma and Kimberley. Joined us. The three youngest looked terrified, but my boys and girls were everything I had come to expect, and as the boys in question began the traditional iron-palate competitions of who could eat the hottest food, the youngsters relaxed. We were interrupted twice.

“Darlings! Lovies! Bitch!”

That last directed at me.

“Beg pardon, Chris?”

“Di, dearest sweet, I had such PLANS for that big boy of yours, but you appear to have ruined EVERYTHING!”

Tiff was laughing so hard she nearly inhaled her coke. Still ubercamp, Chris struck a stupid pose, then dropped the act, taking her hand.

“Are you Tiffany?”

“Er, yeah”

“I met the same man you did, brave girl. Have a hug?”

That set the tone for the evening, even though Deb took them home a little later. Sammy went at the same time, on the grounds of being management, Candice argued the point.

“Yebbut, later, Lainey, yeah?”

“Chain of command, girl! Anyway, got a meeting tomorrow, big one. Di, talk next week? That place by Runcorn?”

I almost sobered, and he saw.

“No, nothing urgent. Just need to clear some points. Night, all! Don’t get too sober!”

Down to the hard core of practised pissheads, along with most of our New chums, we worked our way through a selection of licensed establishments, before Chris started steering, and of course we ended up in the Smugglers’. Jon was at my shoulder for a lot of the time, the one that didn’t have my lover against it. He was very, very drunk by the mid part of the evening.

“Di, yeah? This is, shit, this is what I done… what I wanted to do when I joined stuff, yeah? All proper shit, proper copping. Policing. Those little girls, I know they’re boys, I mean not boys, know what I mean, I mean girls and shit, I’m pissed, aren’t I?”

I had to laugh.

“I do believe you may be, mate. No shame on a night like this”

“Arse. Don’t want to go. Help me stick to cokes and shit? This, this is making me, making, those girls, that cunt…”

I agreed, and I could see his point. Drunk as he was, the mood was delightful, and dropping out early would have been a shame. It was also clear what a lesson he had received. So much of the training I had gone through at Cwmbran had been theoretical, even if based on reality. Once out with Dai, or Bryn and Barry, I had soon realised how real people got really hurt, how the ripples spread. I did my best to help him stay the course, and then, as we settled into a corner of the Smugglers’, the call came.

“How much is the whip?”

Candice was the first to respond.

“Lainey! Yay!”

Our old boss was there, smiling happily, with her wife beside her, hand in hand. We went through a round of greetings before the pub’s PA system kicked in. It was Marlene.

“That woman next to her with the red hair can fuck right off! If she gets her purse out, Marlene here will get fucking pissed off. Elaine Powell, you do NOT fucking pay in my pub!”

My friend, just grinned, as Siân guffawed, saying something to Elaine in Welsh. Lainey turned to the bar and shouted out her order.

“Then I will have a pint of whatever the dead rat was last in, and a large white wine!”

The girls were so right. Time to write our own scripts.