Gemma had madethe right impression on both of them and sailed through theinterview. Although sexism was still rife, the Sex DiscriminationAct and the establishment of the Equal Opportunities Commission afew years earlier had made things a little easier; and it hadhelped that the probation service was one area where women weregetting some kind of foot in the door and recognition, compared tomany other areas of professional work, at least. So she had walkedinto the job with little planning, or even thought, really. It hadbeen summer 1980 and Mark had been one of her first assignments.Initially she had gone along to the prison visits to observe and bementored by David as part of her induction period, but David’sdisillusionment had been getting to him and he announced he wastaking early retirement only a couple of months after Gemma hadstarted to work there. It had seemed sensible for Gemma to carry onwith Mark and with preparing his parole report as one of her firstproper clients. She had been a little disappointed that David leftso soon after her appointment but it had helped that hisreplacement as her line manager, Gregory, was only a year or twoyounger than his predecessor and didn’t seem keen to change thingsaround too much.
That was overa year ago, and although there was nothing intrinsically wrong withthe job, she had had enough. Initially David had been good to workwith: he cared for what he did and worked hard too. Apart from himthough, the rest of her colleagues had proved something of a mixedbag. Mathew, who’d taken over the official rehabilitation of Markwhen they had moved in together earlier in the year, she foundparticularly irritating. He had cultivated a ponytail to go with astraggly beard that never seemed to be without the remains of hisbreakfast or lunch, depending on the time of day, and he wore whatshe assumed from the reek was the same check shirt for days on end.It wasn’t so much his appearance or slightly stale odour thatgrated most with her, but his rather ridiculous and superciliousmanner with his colleagues as well as his clients, along with hishalf-baked advocacy of anti-psychiatry, which he appeared tobelieve offered some kind of way forward for probation. Even thoughshe knew why he did it, the way that Mark played up to Mathew’sunwarranted intellectual snobbishness also really irritated her. Ontop of that Mathew had tried it on with her when she’d given himthe benefit of the doubt and met up with him one evening soon afterstarting her job.
Her new boss,Gregory, was bearable in small doses; and to be fair his heart wasin the right place, he didn’t throw his weight around and, morecrucially, he seemed to trust her to get on with things on her own.He’d been parachuted in after David’s retirement and was a typicalexample of the ex-army personnel who still made up a goodproportion of the service; at least he was at the opposite end ofthe political and ideological spectrum from Mathew. Gregory hadbrought in as his deputy Howard, a colleague he had worked with inPortsmouth, also ex-army and, as with so many of them, apparentlyunable to get a job in the police so settling for this as the nextbest. Along with Lizzie and Jude, a new and seemingly empty-headedpart-time worker whom Mathew was busy homing in on now that he’daccepted that Gemma was out of bounds, that was theteam.
Surprisinglyit was the clients themselves whom she did feel some degree ofsympathy with, and generally speaking they clearly did need supportto get on with their lives. There had been a few times when it hadfelt really good to get a result and to see some progress and itdid actually feel like she was making a difference, but it didn’tmake up for the rest of the job. Aside from her less than inspiringcolleagues, the service itself was becoming increasinglybureaucratised and managerialist – the recent emphasis on targetsand performance indicators seemed to suit Gregory’s style ofmanagement and it was a trend that Gemma could see was bound tocontinue. It was time for her to take control of her life and to dosome of the things she had always intended to; and to get what shefelt she deserved. And a part of that would involve getting somedegree of restitution – it sounded better than revenge – for herfather, or perhaps in truth more for her. Although she hadn’tthought about it in any great depth, something told her that sheneeded to start to work on sorting out Mark and getting some kindof benefit from being with him.
As she drovepast the old parish church at Duncton, a couple of miles from theircottage, Gemma was amazed how quickly the half-hour drive home hadflashed by as she pondered the next step of her life. On one levelit was so far so good: the job had been a diversion, a steppingstone maybe, but that was all; and being with Mark had turned outpretty much as she had imagined. He hadn’t managed to get anythingmuch going in his post-prison life and had proved reasonably easyto manipulate. That made it sound horribly cold and calculating,which wasn’t really the case. They had had some good times togetherand
