Part 4

“Girls, I wouldn’t have spent it if we couldn’t. You know I do the books for the business, and I can tell you that we do very well. We owe nothing on the house and land because they’ve come down through the family; the original truck fleet were bought just after the war for next to nothing, and the tank transporters came out of a military auction. The Burrells cost about fifty pounds each, so I was told, and are now worth over a quarter of a million, each.”

“The business does well from our general cartage contracts, but the three low loaders are the icing on the cake. The big companies charge, by the hour, from depot back to depot, and any big stuff that has to be moved, here in the west country, is an expensive proposition. That’s where we’re the go-to people if you want to move a railway train or a dynamo. We have a good bank account, and, if you’re interested, there are three accounts with money set aside for your further education. Yes, my talented daughter, we can afford it and it’s been a pleasure shopping with the three of you.”

Further along the road, Janine asked another question.

“Mum, how did you and Dad meet, and why did it take so long before you had Angelica?”

“Now we come to the hard ones! You twins have done a lot of growing up in the last four days, I can tell you! Right, first things first. Back in 1978, I was helping out in my father’s shop. He had a men’s outfitters. Your father came in for a shirt and tie, to wear for a special occasion. I can’t remember what he told me it was for, but Tom has told me since that it was a hot date. I served him and fell instantly in love. It took him buying three more shirts before he had the courage to ask me out. He was very shy, and neither of us were still young. We married in 1980, so next year will be our twentieth anniversary.”

“As far as having babies was concerned, as much as we worked at it, I didn’t conceive. The idea of ‘test tube babies’ had been around for a while, and I was sent to a specialist in the new ‘egg freezing’ methods. Your dad was taken in and gave the sperm, that’s when we found out that his count was low. The treatment worked and you, dear Angelica, was the result, in1985. You twins happened in the same sort of way, only, this time, the twins effect was passed down. I carried all three of you to full term and natural births. That’s why you’re all so precious to us. Without modern technology, you may have never been born. The IVF experiments only got truly successful a year or two before I was referred.”

“Will we be the same, if we grow as men.?”

“I doubt it, love. Your grandfather, as you know, spent some time as a prisoner in Japan, during the war. Where he was, in the middle of the two nuclear explosions, meant that there would have been some radiation fall-out. On top of that, when they were freed, they were taken out of Japan through the docks at Nagasaki. No-one had any idea of what those bombs did to you, even when you lived. Your fathers problem may stem from that, seeing that he was born in 1950. If you’re worried, we can take the two of you in to see the doctor, and he can take samples. You both are old enough to have wet dreams, aren’t you?”

“Sorry, Mum,” I said. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ah! That may account for how easily you’ve taken to looking like girls. Next week, I’m going to get you both in for blood tests to see where you stand. You may just have delayed puberty, or it may be something more permanent. What we need to know is if you have boy cooties, or girl cooties. In the meantime, you stay as Lucy and Janine for a while and don’t let it worry you.”

When we got home, the trucks were parked, and the drivers were nowhere to be seen. Dad was in the house, on the computer. He had been looking at pictures that he had taken over the weekend. Mum sent the three of us off to get undressed while she ran a bath for us. Angelica went first, then the two of us had a wash and hair wash. We were given a safety razor and told to check each other out for any stray hairs.

When we had finished, we were given our bags of goodies, and the two dresses, and told to see how good we can make ourselves. After the weekend, it wasn’t hard to do. We had a spare gaff left over, and the other two went in the wash basket, along with the other things from the weekend. We both had new panties and bras, and unopened packs of tights, so it was an easy job to get dressed. Mum had bought us fillers for the bras, so we both had typical girl curves under the dresses. It felt a lot different with a slip under the dress. We put on the strappy sandals and then had a closer look at the goodies that Molly had given us, immediately putting a poster up in each of our rooms, to remind us of what we had been doing, not that I could ever forget it!

When we went back to the house, Mum sat us down at the kitchen table and did our make-up.

“You’re going to have to learn to do this, sooner or later. Most girls are pretty good at it by the time they become teenagers. I have to say that you both look good enough to eat. You’re going to break some hearts if you’re not careful.”

We sat and waited until Mum, Dad, and Angelica were ready, then we went to have our meal. Dad had gone overboard with his invitations. It was no wonder that we were greeted with much bowing and scraping. Our table took up half the room, Uncle Tom and Aunt Jean were already there, along with the real Lucy and Janine with their parents. Our drivers had brought their wives. Archie was the only one alone, until we arrived, and he fell into Angelica’s arms.

We found out that Angelica had rung Janine, who had called Lucy, while Dad had called Uncle Tom, who had organised a minibus and a driver to take them all to see our Saturday show. I noticed, that while the adults hadn’t changed, both Lucy and Janine were a bit more awe-struck. Seeing us doing the show they should have been in wasn’t the problem, it was seeing us on stage as part of Cleopatra that had shifted their point of view. I made sure that I spoke to Lucy as I had always done, and my Janine caught on and spoke to his Janine.

There was another table set up for a party, and when they arrived it was three friends of my sister, who were having a family dinner to celebrate their mother’s birthday. All three girls had been at the show on Thursday night and squealed when they saw us sitting there, coming over to give the three of us hugs. By the time they went to sit down, we had arranged a girls day in Honiton, with Mum promising to drop us off at Coffee One, on the High Street. We managed to placate Lucy and Janine by inviting them to the house to have a pick of the things we had been given.

The four of us were standing outside, waiting for the parents to get the cars, when Lucy leaned into me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Tom, both Janine and I were sorry to throw you into helping Angelica, but, seeing the three of you on stage on Thursday, made us both realise that you are far better than we could ever have been. I don’t think that we would have been invited to London. Even if we had, we could never have learned the words and moves that you had mastered by Saturday night. I was a bit jealous of you, being up there, but now I’ve seen that it hasn’t changed you, I’m now proud to be your friend. If you come to school as Lucy, in the new term, we’ll be there to support you.”

“Thank you, Lucy, that means a lot. I don’t know who I’ll be by the time the school opens, but Mum is going to organise a visit to the doctor to find out if one of me is stronger than the other. It’s been fun for the last week, and I’ve learned a lot about myself and the people around me. As Lucy I can see past the outward appearances and have learned to gauge people by their hearts, rather than their speech. I’m happy that you still want to be friends. Until we got together with this project, I hadn’t had a friend, outside of school, who was a girl, before. By the actions of your schoolfriends, tonight, I may end up with more than I can handle. Will you be my own BFF, whatever the future brings?”

She hugged me fiercely and we air kissed. Angelica talked enough for the three of us on the way home. When we got to the hut, we undressed and put on one of the new nighties that we had bought. As we creamed our faces to remove the make-up, my brother emerged for a while.

“Tom, this isn’t going to go away, is it? I haven’t felt so alive as I have been this week, whether we were on stage or off it. Janine told me, tonight, that she had been peeved when we got the invite to go to London, when Angelica had called her. She said that seeing us, on Saturday night, made her realise that she wouldn’t have been able to do what we did. She wants to be our friend but told me that I have to change my name. I was just getting used to being called Janine, as well.”

“Lucy told me much the same, but didn’t insist on the name change, though. We’ll have to think about it. Everyone we met over the weekend now knows us as Lucy and Janine, but I suppose that we can give ourselves names which come back to sounding similar. I we do that before we go to school, it should be natural after a while. We weren’t named, individually, on stage, so that doesn’t matter what we call ourselves, now.”

“Yes, I thought about that on the way home. I can become Janet and be known as Jan. You could be Lucinda and be called Luce. We’ll have to talk to Mum and see what she says. Now, let’s have a good look at these goodies.”

The bag we had been given was emptied on his bed. We counted out five Cleopatra CDs, all signed, two Spice Girls CDs, also signed, and eight tour tee shirts with all the signatures from both bands.

“Janine and Lucy are Spice Girls fans, they’ll love these. We could all wear them when we go to Honiton.”

There were several more posters, and, among the pens and notepads, several business cards. We had the direct numbers for Garth, Cleo, and Molly, and she had also put a card in from the supplier of the gaffs, so we could order by phone.

We put the things back in the bag and I put it into our rehearsal area. We then hugged and went to our separate beds. I lay there for some time, thinking over the ramifications of what we had done, and what we were likely to do, and just before I went to sleep, I wondered what on earth a wet dream was.

The morning hadn’t answered the question, unless it was the dream that I was having about being at a beach, looking at the crashing waves that caused me to jump out of bed and go for a pee. We had a shower in our little bathroom, so I put my hair in a shower cap that had been added to the clutter on the shelf, showered, and went back to my room to dress. Today was a working morning, so we both went over to the house, for breakfast, in our boots and jeans.

Dad and the guys were pretty slick with unloading. The first tank transporter was backed up to be in line of where the Burrell would end up, and Dad positioned a tractor at the end of the ramps with a chain hooked up to the rear axle. Dad went up to the driving section and unwound the brake. Then, with him pulling and the loader winch as a brake, he pulled the Burrell down onto firm ground. When the ramps were put back up, the tank transporter was driven away and taken to its usual parking spot.

Then Dad unhooked the chain and took the tractor to the front of the Burrell, backing up to hook a yoke onto the front axle. He then backed the engine into its spot in the shed. Our part in all of this was to be on both sides, to call out if there was any problems, and also to indicate when the Burrell had reached the parking place. After he had wound down the brake, the same procedure happened with the second engine.

Once they were safely parked, the low loader was put in place in front of the shed where the Fowlers lived. The only difference with this operation was that the winch chain ran under one Fowler to be hooked to be unloaded, and that the low loader needed to be repositioned once the first one had been put away.

In the meantime, the other drivers had unloaded the Prancing Horses and put it away in another shed. The caravans had been parked yesterday, but this morning it was our job to go through them all with a vacuum, dusters, and wipers, so that they would be good to go the next time. By the time we had finished that job, it was time for lunch. We were joined by Lucy and Janine, whose father had dropped them off as we were putting away the cleaning gear and emptying the waste bins.

We had lunch, and then took them over to the hut to have a look at our goody bag. Angelica hadn’t had a good look, herself, so it was a fun time as they went through the booty. We decided that the five of us would have a tour tee shirt, each. We gave our friends the signed Spice Girls and a Cleopatra CD each. They preferred Spice Girls posters so ended up with a couple of them. During the general conversation, I found out that tomorrow, in Honiton, was just the start of our adventure. It had grown to a group of a dozen or more, and the Honiton spot was just a meeting place.

The girls we had met, last night, had parents that ran the local bus service, I had been taken to school in their bus for the last two years and didn’t notice who owned it. Their father had nominated one of his female drivers to be in charge of a minibus which was going to take us all into Exeter for the day. It was to be a full-on girls shopping day. That would be two firsts for us, a girls shopping day and a day in Exeter, another place that I hadn’t been to.

Before their father came to pick them up, we all sat in the kitchen, with our parents, and talked about our names. Although we weren’t in the same year as the girls, having two Lucy’s and two Janine’s at the school could be a problem. Charlie suggest that he could be Janet, with the shortened Jan. I was nominated as Lucinda, to be known as Luce. Mum and the girls were happy with that. Mum suggested that we let Cleo know, in case they were talking about us. I went and found the business cards and Mum called Molly to let her know what we had decided. She knew that Molly had seen through our disguises immediately and would understand the reasons behind the change. Mum outlined the reason for the call and then she listened for a while, then put the phone down.

“Right, that’s that sorted out. Molly said she would tell the others about your decision. She said that she was glad we called as it will let them alter a press release.”

Before our friends left, we had decided that tomorrow we would all wear the tour tee shirt, with denim skirts and boots. Our skirts had gone through the laundry while we were outside, helping Dad, along with all the soiled things from the weekend. Mum had an industrial machine and drier in one of the sheds, so it wasn’t a big job for her.

As I was settled in bed, my last thought, before dozing off, was, ‘Press Release!!!’

In the morning, after breakfast, we made sure that we all looked as good as we could be, and Mum took us to Honiton and dropped us off. Before we got out, she passed each of us a wad of notes.

“There’s two hundred there, for each of you. That will allow you to get some things that you like. You can’t go on a girl’s day out without coming home with bags of things. Be careful. And stay with the group, the three of you are attractive enough to catch the attention of guys. Don’t go down dark alleyways or speak to strangers that aren’t shop assistants. Now have fun.”

We thanked her and put the money in our bags before getting out of the car. In the café, we met a couple of the other girls and sat with them, talking. Our tour shirts getting a lot of attention. I discovered that our group would consist of a range of years. The three girls that would arrive in the bus were from the third, fourth and fifth year, with Angelica and her friends going into fifth year when we went back. The two of us would be going into third year then. As we were talking, one of the girls said something that was a little catty.

“Brenda has to bring her sister, Sandra, today. She couldn’t get out of it. Sandra will have a hard time with us, as she has never been part of any group in school, a bit of an odd one.”

I didn’t think that Sandra was odd. We sat close to each other in some lessons and had paired up in some science experiments. She, like us, would be starting third year, and she had gone to the end-of-term dance with me before summer. She had been a little distant, as we danced, but did give me a peck on the cheek as we were waiting for our parents to pick us up and thanked me for a pleasant evening.

Lucy and Janine were dropped off and came in, Lucy with an ankle now small enough to wear normal boots, but still favoured the other leg. The rest of the group arrived as the bus pulled up. I stayed back as the girls boarded, and, when I got in, I saw Sandra sitting, alone, so I went and sat next to her.

“Morning, Sandy, are the bees still humming?”

She looked shocked. This was something I said often, as her folks had hives.

“Tom, is that you? You look beautiful, I just love the shirt. You’re going to have to tell me how you are sitting next to me, in a skirt, when the last time I saw you, outside the dance, you were looking good in a suit.”

As we went to Exeter, I gave her a quick catch-up on the last week or so. I pointed out my brother, a few rows ahead of us, and told her that he was now Janet, while I was Lucinda, for as long as we could continue.

“Wow, you were on stage with Cleopatra, I love their music. I bet Lucy and Janine weren’t happy they had injured themselves.”

“They came to see us, at the show they should have been in, as well as our big show with Cleopatra, and have both said that they don’t think that they could have done it as well as we did, so I think they’ve got over the disappointment. It was hard work, I can tell you, we were in our beds pretty quickly after the shows and slept like logs. If we do more shows, we’re going to have to do more fitness training.”

“So, I’m sitting next to a pop star, am I?”

“Not on one weekend on stage. I think it might have been a flash in the pan. Who knows what the future brings. If the doctors tell me that I’m only good to be like this for a year or two, I might have to go back to being Tom.”

“In the meantime, Luce, will you be my girlfriend?”

“I’d love to, Sandy. We have always got on well. I’m just sorry that I didn’t tell you how fabulous you looked at the school dance. I went through that evening just happy that you came with me, and the brain just froze.”

“You were a bit quiet, which I liked. I wasn’t happy to have to go, but my parents insisted. Of all the boys in our year, you were the only one I was happier with, all the others are gorillas, compared to you.”

Her hand had found mine and we entered Exeter in a haze of introspection. At the carpark, Claire, our driver, turned the engine off and stood to face us.

“Now, girls, your parents have put a lot of trust in me to keep you together. I don’t want anyone wandering off. If you want to go to a shop, then let me know and stay at the shop until I come to fetch you, or the rest of us catch up with you. I’ve shopped here, many times, and I know the sort of places that will interest you. If you do get separated, I’ll need your phone numbers so I can call you. I have a clipboard, here, write your numbers on it next to your names as you get out of the bus. This is the Bampfylde Street carpark, and across the road is the main bus station. If we walk back the way we came in, we’ll get to Cheeke Street. Turning left, and left again, we will be in Sidwell Street, one of the main shopping streets. If we just walk down that, it takes us into High Street, where there are a lot of shops. We’ll walk down one side, and when we reach Macca’s, we’ll cross over and walk back on the other side. By the time we get back here, you should have some bags and sore feet. Let’s go shopping!”

I didn’t have a phone, but Sandra had one, so she put down the number for both of us. We set out, the two of us near the back, hand in hand. Angelica noticed this and gave me a smile and a nod as she joined the chattering group. It was exactly like Claire had said, with High Street being the real fun.

We were all in one of the teen girl dress shops, with us commandeering the change rooms. I went into one to try on a top I liked, and Sandra followed me in, pulling off the top she was wearing to try one that she had picked. There we both were, crammed together, with our bras in full view, when she put her arms around my neck and kissed me in a way that I had never dreamed about. My hands were on her bare midriff and the kiss went on forever. We did buy the two tops and went back into the changeroom to put them on for the rest of the trip. Somehow, hers ended up in her bag, along with the one she had been wearing. We left the cubicle, after another kiss, with me in my new top and her wearing my tour tee-shirt.

Further along the road we passed a newsagents. There, on a placard was the words - “Stop Press! Is this the new Cleopatra line-up?” I went in and bought the magazine, ‘Hit Music’. There, inside, was a big picture of the five of us across the stage on Saturday evening, in our highly colourful outfits. The three of us stood out, with our lighter hair. The text didn’t say much, just that the picture was taken at a Cleopatra show, on Saturday, with two of the Higgins sisters missing, replaced by a set of unknown triplets. More was promised with the next issue. They must have sent this to the printers on Sunday, to get it on the stands by today.

When I showed it to Sandra, she dashed in and bought her own copy, followed by most of the others as they saw what we had. A few had seen us, but most probably thought it had been made up. This, however, set it in stone.

Marianne Gregory © 2024