CHAPTER 22
Of course, we had to make the introductions to the others, and that was when I realised how sharp Ian’s focus had been on me and Mam, as he hadn’t even noticed the Forster brothers. So many explanations, so much history, and so often his eyes would drift as his mind processed such things as Alec’s presence at John’s side.

“My middle brother Ian; John Wilkins, retired colleague and life-saver”

“Oh, don’t, Jill!”

“Well, it’s true…and Von you might have heard Mam talk about. That’s her boy Will over there with Nelly”

CHAPTER 20
Ian was back in a couple of minutes, his wife turning up with the wayward offspring a few seconds after. She peered at his face, seeming to spot the red in his eyes, and then turned her gaze onto me.

“That’s not really your colour, Rob”

CHAPTER 19
It was a crisp Autumn day, the freshly fallen leaves mixed with the confetti that Neil had insisted on and the sun warm through the net of my headgear once out of the soft wind. It was Neil who had stood up with Ralph, and it was Neil who had spoken to the vicar at High Usworth to arrange my mother’s second wedding in the same church that had celebrated her first.

CHAPTER 18
The meal was no wonder of modern cuisine, but it was properly cooked and filling, and I noticed that it wasn’t just tea being consumed by some of the older sorts. People were happy, that was the overwhelming thing. Mostly in pairs, mostly touching, even Von’s earlier pain seemed to have left the building, as she came to life discussing her baby’s college plans with Kelly and Mark as if Will wasn’t even there.

CHAPTER 16
It was still sitting there, at the back of my mind in one sense but so dominant in others. Larinda. I had said she was special, and it was true, but each time I looked at her Von’s words leapt at me. I was gay, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind. It was as much a part of my life, my soul, as my gender, and something I had found just as difficult to express.

CHAPTER 14
A fortnight later, and they were ready for sentencing Nye. Of course, we had to go, and it was no surprise that Von made her own way there, Will by her side.

She had been making the efforts I had never anticipated, and I had to rein in my urges to be a little snide about it. I couldn’t quite get past the fact that when it had been me, her response had been direct and threatening, but when the perversions came from her baby it made her pause and think. Still, however it had happened, pausing and thinking seemed to have entered her life. I couldn’t really complain about that, could I? I had Larinda at hand for that little job.

“All rise”

CHAPTER 12
In the end we took up one corner of the bar at the Sun, as James made his way directly to Darren. Some connection had clearly formed between them, and James seemed to bloom each time they met. What was important, though, was that some of the openness clung to him afterwards. I rarely saw him now in lockdown, hardly ever saw his hands shutting off the world beyond his face.

CHAPTER48
I stood in the sunflower house, watching the dust dancing in rays of light that shone through the new windows. In just a short time, the damage done that night was vanishing into the house’s history. My neighbours, perhaps shamed by the way they had hidden from the mob, had helped in small ways, and the money that the Blanchards and others had been directed to pay me as compensation had done the rest. Maggie was sitting in my kitchen, her son at her breast, and Matty and Elle were to join us with their small package later that day for a meal in the Spring sun in my garden.

CHAPTER 46
Once more it was Marck who saved my life. Whatever debt he had ever owed my brother had been repaid in full and more given besides, it seemed, but this was not a payment I had desired. Not to wake, that had been my hope. I had managed to get the cut across the left forearm, but it was hard to use that hand on the right, and the blood made the handle slippery, twisting in my grip. I had to be satisfied with the flow from one arm, and it was painful, of course, but that was the price for my peace.

CHAPTER 44
It had started again. Marck told me a few days later that they had found nothing in the way of fingerprints, and so nothing could be taken further. Matty was around the day after that, and he began work immediately, with visits from Elle and my god-daughter, to install a system of television cameras connected to a recording device, as well as some strong external lights that would respond to any motion near them.

They were coming, and Salamander was trying to break free of Ridley’s grasp to seek the safety of her burrow. It was Night, and they mostly came out at night. Mostly…

CHAPTER 42
I remembered my behaviour the last time, that time Benny had departed, and with those memories came certainty. I was not alone; Rollo, Margot, even my parents in the deep South, they were not lost to me, nor me to them. There were Matty and Elle, and sweet Pascale. I astonished myself, because I did not go indoors to weep over the destruction but instead rang my brother.

CHAPTER 9
“All rise !”

It was finally our day in court, and I had done my level best, together with help from Rach and Larinda, to present as neatly and femininely as possible. Will was beside me, with John Wilkins, as we waited for the formality of the plea.

“Aneurin Wynford Prentice, you are charged…”

CHAPTER 40
The talk in that class began after that next Christmas had passed. It was nothing that was immediately noticed by myself, but when one looks back to an earlier time the vision may often be clearer than it was at that initial moment. It was later that I saw, later in my years that I could place a marker on my calendar and say, yes, that was the instant, that was the beginning.

CHAPTER 8
“I beg your pardon?”

She wasn’t like that Sergeant, Kirst, Kirsty…I was having a little trouble keeping my thoughts straight. They had me on some pain-killer or other, and while it was seriously good shit, as my junkie friends might put it if I had any, I needed to keep my concentration to get this right.

“I said no statement. Do you know who exactly is behind this?”

CHAPTER 38
There was a train, to the border, and another, in that scruffy place Maman and I had visited, and that train rattled along from the mountains to the flatter areas, streams beneath the tracks that were sometimes dry, sometimes halted in green pools. Eventually we arrived at the edge of the great city, where the train dove under the streets like a dolphin in the waves.

CHAPTER 6
The music ran down, and we gathered together for the drive back. I collared Karen as she started shovelling things into her usual huge bag.

“You heading straight home, lass?”

“Yeah, work tomorrow, and school, usual life-goes-on stuff. Jill, this was good, good for James, too, yeah?”

CHAPTER 36
The classes were various. Pascale introduced me first to those of nine years, and they were full of children with open eyes and minds. This was the language of Hollywood and television, of video games and popular music. It should be understood that in France films in foreign languages are not normally heard in their original form but with the words spoken by specialised French actors, so that the voice of the original performer is an unknown in my country.

CHAPTER 35
I will not live again the pain of those days and weeks, but neither would I wish that they had not happened. I was healed, at last, and with my family to greet me each day of my stay in the hospital the pain became almost a secondary thing. Almost, but not quite. Finally I was released into the care of my brother, sister, and parents, with a set of instructions and warnings for my new life freed from the unwanted extremity.

CHAPTER 34
My life seemed to consist of Summers. There had been the Summer of my rebirth, and the Summer by the sea, and those dreadful Summers when I had hidden from my family, and now it was a Summer of anticipation and adulthood. I was now a teacher, and although my charges were fully grown their language was that of small children. I found it confusing, because while they spoke as infants, the concepts they wished to express were adult. And they were so sweet.

CHAPTER 33
This was a new experience, for I was dressed formally, at Maman’s insistance and under Margot’s eye, in a cream shirt and dark grey skirt to my knees, flesh-coloured stockings and plain black shoes with a heel of perhaps five centimetres. I had asked her about the stockings. It was warm, almost stifling in the noon heat, and I would have gone bare-legged.

“No. That is not what a polite woman does. Not on a first meeting, not in formal attire. And remember: you must tell them of the hospital time to come. And…no, that would be a bad idea”