“Clara? What… What are you doing here?”

“Doh! Looking, for you silly.”

I was suddenly lost for words. All the things I’d planned to say when we met again went down the drain in a flash.

“Cat got your tongue?”

The fug or malaise or whatever it was that was afflicting me hadn’t disappeared the next morning. I’d lost count of the number of times I picked up my phone to call Carla and had chickened out each and every time.

My impression of being a wimp only added to my growing depression.

[Late Saturday]
“Which way are we going?” asked Carla.

I’d brought Roxy to a standstill where the Macclesfield Canal leaves the Trent and Mersey Canal near Kidsgrove.

“It depends on you.”

“Me? Why?”

“How many locks do you want to go through between here and Manchester?”

[on board Roxy]

“Can I get you something to drink?” I said as showed Ms Kulinski into my home.
"I was going to have some tea so it won’t be any trouble to make you some.”

“Tea, please. No sugar and just a dash of milk,” she replied as she sat down and started to extract some papers from her briefcase.

"It is nice to be back home," I said as I sank into a chair on board the newly refitted Roxy.

Melody didn’t answer right away so I tried again.

"This is your home too you know. Get yourself sorted out about what you want to do with your life. I guess that everything you ever thought about was being Melody. Now you are. You are legally Melody and have the documentation to prove it. Now you have the chance to think long and hard about what you want from your life as Melody."

I stayed with Matt that night. His home is less than one mile from the world-famous 'Richard Arkwright’s Mills' at Cromford. I wished that I had more time so that I could visit the place where mechanised cotton spinning was invented but I wanted to get back to Oxford before nightfall.

Cut-04

I left Melody to sort out our food for the evening and went up on deck to phone my friend and business associate, Jonathan Fields. He ran the gallery where I was due to be having my show at the end of April/early May.
The cold wind of earlier in the day had died down and the sky was clear. It was going to be a cold and decidedly frosty night.

I returned to the store as quickly as I could but I couldn’t find Melody anywhere in the clothes department. There was no evidence of an abandoned trolley full of clothes so I was left a bit perplexed. Where was she?

I began to walk through the main section of the store. As I did so, I scanned the aisles. There was no sign of Melody anywhere until I caught sight of a trolley half full of clothes in the aisle that had the racks of makeup.

I managed a smile as I saw Melody looking at shampoo.

“Your hair is fairly greasy,” I said calmly.

Melody almost jumped out of her skin.

There are some days in the middle of winter that are perfectly described using a single word. That word is ‘Dreich’. It is a Scottish word that means one or more of the following, ‘Bleak, miserable, dismal, cheerless and dreary.' If you add a biting wind that comes from straight from the Arctic ocean and you get the idea about just how it was that day.

If I’d have had any say in the matter, I’d have been in a pub with a big log fire, some good food and more than a few pints of good beer. But I didn’t have any say in what I had to do that day.

It was well after four in the afternoon when I walked into our Office and spotted our visitor. He looked so out of place to be almost funny. He was dressed in a suit that would be ideal for a court in a big city. Custer County is a long way from any big city. He’d stand out a mile. People around here only wear suits for Weddings and Funerals. No one I knew could afford the duds that he was wearing.

“Mr Rieck? Sheriff Matt Harker. Welcome to Custer County.”

Michel and Delphine returned to their Devon retreat by train later that afternoon. It had been a long day. Neither of them was in the mood for much small-chat on the train.

Despite the latest episode with her daughters coming to an end, Delphine was still pretty down in the dumps. She would not admit it but the attempt by her daughters to have her declared unfit to manage her life hit her very hard. The effect of seeing them face to face in Verity’s Office was very real and impossible to brush off. Michel was there with her all the way but he knew that it was going to take some time for his wife to return to anywhere near normal.

The morning of the wedding dawned bright and sunny. Delphine was first to stir. Her new corset was rubbing on her hip. Henri had been right in that it was a lot stiffer than her old one. The boning was much wider and stronger than the training corset.

As they were still sleeping in the cottage, she had to go up to the new house to get a shower. Michel had been up there most of the previous afternoon working on something. He’d been very evasive when she’d asked about whatever it was that he'd been working on.

While they waited for things beyond their control such as passports and driving licenses to be processed, Michel and Delphine worked together on the Smallholding and the new house.

Despite Delphine's protestations, she eventually gave in and started wearing a pair of dungarees and work boots. She refused point-blank to stop wearing stockings even though on some days, a pair of leggings were worn between them and the dungarees.

The rest of their journey down to Devon was done in relative silence. It reinforced the reality that Jacques was going to have to do a lot of explaining to do later that evening.

The sun was still high in the sky when Jacques drove the Van up the track to their home.

“Why don’t we leave unloading until morning?” suggested Jacques.

“Good idea. I’m bushed,” replied Vivienne in a firm voice.

Vivienne’s return to London from Paris was rather strange. It was strange in that she actually felt rather naked without the corset wrapped tightly around her body. Even after just a few days, it had started to be part of her. Then there were the brand new two suitcases that held all her purchases. If her daughters could see inside, then they’d probably keel over on the spot. She had spent quite a lot of money but Vivienne had plenty and it wasn’t as if she’d be going shopping in Paris every day or London for much longer.

"Ja… Jacques? What are you doing here?" said a very startled and surprised Vivienne after they'd almost bumped into each other on 'The Strand'.

He smiled back at her. Any worries that she might have had just disappeared in an instant. His smile did that to her. Again!

"Meeting you," he replied.

The sun was just poking its head above the horizon as Vivienne left home the next morning. She had high hopes for the weekend despite not having anywhere to stay for the next few days. The traffic was light at that early hour. It was just before 05:45 when she reached the start of the M3 close to Kempton Park Racecourse. The battery gauge on the dash told her that the battery in her car would get her to the charger at the Supermarket in Wincanton just as she’d planned. She hoped that she could get a late breakfast while the car was also fed but with electrons rather than her choice of Sausage, Bacon, Eggs and Hash Browns all washed down with a large cup of tea.

Vivienne had been nagged by the thought of some dark secret or secrets that Jacques was hiding refused to go away. His good looks and charming personality were tempered by this as yet unanswered question. She preferred to think that someone like him could not be all bad.
This was, of course, complete and utter bollocks naturally… but it sounded rather nice to her.

The Photographer from the Estate Agency, a still wet behind the ears youngster named Neil Thomas, finished packing up his gear and then left Vivienne alone. A job that should have taken under an hour had taken three hours. For some unfathomable reason, he insisted on using a full studio flash rig even in the Bathroom where there really wasn’t the room to swing a cat let alone all the kit that he’d brought with him. From what little he’d said during the visit, he was clearly more used to taking pictures of the very large houses that only the mega rich of Hampstead could afford. Still, it was at their cost not hers. If she wasn’t happy with the promotion material she could take her business to another agency.

The ‘pet funeral’ people came and collected Betty later that day. It was hard for Vivienne to say goodbye to her lovable pet. As they prepared her body for transportation Vivienne realised that they’d not spent one night apart since she’d first came into her life almost nine years before. It really would be strange without the ‘Madness of Queen Betty’ to keep her entertained.

The people that came for her could well have been undertakers. They were dressed in black and spoke reverently in hushed tones about Betty and what Vivienne wanted done with her. After some discussion, Vivienne agreed to be there for Betty's final journey in two days’ time. She expressed that wish as it only felt fitting that Betty deserved a proper send off as thanks for the part she had played in her life these past years.

“That’s the last of the washing on Betty. Want to go for a walk?”

Her lovable companion wagged her tail and looked up at her mistress with doleful eyes.

Vivienne smiled back at her companion.

“Ok then. Go find your lead.”

Betty took off like a rocket only to completely miss the lead that was hanging over the bannister at the bottom of the stairs and thumped into the front door. She bounced off, turned around and grabbed the lead on her way back to her.

Forty-five minutes after they’d met at the services, Vivienne and Maxine said goodbye to each other. Even in that short time, they’d become friends.

“Are you sure that I won’t be a pain in the neck? I’m not exactly a country person.” asked Vivienne.

“Not at all. It will be nice to have some company for the week.”

“And you don’t mind about Betty?”

“Not at all. She seems to like me.”

All was quiet in the house. The Sun had risen well over an hour earlier. The hum of London grew as the city started a new day.

There were two occupants of the house. For one of them this was a day to celebrate. For the other, the prospect of walkies, rabbits to chase and food was normal.

In a bedroom at the front of the three-storey terraced house, Vivienne Carter was wide awake. Today was her sixtieth birthday, plus it was the first day of what she’d been calling her ‘afterlife’. She’d just retired from her job as very senior official at the HMRC in the ‘Collections Department’. The previous day which had been a rather sad occasion. Vivienne, could have carried on working for at least six more years until she qualified for a state pension but she’d had enough of work, commuting and putting up with the incompetence of other people for far too long so she'd decided several months before to call it a day when she turned sixty years of age.