Something to Declare by Cyclist

Chapter 12

I am going to gloss over large parts of the weekend, dear reader, because a succession of descriptions of me shaking my bits to some band you’ve never heard of will leave you, well, leaving me.

So, here are the highlights. A whole series of fiddlers all using left hand pizzicato, spiccato bowing and  £200 carbon fibre bows. I tried one of them out, and it was fabby, but for 200 notes I could get something more immediately useful.

I entered the musicians’ competition . Eighteenth, out of nineteen. Bloody child prodigies.

Instrument workshops where we sat together to learn simple tunes ready for Monday.

Kelly watching in awe as Kerfuffle performed, Hannah James’ amazing clogging backed by the Sweeney brothers and Jamie Roberts.

Sobbing my heart out to Eric Bogle. What a lovely man, if ever the Woodruffs had a musical soundtrack, Eric would be the author.

Going off site when Bell*whead were on. They are good, and very popular, but too loud for me. The main benefit was the chance to meet Dave for a pint.

All of us were much more relaxed, and it was a given by now that wherever we went, Geoff and I were holding hands or otherwise touching. I had no complaints whatsoever on that score. My famous split screen mind had settled down into warm mush whenever he appeared, the only hangover being a perpetual tendency to imagine him as a scrum half.

At this point, gentle and refined readers, I will draw a veil over the images that filled my mind’s eye regarding me as a flanker “tackling” him as a scrum half.

I spent a lot of time on the phone to Sally, and after I enquired about the NHS bill she simply said

“Steph, you became a friend two years ago. I could never be dispassionate about so much pain. I haven’t raised a bill all weekend. I will do later, because otherwise my suggestions will be ignored. Got that?”

Never seeming to be out of physical contact with Geoff unless asleep.

Kisses.

Kelly was insufferable. She started calling me “Aunty Steffie” until I threatened to burn her clogs.

We played, as a family mostly, and Jan called me over when I first wore the Green Dress to go out. She was holding a pair of black three-quarter-length leggings to go under the dress, in case my dancing got too wild.

“I know you like that dress, but the way you get when you are in “the zone” your knickers will be on show”

Kelly just looked at me, said the word “Pink” and we corpsed. You know when you start laughing with someone, and it dies down, and you look up at them and you just can’t stop it bursting out again? Jan put on the Mum-voice again

“How old are you two, exactly?”

The pint we had with Dave was an important one. We called in at the Royal Oak, by Pig Trough, while the loud stuff was filling the marquee. Dave was looking good in a souvenir shirt from the ’03 World Cup in Australia, and we laughed over how we two Welsh supporters had prayed for a loss against England. We would never have beaten Australia, and that was all we wanted. None of this “I support two teams” silliness, just pragmatism, and Jonny Wilkinson delivered the goods with the very last kick in an injury time played after a very, very dubious penalty to Australia….oops.

That was part of what Dave wanted to discuss. We had turned up en famille, Geoff and Kelly in their now-familiar roles of blind- and open-side. I half expected to see Bill take point, with Jan walking backwards behind me scanning the bushes. This fitted in with the worries about managing my transition at work, the assurance that I would have support. The plan was to let the team know in a private meeting, and I had already decided my strategy for that.

“No, love, it’s this new department I am worried about. We both know that HM Customs and Excise* and then Revenue and Customs were big on the GLBT thing, but I am not sure about the Home Office. There are some right vindictive tossers on the other side, and I don’t know how they will play this. I think you should see Nigel the Union and let him in on things. How long you known him? I’ll book a room at the Norfolk Arms for when you get back, and if it’s OK with you I’ll drag him along”

I should mention at this point that Dave is not just a particularly destructive loosehead prop but also our team captain. He’s about 6’, weighs about eighteen and a half stone (220 lbs) and has the trademark right ear. Shaven head, scrubby beard, forearms like my thighs and no apparent bodily fat. The rugby shirt really set off his powerful…

Rewind.

For all of my life I have been celibate. All of a life lived trying simultaneously to be someone I never was and to destroy that person in any indirect way I could left very little room to be open to anyone else. I walked on eggshells all day, every day, except when I slumped in my armchair in the front room alone but for a three litre box of wine.. I noticed people as friends, I valued them as friends, I cultivated a very few as good friends and a few more as work mates, but I had no intimates apart from Sally, and that was not the same.

I realised now how skilled she had been from the first day I referred myself via my GP because of my drinking, and how subtle she had been at peeling the onion layers away to find the desperate girl hiding under the scars and fractures and binges. How lucky I had been to find a true physician, someone who looked beyond the symptom to the root of the illness. I also realised how much two days of company had allowed my wings to open, and in yet another rush of emotion exactly how very good a friend was my mate Dave.

I also realised exactly how I had been evaluating him, and how absolutely real was my declaration of my sexuality to Geoff. My life was moving further beyond my control with each minute I was with these people

Breathe…

Kelly was leaning in to me.

“You Ok? Gone all quiet.”

“Just getting a very confused weekend sorted in my mind. It’s not easy. I don’t know if I’m really up to playing tonight”

Geoff looked almost relieved. Had I worked him that hard? Dave smiled

“Dunno about you, butt, but I can see some empty glasses here.”

The three men went to fill our orders. Nice to see they knew their place; Kelly and I slipped off to the Ladies’ and as we sat in adjacent cubicles she called out to me.

“Spill the beans, Steffie. Have you snogged Uncle Geoff yet? Cause if you haven’t you should”

Sat with my skirt up, I could actually SEE my thighs blush I mumbled a non-committal reply, and Kelly laughed out loud, then giggled. In a little girl voice she said

“We gonna sort out Aunty Steffie make her all nice”

Oh shit.

Back at the table, we had a fresh round of drinks awaiting us. Mine was a pint of Tanglefoot ; as the late Linda Smith said, cursing “ladylike” measures, ‘Half a pint isn’t a drink, it’s homeopathy.’

Dave stood and held a hand up for silence.

“I’d just like to say a couple of things here. Firstly to you, four strangers at the moment, a really heartfelt thank you for what you have done for my best mate, someone I really thought I would be burying in the near future. Secondly, I’d like to propose a toast. To my old best mate, to my new best mate, to the beautiful girl I didn’t realise I knew, and the hardest bugger who ever put a shoulder to my arse.

“Steph. Live well, play well, love well”

They drank and yet again I cried.
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*Some years ago Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise were swallowed by the bean-counters to become HM Revenue and Customs. The Customs function was then hived off to the paper-pushers of the Home Office as the UK Border Agency, leaving a lot of hard-nosed law enforcement officers more than a little unhappy.