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Billy Franklin walked along Pottergate Street on a cold and dark October night until he came to the steps leading down to St Benedict’s Alley. He was carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper, neatly tied up with string. It was perhaps a little late for a fifteen-year-old to be out alone, but Billy had left school two years before and knew how to look after himself. His parents were out drinking at their local pub, as usual, and would not notice his absence. By the time they found the note he had left them, in the morning, he would be untraceable. Tomorrow was his sixteenth birthday: he would be an adult embarking upon a new and important stage in his life. He had been preparing for this night for more than a year; ever since he read that article in the Daily Mirror.

Once he had passed the round tower of St Benedict’s church, Billy glanced over his shoulder to make sure that no-one was looking, and then slipped through the rusty iron gate and into the graveyard. This side of the churchyard was hidden from the vicarage, and most of the surrounding houses were now empty and awaiting demolition, their previous occupants having been moved to newly-built council houses on the edge of the city. The church itself looked forlorn and neglected and was rarely now used. The remnants of a once-healthy congregation in the small church had drifted away to St Swithin’s or to St Giles’s both of which were only a few streets away. He walked across the churchyard to some steps leading down to a wooden door underneath the nave of the church. The steps were overgrown with brambles, but he picked up an old door post that was lying there and lifted them out of the way until he got past. He then let them fall back to their original position. The fact that the steps were so overgrown indicated to him that no-one else now used them. At the bottom of the steps Billy stood the pole next to the doorway so it would be available for him to use when he made his exit early the next morning. He slowly turned the handle which simultaneously lifted latches on both sides of the door, quietly opened the door and entered.

The first time he had come here, more than two years ago, the door had been locked, but he had managed to pick it without any trouble, and ever since he had left it unlocked. Once inside, he took another piece of wood, which he had shaped for the purpose, and jammed it into the inside latch, so that it could not be opened from the outside. In the unlikely event that someone were to arrive with the key, they would not be able to get in until he removed it. It was now safe for him to light the candles, which he had stolen from the cathedral, knowing that their glow could not be seen outside. This was now his private realm where he felt safe and secure.

The candles illuminated a small dry crypt under about a third of the nave, created because the church had been built on a sloping site. It contained several stone sarcophagi, mural monuments and inscribed flagstones indicating burials under the floor. Although he was superstitious, Billy was not at all afraid of being surrounded by the dead. He had once managed to purloin a flashlight from a policeman’s bicycle whilst the latter was busy arresting a criminal. This had enabled him to investigate every corner of the crypt, before the battery ran out, so he knew there was nothing for him to fear.

One sarcophagus had a broken lid, the smaller piece of which he was able to slide to one side to give him access to the tomb. From just inside he retrieved an old and battered suitcase and a cardboard box. Even if someone had entered the crypt over the last couple of years, they would never have found his treasures, for who would open a tomb? He put down the box and the suitcase on the floor next to the parcel he had been carrying. He then slid back the piece of the lid and lit two further candles, placing them on top of the sarcophagus, so he could see better what he was doing. This would serve as his makeshift dressing table for the night.

As he lit the candles, the inscription on the tomb always attracted his attention:

He had no idea who she was but they shared the same birthday, born exactly 200 years apart. It wasn’t until after he read that newspaper article that he was aware that there might be another co-incidence between them.

The article had been a revelation to him and given him something to look forward to in his hitherto unhappy life. It concerned 26-year-old William Richeson of New York, who had been arrested after spending more than ten years living as Mary Baker, during which time he (or she) had worked as a chorus girl, a hospital nurse and had even got married without her husband knowing her true sex. It demonstrated that there were other people in the world who shared the same desires as he did. If Billy Richeson could live successfully as a woman for so long, then so too could Billy Franklin. It may not be practicable to do so in a small city like Norwich, but it would be a different matter in London where no-one knew him. The idea of working as a chorus girl seemed impossibly glamorous, but perhaps he could get a job as a waitress, or work in a dress shop or as a lady’s maid. The co-incidence of names in the article with that on the tomb also struck him, and convinced him that it was a lucky sign. There and then he had decided that as soon as he was sixteen he would become Mary Baker and go to live in London.

There had been a worrying time for him last Summer as there was a rumour going around that there would soon be a war with Germany and that all the young men would be conscripted to join the army. That would have ended any chance he might have of living as Mary. But fortunately, a few weeks ago, Mr Chamberlain, the Prime Minister had gone to Munich and signed an agreement with Herr Hitler. Billy remembered the headline in his father’s newspaper — ‘Peace in our time’ — which he saw as another good omen. He was now determined to carry out his plan as soon as possible.
 

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Assembling the necessary wardrobe had not been easy, although he had made a start before he even read the article. Stealing items from washing lines did not particularly appeal to him, but there was simply no way that a young man could go out and purchase ladies’ underwear in the 1930s, even if he had the money to do so. However, Billy had soon found himself to be quite adept at stealing, and never got caught. The fact that he knew every back alley in the city so well ensured that he was always able to avoid capture on those few occasions when anyone challenged him. As time went by he became more discerning, choosing the more prosperous houses in the city to raid and only taking those items of underwear or dresses that he felt would look or feel good to wear. He even managed to steal one of those new French brassieres that he had seen advertised in the newspapers.

From stealing laundry, Billy had progressed to stealing handbags from the cloakrooms at the local dance hall and he had even once managed to walk off with a stylish ladies overcoat, with a fur collar, without anyone noticing. At first, he felt bad about stealing money from girls as he was only really interested in their makeup and the other items their handbags might contain. Once or twice he even left the purse behind and just ran off with the handbag. However, he came to realise that Mary would need money for her fare to London and also to pay for accommodation until she could find a job. Billy therefore hardened his heart and began to save up ready for his sixteenth birthday.

The one thing that had seemed to be most difficult was how to acquire some suitable shoes. He did not have big feet and many women’s styles would have fitted him, but he needed to try them on first. The two occasions he had come across a pair of shoes left in a cloakroom had been a disaster as one pair had been far too small and the other too big to be usable. However, in September he’d had a stroke of luck. Sexton’s, the local shoe factory had again started recruiting workers and his mother, who was a machinist there had persuaded the foreman to take him on. His job was to clean up the machinery and work benches and any other menial tasks that came along, but he did not mind. The company was just beginning to manufacture new American ‘high-heels’ that were being made popular by Hollywood, as well as the more traditional styles that his mother and the other factory girls used to wear. After a couple of weeks at work he had discovered where and when it was safe for him to try on shoes, and then selected two pairs for himself to wear: one pair of walking shoes and a pair of high heels for when he wanted to look glamorous. It was a relatively simple task to hide them at work and then throw them out of the window into some nearby bushes as the factory was just closing for the night. He came back later to retrieve them when no-one else was around. The two pairs of shoes were in the parcel he had been carrying this evening — the final piece in the jigsaw necessary to resurrect Mary Baker.

He consulted a ladies’ wrist watch that he had found in one of the handbags. It was nearly ten thirty — the pubs would be calling for last orders and his parents would soon be returning home. It was six and a half hours before the first train for London left in the morning - but there was no reason why he should not now become Mary. He carefully laid out the garments he had selected to wear for his journey and started to remove the hated clothes that he was forced to wear every day as Billy.
 

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The point at which he put on the brassiere and stepped in to some camiknickers always had a mystical significance. It was where Billy ceased and Mary began - hopefully now for the last time. It was the point where she began to think of herself using the female pronoun.

Mary filled the cups with a spare pair of woollen stockings, to give them the right shape, and put on a white petticoat. She then slid a silk stocking on to her left leg and bent over to attach it to her suspender, but, as she did so she had the distinct impression that someone was watching her. She looked around, but could see nothing and there was no sound, so she ignored the feeling and so she put on and started to attach the second stocking. Once again she had a feeling that there was someone watching.

‘Is there anyone there?’ she asked tentatively.

There was no reply but the impression that she was not alone was so strong, that she slipped the pair of low heeled shoes on to her feet, picked up a candlestick and did a quick tour of the crypt to make sure that it was empty.

It did not take her long to satisfy herself that she was indeed alone, so she returned to her dressing table and put on a white cotton blouse, a dark brown pleated skirt and a knitted cardigan, and some beads around her neck. Then she decided to try out her new high-heeled shoes. They felt wonderful to wear and made her legs look and feel nice in the silk stockings. She even bent down to caress her silky legs, but as she did so, she once again felt that she was being watched. This time, however, she ignored the sensation, telling herself not to be so silly, and deciding to do her hair and put on some makeup.

Mary wished that her hair was longer than it was, but Billy had already been told by the foreman at his work to get his hair cut, and would not have been able to have avoided doing so much longer if he had wanted to keep his job. In time, she wanted to grow her hair and adopt the new ‘Garbo look’, but in the meanwhile the ‘shingle bob’ had been in fashion for several years and lots of girls still wore their hair very short. She was fairly confident that she would be able to get away with her existing hair in public so long as she wore either a wide-brimmed hat or a headscarf, both of which were commonplace headgear for young women.

Mary had also become quite proficient at putting on makeup over the last year. She took an old framed mirror that she’d found, from out the cardboard box and perched it on the sarcophagus next to one of the candles, and proceeded to apply the face-cream, face powder, lipstick, rouge and some eye shadow, just like her mother used to do. She kept a lemonade bottle of water in the crypt, to wash off the makeup. She unscrewed the cap and dribbled some on to the mascara cake to wet it, before brushing it on to her eyelashes. As she did so, she momentarily caught sight of a pale teenaged girl with long hair and wearing a long dress, reflected in the corner of the mirror. She blinked, and there was no-one there. She turned and looked again, but there was no-one to be seen. Had she imagined it? She had read in the newspapers about hallucinations and guessed that this must be one, a product of her fevered imagination, anticipating the excitement of the next day.

To calm herself she began carefully to paint her finger nails in scarlet lacquer, and when she was finished held her fingers open for them to dry. It was then that she became conscious of a draft in the crypt. In all the many times she had been down there, she had never been aware of any movement of air. In fact it had always struck her how still and quiet it was. She looked up at the candles and saw that their flames were now flickering in the draft. It was as if someone with icy breath was breathing over her shoulder.

Mary’s heart began to pound as, once again, she turned around, but there was nobody there. Mary decided that she did not like this place any more and, for the first time, a shiver of real fear went down her spine. However, if she was to live successfully as Mary, she would require courage. Although she had trembling hands, she forced herself to pick up one of the candles and, walk round the crypt once again, with her new heels clicking on the flagstones. Still she found nothing but continued to have the overwhelming impression that someone — or something — was constantly looking over her shoulder.

Mary had had enough. She hurriedly put the mirror, Billy’s clothes and everything else that she would not need for her new life into the cardboard box and stowed it in the sarcophagus. She put on her walking shoes and stowed the high heels in her suitcase along with her other clothes and items of makeup, all the time feeling that dreadful presence behind her. She put on her coat and a headscarf and looked at her watch; it was five minutes to midnight. It would be risky going out alone at this time of the night; she might be mistaken for a prostitute and either propositioned or else questioned by the police. However, that was better than remaining any longer in that awful place. She extinguished all but one of the candles and pulled out the piece of wood from the door latch. As she did so, she heard a dull thud from outside the door. The post that she had used to clear the brambles from the step had fallen over and become jammed in the outside latch of the door.

Mary rattled the door handle in an attempt to dislodge it, but without success. She then banged on the door and called out — but no one ever came there these days. As she did so she could feel the movement of cold clammy air on the nape of her neck, across her stockinged feet and inside her dress. She began to shiver uncontrollably and then to sob. As the final candle was extinguished on the stroke of midnight by that repulsive draft, she heard the sound of mocking laughter.
 

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It was mid-1947 before the city authorities began to make safe the bomb sites left over from the war, and to consider what should be done with them. St Benedict’s church had taken a direct hit during a raid five years before. A high-explosive bomb had passed through the nave and into the crypt, destroying virtually everything in its path. Only the tower and one wall of the nave remained intact and the latter now looked decidedly insecure. The Archdeacon and the Vicar of the church sat down to discuss what should be done.

‘In a city with thirty-two mediaeval churches and a cathedral, all within a relatively small area, there can be no question of our rebuilding St Benedict’s for parish use’, said the Archdeacon. ‘We will use the government compensation to build a new church elsewhere in the diocese where it will be more needed.’

‘I agree. There are now even fewer people in the parish than there were before the war,’ answered the Reverend Peter Jones. ’I have plenty of other duties in the city and have not held a service there since 1938. But what will happen to the ruins of the church?’

‘I expect the diocese will fill in the crypt, then flatten the site and dispose of the land. By the way, was there anything left in the crypt following the blast?’

‘The bomb and ensuing fire destroyed almost everything down there except for one eighteenth century stone sarcophagus for a teenage girl named Mary Baker. That seems to have suffered nothing worse than a broken lid in the blast. It is all rather mysterious really.’

‘Why is that?’ asked the Archdeacon.

‘Well, first of all it is most unusual to have such an elaborate and expensive tomb for a teenage girl — she must have been quite special. Then there was the fact that it survived virtually unscathed, when everything else in the crypt was totally destroyed. There were also some unusual discoveries when we came to open the tomb.’

‘Really?’ said the Archdeacon.

‘We found some modern children’s clothing had been rolled up and placed together with a mirror and some other items inside a cardboard box under the lid of the sarcophagus.’

‘It sounds as if the local children have been playing on the bomb site. If so, they are putting their lives at risk, that remaining wall is unsafe and will have to be demolished.’

‘But that is not all. Mary’s coffin was in a remarkably good state of preservation given that it was more than two hundred years old. We opened it and found she’d had long hair and there were traces of the dress, petticoat and some beads that she was wearing at the time of her burial.’

‘That does happen from time to time,’ said the Archdeacon.

‘I know, but when my friend from the local hospital examined the skeleton, he was convinced it was one from a boy in his mid-teens.’

Historical notes:
 
The article about William Richeson, alias Mary Baker, appeared in the Daily Mirror, 12 October 1937. The shoe manufacturer Sextons of Norwich recovered from the trade slump of the early 1930s by introducing new American-style ‘high-heeled’ shoe designs. The ‘Munich Agreement’ of October 1938 only delayed the onset of war between Britain and Germany by eleven months. St Benedict’s church was hit during the ‘Baedeker Blitz’ on Norwich in April 1942. There is a picture of it after the raid at http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/norwichbenedict/plunkett/be... - only the tower now survives as a landmark in what has since become the GLBT quarter of the city.