CHAPTER 17
Tony was on earlies that day, so when I got home-

That was another thought that hit, well, home. We needed to talk about my flat, and whether to keep it and rent it out, or to sell it. But, ’home’, for the three of us. Oooh.

Enid was also there when I opened the door, and she gave me a hug, and a smile, and a kiss.

“Sometimes my boy can be trusted to do the right thing, but it is an occasional ability, so I am delegating you to keep an eye on him for me”

That complicated matters. I really wanted to talk about Alice; would Enid be able to accept such a confidence? She accepted me, so after Jim had been tucked away in bed, I dove straight in.

“Tone, Enid, there are a couple of things that we need to discuss. One is sorting my flat out, and the other is a really delicate thing. A bit of a shock to me, in fact.

“Enid, you have astonished me, and pleased me beyond anything I can say, in the way you have accepted me as I am. In a few months, my little problem will be sorted out, but you have welcomed me into your family in a way I could only ever dream of before. To be honest, you dragged me in kicking and screaming!

“Now, I thought I had a hard life, what with Joe and the police and so on, but I realise now that for a girl like me it has been far, far easier than most ever get. I learned that fact today, and it’s something I’d like your help with”

I filled them in about Alice, and from their fly-catching stares they were as stunned as I had been.

“What do we do, then? I know bugger all about transitioning, as they call it, as I never really did so; apart from to my parents, that is, and Elaine was there for that.”

Enid was thoughtful. “What if he, she, doesn’t want to transition, as you call it? What if they haven’t got the guts, or the time, or the ability?”

“Then we stand by her whatever she decides. People kill themselves over this, and I can’t let that happen”

Tony spoke up. “Can I make a suggestion? From what you have told me in the past, Alice has been there for you since you first came to Dover, and seems to have asked for nothing back other than you being a good worker. Here’s my take on it. You know, we know now, who she really is. With care around Jim, why don’t we offer her a safe place to be herself? I can only imagine how it must be, but there must be a real difference between letting your guard down at home and doing so with friends. From what I can gather, it won’t be about clothes, it will be about letting go of male behaviour patterns.”

And that sums up why I love that man. No prescription, no protest, just a calm and ingenious suggestion. So, Jim acquired another Aunty, one with a beard.

That was how it worked, in the end. I called Alice that night, and we arranged for her to drop by whenever we had the opportunity, and that is how it started. When you have friends who live nearby, you don’t camp on their doorstep, you don’t arrange big events every so often so that you can see them, you just call round when you know they are in, have a cuppa, gossip; That is what Alice did. I t was amazing, and enlightening, to see how she changed when she entered her safe haven. I can imagine how those unfamiliar with people like me will see that, and I know they will be imagining some lisping, mincing queen.

Alice was no queen, no gay man trying his best to declare what he is. She was just a woman in her middle age, who liked to sit and gossip and talk about women’s things.

When she called round her posture changed as the door shut. She visibly sagged, and the male stance, shoulders thrown back, fell away from her. Her hands began moving, and little mannerisms, such as a tilt of the head, crept in.

What gratified me was Enid. It is a bloody obvious thing to say, but children come from their parents, and with Enid I could see where my man’s heart had been formed. Whenever she was down in Dover, she would call Alice, and the two of them would have an evening watching and discussing soap operas on the telly, and swapping terrible romantic novels. I could really see Alice at those times; just another English maiden aunt, who liked knitting and soppy love stories..

You see, that is another assumption so many people make, and yet again it is about clothing. Yes, she would have liked to wear a nice frock. Certainly, she hated her body. Very obviously, she struggled each day with wrapping herself up in a bland and artificial male persona.

But her times with us allowed her to act and be treated as her real self, among friends, and if I could offer her nothing more, we gave her that.

That year moved on, and we were really living as a family now. I couldn’t face the kerfuffle of renting the flat, so we sold it for rather more than I had paid for it and used the money to set up some investments, as well as to plan a serious holiday trip. I had always wanted to see Australia, and so we negotiated with the school to take Jim out for a few weeks n our Autumn, their Spring, the idea being to do some driving out of Perth, and then cross the country by plane to do what I had dreamed of for years: swim at the Great Barrier Reef.

Jim was already a King Penguin at the local leisure centre pool, so we had no fears for him, and Tony just seemed to smile at each of my random bursts of enthusiasm, and just as it was all coming together we had a phone call.

I was offered a place for surgery in January. This was when Tony went into overdrive, and suddenly the next six months or so were set in stone.

There would be a championship rugby match in September that would involve a couple of nights away, and in October we would fly to Perth. Four weeks later, it would be back to Gatwick, A month later it would be Christmas, with all that entailed, and then…. And then I would be off to hospital for the change I had feared and avoided for so many years.

Tony had dropped another surprise into the pot for that one, and it was to be in June. Plenty of time to arrange little things like a change of birth certificate before the wedding. Yes, I was to be a June bride.

September finally came, and once Alice and Enid arrived for the babysitting we joined the team coach for the run up to Coventry for the match. We had something that passed for a hotel room, but it was dry and warm, and nothing crawled out of the sheets, and there was a surprise n the morning: the breakfast was actually extremely good!

Now, you have to understand I am a Welsh girl, who was sort of a Welsh boy, so the game is meat and drink for me, but I was never any good at school. That does not mean I don’t love watching it; I mean, I have no musical ability whatsoever, but I still love rock. I don’t have to be Jimmy Page to love what he does.

I settled into a place on the touchline, suitable for cheering South and abusing match officials, and as the teams assembled on the pitch I spotted my man, number eight on his back, and I saw he was talking to that psychotic ginger bastard that had hurt him the first time I watched him play. This time, the nutter was on his side, wearing number seven, and I felt a small shiver of sympathy for the opposition. Just a small one, buried beneath anticipation of what he would do to them if he could take out my own personal ox.

That brought a giggle. He was no ox, it was all there, and it all worked rather nicely, thank you! I was joined by a small crowd of colleagues and family members, and the whistle blew for the kick off. It wasn’t long before the first knock on, and I got to enjoy the sight of my beloved’s thighs and arse straining away as he packed down and the two sets of forwards slammed into each other as they sought to show who was the better.

It was quite an even game, Tony getting in some thumping tackles. They were varying their game nicely, their (sod it, ‘our’) scrum half using both sides, and Tony picking up from the base every so often to make some solid ground. We had a better line out, though, but what caught my eye were the front rows. That was one serious contest there, and even though our loose head made Tony look small, he was having a hard job controlling their tight.

Half time came, and I took out the drinks and orange segments that are the traditional refreshment. In real rugby matches, not the stuff you see on telly, teams don’t retire to the dressing room, they huddle in two groups on the pitch before changing ends. As I handed out the oranges and collected the skins, the captain, that gigantic prop, was calmly talking the team through what he saw as the weaknesses in the opposition. I was struck by the way he could talk so calmly and intelligently after the sheer ferocity of what he was doing in the dark and private world up front.

The whistle went, and then the second half started. I noticed what was obviously a family group on the touchlines, cheering on someone called Steff, and spotted that it was the ginger nutter. Part way through the game, he started to catch my eye.

He was disturbingly quick for a forward, and though not that big his tackles were extremely destructive. Several times I saw opponents’ feet leave the floor as he hit them, and I realised that he was tackling rather high. Not illegally so, but he always seemed to be aiming to knock the other player back rather than just bring them down. And he was smiling all the time, too. I shuddered.

The game seemed locked in a draw, and then there was a clear change in tactics. We weren’t getting anywhere running at their line, and rolling mauls weren’t rolling. At that point, we fired off a Garryowen.

I felt the impact on their fullback myself. Each time we got the ball after that, up it went, and that ginger sod hit their poor number fifteen like a train. There was nothing he could do except take it, and then he couldn’t, and our winger shot past him and scored. I found myself mentally writing a prescription for the poor bugger.

It effectively won the game, and I stood with a towel for my man as the two teams clapped each other off the pitch. Tony was having words with the captain when I got to him. Oh gods he was gorgeous…if I wasn’t engaged, and wasn’t in love so deeply…..

So what if I like watching the players as well as the game? A girl needs a hobby!

I looked around for the psycho nutter, but he had already left with his personal groupies, so I concentrated on getting my man back to the hotel after he showered, and doing some first aid on the various cuts and bruises he had collected. I also gave him a back rub, and the sight of my big man naked on the bed….life was so good I ended up crying, and he saw, and he made me feel better too. Poor, poor Alice.

Into my frock and heels, I fussed round Tony as he squeezed into his suit, and off to the dinner. This was another moment of joy for me, as I knew I was a head turner, as I had turned this man’s head so completely my way. When you are like me, there is always a need for reassurance. The world is an awkward fit because you are not catered for. This was better, though, as I was sailing along on a wave of certainty. My fiancé, my love, my stepchild waiting at home, the only jarring fact the wasted years I had thrown away in self-pity.

Party time!

Tony took his place at the team table, and I noticed an empty seat. No nutter. I found my place, with a few other supporters, and started on a bottle of wine. There were speeches, and they droned on, and I wished we could hurry up and eat so I could get my hands back on my lover, and then I realised that the room had gone silent except for what sounded like the click of heels.

A gorgeously gowned woman was walking into the hall, on the arm of an athletic looking man. As she passed the team tables, I distinctly heard one of the opposition say that immortal phrase “Fuck me!”

She smiled at him, and said “I rather think I did…”

Red hair. Smile.

How many girls like me are there?