CHAPTER 12
She had me, if I wanted to let her. Too many years of subterfuge left me less than open, though.

On the other hand, I was in the same position as the climber who looks over the edge and wonders about jumping. Everything stayed behind the closed door, she had said. Fuck it.

“Sally, you said that you specialised in post traumatic stress etc. What’s the other thing you do?”

“Gender identity stuff. The approved name changes every time someone imagines an offence in the old name, but I know what I am talking about…..ah”

She looked me up and down, very obviously.

“Renée Richards. You’ve given up, haven’t you? Bet you have a copy of that Redgrave film, though. Right…that explains a few things, such as your crack to Ginny about congenital stuff”

I was shitting myself. I hadn’t actually come out and admitted a thing, specifically, but she knew now. This was where I would start to catch the flak, and I sneaked a look at my watch to check how much time I had left for humiliation.

“Adam, there are certain traditions associated with this moment. I am popularly supposed to ask you what your girl name is, how long you’ve had the feeling that you were in the wrong shoes, all that sort of thing. That’s not where you stand, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Giving yourself a name implies hope”

She sat and waited for me to react. It was all so much like being in court, the same little tricks and techniques, but there was a difference, a fundamental one. It was something I had picked up on when she came for dinner: she cared. She had tells I was learning to pick up, little displacement movements. She would have been unreadable to most people, but she showed out to me. There was a tension there, almost like a cat waiting for the right moment to spring.

“Adam, you are not here to watch me. Talk to me. I’ve already told you how it works”

She looked at me, just a little hint of exasperation, as I sat there silent.

“OK, when did you decide to kill yourself?”

That was a conversation-stopper.

“Once I realised there was no hope”

“Hope? What would you hope for?”

“World peace, a cure for cancer, the second coming of Elvis”

“You fancied Mr Presley?”

“As a young man, yes”

Shit. I should have stayed off the humour, not sensible when up against someone like her. Only the pretty ones.

“You are straight, then. The marriage?”

This was surreal. I am sat there, beard, crew cut, belly spilling over where a belt would have been, coughing to liking a young man with dark eyes and a seriously sweet arse, and she says ‘straight’? That marriage…

“I met Maria through a newspaper advert. One of those premium-rate call box type things, where you swap voice messages for a bit. I was already lining up for a move from Wales, and she was in the right area, and she sounded nice…”

“But you are heterosexual”

How could she talk like that? Couldn’t she see what was sat before her?

“Well, it was sort of a thing I needed to do.”

“Like getting rid of all of Tabby’s things. Tell me, Adam, why not get rid of Tabby as well?”

Kill my only friend? “I couldn’t do that, not to her”

“It’s a rag doll, Adam, and I assume that you know that, as I believe you made it. It’s not a person.”

Yes she is! It was getting harder, and Sally handed over some more tissues. I could feel myself breaking, and she just sat there, looking at me as I crumbled.

“Tabby’s all I have left.”

“Left of what, Adam?”

“Of me…”

“So who am I talking to?”

“Adam Price”

“Is he a real person?”

I sat and thought for a while. What was Adam Price? Was he me? Was he the figure that my father had constructed? I gave my answer after what seemed like á¦ons, Sally still sitting impassive across from me.

“Maria got fed up, in the end. I did what I could, and I do love her, but…”

“She’s a woman?”

“Yes.”

“Answer the other question, Adam”

“No”

“No, you won’t?”

“No, he’s not real”

“You play him well”

I looked hard at Sally then. “And the alternative would be?”

“Death? You’ve already selected that option, it’s a default with your lifestyle. Why not just make it quicker? Ah, difficult with people around you, isn’t it? Ginny getting in the way?”

Oh yes. “And what other options could there be?”

“Choose life, I always say. Has more options built in than simple decay. Why not try it?”

“Yeah, right, but I can’t have my life, can I?”

“Why not? Because you’re a fat fucker with a beard? Exercise, diet, Wilkinson Sword, the love of the friends you already have. And the courage you have already shown in still being here, both in being alive and finally talking to someone about it. Now, I think I will go back to the beginning, now that you have come out into the light. What is your other name?”

I sighed, looking down at my shoes for anything to delay this. There was nothing there but some dirt and a slight smear of chain lube. I took a breath.

“Anne. Annie”

Annie to my friends? Oh aye, it would have been, if ever I had had friends I let into the secret. Sally was on the ball, of course.

“Annie to your friends? Pleased to meet you, Annie”

It went so much more easily after that. I rode back in a little daze, almost singing and shitting myself at the same time. I had the cat out of the bag, and at the moment she was purring and headbutting me, but if the wrong people found out, well, Melanie was a good example of what I could expect. Purrs and dribbling would turn all too quickly into claws and teeth.

Ginny was waiting when I got home, and was straight to the point.

“Well? Did she help?”

I showed her the prescription Sally had given me for some stupid drug or other.

“She put you on anti-depressants? Well, duh! You going to take the buggers?”

“No, I don’t think so. Don’t like being out of control”

“Oh fuck off, Price, this coming from someone who has been pissed every day since coming to Sussex?”

“That’s different, I stay indoors for that. This would mean being stoked when with everyone else, aye?”

“And you have to be careful to keep hiding, yeah?”

I looked at her, and she was almost in tears. “I don’t know what it is, Adam, but there is fuck all you can do to make me give up on you, and you need to stop trying to piss me off, because it isn’t working. Well, it is, but not the way you want it to”

Tears now fell, and I held her close to me, shorter than her by several inches, just held her till she was calm again.

“How’s Kate? And the house–what’s happening?”

She was suddenly grinning, tears still in her eyes. “We get it next week! No chain, all surveys done, contracts ready! My missus is a quick worker when she needs to be”

She suddenly switched to a sly expression, then purred “...and a lovely slow one when I need her to be….”

Ginny sat up then, wiping her eyes. “Stuffed peppers tonight, mate. With wild rice and a little dhal. You better stay away from the cells, you’ll be farting badly enough for it to be considered torture”

I took a shower, and left myself in my old dressing gown as I ironed some shirts ready for the next set of shifts. Ginny bustled round the kitchen, singing something vaguely familiar and remarkably off-key. Just as dinner was about to be served, the front door opened. I gave Ginny a glance, and she actually blushed.

“It’s Kate. When we were really worried about you, before you agreed to speak to Sal, I sort of got her a spare key, just in case…”

I reached across the table we were setting and took her hand.

“Ginny, look, there’s you being cheeky, and then there’s you caring enough to plan ahead a bit, aye? I know which one that was, OK?”

“OK…I was just a bit worried you might think I was being a bit bloody forward, yeah?”

“You can be as forward as you like, love”

“Yeah? I don’t swing that way, Price!”

Neither do I. That was one thing that had condensed into solidity during my session with Sally, once she had started ignoring Adam and digging out me, clearing the guilt and shame my father had beaten into me. Kate appeared, in cycle kit, and proceeded to demonstrate the affection that Ginny had all but gloated over. I was torn, between jealousy and joy, between wanting what they had and being glad they so clearly had what they did.

“Put her down, Kate, and tell me about the house”

“A deal, then. You tell me how it went today, and I will tell all about the house and dungeon”

“It went well, sort of. We got a few things cleared up”

“Such as?”

I thought for a while, as Ginny dished out the food. I had let Annie out for the first time, and it had indeed been like giving birth, except it was me that emerged. Pain, tears….could I do this? Sally had spoken of the advantage of being alive, the ability to rewrite things, to adjust for errors, correct old mistakes.

“Kate…Ginny, fuck it, you are my friends, aren’t you?”

They both nodded, Ginny taking Kate’s hand. It was Ginny who spoke for them.

“If you thought about it at all, Price, you wouldn’t ask such a stupid fucking question. What exactly are we doing here?”

Kate nodded. “Always, Adam, even if you are about to tell us you have decided to become a Tory. And friends always, even though you are Welsh”

Ginny snorted, but Kate looked serious. “I saw the prescription on the sideboard, Adam. How suicidal are you exactly? Sod privacy, this is FAMILY!”

I sat back in my chair as the peppers cooled in front of me. Sod it. Deep end, had to be done, had to be or I would drown.

“Kate, you do know that Sally doesn’t just specialise in PTSD and that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do---oh fucking hell!”