CHAPTER 27
The rest of the lunch was kept deliberately neutral, by unspoken mutual consent. We had each dropped our little pebbles into the water, and the ripples were spreading in interference patterns.

One more of my little fantasies had popped like a soap bubble, but nowhere near as messily as I had feared. Steph asked me to stop round to sort out something unspecified to do with the dance, which was now only a week away, and Eric was taken in hand by Ginny and Den, who would ride with him back to Horley for the London train.

Geoff got the kettle on as soon as we were in, and Steph brought out what was clearly a boxed instrument.

“This is something Kelly was trying out, but she said it wasn’t really her. Give it a go”

I opened the box, and there was a truly lovely thick-walled wooden flute. It was clearly used, with obvious replacement parts, but the wood was old and well-rubbed, and I looked up at Steph with a grin.

“Yes, of course. I am the same. The first joint purchase we ever made was an instrument, though I think Geoff actually paid for it all himself as a way of chatting me up”

“It worked, then”

She laughed, in simple happiness. “Oh yes! Talk about life-changing, and we have never looked back unless forced to. Look at me, Annie, really look; I did it, so can you. Now, let’s see what you can do with Kell’s flute”

I fitted the sections together, feeling how there was no wobbling, no over-tightness. This was a good instrument, the keys had no backlash, no slop and the holes were smooth and precisely cut. I set my embouchure onto the plate and…oh god, I was in love. The timbre was a delight, no buzzing anywhere, the key movements silky smooth and precise. It was quality, pure sex in a slim wooden tube, and I tried a few slow overblown Japanese phrases and decided it was going to sleep with me, no, HE was going to sleep with me, he needed a name, he would be Saburo….

“Earth to Anne….do I take it you like Kell’s flute?”

“He’s called Saburo. Who do I have to kill to keep him? How could Kelly not love him?”

Geoff was listening, chuckling. ”You haven’t got the hair yet, but I can just see you already. Love, I think you have a soul mate”

I started to laugh. “That was how I met my wife! The personal ads in the Guardian are called ‘soulmates’ “

Geoff grinned, “A case for trades description and that, eh?”

The laughter went on for some time, till Steph sighed. “Kelly once said something about sorting me out and making me all nice. Jan’s a dab at that sort of thing, remind me to tell you a couple of stories. If you ever decide that you are going for it, they are useful people to know.”

“Steph, I could never look like that”

“No? You’ve got a cyclist’s build, under the lard, so that’s a good start. You don’t have a big jaw, or Hercules shoulders, so it could work well”

Geoff was laughing again. “When I proposed, I was shitting myself”

“I know, love”

“And then the bloody ring wouldn’t go on. She’d broken the finger playing rugby, I had to have it re-sized”

They were both smiling at the memory, but I had to ask.

“Geoff, sorry, but how do you deal with Steph having been a bloke?”

Subtlety abandoned.

“She never was a bloke, Annie. Tell me, when were you a boy?”

“Honestly? I never have been”

“Then if you can see that, and Steph could say the same about herself, why can I not see the same thing? Look, we may be a bit of an odd family, but we go through life with our eyes open. Big Bill raised no stupid kids”

He took a breath, and looked at his wife. She nodded, and he continued.

“I sort of think that some other people can see that you were never a man”

“Who?”

“Ginny, for one. Sally and Stewart, no contest. Dennis, no, he can’t see that yet. Eric…most definitely he sees it”

That knocked me back a bit. Steph sighed. “Look, I remember asking you that first session, which one it was you fancied. You were paying so much attention to each of them, and it was obvious you were looking at them as more than friends, even if you didn’t know it. Well, maybe not realise it. It’s a big thing, sexuality, but it rides so hard on the back of gender. Presumption, prescription, assumption….look, let me tell you a story.”

Steph settled back against her husband, who was slumped in the corner of the sofa with his tea.

“Look, what do you see when you look at me? Be blunt”

“A woman. Tall, bony in places, big hands, nose a bit askew. Nice hair, nice legs, um, chest….”

Geoff was just smirking. “I can’t remember whether it was her hair I saw first or her legs”

“Saw, noticed or lusted after, love?”

“Pass!”

Steph squeezed his knee. “What you have to understand is that I had no idea what my sexuality was until I saw his brother. Shush, love, you know it was Bill that let me know who I am. Annie, it was like opening a door, it was my first time going out as myself, and I had bugger all in the way of clothes till Jan got involved, but the point is, until I looked at those two I had no idea what I was, that way.”

“I get included now, then, along with Bill?”

“My story, darling, shut up for a while. I suspect you might be a bit like that. All that energy wasted trying to work out how to fit in, none left to see where you actually do fit. Am I right?”

I smiled. “Has Sally got you on a subcontract?”

“Well, I said I would talk to you. You get my point, don’t you? It’s common with people like us, you spend so long fighting or failing to live what you’ve been handed you don’t have the time to look up from your feet. Here’s a tip for you. I think you’re actually straight, from what I know about your marriage. Dennis is most definitely straight, and I suspect Eric is too. Only one of them can see you as you want to be seen, and it isn’t Dennis. Look, Annie, get one thing straight: one of the worst ways to pick a partner is to imagine he has to come from the people you already know, OK?”

I managed, finally, to get some words of my own out. “What if I don’t want a…partner?”

“What, with the way your eyes follow us two about, and the way you look at Dennis, especially his arse?”

Guilty as charged. “Your turn, Steph, to look at me. I would need a bloody miracle, both to look half-normal and to have a bloke that can see past my…issues.”

“What? They are an endangered species or something? I know at least…..oh, bugger it, at least four who’ve got the vision, and one of them you’d have sworn blind could never do it. What makes you so specially bad?”

Geoff got his own word in, just then. “Slowly, love. Don’t try doing too much of Sal’s stuff. Now, Annie, music. We only have a few days left, and what we want is not just the dance stuff. I have an idea for the break, and it would involve you and Kell’s axe. Interested?”

“Go on….”

“You do some of that odd Japanese stuff, with the overtones and that, and then slip into the Tull bit. You do a duel style solo with hairy here, and then we cut to her playing something soulful to finish off, so we get two solos either side of a duet with backing. What would work best as a rhythm section?”

In unison, Steph and I called out “No banjos!” which effectively killed that conversation dead. She said she had some ideas, and I left it with her.

I set off home at last, with Saburo in the saddle bag and a promise to make Kelly a decent offer if we decided to get married, to find Ginny setting out the table for tea, singing as she did.

“My girly’s coming for the night!”

That hit home. I had spent so long trying to get rid of her, and now their house was sorted, and my life was back on track, or so it seemed, I was terrified I was about to lose her. I had to ask, though.

“Gilbey girl, when are you looking at jumping ship? It’s OK, I think we’ve managed to get me somewhere I can see daylight. You have a life and a wife and kittehz”

Did I just say ‘kittehz’? She definitely had to go, but not for the reasons I had earlier. Ginny hugged me, her hands still holding cutlery, and kissed my cheek.

“Mmm, less sandpaper, good. Are you sure, love? I know you think you have turned the corner, but those dreams still come, I can hardly miss them, can I?”

“Ginny, I intend to be alive more. There is a spare bed, so I can have guests, and I shall encourage that. I have to get my self-reliance back”

“Well, I shall set aside a few nights a week for you…if you want?”

I hugged her back. “I want, but it will be three in a bed”

“What the fuck?”

I brought our Saburo. “Meet my new friend!”

She looked vaguely green. “You are joking, Annie, please tell me are joking….”

I unsnapped the catches and revealed him in all his beauty.

“Oh you fucking cow, I thought it was going to be a vibrator!”