CHAPTER 43
We gathered together our purchases and loaded Steph’s panniers. The fitting had been efficient and very effective, a dress had indeed been there in my size (16, hooray! Average UK woman size!) as well as a couple of pairs of shoes.

That was an experience, a delight, because one reason for my taste, as explained to Sandra, was that if you cannot risk trying the shoes on in a shop, when they arrive by mail order they are often the wrong size. Pick one with an adjustable strap, and hey presto. Not perfect, but it had worked for me.

This time, I came out with the predicted maryjanes, as something simple to walk in and suitable for dancing, as well as my first ever properly fitted court shoes. No towering fetish heel, just something that was utterly feminine, utterly personal, and mine from new.

It was Sandra who had come up with the final touch, and it was simplicity itself, a scarf to be tied around my head, almost like a sweat band, but the ends trailing down my back. We matched it to the dress, and I was done. Steph insisted that I wear one of my new bras as we left the shop, after a hug from Sandra, and was that a hint of a tear? There was a lot more to her than met the eye. So, as a result of Steph’s pushiness, I ended up walking round a supermarket with visible tits.

Astonishingly, there was no real problem. The funniest thing, though; we got looked up and down, both of us, by a tweedy, horsey-looking woman, who turned away with a sneer, leaving the word ‘dykes’ floating behind her. Steph giggled and pulled me close.

“Satisfied you look OK now, Annie?”

“Well, no. Look, we are going back to a camp site full of people who have seen me as a man for the last three days, we are going to a ceilidh where I was dancing as a man, I have already drawn attention to myself as a musician in the sessions…”

“And all these people, when do you see them again?”

We were walking back to the bikes, and I stopped and turned her to look at me.

“And what about after the weekend? How do I put this back in the bottle? How do I go back to the real world?”

Steph looked down at me. “You take the real world along with you, love. You lay the foundations and then you take that step. All you have to realise is that you can do it. I did it, my friends have done it. It’s a matter of how and when, not if. From what I saw of you, back when we met, it was going to be an early exit from everything for you. Not now, not ever, OK?”

She gave a sigh, and tilted her head to the side. “Look, when I came here, that first time, I was shitting myself, and at the time I was completely alone. Look what you have around you, who you have to support you”

I spluttered, making a gesture at my chest. “Yeah, but you already had, you know…”

She reached out and cupped my….breast, yes, my breast.

“And what’s this?”

A passer by muttered “Fucking lezzers” and we both started giggling, till I got enough control back to speak.

“I’m not snogging you, though”

“Na, I think there’s a banjo player at the front of that queue!”

We loaded and unlocked the bikes, as my blush subsided, and then began the ride back to the site. It was just noon, and two sweaty men were sitting with their shirts off outside the tent as we wheeled up and started to unload things. Steph gave me a slap on the bum and some carrier bags, and pushed me into the Edifice as Eric stared at my chest, and Geoff laughed at his wife.

She followed me in, Kelly behind her, and I stood in the tinted light and looked at my clothes.

“Perhaps I should shower first?”

“You’re not sweaty. Change first, and then shower if you want, but change.”

Kelly had a small bag with her. “Get changed quickly, Annie, we have an appointment. Jimmy’s on with Mark at one, and Mum has the dinner on.”

“Yeah, but that’s just sandwiches…”

Steph gave me the hard stare. “Yeah, and the way you faff they will be stale. Off lycra, on frock!”

“Pretty…” said Kelly, looking at my bra. I felt like someone before a firing squad, and I could feel my skin burning. The dress slipped over my head, and the bodice clung to my new front, with a little bit of muffin top around the waist where a seam cinched the flare of the skirt. Steph tied the scarf, and Kelly muttered “Hold still. You do have very nice skin, Annie…especially now the beard’s gone”

Steph was stroking her own chin, absently. “Yeah, lack of shaving, I suppose, with that beard. What you reckon, Kell?”

“Bit of mascara, some lippy, perhaps a little on the lids….yeah, that should do. Told you, hold still or I put your eye out”

She did things to my eyes, and then held up a tube of lipstick. I shook my head.

“No, it will get on my flutes”

“Then take it off before you play. For now, you are in the audience”

She went into the ritual of apply and blot, and only then did she produce a mirror.

In fiction about people like me, and I have read a lot, there is always a moment where the girl first sees herself, first gets a glimpse of the beautiful woman who just needs a shopping trip and half a cosmetics counter to become unleashed as a dream of femininity. Of course, it doesn’t work like that in the real world, and looking back at me from the mirror was, well, me. But it was a different me, just slightly, the make up subtle enough to lend an accent rather than cover up, and it worked. I suddenly saw what the woman in the shop had, and then what I hoped Eric could see. I decided to be profound.

“Oh sod it, let’s get out there.”

Steph stopped me, and handed me a phone. “A quick word with Sally? I sort of rang her earlier to let her know….”

She answered on the second ring. “And?”

“You know what”

“You frightened?”

“Terrified. Absolutely quaking”

“Good. Means you will be careful. You are not alone there, Annie, so go out and have fun, and be safe, OK?”

“Sally….”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you…”

“Bollocks, girl, you’re the one doing the work. Catch you when you get back, kay?”

She hung up before I could wobble any more, Jan called from outside, “Tea’s poured, you three!”

Steph murmured “Go out, sit down, drink your tea and act as if it is the way you always dress. Go on, love”

So I did, and Jan just winked as I came out, handing me a cuppa. “Nice scarf, sets your eyes off”

Geoff made a point of smiling and moving to one side so I could sit, while the man I wanted for my own just stared at my chest. Some things are inevitable.

“Where the hell did they come from?”

“Hormones and a bad diet, mostly, love. Still all me though”

“You know, Annie, I have never doubted you were what you said, but this, this lets me see it. What about work?”

“In time. I have to see if I can survive the next two nights first.”

There was a squeal, and Kelly launched herself out of her seat. I wondered if my ears were going to survive the day, never mind the rest of me. Bill looked across at his daughter as she appeared to be making an attempt at climbing Mark.

“Jan, my dearest, remind me: wasn’t our darling daughter supposed to be shy?”

“Ah, my love, she was, until Annie here sucked all the shyness out of the country into herself. Oh look, she’s blushing again. Come over here, girl”

She hugged me to her, and then so did Bill, and I felt like I was being passed round like the parcel in a children’s game, till I ended up with Eric, and this time the hug ended with him beside me and his arm round what passed for my waist as he whispered in my ear.

“You look good, so no fear, no nerves.”

He kissed my cheek. Mark and Kelly came up for air at the same time, and I got a big grin from the young man. I started to tear up, and clamped down hard before all of Kelly’s handiwork was ruined. I had a sudden thought, and passed my phone to her, then turned to Eric. “Do you mind if…?”

He understood straight away, and nodded, and Kelly took the picture, and I sealed my fate by sending it to Ginny. The text back was almost immediate, and all it said was “Give him one for me!”

My courage was still up, and before it could go, I rang the nick.

“Can I have the custody desk? It’s Sergeant Price? Thank you….Dennis, Annie; Look…there’s been a bit of a development, and I will need your help.”

He chuckled. “You got arrested for excessive fluting in public?”

“No, nothing like that…look, can I send you a picture on your mobile while we talk?”

“Yeah…I have a sort of suspicion where you are going…got it. Fuck me, Adam. Yes, I have company. What do you need from me?”

“Den, you’ve given me plenty already. Just, a word with whichever skipper is on, Jim or Sam, and let them know the score. Things are sort of moving along, and I would like to get the Federation involved as well. Den, you have my roster, can you see if you can schedule a meeting in, say, a week or two? Find out if I need anything from Sally”

“Consider it done. Anything else you need?”

“Actually, I wish you were here now---no, not like that, it’s just I seem to have got myself surrounded by Geordies and an interpreter would be useful”

He laughed, and we hung up, and I knew my fate was sealed.

A simple lunch, the sun warm on my shoulders, and then Mark led us off to where he and his granda were due to play, walking hand in hand with Kelly, and I wondered where they were going. They lived so far apart, and at their age long-distance usually fell foul of the urgency of youth. Hands joined two by two as we walked, the sun washing over us and sounds of music coming from all directions, and Eric took my hand, and the day became even better.

Mark disappeared backstage as we took our seats in the cool of the smaller tent, until they came out, and did their thing, and Jimmy’s regular jokes took a new turn when Mark started to translate them for the audience in a cod-BBC accent, at one point paying tribute to his grandfather’s green credentials by pointing out how much of the act was recycled. Eventually, they were done, and we left Kelly with her swain as we emerged into the light and Steph dragged us off to the shopping area.

“Now, we’ve done the musical stuff, now we can look at some clothes.”

Eric groaned, and Steph continued. “Eric, she has only one dress with her, and if she gets warm at the ceilidh she will need something to change into. And she needs a bag. Go and buy her something nice, a new widget for her flute or some tunes or something!”

That was how I ended up with as hippy a look as I could ever have imagined, with a long skirt, a sort of flouncy gypsy blouse, and a small suede bag on a long strap. And it got easier and easier. I did notice a couple of our camp site neighbours look hard at me, and in each case there was a shrug, or a little headshake of ‘must’ve been mistaken’. We bundled our purchases, watched the dancing, and then headed over to the festival office for the competition results. Steph was muttering darkly.

“Same every bloody year. I swear this country needs a Herod and a time machine. Set it for fourteen years ago, and leave him to it”

Lost again….we gathered once more for dinner, and then it would be time for Show of Hands. Before that, though, was the matter of the ceilidh. I had some dancing to do.