Ride On 71

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CHAPTER 71
We found the house, in the end, after a couple of false starts, and it was in a quiet back street in Horley. Not the most wonderful of areas, or houses, not at all like the one Steph had inherited, but it had three bedrooms, a very large garage, a reasonably spacious conservatory and a garden shaded by some huge mature horse chestnut trees. Only five miles from work, as well, for both of us, the route identical as far as the nick.

We put a deposit down as soon as we were sure-are you sure-yes-are you really-sure-YES!!

I had resolved to keep in touch with Sarah if I could, since she seemed to have a very ‘sorted’ approach to her life, as well as a lot more experience. That was one thing I appreciated, as I had only been playing myself for a matter of months compared to the decades as Adam.

I was now out, completely, at work, the Super having moved mountains sufficiently to have obtained me a warrant card in my new name, which led me to have a small celebration tea at home with the girls and my man, where Ginny allowed me some cake, the generous woman. New items of uniform, new status–well, almost. As Jim and Sam had promised, I had my own locker, my own toilet, my own little cupboard for changing.

It was Jim who broke the news about Darren.

“Annie, might have a bit of a problem. The defence in the Pickstock trial are pushing to get him excluded as he is in such close contact with us. I don’t know if they will succeed, but it might be as well for Polly to have a word with him and Counsel.”

“We got a date for trial, yet?”

“Not till after Christmas, looks like. They have already had a Newton hearing to kick out some stuff, and I heard they were trying to make us produce the little girl in open court”

“Jim, they can fuck right off there!”

“I do believe our silk may have used those exact words, Annie”

“So where do we stand?”

“Well, there is sufficient there, she feels, to allow video link. Age, vulnerability, nature of the charges. Darren’s the one they want out, though, and don’t forget they will try and tear you up for arse paper, and you have to admit, coming out as you have right before the trial might not be the best thing for it all”

I sighed. “Not something I planned, Jim. I really wish things could have been different, but they aren’t, though as you have noticed I am”

He grinned. “I wonder exactly how they will administer the oath”

“Just the same as always, it’s how I explain the Custody notes written under a different name. The jury will have a field day, it’ll beat hearing some bloody fraud case, aye?”

“You’re not nervous about that?”

I laughed. “With what I have already been through? Walking through Crawley in a dress in daylight?”

“You seem to have adapted to that OK!”

“I had a choice?”

“Point taken. How is it going with Eric?”

“As well as I could ever have hoped, Jim.”

He looked at me as if trying to choose his words with particular care. “Annie, you are a lucky woman, and I think…I think Eric is a very lucky man. Now bugger off while I clear these stats up”

That was a comment that sat in my mind like a sunbeam for the rest of the shift. Ordinary…I ran the Darren problem past Eric that night, as he gave me a back rub.

“When’s the trial? Some time after Christmas?”

"Yeah”

“Then I suggest we make the holiday a good one. Nothing we can do for the girl, just keep our distance for now. So, what presents, and who for?”

“Oh god, it’s getting a bit of a…just had an idea. How big is the garden at Steph’s? And at Naomi’s? They are turfed nicely, we could get quite a few tents in there, perhaps a marquee, aye?”

“Hang on, love, don’t you think asking them first might be a good idea? You suggesting a ride out?”

“There are people we haven’t seen since that night on the Zombie run”

“Right, then, you are looking at a Christmas do, yeah? Why not ask Simon? The church, that hall, lots of grass that isn’t actually over somebody’s dear departed”

Now, there was an idea. Subzero overnight, decent tents and bags….my inner explorer was hooked. Before my collapse, touring had been my thing, sleeping out in all sorts of temperatures and weather, including times when I woke to frost on the outside of my sleeping bag. Stick a huge pile of duvets for Darren to burrow into. Music. Food. Friends. It was an excellent idea of mine, slightly filtered by my drudge, and I told him that, and he decided I had to get a slap on the arse, the cheeky sod, but he made up for it in other ways, and, well, I was tired the next day.

Eric had settled into his new job by then, and one day a week or two later he gave me a wry smile. “I have a sort of confession to make, love”

“And what have you done, and how should you be punished?”

“Well, you and I, we were never really involved with Christmas, were we? It was just a time when we did favours for everyone else, let them have the time off for their kids, their families, and now I find myself, you too, I think, we want time with our people”

“And your confession?”

“I have gone all domesticated”

“Just a thought, aye? Simon would be busy at that time, he sort of has a business link to it, aye? How about we look at something like Twelfth Night or whatever. We could run it like a ride out, but with a dry place just in case, you know”

He nodded. “But we do try to get as much of a normal Christmas as we can?”

“Of course, love, we see if a small boy can have a good one for the first time, sort of set a precedent, aye?”

Then I set out to see how domesticated he actually was. Not very, thankfully.

I rang Simon from work the next day, and he was intrigued by the idea, but being the sort of devious bastard I had come to expect he had other agendas to propose.

“Annie, you say you’ll have some music…”

“Simon, no dancing, it will be mulled wine and hot food, not dancing in the streets”

“No, Annie, I was wondering, with the numbers you will have, of adults, whether more children might attend”

“What, camping? Bit cold for them, surely”

“No, we bus them in from the local hospital. They get a meal, you lot do some playing, we ship them back, and then we crack some barrels of ale. What do you think?”

“Sounds like a plan; I’ll have words with Fee, Ginny and the rest. Steph, of course. Yes, Simon, definitely a possibility. Must go, I have trade”

I hung up as Kirsty appeared before me. What is it about trousers, these days, that they have to be fastened not just below the waist but below the buttocks? Kirsty explained that the lad before me was a purse snatcher, who had missed the variant of the old Confucius joke: copper with belt round waist run faster than tea-leaf with belt around thighs. I mean, he had top of the range Adidas running shoes on, if they weren’t fakes, but he had effectively strapped his legs together.

What was even funnier, which gave me serious problems in keeping a straight face before the camera, was that she had taken the belt for cell security, but he was still cuffed. As he walked from the waiting area to my desk, the trousers started to slide, and the only way he could find to keep them up was to spread his feet wider and wider apart. Once he was booked in and banged away, Kirst came back, took one look at my face, and then dragged me into the ladies’, where we all but collapsed in laughter and tears at the vision of compete humiliation we had witnessed, and it was at least a minute before I realised where I was. Shit.

“Er, Ruthy…”

“Relax. Welcome to our kingdom. I have been sounding out the girls, and the only one that objects is fat Julie Withers, so as long as she is off shift, you are OK. Just remember, wipe front to back”

I looked at the smile on her face, but there was just a little dampness in her eyes, and not from the laughing.

“Annie, mate, I don’t envy you at all, you know. You have so much shit in front of you, behind you, fucking hell, on top of you, yeah? You still keep on, you still smile, you still fucking care. How the hell do you do it?”

I smiled at her. “Eric”

“Bollocks is it Eric. You were doing this when you were still a fat beardy who stank of booze every shift. You take some credit, Anne Price”

She came up and hugged me. “No way you were ever some arsehole bloke. Want a coffee?”



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