CHAPTER 46
I thrashed a little in the morning, trying to get the nightdress to ride down rather than up. I don’t know why, but every time I wore one it ended up around my waist. Nothing to do with Larinda’s designs on my body; simply some odd set of mechanics at work.

Work. Arsebollocks. I stumbled out as Larinda snuffled away in her sleep, and ran into Rachel as she filled the kettle.

“Nice nighty, mate”

“Yeah, from Evans, they actually make things my size. Em…I did it over the internet, the ordering. Can’t exactly walk in and try it on, can I?”

Rachel slipped into one of her stances, this one the head-cocked listener. “Funny, yeah? We both seem to have spent our lives in a box looking out, wondering why all the other buggers have got the pretties, yeah?”

I poured the water into the pot. “Got my pretty, Rach!”

She slipped an arm around my waist. “Yes, Jill, you have, and fuck me if you haven’t fallen on your feet. She’s hurting, you know?”

I ducked my head. “I know, kid. I don’t have any choice, though. That’s the shitty bit; I could almost give it all up, aye, be a bloke, just for her, aye? But that’s the word. Almost. One day, sure as eggs is eggs, I would break. Not fair on the lass, is it?”

“Ticking time bomb?”

“Aye, sort of”

I thought for a second, and it came to me. “Bomb, aye. Blows me up, but lots of that yank thing, collateral damage, like”

I leant against her, the warmth, the comfort, her own need. “Rach, I don’t have any choice any more. We can discuss the ins and outs, like, but it’s more the hows and whens now. I look around…I mean, I look at the people we know, aye, and apart from James, how many of them, of us, are at the end of most of it? We can do something, aye? He can’t, so who’s better off?”

“Very thoughtful this morning, girl”

“You know, that still gets me, aye? ‘Girl’…no, what I meant was that we still have a bit of a choice in things, like, and James doesn’t, he’s stuck in that place he was born, and us, we still have our options, and it would be a real shame, it would be an insult to James if we just, like, sat and whinged. Larinda’s doing her best, aye indeed, and you, you’ve got the hots for Jim, haven’t you?”

She pulled slightly away. “And your point is?”

“That you have kept a sense of hope, aye? I had been going that way, and she sort of dragged me out of it, and then she gets her own hopes shot down…and back she bounces. Shite, I’m getting this all confused, so I’ll just say that those of us with choices left owe it to them without to grab them and make the best of it”

“You think James is without choices?”

I took a few more seconds. “No, I don’t. I think he has choices, and he proved that with that bird thing he put together. It’s just that his world is all focus, all tunnel vision. That’s what I don’t know, whether he is like us, looking out and seeing what he can’t have, or whether it’s so foreign to him he can’t see it, that bee purple thing”

She pulled away from me a little as she made the tea, then turned round to catch my eyes with hers.

“Very, very serious this morning, love”

She handed me a cup, and I took another short pause as the steam warmed the tip of my nose. What a cliché, the mouth covered to hide the nerves.

“It’s a realisation, Rach. What’s that word? Epiphany? I need to go and sort myself out properly, I’ve realised that, and it’s going to be shitty, but not AS shitty, aye? As shitty as it would be if I did nowt”

Her eyes widened. “You mean you have really decided to dive in? You told that woman in the bedroom yet?”

I sighed. “No, not yet, but…she must know, aye? She knows what I am, she’s said so”

Rachel put her cup down and stepped forward into a soft hug. “Yeah, but, you know, she can know or guess all the shit in the world and it still needs to come from you, yeah? You owe it to her”

“Yeah…look, need to get sorted, aye? Work calling”

She sniffed. “Gillian Carter, you remember one thing: all that crap you just said about time, and seizing it when you’ve got a chance, a choice, yeah, and the same goes for her. Give her that time, that choice, too. Only fair”

I had to laugh. “Bloody choices, and mine makes itself”

“When’s your next shrink visit, Jill?”

“Next week”

“Well, you need to tell him all this, yeah? That you want to go full-tilt slice and dice”

I winced. I might not have been overly fond of my bits, but the idea of sharp blades anywhere near me was not high on my list of favourite things. “What makes you think that?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, isn’t that what this whole conversation was about? You are not talking about living in drag, I can tell. You are taking Larinda’s toy away, aren’t you?”

“I need to talk to him first…”

“Bollocks do you if you mean discuss it, you need to make a bloody declaration! Look at you, standing there, going to go for it, but not if it involves actually doing it”

“I’d have to do a year, Rach, at least, yeah?”

“And you thought it would or could just be given to you in a bag or a bottle? You’re like a bloody teenager---no, fuck it, a kid running away. You have it all planned out, gonna walk to wherever the fuck with your schoolbag full of jam sandwiches and a gamekid or whatever the bloody thing’s called, and you get a hundred yards down the road and it rains and, well, you know the rest!”

How had that happened? I was the one making the declaration of intent, and then Rachel shot me down. The sad thing was that she was right; I had spent my life with earnest intentions of transition, and every time I had stirred myself thus far I had crashed and burned, failure and inadequacy just making my self-hatred stronger. She was cutting right into my core with her words, and yes, she was right, absolutely so. She softened her tone, seeing my reaction.

“Girl, no big deal just now, yeah, but speak to that shrink, and then you need to make that choice because I need you to help you with my own, yeah, and James, and Odd John, yeah, and Larinda too, they need you to make yours because they ain’t got anywhere they can go but after you”

“Larinda…”

“Larinda is stuck, hook, line, sinker, yeah? And you bloody well know it. Now, drink up”

“Bit sort of pushy, Rach?”

She grinned. “Back to work, innit? Got to get the nasty face on before I get in, your family left me out of practice. Seriously, my opinion, for what it’s worth: speak to her, but go where you need to, not where you think you can. There’s two of you, works better than a solo”

She suddenly went back into her stance. “What size shoes you take?”

“Eight and a half or so, aye?”

“Shit. What’s the point of having a BFF if I can’t borrow her shoes!”

I seized my moment, and grabbing two cups made my escape to the bedroom, where Larinda was now sitting up.

“Took you long enough!”

“Yeah, well, Rachel wanted a bit of a rant”

“About you, or about that northern gorilla she fancies?”

“Well, both, like”

“And she’s telling you to get yourself up to speed, yeah?”

I could feel myself blushing. “Yeah, she is”

She put the cup down, took mine from my hand and set it on the bedside table. “Come here”