CHAPTER 61
“So that is sixteen pops, with all the trimmings, and then a lamb pathia…”

I wondered what was going on. Me girl; curry order man’s job. “Oh, and six Kingfishers and a bottle of the Piesporter”

I looked at Larinda, puzzled. “How the hell can you drink that sweet crap, pet?”

She raised an eyebrow. “And what do you normally drink when you aren’t having lager, eh? Beer-flavoured soup, innit, so why the lager?”

“Well, decent ale would taste crap with curry”

“Yeah, well, you ever drunk decent wine with curry?”

Oh yes, out of three-litre boxes, dry and white, my attempt at slow suicide before I met you, my love. “Aye, I see what you mean”

Jim was laughing at that, and dust was falling from the light fittings as a result.

“Whey, man, aal the beer tastes like shite doon here, curry’s irrelevant!”

I looked over to Rachel. “Did he just use a four-syllable word, Rach? Something you haven’t told us about, some new experimental drug, aye?”

“Shut it you---ah, we can has drinkohol, at last; my throat’s dying of sobriety. Chaps, girls, before we get all curried up, can I suggest something: a toast, to a new life, for an old friend. Jill!”

They agreed and drank, and then I had to return the favour. “Look, all of you, this…this is a big thing, a very big thing, but I am looking round this table, and I could single out folk for a reply, but that’s not it, aye? You lot, all of you, it’s all down to you and your support. So, sod it, it’s maudlin, but let’s lift a glass to friendship, aye?”

And they did, and we had our poppadums with the mint raitha, mango chutney, onion salad and lime pickle that tradition demands, and as we ate I had a chance to look round the table. It was not exactly a revelation, more of a confirmation. Rachel’s nerves seemed to have evaporated in the warmth of Jim’s smile, and that was ever turned her way when he wasn’t laughing at some poor joke or other. Alec was more animated than I had ever seen him before, and John, who had always seemed a little like a faded photograph, was coming into colour.

I looked over at the McDuffs, and Sally was just laughing with the rest. Stewie, though, was quietly watchful, and I realised that he was still on his first pint. He caught my eye, and just gave a nod and a smile, and at that I decided I would hold back on my own drinking. Something had changed his mood. We carried on through our ice creams and coffees, and of course the minty chocolates. John broke the silence as we sipped.

“How, it’s a Saturday night, and I think we have a bit to celebrate, aye?”

I looked over. “Aye, and what have you in mind?”

“I am reliably informed there is a pub nearby…”

“Divvent get carried away, wor kid. Ah telt ye what Ah thowt o the ale here”

John just grinned and leant over towards his brother. “Just one word, Jim: Belhaven”

“Bugger a hell, hoo far away is it and where’s me coat?”

Alec laughed out loud, something I had never seen before. “Pavlovian response, oh my!”

The pub was in the next street: the Four Feathers, which was perhaps a joke about an old film, and the décor was based heavily on Welsh culture in peculiar collision with the Sudan of General Gordon. A sort of Caertoum. As that joke hit my mind, I realised that I was indeed ecstatically happy. Larinda had my hand, my friends were around me in number, and even though I could see I had more hurdles ahead of me than a steeplechaser I knew, utterly and completely, that I could clear them with ease. That memory of a cardboard box of wine, a dirty plate on the floor beside me as I hammered my ears with Hawkwind and tried to find some sort of salvation by proxy in the stories on that site; that memory was of another life, another person. This was now, this was me, out in Crawley, out of my shell.

Jim was straight up to the bar. “Fower pints o’ the Belhaven, marra, an’ whatever these lasses want, like”

The barmaid looked about twelve, green-dyed hair and a nose ring, but the expression she turned on Jim seemed to suggest that he was the odd one. “Yew wot?”

Alec took John’s hand as he went to step forward. “Let me, love. Darling, he wants four pints of that hand pump stuff there, and whatever these four ladies want, though I rather assume Jill, yes? She will have another of the ale. Rach? Larinda? Sal? Two dry whites and a vodka and orange, ta”

He stepped back, and I collared him. “ ‘Love’, eh? You been busy, Alec?”

He looked abashed. “Sort of slipped out, but, yes, we seem to be heading that way. I shall have to be more careful”

I gave him a wink. “I think you were already being very careful, Alec, you devious old bugger”

That brought a happy smile. “Oh yes, if I am very, very lucky!”

“Down, boy, you are supposed to be my bloody therapist! Come on, there’s seats over there”

Happiness, happy times, good friends. I gave up on my thoughts of sobriety, and the beer did what beer does, and so I had to let things run their course, in a manner of speaking. As I exited the ladies’ a hand grabbed the front of my blouse and a nose went up against mine.

“What the fuck are you doing in the fucking ladies you fucking tranny queer?”

Everything crashed and burned, all at once. This was reality, this was the wider world I would have to live in, not the cosy circle I had ridden in so far.

“I’m not a tranny”

I am queer, though…thoughts running wild in my head as I awaited the first punch.

“Let her go, now”

“Fuck off, shortarse!”

Stewie was just to my right, and there was something in his eyes, something darker than midnight. “Bit of advice, sonny. Never, ever tell me to fuck off, OK? Now, let her go. Last request”

Something moved just behind him, and then John was standing there rubbing his hand. “He had a friend, Stewie. Jim should be out of the bogs in a bit”

“No worries, mate. Now, sonny, hands off her”

The man got out part of what was going to be “I told you to fuck off” or its friends, but Stewie did something with his hands , and then something very violent with his head, and the resulting noise left me feeling sick. I noticed that John had his back to both of us, and understood that he had absolute confidence in Stewie; he was just making sure nobody else was interested. That was when Jim appeared, and as he took in the scene I expected him to react in a way completely different to what he did do.

“Any mair, lads?”

Stewie looked down at the one on the floor, as Larinda grabbed me, and John looked round. “Don’t think so, kidda”

“Reet then, time for the filth”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out his mobile and dialled, and then with a rueful grin handed it to Sally. “They’ll understand ye better, hinny”

“Police, please. Thank you. Assault, and I would like it referred to as a hate crime. Four Feathers, High Street, Crawley. No, I don’t know the postcode. Two assailants, both are injured. No, no injuries to the victims---Jill, you OK? No, no injuries. Thank you”

She gave her phone number to the operator just as one of the two men stirred, and I realised there were a small group of customers showing a more than keen interest in the events, just as the bar staff came over.

“Wossup?”

Stewie was icily calm. “Man on the floor attacked the lady here. Man behind me, also on the floor, wanted to join in. All sorted now”

“Would you please leave, then?”

“Nope. Waiting for the old bill, You got any CCTV here?”

“Yeah…oh, right, yeah”

She was gone again, still clearly on her own planet, and I gingerly felt round my neck where his hands had wrenched me about. That was when I suddenly realised that I had no strength, anywhere, and I almost fell onto Larinda, Jim catching me and putting me on a bench seat. He turned round, glaring at the crowd, especially the more closely attentive ones. John noticed.

“Now, my brother here is feeling a bit left out, so if anyone else wants to play, feel free!”

One of the women raised her head. “Fucking queer!”

John smiled. “Not at the moment, it’s too public. Later if I’m lucky, aye?”

Alec moved across to him, and though he was trembling, he made a brave show. “I think you’ve just got lucky, John”

There was a bustle from the doorway, and two coppers were there, one tall and balding, the other a short and well-endowed woman. She was the first to speak.

“Fuck me, Stewie, what’s gone on here?”

“Muppet one, here, decided to attack my friend there. It was clearly done as a consequence of her transgendered nature, so we’d like it recorded as a hate crime. When I removed his hands from her neck, muppet two over there decided he wanted to play, and he met my friend from the Fusiliers there. Some of these others have made homophobic remarks. Good to see you, Kirst, Nev”

“Yeah, could be better circs, OK? Nev, you take sleeping beauty over there, and I’ll handle the whiner”

As ‘Nev’ moved the unconscious one into the recovery position and ’Kirst’ radioed for an ambulance the woman with the mouth decided to have another go.

“What about them? They fucking hit them, broke his nose! Bunch of fucking poofters!”

Kirst smiled, and that wasn’t a nice thing to see. “This is your one warning under the Public Order Act. Any more foul language or incitement to hatred will not be tolerated. Do you understand me? Put it another way, Sherry Matthews, you eff or blind or queer one more time and you go to see my hubby down the nick. Got me? Good, so zip it”

She called over to Sally. “Sal, darlin’, this one of Naomi and Albert’s gaffs?”

“Think so, Kirst”

“Right, oh look, there’s the cavalry”

Four more policemen came in, and there was the flashing of blue lights outside. Kirst nodded to the first. “Hiya Ted, just got to nick this one…”

She rattled through some list of words about arrest and questioning, and left the crying thug with two of the officers, while the other two went to the bar. There was something of Stewie about her, a poise that spoke of confidence built on experience, and it became clearer to me as she came over.

“Hiya, what’s your name?”

I sighed. “Which one? You know what I am”

Sally snorted. “Jill, remember the old line, some of my best friends are…well, some of Kirst’s definitely are, isn’t that true?”

“Fuck, yeah. Sal will tell you later. First, any injuries?”

“Scratch from his nails, I think, when he grabbed me, probably happened when Stewie stepped in”

“Lucky boy. Stewie’s obviously settled down a bit”

“Eh?”

“If the fucker can cry, he’s still breathing”

I realised the pub was less full than it had been, as the little support group had decided to leave. Kirst hadn’t finished.

“Look, love, you are shaking. If you want to proceed with this, we will need a statement, down the nick be best, yeah? You up to that? This your sis?”

Larinda was kneading my shoulders from behind. “No, I’m her partner. Jill, love, this is something that you should do. No running any more, OK? Kirst, is it?”

“Or Kirsty, or Ruth. Sergeant Armstrong. And Nev is constable Chamberlain”

Larinda held out her hand. “So far, you have been sweetness and bloody light, but Jill here is a bit shaken. Is there a chance of somewhere quiet down there?”

“Rape suite. Fluffier than a fluffy thing, that place, if you don’t mind the associations. Hang on, twatfeatures is waking up. You OK, Nev?”

“Yeah, Ruthie, just cuffing. I’ve put in a call for Doc Khan”

“Yeah, can you let the others know that the crier has got skin under his nails? Get yours off in the van soon as, then”

And so it went, and I was left astonished. What had happened to the old-style coppers, the ones who would simply have looked at me and asked, rhetorically, what I had expected dressed like a woman? There was a second van, and then a ‘carrier’, which turned out to be a minibus, to take the rest of us down to the police station, and it went on, and I had tea, and my statement was written down sat in soft chairs in a peaceful room. An Asian doctor examined me, and took a swab of the inside of my cheek. Everything was so, so gentle, as Larinda sat holding my hand, and I sat with the button from my blouse in my other hand, the one he had torn off, and I simply wanted to curl up and die.