CHAPTER 10
My phone rang, just then, typically before I could make any sort of coherent reply. I checked the number: Karen.

“How’s it going, girl?”

“Just finished. Beaks asked for reports, but we’re all out. Gone for a coffee, like, with the brief”

“Where away?”

“Costa’s. just over the road”

“We’ll be there in five”

“Pardon?”

“Didn’t dump you when you came out, not doing it just cause you got a kicking. Got stuff to tell, anyway. Who’s there?”

“John–Wilkins; my girly, of course, Lawrence the brief, Rach and Will”

“Sprite, no ice, medium white Americano, and a hot choc with marshmallows and choccy stirrer and whipped cream and whatever the hell else they can squeeze into it”

“Cheeky cow!”

“But you love me!”

“Aye, but I’m having therapy”

“In five!”

And so they were, the three of them grinning as I got the hugs, and then it struck me. The three of them. This was as normal, as real, as I had ever seen James. There was the ritual greeting, of how I was Jill, and he was Will, and we were friends, but there was an edge of humanity to him that let his beauty shine from his face more than I had ever seen before. Terry caught my eye, and winked. After I had made the introductions, and paid a silly sum for the drinks, the man explained.

“You missed that music thing, Jill”

“I was sort of otherwise engaged, Terry. Other things were shouting for my attention. Doctors. Sharp knives”

Larinda murmured “Budgie smugglers…” and Rachel guffawed, and then, naturally, we had to explain to both James AND John what we meant, and then again to James that men didn’t really walk around with small parrots in their swimming trunks. Lawrence and I talked the newcomers through the trial, and the possible consequences, and Karen just sat and smiled at me.

“You always were a soft bugger. Will, see what we mean? All because of you---no, I didn’t mean it that way, this didn’t happen because you are not how your mother would have liked. What I meant was, well, look at her. Sees you at risk, promptly puts it all on hold. Me, I’d have gutted him with a rusty sardine tin”

She looked at my lover as she said the last, and got a quite definite nod of agreement.

“Anyway, done and dusted. Will, love, I am really sorry about what this has done to your family, but, well, they made their bed, not you. They will come round, sooner rather than later, yeah? Till then, you just be yourself and try not to eat these two out of house, home and wardrobe. Nice skirt, by the way, girl”

Terry looked over at Lawrence. “This may confuse you, but I mentioned some music earlier. There are people…”

James interrupted his father, to my astonishment. “They are friends, Dad. They are called Annie and Steph and Darren and Kelly and Jan and Bill and–”

Karen put her hand on his arm. “And are they your friends, love?”

“No, Mum, they are our friends. They make music with me but they are our friends”

Karen turned to me. “That Darren boy, he took James under his wing”

“Birds have wings, Mum. Darren is a boy not a bird”

Astonishing…Karen continued. “He decided to teach James about counterpoint, cross-rhythms, and that Kelly girl, she had a bag full of all sorts of bangy hitty shaky things, and we ended up seeing how many James could play at once”

“It was nine. I could play nine things at once. With counterpoint and counting and the things can happen at different times and it is still music”

Terry was a little moist. “James has talent, Jill, a talent we would never have known about, but you introduced us, and…”

Karen took his hand. “Look, love, we met these people only through you. You met them, in essence, because of the same sort of crap you were here for today, yeah? Silver linings...look, next year, or Christmas, they do the same shit, and it’s amazing, and I know you don’t like the music, but hey, we watched, listened to our boy on a stage playing percussion for a bloody folkies’ version of Metallica and Jethro Tull, and if you could bottle that and sell it---I am gushing. Sorry. But…”

She indicated James with a little flick of the eyes. “A wall is sort of breaking. That’s what’s what, and, well, thank you. We loved you anyway, yeah, and, well, you know what we mean, yeah? Amy time, anything”

It was Rachel, in the end, of all people, who was first to make her excuse and disappear to the ladies’ for running repairs. I joined her as she wiped her face clean and sorted her mascara. She turned to me with a half smile, brush in hand.

“You’d be a liability at a depressives’ meeting, girl. Bloody Pollyanna, yeah? Shit; you see what I meant, back then, those queer-bashers? You were so screwed, so shutting yourself off, and what did we say? Come here, OK?”

A hug; more repairs, this time for me, and we returned to our table. Lawrence looked a little shell-shocked as James held forth on his new passion, and after only a few minutes more he made his excuses and left. That was the moment my phone bleeped at me once more: a text had arrived.

‘Can we talk?’

It was from Von. I looked across at Will, and he immediately understood.

“What does she want, Jill?”

“Dunno, aye? Just says ‘talk’. Your call, lad. She’s your mother”

Rachel looked at me, and then turned to the young man. “Has to be done some time, Will, and with us here, yeah? She gets silly, we walk out”

Larinda muttered something about a slap, but I gave her a hard stare to make Rachel’s point. This was Will’s decision. He sighed.

“OK, then”

I texted back ‘Costa opposite court’. Ten minutes later she was outside the windows looking in, but without her father, thank god. That would have been too much, and without a Fossy or a Stewie, I really didn’t want to risk another kicking. I had had a sufficiency, indeed a surfeit. It seemed to take her a couple of minutes to gather her courage, and I actually saw her shoulders go up and down as if she were hyperventilating before a dive into deep water. She took the plunge.

“Will. Rob”

“JILL” snapped Larinda, her eyes blazing. Von needed to be careful, I knew. Any repeat of her usual polemic about perversion would have Larinda at her throat, and probably Karen and Rachel too. Von’s eyes fell.

“Jill. This is hard, aye? Will…can we talk?”

“Go ahead, Mam”

“With all these strangers, son?”

“With all these friends, Mam. My friends. Friends who judge me for the right reasons, yeah? Unlike…”

“Unlike your own Mam? Aye, perhaps”

She drew some slow, deep breaths and turned to me. The name seemed to stick for an instant, but she forced it free, brought it out.

“Jill, what can we do? I do not want to lose my son, which is bloody obvious, isn’t it, but…this is hard. He is my boy, and…I am sorry. I know you didn’t infect him, not like that crap Dad says, aye, but, well, with you like this, it’s just, well…”

Rachel chipped in. “We don’t really have that much time, woman, so get to the point”

There was real anger there, both Larinda and Rachel clearly holding it in only by main strength, and Karen just stared flatly at her like a cat watching a bird. It was obvious that Von was picking up the waves of hatred, and also that she was close to tears, and then she crumpled, her voice almost a wail.

“I just want my baby back!”

I couldn’t help it, and left my chair to hurry her to the ladies’ I had only just left, and something in her untied itself as she fell against my chest and let her tears soak us both. It took a little while for her self-control to come back, and that was with a question. Phrased as a statement, it was still a question.

“We’re in the ladies’ loos”

“Well, aye, of course. Where the hell else would I go?”

She pulled back and looked at me, and for the first time it was clear that she was seeing me, and not just the Rob-picture she had expected or transposed onto the reality.

“So it’s not being daft, is it? This is you?”

“This is what has always been me. This is why I had to push you away, aye?”

She shook her head, and then very, very gently said “You actually look OK. I mean, I don’t fancy you, I fancied the Rob you, but…”

Larinda’s voice spoke from over her shoulder. “Yeah, well, fancying is my job, now, not yours. If we’ve got some sense going now, not all that shit you were shouting, we can go and sit down and sort your poxy family out”

I raised an eyebrow, and Von looked at her, mouth open. Larinda drew herself up, almost exactly as Rachel would.

“What? She may forgive you, but there’s only one soppy cow in this marriage, and it ain’t me. I will do what I can, for the sake of one sweet boy and one sweeter woman, but if you ever, ever give me an excuse you get no second warning, and this is the first. Now, let’s see what the one who matters thinks, all right?”