CHAPTER 47
The old house was full of laughter and sound now, but I could not share fully in it. Christmas lay ahead, and it would be the first for the child that Rollo was already calling ‘The Conqueror’ in a clear reference to my status as ‘Little Emperor’. I could not face the prospect of the feast, as I had too many dear memories of other ones, better ones.

Papa and Maman were flying yet again, to see their grandson and pass the feast with us, and I was so tempted to flee to the sunflower house and just lock the door until all had left again. It was the middle of December, and I had not heated the house for what seemed like months, but I did not care. So many of my friends wanted me to come out to see them, or wished to take me somewhere for a brightening of my day, but I could not. It was Rollo who made me the threat.

“Sophie, I do not do this lightly. I have spoken to my blonde, and she understands, as do our parents. I have a proposal for you”

What now? “Speak, my brother”

“You remember that English, Welsh woman I spoke of? The one like you?”

“Yes. You saw her twice, no?”

“Yes. That second time, she had a friend, also like you. We have been exchanging the e-mails. They…look, it is fine for you to speak to doctors, to head doctors as well, for they can help, they can advise, but is it not fundamentally true that they can never KNOW?”

I could sense that he was not asking me for consent to something, but that he had already made and confirmed his plans. He rushed on.

“They are to have an event, a musical meeting, with worship, at Christmas. It would allow you to meet others like you, talk, share…but it will mean I am not here for my son’s first Christmas. That is, that is difficult, but, whore, I want his aunt here for the rest of his Christmas feasts and not in a box under the soil. Guillaume, Maman, they will care for my precious people, but you, my precious sister, I would heal, if it be possible”

“I have no passport”

“You have your CNI, and I have already reserved the berths on the ferry to Portsmouth. There is to be no argument”

I turned to walk away, wondering how I might break his will, and he called out “Oh yes, we will be in a tent”

My brother was insane. I went to see my sister, who was feeding the Conqueror, his little hands kneading her breast, and I felt my failure sharply. She looked up, and caught my expression.

“He has told you, then?”

“Yes”

“Sophie, we talked so much of this, and he is insistent. He is also right, which is not always true of my beautiful man. This time, just one Christmas, and the rest…I want my sister to return to me. The last time we did not see you, but now, now we watch as you fade, and it is torment to us”

I spoke to our parents when they arrived, and it was evident that Roland and Maggie had prepared them in advance, and Pascale was the same, and Marck, and even my grandmother when I called her telephone in Perpignan.

“Go, my sweet. The food will be of shit, and the wine bad, and the weather worse, but you must go to this thing. Talk these women, discover how they make life work. You must do this thing”

And so it was. We purchased a tent from the leisure lines of the big shop at Bayeux, along with some sort of mattress each, and a bag to sleep in, and one morning Rollo and I filled his car with suitcases and tent, bags and extra duvets for the cold night, and we drove the short distance to the port for our ferry. We had the maps of the roads, and my brother had selected a number of compact discs of his favourite music which I had quietly removed and replaced with some of my own, and we set out across the vastness of the bay of the Seine.

In reality, as the plan and the journey unfolded, I was a little excited. This would be my chance to use the thing I had taught so many, and I had a frisson when I wondered if I actually spoke the English as well as I was told and believed. We did not need to get as far as the other country, though, to find bad food. Perhaps I have been spoiled by my Maman, the earner of a precious and deserved Michelin star, but, really, the food was dire, the coffee worse. The ship felt like an enlarged autoroute rest area. Roland read, and I simply found a comfortable chair that had not been reserved and slept.

Land. At first, a hilly island which I searched in vain for the port of landing, and then a tall, thin tower, with curving wings, and fortresses standing in the channel, low walls, a narrow entrance, and everywhere sails and shipping. There were grey hulls of the little British navy in the distance, and the spars and masts of two very old ships, but we were sent down to our car before we could see much more. Everything had looked so cramped.

The gates opened, and we followed others off. The control of passports was simple, and as I muttered to Roland “Hold the left, brother!” we set out on a fast road with blue signs, and turned onto another, and another, which changed to green signs and after some hills became narrower. We stopped to use the WCs at some place called Hooklip or a word like that, and I tried an English coffee. The ship, I thought, had been bad! I left it in the cup, with a shudder.

“How far now, Rollo?”

“We must pass this town called Guildford, and then we change to this blue road to here, then this blue road to an airport, and there is a church just about…here”

He indicated a small town on the map.

“Brother, why not just fly?”

“Because, my sweet sister, you wish no doubt to be warm tonight, as well as have something pleasant to wear, and that would not have been possible from two suitcases alone, not so? Now, we must go on. I will have a beer soon”

“And its brothers, no doubt?”

He turned to me as we walked out, and gave me the kiss. “My sweet, that was laughter, and you have lacked that too long. I wish more of it”

Hours on the blue and green roads, a cathedral of brick, more cars in one place than I had ever seen, and rain. A great deal of it, and when it first started Rollo had reached for his first disc, of ‘Ocean’, and found I had replaced it with ‘Tri Yann’

“I could cease to adore you, Sophie Laplace!”

“Just turn it louder, Rollo, some of the music can be loud enough”

The crest of a hill, and a long descent to a complicated (‘hold the left, Rollo’) joining of blue roads, and we were on our last before the airport exit. I looked across at him, and despite the backwards driving he was relaxed, and I was struck forcibly by the fact that I was in the same state. The further we went, the lighter my mood. Perhaps he had been correct in his stratagem. Another descent, this time with no answering rise ahead, and I could see aircraft approaching one by one from what I worked out to be the East. I knew this to be a large airport, but it was so much busier than our own little place I was astonished. We left at a round point, drove across another, and ‘not this, not this, THIS one’ at a third, another road to join as far as a last round point, and the church we sought was there beside the road. Rollo drove straight past it and kept going what seemed like five kilometres before yet another round point, which he circled completely around before starting to drive back the way we had already come.

“Sophie, you must watch for the sign of the six beauties”

“Six beauties? OH! You silly man, it is six bells, I saw the sign as we passed. After these control lights…there, on our right”

A narrow street, a large car park, and a great sweep of grass already bearing some tents.

“It seems we are arrived, Rollo. Let us station the car, find an emplacement for our tent, and then you can erect it”

He made no answer, simply kissing my hand’s palm. As I got out of our vehicle, he murmured “Laughter, Sophie. This is the true you”

He was hardly out himself before a tall woman approached, one with long russet hair. She threw her arms wide to embrace my brother. I greeted her in the English, but she changed words immediately into the French, and it was not a bad command that she had.

“Hello, I am Stephanie, Steph, Woodruff. You must be Sophie, not so?”

She gave me the kisses after I made a yes with my head.

“Sophie, I hope I do not intrude, but your brother has told me of your difficulties. I know also that he has told you that we, you and I, are in a sense sisters. Come, I show you something”

Roland raised an eyebrow. “And this tent?”

Steph smiled at him, which looked a little odd, and said “Erections are men’s work”

Arm in arm, the little raindrops sparkling in her hair still as the skies cleared away the clouds, she took me across the graveyard to an outside place, where a gravestone stood, flowers before it. I had seen its like in many cemeteries near Caen, the resting places of young men from England fallen in the war. This one bore a woman’s name.

“Sophie, this is what we have known here. This girl, she was like us, and she suffered like you, and they killed her. We remember her here each Summer, and the Christmas, it is a feast for her spirit as well. This is what I have spoken to Roland about. You are not to let those men win, yes?”

“And what happened to the men who attacked this girl, this Melanie?”

That disturbing smile one more time. “We found them, and we locked them up, and they will not come out until their own lives have been wasted. Come; we must check your tent. There is to be a service in the church, of the Protestants. Does that offend you?”

“Not at all. I am not in Rome, so I need not do as the Romans, no?”

The tent was up, Steph took her leave of us, and indeed we went to the church. I had to whisper a translation to Rollo as the homily was delivered by a man who seemed at one point to have been a Father. This was an odd mixture, and part way through his words I had to stop speaking for Rollo and simply listen. Sometimes I lost a word, but the message, it was surely written for me, and to me, and about me, and about the bastards who had tormented me, and about Maggie, and Elle….and I had to weep in my brother’s arms, for this was truth, reality.

We had a choir, and they sang so wonderfully, with power and grace, that when the priest, vicar, whatever his name offered the bread and the wine, the Body and the Blood, I felt that it was proper to take it, to share that Holy Communion, for these people were truly of Christ.

There was one last song, and I remembered the tune from the games of rugby that Rollo had watched on the television, but I cannot do justice to it properly in words. There were big men there, singing in basso, and women with clear soprano voices that flew above, and one, just one tenor that was pure beauty in my ears. The tune was a slow march, but each chorus rose to Heaven, and there were harmonies to make me weep once more. I was stunned. These people, they could not be in sin with such passion.

We left the church with the other people, and followed them to another building where there was food, small and large cakes, some sort of stewed meat, and tea and what was called coffee. There was a very red boy on a low stage who had what looked like some sort of cornemuse, and sounded pleasant. Rollo found Steph with his eyes , and we approached. As he gave her a tale of our journey, omitting his mistake about the beauties, I was shaken in the hand by a very big bearded man with dark hair turning to grey.

“Tony Hall, a friend of Steph’s”

“Sophie Laplace, and my brother Roland”

His eyes searched my form, and I made a yes with my head.

“I am like Stephanie there, you know, so I know I look…you understand, eh?”

There was another woman behind Tony, shorter, with very dark hair above skin which was remarkably pale.

“Annie Johnson, Sophie, and I too am like Steph, and there are three others here at least, so you are welcome. Do you like music?”

There was laughter from the big man, and he made remarks, warnings, of Annie and Steph living upon the music as if it were food, and they made jokes about beer, and more and more people, men and women, joined them, all seeming to be completely calm and accepting about the two transsexual people.

“They know about you?” I said, indicating the crowd around us. Annie laughed.

“Two of us held our weddings here, and we assist with children who have problems, or need to find who they are. They know. I was smeared on paper”

I did not understand.

“In the newspapers, Sophie. There was a criminal trial, and I was imitating a man at the start and being myself at the end”

“And there is no hatred?”

Roland, though he could not understand our conversation, had seen my shoulder tighten, and he embraced me with one arm, and spoke to Stephanie. “Sophie was attacked in a very bad manner just a little while ago, as I told you. You may tell them, if my sister agrees”

I made yes with my head, and Steph gave a short account of my recent imitation of a life. Tony amazed me, his face turning white and muscles tightening at his jaw. I realised his hands were now fists, just as he called out to someone called Sar.

A woman his age, a blonde, red mixture, she came across, and they whispered before she took my hand.

“Hello, I am Sarah, Tony’s wife. And yes, me too. Annie, Steph, me, all sisters, in a way”

Tony explained to his wife, and suggested we sit and talk. He then grinned, and said something about international languages, and “Roland! Beer!”

Rollo knew enough English for that one, and disappeared outside with what seemed to be a large group of men, some of them very large. The next moments were confusing, and some of them spoke strangely, so it may be that I have not written it down accurately.

I seemed surrounded by women. One was very direct. “Hello, I am Janet, and I am another like you, though we do not tell people, and so is Alice, the lady over there with the shoes with the heels and the grey hair. This is Ginny, who is harmless but frightening, and this is Chantelle…who is…”

She looked at the young girl entirely in rose who was holding the hand of a tall woman with hair dyed the colour of a traffic stop signal.

“Shan, Ginny, how do we describe Shan?”

The teenaged girl drew herself erect, pressing hard on the other woman’s hand. Her English had a strong accent, but I could understand it.

“My mums have told me what they did to you, Sophie, so here is what I am. I am a rape survivor, and these are the people what saved my life. Simples”

And that was the start of it all. Each of the women, they talked to me of tragedy, of pain, and each of them drove it away with the tales of healing and love, of their family and the strength of their friends, and once more, I knew I had this in my life, but my weakness…

“Fucking girliness, yeah, blaming yourself cause the patriarchy’s a bunch of cunts and you can’t fight twenty of the arseholes? You are walking, breathing, and living as a woman, and don’t you see how much fucking strength that shows you got?”

I think I have most of what Ginny said correct, but she was as a force of nature, filled with vigour, and I wondered if she too was like me. She observed my glances. “No, Sophie, me a bleeder, once a month, and so are both my girlies. But that don’t mean you ain’t a woman, right?”

More and more women seemed to have joined us, and there was a loud cry of “Right!”

Janet leant forward. “We have an offer for you, Sophie, a way to perhaps break free, or at least to make your horizons wider. We are, with your agreement, going to make enquiries about finding you a position as a teaching aide, instructing English children in French. Would you be agreeable to that?”

The answer was in my mouth before the thoughts reached my mind. How could I reply otherwise?

Steph held a hand aloft. “Geoff and Eric have been grilling her brother, so I think it was time we let them buy us alcohol. We shall adjourn to the licensed premises while it remains open”

I walked arms linked to two of my sisters across the car parking space to the pub. Roland was there, a very big glass before him, and though I had always known he loved me, just then the knowledge filled me to my corners. I touched his cheek, and turned to Steph.

“You do all of this just because my brother is once polite to you?”

Steph sat up straight. “He was not polite, he was civilised, humane, everything Pat here said in his sermon. He treated me with dignity, me, a complete stranger. He showed me that it was not just my beloved here, and his family, people who knew me. It could be anybody. Sophie, we have long memories here, and you have to understand that there is a reason for it all buried in the churchyard”

I remembered the grave, that Melanie. As I shuddered, they were still talking, about whom they knew in the schools, who could offer the greatest help. I realised that someone was talking to me. It was the big man, Tony.

“What do you think?”

“Would people here not…you know, hate me the same?”

Annie sat more erect. “Let’s just say that round here we sort of have an interest in that sort of thing and a very good support group. Resistance is futile, little girl. Do you wish to explain it all to your brother?”

Roland seemed to be feeling a little excluded from the conversation, as he spoke so little of the English, and so I described what they had offered. As we spoke, there were jokes around us, mostly about beer, and music, and it was that which struck my imagination. These people were happy. This was no imposition; it was simply how they lived their lives. As they gathered their outer clothing to return to the other building, and I went to rise, I was faced by a true giant of a man. He must have been two metres tall, as wide as a house but not with fat, and he was blond, hair, moustache, like the stereotype of a god from Asgard. He held a hand towards mine, and as he brought me to my feet he said, in accented French, “Would you dance with me?”

He was older by far than me, but he was truly handsome, and his height, and his size…but there was a ring on that finger. My dreams would wait. He took me to that other building, where there were more musicians, and there was a waltz, and he could dance beautifully, and…oh.