CHAPTER 16
It was still sitting there, at the back of my mind in one sense but so dominant in others. Larinda. I had said she was special, and it was true, but each time I looked at her Von’s words leapt at me. I was gay, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind. It was as much a part of my life, my soul, as my gender, and something I had found just as difficult to express.

After I had tried to shower the hangover away, I stood and looked at myself in the mirror. Bald…nothing I could ever do about that other than shave it off and add a wig. Smooth skin, at long last, on my face, and in between waxing and selective electrolysis the rest of my body was following. Breasts…

They would never be the biggest, but they were mine, or rather ours, as Larinda made plain most nights. But below…below it hung, not huge, not too bulbous, and after my impromptu surgery far less prominent. The thing I had hated most of my life. I realised with a shock that I had actually almost liked it, for a few sweet moments with my lover, but in the end it was a piece of wrongness attached to that part of my body. I had always wanted it gone, but that roused the debate: could Larinda accept its departure better than I could accept its presence? There were other issues. With it there, no change in gender, no recognition certificate. With it gone, no marriage to the woman I knew I needed to be with for as long as I lived, and the two engagements the day before had salted that open wound. Who was it that said there were no simple choices?

Von had got very, very drunk that night, especially after Mark’s grandfather had joined us at the pub. She had seized on him almost as a token normal person, Mam still being more than a little wary. Something had been said, something that seemed to involve long discussions and rather a lot of gin. I would have to ask the boy.

Mam had opened the conservatory, so breakfast was taken semi-al-fresco, the pub crowd joining us with a couple of platters of bacon and sausages just needing finishing in the oven, and once more it was clear who was enamoured of whom. I had dug up a little courage from somewhere, and selected a summer dress that very nearly matched my lover’s, and it was with some embarrassment that I saw that both Karen and Rachel had chosen something very similar, because the latter, of course, filled hers in ways I could never dream of doing. Jim caught my eyes, and followed me into the kitchen as I went for more tea.

“Wanted to say thanks, Jill”

“What for?”

“How, Ah saa thee looking at her, and she’s a bonny lass, like, and she’s mine, and, weel, without thee, aye? Just, like, divvent think thesel any less of a lass, aye?”

“You getting telepathic, Forster?”

He sighed. “Aye, a bit, but some of it’s a bit obvious. Ah think it’s a bit of a crossroads for thee, aye? Just remember this: wor lass and me, like, we pays wor debts. Whichever way ye decide to gan, we’re there for thee”

And that big strong man, the man who had grown up with Rob Carter, he stepped forward and kissed me very gently on the lips. Me. Woman. No doubt ever in my mind, just fear in the expression of it, and there they were, once more. Friendship and acceptance. I returned to my seat, mind whirling, but still juggling those earlier thoughts. Larinda gave me a knowing look, and squeezed my knee.

“Norma?”

“Aye?”

“Can I make a suggestion for later? For lunch?”

Neil laughed. “Dinner, you soppy soft southerner!”

She pouted. “Me guest, me get pandered to. No, just a thought. John and James here are very into birds, yeah?”

Rachel snorted. “Be very careful how you say that if you include Jill in it”

Von gave a very wry smile, and I could see her thoughts. “Yes, she is, isn’t she? Jill…love, I had some hard talking last night. You cleaned me away, didn’t you, but for my sake, innit?”

I sighed in my own turn. “Aye, that is the heart of it. You should know…you should have known I would not, could not hurt you or the boys”

She nodded. “I know that, and yes, I should have known it from the start”

She looked around the table. “Wiser heads than mine here, even my baby’s. Will, can you forgive a stupid blind woman?”

Mam coughed. “My house, my rules, and the fact that you are here, Siobhan, shows that he can, aye? So had thy gob, and don’t spoil it by looking too closely. Now, Larinda: what was it?”

Another squeeze of my knee. “I fancied some caving, in that place under the cliff”

Jim laughed. “Shite cellarman, like!”

Larinda fixed him with a Paddington. “You think anyone will want more drink after last night?”

Two old men’s hands went up immediately, followed, after some nods, by those of Neil, Will and Terry, who nudged John. He grinned in a totally natural way and stuck his own up. Jim gave a very bogus sigh.

“Ah suppose Ah’ll just hev te work again the night, and stay sober, like. Arse”

Rachel almost purred. “I prefer you sober, love…”

I swear he blushed. We hatched a sort of plan involving a visit to the University for Will, where Kelly and Mark would store his bits and pieces ready for his official arrival, and then down to Marsden for lunch. As I finished loading the dishwasher, Mam came up behind me.

“Mind these, lass?”

A very old pair of Zeiss binoculars. My throat clenched. “Where?”

“Raafie found them in the attic. They’d slipped down behind that bit hole in the chimney. He’s had them set up again”

My father’s old birdwatching optics. The ones he had let me use when we had gone out as father and sort-of-son, those early days of the Young Ornithologists’ Club, of Marsden and the Barmston Ponds, of Gosforth racecourse lake. I felt my eyes filling, damned hormones, and she knew my thoughts and took me in her arms, my mother’s arms.

“It’s OK, Jill. If he could see, like, he would see what the rest of us see, and that’s a daughter, and a strong one, aye? He’d be proud of her. She has taken so much shite, all of her life, and look at her, look at how she cares”

She moved away a little, to look me in the eyes. “Thy Dad, he always said, to judge someone, look at the friends they keep, and that was him, aye? Not just the friends they pick, the ones they keep, the ones who stay there, who stand by thee. Look through that window, Jill, look at who’s standing by thee, and think on, aye?”

I nodded. She smiled, her eyes sinking into the laughter and pain lines of her face. “You are thinking about the operation, aye? How that Larinda will take it?”

Once more, I was silent, just nodding.

“How many years have ye left, Jill? Raafie and me, well, we’re both a bit older, like, so things have to have a wee bit hurry to them, but ye two, well…one day, together, there’ll be a decision, but for now just watch and wait for a while, aye? When it’s right, ye’ll know. Now, these dishes don’t dry themselves!”

“Bloody hell aye they do! It’s a dishwasher!”

“Aye, but I like to give them a bit rinse off when they come out, like”

In the end, the three youngsters went off together to the University as we cleaned and sorted, or in Jim’s and Rachel’s case lay on the grass in the sun, and once they were back we sorted out seating and headed for the coast. John rode with me.

“What are the ticks there, Jill?”

“Ah, occasionally Arctic or Great Skua, but in the main just basic auks, cormorants and a lot of gulls”

“So nothing special then?”

“Well, I think it is. Wonderfully eroded coastline, lots of stacks and caves, a half-decent café at the bottom of a lift, clean sand…what more do you want?”

He looked a little puzzled, so I continued. “John, lunch out with mates, aye? No need to be special; mates are the thing”

“Dinner…”

There was the hint of a smile there. Just a hint. We parked in a flock near the top of the lift shaft, and James insisted on using the stairs, Terry and Karen in close attendance and John following behind.

“You sure, John? There’s a lift”

He looked me up and down, and for just a moment MAC was there, festering in his eyes, and then it switched to Rachel as his shoulders and head rose.

“I am older, Miss Carter, not bloody old!”

The demon vanished with a grin, and I turned to help the truly aged into the lift. Down, book tables for an hour later, and out onto the sand, waves foaming through the caves under the Rock. The gulls were in full voice, the fulmars skimming the cliffs, wingtips bending almost unnaturally as they banked. I felt their presence, and James and John were at my shoulder.

“They say their name, Jill. I don’t need a new name for my book, they say it!”

Kit-tee-WAHK, kit-tee-WAHK, the kittiwakes were doing just that, the noise level tremendous, so loud it seemed more of the old sea stack must be about to collapse, and John was steadily scanning the ledges as if there were complete silence about him. James touched his shoulder.

“They say their name, John!”

The older man turned. “Yes, James, like chiffchaffs or cuckoos”

He paused. “They do, don’t they? They say their name….they shout it…”

I thought for an instant he would fall over as his eyes glazed and his hands shook as they held his binoculars. Abruptly, he looked up, and there was such an expression of confusion, of dawning wonder that I didn't know what to say or do as tears came to his eyes.

“Jill…this is real, isn’t it? This is life…these birds, they are alive, so many of them, so alive, so real, why could I never see this?”

James stepped past me, more open than I had ever seen, and took the older man in his arms. His voice was quiet, measured.

“John…I am…I see things not right, and sometimes it is hard, and it is all clouds, but I can see friends and I have more than I can count, for I like to count, and…”

He paused, with obvious difficulty. “I know, sometimes, who I am, and others I do not know, and Dad and Mum, they have people to talk to me, and sometimes I can find their words from their mouths to my ears and sometimes…and sometimes I can know they speak but not why and I cannot see how people feel because their faces are not mine but I can see crying and that is not good and you are my friend and I do not want you to cry because that is not good”

John hugged him back. “James, you are my friend, and I am crying, yes, but it is good, because just now, just like you, some of my clouds are gone. The birds, James, they say their names, and it is because they are alive, and real, and so are we, and I know it now, and…shall we go and have too much to eat, and then come out here again, and sit, me and you, and just listen?”

“Why must we eat too much?”

John grinned, eyes still wet. “Because we can, and because we are alive, and with friends”