CHAPTER 24
I lay with my lover in one of Mam’s spare beds, the dark heavy on my eyes. I had hoped to come to some sort of accommodation with Ian, knowing that there would be absolutely, no chance of any such gains with Ellen, but everything had turned upside down. As for Von…

“You awake, lover?”

“Aye, pet. Bit of a day”

She laughed softly. “Understatements aren’t really you, love. Bit of a day, my arse. It was insane! You OK?”

“Ah, yeah. Just trying to get things into some sort of order, what with Ian and Ellen, aye?”

“Not to mention your ex…what you think she’ll do?”

“I know one thing, like, and that’s the simple fact that she’s very big on family. I don’t think she’s going off after him unless he clears the decks first”

“Wait and watch?”

“Bugger a hell no. She won’t just poise politely, she’ll make bloody sure he knows where she is! What’s funny?”

“Oh, lover, don’t you see? She gets you, just with two less years on the clock and not wanting to chop off your whatsit, yeah?”

We were silent for a minute or two after her little joke. All the thought, all the inner debates I had hit myself with…

“Jill?”

“Aye?”

“If, you know, you want, all the way, yeah? I’d cope”

“I just don’t know what to do, love. I mean, there’s two of us, aye? Not that fair on you. I mean, one of us is straight”

“Yeah, but one of us is ill and needs healing”

“Aye, love, but I’ve lived with it for more than fifty years”

She cuddled into me. “And I can live without it for whatever time we have left, but I couldn’t live without you”

There were a few soft tears, but her humour could never be kept down.

“Besides, it don’t work that well no more. Got to get my brekky from your Mam’s frying pan now”

So, of course, one joke led to another, and then to some teasing, and then to something very nice, for both of us. As things got particularly nice, I just hoped Mam was properly asleep.

Breakfast was not the most sociable affair, as so many were round the pub taking advantage of Jim’s usual generosity, but before our evening flight back we congregated in the back bar, tea urn in place to save on the washing up. It felt odd; so much had happened in a couple of days that it was more like setting out on a journey than taking our leave at the end of things. Ian had brought his family with him, and there was something haunted in Ellen’s eyes. I don’t know how much he had told her, but there was definitely fear there.

I had a moment’s fear of my own, the worry that my brother’s freedom with his fists might have transferred from the man in the pub to the woman in his bed, but surely never with his daughter standing by. I caught up with Bethany in the ladies’, where I saw one of those odd moments of disassociation I was so used to by now. ‘He’s in the ladies’…she’s in…he’s…oh sod it’

“How’s your Dad, pet?”

She stared into the mirror, applying yet another coat of mascara.

“He got stroppy with Mum”

There was a pause, and she looked at me from the mirror, stare level, almost defiant.

“And I would have got stroppy too, if it were, like, me, yeah? She was bang out of order, well wrong. He was like SO angry with Mum”

“He didn’t, you know,…?”

“Hit Mum? No, he never does that, but this time, I like thought, maybe, she been so stupid, pig-nasty, yeah? But no, he just, like, walks away, talk to the back”

I waited, for I knew there was more, and her face crumpled.

“They’re finished, int they? Broken home shit, yeah?”

I nodded. “I can’t be sure, pet, but I think they might be. Your Mam said a few things that are a bit hard to take back, and your Dad, well, he’s a proud man”

“Yeah, and Mum’s like a cow. A lazy cow. Always has been”

“Bethy, she’s still your Mam, aye?”

“Aye…yeah, she is, Aunty Jill, and I love her, yeah? But that doesn’t mean I have to like, well, LIKE her, yeah? She’s a cow, and a bigot, and lazy, and what she did with Hays, weren’t right, no way. So…”

“You going to be OK, love?”

Again that look, almost adult, her father’s strength in her eyes.

“And I got a like choice? Gotta be. Gonna be”

Suddenly she giggled. “And that Welsh slapper, oh dear. Like, get a room!”

The laughter was gone as quickly as it had arrived. “We’ll be OK, won’t we, me and Dad?”

I nodded. “He has a strong family, aye?”

Once more her eyes measured me, the child right on the cusp of maturity.

“Yeah. Gotta be strong to do what you doing. And Uncle Neil, he’s still going, even after…”

“You know about that?”

“I know what Mum said, and Dad, and he wanted to go up and take his army mates, yeah, and Mum, she like says, what’s he expect, shirtlifting fairy, and Dad, he says, yeah, but he’s my fucking---sorry, Aunty Jill, he says, he’s like MY fairy, and nobody touches mine but me, and there was all arguing all night, and Dad he says he like KNOWS who it was, and Mum wouldn’t let him”

I hugged her. “I had my own ideas, love. Sort of met one of them a little while back”

“Yeah?”

“And I sort of kicked him in the bollocks. And he said…”

My own giggles came tumbling out. “He says I fight like a GURL!”

She pulled back, making a face. “Well, DUH!”

And the laughter led to tears, which meant repairs, and more hugs, and I caught Larinda looking at us from the door, a soft smile on her lips, just for a moment till she left us to our confidences. Five minutes later we walked out, as the old friends we had always been and the newer ones we were becoming. Ellen shot us a glare, but there was a fear in her eyes, and I could see she was slowly working out how far things had spun out of her control and into the hands of the bumboys, lezzers and trannies she hated so fiercely.

That was an odd moment. My mind took a step sideways, for I couldn’t work out whether she hated me more for being the second of those or the third, or both together.

My attention was captured by Jim ringing the ‘time’ bell at the bar, followed immediately by his shout into the front bar that he hadn’t gone mad, he just liked the sound, and beer would still be served to those with the necessary cash. His brother stood up.

“Jim and me, like, we just want to say that this has been a smasher of a weekend. Norma, Raafie, ye did us proud, aye? So, we were thinking, well, two announcements. Nelly here did a bit dig around, and then the four of us, we sort of put wor hands in the till…or rather into pockets, wallets, like. So ye have a week. Raafie, I know you have a passport, cause Neil found it, and we’ve booked yez a week in Puerto Pollensa, in Mad jorka, as Raafie calls it. All inclusive, aye except for ale”

Mam started to argue, and Rachel just raised her hands, and I was amused to see her head go back, just like the old days. No arguments, she was saying.

“Look, Norma, we owe you. You and Jill here, yeah, there are four of us who have a proper chance of happiness after a lifetime’s worth of shit, so you WILL not refuse. Got me? Anyway, that’s part one. Alec, over to you”

My shrink was grinning, but his eyes were moist. “Part two, indeed, or rather parts two and three. We know this vicar down our way…and, well, the law hasn’t changed, but sod it, a double wedding, both brothers, yes? Simon-the-vicar has a couple of slots in April, so here’s your warning to sort out best bib, tucker and dancing shoes. Date will be announced as soon as Simon has cleared his calendar”

Ellen was almost snarling. “Married? In church? Is that even bloody legal for people like you?”

Kirsty was on her feet, right then, and I saw Steph pull her husband back and nod to Annie. As for Den, he just smiled, a hand on his wife’s arm. His voice was very soft, polite and terrifying.

“As someone who sort of works in the law, the legal bit will be done up the road at the registry office, so you can see Alec and John’s part as a celebration. Just be aware that it was a good enough place for us, and those two, and those two, and…” as he pointed to three other couples.

Larinda smiled in a similarly predatory way. “And if the law is changed, it will be me and my girly here in the same church. Right, Jill?”

I nodded, but Ellen’s stupidity had been ignited.

“No way am I going to go to some bloody freak show like that!”

Kirsty, looked up at Den, as the room held its breath and she held her hands up for silence. She then smiled at each couple in turn, from the Johnsons to both Forsters. Her smile widened to show her teeth.

“What the fuck makes you think you are invited?”