I can think of nothin' better
Than dancin' on the beach
The Twist'll have you on your feet
On the beach, come on everybody stomp your feet…

This is the story of Penny. A closet Transwoman thrust into the outside world 24-7 when she would rather go and hide away. Perhaps the title should be Welcome to Penny’s Paranoid World…

From part six
I am half down the beach caught for a moment seeing my feet and red painted toenails in the sand when it hits me where I am. There are people on this beach. I’m in just a big bikini. They must be able to see it’s a guy in a bikini. Just as I start to panic inside I reach Emily.
I push down my fears and smile at her dropping to my knees.
“Hi, their sweetheart, want to go for a paddle.” I hold my hand out to her.
Em looks up at me eyes shining with instant excitement, and grabs my hand and we stand up.

And now as they say, read on…

The twins see us coming and wave their arms yelling, “Over here.”

Emily shakes her head, and grips my hand tighter, starting to hold back.

“Come on, Em. We promise not to splash you. Pleassseee, Em.”

The twins really want her to join them, but Emily shakes her head hard and holds onto me for dear life, swopping from my right to my left side to put me between her and the twins.

“It’s alright, girls. Em and I are going to have a little paddle down towards the pier and back.”

We turn towards the town walking along the sea edge. The sea is rolling only just past Emily’s ankles. But while still keeping a firm grip on my hand I can feel her begin to relax. I turn back to the girls watching us go.

“Just remember the beach starts to drop away quite deep further in, so don’t go out any further, will you.”

They grin, and yell, “Yes Mum.”

I wag my index finger theatrically at them, laughing at the cheeky monkeys. They do a celebrative dance and fall down laughing in the sea. I hope Evie did not hear them. She might think I was encouraging them and this could end up being the first and last time we all share a day at the beach together.

I glanced down at Emily beside me to see she is happily making little jumps as small waves rolled past our feet, while keeping a firm grip on my hand. There is some splashes behind us as the twins join us. Moments later Lizzy’s hand finds my free one as she falls in beside me.

“Give us your hand Em.” On the other side Eve was taking hold of Emily’s other hand. We all kicked our way through the water and jumping up and down as one. All too soon we are near the pier. Time to turn around.

“Gran takes us up their sometimes to go on the dodgems, before we go home.” Lizzy informs me about the funfair on the pier.

That takes me back, I haven’t been on the dodgems since I was fourteen, and while they were fun, I lusted after the Jets where you were in your own little spaceship and worked a lever to go up and down long before Star Wars was around. You also had a button to press if you lined up behind the ship in front correctly, you hit the button and they would sink down to ground level before they could power back up again. Great fun. My mother took me on it once which was very brave of her as didn’t like going on any of the rides. My father had refused to take me on it, and every year after year, I had to watch others having great fun on it. So she took me and I had that one glorious go on it.

When the fair came to town, the last night it was there, we had four goes on the dodgems and that was our lot as far as my father was concerned. Then it was off back home after being given some pennies use in one of the penny arcade amusement tents. I use to hate going to school on the three days the fair was in town, having to hear during break all the things the other boys and girls had done at the fair on those three days.

“Hmm, candy floss.” Said Eve mimicking Homer Simpson.

“We’ll see, girls. Depends on what the time your Gran wants us to leave. I don’t know what time your Dad will have your tea ready for.”

“Dad’s roasting a chicken.”

“So the skin will be all crackly and burnt with bacon stuck to it, and roast potatoes you need an axe to open.” The twins giggle, at giving away their father’s cooking secrets!

“Daddy likes to cook sausages.” Em told me. “Long thin ones for breakfast with burnt sides you can stick in your egg.”

“Dad burns everything. That’s why we always have Sunday lunch with Gran and Grandad.”

“Come on, let’s turn round. We’ll get ice creams from the café on the way back. If you like.”

“Oh please! Thank-you.”

For some reason it took far less time to walk back to the café on the promenade than it did going. The girls had a double cone of Mister Softy ice cream each and I took back three tubs of Mister Softy for Mother, Evie and me.
We arrived back at the beach hut with three very satisfied girls absorbed in ice cream licking.

“Well! What have you got there?” Evie grinned at them.

She had assorted grins and murmurs back and took photos of them with her camera before tucking into her own ice cream tub.

Ice cream consumed the girls used the inside of the beach hut to play i-spy until they noticed the battered old boombox down in the corner. I use to use it to let Mother listen to music. That was until she decided to serenade everyone on the beach at full volume. That did not make us popular and I received a letter of complaint from the council. So now its only duty is The World at One news program on BBC radio four at lunch-time.

“Can we play some music so we can dance on the beach?” Said the twins as one.

I pulled it out. “There’s a cd in it.”

With not too many people about, I do not think we will have a problem, so long as it is not too loud.

“Here we go.” I turn it on and put it on the edge of the prom facing away from the nearest people to us; a mother with a push-chair on the beach a couple of hundred feet away. Excited, the twins jump down onto the beach and turn back to me.

“You going to dance with us as well... Please, Please.”

I turn to Evie laughing. “The only dance I know is The Twist. My aunt Peggy taught it to me when I was seven.”

Evie grinned and looked over to the girls. “Do you know how to do the Twist, girls? Penny does.”

“Please, Penny. Please show us how to do the twist.”

“Please.” That was Emily.

I looked at back Evie. She laughed pulling a face. “You kind of walked into that one, Pen.”

There was a tugging at my wrist. “Please.” I had forgot Emily was still beside me on the Prom.

“Okay. Alright then.”

I helped Emily down onto the sand and let myself down onto the sand as the perfect song for the Twist, started.

Well, they've got a new dance and it goes like this
(Bop shoo-op, a bop bop shoo-op)
Yeah, the name of the dance is Peppermint Twist
(Bop shoo-op, a bop bop shoo-op)
Well, you like it like this, the Peppermint Twist

It goes round and round, up and down
Round and round, up and down
Round and round and a, up and down
And a one two three kick, one two three jump…

The girls are enthusiastic twisters. Picking it up quickly. So there we are, a long way off from the 60s, four long haired blondes doing the twist on the beach in bikinis. And I feel a right chump as the occasional bod passes along the promenade walking their dog watching us perform.

Correction. Watching ME, twisting away like I am a nineteen year old in Summer Holiday with Una Stubbs and Cliff and the Shads, on the road to Greece in that that old double decker London bus.

It is a hot summer’s day near the end of May, and the beach is virtually empty. A sad, sad, take on the British seaside summer holiday nowadays. Everyone is off to Spain and the Med or anywhere else a jet plane can take them to a far off sun.

The Peppermint Twist ends and Cliff starts up.

I can think of nothin' better
Than dancin' on the beach
See a girl, you can go and get her
All your troubles will be out of reach

On the beach, you can dance to a rock 'n' roll
On the beach, hear the Bossa nova played with soul
On the beach, you can dance and twist and shout
On the beach, everybody hear me come on out
On the beach, come on everybody stomp your feet
On the beach, you can dance with anyone you meet…

The girls are still twisting away, laughing and enjoying themselves. Em is happy, having fun dancing away with her sisters. And I guess so am I. Evie is taking more photos and I hope to god she is not taking any of me.

She was afraid to come out of the locker
She was afraid that somebody would see

2, 3, 4 tell the people what she wore

It was an itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini
That she wore for the first time today
An itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini
So in the locker she wanted to stay

2,3,4 stick around we’ll tell you more…

The girls, with the total lack of inhibitions only pre-teen girls can have when dancing, have stated to do their idea of the motions to the song. Emily stands in front of me looking serious at me with her head on one side and her hands on her hips. OK. I give in and join them or I am going to burst out laughing. So feeling even more of a right twit than ever I am doing the motions. But it’s making the girls happy.

…And I wonder what she’s gonna do
Now she’s afraid to come out of the water
And the poor little girl’s turning blue

2, 3, 4 tell the people what she wore…

Then it was over and I fell into doing a sort of sixties disco dancing to Dance On, Foot Tapper and Wonderful Land played by The Shadows. This was the sort of thing I did around the house where nobody could see me dancing. Then Mike Sarne and Wendy Richard sang Come Outside. That had the girls giggling away. After that I begged off and left them bouncing around to more sixties tunes.

I heaved my bum up onto the prom and sat with my legs dangling over the sand.

“Here.” Evie handed me a cold drink.

“Thanks. I’m bushed.”

The sight of a drink brought the girls around me.

“Gran, can we have a drink too?”

“Course you can, darlings.”

Soon there was four of us sitting on the prom dangling our feet over the sand.

“Here you go girls.”

Drinks consumed, a Frisbee flew over our heads.

“Yay!” yelled the girls, jumping down and chasing after it. Well the Twins did. Emily sort of moved as if she was going with them, but stayed with her bum superglued to the prom. Her hand slipped into mine and gripped it.

“Do you want to play.” I asked her, and got a nod back.

I am so going to ache tonight.

“Come on, then.” I slipped off the prom and lifted her down. The twins were good and did not throw the frisbee too high for Em to catch. Me, on the other hand, they took great delight in making me have to jump up to catch it. Crap! Now I know why women hate driving over speed bumps!

In the end I was ready for a break, and told them so.

“Okay girls, you carry on, this old lady is going to have a rest and a cup of tea, now!”

“Please Muu… another five minutes. Please.” The girls glanced at each other, and I wondered if something was going on.

“Okay, another five minutes, but no more after that as I’m bushed.”

I pretend not to have noticed, that Eve nearly called me mum. At least that’s what I think she was going to say. I saw both Emily and Lizzy look at her. I just hope Evie did not hear.

Ten minutes later I call it quits. I needed to rest. The girls left me with the frisbee and raced off down to the sea making enough noise to wake the dead. Emily going with her sisters laughing and shirking as they splashed each other in the surf.

I took the easy way back up to the prom, using the stone steps that were about a hundred feet away from the beach hut, rather than using my arms to heave my bum up onto the hot prom and then hauling myself up onto my feet. I preferred the steps and a short walk on my feet on the hot tarmac back to the beach hut. Far easier on my tired old legs.

“I’m knackered.” I told Evie flopping down into a chair.” She grinned back at me getting up.

“That’s motherhood for you. I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.”

I sat watching the girls playing in the surf still full of energy. How do they do it. This time Em splashing away with her sisters. Mother was gently snoring in front of us on the beach hut’s veranda in her wheelchair. A sun hat finally protecting her head. I closed my eyes, god could I go to sleep right now. I heard a man’s voice on the beach and my eyes snapped open scanning for a man anywhere near the girls. Then I saw him, a couple of hundred feet away calling his own set of girls not to go out too far in the sea. I relaxed as I found the girls on the beach digging into the sand to make a channel for the surf. I eased back down in the chair watching them.

Evie handed me a cup and sat down beside me. I know Americans, and I guess most of the world too, love their cups of coffee, but you cannot beat a hot cup of tea. I think if I cut myself at times my blood would run the colour of rust. I looked over at Evie who was just smiling at me.

“What?”

Evie just shook her head a little and still smiling turned back to watch the girls.

I drank my tea.

“Lizzy said you often go to the funfair on the pier before heading home.”

Evie chuckled. “They do like the Dodgem cars.”

“The twins in one, you and Em in the other?” I asked.

Evie laughed. “Em’s steering is a bit erratic, but she ruthless in hunting down her sisters and bumping them. That girl is going to be into fast cars when she is older.”

Evie turns to face me with a serious look on her face. “You know, you make a good mother.”

I have to turn away. For a moment I think I’m going to cry, and have to fight back tears. Who needs hormones and HTR to get weepy? “Yeah, well… somethings were not meant to be…” I mumble.

On the way home the girls are at last tired and eventually sleep, but at first it does not stop them singing along with the CD they danced to on the beach. Remembering all the lyrics. It always amazes me how girls can pick up the lyrics like that. With me, songs, poems, it is in one ear and out the other.

We avoided the motorway tailbacks as everyone heads back home from the coast, by taking the side roads, it does take longer, but not as long as the tailbacks on the motorway would have taken. And I have done it so many times I could do it in my sleep if it was possible. It was close to half five when we turned into the drive at White Gate Farm to delivery my passengers to the farm house, before heading home for a cuppa and a well-deserved rest.

“I need a wee.”

“Can it wait ten minutes till we are home?”

“Nooooo.”

“Evie, would John mind if we used the loo again.”

“Don’t be silly, darling. Of course not.” She look back to the house and Elizabeth about to go in. “Lizzy sweetheart, would you bring the wheelchair out to us.”

Sometimes mother can spend ages on the loo. When it happens you can bet it is when you are just about to dash out to get to the bank or Post Office before they close, or running late for a doctor’s appointment. Tonight it was more socially embarrassing as we were probably holding up their evening meal. Mother can’t help it, it is not her fault, but I really don’t want to have to walk into their dining room to say good-night as they are sat down waiting to eat.

I like this house, but it kind of weird. I am a fan of Tolkien. Lord of the Rings etc. I am not one of the crazy Harry Potterits, who seem to populate the world nowadays, but the house would be at home in any of HPs movies.

The front door opens onto a short hall with the loo at the end on the left. A door opposite the front door opens into I guess John’s farm office, with the kitchen door over on the right. The kitchen is big square affair with an Island in the middle with the cooker tops and a prep area, the ovens etc. are on the office wall with a load of cupboards and a BIG American Fridge, the sinks and more prep areas are under long windows on the next wall with a stable door out onto the kitchen patio and the back garden.

Johnny and Evie are chatting leaning on the island as we come in to the kitchen to say our goodbyes. They turn to us.

“There you are.” Says Evie smiling.

Then, before I can say anything.

“Hello, Mother.” A grinning Johnny booms at mother making her laugh and whisks her wheelchair away from me and wheels her off away around the island. Evie links her arm in mine and walks me after them.

The kitchen is sort of open plan at the other end where it lets onto an open hallway with U shaped stairs going up on the left with open wooden railings set into the kitchen wall.

“Come on darling. John is just serving up. For once, the men are doing all the work. We merely have to sit and eat. Of course the chicken will be over cooked!”

“I heard that, Mother!”

Evie laughs. “Big ears!”

Just past the stairs large openings on both sides that let into the sitting and dining rooms with a mini library in the alcove between them. It is all very old English, all oak beams and panelling. While at the same time having that open plan American feeling with their being no actual doors. Like I said, kind of weird, but a house with a warm friendly feeling to it.

We turned right into the dining room and everyone is sat the same as last Wednesday. Evie leaves me at the bottom of the table with mother on the right side of the table with Evie next to her and Emily on left next to her sisters. John is dishing out slices of chicken breast at the head of the table.

“Would you like a leg or wing, Penny?”

“No, I’m fine with some meat thank-you.”

Emily wants the same as me and Evie, while the twins want a wing each, leaving the legs for the men. The girls grumble at having Brussel sprouts again. But are again blackmailed with the promise of ice cream afterwards.
It is very nice, all of us eating together. It has a feeling of completeness about it. Of everything being in its proper place. I have to stop myself from sighing at the thought of how much I will miss it when John finds out about me.

“This is lovely soup. Yum.” Mother beams at me.

“That’s John’s chicken gravy, Mother. You like it.”

She looks bothered and looks at John. “I’m sorry, did I take your soup. Would you like it back.”

He smiles shaking his head. “No, I’m glad you like it, it’s yours, Jenny.”

“Thank-you, it’s lovely.”

I get the girls to help me do the washing up. I tell them the men made the meal, so we do the washing up. I expected the girls to grumble, but they happily helped me put the dry dishes away.

Then they drag me upstairs so they can show me their bedrooms. The twins shared a room across the end of the house over their dads study, they share a bathroom with Emily whose bedroom is over the kitchen looking out on the back garden and only a little bit smaller that the twins. Both bedrooms are pink and girly with canopy beds and lots of soft toys.

We come down to find Evie has already made the drinks. The girls charged in and by the screams of delight coming from the sitting room are piling on top of their father. I tell Evie I’m just nipping to the loo and to start without me.

I come in to find the girls rosy cheeked and looking very pleased with themselves, the twins are sitting either side of their dad on the sofa. Evie’s camera, a Canon Powershot is hooked up to the tv. On it is a video of the miniature train crossing the little level crossing over the path to the beach. It then shows the girls screaming and running off down the Prom to the beach hut ahead of us.

Johnny is in an armchair with Evie sitting sideways in his lap like a teenager, with Patch lying at his feet. Emily is in the other armchair.

I’m not sure where I was going to sit, but before I can do anything. John tells Emily to, “Em, let Penny sit down.”
I was about to say, ‘no, it’s ok’, but then, where do I sit? So I sit down and am thanking Em, as she scrambles up into my lap and makes herself comfortable laid back on me.

I thought Evie was taking photos with her camera, but it is all HD video. From lunch in the beach hut with the French stick loaf and beef steaklets. To the twins playing in the surf. And of course Emily and I walking in the surf with the twins joining us. Evie seems to have videoed everything.

The girls coming back all smiles licking ice creams.

And then, embarrassingly showing me dancing and twisting to sixties music with the girls and playing frisbee with my boobs joining in as I jumped. Oh, the embarrassment. If I could have hid behind Em on my lap, I would have done. But my thoughts are tempered by Emily as she snuggled into my arms, tired, starting to get sleepy. Having to work to keep her eyes open to watch the video.

Evie looked over. I mouthed ‘she’s falling asleep’. Which was slightly pointless as she could see that for herself. Evie smiled and nodded and said something to Johnny who looked over and smiled too.

I glanced over at John and quickly looked away feeling myself going red. He was watching at us with a quizzical little smile on his face while the twins either side of him intently watched themselves on television.

Em was fast asleep by the time we were watching video of us in the dodgems and her hunting down her sisters to bump them and laughing with delight when she did. To my surprise the Jets from my childhood were on the pier as the restored Vintage Jets. The girls wanted to go on them and Emily once again flew up and down hunting down her sisters in front of her. I’m not sure they quite understood why they keep sinking down to the bottom every now and again. Perhaps it would be diplomatic, Not, to tell them. The RAF has a budding fighter pilot in Em!

When it was time for the girls to go to bed Emily resisted all attempts by her father to remove her by tightening her arms round my neck. In the end John settles for helping me stand up with said Emily attached and I carried her up to bed. Evie helped me get her ready for bed and I do not think she ever really woke up.

Back home mother was soon fast asleep and it seemed strange when standing in my little basic kitchen making a cup of tea, realising it would almost fit in White Gate Farmhouses downstairs loo!

To be continued…