Once she was in, Evie giggled. “Of course, now you wicked girl. I have to get out again.
Grinning I told her. “You should try it in five inch heels.”
“No thanks, I’ll leave that to you.”

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 Twenty
I laughed. “Roast a chicken and potatoes. Boil the veg. make the gravy. I can fry, but that’s about it.”
She looked at me, thinking. “Okay. Tomorrow afternoon we check what is in your fridge and go shopping and cook tea together. How’s that.”
I nodded smiling. “Thanks.”
Evie came over to me, giving me a hug, smiling. “Every mother teaches her daughter to cook.” Then looked at me wondering.
I knew why, like John she was thinking had she gone too far. I hugged her back. “Thanks, Mum.” I said softly. And hugged her tightly.
And now as they say, read on…

Around one thirty, I felt small fingers very gently pushing against my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see Emily standing there clutching Fred to her chest. I smiled at the worried face intently watching me.

“Can’t sleep, sweetie?” I moved back against John, pulling the duvet back. Em nodded her head violently and scrambled into bed with us, snuggling up against me as I wrapped the duvet back around her.

“She ok, Suzz.” Came the sleepy voice behind me as John half twisted my way.

“Yeah, she’s just a little frightened, a bad dream, that’s all. Go back to sleep.” I said softly to the half-awake man against me.

“Kay.”

I think he was asleep the moment his head was back on the pillow. It was near the end of my fourth week out of hospital and Emily had slept with us every night for the first two weeks, but she had gradually begun to sleep through the night in her own bed as she realised I was not going to disappear in the night. She had slept through the last two nights. I think she just woke up panicking I had gone and needed to come and check that I was still here.

Em rested her head on my upper arm, and pulled my hand against Fred’s body and around her. She had both arms wrapped tightly around them. Not the most comfortable position for me to be in to be honest, but it settled her and I listened to Em’s steady breathing as with a sleepy mumbled, “night-night, mummy”. She slipped into a contented sleep.

I thought about John half-awake calling me Suzz. Not the first time he had done this. Unlike me, he seemed most at ease with our sleeping together. I guess I was getting use to sleeping with someone of the opposite sex. And with Susan and myself looking so alike. It must have made the last four years since her death seem like a bad dream. A real Bobby Ewing moment.

Did I mind slipping into being this duel person? Sort of being both Susan and Penny muddled in together. It sort of happened without John realising he was doing it while I was still in the hospital, his calling me Suzy a number of times and that had help me make my decision that seemed to make sense to me at the time. But now in the cold approaching light of day. Had I made the right one? I had been Penny to everyone for such a short length of time. Letting myself slip into becoming Suzy with John and others when I was still so confused about what had happened myself at the time, seemed the easiest thing to do since I looked so much like the girl’s mother.

It would save awkward questions from those who had forgotten or did not know Susan had died and it would make things easier if John kept slipping up name wise the way he had been doing. Perhaps it was one of those things you just let lie and see what happens.

I woke up early again to find the bed empty behind me. Emily was fast asleep still holding my right hand with Fred. After some slow careful moving I managed to retrieve my left arm, pressing it down into the mattress to slide it from under her so I could get out of bed without waking her. It was nice I must admit having an en-suite a few heavily carpeted steps away was nice as I needed the loo. A quick wash of my face and after followed by some make-up and I headed down stairs.

John was not there, but there was no evidence of breakfast having been consumed either. So I got bacon, a pack of Lincolnshire sausages and eggs from the fridge and started cooking. If John did not come back in I was going to be eating a large breakfast. With the bacon happily cooking I laid the table. I had just finished when I heard the outside door opening. I went back and turned the bacon and sausages on the hotplate and cracked four eggs open. I was not sure if it is good for him, but he works outside all day. He must use up a lot of energy. He certainly has a healthy appetite at the evening meal, so I hope three slices of thick back bacon with two eggs and sausages will do for breakfast along with toast. No complaints so far anyway. The toaster helpfully popped up four slices as the kitchen door open and John came in.

“That smells nice.”

“I thought you would like some breakfast to start the day.”

John grinned and came and put his arms around me, pulling me to him, kissing me. “Thank-you. You didn’t need to get up and do this.”

I smiled back at him with a slightly crooked grinned. “Wives are supposed to cook their husband’s breakfast, aren’t they?”

He grinned back still holding me round the waist. “I’m not complaining.”

“Well, go wash your hands then, and come back and sit down. It’s ready.”

He let go and disappeared back through the kitchen door.

John was sat down tucking in. it seemed I had it about right food wise for a healthy farmer. I put some more toast on as it looked like he would get through all that I had done so far. I was about to sit down to have my own when a sleepy little girl descended the stairs with Fred tucked under her arm.

“Morning sweetie.”

“I smelled bacon.” Emily said from the stairs.

I went over and gave her a hug and sat her down in my place opposite her father.

“Hello sweetheart. You’re up early.” John said smiling at her.

“Hello Daddy. I smelled bacon.” Then she held Fred up to her ear, listening. Then told us Fred did not want any breakfast, but she would, thank-you.

I am not sure if you should give a seven year old two fried eggs for breakfast, or even one for that matter. I got another plate and took away one of the eggs along with a slice of bacon and a sausage from my plate leaving her with one of each. Eating them standing as I put more bacon and sausages on the hotplate as I could hear movement from upstairs. Cutting off a piece of sausage and coating it in runny egg yolk, I popped it in my mouth and savoured the taste. Perfect.

Five minutes later the twins thundered down half the stairs like a herd of wildebeest to poke their heads under the beam from the half landing into the kitchen.

“Hi mum, dad. Is that bacon.”

I pointed to the table. “Sit.”

Grinning, they quickly came down the rest of the stairs and into the kitchen, sliding into their chairs beside each other. Smiling happy faces as I put a plate of bacon, sausage and egg in front of each of them.

John finished up and was getting up as I sat down myself to a second sausage and egg after adding more toast to the toast holder on the table. I was going to have to start walking between the farmhouses at this rate. He kissed the girls on the head, and grinned at me. Bending over and kissing me on the lips

“No peace for the wicked!”

He kissed me again on the lips, making the girls giggle. This stopped when Lizzy looked open mouthed at the time on the kitchen clock.

“Is that the time.”

Laughing, John said. “Farmers get up early, farmer’s daughter.” And winking at me left us.

“Is it, slow?” Added Eve.

“Nope, it’s correct. That’s the time.” I said smiling, realising the twins must not have noticed the time when they came down.

“Oh, My, Goodness…” Said Lizzy.

“…That’s Sooo, early.” Eve finished her sister’s sentence, stunned. Then added hopefully. “Can we go back to bed?”

Emily turned in her seat to see the time on the clock, then turned back to concentrate on eating the triangle of toast in her hand. The twins carried on gaping at the clock as if the time would somehow change to something more acceptable to them. I know some people get a bit freaked by twins finishing each other’s sentences, but it seems perfectly normal to me, now.

After dropping the girls off at school, I went to the Medical Centre for my appointment with David Walker my doctor. He seem happy with me so far. It already seems as if I left hospital ages ago. Being with John and the girls just seemed to feel right. This was my natural place in life. Looking after mother seems such a very long time ago now.

Back at the farmhouse I put E220’s keys back in the key box and gave Henry a fuss as he sprawled in the sun on the kitchen worktop. Beside him the buttered piece of toast I had left out had been licked to death into a soggy mess and was soon heading straight for the bin. But Nelson who had already done rather well at bacon titbits during breakfast from John and the girls, was looking hopefully up at me as he sprawled on the kitchen floor in the sun.

“Alright, here you go, then.” Nelson’s head reached up to me as I bent down to him and he snaffled the soggy toast from my fingers and swallowed it with satisfaction, his eyes alert looking at me in case there was more to come.

I washed my hands and went upstairs to get on with the life of being a mother – Tidying the bedrooms, making the beds, cleaning the bathrooms and getting the hoover out.

Later, I was back down stairs having just finished the sitting room carpet and decided that, that was it for the time being. Time to head for the kitchen and make a cup of tea and sit down for a bit. I had to ruefully admit to myself that I still tired out far too quickly. Maria lives in Great Steeping and cleans for Evie every Tuesday and Thursday mornings was now helping me Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Trish had her all day Monday and Friday, as well as Wednesday mornings. I had met her on that first day as Penny out in the world at Clair’s that first Wednesday afternoon get together. I had even had everyone here last Wednesday. But I still felt guilty that I could not cope doing everything myself.

The doorbell chimed and a quick glance out of the kitchen window showed the postman’s van outside. I wondered what he would say finding me here, but, it was a different postman from the one mother and I had in Lower Steeping.

“Hello.” The short postwoman smiled up at me.

“Package for you.” She offered the electronic thing to me with an old empty ballpoint pen for me to use to sign in the little grey screen.

“If you would sign here, please.”

I just managed in time not to do my old signature, seeing as I could see who it was addressed too and who the envelope was from.

“Ta.”

I took the bundle of letters and three magazines. Said “bye”, and went back into the kitchen and put everything with John’s name on one side for him. Which was most of it. It looked to be a mixture of bills, farming company adverts and two farming magazines. I just had my stiff, signed for envelope and my Mercedes Owners Club magazine. I watched the post van pull away and take the farm road down to AppleTree Farm, rather than head back up our drive to the road.

On impulse I took Baby’s keys from the key box and went out and opened up the garage. After getting her outside I locked up the garage, given Baby shared it with John’s Tesla. It would not do to forget to lock up and come back to find the Tesla missing.

I drove the half hour or so it took to get to the riverside spot I use take mother to. She enjoyed watching the pleasures craft go past. Sometimes she would wave to a woman or child and they would wave back. It did not matter if she was watching a fifty foot Gin Palace or a little day boat. She loved watching them go past and waving to them. She always confused the spot with Marlow on the River Thames, where she had lived as a child.

We would sit there for hours at a time watching them go by. I would listen to BBC’s Radio Four and go and get cups of tea and coffee from the Boatmans Arms pub at the far end of the carpark. After I took mother in to use the loos there. They always gave me china cups from the restaurant instead of the usual throw away styrene cups they normally used for take-away sales.

This time I was more than ever aware of the empty seat beside me. My eyes looking down at the buff envelope in my hands and wondering if I had done the right thing or made a gigantic big mistake that was going to back fire on me and ruin everything. I opened it and checked the contents were as I expected. Then sat brooding, watching the river until the carpark began to fill up with people arriving to have lunch in the pub. My solitude broken, I started up, carefully backed Baby out of my parking spot and headed for home.

I have actually driven a real Lamborghini Murcielago across Europe, and to be honest, I much prefer my fake lambo every time, as strange as that seems. Since my lambo is really a seriously worked over bodywise series two MR2 Toyota with a prefect fake Murcielago body added, leaving you with reliable Toyota maintenance and no super expensive visits to your Lamborghini dealer. It also meant that unlike the real thing I had a *boot behind the engine the same as the Countach did. Not only that, but the noise levels are decent too, so you can hear the radio when you have your foot down. Whereas in the real thing you need ear protectors if driving for any length of time with those admittedly beautiful twelve cylinders of Lamborghini perfection screaming behind your head.

I had shared the driving back to the UK from Italy one summer after flying one of Stelio Frati’s original Falco’s down there along with its new owner who I had taught to fly months earlier. We had flown the Falco down from Manchester’s Barton airfield to Venice’s grass Tourist airfield, the Aeroporto Nicelli on the north end of the Venice-Lido. That’s the long narrow strip of an island below Venice protecting it from the sea. The Falco’s new owner had a holiday villa there that had a mere six guest bedrooms and a live-in staff of five to look after him and his wife and their house guests on their week-ends visits.

He wanted the Falco there for the usual week-end sort of thing. Fly somewhere for lunch, and then fly back again. After all just because you have a fantastic view of Venice from your bedroom and roof terrace, it does not mean you have to actually go there among all those tourists, does it.

Instead of flying back business class in a commercial jet on the Monday. We drove back to the UK, sharing the driving in his Murcielago, taking the car ferry from the Lido to Venice itself, and then over the causeway to the mainland and up to Switzerland and on into Germany and thence to France and the channel tunnel back to London. And thumping great headache I had by the time we got back as well! But I still think it is a beautiful design. The nicest Lamborghini since the original Countach LP400 with its skinny wheels and no stupid dining room table stuck on the back.

On a whim as I was about to past Lower Steeping, I slowed and turned down Village Lane into the village. Something I had done so many times in the past. Driving past AppleTree Farm I glanced over to see if Evie was outside. She was not, so I carried on down to my old home and parked outside. There was three foot high overgrown grass in the front garden. All that rush by the council to get me out of the bungalow while I was in a coma in the hospital after mother died and there was still no one living here months later.

The back gate was un-done, so I carried on back round into my old the back garden where I could just about see the wooden picnic bench Henry use to snooze on in the overgrown grass. Looking in the window of my old empty bedroom, it looked lonely and forlorn, and empty. I hoped someone moved in soon. Perhaps it was a mistake to come down here and look at the old place. Too many memories of mother in the garden. First, when she was gardening and kept it pristine, she loved gardening, and then in later years sitting in her wheelchair with Fred on her lap as she dozed in the summer sun with her floppy hat on.

This was where Penny was spotted by Clair, my next door neighbour and everything changed for me. But even Clair’s home had a For Sale sign up now, as she and husband John were going to stay on in New Zealand to be with their daughter and her family. My friend Clair who plotted with Evie and Trish to bring Penny out of the shadows into the sunlight. Now half a world away.

“Come on back to the farmhouse and we’ll put the kettle on.”

I turned to see Evie standing at the corner of the bungalow.

“Henry’s picnic table. He use to snooze on it in the sun.” I said, patting it.

“We’ll get the boys to come and fetch it, and put it in your new garden.”

“It’s all overgrown, just abandoned.” I said sadly reaching her and looking back around the garden. So many happy memories of being here, and now look at it.

“Come on.” Evie said softly as she put an arm around mine and guided me back down to the gate.

“How did you know I was here?”

Evie chuckled. “You’re the only one I know with one of those.” She said pointing at Baby as we reached the front of the bungalow.

“Have you ever been in one?”

Evie shook her head.

“In that case,” I said with a grin as I opened up the passenger door. “Slide your bum in and swing your legs up and around, in a lady like a way as possible.”

Once she was in, Evie giggled. “Of course, now you wicked girl. I have to get out again.

When I was in I asked if she had been heading for Trish’s, when she saw the car. She nodded. So I drove their instead of heading back to the farmhouse.

I went round and helped pull Evie up out of Baby.

She laughed as I took hold of her hands and pulled her up. “Maybe I should walk back to the farmhouse.”

Grinning I told her. “You should try it in five inch heels.”

“No thanks, I’ll leave that to you.”

Trish unseen had opened her front door and was standing, laughing, watching us.

“You are so lucky Evie Farmer that I didn’t pick up my phone when I came to open the door, or I would have taken a photograph of you like that.”

I closed Baby’s passenger door as Trish came over and hugged a giggling Evie, and then me in greeting. Holding me she smiled, asking.

“So, how’s motherhood.”

I smiled. “Wonderful.”

“Good.”

We went in and Trish had us each carry a bowl out onto the crazy paving terrace that ran the length of the back of the house. The outside wicker table was already laid for three. I had been expected. We had a lunch of boiled potatoes, cold cooked runner beans and thick slices of cold chicken.

As we eat I decide to take the bull by the horns.

“I may have done something incredibly stupid.” I said quietly.

Both women looked up at me, forks half raise to their mouths. They both smiled reassuringly at me, both saying almost in unison. “I’m sure not.”

“Yes, I think so.” I fished the buff envelope out of my handbag and handed it over to Trish who was nearest to me.

She opened it and looked inside and turned it over, tipping out the contents onto her hand. One burgundy red passport, the modern UK/European Union chipped thing, not the dark blue of my father’s old out of date passports that I kept in the deed box. Trish leant towards Evie so they both could see as she opened the cover.

I really was not sure how they would react. Be ok, be angry? But they both looked up at me with warm smiles on their faces.

“Are you sure?” Asked Evie.

“John keeps calling me Suzy when he doesn’t think about it. It’s not done on purpose, it just slips out. He doesn’t realise he’s doing it. I don’t want to confuse the girls. And we had agreed to let them keep thinking I’m somehow their mother come back to them until they realise that is not really possible. So as not to break the illusion they have made-up for themselves.”

“It has a nice ring to it. Don’t you think.” Trish said slowly to Evie, but she was smiling.

Evie moved round to me putting her arm around my shoulders.

“Are you sure? Are you really sure. It’s a lovely gesture.”

“Did I do the right thing? Will John be angry? Do you think he will think I am being disrespectful to Susan?”

Evie shook her head. “No, I think he will be touched that you would do this for him and the girls.”

I dropped Lizzy and Eve off at brownies. Despite their attempts to get Em to join them, she stayed resolutely in the car determined to go to the supermarket, shopping with me. John had trusted me with the Tesla as Betsy was at Dickinson Motor Engineers having her exhaust fixed after John borrowed her the other night and reversed her into a breezeblock in the carpark at The Waggon and Horses. Johnny had lost no time in telling everyone that John had broken the wife’s car in the carpark and got teased about it all evening.

In the past in order to have the odd night at the pub with his dad, John would have to drop the girls off with his mum, Evie, then he and his dad would go up to The Waggon and Horses for the evening. The girls would stay the night which was not a problem as Evie took them to school anyway. Now John went down and picked his dad up and Evie would drive up with Patch and spent the evening with me and the girls. This time John had got mud in the pick-up and so as not to get his clothes dirty, used Betsy, my ageing E220, and promptly reversed into the breezeblock in the pub car park. So was having to let me use the Tesla to take the girls to school and to go shopping.

Thirty minutes saw us parked at Morrisons in Aldershot.

“Would you like some ice cream in the café before we start the shopping?”

A violently nodding head told me that would be a good idea. Minutes later we were in the new country style café with Emily enjoying a bowl of vanilla ice cream and a glass of still orange. While I had a ring donnut with a chocolate covering along with a pot of tea. I had to keep an eye on the time as we only had an hour here before needing to head back to pick up Evelin & Elizabeth from brownies.

I watched Em happily eating her ice cream. I loved all three girls deeply with all my heart and would face down anyone to protect them, but if I am honest, Emily has an extra special place in my heart.

It was the twins who made the connection between me and the photos of their mother when they saw me that first time when Evie and I along with mother arrived back from shopping at the Boundry Mills store. It was they who plotted to get their father and me together. Because as they saw it they were getting their mother back who seemed to have lost her memory.

Emily had that first evening connected with me. At dinner I had cut her meat for her and she had whispered to me how she liked it cut. Then afterwards she had climbed up into my lap as we had all played Monopoly and literally hugged me and snuggled up to me and fallen asleep in my lap. It was that probable that most of all that had kicked in my mothering instincts towards the girls and Emily especially. For her it was having physical contact with her mother for the first time as she thought. So for different reasons we bonded that evening and she will always be mummy's little girl however old she gets to be.

To be continued in… The final chapter
*UK speak for a car’s Trunk.