This is a work of fiction any resemblance to anyone alive or dead is unintentional.

Dad drove us to the restaurant, an impressive place at a country club. It took us about half an hour to get there, and the journey ended with a long drive through parkland belonging to the club which had begun life as a country house, the earliest parts dating back to Elizabethan times. Dad found it amusing to think that the most recent additions and modernisations would also be Elizabethan. My brain more consumed with apprehension than being switched into such word games, it took me a moment to get the pun.

Anyway, everyone else got it and were suitably impressed by the grandeur of the Regency façade, as we walked the short distance from the car park to its white marble portico and steps. I tried to imagine how it would have looked a couple of hundred years before, with carriages and butlers and footmen, with grand ladies in elegant dresses and gallant gentlemen in dress suits or regimental uniforms. Crikey, I’m getting into this female bit a little too easily I thought.

We went through the heavy wood and glass doors, to be met by some sort of clerk/receptionist who showed us the way to the restaurant, along a corridor of polished wooden wainscoting, thick carpets and lots of suitably grandiose portraits of I presumed, the previous owners of this palatial pile.

The restaurant was similarly impressive, polished wooden floors, repro tables and chairs in oak with the waiting staff all in matching uniforms of crisp white shirts or blouses and black skirts or trousers and black and silver waistcoats. We were shown to our table and our waitress, Jenny, provided us with the usual hot rolls and butter, while we looked at the menu. My father ordered a bottle of champagne and some Bordeaux. My eyes went out on stalks as I heard him order the wine. Captain Brice looked signally impressed.

“Are we celebrating anything special today ?” she asked, “In which case can I pay something towards the wine.”

“Certainly not!” declaimed my father, “This is courtesy of my credit card, so by the time I retire I might have paid it off.” At this, we all laughed. The glasses were changed by the adroit Jenny.

As she did so, I complimented her on her uniform, her presentation and manual dexterity. She thanked me and I watched her walk away bursting with pride. My mother gave me a quizzical look. “If you want a memorable night in a restaurant, make a fuss of the staff, especially those who are waiting on you. Remember, many diners will take them for granted, but they also happen to be human beings, who tend to be more amenable to those who recognise the fact.”

“That was very profound,” exclaimed my mother.

“Not really,” I said, “I read it in the Guardian or some book".

“I didn’t think you’d continue reading the Guardian if you had to buy your own.” Offered my father.

“Who said I still read it, let alone bought it.” I threw back at him.

“She does both buy it and read it, as I have seen it in her room and with the crossword mostly completed.” Added my commanding officer, watching me squirm with embarrassment.

The champagne arrived and the wine waiter opened it and began pouring after my father’s approval. “To my beautiful daughter,” he proposed, and the others all toasted me as I tried to sink under the table.

Then I retaliated,” May I propose a toast to the most wonderful parents I could possibly have, and to the most understanding commanding officer in the whole of the British Army.” I raised my glass and they all laughed as we clinked them together.

As we selected our starter and main course, Captain Brice, asked us to call her Sheila, until we were back on official business. My parents reciprocated and became Tom and Anna to her. Me, I just began to feel flushed as the alcohol began to do its work.

We had a super meal, I had game paté, followed by lemon sole, my favourite, although I was tempted by the sea bass. Then feeling full I settled for the sorbet, while Mum and Dad pigged out on ‘death by chocolate’.

It was a lovely evening and we were relaxing in the post-prandial afterglow of an enjoyable dinner, waiting for our coffee, when a man walked over and accosted my dad. “Tom Curtis, you old dog. They paying you lot a bit more these days then?”

Dad stood up and shook the intruder’s hand. “Geoff Banks, what are you doing here, I shouldn’t have come here if I’d known they let in riff-raff like you.”

At this they both laughed, then dad began the introductions, “My wife Anna, my daughter Jamie, and her boss Sheila.”

“Delighted to meet you all.” He responded and as he was leaving he dropped a very quiet bombshell, but it exploded inside me like a large ordnance device. “Tom, I always thought you had a lad, not a lass. Weren’t you hoping to get him into the rugger team?”

“No, not me.” said my dad, although he was colouring up a little, “wasn’t that Dave Wilkins?”

“Must have been. Oh well, have a lovely evening ladies. Tom, we must get together one of these days, split a bottle or two.” My father said something in agreement and shook hands once again, then our visitor left.

I sat there feeling very anxious and I am told rather pale. I could feel my eyes beginning to fill with tears, and my mum rubbed my shoulder. “Don’t worry, he won’t remember.”

“But what if he does?”

My father said in a very quiet but determined voice, “I don’t care if he does or not. I love my daughter and tonight I am celebrating my first evening out with her since she joined the army. I will not let anything spoil it.”

The other members of the party showed their support with a “Hear, hear!” It was good of them but my evening had been spoiled. I tried to ignore it and avoid the tears, but it was difficult, and I didn’t need a reputation as a cry baby with my parents, they were acting so courageously, I tried to follow.

As we walked back to the car, I had drunk the least, so was nominated to drive back. I felt pleased to have something else to focus my thoughts on. My dad put his arm around me, “Don’t let little things like that spoil your fun, I’m certainly not going to. I love my girl and am very proud of her.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” I said and kissed him on the cheek, and he squeezed my shoulders in response. Then with him navigating, I managed to drive his car back home without incident. It certainly felt strange driving again, usually, I used Mum’s little Nissan, but Dad’s big Rover, and with heels, well that was something else.

I went up to my room and got ready for bed, but I knew that sleep would be difficult, I just kept rerunning the incident in the restaurant, until I eventually drifted off into an uneasy sleep, with dreams of being denounced by my classmates in school, and people on my course finding out and deriding me. It was not a pleasant night, and the next day I overslept.

Mum woke me with a cup of Earl Grey, my favourite, and told me that Sheila had gone off for a walk with Dad. Then she sat on the edge of my bed. It brought back memories of childhood when I was quite small or on the few occasions, I was ill. That’s when she would sit on my bed and read me stories or talk to me.

“Are you going to read me a story?” I asked making my eyes as big as I could. My mother’s expression was priceless.

“No young lady, but I am going to tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a young person who everyone thought was a boy, but it transpired he was really a beautiful princess.” Noticing my eyes welling up, she tried to joke, “It’s a bit like the ugly duckling with postmodernist feminist overtones.” I had no idea what she was on about, and I’m not sure she did either, but it was funny waffle and made me smile.

“Well one day the king and queen, realised that their son had grown into this lovely and very beautiful princess and decided that they would do all they could to support her and help her to live happily ever after. There were occasional malcontents and rumour mongers and gossips, but they were in the minority and all the others the princess won over with her courage, her beauty and her loving tenderness. It was believed that she could charm the most frightful ogre into being the big friendly giant. In fact, she was so lovely, that when she walked by the birds stopped what they were doing to look at her, and fish were known to jump out of the water just to see her.”

By now little teardrops were rolling down my face, my mother picked a tissue from the box and wiped them. Then we embraced and I sobbed in her arms. “There there, let it out. We both love you, you know that.” I nodded my understanding. “We are both proud of what you have done, although we can’t possibly understand it and I doubt either of us would be strong enough to do it ourselves. But we love you and want to understand, we want you to be happy and having seen you positively glowing as my daughter, especially when your father is with you, I know you have made the right decision. We love you.”

We hugged for some time and we both wept. It was a real girly moment but we both needed it, and its intimacy and privacy. After it, nothing would ever be quite the same again. I knew without any shadow of a doubt where my future lay. From that moment on, James had ceased to exist for my mother and me and we mourned his passing. At the same time, we celebrated the birth of Jamie, as two females a new understanding arose between us. It would be special as only mother and daughter relationships can be, and from thence my relationship with my father would also change if it hadn’t already. All of this was rolling around my brain, and some of it was making sense, some of it would need weeks and months to implant itself and be recognised.

It had been a wonderful and traumatic couple of days. I’d seen the end of a life unjustly taken and my own had been transformed on so many levels, including a spiritual one. How could I deny the existence of a God when He had created two such wonderful people like my parents, yet how could I reconcile that with the death of a child and such a delightful one. ( It took me many years and much disquiet at times to understand it.)

By the time the walkers had returned, I was showered and dressed and breakfasted. My mother wanted to take me to expand my wardrobe and we still had to collect the dry cleaning. Sheila decided she would stay at the house and then get the cleaning, Dad had work he could do from home so it was all set, and Mum and I went to town.

I was still a little nervous about shopping as a female although I had spent the last couple of months living exclusively as one. I suppose I felt a bit gauche and awkward compared to most natural women. I was also very self-conscious and that tends to make one feel awkward. I had to remind myself I hadn’t wanted to be in the situation I was in, I was just making the best of what had happened. It was true I had experienced something of an epiphany this morning with my mum, but I wanted to speak with her about her comment of not understanding what I had done. So in the car, I asked her about it.

She had little recollection of the conversation from the morning except for her storytelling. So I prompted her, “You said this morning that you didn’t understand what or why I was doing this.” I said referring to my change of gender.

“Well, I don’t understand anything about it.” She said.

“Effectively, neither do I. I mean I didn’t choose for this to happen. It just did. I didn’t ask for that stupid girl to destroy my masculinity with one movement of my her knee.”

“When did this happen? You didn’t mention it before.”

“In school, I was bullied by just about everyone including most of the girls, one of whom was a psychopath called Pam Davis. She regularly beat me up, and one day for some reason best known to her alone, she kneed me in the groin. It hurt for days, but I was too embarrassed to speak to you about it, so I coped as best I could.

"Unfortunately, it did major damage to my testes and they just shrivelled up, hence no masculine characteristics. It seems rather crazy now that no one noticed except the bully girls who were pitiless. They made me do all sorts of things, but I’d rather not talk about that now.” I remembered the pain and shame I had undergone too clearly to want to discuss it.

“We failed you didn’t we?” My mother looked at me with tearful eyes. “Why didn’t we notice, why didn’t you say something. Your dad will be heartbroken to think we let you down.”

“It’s all water under the bridge now. It’s too late to hold post mortems but I wanted you to know that I didn’t choose to be this way, I’m not gender dysphoric or whatever they call it except that my body has failed to develop into a male one because of an injury and the army then cocked up the registration details and refused to change them, Sheila thought she was getting a female trainee nurse and at the time we first met I was actually wearing a woman’s uniform because the men’s were all too big and seemed the wrong shape. Then the medical confirmed that they needed to remove my balls before they became cancerous and next thing I know they’ve got me on oestrogens and talked me into breast implants and some clever stuff with super glue meant they could hide the remaining bit of my genitalia so I looked the part and could use showers and bathrooms without being detected easily. Until the army made a woman out of me, I had no idea this was going to happen.”

“Sheila told us a bit about it, but she left out much of the detail and I don’t think either of us had any idea of what was happening to you. I am so sorry, I failed you. We both did.”

“It doesn’t matter now does it. I didn’t come here to lay blame on anyone, it was one of those things. If it’s anyone’s fault it should be laid squarely at the door of Pam Davis, but she was bonkers anyway.”

“So do you really want to be a female? Or would you become a man if you could?”

“Yesterday, I couldn’t have told you because I didn’t know. Today I do.”

“What has changed in 24 hours?”

“I have. I feel closer to you both than I have ever felt, and it feels good. I feel awkward as a woman because I haven’t been one that long and it takes practice. Most of us get plenty of that as we grow up, but I seemed to be gender-neutral. Today I want to be your daughter because it feels right. I can’t say what has happened but something has and it is very deep inside me, and somehow things have finally resolved themselves. So I can now go ahead and make plans for the future. I shall need to finish the job of reconstruction but there’s no immediate hurry. I don’t know if I fancy men, I’ve never thought about it, but then I haven’t thought much about women either. In that regard, I don’t know where I am. But it’ll sort itself out somehow when it’s ready.”

“I am ashamed of my stupidity, can you ever forgive me?”

“There is nothing to forgive, I love you, Mum.”

“I love you too, my darling. I am sorry that I didn’t understand or notice what was happening and I shall do all I can to help and support you now. I failed my son, but I swear that will not happen to my daughter.” We hugged the tears flowed, we sort of repaired our makeup and then we hit the shops.

My mother was in a buying frenzy, I suppose trying to make some sort of amends for her guilt. It almost became embarrassing, because if I looked at anything she bought it. I tried to stop her, but she was adamant that her daughter should have a reasonable wardrobe. I tried to explain my limited storage facilities but she ignored me.

“You are doing it again.” I protested.

“What do you mean?”

“You are not taking notice of what I am telling you, in fact, you are ignoring it.”

“What do you mean, I’m having fun with my daughter.”

“Yes, but is she having fun?”

“Of course she is, we’re shopping.”

“No she isn’t, Mum, you are buying me things I don’t want or need or have places to keep them. It’s lovely that you enjoy doing it, but I’m unsure of your motive.” As I spoke she looked suddenly very shamefaced.

“You’re right, I am doing it again. I’m sorry. Do you want to return this stuff?”

“No I shall accept it in the spirit in which it was given, but some of it will have to stay at home, it will be nice to have something different there to wear. Let’s go home neither of us has anything to prove and Sheila is going to want to be getting back to her command.”

“I like her, she really cares doesn’t she?”

“I think so, although I try not to make her have too much to do.”

“She wants you to become a nurse doesn’t she.”

“Yes, she’s made no secret of it, and that incident with the little girl has given me food for thought.”

“I know. Sometimes I can understand you.” She smiled at me and I felt very guilty that I had been too hard on her. We struggled back to the car. My wardrobe had quadrupled in two hours, with skirts and tops, a coat, a suit, jeans, shoes and enough underwear to change three times a day for six months without wearing the same thing twice. Well alright, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but it felt like that. We had a carload.

We went home in relative silence, there was nothing to be said for the moment. After lunch, Mum asked me to show her my uniform, so I changed into it and she took my photograph. I changed back to some jeans and a top for the drive back to the camp, Sheila did something similar and it was too soon time to go.

It wasn’t my idea to join the army, it wasn’t my idea to change my sex and so far I seemed to be a bit too passive when I reflected on my situation. I’m sure I could still get out of it if I really wanted to, and part of me would like to. I’m not sure I want to be a nurse, maybe I want to be a doctor or a teacher like my dad, or something entirely different. But it feels pretty sure that whatever I do decide upon, it looks as if I am stuck with doing it as a woman. I have some doubts and uncertainties who wouldn’t, but it now feels as if it’s something that was meant to be and who can argue with their destiny.