CHAPTER 40
That party went exactly as I had expected, with no issues beyond a prospect having to smile a but less than nicely as a guest from another club spent a bit too much time investigating how close he could get to Nell, while Kim spent a sizeable part of the evening looking wistfully after Oily, and much of the rest trying not lo make her lust too obvious.

That was something that had struck me on her first trip to Snowdonia, fixated on the taut muscles of a young climber while worrying that she herself would never be someone such boys might actually desire. She made a big joke about her ogling, but that shadow always lay behind it. In the end, however, she had fought so hard for her real life since we had first met, and that pugnacity was still there. It showed itself more and more in teasing the other girls, but that never turned nasty, was never bitchy. Her soothing of Nell’s fears was so typical of how she treated the rest of the household, and I was steadily realising how vital she was becoming in the way the place ran.

I was still working full time, after all, which meant that I would be away from the House regularly, and unless I was on a week of local runs, that also meant at a distance. Knowing she was either at home or working just round the corner was a relief, and as my new girls settled in, Ruth let me know how many of them were starting to pop round for a cold drink or an extra little snack.

We straggled into the House on New Year’s Day, Nell much more relaxed after changing into warmer clothes that morning. It was Maisie who had made the joke, though, the obligatory one about monkeys, balls, low temperatures and cancelling any need for surgery. The rest of the crew were still buzzing a week later.

So: shitty weather, heavy loads for local shops to boost stock for the sales, and Nita and Heidi on our case, as Kim put it, like shit on a trainer. I will admit I was a little at a loss, because my focus had been very tight, and I had really seen no further than giving a warm bed and a hot meal to someone who needed both. The two officials reminded me that everyone I took in had other parts to their lives, and lives beyond the date when they would no longer need my help.

Schools, exams, NHS registration, an addition to Dr Thomas’ register, library cards (yes, really; you have to give an address as well as a name), so many other things. Most importantly, however, was the simple matter of accounting for the payments Social Services were sending my way.

I hate paperwork. That didn’t mean I could avoid the crap, though. Heidi had a word with Cathy, however, and to my surprise, she spoke to Rachel and Emma, and suddenly I had three ‘secretaries’ able to remove a lot of the load from my shoulders. I’ve never really had any talent for stuff like that, as my mind doesn’t work that way, but it seemed to suit the three of them, and there was no way I was going to complain.

Life had been so much simpler when it was just me, Mam and Dad in the Commer.

We had two new arrivals just as the first buds were coming out on the horse chestnuts, and they were both reminders of what all of the paperwork was there to deliver. The first was Nicola, who had met a boyfriend of fifteen online. Not for the first time, and certainly not the last, I found myself struggling to keep a calm face as a young girl told me a story so shit that I wanted to kill.

“Yeah, said his name was Tim, said he was seventeen, got his licence, used his Dad’s old car”

And you believed him, Nicola.

“It was all online, on my profile thing, I thought I could at least be a girl on there, and he said he liked me, and he sent me some pics, and he was well fit”

It was a story that became all too familiar, as she packed a bag to run away to a new life, somewhere not really specified, to live as herself, rainbows, unicorns, all that shit, until she had got in the car, and the seventeen year old boy turned out to be closer to forty fucking seven, and his price for not telling anyone about her, or perhaps letting her out of his car in one piece, had been a very productive session, for him at least, that had involved his cock and her mouth, and then being dumped forty miles from home. Her return wearing a skirt, courtesy of a police car, had not met with approval, and once again I had flashbacks, this time to my mother shutting the door of my former home in my face.

Patricia was a difficult one, until Nell and Cathy tag-teamed her for me. More social bloody media, this time with socially-shared photos she had put online on a website she thought had been safe. A couple of girls from her school had spotted them, recognised her, and posted print-outs all over the school itself. They had put up more home-made posters around her town, and spread the word over the internet, just in case there was anyone who might not realise what a sissy pervert Patrick Welling was.

We inherited Patricia after she had been pumped out in a Carmarthen hospital.

I felt a lot better about the paperwork afterwards, because Nicky and Tricia put so much into focus for me. I took some annual holiday while she settled in, as I wasn’t too happy about her state of mind, and I had some very, very uncharitable thoughts about men for a while.

What cheered me up were three things. The first two were surprisingly simple: Nell and Cathy had their eighteenth birthdays, and a couple of days later, courtesy of a certain solicitor I remembered, they also had new and official names.

The third was something that left the newly-official Cathy in tears, and me intrigued, and that was what the news called a series of readings of a white paper called the Gender Recognition Bill. Nell summed it up for me.

“It’s a really simple thing, Debbie. They are changing the law so that we can change what the law says we are. We get to be women, legally that is. Get all that goes with it. Get… get to marry, if we want to”

Cathy had sighed deeply at that one.

“If we can ever find anyone who would want to, that is. Anyway, got my new name, got something, at least. Get through Uni, and who knows?”

Nell patted her hand, as gentle as ever.

“Be better there, Cathy. More people, more, dunno, tolerant? You never know. Anyway, we need to get our A-levels right before planning too much!”

“Yeah, suppose. Um… Debbie?”

“Yes?”

“Nell and me, we’ve been working really hard…”

I had to laugh out loud at that one.

“What do you want?”

“Well, if we put the slog in, we might do better in the exams if we have a break first”

I was still laughing when she made her suggestion, but it was a bloody good one. I waited until Kim was home before putting it to the other residents.

“Right, you lot. Telly off, please! Cathy has made a suggestion for the early May bank holiday, so we need a show of hands”

Kim put hers up, which was pointless, as she simply started talking without waiting for my response.

“What if some of us don’t want to do whatever it is?”

“Well, we tie you up and bring you with us anyway”

“So what is it, then? Another rally?”

“Nope. Think tight shorts and photo panoramas”

The squeal she produced was possibly the girliest sound I had ever heard from her.

“With Pat?”

“I hope so. I need to check first, and then, if she’s up for it, we need to sort another couple of tents, some sleeping bags and the rest”

She turned to the other girls.

“Right, you lot, and shut up Nell, cause you know what it is. Debbie has a friend, and she knows all sorts of cool places in the mountains, and her and Debbie, they’ve got this cool campsite where there’ll be baby sheep, and that’s not the best bit, cause there’s this big bit of rock out the back, and the climbers go there, and that’s what Debbie meant about tight shorts, and there’s a music place, and all sorts! Nobody’s allowed to say no!”

When I had once more wrestled my laughter back down, I rang Pat. Kim still hadn’t finished, and as I attempted to have a sensible discussion with my old friend, there was a steady chorus of “Tight shorts! Muscles!” from the sod.

“What you thinking of doing about tents, Debbie?”

“Need to buy a couple, I suppose”

“Well, leave that for now. I have a friend who’s a Scout leader, and they have a six-man ridge tent I can borrow. They’re all trooping off to Tenerife, of all places, mountain walking round the volcanoes”

She paused, before adding, “That was a joke. The bit about trooping off. Scouts. Scout troop”

Another pause.

“I think you do need a break, love. They have sleeping bags as well; I can fit the lot in the car”

“Anything you want me to bring, Pat?”

“Just yourselves, love, and some smiles. Been too long since we were up that way. You got new girls for me to meet?”

Before I could answer, she added in a near whisper, “And that need to heal?”

We did a run out to the big ‘Go!’ place for boots, gaiters and so on for the newbies, and Kim drilled them in map and compass work over several evenings, which left me wondering when and how she had gained those skills. Before we could wrap up, Serena was delivered to us, another internet bullying victim, and I had to do a last-minute run back to the big shop for another pair of boots.

Thank god I had been persuaded to accept the grants from Heidi’s people, and more thanks to the girls now keeping the paperwork straight.

A minibus hired via Bert. All girls packed and loaded, seating arranged to split up the newer arrivals, and we were off, after a quick prayer to the weather gods.

They seemed to have been listening, and the weather was a delight. We had all of our usual treats, from the ginger misery playing his fiddle to the woolly-hatted shepherd greeting Pat like long-lost family. The new lambs were at the stage of rushing backwards and forwards in little gangs, and butting each other in play-fights.

On Kim’s advice, the girls packed a picnic for the afternoon they spent at the big rock slab, awarding points for ‘style’, ‘content’, ‘firmness’, and, for all I know, ‘clench’, and in the end, the only down part of the whole trip was when we had to leave. In a few weeks, two of my charges would have their A-levels, and before that, Nell would gain her name legally.