Annie and her Granny

By Susannah Donim

Steve’s mother runs the secretive Transformations consultancy. This means he has a number of interesting jobs over the years.

Chapter 4 – Annie and her Auntie Ingrid

Steve walks a mile in his mother’s shoes.

Annie’s exam results came through the next day. She had got a very creditable 2:1 and that night we went out together to celebrate. Unfortunately I was still totally Ingrid so we were limited to a chaste meal at a posh restaurant. We would attract a lot of unwanted attention if we went to a rave, for example.

At first, I suggested that we go as boss and employee – we could pretend it was a business dinner – but Annie didn’t like that idea.

“That would be much too formal,” she said. “We wouldn’t be able to show any affection at all. You’ll have to be my mother. Then we can at least cuddle and hold hands in public.”

“Hell, no! I don’t want you to call me ‘Mummy’, not even in fun,” I said.

“OK, my aunt then. I’ll call you ‘Auntie Ingrid’.”

“That’s hardly any better…”

But I had to settle for that. My predicament was slightly alleviated when I pointed out to my mother that I would have to borrow her car, purse, and most especially her credit card. My own bank card had ‘Mr Steven A Jones’ on it, and she – and therefore now I – wasn’t insured to drive my car. She didn’t like any of it, but she couldn’t argue with my logic.

“Just so you know – the cost of the meal is coming out of your bonus,” she said, passing me her handbag with ill grace.

“Thank you, mother,” I said. “Now I’m going to raid your wardrobe for your poshest dress.” I grinned. “I don’t suppose many boys get to say that to their mothers.”

“Maybe more than you’d think,” she said.

I also borrowed her best jewellery. So the new Ingrid and her temporary niece had a delightful evening. We were dressed to the nines and attracted a lot of attention for all the right reasons. A handsome father and son approached us to suggest we dined with them, but we declined politely.

* * *

That night was the first time Annie and I slept together with me in my Ingrid prosthetics. She said she had been looking forward to it but it was awkward in several ways. I stripped off my beautiful dress, tights and panties, and lay on my back on the bed with my legs apart. This posture was profoundly embarrassing, but my discomfort just made Annie laugh.

Firstly, although I managed to find the tiny fastener on my ‘abdominal prosthesis’ and unzip it, I couldn’t liberate my equipment without help. Annie stepped into the breach, as it were. Fortunately, she just found my situation hilarious rather than disgusting, which I think would have been my reaction. At first she tried to extricate my testicles before withdrawing my member from its confining tube, but that didn’t work and actually hurt quite badly. So she tried it the other way round with more success, though only slightly less pain. With my penis free, my balls descended from their cavity, and I could shed the prosthesis entirely.

Unfortunately, the bruising experience was enough to render my wedding tackle inert, hopefully temporarily. So we decided to finish getting ready for bed, in the hope that the time required for our ablutions would be sufficient for my equipment to recover. Annie grabbed her nightie and withdrew to the en suite bathroom, while I sat, mostly naked, at the dressing table to remove my makeup and wig. Finally I took off my bra, dropped it in the laundry basket with the rest of my underwear, and jumped into bed, pulling the duvet up to my neck.

Annie emerged from the bathroom. “Now you’re mine, fair maiden,” she boomed in what she obviously intended to be a rakish voice, and drew the covers right back with a dramatic flourish. My fake breasts were exposed.

Involuntarily, I squealed and pulled the duvet back to conceal my nakedness. Annie laughed with surprise.

“What on earth’s the matter?” she said.

“I’m naked under here,” I said, beginning to feel embarrassed for quite different reasons.

“So what? There’s no one here but us.”

“But…” I stuttered. “You can see my breasts…”

“They’re not real, you idiot, and I’ve seen the rest of you naked lots of times.”

“I know,” I said, “but it just feels wrong somehow. I can’t explain it.”

“Such modesty!” she laughed. “You’re desperate to hide two lumps of plastic from your lover!”

She reached under the pillow and fished out the pink nightie I’d worn the night before.

“OK, OK, put this on,” she said. “I’m not going to even try to work out the weird psychology going on here. Too tired.”

I put the nightie on over my head and pulled it down over my breasts. For some reason I immediately felt more at ease.

“You’re sure you don’t want the panties that go with it?” she asked.

“No, they’d only get in the way,” I said with a grin.

She quickly joined me in bed. She wasn’t too tired to indulge in a little burrowing under my nightie or to make the most of what she found there. For some reason Ingrid’s face and breasts didn’t put her off. In fact, if anything my smooth body and feminine upper half just seemed to spur her on to greater efforts than ever before.

* * *

My life as my mother’s double continued. She now had me conducting interviews with clients. She said it would be a good opportunity for me to learn how the business worked first-hand, given that clients weren’t comfortable with Steve sitting in on their interviews. Also it would give her time to catch up with her paperwork.

First she had to run me through the various procedures, and the additional services we could offer, like Alice Parr’s female movement classes. It also gave us the opportunity to see if any of our customers noticed any difference between ‘Ingrid One’ and ‘Ingrid Two’. No one did.

That was sometimes a problem round the office. I spoke in my ‘Ingrid’ voice most of the time as it came naturally now. On several occasions I noticed Vera or Sharon or Angie being hesitant in conversation until they were sure which Ingrid they were talking to. Dolly was just bemused by the whole business. After a while they realised that at tea and coffee breaks I was the one who gobbled down the cake and doughnuts, having no need to watch my figure. Eventually everyone could tell which of us was which from the differences in our voices, and they got used to there being two Ingrids around.

Annie stayed most nights now, in the Girls’ Room, in the big double bed with me. She went back to her grandmother’s house every few days for clean clothes and to see if Dolly needed anything, but she was gradually bringing most of her wardrobe over to our flat.

At bedtime I would remove my wig and wig cap and squirm out of my abdominal prosthesis with Annie’s help, to wash both it and my sweaty, squashed-up loins. But I still couldn’t remove my breasts or my mother’s face. So I continued to go to bed with Steve’s hair and bottom half and Ingrid’s face and top half. For some reason Annie found this even more erotic.

With my big floppy breasts I still didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in the nude, and none of Steve’s pyjama tops would fasten over my bosom, so I slept in one of my mother’s nighties or sleep sets.

Annie and I did our laundry together and she was always amused to find another woman’s cosmetics on the dressing table and her knickers and tights drying over the bath. There was no danger of getting our underwear mixed up. Hers was skimpy and sexy; mine was middle-aged and strictly utilitarian. She reckoned she could fit both of her breasts into one of the cups of my bras.

In the morning she would lie in bed watching me get up. I went into the bathroom first to wriggle into my abdominal prosthesis. I could get it on by myself; it was getting out of it again that was difficult. I tried to take a bra and panties in with me, but Annie insisted on watching when I took my nightie off and put my underwear on.

Then I would sit at the dressing table in my lingerie, put on my wig cap, and do my make-up. This never took long as my mother’s watchword for cosmetics was ‘Spartan’. Finally I would put my wig on. From that moment on, Annie insisted on calling me ‘Ingrid’.

My mother decided that having to share clothes with her son gave her the perfect excuse to expand her wardrobe, so she dragged me out to go shopping together as twins. That way, she explained, she could decide what would look good on her by seeing what looked good on me first.

As Ingrid, I was now in charge in the office. My mother crept about in the background checking up on me and everyone else, which didn’t make her any more popular. The others kept coming to me for decisions, and gradually, with Mum’s help, I learned enough to manage.

Today I was dressed in a new smart navy blue, scalloped-detail skirt suit over a plain white blouse. I had picked out the suit myself on one of our shopping trips. My mother had been dubious, thinking it was a bit ‘fancy’, but she didn’t deny it looked good on me. I was wearing nude tights and my black slip-on court shoes. Since I no longer had to worry about towering over Annie as my diminutive ‘son’, I was up to three-inch heels now and could manage them with no difficulty.

I had an interesting meeting with a young man who wanted to set up a new business. He believed he would meet with greater success if he ran it as a woman. He didn’t reveal any details, and of course I didn’t ask, but my imagination ran wild. No doubt there were lots of possibilities but for some reason all I could think of were brothel ‘madam’ or maybe professional dominatrix.

I warned him that with his body shape he would only be convincing as a buxom, middle-aged woman. He didn’t seem to mind that at all. Well, good luck to him.

Afterwards I made my way to the tea room where my mother was in conversation with Annie.

“How was the meeting?” Mum asked when she saw me.

“Routine,” I said. “He’s booked in for his imaging session next week. I took a deposit. He wants to be known as ‘Angelique’.”

“Fine,” she said. “Well done.”

I was aware that Annie was looking at me with a little smile on her face.

“How much longer do I have to do this for?” I asked, grumpily. “When can I go back to being me?”

“Please, Steven,” said my mother impatiently, “remember that you are my employee. I am paying you – quite well, actually – so you have to do whatever I tell you to…”

“Within reason…” I said.

“I hardly think a little dressing up is unreasonable. Anyway, I’m afraid it’s part of your job to help test our new processes. You have unique qualifications.”

“So that means I’m you until your face falls off me?”

“Yes, and you might have to be someone else after that!”

“Aren’t you worried about the psychological damage this might be doing to me?”

My mother snorted. “Just think of it as playing a part – like a professional actor. They don’t get ‘psychological damage’ pretending to be someone else.”

“What ‘unique qualifications’ do you mean?” Annie asked, fearing that our conversation was in danger of getting overheated.

“She means my ‘blandness’,” I said bitterly.

“Stuff and nonsense!” my mother said scathingly. “I mean his physical versatility. We can transform him into any average-sized man or woman. He’s also very good at female impersonation. You must have noticed! His walk and mannerisms are perfect, and he knows how to dress, do his make-up, fix his hair, walk in heels, carry a handbag…”

“All right, all right,” I said. “She gets it.”

My mother didn’t seem to realise that she was impugning my masculinity in front of my girlfriend and making me uncomfortable. Annie sensed I needed reassuring.

“Well, I think he’s brilliant,” she said taking my arm, “and dead sexy!”

She kissed me on the cheek, to avoid ruining my lipstick. She tweaked my bra strap, then hugged me close, resting her head on my enhanced bosom. I sighed.

“Hi there!” Fred hailed us, as he made his way over. He was nursing a cup of tea and a rock cake. “Which of you three lovely ladies would like to be my ‘plus one’ at the Mayor’s Garden Party?”

Annie and my mother both turned to look at me.

“Oh no,” I began. “The sooner I can get out of this clobber, the better. I’m certainly not going to any posh social occasions dressed like this.”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” said Fred jovially. “I remember your time as Milly and Jennifer. You went completely native. Now you’re doing the same again with your Ingrid.”

Annie was laughing her head off.

* * *

“You’ll need a smart new dress – floral, as it’s a Garden Party.” Annie had appointed herself my couturier for this affair. “I’m thinking ‘Mother of the Bride’-type,” she continued, “and definitely a fancy hat.”

She thrust an online store catalogue in front of me. She had marked some examples.

“Don’t go mad now,” I said. “I’m only going along with this because my mother promised it would be my last outing as her.”

“Yes, dear,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard. “I found this brilliant website for women’s clothes. It’s called MyOwnCouture.com,” she said. “Come on, we’d better do this in the bedroom.”

She grabbed her laptop and ran up the back stairs. I followed at a more sedate pace, appropriate for my mother’s age and my relative inexperience in her high heels.

“Why can’t we take the lift?” I muttered to her retreating back.

I found Annie in the Girls’ Room, her computer open on the dressing table.

“You choose what you want from a wide variety of styles and colours; enter your measurements; and they send you the finished dress.” She took a tape measure from the dressing table drawer. “OK – strip off.”

Sighing, I complied. My smart skirt suit and blouse were soon on the bed and I was standing there, the image of my mother in my bra, girdle and stockings – not that I’d ever seen my actual mother in her lingerie. Annie got busy with her tape measure.

“You’re 42-34-40, dress size 16,” she said, after wrapping the tape around my various places, most of which were actually padding. “Not so bad for a woman of your age, Ingrid.”

“How do you know how old my mother is?”

“Well, I don’t. I’m guessing.”

She grinned. I was getting used to my girlfriend feeling me up while I was wearing women’s underwear, but I still felt pretty stupid. To cover my embarrassment, I grabbed her and leaned in for a kiss. She responded warmly. I felt her hands groping my butt, despite the bulbous padding, my girdle, and my thick granny panties. They moved deliciously down my legs to my stocking tops where they paused to snap the elastic of my suspenders. I rubbed my boobs up against hers, the lace on our bras scraping together. I stood back.

“You might as well take a good look while you have the chance,” I said, “because this will be you in twenty-five years’ time.”

“Huh?”

I struck a provocative pose.

“Flabby tummy, cellulite, droopy boobs, stretch marks…”

She pulled away in mock anger. I grinned. She knew I was teasing.

“Well maybe you won’t be around to see my… my decrepitude!” she declared. “Maybe I don’t want to spend the next twenty-five years with a... a professional transvestite.”

“Hey! I’m not a…”

She raised an eyebrow. I was going to lose this argument. After all, I was standing there in bra, panties, suspender belt and stockings; with a middle-aged lady’s hairstyle and makeup. And I was being paid for it.

“OK, maybe I am… at the moment. But it’s not what I’m planning as a career…”

“Ah, but what is your mother planning…?” she began.

She trailed off. It was a good question. I couldn’t think what to say either.

“OK, look,” she said, getting back to business, “we need to find you a dress for next Sunday. I’ve checked your mother’s wardrobe, and she doesn’t really have anything suitable.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “She never goes anywhere apart from the Bridge Club. The dress I wore to the restaurant the other day was the nicest thing she had, and even that was years old.”

“She really is quite unusual, your Mum, isn’t she?”

“You have no idea,” I said.

She sat back down at the dressing table and reopened the laptop.

“Now the website says that they can guarantee a better fit with more measurements.” She read a list from the web page. “Neck, front waist length, back waist length, shoulder, and arm length. I’ve never heard of most of these, but there’s a diagram.”

She carried on measuring me. She was entering the numbers as she went.

When she’d finished, I asked, “Um, seriously… does me doing this dressing up – this testing stuff for my mother – put you off at all…?”

She turned and smiled. “Not at all, actually. You’d think maybe it would, wouldn’t you? But it doesn’t. I find it… exciting. Hasn’t that been obvious in bed the last few nights? With me burrowing under your nightie and playing with your boobs?”

I found myself blushing… and nodding.

“Can I get dressed again now?” I asked.

“What?” She was distracted again, reading the instructions on the website. “Oh, yes.”

I put my blouse, skirt and shoes back on.

“It suggests that for best results we should send them a head and shoulders photograph.”

She reached for her handbag and took out her phone.

“Seems like a lot of trouble,” I grumbled. “What do they need that for?”

“Dunno. Smile!” she commanded.

I hesitated… but why not? After all, I looked exactly like my mother. No one would see Steve in the photograph. So I complied. There was a flash. She pressed some buttons on her phone and transferred the picture to her laptop via Bluetooth. Then she uploaded the photo to the website and went back to browsing the available dress styles. I joined her at the dressing table.

“I like this one,” she said.

It was navy blue silk with a pink floral pattern, three-quarter-length. She was right. It looked ideal for a Garden Party.

“But you’ll need a jacket with it. You can’t afford to show your bare arms. They’re too masculine.”

“Thanks for that,” I said. “I haven’t felt very virile for a while now.”

“Well, you certainly felt virile to me in bed last night,” she said crudely. “You need a bracelet and a ladies’ watch too – to distract from the thickness of your wrists.”

I don’t think she’d picked up on my need for reassurance. She was scanning the site for accessories. She soon found a matching plain pink jacket and hat.

“I can change the colour scheme,” she said.

She selected some variations, but both of us preferred the original in navy and pink.

“I think I have… that is, my mother has a handbag in that shade of pink,” I said.

“Good, because you’ll need to buy some shoes too. Your mother’s won’t fit you.”

She pressed the Done icon to signify she was satisfied with her selection. Immediately the web page vanished and a model with my mother’s face and body – my face and body now – began strutting down a catwalk in the beautiful outfit Annie had selected. We were watching a rear view, and Ingrid’s – my – broad hips and generous rear were wiggling their way down the walkway. The likeness was uncanny.

“Wow!” Annie breathed. “How do they do that?”

“It has to be CGI, but it’s brilliantly done. Really impressive! I wonder if they’re hiring?”

“You already have a job.”

Ingrid reached the end of the catwalk, turned, and favoured her audience with a beaming smile, the likes of which had never been seen on my mother’s face in real life.

“That spoils it,” I said. “It’s not like her at all anymore.”

“No,” Annie agreed, “but it’s just like you.”

We paid for the outfit using the business credit card which my mother had reluctantly entrusted to me.

It arrived, three days later, in plenty of time. I quickly checked the fit, which seemed fine, then put it away till the big day.

* * *

The following Sunday morning Annie helped me get dressed and made up. The outfit was everything the website had promised. I stood in front of the wardrobe mirror in the Girls’ Room, bowled over by my appearance. Annie had taken special care over my make-up – much more than my mother ever did herself. Ingrid had never looked so good, or so feminine, and it wasn’t even her! The lovely dress was complemented by matching shoes and jacket, the pink handbag, and a broad-brimmed hat with pretty pink artificial flowers on it. I twirled and preened; I admit it. I looked like the Duchess of Cornwall and I felt like the Queen Mother (when she was young).

“It’s beautiful,” Annie said. “You should get all your dresses from MyOwnCouture.com from now on. It’s a perfect fit.”

I shot her a filthy look. “It’s a perfect fit for my mother,” I said. “I’m not expecting to need any more dresses after this.”

“We’ll see,” she said enigmatically.

I changed the subject. “Don’t I need a slip with this dress?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s a lovely slinky material. It won’t stick to you or ride up, but it’s still thick enough to conceal your underwear. Give me a twirl, sweetie.” As I did so, she glanced down at my backside. “No Visible Panty Line on that beautiful big round bum of yours!” She giggled. “Anyway, it will be too hot today for another layer underneath.”

At that moment the real Ingrid came in to inspect me before letting me represent her in public. The look of astonishment on her face, behind me in the mirror, was almost worth all the trouble and potential embarrassment. She saw me looking at her, snorted, and stamped out of the room.

“I assume that means she approves,” said Annie.

* * *

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in late July. Fred arrived – late, as usual – to take me to the Garden Party in his Jaguar F-Pace. He was ridiculously proud of the huge SUV, but with his notoriously mediocre driving skills, he would have been better off with a little Yaris like mine. He always had to drive round the Tesco car park for ages, trying to find a double space that he could get the monstrous beast into without scratching the vehicles on either side.

Fred held out his hand to help me up into the oversized vehicle. I collapsed into the passenger seat. I thought back to the last time I found myself struggling to get in a car. This had been hard enough but there was no way I could have got into this silly thing as Jennifer. It had been more difficult than I had expected as Ingrid, because of having to step up to the high seating position in my unfamiliar heels.

“Thanks for doing this, Steve,” said Fred. “I really didn’t want to come on my own. It only encourages the rumours…”

He paused, aware that his sexuality was a subject we still hadn’t discussed.

“It’s fine,” I said, “I’m quite looking forward to it. But you owe me one,” I continued. “And please don’t forget to call me ‘Ingrid’ this afternoon, Frederick dear.”

I carefully laid my beautiful hat on the back seat. It would need to be attached to my wig with the long hatpin in my handbag. The forecast was for ‘sunny intervals and a light breeze’. I didn’t want to have to chase my hat across the Mayor’s garden, especially in these shoes.

“My mother wouldn’t be seen dead at a social event like a Garden Party,” I continued, “especially togged up like this.”

“Too true,” Fred said. “She’s not a very sociable person, is she?”

“Understatement of the year. She hates small talk; she isn’t much interested in other people’s lives; and she can’t discuss her work, can she? Doesn’t leave much scope for conversation.”

“She doesn’t go in for chit-chat at the Bridge table either,” he said. “She’s happy to discuss the hands – where I went wrong in the bidding or the play, for example – but that’s about it.”

Fred pulled out onto the main road as we both laughed gently at my mother’s quiet sociopathy. I took a compact out of my handbag and checked my lipstick in its little mirror.

“How come you’re invited to this shindig anyway?” I asked him.

“I run Adult Evening Classes in IT at the Sixth Form College,” he said. I hadn’t known that. “That makes me an honorary local government officer,” he continued, “so I get invited to their annual summer do at the end of term.”

“Hang on, they can’t have invited everyone who works for the council. That would be at least a thousand people!”

“Oh far more. No, I think it’s mainly people involved with the College, and anyway there must be some kind of rota. I’ve been teaching IT for three years now and this is the first time I’ve been invited.”

A nasty thought struck me. I haven’t met anyone outside the company who actually knows Ingrid well, apart from possibly Nuttall, the Bank Manager.

“You realise I only look like Ingrid. My impersonation of her is only skin-deep. Will I know anyone there? Or, more importantly, will Ingrid know anyone there?”

“I doubt it,” he said airily. “I’m pretty sure she’s never even been to the College, and as you said yourself, she doesn’t go out socialising much.”

I hoped he was right.

* * *

He wasn’t. The first person we saw as we stepped onto the duckboards laid across the Mayor’s huge back garden was the Honourable Harriet Bairstow, the Bridge Club secretary. She too was dressed to the nines. She was there with her husband, George, who waved cheerfully when he saw us.

I paused to check my appearance: wig straight; hat secured with hatpin; handbag over the crook of my left arm; my right linked in Fred’s left. Best foot forward, remembering how to walk like a lady, bottom wiggling provocatively, stately as a galleon. I was grateful to have Fred to lean on; the duckboards were uneven and I was in high heels. Full of forebodings, we made our way over to the Bairstows.

“You realise we’ll have to remember this entire conversation?” I said sotto voce to Fred. “We have to tell Mum everything. The Bairstows will be very suspicious if they see her at the Bridge Club next week and she can’t remember a conversation from four days earlier.”

Fred agreed glumly and muttered an apology for getting us in this fix.

I tried to think how my mother would greet Harriet. I remembered from my one meeting (as Jennifer) with her four years ago that they weren’t friends. I decided on ‘polite, but frosty’.

That certainly turned out to be her choice. Fred and George were shaking hands, and I wondered whether Harriet and I would be doing girly cheek kisses, but she made no move at all toward physical contact. So no ‘mwah, mwah’ then. It wasn’t really my mother’s thing either.

“Hello, Ingrid,” Harriet said, keeping her hands to herself and her wine glass. “I didn’t think this sort of affair was your cup of tea at all.”

I briefly explained that I was only there to keep Fred company as his ‘plus one’.

“Poor Fred!” she sympathised tactlessly. “I love your dress, dear,” she continued. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in such a… feminine outfit.”

Harriet was clearly an expert in the barbed compliment, but it was fair comment, I suppose. My mother’s penchant for austere skirt suits was well known.

“My son’s partner chose it,” I said, trying to be friendly. “She has very good taste.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that Steven has a girlfriend,” Harriet said with a catty smile. “To be honest, I always thought he might be gay.”

What? How dare she! As far as I could remember I’d only met this horrible woman a couple of times as Steve. What had made her think I was gay? Of course I had now met her twice more while wearing a dress, wig and make-up, so perhaps this wasn’t the time to debate the matter. Beside me, Fred must have realised I was bristling and about to say something stupid.

“No, no,” he said, taking my arm gently. “Steve is definitely straight. He has had several steady girlfriends that I know of. I think this latest little lady might even be serious.”

I calmed down and thereafter tried to make polite but monosyllabic responses to Harriet’s brazenly spiteful conversation, all the time wondering whether to punch her on the nose or scratch her eyes out with my pretty, enamelled, shocking pink nails.

Disappointed that her thinly disguised insults to my lack of elegance and femininity were apparently falling on deaf ears, Harriet excused herself and wandered over to where the Mayor and Mayoress were holding court. Standing alone now, I moved closer to Fred. Would it be appropriate for me to link my arm in his again? I decided against it. It had been reasonable when we were walking over uneven ground, but it would be an unmistakable mark of affection while we were just standing here. He might get the wrong idea, and so might everyone else.

He and George had already begun discussing the hands from the previous Wednesday’s Bridge Club session, which posed another problem for me. Ingrid had been partnering Fred and would have remembered the most interesting hands as well as he did. I couldn’t be part of this conversation. I decided to go and get a drink as Fred was driving. A long trestle table covered by a snow-white linen cloth offered a range of wines, white and rosé in ice buckets. There were also kegs of beer but quaffing a pint would hardly be ladylike.

“What can I get you, madam?” asked a pretty girl on the other side of the table.

She was wearing a white blouse and black trousers, which were protected by a smart, gender-neutral white apron round her waist. Further up, a young man, identically dressed, was helping another female customer.

“Oh, a white wine, please,” I said.

“We have Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc.”

“Which would you recommend?” I asked, floundering. I wasn’t usually a wine drinker.

“Well our Chardonnay is made in an oaked style, giving it spice, honey, butter and hazelnut flavours. It’s rich and complex and has aged well. The Sauvignon Blanc is lighter-bodied with a crisper, juicier jolt of acidity.”

“Wow! You really know your wines!” I said.

“Actually, I googled them both before I started serving,” she said with a grin.

I laughed. She was great. I briefly wondered if I could get her phone number, then remembered how I was dressed. Perhaps I could ask for it on behalf of my son, Steve? Oh, but now there was Annie…

I snapped back to reality. She was waiting for an answer.

“I’ll try the Sauvignon Blanc. I’m in the mood for something lighter.”

The girl smiled and reached for a glass.

“Quite right,” said a voice beside me. “These affairs can be really heavy.”

I turned. It was the woman who was being served further down when I arrived. She was carrying a tray with four glasses of white wine on it.

“Are you here on your own?” she asked with a friendly smile.

“No, but my… companion has found a friend from the Bridge Club and they’re talking squeezes and end-plays.”

“Oh, come and join us then,” she said. “I’m with a little group of abandoned wives. We’ve commandeered a table over there in the shade.”

It would have been rude to refuse, and in any case I wanted to sit down and get my weight, both real and fake, off my high heels. Also, sitting in the shade sounded a lot better than standing in the sun. My dress was light silk, but I was wearing tights and that was over my granny panties and ‘abdominal prosthesis’. A cool breeze was wafting gently up my skirt, but I was still in danger of overheating, and I wasn’t sure how far I could trust my feminine deodorant.

“I’m Maggie Tyler,” my new friend said as she led the way. “My husband is an independent councillor, which means he works very hard but will never be Mayor. That honour only ever goes to the most senior Tory.”

I introduced myself as we arrived at the table. The three other ladies, all beautifully turned out and of varying shapes and sizes, welcomed me to their company.

“I’m Ingrid Jones,” I said. “I’m only here as a ‘plus one’.”

“Aren’t we all, dear?” laughed a plump woman in a bright yellow dress with an elaborate hat.

There were introductions all round. The large lady was Beth. The others were Sue and Liz. I hoped I would remember all the names. I realised nervously that if there were any giveaways in my disguise, this group would surely sniff them out.

“I love your dress, by the way,” said Maggie. “Where did you get it?”

“Online, actually,” I admitted. There were incredulous looks all round. “It’s a site called MyOwnCouture.com. You can design your own dress, based on some simple patterns. Of course, I’m hopeless with computers. My son’s girlfriend found it and helped me.”

I had to describe the site and how it worked. They were fascinated. I just hoped my enthusiasm and description of the process didn’t sound out of character.

Then I had to get up and do a twirl. The other ladies were most impressed with the quality and fit of the dress. Beth and Sue came over to feel the material. As they poked and pawed me, I had to giggle girlishly with them, rather than grab them back and propose a threesome behind the mayor’s hedge, which might have been my preference. I could feel the pressure within my ‘abdominal prosthesis’ and fervently hoped the fabric was as robust as Fred claimed. As far as I could remember it had never been subjected to this particular test.

Eventually my new companions completed their rigorous inspection and returned to their seats, all promising to check out the website. I made myself comfortable and listened to their happy chatter. They were talking about their children, which was something we all had in common. It seemed I must be the oldest as my son was at university, while their kids were all still at school. I smiled and laughed with them but didn’t contribute much. I wasn’t confident of either my voice or my ability to make middle-aged lady conversation.

One thing I soon noticed: everyone asked a lot of questions, and not just of me, the newcomer. At first I thought they were just nosey, but I began to realise that was the key to feminine discourse. Men are always keen to tell you about themselves, which leads to macho willy-waving and competitions for bragging rights. We women (we women?) are much less obsessed with ourselves and more interested in our companions and their experiences. Or maybe it’s just competition in a different form. I had to describe my marital status and what I did for a living, but I managed to make both sound sufficiently boring that no one pressed me for details.

After a while, Liz, a skinny blonde in a slightly too fussy and frilly pale blue dress, turned to me and asked, “So do you know anybody else here then?”

“I think the only people I know are George and Harriet Bairstow,” I said, taking another sip of my wine, which was really good.

“Oh God, Harriet! Ee-yuck!” squealed Beth. She stopped with an audible hiccup and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh sorry, is she a friend of yours?”

“Not exactly, no,” I admitted with a smile. “I only know her from the Bridge Club. We’re more rivals than friends.”

Not that Harriet was in my mother’s class as a Bridge player.

“Good,” Liz said. “I can’t stand that stuck-up cow!”

There were approving nods all round.

“She gets invited to all these do’s because she was at school with Honoria,” said Sue. I must have looked blank. “The Mayoress,” she added.

“They deserve each other, if you ask me,” said Beth.

I looked over to the other side of the garden and, sure enough, Harriet was in earnest conversation with the Mayor and the Mayoress. I was glad to have found a way of avoiding her and settled down to get plastered with my little group of wives.

As the afternoon wore on, we took it in turns to go and replenish the wine glasses. I definitely kept up with the other girls. It looked like my impersonation of my mother was turning me into an oenophile. When it was my turn I took the opportunity to go to the Ladies first. This was a trailer, presumably hired for the event, and parked on hard-standing next to the patio. The entrance to the Ladies was at one end. The Gents was at the other.

Inside, the Ladies was surprisingly clean and tidy with three pristine cubicles, and washbasins with large mirrors for us to check our make-up. I found a vacant stall immediately and went in to relieve myself of three large glasses of white wine. I was used to peeing sitting down by now, with my dress hiked up to my waist and my tights and knickers round my ankles. The abdominal prosthesis allowed me to urinate through my faux vagina quite realistically, but it did take some serious mopping up. I must have used half a roll of toilet paper.

I pulled my panties and hose back up and remembered to check that I hadn’t trapped the back of my dress in my knickers. I flushed and stepped out of the stall. I went over to a basin, washed my hands, and repaired my lipstick in the mirror alongside two other ladies. I primped my hair and checked the angle of my hat. I had never felt more feminine – or sheepish.

As I came out, I bumped into Fred, who was just about to go into the Gents.

“Ah, there you are, Ingrid,” he said. “I hope you don’t think I’ve been neglecting you?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“I saw you’d found some friends. Are you… er… fitting in?”

I knew what he was driving at. He was concerned that a twenty-year-old male might be out of his depth with a group of raucous, half-cut, middle-aged women, even if he was dressed and made up to be indistinguishable from them. I pretended not to understand.

“Why wouldn’t I?” I said, mindful of people milling about us on the way in and out of the toilets. “I’m with a group of other ladies just like me.”

“Er… right… well… well done,” he stammered, and turned to the door of the Gents. “We can go whenever you’re ready,” he said. “Come and find me. I’m certainly not going to interrupt you with that little gang of yours. I’d be terrified.”

I laughed and made my way back to get another round of drinks in.

For the next hour or so the five of us settled in at our merry table in the shade. We talked of any and every subject of interest to middle-aged women. We were bosom friends by the time I had seen off my fourth glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and I reckoned the others were ahead of me. The conversation got progressively earthier. At first it was weddings and children, but soon sex and periods were coming up a lot. When I was called upon to relate my own horrible experiences I tried to improvise on the sex by putting myself in the place of Rachel and Annie, but I had to admit – shamefully – that I had never really had a problem with my periods. Their reaction was envy, that I had escaped a revolting experience, and sympathy, in that I was missing a juicy talking point.

Every now and then a guilty-looking husband would approach, clearly afraid he would be in the doghouse for neglecting his wife. At that point the conversation became utterly proper; the relevant wife made her husband well aware of her displeasure; and he was sent away with a flea in his ear. Shrieks of laughter invariably burst out before he was out of earshot and the conversation returned to Magnitude Eight on the Vulgarity scale.

I thoroughly enjoyed the company of Maggie, Liz, Sue and especially big fat Beth, who was a scream. I definitely had too much to drink. Late night boozing in the Students Union bar hadn’t prepared me for the amount of wine we ladies put away that afternoon. As the vino exerted its effect, my shy, monosyllabic contributions to the conversation gradually became longer and more frequent. I also found myself giggling helplessly at my fellow plus-size plus-ones’ anecdotes. I just hoped I was keeping my voice and laughter consistently within the female range.

When Fred eventually braved the lionesses’ den to drag me away, my handbag was stuffed with paper napkins bearing the girls’ contact details. I had no choice but to respond in kind, so I gave them the number of my smartphone. It was the same one I had used as Milly four years earlier and everyone teased me about its age. I would enter their names and numbers into it later, so that I would know who was calling and could answer in the appropriate voice. But I said that I was expecting to be away for a while on business, so they shouldn’t be surprised if they only got my voicemail. Liz said she would invite me into their WhatsApp group.

When it was finally time to go I had to lean heavily on Fred as I tottered across the lawn towards the little enclosure where the Mayor and Mayoress were entertaining their VIP guests. Fred spoke for us both in thanking them for the invitation and their hospitality. I stayed silent. Not least because the garden was starting to sway from side to side.

“We had a wonderful afternoon,” he said.

“We’re very glad you enjoyed it,” said the Mayor politely. He clearly had no clue who either of us was.

“I can see how much Ingrid enjoyed it,” said Harriet, who was standing next to her mate, Honoria.

I waved and smiled. My alcohol-induced happy state wasn’t going to be spoiled by Harriet’s snarkiness. We said our goodbyes. As we made our way to the car, I seemed to have forgotten most of what I had learned about walking in heels. I don’t think I would have made it without Fred to catch me whenever I stumbled, which was often.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this, ‘Ingrid’,” he chuckled. “I’ll have to get you plastered more often.”

“I hope I haven’t ruined my mother’s reputation,” I burbled, between hiccups.

“Don’t worry. She could do with loosening up a little. Anyway if Harriet or anybody else tries to talk about the afternoon with the other Ingrid, she can legitimately claim she doesn’t remember anything about it, and they’ll probably believe her!”

As Fred drove us home, I felt the beginnings of a hangover coming on. I desperately hoped I hadn’t given anything away during the drunken afternoon.

When we got back to the house we tried to sneak up to Fred’s rooms to avoid my mother, but she had seen the car and was quick to intercept us. She was furious when she saw the state I was in. She made us give a blow-by-blow account of the afternoon and was only slightly mollified when I explained that I had hardly any conversation with anyone she knew. She hit the roof again when I admitted to getting blotto with four other women. I hadn’t given any of them the real Ingrid’s contact details. I just hoped she would never bump into any of them round town.

God knows what she would say to Harriet if she tried to make fun of her for getting drunk at the Mayor’s Garden Party…

* * *

Annie and I had still been seeing a lot of each other (as it were) while I was Ingrid. She didn’t seem to mind going to bed with someone who looked like a middle-aged lady, as long as I could remove my abdominal prosthesis and she could access those parts of me she needed. If anything, my disguise got her even more excited, which was puzzling but very welcome. I wasn’t so keen on us going out together in public. I found it difficult to keep my hands – and lips – off my gorgeous girlfriend, but such affection would have seemed very odd when the world saw me as a tubby matron in a severe grey skirt suit, and she was calling me ‘Auntie’.

I was keen for the charade to be over, so I had Vera inspect my facial prosthetics every morning for signs of wear and tear. I was in two minds about them. On the one hand I was longing to go back to being me, but on the other, if they broke up and fell off too soon, I would only have to go through the whole experience again with an improved version. Every day they stubbornly refused to show any signs of disintegration. Finally, two and a half weeks after I first became my mother, I persuaded her that they were as robust as the body prosthetics.

“Does that mean I can go back to being me?” I asked her at morning coffee.

“I suppose so,” she said, “and I’ll have to start doing the client meetings again. Pity, I’ve appreciated the break.”

Actually, I had quite enjoyed being Ingrid McLaughlin, Transformations Consultant. I was always happiest practising my coding in the Bunker, but interviewing clients made a nice change. Still, being Steve again meant I could go out with Annie as myself.

So with my mother’s approval I rushed to Vera’s office to get her to remove all my Ingrid-parts with her miracle solvent. Naked except for the panties I had come in (which were now too big for me and were threatening to descend at any moment), I hurried up to the flat with my arms full of Ingrid’s clothes. I dumped all but the underwear in her room. My bra, panties and stockings went in the laundry basket.

I moved my stuff into my own room and dressed as Steve again for the first time in nearly three weeks. It felt weird not wearing a bra – indeed, not having huge heavy boobs on my chest and needing a bra. I struggled a little with my balance. Not wearing high heels made things easier but my slimmed down caboose still wanted to wiggle from side to side. My boy clothes seemed rough and uncomfortable. I hoped I wasn’t hooked on silky knickers and nylons.

Finally, I returned the rest of my mother’s clothes to her bedroom. I wondered about the beautiful outfit I had worn to the Garden Party. Would she donate it to the client wardrobe or keep it for herself? She had nothing like it, as far as I knew. Would seeing me make ‘a better her than her’ change her sartorial preferences?

I hurried off to find Annie. She was in her office, prodding at a cast of somebody’s head. Her hands were covered in clay, plenty of which transferred to me when she threw her arms round my neck and kissed me.

“It’s great to see you back,” she said when she came up for air. “So where are you taking me this Saturday?”

Before I could answer my mother put her head round the door.

“I thought I saw you bound in here,” she said. “I just wanted to say that I’ll be away this weekend. Dolly and I are playing in the qualifying heat of the County Ladies’ Pairs. It’s up in Peterborough this year so we’re staying in the hotel on Saturday night, as the journey is so tiring.”

She meant that Dolly always fell asleep during an hour and a half in the car, and didn’t wake up till half-way through the first Bridge session, having made half a dozen horrible mistakes. They had yet to make the cut for the Final after several attempts.

What luck – Steve’s first weekend back and we would have the flat to ourselves for two whole days! We had a great time, just being a normal boy and his girlfriend, rather than a reluctant female impersonator and his/her enthusiastic groupie.

There was just one odd incident: for some reason I couldn’t find any of my pyjamas. I know I had at least two clean pairs in my chest of drawers. I would have been quite happy sleeping in the nude but Annie insisted I wear one of my mother’s nighties which was still in the laundry basket. In one sense that felt wrong, but in another it felt delicious!

* * *

To crown a great weekend for us all, my mother got back on Sunday evening to announce that she and Dolly had got through to the elite County Ladies’ Pairs Final for the first time ever! They even finished in the prizes of the qualifying session, and my mother proved it by banging two bottles of decent French wine down on the dining room table. I was happy about that because it meant that Annie and I could look forward to having the flat to ourselves again three weeks later, when Mum and Dolly would be playing in the Final.

She had called Fred on the way back with the good news and he brought a bottle of bubbly round to celebrate. With five of us that went quickly, Dolly guzzling two glasses in double-quick time. I was opening a second bottle from our cellar when my mother suddenly pulled a sour face, inappropriate for the celebrations. I asked her what was the matter.

“Harriet Bairstow qualified as well,” she said. “By the way, I had to put up with a lot of rude remarks about me getting drunk at the Garden Party.”

“I didn’t think she was good enough,” I said, trying to get her back to the Bridge. “Has she really improved that much in the last four years?”

Dolly snorted.

“No, but she has started paying people to play with her. She’d persuaded some American expert to play with her in the Ladies’ Pairs Qualifying.”

“Is that allowed?” Annie asked.

“Sadly, yes,” said Fred, “and it’s getting more and more common in county and regional congresses. There always seem to be a few wealthy no-hopers paying an expert to play with them.”

“In fact, many international teams are put together by sponsors,” said my mother. “It’s how a rich person gets to be a World Champion. They field a team of six. At any time there will be two pairs playing and one resting; five world-class pros and a rich palooka, who pays their wages and expenses, and bonuses if the team does well.”

“The sponsor has to play a certain percentage of the hands to be designated a World Champion if his team wins,” added Fred. “His professional partner does his best to limit the damage when the boss is playing, and the other four try to recover the deficit when he’s sitting out. So Harriet has started doing the same. I think she’s hoping to sponsor a team and play for England one day, but to do that she has to get some good results in local and regional events.”

“Why, if she’s paying her partners and team-mates?” I asked.

“There aren’t that many good ‘hired guns’ around,” said Fred. “So they can pick and choose, and they’ll only work for a sponsor if they think they have a hope of winning things with her.”

I got the second bottle open and we didn’t let the iniquity and unfairness of Harriet trying to buy herself a place in the England Women’s team spoil our evening.

* * *

The next few days were the best of my life; I had found the woman with whom I would spend the rest of my life.

It was early August. It was holiday time and our client workload was light. The weather was perfect. My mother decided, with a show of reluctance, that she could do without us for a few days, so Annie and I went off to Newquay where I tried to teach her to surf. She was a good swimmer, and had as much fun falling off her board as she had trying to ride it, but in the end I had to admit defeat and we spent half my bonus money on some proper lessons for her. She soon un-learned what I had tried to teach her, and the excellent coach managed to undo all the damage I had done to her confidence.

We stayed in a snug little ‘B and B’, ate fish and chips, drank scrumpy cider, and were as happy as if it had been the best hotel on the Cote d’Azur.

We returned, with regret, during the evening of the second Sunday in August. Annie went back to her grandmother’s house to make sure the old lady was all right.

* * *

In the middle of the next week, back at work, we were having our morning coffee. Dolly was telling us how much she was looking forward to the Final of the County Ladies’ Pairs the weekend after next, when she suddenly turned pale. She dropped the cup she was pouring and clutched her chest. Then she collapsed slowly onto the olive-green carpet.

We rushed to help. I tried to lift her up.

“You shouldn’t move her, should you?” Annie squealed in obvious panic.

“I’m pretty sure that’s only if she might have a spinal injury,” I said.

“That’s right,” said my mother. “We need to get her feet higher than her head. Help Steven get her onto the couch, Fred.”

Between the two of us, we managed to get poor Dolly onto the couch and laid her out flat, with her feet sticking up over the arm at the end. She was already starting to come round.

“Just stay still, Dolly,” said my mother. She had taken out her mobile phone and was dialling.

“I’m all right,” Dolly was saying, struggling to get up. “Pills… bag….”

I pushed her down gently. Annie rushed to get her Granny’s handbag and rifled through it, finding a small brown pill bottle.

“Give her two,” said Mum, over her shoulder.

I grabbed a coffee cup and filled it with water. Annie helped Dolly take her pills. Mum was talking into her phone now.

“Just lie nice and still for a moment or two, Dolly,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Yes… yes… I understand,” my mother said into the phone. She turned to Dolly. “Steven and I will take you over to the hospital at Lea,” she said. “No arguments now.”

Mum had generously arranged private medical insurance for all the staff. The local NHS practices were overstretched and never objected to their patients going directly to private clinics, for check-ups or minor ops, as long as they were kept fully informed. The Lea was the nearest private hospital to the house.

I expected Dolly to object but she nodded quietly. Annie sat down beside her and took her hand.

“They’re expecting us as soon as we like,” said my mother. “They’ll notify her family GP and get access to her notes. We’ll take the van. Do you want to come too, Annie dear? You can sit in the back with your grandmother.”

Annie nodded. She’d have to be there sometime today anyway. As Dolly’s next of kin, there would be forms to sign, and so on. Also the doctors shouldn’t be telling Mum and me anything without either Dolly’s or Annie’s permission.

* * *

By the time we got to the hospital, Dolly was insisting it was all a fuss over nothing and she should be back at the house. She had been planning to clean out the ovens in the main kitchen that afternoon. They were a disgrace, apparently. Eventually she was persuaded that since we had come all this way (a twenty-minute drive), she might as well have a quick check-up.

She was soon transferred to a stretcher trolley, and we waited with her while my mother filled out the various inevitable insurance forms and handed over her credit card details. Dolly confirmed that the heart pills were the only medication she took regularly, and that she wasn’t diabetic or allergic to penicillin. She remonstrated with us for wasting money and everyone’s time. Annie seemed to be far more worried and upset, and I did my best to keep her calm.

As promised, a consultant cardiologist, Mr Waheed, was available within minutes of our arrival. He seemed very kind and reassuring and he soon took Dolly off into a consulting room. The receptionist invited the three of us to help ourselves to coffee and cookies in the family waiting area. To keep Annie’s mind off her grandmother’s condition, we set about the crossword in one of the broadsheet papers. After struggling with the compiler’s warped mind for several minutes without success, a thought occurred to me.

“Why is she being examined by a cardiologist, Mum?” I asked. “And how did you know about the pills?”

My mother looked a little shifty.

“She has some… history,” she said. “She didn’t want me to tell anyone, so that you didn’t worry about her. But I suppose it will all come out now anyway.”

“Granny has heart trouble?” Annie said in a panicky voice.

“Well, yes,” admitted my mother. “She collapsed with chest pain and nausea once before. About eighteen months ago, it was. Her doctor diagnosed mild ‘stable angina’ and gave her the pills. That’s when she finally gave up smoking. As far as I know she hasn’t had any episodes since, but they said she should take it a bit easier. She insisted that she carry on working for us, but that was one reason why I hired the additional cleaning staff – to reduce Dolly’s workload. Anyway, the doctor said she should have an annual check-up and call the surgery immediately if she had any more symptoms.”

We all fell silent. Annie was looking very worried. Her lower lip trembled almost imperceptibly.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” my mother said, taking her hand. “People can live a perfectly normal life with what Dolly has. She just has to keep taking the medication and be careful not to overdo it.”

Annie tried a little smile, almost successfully.

About half an hour after he disappeared with Dolly, Waheed reappeared. A quiet woman in white nurse’s scrubs hovered discreetly behind him. He addressed Annie, as next of kin.

“I’m pleased to say that your grandmother is feeling much better. I’m satisfied that this little… episode is behind her now...”

Annie gave an audible sigh of relief and began to thank the doctor. I sensed there was a ‘but’ coming.

“…but I’d like to keep her in for twenty-four hours for observation, and I think we should run some tests. I would recommend an angiogram.”

We all looked blank, so he went on to explain.

“We use X-ray imaging to examine the heart’s blood vessels to see if there are any restrictions in blood flow. We inject a dye into the femoral artery. It shows up in X-rays as it flows through into the heart. Then the machine takes a series of images of the blood vessels.”

“So what happens if you do find a blockage?”

“We may be able to open a clogged artery during the same procedure. We push a tiny balloon along the blocked artery to stretch it open. We would probably also insert a short wire-mesh tube called a stent. That would be left in place permanently to allow blood to flow more freely.”

“It all sounds terrifying!” said Annie.

“Well, it’s a fairly common procedure nowadays. I agree that it is quite invasive, and it’s not totally risk-free. Complications are rare, though.” He checked Dolly’s notes that her GP practice had sent over. “But I see your grandmother had all the non-invasive tests they could give her eighteen months ago – electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, stress test – and they were largely inconclusive. Her doctor gave her the medication but decided not to go any further then, given her age, but to wait and see. I would have done the same.”

“Is it all really necessary now?” asked my mother, in her headmistress voice.

“I think so, I’m afraid.” Waheed was unfazed. Headmistresses didn’t frighten him. “My examination this afternoon suggests that her heart is noticeably weaker than before. We really need to do something about that before it gets any worse.”

“So when will you do it?” asked Annie in a small, sad voice.

“We should leave at least twelve hours after her most recent meal. Can you tell me when she last ate?”

“We had breakfast together this morning,” said Annie. “We finished at about eight o’clock. She probably had a couple of biscuits and a cup of tea around half-past ten – just before she felt ill.”

Waheed checked his watch.

“We’d probably better leave it till first thing tomorrow morning then,” he said. He looked around for the nurse, who appeared at his elbow as if by magic. “Can you find her a bed, please Sharmila, and get her checked in? She might as well have a late lunch now, and a sandwich at tea-time, but no breakfast tomorrow.”

The nurse disappeared to do his bidding.

“If you’d like to come with me, I’ll take you to her,” he said.

We spent half an hour or so with Dolly in the examining room until the porters came for her. The doctor recommended we leave her to get settled in. We could come back at normal visiting hours that evening. Understandably she was far from her usual cheery self, but she accepted that she was in the best place for her condition and that things might have been a lot worse.

* * *

They did the angiogram at eight o’clock the following morning. It involved opening the femoral artery so that the dye could travel up into her heart. Afterwards, to close up the wound, a beefy nurse had to press down on it with all her weight for several minutes until the blood clotted and scabbed. Then Dolly had to lie flat for several hours to avoid reopening the cut. For that reason we weren’t encouraged to come and see her until after lunch.

Dr Waheed intercepted the three of us outside Dolly’s private room before we went in to see her. That suggested bad news was coming, and it was.

“I’m afraid the angiogram revealed several blockages in her coronary arteries. A couple of them are well over fifty per cent blocked, and the artery walls are in poor condition. All that means that her case is not suitable for an angioplasty. We can’t be sure until we can examine the heart directly, but we will probably need to graft a new artery to replace each damaged one. For that the only option is a bypass. This is quite a serious operation, but without it she is at high risk of a heart attack at any time. I’m very sorry.”

There was a lot more technical language (including horrendous phrases like ‘coronary artery bypass surgery’ and ‘median sternotomy procedure’, which I intended to look up afterwards), but the bottom line was that Dolly was going to have a serious operation with a substantial risk. Also to get to her heart the surgeon would have to crack her sternum down its length. So obviously she would need a long period of convalescence, for much of which she would be bedbound.

“There is a further complication, I’m afraid,” Waheed continued. “Mrs Thompson hasn’t consented to the operation yet. I got the impression she wasn’t actually afraid of the procedure, but she says she won’t put you to the expense. I’m not sure what the financial situation is. Perhaps you should talk to her?”

“I certainly will!” said my mother in a determined voice.

The headmistress was back and girding her loins. She was about to storm in, when she stopped and turned to Annie and me.

“Just give me a minute alone with her, would you?” she said. “By the way, Annie, I assume you do want your grandmother to have this operation?”

Annie nodded vigorously. “It sounds awful, but you have to trust the doctors, don’t you? They’re the experts, and if they’re saying she could die without it...” She was on the verge of tears. “Maybe I’m being selfish, but I’m not ready to say goodbye to her.”

The tears arrived. I held her tight. My mother nodded and pushed open the door.

* * *

Between Annie’s tearful pleading and my mother’s stern insistence that all the costs would be covered by the company insurance scheme (not completely true – there was a substantial ‘excess’), Dolly capitulated. The operation was scheduled for the following day – a great benefit of having private medical insurance, but it also showed how serious the Consultant judged Dolly’s condition to be. We left Annie to spend the rest of the day at her bedside.

I returned at the end of visiting time. I felt Annie shouldn’t be alone and insisted on taking her back to our flat. She didn’t object, blubbing softly on my shoulder as I drove us home.

We had a takeaway dinner with Fred and my mother. We opened one of the bottles of Merlot she and Dolly had won at the County Ladies’ Pairs Qualifying, but it was a much less cheerful evening than the last time we were all together – the night after their great triumph.

“That reminds me,” said Annie to my mother, as we were sitting down to eat. “I think what has upset Granny most was letting you down. You won’t be able to play in the Final, after all these years of trying.”

“Oh you must tell her not to worry about that.”

“It was all she talked about,” Annie continued. “She asked me to remind you to let the organisers know so they can contact the reserve pair.”

“Yes, of course.” My mother was looking thoughtful. “It’s not till next weekend though, is it? There’s no hurry.”

“I suppose not, but there’s no doubt about it, is there?” Annie persisted. “She won’t be able to play. Even if the operation is a total success, she’ll be bedridden with her chest wired and heavily bound up until her breastbone mends. Then she’ll need physio. Recovery will be at least four weeks; at her age probably more like six. She might be able to get out of bed after a fortnight, but she won’t be able to move much.”

“No, no, I understand,” said my mother, “but we might be able to make alternative arrangements.”

“Yes, maybe she could play online from her bed,” I suggested. “She’d need a tablet PC with the right app. The other three players could play as usual and an official could enter the bids and plays which would then appear on her screen…”

I tailed off. A lot of people now played Bridge online and I had got excited with the technical possibilities, but I couldn’t imagine the old fogeys of the County Bridge association going for anything like that. Easier just to drop her and Mum from the competition.

“That, might work, yes,” said Mum dubiously.

I wondered what else she could be thinking of.

“I’ll talk to Dolly as soon as she’s out of surgery and allowed visitors,” she said. “In the meantime, would everyone please keep her illness a secret? No need even to say she’s in hospital for the moment. She won’t want to see anyone apart from us anyway, will she?”

We all agreed, though none of us could work out what she had in mind…

* * *

It was actually two days after Dolly’s operation before we were allowed in to see her. Dr Waheed met with us first.

“I’m glad to say that the operation was a success,” he began.

Annie let out a sigh of relief, but my mother and I could tell from his demeanour that there was more to come.

“As I think I mentioned, the angiogram couldn’t tell us everything. The full extent of the damage to the coronary arteries often isn’t apparent until we have direct access to the heart. Unfortunately in Mrs Thompson’s case, the damage was more severe than we had hoped. She was a heavy smoker for most of her life, I believe?”

We confirmed his understanding. I didn’t like his use of the past tense.

“So we had quite a lot of repair work to do. This has left her very weak, I’m afraid.” He obviously noticed Annie’s downhearted expression and hurried on. “I’m optimistic that she can make a full recovery – that will depend on how well the grafts ‘take’ – but it will be a long, slow process.”

Annie went in to see her alone first while Mum and I sat in the waiting room with the excellent coffee and cookies – another benefit of ‘going private’. After about twenty minutes Annie came out.

“You wanted a word with her alone, Ingrid?” she said.

“Yes, thank you, dear. I’ll only be a moment.”

My mother went into the private room. Annie came and sat with me. I could see she was fighting her tears.

“She looks ten years older,” she said sadly. “She could hardly speak.”

“Anyone would struggle after what she’s been through,” I said. “She’ll be back to her old self in a month or two – better, in fact. Don’t forget she’s been managing on half a heart for a while now. She’ll be fitter than ever when she’s back on her feet.”

Annie looked at me with genuine hope in her eyes.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” she said. She smiled. It was like the sun coming out after a week of rain. “I love… your optimism.”

“Careful. You nearly said those three forbidden words.”

She laughed and moved in for a hug. Nothing more was said until my mother came bustling out.

“It’s all settled,” she said briskly. “Come on.”

Before we could ask what was settled, she was dragging us into Dolly’s private room. Although well prepared I was shocked at how ill she looked. I forced a smile onto my face and drew in a breath to say how well she looked.

“Dolly has something she wants to ask you, Steven,” my mother said, before I could speak.

“Yes,” she rasped, her voice softer and hoarser than ever. “I’d be very grateful if you would take my place and win the County Ladies’ Pairs with your mother.”

I said I’d think about it.