Breakfast was more than a little awkward, Jules sneaking little glances at me before ducking her head whenever I caught her gaze. I assumed it was a mixture of smugness and shame, like that song about him knowing that she knew that he knew and so on. The two of them had shared some intimate moments, occasionally with most of the county from what I’d heard prior to inserting my little foam plugs, and she knew that I did, indeed, know. In an instant, my traitor mind came up with ‘Not so much kiss and tell as shag and scream’, but I think I managed to hide the smirk, and to be sure, I covered it with words.

“You working today, Jules?”

“Got a couple of gardens in Smallfield. Nothing big; just a mow and a hedge trim”

“Brian?”

He jerked awake, poor dear.

“Oh, two viewings, but not till eleven thirty, for the first one. I could run you into Horley, if you want”

“That would be sweet. Thank you. Metrobus is a bit shit, to be honest”

He nodded, a quirk to his lips emphasising his agreement. I decided to push things.

“When… Suky?”

“Suky, yes. Susan Karen”

“Bloody stupid name. Like Suella. Anyway, just a guess? Car as well as house? Why you know the bus schedules so well?”

He just nodded, and my hatred for someone I had never met ramped up another notch.

“Cow, but we’ve already established that. At least, at bloody last, rather, you’re seeing someone sensible. Jules is not a car person”

“I drive a van, Gem”

“Yes, Jules, because towing the hounds with a bike would look silly, like a canine starry-gazey pie”

That brought a little snort of laughter from her man, as I was trying to think of him, so not wasted.

“Brian, yes, a lift would be great, assuming that Miss Unmotorised here is fine with the ride over to Smallfield”

“It’s how I travel, Gem”

“And if god had intended that, he would never have created Carl Benz. Thanks, Bri, a lift would be great. Got a shitload of marking to do. Soonest started, et cetera”

A fun aspect of teaching is that the work extends well beyond ‘school hours’. Joy, most definitely deep.

The ride home was a little tense, probably because we each had so much we needed to say, but couldn’t. We did arrange a provisional date for the meat cremation session, but apart from a couple of weak probes about my identity, that was it. I suppose his manly inquisitiveness was a little handicapped following repeated overnight deliveries to Jules, but never mind, and no, no, not at all envious, not me. Both Saturday and Sunday drifted past without a message from Jules, before Monday was on me. That was one of my sixth form days, when I got to teach Proper Physics to students who actually wanted to learn. I was on my lunch break between two sessions on gravity and both sorts of relativity when my mobile went. Oh: my head teacher in the Comp.

“Hello?”

“Gemma! How is it going in the lab today?”

“Not in the lab, Ryan. It’s purely book and brain work today. Introducing them to relativity”

“My head hurts already. Would you be able to drop in here one you’re done there?”

“Anything I should know?”

He paused for a moment, before sighing and dropping the bomb.

“Yes, I believe so. We have a complaint from a parent”

“Oh deep, deep joy. Substantiated?”

“I can’t say, but I do believe it may come down to optics. Do you have a likely ETA?”

“Probably about four, I’m afraid”

“Don’t be. I will have cake, and not from the Domestic Science class”

We both hung up, and I was left trying to work out what I had done. Even as an adult, a ‘See me’ from one’s head drives an immediate surge of guilt, whatever the circumstances. I don’t think I was that convincing when I tried to get the concepts of ‘τ’, and its linked factors of length, mass and time, across to a small group of seventeen year olds.

Onto the bus, and down to the Comp, but at least I didn’t have to do the ‘stand and wait’ at the Head’s office, as I had called him as I entered. The promised cake turned out to be from Waitrose, so most definitely a step up from Friday’s offering. I took the hint and his mug, and made a couple of brews in the staffroom before taking one of the two ‘comfy chairs’, once again thinking of the Spanish Inquisition. Ryan passed me a sheet of lined paper, clearly torn from a spiral-bound notepad.

“Have a read, Gemma”

I ignored that advice, and went straight to the signature: Mrs H McBride.

Oh for fuck’s sake. I started again, this time at the beginning. Once more, OFFS. I read it through twice more, just in case some subtle nuance had escaped me. As there was no nuance anywhere, subtle or otherwise, I was wasting my time. And the spelling was individual.

In summary, I was conspiring to groom her children into being perverts by packing the Mysterons with trannies. And Mohammeds: why had we invited two Mohammeds?

“How many trans people were in the group, Gemma?”

A little wobble on breaching confidence, and then I gave him the honest answer, the one he already knew.

“Three, Ryan. Out of eight. Bit disproportionate, but I did it in a hurry”

“That is not what she says, in person”

“Sorry?”

“She rang up to confirm I’d received her letter”

“And?”

“Hazel told me who was calling, so I switched the recorder on before answering. She’s a charmer. How do you know her?”

“Ah, year below me at school. This school”

“Right… here’s the call”

He set the recorder playing, and it was even worse than the letter. In essence, an event that should have included role models reflecting British society and values had featured two Muslimics, four trannies and two fairies, and could and should have included people like her and her husband, and what was we gonna do about it coz the papers would be interested, and that Mister Cabbage, et cetera.

“Hannah hasn’t changed, then. Apart from in her dress size. Strategy?”

“I have some ideas, but one thing I am going to do is seek legal advice, obviously. This letter, with the phone call, is well into ‘inciting hatred’ territory”

I sipped my tea for a while, as I thought things through.

“Want me to give Annie a ring? She may have a good steer on that one, given what the press tried to do to her when she came out. Or would you prefer to do so?”

He shook his head.

“Better coming from you, Gem. And would you mind doing a round of calls, give all our Mysterons a heads-up?”

“Absolutely”

“I already have some ideas, but will await what you might find for us. One thing I will promise is that this isn’t going to be a damage limitation exercise, but a fight back. Let’s keep each other posted. Sorry to keep you here after hours, but I thought this one needed an immediate response, or at least a strategy chat”

Once I was behind my own front door, I started sending out texts to my crew of mysterious strangers, the first to respond being Mo Khan.

‘Fucking racist bitch! I know who to leave at the scene next time’

I also got two separate phone calls in quick order, and both of them offered almost exactly the same solution. How curious.

I didn’t see the Happy Couple for a week, of course, as they were off camping with intent and I was preparing for the Summer break, which actually has a lot of associated work that goes unseen by outsiders, such as preparing the next academic year’s class list for the new intake. And there was a barbecue.

If Hannah-the-slut thought the Mysterons had been a little OTT on the trans front, the barbie day turned that knob to twelve. All of our Mysterons were there, plus their families, along with a lesbian family from Brighton, and the Woodruffs, as well as a few of Brian’s colleagues and their own spouses and offspring. The weather was amazing, and when I pointed out to Caroline and Annie that they had essentially given me the same suggestion, both Steph Woodruff and Cheryl, Brian’s boss, burst out laughing.

I had dressed up the complaint as largely racist, out of respect for confidence and privacy, but the answer was growing.

“Let me see if we are on the same page here. Caroline: you have a sort of contact with the Guardian, that right?”

A nod and a grin.

“And Steph? You still have contacts with the BBC?”

Her own smile was disturbingly toothy.

“Not just me, Gemma. Simon has his own links, through the Music Day stuff”

“Right… and Cheryl: local papers?”

“It’s where we advertise, love”

“Okayyyyyyy…and Annie: your friend in Wales?”

“Her sort of sister, aye? Her other half is actually a stringer for the Grauniad. I think he will be very receptive to the idea. I just need to get some proper advice on what we can legally include”

Caroline’s bloke was looking a little lost.

“Surely, if we each give our permission to the newspaper people, then there should be no difficulties?”

Annie was shaking her head, as her husband chuckled in understanding.

“Pablo, it’s not what we are willing to have published about us, it’s what we can say about—that name again, Gemma?”

Juliet answered for me.

“Hannah-the-slut. Hannah McBride”

“Thanks, Jules. Gem, I am not just thinking of a puff piece on each of us, me and my gong and stuff, but a full-on ‘we still have dinosaurs in this country’ attack. Anyone got any really unflattering pictures of her?”

Brian laughed at that one.

“I still have an old class photo, and she’s in that, but Jules? How does she get the brats to and from school?”

I knew that one.

“She walks the younger two, Bri. Eldest has a different approach to the concept of compulsory attendance”

“Right. Who does your security cameras?”

Steph’s turn to smirk.

“Please, Miss! I know! And I live next door to them”

I do love it when a plan starts to come together. We agreed a rough agenda, and I headed off to the kitchen for another cold one and some more vegetable shishkebabs, which were amazingly popular that afternoon. One of Brian’s colleagues, a bulky man called Norm, was preparing some lamb chops, and we exchanged the obligatory smile and nod as I opened the fridge.

“Gemma, isn’t it?”

“Yes”

“Ta. Norman. Norm. Missed a lot of the intros; got here late”

“I don’t think we’re in danger of famine, especially the size of cool bag you have there”

“Ha! Lot of me to feed, as you can see. How do you know Brian?”

“I’m a friend of Juliet. And I was at school with him”

“So was I. Don’t remember you, though”

Shit.

“Different year. Then I went off to Portsmouth for university”

“Yeah. I was the year above his. Juliet’s…”

He paused for a few minutes, before looking me directly in the eyes.

“It really suits her, Gemma. I heard, obviously, about her. Hannah-the-harlot’s been spreading it all through the town. How is Juliet handling the crap?”

“How do you see her, Norm?”

“Honestly? She seems happy, and Brian bloody well is. I warned him off that bunny boiler from the airport, but would he listen? Anyway, he’s almost singing in the office. Bit of Young Lurve brightens the work experience… Ah”

He put down the lamb and turned to face me rather than the worktop.

“Been a bloody long time, and Juliet’s not the only one who’s changed, is she? It’s… I don’t want to be rude, and I am told that using a former name is about the rudest thing I can do”

Oh sodding hell. Most of the kids seemed to have worked me out, if not down to my actual deadname. Why should adults be any different?

“What name are you remembering, Norm?”

“Danny. Danny Soames”

My afternoon started to crash and burn, and he noticed, stepping forward and hugging me in that dirty-hands-in-the-air way.

“No, Gemma. If Brian can manage, so can other people. Wipe your eyes, then go and put those skewers on to cook, and come back for this lamb? I have some other stuff to prepare2

As I left the kitchen, he called out again.

“Oh, I think I’ve worked out why you chose your surname. Bring a smile back, please”