…Oh, do you mean my being a lesbian," said Amarjit, smiling as she finally understood what her Mother had been trying to say. She winked at me before replying, "don't worry, Celyn likes boys." "Not all the time, as you know." I whispered in Amarjit's ear as we made our way up the stairs… The Price To Pay - 5.02 - Refuge? by Alys (with help from Gabi)

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Vol. 5.02
 

"How could he say it, Amarjit?” I asked angrily, “How could he say he wants a real girl? Especially after what he said about me when I was attacked on LGBT day."

My best friend, sitting at the other side of our table in Paddington Station Starbucks, took another sip of her coffee before replying, "I don't think he meant it the way you thought."

"I can't think of any other way he could have meant it," I responded, before I took another gulp of my hot chocolate.

I almost immediately regretted taking such a large mouthful as my throat was almost scalded by the hot sticky liquid.

Amarjit took her wooden stirrer and slowly mixed the extra white froth on top of the cup into the rest of the dark brownness of her drink as she considered her reply.

It was an hour after my train had pulled into the west London railway station. For the first half hour, after meeting Amarjit on the platform, I'd cried on her shoulder as the emotional trauma of the day was relieved by her loving embrace and her sweet caresses. Eventually I'd recovered enough for us to make our way towards the enormous coffee franchise and some chocolate therapy. I took my own stirrer and briskly turned the drink to mix the thicker sludge at the bottom of the cup with the rest of the drink while cooling it a little quicker.

"Listen, Celyn, I told you I spoke to Meryl this afternoon," Amarjit began, a little hesitantly.

"And?" I questioned.

"Well, she described the conversation she'd had with Siá´n before they bumped into you," she answered.

"What did she say about it?" I asked.

Amarjit paused to take a sip of her drink before setting it down carefully and looking at me, "She said that Siá´n was still in love with you but is finding his feelings for you conflicted."

I felt my head beginning to spin, "What do you mean 'still in love with me'? He has a funny way of showing it!"

Amarjit put her hand on my arm and squeezed it gently, "Don't get angry, my sweet, let me just tell you what Meryl said and then you'll understand I hope."

I put my other hand on top of hers, returned her gaze and nodded my head in response.

Amarjit paused to take a sip of her drink, "Meryl said Siá´n told her he has felt so conflicted since you two started your relationship."

"In what way?" I asked.

"He told Meryl that before he knew about your gender change he had considered you his best friend, you did so much together, the football, cricket, cycling and all the other sports," she explained.

"It was the same for me, Amarjit, and that's what made it so hard to hide the effects of the hormones. We spent so much time together, I was amazed he didn't notice the changes to my body, but I guess you never see what you don't expect to," I responded.

"Yes of course, which is why it was such a shock when you came out to him, even though you described it as a complete accident," she continued, "and then suddenly he had all these new feelings for you. He told Meryl it was like being on a runaway train and he feels like he sort of fell off...."

There was something in Amarjit's report of my ex-boyfriend's feelings that sounded too much like self justification for the hurt he had caused me. I abruptly pulled my hand away before interrupting, "I've heard enough, Amarjit! I've come to London to get away from him and I don't need to hear anything else about his excuses for his behaviour!"

"Oh, OK, sorry," she responded.

I finished the last of my drink and then stood up, "Come on, you said you were going to show me the sights to take my mind off Cwm Wysg."

Amarjit stood up and stepped towards me from the other side of the table, "OK, sweetie, let's go and I'll show you the wonders of Southall."

I picked up my rucksack and then arm in arm we walked towards the ticket office. I quickly paid for a single to Southall and then we crossed to the platform for the 'Heathrow Connect train'. Within ten minutes the train quickly pulled out of the refurbished Victorian architectural splendour of Paddington station on its way to Heathrow airport stopping at Southall on the way.

Fifteen minutes later we were walking up the flights of steps from the platform to the station exit. As we stepped on the main road I turned to look at the small Victorian structure and noticed a strange script underneath the sign 'Southall',

"What's that?" I asked Amarjit while pointing at the bilingual sign.

"It's Southall in Punjabi'" she replied, "I think it's one of the few stations in England with a bilingual sign so that makes me glad that my little corner of the world is a bit like your Wales."

"Oh, yes of course, I'm so used to seeing everything in English and Welsh at the station that it was strange earlier on to get off at Paddington and realise that everything is in one language."

Somehow the coincidence of the bilingual train station signs brought home to me the difference between my home town and Amarjit's suburb. I looked around at the unfamiliar urban environment and suddenly felt relieved to be finally away from any link with the madness associated with my life in Wales at present.

I put my arm through hers, "I think I'm going to like it here, which way now?"

She turned and smiled at me and then led me along the pavement in the direction of a cluster of thirties' brick semi-detached houses, "It's not far, just over there."

My relief and improved mood were accentuated a few minutes later with my warm reception from Mr and Mrs Patel and the squeals of enthusiasm from Sathia and Nish, Amarjit's 10-year-old twin brothers, who had to be dissuaded from dragging me out into the garden for some football practice within seconds of my arrival. We had arrived just in time for the evening meal and soon it felt as relaxed and happy as I had with Amarjit's family during our holiday in Cyprus in the summer. Thoughts of bigoted football administrators were banished from my mind for the first time this long and arduous day.

About an hour later, with my tummy full of delicious Indian food, I pleaded my exhaustion and asked to be excused to go to bed even though it was only just after eight in the evening. Amarjit said she'd join me. I was glad for the chance to spend more time in the comfort of her arms and I knew she also wanted to avoid an interrogation about my real reasons for arriving so abruptly at the family house. It was obvious that the Patels suspected there was rather more than a wish to spend a few days in London behind my sudden trip from Wales.

"Are you two girls going to be OK sharing a room now?" asked Mrs Patel as we made our way towards the stairs.

"What do you mean, Mum?" asked Amarjit with a note of puzzlement in her voice.

"You know, with you being how you are," explained Mrs Patel awkwardly.

"I don't understand––what are you talking about? Me being who I am? Oh, do you mean my being a lesbian," said Amarjit, smiling as she finally understood what her Mother had been trying to say. She winked at me before replying, "don't worry, Celyn likes boys."

"Not all the time, as you know." I whispered in Amarjit's ear as we made our way up the stairs while she discreetly caressed my arm.

"Bye Mr Patel, and thanks for the lift," I said as I got out of the car, just after eight in the morning three days after arriving in London.

Initially I had wanted to hide in Amarjit's place fearing that the English press would pick up on the story in the Western Mail and there would be a storm of 'Tranny Footballer' headlines. However after carefully checking the newspapers in Southall library the next two mornings I had been greatly relieved to see that the story had not spread. Regular internet searches had also showed that the original headline had not been copied or repeated.

My parents had had a number of enquires from local newspapers, TV and radio requesting interviews and photoshoots which they had all refused of course without disclosing my whereabouts. I had discussed my educational options with them, and it had become clear there was no realistic chance of returning to school without the media becoming aware of my presence back in Wales and harassing me. I had been in a quandry not wanting to waste any more valuable time in my sixth form course.

In the end Mr Patel, having come to understand that I had some problem in Cwm Wysg*, who had suggested an interim solution of going to school with Amarjit.

“See you later, Dad,” Amarjit said, following me on to the busy pavement outside Blair Peach Community School.

“Bye, girls, have a good day,” Mr Patel called out before easing the car back into the busy traffic on Beaconsfield Road.

I stood next to the gate and gazed at the throng of pupils pouring into the school grounds. I smoothed down my short black skirt, wishing I'd had a longer one to wear, and zipped up my fleece to conceal my much too revealing blouse. I was beginning to regret my decision to try and appear as feminine as possible as I noticed the more practical clothes choices of the majority.

"OK, you ready for your adventure, Celyn?" asked Amarjit as she joined arms with me and began to nudge me towards the gate.

I resisted her movement, "I'm not sure if I can do this, Amarjit."

"Course you can, it's only going to school," reassured my friend.

"But look, everyone's wearing trousers; I'm going to look stupid," I protested, "I think I should have stayed in your house, maybe I should go back to Wales."

Amarjit turned towards me and took my face in her hands, "don't be silly Celyn, you look great, as you know you do, and you won't be the only sixth former in a skirt. Also remember what you said about getting time away from all the crazy stuff in Cwm Wysg."

"Yes, but I don't want to really stand out or anything," I feebly protested.

"If you've got it, flaunt it, Celyn. Come on I've been waiting all week to introduce my hot Welsh friend to everyone," Amarjit responded before discreetly squeezing my bum and then dragging me after her through the gates.

A few minutes later after wandering along crowded unfamiliar corridors, that were otherwise so reminiscent of my former school, we reached a desk with a big 'reception' sign above it.

Behind the desk, two middle aged women were extremely busy dealing with a stream of enquiries and accepting letters and notes for various activities. After a little while the crowd around the reception had thinned out and there was a space for Amarjit to lean over and ask, “Excuse me, my friend’s new today, have you got her timetable?”

"One minute, dear," smiled the woman in a thick red cardigan from behind the desk before she turned back to the boy, whom I judged to be probably in year 7 or 8**, who was having trouble counting out his dinner*** ticket money.

"I'm sure it's all there Miss, my Mum gave it me this morning," he said as he passed over a mixture of notes and coins.

"No, I'm sorry, Ganesh, you need another twenty pence," the receptionist replied, "have you looked in your other pocket?"

The young boy rustled around his trouser pocket for a few seconds before smiling and producing a small silver coin and handing it over in triumph. The receptionist took the money, swiped his meal card and the handed it back to him. Ganesh turned and rushed off to his form room.

"Yes, my dear, how can I help you?" the woman asked Amarjit.

"Hi, it's my friend, she starts today, have you got her timetable?" Amarjit responded.

The woman turned to me, "What's your name, dear?"

"Celyn Morus."

"How are you spelling that, Celyn?" she asked.

I reeled off the letters in my name and within a few seconds the receptionist had printed out and handed me my new timetable.

"Here you are, your registration room is 2B6, up the stairs on the right," she said while indicating the direction I should take before turning away to deal with her next request.

Hello, you must be Celyn," said my new form teacher, after Amarjit had shown me to my room, promising to meet me later, "I'm Mrs Foster. I understand you've just moved up from Wales."

"Yes, my parents are coming up in a few weeks, moving jobs," I lied.

"Okay, that's nice," responded Mrs Foster politely, without too much obvious interest, "I hope you won't find being in a new school too daunting. Why don't you sit over there and I'll see if anyone's got the same lessons as you today?"

She took my timetable off me as I sat down and after a quick glance she smiled.

"Well, Celyn, you may–or may not–be in luck. I think our class 'Casanova' shares some of your lessons."

There was a groan from behind me, "Oh, Miss that's not fair, you'll put her off before I get my chance."

I turned round to see a tall attractive boy with a big smile on his face.

"What if I don't want you to have a chance, Sanjay, after you broke so many hearts at the prom last year," responded Mrs Foster, doing her best to suppress her laughter, while gesturing towards a group of girls by the window who were dramatically rubbing away imaginary tears with their hands on their hearts.

"Don't listen to Mrs Foster, I'm not all bad," said Sanjay, "so what have you got first then, Celyn?"

I looked at the piece of paper the teacher had returned to me, "MP, I guess that's Pure Maths and then it says Chem, free and double Biol."

"Hey, same as me, so don't worry I'll take care of you today and––" he said before pausing.

"–Something wrong?" I asked somewhat surprised at his sudden hesitation and then I realised I had been the cause of his distraction by pulling down the zip on my fleece and revealing quite a lot of cleavage, I quickly covered myself up, cursing push up bras.

"Sorry," he continued, "I wasn't expecting you to be wearing um–or not wearing much under your jacket."

I felt embarrassed and was grateful when the bell for the first lesson went at that moment. I got up and followed my guide to the first lesson.

A couple of hours later–after the first two lessons had gone better than expected–I thanked Sanjay for his company, promising to meet up after break in the library for our free lesson, and made my way towards the canteen to meet Amarjit.

I walked through the doorway, doing my best to avoid being trampled underfoot by a herd of lower school pupils thrusting forward, almost like a stampede of mini elephants, and looked around for my friend.

"Hey, Celyn, over here!" came a shout from my left. I turned and made my way towards a small table where Amarjit was sitting with two attractive Asian girls.

"Celyn, these are two of my best friends, Gita and Sunita," she introduced as I reached them and sat down.

"Hey, nice to meet you," I responded.

Amarjit put her arm around me and kissed me gently on the lips before turning to her friends, "And, girls, this is Celyn, my hot, Welsh girlfriend."

"Hi, Celyn," said Sunita, a little shyly, the more petite of the two friends.

"Welcome to Blair Peach, Celyn, Amarjit's told us so much about you," added the taller Gita.

"So how did the first two lessons go?" asked Amarjit as she moved her hand from my shoulder to a more discrete position touching my arm.

I told her about being introduced to Sanjay and how he had been good company in the lessons, which I had found, to my relief, to be at more the less the same level as in Cwm Wysg. Gita and Sunita smiled at the reference to the 'Class Casanova', while Amarjit seemed somewhat annoyed.

I puzzled at her reaction as I walked towards the library a few minutes later at the start of the next lesson.

Just over an hour later I saw Amarjit coming towards me along the main corridor, "Hey, Celyn! I got you a cheese salad, shall we go to the sixth form block, it's a bit crowded in the canteen now."

I followed her to a part of the building I hadn't been in before and was impressed with the scale and comfort of the room we entered.

"Wow, you're so lucky having this," I said, "Ours in Cwm Wysg is so much smaller and grottier."

"I noticed," Amarjit replied as she squeezed next to me on a battered leather sofa in a corner where Gita and Sunita were already sitting.

"How did you––" I began to ask then I remembered when Amarjit had visited, "Oh yes LGBT day, I took you around after."

"So how did it go with Casanova?" asked Gita.

"It was OK, there were some others on the table so we mostly talked about school work," I replied.

"Mostly?" inquired Sunita, arching her eyebrows.

"Did he ask you out?" asked Gita, "I bet he did, he never misses a chance."

"Well sort of––" I replied, hesitantly.

"Didn't you tell him you had a girlfriend," asked Gita.

"Well, not really, I felt a bit awkward so I just told him I'd probably be back in Wales soon," I replied, feeling a bit embarrassed and noticing the frown on Amarjit's face.

I noticed Gita and Sunita giving each other a knowing look and there was silence between us all for a few minutes as we finished our lunches.

"It's warm for this time of November," I commented to Amarjit as we sat on a low wall, facing the main school playing field, outside the main school building about ten minutes later.

"Yes," she replied, a bit distantly, as she brushed a few stray locks of my hair from my face and caressed my cheek softly, "Your hair is so lovely."

I turned and stroked her long, jet black hair, "Yours is lovely, too."

Our mutual reverie was interrupted by a loud shout," Hey, Celyn! Can you throw the ball back!"

I turned to see Sanjay standing in the middle of the field pointing at a football that was racing towards us, obviously the result of a wayward kick during the game being played by about ten sixth form boys.

I jumped up just in time to trap the ball before it went past and flicked it up with my right foot. I was about to catch it in my hands when a devilish thought flashed across my mind as I remembered the incident with the ball in Cyprus.

"This'll give them something to think about," I said to myself as I used my knee to keep the ball up again, not the easiest of manoeuvres in a short skirt. I then trapped it on my upper foot and then did about twenty short keepie-uppies, losing proper count after ten, before one last higher one and then a volley in Sanjay's direction.

To my delight and amusement I watched as the ball flew in a fairly flat arc and hit him square on the chest. I almost laughed at the stunned look on his face and his comical, and finally successful, efforts to hang onto the ball.

"Hey, Amarjit does your friend want a game?" shouted one of Sanjay's friends.

"I can't play in a skirt," I said in reply to her questioning look.

"You can borrow my track suit bottom and my trainers, go and change in the toilet," she said as she passed over her sports bag.

I grabbed it, mouthed my thanks and walked quickly to the girls' loo near the main entrance door.

Within a couple of minutes I had lost myself in the game. I felt a little rusty after a couple of weeks without playing and initially the boys were a bit circumspect with me but after I'd scored a couple of goals for Sanjay's team they lost their inhibitions and the tackles were less retrained.

"Celyn, you're good, you should play with us every lunchtime," said Sanjay, after I had put him in for another goal.

"You're on!" I replied, smiling as I ran back with him towards our half for the restart.

Much too soon the bell rang for afternoon registration.

I high-fived Sanjay and we turned to walk together back to where Amarjit, Gita and Sunita were sitting.

"I've never seen a girl play as well as you before. How come, do you play for a woman's team or something?" he asked.

"No really, I just like having a kick around now and again," I responded guardedly.

Before he had any chance to question me further we'd reached a strangely reflective looking Amarjit. I took the proffered skirt and quickly changed.

"Hey, Amarjit," Sanjay remarked, as I took the tracksuit off, "thanks for bringing Celyn to our school. She's a great player and she's hot."

"And she's mine, so back off!" retorted Amarjit as she put her arm through mine and walked us away briskly.

*Cwm Wysg = In this context Celyn's school in Wales
**Year 7 = 11-12 year olds etc.
***Dinner = lunch in UK for many people.

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To Be Continued
 
End of Vol. 5.02