CHAPTER 30
Tony was in at eleven, and we were still swapping stories about gathering clothing, near misses, school days and all the other items and incidents that scarred us or brought a smile.

There were some poor Alice was excluded from, such as that first moment when you realise that, yes, those are really tits sprouting, and you can lose the balloons, or the socks, or the expensive wobbly plastic .A bottle or three of wine had somehow come undone , and I was really buzzing. One way or another, these two KNEW my life, or at least those parts of it that Arris, Elaine, Tony, whoever, could never really understand. These tow were sisters.

I had had conversations, communion, with Alice, obviously, but Janet brought a new angle, an edge that we had lacked. It excited Alice, clearly, but more than anything, it affirmed her life. My presence had told her that she was not only not mad, but not alone. Janet’s arrival said more than that.

Two is company. Three is commonplace. Normal.

Tony walked in on us, still in uniform under his jacket. He gave Janet an “I know you from somewhere” look, and went to hang his stuff up, after rather obviously putting a clean glass down next to the bottle then in use. He popped upstairs to check on Jim, and when he came down he had that soppy dad look on his face that I knew so well.

I fixed him with the stare. “Jim knows about you and Santa”

“Bugger. Who’s this, then, I know you from somewhere, don’t I?”

“I’m Janet Hetherington, Jim’s Head”

“Pleased to meet you. Is this an organised party, or just a random piss-up?”

There was s slightly fractious air to him, as if he had had a shitty day. I raised my eyebrows to Janet, and she gave me a slight nod.

“Tone, I am afraid this is secret squirrel stuff again. Janet’s sort of on the same bus as me and Alice”

I had got used to that, the sudden searching look, largely because I knew I did it myself. Janet stared back. “Is there a problem, Tony?”

“What, do I have a problem with transsexuals? As I am marrying one, and more importantly leave my son to be looked after by another, I would suggest that the answer should be obvious.”

He defused my objections with a wink. Cheeky bastard. I mean, he did have his priorities right, but…

I gave Tone the story to date, and ,bless him, he just sat quiet to the end, apart from getting another bottle out. Then he started asking the sharp questions.

“Janet, you are seriously hidden away. Who else around here knows?”

“Nobody. That is why it is so wonderful to have someone to talk to”

“So, if you are so deep in cover, what can you do for poor Alice here?”

“Honestly? At the moment I don’t know, but I can offer her a shoulder”

“She already has that with my mother. I am sorry to be brutal, Janet, but I am concerned about one thing here, and that is my family. Alice is family”

For some reason, he didn’t seem to be taking to Janet. He was staying polite, but there was a niggle. I closed down the evening as smoothly as I could (“work tomorrow, folks”) and when I was cuddled up to my hairy hot water bottle, I tackled him.

“You don’t like her, Tone”

“Oh, Sar, it’s not that. I just worry about Jim, and I can’t see what her motivation is in coming out to you two. Look, from what you say, she’s done a lot of stuff bordering on the illegal to cover her tracks, and suddenly she’s telling you the whole bit. That doesn’t seem right”

“I know what you mean, love, but it’s a loneliness thing with a lot of us. It’s a need to talk to someone about how you feel, someone that really understands you, someone who’s been there.”

I took a deep breath.

“Did you know Alice was suicidal before we met her?”

He paused, weighing his words. “No, I didn’t exactly know, but I guessed she might be. Sar, once I knew what your secret was, I did a lot of reading. I wanted to know what it was like”

“You can’t, really, Tone, that’s my point about Janet. She’s lived like this for so long. She got what she needed, she’s a woman in every way she can be and should have been from the beginning. She just has nobody to share it with. “

“Two things, love. You had known Alan for years before you met Alice, and he knew about you from before you arrived. He didn’t just launch into telling you, did he? It came out when he was really stressed. Sorry, but saying ‘him’ makes more sense in my head at the moment.”

“That’s the point, Tone, she needed someone to talk to, someone who understood from the inside”

“Yes, exactly. Now, you know I love Alice to bits, and I will deal with anyone who hurts her. But think: she broke cover only when she was really, really low, when something in her life hurt her that bit too much.

“Sar, I deal with liars and criminals for a living. The key is always the same thing: what is wrong with the picture? What is sticking out like a turd on a teacake? And more than that, why? Why is someone doing this trip, meeting those people? Motivation and incongruity, Sar. Coming out like this, in her situation, is deeply wrong, so I have to ask the ‘why’ question.

“Why now?”

I could see his point. I had got lost in our little coven, sharing our lives and seizing on the common ground, but he was right. There was no obvious reason for the timing of her confession, for that was what it seemed like. I would have to watch her.

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The carol service was the next weekend, and I got Alice to give us the low-down on etiquette in her brand of church. She was her usual dapper drag self, everything just so, shoes polished, tie knotted perfectly. Even Jim had a tie on, though that was on a piece of elastic. I went for blouse, skirt and plain heels, with a cardigan Alice had knitted, and to my surprise she brought out a small plain black hat with a narrow brim.

“Ladies cover, men doff, in Church”

I kept my opinion on inconsistent sky pixie rules to myself.

The Holy Sepulchre church was a typical RC place, all statues and pictures, and I could just see Cromwell’s men going through it with axe and hammer and torch. Tony looked around, grinned, and whispered to me “Don’t blink!”

We slipped in at the back, and I spotted Anne several pews forward, near the front. Naturally.

Jim enjoyed it, though some of the carols were a bit unfamiliar, and he was yelling along happily even if it was in his own range of keys. Tony surprised me with some powerful singing, and Alice was also in good voice. I kept mine as low as possible, as if genetics had allowed it, Jim clearly got his musical ability from me. Yes, I know all the jokes about Welsh singing, but…no. There were a few prayers, and a reading from ‘James’, and then the man in the dress climbed the stairs to his little tower.

So, this was Bill. Tall, thin, bald, very different from Pat. He was older, too, which spared me the joke of calling a kid ‘Father’.

There was some ritual greeting that I missed, and then Father Bill was into the meat.

“Today’s reading was from the Epistle of James. I shall also draw upon the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, but the basis of what I want to talk to you about today s the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 19, Verse 19: you shall love thy neighbour as thyself.

What does that mean? It means what it says in the Book. Look around you: these are your neighbours, say hello, smile, shake hands”

There was a rustling through the church as people did just that.

“Now, up the street we have those odd people in St Nicholas’. Church of England. They are wrong, doctrinally, but they are your neighbours in Christ. We pray for them, even in their error, and our Holy Father in Heaven, and the Blessed Virgin Mother of Christ will, I am sure, smile on them when time runs its course. We can go further out, and further, and every human we encounter remains our neighbour, our neighbour in Christ, our neighbour in God.

“Now, we know who our neighbour is, but do we know what our neighbour is? Look around you again, my children. What do you see? Faces? Bodies? Badly-fitting shirts? No, what you see is an envelope, a box that your neighbour inhabits.

“Genesis, Chapter 1,verse 27, ‘So God created man, in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them’. That is what you are seeing, God’s Holy Creation. But you are seeing an illusion. Behind that façade is an immortal soul, born of God. THAT is what your neighbour is. They are not black, or white; they are not male or female, they are not young or old, they are not supporters of a particular football team. They are little sparks of Godhead. To hate your neighbour is to hate God.

“Now, James…the Epistle is very clear and builds upon the message given by St Paul to the Romans, that faith is all. In James we have the corollary, that ‘faith without works is dead’

“Just because a man does the right thing, it does not mean that he is doing Right. He may be like the Pharisee, obsessed with form over truth. However, if that man professes to love God and nothing seems to come from that love, then he is a liar and a hypocrite.

“Let us come back to the clay that holds the immortal spark. We are all different, in size, shape, physical attractiveness, unfortunately, as I heard earlier, in singing ability. We differ in all sorts of ways, and it would be easy to say, based on what I have already said, that those differences are unimportant. That would be an error.

“God has created us with these differences for his own purpose, and that purpose is for us to redeem our immortal souls from our sins by being the best we can whatever hand the Lord has dealt us. Sometimes, that is hard. You will all know, of course, that every year this evening’s offerings and tithes are given to a different charity. This year, we will be helping to bring smiles to children in Indochina, who have been born with cleft palates as a result of some serious lack of neighbourly love there forty years ago. Our charity workers are examples of being the best you can, as are the volunteer surgeons.

“There are conditions of the flesh that drive people to commit the final sin, that of suicide. This is true of some of the children we are helping today. Thus, we are literally saving souls. A little surgery, born of men striving to be their best, saves a spark of God.

“There are people who are tried by God, as was Job, and remain strong, remain steady. There are others who cannot, and thus it is up to us to hold them up and lead them to Salvation. Think, for example, of those whom God has blessed with a body and mind of differing genders. How are we to deal with them? Modern surgery allows them to come close to harmony. We should similarly hold up these people, for Salvation can be theirs just as surely as it is for the Saints.

“God does not make mistakes. Neither does he torture people for no reason. By making his bodies imperfect, he allows his souls to rise higher than they would otherwise be able to.

“So, you know who your neighbour is. Love them with all your heart, and all your immortal soul, as you do the Lord God who created both of you. Go in peace”