CHAPTER 21
Brian was almost hyperventilating, and for an instant the news...eleven bodies…then I saw his excitement, and I realised that it was nothing like that, nothing at all.

“Where is he? When can we get him?”

“Slowly, Steve, slowly. I’ve been having some of the lads check through the local youth football scene, trying to find anyone who fits n the age range. The good thing was that his name is the Scots version, so that cut out a few false leads, but then again a lot of the coaches can’t spell too well, and….ah shit, look, he has a match tonight, if it’s the right boy, and if we get down there we can see if you can identify him. Look, we need to get moving, he’s playing in Whitehaven tonight, the match has started”

“Can we get Emily?”

“Kaz, lover, can you grab the girlfriend while I get these two out to the coast? It’s at the Bransty ground. Come on, Ada, let’s get off”

How the hell Brian wasn’t pulled over for speeding, I don’t know, but we were soon through Carlisle and past Cockermouth, and god knows what speed he got up to, but he really, really knew how to throw the car around. Some other time I might have worried about other road users, but not then, not then. As we passed Workington he guessed that we were at half time, and he wasn’t far off. The second half was just starting when we pulled into the car park, and Nana and I stepped out as Brian hid in the car to avoid recognition for the moment.

I watched the play for ten minutes, and then…there he was. He was bigger by far, playing what I thought of as left half, as it used to be in the days of wingers and centre forwards that I had been born into. I didn’t understand much of the game, but he held up well, and tackled almost brutally for a fourteen year old. I spotted a couple on the sidelines, cheering every time he got the ball, and realised these must be his foster parents. Nana and I walked over to them, and with the strength I had been given that morning I asked the woman “Is that your boy, the number four?”

They turned and looked hard at me, but clearly just saw a teenaged girl. The man smiled as the woman grinned.

“Our Iain’s already got a girlfriend, lass”

“Ah…that’s not why I’m asking. It’s just…I…well, he’s my brother”

“Aye” Nana added, “and my grandson. We lost him three years ago”

The woman’s mouth was working like a fish, and she started to shake. The man pulled her to him. His voice was bitter.

“You timed that so well. We’re adopting him, or we were…why did you just bloody leave him for three years then? He’s ours now, or we thought he was, and nobody ever told us he had a sister, much less a grandmother. It’s OK, Audrey, it’s OK, love…”

I drew in a breath. “I’m not his sister, I’m his brother”

That was when I saw the recognition, the realisation, strike her. Audrey turned absolutely white.

“You…you’re that one….all those dead children…Oh Jesus, oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise, oh you poor thing”

Suddenly she was hugging me, repeating over and over that she didn’t know, and just then Karen arrived with Emily. I pointed my brother out to my lover as he took an opposition player away at the ankle and cleared the ball away upfield, and there were only twenty minutes left to go. I steered us all over to Brian’s car, and after a brief moment of being starstruck, the man, Kieran, tried to be businesslike.

“Look, sorry about earlier, we had no idea, and after his mother died”

Stab to my heart, visible to everyone.

“Sorry, lass…Steve. After that, we had been told, like, that there was no next of kin, nothing, by the council, and he’s a lovely lad…”

I smiled. “Oh, yes, he’s always been my favourite brother”

Emily slapped my arm, and Kieran continued. “We have been given the go-ahead to adopt him, and well, he’s been so like our own, and we are sure he’s been happy with us, and…look, we’re sorry, we didn’t know”

My grandmother has always been a woman of immense heart, and just then she proved it.

“Lad, listen to me for a minute. Aal we’ve been doing is trying to find him. He needs to know Stevie here’s safe, he needs to know what has happened. We’re not here to ‘steal him away’, tha hear? Now, what did he think of this adoption business?”

Audrey was sniffling slightly. “He was really pleased with the idea”

“Then why don’t we aal ask him again and see what he says?”

How I love you, Nana.

The final whistle blew, for a draw, and the players were coming off the field. We made quite a large group as we waited for an, and his eyes went wide.

“Brian Dennahy! Cool!”

A small leathery woman cleared her throat, and Iain went white.

“Nana? NANA!!”

He threw himself at her, sobbing, and after a minute, as his self control returned, he suddenly started to see the people around him, not just Nana, and Brian, but Karen, and then:

“I remember you, you were Stevie’s girlfriend, you were always nice to him…..Emily?”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Iain, Steve is always nice to me, and I’m still his girlfriend”

That was when he started looking around for me, which was one of the most painful moments of my life, and then he saw, and then he realised, and then his poor heart seemed to break as he sobbed over his lost brother.

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We drove back to their house in convoy, Iain insisting on riding with me and leaving a shower till he got home. I had worried about the mud on Brian’s upholstery, but all he said was “That’s what valet services are for”

It was a semi-detached house with a garage, and the garage door was scarred from repeated applications of a football. Audrey kept the house absolutely spick and span, and there was a small glass cabinet filled with medals, little cups, and football memorabilia, plus multiple photos of Iain. They were clearly very, very proud of him, and I could see how much at ease he was with them. As he washed upstairs, and Audrey produced tea and biscuits, Nana continued.

“Understand this, if my boy is happy here, then he is happy, and I am happy to let him stay. And if he wants thee for his mam and dad, then that’s for him to say. Now that that’s said, and out of the way, I noticed tha have a bottle of Navy there, and if it is not being too cheeky, I think I could do with a gill after the fuss”

A rum was poured, and Iain was back down in a rush, and yet again, with certain exclusions, I went through my tale.

Kieran was sober. “So…if Karen here hadn’t recognised you, or Brian hadn’t done all he did…shit. How the hell did Iain here escape that?”

“I don’t know why, but Mitchell’s report on me seems to be why I was locked up, and that let him do what he did to me. Why he did that, I don’t know. They still haven’t found the bastard”

Iain was looking confused, and nervous. “Stevie…you do know you look really pretty…”

I snapped at that. “Yes, brother dear, an awful lot of men told me that over the last three years”

Nana put her hand on my arm. “No, Stevie, no. Iain, it’s not something he’s too happy about”

Emily spoke up just then, having sat quietly throughout, just leaning against me.

“Yes, Iain, Steve does look very pretty, but that’s not what he wanted. It’s not what I would have wanted. I’m a girl, and even if looked like you, I would still be a girl, and I would hate it. Stevie’s the same, just the other way round”

She turned to me. “Look, love, you could be as ugly as sin, and I would still love you, because you are still you, whatever the outside looks like, and you did the same for me years ago. I haven’t got a sin-ugly boyfriend, I haven’t got a film-star looks boyfriend, I’ve got a pretty boyfriend. However you looked, I’d still love you, and as you are pretty I can like that as well. I know that makes no real sense, but I know what I mean. And what it means for you is that at least you can walk down the street without attracting attention.”

I understood what she meant, of course. My bed was made, I just had to lie in it. If I spent my life worrying about the past I would never have a future. At some point I would have to try and make her understand that there was more to living than being in love, but my train of thought was disrupted by her whisper in my ear.

“You haven’t made me come for three years, Stephen Jones. I want you to make love to me tonight”

That sort of knocked my train of thought right off its rails.

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The Jennings, Kieran and Audrey, agreed to come back to the big house with us, with overnight bags, so that we could talk longer. It would mean a drive back at an early hour for Iain’s school, but that was of rather lesser importance than our reunion, and if the school was unhappy, tough. We wanted to give the boy a chance to see that I was safe, as well as allow Nana, as the true next of kin, a chance to discuss adoption with all three.

That was her graciousness. She instinctively knew that the family was a sound one, and had been watching how they interacted through the evening. She explained to me that she wasn’t worried about him getting new parents, as long as he kept his blood kin. We sent everyone off to bed in a mood that made the day’s more unpleasant revelations fade into the background.

Emily was waiting by my bed when I came out of the bathroom, wearing a long dressing gown, and as she stood up it slid from her shoulders, and she was naked before me. She stepped forward and tugged my sleep shirt off over my head, until I was naked but for a pair of knickers. Yes, I wore knickers, they fitted.

Her nipples were really hard, and as she knelt down in front of me to tug down my pants they brushed against mine, and I felt a real shock go through me, and then my knickers were off, and before she stood up she kissed the end of my penis, which was also electric, and then she kissed me, and pulled me under the covers, and kissed me again, and as our nipples collided again and again she grabbed my hand and pushed it somewhere wet, warm ….and she kept teasing my cock, and my breasts, and then she was pushing my hand hard against her as she moaned into my mouth just like the last time, and then the fireworks hit me too, and for a long moment I didn’t care what I looked like because she was mine and I was hers and at long last I was making love.