CHAPTER 13
Kate was staring hard at me, trying to see through my skin.

“I really thought we were dealing with some queen in that African river, I really did. No wonder you are so screwed up…”

Her voice softened. “Virginia, my sweet lover, you suspected this, didn’t you?”

Ginny was looking at her knees, but still clinging to her wife’s hand.

“You know I did, and you know why I kept quiet about it.”

Kate sighed. “Yes, love, I do. Now, how do we sort this pile of shit out? Adam…”

“Yes?”

“Can we assume that now you are actually talking to somebody your little exit strategy may be somewhat less time-critical? That you might stay with us a while?”

No. Maybe. “I don’t know, Kate, I really don’t. I have told precisely three people about this, and two of them are here now. Sally spoke about hope. I don’t know if I can”

Ginny grinned suddenly, light coming back into her eyes.

“There are already far too many fat and ugly women about. Why should we want another one?”

Once more I felt my foundations start to shift, but she continued.

“I mean, we can’t help your looks, but we are certainly going to dispose of Ms Blobby here. Your health plan just went on ‘roids, Price, ‘roids I tell you!”

Kate was watching, and began to smile again, the same fond smile I had seen earlier.

“Price, you have unleashed a monster here. I trust you can cope. But you will, because you have now abandoned all power of choice, and Ginny takes no prisoners. Well, except when they ask her nicely. Now, we have a new start, it seems. Do you intend to take any of that chemical shit?”

“The prescription? No.”

I had known that as Sally had written it out, and as she was clearly telepathic she had known it too, but boxes sometimes needed ticking. Kate looked at the glasses of cranberry juice on the table.

“Not wine, but then that would be a bit naughty, given the circumstances. A toast, then. To hope, and to–this is the traditional bit, the cliché, where you introduce yourself, Price”

I tried to sit up straighter, tried to be proud of what I was, but after so many years of living a lie I couldn’t. I mumbled my name into my chest, head down. Kate was having none of it.

“Speak up, girl”

“Mnnnie”

“Nope, I don’t speak beardy”

Head up, look her n the face, her hand white-knuckled in Ginny’s grasp, both pairs of eyes moist. Breathe deeply, force back your own tears. Hope or failure? Life or death?

“Annie, to my friends”

Ginny sighed, and looked at Kate, who raised her lover’s hand to her face and kissed it. Three glasses of red fruit juice clinked together, and Kate made the toast.

“To hope, to life, to love and friendship, to Annie”

We drank. Ginny cracked a grin.

“Thank fuck for that. What with ‘Tabitha’, I was half expecting some horrible tripe like Imogen, or Eleithiya, or even worse something misspelled like Britney. And thank fuck you didn’t go all Galactica on us. ‘Adama’ would have been null pwan big style”

I managed to grin back, though tears were already there. Ginny tilted her head a little.

“This is going to be hard, girl, very hard. We have a lot of self-harm to undo, and a soul to boost. I make no bones about it, you are going to have a shitty time, but we will be here. Kate, I am going to have to stay a bit longer, sorry”

Kate smiled at her. “I would have expected nothing else, but there is a payback. Annie here is going to help us get everything moved into the new place. Once that is done, it’s party time. I have a plan…..”

The next day was a working day, and I made the usual sprint to the office and stowed the lycra in my locker. Ruth was already at the desk as I came in, with a factory burglar caught trying to lift reels of cable.

“Morning, Sarge, love the chin”

“Morning, Kirst, thought it was time for a change”

As had Ginny and Kate. “Not having some fucking bearded lady in this family, it goes now. Kate, corner shop please, defoliant purchase”

Sam Talbot was the inspector, and his reaction was similar. “Thank Christ it’s not the hottest weather, you’d have tan lines on your face worse than those stupid ones on your legs! I thought you were supposed to shave your legs, you cyclists…hang on. Sergeant Price, my office, if you please”

I trotted along with him like a good little flatfoot, and he shut the door behind us.

“When did this change, Adam?”

“What, sir?”

“Sam in here, mate. You have had a lot of us worried this last year, but something’s going on. What is it? How much weight have you shed?”

“Er, about a stone so far, Sam.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Adam, please, but when did you stop drinking? Don’t look at me like some tom pretending she’s waiting for a friend and can’t remember which car he has, we’re all coppers here and we have noses. Sit down, please”

He poured a couple of coffees from the machine he kept hissing away in a corner. Passing one to me, he continued.

“You have been off traffic and driving duties for a long time, Adam, and I have kept a very careful eye on your work at the desk. If the alcohol had disturbed your work, or if you had, god forbid, still been driving, you would have been straight to Occupational Health if not suspended. People have covered your arse here, all of them hoping you would pull out of the things you were doing to yourself. What’s changed?”

Oh, not yet, Sam. “Friends, Sam, true friends, who wouldn’t let me go. One of them has been staying with me, sorting my diet and shit. She won’t let me drink, either”

“Ah, that’ll be one of those bulldykes you hang around with, then. Good for her. You getting professional help…er, Adam, forget that question. If you have found a decent therapist, I don’t need to know about any mental issues till they are better, OK? Just nod if you have…good.

“I know what you went through in Traffic, and we know all about stress disorders here. We see the worst of things, mate, the worst, but we are supposed to just carry on. So…here’s the deal. If this rugmuncher mate of yours can keep this up, and the therapist I know nothing about can help, then you have my full support both official and unofficial. I’ll have a word with Jim as well.”

He sighed. “You’re the good cop, Adam, there aren’t many of us left. I won’t let you go without a fight. Leave me to speak to Jim and keep up the fight. We need you”

Hope. I should have realised that covering up my behaviour was a non-starter in such a place, but the longer I was sober the clearer my sight became.

The rest of the run of shifts was routine, but the time at home wasn’t. Ginny had me on a very low-carb, low-lipid diet but insisted that despite my lack of the usual energy reserves that cyclists depend on I had to keep exercising hard. We were on rides every day, despite my exhaustion.

“If you just stop eating, your body goes into famine mode and starts keeping the fat and losing the muscle. So we fill the stomach, and keep the muscles working. Otherwise you lose the weight but just gain flab. I’m not putting you on weights, Annie, we don’t want you bulked up, just slim and fit. Now...sprint to that next junction!”

Whatever her logic, it seemed to be working, and despite her vegetarian ideals she kept slipping me animal protein, mostly chicken or oily fish. By two months of her adoption of me I was down to sixteen stone, but she warned me that the first bit was by far the easiest.

“It’s asymptotic, Adam, you lose much more slowly as it comes off, but it still shows. How’s the uniform situation?”

“I’m holding fire for a while, Gilbey, aye, just till it settles a bit and it’s worth sorting out a new set. Got some smaller belts, though”

We were sat in a trucker’s café on the Horsham road, having a cuppa and no cake before setting off back along the busy road to Crawley and a late shift for me. Ginny took a sip.

“Up for the housewarming, then? Kate’s doing it in her own way, of course, with the FNRttC. It’s to Brighton this month, so it’s ideal. We can get enough of our friends on that, have breakfast at the house, a few hours kip and then party!”

The Friday Night Ride to the Coast…that made sense. Our cycling friends were a bit London-based, and as tradition and prejudice would suggest a lot of the girls’ friends were now in Brighton, drawn to the town’s large gay community.

“One condition, aye? I get to eat cake”

“Bananas, Price, better for you”

“Cake”

“OK, but only at the party”

“Deal then”

We finished our tea, and then the ride. Work was another routine day, no mass-murderers, just thefts and some stupid attempt at arson for insurance fraud, and I was feeling more and more comfortable in my new fitness. My knees had stopped aching so much, and I was finding my breathing easier as Ginny pushed me. I thrashed myself on the way home, just to see how it felt without her goading me, and took a quick shower before getting into bed. Ginny had already put Tabitha into her nightie, and was herself snoring away.

There was a small package on my pillow, addressed to ‘Ms Annie Price’, pink tissue paper and a ribbon. I undid it…

Tabitha’s nightie, my size. I dropped my boxers and T-shirt by the bed and slipped the cool cotton over my head.

The dreams stayed away.