CHAPTER 55
As I prepared yet another disgustingly healthy breakfast for us, the phone rang, and it was Naomi.

“Good morning, my dear, I wanted to catch you before you went out today, and let you know how Darren is”

“There are no problems? I mean, no new ones?”

“No, but the last two nights he has joined Albert and me in bed. Nothing unnatural, just for comfort, but I am concerned. “

“Thought of speaking to Sally?”

“Stephanie suggested that, but I felt that I would see firstly if you had any specific information that might help the young chap”

“Naomi, I think my information is probably the cause of this. He’s been straining so long against the fear of Harber that now he has nothing to tug against he’s falling over, aye? All I can suggest is to let him fall down, catch him and help him up again. I don’t think he’s ever had someone worry about him before. Albert seems to be quite taken with him, and if he is clinging…I think he is going to be fine. What about school?”

“I spoke to Polly, and they are happy for him to start at the local secondary school next week”

“That may raise some issues as well, even more bullying”

“They are allowing him half-days at first, as an adjustment period. We have had a long discussion with the Head, and I am rather hopeful”

“What does Darren say?”

She laughed. “He just asks if they play football there”

“Sounds good, then. Just one moment, please, Naomi”

I looked over to Eric, a bright idea flashing in my mind.

“Love, fancy a ride out today? Go and see the girls?”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Naomi, is Steph about today?”

“She is in my kitchen, drinking tea”

“May I have a word”

Naomi passed over the telephone. “Steph? What are you up to today?”

“Drinking tea and ironing shirts, so far”

“Fancy a ride down to the coast, aye?”

“Oh, Annie, you know how to turn a girl’s head! Geoff too?”

“Course. Whenever you are ready, come over”

“OK, see you in about an hour”

I hung up, and dialled again, getting Den’s mobile.

“Morning, Den!”

“Um, morning, er, Annie, um”

“We are going for a ride down to Brighton in a bit. Want to tag along?”

“Er…oof…um…bit…aaaah…hungover…careful, Kirst…er…”

I stifled the giggles. “I’ll see you back at work, then!”

I hung up, and the laughter came. Eric looked at me. “What?”

“Sorry love. But Dennis will not be joining us, he was rather busy. I think he was getting some, er, close personal attention from his lady love as we were speaking, and his mind was on lower things. So it’s me, you, Iron Man and the hairy horror. I’ll ring Ginny, see if she’s about”

Kate was working, but Ginny agreed to meet us at the top of Ditchling to coordinate a team assault on the Palace Pier’s amusements. I had a small moment of sheer joy, for the oddest reason, as the routine nature of what we were planning hit me. This was me and my bloke, together with another couple, doing the normal weekend thing of popping down to the coast for the day. It was all I had ever wanted out of life, normality and routine, but as myself and not as an actor. So I was wearing a bra and a little bit of colour on my face? All banal, unremarkable, normal. The dressing-up I had done as a teenager was always tainted with fear and the shame that my father had taught me, but now it was being done for another man, one so very different, and it wasn’t cross-dressing at all.

That brought a little hiccup, as I remembered Darren. Things had moved on since I first met Steph and Naomi, and I had become comfortable in their presence, and accustomed to the ‘family’ evenings where we would laugh and play together. Darren’s presence brought a halt to that, as he couldn’t see me until I was fully out, and I wasn’t sure whether he was strong enough to take the shock. Slowly, Annie, carefully.

The Woodruffs were punctual, looking swish in cycling tops depicting a Wales flag and a brand of malt loaf, which put my boring and plain blue one to shame. I consoled myself with the thought that underneath I had opted for pretty rather than sports. Steph was perky, even for her. As we set off, she dropped alongside me for a chat.

“Gotta sing, gotta dance”

“You sing too?”

“Well, Annie, gotta dance, then. We’re off tonight to the folk club, it’s their song and dance night, so we get to play a bit and have a spin round the floor. We’ll hop a train back from the coast and then Albert’s taking us, with Darren.”

“How does he get on with the music? Not exactly teen stuff, is it?”

“Ah, that’s the thing, he’s never actually seen music made before. He’s fascinated by it, the whole process, the idea of taking some wood and stuff and making it sing. It’s all a new world to him”

“How is he coping with the world of tweed and comfy shoes?”

She laughed. “You have no idea, girl! Albert is so up to speed with the latest computer stuff, Darren thinks he’s some sort of wizard. They are just about welded together at the keyboard, if you see what I mean. I think he might end up staying there, at least Albert hopes so. Listen, why don’t you come out tonight as well?”

“Steph, I would love to, but it would have to be as Adam, and I really don’t like doing that any more. Last night, with Kirsty and Dennis, it was all sort of ‘this is real life’, thingy. I think you know what I am trying to say, aye?”

We were starting the long drag up to Turner’s Hill, and she saved her breath, just nodding, and I suddenly realised that I might actually have the legs on her. All of Ginny’s ministrations, coupled with Eric’s constant invitations to pop out for ‘short spins’, were bringing my body back to life, along with the soul I had so nearly lost, and I arrived at the crossroads grinning. Ditchling, however, was still a sod, but this time I rode it without stopping, even though I was breathing like a train at the summit. Eric and Geoff…why did they have to do it three times? Steph joined me, and once again I was telepathic as she just raised her eyebrows and shook her head. Men.

“COO-WEE!”

My Amazon princess was there, larger than most people’s conception of life, and we had a round of hugs.

“Didja like the bags? Didja? I picked the big one, Kate the little one, cos she only has ickle hands and short but delicious legs”

“Ginny, when you were a little…person…did the Sanity Fairy come along with the Tooth Fairy? How much did she leave you for your mind?”

“The lot, I lay in wait and mugged the pair of them. Want grabby machines and chips!”

Down the long hill we went, and once more a shop’s worth of locks bound our bikes into a solid mass of metal, and we clacked past the smells onto the wooden decking. Ginny, true to her word, was straight onto a machine, while the rest of us walked over to the railing, hand in hand as couples should be.

Each day it got easier to be me in public. Each day, as I woke beside him, Eric made it seem the only way to be. Just one week, I had to keep remembering, just one week, and so much had changed. I was seeing myself more and more as wearing Adam as part of my uniform for work, to be discarded in the same way when the shift ended. That was why I had to be so careful now, around Darren. That night I would be on my own in bed again, and it would be such a wrench. Steph caught my mood, as the boys headed off to some other electronic noisemaker.

“Getting hard, love?”

“It is. It’s being in no-man’s-land; I don’t know when to do the big jump, and I am trying to live two lives, it seems.”

“Any plan, any idea when to let the world know?”

I turned to her, as she stood with an arm around my shoulder. “Not a bloody clue, aye? Not a single idea. I have the meeting coming up with the Super and the Rep, and, well, that is as far ahead as I can see at the moment”

“What about Eric?”

“Ah, that’s a good bit. He’s looking for a place to work down my way, so after that, well, I have a little sort of dream, you know, a proper house together and all that. It was the thoughts I had this morning, aye? Just to be ordinary, normal”

She tightened her one-armed hug. “Annie, you could never be just ‘ordinary’, you outshine us all. Now, I know you get the night horrors, I get a few myself, so if you would prefer to stay over at ours while Eric is away?”

“Thanks, girl, but I have to get used to coping, aye? I am a bloody sight stronger than I was at the start of the year, and if necessary I can just sit and read or something. It makes a difference, you know, that there is a real world outside the nightmares. It means waking up quicker, losing the horrors.”

“Can I make a suggestion, Annie? Might sound a bit weird?”

“Considering what I am, weird is sort of fitting. Go on?”

“Take something of his to bed, something he’s worn, that smells of him, a shirt or something. Makes a difference”

I nodded. “I see what you mean, sort of comfort blanket thing, aye?”

“That’s it. Also, take this”

She held out a memory stick. “We took quite a few photos at the festival, and I spent a few hours putting them all onto computer, including a load from Bill’s side. If you find yourself awake in the small hours, well, happier times, yeah? Now, shall we drag the boys out and make them buy us lunch?”

Ginny had accumulated three rather odd cuddly toys, and as we found the boys in question looking at the ‘Penny Falls’ machines, she dropped her bombshell.

“Place down under the arches by the bouncy frame things, does all the really old games, uses tuppences and that”

Eric perked up. “Now, I know you are a devotee of the Bard, Ginny dear…but does it have one of those REALLY old ones, you know, the condemned man one?”

“What, where the judge sentences him and they got the rope and everything? Fuck, yeah!”

I looked at the two of them with a peculiar sense of pride. Mr Lehrer had always stated that his muse was unfettered by such considerations as ‘taste’, and these two were living the dream in style. I had to stop them, or at least hit ‘pause’.

“One thing you are forgetting. Lunch!”

Someone squeezed my arse at that point, and I was astonished to find it was Ginny’s hand doing the squeezing. She gave it another one, and then just nodded.

“Well done, that girl. You can haz chips!”

She struck a louche pose. “I want the finest chips known to humanity, and I want them here and I want them now!”

We went to Harry Ramsden’s, and it was OK, but even if it had been atrocious I would not have cared. For some odd reason of mental imbalance, Ginny had three portions of mushy peas instead of a fish, and spent the meal making chip sandwiches, before we sensible girls were dragged down to the penny-dreadful machines under the arches. After a few minutes of that, Steph and I escaped to gull cries and ice cream, before we all assembled for the ride to the station and our train home, which was also Eric’s train away from me.

The Woodruffs would get off at Horley while Eric continued to Clapham, as I left at Three Bridges. We hugged my mad woman friend goodbye, and she agreed to take all our best whatevers to Kate, and then slipped through the ticket barrier to the train, casually ignoring the ‘two bikes only’ notice. We came to my station far too soon, and I kissed him goodbye before heading home to a bed empty but for Tabitha, and, that night, the shirt I filched from the laundry basket.