CHAPTER 60
Afterwards I asked him how the day had gone on Sunday. I knew there was an awkward time ahead, particularly with Darren.

“It was a good day, love. Had a quick fifty with Geoff, just to stretch the legs, and then I had tea with the five of them before I jumped in with Albert for the club. Darren is coming on in leaps and bounds. He still sounds like a Hackney yardie, but he is really getting into the music. In the interval, he spent his time asking what the instruments were and how they worked. He starts school next week. That will be the acid test.”

I snuggled into the smell of him. “What do you think?”

“Honestly? Time management, that will be his stumble. So used to doing his own thing, lahk, might have a few problems till he settles. Anyway, what about you? Any comeback yet?”

“No, seems a bit like a nine-day wonder. Sarge Price is a girl? OK, pass the sugar”

“Yeah, still don’t believe it can be that easy. These are coppers, they tend to have set points of view.”

“No we don’t!”

“See? Straight away, set point of view. Now, more importantly, there is a little something coming up this weekend. Six months.”

“We have not been together six months….”

“No, six months since Ginny kicked your door in and brought you back to reality. I think we ought to have a little celebration. Any ideas?”

“I don’t know, but I suppose we should…we’ve done Brighton to death recently, what about going up town? We could take them to a show”

Inspiration had struck. Normally, such an occurrence is foreign to me, but for once my mind had thrown up what could turn out to be the perfect choice.

“Eric, do you remember Sesame Street?”

“Oh? Ah! Yes, of course! Ideal! I will try and score some tickets. Can you sus out when they will both be off? Two of you on shifts makes it as awkward as all hell. Anyway, it’s still only afternoon, what do you fancy doing?”

“This will sound soppy…but I would like a wander around the shops, with you, and just see what is nice, and what makes us laugh, and perhaps wave two fingers to Ms Saville and have a slice of cake. I have a check -up with Doc Khan tomorrow, followed by Sally’s tender care, so I fancy being naughty.”

I fluttered what eyelashes I had at him, and the heartless bastard just laughed and told me I needed more practice. I settled on the old faithful print dress, and Eric’s present sandals, realising that I needed to sort my toenails out at some point. The list was growing already.

It was still bright enough for sunglasses, and warm enough for shorts, so that was how we went. I wasn’t wearing shorts, but Eric had shades on, so you get my drift. We ambled up past the Hawth to the complicated crossing by Debenham’s, at which point I dragged him in the door.

I was slightly hyper. Previously, I had gone into M&S with Jan riding shotgun. We had ended up in a private fitting with lovely Sandra, and it had gone well, but I had the girly bit firmly between my teeth that day and I felt that I was finally there. So confident was I that I dragged him into the underwear section. I was on a high, right up to the point where I asked a perfectly made-up sales assistant whether my current size was available in a particular style.

“Sorry, SIR, there are specialist shops for your sort, I expect”

You bitch. Eric started forward, and I put my hand on his arm. “No, love. This is obviously a specialist shop for HER sort.”

I looked over at the racks of bras, and then at her chest. “Mine are real, love, unlike yours.”

I looked down, deliberately. “Healed up, has it, love? Come on, darling, I think Marks has a better class of shelf stacker.”

We got as far as Giardino’s café before I started to shake. Eric noticed, and led me straight past to the disabled toilets, where he pushed me in and shut the door behind us both.

“You OK, love?”

I was trembling with futile rage. “Fucking BITCH! Who did she think she was?”

Eric stared for a few seconds, then just said “Healed up. And you called her a bitch…”

Laughter. It heals, it bonds. Ten minutes later we were in Drucker’s with coffee and waistline-destroying cake, my face repaired and my good humour back. It was Eric, pure and simple. At the approach of Ms Silicone he had gone onto the defensive, but once it was over he looked to heal me.

“Healed up, has it? Brilliant! Who needs Avenue Q?”

His voice softened. “I know she was a cow, but look at the way you behaved. One of you slunk off from there, one of you strode. Annie, you will get this, I tell no lies, it will happen again, but if you can come out with put-downs---no, fucking slap downs, you play hard, woman, if you can keep that up then you will cope. This isn’t what you were, this isn’t some fat bastard drinking themselves to death, this is someone with guts coming alive, yeah?”

“Yeah, but that hurt, Eric”

“And what did we promise you? Some fantasy of fluffiness and rose petals? If something is worth anything to you, it is worth working for, yeah?”

I took his point, but after our coffee I was thinking of vengeance all the way over to Marks, by way of Addison’s, of course, where with much less fuss than at the other shop I picked up stuff to repair my toes. Don’t think it was some fantasy of girly clothes shopping, though; we spent just as much time in the book and music shops, before descending on the bike shop, where, just to wind up my man, I bought some pink gloves. Perception is everything.

We went home, we had a sensible chicken salad to make up for the cake, and then we simply went back to bed with a film and each other.

He came with me as far as the surgery before he split off for his interview, and I was called in, quite quickly for an NHS surgery.

“Good morning, Annie, how are we today?”

“Still somewhere in the middle, Doc.”

“Yes, yes, taking your top off please”

I grinned. “You don’t need the accent with me, Doc”

He grinned back. “I need to keep in character, Sergeant Policeman Price, so I do not slip. Now, you do have some breast development here that is quite advanced for the length of time you have been on the little pills. Our vampire tells me that you have a low level of male hormone production, or rather had, before we started giving you the hard stuff, but that is insufficient to explain this.”

“Alcohol and obesity-related gynecomastia, Doc. That’s all”

“And I shall come and review one of your custody cases, Annie, our jobs are clearly so simple. Have you stopped?”

Shit. “Stopped what?”

“Do not be obtuse, Annie, you are now blushing. Have you stopped the self-medication, or shall I stop the prescriptions?”

No point in trying to bluff. “I stopped quite a while ago. I could no longer see the point, aye?”

“Put your top on again, please, and talk to me. When did you switch from oestrogens to alcohol?”

“A year, year and a half ago, aye? I had a short period, just before Mel, when I thought, I can do this, I can change myself, and then it all went wrong. That’s when I did the giving up. I was on them for about a year.”

He sighed. “Annie, we need honesty from our patients, so we can give it back. So much of what we are doing to you can cause major damage to your body if it goes wrong, so we need to know not only where we are going but where we are starting from. Off the internet, was it?”

I nodded. He looked at me, face blank. “Stopped? Really stopped? I need a promise here?”

I just nodded again. “You have my promise, Doc”

“Good. The news is that despite your attempt to play doctors and nurses and liver murder, you are disgustingly healthy, which sort of spoils my day. A doctor can feel unwanted in such circumstances”

I took the prescription renewal from him and set off for Sally’s, with a last word from him of “Promise!” as I went through the door. Sally was ready for me, and after a few minutes of chit chat about our friends, she started asking the sharper questions. I told her about the incident in the shop first.

“So? You expected rose petals, fluffy kittens and unicorns?”

That set the day’s tone, and then of course I had to confess all, and she simply sat, asking the occasional short question, till I was done.

“Explains a few inconsistencies, I suppose, but we already knew you were off the deep end. You have promised Khan, that promise will be extended to me. Now, a summary. You have come a very long way in a remarkably short time, something it took other patients years to achieve. Consider how you are presenting right now. A lot of doctors, or so I have read, concentrate their energy on making judgements on whether their patients ‘pass’ in public. I think that is of secondary importance to how they feel in public, and I think you feel more than happy, now. It is work that concerns me, where you are likely to have the big issues, for that is where people do not have the option to cross to the other side or look past you

“Be careful, Annie. Oh, that’s me done. Give Kate my love when you see her”