CHAPTER 69
Now I know that all the claims for chocolate’s powers of healing and mimicry of sexual excitement blood chemistry are rubbish, but there is one simple, undeniable fact: having it is better than not having it.

I looked at Sarah, and there was nothing in her that shouted ‘man’, unlike Steph, certainly unlike myself. I wondered when she had started the changeover, and she caught my stare and returned it, with a slight smile. Something told me she had been in places for which she retained the T-shirt rights. She was getting on, as my feline side had already declared, but she looked good, she looked completely female. It was just the little shadows behind her eyes that suggested…I don’t know what, but it wasn’t nice, and I wondered if she would be able to tell me some day.

That was a surprise thought, after my reaction to her clumsiness, that I was already thinking of a friendship. Steph was, of course, right, that knowing somebody else understood me viscerally was essential. ‘Not just me’; then. Steph rose.

“More tea, while the boys are still playing with oil and smells?”

“Yeah, go on then, you the same, Annie? Drink the pot dry?”

I nodded. “Sarah, rude question, aye, but…how long?”

“Since I started being like this? End of my teens, really. Went through college, mostly, and then a couple of friends died, and Elaine got involved, sort of snowballed like. Long story, shit middle, bloody good ending, yeah?”

“You have a boy?”

“Tony’s, by his first wife, another death, I am afraid. Sort of feels like I cashed in at times…”

I thought about that one, and looked at Steph as she came back in with a fresh pot.

“I sort of understand that one, aye. Steph and I know each other partly through a killing, partly through two deaths, in fact. This can be a shitty world.”

Sarah gave another wry smile. “Don’t get me started. It can also be a bloody good one. Steph tells me you’ve already broken out of a very deep hole. I am not going to be pressing you on that one, it’s your life, yeah, but I am here to listen if you need an ear, os oes angen arnat. You disappoint me, though, I can’t talk to you properly, cause you grew up all anglicised. Should never be allowed. Even Jim is learning, so there’s hope for you yet.”

“Jim’s your boy?”

“Aye, one husband, one boy, one dog and a shitload of family I have. Sort of poster girl for the ‘Godless Abomination’ club, me And I’m not as easy-going as this long ginger streak here, so expect to hear it as it is. And sorry again about that remark, yeah?”

“Water under bridge, butt. Anyway, story so far, life of me, aye?”

Steph was pouring. “A good start, Annie. I’ve given Sar a sort of potted history, but if you are happy talking it through again, I will send the boys off somewhere. What time the other two due back?”

“Ah, whenever they manage to get the van emptied again”

“Well, presumptuous, yeah, but I have sort of planned a tea for us. Buffet style, nothing fancy. Tell you what, should we send the two here off down the supermarket?”

So we sat, and I talked, and Steph did, and Sar told me of the nastiness that still haunted her, and the fear that held her back for years, and that hit me between the eyes, because in a different way that had been me. Steph spoke of the lure of the bottle, the strategies she had adopted so as to be unable to buy alcohol when leaving work, and I laughed.

“I lost out on that one, just jumped in and swam in circles, aye? Like the old joke about the man who fell into a vat of beer; took him six hours to drown, cause he had to keep getting out to go to the toilet”

Steph talked about hiding herself, and Sarah and I looked at each other and grinned. That was our moment of bonding, our knowledge that once we had decided our course the two of us had opened right out while Steph had hidden, and worried, and feared.

It was the account of Steph’s grand unveiling that left me crying, not painfully, but with laughter this time. The two of them were more like two teenaged girls than a couple of married women, as they fought verbally for the chance to get the funny moments in, the punchlines to what must have been a grand joke even if I was in awe of the risks Steph had undertaken.

“Weren’t you worried, Steph, all those men with their machismo and their pride, aye?”

Sarah laughed. “Yeah, especially after she had spent the afternoon knocking so many of them flat on their arses. We didn’t know each other then, but she even scared my Tony, though he’d never admit it”

Steph smiled. “Don’t forget, I had my man beside me, what could possibly have gone wrong? That’s the key, isn’t it? Not being alone, like poor Melanie was”

Road noise. Sobbing and retching. I thought of Amy, then, as well, and once more I realised that I was ordinary. Nobody, in the end, had really touched me. So I still had visitors on nights when Eric was away, I always would, but I had the support round me that those two had lacked. Not only that, unlike Amy I could see clearly. I had looked over a cliff, and then been able to step back. Life had allowed me the luxury of choice, and as Sarah talked about her Aunt Alice I was at another epiphany, that one where you count your blessings and come up with a vastly positive number.

I was still young, comparatively healthy, I almost passed, or at least usually, I had friends, and I was in love and loved. So many had none of those, and so many never made it through the fire. I was wrapped up in the realisation right up to the point when the door banged and a mass of men surged into the room.

“Annie!”

He hit me in a hug.

“Hello Darren, how’s it like hanging my man, or whatever, aye?”

“This is Jim, we been playing Halo! He don’t like football, lahk, not normal, is it?”

A sandy-haired boy, not far off Darren’s age, grinned at me. “He’ll learn. There is but one game, and its name is rugby”

I called over to Sar. “You been feeding this boy Max Boyce? You got no shame, girl?”

She laughed. “Nor taste, according to Steph, but half his family’s Welsh, so needs must”

I looked at Darren again. “So how has it been going, butt?”

“Salright, yeah, got to do some extra classes, get my reading better, lahk, but Nan says she’ll get me all the Harry Potter books if I work at it”

I looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “Nan?”

The little sod actually blushed, then nodded. “Yeah, sort of works, lahk, sort of seems right”

“Darren Eyres, I was right about you, wasn’t I?”

He looked at his feet. “I just worry, yeah, that I’ll fu--stuff up, you’ll be shamed of me”

Sod propriety, sod appropriate behaviour. I kissed his cheek. “Never, Darren, never ever. I am proud of you, as I am proud of myself for seeing you as you could be. How could I ever be ashamed of you? Now…there are other people here, and you may be a bit young to understand, but I want to go outside and give one of them a snog before tea.”

I got the standard response of “Ewww” from both boys as I dragged Eric off into the conservatory to say hello properly, and it was done properly, and passionately, and oh my. Once my pulse was back down to near normal levels, along with my nipples, we returned to the living room, where I got two very knowing smirks.

Albert and ‘Nan’ were across a littler later, as we spread out with our plates, and I finally had a moment to exchange a few words with Dave. I had suddenly remembered where I had heard the name, something about Geoff being caught in mid-embrace with Steph.

“You the one who caught her out, aye?”

He laughed, and there was a lot to the sound, from deep inside the great bear he was.

“Didn’t know what to think, Annie. One of my best mates, in a dress, canoodling with some skinny dwarf”

A stereo shout of “Oy!” came from the two concerned. Steph took charge.

“He may be a skinny dwarf, but he’s MY skinny dwarf!”

I tried to continue, more quietly. “You didn’t see it as wrong? You know, a bloke you knew, like that?”

He thought for a while. “Tell me, your fella, your Eric, you’ve known him years?”

“Yeah”

“Well, has he ever said anything like ‘That explains a lot’, or ‘Ah! I see now’ about you?”

He had indeed. “Sometimes, yeah”

“It was like that with Steph, that things suddenly made sense that had been just a bit off in the past. He was my best mate, she still is, and the good thing was she caught herself before she ended up too far gone to come back. Look, none of you has had a cake walk, but you have all had the strength to make it through. I know that sounds simplistic, but that is the only way I can describe it. I mean, I would probably have rolled over if I had had half the shit you three have gone through”

“Friends help, we’ve got good friends, all of us”

Dave looked very hard at me. “You know what the problem is with all three of you? You have the friends, all of you, but none of you has ever had the good sense to trust us right up till the point where you have no bloody choice. We had to stitch Sar up before she would let loose, and look at her now”

He took a swig of tea. “Look, Annie, look around you. So many damaged people here, yet they are happy, they are alive and glad to be so. How could any of you fail with back up like this?”

Another swig of tea. “At least, there’ll be a lot fewer nervous sheep in West Wales now”