CHAPTER 17
I bustled in the kitchen, catching the odd word or two as he grilled Mam, and the one question I heard clearly was when he asked her how long she had known. I walked back in at that point, just as she told him when I had revealed my Jill.

“I only told her yesterday, Nell. To be honest…”

I sneaked a sideways look at her.

“I didn’t expect her to be so…so…”

She snorted. “So much your mother? You were a pain as an infant, but I can see why, now. All those arguments about your clothes”

Neil was on the mark. “What, you mean he wanted pink and stuff?”

Mam sighed, and her next remark had edges to it that could have cut flesh. “SHE always wanted grey, plain, simple as possible. It was Ian who wanted the flares, and those stupid pullovers with the stars on the front, and the platform shoes. Mister tough squaddy, ‘I hate puffs’, indeed. What was it, pet? You hiding, even back then?”

Hiding, indeed, so scared, so small, so lost. I had learnt early lessons about being different, but those school years were still a blur of painful memories, of beatings and casual sadism, mixed with exultant savagery. I hid in plain sight, until I could get to college and enter a society of people who could think, whose minds worked. And all that meant was that the sadism became ever more creative in the wounds it scored into my soul. Once, only once, I had been tempted to dress as I should always have done, at a drag competition compered by a then famous comedian; my courage had failed, because I knew that the result would simply be an assumption by the bullies that I had enjoyed it. So I hid, again, and limited my moments of peace to oddments of clothing from the charity shops, behind a locked door in my hall of residence.

And the beatings continued. Neil got them, because of whom he fell in love with, the men that he fancied. I got them because of who I was, and the only other difference was that Neil had always had the brass neck to own up to his difference, almost to rejoice in it, until the beatings went that one step too far and he had a breakdown.

Somewhere, some knuckle-dragging arsehole, some clone of Bell, was probably still having warm feelings from the memory of a job well done.

“Rob?”

I realised it was Neil, and I had drifted off. “Unh?”

“Sorry…”

He took a breath. “Jill, sorry. Look, I have to say something. I always thought you were gay…”

“I am”

“No, I mean, look, that you were like me. You , well, the music stuff, the books, aye? I’m sorry, I pushed a bit. I thought, Rob’s just hiding it, it can’t be just me, aye? I didn’t realise, and I’m sorry, really sorry, and…”

And he was crying. “Look, when you did that thing, those things, with the tablets, and the ambulance, and shit, I thought I had it bad, but fuck…sister mine, fuck, sorry, Mam, but FUCK! How the hell have you ever kept it going?”

I could smell the vegetables starting to get overdone, and the roast lamb, and Mam caught my glance and squeezed my hand before going into the kitchen to serve up, wincing a little as she put the weight onto her new hip.

“Inertia, Nelly, inertia. I could see nothing out there, nothing at all, and I’d tried leaving and I couldn’t get that right either. And it had hurt Mam so much, I knew that, and so…people survive worse, so I had to”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, till Mam passed plates through the serving hatch and we began the rather overcooked meal. Neil looked at me once more, eyes red-rimmed, as Mam kept her face as neutral as she could.

“So what’s the plan?”

“I don’t know, exactly, but at the moment I want to talk with the right people, see what they say, and hopefully move ahead”

“By that, you mean cross over, whatever they call it?”

“Transition? Yes, hopefully”

“You mean, you know, surgery, like?”

“Hopefully again, yes”

I saw the look on his face. “Perhaps that answers your thing about fancying men. Look, I never wanted the one I was born with, so why would I ever desire someone else’s?”

Mam was starting to look a little like a pressure cooker at that point. I offered a compromise.

“Look, this is going to be a bit much for older ears, aye?”

“Cheeky pup!”

“No, Mam, it’s just, we had the long chat, just the two of us, like, and I thought, you know, let him and me have our own bit talk, like. I thought, if we went round the Nev, we could get both our heads straight”

“Aye, but you will let your dinner settle first!”

“Yes, Mam”

And so we walked round to the pub an hour later, Neil looking distinctly unpufflike in a fleece jacket and jeans over an old Bowie T-shirt.

“What happened to Sharp-Dressed Man?”

“One too many punches, Jill. Look, I can’t call you that in public, not yet, like. So, Rob, aye?”

“Aye. What are you drinking?”

“Scotch”

I caught the eye. “How, Jim, two scotch, please”

He grinned as he poured the pints. “Hord ye had a few words wi’ Geordie Bell after. Ower the Chinky, like”

“Aye, I did. Should’ve done it years ago”

“Ach shite, Rob, he’d have shat down thy neck, ye were aalwes te smaal fer that. That thy kid the puff?”

“Aye, Jim, that’s my brother. What is it about him being gay that’s so important?”

“Ah, Rob, ne offence, like, marra, just like saying the baaldy chap, or the gadgee wi’ the tache, like”

He leant over the bar and lowered his voice.

“Sorry if it upsets ye, like…look, wor lad used te kick the shit oot o’ ye, aye? Wor John?”

Evil little sadistic fucking….

“Aye, he did that”

“Well…”

His voice dropped even further. “Noo, ye knaa he wes kicked oota the Fusiliers, like? Did ye ivvor hear why?”

I leant closer, knowing and remembering how this Forster brother had never harmed me, never pursued me.

“No, I hadn’t heard”

“Cos the dorty fucker got caught in bed wi’ another squaddy, like. So, ye, and thy kid, yeez sit quiet, and understand that some of us hev wor aan problems”

There was a little flicker behind his eyes, and in just above a whisper, he spoke again.

“And one day, Carter, ye’ll tell us what the fuck has pissed ye off aal thy life. Cos Ah knaa that ye are ne puff”

The temptation was there, suddenly, to let it all come out, but I forced it back down. Not now, not yet, but I owed him one. This bear of a man had shared his family’s shame with me, yet I didn’t know if it was in true friendship, or as an attempt to apologise for his words about Neil. I nodded.

“No, Jim, spot on, aye? No interest in men at all, like. One day, maybe, aye?”

“Aye, marra, aye. And George Bell’s barred, by the way!

I grinned. “I would expect no less, Jim”

As I placed the beers on the table, Neil looked over to Jim and then back to me.

“And?”

“Ah, Jim called you a puff, and then found an odd way to apologise”

“How?”

“Apparently, that evil shit of a brother of his, he got kicked out of the army”

“For?”

“Getting caught shagging another squaddy. I’ll get you a bar towel.”

I begged a towel off Jim, and Neil wiped his chin.

“Fuck me, I always thought that cunt was a bit over the top in his queer-bashing! Was he giving or getting?”

“Nelly, that is a question I really don’t want answered, aye? I’d need the mind bleach. Just…look, it seems as if you might have someone in here a little less hostile than most, like”

“You told him, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t”

“You wanted to, though”

I had to admit he was right.

“Jill…look, I know the feeling, you finally tell someone, and then you want to tell everyone else, all at once, because you feel so free, so unburdened, aye? And you tell the wrong person, and wham, casualty calling. Be careful, pet”

My brother just called me ‘pet’?

“Nell, at some point it will be a bit bloody difficult to hide what I am, aye?”

“Indeed, Jill, but till then why look for trouble? I do rude things with men, but I don’t wear a badge. You will have far more trouble than I ever did, and there is no way I can help with that. Not really”

He reached under the table to squeeze my hand where it lay on my knee.

“No, girl, I can’t do anything but be there if you need me, aye? Drink up, there’s an old woman at home who has a tab I can cadge”