CHAPTER 27
There is a chain Mexican restaurant in the shopping complex that is Gun Wharf Quay, and while hardly authentic the food is tasty and plentiful, and they had a small booth well away from any other diners. We did, indeed, have fajitas, which are ideal for a social meal.

You take the tortilla, slather it with a mixture of gloopy stuff in various colours, load on some meat and veg, roll and eat, trying not to dribble stuff down your front. That means that you are eating only part of the time, rather than the steady pace of a more conventional dinner. So there is time to talk. I cut William off before he could turn the day round and hide his problem in my own.

“Will, I will go through this once, just to answer any questions, like, and then it’s your show. Name is Gillian, Jill as you have heard. Yes, I have always known; no, I have no interest in men; Mam and Neil both know and support me; Larinda and some other friends have been more supportive than I have ever hoped; yes, at some stage, I hope to change everything around. Got that?”

He just nodded, and I continued.

“Look, I know this is all very odd, but we don’t have a lot of time to talk. Your bamps has threatened me quite explicitly if we are in contact at all, so you need to be careful, we all do. Now, what has brought this on?”

He busied himself with tortilla and thoughts for a while, and then spoke, eyes down.

“It’s…look, I’m off to Uni next year, yeah? And Mam, she wants me at home, here or Southampton, or over in Wales where Bamps and Nan are. I mean, she even worries when I take the train on my own, and I’m seventeen! And I want, well, I want to go somewhere I can be a bit more…unwatched, yeah?”

Larinda asked, softly, “Is it someone at school, Will?”

He shrugged, eyes still down. “Yes, and no, and maybe, I don’t know. I mean, there are boys…”

I realised he was blushing, so I put a hand on his arm, which made him jerk slightly away. His head rose, and moist eyes looked straight into mine.

“You really are, aren’t you? I mean, I can see it now”

“Aye, Will. It’s odd with me too. I mean, I have always known myself to be a woman, but spent all my life playing a man, sort of thing, so now, I find myself being me, and sometimes I manage to forget what it actually looks like when I do, aye?”

He nodded again. “That’s it, er, Jill, I still see the beardy man, and yet, you, you are under it, and I have to concentrate. This is weird”

Larinda sighed. “Tell me about it. That is what I finally saw when she came back from the doctor’s. I had hopes, but they can’t be met. The reality’s a bit elsewhere for that to happen. Will…this is your show, yeah?”

“OK, yeah. Look, what I said, earlier, about being further away, it’s like a chance to be a bit more myself. Got a bit of a dream…”

I squeezed his arm. “We all have. I tried mine out at college a bit, but lost my courage”

“Yeah, but mine was sort of simple, not more than going there, away from home, away from Chapel, and it’s hi, I’m Will, no, you’re all right, cause I’m actually gay. Just be me from the start, no coming out as such”

“You will have to at some point, Will”

“Don’t I know it. I just wanted to do it on my terms, at my time, maybe with some friends around me”

Larinda reached over for his other hand. “That’s something you already have, Will. Oh shit, got a tissue here, nobody’s looking”

He wiped his eyes, as I explained how similar our plans had been, my own attitudes and hopes about Mam and Von. He found that almost funny, and a little of the lad’s humour resurfaced.

“Jill…still seems odd, but it will come. Jill, your mam, how did she take it? Your brother, he’s like me, isn’t he?”

“Ach, Will, she is fully supportive of me. Astonishing, really, but that’s what she’s always been. Neil, well, he sort of said he’d always thought I was gay, but him, too, he’s on my side”

I started to laugh at a sudden memory, and Will gave me a sharp glance.

“Sorry, Will, it’s just something I heard when I was last with Neil, aye? We both used to get very badly bullied by an evil shit called John Forster, and his brother told me he’s been kicked out of the army”

I paused, holding the punchline.

“Got caught in bed with another soldier”

This time, Will’s tears were from laughter. I had to cut the mood back, though.

“Look, with Neil, Mam hates what he is, but he’s her son, and she makes so many allowances it amazes me. Perhaps Von…?”

He shook his head, hard. “No. Never. And not Bamps, either. And Chapel…Look, one thing has occurred to me, yeah, and that’s something that might really help. Your Mam…would she mind if I was near hers, at college? It would give me a bolt hole, if things got nasty, yeah?”

“Well, you have two universities in Newcastle, so it all depends on what you want to study. Shit, this’ll crease you up. There’s Newcastle Uni, and then there was Newcastle Polytechnic, aye? And when they became a university they asked the students what name they should use, and now they are Northumbria Uni?”

Larinda gave me a questioning raise of her eyebrows, and a little gesture of the hands meaning ‘and?’

“And they very nearly went with another suggestion…which was City University Newcastle upon Tyne”

I counted the seconds, and Will got it first.

“The clever buggers!”

Larinda was still puzzled. “What’s the joke?”

Will was grinning. “Initials, woman. C-U-N-…”

“Oh bloody hell, students! Never change, do they? Now, Will, this girl here’s right, and you are right. If you stay all boxed up, you is going to have some serious shit in later life, and, well, no shagging in your best years for it, and it don’t come back, youth, does it? Let’s see how things turn out, exams and stuff, and you got two mates to look after you for now, yeah? Only, you are going to sort out the college place based on the course, not how close you are to Jill’s family. But you don’t do nothing stupid, as I keep telling this one”

William was nodding, soberly. “Yeah, I have to get the right degree, get the job I want, all that. Be good if there’s something in Newcastle, though. Then…look, do you understand? It’s Mam; I can’t be myself if I am having to live with her, yeah, but, it’s, well, she’s still Mam, still my mother, and I can’t just drop a load of crap on her. One day, yeah?”

I took his hand this time. “What I told myself, Will, the same thing, and suddenly it’s fifty years gone. I know what you mean, but the only thing you can be sure of keeping into old age is regrets. So you need to think carefully, every step worked out, but just remember the important thing. What Larinda says, you are not alone”

He squeezed my hand in return, and the tears were there again.

“Thank you. I had hoped, you know, and Jill, I didn’t believe her, not once, yeah?”

“I know, Will, I know. Look, you need to go, or Von will get worried. Nothing stupid, nothing that seems like a good idea till you run it past us, right?”

Larinda was writing on a serviette. “Here, this is my number, yeah? You can’t get this one, you ring me, right?”

He stood, and went over to her to hug her and kiss her cheek, and then, to my astonishment, did the same to me. He whispered into my ear.

“Need the practice, don’t we?”

And gone. Larinda was quiet as I sorted out the bill, and as we walked hand in hand to her car she maintained the silence.

“Something up, pet?”

“No, not really. Just wondering how you ended up with his mother, yeah? And, well, how he turned out so nice and stuff when she is clearly a right cow. He’s a good lad, that one”

“Ach, girl, she’s not that bad, not really. She’s a good mother; just, well, narrow in her world view, like. Too much Chapel for her opinions to be anything else”

“And how did you two…?”

“Just met by chance. I was lonely, and so was she, and it sort of snowballed. Look back now and, well, wish I hadn’t, if you see what I mean”

We had reached the car, and she turned to face me.

“Regrets, you said. Well, look at it this way. That boy, he’s a good ‘un, yeah? You hadn’t met her, you’d not have met him. And then he might have been lost, just like you nearly were. Got that? Now get in, cause I want to ravish you and it’s a long drive back”