CHAPTER 52
They weren’t that noisy, in the end, but I found Rachel slightly out of sorts the next morning. I had just filled the kettle to do my wifely duties, and she joined me in the kitchen. Her hair was all over the place and, to be blunt, she really needed a shower, but there was a slight edge to her expression.

“You OK, Rach?”

“Jill…he cried, yeah? We sort of, well, you know, and yes it was good, and then, just as I’m settling down again, all wrapped up…I could feel them on my neck, tears and stuff. How do I compete with someone who’s already bloody well dead?”

I couldn’t say anything sensible to that, so I just waited, as the kettle warmed. She stared into space for a second or two, then shrugged.

“I can’t, can I?”

I put an arm over her shoulders. “I don’t think you have to, pet. I think, well, she’ll always be there, like, part of him, aye? Both of them. John says it nearly broke him. Look…I’m guessing here, OK? He’s a canny lad, is Jim, and he’s probably lying there now wondering how he can apologise. It’s like Mam and Ralph, I think”

She grinned, almost her normal self, and I nodded. “Aye, I do think there’s a bit of crumbly-bonding there, but all the time that goes on, Dad’s in the room with them. Not competing, like, just someone who helped make both of them who they are now, like. Look at Wendy that way, if you can. I know you’re fond of Jim, so think on. Like me, aye? Part of me is my Dad, part is Mam, even Von has some responsibility. Same with you, and your ex. That’s why you are on neutral ground, aye?”

She slipped an arm around my waist and squeezed. “How the fuck did we never see what you are, girl? Not learning girly, are you? Just covered it up too well”

I kissed her cheek. “Had to, kid, or I’d have died. Look, take him his tea, give him a cuddle, and we’ll see about a walk out for breakfast, aye? Oh, and by the way, I don’t know what he has been doing to you---sod it, I’ve got a bloody good idea what it was---but you really need a shower. You smell a bit much of randy man meets horny woman, aye? Towels in the airing cupboard”

She grinned, brighter at last, and off she went with their teas and a mutter of “walking like John Wayne, dead bloody right”. I watched her go, and Karen joined me with her own teas to sort out.

“She OK?”

“Physically? Smells like she was well and truly looked after last night. Just a couple of issues from their pasts to sort, should be fine. She’s sort of learning what trust is about”

Karen nodded. “Yeah, I get that one. Well, we’re all here for her, and I hope she knows that. Anyway, changing the subject quite deliberately, you were well out of it last night. Remember it all?”

I could feel myself blush slightly, as I knew where it was going, pushed along by her impish grin, and then she produced her mobile phone.

“Oh shit, Kaz, you didn’t…”

“Oh yes, I have pics, especially from around ten past midnight”

“Oh bugger a hell”

“Who exactly were they, Jill?”

The music, the dancing, the handbags. Rachel and Jim had got themselves into a corner of the bar where they each seemed to be trying to resuscitate the other through mouth-to-mouth, and James was dancing happily by himself with his father standing watch. Karen, Larinda and I were all shaking that booty thang, or whatever the current slang is, and I was feeling very little pain apart from in my toes, as my feet suffered in the heels I had chosen. I wasn’t exactly drunk, but certainly buzzing, and the clock was ticking down to midnight. I felt a bump against my backside, and looked round to see a couple of men dancing near us, one of whom had just pushed his backside against mine. Well, it was sort of traditional, and as one of them tried similar tactics on my lover I turned and danced with Mister Bottom. No touching, no groping, just happy flailing, and then we were into the final seconds, and of course I had to turn back to my saviour, the woman who completed my life, and we saw in the New Year in as traditional a manner as possible. When we broke for air, I heard a sort of shouted whisper in my ear, along the lines of “Phwooar!”, so I turned, and my man was there and…shit, I had ended up snogging some man, his hand on my arse, and I realised that Larinda had done the same, just for a several of seconds, before I drew back and reclaimed her.

And Karen had the pictures. She made a point of showing me, lips locked, hand squeezing my bum, the bitch.

“How the hell did I never see you for what you are, woman?”

“That’s what Rachel said, just about”

“So what did he say?”

Memories…”Something about going back to his place and seeing what came up. Blokes, think they can cure a dyke by waving their cock about”

Karen turned serious. “Have you listened to what you are saying, love? Everything, now, no pretence, no façade, yeah? I am a bit worried. How do we put the genie back? You’ve got work and stuff, can’t just swan into work in kitten heels”

I nodded. “Aye, that one’s got me a bit worked up. It’s…it’s like I ‘m reborn, just now, and I don’t want to see Rob in the mirror again, ever, and that can’t happen. Well, bugger it, it can happen, it is happening, aye? Just, well, not as sharp as I would like. Mixed emotions, lass, really mixed. What I see is…look, this is me, aye, from now on. Me at the shops, me at home, me out for a ride, all of that. It’s just work, like. I need to find a way of letting them know”

She refilled the kettle, which was handy as Larinda joined us.

“Where’s my tea, woman? Morning, Kaz”

“Morning, Larinda. Just sorting Jill’s life out for her, and I have the photos from last night”

“Oh shit. We didn’t, did we?”

“Yup, lots of tongue sandwich. It is traditional, after all”

“Yeah, well you didn’t, did you?”

“I sort of had Terry hovering, so, well, you know. No, not me”

“Yeah, well, mine turned out to be a gin drinker, could taste it, yeah? What about yours, Jill?”

“Er, beer, I think, and busy hands on my arse”

Larinda chuckled. “I got my tit groped. Well, it would have been rude if he hadn’t, yeah?”

She looked at my open mouth. “What? Look, it’s you I came home with, girl, and, well, it’s sort of going to be you I always come home with, or to, yeah? Just…look, this last couple of days, yeah, I just have to ask myself why I didn’t see what you are before. What’s so funny?”

I tried to explain, that I seemed to be getting that comment from all directions, but I was laughing so much it was all a bit mixed up, so Larinda stopped it dead by kissing me rather firmly and nicely. She took a step back to look at me.

“Yeah, I get it. Just one question, love, and that is, well, why? Blokes, you, yeah?”

Why indeed? I thought for a while, trying to get it into some sort of order in my own mind before attempting to find the right words.

“Look, pet, all I can say is that I got more than a bit carried away, aye? You lot got me so happy, so FREE it just…Listen, all anyone has said to me today is that they can’t understand why they never saw the girl in me, never realised what I was. I’ve spent all of my life hiding, like, and this last couple of days it’s all been different. I’m not playing some script out any more. I’m not having to remember to fart, or walk around as if I’m a foot taller than I really am, aye? The clothes…that’s me, that’s what I wear, not something I bring out of the wardrobe every now and again. I’ve got shoes, you know, had them for years, they still have shiny soles, never been worn outdoors, and now, sod it, now I’m fucking dancing in them while some bloke gropes me!”

I paused for breath, for thought. “Look, both of you, and good morning Terry…look, I was out, I was me, and girls, even some dykes, it’s New Year, and I was so caught up in it, and I knew I was safe with you all around me, and I just thought fuck it, maximum girl, aye?”

Terry nodded. “Yeah, and snogging blokes is a bit different. I mean, for starters, OW!”

Karen turned back to us, shaking out the hand she had just slapped his behind with. “Jill, my dear, all a girl like you needs to know about men is when to put them in their place. I’ll send you the better pictures, yeah? Let’s get sorted; all that nocturnal activity has left me with an appetite...oh, you dirty-minded tarts, DANCING!”

An hour later, and we were on the street, snuggled up in two pairs and a triplet. Karen and Terry sandwiched the boy I thought of more and more as their son, who was having a god morning despite an initial listing of all the possible ways of cooking eggs he knew, and we headed off to the little Italian café that always opened on New Year’s Day to offer hangover cures. We sat as a family would, and we smiled, and ate the bacon, and Jim’s tears were forgotten. I drifted off for a while, thinking of the man I had been kissing just a few hours before, and I felt another realisation dawning in me. I had kissed a man. Not ‘another man’, just ‘a man’, and it meant nothing more than any other NYE kiss would have. Jim’s kiss to my cheek, now, that meant the world to me, for that was a real man showing what he thought of me, what I was, and doing it with charm and grace. The beery man the night before, that was just what girls did. What I did.

What I was.