CHAPTER 58
“What next? I suggest we prepare some sort of announcement”

I looked at him, wondering if he meant that I should make a tour of the various offices and cubicles. He was typing, though.

“I am drafting an e-mail for general distribution, and I am going to add a reminder that the Department has some very strict rules on diversity and equality, not to mention bullying. Here is my position, Mi…ss Carter. I do not like this at all. This is disruptive and abnormal, but I am as bound by the rules as any other staff member. I will not, CAN not, offer you my best wishes, but I can assure you that the niceties and the rules will be respected. Do we understand each other?”

“Aye, boss, I think we do. What do you need from me?”

He looked me up and down. “Perhaps…perhaps just a little less girly in the clothes tomorrow? Ease your way into skirts rather than trying to do ‘Roman Holiday’?”

“You what?”

“Audrey Hepburn, for god’s sake. Look, one other thing. What have you done so far with your name? I am not going to piss about with your ID or staff records unless or until it is all kosher. That is why I ask you, how serious are you?”

I sighed. “As serious as I could ever be. This is me, this is who I am, aye? This is the end of pretence, OK?”

He sighed in return. “As you will. If you are going to swear a deed poll or make a statutory dec, can I have a copy for my file? Oh yes, and stay out of the ladies’ for now. And the gents’. Use the sick room”

That was apparently that, but as we left I saw his head drop into his hands. Penny was waiting as we came out.

“Please, Rob, what is all this?”

I put a hand on her arm. “What does it look like, kid? And it’s Jill, not Rob any more”

“It looks like you are in for a lot of grief”

I smiled. “Already had that, Pen, already had that”

The three of us walked back to my own little room, the trip a gauntlet of questions from other colleagues as we went. I fobbed them off as best I could, sticking to the basics, and then went to my computer.

“Rach, lunch out today? Red Lion?”

“Suits me”

I drafted my own global e-mail, ‘I will be at lunch next door from twelve thirty if there are questions to be asked’, and sent it round the building. The internet was next.

“What’s that thing he mentioned, Rach? Stat dec?”

“Statutory declaration. Here…”

She took over the keyboard and soon had the necessary forms on a website. Five minutes later they were completed.

“What’s that printer number? OK…done. Now, Jill, before we do this, ring your other half and tell her, yeah? Just in case she feels left out”

Larinda answered on the first ring.

“I was waiting, love, shitting myself about how it’s gone”

“Seen the boss, and it’s all official now. Set up lunch in the pub, if any of them want to ask any questions, like. And Rach has printed off a name change thing, needs a couple of witnesses to sign”

“Can’t be me then. Look a bit off with the same address, yeah?”

Graham coughed. “Want me?”

I turned back to the phone. “Got Rachel, love, and one of the lads has just offered”

“Offered what exactly, girl? Don’t you go off chasing no blokes. Only two people getting in your knickers, and that’s me and you!”

“Aye, but one’s a bloke, and as for Rachel, Jim’s a lot bigger than me!”

Rachel guffawed, and Larinda clearly heard.

“Tell that slapper with the tits that it’s quality, not bulk weight, yeah? And Jill…”

There was quite a pause. “Jill, look, you come home safe, right. You are my girl now, I mean that”

She hung up, and I wondered exactly what she had meant. Her girl…after the initial disaster with the ‘sexy’ knickers, she had clearly been doing her best to come to terms with me, me as I should have been from the start. I still woke in the night, wondering exactly how much she could take, and despite her protestations, I knew it was hard. She was as straight as she could be, and yet she had been presented with the slap in the face of falling in love with someone who was not what she had thought. If, if she could keep that in mind, stay the course, then I really had to reconsider how lucky I was. Rachel beside me, my family, the Forsters, even John, all had simply adjusted their view of me and carried on. I thought again of the girl Alec had mentioned, that Sally had known, and shuddered.

Come on, Jill, shake it up, conjure a smile.

“Right, boys and girls, I suggest we get a bit of work out of the way, and then it’s pub time. See you at twelve fifteen, lass?”

Rachel nodded. “Yup, got to be done. Laters!”

I pulled up my schedule for the week. “Graham, can you remember when we used to do all this ourselves? Book our own visits, speak to the trader, have some bloody flexibility, aye? Sodding computerised bollocks…”

There was just a snort from the other side of the room, and then, very softly, “Well, that answers one question”

“Aye?”

“You are definitely still yourself!”

I grinned back. “No, I am only just getting to be that, marra, but the me inside is still the same. Just better dressed, aye?”

“You are going out on visits dressed like that?”

“Well, I can hardly do it naked, can I?”

He laughed, far more naturally now, and waved a mug at me. “Another?”

“Aye, go on, I’ll share my biccies with you”

“You allowed biscuits?”

“Not really, but what she doesn’t see and all that. They were in the shop round the corner, and had my name on”

“You’ve changed your surname as well, to McVities?”

And he was gone at that. I felt my strength wobble, just slightly. The morning had rushed by, and it had been as if I was in a stream in spate, all my movements dictated by the current, and suddenly I was alone, in my office, in a skirt and mascara, with a baying crowd waiting for me in less than two hours.

Sod it. I had to do this, or the rest of my life wouldn’t be any life at all. Buckle down. You have four letters to write, girl, four to print and post. Do that, focus on the job, get it out, exposed, looked at, and hopefully bloody forgotten. Nine days wonder, that’s what I was hoping for, one quick freak show and done.

Tea came, biscuits vanished, and Rachel reached across my keyboard to the mouse. File–save as---

She struck an odd pose, all shoulders, and grunted something in as deep a voice as possible. “Show time…”

Coat. Bloody handbag (I was sure I’d leave it somewhere some day). Door. Pavement (click of heels, oh my, how that would have entranced me way back when). Pub. It actually fell silent as we entered, and I felt the need to break the spell.

“Dry white, Rach, got to do full girly, aye?”

I turned to what seemed a sea of faces, trying to pick them out as individuals so that I could at least gauge their reactions before I spoke, but I was overwhelmed. Deep breath, yet again.

“Some of you may have been wondering why I called you here, but I bloody well doubt any of you are right now, so I shall plunge in. This is me, the person you all thought you knew wasn’t me, and the real name is Jill, thank you and goodnight. Ta, Rach”

I raised the glass to my lips to cover my shakes, and turned away, though I knew that wasn’t the end of it. “Rach, what you having for lunch? My shout, aye?”

“Was just going for the ploughman’s, yeah?”

“Pickled onions?”

“Well, one of us won’t be doing no snogging tonight, so she can, yeah? You, my girl, on the other hand---“

“Who’s…she snogging?”

It was Lisa, a plump girl from the Registration district. Rachel turned her most angelic smile on her, and I swear I saw her eyelashes bat.

“Why, her girlfriend, of course, who else?”

Lisa blinked three or four times, then shook her head. “If you…when…shit, times like this, do the announcement thing after work so I can get pissed, OK? We still have the afternoon to get through. Ah, sorry, what I meant to say was, hell, just not a problem with me, all right? Bit of a shock, is all”

Rachel looked across at me, then turned back to Lisa. “So, surprised?”

“Well, shit, yeah! And then…I can’t put it into one sentence, Rob, Jill, but, well, YEAH, OK? Makes sense now. Hell, you were never thick enough to be a man”

She was blushing, and I got a hug, one of those lightning-quick ones where the hugger is too embarrassed to stay longer, and then the inquisition began in earnest. How long, why, was I gay, when was I having it cut off, all the usual rubbish, but what I actually noticed were the ones who never came over, didn’t ask questions, just looked, and that was when I began to worry. This was public, this was a form of solidarity, but once we were away from the big group some of the silent watchers would be the ones to keep my eyes on. I had always known it would never be an easy road.

A hand took mine, fingers interleaving with my own, and I turned to see my lover beside me. She smiled and kissed me on the lips.

The road ahead eased as she did so.