CHAPTER 60.
And so it went. I got up, I shaved as well as I could, Larinda did what she could to make the best of my face, I went to work, I got abused or not as the day passed, and a few kids would point in the street. There seemed to be some sort of armed truce in the office, where I had some true friends that I had always recognised as such, and to my gratified surprise quite a few more that I hadn’t spotted.

It seemed that in my despair and self-imposed isolation I had aroused nothing worse than pity in many of my colleagues. There were some, though…the main complaint came via the boss, and it was, of course, about the toilets. That was always the sticking point, and I had known it would be, so I sighed and used the medical room. No big deal, I thought, but I noticed that Mr Asher was very tight-lipped about who was making the complaints.

Each day was an adventure? Bollocks was it. Each day was just like the slogan, SSDD, and it was indeed the same shit. No matter how well my lover did my face, no matter how neat my clothing, I still felt the weight on my chest and knew it was fake, still felt the visits to the medical room toilet as the act of a man. Rachel summed it up one lunchtime, as we sat in the kitchen eating some sandwich or other from round the corner, ‘coloured chunky paste number 16 on wholemeal’ or something.

“You are bloody impatient, aren’t you? You want it all yesterday, and you’ve only had this bit a fortnight. Slow down, woman!”

“Aye, well, it’s like bloody Moses across the river; I can see where I should be, but I’m not getting there”

She choked on a piece of sandwich. “You are taking the fucking piss! Look at you, in your bloody M&S blouse–“

“Debenhams”

“Whatever. The shoes are Dorothy Perkins, I went with you, remember? Take one off, just indulge me, yeah? Now turn it over”

I did as she asked. “What now?”

“Look at the sole. What do you see?”

“Getting a bit scuffed, bit of bloody chewing gum I hadn’t noticed”

“And do you not see? You never had that before, you never wore them outside, yeah? Your main worry now is that they might get wet, not that you’re bloody well wearing a pair of poxy heels in public. You’re NORMAL, girl! What more could you bloody well want? No, don’t answer that, it probably involves sharp blades in tender places”

I looked at her under my fringe as I ate, knowing she was right. “What do you suggest, pet?”

“When did you last speak to Alec? I mean, in his office?”

“Couple weeks, like. Seeing him day after tomorrow, as it happens”

She laughed again. “I was about to tell you to talk to him, but that’s what you are supposed to be doing, yeah? Just get him to say where you are, give you something to work from. We having curry this Saturday?”

“Sorting my social life for me, Rach?”

“No, just sort of got a couple of guests for the weekend. Sorting my own social life, innit?”

“A couple…oh, am I going to wind him up on Wednesday!”

Suddenly, she lost all her playfulness. “But gently, Jill, yeah? Early days, and they’ve both had a load of crap. Gently, yeah?”

Two days later, I was at Alec’s door in what would have been my lunch break, and I nearly laughed aloud as I entered.

“And the joke is?”

“Not a joke, Alec, not at all. You’ve been looking in the mirror, and it shows”

“And?”

“Playing the analyst as ever, Alec? OK, then. You are taking better care of yourself since…you seeing him this weekend, then? Ah, that’ll be a yes, then. How many for that curry?”

He grinned, and there was comfort in his smile, more calm than I had ever seen. “Back to you, we both have a clock ticking. Where are you, Jill?”

Sod it, I’d get to play on Saturday. “Alec, in limbo. Rachel pointed it out on Monday: this is now normal for me, as much as I could ever have hoped for, aye? It’s just, underneath, I’m still Rob. I mean, I’m lighter by far than I was, the place you sent me for the electrolysis is slowly making a difference, but it’s all cosmetic”

“You’ve got the carry letter with you?”

“As ever”

“And you know the way to Charing Cross?”

Oh. “Er, yes, just been waiting for the referral”

“This thing?”

He held out an envelope. “It’s next month, just as the daffs will be coming in, but up there it’ll be coughing and wheezing, all that traffic”

I held the envelope as if it might explode. “This is it?”

“This is it, yes. I have finished my diagnosis, if you want to call it that, but I still want to talk to you, still a lot to get straight. And, well, I would still want to talk to you anyway; friends, yes?”

I couldn’t help it and the tears were as girly a thing as any sexist would have expected, and of course we hugged, and after a while that was far too short we took our leave.

“Saturday then, Alec? You and John?”

“Sally should be along as well. Oh, before you go, do you want this? I spoke to your GP and they wrote this out for you”

It was a prescription. Shit. My stomach churned. This really was ‘it’.

“I checked with Addison’s, and they’ve got the stuff in, so you can pick it up on your way back to work. Look…”

He came over to me as I stood by the door, and put the paper into my handbag. A firm hug, the smell of some aftershave or other, one more symptom of his recovery.

“Jill, this isn’t cosmetic, not really, this is you, and if you choose to go down this route then I see no real problems. You have friends. You have family, and a bloody good one from what I see. I am always here, Sal’s about, even Stewie knows what he’s talking about, and that woman of yours is pure unalloyed gold”

“That’s my worry, Alec; she’s not gay”

“We shall see, Jill. I don’t mean we will change her sexuality, that’s utter crap, in my view. What you can do, though, is realise that this is a slow process, and that gives her time to think, and time for you two to see how you feel. Look…”

He checked his watch. “Minute or two yet. There was a case a while ago, two butch lesbians to all appearances, decided they were actually transgendered so started the process, the therapy, the counselling. Turned out one of them was a butch lesbian, one of them was a straight man. So only one of them transitioned, because only for him was it appropriate. That is what people like me are here for, to filter, to bring out the reality from behind the wishful thinking.

“Now, they are still friends, as far as I know, but no longer lovers, because they are wrong for each other and, to be honest, always were. I know others, though, where a husband and wife are now, well, wife and wife, and it’s worked well. You won’t know, until, yeah? So take it as it comes, and just keep that love you have up there in front of you. Now piss off to work; I pay your wages, you know!”

One joke, and the mood broke. “Hang on, pal, you work for the NHS, so I pay your bloody wages as well, aye?”

He grinned. “Damn it, busted. Saturday, then?”

“Saturday it is!”

I walked out of his office and onto the street, and Addison’s was there, sign glowing bright and terrifying. Into my handbag, and straight past the prescription to my mobile. Larinda answered in her best work voice.

“Your boss about then?”

“That is correct. How may I help?”

“I am holding a prescription for the hormones. What do I do?”

“If you would please…he’s just gone. Got a few seconds only, so listen. You are you, and I love you, and I realise that Jill is you in ways that Rob never was, and Rob or Jill, you will die if you don’t, die inside or die in real life, yeah? So you go in there, you get them, you swallow, and we deal with whatever, yeah? WE deal with it, together? Got me? Anything else?”

“Saturday evening curry is on. John will definitely be there”

“Jim’s John?”

“I rather think Alec’s John”

“Oh the randy little fucker straight down the High Street past the Belfry centre and third on your left. Thank you for your enquiry, sir. That appointment is confirmed”

Click. I put the phone back, and withdrew the piece of paper. The pharmacist was a small Chinese woman, and as she handed me the little paper bag twenty minutes later, she smiled, and whispered.

“About time. We’ve all seen you around, in the shop here, so we know. Good luck, girl”

I wandered back to the office almost dazed. That was confirmation of something I had been suspecting since that first trip to the reserve, that people could see what I was, and after the first impulsive curiosity they just didn’t care. Big world, things to do, people to see, oh a tranny, what’s for lunch?

Kettle on, then. Cup of tea. First dose. Swallow.

Goodbye Rob Carter.