CHAPTER 3
A month later and John’s interview was weighing on his mind, and Alec was leaving mine well alone.

“I am worse than bloody Sally, Jill. She always gets close to her patients, and she’s got me doing it now. No, that’s unfair. Blame where blame is due: it’s your fault”

“You make it sound like a failing, Alec. Nothing to do with my amazing charm?”

“No, she did it with Annie, and Steph, and poor Melanie, of course. Oh, right: you haven’t met Steph yet. Customs Officer down at the airport, another of our merry band. Mad as a mad thing”

“Er, isn’t that a given in our situation?”

“You know what I mean! Or…perhaps, in her case, you don’t. I don’t know her at all well, but Sally tells me things and, well, you are rather mundane by comparison. No offence”

“None taken. I’ll just have a quiet word with your prospective brother-in-law. Anyway, what are you suggesting?”

“Well, Sal and I have a fall-back chap for this sort of thing. I am not going to try and pronounce or spell his name, so just call him Doctor Raj. Good chap, Raj. I have your endocrinology stuff from your GP, by the way”

“Bit odd it’s come to you?”

He laughed, and it was a happy one that highlighted my memory of the drab and shabby man I had first met. “Trust me, Jill, we have had such a little flurry of new women here that it makes sense for us to talk to each other. Short answer: I, or rather Raj, will be looking to sign you off at some point, and then you are looking at Charing Cross and if they see the same person I do you have no idea what the waiting list will be like, so keeping everything in hand makes life easier for all of us”

He paused. “Jill, this is heading towards surgery. You know that. There are risks, especially at your age, and especially after so much alcohol. There are two things to look at. Firstly, what happens if they don’t accept you for surgery? Secondly, where does surgery leave you and your partner? I don’t mean all that bollocks from the Gender Recognition Act, the partnerships, annulled weddings, so on. I mean…

“I mean, her in bed with a woman who is entirely that. No extras. Let me talk, just for a little while, please. Everyone has their limit, everyone has a certain level of flexibility before they snap. This is an important decision. You need to be very certain in your own mind whether you can live without being ‘complete’ for her sake, or whether you can be certain that she can live with it. My original…”

He trailed off for an instant, sniffing and shuffling his notes. “My original diagnosis was that you would be dead in the near future without the opportunity of, without the hope of eventual surgery down there. I have heard all sorts of terms, from ‘it’ to ‘cancerous growth’ and ‘tumour’. I saw a real suicide risk there, either conventionally or the slow way you were steadily killing yourself. That changed, as soon as you became involved with Larinda, and that is my problem”

He shook his head, and once more I saw a hint of tears. “My own life is changed, now, changed beyond any hope I once had, and that is down to you and to her, so as far as I am concerned I love you both as family, and this is now no longer a professional relationship. I cannot in all conscience be sure that I am giving the best advice when I am so worried about both of you. So…can you please ask Larinda to speak to Raj as well? Hmmm? This sort of thing gets prescriptive, and Charing Cross can be a bit…consistent in their advice. You are human beings, each of you unique, and your relationship is your own. Don’t assume that what is good for one transwoman must be the path you take”

Another pause, and a dab of the eyes as I just sat silent. This was Alec in the raw, all his wounds open. Sod a professional relationship; I went over to hug him.

“Holistic medicine…” he muttered. “Supposed to mean treating the whole patient, not her entire circle of friends”

“Cuts both ways, pet. Now, here’s a deal: let me know when John has his day, and I will try and stop by for him. Give him a bit moral support, like”

Alec burst out laughing. “Interpret is what you mean. Bloody good job it’s not his brother going for the interview!”

So the day came, and Alec fussed over his partner before I hopped on the train with him down to Crawley. Why is the Horsham train ALWAYS late? Never mind; twenty minutes later we were walking past the County Mall and the park to the local nick where the interview was to be held., and as we came up to the door I had a sudden attack of memories that had lain dormant under my drunken haze and self-pity. How the hell could I have forgotten Crawley’s very own sort-of-IRA bombing? Annie Price, that had been her name. Gong from the Queen, crap in the press. I thought once more of Alec, and knew how easy I was having it. He was right: Larinda was going to come first in this, and as I thought the words ‘even if it kills me’ I just had to laugh at how appropriate they were.

“What’s funny, Jill?”

“Life, John, just life. We think we have it sussed, that we know what it’s about, aye? And then it all changes, and sometimes, just occasionally, like, it’s actually for the better. We see better with eyes open”

“Aye, lass. I learnt that one in Bosnia. Howay in, and I’ll buy you a pint or a coffee after, depending”

Up to the desk. “John Forster; here for an interview about PCSO?”

The frighteningly young copper at the desk checked a list. “Ah. First one in today; that’ll look good. Your wife going to wait for you?”

We stopped laughing, eventually, but it showed how much strain he was feeling that such a lame comment tickled him so much.

“Son…no offence, like, but as we are both gay it sort of started us off. She’s here as a bit of support. Any chance she can come and wait inside?”

The young PC turned to me. “Got any ID?”

“As a matter of fact I have”

“Revenue and Customs? That’s good enough for me. I’ll just call the Sarge to let you in and sign for you, OK?”

Our small world got even smaller right then.

“Fuck me backwards, John Forster! What the hell are you doing here?”

“Do I know you?”

“I picked up the pieces enough times after you, marra, just couldn’t catch you at it. Dennis Armstrong, and that’s Sergeant Armstrong to you. For the benefit of the tape…”

John blinked. “Shit, aye! That big corruption shite, you were the grass, aye? Bugger, I didn’t mean it like that, I meant, well…”

Dennis was grinning at John’s verbal gymnastics. “Look, I know why you are here, obviously. Mr Davenport will be doing that bit. It’s just, well, what the hell are you doing so far from home?”

“Ah, SERGEANT, for the benefit of the tape, Jill here was up hyem and she sort of introduced me to them, and one thing led to another, and here I am”

“She a canny lass?”

There was a snort from the youngster once he worked out what the older man meant, and another memory lit up my mind. This was the man blown up. How much life, how many opportunities, had simply walked past me in my wasted years? John’s wry smile was back.

“I don’t go that way, pal. Dennis. Sarge”

“Shite! You’re the ones…Stewie, the queerbashers. You’ve met the missus, then. Kirsty. Hell, you do realise that extreme violence isn’t exactly part of the PCSO job description?”

John’s grin was wider. “Fringe benefit, perhaps?”

The sergeant stuck his hand out for a shake. “You haven’t changed at all, have you? Still up for a ruck!”

John’s smile faded. “Trust me, Sarge, I have changed in ways you really don’t want to see, or at least not the reasons. Saw some things…”

“Not here, aye? Wayne, buzz us in, and we’ll get him round to the Super. Coffee first, aye?”

We ended up in a tiny room with the thickest, strongest coffee I have ever tried to force my body to absorb. Den (“Sod formality back here”) looked at me closely as I sipped.

“You like Annie? Thought so. Kirst told me about that bit of trouble up the town centre. I heard Stewie was restrained. Now, Jill, was it? This lad and I go back quite a while, back when I was fresh new kid on the block, aye? Always around when there was a fight, never any witness to say he was involved in any way we could do him for, and when he pissed off to the Army, we thought, thank god, one less worry of a Saturday night. Thing is, I never had you down as, well, that way, John. What the hell happened?”

John went a little distant. “I’ve always been this way, Den. That’s why the fights, the Army, kicking the shite out of Jill here at school, aye? Just went to the wrong place…fuck that, I went to the RIGHT fucking place. I got to see myself, like, in one of those shows mirrors, the ones that make you look bigger, and that’s all they were out there. I was the school bully, aye, the local hard fucker, and this lot, shite, it didn’t matter what magic book they used, they were all school bullies, just with AK47s”

He looked away again, and his voice was soft. “Guard duty, Den. Guard duty for three days on a mass grave that wasn’t anything more than a pile of dirt pushed over more bodies than I want to think about, and I looked at them, and I saw myself. Not as one of the dead, like, but as one of the fuckers in the funny hats with the guns and the grins, and I thought, is that me? Is that what I fucking am? And that’s when it gets you, aye? You see what you are so clearly, and you want to slit your own throat rather than live with it, but you have to, and if you are at least partly human you make yourself a promise. Not me, not my club. Not good, Den, not good in any fucking way at all”

Den took his hand. “No, John, you’re wrong there. Look at you now, aye? What you’ve done, most people cannot do that, facing up to their faults and making amends. Too easy to blame someone else, excuse themselves. You show that side to Mr Davenport, he’ll snap you up. Me…here’s my hand on it, aye? I know you, John Forster, just not as well as I thought I did. Now, off to the netty, clean your face”

“What for?”

I reached over to him. “You were crying, John. Didn’t you know?”