CHAPTER 43
Matthew raised an eyebrow at that, and once more his tact ran true to form.

“I will assume that your status is at issue, dear lady. May I ask about your name?”

“Eh? Oh! Statutory declaration”

“So for all purposes it is your name, even for a passport?”

“Yeah, but they’d still put ‘male’ on the bloody thing!”

“I see. I rather suspect there is precedent, though. A brother officer, you know, a donkey-walloper as Gerald here would have said, followed their own star a few years ago. A travel writer, yes?”

Susie was nodding. “I have her book! Jan Morris, isn’t it?”

Matthew barked one of his delighted laughs. “I rather think that La Morris has a great deal more than one book, my girl!”

Susie was almost giggling at his performance. “You know what I mean! Her life thing, autobiography, that’s the word”

“Indeed! Now, my point is a simple one: if someone is a travel writer it rather presupposes that they actually indulge in the pastime of travel, does it not? And such would require the possession of a passport, and while the good lady writer will not be the only person in such a situation to travel, there must be many, many other ladies of such distinction who visit parts that are foreign. Tell me, what does your doctor say?”

Susie shook her head and sighed. “Not a very helpful man. Happen I can’t go against nature, can’t change history, et cetera et bloody cetera”

“Hmmm. Gerald, may I beg the use of your telephone?”

I had a new one, where there was no cable to get in way, just a little thing like a transistor aerial to pull out. I got it from the hallway and handed it to Matthew, who tapped in a number from a small card.

“Julian? Dear boy! Sorry to disturb you on the Lord’s Day, but I would be grateful for some assistance in a delicate matter.

“No, not precisely that sort of delicacy, though it does concern a young lady.

“Julian, dear boy, you are an incorrigible cad and bounder!”

He looked at Susie for a sign of agreement, and she gave him one of her sharp nods after the slightest of pauses.

“A tale indeed, Julian, but in short I am sitting with the young lady in question after a delightful and entirely traditional Sunday lunch—Valerie, dear lady, hat is not the sort of comment that is helpful—and we have a slight dilemma. Young Susie has been an absolute life-saver---no, Valerie is Susie’s mother. Pay attention, dear boy! Susie performed a rescue when my other dear friend Gerald fell into a river in the month of February, which is a remarkably silly time to go bathing au naturel

“No, dear boy, he was clothed! Now, the crux of this affair is that the young lady in question did not precisely commence her time on this world in that way… yes. Yes indeed. Well may you ask! You are aware of poor Rodney’s slight descent from the heights of Olympian health? Good oh! Well, we wish to revisit old haunts…”

He looked once more at Susie for permission, and once more she nodded.

“Yes. Yes. We wish to travel abroad and that raises difficulties for one of our party.

“Indeed she has, but he is an antediluvian old fossil by her account, which I am rather prepared to accept. Yes? Wait one, please, dear boy”

He lowered the phone and looked around the table. “Before I continue, my dear friends, I should explain. Julian Hemmings is a former comrade; indeed, ‘rob all my comrades’ was his appellation”

I laughed out loud, actually surprising myself. “Happen it’s for RAMC, Royal Army Medical Corps. Right, Matthew?”

“Indeed, dear boy. Julian was our MO through our slight differences with the Boche. He has a practice in London now. Harley Street, actually”

He put the phone back to his ear. “Julian? Yes, could you be so kind? Young Susie has…”

Matthew made nothing more than a few small grunts of agreement and comment for almost five minutes.

“Delighted, dear boy! Please be patient while I explain matters to my friends! Gerald, ladies, it does appear that there is actually a process by which a passport can be amended. It requires a statement from the subject’s doctor that they are indefinitely going to be playing for the distaff side”

Susie looked very confused by that, so I asked the obvious question, and he smiled in a gentle way.

“If what is referred to these days as her GP writes a letter confirming that they are living as a female, and will continue to do so in their opinion, a passport may be issued bearing a suitable description”

Susie was shaking her head. “No way that would ever happen, miserable old bastard like him!”

Another bark from Matthew. “No, my dear! Julian has offered his services! Oh, and before you begin to examine the contents of your purse, or lack of them, Julian is a friend and is willing to work pro bono. Gerald, may I assume you would travel to the Great Wen with our girl here?”

I thought quickly. Get one of the lads to cover, with Doreen’s help; still not the busiest period for us.

“Aye. Aye! Let’s do this, lass. Matthew. Aye!”

Once more, the phone rose. “Absolutely, Julian! Will you speak to Charles for us? Good oh! Please pass my warmest to Cynthia. We shall compare diaries. Till then, dear boy—oh. Nearly forgot! Red or white? Or--- Yes, brut of course. We shall speak soon”

He folded up the little aerial and set the telephone handset to one side of his plate.

“My dear friends, Julian is a specialist in the medical sense, of the type of which Mr Lehrer once spoke, a specialist in the diseases of the wealthy. His brother Charles also works with the deserving rich, aiding them to alleviate their feelings of guilt. He is a consulting trick cyclist. Dear Susie, Julian is willing to add you to his list of patients, and believes that Charles would be delighted to investigate such an unusual condition”

She was a little fiercer at that word. “We aren’t so unusual, Matthew! Just kept out of sight, mostly, or bloody well killed in a lot of places”

“Yes indeed, dear lady. Yes indeed. We did witness a certain level of intolerance for the uncommon some years ago. Now, Gerald, would you be inclined to honour my small place in town with your presence? Rodney’s pile is rather far out, whereas I am in Hampstead”

For the first time, Valerie spoke up. “Matthew, have I got this right? There’s stuff you haven’t said out loud yet. You’ve got a mate who happens to be a doctor, who’ll take on our girl here---“

Susie sat up at that. Valerie saw, and just nodded at her, then gave her a slow smile before turning back to Matthew.

“As I were saying, who’ll take on my Susie and do necessary for her passport? And he has a brother who’ll do head shrinking thing she were talking of, and all for a bit of fizzy wine? Aye, I might not drink champagne, but I know what ‘brut’ means. All this as a favour?”

It was as if a plug had been pulled on my old friend, and for the first time ever I saw him as the old man he really was, just as I was, fading towards an exit from the world.

“Gerald, dear boy, how much have you told these ladies about our experiences in ’45?”

The specific year told me what he meant, and I shook my head. “I mentioned that place a bit to Susie, but only, well, a little bit to Valerie”

That latter nodded. “Place you said didn’t have the gas, wasn’t it? Just the smell?”

Matthew sighed, and there were memories there, memories I shared, sights and smells that had killed Harry.

“Rodney told his men one particular thing, ladies, and that was not to feed people as it would in all likelihood kill them. As our MO, Julian was one of those who sought to find methods of aiding the recovery of human beings who were almost beyond such a thing. In a way, he considers himself to blame for those deaths he could not prevent, the deaths from overfeeding, from misplaced kindness. Yes, he will see Susie as a courtesy to myself, but he will treat her as part of his atonement for his own sins, and Charles is part of that process”

I nodded, understanding all that he meant, but Valerie’s mouth was working, trying to shape words she couldn’t get out. They came in a rush.

“What the bloody hell is wrong with you people? All you did over there, all you suffered, all those lads you lost, and you feel bloody well GUILTY?”

She sat for a moment or two, looking backwards and forwards between us as Matthew and I avoided her gaze, then yet again there was a sigh.

“Gents, would it be all right for me to come down with my daughter here and make sure she is safe and sound, like, and to help with the doctor? I mean, he might want a bit from a parent’s point of view, I’d be thinking. Susie, I ask you: guilty! What is it with bloody men’s thinking?”

My girl reached out for her mother’s hand. “How would I know, Mam?”