CHAPTER 15
Jon and I went round to the safe house early the next week, at Deb’s request, and after catching up on all the gossip over plates of meat pie and potatoes, Charlie held up her hand.

“Di?”

“Yes, love?”

“That was a great idea of yours. Deb explained it, so we all went out to Penarth together. Even Paula. We each found one, but me and Tiff, well, we had a bag of them”

“Sorry?”

“That pebble you gave Nana. We all went and had a throw and a swear. Felt really good, that, but some people got thrown more than once!”

I snorted at that one.

“That would be Pritchard and two of the Evans?”

“Yeah, and that wonky-eyed prick as well. Gemma said we would end up making a reef out there cause we threw so many”

“No trouble from passers-by?”

“Nah, we had Paul with us as well, in his uniform. He threw a couple of his own, but he wasn’t as sweary. He’s coming round later, anyway, him and his girl”

Ah. I said a little prayer for managerial understanding just as the door rang, and the Sedakas arrived. Yes, I knew I had that bit wrong, but it was stuck firmly now. Charlie looked over to Clara.

“You remember these two, don’t you?”

The newer girl was so much more relaxed now, and just grinned and nodded. After a round of hugs, Deb asked Paul if he had done as requested, which seemed oddly formal.

“Yup. In the cool bag there. Gemma will be over in fifty minutes, she says”

That was oddly precise, but I assumed the bag held our dessert. I really needed to start watching my diet. He was still talking, though.

“Anyone here read the Guardian?”

My boy stuck his hand up, and Deb made a sniff to rival Charlie’s.

“Not me. Too many transphobic bastards writing for that rag”

“Well, sorry about that. Two weeks’ time, they start serialising Paula’s book. They’ve offered her a print deal as well. We’ve been coming up with all sorts of names for it, and I think we’ve settled on one that works: A New Game. Sort of pun on ‘The Game’, you know what I mean”

He smiled at what was clearly now his partner, and then turned to me.

“Bloody good idea with those stones, Di! I nearly popped my shoulder throwing Ashley Evans!”

Paula started to giggle, and at my raised eyebrows she explained through her laughter.

“Just thinking it’s a pity they’ve cleaned up how they get rid of sewage, isn’t it? We could have found a really suitable place for them all! Anyway, our report. He seems sound”

Deb was nodding, and Tiff and Charlie high-fived, before Tiff took her own turn to explain.

“You were wondering why Paul said fifty minutes, weren’t you, Di?”

“Er, yes. Seems a bit precise. I’d just have said something like about an hour, innit?”

“Yeah, well, it’s bus times. Gem has to see someone off on a particular bus before she comes home”

She grinned across at Clara, then turned back to me.

“Our new girl here, she signed up with me and Charlie, at college”

Clara nodded. “I thought, well, new life, yeah? And if these two are there, then I’ve got someone to turn to if, you know…”

Charlie sniffed, naturally. “Yeah, and you’re such a devious cow! Di, there’s us, got our feet proper under the table, innit? And she thinks, does that one, ‘how do I make friends and influence people?’ stuff, and so she has a word with Gemma, and she’s such a soft bloody touch, and gives her a big box of stuff. Comes in, hands it out with a smile, isn’t it, Clara dear?”

Another nod from the other girl, this time with a broad and utterly happy grin.

“Yeah, I did! And of course, they all want to know where it’s from, so that’s a win for Gem’s shop. Advertising by word of mouthful!”

She continued after the groans had died down.

“So, there are all these students, and they are popping round to Gem’s shop, or getting their families to go, and, well, it’s Gem, isn’t it?”

Charlie jumped in.

“Yeah, no way she’s ever getting into George North’s rugby shorts, is there? And Jonny boy there’s pulled Rhys, and you and Blake are all loved up. It’s like the beef’s in short supply, isn’t it? But one of the girls has a big brother, and he is a BIG brother and, well, they’re sort of seeing how it goes. Once he’s on the bus home, she’ll be on her way here. Leave the teasing to us, you two!”

Once again, Tiff tag-teamed her.

“Yeah, and if you are free on Saturday we’re having a student night out at the Gatekeeper, so if you want to see him, that’ll be your chance. Assuming he says yes when Gem asks him tonight, of course.”

I checked my young man for reaction, and he was grinning. He caught my glance, and reached out to take my hand.

“Ah, looks like I was right, then, like all my lot were right. I have to say this, and I’ll say it here, because this is one place I bloody well know is safe. Both these women know what I was thinking, so I’ll spell it out for the rest of you. I’m new to all this, and it has been hard. No, not new to this place, and never hard here.

“I have never suffered the way so many of you have. Got a bit of abuse when I was younger, still get some now, fairy, queer, that sort of thing. Nothing too heavy, is it? Then here I am, right in the middle of things that I really don’t want to talk about, with Deb, Diane, Paula over there, others in this room. I interview people who tell me things…”

He stopped for a few seconds, once more looking round the table.

“I very nearly gave up a little while ago, nearly chucked this in as a bad joke. I always wanted to make a difference for the better, and I got lost in what was there rather than what could be. I sit here now, and I listen to you lot, and it’s easy to do because some of you never shut up, do you, Charlie? And I see the differences there, the changes for the better, and how could I give that up?”

He ducked his head with a grin, then raised his cup.

“Only tea, but what the hell. To making things better!”

What the hell, indeed; we all joined in with his toast, before dissolving into little knots of conversation over the dessert Paul produced from his cool bag, which turned out to be three complete Pavlovas. Gemma entered just as the last dishes were cleared away.

“Don’t worry, Nana! Me and Marty shared some of my steak slices and an ice cream, and yes, he’s on for Saturday night. You two coming?”

Charlie, naturally, couldn’t leave that one alone, and after more happy teasing about Gemma, Rhys, Blake and ‘Georgie’, Jon and I left them to it.

Life was clearly not just going on but improving steadily, just as it crashed and burned for those we had all flung out to sea.

I didn’t really know the Gatekeeper except as a city centre pub I had visited twice on duty in my earlier and uniformed incarnation. It turned out to be a pretty typical ‘Spoon’s chain pub, in what I was told had been an old theatre or cinema or similar, and the students had a raised area set aside for themselves. I felt the years fall away from me as I remembered so many similar nights with Bridget: silly jokes that nobody over twenty would ever find funny, knots of earnest conversation interspersed with canoodling couples, beer of peculiar types as well as odd and lurid concoctions, and above all: noise.

Marty proved to be nowhere near as massive as I had imagined, but he was still bigger than Gemma, which was what mattered to her. Jon had managed to persuade Rhys to join us, and both he and my own man were mobbed by teenaged girls. I caught Jon looking across from the other side of the students’ little area, and he just shrugged and grinned, clearly recognising that we weren’t so much grass widows as ‘hunk’ widows. I didn’t care; I would be getting mine back soon. I kept that thought in mind as a I made my way through the crowd and down to the ladies’. Get it over with, DC Sutton.

The drink was doing its job, so I was grateful that there was a free cubicle, and that it was relatively clean and had paper. The lock worked, and Addison’s packaging was, thankfully, minimal, and the test was positive.

I just sat there, knickers round ankles, staring at the plastic wand and that blue marker. Positive.

Shit. The emotions couldn’t seem to sort themselves out, dread fighting with delight, and for some very odd reason a little bit of chapel-driven shame overriding it all. I slapped that one down hard, as I was a married woman now, so sod you, chapel god.

Sod everything, in fact. I wiped and sorted my clothing, and unlocked the door, dumping the kit in the sanitary bin and walking to the other bin to dispose of the cardboard box, looking up to see Charlie staring at me open-mouthed.

“Di…? Was that a test kit?”

I looked at her in silence.

“Yeah, I know I can’t ever, yeah, can I? But I still know what they look like? Please, Di? What did it say?”

I grimaced. She wasn’t exactly my choice of first to hear my news, but she was still someone I now knew was a good friend.

“Um, Charlie? Looks like I am going to be taking a break from work next year”

She threw herself at me, sobbing brokenly about Ashley Evans and being an aunty, and all sorts of other confused things, before collecting herself, grabbing a tissue for her eyes.

“Di?”

“Yeah?”

“Should have been Blake first, shouldn’t it?”

I shrugged. “Things happen, love”

“Well, only the two of us know, yeah? Keep it that way. Let Blake thing he was first”

I pulled her to me again, for another hug, then held her at arms’ length.

“You are a good woman, Charlie”

“Yeah, well, got a lot to live up to. Good examples to learn from, isn’t it? Come on; I need a wee, and then it’s back up to see how Gem’s getting on with her side of beef. Wait for me?”

“Course, girl”

We walked back up a few minutes later, and she immediately darted off to tease Paula, probably about her seemingly endless capacity for St Clement’s. I found my husband, and pulled him down to whisper in his ear.

“Time to start thinking of names, my love”