“Hi Dawn, Thanks for fitting me in at such short notice,” said the man was obviously dressed in drag as he came into ‘Dawns Hair and Beauty’ late on a Friday afternoon.

“No problem Roxy. Where are you playing tonight?”

“Nelson and Colne Working Men’s Club, replied ‘Roxy’ as she sat down at the chair.

“Them’s a hard bunch over there.”

“Aye, they are but the money is good. Give and take eh?”

“Where’s Gina?” asked Dawn referring to the other half of the double act.

“Last I heard, she was somewhere in the air between Heathrow and Manchester. I got a text about an hour ago saying that she was getting on the plane.”

“So, it’s a DIY job at the club for her then?”

“I was wondering…?”

Dawn laughed as she teased Roxy’s wig off to dress it.

“You really know how to wrap a girl around your little finger don’t you?”

Roxy smiled.

“Well you are my sister, aren’t you?”

---

An hour later, Roxy with a fresh style to her hair and a full set of acrylic talons set off for the gig from their base in Rochdale.

Roxy and Gina were a ‘Drag Queen’ double act. Both had proper jobs but both of them had been performing dressed up as women for almost as long as they could remember.

Dawn knew in her heart that her brother was really a woman inside and really wanted to meet the real person. She’d tried many times to get Alan, to let her transform him into a real woman but he was simply shit scared of being made. Dawn knew differently. She knew her brother was becoming more and more feminine in his demeanour and everything as the years went by.

He’d already been outed as Gay at work. Alan was content to let that ride. He viewed it as less hassle.

The Gig was as expected difficult. The audience took delight in baiting the performers. But the girls gave as good as they’d got but, in the end they got called back for an encore. Everyone went home happy.

Dawn had stood in the wings watching her brother ‘ham’ up being a woman. At the act went on, it became harder for him to hide the fact that inside he was really a woman. This put her in a quandary. On one hand she’d get a sister if he did transition but on the other hand, she’d lose the most wonderful brother a girl could have had.

On the journey home, Dawn remarked,

“You were really hitting the high notes tonight. The singer who came on after you noticed this. She said that she could not get anywhere close to them.”

“Thanks Sis. I guess I got carried away. I must remember to keep my voice low tomorrow night.”

“Ah yes. Batley Social. They are another hard bunch.”

“But fair. If we put the effort in to work them up they respond just like tonight.”

“Yes, they did. Gina enjoyed herself but bro, she can see you changing.”

”Changing? Me? No way.”

“Yes, my dear brother. You are. Less than five minutes into the act, all trace of Alan was gone. You were compensating the rest of the time. Why don’t you admit it eh? I know you better than anyone and well, I can see it becoming hard and harder for you to hide your inner woman.”

Roxy didn’t answer and the rest of the journey home was conducted in silence.

As Dawn said goodnight to her sibling, she shook her head and thought to herself, ‘well, I’ve tried again. I’m not going to give up’.

Roxy became Alan again on Sunday evening. As he removed the nails, Alan knew that his sister was right. It was getting harder and harder for him to put Roxy away every week. Despite his obvious attempts to appear as a ‘man in drag’ and Roxy was well known in the area he lived as a Drag Queen, he knew that if he wasn’t careful he’d get to the point of no return. That was a step that he didn’t want to take.

---

Alan worked at the local Abattoir. It was a messy job but at least the hours he worked enabled him to finish early in the day and be himself at home. At the end of the shift like all his colleagues he took a shower. He entertained them by practising the songs that the act performed.

A couple of weeks later, a TV crew were doing a Documentary on the traceability of meat from the farmer to the supermarket shelf.

They’d been filming in the Abattoir for most of the day and were still there at the end of the shift.

The presenter was doing a wrap up scene outside when the men went for their shower. The presenter was in full flow when this wonderful voice started emanating from the building behind him.

“Cut!” shouted the director angrily.

That anger soon disappeared as the crew listened to the voice. Thirty seconds after shouting ‘Cut’ he got the sound recordist to start recording again.

When the songs had finished the director was shaking his head in disbelief. It had been a long time since he’d heard a voice a clean and pure as that.

“Who the hell was that? I didn’t see any women on the lines cutting meat?” he asked the presenter and the rest of the crew.
None of the crew could remember any female workers doing the dirty jobs that day.

---

The following day back at the TV Company, the director was pouring over the tapes from the previous day. As he’d suspected, all the workers doing the cutting and prep were men. The only women were in the packing department and the offices. Then he went over his notes and realised that the Women’s shift ended an hour after the Men. He ended up no wiser as to the owner of the mystery voice.

He put the episode out of his mind and got on with putting the piece together for transmission the following week.

With the programme in the ‘can’ the director returned to the Abattoir. His excuse was to show the results to the manager but his other reason was to find out who owned that voice.

“Well, Mr Gaines. What do you think?” asked the Director, Sam Trott when the whole programme had been viewed.

“Not bad Mr Trott. I think you got the whole problems we have with keeping tabs on everything from beginning to end of the process.

Just as you promised.”

“Thanks Mr Gaines. I have one question unrelated to the programme.”

“Fire away. I’ll do my best to answer it.”

“Who owns that magnificent voice we heard at the end of the shift?”

“Eh? I don’t follow?”

Sam smiled back at his host.

“Listen to this.”

Sam played the recording of the voice to Jim.

As he did so, a smile broke out on Jim’s face.

“Oh, that. That’s Alan Pace. He’s one of the cutters. He’s pretty good, isn’t he? He’s one half of a Drag act around the Northern Clubs. He practices their songs when he has a shower.”

Sam was dumbfounded. That was a soprano singing, a soprano with all the tones and richness of a mature woman not the thinness of boy soprano.

As Sam left the Abattoir he knew the he needed to investigate further. This was too good a story lead to pass up.

---

Previous commitments meant that it was over a month before Sam managed to get some time to spare to head back to Rochdale and investigate Alan Pace and what was a voice that belonged to an Opera Soprano.

It didn’t take long for Sam to find out where Roxy was appearing the next Friday Night and after a £20 note was exchanged with the men on the door, he took his place at the back of a working Men’s Club near Huddersfield and waited for the act to begin.

As the act progressed, Sam could hardly believe what he was seeing. He could not decide if it was a woman pretending to be a man who was pretending to be a man or something else entirely. Then there were hints of the voice. A few notes escaped the obvious control that was being exercised to keep it in line with the second member of the act. He shook his head in amazement at the skill being shown right before his eyes.

The audience were lapping up the banter and songs and dance that the Act used. Even the early hecklers with the usual ‘get em off’ comments soon shut up and watched an obviously polished and skilful performance being enacted right before their very eyes.

Sitting in the car park afterwards Sam was undecided about what to do next. He could wade in get enough information and sell it to the Sunday Tabloids and let them do a hatchet job on him/her. Or, he could work with the person behind the mask and try to get them to come out of hiding.

After sleeping on it he decided that the latter course of action. He thought back to his time at University and his friend Sondra. Sondra was transgendered but this was some thirty years before and people were far less accepting of trans people in those days. Sondra eventually took her own life. She was just not mentally strong enough to handle what life threw at her. He felt a few pangs of guilt at not being there for her all those years ago.

---

After a couple of days checking out the Abattoir, he was ready to approach Alan Pace as he left work the next day.

“Mr Pace, may I have a few words with you?” asked Sam as Alan walked towards his car.

“About what?”

“Friday in Huddersfield?”

Alan’s shoulders sank.

“What’s wrong? Did someone complain about the act?”

“No but perhaps I can buy you a coffee or a tea? Somewhere a little less public?”

Alan looked at his watch.

“Ok. I can only spend an hour. I’m babysitting for my sister tonight.”

Sam smiled.

“That will be fine. Is there somewhere between here and your home we can go to?”

Alan thought for a moment before saying,

“There is a Café about a mile from here that we can use. Why don’t you follow me?”

“Sure thing.”

---

Twenty minutes later they were seated at the café with cups of tea in front of them.

“Ok, out with it? What is the problem from Friday?”

“Actually nothing. I was watching you perform.”

Alan visibly got nervous.

“I don’t know if you remember me, I directed the TV programme on meat traceability. We were at the Abattoir a few months ago.”

“Oh yes. I thought your face seemed familiar.”

“I heard you in the shower after your shift.”

“So?”

“You have a most remarkable voice yet you hide it. You let the act slip a couple of times on Friday. Then there is you. What are you hiding?”

“Look, Mr TV Hack, why are you doing this? I’m happy as I am. Why don’t you leave me alone?”

Alan stood up but Sam grabbed his hand.

“You said you had an hour. At least give me that. If you don’t like what I have to say then I’ll go away and I promise you that will be the last of it from me. I can’t promise about others though. Deal?”

With a sigh, Alan sat down.

“Ok, let me put all my cards on the table. I’m not some sensationalist hack. I think the documentary on traceability is evidence of that.”

“So?”

“Alan, I had a friend at Uni who was transgendered. She was a brilliant person. Funny, witty and drop dead gorgeous. The problem was back then people at large were less accepting of trans people. She suffered a few nasty attacks and then a lot of hate mail and phone calls. The police were very reluctant to investigate. In the end, she took her own life. I was in love with her. That is my reason for not wanting to do a hatchet job on you. In fact, this is all on my own time and as the Americans say, ‘on my own dime’.”

“Ok so what has this to do with me?”

“Well, what I saw last Friday was a woman wanting to come out. After a few minutes, you were a real woman. One man standing near me said ‘are you sure that is a man in drag and not a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman’. See, I was not the only one to see the real you, underneath all that Drag Queen glitter.”

Alan looked anywhere but at Sam.

“Then there is your voice. You kept it in check most of the time but the real voice came out a few times. Your voice is that of an Opera Singer, full and clean unlike those warblers who pretend to sing today. My opinion is that both you and your voice have been hiding for long enough.”

“That’s what I had to say. As I said, if you don’t like it then tell me and I’ll go away. I don’t want to make money out of you but the memory of my dear friend Sondra Sharpe is just too strong for me to not tell you what I just did.”

Alan just looked at his cup of tea.

Sam smiled and said,

“From your reaction, I think that you have heard all what I just said before. Am I right?”

Alan looked up at Sam and nodded his head.

“From my Sister, repeatedly.”

“Then you know what I’ve said is true then?”

He nodded.

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

“What can I do eh? I can’t start going to work as a woman, now can I?”

“Think out of the box. Think big not small.”

“Eh?”

“Your voice is your way out. The woman in you can follow.”

“I still don’t understand.”

Sam reached into his wallet and produced a card and gave it to Alan.

“This is a recording Studio in Liverpool. I took the liberty of booking a two-hour slot for a week on Monday. Go and sing your heart out. They have all sorts of music without voice so it will be just you and the studio engineer. Create a Demo mp3. I know a few people in the Classical Business who’d at least listen to it if I asked them to.”

“What then?”

“If they are interested then the real you can come out for a day and meet them. If it does not work then there is nothing lost apart from the cost of the studio which I’ll live with.”

Alan said nothing.

“Do I have to… you know dress up for the studio?”

Sam smiled.

“Totally up to you. Whatever you are happy with.”

“What do I do next?”

“Talk things over with your sister. Please give me a call to let me know what you decide to do. If I need to cancel the studio then I’ll do it.”

Sam gave him another card.

“Why are you doing this? Really?”

Sam smiled.

“When I heard your voice, I knew that it should be heard by the world but only if you want it to. Music history is littered with people who had their fifteen minutes of fame and then fell by the wayside. Then when I saw you last Friday I knew it was bigger than just your voice. If a bearded transvestite can win Eurovision then perhaps it is time for a Transsexual Opera Singer eh?”

Alan didn’t answer immediately.

“I still don’t understand why you don’t want your 10 or is it 20% of me? The last person who wanted to help me even wanted three grand upfront.”

“Phonies. Scam artists. As I said, back in the day, I was in love with a transsexual woman. I failed to stop her from committing suicide. Perhaps if I can help you it might lift some of that load from my shoulders.”

“Are you really for real? How do I know that what you said is not a load of baloney?”

“I can show you pictures of me with her if you like?”

“Ok, so I make this CD or whatever and someone likes it. What then?”

“You go for a blind audition. Like brass Band contests where the judges can’t see the band when they play. If you pass that then the hard work would start. Your voice needs training otherwise it would not last a season. How far you go is up to you.”

Alan sat thinking for a while. He played with his now empty tea cup.

“Ok,” he finally said in a quiet voice.

“Will you be at the recording studio?”

“If you want me to, I’ll make sure that I can be there.”

A few minutes later they parted with a handshake.

Sam watched Alan drive away suddenly unsure if he’d done the right thing or not.

---

A very troubled Alan arrived at his Sisters a little later. As soon as she saw him, she knew her was in deep thought about something.

“What’s the matter Al?” asked Dawn. She only called him Al at times like this.

“My bloody voice. That’s what’s the effing trouble.”

At that moment, Dawn mentally cancelled her plans for the evening.

“I’ll put the kettle on. I think we are in for a long evening,” remarked Dawn. Alan didn’t argue.

Two hours later, Alan had been fed and watered by Dawn. In return he’d told her all about his meeting with Sam.

“Well little Bro? Are you going to become my little Sister and make a shed load of money from that wonderful god given voice of yours?”

“Its’ alright for you. You have a skill. Me? All I can do is cut up sides of Pork, Lamb and Beef.”

“That takes skill too.”

Before he could answer, she carried on. Alan knew from past experience to let her have her say.

“What have you got to lose eh? Nothing. This man Sam has paid for the studio time. A couple of hours. Didn’t the first Beatles Album get laid down in about that time? Besides I want to have a proper recording of you singing.”

“But…” said Alan as she took a breath.

Dawn ignored it and carried on.

“This Sam fellah seems to have his heart in the right place. All you need to do is to book a days leave for a week on Monday and I’ll get Roxy all presentable then we’ll go over to Liverpool and you can cut your disk.”

“You’ll come too?”

“You bet. There is no way I’d miss the chance to see the next Maria Callas being born.”

That was it. He was cornered. With a huge amount of resignation, he said,

“Ok. I’ll do it.”

---

The next day, Alan phoned Sam but his call went through to Voicemail.

“Sam, this is Alan. About Liverpool. I’ll do it.”

---

“You can’t use the name Roxy. That might be right for a drag queen but not an opera singer,” complained Dawn as she worked on one of Roxy’s wigs. She was styling it to be more suitable for a proper singer.

“Ok, what do you suggest?”

“God sister do I have to do everything for you?”

“What about Faye?”

Dawn thought for a moment.

“Faye Pace? Nah. Not right.”

“No. Faye-Ellen Drummond.”

Dawn took a sharp intake of breath. Then she grinned.

“Mum’s maiden name was Ellen Drummond. You’d really do that?”

Alan nodded.

“Well, she did let me sing… before….”

His reply had a deep tinge of sadness in it. Their mother had died.in a Gas explosion when the children were at school. They were twelve and ten respectively.

“Well then Faye-Ellen, it is time to get you ready.”

“Today? We aren’t going to Liverpool until tomorrow.”

“That’s where you are wrong sis. We are going today. I’m taking my star sister to-be out to dinner. Then a night in a hotel almost next door to the studio. That way we don’t have to fight the Monday morning M62 car park.”

Faye-Ellen could not argue with her impeccable logic.

Dawn waved her magic wand and with a brush and pencil and plenty of skill, Faye-Ellen emerged from foundation of Alan.

“There, pretty good if I don’t mind saying so myself,” she commented as she admired her handiwork.
Faye-Ellen preened herself as if she’d been doing it all her life. Dawn stood back and quietly said ‘thank god’ to herself.

“Well, Dawn the magician, what is a girl going to wear for her debut?”

When they reached the hotel, there was nothing left of Alan to be seen. Everything about the sibling sitting next to her in the car oozed ‘female’. This was far more complete a transition that it had ever been before. It was as if the female side of her brother was becoming dominant. If she hadn’t seen it for herself, she would never have believed it. Even the voice oozed femininity.

They had a quiet dinner in the Hotel but even there Faye-Ellen attracted attention. Her infectious laugh had drawn admiring glances from many of the other diners. Two locals even tried to pick them up as they drank a nightcap in the bar afterwards.

As they said goodnight to each other outside their rooms, Dawn asked,

“Well little sister, how do you feel?”

Faye-Ellen just said,

“Alive and loving it.”

---

Right on time the following morning, the pair arrived at the Recording Studio. Sam had texted them to say that his train from London was going to be a bit late but he wished them good luck.

“I’m Bo your Engineer for the day,” said the man wearing a huge pair of headphones around his neck.

“Hi Bo.”

“So, ladies, we have two hours. What Music do you want? Rap? Hip-hop? R&B? Dance? What?”

“Opera, I’m a soprano but first some show tunes,” replied Faye-Ellen.

“Wow lady, that is sure different. Give me a couple of minutes to dig some tunes out and we’ll get going. Why don’t you go into the studio and make yourself comfortable? You know, position the mic and stuff?”

Bo dashed off to find music that was on the list that he’d been given. The aurora that that woman was giving off was troubling him. He’d never encountered anything like that before. He shrugged his shoulders and carried on looking for the music. His face beamed as he found the tracks without a voice buried deep on the Studio’s Music Servers.

“Ready, ‘Danny Boy’, take 1,” said Bo a few minutes later.

To state that Bo was surprised by what he was hearing through his ‘cans’ would be an understatement. He knew after the first two lines that this was going to be a good session. That voice was perfect for this music. Despite him being more into R&B and Hip-hop he did appreciate the different genres of Music. There was no way this voice would be suited to his music.

As the track ended, he said ‘cut’ and after stopping the recording, he looked at the singer and gave her a thumbs up.

“Want to hear it? It was good.”

“Just the first verse. I don’t want to waste any time.”

Then a new voice came over the system,

“Don’t worry about the time thing,” said a newly arrived Sam.

“You have the studio for the rest of the day.”

Faye-Ellen’s smile told him that he’d done the right thing.

---

When they took a short break for lunch, six tracks had been laid down. The last one almost brought Bo to tears. This was ‘Solveig’s Song’ from the Opera ‘Peer Gynt’.

“Here’s a list of the four songs I want to do. That should fill up a CD nicely,” said Faye-Ellen as they ate Lunch.

Bo looked at the list and remarked,

“This last one. Wasn’t that done by Domingo and his mates? Is that suitable for a Soprano?”

Faye-Ellen laughed,
“I’ve been singing it for a few years. I have to admit that I was doing an ‘Eric Morecambe’ on it.”

Bo looked puzzled.
“There is a famous TV show where the two comics were supposed to be singing a serious song and being conducted by a famous Conductor. Eric was deliberately hopeless. His comment was that ‘I will sing all the right words but not necessarily in the right order. Go Google for it. I’m sure you can find it.”, said Dawn coming to Faye’s rescue.

Bo still looked perplexed.

“I’m normally singing it as part of a ‘Drag Queen’ double act.”

Bo’s mouth dropped open,

“You? A fella? Not in a million years. You are having a larf?”

The two women and Sam had a good laugh.

“You mean its’ true?”

They all nodded.

“Shit love. Your vibe says ‘I’m all woman’.”

When Faye-Ellen went back into the studio, Sam said to Bo,
“I take it that the money I’m paying for today will buy your silence on that matter?”

“Man, no one would ever believe me if I told them.”
Then he imitated a zip on his lips. Bo might have been on the wrong side of the law a few times and did smoke the odd joint, he knew then to keep silent. This was one of them. The owner of such a divine voice did not need the Tabloid Treatment anytime soon.

By 3pm, all the tracks that Faye-Ellen had requested were laid down. Bo knew that only a couple of hours editing would be needed to make the result good enough to broadcast. He was pleased with the day.

“Well ladies, did you enjoy the day?” asked Sam as they stood outside the Studio.

Their beaming smiles told him the answer.

“So, what’s next for Faye-Ellen? Back to work tomorrow or is she here for good?”

The two sisters held hands and Faye-Ellen said,

“Sorry Sis, Alan has to return for the time being but I’ve enjoyed the last two days.”

“Sis, I love you whoever you are but this is the real you. Sod that dead end job and your club act. Why don’t you just be the real you for once in your life? Stop hiding from the reality that you are a woman, 150% woman.”

“Whatever you decide to do Faye-Ellen,” said Sam.

“I want to thank you both for a really great day. If you want me to make those calls just let me know. I sounded out one director last week and he is interested in hearing your demo track. All along, I said that I would not pressure you and I’m keeping to that promise.

Just send me a copy of what you did today. It was so beautiful and I’ll treasure it for a long, long time.”

Sam hugged and kissed the women on the cheeks with tears running down his cheeks. Then he got into the waiting Taxi and disappeared towards Lime St Station and his train back to London.

Dawn held her sister’s hands and looked into her eyes. Both of them were emotional.

“Home?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“Please don’t ask me again. I’ve already said that I’m not ready to let go of Alan.”

Dawn could see Alan starting to come to the surface again. She knew that every time Faye-Ellen was around it would get harder for Alan to return. As they walked arm in arm along that Liverpool Street, she wondered if this turmoil would destroy her sister. She sincerely hoped that it wouldn’t.

---

Sam heard nothing from Dawn or Alan for the next two weeks. He checked on the internet and found that the double act had cancelled two shows. As he read the pages on the screen in front of him he sat back in his chair and wondered yet again if he’d done the right thing by confronting Alan outside the Abattoir as he finished work just a few short weeks ago.

The pressure of work intervened and Sam put Alan/Faye-Ellen and Dawn to the back of his mind. It wasn’t his cameraman Hywel Griffiths, burst into his office and said,

“Sam, have you heard this?”

“Heard what?”

“This song on Facebook. It is going viral.”

He flicked to the page on his tablet and started the track.

After two bars, Sam knew what it was and importantly, who it was. He couldn’t decide to smile or groan.

“Isn’t it the guy from the Abbatoir?” asked Hywel.

“Yes, and you are to forget we ever heard anyone singing.”

“Why?”

“Does that sound like a bloke?”

“No … Not really.”

“Well then if that isn’t a guy then who is it?”

“Of shit, a ‘T-girl’.”

Sam smiled.

“And what happens when the tabloids get hold of them?”

“They get crucified, murdered and tossed to one side when some celeb has botox overdose or something?”

“Exactly.”

Sam had built a close team. None of them were Tabloid snitches.

Hywel looked at his boss. They knew each other pretty well. They should after being a team for the past six years.

“You knew about this didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

Sam decided to come clean.

“I paid for the recording to be done.”

“You bloody sly bastard.”

“I sort of hoped that the woman inside him would come out and be a success.”

“Well, if this gets any bigger then it can’t be anything other than a success.”

“But what about him? Alan is real. Faye-Ellen is the impostor.”

“Then she will soon be mincemeat and yesterday’s chip wrapping,” said Sam.

“What are you going to do about it?”

Sam groaned.

“Can you hold the fort? I need to head north.”

Hywel smiled.

“Get going then.”

---

Sam was not relishing meeting Alan and Dawn again. He’d often wondered what was going no but he’d promised not to interfere but he still felt responsible for getting Faye-Ellen into the studio. He took the train from Euston to Manchester Piccadilly. He kept an eye on the Facebook and there was no sign of the songs rise to fame.

Faye-Ellen’s rendition of ‘I dreamed a dream’ was as haunting as ever. Everyone was asking who was this. All the usual suspects in the industry were denying that it was them. By the time Sam reached Manchester, the dam thing had been played more than 100,000 times.

Instead of heading for Alan’s home, he took went looking for Dawn.

Dawn welcomed Sam knowing nothing about the song going viral.

“But… who could have done it?” she asked when she’d seen the posts on Facebook.

“Well, it wasn’t me. I’ve only played the songs at home. Do you have all the copies you made?”

“I think so. Alan made a couple as well. He carried them on a USB stick attached to his keys.”

“Well, we need to get to Alan ASAP and find out who let them out into the wild.”

Dawn looked at the clock.

“He’ll be knocking off in half an hour.”

“Can you get away? It would be better for you to tell him.”

“Yes. Only Mrs Braithwaite left today. I can put her off until tomorrow.”

“Great. Why don’t you do that and we can meet Alan as he leaves work.”

---

Ten minutes later, they arrived at the Abattoir. To their dismay, they found a number of Journalists and what Sam recognised as a freelance TV crew waiting outside the premises.

“Stop here.”

Dawn stopped.

“What’s wrong?”

“Those are hack from the northern press. Those guys with the Camera know me. I worked with them last year of that piece I did on Strangeways. Can you back up out of sight?”

Dawn looked at him strangely but she reversed the car until it was well away from the people waiting for Alan.

“Let me think for a moment,” said Sam as Dawn looked at him for inspiration.

“I have an idea.”

Dawn let herself have a small smile.

“Alan looks like you when all dolled up doesn’t he?”

Dawn nodded.

“So, you go in and get him to look like you, even wear your clothes and he comes out and gets into the car and drives away. Then later you walk out in a change of clothing. My guess is that they are looking for Alan. i.e. a man.”

Dawn thought for a few seconds. Then she asked,

“What then? If they know where he works, they know where he lives. Me too as well?”

“More than likely.”

Sam let out a sigh.

“I think it is time for Faye-Ellen to live, don’t you?”

Dawn thought for a second before nodding her head.

“First things first eh?” said Dawn as she put the car into gear.

---

Back at Dawn’s shop Sam called the Abattoir and spoke to Alan. He’d just come off shift and was going to have a shower. He explained the plan to him and also spoke to the Manager.

Dawn meanwhile gathered some clothes and her makeup bag along with a wig which she put on her head.

Sam smiled as he saw Dawn’s genius.

Dawn left Sam a few hundred yards away from the Abattoir before driving right up to it and as bold as brass, she got out of the car and went inside. None of the people waiting outside moved to stop or question her. Sam watched from a distance and breathed a sigh of relief as she disappeared inside.

As each of the workers coming off shift emerged they were pounced upon by the hacks and TV crew. All of the men pointed back into the building and they were let go.

Sam thought to himself, ‘so far, so good’.

Forty-five minutes after Dawn went inside, someone who looked like Dawn and was dressed like Dawn, emerged and got into her car.

Sam grinned as the waiting journalists ignored her totally.

Two minutes later, Sam joined Dawn mk2 in the car and they headed off.

“Thanks Sam,” said Faye-Ellen as she parked the car in a local supermarket’s car park.

“Dawn showed me the posts. Some are mentioning Alan by name now.”

“At least Faye-Ellen is not mentioned.”

“Yet,” she replied.

“Where are we meeting Dawn?” asked Sam.

“She’s coming out with the Manager in about an hour. He’ll take her to Bury Station. He lives over that way.”

“Good, then we can head for London.”

“London?”

“Yes. She can take the car and go home and put on a brave face. We’ll take the tram into Manchester and then the train to London. You can stay at my place while we decide what to do next.”

“Eh? I thought I’d go back to work tomorrow.”

Sam laughed.

“Here take a look at this,” said Sam handing Faye-Ellen his phone.

She looked at the posts on Facebook. Her face dropped.

“Someone has it in for me. They’ve posted my name our act and everything.”

“It sure looks like that. See the time of the last post?”

“Yeah, just now.”

“I hope that proves it wasn’t me. I made you two a promise and I stuck to it.”

“Sam, we know that.”

“Yeah but without me putting my big foot in it, you wouldn’t be in this predicament. I should never have suggested doing the recordings.”

“What’s done is done eh? No use crying over spilt milk and all that.”

Sam chuckled.

“I have to admire your optimism.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

---

They met Dawn in the centre of Bury a little later. She got in the back of the car and Faye-Ellen drove off.

“What’s the plan?” she asked when they’d found a suitable place to park.

Sam explained what he’d outlined earlier.

Dawn looked at her sister for a while before asking,

“Are you happy with this?”

“I think so. It will probably grow on me. All of a bit of a shock today. Give me a few days and I’ll know how I truly feel.”

Then she looked at Sam,

“We owe you Sam. How can we repay you?”

Sam laughed.

“Ladies, I got you into this fine mess in the first place. Please credit me with some honour. I’ll do whatever I can to help you both move forward with your lives. There are a lot of basically scum in my business. You saw some of the real bottom feeders earlier today. I think getting away from here and taking stock is the best thing to do right now. At the moment, no one apart from you two know about my involvement in this. Lets try to keep it that way eh?”

Dawn and her sister looked at each other and then both nodded in agreement.

“Good. Dawn, you drive us back to the tram stop. Then keep your head down for a few days. The Social Media thing will have blown over by then.”

They all knew that his last words were spoken more in hope than anything else.

---

Their journey to London was uneventful but boring. Thankfully the seat opposite me was unreserved so Faye-Ellen plonked herself down in a way that said, ‘I am not moving’.

Sam sat back and looked at her. Every trace of Alan was long gone. His only concern was if is was gone for good.
As they journeyed south the whole story went viral on several social media platforms. What people were saying depressed both of them so after less than an hour they shut down their phones and sat in peace.

It was late in the evening when the pair arrived at Sam’s home in Twickenham.

“Do you want me to rustle up something to eat?” asked Sam.

“Yes, but nothing much or fancy.”

Sam laughed.

“Fancy is a stranger to this house,” he joked.

A little later, Sam showed Faye-Ellen to her room.

“There are clothes in here that should fit you,” said Sam opening a wardrobe.

There in front of Faye-Ellen was a complete wardrobe for a woman.

“How?”

“My ex. Five years ago, she went off to LA on an assignment and didn’t bother coming back. She’s married to a TV Anchor now. He gets paid in a week, what I might earn in a year. She knew what side her bread was buttered.”

“But you never got rid of it?”

Sam sighed.

“Always hoped that she’d come back but when she got married last May, I sort of gave up. Please help yourself. There is a bathroom through there. There should be creams and stuff. Make yourself at home.”

Then Sam paused.

“I have to be away early in the morning. I’ll leave a spare set of keys in the kitchen. I’ll be back late. I have a shoot on Salisbury Plain to do. Will you be ok here?”

“I think so,” replied Faye-Ellen.

“Great. Please try to get some sleep and … well, think about what you want to do next.”

She nodded.

---

Sam left just before 06:00. The rest of the house was silent. Alan tried to get his mind into gear for the work ahead but it was difficult.

Faye-Ellen heard Sam leave. She’d not slept very much. Her world had turned upside down in just a few hours. She’d tried to work out who’d tipped off the media. Then she realised what was done, was done and unless she dropped totally off the radar for a good while, they would always be interested in her for a bit of cheap tittle-tattle even if it was totally made up.

Faye-Ellen called her sister around nine that morning. To her surprise, she found that Dawn was already on her way down to London.

By the time Sam returned in the evening, the two had worked out what they were going to do next.

“What?” exclaimed Sam when they’d told him.

“Are you really, really sure?”

“Sam,” said Faye-Ellen.

“I’m totally sure. Now that my name is out in the media, trying to make a living in the Music business without transitioning will be next to impossible. Even if I did, the media would keep on dragging up my less than glorious past at every opportunity.”

Sam looked crestfallen.

“Sam, I really appreciate what you have done for me… and for us but I’ve made up my mind. At least you will have my music to remind you that you discovered a singer who would have in other time more than likely gone on to great things.”

“But… what will you do?”

Faye-Ellen smiled.

“I won’t be going back to the Abattoir and I’m not going back on the clubbing circuit. I’ve learned that the music business is pretty ruthless. You get built up and then discarded when the next best thing comes along. I was just blinded for a while of what was possible. The speculation of here I was that was played out on TV today was a stark reminder of how cruel being in the media can be to the often, unfortunate victims.”

“That’s a pretty sanguine view of the world,” said Sam

Then he smiled.

“It is not a million miles from the truth I’m sorry to say. There are a lot of grubby people out there.”

“No hard feelings eh?” asked Dawn.

“None at all,” replied Sam.

“It has been a pleasure to hear a delightful voice.”

“But what will you do for a job?”

“Oh, I’ll find something to do but I won’t be singing.”

---

Sam took the Dawn to rent a car the next morning. They had decided not to fly or take the train back north but to drive. To Dawn’s eternal relief, no one at the rental company batted an eyelid when she gave the return address for the car on the next day.

The journey north was free of interruption. As Dawn turned off the main road towards their home, both of them began to get rather anxious.

Their anxiety turned out to be groundless as there were no signs of the media waiting for them outside their home.
As the front door shut, both of them breathed a sigh of relief.

---

The peace was short-lived as less than an hour later there was a loud and rapid banging on the front door. The sheer amount of light coming through the glass on the top of the door told Dawn and Alan that the media had arrived.

Dawn took a look out of an upstairs window and sure enough the media were there in force. One man kept banging on the front door.

He would just not stop.

In the end, Dawn took matters into her own hands and emptied a bucket of water out of the upstairs window right on top of his head.

She followed this up with the words,

“Fuck off. The next one will contain more than just water!”

She slammed the window shut and drew the curtains.

---

Neither of them was prepared for the arrival of the Police. They banged on the front door and called out ‘This is the Police’.

Dawn cracked open the door and saw two Police Officers standing there. She recognised one of them.

“You’d better come in.”

They came into the house and Dawn led them through to the back room.

“We have received a complaint of assault on a member of the media,” said the older of the two Constables.

“What?” exclaimed Dawn.

Then Alan chimed in.

“I think you should watch this,” he said showing them his laptop.

The Officers saw pictures of the man banging on the front door for nearly four minutes before Dawn appeared at the window and drenched him with water.

“I think we should be bringing charges of harassment against him,” suggested Alan.

“This is on YouTube. There was no reason for him to keep banging on the front door like that,” he added.

The two officers looked at each other and nodded.

“I think that you are right.”

“Can you get rid of that lot of hungry animals outside. We aren’t going to come out anytime soon.”

The older Constable smiled.

“We will try but eventually they will get tired and another story will come up.”

“That’s what we are hoping.”

As they left, the younger officer said,

“You sing beautifully you know. If I could sing like that…”

She sighed.

“Fame is not all it is made out to be especially when you didn’t want it,” remarked Alan.

“Yeah, I can see that especially with that lot of hungry animals outside.”

“Constable! That is enough. We have to remain impartial,” said the other officer.

The two officers left the house to a barrage of microphones, flashlights and a cacophony of camera shutters. Neither of them commented about what had or had not been said inside the house.

The older officer simply said into his radio.

“Four Nine to Base. Assistance needed. We have a hungry pack of wolves on the rampage.”

If this was intended to promote some reaction, it singularly failed to do so. It was only when one reported stuck a microphone right in the face of the younger officer did they react.

The older one grabbed the offender and twisted their arm behind their back.

“Enough! All of you back off or this one gets arrested for assaulting a police officer,” he shouted.

This time some of them stood back at most half a step.

“I mean it. Any more harassment of the people in the house and I will make arrests for breach of the peace. They aren’t going to leave any time soon so why don’t you all eff off and go somewhere else.”

His words went out on several TV channels live before the editors pulled the plug.

Slowly orders came through from their respective HQ’s and the reporters backed off. Some were leaving when three more Police Cars and a Van arrived with Officers in full riot gear.

The ‘mob’ got the message and within half an hour they’d gone.

Some went to a local Café where they were refused service. The same happened at all the local Pubs.

Within an hour at least twenty people had gathered outside the house and had formed a cordon. One lone reporter came back and filmed the situation. He posted the images on the Internet and within an hour, they’d gone viral all around the world.

Sam saw what was happening down in London and smiled. It appeared that Dawn and Alan had more friends than they had ever thought possible.

---

Two days later Alan and Dawn ventured out of the house. The cordon was still in place although in reduced numbers. They thanked each and everyone who had taken part.

Alan had a visit at the end of the week from his boss at the Abattoir. His job was still there if he wanted it.

The media never really came back much to the relief of everyone concerned.

Alan or rather Faye-Ellen, never sang in public again. He sang every day at work as he had before. His work colleagues all agreed that he didn’t deserve the media treatment. He was their ‘Voice’ in residence.

Faye-Ellen stated in the closet or rather in the home apart from when they went on Holiday. Then she came out and enjoyed life.

Sam often played the songs that Faye-Ellen had recorded when he was down. They usually lifted him out of whatever depression that he was in at the time. His only regret was that such a voice was hidden from the world at large but he accepted that the world wasn’t ready for such a clear and beautiful “Voice”. ‘Perhaps one day…’ he thought but deep inside he doubted it.

[The End]