CHAPTER 99
Stupidly, I missed the Italian trip, for the simple but crucial fact that I didn’t have a passport. I had a list of documents that I would have needed for getting one, such as birth and gender recognition certificates, but there was no way I could have obtained a GRC in that time. I really felt stupid when I mentioned that to Cathy, and she muttered, very out of character for her,

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

A shake of her head.

“Did you not realise you could have just got a letter from Doc Thomas, Debbie? You can get a ‘female’ passport without a GRC!”

She looked over to where Nell was bouncing through a set dance.

“I’ll explain to Nell, but it won’t be the same without you. Really wanted to take you along some via ferrata stuff. Leo says he knows some great ones. Arse!”

A crushing hug.

“You’ll get pics and videos, okay? And next year, maybe? Sort your GRC out, woman”

It was a wrench seeing them go, as they set off across country to Birmingham airport, and with a little shiver I realised they would be going via Shrewsbury. So much of my life seemed to be orbiting set points, little nodes where events brought me again and again. I needed some of that past to come to life for me once again, so that I could relive it.

And so they were off for blessing, honeymoon and vertical stupidity in the Dolomites, before returning to work and married life. Cathy had secured a job with the Welsh Geological Survey, while Nell was staying on at the Uni for even more letters to her name, working as a graduate assistant with hopes of advancement in the faculty. Not bad for two homeless girls, not bad at all.

Once again, the year was flying for me, and I couldn’t help seeing it as a sign of how my life was shortening. One issue was brought on by Frank, and that was bittersweet in the extreme. We worked together so well that it felt like I had come home, that one man had become the only ‘node’ my life needed as an anchor. The little rider of resentment was a familiar one, in some ways: so much of my life had been wasted due to one evil bastard. It was the flip side of my eternal hatred that hurt most, and that was the very presence of Frank. My resentment of Cooper had always been general, a question of ‘What could I have had?’. Now, though, it was a case of ‘I could have had THIS!’.

No, I didn’t resent Frank, just the fact that I had missed out on so much time we could have shared. It did make me determined, though, intent to make the best of any time we had, and so we filled the flying year, like that Kipling poem, with as many memories as we could, including a couple of rallies (Welsh Coast and Fumble, of course) as well as trips to the Pembroke coast and the mountains up North.

And I got my GRC, which brought another pang, as I had written to Doctor Quayle and Mr Hemmings to obtain some odds and sods of records, and in each case I received a polite letter with a bundle of the necessary paperwork, along with the news that each man had passed away. It wasn’t just my own life that was flying off.

In the meantime, I got the video from my two girls, and when I saw what ‘via ferrata’ actually involved, my reaction was a simple “Sod that!”. I could understand the appeal, but it went so far beyond Crib Goch that I took a long while to appreciate the situation rather than the drops.

So, so proud of my girls, though.

The Welsh Coast do was amusing, as Frank was spotted as a rally virgin as soon as he got off the back of my bike. Marty had done the driving for the rest of the crew in a bus, but it was Kim who stepped up to me as I saw the Usual Suspects, with their spider patches, weighing up their chances.

“Naked bodies, Debbie?”

I nodded, and Kim pointed across the field.

“I think Wildcat is engaging in a free and, um, frank discussion about life expectancy and future fertility options”

I turned to look at Kim, and she grinned happily.

“Even at this distance, I can lip-read ‘Cut your fucking balls off’, Nana!”

I smiled, settling down onto a rug as several kettles came to the boil and the wind held a whispered conversation in the trees while my brood giggled and gossiped. I spotted Rosie walking towards us then, as the Lazy Riders went off to find less risky targets. She was walking in the same way as Horse had always done, where she was ‘there’, we were ‘here’, and her route was going to be a direct one. She was grinning as she approached our group, settling down with a sigh and a reaching hand.

“You know how I take it, Kim!”

As the cup was placed in her hand, she chuckled.

“Still got it, Debs!”

Phil was shaking his head.

“There we were, Marty and me, and we thought Debbie was the scary one”

Frank snorted, loudly, which got us all looking at him.

“Well, she bloody well was when we first met. Number of black eyes she handed out, I tell you”

I gave a Charlie-sniff.

“Well, served them right for trying to grab my arse!”

He was nodding in obviously fond memory, a smile dancing away.

“Which is why I went for the sneaky route, and found out how she takes her tea rather than go looking for my teeth. Anyway, this is a lovely place. Watching my pastry chef, I am, and she is so different now. So relaxed, she is”

Rosie nodded, looking over at Kim with her own smile.

“Yeah, and I look at this one, and I think way back when. Cold day’s ride out, girl? Remember?”

Kim was frowning, muttering about twats in pubs who needed a slap, and Rosie was grinning in the happiest of ways.

“See what I mean, Debs? Give a girl room to be herself, to see how shallow the haters really are, and you end up with someone worth knowing. She taught you your place yet, Phil?”

That lad looked slightly overawed, but he was another who found a smile in the sun’s warmth.

“My place? Beside her, of course!”

Maisie was passing just then, and as she remarked “And on top, or underneath, or…”, Kim caught her with a used teabag, and our weekend was starting out the right way indeed. Frank was a little hesitant at first, the atmosphere being so foreign to him, but I kept him close, and as he watched my flock of girls orbiting each other in mutual support, the man came out rather than the rally virgin, and by the time the disco was banging away on the Friday night, he was most definitely going with the flow.

The Saturday night was the time I faltered. We had indeed rocked out on the Friday, Frank surprising me with his dancing, which was far more relaxed and natural than I had expected, but it was the Saturday that hurt. Carl was there before me, even as Frank held me, and once more he rose to the challenge.

“I spoke to Rosie, love. She told me”

I looked up at him as we stood in the half-light behind the marquee, the other memories so, so clear in my mind. He put a finger to my lips, the flicker of the camp fire reflecting from his eyes as he brought his face closer to mine.

“Debbie, neither of us is as young as we were---no, shush! We wouldn’t be here… Look, it would be weird if either of us had got this far in life without baggage, other people, isn’t it? Just nod, okay?”

I did as asked, and saw the change in the shadow of his face as he smiled.

“Yeah, and I had a marriage and a mess, and I think I came out ahead on more than points compared to you. Rosie explained about Carl”

I moved his finger away from my lips.

“You been talking to her?”

He chuckled.

“She sort of interviewed me for the position, love. Told me my fortune if I stuff up”

His voice dropped a little, and he sighed.

“She really, really loves you, you know?”

“I know, Frank. Apart from… well, I never really got a chance to be a proper friend with Benny, so Rosie was really the first friend I ever had. The best of friends, she is. Always there, even…”

I took a couple of deep breaths, seeking the words.

“It was here, you know? Me and Carl, and she loved him as well, but she could see what I needed, and so she took a step back, put me first, my needs, and it was good, right up until…”

“He is dead, love. Gone”

“I know. They both are”

Another couple of deep breaths. The band were finishing, the disco taking over again, as the fire slowly burned down. I could see a couple of my girls heading for the burger van, giggling away, confident in their safety and the reality of their gender.

“Frank?”

“Yes, love?”

“You say Rosie interviewed you for the position?”

“Effectively, yeah”

“Want to go and try out a couple of positions?”

The girls gave us both breakfast in bed the next morning, with an awful lot of smiles and an occasional cheeky grin., and Frank was a far better pillion on the way home. I found myself singing as I rode, because I was indeed frolicsome, and absolutely easy, good-tempered and free. It wasn’t like that horrible ride out when I had nearly died near Bridgend, but the simple enjoyment of swinging the bike through the bends, just as Dad had done so many years ago, and when we pulled up at the House, for the first time ever, I really felt I was coming home in truth.

The year was indeed flying, but not in a blur, as the memories were sharp and clear and utterly welcome, apart from Bert’s almost insufferable smugness each time he caught me singing, and so we danced our way through the Summer in the mountains, and two more of my girls made it to University, this time in Swansea. Once again, Alun impressed me with his character, offering room in the family home he had finally snatched back from Alicia’s mother, and the world was looking so much better than it ever had. Frank surprised me, after pointedly prodding me to sort out the passport I should have obtained for Cathy and Nell’s trip, and we had a long weekend in Prague.

That was a revelation, as it was obviously my first ever time outside the UK, and just as obviously my first ever flight, and a final ‘first’: ever since Mam and Dad had gone, I was relying on someone else to make the decisions. We walked the streets, drank the beer and snapped the various sights, watched the huge clock and simply sat in the late Autumn sun, comfortably together. So much new. So many unfamiliar things, and my soul was whispering that these were experiences and feelings I needed to make as familiar, as regular, as breathing.

As Winter closed in, I got a call from Rosie, short and sweet, to the effect that the Clubhouse would be open once more for New Year, and so I was left to organise Christmas.

“Hiya Debbie! What do you need?”

“Usual stuff, Di. Your lot doing the Smugglers again for Christmas?”

“I think so, girl. Not us, though. Me and Blake”

“No?”

“Going to sound mad, this, but I’ve got a very old friend and her hubby over in Surrey”

“They got kids as well?”

There was a short pause before she answered.

“No. No, she doesn’t have any kids. But we’re taking the boy”

She laughed, and there was a little edge to it.

“Believe it or not, we will be in a bloody tent in a church yard. And there will be folk music”

“What the actual fuck? Sorry, Di!”

“It’s a local charity thing, twice a year. They…”

She went away once more, for nearly thirty seconds.

“No easy way to tell this. Woman was murdered a little while ago, and she was buried here. They did a really good thing, and according to Annie, it really took off. Big dance and music event for the funeral, and they repeat it every Summer, and then the vicar is apparently sound about transgender things, so they have a similar one for charity every Christmas”

“Hang on, Di. Transgender things?”

“Yes. Woman that was killed is, was trans. Ex-Marine, apparently”

Melanie Stevens. Sparky’s old comrade; I had no doubts about that. Leave it for now, Petrie: I could hear something else going on behind Diane’s words. I kept my comments smiling and light, but as soon as we had finished the call with all the usual assurances, I was onto the internet, looking up the church and town in question, and after an hour of reading the results, I found myself sitting with an untouched and cold mug of tea and a whole mountain of surprises to climb.

The church was in a place called Horley, and the generous-hearted vicar was called Simon Jenkins. There were loads of articles about their ‘Music Day’ thing, and there were blogs from a hospital friends’ site, but they ended up shelved as I followed another set of stories.

It wasn’t Cooper, or the bastards that Stevie Elliott had barely survived, but it was child abuse and corruption, and there had even been a shooting and a bloody car bomb aimed at a copper called Armstrong, who had a colleague who had run over broken glass in bare feet to try and save him, and there she was, looking at the camera outside the gates of Buckingham Palace with a medal from the Queen, Annie Price, from Brynamman, and her fiancé Eric Johnson.

There were earlier articles, from the original trials, and those made it abundantly clear that she was one of mine.

Annie. The same name as Diane’s friend. Half an hour later, I found the wedding announcement. Cathy and Nell had managed, and so had Annie.

I made a lot of notes. An awful lot.