The death of my Father was although not unexpected was a bolt from the blue. I hadn’t even spoken to him for nearly a decade so it cannot be said that we were close. Ever since we had gone our separate ways, I only ever thought of him when I passed through my old home town of Corby.

To receive a phone call from a firm of undertakers in Torquay was a bit of a shock. Until then, I had no idea that he’d moved away from where I’d grown up.

The restrictions imposed by the pandemic meant that the numbers attending the service would be very limited, so at first, I wasn't even sure that I'd go.

A few days later, I received a letter from the undertakers. That was no surprise as they had told me on the phone that they would be sending details of his funeral to me. What was a surprise was what else was included with their letter. It was a letter from my father. I already knew that he'd arranged everything beforehand and was even paid, for which was typical for him. I didn't open the letter for almost two days, but it began to nag at me so I read it.

The single sheet of paper was written in his calligraphy level script. He'd tried and failed to get me to write like him. My handwriting was more like a doctor's scrawl than his almost perfect script. It was even written using a proper pen and ink. No ballpoint or felt-tips for him.

It was clear that even with the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, he wanted me to attend. His words told me that there was a lot about his life that he had wanted to tell me but had not for a variety of reasons.

I dithered for another few days before finally deciding to attend the funeral. What had finally swayed me was that the letter was addressed to Victoria, rather than my name at birth of James. That was at least some recognition that I'd become a different person since our big bust up a few weeks after my mother's funeral some ten years before.

I arrived at the Crematorium to find a small group of people waiting for his coffin to arrive. I kept my distance from them simply because they all seemed to know each other, and I didn't want to answer awkward questions about whom I was and why I was there. I had no idea if any of them knew that he had a son or a daughter so caution was the name of the day.

One woman came over to me and asked,
“Are you related to Mr Barnes?”

She’d put me on the spot in just a few words.

“Yes… I’m his daughter,” I said from behind my mask.

“I’m so glad that you came. My name is Norma Robertson, and I will be taking the service today. Your father left very detailed instructions for the proceedings, so there is nothing for you to worry about.”

That was me on the spot again, but at least I had some frame of reference.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll just sit at the back. It is not as if I was close to him. We hadn’t spoken in almost a decade.”

“That is fine. I understand how family disputes can last for years. I am just glad that you are here.”

Just then, the hearse arrived.
“I must go and talk to the Undertakers. Perhaps we can talk after the service?”

“We’ll see,” I replied trying to leave it open.

I looked once more at the group of people. One person stood out from the small crowd because of what she was wearing. Everyone else was dressed in black or dark clothes. This person, a middle-aged woman with jet black hair and was wearing a red leather trouser suit. She had the figure for it, but why red? Was this his 'woman of the night?'.

Any answer to that question would have to wait as the coffin was carried into the chapel and the small group began to follow it inside.

I did the same and slipped into a seat right at the back. I counted the numbers. Eight people. It wasn’t many for someone who had been a civic leader back in his prime, but that was more down to the covid restrictions than anything.

The celebrant began the service with a prayer. My father had once gone to church every week and dragged my mother and me along with him. He'd stopped going after her death because he could not forgive God for taking her from him at such an early age. We didn't agree on much but with this one thing, we spoke as one.

Ms Robertson spoke very well about the life of my father. I was surprised to find that I was mentioned as his child and not as his son or daughter. That both pleased and confused me. I kept asking myself if he had finally accepted that I was no longer his son but his daughter, and was that the reason for the near commandment that I attend the funeral.

I was no closer to finding an answer when the service ended with the curtains closing to the sounds of ‘See Emily Play’.

The choice of that song confused me even more. I knew that he’d been a fan of classic rock. When I was a teenager, he'd educated me in the techniques used to play many of the classic songs from that era. Music had been a big part of the life of both of my parents. One of my earliest memories was being taken to a very wet and muddy Reading Festival as a baby. For once in my childhood, I was not scolded, for being dirty. I'd even taken guitar lessons as a child, but it turned out that I was tone-deaf.

As the song ended, everyone filed out of the Chapel. I waited for them all to leave before doing so myself.

I emerged into the daylight. The clouds that had been around all day had as if my magic disappeared and the warm sun of this July day made the whole place seem more alive.

Almost all of those attending the service were not going to hang around. I could see them heading for their cars. The one person that didn’t was the woman in the red leather outfit. It was clear that she was waiting for me.

"Victoria? You probably don't remember me, but my name is Gail Thomas. I used to babysit you back in Corby."

It took me a second to remember her. Gail had lived across the street from us and babysat me so that she could do her homework away from her very rambunctious brothers. They were my nemesis at school. They made sure that they were undisputed top dogs with their fists and feet. Gail had been a very different person.

“Gail? It has been a long time. How did you know him after he moved down here?”

She smiled.
“I got out of Corby not long after you did. My brothers were… well, they are both inside yet again. I came down here and started a new life. I met your father when he came to register at the doctors where I worked at the time.”

Gail looked at her watch.
"It is almost lunchtime. How about I buy you lunch, and I can fill you in on what has happened to your father in recent years. You might find it interesting."

Once again, I’d been put on the spot. I could fumble out some pathetic excuse or take her up on her offer.

"Ok, but I can't stay very long. I have to get home today."

“That’s fine. I’m driving that Blue Fiesta. If you follow me, I know a place a few miles away.”

“Ok,” I replied still unsure as to where this was going.

The ‘place a few miles away’ turned out to be almost six miles. We were deep in the Devon countryside when we came upon a small café. This is the sort of place that does cream teas and the like. I wasn’t going to argue as my stomach was beginning to rumble.

Once we’d ordered and sat at a table outside in the warm sun, I waited for Gail to begin her story.

"As I said, I ran into your father when I was temping at the doctors. He was new to the area so I showed him around, and we remained in touch. We'd meet up every couple of months and come here for lunch much like we are doing today. Then that all came to a stop when COVID hit."

“Yeah, it was a bummer. Everything stopped almost dead in its tracks.”

“I remained in contact with your father by zoom. He was very lonely. He didn’t have many friends. Lots of acquaintances but few real friends. We met a few times and walked along the prom in Torquay or Paignton. His health wasn't great but he made the best of things. He’d been due to have a valve replaced in early April 2020 but that got canned for obvious reasons.”

“His heart was why he gave up being a council official,” I commented.

“He told me that more than once,” said Gail before she hesitated.

"One of the things he regretted was not even trying to understand what you were going through when you transitioned. Time is a great healer, and he'd begun to understand the sort of mental torture that you'd gone through at the time."

That surprised me. He was never the one to show any weakness.

“What happened to make him change his mind?”

“When things opened up a bit last summer, he needed a haircut badly. We all did at the time. He went to a place near where he lived and his hair was cut by a transwoman. That was his first real encounter with someone like you.”

“Back in our old home town, he’d have run a mile.”

Gail smiled.
“As I said, time is a great healer.”

I had to agree with her on that.

“One day, he called me and asked right out and without any hesitation, can you make me look like a woman?”

I shook my head in disbelief.

"That was very much my reaction, but he persisted. He knew that I did that very thing to men.”

She let that bit of information sink in.

“You did what?” I asked.

“I’m a dominatrix. Hence this outfit. Your father told me to wear it for his funeral. I have to keep up appearances,” she replied with a bit of a laugh in her voice.

Those three words astonished me.

“With COVID, the bottom fell out of my world especially in terms of income so I went online and gave virtual spanking sessions to me all over the world. It is amazing what they’ll do with a few words firmly spoken. That online business allowed me to survive the lockdowns but I digress and here comes our food.”

Once we’d eaten, Gail continued her story.

“As I said, he wanted me to turn him into a woman. He wanted to experience what it was like. Believe me, it wasn’t easy but by the time we went into lockdown again earlier this year, he was just about passable. He told me that he wanted to meet you again as his new self, Emily.”

Suddenly the choice of music for the committal made sense.

“So that’s why he used the song, ‘See Emily Play’?”

"It was. He'd always loved the name, Emily. He told me that his first girlfriend was called Emily."

Gail reached into her handbag and produced some photos. She handed them to me.

They were clearly of my father but a much older version that my last memory of him was. He was in a summer frock and paddling in the sea. He was clearly enjoying himself or should I say, herself.

“He didn’t look too bad, did he?”

"I have seen many worse trannies, so no he didn’t look that bad.”

“I’m pleased about that.”

The smile disappeared from her face.

“That was the last time I saw him before three weeks ago. His health went downhill very quickly. It didn’t help that he caught COVID two days before he was due get the second shot of the vaccine. Even though he got over the virus, the strain on his heart and lungs was too much. He was too weak for a transplant, so he went into a Hospice. You know how stubborn he was. Well, he refused to let the hospice contact you. Instead, he used the time to put his affairs in order and to organise the funeral.”

“That’s him all over,” I commented.

Gail smiled again.
“In his last days, he started to insist to the Hospice staff that they call him Emily. The staff loved his smile. They never complained because a lot of the residents go a bit do-lally in their last days due to the medications. He was happy when I visited him a few weeks back when he told me that the end was nigh and that if you came along today, that I should do my best to give you his side of the story of his latter days.”

“Thank you for taking the time to tell me all this. It fills in a lot of missing blanks.”

Gail smiled back at me.

“You know… your smile is just as I remember it from all those years ago.”

“I’ve changed a lot since then.”

She shook her head.
"Your smile hasn't changed. If anything, it has got a lot better. When your father told me that you had transitioned, I was surprised, but once I'd thought about it a bit, there were signs even when you were ten or eleven. Remember when I saw your diaries and all those sketches of women's clothes."

“Yeah. I almost died on the spot. Thankfully, you didn’t rat on me.”

“Just the threat of it was enough to make you a ‘Miss Goody Two Shoes’ while I studied for my exams.”

“That was an age ago. Both of us have moved on from life in ‘The Avenue’.”
Before she could reply I added,
“Speaking of moving on, I’d better get going.”

Gail smiled back at me.
“Please, take my card. If you are ever back in this neck of the woods give me a call. Promise?”

"Thanks, Gail. I will… I promise."

I made it home without actually remembering the almost 150 miles to my home in Evesham. I didn’t even remember if the last set of traffic lights were red or green when I went through them, that was how bad my stupor was.

I’d hardly shut the front door when a voice cried out,
“Is that you Vic?”

That was the voice of my partner Lilly.

"Yes, darling. Who else would it be eh?"

“I’m just putting the twins down. Can you turn the oven on? It is ready to go.”

Talk about hitting the ground with a bump!

I still had no idea how I’d describe the day to Lilly when I found myself wrapped in a big hug.
It had been quite a day in more ways than one. Seeing Emily play again would have to wait until another day.

Then I chuckled as two lines from the chorus of that song came into my mind
There is no other day
Let's try it another way

Thanks to the song, I knew how I was going to tell Lilly about my day. I had to do it tonight.

[The End]

[Authors Note]
The idea for this story came to me one night while listening to the foxes howling. Most of it was written in one session two days later. The title comes from a single released by Pink Floyd in 1967.
The first time I ever saw Pink Floyd was at the Marquee, London in early 1968. They opened their set with this song. Then they went straight into a 25-minute version of Interstellar Overdrive.

The 20th January 2022 will see the 50th anniversary of the first-ever performance of Dark Side of the Moon. Floyd often played songs live well before they were recorded. It was the opening night of their ‘Tour ‘72’ and the venue was the Brighton Dome. This is the small theatre that is part of the Regency Palace that is right in the centre of the city. I was one of the lucky ones to pay £2.50 to see them that night and to hear them play using their quadrophonic sound system for almost the first time.