PART TWO
SADIE/1930s EVENING GOWN

1

I think I’ve always felt a wee bit of an outsider. There’s the accent of course - I never did pick up a Scouse one. And my looks. Mum is Chinese, and I’d inherited just enough of her features to mark me out as being different - at least compared to the rest of the local kids I grew up with in Dundee. My dad was a drinker and a journalist - in that order. He’d come home off his head and mum would shut me away in my room, but I could still hear him hitting her. I was twelve the first time he hit me, and the following day, whilst he was away at work, my mum packed our suitcases and we left to come stay with her brother who lived here in Liverpool.

My mum’s a brilliant dressmaker and everything I’ve ever done clothes-wise I owe to her. She took odd jobs when we first moved down, making ends meet, but eventually saved up enough to open a wee alterations shop. I’d help her out there after school and she taught me her trade. At weekends I’d head into town, trawling the vintage and fabric shops for whatever I could find that caught my eye and I could afford. I’d take old dresses and offcuts of fabric back home and refashion them. Skirts became tops and old blouses became miniskirts. I cut up and pieced back together my school uniform and got sent to the headmaster for my skirt being too short, and for wearing too much make up. My looks and dress sense, which had got me bullied in Dundee, suddenly marked me out as being cool in Liverpool. I started getting asked out by boys just at the time that I was beginning to realise that I wasn’t interested in them. Other girls took offence when they caught their boyfriends looking at me. I was lucky that my best friends Ellie, and Patsy and Sam always stuck up for me.

When the end of year fancy dress ball came around it was me that thought of the ‘vintage’ theme. Ellie didn’t need much persuasion - she’d become my partner-in-crime when I went shopping at the weekends and last year we’d found her a gorgeous flapper dress that she’d worn to the ball. This year we decided we’d each wear something from a different decade. We drew straws to choose. I really wanted the 50s, as I already had some ideas for a big, full-skirted, corseted dress in a retro style that I wanted to make. But Patsy drew that. Ellie was to dress in a 30s style, and Sam the 40s. That left the 60s for me. I knew everyone would expect some ‘flower-power’ but of course I had to be different. I found a silver fake leather mini dress in a second hand shop in town, and teamed that with some old knee length boots that I hadn’t worn for ages that I spray painted silver. I found some badges online embroidered with pictures of spaceships and sewed them on to the dress. I borrowed a water pistol that looked like a ray gun from our next door neighbour. And in a final act of rebellion before leaving school for good, I filled it with vodka.

The first time I met Lucy was at that ball. First impressions? I mean it wasn’t love at first sight or anything, but she was cute, definitely. That little bob haircut that she was wearing, and those gorgeous blue eyes of hers. And when we were dancing, she looked amazing in the flapper dress - the way the tassles swirled around her legs. We were dancing as a group - the five of us girls. And every so often I’d squirt a shot of vodka at one of the others, or one of them would pinch my ray gun and shoot one back at me. It wasn’t long before we were all quite tipsy. I’d gone to sit down to cool off for a while and Lucy had joined me.
“Give me a go then!” She’d grinned.
“What?”
“Your gun!”
“Oh!” I handed it across to her and opened my mouth for her to aim at. The stream of vodka was a direct hit on my tonsils, and I coughed and spluttered whilst Lucy giggled helplessly. When she laughed her eyes sparkled, and her nose would wrinkle up in a way that made her look really fanciable.
“So what are you going to do now you’ve left school?” She asked, once I’d stopped coughing.
“London. Fashion college. Then when I graduate I’ll go and work for a famous designer for a year or two - just to learn the ropes you know - before I set up my own studio in Paris. Or maybe Los Angeles. Or Milan. I haven’t decided yet.” I grinned.
“Ak, ok.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “It’s funny. I had you down as being more ambitious…” and she laughed.
“How about you?”
“Oh, I dunno. Still another year at school to make up my mind. I like Liverpool though. It’s home, I suppose. There are worse places.”
“Really?”
“Oh, I mean travel is great. I’d love to have time to see more of the world. But I cant imagine anywhere else being home. It kinda gets in the blood, you know…”
“I could get you a job as a model. When I’m rich and famous. You could model all my most glamorous gowns, be my muse - the face of the House of Sadie.” She giggled, and I continued. I liked making her laugh. I liked the way her eyes shone as she looked at me. “I could fly you out from Liverpool to exotic fashion shoots all over the world. The famous Lucinda! You know, that would work! Just one word! Lucinda! Like Madonna, or Rihanna.” And we both collapsed into giggles.

And then she went quiet, and just looked at me. And I looked back. And there was something in her expression. I wanted to kiss her, and I felt sure she wanted me to as well. And then she looked away.
“Fuck, Sadie. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely a bit tipsy.” She looked up again.
“Yeah, me too.”
“I like you.”
“Yeah, I like you too.”
“But…”
I knew what was coming. She’s not into girls. Of course she isn’t. Why would she be? My stomach sank. I’d been making a fool of myself. Worse, Lucy would probably go and tell her cousin, and I’d have to fess up to all my friends. I sighed. Maybe I should have done that a long time ago. “It’s ok, I understand. You’re not into girls. That’s cool. No worries. OK?’
“No. I mean, yes. I mean…” she sighed. “Actually I am into girls. The thing is, though, I’m not one.” She looked up at me again.
I was confused. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not Ellie’s cousin, I’m her brother.”
“Nah. I’ve met him. He’s a scrawny wee metalhead who never washes his hair.”
“Thanks” she said sarcastically and then went quiet, and we must have sat there in silence for what felt like an age.
I didn’t know what to say. There were so many thoughts running through my head. “But…”
She interrupted. “I didn’t mean to fool anyone. At least, not in a nasty way. I didn’t have anything to wear to the ball, and me and Ellie used to play dress up when I was little, and I think she knew that I’ve been wearing her clothes in secret for ages and ages.” She looked like she was about to burst into tears.
“But you look so natural, I mean - the way you move, and walk, and…”
“We’ve been practising this week.” She sniffed, and wiped her nose, and a tear fell onto her hand. “And it’s been amazing. Just being able to to do it with Ellie helping me, out in the open without sneaking around, having to make sure I put everything back exactly the way it was like it’s some horrible guilty secret….I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve never been so happy. And now I don’t want to go back to being a boy again.”

We sat there, oblivious of the party going on around us, for the rest of the night. It felt like an unburdening. For me anyhows - and I know when we talked about it months later it had felt the same for her too. For the first time in both our lives we were able to talk honestly and openly about how we felt.
“My mum’s got this old photo album, from China.” I told her. “She gets it out every so often - I think she wants to make sure that I know who everyone is in there. Anyway, there are some pictures in there of her grandad. He was an actor in the Beijing Opera back in the 20s, back in the time when the female roles were all played by men. There are loads of pictures of him all dressed up in these incredibly elaborate costumes and he was beautiful. I mean, really beautiful. Like, if he was at our school, he’d be the best looking girl there. I think it’s really cool.”

Eventually, the lights came up. Sam and Patsy came over to say goodnight, both with a boy in tow. Ellie and Tommy had long since made their excuses.
I took her hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”
It was only ten minutes or so from the school to her house. She’d slipped off her heels and carried them in one hand whilst I took her other. Her little finger slipped into the gap between my index and middle fingers in a way that I’d never held hands with anyone else before. It was weird, and yet it felt so natural and comfortable.
The drizzle that had hung around most of that week had finally stopped, and it was a clear and balmy summer evening. Too soon we were outside her door. I felt like I could have carried on walking with her like that forever.
“You know what my mum used to say?”
She turned to face me and wrinkled her nose in that cute way that she does “Go on”
“God’s in his heaven and all’s well with the world.”
“Hmm.” She squeezed my hand tightly. “Thank you. And good luck in London. Give me a call when you’re ready for me to do the modelling, remember?” She smiled.
I kissed her gently on the cheek, and watched her into the house, before turning and making my own way home.

2

So Ellie’s already told you how I came to be still in Liverpool when I bumped into her in the student union a few months later. She listened in silence as I told her what had happened with Lucy at the school ball, without going into all the details about how much I’d fancied her. When I finished the story she sighed loudly.
“Ah, fuck. The poor thing. I meant to have a talk with him before I went travelling in the summer, I really did. I mean, I’ve been pretty sure he’s been wearing my things for a while. And the way he was when we spent a week with him dressing up before the ball - he just seemed, you know, so comfortable with it all. But I suppose I kept putting it off because I knew it would be a difficult conversation. I feel really bad now. Poor guy. Poor girl, I suppose I should say now.” She sighed again. “I’ll go home this weekend and talk to him. Her.”
“I was wondering…” I hesitated. “Maybe if Lucy wanted to go out again, we’ve got the Christmas party coming up at the Art School. Maybe you and Tommy might like to come too?”
She grinned “You two got along well, then?”
I blushed.

I knew exactly what I was going to wear to the party. Ever since Lucy had mentioned it when we first met, I’d been intrigued by the idea of copying Kate Bush’s hairstyle. I studied videos of her on YouTube. In one of them she was sat at a piano wearing a man’s dinner suit. Not a tailored fit like James Bond would wear, but loose and velvety, with a big floppy bow tie and a satin cummerbund - romantic and Pre-Raphaelite-ish. The guy in the hire shop couldn’t believe I wanted to take it - I don’t think it had been rented out since about 1973.

For the first time in my life I arrived at the party early. I was sharing a drink with some fellow art school students when my guests arrived. I noticed Ellie first, walking towards me hand in hand with her boyfriend Tommy. Lucy looked quite different to the last time I’d seen her. Her short bob had been replaced by a tall column of loose curls, piled into an up-do that must have taken an age to arrange. It had the effect of elongating her face - she was all cheekbones and alabaster skin, her blue eyes picked out in subtle shades of silver and grey, her lips soft and pale. She was wearing the 1930s style dress her sister had worn to the school ball. In contrast to the flapper dress I’d last seen her in, this one gave her curves - the luxurious pewter satin fabric flowing over her like water, the short train as it met the floor rippling with each step she took like the tide on the seashore.
“Hey”. She looked at me shyly, her hands clasped nervously.
“Hey” I replied.
We stood in silence for a few seconds, our eyes locked. Ellie broke the spell. “Come on Tommy.” She grinned. “Lets go and dance. These two look like they’ve got some catching up to do.”

“I love your…”
“I love your…”
We both started at the same time, then stopped and giggled. I let her continue.
“I love your hair! You remembered! What I said about Kate Bush!”
I nodded. “And I love yours too. It must have taken ages to do.”
“Yeah.”
“And that dress looks amazing on you too. You’ve got curves, girl!”
She giggled, and gave me a wee twirl. At the rear the shoulder straps criss-crossed over her otherwise bare skin down to the small of her back. It was that rare combination of elegant, but sexy as hell too.
“And you look so cool in that suit! No-one else would get away with it.”
“Twenty quid from the hire shop. And about twenty hours of practising how to crimp my hair…”
She giggled again.
“Come on, let’s go dance.”

“So how have you been? I mean, how has Lucy been? Has she been able to get out much?”
“Hmm. Not really. I mean, Ellie knows now. We had a long chat a few weeks ago and she’s been dead supportive since then. Offered me the run of her wardrobe at home - all the stuff she hasn’t taken to uni that is. But I haven’t said anything to mum yet - that’s going to be difficult.” She bit her lip. “How about you. How come you didn’t go to London?”
“Ach, I didn’t get the grades. I was totally scunnered at first, but then I got the offer from the art school. It’s cool here. I like it. And the course feels a wee bit - I dunno - it feels like I can be a bit wilder and more creative designing for film and theatre than I can for real life. It’s good. I’m really enjoying myself. And at least I’m not at home any more. I’ve got a flat with some other art school students in Gambier Terrace. It’s cool. It’s a total shithole, but it’s cool.” I paused for a moment. “When I knew I was going to be staying in Liverpool, I meant to look you up. But. I dunno. I got busy and stuff. And that night at the ball - it just seemed like it wasn’t real - the more time passed. I wasn’t even sure if Lucy would still be around, or if you’d decide just to stay, you know…”
“Thanks for not giving up on me. On Lucy.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and I placed mine on her hips, my fingers tracing the line of the ribbon on her back. And I kissed her. You know how it feels when you kiss someone for the first time and it just feels right? It was like that. Our lips just fitted into each other perfectly; there was none of that horrible clashing of teeth you get sometimes thats always, always a sign that you’re not compatible. I knew absolutely even then, that this was going to be something special.

We left the party as soon as we respectably could. We said our goodbyes to Ellie and Tommy, and almost ran the half mile or so back to my flat. In the hall, the front door still ajar behind us, we collapsed breathlessly into each others arms. I took her hand, and led her through into my room and we kissed again, our tongues intertwined, my hands exploring the contours of her body, burnishing the soft satin against her skin. I reached down and undid the bow in the small of her back and began to slide the straps from her shoulders but she pulled away suddenly.
“Wait”
“What is it? I’m sorry, don’t you want to…”
“No, I mean, it’s not that, its…” she paused for a moment, trying to find the right words. “It’s just. I mean…” she paused again. “Everything under my dress is fake. Fake boobs, stuck on with glue. My bits…held back between my legs with about half a roll of medical tape, so I look nice and flat, like a girl. But I’m not, am I?” She was staring at the ground in the space that had opened up between us.
“Oh, Luce! I know exactly what you are. That’s why I like you so much.”
She looked back up. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed, that’s all…”
“Oh, Lucy!” I pulled her to me and held her quietly. ‘That tape. Sounds really uncomfortable.”
“It is. Especially since you started kissing me, and rubbing me all over like that.” She giggled softly. “He’s been straining to get out all night. It’s a good job the tape’s as strong as it is.”
I smiled. “You want to use the bathroom and sort it out?”
She nodded.

She returned a few minutes later, biting her lip that way that she does when she’s nervous. She held her hands together in front of her but there was no disguising the bulge in the front of her dress.
“You must think I’m… I don’t know…”
“Don’t be silly. Come here!” I pulled her to me again, and pushed her arms up so they were around my neck, and we started to kiss again. I’d put some music on whilst she’d been out, and we swayed softly to the rhythm. I could feel her hardness against me, responding to our caress. I reached down and stroked it gently through the satin of her dress, and she moaned gently. I nibbled along her neck and throat, and down her shoulder, as she arched her back and pressed into me.
“Mmmm. That feels amazing!”
I smiled and leant forward, brushing my hair behind one ear as I whispered in hers. “Come here.” I took her by the hand and sat her on the edge of my bed, and then knelt in front of her. I slid the skirt of her dress up over her legs until I could see her penis peeking out from underneath the satin. It was slim and smoothly shaved and for some reason an image came to my mind of a fledgling emerging from the nest for the first time. I felt her tense. “It’s okay, just relax.” I took it in my hand, exploring over it’s surface with my fingertips before giving it an exploratory squeeze. She flinched.
“I’m sorry!”
“No. No. That’s nice! Carry on!”
Gripping her more firmly, I pulled her foreskin back and licked across her glans. She flinched again and moaned softly. I was more confident now, and took her in my mouth, washing around her circumference with my tongue whilst gripping her more firmly, and stroking steadily up and down.
She moaned again, more loudly this time. Her body was tense now, her nails digging into the skin of my other arm as I leant against her. I continued, slightly faster, until I felt her back arch and her torso rise from the bed. She cried out, spurting into my mouth in a series of spasms, strongly at first and then fading until at last her body relaxed and she slumped back into the mattress. I slid up until I was lying next to her, side to side, our noses touching, her breath still coming in pants.
“That was amazing. No-one’s ever done that to me before.”
I beamed. “I’ve never done it before either. You’re my first penis.”
She giggled. “Can I try with you now? I’ve never done it before either, but it doesn’t seem fair that I get all the fun.”

3

I awoke the next day to the aromas of buttered toast and coffee. Lucy was standing at the bottom of the bed carrying a tray. She’d already showered - her hair was wrapped in a towel, turban-style, and she was wearing my robe - a short kimono that usually hung on the back of my door. Her legs, thighs still pink from the hot water, stretched out below the hem of the robe. Her face, devoid of make up now but still all cheekbones and big, beautiful, come-to-bed, blue eyes, beamed at me.
I cranked open an eyelid. “Morning Baby”
“Morning?” She giggled “It’s barely still afternoon. It’s going to be dark again in half an hour.”
I groaned and pulled myself up, onto one elbow initially and then resting my back against the headboard. She placed the tray on my lap and climbed back into bed next to me, reaching over to kiss me on the cheek whilst stealing a slice of hot toast. “Thank you for last night. It was amazing. And this morning was pretty good as well.” She grinned. Then, pointing at a dress I’d been making that was hanging on the end of the curtain rail at the window she asked “Is that one of your designs?”
“Yeah. Want to try it? I think it will fit.”
She crammed the rest of the toast into her mouth, climbed back out of bed and lifted it down. Holding it in front of her she lifted the hem of the skirt out to it’s full extent. “It’s gorgeous. I love the decoration.”
“It’s for one of my projects. The brief was to draw numbers out of a hat and then design something inspired by the number we got. Mine was 5386. So I found a pattern for a party dress from 1953 - really flirty, with a big skirt and lots of petticoats, and then I googled things that happened in 1986. That was the year of Chernobyl and the Space Shuttle disaster, and it felt like an interesting contrast - the darkness of those events screen printed onto the silk of the dress. What do you think?”
She was still holding it against herself, admiring her reflection in the mirror. “It’s really cool!”
“It’s got a really tiny waist. You’d probably need a corset to get it to fasten. Want to try?”
She nodded.
I rolled out of bed and, rummaging in the big old chest of drawers that officially occupied a corner of my room but overflowed across much of the floor, pulled out a corset. I fastened it around Lucy’s waist and pulled the straps as tight as I could. Of course, we couldn’t leave the suspenders dangling loosely, so another rummage located some sheer stockings with a fine black seam down the back. Then petticoats, a mass of them, to fill out the skirt to its fullest volume. And finally the dress itself, carefully smoothed into place. Lucy squealed with delight and pirouetted in front of the mirror as I stood watching, naked but for a proud smile.
“There’s another one goes with it.” I said. “Same idea, but opposite hand. The dress is eighties style, in taffeta with big pouffy shoulders and a tight pencil skirt. And the idea is to decorate that with events from 1953 - the Queen’s coronation probably. Maybe using embroidery this time instead of screen printing. The dress is finished, but I haven’t started the decoration yet.”
“Oooh! Can I see?”
So I lifted that out from my wardrobe, and this time it was my turn to put it on, and we stood hand in hand in front of the mirror together. The dresses looked great, but the overall image was spoiled somewhat by the towel turban on Lucy’s head, and my Kate Bush hairstyle which, after a night in bed, was much more bush than Kate.
“Hmm.” Lucy’s hand went to her chin. “When you present these in a review, do you use real models or just mannequins?”
“Depends. If I can persuade someone to model for me, that always works best.”
“It would be dead cool to play some games with their hairstyles too. So on the eighties style dress you could go with a fifties hairstyle and vice-versa.”
“Oooh! That’s a good idea!”
“You got a brush and some hairspray?”
She sat me down and about half an hour layer I had a full on beehive piled high on my head, held in place with what must have been almost a full can of lacquer. It looked fantastic.
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“Oh, you know, my mum’s a hairdresser. When I was smaller, she didn’t like me coming home by myself after school if the house was empty. So I’d go around to her salon and wait for her to finish. I guess I picked up a few things.”
“Picked up a few things? It looks amazing!”
It was her turn now to beam with pride. “Yeah, I’d like to be a hairdresser when I finish school. It’s fun, playing around like this. I’d like to have my own salon one day, like my mum.”
“You should kit it all out in a fifties style. Those big old hairdryers that you used to sit under and stuff. And have all your staff wear fifties dresses. That would be dead cool. Make you stand out from all the competition.”

Lucy came to stay the following weekend, and again the weekend after that. She’d arrive on the Friday night and we’d meet in town at a restaurant where we’d talk about our weeks and get to know each other again before going back to my flat and spending most of the rest of the weekend together in bed. Often on a Saturday afternoon we’d go into town and tour the vintage shops. Lucy began to develop her own style (with a few pointers from me, I have to say) and we felt like the two coolest girls in the whole of Liverpool. About six months after we’d started going out, she left school, told her mum, and went full time as Lucy, enrolling on a hairdressing course at college. I remember one afternoon when we’d been at her house in Woolton. We were in her room and I was looking at all her heavy metal cds.
“How come I never hear you play any of this stuff?” I’d asked her.
“Oh, I dunno. It kind of feels like, like it’s not very feminine. For Lucy. To like that kind of thing.”
“Ach, bollocks. Who gives a shit about what anyone else thinks you should be! Why don’t you put something on and we can have a good old headbang?”
So she put some music on. It was Thin Lizzy ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ and I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of the two of us, a lesbian and a t-girl, dancing manically along to that song. We turned the volume right up to eleven and played our imaginary air guitars so hard until we both ended up collapsing on the floor, laughing helplessly. When we eventually quietened down she reached over to me and kissed me gently and just said “Thank you.”
And I was like “What for?”
And she said “Just for letting me be me, and not trying to make me into some kind of image of what you think I should be. I love you, you know.”
And I grinned and was like “Yeah, yeah, you’ve told me that like a thousand times.”
And she laughed, and hit me playfully over the head with a cushion from her bed, and we fell about, laughing helplessly again.

It was perfect. It was ridiculously, madly, stupidly, head-over heels perfect. It wasn’t just my relationship with Lucy - at the art school, my work also felt like I was inspired. I was acing my submissions. When I presented my work in reviews, students and tutors from other years and even other disciplines like painting and sculpture would come along to see what I’d done. Visiting tutors from the industry were asking me to get in touch when I was ready to start looking for a job after I graduated. For those two and a bit years I just couldn’t imagine how life could be any better. But then of course when things can’t get any better, they can only get worse. And I couldn’t have imagined how it was the things that were going so well that would bring everything else crashing down.

PART THREE
MUM/1940s VINTAGE CHEONGSAM

1

It had been three years since Bob had left me and the kids and things were just starting to get back on an even keel when Mark delivered his bombshell. For the last few months he’d been away most weekends - he was going out with one of Ellen’s old schoolmates who was now at art college. I always insisted he came back home on the Sunday night so he was ready for school on the Monday morning - it being his final year and him having exams and all - and I always stayed up until he got home just to check he was ok. Like I say, it came out of the blue. He seemed really happy. I hadn’t met Sadie - that was her name - but he talked about her a lot and I could tell he was keen. As far as I knew, she was the first girl he’d been out with.

Anyway, he came home later than usual that night. He’d texted to let me know - he’s always been thoughtful like that - and I’d thought about going to bed, but then changed my mind. He seemed nervous when he came in; I didn’t get my usual hug. He just looked at me and said “Mum, we need to talk.”
I thought that maybe they’d split up and he was upset. I made him a cup of tea and we sat at the table in the kitchen.
He took a sip and made to speak. “You remember the end of year school party. Last year. When I met Sadie.”
I nodded.
“You were on holiday with Derek, remember?”
I nodded again.
“It was fancy dress. I went wearing…” he hesitated “I went wearing Ellen’s flapper dress.”
I laughed. “Ooh, you’ll have to show me the pictures..” But he looked so upset I stopped straight away.
He continued. “And then that Christmas. Ellen invited me to a ball at uni. That’s when I started going out with Sadie properly.” He looked up from his tea. “I went to that ball wearing a dress too.”
“Mark, I don’t understand…”
His voice was shaking now as he continued. ‘When I go to see Sadie at uni, mum, I go as a girl. Every weekend I’ve been living as a girl. Sadie likes me like that. And so do I, Mum. I…I think I’m a girl. I mean, inside.” He started to cry.
I’d been holding his hand across the table and I let go, recoiling. “ Mark, you…don’t be so fucking stupid. You finish with that girl, do you understand? You fucking well finish with her…” and I stormed away from the table, upstairs to my room.

The following morning he’d left by the time I got up. I telephoned the girls at the salon and told them I wouldn’t be in that day.. I’d not slept all night; thoughts racing through my head. Mark had always been such a sensitive boy - he’d taken it really hard when his father had left. And I remembered it had crossed my mind once or twice that he might be gay so I’d been relieved when he’d started seeing Ellen’s friend. Maybe I should have spent more time with him recently, but he’d seemed so happy. Maybe I’d been too pre-occupied when I’d started dating with Derek again. I texted him, just to ask if he was ok, but he didn’t reply. I sat down at my computer and googled ‘boy wants to be a girl’ and started reading.

I was so relieved when I heard his key in the lock that afternoon. I ran into the hall to catch him, to stop him from going straight upstairs to his room before I had a chance to speak.
“I’m sorry!” I blurted out. He dropped his schoolbag on the floor and looked across at me. “I’m sorry.” I repeated. “For what I said last night. I didn’t mean it.”
He nodded almost imperceptibly in acknowledgement.
We went into the kitchen and he starting talking, picking up from where I’d stormed off the night before.
“It’s not Sadie’s fault, you know. It was there before. Even when I was, like, seven and Ellie and me would play dress up, I always wanted to be the princess. And for years I’ve been sneaking into her room when she isn’t around, trying on her stuff”
“Ellen knows?”
He nodded. “I’m sorry. She’s been telling me I need to speak with you for ages but I’ve kept putting it off. It’s not easy…” He looked up at me with those big beautiful sensitive blue eyes of his and I started to cry.

When I came down for breakfast the next morning he was at the kitchen table, tucking into a bowl of cornflakes just like usual. I reached down and gave him a big squeeze.
“So when do I get to meet her?”
He mumbled through a mouthful of cereal. “Sadie?…”
“No. Lucy, silly.”
He blushed. “Oh. How about tonight? I can make you your tea?”

She was in the kitchen cooking when I got home from work. She had her back turned away from me, and clearly hadn’t heard me come in, and I watched her for a while as she stood at the hob, stirring a pot. She was wearing a short floral print dress with a corseted top and a full skirt. Her hair had been arranged with what must have taken a whole can of hairspray into an artfully mussed-up arrangement, decorated with a ribbon printed in the same fabric as the dress. She reminded me of when I used to watch Paula Yates on The Tube in the 1980s - she looked cool, and arty, and her movements were graceful and entirely feminine.
I put my bags down at the table. “Fucking Hell.”
She span around. “I’m sorry, mum, I’ll go get changed…”
“No! It’s not…It’s fine. It’s just a shock, that’s all. You look…I don’t know…”
She stood nervously facing me, her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Come here. Let me get a proper look at you.”
She smoothed the front of her dress and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. Her heels clipped across the tiles on the kitchen floor.
“Nice dress.” She smiled and, gathering it at her hips, spun it around so it flared out.
“You look just like my mum. I’ve got photos of her, wearing a dress almost exactly like that, back in the fifties. And the way you walked just now. I can remember her when I was little, how she moved. Just like her…”
She smiled “We’ve got good genes, me and you. And Ellie too. You’re beautiful too you know. You don’t appreciate yourself enough.” She stopped for a moment. “Somehow it’s easier saying things like that when I’m…well, when I’m like this.”
I took a step towards her and held out my arms, and pulled her tightly in to me, and she held me there quietly as I cried.

2

Now I’m not saying that everything was all sweetness and light from that point on. It wasn’t. There were some dark times, some really dark times. But there were moments of joy as well; moments that I’d not have experienced if Lucy hadn’t come along.

Mark finished school two weeks after I first met Lucy, and she went full time after that. She’d decided she wanted to follow me into becoming a hairdresser, and she enrolled into college that summer. A couple of days each week she’d come into my salon, where she learned the ropes really quickly.

Not seeing Mark anymore was like a bereavement. I’d regularly wake up in the middle of the night, after dreaming that I’d been spending time with him, and then my stomach would lurch as I realised he wasn’t here anymore. And yet a lot of the things I had loved about him I could still see in Lucy - his sense of humour, his warmth, his gentle soul. His beautiful blue eyes were still there, even now when they were framed with liner and shadow and mascara. Traces of his mannerisms still surfaced in her from time to time - stupid things like the way he bit his lip when he was nervous. On other occasions she was utterly different - the way she moved, the way she spoke. Sometimes in the past when I drove home from work I used to pass Mark as he was walking back from school and I’d recognise him from a couple of hundred yards away just by the shape of his silhouette and how he walked. And it would give me a warm feeling, seeing him unexpectedly like that, and I’d think ‘he’s mine’, and my heart would sing. And I didn’t get that with Lucy - that recognition from the tiniest gesture, or sound, that comes from being a mother. I was making friends with her, and I loved her, definitely. But something intangible wasn’t there anymore, and I suspected that it would never come back, and that made me sad.

Lucy was happy, though, and that was the most important thing. There was an energy about her, a radiance, that I’d never seen before in Mark. She loved her work, and was starting to show a real gift for hairdressing. But more than that, she was clearly head over heels in love with Sadie. The two of them would come over on a Sunday once a month or so. Ellen and Tommy would come too, and we’d have a big traditional family roast. They were the best times - seeing all of them so happy. It was at one of those lunches, a few months after Lucy had come into our lives, that Ellen announced that she and Tommy were going to get married. I was a bit taken aback at first and asked why they weren’t waiting until she’d finished university, but she just looked at Tommy, and he took her hand , and she said “We’ve got the best reason in the world.”
Sadie squealed. “You’re pregnant?” And Ellen just smiled in response.

It was a winter wedding. We kept it small - just family and a few friends. Ellen was happy with that, and it was all that we could have afforded anyway. We held the ceremony at the local church in Woolton and had a meal and a few drinks afterwards in the pub. The girls looked absolutely beautiful of course. Ellen had bought a really simple but elegant off the peg dress. It was full length, bias cut satin with a cowl neck and a short train. Sadie worked her magic to make it into something really special. She took some lengths of green ribbon and wove them around the dress - starting at the train and then spiralling up around the skirt. One ribbon ended in a sprig of snowdrops at the shoulder, another crossed her opposite shoulder and spiralled down around her arm, ending in a bigger bouquet of snowdrops that she carried during the ceremony, and the third crossed over the nape of her neck into her hair where I carefully arranged it into a really elaborate up do, complete with further snowdrops again. She looked incredible - like an elf from Lord of the Rings. Lucy and Sadie were bridesmaids of course, along with Patsy and Sam. They wore khaki green dresses matching the colour of the snowdrop stems and the ribbons on Ellen’s dress, and similar in style. Each of them had a single white ribbon spiralling up and along their arms to more bouquets of snowdrops - smaller and less elaborate than Ellen’s. Lucy did an amazing job of doing all their hair whilst I concentrated on the bride.

It was a perfect day. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. Maybe when I got married - although it’s difficult to look back on that now without remembering what a bastard Bob was to me afterwards. And maybe in the opposite way to how my own wedding was tainted by what came later, Ellen’s somehow shone as a kind of beacon of joy in contrast to the darkness that followed. About a week before the ceremony, I’d found a lump in my breast. I didn’t mention it to anybody because I didn’t want them worrying about me in the run up to the big day. The Monday after, I went to the doctors and they referred me to the hospital oncology department. I took Lucy along to the appointment - Ellen was still on honeymoon - and when the diagnosis came, it was about as bad as it could be.

I started a course of chemo just to try to buy myself some more time - I wanted to see the baby arrive, and my two girls graduate. I was throwing up several times every day, lost a ton of weight and, worst of all for me, lost all of my hair. Ellen and Tommy moved in with us to help out. Lucy took over everything I’d been doing at my salon, on top of everything she was already doing in the last few months of her course. The chemo finished in April, and by the beginning of May I felt ever so slightly better.

The girls had been keeping my spirits up by telling me all about how they were getting on with their studies. Sadie especially was buzzing with excitement about her final fashion show. In honour of her mum, and her mum’s grandad who’d been in the Beijing Opera back in the 1920s, she’d decided to base her show around Chinese Opera themes. But it being Sadie, there had to be a twist, and that twist was Liverpool. She’d enlisted a couple of Chinese friends to act as her models; one to reprise her great grandad’s role of playing a female part (which was the tradition back then, apparently) and one to play the evil baddie. And she’d asked Lucy to play the heroine. Sadie had long since established herself as the star of her course, and it felt like the entire art school was going to turn out to see her show. I was determined not to miss it and, feeling a little better, I’d volunteered to help the models with their hair.

The costumes were incredible. Viewed from a distance, the ones the two guys were wearing looked exactly like traditional Opera outfits - incredibly vivid colours, flowing fabrics with sleeves draped down to the floor and amazingly intricate headdresses. But when you looked closer you could see the twist that Sadie had brought. The headdresses each had a band of circular shapes - maybe a dozen or so on each one - arrayed like a halo, sitting on stalks like insect antennae about four or five inches above the forehead. Traditionally they’d have been simple polished metal globes, but in Sadie’s case each one was a tiny, individual 3D printed head of a famous Liverpool footballer. The fabric of the dresses themselves, which would have been traditionally embroidered with Chinese symbols, were decorated with images of iconic Liverpool buildings - the Liver Building, St. George’s Hall, Sefton Park Palm House. The amount of work that must have gone into making it all was unbelievable.

The dress that Lucy wore was much less elaborate than the other two, and in contrasting with them, it emphasised the qualities of all three. It was a simple, classical, elegant, floor length cheongsam in pale cherry blossom pink with silver embroidery. Again, like the other costumes, it looked entirely traditional at first glance, with cap sleeves and a mandarin collar, but a closer examination revealed that the subjects of the embroidered decoration weren’t Chinese symbols but instead portraits of all the people from the Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers album cover. It was stunning and Lucy looked absolutely beautiful.

Before the show I’d helped out by doing the hair and installing the headdresses on the models. Lucy’s was longer now, and I’d dressed it carefully into a French plait that complemented the simplicity of her dress. She’d sat in front of me, her back to me, facing a mirror.
“You look absolutely gorgeous, love. I’m glad I had the chance to help out.”
“Aw, thanks mum! I’m so happy you were able to be here.”
“You know.” I rested my hand on her shoulder.”I’ve never done your hair before. It’s been lovely. I’m glad I had the chance before…well, you know…”
She reached up and placed her own hand on top of mine. “Oh mum, I love you so much.”

After the show I went home and left the girls to it for the partying. But I couldn’t sleep, and I was in the kitchen making myself a drink when I heard Lucy come in. She was crying hysterically.
I ran to her and took her by the shoulders. “What is it love? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Sadie. She’s going to Los Angeles. She’s been offered a job with one of the big film studios over there.”
“Oh Lucy!”
“She said she’d stay if I asked her too, but I can’t do that can I? I mean, it’s her dream. I can’t ask her not to …”
“You should go with her.”
“Oh, mum! You know I won’t do that! Not now. Not with…not with things the way they are…” and she sobbed, violently and ceaselessly, like all the pains of all the world were hers, and hers alone, and I held her tight, wrapping my arms around her as though a thousand men were trying to tear her loose.

PART FOUR
GARY/1950s DIOR NEW LOOK

1

I’d known Mark at school - not amazingly well because he was in the year below me - but I’d been in the same form class as his sister Ellie. He’d seemed a fairly regular teenager - into his music and his Lord of the Rings films I remember - so I was a bit taken aback when another mate of mine sent me a link to an article in the Echo about the opening of the ‘Lucy 50’ hairdressers in Woolton and he told me that the young woman in the fifties dress in the picture was him. I remembered when I was working part time at the chippy I delivered a pizza to Ellie’s house and a girl with the most amazing legs answered the door. Was it her? I scrutinised the photo, but couldn’t be sure. I was in the Navy at the time - left school at eighteen to sign up - and when my mates found out that one of my old school friends was a tranny they’d ribbed me about it for weeks afterwards. That would have been in the last year of the five that I spent at sea. I was discharged when I was twenty two and went home to Liverpool. I’d learned plumbing whilst I’d been away, and had enough money saved up to buy a small van and some tools and set myself up in business.

About a year into the new job I got a call out to sort a problem with a leaking tap at Lucy’s salon. I’d driven past it loads of times - it was on the main drag in Woolton - and on those occasions I’d think back to getting sent the article and the girl I’d delivered pizza to. When I got the call I was intrigued to see if it really was her.

The salon was really cool. Outside a neon sign in a flowing, handwritten style said ‘Lucy 50’. Inside the walls were painted mint green and bubblegum pink, the floor was black and white chequerboard linoleum and the worktops around the basins were pink formica. And they had those amazing huge old hairdryers so you could hardly see the heads of the women that were under them. There were four or five young women who I assumed were the staff all dressed in period costume - big, flared dresses in polka dots or gingham, thin leather belts around tiny waists, scarves in their hair or around their throats. The atmosphere was buzzing, everyone was chatting away and laughing, and I felt, standing there in my overalls with my toolbox in one hand, so out of place it was ridiculous.

A young woman appeared from a room at the back and came to greet me. She was tall in three inch heels, and slim in tight fitting trousers that were cropped at mid calf and a t-shirt with a wide slash neck that spanned from shoulder to shoulder. Her chestnut hair was swept back from her forehead and wrapped with a short chiffon scarf that, like the rest of her outfit, and in contrast to the other girls in the salon, was jet black. Even with the passage of five or six years, I recognised her immediately.
She smiled warmly. “Hi! You must be the plumber. I’ll show you the problem.”
“I think we know each other. I was in the same class at school as Ellie.”
She looked at me closely, her blue eyes intent as she scanned my face. “It’s Gary, isn’t it? Oh my god, I remember you used to work at the chippy!”
“Yeah, that’s me. I delivered you a pizza once.”
She was quiet for a moment and then her face lit up as she suddenly remembered. “Oh shit, that was you, was it?”
I smiled. “Feels like an awful long time ago now, eh?” I thought about mentioning her legs and then thought better of it.

I got on with the job of fixing the leak and then sought her out again afterwards to let her know it was completed. We chatted again for a while about old shared acquaintances. Her eyes sparkled as she reminisced. Short tendrils of hair trailed down her bare neck and shoulder, brushing against her pale skin as she laughed.
I made to leave, and then stopped short of the door on my way out and turned back.
“I was wondering if you’d like a drink sometime? Catch up on old times maybe?”
Those blue eyes flashed again. “Yes, I’d like that. That would be great.”

We met up in the beer garden of The Lodge in Lark Lane. She was wearing a crisp white mens shirt tucked into a calf length silver sequinned pencil skirt, with a matching thin belt dangling from the waist, her hair loose in silky waves down past her shoulder blades, and every guy in the place turned to watch as she walked to the table where I was waiting. We fell into an easy conversation - about old friends from school, and about our respective fledgling businesses. Hers was longer established than mine and she told me how, as well as the salon in Woolton, she was about to open another place in town which she planned to call Lucy 51, and she’d also started to look at the possibility of starting something up in London too. She’d managed to build up a clientele amongst the footballer’s wives of the city, and where they went the local fashionistas followed. But she was a good listener too. I rolled out all my best navy anecdotes, and she giggled endearingly whilst the evening sun’s orange glow was filtered through her hair, making her blue eyes sparkle even more as she laughed. At the end of the evening, I walked her back to her car, and we kissed goodnight, and I knew, as I headed back home, I was already besotted.

A couple of days later we met up again to see a film, and then I didn’t see her again for over a week whilst she was in London looking at properties. When she returned she rang me.
“Fancy dinner tonight? My treat.”
“Sounds good. Are you celebrating?”
“Signed a lease on a place in Islington today.”
“Fantastic! That’s great news! Congratulations!”
“There’s a place in the Albert Dock. It’s new. It’s a kind of jazz supper club thing. We can eat, and dance. Sound ok?”
“Sounds great!”
“Oh. I nearly forgot. Only catch is there’s a dress code - you’ll need to wear a suit.”

Like Lucy’s salon, the restaurant was a bit of a throwback. If you half closed your eyes, and didn’t listen to the accents of the other diners, you could have been in New York in the fifties. The musicians on the stage opposite the bar weren’t quite Miles or Dizzy, but the mood was cool and sophisticated. Coming from the navy, my uniform had taken the place of a suit, so I’d had to buy a new one earlier that week, together with a shirt and tie, and shoes. More familiar with overalls than looking smart, I was uncomfortable. The collar of the shirt dug stiffly into my neck and I eased my finger around it as I waited. Lucy, on the other hand, looked as though the place had been designed for her. I had a table opposite the door, and I watched her as she entered. The maitre’d greeted her like an old friend with a kiss to both cheeks and escorted her across to my table. She moved like a cat, an off-the shoulder velvet dress like fur, ruched at the waist, black stockings and heels. We ate, and talked. She told me about her business dealings in London, and I told her a tale about one of my jobs that week that made her giggle. For a brief moment the elegance gave way to a girlishness and a vivacity that made her all the more beautiful to me.

“You look good in that dress. It suits you. The off-the-shoulder thing.”
She smiled. “Wow. We’ll make a fashionista of you yet!”
I grinned. “I don’t know about that. But, if you don’t mind me saying, you’ve got a very sexy neck. If I was a vampire you’d be in big trouble.”
She laughed.
“You remind me of this place, you know.” I said.
“What? This restaurant?”
“Yeah. You’re always so poised, like you should have been an actress or something. And here you are with a plumber when you could be dating a duke, or a count, or something…”
She coughed. “You’re not so bad. You clean up pretty well, you know…” and she giggled girlishly again.
“You don’t mind? That I’m a working man?”
“Hey, I’m a hairdresser, remember, not the Queen of England.” She paused. “It’s all an act you know. Underneath all this…” she paused again. “I might look like a swan, but underneath the water I’m paddling like crap.” She placed her glass down and clasped her hands together and the remnants of her smile disappeared. “You’ve never asked me about being trans.”
I inhaled sharply. “I haven’t… I didn’t…I mean it honestly hadn’t crossed my mind. You’re beautiful, Lucy. You’re elegant, and graceful, and…”
“Trans,” she interrupted. “Do you know how difficult that is? I have to try twice as hard, no, ten times as hard as the average woman to look like this because every day when I step out of my door at the back of my mind I’m scared that someone’s going to call me out when I walk past - ‘look at that man in a dress!’” She paused. “And then the irony of it is that when I succeed in convincing everyone that I’m female, the fucking bank managers and fucking estate agents in London all think I’m some stupid Scouse bitch that they can talk down to because I’m a female.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“I know. I’m sorry too.” She drew a deep breath and exhaled with a sigh. “I don’t want to ruin the night. It’s been so nice. But you need to see all of me. Not just the veneer on the outside.”
I reached across and took her hand. We were quiet for a moment. I sipped at my glass.
“You want to come outside?” She asked. “The sun will be going down just now across the river.”
We stepped out onto the quayside. The water was a silvery blue, at that precise moment the exact colour of her eyes. She leaned against the guardrail as the sun dipped below the horizon, my jacket draped across her bare shoulders as the temperature dropped.
She turned and placed her arms around my neck and kissed me softly. “Will you make love to me tonight?”
I kissed her in return. “I’d like that.”
“I need to ask you something though. First.” She looked up and shivered again, gently. I tugged my jacket tighter over her shoulders and wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her in closer. The veneer had parted momentarily and a vulnerable young woman stood before me.
“I only had…I only finished my transition - my final surgery - a few months ago. I’ve not been with anyone since then. So you need to be gentle.”
I kissed her again, in affirmation.

She took my hand and we walked along the quayside for maybe fifty yards or so, and then stopped.
“Here.” She said.
“What? You live here? Wow! Nice!”
A glass screen took us back inside and Lucy chatted briefly to the concierge whose face, like the maitre’d’s earlier, gave away the delight he clearly enjoyed in spending even a few brief seconds in her company. I’d visited the Albert Dock before, but never any of the residential apartments that occupied the upper floors. Lucy’s flat was just how I’d imagined them, all brick walls and vaulted ceilings supported off cast iron beams and columns. Metal windows framed the remains of the sunset over the Mersey that we’d witnessed earlier from the quayside.

She took me by the hand “Come on, I’ll give you a tour” and in the bedroom she wrapped her arms around my neck. I kissed her along hers, from earlobe to shoulder, inhaling her scent. She moaned softly and my hands burnished the soft velvet that wrapped her body. I fumbled with the zipper at the back of her dress and she whispered into my ear “There’s a hook at the top” and giggled softly, her hands in turn unbuckling my belt. I slipped her dress down her body, peeling the sleeves from her arms, and she stood before me. She was wearing a black satin basque, soft lace cups supporting her pale breasts, a matching ruffle of lace at her hips, from below which suspenders ran tautly along each thigh to sheer gloss stockings. For a moment she looked up at me, vulnerable again. “My god, you look absolutely beautiful” I exclaimed, almost involuntarily, and she smiled, and we tumbled onto her bed.

I kissed her again along her neck, alternating kisses with gentle nibbles of her skin this time as I worked my way to her shoulder. She moaned again, louder now, wrapping her leg behind my back, my hand clasping her backside, tracing the line of her suspender. I rolled on top of her, positioning myself between her legs but she stopped me. “Remember what I said outside. Let me go on top.”

We rolled back and she straddled me, her legs either side of my waist, her hands spread wide on the mattress. She arched her back and lifted herself up until she was poised over me, the hairs at her groin brushing my tip. She paused for a second and then lowered herself, the moist lips of her vagina sliding slowly, millimetre by millimetre, over my glans. I moaned, and tried to push back so I would be further inside, but she kept her back arched to control how far I was able to go in, flexing up and down. With each drop of her hips she’d slide a little further until eventually her lips slid around the whole head of my penis, and she gasped. For a moment she paused, then she began to slide up and down again - my whole shaft this time, each downstroke taking me further and harder into her. At last she bottomed out on my pubic bone, groaning with pleasure. I gripped her backside again with one hand, my other over her shoulder, pulling and pushing her now, up and down, faster and harder, grinding her into me. She moaned harder now, and as I felt her body tense and convulse it pushed me in turn over the edge, and I pulled her down to my belly as we climaxed together.

We lay there in each others arms, panting. She stretched her legs straight, with me still inside; brushed her hair from her face and kissed me.

2

And that’s how we ended up in a regular boyfriend/girlfriend kind of thing. I say ‘regular’; I never really felt like I got to see Lucy as much as I’d have liked to. She was always busy. If she wasn’t in London getting the new salon ready to open she was working every evening in Liverpool - running special out-of-hours appointments for clients, or just general admin. We’d see each other most, but not all, weekends. We’d maybe have a meal out on a Friday night, and then go back to her place and spend most of Saturday in bed. But even then she’d often end up working on the Sunday.

About a couple of months or so after we’d first got together I went down to London on the train on Friday evening after work to meet her. We’d had a great weekend just touring the sites and eating in some nice restaurants and, for once, Lucy hadn’t mentioned work at all or had to take any work-related calls. We were on the train back to Liverpool on the Sunday night and I just blurted it out.
“I love you.”
She looked at me and smiled, and kissed me gently on the cheek, and then turned to stare out of the window. It wasn’t the reaction I’d hoped for. But I wasn’t too downhearted. I rationalised that she probably needed time to think. She’d been so busy. I’d taken her by surprise. I was sure that she’d reciprocate soon.
Several weeks later, one Saturday after we’d enjoyed a lazy sexy morning in bed together, I told her again. She’d smiled again, and kissed me, but the tiny split second before the smile there had been something else - irritation almost, as though she hadn’t wanted me to say it. But her phone had rang and, by the time she’d finished her call, the moment had passed.

Later that autumn the refurbishment work to the new salon in London was finished and it was ready to open. Lucy had planned a huge opening party with a fifties fancy dress theme at a hotel just down the road from the salon. We’d booked rooms there for the weekend. Early on the Saturday evening we’d been in our room, getting changed. Lucy had bought a dress for the party at an auction. ‘Christian Dior New Look’ she’d said it was, and it had cost almost as much as I’d paid for my van. It was black, off the shoulder, with a tapering neckline, a tiny waist, and a very full skirt. The hotel room had felt like it had been stuffed floor to ceiling with netting underskirts that, somehow, were now all in place underneath it. There was a wide brimmed hat to go with it, as wide as her shoulders, in the same fabric. I’d helped lace her into a tight corset so she could fit the dress, and she was sat at the dressing table doing her make up, happily humming away as she traced her lips with a cherry red lipstick. If she looked cool and elegant in her everyday clothes, she’d dialled it up to eleven for the party. Had Grace Kelly been there, she would have been taking notes.

In contrast to Lucy’s mood, I was feeling ill at ease. I wasn’t looking forward to the party at all. I didn’t know anyone who would be there apart from Lucy. I felt like I’d have little in common with them - women who could afford to pay several hundred pounds on getting their hair done, and their husbands and partners who were, presumably, equally wealthy. And there was I - a plumber from Liverpool. I was physically uncomfortable too. I was never happy in a shirt and tie, and Lucy had hired a fifties style suit for me to wear that was wool, and particularly itchy. I longed to be in my overalls, happily ensconced fixing a leak under someone’s sink. Lucy had finished her make-up and was pinning her hat into place, nervously pacing around the room, her tall, glossy heels clicking on the wooden floor. I stood up, and made towards her, thinking to kiss her now she was ready. But she held me away, at arm’s length.
“Don’t try to give me a squeeze! You’ll get wool off your suit all over my dress!”
I didn’t really intend to say it. It wasn’t premeditated, it just spilt out. “You don’t love me do you?”
“Oh, Gary! Don’t be silly, Let’s not talk about this tonight, not with the party…”
“Why not? Now’s as good a time as any.”
“Gary, I don’t want to have a big deep conversation with you right now.”
“But it isn’t deep, is it? All you have to do is say it. ‘I love you.’ Just like that.”
“Please Gary, let’s not…”
“Tell me! Now! I’m not going to move until you say something.”
“Don’t start giving me ultimatums!” Her eyes flashed, the blue now suddenly cold as ice.
Maybe I should have backed down at that point, and things might have turned out differently. But I didn’t. “If you walk out of that door without telling me how you feel, you’ll be going on your own! And I won’t be here when you get back!”
Her eyes flashed again. A dozen different emotions raced across her face. Her mouth opened and closed without her saying a word. And finally she looked at me calmly. Our eyes locked together. Three, four, five seconds passed. And then she opened the door and left.

PART FIVE
LUCY/1960s YVES SAINT LAURENT

I’d wanted to fall in love with him, I really had. He was cute, and kind, and gentle, and he made me laugh with his terrible jokes. All of my friends said we looked so good together; they couldn’t believe it when I told them we’d split up. It’s really difficult to put into words, and even now looking back I wonder if I could have been wrong. Maybe I should have worked less hard and spent more time with him. But it just felt like somehow he was in love with the image of me, rather than everything that made up who I am. It was my own fault, for sure. I’d worked hard on that image. Bloody hard. The ‘sophisticated businesswoman’. Everything that went with that - the heels, the lingerie, the designer dresses, the immaculate make up, the perfect hair. I loved that, I did, but deep down there was still a tiny part of me that was Mark. I’d lived him for eighteen years, and he hadn’t been a bad person. I didn’t want to kill him off completely, to deny that he’d ever existed. That would have been a denial of where I’d come from, of my family, of my mum. Traces of him still surfaced from time to time, and I could live with that. When I was playing rough and tumble with Ellie’s kids; sometimes when I got to watch Liverpool play football; when I was at home alone and I’d play my old music collection. Sadie had understood that, and Ellie. But Gary never did. I remember a few weeks after we’d met and we were visiting Ellie and Tommy, and I was playing with Robbie, my nephew, who must have been about 4 at the time. I was wearing an old t-shirt and cotton gym pants and no make-up, and my hair was a mess. We’d been wrestling on the floor, and I’d been pretending to be a monster, and Robbie had been giggling helplessly. And Gary had said something about me not acting ‘ladylike’, and it kind of cut me to the core.

After Gary I pretty much gave up on relationships, and all my energy went into my business. In contrast to my private life, my salons were going incredibly well. I’d opened two more in London and half a dozen in other cities around the country. The London clients paid more, but were also more demanding of my personal time, so I’d bought a small but stupidly expensive apartment in the Barbican and was spending about half my week down there. On the rare occasions I wasn’t working, I devoted my time to charity. I exploited the wealth and celebrity of my clients shamelessly each year at a dinner I set up in aid of the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool, where my mum had been treated, and over the years I was proud to have raised well into six figures for them. Now, as the tenth anniversary of opening my first salon came around, I’d decided to change things around a little. The previous year I’d opened Lucy 59 in Chester. Lucy 60 would, as the name suggested, declare a shift in style into a new decade. The decade of The Beatles, mini skirts, and flower power. I refurbished my first salon, the one in Woolton, to the new look. To celebrate that, and and also my ten years in business, I set up a charity dinner in Woolton with a sixties fancy dress theme. All my best clients from all over the country were going to travel and it was going to be the event of the year.

Of course, I had just the perfect dress for the occasion. Back when we’d spent our weekends touring the charity shops of Liverpool Sadie had passed on a love of vintage fashion, and now I had some money to spare I’d built up quite a collection. My favourite eras were the 1930s - I was a sucker for anything full length in bias-cut satin - and, of course, the 1950s, but since I’d decided on the new style for Lucy 60, I’d been on the hunt for something from the sixties. A few weeks earlier I’d bought online a dress by Yves Saint Laurent that fitted the bill perfectly. It was black chiffon, thigh length with long sleeves and a simple round neck. Black sequins ran around the hem and the wrists. A ziz-zag pattern of sequins similarly ran, for modesty’s sake because the chiffon of the dress was almost transparent, around the hipline and bust. To be honest, I was a little out of my comfort zone wearing it - I couldn’t wear anything but the tiniest g-string to go with it - but Ellie had dared me, so I couldn’t refuse. I’d arranged my hair into a simple up-do and gone with a period look to my make up, with pale lips and no blush but lots of eyeliner and metallic silver eyeshadow.

There had been 300 people invited, and I think I knew almost all of the women, and at least a good half of their husbands and partners. During the pre-dinner drinks, and then between courses, I’d been doing my best as hostess to get around and speak to everyone. As the coffees arrived at the tables the main part of the fundraising, a charity auction, began. I stood on the stage, and tapped on the microphone to check it was working.
“Good Evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, and once again, thank you all for coming. We’re going to get straight into the main part of the evening now; the Charity Auction.” There were loud ‘woohs’ and whistling from parts of the audience and I smiled. “We’ve got some amazing things to bid for tonight - signed football shirts from both Liverpool and Everton,” (another ‘wooh’) “tickets to Ladies Day at Aintree, a day’s coaching from the golf professional at Ainsdale. But best of all…” I paused for dramatic effect “a free hairstyling appointment with yours truly!” I grinned, and there was more loud cheering and clapping. “To help us out with the auction I’d like you all to put your hands together please for the most important person here tonight; the person who, without her, none of this would have happened. The person who went to Clatterbridge hospital twelve years ago and was told she had six months to live. But the person who, thanks to their skill, and expertise, and care, and love, is still with us today, fighting fit, and going strong. Ladies and Gentlemen, my mum!” There were huge cheers as she walked on to the stage. I wiped away a tear that had started to form. She was frailer now after her treatment, and she’d never regained the weight that she’d lost, but her spirit was indomitable, and she looked radiant.

We worked our way through the various prizes. Bidding was intense, and almost all of the prizes were sold for way more than I had expected. At length, there was only one prize left, the hairstyling appointment with myself. As the price climbed, interest soon narrowed down to two bidders; one of my London clients sat at a table at the front of the room and another woman right at the back who I couldn’t see clearly other than her dark hair and the silver dress she was wearing. There was something about her accent though as she called out her bids. Scottish, mixed with a touch of Californian drawl. When she won she whooped loudly and skipped up to the stage. Her 1960s costume was the same one she’d worn all those years ago, with the hand sewn rocket badges on the sleeves, and the spray painted knee length boots. She bounded up to me, stopping an arms length away, and beamed.
“Surprise! Long time no see, eh?” She grinned.
“Sadie! How did you…When did…” I was completely lost for words. She’d cut her hair to a shoulder length bob, her face was more tanned, and laughter lines now framed her sparkling brown eyes. But otherwise she looked exactly the same as when I’d last seen her.
My mum tried to get my attention by gripping my elbow. “Lucy, love. We need to keep going with the other announcements.”
I replied without taking my eyes away from Sadie.”Yes mum.”
Sadie reached out her hand, and I took it. My mum prompted me again. “Yes. Yes. OK! I’m coming!” My gaze didn’t shift.
Sadie smiled again. “It’s ok. I’ll catch you later.” And she eased her hand out of my grip.
Another guest greeted me from the other side “Lucy! Great night!” And I smiled absently, and when I turned back to see Sadie she was gone.

The rest of the evening passed in a daze. I did my best to act the hostess, but I was beyond distracted, always looking past the person I was speaking to, searching the room for another glimpse. I almost began to think I’d imagined the whole thing. Eventually, after what felt like hours, a guest tapped me on the shoulder and gestured to the stage. “Listen!”

The DJ was making an announcement about the end of the evening, and playing one last song. I was expecting Gerry and the Pacemakers’ ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, which must have ended every Liverpool sixties themed night since, well, the sixties. But instead the opening chords of Thin Lizzy’s ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ tore out of the PA, dragging me back to that moment twelve years ago in my bedroom. “Be yourself.” Sadie had said then. “Don’t give a shit about what anyone else wants you to be.” She was stood alone in the middle of the dancefloor, gesturing me towards her, grinning insanely. I looked around. The other guests were smiling, arms gently steering me in her direction. It was like reality had been suspended and I’d entered some kind of parallel universe. Sadie grinned again, and waved her arm, more urgently this time. I looked around, seeing if there was anyone there at all who would pull me back into that normal universe, where I was cool and sophisticated and didn’t do things like playing air guitar in front of 300 of my clients. But no-one did. Fuck it. I kicked off my heels and pulled the clips from my hair, and pounded my imaginary guitar as hard as I could. By the end of the first verse Ellie and Tommy had joined in as well, and my mum, and half the Liverpool football team. By the time we reached the chorus there wasn’t a single person in the place who wasn’t rocking.

I walked home hand in hand with Sadie. My little finger slipped into the gap between her index and middle fingers the way it always had when we were together, like a ship docking in its home port after years away at sea. We went slowly and meanderingly, our feet bare, my shoes in my other hand dangling from their straps. We had a lot to cover. I told her everything that had happened to me since she’d left, and she told me about her life in LA. And she halted momentarily, and turned to face me. “I’ve got a new job.” She said. “In London.” And my heart pounded.

We stopped, just like we’d done all those years ago, at the end of the path leading to my mum’s front door. Sadie still had hold of my hand and she pulled me gently toward her, reaching up behind me with her other arm, and kissed me. It was like - I don’t know, I can’t describe it. The touch of her lips, her smell, everything was like doubly more intense than it had been when we’d been together. I wanted that moment to last forever but at the same time somehow all the pain of the time we’d been apart was also amplified, and after the immediate ecstasy it flooded through me. I pushed her away, agonisingly.
Every emotion ran across her face - the dying joy of the kiss; loss, separation, guilt. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, no, it’s ok.” I said hurriedly, barely braving to look at her. “I mean, it’s just, I can’t…” my words faded away. “It’s too much, Sadie, after so long. I might want to, but I can’t just switch myself back on to you like that, after keeping all the feelings I have for you locked away for so long.”
“I’m sorry.” She apologised again. She reached out a hand toward me, but then stopped just short of it touching. “You said ‘have’”.
“What?”
“‘All the feelings I have for you’. ‘Have’, not ‘had’”.
“Oh, Sadie.” I reached out to her this time. Her hand was still stretched out in front of her where she’d stopped short a moment ago, and I took it. “It hurt me so much when you left, Sadie. I just can’t go through that again.”
“I love you, Lucy. Always have.” Tears were running down her cheeks now. “I don’t want to leave it here, like this, like now. Can I see you when you’re in London? We can talk again, and maybe, slowly…”
“Yes.” I interrupted her, wiping a tear away from my own cheek. “Yes. Please. I’d like that.”
“OK.” She smiled again, and sniffed, and wiped the end of her nose with her sleeve, and giggled gently, and she was eighteen again.
“I’ll give you a call.”
I watched until she disappeared from sight at the end of our road and then I turned and headed up the path to my mum’s door. For a moment I was In Ellie’s flapper dress again, heels in one hand, fumbling for my keys, a warm glow of excitement and anticipation flooding through my veins.

Mum and Ellie were stood either side of the kitchen table, drinking tea.
I wiped my face dry with my palm and smiled at them. My mum smiled back and then noticed that I’d been crying. “You ok there, Luce, is everything alright?”
I sniffed and smiled again. I placed my bag on the table, picked up the mug of tea that Ellie handed across, and took a sip. “Yeah. I think everything’s going to be absolutely fine.”

THE END