CHAPTER 1
I put the bike in the shed and settled the rucksack onto my shoulders as I tugged the straps tighter to compensate for standing upright.

There was quite a weight in it, and I had been out of the pedals for each bump to spare the seat post from the risk of breaking. What a farce: an aluminium and carbon road bike with a twenty stone man on it. In lycra. I still felt the disgust from the night before, when I had had no time for tea before the music club, and sat by the window in the Charcoal Grill awaiting my burger and chips. The two drunks had chapped on the window to get my attention, then made a point of laughing in my face. Bastards.

I limped up the stairs to my flat, the weight of the rucksack loading my sore left knee, and went through the ritual. Computer on and working through log on. Kebab and chips to one side, and wine straight into the fridge. The bottle had a screw cap, so break the seal to stop it shrinking with the cold and into the freezer, so I could have my first drink quickly. Password into warmed up laptop. Unwrap the kebab, onto a plate, chips into a bowl with a good dose of salt and vinegar. Bad for the heart, yeah, right.

Everything into the living room, apart from the wine, and pick some music….Lisa Ekdahl, let’s have some memories. Settle into the chair, call up the mail, delete the spam and phishing and pick out the two or three real messages. Start to eat.

There were only a couple that evening, one from Ginny in the cycling group.

“Adam, not seen you out for a while, you OK?”

I looked down at the screen past my gut and sighed. Ginny was one of my thousand cuts, part of the flensing of my life as I cut away any possible collateral damage, as the Yanks call it. When I went, I wanted as few hurt as possible.

“Sorry, Gordon Girl, got a lot on. PTSD playing up, combined with some stuff that’s a bit sort of congenital. Will be out once I get sorted. Hugs to all”

That should hold her off for a while, I thought. As I had cut away the dross people had stopped dropping by, so I could relax more. The kebab and chips were gone by then, without the subtlety of touching the sides of my throat, and the grease coated my fingers, lips and beard. I wandered into the bathroom and got most of it off, then pulled off my cycle shirt and shorts, shoes and socks, and went naked back to the living room, collecting a glass and the bottle from the freezer as I went. I liked my white wine chilled, but there isn’t enough in a bottle, and a box takes too long to chill, so I had evolved this system to let me have a drink as soon as possible but still have enough to do the necessary and nightly job of getting me hammered.

I suppose the technical term for me would be something like a functioning or functional alcoholic. I drank every day, including after night shifts, when I would get in too tired to stay awake but thirsty enough to fight sleep till I had killed at least a bottle. It was the only way I slept; if I went without, I either tossed and turned wakefully all night, or I saw the boys again, felt the heat on my skin and watched their faces as the flames caught their hair.

That was a thought, and I fingered the small burn on my left hand as I thought “Not tonight, lads, tonight I shall mostly be pissed”

I shifted position a bit, reaching down between my bare thighs to haul out the deformity, which was fucking uncomfortably dropped down and painfully crushed, and not for the first time considered taking a blade to it, solving so many problems in one neat slice.

Lisa was singing “Du Sá¥lde Vá¥ra Hjá¤rtan” and I started to weep a little at her voice’s vulnerability and sweetness. I logged into the dating site once more, just on the off-chance, but once again it was peopled by idiots who thought that repeated requests for a shopping list of perversions would get them closer to God, or de Sade, or von Sacher-Masoch. I had tried telling those who contacted me that I just wanted to talk, not discuss their O and A levels, but every time I logged in I got a steady stream of offers of sexual diversity that made me want to throw my laptop into the street.

That night was no different, and I closed down the two over-persistent and oversexed individuals who wouldn’t or couldn’t take a hint, and dropped into the cycling forum, saying nothing, just seeing who was about, what had changed since I stopped playing so active a role. The bottle was already empty, so I hauled myself up for the wine box, and Lisa sang “Du Var Inte Dá¤r Fá¶r Mig” and then “Att á„lska á„r Stá¶rre”

I sang along with her, “Att bli á¤lskad á¤r stá¶rt, bara att á¤lska kan vara stá¶rre” and my voice couldn’t do anything to bring feeling to the words. I had a little buzz on from the first bottle, which let me relax enough to at least hit the notes, and then the box was filling my glass again as Lisa came to an end. I could do the second, but her first clause was beyond my dreams. I decided to stick with the Swedish stuff, and popped in Den Fule, and drank some more.

Two in the morning, laptop still on my knees, in ‘hibernate’ mode, and Swedish folk-punk still playing in my headphones on repeat. A full glass stood beside me, and I knocked it back in one before stumbling into my bedroom. That was a mistake, falling asleep in the chair. It meant I might have visitors in the night. I did my best, settling myself down into the most comfortable position I could manage and trying to focus on my favourite daydream, but my sozzled mind couldn’t decide whether it was to be the genie, or the nanobots, or just the waking-up-it-was-all-a-bad-dream start. I mean, they were all the same daydream, or fantasy, or wishing reverie, or prayer, in the end.

And the Pan-European surged beneath me as I followed the car through Morriston, blues and twos on, giving my commentary as I went.

“Yes, I am pursuit trained and on a vehicle equipped for recording. Vehicle is a Vauxhall Corsa, licence plate number whisky fife fife niner tango kilo November. Eastbound on Clasemount Road. Speed is six zero, six zero. Three occupants. Male driver, IC1, white baseball cap, dark top. Right right right Mount Crescent. Right right right Penrhiw Road. Speed now fife zero fife zero.”

“Traffic car en route, eta two minutes, 512.”

“Roger that. Left left left Long View Road. Wrong side of carriageway, oncoming traffic swerving”

“Traffic eta now one minute, 512”

“Right right right Elan Avenue. Speed now four zero four zero. Stopping…..ready for decamp!”

The vehicle suddenly did a textbook bootlegger turn, and I found it coming back at me, and the front wheel of my bike hit its bumper as I was thrown completely over the roof. Stay loose, tuck, roll, trust the armour and your lid, Adam, fuck that hurt. I heard an almighty bang, and they had gone through some railings and met a steel lamp standard and the brick wall behind it. I found I could stand up, and this was the real part, the memory part, it was the next bit that always got worse, as the joint in the passenger’s hand ignited the petrol that had splashed out of the cans they were carrying in the back, where they had been siphoning fuel all night, and there was a hiss and a crack as the whole back seat went up in flames. My extinguisher was on the bike, and the bike was still in the front of the car, and I ran forward in time to see the driver’s face as he turned to me and mouthed “Please…” just as the whole thing went bang and I was thrown halfway across the street.

The three of them got out of the car to smile at me, heads like burning coconuts, and that smell, the petrol and the pork, as the traffic lads got out and came over to stand with the dead boys and smile at me, and call me a coward.

The alarm got me up, just before my bladder, and I filled the kettle as I hopped from foot to foot, and made a pint of orange squash to break the seal of crap in my mouth. I drank it sitting on the toilet as my bladder let loose a bright orange stream of dehydration piss, and wondered how it would all end. Liver? Heart? Or just my own helping hand? Sod it, I would feel better once the hangover went. I chucked the wine box back in the fridge; it still felt heavy enough to do the trick that night, when I got back from work, to try and keep the dead boys away.

CHAPTER 2
I pulled on the lycra again after lunch, and rode the five miles to the station, where I punched in the code on the keypad and locked the bike up in the yard.

The early man buzzed me through to Custody and after I had changed I took the parish notices from him. Two prisoners only, thankfully, neither of them special needs or vulnerable, though one was apparently keen to show how much of a twat he could be. He was in for robbery, the other for, of all things, flashing at a dogging spot. I mean, what was the point? Go back there at night and they’d welcome him like a brother, and return the favour. Daylight hours it was real dog walking, and the gentle residents of Faygate did not take kindly to their dogs being offered the wrong species of genitalia to sniff.

The robber was a cocky one, a punch and rummage type rather than a grabber and runner, but he had lucked out in trying it on in front of a couple or three bikers, and the opportunity for them to give someone deserving a kicking was too good to resist. Fortunately for him, a beat copper and a PCSO were close enough to intervene before their violence got too creative.

Just another afternoon in Crawley. I signed everything over, and did the rounds. I’m your friendly Custody Sergeant, I am here to make sure you are treated correctly, not softly you little shit, do those bruises hurt? He tried to put the brave face up to me, but the pain was getting to him.

“Mate, got any painkillers?”

“Nope, and I am not and never will be your mate”

I asked the support staff to give the FMO a ring, just to be sure, and then went to see Mr Trouser Maggot. He was crying, and I wondered what demons were riding him to make him do something so bloody stupid. I made a mental note to turn the cell monitor on, and offered him a cuppa.

“When’s it happening, then?”

“What?”

“My kicking”

I laughed. “A few years out of date, butt, see the camera up there? Recording, it is now. I see you haven’t asked for any intimation”

“Any what?”

“Telling someone you are here”

“Oh god, no, I can’t do that”

“Well, better sooner and on your terms rather than through the local press. They hang around next door in the Madge Court”

“Am I going to court?”

“Let us wait and see what the CPS say, OK? They may just spring for a caution, all right?”

Remorse, a wonderful thing, but why do it in the first place? At least my hangover was wearing off, so I could talk to him without snarling. In the end, what had he done? There were no children involved, he had simply dangled his worm in front of the wrong fish. Surely a better and more effective action for the woman would have been to point, laugh and call her friends over. Like a penis, but a lot smaller, and he would have slunk off.

Then again, sexual offences didn’t usually stay at the same level. Like porn addicts, they wanted more each time, so perhaps today’s sad little fisherman might be tomorrow’s Buffalo Bill. I didn’t really think so, but it wasn’t my decision. Give him a cuppa, see that the Doc had seen Mike not so Tyson, and sort out the custody records.

These were the hours I wondered about my alcoholism, with no urge to drink at all while at work, just that need to cosh my brain before bed, before the nightmares found their way in.

Jim Atkins was the Inspector for the late relief, and he stopped by for a s40 review on the robber. I let him in, and handed him the record to book it in afterwards. It was all on computer, now, but the wigs preferred a manual record, and I agreed wholeheartedly; so many things can go wrong with the shitty systems we are given. I mean, they’re cheap, but expensive. We get bought crap for the price of quality, and all the other budgets suffer.

I got through the evening, avoiding the canteen on Jim’s advice, as it was a roast dinner, and he knew me very, very well. We got the usual Crawley vermin in through the evening, two of whom had been sprayed and one bitten by a police dog, and one of whom had tried to punch PC Kirsty ‘Ruth’ Ellis, who is a tiny blonde nothing with a very hard baton and the talent to use it. Silly boy. The FMO was busy that night, and the mugshots were likely to involve a lot of red-eyed squinting as the spray wore off.

Ted was my own relief, and after doing my own parish notices I slipped off to change and ride home, leaving the Tesco all nighter alone as I had a litre and a half or so of wine at home for the night.

I managed to avoid the junk food on the way home, and the routine was as usual. Laptop on, cycle kit off, a quick shower for work’s sake and then trawl the mails. Another one from Ginny.

“What the fuck do you mean congenital? You’re not admitting you’re really Belgian, are you?”

That made me giggle, and then I thought more, and if anyone could understand me it would be my friendly local dyke Amazon and terror of Brighton cabbies. I had marched with her a few times in the Pride, in uniform with the blessing of the Sussex plod HQ, and as a clearly great hairy butch thing, I was very popular with a certain number of marchers, one of whom, that first time, dubbed me “Queen of the Bears” in an oddly clever transatlantic/gay pun. Ginny was tickled, well, pink, and had to explain repeatedly that I was not gay.

That s one thing I have learned in twelve years on the job, that lies are best kept small and close to the truth. All of that was true, and I was certainly not interested in gay men.

I replied to Ginny, smiling for once, “So I take mayo on my chips now and again, is that a crime? Memo to self: check Condimental Offences (Fried Tubers) Act 1542 when next in work”

Back she came. “Bugger it, I knew you were old…..Adam, am worried. What is up?”

“Can’t talk about it just now, sorry. Anyway, am off to bed, was hard day”

I wasn’t, of course, I just wanted to end that conversation, so moved my status to ‘appear offline’ and signed out of the forum. I dug out a French language film, one of the Pagnol Provence ones, and after five minutes pulled it out and stuck my well-worn home recording of ‘Second Serve’ into the bedroom telly and took my wine to bed.

I woke once again, at one thirty, and realised there was someone not only on the bed, but holding me. I started to twist free, and Ginny just said “Shhhhhhh”

“What are you doing here?”

“You gave me a spare key years ago, remember? And you’re pissed. Why are you pissed on a Tuesday night? And from the looks of your bin, it’s every night, isn’t it? Look, mate, you don’t have to tell me now, you’re too pissed to think straight, and I’m not riding all the way back home at nearly two in the morning, so let’s do this in the morning. Now budge over in the bed, I’m getting in, and no funny business, OK?”

“ Don’t fancy gay women” I mumbled.

Small, and close to the truth.

I woke once more, as she shook me out of sleep as I turned down Penrhiw, and she muttered “Bad dream, love, you’re not alone” and I went back to sleep in her arms.

She brought me tea in bed, and I realised she had turned the alarm off and the only thing to wake me was bladder pressure. I automatically took the cup to drink while peeing, and she grabbed it back with a “for fuck’s sake!”

She conjured up some scrambled eggs on toast, which was odd, because my larder held neither bread nor eggs, nor milk for the tea, come to think of it. She caught my look.

“So I rode to the corner shop, and your point is? Look, Adam, what is up with you? None of us have seen you for months, I come up here and you’re part way through what seems to be the binge of a lifetime. There’s nothing but crap and booze in your kitchen, bottles and cans and wine boxes in your bin, and yes, I have looked in both bins. I get in and you’re in bed with more booze and some shit film playing to your closed eyes, and you’re having fucking nuclear grade nightmares, and…and you look like shit. How much do you weigh, exactly?”

“Don’t know”

“Don’t fucking care, more like. What is going on? Are you trying to kill yourself?”

My face must have made some sort of twitch, because all she said was “Oh” and wrapped me up like a child.

“Are you talking to anyone, love? This is still that shit from Swansea, isn’t it?”

I nodded. Small, close to the truth. We ate quietly, her dark eyes sharp on my face for any clue, and she rang n to her work with some story about a sick relative.

“Adam, answer me this: do you have a next of kin listed at work? Fucking thought not, fits the pattern. Well, you can forget it. What was it going to be? Fuck up Southern Railways for a day, and a driver for life? Off a motorway bridge? Pills? Cutting? You don’t have a car, which is a blessing given what your blood-alcohol level must be like, so that’s not an option. This looks like slow suicide by lifestyle. Are you riding at all? Audax, touring, escape the zombocalypse practice, anything at all?”

“I ride to work…”

“Fucking big deal, mate, five miles twice a day, that’s bugger all and you know it. So I am going to ask again: are you talking to anyone? You said it yourself, this isn’t just the PTSD, there’s more. You been having goat sex again? You know you have a contract at national level for sheep, don’t you?”

So typical of Virginia, bounce from serious enquiry to bad joke, from subject to subject, and hope something fell out of the tree she was shaking. She would have done well on CID, but as she was a crypto-anarchistic libertarian of her own specific and very personal sect, I doubted she would accept the gig. Small, close to the truth.

“Adam, answer me this truthfully, please, sub rosa? Are you gay? I haven’t seen you with a woman since that wife of yours fucked off with that estate agent tosser. What’s worse is we haven’t seen you for months. Oh fuck it, you leave me no choice if you won’t talk. It’s the soft pillows.”

“If you’re going to quote Python, it’s ‘cushions’ “

“Nope, pillows go on beds. I snore, so get some earplugs.”

She moved in that morning.

CHAPTER 3
I was still on late turn, of course, so she bullied me into getting the tourer out of the shed and loading it with panniers.

“It’s not fair, you’re on a bloody ting-tong road bike”

“Yeah, well the amount you’ve clearly spent on booze you could have had a titanium bike yourself, and it’s not me that needs the exercise. Get this: I am not taking you cold turkey, but you are not drinking at home till you are well again. You’re coming out of that burrow if I have to tie you to the Trice and drag you, even if it means a night on the piss in company”

We rode through the town to the supermarket, the Super Galaxy feeling sedate after so much time spent on the road bike, and I kept missing gear changes without the STI levers. I mean, bar end shifters are on the tourer for reliability, but I still kept trying to twist the brake levers to shift. Bollocks.

We locked the bikes up by the entrance, Ginny doing her usual individual thing with a pair of “street cuffs”, a bike lock that looks like a large pair of handcuffs and is ideal for winding up those members of the public with their nose up their arse, as she puts it.

“Too busy smelling their own farts to see the life around them”

Ginny is not slow in sharing her opinions, though sometimes she has been known to exercise tact, as well as her customers. She was, back then, running the fitness side of one of a chain of gyms, which gave her scope to keep her own fitness up as well as both eye up the women and pick faults in the clientele.

“I mean, they live twenty minutes away by fucking bike, so they drive here and then pay to sit on a stationary one for the same twenty minutes! Then they do their make-up before they sweat! Tossers”

She had paced me steadily to the shops, watching for any obvious signs of hung over wobble, and did not look happy when we had eventually finished the ritual of locking and removing all the extras.

“You are riding far, far too easily after last night. You start cutting back today. Get a big trolley. It’s dhal time”

Ginny is also a bloody vegetarian, though thankfully not a vegan, so she has very direct views about meat, and pulses, and tannin, and caffeine, though she does drink more tea than she ‘knows’ is good for her. I started at the toiletries end, as I was reasonably sure that she had not come packed for a long stay, and she just nodded in recognition as she tossed some sanitary supplies, shower stuff and a deodorant into the trolley. Next were the vegetable aisles. If it grew, apart from potatoes, she took it off the shelf. Tomatoes. Lots of toms, and fresh garlic, all sorts of leafy crap, and dried beans and chick peas and shit. She expected me to eat it?

She did relent on the meat front, though, at least to the extent of some lean chicken.

“You need to take in some protein, otherwise your body will think it’s going into fast mode, and start piling on even more lard. Now, I want a promise. You have a staff canteen, don’t you? Usual fried crap, pies, bacon rolls? Here’s the deal. You can eat shit twice a week from now on, but only twice, so if you have pie and chips one day, that’s a kebab or a curry you can’t have that week. Got me?”

“You mean I can’t have curries? How the fuck am I supposed to survive?”

“You can have curries, but I will cook them. Oh, yeah, got any decent knives, apart from those saw-toothed horrors in the block in your kitchen?”

Ginny and knives. She isn’t really scary, she just knows what she likes. And she likes knives, particularly Japanese wonders of silky sharpness.

We filled the panniers, and began the laden (for me) ride home, one last item strapped to my rear carrier, a set of digital scales. So much money, so much crap that I would probably bin once she was gone. I mean, what the hell were pinto beans? And why?

We spent a while unloading, and Ginny insisted on setting up the scales and taking a first reading. She was shocked, and I was a little surprised.

“Nineteen stone fucking twelve! At least it’s not twenty, mate, what pressure are you running your tyres at?”

“About 110”

“Kinnell. Look, mate, when’s your next weekend off?”

“Ten days or so”

“Still got your touring kit, or have you sold it for booze yet? Sorry, that was a bit brutal, but I’ve seen this before. You start off by cutting away your friends, you pare your life down into nothing but work and sleep, then work goes, and then you do. Well, not this time. Not again…..”

Her voice trailed away, and the looked through me into some other place for a second, then shook herself and grinned.

“Some turkey ham and coleslaw for lunch, and I’ll make up your meal for work. Tonight is junk-free, got that? I’ll pop home and get the Brommie, and then I can get to work from here. Got space in your shed for the Thai Bride?”

Who else could get away with calling their best bike ‘Ladyboy’?

“And look, Adam, we’re having a zombocalypse practice a week on Saturday, setting off from Hyde Park at seven thirty. One of the lads has found exactly the right place for a camp out, and we have a friendly landowner. You won’t believe it, but it’s actually called Crazies Hill”

“You are taking the piss!”

“Well, we looked for ‘Dawn of the Deadville’ or ‘Flesheatington’, but the closest we could come up with was Braintree, and who the fuck would want to go there?”

She softened a little. “Tell me you still have the tent and stuff, mate. You can get pissed that night if you need to, but among friends, OK? Back on track, Adam, till you can tell me what it is that has fucked you over.”

She rode with me to the cop shop, and then continued on to Brighton, and I am sure the mad bitch took an eastward detour just to do Ditchling. At least she wasn’t on the bloody fixie. I knew she would be back before I was, even so.

Once more a run of the mill shift, until the bloody fingerprint system broke down and we had to go to the old-fashioned slab and roller. Messy, horribly messy. It was fights, ASBO violation and shoplifting that afternoon and evening. What a stupid term, it’s theft, a theft we all bloody pay for in the end in higher prices. The shops pass on their losses, and add a bit more for themselves, and we all get screwed, all except the thieving little chav bastards who never pay for anything anyway. Me, cynical? Ruth brought in a gobby little shit, who knew all of his rights, yeah? She’d caught him pissing in the park by County Mall, and he had, like, decided to, like, tell her about natural justice , yeah, because he was a student at Central Sussex, yeah?

I sighed. Search of person, into the cell, an hour tops, and he would want his mum. I put the phone to one side, and after he was locked away I asked her.

“Kirsty, why the fuck didn’t you just send him home with a bollocking?”

“Sarge, I tried, but he pissed down my leg”

“You’re kidding…”

“Nope, I went to tell him to fuck off, and he turned to look at me, and it sort of came round as well…and all over my fucking leg”

Oh bugger. “Police caution?”

“If we can get away with it. Has he cried for mummy yet?”

“Not yet, I’ve got the phone ready for him, though”

The thieving shits were different. They had their own shark ready for a call, what a surprise. I wondered f he was paid for waiting time. Jim the skipper stopped by to see if there were any review problems, and I mentioned the chav’s brief.

“It’s a bugger, Adam. We know he knows, but unless he’s a complete fool, we have to let him in on the interview. Bit of a fucker, but that’s the job.”

So, I signed the mercenary turd in, and I signed him out, and justice was seen to be done. Whether it was, of course, was a different matter.

Ginny was waiting when I got back, the Brompton parked in a corner of the living room.

“So, have you been a good little bear?”

“If you mean did I stick to your fucking hummus and celery, yes”

“Well, that’s two of us who have had a shit day, then. Bedtime”

She insisted on sleeping with me once more, which produced a set of feelings I couldn’t get easily straight, but it was better than I had had for months. I got off quicker than I normally did, until the dead baby came to call.

CHAPTER 4
Ginny was holding me as I woke, shushing me like a child until I could stop the shakes.

“Talk to me, Adam?”

“No”

It was flat, but not meant as rudeness. I just couldn’t talk to anyone about the ramming, or the child in the road, or the bonnet on the back seat, or any of the others. If I tried to explain why I couldn’t talk, the flashbacks took over, and then I really couldn’t talk about anything coherent. Tongue-tied is one way to describe it, but it was a sort of tic, a stammer. I can’t talk is literally true. Ginny wouldn’t drop it, though.

“What the hell happened to give you nightmares this bad?”

I had to laugh at that. “Silly question, girl. Bad things happened.”

Too bloody right they were bad. Drip, drip, drip, like water on stone, the job had taken my life and worn it away. I knew what the terms were, but it took a war memoir by a Canadian to show me how it worked. He had been right through from Normandy to Germany as a forward observation officer, until he found himself being personally hunted by a German anti-tank gun picking a wall apart brick by brick, shot by shot. That was when it all came together. They can call it what they like, combat fatigue, post-traumatic stress, whatever the current fashion is, but it never changes. You pride yourself on your strength of character. You are a copper, or a soldier, or a paramedic, whatever, and you can deal with the first few, have a drink, share a dreadful joke, but it drips. The next one adds some more drips, and the next, and there is always a next, and if you have any humanity to you they pop in to say hello, remember me? So, sorry Ginny, but ‘no’.

“Ginny, all I can say is that I have a shit job, and things don’t get left in the office”

“Yeah, that’s facile, and doesn’t help me. If I am going to be sleeping next to some fat farting man, I don’t want him kicking me all night”

“You don’t have to–“

“Yes I fucking well do. I won’t have a choice when I die, so I’m not letting you have one. Now roll over so I can spoon”

She does snore quite badly, but she was gone when I awoke. There was a note in the kitchen: “Meal in the fridge and packed one with it. No pies. Ever again. Meat may be murder, but that isn’t even meat! And I can smell chips on you from a mile away. xxx G”

It was another shift, with more trade, just like all the others before or after, but at least Kirsty kept her legs dry. Two cautions for possession of cannabis followed a Customs charge-and-remand-back for a swallower at the airport, and a charge-and-bail for a cigarette smuggler. One affray, three thefts, one drink/drive, and then a domestic.

I really, really hate domestics. They always go the same way, always, like lemmings over a cliff. “Yeah, I know he/she hit/stabbed me, but I don’t want to press charges because she/he only does it coz they lurve me”

And the CPS drop it, and we let the punter go, and some day, if we are lucky, the woman goes to a refuge, or the man leaves everything behind for his own safety, or we get the batterer on some other charge and they go inside and everyone gets a rest. If we are unlucky…

If we are unlucky, it’s an inquest. If we are really unlucky, it’s an IPCC check on why we didn’t persuade the victim to send the person they once loved to prison before they ended up dead at their hands. Ginny…perhaps that might answer a few of your questions.

She was in bed when I got home, and I realised that, never slow in coming forward, she had rearranged a couple of my drawers for her needs, and I stood for a while staring at the bed, where Tabitha lay on my pillow. My pillow; she had already staked a claim to one side of the bed, my bed. And she had found Tabitha. I realised I had to get Ginny out, and had a quick flurry of stratagems and tricks run through my mind.

Ginny turned out to be awake, lying quietly under my stare.

“She’s pretty, Adam. She shouldn’t live behind your shoes in the dark. Do your teeth and get in, I’m knackered”

Oh. I did as ordered, and Ginny cuddled up to me with a murmur of “How’s the military-industrial complex doing today?”

“Had a domestic”

“And?”

“No.”

“No, you aren’t talking about it, or no, the silly cow wouldn’t press charges?”

“Neither. No, the silly bloke wouldn’t. She stabbed him for looking the wrong way at her sister, and he now says he tripped and fell onto the blade.”

“Pissed?”

“Oddly, not, and not off their face on anything more exciting. Just that sort of family, really.”

“Not kids as well?”

“Oh, yes, six of them, over in Tilgate”

I must digress, here. Crawley is a town in rural West Sussex, not far from the border with Leafy Surrey, but there the attraction ends, It was built as a new town, largely to house Eastenders from London that Hitler’s boys bombed out of their homes, and the cheery values and culture of that place had been transplanted whole and healthy. What do you say to an Eastend woman with two black eyes? Nothing; she’s been told twice already. Tilgate is not the nicest part of the town. Enough said.

Ginny sighed. “It’s a shitty world, all right. None so blind…I had one myself today, wanted to build muscle, get a shape. Told him he should start with the diet first, and he got arsey. I do believe it was a case of the roids. What is it with people, every bugger thinks a pill will sort out everything, no matter what. I mean, they probably think you took a pill to learn the fucking flute”

“Yeah, aspirin for the headaches”

“Don’t put yourself down, kiddo. Now, do you want to tell me about your girlfriend? Look, she’s not inflatable, so you’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”

I lay for a while and considered my options. Ginny prodded me. “Just answer the question, Price. Don’t lie there trying to work out a tactical withdrawal”

“She’s called Tabitha”

Ginny held her up and gave her a little kiss. ”Pleased to meet you, Tabitha”

“She used to help me sleep, but that sort of faded. I’ve had her a long, long time”

“It shows…who made her dress?”

I did, and her other outfits, the ones I burned. “A friend I lost years ago”

“Do I know this friend?”

Yes. “No”

“Adam, talk to me when you can, mate. I need some sleep, but I might have someone who can help. Talk tomorrow, OK? And plan the ride to escape the undead”

And she was off, into sleep seamlessly, like an otter into a river. I took Tabitha to me, and whispered to her, be with me tonight.

Once more Ginny was gone when I awoke, and it was a few moments of disorientation before I realised that I had had no visitors beyond the two girls in the night. That tore at me, as I knew that while I had to get Ginny back out, it would mean more pain

CHAPTER 5
Over the next few days I realised that Ginny’s presence was doing a lot to ease my sleep.

It was a simple thing, at first sight; the presence of a warm body in the darkness that I knew cared about me. When I thought it through, though, I realised that there was more to it. For a start, her snoring did disrupt the sort of thought patterns that I think led the nightcrawlers to my bed, but I believe it was also a form of self-discipline. I didn’t want to disturb her, spoil my friend’s sleep, and that resulted in my jerking awake rather than being pulled into the depths.

The drawback to her ladylike night breathing was that each time I tried to drift into the fantasy, I’d get to the bit about waking up, and seeing, and her nose or throat would strangle some unspecified cetacean and I would lose my place.

I was on schemed rest days over that weekend, so I packed the basics I would need into two panniers and left the mat and tent for the rack. As soon as Ginny was on the train from Brighton, this time with her Surly, I set off for Three Bridges to catch up with her. The train was a faster one, stopping only at the airport, East Croydon and Clapham before we pulled into Victoria. I was almost feeling excited, but over it all I was terrified. I had avoided these people for so long, hidden away from anyone who might criticise my actions, and they might not take kindly to that. I also suspected that dear Virginia might have dropped some hints.

We got through the barriers and worked our way through the lemmings to the front of the station, pushing over the pedestrian crossing till we could start up the gentle rise to the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner. There were a few riders already there, with panniers and tents in evidence, and a few musical instruments. Eric had his banjo, and Ginny started to laugh.

“You not seen Zombieland, Eric?”

“Yes, indeed, so don’t even think about it!”

In the film, the lead actor, some Yank called Woody something or other, does for a large number of the undead with a variety of implements, one of which is a banjo. I could see why Eric was worried. We were setting off on a practice run, a sort of piss-take of survivalism, where we would ride out of the capital to escape an imagined outbreak of brain-eaters, camp the night, do silly things and then ride home the next day. I hadn’t been doing silly things for a long time, just, as Ginny advised, bloody stupid ones. I wasn’t sure I could let go enough to be silly, and I imagined either stilted reticence or going completely over the top. I decided just to concentrate on the ride and see how it went. Ginny came over to me, and whispered a question.

“Brought your flute, or sold it for fucking booze?”

“Brought it.”

“Where’s Tabby?”

“House sitting”

“You left your best girl to be eaten by zombies? Shame on you!”

Dead right. Shame.

I am really, really unfamiliar with West London. We worked our way out as a chain gang of fifteen to start with, and as we passed to the North of the wasteland that is Heathrow we were picking up odds and sods who were waiting at bus shelters and other comfortable spots. We were on the old A4, and while the motorway had sucked most of the tin boxes onto its tarmac, there were still enough idiots around to make life fun. We were pulling a double line, and the pace was hurting me, but Ginny kept an eye on me, and I made damned sure I never took a turn at the front.

“Get in fucking single file you fucking cunts!”

“Go away or get nicked”

“You a fucking copper, then?”

“Yes. Go away now”

The delightful London motorist, always happy to share their advice. I just had to remember not to shout out the words that would have come more naturally. And then we hit John Betjeman’s favourite town. “Come friendly bombs, and fall on Slough”

We stopped at an all night café for a brew and for my lungs to come back into my chest, and I noticed a couple of glances, and a few head shakes.

“What’s up, Ginny?”

“You. You’re fucking fat, and slow, and unfit, and they care about you, and they remember the bloke who rode across Ventoux with a full fucking touring load”

She took a sip of her tea, and there was a sigh that seemed to collapse her shoulders.

“Adam, mate, love, please promise me you will let me keep sorting you out, cause otherwise you are not going to be sortable. It’s like that thing with climate change, you know, fucking tipping point. Your heart goes, or your liver, or diabetes, and then you can’t get back here from over there. You are enjoying this ride, aren’t you? Imagine a day when you can’t ride at all”

Oh, yes. Riding would be just one thing I wouldn’t do, amongst others such as working, or breathing, or existing. Yes, Ginny, I had thought that all out. I just hadn’t found the right exit route. Yet.

We finally escaped the shithole of Berks and stuck to the A4 as the drunks got more common, and through the more upmarket dip of Maidenhead, and finally we started a little bit of a slog that had me stopping every so often on the hill as my heart tried to burst. We finally got past the quarry, and Eric led us on a walk with our bikes down a path I would have missed to a small clearing in the trees, where he announced “Nous sommes arrivés!” And we scattered to find the best spot for our tents as he wandered off to some small house that apparently held the landowners.

We had just got ourselves sorted, bags lofted, a fire built, when there was a most uncharacteristic squeal from Ginny as a small figure appeared.

“Luvvy darling!”

It was Kate, her girlfriend, who had had to work late and then ridden solo and at speed through the arseholes we had faced as a group. After some toe curling displays of affection, they came over to my tent.

“Adam, love, you know you’re going to be on your own tonight. Will you be OK?”

Kate was looking unsettled, and I realised it was actually a dilemma for her. She wanted a night with her lover, but Ginny had clearly got her up to speed on things, and I had a small moment of revelation, that people actually did care about me, and the shame cut back round and swallowed my soul. I needed to sort things out, save them the grief.

My thought train derailed at that point, as Eric launched into his version of the John Kirkpatrick song, ‘Welcome to Hell’, but with banjo substituted for accordion. Ginny just gave me a nod.

“Get pissed tonight if you must, mate, but go and make some music first”

The Wilsons, John and Fee, had already started their fire eating and fire poi games, John weaving bright traceries with the burning tassels, and as the flames whooshed around his naked torso I got my flute out to jam with the eight or nine others who had brought their own axes. Now, for just a while, as I tongued and blew, I could almost forget my days and nights of awkwardness. We had a couple of guitars, two fiddles, Eric’s banjo. no less than three ukes, a harmonica and me, so we were just getting into a rather odd groove as the fire burned and I worked my way through the first of my bottles, when Kate called out to us.

“My Lords, Ladies and Estate Agents! We have escaped the hordes of cerebrophagic motons and taximetered wankney cab drivers! We have FIRE! We have CURRY INNA TIN! We can haz BOOZ! Now, there is only one thing that can improve the evening, apart from some seriously filthy and sweaty sex, and that is The Bard! I call upon you, one and all, to commune with me as we share n the worship of He Who Came From Harvard. It is hymn number 69 on your sheet. Well, they are all 69, of course, but that’s the way we like it. All together now…

“Spring is here, spring is here, life is skittles and life is beer…”

Eric dragged me up afterwards to do my own version of “I Hold Your Hand in Mine”, and Kate replied with “The Masochism Tango”, and I walked off a little way so my tears wouldn’t reflect too much of the firelight. Needless to say, Ginny was soon there, along with Kate, hand in hand.

“My darling here says that although she has used the soft pillows you still won’t talk. Adam, all I am going to say to you is not meant as any threat. We care about you, all of us here. You’ve hidden away, you are fucking your body to death, and we are worried. You don’t have to believe that, but it’s true”

I felt I was still sober enough. “Got a few issues, but ‘m OK”

Kate was as dismissive as all hell.

“Adam, just fuck off. My beautiful soon-to-be-cohabitee knows that you are talking bollocks., and so do I. I get paid to know such things. Now, I want this woman in my bed every night, but I can’t have that if you are playing twatty games, so here’s the deal. I have a colleague down your way, Sally Flint. You talk to her, please. She’s bloody good at PTSD, and for fuck’s sake I know that is what you have sleeping with you each night. Will you do that for me, for Ginny, for all these people here who love you, for yourself?”

CHAPTER 6
I had no real choice, of course, but to agree with her. I was just starting to wobble a bit from the wine, but I was still sort of sober. Kate and Ginny sat with me for a while, silent in the flickering light and the odd sting of the smoke, until a small piece of paper was pressed into my hands and the shorter woman led the taller away by her hand.

I sat for a while longer, before tonguing my flute back to life with a little nod to Ian Anderson and a certain bourrée. I let the music mingle with the wine for a while, and a couple of the others joined in the lilting tune, and I almost felt good, almost wanted to erase the last months of withdrawal. I changed to Yn Iach I Ti, which nobody knew, but they caught on quickly, and them Myfanwy, and I held my back to the flames so that my tears wouldn’t shine out.

I felt Eric’s hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently., as I finished.

“I don’t know what’s fucking you up, mate, but let it go for tonight. I’ve got a big can of scrumpy by the fire, share it if you need.”

I did, and the hangover was ferocious. They say never to mix grain and grape, but no bugger ever thought of adding apples. I woke in my bag, my bladder full, and felt about for the bottle, the one with the tape round the neck, and filled it with the residue of the night’s stupidity. I could smell bacon, and as I unzipped my inner tent the outer was opened and a mug passed through.

Ginny, as usual, was depressingly chirpy. “Want some porridge?”

“Oh fuck off, I need grease”

“Only for this morning. We are back on course this afternoon”

“What do you mean we? It’s only me you are starving”

“Yeah, because I already have it right. You OK, mate?”

“Sort of. It’s been good, but I feel out of place. As if I’ve lost connection”

“Yeah, I know. You’ve been cutting us all out, like a tumour. Trouble is, some of us grow back”

Yeah, I know. All the plans I had to get her out so I could continue my descent fell from my hands and smashed at my feet. I shamed myself by starting to cry, and Ginny wormed her way in and cuddled me to her. She was followed a second later by Kate, and the tent was more than full. Ginny was murmuring into my ear.

“You can try, mate, but we won’t listen. Friends don’t fuck off just because you tell them to. I’ve asked you to, Kate has, but if you won’t talk to us talk to her mate, OK?”

No, it wasn’t OK. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I couldn’t. I had tried to talk to myself, but all I could do was to drop into my half-dozing fantasies as the booze took my mind away till the alarm struck my ears. I simply had no way to describe my pain, no way to tell people who cared about me that the person they were so worried about was beneath their contempt.

What to say, and how to say it? Everything I had ever done, everything I hoped for, showed me up as a failure, as a pervert, as betrayal. I took what I could, the double hug, and waited for my tears to dry. True to their nature, they just stayed with me till I was once more straight, and then faded away with a kiss and the fervent urge to speak to Sally, if nobody else.

The ride back was easier, as the Sunday traffic was lighter until we hit the edge of the congestion charge zone, where the Kensington Wanker was out in strength, sitting immobile in the traffic behind the wheel of 160mph penis extensions and blasting away on their horns as we slipped past. I mean, why buy the things to drive in London? Average speed for traffic across the town is 12mph, and any half-decent cyclist can do that. I could go on and on about health and wallet benefits, but that would be a little hypocritical considering what I was spending my own cash on.

We dropped people in ones and twos, until eventually it was three of us rolling down Buck House Road to the side entrance to Victoria. There was a Brighton train leaving from Platform 17, and with a bit of a squeeze we got three bikes into the two spaces allocated, or rather two there and my SG into a vestibule, Kate was on her phone at the other end of the carriage as soon as we cleared the dead spot under the roof of the station, and then returned to slump against Ginny in one of the wheelchair seats.

“Sal’s fine with taking you on, but obviously she needs to do it through your own GP. Now, you are a man, so I assume you never go to a doctor, but have you actually got one?”

“Well, yeah, he’s in Northgate”

“And his name is?”

“Khan”

“Like pulling teeth, this”

She hit redial on the phone. “Sal? It’s someone called Khan at the Northgate health centre. Yeah. Right. I will. See you soon”

Putting the phone away in a tiny pink sock, she looked at me. “Ginny says you are off tomorrow., so here’s the deal. You make an appointment as soon as the lines open, and see Khan. I will give you Sal’s details for him, and she will contact him herself. It’s a bit arse backwards this way, but I know Sal is good at this so stick with it, OK?”

I nodded my agreement, and the train wound on through South London as I half-dozed in my seat. I was into part three of my standard daydream, the bit where I turn up at the critical mass ride and nobody recognises me, just as the train was pulling out of the airport on the last leg.

We all piled off at Three Bridges and I led them round to the giant supermarket for some fresh stuff. I guessed that Kate would stay at least overnight before heading back up to London, so the vegetation that Ginny lived on needed replenishing. To my delight, she was intent on cooking something with some flavour.

“Need something with a kick tonight, Adam, and I haven’t soaked any beans, so you can be a little naughty. What spices you got? Apart from hot chilli powder, of course”

“Not much…”

“Lemon grass? Lime leaves? I’ll just have to buy the lot, then.”

She filled the small trolley with pots and packets, and a wide range of vegetables including a pack of baby sweet corn, and added some caffeine-free tea bags.

“Adam, you are not just boozing yourself to sleep, you are ingesting enough fucking caffeine to wake the dead. I think it’s one of the reasons you don’t sleep so well. Your body is a temple, and all that shit, so let’s kick Bacchus out, and then start getting some rides in. You still have your legs, I saw that today and yesterday, we just need the rest to match.”

We distributed the goods around the panniers and Kate’s long flap camper, and rode the last couple of miles to my flat. The shed was starting to get a bit full, now, and Kate brought her Cannondale into the living room for the night. Ginny produced a Greek salad for lunch, and I settled down to read as they put their heads together over their move.

Kate had secured a post at the Royal Sussex, so she would be joining Ginny in Brighton at long last, but they had been having problems finding just the right place. Both were renting, so there was no chain, but suitable properties were scarce, and the area behind the hospital is one of the worst in the city. There is even a street called ‘Piltdown’, which sums up the nature of many of the locals. I knew they needed to get their life together up and running, but I didn’t envy Kate her hours dealing with drunks and domestics; it was too much like my own job.

They pulled together a list of properties just before Ginny took over the kitchen for the spicy thing she had planned, which turned out to be a Thai vegetable green curry, in reduced fat (naturally) coconut milk, which she served to us with some wholemeal pitas and glasses of cranberry juice. It was actually rather good-–no, it was superb, and we giggled away when Kate suggested we use some of it to christen Ladyboy the Ti Bride.

Both of them were clearly steering well away from my issues, and we settled down to watch some trashy DVDs that Kate had packed, ‘Resident Evil 6’ or something, in which a rather leggy model type in what looked like leather suspenders kicked and shot thousands of the undead of her own zombocalypse. Ginny spent the entire film criticising her technique, while I watched the two girls as Kate watched the film and drooled. She followed that one with the new ‘Wonderwoman’ film, and I spotted the pattern. Tall, leggy, minimal clothing; Kate was so predictable. I started to laugh, and two women looked at me, and said “What?” together.

“I’m just watching the two of you. Kate, you’ve got the woman you want, and all you’re doing is watching similar ones on video!”

She actually blushed a little at that. “Well, perhaps it might give her some idea of things to wear….”

“But they’re not wearing anything apart from a leather vest and stockings!”

“Mmm, yeah, sort of the point….”

Ginny chipped in.

“Naughty pervy doctor! I shall have to spank you!”

“You do it so nicely, love…..”

I took that as my cue to slip out, leaving them to erect the sofa bed. I showered and did the bedtime ritual, then slipped into my bed with Tabitha.

I got the bonnet, this time, the bonnet and the blood, so much of it, and then Ginny was there, and Kate, and they stayed with me as the night leached away into the grey of dawn.

CHAPTER 7
Kate was serious in the morning, and a little red-eyed from the lack of sleep.

“Does drinking keep the nightmares away, Adam?”

“I don’t know. If I drink enough to get through them, I can’t remember if I have them or not”

“Do you remember going to bed?”

“Sometimes”

“Shit. Get on the phone, get your own quack talking. There are other ways to control this besides self-medicating from the bottle. And mate…”

“What?”

“What else is going on? You mentioned something to Ginny the other day”

“About being Belgian?”

“No, that was her joke and you know it. Let me guess, you’d have to kill me if you told me?”

No, not you. Me. “It’s nothing, really, butt. Just a few things I need to sort out”

“Then get that appointment made now, and give him Sal’s number. We’ll sort out something with the NHS and try and get you fast tracked. We have to be off now; promise us you’ll talk?”

Ginny spoke up. “I’ll be back this evening, and I expect you to be good. There are beans soaking for tonight, it’ll be a mixed pulse stew with toms and garlic. We’re off”

They both came round the table to hug me, and suddenly my flat was empty again for the first time in ages. Just me and Tabitha. I brought her out to the dining table and sat her before me.

“What should I do, Tabby?”

She seemed to be looking past me to the phone, and I reached across her, grabbed Kate’s bit of paper, and then rang the surgery. I was before Khan at ten.

“Mr Price. You have not been here before me for over a year. Can I ask you to do one thing before we start?”

I filled the little pot in the nearby toilet, and he dropped what looked like a litmus strip into it.

“Good, good. Now, please be standing on the scales. Nineteen stone and eight pounds…that is not a good number, Mr Price. You are not diabetic, from the urine test, but the load upon your heart is not going to be a light one. I assume you are not here for that, though, because you seem to be clinging tightly to a piece of paper in your hand”

“You should be doing my job, doc. I have other problems, yes.”

“Indeed. Doctor McDuff has already spoken to me, as it appears you are having what we could call friends in the trade.”

“Sorry, Doctor, but who?”

“Sally McDuff. She is what you would call a head doctor, or a trick cyclist, or some other funny name to avoid facing reality. She is your Doctor Emerson’s friend”

It clicked. Another of Kate’s odd little tics, her insistence that women didn’t need to change names on marriage into the patriarchal chattel market, or whatever she called it. Khan was still talking.

“Your Doctor Kate is very persuasive, Mr Price. She also knows you very well, and I have my own concerns. You have put on a very large amount of weight in a very short time, and your friend tells me there are other worries.”

“What did Kate tell you?”

“Nothing more than that. She is a medical practitioner and she will not break confidence without your explicit consent, Mr Price. I have a suspicion that she has not been so reticent with her lady doctor friend, though, but I am but a simple GP who is looking at a patient who will shortly be dead unless he adjusts his lifestyle in the direction of the healthier, and soon”

Definitely a frustrated copper.

“Mr Price, the sort of changes I see in you are usually tied to non-physical issues, and I am not a lover of the complicated paperwork I am required to do when a patient becomes an ex-patient, so I would be pleased if you would speak to the good lady doctor. She has a reputation in such matters, and it is a good one. Mr Price….come and see me more often, while you still live”

Fuck, he had his own techniques. I rode home somewhat dazed, and spent the rest of the day on laundry and ironing, and playing music to Tabby, until there was a bang from the front door and I poured Ginny a pint of purple juice as she clacked across the tiled kitchen floor in her cleats.

She swept me up. “We’ve found the place! Three beds, end of terrace, a cellar to put our dungeon in and cat flaps already in place! We haz got homez! Did you speak to Sally yet?”

“Er, no, love, I’ve got to wait for the referral”

“Fuck that, mate, already sorted, innit? Two ticks!”

She dove for the phone, and dialled a number.

“Hi, Ginny! Yeah…course. Veggie. Oh fuck off, and yes there’s enough. You bring pizza and I’ll kill you slowly. Eight? Spot on. Frozen yoghurt? Did you want to sleep with me, or both of us at once? Yes please! Sorted, then. Know the way?”

She rattled off postcode and house number, and I assumed it was for a satnav.

Ginny erupted from her seat and started doing kitchen stuff. Beans and chickpeas were boiled until a froth of foam and bits of bean skin floated on the roiling water, and a large meat cleaver I didn’t know we (we?) had was being slapped to crush garlic. Just as we were settling the mixed pulses into a bed of tomatoes, garlic and herbs, with chopped sundried toms ready to add, the doorbell rang,

I opened to find a reasonably pretty woman in what looked like late forties, accompanied by someone I recognised. Not personally, but generically. He was the man at most pub fights, the one you looked for and took down first and quickly, the evil little fucker that smiled at you just before putting you and four mates into casualty. He was fucking dangerous, I could see it in his eyes and his body, and then he smiled, and he was different, and he asked “Adam?” and at that I knew, in a rush of intuition, why she had married him. There was life behind his eyes, and a smile in his voce, so I just said yes and took them to Ginny’s little empire.

The two women hugged, and I shook hands with hubby. “Stewie–--Adam”, the usual formalities, and I realised that the wife was watching me.

“What?”

“Adam, it’s my job. I watch, and I ask questions. Kate spoke to me earlier, but I don’t want to drop her in it, so we are here to have a meal, and say hello, and if we feel like doing more…..”

“Well, we shall see, OK?”

Ginny was already dishing up, a rich stew of beans and tomatoes with a smaller pot of red cabbage and apple spiced with caraway seeds to vary the textures, and Sally produced a couple of bottles of wine. Ginny gave me a sharp look, then opened one and wrapped it in a cooling jacket.

“I pour for you, OK? Adam…do you mind if we talk in front of Stewie? He might actually be able to help”

He smiled at that. “I have my own issues, Adam, and I know full well what my wife does, but if you want me to piss off at any time, just say”

Ginny squealed again, just as she was passing the first plate.

“We forgot somebody!”

She dove into my bedroom and came back with Tabitha, and sat her on the radiator cover by my shoulder. What the hell happened to taking things slowly and seeing how it went? I glared at her, and as she mock-whistled in sweet innocence, I almost missed a little non-verbal exchange between Sally and Stewie.

They looked at each other, and Stewie raised an eyebrow, as his wife nodded. It was very quickly over, but I noticed him giving me more than a few stares when he thought I wasn’t looking his way. Peripheral vision; it’s a plod thing. You learn to keep the edge of your sight open even when the stress tries to put blinkers on you, to let you spot the bottle or the punch coming from one side. I let it go, but they were clearly already at their little double act. Stewie spoke up, breaking my reverie.

“What’s your story, Adam? What do you do?”

“Moved over here a few years ago, from Swansea. I’m Custody Sergeant down at the local nick”

“You were a copper back home?”

“Well, yeah, I was on a bike with Heddlu De Cymru, so I got about a bit. I’m from Brynamman originally. What about you?”

“Forces, for years, now got a car hire company. Bit of a change, to say the least.”

“Army?”

Sally snorted at that. “Oh dear, I’ll protect the wine, Ginny”

Stewie grinned at her. “We are here to educate and enlighten, my darling. Marines, Adam, marines”

That clicked, the feeling of threat I had picked up from him was spot on. This was a very, very dangerous man. He looked at me more gently.

“You were in Traffic?”

“Yeah, a lot of the time, till I gave up the bike and came over here.”

Sally was nodding. She didn’t say a word, but took her man’s hand in hers as he continued.

“I hear that there are times when it is not a good job to be in”

I very nearly said “You have no idea”, but then I looked at him, at his age, and with a little calculation I realised he probably had a very good idea. Would he have been in Kuwait? Or the mess in the Balkans? Shit, he was possibly old enough to have been in the Falklands. If true, if there was anyone around who could understand the nightmares, it was Stewie. I looked him in the eyes.

“You know, don’t you?”

CHAPTER 8
“Yeah, I know, but I don’t know about the rest. We’re going to finish up here, and after the wine is done we shall have some frozen yoghurt, to which my lover here is very partial.

Then I shall stretch my legs for a while, if you want, with Ginny”

Straight into things, then, and I wondered exactly how close the friendship was between Kate and Sally. Just a few phone calls, and husband and wife were already knocking at my door. There was something else there, something that pushed them, and I almost smiled at myself as I realised we were both in a dance. She knew I was hiding something, and I knew that she was too.

The door shut behind Stewie and Virginia as he said something about the Red Lion, and Sally turned to me, face carefully neutral.

“Nightmares, Adam. Talk to me”

“Nothing much to say, Sal. It sort of goes with the job. Had a few incidents, a few fatals, and I decided to sort of drop off the front line for a while”

“Bollocks. You don’t sell your house and change jobs just because you fancy a bit of a change.”

Did she just say ‘bollocks’? Was she channelling Ginny? She was still talking.

“You have almost doubled your weight and stopped seeing any of your friends. You don’t go out apart from when absolutely necessary, except when your arm is twisted, and when you do you sit by yourself. You talk to a rag doll. So it’s bollocks.”

Her tone softened. ”I have had my own share of shit, Adam, so please do your best not to mess me about. Come on, bring your glass”

She led me to the sofa, and settled down into it with her wine and me.

“What are the nightmares, Adam?”

I waited for a while, as images flickered over my eyes, and then started in, trying to put order into them.

“I was rammed by some thieves when I was on the bike. I got away with the impact, but they lost it and hit some street furniture and a wall”

Breathe, sip….

“There was a fire…..”

Breathe. Breathe again. As long as you are breathing….

“I stay away from roasts now. It’s the smell. Ginny is educating my tastebuds, now, and I can’t complain about what she does. Some meat in it might be good, though”

“Stay on plot, Adam. You are doing well.”

“There are---were---three of them, and the oldest was only sixteen. I couldn’t get them out, then the car blew up”

Blew me half way across the road, my jacket on fire, visor part-melted.

“Ah. Were you injured?”

“I fractured my arm when I landed after the crash, and got a couple of burns”

“But you blame yourself for not getting them out before the explosion”

I couldn’t help it then, I was crying. “One of them was only twelve, Sally!”

She waited for a little while, and then started to talk through some of the others, and I told her about the baby, still in its seat, the car seat that Mummy hadn’t bothered to secure to the car itself, that had come past her when she drove into the back of the van. The child still sitting upright in its little seat, on the road, on the dirty tarmac, eyes open but absolutely lifeless while the mother sat by the ambulance screaming as I laid a blanket over the tiny corpse..

The Rover, the old Rover 3.5, on the mountain road. Not children, this time. I had to pause a lot in that one. The details….the details never got any less sharp, the smell, coppery, rich, of so much blood, as the rock outcrop had sheared the bonnet’s front-set hinges and driven it back through the windscreen, and as the engine met their legs, so the edge of the bonnet met the necks of the old couple, and the sound that lives in my mind is a steady slow drip of their life draining out of a partly open door.

Sally handed me a tissue. “There are more, aren’t there?”

“Yes. That’s enough for now, please.”

“So you looked for a new start, a new place?”

“Yes. I got my sergeant’s, and decided to try another force”

“Did you go indoors straight away?”

“No. They put me on a foot patrol for a while, get to know the place sort of thing”

“Did you enjoy that?”

“I did, proper policing”

“Did you not miss the bike?”

Yes. No. “Sort of, but one too many incidents, you know”

“Were you having visions, flashbacks, when you rode?”

Fuck aye. “Yes….”

“Why did you move off foot patrol, Adam?”

Dark. Trying to get the lane markers out as the traffic wouldn’t fucking slow down, apart from the two cars that had pulled up as their drivers were trying not to be sick, or cry, and failing on both counts. Sarge, you’ve done traffic, you can mark where the body parts have gone. Sarge? Sarge?

“It was that jumper, a couple of years ago, Sal, by Worth. I had to help clear it up and I sort of broke down”

I looked round from my nightmare to see a complex of expressions hit her face and then Sally was crying. She held a hand up as I moved towards her.

“It’s OK, just a memory of my own. Melanie Stevens”

“You knew her?”

“She was a patient, and a friend. She was Stewie’s best mate.”

Sally got her own look on, just then, her own sight of things past, just as Ginny had. She took a couple of very deep, measured breaths, and then continued.

“Who is treating whom, here? We were at her funeral, and at the trial. It’s where we met. How bad was your own breakdown?”

That was either a slip, or a deliberate hint. Was she talking about herself, or Stewie, or the dead woman?

“I was sent home on gardening leave for a week, then the boss asked if I wanted to take a slot in Custody.”

“And you started drinking”

I continued the process, Sal, just in a higher gear. “Yes, I started drinking”

“Adam, can you do me a favour?”

“What?”

“Can you just answer the questions without having a discussion with yourself first?”

“You are a bit good, Sal. Thought of trying my job?”

“I don’t distract easily, Price, so don’t try it on. Now, you mentioned something else to Ginny. What is it, Adam?”

“Just that I was feeling a bit lacking in confidence now, being so fat”

“Bollocks again, Adam, obesity isn’t congenital unless you are a walrus. Who s Tabitha, Adam?”

“A friend. I talk to her, like I would a pet. I can’t keep a dog or cat on my shifts.”

“Or you think you might injure one if you were pissed?”

No, it would need rehoming when…when I am no longer around.

The door rattled at that point, and the two strays were back, letting me off the hook on that one. The smell hit me as the living room door opened.

“You bastard, Ginny, you got chips! That is not fair!”

“I’m not the fat fucker, am I? How you doing, Sal?”

“Patient-doctor confidentiality, Ginny”

I caught Stewie looking at me, and I suddenly realised that there was indeed someone here who understood my problems, at least one of them, as the others couldn’t.

“I was right, wasn’t I? How do you do it?”

He gave me a wry grin. “You’ve met the wife properly now, so you know the answer to that one. Ginny, stop teasing and give him a chip”

I thought it through for a second, then–

“Stewie, can I have a word please, in the kitchen?”

Sally gave me another of those quick appraisals, then nodded to him as we stood together and went out.

“What do you want to ask, Adam?”

“Melanie Stevens. I helped pick her up...afterwards”

I was trembling as I spoke, but he went absolutely rigid.

“What do you know about Melanie?”

“Only what came out at work, and what Sally said, that she was close to you. I was a bit self-absorbed back then. Sal said she was your best mate”

“Oh yes, she was. She told me she loved me once….”

That look, just like Ginny, just like his wife, as the past played across his inner eye. If Sally was doing anything for me, anything at all, she was letting me see that the nightmares weren’t mine alone.

“Did you…you know?”

“Oh, fuck no, Adam. Mel wasn’t into men in any way at all, she’d have given Ginny some competition on that front. Anyway…she was called Mike at the time. People would have stared.”

CHAPTER 9
That was really not a complete surprise. I knew some of the background of her death, of course. I had been aware of our odd resident, as I had sent a couple of lads past her place a few times after the graffiti, and I remembered that she had something to do with the local security scene, but I had never dug into her background.

By the time she became a nine-days-wonder, with her death, I was in my own little world of night terrors and light duties. Stewie looked hard at me once again.

“Adam, I am not going to discuss her, simple as that. Sally will talk to you, that’s her job, not mine. If you fancy a chat at any time, I’m here, but not things like that, OK? I have my own issues, and they aren’t for you to worry about”

It was an odd mixture. He was closing down channels of communication, while at the same time showing me that he was still there, still aware of my terrors and the form they took. Ginny was there, now, and she slipped an arm around my shoulders from behind.

“It’s ten o’clock, mate, these good people should be off. Come on”

Sally was already holding their coats and her bag as we went into the living room.

“I shall be in touch, Adam, and we can set up a more formal series of sessions. I already had an idea what was going on with you, to an extent, but I want to do a bit more poking around, if that’s OK with you”

Whatever. I’d rather talk to Stewie, find out what he had hiding there. “OK by me. Want me to let you know my roster?”

“Yes, that would help, and stop those internal chats, OK?”

They were off, and Ginny was looking sharply at me.

“Internal chats? Does she mean the way you never answer a bloody question straight away?”

“Sort of, I suppose”

I realised that from now on, she would be looking for my censorship as closely as Sally.

We cleared up and I started to sort out the bed before we settled down, and Tabby was sitting there in a new cotton night dress, pale blue and white with little touches of broderie anglaise. I picked her up…

“Tabby, somebody has adopted you….but I’m still here”

Ginny came up behind me, putting her hands on my shoulders and kneading the tense muscles there. “I just thought she should dress properly. You can’t sleep in your day clothes, can you?”

She sniggered. “Well, you can, but you have to be a bit pissed to do so”

Yes, I know, usually in the armchair with a video playing. “She is more used to handmade clothes, she’s particular in her tastes.”

“So, who made her dress, and why no more outfits?”

I did, and I burned them. “I told you, a friend made that one, and that’s all I ever had”

Ginny dug her fingers deeper into my tension, and her lips, close to my ears, murmured “You are such a shitty liar, Adam Price. I can feel it in your shoulders. Sal is right, internal bloody dialogue before each answer.”

Her chin settled on my left shoulder as she continued her gentle whisper.

“Talk to Sally, talk to me if you want, just promise me you will do your best to let us do our bit. OK?”

I lay that night, one of her arms over me and her snoring rattling against my ear plugs, sleepless from lack of alcohol. What could I do? At least with their discovery of THE house, dungeon and all, I had a chance of escaping Ginny, but Sally was already locked on and tracking. Why could I never just tell people to fuck off and leave me alone? Why did I spend my time trying to avoid upset when it was all so academic?
It took a while before I was able to get off to sleep, without my liquid cosh, and when I did the Honda was waiting to power me through the outskirts of Swansea. Ginny woke me as usual, and I lay in her arms for a little while as the world came back to the present tense, sweat cooling to a chill on my chest.

“You remember your nightmares, don’t you, Adam?”

I have them waking and sleeping, Ginny, sleeping and waking. I could feel the need for a drink, a need I only felt at bed times, and remembered a lecture on addiction, the differences between the physical need and the emotional dependency, the crutch. How the latter could be harder to come off than the former. I had a momentary flicker of hope that my need for the grape was emotional, rather than as a result of my body’s chemistry being permanently fucked, but as sleep took me again I thought how irrelevant it was in either case. It wouldn’t matter in the long run, because there wouldn’t be one.

Back on late turn again, and for once a quiet day. Ginny had slipped out before I woke, and Tabby was sat by the kettle in a new dress with a note: “Those were your last bloody chips for the next month, Price!”

I was out and riding home before the first of the seriously drunk were due in, which suited me, as there is a fundamental difference between having a decent work ethic and being a masochist.. ‘Nev’ Chamberlain had brought in another domestic, though, and that was the usual pain in the arse, how he loved her and it was all a misunderstanding, babe, as the wife lay in Redhill hospital with a broken cheek bone and fuck knew what else. I mused on that one for the twenty minutes or so it took me to thread the traffic and lock the bike in the shed.

I had married, on arrival from Wales, as I had been corresponding with the girl for a few months. One of my more complicated attempts at a purge, finding a girl in one of the newspaper personal sections. They were so busy, those things, and so expensive. Each call to a premium rate line cost an arm and a leg, but I tried.

Maria had been sweet, a series of nice messages that showed a sense of humour hiding behind what should in all hindsight have frightened me off, a deep neediness. I was making my break from the ground trodden night and day by my corrosive memories, and she was taken with the idea of a policeman with a big truncheon; one too many conversations, and within six months of our first contact we were engaged.

She had no family beyond a sister, and the wedding was quick and simple at the Leatherhead registry office, finally leaving my days of confusion behind me. I was a married, heterosexual, normal man, with the ring to prove it and a wife to take around garden centres and drink cappuccino with.

I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, Ginny already snoring, as the memories paraded themselves. The careful vetting and filtering of all my possessions, followed by a couple of small bonfires. All of Tabby’s clothes, a lot of my books and videos, those other odds and sods I could never have explained, and then we were set up till death us do part, cleaving only to each other. Of course. I had kept Tabby hidden all that time; there are some things you don’t do.

There were the broken plates, then, and the accusations, and then she was gone and I was out. I dropped my bags in the living room and looked at my whiskies, and realised that Ginny would smell it as soon as I got in with her. She didn’t scare me–well, she did----but I still felt a loyalty to her. She was doing her best for a friend, and as long as she was here I owed her at least the semblance of gratitude. I stripped, did my teeth and wriggled under the duvet as I gathered Tabitha to me. Her new night dress was on, the cotton crisp to the touch and fresh to my nose, and for once I was able to get off without an immediate visit.

I took the simpler route to my comforting fantasy this time, the one without the magic or the alien science, where things just happened. Jim waiting by my hospital bed as I woke up, assuring me he was still a mate and my job would go on. Shopping with Ruth. The Critical Mass ride where I teased them all by telling them that they knew me already, and showing that I knew them. A blurred mess as I started to drift off, where I couldn’t decide whether I was at a music festival or a cycle rally, but it involved music, and dancing, and camping, and riding. Laughter, and more dancing, and kisses and kids….

CHAPTER 10
It was the first night in a long time that had passed the right way and I was awake with Ginny as she slathered her toast with some repulsive brown sludge.

She even wore a ‘Marmite’ cycle top, for fuck’s sake. I managed to get past that particular horror, though, as I felt rested, for once, rather than as I usually did, glad the night was over for another few hours. I had another couple of days before my first official session with Sally, and I hoped I would have a night like that beforehand, as it made my dance so much smoother.

My exit strategy was getting complicated. Ginny had touched on my dilemma with her comment about fucking up the railways for a day and a driver for life, and I could see all too clearly the effect on a train or tube driver, being given free membership of my club, the society of the daily waking nightmare. I couldn’t do that, not even to the worst of my customers. I knew all too well what it entailed. No, I had friends, close friends who seemed to love me in their odd way, and I couldn’t do that to them, nor to some anonymous hotel worker. I needed to find a way that affected nobody else, that let me out of purgatory without extra tickets being sold for the horror show.

Sod it. I decided to give Ginny at least a little support, on the old line of de young, leave a pretty corpse.

Pretty…I got changed into the lycra, thanking the gods that it stretches, and set out for a none-too-quick fifteen miles. It hurt, but then I was pushing hard enough to make it do so. A quick shower back at home, and then I opened the bread bin for some peanut butter on toast. The next note was there: ‘Leave the bread alone. Your lunch is in the fridge’

So it was, a few strips of blackened herb chicken on a mixed leaf salad, with a bigger version for taking to work. That knocked me back a bit; Ginny was doing so much to make me healthier, and I spent my time trying to undo it all.

Pretty corpse. Sod it. Get back on the bike, off to work, and hope it isn’t too dramatic.

This is where I do the jump-fade-slide bit, where the screen goes all wavy as ‘time passes’. I was getting used to her presence, and every couple of days she would swap Tabby’s outfit. I was looking for socks one day when I found the place she was using, one of my bedside drawers. All of the outfits were in there, plus some thread and needles, scissors and so forth. Ginny was obviously either making new dresses from scratch, or adapting shop-bought ones. I suspected the latter, as broderie anglaise isn’t simple to do. I had tried, and all I ended up with were badly-hemmed holes. The temptation was there, though, and if there had been enough material I might have spent the morning before work being creative. As it was, I dug out the flute, and spent an hour running through some old favourites.

I hadn’t intended it to be an hour, but when I looked at my watch I had lost the morning. There are worse ways to do so, and I felt no loss as I rode to work. The next day was Sally’s.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was something in her that left me nervous, even out of her presence. I mean, she was pleasant enough, good company at dinner, and I could see why Ginny liked her, but I could also see why it was that Kate thought so highly of her. She listened, and she watched. That was where the risk lay; she had already picked up on the way I prepared what I said, so I would be flying by feel in there.

No couch, no framed diplomas, nothing for a cartoonist to get his teeth into, apart from a simply framed photograph of a younger Stewart, in uniform, on her desk. Sal walked me over to a couple of armchairs in a corner away from the window, and after sorting some coffees we began.

“I hate to say this, as it is so bloody predictable, but tell me about your childhood.”

“What’s to tell? Pretty typical upbringing for that area, season ticket to the All-Blacks, that sort of thing”

“All-Blacks?”

“Neath rugby club. All black strip with a cross on the breast. Nice supporter’s chant, just the club name repeated over and over again. Not the same round there with all this regional team stuff”

“Adam”

“Aye?”

“You can’t avoid things by overloading me with trivia. Were you an only child?”

“No, I had a brother, quite a bit older than me”

“Had?”

Typical of Sally, as I was to find out, was her terseness. She would often ask a question with one word, or with a simple statement, no clue as to her thoughts on the answer.

“Had. Greg was killed in the first Gulf War. mean, it wasn’t the first, cause there was that thing earlier–“

“Adam, I know about the Iran-Iraq War. Concise version, please”

“Greg was killed by what they call ‘friendly fire’, though it always seems a bit bloody unfriendly when someone shoots at you”

“Have you been shot at, Adam?”

Oh yes, just before he did the family. “Yes., a suicidal farmer with a shotgun. Concentrates the mind”

“What did you tell yourself just before that answer?”

“Just remembering…”

“What?”

Dead children. “A very messy suicide, Sally, sorry”

She changed tack. “Your brother…how did the family take it?”

“Badly. Nearly broke Dad, Greg was his boy, and Mam never recovered. She came down with a kidney cancer three years later”

“Those are normally treatable.”

“Aye, they are if you go to a doctor when you need to. By the time she admitted she was ill, it was in her liver, pancreas and both kidneys. Nothing to be done, tucked up tidy she was.”

“Dad?”

“Would it surprise you to learn it was cirrhosis of the liver?”

“When did you decide on the Police?”

I didn’t. “Dad was a copper, it was sort of expected. Greg was going to do his time, then change uniforms. And then some trigger-happy A10 pilot blew him to shit. Sorry”

“What was your first answer, Adam?”

I sighed. “It was going to be that I didn’t decide on the Force, Dad sort of did it for me”

“And you hate it?”

“No, you know I don’t”

“What changed that?”

“It sort of grew on me. I could see how it worked, not just the fighting and the macho stuff. They keep coming out with this bullshit about ‘service’, when what they mean is control, but at my level it is service, it is protection. It’s a job that gives a lot back”

“So you are now Greg”

Dangerous woman. “Yes, as far as Dad was concerned”

But never quite Greg.

“What would you have chosen as a career?”

“You’ll laugh”

“I never laugh, unless I need to”

“Can you see me as a nurse?”

She thought for a while, looking straight at me.

“Why did you get rid of all of Tabby’s clothes?”

She was like a skilled boxer, changing direction without warning.

“What do you mean?”

“You know the answer. So tell.”

“I got married. It wouldn’t have been received very well”

“Like the idea of you becoming a nurse?”

Fuck. “Yes, like the idea of me taking up nursing. It didn’t sit well, but you already know that, don’t you?”

Sally just looked at me, face composed. I knew exactly what she was doing; leave the punter in silence and they will want to fill the space with words, some of which they would love to be able to take back. I waited, and so did Sally. Then she submitted.

“It wasn’t just the nursing, then”

I couldn’t make her out. She assured me of her ability to keep confidences, but could I give them?

“The door is shut, Adam. All that leaves here does so with your express permission. Not Kate, not Ginny, not your bosses, not even Stewart. Now, if you wish to talk, talk. If you want to take your time, there is plenty. Your call, Adam. When you want to tell me the rest, I will listen. I do not judge, though I may advise”

I thought for a while, in silence, looking up at Sally a couple of times. She just sat there, calm, quiet. It was so tempting, such a lure. I had nearly slipped a few times in my life, once or twice with Ginny, once with Maria, and thank fuck I hadn’t made THAT mistake. The attraction was there; I had seen it in prisoners at interview, the need to unburden, to explain, and perhaps….perhaps if did let some of it out I might be able to order my mind properly. Sod it.

It all started when I was born. “It all started when Dad caught me with Jessica”

CHAPTER 11
“Jessica”

“Yes. He caught me with her when I was about eleven. I was just putting her skirt on when he came into my bedroom.”

That was nasty, but I thought I could play a game of my own for a while. I had spent too long hiding from it to face it so easily, and a little bit of sport delayed the confrontation. There was almost a flicker from Sally’s face, a slight resetting of the jaw. She waited a few seconds, for me to fill the silence, but I had played that game for too many years. So had she, though.

“No games, Adam. Jessica”

“She was my friend before Tabitha. We had had a schools charity project, where we were making teddy bears to be sold at the school open day, fete thing. Pretty rubbish, really, made out of fun fur fabric…”

I had always wanted a friend like Jess. The spark had come with that edition of ‘Sparkle’, one of those identikit weeklies for pre-teen girls that live in the uncomfortable gap between childhood and the angst-ridden pubescence of ‘Just Seventeen’. Wendy Prentice had brought her copy to school, and the cover had borne a picture of a smiling rag doll and the words ‘make this’. My moment of shame, theft from a child. It made no difference to me that I had been one too, I always felt a small quiver of embarrassment and a churning of the stomach. I had quickly stuffed the slim comic into my rucksack, and a few days later began the process of finding the necessary bits and pieces. I raided Mam’s sewing box, and each time any clothing or linen was thrown away I filed it under my bottom drawer for later.

“I learned to sew on pre-cut patterns in fluorescent furry crap, Sally. Then I made Jessica for myself”

“Was she difficult?”

“Finding the right stuff was, sometimes. And I had a few false starts where I had to put stuff back in a hurry, like when Greg ripped something and Mam had to do some repairs. But I got there…”

“Why that name?”

I grinned at that one. “Tradition, Sally. That’s the sort of name a dolly should have, something girly but refined. And I made her some clothes, of course.”

“And your father found you together”

And shouted, and yelled, and the belt came off and swang out at me, and more shouting.

“He burned her. Out in the garden with Mam watching. Poured some petrol over her and lit it.”

“What did you feel?”

“Alone again”

“What happened then?”

“He started toughening me up, and Greg went to be a Fusilier, and….”

“Yes?”

“I found a place in one of the old quarries where nobody went, and I started making Patricia”

“How did you lose her?”

How did you know that? “I hadn’t taken account of the climbing that went on there, I mean I wasn’t into that scene. Somebody found her and used her for boot wiping or something.”

Well, wiping, anyway. That had hurt.

“Toughening you up”

“Yeah….he had me start at the under 12s as soon as the pre-season training started. I ended up as a winger. I already knew how to run...”

“Rugby”

“South Wales, aye? What else? That lasted till I was seventeen. Just seventeen, apt really, and he beat the nursing out of me, especially when Greg came back in a fucking coffee tin”

The parade through the village by the airfield, the Warrior shipped to Tidworth for repair and cleansing of bits of my brother and his mates. The inquiry, with the two pilots safe overseas. No, sir, we don’t see why our brave boys should be pilloried for a small error of identification. Just like that cable car incident.

“I miss my brother. He was almost a different species, you know, but he was my big brother and he’s now in a hole. Children shouldn’t go before their parents, it’s not the right way, Sal….”

She passed me a tissue. “So you ended up in the police”

“Well, I had my moments, where I considered telling Dad where to go, but after Greg…then Mam got ill, and it was just easier”

“Why the bike?”

Oh, what a question, and such a simple answer. I had read so much about and by people I thought were like me, and so many of them gravitated to bikes of one sort or another. Gravitation was the word; we seemed---we---to fall into solitary pursuits like cycling, opportunities to be away from the world of carefully filtering one’s words and hiding thoughts. There are no giveaways, no tells, when cycling. Just lungs, legs and the bike, you and your thoughts.

“Solitude, Sally; space”

“Adam. What is it that you are not telling me?”

Who I am. “What do you mean, Sally?”

“Still the rehearsal, the filter before you speak. What are you frightened of?”

Failure. I can live neither my own life, nor the one my father laid out for me. “I don’t know what you mean”

“Yes you do”

She stood up and walked to the window, looking out at a bird feeder mobbed by blue tits. With her back to me, she started to speak quietly, not much above a whisper.

“Adam, my turn at a speech. I usually avoid them, but just this once I will indulge myself. I have spent a long time specialising in two areas of my profession, and I have a decent reputation in them. If I have any faults, in my arrogance, I think it is that I can sometimes get involved in my patient’s problems. That leads to two things.

“Firstly, I care for them, and work harder at giving them such respite as I can. Secondly…secondly, if things go pear-shaped, I hurt. In a way, I have my own little taste of PTSD, which I am more than satisfied is one of your problems. Nobody with a soul can endure the things you have without scarring. That is indeed one of my specialisms. As for the other…”

She turned back to me, head cocked just a little. “Adam, I am going out on a limb here, so if I fuck up just bear with me. This is based on the conversations we have had, as well as my observations of the way you are with our friends. I just need the answer to one question.”

“If I can….”

“Adam….how long have you been wondering who you are?”

Shit. “I know who I am, Sally”

“Then tell me, please, why you are hiding yourself from everyone”

Why had I ever agreed to this? Everything she asked opened the wounds further, dragged my oldest nightmares back into the waking world. The ones before the Job, before I was able to talk to Tabby. Before I had tried to make the best of what I had been handed, and certainly before I had realised that I never could.

“I can’t, Sal. It’s too late, and I’m too tired”

“Bollocks, Adam. I’ve seen worse than you, trust me. Look at Melanie…she was such a mess, but she had strength. If it hadn’t been for a selection of vermin that should have been strangled at birth, I’d have introduced you. Are you telling me, as a police sergeant, as a man, that you haven’t got that strength yourself? Mind you, she was a Royal Marine Commando, so I suppose that you would never be able to live up to that. Higher form of life, no?”

I was speechless, mouth working. Tears were rolling down my face; how the hell could she be so callous? How could any man ever expect to match what people like her, and Stewart, had lived through?

“Why lash out at me, Sally?”

“Because you haven’t got half the courage I saw in Mel, nor in a couple of my other patients. I get to sleep with someone who has his own nightmares, but he doesn’t wander off and start his own suicide, and if he did it would be a clean one, not this half-arsed scheme you have picked. You’re not a man, Adam”

I just shook my head. No, not me, not at all. Sally’s voice softened.

“Sorry, Adam, but I had to poke you a bit there. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, just to get under your skin. Adam….who are you, inside all that pain?”

CHAPTER 12
She had me, if I wanted to let her. Too many years of subterfuge left me less than open, though.

On the other hand, I was in the same position as the climber who looks over the edge and wonders about jumping. Everything stayed behind the closed door, she had said. Fuck it.

“Sally, you said that you specialised in post traumatic stress etc. What’s the other thing you do?”

“Gender identity stuff. The approved name changes every time someone imagines an offence in the old name, but I know what I am talking about…..ah”

She looked me up and down, very obviously.

“Renée Richards. You’ve given up, haven’t you? Bet you have a copy of that Redgrave film, though. Right…that explains a few things, such as your crack to Ginny about congenital stuff”

I was shitting myself. I hadn’t actually come out and admitted a thing, specifically, but she knew now. This was where I would start to catch the flak, and I sneaked a look at my watch to check how much time I had left for humiliation.

“Adam, there are certain traditions associated with this moment. I am popularly supposed to ask you what your girl name is, how long you’ve had the feeling that you were in the wrong shoes, all that sort of thing. That’s not where you stand, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Giving yourself a name implies hope”

She sat and waited for me to react. It was all so much like being in court, the same little tricks and techniques, but there was a difference, a fundamental one. It was something I had picked up on when she came for dinner: she cared. She had tells I was learning to pick up, little displacement movements. She would have been unreadable to most people, but she showed out to me. There was a tension there, almost like a cat waiting for the right moment to spring.

“Adam, you are not here to watch me. Talk to me. I’ve already told you how it works”

She looked at me, just a little hint of exasperation, as I sat there silent.

“OK, when did you decide to kill yourself?”

That was a conversation-stopper.

“Once I realised there was no hope”

“Hope? What would you hope for?”

“World peace, a cure for cancer, the second coming of Elvis”

“You fancied Mr Presley?”

“As a young man, yes”

Shit. I should have stayed off the humour, not sensible when up against someone like her. Only the pretty ones.

“You are straight, then. The marriage?”

This was surreal. I am sat there, beard, crew cut, belly spilling over where a belt would have been, coughing to liking a young man with dark eyes and a seriously sweet arse, and she says ‘straight’? That marriage…

“I met Maria through a newspaper advert. One of those premium-rate call box type things, where you swap voice messages for a bit. I was already lining up for a move from Wales, and she was in the right area, and she sounded nice…”

“But you are heterosexual”

How could she talk like that? Couldn’t she see what was sat before her?

“Well, it was sort of a thing I needed to do.”

“Like getting rid of all of Tabby’s things. Tell me, Adam, why not get rid of Tabby as well?”

Kill my only friend? “I couldn’t do that, not to her”

“It’s a rag doll, Adam, and I assume that you know that, as I believe you made it. It’s not a person.”

Yes she is! It was getting harder, and Sally handed over some more tissues. I could feel myself breaking, and she just sat there, looking at me as I crumbled.

“Tabby’s all I have left.”

“Left of what, Adam?”

“Of me…”

“So who am I talking to?”

“Adam Price”

“Is he a real person?”

I sat and thought for a while. What was Adam Price? Was he me? Was he the figure that my father had constructed? I gave my answer after what seemed like á¦ons, Sally still sitting impassive across from me.

“Maria got fed up, in the end. I did what I could, and I do love her, but…”

“She’s a woman?”

“Yes.”

“Answer the other question, Adam”

“No”

“No, you won’t?”

“No, he’s not real”

“You play him well”

I looked hard at Sally then. “And the alternative would be?”

“Death? You’ve already selected that option, it’s a default with your lifestyle. Why not just make it quicker? Ah, difficult with people around you, isn’t it? Ginny getting in the way?”

Oh yes. “And what other options could there be?”

“Choose life, I always say. Has more options built in than simple decay. Why not try it?”

“Yeah, right, but I can’t have my life, can I?”

“Why not? Because you’re a fat fucker with a beard? Exercise, diet, Wilkinson Sword, the love of the friends you already have. And the courage you have already shown in still being here, both in being alive and finally talking to someone about it. Now, I think I will go back to the beginning, now that you have come out into the light. What is your other name?”

I sighed, looking down at my shoes for anything to delay this. There was nothing there but some dirt and a slight smear of chain lube. I took a breath.

“Anne. Annie”

Annie to my friends? Oh aye, it would have been, if ever I had had friends I let into the secret. Sally was on the ball, of course.

“Annie to your friends? Pleased to meet you, Annie”

It went so much more easily after that. I rode back in a little daze, almost singing and shitting myself at the same time. I had the cat out of the bag, and at the moment she was purring and headbutting me, but if the wrong people found out, well, Melanie was a good example of what I could expect. Purrs and dribbling would turn all too quickly into claws and teeth.

Ginny was waiting when I got home, and was straight to the point.

“Well? Did she help?”

I showed her the prescription Sally had given me for some stupid drug or other.

“She put you on anti-depressants? Well, duh! You going to take the buggers?”

“No, I don’t think so. Don’t like being out of control”

“Oh fuck off, Price, this coming from someone who has been pissed every day since coming to Sussex?”

“That’s different, I stay indoors for that. This would mean being stoked when with everyone else, aye?”

“And you have to be careful to keep hiding, yeah?”

I looked at her, and she was almost in tears. “I don’t know what it is, Adam, but there is fuck all you can do to make me give up on you, and you need to stop trying to piss me off, because it isn’t working. Well, it is, but not the way you want it to”

Tears now fell, and I held her close to me, shorter than her by several inches, just held her till she was calm again.

“How’s Kate? And the house–what’s happening?”

She was suddenly grinning, tears still in her eyes. “We get it next week! No chain, all surveys done, contracts ready! My missus is a quick worker when she needs to be”

She suddenly switched to a sly expression, then purred “...and a lovely slow one when I need her to be….”

Ginny sat up then, wiping her eyes. “Stuffed peppers tonight, mate. With wild rice and a little dhal. You better stay away from the cells, you’ll be farting badly enough for it to be considered torture”

I took a shower, and left myself in my old dressing gown as I ironed some shirts ready for the next set of shifts. Ginny bustled round the kitchen, singing something vaguely familiar and remarkably off-key. Just as dinner was about to be served, the front door opened. I gave Ginny a glance, and she actually blushed.

“It’s Kate. When we were really worried about you, before you agreed to speak to Sal, I sort of got her a spare key, just in case…”

I reached across the table we were setting and took her hand.

“Ginny, look, there’s you being cheeky, and then there’s you caring enough to plan ahead a bit, aye? I know which one that was, OK?”

“OK…I was just a bit worried you might think I was being a bit bloody forward, yeah?”

“You can be as forward as you like, love”

“Yeah? I don’t swing that way, Price!”

Neither do I. That was one thing that had condensed into solidity during my session with Sally, once she had started ignoring Adam and digging out me, clearing the guilt and shame my father had beaten into me. Kate appeared, in cycle kit, and proceeded to demonstrate the affection that Ginny had all but gloated over. I was torn, between jealousy and joy, between wanting what they had and being glad they so clearly had what they did.

“Put her down, Kate, and tell me about the house”

“A deal, then. You tell me how it went today, and I will tell all about the house and dungeon”

“It went well, sort of. We got a few things cleared up”

“Such as?”

I thought for a while, as Ginny dished out the food. I had let Annie out for the first time, and it had indeed been like giving birth, except it was me that emerged. Pain, tears….could I do this? Sally had spoken of the advantage of being alive, the ability to rewrite things, to adjust for errors, correct old mistakes.

“Kate…Ginny, fuck it, you are my friends, aren’t you?”

They both nodded, Ginny taking Kate’s hand. It was Ginny who spoke for them.

“If you thought about it at all, Price, you wouldn’t ask such a stupid fucking question. What exactly are we doing here?”

Kate nodded. “Always, Adam, even if you are about to tell us you have decided to become a Tory. And friends always, even though you are Welsh”

Ginny snorted, but Kate looked serious. “I saw the prescription on the sideboard, Adam. How suicidal are you exactly? Sod privacy, this is FAMILY!”

I sat back in my chair as the peppers cooled in front of me. Sod it. Deep end, had to be done, had to be or I would drown.

“Kate, you do know that Sally doesn’t just specialise in PTSD and that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do---oh fucking hell!”

CHAPTER 13
Kate was staring hard at me, trying to see through my skin.

“I really thought we were dealing with some queen in that African river, I really did. No wonder you are so screwed up…”

Her voice softened. “Virginia, my sweet lover, you suspected this, didn’t you?”

Ginny was looking at her knees, but still clinging to her wife’s hand.

“You know I did, and you know why I kept quiet about it.”

Kate sighed. “Yes, love, I do. Now, how do we sort this pile of shit out? Adam…”

“Yes?”

“Can we assume that now you are actually talking to somebody your little exit strategy may be somewhat less time-critical? That you might stay with us a while?”

No. Maybe. “I don’t know, Kate, I really don’t. I have told precisely three people about this, and two of them are here now. Sally spoke about hope. I don’t know if I can”

Ginny grinned suddenly, light coming back into her eyes.

“There are already far too many fat and ugly women about. Why should we want another one?”

Once more I felt my foundations start to shift, but she continued.

“I mean, we can’t help your looks, but we are certainly going to dispose of Ms Blobby here. Your health plan just went on ‘roids, Price, ‘roids I tell you!”

Kate was watching, and began to smile again, the same fond smile I had seen earlier.

“Price, you have unleashed a monster here. I trust you can cope. But you will, because you have now abandoned all power of choice, and Ginny takes no prisoners. Well, except when they ask her nicely. Now, we have a new start, it seems. Do you intend to take any of that chemical shit?”

“The prescription? No.”

I had known that as Sally had written it out, and as she was clearly telepathic she had known it too, but boxes sometimes needed ticking. Kate looked at the glasses of cranberry juice on the table.

“Not wine, but then that would be a bit naughty, given the circumstances. A toast, then. To hope, and to–this is the traditional bit, the cliché, where you introduce yourself, Price”

I tried to sit up straighter, tried to be proud of what I was, but after so many years of living a lie I couldn’t. I mumbled my name into my chest, head down. Kate was having none of it.

“Speak up, girl”

“Mnnnie”

“Nope, I don’t speak beardy”

Head up, look her n the face, her hand white-knuckled in Ginny’s grasp, both pairs of eyes moist. Breathe deeply, force back your own tears. Hope or failure? Life or death?

“Annie, to my friends”

Ginny sighed, and looked at Kate, who raised her lover’s hand to her face and kissed it. Three glasses of red fruit juice clinked together, and Kate made the toast.

“To hope, to life, to love and friendship, to Annie”

We drank. Ginny cracked a grin.

“Thank fuck for that. What with ‘Tabitha’, I was half expecting some horrible tripe like Imogen, or Eleithiya, or even worse something misspelled like Britney. And thank fuck you didn’t go all Galactica on us. ‘Adama’ would have been null pwan big style”

I managed to grin back, though tears were already there. Ginny tilted her head a little.

“This is going to be hard, girl, very hard. We have a lot of self-harm to undo, and a soul to boost. I make no bones about it, you are going to have a shitty time, but we will be here. Kate, I am going to have to stay a bit longer, sorry”

Kate smiled at her. “I would have expected nothing else, but there is a payback. Annie here is going to help us get everything moved into the new place. Once that is done, it’s party time. I have a plan…..”

The next day was a working day, and I made the usual sprint to the office and stowed the lycra in my locker. Ruth was already at the desk as I came in, with a factory burglar caught trying to lift reels of cable.

“Morning, Sarge, love the chin”

“Morning, Kirst, thought it was time for a change”

As had Ginny and Kate. “Not having some fucking bearded lady in this family, it goes now. Kate, corner shop please, defoliant purchase”

Sam Talbot was the inspector, and his reaction was similar. “Thank Christ it’s not the hottest weather, you’d have tan lines on your face worse than those stupid ones on your legs! I thought you were supposed to shave your legs, you cyclists…hang on. Sergeant Price, my office, if you please”

I trotted along with him like a good little flatfoot, and he shut the door behind us.

“When did this change, Adam?”

“What, sir?”

“Sam in here, mate. You have had a lot of us worried this last year, but something’s going on. What is it? How much weight have you shed?”

“Er, about a stone so far, Sam.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Adam, please, but when did you stop drinking? Don’t look at me like some tom pretending she’s waiting for a friend and can’t remember which car he has, we’re all coppers here and we have noses. Sit down, please”

He poured a couple of coffees from the machine he kept hissing away in a corner. Passing one to me, he continued.

“You have been off traffic and driving duties for a long time, Adam, and I have kept a very careful eye on your work at the desk. If the alcohol had disturbed your work, or if you had, god forbid, still been driving, you would have been straight to Occupational Health if not suspended. People have covered your arse here, all of them hoping you would pull out of the things you were doing to yourself. What’s changed?”

Oh, not yet, Sam. “Friends, Sam, true friends, who wouldn’t let me go. One of them has been staying with me, sorting my diet and shit. She won’t let me drink, either”

“Ah, that’ll be one of those bulldykes you hang around with, then. Good for her. You getting professional help…er, Adam, forget that question. If you have found a decent therapist, I don’t need to know about any mental issues till they are better, OK? Just nod if you have…good.

“I know what you went through in Traffic, and we know all about stress disorders here. We see the worst of things, mate, the worst, but we are supposed to just carry on. So…here’s the deal. If this rugmuncher mate of yours can keep this up, and the therapist I know nothing about can help, then you have my full support both official and unofficial. I’ll have a word with Jim as well.”

He sighed. “You’re the good cop, Adam, there aren’t many of us left. I won’t let you go without a fight. Leave me to speak to Jim and keep up the fight. We need you”

Hope. I should have realised that covering up my behaviour was a non-starter in such a place, but the longer I was sober the clearer my sight became.

The rest of the run of shifts was routine, but the time at home wasn’t. Ginny had me on a very low-carb, low-lipid diet but insisted that despite my lack of the usual energy reserves that cyclists depend on I had to keep exercising hard. We were on rides every day, despite my exhaustion.

“If you just stop eating, your body goes into famine mode and starts keeping the fat and losing the muscle. So we fill the stomach, and keep the muscles working. Otherwise you lose the weight but just gain flab. I’m not putting you on weights, Annie, we don’t want you bulked up, just slim and fit. Now...sprint to that next junction!”

Whatever her logic, it seemed to be working, and despite her vegetarian ideals she kept slipping me animal protein, mostly chicken or oily fish. By two months of her adoption of me I was down to sixteen stone, but she warned me that the first bit was by far the easiest.

“It’s asymptotic, Adam, you lose much more slowly as it comes off, but it still shows. How’s the uniform situation?”

“I’m holding fire for a while, Gilbey, aye, just till it settles a bit and it’s worth sorting out a new set. Got some smaller belts, though”

We were sat in a trucker’s café on the Horsham road, having a cuppa and no cake before setting off back along the busy road to Crawley and a late shift for me. Ginny took a sip.

“Up for the housewarming, then? Kate’s doing it in her own way, of course, with the FNRttC. It’s to Brighton this month, so it’s ideal. We can get enough of our friends on that, have breakfast at the house, a few hours kip and then party!”

The Friday Night Ride to the Coast…that made sense. Our cycling friends were a bit London-based, and as tradition and prejudice would suggest a lot of the girls’ friends were now in Brighton, drawn to the town’s large gay community.

“One condition, aye? I get to eat cake”

“Bananas, Price, better for you”

“Cake”

“OK, but only at the party”

“Deal then”

We finished our tea, and then the ride. Work was another routine day, no mass-murderers, just thefts and some stupid attempt at arson for insurance fraud, and I was feeling more and more comfortable in my new fitness. My knees had stopped aching so much, and I was finding my breathing easier as Ginny pushed me. I thrashed myself on the way home, just to see how it felt without her goading me, and took a quick shower before getting into bed. Ginny had already put Tabitha into her nightie, and was herself snoring away.

There was a small package on my pillow, addressed to ‘Ms Annie Price’, pink tissue paper and a ribbon. I undid it…

Tabitha’s nightie, my size. I dropped my boxers and T-shirt by the bed and slipped the cool cotton over my head.

The dreams stayed away.

CHAPTER 14
I awoke lost, something tangling my legs, and started to wriggle a bit before I remembered.

No dreams, no visitors, just Ginny still snoring beside me as she lay in on her day off. I slipped out and a few minutes later prodded her awake to the cup of tea I set beside the bed.

She grunted, trying to sort out her tangles with her fingers while attempting to wake up enough to talk a little less like a zombie.

“You day off, as well, Price? Got girl duty planned for you today. Dinner guests tonight as well, so shopping run. Mmmmmm tea….nightie fit OK?”

I kissed her on the cheek, and she winced. “God’s teeth, Annie, it was bad enough being tickled by that fucking fungus you had, now it’s sandpaper on my face. Got to do something about it, mate!”

I knew exactly what she meant, and why she said it. Permanent removal would be an obvious part of any transition, but there was no way I could move to that. No way I could ‘pass’, as it was described, no way I could ever go that far. Did I want to? My standard fantasy, the one I retreated to when I wanted to drift off, was all wish fulfilment. It went like this:

Something happens, something vague and barely specified. I find the magic lamp, or my body gets colonised by some alien nanomachines, or the tooth fairy appears, or whatever, it doesn’t matter. What is important, though, is the result. I collapse (theatrically, of course) and two weeks later wake up in bed, perfect in every way. My boss is waiting by the bedside, full of noble concern, assuring me that the Force and colleagues will be there to help me through this terrible time.

He arranges for Ruth to come and take me shopping dressed in my old sweats and trainers, and she sets out to help me get basic underwear, slacks, etc, but I end up getting decent clothes, after a proper fitting, decent bras, nice ones, and a dress, fitted bodice, flared skirts; I can see it in my mind’s eye because I have seen it so often in life.

And Ruth and I sit and have coffee and cake, me in my new dress and some low heels, and she asks me why I have gone so girly, and I say well, Kirsty, I always have been a girl….and there are other episodes, where I turn up under Waterloo Bridge for the CM ride, and greet all of my friends, wearing a girly smock top over leggings, and none of them know me, but I smile and promise all will be revealed later, and magically none of them recognise the bike they always see me on. Magically, that’s the word.

Utter drivel, of course, but that’s what wish fulfilment is. I never got the story much further as I dozed, but it wasn’t meant that way. Just a pleasant, happy thing to try and send me to sleep without other visitors, a dream that could never be. Now Ginny was touching on reality. That was a different game altogether. There was no way I could play that role credibly. Sally had been spot on with her guess about Richards, I had followed her lead with my facial hair. It made the point; I wouldn’t just look stupid in a dress, I would look fucking ridiculous. I looked stupid in the nightie, of course, but that didn’t bother me. I was with family, and that made the difference.

Ginny woke up properly, and chivvied me along as she allowed me the treat of a bacon sandwich for breakfast. Grilled, of course, and neither rinds nor butter, and in a wholemeal pitta, but it was sort of a bacon sarnie and it tasted like manna. Onto the bikes and into Crawley. Under her instructions, I was on the tourer, with empty panniers front and rear, while as usual she was on Ladyboy, so half of my pannier space seemed to be given over to locks of various types. We secured everything outside the County Mall and clopped in.

“OK, Price, we have two things to do here. One is to get in supplies for tonight, so I can do justice to our guests, and the second is pure girliness. It is a well-worn cliché, but we are here to window shop. There is logic in it, though. I want to give you a chance to show me your style, your taste, and if I am with you it looks a bit more straight couple shit. That OK with you?”

She dropped her voice. “And if I keep calling you Price, I won’t fuck up, so take it as it is meant, mate”

There are a lot of clothes shops in and around the County Mall, ranging from teenage girl trapping kit to more---comfortably fitting items for ladies who lunch, dine and generally ingest calories as if the seven lean years are starting next week. Like I had been, in other words. My friend led me from shop to shop, window to window. Yes, no, maybe, bloody hell never, how much?

Ginny was thoughtful, clearly making little mental notes as we progressed. We sat on the mezzanine having coffee, and she prodded me a little.

“You are definitely into the feminine stuff, Price, not the tarty, but you do seem to favour dresses just a tad”

“They are so immediately female, Ginny. No argument about what they say, no ambiguity. They are what I dream of…no, I better put that right. It makes me sound like some bloody fetishist.”

I was a little out of breath at that. I mean, I wasn’t just telling her my deepest, darkest and most dreadful shame, I was opening the curtains and letting the light onto it. This was new ground for me indeed. I paused for a while, trying to frame my words so as to make as much sense as possible without getting lost in fear of what I was admitting.

“Ginny, see, a dress of the sort I like is made for a woman. It fits her closely, bust to hip. What it shows is all female, it has to be, or the dress won’t fit. That’s why I like them, because if I could wear one it would be because I was the right shape, and I never will be. Look…there were those two dresses in Ashley, aye? One of them was all floaty softness, and the other was that buttoned one that was all fitted bodice and half sleeves. Quite a low neck as well. Now, a man could wear the first, and it would look OK, but the second is for a woman. That is why I love that sort of thing, it’s an ‘if only’ “

“So you would wear the other one?”

“Like hell, Gilbey, you wouldn’t get me near it. I would look absolutely stupid, a real pig in knickers, aye? I have enough problems without adding an extra one”

“Price….”

Ginny softened her voice. “You would though, if you could, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, Ginny, if you only knew…!"

She whispered to me. “I know, Annie, I know very well”

She gave me a look then, and if I was ever telepathic it was just then, just for an instant, when her mind shouted to my own, “not now”. We sat for a while in silence, until she began to giggle.

“Who’d have guessed it, Price, fucking slingbacks. Never in a million years would I have put you down for slingbacks. You, Price, are a tart!”

“And what would you wear, Virginia dearest?”

“To tempt my beloved? Why what else but a light coating of baby oil and a couple of roses! Seriously, I spend so much time either in cycle shoes or trainers I haven’t bothered for years, and as I’m a long string of piss heels are a bit excessive.”

I started to laugh, and Ginny looked puzzled for a while.

“What is so fucking funny, Price?”

I dropped my voice as low as I could. “I know, really know, what I am, but I am no longer sure about you. No interest in shoes–sure YOU are female?”

Coffee looks particularly revolting when it comes out of nostrils.

We carried on round to Sainsbury’s, where my panniers were filled with a herbivore’s delight, which included several Savoy cabbages. I reminded Ginny about the no farting agreement, and she just told me to watch and learn, grasshopper. Back at the flat she astonished me by using leaves of the cabbage to line a dish, and what came out later can only be described as a green pie, filled with mixed stewed vegetables–butternut squash, onions, carrots, all sorts of stuff, bound together by sticky rice and wrapped in the cabbage. Quite a production.

“You can have alcohol tonight, Price. You won’t have more than three glasses, though. Deal?”

I thought about that, and realised something important. I wasn’t missing the alcohol, I was no longer needing it to sleep. Sleeping next to Ginny left me vulnerable to prods and hugs when my terrors came, and that meant they rarely got a head of steam up. Before being given her company I had had a simple choice, either to get shitfaced and comatose or to stay sober and allow the demons a playground. I remembered my worry about whether my body chemistry had yet been completely screwed by the drink, and it seemed not. One small victory.

I should really have guessed who we were having for dinner, as it was a trio of Kate, Sally and Stewie. Sally took one look at my chin, said “Ah” and nodded to Ginny. Kate smiled at her reaction, and Stewie….

Stewie. Stewie just stepped forward to me. “Good to see you again, Annie”

Kissed me on the cheek and walked in with his wife.

CHAPTER 15
Stewie. He clearly knew. I gave Sally a look, asking with my eyes, and she murmured “He is part of my therapy kit for you”

Dinner was excellent, the ‘cabbage pie’ going down a treat, as Ginny kept her beady eye on my wine consumption. Sal looked around the table, waiting for a pause in the conversation.

“Ladies…Stewie…Kate tells me, Annie, that you have told her and Ginny as much as you can about your situation. That allows me to be open with them, as long as you are OK with that. Stewart here is a different matter. Historically, he has a bit of experience in a very similar situation, and I have taken the liberty of involving him as a sort of buddy. Not exactly the normal way we do things, but I made the decision as I truly thought it would be beneficial. If you are unhappy with that, I will take the flak and apologise”

I sat and thought for a while, and remembered almost my first conversation with Stewie. ‘You know’ had been the important words, and I saw what Sally was hoping for.

“This is a tag-team now, isn’t it? Torquemada there, starving me to death, Kate slapping me around when I slip, you talking me through who I am, and Stewie….”

I paused once again, gathered my thoughts and my words. “It’s like the AA. Hi, my name is Adam and I have been fucked over by stress. Hi, my name’s Stewart, and so have I. Is that about right?”

He looked at me, just the trace of a smile on his lips. “Yeah, about right. I have only the stuff I picked up about Mel to give me any idea what you are going through in that way, but Sal thought we might be able to separate the two issues a bit, stop them ramping each other up”

He played with his fork for a few seconds, as if the metal had become somehow important, and then spoke in a much softer voice. “I never got to know Melanie, and that was a real loss. I had a true friend, the best friend I have ever had, if I exclude my wife, but it’s still almost a dead heat there. She was killed, and so we never met. It doesn’t happen again. End of.”

He looked up again. “If that isn’t OK, just tell me”

Confidence. Two meanings here. Sally had not kept it, but I still had it in her. Nobody had ever got to my core the way she had, and I had never met someone before who had so obviously understood what my demons were and where they came from.

“Sally, you are worried about a malpractice complaint, aren’t you?”

She kept her face as neutral as ever, but the tells were still there. “Yes, Annie”

That was an obvious ploy, but I let it go. “What I said stands. Ginny and Kate have got me to a state where work is recognising the improvement. Ginny has got me sleeping again, though partly because she kicks me awake every time the dreams come. You…you have finally got me talking about myself, and Stewie, well, you show me that survival is possible.”

I paused once more. Fuck it, lighten the mood. “Fine by me. What’s for pud, Ginny?”

Sally didn’t actually slump in relief, or say ‘phew!’, but it was close.. I could spot the little flickers, but that was rather unnecessary, as Stewie reached out and took her hand. Once again, that steady look of his.

“Thanks, really thanks. You have to understand a few things, Anne, especially about where you sit with my wife.. No, Sal, has to be said. Ladies, Sal has dealt with more than a few GID cases. One of them was Melanie, who was Mike, and another was someone who became a very, very close friend, so close that Sal had to step away from her therapy. Sal is very good at what she does, but she suffers from one big handicap: she cares about people. Yes we are a tag team, but only because she insisted I take some fluffy counselling course so that it could all be legal.

“Annie, you are not unique, that’s what’s so awful. That’s also why Sally decided to step outside official good practice and tell me”

Sally did sigh, then. “All I could see was Melanie all over again, Annie, and I was frightened. You do know, don’t you, that she was out celebrating the news of getting a date for her surgery when she was murdered?”

“I heard something about that, Sal, but I was off work for a while….afterwards”

Speeding cars. Night. Body parts, and the sound of someone trying to cry while being sick. I realised I was trembling, and Ginny had her hand on mine.

“Mate, it’s bread and butter pudding, you’ve earned it”

Holding me and passing a tissue till I settled. Stewart smiled.

“Did you ever meet her, Annie?”

I thought back, and suddenly I had to laugh. Stress relieved, or the memory, but it was still real laughter.

“I ran into her a few times, after she had transitioned. She was a big girl”

Stewart snorted. “Big, and bloody hard as nails. We were half of a fire team for ages”

“I had some minor dealings with her through the Mall’s security, you know the sort of thing…but it was the graffiti that caught my eye”

Sally was giggling at that, and it seemed the tension was broken. I continued, the memory still as fresh as the paint had been.

“When she was out, somebody painted ‘peedo’ on the side of her flat, that’s P-E-E-D-O, and she not only corrected the spelling but crossed it out and wrote ‘Lesbian’–“

“Dyke” interrupted Sally.

“Dyke, then, and wrote to the local paper and suggested that rather than locking up their kids it should be their wives”

Ginny snorted her cranberry juice. “Fuck, wish I’d met her!”

Stewart raised his eyebrows sadly. “Wish you still could. She’s buried locally”

Sally grinned. “The dance! Stewie, the dance! Annie, what sort of music do you play? I know you have a flute, but is it classical, jazz, what?”

“Well, sort of classical stuff, with a bit of rock and that sort of thing.”

My flute had been one of my few bits of girliness I had managed to get past Dad. As he remembered Jethro Tull, with Ian Anderson in his most manic tight-breeched cock-rock phase, I had used that to justify my playing, though had to do a lot of hard tonguing and grunting through my instrument to keep up the pretence. He saw me as emulating a rock god on one leg, while I was dreaming of wispy girls with strapless gowns playing Debussy. Sal was still grinning, though, and talking.

“The local church, where we had the service, has got a bloody brilliant vicar, and they have an LGBT group based there, and every year they do a sort of barn dance thing, live band and that. Just a thought…”

“Folk music? Bit tumpty-tumpty simple stuff, isn’t it?”

Husband and wife looked at each other, and burst into laughter. Stewart stopped first.

“Oh, you are in for such a shock, Price! Seriously, really seriously, I am assuming you are happy to talk here, in front of everyone?”

I cast an eye over Kate and Ginny. “What, in front of my family? Of course”

“Then my missus here has a plan of action. She continues a formal therapy strategy, while I keep an ear ready if you just need to talk, you know, about those sort of things. The other sort of stuff, if you feel you need to, we have a guy called Jerry, who runs the support group. Just an idea, but Sal thought that it would show you that you are far from alone in this.”

Sally chuckled. “And you better get a lot of practice in if you want to get up to the necessary standard”

Kate raised a finger. “She does play folk music, I’ve heard her.”

I harrumphed. “Them’s not folk tunes, they are Welsh traditional devotional music! You cannot compare Myfanwy with Nellie the Elephant!”

Sally had a truly evil look on her face. “Ooooh, you are in for SUCH a shock!”

CHAPTER 16
We retired to the easy chairs and sofa, Kate curling up in Ginny’s lap, with some rather nice coffee brought by the McDuffs.

I had noticed that all evening, except when my surname was used, I was Annie, and I had an odd paranoid moment where I imagined they were trying to turn me into someone I wasn’t. I realised, of course, that it was simply that they had decided to talk to me directly. It was an odd feeling, as I knew exactly what I looked like and hearing the name I had yearned for was bittersweet. I heard it, and my heart leapt, and my stomach churned. The word said so much that I could only dream of. There are no genies in lamps, no magic spells, no tiny robots. Earlier in my life I might have been able to look as I felt, but Dad had beaten that chance out of me. I did wonder, at times, how he might have behaved if my brother had survived to come home as Dad’s proxy warrior, but that was as much of a fantasy as my day dream.

“Oy!”

Ginny had apparently been talking to me for some time, but I had drifted away from the room, from my friends. I realised I was already including the McDuffs in that term, which choked me up for an instant. There was life in these four, life and love, and though I blessed whatever it was that had brought me such people I knew I could never live as they did. It was just like window-shopping had been: all the temptations and no chance ever to buy into their world.

“Are you falling asleep, Price, on THIS coffee?”

“No, Gin, just thinking”

“About?”

“Stuff. Life.”

“Well, share some of it?”

“Not tonight, love, aye? Just a bit too heavy for a nice evening like this one is”

Sally nodded. “We have another session due next week, and I have a few things I would like to talk over. I’ll have a word with my friend, too, and get you some sheet music for that thing I mentioned.”

Kate interrupted. “And don’t forget the Friday night ride and party!”

She gave a little wriggle into Ginny’s comfortable embrace. “Price….you are flying solo tonight, but we are still here for you”

Sally and her husband said good night a little later, and I left the girls to settle into the other bedroom. Tabitha was waiting for me, in another new night dress, a present from Kate, and after I had done my teeth I put on my own and settled down in a bed suddenly much larger than I was used to. I pulled her to me, my oldest friend, and tried to settle down to my day dream of magical change, realising that the dream was almost as old a friend as she was.

From the green glow of the bedside clock, it was about three when Melanie woke me. It was worse now, as I knew her name. Ginny was by the bed as I came to sitting bolt upright, Kate coming in with a damp cloth to wipe down the sweat that was all over my face. I picked up Tabby and held her to me, and without any warning from my own body I burst into tears. Wordlessly, the taller girl slipped under the covers and held me to her, while the smaller muttered “Good job we got that shag in…” and got in on the other side to do the same.

I slept the rest of that night with my three best girls.

Work came round again, and I started a run of shifts that would finish just early enough to let me get up to London for the Friday ride. It was a bit of a meat-processing place for those few days, with more than normal numbers of drink drivers, and a small outbreak of Faginism run by a sweet little old lady with the vocabulary of a squaddie.

“Do you understand what this Officer has said?”

“Don’t fuck me about, you fat cunt, just get my fucking brief down here, and let me have a fag!”

Fuck you too. “Sorry, it’s a non-smoking building, by law, and we’re a bit partial to the rule of law here. Search and property, please”

Why does anyone need to carry three mobile phones? We had three of her runners in as well, the youngest only nine, and I had to chivvy Social Services up for the Appropriate Adult before I could go any further with them. That took time, of course.

“Three? Why three? Can’t you just put them in one room and use just the one adult?”

Oh, don’t be so thick. It was one of those shifts where you feel more antipathy for those allegedly on your own side than for the scrotes. Bloody typical. Kate was off now, working on the new house while Ginny stayed with me and commuted by train and folding bike, and I felt dreadfully guilty about the way I was keeping them apart. I looked at Stewie’s number a couple of times, but held off from calling him. Not just yet, not till I had a clearer idea of where I was going.

That was the issue. I was definitely at a remove from the constant refrain that my mind had dinned into me over the last few years, the assumption that nothing was worth doing because I wouldn’t be around to do it, but there was nothing to replace it as a focus, which is a truly inappropriate word. What was I doing? Ginny had made me get rid of my beard as well as a steadily increasing proportion of my body mass, but just as I had thought when we had done our dress ‘shopping’, if she was looking for me to start any form of ‘transition’, then she was absolutely up the wrong tree.

The working week was finally drawing to a close, as Thursday’s late shift wound down. The next evening I would be going straight from work to the station and up to Victoria for the ride back down to the coast. Jim was on shift that evening.

“Adam, a word?”

I popped round to his little cubicle of an office, and found another sergeant there, someone I didn’t recognise.

“Adam, this is Dennis Armstrong, just moved into the area on transfer. I’m giving him a few shifts with you to get the feel of the station before he joins a relief. Dennis, Adam Price”

He stood, about six two or three, and we shook hands. “Where from, Dennis?”

“Northumbria, Adam. Northumberland itself; I was at Cramlington for a while, then Fenham in the toon. Had a few problems up there, and decided to see if I could see a bit more of the country, like.”

He had an accent, definitely a geordie, and it was like warm butter. The voice was baritone, not quite bass, and his handshake was strong and dry. Dark hair, dark eyes and a smile that showed a dimple each side as he flashed his teeth….what the hell? I remembered that comment from Sally after my joke about Elvis, and realised that I was in a dangerous, dangerous place right then.

“Why not the Met?”

“That bunch of arseholes? Never in a million years, Adam! I wouldn’t pi–no, let’s just say that I have standards”

Jim was grinning happily. “Ah, sweet music to my ears! Den, Adam here has a lot to show you, and it’s been a busy week so far so there should be plenty for you to play with.”

We walked out to the Custody desk, and I made the round of introductions of the civvy support staff, that smile and a handshake for each one. We did have some trade that evening, including one street fighter whom Kirsty had gassed, and I was conscious of Dennis, Den, standing close behind me as I said the words and made the calls. Once we were sorted with the fighter, I introduced Den to Kirsty.

“Dennis Armstrong, meet Kirsty Ellis. Known, bloody obviously, as Ruth”

“Den!”

I swear she was salivating. Den looked a little puzzled, and asked “Why Ruth?”

Kirsty grinned. “Ruth Ellis. Last woman in Britain to be bloody well hung….”

Oh you teasing bitch! All of the flirting was there, from the eyes to the awful punning hint, but Den seemed to be ignoring her, or rather missing the whole by-play. Kirsty herself looked a little miffed, but gave us a smile before shooting off to finish her pocketbook entry and start the computer work. As soon as she was out of sight, Den turned to me.

“That is the first time in my life a woman has undressed me with her eyes. Fuck me…”

Yes please, I thought, and then clamped that down as tight as I could. That night, after work, I lay between Tabitha and a snoring Ginny and weighed it all up. It was obvious; whichever deity existed was having a great laugh with a truly nasty practical joke.

CHAPTER 17
I had already packed the necessaries for work the next day into my locker, so I was able to make do with just the Barley, the small saddle bag from Carradice that would give me enough space for what I needed for the night ride.

Ginny, being Ginny, was taking her full-sized bag on Ladyboy and humping enough spare calories to put all of my lost weight back on in one ride. She and Kate would meet me at Victoria and head up to Hyde Park Corner. I spent the morning before work looking at some music she had left me.

Just as I had expected, it was all tumpty-tumpty stuff, heavy on the rhythm, and just like Mozart, in the sense that he only ever wrote half of the piece that you played. Lots of double bar lines meant ‘do this bit over again’, so each minute written became two minutes played.

I sat Tabitha on a chair, in one of her new Summer dresses from Sally, and played for about an hour. The stuff was predictable as hell, although one book of tunes had some awkward intervals, but it was fun and passed an hour or so nicely before I tackled the salad left by Ginny for me. On with the lycra, load up the Barley with bananas and cereal bars, waterproof and map, and off to work.

Den was in at almost the same moment, and I met him in the locker room as he peeled off his own lycra. Don’t stare, Price, just us blokes here.

“Hi, butt, didn’t know you rode as well!”

“Yeah, got a Van Nick, one of the titanium ones”

“Don’t tell me…but which version of the joke are you using? Ginny calls hers Ladyboy”

Den laughed. “Ting-Tong, of course”

There is a comedy show called Little Britain, in which Matt Lucas plays a mail order Thai bride called Ting-Tong, who isn’t quite what it says on the packaging. For some reason, nearly everyone I knew who had a Ti bike made a reference to something like that. Why not tom yum, or pad thai, or any of the other food references? Even Ginny….Den spoke, the soft accent sweet.

“Ginny? Girlfriend?”

“Housemate at the moment, She and her girlfriend are doing a housewarming tomorrow morning. Speaking of which, where are you staying at the moment?”

“In a B and B till I can find a flat, out by Goff’s Manor. There’s a pub and a Mormon Tabernacle, so that’s me sorted for all eventualities”

“Bugger me, Den, you’re not….?”

“Na, I came down here for the Scientology”

All of that absolutely po-faced until he couldn’t hold it any more and burst into laughter.

“Adam, marra, I can’t do that, I corpse every time. Fucking mad buggers, all of them. Just leave me the pub and I’ll be happy, though the beer could be better”

“Don’t even think about an argument about southern beer, I’m Welsh!”

I kept my eyes away from him as I bustled to get my uniform on. I had the bag full of bananas and other stuff ready for the fridge, and Den raised an eyebrow.

“It’s for the housewarming. Their place is in Brighton, tonight’s the Friday Night Ride to the Coast and we’re doing that and then having a sort of sleepover”

My tongue took over as my mind screamed for it to show some common sense, but it was no use.

“You’ve got the bike, and you’re shadowing me according to Jim, so why not come along?”

Fuck, shit and bugger. Did I have a death wish or what? Before I could take it back, he was nodding.

“Aye, sounds like a good night out for me. I’d just be grabbing last orders and a kebab otherwise….if I pop out later, I can get some carbs.”

Trapped. Never mind, I would be in company. Keep it distant. I rang Ginny that afternoon and explained we might have an extra. He was a member of the Cyclists’ Touring Club already, so that covered the event insurance, but there was a limit on numbers and the organiser would have to agree.

“I’ll ring the great man, Price, and get back to you. What is it you aren’t telling me?”

“Oh, just that I had a go at your tunes this morning, piece of piss.”

“Yeah, right, and that was a pig on final approach to the fucking airport. I’ll call you back about the new bloke, OK? See you at Vic!”

Good to his word, Den had loaded up with a variety of foodstuffs for the ride, including something I remembered dimly from the days pre-Ginny: chocolate. I looked at it and my mouth flooded. No. Be good. I still looked like shit, but I was getting there, two stone gone now, and to fall back now into old habits would kill me, and disappoint Ginny. I realised that that consideration was now of paramount importance n my life. Ginny was in control, as she was with her clients, and I had surrendered. The days of plotting to ease her out of my life were receding, just like the urge to ease myself out. The healthier she got me, the more Sally lit up my dark corners, the easier each day became.

It turned out to be an uneventful shift, apart from some more flirting from Ruth, to which Dennis seemed to respond a little. Was he interested, or was he playing along with her to keep her happy without risking the sexual harassment charge that work carries today for those who get a little too playful. I teased him myself.

“She wants your body, Sergeant Armstrong”

“Under other circumstances I wouldn’t say no…she has a way about her”

“She just wants a way about you, Den! Our Ruth is a determined sort. You will be assimilated!”

He laughed. “So resistance is useless?”

“Yup. You could do a lot worse, if you survive the encounter”

“Drained of my precious bodily fluids, like?”

“Oh aye, butt, absolutely dry”

“Ah, I’ll wait until I’m sat at the table before I think of anything like that. Early days, new station”

“Makes sense…now, we’ll get shut up here, and off to the station, aye?”

Back to the locker room, strip and change, and look away. Food collected from the fridge (one banana missing, the thieving bastards) and the short ride to the station before we found our places on the train North. I tried to pump Den a little.

“What was it brought you down here, butt?”

“Ah, Adam, I had a little bother in the old place. Not really the time to talk through it, just like Ruth there, want to get my self settled first, find my feet, OK?”

Whatever it had been was not ‘nothing’. Den had his own tells, a tightening of the jaw when he thought about it. I wondered if it was something sexual, from the way he danced clear of Ruth, and then it struck me. I leant forward to keep it as quiet as I could.

“The Cuthberts?”

He looked at me sharply. “I suppose it should be obvious, really. Aye, those cunts.”

“Were you at all…sorry, Den, but I have to ask”

“No, Adam, I wasn’t involved, implicated, rotten, bent, on the take, I was the fucking whistleblower, OK? Drop the subject, please.”

He was looking out of the window as we flashed over the M25. It had been a nasty case, where a local crime family seemed to have been more involved in the take-home pay of a number of coppers than their actual employers. In fact, the Cuthberts in effect HAD been their employers. Three coppers in prison as a result, several sudden resignations and a couple of retirements on medical grounds. And the ranks would have closed, leaving the boy who shouted wolf outside in the cold. Poor bugger. I reached across and put my hand on his without thinking.

“Fucking well done, mate”

He left his hand there, and stared at me again. I didn’t mind looking at him, not at all, but he was just like Stewart and Sally. He was looking into me.

“And what happened to you, Adam?”

I took my hand back as casually as I could. “I was on traffic, bikes, for years. South Wales. I had, I was at, a few too many, you know….bags and shovels. Came over here, and then had a really, really nasty one and, well, I have a place and I fit there, and it saves losing my job.

“Station’s been good to me. My boss is ex-traffic, and I think he really, really understands it, what it does to you.”

I trailed off for a bit, then smiled.

“Funny thing is, I am seeing a great trick cyclist at the moment. That nasty one, that last one, was one of hers, and the poor girl was a mate of her husband’s. They’d served together n the Marines”

A little light went on behind his eyes. “Something Stevens. Sex change girl! I remember reading about it in the papers. What a bunch of cunts they were!”

Speeding cars, Darkness. Sobbing and retching. I felt myself start to shake, and Den suddenly announced “Clapham! Not far now. Where are we having the cake stop?”

Subject changed, neatly if abruptly. He did understand.

CHAPTER 18
Off at Victoria and up the platform to the ticket barrier, surrounded by girls in minimalist dresses and shoes that looked like egg slicers.

It was Friday night in the big city, but to be honest they all looked like fourteen-year-olds to me. We pushed the bikes out to just by the paper shop, and there were several people waiting including Kate and Ginny.

“Adam darling! Mwah!”

Etc, etc. John and Fee were there, and Eric, and others, and after a short ride up to Hyde Park Corner I made the introductions properly.

“Dennis here is just starting work with me, moved down from Up North where they talk even more oddly than you heathen Saxons. Dennis, Eric, who is bound for hell as he has succumbed to the sin of plucking his banjo string, John and Fee who are arsonists and poi-fiddlers, and of course Kate and Ginny, who may allow you some carpet space if you ask very, very nicely. Kate, he has the down-payment, I already know he has chocolate in his bag”

I could see Den weighing up the group’s dynamics, but we were soon called to order by the ride leader for the safety talk. Tail end Charlies for rescue, junction marshals for directions, a stop at the revamped airport coffee-shop for refreshments, the promise of a full English at the seafront on arrival. There were around 100 riders in total, many of whom I knew, and as we finally set off in a long trail of lights towards South London I began the old process of asking myself why I had tried to run away from all of that. There were real friends here.

I think that was a Rubicon for me, that Saturday morning in London. I found myself wanting to live, for the first time in years, not just accepting that I was alive. I was with people who loved me, and we were doing something special together, something that defined a large part of me. I am a police sergeant, surely about as conformist as anyone could be assumed by the wider world to be, and yet I was riding around sixty miles through the night with a mixture of lesbians, gay men, fire-jugglers, environmental activists and even bloody banjo players, simply because I wanted to.

It struck me, then. Despite all of my problems, life was not only better than non-life, it was actually, at that moment, GOOD. Ginny eased alongside me on Ladyboy.

“Do I see a smile on your face, Price?”

“FUCK OFF AND GET A FUCKING JOB YOU WANKERS!”

Taxi-drivers….I smiled back at her. “What does that look like?”

She grinned, and sped past to catch up with her lover as Dennis took her place.

“What’s the score with her then, pal?”

“Best friend I’ve got, butt”

“Strong girl. Take it she’s on the other bus, like”

“Absolutely, Den. Her other half’s the doctor on the soot bike. Ginny’s been staying with me for a while, but they’ve got their house and dungeon sorted now”

“Dungeon?”

“Don’t ask. Very, very long-running in-joke.”

“She absolutely on the other bus, then? You not tempted?”

“No, she’s definitely completely non-straight”

And as I looked at him I was realising which bus I was on, and it was terrifying. He was still talking, though.

“Pity, she’s just my type. Big, strong girls do it for me.”

“What about Ruth?”

“Well, I would, if it sort of came along, like, the opportunity, but….well, she’s too short, and too heavy in the chest, and she’s a constable in my new station, and…”

I understood that bit, the avoidance of relationships between different ranks, but there was more. Dennis was being a bit loud in his heterosexuality, and I suspected it might be aimed at me. I had, after all, stupidly taken his hand on the train.

We kept chatting, though, as we climbed after Purley to the top of Reigate Hill, ready for the mad plummet to the railway crossing, and the usual suspects on their tandem were already making their way to the front of the ride, their brains squishing at the roadside as they abandoned them ready for the descent. They had already done it at 55mph, and were now looking to break 60. Barking mad.

I was nowhere near as fast, and we reassembled by the ballerina before setting off again past the unfortunate junction of White Knobs and Cockshot Hill and easier ground towards Lonesome Lane and Horley, riding in the utter darkness of unlit country lanes towards the orange glow of the airport ahead. We were spared the usual vomiting party people for once, and soon we were stacking the bikes by the coffee shop in the glare of a 24 hour airport. Sally was there, to my surprise, and she gave me a hug as I introduced Den and a few of my friends she hadn’t met. And then, within three minutes of arrival, a man in a badly made corporate suit was walking over towards us. The group leader went over to him, and offered his hand, which was ignored.

“What business do you have in the airport?”

“Refreshments, of course”

“People are only allowed here if they have business in here”

“We have business, the business of coffee and cake. You also advertise locally for people to come here to do their shopping.”

“Not your sort”

“What sort is that?”

“Layabouts”

“Well, we are clearly not laying about as we are cycling, and this concourse is actually part of the National Cycle Network. As for business, shall we ask the manager of the café here whether he wants the business and money of over 100 people at two thirty in the morning?”

“I have called the police; here they come”

“Hiya Ruth!”

“Sarge! Sergeant Armstrong as well, isn’t it? What you up to?”

“Ginny and Kate’s house warming, and a ride down to the coast to get there. Been fun so far”

The security drone was looking puzzled. “You know these people?”

Ruth clicked, very quickly. “Yeah, they’re two of my sergeants down at the nick. What’s the problem?”

I added my two penn’orth. “And the rest of the layabouts…that one that was talking to you is an architect, that one’s a doctor, that one there is another doctor, want me to carry on? What exactly is the problem? Tell you what, you go away and have a chat with my constable here, and after she has explained how the law works you can come and have a chat with me if you need to. In the meantime, we will be eating and drinking and paying your concessionaire several hundred pounds, and then continuing on”

He did as I suggested, and eventually stalked off looking extremely unhappy. Ginny whispered into my ear “I do like a dominant girl, Annie. Pity you are on the wrong bus”

I stared at her, words failing me. She gave me a little squeeze.

“Absolutely smitten, aren’t you? Wind your neck in a bit, love, before you get hurt. You don’t know this guy, and he hasn’t met you yet, so be careful. Now, someone for you to meet”

She led me over to where Sally and Kate were sitting, Kate up to her cheeks in a very large chocolate muffin, and introduced me to another girl sat with them. She looked quite tall, red hair tied back, raw-boned and very fit in appearance. She was in what I still thought of as Customs uniform, though it now said UK Border Agency. Ginny did the honours.

“Adam, this is Steph, another sheepshagger from out your way. Steph, don’t bother, he doesn’t. Stick to English. Adam, Steph is the fiddler who sent you the music stuff”

She looked at me with a smile of recognition.

“You’re the flautist, then”

“Nope. I’m with James Galway on that, I’m a flutist. Never played a flaute in my life”

Kate was clear of her chocolate for an instant. “Adam was talking about simple tunes, all tumpty-tumpty piece of piss stuff”

Sally snorted, and Steph just smiled. “Oh, it has its moments. What it is, my family and I do an annual thing in connection with our friends in a local church. Not religious, just they have the space and the attitude, and, really, the generosity of spirit. It’s a dance thing, you know, barn dance stuff. Forget about cowboy hats and that, just traditional British stuff. We get a caller in, but we like to do as much of the actual sound ourselves as we can”

“What do you have?”

Den had joined us as we talked, and I had to control an urge to pat his knee in welcome. Ginny was absolutely right. Steph laid out the band.

“We usually run with a mix of me leading on the fiddle, with either an octave mandolin or bouzouki for rhythm, plus a squeezebox and a bodhran”

“A what?”

“One of those sideways Irish drums.”

“Ah, yes. Just a thought….Gin, could you give Eric a shout? Eric is one of the spawn of Satan”

Steph’s eyes lit up. “Da lang dang dang dan dang dan dang?”

“Oh yes”

I realised I liked this girl, we had hit the same wavelength almost without words.

“Eric, Steph here is a musician. Steph, Eric here plays the banjo”

“Bastard”

“Tosser. Eric, this young lady wishes to proposition you”

“Ooh, and before breakfast too!”

Steph was chuckling. “Duw, and I thought my family were bad! Eric, would you be up to playing in a dance band? We have an annual charity thing, where we have a barn dance and a dinner, that sort of thing. I can let you have a set of tunes if you want.”

“No need. Just give me key and time signature”

I chipped in. “Or don’t, sounds just the same”

“Fuck off, Price. Steph, is it? Steph, what’s the charity thing about?”

“Started after the death of a transsexual girl…Adam, you OK?”

It all pulled together, like a net around me. I took a few breaths, and felt Den’s hand on my shoulder. I sighed.

“Sorry, Steph, I was a bit involved in that one.”

“Ah…Eric, we have an outreach centre for young people, anyone really, who has what you could call issues, and this is a fundraiser as well as a celebration. If you would rather not be associated with it, I understand”

“Don’t be daft. Want me to bring my ukulele as well?”

Six voices in unison said “NO!”

CHAPTER 19
Once refuelled, we set off for the lumpier part of the ride, and it was the drag by Turner’s Hill that stretched the group out. We gathered once more at the crossroads before some rolling stuff took us to a little cluster of greenhouses.

The sky was paling, and mist was closing in around us. The leader gave his little speech again, about gathering at the top of the next hill, the infamous one that had surprised some Tour de France riders a few years before.

“We gather together at the top, and there we shall pay homage to those who summit in good style. I f descending for another go, remember to do it with caution as others will still be on the way up. On the other hand, the descent to Brighton not actually will be rapid, and there is a speed camera, whose activation remains the goal of hardened and proud Friday Nighters. Onwards and upwards, and then downwards for breakfast”

Ginny had a word with him, explaining our own plans, and people were off. Ditchling Beacon is a steep little bastard, but it has false summits, and there was no way I did it in style, but it got done. Dennis passed me three times, once downwards, the sod, but Ginny just rode steadily up with me and talked as if there was nothing going on beyond a gentle training ride.

“What do you think of Steph?”

“I….liked…her…she’s…got…a…sense…of…hum…our”

“You’re getting there, Price! Fitness coming back. No fry up, though, not even today. We’ll peel off after the camera”

Finally, after the horse sign, I topped out, cameras flashing away and scattered cloud pink above a carpet of mist as the sun rose. The great man was into his stride again, as soon as the tail-enders had brought up the last of his flock.

“Well done, and stylishly, every Man and Woman Friday. Next month we adjourn to the pearl of Essex, Southend on Sea, by way of Bread and of Cheese, but for now it is a descent, as leisurely as you desire, and breakfast on Madeira!”

Ginny led us off after the speed camera, which didn’t flash for us, and eleven bodies arrived at their new house in varying states of tiredness. Fritz and Ffenela, their cats, were doing the usual feline display as we clattered in after stowing the bikes. Mums, we haven’t been fed for at least a month and you have neglected us most cruelly. Scratching, headbutting and general pampering may redress this for today, but we have long memories. As Kate sorted the cats, Ginny started pulling stuff out of their fridge as the kettle started to warm up. Samosas, couscous, cake, bananas, more cake, a variety of odd vegetable stew things. It was an odd meal, people shovelling the food in as they had odd conversations that stopped and started abruptly as they began to nod off and then woke with a jerk of the head. Eventually, it got too much, and the girls started to hand out mats, blankets, duvets and so on as people found chairs and odd bits of floor to curl up on.

An odd housewarming, where the celebration, as such, had been the ride down rather than in the house itself. I dozed off on a camping mat under a spare duvet as others snored and rustled around me, and savoured that feeling I had had, at the very beginning of the ride, at the airport, that life was there to be taken.

The girls woke us all up around noon, so we didn’t end up wide awake for Saturday night. Lunch was porridge….I kid you not. People drifted steadily away as the day moved on, until it was just Dennis and myself with the girls. Kate was curled up again on her woman’s lap, wrapped in a huge dressing gown.

“You two riding back, then?”

I snorted. “Dunno about the king of the mountains here, but I am taking the train. Then it’s housework, as I think my maid is on her day off”

“Weekend, Price!”

We said our goodbyes at the back door, cats twining around our feet, before Den and I clipped in and rode through the busy Saturday crowds to the station, just catching a Three Bridges train before it pulled out. He was thoughtful.

“Such a pity….she’s just my sort”

“What, Ginny? Apart from being gay, that is!”

He grinned, and I had to clamp down again.

“What about this dance thing then, Adam? You really up for it?”

“Oh yes, though I am guessing there is a stitch up somewhere. Far too many knowing looks and little grins for my liking. What about you? You dance?”

I chuckled a little, just to myself, asking a man to dance... Den grinned once more.

“Oh yes, best sort, get to dance properly with lasses! Never could get into that solo shaking thing”

“Do you play?”

“Can’t even sing, pal. I dance OK, but music is something I listen to done by other people. Hang on, we’re coming up to ours. Fancy a pint tonight?”

“Er, no, I can’t”

H gave me another of those steady looks, and I saw ideas scrolling though his head. As we pushed the bikes along the platform he murmured “You dry now?”

I laughed quietly. “Butt, wrong end of stick! I am losing weight, not recovering from being an alcy. Ginny would kill me if she knew I was round a pub”

“Perhaps I don’t fancy her, then if she keeps a man away from his ale! Cruel and unnatural, as the yanks would say”

“Cruel and unusual, I think”

“Na, marra, unnatural, women keeping men away from beer is far from unusual”

I liked this man, his openness and sense of humour, and I had to keep reminding myself of what I was to him rather than react as I felt I wanted him to be. Ginny’s voice muttered away in the back of my mind. Be careful.

“Well, the pubs in town are a mix. There’s a couple of half decent ones, including a Wetherspoon’s place, on the old High Street, but there are also a lot of tart bars and cattle markets.”

“All fanny pelmets and tart fuel?”

“Exactly. Good tapas bar up the road, though”

“Ye gods, lad, you spend too much time with women! What’s wrong with a good curry?”

“Oil and fat and rice, Den. Do not tempt me, please. This is hard enough work as it is!”

“How much weight have you lost so far, Adam?”

I sighed. “Best part of three stone, butt, and it would go back on just as quick”

“Well, I shall have a pint or three for you, then. And a curry”

We were at the station entrance, and he gave me a quick hand shake before we went our opposite ways, leaving me more confused than ever.

I didn’t see him till we were back at work, after Ginny had moved back in. The nightmares had been gentle with me, and she noticed the first night. In the morning, she started to badger me gently.

“You’re past the tipping point now, aren’t you? Life is for living, and all that”

“Guilty as charged, girl” I smiled. “Realised on the ride. There’s just too much out there for me to just throw it away.”

“And what are you going to do, Annie?”

That name pulled at me. “What do you mean?”

Ginny leant forward. “I don’t want to tread on Sally’s toes, so I have given her a ring and she’s on her way round. I have questions I want an answer to, but I don’t want to fuck you up by asking them. You crossed that point, I need to know where I have to be next for you. The thing about being alive, mate, is that life brings changes. I want an idea of what they might be.”

She got up to answer the door, and Sally came into the living room.

“Bit unorthodox, isn’t it, coming round like this?”

“Ah, I am flexible, Annie, and funnily enough I do actually care what happens to my patients. So speak. Dennis.”

Fuck me, I was blushing. Sally nodded.

“Sexier than Elvis? OK, that’s that one answered. You don’t mind Ginny being here? No? OK.”

She turned to Ginny. “You know how I take it, wench”

Ginny bobbed. “Yes’m” and scurried off to the kitchen giggling. Sal turned back to me.

“We have been working together for a while now, Annie, and I think we are quite clear on where we stand. Here’s the short version. GID. It comes with various names these days, that seem to change as fashion goes and comes, but I know what I mean. GID and PTSD. The more we have spoken together, the more see that the first is at least partly to blame for the second. We each have a reservoir of courage, a breaking point, and if you already have the first to fight against, the second gets a head start.

“So, I am at a crux here, Annie. You are, absolutely and clearly, what people call a transsexual. Thanks Ginny, we are just getting to the meat, good timing”

She sipped the tea Ginny had given her.

“Annie, you have a decision to make here. I will not attempt to influence you, merely spell out your options, OK?”

I had a suspicion as to where she was heading.

“The complication, now, is what caused Ginny to call me over. Your sexuality. The reason I am concerned is because it is the sort of complication that gets girls like you killed. I do not want another death, Melanie was almost more than I could take, and she was gay. You are not, as far as we can see. We need to sort out your options”

I looked down at my knees, past what had been a belly to die for, past where the unwanted deformity lay in my trousers. “What options could someone like me possibly have, beyond the one I am living and the one I nearly chose?”

Ginny, who had kept quiet up till then, reached out and took my hands in hers.

“Transition, love. Become yourself”

That set me laughing, and the laughter turned to tears, and as I wiped my face with the tissue Ginny handed me I looked at the other two women.

‘Other two women’. Oh fuck.

“Ladies, how the fucking hell do you expect me to pass muster as a fucking woman? I am a copper and was a rugby player, for fuck’s sake. I could never, ever be a woman”

Sally cocked her head slightly to the left.

“Firstly, you ARE a woman, I have just told you that. What you do about it is up to you. Secondly, you are young enough to adapt quite well, and thirdly you work in an area with some quite spectacular protection in place for people like you. Do you think Steph found it easy?”

Bloody hell….

CHAPTER 20
I should have seen that one coming, I really should. I knew, after all, what Sal specialised in, and with hindsight Steph had been just a little too straight, a little too hard edged. She covered it up well, and everything about her shouted ‘woman’.

“So Steph’s…”

“Like you? Oh yes. Just started a little earlier. Has had her share of problems, but her husband and in-laws have been wonderful to her. Look, I told her I had another patient, I hadn’t told her it was you, but she read you as soon as she saw you. Her first words after you left were ‘what’s her name?’ and then she offered to help. You really have no idea at all how lucky you are.”

“So you didn’t tell her?”

“No, as I said, she spotted you for herself. That is one of the things that are worrying me, Annie, that at the moment it is only people like me, or others like yourself, who are seeing you, but every time you relax, every time you get happy in public, I see you start to show round the edges. Tell me, have you started touching people?”

“Er…yeah”

“Where?”

Shit. “I put my hand on his…”

“His what?”

“Hand. On the train coming up to Victoria”

Ginny murmured ‘fuck’ and Sally shook her head. “He is likely to punch you unless he is a very unusual man, and I suspect one of his punches would be rather unpleasantly forceful. I am not going to set you rules or targets, but you really, really need to decide where you want your life to go. I am not here to tell you, just listen and advise. I will tell you one thing, though. If you decide to go back to what you were before Ginny dragged you out, I am walking away.

“Annie, I don’t deal with slow suicides. Either piss or get off the pot. Do it clean, so we can get the mourning over, or don’t do it at all. I am not losing another patient. Got that?”

She was breathing hard at that point, but she kept staring at me, her eyes unblinking.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Make some sort of decision. Take control of your life”

“Yes, but what? You want me to start dressing up?” Again?

“You are sending echoes again, Annie. No, drop that idea. We aren’t talking about ‘dressing up’ or wearing knickers to work, we are asking which way you want your life to go. The rules on that are straightforward: before you get any go-ahead to change your status, you have to live properly for at least a year. The dressing up bit is more of a badge, a declaration, for those purposes. Got me?”

“Shit, Sal, you really are talking about me going for it, aren’t you?”

“And you don’t want to?”

Yes. Oh yes. “I’m not at all sure about that. I have real doubts I can do anything like that.”

“Well, today is not the day for that decision. We have another proper session in three days, yeah? That is when we should do some serious talking, not now. All I wanted to do today was stop you putting yourself in harm’s way”

She fumbled in her pocket and brought out a business card.

“Here, Steph sent this for you. It’s a hair removal place she used, says they are very understanding. And there’s a band session in two days’ time if you want to have a go with the rest of them”

She slung her handbag as she stood up. “I will see you in three days. Steph’s number is on the back of the card; give her a ring. And remember: keep yourself on ‘pause/think’ before you do anything”

The storm that had hit my life was off out the door on a pair of kitten heels as Ginny smirked. I looked at my knees again.

“Not a word. This is a hard thing to face. What I need now is some room to think, OK, and I don’t want my decisions based on the last thing said to me.”

Ginny took my hands from my lap.

“Annie, love, you know what you are. I think you always have. It’s just, well, that we know now. Look, whatever you do, just remember, we are all here and we will not be going away, even though you tried fucking hard to get rid of us all. Remember what I said, about cutting away your life till it was gone? That’s over now. We are just leaving you to decide what your life will be. Your choice, your call. Now, you have shirts to iron”

“Why don’t you do the ironing?”

“I may be married, Price, but it ain’t to you!”

Work was thankfully quiet for the next two days. I concentrated on getting through the shifts without letting any more of me leak around the edges, and Den filled me in on how good the curry had been and how dreadful some of the beer, with a spicing of acerbic comments about yoof fashions in Crawley. He made one particularly rude remark about a badly packed kebab that had me snorting my tea, before changing the subject. We were in the back office having a few minutes of admin when he dropped the bombshell.

“You aren’t really into lasses, are you, pal?”

Shit. “What do you mean, Den?”

“I mean I don’t know what I mean, if you see what I mean”

He grinned at that, and then turned serious.

“You don’t look at girls the way I do. Look at Ruth. You say ‘a bit heavy in the chest for her height’ while every other bloke is going ‘wibble’. Well, you are being a good mate to me, Adam, so I just thought I better say that I don’t have a thing for lads. Now that’s said, we can get on with being mates, all right?”

“You think I’m gay?”

“Well, you give off all the signals. What was that with my hand on the train?”

“Ah, Den, that’s just spending all my time with the girls, you sort of forget it goes differently with blokes, aye?”

I pulled my control together. “Was it a problem?”

“No, Adam, not really. I just thought I better set out my stall, like. Clear the air. Now, you going to this band thing tomorrow?”

“Yes. They are doing drinks and munchies, so should be fun.”

“Want some company?”

“In what way, Den?”

He sighed. “I don’t know what you are, Adam Price, but I am going to be working with you for the foreseeable future. I think seeing you in the wild some more will be better than watching you at work. I’ve seen enough of you to know that you are one of the good’uns, and after what happened up North I get a little protective. Deal?”

“Deal, sort of. Ah Den….no, forget it for now. Tell you some time”

Pause/think.

The next day e cleared the early shift crap of a couple of remands and a bail-back away before changing for the run up to the little village where Steph lived. The route took us right under the airport along part of the same cycle lanes we had ridden to get to Brighton, then off past a big supermarket and then quiet country roads to what turned out to be a surprisingly large house in its own little copse of trees. As we crunched up the drive in our cleats, the front door opened on a wiry, fit looking man with short dark hair.

“Hello, which one of you is Adam?”

“That’s me, this is Dennis, a colleague who heard the words ‘free food’”

“Geoff Woodruff, Steph’s other half. Come on round the back and we’ll lock up the bikes”

He led us to a rather solid-looking shed, which revealed one hell of a lot of bikes and a seriously good workstand by a large toolbox. I clocked the sticker on one of the bikes….PBP. I showed it to my friend.

“Den, whatever you do, don’t try and outride this bloke. He’s a bit good”

“Ah, that was years ago. I just do the SRs each year now”

Don’t you hate it when someone uses the word ‘just’ when talking about some seriously hard event? There didn’t seem to be any false modesty, though. He just seemed to be an open, what you see is what you get sort of man. He took us into the conservatory where a number of people were sitting or standing around, including an older couple and a girl who was either in her late teens or very early twenties, and the introductions went by in a blur. The only ones that stuck in my head were Steph and Geoff, and of course Eric, who I was supposed to know already. Now, however, I can say that the main offenders were Geoff’s brother Bill, his wife Jan, their daughter Kelly, and the next door neighbours the Woods.

There were several instruments lying around, plus music stands and the sheets that went with them, and the large table in the centre of the room was laden with covered dishes. Steph was in some green dress thing that left no doubt as to her gender, and as I watched her family around her there wasn’t a hint of anything beyond the banal and ordinary. That did things to my hopes. I didn’t want beauty, I didn’t want Hollywood’s idea of romance, I just wanted a normal life, and she seemed to have it. Could I get there, ever? Steph gave me a hug and whispered to me.

“Be very welcome, Annie”

Then, in a louder voice. “Naomi, can you be mother? I take it you both want tea, or Dennis is it? A beer?”

We both went “Yes please!”

Steph grinned at me. “He’s not on a diet. I have instructions about you! Now, get your axe out and let’s see what you know”

Ag well, tea it was to be. I put my flute together and checked the tuning, then started out on the old favourite, the Tull Bourrée, and the others gradually picked up their own instruments as I blew. Geoff had some skinny lute thing that he jangled along to my tune with, and Steph had a fiddle, which she rested on her knee as I played on to the overblown and heavily-tongued ‘lead break’, fingering the strings lightly and nodding. As I came to the end of the break, she played it again, her way, on the fiddle.

As I watched and listened, my flute silent in the dust of her passage, I quietly resolved to kill my doctor and two of my friends. They could have warned me!

CHAPTER 21
Steph put down her fiddle and looked at me sitting with my flute lowered.

“What?”

The chuckles started with her brother in law and gradually spread around the room while she looked just a little puzzled, a crease between her eyebrows. Geoff made the explanations.

“You went all hairy, love”

He looked across to me and Den. “Every now and then she gets into her own little world, sort of zones out while she plays. All you ever see of her then is the hair. Sometimes she even thinks she can dance”

She sniffed. “There are spare beds, Woodruff”

“Yes, my dearest sweet, but our family has already filled them”

There was more, but they were so obviously a double act it hurt. This was clearly one of the things Sally was praying I would see, something to give me my own hope. I was watching how things worked around them, and it was indeed remarkably unremarkable, a well-adjusted family who enjoyed taking the piss out of each other. It reminded me of some of the better reliefs I had worked on, the give and take of humour and teasing that lets you know you are part and parcel of the group, and just like my colleagues I suspected that the kidding about would turn very, very quickly into teeth and claws if any outsider pushed the wrong buttons.

Bill held up a squeezy thing.

“Right, you lot, now we have the willy waving out of the way, shall we have a look at some proper tunes? Eric, for this sort of thing we just need some rolls in three or four time, and the most common keys are D, G and A. Jan will give you the rhythm, I’ll shout the key. Adam, can you play unison with Steph? It’s almost always AABB, and two tunes for the set. First one is Salmon Tails and Jimmy Allen, then we’ll swing straight into Hindley Steel and Morpeth Rant. The latter pair have to be accented, it’s a hop-step dance, so lots of tongue, please. Jan?”

Jan had the sideways drum thing, and Kelly joined in with some miscellaneous percussion, and the first two bounced out nicely, but I really started to enjoy myself with the second two. Timing was everything, and Steph got low down so she could stare me in the eye, moving her fiddle about as my flute waved in time, and grinning past a fall of red hair. The tunes were indeed tumpty-tumpty stuff, but that simplicity suddenly took flight as her bow hand rocked and my tongue hit the tuck-oo-tuck-oo rhythm of the dance to come. I glanced across to Eric, and he was grinning like a maniac as he claw-hammered and rolled along with us.

Fuck me, this was living! The music came to an end as Bill shouted ‘out’ and I started laughing. Steph grinned at me.

“Now she understands! Music to live for, music to dance to, music to love! Adam, what do you think? Want to be in the band?”

“Let me have a think……oh gods yes! How the hell did I miss out on this stuff?”

Jan was the one who tried to put it into words. “It’s a body thing, Adam. The need to dance about, to move to it. When you see it written down, it’s simple. When you hear it played flat, it’s boring. When someone who loves it gets it rolling, well, sex is better, but not by much”

There was a joined shout from Kelly and Bill of “Mum!” and “You bitch” before the room dissolved in the laughter that seemed to be the default state. It wasn’t a question of how I had missed the music, but of how I had missed life. The whole room surged with life and happiness, and I caught both Eric and Den grinning at me.

“I don’t know what you two find do funny, neither of you will ever understand. You have to be a musician”

And on it went, and despite my constant jibes about Satan and purty mouths, it has to be said that Eric is actually rather good in his own right. I glanced over to Dennis a few times as we played and he just looked happy to be there, happy to sit and listen as the rest of us settled into the comfort of knowing the people around you can’t only keep up but can sometimes leave you behind. We broke eventually for food, and it was quite a spread. I got Steph a little way away from the others.

“Watch your pronouns, please…”

Her eyes widened a little. “Shit---sorry. I just got the impression, you know….which of them is it?”

“Fuck, do I make it that obvious?”

“Not quite, but it’s a girl thing. You do nothing but take the piss out of Eric, and you spend half your time looking at Dennis for approval. Both of those could say something”

“Steph, give me a chance, I don’t know where I stand yet, I don’t even know, you know, when, or even if”

She smiled, and it was tinged with just a hint of sadness. “I was there for quite a while, but it was more complicated. The hormones had done a lot, and it was just fear that kept me back”

“How did you handle work?”

She laughed, and this time it was a clear sound of happy memories.

“My best mate ran into me”

“What, when you were out dressed up?”

“A bit more than that, Annie, I was actually snogging Geoff at the time, and Dave goes ‘”Steve?” from right behind us. I nearly wet myself”

She sobered quickly. “Look, I know what that scheming sod McDuff is doing, but I will play along. If you ever need a chat, advice, anything, just call, OK?”

“Sally mentioned a Jerry”

“Oh, yes, he’s the little dynamo who runs the outreach group. Talks a lot of sense, but he does sort of believe in ‘I’m out and I’m proud’ so possibly not the best person to approach just yet. Later, yes.”

“You are making a lot of assumptions there, Steph. I haven’t actually made a decision yet.”

“Yes you have. You’ve come here, so you’ve decided to live. Look, I went through all that, in my case being drink and silly risk-taking. I was really going downhill, but I finally decided to take a risk, the right risk this time, and it could have been a killer, but my new family were there for me. What was more important, though, was the stuff already in place.

“Look, we do similar jobs, yeah? Same stresses in many ways, same team-bonding. There will be hiccups, but once they see who you are, that you are the same person as you were before, the same mate, they will almost certainly come round”

I sighed. “Still assuming a lot there. What if I decide not to change over? What then?”

I got another slightly sad smile. “Annie, it’s called transition, and, if you want my opinion, I think you’ve already made your mind up. You just need something to get you started. It doesn’t have to be the man of your dreams, nor a pair of killer shoes you have an urge to wear. Just the right moment, probably well away from here, just to start out.”

“But I’ll look like shit”

A careful inspection, and a long pause. “No. I don’t think you will. Look, go out in the garden and give Sal a ring. Just to make sure I am not treading on her toes. See you in a couple of minutes”

She moved off to where Dennis was surrounded by every other woman in the room, and I slipped out into the evening air, with the distant drone of planes from the airport.

“Annie! How is it going?”

“Probably just as you intended, you sneaky cow”

“Steph can talk a lot of sense, now she’s herself. I used to get a lot of self-serving cock from her before she got moving”

“Sally, there is no way I could ever look as good as her!”

“Yeah, she’s a right sod, that one, all legs and hair. I get jealous too”

“Stop taking the piss. You know what I mean, if I ever get the guts to come out I will look like the Bride of Frankenstein”

“But you’ve decided, haven’t you?”

I was silent for a while, but Sally just waited. Could I do it? With the support I already had, private life was a possibility, but work? And out on the street?

“Sally, I have, and I’m shit scared but the alternative is starting to look a lot worse. What do we have to do?”

“Right, my girl, you have just crossed the biggest hurdle of your life. I will set things in motion, including an appointment with an endocrinologist if you decide that you wish to go all the way”

“There are alternatives?”

“Oh yes, some just live and dress as a girl, no hormones or surgery. There can be health reasons for that.”

“So….I would start to change, then? Grow tits and so on?”

“Speak to the doctor. I am more concerned about your mental state, and keeping you alive”

I could feel myself trembling. “Sally, do you think, do you really think I could ever be a woman? I am shitting myself here”

“Annie, oh Annie, I’ve already told you what I believe you are. The rest is all down to you. See you tomorrow, OK?”

“OK”

As I hung up a voice spoke behind me.

“That explains an awful lot.”

It was Eric.

CHAPTER 22
He was just behind me, looking embarrassed.

“Mate, I’m sorry, I was bringing you a cuppa, and sort of overheard. I can keep my gob shut if you want, but I also do a good listen”

Fuck. “I have a few of those already, Eric, but I suppose another can’t hurt”

“OK. Who knows already? I assume we are talking about you changing sex, by the way”

“Yes, butt, exactly that. That was my therapist on the phone, and Ginny knows, and Kate obviously, and probably everyone in the room back there apart from Den”

“Steph…I see”

“Yes indeed”

“You got five minutes to bring me up to speed, or should I just fuck off now?”

“You don’t have a problem with this?”

“Why? Should I?”

“I am a strange pervert, a freak, all that sort of thing?”

“Listen, mate, I play the banjo! And considering the sort of people we keep company with, being a girl isn’t that high on the sliding scale of oddity”

I gave him the condensed version, and then he stepped forward and hugged me.

“What do we call you in private, then? It’s a traditional sort of question”

“Annie.”

“OK, Annie, I will try to remember. I would give Steph a poke about her pronouns, though”

“You noticed too? What about Dennis?”

“Ah, I think he was more interested in the teenager’s arse than what Steph was saying. Here, take your cuppa and let’s get back in”

Sally would have to know, but I was feeling as if the world was turning into a waterfall with me in the traditional barrel. Events were taking on a life and wilfulness of their own. It was odd, but I almost felt good about that; if I needed to change my life it was a lot simpler if I didn’t have to make those first steps myself.

We finished off the session with some blistering playing, but Steph seemed to have stamped her authority. Hear me, ye lesser players, and tremble. She had intimidated the hell out of me, she knew it, and she was gracious enough to let it slide. What we worked at after that was largely rhythm, and number of bars.

“48 bars, Adam, Eric, that’s enough to work through most dances enough times before the punters get bored with it, and to give everyone a chance to lead one of the four couple ones. Unless it’s Stoke Golding, of course”

Eric bit. “Why that one?”

“Every newbie wants to strip the willow, and that’s one of the simplest dances with it in, but they always go over time on it, so the dance just peters out when the music ends.”

“And the buggers don’t care?”

“Nope, too busy having fun”

We packed it all up in the end around nine, after coffees and biscuits served by the tweedy Naomi, and then Eric rode with Dennis and me as far as Three Bridges station, where the three of us parted company. I rode back to my place pensive, to find Ginny sitting in bed with a mug of cocoa reading, Tabby waiting on my pillow in her night dress.

“How did it go, Annie?”

“Bitch. You know exactly how it went”

She snorted. “That good, hey?”

I sighed, as theatrically as I could manage. “The girl has some small talent which I may be able to help her develop”

“Yup, chewed you up and spat you out then. Thought so”

I started to giggle, and flopped onto the bed as she put her cup down, cuddling up to her with my head on her shoulder and Tabby in my arms.

“Love, thank you for being here for me, both of you”

“What are friends for, Annie?”

“You are more than that, and you know it”

“Well, kid, just stay with us then, OK? No more stupidity. Mind you, asking you not to be stupid is a bit unrealistic, I suppose…”

“Eric knows”

I felt her twitch. “And?”

“Steph stuffed up, called me ‘she’, and Eric picked up on it. Then he overheard when I had a chat with Sal. He seems fine with it. I’m not worried, just letting you know he is now in the loop”

“Get yourself ready for bed, mate, and we’ll talk”

I did the necessaries, slipping my own night dress over my head. I gave it a sniff as I did so, and realised I needed to do some shopping. I couldn’t manage on just the one or two items. That thought froze me; I was seriously and calmly considering shopping for women’s clothes for myself. Shit. The can of worms opened by Sally and the rest was turning into Hydra.

I climbed into bed next to Ginny, and resumed my comfortable enfolding in her arms, her heartbeat slow beneath my ear.

“Talk me through it, Annie, please”

I walked her through the day, and got more than a few giggles.

“So, you played that party piece of yours, the one where you do everything through the flute except fart, and then she pissed all over you?”

“She showed me a different interpretation”

“She had you for breakfast! Admit it!”

I had to grin. “Seriously? She is frighteningly talented, but I really felt her lift me up. It was like she was carrying me with her. I am very rusty, Gin, but I think I can get some real zing back if I play regularly with her”

“How does that make you feel?”

“What are you, Sally’s understudy? It makes me feel alive. More than that, it makes me WANT to be alive. I look at that family and I want that, I want that love, the acceptance.”

I snuggled in a bit deeper. “Steph has given me some pointers…”

“Such as?”

“Well, for starters a card from a friendly place to sort of solve the beard problem”

“Thank fuck for that, you are prickly in the morning”

“And you don’t like hairy girls….”

“I love Kate, so the question never arises. Let’s snuggle down and get some sleep, OK? You have work then shrink tomorrow”

We spooned up as we normally did, her long arms wrapped around me from behind as I cuddled my other friend, and to my astonishment the next thing I knew was my alarm. I think that was when I knew I must be doing the right thing at last. No alcohol, no nightmares, just sleep and warm cuddles.

The working day was pretty uneventful, though I did manage to tease Dennis about the way the women had clustered round him. He pretended to buff his nails. In a quiet moment, he asked me about the family.

“They are friends of my therapist, Den. Sally thought we would get on, and it helps with the dance thing. No big deal.”

“Well, the girl is a bit bloody distracting, though. Seriously, Adam, please don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve been great ever since I came down here. You’ve not just looked after me in a new station, you’ve taken me out, introduced me to your friends, all sorts of stuff. It’s just….well, you just don’t seem to know any girls who aren’t married, gay or jailbait”

“I think Kelly’s legal…”

“And you think I would? Well, if she was at least ten years older, oooooh yes, but no, she’s a kid”

He sighed. “I knew it would go like this. I had to drop everything up there. The girlfriend went off once the press started getting to the arsehole stage, and it’s been a while…Look, you are the only fucking person I can share this sort of thing with, and you are a bloke who likes other blokes. How fucked up is that?”

That is when I nearly cracked, nearly reached out to hug him, but Sally’s ‘pause/think’ command was still fresh. I squeezed his shoulder instead, holding back from the need to soothe his loneliness away.

“Ah, Den, life is just not that simple. One day I might try and explain things to you, but my life is screwed up enough at the moment. You are a good bloke, butt, and people see that. Give it time, you’ll be beating the crumpet off with your asp. Just remember, whenever you need an ear, I will be there, OK?”

“Thanks pal, and I mean that. Just pity you aren’t a lass, is what I would say. You’d make a good one, you care about folk”

“Aye well. Now, we have some more rides coming up, you interested? Beer will most definitely be involved!”

Subject changed. Far too bloody close for comfort. I looked at him to see if he was trying to tease out my secret, but there was nothing there. That statement, though, gave me hope, and after work I ran it past Sally at our session together.

“He is either fishing, or simply speaking the truth, Annie. If he is fishing, he will bring it up again.”

“Yeah, well, it’s enough of a worry with Eric knowing”

“Explain”

I ran her through the previous night’s events.

“You think he has a problem?”

“Not at all, he told me I always rode like a big soft girly girl, and now he knows why. It was very much ‘so what?’ ”

“And you say you nearly told all to Dennis. How does it make you feel, now that others know?”

“Like things are going to happen, that I want to happen, and they are doing so without my needing to do anything”

“And how does that make you feel?”

Terrified. Ecstatic. “Frightened, but somehow, I don’t know, relieved? Like there’s a door opening ahead of me?”

Sally laughed. “Steph talked about a door closing behind her, bricking it up and plastering over it. Got a bit carried away with her metaphor, she did. How’s your sleep? Ah, that says it all.”

She leant forward to squeeze my knee. “That is the biggest smile I have ever seen you give. Annie, just remember, everyone finds their own way. Surgery may not be right for you, many things may be the wrong option, but we can explore all of those as we go. What I said to you last night stands. You have crossed that hurdle and know who you are, and it shows.

“We have our goal now. All we have to do is find out the best way for you to get where you need and want to go. Your life, your choices. You OK with that?”

Oh indeed I was.

CHAPTER 23
Ginny of course wanted chapter, verse and hymn number. I gave her as much of the day as I could remember, even Dennis’ plaintive little complaint about feeling alone.

Ginny grunted.

“We’ll have to see if anyone’s looking for a bloke, Annie. Oh, apart from you, of course”

We were having our evening meal, a salad that actually contained raspberries, with fresh fruit and Greek yoghurt for afters. I had stabilised with my weight, or rather stalled at losing more, at around 14 stone. Ginny had explained how my body needed, in her words, to catch its breath before getting back on track.

“It’s a normal reaction. Your body s trying to decide whether you really are moving into a famine state, so it’s hanging on to some lard just in case. It will settle down in a bit, and we’ll get some more off you”

That had been at the start of the meal, when she had been listing the food groups she was trying to top up. All the way through, though, was an interrogation about where I stood. I bit the bullet.

“Gilbey girl, right. This is how I see it. None of you bastards is going to leave me alone, so I have to do something that will meet with your corporate approval, aye?”

Ginny looked really suspicious at that. “Why do I suspect you are about to try and stitch me up, Price?”

“Look, yes, it must be fucking obvious I fancy Den like mad, because you have all passed comment on it. Even Steph was asking. Even he….even Den seems to suspect something, but he thinks I am gay, ‘not into lasses’, and fuck knows what he would say if the truth were out, aye? He is just so fucking gorgeous, and he is a nice bloke with it!”

I paused for a breath, and Ginny just sat open-mouthed.

“Bugger me, girl, you really have hit the old reality mainline, haven’t you? What the hell has brought all this out?”

“Ginny, love, a lot of things. Partly it’s Sal’s doing. She has a way of, you know, asking a question that you can’t answer without asking yourself twenty more. Then it is Steph. It works for her, she has the family about her, everything is like the bloody Waltons but it’s not sickly. They just get on with having a full life, and that bloke of hers is smitten big style. I want that, really do, and I’m sane enough to realise I won’t get it, but can still dream, and hope.

“Look, Sal is very clear. There are all sorts of ways I can go, it doesn’t have to be the old nip and tuck business. Sally has an endocrinologist lined up for me, see what we can do short of slicing away”

Ginny was nodding at that. “You really have so many risks there, but I think you have other stuff in mind, yeah?”

“Yeah. It was something Steph said, about work, and how she came out. It was all planned in the end, but it wouldn’t have happened without a cock-up”

I explained about how she had been caught canoodling. “Ginny, if we do this–“

“Glad you noticed the ‘we’, Annie. “ she grinned.

I grinned back, and took both of her hands across the table, and she pulled them back immediately. “We need a quorum, love”

She rang Kate, switching to the speaker on the phone, and then took my hands again as her lover joined our planning.

“Kate, love, she wants to go public”

The voice was tinny, but clear. “First do no harm…”

“Fucking right, love, that’s what I am telling her. It’s not like that, though. She realises it is going to come out, just wants to control how it does. She was talking to Steph…”

“About being caught snogging? Yes, I know that story. Does she actually---sorry, Annie, do you actually have a plan, a timetable?”

“Not at the moment, which is why I am talking to my friends. I want this, I have always wanted this, but I hid it behind a daydream of instant perfection. That doesn’t happen in the real world, so I need to find a way to make it work as best it can. Are you with me?”

“Fuck yeah!”

“Of course we are, my love”

I drew a breath, a deep one. “The more people who guess, who find out by accident as Eric did, the less control I will have. This is damage limitation, in a way. I haven’t got a team in the same way Steph has, I haven’t got the ranks to close around me. I need a few specific people to be on side, and they are the inspectors and the other custody sergeants.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “Dennis?”

I nodded, forgetting Kate couldn’t see. “Yes. He is part of the picture, he has to know, and for good or bad he is sort of getting into our circle. He has to know”

Kate’s voice crackled a little. “You do realise he may well never look at you in that way?”

“Oh, fuck, aye, I know that. He does or he doesn’t, and in the end life goes on”

Kate actually laughed out loud. “Bloody hell, she is hitting reality big time! Annie, I need to go back to work, and you need to talk to my darling about coming out. Just understand, we love you, whatever happens”

The line clicked, and I looked at Ginny. “Well?”

She looked bleak. ”Yes, Annie, I know what she wants me to tell you. Not nice, not nice at all, but never mind….”

She visibly hauled herself together. “There is a bloody obvious bit of baggage about being gay, and that is being in a small minority. There is the standard bollocks about one in ten, but it isn’t that simple. You have the girls who are in denial, and you have the ones who take the piss, and you have the ones who just don’t know, but when you are like me, you fall for someone and they turn out to be straight, or even worse, they are so far in the back of the closet they have to prove they are ‘normal’ by lashing out…”

She was breathing hard. “Both of us had a few collisions with convention before we found each other, love. Both of us lost friends”

I was shocked to realise she was crying, and in a moment of–what, feminine intuition?---I realised what she meant by ‘lost’ and gripped her hands tight across the table, past the yoghurt and the fruit, the plates and the glasses.

“Fuck, Annie, we get the shit, but you get so much more, you people! No fucking more, OK?”

Melanie, off the bridge, under the wheels, I knew what she was crying against, and I would learn who she was crying for.

“Ginny…love…talk?”

She sat still, once more making a visible effort towards control and calm.

“Not much to say, really. We all have that little window of risk where we see The One, as I said, and they turn out to be someone completely different. Both Kate and I have lost friends, in all senses. There are those who disassociated themselves from us as soon as they realised we were really, truly what we said we were, those who stuck by us for a while before the pressure to conform got to them and they ran away, and….it’s lonely, Annie, but you know that already. There are girls like us, oh and boys too, who just fold when the loneliness and the hatred get too much, or they pick the wrong person to love, or whatever….”

She looked up through her tears. “Some of our friends haven’t managed to stay the course, Annie, that’s all I want to say, and when I look at you I shit myself. You are falling for some fucker who knows you as a man, who thinks of you as a man. If he finds himself attracted to you he may start to overcompensate, and that usually means a world of pain. If you rush ahead with this, you could end up as someone else under a train at East Croydon. Please, please, please be careful.”

She sniffed back another tear. “Anyway, being practical. I’ve been looking at your arse”

I laughed. “Surely I’m not that much of a girl yet!”

“Na, and I’m married. It’s just that you still have moobs, and a fat backside. When you see your blood doc, ask them if any hormones will get better results if we leave you the man boobs and the wobbly bum. They are supposed to redistribute the fat which you still have in abundance, and if some is already where you need it, result.”

Ginny was back in control, but I had to ask. She frowned, two lines coming out between her eyes.

“Suicides, Annie, two so far”

“So far?”

“Yeah, we still haven’t stopped yours”

CHAPTER 24
“I thought we had that one sorted, Ginny”

“You know fine well we haven’t. You are rushing into all this now, and I am worried. You were slicing your life away piece by piece, and now you are getting ready to jump off a cliff. What is it Sally says? Pause, think?”

I almost resented her then. “I am rushing into nothing!”

“Annie, let’s backtrack a little bit. I commented about keeping your arse and moobs, and you didn’t bat an eyelid. I know no way of exercising or dieting specific parts of the body thin, but you just let a suggestion of giving you tits pass as if I was asking what to get in for the larder. There are two possible causes I can imagine for that, and neither is good”

“What are you saying?”

“You’ve either lost the plot, or you have decided that it doesn’t matter how things go because you don’t intend to be here for it”

That was a surprise. I had assumed she was up there with Sally, sharp, all-seeing, and I realised that she had her own blind spots. I pulled a hand up to kiss it.

“Listen, you, there are more ways in life than that. I don’t know if you can get what I mean, but there are a lot of ghosts in my past too, and I have hidden from them for years. Look…I read a lot of crap on the internet, stories, all sorts. You know I have my day dream, the one about the perfect change, aye? Well, that’s a popular sort of story on the net. No heartache, no lost friends, just convenient magic that makes you and everything else pretty and perfect. Bollocks, it is, but as a day dream it is perfect.

“There’s another sort, where someone gets trapped, caught, and of course they always deep down wanted it, and once again it’s all pretty and fluffy. Shush, I know it’s crap. Then there are the forced ones, where the bloke gets made into a girl, like, and of course he always wanted it, and that is a cop-out. What all that has in common is the removal of a need to make an actual decision, to do the shitty bit of getting it all dragged into reality”

I paused for a second, looking at how tight-lipped she was. “Look, there are a couple of different things going on here, aye? Firstly, things have indeed got a little out of my control, which is scary, but it is also a little bit like those stories. I am getting what I always wanted, but it is being done for me. Someone else is driving. Got that?”

She nodded, still moist in the eyes. “The other thing, Ginny, is something I’ve been trying to explain to you. I’m not letting it all go to ratshit because I don’t plan on seeing the outcome, quite the reverse. I felt it at Steph’s, I feel it now. It’s life at last, love, being alive. I just need to decide how I am going to live it”

“What, surgery and all that?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t. The endocrinologist is to see exactly where I stand, he doesn’t have to prescribe me anything, just let me know the reasonable options. We need to see how my liver is, for starters; I’ve given it a bit of punishment the last year or two, after all”

“Yeah, but…”

“No, but. I’m talking. Sally has laid it out for me, and there are all sorts of options. I just need time to sort them out, but I do know that I am not going backwards any more. And I have decided on my first next step, if you can excuse the shit grammar.”

“You are not going to work in a bra”

I looked at her until her mouth twitched enough to tell me she had been joking.

“You nearly had me, you cow. No…Steph has given me the idea, and it’s bye-bye blackbeard”

Ginny was crying again. I moved round the table to hug her, and she nearly crushed me.

“Look, Gin, I know it’s all seemed quick and careless, and it’s felt like that to me, but trust me, there are things I want to do and I intend to be around for them. I intend to be around for you too; I owe you my life. You know what they say about saving someone’s life, that you’re responsible for them, it must be the first time you’ve ever been responsible OW!”

I don’t care what people claim, being spanked hurts.

We talked on, after tea, as I tried to explain the feeling I had, the rush in a barrel to the edge of the falls, the way life had taken on its own momentum. I pressed her on ideas for tactics after we retired to bed.

“I have one big choice I have made, and one big choice I have to sort out. No, not that one.”

“You are at the really dangerous bit now, Annie, that’s why I am worried. It’s the crossover that’s the risk. ‘I thought you were just a good friend, not some tuppence licker dyke’ type thing. That’s where we lose the friends, right then.”

“Well, the first choice is the one I want support in. It’s the one I’ve made already, and we are doing it now. Ginny, when I am home I stop pretending, I am just myself, OK?”

“Annie full time at home? You already are”

“No, I mean really. I want to start changing my wardrobe a bit. Start seeing if I look the part. Start, well, dressing a little bit” Again. Getting some stuff to replace the things I purged so many years ago.

“Right…..and how do we gather these items? You going to walk into Debenhams and start trying on fucking frocks? I don’t think so!”

Neither did I. “No, but I know some women who I could ask”

“Right….and what is the other thing?”

“In a minute. If I start seeing how femme I look, I can see what work if any needs done, what chances I have of going any further. Small steps, love”

“ ‘Femme’? You really have been into this for a while, haven’t you?”

“No. I have BEEN this all my life. This is what Sally has brought out, this is what has been killing me, this is who I am”

“Annie, love, this is what I am frightened will get you killed”

“Oh, I know, Gin, but…..fuck it, I have to give it a try. Now, choice two. That is work. I have to decide what to do and it is a much riskier thing”

Ginny snorted. “A pair of Jimmy Choos wouldn’t go with the uniform code”

“What the hell do you know about nice shoes, Ginny?”

“Only what I like to see my women in….I mean woman”

“You are a perve!”

“Only in nice ways. Now, you were saying about work”

“Aye. I chatted with Steph for a bit, see how she did it, yeah? A bit different for her, it was, she works on a team, and they’re all as tight together as a duck’s arse, so she got them on side first. What she did do, though, was get her boss in right early. That is something I need to decide on. I don’t really have a team, just the others on the roster and the civvy staff and that, so I am considering having a word with Jim or Sam.

“Ginny, that’s the scary part. All of this, so far, someone else in the driving seat. The next bit…..the next bit is what you are frightened about, it’s where I succeed or find the world coming down on me.”

She hugged me to her, stroking my hair. “Not alone any more, though, are you?”

“No, love, not alone, and that does make all the difference. I will be talking to Sally, and Steph, and Stewie, but if you can give me a little support on the day I have a sort of plan”

I felt the giggle. “No, I do not intend to serve them both dinner in a dress, you daft girl! I just thought…well, have a pint somewhere quiet, sort of let them have an idea what’s going on, yeah?”

“And these two men, they will be all right with this, then?”

“I haven’t got a fucking clue! I just hope so. Look, they are good lads, aye? This is the point you worry about, love, this is where I take a risk. This is the big one”

She hugged me tighter, and I could feel her tears. “I promise you, really promise you, Gin, no more lost friends”

I did exactly as I had promised, and rang Sal and Steph the next day. Sally’s response was the usual set of sharp questions, and then a simple flat statement.

“Stewart comes with you. He gets protective at times, which could be useful”

Funnily enough, I got almost exactly the same answer from Stephanie, that Geoff would tag along.

“Let me guess: he can get protective?”

She laughed out loud. “Oh yes, broke his hand on some French git’s face once! He likes you, no, not like that, and he and Stewart are good mates. Besides, it’ll give him an excuse to make Stewie use his bike again”

I got through the next few work days, Dennis carrying more than his share, as I fretted about how to approach the two Inspectors I was trusting to carry this through. I checked the rosters, and in a fortnight’s time both were off. I collared them individually as they came on shift, and we settled on the Mucky Duck at Pease Pottage. Jim was intrigued, but Sam simply said that a pint was always a good thing in his books. The day came round, Stewie and Geoff met us at the foot of the draggy hill out of Crawley, and we were off. A mad sprint across the M23 roundabout, past the dive that is the motorway services, and over the bridge to the Black Swan. Jim and Sam were already there, having grabbed a table in the garden. We arranged some more chairs, and I was conscious of the two coppers scanning the four of us, looking for some sort of clue.

Ginny made the announcement. “ Ferrets for you, boys? Price, you can have a pint tonight. Ferret?”

“Yes please, girl. Boys, this is Jim, and Sam, and they are Inspectors at my nick. Gents, this is Geoff Woodruff, husband of a good friend, and Stewie McDuff. Stewie is married to my therapist. The psycho biker bitch is Ginny”

Sam smiled. “That rugmuncher living with you now?”

“The very one. Now, gents, we are out of work, so it will be easier for me to be as informal as we can…I know Sam is OK with that, and I trust you are too, Jim. OK?”

They both nodded. Where to start….”Look, this is a pile of shit, but I have to get through it. Can I ask for this to be in confidence, really for us only?”

Jim nodded. “Of course. So you are queer, then”

Ginny returned with the drinks. “No, but I am. Ah, here he comes, the spawn of Satan!”

Fuck me, Eric too? I gave Ginny a look, and she just mimed making a phone call.

I sighed. “Eric, Jim, Sam. Do we have this in confidence, gents, I need an answer, a promise on that one”

I got the nods.

“Where to start? Look, you both know why I came indoors. I have a simple diagnosis from my shrink, Stewie’s missus Sally, and that is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. My worry about that has always been that it might cost me my job”

Sam chipped in. “It shouldn’t, but….they always look for ways to have a dig at staff, so you are possibly right. Hence the booze, yeah? Nightmares?”

Ginny shuddered. “Fucking big ones with teeth and claws and shit. I’m the one that gets kicked awake”

There was an exchange of glances, and Ginny sighed. “Look: me dyke, me like girly bits, and those shorts have got a trouser snake in them. So no, we aren’t. OK?”

I got back onto the horse. “Yes, Sam, the drink, the night horrors, but Ginny has worked wonders at that. Eric and other friends too, got me out of my pit and back to life, and Sally…”

Stewie interrupted, in a soft voice. “I know a little bit about PTSD myself, so I help out”

Jim looked at him. ”PBI?”

“No, bootneck. You?”

“Royal Anglians, mate. Pleased to meet you…ah, ah, I see, fucking hell, Adam. Yes, my mouth is closed on this one. Sam, we need some real help here. You in on this?”

“Course, Jim. But on what?”

“You telling all, Adam?”

I drew a few deep breaths. “Yes, I have to. Gents, there are other reasons for my stress problems, and I can’t think of any way to tell it in bits, or slowly, or whatever, without just coming out, and oh shit, that is exactly it, it’s coming out”

Sam was nodding. “Yeah, makes sense now, the new bloke did ask which way he swung, and….look, mate, I don’t give a fuck, OK?”

Jim actually started to laugh. “If I have guessed right, you are so far off you must be on Satnav! Sam, get some more beers in and we’ll get this thrashed out. Ginny, he needs another pint, just this once”

Sam went off with Eric in support, and Jim looked at me with real sympathy.

“Melanie Stevens, yes? You are like she was, yeah?”

I felt the tears. “Yeah, I am”

“No biggy. Well, it is, but you know what I mean. Stewie, I remember you now, at her funeral and the trial. You had an accident with some people afterwards, yes?”

The smile he gave was frankly terrifying. “Yes. I plan to have some more of those if they ever get parole.”

“I didn’t hear that, lad. Now, how the fuck do we explain this one to the nick? And shall we tick all the boxes, then? What’s your other name?”

“Annie”

“Well, Annie, welcome to a world of shit. Ah, here’s the beer. Sam, time to meet a new friend. Sam, Annie, Annie, Sam”

“Ah. Fuck. Em. What the hell, hello Annie”

CHAPTER 25
Jim raised his hand. “Sam, not a word about nip and tuck, or slicing and dicing, OK? Annie, what is the plan? Do you have one at all?”

“Not a clue, Jim, I just felt that you needed to be aware of what was going on, just in case”

Sam was nodding. ”Makes sense to me, though I am a bit fucking sideways with this. I see what was going on now, though. You stupid thick fucker, you’d given up, hadn’t you? You remember what I said, ‘good cop’? You didn’t give that up, did you? You start checking out of life, but you still keep on doing the job. Fucking typical. Jim, why do the good ones always have to be so thick?”

“Dunno, Sam”

The shifty man who had been moving around the customers finally approached our table, showing us a bundle of counterfeit DVDs.

“You want?”

As one, three warrant cards came out, and Sam said the words.

“Fuck off, son, while you still can”

He turned to me. “See? Reflex. I don’t care how you started out, or what you are, but you are Job to the marrow, and we need you, the nick needs you, the Job needs you. Ah, fuck it, kid, I was going to say we have your back, but looking at this lot….shit. How many more bodyguards have you got?”

Geoff grinned at that. “My wife and family, and you really don’t want to get in my wife’s bad books”

Stewie snorted at that; I would have to do some digging, there was a joke there. I tried to take charge again, this was turning into another back-seat ride.

“Look, Jim mentioned about nip and tuck, aye? Well, this is the situation. I am going to start living as myself at home. What that means, exactly, I will find out. Sally is going to send me to a blood chemistry doctor, because there is a lot of risk in some of this, and my liver’s possibly not that sound”

Sam was nodding at that. I shushed him. “That does not mean I go onto hormones and start sprouting tits and stuff, aye? It simply means that we can discuss what options I have”

Jim was nodding. “Lots of different ways to move forward, Annie, but given the choice, what would you want?”

“To have been born right, Jim, in the first place. Didn’t happen, can’t change that, so see what the quacks say and go from there. Sam, understand one thing, please, I have given up on giving up. I want to live, and I want to be alive, if that makes sense”

Jim picked it up. “Well, at the moment it’s softly softly, OK? We have a lot of ground to cover and one thing I want to do is run some stuff, on the Q.T. of course, past the equality/diversity rep. I know for a fact that the policy is set in stone, and if you do want to make any adjustments the sick leave is unlimited for that….oh, sod it”

He started to chuckle. “It’s unlimited for IVF purposes as well! Don’t you even think about it!”

I suddenly got the joke. “I am sorry, Inspector Atkins, but if I as a lay-dee, wish to try for a child, the instructions say I can!”

The two of us were suddenly out of control, and Eric quietly moved my beer so I didn’t spill it as I laughed. Ginny was muttering something about coppers, or men, or both, but I sobered just as quickly as I had corpsed.

“But I can’t, can I? Ah well, having it all has never been an option. Let’s just see what we can manage. Gents, you impress me. There are two good coppers next to me, I see.”

Sam grinned, and raised his glass. “To good coppers, whatever they are under their uniform!”

We drank to that, and Jim then made a quick call to his wife to say he would be home a little late. “Yes darling, I am out with some strange woman, two of them in fact, and Sam. Be home about ten, we’re round at the Mucky Duck. Love you, bye”

He pocketed the phone and looked at me again. “That’s got the harpy stalled, so we have time to talk as much or as little as you want. Firstly, where do you see this going?”

“Honestly? I don’t know till I have spoken to the various docs and had the tests. It hasn’t been clear to me at all for years, but the more this goes on, the more I talk it through, the clearer things become.”

Sam asked another obvious question. “What was Maria all about, then?”

“Ah, Sam, my dear wife. Last throw of the ‘can’t I just be fucking normal?’ dice, last attempt to purge my mind along with my wardrobe.”

Ginny was muttering “Knew it….”

“Knew what, love?”

“ ‘A friend made them for me’. Bollocks, it was you, wasn’t it? Well, if you can sew that well you can start on my darning! Lazy sneaky cow that you are”

Jim put a hand on my shoulder. “Young lady, if you wish I can give you a referral to the domestic violence unit”

And we were off again, laughing, joking, hamming up my femininity in ways that stopped short of actually taking the piss, Ginny doing her larger than life bit in the middle of it while Eric and Stewie sat quietly and smiled.

Jim was on track, though. “What do you see as the main problems? Or should that be ‘who’?”

“I don’t know, really. I mean, I read about girls like me…”

Did I just say that out loud?

“…girls like me who get attacked by men, like poor Melanie, but to be honest it’s the women I’m worried about. There’s a lot more shit seems to come out from the harridan tendency than the ones with dangly bits. As far as I can see, as long as yer ackshull man’s man doesn’t feel you are trying to drag him into a shag, he doesn’t care that much. There are some women, though, that see themselves as a members’ club…some of them hate men so rigidly and passionately that they can’t think logically”

Eric then said something that made me want to kiss him.

“But you aren’t a man, are you?”

“Eric, if you ever need a kidney or other body part, you know where to come!”

He grinned and tipped his glass towards me, and I got serious again.

“Jim, Sam, I am over the moon with your reaction to this pile of crap. Leave it with me and my friends now, but I promise you I will give due warning well before anything kicks off, aye?”

They both nodded.

“Ginny and I and the boys are going to…shit, sorry, lads, I was about to drag you away from a pub! Ginny and I are going to shoot off home, and I promise I will keep you up to date as soon as I know things. Sam, Jim, thank you”

Eric muttered something about a spare bed, and Ginny just smiled and handed him her key with a rude comment about coming in quietly. Geoff joined us for the ride home while the others stayed for more Ferret, and we enjoyed the whoosh down to the sports centre roundabout. As we worked our way through Crawley, Geoff was pumping me about the upcoming day of dance.

“Look, Annie, my darling wife has a need to show she has some talent. She doesn’t mean it in a nasty way, but when she gets all hairy it just goes silly. Now, you are bloody good with that flute, so she asked me if you wanted to do a sort of duet thing, you know, while the punters are gasping between dances and Jerry is trying to sell raffle tickets. She was thinking of that Jethro Tull stuff you did”

“Oh, come on! She chewed me up and spat me out on that one!”

“She also said she was really impressed by your playing. The idea would be a sort of duelling banjos thing, where you alternate solos.”

Ginny called across “That bit where you do everything except fart through it! And do some of that Japanese stuff, that is really atmospheric”

Geoff nodded. “Steph really likes that”

“Yeah, but I would really need a wooden flute to get the best sonority and that….oh, sod it, I know where I can get one. Just, Gin, don’t expect me to do it standing on one leg!”

We left Geoff to continue on home as we got to ours, and got ourselves to bed before Eric stumbled home. I didn’t hear him come in at all, and apparently neither did Ginny. I was busy with other things

It was the dead baby this time, sitting in its car seat, eyes open, looking at me in accusation. Why didn’t you stop this? Why did you let my mum drive so badly? Isn’t that your job?

I was thrashing, the nighty tangled around my legs and Tabby on the floor, Ginny holding me and shushing as I left the motorway and came back to my bed. I was crying, as I always did after that one. The others made me shout, that one always left me sobbing, sweat cooling on my skin. As I woke up and reality came back I settled into Ginny’s arms and wept.

There was a sudden weight on the edge of the bed. Eric’s arms came round Ginny and myself as he hugged us both. Softly, he murmured in my ear.

“Is this what you get every night, Annie?”

Ginny answered him. “Not so often, since, you know, coming out a bit. I think it’s been a big day and, you know. Thanks, mate”

We lay there for a while, and then Eric started to pull away. I took his arm, and held it to me.

“Please, mate. There are spare ear plugs in the drawer, aye, cause she snores so badly.”

He slipped under the duvet, and as I lay in Ginny’s arms, tears drying on my face, he spooned me from behind.

CHAPTER 26
Eric was already up, as I struggled to get myself into some state of mind that would let me join humanity on a roughly equal footing. Ginny was awake, looking at me.

“Rough one last night, mate. You feel a little better this morning?”

“Some. The thing is, I can remember the dreams, because they are always the same, but last night…the baby had my face, the mother had my face, the paramedics, they all had my face. I am cracking up, Ginny”

She hugged me closer. “No, my love, those are healing pains.”

Eric came in just then, in T-shirt and boxer shorts, the tan lines sharp on his thighs. He put the tray of cups down and gave me a one-armed hug.

“Better?”

“Yes. Thanks. I don’t normally, you know, blokes…sorry, Eric”

He sighed. “I don’t know how we all missed it n you, Annie. The more you relax, the more obvious it is what you are, and I can look back and see it there as well. That worries me”

“I’ve already got you into bed…”

“Stop trying to change the subject. I am being absolutely serious here. If a banjo player can spot it, so can a copper. You show out to the wrong arsehole, and you are meat, fucking hamburger. That beard blocked a lot of the leakage, but it’s gone….hang on, are you getting it removed properly now?”

“Yes. Steph showed me somewhere”

“Ah.” A long pause. “ I should have realised, but she looks good. Is it something in the fucking water over there, or what?”

I had to laugh. “Believe it or not, one of her colleagues is married to another girl like her, and she comes from bloody Fishguard!”

Eric gave Ginny a look, and then turned back to me. “That’s ‘another girl like you’, Anne Price”

I concentrated on my tea. I had to get the words out, and looking at my friends made it harder.

“It is never going to be easy, is it? Until we have the word from the blood man, I’m in limbo, but do either of you really think I can pass as a normal woman?”

Ginny snorted in her usual manner. “Come clubbing with me and Kate, and tell me what is fucking ‘normal’! Look, we have time, we have money, we can haz experumence”

“Ginny…”

“Yes, Eric?”

“How can such a bad-ass psycho dyke like that website so much?”

“Cause it has big-eyed ickul kittons, an’ I is a gurl”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Annie, how the hell do you cope with her?”

I could feel that my smile was rather bleak. “I wasn’t coping without her, mate, was I? Bugger this, day off, weather OK, shall we just go out somewhere? Ride out to Grinstead? I’ll give Dennis a shout”

Ginny nodded. “Let’s go west instead. Do a loop round, call in at Steph’s for a cuppa….no, hang on, let’s give her a shout and see if they want to ride out and meet us for lunch. Fox Revived or Rising Sun? If we spin out past Box Hill by the border path, cuppa at Ryka’s, some of the hills by Bookham----ooh, ooh, the hamster ranch!”

Eric laughed. “A takeaway for the cats?”

The pillow hit him square in the face. Dennis met us by the front door, looking quite tasty in his lycra, and Steph and Geoff joined us at Hookwood just before the first of the irritating little climbs. We passed the Fox at the top of the long downhill into Leigh and then started through the maze of lanes towards Dorking and then the cycle path to Box Hill. Ryka’s was its usual frantic self, full of bikers and wannabes in leather and denim, clutching burgers and cokes, and then a busy main road uphill brought us into Bookham, where it got hillier after our little spin past the Ranch.

I was feeling it, but nothing like I had on the zombie ride. My weight had been slashed, my fitness was on the up again, and if I had been without my problems it would have been a superb day. Geoff and Steph were, of course, cruising, as were Ginny and Eric, so I was pleased to notice that Den was a bit slower. I ended up behind him on some of the climbs, which wasn’t exactly unpleasant, and each time I stared at his arse I realised what an aberration my marriage had been. Sal was right, I was straight, and that thought led me into the sort of musing that comes with a long ride. More than ever, I knew who I was, but I still had no idea how to deal with it.

40 odd miles had flown away as we swang back through Newdigate and finally up to the Sun in Charlwood. The Woodruffs had the pub as their local, so would leave us after the meal, and then it would only be eight miles or so home. We took over a couple of tables in the car park cum beer garden, and soon Den was at the bar with Eric and Geoff for the drinks as we girls sorted through the menu.

That was how it felt, the ‘being myself at home’ that I had agreed. Just one of the girls…shit, one a lesbian, two born male, not quite a conventional coven, but there we were. Drinks arrived, Eric passing me mine, and Dennis had to ask the question.

“So, then, Eric, are you and Adam here, you know…?”

There was absolute silence, and poor Dennis forgot all his court experience and tried to fill it with words.

“Look, I know that Adam’s like into lads and all, but it’s not a problem, really”

Geoff was shaking his head slowly. “Oh how I remember that conversation….how was it you stopped it, love?”

Steph was smiling, radiantly. “A bloody good snog, if I remember rightly, my love”

Eric sighed, and gave me a questioning look. I had thought long and hard about this, we had discussed it, but it was still a huge step. I was in the back of the car again, someone else driving, but this time they were at least asking me for permission. I nodded to Eric.

“There is only one gay person here today, and she’s the mad one into knives and crossbows and zombies and shit”

“Aye, but, isn’t Adam----no, no. You are taking the piss, Eric. Aren’t you?”

“Nope. Meet Anne, Annie to her friends. Are you a friend”

Den was shaking his head as if trying to dislodge a fly. “Fucking hell, marra, I came down here for a quiet life, and you, well, fuck.”

He sat for a while in silence of his own, occasionally shooting me a little glance, then spoke.

“You’ve got an awful lot of shit behind you, pal, and you are going to have a lot more ahead. Your sort of thing doesn’t sit that easy with me, but what I said before stands. Just don’t think I’m going to be snogging you.”

He paused again. “Not with tongues, anyway”

There was more silence, as we all tried to guess which way he was leaning.

“Look, I have no idea what you are going to do, but I am not going to drop you just because you don’t want your cock any more, OK? I can’t put it any simpler than that. No wonder you never gave Ruth one. She fancied you rotten, you know, before you got fat. She told me…”

“Den, I never did want my cock. And when exactly…oh, I see, you prefer them tall and fit, but even when they are not, when they are whimpering at your feet, well, it would be rude to refuse, aye?”

He grinned, almost back to his old self. “Well, yeah. I might just change my criteria, Adam, Annie, pal, she’s dirty, is our Ruth!”

He smiled happily, and then it vanished, like sun behind cloud. “That, Sergeant Price, was deliberate. You have given me something I could use to ruin your life. I’ve given you something back. That makes us even, that ties us together. The last place, I stopped trusting people cause half of them were bent. I want to trust you, but you can understand me when I say I am a bit slow to give that out these days. All I am saying is that you can trust me, OK?”

“I think I get you. We do have a shedload of baggage between us, haven’t we?”

“Well, kid, at least we all know who we are and where we’re coming from; now all we need is some map of what’s ahead. Sod it, let’s get some food in. Before Ginny says it, no chips, AnnEEE”

That emphasis. Friend. I let out a long breath, looking round the group. Eric sat quietly throughout, apart from giving his food order, until Den went up with Geoff to place them.

“Are you OK, Annie?”

“Scared…really scared now. I still can’t see which way he’s turning”

“Yeah, well, I think he’s going to be sound. That was horse trading, but it was also bonding. He’s given you a weapon against him. I suppose that it’s all he has left to show he’s not going to hurt you. He is far more fucked up than you realised”

He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“Steady as she goes, girl”

CHAPTER 27
The rest of the lunch was kept deliberately neutral, by unspoken mutual consent. We had each dropped our little pebbles into the water, and the ripples were spreading in interference patterns.

One more of my little fantasies had popped like a soap bubble, but nowhere near as messily as I had feared. Steph asked me to stop round to sort out something unspecified to do with the dance, which was now only a week away, and Eric was taken in hand by Ginny and Den, who would ride with him back to Horley for the London train.

Geoff got the kettle on as soon as we were in, and Steph brought out what was clearly a boxed instrument.

“This is something Kelly was trying out, but she said it wasn’t really her. Give it a go”

I opened the box, and there was a truly lovely thick-walled wooden flute. It was clearly used, with obvious replacement parts, but the wood was old and well-rubbed, and I looked up at Steph with a grin.

“Yes, of course. I am the same. The first joint purchase we ever made was an instrument, though I think Geoff actually paid for it all himself as a way of chatting me up”

“It worked, then”

She laughed, in simple happiness. “Oh yes! Talk about life-changing, and we have never looked back unless forced to. Look at me, Annie, really look; I did it, so can you. Now, let’s see what you can do with Kell’s flute”

I fitted the sections together, feeling how there was no wobbling, no over-tightness. This was a good instrument, the keys had no backlash, no slop and the holes were smooth and precisely cut. I set my embouchure onto the plate and…oh god, I was in love. The timbre was a delight, no buzzing anywhere, the key movements silky smooth and precise. It was quality, pure sex in a slim wooden tube, and I tried a few slow overblown Japanese phrases and decided it was going to sleep with me, no, HE was going to sleep with me, he needed a name, he would be Saburo….

“Earth to Anne….do I take it you like Kell’s flute?”

“He’s called Saburo. Who do I have to kill to keep him? How could Kelly not love him?”

Geoff was listening, chuckling. ”You haven’t got the hair yet, but I can just see you already. Love, I think you have a soul mate”

I started to laugh. “That was how I met my wife! The personal ads in the Guardian are called ‘soulmates’ “

Geoff grinned, “A case for trades description and that, eh?”

The laughter went on for some time, till Steph sighed. “Kelly once said something about sorting me out and making me all nice. Jan’s a dab at that sort of thing, remind me to tell you a couple of stories. If you ever decide that you are going for it, they are useful people to know.”

“Steph, I could never look like that”

“No? You’ve got a cyclist’s build, under the lard, so that’s a good start. You don’t have a big jaw, or Hercules shoulders, so it could work well”

Geoff was laughing again. “When I proposed, I was shitting myself”

“I know, love”

“And then the bloody ring wouldn’t go on. She’d broken the finger playing rugby, I had to have it re-sized”

They were both smiling at the memory, but I had to ask.

“Geoff, sorry, but how do you deal with Steph having been a bloke?”

Subtlety abandoned.

“She never was a bloke, Annie. Tell me, when were you a boy?”

“Honestly? I never have been”

“Then if you can see that, and Steph could say the same about herself, why can I not see the same thing? Look, we may be a bit of an odd family, but we go through life with our eyes open. Big Bill raised no stupid kids”

He took a breath, and looked at his wife. She nodded, and he continued.

“I sort of think that some other people can see that you were never a man”

“Who?”

“Ginny, for one. Sally and Stewart, no contest. Dennis, no, he can’t see that yet. Eric…most definitely he sees it”

That knocked me back a bit. Steph sighed. “Look, I remember asking you that first session, which one it was you fancied. You were paying so much attention to each of them, and it was obvious you were looking at them as more than friends, even if you didn’t know it. Well, maybe not realise it. It’s a big thing, sexuality, but it rides so hard on the back of gender. Presumption, prescription, assumption….look, let me tell you a story.”

Steph settled back against her husband, who was slumped in the corner of the sofa with his tea.

“Look, what do you see when you look at me? Be blunt”

“A woman. Tall, bony in places, big hands, nose a bit askew. Nice hair, nice legs, um, chest….”

Geoff was just smirking. “I can’t remember whether it was her hair I saw first or her legs”

“Saw, noticed or lusted after, love?”

“Pass!”

Steph squeezed his knee. “What you have to understand is that I had no idea what my sexuality was until I saw his brother. Shush, love, you know it was Bill that let me know who I am. Annie, it was like opening a door, it was my first time going out as myself, and I had bugger all in the way of clothes till Jan got involved, but the point is, until I looked at those two I had no idea what I was, that way.”

“I get included now, then, along with Bill?”

“My story, darling, shut up for a while. I suspect you might be a bit like that. All that energy wasted trying to work out how to fit in, none left to see where you actually do fit. Am I right?”

I smiled. “Has Sally got you on a subcontract?”

“Well, I said I would talk to you. You get my point, don’t you? It’s common with people like us, you spend so long fighting or failing to live what you’ve been handed you don’t have the time to look up from your feet. Here’s a tip for you. I think you’re actually straight, from what I know about your marriage. Dennis is most definitely straight, and I suspect Eric is too. Only one of them can see you as you want to be seen, and it isn’t Dennis. Look, Annie, get one thing straight: one of the worst ways to pick a partner is to imagine he has to come from the people you already know, OK?”

I managed, finally, to get some words of my own out. “What if I don’t want a…partner?”

“What, with the way your eyes follow us two about, and the way you look at Dennis, especially his arse?”

Guilty as charged. “Your turn, Steph, to look at me. I would need a bloody miracle, both to look half-normal and to have a bloke that can see past my…issues.”

“What? They are an endangered species or something? I know at least…..oh, bugger it, at least four who’ve got the vision, and one of them you’d have sworn blind could never do it. What makes you so specially bad?”

Geoff got his own word in, just then. “Slowly, love. Don’t try doing too much of Sal’s stuff. Now, Annie, music. We only have a few days left, and what we want is not just the dance stuff. I have an idea for the break, and it would involve you and Kell’s axe. Interested?”

“Go on….”

“You do some of that odd Japanese stuff, with the overtones and that, and then slip into the Tull bit. You do a duel style solo with hairy here, and then we cut to her playing something soulful to finish off, so we get two solos either side of a duet with backing. What would work best as a rhythm section?”

In unison, Steph and I called out “No banjos!” which effectively killed that conversation dead. She said she had some ideas, and I left it with her.

I set off home at last, with Saburo in the saddle bag and a promise to make Kelly a decent offer if we decided to get married, to find Ginny setting out the table for tea, singing as she did.

“My girly’s coming for the night!”

That hit home. I had spent so long trying to get rid of her, and now their house was sorted, and my life was back on track, or so it seemed, I was terrified I was about to lose her. I had to ask, though.

“Gilbey girl, when are you looking at jumping ship? It’s OK, I think we’ve managed to get me somewhere I can see daylight. You have a life and a wife and kittehz”

Did I just say ‘kittehz’? She definitely had to go, but not for the reasons I had earlier. Ginny hugged me, her hands still holding cutlery, and kissed my cheek.

“Mmm, less sandpaper, good. Are you sure, love? I know you think you have turned the corner, but those dreams still come, I can hardly miss them, can I?”

“Ginny, I intend to be alive more. There is a spare bed, so I can have guests, and I shall encourage that. I have to get my self-reliance back”

“Well, I shall set aside a few nights a week for you…if you want?”

I hugged her back. “I want, but it will be three in a bed”

“What the fuck?”

I brought our Saburo. “Meet my new friend!”

She looked vaguely green. “You are joking, Annie, please tell me are joking….”

I unsnapped the catches and revealed him in all his beauty.

“Oh you fucking cow, I thought it was going to be a vibrator!”

CHAPTER 28
Kate turned up by car, as I had suspected she would, in order to start ferrying some of Ginny’s stuff to their new house. To my surprise, she brought in a suitcase which was obviously full from the effort she took to bring it up the stairs. She laid it on the bed.

“They mostly aren’t in your size…yet. This is a mix of old things that friends had and stuff that Ginny got fed up with. If you are going to be yourself at home, then you need something to wear. Sal’s blessing on it”

Ginny had to have her say, of course. “Waxing, Price, waxing those legs before you even think of a skirt. There’s hairy and there’s fucking carpets.”

Kate was softer. “You have the endocrinologist next week, love, and before that the big hoe-down. If you have a minute or two free before that, I think it might be a good idea to have a chat with Jerry, and Simon the vicar. They may have some requests---no, not that sort, it’s not that sort of event. More to do with the pacing of the day, and I think it would be a good idea to say hello. What’s in the box?”

Ginny was bouncing. “Please miss, I know, and she’s gonna take it to bed!”

I sighed as theatrically as I could manage. “Sex mad, that woman”

“Well, if you had a wife as edible as my Katie, wouldn’t you be?”

Her face fell. “Sorry, Annie, I didn’t think”

I smiled back. “Do I look upset? We just need to work out what you need to leave here, if you are going to be popping back and forth. Kate, would you want to find some cupboard space for some stuff of your own? Toothbrush, etc? I’m sure I can find some space between the weaponry your wife secretes everywhere”

“That isn’t weaponry, that’s decent kitchen equipment!”

“You don’t check the balance of a French cook’s knife by holding it by the point and making throwing movements, Ginny!”

“I’m a fucking woman, we multitask!”

“Yeah, well when I get a zombie in the kitchen I’ll remember that. In the head, isn’t it?”

Ginny got all puppy-eyed at that. “Can we please, please, please watch ‘Aliens’ tonight?”

Kate stroked her hair, almost as she would a child or, indeed, a puppy, but a six-foot Amazon puppy. “Of course, my sweet. Annie is a girl of taste and refinement, and I spotted the boxed set ages ago.”

They were such an odd mix. Kate was very much the professional woman, Ginny the mad axewoman, given the chance, and yet together, once past the mad games and badinage, they were so tender it hurt. They were so different to the Woodruffs, or the McDuffs, but there was the same interdependence, the same unconscious physicality. One was never apart from the other very long, little touches constant and fleeting. I felt guilty that my own weakness had kept them apart for so long. As if by telepathy, Ginny looked across to me,

“Are you really sure you will be OK when I am home, mate?”

“I will be. I have some idea where I am going, now, and more than that I have---I know that I have–real friends. That makes a hell of a difference. Now, it has been a stressful day, but a good one. Would you two mind if I actually got a bit squiffy tonight?”

Kate grinned. “I sort of expected that one, there’s some bottles in the bag. Now, darling, sweet, doll face, have you started cooking?”

“No, why?”

“Tonight we can haz curry from a taxi! I slipped the frozen yog into the freezer, so it is all-girl full-on decadence tonight. Curry, wine, frozen dairy products and Sigourney Weaver in a vest!”

After Ginny stopped cheering, Kate gave me a puzzled look.

“I nearly forgot–what the hell do you have in that box?”

I showed her Saburo, and she sighed. “I know little about those things, but that looks so, well, bloody sensual. What’s it sound like?”

“Sex in a tube, Kate, sex in a tube, and loneliness and wildness and warmth and any and all of the seasons. Take my word for it, or come along at the weekend for the dance. Saburo will be there”

We had curry, we had yoghurt, we had far too much wine, we agreed that the only solution was to take off and nuke the whole site from orbit, because it’s the only way to be sure, and I am absolutely certain our combined shout of “Get away from her you BITCH!!!” was heard in Brighton. It was, in short, a very good night, and I managed to sleep without dreams for once, just me and Tabby and Saburo.

I missed Ginny after Kate drove her away the next morning. She filled everywhere around her with life and sound, and suddenly the place was empty. Just for a couple of nights, though, but still I felt it. I rode into work pensive. How exactly were the various characters going to play it? Den was still shadowing me, so I met him in the locker room, where he gave me his normal greeting. Jim was the boss that evening, and once again it was a nod and a smile as I came on shift.

“A word, Sergeant?”

Once in his office, he looked at me closely.

“Still can’t see it, but then…what’s the plan of action?”

“Got the dance at the weekend to play for, then I see the bloods man a couple of days later”

“He going to do the vampire bit?”

“No, that was done by Doc Khan and the samples sent to him”

I started to laugh. “Khan’s a funny old bugger, he tells me I’m going to snuff it and then when I start doing as I am told he says I’m just trying to spoil his terrible reputation by getting better, how will he hold his head up at the undertakers’ Christmas party? And it’s all done dead-pan, in that Pakistani accent that I am sure he fakes, and there’s just a little grin at the end. Why can’t we have someone like him as the FME?”

“Annie, you’d wish our clients onto a decent bloke like Khan? Not very grateful, are you?”

“Point taken, skip. Now, talking of clients, let’s see what we have. Oh fuck….not him again!”

“Which one?”

“Young Darren Eyres. Same every time, takes a dump in the cell, right on the mattress”

“Well, let’s hope he hasn’t been at the curry, unlike some people I can smell. Price, you may be heading for womanhood, but you still fart like a bloke. Leave the door open, for god’s sake!”

He hadn’t been, but he did, and we added a criminal damage charge to his usual TWOC. Dennis was fascinated.

“You get him in often? I noticed he called you Sergeant Price”

“Yeah, Darren is in a local home, supposedly a secure establishment. Supposedly. He just wants some fresh air every now and again, and he likes cars, and he’s only fifteen, aye?”

“Yeah, but to take a shit in the cell!”

“Did you notice where he did it? On the mattress, well away from the blankets and stuff. Vinyl, easier to clean even than the floor. He keeps his reputation up with his mates, and at the same time doesn’t cause us too much shit–oh, fuck it, you know what I mean”

He leant in close. “When you say things like that, I can actually see what you mean about yourself. You are a good bloke, pal. I am sorry life has fucked you over. That should be quiet enough to have escaped the tape”

He stood back up. “Curry last night? You are making me hungry. What say we order pizza to the nick tonight?”

“Ginny has made my tea. I have to be good after last night”

“Well, let’s see what the others have to say”

Soon, there was a sizeable delivery order for our little enclave, as the civilian staff added their requests and Den called in support from the front desk. He was on the phone two minutes later, spelling out exactly where to bring it.

“Yes, along the Boulevard, straight across the roundabout…yeah, next left. No, not next to the Police Station, IN the place! Forty-five minutes? Great!”

It came, and he ate it n front of me, the sod. So I had a slice. And its friend. And a friend of a friend. Well, I would ride it off the next day. And so the shift, and the rest of the week, went. No dramas, no solved-in-an-hour police procedurals, just welcoming new guests and disposing of the old ones. I even managed to persuade some of the crew, including Den, to come along for the Saturday’s event.

That came round far too quickly, and I was nervous as hell as I rode out to St Nick’s. I hadn’t taken the advice to have a word with either vicar or outreach worker, so I was more than a little apprehensive as to what I would find. As it turned out, Simon, the vicar, was delightful, greeting me at the lych gate, and I felt the kindness almost flowing out of him. Here was a man who worked for a church that included people who would jump ship rather than have any dealings with my sort, and even though he wasn’t aware of my position I could still feel the strength in him, the passion.

“You’ll be Adam, then? You helped poor Melanie at the last?”

With a fucking shovel and a vinyl bag. “I did what I could, Reverend”

“Simon. I’m Simon, no more, no less. Thank you. She’s over here, in a sunny spot.”

He led me to a stone of a very familiar type, that of the serried ranks n Flanders and Picardy, with the Marines badge cut into it. Simon showed me the flowers fresh on the grave.

“This is what it is all about, Adam, the chance to shout at the devil and remember the lost. Celebrate life, as well, and I can’t think of any way better than song and dance. I could give you the scripture, but we both know what it says. Thank you for joining us, Stephanie promises great things from your playing”

“Compared to hers? I don’t think so”

“Adam, my friend, just enjoy the day and keep in time…ish, is all we ask”

“Er, I will do my best”

Steph and family were round the back, setting up the kit on what was turning into a glorious day, and a short man with a beard and wide hips was helping them.

“Hi! Adam? I’m Jerry, this is partly my show here, so welcome and thank you. I believe you are going to try and outplay our resident dervish”

Shit, I really was getting set up for a fall. Eric cycled past, waving as he went, and Jerry led me out to the dance area, his hips swinging as he went. So obviously transgendered, so don’t-give-a-shit in his manner. Would that, could that be me in the coming years? Out, as myself, happy, smiling at the world.

People were drifting in, and a CD of Capercaillie was playing over the PA as tables were set out and the flaps of the tent with the pre-racked beer were drawn back. Instruments were arriving, including a double bass. We had rehearsed in sections, as best we could, so this would be our first real outing together. A stupendously upholstered lady with long dark hair was testing the mikes, and Steph introduced her to me as Di Yale, make no jokes about clocks, nor the number seven. Our caller. Apparently folk types need directions in where to go, like an improved satnav.

The entire Woodruff clan were there, including an older couple introduced to me as Big Bill and Angela, and I received a string of hugs, all with the whispered word ‘Annie’. By the time they had all had a go, I was near to crying. Not unhappy, fuck no. Get it together, join the crew, get Saburo tuned and Timmy miked up ready for the grunting. In short, it was an odd sort of organised chaos where I was waving at the last minute as people I knew passed me by and at the same time wrestling microphones and music stands, seats and instrument cases. Once again I blessed electronic tuners as we got our mix into unison in double quick time.

We were a good spread of sounds. Geoff had a pretty bouzouki and two different mandolins by him, Bill a squeezebox of some sort, Kelly a Christmas tree of various hitty percussion things, Jan her bodhran and Steph and I our own axes. Eric was plugging his device in, giving me a grin as he did so, and I peered out at what was now quite a crowd trying to spot my friends as someone I didn’t know erected the bass.

Di made the introductions. “This is Ben, one of my regular musicians. Ben, these are a bunch of my irregulars. All ready? As in tune as you can manage? OK!”

Simon took her nod and came up to the mike.

“Friends, welcome to another Music Day at St Nick’s. Once again we have been blessed with beautiful weather and graced with a fine, if random, collection of musicians. We all know what we remember here each year, so I have no need to dampen the day for you, but I will say one thing: today we celebrate love and life, and life means movement, so move out onto the floor for the first dance! Our delightful caller tells me---four couple square sets”

Di took over. “Thank you Simon, and as is becoming traditional here, it’s ‘La Russe’. Please leave your fur hats to one side”

We set off, and Ben proved to be one of those pick and slap bass players that can really drive a band along, the deep boom of the instrument buzzing in my body as I followed Steph along the simpler tunes. It was fun, the way ensemble playing usually is, as the simple joy of making music is amplified by the smiles of those around you. I caught glimpses of friends in the whirling mass before us, Sally and Stewart, Ginny and Kate, and Den, with a string of partners as the dances evolved, several of whom were Ruth. Some of the sets were smooth and precise, some were random chaos, but everywhere there was laughter, Di sweeping it along with good and often saucy humour. I was astonished when she called an end to the first half; had the time gone so quickly? Eric came over with a grin.

“This is magic, Annie, Steph! I haven’t had so much fun since the day my brother’s dog Rover...”

And several voices, including Di, Ginny and Kate, joined in with “GOT RUN OVER!”

Geoff picked out a little phrase on his mandolin. “When it’s fiesta time, in Guadalaccchhhhhhhhhhhhara….” and we were off. Three Lehrers later, and Geoff cried off for beer.

Fun. It was all fun. I was among musicians, and Eric, and the instinct was there, the feel for the sound, the rhythm, and I cursed the last two years of stupidity. Ginny brought me a beer, and I realised that she had eased her regime a little, that she was trusting me to be sensible.

Another little bit of me healed just then.

Jerry was at the mike as we finished our pints.

“This is the boring bit, where I ask you for money. Well, sort of, but not that much. My minions will be coming round with raffle tickets shortly, and the money is going, as usual, to our little youth centre here. We have had issues in the past, accusations that we are a gay conversion centre, with serried racks of Gayness ready to be injected into unwilling infants. Well, it hasn’t worked on me, as my wife can tell you. Wife? No? Obviously the cheque hasn’t cleared yet.

“This is a place where kids can talk. It’s not just about sexuality, or gender issues, but about issues such as pregnancy, or abuse, or self-harm, all those things young people find it so hard to talk about. We remember the tragedy that began this event, and please God we never see another. Thank you for coming, thank you in advance for your generosity. Now, back to the music!”

Do or die, Annie. I stepped forward to the mike, Saburo smooth in my hands. The others stood silent behind me as I raised the flute, and the first long note wailed out over the crowd. I held it as long as I could with my lungs making a loud request for me to learn circular breathing, then cut it sharply off. The next one I overblew, and the pitch leapt upwards before I let it drop again, and then I flowed into the simple figure I had put together. No tune as such, just a series of notes as atmospheric as I could manage. As the last one died away, and I reached for my other instrument, I heard a faint ‘shit!’ from Eric. Before the silence broke, I launched into the lilt of the Tull, and got a few cheers of recognition. Eight bars in, the double bass started a soft thump-thump, and then Geoff, Jan and Kelly came in on bouzouki and percussion. It wasn’t the sort of tune for squeezebox, nor for banjo, but Eric had produced a six-string acoustic guitar from somewhere and fitted in seamlessly.

As I came to the end of the exposition, Steph took it up, and we duetted for a while, almost in unison, till with a wave of the flute I took off. Slowly at first, just changing the tone from soft lilt to a harder, sharper-tongued approach, until I turned to the others. Chop down with the flute end for silence-- let rip. Ka-thump from the band---solo---band----solo, then start the melody and variations as I turned away and left the band to drive the rhythm as, to put it simply, I went as apeshit as I could, praying for Ian Anderson to help me keep it together. I cocked an eyebrow at Steph, who was rocking slowly nearby, hair all over the place, and I cued her in, lowering mine as she thrashed hers. Double-stopping, even triple at times, third position on the E-string, she screamed her reply to my solo, and with a slash of her bow, called me back in.

We danced back and forth, and I moaned and shouted through the flute as I played, and finally, finally, as Steph careered around the stage with her hair and bow flying, I had to do it, and to a roar from the audience I brought my right foot up to my left knee and started playing the repeated phrase that was our signal to drop back into the melody. Fuck, we were good!

We settled back into the flow of the tune, and the band carried us along, and then Steph and I almost nuzzled together as we drew the curtains on our duet.

There was silence, just for a second, then a roar from the crowd and a round of hugs from the other players. I was absolutely drained. Steph leant close to me and whispered “Almost, but not quite, better than sex, isn’t it?”

CHAPTER 29
I have to admit that the rest of the session was more than a little anticlimactic after our lunacy. We got through the dances with minimal hiccups, and finally Di had us play some polkas for a while so those who still had the energy could burn it off.

Eventually, we wound down and Jerry came over with a tray of drinks. They didn’t touch the sides. I had been sipping bottled water throughout, but the pint was bliss. Kelly was one of the first to get to me as I slumped onto a plastic chair.

“How the hell do you do that, that squeaky jumpy bit?”

“Overblowing? It’s all a matter of getting the embouchure right, just at the right angle, and blowing a bit harder. Basically, a faster air stream at a different angle makes the air column vibrate at a different harmonic…your eyes are glazing over, Kelly”

“Yeah, right, that’s why I couldn’t really get that far with it. I am sticking to reeds and whistles. It’s like a fiddle and a mandolin, isn’t it? No frets to guide you, you have to be spot on”

“Yes, that’s why I like it, the subtlety, the control. If you start down that other road, you end up playing a banjo–oh, hello, Eric!”

“Bloody magic, mate! The two of you---insane. I was praying you wouldn’t fall over when you did that one-legged bit”

I laughed. “So was I, Eric. Oh, hiya Den, Kirsty!”

Dennis was dripping with sweat, and Kirsty was doing her best to distract every male in the area with nipples poking through her own damp top like Dennis-seeking missiles. I could understand her reaction, he was making me a bit unnecessary too. Kirsty was bouncing and as a result jiggling with excitement.

“Bugger me, Sarge, I would never have suspected you had that in you! That was fucking brilliant, and that tart with the red hair, fuck me!”

“The tart is called Steph, and is standing behind you”

“Shit…..”

She turned round and saw only Dennis and some random strangers.

“Sergeant Price, you are a sod! Never done this sort of thing before, I have got to do it again! Sweating like an otter’s pocket, I am.”

She indicated a group of coppers that I knew, mostly sweaty and clutching pints.

“We’re off round the Six Bells in a bit. You coming?”

Behind her, Den shook his head very, very slightly and mouthed ‘No’.

“Ruth, I would love to, but we have a dinner tonight round at Steph’s, just for the folk involved, and it would be rude, aye?”

“OK, Sarge! Laters!”

She moved off as Den smiled his thanks, and I watched them as they walked away, Ruth far enough away from Dennis to look almost innocent, but close enough to eviscerate any woman that approached him. I stretched on my seat, rolling my head to try and loosen some of the tension from nearly two hours of playing. I felt a pair of hands start to massage my neck: Ginny.

“That is lovely, Gin, lovely. You and Kate along for dinner?”

“Miss a free meal? Do I look stupid? No, leave that one!”

I leaned back into the embrace of a woman I was beginning to think of as a lifesaver, and she eased my tension till I was almost purring. Eric looked over, grinned and came close enough to whisper to me.

“Annie, I thought you were straight!”

“Well, when I find a man who can do this he’ll be a keeper”

Fuck, did I just say that out loud? Clearly I did, because Ginny was snorting. I actually felt the blush. Eric just grinned, the sod.

We were packed up soon enough, and a motley group of cyclists and vans headed off to Chez Woodruff where there was indeed a meal planned. Naomi had popped back partway through the dance to get the oven heating, and as we entered there was that absolutely gorgeous smell that only comes from roast lamb. Naomi had prepared a nut loaf sort of thing for Ginny, but the rest of us carnivores were salivating. It was only a few minutes before what needed unloading was off, and then Albert cracked a couple of bottles of fizzy wine.

“A toast before dinner, to music and life!”

We made quite a large group, even though Di had dragged Ben off to the pub instead, and Steph had set out two tables, the French windows open to the conservatory to keep us in touch. There were Jerry Summers and his wife Yvonne, Simon, the Woodruff horde, Albert and Naomi, the McDuffs, my girls and myself. And Eric. Even the banjo player got a feed, though of course he had played guitar, so he was almost a musician now. We were spread around to break up couples, and I ended up sandwiched between Big Bill and Eric. I sipped my glass of fizz and waited for the hubbub to die down a little, then tapped my glass with a spoon in the old signal for attention.

“I have an announcement, that most of you know already. I ask, for now, that it stays in this room”

“Rooms!” called out Ginny.

“Shut it or I’ll hide your knives. Now, it has taken me a long time to be able to face this squarely, but have good friends. Most of you know of my involvement with the poor girl who started this event off, but that is really just a very nasty coincidence. I am astonishingly lucky to have the friends I have, whom I now thank from the bottom of my heart. As I said, coincidences. Melanie, Steph there, Jerry…and me.”

Ginny was crying, and to my astonishment Eric and Big Bill both took my hands and squeezed.

“Yes, another one. I shall do the traditional thing. My name is Anne, Annie to my friends, and I do believe we are all friends here. I don’t know where I am going yet, I just know it’s away from where I’ve been. Cheers and iechyd da!”

The boys let go of my hands as I sat down, and I ducked my head to my wine glass to hide my shaking. Sal had a tear in her eye as well, I had noticed, but a smile on her lips. Big Bill laid an arm over my shoulders and squeezed me.

“Well done, friend. Don’t worry, courage is rewarded”

Eric echoed him from my other side. “You have more courage in you than anyone I have met, mate. No wonder you fell apart for a bit”

He slipped his arm below Bill’s and around my waist, and the two hugged me for a few seconds together. For once, not the first time, but the first in a long, long while, I felt almost feminine.

The subject was changed almost immediately, of course, and the discussion ranged far and wide, but always, always coming back to music, and mostly that day’s. The meal was superb, and we were on to the coffee, but I understood that the Woodruffs exuded music as others ate and breathed, and I had no issues there. I wondered about poor Eric, so asked him.

“Eric, do you want me to explain what some of the talk is about?”

“What do you mean, Annie?”

“Well, it’s about music, which is a bit of an unknown country for you…”

Ginny snorted, and Kate slapped her arm before passing her a tissue. Eric sighed.

“What is it about you and banjos?”

I grinned, toying with my coffee cup. “sTraditional, innit?”

“Annie, have you ever thought, as a classically trained guitarist who plays banjo because it is fun, that I might just find the constant put-downs upsetting?”

“Na, that would imply sensitivity and finer feelings, and you are a banjo player, so…..besides, I know you”

He grinned, and it was like sunlight. “Yeah, you do, and I can’t keep a straight face long enough, you cow. Seriously, what do you need from me? You have a lot of shit ahead”

“Eric, mate, I won’t know until I need it. Just be ready, is all I ask”

Big Bill was listening. “Ah, I always say ‘be excellent to one another’, it works for me. That’s what struck me about Steph when I met her, she cared about people, Geoff in particular, of course, but she did things for our family that can never be repaid, not in this cycle. Karma will do its thing, of course. I get the same feeling from you. I was talking to your colleague at the dance, Dennis is it? Pretending not to be with the girl with the huge chest?”

Shit. “Yes, Dennis. What did he have to say?”

Big Bill smiled, and several of the others leaned in. “He told me of a young boy, lost in a world he thought hated him, who did foul things just to be noticed, but who did them as a show and not out of malice, and he told me of a policewoman who saw, and understood, and cared, but still did their duty. Did it in a way to make a child feel human again. That is what speaks to me from your soul, Annie Price, true love for humanity, but with the realism that your vocation brings. Tell me…how many deaths?”

I started to shake at that, and Eric hugged me again. Bill sighed. “Too many, I see. Annie, you bear a weight on your soul that I can never truly understand, so look around you. These people are your world. They care. Whenever the souls you could not save call to you, remember the ones who care for you. Realise too, that the word ‘policewoman’ was Dennis’ choice. He told me he could see clearly what you are.”

CHAPTER 30
It seemed that my vice, the one I pandered to and indulged, was being hugged. I wasn’t quite the centre of attention at the gathering, but close to it, and I felt a little embarrassed at taking the interest away from what had been a superbly organised event.

I looked round the room, and even though I had only just met people like the Summers I felt entirely immersed in friends. Now that we had set out our stalls, the conversation moved on. Softly softly, she is fragile.

As we chatted, I pumped Kelly about Saburo, trying to get a hint of what she or her parents had paid for him. I couldn’t see myself letting him go, but I wanted to give fair return for him if she passed him over. When I asked, she started to laugh.

“You want to know what I paid? Really? It was a tenner, we found him at a boot fair. , I felt guilty for about thirty seconds…he had all sorts of tat, the bloke selling, including one of those mandolins, you know, the round-backed ones they hang on walls with bent necks and buzzy struts, and he wanted forty for that rubbish!”

“Well, I must give you a proper price for him”

“You did. You played him and gave him life. That’s what good instruments are for. Hang on, they’re warming the telly up”

Jerry called us all into the living room, where we squeezed onto chairs and sofa, and the odd dining chair that Steph brought in.

“My ladies, gentlemen and banjoists!”

Eric shouted back. “You can stop taking those lessons right now!”

Jerry grinned impishly. “We had a decent camera set up this year, I have the tapes ready to play. Those susceptible to embarrassment can leave the room, but I have copies of the recordings stored in a secret place. Payments should be in used notes and left with my usual fence. I give you….music day!”

They had actually had three cameras, but there hadn’t been time to edit the tapes together. Nonetheless, there was enough there to produce sighs, smiles, laughs and gasps. There were dancers smoothly gliding through figures like professionals, there were bemused groups standing still while they tried to work out what to do. Passing strangers raised their glasses to the cameraman or mugged for their friends, and there was film of the band. Naturally.

The rhythm section was bloody good, Ben’s snap and thump fitting perfectly, but like all egos mine fastened on what I was doing. When my piece on Saburo came up, the camera panned around the faces of my partners in sound. Kelly got some teasing when she appeared, mouth hanging open, but it was Eric’s lips that caught everyone’s eyes, as they clearly formed the word ‘shit’

I have described what it was like to be inside the music, but watching it from outside gave me a few surprises. I now understood exactly what Geoff meant when he spoke of his wife going ‘all hairy, and he should really add the word ‘hungry’ for her facial expression, but how had I missed Eric’s cock-rock pose, not to mention his rather sharp guitar playing? And when had I ever become so arrogant? That was the only word for it; Steph was simply mad, but I was strutting, posing, for god’s sake. Once more I felt the blush. Eric muttered behind me.

“I had sort of wished I could forget doing that bit…I look like a refugee from Status Quo”

“You look, and sound, bloody good, mate. We’ll make a musician of you yet!”

Steph….I hadn’t realised how far her blush goes, but it was at least down to the top of her breasts. “Look, it’s not deliberate, I just get carried away a bit!”

There was a chuckle from her family. Geoff shouted out “I love my hairy wife!” and then collapsed with a fit of giggles, and I realised there had been more wine consumed than I had noticed. The evening was about to start winding down, and Ginny came over to me and offered a lift home.

“Kate’s brought the car, and being a sensible wifey she has put the bike rack in. Eric, you getting the train home?”

“Ah, I might take Annie up on that offer of a spare bed. Still open?”

“Of course. How did you carry the two instruments, anyway?”

“Simple, hard cases with pannier hooks screwed into the back. One each side of the rear rack”

“Clever boy! Right, people, it is time for some of us to be off. Thank you for the meal, but mostly, well, thank you for your kindness. It means a lot to me”

There was a round of hugs and wishes, and then we were outside strapping rack to car and bikes to rack. Eric and I squeezed into the back with his instruments across our laps, and Kate drove us the eight miles or so back to my place. I asked them in for a coffee, but they were adamant they needed to get back down to Brighton for the cats. Bikes locked up, and instruments lugged in, we settled down with a cafetiere of decent ground stuff and a warm glow. Eric sighed as he slumped into the armchair.

“That was one bloody magical day. I didn’t think I’d be able to keep up with the others, but with that bass line, and the percussion, it just….I don’t know, clicked together?”

“That’s the thing about playing with others, when it is good, it gets better and better, and when you are doing the silly stuff you need a good back line to play against. Steph was bloody frightening, she looked hungry there, like she was waiting for a fix!”

“You can talk, Miss watch-me-on-one-leg!”

“Ah, we all had our moments there. I was trying to see the other’s faces on that, but it was mostly Jan’s and Geoff’s that came out. She was so intent…”

“Yeah, and he was grinning like an idiot. It’s funny, Annie, but he said he fell for her the first time he saw her dance. She’d been so shy up till then, and suddenly there was music and she just went off with it. You are a bit like that yourself, you know”

“What, shy? Me?”

“Yes, you. You hide away, not just because of, you know, but because you don’t want to load people down with your problems. Then that switch gets thrown, and you explode. Two people, you are, and I wonder…..if you do get the right answers, and the right doctoring, might you be the same person all the time?”

I thought about that one. “I suppose….if I wasn’t feeling like I am acting, then maybe. When I play, it’s like a focus, I can forget the rest of the world, and it’s freedom but chained to the playing, if that makes sense?”

“Yeah…could it be like your touring, you know, what’s the phrase, gender neutral? Something to focus on that doesn’t immediately make you say boy/girl?”

I grinned at him. “Not another bugger subcontracting to Sally? I think you are right, there. The cycling lets my mind wander, and I can pretend I am someone different, and the music is the opposite, it sucks me right in and stops me thinking of anything else. Yeah….”

He yawned. “Enough. Let’s get ourselves some kip, today is catching up big style”

We went into my bedroom and there, still on the bed, was the suitcase. I had forgotten all about it, and after pulling out some bed linen for Eric, I opened it. He came back in as I stood and stared at the contents. It was no cross-dresser’s dream, no extravaganza of lingerie and frills, but solid, simple, practical, feminine clothing. No bras, so clearly silly at this stage, but skirts, dresses, blouses, simple tops, and some shoes. The shoes were the surprise, as while everything else was obviously used, the shoes were in my size, and new. Three pairs, various styles, with a note wedged into one of them.

“We thought you could walk a mile in someone else’s skirt, but you’d better have your own shoes. K and G xxxxx”

I was bleary-eyed as I hung it all up, and Eric smiled gently, gave me a hug and left me to my new wardrobe. I showed it to Tabby as I put it away, then slipped into one of my nighties.

I was back on stage, and the crowd were yelling as I wailed and thrashed the air, and the bass slapped away, thump, thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, lub-dub, lub-dub, a heartbeat, and the crowd noise faded away along with the band. Lub-dub, lub-dub, a heartbeat, and I turned back to the audience, and as turned I could hear the wailing of a bereaved woman, and…

The baby was still in its chair, its car booster seat, as it always was, the marks of the glass and the road livid, and it was looking right at me this time, and it was like Steph, hungry, and suddenly my nostrils were full of the smell of the roast lamb from earlier, except it wasn’t lamb, it was pork, it was petrol, it was teenager, and Eric was holding me as I thrashed and yelled until I suddenly hit the real world and started to shudder in his arms, and then weep into his chest.

We stayed like that for a small age, as my tears eased, and my trembling tailed off. He stroked what there was of my hair, as if I was an infant, until he could lay me back down as sleep started to haul me back.

“What the hell” he murmured, as he slipped in beside me and once more spooned me as I drifted off to better dreams.

CHAPTER 31
Once again I woke up to the feel of someone’s arm across me, but a faint sighing of breath rather than the surfacing walrus that was Ginny in sleep.

So many conflicts in my mind woke with me. What, exactly, was I doing? Physically male, in a night dress, in a double bed, with a man who I realised was actually naked. More than that, a man who clearly cared about me. Even worse, I realised, was the fact that I sort of fancied him. Where had that come from?

I slipped out from under his arm, and he grunted a bit until I slipped a pillow back there, and headed for the shower, carrying one of the packs of knickers, a pair of the shoes and the dress that had caught my eye as the most likely to fit my current body. It was a pale blue print, with a shirt-style top and lace-edged lapels, and I guessed it to be around mid-calf in length.

“Carpet….” Ginny’s words came to me, and in a daze I found myself shaving my legs for the first time since I was a teenager. The shower was warm on me, and hot on the newly-bare skin, but I had only made a couple of small cuts, and I am not that hairy anyway. Drying myself afterwards just felt weird, but the knickers fitted, sort of, and so did the dress, loose enough on top to drape rather than hug, and long sleeves. I pondered on the possible reactions if I were to shave my arms, and decided against.

I slipped on the maryjanes and looked at myself. Pathetic. A man in a dress looked back at me, patches of beard shadow visible where Steph’s technician had not yet worked her magic wand. It would have to do, I had breakfast to make.

I crossed to the kitchen and started my work by filling the kettle, then halving some grapefruit. As the kettle boiled, I quickly gathered Eric’s clothes from the other room and put them onto my bed. Much as I was beginning to realise I wanted to see him walk naked to the bathroom, it would be rather less than fair. He woke as I came in, and looked embarrassed at the sight of my burden.

“Sorry, Annie, but I sort of came in here in a hurry last night. How are you feeling?”

“A lot better, thanks to you”

“It was a bad one last night?”

I sat at the edge of his side of the bed.

“It was a really bad one. It was all tied up with the dance, and the roast dinner, and the announcement, and, well, the dreams are getting less common, but big events seem to trigger them. That was quite a day”

He grinned, and it was like looking at Dennis that first time, the instant knowledge popping into my head that I wanted him. The revelation was rather sparing on the details, but very insistent in its basic message, and I had just slept with him naked. Shit. His hand was on my shoulder, gently kneading.

“You’ve gone quiet. I was just about to say that Jerry has offered me a copy of the edited film when it’s all finished, and you tensed up”

“Thoughts, conflicts, the realisation yet again of how impossibly shit my life is”

“Dennis? You hardly made it a secret to the girls, and I caught some of your looks. He seems a good bloke, but looking at the way he was dancing with that girl with the huge nipples, I would guess he’s a bit conventional in that respect. Sorry to be so blunt, love, but it’s probably not the best way to start any change, getting told to piss off”

“You’re right, of course, it’s just I get all wobbly when I look at him. And look at me, aye? I look stupid. Why I did this today, fuck knows”

“I think you did it to tell the dreams to go away, Annie. To try and make some statement of intent, as well. When are you seeing your blood doctor?”

“Tuesday, ten o’clock. Then Sally has a slot for me.”

“Want company, just in case?”

“Can you do that?”

“I’ll tell them I am seeing the doctor, won’t be a lie”

I turned on the edge of the bed and hugged him, then screwed up my courage and kissed him on the cheek. “Kettle’s on, and I am doing some breakfast. Grapefruit and cereal, but if you are desperate I can do you a sausage sandwich, aye?”

“No ta, the grapefruit sounds fine. You know, I was right in what I said, now that I know what you are, I am astonished that we missed it for so long. There really is a girl in there, so if she wants to come out, there’s several of us who are happy to help in any way we can, OK?”

I nodded my thanks. “Bring Tabitha, can you? She likes to have breakfast in company. Shower if you want, I’ve chucked in a clean towel”

I dashed off to the kitchen to hide my tears, and to let him get dressed. It was scary; the more I admitted to others what I really was, the more she took over and spoiled my act. I cobbled together enough cutlery for the two of us, sliced round the edges of the pink grapefruit with the special knife that Ginny had insisted we buy and dug out the pack of sugar I had bought years ago and never used, just in case Eric wanted to spice up his fruit. Teapot, mugs, milk, cereal boxes, bowls…..why is it so much more elaborate when you have a guest? They probably eat exactly the same way you do when they are at home, off their knees in front of the telly, so why the song and dance? I put some Lisa Ekdahl onto the CD player, and finished setting out the breakfast. As I brought out the tea, Eric came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped round his waist.

“I’ll grab breakfast, and then if you fancy it we can get a few miles in while the weather is holding up. We could even go to Brighton if you feel up to it, that would give me a train straight back up to town”

“Ah, do it in the daylight? What the hell. We could give the girls a shout, see if they want ice cream on the pier. Well, knowing Brighton, but ice cream elsewhere and then take it to the pier.”

He grinned, and it was another wobbly moment. Steph was right, as soon as I let go of the pretence, I was lost.

“Swimming!”

Arse. I knew he would say that. “Not at the eastern end. I am not going naked”

“OK. Bring some sandals, the shingle’s a sod getting out”

Just then, the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi Annie, it’s Steph, we’ve been talking at this end, and wondered what you were doing August Bank Holiday?”

“Why? Another gig? I quite fancy having an excuse to pose again!”

“You cocky sod. Sort of a gig, it’s the Shrewsbury Festival, and we, the family that is, make it a sort of, well, pilgrimage”

“Ah….would that be where you met Geoff?”

She laughed. “Guilty as charged! But there is an ulterior motive, which I need you to agree to. We have been going for a number of years, and I always enter the ‘open mike’ competition, and there’s always some bloody kid who plays something obscure like a bloody genius, and I lose out. With you…we might just have a chance to beat the little bastards. Four nights, camping, excellent beer, and a great atmosphere. Oh, bloody good showers!”

“I think I might well be interested, if I can get the time off. Hang on a sec: Eric, fancy a music festival August Bank Holiday weekend, in Shrewsbury?”

Did I just do that? He nodded.

“Folk music? Definitely interested, we can google it after brekky, see who’s on. I assume it’s camping. Train up with the bikes?”

I spoke back into the phone. “Eric is interested too, we can get there by train”

“Geoff has a van we normally go up in, if you want us to stick your luggage in there it might make life simpler”

“Definitely sounds a good idea, that would make getting through the stations a bloody sight easier, aye? We can chat about this later, see how we feel. Got a pot of tea cooling here, so got to go. Ring you tomorrow”

I had just arranged a weekend away with a man. So it involved the entire Woodruff family? It was still a weekend away with Eric. Arse.

CHAPTER 32
I got changed out of the clothes I had worn for all of an hour, and pulled on my lycra. As I was sorting out the bikes from the shed, I had a sudden thought.

“Eric, butt, how are you going to get your instruments home?”

“OK if I leave them here for a while?”

“You want me to share my place with a banjo?”

He just grinned and led me out of my street and onto the road to Turner’s Hill. It felt good to be out, good to be rolling, and even with the previous day’s excesses I could feel how my fitness was coming back. I had thrown some bananas and other munchies into the saddle bag, along with a flask of coffee, and I shared some of the food with him as we paused at the crossroads at the top of the first Hill. I stopped four times on Ditchling, but there was no goaping for the first time in years. That’s ‘get off and push’, ‘use the 24” gear’, all the usual jokes. The coffee was for the top, on a Summer day with the views stretching the width of a county, and then once more the gentle ride downhill to Brighton. I gave the two others a call from the top

“Mwmfh?”

“Morning!”

“What the fuck has got you up so early, and got you so disgustingly cheerful?”

I have arranged a weekend away with a man whose smile I have only just understood might be for me. “Eric’s got us out of bed and onto the bikes. We can haz ice creams onna pier!”

“What the fuck?”

“Top of Ditchling at the moment, going for ice creams and a swim. Bring money!”

“Oh, I’ll bring Kate, it’s the same thing. By the pier?”

“Yup! See you in a few”

The smell at the entrance to Brighton Pier is always the same, where two ranks of pretty dire fast-food stalls fill the air with smells that are somehow radically different from what they sell. The worst is from the doughnuts, which are, well, even in my worst days of fat and excess and self-hate, I still couldn’t face them. I took Eric upwind.

The girls arrived with an industrial quantity of locks and we decamped to a proper ice-cream seller before locking everything up and setting out along the pier. The deck is wooden, with gaps between the boards, but the owners have been thoughtful enough to provide a smoother walkway, clearly designed to allow girls in silly shoes to totter along to the attractions. Being Brighton, a lot of those girls aren’t, strictly speaking, actually girls. Ginny was completely focused.

“Grabby machines. Want grabby machines”

Kate sighed. “You are how old, exactly? I’ll get the change…”

Eric disappeared immediately into the bowels of a jet fighter simulator thing, while Ginny concentrated, tongue tip visible, on steering a set of claws that dropped to try and pick up some oddly-made cuddly toy or other. One pound forty later, and she had two. I was impressed. Kate sighed again, not as theatrically as before.

“It’s the competition, love, she is just so cut-throat about it. She can’t be beaten. Ever. Now, did you try on any of the stuff we left you? Ah, you did then, you blush far too easily”

“Not as badly as Steph!”

“Mmmm yeah, it went all the way down her tits and…no, Kate, do not go there! Stop changing the subject…let me guess, the blue dress with the white collar trim? Thought so. You are coming along, girl. I don’t mean silly things like clothes, I mean you are smiling again.”

She paused, just for an instant. “ Dreams going away? Ah”

She laid an arm around my waist and rested her head on my shoulder. “Was it a bad one?”

“Kate, they are all bad. That one was a real… piece of work, though, I think it was the roast that set it off. It’s the smell…”

I tailed off, and she squeezed me. “Good job you had Eric with you then. Love, you are shaking, leave these two and get some air, OK? Ginny, we’re just getting some fresher stuff, OK?”

“Mmmhmm”

Kate took me out to the rail and we stood in the sun for a minute, watching the gulls turn on the wind.

“You are really confused there, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t got a bloody clue, Kate, not one. I was thinking about what Steph said, how you get a sudden clearing in your sight and bang, you know exactly who you are and what you want. I feel a bit like that”

“You want Eric…”

“Oh fuck aye, but look at me. It’s not like Steph, she was already, you know, and then he never knew her before. Eric’s known me ever since I came over to England, man and fucking boy almost, and that’s the problem, aye? I can see how Geoff does it, no previous sort of images, but me? I’m already an image, that fat bloke with the beard”

“But you have already shaved your legs, you changed your clothes for him. Why don’t you let him have a chance to say what he thinks, rather than assume?”

I locked my eyes on a gull sitting on the water. “I have so much shit already, Kate. Rejection would be just a bit too much. We are going to see Sally together, which is immense of him, and, well, shit, we seem to have sort of agreed a weekend away with the Woodruffs. Music festival, aye? If I put all this on him before then, it will be a totally crap weekend, aye?”

“I am not Sally. You see her in a couple of days, yeah? Talk to her then. Now, we better get the other two rounded up before they spend all our money. Does he really want to go swimming?”

“Oh yes…he is barking”

Kate turned me round and pulled me into a fierce hug. “We all are, Annie my love, we are all mad, but we are nice about it”

She pulled away from me for an instant, and smiled. “Just don’t let my beloved near any crossbows.”

In the end, we didn’t go swimming, as the rising wind carried just enough of an edge to chill us, and after lunch/tea, taken in that limbo of time mid-afternoon, we said goodbye to the girls and caught the train. There was space for once, and we sat in the double seat and joked our way up to Three Bridges. I caught myself at one point, with a hand on his thigh as I laughed, but he said nothing and I tried to carry on as if nothing had happened, till I got up to leave him and the train. Another of his one-armed hugs as I unfastened the bikes, and a whispered “It’s not a problem, Annie”

I stood on the platform staring till the train was almost out of sight. It was a problem, a very big problem, and one I didn’t have a clue how to address.

Work the next day was a bit of a tightrope, with Den smiling at me a lot and an occasional appearance from Kirsty, who seemed to be doing her level best to let everyone know she had a claim on him without making it official enough to cause him grief.. My mental state made me grateful that we had a really quiet shift, but that in itself gave the others time and opportunity to grill me about my performance. After one too many questions about one-legged flute-playing, I made the announcement.

“Look, some of you were there, I saw you trying to hide your batons while you were dancing, aye?”

Kirsty called out “Some of us hid the baton after the dancing, Sarge!”

“Naughty naughty, Ruth! There is a film of the event, I will have a copy soon, and I promise I will play it for you in the retiring room when I get it. That OK with everyone? Right, bugger off and fetch me back some work!”

No dreams that night. Not much sleep either, and I was up before the alarm getting ready for the doctor. I was just pouring the tea when Eric knocked at the door, his tourer locked outside.

“Time for a cuppa before the Inquisition? Nice nighty, by the way.”

Ah well, he had seen me in a dress, so no issues there. I grabbed another mug for him and poured.

“Thought you were meeting me there?”

“Couldn’t get off last night, so I rode down early, before the roads got too shitty. Can’t afford peak time train tickets, I need both my kidneys for the beer”

“Well, it’s the same shit for breakfast, butt, fruit and bran”

“Ah, so you like regular visitors, then!”

“Johnson, that was bad even for you. Here, be useful and cut the grapefruit”

We munched our way through the meal, and he put away several glasses of orange juice as well as the tea.

“It’s warming up out there, so we better fill the bidons”

“Eric, it’s only half a mile away”

“Yebbut, we might get lost on the way back, perhaps stuck in the countryside or something”

“Is this some plan to keep my fitness levels up”

He grinned. “Guilty!”

Once dressed, I led him out on the short ride to the medical centre, where Doctor Newman was supposedly ready to give me my results. Of course, the appointments dragged on, and we were half an hour late before we were finally in front of my bloods man. He looked at Eric, giving him a thorough going over, before asking him,

“And you are?”

“Her friend, here to give moral support, and I made sure I showered all my Gayness off before we came in”

The face cracked a little. “Well, given what…she is here for, it was a thought that crossed my mind. Now, results….what I have looked for first of all were signs of any unusual proteins, things that can indicate potential cancers in particular. Dr McDuff tells me…Ms Price, do you feel able to discuss this in front of your friend?”

“Absolutely, Doctor”

“Well, Sally tells me you have been on a rather extended alcohol binge. That can lead to a large variety of illnesses, some of which are cancers. I won’t go into great detail, but it can seriously damage liver functions as well. Tell me, before you decided to kill yourself like this, how healthy were you?”

Eric chipped in. “She’d just give you some bollocks, doc, so let me. An extremely fit long distance cycle tourist who went fully loaded through the Alps and other mountains because she liked the views. She could’ve been a decent triathlete, but she thinks running is unnatural”

I sniffed. “Well, it is. Why walk when you can ride?”

The doctor continued. “Fitness, OK, but I am after details on health. From what Sally says I should probably discount intravenous drug use.”

He continued on to question me about family health, smoking, sleep patterns and PTSD, building up a rather frighteningly detailed picture of my life, and then he finally came to the crunchy bits.

“Diabetes is one obvious risk for you, but I am pleased to tell you that it isn’t there, and from all the tests we have run there is no sign of liver malfunction. Doctor Khan has kindly supplied me with urine samples, and once again the only unusual feature is that you aren’t having any obvious kidney problems from your overenthusiastic boozing. Have you cut back, by the way? There was very little to be found in your samples”

“Yes, my friends sort of took charge”

“Good, good. Right, the other news. You are not exactly bursting with the fruits of the womb, don’t get any wild dreams up about magically turning female. On the other hand, your testosterone levels are below average. I should qualify that. Fifty percent of everything is below average, that’s how averages work, so we set a range across the mean figure that we call ‘normal’. You are normal, but towards the bottom of that range. That is actually better news than it already seems, as if approval comes for you to proceed with HRT, which from Sally’s notes is something you are exploring with her, we need less of certain compounds pushed into your body. Less risk to your liver, for starters.

“That, really, sums it up. Healthy, organ functions within tolerance, no unusual nasties lurking around your arteries. All I can say is that I hope you and Sally can sort out your future in a way that makes you happy. If you go down that route, I will be here to do the necessary. Any questions?”

We had none, and after handshakes we were off down the street to the nearby house that held Sally’s office. Once again we were left a bit longer than our appointment said, made worse by the delay at Doc Newman’s, and I sent Eric off to pick up three coffees from the nearby bakery cum café.

“Three?”

“If she’s ready, then three. If not, we can find it a good home”

He returned just as Sal opened her door and with a broad smile invited me in.

“Company, I see! I’d like to talk to you alone first, if Eric can wait outside for a bit. You OK with that? “

We both nodded, and I took two of the coffees in with me as I settled into the usual armchair. Sally took a sip of hers, and sighed happily.

“You shagged him yet?”

CHAPTER 33
That one smacked me down hard. It was clear that she knew exactly what the question would do, and I had to think hard as to what answer I should give.

“No. Not yet, and most probably never, ever”

She smiled. “But you want to?”

“I don’t know. Better to say I wish I was able to”

“Fair point. When did you stop crossdressing?”

“How did you know?”

“My questions, your answers”

“I….well, it was really when Mam went.”

“Lack of accessible clothing?”

I thought about that one. “Partly, but I didn’t really need her stuff by then. I had a small stash of my own. I kept them in a sort of cave in one of the quarries.”

“Where did you get them from?”

“All sorts of places. I never had the guts to go into a shop, aye? People would dump stuff in lay-bys and field entrances and that, mattresses and old fridges, and sometimes bags of stuff. Some of that was old clothes. And…well, I sew.”

“You made your own stuff? Same as you did for Tabby?”

“Yes”

“Did you ever get caught? Apart from that time with Jessica?”

“No. I was very, very careful, my dad had a temper, and Greg went, and…”

“And you hid? The beard?”

“Yes, the beard. I read the story, got a bit obsessed about stuff like that, saw the bit about the beard, and, well…”

“So you hid. Annie, I am going to ask you a question. It’s another of the sort of traditional ones, but I have to ask it. No internal dialogue before answer, OK? Just like those word association things, question-bang-answer”

“OK…”

“When did you decide to become a girl?”

“I am a girl. Always. Birth. What do you mean?”

“Ah, I didn’t expect much else as am answer, but it’s one of those questions I sort of have to ask. Occasionally I get people who have had magic revelations while watching Springer or Jeremy Kyle, but they normally get filtered out before they reach me. Now and again, though…”

She smiled again. “Shall we get Eric in, then?”

I popped the door open, and he joined us.

“Ah, the spawn of Satan, I believe. Eric, who is in the room with us?”

“Annie Price”

“Who is she?”

“A very old and dear friend, with a shitload of problems”

“Can you help with any of them?”

He looked at me for quite a while, then turned back to Sally. “I hope so. I think so. I think I have, in some ways”

“What do you see as her problems? Annie, this isn’t asking for a diagnosis, I just want you to see what others see”

He looked at me again. “ Life has screwed her up, her job has screwed her over. She mutters endlessly in her sleep, and then the nightmares come along…and I suspect the lack of proper sleep messes her up for the day, so it starts to pile up”

“You sleep with her?”

“A couple of times, when she has had a particularly bad night, when Ginny isn’t about”

“Any other comments?”

He thought again. “I am obviously not the trick cyclist here, but I suspect that life might go a lot easier if she didn’t have as many of the other problems. That sounds obvious, but what I mean is that we have had an awful lot of movement over the last few weeks and months. She has started coming out of her front door again, started riding again, lost most of the excess flab she had built up. More than that, though, she has told many of the people who matter exactly what the fuck is up with her, and that seems to have made the biggest difference”

“You don’t see her as odd? Losing a friend, that sort of thing?”

A long pause. “I did some reading, tried to put things into focus. There were several leitmotifs in the literature, one of which was about left and right handedness, another about badly fitting shoes, but the one that caught my attention was about double-exposure photos. You see someone you knew as one sex suddenly appear as the other, and the images conflict. I have a similar reaction, but in an opposite sense sort of way.

“Annie, you have always been weird. I don’t mean that nastily, I just mean that you never sort of fitted convention. All of your riding, apart from our social stuff, was solo. You never toured with a friend. The way you reacted to things was sort of off…that double exposure picture thing, it’s like I’m not seeing Adam under Annie, but like the other picture has been scrubbed and I can now see the real one clearly. Suddenly, you make sense. Sally, sorry if I am taking over here”

“Not at all, Eric. She needed an outside viewpoint.”

“Thanks, Sal. Annie, do you see what I mean? I think you are shitting yourself that we’ll all go ‘losing a friend’, but it isn’t like that, it’s finding out who our friend is. Got me?”

Sally leant forward a little. “What Eric is talking about, sticking to his photo analogy, is a sharpening of focus, not replacement of a picture”

I nodded. “So where does that leave me? You are the shrink, tell me what I am!”

Sally just laughed at that. “Oh, all of us know what you are, as soon as I spent five minutes with you I knew, and Eric has said it as eloquently as I could wish. What we need to do isn’t find out who you are, but decide who you wish to be.”

“That’s an easy one, but not a real hope. I just want to be myself, rid of some excess baggage–no, Eric, do not wince. I wasn’t talking about those. Well, I was, sort of, but what I really meant was my history. It is a big thing, PTSD, and I don’t think even the doctors, you, Sally, I don’t think you really appreciate what it means. The trouble is that I have that double load. It was that war book, Eric, that Canadian bloke, aye?”

“You know, I remember you talking a lot about that. I should have realised what you were saying”

“Yeah, yeah, butt, hindsight and all that. You are here now, and that is what matters to me. It is that image from the book, you know…”

“The wall? I remember you talking on and on about that”

How long had Eric been listening, really listening to me? Either I had been more obsessed than I remembered, or he actually paid attention. That begged a question…why?

“You remember that? I must have gone on a lot about it.”

“No, it was just such an image, the thought of an anti tank gun getting up close and personal on one man, brick by brick”

“Well, that is my life. Brick by brick. And it’s that personal aspect, as if the entire planet is aiming it all at me and me alone. That is the problem, I suppose, when you add two conditions like mine into one festering pile of shit.”

I took a few breaths. “Sal, you said you knew what I was, well, so do I, but I have had to live with that all my life, and it is corrosive. Eric, every single day my life shortens, because I haven’t got one now and the one I might have has just lost a day. Shit, mate, Sally, I know what I mean, I just can’t get the right words to it.”

Eric smiled. “You seem to be doing all right to me, kid”

Sally nodded. “That is a common concept among people with GID, and I don’t want either of you pretending you don’t know that term. You have both been researching like buggery, haven’t you? The concept that the longer you wait, the less you will have, until one day you just give up hope. Alcohol, drugs, self harm of varying degrees. That is what I try to prevent. Shit, I try my best, every time, and sometimes it works, and sometimes…sometimes I have to go and get outside a lot of my own alcohol.

“Annie, cutting to the chase, as I should do, we both know what you are. So does Eric, but I have boxes to tick and he just has to look after a friend. What is your preferred course of action? Stay hidden, or look to go through transition into what we all know is your true gender?”

That was the crunch question, the one had run from for so many years, the reason I had grown my beard, now almost zapped out of existence, and I knew it would only be after a lot of heart-searching that I could answer it.

So I simply said “I am hiding no longer. What is the next step?”

“Well, it is a matter of comparing what Doc Khan says about your general health, what Doc Newman says about your bloods, and stuff, and what Doc McDuff says about the fact that you are suitable for HRT.”

She drew in a few slow breaths as she flicked through Newman’s notes. “This is going to be a shitty time for you, Annie, I make no false promises. You have a lot of conflict ahead of you, and some of it may well be really unpleasant, but look at it this way: this isn’t the world shitting on you turd by turd, it’s you choosing to fight back. Your rules, in fact”

Eric was laughing. “You have some interesting metaphors, Sal!”

She was smiling happily. “Gets the message across, dunnit? So, Annie, we going for it then?”

“Fucking aye. Let’s do it”

CHAPTER 34
“The next step? That is largely up to you.

Now, I know damned well that both of you will have been reading everything you can find, so I am not going to get super-detailed. Annie, the only thing that really lies in your hands now, the main thing, is timing. You are the only person who can judge that, who can work out the hows and whens of, say, your work. I will be here to talk to you, obviously, but to start things off I will drop a note to Dr Khan for the mechanics. Now, Annie, can you piss off for a bit while I talk to Eric?”

That was a surprise, but I filled in my time reading the obligatory three year old copy of Country Life that was sitting in the waiting room. Eric appeared again after about half an hour, looking thoughtful.

“And?”

“She wanted a second opinion”

“From you?”

“Yeah…wanted to know what I thought of you without you listening in”

“And what do you think of me, butt?”

“That you are a mate, and I am glad you don’t snore. Look, are we going for this festival thing, properly? I just had a few thoughts…if we take a two-man tent, we get more room for instruments and stuff”

I tried to read his face, but only his mouth was talking just then. No tells. “What do you mean? The Woodruffs said they could carry stuff, remember? No need for anything on the bikes apart from some basics. So why the sudden sociability?”

That one produced a reaction, a little tension in the jaw line. “OK, it is another thing I am worried about. Look, what happens if you have some night horrors in a tent on your own, eh? From what I have seen, and what Ginny says, you sleep better with company, and I think it stops you getting fully into the dreams. At the cost of your baby sitter getting a few kicks and slaps, of course”

“I don’t lash out, do I?”

“You thrash a bit, yeah. I just thought, you know, it might be a bit embarrassing on a crowded camp site. I just thought I’d, you know, try and be a bit tactful…”

“You mean ‘lie’, aye?”

“Er, yeah…”

He looked a little redder at that one, and I let him off the hook, riding back companionably to my place and then spending a while on the internet to confirm our tickets for both the festival and the trains. It was a date. That thought brought what felt like a cramp to my mind, where I was confronted by the brutality of real life. It was like my daydream, a delight to live through and a permanent knife to my soul as I remembered that such things were fantasies. Yes, as Steph had intimated, I was presented with my new life and my eyes opened fully. It wasn’t quite a Pauline moment, no Damascus, but I was seeing what my life should be more clearly than ever before. I knew what I wanted, and it was a man, and he was called Eric. The stupid thing was that my awakening had been caused by another man entirely, and in neither case was I at all equipped to do anything about it.

There was another aspect, I realised, and that was Eric’s friendship. He cared deeply for me, as a friend, but he was male and straight, I was male as far as eye and hand would ever tell, and that was too much to expect. I knew exactly what he would do, and there would be no backlash, but it would be the sadness of a good friend who could be no more. There are no magical transformations, no nanobots. Just drugs and pain, and a sort of attempt at the genie’s work using not a lamp but a scalpel.

I must have drifted off into a longer silence than I realised, because the next thing I knew he was putting a cuppa in front of me.

“Penny for them?”

“Oh, mate, I don’t know. Just…all this, it’s just so much, aye? I know what I want, but I can never have it, because, well, life’s just not started right. What’s that saying, you can’t get there from here? That’s me, my life, aye? I have dreams, not those things in the night, but proper ones, nice ones and I feel, I dunno, I feel robbed”

He smiled. “That teenager comedy sketch, where all he says is ‘It’s not FAIR!’ “

“Yeah, well, it isn’t. What are we doing, Eric?”

“Well, that was part of Sal’s chat. Look, you don’t exactly hide it well, you know? Wanting to jump me…”

He was beetroot red as he spoke. I spoke as gently as I could, but the tears were waiting to make an appearance, so I had to be steady.

“Eric, yes. That is a bit of a problem for me. Even admitting that sort of thing…shit, what am I? Here I am admitting I fancy another bloke”

“But you are not a bloke, Annie”

“Oh fuck it, you know what I mean. This is a bloke I am living in, there’s no fire escape I can duck out of. You are amazing, you know that? Here we are, in a shitty situation that neither of us can really handle, and you stay, you don’t run away.”

“You are a good mate, Annie. I know you for what you are, and you have never disappointed me. You care for people, you must be the most honest copper I have ever met. I mean, even that Den, with his history, there’s something extra there, something hidden. Your problems are all from doing your job, and from doing your best to be what your dad wanted. Look, mate, I will never, ever walk away from you, got that? That is the only promise I will make”

I had no choice, my body was on automatic, and I shuffled over to him and let him take the hint and hug me. He chuckled.

“There is only one solution, then. Supermarket run, makings of a Chinese meal, bottle of vino, some junk food for later, and some trashy film or other. In other words, see if we can undo in a night all Ginny has achieved these last months, OK?”

“Fine, I have some panniers that will fit your tourer”

“What about your bloody Galaxy? Why am I doing the lugging?”

“Who’s the bloke here?”

“Sodding hell, you learn fast! Which film?”

“Hmmm….Dawn of the Dead, new version, followed by Zombieland?”

“You old romantic. Hang on, isn’t that the one with the banjo?”

“Might be…”

An hour later we were back with our purchases, and throughout the trip Eric had teased and joked, only occasionally becoming serious as we passed the racks of clothing and I started to look at something too obviously. I sorted out the shed, and he dragged in our supplies.

“OK, Annie, I’ll get things prepped while you get showered and changed, then I can use the shower before we cook”

“Changed?”

He smiled at me. “Changed. This is your evening. We have started out on your new life today, so off you go. Not something you’ll spoil if you dribble on it, though.”

I stood under the shower a few minutes later, passing my new razor over my legs once more. Mates. There were far worse things to have. With each stroke of the blade, it seemed, my mind cleared. If I could have no searing romance, no passionate gasps in the night, I had a chance now of at least part of my dreams. I felt like a pendulum, swinging from one state to another. One minute I was ready to give up at the lack of a chance for my bodice to get ripped, the next I was counting my blessings and feeling lucky, for I was.

I towelled myself dry, carefully over my legs, and slipped back into the same dress I had picked the other day. This time, though, I added the modest heels that Kate had given me, and clearly on Ginny’s advice they were slingbacks. No hair, no bosom, nevertheless I replayed Eric’s words. A new life, it started that day.

I leant him some shorts and a T-shirt to change into after his shower, and soon we were cooking, rice, and battered pork, and splashes of soy sauce as the extractor whirred away to clear the kitchen’s air, and he never stopped taking the mickey as for the first time ever in company I heard the sound of my own heels.

The food was good, the wine was decent, and the films were everything we wanted. I pushed it a bit, but we did end up with me slumped against him as the little dog ran across and the gun dealer got bitten. I muttered, half to myself,

“Ah, shoot ‘em in the head! It’s the only way to be sure”

“Annie, you are conflating Cameron with Raimi. I think that is the point you need to sleep”

That night, he was with me from the start. No dreams.

CHAPTER 35
The way a morning should be, apart from the fact that it was me that had to drag her arse out of bed to put the kettle on. He was still adrift when I returned with the tea, and as I prodded him awake I realised he had a slight hangover.

“Come on, butt, back to the Smoke for you and a mid shift for me. I will have the usual breakfast ready in five minutes”

“Can’t we just have a fry up for once?”

“Only if you fancy Ginny hitting you with your own banjo. Come on, up and out.”

I picked up my dress, which was lying over a chair, and set my heels upright in the bottom of the wardrobe before returning to the kitchen. We finished breakfast, such as it was, Eric in his lycra as I sat in a nighty and dressing gown, before he was ready to make his move to the station. I had about an hour to go before I had to leave for work, so I saw him to the door as I was. I hugged him, and as he hugged me back I gave him a little kiss on the cheek. There was a moment, just an instant, when I could feel him tense up, and then he simply hugged me a little tighter.

He pulled back, then, and looked at me. “This is far from easy, you know. I am as straight as anyone I know, and you throw me off-balance. I don’t, I can’t return what you are feeling, it just isn’t in me.”

He stood and looked at me, arm still around my waist. “Look, Annie, I made you a promise last night. I will never walk away. Whatever happens, happens. If you go down this route, well, we will see what we see, and one thing is certain: you will change. I might change as well….fuck, I don’t know. You are confused, I am confused, who knows where we will end up, yeah? But no preconceptions, no great plans. Let’s just get you sorted”

I squeezed him again, and then he was off, and all I could do was rattle around for a while until I was myself on the road to work.

Jim was skipper that morning, Sam coming in for the afternoon shift, which meant I had an opportunity to collar both of them together. Dennis was already at the desk when I came in, and we worked down the list of clients together. Two more Customs cases awaiting transfer to prison after an earlier remand hearing, one drunk driver who had been left to sleep it off before his own hearing, one burglar brought down by a dog at three in the morning as he came out of an office building near Goff’s Manor. Nothing out of the ordinary, really, as the drunk was now off the ‘at-risk’ list and could be left without constant observation, always a pain. In a quiet moment, as we brewed up, Dennis asked me how it had gone.

“The bloods man?”

“Yeah. You had a meeting with that shrink as well, yeah?”

“Well, Den, what do you think my aim is here?”

“Pal, you want to become a woman, like”

I sighed a little. “Ah, that’s the complication, butt. You know, they have changed the term several times, for the surgery, aye? It used to be ‘change’, then they tried ‘reassignment’, but that didn’t quite work, so now they’ve come up with ‘confirmation’, and that sort of says it for me. Confirmation. I don’t want to change, or be reassigned, I just want to confirm who I am. Look, see that England rugby player, the one with the nose, what’s his name?”

“Mike Tindall?”

“Aye, right, Tindall. Now when he finishes playing, he might well get that nose repaired, aye? Is he still Mike Tindall with a new nose?”

“Of course, but that’s just putting him back the way he was”

“And if I go through with this, it’s just putting me back the way I should have been. In answer to your question, both meetings went very well. My blood work is fine, my general health is better than I expected, and I have what seems like complete support from both my shrink and my friends, so I have to ask, Den, are you one of my friends? I intend to collar both Inspectors this afternoon, so things will start to move, and a lot of shit will start to fall. You could catch some of it. If you want to step away at all, I will understand”

He was already shaking his head. “No, marra, I don’t do that. I said what I said the other day. I don’t really understand, I don’t really, if I’m honest, approve, but I don’t run away from a mate. Here’s my hand on that one”

“Thanks, Den, that means an awful lot. Come on, tea to be drunk, prisoners to beast”

“Aye, and a shitload of paperwork to get through. CPS, got to love them”

I was trembling a little after that, but as the day went on and he continued being his normal self, I relaxed, at least up until handover time between the two shifts. I had already told Jim that I needed a chat with him, and when Sam came on I took the opportunity to get them together in their office.

Sam just came directly to the point, as he usually did.

“So, you want to see both of us at once, then. I assume you are making some announcement about this gender thing. You are going for it, otherwise we wouldn’t be here, right?”

“Spot on, as ever. I have had my assessment, had my blood chemistry checks, had my general health stuff, and my therapist says she will support my decision. All I have to do now is get the prescription, and…..”

Jim was just as sharp. “As you will expect, I have done my own research. The internet, what a handy little bugger. I therefore assume we should see some physical changes over time, and then you will have to do that real life test thing, yes? Live as a woman for at least a year?”

“Essentially, that’s right. I have been getting my beard and other bits zapped for a while, but it is going to be a slow process. This is going to sound petty, but…permission to stop getting my hair cut?”

Sam laughed. “Oh, you cheeky fucker. You want to put pressure on yourself so you don’t wimp out, yeah? Get your hair long enough to make it obvious to everyone!”

I smiled. “Guilty, but to be honest, I really can’t stand wigs”

Especially the horrible nylon ones which were all I used to be able to afford. Back before it was all burned, all except Tabitha. Jim was still talking.

“At some point, you will need to tell the boys and girls, and that is probably best done at a time you choose. What you have to do now is make a formal statement on this up through us to the Super and above. When do you want to do that?”

“Today?”

“Not a good idea. You are all excited, we can both see that, and it would be a lot better for you, probably sound a lot better, if you give it some time. Look, go and type an e-mail out, then put it away for a few days, and read it again. Always the best way.”

Sam chipped in his own question. “Sgt Armstrong. How is he taking this? I gather he is aware”

“He is absolutely fine with it, Sam. I know at some point I will hit the bad stuff, but just now the only things that are hurting me are the nasties I already had.”

Jim gave Sam a quick nod, and Sam continued. “Look, Annie, here’s our suggestion. You get all the necessary documents done, your prescription filled, whatever it is, and start preparing that e-mail. In the meantime, we two will have a direct word with the Superintendant and start things going up the line. Have you spoken to the Federation rep yet?”

“No. Should I?”

“Fuck yes. Stop any fun and games dead before they start, that’s my philosophy. Now, piss off and abuse some prisoners, OK, but don’t leave any marks, the paperwork’s a bastard.”

That was the start of it at work, then, two hard men simply nodding and telling me to play nicely, and that was how it went. Den was noticeably distant, in that while he was still as friendly and helpful as ever, there was a clear expansion to the physical space he gave me. I decided to take that as a compliment, in that he would not crowd any other woman. The shifts, marched on, my prescription was written, I took them as the notes advised and steadily gathered my kit for Shrewsbury.

Yes, it was just like that. Dr Khan called me in, frowned at me and told me I was being unfair to him.

“You are one of the very few men I was reasonably in hope would be coming and seeing me on the Well Man programme, and now you are becoming a Well Woman, and that is just being a vindictive person!”

Then he smiled, shook my hand, and handed me the prescription.

“Either way, Miss Annie Price, I want to see you coming in this door often, so that I can be sure you are in as Well a health as we can imagine and manage, all right?”

And yes, it was out the door, into Addison’s, prescription filled and first dose taken standing by my bike in the open air. Off and running.

CHAPTER 36
That was the start of the next stage.

I had another visit to Dr Newman, where this time he did play vampire, but also insisted on giving me a couple of jabs in my arse. All attempts to explain about saddles were met with a blank stare and the words “Well, don’t you want this?”

Sore for three days. Eric was down for two of the nights, leaving various items of kit including his two axes and a two man tent. I had rung Steph already, to tell her I was on the way at last, and we arranged a time for Geoff to collect all our junk for the weekend.

Ginny and Kate had been stupidly excited when I rang them. I had left it as long as I could, approximately five seconds after taking the first dose, and they immediately demanded a visit. It all blurred into one the next day, but we were even worse than the ‘Aliens’ night. We watched ‘World War Z’ this time round, and Ginny brought enormous quantities of dim sum that I found myself eating for breakfast, and all of it done in the clothes Kate had brought down.

Reality bit again, though, as I washed the glasses and plates from our excesses. Ginny caught my mood.

“So?”

“Just….realising I can’t have it all. I mean, I knew that, but, well, every now and again I get a little flash of reality”

“This weekend thing?”

“Yeah. It’s Steph that made me realise. I mean, she was obviously almost there when she did it, and there’s no way I could do that, turn up in a skirt.”

“Why not? Nobody else will ever see you again”

“So, Eric goes with me, he’s the odd bloke sharing a tent with a man in a dress, oooh, do you think they, you know?”

“You are getting quite a thing for him, aren’t you?”

I looked down into the sink, where the bubbles were getting rather interesting.

“Yes, I am. All part of realising who I am and what I have been hiding, suppressing, whatever. It will come…”

As usual, Ginny’s response was a hug, and I leant back into the taller girl’s embrace, relishing her warmth and support. I really was luckier than I had known.

Finally, that Friday came round. Our kit was gone, and Eric would meet me at Clapham for the faster train across to Reading. And there he was, this time in mountain bike shorts and a Cyclists’ Touring Club top. I had my Wales flag top on, and bib shorts, no point in trying to cover up my deformity. He gave me a hug as I came up to him on the platform, and then it was hunt-the-carriage for the cycle spaces, load the bikes and settle into our seats.

“Sleep much last night?”

“For once, Eric, yes. No dreams.”

“I was wondering…would there be any connection between the hormones and the nightmares?”

I thought about that one for a few seconds. ”I don’t think so. Sally and Doc Newman have warned me about probable mood swings, aye, but if I am honest I think any connection between sweet dreams and my pills is likely to be a sort of release of tension. You know, light at the end of the tunnel thing”

Eric nodded. “Trouble is, if you get any more, any extra stress, are you going to cope? Or is it just going to be same old same old?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t. Let’s just get this weekend rolling, enjoy ourselves and then see what happens.”

“Makes sense, but you might want to take your hand off my knee for now.”

Oops.

Changing at Reading was a nightmare. Not being a follower of the festival scene, I hadn’t realised that we were passing through the same weekend as the town’s own festival, which is considerably bigger than ‘ours’. It wasn’t just the difficulty of getting our bikes through the crowds and across to another platform, it was the patrols of ‘Revenue Protection Officers’ (ticket inspectors) inside the station who seemed to be stopping anyone who wasn’t in a suit. As a result, we only just made the Birmingham train, but we did, and it was a lot more comfortable. So comfortable I fell asleep. Such a stimulating travelling companion. I was shaken gently awake as we came into the underground maze that is New Street, and we went up down and sideways until we could find our platform.

A crappy little broom cupboard affair on the train was all they had for bikes, but I was amused to see the notices were all in Welsh as well as English. Back to boxy seats again, and I broke out the sandwiches and fruit cake I had sneaked past Ginny’s eyes , sharing it with Eric. He in turn produced a flask, and then some small rectangular shapes. Chocolate.

“When was the last time you had any of this, Annie?” he whispered, “A girl needs her chocolate”

I stared at them as he held them out, Green and Black being two of the words, organic another, dark a fourth, but the word that took my vision into a tunnel was that C-word itself. Let me just say that I managed to bite my tongue before the words “Who do I have to shag for it?” came out, but only just. Let me leave it there; it didn’t last very long.

Shrewsbury, and the way out led us past some old stone walls and onto a busy road, beside which we walked our bikes until we came to a complicated little gyratory junction thing, and we could finally put cleat to pedal. Alongside the river, up a little rise to some lights, left, down a bit, left again, then pass all the queuing cars and up to the entrance. A quick check of tickets, book in, wristbands on, and I was finally at the real beginning of a weekend away with a man.

Eric checked the site plan (“It’s a map and I am the man”) and led us round past all sorts of odd little buildings and through a gate by a huge marquee. I dragged out my mobile and gave Steph a shout.

“Come straight along the far hedge and you should see the van, about three hundred yards”

There they were, by the biggest camping tent I had ever seen, or so it seemed. The five younger Woodruffs were all there, and I noticed that while Eric got three hugs and two shakes, all of mine were hugs. Steph was bubbling over with excitement.

“You say you haven’t heard of most of these bands, Annie, but trust me you will enjoy them. Show of Hands, Capercaillie, that odd Swedish band you like, the Oysters, Kath Tickell, and they’ve got Richard Thompson back, with his band this time”

“Slowly, Steph, slowly, and after a cuppa? We need to get pitched first, aye?”

“Already done, Jan and Kelly set it up. Your bags are in, everything zipped together, and I’ve left you some proper pillows.”

I had a sinking feeling, and as I opened the inner tent I found I had been right. Two sleeping bags, zipped together to make a double. The assumptions were clearly out in force. I left it alone, and concentrated on getting my kit laid out and then changed into some lightweight trousers and a fleece shirt, as the wind was a little raw. My tea awaited me, at a proper table inside Bill and Jan’s tent, and we settled down with the programme to work out the weekend’s strategy. Steph had already drawn up plans for our assault on the open mike competition and her final ritual sacrifice of twelve year old prodigies, I was insistent we needed to be right up the front for Den Fule, and she was saying exactly the same for the Oysterband. Geoff was shaking his head.

“The first time I ever saw her get hairy was to them. I didn’t know where to look”

Steph grinned. “But you did look, though, didn’t you?”

He grinned happily back. “Oh yes indeed! I still do! I have a paper which says I can”

I broke in. “What’s tonight, then?”

Bill smiled. “An early evening ceilidh, Calan in the acoustic tent, some odds and sods to listen to for a while, or the beer tent, then it’s your Swedish lot. Finish off with a session in the bar tent.”

“What, get wrecked?”

“No, play some tunes, have some fun, and get wrecked if you want. So, we do the dance, have some dinner, listen to the music and then make our own with a bunch of strangers. Steph, did Jimmy say he would be coming this year?”

Steph called across “Saturday night”

Bill nodded. “That means Monday night is going to be blistering. Annie, I hope you have brought some lip salve, this is going to be a good one!”

The dance proved to be not so good. I did a few of the odd sort of swingy things, with Steph and Kelly, and some woman who asked me up, but I was feeling more and more ill at ease as I was. Everyone I knew there was treating me as a woman, until it collided with reality. I danced as a man. I dressed as a man. I would have had to piss in the gents’ toilets, if it hadn’t been for the single portaloos that were available. Steph caught my mood.

“Next year, cariad, next year, fe fyddwt ti’n ferch yn wir, o’r diwedd”

“Sorry, Steph, but I’m sort of lost with that stuff”

She smiled. “I will never understand how one of us can go through life and not know their own tongue. All I was saying is that next year will be different. Next year a woman, to coin a wotsit”

Next year. There would, after all, be a ’next year’ for me.

CHAPTER 37
Each day brought a new conflict in the form of a new confirmation. The toilets was one that almost surprised me; my subconscious was clearly telling me that if Steph had done it, so could I, but my rational part saw it as it was, a quick route to an early exit from the Job.

I was also watching Eric, and seeing him shimmy in the breeze of my change like a flag. He was there for me, consciously and conscientiously, but underneath I wondered if he was suffering. That moment with the hug, where he had stiffened for just an instant, then almost crushed me. What was that all about, some moment of confusion, or of regret that he had decided to make the promise he had so glibly given? It couldn’t have been disgust. That was what I told myself, not disgust at having a man hold him.

We were back at what Steph was calling the Edifice, the capital letter obvious as she spoke, and Jan and Bill were dishing out a simple but very filling meal of stew and rice. Bill summed it up:

“We can’t dance on a full stomach, nor drink on an empty one, so…”

They also surprised me by packing a collection of bidons, cycling water bottles, and once again the explanation should have been obvious. It helped to quench thirst without spending all night on beer, and, basically, getting shitfaced too early. These were people who knew what they were doing, and I wondered how many pratfalls they had taken before working out their system.

Steph had changed, into a green dress over leggings.

“I get a bit lively for a skirt!” she said.

“Why wear one, then?” I asked.

“Annie, love, if you think about it, it’s obvious. I wear a skirt because, after so many shitty years, I can. Full stop”

She started to giggle, and Kelly joined in. The youngster explained.

“First time we saw her, trying to get out of a tent, on her knees, in a dress, not a clue!”

Steph sobered very quickly. “That was my life saver, Annie, I came here on my own and in a couple of hours I wasn’t. This lot just took over. You have it harder, I know, but you are far from alone, just look at that bloke sitting next to you with his gob shut pretending we aren’t talking about him”

Eric raised a finger. “I was taught not to speak unless I had something to say.”

I thought furiously for several seconds, weighing up whether he would feel pressured with so many witnesses, then made my decision. I took his hand and squeezed it.

“Eric Johnson, you do yourself down. This lot have a mad fiddling ginger excuse to be so accepting. You haven’t. I know this is causing you all sorts of uncertainties, all sorts of shit, but you are still here. That is courage, mate. That is agape, brotherly love, whatever you want to call it, and that is more than I could have hoped realistically to get”

Oh fuck it, in for a penny. “Eric, this is not meant to put pressure on you, but everyone around this table knows what I am feeling. One day, I may be able to sort that out, but it isn’t now, and I don’t expect you to be anything other than what you are. All I will say is that I value your friendship, your love, above almost anything, and I will do my best not to spoil that. There you are, my cards on the table, in public, aye? Just understand this: I am never going to be able to repay you, nor Ginny, Kate, any of the others. I will take whatever you are able to give, and I will thank you for it, whatever it is.”

Eric looked stunned, so I gushed on. “Look, mate, all that wasn’t meant to put you under any pressure, just let you know how I appreciate you”

Love you. There, said it, if only to myself. I changed the subject quickly.

“So, this weekend, we have beer, and music and silliness. What’s next, Bill?”

He didn’t need the programme. “Young Welsh folk followed by mad Swedish weirdness, followed by my sister in law getting, as Geoff puts it, all hairy. Oh, and beer”

Eric grinned, looking a bit shellshocked. “Glad you sad the last one. Can we sort of reverse the order? Oh, for this session, banjo or guitar?”

He was looking at me, so I answered. “Satan, of course. Let’s give these soft English Marchers a bit of ‘unleash Hell’!”

Eric looked at me sadly. “We really have to get you and those other two girls onto some more intellectual films.”

Yes, I did love him. If only I could do anything about it.

We moved off to see Calan, as a phalanx of axe-wielding warriors, or something, Kelly carrying what looked like a noticeboard. Calan turned out to be rather good, a young Welsh group, all harps and cow-horn pipe things, and then finally we were in the big tent for some Swedish folk-punk. Eric looked at me oddly, and asked the obvious question.

“What the fuck is it with you and all this Swedish shit? I mean, you are Welsh, for fuck’s sake!”

Subtlety. “Eric, my sweet, it is simple. I learned a bit of Muppet Cookery after I heard Lisa, then there I am in HMV Oxford Street and they play the worst paranoid fantasy I have ever heard. How could I not love it?”

The track that had caught my imagination was ‘Det á¤r Jag” with the words ‘Det á¤r Jag som fá¶ljer efter, Det á¤r mina steg du há¶r’, It’s me that’s following, it’s my step you hear. In my shattered state I had heard that song calling to me, the utter paranoia of its lyrics matching my mindset back then. It was only later that I had realised the subtlety of the rest of their music; the stalker power piece held me close and tight.

“Eric, you will adore them. No advance warnings here, but expect some back of the neck hair stuff”

And so it was. They drifted through Sná¤ll, and Fly med Mig, and then Ská¤gget, and by the time that song came round I was up at the front shaking my thang in a manner as hairy as anything Steph could manage. Sweat was running down my face as they finished, and Geoff was up by the two of us handing out water. I realised I was next to a similarly sweaty Steph, who just grinned at me before mouthing “Magic!”

Out into the coolth of the night air, clutching our instruments and draining our bottles, the siren call of the beer tent ahead of us as the family gathered together, and somehow, magically, we managed to find enough seats from various parts of the marquee to sit us all together. Kelly’s noticeboard turned out to be some sort of platform that she laid flat on the grass, while the men were despatched to the bar for the necessaries.

Beer. Wine for Jan, wine for Kelly, but beer, in pint glasses, for the rest of us. I took a swallow, and Eric’s choice was spot on. Not an ale I had heard of, but a good golden bitter from a local brewer. I fitted Saburo together and ran a quiet couple of scales to check the tuning, as the others did much the same, and I realised what Kelly was up to as she laced up a pair of clogs. There was muttering, and laughter, and the sounds of fiddles being tuned, and Eric just leaned in and said “Wake them up, girl”

I do love that flute. As the last overtones of my little piece died out, someone shouted “Shit, yeah!” and a fiddle was off, quickly joined by random strangers, and I swapped to Saburo’s brother to join in. It was all simple stuff, some of which I knew, but almost entirely in one of only three keys, all major. Piece of piss, really, to harmonise and improvise around the melody as Kelly did some quite amazing things with her feet and Steph just sat grinning at me as she played, doing much as I was.

More beer, more tunes, more ornamentation and more laughter and smiles. I had never played anywhere like this before apart from our camping sessions, and the big difference there was that we all knew each other. Here, strangers played, some of them badly, joined in, dropped out, smiled. That was the overall image I took from it: smiles, laughter over a beer glass. Several of what must have been regular festival goers came over to us to say hello, almost always directly to Steph, who was positively glowing. Geoff called over to me.

“Don’t worry, she won’t go all hairy tonight, she’s saving that for Saturday and, of course, Monday. We’ll have Jimmy with us then, and that always sends her over the edge”

So, wait till Saturday, which was nearly on us. The barman called time, we drank up and packed up, and strolled back by headtorch light to our camp, the Woodruffs hand in hand and Kelly still doing little steps as she went. The long day was tearing me down a little, so as we arrived I said goodnight in a round of hugs as Jan started the kettle heating. I slipped into Eric’s tent, and then into T-shirt and sleep shorts.

I had forgotten. The two bags were still zipped together. I had a moment of hesitation, sitting in what was becoming quite a chilly night, and then slipped in and snuggled down, the sounds of quiet conversation and laughter coming from all around me.

Eric woke me as he came in, the cold air over my face bringing me out of sleep. There was a bit of fumbling and rustling as he changed, and then he was sliding into his half of the bag, rolling onto his side and spooning into me, his arm over my waist.

“You awake, Annie?”

“I am now. Big farting bloke, smelling of beer, putting his cold knees against me”

“You have more than enough beer about you too, woman. Laid out the piss bottles?”

“Under the fly, sticking plaster round the neck”

“Great stuff. Look…I can see what you are feeling. I can’t really miss it, but I stick by what I said before. I am not running away. It feels sort of right like this, here in the dark…it’s just the daylight that throws me off. Can you get that?”

“So what am I making so obvious?”

“Falling in love. Not many people do that with me, so I got a bit clever at spotting it”

“Yeah, but…..that’s the problem. There is fuck all I can do about it”

He sighed. “Wait and see, girl, wait and see. You have me all confused as it is, so let’s see what happens. This, like this, this is more than OK, this my mind doesn’t get twitchy over. I am not rejecting you, Annie, I am just saying that I can’t accept you. It’s what we all said; as soon as we knew what your problem was it was all so obvious. My good mate is a girl in a bad costume. It’s just…I don’t do bloke on bloke, it is just too foreign for me.”

“I am truly sorry, Eric, I don’t have too many choices in this”

“Yes you do, and you have exercised the main one. You are so alive now it hurts to watch you, like looking into the sun. I can see the girl in there, clearly. I know I am being shallow, but let us wait until I can see the girl in the flesh, see how I react then.”

“Shallow? I can’t think of anyone deeper. You are right, Eric Johnson, I do love you. Now, this conversation is going nowhere except where it hurts, so if it s all right with you, please just keep holding me and get some sleep.”

He kissed the back of my neck. No dreams.

CHAPTER 38
Eric was gone in the morning, but his side was still warm, so it hadn’t been that long. As I luxuriated in the warmth of the bag, the zips opened and he handed me a mug of tea.

“Don’t say I never do anything for you!”

He was already dressed, in cycling kit, and when I asked why he explained that Geoff wanted to go out for a ‘spin’

“Not this morning, aye? I’m all toasty warm just now”

“OK, see you in a couple of hours. The others are doing a breakfast, we’ll get ours in a bit. Laters!”

I made the effort to settle back down, but soon the smell of bacon was too strong to resist, and I wrapped myself in T-shirt, fleece and cycling tights and struggled out of the tent, making a quick visit to one of the plastic toilets before entering the Edifice. Three women looked at me, eyebrows rising in unison like the flags at an Olympic medal ceremony. Bill muttered something about taking a stroll, and I was left to the interrogation. I sighed.

“Before you ask, nothing happened. Well, a lot happened, but nothing, nothing physical, well, that can’t, can it?”

Jan interrupted my flow of nonsense. “More tea? Easier talking when your hands are full”

I took the mug gratefully and settled onto a bench seat. Kelly flopped down beside me and slipped an arm around my waist. “This is frightening you, isn’t it? All going too quick?”

“Sort of, but, well, I wish it was quicker”

I popped out my medication and made a show of taking it. “See, I have this, and Steph’s hair place is doing things, for me, but it’s like a kid as Christmas is coming, why can’t it be today, aye?”

Steph laughed. “I did it the other way round, you know. I was already rather…developed, and I was still playing rugby and working as a man, having to strap everything up and so on. I didn’t have the guts to come out, I was just stuck as I was. You’ve already told most of the people who matter. That’s where we differ. You are going to be changing as they watch, I was already mostly there. Look, next year, here, you will be looking so much more yourself. Think of it as something to look forward to, not something to make you wish your life away”

Jan was nodding. “And Eric?”

I knew what she meant, and I had a sudden rush of certainty to the mouth.

“I think Eric may be along for the ride”

“Good. Now, breakfast…they can get theirs when they get back. They’ll be all sweaty, and who likes a sweaty man?”

We all looked at each other, grinned together, and four arms went up as one with a cry of “I do!”

They were back just as Kelly and I took the dishes down to the wash point, and they were indeed sweaty. Bill busied himself with their meal while I concentrated on getting rid of egg yolk and bacon grease. Kelly was quiet, and I suspected she was appraising me. Where did I fit on her scale of things? Change the subject.

“Kell, any men on the horizon?”

She laughed. “One or two that catch my eye, yeah, but I have issues”

“Pardon?”

“Hairy ginger ones. No, not like that. It’s not just her, anyway, it’s the whole family, including me. Look, I am in my last year at school, yeah, but I still do the things I did as a kid. Sort of obsessions. The whole family is obsessed, nicely. Dad, Mum, me, Steph, we all get really into music, and it frightens people. I had a boy once, he was really clever, a good cook, yeah, and he couldn’t take it, so I sort of…I’m all young still, and look around this place, masses of people like us, yeah?”

There were only the two of us in the small hut. I looked at her, and it was clear to me what she really meant.

“You are really lonely, aren’t you, love?”

She started to weep, and I held her to me as her hands crumpled the shoulders of my T-shirt. I let her purge her need, stroking her hair till she could talk again.

“It’s always the same. They meet the family and they scare the crap out of them. No, no, I wouldn’t change any of them, I mean, how could I have better? Just…sometimes, when I see how happy, how settled Uncle Geoff is, when I see Mum and she doesn’t realise that I know her and Dad have just been shagging, and she’s all dreamy, I just get, not jealous, you know, yeah?”

“I know, love. Trust me on that one. We need to stick together, you and me, give the boys something normal to focus on”

She looked at me then, panda-eyed, and started to laugh. “Us? This family? Normal?”

We were still laughing as we got back to the tent. The boys were still in their cycling kit, as sweaty as predicted, and the sweatier was Geoff. He gave me a hug of welcome, and whispered in my ear.

“He’s a good bloke. Just frightened, OK?”

And off they went to shower, as Bill and Jan busied themselves once more at the stove and Kelly slipped off to repair her face. Steph quizzed me with her eyes.

“Just girl talk, Steph, no biggy, aye?”

She smiled. “Oh, you are most definitely female!”

The morning was spent on a food run into town, and then a stroll around the site, instruments in hand, catching various dance displays and a couple of short performances by some of the many ‘minor’ acts that had come along, till we settled down for a picnic lunch under a huge open-sided tent filled with benches and tables. Steph looked up from her sandwich, eyes opening wide, With a shout of “Yay!” she leapt from the table and collided head on with an old man, whom she wrapped in a hug and kissed on the cheek. She brought him over to the table.

“Jimmy, you know all these people, well, except these two. Adam, Eric, this s Jimmy, one of the finest fiddlers ever. When are you on, Jimmy?”

“Whey, ah hev a spot orly on this e’en, burrave browt me garandsurn alang wi us fer the competition, like”

At least, that’s what I thought I heard. He spoke like Dennis, but far, far worse. Eric did the honours.

“Sorry? I’m from London, we hear funny there”

Jimmy drew in a breath, and tried again. “Ah sayed, ah will be playing tonight, early on, but ah hev come with me grand son for the open mike competition, like. This is Mark, he’s a piper”

A young lad of about eighteen stepped out from behind Jimmy, taller by far than him, and where Steph was more auburn than marmalade, he was the real thing, flaming red hair and porcelain skin dusted with freckles. On a hunch, I glanced over at Kelly, and she was almost drooling. Jimmy was still speaking.

“Yeez are aal gannin’ te the sessions, aye?”

Steph laughed. “Try and keep us away! Jimmy, tell me, have you finally gone and done it? Given up the tobacco?”

The old man grinned, and Mark stepped in.

“Years and years we’ve been telling him, and the doctors an aal, and finally he manages. Makes it better for me, I don’t have te listen te him coughing his lungs up first thing”

“Aye, ah hev them patch things, tha knaas. Not the same as a proper tab, but ah’m still here. Bill, Jan, Geoff, aaaaah, thoo look better every time ah sees thee, Kelly!”

She smiled back at him “And you get harder to understand every time I hear you!”

She got up and joined Steph in hugging the old man, and I realised there was another set of bonds there. He hugged her back, then looked pointedly at the instrument cases Eric and I had by us. I showed him Saburo, and he smiled happily, but it was Mark who came over for a better look, as Jimmy winced on seeing Eric’s banjo. Winced, then winked.

Mark looked at me, and I nodded, and he slotted the flute together and tried the keys.

“This is nice…I can’t get the mouth bit right for these, but I can tell quality. Gizza sec, and I’ll show you mine”

Geoff snorted into his tea, and Mark blushed even worse than Steph. Out of a hard case came a bundle of tubes and a belt arrangement, and he fastened the belt around his waist and attached a sort of bellows arrangement to his right arm. It was bagpipes, of course, and I had a quick mental shudder at the thought of some raucous pig-strangling as he pumped up the bladder---and then over the surprisingly quiet drones came a sharp and very sweet tone as he played a short piece of music I didn’t know. The sound was amazing, and he was also very good. Steph slapped Jimmy on the back of the head, playfully.

“Every bloody year I come here and enter the competition, every year I lose out to some teenaged prodigy , and here you are bringing your own along! I thought we were friends!”

CHAPTER 39
Steph did indeed go along to the competition, and Kelly and I went along to watch her and a few of the other virtuosi do their party pieces. Lots of fiddlers, lots of guitarist/singers, and a single piper. I gave Kell a prod.

“Well?”

“Yeah, like he’s not bad, could tighten up his tempo a bit”

“You know what I mean….”

That got me the trademark grin. “Ooooooooooh yes. Musical, tall, nice bum”

“Are you allowed to say things like that?”

Still grinning, “Not my words, Mum’s. Naughty maternal wench that she is”

Mark joined us as we waited for Steph’s performance, and I noticed he sat at my side rather than hers.

“What’s she play like?”

Kelly answered. “Well, she will either be very, very precise and stunningly beautiful, or stark raving mad, or both. Bit good, is my aunty”

Mark spoke across me. “How did I sound?”

Ah, of course. Take one young man, tall and in his own mind too skinny, and far too prone to blushing, and stick him next to a stunningly pretty girl with a figure I would die for, and expect him to be able to have any form of coherent mental process; no, not going to happen. I was a little out of the loop, of course, just like Steph, as our teenage years had not exactly been normal, nor the stuff of dreams. This, however, was as normal as it gets, two young people terrified of rejection, blazing with all the hormones their bodies could ever want, and frantic with longing. Part of me ached for them, while another, ruder part wanted to get the popcorn out and watch the fun.

No. I leant over to Kelly and whispered, just as Steph appeared on stage, “I think you’ve pulled”

I realised our problem. If I had been a normal woman, we could have trotted off to the ladies’ for chapter and verse, but as I was, that was out of the question. So I limited my contribution to a few suggestions.

“Mark, what are you and your bamps doing for dinner?”

“Me what?”

“Grandfather”

“Ah, me granda. Divvent–er, don’t know”

“Kelly, you think there will be room for two more?”

She laughed. “I think you are a bit behind! Steph already has it in hand. Ah, shush, here she is”

She walked out with her fiddle, spotted us, and smiled. I won’t go into details about her playing, except that she did three pieces, two of which I recognised. The first was quite a free interpretation of a Vaughan Williams tune, and then one of our dance tunes, something called ‘Stool of Repentance’, in which she was a little hirsute. They were followed by something wailing and with a completely free tempo, and she did, indeed, go stark staring bonkers. There was silence as she finished, and then a shout of acclaim from the few people who had come in to hear friends or family compete. Mark was nodding.

“Wild Hills…I’ll have te show her how it’s played”

I looked at him, open-mouthed, and Kelly even leant forward to stare past me. When she got her mouth working, she asked him if he was serious. The grin couldn’t be kept away.

“Na, you were right, she’s bloody good. It is one of my tunes, though, so I’m looking forward to a bit of a play with her, like”

Steph was coming over, and Kelly started dancing on her seat.

“Yay, Aunty Steffy!”

The tall redhead attempted to frown, but ended up giggling. “I told you…how did I sound?”

Mark answered. “Got me blown out of the wattor, er, water. Have ye ever heard of Billy Pigg?”

“No, should I?”

“Aye, he’s one of the old greats, that was his tune, I believe. I’ve got a disc ye can hear, I base a lot of what I do on his stuff. Very sort of advanced for his day, very free with the tempo”

She was nodding. “Yeah, it’s written in 6/8, but it’s played in, well, whatever feels good. Adam, it’s like your Japanese stuff, you know, the note’s the thing”

We headed off from the marquee for our dinner, collecting Eric, Jimmy and Geoff from the musical instrument shop where we had left them, and Geoff and his wife went hand-in-hand straight away. That was almost their signature, I realised, constant closeness, constant little signs of affection. No sign of the others, but I noticed Kelly check her watch.

“What? Oh, yeah, just don’t expect Mum to be very coherent when she does the cooking. The olds like a bit of time on their own when we go away.”

Ah, of course, just as Kelly had described over the dishes. We were passing some looseboxes for horses when both the girls started to giggle. The younger turned to me and the boys, still chuckling.

“Just, a few years ago, yeah, we found the most brightest pink pair of knickers just left in there, on some straw, and we always check to see if someone has left any more”

That set the boys laughing, and there were a few spicy remarks as we walked up the slope to the tent. Jan was at the stove, hair adrift, humming softly to herself, as Bill lay back in a chair in post-coital relaxation. It hurt. I understood exactly what Kelly was feeling, just then. Both couples had it all, it seemed, on that front, and the two of us were outside watching. Even Eric wasn’t in the same boat, as while I fancied him rotten, as I now admitted to myself with no reservations, I had nothing I could do with him, and he was presented with nothing that he could actually himself fancy back.

But he was still there. That was what made me love him, the strength of character that kept him by me. I knew without fear that he would be there for me that night, and if I could have nothing else I would have that, and gladly.

“Eric, just off to make a quick call, see how the girls are doing, aye?”

“OK, I’ll pour you a brew, don’t be long”

I walked off a little way for some privacy and Ginny answered on the third ring.

“Yay, it’s my girly! How is it going, Annie?”

“Far better than I had hoped, butt. I think Kelly might have pulled”

“Sod Kelly, what about you?”

I was silent long enough for Ginny to start asking if I was still there. I drew in my breath.

“Gin, I sort of think I might be in love”

“About fucking time. And Eric?”

“Sort of, heading that way, think, oh shit, the only way he can sort of relax, really relax about it is in the dark, aye? But…I think, if this goes right, well, yeah, I think he sort of does”

Ginny was laughing happily. “I think I can work out what that means. You be careful, though, love. He’s too good a man to lose, even as a friend. Let him make his own choices, no rush, let him think he’s setting the pace”

“Is that what it was like with you and Kate?”

“Not really. We sort of worked out what we both were, you know, and then one night in the pub she just slaps her hand on my thigh and says ‘How would you like to hate yourself in the morning?’. Ah, fond memories!”

“Just about what I would have expected from you two! Now, the man I sort of believe I love is pouring me a cuppa, so I will be off, aye?”

“Be safe, Annie, be safe. We both love you this end, you know that. Go and drink your tea before I get fucking maudlin. And play some music, woman!”

Back at the tent, Jan was dishing up bowls of curry with pitta bread to mop it up with, and Eric handed me a cup of tea. Without thinking, I patted his leg in thanks, and spotted Mark smile. Shit. That might be a problem ahead. We finished our meal, and Geoff and Eric did the dishes run as the rest of the Woodruffs busied themselves with the water bottles and instruments. Mark nodded to me, and it was obvious he wanted a word. We walked off a little way, leaving his granda soaking up the early evening sun, cap off.

“Adam, I know you saw that I sort of saw, aye, but I just wanted te say that, like, I divvent have a problem with gays, like. It’s just, well, you are always so close te the lass, like, and I sort of thought, well, that it was a sort of, ah, sort of boyfriend thing”

I couldn’t help it and started to laugh, and his face fell as the blush rose.

“No, no, I am not laughing at you…oh sod it, there is no easy way to explain it, so let me just get it out. Kelly is a girl-friend, not my girlfriend. I am not gay, and neither is Eric”

“So those girls you went off to phone, they were your wives, like?”

“No, they are their own wives. Ah, shit, son, I am confusing you all to hell, aye? The girls I rang are married lesbians. Eric and I are both straight. My…my real name is Anne. There. That’s it. Not for the public, aye?”

“Bloody hell, I’ve never met one of yeez before! I mean… mean, I don’t know what I mean”

“Yeah, I am on the hormones, and some time in the future I will, you know, but please, quiet on this one. Jimmy doesn’t know, but all the rest do.”

“No problems, er, Anne”

“Annie to my friends”

“Annie. So, that means you’re not going with Kelly, then…”

“Oh you silly boy! Sorry, didn’t mean it like that. Mark, she fancies you rotten. Just take it easy, she bruises”

What a smile.

CHAPTER 40
We assembled our little army and headed off back to the music, bundled up with water and instruments. Jimmy was booked to play the smaller stage, where Mark was raving about a band with a girl called Kathryn Tickell following on.

Steph was promising great things later from some lot she called the Oysters, and I realised that despite all the talk, all the practice and playing, I was completely out of the loop with this music.

I had trained classically, as had Steph, as had Eric, but there we diverged. My taste ran to older rock, especially where my own instrument appeared, so I was a fan of Tull, of Focus, of CCS, of Hawkwind, while she had given her soul to the traditional stuff I had dismissed as tumpty-tumpty. My eyes were opening along with my ears, and when I found myself alongside Geoff I put it into words. He laughed.

“You think so? You should have heard her at a friend’s wedding a while ago, playing rock”

“What? Like Zep, or Airplane, aye?”

“Er, like Metallica and ‘Enter Sandman’ “

“You are joking!”

“No. Think of how the track goes, and then imagine her as over the top as ever. Went down well. Now, what’s going on with Kell? You seem to have clicked with her”

“Yeah, Geoff. She’s been more than a little down. We seem to have a bit in common, god knows how. I mean, typical teenager, she doesn’t want to be herself, she wants to be her Mam, or Steph. Daft thing is, I’d sell my soul to be Kelly…ah, you know what I mean”

He nodded. “Yeah, I do have a sort of inside loop on things, don’t I? Kelly, though, she brought the odd boy round, never seemed shy of doing so. They just never lasted long. It’s the family, isn’t it? She’s been talking to you about that?”

“Aye, she has. You frighten the poor dears away”

He laughed again. “I will have to stop feeding my wife the raw meat, then! She is a bit…psycho. God, you should have seen her on the rugby pitch, seriously scary…”

He drifted off into memory, with a happy smile, and I was puzzled.

“Geoff, can I ask a really personal question?”

“I’ll tell you after you ask it”

“Well, how do you cope with, you know, her history? It’s obviously an important thing for me”

“For you and Eric together, you mean?”

He considered the question for a while.

“Look, what I first saw of her were her legs, and they are wonderful legs. Then it was her hair, and her eyes, and then she smiled and Kelly says I went ’all goosh’ in about ten seconds. Everything she did was girl. When she was dressed up for work, or for the rugby, it wasn’t her taking off her femininity but her putting on a disguise over it. She was still there, still my lovely girl, even when she was smacking some poor bastard into the middle of the next century. Her soul leaks, Annie, leaks round the edges so that people can see. I know what my wife is, so her history is just that.”

He stopped, as the others went on. “You are so like her, you know? You have played your part well, but when I talk to Eric get the same words that I get from Ginny and Kate, that you were always off-kilter, out of alignment with the world. I, we, see you relaxing now, and just like my wife you are leaking. You are doing well, pretending, here, but you won’t be able to keep it up. I mean, you and Eric….”

“Yeah, me and Eric. Funny, we start talking about Kelly, and we end up on me. I must come across as a bit self-obsessed”

“Hard not to be, in your shoes”

He chuckled a bit. “Ginny told me about your tastes in shoes. Thank god Steph isn’t into shoes, we’d have to sell the bikes!”

I did the hands-up mock-terror “NO!!!!” thing, and Eric dropped back to us.

“Share the joke?”

Geoff brought him up so speed, and he grinned. “Yeah, she’s only got about four pairs so far, but I am dreading the future”

If, if I had been different, there and then, if I had had the time and the luck to be myself, I would have kissed him for that remark, for everything it implied. I pulled that urge back, and indicated Kelly and Mark, who seemed to be deep in a very animated discussion.

“They are both doing that teenaged thing, you know, do they fancy me, will I look stupid, I’ll die if they don’t, and the daft thing is that they are both smitten”

Geoff nodded. “Yeah, let’s not push or take the piss then. Right, we’ll see Jimmy do his bit, then grab a first pint, and Kath afterwards, then you have a choice”

“What’s that?”

“Either wait with me and Jan and the instruments in a seat, or get right up front with a hairy woman who thinks she can sing as well as the Oysters. Trouble is, she knows all the words”

I grinned. “Given the circumstances, I’ll do the coat holding thing, aye?”

“Sensible girl!”

At the marquee, Jimmy and Mark disappeared to prepare for what I suddenly realised was ‘their’ set as opposed to Jimmy’s alone, and I noticed a little touch of the young man’s hand to Kelly’s arm as he left. No pushing, no teasing.

And they were good, very good together, the old man and the tall lad, clearly having played together for a long time and fitting almost seamlessly together. They played seated, and I realised Jimmy was actually losing his physical edge. The eyes were still there, full of fun, the playing was sharp and quirky and the banter was incomprehensible. I noticed the way they looked at each other, the intensity. As one took the lead, the other’s eyes fixed on their rhythm, following their movements as the leader stared off into some distant world of feeling.

They brought their set to an end with some swirling alternate lead thing, and there was a good round of applause as they took their bows. Kelly had been fixed on them all the way through, and when they joined us once more I could see the tells in her, the little jerks as she tried to decide whether to hug Mark, and then she did the devious thing and hugged Jimmy instead, which of course gave her the excuse to transfer her arms to Mark, who blushed crimson again. Jimmy was stretching his shoulders.

“Aye, ah’ll hev that forst gill noo, ah owe”

We all looked at Mark, who sighed.

“Granda fancies a pint”

It went down well, in my case another local microbrewery’s product, and I realised Mark was getting a little excited.

“Ah whey, she’s the top player about these days, one of the best ever, I think. That’s what got me down here, that and looking after the gadgy there”

“How, ye cheeky hoit!”

More of the same, as someone with a strongly accented English swapped badinage with someone who made sounds that lurked at the edges of comprehension. It was a good mood, the family poking gentle fun at each other until the second pint was gone, and we headed off without Jimmy (“Ah’ll hev some seat for yeez”) for what turned out to be one of the most talented musicians I have ever encountered.

When she appeared on stage, I couldn’t help it, and started to giggle, just as Steph started to blush. Long red hair–tick. Fiddle–tick. Manic leaping around stage----no, she played with a sort of bobbing dance, clearly deeply involved with what she did, her eyes often closing, head back. With a band round her that she announced included her brother on fiddle, she stood barefoot as she did things to Mark’s instrument that left him open-mouthed, and then switched to fiddle to knock me sideways as well. At one point, she was playing fiddle together with her brother, and they ended up pogoing and giggling as they worked through the tunes. It was pure delight, and I asked myself yet again how I could have let this music pass me by.

Once more it was out into the cool of the evening as we walked over to the main stage, ready for the final act of the night. Steph almost dancing in her own excitement as Kelly stuck close by her swain. They seemed to be moving on to the ‘accidental touch’ stage, where a hand might just help someone through a door, or round an obstruction, by landing in the small of the back, or be placed on a forearm to emphasise a point.

We split up, Eric staying by me at last after all the weaving we had been doing over Kelly and Mark, and as most of the rest headed for what I thought of as the mosh pit I ended up sandwiched between Jan and Eric and encumbered with a stack of instruments.

The MC did his thing, and a short man with bleached crew cut, a dark suit and shades came up to the microphone as guitar, fiddle, drums and–cello? They had a cello? This could be interesting.

It was more than interesting. It wasn’t rock, there was no wailing guitar or long solos, but the sheer intensity and passion of their music floored me. The lyrics were sharp, they were audible and comprehensible, there was wordplay as well as musicianship, and the tall man with the cello played it standing as would some rock guitarist. No, not slung across his chest, but walking it round the stage and playing with attack and virtuosity. I knew, instantly and utterly, what it was that drew her to them. By the time they finished, I was wishing was down the front with the others.

It was a stunning finish. A slow lament about the end of mining and the loss of jobs and communities, followed by a song I recognised as having been done by the Byrds. This was different, very different. The drums and the cello laid down a pulsing ground bass, the melody instruments following it, and the singer, his voice at first soulful, then with rising anger and passion, began listing South Wales coalmines, the repeated question being ‘who killed the miners’, and that question answered as the whole band roared with an accusatory shout of “Bastards!”

I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks, and I knew that the first thing I was going to do when we got home would be to steal every recording Steph had of them. It was a while before I realised that Eric had my hand in his. I looked across to him, and he just smiled, squeezed it and then let go. Jan handed me a tissue.

“I know” she said. “That’s their political bit, always gets people when they first hear it. Come on, let’s get this horde off to the beer, they will be drained”

They were, Geoff and his wife smiling in a dazed way, her hair stuck to her shoulders with sweat, Bill bouncing, and Kelly and Mark hand in hand, she looking dreamy and he like a rabbit in headlights.

“How, man, that was superb! You just have te dance te them, aye?”

Kelly hugged him. “Thank you….”

Yet again, that blush, that lottery-winner smile. We gathered up all of our gear and made the trek to the other tent, where Jimmy had indeed kept his promise and our seats. How he had managed, I had no idea. As the boys set off for some more ales, I managed to catch Eric, and whispered in his ear.

“Thanks for that, love”

There. Said it.

CHAPTER 41
As I had expected, once Jimmy had been recognised there was a surge of people wanting to sit near him and play along, or just to listen. Steph asked him how he had managed to keep so many seats together.

“Ah whey, ah just telt them they war fer me band, like. Whey, ne lies there!”

The beers arrived, and the first one seemed to disappear from most people’s glass as if by evaporation, which is why the sensible boys had brought a double round back. Once more we settled our selves into our positions, and prepared our instruments, Kelly eschewing clogs this time for a bag of whistles of various keys and sizes. As I fitted Saburo together (he seemed to fit more naturally than his brother) I could see people laying out copies of the festival tune book, and smiled. They were learning, slowly, the stuff I had had to learn so quickly, and who cared whether they were beginners? I was buzzing with the music, with the whole vibe of the evening, and I was absolutely certain I was in love.

Someone started up a tune I half recognised, and others joined in on a variety of more- or less-well-played instruments, and we were off, delighting in the simple pleasures of making unplanned music with a crowd of a couple of hundred complete strangers. Not that complete, though, as it was obvious that Steph too was recognised, almost as well as Jimmy, and I began to detect a little deference towards our corner, almost as if people were waiting to hear what we had to play before starting one of their own. It went well, though, and I noticed Mark and Kelly were now staying as close to each other as possible. It struck me, then, how beautiful she was, dark hair tumbling over a face that had received only the lightest of touches from the acne fairy. Mark was in her eyes, and she in his, and the rest of the world seemed to pass them unnoticed. They were still playing, though.

At a pause, Steph called over to Jimmy “Dream waltz?”

“Whey aye, pet!”

It turned out to be a rather lovely lilting piece, and after a couple of runs through the main melody phrase I had it, and Saburo silked his way into the mix. After some more turns, Jimmy and Steph started playing a sharp-edged transposition of the melody with Kelly as pipes, flute and melodeon carried the body and bouzouki, guitar and bodhran gave us the rhythm. Eric knew from the start that it was definitely NOT a banjo piece.

Gradually, as the evening faded into morning, we drew an audience rather than a session, and the barman was calling time. Steph whispered to me “Remember that tune, ‘Wild Hills’? Mark will drive it, two fiddles for effects, and then you can take over. Full overtones, yeah? Then leave it for me and Jimmy”

It was a tune that had caught my ear when Steph first played it, and it was completely free in tempo, as before, so there was no real scope for a rhythm section. This was four soloists each trying to guess the game the other three were playing, and fuck me it was hard work, and brilliant fun. Mark did his bit, grandfather and hairy woman dancing around the wails from his cluster of tubes, and then I took the lead, putting the overblown notes in wherever I could.

I caught the eye of Jimmy, and he stood up, taking the melody for himself as Mark kept the drones going, and then Steph started too, and they played it as a round, each inviting the other to the next phrase.

And then it was over, and they were grinning at each other, and then at me, and there was applause, and Steph was saying “We give them that Jethro Tull thing Monday night, yeah?” and panting and sweating all at once. That was when I realised why young men of an eligible kind ran screaming from Kelly’s doorstep. The whole family was obsessed, and it was wonderful. For an instant, I wished there was a spare brother for me, and then Eric gave my knee a squeeze, just a little one.

“You are as bad as her, Annie. You ought to see your face when…oh, yeah, there was that film.”

“You got a problem with that, punk?”

He smiled, and it was soft, and happy, and it was all for me. “No. No problem at all”

Jimmy went back to the caravan he was using, but of course Mark walked back along the dark dirt road to our encampment. I lingered at the back, just to catch the silhouettes, and there it went, like teeth catching one by one on a zip, as Bill’s hand took Jan’s , then his brother took Steph’s, and Mark reached out firstly to take Kelly’s hand and then, with a clear surge of courage, to slip his arm around her waist. Not bad moving on a day’s acquaintance. And then we two made it unanimous, Eric murmuring “Well, rude not to” as my heart surged. I took a risk, and laced my fingers into his, and he just let me do it and squeezed my hand.

When we hit the lights by the dance tent, he dropped it, and I understood, and I understood him even more when we arrived at the Edifice. Jan and Bill got the kettle going, and we settled into our chairs in the dining vestibule, and he took it again, this time in the light and the full view of the people around him. Jan caught him doing it, and I got a happy grin from her as Geoff just ducked his head.

“Look, you all know who she really is, and I am cool with that, and with her, but public is different. Public is dangerous, for both of us. I have been doing a lot of thinking, and it is not just being away, all the excitement, yeah? It’s called realising when somebody just fits with you. Physically…no, my mind isn’t hooked up like that, but I know this woman, I have known her for years, and I think, well, I think this could work, and I will give it a shot. Bit better than not running away, yeah?”

I couldn’t speak for a second or two as my grin was too wide, so I just nodded. Jan smiled, handed out the tea, and kissed Eric as she did so.

Mark eventually left to go back to his grandfather, after a quite prolonged good-night session outside the tent, and I went down to the huts to do my teeth. Eric was still not back when I returned, but I found Steph waiting by our tent with a bundle in her hands.

“Ginny said I should give you this when and if the time was right”

It was that first nighty she had bought me, the one like Tabby’s, and wrapped in it was Tabitha herself. That was just like Ginny, to set something up just in case, but with a pretty clear suspicion that it would happen. Steph looked at me in the dark, and the distant street lights let me pick out just the faint lines of her smile.

“He’s a good man, Annie”

I stepped forward into her cuddle, because it wasn’t just a hug, it was warmer.

“He’s an amazing man, Steph, absolutely amazing. Thank you. Breakfast then?”

She chuckled. “Geoff has threatened another spin, and this time he wants company. No, not just Eric! Think of it as our womanly duties”

That did it. The day, the music, Eric’s behaviour, the touch of his hand, and no doubt the cocktail of hormones fizzing inside me, all of them conspired to bring yet more tears to my eyes. I sobbed out, as clearly as I could, how I felt.

“It’s like being a bloody teenager, I should take advice from Kelly!”

I felt her nod. ”Yeah, it is. It’s like a second puberty in some ways. It settles down after a while, but till then it can be a wild ride. Now, sleep well, we have some riding to do tomorrow.”

She kissed my cheek and walked back in the dark to her tent, as I slipped into ours and quickly changed into the nighty. Tabitha came into the cold bag with me, as it was too chilly to leave her out. Shortly afterwards there was the rasp of the outer tent zips, and then the familiar draft across my nose as Eric entered. He fumbled around a bit, wriggling out of trousers and into boxer shorts, and then he wriggled into the bag behind me, and I waited for him to spoon me as usual. It didn’t come, as he simply lay on his back behind me. He whispered to me.

“Annie?”

“Yes, Eric?”

Can you turn this way, please?”

I squirmed round n the bag till I was on my left side, facing him in the darkness.

“Lift your head a second”

I did, and his arm came down under my neck, then pulled me across so that my head lay on his shoulder. He reached down for my right hand, and laid it onto his chest, where my fingers found a light furring of hair. I couldn’t resist toying with it, but he placed his own hand flat on mine to stop me.

“No, not just yet. Give me time, OK, and we’ll get there.”

He kissed the top of my head. “Sleep well”

No dreams, once again.

CHAPTER 42
Morning light coming into the tent, filtered by the material, and my left arm still asleep where Eric was lying on it, my nighty twisted yet again and our legs somehow tangled up inside the bag.

I managed to get myself out from under him without waking him, and made use of one of the pee bottles as a matter of some urgency.

There was no way I could go out dressed as I was, so I struggled once more into cycle tights and a fleece shirt, which I promptly removed. Ow. When had that happened? I touched the puffiness on my chest tenderly, but happily, before digging out the softest base layer I could find to slip on under the fleece. Barefoot, I left him burbling away in his sleep and found Steph standing outside the bigger tent with a track pump and some lube.

“Morning Annie! Why the big grin?”

I lifted my upper clothing to show her, and she chuckled and hugged me.

“I remember that day, so well. It was finally something to show me that I might have a life. Took me ages to get out and live it, but still…I think the boys have just lost two cycling partners. We are going shopping! One thought…what with the moobs that you still have, if you were to try, you know, a bra…..just a thought. Tea?”

“Aye, but let me take one to sleepyhead in there before we settle down, aye?”

Kelly was just emerging from her own tent as I took the mug back to ours, and I couldn’t resist giving him a kiss on the cheek to wake him.

“Mmffmm, what was that for?”

“Being you. Tea?”

“Please. Riding out this morning?”

“No, I have another mission. Look…”

I lifted my tops again, and showed him. “See?”

“Oh…the pills and shit are starting to work then?”

He lifted a hand and…oh shit, I grabbed his wrist and pulled it away quickly.

“Sorry, did that hurt?”

“No, not at all, that was the problem. Do things like that and I have no idea what will happen, except it might be upsetting at the moment, so let’s leave it, aye? Steph and I are popping into town to get a couple of things I am going to need. This is where I realise I had a few too many beers last night, or I would have felt this.”

“Yeah, though, perhaps it was all the leaping around that inflamed them?”

“Perhaps, but it does mean I am going to have to start being a lot more careful, aye?”

I left him to his tea, Tabitha there to make sure he didn’t do anything naughty, and joined the girls as the breakfast started to take shape. Geoff was already in full cycling kit, and he gave me a Look that asked why I wasn’t similarly prepared. Steph intercepted it and shot it down.

“We have girly necessities today, love, so we are going shopping. You enjoy your ride, we’ll see you at lunch time”

Eric was soon out, also in his kit, and after a light breakfast of bacon and egg sandwiches, they were off. Steph had clearly filled the others in on my development, and Jan was casting a careful eye over me.

“Yeah, I think we could. The hair’s not as long as we could hope for, but it’s shaggy enough to get away with. The beard’s gone….hmmm, Annie, are you waxing or shaving?”

“Huh?”

“Legs, love”

“Ah, shaving. Arms as well. Chest has been zapped, thankfully not much there. It hurts….”

Jan was nodding. “With the fat you still have, you are about a B-cup, believe it or not! Now, how big are your balls? I know what that answer will be, but you know what I mean”

I knew exactly what she meant. This was a surprise, but could it work?

“How, that’s the way ah should start a day, like, surrounded by bonny lasses!”

Jan smiled. “Morning, Jimmy, Mark, you know where the mugs are! Pot is still warm. Mark, put Kelly down first”

The two youngers were reacquainting themselves, and that appeared to require some close buccal contact, which rather suggested that the previous night’s leave-taking had been quite warm. Jimmy squeezed past me to the rack, and as he poured a couple of mugs of tea he muttered to me in that oddly precise way he seemed to use when trying to make himself understood.

“Mark telt us what y’are. Just a bit of advice, hinny, de not wait ower lang te live thy life, or ye’ll end up looking like me”

I pulled back, so I could see his face clearly, and he just smiled and winked. “Ah’m a musician, pet, a performer, like, and what ah hevvent seen on the rurd, whey, ye bugger”

A grin and a tip of his cap, and he was off with the tea.

Breakfast was as nice as ever, and I drank enough tea to make me dread the trip to town. If what I thought was being planned turned out to be true, then I might have problems.

I got into a pair of mtb shorts on Steph’s advice, and a loose enough top not to chafe went over a soft vest that Jan provided, and then two of us were riding off the site to the shops. As we rode, Steph asked the question I was expecting.

“Will this be your first bra?”

“Er, no, but it will be the first one I have actually needed. Haven’t had one since I was about sixteen”

“Ah.”

What a wealth of comprehension in one syllable. We rolled on to the complicated junction near the station and climbed the little hill to the main shopping area, where there was a Marks and Spencer. We locked up the bikes, rather carefully, and Steph led me into the store. I hovered at the door for what seemed like an eternity, until she all but dragged me in. To my surprise, she took me to the Customer Services desk rather than to the area I had assumed we would hit, and there she asked, as politely as I had ever heard her be, to see the duty manager.

That turned out to be a small woman in a charcoal suit with an odd habit of wrinkling her nose when concentrating. As I stood there, shivering with embarrassment, I caught a small part of their conversation, particularly the initials ‘”HRT”, and the puzzled rabbit became a hawk. In glasses, but still a hawk.

“Right, Ms…?”

“Price. Annie Price”

“Hmm. Do you get many jokes about that?”

“Er…this is going to sound strange, but nobody has yet dared”

“Well, Ms Price, perhaps we could step into my office”

The three of us went in, and the hawk was back. “Mrs Woodruff, as vague as you were about your friend’s medical treatment, I can spot a man a mile off. Or, in this case, a soon-to-be-ex-man, am I correct? Oh, relax, and I am Sandra, by the way. We get the occasional cross-dresser in here, so we have developed a semi-official tolerance policy. As long as they do nothing silly in the fitting rooms, we let them be. You are different though, may-I-call-you-Annie. From what…”

“Steph”

“From what Steph says, you are in need of something more fit for purpose, that, well, fits. What are you intending to buy, apart from underwear?”

Steph said “Well, some slacks, perhaps a simple blouse or two, that’s about it”

I shook my head. “No, no. We need to do this properly. Sandra, you can tell a man a mile off, you say. I am that bad?”

She smiled, and the hawk became a Beatrix Potter mouse. “My dear, I meant only that I can spot a man in a dress a mile off. I can see what you are, but I can also see what you are becoming. The chubbiness helps, of course, but I am guessing that you have been a lot bigger. Your hair–well, it can work, it just needs to be a touch more tousled. The rest of you; hmmmm. A touch of make-up, nothing much---you do have lovely skin for a man–er, I mean, well, it is. You were about to interrupt your friend’s order?”

“Yes. What I need is a couple of items for my chest, obviously. I was thinking of a camisole or two, something like the vest that Jan leant me, perhaps. Bras I am unsure of, but given what I have decided then we shall have to go that way. Put simply, I spotted a very nice sundress on the way in, and if you have one in my size…”

She hawked up again. “You know your size?”

“Sixteen to eighteen at the moment, depending on label. And I need shoes”

Steph started to laugh. “Slingbacks, for walking round a field?”

I grinned at her. “No. Something flatter, perhaps a maryjane type, aye? Something I can dance in”

I saw the realisation light up her face, and cut her off before she could embarrass me further.

“Steph, love, when any shoes you buy can’t be tried on in the shop, slingbacks make sense. They’re adjustable…”

“Ah! I see!”

Sandra busied herself and very efficiently measured me, at a 38B, just about as Jan had guessed, and then there was some trying on, and a coffee in the office with Sandra, who was being absolutely delightful. I gave her the edited version of my life, as Steph squeezed my hand, and then she asked the question.

“So, is there someone else on the horizon? Ah, Annie, you do blush most delightfully. Is this for him?”

I nodded. “I want to dance tonight”

Sandra went back to the mother mouse. “I can spot a man a mile off, but I can spot a woman when she sits with me. He is a lucky man indeed. Does he know?”

I lifted my head. “Oh yes, yes, he knows!”

CHAPTER 43
We gathered together our purchases and loaded Steph’s panniers. The fitting had been efficient and very effective, a dress had indeed been there in my size (16, hooray! Average UK woman size!) as well as a couple of pairs of shoes.

That was an experience, a delight, because one reason for my taste, as explained to Sandra, was that if you cannot risk trying the shoes on in a shop, when they arrive by mail order they are often the wrong size. Pick one with an adjustable strap, and hey presto. Not perfect, but it had worked for me.

This time, I came out with the predicted maryjanes, as something simple to walk in and suitable for dancing, as well as my first ever properly fitted court shoes. No towering fetish heel, just something that was utterly feminine, utterly personal, and mine from new.

It was Sandra who had come up with the final touch, and it was simplicity itself, a scarf to be tied around my head, almost like a sweat band, but the ends trailing down my back. We matched it to the dress, and I was done. Steph insisted that I wear one of my new bras as we left the shop, after a hug from Sandra, and was that a hint of a tear? There was a lot more to her than met the eye. So, as a result of Steph’s pushiness, I ended up walking round a supermarket with visible tits.

Astonishingly, there was no real problem. The funniest thing, though; we got looked up and down, both of us, by a tweedy, horsey-looking woman, who turned away with a sneer, leaving the word ‘dykes’ floating behind her. Steph giggled and pulled me close.

“Satisfied you look OK now, Annie?”

“Well, no. Look, we are going back to a camp site full of people who have seen me as a man for the last three days, we are going to a ceilidh where I was dancing as a man, I have already drawn attention to myself as a musician in the sessions…”

“And all these people, when do you see them again?”

We were walking back to the bikes, and I stopped and turned her to look at me.

“And what about after the weekend? How do I put this back in the bottle? How do I go back to the real world?”

Steph looked down at me. “You take the real world along with you, love. You lay the foundations and then you take that step. All you have to realise is that you can do it. I did it, my friends have done it. It’s a matter of how and when, not if. From what I saw of you, back when we met, it was going to be an early exit from everything for you. Not now, not ever, OK?”

She gave a sigh, and tilted her head to the side. “Look, when I came here, that first time, I was shitting myself, and at the time I was completely alone. Look what you have around you, who you have to support you”

I spluttered, making a gesture at my chest. “Yeah, but you already had, you know…”

She reached out and cupped my….breast, yes, my breast.

“And what’s this?”

A passer by muttered “Fucking lezzers” and we both started giggling, till I got enough control back to speak.

“I’m not snogging you, though”

“Na, I think there’s a banjo player at the front of that queue!”

We loaded and unlocked the bikes, as my blush subsided, and then began the ride back to the site. It was just noon, and two sweaty men were sitting with their shirts off outside the tent as we wheeled up and started to unload things. Steph gave me a slap on the bum and some carrier bags, and pushed me into the Edifice as Eric stared at my chest, and Geoff laughed at his wife.

She followed me in, Kelly behind her, and I stood in the tinted light and looked at my clothes.

“Perhaps I should shower first?”

“You’re not sweaty. Change first, and then shower if you want, but change.”

Kelly had a small bag with her. “Get changed quickly, Annie, we have an appointment. Jimmy’s on with Mark at one, and Mum has the dinner on.”

“Yeah, but that’s just sandwiches…”

Steph gave me the hard stare. “Yeah, and the way you faff they will be stale. Off lycra, on frock!”

“Pretty…” said Kelly, looking at my bra. I felt like someone before a firing squad, and I could feel my skin burning. The dress slipped over my head, and the bodice clung to my new front, with a little bit of muffin top around the waist where a seam cinched the flare of the skirt. Steph tied the scarf, and Kelly muttered “Hold still. You do have very nice skin, Annie…especially now the beard’s gone”

Steph was stroking her own chin, absently. “Yeah, lack of shaving, I suppose, with that beard. What you reckon, Kell?”

“Bit of mascara, some lippy, perhaps a little on the lids….yeah, that should do. Told you, hold still or I put your eye out”

She did things to my eyes, and then held up a tube of lipstick. I shook my head.

“No, it will get on my flutes”

“Then take it off before you play. For now, you are in the audience”

She went into the ritual of apply and blot, and only then did she produce a mirror.

In fiction about people like me, and I have read a lot, there is always a moment where the girl first sees herself, first gets a glimpse of the beautiful woman who just needs a shopping trip and half a cosmetics counter to become unleashed as a dream of femininity. Of course, it doesn’t work like that in the real world, and looking back at me from the mirror was, well, me. But it was a different me, just slightly, the make up subtle enough to lend an accent rather than cover up, and it worked. I suddenly saw what the woman in the shop had, and then what I hoped Eric could see. I decided to be profound.

“Oh sod it, let’s get out there.”

Steph stopped me, and handed me a phone. “A quick word with Sally? I sort of rang her earlier to let her know….”

She answered on the second ring. “And?”

“You know what”

“You frightened?”

“Terrified. Absolutely quaking”

“Good. Means you will be careful. You are not alone there, Annie, so go out and have fun, and be safe, OK?”

“Sally….”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you…”

“Bollocks, girl, you’re the one doing the work. Catch you when you get back, kay?”

She hung up before I could wobble any more, Jan called from outside, “Tea’s poured, you three!”

Steph murmured “Go out, sit down, drink your tea and act as if it is the way you always dress. Go on, love”

So I did, and Jan just winked as I came out, handing me a cuppa. “Nice scarf, sets your eyes off”

Geoff made a point of smiling and moving to one side so I could sit, while the man I wanted for my own just stared at my chest. Some things are inevitable.

“Where the hell did they come from?”

“Hormones and a bad diet, mostly, love. Still all me though”

“You know, Annie, I have never doubted you were what you said, but this, this lets me see it. What about work?”

“In time. I have to see if I can survive the next two nights first.”

There was a squeal, and Kelly launched herself out of her seat. I wondered if my ears were going to survive the day, never mind the rest of me. Bill looked across at his daughter as she appeared to be making an attempt at climbing Mark.

“Jan, my dearest, remind me: wasn’t our darling daughter supposed to be shy?”

“Ah, my love, she was, until Annie here sucked all the shyness out of the country into herself. Oh look, she’s blushing again. Come over here, girl”

She hugged me to her, and then so did Bill, and I felt like I was being passed round like the parcel in a children’s game, till I ended up with Eric, and this time the hug ended with him beside me and his arm round what passed for my waist as he whispered in my ear.

“You look good, so no fear, no nerves.”

He kissed my cheek. Mark and Kelly came up for air at the same time, and I got a big grin from the young man. I started to tear up, and clamped down hard before all of Kelly’s handiwork was ruined. I had a sudden thought, and passed my phone to her, then turned to Eric. “Do you mind if…?”

He understood straight away, and nodded, and Kelly took the picture, and I sealed my fate by sending it to Ginny. The text back was almost immediate, and all it said was “Give him one for me!”

My courage was still up, and before it could go, I rang the nick.

“Can I have the custody desk? It’s Sergeant Price? Thank you….Dennis, Annie; Look…there’s been a bit of a development, and I will need your help.”

He chuckled. “You got arrested for excessive fluting in public?”

“No, nothing like that…look, can I send you a picture on your mobile while we talk?”

“Yeah…I have a sort of suspicion where you are going…got it. Fuck me, Adam. Yes, I have company. What do you need from me?”

“Den, you’ve given me plenty already. Just, a word with whichever skipper is on, Jim or Sam, and let them know the score. Things are sort of moving along, and I would like to get the Federation involved as well. Den, you have my roster, can you see if you can schedule a meeting in, say, a week or two? Find out if I need anything from Sally”

“Consider it done. Anything else you need?”

“Actually, I wish you were here now---no, not like that, it’s just I seem to have got myself surrounded by Geordies and an interpreter would be useful”

He laughed, and we hung up, and I knew my fate was sealed.

A simple lunch, the sun warm on my shoulders, and then Mark led us off to where he and his granda were due to play, walking hand in hand with Kelly, and I wondered where they were going. They lived so far apart, and at their age long-distance usually fell foul of the urgency of youth. Hands joined two by two as we walked, the sun washing over us and sounds of music coming from all directions, and Eric took my hand, and the day became even better.

Mark disappeared backstage as we took our seats in the cool of the smaller tent, until they came out, and did their thing, and Jimmy’s regular jokes took a new turn when Mark started to translate them for the audience in a cod-BBC accent, at one point paying tribute to his grandfather’s green credentials by pointing out how much of the act was recycled. Eventually, they were done, and we left Kelly with her swain as we emerged into the light and Steph dragged us off to the shopping area.

“Now, we’ve done the musical stuff, now we can look at some clothes.”

Eric groaned, and Steph continued. “Eric, she has only one dress with her, and if she gets warm at the ceilidh she will need something to change into. And she needs a bag. Go and buy her something nice, a new widget for her flute or some tunes or something!”

That was how I ended up with as hippy a look as I could ever have imagined, with a long skirt, a sort of flouncy gypsy blouse, and a small suede bag on a long strap. And it got easier and easier. I did notice a couple of our camp site neighbours look hard at me, and in each case there was a shrug, or a little headshake of ‘must’ve been mistaken’. We bundled our purchases, watched the dancing, and then headed over to the festival office for the competition results. Steph was muttering darkly.

“Same every bloody year. I swear this country needs a Herod and a time machine. Set it for fourteen years ago, and leave him to it”

Lost again….we gathered once more for dinner, and then it would be time for Show of Hands. Before that, though, was the matter of the ceilidh. I had some dancing to do.

CHAPTER 44
Dinner was a lighter meal than Jan usually did, as we would be dancing, and we fully intended to snack later. I was settling into my new role, and when the ‘something nice’ from Eric turned up, it was a pair of leather sandals. Kelly smiled in a truly predatory way. If Sandra had been a hawk, she was a leopard waiting to drop. The smile widened, and all she said was “toenails”

Jan was nodding. “Good idea. Annie, we have to make sure there are as many little signals going out as we can. Signals that say what you are. Men imagine that when they play at dressing up it is all high heels and corsets and heavy make up, but it isn’t. Little clues….look, it’s how you move, key touches like a small piece of jewellery, pretty toes, that sort of thing”

“So tits and a dress aren’t enough, aye?”

Eric laughed. “They are a bloody good start, girl!”

Steph was nodding. “Geoff, remember Sarah’s friend, Alice?”

“Oh yes. Annie, she transitioned rather late in life, but Sarah tells the story of how she just sat knitting one day, and it was all there, pure essence of housewife, even without any changes in clothing.”

I asked the obvious question. “Who is Sarah?”

Geoff answered. “Wife of one of hairy’s colleagues. Steph used to play rugby against her cousin when she was at school, and she played with Tony, Sar’s husband, for the Customs regional team”

Steph was nodding. “Yes, and Alice got wed to Sarah’s uncle, so it all goes round in circles. Look, the point is to let people read what they expect to read, not beat them to death with it. Ah, there goes Kelly.”

It was a truly odd experience to be sat at a table eating a cold buffet-style salad meal on a delightful August evening as a young girl lay on her stomach under the table painting my toenails, as she snacked from the plate on the ground next to her. Eric looked across at Geoff.

“Has anyone ever told you your family are seriously weird, mate?”

“Sometimes before they meet the wife, but they always pass comments like that after they have met her. I don’t care, they are my kind of weird”

Jan called out “Bill, his medication is wearing off!”

Bill nodded. “I‘ll fetch the restraints and the cattle prod”

He wandered off into the tent as I chuckled, and came back with a selection of fruits.

“No cattle prods, but there are some bananananananas. Where do you want them?”

A voice came from by my feet. “Peeled and in my hand, please, Daddy dearest”

It tickled, and we had to hang around a bit till it dried, but that didn’t take long, and I found myself adorned with burgundy. Steph flashed her toes at me. “Snap! It was my bottle, so I hope you like it. Sandals on and grab the bottles and stuff!”

I looked across at my man. “Just a thought, Eric, but how did you know my size?”

“Looked in your cycle shoes, of course”

“Yeah, but why would you do that, unless…hang on, how many of you were in on this little make-over?”

Every hand went up. Eric actually looked embarrassed. “You know how confused I get. I just thought, perhaps a bit selfish, sort of, but if I sort of saw you as you really are, type of thing, well, I could stop being such an arsehole about things”

“Eric Johnson, you have never, ever been an arsehole about anything except your favoured instrument. You give me so much strength, without you and Ginny, well, you know, slow suicide they call it. That is where I was until you and her did something about it”

“Yeah, love, but she did something about it, I came in halfway through”

“Ginny beat and cajoled me, and I spent ages trying to work out how to tell her to piss off and leave me to it. You gave me a reason to listen to her, so don’t you talk about being an arsehole, aye?”

“Yeah, but I have been hiding everything. I mean, all this dressing up shit. No, I don’t mean like that, I just mean I should be able to relate to you as you are”

“Eric, my love, look at me. I left my marriage because I couldn’t…you know. It just didn’t work. I sort of loved Maria, but I am not built that way. Neither are you, so…patience, and we will get there. I am holding you to your promise, not to walk or run away”

Something leapt out at me, and I replayed the last exchanges. Oh. I stood up and walked over to him. “Stand up, Eric”

He did, and I kissed him, full on the mouth, and he twitched, and then kissed me back, and it was, it was, I could feel the stubble, and he held me and….

I was stood there afterwards, nothing but his eyes visible, and Steph whispered in my ear. “Handbag’s for lipstick and stuff, means when you need to you can repair the damage I expect you will be repeating”

I looked at Eric, and in as cocky a voice as I could manage, though still trembling, I said “There, wasn’t so hard, aye?”

He pulled me closer, and whispered into my other ear. “No, that was all I had hoped for. This is where we start….”

I whispered back. “Well, you did use that word”

“Yup”

And that was his declaration. No avowal of deathless passion, just the ‘L’ word slipped into a conversation. I couldn’t imagine a better way of saying it.

Jan was singing as she bundled the bottles and other stuff into a rucksack, and we set off for the dance.

Now, as I have said, I have never been a dancer, especially not of the sort of measure practised in ceilidhs, but as a musician I have that ability to hear the phrases in the music, feel when a movement should start. As a non-dancer I had another advantage: I didn’t have a built-in bloke mode for dancing, so being led round by Eric was no problem.

No. It wasn’t just no problem, it was delightful. Every part of me had screamed to throw off the costume I was forced to wear from birth, the alien anatomy I hated, and now….now I was being handed and swung, held and steered, and all through it was in his eyes, and his smile was in mine.

We ended up in one set with a couple of our camp site neighbours, and Mrs Neighbour smiled as she asked me why I hadn’t worn such a pretty dress before tonight, and I explained how much inconvenience a small tent gave to girls in skirts. Thank you, Stephanie, for that advice.

And we danced, and I danced with Geoff, who was amazingly graceful, and with Bill, who always seemed to be smiling, but never with Mark, who seemed welded to his girl. I even had a turn or two with Jimmy, and the more I saw of him the more I realised why Steph loved him. He was so much a cliché, the old man with a fag forever in the corner of his mouth, or behind his ear, though now he had given up, but that image lived on. The flat cap, the old tweed jacket, it was so much him that it was a shock to see the real man, the musician, the grandfather, leaking round the edges in the same way as I was seen to do.

No, Jimmy was someone who fitted neatly into the little Woodruff world of that phrase Big Bill was forever using, being excellent to one another, and deep down I saw the same passion Kelly had, that need and love of music that had kept her single rather than lose her meat and drink. Weird people, but as Geoff said, my kind of weird.

It was done, the dance was over, and I had sneaked more than a couple of kisses, and we gathered our stuff and set out for the first of the two acts we wanted to see, Show of Hands, Steve Knightley and the aptly-named Phil Beer. I had no idea what they would be like, but my new and weird family rated them.

An empty stage, with two men, one long-haired with sharp features, the other bearded and chubby. Fiddle and guitar, I saw, and then they started, and while Beer’s playing wasn’t up to the standard of Jimmy, or Steph, he was bloody good. The guitarist, though…

It was his voice. The words were amazingly well-crafted, and when he did something about “Country Life”, which he introduced as being too political for the Beeb, I was shivering. It was a song about rural decay, unemployment, holiday homes, drug addiction, it was every shitty little ‘cottage’ in Llareggub I had ever gone into hard, it was every overdose death found in a derelict barn I had attended, it was Cefneithin and Crosshands, Pyl and Tredegar. I was crying by the end, and it wasn’t their only song that did that to me. Eric sat next to me, feeding me tissues passed to him by Jan, and holding me.

They finished on a song about an Irish farmer going to the races, and I staggered out into the darkness for a pee, Steph by my side.

“Annie….there are only proper toilet blocks down here….stick with me, you will be fine.”

And I was. The more time I spent out, the more natural it seemed, and the cubicle helped. I mean, I always sat at home, so no big one. The ease of everything did cause me a small moment of upset, as I realised that come Tuesday the genie, as had been hinted, would have to go back in the bottle. Enough worry for now; leave it to the day. We rejoined our men for what everyone was raving about, a man called Richard Thompson.

If there can be a good way, he made me want to slit my wrists. This was a man of deep, dark passions, and amazing cynicism that somehow showed a love for humanity that lighter souls could never do. The songs blurred one into the other, songs about alcohol and loss, about loneliness and the sight of hope setting off on the last train away from you, and yet the hope lingered, made stronger by his apparent dismissal of it. By the time I was led out into the fresh air by Eric, I was stunned.

“Steph, any of you nutters….you listen to that for FUN?”

Bill answered. “No, Annie, for his sheer genius. Now, after that, anyone fancy pie and mash?”

Eric looked sharper. “And beer?”

There was a family chorus of “Yeah!” and Bill gathered our cash as the rest of us headed to the beer tent, where a session was just finishing. The barman looked closely at me.

“Weren’t you a bloke yesterday?”

Eric slipped his arm round my waist and grinned back. “No, but she is a serious cyclist. I would have noticed if she were a bloke”

“Oh, sorry, Miss. Just, you know, pints and well…”

He made a vague gesture towards my chest. I smiled, and just offered up a comment about jiggling and sports bras, followed by his embarrassed declaration of ‘too much information’

We took the beers back to our group, as Eric informed me I was a bitch and a tease, and I was feeling absolutely on top of everything. Pie, mashed tatws, beer, the man I knew I loved holding me, could it be better?

CHAPTER 45
The beer was finished, our path home was trod, and Eric left me to get changed for bed in the tent as he wandered off to do his teeth. I settled down with Tabby and waited for him to slide in beside me, and he did, bringing a waft of cold knees and minty breath and a cuddle.

“Bit of a big day…” he murmured as I lay with my head on his shoulder and my hand this time toying with his chest hair unopposed. I squeezed him, and spoke into his neck.

“That’s the problem, Eric, this is all a weekend away, not reality. On Wednesday I have to come back to reality”

“Well, I think you stirred Dennis up”

“I hope he’s stirred Sam and Jim and the Fed rep up as well. My decision is made, long term, and you know that. I just need to get through the changeover. That is what scares me, aye?”

“Well, not on your own, hey?”

“I know…”

“Sleep, girl. You have a long day tomorrow, because we are definitely going out on the bikes, and then, after the last band we have a date for you to do the Tull thing with Steph”

“You think I should?”

“Oh, most definitely. Just remember, if you intend doing any standing on one leg, you’ll be in a skirt…”

I kissed him again, and turned over to sleep as he settled around me, and shortly afterwards a teenaged boy was cooking in a car and the heat was washing over me, and I was sitting bolt upright with sweat soaking my nightgown and, just for an instant, no idea of where I was, till Eric slowly eased me back down onto my sleeping mat as the tremors eased, and I just clung to him and sobbed as he held me and stroked my matted hair.

“It is your work, love, that’s what it is. You’ve almost lost those dreams, now, just…you really are worried, aren’t you?”

I lay in the dark as the sweat dried and his arms warmed me. “Yeah, I am. I mean, all this, this like wish-fulfilment stuff, you know, like my daydream”

“You haven’t told me much about that, Annie”

“Oh…it started out as a way of getting off to sleep, then somewhere to hide for a while. I had all sorts of variations, but they came down to a magical change thing, and I just reawaken, and all is changed, and I’m a girl, and…I would sort of work through different scenarios each time and drift off to sleep. Think nice thoughts, avoid the nasties in the night”

“Yeah, well, let’s see if we can get you back off to sleep before we get out on the bikes, OK?”

“Just hold me, love.”

He did, and we slept, eventually, till the morning light woke us as it burned away the dew on the tent. He was disgustingly chirpy after such a disturbed night, and I wondered how much was put on for my benefit. It was into cycle kit before breakfast, which was a sausage sandwich each before our ride, and of course a mug of tea.

Not nearly enough, I thought two hours later, as Eric and Geoff cruised up yet another minor hill while Steph stayed behind to nurse me along. It was nowhere near as bad as it had been when Dennis had looped round me at Ditchling, but I was still not up to par. I was still moving, though, and I could feel my old legs coming back, just less hairy. There was throughout the new sensation of a bra’s straps tightening and relaxing as my body moved, a reminder each time that I was still out, still myself.

Finally we were through the surprisingly-named village of Berwick and beginning the downhill to the site, and I was happily freewheeling while, of course, the two boys were thrashing themselves to be first home, Steph having the manners to hang back for a bit. We slipped in the gate and rode round to the tents, where Jan and Bill were still cuddling.

“Tea?” she said.

“Shower first” Steph replied, and I knew I had another little test to pass. The queue wasn’t long, but my nerves were nearly shot by the time we hit the stalls, skirt and blouse in a bag with clean underwear in my hand. Nobody said a word as I took my cubicle, and stripped off in front of the mirror.

I did, indeed, have tits, and the nipples were noticeably bigger and lumpier. Fat seemed to be clinging to my arse too, while slowly collapsing away from my waist, and it was starting to look better than I could have hoped for, if I ignored the deformity. I checked myself for hair, and as I luxuriated under the warm water I ran my razor over my legs again, and then my arms, and making a snap decision tackled underneath them.

That was a seriously weird feeling. I rinsed, watching the soap and the hair flow down over my painted toes, I spent a while longer under the warmth, just relaxing and working through the weekend in my head, and trying my best not to think about the challenge I would soon have at work.

I dried myself, and rubbed some stuff Jan had given me into my shaved areas, before I started up the hair drier provided, doing my best to fluff up what I had. On with the underwear, and I remembered Kelly’s word. “Pretty…”

No, I wasn’t, but Eric seemed happy, and I certainly was. I slipped into the new clothes, and the scooped neck of the blouse actually revealed a hint of cleavage. Whatever next…Steph was waiting for me, her own hair looking amazing, and after we had picked up some fresh milk from the little shop we were soon back and relaxing in the late morning sun. I saw Bill rather more attached to reality than he had been earlier, studying the programme.

“What’s on?”

“A variety of odds and sods, some worth seeing, and then a finale with Martin Simpson and his band.”

Eric stirred under me. “Heard of him, for once, bloody good guitarist. Do we have a plan for the day?”

Bill nodded. "Think so. Snack here for lunch, then there’s a session for the ‘Improvers’ people in the beer tent, and Jimmy has his last set about two. Five o’clock for Simpson, dinner down there from whatever looks nice, and then the big session in the racecourse bar”

Eric gave me a squeeze. “So beer then?”

Bill grinned from behind the programme. “Yup, beer! And silliness and music and mad buggers doing Jethro Tull, I believe. And today is floppy hat day, that sun is rather warm, children”

The ‘Improvers’ Session’ was fun, as lots of newly-practised people on a variety of instruments vied to show what they had learned, and we just idled away an hour or so playing gently with them. This was what music should be about, people coming together and having fun with what I remembered Ms Tickell calling ‘air dancing’. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching Jimmy and Mark, then various Morris sides, some close harmony singing under a little outdoor sort-of-tent, and feeling the warmth of the sun almost but not quite match the warmth of the people around me,

It all felt so natural, so good, and yet underneath was always the understanding that after Tuesday Adam would be back. Please god, let it be straightforward.

I was in the long skirt, and flouncy blouse, with Jan’s wide straw hat on over a pair of sunglasses, and I did indeed feel right, natural, a feeling only enhanced by the hand holding mine, and it would all end in a little over 36 hours. Eric felt the tension in me.

“Worried about work?”

“Yes, in a word.”

“Well, leave that till it comes. Just be yourself today and tomorrow, then we can sort the rest of your life out as we need to. OK?”

I kissed him on the cheek, and he Paddington-stared me. “If you are going to keep doing that, you will have to start carrying your own tissues. No owner’s brands on this man!”

“Spoilsport!”

Martin Simpson was one of the people Eric had particularly wanted to see, as while he is, so I was told, regarded as godlike by guitarists, he started out as one of Steph’s pet hates, a child prodigy. On the banjo. I told Eric, repeatedly and regularly, that the two concepts were mutually incompatible, but he told me that I knew nothing, and when I insisted on my greater knowledge as a musician he actually slapped my arse.

I must admit, though, that he was good. A drawling voice, when he sang, overlaid guitar playing I can only describe as scintillating. I couldn’t follow the technique, as it involved wires and bits of wood, but it was rich and complex and very, very skilled. He even managed to make a banjo sound almost musical, though it still clucked and quacked. Eric was so obviously star-struck I wanted to giggle.

We retired to the picnic tent afterwards, my man sighing with contentment, and he got his own bottom smacked when he remarked that Simpson on his own had made the weekend worthwhile. It was all of two seconds before he realised, but I could only hold my grin for another five, so it was sort of quits.

I went to help getting the food in, a seriously tasty piece of cod and chips, but Eric just put his hand on my arm.

“No, the wind’s changed, stay up this end”

I followed his eyes…the hog roast stand. All the courage I had built up started to drain from me, and he saw, and he stayed.

“Eric, how the hell am I supposed to deal with this shit when I can’t even handle a roast dinner?”

He pulled me to him. “One step at a time, as ever. That’s how Stewie talks about dealing with the PTSD, that’s how we will deal with life, OK?”

“Why are you so good to me? I haven’t anything you want, nothing you need…”

“You have yourself. Took me a while to realise it, but then I can be a bit slow, and you weren’t exactly forthcoming, were you?”

“Well….at some point that question has to come up, aye?”

“We deal with things when we need to, OK?”

“OK…”

He kissed me, so it was OK, and then the others arrived, Kelly now wrapped around Mark, bearing the chips I had earned that morning, and tea, and fish, and mushy peas. Ginny would have killed me.

We ate our meal as the sun stayed warm, then made our way bearing our boxes and bags to the Long Bar, where an old man in a tweed jacket and a flat cap had cornered a drift of chairs, which we laid claim to. Kelly had popped back to the tent for her clogging board, and Jimmy’s greeting to us consisted of holding out a freshly-empty glass to Geoff with the words “That Twisted Spire’ll de me, lad!”

Steadily the bar filled. Steph had warned me about the range of instruments, but I was still astonished. Harps, cello, trombone, all set up alongside the more usual mix of fiddles, guitars, squeezeboxes, and, of course, banjos. There were dozens and dozens of bodhrans, it seemed, and Jan sighed at the sight.

“They all buy the damned things cause they think they are easy to play, and, well, they aren’t.”

While she was talking to us, she started lightly beating her own drum, and as she played with her left hand inside the skin, and the drum ‘spoke’, I noticed several of the new bodhran-holders drifting away. She winked.

“I don’t mind the idea of people playing what they can, I just wish they would learn a sense of rhythm before buying, well, a rhythm instrument.”

There was a clatter as Kelly’s board slapped down on the floor, and the beer arrived, and as there was a lull in the tuning, Jimmy just said “Allan and Salmon Tails, usual” and we were off. Two simple tunes, easy to play, easy to enjoy, and soon there was a crowd of people either playing the melody, providing some sort of rhythm, or vaguely jamming, and it was wonderful. I stayed with Saburo for most of the evening, as we had a lovely, gentle play with the rest of the festival-goers, and then it was time for Timmy. I looked around as people took a short beer break, and then called out “Anyone know this one?”

‘This one’ was the Tull, of course, and our little family band started to swing along nicely. Nothing showy, nothing over the top, as Eric played proper guitar for once and Steph and Jimmy harmonised with me. There were a few happy smiles from some older people, and as one eased through with a fresh pint he muttered to me “You’re going to let rip, aren’t you?”

I nodded with the flute, and then did exactly that, as my well-honed little band of supporters took up the rhythmic side of things and I went silly with the metal. I had to do it, just had to, and I stood up, and then Steph got up with me, her eyes holding that hunger, and Jimmy grinned as some shouts of recognition went up, the politest of which was something like “It’s that ginger nutter again!”

And she was, and I was the dark-haired nutter back to her, but part way through, as I did that repeated rhythmic phrase again, the one before going back to the main tune, I heard the trombonist echoing me, so I turned to him and winked, and we bounced off each other for a while before I gave the nod to the rest to come back down to Earth and it was good, and it was loud, and it was spontaneous and it was magical. They played on, as I sank a pint, simpler tunes, fun tunes, and I dug out my tissues and wiped the lipstick off Timmy just before the now-traditional call of ‘cheap beer’ from the bar.

Both Kelly and Mark had dropped out of playing and clogging, largely because neither smallpipes nor clogs work when the clogger is sat on the piper’s lap. It was that sort of evening, showing me why the Woodruffs came back year after year. I felt utterly alive, utterly in love with music, my friends, and one amazing man, and as we finally walked back to the tents I was rivalling Kelly in keeping interpersonal space to the minimum possible. Sweaty, happy, in love.

Wednesday would be another world. Wednesday could wait. I had one more night with him, and I would deal with work when I had to.

CHAPTER 46
How could I not want to wake up like this? Warm, sun easing through the tent, a robin singing sadly off in the hedge and the scent of bacon frying.

Kelly coughed politely outside then unzipped and passed in two mugs of tea. I snuggled down as much as I could as it came in because apart from my knickers I was naked, and, well, apart from my knickers we both were. That’s Eric and myself, not Kelly. One thing had sort of led to another and, as we had tumbled into the bag, the snogging had continued, and that one thing had sort of led the way, and I had discovered the other ‘why?’ of nipples, and, well, Eric was in full working order and, um, handled well.

In all seriousness, the mood, the alcohol and all the physical contact, coupled with the darkness, had taken away enough of our inhibitions to allow what used to be called ‘heavy petting’, and no more, but Eric’s fascination with my chest had been a huge and gratifying surprise, and when I felt his reaction I simply had to help him along, and he didn’t complain, except just before, when he urged me to get my tissues RIGHT AWAY, and that was my first sex since Maria, well, my only sex that didn’t involve her, really. It was strange; everything with her had been a painting-by-numbers exercise, where she said “There” and “Like that, yes” and so I had gone there, like that, and for a while she had seemed content, but I could never quite get there with her. I hadn’t got there with Eric, of course, but that didn’t matter, as he had got there for and with me.

He was all scratchy when he kissed me good morning, and there was still an aroma of beer about him, but I am sure I smelled just the same. I sat up to perform my new ritual of putting a bra on, and he ran a finger down my spine, and the only thing that got me up and out was the smell of the bacon.

It isn’t like a roast, even though it is pork, the smell is so different, and causes me no problems. I was grateful for that as I struggled into skirt and fleece shirt before emerging into a bright morning for breakfast. It would be a simple day, no music to worry us, just let the dew rise off the tents, pack up, and sod off home. As on the way up, hairy and husband would take all our larger stuff back, leaving us just the bikes and small saddle bags. I shuddered at trying to get here with a fully-loaded bike, and Steph agreed.

“You can’t bring a big tent, and trying to change in a one-woman tent is a pain. Especially when you have an optional extra teenager in with you. Right, Kelly?”

“Dunno, I wasn’t allowed my teenager in with me last night!”

Jan gave her a Mother Look, and the girl just grinned. I got the feeling there was something cooking there, but it could wait, Eric was just rousing. As he came across to the table, already in cycle kit, he looked a little uncertain, so I just took his hand and pulled him down into the seat next to me.

“Another long trip home. When are you back at work, love, on Wednesday?”

He looked slightly awkward. “I rang in this morning, caught my manager at home. Sort of booked myself out till after the weekend.”

The sneaky sod. Kelly was clearly itching to speak, though, so I left it. She dove straight in.

“Mum, Dad, you know next year…college and stuff?”

Bill was on top of it. “Yes, my darling daughter”

“Yes?”

“Yes you can keep in touch with Mark and see which universities he is looking at. I assume he wants to do music too?”

“Yeah, but, like, the places that do his instrument, and things, they are sort of, a long way away from home…”

Jan chimed in. “Are you worried about being away and being so far away, love?”

“Well, yeah…sort of”

“Well, I am sure your dad won’t mind a visitor now and again, and we haven’t seen much up that way, so…”

Jan was swamped by daughter-wave, and then she attacked her father. He was still calm.

“You don’t really know this lad yet, love, so we have most of a year to find out who you both are before you give a commitment to college. OK?”

“Thanks, Mum, Dad, you aren’t bad for olds”

That one landed her with the dish duty.

It felt almost painful as we struck the tents and loaded the vehicles, and to my surprise I felt odd in shorts rather than a skirt. I resolved to look at some items of female cycling gear that I had noticed, such as skorts, but for now the mountain bike shorts covered any ‘unsightly bulges’ in that area, and I understood that public perception was all. I wore a little bit of make-up, I had breasts, albeit small ones, and most of all I had a man hovering about me.

Tabby was travelling back with Steph, and after a round of hugs two of us set out on the short ride to the station. I just knew I would be back the next year, leave allowing. We were soon at the station, stowing our bikes in the rather pathetic space, and the stations followed in sequence as we headed South and East. We managed to find a double seat on each train, and I lay on his shoulder, his hand on my thigh, as we headed home.

Passing the site of the Reading Festival, I was struck by the difference. We had left a swathe of grass marked out by piles of plastic bags containing rubbish, ready for collection, and areas of flattened grass from the tents. Reading was a wasteland of mud, rubbish, abandoned tents included, and even from the train we could see the glint of bottles and cans everywhere. So different.

Three Bridges came at last, so we disengaged and made the short ride back to my place, and at no time was the question ever asked of where Eric was to spend his days off. We stowed the bikes, which got me a squeeze of my bum when I bent over to undo the lock on the shed, and then clattered up the stairs to a strong smell of coffee and a shout of “What kept you sods?”

Ginny was in my kitchen, knife in hand and grin on face, as she attacked a small mountain of vegetables.

“Don’t think you’re going to be living on fucking chips again, Price! Straight and narrow starts right here and right now! Hiya Eric, which bed you want?”

He blushed, he did, and it was one hell of a blush, but he managed to get out a comment about first getting in the door, you bitch, before admitting what she already knew. Ginny was grinning.

“We haz got guests tonite. Sally an’ Stewie an’ my girly! Salad now to get you settled, then we can haz green titanium an’ frozz yog for tea!”

Eric was shaking his head. “Annie, love, edge slowly towards the door while I attract its attention. One of us has to escape to tell the outside world…”

Ginny, of course, picked up on that word, and the silliness evaporated.

“Really? Really, you two?”

We looked at each other, then turned to her and nodded together, and the knife was still in her hand as she jumped us both. Eric broke the hug, smiled at her, and pointed at the blade. She looked embarrassed.

“Oopsies…”

Geoff was round an hour or so later with our kit, and after another couple of hugs we started the process of laying things out and sorting laundry. I dug out that first dress from Kate’s suitcase, and after a shower I dressed properly. Looking in the mirror, I thought “No”.

It was a dress for me as I was. It wasn’t one for a woman having a few days with her man. There was another, though, a shorter summer dress that had a lower neckline, and as I now had a bit of cleavage, depending on underwear, that one got the nod from my inner girl. Bare feet, of course…Ginny looked me up and down when I finally emerged.

“Yes, that works. Looking good, Annie Price! Katie will be here in two hours, then another half hour for your trick cyclist and her hired killer”

“Ginny, he does cars now”

“Yeah, exactly!”

And they came, and they smiled, and two of us were hugged almost to death. We had our food, and some wine that Ginny relaxed my reins on a bit, and of course the inevitable frozen dessert, and all through it hands were held and knees stroked, and once more I retired to bed in what turned out to be one small piece of clothing between the two of us. The next day I had my first hurdles to overcome at work.

CHAPTER 47
I showered early the net morning, as I heard the strangulated sounds of a sleeping Ginny in the other room. I never saw any sign of ear plugs near Kate, and I could never understand how she was able to sleep so soundly as the world’s population of marine mammals surfaced around her.

Eric was also still asleep, and I watched the water flow down over my painted toenails with apprehension. Dennis, now he was a fixture at the nick, was covering a full slot in the roster, so I had no moral support at the desk. He would be finishing nights as I arrived, so I would be taking his handover, and that would be all I would see of him.

I patted myself dry before starting the ritual, and squeezing into a T-shirt style sports ‘support’ that flattened what I had to quite an extent, but more importantly gave my nipples relief from friction. Much as I had enjoyed the last couple of nights, I had ended up wearing a soft vest for the rest of the last one as everything was just too tender. No knickers, as I was getting into lycra, but I stuck a clean pair into my saddle bag for work. Pale blue with daisies, sod it.

It was light outside, this far into Summer, and after a quick cuppa and a peck on his sleeping cheek I was onto the bike and spinning over to the nick. Dennis had the night-shift eyes, that look that shows the owner feels as if they are looking down two tunnels with a pair of pickled onions, as I walked in still wearing my kit.

“Nowt in to worry about, Adam. Just the one drunk on regular check, he’ll be out for the morning bench. You off to get changed? I’ll do the rest of the handover at the lockers.”

I went to mine and after opening it and taking out my clean shirt I pulled off the cycle top, and Dennis went “Ah” as he saw my support. The knickers drew another one, and as I fastened my belt and adjusted the shirt he was nodding.

“I wasn’t sure at first, you know. The more I saw of you, the more it made sense, but now…well, Annie, just watch your fucking back, reet? There are people in this job who can be a bit traditional, aye?”

“Was that what it was like up North?”

“Aye, traditional as all hell, like, traditionally bent. It was a culture, in that nick, like fucking bacteria, that sort of culture, and you either got infected or you got got. Your trouble is going to be like that: let one bigot get a head of steam up, pal, and it will pull others along. I’m off home, you watch yourself. If you need me, call, OK?”

“Thanks, Dennis”

“Sergeant Price, that wasn’t an offer, it was an instruction. Any shit, you call me out, got it?”

“Got it”

I went to hug him, forgetting, and he pulled away sharply. He was right, I needed to be far more careful. Back in Custody, Jim was settling in for the day, and I got the usual “Sergeant, a word, please”

In his office, Jim was a bit awkward, not seeming to know where to look.

“That was one hell of a photo, Annie…where did those, em, you know…”

“Breasts? A mixture of hormones and a byproduct of incipient morbid obesity, Jim”

“And, er….?”

“A rather strong sports support, Jim, like a T-shirt, no straps to show under the shirt.”

“Thank fuck for that. We still need to prepare our ground. That bloke, he is OK with all this?”

“Eric? He is more than OK with it, Jim. He is one of the reasons things are moving on”

“Oh gods, whatever happened to the certainties I grew up with”

“They were never there, Jim, just covered up better. We have always been here, just not recognised a lot of the time”

“ ‘We’?”

“Yeah…I am sort of finding out there are a few of us about, aye?”

“Well, whatever, as my grandchildren would say. I have arranged a meeting next week with the Federation rep and the Chief Super, are you up to that? I thought if we got the bigwigs on side it might make the plod easier. How do you want to play this?”

“Jim, as far as my friends are concerned, I am out as myself full stop. The only place really left is work. Now, I will be letting things change bit by bit, like letting my hair grow out, but I am not coming in one Tuesday morning in a skirt, aye? I am just in two minds, yeah? Should I slowly change until even the thickest PCSO can’t miss it, or would it be better to have a big announcement to the whole relief each shift?”

“Annie, hang fire on that last one, all right? Let’s get the groundwork prepared before we go any further, get management and so on on side. Just one thing would be sensible, and that would be your bog arrangements”

“Ah”

“This is me being the skipper, yeah? You will not use the ladies’, and if possible not the gents’, either. The cubicle by custody will be the safest. Sounds petty, but if and when this gets out you will be looked at under a microscope, and the slightest hint of perving will be seized on. You are determined to grow your hair, aren’t you?”

I grinned. “Sort of a symbol, isn’t it? Like tits”

He sighed. “Tits growing on my best male sergeant is no fucking symbol, Annie, more like painting a target on himself. I still remember that jumper we had, as I bloody well know you do, and THAT mood is still out there”

He looked very hard at me, and there were all sorts of things in his face, tiredness, pain, and a deep resolve.

“That does not happen on my watch again, Sergeant Price. My foot patrols and panda crews do not let someone be hunted down like a fucking dog on my manor, and it certainly does not happen to one of my team, ever again. That is my word on it”

I took a risk, and reached out for his hand, and he let me take it, not as a handshake, but as a comfort.

“Jim, poor Melanie was alone, and I am not. That is the difference, and you are part of it, so thank you. What sort of coppers are we if we can’t handle a bit of a challenge, aye?”

He nodded, and I left for my desk. I could still see the pain in his eyes, and yet again was shown that the sort of death that had taken a lonely girl off a motorway bridge was like a rock thrown into a millpond. The ripples spread and hit so many other people. Up to that point, I hadn’t realised how personally he took such events, and I remembered Ginny’s comments about trains and ruining the lives of their drivers. My own damage had locked me in so tightly I was missing that done to others.

Kirsty was in that morning, arriving just as I sent the drunk on his way through the tunnel to the court, and she had my little friend Darren with her again.

“Found this one lifting at the cheapo sports shop n the Martletts, Sarge”

He stood in front of the desk, smaller than he should have been for his age, dead eyes set in darker circles, looking squarely at the camera, as Ruth produced a carrier bag of mismatched bits and pieces, including a trainer for a left foot, a pair of swimming goggles, a cover for the handle of a badminton racquet, and one or two other items of no real use other than to get him arrested. The shop is one of a chain, and where possible they take space on a first or second floor, so that anyone who triggers the theft alarms still has a flight of stairs to get down before they get to the security guards. Utterly realistic about shoplifting, they are, and very profitable as a result. Darren had been on what looked like a suicide run. I booked him in, and sent Kirsty off to do the paperwork.

“Getting a bit shaggy, Sarge! I’m supposed to be the shaggy one here, nyahahaha!”

She disappeared, still laughing at her dreadful pun, and I took the young man down to his cell myself. What the hell, I thought, and after putting him in I sat down on the bed for a chat.

“Son, you going to be shitting in my cell again?”

He looked away, checking the walls for graffiti, it seemed. “Prolly, Sarnt Price, iss sorta tradishnul, innit?”

“Yeah, I know, and I know why you do it where you do. I just don’t understand why you spend all this time and effort getting out of the home when with a bit less kiting and lifting you could be at a less secure place and get out when you want. You know, proper foster parents type thing”

“Gotta keep me rep up, innit? Look, Sarnt, this an interview, lahk, shunt I have lahk my brief here, yeah?”

“No, Darren, this is just me trying to be a bit nicer to you, just as a human being, not as the filth, aye?”

There was something more in his eyes, something dark, and the suspicions reared up in my mind. “Darren, is anyone hurting you there?”

The look away said it all, and I shuddered, remembering Jim’s words about things not happening on his watch.

“Son, can you do me a favour? I need to get the appropriate adult in, as you know, but would you be OK if I got you looked at by a doctor? If someone’s hurting you, we need to know, so we can stop it”

“Gonna stop it on ma own, lahk, gonna knifecrime the cunt, innit?”

“And get you locked up permanently, surrounded by others just like him? Will you let me call the doc?”

“I’ve seen your doc, lahk, he’s a wankah, pisshead, innit?”

“If I get another? One I really trust?”

“Yeah, OK….”

He was uncertain, and I could see that he was close to tears, but his chosen persona would not allow that, so my big butch robber clamped down on his weaknesses.

“I might be able to find some chocolate…”

He looked away, and nodded sharply, and as I closed the cell door on him I heard the sobs start. I went straight to Jim, and laid out my suspicions, and coupled with our complete lack of faith in our Force Medical Examiner I called up Social Services to let them know the score. First, however, I rang Khan, from Jim’s office.

“Hello Annie, what is it that I can help you with today?”

“It’s Sergeant Price today, Doc, as I am on business, and this s an official call”

“Sergeant Price, I assure you that when am buying the video recorder I am not knowing it is stolen, yes?”

I wanted to laugh, but it wouldn’t come.

“Doc…I have a young man, a child, in custody about whom I have some serious concerns. The FME, for a number of reasons, is not available, and I think it is desirable that he is given a proper examination. I have contacted Social Services for an appropriate and responsible adult to attend, but I would like him checked over as soon as possible. I suspect he may be the victim of some form of abuse”

There was a moment of silence.

“Ten minutes, Annie. I will be there in ten minutes.”

CHAPTER 48
The SS were as good as their word, and half an hour after I had rung a young woman was being escorted into my sanctum. Khan was already there, Darren in his cell devouring the two mars bars I had bought for him. The social worker, Miss Armitage (‘call me Polly’) was straight to the point.

“Sergeant, what exactly brings you to believe that Darren is at risk?”

“Polly, Adam. I have seen Darren very many times over the last couple of years, and it is always the same. He carries out some theft, some petty crime, something to get him picked up and brought here, after absconding from his secure accommodation. It’s never anything major, never violent, and then he always does the same trick, defecates–“

“Shits. You can say shits. I am a big girl”

“–he shits in his cell, but never where it will be difficult to clean. No smearing the walls, nothing like that, just a neat log on the vinyl. He does it to prove what a man he is, thumbing his nose at The Filth, but it’s tokenism. aye?”

“So what made you think differently today?”

“Ah, Polly, it was what he had nicked. Even for him it was pathetic, and the place he lifted it from is a nightmare for a thief. He wanted to be nicked. Then, I asked him, on a hunch, aye, if someone was hurting him and that was the answer. He threatened to stab them, or rather he predicted that he would. I have a duty of care to my prisoners, and I am now stating as formally as I can that I have concerns for the health of this one and believe that a proper medical examination should take place”

She grinned. “Nicely put, Adam, shall we go and see what he wants to tell us?”

I opened the cell, and the turd was there, and Darren was sat on the floor, eyes red from his tears..

“Darren, this is Miss Armitage, she’s from Social Services”

“Don’ want no soshal workah”

“Darren, it’s the law. I can only do so much without having her here. Do you want to talk to her?”

Polly interrupted. “Do you want the Sergeant to stay?”

Darren looked up, and I could have wept at the depth of pain in his face. As softly as I could, I asked him what he needed to hear.

“Darren, have I ever messed you about?”

“Na, Sarnt Price, you has always been straight wiv me, lahk”

“Will you trust me today? Please?”

“All raht, but you stay here, yeah? I don’ trust no soshal workah, they put me in the house, innit?”

Polly sighed . “I have no intention of leaving you there if you are being hurt, son. If there is anything going on, I will have you removed today. Now, we have a Doctor here to see you”

“Don’ want no doctah neever”

I did what I could. “You trust me, you said, Darren?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, this doctor, Doctor Khan, is my own doctor, he looks after me for all sorts of problems. If I say he is a good man, will you trust me on that?”

“OK”

Thank god for that. Polly chipped in. “Do you want the sergeant to go while the doctor sees you?”

“Na, I lahk want you to go, innit? Don’ want no girly seein’ ma tackle”

Skinny, undernourished, eyes red from his crying, he was still clinging on to the last of his machismo. Polly nodded.

“I think in this case that the spirit of the law is served by having Doc Khan in, if that is OK with you, Adam?”

“Fine. Want to come in, Doc?”

As Polly exited, Dr Khan came in, Pakistani silliness in full flow, and after a couple of mangled phrases I actually heard a giggle from Darren.

“Adam, is it that you are having a room that is private for an examination?”

I took him to the medical room, and he made a few basic checks before asking the big question, and then Darren stood, and after taking off his baseball cap he pulled off his shirt, revealing a grubby vest. There were bruises on his arms, black finger-marks where he had been held with considerable force, some of them old but some very fresh. As his clothes came off, first revealing that his legs were like his arms, he started to weep. No sound, no shuddering, just tears rolling down his face. The bruises extended across his torso, many of them that dark colour that made it look as if the damage extended through the flesh to the other side of the body. He stood for as short a time naked as we could manage, as Khan checked the obvious place, the one I had been so apprehensive about, and over Darren’s shoulder gave me a little head shake, not so. I thanked everything I could that the child seemed to have been spared at least that much, but as he pulled his stained boxer shorts back on I asked the question.

“Darren, son, would you let us take some photographs, please? We won’t be able to do anything without proof, and this is evidence”

“Don’ need no evvy dense, gonna shank him, yeah?”

“And end up banged away with dozens like, him, yeah?”

The floodgates burst, and the sobs came on, and I had no choice but to hold him to me as he wailed.

“I can’t go back to that fucking place! He gonna kill me one day! Can’t I just stay here? Please, Sergeant Price, please, just let me stay , I won’ shit no more, promise”

Polly was beside me. “No, Darren, you’re not going back there, and if I catch my boss neither is any other kid. It’s Ok….”

I sent the good doctor to ask for a civilian support worker to come to the cell, and had a call put out for Kirsty. Half an hour later, as Darren slept exhausted in the medical room with Doc Khan, Ruth and I had a chat.

“Kirsty, were there any other kids about when you lifted him?”

“Yeah, Sarge, I think three or four”

I filled her in on what had come up, and she was nodding. “Faginism? Makes sense. Question is, Sarge, who’s running the kids….oh shit.”

She had a look I hadn’t often seen on her face, not even when the drunk had pissed down her leg that night. “Yeah, Ruthy, I wonder what some CCTV might show in that area. I think you might be right, it’s just working out who the organiser is. I am going to see if we have any details of the people running the home, see if we can get a face, you pull a couple of PCs and lift any recordings of the area around that time. I have a boy to look after, see if he can give us any hints”

I popped back round to see my doctor, who was writing his notes.

“Annie…thank you for your humanity. That boy has been beaten systematically for a long time, beaten so that the marks are all in clothed areas. There are also a number of cigarette burns, but thankfully I could see no trace of what you so clearly feared, though of course that does not mean it has not happened”

“Doc, what happened to your English?”

“Bugger it, Annie, I use that to keep patients relaxed. This is deadly serious. I suspect there may be some old breaks under there, and he is definitely malnourished. He cannot go back to that place, and I am apprehensive as to his welfare if he is placed among other similar children.”

The door opened, and Polly came in, having spent some time reviewing the photographs. “Jesus wept, Sergeant, how could this have got so bad?”

The Paddington stare I gave her was far from funny, because she knew exactly as I did, that the responsibility was, if not hers, that of her colleagues. I laid down my rules.

“He does not go back there. Ever. I am not having another death on my conscience, certainly not that of another child. Now, you will please assist me in this matter. I suspect, and I can make this more formal if you wish, I suspect that we have what is called faginism going on here, where children are sent out to steal to order. What I want from you is some information, particularly any photos you have of people who work at that home, or older residents. Can you do that for me?”

“She looked weary. “Yes, I can and I will, but we have another problem. There are no safe placements available just now. We have nowhere to put him.”

I thought for a second, and an idea came up. “If we could find a safe home, people easily vouched for, would you be able to allow us to take him there?”

“Give me half an hour. I want to ring the office to dig out the Faygate Place file, and I will put that suggestion to them.”

Kirsty was back a little later with the discs, and when Polly came back in, grinned and nodded, I made the call.

“Steph? Hiya, it’s Adam Price. We have a bit of a situation at work, and I was wondering if you could let me have Naomi’s number”

CHAPTER 49
Kirsty was reviewing the pictures as I wrote down the number, and I heard what sounded like “Oof-four” from her as she saw the state of the kid. The phone was picked up on the third ring.

“Woods residence…”

“Naomi? Adam”

“Good afternoon, my dear, can I assume from your tone that you are at work?”

“Yes, my love, and I have a couple of favours to ask, one of them rather large”

I outlined the situation, describing Darren’s injuries and history, and she interrupted me.

“Darling Annie, I would guess that you will be after any local security camera footage we may have for that area. I do believe we have two or three. May I anticipate your next question by saying ‘yes’ in advance of it?”

“What did you think I was about to ask for?”

“My dear, a place of safety for your young chap. Albert would love a chap to do things with. He's missed that, especially after our boy ran off to Melbourne, and the chap we had next door sort of de-chapped herself”

I covered the phone and spoke to Polly. “They will take him”

“Who will?”

“Naomi and Albert Woods”

“Would they pass a CRB check?”

“Er, Detective Inspector and Detective Sergeant Woods, retired”

“Ah. I think that sort of answers my question. Fine, I will sort out the formalities later.”

I uncovered the phone. “Naomi, it’s agreed, but only if you are certain”

“Of course I am. Albert is already checking for coverage of the area, we just need the times. He will pick up the discs and bring them round to you, and I will be with you as soon as I can.”

“Naomi, you are a sweet woman”

“Annie, so are you”

I hung up, and turned to Polly. “She will pick him up shortly. I have an idea who might be involved with the ring, but I think once Kirsty is ready I need to pass this on to C.I.D. Can you source any spare clothing for him? Night clothes, anything like that, aye?”

“Will do. Adam, you are a sweet man. I wish I had more people like you to deal with. If you jot down Naomi’s details I will make the necessary arrangements, but for now I will say good bye to Darren, if you don’t mind, and head on back. Lots to do”

She came over and hugged me, with a little kiss on the cheek, and was off. A minute later Kirsty came up to me, grinning.

“Sarge, you’ve pulled! She wanted to know if you were single”

Oh shit. “What did you tell her?”

“That you were taken”

“Why say that?”

Kirsty folded her arms across her chest, which was an interesting exercise in its own way, and gave me a little smile. “Sarge, can I be straight with you?”

“Go on…”

“Well, that’s sort of the point, innit? Being straight…and you ain’t, is you? Sorry, Sarge, don’t mean to be cheeky, but I know you got the hots for my Den, like, I saw it when he first came down. No big deal for me, always fancied a gay bloke as a mate, sort of safe, yeah?”

I laughed. “Kirsty, butt, you are so wrong it is hilarious. One, I am straight, and two, I am very much spoken for, but that’s all outside work, and a bit private, aye?”

She actually blushed, my hard little mini-dragon, so I softened it. “Girl, I know you meant no offence, and none taken, aye? Let’s get Darren sorted, and then get this load up to CID. The woman coming to pick him up is ex-Job, and she and her husband run one of the largest local security firms.”

Her eyes lit up. “So they have…”

“Yes, cameras coming out of their ears, including inside the shops, so we don’t just have the street cams to work from”

She grinned. “You Sergeant, me PC, I can see why. Sarge, one night, how about you drag your lady out for a pint with us? Be cool, that!”

No, Kirsty, it wouldn’t but never mind, the thought was there. Naomi was as good as her word, and I arranged to have her car let into the yard so she could come straight into Custody. She was in full tweed mode, and as she hugged me hello, Jim stuck his head round the corner.

“Naomi bloody Woods!

“Jim you old fucker! How the hell are you my dear?”

It was surreal, and I had to keep reminding myself that she had been a frontline CID officer for decades, along with her husband. It just seemed strange to hear such phrases coming out of her, dressed as she was. Jim brought her up to speed, and then he took the two of us round to his office, where one of the leather jacket and hair gel boys was waiting.

“Naomi Woods, DC Richard Everett, CID.”

Everett looked at Jim. “Civilians, Inspector?”

The scorn dripped from his voice. Jim smiled brightly. “Sorry, DC Everett, Naomi Woods, Detective Inspector, no need to apologise”

Was that a very, very quiet ‘shitfuck’, or was I telepathic? Jim carried on.

“I‘ve filled Richard in on the story so far, Adam, and told him that you have arranged for the camera footage to be secured, as well as the Faygate Place files. Richard, Naomi here now runs a very large local security firm network. She has cameras in all sorts of places”

Everett perked up, his disdain gone in a flash. “Was it your stuff…the tranny jumper…”

I stepped in. “If you mean the poor girl who was murdered, that I helped shovel into a body bag, CONSTABLE, then please use her name”

“Sorry Sarge…”

Jim interrupted, still brightly, slipping me a wink as he did so. “We have a possible on the Fagin, Richard, but the one we also want to finger is the beater. Naomi’s husband Albert…Detective Sergeant Woods…is bringing in the discs from their cameras, PC Ellis has already secured the street CCTV recordings, and Miss Armitage of SS has undertaken to get us the files on the care home. Naomi, when will you be ready to take Darren?”

Everett interrupted. “DI Woods, not seeking to teach you how to suck eggs, but if we are going to use the kid as a witness, then perhaps we need to get his evidence tied down before he goes home with you, otherwise it might look a bit smelly, sorry”

I nodded. “Nice one, Richard, good call. Polly is due back shortly, Darren’s asleep, let’s wait, aye?”

I went for coffees, and Everett followed me.

“Sarge?”

“Yes?”

“Sorry about earlier, I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just…”

“Richard…look, butt, I remember every moment of that night, I see it in my dreams. Fuck knows how many cars hit her, she was fucking hamburger, but still human, aye? There was still enough of her left to see what those bastards had done to her before…before she died. I had to deal with ‘civilians’ who had just driven their cars over what had once been a real hero, yeah? Just, please, please think. I know this job does things to us, but try and remember why we do it and who we do it for, aye?”

He looked ashamed, and I almost regretted my anger.

“Look, mate, Jim, the skipper, aye? He said it. We had someone hunted down by a pack, killed for fucking sport, and it passed us by. We should be the ones to spot this, we are supposed to protect folk, and we fucked up. This is not a chance to put that right, but it’s a chance to do what we are supposed to do, protect the vulnerable, aye? Are you with me on this? Are we going to take out some fucking vermin today?”

He seemed to have recovered his confidence a bit, and I clearly heard Ginny in him when he replied “Fuck, yeah!”

Polly was back soon, followed by Albert, and we started the long process of filtering the data on the discs.

“Kirsty?”

“Yeah, Sarge?”

“This is going to take you over your shift, and you know we have no money for extra overtime, aye? Want to hand it on?”

She looked at me, and I saw that determination again. “Kids, Sarge. Kids. Get me a cuppa, if you have time, yeah?”

I did better, and as Kirsty and Richard worked through the video almost frame by frame, I arranged a sandwich run for them. As the PCSO brought the bags in, Kirsty muttered “You beauty…you FUCKING beauty!”

I was over, with Richard. “What you got, Kirst?”

She grinned. “Your Fagin, from months back….with James Petherick”

Fuck. She had just tied together the foul-mouthed grandmother I had custodised as I had Darren, and the manager of his care home.

“Ruth, I could marry you!”

“Yebbut, you got a woman, yeah? Let’s get this one done proper, OK?”

CHAPTER 50
Richard took Kirsty into the interview as a witness, along with Polly, and I had to explain to the boy why I couldn’t stay with him.

“Darren, I will be here, just outside the door, OK? I am not going anywhere, but you’ll get a new Custody Sergeant, cause I’m getting a bit involved, aye?”

Dennis was in just then for the late shift, catching a grin from Ruth as he entered, and I brought him quickly up to speed.

“He’s still under arrest for the theft, Den, but I somehow suspect that may be going nowhere. We’ve got Ma Pickstock in the frame again, with the care home manager, so it’s going to be a bit of a busy afternoon. Sorry, butt.”

“No apologies, Annie, it’s kids, and I hate that. You were spot on about Darren, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, Den, but he’s broken now. All that act, just melted away”

“Annie, he knows he’s safe now, he doesn’t need it”

“Thanks, mate. Naomi and Albert are going to take him for now. I need to hand over his care because I am starting to get compromised. Den, I am going to fuck off shortly, I want to make sure he gets bedded in, and then I intend to go and see my man”

Dennis frowned slightly. “You really have gone all the way, haven’t you?”

“Den, I know who I am now, no doubts, and I think you do too”

“Yeah, marra, but, you know…”

I pointed at my chest. “Me woman, Eric bloke, what is there to worry about?”

He just shook his head and we carried on with the signing over of Darren’s care.

An hour later Richard and Kirsty were out of the interview, and the look on their faces had me over to Darren as soon as I saw him, his face drawn.

“You OK?”

He just nodded. Kirsty whispered to me “He’s given both of them up, and Richard is off to set up an s18 PACE search, Sarge, I know it’s all overtime, but could I go along?”

“We can’t pay you, Ruth”

“Fuck it, Adam, Sarge, this is personal”

I took her into a hug. “Kirsty, you make me believe the Job still has a future. Let me know what you need, I’ll sort you some slack in exchange, aye?”

She whispered into my ear. “I know there’s no lady, yeah, you’re too fucking soft, but you are what the Job needs, more than me. You bring your bloke, or your tranny, or your fucking donkey for a pint, do I give a shit? You’re good people, Adam”

I folded. “Kirsty…it’s Annie.”

“Your partner?”

“No, me.”

“Fuck me backwards”

“No ta, Eric would complain”

Funny how once your mouth drops you in it your tongue runs away and drags you after. Kirsty stood, stared, shook her head and then smiled.

“Yeah, that makes sense. You have got far too much common wotsit to be some fucking man, innit? Now, I have a couple of cunts to take down, but Annie, girl, we get to have a pint, me and my Den, with you and your feller, yeah?”

I could only smile at her. “You have no problem with that?”

“Fuck, Sarge, you stopped being you? You are the one reason half the fucking plod here are still in the job. Don’t you realise it? You fucking CARE, yeah? You shame all of us! That little fucker, yeah, half the boys said he should be fucking hosed down every time he shat, but you, you say, no, he’s, he’s doing his best to wave his cock and not piss us about. You are what we all try to be, you, and you make us work at it. Oh, fuck, you know what I mean. Den knows, don’t he?”

“Yes, he does. So do the skippers, aye? Nobody else, so please, can we leave it at that?”

“No probs, Annie, but one thing, you are getting hairy, so I would guess you are coming out soon, yeah? You do that, I got your back”

I had to laugh. “Ruth, love, I have people so scary watching my back you would shit yourself. Look, why don’t you come and meet some of them?”

“What’s his name again?”

“Eric”

“You love him?”

“Oh god yes”

She smiled, and it was softer than anything I had ever seen from her. “If that’s what you think, then he must be a good bloke. Right, doors to kick, twats to nick. Laters, Annie!”

Did I just do that? Apparently so.

Naomi bundled Darren away, her face matching Kirsty’s in being softer than anything I had ever seen on her, and shortly thereafter two carriers left the yard on the way to Gossop’s Green and Faygate as I stayed on to hand everything over properly and then head off to the Woods’ myself. I gave Eric a ring.

“You coming home soon, love? Was going to put the kettle on”

“Eric, work is being a bit insistent, and I actually have to go up to Naomi’s. Want to join me there? I suspect she’ll be sorting tea”

“I’ll see you there then, if I don’t pass you on the road. Want me to bring some clothes for you?”

“No, we have a complication”

Once more I outlined the situation, and there was silence for a while, till he asked the obvious question, how did I cope with such things?

“Before, I couldn’t, could I? Now, that’s your job”

After I hung up, I collared Dennis.

“Butt, I’m off to the Woods place to see he gets settled in, Eric’s joining me there. If the teams get any results, can you give me a bell, aye? Oh, and Ma Pickstock, if they lift her, you might want to consider not just delaying intimation, but excluding her own brief till any searches are done. I think he might be involved”

“I’ll have a word with Sam, get him to gee up the Super then”

“Nice one, mate. Oh…Kirsty knows. I think she’s cool about it”

He shook his head. “I think she’d be cool if you were into chickens, Sergeant Price. You sort of have that effect on people, yeah? How did it come out?”

I explained, and he laughed. “Just don’t talk about fucking shoes or underwear together, like, she’s besotted with both, and it would be, just, well, ah, you know what I mean!”

“You don’t like her taste in underwear…oh, you dirty fucker!”

His face said it all, and in a sudden burst of intuition I realised that he was healing now, in his own way, working with coppers who still cared about the job and duty.

I changed, the support irritating now, but as long as Darren was there I couldn’t take it off. The ride out to the Woods place let me burn off some of the energy and hate that had been simmering, Darren was sat at the kitchen table having as full a fry up as Ginny had barred me from, and his face looked brighter, cracking a huge smile as I came in. Suddenly, his true age was visible, a small boy rather than a short thief, as he dipped bread into an egg and ate as if he had been without for years.

“Sarnt Price, yeah! This is a good gaff, innit!”

Naomi looked down at him as she poured a cuppa for me. “Darren, if you are sensible, this could be a home, not a gaff. I take no shit, but I don’t give it out unless I have to, if you understand me. Do we have a deal?”

I could see the cogs turn in his head. Easy pickings for a short time, versus a life. I just hoped he had the sense to weigh the choices properly. Polly came around just as Eric arrived, and her smile at seeing me was as bright as mine when I saw his. There was a comedy moment, just then, when she saw that my eyes and smile were directed over her left shoulder, and then she heard the crunch of his cleats in the gravel of the drive, turned, and sagged. At that moment, I really was telepathic.

Eric was judiciously distant in the kitchen as I made the introductions, but Polly had clearly made her own judgement, and after a few seconds of her own weighing of choices, she came down on ‘bright and friendly’

“Hiya Darren, how are they treating you? Force-feeding you fried eggs?”

“Hiya Miz Armitage, is good here, yeah! Got my own bedroom an evryfink!”

“Well, at the moment this is a temporary place of safety for you. That means we have to do a lot of checks and office work stuff before we can say if you will stay here long term, and it is also up to Mr and Mrs Woods to say whether they want you to stay at all”

“You mean I might have to go, lahk?”

“Darren…I only ever make one promise, and that is that I will do my best. If we are to make this work, I need the same promise from you, and Mr and Mrs Woods need it too. This is what we call a crossroads. You have the chance to change your life, completely. This is your choice, Darren, nobody forces you”

I left them to talk and walked over to the Woodruff place, having spotted Geoff rolling in.

“Hi Annie, stealth mode?”

“Yes, love, got company”

Yet again I ran through the story, and saw a mouth set and features tighten.

“Lovely world, Annie, lovely world. Steph’s not due back till late, so want some company there this evening? Bit of music?”

“Lovely idea, but I have neither with me”

He laughed. “There is a man standing behind you with a box”

Eric was there, and he had brought Saburo.

“I sort of wondered if you would need to relax a bit…it’ll be a while before there’s any news, yeah?”

“I could kiss you, Johnson.”

“You will, Price, but later”

The call came in at seven o’clock. Pickstock’s car turned up in one of two lock-up garages rented to Petherick by the council, ostensibly for storing a vehicle for use in connection with the care home. The boot was full of sports clothing, as was a shed at the back of Ma Pickstock’s house. Oddly and coincidentally, the one time when access to her own personal solicitor was delayed, the swag was still in place when we got round there.

Dennis actually sounded shocked. “What a mouth on her! Sweet little grandmother, like, and she’s swearing away worse than bloody Ginny!”

“What’s the state of play, butt?”

“Her own brief is here now, demanding to know why her call was delayed, and Sam has just slapped him with child safety references”

“What do you mean?”

“A very, very heavy hint that his card is marked, and if it goes to child abuse charges, he better be watertight, so shut up, get on with the above-board stuff and accept that the old cow has been caught properly this time”

“I do love Sam at times”

“Don’t ever tell him that, Annie, you will confuse the fuck out of him”

“What about Petherick?”

“Legged it. Picked him up ten minutes ago at his bloody mother’s, idiot”

“We got a clue on the beater, yet?”

“No, but I don’t think it was Petherick. We need some more from the boys”

“OK, Den, give Ruth one for me”

“Cheeky cow. See you tomorrow”

Naomi did indeed feed us, Eric, Polly, Geoff and myself, and when Geoff produced the bouzouki as well as one of his mandolins three of us settled down to a bit of quiet jamming, a mini-session of our own, as Albert, Naomi and Polly cuddled a cuppa each and relaxed. During a pause in our playing, there was a sound in the hallway, and Naomi went to investigate, returning with a small boy in pyjamas and a far-too-big dressing gown.

“Darren thought he would get into trouble for being out of bed, but he wanted to hear the music. Darren, squeeze in here between Miss Armitage and me, and settle down. We have too much music here for us, so we like to share it”

He just sat, quietly, as we played, and by ten o’clock had fallen fast asleep. Eric and Albert tossed a coin, and Albert won. He carried the boy up to his new bed.

CHAPTER 51
Eric and I rode home after exchanging hugs with a tired Steph, and once there I disappeared into the bathroom to get out of the support I had been wearing for nearly eighteen hours.

“This can’t go on much longer, love, I am going to be flat-chested even when I get proper tits. Like Chinese foot-binding, aye?”

“Doesn’t seem to have affected Steph’s…”

“Been looking, have we?”

“I might have noticed in passing…anyway, well done today, that was really good work. I think you might have turned him round”

“Eric, you didn’t see the bruises. It’s not done till we find out exactly who did that to him, aye?”

“I know. Look, come over here, lie down on the bed and I will do your back, yeah?”

He lifted the duvet on my side, I lay down, he started at my neck and the next I knew the alarm was going. I never even got a snog. This time he was out of bed first, to grab the toilet before me, and I had the delight of watching him trot naked out of the bedroom. Mmmmmm. Each day confirmed what Sally had predicted, that I was straight. Each time I saw or touched him, and not just there, or naked, I knew it in my heart. I was suddenly very annoyed at having to go to work and leave him here, and then I remembered that after the weekend he would be off back home. My bed would be empty again, and that was a real worry, and the sense of loss was already building.

He was back, in his boxers this time, and mentioned that the kettle was on. I didn’t have time to have a proper discussion, so just asked the question directly.

“What do we do after the weekend, love?”

He looked up at me as I stood in my dressing gown and he lay back under the duvet.

“Well, I go home and continue what I started while you were at work”

“Which is?”

He went slightly red. “A job search…there are jobs down here, lab work I can do, I am sure.”

He looked away for a second, then back, and there was just a hint of worry n his face.

“Annie, I sort of think we are in this for the long haul, so I started looking for work down this way. Save me having to commute to Clapham every day”

That got him the snog I hadn’t had the night before, and then a cup of tea, and another kiss as I went out the door to work.

Richard was already in, as I took the handover from the nights team.

“Morning, Sergeant Price, we had a lot of work yesterday, but we will be keeping you busy again today. Sorry”

I grinned at him. “If by busy you mean you might have the beater, then I will be more than happy. What you got?”

“Ah, it’s the usual story. We pick one up, spin their drum, and another address falls out, then another. You won’t believe this, but her mother has a council house”

“How old is her bloody mother?”

“Well, she apparently stopped aging five years ago, if you catch my drift. Christ knows how she managed it, but she controls two other council properties that she sublets illegally, one of which is in the name of her late mother”

“How the hell did that come out?”

“One of the boys folded. Darren isn’t the only one with bruises, there’s a Bill Sykes about as well as a Fagin. We are just off to pick up Joey Harber.”

“Ah, I know that name. Where is he?”

“Believe it or not, she has three council houses and he lives on a caravan site. You couldn’t make this up. We’ll be on channel two if you want to keep up”

This time the two carriers that went out were accompanied by a couple of dog units, and another carrier from the support group that would wait out of sight “just in case”
I switched on the radio and waited for the fun.

As there were still arrests to be made, Ma hadn’t been charged yet. I checked the review times, and she had been nicked at 1912 hours, first arrival at office 1945, first s40 review at2330 to allow for rest period, so I needed a skipper in to see her by 0830. Jim was the man, so I teed him up for it.

“Jim, I am not actually involved in her arrest, just Darren’s, so does that leave me free to run her?”

“Pretty sure it does, but I’ll run it past a CPS brief when I can. We are into s40, so there is already an assurance in place, according to the Codes, so stick with it for now. I will get the Super aware, just in case we need the s42, OK?”

I had one of the civilians do the breakfast run, and then just before the review was to take place her tame shyster appeared. I switched the radio off.

“Are you going to charge my client, Sergeant?”

“I have no idea. Enquiries are still continuing.”

“What enquiries, Sergeant?”

“I am not at liberty to say”

Jim came up behind him. “Morning Mr Harton. Come to make representations at the nine-hour?”

“My representation is that my client be charged or released immediately.”

“Well, I shall let you know when I have finished the review what my decision is. Shall we get it done?”

They took ten minutes, Jim endorsing the record to say that her further detention was authorised to allow for obtaining and preserving evidence, and Harton made his representations again, and Jim just smiled and said “No. Thank you for your time, my support worker here will let you out”

Once he was out the door, I got the radio back on, and the two of us listened in as the routine calls of our local patrols came in. I switched to channel 2, and there were the terse and clipped comments I knew so well.

“Charlie Tango three, on plot”

“Charlie Tango six, on plot. Charlie Delta four is with us”

The other units reported as they parked up, and then Richard’s voice came on.

“All units, Delta four one. Go go go”

There was silence for a while, and then the call came.

“Red red red! Shot fired! Officer down, ambulance required”

“All units, Delta three six. Get back from there. Charlie control, Delta three six”

“Go ahead, Delta three six”

“Shot fired, officer wounded. Ambulance to Buchan caravan park, but get them to hang back, so far?”

“So far”

“Richard’s in the open, and we can’t get him back. Armed support required as soon as. Weapon believed to be small calibre rifle, so far?”

“So far. Any other injuries?”

“One dog bite, animal no longer a threat. Believed one shooter only, but more than one occupant”

Shit. I heard the thunder of boots as every one available grabbed their kit and headed to the yard and the cars, and soon sirens were fading out as they set off for the site. Jim was pale.

“This is getting out of hand, mate. I’m off to the control room”

As soon as he was gone, Ma started buzzing, to make her usual demand for a cigarette, and after one too many mouthfuls of abuse, I very nearly lost it. Richard was lying outside some shitty caravan, bleeding out, while the thug who had shot him waved a gun around, and she wanted a fag. I marched into the waiting room and ripped down the poster, handing it to her and saying “Read that”

It said “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime”

I looked at her, old, body slowly failing her, and I had no sympathy at all.

“Is there anything in the public notice that you have difficulty in understanding, Mrs Pickstock? Would you like me to explain it in simpler terms? No? Good”

I went back to the radio.

“Tango Sierra three, on plot”

“Tango Sierra two, ETA two minutes”

“Charlie control, Tango Sierra three. I have a sight on the shooter. Patch me through to incident room please”

“Incident room operational in five, I say again, five, minutes, Tango Sierra three”

“Thanks control, listening out”

“Tango Sierra two on plot”

“Dave, John. Two occupants at least. I have a possible on one male.”

“Tango Sierras, Charlie India. Await Charlie Sierra authority. ”

“Understood. John, I’ve got the back window. Weapon appears to be small bore rifle as described by Charlie Deltas. I have a shot. Awaiting authority”

“All Tango Sierras, Charlie Sierra one. Delta three six, where is Richard?”

“On the ground in front of the van, boss. He’s moving but BANG oh you fucker”

There was a pause, then “Charlie Sierra one, Delta three six. Just been shot at. No injuries”

Another pause. “Tango Sierras, what do you have?”

“Tango Sierra two, I have a shot”

“Tango Sierra three, so do I”

Another pause. “Tango Sierra units, Charlie Sierra one. It is 0823 hours. I give you authority to open fire. I say again, it is 0823 hours and I give authority to open fire”

“Charlie control, Tango Sierra two. Two rounds. Target is down.”

“Charlie control, Tango Sierra three. Two rounds also. Confirm target is down. Tango sierra two, watch me, I am going in with side arm.”

“Control, Delta three six. Armed officers in van. Paramedics now attending casualties”

There was quite a long pause, then. “Second ambulance required, control. They have called it in. Richard is stable, Harber is now deceased. One other occupant of the van is going to hospital. I will need at least two female officers to attend the Royal East Surrey and they will require a rape kit. Boss, we will need this site secured, but the natives are not friendly”

“Report when you can, Andy. Incident room is up and running, I will alert the press office. Tango Sierras, good shooting, you know the drill now. Debrief at 1400 hours. Charlie Sierra one out”

CHAPTER 52
There was silence in Custody at that, and I turned the radio off. Jim came back a few minutes later, looking spent.

“I spent far too much time with them, and I still hate guns. I’m awaiting further details on the girl, but you may well receive some customers from the site. They are objecting to their mate being ‘executed’, apparently. I’m going to warn both the FME and your mate Khan, Adam. One or two of them have already met Sabre and Kirsty”

I don’t know which would be more frightening, a 40 kilo German Shepherd going for a mouthful, or a particular 5’3” policewoman swinging her baton. On balance, I’d probably opt for the dog.

“Oh, Adam?”

“Yes Jim?”

“I have given Dennis a bell, as I think you might be busy, and we’ve got the airport nick on standby as well. If that place goes as they usually do, we are going to be earning our crust. Coffee’s on if you want to grab a cup, feel free”

I rang Eric at home. “Love, I am going to be late home today, if things go as we expect. Been a fatality.”

“You OK?”

“I’m fine, but one of the lads is hurt, can’t say any more, just watch the news, aye? It’s connected to Darren, so you might want to warn Naomi to keep him away from the telly”

“Will do. Need anything?”

“Oh god, all sorts of things, but I’ll probably end up settling for one of your back rubs. Got to go, the yard gate’s opening”

Through the morning I ended up processing eight men and three women, arrested for a variety of things, ranging from s5 Public Order to full on Police assault and, in one case, wounding with intent. The last decided to tell me what he thought of the procedure, and Mr Mouth met Mr Floor as he was taken down and leg-strapped. It was indeed the way these things always went, where it was perfectly OK to beat people up, or even shoot them, but any interference was persecution. I was slowly getting details of the other casualty, who turned out to be only thirteen, and the urge to throw that in the face of the arseholes I was processing was almost too strong to control. Just then, Dennis arrived, and we took five minutes in Jim’s office for a catch-up. I was starting to shake as the fear came back, and Dennis could see.

Suddenly, he was hugging me.

“Annie, you’re doing fine. There can’t be many more of the shits to process, and I’ll take most of the monitoring on, OK? Get your coffee and go and sit down. Kirsty’s on her way with another couple, and I am pretty sure that’ll be it”

“You in touch then?”

“Yeah…”

He grinned and let me go. “Look, mate, I know I have to be bloody careful, sergeant and copper an aal, but I might just be changing my tastes in women”

“So, let me guess, moving away from Ginny-alikes in the direction of chesty midgets then?”

The grin was still there. “Might be!”

“Well, just remember one thing, neither of them could be described as housebroken!”

“Half the fun, marra, half the fun. Now, coffee, and clear this lot away. You have a man to get home to sometime tonight, so let’s make that sooner rather than later, aye?”

I looked at him, tall, fit, gorgeous as all hell and utterly straight. “Dennis, how do you do it? Everything you are doing or saying is as if I were female, and look at me”

He smiled, very gently. “Annie, the more I work next to you, the more I see you with your friends, the more I see how badly your costume fits. Tell me, aye, what was it you wanted to be when you were a kid?”

I smiled, he was that good. “A nurse, Den. I always wanted to be a nurse”

He was nodding. “That fits, and to be honest I think that is what you are doing. You care, and I know what Kirsty said to you cause she told me. I saw the way you were when Darren came in, and I said it then”

He was shaking his head. “You are a fucking good woman, Annie, you heal people, I just wish you had spent more time on yourself. Look, Kirst said she asked you and Eric for a pint. Here’s my invitation. You, and Eric, at Kirsty’s with the two of us, she’s not a bad cook, like. But you come as yourself, OK?”

“You want me in a skirt?”

“Not exactly, I just want you to see that we can adapt too”

We went back into Custody proper just as Ruth arrived, and she had a partly-closed eye and a red-faced man bent almost double with the reverse goose-neck she had on the arms cuffed behind him. The colour of his face and the stream of tears and snot showed where he had been pepper-sprayed, and the limp suggested an asp had been laid across his leg. I took him.

“PC Ellis, what are the circumstances?”

“I was on duty at the Buchan site, Sarge, and I found this one with a petrol can trying to start a fire on the van we are watching. When I told him to move away he punched me in the face. I used reasonable force and approved techniques to detain him”

“You kicked me in the fucking bollocks you bitch!”

“When you’re off your feet that is an approved technique”

She grinned around what was going to be one hell of a black eye. “Worked as well, Sarge!”

I looked over my shoulder, where Den had his back turned to me, but I could see his shoulders shaking as he tried hard not to laugh out loud. After the prisoner was banged away, I whispered to him.

“THAT attracts you?”

He smiled wistfully. “Oooooooooh yes!”

The flow did indeed dry up, and the debrief went ahead at two just as the Super had promised. Jim brought us the summary, and suggested we watch the BBC news channel in the back office. The newsreader was someone I had never seen before, but that was normal for the 24 hour rolling programme.

“News is coming in of the shooting of two men at a caravan site in West Sussex. One is thought to have been a police officer while the second was the subject of an arrest warrant. A young girl found in the mobile home concerned has been taken to a private room at a local hospital where she is being treated for what sources say is a serious sexual assault.”

Super Davenport was on screen then, giving the sanitised version.

“Officers went to a caravan site to arrest a man wanted on charges of child abuse, robbery, theft, handling stolen goods and assault. When officers attempted to execute the warrant, one of them was shot. His injuries are serious but no longer life-threatening. Armed officers were called and further shots were fired. One adult male was found dead on the premises, and a thirteen year old child has been taken for medical treatment and examination as to a possible serious sexual assault. There is now a public order issue at the site and a number of further arrests have been made. That is all I can say at this time.”

He walked away from the camera, his job done, and some hours later, after the last of our tribe of visitors had been charged and bailed or remanded, and the caravan had been towed away for a fuller examination, time came round for Ma Pickstock’s review---and the Super extended it. Harton went spare, and I was left wondering what the hell was going on when Mr Davenport snarled at him “We know who the girl is, Mr Harton, and we know most of why, and when we have all of that I strongly suggest you consider your future. Mobile phone companies keep logs.”

Harton went white, and Mr Davenport continued.

“The investigation is ongoing, Mr Harton, and it is far from finished. Oh, sod it, I can’t be arsed any more. Harton, I am arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, perverting the course of justice, handling stolen goods and complicity in the sexual trafficking of a child under fourteen. You do not have to say anything, but if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court it may harm your defence. Do you understand the caution? Yes? Course you do. Den, you doing this one? Harber’s phone had a shitload of messages from him and his client. Very interesting ones. Harton, the lads are already at the other address. Can I assume authorisation of detention, Dennis?”

Dennis pushed me to one side before I could muscle in. “Oh yes indeed, Mr Davenport, with real pleasure”

I whispered to the Super. "Not quite right, Boss"

"Don't care, and he didn't notice"

Booked in, strip-searched, his expensive shoes, tie and belt removed, Harton’s face was a picture. Could the day end any better?

I finally got home at ten, after a special sitting of the local bench to bail or remand several of the arrestees, and Eric was sitting up in bed. There were candles lit, and a small pot of warm water to one side.

“Get your kit off woman, I have something for you.”

The water held a bottle of aromatic oil, and after laying a towel on the bed he did my back, and then he did my front, and then I sort of did things, and, well, it seemed the day could indeed end better.

This part contains references to the sexual abuse of minors. There is nothing graphic here, but the situations depiceted may upset certain people. The particulars will have been expected by those who have followed the story this far.

CHAPTER 53
Another early shift, another alarm, and another sleeping man kissed as I left for work. Den had left me an e-mail there.

“A
K and I are off on Saturday, late turn on Sunday. You are earlies Saturday, off Sunday. Saturday evening at K’s. Bring E and wine and yourself
D”

There was more, time and directions, but this was going quicker than I had envisaged. I gave Sally a quick ring, and she was free to talk.

“Do you trust Dennis?”

I thought for a while, but the answer was simple and obvious. “Yes, and Kirsty too. I just feel it might be putting pressure on Eric”

“Then ask him”

“Yeah, but that’s putting pressure on him to decide, aye?”

“Then you decide for him”

“You are not helping, Sally”

“I don’t intend to. Your chance to take some control. Got an appointment now, tell me how it went”

And she rang off. I tried Steph.

“What did Sal say?”

“How did you know I rang Sally first?”

“Annie, what do I do for a living?”

“Sal said it was up to me to decide”

“Yes, it is. That is the point. You have to want this, or you will sit one day when it gets to be hard going, and blame everyone else. And it will get hard, trust me. I can’t help with this one. Do you trust him?”

“Sally asked me that, and yes I do, and Kirsty as well”

“Then I will add one thing. You and Eric are a partnership. You are putting him under more pressure by excluding him from the decision making than you are by asking him. Let me know how it goes, but it is your journey, Annie. It has to be.”

Well, no choice then. I rang home.

“What are you up to on Saturday?”

“Nothing special, was thinking of cooking something nice for tea, get some beers in”

“Fancy an evening at Kirsty’s?”

“That the short one with the big nips?”

“The very same. Den will be there”

“Ah….would this be you as yourself?”

In a very small voice I said yes, it would be.

“No problem then. How far is her place from here? Much of a ride?”

“No, walking distance”

As I said that I cursed myself. I had just talked myself into walking through Crawley in a skirt. Shit.

The shift went quickly, the press still hanging around outside, and we had a report back on Richard’s condition. He had been very lucky, the most serious part of his injuries being a collapsed lung, but the medics made it very plain that if he had been left much longer without attention he would probably have bled out and died. Richard’s mate Andy kept us up to speed with the investigation, and a particularly nasty picture had emerged in time to charge the old bitch and her lawyer with a raft of offences that had the same press in a feeding frenzy. Andy ran the set up past us on Friday afternoon.

“Pretty simple, really, old Ma Pickstock has done it all her life. Gets the kids to lift, punts out the produce through a number of handlers, fences, and even does the unwanted present/doesn’t fit bit. You know, nick something and then take it into and ask for your money back. That meant a lot of the stuff was still labelled. We kept Harton out of the picture long enough to get the stash, but we didn’t put a face to her enforcer till we had had to let that piece of shit talk to her.

“Adam, he rang Harber, that was why he was waiting for us. We got texts on his phone, and he even rang Joey after he’d been taken down. There was another link we got, can’t tell you how, which got us another address, and that’s where Ma kept her takings, amongst other…activities”

He was looking green. “No easy way to tell the rest. Petherick knew Harber through some, er, common interests, and Harber had done some debt-collecting for Ma, usual knee-cap stuff. So there is Petherick, with a nice little collection of fresh meat for Ma, just needing some tenderising in Joey’s patent style, and Ma has it made. Jim, any of your coffee available?”

“Yeah, I’ll pour you one”

“Ta, mate, got a bad taste in my mouth.”

He waited for the coffee, and I asked the obvious question.

“Andy, what’s this shared interest bit then?”

The look he gave me was a thousand years old, and he took a mouthful of Jim’s sludge with a grimace of distaste, whether for the coffee or for the subject matter I couldn’t tell.

“Young girls, Adam, Young girls. Both Petherick and Harber like them factory-fresh, even if they’ve been test-driven a few times already. Sorry to be so flippant, but it’s not a subject I can come straight out with. We anticipate finding rather more than one set of DNA from little Chantelle’s, um, examination. I am certain we will have Harber’s, and we might get Petherick’s. If we are really lucky, Harton will have spoodged up her recently enough, but I am not holding much hope out for that. Shit, if it wasn’t for the effect on the girl I would’ve hoped one of them had HIV.”

I shuddered. “Andy, how old is Chantelle?”

“Thirteen, in three months time. Twelve, Adam”

There was silence for a long while, and then Jim asked the question I wish he had never thought of.

“What about her family, Andy, they know where she is?”

Andy stood, and put down the cup. His eyes were so bleak, so empty of life.

“I am off up the East Surrey to check on Richard, and then I am going to go home and drink far too much, and probably cry for a while without telling my wife why…Adam, you custodised her grandmother. She’s Chantelle Pickstock.”

He nodded to us and walked out, the weight of his job so heavy I wondered how he could stand, and of course it was the hormones, they do that to you, and it wasn’t my own weakness that had me throwing up the coffee into a sluice. I realised I needed to talk to Darren, to release him from his own nightmare, and I thanked all the gods that the predators had been heterosexual, for the ten seconds it took me to realise what I was thinking.

Twelve.

“Woods residence”

“Naomi, Adam. Can II speak to Darren, please?”

“What’s wrong, my dear?”

“An awful lot, love, but some good, and I want to give that to Darren, see if I can make things better for him, aye?”

“I will fetch him, my darling girl, he is playing some computer thing with Albert. One moment”

“Sarnt Price, yeah! What you want, lahk?”

“Darren…Joey Harber”

The phone made some odd noises, and then Naomi came back on. “He dropped the handset, dear. Here he is again, it’s all right, Darren, nothing to fear any more”

“Darren?”

“Yeah”

His voice was close to breaking. I pushed ahead. “It was him that hurt you, wasn’t it?”

“Yessss”

“He shot a copper today, and then he got shot himself. Darren, he can never hurt anyone else again, ever.”

There were more noises, and then,

“Adam, it’s Albert, can you tell me what is going on?”

“A lot I can’t just yet, Albert, but the man who tortured him shot a DC today and then caught four Heckler and Koch rounds to the head and chest. He was a nonce, Albert, and we have two more and their supplier banged away”

“The DC? Badly hurt?”

“Yes, but off critical, going to be fine, well, you know”

A very weary sigh. “Yes, I know, my dear, and so do you. Look after him. I will explain as much as I can to the young chap. Any more normal news to share?”

I sighed myself. “Eric and I have been invited out to dinner on Saturday with Kirsty and Dennis”

“Ah. You, or Adam?”

“Er, me.”

“Congratulations. If you need anything, you have our number”

“That is it?”

“Annie, if an old duffer like me can see what you are, why can’t you? Go, smile, have fun, and let us know you are safe. Now, I have a young man to look after.”

“How is he doing?”

I could hear the smile return to Albert’s voice. “I have the chance to be a grandfather without the messy parts, and he seems to understand that. We are becoming fast friends. I think the boy now understands the concept of hope”

The news dripped out piece by piece that day, and Mr Davenport made another speech for the cameras in which he hardly said anything, but Ginny and Kate were actually at the door that evening, they were so worried, and once again I was wrapped in the love of friends.

I sat that evening in my flouncy skirt and blouse, my growing breasts finally comfortable, as we cuddled in two pairs over a bottle or two and some salad.

“You two treat this place as yours, don’t you?”

Ginny grinned. “Fuck, yeah!”

Kate smiled, as ever. at her wife and said “We were just worried, that shooting, just wondered how you were. We do worry about you, so we came up. Complaining?”

“No, just pleased you care. Eric, want to tell them about tomorrow?”

“Yeah, we’ve been invited round for a meal by Dennis and Kirsty. That’s Annie and me”

“How do you feel, Annie?”

“OK, really, just nobody seems to want to give me any advice on going”

Kate was nodding. “Because we can’t. It has to be your move”

“What the hell do I wear?”

Eric snorted. “Now I know absolutely that you are a bloody woman! Simple, the dress you got in Shrewsbury Marks, your court shoes from the same place, and a cardy, and we have a look Saturday afternoon for another handbag. Sorted?”

Kate looked at him in shock. “Are you sure you are a man?”

I snorted. “I am…sure he is a man, that is”

Kate nodded. “Better idea. There is a decent bag shop in the County Mall. Annie, show us your outfit, and we will drop in there tomorrow morning and pick you something suitable. Annie shall go to the ball!”

CHAPTER 54
I was crapping myself as I did the final touches to my eyes and lips.

The two bags left for me were actually rather nice, one a big and saggy thing in glove soft brown leather, the other much smaller and on a long thin strap, something I could almost envisage wearing on the bike. The smaller one would do for tonight, it matched the shoes nicely and had enough space for what I had to carry. I mean, sanitary products would never be needed, would they?

That one actually hurt. I was reminded of my loving grandmother, and what she had done to the flesh of her flesh, and here I was unable to do what she had done without thinking. I wanted to nurture, I yearned to hold, to love, and there she was…words failed me in all senses, my mind wanted to shut down in protest. Concentrate, Annie, make this a good evening for Eric, for Dennis, for Kirsty my sweet harpy. Fuck it, Annie, do it for yourself.

“Eric, can you zip me up?”

He was looking tasty in slacks and a short-sleeved blue shirt. “Ready?”

“No, but this will have to do”

The sound of my heels on the pavement was deafening, but Eric had my hand, and off we went down the early evening streets. Wepassed and were passed by several people, but nobody seemed to give us a second glance, apart from one older woman who smiled at our hand-holding. All too soon we were at the gate to Kirsty’s small house, where Eric stopped. He looked at me, and I nodded. Up the path, ring the bell…a small mountain of cleavage with a seriously black eye seized me in a hug.

“Annie! Come in!”

She was in a blouse and skirt combination, and I was surprised (in what I realised was a catty way) that the skirt was knee length and not shorter. The blouse struggled, though, but the whole effect was capped by the pink and fluffy bunny-faced slippers on her feet. Den was in the kitchen, and called hello through the doorway as Kirsty sat us down. She gave me the once-over, head tilted to one side as if weighed down by the shiner.

“A bit Laura Ashley, Annie!”

“A bit ‘me’, Ruthy!””

“You know what I mean. When I get you clubbing we’ll have to spice it up a bit”

“You trying to frighten me off?”

“No, girl, just welcoming you to my world. Ah, fill the glasses, lover. Eric?”

He nodded, and I drooled. Den was dressed much as Eric was, men’s clothing being so constrained, but he filled it very nicely, very nicely indeed, and it was just like the first time I saw him. Kirsty saw my expression, and slapped my knee.

“Taken, and so are you, you tart!”

There was still a definite awkwardness about things. Through dinner, which was chicken in crá¨me fraiche and tarragon, Kirsty kept up her ‘welcome to womanhood’ thread, but there was still a distance to them both, as if they were trying to fit Annie to Adam. Kirsty made more jokes about adjusting my fashion sense, and shorter skirts, but it came across as a little stilted. It wasn’t till afterwards, when I made a point of settling into Eric’s embrace on the settee as we finished the wine, that I could see their perceptions adjust that little bit more. The wine, the time spent together, and my complete relaxation into Eric’s cuddle finally seemed to bridge the gap, until Kirsty had to ask the question.

“Eric, look, just curious, sort of, and a bit concerned about Annie here, but how, you know, do you deal with knowing she’s…she’s still got her danglies, like?”

Eric stroked my arm, calming, reassuring.

“That was my hang-up, Kirsty. I am about as straight as they come, and everything physical was just, well, it pushed all the wrong buttons, yeah? I was so confused, I mean, anyone can see she’s a girl, no matter how she dresses. What was that phrase, love? Leaking round the edges?”

“Yeah, that’s the one”

He squeezed my knee, thanking me, and continued. “I don’t want to get all personal here, but the more I live with her, the more she allows herself to just, I don’t know, leak like that, the easier it gets. And she has changed, physically, already”

He suddenly got a big grin as Kirsty’s eyes went to my chest a split second after Den’s.

“Yeah, and I like that too! Look, we have a long and hard road ahead, and that is why we really appreciate you two doing this. So many others would have turned their backs”

Kirsty nodded. “Yeah, like we talked about it a lot, me and Den, and what it is we sort of came up with is that we would probably have done just that. It ain’t natural, that’s the way I always felt when I heard about these things, and my Den here, he was the same. But, oh I don’t know, it is you, my Sarge Price, not some odd nutter in the Sun or the Screws, yeah?”

I nodded. “Makes all the difference?”

She was a little shamefaced. “Yeah, it does, and then I think to myself, if it is OK for her, him, whatever, why is it wrong for others? Am I being an arsehole about it, sort of thing”

Eric spoke. “No, love, you’re no arsehole. The fact that you have enough humanity and decency to ask the question in the first place says that. Look at how long it took me to understand. We are nothing special, just ordinary people, we take time to learn”

I squeezed him back. “Well, I think you are special”

Eric blushed, and continued. “You know who IS special? Ginny, that’s who. She didn’t just let a friend fall through the net, she went after them, found out what was wrong and promptly put everything else away till she was sure her friend was safe again. That’s special. I mean, people like the Woods, and Steph’s family, they are good people, really good, but Ginny goes above and beyond that, and I owe her my lover here”

Den was also nodding hard. “Aye, there’s no way I could ever have tolerated a gender bender, like, not even Annie here, till she rubbed my nose in what she is. It was that kid, and we now know how bloody right she was. How right you were, Annie. Oh, it’s like that equality and diversity bollocks, aye, value someone because they are different, which is a shite idea. Why does being different make you more valuable? Now, not being an arsehole, as Kirst says, just because someone is different, that makes sense. Ah, you know what I mean. Now, are we going to get properly wrecked tonight? It has been a shit week, and if my lass here agrees, there is a spare bed if you get too wobbly”

I smiled back at him. “Wrecked would be good, but we have our own bed not too far away, and it will make morning ablutions easier, aye? More wine, garçon!”

We were walking back in the cool night air some time later, and Eric asked me why we hadn’t taken the offer.

“Two things, my love. One, by all accounts Kirsty gets a little vocal, and I really didn’t fancy that tonight. Secondly, I want you, in our bed, to understand that it is our bed, and to make it our bed properly, and all sorts of other stuff that involve the word ‘our’, and, well..”

I couldn’t speak any more, you can’t when you have another tongue in your mouth, and my nipples needed soothing after that, and so he did, and I soothed him, and as I did so, in our bed, I wondered if the joy I was feeling could ever leak out to people like Darren, or poor, abused Chantelle.

Lucky, that was the word. So, so lucky.

CHAPTER 55
As I prepared yet another disgustingly healthy breakfast for us, the phone rang, and it was Naomi.

“Good morning, my dear, I wanted to catch you before you went out today, and let you know how Darren is”

“There are no problems? I mean, no new ones?”

“No, but the last two nights he has joined Albert and me in bed. Nothing unnatural, just for comfort, but I am concerned. “

“Thought of speaking to Sally?”

“Stephanie suggested that, but I felt that I would see firstly if you had any specific information that might help the young chap”

“Naomi, I think my information is probably the cause of this. He’s been straining so long against the fear of Harber that now he has nothing to tug against he’s falling over, aye? All I can suggest is to let him fall down, catch him and help him up again. I don’t think he’s ever had someone worry about him before. Albert seems to be quite taken with him, and if he is clinging…I think he is going to be fine. What about school?”

“I spoke to Polly, and they are happy for him to start at the local secondary school next week”

“That may raise some issues as well, even more bullying”

“They are allowing him half-days at first, as an adjustment period. We have had a long discussion with the Head, and I am rather hopeful”

“What does Darren say?”

She laughed. “He just asks if they play football there”

“Sounds good, then. Just one moment, please, Naomi”

I looked over to Eric, a bright idea flashing in my mind.

“Love, fancy a ride out today? Go and see the girls?”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Naomi, is Steph about today?”

“She is in my kitchen, drinking tea”

“May I have a word”

Naomi passed over the telephone. “Steph? What are you up to today?”

“Drinking tea and ironing shirts, so far”

“Fancy a ride down to the coast, aye?”

“Oh, Annie, you know how to turn a girl’s head! Geoff too?”

“Course. Whenever you are ready, come over”

“OK, see you in about an hour”

I hung up, and dialled again, getting Den’s mobile.

“Morning, Den!”

“Um, morning, er, Annie, um”

“We are going for a ride down to Brighton in a bit. Want to tag along?”

“Er…oof…um…bit…aaaah…hungover…careful, Kirst…er…”

I stifled the giggles. “I’ll see you back at work, then!”

I hung up, and the laughter came. Eric looked at me. “What?”

“Sorry love. But Dennis will not be joining us, he was rather busy. I think he was getting some, er, close personal attention from his lady love as we were speaking, and his mind was on lower things. So it’s me, you, Iron Man and the hairy horror. I’ll ring Ginny, see if she’s about”

Kate was working, but Ginny agreed to meet us at the top of Ditchling to coordinate a team assault on the Palace Pier’s amusements. I had a small moment of sheer joy, for the oddest reason, as the routine nature of what we were planning hit me. This was me and my bloke, together with another couple, doing the normal weekend thing of popping down to the coast for the day. It was all I had ever wanted out of life, normality and routine, but as myself and not as an actor. So I was wearing a bra and a little bit of colour on my face? All banal, unremarkable, normal. The dressing-up I had done as a teenager was always tainted with fear and the shame that my father had taught me, but now it was being done for another man, one so very different, and it wasn’t cross-dressing at all.

That brought a little hiccup, as I remembered Darren. Things had moved on since I first met Steph and Naomi, and I had become comfortable in their presence, and accustomed to the ‘family’ evenings where we would laugh and play together. Darren’s presence brought a halt to that, as he couldn’t see me until I was fully out, and I wasn’t sure whether he was strong enough to take the shock. Slowly, Annie, carefully.

The Woodruffs were punctual, looking swish in cycling tops depicting a Wales flag and a brand of malt loaf, which put my boring and plain blue one to shame. I consoled myself with the thought that underneath I had opted for pretty rather than sports. Steph was perky, even for her. As we set off, she dropped alongside me for a chat.

“Gotta sing, gotta dance”

“You sing too?”

“Well, Annie, gotta dance, then. We’re off tonight to the folk club, it’s their song and dance night, so we get to play a bit and have a spin round the floor. We’ll hop a train back from the coast and then Albert’s taking us, with Darren.”

“How does he get on with the music? Not exactly teen stuff, is it?”

“Ah, that’s the thing, he’s never actually seen music made before. He’s fascinated by it, the whole process, the idea of taking some wood and stuff and making it sing. It’s all a new world to him”

“How is he coping with the world of tweed and comfy shoes?”

She laughed. “You have no idea, girl! Albert is so up to speed with the latest computer stuff, Darren thinks he’s some sort of wizard. They are just about welded together at the keyboard, if you see what I mean. I think he might end up staying there, at least Albert hopes so. Listen, why don’t you come out tonight as well?”

“Steph, I would love to, but it would have to be as Adam, and I really don’t like doing that any more. Last night, with Kirsty and Dennis, it was all sort of ‘this is real life’, thingy. I think you know what I am trying to say, aye?”

We were starting the long drag up to Turner’s Hill, and she saved her breath, just nodding, and I suddenly realised that I might actually have the legs on her. All of Ginny’s ministrations, coupled with Eric’s constant invitations to pop out for ‘short spins’, were bringing my body back to life, along with the soul I had so nearly lost, and I arrived at the crossroads grinning. Ditchling, however, was still a sod, but this time I rode it without stopping, even though I was breathing like a train at the summit. Eric and Geoff…why did they have to do it three times? Steph joined me, and once again I was telepathic as she just raised her eyebrows and shook her head. Men.

“COO-WEE!”

My Amazon princess was there, larger than most people’s conception of life, and we had a round of hugs.

“Didja like the bags? Didja? I picked the big one, Kate the little one, cos she only has ickle hands and short but delicious legs”

“Ginny, when you were a little…person…did the Sanity Fairy come along with the Tooth Fairy? How much did she leave you for your mind?”

“The lot, I lay in wait and mugged the pair of them. Want grabby machines and chips!”

Down the long hill we went, and once more a shop’s worth of locks bound our bikes into a solid mass of metal, and we clacked past the smells onto the wooden decking. Ginny, true to her word, was straight onto a machine, while the rest of us walked over to the railing, hand in hand as couples should be.

Each day it got easier to be me in public. Each day, as I woke beside him, Eric made it seem the only way to be. Just one week, I had to keep remembering, just one week, and so much had changed. I was seeing myself more and more as wearing Adam as part of my uniform for work, to be discarded in the same way when the shift ended. That was why I had to be so careful now, around Darren. That night I would be on my own in bed again, and it would be such a wrench. Steph caught my mood, as the boys headed off to some other electronic noisemaker.

“Getting hard, love?”

“It is. It’s being in no-man’s-land; I don’t know when to do the big jump, and I am trying to live two lives, it seems.”

“Any plan, any idea when to let the world know?”

I turned to her, as she stood with an arm around my shoulder. “Not a bloody clue, aye? Not a single idea. I have the meeting coming up with the Super and the Rep, and, well, that is as far ahead as I can see at the moment”

“What about Eric?”

“Ah, that’s a good bit. He’s looking for a place to work down my way, so after that, well, I have a little sort of dream, you know, a proper house together and all that. It was the thoughts I had this morning, aye? Just to be ordinary, normal”

She tightened her one-armed hug. “Annie, you could never be just ‘ordinary’, you outshine us all. Now, I know you get the night horrors, I get a few myself, so if you would prefer to stay over at ours while Eric is away?”

“Thanks, girl, but I have to get used to coping, aye? I am a bloody sight stronger than I was at the start of the year, and if necessary I can just sit and read or something. It makes a difference, you know, that there is a real world outside the nightmares. It means waking up quicker, losing the horrors.”

“Can I make a suggestion, Annie? Might sound a bit weird?”

“Considering what I am, weird is sort of fitting. Go on?”

“Take something of his to bed, something he’s worn, that smells of him, a shirt or something. Makes a difference”

I nodded. “I see what you mean, sort of comfort blanket thing, aye?”

“That’s it. Also, take this”

She held out a memory stick. “We took quite a few photos at the festival, and I spent a few hours putting them all onto computer, including a load from Bill’s side. If you find yourself awake in the small hours, well, happier times, yeah? Now, shall we drag the boys out and make them buy us lunch?”

Ginny had accumulated three rather odd cuddly toys, and as we found the boys in question looking at the ‘Penny Falls’ machines, she dropped her bombshell.

“Place down under the arches by the bouncy frame things, does all the really old games, uses tuppences and that”

Eric perked up. “Now, I know you are a devotee of the Bard, Ginny dear…but does it have one of those REALLY old ones, you know, the condemned man one?”

“What, where the judge sentences him and they got the rope and everything? Fuck, yeah!”

I looked at the two of them with a peculiar sense of pride. Mr Lehrer had always stated that his muse was unfettered by such considerations as ‘taste’, and these two were living the dream in style. I had to stop them, or at least hit ‘pause’.

“One thing you are forgetting. Lunch!”

Someone squeezed my arse at that point, and I was astonished to find it was Ginny’s hand doing the squeezing. She gave it another one, and then just nodded.

“Well done, that girl. You can haz chips!”

She struck a louche pose. “I want the finest chips known to humanity, and I want them here and I want them now!”

We went to Harry Ramsden’s, and it was OK, but even if it had been atrocious I would not have cared. For some odd reason of mental imbalance, Ginny had three portions of mushy peas instead of a fish, and spent the meal making chip sandwiches, before we sensible girls were dragged down to the penny-dreadful machines under the arches. After a few minutes of that, Steph and I escaped to gull cries and ice cream, before we all assembled for the ride to the station and our train home, which was also Eric’s train away from me.

The Woodruffs would get off at Horley while Eric continued to Clapham, as I left at Three Bridges. We hugged my mad woman friend goodbye, and she agreed to take all our best whatevers to Kate, and then slipped through the ticket barrier to the train, casually ignoring the ‘two bikes only’ notice. We came to my station far too soon, and I kissed him goodbye before heading home to a bed empty but for Tabitha, and, that night, the shirt I filched from the laundry basket.

CHAPTER 56
I was beside the old Rover at three thirty, the drips sounding like hammer blows, and then awake, knowing I had shouted but not remembering what.

I picked up Eric’s shirt and held it over my face, breathing his scent into me like some life-saving drug, as I cuddled Tabby. Sleep didn’t seem to want to return, so I went into the living room and cranked up my computer, looking for something to read or some mindless programme on the BBC website, until I remembered, and dug out the memory stick Steph had given me, and opened the file of pictures.

There were so many, and I began to realise how self-absorbed I had been that weekend, so caught up with fear and wonder that I hadn’t noticed the cameras. There were shots of all of us, but Steph had clearly taken the output of three or four cameras and arranged the results chronologically.

Lots of pictures of their family fooling around as the Edifice went up, and then it switched to myself and Eric as we turned up, bikes loaded with the bare minimum, and I savoured the views of his legs and his smile. I was surprised to see that my incipient breasts were obvious, at least to my eye, even in my male garb,

Dancing, me with Kelly, and Jan, and playing, including several shots where whichever photographer it was had tried to catch the light through Steph’s hair as it flew out in an auburn curtain, and then myself, lost like Steph in my own world of sound, of air dancing.

Jimmy, and Mark, and someone had caught Kelly’s face at an unguarded moment, as she almost drooled over him, and I resolved to ask Steph what was happening to the two of them. Only a week ago…

Then, I was there, as myself, and there was such a story in the pictures, and I showed Tabby as I went from utter terror in my new clothes to delightful grin in Eric’s arms, and they had caught us from behind as we walked, Eric’s arm round my waist loosely enough that he could squeeze my bum, and they had also caught several snogs, and I missed him horribly just then.

An icon appeared on my instant message screen: ‘Eric has signed in’. His message followed immediately.

--Bad dreams?
--Yeah. What you up for?
--Worried bout you. What you doing?
--Looking at pics from Steph. Want see?
--Yes please. Any embarrassing?
--Loads.
--Nice ones of you? Want one please
--Wait one

There was one that had really caught my eye, where we were sitting at a table in the food tent, a beer before each of us, and somebody had clearly said something clever, for we were both grinning, and he was looking down at my face, or at my cleavage, but at least at me, in my flouncy blouse and headscarf, and the whole thing looked so natural and joyous I could have wept. I sent it over to him and waited for the download to finish.

--Sweet!
--Not sending any more
--Why not?
--Want to look through them with you
--Spoilsport
--Want cuddle
--Want one too

The messages continued, but as they just degenerated into soppiness I don’t need to reveal any more. I did, however, save the conversation. It would be there to replay at other times of need. I did doze a little, but the alarm caught me, and I was quickly on my way to work, for the first of several days and nights without Eric.

They were comparatively quiet, after the drama of the previous week, a mixture of drink drivers, criminal damage, occasional drunken fights, and just the one nasty, which I came into Wednesday morning. A taxi driver had refused a fare, largely because the fare in question was so drunk he had puked in the gutter before hailing the cab, and as no wog was going to speak to a pukka Englishman, like, or rather ‘lahk’, said wog got glassed, in the face. Fortunately for him, two of our more forthright lads weren’t too far away, Pete Costello and Ian Murphy, and I was presented with the damaged goods when I came on that morning.

I got the impression that one or both of them had given him a couple of unapproved techniques to places like the kidneys, but much as I didn’t approve of their actions, I extended no sympathy whatsoever to the piece of shit in cell 5, as the driver was still in the Tandridge ward at the Royal East Surrey having his face returned to him.

Just another day in paradise. I was brought back to my own reality when Sam dropped by.

“The Super will be ready for you in half an hour, mate. Harry is on his way”

Harry Osborne, the Police Federation rep, was with me in five minutes.

“Adam, a clue as to what this is about?”

I can’t do this twice, Harry. “Core values of the Home Office, Harry, that’s all you need to know”

Kirsty was just coming in as we spoke, and she caught me over by the Inspector’s office.

“Annie, you are crapping yourself, and I want to know why, yeah?”

“Bit of personal stuff, aye?”

“Fed rep? Ah, I got it. Who you telling today? You done the skippers, and me, and my Den…shit, you going all official now?”

I just nodded, and she noticed me shudder a little. Her whole tone changed.

“Look, love, you want company? Bit of moral support, like? You are shit scared, aren’t you?”

Oh yes. No Sally, no Steph, no Eric. No Eric. “Ruthy, please, it would be very good of you. Got a meeting with Mr Davenport, aye, and I am just a bit nervous. Big step, it is, and this one would be no going back”

She laughed softly. “Go back? Like fuck you want to, bloody woman in love with a mint bloke, go back my arse. I am coming in with you, my girl, so like it or lump it”

We were at the Super’s door a minute before time, Harry, Kirsty and I, and he opened it himself to invite us in.

“Adam, I knew you were bringing Harry, but Ruth–I mean Kirsty, bit of a surprise. Lovely shiner, by the way, hear you left him a bit swollen”

She grinned. “Well, boss, you know me! I am just here as a friend and support for my Sarge, like, as I sort of know what it’s all about, like”

“OK. I have had some coffee brought in, it should taste better than Jim’s special brew. How do you want to start, Adam?”

Kirsty took my hand, and both Harry and the boss made an ‘ah’ sound, and she noticed and giggled. “Look, boss, this is just moral courage, thingy, yeah?”

Deep breath. “Boss, I have some major issues in my life that have caused me a lot of grief over the years. Not the night horrors, you know about them already, and I really, really appreciate the support you gave me in taking me off the beat. It’s another matter altogether, I just have to find the right way to explain, and it’s not something I can talk about sort of flat, aye?”

Harry was making notes, while Mr Davenport nodded over his tented fingers, looking confused. That was when my black-eyed mini-dragon just snorted.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Sarge” Boss, meet Annie Price, my best girlfriend. Annie, you have got to learn to put yourself forward a bit, otherwise we will be here all bloody day”

Harry bent down to pick up the pen he had dropped, while the boss just said ‘ah’ a couple more times, before gathering his wits and his words.

“Am I to assume that we are looking at a sort of Spectrum issue here? A GBQT type thing?”

Kirsty corrected him. “LGBT, sir”

I completed the joke. “TLGB, to be precise”

His eyebrows raised a long way. “Bloody hell, I have never had to deal with somebody like you before! How amazing!”

“Er, boss, I am still me, and you have ‘dealt’ with me for years, aye?”

“Um, yes, sorry. Annie, was it? Annie, yes. Please, please, a few more details?”

With Kirsty’s support, and the occasional prod from Harry or the boss, I got my story out n a suitably redacted form. At the end, Davenport just sat nodding.

“This man, Eric, he is a good chap? Ah. Annie, I think you have just bypassed a lot of questions with that smile. I assume, therefore, that at some point you will wish to divest yourself of your current, er, persona? Fine, Harry and I can work out a strategy for that. Any ideas, Sergeant Price, Annie?”

“With all due respect, boss, not a fucking clue”

“Fine, fine, plenty to think about. Leave it with us”

We stood to go, and he called us back.

“PC Ellis, just one thing: when are you up for your sergeant’s exams?”

“Er, dunno, boss”

“Well, get them in hand. Can’t have a mere PC draining the precious bodily fluids of Sergeant Armstrong, people are already talking. Bad for discipline. Yes, both of you, that is both of your secrets out. Annie, I thought you were simply gay. Thank you for giving me a much more interesting challenge! Don’t worry, things will be fine. Off you go!”

I rang Eric as soon as I could, Kirsty hugging me as I did so, and he seemed impatient with my news. I wondered what had upset him, and began asking, and he broke in.

“Sorry, Annie, but it could be good news. I have applied for the post of Path Lab manager at Crawley general hospital! If I get it, no more commuting, and no more nights apart from my favourite girl”

I wanted to scream with joy at that, but I simply asked “And how many others have you got?”

CHAPTER 57
Eric was down at the weekend, just as I switched to night shifts. He arrived early Friday evening, as I lay in bed trying to get a few hours sleep before going in, and the first I knew was when a warm body slipped into bed with me. I grunted a bit, then made my complaint.

“You sod, Johnson, you just want to make it impossible for me to go to work, aye?”

He spooned round me, and I settled into him.

“What are you going to do? I’ll be at work all night, bed all day”

“Don’t know if you mind, but I was going to go house hunting. If I get this job, this place is nowhere near big enough.”

“So you just assume we are going to live together?”

“Yup!”

“You are a cheeky bugger, Eric. Anything else planned?”

“Going to look in on Darren. Make sure he’s not wearing out Albert, then get a ride in with Geoff. I want to go for another SR next year, and he would be a handy riding partner for the 600. Speaking of which, what about a tour next Summer?”

“A bit ahead of ourselves? I was thinking, on Sunday, it’s only been a week”

“Having doubts, Annie?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Well, neither am I. Turn round this way so I can have a kiss, yeah?”

I was nearly late for work. Den was going off as I came on, nothing to hand over, and we managed a few minutes chat in a corner over a cup of Jim’s universal solvent.

“Kirsty told me about the meeting with Davenport. What an odd reaction!”

“No, Den, I don’t think so. He’s always been a bit of an admin bloke, I mean, between you and me and this pillar, he cocked up the caution when he arrested Harton, he’s so much out of the loop. I think he sees me as a sort of new game, a challenge to his admin skills. I swear his eyes lit up. Anyway, what about Kirsty?”

“Yeah, she said about the exam, but she’s not sure”

“Hell, Den, she’s been around long enough, and I know she does the tits and gob bit---do not blush, you dirty bugger! Look, two of us to coach her, I‘m sure Jim or Sam would lend a hand. She’s not stupid, aye?”

“Thanks, mate. That is an offer I really appreciate. We’ll pay you back, yeah?”

I squeezed his hand, and he didn’t flinch at all. “You already have paid me back, Den, both of you. Anyway, friends don’t keep score, aye?”

“Aye, lass.”

Nev was one of the first in after Den had gone home, with a drunk and disorderly teenager he had found riding a shopping trolley in the local skate park off his face on white cider, and nearly without said face when the trolley overturned. He wanted to sue Tesco for having shit trolleys, man, so I booked him in, and called the FME for a look to see if there were any other injuries.

“Do you want anybody told you are here?”

“No, miss. No, yes, could I call my mum? Could she come and get me?”

I looked at Nev, and he gave a short nod. Caution, or charge and bail, after a check over to make sure he wouldn’t snuff it at home. Assuming his mother wanted to collect him, of course.

“Number 4, Nev, and can you get the camera turned on?”

He was back in a couple of minutes, grinning.

“Sarge, you really need a haircut, and to do something with your man-boobs. I know you’ve lost a shitload of weight, which is good, but…”

He waved vaguely at my chest, a gesture I was growing used to. I took a deep breath. The Skippers and the boss knew. Den and Kirsty knew. At some point, it would be coming out to the rest of the nick. Fuck it. I led him over to the same quiet corner.

“Nev, you might as well get in on the loop. I won’t be cutting my hair, not the way you mean.”

“Davenport is going to be on your back, then, Sarge!”

“No he won’t”

Deep breath again. “And these are not moobs.”

There was at least a minute of silence as his mind worked, a series of expressions flitting across his face. “You are having a giraffe, Sarge. You are taking the piss, just cause he called you…shit, you are fucking serious!”

“Anne. It’s Anne, Nev, and Annie to my friends. Ball’s in your court.”

“Fuck me backwards. You poor fucker! Who else knows?”

“Den, Ruth, Jim, Sam, Harry Osborne and Mr Davenport here; most of my friends outside. Oh, and my boyfriend of course”

He was pale, and just stood shaking his head.

“Fuck, Sarge, Annie, you are doing my fucking crust in. What do you need from me?”

One question said it all. What did I need from him?

“Just be there, Nev. Going to be some hard times coming up, and I will need friends. Thank you”

“Boyfriend. Fuck me. Fuck me.”

He drew in a long, shuddering breath, held it for an instant, then shook his head and sighed. “Prisoner to sort, Annie, I’ll keep you up to speed, and hopefully mummy dearest can get him home”

“Thanks Nev.”

He walked off, shaking his head as if to dislodge an irritating fly. One down. I realised that by morning, half the nick would know, and the rest within 24 hours, but that was it. Getting out of bed and leaving my lover, dressing as a stranger and wearing Adam would not work when we found our own place together. I was fed up, and time was passing. I texted Sally.

--Just come out at work. All will know by tomorrow night

Half an hour later.

--What bloody time? Good girl. Ignore complaints about small hours. Stewie woke me anyway. Talk next week. Really talk.

The night was quiet in the end, Nev’s boy turning out to have a broken nose, and in the end accepting a police caution for the silliness and riding home with his mother after some tears from both that I suspect were far from alcohol-induced in either case. It wasn’t till the dawn was starting to show on the camera view of the yard that we had any visitors, as the early relief started to drift in, and after parade head out onto the street as the nights staff found their way home. I noticed a couple of sideways glances as I set off on the bike, and wondered how many were directed at my chest.

I was regretting my rashness by the time I was at my door. I had been so needy, dying to get out of Adam’s skin, and while I had no doubt as to Nev’s reliability I had now abdicated all control over my future. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I took a quick shower after getting in and slipped into a nighty before sliding in next to Eric, and waking him by the time-honoured womanly method of putting cold knees against his body. I eased his pain with a kiss to the back of his neck and the cuppa I had placed by the bed.

“Morning, love” he yawned

“Morning you…I stuffed up last night”

“What happened?”

That struck me. I stated that I had done something, he asked what had happened. Not ‘what did you do wrong?’. I can’t say he was full of surprises, but that he confirmed each time how right I had been to fall in love with him.

“I got sort of impatient”

“Shit. Who did you tell?”

“Nev Chamberlain, one of E-shift”

“How did he take it, love?”

I ran through the story, being called ‘miss’ even though in full Adam, and detailing Nev’s reaction.

“Will he blab?”

“I didn’t really tell him not to, love”

“Ah. Well, what are you wearing to work tonight?”

“Uniform, of course”

“No, you goose. Underneath. If he says you have boobs, like”

“Oh shit, I have no idea. Look, if you dig into my CDs, you will find one by a girl called Lisa Ekdahl. She always relaxes me. What would be nice is if you could put it on while I drink my tea, then snuggle with me till I fall asleep. I will think about that question when I wake up, OK? You go and look after Darren and Albert, and then will see you before I set off for work, aye?”

He did as asked, and I sipped my tea as her voice started to wash over me, till Eric told me to roll over, and started to massage my shoulders…the room was dark, Eric rattling something in the kitchen, and I had just slept solidly, without dreams, without alcohol. He was exactly what I needed, it seemed, more than sleeping pills or wine.

He simply had to get that job, He was mine, and London’s loss.

CHAPTER 58
I heard him singing in the kitchen, something silly and happy, and I waited until he brought me a very naughty bacon sandwich and a cuppa.

“Decided what you are going to wear tonight?”

“Sports. Too much of a drama if I turn up with cleavage. Anyway, Kirsty has that role cornered. Time for me to go sort-of-stealth. I mean, by tomorrow there’ll hardly be anyone in the nick who doesn’t know, but at least I can make it easier on them”

“OK, but be careful, yeah?”

The first hint I had that the word had got round was when I arrived in the locker room, and there was a scramble, it seemed, of lads trying to get out as quickly as possible. Den had clearly heard the news, however, and I got a cheerful “Hiya, Annie!” as I came on.

“Quiet night so far. Hope it stays that way for you”

“Oh, I dunno, goes quicker with a bit of work, aye?”

The work duly arrived at one in the morning, as yet again my little pit-bull brought in a stroppy customer, this time with the help of PCs Costello and Murphy. They had a shed robber, caught loading a petrol mower into a van that already contained six bikes. I started the custody procedure, and the punter started to play up with a tiring lack of originality.

“Fuck me, it’s a fucking sheepshagger!”

Kirsty leant forward. “This is your early morning alarm call, Mr Dawson, your warning under section 5 Public Order. Swear again, and we add that to the list, this time in sound and vision”

“What, you a dyke too, this your girlfriend?”

I was gratified, in the oddest way, but Costello was having difficulty hiding a snigger. I got through the necessaries, and Jim set Inspector’s Bail some time later, after the interview. Costello and Murphy were back from the rest room by then, each with a mug of tea, Kirsty bringing me one. Peter was as direct as ever.

“What’s this rumour you’re getting your cock chopped off, Sarge? I know that ex of yours gave you a slapping, but isn’t that a bit of an extreme reaction?”

“What rumour have you heard, Pete?”

“Er, that you want to wear a dress and stuff, and that you’ve hooked up with some leather biker queen. Either that or it’s that giant carrot-top woman you had living with you”

“Where the hell did you get the idea my other half is a leather queen, Pete? Never mind a biker!”

“Well, it’s what everyone’s saying. Nev said you got a boyfriend”

“Kirst, how much of what he has come out with is bollocks?”

“Most of it, Annie”

That brought a gasp from Murphy and a twitch from Costello. Kirsty continued.

“The bit about wanting to wear a dress, for example. Pete, she doesn’t want to wear dresses, she WEARS dresses. Bit boring, like, but definitely dresses. And Eric is a cyclist, not a biker”

Ian muttered “Eric. Oh fuck”

I sighed. “Look, lads, it’s a long story, but this is the way I always have been, aye? That is why I fell so hard with the stress, and came indoors. I’ll be changing to myself steadily from now on, and I am sorry if you are going to have a problem with that, but it’s either do it or snuff it, aye?”

Ian was still muttering. “Yeah, but, wouldn’t it be easier just to go and get pissed?”

“Been there, done that, didn’t work”

Peter was far from happy. “Not right, not natural”

“Careful, Pete, you are starting to sound like those arseholes who chased that girl off the bridge, aye, and that is not company anyone should wish to keep”

He actually blushed at that jibe, but it was clear that as two of the station’s ‘men’s men’ they were not comfortable with me. Their choice, life goes on. Ian made one last try.

“But…what are we going to call you?”

I smiled. “Sergeant normally works, I think. OK, job done here, see you at handover if not before. Thanks for the cuppa, Kirst. I’ll let you know how Darren’s getting on tomorrow night”

Off they went, three of Crawley’s finest, allegedly. I resolved to watch myself a little around the two boys. Jim duly bailed the burglar, who then proceeded to complain about being unable to get home without his van, and when the refusal to give it back finally penetrated his skull, he had the cheek to ask for one of the bikes. In the end, he set out for Tilgate on foot, still complaining about injustice. Jim called me into his office.

“Pushing ahead, Annie?”

“Yeah…sort of slipped out to Nev, after last night, and, well, I decided that as it will have to come out it might as well be sooner”

“You are determined to go ahead, then?”

“I have no choice, love”

That brought a funny spasm of his face, and he sat in silence for a few seconds, obviously trying to put everything into context.

“Look, Jim, I am not going to appear in a skirt tomorrow night. Uniform is uniform. What I may do, though, is wear something more comfortable”

“Sorry?”

Men. “Tits, Jim, they need a bit of room, and as they are still growing they are more than a little tender.”

“Oh. What are you wearing now? I thought it was a T-shirt under your uniform.”

“It is made to look like one, but it’s actually a sports bra. I chose it so there wouldn’t be straps and that to be seen, aye?”

Another poor man left shaking his head, but at least I knew he was on my side.

The rest of the shift was reasonably quiet, which was astonishing for a Saturday night, and as I walked out with my bike for the ride home I caught more than a few stares. Sally had warned me, it would never be easy. I woke Eric up the nice way again, and confirmed he was off to see Darren and Geoff. He was a little apologetic.

“I won’t be around when you go to work tonight. They are all off to the folk club, so I thought I’d tag along. I won’t be back until you’ve gone, but I have made a pot of soup, and there’s some rolls in the bread bin. Oh, and I saw a couple of houses that don’t look half bad. I’ll talk you through them when you rejoin the world. I‘ll also need to be off first thing in the morning, so it will be a quick snog and out of the door.”

We were cuddled together under the duvet, his finger idly tracing the shape of my left nipple, which was both presumptuous and rather nice, so I asked him about the job process.

“Sifting this week. Got rather a good CV, if I say so myself”

“So looking hopeful?”

“Oh yes. I suppose I should wait until after the interview before we celebrate”

“Perhaps till after the acceptance letter?”

“Well, why not just celebrate anyway?”

He tweaked my nipple, which was even nicer, and it ended up with me doing something particular for him for the first time, and, well…Sally was right. Straight as an arrow. I missed him when I woke, but his smell was still there, in the pillow and the sheet, and I dressed for the ride after his soup and rolls with an occasional smile of memory. That night I would be in ‘pretty’ and not sporty, and as the straps would show through my shirt it would be another step off another cliff. It would also mean that changing in the locker room would be a most definite no-no.

Den noticed as soon as I walked in, and offered to hang my stuff in the locker room after I had changed in one of the search rooms.

“Thanks, butt”

“Kirsty says you wound a couple of the lads up, Annie”

“Yeah, well, it was yet another punter seeing me as a woman, and I got a little carried away, aye?”

“Aye, but be careful. They might not be as bad as the ones who killed Mel Stevens, but there is plenty of hate around. Keep me informed, Annie. Talk to Kirst if there are any problems, and I will deal with that side of the roster. Now, gie’s your key and I’ll get the stuff from the locker. No, Annie, no. You’ve come out from cover, don’t give them any ammunition. I can see what you are wearing, and so can they.”

“The mascara a bit thick?”

“You haven’t put on…oh, you haven’t, you are just trying to give me a bloody heart attack”

I led him over to the search room and grinned. “Just be happy for me. This is what I have run from all my life, so if I go a little silly, please understand”

“I do, trust me. Can you do me a favour, then? Keep a secret, wish me luck?”

“Course I can”

“I want to ask Kirsty…”

He took a couple of breaths.

“I’ve bought a ring. Am I being stupid?”

I looked around; nobody else in sight.

“No, Den, you aren’t”

I kissed him on the cheek, and he only flinched a little.

CHAPTER 59
Den just said, with a flicker of his eyes, “I will tell you a story one day, yeah?” and was off. The night was absolutely dead, work wise, and I spent large chunks of it nattering with Jim. I had, of course, noticed the civilian support staff flicking glances at my girls, but nothing worrying. Jim was at least open about things.

“Genie’s out of the bottle now, Annie. For good or bad, it can’t go back in. You are going to get grief, especially when we get regular customers in, scrotes who’ve known you. And that’s just the punters. What the troops are going to do, fuck knows.”

“Ah, Jim, there are a few types Sally warned me to look out for. Men’s men, women’s women, and wimmin”

I stressed the pronunciation of the last, and Jim nodded.

“That’s what puzzles me about that mad tuppence-licker you hang around with. I’d have expected her to be all militant feminist, not-a-real-woman thing”

I smiled. “Ginny is a one-off, Jim. I talked to her about feminist politics when I first met her, aye, and her words were something like ‘fuck that shit, I’m a peoplist’. There is a lot of depth to her, a lot of thought behind the mania”

Jim smiled. “She bloody terrifies me!”

“Aye, but watch her with her wife, see how they mesh.. What it is with Ginny is that she is alive, and likes to let the rest of the world know it. She said to me once that men were like marzipan; she didn’t like the taste, but that didn’t mean it should be banned on her say-so”

He laughed. “What did you say?”

“Oh, I tried to turn it round, you know, make it about marmite instead, and she actually got serious. She said that the world is full of flavours, and when you find one that works for you, you stick with it. She said we are like a dance band, there’s even room for banjos.”

“I thought you said ‘serious’, Annie”

“For her, that is serious. I think that what she was saying is that defining yourself by being in a group is silly, that people are people, end of, and should just get on and be human beings. And of course, once she got all that out, she made a rude comment about willies. She’s a complex girl, is Ginny, and there are things in her past I know are there, but don’t know what they are, aye?”

“I get what you mean. Like Dennis. There are other things going on there, apart from that corruption crap. One of these days…”

“Ah, there is news there. I haven’t told you this, aye, but he has purchased a bit of jewellery”

“You are joking!”

“No, he told me on the way out tonight. All very sudden, aye? They seem suited, and she’s keen, but even with the sergeant-constable thing it’s very quick”

“You don’t think she’s, you know”

He mimed a bulging belly.

“Nah, I don’t think that’s her style. I mean, if it were, she’d have done it when she was knocking off that DS from Horsham, aye?”

Jim laughed again. “The one none of us are supposed to know about. Yeah, point taken.”

“Jim, it sounds to me more like Den’s driving this one, not her. Do you know if he’s ever been married?”

“No idea. Coffee?”

We sat in silence for a few minutes as my palate tried to tell me I was being unnaturally cruel to it, but I slapped it down.

“Annie…”

“Aye?”

“You look…you look more relaxed tonight, I don’t know, more comfortable?”

“Well, I am, a decent bra works wonders for comfort”

“Stop taking the piss, woman. There, see, it just seems more natural to say that now. No, relaxed is the word.”

“I am that, butt. I think…well, I think one of the things that were breaking me down was futility, aye? The sense that whatever I did, I was always going to be stuck out of phase with everything, that whatever I did would change nothing.. Stewie said it is like being under sustained shelling, there is nothing you can do but endure it, and some can’t. Give them a hint of an end to things, and they find extra strength.”

“You have an end in sight, then?”

I laughed. “Oh yes, and you will laugh when I tell you. All I want is to be ordinary, just another working woman. No drama, no fuss.”

He nodded. “I suspect there are other dreams you have, Annie. How is he treating you? Ah, don’t bother answering that one, your face just did it for you”

I hid my smile with the mug, and he continued.

“Annie, I have arranged for your locker to be brought in here for now. We can’t put it into the women’s locker room yet, and Sam and the others are happy for it to be here pro tem. Yes, of course they know. How slow did you expect the rumour mill to turn? I am assuming that from now on Adam has left the building. But be careful.”

The shift ended some hours later, and Jim did the honours with my kit as I changed after the morning parade. That had been interesting, in a scary way. Sam held it, and I asked him if I could address the relief before I went home. ‘Centre of attention’ was barely sufficient to describe how it was in front of the oncoming shift, and I could feel the weight of eyes on my chest.

“Morning all. I am here just to set a few things straight. I know there are rumours about, and I know some are a bit over the top, so let me set out the facts before they get silly. I was brought indoors to Custody because I had had one too many horrors out on the bike. It builds up, and you all know exactly what I mean, which is why I also know that none of you think any the less of me for it. We are all coppers, we know how shitty the world is. We learn it the hard way.

“What made it worse for me was my nature, so I will cut to the chase, aye? Yes, I am what is often called a transsexual. Transgender. Gender dysphonic. I am not a cross dresser, I am not gay, I am not confused. I am just a woman with a few more problems than most, which will be rectified bit by bit--yeah, those bits--over the next months and years. If anyone has any problems with that, I am happy to talk, but not now, as I am off to bed.

“Oh, and by the way, these are real, all mine, and I am bloody glad I can let them out to breathe now. And while I am still Sergeant Price, the name is Anne. Annie to friends. Back in tonight for the last one, have a good shift”

Home, bike away, empty bed, except for Tabitha and a T-shirt. I made myself some breakfast, cereal and fruit instead of the bacon I craved, and then took a shower. My breasts were still filling out, and the last patches of body hair were being whittled away by the electrolysis, but my waistline was still too chunky. The girls had been right, though, and as I took my pills I realised that my arse did indeed still ‘look big’, and I giggled at the memory of Ginny squeezing it to check, and immediately switched mood as I thought of Eric’s hand there. It took me a long time to get to sleep.

The last of my nights was even more boring than the third one, and I was put through the same paces at the parade. Once more, I refused to answer general questions. If they wanted to know, they could scrape up the courage to do it to my face on their own. I caught Den once more, just as he was about to go.

“And?”

“Haven’t done it yet. Need to find the right moment, like.”

I put my hand on his arm. “Den, tell me if I am out of order, aye, but all I will say is that you are being very quick. If there is anything you need to talk about, any way I could help you, just ask”

There was something bubbling underneath, but he pushed it back down, nodding to me.

“Aye, Annie, I know you would, but not just yet. One day, yeah?”

I left him to his secret.

Eric astonished me by being in the living room when I forced myself awake at lunchtime so as to be able to sleep that night.

“Taken some leave, love. Got the interview tomorrow, so thought it made sense to save on a hotel bill by dossing at some mate’s place. Thought she’d probably have a spare bed or something”

I dragged him straight back with me. He clearly realised resistance was useless,

CHAPTER 60
Afterwards I asked him how the day had gone on Sunday. I knew there was an awkward time ahead, particularly with Darren.

“It was a good day, love. Had a quick fifty with Geoff, just to stretch the legs, and then I had tea with the five of them before I jumped in with Albert for the club. Darren is coming on in leaps and bounds. He still sounds like a Hackney yardie, but he is really getting into the music. In the interval, he spent his time asking what the instruments were and how they worked. He starts school next week. That will be the acid test.”

I snuggled into the smell of him. “What do you think?”

“Honestly? Time management, that will be his stumble. So used to doing his own thing, lahk, might have a few problems till he settles. Anyway, what about you? Any comeback yet?”

“No, seems a bit like a nine-day wonder. Sarge Price is a girl? OK, pass the sugar”

“Yeah, still don’t believe it can be that easy. These are coppers, they tend to have set points of view.”

“No we don’t!”

“See? Straight away, set point of view. Now, more importantly, there is a little something coming up this weekend. Six months.”

“We have not been together six months….”

“No, six months since Ginny kicked your door in and brought you back to reality. I think we ought to have a little celebration. Any ideas?”

“I don’t know, but I suppose we should…we’ve done Brighton to death recently, what about going up town? We could take them to a show”

Inspiration had struck. Normally, such an occurrence is foreign to me, but for once my mind had thrown up what could turn out to be the perfect choice.

“Eric, do you remember Sesame Street?”

“Oh? Ah! Yes, of course! Ideal! I will try and score some tickets. Can you sus out when they will both be off? Two of you on shifts makes it as awkward as all hell. Anyway, it’s still only afternoon, what do you fancy doing?”

“This will sound soppy…but I would like a wander around the shops, with you, and just see what is nice, and what makes us laugh, and perhaps wave two fingers to Ms Saville and have a slice of cake. I have a check -up with Doc Khan tomorrow, followed by Sally’s tender care, so I fancy being naughty.”

I fluttered what eyelashes I had at him, and the heartless bastard just laughed and told me I needed more practice. I settled on the old faithful print dress, and Eric’s present sandals, realising that I needed to sort my toenails out at some point. The list was growing already.

It was still bright enough for sunglasses, and warm enough for shorts, so that was how we went. I wasn’t wearing shorts, but Eric had shades on, so you get my drift. We ambled up past the Hawth to the complicated crossing by Debenham’s, at which point I dragged him in the door.

I was slightly hyper. Previously, I had gone into M&S with Jan riding shotgun. We had ended up in a private fitting with lovely Sandra, and it had gone well, but I had the girly bit firmly between my teeth that day and I felt that I was finally there. So confident was I that I dragged him into the underwear section. I was on a high, right up to the point where I asked a perfectly made-up sales assistant whether my current size was available in a particular style.

“Sorry, SIR, there are specialist shops for your sort, I expect”

You bitch. Eric started forward, and I put my hand on his arm. “No, love. This is obviously a specialist shop for HER sort.”

I looked over at the racks of bras, and then at her chest. “Mine are real, love, unlike yours.”

I looked down, deliberately. “Healed up, has it, love? Come on, darling, I think Marks has a better class of shelf stacker.”

We got as far as Giardino’s café before I started to shake. Eric noticed, and led me straight past to the disabled toilets, where he pushed me in and shut the door behind us both.

“You OK, love?”

I was trembling with futile rage. “Fucking BITCH! Who did she think she was?”

Eric stared for a few seconds, then just said “Healed up. And you called her a bitch…”

Laughter. It heals, it bonds. Ten minutes later we were in Drucker’s with coffee and waistline-destroying cake, my face repaired and my good humour back. It was Eric, pure and simple. At the approach of Ms Silicone he had gone onto the defensive, but once it was over he looked to heal me.

“Healed up, has it? Brilliant! Who needs Avenue Q?”

His voice softened. “I know she was a cow, but look at the way you behaved. One of you slunk off from there, one of you strode. Annie, you will get this, I tell no lies, it will happen again, but if you can come out with put-downs---no, fucking slap downs, you play hard, woman, if you can keep that up then you will cope. This isn’t what you were, this isn’t some fat bastard drinking themselves to death, this is someone with guts coming alive, yeah?”

“Yeah, but that hurt, Eric”

“And what did we promise you? Some fantasy of fluffiness and rose petals? If something is worth anything to you, it is worth working for, yeah?”

I took his point, but after our coffee I was thinking of vengeance all the way over to Marks, by way of Addison’s, of course, where with much less fuss than at the other shop I picked up stuff to repair my toes. Don’t think it was some fantasy of girly clothes shopping, though; we spent just as much time in the book and music shops, before descending on the bike shop, where, just to wind up my man, I bought some pink gloves. Perception is everything.

We went home, we had a sensible chicken salad to make up for the cake, and then we simply went back to bed with a film and each other.

He came with me as far as the surgery before he split off for his interview, and I was called in, quite quickly for an NHS surgery.

“Good morning, Annie, how are we today?”

“Still somewhere in the middle, Doc.”

“Yes, yes, taking your top off please”

I grinned. “You don’t need the accent with me, Doc”

He grinned back. “I need to keep in character, Sergeant Policeman Price, so I do not slip. Now, you do have some breast development here that is quite advanced for the length of time you have been on the little pills. Our vampire tells me that you have a low level of male hormone production, or rather had, before we started giving you the hard stuff, but that is insufficient to explain this.”

“Alcohol and obesity-related gynecomastia, Doc. That’s all”

“And I shall come and review one of your custody cases, Annie, our jobs are clearly so simple. Have you stopped?”

Shit. “Stopped what?”

“Do not be obtuse, Annie, you are now blushing. Have you stopped the self-medication, or shall I stop the prescriptions?”

No point in trying to bluff. “I stopped quite a while ago. I could no longer see the point, aye?”

“Put your top on again, please, and talk to me. When did you switch from oestrogens to alcohol?”

“A year, year and a half ago, aye? I had a short period, just before Mel, when I thought, I can do this, I can change myself, and then it all went wrong. That’s when I did the giving up. I was on them for about a year.”

He sighed. “Annie, we need honesty from our patients, so we can give it back. So much of what we are doing to you can cause major damage to your body if it goes wrong, so we need to know not only where we are going but where we are starting from. Off the internet, was it?”

I nodded. He looked at me, face blank. “Stopped? Really stopped? I need a promise here?”

I just nodded again. “You have my promise, Doc”

“Good. The news is that despite your attempt to play doctors and nurses and liver murder, you are disgustingly healthy, which sort of spoils my day. A doctor can feel unwanted in such circumstances”

I took the prescription renewal from him and set off for Sally’s, with a last word from him of “Promise!” as I went through the door. Sally was ready for me, and after a few minutes of chit chat about our friends, she started asking the sharper questions. I told her about the incident in the shop first.

“So? You expected rose petals, fluffy kittens and unicorns?”

That set the day’s tone, and then of course I had to confess all, and she simply sat, asking the occasional short question, till I was done.

“Explains a few inconsistencies, I suppose, but we already knew you were off the deep end. You have promised Khan, that promise will be extended to me. Now, a summary. You have come a very long way in a remarkably short time, something it took other patients years to achieve. Consider how you are presenting right now. A lot of doctors, or so I have read, concentrate their energy on making judgements on whether their patients ‘pass’ in public. I think that is of secondary importance to how they feel in public, and I think you feel more than happy, now. It is work that concerns me, where you are likely to have the big issues, for that is where people do not have the option to cross to the other side or look past you

“Be careful, Annie. Oh, that’s me done. Give Kate my love when you see her”

CHAPTER 61
Some day I would have to ask how far Kate and Sal went back, but for now it was enough to gather my man from his interview and confirm where I stood.

I walked off through town to our arranged rendezvous, and it was only after I was nearly there that I realised how easily I was handling it all, walking in a skirt through Crawley. I came back to reality quickly enough.

“Annie?”

It was Nev, fully tooled up for his beat duties, a middle-aged PCSO at his shoulder.

“Tom, want to grab three coffees while we have a natter? Ta.”

He waited while the support officer wandered off, then turned back to me.

“I can see you now, Sarge. Makes sense, now, but you do know the whole nick is talking”

I was about to answer, but he was smiling too brightly to trust. He continued.

“You shocked me, you know, but here you are, happy as a pig in shit, and how could anyone object? Getting any crap at work?”

“At the moment, no. Nev, be honest, how many threats have been made?”

“On your behalf or against you? Well, not many arseholes there, but then you know damned well Sergeant Armstrong has…told a few fortunes. Seriously, Sarge, you look, I dunno, sort of, shit, sorted. Look, we had that chat, yeah? You look good. You have allies that scare the shit out of the station, yeah…yeah, we all know the poison dwarf is shagging him, but who gives a fuck? They work well together!”

I looked at him, trying to work out which way he really leant.

“Annie, for that is who I see before me, we have a shit job, we meet shit people, but we work with gold. I am so glad to see you here, smiling. Where’s the bloke?”

“Having a job interview at the hospital. I’m on my way to see how it went”

He looked suddenly shy. “Could I meet him?”

Oh, Nev. One of the diamonds of the station, he wanted to be sure I was happy and safe.

“Nev, as soon as you have your boy back I will take you to my bloke”

The PCSO was on his way back, and Nev told him about heading over to the hospital.

“Yeah, but are we OK doing that?”

“Sarge says yeah…and here she is. Tom, Sergeant Price. Sarge, my new shadow, Tom Jenkins”

Tom looked abashed. “Sorry, Sergeant Price, didn’t realise. Still sort of finding out who is who, like”

“No problem, Tom, as you can see I am off duty, aye? Just nice to have a natter as I walk, and you never know what might turn up”

We ambled along in that gait parodied as ‘proceeding’, where the free leg is left to swing forward and the body seems to flow towards its destination, the walk that policemen learn the world over. Tom was full of the delights of his new job, and to my relief he stopped Nev digging any deeper. I was almost keeping control of my emergence, but it is in the nature of a policeman to dig, to query, to ask questions, and Nev was all copper.

Eric was waiting outside as we arrived, sipping from a cardboard cup. H looked at the three of us, and said “Snap! I’ll come clean, copper, it’s a fair cop guv!”

I stepped forward and quite deliberately kissed his cheek. Get used to it, Nev, get used to it. It’s the pattern of my life now, the life I intend to live.

“How’d it go, love?”

“Really well. They are working through the references again, having their usual private chat, and then it’ll be yea or nay.”

“How long?”

“A week, they say, then they’ll be sending the letters out”

“You feeling confident?”

He gave a little frown. “I don’t know. I’m a bit out of practice at these things, but I think I did well. Watch and wait, all we can do now”

“Indeed. I’m being rude, love. This is Nev, one of my older colleagues, though still quite spry, and Tom, his shadow. Boys, this is Eric, my other half”

Handshakes all round, and then we left the boys to continue their stroll as Eric took my hand for the return home.

“They seem OK with you, love”

“Nev’s a good bloke, and Tom is shiny new, so they aren’t really a fair sample. The rest of the station, well, we shall see, aye?”

“How did the quack go? And Sally?”

I thought for a while, and he picked up on my silence. “Problems?”

I nodded, and he offered me the alternative of a chat at home or a walk through the park, so as the sun was out I elected for the flowers and the conkers. I took my time getting to the point, but it had to be said.

“Eric, I have a few things I hadn’t told people, and Doc Khan sort of dug them out, aye?”

“Yeah?”

“Look, I sort of had a false start at all this a while ago. No easy way to tell it, but I decided to do something like I am now, but without telling anyone. You know, like that fantasy of mine, where it all changes magically, and nobody has any problems with it, aye? Well, I got some stuff off the net, and I took it for some time, and then things changed.”

He was watching my face as we walked. “In what way? I can’t see you as anything but girl, now, even my memories of Adam are overlaid with ‘Ah! That’s why he acted like that!’, so if you are saying you had doubts about your identity I will find that hard to believe”

“No, love, I think we have that one sorted. It was more a confidence thing. It was Melanie, when she was killed. I sort of lost it then, lost hope. She’d done what I was looking to do, come out, gone for it, and bam, she ends up in the middle lane of the M23”

He stopped walking, and put his hands on my hips, facing me. “So you just gave up, on everything”

“More or less, aye”

“So what’s different now?!

I had to smile at that, as it was a question with so many answers, all of which were the same.

“People. Support, aye? Ginny, Sally, all the others. You, mostly. Ginny dug me out, but you turned the key.”

I paused for a second. “Look, I know you have problems with my body. You make all sorts of allowances, which amaze me, but you still worry that at the end of the day I am a bloke with tits, which are the only good things to come out of my little experiments in self-medication using pills and booze. I have my own problems with it, but you just carry on treating me the way I have dreamt of, and that astonishes me”

I put a finger to his lips. “Shush. You made it very plain when we started out, how awkward you found it, and it wasn’t till I got dressed up that you could relax. If it was easy for you, it would be meaningless, but it isn’t easy, so it is as great a gift as I could hope for, aye?”

“Annie, love, I can’t help the way my body is hooked up. I react the way I do, it’s a bloke thing. Well, a straight bloke thing, at least. It took me a while to work it out, so I am sorry for the delay, yeah?”

I kissed him, as it seemed the right and proper thing. “Well, here we are, then, past all that. We have a number of things we have to do, before we get to the removal of awkwardness-–don’t wince, I never wanted it, and neither do you, and that isn’t what I meant. There are a lot of things bubbling away in my head, aye, and one of the biggest is the realisation of what a mistake I made back then”

“What, the self-medication shit?”

“Not exactly, love, the stopping. I should have found someone like Sally, talked it through, done it properly, rather than waste two years or so. Anyway, we have two things to do today. The first is a simple one, surprisingly. I change my name. Then we go to the bank and do the complicated one, which is to get them to accept it. After that, we do a bit of house hunting, because I am not taking out a joint mortgage with you in a bloke’s name, aye?”

“Love, was that an invitation to move in together?”

“Oh, he can be so coy at times! We already did that bit, love, it’s now put up or shut up time. After all that…after all that, we do two things. The first is to parcel up my old clothes and see who can get best use out of them. This is it, Eric, this is goodbye Adam, permanently.. Then, the hardest bit How the hell do we explain this to young Darren?”

CHAPTER 62
The deed poll was something I had been thinking about for some time. It could be said I had been doing so all my life, as my first memories were inextricably linked to feeling wrong, and as I had gradually found out who I was, the name had been obvious.

All I really needed, for the sake of silliness and completion, was a middle name, and that was an obvious one. Tabitha was still with me, but Jessica would be reborn. I approached my regular solicitor, Eric in hand. I couldn’t really call them my family solicitor, as the only thing even remotely connected to a family was my divorce, but they were at least a known factor.

I was surfing a real oceanic roller now, and it was exhilarating. The rush of confidence was taking me places I had only dreamt of, and in the back of my mind a little voice was shouting ‘keep going before the fear comes back’. Mr Ogilvy, my normal shyster, was by luck available, and we were ushered in to his tiny little office. He did a really, really crap job of pretending nonchalance, but at least he tried.

“Do sit down, Mister…Mizz…Price. And perhaps an explanation?”

“Mr Ogilvy, time is moving on, my life is doing the same, and it is necessary to reconcile a few things. I do believe this one is quite simple. I would like to change my name”

He nodded, as if it was all in a typical day’s work, while his eyes flickered about as if he were having difficulty bringing me into focus. There was an almost audible click, and he smoothed out.

“This will appear to explain my previous service to you, Ms Price. I assume you intend to go further than, well, costume and name?”

That was the key. Like all good lawyers, he could smell a potential fee at a thousand paces, and there I was.

“Let me see…you will be looking at some point to redesignate yourself with regards to your birth certificate, employment and tax status, and so forth. You will also need an affidavit of some kind for such things as bank accounts. I do believe there are some bigots about, and a letter from a reputable solicitor can work wonders in such cases. Driving licence, passport–I am sure we can be of some assistance”

“Mr Ogilvy, all I need today is a deed poll to change my name. How long does that take?”

“Ten minutes”

“You are joking!”

“Not at all. I draft it, Cheryl types it, you swear and attest it, and then best practice is to publish a small announcement somewhere, such as a newspaper. I then give you copies to begin the long-winded bit, going round to as many people and places as you can think of to make the change. The actual legal bit is a doddle. I suppose I shouldn’t say that, really…”

It was a doddle, that bit, and I duly swore my name across to Anne Jessica Price. I signed, and then the shakes came. No surprises there; I had felt the tension building all through the morning, through my medical appointments, through the chat with Nev, all of it had led me to a point and a process I had simply not planned, and now the surge of adrenalin, the excitement of burying Adam, was fading, I was losing my confidence rapidly. Who was I, really? A bloke in a dress, trying to be something I was never meant to be?

Eric took my hand. “Cold feet?”

“Sort of…just having a moment, a bit of nerves, aye? Is this right?”

“Remember what you were saying before? Wasted years? You want to go back to that?”

“No, but…”

“Yes, but. Trust me on this one, just this once. There is no way you can go back, not and survive. This is you, and you are not doing it on your own. I can’t imagine you, now, with that old name. You in drag looks and feels wrong. You have to go for it, and now is the best time for everything, because ‘now’ leaves no room for ‘I wish I had” “

He suddenly grinned. “Besides which, do you really fancy upsetting Virginia?”

I laughed at that, and it was suddenly easier, as the shame and pain of the false start I had made came to the front of my memory and waved. Years, wasted, that was what I had been thinking, and here I was planning on wasting more. I lifted my head.

“Right, then. Bank first?”

They were amazingly good at my branch. We were sat in a private room for a start, rather than having to discuss it through a glass screen in public, and as my ID was compared to the deed poll, and to my on-file records, the impossibly sleek if slightly obese girl was all smiling efficiency. I caught myself at that point: slightly obese. Firstly, was there such a thing, and secondly, speaking as somebody who had only recently managed to get herself back from ‘morbidly’ to what I liked to think of, especially around Eric, as ‘sweet and cuddly’, who was I to be so catty? It wasn’t the first time I had found myself looking at other women and making unfavourable (to them) comparisons, and then even that thought took on its own momentum.

Eric was right. I really was who I had always dreamt of, and this was not the right time to run away. It is very difficult to explain the feelings that someone like me has, for they are so much of the time confused and contradictory, tied up with shame and so often despair. That day’s roller-coaster of doubt and certainty was just so typical; I have known since I was old enough to realise the difference that I am not and never have been a boy. Steph told me that it was slightly different for her, that it took a moment of insight to understand what it was that felt so wrong, but in the end it came down to the same thing.

Body blue. Soul pink. Things did not fit. That sounds so simple, and it is in truth as simple as anything can be, but it is the resulting situation that causes the distress. It is no simple matter to admit the truth to yourself, never mind to family or friends. There is the constant worry that you are not really yourself, but someone else, the someone your parents thought they had, just delusional, for that fear eats at you. Are you simply ill, mentally? All through that, your soul is weeping, but when you arrive at the point when you might match life to heart, the other doubts begin their own shouting match.

Bloke in a dress. Shemale. What do you think you look like? There are special shops for YOUR sort. The worst thing, though, is not the nastiness of small-minded shopkeepers but that continuous self-doubt, and without Eric, Ginny, Kirsty, so many others, I knew I would have folded, and now I know for certain that I very nearly failed myself that day as I sat in Ogilvy’s little office.

All the fears that had poisoned my life, from the dreams back to my first guilty attempts to see what I should have looked like, through to my shame when I flushed the last of my illicit pills down the toilet and reached for a different sort of bottle, all of them fought a final losing battle against the touch of my man’s hand on mine and his smile in my eyes.

Deep breaths, Annie. Deep end. Splash, and start swimming.

“Eric, love, time to take a swing by work, then we hit some estate agents, aye?”

“Why work?”

“Bury Adam. I am on a roll, and with you along it is a bloody sight easier.”

The front desk called out the duty Inspector, and this time it was Sam, which was ideal. There were a few mutters from the counter staff, but Sam donated a Look, and then we were back in my little empire. He was as direct as ever.

“Let me guess, Annie, I’ve just lost my best sergeant. Fucking good job I’ve got one just as good to replace him. The Super’s been waiting for this, he’s got all excited at having a chance to play Diversity games, so we already have an application ready for a new warrant. What I need from you is–ah, is that a deed poll letter I see before me? You’ve been a busy girl!”

He dropped the bouncy mood, and sat quiet for just the time it took to try and read my tells.

“Doubts, then?”

I nodded. “It’s not an easy thing, Sam. I am throwing out all of my life, it’s easy to get scared, easy to shy away”

He snorted. “Bollocks are you. Your life isn’t going anywhere, not the past bits. All you are changing is the future, yeah? I get my sergeant back, and one without a hangover every shift. Are you up to a little talk with the boys and girls, right now?”

Deep breaths again. Go for it.

We walked into the main Starship Enterprise custody area, all raised counter and computer terminals, and the support staff were immediately quiet. Den was on duty, and he took one look at my face and nodded, then came over for a hug. His whisper was terse and pointed.

“No more acting, then?”

CHAPTER 63
I walked out into the middle of the floor and looked around.

There were four civilian support staff, Den, Sam and, emerging from the yard as I screwed up my courage, Costello and Murphy, the latter giving a very quiet ‘fuck me’ as his eyes made what sense of things his mind was capable of.

Deep breaths. This is me, boys and girls. “Well, the rumours have been going about for a while, and some of them are true. Some of them are utter bollocks, of course. Let me introduce myself: the name is Annie, to my friends, Sergeant Price to the rest of you. What you see is real, no padding, no plastic. The situation is a simple one: I am every cliché you can use, a woman who was born with the wrong naughty bits, it just took me a bit too long to start sorting it out.

“Well, here I am. WYSIWYG, as they say, and all I can add to that is that I am still me, I have just altered my wardrobe when off duty. Now, those rumours. No animals were harmed in the production of my partner’s wardrobe, except for the leather that went into his shoes. Yup, I am a straight girl, so anyone worried about leather queens and dykes on bikes–yes, you two in the corner trying not to blush---can forget it. I am also spoken for, if the word ‘partner’ didn’t register.

“It is a simple thing, really, just a new girl at the office, one who has a nice bloke to go home to, and a fondness for having friends round for dinner. If anyone has a problem with that, well, tough. The Job has been my life for far too long to walk out now, and be honest, you’d miss having the bike in the yard to trip over, aye?

“For good or bad, this is me. Anne Jessica Price. Get used to it, because today Adam Geraint Price died and was buried. I intend to hold a wake for him next week, at the Rising Sun in Charlwood. Anyone who wants to send him on his way will be welcome. Pass the word, and, as the saying goes, move along now, nothing to see”

I stepped out with Sam and Eric just before the shakes hit. Eric was there, of course, so all was well, and he was followed into the office by Den, who joined Eric in squeezing me.

“That wake, that was unplanned, like, wasn’t it?”

I nodded to him past Eric’s shoulder. “It just came to me. Get them sociable, get them pissed, get our friends round us. Let them see me happy and normal, aye? Then we can get on with the rest of the shit, because I am sure there will be some”

Den was nodding. “Rub their faces in it, will work for some. Trouble is there will still be one or two who don’t get it”

“Aye, but they will be surrounded by those who do”

Eric was nodding in turn. “Would you be looking at a Monday night, then? The session?”

I grinned back at him. “Oh yes. Get the music going, perhaps have Steph get hairy, as Geoff puts it, they see Annie and not Adam, and as I will be playing I don’t have to answer stupid questions, aye?”

Den started to laugh. “Eric, marra, are you sure you fancy this lass? She is so devious it scares me, so you should at least have second thoughts!”

Eric in turn started to chuckle. “You are seeing that little soup-dragon, and you warn ME off?”

That was a moment I will always remember. The man who let me see how I really was, laughing with the man I loved, both of them comfortable with each other, both taking me not as I really, physically was, but as I needed to be, and Sam, lovely man, just sniggering at it all. The day’s fears almost–almost–evaporated.

Back outside in the lemon sunlight of the Indian Summer of that year, I took Eric’s arm and squeezed, and he simply smiled at me, no words being necessary on his part. I tugged him back towards the surgery while pulling out my mobile.

“And?”

“And I have.”

“Just the name, or more?”

“Sal. You are a bloody mind reader”

“I get paid for it. What else?”

“Well, announcement at work, and a piss-up on Monday, Rising Sun. Beer and music…you up for it?”

Her voice softened. “Of course, Annie, we will be there”

I hung up after a few more words and turned to Eric. “One or two more calls, then we go and see Darren. It has to be done.”

The phone was picked up on the third ring. “Woods residence”

“Hello, Naomi”

“Annie! How are you, my dear? Do you have a pleasant reason to call, or is there something we need to know?”

“Both, Naomi, but the emphasis is definitely on the ‘pleasant’. I have taken the plunge, and we need to arrange the best way to let young Darren into things”

“He is at school at the moment, obviously. Would you care for tea? If you leave it till four o’clock I can prepare him. How was work?”

“Not too bad, though there are a couple of areas that may cause a few hiccups. I have changed my name now, formally, and I will be clearing my wardrobe. What I have planned is a descent on the music night at the Sun, if Steph is around”

“Good thinking, my dear. Four o’clock, then?”

“Four o’clock”

The phone rang a little longer on the next call.

“Better be fucking good news, Annie, I am on nights”

“Kate, Adam is now gone”

I could almost see her sit upright in bed as the news hit her.

“Any problems?”

“Possibles, but then we knew that before I set out on this one. I have a few things to tell you, but face to face, aye?”

Once more I detailed the plans for the Monday, and I could feel her grin down the phone.

“Spare bed for us?”

“Course!”

“Beer, and music, and mad musical women. We will bring popcorn!”

“Monday then?”

“Ooooooh yes! Ginny will be chuffed. See you then”

I put the phone away into my handbag, which was rapidly becoming second nature to carry with me, and took Eric’s hand.

“We have tea with Naomi at four, and she will prepare the ground for Darren. We have time to look at some houses, if you want”

He smiled again, and it was very nice. “I want”

Four o’clock came, and ten minutes later we rolled up to the Woods’ front door, which opened to reveal Naomi and a surprisingly neat Darren, in a school uniform only a little too long in the trousers. I had a sudden thought: how much money were the Woods spending on him? That was another bright moment of understanding, that other people had their own unfulfilled needs, needs they thought would never be met, could never be assuaged, and Albert and Naomi had perhaps matched theirs with Darren’s. I looked him in the eye, seeing the doubt there, and decided to try a joke.

“Hiya, Darren, shat on any beds recently?”

The grin started slowly, as he realised. “Na, Sarnt Price, got nobody to do it for anymore, lahk. Smy bed too, innit?”

“Your bed?”

He nodded, and then I realised he was swinging towards tears, and suddenly he was at me, and in my arms. Through the sobs he tried to explain.

“Mrs Woods lahk told me you are doing the sex change thingy, an I don’t care, you got me out, you got me out and I don’t care. Nobody, nobody never did things like that, not since my ma went. Sarnt Price, you do what you need, yeah, Darren Eyres has got your back, he is your man, yeah?”

Naomi was smiling, gently, but there was a tear in her eye too.

“I took a while to explain how things were, my dear. Darren has a remarkable ability to adapt. Goes with his history, I suppose. Tea? Albert will be home in an hour, and dear Stephanie is waiting on her husband, but she is keen to hear your news, so shall we save the details till all are here?”

I nodded, and to my amazement Darren took my hand and looked at his foster mother for approval. She nodded, and he led me through the door and upstairs to a small bedroom plastered with Crystal Palace FC posters.

“Smy room, Sarnt Price, no crapping in here. Look!”

From under the bed he pulled a box, to reveal a pair of football boots, clearly used.

“I don’t want nobody to think I is here just for the stuff, yeah, but this is what they done for me. I got my own things, not borrowed, not nicked, lahk, an they makes me work for them. Makes the stuff mine, yeah? Makes it real”

He paused, and looked at me from under his brows, and then spoke again, very quietly.

“Makes me real too. I never had that before. Got a home now, got my own people. Can’t lose that, yeah? Can’t go back. You got me, Sarnt Price?”

“Annie, Darren. My friends call me Annie”

“You my friend, then?”

“You mine?”

“Please. You know, thassa word I never used, yeah? But here, lahk, is right, innit? They don’t always say yes, but they never say ‘no, because’, yeah? Always give me a real reason for it. And these boots…they is not the best ones, yeah, but I don’t have to give them back to nobody, and this room, it has a lock on the door that is on MY side, yeah? That a big thing, Annie, a really big thing”

“It’s called trust, Darren. Trust. When someone returns trust, they are being what people should be. You are doing so well, you make me proud I was able to trust you myself. Now, save the rest for later, aye? There is tea down there, with my name on it, and we have a lot to tell.”

He hugged me once more, with real passion

“Thank you, Annie. That’s the other thing they tell me to say. Thank you”

CHAPTER 64
We walked down to tea hand in hand, to a knowing smile from Naomi.

“Darren, dear, the special biscuits?”

He grinned, and disappeared into the kitchen. There was indeed a cuppa with my name on it, and I settled onto the sofa next to Eric with a sigh and a slurp. Darren was soon back in with a rather posh-looking tin that proved to have come from Fortnum and Mason. We were being honoured indeed.

“Annie, is he like your fella, yeah?”

I couldn’t help it. “No, love, he isn’t like my fella, he actually IS my fella”

The lad just shook his head and concentrated on getting the tin open, and then passing it round while he waited to pick his own. That was impressive, and I realised exactly how hard he was working to keep his place with the Woods. Steph and Geoff were over about an hour later, just as Albert arrived, and to groans from Naomi her husband and Darren sprawled out in front of the television with a couple of game controllers while they shot some poor aliens to pixels. I ran the idea of the wake past Steph as they saved the planet, and she was nodding before I was halfway through.

“They are a good crowd in there, a little intimidating perhaps if you aren’t confident, but talented. Timmy or Saburo?”

“Oh, wood is the way for that sort of night. Will you warn them about Eric?”

“Oh, they have a couple of Satan’s spawn there most nights. Ginny and Kate?”

“If they can, and I would really like Darren along. Give him the chance to see what we do for fun”

Geoff was chuckling. “And get frightened half to death by you two. Are you sure you weren’t separated at birth? Steph, love, what about doing something with mine, or maybe the octave mando, keep you a bit calmer. It gets crowded in there”

“Yeah…that could be fun, especially if I have some ale. Frets are more forgiving than fretless. What say we dig out the Bewick, or maybe even the Pipers’ Association books?”

I left them to their folky plotting, and with a hand on Eric’s thigh I looked over to the two boys and their game. It was a delight. Darren’s face matched Albert’s in its animation, and the way they kept looking up and grinning at each other as they scored points was so open, so natural, that I wondered how I had ever imagined the Woods to be in any sense elderly. It was dad and lad, it was mates, it was natural and wonderful. The doorbell rang, just as Darren whooped at shooting some item or other, and Naomi came back in with Polly in tow. Both motioned for silence, and Polly simply stood for a while watching two boys at play.

Darren won, apparently, and high-fived Albert with a grin to lighten the darkest heart, and Polly coughed for attention. Darren looked round, and his elation crashed and burned. That was the moment I saw exactly how far he had come. He didn’t run, he didn’t yell, he just asked, with a tremor in his voice, “Have I got to go back?”

Naomi very clearly blinked away a tear, while Albert put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Polly squatted down to where they lay.

“That is not why I am here, Darren. This is all routine. I come out, all secretly lahk, to see how you are getting on. You are what we call at risk, so I have to be sneaky. It is done so we can catch all those foster parents who waste time playing computer games, or serving the wrong sort of chocolate biscuits. Naomi, any white choc ones? Ta. Tea? Pretty please?”

Albert switched off the game after saving it, and Polly took Darren into the kitchen for a chat in private. Ten minutes later she was back, the two of them grinning at each other with shared secrets, and just then Polly’s gaze fell on me. There was a soft “shit” and then she gathered herself.

“Adam, that explains an awful lot, especially how you could have so much insight into his pain”

Darren interrupted her. “It’s Annie, to her friends. She don’t go by Adam no more”

Polly laughed. “Aren’t you the protective one, Darren?”

“Well, Sarnt Price here, yeah, she got me out of all that shit, lahk, so you be good to her, yeah?”

Polly’s smile was softer now. “Darren, Annie, all of you, I think my work here was done before I even came in the door.”

Naomi smiled back. “That means you have more time to be here as a friend. Tea to go with the white stuff will be provided as soon as one of my servants here can be bothered to move. Darren. Albert, shall we toss a coin?”

They both grinned, and Darren stuck out a hand to help his foster father to his feet and off they went for cup and milk. Polly’s smile was still there.

“Sometimes, just sometimes, I am reminded why I do this job. Thank you all. Annie, would you be OK for a quiet chat?”

“No problem, Polly, I wanted to talk to you about taking him to a pub.”

“Oh dear…I withdraw my previous comment!”

We took a few minutes together in the garden, where I had first been caught by Eric. Polly was direct.

“Do tell, Annie”

I gave her a condensed version, and she nodded throughout, as I realised that the nod was her equivalent of Sally’s flat stare and pointed one word questions.

“So this Monday’s pub trip, this is goodbye Sergeant Price, hello Sergeant Price, yeah?”

“About right”

“Music, singing, food?”

“Essentially. We are even working on a strategy to keep Stephanie calmer”

“The tall ginge?”

“That’s her. Talented as all hell, but a bit sort of wild with her playing”

“Perhaps I am a bit dense, but I sort of imagined Darren being more into three fat ugly black men shouting at the audience”

I grinned at her. “Bloom County?”

She grinned back, with real warmth. “Oh yes! But why the folk stuff?”

“Naomi says he has a real feel for how things work, probably why he was able to lift cars so easily. He understands instruments, acoustic ones, and it’s that difference between seeing, say, a violin as a machine of wood and wire, and how it is used by someone like Steph. That’s what has really caught his imagination. I worry a little, because at some point he will try one out, and if he hasn’t got the talent, well…”

Polly was doing the nod again. “Annie…would you mind if I came along? On Monday? Not as a social worker, just as someone who fancies a drink, and some time with friends, and to see a boy happy? He is, isn’t he? Happy?”

I took the risk, and then the hug, and whispered in her ear. “I really, really think so. There is also something you are not telling me, and if it involves removing him from here you can trust me, we will fight”

She slumped in my arms. “No, Annie, anyone who would ever believe such a thing to be in his best interests would need shooting. No, it’s Chantelle.”

Shit. I had almost forgotten her in the stress of current events, and there she remained, the real victim, sold by her own family to a group of bottom-feeders.

“How is she, Polly?”

“Almost catatonic. Won’t talk, hardly eats, and we still have the trial to go through. Defence are wanting to get the inquest over first, obviously, but all that time she gets no closure. I know I am hardly unbiased, but she is not even thirteen yet, for god’s sake.”

She looked up at me, and I saw the same pain, the same weariness that Andy had given me, the day of the shootings.

“It is a shitty world, Miss Price”

I looked back, giving a smile to her pain. “No it isn’t. Miss Armitage. One look at Darren should tell you that, aye? Now, we can’t work miracles with Chantelle, but you know if there is anything, you have a whole station of coppers who are there for you. We are a bit protective when it comes to children”

“I may well take you up on that. Inquest first, and trial, but then again would you mind terribly if I had one too many on Monday?”

“We would expect nothing less. You know the way?”

“Oh yes. And by the way, that was one sneaky visit I wish was more typical of what I get. Monday, then.”

She was off, and I stood for a while trying to think of ways to help one little girl among so many victims. Eric came out to me as I stood in the cool of the garden, and slipped his arms around me.

“A long way since that chat out here, Annie, a long way.”

I kissed his cheek. “A lot less of me for a start”

“How much gone so far?”

“Believe it or not, five and a half stones since Ginny changed my habits and you got me riding again. Even those visits to chip and cake shops haven’t done too much damage. If I keep it up, I’ll be able to get into some nice stuff.”

He laughed, and my mind balanced what I was feeling with what had happened to that little girl, was still happening, and I knew that what I had said to Polly was absolutely true. This was no shitty world, not with such people in it. Eric squeezed me before tugging me back into the house.

“You get into the nice stuff, love, as long as I can get you out of it afterwards”

CHAPTER 65
Monday came, and it turned out that Kate had managed to pull some strings of her own and get the night off, along with the following Tuesday. Eric and I were staying with the Woodruffs that night, as riding half-cut through Crawley at pub closing time is never sensible.

It also meant that I could dress more appropriately for the evening. Eric had been back in London for the intervening days, and rode into the driveway just as I was getting changed. He grabbed a quick shower after throwing his panniers into the bedroom we were using, and I could soon hear him singing happily over the noise of the water.

That was something that tied so many of us together, the need for music, and I felt for Kelly in the years she had looked for someone who shared that hunger. That in turn reminded me that I needed to ask what was happening with her and her beau. Not tonight, though, tonight was for Adam. Eric was soon back, looking absolutely edible in nothing but a towel, and that word set me blushing slightly. He was looking away, thankfully. I had missed him horribly, Tabitha and T-shirt remaining poor substitutes.

A manic shout of greeting revealed the arrival of Ginny and her beloved, and before she could burst into the bedroom I was outside its closed door.

“Naked man in there, Ginny!”

“So, nothing I haven’t seen before, and laughed at. Who is he?”

“Eric, of course”

“Should I put the pruning shears away, then?”

“Gilbey girl, I have no idea whatsoever how Kate copes with you”

The wife concerned just smiled. “It gets easier with practice, Annie. That and heavy doses of sedatives when the cage is unlocked. She’s sedated now, can’t you tell?”

After a hug, I went down to the kitchen, where our hosts turned out to be having a bit of a domestic, arguing in a gentle but determined way as to who would get to play which instrument, Steph being without fiddle for the evening so as not to frighten poor Darren out of several years of growth he had yet to begin. Geoff finally played his trump card.

“Look, love, if you really HAVE to get all hairy, take that bodhran I bought you. At least you have to sit down for that”

“And I can play yours later?”

“Yeah, OK, but start out with ours, get used to the plectrum before the wider frets, OK?”

Ginny and Kate shared water and changed, and shortly after we trotted over to the Woods’ and collected a very nervous young man and his ‘olds’.

“You look nice, Annie, real nice”

“Thanks, Darren. So do you, but you look a little twitchy. I know there will be a lot of coppers there, aye? But you are our boy now, all the rules have changed”

“Snot that, lahk, is just that I can’t sing nor play nuffink.”

I laughed. “Darren, there will be loads of people who can’t, so why worry? What I will say, though, is that you never, ever know what you might pick up. If you want, you can try my flute, or maybe Steph might let you try her mandolin. Not tonight, aye? Tonight we do the work, and you just have fun. Deal? Oh, and if Mrs Woodruff starts jumping around looking mad, that’s just her idea of fun, and the same goes for my tall friend. Now, have you ever eaten Nepali food?”

“Woss that?”

“Like curry, sort of thing. They do it at the pub. Otherwise it will have to be chips”

He grinned, and I saw the boy that Albert had found. “Well, I suppose if one must, my dear”

He had the rhythm down pat, Naomi’s style exactly, just the East London vowels letting him down. “Don’t let them hear you taking the piss, Darren”

The grin got broader. “They have heard it, an they do it to me back, lahk”

That grin suddenly vanished. “I can stay, can’t I? I thought that Mizz Armitage, she was gonna take me back”

I hugged him. “Darren, Polly is on your side. Nobody wants to hurt you any more, she just has to be able to tell her bosses it’s going fine, aye? You think those two want you to go?”

“No, but, lahk, what if I fu–mess up? What they do then?”

“Help you sort it out, and help you do better next time. It’s what real people do. Doesn’t mean it’s OK to mess up, just that there are more important things. You are all new to each other, you will learn together, aye?”

He squeezed me back in reply, and he was still so thin, so underfed. I resolved to make damned sure I attended that trial. One was dead, but there were at least three others I wanted to see banged away for a very long time.

Up the road we went, me in my flat sandals and Eric in that nice chinos and polo shirt look I like, axes in hand, or in my case tucked into the large handbag. Stewie and Sally were there, as was Dr Khan, and a several of my colleagues, including Jim, Den and Ruthie. After a round of cheek-kissing, even from Jim, I went over to the ring of chairs. The first of the resident musicians were there, including the sort-of-organiser, a very tall bearded man called Chris.

“We are having a sort of works do tonight, but some of us play, so we’ll sit in if that’s OK”

He smiled. “Don’t worry, we’re already used to that hairy monster with you. She seems to be without her fiddle, though”

I laughed. “Yeah, on best behaviour and mandolin duties tonight”

“Good-oh, we can do ‘Battle of New Orleans’ “

Polly came in at that point, with a fluffy man in tow. Fluffy was the only word I could think of for him, as his head seemed to sprout frizzy hair in all directions. She spotted Darren, and dragged the man over.

“Darren, Annie, this is my other half, Josh. Josh, these are my friends Annie Price and Darren Eyres”

Just like that she raised Darren up from his fears. No longer a client, nor a culprit, but a friend. He seemed to grow six inches at that. I pulled some cash out of my bag and sent him to the bar to get a half dozen bags of crisps to set out for the guests, and then, as the number of coppers started to overwhelm the locals, I stood up and waved for calm and quiet.

“Evening all!”

I waited for the laughter to die down. “Now we have proceeded to licensed premises, it is time for a few beers and some music. Some of you have heard me play before, so the doors are now locked to prevent escape. I know there are rumours going round the station, so here’s the bottom line. I am Sergeant Anne Price, Annie to my friends, and I will be your Custody Sergeant, or one of them, from now on. Any questions, try and catch me when I have a pint in hand rather than my flute! OK?”

It wasn’t a session, but a round. Musicians did their own little thing, and sometimes people joined in, and there was chat, and singing. I did some of my overblown stuff, Darren perched next to me in fascination, and Naomi astonished me by performing ‘Oh Mr Porter’ with all the appropriate nearly-wetting-herself innuendo, and my beloved brought out his implement and delivered The Bard’s ‘Irish Song’ with appropriate flourishes, followed by the Woodruffs doing a series of folk tunes I half recognised Curried snacks were passed around, and Darren received a burger from Albert as the tempo wound up, until Steph managed to get a true session going and the room filled with sound. There were some seriously good musicians there, and they were enjoying themselves.

I took a break to hit the bar and rest my lips, and as if by some malign fate found myself next to Pete Costello, who was clearly outside a few beers of his own.

“You really going for it then, Sarge?”

“I am indeed, Pete. No turning back now”

“Sjust, we were wondering, like, you was married and shit, so how is it you’s a shirtlifter?”

“Pete, I shall put that down to a few too many beers coupled with a bit of a lack of any judgement on your part, OK? Think it through: me woman. Eric man. Straight man, straight woman. Just like you and your missus, unless there is something you haven’t told me”

“Yebbut, you’ve got a cock, I’ve seen it, like, at the pisser in the bogs”

I suppose that was the first time I encountered the odd fascination some ostensibly heterosexual people have for what they perceive as ‘gay’ sex. What, where, how, ewww, tell me more. A small part of Adam was wondering, though, if Pete had actually been comparing cock size, as men are supposed to, and if he had come out ahead, so to speak. I had never done that, or don’t remember doing so, because that part of me has always been a necessary evil, up to the point Ginny took charge. I have always detested it, but believed that there was no way I could realistically hope to get rid of it. Now, everything was different.

“Pete, firstly, there are some subjects that should be private, aye? Secondly…keep this to yourself, but some day soon a surgeon is going to slice it open and scoop out the meat, after cutting off my balls. He will then push it back inside me, into a hole he’s cut, and throw away all the waste…the toilet’s over in the corner, rinse your mouth out…bye!”

They want the detail, but sometimes that is a step too far for them

I turned from the bar to witness an odd sight, Kate sitting with her arm around Sally as Ginny sat nearby, and at one point Kate gently kissed Sally’s cheek and pulled her head down onto her shoulder. It looked like simple affection, but even as a confirmed hugger and cuddler I thought it was a bit excessive. I followed Ginny to the ladies’ a few minutes later, and asked her flatly what was happening.

“Oh, Kate and Sal go back a very long way, and Sal’s a bit down. You know Kate, big softy is my girl”

“What aren’t you telling me, Ginny?”

“Not now, OK? If Kate wants to tell you, it’s her business, yeah? Now, you are supposed to be mingling, not spying, so get back out there and do some life-and-souling. I will talk to my girly, and it’s her call, yeah? Now, out!”

In the end, we rolled home at a quarter to eleven, in consideration of Darren’s age, and after he went off to bed we sat in the Woods’ living room having a coffee. Quite a few had come back with us, rather than stay with Costello and the rest as they attempted to empty the cellar; Den and Kirsty, Sally and Stewie, Polly and Josh, and Dr Khan and Jim, all joined my little group of what I was thinking of as family. Just as Albert was serving, there was a ring at the door, and Nev came in, in uniform.

“Couldn’t make the do, what with work, but just wanted to stop by and wish you well. How’d it go?”

“Pete Costello had a bad pint and ended up being sick in the gents’, but apart from that it was great.”

Nev laughed. “Not what I heard, Annie. The rumour mill has it that you gave him a very graphic surgical lecture, and our Pete is a bit attached to that part of him. Blokes are, normally”

I laughed back. “And now you know for certain that I have never been a bloke!”

CHAPTER 66
I went into the kitchen a little later, to help Naomi clear some of the debris from the cheese plate she had insisted on bringing out, and the coffee, and the biscuits, and all the other snacks she had somehow conjured up. Kate followed me, and I realised Ginny must have had that chat.

She perched against a work surface and looked at a number of things around the kitchen before bringing her eyes back to mine.

“It’s a long story, Annie, and not a nice one. Ginny spoke to me, and I’ve had a word with Sal…so if you want to know…”

“Whatever it is, if it upsets you, Kate, you can leave it”

Her gaze was on a calendar attached to the fridge, “No, Annie, it needs airing. It will just fester otherwise. Sally and I go back a long, long way, right back to when I first left medical school.”

My mind was adding up the facts frantically. “So, Sally is, you know…does Stewie know?”

She laughed, and there was an edge to it, “So, so wrong, Annie, she’s like you and Naomi, and Steph, so straight you could draw lines with her. No…no, it was her sister I loved, Amy”

She looked away again, and I saw Ginny at the kitchen door, looking concerned. As if she was telepathic, Kate just reached behind her back for the other woman’s hand, and Ginny stepped in to take it.

“I can smell you when you are about, love. I’m just telling her about Amy”

She paused again, and I could see the tears hanging ready to fall. “We saw her in you, you know, it was her we were talking about when we made that promise. No more…She followed Sally into medicine, almost a family trade, you know…and we met at college and she was so beautiful, hair to shame Steph and a smile to melt your heart, and we danced round each other, both of us unsure if the other was singing the same song, and then I got so frustrated and just asked her…and she said that it was the best news she had ever had, and…and it was indeed wonderful.

“She was everything to me, back then. Sounds trite, easy, but it was true. As vital as breathing, as food.”

Ginny was cradling her then, and the tears were no longer hanging but flowing. “It was when their mother went, that’s when it started. She spent a lot of time with the chaplain, but that wasn’t enough, and she decided to go all Pentecostal on me. I could spend hours telling you…but it would be needless pain, and I had enough of that at the time”

I nodded. “And the religion sort of spoiled her view of you?”

“Ha. That was what we thought, and it was some months before we knew the truth, and it wasn’t the religion, but it was, in a way…”

There was a long pause as she gathered herself, Ginny kneading her shoulders and kissing the top of her head. Kate took a shuddering breath.

“We missed the early symptoms, because we all thought she had just got religion after her mum went, and by the time we understood that she wasn’t just praying to her god but actually listening to him speak to her it was too late to do anything other than medicate her. They played with all the usual stuff, the dopamine, the serotonin, and then one day she didn’t show for breakfast at the hospital, and she had gone out of a toilet window.”

Kate looked straight at me. “She missed her god, she missed his little chats, and what we thought of as letting her mind clear itself she saw as keeping her away from her saviour. Yeah, exactly, barking mad, truly she was, and I loved her, and she was gone, and we didn’t know where until her loving god told her that stepping off the platform at Oxford Circus was the quickest way to join him, and she fucked up some poor tube driver for life”

Her knuckles were white where she held Ginny’s hand. “That was what we saw in you, Annie, the same end but just by another route, and you have no idea how much we care about you. No more, we said, and this time we got it right. It’s just…just that every time I see you smile, now, I see Amy’s, and it tears me apart. Can you understand that?”

I went to her and joined the hug with Ginny. “I have Eric, and I know what you are going to say, that she had you, and you failed her, so listen. I may be mad by all sorts of standards, but I know who I am, and I can see who others are. Amy couldn’t, she was lost as soon as she ran off, so love couldn’t be enough, because she couldn’t hear it. I can, I heard your wife every night till I put ear plugs in”

That was almost a chuckle, and then my Kate, so self-controlled in comparison to the extrovert she lived with, my Kate broke down completely as I held her. This was clearly something that had been building for some time, and I felt guilty at the fact that I was the most likely cause of her distress. After a minute or two I realised that Sally was at the door, her face drawn. She cocked her head to one side.

“It would have been her birthday in a fortnight. These things build up their own life, if you let them, just like your own issues, Annie”

She looked at Kate, a softness back in her gaze. “You were so good for her, Katie, you still care, you always did. Nothing to be ashamed of, it’s what makes you such a good doctor. Now, I think it is time to clean some faces before we go back out. Annie, I suggest you look in a mirror, and change your mascara”

I hadn’t even noticed my own tears.

Eventually, we ended up spread across the two houses, Ginny and Kate taking the other spare bedroom at the Woodriuffs’ while Sally and her husband took a room at the Woods’. The others took taxis back, apart from Den and Kirsty, who Steph provided with sleeping bags and a space on the living room floor. It was almost like being students at some drunken sleepover. I lay next to Eric in the dark that night thinking about poor Amy, and of course Eric noticed.

“Penny for them?”

I snuggled into him, smelling him directly, rather than his used clothing.

“Can’t really say, love, just feeling a bit, I don’t know, lost? Lots of stuff going on, and it’s been a big few days, aye, and I am realising how lucky I am. We live in quite a sheltered world, don’t we?”

“What, with your job?”

“Yeah, even with my job, it’s all vicarious, I see the victims but I am raised above it, stood outside it, and sometimes I am so fucking glad of that. What I’ve seen, what I dream about, it all actually happened to other people"

“Only if you think being rammed off your bike happened to somebody else, love.”

“Yeah, but in the end it was a nothing, aye, I got a couple of bumps, and back at work. No, with all the stuff recently, that little girl and all, I am counting some blessings for once rather than just saying “woe is me”, thinking I ought to look to other folk’s worries rather than wallow in my own”

Eric snorted. “You do talk some bollocks at times, Annie. Half your problems have come from spending all your time worrying about everything from your mates to whatever random stranger has just been dragged in spitting snot and tears after meeting Kirsty. You’d given up on you, you were so worried about him or her or them. You deserve some ‘you-time, and there are traditional ways for women to do that”

“Chocolate? Beer? Chocolate and beer?”

“You are perverse, woman. No, I was thinking more traditional stuff. This will sound odd, but perhaps a haircut? Not a bloke thing, just take that mop you’ve been growing and perhaps girlify it a little? I watch you, you know”

“What, stare at my chest? I know”

“No, I watch you in strange places, in public. You are getting there, getting the confidence, relaxing, yeah, but there’s always that little tic when you go somewhere new, or public, where you wobble a bit. Even last night, where everyone knew you”

“All the musicians didn’t”

“They aren’t people, musicians are different. No, I watched you when you went to the ladies’, and there was that hesitation step, that “can I get away with this?” dance, before you went in. I just thought, now Adam is being given his goodbyes, you might want to lift yourself up a bit.”

“All a bit of a cliché, aye? Girl goes to hairdresser’s…”

“And what is wrong with that? I am expecting a letter tomorrow, but as I am not going to be at my place I might just call in and ask directly. If we get you somewhere to do some hedge trimming, I can do the hospital run, and if I have managed to get the job we can continue round the agents again. I am getting sick of commuting down here. Now, can you tell me what was going on with Kate and Sally, or is that something you can’t talk about?”

“Sorry, love, it’s all their business, aye? I’ll tell you if I can, but not just now.”

I slipped down a little and inhaled him, the hairs of his chest tickling my nose. He was right, of course. I did need to think about myself for a bit, but to do that I had to think about the others. I fell asleep, cuddled against him, realising that even after Greg, and Dad, I had still ended up doing what I had dreamed of, still made my way into nursing.

CHAPTER 67
I stumbled out of the bathroom straight into Den, who almost picked me up as he moved me out of the door in obvious urgency.

I was in the nighty Ginny had given me at the end of my other life, so I was at least half decent, but his eyes did go to my chest, which was flattering. Eric was right; the more I relaxed, the easier it got accepting who I was.

I wandered down to the kitchen to see if I could scare up a cuppa for him, to find the room full of women, which did even more to confirm that morning’s mood. Ordinary. An ordinary woman, among women. The fact that none of the women in the kitchen could ever be described as ‘ordinary’ was irrelevant, it was the way I was feeling. I gave Kate a hug, and then moved on to the kettle to find Steph already agitating a huge teapot. She grinned at me.

“With my in-laws, we need something this big. Both the Bills drink it as if it will evaporate if they leave it around. Cuppa for Eric?”

Kirsty nodded at that. “Notice how all the blokes are still in bed, except for the one who had a bladder problem? And he’s already tucked up again. Men, who’d have ‘em?”

Steph laughed at that. “Well, apart from those two there, all of us can’t do without them. And that’s ‘one man’, I rather suspect, for the rest of us”

It struck me, just then, that Kirsty’s hand was still bare, and I wondered if Dennis had actually lost his courage. Kirsty’s face, though…

“Yeah, you know, girls, I think it is. I’ve sort of tried the waters a bit, and that gets old, yeah? It seems to tick along nicely with him in the place, and it feels, I dunno, sort of final, yeah? Like, coming home at last?”

I realised she was as stuck on him as the rest of us were stuck on our own partners, and then, being Kirsty, she had to spoil the moment. She leant forward, with a broad grin.

“Course, it don’t hurt that he’s hung like a fucking donkey, yeah? Biggest cock I’ve ever…well, you know!”

I slipped out to the living room, where he was sat up waiting for his slave to deliver the tea. I raised a finger to my lips, and quietly said “You still have that little thing you bought?”

He nodded.

“Just ask her, Den. She’s waiting for you to do just that. I don’t need to know what there is in your past, but just this once, take a risk, aye?”

“Annie…can you pass me my jacket, please, and then bugger off?”

I did so, and left the room just as Kirsty went by carrying two mugs. Shortly afterwards, there was a squeal, and her shout of “YES!” and seconds later she erupted into the kitchen with her hair flying and her left hand extended, and it seemed to take forever for her to recover the power of coherent conversation.

She finally looked over at me, the excitement easing. “You knew, didn’t you?”

I just nodded, and smiled.

“How long has he been wobbling about like a weeble?”

“I think, from the way you are talking, too long.”

“Well, it’s all official now, so you are going to have to put up with second best, girl!

“I don’t actually see Eric as second best, Ruthie”

That brought a much softer smile. “No, neither do I, but hey, it’s horses for courses, yeah?”

Ginny murmured, softly but loudly enough “Donkeys….”

It took a long while for the final return of sanity. What else could we do but organise a massed descent on the Viennese cake and coffee shop? Life was so good it almost hurt. Eric had slipped off before our second cup, heading for the hospital, and his interview result, nodding to me and to Kirsty as he left. I took her arm.

“Kirsty, oh recently-engaged one, I have a question. Eyes this way, away from the tall bloke who buys things for you”

“Sorry, Annie, just a bit blown away, still”

“Yeah, fine, but I need a favour. Hair. I have some, I need to do something with it, and my past experiences have all been of the ‘do the head and face, Number Two’ variety. Who should I go to?”

She pulled out her phone and dialled a number. “Can do better than that, girl Hi, is Lizzie in today? Yeah? Any slots? Just a cut, or looking at it a wash and cut, girl needs a new style, yeah? Twenty minutes? Great! See ya!”

She put the phone away. “If you want it done today, they are round in the old High Street, and can fit you in in twenty. I will take you there. Just need to get rid of this lot---no, not you, Den!”

I laughed at his embarrassment. “Kirsty, you are a strumpet, aye?”

Three of us took our leave, and went round to a shop called “Zara’s” who professed to be “Artist’s in hair”. Kirsty caught my snort, and I realised she actually saw nothing wrong. Oh dear. I nearly turned round when I saw Lizzie, who had one of those haircuts where it all hangs down one side, cropped on the other, and an array of metal inserts in her flesh. Kirsty was still behind me, and just took my arm so I couldn’t run.

“Lizzie, we need something practical for work, but still feminine, easy care, not too short, OK?”

The girl ran her fingers through my hair, and turned my head from side to side, tutting.

“What you been washing it with, love?”

“Tesco’s family shampoo”

She shuddered. “And the conditioner? No, that would be too much to hope for”

I was taken to a chair, leant over a sink and…it was a wash and a haircut. Nothing world-shaking, no sudden onrush of XX chromosomes. Just a rather prolonged session over a sink and then an even longer time of snipping and tutting. Kirsty had gone off with her fiancé to do whatever it was she had planned for him, and I was left to Lizzie’s lecture. The odd thing was, she made it very clear that she knew exactly what I was, but carried on as if I were some normal woman in for a trim and set, or whatever it is called. That was something that surprised and delighted me, so as she worked I asked her.

“Well, you ain’t a tranny, cos they usually has wigs, and I can see your beard’s gone, yeah, so makes sense, you’re one of those swapping ones. Don’t bother me, a woman’s a woman, and hair’s hair. Just, take more care of it, yeah. What I done, like, is to feather it at the sides and back, so it sticks out, yeah? You wear a lid on that bike?”

“No, not usually”

“Well, this style should perk up OK if you do, yeah? You gonna grow it longer? I can keep it styled, yeah, so it still looks OK, but you come back and see me regular. Kirst has got my number. Is that your phone?”

She passed the ringing mobile to me, and of course it was Eric.

“Where are you, love?”

“Being lectured about my hair, some place on the High Street called Zara’s. And?”

“And what?”

“You know bloody well what. Did you get it?”

“Do estate agents bore you? We need to visit some”

My squeal wasn’t as girly as Kirsty’s had been, but Lizzie still winced at it. “You got it, then!”

“Just have a month’s notice to work, then I am Crawley-bound. Time to sort out my bits and pieces, perhaps use that storage place by the Beehive. I do have a confession…my place is already on the market.”

“Do tell, Johnson”

“Annie, if I hadn’t got this one, I was going to keep looking till I found something else, even if it was down with Kate in Brighton and I had to commute. I have been doing a lot of thinking. You left me so bloody confused, for such a long time, and it is only now I am seeing things really clearly again. Look, I don’t know what is going to happen next week, never mind in twenty years’ time, but one thing I have learned over these last months has been who I want to spend my time with. I love you, Annie Price, and you know that, so we can sidestep all the jokes, and the little coy dances, because we both know that as of now we are living together full time”

“But you still have a month’s notice to work”

“And they still owe me a fortnight’s unused leave, and for two weeks I can stump up for commuting. Get used to it, woman, you’ve just lost half your bed”

CHAPTER 68
There were a few places that could work, but we realised there was going to be a lot of legwork ahead. We made a long-list, then a short-list, both of places and of estate agents that seemed at least a little less reptilian than the norm.

We had ridden home after the coffee, cake and cut, so I was able to get out of my cleats before we started the walking.

“Eric, if there is no garage in the new place we are going to have to look at new sheds as well. We each have quite a stable”

He started to laugh. “This is how it starts to go cold, yeah? All the romance disappears and we start thinking of storage space and whose turn it is to check the spoke tension or grease the nipples”

He had a tissue ready for my snort. Dressed more normally, we had made the rounds, and there were a few places we put on our list. Location, garage or other storage opportunities, at least three bedrooms for what would most likely be a regular set of visitors, and a decent kitchen. One thing I did want was a conservatory, somewhere light to allow me to play my music and Eric to play his banjo.

Rewind. “Dressed more normally” now meant that I was in a dress or skirt, it meant that I was utterly myself. The nerves still leapt and bounced, but apart from little moments such as my delightful sales assistant, I was finally becoming relaxed about being myself in public. There is a complex web of associations and meanings there, and very few of them relate directly to how I was dressing then. It wasn’t the thrill of putting on a bra, but the fact that wearing one was more comfortable. The swish of a skirt wasn’t a sexual lift, merely a signal that I was accepted as a woman. It is hard to explain the difference, but I was not fixated on clothing, but on the elusive ‘ordinary’.

Ordinary women stood at their wardrobes in bra and knickers wondering what to wear. Ordinary women asked their partners if they looked OK. Ordinary women pulled on a pair of jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt to do the housework, they didn’t need to indulge in some Betty Page fantasy of stockings and odd undies.

That was the revelation, the delight, that as long as I ticked a few girly boxes I could, in the end, wear what I liked and still be seen as female. The hairstyle helped, as did a little bit of paint, but I rather think the main part was attitude, and the presence of Eric on my arm. More than that, though, was the acceptance I now felt for myself. I knew, I had always known, what I should have been, but the fear had sat in my mind and taunted me, that I would simply look ridiculous. In the end, as Ginny and the rest dragged me out, what emerged, it seemed, wasn’t just my inner girl but also my inner cat. I was looking at women, now, not just in jealousy, but in occasional smugness. I wasn’t as ugly, no longer as fat, as some of them. I had better legs than many of them. I had a better man than all of them.

We did our trot round the agents, and arranged a couple of viewings, and Eric and I visited the various financial places we were in to try and get some idea of what sort of mortgage we might manage. All so very ordinary.

That next month dawdled by, and Geoff did sterling work for us with his van, slowly clearing out Eric’s place and transferring furniture and packing crates to the storage place Eric had mentioned. This was real, not one of the various fantasies I had daydreamed, and it took a while for me to relax and stop waiting for the pop of the bursting bubble. I also spent a great deal of time, when not at work, pushing myself harder on the bike. I had promised my man that I would be able to get into nice stuff, and I wanted to please him in everything I could. I was realising with each day what a true sham my marriage had been, just another Dad-pleaser.

I rode out one Saturday to visit Darren, Steph being off that day, while Eric was off with Geoff doing some more transhumance. I fancied a bit of general girliness with someone who would understand, but it wasn’t to be. There were instead guests there already, a car and a couple of motorcycles parked in the drive, one of them seriously tasty. Now, it is odd, the merest smell of a roast dinner can set me on the road to a breakdown, and it should be the same with a motorbike, but they don’t, they still interest me. I just can’t ride them any more.

It was a lovely old thing, and I recognised the engine as soon as I saw it, but the HRD was in a wideline that had clearly been spread, so as to drop the centre of gravity. A long, polished aluminium tank sat in front of a Venom Thruxton style seat, complete with hump, and clip ons and rear-sets finished the styling beautifully.

In other words, it was an old one-litre British V-twin engine shoe-horned into a slightly newer British frame, racing style footrests and handlebars added, and the whole thing polished up to look like sex on wheels. It was a Norvin.

The other was something Japanese.

Steph was waiting at the door, grinning. “You still have the thing for motorbikes, then?”

“Aye, just can’t ride the things, too many ambush memories, aye?”

“If you want to see Darren, he’s over at Naomi’s playing computer games. Tea?”

“Bears and woods?”

“How goes the house hunting?”

We carried on down the hall to the kitchen, where she provided me with a decent-sized mug of the brown stuff

“Not too bad, a couple of possibles, in Horley and Hookwood”

“Got some visitors, Annie. A workmate, and some friends, one of whom is a colleague”

We made our way into the living room where I was presented with two of the biggest men I had ever met, men who made Den look normal. One of them was in leathers, so I assumed his was the Norvin.

“This is Dave, he works with me, and Tony, who works in Dover, but whom I used to play with.”

“What do you play?”

Steph laughed. “No, not music, rugby”

“Oh, sorry…I forgot you used to do all that”

I suddenly realised there was a third figure almost invisible between the sides of beef.

“Steph forgot you?”

She was a rather hard-faced blonde (down, kitty), also in leathers. She leant forward.

“Sarah, Sar”

There was a definite Welsh accent, but not valleys, more like Steph’s own. “Where you from, Sar?”

“Abergwaun. Just up the road from ginge there. Tony’s my hubby, our boy’s off playing games with the lad next door. Where you from?”

“Brynamman”

She grinned. “Met Tony here just up from there. Spent years working in Abertawe, so got around there a lot”

“If it was on a bike, I probably saw you. I was a bike copper round that way, aye?”

She laughed. “Oh god, it’s Uncle Arwel in a dress!”

That bloody hurt, and it must have showed in my face. Sarah stood just as I rose, and she was shorter than me but bloody skinny, with tits, and an arse, and I was there like a sack of lumpy porridge in lycra, not a dress, even, and looking like her bloody uncle.

She stood at once, and I felt like slapping her, but she had her hands up, placatingly.

“No, Annie, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s the way you talk, not the way you look, aye?”

How did she know my name? I didn’t remember Steph giving it, and then I remembered a comment about something in the water in West Wales, and realised that they must have been talking about me before I arrived. I looked closer at Sarah, but even though I still couldn’t see it, I knew.

“You are…you are like Steph, and me, aren’t you?”

She nodded. I started to cry, bloody hormones, bloody PTSD, bloody life. She hugged me, and there was no hardness in her, none of Steph’s rawboned athleticism.

“If you were a copper round Abertawe, you might well know my big sister. I’m Sarah Hall now, but I was Powell, she’s Elaine”

I blinked away the tears as Steph brought me a tissue and the two men buggered off to do something masculine. “Was she a dyke? Solid girl, into bikes, aye? Really pretty wife?”

“That’s ‘is’ not ‘was’, Annie, but yeah, Siá¢n is lovely. Sorry to get on your bad side, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, when you talk, you do it just like my old bugger of an uncle, and it sounds so wrong coming from a woman”

I nodded, to let her know I understood, and tried to drag together all my earlier delight in the ordinariness of my life, but it was hard. The tranquillity I was feeling had been, in the end, so fragile that a simple misunderstanding had floored it. I felt better, though, just slightly, that if anyone could understand what I felt it would be these two.

Steph put a hand on my shoulder.

“This is the time, Annie, when I thought it would make sense to have a proper girl to girl chat. Sally is wonderful, but she hasn’t been there, not like us. Dave is here to keep his mate happy, they can talk about bikes or whatever, and we can see what help we can give you as your life gets complicated.

“Oh, and I mugged Naomi. I have her chocolate biscuits!”

CHAPTER 69
Now I know that all the claims for chocolate’s powers of healing and mimicry of sexual excitement blood chemistry are rubbish, but there is one simple, undeniable fact: having it is better than not having it.

I looked at Sarah, and there was nothing in her that shouted ‘man’, unlike Steph, certainly unlike myself. I wondered when she had started the changeover, and she caught my stare and returned it, with a slight smile. Something told me she had been in places for which she retained the T-shirt rights. She was getting on, as my feline side had already declared, but she looked good, she looked completely female. It was just the little shadows behind her eyes that suggested…I don’t know what, but it wasn’t nice, and I wondered if she would be able to tell me some day.

That was a surprise thought, after my reaction to her clumsiness, that I was already thinking of a friendship. Steph was, of course, right, that knowing somebody else understood me viscerally was essential. ‘Not just me’; then. Steph rose.

“More tea, while the boys are still playing with oil and smells?”

“Yeah, go on then, you the same, Annie? Drink the pot dry?”

I nodded. “Sarah, rude question, aye, but…how long?”

“Since I started being like this? End of my teens, really. Went through college, mostly, and then a couple of friends died, and Elaine got involved, sort of snowballed like. Long story, shit middle, bloody good ending, yeah?”

“You have a boy?”

“Tony’s, by his first wife, another death, I am afraid. Sort of feels like I cashed in at times…”

I thought about that one, and looked at Steph as she came back in with a fresh pot.

“I sort of understand that one, aye. Steph and I know each other partly through a killing, partly through two deaths, in fact. This can be a shitty world.”

Sarah gave another wry smile. “Don’t get me started. It can also be a bloody good one. Steph tells me you’ve already broken out of a very deep hole. I am not going to be pressing you on that one, it’s your life, yeah, but I am here to listen if you need an ear, os oes angen arnat. You disappoint me, though, I can’t talk to you properly, cause you grew up all anglicised. Should never be allowed. Even Jim is learning, so there’s hope for you yet.”

“Jim’s your boy?”

“Aye, one husband, one boy, one dog and a shitload of family I have. Sort of poster girl for the ‘Godless Abomination’ club, me And I’m not as easy-going as this long ginger streak here, so expect to hear it as it is. And sorry again about that remark, yeah?”

“Water under bridge, butt. Anyway, story so far, life of me, aye?”

Steph was pouring. “A good start, Annie. I’ve given Sar a sort of potted history, but if you are happy talking it through again, I will send the boys off somewhere. What time the other two due back?”

“Ah, whenever they manage to get the van emptied again”

“Well, presumptuous, yeah, but I have sort of planned a tea for us. Buffet style, nothing fancy. Tell you what, should we send the two here off down the supermarket?”

So we sat, and I talked, and Steph did, and Sar told me of the nastiness that still haunted her, and the fear that held her back for years, and that hit me between the eyes, because in a different way that had been me. Steph spoke of the lure of the bottle, the strategies she had adopted so as to be unable to buy alcohol when leaving work, and I laughed.

“I lost out on that one, just jumped in and swam in circles, aye? Like the old joke about the man who fell into a vat of beer; took him six hours to drown, cause he had to keep getting out to go to the toilet”

Steph talked about hiding herself, and Sarah and I looked at each other and grinned. That was our moment of bonding, our knowledge that once we had decided our course the two of us had opened right out while Steph had hidden, and worried, and feared.

It was the account of Steph’s grand unveiling that left me crying, not painfully, but with laughter this time. The two of them were more like two teenaged girls than a couple of married women, as they fought verbally for the chance to get the funny moments in, the punchlines to what must have been a grand joke even if I was in awe of the risks Steph had undertaken.

“Weren’t you worried, Steph, all those men with their machismo and their pride, aye?”

Sarah laughed. “Yeah, especially after she had spent the afternoon knocking so many of them flat on their arses. We didn’t know each other then, but she even scared my Tony, though he’d never admit it”

Steph smiled. “Don’t forget, I had my man beside me, what could possibly have gone wrong? That’s the key, isn’t it? Not being alone, like poor Melanie was”

Road noise. Sobbing and retching. I thought of Amy, then, as well, and once more I realised that I was ordinary. Nobody, in the end, had really touched me. So I still had visitors on nights when Eric was away, I always would, but I had the support round me that those two had lacked. Not only that, unlike Amy I could see clearly. I had looked over a cliff, and then been able to step back. Life had allowed me the luxury of choice, and as Sarah talked about her Aunt Alice I was at another epiphany, that one where you count your blessings and come up with a vastly positive number.

I was still young, comparatively healthy, I almost passed, or at least usually, I had friends, and I was in love and loved. So many had none of those, and so many never made it through the fire. I was wrapped up in the realisation right up to the point when the door banged and a mass of men surged into the room.

“Annie!”

He hit me in a hug.

“Hello Darren, how’s it like hanging my man, or whatever, aye?”

“This is Jim, we been playing Halo! He don’t like football, lahk, not normal, is it?”

A sandy-haired boy, not far off Darren’s age, grinned at me. “He’ll learn. There is but one game, and its name is rugby”

I called over to Sar. “You been feeding this boy Max Boyce? You got no shame, girl?”

She laughed. “Nor taste, according to Steph, but half his family’s Welsh, so needs must”

I looked at Darren again. “So how has it been going, butt?”

“Salright, yeah, got to do some extra classes, get my reading better, lahk, but Nan says she’ll get me all the Harry Potter books if I work at it”

I looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “Nan?”

The little sod actually blushed, then nodded. “Yeah, sort of works, lahk, sort of seems right”

“Darren Eyres, I was right about you, wasn’t I?”

He looked at his feet. “I just worry, yeah, that I’ll fu--stuff up, you’ll be shamed of me”

Sod propriety, sod appropriate behaviour. I kissed his cheek. “Never, Darren, never ever. I am proud of you, as I am proud of myself for seeing you as you could be. How could I ever be ashamed of you? Now…there are other people here, and you may be a bit young to understand, but I want to go outside and give one of them a snog before tea.”

I got the standard response of “Ewww” from both boys as I dragged Eric off into the conservatory to say hello properly, and it was done properly, and passionately, and oh my. Once my pulse was back down to near normal levels, along with my nipples, we returned to the living room, where I got two very knowing smirks.

Albert and ‘Nan’ were across a littler later, as we spread out with our plates, and I finally had a moment to exchange a few words with Dave. I had suddenly remembered where I had heard the name, something about Geoff being caught in mid-embrace with Steph.

“You the one who caught her out, aye?”

He laughed, and there was a lot to the sound, from deep inside the great bear he was.

“Didn’t know what to think, Annie. One of my best mates, in a dress, canoodling with some skinny dwarf”

A stereo shout of “Oy!” came from the two concerned. Steph took charge.

“He may be a skinny dwarf, but he’s MY skinny dwarf!”

I tried to continue, more quietly. “You didn’t see it as wrong? You know, a bloke you knew, like that?”

He thought for a while. “Tell me, your fella, your Eric, you’ve known him years?”

“Yeah”

“Well, has he ever said anything like ‘That explains a lot’, or ‘Ah! I see now’ about you?”

He had indeed. “Sometimes, yeah”

“It was like that with Steph, that things suddenly made sense that had been just a bit off in the past. He was my best mate, she still is, and the good thing was she caught herself before she ended up too far gone to come back. Look, none of you has had a cake walk, but you have all had the strength to make it through. I know that sounds simplistic, but that is the only way I can describe it. I mean, I would probably have rolled over if I had had half the shit you three have gone through”

“Friends help, we’ve got good friends, all of us”

Dave looked very hard at me. “You know what the problem is with all three of you? You have the friends, all of you, but none of you has ever had the good sense to trust us right up till the point where you have no bloody choice. We had to stitch Sar up before she would let loose, and look at her now”

He took a swig of tea. “Look, Annie, look around you. So many damaged people here, yet they are happy, they are alive and glad to be so. How could any of you fail with back up like this?”

Another swig of tea. “At least, there’ll be a lot fewer nervous sheep in West Wales now”

CHAPTER 70
He grinned to take the edge of the old joke, and I realised as his eyes went over my shoulder that the old joke was more for the benefit of Steph than me. I felt her hand come down on my shoulder, and I put mine over it.

“Why are you here, Dave?”

He looked up at Steph again. “Well, partly because it’s really through myself and Tony that these two women know each other. That’s for starters, I suppose. I think, though, the main reason was to have someone normal here”

As I bristled once more, I realised, somewhere at the back of my mind, that I was getting quite touchy over the concept of ‘normality, but Dave continued.

“No, not like that, Annie. Look, ignoring the children, and the neighbours, everyone here is either on your side of the church or sitting in the relatives’ seats, apart from me. I’m not just someone to get Tony out of the way so you three can talk, I’m the man with the wife who started out as a girl, I’m the normal one, I’m the example of the bloke in the street who in the end doesn’t give a shit. I am the seal of approval here”

“Bloody walrus more like, mate” said Steph from my shoulder. He grinned.

“Look at her, as girly as a pink unicorn with a rainbow tail, and she’s still the person I worked with as Steve. Everything she was, she still is, just better explained. I hear you had a wake for your old self, and I can understand it, but I hope you can remember that the person you said so long to is still there in you”

I nodded. “Just better explained, aye?”

“Fuck, Sar, she does talk like your bloody uncle. Yeah, Annie. I thought I was going to lose my best mate, instead I got a better one. You will have folk who feel exactly the same, you will have some who need to think a bit, and you will have one or two wankers. Did Steph tell you about her coming out?”

I laughed. “Yeah, her and Sarah both, in tandem”

“Well, they left early, and most people were OK, but we still had one or two twats there, and I had to Have Words in private”

I thought of Costello, and Steph came round to sit on the arm of my chair, just as Eric took my hand. She looked sharply at Dave.

“You never told me that, Dave”

“Need to know, Officer Woodruff, need to know. Speak to Little John some day for the full S.P. No, Annie, the whole point of this is that there will be people with attitudes more Daily Mail than rational, but those attitudes, well, they have to collide with the person they find standing in front of them. Easy for them to be arseholes when you are just passing through, but a lot harder for them to do it when they have to see you day in, day out. You are like the facial scar, or that chap with the Thalidomide hands we sometimes work with, after a few minutes it drops to the level of importance of the colour of your eyes”

Steph looked a little doubtful at that one, and Dave caught it. “Yeah, mate, I know, but there are ways and means for those too thick to see what the safe course of action is”

Eric squeezed my hand. “There will always be those who give lip service to it”

Dave was nodding. “Oh, don’t I know it. But unless you are having to listen to them or deal with them every day, where’s the problem? They are just a passing distraction. Steph, what do you think of my missus?”

“Sorry? Lovely woman, good cook, sense of humour even sicker than yours, what do you want me to say?”

“So she’s not some nigger, then?”

“Dave, mate…”

“I’m a race traitor, Annie, polluting the Aryan blood of the nation by consorting with a monkey. I’m a white bwoi who needs shanking, cause I stole one of the sisters from her people, yeah? My wife’s from Trinidad originally. I got, we got, a load of shit, conscious and unconscious, when we started out. We still get it, but as people know us she stops being ‘that black girl’ and becomes ‘Mrs Dave’. People adapt, love.”

He drew a deep breath. “I was only supposed to come here to distract Tony, and to be the token normal, and here I am lecturing you, and you are the one with the hill to climb. Sorry, Annie”

“Not at all, Dave. You give me things to think about, make me realise I have it a lot easier than many, aye? Always nice to get some perspective. I just didn’t realise the racism was still so, I don’t know, overt, aye?”

“Oh yeah, from all sides, mate. Eric, how often are you getting called a queer?”

I looked round at him, and caught his eye as he tried to look away.

“More than enough times, Dave”

I laced my fingers through his. “Why didn’t you tell me, love?”

“Look, it took all those tricks, all that dancing around, before I realised where I belonged. It just takes time, as Dave says”

“Aye, love, but not by yourself, not alone. If you have the strength to come through for me, what can I not do for you? Partners, aye?”

He actually blushed. “Yeah, partners…look, can we have a word, just the two of us?”

We went out to the conservatory again, and chased out two boys trying to make coherent sounds from a couple of stringed instruments, and Eric turned me to face him.

“Partners, love? I have put a huge amount of thought into things since August. Not really been that long, has it?”

Where was this going? “No, not really”

“Think about what Dave was saying, about knowing Steph for so long before she was Steph, and then putting the two together. That’s what my mind is doing, yeah? I have known you so many years, so no, it hasn’t been just since August, if you see what I mean. It’s been years and years. I realised that once we started looking for a house together. You are just the same person you always were, you just have a rather fuller bathroom cabinet, all that odd shampoo stuff and that, you are still my mate, my old mate. So I sort of suspect that I really am here for the long term.”

I kissed him, as seemed timely, and asked “And?”

“Well, you are now down as my next of kin, for old and new jobs, but I was going to propose a joint account for paying the mortgage, at least. Would you be up for that? Two living as cheaply as one, sort of thing?

“Makes sense, love”

“Annie, I have a whole raft of issues with you, with all this, you know that, but I have no cold feet about you. I love you, simple as that, and it gets easier dealing with the fallout from the other stuff, easier every day. I am not gay, not like some people say. That should tell you what I think of you. But now and again, I get a little twitch, so if I do something that hurts you, please remember that I love you and it is never intentional. OK?”

“Eric, how could I ask for, or expect more? You know how I feel about you”

“Tell me”

“I love you. I can’t imagine you not being in my bed, or my shower, or demanding I bring you a cuppa when I get in from work. I was going to ask you about the next of kin thing, but you sort of gazumped me there, so I’ll take that as read, and do it when I get in, aye? Now, kiss me again…and one thing I want to ask you mmmmmmffh”

“You called me your mate, aye?”

“Yeah…”

“When we get home, mate, can we please do some serious mating?”

“Oh god, when you put it like that….”

I got another snog, and then we had to sort of sit down to cover our reactions, and he picked up one of the stringed things and started to mess with it, and that brought the boys back in, and in the end Geoff was giving Darren and Jim basic lessons on two mandolins, and it was good, so good, and I was so deeply in love it hurt. My poor, shy, abused man.

Sarah joined me as I watched the fumbling and twanging. “We are really lucky, aren’t we?”

I nodded. “So hard to see, sometimes, and then you realise they have their own problems, that they have their own holes to climb out of”

She grinned. “Comfort in misery shared, iawn?”

I grinned back, and looked round the room, where two boys twanged and jangled as a variety of adults laughed and joked, and gave advice, some of it serious.

“Who is bloody miserable, girl?”

CHAPTER 71
We found the house, in the end, after a couple of false starts, and it was in a quiet back street in Horley. Not the most wonderful of areas, or houses, not at all like the one Steph had inherited, but it had three bedrooms, a very large garage, a reasonably spacious conservatory and a garden shaded by some huge mature horse chestnut trees. Only five miles from work, as well, for both of us, the route identical as far as the nick.

We put a deposit down as soon as we were sure-are you sure-yes-are you really-sure-YES!!

I had resolved to keep in touch with Sarah if I could, since she seemed to have a very ‘sorted’ approach to her life, as well as a lot more experience. That was one thing I appreciated, as I had only been playing myself for a matter of months compared to the decades as Adam.

I was now out, completely, at work, the Super having moved mountains sufficiently to have obtained me a warrant card in my new name, which led me to have a small celebration tea at home with the girls and my man, where Ginny allowed me some cake, the generous woman. New items of uniform, new status–well, almost. As Jim and Sam had promised, I had my own locker, my own toilet, my own little cupboard for changing.

It was Jim who broke the news about Darren.

“Annie, might have a bit of a problem. The defence in the Pickstock trial are pushing to get him excluded as he is in such close contact with us. I don’t know if they will succeed, but it might be as well for Polly to have a word with him and Counsel.”

“We got a date for trial, yet?”

“Not till after Christmas, looks like. They have already had a Newton hearing to kick out some stuff, and I heard they were trying to make us produce the little girl in open court”

“Jim, they can fuck right off there!”

“I do believe our silk may have used those exact words, Annie”

“So where do we stand?”

“Well, there is sufficient there, she feels, to allow video link. Age, vulnerability, nature of the charges. Darren’s the one they want out, though, and don’t forget they will try and tear you up for arse paper, and you have to admit, coming out as you have right before the trial might not be the best thing for it all”

I sighed. “Not something I planned, Jim. I really wish things could have been different, but they aren’t, though as you have noticed I am”

He grinned. “I wonder exactly how they will administer the oath”

“Just the same as always, it’s how I explain the Custody notes written under a different name. The jury will have a field day, it’ll beat hearing some bloody fraud case, aye?”

“You’re not nervous about that?”

I laughed. “With what I have already been through? Walking through Crawley in a dress in daylight?”

“You seem to have adapted to that OK!”

“I had a choice?”

“Point taken. How is it going with Eric?”

“As well as I could ever have hoped, Jim.”

He looked at me as if trying to choose his words with particular care. “Annie, you are a lucky woman, and I think…I think Eric is a very lucky man. Now bugger off while I clear these stats up”

That was a comment that sat in my mind like a sunbeam for the rest of the shift. Ordinary…I ran the Darren problem past Eric that night, as he gave me a back rub.

“When’s the trial? Some time after Christmas?”

"Yeah”

“Then I suggest we make the holiday a good one. Nothing we can do for the girl, just keep our distance for now. So, what presents, and who for?”

“Oh god, it’s getting a bit of a…just had an idea. How big is the garden at Steph’s? And at Naomi’s? They are turfed nicely, we could get quite a few tents in there, perhaps a marquee, aye?”

“Hang on, love, don’t you think asking them first might be a good idea? You suggesting a ride out?”

“There are people we haven’t seen since that night on the Zombie run”

“Right, then, you are looking at a Christmas do, yeah? Why not ask Simon? The church, that hall, lots of grass that isn’t actually over somebody’s dear departed”

Now, there was an idea. Subzero overnight, decent tents and bags….my inner explorer was hooked. Before my collapse, touring had been my thing, sleeping out in all sorts of temperatures and weather, including times when I woke to frost on the outside of my sleeping bag. Stick a huge pile of duvets for Darren to burrow into. Music. Food. Friends. It was an excellent idea of mine, slightly filtered by my drudge, and I told him that, and he decided I had to get a slap on the arse, the cheeky sod, but he made up for it in other ways, and, well, I was tired the next day.

Eric had settled into his new job by then, and one day a week or two later he gave me a wry smile. “I have a sort of confession to make, love”

“And what have you done, and how should you be punished?”

“Well, you and I, we were never really involved with Christmas, were we? It was just a time when we did favours for everyone else, let them have the time off for their kids, their families, and now I find myself, you too, I think, we want time with our people”

“And your confession?”

“I have gone all domesticated”

“Just a thought, aye? Simon would be busy at that time, he sort of has a business link to it, aye? How about we look at something like Twelfth Night or whatever. We could run it like a ride out, but with a dry place just in case, you know”

He nodded. “But we do try to get as much of a normal Christmas as we can?”

“Of course, love, we see if a small boy can have a good one for the first time, sort of set a precedent, aye?”

Then I set out to see how domesticated he actually was. Not very, thankfully.

I rang Simon from work the next day, and he was intrigued by the idea, but being the sort of devious bastard I had come to expect he had other agendas to propose.

“Annie, you say you’ll have some music…”

“Simon, no dancing, it will be mulled wine and hot food, not dancing in the streets”

“No, Annie, I was wondering, with the numbers you will have, of adults, whether more children might attend”

“What, camping? Bit cold for them, surely”

“No, we bus them in from the local hospital. They get a meal, you lot do some playing, we ship them back, and then we crack some barrels of ale. What do you think?”

“Sounds like a plan; I’ll have words with Fee, Ginny and the rest. Steph, of course. Yes, Simon, definitely a possibility. Must go, I have trade”

I hung up as Kirsty appeared before me. What is it about trousers, these days, that they have to be fastened not just below the waist but below the buttocks? Kirsty explained that the lad before me was a purse snatcher, who had missed the variant of the old Confucius joke: copper with belt round waist run faster than tea-leaf with belt around thighs. I mean, he had top of the range Adidas running shoes on, if they weren’t fakes, but he had effectively strapped his legs together.

What was even funnier, which gave me serious problems in keeping a straight face before the camera, was that she had taken the belt for cell security, but he was still cuffed. As he walked from the waiting area to my desk, the trousers started to slide, and the only way he could find to keep them up was to spread his feet wider and wider apart. Once he was booked in and banged away, Kirst came back, took one look at my face, and then dragged me into the ladies’, where we all but collapsed in laughter and tears at the vision of compete humiliation we had witnessed, and it was at least a minute before I realised where I was. Shit.

“Er, Ruthy…”

“Relax. Welcome to our kingdom. I have been sounding out the girls, and the only one that objects is fat Julie Withers, so as long as she is off shift, you are OK. Just remember, wipe front to back”

I looked at the smile on her face, but there was just a little dampness in her eyes, and not from the laughing.

“Annie, mate, I don’t envy you at all, you know. You have so much shit in front of you, behind you, fucking hell, on top of you, yeah? You still keep on, you still smile, you still fucking care. How the hell do you do it?”

I smiled at her. “Eric”

“Bollocks is it Eric. You were doing this when you were still a fat beardy who stank of booze every shift. You take some credit, Anne Price”

She came up and hugged me. “No way you were ever some arsehole bloke. Want a coffee?”

CHAPTER 72
Steph was intrigued by Simon’s proposal.

“I know he’s a good bloke, but with all this ‘excellence’ towards us abominations, is he perhaps trying to snare us for his sky pixie? Find some really top-class sinners to save?”

I had to laugh at that. “Sort of infernal top trumps, aye? My transgressor’s abominations trump your sinner’s peccadilloes?”

That brought a snort.

“No, seriously, I think he really does care about folk, and we seem to tick quite a few of his boxes. I don’t mean in what we are, Annie, just in what we are willing to give. We just seem to have all landed in the right place for him”

We were sat in the conservatory that day, having just finished some jamming together just for the sheer joy of it. Saburo lay across my lap, and Steph was just wiping the neck of her fiddle when there was a knock on the conservatory door, and Darren came in.

That was another little warm moment. Steph treated the Woods as family, and they came and went almost at will in each other’s houses, and here was Darren doing much the same. A knock to announce his presence, but then straight in. To me, it spoke volumes about his healing, which came so largely from the trust that had been given to him almost without question. He was, of course, carrying his football boots.

“Leave them outside, Darren!” called Steph, and then “You know where the fridge is, there’s a tray of cokes in there”

He was back with us in an instant, swigging the can as he walked, and I took time out to look at him. Dark hair, almost black, but with startlingly blue eyes, he was still small in his build, but the pinched look that had made his cheeks hollow had gone. His eyes were rarely still, though not as they had been. He was no longer looking around for an escape route or a potential threat, but for something that would interest him. He was alive now, not just living.

“Hiya, Annie, how’s you?”

Slowly, too, his speech patterns were changing, which was something which I was uncertain how to take. Was he matching the school, or his home life? The awkward mock-Caribbean of his East London accent would always lie there, but he seemed to be groping for better words, clearer communication. He was either copying what he heard, or someone, somewhere, was being a good teacher. I suspected the latter, and that she lived next door to Steph. I had gained the feeling on my very first meeting with Naomi that when she put her mind to it Something Got Done.

“Fine, Darren my man, what are you after?”

“Was hoping for a go on some music, yeah? That drum thing I was fooling with, lahk.”

Steph grinned. “Yeah, right! Annie, we have established one thing with young Darren, and that is that he is profoundly tone-deaf. He likes the sounds, he just can’t make them. However…he does have a solid sense of rhythm, and I think he might make a good dancer, reminds me of Geoff in some ways”

The lad was actually blushing. “Yeah, so I kinda thought, do a bit of drum, yeah? Ain’t got no tunes and stuff, just the beat…”

That was an afternoon that still makes me smile. Steph brought out her own bodhran, with a variety of sticks and beaters, and slowly eased him through it, and to my surprise I realised that I hadn’t spotted he was actually left-handed. Slipping, Annie.

She talked him through the two roles the hands played, and got him to strike the head in various places, then do it again with the right hand stretching the skin. As the range of potential sounds became evident, he started to grin. Then, she showed him the different beating techniques, including her own preferred double-ended style, and he was away. Not smoothly, but it was there, and we played a couple of simple tunes to let him catch the swing and the drive of three and four time music. Steph ran through some old session standards like ‘Rakes of Mallow’ and ‘Speed the Plough’, and he began to experiment. Steph noticed.

“Darren, now you have the movements down, try something fast. This will sound silly, but if you let rip it can feel a lot easier than the slow stuff.”

She played a couple of reels, then, and he got more and more adventurous, even managing some rim shots in time, and then I decided to test him out as he sat grinning.

“Arm tired?”

“No, is fun, innit?”

“Right, then, this is a song, but I am going to play it on the flute, no words. It starts slow, has some fast bits, goes up and down, yeah? Steph, if you know it….”

“No worries, Annie”

I started the eerie repeated phrases that open the song, and Steph grinned in recognition.

“You do like your Tull, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, but Anderson is someone to aspire to, just without the beard”

I began again, and ‘My God’ began to take shape. I let Steph pick up the slow riff, and then took the vocal line on the flute. Darren just sat there, until something clicked and he began a piano percussion line of his own, almost brushing the skin to keep it soft.

I couldn’t help it. When the big dramatic chunk came I was out of my seat, and Steph went completely hairy with me, and it was a while before we came down to earth, and there was Darren, and his expression was something new. It wasn’t awe, or fear, or amusement at our silliness, it was---there is a phrase, but I am writing about a child. It was the face of someone who had just had amazingly good sex.

“Wow…Annie, you is good, but, lahk, there’s hearing good, and there’s being in the good, and I was so in it, and…wow”

I realised he was crying. “I dint know I could do anything like that, yeah? So right, so good, so…fuck, so real, yeah?”

I looked over at Steph, and there were tears there too.

“Darren, it’s called being a musician. Some people are, some people aren’t, some just need to find the right way to get their music out. Annie, what do you think, he plays with us at the church?”

I grinned back at him. “You’ve got a gig, lad! Practice, practice!”

He wiped his eyes, and laughed. “Knew there had to be a downside, yeah!”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Times began to get frantic after that, and as word got round about the gig we had more than three quarters of our little London cycle group lined up for it, all of them being, as card-carrying supporters of the Bard of Harvard, clinically insane, of course. Geoff’s family were invited, of course, and once more we started to build a nice little band of musicians and banjo player. The plan was a simple one: bring the kids down, feed them a sort of second Christmas Dinner, play some music while they ate and do some louder/hairier stuff afterwards. They would then depart, and we would have a session of playing, drinking and silliness, before settling into our little shelters to freeze off those bits some of us never wanted.

First there came Christmas itself, of course, and although Eric and I were both working we made time out to leave a few presents for our friends, grab a couple of drinks, that sort of thing. Working the holidays renders the period null and void, and it turns into a strange limbo in which the shops shut for a day and---oh, was that it? We didn’t do too much on the present front, but knowing what Steph was getting Darren I added a small bag of different beaters and a case for the thing itself, which was of course a small bodhran.

Tabitha got a new dress, and Eric a new long-flap camper saddle bag to replace the decaying mess of elderly cotton he had owned since sometime before the Boer War, and he bought me…he bought me the most gorgeously and simply feminine pair of Kurt Geiger shoes. They were utterly girly, and it was a true first. They weren’t shoes handed down by Kate (though I do realise she bought them new), they weren’t things I had tried on and bought for myself, they were not even practical. They were, in fact, what Greer called ‘fuck-me shoes’, and they had been bought for me by my man. I did assume, though, that he had had some help. When I opened the box…

“Oh, Eric, thought you only bought me flat sandals, aye?”

The rest of the outfit I later found hiding in my wardrobe, and it was a little black dress and the underpinnings to go with it.

“Why the classy stuff, love? Just want it on so I can be got out of it?”

“No, love. Much simpler reason, though that is still a very nice idea….we have dinners coming up, even if they are only with my lot, or Den, or the Woods, and I want you happy, and pretty, and I want everyone to see you are happy and pretty, and for them to see how proud of you, and how lucky, I am.”

Well, there is only one response a girl can give to a remark like that.

“Do you really think I’m pretty?”

And once more, there are traditions to maintain. They were duly addressed.

CHAPTER 73
It is as strange as I hinted, how Christmas passes like a train in the distance when you are working, but we had managed to distribute some oddities and soddities to our friends, and Ginny and Kate, Stewie and Sally, made it for an unChristmas Dinner on an off day, for which Ginny and I prepared a Thai banquet with some Vietnamese twists, including spicy omelette eaten wrapped in lettuce leaves with fresh lemon grass. Well, that was as unChristmassy as we could imagine.

The day finally came around when we would invade the churchyard, and that morning the phone rang. Eric took it, grinned, said a few words, and hung up.

“Time to ring your landlord, love, we get the keys in a fortnight!”

Packing for the church event was thus a little delayed, and we were actually still in bed when Geoff rang the bell for the trip over with the gear. Given the time of year, we were going with a larger tent and a great pile of duvets rather than sleeping bags, and of course a stove for Eric to brew up with in the morning. I had one moment of unpleasantness, as I packed two pee bottles, but I stirred myself out of the darkness by reminding myself that at least having a cock gave that advantage.

Hint to self: research in-tent urination solutions available for women. Second hint to self: the realisation that I had assumed, as naturally as breathing, that I would go down that route. It had always sat there as an unspoken assumption, but there it was, out and smiling. Surgery. Put the thoughts away for later, girl, they need a calm soul, and proper consideration.

Everything went into the van, including the small loaf and pack of bacon that is traditional when camping. Off went Geoff, and off we went for a shower, and well…

Eric had to be dragged out of the bedroom in the end and made to get on his bike, all he seemed to want to do was sleep. We rode the five miles to the venue on a crisp afternoon, as the shadows lengthened and frost hinted at its arrival. Several folk were already there, tents mushrooming across the grass.

A skinny blond missile hit me with an embrace, followed by her husband, and after I had disengaged from the Wilsons I asked the obvious question.

“You haz gots fire poi?”

John grinned. “Dark evenings are the best, love! Only thing is, it all depends on the kids, and if it is too cold, will they be able to sit outside?”

“Well, watch and wait. Main thing is to have a good evening, then a bloody good night, aye?”

Fee was doing the girl thing, checking me from head to foot. “This will sound stupid, as you look so girly now, but the more I watch you now, the more I kick myself in the back of the head and say, ‘Fee haz not gots branes, Fee is stoopid’. It all clicks now. There was always a ‘what’s wrong with this picture?’ thing with you and, hey, there you go, it wasn’t wrong it was just over the page”

“Yeah, they always had those two, in the Bunty comic, didn’t they? The spot the difference one bored me, but the ‘what’s wrong’ was always…”

They were both grinning at me.

“So I read girls’ comics whenever I could get them, aye? Is that a crime?”

The evening was falling as the last tents went up, and then a phalanx of bikes followed Naomi’s car into the yard. Naomi climbed out, followed by Darren, as a swarm of Woodruffs emerged from the car and dismounted beside it. And there stood Mark Kerr, Kelly grinning happily beside him, and Jimmy, looking as disreputable as ever.

“Hoo’s it gannin’, Annie?”

“And what are you doing down here?”

“Whey, Ah couldn’t leave the lad on his aan, could Ah? And somebody telt us there was beer here, an aal”

I gave him a hug, and got a peck, and then got mugged by both the young ones, followed by Bill and Jan. The former whispered into my ear.

“If that Eric isn’t treating you properly, just let me know and we can elope”

Nothing changes. Ginny and Kate were in the group, and shortly thereafter Stewie drove in with Sally and Polly.

Soon, the extended family were settled in, and I noticed one thing that was a bit of a surprise: Kelly and Mark were sharing a tent. Jan caught my stare.

“What do you suggest, Annie? They sleep together furtively, and riskily, or legally and safely, with us to look after them? If they go off to college together, they will, sure as eggs is eggs, so…”

Sometimes things happen that make you realise the world rotates around itself, not you, and that was one. We laid out our mounds of bedding as the darkness came on and the air started to bite, and then, er, decamped to the Hall, where tables were laid ready for the kids and ourselves. Party hats, balloons, it was looking good. Simon was happily adding the last touches to the decorations when we heard the coach arriving outside.

It turned out to be three vehicles, two being adapted minibuses with wheelchair hoists, and very shortly a small army of children of varying height and health was invading the room. I gave the nod to the other musicians and Eric, and we started to set up at the end away from the main door. Darren was carrying his drum bag and collection of beaters, with that odd look of pride and nerves that all new musicians have on performing in public.

We played, and they listened, and the Wilsons did “Why Paddy’s Not at Work Today’, which amused the children, as well as some of the adults, and all through the set Darren was playing with utter concentration, totally absorbed in his work. Kelly did some clogging, and her beau played the pipes, and there were fiddle bits and overblowing, and just general silliness. Nothing too energetic, nothing too ‘hairy’, just fun tunes and the occasional silly song, and an awful lot of food. I supposed that a diet of hospital catering would make anything look good, but I have to admit that the Women’s Institute, who were supplying most of the meal, did a splendid job. All too soon, we were left with a battlefield of soggy paper plates and a procession of happy kids being helped back to their transport with fading pleas for ‘just one more tune’.

As Simon headed off to dish up the trays of shepherd’s pie and vegetable lasagne that was earmarked for us older kids, I caught Steph’s eye, and then Darren’s.

“Shall we?”

He grinned. “Yeah…”

Eric was already there, with his guitar this time, and at my whispered cue he started the slow introduction, and then I once more took up the vocal line from ‘My God’. Steph started to flit around me, and Darren was setting quite a complex backbeat going, in which he was joined by Jan. Jimmy just watched, and on cue Steph and I exploded into the hairy bit, as the other three held our metaphorical coats and the rhythm, and it was as good as we had ever managed to be together, and each time I looked at her to bring it back down she took it further and more manic, so of course I had to follow suit, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the hall full of dancers, and to the other side I saw that Darren was completely and utterly bent over his drum, left hand absolutely flying as Jan watched and let him drive the beat, and Eric bent over them both to hit the riffs, and then finally, finally, we had to bring it back down before our food got cold and the beer warm.

I ended it at last, and we stood and stared at each other, Darren looking shocked, then suddenly shouting “Yay!”, the grin slicing across his face.

Simon sighed. “Well, sort of a religious song. How about ‘Wind Up’ next time? Food now, beer now, laughter and love and friendship RIGHT HERE AND NOW!”

And there was, right there and then, and it was better than Christmas, because there was no excuse for it apart from love and friendship, and common humanity. Simon caught my mood.

“Annie, you may not be religious, but trust me, tonight is what being a Christian is really about”

“What, free beer?”

“No, that’s just a bonus!”

Later, as I snuggled into my man in the cold and the dark, there was a rustle of zips, and a small voice.

“Could I…?”

I shuffled even closer to Eric.

“Of course, Darren. Snuggle in and sleep well”

CHAPTER 74
I woke that morning sandwiched between the two and bursting for a pee. There was no way I could use the bottle, it would have freaked Darren too much, so I elbowed Eric to move and went out his side.

The boy was still fast asleep, and I slipped out into a beautifully clear and frosty January morning. The hall was occupied by scattered snoring bundles, and I made my way to the ladies as if I was crossing a minefield.

Relief…it was only seven o’clock, and the kitchen was still empty as I started the urn heating and put the kettle on. One for the slug-in-a-bed hoi polloi, the other for me. I was wrapped in my fleece sleeping kit, my hair off at strange angles and a red mark down my face from a pillow crease, but that didn’t stop me making tea.

I heard the toilet flush again, and then Kelly slipped into the kitchen, and as she realised that I fully understood exactly why she had had to go to the toilet, she blushed crimson.

“It’s OK, Kell, he’s a nice lad, just surprised your mam is being so, well, tolerant”

“We’re both nearly eighteen!” she bristled, and I took her hands in mine.

“I know, love, I am not criticising, I can hardly do that given my situation, aye? It’s just that your family never ceases to amaze me with how easily they go through life. How are things between you?”

“I love Mark…”

It was a very small voice, and there was just a hint of doubt in it, doubt that I would believe her, doubt that he would feel the same way, all sorts of teenaged angst mixed with that certainty that only adolescents can produce.

“Aye, Kelly, aye. I am happy for you, really, but it’s scary, isn’t it? So much invested in just one person?”

“Yeah…and how do you cope? I watched Steph, yeah, and she was so frightened when she met my uncle, so nervous”

I sighed. “Aye, it is a bit like being a teenager again, all that worry, self-doubt, will he like me, and, well, forgive me if it’s a bit much this time in the morning, but, you know, what am I? Am I what he wants? Can I be? What if a real girl comes along? How do I compete if that happens, aye?”

Kelly was nodding, then grinning, then hugging, almost back to her old self. “Yeah, when you put it like that, I have it easy, don’t I?”

“With someone like him, yes, love, I think you do. Now, is he grown up enough to want tea in bed? Let’s indulge our men”

We walked out over the crisp grass to our tents, and I felt almost jealous of her, life starting out as it was, all the things I never had as a girl, including being one. Then I unzipped the tent, and Eric was awaiting his cuppa, and I realised it wasn’t at all bad. Darren slipped out in turn for his own toilet break, and I had time for a cuddle with the remaining occupant before he was back with his own tea and a slight look of accusation. I handed it back, with interest.

“So what is this? Because I’m a woman I automatically become your slave?”

Whatever Naomi and Albert were doing to him was working; he blushed so easily now. We made a small huddle, poking out of odd sides of the pile of quilts, sipping, and I asked him how he felt about the night before. That brought the grin I was learning to adore, as well as the little bit of cheek that told me he was all but healed.

“One question, innit? When we doing it again?”

I pretended to think about it, looking at him from beneath lowered brows as Eric tried hard not to laugh.

“You think Steph and I want some kid blowing us away on stage again?”

His face fell, but then he spotted Eric’s strangled look, and the grin came back as I said “Anytime you like, Darren, anytime at all”

Seamlessly, I realised that there would be room in the Edifice now that Kelly was building her own life, and the next big trip would involve a little drummer boy.

Gradually, life evolved independently across our little camp site, and I heard the early morning cough of Jimmy. He appeared by the tent as we were emerging for breakfast, looking a little worn.

“Ah’m getting too urld for this life, hinny. Ah own that the next time’ll be in a fower star hurtel. Hoo’s the lad?”

“’M OK, Mister Kerr. Was best thing ever, wannit?”

“Aye, son, aye. Noo, breakfast? De we hev breakfast? Ah divvent knaa aboot yees lot, but Ah can smell bacon!”

So he could, and so could we, and evolution took a sudden sharp curve upwards as the smell hit the other tents and upright primate life forms began following their noses, including Ginny.

“You, Gilbey girl, are a vegetarian!”

“Don’t stop me following my nose, does it? Always been said, the one smell even a veggie can’t resist is bacon”

“So it works for you, does it?”

A huge and manic grin, the one that had saved my life. “Fuck, yeah!”

Simon and some of the WI ladies had appeared, and there was a nice little breakfast being sorted for us. All free, along with last night’s beer. I collared the vicar on that one.

“Ah, the food is a thank you from the Women’s Institute and the hospital Friends, for what you put on for the children. The beer, well, there’s a certain hired killer standing behind you”

“Stewie?”

“Morning, Annie love. I tell you what, I have slept in a lot worse than this! No, Simon’s correct, I put the beer in, goes down against my accounts as a charitable donation”

“Aye, but you had a good go at getting it all back, didn’t you?”

“A bootneck, and a barrel of beer? There are traditions to uphold, Annie my sweet! Now, my darling wife needs her arteries furred, so I shall catch up once I have her food. And thanks; you and the ginger monster are bloody good value for a night out, especially when it’s free”

More cheek. I settled down with Eric, Darren having sat down by Steph, no doubt for a chat about music, and Polly Armitage joined us, bleary-eyed and her own breakfast in hand.

“What do you think, Polly? How is he doing, in your view?”

She groaned a little. “Wake up first, yeah? I had a few last night and it is all sort of a bit unusual for me. I’d almost forgotten about hangovers…”

She guzzled some tea. “Seriously, I am astonished. Whatever the Woods are doing, and to be honest it must involve the rest of you, I have rarely seen a more dramatic turnaround in a child. I watched him last night, well, until I got dragged up to dance, and had another beer, and so on, but he was in his own little bubble of joy up there”

I nodded. “He really loves to play, aye, and he actually has a talent. That isn’t as easy a thing to play as it looks, you know, it’s actually quite sophisticated, and he just took to it straight off.”

“Yeah, but I was watching his interpersonal skills, his socialisation. That kid loves you, you know? Absolutely worships the ground under your shadow”

“Can’t see why, Polly, I banged him away, don’t know how many times”

She muttered almost under her breath, and I caught something that sounded like “Why are the good ones always so dense?” before she continued.

“Respect, Sergeant Price, it’s about respect. I would guess that you have never belittled him, never told him his fortune in a sneering way. That’s what he’s been used to, you realise? Being treated like some odd species of vermin?”

“Yeah, but he’s a human being, aye, and just a little boy. You give people what they need, don’t just slap them down”

“Hallelujah, she’s got it. Yes, Annie, you do, but how many others act like you? I hear some of your colleagues suggested he be hosed down in his cell. You didn’t do that, you got Doctor Khan in, you got me in, you found him a safe place, for fuck’s sake, Annie, you gave him what I suspect is going to be his real, true family, and you still can’t see how different you have been? I have to pick up all sorts of shit in my job, and no matter what I do, if it goes wrong, it’s always my fault, and trust me, it almost always goes wrong, one way or another.”

She paused, for some tea.

“Look at him, Annie, as if you didn’t know him. He’s a little boy, on a camping trip. His Nan has dropped him off, and he’s having breakfast with his uncle and aunty. His cousin is walking around with her boyfriend, and he is watching her though the lens of the biggest crush you could imagine. He will be back at school in a little while, playing football, and telling his school friends about last night, and how he played boss drum, and how wicked it was, and he will stop talking to watch some teen princess walk past with her skirt rolled as short as she can manage, and then come home to play computer games with his granddad. Normal, yeah?

“Not being sent out to thieve on pain of a beating from some bastard of a kiddy fiddler, not sleeping the night on the floor of a cell stinking of his own shit. That’s your doing, Annie Price, so bloody well wake up and take some credit.”

There was nothing I could say. She took my hand. “I know it’s been said to you before, but Den tells me you wanted to be a nurse when you were a little girl. Er, you know what I mean, sorry. Just, I think you have your place, and you fill it well. Thank you, Sergeant Price, for giving some hope to the rest of us”

CHAPTER 75
What I think of as February weather hit us mid-January, those days without end that are grey and miserable and unfailingly damp.

The one bright spot was that we finally hit the day to move into our new house. I was lucky to have so many friends, but I knew that already; what it meant this time was a surfeit of people to hump and carry furniture, fittings and wardrobe. Tabitha sat regally on the mantelpiece observing our labours, and it amazed me in the end how it all fitted in. Three bedrooms, one without a proper bed at present, a conservatory that took two music stands, and a dining room that ended the day filled with plates of finger food as we wound down after the labour.

Home, finally. There is a lot that people have put into that word, and there is a huge difference between ‘home’ and ‘the place you happen to live’, but I suddenly felt that for the first time in years the two might be the same. Eventually we cleared the house of the herd of ravenous wildebeest and settled down for some homemaking. Not that sort, but the simple process of discussing, differing and agreeing on what went where.

It was also business as usual at work, and my business was also usual, after Kirsty’s intervention, and done in the ladies’. We were now warned for the trial, starting in a fortnight, and even though it was perhaps a little late I did my best to stay away from Darren. Naomi told me that she had explained it all to him, and he understood, but she said that he seemed to have fixed on me as a sort of big sister to turn to when things went a little askew in his life.

There is really nothing more I can say about those few weeks. We had a house. We had a home. We had regular descents of visitors. And we got steadily more comfortable in our roles, our life together. There were still hiccups, still awkwardnesses when my unusual anatomy made itself too obvious, but that was simply how Eric was wired. He did all he could to treat me as a woman…

No. That would not be a fair way to describe what Eric did. He saw me as a woman, full stop. He knew, all the time, what I had in the way of extras, and he just carried on as normally as any other man with his woman. He just stayed away from the problem area, for which I was profoundly grateful. Erogenous zones are not as obvious nor as simple as adolescent boys imagine. In my case, my back was one, and a massage from him would have me purring and happy, wanting nothing more than contact and intimacy. Comfort was the key, mutual comforting. On the odd nights when I had visitors, which were becoming steadily fewer with his presence, it was that comforting presence, the arms about me, which brought me peace. I spoke of that in the sessions I was still having with Sally, and I got some of the sweetest smiles I have ever seen on her face.

Finally, we had our day for court, and I was sweating blood with worry over Darren, as he came face to face with his recent past. There was also a real weight on my soul, worry about a little girl who had far worse to relive. My own minor inconvenience of having to stand up in court and explain my own status was nothing whatsoever compared to the ordeal the two children would face.

Eric walked me to the station for the ride up, kissing me as gently as he could but hugging me fiercely. Not a word, just that demonstration of how he felt, and then I was off on the slow train to Croydon. The walk from the station is pretty dispiriting, across the tram lines and up a grey street to an odd half-stepped area covered in dog ends and nicotine junkies awaiting their turn in court, and those are just the barristers. In through the security check, sit and read the paper till the case is called, then join the little group outside waiting to go in.

It was the normal pantomime at the start, as the jury were sworn in and the pleas were taken, and no surprise then that they were all ‘not guilty’. We were, after all, in for a trial. I took my cue and left, adjourning to the small interview room we had adopted and working my way steadily through the Guardian crossword. As usual, all sorts of things would be going on, none of which I would see until my time in the box was up. As it turned out, I was in reasonably early, and was soon standing in front of judge and jury in my stab vest.

Things have changed over the years. Time was when a constable would give evidence in tunic and mirror boots, whistle chain gleaming. Now, the fashion is to give evidence in your working rig, so I was stood there with my breasts squeezed inside a Kevlar top. Not comfortable.

“Do you wish to swear or affirm?”

“Swear”

I took the book and read the words, then as is normal gave my name, rank, number and station.

“Anne Jessica Price, Police Sergeant, shoulder number CW994, Crawley police station.”

Our silk began the process of sifting my story for the juicy bits, but first he set the scene, which was what I had been dreading.

“Sergeant Price, having examined the custody record for Darren Eyres it appears to have been written by someone called Adam. Can you explain, simply, the reason for your appearance here?”

“The explanation is a simple one. I am a male to female transsexual now in the process of transition. Adam was the name I had before I swore a deed poll for change of name”

“Thank you, Sergeant. Now, I would like to take you through the events of…”

Bit by bit, we talked through Darren’s arrest, my suspicions, and Doc Khan’s examination, as well as Polly’s arrival. In practical terms, my evidence was very limited. Boy comes in, boy gives rise to concern, doctor and appropriate adult called in. To my relief, the defence didn’t seem to want to have a go at me. Perhaps my status was just too skewed to give them a way to attack me. I was discharged, and took a seat in the public gallery, Ma Pickstock’s glare competing with the curious stares of the jurors.

Darren was next up, and I was proud to see that he had refused the offer of screens to shelter him from the evil looks the defendants would be giving him. Once again, he was sworn in, and led through almost every crime he had committed in his short life. I could see several of the jurors hardening against him, and then our barrister changed tack.

“Are you a good thief, Darren?”

“Yeah, I can lift stuff real good, not get seen”

“So why were you in a cell so often?”

That slowed him down. He looked around for me, and I had to look away, he needed to do it on his own.

“Cause it was better than that other place, yeah?”

“In what way, Darren?”

“Joey weren’t there, I was safe, lahk”

“Safe from what?”

“His fists, yeah?”

Our man led him back into the nightmare, the beatings, Joey Harber, Harton, Petherick…

“What was it that you gave Harber?”

“OBJECTION! Leading the witness”

Justice Wetherby looked across her glasses at our man. “Perhaps counsel could reconsider?”

“I am grateful, your honour. Darren, are you aware of any reason that Joey Harber might have had for beating you?”

“I had to nick stuff for him, and he took it all and gave it to Ma Pickstock”

“How do you know he gave it to her?”

“Cause I saw it, loadsa times, she come round with a van, at the home, lahk”

“Was Mr Petherick aware of this, to your knowledge?”

“Well, he were there, yeah?”
“Are you aware of any reason Mr Petherick would involve himself in such a clearly criminal procedure?”

“OBJECTION! Opinion!”

Wetherby looked at our man again. “Yes, Mr Ballantyne?”

“Your honour, we have established quite clearly that the witness has a clear understanding of criminality, as he has been arrested, charged and convicted on a large number of occasions. He clearly understands that theft is proscribed, and one can safely assume that the disposal of the illicit haul would be, in his opinion and understanding, of a kind with the theft”

She nodded. “Overruled. Pray continue”

“Darren, do you know of any reason he would break the law in such a way?”

I could see the trembling start, even from the public gallery.

“Yeah…”

“Can you tell us? Can you tell the jury, Darren?”

His head was down, but the words were clear. “Was girls, yeah”

“Mr Petherick had a girlfriend?”

Oh, you snide bastard. I knew exactly what he wanted out, and I felt the same way, but it was so hard on Darren.

“No, Ma Pickstock brought him girls, him and Joey Harber, yeah? She were bringing them Chantelle, lahk”

“Who is Chantelle, Darren?”

He pointed at Pickstock. “She’s her nan, yeah?”

“Darren, please think carefully about this question. How old is Chantelle?”

“Dunno, she was twelve two months ago, dunno if she had her thirteenth yet”

That brought so much noise from the public gallery that for the first time ever I heard a judge threaten to clear a courtroom.

In the end, the defence had nothing to throw at Darren in cross-examination except for his criminality, but as the reasons behind that, and his attempts to escape it, were so well presented by the prosecution, he had to allow Darren to be released. He was crying, and one of Polly’s colleagues took him away to where Naomi awaited him. Polly herself gave her evidence, and then we went through the shootings, and Richard showed up well under some very hostile cross-examination, suggesting that he had not identified himself, he had appeared to be a burglar trying to break into the caravan, and so on. Richard bounced it all back like a pro. The afternoon ran down with a couple more of Ma’s juvenile thieves, and then we finished for the day.

The following day, Chantelle was due to give her evidence. I wanted to be in court for that. I owed it to her.

CAUTION:REFERENCES TO CHILD ABUSE

CHAPTER 76
The ride up was as dismal, the walk across the tram tracks and up to the grey bulk of the courtroom serving to depress me further.

I wasn’t on duty that time, so I had picked out a simple blouse and skirt in white and grey, with a darker grey cardigan under my winter fleece. It was, of course, drizzling, and I realised I should have brought a proper coat rather than an umbrella, as it started to chill my shoulders.

I took my seat in the public gallery when the court opened and tried to centre myself, find a little calm space in which to settle. I could feel the old demons knocking at the door, and this time they had to be kept out. As I sat and waited for the judge, I must have given off some sort of aura, as nobody took the seats either side of me. Don’t go near the ticking bomb…then a body dropped into each seat, and I looked round to see Den and Kirsty. They each took a hand, and then Richard came in to join us. My nick was taking this extremely personally.

Pickstock, Petherick and Harton were there, Petherick in particular looking as if he hadn’t slept for weeks. Ma gave us a glare of pure hatred, and Harton caught where she was looking, and his own glare held nothing but contempt. My shoes cost more than you earn in a week, he was saying. My return glare told him that I knew which one of us was heading for Rule 45 and a long time on it. Nonce.

Wind your neck in, girl, and try and send your strength to some girl who has just had her thirteenth birthday. I had never hated my clients, I had never hated the stupid teenagers who had burned before my eyes, nor the idiot who had caused an old Rover to crash on a mountain road, but oh, how I hated him. I despised Petherick, but him, him and Ma, I found myself hating. Petherick was the weak pervert, the one who gave in to his needs and then shat himself over getting caught, but went back for more each time it was offered. Harton was the one who delighted in it, the one who would have justified it under interview, dirty little whore, she wanted it every time.

And her grandmother. Someone who had been blessed with everything I had ever wanted, and turned gold into filth, the reverse alchemy of pure and unadulterated evil.

Calm now, girl. Den felt me trembling, and kissed my cheek in reassurance, whispering “Keep it together for her, OK?”

“All rise!”

Judge Wetherby came in, robes flowing, face carefully neutral, and the show began. There was the ritual demand by the defence that the witness be produced in court, the counter-objection by the prosecution in regard to vulnerability, and the politely worded ruling by the Judge that the defence could go and take a running jump.

We had video screens in place, and a number of cameras to return images to a little girl in another place, and then she was there and the teasing out began, as Chantelle sat in a room of soft furnishings with one of Polly’s tribe. She was taken through an oath, which the judge herself administered in a heartbreakingly gentle way.

“Good morning, Chantelle. My name is David Ballantyne. You can call me David, or Mr Ballantyne, whichever you prefer. I would like to ask you some questions. I am sorry, but they will be about bad things, but we have a lot of time and we can take things as slowly as you need. Will that be OK?”

She nodded, then looked round at the social worker as if remembering something, and then simply said “Yes, David”

“Chantelle, we have a lot of cameras here, so you can see people. Can you see three people sat together?”

“Yes, that’s Peter, and Timmy, and my Nan”

“Peter Harton, Timothy Petherick, and can you remember your Nan’s name?”

“She’s called Charity”

“Charity Pickstock?”

“Yeah…”

“Chantelle…”

He took her through the shooting, slowly, gently, and several times she had to pause as the social worker attended to her, and then, and then…

“Chantelle, why were you in Joey’s caravan?”

“It was his turn, Nan said”

“His turn for what?”

“His turn to fuck me”

That was the moment breath was sharply drawn throughout the courtroom, and I looked at Wetherby as she made her notes, face neutral but knuckles white. The usher passed a box of tissues to the jury.

“Chantelle, did anyone else fuck you?”

“Yeah, Peter and Timmy, but it wasn’t their turn”

“Chantelle, I know this is hard, but can you remember how old you were when they started?”

She mumbled something. The social worker whispered to her, and I knew what it was, be strong, be brave, speak up for the court.

“Nine…”

Gradually, subtly, Ballantyne drew out her story, and I really cannot bear to go into any more detail. Finally, our man let her rest, but then it was the turn of the defence.

“Chantelle, I am Ewan Whybrow. I need to ask you some questions, and you need to remember that if you tell me things that are untrue, if you invent bad stories it will–“

“Objection. The witness has understood the oath she has taken. Badgering”

“Objection sustained. Counsel will bear in mind the age and circumstances of the witness.”

Whybrow dropped his head in a slight bow. “I am grateful to your honour for your assistance. Chantelle, how long have you known Mr Harton, Peter?”

“Since I was nine”

“Is he a good looking man?”

You bastard. I knew of one case where a rather strange judge had declared that an eight year old victim was a sexual temptress, and that was clearly the route that Whybrow was trying. That was when Chantelle seemed to wake up.

“No, he isn’t, he’s old, and fat, and his cock tasted all cheesy and nasty, and it fucking HURT and I never wanted to do it, but they hit me and tied me and I want them DEAD THE DIRTY BASTARDS!!”

That was also when the judge adjourned the court so that a little girl might have a chance to recover some control and some dignity, and when I saw the defence finally give it up as a bad job.

“Your honour, no further questions for this witness”

“Thank you. This court will reconvene in one hour”

“All rise!”

Den and Kirsty all but carried me out from the courtroom, straight to the public cafeteria, where Richard brought over a tray of teas. I was trembling with impotent rage, at the betrayal the old witch had wrought, flesh of her flesh, and then I started to drag myself back from the brink of screaming as the others talked quietly and held me, and finally I could pick up the plastic beaker of tea without spilling half of it over the table.

Richard was icily calm. “I think we have them, Annie, I think that little gamble from Whybrow cooked their goose big style”

“What the fuck was he doing, Richard? She’s the fucking VICTIM in all this!”

“He had no choice, girl. There’s no room for the smoke and mirrors shit, Darren closed that route down, all he had left was mudslinging, and if I want to be honest about it, I really don’t think his heart was in it”

“Yeah, but what he SAID!”

Richard sighed. “He has a job to do. He has to try his best. Look at it this way, if he didn’t try, then the bastards would have grounds for appeal, and trust me, Annie, that trial is over. There will be more witnesses, more evidence, all the stuff from the shops, and the forensics and stuff, but Chantelle has just convicted all three. Look, just go home, go home now and see your bloke, and do whatever it is you do to make the day better, and come back to work knowing that three pieces of shit will be going down hard.”

Den wrapped an arm around me. “Aye, lass, it’s time you got out of this place. Ring Eric, tell him to meet us at Kirsty’s, and we will have unhealthy food and excessive alcohol, OK?”

So I did, and then I rang Naomi to talk her through it, and we rode red-eyed back to Crawley, where Eric joined us for far too much Chinese food and stupid quantities of wine, and that night I lay in his arms in their spare bedroom and sobbed into his chest, and he knew, and understood, and held me, until I finally slept.

No dreams, none at all.

CHAPTER 77
I left it for a couple of days as the trial wound down, but I made sure I was there when the last of the witnesses was finally dismissed and the summing up was given by Her Honour Justice Wetherby. It was neat, it was simple, and it was brutal.

There were three crimes to consider, in essence, being the organising and managing of a theft ring, combined with handling stolen goods and faginism. Then there was perversion of the course of justice, attempted perversion of the course of justice and conspiracy to pervert it. Finally, finally, there was rape, unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, sexual assault of a minor, assault occasioning actual bodily harm of several minors; that particular list went on for rather a long while. Eric was with me, his hand on mine, and I noticed several of the jurors look directly at me as we sat in the public gallery. One of them gave just the very slightest of nods to me, and then looked back at the judge.

Eric took me down the Porter and Sorter after they had retired, and I sank a pint in a very short while. The CPS lady had promised to text me when the jury were due to return.

“Steady, love. Still early and all, this is where you need some strength”

“Eric, is it wrong to want them all dead?”

He thought for a while, looking into his own pint as if the answer lay in drink. “No, it isn’t, it is perfectly natural. To do it, though, to kill someone coldly, that would be wrong. Would make you no better than them. Wish them dead, by all means, but leave it to the court and the prisons”

“Yeah, but when will that little girl ever be free, aye? I thought I had it bad, but, fuck, how can she ever sleep again?”

“You do. Darren does. Somehow, some day, she will find her own way. Or someone like Naomi and Albert will step in. She is young, love, and she showed some strength there. Richard was saying how she was almost catatonic when they first got to her, so someone somewhere is helping her. If she can come this far this quickly…well, the kid has guts Come on, there’s a tapas bar round the corner, if you stay here you will get pissed, and then you’ll get me pissed”

So we moved on, and had a lunch that would have been superb if I had been able to swallow past the lump in my chest. Just as we took coffee, my phone beeped urgently. The text from the Crown Prosecution Service read “Jury back in at one thirty lunch first”

I showed it to Eric, and he nodded and took my hands in his across the table.

“Partners, remember? We do things together, makes them easier. Finish up, and I ‘ll walk you to the court”

I looked across at him, taking in the lines of his face, the crinkly bits round his eyes, the softness of his smile.

“How do you do it, love? How do you put things like this behind you? I ‘m the one who is supposed to be case-hardened, thick-skinned, aye?”

“It’s because of you, Annie, you need me, and so it is easier for me to be strong. I have to be for you, so it is easier to hang on, yeah?”

“Aye, I suppose…look, I have a sort of plan for the weekend, so we shall have some time for fun, yeah, or at least for clearing our heads. Drink up and let’s get back, aye? The press is going to be all over this one, so let’s make sure we have some decent seats”

The place was packed, but the usher knew who I was, and two seats were miraculously saved for us. The three were brought in, and their expressions were so different from each other’s, but all having one thing in common: fear. I understood immediately that they knew, in their hearts, that they were damned in so many different ways. I almost wished there were a real God to make that damnation eternal. The jury filed in, to do their best in his place.

“All rise”

Petherick looked as if he had been crying, peering round at the gallery as if seeking his mother, to ask her to take him home and keep him safe from all these nasty people, and for a short moment I almost felt sorry for him. Harton, by contrast, was like a trapped animal, but Ma…Ma was still trying to show what a hard bitch she was, and I received her glare full on. I gave it straight back, sending my thoughts down my stare. Die, you bitch, die painfully, and soon.

The drama unfolded in the prescribed way. Yes, they had elected a foreman, yes they had reached verdicts, and yes, those were the verdicts of them all. I noticed the looks on the jurors’ faces, the contempt, the hatred, and only one of them looked away from the dock as the long string of ‘guilty’ verdicts was delivered. Judge Wetherby listened quietly as the nails went into three coffins, and then lifted her head.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this court thanks you for the great service you have given it, in the face of truly appalling revelations. I thank you, personally, for staying the course so well.”

She turned to the dock. “It is normal in such cases to express the sentiment that such evil has never come before the court’s eyes before. That would not be true, as I have presided over worse cases of abuse. Those cases resulted in the deaths of the children concerned, and I am properly grateful to Providence that such has not been the case here. Be aware, however, Charity Pickstock, Timothy Petherick and Peter Harton, that I do not consider that to have been in your gift. Nor do I consider it in any way to lower the level of depravity and evil in which all three of you conspired. Does learned counsel have any mitigation that he wishes to offer before sentence?”

Whybrow simply bobbed up, said “I have none, your Honour”

“Very well. I must confess that I would have been astonished if any mitigation would be possible, let alone offered, for such crimes. Stand, all of you.

They rose, Harton's eyes looking everywhere but at the judge, and I suddenly realised a woman nearby, weeping silently, was his wife.

“Harton, firstly I have been presented with information served under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and accordingly I have ordered the freezing of your assets, including houses and cars, until such time as the legitimacy of their origin be determined. For the various counts of theft and handling stolen goods I sentence you to ten years imprisonment. Petherick, for the same crimes, ten years. Pickstock, for the same crimes, ten years. Those sentences to be served concurrently with the other terms I am shortly to deliver.

“For the various crimes involving the perversion of the course of justice, each of you will serve ten years imprisonment”

She dropped her head, and took off her glasses to rub her eyes.

“Peter Harton, for multiple offences of rape and other crimes of assault and bodily harm, against a child under ten, life imprisonment. Minimum term to be served before review, twenty-five years. Your name to be entered on the sexual offenders register in perpetuity.

“Timothy Petherick, for those same offences, life imprisonment, minimum term twenty-five years, and entry on the sexual offenders register in perpetuity.

“Pickstock, for conspiracy to commit rape on a child under ten years of age, procuring the indecent assault, actual bodily harm and rape of a child under ten years, life imprisonment, minimum term twenty-five years, your name also to be on the sexual offenders register in perpetuity”

“Why me? I didn’t rape nobody!”

“Be silent. Why you? Because, Pickstock, you took your own grandchild, you offered her to the fire for money. You destroyed the innocence of a child, a member of your family, your own flesh, for financial gain, and it is clear that you have no remorse whatsoever. Well, all three of you now have at least twenty-five years to consider your sins. Your granddaughter, as well as all of the other children beaten and abused by you, and Harber, and these others who demean the concept of humanity, those children now have to live with the memories of how you defiled their souls as well as their bodies. Take them down, and out of my sight.”

She rose, and I noticed that even though her voice had stayed level, she was trembling slightly, and we stood, and Mrs Harton went past me sobbing as I felt no sympathy whatsoever. It was done.

I was astonished to see Ewan Whybrow talking to our man David Ballantyne, the latter with an arm over Whybrow’s shoulder. I walked over to them, Eric in tow. Whybrow held out his hand.

“Sergeant Price, it is now over, thank God. Please understand I have no malice in this, I am merely required to represent the interests of my client as best I can. I will be honest with you, I nearly withdrew, on the grounds of professional embarrassment, but that would merely have passed a very shitty stick to another poor soul”

He looked at Ballantyne. “Withnail? I think we owe it to ourselves”

I gave a puzzled look back, and Ballantyne smiled.

“It is a tradition, after such a case, to watch the film ‘Withnail and I’ “

I was still puzzled. “And that helps?”

Whybrow suddenly grinned. “It does when you try and match them drink for drink!”

We left them to their planned debauch, and went out through the court’s front doors. The first flashes went off in my face as we did so, and the shouting started.

“Adam! Over here! Can we have some cleavage!”

That wasn’t actually what was said, but it was what they meant. Suddenly, the whole purpose of the trial had collapsed into ‘man in dress’, and as we struggled past the crowd of reporters I heard a shout of “Is he gay too?”

Eric turned on them, and just before the Super appeared to make the ritual announcement of the result, Eric called out in a disgusted voice “Neither me nor my fiancée is gay!”

CHAPTER78
Fortunately for us, the Super’s little speech grabbed their attention, and we managed to scuttle off to the train.

I was in two inch heels at the time, which made running a bit of a problem, but we managed our escape, and there was a Portsmouth-bound train pulling in just as we clattered onto the platform. I was so disoriented by the paparazzi that I found myself looking for the red edges on the cycle-space doors, until Eric noticed and pulled me on board.

“No bike today, love”

We settled into a couple of seats and it hit me.

“What did you say back there?”

“That we aren’t gay”

“No, the other word, aye?”

“Well, it sort of made sense at the time…”

“And now? Does it still sort of make sense?”

That led to some inspection of his knees, and I realised that he was profoundly embarrassed. I didn’t know what to think: a man in a dress, for all intents and purposes save my own, not that long divorced from a woman, wondering whether another man had just proposed marriage. Did I want that? My heart gave me the answer immediately–of course I bloody did. The things this particular man had done for me had only been surpassed by Ginny’s tricks, and not only was she married already, but she was a girl and I was absolutely straight.

Once more my mind tried to go into lockdown. Transition is such a hard process, not just in the reactions you expect and receive from those around you. It is a big thing, declaring that your entire anatomy is at fault, that thirty-odd years of your life has been a carefully-managed act, a pack of lies. It is so easy to hear the little voices whispering “not true”, to feel the self-doubt welling up, that when something erupts naturally it can be both wonderful and terrifying.

I was absolutely straight, as straight as a girl could be. I loved both Ginny and Eric deeply, but it was Eric I fancied, and it was his hesitant fumbling towards commitment I adored.

“Eric love, if you meant what it sounded like, and if it doesn’t disturb you too much, I am going to make a huge assumption here and spare your nerves. The answer is the only one I could and would ever give, aye, and it is ‘yes’, of course”

He reached out and took my hand. “You sure?”

“Never more so. Absolutely sure. I can’t imagine life without you, and with the new house it might get a bit awkward. Are you sure?”

Suddenly the grin was there again, like a sun erupting through clouds. “Fuck, yeah!”

So we kissed, of course. It’s what you do.

Off at Horley and along to our marital-to-be-home, and I had to take a shower to wash off the taint of the trial, and of course he joined me, and things continued traditionally. Once my heart rate was back to something approaching normal, and we were dry again, I led the way up to the Woods’ place to let Darren know how things had gone. It was cold and grey, so I was in tights under my shorts, and as usual I was reminded of the fact that my anatomy was still able to dictate my wardrobe. No simple winter cycling kit when I still had something swinging between my legs, no marriage to my man yet for the same reasons. I assumed, given the circumstances, that Sally had marked me down for my ‘real life test’ already, as I could hardly be more immersed in my life as a woman, but that would need a bit of a prod. Sooner started, sooner over.

Naomi welcomed us in with a smile and a cuppa, as we warmed up in the kitchen.

“He should be on his way back by now. Albert is out visiting a prospective new client, so you’ll have no silly computerised interruptions. How did it go?”

“All guilty, all life sentences. I think the judge was more than a little upset with them. Given the choice, aye, she’d have had them strung up. Can’t really ask for a better result, but we had a bit of a problem with the papers outside”

She sighed. “Let me guess, my dear: copper in a frock?”

I nodded. “Eric shut them up, though. He shouted ‘Neither my fiancée nor me is gay’ and then we ran for it, sort of, my shoes didn’t help”

Eric was blushing, and Naomi’s eyes had widened. “Oh my darling girl, is that the truth? Has he?”

Eric, pinkly, took my hand and smiled at her. “Yes he has, and she has said the hoped-for, so there you go. I need to tidy up some of the loose ends, such as jewellery, but it is, as they say, what it says on the tin.”

“My darlings, Darren will be thrilled, and Albert too. Have you told next door yet?”

I shook my head. “All our friends are actually at work, so no, we haven’t, but I rather suspect the press will leak that one tomorrow, so if it is all right with you, we shall borrow your phone for a few calls later”

“And you are staying for tea, naturally”

“Naturally!”

There was a bang at the door, and the thump of a bag being dropped, and a medium-sized lump of flesh hit me with a hug. Darren was home, and after squeezing my breath out he pulled back to look at me, and I knew what the question was.

“Yes, it’s over. All guilty, all got life. They are gone, Darren, banged away for as long as they could be.”

“An’ Chantelle? She OK?”

“Darren, we only saw her on the video link, aye? I will tell you, though, she is a brave girl, and she told the court what they were and she did it with real fire. I think she is recovering, and this should help. I really hope it does”

“Can I go and see her, lahk?”

Ah. I should have seen that one coming. One extra bit of torment laid on a young man’s shoulders, knowing that the girl he had a crush on was being sold by the pound to men like Harton, and Harber. Every time the punches had come in, had they felt worse because Darren knew what Harber was doing?

“Tell you what, Darren, shall we ask Polly, see what she says? Now, Eric and I have some news”

That brought a grin. “I know what that is, innit? You gonna get married, yeah?”

“Darren Eyres, are you bloody telepathic?”

“No, just not stupid, lahk. Can see you two, yeah, you all loved up, is good, yeah? You my best friends, makes me smile, makes me really happy, yeah?”

It actually seemed to be making him cry, so I held him, and Naomi got out the nice biscuits, and we talked and laughed together till Albert came home, and then we laughed some more until Darren spotted Steph riding into her driveway, and went shooting out of the back door. Me and my big mouth. Of course, she was in the kitchen in nothing flat, and Darren was almost hopping from foot to foot.

“I didn’t tell her, yeah?”

“Steph…fancy being a bridesmaid?”

My hearing recovered several days later, as each call led to squeals of delight that had me holding the handset away from my ear. Eric and Steph sat down with a piece of paper to list out who needed to be called, and tick off those I did, and we worked our way through a long list of friends. Dennis was in Custody, so I left it with him to pass the word around the nick, and as each of my friends erupted in happy congratulations I realised once more how incredibly lucky I was.

Geoff appeared at last, and joined his wife. On hearing the news, he looked at her.

“Party?

She nodded. “Party”

“Music?”

“Naturally!”

“Beer?”

“Popes and bears!”

“Sorted, then” He looked at Naomi. “Makes sense to do it here, I suppose, two houses, more room for the casualties to collapse, if that is OK. Then we can start plotting–er, I mean planning. I’ll let Bill know, Steph, Annie, if that’s OK”

I nodded. “Thanks, Geoff, that would be great. Steph, could you do me a favour and let Sarah know? I don’t want to presume too much here, but I fancy a real blow out.”

She laughed, in a particularly evil way. “Oh, I think Sarah can be relied upon to make things go with a bang…”

The next day I was back at work, on an early turn, and the word was well and truly out, as almost everybody went past with a grin and a kind word. That fell apart when the first papers were brought in. I won’t go into too much detail, but almost all of them went with two stories, one being the evil paedos brought to justice because of the fearless investigation by their own reporters, the other a string of items about a tranny copper. The worst line of all came from a particular redtop, who declared that although I was in a skirt I was still carrying my truncheon. Jim saw, and came over to check on me, carrying some brown sludge so full of caffeine it was climbing out of the mug on its own.

“You OK, Annie?”

I looked up from the Daily Mail’s coverage, as predictable as ever. A story too shocking to read, see pages 1-6, 9-24, .etc.

“I am, Jim. Got some scissors?”

I cut out all the reports on me I could, and pinned them up around the rest room. Using the computer, I printed out a banner that I posted above the cuttings.

“Engaged to the best man in the world. DILLIGAF?”

CHAPTER 79
Yes we went shopping, yes we bought a ring (joint account…I think I was missing a trick there) and yes it had to be paraded around work. Kirsty was insistent that it be worn “Otherwise some scrote of a punter will try chatting you up”

I had an appointment that week with Sally, and of course it had to be shown, and admired, and Doc Khan had to come round, and, well, you know how it goes. Sally was her usual dry self, though.

“So, I am assuming that you are starting your real life test, Annie?”

I laughed. “I think I started that one some months ago, Sal, to be honest. It just sort of crept up on me. Or rather, Eric did.”

“So it’s all about blokes, then”

“No, not at all, but one bloke in particular is very important to me”

“Important enough for you to cut your penis off for?”

“Not subtle, Sally, not at all. You know full well that this is a congenital thing, not a lust and randiness construction. My feelings for Eric come from what I am and not the other way round, aye? Nice try, by the way. No cigar, though”

“Ah, girl, I have to make the effort, I get paid for it. You just make it all a bit too easy now. Far cry from when you first came in, all that terror, wound up tighter than a duck’s arse”

“Sal, professionally speaking, should you be talking to me like this?”

She smiled, happily. “When I am signing someone off, I can say what I like. It’s a bit of a habit with me, it seems, getting to be too matey with my patients. Did it with Steph, certainly did it with poor Mel. Normal practice is for me to sign you over to another trick cyclist, and they will see you through the rest.”

I must have betrayed a little unease, because she put a hand on my arm.

“No, Annie, no. You are a friend now, a good one, so it isn’t goodbye, it’s just hands off on the pro front. Now, before I settle down to sort you a new sadist, tell me about what you have planned at this party”

“Ah, I am having as many folk as I can, providing food and drink in quantity, and then using Naomi’s expertise with hidden cameras to record the whole shebang for fun and profit through blackmail!”

She nodded. “Nothing out of the ordinary, then”

“Seriously? I have one of my odder pieces, I want Darren to have a go at it, and I really want to see him play among friends, as a session type thing, not just as someone on stage and out of reach.”

“This odder piece…knowing your tastes, is it Tull or something Scandinavian?”

“You know me too well, Sal. Scandinavian”

“I should know you, I get paid for it. That skinny blonde or the really scary ones?”

“It’s a really atmospheric one from Den Fule, and it has some odd percussion stuff, and I think Darren could make something of it if I gave him a listen”

“You really care about him, don’t you?”

“He’s a survivor, aye? I nearly gave up, but he stayed the course. There’s heart in him, and he has the Woods happy as anything. I shouldn’t really say, but he was talking about Chantelle Pickstock the other day, and I sort of got the impression that he not only knows her, aye, but, well, you know”

“You got any news about her?”

“Need to speak to Polly, find out what the score is. She was just about catatonic, they said, after the shooting”

“Not exactly surprising, girl. Look what stuff like that did to you. Somehow, as a man, I don’t think Stewie would be first choice to talk her through it.”

“He will be free for the do, aye?”

“Annie, I doubt he would miss it for anything. Just one question: do I have to get drunk?”

“Absolutely”

“Good-oh! Now, I’ll let you know the details of Shrink Mark Two as soon as I have them, but I have an idea who it might be. Want me to talk to Polly? I have an idea there myself”

Over the next few days I quietly coached Darren and Steph in the intricacies of ‘Fly med Mig’, and he was really working at it, trying to use one stretched drum skin to speak the whole of the tune’s beat. It’s a slow and slithery piece, with no real room for letting rip but plenty for subtle little twists and cross-playing. He got the idea immediately, and started experimenting with different beaters to get it ‘just so’ and, as we worked, I was badgering Polly.

“Yes, Sally did say. Is this going to be a full-on debauch, or would there be a more restrained start to proceedings?”

“Well, we want to have a bit of a play first, aye, and then a meal, and only then do we sort of anticipate getting uncivilised”

“I will see what I can do. It might actually be a good idea, get her in the middle of normal people being silly and happy”

I had to laugh at that idea. “Me? Normal? And Eric plays the banjo! Not to mention Ginny…”

And so it went. Geoff and I did some serious shopping runs in his van, while Naomi spent extended periods in the kitchen making what can only be described as ‘stuff’, a lot of which she froze. I can cook, but it is largely a matter of main meals rather than party food, so her skills were a foreign country to me. The eve of it all finally arrived, and with it the Woodruff clan and the Edifice, as Steph insisted it be called, which flowered in her back garden. Along with them came Mark.

I watched the two together, Kelly and Mark, and the only word that came to mind was serenity. Kelly had always, in my experience of her, been an effervescent girl, even with the tearful moment she had shared with me, but now it was much more grounded. The two of them weren’t joined at the hip, but I felt they were always aware of each other, and more than once I caught Jan looking wistfully after the pair.

“Penny for them?”

“Ah, Annie, nothing much. Just realising how suddenly my little girl isn’t any more. Time passes, too quickly. And then…and then I remember what Bill and I were like, and that’s sweet, and then I realise how long ago that was”

I smiled at her. “And then you realise that he’s still the same, aye?”

That brought a happy grin. “The same as he always was. You’d think he’d grow up, wouldn’t you?”

I gave her a squeeze. “Would you really want that? No? Didn’t think so!”

She squeezed me back. “We are all so lucky, us women here, in our men. Big Bill would make some comment about karma, but I don’t believe in that stuff. I think, somehow, just for us, for our family, life has been generous”

She caught my raised eyebrow. “Don’t be silly, as far as we are concerned you are family, just like Albert and Naomi, and young Darren, I suppose. I mean, they are never going to let him go, are they? I think he’d rather die than leave them”

I nodded sharply. “Aye, he’s smitten. I just hope the SS are sensible for once. I am hoping for something else from them tomorrow, though, so fingers crossed”

We spent that evening down the Sun, having a simple pub meal rather than cook, Darren latching onto the other younger people. They were old enough for there to be a gulf between them and him, but not as old as the rest of us, so he made the best of everything, and there was laughter, and teasing, so it seemed to work. I slept that night in one of Steph’s spare beds, as Eric murmured beside me, thinking on Jan’s words. Lucky. Truly lucky, and that luck lay dribbling beside me.

Naomi’s present to us arrived the next morning, and it was the oddest engagement gift I could have imagined. Portable toilets. Plastic cubicles of the sort I remembered from festivals, trucked in and deposited in the driveway. Practical, inspired and, in truth, sweet. No, not the toilets, they had the same chemical reek they always have, but the idea. We had our breakfast, and then a small group retired to the conservatory as Steph’s gift arrived, and a marquee took shape in the Woods’ garden, just before the mobile bar set up. Steph was apologetic.

“I would have preferred some casks, but we’d have needed three days to set up and rack the ale, so it is bottled stuff mostly.”

“Steph, who’s been arranging all this?”

“Eric, to be honest, but your mate has been busy too. Den”

Lucky. So lucky.

The morning and early afternoon were spent putting the final touches to everything, with a raft of hired patio furniture and the last of the cooking, and then people started to arrive after about two. The Wilsons, of course, and the girls, Stewie and Sally, Kirsty and her gorgeous bloke, they found their spots in the garden and pitched their tents, or settled into one or other of the available bedrooms. It will sound mad to consider camping in winter, but with the right tent, and the right sleeping bag, and the right person to cuddle, it is a delight.

About three o’clock there was a small earthquake, and the Norvin rolled up, followed by Sarah’s riceburner and a little convoy of cars. I made my way out to greet them all, and it was with some nervousness I recognised a stocky figure emerging from one of the vehicles together with a really beautiful woman. The solid one looked right through me, and then looked back, and a smile split her features.

“Sergeant Price! Looking good, girl!”

“Inspector Powell, aye?”

The hug was as solid as she was. “Annie now, isn’t it? Sar told me the story, no way I could miss out on this one, so we brought the family, aye? You know Siá¢n, my missus?”

“Sort of, never really met. Looking good, Elaine”

“Looking fat, you mean. Her cooking, it is, too much loving whatsits. Now, you have a few here you don’t know”

“I know Jim. Jim, he’s out in Steph’s conservatory. Wipe your…too late.”

“Ah, boys. Who’d have ‘em?”

Who’d be one? She carried on with the introductions. “This is my uncle Arwel, and his wife Alice, his boy Hywel and Suzy, Alison and Steve, their little sods are the ones who ran off after Jim. It’s cold, girl…”

“Oh, sorry! Cuppa?”

“Wrth gwrs.”

I felt almost intimidated, all the men seemed so big. Sarah gave me a quick hug before asking for somewhere to skin herself and Tony, and I led the rest into Steph’s kitchen, where rows of cheap camping mugs stood ready.

It was going to be a hell of a night.

CHAPTER 80
It was too easy to get lost. All I had to remember, really, was that if he was a big man, and its name didn’t start with a D, he was from Sarah’s entourage. Her husband included, they really were stupidly big, and I could see where Elaine got her looks from. She wasn’t fat, just square, and apart from the look around the eyes and mouth, Sarah was very different. I have to admit that I lost track of the names of the kids.

“Sar, what are you doing about bed space?”

“Ych, took a block booking at the Travelodgy place for the others, but Steve and Tony and the kids are campers. I have delegated the beefcake to doing the erections. Isn’t that what men are for?”

I must have taken some time to pull my jaw up, because next thing I knew I had a head peering over my shoulder and a hand squeezing my bum. Ginny was amused.

“Annie, I think I might like this woman, if I can wean her off solids.”

I turned my head as far as I could. “Ginny, not only are you married, but so is she, and she has a scary family, aye?”

She laughed. “Not as scary as my girly would be, yeah?”

I gave her that one on points. We were almost done with the domestic arrangements, as tents sprouted and sleeping bags occupied odd corners of the two houses. Sarah had changed from her leathers into a denim miniskirt and little spiky boots, a real rock chick look, and I looked at her legs and bum and could have killed her. There again…

Eric had insisted, and my slimmer-but-not-slim figure was getting there. I had finally taken the hint, and by the time everyone was settling into the houses and gardens I was settling into his gifts, some seriously debauched underwear beneath what would have been the perfect LBD if I had been at least two sizes smaller, and shoooooooz. Alice just about matched me, heels and stockings-wise, but I had a lesson to learn.

When having a ‘do’ in a marquee, high court shoes are fine in the house, and on the decking in the marquee, but not for walking across the grass between the two. Alice and Sarah showed me the flats they were carrying, after Alison had laughed herself silly over my attempts to cross a soft, damp lawn in heels. I went and found some trainers.

It sounds like a mad whirl, and it was, getting everything moving until people and the party could take on a life and movement of their own. At several points, Eric managed to catch up, and I got a hug, or a soft kiss, or just a touch to my arm or face. Dave’s wife was in the kitchen a lot, and I had the time to study her as we handed out cups and plastic pint glasses, and Naomi and Steph laid out the platters of finger food. Her dark eyes obviously caught me looking at her, and she smiled.

“I’m Joy, Dave’s missus”

“Oh, I know that, I was just curious”

“What about?”

“How does someone as normal as you seem to be end up with a nutter like him?”

Ice broken. I got the comments about the lovely dress, and the ring, and the sharp intake of breath when I said the words ‘joint account’, and it was nice, but I was starting to get overloaded with faces. I went looking for Darren, finding him in the Woods’ place with a huddle of other children

“You up for playing, kiddo?”

His eyes widened, and he was off his belly as if the floor were alight, leaving the others to continue the computer game they had been playing. He paused long enough to look me up and down.

“Annie….you look beautiful, Eric, he really lucky guy, yeah?”

That did it, and he got a hug, and a lipstick brand on his cheek, and we gathered together our instruments, and I sent him to find Steph and Jan as I carried out Eric’s guitar with Saburo. Into my trainers, over the grass, back into my pretty shoes, with the fleeting thought that I no longer needed to buy ones with an adjustable fit, and then we were setting up ready for some fun. Steph joined us with her fiddle case, Jan in tow. Both were in longer dresses than mine, and I felt a little out of place. Steph caught my hesitation.

“Looking gorgeous, Annie, but I think there’ll be no standing on one leg in that dress. I’ve given sis-in-law an idea of the big piece, but we’ll do a few standards to warm up first, if that’s OK”

Geoff and Bill settled into a couple of chairs at one side, with bouzouki and squeezebox, as Jan and Darren compared beaters and skins on the other side, and our visiting barman dished out bottled ale to a sound track of soft rock, which Eric killed. Guitar in hand, he made the announcement.

“Those of you who know these two ladies at all well will know they like their music, and so do we. Young Darren here has some tricks to show you as well, so if you want to dance feel free, if you want to stand and listen that’s fine, but if you prefer to bugger off down the Sun, make sure you bring me back some pork scratchings.

“Thank you all, though, for braving this time of year to help us celebrate my engagement to this wonderful woman. I’m happy, I think she is too, so if you aren’t, get some more ale down your neck and pretend. Now, without more ado, here are Hairy and the one-legged woman!”

We ran through the standards Steph suggested, and it was good, and it was tight, and people were doing that odd semi-traditional swinging on the marquee decking, and the empties were piling up. I was feeling really odd at first, the various ‘sexy’ items of underwear at first pulling in odd ways and the heels making me think about my ‘stage’ movements. Steph whispered in my ear during a pause.

“Suspenders, yeah? Feel odd, don’t they?”

I just nodded, resisting the urge to pull them about. “Time for the piece de resistance, aye?”

“Oh aye. Jan, can you follow Darren for the intro, and just set up some cross rhythms? Let him drive”

I gave Darren the nod, and he started in, setting a low beat with lots of right hand, making the tone of his drum rise and fall as he worked between flat hand and cupped edge to give a truly atmospheric sound that Jan started to echo, Eric then started a quiet and limited set of chords until Steph joined in with a slow, pulsing figure involving some quite sharp right hand work. Once the key was established, Geoff came in with more quiet chords, and Bill was there with odd bits of percussion.

I started the intricate, looping tune and began to lose myself in it, Saburo taking on his own life, me forgetting that I was under canvas, in stockings and heels and a little black dress, just wrapped in the sounds we made, and I was away, drifting, but Darren’s face was ecstatic, as the music stole his soul just like it had taken mine, and…and it had to come to an end, in a slowly fading pattern of soft beats from his drum as Steph and I held a steady note and the others sat silent behind us.

Oh. Oh god. That was what I was born for, and I think at that point he was having the same thought, and none of us moved for at least ten seconds, as the applause started sporadically and then swept around us, and Steph and I stood aside so his friends could see him, for he knew, now, that he had friends.

I looked at him as that thought clearly came into his heart. “I think you deserve a beer, Darren. Take it slowly, though”

“Na, I’ll have a coke, lahk. Don’t want to get pissed, this is too much fun, yeah?”

He got his coke, and we played some more of the standards as people recovered their dancing feet, and I watched my man as he grinned and played. How could we ever NOT play? People came and went past us, Kelly and Mark, Ginny and Kate, while others sat quietly and happily to one side. I was part way through one bit of woodwind-linked silliness, trying to decide if it would actually be possible to do an Anderson on one leg without showing everything I had, when I noticed a couple of people standing quietly by the doorway into the tent.

It was Polly and her man, and I waved the other end of the flute at them as I strutted and Steph shook, and Darren just drummed his heart out, and then I saw the blonde head.

They’d brought Chantelle.

CHAPTER 81
She stood there, framed by the two and clinging to Polly’s hand, flinching every so often as a couple came near. I brought the tune to an end as quickly as I could without it seeming rushed, and then had a quick word with Steph, who understood immediately. A quick decision:

“Darren, I need your help. Can you get Jim and the other three, and meet me over by the door to the Woods’ conservatory? Five minutes, aye?”

He nodded, I gave him some more instructions and then swayed off on my silly shoes to say hello.

She was still drawn in the face, and her eyes wouldn’t stay on one spot for any length of time, but I caught the flash of recognition at my approach.

“You’re that copper, from the court, the tranny, yeah?”

“Hello, Chantelle. Yes, that’s me. Hi Polly, shall we go somewhere less noisy?”

Jan was just firing up some CDs as we went, and I suspected Sarah had had an input to the choice as the first thing I heard was an Angus Young riff. I led them to the edge of the hard surface of the marquee and quite deliberately started across the lawn in my heels, making a meal of their sinking into the damp turf.

“Silly shoes…”

Polly was trying hard not to corpse, and there was a perceptible twist to Chantelle’s mouth as I floundered the few yards to the small patio. Across the drive to the other house, and into the conservatory, where someone had thoughtfully left out some cans of soft drink as well as a few chocolate treats. I nodded to Polly, and she waved the girl forward as I sank into a seat, kicking off my shoes.

“Chantelle, I do love the shoes, but after a while it is so nice to get them off. Who’d be a woman, aye?”

She looked up from a plate of cake, and there was another little flicker of amusement. “Well, you wanna be one, lahk…”

“I am one, love, they just got things a little wrong when I was born. I have someone here who wants to meet you”

Her eyes went wide, and she dove into Polly’s arms, just as I realised what that phrase might have meant coming from the mouth of her grandmother. Polly soothed her.

“No, Shan, no, not like that, never ever like that again. Only friends here, only friends”

A dirty-blonde head looked out from her arms, and I called out “Want to come in?”

Darren came in, followed by Steve, Suzy and Ali, the kids whose names I had almost forgot, along with Jim. Her eyes widened again.

“Daz?”

“Hiya, Shan, the lady’s right, yeah, it’s only friends here. Annie is my friend, my best friend, you trust her and she’ll do you right, and these is my friends as well. This my home now”

I caught a glimpse of Albert standing just outside the conservatory, making sure his boy was OK, and slipped him a wink. He nodded, and withdrew.

“Daz, aye? Why have I always had to call you Darren if I am your best mate?”

Chantelle looked at me. “You talk funny!”

Darren took over. “She Welsh, yeah, all sheepshaggers and funny words, and Annie, you call me Darren cause I ain’t no kid now, but, lahk, if you want to do Daz, yeah, as a mate, it’s cool. Shan, we got games and stuff, my granddad is all into the latest things, he really cool”

“Your granddad?”

“Well, iss what I call him, lahk, him an’ my nan, they look after me now. Don’t got to go back to no home no more”

I realised how deliberately he was letting the old speech patterns come out, the skill he was showing, and my respect for him grew even more than before.

“Jim, how many controllers are there?”

“Four, Miss Price”

“What are the girls doing? I assume you boys are doing the shoot-em-up thing?”

He gave me a withering look. I could read his thoughts…’girls, pah’

“They’ve got dolls and stuff and paint things for their feet”

Kelly, diving under the picnic table at Shrewsbury. All of the things I had missed out on, my father taking Jessica, the original Jessica…I turned to the frightened girl.

“Chantelle, want to go and play with that lot? I need a talk with Miss Armitage here, we’ll be just outside the door if you need us”

She looked up at her guardian, who nodded, and I looked at Darren for the next phase. He didn’t disappoint.

“Halo or nail painting?”

Ali laughed. “Or silly computer games and we take your shoes and socks off…”

Chantelle smiled, and her whole face changed. “Will it tickle?”

“Only if you want us to”

Suddenly, the room was empty save for me and Polly, who smiled softly and stepped forward for a hug. In my heels, I was several inches taller than her, and she rested her head on my chest.

“Those are real, aren’t they?”

“Yes, and getting realer. Thank you for bringing her, Darren has been worried”

“He has a crush on her, doesn’t he? We’ll need to be very careful; her ideas of how people show affection are rather distorted. That was inspired, leaving her to the kids”

“I was watching her with the adults, and there was a cringe every so often. Just thought, better with the younger ones, aye?”

“Yes, there are some frighteningly big men there tonight, and she doesn’t deal well with men just now. You sure you didn’t go into nursing without telling me?”

“Ah, Polly, I just do what I can, aye?”

“Just keep doing it then, Annie Price. Now, I intend to relax here for a bit, just in case. You sod off back to your party, you have duties, and it will look less like we are guarding her. Nice touch with the heels on the lawn, by the way, she almost laughed out loud, I could feel her shaking. Shit, girl, she is so screwed up she is scared to say anything at all most of the time, make any noise at all. See you in a few, yeah?”

Making a noise is what prey avoid if they can, it brings the predator onto them. Just then I would have gutted Harber, but the rest, they were still alive…No. Party. My ring, my man, my future. I made my way carefully over the grass and stopped to wipe the mud off my heels before going over to Eric, where he was chatting with Arwel and Alice. I turned him bodily round and grabbed the back of his head for a kiss that was intended to make his toes curl, and in the end made my breasts ache. The other two stood politely till I released his mouth, and I got a little squeeze on my bum as compensation for my sudden loss of contact.

Alice was smiling. “He never kisses me like that. “

“Ych, who would want to kiss an old trout like you?”

“You do, just never like that. I ought to file for divorce, hurt feelings”

“Aye, and who’d rub your feet when you take your silly shoes off?”

They were clearly as much of a double act as any of the couples that were shaking their stuff to Sarah’s choice of music, so I had to ask.

“Alice, how the hell does someone so English end up with this wannabe Gog?”

He mock-growled. “No Gog, me, I speak the proper one, aye, not their odd scouse rubbish. She was Sar’s boss, aye, over in Kent. Sar brought her over our way, with the boy, and we sort of clicked, aye?”

Shit, that was a wig. A good one, granted, but nevertheless a wig. Alice caught my look.

“Yes, male pattern baldness is a curse, isn’t it?”

Something in the water indeed. She smiled. “We have another girl like us, but we thought that it would be overkill, throw you completely, and besides her husband needs her this weekend. Don’t worry, the kids know all about me, this is a strong family. They close ranks, yeah?”

Oh, all the questions I wanted to ask, all the pain I could offload, and I knew immediately that she had plenty of her own, but not tonight, tonight was our party, and it was getting moving properly now. I spotted Kirsty getting down and dirty with her own man, and for a while I just stared at the way her tits moved. It wasn’t that I had some odd urge to join Ginny and Kate on that famous Other Bus, it was just a mixture of awe and respect for the engineering that had gone into her underwear. There were fighter aircraft and suspension bridges with less structural integrity, and Den seemed to be mesmerised by the movement. Kelly was smiling dreamily at her boy, and I realised that I hadn’t seen them for a little while, and two and two went together with a crunch, as I saw exactly how dreamy her smile was, and understood why. There were couples everywhere, dancing, or chatting, or just merged together on the seats around the edge of the tent, and with a jar I realised that I seemed to have no friends who weren’t paired up.

Others had arrived as I had been away with Polly, and I got more congratulations as they passed, Sam, and Jim, of course, and Richard, with a stunning brunette whose name I didn’t catch, and so I had another beer as the Brownian motion of the tent bounced me from friend to friend.

I ended up off to one side with Kate and Sally, as Ginny went off with a pair of half-naked Wilsons to play with fire poi and flaming whips in the garden. The two women were cuddled up, and Sally pulled me to her with her spare arm. The music was loud, but thankfully not too loud.

“Amy would have loved this, Annie”

Kate hugged her tighter. “We all move on, Sal, otherwise we die. Like swimming sharks, yeah?”

“Who are you calling a shark?”

Kate grinned. “Old ghosts. We try and let them go, but they stay with us.”

She shook herself. “Annie, old ghosts. Some fat bloke we thought we knew, now he’s the ghost, and we have this vision in heels, turning heads, making her life right”

Sally suddenly grinned, the mood breaking. “Oh fuck, it’s traditional at times like this, girl, I have to ask the question.”

She leant forward, brow furrowed, and flicked her eyes from side to side, conspiratorially.

“How big’s his cock?”

CHAPTER 82
Sarah was a seriously good dancer,

in that particularly arrogant-rock-chick way that involved strutting, head-tossing and fuck-me-NOW body posture. I could see exactly what had drawn Tony to her. I saw him sitting next to Dave and Steve, pint in hand, watching his wife’s gyrating bottom and smiling fondly. Alice was up with Sarah, showing a fine pair of legs of her own, while Arwel dad-danced nearby, and Ginny was just…Ginny. Kate was watching her.

“Old ghosts, Annie. Can you think of anyone more guaranteed to exorcise them than my girl there?”

I could see exactly that. Ginny was so full of life it leaked out and splashed the people round her.

“Aye, Kate, she does just that. Saved my life at least. I am going to go and have a look in on the kids, see how it is going. Can you see if we can find a slightly slower set of tunes on the stereo before Sarah does a Rite of Spring on us?”

Rite of bloody winter, more like. I was starting to feel the chill as the evening went on, so I stopped to grab my fleece, smirking slightly at the incongruity: LBD, black stockings, patent black court shoes, and a Berghaus outdoor activity fleece jacket. The shoes came off this time, though, as I slipped on my trainers for the walk over the lawn to Naomi’s, where Polly was actually dozing in the kitchen. I quietly opened the door to the living room, to find a four-handed shooting game in full flow, Alison’s two girls wrapped around their brother in encouragement, incredibly thick lippy and mascara in evidence, and a strong smell of nail varnish in the air. They didn’t notice me at first, entirely locked onto whatever it was they were shooting. Chantelle was beside Darren as they sat cross-legged before the telly, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she pointed and ‘fired’ the handset.

I had a moment of doubt, thinking back to the raid on the caravan site, but she seemed to have no problems with the concept of shooting, and from the groans of Jim and Stevie she had mastered the actual practice. The game section came to an end at last, and Chantelle squealed.

“Yay, high score! Who’s the daddy?”

Jim almost pouted. “S’pose you are, this time”

“Yeah but, I’m on the high score board, so that means one of the best ever, not just for today, lahk. So I am the DADDY!”

I spoke up before it got silly. ”How are you doing for drinks? Snacks?”

Darren looked round. “Hiya, Annie, we could do some cokes, yeah? Might slow Shan down if she got a full hand, yeah?”

She was suddenly nervous again, and I realised that it was adults who made her twitchy. Released from the sense of threat she was able to let herself go, be a child once more. I felt Polly at my shoulder.

“You lot are going to need to bed down in a little while. Now, in a tent, or in here in a big pile of blankets and stuff? It’s a cold night out there”

Ali and Suzy were shouting for a giant nest, and Darren looked at Chantelle, who had retreated behind him and Jim, and raised his eyebrows. She gave a sharp nod, and Polly continued.

“Don’t think it will be one night-long giggle-fest, because Mr Armitage and I will be sleeping on the other side of the room. I promise you he doesn’t snore. Now, I don’t know what your Mum would say, but I think the slap needs to come off before bed time.”

She turned to me. “Annie, are we going to get any more playing from you tonight?”

I looked across to My Main Man Mr Eyres. “Darren, what would you like to do?”

He turned back to his friend. “Want to listen to me play a bit of drum?”

She whispered something, and he smiled. “Na, we is lahk a band, yeah? Got a mad woman on fiddle and loads more, they good people. You can dance if you want, yeah? Miz Armitage, can Shan come with us and listen?”

“Of course, Darren. Now, you need to get some warm clothes on, you lot. Mr Armitage will sort out the nests, and we shall go to the ball. Annie, want to give the nod to Steph and the rest?”

Back I went, and collared the redhead as she was getting a round of beers in with Ginny and Sarah, who were both sweating heavily. I outlined the plan, and Sarah grinned happily.

“Your fan here has a request! Remember that one you did for my wedding?”

Steph’s eyes lit up with obvious mischief, and in reply to my raised eyebrow, Sarah named the tune. Ginny laughed out loud.

“Fuck, yeah!”

And so it went…we settled ourselves, as many of us as could still play, Jan whispering advice to Darren as they took their seats, and Steph had a brief discussion with the rest about the playlist, which was only going to be six tunes, finishing with Sarah’s request. They were straightforward, popular things, and then Alice appeared, Hywel her stepson in tow.

“This boy has a voice, Annie, and I hear the two of you like the same band”

“Aye, girl. Do you know ‘Locomotive Breath’?”

Jan was listening. “I have just the thing!”

Out came the bag of bangy and shaky things, out of that came a bent tin-can thing, and we rolled off into ‘Speed the Plough’, and then ’Rakes of Mallow’ and ‘Boys of North Tyne’, and the dancing was confused but enthusiastic. ‘Hesleyside Reel’ got them moving, and then Eric stepped forward.

A soft, rolling melancholy came from his guitar. Slowly it got more intricate, and then he came to a finish, holding the last note as long as he could.

TOCK TOCK TOCK from Jan’s percussion thingy, and Hywel was singing, and though he sounded nothing at all like Mr Anderson, he had the mood of the song nailed.

“In the shuffling madness…”

Steph sorted the rhythm and fills out while I duetted with Hywel’s words, and as the song built speed and venom the floor was full of bodies. Shan was in front of Polly, hair going all over to rival Steph’s madness, and in the soft lighting I caught a glimpse of tears on Polly’s cheeks.

Hywel was a damned good mover as well as singer, and as Darren and Jan hammered it out, Eric, and the Woodruffs got up by me and we got seriously down and dirty. Sod the folk music, this was where my soul lived.

A final flourish, a look around the flushed faces, and straight into the last one. Never in a million years would I have expected a fiddle to be able to do justice to ‘Enter Sandman’, but this was Steph on another plane entirely. Hywel knew it as well, and his lungpower took us even further into that zone where music ceases to have a separate existence but becomes internal, part of you, and as I caught fleeting glimpses of the guests, there were Sarah, Arris, Kirsty and Chantelle showing exactly what Rock Chicks could do. Even Ginny was looking on in admiration.

Fuck, yeah!

Steph was actually clear of the ground several times. Just as we finished, her E-string snapped. She held up the instrument to our friends.

“I think that’s a hint that we settle down, finish the beers, and chill. Both kitchen doors will be open, so feel free to grab teas or coffees or use the loos. Thank you all for coming to celebrate my friend’s good news, but that’s me done for tonight. I have a husband and some beers to look after”

It wasn’t the end, as small groups sat and chatted before moving on to their beds, but it was the last of our excitement. Polly came over, alone.

“Look…”

Chantelle was deep in conversation with Sarah and her friend Arris, Kirsty listening in with Den’s arm draped over a shoulder and one hand almost but not quite on her breast. The young girl’s face was animated, far more than I had seen it till then, and as Darren walked over with his bodhran, she turned and gave him a big hug and peck on the cheek. Pink. Very, very pink, my man Mr Eyres. He hesitated, just for an instant. I could see his free hand clench and unclench, and then he slipped his arm round her waist, as she carried on chatting and laughing with the girls, leaning ever so slightly into him.

“Annie, what can I say? This is all so artificial, not like the world outside, but look at her. She’s been looking for a safe place in her head, a place she can open up in, and I think she’s found it. You can see she’s still uncertain about Den, but hey, I have my miracle, I’m making no complaints!”

“Just watch her with Darren, aye?”

“Yeah, I know, but I suspect she doesn’t actually see sex as a fun area, and he, oh, look at him, love! Have you ever seen bigger puppy dogs?”

Sally was by us now, a slightly wobbly Stewart attached to her hip. She had clearly caught most of what Polly had said.

“Spot on, Poll. I better make sure you don’t take my job, but then when we have people like this lot around, it is a bloody sight easier. Now, Annie, I am going to take my man off and do some adult consenting with him, and I fully intend to consent until I can’t walk. I suggest you do the same, you’re almost legal now!”

Off they went, and I left Polly so that I could do the hostess thing and say goodnight. Albert and Naomi were still there, and I suddenly realised I had all but ignored them as the events of the evening had unfolded, and of course Naomi read my mind.

“It has been a wonderful evening, my dear. Just look at our boy over there, he has made us so proud. This is life as it should be”

“Your boy, aye?”

Albert laughed. “Oh yes, and I think we shall be working on the permanent solution to that soon. I only have one problem now: that girlfriend of his has beaten all my high scores!”

CHAPTER 83
In the end I walked back with Polly and the Woods to their place, for a quick check as the kids settled down.

There was a true nest laid out for them, plus a smaller version for the Armitages, and Suzy and Ali were already asleep, Jim and Stevie whispering to each other under the quilts. Josh, Polly’s husband, turned up with the last two in tow, and after they had done their teeth and changed they burrowed into the middle of the pile. I wished them a good night and slipped out of the room as I turned the light off, making my way back over to Steph’s where Eric was waiting in bed for me.

I don’t have to spell things out, but they involved me getting undressed, up to the point where Eric stopped me, which seemed to involve leaving most of my underwear on. Things then happened which were rather nice for both of us, and actually quite messy, and that is all I intend to say. But I was still smiling when we went off to sleep, him spooned around me. It was also rather more comfortable at that point, because he let me finish undressing.

It was still grey and miserable outside when we woke, or rather when I did, because he was in full male sprawl, leg out from under the duvet and dribbling. I wondered, just for an instant, if that had been how I slept, and then remembered that until recently my sleep had usually been within a gnat’s whisker of lying in my own piss. Old ghosts, indeed. So much had already changed, but it would never really go away, it couldn’t.

I slipped out to the toilet, sitting as I always did, and realising that I was sinking into one of the little episodes of self-hate that bit me every so often, and I realised with a start what was setting me off. Sally, of all people, had stuck a knife in, without malice, which was perhaps worse than if she had meant to hurt me.

“Adult consenting”. “Almost legal”.

I couldn’t consent, in that way, because I had nothing to consent with except a revolting deformity that did nothing for either of us. Without going into details, Eric and I enjoyed each other very much, but things still had to come to a halt at a certain point, and Sally’s comments, sitting on a toilet on a grey winter’s morning, stang. I knew it was irrational, and in my head I knew that there was every possibility that it was something that could be rectified, but at that moment some combination of hangover and memory, and perhaps of hormones, left me sobbing.

Eric must have heard, because he came in, naked and beautiful, and simply held me until I had run out of tears.

“I know, love, I know. Just understand that I am not leaving, regardless of what happens. OK? I think it is time for you to clean your face, and then we see what breakfast there is, and who wants it. You are still the hostess, aye?”

That actually made me laugh. “You are taking the piss, Johnson”

He kissed my nose. “Would I ever not do the same, aye?”

I don’t think that I had ever loved him more than I did right then. Everything he was doing, everything he was saying, confirmed who I really was. I pulled him to me, my hands digging into his bare back, and rested my cheek against his stomach.

My man.

Dressed, in a long gypsy skirt and loose paisley top, I went barefoot to the kitchen and started sorting out teapot and mugs, plates and pans. I could hear stirring elsewhere in the house, and there were figures moving in the garden as the happy campers roused, and Steph came into the kitchen, wrapped in a stupidly fluffy dressing gown. As I sorted the kettle out, she looked hard at my eyes.

“It’s hard, isn’t it? You want to do so much, and so little, just be normal, but life has fucked you over. I can’t make it better, Annie, I can’t make things go away, but I can tell you how it was for me”

I smiled ruefully. “Probably much the same as me, aye? We are both so lucky, with our friends and our family, I just have to keep remembering the ones without our luck, like poor Melanie, and Amy”

“Amy?”

“Oh, just another who lost out in life, someone I should remember to let me see my blessings, how many I have, aye?”

Steph put a hand to my cheek. “Yeah, always my way, try and remember those without our luck. Perspective, yeah? One day, we shall sit down and swap stories, but right now, Kell has just walked in behind you, so it is pot and pan rattling time”

Her voice became that little bit louder.

“Morning, beloved niece! Now, has he sent you out to get his brekky, or will Mark actually come for it himself? Important to break them in properly at an early stage, don’t let the bad habits develop”

Kelly was yawning, and when Steph cracked a pointed remark about lack of sleep she turned absolutely crimson. Young love…

Gradually people drifted in, and we girls filled plates and mugs, and refilled the latter, and I got hugs and little kisses from several of my friends as they filed in, and when Eric arrived it became ‘our’ rather than ‘my’, and in the wash of affection and love the morning’s terrors receded to the point where I could look at them more rationally,

Was it all part of my damaged soul, this fear, this uncertainty? I had taken the big step, the frightening one, and thrown my identity away, done it in public. Surely, if I could face down barristers I could face down one small piece of flesh?

Well, three, to be precise. Then Eric came over for a quick snog before helping strike some of the tents, and it all became academic. My man.

Polly and Josh were in next, with a posse of teenish children looking for parents and bacon sandwiches, in no particular order. I noticed with a real lump in my throat that my other man had hold of someone else’s hand, and that someone was smiling, and for an instant I wanted to hide in that bathroom again and let the tears out. Polly looked like I felt, and hugged me with a whisper of “Miracles, love, miracles”

And so it went, and young girls cuddled up with their pipers and drummers, and bigger girls with their partners when they weren’t cracking eggs or stirring beans. There were the usual bright and funny moments, such as Ginny describing how her wife’s fleece balaclava had twisted in the night, and “When I fancied a bit of nookie, and I leant over in the dark for a snog, and I got a mouthful of bloody Polartec! I tell you, she had to make up for that one!”

By Kate’s wistful smile, I gathered that amends had been made to the satisfaction of both. I also gathered the impression that just about every couple there, with the exception of those gathered together with Polly, had been consenting in some very adult ways. That was an odd feeling, knowing that the celebration of our engagement had continued well after bedtime.

No, I did not want details. After the breakfast rush was over, I joined a newly-dressed Steph in her living room, where she was restringing her fiddle.

“One way to tell us we’d played enough, aye?”

“Yeah, can’t snap bits of a flute, can you? So, feeling better?”

“Aye. Just a black morning, feeling a bit of a fraud for a while. I suppose we all do, girls like us. Thoughts…can I ever be real? Sounds stupid, but I got out of bed, all warm and worn out from…well, you know, and then I suddenly realised I could still pee standing up.”

She was nodding. “Yeah, I used to wear knickers in the shower, just in case he came in. Got through a lot of wet knickers…”

That got me laughing. “Yeah, I keep mine on as well, keeps the illusion, aye?”

Steph was serious. “Don’t ever think of it as an illusion, Annie. You are a woman, it’s there in everything you do and say. Unless you suspect Eric is gay, that’s what he sees. What do you call it? A growth? A deformity? A tumour?”

I sighed. “Deformity, normally”

“Well, that deformity got Sarah put into hospital when she went with the wrong guy. You haven’t got the wrong guy, have you? Neither have I. Here’s my advice: you have time, there is a hospital bed with your name on it some time in the future. You have blessings; count them, and be grateful. So many don’t. And by the way, your little black dress last night, you are most definitely starting to fill things like that in the right way. Even Albert was watching your legs, until Naomi slapped his arse”

“Ah, I know what you are saying, but it still hurts, it still isn’t right, aye?”

She came over and hugged me. “Patience, love, patience. It will come. We have Spring on the way, then Summer, and it will be a time for lying together in the sun and knowing how it is no illusion at all.”

Count my blessings. Yes indeed.

CHAPTER 84
We stayed long enough to give both couples a hand tidying house and garden and then made our way back to our own place after seeing everybody else off.

A drawback of being a host at someone else’s place, having to be the last to leave and then having to go all the way to your own place.

Elaine was quite emotional, which surprised me, till she explained.

“We try and keep tabs, Annie, keep a check on our boys who move away. Girls. I should know this by now, what with the old and young trouts”

“You call your sister a young trout?”

She grinned. “Aye, why not? No, Annie, when you went, we all knew you were on the edge, and seeing you like this, well, it’s good, aye? Promise me you’ll come over our way some time. A girl has to go home, especially if it’s her first trip”

God. I still had cousins and other odd relatives out West; no close family, not like Sarah, but there were still people that deserved to know. I would indeed have to make the trek one day. Not yet, though, not until I could slay my dragons.

We saw the last ones off, and they were the ones I had the most hope for, now, after the miraculous night. Chantelle had spent quite a lot of post-breakfast energy squealing with the girls, and making calf’s eyes at ‘Daz’, and when she was about to leave with Polly she came up to me, with an excess of politeness, to ask if she could come and see Darren again.

“It’s not me you should be asking, Shan, it’s Mr and Mrs Woods, and Mizz Armitage here”

She looked round at Polly, who nodded, and then ran into the kitchen to collar Albert. Polly sighed.

“Look at that, Annie, voluntarily approaching a man. Bloody miracles”

“You have our new address, Poll?”