CHAPTER 1
There was a heavy dew that morning, and I expected Eric’s axe to be out of tune.

I had suggested he take up the harmonica instead of the banjo, as only half the notes suck, but he had slapped my arse at that. Sod. I grunted my way out of the tent, never easy in a long skirt unless you roll it above the knees first, and left him drooling into the pillow. Oddly, both Kelly and Kirsty were appearing at the same time. Now, I know that women living closely together have been known to synchronise their monthly cycle, but this seemed to be all about bladders and camping. Of course, as Kirsty grew, she was feeling the pressure there more than the rest of us, so it wasn't surprising that she was up.

“Morning Kel, Kirst. Shall we top up the water while we’re there, aye?”

Kirsty looked me up and further up, as she is so much shorter than me.

“Annie, love, you really need to give trousers or leggings a go when it’s as damp as this. You just get the hem all wet”

I laughed. “Spent too many years in bloody trousers, aye? I wear them for work, so where’s the problem? Anyway, look at Kelly’s outfit!”

“Come on, children, no arguing or I’ll stop your beer”

Giggles and full bladders rarely mix well, so we sped up, and thankfully there were no queues. We did our morning necessaries, and wheeled the now-full water carrier back to the edifice, where Jan was stirring the first batch of beans on the stove. Kirsty looked tired.

“How are you two bearing up? How’s his back?”

“Ah, Annie, he says it’s great, like having a board in the bed, keeps him straight, yeah? Little ‘un’s quiet, as well, so no worries there”

“Just, you look a bit tired, aye?”

She grinned. “That, my darling, is what loads of loud music and his lordship wanting to dance and stop up late for the beer do! Tell me, this is the last night with the dancing, innit?”

“Yeah…but tomorrow night is the big session. It might be another late one, aye?”

She groaned. “It’s not just that, Annie, it’s when he gets together with the other two, and I don’t have a clue what they are saying. That boy’s granddad, oh for fuck’s sake”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. Jimmy was bad enough normally, but as soon as he caught Den’s accent he went so broad he was transcontinental, and Den seemed inclined to follow suit. It was worth it, though, to see him on his feet again, and dancing, even if he had to take regular breaks; but those breaks seemed to coincide with an empty glass, so all was not lost. The idea of making the pilgrimage with so many friends in tow had really been Darren’s, and I had been rather surprised to find the devious little sod had been going behind my back to arrange things with the others. My little anniversary trip with Eric and the Woodruffs had turned into a wholesale invasion, and I am sure we must have taken up a tenth of the camping available. I knew his motives, though, and most of them were admirable. The one about getting Shan into a tent, though…

Naomi and Albert had agreed to let him come, after consultation with Polly, on the basis that he took the space in the Edifice that Kelly had vacated. Darren said we had enough for a football team and reserves; Steph that we needed one more for a rugby team, and so I pointed at Jimmy, but he just said something that sounded like “Haddaway and shite”

It was an anniversary, though, for so many of us, and I found myself astonished yet again by the luck that had brought me such friends, and such a lover. Who was still snoring when I looked in.

Darren was up, still looking proud of the coloured wristband put on two days before. All of this was so foreign to him, I realised, a world away from what he had known up till then. I had been camping since childhood, and all the little tricks I took for granted, apart from exiting a tent in a long skirt, were second nature. Years of long solo cycle touring had honed those habits and skills further, but it was Darren’s reaction to his first night under canvas that had astonished me.

Jan had collared me on the Saturday morning.

“He came in with us last night, Annie. Said he was worried with just the fabric of the tent around him. He’s still frightened, isn’t he?”

So frightened, and so brave at the same time. What is courage without fear? I had spoken to Eric, and then Darren, that same morning. I recognised his expression.

“Mr Eyres, don’t you try that on me, aye? Are we not mates? Do you not trust me?”

He was still doing the look away, and so I took his chin and turned his face to mine, and spoke as gently as I could.

“Darren, I understand, but remember one thing: everything you have ever needed to prove to us, has been done, aye? Now, you know I get the night terrors sometimes, so I look to my friends to take me through them, yeah? Nothing there that I am ashamed of, it’s just life”

“Yeah, but you got Eric, innit, and he loves you loads”

“And I got you too, aye? You don’t love me?”

That was possibly unfair, but he did, and I loved him, and after the tears and the hugs I sat him down again and pointed out at the tents and caravans around us.

“What do you see, Darren?”

“Tents and stuff, yeah?”

“Not just that, Darren, but people. All here for the same reason, music and dancing and stuff. You think they’ll have any energy after the sort of stuff we did last night to go on the prowl?”

I didn’t mention how much energy Eric had still had left, nor, from what I had heard while stifling giggles, Mark and Kelly had managed to find, but still.

“Here’s my deal, Mr Eyres. You get to squire your girl around on your own today, if I can square it with her mums. You take a programme where I will mark what we will be doing, you take your phone, and you meet us for lunch and tea, aye?”

“Just me and Shan, lahk?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Not ‘like’ just you and Shan, but ‘actually’ just you and Shan. Let me speak to the girls, though. They may say no. Now, this is for you to see there is nothing to worry about here, aye? I am not dumping you, I am just letting the two of you have some time together without what Kelly calls the ‘olds’ watching you. Deal?”

His tears were forgotten so quickly it was as if they had never flowed. I had some more later, when I spoke to Kate, but they were happier.

“You trust him, Annie?”

“Absolutely, but it’s Chantelle I wonder about. Will she be OK with so many people around her and just him to call on?”

Kate gave a strange whole-body shrug.

“Annie, love, they have to dip their toes in the water some time. They will have a programme with all our plans on, we will be a phone call away…I’ll talk to Ginny and Shan and see what they say, OK?”

And that was Saturday. They were back for tea, and never left our sides during the evening’s dance and concerts, but that night Darren slept alone.

There he was, Sunday morning, slicing mushrooms while Chantelle buttered bread, the two of them whispering and giggling in the way of young love that looks and sounds like children but burns with adult hormonal urgings. I had a sudden and painful eruption of jealousy, and pushed it back down. Life was so much better than I had ever dreamt it could be, and if it had taken a little longer to get there, sod it. My reason for smiling was just coming back from the bogs with a slightly hungover Dennis by his side. Breakfast was taking shape.

We lost love’s young dreamers straight after the dishes were done, and just before a smug pair of hotel guests joined us, Stewie doing his best to look haughtily down on our palatial canvas shelter. It didn’t stop him nicking a bacon sandwich, though.

Darren joined me for the lunchtime session, bodhran in one hand and girl in the other. And the ceilidh that night had two more dancers who had to be shown how to swing their partner, and then told when to stop,

I was in my own world of happiness, just then. Eric kept me away from the hog roast stall, Steph and other friends played my lips to death, and every so often I would catch Kirsty giving her stomach just a little rub, a little smile, as her husband half-danced with one of the other girls and smiled to light the world.

One year. That is all it was, one year of being out, of being me, and I had a sudden burst of morbidity. If something happened, if I had to return to Adam, it wouldn’t be a slow suicide this time. It was a second or two before I realised that Shan was tugging her other hero onto the floor, his grin even bigger, while a young man stood before me.

“You dancing or sitting there like a lemon, yeah?”

CHAPTER 2
I keep coming back to the music and the dancing simply because they are so life-affirming.

It was Chantelle I was watching, as our two couples made up a square set with Steph’n’Geoff, Kirsty and Eric. She still had that skittishness, and it was clear that the idea of a dance involving progressing from couple to couple would terrify her, but here, in what was almost a family setting, she came alive.

I had a truly awful thought as I watched her face in its own dance of emotion and delight, that I could understand how she had been so sought after as a child by the likes of Harton and Petherick. She was going to be truly beautiful when she matured; the promise was there already, but what captivated me was the new life in her eyes.

With Ginny and Kate, she was forever touching. My mad friend was always tactile, I knew that well, and watching the three of them together was uplifting. It wasn’t like Steph and her husband, who seemed to touch as a default state, it was measured and precise. The girl would approach one of her foster mothers, and there would be a hug, initiated from either or both, and it looked natural. There was no air of duty, or obligation; Shan would walk across, and an arm would fall on her shoulders, or she would squeeze a waist. With Darren it was different, and taking hands with him was still clearly a big thing, an exciting thing, and I wondered how it was, how human resilience shone through, that after all that had been done to her by adult men she remained a young teenaged girl in the throes of a crush on a boy.

She shied like a young horse at strange men, but Bill, in particular, seemed to be developing an easy relationship with her, as was Den, and I could only assume that if Den was someone she had seen broken, and as vulnerable as she had been herself, Bill was the father. Despite all of the Woodruff’s odd family set-up, Bill, Jan and Kelly remained a perfectly normal family unit. Kelly danced attendance on Shan (literally, when she was happy) just like a big sister, and Mark’s presence showed how life as a girl could be, perhaps should be. There were arguments, there was laughter, there was simple affection. But with Den…

Shan had watched as her tormenter’s head blew apart in a junk-filled caravan, a place where she had been repeatedly raped. There was little left in this world that could shock her, it seemed. Then, she was presented with Kirsty. There was a woman utterly devoted to her unborn child, and to its father, and there was this big, strong man, everything that had ever tormented and betrayed her, lying broken in a hospital bed.

The dancing came to an end at last, and we found our original partners and the bags and instruments, and after more professional performances we ended up, as usual, in the beer tent, where Jimmy had been all evening, and it showed slightly. Stewie was with him, though, and as Jimmy grinned at our arrival I suddenly realised how old he looked. As Shan and Darren came on, Jimmy was seemingly easing out. He caught my look.

“How, it’s givin’ up the tabs that myeks us feel me years, lass, but Ah’ll still play yeez lot off the floor and drink this bugger under the tyebble!”

That was the last thing I understood from him, as the arrival of Mark and Dennis turned the dialect meter to ‘eleven’ and, anyway, it was time for music. I tried to stay out of my zone for a while, watching the others as they played or listened, or, as is usual with Ginny, performed some odd solo jive in a corner of the tent. We had so many musicians now that we could set the pattern of the evening, so I tried to let others in on the act, but we still ended up with people clustered around our group rather than with their own friends. Again, I was watching Shan. She stayed close by Kate as Ginny twitched and span, but her eyes were switching from Darren to Kirsty, as the former played and the latter grinned, and it was then that I realised her hunger.

That was the thing I had missed, as I had tried to work out her trust of one wounded man. She wasn’t just in love with her first boy, she was in love with everything that had surrounded him, family, friends, parenthood, and I realised that she was in exactly the same boat I had been in at her age.

I had known it was all wrong, I had known I was all wrong from such an early age, but I was surrounded by people who lived the life I should have had just as I was made to dwell in a body I had never wanted. The thing that had eaten away at me in my teens was the realisation that if I had been allowed to I could have changed, stepped into that life I dreamt of, but I wasn’t, I couldn’t, and yet it went on all around me as if deliberately taunting. Girls laughed, and went out, and grew up, and gave birth…

Shan was so like me, I realised. A whole world went on around her that she could never join, and here she was thrust into the middle of what passed for normality with us odd folk. She was me, late to the feast.

I walked her to the ladies’ as the evening aged, and decided to take a chance.

“How’s it going with Darren, Shan?”

You can’t see blushes in the dark, and despite what bad authors suggest, you can’t feel them either, but the way her head dropped told me all I needed to know.

“So that’ll be a ‘good’, aye?”

She was till silent. I stopped walking and put a hand to her shoulder.

“Shan…nobody here will ever hurt you, or let you be hurt again, aye? You know that, don’t you?”

“Mmmm yeah…”

“But you don’t believe it?”

Her head came up, and I could feel her eyes on me in the semi-darkness.

“Annie…I do believe, yeah, ‘s just, I mean…”

“Aye, love?”

Her voice was very small, a frightened child trying to say something important but terrified the answer might be the wrong one.

“Iss me, innit? I mean, look at all your friends, there good people, yeah? An’ me, an’ Daz…”

There was that catch in the breath that comes with the first tear. I held her to me, and she soaked my top, but I caught that word, that nasty little thought that came from her mouth, and I wanted to kill.

“Dirty…”

Just like me. Filthy pervert, crossdressing queer, girly boy, nancy, sissy, grow up and be a man. Jessica seized for burning, and all around the real girls, the ones Chapel God must love, indulged, encouraged, living my life while I had what my Dad beat into me.

Then there was Shan. “Dirty”. Filthy little whore, who could ever want to lead her into the life she saw Kelly live with her parents?

“Shan…you think we’re playing with you?”

She dug her fingers into my back. “I just want…be normal, lahk, but am all shit now…”

“Shan, listen to me, aye? None of us plays with people. We’ve had our own shit, all of us, why would we do that to someone else?”

I put a finger to her lips before she could interrupt.

“What am I, Shan? Darren must have told you, aye? He’s known me a long time”

“You’re a woman, now, innit? Iss right for you”

“Really? According to the law, I’m a man in a dress. According to most people in the country, I always will be, aye?”

“Not most people, Annie, ain’t that bad, they just the ones with the biggest mouths, innit?”

“Shan, that’s not how it feels. I am very lucky in my world, but outside these friends I would have all sorts of shit. What that means is that I make my world important to me, and try and ignore the rest. Anyone here treat you like shit, tell you you are dirty?”

“No…”

“Listen to me, Shan. Women who get raped aren’t guilty of anything except being women, aye? There are people who think being a woman is some sort of crime, and when you are that stupid, you can’t be educated.”

“Rape…”

“Yes, love, rape. Why, were you doing it for fun? At twelve?”

“Nine…”

Oh fucking hell. I took her to me again.

“Never, never again, love. Listen to me, really listen. You think we are playing games, that you are this month’s toy? You really think that of Kelly?”

“She thought was trying nick her boyfriend…”

“And were you?”

“Got a boyfriend of my own, innit?”

Oh yes. “And a family, Shan, and friends. Please, love…my friends, your friends, our friends, aye?”

“But…”

“No. You are not. You are a girl who needs a leak and a face wash, and a new smile. Look, here’s a deal, we can make it our secret, aye?”

“Yeah?”

“My new life started here, a year ago. You think I did the right thing?”

“Course…you ain’t no fella, yeah?”

“Then how about we start your new life today? You can be Chantelle with the two mums and the really strange friends, aye? Deal? And in return, when I have to go into hospital, you can keep Eric from chatting up other women, aye?”

“But he wouldn’t…”

“Not if he knew he had you on his case, girl. So, deal?”

This time I could actually feel the grin against my breast.

“Deal”

CHAPTER 3
I lay with my man that night, hearing the wind throw a light patter of rain at the tent, murmurs of sound coming from all directions, including what was clearly someone making love. Sounds of life.

“She’s fragile, isn’t she, love?”

I thought about my answer for a while, and it struck me. “No, I don’t think she is. I think she has more strength than we have ever given her credit for. She’s nervous, but…”

“What, love?”

“It’s a common thing. I see it a lot with domestics, aye? You shit on somebody enough times, and they start to self-define as a victim, and then everything they go through, that shouts ‘victim’ as well, aye? We all end up forgetting the person”

“There’s more on your mind, love…”

I could feel my fists clenching, and I wanted to lash out at something, anything. Perhaps there was a man in me somewhere after all. Eric held me tighter.

“Nine, love. Those fuckers started on her when she was nine. What sort of fucking world do we live in, Eric?”

I could feel his own tears mow. “One in which people like you, and Ginny, and Naomi, and all the rest of them, in which you care. That’s what sort of world”

“Yeah, but too late, aye?”

“Too late, love? No. Look at yourself. Was Ginny too late? And you for Darren, and Chantelle? This whole group has made a difference for everyone in it, for so many others, yeah? They even turned me around”

I managed a chuckle at that. “Yeah, got you playing another instrument, aye?”

“No, got my eyes open to see what I had had in front of me for so long. Dum spiro spero. “

“You what? “

“Latin, love. While I breathe, I hope. Pandora’s gift. Call it what you want, yeah, but every time I see her and Darren look at each other, it’s hope I see. Look, she lost her childhood, yeah, but we can still let her be a teenager”

He suddenly chuckled.

“What’s funny?”

“Just thinking you missed out on teenager stuff as well, so…”

“So what, Eric?”

“Well…fancy some snogging and groping? If you can’t be a teenager again, why not act like one for a while?”

“Oh, you silver-tongued basmmmmfh”

My Eric knows when to shut up, and how best to shut me up. Neither of those is a complaint. I come back to what I wrote about making love after seeing Death walk past; there is nothing more life-affirming. The sleeping bags would definitely need laundering, though.

He was gone when I awoke.

Morning brought another stroll through damp grass with some of the others, another superb breakfast, another round of poking fun at each other, and a quiet whisper from Chantelle.

“Happy birthday, Annie”

I whispered back. “Happy birthday, Shan. Fancy scrambled eggs today?”

The sun was back, burning away the last of the night’s rain and drying the tents. Breakfast was as good as ever, and this time Steph was alone too. Grass widows, and I hadn’t even got the marriage out of the way yet.

“This is how I met Geoff, you know, in off his morning ride, all sweaty and yummy. Just be glad Eric hasn’t dragged you out today. Shan, cariad, want to go into the town this morning? We need some groceries for Tuesday, and there could be some sales on. Proper shoes on, though, not flip-flops”

“OK, but what’s Daz up to?”

“Got some practice on the drumming, ready for tonight. Don’t worry, we’ll be back for lunch”

As soon as Shan was out of earshot, I saw the wink from Ginny, which was as theatrically obvious as I should have expected.

“What are you girls up to?”

Ginny grinned, and mouthed the word ‘later’ just as two flushed men came into our erstwhile tranquillity demanding tea and sweating everywhere. Breakfasts, more tea, and a queue for the showers which, truth to be told, I needed just as much as Eric after the previous night’s teenagering.

Breakfast was therefore enlivened by some under table groping from Eric, and that again threw me. I was still, despite his attentions, thinking of my comments to Shan about men in dresses. It still caught me, every so often, no matter where I was or what I was doing.. Eric gave me a funny look.

“Annie, can we…”

Before I could react, he had me outside the tent.

“What’s up? Bad morning?”

“Sort of…”

“Man in drag or what?”

“How did…”

“Not only do I live with you, but I love you. I know how bloody fragile you can be. Someone had a dig at you?”

I sighed. “No, it’s odd, I’m all up and down, aye? Mood all over the place. I see the same situation, and it looks wonderful, then five minutes later, the same thing, it makes me want to curl up?”

“Hormones?”

“Could be. I’ll have to talk to Raj, it could be I need some more anti-bloke stuff. But, really, I think it’s just the time and place. Eric, where were we a year ago?”

He still had his hands on my shoulders, and he let them slide round me as he stepped forward into an embrace. “Lost, love. That’s where we were. Look…is it the surgery that’s got you worried? Because…if that’s the case we can always leave it”

I was astonished. Here was a man who had always shied away from…that…and either he was proposing leaving it in place or…

“Johnson, you don’t get out of an engagement that easily, aye?”

“I don’t want to. I just don’t want you seeing that procedure as central to me and you”

“But unless…we can’t marry”

“So?”

“And it would be harder to adopt…”

There it was, out in the open at last.

“Ah. I did suspect, you know…”

“And?”

“Yes. I would. I’ve been watching you with Darren and Chantelle, I even watched you with your dolls, yeah? All the doubts I could ever have had about you, you just wash them away. That’s what is eating at you, isn’t it?”

He was right, of course. With Kirsty getting bigger daily, Kelly dancing around her parents, the two youngsters, I was faced each morning with my utter inability. What purpose does a woman have if she can’t give birth?

“And you are thinking, why am I here if I can’t be a mum? Because you do more mothering than half of Crawley, yeah? Here’s a question: where is Shan’s birth mother?”

“Last heard, pissed off to Ireland, why?”

“Who has mothered her then? You, that’s who. And Ginny, and Kate, but it is you who made the difference, aye? That’s motherhood, not the ability to squirt out kids. Any mammal can do that, any cow, any bitch. It’s what they do afterwards that makes them mothers, Annie”

He held me for a while longer. “Now, we just need rid of one little girl this morning, so go and clean your face and let’s get to it. Things to do, people to see”

Steph and Kirsty duly disappeared off with Shan as we sorted the debris, and once the car had pulled away Jan was straight into Shan’s sleeping space.

“Got them!” she said, holding up a pair of well-worn flip-flops. “Off we jolly well!”

Together with Ginny and Kelly, she dragged me out of the campsite and down to the collection of stalls clustered around the big eating area and---oooh, that was a nice skirt---I was dragged straight past things I wanted, things I suddenly NEEDED, and up to a tent with a display of clogs outside. The penny dropped, and Ginny grinned at me.

“She’s been watching Kelly, and the dance sides, and I could see, we could see that she was jealous as a little jealous thing from Jealous Town, and so all we needed was her size. And these crappy old things, I mean, look, you can see every toe in them”

I had to laugh at Ginny’s enthusiasm.

“You think she wants to dance?”

“Fuck, yeah! She’s a teenager, Annie!”

“Can I suggest something, love? We had a chat last night, and we sort of agreed to call this weekend a second birthday. I mean, it’s where, you know, last year…”

“What, where you got shagged half to death by Bianchi Boy? Ooh, what a pink one!”

The insanity evaporated as if she had changed channels, so typical of her.

“Yeah, that’s the sort of thing we had in mind, love. We have been easing her along, Kate and I, and it’s been twitchy on the steering. Like adopting something wild, yeah?”

“She’s better though, aye? Now?”

Ginny’s smile was softer, as Kelly nodded agreement. The younger woman stepped forward and kissed my cheek.

“Yes, she is. She’s not ‘better’ as in ‘all healed’, and I don’t think she can be, but she’s happy, and that is what counts”

“And you? You happy too”

Kelly grinned, the answer in her face, and Ginny gave the answer.

“We all are, Annie, fuck yeah, happier than many of us have been for years. It leaks around the edges and splashes onto others. They get all infected with it, like a sort of happy chlamydia. What?”

She looked at the stares we were giving her, and shrugged.

“Well, I thought it was a good analogy, so fuck you two. Now, clogs…”

Within half an hour, the shopkeeper had drawn a paper outline of each foot and fitted them to her range of shoes. Kelly looked at what was on offer, and pointed.

“Those. The sides come up just enough to give a good fit but not so far that she can’t roll her feet for some of the ornamentation”

Ginny snorted. “Shoes…”

Kelly bristled. “Instruments of skill and passion, woman!”

Ginny laughed, and paid, and I tugged them back to the dress shop, where they had the skirt I had spotted, and in several sizes, and there were tops, and…

“Ginny, what size is she?”

“Eight at the moment”

I collected two outfits, and then spotted the coloured paper behind the till.

“Birthday present…could you? Ta!”

We wrapped the clogs inside skirt and top, and then I dragged the other two off to the arty place, and some work with a calligraphy pen, and finally a cuppa from the pie shop, which was thankfully some distance from the pig roasting place that year. Not today, Annie, not today.

We left the package on her sleeping bag, as Dennis grinned understanding, and I slipped into my own purchases, a mid-calf Indian print cotton skirt and matching kaftan top.

The kettle had just boiled when they returned, bringing eggs and bacon and stuff for pasta out of the car, Chantelle glowing as the wind pushed her hair around her face.

“Nice outfit, Annie! All floaty, lahk!”

“Go and get into your flip flops, girl, and we can start making a bit of lunch”

Five seconds later we heard her squeal. Thirty seconds after that she was in front of us, in her own floaty outfit, the clogs on her feet, card in hand and tears on her cheeks. Darren was obviously burning to go to her, but Dennis had his hand on the boy’s arm, gently holding him back. Shan read the card aloud.

“To Chantelle, and a new life. From your family and friends”

Steph started handing round the tissues.

CHAPTER 4
And, of course, we were all there that evening, in the long bar, and it was even better than the year before.

I could write about tunes, I could write about the pink glow in the cheeks of friends who might perhaps have had less beer, but it is images, snapshots, that still come to me, many of them with two manes of red hair, one of them naturally so, thrashing about to the rhythm and pulse. Of Mark, staring intently at his granda for timing, rather than at his lover’s flying legs, Darren with his own eyes closed as his girl’s are fixed on him. Joy, and music, and drunkenness, not stupidly nor nastily, but in the delight of rhythm and life.

After the weekend, these people would be going back to some drone of a job, I couldn’t see the hats and patchwork trousers doing anything but disappearing till the next weekend of music, certainly not coming out for the local pub. There were some, though, the ones with the twinkle, who I knew would be just the same every day of the year. Including Ginny, of course, who would be mad forever. I started to giggle in the middle of the session, and Eric had to slap my back to break my hiccups.

“What?”

“Just imagining Ginny in a bridesmaid’s dress, satin heels, whole shebang. You know, sane”

“Drink your beer, love, some things are best forgotten.”

Two things did astonish me that evening. Firstly, Stewie produced, quite shyly, a woodwind box.

“I wasn’t sure, so I packed it, and…”

I had to laugh. “Stewart McDuff, are you admitting to actually being shy?”

“Well, what the fuck am I supposed to be when I have to live up to you and the hairy monster? I have been practising a bit, just haven’t touched it for years and years”

It was a clarinet, not a good one, but neatly made and well looked after.

“What’s its name, Stewie?”

He gave a sigh. “She never had a name, before, but, well, this is Mel.”

Sally’s face worked for a few seconds, as she fought tears. “Me, Stewie and I , we discussed it, and it just seemed right. It fits, it fits her well. “

I realised Chantelle had come over to look at the new toy.

“Why Mel, Mr McDuff?”

He looked up, and he was older in an instant, all of his fifty-odd years there in his face. His voice, though, was gentle, and I realised finally how much strength really lay behind his calm and controlled manner; I saw why Sally loved him. And for a mad moment I wished he was younger…no.

“She was a friend, little darling, my best friend, and she didn’t make it. She met some of the same people you did, and I wasn’t there to save her. That is why Steph, and my wife, all of your friends here, that is why we do our best to see there are no more Melanies.”

He held out a hand, and she took, it, which amazed me.

“Shan, you do know we are all here for you, don’t you, that anyone who tries to hurt you has to get past us?”

She nodded, a little uncertainly.

“I will tell you, I find Ginny scary, me, and I am supposed to be the scary one”

There was a smile there. “You ain’t scary…”

Oh, Shan, I had never met anyone who frightened me more than Stewie. You just need to learn how to look. Could she see the important thing? She was inside, and he was scary outwards. He grinned.

“Glad to hear it! Now, want me to make myself look stupid?”

She laughed. “Yeah, go on!”

And at a pause after the next tune, he launched into the simplest piece from the festival book, Winster Gallop, and his reed squeaked a couple of times, but Jimmy, Darren and Steph kept the rhythm ticking along, and I could see the glee in his eyes as he settled into being in the music and not beside it.

I can’t stress that enough. Making music is a fundamental human activity, as crucial for our soul as making love, It is one thing to hear something that lifts the heart and chases the dragons, it is another to make yourself part of that joy. People need to react to music, to nod, tap, dance, and those of us with that little extra sensitivity want to do more, to make that sound at least partly ours, Some of us can, some of us, like Ginny, dance and spin. Stewie was a musician, though he didn’t realise it yet. He had that gift of recognising a key and fitting to it, he felt the rhythm and swing of the tune, all he needed was to get his fingers to do what his heart wanted.

And that was the second high spot, when Jimmy produced his own instrument case and Steph squealed like a teenager.

“You brought IT!”

I had no idea at the time what IT was, but it looked a bit like a fiddle, and a bit like a trilobite, and it made an amazing sound that reminded me of Mark’s pipes. Apparently, it was a Hardanger fiddle, and Steph was drooling. I distinctly heard someone with a trombone tell a friend “Fuck, mad Ginge has got the oddity again”

A huge, long bar, full of people playing several different tunes in several different groups, and one woman stands up with some odd collection of wires and wood, and silence spreads out in waves from her.

“Annie, you and me, I need some counterpoint. Japanese wails, and then Wild Hills?”

Mark nodded. “Want me to join in later?”

“Be good, love. I’ll hit some long Gs, yeah, as a nod”

Wet the lips…blow…tense that bit more, pull in the embouchure, FEEL the overtones and let the wildness out through Saburo. The flute equivalent of the rock guitar feedback scream…let her in with the tune, hair everywhere, have to keep growing mine, the Norwegian thing making a sound I want to cream my knickers to, it is that visceral, and then there’s Jimmy, filling the melody with me as Steph tears the dots apart and makes the tune hers.

Long and repeated Gs on the top string, and Mark hits the wail button himself, and his pipes target the same raw spots that Steph has torn open, and three of us drive the basic tune along as he explodes with staccato ornamentation, and then I get the nod, and yet again I feel, I KNOW, that this is all I was born for, to be human, to be a musician, and nothing can ever be wrong, anywhere, when things feel, sound, this good…

Oh shit. Eric is grinning at me. “I am so glad you remember me sometimes, love”

And then there is a sudden burst of applause, and the trombone player is saying to Steph, as he hands her a pint “Fuck me, girl, you made this place your own years ago, and now you are breeding them.!”

He turned to me and Mark. “Bloody good, you are, just leave the brass section alone, yeah? Pint?”

I grinned back. “There’s rather a lot of us to buy beer for!”

His grin was bigger. “Barman’s fucked off, beer’s free”

“Cheap round, then! Go on, aye?”

Off he went, with a wink, and I felt Shan at my shoulder. She laid her arms round my shoulders as I sat, and squeezed. “Thank you, Annie”

“What for? Just playing some tunes, aye?”

“No…iss more, yeah? Kelly, she says, I just gotta let go, yeah, dance, lahk… Ginny does, yeah, but not what I want”

I grinned at her. “Shan, I understand, aye? Ginny loves the music, but she doesn’t think she can make it, aye? You, you want to be in it, don’t you?”

The shyness was back. “Yeah…but…”

“But you don’t know how to play, aye?”

“Aye….yeah”

“Did Daz? He just found something that spoke to him, and he’s got very good, aye? It’s feeling the music first, only then finding what works for you. Look at Stewie, is he really good?”

She had the grace to lower her voice. “He’s OK…lahk”

“Was he smiling when he was playing?”

She brightened “Yeah”

“Then that is the key. Everyone here likes to hear good music, most of them like to play, aye, and some of them can REALLY play, but they all have a smile here. Shan, you might be a dancer, you might be a singer, you might be anything, and your mums will help you find it. But you will always be you, aye?”

“Kelly says she’ll help me learn the dancing…”

“Shan, whatever works for you. It might be dance, it might be any instrument, I’ve said that, aye? Just remember one thing”

“Woss that?”

“This is a family band, aye? No soloists here, you included. Happy rebirthday, Shan”

A hug, a kiss on the cheek. “Happy rebirthday, Annie. Love you”

And she was off to her boy, and my man awaited me.

CHAPTER 5
Wednesday was my first day back at work, and thankfully it was quiet for an early turn. Den was now back at work, on day shifts and light duties, which at least allowed me to dump odd bits of paperwork on him.

Where would we be without friends? It was an odd time, as that part of the year always is. The weather hadn’t closed in for the end of Summer, but it was still chilly at night. Short sleeves riding under the sun, and woolly hat for later.

Den was still smiling from the weekend. He had lost a lot of weight while laid up, and his uniform hung on him like a child playing dress-up, but the twinkle was back, and occasionally the smile could still do things to my stomach. It was an odd mix of emotions I felt; I fancied him absolutely rotten, which was pure lust, but what I felt for him as a person was what I had tried to make plain to Chantelle. He was family now, and while I really did love the man, it was a completely different breed of emotion. He was my escape, my key to the outside world I had hidden from all my life.

And there was a problem. My life had, so far, consisted of hiding solo in my flat, making sure the alcohol supply was topped up, and in between keeping myself grounded enough to be able to get to and from work. Now, I had more friends around me than I really knew what to do with. I needed a social secretary, it seemed. Eric would do, was my first thought. After all, why keep a dog and bark yourself?

It was difficult, though, because I wanted to see so many different people, from Sarah in Dover to Merry and the family back home, that I couldn’t see myself having a lot of me time. Us time. Definitely us time. How the hell had I survived, even so badly, solo? And the shops were already talking about bloody Christmas. I was turning into my mother in so many ways. She had never really been able to spend any time apart from Dad, and that brought a pang as I realised that despite all the machismo, all the Chapel-driven conformity, they had actually loved each other at least as much as I did Eric.

That sealed my plans. If I could get the time, I would be off home for a while to try and keep the momentum going with my family, and if I could persuade Tony and Sarah we could have the ‘old trout and the monster’ along. And then we could…and there might be space for…back to square one. So many to see, so little time.

Jim stuck his head out of his room.

“Annie, a quick word?”

I popped in, and he was already letting the coffee climb out of the jug into the cup under its own power.

“Got a job for you, Sar’nt Price. How are you with kids?”

There was a teasing glint to his eyes then, as he knew bloody well what was happening in my life.

“why, Jim?”

“Well, you are warned for court in the Old Bailey starting a week from now, for a start”

“Shit, they’re actually getting it rolling?”

“Yes, but don’t expect a long one. I suspect there may be a few guilty pleas on the day.”

“There were none at the P and DH…”

“Take a seat, girl. Woman. Annie. Sod it, you still confuse me, I still hear Adam. Sorry.”

He took a sip, and winced; it was clearly too strong even for an Inspector.

“Look, this is a bit of a high-profile one. You know that, you know who got involved, and you know that they have their own…structures. Those in the loop suspect…fuck it. Shut the door”

I pushed it to.

“Two silly Boys returned a favour to some business partners, because of a vendetta between those partners and Dennis Armstrong. The powers to be objected, and the Powers in this case are not HMG but another set of initials. Two silly Boys have allegedly been told that they either fold, and take their prison term, or they find interment rather than internment, if you catch my drift.”

“Ah. But what about the others?”

“Harton and Petherick were served notice a month ago. Separate incidents, coffee jars. Harton lost an eye. About the same time, Ma had an accident in the showers. There were other…misfortunes. Annie, the Irish are letting them all know they fucked up. Political process my fucking arse”

“What if this gets out?”

“Won’t, will it? Even if it does, the paramilitaries have no association with any political party, do they?”

“Bollocks do they”

Jim grinned. “Yeah, utter bollocks. And you know what? This time, with people like Shan’s grandma involved, I don’t give a fuck. Let the gunmen do all the perverting the course of justice they want, just this once”

“Aye, but why drop their own in it?”

“Makes them look good, Annie. ‘Look at us, on the path of peace, giving up the lawless bombers like the doves of peace we are’. Gives them even more control over their own as well, shows them as even more ruthless than their own side ever suspected. Not nice”

“Shit. So, where does that leave us?”

“We trot along when it gets a day, we walk in, they either plead and we go home, or they don’t and we give evidence at the inquest. Sorry to be that blunt, but the Cuthberts went for a ride on a tiger and it is not in a good mood”

I thought back. “So, what was that about children?”

“I want you out of the station, Annie, just for a while, use some of your publicity, aye? Fuck, you’ve got me doing it now. It’s nothing big, just the school year’s started, and you will be our new community face. Drop in, give the chat, have the photos, Queen’s whatsit on display, all that crap”

“What sort of area, Jim? Me no drive, aye?”

“Your new vehicle is in the yard, Sergeant Price”

I had clocked what I thought he meant. “You are joking, Jim”

“Nope. The Force has bought you a bike. Blue lights and radio mount. Need a cycling proficiency test?”

“With the greatest of respect, piss off Jim. When does this start?”

“Straight after the trial, girl. Look, it’s really a way of letting you have a bit of time to yourself. It has been a heavy period, and I will be honest, I know how you were falling apart before, well, before…before you decided to stop pretending, yeah?”

He reached across the desk and put a hand on mine.

“Bombs, burning cars, too close to what I know you already dealt with. Have a month of fresh air and fresher-faced kids, OK?”

He was right. Eric had woken me a few times as I twitched, forestalling the nightmares before they could properly take flight. A few weeks of riding and talking might make all the difference, and would definitely help get my waistline down. Size 16 was almost in my grasp, and if I could I wanted a 12 for a wedding dress. Cycle those pounds off, girl!

I stepped out and immediately went to the leave list. Trial in a week. Assume guilty pleas rather than suicide notes, then…three weeks. Give Sar a ring, see what Steph is up to, let Elaine know, and Arwel, and Merry…I had so many to think of.

Why can’t life be simple?

CHAPTER 6
I rang Eric and let him know the change in my circumstances. The really good thing for us was that if I was now down as the schools ‘face’ I would be coming off shifts, which meant that we might finally be able to synchronise our lives.

Then I rang Merry.

“So what exactly does that mean, Annie?”

“I go around the local schools and give talks, answer questions, act as a conduit if anyone has a concern, aye? And I might start a bike clinic, do some security marking, that sort of thing”

“And you want to come down home for a weekend or so? I shall prepares some beds for you”

“No, love, we’ll get a B and B, aye? Eric and I sleep together”

“Surely, for a weekend, you can adapt?”

“No, Merry, I don’t sleep without him, as in I do not sleep, aye?”

“Ah. The dreams?”

“Yes, there is that, and there is also the simple fact that I feel warm and safe and, well, loved when he is there. Look, I know you take your morality seriously, that’s why we won’t put you out. Look, we are hoping to have Steph and Sarah across with their husbands, you could put them up, a couple at least”

“Sarah? Have I met her?”

“Don’t think so. You have met her uncle, Arwel, and her sister Elaine, aye? No way you could ever forget him!”

“Er, I don’t think the men will be able to do that, Annie. I shall offer my hospitality to Stephanie, then. Sarah may wish to stay with her own family”

“Merry, just a thought, but would you be able to cope with a young boy?”

“Who would that be?”

“Steph’s neighbours are fostering a boy, and Sarah and Tony come with their own”

Merry chuckled. “This boy, he is housebroken?”

I thought back to Darren and cells. “He is now, love!”

Oh, most definitely, now. I closed up and rang Steph, who could make it, and agreed to speak to Naomi about Darren.. Then on to Sarah. Jim answered.

“Hiya Mizz Price! Dad’s in, Mum’s still at work. Want me to get him?”

“Yes please!”

There was the sound of a dog barking, and then Tony was there.

“Hiya Annie! You should call more often”

“Just a thought, Tone, but we are going over home, that’s Steph and me and our blokes, and Darren, in about three weeks. We wondered if you fancied coming over, making a few days of it, depending on shifts, aye?” Merry, my cousin, says she can put up the Woodruffs, and we can sort out a couple of B and B’s”

He laughed. “Annie Price, you are going soft. What’s wrong with taking the camping kit? If where your family lives is where I think, I know a little camp site not far away…it would be a sort of pilgrimage for us, as well”

“Oh?”

“It’s where we met, and she was very, very drunk. Be good for Pie, too”

“Sorry?”

“Jim’s dog. He was reading National Velvet at the time. Not a bad hound, just lively. Of course, it depends on whether she’d prefer to be over at Arwel’s with Alice, of course. I shall have words. How’s that mate of yours doing?”

“Den? Back on light duties at the moment, but the smile’s back. Tony…I really thought I’d lost him, back then. It was...I can’t put it into words, and then, when he woke up, fuck, it was almost worse.”

I trailed off for a bit, but he was patient on the line, and I realised that here was another steady man, someone who had been through his own nasties and could recognise when it was best to just sit and think.

“Look, Tony, I’ll have words with Merry and the rest, but where is this place you were thinking of?”

“By Llanddeusant, just over the hill from Ammanford. Next to a pub”

I had to laugh at that. “I would expect no less. That might work out better, rather than having family all weekend we can have a bit of family silliness, aye”

“Darren coming?”

“Jim asking about him?”

“Yeah, they seemed to click"

"...and it would be nice to see them away from computer games, aye? And Darren will be without his girlfriend”

“Girlfriend, yeah?”

“Yup, Chantelle’s her name. No way I will be playing chaperone for two teenagers, aye, got my own family to sort!”

“And the trial first? Could be a shitty one”

“Er, I can’t get onto that one. We’ll get it out of the way, OK, whatever happens, then it’s family fun”

“Annie, can I be cheeky? Would it be OK if I asked some friends along?”

Why the hell not. “I will have some family stuff I need to do, so I won’t be there all the time”

“It’s another couple, three kids, you met them at your engagement do? And they met the same time as Sar and me. Trust me, you’ll like them. Sar’s oldest friend, really”

“Go for it, Tony. I remember the kids, they were good with Shan Now, I’m off to do a bit of work now before home, so send me an e-mail or something with directions, aye, and I’ll run it past Eric and the others”

We wound it up, and I got through the rest of the shift, part of which---OK, almost all of the rest of it, was spent setting up the mountain bike. It was a heavy thing, made for riding down flights of steps, and manufactured by a gunmaker. I realised that I would have to work hard to keep it moving, and that my weight loss programme had just received a boost.

A week later, I was in the same uniform the Super had scored for me, making my way with Den, Kirsty and Jim to the CPS room. Our barrister swept in an hour later, robes trailing behind him and wig perched on his brief.

“Hello, hello! Sergeant Price? Armstrong? PC Armstrong?”

“Aye”

“I’m Jolyon Bentworth, I shall be prosecuting in this one. They are here, so usual drill, sit in, wait for the plea, if they lack the necessary grey cells off you go till called. Yes, yes, I know you’ve done this before, but rather fewer times than myself, ya? I have habits that are deeply, deeply ingrained, so allow me my peccadilloes!”

I wondered if there was a special Law School that trained them to talk like that, but never mind. He had a smile, rather than a grimace, and it reached his eyes. He would do, not that we had any say in things.

In we trooped when the tannoy called us, and took our seats in the public gallery. This was so, so different to Croydon, the weight of history seeming to darken the courtroom. The jury were there, sworn in before our arrival, Ten minutes later, there was a small commotion, and our defendants were brought in.

Harton was a mess, a scar livid across the right side of his face, one eyelid drooped shut. Petherick looked nearly as bad, part of his ear gone, but Ma Pickstock just looked old. The nasty old bitch actually looked broken, all of her pugnacity gone. This was no longer someone who issued orders and demands, this was an old woman with her gaze fixed over her shoulder for what might be coming up behind.

There were four others in the dock, and I gathered that whoever else had been caught in the net must have given a plea already. One was a woman in her fifties dark hair in a pixie cut, and her eyes were everywhere till they lit on Dennis, and locked. I looked to my right, and saw Kirsty ostentatiously hold her left hand up, ring visible, and her own stare met Helen Dodd’s and it was Dodd who looked away. I could feel the hatred boiling off Kirst in waves, even without looking, so reached out and took her hand, out of sight of the prisoners. She crushed the feeling out of it until I wriggled, then eased off.

There was a fat old man there, with a really bad comb-over, and that I assumed was the elder Cuthbert, and two men in their forties. One of them looked at me from the dock, and it wasn’t like Dodd, there was no passion in it. The eyes were a pale, pale blue, and it wasn’t just passion they lacked, it was any sort of emotion beyond curiosity. I realised that I was not just being measured, I was being memorised, and I am not ashamed to say that I found it deeply unsettling.

Unsettling? Bloody terrifying.

“All rise!”

In he came, in red and purple, and took his seat as the Clerk gave him the necessary details. There was a short preamble, and then the Clerk began.

“Timothy Petherick. You are charged that you did with others conspire to murder Dennis Armstrong in the town of Crawley by use of an explosive device. How do you plead?”

He looked down. “Guilty”

“Peter Harton, you are similarly charged with conspiracy to murder Dennis Armstrong. How do you plead?”

“Guilty”

“Charity Pickstock…”

“Guilty”

“Archibald Dodd Cuthbert, you are charged with conspiracy to murder Dennis Armstrong, and with conspiracy to procure the murder of Dennis Armsstrong by others. How do you plead?”

He looked seriously ill, and I wondered what the relationship was. Den had told me how people up his way used their mother’s maiden names as a middle one, but what did that make Helen Dodd to him?

“Guilty”

It came out as a wheeze. This wasn’t someone long for the planet, but he still had enough fight in him to distance himself and his–relative?---from the three nonces. I could see there was no love lost there, a clear marriage of convenience. The woman, though, there was passion in her still, and for a moment I wondered, but Helen Patricia Crawford Dodd spat out her own acceptance of her guilt, with just a single sharp glance to her left at the Armstrongs before she settled her gaze into the imaginary spaces before her.

“Declan Fitzwilliam. You are charged with conspiracy to murder Dennis Armstrong, and the attempted murder of the same by the detonation of an explosive device. How do you plead?”

“Like I have a fucking choice? Guilty”

“Andrew Sean Hannigan, the same charges. How do you plead?”

Another long, dispassionate study of my face.

“And it’s guilty from me, as you fucking well knew it would be”

The judge called the Clerk over, said a few words, and then:

“I will consider reports and return here in a week for mitigation and sentence. Take them down”

I rose with the rest as he departed, and the prisoners went back to their cells, and just looked at Dennis.

“Is that it? They just roll over and cough, and we all go home in an hour?”

“Den, let’s just sod off, aye? There’s so much going on here I really, really don’t want to get any more involved with. That Hannigan bloke…Jesus, leave them to it. Kirsty, Den, if it is OK with you, I don’t want to come for the sentencing”

Kirsty was still smouldering, though. “I’ll be there, even if you two aren’t, and I intend to make fucking certain she can see my bump, yeah”

I looked at her, and she was taut as a fiddle string. “There’s more than one defendant, butt”

“Yeah, Annie, but there’s only one bitch who put the whole fucking thing together. The rest of them went along, like, but that whore was the one who got it moving. I want her to fucking SEE, yeah, my man, my husband, our kid, fuck you Helen Patricia Dodd!”

Suddenly the tension snapped in her body, and she was sobbing, and in my arms as Den held us both.

“She should have been ugly, Annie…”

I stroked her hair. “She is ugly, Kirst, she is, where it matters, aye? Inside. They don’t come any uglier…”

CHAPTER 7
So there we were, rolling West once more. Eric had bitten the bullet and hired a car, which I hated to admit made life easier.

He had still managed to secrete his road bike in Geoff’s van, and they had Plans, but that just meant more time for us girls to force the children to enjoy themselves. We had all managed to horse-trade the Friday and Monday off, so it was going to be a decent long weekend.

The previous week, I had succumbed. Our judge had clearly read all the reports, and was feeling his oats. I was in civvies, with Kirsty beside me, when he entered.

“All rise!”

It was over quite quickly, apart from the end-game. Bang, bang, bang, the almost-audible sound of cell doors slamming on each of them for “Life, minimum twenty-five years”, the mitigation minimal, the only distraction once more being the feel of those cold, pale eyes as my face was committed to memory. I couldn’t decide whether it was a true threat, or just bravado, but that man scared the shit out of me.

“Helen Patricia Crawford Dodd”

That jerked me out of my little rabbit’s trance, the headlights gone. Kirsty stirred beside me, her hand tight on mine.

“I have examined the reports made to me by a number of people concerning your mental state. They have given me cause for grave concern. You have been convicted of a most serious crime, and it is my duty to ensure that such a conviction is a safe one. If it is shown at any later date that you were not of sound mind sufficient to fully understand the enormity of your actions, it would cast a fatal doubt over these proceedings.

“Accordingly, I order that you be taken to a secure institution, where the state of your mind can be assessed. If you are found to be sufficiently competent to have understood your actions and their import, I will have you before me once more, and you will be sentenced to life imprisonment, and it shall be for a term of not less than thirty years. If you are seen to be of unsound mind, then an appropriate course of action will be followed”

He sighed. “Take them down. These proceedings are at an end.”

I couldn’t quite work it out, till Mr Bentworth collared me.

“Don’t worry about that, he just likes to hedge his bets. It wasn’t her side pushing the unsound mind defence, His Honour just feels that she is, to quote a technical legal term, fucking barking, and he’d like that squared away so there is no escape hatch later”

“So what happens?”

“Broadmoor, or the equivalent thereof. Think Hindley, or Brady. Mrs Armstrong, Constable, did your husband not pick up on that…aspect of her personality when they were together?”

“Erm…not now, OK?”

We said our goodbyes, and wandered off for a coffee before heading to Victoria.

“So cough, Ruthy”

She looked down at her paper cup, the chocolate sprinkled over the top seeming to fascinate her, and dipped a finger in for a taste.

“She was a bit possessive, says my Den. Caught him, she thought she caught him, checking out some other girl’s arse, like, next thing he knows she’s got a fucking knife outta the drawer when they get home. Cut his hand getting it off her…”

“And he stayed with her?”

“Yeah, for a while, till he realised how odd she is. Annie, he still hasn’t said whether he dumped her because he found out she was on the take, or because she was a fucking loony, yeah?”

She was still using her finger to lift foam and chocolate to her mouth, so I took her hand again.

“Drink up, love. Just, don’t ask him just now, aye? There’s still a lot of shit going on there, let him get it out when he can.”

“Yeah, right as ever. How the hell do you do the girl bit so well so quickly?”

I gave her the sweetest smile I could. “What do you mean quickly? I’m on my way to forty!”

Work it out, Kirst…

So, there we were, crossing into the real country, Darren in the back seat with a Welsh-English phrase book trying to make sense of the road signs. I mean, they are bilingual, so the English is actually written under the Welsh, but it was a new thing to him. I realised that this trip was the closest he had ever been to ‘abroad’, and all of my old exploits as Adam suddenly felt a bit hollow. My life, shit as it was in essence, had let me ride all over the place, burn my self-hate out through dragging a bike over mountains and through crap weather.

His had been limited to thieving and beatings. No contest.

We were finally pulling off at Sarn Park for a brew and rendezvous, which amused Darren because there were cattle grids on the slip roads. I had to explain about sheep, then get all the obligatory jokes out of the way before the weekend proper started, the little sod. The Woodruffs were right behind us, but it was an hour and a half before we were joined by two other cars, one of which held the Halls and a particularly lively black and white furball. Pie, obviously. The other car had three teenagers, a comfortably plump woman and half a rugby team. That is how it looked to me, the sheer size of the man. Now, I dimly remembered the two being introduced to me at my birthday party, and the kids were familiar, but I had been so much locked on Chantelle and Darren that I had, possibly rudely, paid them no attention.

Fuck me, he was big.

“Hiya, Annie! How’re the kids?”

I looked up about eight inches. “Shan is fine, just got Darren with us today. Sorry, but I didn’t really get to talk to either of you last time, was a bit distracted, aye.”

“By the kids or the fiancé?”

I had to laugh at that. “Both, really, was a heavy night. What’s this place Tony’s taking us to like?”

“Not been there for a few years. Still a campsite, according to the net, but I doubt it is quite the same. Still, the situation is gorgeous. Look, we’ll want to stop at the top of the hill, by the quarries. There’s a side road there…”

“Gated now, aye”

He grinned. “I think either Steph or Tony can sort that out!”

I went to round up the kids before the last leg, and found them in the arcade on a driving game. I mean, you sit in a car for hours, you finally get out, and the first thing you do is…I am becoming my own mother.

Arris was hovering, and I heard Jim say something to her which sounded odd, and then she replied “Wrth gwrs, bachgen” as he went off to get some snacks. She caught my eye and smiled.

“He’s learnt quite a bit. Still has a crap accent, but Arwel is working on that. Look, as far as he’s concerned, Sar’s his Mam, and he is a very deep boy. Takes his duties to heart, yeah?”

“Aye…just shames me a little, English boy like that, and I don’t have any Welsh”

Arris laughed. “Technically, by proxy, he’s half-Cymro, aye? Now, your boy…”

I smiled back. “Not my boy, Arris. He’s Naomi’s and Albert’s foster kid. I just put him in a cell a lot”

“Bugger me, Annie, you really are blind! That kid looks on you as the nearest thing to a mother he’s ever had. Every time he sees you, I can see it in him. Tell me, what’s he call the fosterers? Naomi and Albert?”

“Er, Nan and Granddad…oh shit. I am going to have to be careful, aye?”

“More than that, cariad. Seen him round my eldest?”

Oh arsebollocks. That one I should have seen coming; teenaged boy, suddenly thrown together with teenaged girls. I realised how inexperienced I truly was in so many aspects of life. Arris was watching my face as it worked through my thoughts along with my mind.

“I sort of expect this of you three, you know? None of you ever had a normal youth, how could you? I don’t know about you and Stephanie, but Sarah did some bloody stupid things before she grew up, things that could have got her killed, so expecting you to understand teenagers…look, I’m a Mam, yeah? I’ve watched them go from bump to shit machine, from sweet kid to surly teen, I have a bit of a head start on you”

“Surly teen? Your three?”

She gave me a truly old-fashioned you-are-kidding stare.

“Just trust me on that one. Daddy’s little princesses, and Mister up and coming Man of the House, they have their moments”

Sun through clouds, her grin. “Wouldn’t be without any of them, though…shit, sorry, not thinking”

My face had given it away yet again. The more the hormones adapted me, it seemed, the poorer my poker face became. She gave me a squeeze.

“Look at Sar. Mother to the core, yeah? You will have your chance. Now…gather the flock, before we end up with cars filled with sweets, aye?”

“Fancy losing one of your three for a while? Stevie, perhaps, give Darren some company for the last leg?”

“Good idea! Let’s roll”

There was indeed a gate on the side road when we got to the top of the A4069, one of my favourite places, or it would have been if it wasn’t for memories of an old Rover…we pulled over in a small group and Steph and Tony approached the gate. I heard a word that sounded like “jigglers” and Tony was twisting something about in the padlock, and it sprang open. I should have known, they spent all their working days opening locks with or without keys.

We shut the gate behind us, and parked neatly on the verge, a huge quarry behind us and a view out over the lower land to the North, as a red kite twisted its tail overhead. Suddenly, both Arris and Sarah were tonguelocked with their husbands as four kids made retching noises.

“This was where they all met”

Steph was at my shoulder.

“I fully understand. It’s like Shrewsbury for Geoff and me, even if the festival turns into a load of rubbish, it will still be ours, yeah?”

I nodded. “Eric and I go back years, so there isn’t anywhere, really, that is a ‘first’ for us.”

“Not even when you got together, you know, at the festival?”

I could feel a little blush just then. “A bit…look, I feel as if I have known him forever, aye?”

“Aye…”

“So all I can do is my best to make the forever bit true, aye?”

She slipped an arm around my shoulders.

“There, my girl, I am with you heart and soul”

CHAPTER 8
Darren was partly distracted from the overt displays of affection by the view, but not much. I think he was in the time of life where the concept of such things being done by ‘oldies’ was almost disgusting. I had a sudden flash of Kelly…

We simply stood for a while, drinking it in, and Tony chuckled something about drugs, which got his arm slapped by Sarah.

“Where are we headed for, Sarah?”

“The old pub past Twynllanan, Annie”

“Still open, is it?”

“Well, they advertise it as a pukka camp site now, isn’t it?”

Tony gave Steve a look, and then a sideways glance to my darling man where he stood very obviously discussing hill climbs with Geoff.

“Eric, Geoff----do your two go all look-you as soon as you get them back here?”

Geoff just nodded, but Eric had to make the joke. “Well, see, you can take the girl out of the Valleys, look you, but you can’t take the Valleys out of the girl, isn’t it, aye?”

“Oy, Johnson, I am not a Valleys girl, aye? I can’t even speak the language, anyway”

The other three started to giggle at that, and Eric just muttered, as quietly as he could, given the company, “Thank fuck for small mercies”

We did lock the gate properly again, and it was an exhilarating run down through the hairpins before the turn back on ourselves into the close-hedged country lane. Just by a crossroads stood something hideously red. We parked up with the others, and I saw Sarah shaking her head as she stood in the car park.

“Beth ydyn nhw wedi neud? Beth wedi bod yn meddwl?”

Arris was shaking her head. “Wedi meddwi…”

That brought a laugh from Sar. “Does dim angen o’r Faner Goch, yma, ie?”

Jim surprised me, just then. “Mam, paham ydy’r dafarn wedi cael ei peintio goch?”

“Mae’n ‘yng nghoch’, cariad”

Steph caught the exchange as well. “Dim ond hanner Cymro, y bachgen ‘na?”

She turned to explain.

“They are all wondering why the pub has been painted bright red, and Arris suggested in a very bad pun that they must have been somewhat inebriated”

“Ah, probably seemed like a good idea at the time, aye? Half my work comes from ideas that seem good at the time, but…”

Sarah was staring over the road, where a grassy field held a few tents.

“I got my first proper snog over there, you know”

Arris frowned. “What about…?”

Sarah glared at her, the mood suddenly a little darker. “No, my first proper, affectionate kiss.”

She sighed. “If I had had more sense back then…never mind, it’s the now that counts. Boys, time to get our quarters up! Steph, Annie, care to do the honours with the landlord while the hired help does what we brought them for?”

Arris gathered her brood to help with the unpacking, and after some cursory directions from the site manager (“Wherever you like, aye?”) our tents started to grow as I looked at the red-grey bulk of Bannau Sá®r Gaer and tried to turn away the memories knocking at the door. That road, used so often by the wankers who glorified stupidly fast driving on telly, the ones who ended up encouraging the credulous and the over-confident, so that people like me had to turn up so often, far too often, to deal with the mangled metal, the fires, the slow drip of blood onto the tarmac.

We had our own memories of this place, we three girls, and they were linked only by common location. Stop it, Annie. Look at Darren’s face as he watches the tents go up, the kites soar overhead, and the great wave of hills to the South.

And the swell of Alison’s bottom as she bends over. Ah. I wandered over as the family tent went up.

“Where are you kipping tonight, my man?”

“Jim has a tent, yeah, with Pie in it. If I can, lahk, stay with him?”

“Missing Shan? She’d like this place, aye?”

He blushed bright pink. Oh dear, teenage boys and hormones.

“Daz…look, it’s normal, aye? Teenagers, you can’t help it, see someone good-looking, you react, aye?”

He looked truly awkward. “Yeah, lahk, but I am supposed to be Shan’s fella, yeah?

“I know, love, I know. Here’s a rule for life, aye? No lies to people you care for. Flirting, aye, is fine, but make no promises you don’t intend to keep. You like Ali, yes?”

“She really pretty, like her mum”

“Well, here’s a hint. Have a look at Jim, aye?”

We stood for a while watching as a dog ran and a boy watched, and then there was a sigh from my main man Mr Eyres.

“He’s watching her, yeah”

“Darren, my sweet man, welcome to the world of life not being at all simple. You are new to all this, aren’t you?”

He looked up at me, and there was pain in his eyes. Naomi’s intonation came from him, just then.

“One was never really left to develop personal relationships, don’t you know, yeah”

I pulled him to me, noticing how he was actually growing, and laid my arm around his shoulder, not a hug, just being there for him.

“Well, that’s two of us, aye? I could hardly chase blokes, could I? Took Eric and myself a long while to sort out where we stood. Look, Darren, life isn’t a story, it doesn’t always have a simple answer, or even a right one. Sometimes, sometimes it just IS, aye? But it’s better than the alternative!”

A question I had faced for so many years, only truly answered thanks to Ginny. Yes, it is so much better than the alternative.

“Look, this is what you do. You smile at Jim, you mention you think Ali’s pretty, see how he reacts. Then you decide what is important to you. I won’t tell you that, but if you are growing up you will know, and I think, Mr Darren Eyres, that you are really becoming a man now, and all I will say is make me proud of you, aye?”

He turned, and kissed my cheek. His eyes were damp as he looked into mine.

“Always, Annie, always and forever”

“Then go and chase a dog for a while, aye? We are expecting visitors in a couple of hours”

Off he ran, and Sarah wandered over. “Touch of the teenage lusts, aye?”

“Oh yes. Your Jim in the same boat?”

She smiled, ruefully. “He’s an odd one. With adults, he is so self-assured, so happy in himself, but put him next to a girl and he has no idea what to do with himself. Boys, eh?”

I had to laugh at that one. “Sar, think about it, even with our history, what the hell do we know about how boys think?”

A minute later, “Annie, if you have made me wet myself…”

Tents up, we laid out the bedding and kitchen facilities while the children were packed off to fly a kite of a different kind, which had the dog excited beyond belief as he tried to jump for the tail as it rose. As things were sorted tent by tent, I saw Steve casting odd glances at Tony. Sarah noticed.

“OK, yes, aye, permission granted, off you go”

She looked over at me and shrugged. “Look, they might have painted the thing bright red, but it’s still a pub, isn’t it, and these two like their ale. Speaking of which…”

The sneaky bastards. While I had been attending to the needs of love’s young dream, two other boys were off out the gate on their bikes. So it was me, three other women, five kids and a hyperactive canine that were left to sort the tents out when the people carrier arrived. Jim was the first to notice.

“Ewi Arwel!”

The old man had Alice with him, of course, and his son, and another woman. I was nearest the gate, so he greeted me first.

“Sh’mae, Annie! Brought the boy, and the young trout as well as the old one, aye. This is Suzy, my daughter in law. Suzy, Annie, and that’s Darren over there with my other boy. Annie, where’s your man to?”

“Off on his bloody bike with Geoff, of course”

A rumble of laughter. “And Tony and Steve in the pub, aye? Boy, shall we join them? Oh, aye, Annie, we’ve taken a caravan by the pub, can’t come all this way and not have a pint, aye?”

Alice laughed. “A?”

“Bloody nagging, is all I get these days, dunno why I married you”

“Cause I said yes, wasn’t it?”

They made the round of greetings, the dog going absolutely mad with excitement at Arwel’s arrival, and then man, boy and old trout ambled over to the pub for their refreshments. Suzy stopped by me.

“Arwel’s been telling me about you, Annie. Bit of a shitty time recently”

I smiled. “Over now, and time to look onwards and upwards, aye? You coming next year?”

“When? To what?”

I had to laugh at that one, and all I had said to Sar came back.

“Hywel didn’t mention my wedding? Bloody men!”

I filled her in on the work he had done for my family, and she smiled.

“One thing about my beloved, he is reliable in a number of ways. One is that he will do what he sees as the decent thing, but the other is that he will keep very quiet about it, just in case anyone thinks he’s a soft touch. Seriously, Annie, he doesn’t believe what others see in him.”

“Well, from what I have seen of his dad, he has a hard act to follow, aye? Now, I have a cousin coming over tonight as well, so we shall be able to let the boys get raucous while we stay genteel and ladylike!”

Her laughter told me how well she knew the others.

“Ladylike? Sar and that ginger sod?”

Fair point, fairly made.

Merry ended up in our tent with a spare sleeping bag I had packed, just in case. Her hangover was almost as bad as Eric’s.

CHAPTER 9
She was groaning in the morning, especially as the light was slicing through the material of the tent. I prodded Eric awake.

“Brew up, love”

Turning to my other side, “What brought that on, Merry?”

“Nnnggghhh?”

“Last time I saw you get wrecked like that was when you met Eric, aye?”

“Well, perhaps I should do it more often, so that I become accustomed to the consequences”

“Wine and strong drink, Merry”

“A mocker and a rager, Proverbs 20:1, I know, Annie. But in vino veritas. It is difficult when in the presence of a personality such as Sarah’s uncle not to be swept along in the debauchery, and when he enlists the assistance of his son I am lost”

There was more. I could feel it. “Eric, I think you probably need the bog, aye?”

He took the hint and slithered out. I cuddled up to her swaddled form.

“Talk, Merry”

She lay and looked up at the top of the tent. “It is no more than I have said to you before, dear cousin. I am feeling age and infertility knocking at the door, and time grows short for me. I am sorry, I know your situation, but I can only truly mourn my own. I must be true to myself, Annie, I must be true to my Lord, and that is what curtails every prospective alliance”

“Not the right sort of bloke around Chapel, then?”

She snorted. “Weaseling hypocrites, to a man, my love. All I want is a normal, God-fearing---no, God-loving---man. Someone who values the contents of my soul above both the contents of my nether garments and of my bookshelf.”

I gave a wry smile. “That is a rare man indeed, love. I have been lucky to find one who rather looks past the, ahem, contents of my nether garments”

“That, Annie, is what made last night so difficult for me, and why I succumbed to the temptation placed before me”

“I rather think you went to the bar yourself a few times, Merry”

“You know what I mean. Look at you all. Every couple matched, every individual smiling at the other. I know that sin was dwelt in before marriage for all of you, but your true morality is there for all to see–all others forsaken, true marriage in the eyes of our Lord. That big man, the blond…”

“Steve?”

“Yes. His wife has put on some weight, I assume..."

“Oh you bitch, Merry!”

She grinned. “Guilty! But after three children, aye? They are like our family should have been, joined in love before God, and one can see that He has truly blessed them. The others…Stephanie told me how her husband broke his hand protecting her. That passion, coupled with true faith…that is all I want, Annie. Last night, my failings were made so apparent, I surrendered to the temptations of Lethe.”

“Quoting heathen mythology now?”

The grin was a bit more credible now.

“Know thy enemy, Annie!. Now, tea, and a breakfast, and perhaps some ibuprofen?”

We breakfasted in a great herd in the pub, and I noticed that Jim was now sitting next to Alison, grinning, laughing, and every so often blushing, as Darren caught my eye and slipped me a wink with all the subtlety of a punch in the face. I was actually quite proud of him, just at that moment, as he seemed to be making a particular effort to keep his eye on friendship as well as trust.. I mean, he and Chantelle were still so young, but it was still a warm thing in my heart to see him trying to cling onto his honesty. He had already come so, so far, but he still held the ability to amaze me and lift my soul.

Merry was still subdued, and I realised that she had only ever let herself go twice in my presence, and both of them were out of sight of the rest of our family. She was definitely unhappy, though, definitely lonely, even with the comfort of her faith. It was with deeply mixed feelings that I considered our difference, the fact that I could never know that visceral need to give birth that came with the anatomy she had that made such a difference between us, such a gulf. I wanted children, I would at times have killed for the opportunity to have my own, but it was in the mind and soul, not in my flesh.

“Merry…why don’t you come over to visit us for a few days? If you can accept that Eric and I have our own rules, aye?”

“And you have a church?”

“Er, we are not exactly church-goers, aye?”

She smiled. “Annie, how could I not know. I will adapt. Now, what is it you are planning to do today? The family expect, of course, but this is not a seemly place. I would suggest some tea, some luncheon perhaps, in Ammanford. That will avoid the men feeling they have to travel to the ends of the Earth, aye?”

“Aye, but what about the others? We go as an invading horde?”

She smiled, still a little pale. “What better way to show your normality, aye? Boys, girls and dog. A Welsh collie as well…”

Jim must have been listening. “Actually, Pie’s a Border collie, they come from Northumberland”

Tony grinned at him. “Well, from Kent in his case”

“Yeah but, Dad, the breed is Northumbrian!”

As the father-son discussion took wing, Merry smiled at me.

“See? How could our family not delight in such a pairing?”

It felt a bit like a transfer of flocks as we made our way in convoy back over the mountain and into the haunt of my youth and one of the places that still haunted me then. We found a tea room…no, we found a café, this being Ammanford, and waited for the rush of family. Predictably, the first three were the women, Leah, Vanny and Aunty Esther, but while the children walked the dog with Steve through the Arcade the rest started arriving. James was the one who broke the impasse.

“We have spoken to our Parch, and there is space at the Chapel. This is unseemly, too many people, and the poor dog is outside, aye?”

Once more it was transhumance, and I wondered what was actually going on. I suspected that we had had the option of the chapel room right from the start, but the boys wanted to vet my friends first. Luckily, they passed whatever test was being applied.

It was certainly nicer than the decrepitude of the Ammanford high street, and there was tea, and Welsh cake, even bara brith, and they did not mind Pie, who simply curled up with his nose on Jim’s feet.

“What are we here?”

I offered that one up in a pause in the buzz of conversation that was springing up, as I assumed it would be the one thing my suspicious herd of kin would be asking.

“You have met some of my friends, but this time I wanted to let you see that I am not alone over in that foreign country, aye? Even if so many of them ARE English! Now, I have asked all of you to our wedding, and I thought this would be a good time to thrash out some of the aspects that I would like you to cover for me. Now, bridesmaids. I will be blunt, some of you will not be asked. The dresses will be ivory, and that is just not your colour, John”

That brought the required laugh. “I will need flower girls. I have one, which shall be Darren’s girlfriend Chantelle”

I was watching very carefully as I said that. Darren looked sheepish, Ali looked slightly cross, and Jim was trying hard not to let his grin show. Job done, perhaps…

“Arris, I was wondering, would your two like to do that as well?”

I could see Pie wince at their reaction. Poor dog. Arris spoke to the two.

“You want to get all dressed up and stuff at a wedding, girls?”

Little Suzy was saying “No”, while nodding her head vigorously “yes”. ALI just grinned.

“Sold, I believe”

“OK, then. We have three girls, aye, so we need three boys for balance. Anyone know where I can hire some willing lads?”

Eric had his hand up. “Please, Miss, I’m willing…”

I had to take a deep breath before I said something that might offend my family.

“Sorry, but I have other plans for you that day”

Alice murmured “And night, I would hope” and Eric looked embarrassed, but the roar of laughter confirmed a few things for me just then.

Firstly, my family did have a sense of humour, and once we were talking about ‘respectable’ married life, they let themselves give in to a little bit of naughtiness. Secondly…

Secondly, and most importantly, that laughter revealed that I had broken through to them. They were laughing at the usual newlywed naughtiness, and that meant that they were now laughing at and with a man---and a woman.

CHAPTER 10
We worked our way through the food, and the conversation settled down into that dichotomy that men and women deliver so well.

We chatted about the wedding plans, while the men discussed rugby, and dogs, and the declining quality of the trailers of Mr Ifor Williams. Apparently, nothing is as good as it used to be, even if it is actually better.

I just felt, finally, at home with my family, .and as can only be blindingly obvious, wondered why it couldn’t always have been this easy. The answer, of course, was sat next to me. Every aspect of my life revolved around that man, now, every time I saw my deformity and twitched in doubt, it was his love that made me see I was not mad, not delusional, definitely not male. I watched the interplay, the children alternating between trying to get into the adult conversation, especially about the rugby, and just being children. The dynamics were interesting, especially when Arthur asked about Twm’s failure to appear. There was a real presence to Arwel, I had known that since I met him, and as I watched him switch between topics and people I understood the depths that his haircut and chunky jewellery disguised so well.

“Ogling my husband?”

“Appreciating him for what he is, Alice. Iceberg, aye?”

“Oh yes. I think I might just have been the first to see that. Surprised the hell out of Sar, I will tell you!”

“So I see. What am I going to do with all these women? I can’t do the bridesmaid thing for them all, can I? And matron of honour, who do I upset?”

“All will sort itself out, dear. Who is giving you away, for starters?”

“Oh god, it has to be Albert”

“Then Naomi is out of the equation. She gets to sit and watch. You need to find a woman who is an old friend, a true friend, preferably a mother.”

She was either teasing, or unaware of my other friends. “Kirsty?”

“Yes, dear, Kirsty. I thought she would be obvious as a choice, but I wanted to let you make that one yourself”

“But what about…oh sod it, Ginny, Kate, Steph?”

“Stephanie must be a bridesmaid. There are things we girls never get to do in our youth, yes? As for the others…might I be a silly old trout? Make a daft suggestion?”

“Go ahead…”

“Has Eric suggested a best man?”

“No, but I have a suspicion it might be Den”

“I have a suspicion it might be another entirely”

I looked over at him, as he wrestled a grunting collie for a length of rope.

“Dearest beloved…”

He looked up. “And what might be my sin this time, light of my life?”

Vanny nearly spilled her tea with an attack of giggles. I batted my eyelashes at him.

“Darling…I have a question”

He slipped in next to me. “Go ahead, but I will tell you now, that ewe was definitely NOT under age”

“Best man, aye? Who are you asking?”

He was suddenly reticent. “I wasn’t sure if you would approve, love….but I was going to ask Ginny”

Alice grinned, and made a gesture of licking a finger and chalking up a score.

“That, my dears, is part of my suggestion. The other half…why should the groom be alone in having an attendant? Why should he and he alone have someone to hand him a ring?”

Of course! “Alice, no wonder Arwel loves you. Kate and Ginny, absolutely! I am sure Simon will go with that idea!”

She turned sober. “There is one thing you do seem to be making a big assumption about, my dear, and that is, you know, the adjustment.”

She was, of course, absolutely right. I was at the stage where I had absolutely no doubt that Raj would pass me for the surgery, and Sally had as much as confirmed her agreement, but would I get a slot in time? That made me giggle, despite my sudden anxiety, and I had to explain. Slot…

Eric was more thoughtful. “Annie, you do know how I feel about you, don’t you?”

“What, with your hands?”

“Stop changing the subject. We have a date in September next year for something I never believed I would be lucky enough to do, and now it is on the calendar I am not going to miss out. I have a life insurance policy…and there are flights to Thailand…”

I kissed him. I would argue the point, and the cost, later, but the mere fact of his offer deserved not just a kiss but a whole series of responses that would have seen thunderbolts destroy the chapel.

“My love, whatever it takes to wed you, I will do it, aye?”

“Aye…come here”

Later, I spoke to Merry again to confirm Alice’s ideas. “Love, what are your plans for Christmas and so on? We are getting close, why not come over to ours?”

“I usually do some work around the Chapel, sort out your Aunty Esther, that sort of thing. It might be nice to have a change, but I must have somewhere appropriate for my devotions.”

“Well, let us know, aye? Now, I think we are heading towards that time when boys and dogs need reuniting with their tents, aye?”

Eric whispered "…and bigger boys with their pints, aye?”

I kept my straight face with difficulty, and made the rounds. Arthur and James demanded a word, Hywel earwigging. Arthur was straight to the point.

“Annie, we have been discussing something of great importance, aye? The boy here, he is a fine tenor, and his father, he is surely a baritone of rare grace and power, but we will need to decide what works we shall perform at the ceremony. Why are you giggling?”

I had had a sudden vision of Hywel belting out ‘Enter Sandman’ or ‘Locomotive Breath’, with its line about a Gideon bible. “Uncle Arthur, it is simple, really, there I was scared to death, worried about not being able to bring my family back together, and here you are, not just the uncle I love, but a nitpicking musician who forgets whose day it will actually be, aye?”

He looked abashed for just a few seconds, then grinned. “Annie, cariad, I was wrong about you from the beginning, and I know that, and I will make it right, but we are the singers in this family, and we should choose which works will serve best both to magnify the Lord and celebrate the joy of our cousin, my niece, and her wedding. This must be the finest day of her life, aye?”

That did it, and the tears came, at the end of a roller coaster of a day. He took me into his arms, my favourite old uncle, and I whispered into his ear.

“The finest day of my life is in finding my family, aye? Knowing we are still kin. Nothing could be better”

He squeezed me for an instant. “Not even the love of your fine young man?”

I hugged him back. “I have that already, Uncle. This, this I was terrified about. Whatever you want to sing, I will be honoured”

CHAPTER 11
That was all I needed from that weekend, but not all I wanted. Ideas came thick and fast, promises followed behind, and Arwel astonished me by promising to sort out the flowers. It was only later that I discovered the sly old bugger had relatives with a flower shop.

Our second night was spent in the pub, as is only natural, but this time Merry had gone home, and it was a much more sedate evening. Alice had her foot firmly on the brakes with her husband and stepson, and I suspect the hangover hadn’t been forgotten by Eric.

We sat outside for a while, watching the dark-red grooves in the mountains deepen in hue as the sun left them, and as it grew dark Jim, the sly little bugger, slipped his fleece around Ali’s shoulders. Eric had sprung for a chicken Kiev, and so I had to have a wodge of cheesy garlic bread that would have had Ginny nailing my hands to the table, and it was all just about perfect.

“Just a thought, Eric, love…what about kilts?”

“Pardon?”

“For the boys, you know, next September, that day in church, aye?”

He was suddenly a lot more serious in his expression. “I have something to tell you on that one…”

What the hell? “Go ahead…”

“A confession, really. Just, I wasn’t sure whether things…medical procedures would be cleared in time, and so I had words with Simon, and we sort of agreed a fall-back plan. He is willing to sort out a civil partnership thing instead, if it all goes wrong”

“Why is that a confession?”

“Well, it’s the sort of ceremony that gay couples have, and I didn’t want you to think…that I thought…shit, I am screwing this up, aren’t I?”

“Eric Johnson, you sorted out an emergency plan, and you kept it quiet because of concerns that it might upset me? How, exactly, is that screwing up?”

I had to snog him for that, of course, which brought a round of disapproving noises from the infants. I delivered a Paddington to their table.

“At some point you will find out why people snog, if you are lucky, aye?”

Alison just smiled happily, and both Jim and Darren actually blushed. Oh. I wondered whether the latter had been doing it with Shan, or if that was the reason for Ali’s earlier glare at him. Adolescence is wasted on the young.

We spent the next day high on the ridge, revelling in the blast of air over the northern edge, and the only people not hand in hand were young Suzy, Stevie and Darren. Arwel’s fitness surprised me, and I envied the way he and Alice fitted together so seamlessly. If my marriage, or civil partnership, or sinful cohabitation, worked half as well I would be content. All the time, I was thinking back to old Adam, his pain and daily sense of loss and failure, sloughed off like old skin. I started to laugh, and Eric asked why.

“Just a stupid thought, love. I was thinking of me as a bit like a snake, aye, shedding my old life like a skin, sort of peeling Adam off me”

Eric laughed at that. “And you thought, not so much skin as several tons of blubber?”

“Exactly! Like flensing a bloody whale, aye? You know, I am getting closer to that twelve dress size every week. Trouble is the width of my shoulders…”

He turned me for a quick kiss. “They work very well for me, love, especially for hanging things off their front”

The kiss included a quick squeeze of one of the things he liked, and I had to fight the urge to throw him down on the turf and ravish him under the scudding white clouds. He noticed.

“Keep that thought warm for later, love”

I did, and that night he left me sweaty, and sticky in ways I thought had gone, and hoped would actually soon be gone forever, as long as the feelings stayed, the passion I had discovered for every aspect of my man, every inch of his body, and not just THAT bit. The frustration remained, of course, my need to be as real as I could be, to take him into me, to fit ourselves together as we had our lives. Soon, Annie, soon, be patient.

We left the others the next day in stages, the Powells first at the campsite and then Arris’ brood as they turned off for Reading, and finally the Halls at the M23 junction. There was a bath with my name on it waiting to be filled, but firstly I would have to leave Darren at his new grandparents’. Naomi was waiting, kettle boiling as we entered the kitchen, and I realised she must have sat there with it ready-heated just waiting for the sound of tyres in the driveway.

“Nan, can I give her a ring?”

“Of course, Darren, but unload your stuff from the car first.”

He was off like a shot for his bags, and Naomi fixed me with her own patent stare.

“Two young girls in the party, am I correct?”

I grinned, and gave her the story.

“Ah, he has the makings of a fine and honourable chap, Annie, and you of a first-class mother”

“But…oh, you know what I mean, and I think I know what you do, aye?”

She just smiled. “Drink your tea, dear, you will need to be at home soon and unwinding. The real world awaits you tomorrow Biscuit?”

There was a small pile of mail against the inside of our front door, and as Eric sorted the laundry, I sorted the post.

“One from Doc Raj, love!”

“What’s he say?”

“Er…wants to see me Thursday, just me, no strange men”

“Then I better be elsewhere. I have work that day anyway, but let me know as soon as, yeah?”

I do not know what it was, even to this day, but that weekend left me in a state of need that I had never before experienced, and our clean bedclothes were in need of changing shortly after we got between them. Well, not that shortly, but soon enough. It was almost as if I was trying to turn physically female by sympathetic magic, in which the act and acts of our lovemaking might transform me without having to trouble the surgeon. All I can guess is that my mind had been somehow released after the weekend with my family, and was trying to show me how utterly female I was. Either that, or Eric was just too gorgeous to be left untouched.

Both were true, of course.

I duly turned up for my appointment with the sleek man, and his gaze travelled over me from cycle shoes to ponytail.

“Yes.”

“Yes what, Raj?”

He slid a piece of paper across to me. “Just, ‘yes’, Annie. My work is done, Sally’s is finished, you are now fuelled and ready for takeoff. This is a revised letter, to whom it may concern, etc, declaring your status. All I need from you now is a simple answer to one question”

“Yes.”

“Yes to what, Annie?”

“Yes, I want the surgery”

He laughed, and opened a folder, indicating another sheet of paper. “Already signed, woman!”

I looked hard at him. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”

He smiled, and there was true happiness there. “Of course, my dear, as did Sally, as would anybody. But, be aware, this is only one aspect of your treatment. Tell me, do you still collapse at the smell of roast meat? Here, take some water and a tissue. That answers my question.”

He leant back in his chair. “Annie, you have been under treatment for two separate things here, but Sally and I , we are efficient, yes? We treat the person, or try to, not the symptoms. I will be blunt…”

“You always are, aye?”

“Oh yes indeed. The PTSD is not something that is cured, not like your physical problem. What we can do is ameliorate it, which in this case involves removing a major stress source. The rest…the rest is just that you try to live a good life. I believe your masters have recognised that in changing your duties, yes? The schools business? That is all to the good. What I am driving at, in my pedantic and slow way, is that I am as finished with you as I can be. What I would like to do is to discharge you, but as I have explained you will always have an issue that does not depart even at the sound of wedding bells”

“What are you suggesting, Raj?”

“Simple, Annie. You do not come to see me by appointment, I do not have you here every so many weeks, but you retain the right to call me if your issues rise up again. Is that acceptable?”

“More than acceptable, Raj; I am touched by your concern”

“As I am touched by how pretty you have become, Miss Price. May I presume an invitation to the wedding?”

I grinned. “Oh yes, but I am afraid all places on the honeymoon are taken!”

CHAPTER 12
I rode into the school yard, looking at the surprisingly small number of bicycles in the stands. This was yet another of those schools that had decided that they preferred dozens of cars fighting for space outside the gates to children arriving healthily under their own steam, all in the interests of “road safety” as they saw it. Bizarre.

I smiled at the thought, remembering Naomi’s comment about motherhood. Perhaps I was getting broody, after all. That day’s duties were a general chat on stranger danger, followed by a postcode marking exercise on whatever bikes had made it into the yard past the beady eye of the head teacher. It was getting very close to Christmas, so I was adding little touches about strange fat men in red and white furry suits, which may sound more than a little “bah, humbug” but was triggered by the discovery that one of the store Santas already working had been a little economical with his past history when applying for the job, and it was only a very delayed CRB check that had brought up some of his more interesting previous activities. Nothing huge, just supplying alcohol to people rather young, but enough to get him removed. I had thought of Shan’s experiences at that point with a shudder.

“Hello children, Miss Hodges, my name is Sergeant Annie Price, and I am here to talk to you about how to be safe”

Half an hour later and we were out on the tarmac of the playground, as I fettled a number of bicycle-shaped objects into something resembling roadworthiness. The boys wanted to look over the S&W, and all the usual questions followed.

Could I do stunts?
Where did I carry my gun?
Did I have to make a flying dive from the saddle when arresting someone?
How fast could I pedal?
Could I turn on the blue lights? (Yes)
Could I do wheelies, and did I want to see selected boys do them?
Did I have a boyfriend? (Ring shown)
Was I going to have a nice dress?

And then…”My dad says you are a pervert. Wossa pervert?”

“What’s your name, son?”

“Wayne. Wayne Kerr”

Oh dear, oh dear. “Wayne, sometimes people can be a little different to others, and that makes people not like them. That’s silly, because they are still people. Who’s your friend?”

“This is Sandeep. He hasn’t got as good a bike as me”

“So, you hate him because his bike isn’t as good, aye?”

“Course not.”

“There you are. Now, all you need to tell your dad is that you met a lady police officer who gets married in September. See what he says.”

“Is he a nice man?”

“Who, your dad?”

“No, silly! Your boyfriend!”

I smiled at Wayne, trying to see just how his eight year old brain was working.

“Wayne, I think he is a very, very nice man, otherwise why would I marry him, aye?”

More schools, same basic drill. Classroom, lecture, playground, all preceded by a discussion with the Head to dig out any local issues of concern to him or her. It was amazing the level of security that some of them had installed, with cameras at all angles. One rather formidable woman explained how she had two members of staff dedicated to trawling through the recordings looking for regular ‘visitors’ to the playground railings. It turned out that they had a contract with the Woods for their security equipment, so I reminded the good harridan that Naomi could probably do her a deal with some facial recognition software. Whatever happened to a solitary teacher with a bell? Then again, Darren had suffered horrendously whilst supposedly in a place of safety, and as for Chantelle…

Merry arrived on the twentieth of December, just as I was returning home with a full set of panniers from the supermarket. Her car looked odd in our drive, used as we were to having most visitors arrive by bike, and that was as true that day as ever.

“Cooee, Annie!”

Before I could finish getting off the Surly I was engulfed in a tsunami of Ginny, followed by Kate and Shan. One solo, one tandem and Merry’s little Nissan.

“I suppose you want the kettle on, Ginny?”

“Fu…er, I mean yes please!”

She dropped her voice a little. “Puts the dampeners on free expression, girl, having the prewoman along, yeah?”

“The what?”

“Oh, Shan found some old uberfem literature we had lying around. Usual crap, lots of good stuff in it, you just need to set your BS filters to stun. TEA!!!!! NOW!!!”

I looked over to the slim figure standing lost between two suitcases. “Merry, love, I did warn you we could be a little unconventional! Ginny, give her a hand while I unlock the door. Shan, want to help with the groceries?”

Twenty minutes later, and my living room was full of women, tea at hand, and I made the introductions. Merry was as direct as ever.

“Ginny, you are the one that brought this girl to us, yes?”

“Sort of, yeah, still needs some polishing, still a bit lardy. Don’t you look at me like that, Annie, Tabby told me about those kebabs the other night!”

“What kebabs?”

“The ones I was guessing about and that blush just confessed to”

Merry looked a little puzzled. “Tabby?”

I smiled across the room. “Jessica’s replacement. They are both in the bedroom. No, Ginny, don’t even think about it”

The dynamics were complex, as Merry struggled to keep track of Ginny’s random mental leaps, Kate wrestled her grin down, Shan just giggled and the red-haired one carried on regardless. I smiled again at Merry.

“As you can see, sanity is only an occasional visitor to our house. Sure you are happy staying here?”

Merry’s answering smile was melting. “All I have seen and heard here has been born of love and friendship. How could one ever object? Now, tomorrow is Sunday. I need to know more of your church. Annie, will you honour me by accompanying me on the Lord’s day?”

I looked over at the others. “How long are you stopping, girls? Fancy a sing-song tomorrow?”

Kate looked at her wife. “If you have room, love?”

“Three beds and a sofa? Shan?”

“I was gonna, like, go over to Daz’s place…”

One phone call, half an hour of waiting, and his bike was in the garage with the others. I dug a coke out of the fridge for him.

“Darren?”

“Yeah?”

“Lipstick…it’s Shan’s colour, not yours”

Still she settled better among women, still she had problems around men other than the closest members of our odd extended, extending family, but the teenaged girl almost beaten out of her was clearly alive and well, thank all the gods.

“Darren, would your Granddad and Nan want to come to church tomorrow? With all of us?”

“Dunno, lahk, want me to ask?”

“Please.”

We had pizza that night, after Eric got in and Darren had been seen off home by a girl who got more alive every day, and I was truly grateful he had had the maturity he had shown in Wales. So pretty, still so fragile.

Why had I set an alarm for a Sunday morning? Ceasing shift working had left me relishing the fact that I got to lie in bed with my man on a regular basis, but some bloody relative was insisting I get up and formal on one of those mornings, the cow. Ginny, Kate and Shan were going in lycra, so why did I have to get all done up in dress and heels? I started to laugh as I dressed, and Eric asked why.

"Just tickled me, love. Here I am, getting dressed up in a way I could once only dream of, and I am resenting it because I can’t go by bike!”

“Want me to undress you later?”

“As ever, but we have company, so no noises of animal lust, aye?”

“Arsebollocks”

“Eric, love, you realise we are even sharing swearwords now? You’ll definitely have to marry me! It’s expected, aye?”

The girls rode to St Nick’s, as Merry drove Eric and myself, and under her disapproving glare I attached a spare hat she had brought along. Bloody stupid thing, but it was Merry’s morning. We sang, and we repeated the prayers, and Merry and the Woods went forward to take their Communion meal as we poor hypocritical atheists stayed back. The sermon was a Simon classic, based on the parables of the beam and the mote and the widow’s mite.

He was in full throttle, condemning those who sought to find the smallest error in others, to shout their own piety, and once again I realised that–no, not for good or bad, apart from his religious beliefs I could not differ with him–I realised that he was absolutely true to his faith and to what he saw as doing the right thing. There was always something behind his eyes, and the only word that could begin to describe it was ‘love’

His treatment of poor Melanie showed that at its finest. The sod almost had me in tears with his passion, and I had to remind myself that I was an atheist, pure and simple, several times. But the songs were wonderful.

“Good to see you again, Annie. When will you next play for us? Christmas carol service? I have been nagging Steph to get out for it, and you two do play so well together”

I looked at Eric. “Interested, love?”

“Why not? I rather feel Merry will drag us along anyway, so we might as well have some fun”

Simon looked over to my cousin.

“You are…?”

“Merry, Miriam, my cousin, Simon, our sort-of-vicar”

He grinned. “Your sort-of-presiding-at-your-wedding-vicar, Annie!”

There is only one phrase that could describe Merry at that point: a rabbit in headlights. Oh dear me, and was that the hint of a blush? Eric tugged my arm.

“Annie, can you have a quick look at Kate’s tandem?”

As we left the porch, he whispered “Give them five minutes…you devious cow”

I put on my most innocent face. How could he possibly make such accusations?

CHAPTER 13
Merry was quite direct in the car, as she woke from her daze.

“You, dear cousin, set me up”

“Me? How could I do such a thing? Look upon my innocent little girl face, as I bat my eyelashes, etc, aye?”

Eric was making some very odd sounds, which Merry ignored. I changed tack.

“I just thought, with what you said, about the soul, and I knew he was single, and, well…look, I did not tell him you were coming, aye? So, what did you think, if that’s not a stupid question?”

She drove in silence for a while, clearly weighing her words carefully.

“I was impressed by his sermon. I would normally expect a message drawn from one source alone, but he took two parables and wove their message together. Thus, he showed how the Book is consistent, how our Lord’s thoughts are true in their meaning and true to themselves. And he has very nice eyes”

“So you noticed?”

“Oh dear me yes. Annie, is your supermarket open on a Sunday?”

“I did the run yesterday, remember?”

My mind clicked into gear, as Merry’s tells went hyper.

“What have you done, girl?”

“I have not borne false witness, Annie. Just, perhaps, sort of, anticipated things a little.”

Her voice went very, very small. “I invited him to the dinner we will be having this evening”

Shit. “Merry, love, you know I cannot handle roast meats, except for chicken, aye?”

“That was sort of what I promised Simon…so we need to buy the birds”

“How many are YOU cooking for, woman?”

She looked across at me, nearly taking out a cyclist, and I turned her head forward quickly.

“Annie, surely you are not sending away your friends so soon? I was hoping to talk to Ginny a little”

“Why?”

She took a slow breath. “Who else can give me more insight into the pain that my dear cousin has suffered? Who else must I personally thank for your continued existence?”

“Well, he’s sitting behind you just now, Merry”

She smiled, as I pointed out the turning for the supermarket. “Him, I will thank each morning and night in my prayers, and by standing with him at your wedding, my darling. Virginia I need to meet properly”

Eric laughed. “You do realise she is barking mad, don’t you?”

“No, Eric, no she isn’t. She just has a mind full of life and a soul full of His holy inspiration, so full that it bursts out and gives light to the dark corners of others’ lives”

There was a pause. “Though she could use less profanity”

How do people do that? You think you know them, you have them neatly pigeon-holed, and then the wind shifts, or the light, and the sheer depth of their personality drops a hint.

“Annie, this is a practice meal, as Simon is talking about a Christmas gift to the disadvantaged this year. I will be here, I intend to offer my services.”

I could almost feel Eric’s nod. “We have done something similar, Merry. It seems to be Simon’s thing, food, music, some group or other that needs some love. Annie, I assume we are in line for this year, then?”

“If he asks us, love. Down this one and left at the roundabout, Merry”

We did as quick a round as we could, and I made damned sure I left the headgear in the car. Dress and heels, fine, but net-cardboard-feather thing, no. I like hats. I like cotton cycle caps, and waterproof leather Aussie things, and fleecy ear-hugging delights, but you can take your froth and frippery and---charge HOW MUCH?

I picked up a Savoy cabbage as well, to make a ‘cabbage pie’ for Ginny, which I intended to fill with a spicy tofu mixture, and some red peppers to roast, and of course some frozen yoghurt. Back to the car, Merry insisting on paying, and so to the house. She disappeared, and I found her upstairs in her room staring at her luggage, which was laid out on the bed. She was clearly fretting about what to wear. I looked into her case and pulled out a white blouse and a pair of slacks, and spotted a simple pair of loafers.

“Comfort, and cooking, Merry. No heels on my floors, aye? And the girls are in cycle kit, but not too smelly…look, put the slacks on and he will be able to see what a lovely arse you have”

I watched her face go through a series of changes.

“You are really, really out of practice on this, aren’t you?”

She ducked her head. “Never have been in practice, have I?”

“Look, Merry, this is not a make-or-break thing with a life partner, aye? This is just getting to know someone better, someone you might like. Take small steps, love. And by the way, I shall ring the Woods again. See if Darren wants dinner with Shan”

The smile was back as I redirected her focus. “He is very fond of her, isn’t he?”

“And she of him. We just need to steer love’s young path so neither gets hurt, aye? Slacks and blouse, girl, I’m off to the phone.”

The doorbell rang at six, and there he was, no odd collar, no robes, just a man pushing forty in jeans and a lavender cotton shirt, sleeves rolled up to show rather toned forearms. The twinkle was there still, the smile as genuine as ever.

“She’s in the kitchen, Simon”

He grinned. “Awfully presumptuous there, Annie!”

I led him in. “No presumption at all, Simon, just leaving the theology to those who done got religion, aye?”

The smile was softer. “You done got it yourself, my dear. You just won’t admit it”

“Nope, not here, no beardy man in my world view. Well, not since I shaved it off…forget I said that”

The smile was, if anything, even softer. “Annie, with the press coverage, and dear Stephanie, and the grief over Melanie, how could I not have known? I assumed you treated it as common knowledge. And you know that Eric has spoken to me, am I right? Anyway, you are the young lady who has an appointment with me in September, yes?”

“Simon, I know that, I just need to get…something out of the way.”

“Annie, you should read more. Your gender can still be reassigned without invasive surgery”

“Yes, but I want to–“

“You want to be right for your husband, yes, I know. But hear me: I do not care. I mean, I DO care, for your sake, what I meant was that it matters not to me the state you are in when you stand before me in September. I fully intend to marry you. Er, you and Eric, that is”

I hugged him. Of course I had known, had realised that he knew. I was keeping no secret of my past, just not shouting it from the rooftops, but every so often I had little moments of painful memory. Get a grip.

“Simon, the kitchen is through here”

She was bent over in front of the oven, and yes, she does have a lovely bottom despite being so thin. Simon noticed. I left him to it.

The living room was nicely filled, a bean bag holding one young couple in that relaxed embrace that says they no longer care what people say, and the sofa an older pair in a much more casual collision of limbs that tells everyone who sees it that they never did care. Eric was in one of the armchairs, so I slithered onto his lap and kissed him.

“Dog has now seen rabbit’s arse, love. She was bent over in front of the oven”

“How long till dinner?”

“About a quarter hour, aye? Shall we get our serfs untangled?”

“Indeed. Kids, table to set, canoodle later”

I slipped off to have a quiet word with Chantelle as Darren raided the cutlery drawer and Eric found a decent cloth.

“You OK with another man in the house, love?”

“He’s not in his vicar suit, is he?”

“No, just shirt and slacks”

“Thass OK, then, I got you lot an’ Daz with me, yeah?”

Every so often Shan lets out some little snippet that reminds me not only that there was a lot more to her ordeal than she has ever told, but that it can never truly be over. That remark made my stomach twitch in disgust. I hugged her.

“Always with you, love, always. Now, go and sort out the mess he’s made of the settings, aye?”

A short while later, Simon started carrying in the plates and platters, and we were presented with a crispy-skinned roast chicken and a steaming cabbage pie surrounded by stuffed and baked peppers, together with an assortment of vegetables and a flushed cousin. Shan had opted for the cabbage, along with Ginny and Merry, so we had the choice of opener of the way to sort. Eric had the answer.

“Look, I am not really host today, and Simon is a guest, but if there is any carving to be done…is there a doctor in the house?”

Kate smiled, and to Shan’s uncontrollable giggles proceeded to pretend to take the pulse of the bird.

“Hmm. Still warm. Time of death…oh, some time before six fifteen. I shall perform the autopsy now. For the benefit of the tape, I am making an incision along the left side of the sternum–oh, Shan, you’ll spill your drink. Who wants a leg?”

Merry’s smiles were directed one way.

It was a very, very good evening. The girls left first, but it was ten thirty before our vicar made his move. Well, I assume he made some sort of move, as it took twenty minutes for them to say goodnight at the front door. We didn’t stare when she came back to the living room.

CHAPTER 14
The next morning she was singing, some chapel hymn or other, and I couldn’t help but contrast the state Merry was in compared to that of a certain camp-site morning.

“You in pain, aye, making that noise so early?”

“Annie, my sweet, when I compare it to the noises you wrest from that wooden tube of yours, I do believe that I am ahead on more than points, isn’t it?”

“By god, give her a snog and she goes all Valleys!”

Merry blushed, and I felt bad. She was too fragile to push like that, not accustomed to the rough and tumble of the banter I was so used to at work. I gave her a quick hug.

“Love, you know that I don’t mean any harm, aye, it was just that you seemed so happy last night. He’s a really nice man, you can trust me on that one”

She squeezed me back. “And I am an old maid too frightened to play these games, to take those risks, but he has a soul so filled with love of the Lord”

I giggled. “And I do believe you noticed his eyes…what about his bum?”

There was a pause. “Well, I did consider that it was rather suitable for the cracking of walnuts…”

“You strumpet!”

That did it, and she was clinging to me as we let the nerves and her tension dissolve in a gale of laughter. Eric stuck his head round the door, and I just waved him quietly away.

“Merry, here’s the tip, aye? He’s a nice man, we know that, so just go with the flow and see what happens. You never know–EITHER way, aye?”

She lifted her head to look into my eyes, and suddenly she was a little girl.

“He made me feel good about myself, Annie”

“And so you should, Miriam. You are a pearl, aye, and he has spotted that. But, walk first. You have a week at least in which to see how things go, so no hurry. Now, breakfast, then we need to pay a visit to a friend.”

Now, sometimes there are coincidences, sometimes those coincidences are so closely connected that I almost believe in a god–and this was one, as the phone rang.

“Hello, can I help you?”

“Annie!”

“Morning, Den!”

“Annie, her water’s broken!”

“Shit. Ambulance called?”

“Aye! Will you come, Crawley?”

“Be there soon as, Den. Anything you need?”

“No, got her travel bag, just need someone to stop me shitting myself, like”

“See you there. Now, get off the phone just in case, aye?”

I hung up.

“Eric! Baby’s on way!”

Merry gave me an odd look, and I could see her brain turn a partial somersault before landing right way up.

“Whose, Annie?”

“That friend I just mentioned. Would you mind driving us? I have a few calls to make”

I quickly pulled on some jeans and a sweat shirt, and as Eric directed Merry I rang the Woods and then Kate, followed by the nick. Sam had the duty that morning and undertook the job of sorting all the admin crap out. Eric got Merry to drop me at the door before taking her round to the staff car park, and I was swept up by a trembling Geordie giant.

“What do I do, Annie?”

“Let me breathe, for a start!”

Twenty minutes later, the others were with us with cups of tea and chocolate biscuits, Kirsty in a side cubicle as the contractions got closer together. Eric ran a shuttle service between the couple and us up until the moment they were about to wheel Kirsty into the delivery room. That was when Naomi came running in.

“You may or may not want this, my dear, but it is yours for as long as you need it”

She held a digital video camera out to Dennis, and he suddenly burst into tears before kissing her and disappearing after his wife.

Three hours….endless canteen teas, all possible newspapers read, crosswords finished, archaeological examination of the more recent strata of magazines in the waiting room. Fitful dozing on Eric’s shoulder. Microwaved pasties. Strolls outside through the haze of smoke from the illiterate addicts, and calls to Ginny, and the nick, and Simon (“I’ll be right down”, and he was). Three hours, and then a very drawn and tired-looking Sergeant Armstrong was with us. I couldn’t read his face at all, and then suddenly he grinned.

“I–we--have a son!”

I think that our reaction can be guessed at, and he was swaying gently like a birch in a breeze as handshakes and kisses rained on him. Merry was the first to ask the obvious question.

“How is your wife?”

“Dennis, sorry, but Merry is right. How is Kirst?”

“Even more tired than me, Annie. But we have a boy, and…look. This might not be the best thing to ask, like, but…would you mind, would you be upset if we called him Adam?”

That creased me up, and the tension went out of me as laughter. “Annie would be silly, aye? Of course you can, and I know how you mean it, aye? Dennis Armstrong, we love you, and I am particularly flattered that you honour me this way. Thank you, really”

Eric was smiling happily, and I noticed in passing, out of the corner of my eye, not peeking, no spying, that Simon had hugged Merry at the news. It seemed he was a lot more confident in his approach than she was, but I saw that she wasn’t exactly pulling away. I gave Den another kiss on the stubble of his cheek.

“Den, love, you have a family to check up on. We will be here for a while, just tell us what you need.”

“Work sorting…”

“Done. Sam’s on the case.”

“Then a lift home at some point. Apparently I can’t stay here”

Simon held up his hand. “No problem, Dennis”

“They’ve given me this list of stuff, like, that we’ll need at home for when she gets out”

Merry held out her own hand. “Simon and I will sort out what you need, Dennis. I will drive my family home, and then we shall sort out what is needed for your own family”

He looked even more dazed, a stupid smile playing on his lips.

“Family…”

Simon led him away, and I looked across at Merry. “You and Simon will sort it out?”

She didn’t blush, much, but the nerves were clear. “I will change my life, Annie, if He is willing. What clearer signs could He send me?”

A few days later, Kirsty was allowed home, and Merry did the honours there as well. Christmas was so nearly upon us, and the shops were heaving, but vicar and cousin had managed to source all that was needed for the new family. I gathered that Simon had sources available to him other than Mothercare or Boots the Chemist, but there were no complaints, and I made sure to call by the Armstrongs’ as soon as she was home.

“Hiya, Ruthy! How’s the front bottom?”

“Fucking sore, Sarn’t Price! Come on in!”

She was sat up in bed, a blanket laid round her shoulders, and as Den busied himself with tea and stuff I looked at the small form clamped to her left nipple.

“Annie Jessica Price, meet Dennis Adam Armstrong. Takes after his dad, yeah, a real tit man already”

I handed her the flowers I had brought, and she kissed me.

“Den shown you the video yet? Bit fucking gory! Never realised how much blood and shit there is when you sprog”

I smiled, but the pain was back. “Possibly not my sort of film, Kirst”

“Shit, mate, didn’t mean it like that! Sorry, but…look, love, please take this as I mean it, and I know other sods have said the same thing, yeah, but I can’t hardly remember you as Adam, yeah? You just so right, and stuff, just so, fuck, so Annie, yeah? So, you know what I mean. Anyway, you’re a godmother now”

“Pardon?”

“Yeah, I know, gotta get the church bit out of the way, but it’s true. You saved my Den, you saved me and my family, yeah, this kid has to know who his mates are. You are family, Annie, we are the fucking Borg, yeah?”

She started to laugh at that, but her stitches must have pulled and she winced.

“Here, woman, grab hold of your godson for a bit, I need a piss”

She settled the half-sleeping bundle into my arms and gingerly slid out of the bed before walking bandy-legged to the bathroom. I settled little Dennis Adam into the crook of my arm, and he burped gently. His hands were clenching and unclenching, and his head started to butt against my left breast, which was when Kirsty returned. She watched for a few moments, as little hands sought to find the magic fountain, and then she gently took him back.

“See, mate? No way you have ever been a bloke. He can tell!”

CHAPTER 15
“You need a hat in His house, Annie!”

“I am not playing Saburo in some bloody milliner’s nightmare, Merry! It’s a meal for crumblies and a carol service, not a royal garden party”

“And these crumblies as you call them, they will have traditions, isn’t it? They will be expecting to see proper respect shown to the Lord on the celebration of His birth?”

“Miriam, you can be a right sod, you know? Just be grateful that this year we are not camping, aye? ERIC! NEED HELP!”

We had been ‘booked’ that Christmas for the carol service, so we would be a very mixed band again. Two fiddles, a flute, various stringed musical instruments as well as a banjo, plus melodeon, whistles, drum and so forth. Mark was going to do a solo session of tunes partway through, but we anticipated a much quieter evening, musically, than we usually had. It would have been young Dennis Adam’s first outing, but it was too cold to risk the health of such a young child.

It was going to be one of those family evenings I had grown accustomed to, the Woods and Woodruffs together with McDuffs, Armitages and my girls. Loneliness…how could I ever have let myself drown so deeply in despair and hopelessness when all of these people had been there for me, all the time, if I had only had the sense, the intelligence, to open my eyes and recognise their love?

Merry was still bustling, perhaps eager to see her potential Young Man, but she was smug with it. Merry has always been my favourite, with good reason, of all my family, but she has always had difficulty in hiding her plotting. Then again---I looked over to where Jessica sat with Tabby, and thought.

I was dressing down, no LBD this year, but a mid-calf wool skirt over flat boots matched with a white blouse and fitted jacket. That led me down a number of blind alleys, as I looked at Merry’s idea of appropriate headgear, and then the idea rose up from somewhere in my old musical silliness days. I found the necessary, and confronted her.

“Well?”

“Oh dear, dear me, you look like Benny Hill!”

“What is wrong with a beret?”

“Ych, no time for such disputes, my dear, coat and bag and house keys, aye? There are elderly folk who want feeding and the name of our Lord to magnify in song!”

“Merry, my love, you do know I am not really, you know…”

She smiled, a little sadly. “I know, my dear cuz, as I also know what is troubling you”

“Eh?”

“Annie, cariad, am I intruding if I ask if Kirsty has suggested what I believe she did?”

Shit. One thing I did my best to avoid discussing too deeply with Merry was religion, for obvious reasons.

“Aye, she suggested godparent as a job”

Merry smiled, and this time it was a lot warmer. “That is not true, is it? Not completely?”

I had to concede that one. “Godmother, aye. But how can I do that when I am not, you know…”

“A woman, or Godly? You are the first, and anyone who cannot see that is blind or stupid, or wilful.”

I remembered small hands, kneading at my breast…Merry continued.

“As for Godly, you will be there to see that the child is safe, and lead him into the paths of righteousness. Our Master’s house has many mansions, Annie, and even the Jews in their clinging to the old beliefs have a phrase for that: the righteous gentile. Will you lead him on those paths, Annie? Will you serve the child’s welfare, yet leave them free to follow whatever faith they may find?”

“Well, of course, that must be their own choice, their own conscience, aye?”

The smile was truly warm now. “Then what better woman to discharge that duty?”

Trapped…what could I do but smile and kiss her?

The church hall was full of elderly people of various stripes and levels of fitness, and we bustled around serving teas and soups, sandwiches and cake, and my heart, already fragile, melted when I saw Chantelle in apron laughing as she served both women and men. She would never be free of her past, that was a dreadful certainty, but more and more, with the aid of two women and a boy she was coming to live in the present. I stood for a while, and watched as my family-plus moved through the tables. Geoff and his elegant wife, the Woods, all the rest of the Woodruffs, Kelly dancing attendance, almost literally, on her lover, and that was now the only word that truly fitted. Jimmy caught my gaze, and winked at me, and two words sat there at the front of my mind.

Happiness.
Love.

So much love, so freely given, and as I looked round I saw my two gorgeous men, Eric and Darren, doubling up at some silly joke or other, and there was only one thing I could do. Saburo slotted together as smoothly as ever, and I started to send silky notes out over the chatter of the diners. I played Nat King Cole and ‘Mairzy Dotes’, “White Cliffs’ and “We’ll Meet Again’, ‘Pretty Flamingo’ and ‘Paint it Black’, which led to ‘Ruby Tuesday’ and ‘Clear White Light’, and Simon was at my shoulder.

“Time for the big band, Annie”

We settled into the space before the altar, spotlights dazzling so that we couldn’t see much of the congregation, which was at capacity, wheelchairs down the sides of the pews. Simon was in full vicar suit, which tickled My Man Darren, and he started to whisper something about crossdressing before suddenly stopping and turning pink, with a shamed look at me. I leant over.

“It’s OK, Daz, I’m not a crossdresser, am I?”

His grin showed his understanding.

“Dearly beloved, and you are, you know? You are in His house, the house of someone who is Love in His essence, someone who was born, this day, literally love incarnate, born to suffer for our sins, born to show us that there are better ways to live. Yes, I know there are all sorts of issues behind the date, and the year, and adoption of old festivals, but that is not important.

“Really, truly, it isn’t. What is important is our Lord’s message, which is love, and tolerance, and forgiveness, and acceptance. That doesn’t mean blind acceptance, for one must never accept wrong, never use clever words to allow evil to flourish on the basis of some polished and specious argument. Know your enemy, but recognise that the man or woman who offends you is not your enemy, but the act, the thought, they are your foes.

“A human being is a glorious thing, made in His glorious image, but the thoughts, the actions, do not always match that. So one must separate the two. Restrain the sin, redeem the sinner. That is love, that is agape, brotherly, sisterly love, the love of parent and family. That is Christ incarnate, Christ within us all, and isn’t it so, so much easier to forgive that sin when you know that the sinner, the person in front of you, the human being, is part of the Godhead, is one of the beloved of our Lord and Saviour?

“Never, ever, tolerate sin, though. By sin, I do not mean eating flesh on a Friday, or women coming to His house bareheaded. There is a fundamental difference between piety, between worthiness, and bookkeeping. He knows what is in our hearts, and we should be the honest strivers, those whose intentions might not manage to scale the heights but still do their best.

“This, then, is Christmas. This is when we give, we give gifts, and ourselves to our friends, and our neighbours, and our neighbours are all of humanity. Let us pray “

There was a sequence of call-and-response prayers and blessings, and then Simon looked at us.

“Our little orchestra will now lead us into ‘Guide Us Oh Thou Great Jehovah’ “

Bill set out the introduction, and as we started the glorious tune I heard the congregation begin the first verse, and I nearly stopped playing in surprise. There was a huge surge of power to their voices, and then harmonies started to play around the upper register, female voices and male, and as the chorus soared to the rafters I caught Merry’s grin through the glare of Simon’s spotlights. He caught her eye, and dimmed them, and there they were, faces rapt as they sang their praises to their God, and it was Tom and Twm, James and John, Arthur, Arwel, Hywel, Vanny, Leah and dear Aunty Esther, wives and all, and I had to stop playing because I couldn’t tongue the notes through my sobs.

That Christmas was a time for families, and it was the time for mine.

CHAPTER 16
There was more, of course, more of their voices and power, and I wept, but Eric was there, and Merry joined me as I dropped out of the playing, her arms a comfort above and beyond the joy of the music.

The acoustics of the church brought such a richness to everything, such a clarity, and the grace of Hywel’s tenor and Leah’s contralto flew above the sheer thunder of the bass and baritone voices of the men of our families.

Merry had obviously nobbled Simon in the choice of hymns, as they were all great tunes and not just carols. We had ‘Gloria in Excelsis’ and ‘Be Still, My Soul’, so many others, and yet it was the popular ones, where the children joined in more easily, that I still remember. The way a simple old song like “Once in Royal David’s city” took on a depth and passion of its own rather than being the repetitive dirge it usually becomes. Darren had stepped away from the band too, and I felt his arm slip around my waist as the three of us simply stood and soaked in the dancing air.

It came to an end, of course, and there were cakes and hot drinks in the Hall, but I pushed through the congregation to find Aunty Esther and the rest. I could hardly see with the tears, but that was fine, none of them was moving out of reach, and none avoided a kiss when I found them. Once I could speak rationally again, and see more clearly, I sniffed back some tears and asked the obvious question.

“When? When was this all arranged?”

Twm looked across at Arwel, who grinned, but it was Uncle Arthur who replied.

“Miriam was behind this, when she said she was coming to your home for the holy days. I…I felt we should make sure that you understand that you are kin, and that is something I did not wish to wait for another nine months. One grows a child in nine months, but one can as easily lose a loved one.”

He grinned, almost as widely as Arwel. “Besides, how can I get my favourite…niece to come back home more often if not by infusing her soul with hiraeth, aye?”

Hywel was just as amused. “Aye, Annie, and we were coming over with the trouts to see Sar, and we needed a bit of practice like for the proper carol service tomorrow. Just got the organ there, less competition from the show-offs like you lot!”

I was in fresh tears. “You are all so welcome, aye? Welcome to my first Christmas with my family. Where are you all staying? How long? What….oh, damn it, tea, cake, come on before it all goes”

Merry was still at my shoulder as we headed for the Hall.

“Travel Lodge, Annie, I got a bulk discount for them. Sarah’s people are continuing on tonight to Dover.”

“Why not…oh, I know, no surprise, but next time, my house, sod it, OUR house, there are two of us, our house is family property, aye? We are flesh, aye?”

I found myself laughing suddenly, as a thought struck me. “Unless you have somewhere closer in mind?”

Her blush told me all I needed, but she was still Merry, sane and sensible, practical in all things.

“I know what you mean, Annie, but we have known each other only days, and one makes no life plans on that basis”

“A girl can dream, though, aye?”

“Oh yes, my dear, oh yes”

I watched her face light up, and she linked an arm to squeeze mine.

“Annie, thank you. For good or bad, though I think the former, you have shown me something I dared not hope for. Too many years lacking faith that He is capable of making good men, or at least some who I am not too late for...did you listen to his sermon, I mean really listen? He has such a depth of faith, of generosity to him, and the words, his gift with language….”

She tailed off, then suddenly grinned. “And the most beautiful eyes, aye?”

We entered the Hall giggling as badly as Chantelle now was, as Alice teased her about her new dress and whether Ginny’s hair colour was infectious. For a while I circulated through them, giving my love and my thanks, and then I found myself with Twm Powell, Sarah’s father, and his wife Sioned.

“That was a good piece of singing, Annie. The boys and I shall have to spend some time with your men before your wedding”

Sioned poked him. “There are lady singers here as well, Twmi!”

“Yes, but it is the bass and the baritone that carry the song, cariad, it is they who shake the building, and the diaphragm”

I laughed. “And here am I playing in a much higher register, aye, and so I shall declare a bias! You are sure you want to shoot off to Dover at this hour? We have beds, spare rooms”

Twm nodded. “We have a grandchild who must be seen, and a daughter we love, and it is Christmas, and these things are necessary.”

Sioned cracked a remark about him missing ‘his’ dog, and then suddenly he was serious.

“It is important, Annie, that the choices God gives you are seen clearly. Sarah made mistakes, she hid from life for too long. All that she has now, she could have had so many years ago”

There was something dark there, and Sioned frowned.

“She had a…problem with a man, after she had met our son-in-law, a problem she could have avoided”

Ah. Sioned was still talking. “That is one reason we feel, in a way, protective towards you. It is why Twm here, and his brother, stood up for you with your people. We were wrong, at first, back then, but now we see clearly. What we can see, so may others”

Twm grunted. “They might need a bit of a smack at first, but that’s the way of the world. Look, Annie, make us proud, aye, make us parch, does dim angen arnat i hiraeth achos mae Cymru yn buw yn y galon, na?”

Sioned slapped his arm lightly. “Dydy hi ddim yn siarad yr iaith, Twmi. Sorry, he gets a little morose and silly at times. He is saying that with your family, with their music, you need never be homesick because you carry the land in your heart. Look around you, there is life here, life and love, and so much of it isn’t English!”

That brought a proper laugh from Twm. “Aye, the buggers invade us, subjugate us, try to kill our language, and we can still outsing them! Pity about the rugby, though”

Hywel was listening in, and I left them to their suddenly lively discussion, seeking my man. Well, one of them; I could see the other cuddled up to his girl and a plate of cake. Merry was behind the kitchen hatch with Simon, looking every inch the potential vicarage lady. Twm’s comments about seizing the day played in my mind as I watched her, and I offered a little prayer to her god that whatever happened would leave her with a smile to match those they were sharing.

I finally found Eric surrounded by my family, looking more than a little intimidated, which was hardly surprising.

“Annie, love!”

I got a cuddle, and his arm stayed protectively around my waist, but I couldn’t work out who was the one being protected, me or him. Aunty Esther was to the fore.

“This vicar, this Simon, what are his intentions towards my Merry?”

I spotted the twinkle just in time. “I think, to see that she smiles, Aunty”

Her own smile was there now, and John was nodding. “More than that, Annie. Much more than that. He is a wordsmith, isn’t it? He knows the Lord’s words and he makes them clear to the ordinary man, and that is a rare gift. I would, we would have him at the Chapel, and if he is the man to marry you, it will change things”

The others were nodding in agreement as he continued. “Aye, Annie, we will be proud to stand for your wedding, that we have made clear. Now that you offer us a man of God, one who can enrich our souls, you make us certain in our decision. You have a treasure in that man”

Leah giggled. “And even in that cassock, I can tell he has a LOVELY bottom!”

CHAPTER 17
Of course they had to come round the next day for dinner, and that had to be arranged for a restaurant as we simply didn’t have the room, which meant a LOT of telephone calls to find somewhere that had space for well over twenty folk, and only the Parson’s Pig had space enough among all the office parties.

At least the pub part of that was in another room, so that my family could pretend it was actually further away than the other side of an archway.

My second Christmas as myself, my first ever as I should have been with my own kin. There are moments that last hours, where memory hides in warmth and sweetness. That was an afternoon of that sort; everything now lives in my mind’s eye as snapshots, a smile here, a laugh there, and bugger me if Simon wasn’t still along for the company. One highlight was a long discussion on the theory and practice of excellence, as Big Bill Woodruff, Simon, Merry and Uncle Arthur with Jan Woodruff’s mother Angela hammered out a definition of virtue. Now, that was indeed fierce, as the Buddhist, the Quaker and the congregation-centred Chapel folk laid into the episcopal principles of the Anglican vicar. Merry was surprisingly fierce towards her supposed object of affection.

“I will allow no man, no mere mortal, to stand between me and my God. He has said, nobody comes to the Father but through Him, isn’t it, so why would I need a bishop to decide for me?”

“But, Merry, who can help you with the interpretation? Some of the scriptures are rather dense…”

“Then I shall need to study and meditate on His word, aye? That is the whole purpose of prayer, to know the Lord more fully, aye? I do not need a serried hierarchy of prelates to show me that my God lives!”

Bill was laughing. “Not actually having a god, I can score this one. Fifteen-love to Merry”

There was more, but some of it I missed when the table next to us had a roast delivered, and I had to take some air outside in the car park. Eric was clearly rising to join me, but it was my other man, as usual, who took my back, and three of us made a little huddle in the chilly winter sun. Chantelle was curious, and I noticed that her speech, like Darren’s, was changing register steadily as home life set her free.

“Annie…”

“Yes, love?”

“Daz tells me you have problems, like, with roast dinners and stuff…”

“Aye, girl, aye, it’s memories. I have some really bad ones, aye, and sometimes, well, the bad stuff comes back at any hint, like a smell, and roasts…look, I was a traffic cop, and there were fires, and that’s all”

She shuddered, and he cuddled her close. “Yeah…iss sounds with me, sounds and colours, yeah? Like, a voice, a way of speaking, like. Big man’s voice, shits my head up”

I looked at her, shivering in his arms, and wondered if it was his slightness, his lack of bulk, that let her see him as safe.

“Sorry, my family, all those bass singers, aye…”

She was suddenly animated. “But thass different! Thass music, yeah, real music, from inside, not some radio chart shit, thass like hating someone cause they plays a banjo, innit?”

Just a hint of a grin there. “Annie, I got to learn, Ginny keeps telling me that everyone’s different, books and covers and shit, and just cause he’s got a cock, like…”

There was an age of pain in her eyes, something primeval. “Iss what Kate tells me, not all men are rapists just because a lot of the ones I know are. And Ginny…Ginny says, she says me and you, Annie, we is sisters, and she says I have to look after you, and I says, I don’t need no telling, cause you looks after me, and Daz here, and shit, and….”

Her tears were there then, and we ended up in an awkward triple cuddle. I did my best for her.

“You know it’s over now, don’t you, Shan? Anyone else like that would have to get past Ginny, for a start!”

“And me!” added Darren.

Shan sniffed. “Yeah…but it don’t go away, Annie, and you know that, yeah?”

“Yeah, I do, but I look at what I have and that keeps it clear, keeps me safe, aye? My Eric, and now my family, aye?”

I let her think for a second, then tried again. “Your family, Shan. We’re sisters, yeah? I always wanted a sister…”

Suddenly she laughed. “Snot true, yeah? You wanted to BE your sis, innit?”

Laughter from tears, love from grief. I squeezed her tight. “Did you ever expect such a big family, love?”

“Not buying ‘em all crimble pressies, innit?”

There was movement in the corner of my eye, and an Amazon was there, her eyes moist. I whispered in Chantelle’s ear that her mum was behind her, and she turned to Ginny, who stroked her cheek.

“Shan, love, do us all one big favour, and don’t grow up too quick. Kate an’ me, we told you this, so many times, you take the space you need, because our lives are full of as much as you want. Annie’s right, nobody gets near you that you don’t want there. Now, all the hot stuff’s gone, so who wants a pudding?”

Eric just winked as I came in, and as he did so I felt a little brush of lips on my cheek, and Darren’s whisper with it,

“Thank you, Annie”

Puddings, and tea, and more debate, and I noticed that Simon and Merry were still smiling after their tennis match, so I collared Big Bill.

“Oh, Simon wiped the floor with her on his interpretation of the word, but she took the match with faith and passion. Tell me, how long have they known each other?”

“Well under a week, Bill”

“Hmmm. I sort of feel it may turn into a lot longer than a week, my dear. They bounce off each other so well, I wonder whether they have known each other before…oh, don’t look like that, leave me to my own faith, yes?”

He grinned once more, showing exactly where his sons got their humour from, and even though I was thinking “tripe” to myself, I smiled back. Just then, Esther tugged my sleeve, and of course I had to rush over and hug the new father.

“Den, I think you know most of these, so let me introduce someone new. People, Dennis and Kirsty Armstrong, and the little package that Kirsty is holding so carefully is my godson, Dennis Adam Armstrong”

There was a round of applause before the other women started their cooing and complimenting. Simon was chuckling.

“Dennis, can I assume that you will be looking to enlist my services again?”

“Aye, marrer, my son will have a name before we get our own blessing done, if that’s fine with thee”

“I tell you what, why don’t we just take out some sort of time-share agreement, like they do in Tenerife, just without the rip-off? Seriously, as Merry has stressed with great passion, God’s house belongs to every man and every woman, and certainly to every child. Being a parent is what we are created for, and if…”

I noticed his eyes linger on me and then Ginny, before he continued.

“If God sees fit, for His own reasons, not to bless someone with a child, then let us hope they find the chance to show that love to some child who has lost the love they need. Ah, too serious. This is family, and this is a time for joy. Don’t any of you know how to sing?”

Silly, silly vicar. And how could he applaud the songs that followed when he and Merry kept their hands below their table?

That night I lay with my man, after an afternoon that turned into an evening, as Ginny’s snores rattled the windows in the next room, and reflected on Simon’s words. Could it be enough, for me or for any woman, to aunt my way through life? That was the bottom line. I was sister, I was going to be wife, I would remain aunty, and godmother, but could I ever do the last? I knew that Kate and Ginny had managed to sublimate their need, for Chantelle became their child more and more with each morning they woke together, but I still looked at Kirsty and hurt. Eric’s arm lay across my breasts as he breathed slowly in his sleep, and I found myself wondering what he was feeling. We had come so far together, beaten so many obstacles, it had to be true that he could pass that test too.

But what if he couldn’t? Sleep was a long time coming.

CHAPTER 18
Kate looked at me sharply the next morning.

“Why, Annie?”

“Why what?”

“Why no sleep? I can see it in your eyes, trust me I’m a doctor and all that shit. Nightmares again?”

That was when Shan chose to come into the kitchen, and as my eyes flicked to her Kate just sighed and nodded.

“Always the same issue, in the end, with girls like you. Shan, love, can you give your big sis here a few minutes?”

“OK…” and she was off.

“Sit down, Annie. It’s the mask thing again, isn’t it? Not real, not worthy, not able to compete with real women, all that silliness?”

I nodded, eyes down. “But it’s not silliness, is it? I can’t really compete, as you put it. What do I do if some real woman comes along, someone who can do what I can’t?”

“I thought so. Kiddy-watching, always the same stupidity. That’s what it is, Annie, not silliness, not a little bit of a wobble, but bloody stupidity. Let’s take a look around, shall we? Who do you know with kids, apart from Kirsty, and forget about those who are grown up, OK?”

“Nobody, really, apart from Tony and Arris”

“Whose child is Jim?”

“Well, Tony’s, of course”

“Not Sarah’s?”

“Well…”

“What does he call her? And whose child is Darren? More to the point, who is it that I have just sent out of the room? I am going to tell you a little story, you stupid, stupid tart, and you are going to sit still and listen. Sod it, no you are not, you are going to make a pot of tea and listen, right?”

I started the process, wondering what had triggered her sharpness. She softened her voice.

“Annie…look, why do you think neither of us, neither my love nor I, have had kids before Shan?”

“Dunno, really, always assumed you didn’t want to involve a man, aye?”

“Annie, there are all sorts of ways round that, with turkey basters and stuff, and to tell the truth, we did consider you and Eric as possibilities, but…look, I can’t, it’s a mixture of things wrong with my bits, and I just can’t, and if I can’t, she won’t, for exactly the same stupid fucking reason you are shoving your head up your arse right now. Look at it this way, you could still have kids, in one way, you always had that choice, but I can’t, not in any way, so which of us is the worthless one, AYE?”

Her voice had risen again, and she took a few breaths to calm down. I waited.

“Look, love, at the moment I just want to slap you for being an idiot, and at the same time I want to hold you and make it better, but it won’t be better. You have been handed the shitty end of the stick, we both have, but that’s only part of what life is about. Look at the two of us. Upstairs, there are two snoring, farting lumps who steal the duvet and hog the bathroom in the morning. Who could ever want more than such pure romance?”

That broke the spell, and she started to giggle, and I started to cry, and then Shan joined us again, not knowing exactly what the problem had been, but there to offer what comfort she could. People knew me, it seemed, better than I knew myself, and yet they still cared, still offered their love.

Stupid. Bloody stupid…I looked up from Shan’s hug to see another pair of eyes looking at me, eyes full of concern and love, eyes that I never wanted to look away, and Eric just eased himself in next to Shan and my night fears faded.

“I don’t know about Ginny, but I don’t fart that much”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Two days later, and Christmas Day dawned, and for the first time our house had a child available to receive presents. Breakfast was tea, mince pies and chocolates for us, and a great bowl of some raw vegetable fibre for Ginny. There were no rafts of presents, no swathes of torn paper spread around, just small packages and smiles. Kate in particular looked pleased with herself, and Shan was all touches and shyness, as I realised what the day actually meant to her.

“Got my big present at home, like…issa bike, a proper one what looks like Mum Ginny’s”

Ginny smiled at her, with more softness than I remembered seeing in her face before.

“Well, dunno why you had to have pink, Shan!”

There was a very old-fashioned look from the smaller person.

“Because I am a girl, and girls do pink!”

Kate laughed at that, as Ginny muttered something about gender stereotyping and the fact that at least the bike had a proper frame and not some mixte shit or other.

“What else have you got, Shan?”

“Got a phone, Annie!”

“Aye? Who you gonna call?”

Grins, and teasing, and blushes, and then a few minutes of handing over our numbers for her to load onto her new phone, which was as pink as pink could be, to Ginny’s obviously feigned disgust. Kate laughed.

“Yeah, the bike is at home, and there’s some clothes and shoes and stuff, and not all of them are pink. Merry…”

She handed my cousin a small box, to Merry’s astonishment.

“But I have brought no gifts…I didn’t realise there would be so many friends here”

Kate flapped a hand, dismissively. “Look, whole thing is, you don’t chuck stuff out to people because you want something back, yeah. I’ve got my two girls, what could you ever give me, could anyone, that would trump that? And we have a new friend, in you, so there’s a gift of the finest”

Merry opened the little package, and there was a small Celtic cross, in silver, on a chain. Kate watched her face.

“We know of your faith, love, we just weren’t sure that you did jewellery, so we thought, simple, but something with a connection to you. Shan found it, actually”

“I really do not know what to say. It is as perfect a gift as such a thing could ever be, and I have no words in me to thank you adequately”

Ginny sniffed. “It’s only a little thing”

“No. It is only a little symbol of a greater thing. You warm my heart and soul with this, and I know that dear Annie has friends that she can be proud of”

Shan perked up. “No. Not friends, Merry. We’s family”

The answering smile was beatific. “Then, family, we have to wash and dress. St Nicholas’ church awaits”

Ginny was shocked. “You are having a giraffe! Chrimbo morning and you want to go to church AGAIN?”

“Simon has promised there will be a light lunch for us, Ginny”

“Yebbut…”

“Frozen yoghurt…”

“Fuck, yeah, I’ll go for that! Er…sorry, should watch myself a bit”

Merry was still smiling. “Virginia, if we are to be family, you must promise me one thing”

“Wossat, girl?”

“Do not change. Well, apart from into your good clothes. Annie, I have some gifts with me, but they are not much. May we deal with them after the service? The family will be there shortly, it is best we are not late”

We weren’t, and the singing was almost as good as it had been , but not quite, as it lacked the baritone and tenor of the Powells. Simon gave a simple sermon, largely devoted to drumming up charity donations, it seemed, and then we waited as the church emptied before making our way to the Hall again. I realised that the only people involved were my family and the girls, together with the Woods, who had met us at the main door before the service. Chantelle was very demure, in skirt and blouse and knee socks, and years fell off her face as she approached her boyfriend with her first ever Christmas present to him.

Each held a similarly sized package, and with a silly chain of “No, you first”, Darren unwrapped his.

“The new England shirt! Yeah! Thanks, Shan!”

Hers came next, and I heard Ginny’s hiss of mock disapproval as the powder pink colour was revealed. It was a fleece jacket. Darren was in that rush of embarrassment in which things have to be explained, then explained again, until the giver runs out of steam or words, or, as in this case, is physically prevented from further speech, which Shan did with a kiss.

“To keep me warm when I watch you play, lahk?”

That boy can blush for England.

A light lunch, sandwiches and cake, and tea, of course, and then the frozen yoghurt that it transpired Eric had mentioned to Merry, who had mentioned it to Simon, exactly when I didn’t know. I hugged my tea to me as I leant back against my man, his warmth driving back the demons of doubt, and watched the couples. Naomi and Albert were as snuggled as the two of us, with the same daft grin on their faces as I felt on mine as we watched the youngest pair, and it was clear that Simon and Merry had managed to cross their own little threshold. Parenthood…oh, you devious bastard. All of that sermon, all the references to giving what you could, opening your arms to the needy, it was all aimed at me.

Can’t carry a baby? Carry something or someone else.

I looked out at Darren, and Chantelle, at Merry’s smile and Simon’s ‘accidental’ touches, and felt the warmth of the man who loved me, and all of Kate’s lecture lived for me. I couldn’t be anyone but myself, so let me make that person the best I could.

Eric kissed the back of my neck, just then. Sometimes, his timing is perfection.

CHAPTER 19
The gifts at home were nothing special in themselves, but special in their import. Little things, like Merry’s cross, chosen for the person with care and precise love.

There were music books, cycle shirts, a new Brooks each for Eric and myself, little pieces of jewellery or clothing that each meant something. The visitors were due to depart on Boxing Day, so it became a true family Christmas, the sort of day that evaporates with no memory of where it went, in meals and moments, chatter and naps.

For it was, now, with the exception of Simon, who had somehow appeared at our house, and the girls, a family group, as the Woods and Woodruffs settled into their own little world. It was delightful, no less, to have them round me, a small foretaste of what I hoped would appear at our wedding. Uncle Tom was in the kitchen with me as we were making yet another pot of tea, and I wondered whether getting an urn might be the simplest solution.

“That young man, Annie, that vicar, aye?”

Here it comes, I thought, the third degree about Merry.

“Aye, uncle?”

“As…a woman, love, what do you think? Is our girl being a silly spinster, or does he hold, I don’t know, possibilities?”

There is a particular way that last word is said in Wales, where every syllable is separated and the third heavily stressed.

“Uncle, he is a very good man. I have had many dealings with him, and Stephanie many more. He wears his heart very much on his sleeve, aye? Merry…she is a very lonely girl, but she will not, cannot, let her principles lapse because of what she sees as weakness, aye? Simon, Simon is, I don’t know, he is a man of very deep faith in his god, but also in mankind. You know I am not one with the beliefs you and the family hold to, but I can recognise sincerity and goodness in someone, and that is what I see in him. I think Merry likes him very much”

“Would you call him good-looking? I ask out of curiosity, aye?”

I looked at him in a little bit of shock. Did he just ask me to venture an opinion as a woman on whether a man was fanciable? I suddenly realised that the conversation wasn’t about Merry, or at least only partly about her. This was my uncle trying to show me his acceptance. He put a finger under my chin and lifted my face up to his.

“Why tears, cariad?”

“You bloody well know why, you wonderful man. Pour the bloody tea while I wipe my face, and yes, I think that if things are done the right way, Simon and Merry will continue to get on extremely well, and I pray for her sake that it doesn’t go wrong. Oh, and yes, he is fanciable, and he seems to think she is. I caught him ogling her bottom the other day”
He busied himself with the cups as I washed my face.

“Very odd, Annie, that you have to come all the way over here before our family can heal. Not complaining, is it, just wondering how we let everything go all stupid between us”

He paused, and cocked his head. “Sometimes, you just need a look from a different angle, isn’t it? I look at you now, and, well, I wonder whether I needed glasses back then. Your dad, may God rest his soul, he must have been absolutely blind, aye? Got another tray, love?”

And that was it. Conversation over, but his mark made, his position clear. As he left the kitchen, Eric slipped in.

“Annie, love, can we have five minutes on our own? I’ve possibly been a bit naughty”

I grinned. “You being naughty can sometimes be rather nice, love”

“No, I am serious here. I do truly believe I have done the right thing, but I just have a fear that you might, well, react…”

He was in an odd mix of anticipation and apprehension, and I saw Ginny looking in from the hall.

“What have you done, my love?”

“Well, I spoke to Den, and he spoke to the Super…”

“Carry on”

“Oh, fuck it, here”

Ginny looked just a little tense as he handed over a medium-sized envelope. All that was written on the front was “For the love of my life”, and there was something long and rectangular inside. I tore the flap off.

Two items. No, three. A letter, and two air tickets, and I knew immediately what the mad, generous, loving man had done.

“When, love? When do we fly?”

“End of April. It all came from a chat with Sally and Raj, but I wasn’t sure that you wouldn’t think I was pushing you too hard,,,”

I kissed him, and over his shoulder saw Ginny’s face relax and spread into a wide grin, and she wandered off into the living room with a little fist-pump of triumph. When I let him speak again, he was subdued.

“I was really worried, love. The money has come from my side of the house sale, as I didn’t want to just dip into the joint stuff.”

“I thought it was all joint stuff, love”

He looked embarrassed. “I have sort of lied to you. I wasn’t sure how much you would need, so I squirreled a bit of my side away into a high-interest account, and I’ve been adding to it…”

“Adding what?””

“Well, sort of avoiding lunch and stuff for the last year”

“Hang on a minute…for the last year?”

“Year and a bit, yes. Sort of after that first trip to Shrewsbury.”

“Let me get this straight, aye? You, on your own, started saving for MY surgery, right after we got together?”

“Well, yes”

He was looking down, chin buried in his collar, and, as my uncle had done for me, I lifted his chin to see his eyes.

“Eric, love, you knew, back then, that you were staying with me?”

He tried to smile. “Yes. That was a shock, it knocked me back big style, yeah, but that day, you dressed up, and suddenly…I felt so bloody stupid, so blind, cause suddenly there you were, and I realised what my life was missing, and we had always been mates, and then I could see that you were so much more, and–“

I shut him up again, the same old way. A little later I said my piece.

“That is where we differ, aye, for I have always known what I am, or rather what I was supposed to be, I just never had the courage to do anything other than run and hide. You did that, you and the girls, you stopped me being stupid, and you never turned away from me. This is my finest Christmas present ever, and I don’t care if you told lies, because they were good lies, and what we are going to do now is go in, together, to our family---OUR family, you are being assimilated---and make an announcement. Aye?”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. They made a choice, and they have made it clear to me what that choice is, and I am proud of them. I just wish…oh, shit, I just wish I could have had Mam and Dad along for this. They would have had a hard job understanding, but if Tom and Arthur can get there, well, shit, Eric, don’t let me get weepy in front of them, aye?”

“Aye, love. I did a bit of research, yeah, with Sally and Raj, and we think we have the right man for the job”

"I have him here, right now"

We made our way into the living room, where a horde of relatives filled the space from the front window through the dining room to the conservatory, and as Ginny tried not to dance in her seat, I held up my hands for silence.

“Ladies, gentlemen and banjo player, we have an announcement to make”

I heard John mutter “Well, she can’t be pregnant”, which warmed me in an odd way.

“No, John, that isn’t on the cards yet, much as we would wish it, aye? No. My beloved man here has been sneaky as a sneaky thing, and to put it in a nutshell, I–we---fly to Thailand in April for the adjustments I should have been born with!”

I tried not to pick up on the winces that came from the men, at the thought of someone taking a knife to their pride and joy, and bit back the urge to explain how I saw it as a sort of external tumour, malignant in the real sense rather than benign, for its presence had come so close to killing me. Let them think as they wished, as long as they continued to accept me and my husband to be.

Aunty Esther was the first to come and offer a hug, followed by Leah and Myfanwy. Merry waited her turn, and as the handshakes eased and the hugs were released, she put her arms about me and squeezed.

“Congratulations, my dear, really. I will be at your wedding, as we all shall, and we will sing and glorify the Lord for his generosity”

She dropped her voice to a whisper. “And if I haven’t got a certain vicar pinned down by then I shall join a convent, aye?”

CHAPTER 20
It wasn’t the best day for flying, but at least the skies were clear. It was the wind that was the problem, and I wondered if my attempt at cleverness would backfire.

The Emirates plane was a Boeing 777, and I had spotted that the seating towards the rear was in blocks of two instead of three. That would give us more room and privacy, but the wind made it likely that the plane would be a bit lively in its motion, and that would be amplified by our position. I didn’t really fancy starting the trip on my knees in an aeroplane toilet.

Dennis and Kirsty had brought my godson to the airport to see us off, the mite wrapped up in enough gear for an Everest attempt. They made an odd pairing, not just because of their difference in height, but because of the way they attended to little DA. Both of them were so protective it frightened me, and I was friend rather than foe. Kirsty was never out of contact with the baby, her expression forever slightly tense, as she spotted yet another problem, whether it be a loose booty or incipient wind. Den, on the other hand, whilst just as protective, spent a great deal of time just smiling in a slightly dreamy way. It was clear to us both exactly how much the child meant to both, and the added bonus for me was seeing how they were so clearly as devoted to each other as to their child. God help a certain older woman if Kirsty ever got her alone.

We took a quick lunch with them in the Wetherspoon’s, Eric eager to have his last taste of real beer before their enforced separation. Den was thoughtful, his son on his lap as he fed him a bottle.

“So, Annie…big step”

“Dennis Armstrong, that is about as banal a statement of utter truth as I have ever heard, aye? Yes, it is a big step, but it is a step I should have taken years and years ago. Look, it’s like…like you being a dad, aye? I know you went through an awful lot of shit before getting to where you are, so it’s the best analogy I can find. Same here, aye? Years and years of false starts, lost hopes, and then someone comes along, and smiles at me, and takes me warts and all for myself, and the world’s suddenly right”

Eric had taken my hand at that, and when he quietly muttered “Bloody big wart” Kirsty laughed so hard DA began crying, so he was taken from bottle to breast. One of the bar staff was quickly over.

“Do you have to do that here? People are complaining”

Eric sighed. “Look, love, the way she has her top, nobody can see anything, and after all there is nothing more natural”

“It’s indecent. There are laws.”

Eric’s tone changed, sharply, and I saw the man I was marrying come out to play.

“Firstly, MISS, it is not indecent. Secondly, people have not complained, as you came straight over as soon as the child started to feed. Thirdly, as a regular at these establishments, they pride themselves on being family friendly. And last of all, no, there is no law against it.”

She drew herself up to her full anaemic height. “What are you, some sort of copper?”

Eric smiled, and there were teeth there. “No, I run a path lab. These three, however…”

We got an apology twenty minutes later from the bar manager. In the presence of our young lady, and I bit my tongue before I said anything that might, er, bring the Force into disrepute. As we walked towards the security checks, Kirsty whispered to me.

“Do you think your surgeon might have a bed for that bitch? Hers has obviously healed up”

I was still laughing at X-ray.

That farewell was emotional, Kirsty in tears and Dennis nearly breaking my ribs. He held Eric’s hand for the longest of moments, before a mutter of “Bring her back, mate” and they were gone.

I had chosen a lightweight maxi skirt with flat shoes for the trip, something to wrap my legs in as I tried to sleep, and a loose peasant-style blouse. I wanted to be obviously female, but just in case of problems I was carrying the notes from Raj and Sally. To my delight, there wasn’t even a flicker of interest from the security people, no rub-down, no accusatory shout of ‘freak’, and it wasn’t till after we were in the duty-free lounge that I realised how worried I had been.

We bought books, we bought memory cards, and we had an expensive coffee looking out over the airfield.

“This seat free?”

Steph, and more emotion. I caught her eye as Eric disappeared to the gents’, and she knew immediately.

“Yes, Annie, it will hurt, but that just emphasises what a step you are taking. It’s matchmaking, really, finding a body you can live with for the rest of your natural”

Her eyes had caught Eric as he walked off to the toilets, and she smiled.

“Mind you, his isn’t exactly bad, is it?”

So typical of her, she hits me spot on with such an important point, and then leaves me laughing.

“We both seem to like the small athletic sort, aye? Sarah must think we lack all taste in men”

“Yes, and there’s our problem. Lithe athletes, yeah, and a full year. Are you with us in August? Up for a ride in a van?”

Arsebollocks, I had almost forgotten, and in a moment of uncharitable thoughts about my man I wondered if he had arranged this trip so that I would be fit not only for our nuptials, and Den and Kirsty’s, but also for doing support duties on the Paris Brest Paris. That tickled Steph.

“Being suspicious, love, goes with both our jobs. Na, Bill and Jan are coming over, and I rather suspect Kelly and Mark, so there will be plenty there, no need for you…”

“Do not be so bloody stupid, Steph, you teasing sod! Just let me know what we will need, what I will need, and I will be there. Now, man on horizon…”

"Yes, Annie, and gate number on the screen. Look after yourself, and you know, if you need anything, just call. I do have a bit of an inside track on this one, yeah?”

Hugs, and tears, and off to the gate, and suddenly we were rolling down the runway and I was, Annie was, finally on her way to reality. Eric was fumbling beside the window (he’s a man, of course he got the window seat) and then he turned to me with a smile, showing me the screen of his camera.

“Got it!”

There, on the camera’s viewscreen, was a neatly framed picture of our house. Well, I had to kiss him again. I was right about the turbulence, though, and as we climbed the tail definitely wagged, and I had visions of the boys with the kite in Wales, the long and serpentine chain of ribbons was where I seemed to be sitting, but it smoothed as we climbed, and then the cabin crew were up and about, and that was another pleasant surprise: the food was actually more than edible!

“Eric, love, we seem to have a busy year lined up”

“Why, what do you have planned?”

“Two weddings and a funeral if you keep teasing. What do you want to do about PBP?”

“Well, I rather thought I might start by riding from Paris to Brest, and then…back again?”

“Sod that you are. Steph was talking about doing support for the two of you”

The teasing manner stopped, as if a switch had been thrown.

“As long as you are there, I will feel better. I will admit, I am nervous as all hell about the ride”

“You will have Geoff with you, aye?”

“Yeah, but it’s twelve hundred K, yeah?”

“I’ll take a crate of ale over….”

He started to laugh again.

“What’s so funny?”

“You realise now what image I am going to be holding in my head for the ride, now? You, in a Paris hotel room, lying naked on the bed, a bottle of Hook Norton in each hand!

I cuddled up to him across the armrest.

“Could be arranged, aye?”

We changed planes in the dark at Dubai, a soulless shopping complex with all sorts of odd people from a vast array of origins all seeming in a hurry to spend cash on everything from gold to chocolate, and then we were off again into the darkness, and after I had struggled to keep up with the plots of the various films on the back of the seat in front of me I realised that I had actually been sleeping in short bursts. Everything was topsy-turvy; the brilliant daylight outside the cabin contrasted with the darkness within, as people fought to adjust their body clocks. Time dragged, until the cabin began to stir, and suddenly we had food again, and the blinds were going up. I looked out of the plane once more, at the arid plains of India, and giggled.

“Penny for them?”

“Nothing big, Eric, was just thinking that the baby was wrapped up ready for climbing Everest, and, well, it’s just over there, aye?”

A long flight, and all it was broke down into little snippets of silliness and affection. That was how my life now was, I realised, just like the flight. I woke up, I reached out, and there he was beside me.

CHAPTER 21
It was hot. That sounds really trite, and utterly obvious, but it was almost beyond belief. Almost as soon as we left the air-conditioning, it was as if someone had sprayed me with water in the most embarrassing places possible.

And it stank, not of sewage, but of car and lorry and odd buzzy moped things, and we were still miles from the city itself.

I was in some sort of conscious state after the flight, but it wasn’t very coherent, and I was grateful that Eric was handling everything. There had been no baggage or passport problems, and I realised that as an audax rider he was used to stupidly long periods without sleep. I had worked shifts most of my life, but they were limited in length and separated by periods when I actually got to bed. We bundled ourselves onto a shuttle bus, and I remember a train, and then there was an odd elevated version of the inter-terminal shuttle at Gatwick, and finally, finally, there was an hotel and a room.

It was called the Park Plaza, which disappointed me, as I had been expecting something more exotic, more syllables for a start. The noise around us was dreadful, and I looked at Eric as we dragged our bags from the station.

“How did you pick this one, love?”

“Looked up the internet and spent weeks reading reviews”

He grinned. “A bit like finding your surgeon, just without Raj and Sally’s help. To be honest, there is one of the lads in the lab, he comes out here a lot, and he uses this one for a rest before flying home”

“A rest?”

Eric looked slightly abashed. “He spends his time down south, at the beaches. I suspect he has…interests down there. Look, the plan is simple. We stay here until…until you have to leave me, and then, once you are able to move around, we head south. I know I haven’t told you much about the itinerary…”

“Eric, I haven’t asked, very, very deliberately, aye? You have obviously spent so much time and effort planning this, I just thought, for once…magical mystery tour, aye? One thing; who suggested this hospital, this surgeon?”

He smiled. “Raj and Sally both have a number of patients who have, you know, and while some have been done in the UK, several were done out here. I also cheated a bit, and looked through our records for, well, fuck-ups. Women left incontinent, for example.”

In my half-dead state, I was finding all sorts of odd things in what he said, and I started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just…some blokes pay women good money to do that to them, aye?”

The penny dropped, and we hand in hand and laughing together as we entered the hotel.

Quiet. Coolth. Cleanliness, and a smiling Thai woman waiting to book us in. Her English was clear, and her smile was a delight, and I had a flashback memory of some holiday programme or other where Thailand was referred to as ‘The Land of Smiles’. There was a lift, and a room, which was spotless and just about devoid of character, but it was cool, and quiet, and I flopped gratefully onto the bed as my eyes headed to the back of my head.

“No, no sleeping. Not till bedtime tonight!”

“But….”

“Trust me, you will feel like shit if you do. Fancy a swim to wake up?”

“Where’s the beach?”

“Rooftop pool, love. Bring your sunblock!”

So we did. I lay in the cool of the water, eyes closed against the sun, a cold drink to hand, as the noise of the traffic rose around us, and once more had a flashback, of a walk through the bird reserve at Barnes in the middle of London. Four huge reservoirs converted into reedbeds and ponds, grass and trees, ducks and wading birds feeding tranquilly against a skyline of concrete and the sounds of police sirens and Heathrow-bound aircraft.

The main difference was that the water was cleaner and chlorinated. We spent the rest of the day lounging and lazing round or in the pool, as Eric nattered away to keep me awake.

“So, after you are released, we catch a train…I had thought of the resorts, but, well, Thailand has a sort of tradition…”

“Your colleague is into ladyboys, aye?”

He blushed. “Yeah, took me a while to explain the difference to him, you that is, and, you know, and I didn’t want to take you somewhere, where, well, there would be any possible problems.”

He took my hand again as we lay on the loungers. “Annie, I know what your self-confidence is like, I know how the black dog still nips at you in the night, so just take my word for it when I say that I love you, and adore you, and fancy you, and want to make this trip as special as I can. OK?”

Our kiss was interrupted in the nicest way, as yet another smiling Thai girl asked if we wanted more long, cold, fruity goodness, and offered us a basket of fruit to choose from. I was thinking that it was a lifestyle I could grow used to very quickly. That night, we ate in the hotel, and I was oddly surprised at how familiar it was. After all, Thai food was something we devoured regularly, and the only difference here was that it tasted even nicer. We had beers with it, and somehow, I don’t know how, I managed to stay awake long enough to crawl into the huge bed and cuddle up to my fiancé. The next day…

Breakfast in bed. In a room in a tropical hotel. With a man naked beside me. I had another flashback, of what my father would have said, and done, if presented with that image. Everything was closing in on the final step in my change of life, and as I tried to decide whether he could have been brought round with the rest of the family, I realised Eric was talking.

“Sorry, love? Miles away, aye?”

“Just the latter part of the trip, love. You were so out of it last night I gave up on rational conversation while you became intimate with your pad thai. The place I have booked is in Malaysia, not far from the border. There is a luxury train there, and after our break we head down to KL for the flight back”

“KL? Oh, Kuala Lumpur? So where are we staying?”

“An island called Penang. Lots of good stuff to see there, and there are beaches…”

“Eric, I will not be swimming, that should be obvious!

“Yeah, but you can watch me…just promise me one thing?”

“Aye?”

“Be careful not to get sand in the new bits, OK?”

Sod.

“Now, let’s get dressed love, we have a car arriving in about an hour. He wants to have a good look around you, let the dog see the bone”

“Johnson, your metaphors are going to get you slapped at some point”

“Yeah, but you love me really!”

Yes, I did. No doubt at all.

The hospital was clean, and remarkable modern, and I realised that despite everything I had heard and read I was still expecting a tropical place to be primitive. That was clearly wrong. The surgeon had a string of syllables for a name, which made up for the hotel, and came across as absolutely charming. No white coat, no gratuitous bits of medical equipment hanging off him, he exuded calm.

“Annie, I will need to examine where I am going to be working. Will that be all right? With Eric in the room?”

I smiled at Doctor Syllables. “Never apart from him if I can help it, aye?”

I found myself in a gynaecologist’s stirrups, skirt and knickers off, as he prodded and poked and at one point produced a small ruler as he pulled my penis out to what there was of its length. I felt my balls try to crawl up inside me, and smiled at the thought that they finally had it coming.

“Annie, that is very good. There are a number of different procedures that can be offered, one or two of which use sections of your colon to create the desired depth. You are lucky, in that you have sufficient material already here to provide all that I shall need”

As I dressed again, he simply smiled and said “Nothing to eat or drink apart from water after two o’clock this afternoon, please. I will see you tomorrow, but I shall wear a different outfit, yes?”

I was dazed, but not so much that I didn’t pig out for lunch, which we took in a small restaurant on the way out to what I think was a royal palace, which Eric told me was one of the top places to visit. We walked in, hand in hand, and immediately a small local man approached us.

“You Merican? You Inglis? Grand Palace shut for people not Thai, I give you tour, show you nice places!”

Eric looked at me and winked.

“Llanfair?”

I caught on immediately. “Pwllgwyngyll!”

“Goger?”

“Ychwyrndrobwll? Llantysilio!”

Eric nodded, before bringing it to a close with “Gogogoch” smiled at the little tout, and walked on with me. He began to shout, as we left.

“You Dutch? You Israeli? I fuck your mother cunt, you asshole!”

As we left the shouting turd behind, Eric whispered to me “Got warned about those, they tell you it’s shut and then you end up going round a string of rip-off stores, and if you aren’t careful you end up dumped miles away and have to find your own way home. And besides, I got the hotel to check for me before we went to the hospital. Only open to Thais, bollocks!”

And the day got steadily better, as I ambled around the old and odd buildings, snapping away, hand in hand with the man I loved, the man who had stepped in and quietly arranged everything I had ever wanted; everything besides him, of course. It was as I had said to Doctor S: never apart from him if I could help it.

Far too few hours later, and the doctor was smiling down at me.

“Annie, please start counting backwards from ten…”

CHAPTER 22
I was staring at a water jug. The bastard was empty, and someone had superglued my lips together with rancid cheese.

The pain hit me from a distance, right after I noticed the smell. It was there, the sharpness of something hot pushed where it shouldn’t fucking be, but it was as if I was watching it from another room. And I had a headache.

“Annie, how you feeling?”

“Erghh…Er-ick….shit, like shit”

I was trying to get the words out, but the cheese was stopping my tongue working, and I was trying very hard not to be sick. “Water….”

“Doc says you can’t, love. Hang on…”

I was starting to focus on things, and he came round to me and held up my head, slipping what was obviously an ice cube into my mouth. There was a strong taste of lemon.

“S’lemon…”

“Yeah, I got some juice and made up a dilute mix, they froze it for me, thought it might be better than simple water, for when you wake up, like, I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”

“No…where’s your hand?”

And he took mine, and that was the first time I woke whole.

They kept me in four days before I was shipped back to the hotel, and I was packed up like a stuffed chicken, things rammed up inside me that I wished weren’t there, which made me rather unhappy, but that particular gripe was very heavily tempered by the realisation that I now had somewhere in which to insert unwanted items, which meant---no, my first thoughts were not about sex, but were of pure relief. I was awake, I was well, and it was gone.

They unpacked me eventually, which was NOT fun, and then Doctor Syllables asked the question.

“Want to take a look?”

He had a small hand-mirror, which he held out to me as the nurses helped me move the bedclothes, and---

And he had a handkerchief for my tears.

“Annie, this is my bonus payment, the one I cannot put into the bank. But then it is also one the government cannot ask for tax money on. It is nice to be paid lots of money for my work, but it is also nice when there come smiles”

I laughed, carefully. “Land of smiles, aye?”

“Yes, but always nice to have them travel in both directions. Now, we shall deliver you to your hotel, and I have a very large bundle of detailed instructions for the care and feeding of new genitalia to give you. There will be some needs to visit here before you are ready to leave, and then there will be unpleasant necessities for a period of time. I will provide you with the items you will need to use”

And so it went. I stayed dry and clean, and Eric pampered me, as the clinic followed their rather superb aftercare routine, and I realised that the good doctor was exactly what it said on the tin: I really believe that he got a buzz from seeing people completed, from healing them himself. It didn’t interfere in any way with his making a decent living out of us, but I sensed no avarice. He was a man who had found his rightful place in the world and made the most of it.

In the end, it was two weeks after I was released that we left Bangkok, and I had more tears in my eyes as we bade farewell to the nurses, and to the hotel staff, who were beyond praise. We avoided the taxi, despite my sort of incapacity, and took the elevated train to the main railway station, and one of the hotel porters insisted on coming with us to carry my bags, Eric went to tip him, and he refused, with a little bow.

“You come stay again, yes?

And he was gone. I looked at my beloved, and he just smiled, and I loved him then, and blessed his foresight in being so naughty.

It felt odd dressing, with…absence where something had sat for so long, but I was far from complaining. Summer dress, knickers that fitted properly, a silly hat, and the rest of my life walking beside me pushing a trolley with our cases. I couldn’t help it; I whipped off the said headgear and pulled him into a snog.

Eventually, I let him breathe, and in answer to his unasked question, simply grinned and said “Because!”

Eric had booked us onto the train down to a place called Butterworth, and it was almost like stepping back into an earlier world. At some point I would have to find out exactly how much he had spent on this, but I had already made one resolution: as far as I was concerned, THIS was my honeymoon, our honeymoon. If we went anywhere apart from a weekend in Bognor after our wedding, it would be kicking and screaming on my part.

We rattled down through hilly jungles, rice paddies, limestone cuttings, all the little touches of tropical romance that hadn’t been properly served in the noisy bustle of Bangkok, until we were at the passport control and I was finally crossing a border as myself. It turned out to be no big deal, and I rather got the impression that the Malaysian immigration staff had seen it all before, certainly with people like me.

Another station, and Eric looked at me with a teasing smile.

“I know the answer, but I will ask anyway: a taxi ride over a bridge, or a ferry?”

I thought for a while: romantic crossing by water, 4,000 per cent humidity, temperature in the high thirties, cool breeze over the deck…

“You know me so well, love”

“Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t be marrying you, yeah?”

So it was a ferry ride…and a hotel at what we ended up calling Frog Beach, and then sand, and sun, and my first proper outing in the smallest bikini I could get away with, allowing for local mores, and day trips to turtle temples, and snake temples, and giant reclining Buddha temples, and---time spent forcing, as gently as possible, plastic things into somewhere very, very new. I will gloss over that part.

More than anything, it was being able to relax and be nothing more than a couple on holiday. So many times I had little flashbacks to that first time out at our festival, or trotting over to Den and Kirsty’s in a skirt, out in the open, feeling as if I had a target painted on my back or a sign round my neck reading ‘abomination’. Now, it was just me, me and my lover. It was clear that the hotel staff noticed our smiles, for there were little touches from them, such as flowers at our table, or in our room, and once more it was a wrench when we finally had to take our leave.

Another ferry, another train, this time to a station that looked like an antique mosque, next to some stupidly tall pair of buildings, and more airport chaos, more cramped seating, another flight into the darkness and the soulless bustle of Dubai.

I really missed our hotels, the green heat of the countryside and its red soil, the little thorny touch-sensitive leaves and even the red ants that walked in procession over the footpaths at night. The concrete high rises did little to hide the warmth of the people in both countries, and that was thrown into sharp relief by the avarice that dripped from the gold palm trees in Dubai airport. I looked around, shopped out, as we had a coffee and watched the dawn arrive outside.

“Eric, love, darling, please, go and hijack the plane for me! I want to go home, or go back, but not stay here any longer, aye?”

He just smiled and pointed to the screens.

“And we have a gate, love”

“Thank fuck for that”

Sometimes, life can be a bitch, and the daylight flight across Europe proved that. I really, really wanted the window seat, to look out and wonder at all sorts of wonder-worthy stuff, and I had to spend so much time in the bloody toilet it made sense for me to take the aisle seat. The only upside was that it gave me the excuse to lean into him as often as I wanted, at least when my new plumbing wasn’t making demands. It still got boring, in the end, and we finished up cuddled together as best we could until the seat belt sign went on and we started the run in.

The landing was so hard that two overhead lockers burst open, and then we were finally freed. The engines wound down, the doors were cracked, and we started the shuffle towards the front of the plane and the rest of our lives.

“Come forward together if you are family. What is the relationship?”

“Engaged, I marry her in four months”

“Her. Ah. Do you have a letter…thank you. Good idea to get this changed as soon as you can, confuses the Agency otherwise. Next!”

And of course Steph was there, not on duty but waiting for us at the exit, and as flashes went off in my face I saw the Woods, and the girls, and---not much else.

The tears were too thick and too fast, but they were not tears of sadness.

I was finally home.

CHAPTER 23
“Hold still!”

“You are tugging too hard!”

“You are not getting wed with hair all over the place, woman! Now bend forward, I need to do the back of the garland”

“If I bend forward, I’ll burst the bodice”

“Well, you shouldn’t be so big!”

“Don’t blame me, girl, I just grew them, it was my mother who gave me the genetics, innit?”

I sat back. “Ruthy, you are going to make a lot of women weep today. I just want to make you look as good as possible. Ah, Jan’s arrived”

The other Mrs Woodruff appeared with that suitcase of cosmetics I remembered, closely followed by Kelly.

“Ready for the final touches, Kirst? Dear god, whose idea was it for a boned strapless bodice?”

I laughed at that. “I rather think it was Den’s, aye? Girls, we have an hour before the car is here, so let’s get to it. Sows’ ears and silk purses, aye?”

“You are a cheeky sod, Sergeant Price!”

“And you are going to make a gorgeous bride, Sergeant Armstrong, but I somehow don’t see you as blushing a lot! Anyway…”

I paused, waiting for the attention.

“Anyway, I had someone else make MY silk purse, aye?”

It seems I was wrong. Kirsty could indeed blush. Steph arrived, followed by the girls, as I always thought of them now. Kirsty had gone for five bridesmaids, in Ginny, Kate, Kelly, Merry and Steph, while I had been lumbered with the Matron of Honour role. I had argued with that one, pointing out that as an unmarried barren virgin I could hardly be considered matronly in any sense of the word, and Kirsty had just said “Oh, shut up, Annie!”

That had somehow sealed the argument.

There was another knock at the door.

“You girls decent?”

“Hiya Dad, what you think?”

Roger Ellis came in, and I could see the start of a tear in his eye. “Love, absolutely more than decent. I never realised I had such a truly beautiful daughter. Right, girls, we just about ready?”

The cars were on time, and we piled in, Kirsty in white and the rest of us in a soft rose-pink, and then there was Katriona waiting at the front of the church, and Den…

Eric was stood beside him, and both were in morning suits, and if my man had not been there, and Kirsty on her way forward on her father’s arm, I would have been sorely tempted to spend my quality time with the groom. I had never stopped fancying him, but as I watched them join at the altar rail I realised that as a mate, as family, I did truly love him, both of them. So many years alone when the world was filled with such strength and grace.

Simon was looking almost as gorgeous, if the glances he was receiving from his girlfriend were anything to go by, and there were tears, and smiles, and vows, and rings, and a kiss, and Katriona got so emotional I had to support her as young Dennis Adam demanded to know why his mother was hiding his dinner. There was singing, too, and although only the Powells and their trouts had been able to attend, along with Twm, John and James, there was enough power in there to make the old hymns feel true, even to an ardent atheist like myself.

Music has the power, the magic to lift anything out of the ordinary and into the sublime, but that day it was almost superfluous, because the sheer volume of love in that church had already taken events higher. Almost, though; we weren’t playing, and it was the organ, and the men’s voices, that laid a seal on the day.

Photos, more kisses, and then Kirsty threw her bouquet, and I definitely let out a little bit of wee as I watched the other women part ranks like the Red Sea in a well-rehearsed manoeuvre that left Merry standing alone at Ground Zero. She almost dropped it, but after a fumble she waved it over her head with a huge grin.

Eric was at my shoulder, with Simon close by. My man kissed the back of my neck, where my hair was piled high, and gently said “Never ends, does it? Always another smile, another joining”

He raised his voice a little.

“Simon, mate, I have no idea what you have been doing, and no desire to know, but thank you, you have put such a smile on her face these past months”

I looked around, and Simon looked so drippy at that point I nearly laughed.

“You have it bad too, aye?”

“Annie, I have absolutely no idea how such a girl has remained single. No idea at all”

“Well, she just has high standards, Simon. And thanks; Eric is right, I don’t remember ever seeing her happier”

Simon muttered something just then, and I was certain I caught the word “happier”, but he changed the subject as she approached us, and accepted his kiss on the cheek.

“Shall I start the kettles boiling, Simon?”

Bloody teetotallers, getting their feet under vicarage tables. I grinned at her.

“And shall I start opening the wine, Simon?”

I linked arms with Merry and off we went to the Hall, where the reception’s spread was making the tables groan. God knows what it was costing Roger and Katriona, but we had held a collection at the nick, and the drinks bill was largely covered. Dennis and Kirsty were two of ours, and this would be their day.

We were joined by another couple, as Darren and Shan trotted along hand in hand.

“Me Mums said we should help out with the food, lahk!”

“Thanks, Shan, that’d be good, aye? Looking gorgeous today, girl!”

Darren grinned. “She always look gorgeous, Annie!”

Oh, you silver-tongued charmer. We were only in the building what seemed like ten minutes before the rush started, people finding their places from the name tags we had prepared. Kirsty had insisted that the families and friends be mixed up, so that we wouldn’t have little cousin- or colleague-ghettoes in the room, and as a side effect the conversation got steadily louder as almost-strangers made their introductions.

Ting-ting-ting went the knife on the glass. Eric was upright.

“Friends, colleagues, family, this is a job I was terrified I would never have to perform, but the great lump over there with the beautiful woman in white is obviously harder to kill than we thought. Not only that, and I speak with real regret and the memory of a truly awful hangover, he isn’t that easy to get drunk!

“I could heap praise on Dennis, talk about his unshakeable honesty and probity, his courage, the deep and unreserved love he has shown for his beautiful wife and lovely son, how I can never repay him for helping me find my own partner, and it would all be true, but I am supposed to be his best man and that means I should really be working through a character assassination. So, without further ado..."

And he was off, speaking without notes, ripping the piss out of everything from his accent to his height, telling stories of Den’s attempts at folk dancing, and staying just close enough to the truth to make it real and just far enough away to make it warm. When Eric had finished, and the toast had been drunk, it was Roger’s turn, and when he spoke of how he himself loved Dennis I lost it at last, and my napkin was soaked in happiness.

Tradition was followed in all things, and there was dancing for couples, and then there was dancing for everyone, and the usual suspects took over the floor as Ginny tried once more to outdo Sarah while I concentrated on not falling off my heels. At one point, I ended up gyrating with a vicar in civvies, and when the tune ended he whispered, sort of, “Come with me, please, Annie”

We ended up in the kitchen, and he looked at me nervously, and there was an answering quiver in my stomach. I had seen exactly that look before, twice before, and he just said “Please…just two minutes of your time”

Merry was making yet another round of tea, and as Simon came up behind her I saw his hand dip into his pocket, checking, making sure.

“Miriam…”

“Simon. Very formal, isn’t it? Annie…something wrong? Not the babe?”

I smiled. “No, Merry, nothing’s wrong. I think I do know, though”

I looked at Simon and raised an eyebrow. “I’m right, aye?”

He gave a nervous little flicker of a smile. “Aye; I mean, yes”

Merry’s face creased slightly. “And what is happening?”

He drew a deep breath. “Merry, it has only been a little over half a year since I met you, but you have truly impressed me with your humanity, and your faith, your generosity”

I interrupted. “And her rather pert bottom, aye?”

They both blushed, and Simon muttered “Yes, there is that, as well…Merry, look, what I am trying to say is, well…”

He was stalling. I stuck my hand into his pocket and grabbed the box, pushing it into the hand I dragged to his front.

“Oh, you two will die of old age at this rate! Merry, you can see what he’s asking, aye? I’m off to rejoin Eric and the rest. I’ll congratulate you later, aye?”

And yes, the ring was on her finger when they came back to the dance floor.

This is a bit shorter than I usually deliver, but the reason should be obvious.

CHAPTER 24
“Merry, love, you are smiling rather nicely, aye? Something pleased you?”

There was a slap on my arm. “You, you interfering busybody prodnose, you could have left him to his own plan!”

I gave her Paddington. “And waited another five years? Look, Merry, Eric had to have a bit of a prod, and so did I, aye? Would you say that those who prodded us did good or bad?”

Her face fell slightly, and then the smile came back. “Well, if they hadn’t prodded you, you would not have been here to prod us, so I can hardly complain, can I? Annie…it is at times like this I really know that you love me. I wish…I wish…”

There were tears then, and a tilt of the head as they trickled rather than poured.

“Why did I have to have Adam instead of you?”

I kissed her tears away, and there was only one answer I could give. “Adam was me, love, and I am Adam, and without him would Annie have been the same? Now, look, happy face, aye? Steph and Kirst are leading the pack this way”

They were indeed. Kirsty was first, as befitted her status. “Merry, you cow, trying to upstage me on my wedding day! Come here, you lucky girl!”

There was a long sequence of hugs and squeals, and I found myself smiling at the irony that just as they agreed to make a joint venture of their lives they were driven apart by two crowds of well-wishers. Dennis put a stop to things, taking the microphone from the DJ.

“Lads and lasses, you may have noticed how much I love my wife. It seems that our love is so potent, so all-pervading, that it’s started infecting those around us, like. Now, there may be some people who haven’t noticed; perhaps you’ve been in the Gents, or you are still in nappies, but we have another new couple here, who have literally just got engaged to be wed. Now, apart from my wife, and my bairn, I can’t think of many finer people, so, just this once, the bride and groom are going to toast another couple. Ten seconds to grab a drink…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…right, to Simon and Merry, long may fortune smile on them! Simon and Merry!”

The answering shout came back, and with matching blushes they kissed. That led to a really odd moment, where we had another couple do their solo dance , but nobody was complaining, certainly neither Den nor Kirsty, who popped off after a while to change into something more suited to shaking her thang in front of rock chick, mad Amazon and smiling hubby. Darren and Shan were there, as were the Armitages and sundry coppers, the McDuffs and two solo trouts, their men keeping up tradition by propping up the bar.

It was midnight when the last slow dances were ended, and the randomly shuffling couples were finally forced to fission and resume their solo careers. Katriona and Roger had left hours before, taking DA with them for his early night, and I was swaying round the floor wrapped around my Eric, realising that there was nothing untoward between us, and never would be again. I whispered in his ear as we danced.

“Darling….light of my life…”

“What do you want, woman?”

“Apart from you? Nothing. It’s just…you know, that thing we decided, about waiting till after our wedding, aye?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, can I refer you back to your first question and my first answer, and just add ‘as soon as I can rip all of your clothes off’, aye?”

“Are you sure?”

I pushed my thigh between his, and there he was. “What do you think? Now, I just need the ladies’ and then I need you, aye?”

I walked off to the toilets, almost feeling silly as I tried to place my feet just so, so that my arse would swing in what would have been sexy in a real woman, for that was the thought that hit me as soon as I turned away.

Up and down, up and down. Yes I was complete, no I wasn’t real, yes I wanted him, no I couldn’t see if it would work, shit, life is never simple for us freaks and abominations. I hit the door and went straight to a sink where I splashed some cold water onto my face.

Steph and Sarah were right behind me, and it was Sar who laid into me, in as nice a way as I have ever been told off.

“You haven’t yet, have you? And you thought you would, and now you think you aren’t adequate, aye?”

Steph lifted my chin to look at me more closely. “Just looking behind your eyes, Annie, and I can’t see him. And neither can Eric, right? Sar, do your bits work?”

“Oh fuck yeah! I got told off the first time, I tend to shout a lot, bit graphic in my orders, like”

“Take me now big boy?”

“Well, it was actually fuck me, fuck my brains out, according to my house guests”

“Tony still like it?”

“Well, he did last night, and this morning….and, em, half an hour ago outside….sorry, weddings make me randy. Look, I’m supposed to be a biker bitch, it’s what we do!”

“What, outside churches?”

“So I made that bit up, OK?”

And on it went, and I watched as the double act bounced back and forth in front of me, until I had to grin, and Steph rounded on me.

“Your man is waiting, girl, and I did notice the front of his trousers, so you have a duty to perform, and so has he, so that you can both know who you really are”

“Yeah” added Sarah, “You haven’t had any man in you for ages, time you put that right!”

Once I stopped groaning at the crap pun, I had to ask. “How did you know, girls?”

Sarah sighed. “You walked off all strut and swivel, and then your shoulders dropped, and I have been there, so has she, and this is too good a day to spoil, so you just go home and make it even better, right?”

So, with no choice, I returned to the finest man on the planet, and we made our rounds of the guests before the newly-affianced couple delivered us home, and I found I couldn’t get the key into the door, as my hand was trembling too much. Eric put his there to steady it, and I half fell through as it opened, and then he helped me go just far enough to shut it behind us, as he then pushed me against the wall as our mouths closed down the distance between us. He had a hand on my breast, and another on my arse, and I had mine between his legs, and it was in the hallway that we ended our separation as I discovered exactly how good Doctor Syllables was at his trade.

CHAPTER 25
It was a good job the others were late back, because our clothes took a little while to find. I grabbed one of my ‘Tabitha’ nighties after a rinse of, well, just there, and joined my lover in our bed, where he had already settled himself after making two cups of tea. He took one look at the nighty, and simply shook his head.

He pulled me under the duvet once I had stripped again, and cuddled me into his chest.

“Now we are where we are, love, I just want to feel you against me, skin-to-skin, yeah?”

He was right, and I settled my head onto his chest, tasting the salt of our mingled sweat and feeling the ache where he had so recently been. I kissed him there, and found myself getting aroused all over again, his smell, his simple presence…

I was sore indeed when the others came back, and there was a soft knock at our bedroom door. I pulled the covers up, and there were four of them there, all but one grinning. I just pulled his head to me for a kiss, and when I looked back, the only one whose grin hadn’t faded to moist-eyed soppiness was Merry. Her expression was one of elation, pride. Kate caught her look.

“Annie, this is not the end of anything, you know that, and we could be as trite as all hell and talk about beginnings, but I am going to say one thing. Eric Johnson, we are proud of you. This girl would be lost without you, so just remember that”

Eric cuddled me to him. “Kate, girls, you may not have noticed it, but I would be lost without her. I have said this so many times, but I just wish we had seen who we were years ago. So much time wasted. Now, I know this is a silly question, but are you going to award us marks for style, or are you going to piss off to bed? Shan, breakfast duties, OK?”

Two in the morning, and I was awake again. Something about what we had been doing left me needing yet another leak, and I had just settled the new parts onto the seat when there was a knock at the door. A voice whispered to me, “Annie?”

It was Shan. “Just a minute, aye? Washing my hands”

She asked for a word, and we tiptoed down to the living room.

“What’s up? No sleep?”

“Been finking, lahk. Just all this sex stuff, yeah…you like it?”

“Oh god, Shan, I am so sorry. I didn’t think…”

She had a distant look on her face. “Yeah, but you like it, don’t you?”

I knew what she was thinking. How to explain to such a victim the differences between love and rape, especially when the actual concept of love had been beyond her at the time?

“I know what you do, yeah? I know where it goes….but it’s not the same thing, is it? You got a man, Eric, he love you, he don’t do nuffink bad, lahk”

I started to say something about it all being good, make a joke of it, and she just cut me dead.

“There ain’t nuffink you can teach me about sex. I done it all, or they done it all and I cried, and they, that big cunt, he like it when I cry, yeah? Annie, how do I make it all good again? How I make a guy want me and not my dirty bits, yeah? I just so worried, Daz, I love him, yeah, he look after me, but what if he want to do that? An’ I don’t? What we do?”

Nine. Nine years old, and turned into an object. How the hell do I deal with that destruction, that waste?

“What does Darren say?”

“I ast him if he wanted to fuck me an’ he say no, yeah? I said, is it cos I is dirty, an’ he says no, it’s cause you is beautiful an’ it not right, and I’s too young…I mean, Annie, I want him to know what I fink about him, an’ how do I tell him?”

I took a deep breath. “Shan, do you know what the French do with geese? They put a funnel in their beaks and they push corn in until they are stuffed. Makes their livers big and fat, and the French like to eat that. Now, do geese like to eat corn? Yeah, they do. Do they like to have it pushed down their neck with a stick? Na, don’t think so. I love Eric, I think, in some ways I always have, ever since I met him. Sex with Eric…it’s making love, it’s picking the corn I want to eat, it’s not a big stick thing pushing it in”

“He only got a little one?”

“Cheeky girl. No, it is a way we can be really close, and show our love, aye?”

“Is it nice for you?”

I thought back to how things had felt, just then, and I shuddered. “Very, very nice, love, but it is even better because I love him and he loves me”

“But Darren won’t…”

This was what we had been worried about, her assumption that affection lay between her legs. I was, just then, ready to kill her surviving abusers. I drew a breath, as I thought.

“Shan, Darren says no because he loves you. He hasn’t told me that, but I can see it in his eyes when he looks at you. He also knows a few things, like how illegal it would be for you two to make love, and how badly you were hurt, aye? He isn’t ignoring you, he is protecting you in the best way he can. Look, your body is YOUR body, and no one else has any claim on it. You will grow up, you will be a good woman, I am sure, and if things are still going well with Darren, then, well, look at me, look at Kirsty, look at your mums”

“Yeah, but they dykes, is different”

“Ah, Chantelle, love, then look at Merry and Simon. Do they love each other?”

She grinned. “Oh yeah! Iss sweet!”

“And all they have done is kiss. Does that make their love any less real? Look around you, we have so many people who love each other, they don’t need to bonk in public to let people know, aye? It is all about being there for someone, and a look, a word, all sorts of little things, that’s being in love. You know what? You and me are really alike, aye?”

“How’s that?”

“Neither of us was allowed to be a little girl, aye? But me, I never got to be a teen girl, I never had a chance to do the girly stuff, be silly, just be myself, aye? You, you can do all that, you can wear silly clothes, giggle and stuff. I have to be all grown up all the time, aye?”

Shan gave me a sudden and very odd flat stare, as if she had disconnected from the world, and I realised how she had survived the years of hell. There was a shudder, and she was back.

“Annie, I got a deal, lahk. We show each other how we be girly, teen stuff, all together , yeah? We both lost out, not fair we don’t both get a second chance together, lahk. You wanna be my best girlfriend, forever? I never had one…”

“Oh, Shan, love, neither did I, and yes, oh yes, please, BFF?”

“BFF?”

“Best Friends Forever, aye?”

She laughed. “Na, we gonna be BFFAEAE, yeah?”

I lurched forward as she did the same, and we hugged our agreement as I wept. She was so, so damaged, we both were, and at last there were the first green shoots of new growth. I made us both some hot chocolate, and we grinned at each other’s cocoa moustaches in true girly BFF style, as I explained about Tabitha, and the return of my dear lost Jessica.

“I didn’t think I would ever see her again, aye? Then Merry, and Aunty Esther, they brought her back”

“My nan got rid of my dolls…”

I thought quickly. “Shan, oh, hello Merry, want cocoa?”

She nodded, and I quickly added hot water to another mug.

“Shan, Merry here helped look after Jessica for me, aye? I really thought she was gone, so I took her name, aye, as my middle name when I did the paper stuff. But she is back, and she won’t be leaving me again. I have another friend, though, and I was wondering….would you like Tabby to go home with you for a while, just to watch over you, till you find someone you want as your own little friend?”

She was moist in the eyes again, as Merry sat and hugged her. “Annie has Jessica back, so Tabitha might want to see what your home is like. She hasn’t travelled much, has she, cuz?”

“You would let me take her?”

“Aye, otherwise how could I call you my BFF?”

And so the deal was arranged, and Merry’s smile to me over Shan’s head said more than any words could, and she hugged her till the chocolate was finished and we steered the littlest one back to her bed. As she left, she turned to me, and asked yet another show-stopping question.

“Annie, you do like it, what Eric do to you, yeah?”

I gave her as innocent a smile as I could, and then to Merry’s theatrical disgust, I said:

“Not sure yet, so I’ll wake him up in four or five hours and check, aye?”

CHAPTER 26
It wasn’t a bad Summer, all told. There was an awful lot of adjustment to fit in and fit ourselves to, and I have to admit I did miss Tabby. She had been my confidante, my only friend, for as long as it took me to find out that the last wasn’t true and never had been. I said goodbye to her properly, and packed a few outfits for her in her new home with the girls.

“Who made her clothes, Annie?”

“I did, Shan. It was one thing I could do to be myself, aye, make things. I wanted to make some for me, but, well, it never sort of happened, aye?”

“Could you teach me how?”

“Course, love. But I only give lessons at home, so you’ll have to come up here more often”

Merry gave her a one-armed hug. “That’s two of us who will have to come here more than we thought we would, isn’t it? Tell you what, why don’t we see about doing some exploring together, if your Mams agree?”

All three girls were lycra-clad, ready for the ride home on solo and tandem, so I had to add the necessary instruction.

“Shan, Miriam here doesn’t do skin-tight stuff, aye, so you will have to make sure you bring some ordinary clothes. Unless you intend to go back with more clothes than you arrive in; I think Merry’s idea of ‘explore’ might just mean London”

Kate laughed. “And don’t get your hopes up, girl; I rather think she doesn’t have quite the same taste in clothes or shoes as you do! Now, Annie, I know how much Tabitha means to you, so are you sure she will be happy in our little house?”

“She will be with three of my very best friends, so she will be happy indeed. Now, how are we going to get you up here without a Mum?”

There was a little flicker there, the nerves back, and then the fight that I knew was in her, the spirit that we had seen in the court, came out to play.

“There’s trains, innit? Somebody meet me at the station, an’, yeah, I got no worries, lahk”

I looked across at Merry. “So, if Merry were here, and you got off the train at Gatwick, and then got back on with Merry to London, you’d be OK?”

A lift of the shoulders, a smile. “Yeah, I’ll be fine, lahk. Look…”

It was Darren all over again, as she forced her speech into a different pattern.

“Look, I have to try and get me…myself a better life, be real person, yeah? Merry, she talk…talks all precise, an’ I know, I know you know I ain’t thick, lahk, but I know what I sound like, yeah? An’ people, they hear that, and they think, chav, they think slag, an’…and I don’ want that. I spend time with clever people, I learn to talk better, yeah?”

I looked at her, and she had a grin hiding inside.

“Shan, so the only reason you hang around with us is for elocution lessons, aye?”

“Yeah…that an’ goin’ up town and getting’ cool stuff!”

Ginny looked at Kate, then back to me, and sniffed. “This is a conspiracy, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“All a plot, to take our precious little girl away and make her Welsh. I tell you, one ‘look you!’ or ‘aye’, and the doll gets it!”

I dropped my jaw in mock horror. “Will it be OK to feed her leeks?”

“Only if baby ones, done in a cheese sauce. And absolutely NO male voice choirs!”

I looked at the red lunatic. “Aye, I can just see that, lurking choirs, hiding behind litter bins on Oxford Street, waiting to leap out at unsuspecting girls, aye”

“Yeah, zombie ones, you know, clutching rotted sheet music, wanting to eat your brains, yeah…”

Kate coughed. “I think the medication is wearing off. Dearest, don’t you think sometimes you take an idea a bit too far?”

“Yebbut, zombie choirs, we had zombie strippers, and stuff, and…”

I looked at Shan, as she fought the giggles. “Shan, you know what Mrs Armitage said, you don’t have to stay with them if they scare you”

Shan laughed, and it was a genuine one, and it was possibly the most natural mood I had ever seen seize her.

“Yeah? Who’d be normal, and miss all the fun? I love my mums, so they better never change, yeah?”

I definitely saw Kate’s eyes moisten, and then they were gone, Eric surfacing just in time to wave them goodbye. Merry cast a critical eye over him.

“See what fornication does? You have lost half of the day”

He pointed to me. “Doesn’t seem to have done her any harm, does it?”

That was when we all lost it at once, and I was delighted by Merry’s sudden openness. I had seen her drunk, I had seen her tender, but now, so clearly, it was joy. The ring sparkled on her finger, matching the twinkle in her eye, and I had my favourite cousin back with me.

We decided to have a sort of late breakfast/early lunch thing, and as I was sorting the bacon sandwiches, Merry made a pot of tea.

“Annie, love, can I be rude?”

“You never are, Merry”

“Aye, but I was wondering…what size have you made it to?”

“Why?”

“You are eating bacon, and bread, and you were drinking alcohol last night. You have a wedding to be ready for”

Eric came in as she passed comment.

“Not important, Merry, I love her no matter how fat she is!”

“Sod that you are, Johnson!”

“No, love. If you want to slim down to make yourself feel good, you go ahead. Just remember one thing: I love you, whatever, whenever, however, yes? Do not feel you have to change anything for me, end of. Just be you”

I drew a breath to keep the tears back, as yet again he showed what a perfect man had come my way, and that thought made me giggle and wince at the same time.

“For the benefit of the jury, it all depends on what label I am wearing, but it is between twelve and fourteen. Which reminds me…Merry, how long did you want to stay?”

She blushed deep red. ”That is something I meant to ask… I have two weeks holiday now, I had sort of planned to go across to France and Belgium, but, well, things became rather unplanned, in a wonderful way, you see, and…”

“Settled then, if Eric agrees. You want to see Simon, I want company at the shops. Now that I am almost there, aye?”

She awoke from her blush like a salmon up a weir. “Would that be for the choosing of a particular dress, my dear?”

I grinned. “Yes indeed, my darling cuz, yes indeed. And I tell you what, there are some rather nice shops down on the coast”

“And you need a best friend to help?”

“Well, no good taking Ginny, aye, she’d spend all day on the machines, and Kate will be doing healing angel stuff, so it will just have to be Shan!”

Merry laughed, as Eric interjected “And not Sally, Sarah, Steph, Naomi, Polly, Kirsty?”

“I will probably run it past them, but, hey, this is two birds, one stone, aye? Or rather three birds. Let Chantelle have the space to be herself, and do it with friends. And….”

He gave me a Paddington. “Admit it, woman. You are just about there, so you feel you can justify Cake, am I right? Look, Merry, we are a partnership, but as the token male–shut up laughing, love---it would be a pleasure to have you here as long as you want. Phone’s in the corner”

“Phone?”

“Oh come on, Merry, weren’t you going to tell him you are staying? Annie, love, let’s go and have a look at how the tea is brewing”

Merry stayed the week, and it was a delight. Simon spent a considerable part of that time with her, and we had a couple of wonderful evening meals, where I got the chance to enjoy watching the life dance in her eyes. We also got our trip to Brighton. That was when Merry astonished me.

Shan had been waiting at the barrier at Brighton station, the mad one beside her, dressed as maturely as I had ever seen her. A neat knee-length navy skirt was topped by a crisp white blouse, and flat shoes finished the look. We started with a quick visit to the music and video store, where we combed the bargain racks for cheap DVDs, and then trawled through the music. As Merry worked her way from end to end of the classical, I found Shan in the folk section.

“I don’t know none of these, Annie, but she looks pretty. You should have hair like hers, yeah?”

It was a woman called Loreena McKennitt, and the sleeve notes sounded interesting. What struck me was the completely pre-Raphaelite look to her, all flowing gown and abundant hair, and I realised that it could well be tied in with the girliness we had both had beaten out of us in different ways.

“What do you like about it, Shan?”

“Well, she look feminine, yeah? And the music, it’s all mixed up, but there a poem there I know, we did it at school. Highwayman, it made me cry…”

Merry was looking over our shoulders. “Harp, yes? Vanny can tell you about those, Shan. Now, what is it about the poem that you like?”

“Iss like a film, a real story, yeah? Not just pretty words. And it a good story, too, sept where he get shot: and they shot him down on the highway, down like a dog on the highway, and he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat”

I looked at her as she recited, and there was passion, real feeling in the words.

“Shan…”

Merry interrupted. “Chantelle, that was beautiful. I think, I think Annie was going to suggest that you have a true romantic’s soul. Is that not true, cuz?”

No, I was going to say how soppy she was, but thank you Merry. “Shall we see if you can have a listen, Shan?”

“Please!”

And that was her first ever personally chosen piece of music, which Merry bought her as a gift. The voice was a little operatic for me, but the playing had depth, and passion, and I could see myself exploring it further. The hair, though, was just a bit over the top. I liked what hair I had, now, and such a mane would have given me real problems at work.

We left the shop, in the end, with the McKennitt, a new Capercaillie album and a collection of Mahler songs for Merry. Oh yes; we looked at some dresses, too.

CHAPTER 27
Merry was looking at them with a very practised eye, I realised. This wasn’t a woman flicking through the racks with a vision of tiered romance and fluffy whiteness, this was someone with very clear ideas as to the ideal wedding dress. I turned on her.

“Miriam, you have been planning this for a while, haven’t you?”

Once more the blush, the dropped eyes, but the grin was lurking. “As soon as I realised where you were going, Annie, I was looking on the computer and in the shops.”

“And the rest of the story?”

She shrugged. “A woman can dream, can’t she? Look, it wasn’t just me playing imaginary dressing-up games with you; even Mam has noticed, our colouring, our hair, I was seeing me in you, and I dared to have a small dream, and of course, now, it is no longer beyond belief. Things have changed…”

She caressed her ring, smiling distantly, as I waited for her return to rational discussion. Shan was grinning, and I suddenly understood she had already worked out what I was going to say to Merry.

“Yes, Shan, you have something?”

“Yeah, I got something, and Merry needs to think, yeah. Merry, what’s Annie’s biggest worry? That people think she some bloke, yeah? Some man in drag, lahk. An’ there’s you, you dreaming of bein’ her, how you think she feel, a born woman dreaming of bein’ her, bein’ Annie? That a real compliment, innit?”

She looked up at me, quizzically, and I could read the question in her eyes: did I say the right thing? Did I sound grown up and sensible? Did I make the bigger people angry at me again? The fragility was there, but so was the suspicion of pride, that she might just have shown some maturity. I smiled.

“That is why I picked you as BFF, Shan. You can see through things to what matters, aye? Absolutely right, you are. Merry, only Eric has ever paid me a bigger compliment, and I am afraid you can never top that one, aye, as it involves love and marriage and stuff. Now, as you have put so much research into things already, what ideas have you come up with?”

“Ah, cuz, it’s all a matter of making the best of your best, if you catch my drift. Neither of us is exactly buxom, isn’t it?”

“Oy, woman, nothing wrong with my tits, two satisfied customers, aye?”

“Not my point, Annie. What I intended to say was that we are both girls of leg and length, not of chest and hip”

“You mean arse, don’t you? In other words our figures are not so much hourglass, more minute hand, aye?”

“We are much alike, Annie, and you are becoming more so, and I have it on good authority that our bottoms are not unacceptable to behold”

Shan smirked. “Yeah, Simon likes her bum, yeah!”

“Oh shut up, or I shall withhold the cake. Now, what worked well for Kirsty will obviously not do for us, yes? Kirsty is rather…endowed”

Her tone changed, and Merry almost whispered “I thought, if she turns too quickly, the momentum…she’d fall over”

“So what do you suggest, cuz?”

She straightened up, and with a schoolteacher’s nod said “Regency. High waist, bosom rounded, soft flare to the body of the gown. And I thought a close-fitting cap to the head, a very simple veil, so almost a Twenties look, apart from the bust. Pearls or similar to the cap, of course…”

“So you haven’t given this too much thought at all, aye?”

Her blushing was getting more frequent. I saw my cousin clearly, now, the lonely, shy, romantic girl, with standards set so high that nobody had ever satisfied them, seeing her life heading down the long and arid slope to spinsterhood. Then, bang, he is there, and the dreams are no longer impossible. I had to ask.

“Merry, are you, you know, hoping for kids?”

That schoolteacher nod once more. “The Good Lord will decide that, my dear”

“That wasn’t what I asked, was it?”

Shan was looking on with interest. Merry unwound a little. “Yes, to be honest, as I always strive to be, yes. I do want children, but, Annie, cariad, I never wanted to put you in that position…”

“Oh, love, there are lots of women who can’t, but most of us can love, and that is the important thing, aye? Shan, what would that make you? You are a sort of niece to me, aye, so what would that make Merry’s kids when she has them?”

Shan put some real thought into that one. “She your cousin, so that make me sort of wossit, second cousin removed stuff, lahk, an’ that sound silly, so…look, Merry, you my friend first, yeah, so why not I be an aunty? Sound better, lahk, sound, dunno, CLOSER, more love and stuff”

I had to go to the ladies’ just then, as my eyes had sprung a leak, and once I was settled again we started a structured search for the gown as described by Merry, and of course she had actually been looking up the shop we were in on the internet, and there it was, where her dreams met the designer’s and it was perfect. The fabric was in a variety of textures, and the bodice–the only word I could think of–the bodice was softness and sensuality made cloth, and of course we both had to try one on, which meant that Chantelle had to be included in the game, and the girl had been so completely right when she thanked Merry for her compliment. Three of us there, laughing, joking, feeling loved and pretty in the dresses we modelled for each other, and all three losing stains and demons that had perched on our shoulders whispering.

Unloved spinster.
Abomination and pervert.
Dirty little whore.

The sales girl was full of her own compliments, which made the day even better.

“So, which of you is the bride?”

Shan grinned. “That one first, yeah”

Merry laughed. “My cousin here in September. I am only recently engaged, so it will be a little later, and Little Miss Precocity there still has a few years of happiness to grow into her life before she is on this route”

The assistant was nodding. “Yes, I can see the similarities. That style does suit you both, as you have such lovely slim hips. I helped another lady with her gown some months ago, and she was very different. This style would not have suited her at all, she was a little more…”

She made a movement considerably in front of her own breasts, and Shan giggled. “She about this tall, big bum, yeah? Annie, we in the shop where Kirsty got hers!”

The girl was stammering “Oh, I am so sorry, I didn’t realise you knew each other”

I held up both hands. “Not at all, she is a close friend, and she looked lovely only a few days ago, aye? If you are the people who made her look so beautiful, that’s a definite recommendation to us to see what you can do, aye?”

In the end, there was really no contest. Merry’s eye had been spot on, and I could see myself in the exact gown. I paid a deposit, and the girl promised to have two dresses held, one in a twelve and the other in a fourteen, just in case. Then Shan spoke up.

“Annie, you forgot something, yeah?”

"Wossat, Shan?”

She giggled. “Well, we’s gonna have cake in a bit, yeah, but you gotta see about bridesmaids an’ flower girls…”

I must have winced at that, and our assistant just smiled. “We have a scheme for that. No need to buy, we rent”

She must have caught the looks rising behind our eyes, because she immediately assured us that she only meant the supporting cast.

“A girl’s wedding dress is not to be hired, certainly not from us, trust me.”

And two hours later, we finally slumped into the plush seats of a tea shop, and cake was selected and consumed as feet were rested. I had to make the point to the other two.

“Girls, a while ago, Eric and me, well, we had this woman, a sales assistant, and we were trying to get my wardrobe expanded, and she said something like ‘There are special shops for people like you’, and today, that girl, it was all woman stuff, aye?”

Merry sniffed. “But that is what you are, isn’t it?”

“Yes, love, but it’s like Shan said earlier, the acceptance is the thing. I have had a few moments, but today, well, can I just say I love you both?”

The paper napkins they give you are pretty poor for tears, so it was a good job that Merry had a supply of decent tissues in her handbag.

CHAPTER 28
Kate was waiting at the station for us, and I was touched by the way Shan hugged her as a greeting. Whatever steps the two women had been taking with Chantelle, they seemed to have done immense good in her life. There would always be a shadow behind her eyes, which was something I myself could never shake, but she had opened out and relaxed immeasurably.

“Look, Mum, I got music! Present from Merry, yeah”

Kate smiled, one arm over her fosterchild’s shoulders, and I could see at once how they were completing each other. Polly was clearly either a genius or remarkably in tune with her charges, for I realised that I could no longer conceive of my two closest friends without their child.

“Merry, no spoiling her, OK? I assume she had cake and stuff as well?”

“My lips are sealed, for it is sinful to utter untruths”

“Sealed? Glued together with chocolate, more like it! Did you find the…ah. Annie, I assume from the soppy expression that September is definitely on. Thank you both, anyway, Shan doesn’t get out as often as we would like”

I wondered if she meant that she didn’t have the confidence rather than the desire, but left the question unasked. We left them at the station, and were soon rattling North to where Simon was waiting to take his fiancée off to that most romantic of destinations, a lecture on some obscure religious topic. Who was I to object or belittle, though? The whole point of being a couple is sharing, sharing interests and lives, and, as my own sharing would involve driving through north-western France while two boys rode bicycles a silly distance, I was hardly in a position to point and laugh.

“Merry…”

“Yes, love?”

“Would you like us to sort you out some permanent storage space in the house; wardrobe, drawers, that sort of thing?”

“That, cuz, is something I had sort of counted on happening. It would not be seemly to sleep under the same roof as unmarried people, and, well, I did hope that I might prevail upon you to–“

“Miriam, shut up. After all you have done for us, what else could I do, aye? No, let me rephrase that: I keep asking myself, what more can I do? I have missed my family, aye, and there they are ready to sing at my wedding, and I hear the phrase ‘the least I can do’, and I want to do nothing in any way ‘least’, aye?”

That brought a squeeze of my hand, and another smile, and watching the twinkles that I remembered from our youth dance in her eyes, I had absolutely no doubts as to how happy Simon was making her. I felt like somebody at the end of a long and damp night, where the rising sun starts to disperse the clinging misery of the fog and warm the ache from their bones.

“Don’t forget, I’m back to work tomorrow, so don’t be too noisy if you come home drunk, aye?”

“That, my dear, is something I no longer have need of. I trusted in the Lord, and He has done all that I prayed for. He has looked after me, too”

I nearly missed that little bit of sentiment, but it stayed with me. It was exactly how Miriam had always been; she looked after others, she put them first, and she screwed down tight her own despair. If there was a god, this surely was a just reward for her selflessness.

“Where are you eating tonight, Merry?”

“Er…in the pub behind the church. It’s convenient”

“Ah, leading you into sin and temptation, aye?”

That brought a megawatt grin. “No sin, love, but an awful lot of temptation!”

In the end, we were still up when she returned, and my own sleep was helped immeasurably by the happiness she radiated on entering the house.

Thank you, Simon.

With the schools about to close for the Summer holidays, or working through the exam season, I had returned to my old slot in Custody for a while, working alongside Den but really missing Kirsty, who was still off trying to turn a small baby into a little boy. Nothing had really changed, though I was of course using the ladies’ toilets and locker room rather than my old haunts. Nev was my first client of the day, this time with a cyclist, of all things.

“What you got, Nev?”

“Rode through two red lights, Sarge”

“Hardly arrestable, aye? So, what is he here for?”

“Refusing to give his details when required to do so. I witnessed the prisoner pass through one red traffic signal at the junction of Albert and Goff’s roads, and then through another red light at the pelican crossing thirty yards further on”

“Could you see both lights?”

Nev grinned. “Oh yes; I was on the crossing when he rode through it, it was me he rode into!”

I turned to the very obvious student type in front of me. Tight jeans, too tight for riding comfortably in, with the right leg rolled up. Slogan Tee, with a tartan shirt over the top.

“Nev, where’s his shoulder bag? And the fixie?”

“How do you know I got a fixie?”

I gave him my sweetest smile. “Fakengers always ride fixies. Stands to reason. Nowhere to hang a radio, so you’re no messenger. Now, why didn’t you give this nice officer your name?”

“Don’t have to, do I?”

“Well, yes you do?”

“Who says?”

“Parliament, by way of statute. Or, more simply, because it’s the law”

“Well, he couldn’t tell me which law, so it doesn’t apply, does it?”

“The law in question is the Road Traffic Act 1988, your original offence is under section 28 of that act, and your refusal to give your details is contrary to section 168. Got that? Nev, your concentration a little off?”

Nev grinned. “Something to do with lying on the ground with a bike on top of me, Sarge!”

Fakenger boy was still on form, though. “If he can’t tell me the law, he can’t use it!”

I sighed. “Son, just because you don’t know the atomic number of each of the elements that make up your bike doesn’t mean it falls apart when you sit on it, aye?”

“Well, ACTUALLY, the atomic numbers of….”

He would be a sodding chemistry student. I sent him off eventually so that Nev could do fingerprints, DNA and photos, and then he was outside the cell door losing his belt and his shoes.

“Why am I going in here?”

“Because you have committed a road traffic offence, and to further our investigations we need to know who you are. Inspector can’t bail you until we know we can find you again, aye?”

There was that awful crump of the closing cell door, and I realised Jim had been listening in.

“What do you say, boys? Er, sorry, Annie”

“Ah, I say forty minutes tops, aye?”

Nev shook his head. “Nope. Twenty at most. He’s too far up his own arse. First buzz in fifteen, twenty, demanding a brief, then five minutes later for his mum. Cuppa?”

Jim shook his head. “Just brewed some of my own, and you are going to see the quack. Look at your knee, Nev”

“Oh shit, they were new on today! Little bastard!”

I laughed. “Was he trying to leave when you collared him? From an injury accident? What section’s that, Nev?”

“Oh, don’t you two fucking start!”

In the end, he actually needed four stitches and a tetanus booster for the hole the chainring had left in his leg. The boy caved in after thirty-five minutes.

He had just left, with a formal caution instead of what could have been a rather heavy session before the Bench, and Jim and I were sipping mud together with the duty solicitor, swapping tales of barrack-room lawyers and saloon-bar coppers, when one of the support staff stuck her head into the Inspector’s broom cupboard.

“Sarge, there’s a phone call for you, a Steph Woodruff”

I felt my neck hairs quiver, as there was no reason for her to call me anywhere other than home. I was at the phone as quickly as possible.

“Steph?”

“Annie, can you come round? It’s Albert, he’s collapsed”

CHAPTER 29
I was out of the door as soon as one of the boys could fit my bike into the back of a carrier and drive me round. Steph was at the door waiting.

“Naomi’s gone with him, of course. It’s Darren I’m worried about, if you see what I mean. I need to get down the hospital, and, well…”

“No problem, Steph. Have you called Eric? No? Two seconds.”

I dug out my phone. “Eric, love? Bad news. Albert has been taken in, he should be there by now”

I looked up at Steph, and she nodded. “Stroke, we think”

“Eric? Sounds like a stroke. Naomi’s with him, Steph is on her way, I’m going to stay with the boy, aye? Let me know”

He was as calm as he always is, but you don’t sleep with someone without picking up at least some of their tells. I turned to Steph once more.

“Told anyone else yet?”

“Not yet”

“You get down there, then, and I will make a few calls. Where’s Darren?”

“Conservatory. He was with Albert when…”

“Go. I will sort, aye?”

She went, and I walked through to the back of the Woods’ house. Darren was on the wicker sofa, curled into a ball and sobbing. I sat beside him, and put a hand on his shoulder, and the flinch was instantaneous, as if he was expecting a blow to follow. He could hardly string the words together, but he tried.

“I killed him, din I?”

“No, love, you didn’t. Sometimes things just happen, aye? What were you doing?”

He was shaking like a flag in a gale, short tremors that came with his sobs, and I dragged him up to hold him properly, as his arms went round me and his tears soaked my blouse. Gradually, too slowly, he got out the story. Playing some shoot ’em up or other, lying on the floor in front of the screen, laughing and joking as Albert for once surpassed Darren’s score, and then the sudden slump, the thud as Albert’s forehead struck the floor. Panic, shouting for his Nan, and then the calls, the ambulance, Naomi icily calm throughout apart from when she swore at the ambulance dispatcher for not listening as she repeated the address.

That was Darren’s fear.

“She so angry, she must blame me! An’ it must be me, yeah, it was me who was playing with him, lahk, an’ he get all worked up, my fault, she gonna hate me, an’ he gonna die…”

There was more, but I had my arms full of a boy smaller than he would ever admit, shaking with fear that the people who had done so much to let him grow were going to suffer or die because of him. That fragility, that constant worry and self-doubt, how I knew that, from inside.

“Darren, I just need to move a little, aye, got to make a few calls. Just remember a couple of things, aye? What was your granddad doing just before, you know?”

“Laughing…”

“And your Nan, she immediately got Steph round to see to you, aye?”

“Yeah…”

“Sound like they hate you? Don’t think so. Look, let me get to the phone, aye?”

With Darren cuddled into my side, his sobs easing, I worked my way down the list, calling Ginny, Polly, Sally and Simon, who said he would let Merry know. Ginny was upbeat, in an odd way.

“Can I speak to Daz?”

I passed him the phone, and left them to it for a few minutes while I brewed some tea. My mobile rang as I did so, and it was Simon.

“I have let Merry know, and she will be over at the weekend, she says, if you have room for her. I am on my way to the hospital as soon as I hang up. Let me know if anything is needed, OK?”

“Thanks, Simon. Darren’s a wreck, but that’s to be expected. I will be by the phone.”

I carried two mugs in, and Darren was looking better, the tears still flowing but the sobs throttled back.

“Ginny’s coming up on the train, with Shan”

“Good. See how many friends you have? Simon is on his way to the hospital, and Merry’s coming over in a couple of days. So it will be busy, and I will need help. That’s where you will be strong, aye? Your Nan will be relying on you to be the man we all know you are. Now, the thing about your granddad’s illness is that if it is caught quickly, they can do all sorts of things, and because you were there, and you acted so quickly, he’s got the best chance he can have, aye? Now, drink your tea and we will wait for Ginny and Shan”

An hour later, and Ginny was there, having ridden with Shan on solos from the station. I was almost knocked out of the way as the smaller woman threw herself at Darren, and we older ones left them to it as I led Ginny back to the kitchen. Ginny was straight to the point.

“Kate’s happy, if that’s the right word, that he was picked up so quickly. She says it’s the first few hours that are the worry. Fucking hell, Annie. How is Naomi?”

“No idea yet. Steph packed her off with the ambulance. Simon’s gone in, he’ll give us a call when they know something”

“Right. Shan wants to go and see him, but I told her it would be out of the question, too fucking busy and shit. She said, yeah, she knows, but could she send a friend instead?”

“Eh?”

“We got Tabby with us, she wants her to watch over Albert”

That did it, and my own dam burst. Ginny took me into her arms until I had some control back, but it took a while, and I was still crying when the doorbell rang and Shan let Polly in. She took one look at how the two kids were cuddled together, and then drew me out to the kitchen again.

“I have to be blunt, Annie, but it’s priority time. Albert is in the hospital? Stupid question…look, I have to sort the kids. Chantelle is clearly in the right place, but there is no way Darren…is that expression what I think it is?”

I was already nodding. “As long as he needs, Polly, as long as necessary, aye? I assume that is what you were going to ask”

She nodded. “I had the paperwork teed up ready, just in case, but it is Naomi’s call in the end. She may want to keep him with her for the support”

My mobile rang again.

“Annie? You OK?”

“Oh, Eric, absolutely torn apart. Got any word? Ginny’s here with Shan, looking after Darren”

“Got the word from a mate in the ICU. They’ve stabilised him, he’s not going to die unless something else happens, she said. I’ve got Steph with me, Naomi’s with her man”

“Polly’s here, I have offered to take Darren if needed, but I’m worried about her”

His answer was as immediately generous as I knew it would be. I mean, there are reasons I love him.

“Take them both in, if they want. Simon says Merry will be down at the weekend, but we’ll cope”

I started to giggle. “Plenty of room in the vicarage…”

The giggles turned into sobs again, and Polly’s was the next pair of arms to hold me till I could breathe sensibly again. BLOODY hormones!

“Eric love, you still there?”

“Yes love”

“Could Ginny drop by? She has something for Albert”

“Send her down, I’ll sort it”

“Love you…”

“And you. Got to go, will call as soon as I have more news.”

I gave Ginny the nod, and she was off out the door like a shot, Tabby in her Barley saddlebag. Shan followed me and Polly into the kitchen, towing Darren along hand in hand.

“He got a question to ask, yeah?”

Darren looked ill, grief hollowing his face and shadowing his eyes.

“Mizz Armitage, I got to go away now?”

Polly sighed, and gave me a quick glance before answering.

“We were talking about that, Darren, and the short answer is it all depends on what Mrs Woods wants. Annie here…”

She indicated me with her eyes, and I went over to him.

“Darren, if Naomi wants, we can take you in, both of you. The only place you will be going away to is with family, aye?”

There was a grin hiding in Shan’s face, as she clearly knew what he was building up to. Darren looked at me with eyes red-rimmed from crying.

“Why, Annie? Why you keep doing this for me?”

“Darren, it’s not just for you, it’s for Albert, and Naomi, well, for me and Eric too, aye? Simple: you are family”

He was crumbling again, but I had to say it.

“And we love you”

CHAPTER 30
Ginny was on the phone a little while later, as Darren all but dozed in Chantelle’s arms, exhausted by his emotions.

“How is he, Gin?”

“Not as bad as he could have been, Annie. I have no idea what they are doing to him, but Eric says the man they’ve got on him is fucking shit hot. Eric’s running a semaphore system, Naomi’s stuck to the bed like shit to a trainer, and Steph is running a tea shuttle. Expect my darling with you imminently, Annie. She’s got the car and the rack, so we’ll all get home”

She actually paused for breath at that point, and I realised how hyper she was, how worried.

“How’s my other darling? Wrapped around her boy?”

“Aye, she is. Doing really well. Is Tabby in place?”

“As required, as expected”

“What did Naomi say?”

“Oh, she understood immediately, yeah, said I was to give Shan all her love for being so generous and clever. Hey, Annie, you’d laugh, yeah, they got some paper and made an old nurse’s cap for her, yeah? Fucking magic!”

Magic was what I was praying for, and if Tabitha could carry the weight of our wishes I would convert. To whatever religion it was that had magic dolls.

“Simon?” was my obvious question at that point.

“Oh, he’s fucked off back to Naomi’s, picking up a bag for the old bugger. Should be with you in a few, yeah. Naomi says Darren knows where everything is, get him on it, make him do something to stop the terrors, yeah?”

I closed up the call and called Darren in to me.

“Time for you to do something, Daz. We need a bag for your Granddad, toiletries, pyjamas, slippers, that sort of thing, aye? Your Nan says that you know where everything is, so I am going to trust you to sort it. Simon the vicar is on his way, so think on this: they wouldn’t need the stuff if he wasn’t going to be fine, aye?”

Darren just nodded, and turned to the girl attached to his hand.

“Do it with me, yeah?”

Shan just nodded, and they went off upstairs. I was starting to find my stride, the old work habits kicking in, and I took the opportunity to give the nick a ring. Den was on, and I ran the events past him.

“Annie, want Kirsty to do anything? She could do with an excuse to get out”

I had to laugh. “Dennis Armstrong, if you knew exactly how many people have already got involved, or offered, aye? If pure friendship could cure the old man, he would be dancing jigs already. Look, mate; it is enough, right now, to know that you are there, the three of you, aye, when we need you. Can you let Jim and co know what the score is. I might need to take some leave”

“Jim’s here beside me, lass. Hang on”

“Annie, Jim. Talking about leave, yeah? Do I remember rightly, is Albert giving you away?”

Fucking right he is. “Yes, Jim, he is, and I will make sure of it, aye?”

“Then as far as I am concerned, and as far as the Super will be, this is a family emergency, so you are off the relief as of now, yeah? The schools stuff is on hold anyway, so all I will say is keep us in touch and, as Den has already said, whatever you need, just call”

“Got to go, Jim, the door. Thanks, really thanks”

“Would we be any other way? Give them all our very best, yeah?”

“I will”

Simon was flustered, but still going.

“How is he?”

“They had him straight in for a scan, and then there’s some procedure or other supposed to clear arteries or something, I know very little about it, but they have him sedated, I think. I’ve been kept out, just Naomi in there. And Tabitha, of course”

“She looked after me for years, Simon. Shan’s idea, aye?”

“Aye indeed, girl. I would like to think that if prayer is effective, Albert has so many people sending them out that it can’t fail”

I remembered my thoughts when talking to Dennis, and realised how very alike Simon and I were, and impulsively kissed him on the cheek. He blushed.

“Please don’t do that, Annie. No, not offensive, nothing like that---oh, no, don’t even think that! You are all girl, I know that. It’s just…you look so much like my beloved I get all unnecessary, if you see what I mean. You and Merry, I need to concentrate, and you two do not make it easy”

I almost grinned then, at his confession. “Naughty vicars…not what we need right now”

His smile was gentler. “No, no naughty vicars here, just one who knows all about being a man in love and keeping his virtue and faith intact. Merry and I will wed next year. That is not too long to wait, not for such a wonderful woman. And I assure you, THAT is the reason I flinched, and the only one”

Again, his tone was gentle. “As I have said, you are all woman. Your work today shows that, and we love you for it. It is just, given my own circumstances, I need to love you from a little further away than other men. Now, has Darren squared away Albert’s bag?”

He was at the door with it.

“Vicar’s right, Annie, you do look like Merry. You making Simon horny, lahk”

It wasn’t the best joke in the world, but it was a joke, a sign that he was dragging himself out of the black pit he had fallen into, and it was clearly Shan who was helping to give him the strength. He put the bag down to make a quick run to the loo, and I whispered to her, “Doing very well, love, keep it up and we’ll get him through”

She gave me a quick squeeze. “He was there for me, so, it right, yeah?”

Yeah, Shan, it very right, very right indeed. Once more the sheer resilience of the girl put me to shame. Darren reappeared.

“Can I…?”

“Sorry, love, but they won’t let you in, so best you wait here. Quite a crowd already, aye?”

He grabbed a bit of paper and a pen, and quickly wrote ‘Granddad, get better, I love you, D’ and handed it to Simon, who simply nodded, took note and bag, and was gone, almost walking right into Kate, who gave him a quick hug before seizing both children. She was the calmest of all of us, but there was still that tension, as was only to be expected.

“Tea, Kate?”

“Please, then I will ring in. Had to drop some stuff and run, but I said I’d be on the phone if needed. Timescale’s good with Albert, it seems, so depending on the brain scan---look, Darren, this is where you may have saved his life, or at least prevented more serious damage. He’s had what’s called a stroke, which is all to do with blood vessels in the brain. Come and sit down and I will explain”

I busied myself yet again with the kettle, stealing some of Naomi’s biscuits, and when I arrived Darren and Kate were still talking, Shan cuddled quietly into him.

“That’s what killed Jim’s first Mum, yeah”

“No, not quite, Darren. As different as a snowball and an iceberg. From what I have heard, she had…look, you know when you go down the motorway, and you see those bits of lorry tyre that have just exploded all over the road? That was Jim’s first Mum. Albert…Albert is like going to get on your bike and finding the tyre a little soft. Just takes a bit more than a pumping up, though. Thanks, Annie. This is the crucial time, catching it early. This is where having your family round you makes all the difference, right, Darren?”

She turned to me. “I don’t know what the plan is, but I brought overnight bags for all three of us, and I am assuming there will be space somewhere”

“Oh god aye. We have enough rooms between us all, and Den’s offered as well, so no problems. Now, we wait, and perhaps see if we can work out some rota for the hospital. No point in having a hundred people there, aye?”

Polly had been keeping quiet throughout, obviously watching what was going on but letting events and people speak for themselves.

“We need to work out where people will be, where they will sleep and so on. I need to write that up. It also needs to avoid ambiguity or routes for my managers to pull me up, so can I make some suggestions?”

We all nodded.

“Annie, you and Darren here. Assuming that Steph is fine, and I am certain she will be, the girls next door with her. That puts everyone in contact and close by. Now, I have to be off, because I do have other responsibilities, other kids. You have my number, so please, please keep me in the loop. Just one thing, and that is that I am proud of both of you”

And another one gone.

That was a long, long afternoon, until seven in the evening, as we settled down to a Chinese meal Kate had collected, and Eric was on the phone.

“Ginny, Steph and Simon are on their way back, love. He’s out of the woods, it seems, they are keeping him under for a while, but the forecast is quite good. Very, very limited area of damage, according to the scans. Tell you what, love, I am actually proud of my colleagues, they have done bloody well, pulled out all the stops. Naomi’s staying, they’ve got a cot for her, so if you can sort of do the bag thing, Simon will do the run again”

“What are you doing?”

“Going to stay till late, if that’s OK. Just in case. Then Steph will come back overnight. See you later: you stopping at the Woods’?”

“Aye”

“I’ll call by home for our own stuff, then. Love you”

And so it went. Geoff sorted the girls out on his return from work, as we had known he would, and on Eric’s return we headed off to our beds. It took a while, but I was actually asleep when the doorbell went at some stupid time of the morning. I pulled my dressing gown round me, the only one woken, it seemed, and on the doorstep found Merry.

“Well, it was as good an excuse to come back here as any. Is there tea in the pot?”

“Hardly, cuz, it’s two in the morning”

“That was not a question, Annie, it was a hint. Just a bag in a mug will do, and then I will borrow the sofa. The family have been at prayer since the news came, so we shall sleep on this and awaken to a new day which He WILL bless for us, isn’t it?”

I laughed. “Simon does not know how lucky he is, aye?”

An answering grin. “He will, Annie, he will. Now---tea!”

CHAPTER 31
Naomi rang the following evening. We had sorted out everything we thought they might need in addition to what we had packed in haste the day before, and Simon once more had done the shuttle run, accompanied by Merry. His face had lit up when he saw her, and I got a sly look of guilt when I winked at him over her shoulder as they embraced. Naughty vicar.

Breakfast was held in Steph’s conservatory, and it was seriously carnivorous, much to Ginny’s disgust. I watched Shan slip her the odd glance as she speared another sausage and, perhaps unfairly, I wondered if she was getting all vegetarian on Chantelle’s donkey.

Geoff was taking charge of the roster for hospital, while his wife organised a shopping run with Kate to make sure we had enough for all the guests. My life seemed to be turning into a series of large gatherings, and the thing they all had in common was a healthy appetite. I looked at my figure in the mirror as I dressed that morning, and realised that I would never truly match Miriam’s, but Simon, and Aunty Esther, were right. Facially, there was a definite resemblance, poor girl.

The day dragged, at one point Geoff taking Darren and Shan out for a ride on some flimsy excuse or other, but the clock ticked, tea was drunk, and we waited. No news.

I was just filling the kettle yet again, round about six, when the phone went. Darren was first to it, and in a clear voice said “Woods residence”

That was the last clear thing he said for a while, as the tears and mumbling came, and I took the phone from him. A very weary voice just replied to my hello with “Annie…”

“Naomi? What…how? What is, what do you need?”

“He is OK, my dear. As OK as one would hope for, given the circumstances. He has a bruised nose, of all things, and he is not as clear in his speech, but they have done a marvellous job here. Eric is with me at the moment, but my Albert is now awake and demanding tea. Now, is Darren all right?”

I looked across to where he was shaking in Shan’s embrace, and raised my eyebrows. He just nodded, and tried to flick me a smile.

“Naomi, he is shaken, but I do believe he is fine, aye?”

“Good. We are now allowed visitors, so please inform him that his grandfather has requested his presence. He also says he may bring his floozy if he so wishes. Then tell her that my beloved husband has a rather odd sense of humour”

“How many visitors, love?”

“One adult with the children, please, and not Virginia as yet. Albert would not survive her. Oh yes, do thank Chantelle for the presence of her friend Tabitha.”

“Right, perhaps best make it Kate for now, she has the car, aye? Naomi---how are you doing yourself?”

“Fucking shattered, Annie, weary to the bone, but I am so relieved”

There was a catch in her voice then, and I realised exactly how close the hard, proud woman was to collapse.

“Annie, I don’t know what I would do if, you know…”

“Not happening, DI Woods, not happening, aye?”

“Not on your watch, yes?”

“Never, Naomi, never ever, aye? They will be with you in half an hour or so. Give him our very best”

I hung up, and turned to the faces before me.

“He is fine. Some small problems, a little off in his speech, but he is awake and demanding tea, as well as his boy. Kate, could you do the driving? Daz, he wants to see your floozy as well”

“My what?”

“Tart, bird, bit of skirt, girlfriend, Shan”

I turned to her. “And he says, Naomi says, thank you, really thank you, for taking Tabby to look after him. Both of you, both, you’ve done really well, I am proud of you, aye? Now, off with Kate and make him better for the rest of us to see”

I looked over to Ginny. “Not you, though, Gilbey girl, Naomi thinks you’d kill him just now”

“Cheeky fucker! How dare he not die on me!”

Laughter, lots of it. Lots of hugs and embraces of relief, and not a few snatched snogs. I sat down, then; I had to. Someone had cut my strings. That man had a job in a little over a month, and on his feet or in a chair, I would have him there. He was a healer; he had healed his boy, and now his boy could hopefully return the favour. Said boy hugged me hard, just before the three delegates were off and away. I suddenly realised Steph was standing over me, two steaming mugs in her hands, and she sat next to me and passed one across.

“We are odd, aren’t we? Look at this lot, no blood kin apart from you and Merry, but it works like a family, yes?”

I forced a joke. “At least here, you can pick who you want as a semi-relative, aye? Got lumbered with my real ones”

Steph gave me a hard look. “No, you just had a family with strong beliefs, a clear vision of what they think is right and proper. They are like Sar’s, you show them reality and they go, aye, didn’t realise, and change. Can’t get fairer than that. Me….I miss my family, never had a chance to see them, to let them see me, you know?”

She showed me her locket, open to show a middle-aged couple on some clifftop somewhere. They were simultaneously posing for the shot and yet clearly utterly at peace with each other, and I could see the resemblance in what was clearly Steph’s mother.

“One of the first things my beloved man ever gave me, and one of the sweetest. I miss my parents, and that is why Albert and Naomi are so important to me. Everywhere I have turned, wherever there has been a problem, there they are, Naomi has the gab, but it is that sweet old man who has done the legwork so often. Even with poor Melanie…sorry, Annie, I know that one hurts.

“Look around you; it’s like some Sargasso here, all these waifs and strays finding something they need. What are we doing that is so right?”

“Ych, Steph, I just think it’s a sort of advertising, aye? Live your life as right as you can, and others will see, and sort of flock in. You’ll get the odd arsehole, indeed, but, well, I always say…ah, you know I like Tull, it’s that phrase of Anderson’s, ‘It’s only the giving that makes you what you are’, aye, and if you can’t give when needed, you’re a pretty sorry excuse for a human being, aye?”

I took a breath. “Sorry, love, I’m ranting”

She smiled. “No, you’re just putting my own thoughts into words. Look at Ginny over there, teasing Simon. Like a force of bloody nature, and not a bad bone in her. Look at us two…you miss the drink?”

She caught my little twitch. “Two of us, indeed. It was one of my own self-harm things too, but once you see what the world has, you learn better. Then you pass it on. Albert’s like that, always passing it on. He and Naomi are like you, seen too much shit to ever want to increase its quantity. Look, you’ve done really well with Darren, he was ready to top himself”

She drew in a deeper breath. “How many things do you still blame yourself for? Look around this room, and see who loves you. I have been watching you, Annie, and you hide it well. Darren blames himself, but you, you are thinking, ‘I introduced them, my fault, aye’ “

How in hell had she worked that one out? She was, of course, spot on, and her arm went over my shoulders as my defences crumbled. Ginny came over, seeing my distress.

“What’s up?”

Steph gave me another squeeze. “Annie here blames herself for letting an old man find and love a new grandson”

The mad one just sniffed. “She always was bloody stupid. I mean, look at her, spent all that fucking time pretending to be a bloke when she could have been out snogging them, silly cow. MERRY! Get over here, your cousin needs a slap”

Once Merry was near, Ginny was back on song, as if she and Steph were a wrestling tag-team.

“Look around, girl. This little convention only exists because of you. The love in this room, apart from Red here and her hubby, and my gorgeous woman, comes directly from you”

Merry said her piece. “Giving you away, isn’t it? That he won’t be properly able to walk down the aisle? Well, love, dearest cuz, it will be on his own feet, and there will be strong men about to make sure of that. Have you thought, perhaps he is so strong, so able to demand tea and the presence of a floozy, perhaps it is because he is as determined to do it as you are to behold him?”

There was more, but they were right. My recriminations were all that was left after my professional side had been relieved of duty. Albert was whole; someone had to be blamed for the near tragedy.

Darren and I were not so different, in the end. I drew a couple of breaths to calm myself, and then:

“He’s alive, he’s well, we are together, aye? Why are we not in the pub?”

CHAPTER 32
He was smaller in the bed, but the smile was almost there. I had gone in with Darren, of course, the day after Albert had resurfaced. That smile, just the tiniest of quirks on the right side, and a tic in his speech that a stranger would miss.

He was so, so lucky, lucky that Darren had been on the spot, lucky that the medical staff were so good at their trade. And we were lucky still to have him.

Tabby was sitting on the bedside cabinet, in a dress I remembered making what seemed like geological aeons ago, back when I was Adam, fat, hairy, having just given up my attempts at self-medicating on hormones and switched to the slow but sure route to my grave that alcohol offered. I felt the way my clothes fitted, the slight discomfort left from the savage way I had all but raped Eric after the pub in my need to reaffirm life and living. That told me, if I needed telling, how far things had come, as did the way Darren held my hand at the bedside.

I was pleased to see that his expression was now one of pride in himself, rather than the terror that he would be cast adrift. It is so hard, sometimes, to believe that love can be unconditional, total, accepting; it was what I had had to be beaten into accepting, but there he was, one of the people that loved me, smiling from his bed.

“Annie, dear, we will have to get rid of the parquet if I am going to be testing it with my nose. That hurt rather a lot”

“Albert, you are a very silly man. We shall have you home as soon as we can, aye? Then you can worry about redecorating, not now. Relaxation, recovery, Darren to do all the heavy lifting, aye?”

“Well, there are a number of reasons to take a young man into the house, and the main one, of course, is as a domestic drudge. Trouble is, he doesn’t quite know that yet, do you, boy?”

Darren grinned happily, and Albert continued his teasing.

“The doctors say I must avoid excitement, but for some reason my house is being repeatedly filled by attractive young ladies, as well as my wife, of course, and that leaves me in a state of unnecessariness. Oh…I can say unnecessariness without dribbling! I am obviously taking up a bed…unnecessarily!”

“Be serious for a moment, Albert. How are they treating you?”

“As if I were Jonathan Harker, my dear. Much draining of my precious bodily fluids. Darren, Harker is a character in a book. Look on my shelves, ‘S’ for Stoker, you should recognise the title. Read “The Squaw” as well, right down your street. Annie, I should be out in a few days, but I will be rested, of course. If there is anything you need for next month’s nuptials, just ask and I will send the serf here for it”

The more he spoke, the more I picked up the minute tells that the stroke had left behind, such as the slight tremor of his right eyelid, but it was nothing at all compared to the devastation I had expected. It was clear, too, how deep the bond had become between man and boy. Both had needs that the other met, but it was more than that, simple love. Once more I felt the similarities, our early lives wasted, only now made free.

We rode back from the hospital almost singing despite the traffic, and I took Darren back by way of the airport cycle way. Merry was doing tea that day, and at my request it was going to be lamb, stewed of course, never roast. Her own take on lobscouse, I assumed, and she had promised to make us some Welsh cakes or bara brith, and of course I was hoping for both. I was now a true size 12, so I could afford to be a bit naughty.

The saddle was still a little bit uncomfortable just there, so I rode at a gentle pace, which pleased Darren. He was getting better and better at his riding, though it seemed Shan was outstripping him, but he was still on the slow side.

Nothing wrong with a nice bimble. We rode side by side after the Beehive, and he seemed happy, but once again there were little signs in his face that he had something niggling him.

“How’re you doing, Darren?”

“M’OK, you not going too fast here. Nice seeing the planes so close, yeah”

“Well, one thing about sport is having something else to do for your fitness, aye. Football’s fine, but something else, just for fun, that helps your fitness, aye?”

“Like riding a bike, yeah?”

“Like not spending all day on a computer, aye? I used to do that…”

“Yeah, an’ you got all fat, I remember. But then…”

He left the long pause that warns of an incoming dreadful joke.

“But then, you wasn’t yourself at the time, was you?”

I pulled up, and got off the bike, resting it against a signpost. Darren looked surprised as I walked over to him, but he took and returned the hug and kiss.

“Sometimes, my man Eyres, you say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, aye? Now, something is bothering you. Want to talk?”

He looked worried at that. “Dunno, it might be the wrong thing at the wrong time, lahk”

“Give me a clue…”

He cleared his throat, looking around for distractions, and spent a little while looking up as an Emirates 777 droned overhead.

“I was talking lots to Shan, yeah. She’s really happy, now, she love her mums, they do it right, yeah? I don’t mean they let her do stuff, like what she want all the time, they got rules an’ stuff, but no nasty, no shouting, they EXPLAIN, an’ Shan, she so made up with it, what you done, you, and Eric, and all the others, an’, lahk, I only remember bits of my mum. Never knew my father, yeah, he never my dad, he just a fucking sperm donor, yeah?”

He was close to tears again, his roots dragging at him.

“Look, Annie, you, all of you, Mizz Armitage, you all treat me as normal, yeah, as REAL. I thought, I really thought, it was all gone, that Granddad was gone, that…”

“Darren, love, you ARE normal. Why did you ever think anything else? Look at me. How normal am I?”

There was a rueful grin through the tears. “You not normal at all, yeah, but you REAL now, and you SPECIAL, and thass the thing. Shan, she got two special people now, just like me, and thass real good, but…”

“Yes?”

Deep breaths. “Shan, she got two mums, yeah, and I got a Nan and a Granddad”

“Who love you to distraction, aye? You know that now, if you didn’t believe it fully before, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but….but I ain’t got no mum, and that’s a special thing”

More deep breaths, staring around as if an answer to something important lay in the stream, or the underside of an Easyjet aeroplane.

“Annie, you my friend, yeah? My real, true friend?”

“Always and forever, Darren, and more than that. I love you, you know”

Suddenly the stare was straight and direct.

“Yeah, but could you do it as a mum?”

CHAPTER 33
I stood by the bike, looking at Darren, trying to see what he felt. His tells said that he was terrified, and I suddenly knew exactly how his mind was working.

Darren was someone who dared to dream, even though life had beaten him down every time he looked up, but with those dreams he carried such a sense of worthlessness, that I could have wept.

No. I did weep. I knew that feeling, that all too soon the bright segment of your life would turn dark, turn to shit and pain. I had lived with it all my life, after all, and it was only Eric who had brought me out of it. Whatever Darren had, it was a loan that he knew would be snatched back. Not could be, but would be, with all the inevitability of old age. I remembered the delight he had shown when he told me he had his own door, and his own lock…

Yet, despite all that, he still dreamt of better things, and now he was screwing up his courage to ask for one.

“Darren….”

“Yeah?” He looked almost ready to run.

“Darren…don’t hear this question badly, the wrong way, aye? Just hear it, think it through, and answer truthfully”

He looked away, and back, momentarily fascinated by the approach lights by the path. Displacement glances.

“OK”

“Darren, why would I want to be your mum?”

For an instant his face started to crumble, but then he remembered the way I had prefaced the question, and he pulled himself up again.

“It’s not the same thing as me wanting you, is it?”

“No, love, it’s not. I just want you to put yourself in my shoes for a minute, aye?”

“OK…you say you love me?”

“Yes, absolutely. You are a fine boy, one of the best, and you are making a great man. What is there not to love?”

He blushed a little. “An’ you know I love you? Ain’t never loved anyone like you, not even Shan, or Nan, or Granddad, yeah?”

“Thank you. That means a lot, aye?”

“Yebbut, you ain’t had a good life, lahk, you been locked away, like me but different, innit?”

I nodded. “Carry on”

“An’ then you gets your Eric, an’ you is free, but it’s not enough, yeah? I seen the way you looks at Kirsty an’ little DA, an’ you can’t never have that, can you?”

“And so?”

“Iss what I was hoping, yeah, that, well, a kid that needs a mum, an’ a woman who needs a kid, an’, well…iss yes, innit?”

“Darren, son, how could it ever have been anything else? You do realise only one man has ever made me happier, aye?”

The rest was without words, up until the point when Darren asked his last question.

“Eric, what he gonna say?”

I grinned at my new child. “Be honest, what do you think? I know how your mind works, Daz, and this isn’t something to be taken away when people get bored, aye? We do have one job, though, and that’s talking to the Woods, aye?”

“They gonna be upset?”

I could feel my smile getting broader. “Nope, don’t believe they will!”

I dug out my phone. I sent a quick text to warn my beloved, then rang him.

“Eric? Darren has a question for you.”

I looked at the boy. “Obvious, isn’t it? Mums usually come with dads attached. Ask him nicely…”

Polly was next.

“Polly Armitage”

“Hiya, it’s Annie. Got something to run past you about Darren”

“Yes”

“Pardon?”

“Yes. Next question?”

I mumbled something, and I could hear her laughing happily.

“Look, Annie, I am guessing he is asking you to be his foster parents, you and Eric. I could see that one coming a mile off. In fact, I have been discussing it with the Woods for a week or so”

“You sneaky sod!”

“Ah, years of experience, Annie my dear! Look, we shall get together at some point, but there are a number of steps to go through. Fostering is one thing, formal adoption is another. Your change in status official yet?”

“I believe so; new certificate should be issued next week”

“And you will be wed in a very few weeks. Good character, steady responsible jobs, and your gong won’t do things any harm, will it? Leave it with me for now, and I shall set wheels in motion, OK? Ciao!”

I closed the call.

“Polly knew already, Darren”

“I need to know one thing….”

There was a twinkle back in his eye, the sort of look that precedes a truly crap joke.

“Am I gonna have to hold your hand when we cross the road, Mum?”

It was a while before I could see well enough to continue. I took him into the airport as we passed, and we had ice cream. Had to be done.

Naomi was waiting with a brew courtesy of a quick call, and as the two of us came in laughing and giggling, she gave me one of her country lady stares.
.
“So the boy finally asked you, then?”

Darren looked as surprised as I felt.

“Oh, don’t be so confused, my dears, it’s been obvious for rather a long time. Annie, congratulations. Darren, the VERY special biscuits, I think. Now, how is my other dear?”

We settled once more into the comfort of the conservatory sofa as Darren busied himself with his domestic duties.

“I am astonished, Naomi. He looks almost as he was when he…before, aye? They have worked what I can only describe as miracles. I mean, when you know someone…sorry, Naomi, I am being a little clinical. He is well, that is all that matters, aye? And he will be back with us newly-minted. Darren? Some tissues, please”

I waited till her emotions were stable again. I had some idea, of course, of how she must have been feeling, but there is a world of difference between understanding and experiencing. I hoped never to take that particular journey.

“Naomi, he has a sense of duty that amazes me. He has prioritised everything for the important stuff, aye? Such as being on my arm in September”

She smiled, fondly. “My Albert would have been there even if it was lying on a stretcher with the machines that go ‘Ping!’ wired to him”

“I never had you down as a Python fan, Naomi!”

“Ah, that’s Albert. One of the things I have always loved my husband for is that even as his youth fled, he never lost the youth he was. He has always been alive, more alive than any man I have ever known”

She stared into the distance for a second or two, faintly smiling.

“Darren was such a delight for him. At last we had someone who could stay the journey with him. Those video games, oh dear!”

She laughed, as Darren cuddled up to her, and I prayed that his acceptance could finally start, that he could lose that nagging fear that people would get bored with his presence, that his world would come crashing down.

My boy, but shared, as family should always be.

I lay with my other man that night, as happy as I could ever remember being, sweat and other things drying on our skin. The calls had gone out that evening, to the girls, and the old trout and Sar as well as my own family. Merry had been blasé at first, as she dished out the rather tasty stew.

“Took you long enough…”

“Coming from someone who went from sermon to snog in about twenty-seven minutes, that is a bit rich, aye?”

She is not someone who can hide her glee well, and that set her off. I did love the look on her fiancé’s face, though, as he sat there with two women talking over his head. Eric put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, mate, you’ll get used to it, and then you’ll come to like it…and then the men with the white coats arrive. Just remember one thing”

Simon cocked his head. “What’s that?”

“At any particular time, we will normally only have one of them to deal with!”

CHAPTER 34
We began a series of those last-minute preparations that always remain last-minute, no matter how many aeons in advance you start them. So much to get ready, so much to sort into little boxes of my attention span. What the boys called “The French Ride” with audible capitalisation was almost on us, there was no way we were going to miss Shrewsbury at the end of the same month, we had some large social event or other a week and a bit later and Polly had apparently stolen a march on everything by starting the documentation for moving Darren’s status forward.

It was becoming obvious that in some aspects I was completely transparent to other people, even when I didn’t know myself what they were seeing. That surprised me, for surely Annie must have been spotted in the past? A little thought gave me that answer: I had, by my father, by my aunt, and each in their own way had reacted, and Annie had learnt to hide better than loving fiancée or hopeful mother had ever needed to do.

It is something very hard to explain to someone who has not shared the experience. Stephanie, Sarah, Alice, with them so much was unspoken, despite our different routes, and Eric…

There are times I look at him, and I wonder if the reason I had such a shitty life, seeing such obscenities as the visitors who will always come to my dreams, if the reason for all that isn’t simply that we are each given a certain quantity of good luck for our lives. That amount, for most people, is parcelled out through the years, but for me it all arrived in one sweaty, snoring, passionate lump.

He isn’t perfect, because dream lovers are perfect, and I have never wanted a dream lover; I wanted a real one, and he is very, very real. There was no immediate acceptance of me, no fairy story miracles, just two people who took a while to understand where their lives lay, and how they fitted together. That last phrase…

Yes, it covers sex, as any sniggering teenager would see immediately, but it is more than that. It isn’t just the body-soul incongruence that people like me suffer from and seek to mend, either, but that is a huge part of it. It’s more about how people fit together, how their differences and similarities mesh. I couldn’t think of many couples who fitted so seamlessly as Ginny and Kate, but at the same time their personalities were so very different. Inside, though, right at the core, lay love, and passion, and something I had come to value above everything else: generosity. Generosity of spirit, more than anything else, seemed to be the thing that bound my friends together in a common theme, and I realised that if there had been any one thing that had drawn my family back onside, it would have been that quality, made visible.

Love, in all its senses, just love, that was what bound us all together, what drove Sally and Polly in their work, what had dragged the souls of two broken children back from the edge of Hell. Dragged mine back, too…

We set out the preparations for the trip to France like a military operation. One of my first acts was, in fact, the most profound to date, as I walked into an office block near Victoria Station with a bundle of papers and a set of photos, and a little while later walked out with the most wonderful little burgundy booklet with that single letter that made such a huge difference to my life. Goodbye, Adam. Goodbye, “M”. I will admit to doing a little jig on the pavement, which nearly caused me to fall off my heels. And thus, new passport in hand, I was fully equipped for the long boat trip that followed.

We had decided to go by way of Portsmouth, down to Ouistreham and then across to the start line south-west of Paris, and we made quite the convoy. Somehow, the few friends the boys had lined up for support had gone forth and multiplied into an invading army.

Steph’n’Geoff had the van, of course, with bikes and camping/cooking kit, workstand, tools, tyres, everything except the giant bottle of fizzy water or advertising board on the roof. Bill, Jan, Kelly and Mark were in their car, and Kate had hired a people carrier, with seven seats, that carried the three girls, Eric, myself, and our son.

Two words, each so, so important, so delightful. ‘Our’ was what I had yearnt for, ever since I was that little girl I was never allowed to let out. “Son”…there were all sorts of formalities yet to go through, of course, but it was like the old custom of marriage by jumping a broomstick. The clever words and the stiff clothes could come later; we had made our vows already, as a family. Naomi had understood immediately, as had Albert. She saw our little army off from Surrey.

“We shall be fine, my dears. Albert is on the mend, and a rest from trying to keep up with his inner and outer adolescents will help that along. Just return our boy without too much of the lingering smell of garlic about him”

We had an uneventful entry to the ferry for the five or six hours of the crossing, finding a comfortable little spot with an array of sofas and a table, and it was all so mundane, even if the fast food was French, up until the point I started paying attention to the children. I had toured extensively with my bike, as had Eric and the girls, and all of the Woodruffs were seasoned travellers, so it was a vicarious pleasure for me to watch the faces of two who had hardly been out of their own county until we took them to dance and play, and they had certainly never been abroad. I tried to place myself behind their eyes, as French crew members chatted happily in what must have sounded like gobbledegook to them.

Well, it sounded like that to me, even with the time I had spent there. I was never any good at languages, but Steph was, and so I took a bit of a back seat as she led them through the cafeteria.

“Wossat, Mrs Woodruff?”

“That is chicken Kiev, Shan. Never had it? It’s basically garlic with a bit of chicken round it”

Darren laughed at that. “Not snogging you if you is all garlicky, yeah?”

Shan just grinned back. “If you eats some, iss all the same, and then you gets your snog, cause I am being all Froggy on this trip, innit?”

Steph smiled at me past the youngsters. “I thought these two were supposed to be shy and nervous?”

Darren winked at Shan. “We don’t need to be nervous, lahk, we got all out mums here, yeah? And our aunties”

There was a particularly devilish twist to his grin just then, and I was astonished at the extent of the blush that covered almost every visible inch of the taller woman.

“Don’t you two start, I get enough of that from Happy Feet over there. Oh, and while I am rather pleased to actually BE Mrs Woodruff, there are two of us here, two Mrs Woodruffs, and it might get just a little confusing, OK? Steph works, Aunty Steph will be sweet, but if you even THINK about ‘Steffy’ I will throw you over the side. Right?”

She had hit on a truth, though. Shy and nervous…day by day they had blossomed, come out of the shells they had closed around their minds, and more importantly they seemed to be losing that niggling fear I had always sensed in them, that all of the good life they now led was a temporary aberration, that normal service would shortly be resumed.

For Shan, it was clear that the steadiness of the family home had shown her that what could be there for her was hers to take, that there were such things as real love, freedom from fear. Darren, now; he had made his own leap, and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that in that moment of doubt, there on the cycle path under droning jets, beside a smelly stream, it had been the first time he had ever dared to ask for something important, something for himself. More than that, it had been the first time he had let himself hope that he might actually be given what he asked for.

They had chicken Kiev, and they clearly enjoyed it, even if the chocolate mousse that followed must have given them an interesting mix of flavours. Then they tried a quick snog, just to be sure.

I don’t think they found anything wrong.

I took the two of them out on deck as we pulled away and threaded the narrow harbour entrance, the Spinnaker soaring above us and the Warrior decked in flags, and tried to lock every smell, sound and sight into my memory. If the smell of a roast dinner could call back abominations, then let the smell of the sea and the scream of gulls always bring the memory of hands holding mine as we left the land.

CHAPTER 35
What is there to write about Channel crossings? The Portsmouth route is interesting for a while, as you pass sea forts and the Isle of Wight, but soon you find yourself in the middle of ocean, no land in sight at all. That fascinated the kids, as so much else did on the trip. They had never been away from Britain, never mind on the high seas, and everything was fresh and new.

The early start told in the end, however, and they found their own perch, side by side in reclining chairs on deck, staring out over the stern at the white wake of the ferry and dozing together. Ginny was nearby, a camping mat spread beneath her as she snored the day away. I watched her face as she slept, wondering how I could ever even begin repaying the debt.

“She does look sweet like that. At least I know what she’s doing when she’s asleep”

Kate had come up behind me as I watched the trio.

“Aye, a bit of calm before the storm, isn’t it? She wakes up and it’s like someone switches a searchlight on”

Kate chuckled. “That’s my beloved, that is. I was just thinking, love, how lucky we all are. I mean, after Amy, I didn’t think, you know…I thought that was it. It only comes along once in your life, sort of thing”

She watched her sleeping wife for a few seconds. “I was so wrong, though, wasn’t I? Look at her. There isn’t a bad bone in her body, and I have to say it is a rather nice body”

She laughed again, with a little snort as she tried to keep it quiet.

“I just wish she didn’t snore quite so badly, yeah?”

“Kate, love, none of us started out lucky, did we? I mean, look at what happened before, aye? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even Shan’s grandmother. What it is…”

I trailed off for a bit, trying to find the words.

“What it is, aye, is attitude, attitude to others. None of us dumps on other people if we can help it. I mean…look at me, aye? All those fucking wasted years, all because I didn’t want to impose, to dump my problems on someone else, on friends, aye, and then out it comes, and nobody gives a shit. No, that’s not true, they GIVE a shit, they care, and I was just thinking, how the hell do I ever repay her?”

Suddenly, I felt the tears fighting to break free. “She saved my life, Kate, and how can I pay that back?”

Kate just raised an eyebrow, and for a moment it could have been Naomi sitting there.

“You don’t get it, do you? You really don’t get it. Look, my girly is a force of nature. She’s like the thunderstorm that rolls in on a muggy day and blasts freshness into everything. She shakes things out of trees, she makes people wake up. You, though…do you not see what you do?”

I just stared at her, wondering where she was going, and she paused to collect her next words.

“Female, that’s what you are”

“I have known that since I was old enough to think straight, aye?”

“Yes, yes, but there are a number of clichés that go with it, and many of them are true. You are like me, for a start”

“In what way?”

She sighed. “You heal. You walk into people’s lives, and things start going right. I mean, look at Jan, Steph and Kelly, right? They do much the same thing, or they try to. They feel that need to pick up the crying child, soothe the pain, make it all better, yeah, and I spent seven years of study and practical training to get that ability, and you, you just know what needs doing, and you step in, and when you pass it IS made better. Why you were ever given a cock, fuck knows”

“Aye, but look at Arwel. There is someone who sorts stuff out, and he is as male as a prize ram, aye?”

She nodded. “Exactly, and everything he does is worked out, like chess, and you, you just walk in and, well, sort it. Mother hen, that’s what you are, and that boy over there, he is neither blind, nor stupid. Nor is Eric. I have to admit, I had a little difficulty with seeing you in Adam, at first, but Eric knew, and my girly, and Darren. I think you still have the odd moment, though, don’t you?”

I sighed. “Not so much since Thailand, aye, but, well, it’s only natural, when you’re, you know, unnatural”

The smile was a soft one. “That is my point, woman. You ARE natural. Everything you do is exactly what it should be, and if for once you could step behind someone else’s eyes….ah, you know what I mean. Now, are you staying here?”

I looked at the sleepers, Ginny’s rasping gurgle turning a few heads nearby.

“Someone has to keep watch, aye?”

“Aye aye, skipper! I’ll bring you a snack or something. Drink?”

“Ah, just get some bottles, then they’ll not be able to complain when they wake up, but…”

“You’d kill for a cuppa?”

“Ooooh yes”

And so the voyage went, in brilliant sunshine on calm seas, until we entered the Bay of the Seine and the traffic got heavier. The low coast was there, and the docking structures towering by the mouth of the canal. I had been there many times, but kept reminding myself how fresh this all was.

Docked, the kids squirming with excitement in the car, we waited for the scrum to start rolling forward. Out into the sunshine again, the van in the lead, we stopped and started as we wound round to the passport controls, the first flight of my new document, and not a flicker of interest from the French. Surprisingly, Geoff pulled over and parked just after the booths. We all pulled in behind, as Steph took her husband’s hand and walked back to one of the French coppers, a big man with one of those comedy French moustaches. He turned, and it was like watching a silent film, as his arms went wide, she was hugged, and after an inspection of her left hand Geoff’s was shaken with real enthusiasm before bits of paper were produced and details obviously exchanged. I realised Jan was outside our car.

“Last time we were here, she was still on the old passport. He was a darling, and she never forgets, that one. Now, we have a few miles to drive yet, so we are planning on grabbing an evening meal on the way there, and straight to bed at our first hotel, OK? This is going to be a hard few days, so get sleep when you can”

Steph finished off her social networking with a rapid series of cheek-kisses, and we were off.

It was indeed hard. Up at four in the morning for the boys’ start time, Steph and I left the others asleep up to the point where we would have to make our move to the allocated support point, where we would be allowed to feed and water our riders. After that point, it all became a bit of a blur, odd moments standing out in highlight.

Jan and Kelly set up their huge tent at one point, ready for the boys to get what sleep they could manage on the return leg, assuming they would be within the time limit, and Bill and Mark shared driving duties with the girls and me, as the children stayed with Jan. The driving…Feed the boys, top up everything, mechanical check and fettle, then on to the next stop. Feed the boys…three, nearly four days of it, and a pattern was there. The riders seemed to have gelled into little groups, not necessarily sociable, but keeping a similar pace. We saw the same bikes, the same bodies, sometimes those of our own men.

Kate gained a friend. He was one of those wiry, dark Frenchmen, which to be honest probably had more to do with him being on the bike than his nationality, but he was clearly very taken with her, chatting away in English every time we dished up food or drink. I realised he had weighed up our group, linking me with Eric and Geoff with Steph, and made the rather erroneous assumption that Bill was Ginny’s.

She was watching closely, as the flirting became more and more obvious, Kate seeming to enjoy the attention. That amused Ginny no end.

“I am going to mindfuck him in a minute, Annie! Just let him think he’s in with a chance and, POW!”

“Perhaps she’s enjoying it, aye?”

“Trust me, she’s being polite, he is just being a bloke. They speak to you, you answer, they think it means you want a shag”

Mischief was in me. “Perhaps she does?”

Ginny grinned. “You didn’t want your maggot, she doesn’t want ANY maggot! I know my girly. Fuck it, let’s play”

Ginny wandered over to the pair, and gave the man a smile, then tugged Kate round into the most toe-curlingly serious snog I can ever remember seeing done in public. I expected the Frenchman to disappear rapidly at that, but the sod just stood and watched the show, right up to the point where Ginny turned round, looked down and pointed, and that was when he bolted. She ambled back to me.

“What did you say to him, Gin?”

She grinned, and it was evil. “Nothing, really, just pointed out that lycra shorts make erections a bit fucking obvious. I was just being friendly…”

We were back with Jan a little later, and for some reason my memories seem to be entirely of night time. The boys were fading, but well within time, and that allowed them the breathing space to get some sleep. Well, two hours of it. Two of us curled up around them, and I felt Eric’s muscles twitching all through the nap. The children were shocked at their state, Darren asking if they were really doing it for fun.

Finally, finally they were on the last stretch, and we were already in the hotel ready. The two of them duly arrived half an hour inside the time limit, haggard and dirty and smelly, but it was the smell of my man, and I didn’t care. As they showered, Steph grinned at me.

“Keep an eye on him, Annie. I found Geoff asleep in the shower last time”

Not that time, however, and as all of the others went for a look round the big city, two of us just washed, dried and cuddled our men to sleep. Job done.

CHAPTER 36
We had a day to play with before the drive back to Caen, and after the boys had recovered we allowed the children to show us the bits of Paris they had liked best, which included the view of the city as night fell, from the only viewpoint imaginable.

My mind went back to that day by the quarry overlooking Llanddeusant, and watching two of our party reminded me that we all do it, we all fix memory to place as mine had been fixed to smell. It was wonderful seeing how Darren and Chantelle revelled in their self-appointed role as tour guides, and we finished the evening at the top of the Tower only after a half-decent meal at a chain restaurant.

The place was chosen because it carries an all-you-can-eat vegetable buffet, and two of our number were just short of auto-cannibalism. There is a very rude remark there, just bursting to get out, but not here, not now.

The drive back to the ferryport was a little more subdued, but we livened the children up with a quick trip out to the museum at Arromanches and a short but salient lesson in what happens when people stop being excellent to one another. Darren was pensive.

“This like Private Ryan, yeah?”

“Yes, love, just like that, but without Tom Hanks, just a lot of men from pit villages in Durham or shops in London, aye? No big stars, just ordinary men doing what they had to”

I heard another small voice. “Like that copper who came to the caravan, yeah? An’ got shot?”

“Yes, Shan, just like Richard. Just a lot more bullets, and they knew they would be shot at, aye? Look, one day we’ll go and see the big museum in Caen. There are some very big cemeteries around, as well”

Darren shook his head. “No. Not the sort of place to go as a tourist thing. Not respectful, lahk”

I looked at my new son. “Yes. I agree. Daz, I have seen too many people dead to want to go and look at graves, not like these, aye? If we had….”

I closed my eyes for an instant. “Darren, how much do you know about your family history?”

“A bit”

“Well, here’s a thing for you. I know Naomi is big on history, your Nan, aye? If things go well, you get a new family, we all get one, but you still have people who went before you, and we don’t close them out, aye? We see if we can put a bit of history to you, something to make you proud of your old family”

“They were shits”

I looked him in the eye then. “You don’t know that. Look, my brother, I had one, he was killed as a soldier. We are still proud of him, though he could never have understood me. Eric and me, we will give you our love, we will give you a home, aye, but you bring more than just yourself. You don’t lose your history, we share it, aye?”

“So you think I got a like soldier buried somewhere, family an’ stuff?”

“It is possible, or you have an ancestor who was in the forces, that’s much more likely. Shan, it’ll be the same for you, unless your family is all Irish, and even then, well, you never know. Look, it would just be a good thing to know who you are. What do you think?”

They shared a glance, and Darren took on the spokesman’s role.

“You think Nan can help?”

I smiled. “I know it. Not only that, it’s all computer stuff now…”

“Granddad! Give him something to do in bed, lahk!”

Seed sown. All I wanted was to find something to ground them, someone they could take pride in, and the wreckage of the old invasion harbour had led me to it. Just to rub it in, we went back via Pegasus Bridge and its preserved tank.

The voyage back delivered us to Portsmouth in the late evening, and I splashed out on some cheap…ish watches for the two of them on the boat. They were tired, but still excited as the first lights of the Wight coast came into sight, and then Pompey, and its tower, and then once more we were rolling off the ferry. The two youngest had their little moment together, just making sure the snogs still worked, and then we were off, the girls along the coast and the rest of us up the A3 towards the M25 and home.

Darren was asleep on the last leg, as was Mark, and Eric and I shared a smile together as each of them slumped sideways to rest their heads on Kelly’s shoulders. She just sighed theatrically and did her best not to disturb them till Jan dropped us off at ours before the final run to Woodruff Towers. Home.

We watched the red lights recede up the road, and Eric hugged me before kissing my cheek.

“What was that for?”

“Being there for me, and still having time for the lad.. Multi-tasking, typical woman”

“Well, this woman’s next task is to get round a cuppa, so do your duty, oh man of mine. I want a shower”

Needless to say, we ended up drinking our tea in the shower together, which took some judicious positioning, and then we made sure we got clean. Afterwards, as Eric just held me under the spray, I whispered to him, “We won’t be able to do that once he moves in, aye?”

Eric just laughed. “I’ll buy a lock tomorrow. Some things we don’t give up, AYE?”

“Oh shut up and wash my hair”

Work again the next day, as inevitable as rain on a holiday weekend, and it was still the makework while the schools were shut. Den was in on the early turn that day, and he had a CD he had prepared of little DA, every inch the proud father, and the station staff did the rounds, the obligatory oohs and aahs coming to order. Nev was on form, as usual.

“How the hell did someone as scary as Ruth ever produce THAT? Come to think of it, I dunno, Den, that is too good-looking an infant to be yours. Sure there wasn’t a visit from the milkman? Ow!”

That was what left me smiling. In many ways the nick was a family of its own, pulling together whenever needed. Even Costello and his friend were coming onto my side, as the Job closed its ranks around me like a mother hen brooding its chicks. There is a lot written about “canteen culture”, the protection of the corrupt by colleagues, but that was not our way. More than anything, Den typified that, a policeman who had even shopped his own lover when he saw where her loyalties truly lay, how little her oath meant. Without fear or favour…

Jim broke the mood. “Sergeant Price, may I have a word?”

Very formal; I popped into his little broom cupboard.

“Take a seat, Annie, I have some news, not quite sure what to make of it. Coffee?”

“No ta. What you got for me?”

“You are still in contact with that little girl, I know that. It’s more to do with her than with you, so I was wondering if you could do the necessary? It’s her grandmother, had a massive coronary in Holloway. Bang, lights out sort of thing”

I considered my reply for a few seconds. I had never gloated at the death of anyone, but the temptation was there, just that once. The old bitch had never, ever shown any contrition, any shame, arrogant to the end, but she was still Shan’s family, and the only one we knew of.

“Can I use your phone?”

“Course”

I dialled the number for Ginny’s health club, and fortunately she wasn’t with a client.

“Hiya, sexy!”

“Hi there, Gilbey girl, got some news, aye?”

“What? You’re eloping to Gretna?”

“No, closer to home…”

“Dorking?”

“Shut up and be sensible, aye? It’s about Shan’s grandmother”

“What, is the old harpy dead at last?”

“Er, yeah…”

“Oh shit…I didn’t mean…no, fuck it, I did mean it, fucking good riddance”

She paused. “No, that’s not fair, is it? What do you want us to do?”

“Would you prefer me to come down and tell her?”

“No, that’s what mums are for. Annie, what’s she going to say?”

“I don’t know, love. I mean, all that talk the other day, you know, family history and that, aye? Look, you know her better than me, so…let me know, aye? Tell you what, I will tee Darren up, and then, if she needs an ear, aye?”

“Aye. I mean yeah. Look, got a punter due, you home tonight? Could we do the train thing up? If she takes it bad, let the dog see the rabbit, yeah?”

“You sure?”

“Fuck, yeah! Times like this, a girl needs all her family!”

CHAPTER 37
I rang the Woods and to my surprise got Albert, now at home. There was only the slightest slippage to his speech to betray the trauma he had gone through, for which we were all grateful.

“Albert, is Darren within earshot?”

“He’s in the other room, killing reds”

“Pardon?”

“Enemies. Video game. I assume this is something you wish to ask about your son?”

Just like that. There was clearly nothing at all wrong with Albert’s mind, just the connections to his body.

“I haven’t really had a chance to discuss that with you, have I?”

“What is there to discuss that we haven’t already covered with Polly and the boy himself? Annie, he came to Naomi and me, he raised the issue, and asked if we would be upset. He is a boy of great sensitivity, my dear”

“Aye, that I know, but I didn’t want it to look as if I was, you know, snatching, aye?”

“Annie, sweet girl, I am giving you away at your wedding, am I not? So it is rather appropriate, isn’t it?”

I laughed. “I am a little too old to be adopted, aye?”

“No, you are not.”

“You are joking!”

“Perhaps, but we shall let events take their course, my dear. Now, what was it you needed the lad for?”

“It’s not me, it’s Chantelle, aye? I need to let her know that her grandmother has passed away”

“Ah. When are you telling her? I assume that you are to be the door-knocker”

“The girls are coming up by train a bit later…”

“And you would wish for Darren to be there? I will explain, and he will ride over, I am sure. Leave it with me. Oh, and thank you for your idea”

“Idea?”

“His genealogy. We have started the process off, and I may well come up with something interesting in short order. Polly is being very helpful”

“What time for Darren?”

“You would feed him?”

“Of course”

“An hour? I want to talk him through the situation. Chantelle is likely to have a confused reaction, he will need to be on his toes”

“An hour, then. Thank you, Albert”

“Not at all. Thank you, my dear, for all you have done for your son. You were evidently made to be a mother…er, I am sorry, but I trust you know what I meant”

I smiled, wishing the warmth could reach him down the telephone line. “And not at all for me, my love. I take it exactly as it was meant, and I will be proud to be on your arm”

“As I will be proud to have you there, Annie. I am off to tell the boy; let me know, yes?”

As good as his word, Darren was at our door in forty five minutes, and from his saddle bag he produced a small parcel. An hour later, the bell rang and the girls were there. Chantelle looked a little confused, but her smile was there at sight of Darren. Eric had the kettle on as soon as he heard the door, and I had started a vegetable curry with Basmati rice and some shop-bought naans. As the tea was brought in by my beloved, I spoke to the girl.

“Shan, your mums have brought you up here because I have something to tell you, aye”

“About you an’ Daz, yeah? He told me, think it’s cool”

“No, not just that, but yes, that is cool, we all think so. No…it’s your Nan”

Her whole body jerked, and her face tightened in anger.

“What about her? She getting out early or something? I see her, I cut her, yeah?”

That surprised me, the force of her anger for a start, but its openness was a shock. This was a far cry from the girl who had only lashed out in extremis in a courtroom. I looked across at Kate.

“We seem to have made quite a bit of progress in sorting out the guilt thing”

She put an arm around her daughter. “We have spent quite a while, with Sally’s help, addressing the whole victim concept. Right, Shan?”

The girl nodded. “Iss hard to explain, yeah. But my mums, and that, they tell me stuff, all about guilt stuff…”

She grinned. “We went on a slut walk, yeah? Rapist not victim, no matter what she wear? She the guilty one, my Nan, that bitch, not me, not me no more, never again. She, and those men, and I hope they die soon”

Darren looked at me, and I drew a breath. “That’s the point, aye? You won’t be stabbing your Nan, she’s already gone. She had a heart attack in prison, and I was asked to let you know. Look, love, we are all concerned about you, you know that, aye? We all love you”

Darren softly spoke. “Yeah, all of us, so I brung you someone you need, she done her job for my Granddad”

The parcel turned out to be Tabitha, of course, and Shan hugged her tight, as the confusion of her emotions tore at her. I could see her dilemma; she hated the old witch with a passion, but she had still been the only link she had to her blood kin, her original family. Her history was gone.

What to do, that was easily answered, as I led the way to the dining table for our meal. Shan was just settling into her seat when something clearly struck her.

“Daz, what you said…?”

Ah. He blushed, and looked quickly round the table as if to check if anyone would be laughing at him.

“Yeah…I did say it, an’ I meant it, yeah? Course I love you”

For an instant, we all seemed to have something in our eyes, and then Shan just rose and went over to him and kissed him very gently, smiled and just nodded. They needed no words, and neither did we. I coughed.

“Everyone for curry, then?”

There were lots of meaningful glances and smiling silences for a while, till I had to say something.

“Darren, spoke to your Granddad, aye? Says he is going to look into your ancestry, like we said in France. What do you say, should we do the same with Shan’s?”

He nodded, mouth full of food. He swallowed in a hurry.

“Yeah, he got a load of programmes off the net, lahk. And there’s all sorts of records on there, churches, stuff. We could do Shan, easy, if her mums OK, yeah?”

Ginny was already nodding. “Flip, yeah. Human needs roots, just like trees. Keeps you grounded. You want, kid?”

Shan looked around the table. “Yeah, I do. Been thinking, she must’ve had a mum, an’ stuff, and they can’t all’ve been arseholes, yeah?”

Daz was grinning now, his confidence back. “An’ if they was in the army an’ thing, we might find if they in France. Chicken Kiev, yeah?”

“An’ choccy mousse, yeah! We go again, Mums?”

Every time that word came out I saw a little reaction from each of the women, as if someone had just caressed them. Family life. Kate answered.

“I would love to, but we don’t have to go down to Portsmouth. How do you fancy a day trip? From Dover, find somewhere nice for dinner, bit of shopping, smelly cheese. See if Jim is free, yeah?”

That met with general approval, and a look from Darren towards me and Eric, who gave our reply.

“Don’t look at us, lad, we have a lot to do to get ready for the wedding. If you want to go, then fine. I think we can trust those three with you…well, two of them, at least, don’t know about the blonde, though. We’ll give Sar and Tony a call once you have a date, OK?”

That was a done deal. The evening carried on in a more normal manner, after that, Darren’s declaration having gone a long way towards relieving Shan’s anxieties, and as I watched her I realised that she had gained more than just confidence from Kate and Ginny, but a whole new concept: the future. Darren and Albert would add the past, what more could anyone want?

So they had their trip, and Jim went, and we got a delivery of decent goat’s cheese, and the smiles continued between them. I had no illusions; young love at their age is not normally the love of a lifetime, but they had done so much, together and separately, to pull each other back from the edge, out of the horror show their lives had been. I would condemn nothing, I decided, and have no expectations beyond the next day’s happiness and warmth. I had my own man to comfort me, and a son on the way; I had more than I could ever have hoped for as Adam, more than I had ever had a realistic chance of gaining.

And then, suddenly, it was the next day, or rather the day after, and I had a date at a church.

CHAPTER 38
I have already said that no matter how careful one plans and prepares, there is always that collection of ‘little things’ that make themselves known right at the last minute, and in this case it was courtesy of Stewie. His old Roller, the wedding present that he and Sally were lending us for the day, along with a couple of other cars, had a visit from the Faery Folk en route to our house.

For those who are unaware of the particular faeries in question, they have sharp teeth and claws and like the taste of bicycle tyres. They can be attracted by the reckless use of the ‘P’ word, the one that rhymes with ‘juncture’, and placating them allegedly involves dancing naked, widdershins around a willow tree. Stewie had obviously used That Word injudiciously, and when he turned up I had to find some hand cleanser and a spare shirt from Eric’s wardrobe, and iron it, and…last minute things.

I had, in the end, six bridesmaids, in Merry, Steph, Sarah, Leah, Kelly and Vanny. They were all in ivory dresses on hire from the shop, with matching satin shoes, and as I mentally added the cost of actually purchasing the lot I had to shudder. Jan had done her bit on my face, Naomi had run a practised eye over my cap and veil before washing her face, and all was ready to go well before the tyre went down. I gave Simon a quick call to explain the delay, and he laughed.

“There is entertainment for the restless, Annie! Listen!”

There, in the background, tinny over the phone, was singing, and I knew who that was. My family there, to make me proud.

Eventually, on that Indian Summer September day, I arrived at St Nick’s, and Stewie handed me out of the car as Albert was helped by two of the girls before settling himself onto his walking stick. He looked at me, and smiled.

“I promised I would be here for you, Annie. Shall we go in?”

He dropped my veil as Kate gave my free hand a squeeze, and I settled my right arm into the crook of Albert’s left. Preceded by six teenagers and followed by six adults, with Kate on my left, we entered St Nick’s, but not to the obligatory Mendelssohn.

There they were, Tom, Twmi, Arthur, John, James, Arwel and Hywel, in front of them Sioned and Aunty Esther, and I entered to the sound of Cwm Rhondda rather than the Bridal March. The volume was impressive, as was the power, but it was the harmony that clutched at my heart. This was a day all about harmonies, about joining the different and complementary as one. My Aunt wiped tears away as we passed, but her singing never faltered. Concentrate, Annie.

The place was full, and as I proceeded down the aisle I slipped smiles to left and right, to a crowd from Dover and others from Fishguard and Oxford, coppers, Customs Officers, cyclists, doctors and shrinks, a swarm of Raj satellites, they were all there, and at the front, backs to me, Simon smiling beyond them, were two figures in morning suits, one with a shock of scarlet hair. Albert led me to the shorter of the two, lifted my veil and took his seat by Naomi, Kirsty and an encumbered Den as Kate joined my hand with Eric’s.

His palm was sweaty, but then so was mine. This was it. No rehearsal, no walk-through, but the seal to everything. My man. My saviour, despite what Simon and Merry might protest, and that smile, that was mine, that was for me.

Simon went through his ritual, but it was clear that to him the words were special, and for us, not just a job of work.

“The rings…”

Our best girls produced them on cue, and they went on, and we said words, and I meant them as I had rarely meant anything before, and I knew that Eric felt the same. This was reality, this wasn’t hiding in a cubicle in the ladies’ wondering what I was, who I was trying to fool. They were all here, and even bloody Costello wasn’t fooled, because they all knew what I was, and it was woman, bride…wife.

“You may kiss the bride”

Our portable choir started up with Myfanwy as he did, and then we were outside, and a certain pro photographer was doing his job with a grin and a lot of lewdness, which brought the smiles and laughs that made his pictures even more special than they would otherwise have been, Ali and Jim joined hand to hand as closely as Shan and Darren, and it was laughter and kisses, flower-throwing and posing, until Simon intervened and led the way to the Hall, where Jerry had organised some of his youth crowd as waiters and waitresses for our reception.

“This is going to be like an episode of the Two Ronnies, both of us up here together”

“Yeah! We can haz best wimmin’s speech! And that ain’t true, cause we ain’t the best women here, she’s sat over there with the skinny bloke with the grin, yeah?”

“Slow down, dearest, or I shall have to adjust the dosage again. Well, it is customary to do some character assassination on the happy couple, but we are a bit stuck with that one. Annie is a lesson to us all, someone so determined to be true to her self and to her soul, true to values we should all admire, that we nearly lost her before we had a chance to meet her in person”

“Yeah, and a bloke that could look past prejudice and the outside, and read the person within. I think he’s made her happy, fuck it–sorry, I know he’s made her happy, but then she has done so much to make other people happy, or safe, or sane. My girly here is a doc, yeah, but these two are healers, and apart from being carnivorous, we can’t do no assassination of their characters”

“Indeed, my love. So, all we will do is the other traditional bit. Please raise your glasses, ladies and gentlemen: the bride and groom, Eric and Annie Johnson!”

And there was more music, singing of course, and dancing, and as the formalities turned into festivities, I took a breather from the floor to reflect on how the people around me had picked me up and set me on this route. Eric was behind me, his arms wrapped around just below my breasts, and the world was almost perfect. Sarah was doing her usual getting down, Kirsty and Arris with her, as the music pounded and the laughter roared, and later, as the slow ones were played, I shuffled round the floor in that uncoordinated ‘dance’ that is simply an excuse to wrap oneself with a partner as closely as decency permits in public.

Four months later, we stood on a cold and windswept plateau in France. Albert had done his research. He had called me in after the honeymoon, with a bundle of printouts and notes.

“We have a couple of relatives, Annie my dear. Turns out Darren had a twice great uncle, his great grandfather’s younger brother, who was in Number 4 Commando on Sword Beach”

“From your tone, I take it he stayed there?”

“Yes. It was on the way to relieve Sixth Airborne at Pegasus. When you landed at Ouistreham, Darren was following his uncle’s route. The poor chap is in Ranville now. As for Chantelle, I had rather a surprise there. Her great grandmother had a younger sister, Mavis, no issue as far as I can tell. She married a refugee Pole name of Mateusz Dabrowski. Unfortunately, I know where he is, too”

“So nothing of good news, aye?”

Albert dipped his head for an instant, then looked up. “Annie, this IS good news, and I know what it will mean to our boy, and to the young lady. They can now see that their ancestry, or at least their kin, were capable of great deeds. That they are not worthless by gene and history, yes?”

He was, of course, absolutely right, as Darren proved before the grave of William Eyres, Corporal, No 4 Commando, born third of June, 1920; killed by enemy action on the eighth of June, 1944. The lad cried as he laid the wreath of poppies we had carried from the UK for that purpose, and then huddled against me, against the wind and the weight of history.

Two days later we were at Falaise, where the 1st Polish Armoured Division’s Eagle stoops above the graves of the men who put the cork in the bottle that broke the German army in France, just as the Germans had broken Poland. Chantelle was crying in great sobs, but she laid her own wreath, and we signed the visitors’ book in the little shelter as she clung to her boy’s hand.

Eric led her back to the car to clean up, as the wind whistled past us and Darren leant against me once more. His voice was very, very quiet.

“Thank you. You showed us we ain’t shit, that we have real people in our families, yeah. Thank you”

He paused.

“I love you, Mum”