After the Pantomime

By Susannah Donim

A spare time hobby slowly turns into a lifetime choice for Nick.

Chapter 2 – A Stand-up Comedienne

Nick makes his debut as Daisy Duquesne.

It’s difficult to describe how I felt dressed as a woman. I felt vulnerable, ungainly, defenceless. I felt weak. All of which was ridiculous; I still had all my male strength, and why should a woman in my position feel helpless anyway? I was determined that Daisy Duquesne was going to be a strong, independent, modern woman. It was just that the additional weight on my chest, my big round padded butt, and my baby bump, were all throwing me off-balance and undermining my confidence.

At the pub I fancied a pint after the evening’s shocks and exertions but of course I had to stick to girly drinks, and non-alcoholic ones at that, because of my non-existent baby. Over the next hour I had three orange and passion fruit J2Os and no one would let me pay for them. As it was nearly ten o’clock when we arrived, the football was finished and the pub’s large TV had been switched off. We sat with Tom and his friends. They nodded politely to Josie and me, but they were mostly discussing the match. As a stranger, and a not totally hideous young woman, I naturally drew some attention, but as each man saw my condition he lost interest – an unexpected benefit of letting Josie talk me into being pregnant.

I was astonished that I seemed to be getting away with it. I sat demurely with my handbag on my lap and contributed as little as possible to the conversation, concerned that my voice would give me away. After he got over his astonishment at my appearance, Tom was a good sport and didn’t expose me, but he said he’d never known me to be so quiet on an evening out.

After my third J2O I needed to powder my nose, as Josie called it. Together we got up and headed for the Ladies. Having to pull my tights down and extricate my penis from its spandex prison, it took me a little longer than her to do my business. When I emerged from the cubicle, she was already at the mirror, repairing her make-up.

“You need to do this too,” she said, smacking her lips together. I dug my lipstick out of my handbag and copied her actions. “Make sure you don’t get any on your teeth,” she grinned. “I hope you’re enjoying learning all these girly secrets. It’ll make Daisy’s performance all the more convincing.”

Just as we were leaving the Ladies a small group of men were getting up to leave. I hadn’t seen them when Josie and I went in, because they had been around the corner in the lounge bar away from the television; clearly not football fans. One of them was Eddy. Fortunately I saw him before he saw me and I was able to turn my head away and avoid eye contact. I was shaking like a leaf when we got back to Tom and the others. Josie asked if I was alright. I explained about nearly being recognised by Eddy and she laughed about it all the way home.

I realised I would have to tell him eventually though. He was a regular at the club and would be bound to recognise me, but I decided to wait till I was a little better at female impersonation…

* * *

Back in the office MyOwnCouture.com was progressing nicely. I was amazed at how quickly everything was coming together, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Most of the individual components had been developed and tested before I had even met them. The real challenges had been to join it all together and scale up to production levels.

It had been clear from the outset that they would have to limit the number of designs they offered, with just a few variations permitted within each dress type. Also the machines would not be capable of anything too fancy in terms of embroidery or stitching. Any patterns that couldn’t be created at the initial dyeing stage wouldn’t be possible.

We had a big team meeting for Ruth to show us all the dress types she wanted to offer for our initial launch. This was so that Eddy could verify that the machines could cut and stitch them all; that Vicky could write the necessary software instructions; and that Mo could arrange to update the website with appropriate photos, descriptions and prices.

We took our places, armed with coffee and pastries.

“I’ve narrowed it down to eleven basic products,” Ruth began. “We’ll want to offer some options for each product, such as neckline, skirt length, shoulder straps, and with or without sleeves, and we’ll charge extra for any variations from the standard design. When we’ve agreed the designs and variations we can make, we will still have to decide what materials to offer each product in, which of course will affect the machine settings and might introduce additional constraints. Eddy, could you let me know what problems you see with any of the designs? And Vicky, could you just take some notes on what we decide?”

Ruth had connected her laptop to our cheap digital projector. Bright coloured dresses started appearing on the screen. She picked up a pointer.

“First, the BodyCon. This will probably be one of our most popular products, a standard. It’s designed to make the most of a woman’s figure. We need to be able to vary the length and the neckline, so it can be appropriate for casual or formal wear.”

“That looks pretty tight-fitting,” said Vicky. “Can we offer variations in… er, snugness?”

Eddy and I looked at each other. Vicky was lovely and definitely not overweight, but we knew she was conscious that she wasn’t exactly petite. No way would she ever wear anything as figure-hugging as this.

“I don’t see why not,” Ruth replied. “Let’s offer it in different fittings then. Is there any reason why we shouldn’t be able to do that for all our clothes?”

“Sure,” said Eddy. “What do you want to call the fittings – snug, loose, and er… medium?”

“Something like that,” Ruth said with a smile. “Of course, some fabrics are quite stretchy, so a tight fitting would be fine. Let me think about that.”

She clicked the mouse to bring up the next picture.

“This sheath dress is also form-fitting and simple. The length will usually be to the knees or lower thighs, and is therefore appropriate for the office. It could also be made for formal wear, typically in black. I’d like to offer it with and without sleeves.

“Both these first two can be elegant and smart-looking, but will be easy – and cheap – to make, so I’d expect them to be our main money-spinners. Moving on to the more exotic…”

She brought up the next slide.

“This is the Baby Doll, a sleeveless shift. The basic design has spaghetti shoulder straps and will only be available with a rounded neckline. It’s simple and convenient both to manufacture and to wear, not to mention to look after. This picture shows a very short style for a sexy party dress, but a knee-length version would be suitable for many other occasions including office or casual wear. I suppose at full-length it could even serve as a formal, though that might only be suitable for tall thin women.”

“Yes, a short girl wearing a full-length Baby Doll would look like she was standing in a tent,” said Vicky, who was 5’ 4”.

Ruth moved on.

“This is an Empire Waist. The waistline of this type of dress rises above the wearer’s natural waist, giving the illusion of additional height and helping to disguise any heaviness of the lower half of the body. Again, we should offer it with or without sleeves. It’s more formal, suitable for a posh party or a night out.”

We had no comments so Ruth brought up her next slide.

“This A-Line dress helps to hide a heavier figure or emphasise slimmer figures. This style offers a narrow top down to the waist and gently flares out towards the hem. This one is great for the office, casual wear or formal. The standard model will be sleeveless with a scoop neckline, but we should be able to offer variations again.”

Eddy interrupted. “I don’t foresee any specific problems with all these variations,” he said, “but the only way to be sure is extensive testing. We may have to set limits when we first go live, then add variations later. Either that or delay the launch.”

Ruth accepted this, with some disappointment.

“That’s what we’ll have to do then,” she said. “We certainly can’t delay the launch. We must be up and running before we meet with the Bank.”

She clicked the mouse again.

“This Wrap Dress is versatile. It splits down the middle with one tie at the waist. The front wraps from one side to the other and creates a V-neckline. The ties go around the waist and meet in either the back or front. Obviously there won’t be options for other types of neckline.

“This dress can be for casual, work, or formal wear. With long sleeves I think it’s likely to be very popular with older customers.”

Eddy, Mo and Vicky were scribbling notes but no one had anything to say, so Ruth moved on to the next slide.

“We should offer a long and flowing Maxi Dress like this. It’s not suitable for work but should be popular for parties and formal wear. We could make it from various materials, but I’d expect cotton to be the best-selling fabric. It’s perfect for holidays in the sun too, being cool and comfortable with a flattering fit, especially for older customers.”

“I’m not sure about this next one,” she said. She clicked the remote again.

The slide showed a rather prissy, ankle-length dress with some sort of petticoat. To my uneducated eye it looked like the fabric was chiffon or something.

“It may be a little old-fashioned,” Ruth went on. “It’s still quite popular with the rich in the States where it’s called ‘Tea-Length’. Typically, the hemline falls just below knee level. Women of fashion consider any dress falling between the lower knee and ankle a Tea-Length. This picture is clearly a formal design, but in other fabrics it may be suitable for the office.”

“You ladies need to decide,” said Eddy, “but personally I can’t see us selling many of those.”

“Why don’t we all show the picture to women we know and gather more opinions?” I suggested.

I guessed that Josie would laugh her head off at a ‘Tea-Length’.

That was agreed and we moved on.

“This is the last dress,” Ruth said, “for formal wear only. It’s called a Mermaid Dress, for obvious reasons. It fits snugly from the bust to the lower calf area, and then the material flares outward. It’s usually worn strapless and sleeveless but variations are possible.”

“Again, we probably won’t sell many, but we should definitely have something like that on the site,” said Eddy.

We all agreed.

“I don’t get invited to the kind of affairs where you wear something like that,” sighed Vicky.

“That’s all the dresses,” said Ruth.

She clicked the mouse.

“This is a peplum. It’s a short skirt that attaches to a form-fitting jacket. The skirt flares downwards from the waist. The jacket can have long sleeves, short sleeves or be sleeveless like in the picture. Depending on the design and the fabric, this could be worn in the work place, or in a more casual setting, or even formal.”

The team were enthusiastic about the peplum. It was different and up to date.

“That’s right,” Ruth confirmed. “Ironically it first came into existence in Renaissance Italy. It was briefly popular in the 1980s then fizzled out, but it came back in 2014 and has been popular ever since. It accentuates your curves to enhance the illusion of an hourglass figure.”

“So we make this in two pieces, do we?” said Eddy. “How are they attached?”

“Velcro, maybe?” suggested Vicky.

“Moving on,” said Ruth. “Finally I thought we should offer some skirts, so this is a fairly simple full A-line skirt design. It will have a form-fitting waist, flaring outward to the bottom. It’s intended to go with a variety of tops for casual, or office wear. We should probably offer mini, midi or maxi length.”

“Aren’t there more styles of skirt than that?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” Ruth replied. “There’s the asymmetrical skirt made from different fabrics with varying lengths at the hem. Or a bell-shaped skirt. Or a 1950s style bubble skirt.”

“Okay, okay, sorry I asked.”

Ruth smiled. “We can offer more variety later. It’s just that I think we should focus on dresses for the moment. We can do a wider range and charge more for pretty much the same costs.”

It was agreed that we should offer A-line skirts with ‘above the knee’, ‘knee-length’ or ‘below the knee’ options in our usual fabrics.

“This may be a stupid question,” I said, apprehensively, “but where did you get all these designs?”

“They’re all mine, of course,” she said, with a look that confirmed that it was a stupid question. “We couldn’t go offering other designers’ creations through our website, not without entering into all sorts of contractual arrangements.”

“But they’re all…”

“What?”

“Brilliant!” said Vicky, and immediately went scarlet.

“Yes – brilliant,” I agreed.

“Well, thank you, both,” said Ruth, as though she had expected nothing less. Though I could see she was actually quite pleased at our votes of confidence. “They are all a bit simple, I’m afraid, because Eddy has warned me that it will be too difficult to make complicated accessories – frills, flounces, pleats, other decorations, etc.”

“Pleats ought to be quite possible eventually,” said Eddy, “but we will need a special attachment, and it wouldn’t work with either of the old machines we have now.”

“By the way, I thought you originally intended to offer wedding dresses?” I said, as she switched off the projector and disconnected her laptop.

“And we will,” she said, “but a wedding dress is much too complicated to make with the simple machines we have now – too much lace, too much embroidery, too delicate fabrics…”

“We can sell a maxi dress or a mermaid dress in white silk,” Vicky suggested, “but most brides would want something much fancier than that.”

Ruth nodded. “I suggest that our pricing strategy should be to charge about 20% less than high street prices. That should attract lots of customers but still give us great profit margins. We can always hike our rates later when we’ve built our customer base.”

I left the team discussing what she had presented. Everyone seemed happy and excited although Eddy was looking thoughtful. He knew he and Mike had a lot of work to do.

* * *

A few days later, on the Wednesday before my debut as Daisy Duquesne and with just under two months to go till the meeting with the Bank, we were ready for our first end-to-end test. Ruth had finalised the ‘customer experience’ process model she wanted, and Mo and Vicky had rebuilt the website to deliver it. The user would enter her measurements first. Then she could select any of the eleven basic designs and in some cases change the fit, colour, neckline, skirt length, and so on. If she made any modifications, the picture would then show what the revised design would look like.

They had also added an off-the-shelf freeware package to run the animation. Vicky had written the software to turn the customer requirements into NC instructions for the printing and cutting machines; and Eddy and Mike had configured them to accept and follow the instructions. But would it all work together?

Well, no, of course it wouldn’t…

Since I was the only member of the team who hadn’t been involved in any of the development, I was selected to run the test. In other words, I would design a dress and upload a photo and a set of measurements. MyOwnCouture.com would then show my model wearing the dress in various animated scenarios. We could make some modifications if we wanted, then get the system to produce the dress. To make sure it would work properly for an external user not directly attached to the MyOwnCouture.com platform, I used my personal laptop which was connected to the internet by our house wi-fi.

Eddy thought it would be hilarious if we used my face and body for the test, but to my relief he was shouted down. We decided that Ruth was too close to the website process design so we all agreed that we would make Vicky a new dress for the test. She didn’t have a photo, so Eddy took a few shots on his smartphone camera.

She wasn’t sure of her measurements, so she and Ruth went into the office with a tape measure and shut the door. They emerged with Vicky’s vital statistics for me to input. She was 38-34-40, dress size 12, which Ruth, the fashion expert, assured her was bang on average for the modern British woman, but Vicky was embarrassed that her ‘barrel’ shape was revealed in front of her workmates.

Mike immediately blurted out that he thought she was gorgeous anyway. Was something going on there? Both of them quickly went bright pink. To save them further embarrassment, I announced that I would start the test and navigated to the website to set up an account in Vicky’s name.

Ruth explained that the system would work with just the vital statistics and dress size, which most girls would know, but a really good fit required several more measurements: neck, front waist length, back waist length, shoulder, and arm length. The website had instructions on how to take the more obscure measurements. She had taken all of those too, so I began entering all Vicky’s data. So far, so good.

Eddy sent the photos to my e-mail account and I uploaded them too. All that remained was to select a dress type. Vicky was expecting to go to a wedding soon – as a guest, not a bride or bridesmaid – and she asked me to select a three-quarter sleeve wrap dress in powder blue, with a subtle floral design. The dress style, colour and pattern were all standard, so that part was easy. Ruth intended to add many more styles and patterns later.

With all the specifications entered, I was able to bring up a still photo of Vicky in her chosen dress. She looked great – perfect for a young wedding guest. The next step was what we had all been looking forward to – an animated clip of her in her new dress, strutting down a catwalk!

It didn’t work. Some unidentifiable blocks of colour juddered across the screen then everything went black. I had to reboot my laptop to recover control. When I went back into the website, all of Vicky’s details were still there in her account, but there was no record of it ever having moved on to the next step.

I repeated my request for the animation. The website repeated its lack of cooperation.

Ruth sighed. “Well, I think that’s all for today, boys and girls.” She turned to Vicky. “We have some de-bugging to do. It must be something to do with the data interface to the package. We probably shouldn’t have trusted freeware. You get what you pay for, I suppose.”

“You don’t think it’s worth doing the manufacturing part of the test?” I asked.

“Well we can’t be sure we’d be sending the right instructions to the machines,” Eddy said.

“So it’s not worth the risk of wasting material,” Ruth agreed.

I had to go to a finance meeting with one of my other clients that afternoon so I left a slightly dispirited team to it.

* * *

I hadn’t intended to return to the MyOwnCouture.com office that day, and it was dark when I got back to the Manor. When I drove past the barn offices I could see there was one light still on upstairs, so I parked outside and went up to check everything was alright.

It wasn’t. Ruth’s door was open. She was alone in her office, staring at her monitor and snivelling quietly to herself. A glass and a nearly empty bottle of whisky were close at hand. She looked up, startled, when she sensed my presence in the doorway.

“Oh, hello,” she said, attempting a smile. “I was just…”

She trailed off. This was worrying. I had always seen Ruth as hard-boiled, if anything, too much so. I was concerned for her, but I had no idea what to say.

“It can’t be that bad,” I began. “I’m sure you and Vicky will crack the animation problem.”

She snorted. “Oh, we’ve already done that.” She paused. “That’s not why I’m… a little upset.”

“Then, what?” I said.

She looked at me, appraisingly, and after a moment seemed to come to a conclusion.

“If I tell you,” she began, “you must promise to keep it to yourself.” I nodded. She continued, “It’s me and Eddy.”

“Oh,” I said. “I had noticed you didn’t seem to be as close as…”

I was about to say, ‘as close as you had been’, but that would have been wrong. They’d never been as close as I would have expected an engaged couple to be, but then my only model was Tom and Josie, who had never been able to keep their hands off each other, even in public. It was sweet, really.

“The point is, we never intended to get married,” she said. “The engagement’s a fake. Eddy’s gay, but he hasn’t come out to his parents. They’re fairly well off – not like you, of course – but they’re very… old-fashioned.”

By which I assume she meant prejudiced.

Over the time I had known her I had gradually pieced together a little of Ruth’s family history, and it explained why she had something of a chip on her shoulder about my family’s wealth. Her father was a bus driver; her mother was a nurse. They had never had the money to help her in her career. It had given her a steely ambition and a determination to succeed, which was actually one of the reasons why I had been so keen to support MyOwnCouture.com.

She was wrong about my family though. She assumed from the Manor, the land, and our ability to provide venture capital, that we were rich. In fact, due to the punitive tax regimes of successive governments since the war, we’ve found it increasingly difficult to meet our expenses. We still had decent amounts on deposit – which was how my father was able to support my investments – but last year our family income barely exceeded our outgoings. So my parents hadn’t bought a new car, or gone abroad for their holidays, for quite a while. All of which made my Dad’s faith in me all the more touching, and nerve-wracking.

“Eddy’s mother is a real piece of work,” Ruth continued. “She’s a religious fruitcake and rules his poor father with a rod of iron. She’d have Eddy disinherited like a shot if she found out he’s gay. He knows he has to tell them eventually, and has no expectations from their will, but at the moment, he – we – depend on them.”

“For what?”

“For everything – rent, clothes, food, our cars, everything we need to keep going. And to give potential investors the impression we’re financially sound and stable. The Deveres are our only hope. My parents can barely support themselves. They helped me as much as they could through university but they have nothing left to give now. And I still have a massive student debt to repay. That’s why we announced our engagement – to keep the Deveres happy. I’m Eddy’s cover story. I suppose, essentially, he’s paying me to be his ‘beard’.”

She smiled bitterly. I struggled to think of anything sensible to say.

“Didn’t you ask them to support your business in the first place?”

“Of course we did, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Eddy’s parents expect him to be a successful engineer and me to be a housewife, popping out their grandchildren. They think that he’s doing an advanced degree and I’m still an unpaid intern – just the little woman getting the fashion business out of her head before settling down with their son. On that basis they’ve supported us – actually, quite generously – but we have to keep up the illusion until we’re independent.”

“Couldn’t you both just get jobs like everyone else?” I asked.

“Yes, we probably could have got ourselves nine-to-five jobs,” she sniffed a little, “but this is our dream! We need MyOwnCouture.com to succeed. Your seed money was a life saver after we couldn’t get support from anywhere else, but we need it all for the business. It isn’t enough for us to live on for the next year or two.”

She fell silent, staring into space. It was as if I wasn’t there. I sat back in her office guest chair and thought. This odd couple’s behaviour made sense now. I couldn’t condone the deception, but I could sympathise with their situation. They were in deep. The success of MyOwnCouture.com was really their only way out.

“I promise I’ll keep everything you’ve told me to myself,” I said, “and if there’s anything I can do to help, please just ask. Not financially, I’m afraid,” I hastened to add. “My father has set very firm rules about extensions to the seed capital.”

“I understand,” she said. “I’ve never felt comfortable deceiving you about us…”

“It’s OK,” I said. “I’m glad you told me.” Something still didn’t add up though. “But if you’ve cracked the software problem what has got you so upset today?”

“Oh, Eddy told me he’s had another letter from his mother – she can’t abide e-mail, which I suppose is a blessing – asking when we’re going to set a date for the wedding. She’s keen on next Spring. I don’t know if we can keep putting her off.”

I tutted, but I still wasn’t convinced.

“I can see how that would be upsetting,” I said, “but that bottle was half full yesterday. Are you sure there’s nothing else?”

She sighed. “Eddy is out most nights with his friends – his male friends,” she said hesitantly and with a smile completely lacking in humour. “And he’s not much… consolation… for me when he is around. I don’t really know any other women in the area, and it wouldn’t look good if I went out with a man, so I’m home alone most nights. It’s boring.”

By which she meant she was lonely. I thought about inviting her to the Club for Open Mic Night, but I quickly dismissed that thought. My next appearance there would be as Daisy Duquesne and I certainly didn’t want anyone else at MyOwnCouture.com to know about that. Eddy knowing would be bad enough, though he would be sworn to secrecy, as were Tom and Josie. Anyway I had a better – and more immediate – idea.

“Well it must be OK for you to have dinner with your business partner after you’ve both been working late. Come on, I know a really good Italian not far from here.”

“Oh, I can’t…” she began.

“Well you certainly can’t drive yourself home after a quarter of a bottle of whisky, so I insist.”

Ruth wasn’t used to people insisting with her, least of all me. I grabbed her coat, helped her on with it, and led her downstairs to my car before she could muster any further argument.

“All right then,” she said, “so long as it is ‘just business’ and not a date.” She gave a half-smile. “My parents would never speak to me again if I ditched Eddy for a posh boy from the landed gentry.”

I took her to Agnelli’s, my favourite restaurant. It was busy. I saw several people I knew, including Will Holford, my friendly lawyer, and his wife, Emma. They waved as we came in but they were dining with another couple I didn’t know, so we didn’t join them.

We had a very pleasant meal, though it was hard work persuading Ruth to limit the red wine she was adding to the whisky already swilling around inside her. I had never known her so friendly. I put it down to the alcohol.

We were still on our main course when the Holfords got up to leave. They had to pass our table on their way. Will and Emma stopped for a moment.

“Good to see you, Nick,” said Will. “How’s business?”

“Going very well, thanks,” I said, “at least partly because of your fine work.” Emma was trying to signal something, and I realised I was being remiss. “Sorry,” I said, “this is Ruth Braddock. She’s the MD of MyOwnCouture.com, one of my ventures.”

“I remember it well,” said Will. “Looks very promising.”

“Ruth, you’ve met Will Holford, my solicitor, and this is his brilliant wife, Emma. She’s just been made a full partner in our local GP practice. So I get all my lawyering and doctoring done in one place.”

“So this was a business meeting, was it?” Emma said, mischievously.

“Well there’s no harm in mixing business with pleasure, is there?” Ruth smiled.

She was totally unpredictable. But then, aren’t we all?

By the time I had run Ruth home after the meal she was practically asleep and I was afraid I was going to have to carry her up to the flat she was sharing with Eddy – presumably with separate bedrooms. That thought made me feel a little sorry for her. Anyway she made it through the front door under her own steam, muttered a slightly slurred thanks, and closed the door behind her. I assumed she’d get a ride back to the office tomorrow with Eddy.

* * *

I was in and out of the MyOwnCouture.com offices the following day, having to go to meetings with my other ventures. Ruth was busy and made no mention of the previous night. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she didn’t remember any of it.

That evening I was back at Tom and Josie’s for a dress rehearsal. I had shaved carefully before leaving the Manor and arrived early as Josie had promised me dinner. She was ebullient. She opened with a terrifying announcement.

“We have a table booked at L’Auberge for eight o’clock, so we have a little under two hours to get you ready.”

I began with the usual protests, but Josie quickly cut me off.

“Oh shush, it’ll do wonders for your self-confidence. I’ll be able to observe your stance and mannerisms and correct you as we go. By the end of the evening we’ll have you sitting, standing and walking just like a woman.”

Tom, who had been sitting in the corner reading his Daily Telegraph, broke into a verse from Dylan’s Just Like a Woman, but shut up quickly when his wife glared at him. I looked to him for support. He chuckled, shrugged, and went back to his paper.

Josie grabbed my hand and pulled me upstairs and into their guest room. Everything she dressed me in before was ready on the bed, together with a pile of strangely shaped yellow-brown objects made of what looked like sponge.

“Upholstery foam,” she said. “The material is flexible, like sponge, but firmer and heavier. It’s quite easy to sculpt to the shape you need with a Stanley knife and some strong glue.”

Was there no end to this woman’s talents? And how long had she spent on this?

“I’ve already produced some pieces which match the padding we did last time. They should be easier to manage and won’t look all uneven and lumpy like the cotton wool did. And if they don’t fit perfectly, we can cut some smaller pieces to fill in the gaps.”

So I struggled back into her mother’s shapewear and we spent the next half an hour filling it out with the pieces of foam. My resulting feminine figure looked very much like it had last time, but my sumptuous curves were much smoother. Also I felt more secure; nothing was going to pop out this time.

The foam was noticeably heavier than the cotton wool had been, but I suppose that was a good thing – it meant that I had to adapt my stance to my changed centre of gravity. My new heavier chest tended to pull me forwards, so I had to hold my shoulders back. My big bottom meant I couldn’t stand up straight like a man. I had to bend my knees slightly, lean back a little, and pose with one foot slightly in front of the other. Also when I walked, my hands and arms wanted to spread outwards to help me maintain my balance, the way a tightrope walker uses a heavy pole. I realised all of this comes naturally to a woman as her figure develops in her early teens, but it was new to me.

Josie’s first job was to shape my nails and paint them a bright red colour, so they could be drying while she got on with everything else. As instructed, I had refrained from cutting them and they were quite long now – for a man, that is. Painted fire engine red they were unmistakably feminine, their length and colour distracting attention from hands that were on the large side for a woman.

Next she insisted on ‘tidying up’ my eyebrows before she did my make-up. It hurt like hell and I made sure she knew it.

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” she scoffed. “Now close your eyes and keep very still.”

I realised she was gluing something to my eyelid.

“False eyelashes? Really?”

“It all adds to the illusion,” she said. “We’re going out to a posh restaurant. You need a heavier evening make-up.”

The make-up did indeed take quite a lot longer than last time. She had turned me away from the mirror so I couldn’t see what she was doing. She had bought a wig cap, as promised, and a stand. She had washed and styled the wig. After fitting it, she put it up in a tight bun.

“This style will show off your earrings,” she said, clipping the big hoops on again. “I’ve got a matching necklace for you too, and a ladies’ watch.” She swung me round to face the mirror. “There! What do you think?”

The unmistakably feminine figure in the mirror looked like one of the girls you see outside nightclubs making eyes at the bouncers. She had bright purple lips, silvery eyelids, massive mascaraed eyelashes… and where the hell were my eyebrows? It looked like I just had a couple of thin black lines painted on with eyebrow pencil.

“I look like a teenage tart!”

“Yes,” she giggled. “I might have got a little carried away. Shall I see if I can find you a pair of hot pants?”

I drew in a breath to vent my feelings, but she pre-empted me.

“I’m sorry, Nick, I’m still experimenting on what will work best for you. This is only a rehearsal.” She checked her watch. “Look, it’s too late to change it now, but don’t worry, I’ll tone it down for tomorrow night.”

Still grumbling, I got dressed in the smock and a clean pair of dark tights. The three-months-pregnant Daisy Duquesne was back. Finally, with a flourish Josie produced a pair of black, patent leather high heels. They looked huge.

“Size 10½,” she announced triumphantly. “I called Charlie Todd. He’s the secretary of LADS, the Lavenden Amateur Dramatic Society. They do a Panto every year, so they have a range of large women’s shoes for their Dames. He was happy to lend you these. Also he and Arthur Whitmore will come along to see your performance. Arthur’s been their Dame for the last five years, so he’s taking a professional interest.”

Whoa! No pressure, right?

“Well, he’ll probably be disappointed,” I said, slipping the shoes on. They fitted perfectly and felt quite comfortable over my tights. “We’ve agreed that Daisy isn’t going to be a Panto Dame, or even a standard drag act. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder exactly what Daisy will be.”

“She’ll be a woman stand-up comedian,” Josie said firmly. She stopped and looked at me. “I hope after all my hard work that Daisy is going to be good tomorrow night,” she said. “I won’t be pleased if she bombs.”

Great. More pressure.

I stood up, took a step, wobbled, and nearly fell over. Josie just caught me.

“I think you’re going to need a little practice walking in those shoes, Daisy,” she said, laughing. “It’s a good thing we’ve planned an evening out.”

“I assume Tom is our designated driver?” I said. “I certainly won’t be able to drive in these, and Daisy doesn’t have a licence anyway.”

Tom and Josie were well-known at l’Auberge, so I went as her sister. The three of us had a very pleasant evening once I relaxed. It was marred only by her continual instructions to keep my legs together; speak softly with a rising inflection; use my hands to illustrate and emphasise what I was saying; and smile, smile, smile.

I was conscious of curious eyes watching me throughout. The looks were mostly appreciative from the men, though I could almost hear some of the women muttering, “Little madam! Pregnant at her age!”

At least there were no suspicious looks, and no one was saying, ‘Look at the pansy cross-dresser’. Reluctantly I had to admit that Josie was right. My face was quite androgynous and with heavy evening make-up I looked ‘just like a woman’. Tom had a great time, though he claimed that keeping a straight face at the sight of his little brother, the pregnant schoolgirl, was a major challenge.

When we got back to their place afterwards, Josie set about removing my over-the-top make-up and nail polish. It took ages to unglue the false eyelashes. She had to use some sort of solvent which made my eyes water. We decided not to bother with them anymore. They just made me look tarty anyway. Josie assured me that with the pencil highlighter removed from my eyebrows they weren’t as bad as I thought. They still looked a bit sparse to me.

It wasn’t till later that I realised that my anxiety and feelings of vulnerability the previous evening had vanished. I had even become reconciled to my ungainly figure and all the unfamiliar weight. I had become comfortable as Daisy.

But I didn’t much enjoy the hour it took to remove the eyelashes, make-up and nail polish so that I could appear as Nick the following day. And I would have to go through it all again that evening.

* * *

The big night finally arrived. I went back to Tom and Josie’s in the late afternoon and changed to a more restrained version of Daisy with Josie’s help. To my alarm she took some photographs on her phone.

“These will be useful if I ever need to blackmail you,” she grinned. “Or maybe if Daisy needs publicity shots.”

Thanks to her hard work I was confident that I wouldn’t give the game away by doing anything too masculine. Quite the reverse – I’d almost embarrassed myself during the day at the office with some exaggerated hand gestures and an effeminate stance. I got some suspicious looks from Ruth, and Vicky clearly thought I was trying to be funny. Also, thanks to my naturally medium-pitched voice and Josie’s training, I could now fake a girly way of speaking, and there was an embarrassing moment when I had answered one of Ruth’s questions in a breathy, feminine voice. I tried to pass it off as some kind of elaborate joke, but she didn’t get it.

That evening as I waited in the wings for the act before me to finish, I chatted with Lee. He had to be in on my secret, of course. I was more nervous than on any of my previous performances. I’d taken a brief peep round the corner to check on the ‘house’. I didn’t see where Josie and Tom were sitting. It was quite busy tonight with the usual party groups and lots of people I didn’t recognise. Hopefully they at least would take Daisy at face value. But there were also some familiar faces in the audience, regulars on Open Mic Night. Many were performers themselves and some of them would be bound to recognise me. What would they think I was trying to do with this?

The moment arrived. The previous performer came off and Lee stepped up to the mic to announce me.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “please put your hands together for a first-timer here. Treat her gently now – Miss Daisy Duquesne.”

There was a smattering of good-natured applause as I came out, my shoes clicking on the vinyl floor, my well-upholstered rear swinging sexily from side to side. At least my hours of practice meant I could handle the heels. I stepped up to the microphone. I caught a few whispers and noticed some puzzled glances. I’d expected this. I was an unusual sight on Open Mic Night; female, apparently, and they were wondering – was I pregnant?

I took the mic from the stand and acknowledged the polite applause. When it died down, I turned a little sideways and pointed sadly to my tummy.

“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you will have noticed I have developed a bit of a ‘cake shelf’. In fact a friend said recently, ‘Are you pregnant?’ I said, ‘Not unless I’ve been shagged by Mr Kipling’.”

There were a couple of friendly laughs and several polite sniggers.

“But I’ve always been a big girl. At nursery school I was picked to play ‘Bethlehem’ in the Nativity.

“In fact, I found a new way to tell when I’ve put weight on. There’s a car park near me which has a barrier that goes up when it senses a car is near. I was carrying two bags of shopping, but still…

“People say big girls don’t cry but that’s not true. They cry because they’re fat. They cry because they can’t get a boyfriend. And they cry because there’s no trifle left.

“I don’t like meals for one. It’s not that they make me feel lonely. It’s that they’re not big enough.

“I decided to start a new exercise regime but I pulled a muscle getting my sports bra on.”

Those got a few good laughs and even some whoops. It was time to take the bull by the horns.

“No seriously, ladies,” I said. I turned sideways and thrust my tummy out. “I admit it. Preggers; three months! But you know how it is – well, some of you will – you start to get strange desires at this stage. Some girls want pickles and ice cream. I wanted to stand up in front of a roomful of strangers and tell them about my private parts. My boyfriend thinks I’m crazy. Well, nothing new there.”

A couple of women in the audience cheered and there was even a smattering of applause. I was getting them on my side. Time to go for broke!

“So what’s the difference between a pregnant woman and a lightbulb?” Beat. “You can unscrew a lightbulb.

“The more pregnant I get, the more strangers smile at me. Why? Because I’m fatter than they are, obviously.”

People were now laughing all around the room, even the men.

“How do you win an argument?” Beat. “Be pregnant. That’s it! You’re done.

“What’s the difference between a pregnant woman and a terrorist?” Beat. “You can negotiate with a terrorist.

“A woman doesn’t know what happiness is until she’s married. By then it’s too late.

“Do you know how many middle-aged men go out for a pint of milk and never come back?” Beat. “Not enough.”

When I came to the end of my allotted five minutes, I got the best round of applause I had ever had on Open Mic Night – even calls for more. They were out of luck there. I’d used every female-oriented and pregnancy-based joke I knew. I bowed twice and hurried offstage.

Then I realised I’d forgotten to put the microphone back on the stand, but Lee was used to that. He took it off me, grinning.

“Don’t know how you’re going to follow that, mate!” he said with his hand over the mic. “I think Daisy might have to come again, don’t you? They seem to prefer her to Nick.”

He went back out to introduce the next act and left me standing there, wondering how I could possibly make a better female comic than male.

I didn’t want to mix with any of the audience as Daisy so, as we had arranged, I hurried into Lee’s office and closed the door behind me. I was now safe behind a Private sign.

A minute later there was a soft knock. I opened it cautiously and Josie hurried in with my suitcase.

“I don’t know why you’re so desperate to change back,” she said. “You’d get nothing but praise from your fans. Daisy is a big hit!”

“Daisy doesn’t exist!” I said. “And if she tried to mingle, she’d be found out in no time.”

“I doubt it.” She started unpacking my clothes from the suitcase. “I spoke to Harry and Mac just now. They said they didn’t realise it was you at first. They thought Daisy must be Nick’s sister – which I suppose is true in a way! But then they recognised your delivery. Harry said that every comic’s style is unique, so they knew it was you, but most people would never have guessed. They loved what you did and promised not to give you away.”

Harry and Mac were two fellow amateur stand-ups who I’d got to know quite well over the last three months. It was nice to know they were happy to keep the deception going.

“Sit down and I’ll get your wig off and remove your make-up,” Josie said, in her brisk, business-like fashion.

She took the wig stand out of the suitcase and put it on the desk. I stripped off my high heels, smock and tights. With me sitting in Lee’s office chair in just my shapewear, Josie unpinned my wig and put it on the stand. I pulled off the wig cap and tossed it in the suitcase. Then she smeared cold cream all over my face to remove the make-up. She wiped it all off with tissues and I went to wash my face. The office was often called upon to serve as a performer’s dressing room, so it had a little washbasin in the corner with a mirror over it.

“Thanks so much for doing all this, Josie,” I said, scrutinising my face for any remaining tell-tale signs of make-up. “How much do I owe you?”

“Don’t be silly,” she grinned. “It was a pleasure dolling you up.”

“Anyway, it seems to have been a success and I couldn’t have managed without you.” I dried my face on a none too clean hand towel.

“Too right, you couldn’t!” she said. She laughed. “I had a great time - really. Are you going to do it again?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Well don’t leave it too long. Daisy can’t get any less pregnant!”

That was a sobering thought. If I came back after Christmas, Daisy would have to be as big as a house! I’d have to have a miscarriage…

Josie helped me remove my padding and then left me to change my shapewear for boring men’s undies.

“Here are the car keys,” she said. “I’ll get you a drink in,” she said. “The usual? We’re at a table over in the corner by the fire exit.”

“Wait! My nails!” I called after her in panic.

She paused by the door.

“Yes, they’re very pretty, if I do say so myself. What about them?”

“I can’t go out there as Nick with red nail varnish on!”

“Well I didn’t bring any remover with me, so you’ll have to. Stick your hands in your pockets or something.” I looked at her, aghast. “Oh, don’t worry. It’s dark out there in the audience while the acts are on, and our table is right up against the wall. No one will notice.” She opened the office door. “Hurry up and get dressed,” she said, and left.

I remembered I had a pair of gloves in my coat pockets. It might look a bit odd to be wearing black leather gloves at the table, but that would be better than exposing my bright red nail varnish. I finished dressing and packed all Daisy’s things in the suitcase, which I put in the boot of their car. I came back in quietly, making my way over to their table around the outside of the room. The audience was mostly in the dark with the spotlights on the performer, so no one seemed to notice me sneaking in. I sat down and knocked back nearly half of my pint of cider in one draft. I nodded to Tom and Eddy. They grinned but were under instructions not to make a fuss congratulating me – Nick hadn’t been performing.

“You missed a great act tonight,” said Eddy, who clearly couldn’t resist saying something. “A little cracker called Daisy Duquesne – the crowd loved her.” He grinned like an idiot.

We stayed till eleven, when Open Mic Night officially finished. We were just getting up to go when two strangers approached. Josie waved to them and introduced us.

“Nick, this is Charlie Todd and Arthur Whitmore from LADS. You may remember I borrowed a pair of shoes from Arthur?”

Shit, I’d forgotten there were more people here who knew Daisy’s secret!

“Oh yes,” I said. “Many thanks for that. The shoes are in the boot of our car. I can get them for you now if we’re all heading out…?”

“No rush,” said Arthur. “I’m glad you were able to make good use of them.”

A smile appeared briefly on his face, then quickly vanished as though it had decided it had no business being there. He seemed a sad, almost melancholic fellow. It was hard to imagine him as the life and soul of the party, as the Pantomime Dame had to be.

“Well, we will definitely have to come to the Panto this year,” said Tom. “Then you can show Nick how it really should be done.”

“We’ll be glad to have you,” said Charlie. “I’ll make sure you get the best seats.”

“But the Dame is a very different act,” said Arthur, with a little more vivacity than he’d shown so far. “It’s important that everyone knows she’s really a man.” Charlie tried to shush him, but he was warming to his theme. “That’s part of the joke, you see – the most important part. Look at Arthur Askey and Les Dawson…”

“Arthur feels strongly about this,” Charlie interrupted, with a ‘Don’t get him started’ look of warning.

“I’d love to hear about that,” I said – truthfully. “Perhaps we can get together for a drink one night and you can tell me more about it?”

Arthur looked doubtful. Charlie grinned and raised his eyes to heaven behind Arthur’s back. We all went out to the car park together, talking about the evening’s triumphs and disasters.

 

Author's Note: As freely admitted, when it comes to telling jokes Nick and Daisy are plagiarists. The author therefore wishes to acknowledge the great comedians from whom their jokes have been, er, nicked: Victoria Wood, Jo Brand, Sarah Millican, Joan Rivers. My humble apologies to any I have failed to acknowledge.

After the Pantomime

By Susannah Donim

A spare time hobby slowly turns into a lifetime choice for Nick.

Chapter 3 – A Pantomime Dame

Nick is recruited for a very different kind of female role.

Back at the MyOwnCouture.com office on the Monday after my triumph as Daisy, we were ready to repeat the end-to-end test. All the required data was already in place in Vicky’s account, so we started from the point where we had left off the previous Thursday. This time when I clicked the animation icon, a model with Vicky’s face and figure strutted haughtily down the catwalk in the dress she had chosen. It was a beautiful powder blue with a floral pattern in a darker blue, bright red and white.

Animated Vicky moved like a fashion model – certainly not in a way that I had ever seen the real Vicky walk, though perhaps as she would have liked to. Her face was completely static, with a fixed and slightly spooky rictus on it.

“There is an extension to the software that would enable us to animate the face,” Vicky explained, “but we haven’t installed it yet. We wanted to make sure everything else was working first.”

“Fair enough,” said Mo, “but I think you’ll need to do that before we launch. She doesn’t look natural at all.”

“She looks scary,” added Mike. Vicky giggled.

“All right, all right,” said Ruth, impatiently. “Let’s move on. We need to know if the system will program the machines correctly. Click ‘OK’, Nick.”

I complied and a message came up saying, ‘Sending design to Manufacturing’.

“OK,” yelled Eddy excitedly, “down to the workshop, everyone!”

We all trooped out of the office and into the converted cowshed opposite. One of the machines was humming away.

“It can’t select the right cloth and load it yet,” Eddy explained. “We have to do that by hand.”

He stepped up to a monitor and keyboard. I peered over his shoulder. A message on the screen said, ‘Please load fabric 5-B. Please load dyes 17, 19 and 24’.

“We can only work with a small range of fabrics and colours at the moment,” Ruth explained. “5-B is the powder blue cotton Vicky selected. The dyes are for her floral pattern.”

Eddy and Mike loaded a bolt of 5-B in the machine’s rollers. Eddy went back to the monitor and clicked ‘OK’. The machine leapt into life. Soon it had cut the correct length of material into a shape that looked like it might make a dress when folded and sewn. It seemed a little wide to me, but then I remembered that Vicky had selected a ‘wrap dress’ design. Eventually the machine stopped. Air hissed out of somewhere like a self-satisfied sigh. Mike gathered up the left over scraps of material and dropped them in the recycling bin.

“It’s waiting for me to authorise spraying Vicky’s pattern on it,” Eddy explained. “I thought we should program a ‘wait step’ in here to check the alignment.”

“Good thing too,” said Ruth. “It’s a couple of degrees out, I’d say.”

There was a pause while she and Eddy argued. Mike went off to get some measuring instruments.

“Also, I think the material’s torn around the hem,” said Ruth.

“You’re right,” Eddy sighed. “That probably means the cutting blades need sharpening, or maybe the cloth wasn’t held with enough tension. Maybe both,” he admitted. “But these are just ‘tuning’ problems. I think we’ve proved that the basic process is operational.”

Mike was bending over the platen with a very large protractor.

“Three degrees out,” he confirmed. Eddy slowly turned a wheel under the table. “Little more… little more… that’s it,” Mike said.

“OK, now let’s do the pattern,” Eddy said, donning goggles and what looked like a surgical mask. “Stand back, everyone. We don’t have enough protective gear to go round.”

We all moved back hurriedly. He stepped up to the monitor and clicked the ‘OK’ icon again. A set of print heads descended from above and began spraying. Soon an intricate three-colour floral pattern began to appear on the material. When it finished and the machine had come to rest with another smug sigh, Eddy removed his goggles and mask.

“We might as well go and get a coffee now,” he said. “We need to leave it to dry for at least half an hour.”

“I thought it took several hours for dyes to dry?” said Vicky.

“That’s true if you’re dyeing the cloth all the way through,” said Ruth, “but we’re only spraying a design on using quick-drying paint. We need to do that to achieve the turnround times we’re aiming for. It just means that we have to warn customers that any dress with a pattern will be dry clean only.”

Mo made a note. It would be his job to add that message at the appropriate place.

“But it’s true that we will have to add an extra day to the manufacturing time if a customer requests any non-standard colour for the dress itself,” Ruth continued, “and we’ll have to charge extra to cover the staff costs. We’ll have to dye the cloth and wait overnight for it to dry.”

We trooped back up to the office. The others sat down to discuss the details of the test so far. As I had nothing to offer to that discussion, I volunteered to make the coffee.

When I returned with the tray and six coffees, Ruth said, “Thanks, Nick. Maybe we won’t need to recruit a secretary after all.”

Everyone else laughed. I didn’t think it was that funny. Ruth was smiling, seemingly friendly but with an air of challenge, as if to say ‘You may be the money man, but don’t doubt that I’m in charge’. Perhaps she was trying to compensate for showing me her vulnerability the previous Wednesday.

Smarting slightly, I decided not to join them back in the cowshed after the coffee break.

I went off to visit another of my ventures, the guys working on a hand-held device for detecting and monitoring blood glucose. This was intended as a non-invasive test to enable people with diabetes to check their glucose levels more easily. Reportedly some diabetics weren’t testing themselves regularly because they found the old finger stick testing painful.

It had long been thought that acetone is noticeably elevated in hyperglycaemia, and that there would be a direct correlation between low blood glucose and high levels of acetone in the breath. Recent research seemed to confirm this. Acetone is one of the ketones, and high levels can cause your breath to smell like nail polish, which of course contains acetone. When ketones rise to unsafe levels, you’re at risk of a dangerous condition called diabetic ketoacidosis, which could lead to complications including seizures, loss of consciousness, and even death.

I spent an inspiring afternoon with Gerry and Steve, two very bright young people whose work could rock the world. They reckoned they were close to a workable device. Their concerns were with the consistency of the correlation. In other words, how many patients with hyperglycaemia would the acetone breath test miss, and how many patients who didn’t have the condition would get a false positive reading? The only way to resolve this was by clinical trials. So we discussed approaching a leading hospital. If the trials were successful it would almost certainly lead to big injections of investment from more orthodox sources.

* * *

It was nearly seven o’clock when I got back to the Manor. Ruth was still in the office. I thought about just going straight home, but I was aware I had left in a bit of a huff and I was afraid I might have over-reacted. After all I had volunteered to make the coffee while the others were working. So I decided to go in and have it out with her while there was no one else about. When I reached the MyOwnCouture.com floor, her door was open.

“Oh, hello,” she said when she saw me in the doorway. “Where did you get to?”

“I had to go to a meeting with another venture,” I said. “How did the rest of the test go?”

“Quite well,” she said. “The stitching basically worked. Something like a dress came out at the end, but there were more alignment problems. Eddy and Mike think they know what they have to do to fix it though.”

She didn’t seem to have anything more to say. Apparently she hadn’t been fazed by my absence during the afternoon, and it clearly hadn’t occurred to her that I might have taken offence at her little secretary joke. I was just chewing over what to say next when I noticed something different about her. She had taken her hair out of the familiar schoolmarm bun. It now cascaded down to her shoulders. A couple of hair grips were keeping it out of her face.

“Look, Ruth, just so you know, I probably won’t be able to spend so much time here in future,” I continued. “My other commitments are building up.”

She looked startled and a little worried. She took off her glasses. Had she changed her make-up too? It looked a little bolder, more dramatic. Perhaps she was going out this evening? If so, who with? Eddy?

“Oh but…” she began. “I thought you wanted to be part of our team? I mean, we’ve come to rely on you… to look after our finances… and so on.”

“I've only been here, rather than at any of my other projects, because I live right next door. None of the others need accommodation, which is why you have exclusive use of the barn and cowshed, and I can drop in easily. But you don’t really need me, do you? And anyway there’s always been a bit of a conflict of interest, hasn’t there? After all, I’m one of your creditors.” Her face fell. “And you’ll just have to hire a proper secretary, won’t you? Someone who knows her way around a spreadsheet.” I paused. “And can make coffee.”

“Is that what this is about?” she said. “It was just a joke, for heaven’s sake!”

“But it’s symptomatic of your attitude, isn’t it? You boss everyone else around, so why not me too? I’m your partner – I mean, business partner, of course. I’m certainly not your minion!”

“Well, isn’t that just typical of your lot? You old money people have to be in charge of everything, don’t you? You can’t stand anyone else running the show, least of all a northern girl who went to a state school!”

I frowned. That was well out of order! I knew she had a chip on her shoulder from her background, and from how she had been treated by the conventional funding agencies, but it was obviously much worse than I’d thought. I seemed to have inadvertently kicked a hornets’ nest. The stress of building her new business must be getting on top of her. It couldn’t just be because I wasn’t going to be around as much.

“Ruth, I…”

I wanted to say something soothing to calm her down. I thought back to our heart to heart the previous week. How did I become the only person she could confide in? I considered inviting her to dinner again, but that didn’t seem like such a great idea.

Wait a moment – how did this suddenly come to be about her? She’d offended me, not the other way around! But her eyes were red and shiny. She was close to tears. I was the last person she needed at the moment.

“I’d better get out of your way, I think,” I sighed. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

I started down the stairs. I thought I heard soft sniffling from behind me, but at that moment a loud buzzing made me jump. At first I didn’t recognise the sound, but it was the doorbell downstairs. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard it before. Everyone who worked in the converted barn’s offices had their own key card.

“I’ll go,” I called out to Ruth, to give her a moment to compose herself.

It might not be for MyOwnCouture.com anyway, but who on earth would be calling here after seven o’clock at night? I raced down the stairs and swung the main office door open. Of all people, it was Charlie Todd, the man from LADS. He looked seriously agitated.

“Oh, thank God I’ve found you,” he said. “I called at the house and your father sent me over here.”

Dad must have seen my car outside the barn. I ushered Charlie in and led him over to the downstairs kitchen area where there were some armchairs. There might be no need to involve Ruth in the conversation. I offered him a drink but he started talking before we had even sat down.

“Arthur’s been in an accident,” he said. “Did we mention he was a van driver when we met at the Club…?”

“I don’t think so. Is he OK?”

“He’ll live. He was picking up some stuff for the Pantomime when he was in a pile-up on the M25. Definitely not his fault, but it was a horrible crash. The van caught fire – it was a write-off. Arthur got out OK but he has a broken leg.”

“Poor sod!” I sympathised but couldn’t see why Charlie had come to me. “What can I do?”

“Well it’s given us a massive problem. It’s only just over a month to First Night.”

“Oh, of course, and he’s the Dame, isn’t he?”

Charlie couldn’t be about to suggest… could he?

“So we need to find a stand-in – urgently. I thought of you.”

He could!

“Me? But what on earth makes you think I’m qualified?”

“Well, ideally the Dame has to be a male stand-up comedian. Someone able to tell jokes with confidence and good timing, and most importantly with stage presence. He especially needs to be able to engage with the audience, get them on his side. You know what I’m talking about; you’ve seen Pantos.”

“I understand all that, but it doesn’t sound like me.”

“Don’t be so modest! I’ve seen you a few times on Open Mic Night. You’re pretty good – for an amateur, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But the clincher for us was your performance as Daisy Duquesne,” Charlie insisted. “You had your female mannerisms down perfectly. You spoke like a woman and moved like a woman. To play Dame, you just have to do all that, but turned up to eleven. Arthur always says the Dame must be an exaggerated woman, but not a caricature. She must bring out all the recognised feminine behaviours and foibles, but not to make fun of them, to celebrate them. It’s a tricky balance.”

I was glad that Josie’s endless badgering on our practice nights at the pub and the restaurant had paid off and all the effort of making Daisy realistic had borne fruit, but this would be taking it all to another level. Could I do it? Did I want to? Of course, I did!

“I’ll do it…”

“Great!” he started.

“…provided Arthur makes himself available to coach me. Given how little time we have, that might be a full-time job. Presumably he won’t be able to drive for a while with a broken leg?”

“No, but he’s actually much more than just a van driver. It’s his family business – just him, his two sons and his son-in-law. They have about a dozen vans and small trucks. They provide courier services and self-drive vehicles. I imagine he thinks he’ll run the office for a while and hire a temporary driver when he needs one. We’ll have to ask him how much time he can give you.”

“What about the script?” I said. “I’ll have to start learning lines, won’t I?” Memories of school plays were coming back to me.

“I have one here.”

He handed over a spiral-bound A4 document with ‘Dick Whittington – Lavenden Amateur Dramatic Society Pantomime – Xmas 2018’ on the front cover.

“It’s original,” he said proudly, “the best one we’ve done, I think. Arthur wrote the script. I’m directing. You’ll be playing Sarah the Cook. Can you come down to the village hall tomorrow night to meet the rest of the cast and do some read-throughs? And I’m sorry, but you’d better assume that you’ll be busy most evenings and every weekend from now on.”

“So when is the show?”

“We open at the Victoria Little Theatre on Monday, the third of December. We do six evening performances and a matinee on the Saturday afternoon. LADS is the best-known amateur company in the county. People come from miles around to see us. We have a regular mailing list in the thousands. A professional Panto takes over after us and runs until about Twelfth Night. Every year we pride ourselves on being more popular than they are. We usually sell out – at least for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday, though of course a lot of the tickets go to our regular audience – the people who come to our other shows throughout the year – so it’s probably not a fair comparison.”

Quite a lot to live up to then. Had I bitten off more than I could chew?

“I’m surprised the theatre management allows two Pantos one after another.”

“Yes, I suppose it is a little odd, but we have a contract with them for four shows a year for the first week in March, June, September and December. As I say, we’re very popular. I was speaking to the manager of the professional company a little while ago – to make sure we weren’t both doing the same show. He reckons they sell more tickets by following us. A lot of the little ones enjoy our Panto so much they nag their parents into taking them to another one.”

I had another thought. The Dame wears lots of extravagant, not to say, silly dresses…

“What about costumes and so on? Arthur is a bit… bigger than me.”

By which I meant fatter. He wasn’t any taller, but he had significant middle-aged spread which I hadn’t started on yet.

“Ah, that brings me to the other reason I came to you. When he was in the accident, he’d been to collect his costumes from the dressmakers. They were all in the back of the van. We’ve lost the lot! When I was chatting to Eddy Devere the other night he mentioned that your new company can make dresses quickly?”

I nodded. I had wondered how Charlie and Eddy knew each other. Of course, they’d met at the Club on the night of Daisy’s debut, but I didn’t know they’d got talking.

“I don’t think money will be a problem, by the way,” Charlie went on. “They were designer dresses; all originals by Arthur and Polly, and he was well insured. He reckons the insurance company will have to cough up at least two grand. You can have the lot if you can help. Otherwise we’ll have to hire all your dresses and we never like to do that if we can avoid it. Our wardrobe department are very proud of their record for making all our costumes.”

Our first order – and for two thousand pounds! If we can do it… I mean if they can do it...

“I’d better bring Ruth, my business partner, in on this,” I said. “She’s upstairs in the office. I’ll get her.” I turned to go, then paused when I had an afterthought. “By the way, no need to mention Daisy Duquesne to her. I’d like to keep the circle of people who know about Daisy as small as possible. And for the moment please don’t tell her it’ll be me wearing these dresses either.”

“People are going to find out soon though, aren’t they? I mean that you’re taking over as Dame?”

“Granted, but I’m the major investor in this company and my relationship with Ruth has become a bit… iffy lately. I don’t need any more complications just at the moment.”

“Well that’s entirely your business, I suppose. She won’t hear about it from me.”

I called Ruth down. When she appeared at the top of the stairs she looked like she was gearing up for another fight, but then she saw we had company. Charlie explained about Arthur’s accident and the need to replace the Dame costumes. The three of us talked for half an hour or so, Ruth becoming more animated by the minute. Charlie promised to come into our office the next day with Arthur’s designs.

“Sorry, but I do have to make something very clear,” he added. “We need the basic dresses within two weeks or not at all, because our wardrobe team will still have lots to do to them, and of course we’ll need the costumes for the final rehearsals. If you can’t do it in that time, we’ll have to hire them in, and that will require at least a fortnight’s notice.” He coughed, apologetically. “And that would be expensive too. if we have to do that, we won’t be able to pay you for any work you’ve already done. Can you accept those terms?”

I looked at Ruth and shrugged. Finance was my part of the ship, but this would have to be her decision. Only she knew whether what Charlie was asking would be possible.

“Well… we can fabricate each dress in literally minutes with our system,” she said, “but it will take days to set the machines up for completely new designs, and the dyeing process may cause further delays if the colours are unusual or outlandish, as I assume they will be. Still, I think we can do it. I like a challenge!”

“OK then,” Charlie said. “I’ll see you tomorrow with the designs.”

“Have you found someone to replace poor Mr Whitmore, by the way?” Ruth asked.

“We do have someone in mind, yes,” Charlie replied, poker-faced.

“Well, we’ll need his measurements very soon – and of course he would need to be fully ‘padded up’ when you measure him, if you know what I mean.”

This woman knew her business inside out.

“Understood,” Charlie said. “I should be able to get it done tomorrow night. He’s coming down for a read-through. I’ll get our wardrobe mistress to come in too, and bring all the Dame’s padding and underwear with her.”

So that will be something else to look forward to.

* * *

“This is fantastic, Nick!” Ruth launched herself at me after I’d seen Charlie to his car. She was hugging the air out of my lungs, our earlier harsh words apparently forgotten. “Can we talk about pricing and so on? And maybe we should think about adding theatrical costumes to our range…”

“But we can still only make the basic dresses,” I pointed out.

Blast! I need to start saying ‘you’, rather than ‘we’. I don’t work for MyOwnCouture.com. I am not Ruth’s employee.

“Most of the Dame’s costumes will be much more elaborate,” I continued. “In fact, Polly Whitmore and her team will still have a lot of work to do after we’ve finished.”

“Well, maybe some of them would like to join up with us,” she mused. She started making her way back up to the office. “At the very least they could help us with additional designs for us to code up in our software – flounces, farthingales, corsets, shifts, petticoats, old-fashioned underwear like bloomers. We could even do period costumes for men…”

She trailed off when she saw I wasn’t following her upstairs.

“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

“It’s nearly half-past eight! I’m famished.”

“OK, let me get my coat. We can talk about it over dinner. Agnelli’s again? I’ll drive.”

* * *

And so I wound up dining with Ruth again. This time she was sober, and presumably would remain so as she had designated herself the driver.

“I think I had a little too much to drink last time,” she said brightly as we sat down. “I vaguely remember seeing some people we knew, but it’s all a bit hazy now…”

“Yes, Will and Emma Holford. I introduced you.”

“No, I’d never met Emma and I’d only seen Will a couple of times. I meant people I knew quite well.” She studied the menu. A waiter had appeared at her elbow. “I think I’ll have a spaghetti carbonara. What about you?”

“Are we just having one course?”

“You can have a starter if you like. I’m dieting.”

“Can’t imagine why,” I said, without thinking. I continued to scan my menu.

“Flatterer,” she said with a smile. “Can we have a bottle of the house red too, please?” she said to the waiter. I must have shown some concern. “It’s all right. I haven’t forgotten I’m driving. I’ll just have one glass.”

“Leaving five for me. Are you trying to get me drunk?”

“Well you got me drunk last time,” she said unfairly.

“I did not!”

“And you were a perfect sodding gentleman, weren’t you?”

Weirdly she didn’t sound entirely happy about that. I blushed and ordered. Her eyes were shining now; no trace of tears. She really was quite beautiful without the bun and glasses.

“A small spaghetti bolognaise to start, please, and a Pollo Ripieno to follow.”

While we were waiting for our food we discussed pricing structures for the costumes.

“We can charge extra to set up for non-standard styles, I suppose,” I said.

“And I doubt that Dame dresses will be amongst our standard styles,” Ruth added. “It’s not just that they’re probably very old-fashioned. Since they’re actually for a man, they won’t conform to women’s dress sizes. They’ll need to be thicker at the waist and wider at the shoulders than for a woman of the same height.”

“They will also have much higher necklines, for decency’s sake. A Dame doesn’t show her cleavage. She doesn’t show her knees either, let alone her thighs. Arthur has very fixed views about what’s acceptable for the Dame.”

“Oh you’ve met him, have you? You never said.”

Oops! I hastened to cover.

“I met him at the Club I sometimes go to with my brother and his wife. We chatted. That’s where I first met Charlie. Eddy was there too. He must have mentioned what we do… I mean, you do at MyOwnCouture.com.”

She didn’t comment on my slip. She was nodding. She seemed satisfied. I rushed on.

“Anyway, that definitely means you can bill them for a new set-up. You can charge more for each of the dresses too, for the same reason. You won’t be able to re-use anything you do for LADS – not until next year’s Panto anyway.”

Further discussion was interrupted when a vaguely familiar couple stepped up to our table.

“Hello, Ruth,” an elegantly-dressed older lady said. “Nice to see you again.”

“Oh, hi, Angela, Bill. How are you?”

“We’re fine. So this is becoming your regular eatery, is it? We saw you here last week. We didn’t stop for a chat as we saw you were… busy.”

By which she meant ‘pissed as a newt’. Nice, tactful lady.

Her husband stuck his hand out to me. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said, “Bill Cross. This is my wife, Angela.”

I stood up to shake his hand. Now I recognised them. They were the couple dining with the Holfords the last time we were at Agnelli’s. They were quite a bit older than Will and Emma, probably the same age as Eddy’s parents. Maybe Cross was a client of Will’s.

“Nick Rawlinson,” I introduced myself.

I was about to say more, but Ruth interrupted.

“Nick is the Finance Manager at the company I’m working for. I’m helping him to iron out the details of a new contract that came our way today.”

“Oh, congratulations,” Cross said. “But I thought you were just interning to learn the fashion business?”

Ruth hesitated. I realised the Crosses must be friends of Eddy’s parents.

“She is,” I said, “but we like our interns to do a stint in every department of the business. If she hopes to progress in the industry, she needs to understand the financial side too.”

Bill nodded, apparently satisfied. I felt Ruth relax a little.

“So where’s Eddy tonight?” asked Angela.

“Back at the flat, studying,” Ruth said. “So he doesn’t mind me working late.”

I was a little surprised at how glibly the barefaced lies were coming out. She had clearly had a lot of practice at concealing the nature of their relationship.

“Well do give him our love,” Angela said. “Have you set a date yet?”

“Not yet. We’ve both been working too hard,” Ruth said. “Next Spring, probably. You know what they say – ‘Ask for May, settle for June’.”

She gave a forced laugh. That expression was a new one on me. It looked like it was new to the Crosses too. They smiled and took their leave. Ruth was shaking.

“Shit!” she said, when she was sure they were out of earshot. “Thanks for helping me cover. They know Eddy’s parents. In fact, Angela and the Very Reverend Mother Devere are besties; they tell each other everything.”

I loved Ruth’s nickname for her prospective mother-in-law, the religious nutcase.

“This will get straight back to her now,” she said.

“What will?”

“That they’ve seen me dining out with a handsome man who’s not my fiancé – twice! It was them I recognised from last week.”

“Handsome, eh?”

“Well that’s probably what she’ll say.” She smiled briefly, then got serious again. “We’ll have to stop coming here – or anywhere actually. I hadn’t realised Bill and Angela lived nearby.”

“We could go somewhere else for our ‘evening business meetings’.”

“And if we happened to bump into them again somewhere else? They’d think we were changing our venue to hide from them! Then they’d really be suspicious.”

“I think you’re worrying too much.”

“You don’t know Eddy’s parents,” she reminded me.

We finished the meal in a more subdued mood. Ruth insisted on paying. I asked the waiter to find a cork for the still half full bottle.

“We can finish this at my place, or your place,” I suggested hopefully.

“You’re an optimist, aren’t you, posh boy?” she said.

But she drove us straight back to their flat. Eddy was out as usual and we had the place to ourselves.

She fetched two glasses and gave them to me to pour the wine. While I was doing that, she vanished into her bedroom. When she returned she was no longer wearing her office attire, but something… less formal; in fact, generally… less. It was pink, thin, diaphanous, and short. Her office attire was by no means frumpy, but this was the first time I had really seen her figure clearly. And it was a delicious sight. She was clearly ready for bed. I couldn’t help but stare. I might have licked my lips.

“So you finally took the hint then?” she said, clearly pleased at my reaction. “I was beginning to think there might be something wrong with you – or me.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well I’d hoped you might have realised what was required when I poured out my soul in the office last week.” She reached for her glass.

“You were drunk.”

“I was capable.”

“You really weren’t; but even if you were, I wouldn’t have taken advantage.”

“Good for you,” she said, unimpressed by my gallantry, “but I’m not drunk now.”

“You’re certainly getting there.”

“Come on. Help me celebrate our first big order.”

She reached for my trousers and started undoing my belt.

“OK, you talked me into it, but Eddy might return at any minute. Hadn’t we better go in your bedroom?”

And we did. And it was wonderful. Ruth was a tigress in bed. First she insisted on being on top, impaling herself on me and rising and falling like a piston engine. After her first orgasm, which came quickly and while I was still unfinished, she only put up token resistance when I flipped her over. Judging by her pants and gasps, she enjoyed a little assertive handling, although I accept that her noises were capable of alternative interpretations. Whatever the explanation, this led to a second climax for her and mutual satisfaction. She took charge again then and worked hard to restore me. Then the cycle repeated itself. It seemed that we spent most of the time rotating and play-fighting for dominance.

Afterwards she snuggled down and pushed her head into the soft part of my shoulder. Her hair tickled my nose. I tried to blow it away without success.

“That was really good! You did well… for a posh boy,” she said, yawning. “No wonder they restored Wrestling to the Olympics.”

“Let’s call it a draw, shall we?” I muttered, lying back, totally exhausted.

But there was no reply. She had gone to sleep, snoring gently. She was lying on my arm, which was starting to lose all feeling. And her hair was still tickling my nose.

* * *

We had left my car at the office so Ruth had to give me a lift back in the morning. By mutual consent we got in earlier than usual so that no one saw us arriving together. I sneaked back to the Manor House for breakfast and a change of clothes, avoiding a ‘Walk of Shame’.

Charlie came in early with all of the Dame’s dress designs. We explained to everyone what had happened to poor Arthur and how we hoped to help in replacing the lost costumes. We laid the drawings out on the kitchen table downstairs and gathered round to consider them. There was a long silence, and much sucking of cheeks and long, drawn-out sighs.

“They’re rather… ornate, aren’t they?” Vicky said, after a while.

“Yes,” said Ruth, “we’re really not ready to do all these frills and flounces and patches. We can only do the basic dresses, and even then I think we’ll probably have to add a couple of new styles to our portfolio. Those big bell-shaped skirts – they’re rather old-fashioned, you know.”

“Well, they’re comedy theatrical costumes,” I said. “No modern woman would be seen dead in any of them, except maybe at a fancy-dress party.”

“Most of them use at least two different colours of material, some three or four,” said Eddy. “We can certainly put two different cloths together in the fabrication process, but we might have to limit it to two to get everything done in the time.”

“And the colours… they’re so garish,” Ruth added. “We may not be able to get them off-the-shelf, which means lots of dyeing.”

“You don’t have to stick to the colours in Arthur’s designs,” said Charlie, “as long as they’re bright and… I don’t know… vulgar. For example, that day dress; if you can’t get blue gingham material then any gingham would probably do.”

“We’d better ring round the suppliers,” said Ruth. “Can you put us in touch with the original dressmakers? They might be able to tell us where they got the fabrics?”

Charlie nodded.

“But if we have to do lots of dyeing, we can be doing that at the same time as you’re programming the styles and setting up the machines, can’t we?” I said.

Ruth nodded.

“They’ll all need petticoats, won’t they?” said Vicky. “Or maybe a hoop? To make the skirts bell out.”

“That’s not a problem,” said Charlie. “We have loads of that sort of stuff from previous years – petticoats; crinolines; silly-coloured striped tights; wigs; hats; and so on. If you can just make the basic dresses to fit… er, the actor, we have a team of ladies standing by to sew on all the decorations and add the required padding.”

“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” said Ruth.

“You’ll need to give them some of the material you use so that their additions can match the basic dresses. Arthur’s wife, Polly, is our wardrobe mistress,” Charlie said. “She loves dressing him up every year. Sometimes I think he only does it for her. She’s so disappointed he can’t appear this Christmas.”

He chuckled. Ruth gave him a strange look. She must have been thinking that Polly was weird.

“OK,” she said, “let’s see what new styles we’re going to need.”

“We’d better get Arthur over here as soon as he’s feeling more mobile,” said Charlie. “He’ll have to describe all the details of when each costume will be worn and what the Dame has to be able to do in it, but I think I can give you the gist. There are six costumes in all: Sarah’s day dress, which she appears in for the first couple of scenes. Then there’s her cook’s costume for the slapstick kitchen scene. We may need two of those because it will get covered in flour and cream. It’s mostly Crazy Foam, but the dress may still need to be laundered before it can be worn again. She wears her third outfit in the bedroom scene, so that’s a nightie. Her boudoir gets overrun by rats, so she’ll be squealing and jumping up on the furniture.

“Then in Act Two, her fourth costume is a girly sailor suit, as the action takes place on board ship. Then she has another day dress when she’s shopping at the market in Morocco. Oh, that one will need Velcro all the way down the back as it gets ripped off in the action, leaving her in her underwear. Should be very funny. The last outfit is a ball gown for the finale. That will be really fancy.”

Ruth and Vicky had been scribbling as Charlie spoke. They compared notes briefly.

“OK, we can base the ball gown on our mermaid dress and the nightie on our maxi dress – or maybe on a baby doll?” Ruth suggested. “I know that’s not what Arthur designed, but it might be funnier – if your replacement actor could get away with it.”

Charlie grinned at me. “Actually I think he’d look great in a baby doll nightie,” he said. “He’s slimmer than Arthur.”

I couldn’t see Arthur going for that. It wouldn’t fit with his view of the Dame always being chastely covered up. Also, I realised, I’d have to shave my legs!

“OK, will you check that idea with him?” Ruth said. “For all the other dresses I think we need to come up with a new style design: mutton-chop long sleeves, mid-calf length, full skirt suitable for a petticoat, I think. Come to think of it, that sounds a bit like a modern Lolita dress, but longer, of course.”

Ruth had done courses in both historical and theatrical dress, I remembered. She was in her element here. LADS should call on her services for all their productions.

“What about neckline?” she added.

“It’ll have to be high for all her dresses,” Charlie said. “It would be great to have a low-cut dress with her big false boobies bulging out…” He winked at me, which I hoped no one else saw. “…but this is a Panto. It’s for kids.”

That was a relief. I wanted to be a Pantomime Dame, not a sex doll.

Knowing that the team would be busy all day with dress design, software, adjusting machinery, and ordering material, I saw Charlie out. It was a little before eleven o’clock.

“Are you free now, by any chance?” he asked.

“Actually, yes,” I said. “I have no meetings today. I should probably check back in with Ruth later on. We need to discuss how much we’ll be charging you. But I could just phone her. What did you have in mind?”

“Well, Arthur called me to say they’re discharging him from hospital this morning. We could go round there; give him our best wishes; and maybe make a start on your training, if he feels up to it.”

* * *

“I was very lucky, according to the paramedics,” Arthur told us in his inimitable lugubrious manner, trying unsuccessfully to scratch his leg in its plaster cast.

We were in the sitting room of his house, which was in the most fashionable part of town and very smart for a van driver. But then Arthur was much more than that. He was a self-made man and owner of a successful transport business. Apparently he just liked driving the vans himself.

“I was in the middle lane when there was a pile-up in the outside lane up ahead,” he told us. “A car that was overtaking me tried to stop when it saw the blockage but it skidded sideways into me. The van finished up on its side. I managed to get my seatbelt off and pushed the driver’s side door open. Then I climbed out and slid down to the ground. Cars were screeching to a halt and crashing into each other all around. I’m not really sure what happened after that. I think something hit me a glancing blow; another car, I think. I just remember a lot of pain in my leg and a blast of heat behind me, which was presumably the van catching fire. I must have crawled far enough away to avoid getting burned. I think I passed out. The next thing I remember was being in the ambulance.”

“Wow! Sounds like you were really lucky,” Charlie sympathised. “I’m surprised they let you out of hospital so soon.”

At that point Polly came in with some tea and biscuits on a large tray.

“The hospital was brilliant,” she said. “They set his leg quite quickly. Fortunately it was a clean break and he didn’t need an operation. He was only there for about forty-eight hours. There were a lot of people from the pile-up who were in much worse shape, so they needed the beds. Anyway they’d probably had enough of him by then. He’s not an easy patient, as I’ve had plenty of opportunity to learn over the years.”

All of us except Arthur smiled. Polly was a motherly sort of lady, plump but still pretty. She looked quite a bit younger than her husband but they were probably both in their early fifties. She put the tray down on a small table next to the wheelchair and started pouring and handing out cups of tea.

“So how long do they think you’ll be laid up?” Charlie asked.

“It’s only a minor fracture of the fibula, they said, but it will probably be six to eight weeks before I can put any weight on it. It doesn’t really hurt much, but that may be the painkillers I’m on. I’ll need to learn to use the crutches to be independently mobile, but the doc said not to rush things, to stick to the wheelchair for the moment.”

“So that means I’ll be wheeling him everywhere,” Polly sighed, handing round Jaffa cakes and chocolate digestives. “Good thing I can drive all his vans. One of them is a people carrier with a little lift at the back for a wheelchair. We’re often called out to take disabled folk around.”

“It’s very kind of you to come and see me,” said Arthur, with no sign of either gratitude or pleasure, “but you obviously want something. What can I do for you?”

“It’s about the Panto,” Charlie said. “I’ve asked Nick to play Sarah as you’re unavailable.”

“Like Hell!” Arthur protested. “I’ll be OK by then!”

“Don’t be so damn silly, you old fool!” Polly shouted. “It’s less than five weeks off! You can’t play Dame in a wheelchair or on crutches. It’s an active part! You have to run about, throw stuff, climb on things.”

Arthur looked like he was going to protest again, but Polly thundered on.

“And even if you made a miraculous recovery, what about rehearsals? You can’t rehearse with a broken leg!”

Arthur looked like he was going to say more. He drew a deep breath, paused, and let it out again.

“I’m really sorry, Arthur,” Charlie said. “Polly’s right – and the committee wouldn’t wear it anyway. There’s Health and Safety to consider. As she said, it’s a role with lots of action. We have to have insurance and we wouldn’t be covered if we let you do it so soon after a serious injury.”

Arthur, never the most cheerful-looking soul, looked especially downcast now.

“There’s always next year,” Charlie added.

“This was going to be my last year,” he said ruefully. “I was thinking five times in a row is enough. I only agreed to do it this time because I knew LADS didn’t have anyone else.”

The three of us let out a collective sigh of relief. He was going to be sensible after all.

“But that doesn’t mean I want to see it ruined,” he said, his eyes flashing. “What makes you think he can do it?”

“Come on, mate, you saw him doing his stand-up as Daisy Duquesne, just as I did. He’ll be good.”

“That was being a female impersonator, not a Pantomime Dame. It’s completely different! Yes, you will be wearing frocks with padding to give you a female figure, but you won’t be pretending to be a woman for real…”

He was drawing breath to say much more, but I thought it was time I contributed to the debate.

“I only agreed to step in as Dame if you were available to coach me,” I said. “Charlie thinks I can do the feminine mannerisms and movements OK, and I’m not scared of telling bad jokes in front of an audience, but I’m well aware that isn’t enough. You said as much after my stand-up as Daisy. I was hoping to meet up with you to learn more.”

“Aye… well…” Arthur began.

I was aware that Charlie was starting to relax, and Polly was smiling quietly to herself. She was sitting at Arthur’s side and gave me a little ‘thumbs up’ sign which he couldn’t have seen.

“Well, if you’re going to do it my way – or even if you aren’t – you need to understand about Pantomime. The background and why that’s important…”

“Oh, you’re not going to give him your lecture, are you?” grumbled Polly.

“I certainly am. Most people know nothing about the Pantomime tradition.” He looked at me enquiringly. I shuffled my feet a little and shrugged. “Even if he doesn’t take my advice, he needs to understand what he’s signing up to be part of.”

“Well, Charlie and I have heard it all a dozen times before, and I’m sure it won’t be any less boring the thirteenth time,” she said. “Come on, Charlie, you can help me with sorting out the accessories. I’ve been laying everything out upstairs in my sewing room.”

They left. Arthur waved me to a seat. I tried to look interested.

“Let’s start with the obvious,” he began. “Not a lot of people know this, but Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theatre. It partly comes from the 16th Century Italian Commedia Dell’arte tradition; and partly from other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th Century masques and music hall. The modern Pantomime is an English invention for the Christmas and New Year season, a jolly musical comedy designed for family entertainment. It has nothing to do with miming. It includes songs, gags, slapstick and dancing.”

“There are usually two cross-dressing parts: the Dame, played by a man, and the Principal Boy, played by a girl, who is often the hero. The show combines topical humour with a story based on a well-known fairy story or folk tale. It always involves audience participation. They’re expected to sing along and shout out when asked to by the performers, especially the Dame and the lead comic, who often form a double act, bouncing corny jokes off each other. In Dick Whittington they are Idle Jack and Sarah the Cook. Also there’s often a scene when children from the audience are invited up on stage to play games and win prizes.

“For me the Dame is the most important character in Pantomime. All the legends of British comedy have played her – Terry Scott, Stanley Baxter, Les Dawson, John Inman, Roy Hudd, Ronnie Corbett – even Paul Merton. The Dame is a continuation of the travesti – portrayal of female characters by male actors in drag.

“The Dame must be very clearly a man in a dress but shouldn’t be grotesque, in my opinion, though there are plenty who would disagree. The actor must emanate femininity and a strong maternal instinct, while continually delivering broad innuendo without coming across as dirty. Good Dames can pitch their lines to push the boundary of good taste but without ever being crude. The role requires the timing and delivery of a good stand-up comedian. Doing all this well is one of the most challenging roles in all theatre.

“It looks simple if it’s done well, but it’s actually really complex. If you overdo it, the Dame can become vulgar and even frightening to the little ones. She must always be warm and comforting. But she must also be played ‘big’; if she is too soft, the performance will fall flat. Like all theatre, it only works if the audience can ‘suspend their disbelief’ and fully invest in the story and the characters. The Dame is continually ‘breaking the fourth wall’, and forms a link between the audience and the action on stage. Sometimes she is involved in the comedy, and sometimes she is commenting on it.

“Dames are usually older, matronly women; maybe the protagonist’s mother, a cook, or a nursemaid. They’re usually warm and sympathetic characters, but they may be comedy baddies like the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella. Dames always wear heavy make-up and big hair; they have exaggerated physical features; and often ridiculous appendages to their costumes, like the cook might wear a huge silly hat, or a pair of saucepans over her false boobs. That’s what I mean by ‘vulgar’. Personally I think that kind of thing is stupid, and often a bit sordid, but I know some people like it.

“These days there are two main styles for Dames: either camp like Danny La Rue and Paul O’Grady, glamorous and extravagant; or the ‘man in a frock’ style, where the Dame makes no pretence at femininity. Some Dames are essentially just clowns; you know – white face make-up, silly noses, and so on. I don’t think that works at all. It throws the whole show off balance if one character is clowning when everyone else is acting. John Inman was one of my favourites; he was neither a drag act like La Rue nor a vulgar clown. He was camp, and feminine, but he always pitched it just right.

“But I come back to the key point: the audience must know that the Dame is a man. One of the most famous Dames, Arthur Askey, insisted on that. He wore only basic stage make-up, and a very fake wig. He kept his own trademark thick-rimmed glasses. He made no attempt to change his voice, mannerisms or persona.

“So it’s up to the individual actor to decide where he will pitch his performance between these extremes. Many comedians try to appear like glamorous women, but with no attempt to be feminine. That’s not my style; but then some of us have no real choice and have to go the Arthur Askey route.”

He paused for breath. I knew most of what he’d told me, but it hadn’t occurred to me I would have to make a decision regarding what kind of Dame I wanted to be. I was chewing that over when he continued.

“Of course, you could definitely be the glamorous type of Dame,” he said, looking at me thoughtfully.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, Daisy Duquesne wasn’t any sort of Pantomime Dame, was she? She was a convincing woman - completely convincing from a distance. OK, maybe you wouldn’t have been able to fool anyone close up in a brightly lit room…”

I thought about being Daisy at the pub and in the restaurant the night before her debut. There might have been some tell-tale signs but no one had even given me a funny look. People see what they expect to see, I guess.

“… but I don’t think it even occurred to anyone in the audience that she might have been a man. I certainly didn’t hear anything like that, and I was there for a good hour after your turn. Lots of people were complimentary about her, and said how great it was that the Club had finally persuaded a woman to perform.”

That was good to hear, I suppose.

“But of course Sarah the Cook will have to be completely different, wherever you decide to place her on ‘the Dame spectrum’.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because, as I said, everyone has to know that the Dame is a man,” he said, with clear signs of irritation. “It’s an essential part of the tradition. The Dame can’t be played by a woman. That’s not Panto!”

I knew Arthur felt strongly about this; he was a ‘Panto purist’, and I was beginning to understand his thinking. Anyway he was quite right about my performance, if for the wrong reason. If I wanted to maintain my secret identity as Daisy, it would be important that everyone saw Sarah the Cook being played by local boy, Nick Rawlinson. She shouldn’t remind anyone of occasional stand-up comedienne, Daisy Duquesne. Ruth was bound to find out about Nick playing the Dame in the local Panto. I didn’t want her to find out about Daisy too.

Why was I thinking about Ruth?

“Of course, one could argue that the Dame is just another device for men to attack women,” I suggested.

“What? How so?” he asked angrily.

Fair enough. I was being deliberately provocative, to see just how far he had thought all this through. I plunged on.

“Well, it’s a man making fun of female weaknesses, vanities and foibles, isn’t it? Or at least male-perceived notions of them. It’s actually quite cruel, or at the very least offensive, but the comedian gets away with it by pretending to be one of the weaker sex himself. His silly dresses and wigs soften the blow, as it were.”

“I can see how you might think that,” Arthur admitted, “but it’s all in the delivery. A bad Dame might come across as simply malicious, but the jokes are supposed to come from love and respect. Don’t forget: the Pantomime tradition long pre-dates modern feminism. It’s a man saying, ‘We know that throughout the ages our womenfolk have always had the worst of it in life. We understand that; we admire your strength and determination; and we love you for it. The Dame is homage, not contempt.”

He was passionate and convincing, the most eloquent van driver I had ever met. I only hoped I could live up to this. He was waiting for my reaction.

“OK, I get it,” I said. “I want to do it like that. My Dame won’t be a caricature. No silly contraptions on my bosom, no silly hats, no rude props. I’d like to pitch it somewhere in the middle though – not Danny La Rue, but not Les Dawson either.”

“Right, then. I suggest that you and I spend the day going through the script so you’ll be ready for the read-through tonight. But first, you’d better go and get Polly so she can start putting your look together.”

* * *

After a nice sandwich lunch I sat in front of the dressing table in the Whitmores’ back room. She explained that this was actually the master bedroom – I had noticed this because it had an en suite – but she had taken it over for the LADS costume store. She and Arthur slept in the biggest guest bedroom.

She certainly needed the space in here, because the room was stacked from ceiling to floor with large, flat boxes marked with the names of shows LADS had done. Presumably they contained costumes. Reading the sides of the boxes in the mirror I was able to make out Annie, The Happiest Days of Your Life, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Camelot. There were also a lot of costumes and accessories loose on the bed and draped on top of more boxes.

There was a desk with two sewing machines against the far wall. A peg board above it was covered in fabric swatches and coloured pencil sketches of the characters from Dick Whittington: Puss; Idle Jack; Alderman Fitzwarren; Alice, his daughter; King Rat, the villain; and Dick himself, the Principal Boy. The sketches for Sarah the Cook were at MyOwnCouture.com, of course.

I saw a mob cap and a very frilly bib apron. Presumably these were for the Panto and I would be wearing them.

Polly stretched a wig cap over my head and tucked my loose hair in. Then she tried various wigs on me.

“Your first costume will be a yellow, mid-calf-length day dress with multi-coloured polka dots, and with a matching bow for your hair.”

She reached for one of the swatches on the peg board. It was very bright. This would not be a costume for a shy person. It would also not be a standard colour.

“I think ginger blonde curls would work best with these colours,” she said, pulling just such a wig on me. “You’ll need another one for the ball scene at the end. That’ll be in a more elaborate ‘up do’.”

She fiddled around with the wig, combing, brushing and spraying. It seemed to be a good, tight fit and didn’t slide around when I shook my head. Presumably there was some adhesive effect between the lining and my cap. Polly held the yellow spotted swatch up against my hair, next to my face. She tutted.

“Do you mind if we try out some make-up designs?” she asked. “I’m in charge of make-up as well,” she explained, “and it’s really the only way I can be sure that the colours of the dress and wig will work together.”

“In for a penny,” I grinned. Then a thought occurred. “By the way, do you know about Daisy Duquesne?”

“Arthur mentioned that he saw you doing your stand-up drag act,” she confirmed. “Wasn’t that what convinced Charlie that you could play the Dame?”

“Yes, but it didn’t actually end up as a drag act. I was too convincing. No one realised I was a man. So in the end we didn’t let on.”

She looked at me quizzically. She put her hand under my chin and lifted my head, turning my face from side to side.

“Yes, I can see that,” she said. “You have good bone structure, quite a round face, and no pronouncedly masculine features, not even much of an Adam’s Apple. With the right hair and make-up you could easily pass as a woman.”

“Right,” I admitted, glumly, “but I don’t want Sarah to pass as a woman, and I definitely don’t want her to look anything like Daisy. People will have to know that Nick Rawlinson is playing Sarah the Cook, but no one should know I’m also Daisy.”

“I get it.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t suppose you have any pictures of Daisy?”

“My sister-in-law does. She helped me with my disguise. Well, she did it all actually. I’ll text her.”

Five minutes later Polly was studying Josie’s pictures on my phone.

“Wow, you were quite pretty, weren’t you?”

She laughed at my embarrassment. Then she studied one of the pictures more closely.

“Was Daisy pregnant?” she said, incredulously.

I nodded. “Josie’s idea. The baby bump concealed any… masculine swelling down there. It also meant I could work in some pregnancy jokes. They went down very well, actually.”

Polly laughed. “I can imagine,” she said. “OK, to make Sarah completely different I think she will have to be what Arthur calls a ‘Glamour Dame’. You’ll need over-the-top make-up, some false eyelashes…”

“Oh, I hate those things!”

Polly looked at me. She didn’t say anything but she was obviously wondering when I’d had the experience of wearing false eyelashes. She could see I hadn’t worn them as Daisy.

“They’ll be essential, I’m afraid,” she said firmly. “I might give you a slight comic up-turned nose too. Not the full Cyrano de Bergerac, but something to draw the attention away from your other features. Don’t worry; when I’ve finished with you, no one will connect middle-aged, mumsy Sarah the Cook with pretty young Daisy Duquesne.”

She gave me a red smock to protect my T-shirt and worked on my face for about half an hour. She worked quickly and was clearly a true make-up artist. I wondered if she had ever been a professional. She was chatty and good company, with a fund of stories about LADS productions over the years, and Arthur’s experience as Dame.

“Actually, I love that Arthur lets his feminine side out every year,” she said. She lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Quite honestly, I wouldn’t mind if he did it more often, or even all the time.” She giggled. “When he’s in drag he’s kinder, softer, more thoughtful. He seems happier too. You’ve probably already noticed what a bloody misery he can be.”

“Well he has got a broken leg,” I pointed out. “That’s probably getting him down a bit.”

“Also seeing him in lingerie at bedtime really gets my motor running,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. I wondered if she was just talking about what Arthur wore at Panto season. “You should try it with your young lady,” she added, with a wink.

Well that wasn’t going to happen, even if I had a young lady, which I didn’t. Ruth didn’t count, obviously. That was a one-night stand, apparently.

As threatened, Polly glued false eyelashes to my eyelids. Then she smeared my eyes with mascara; disguised my eyebrows with thick black lines of eyebrow pencil; and applied a light blue eyeshadow to my eyelids. She covered my face with a thick foundation, then tried different blends of lipstick and rouge for my cheeks, rubbing it all off with tissues and cold cream and trying other combinations before eventually declaring herself satisfied.

I examined my new self in the mirror. The bright ginger wig and outlandish make-up shouted ‘Pantomime Dame’ loudly, and I looked nothing like Daisy Duquesne. In fact, I looked a bit like my mother. Come to think of it, Daisy had looked a little like her too, or at least like pictures of her from when she was young.

Polly fastened a tight necklace of big red balls round my neck and gave me a pair of white gloves to wear. Then she cut a strip of material to make a ribbon which she tied in a bow in my wig. She draped the rest of the swatch around my shoulders to approximate what the dress, wig and make-up combination would look like.

“OK, pull some faces, and let’s see the effect.”

“What faces?” I asked, puzzled.

“Dame faces,” she said. “Arthur says that the Dame is the audience’s representative on stage. They should be seeing the story through her eyes. So she’s always responding to what’s going on around her with some big, over-the-top emotion – surprise, outrage, shock, horror. Her reactions are supposed to draw the audience in, get them excited. So can you strike some poses? You may need to stand up.”

“Oh, OK. How’s this?”

I clapped my gloved hand to my cheek, opened my eyes wide, and made a big round ‘O’ with my lipsticked mouth. This was fun! I was going to enjoy being Sarah the Cook. I couldn’t wait to get my proper costumes.

“Yes, I think that works well,” Polly said. “Let’s go and show Arthur and Charlie.”

As we left the room I caught my reflection in the wardrobe mirror. From the neck up I looked like a cross between a MILF, my mother, and a lady of a certain age who hadn’t learnt that ‘a little cosmetic assistance’ could easily become too bloody much.

After Arthur and Charlie had declared themselves satisfied, Polly and I returned to the back bedroom to try out what I now knew to call my shapewear. This was urgent as MyOwnCouture.com needed Sarah’s vital statistics to make my dresses.

Polly was rummaging in a cupboard and found the box she was looking for.

“This is a 42D theatrical padded bra,” she said, waving a pink and blue floral object at me. “The padding is springy, so you can manipulate it through your dress and it will bounce around in an amusing fashion. That always makes the men squirm and the women laugh their heads off, for some reason. The joke is a little ribald but it goes over the kids’ heads, so it’s OK.”

“Isn’t it a little pointless making it so colourful, when it’s worn underneath?”

“Well some Dames like to strip to their bra and knickers in the bedroom scene before they put on their nightie. Arthur did it once, but never again after I made him shave his chest.” She chuckled.

“Anyway this bra is just full enough that no one can tell you haven’t got any real cleavage, as long as you only expose it briefly – which is half the point of the joke. I don’t know what Charlie has in mind for the scene, but he warned me to use a bra like this, just in case. Arthur’s a little taller than you and much thicker in the waist, but I reckon you’re about the same around the chest and shoulders, so this should fit. Here, strip off and let’s slip it on.”

I hesitated for just long enough for Polly to sneer at my modesty.

“Come on, Nick, I’m going to be familiar with every nook and cranny of your body eventually. You realise I’ll be your dresser and personal make-up artist during the show?”

“Really?” I said, stripping down to my underpants.

“Yes, most of the dressing rooms at the Victoria Theatre are communal, but you’ll get one to yourself, because the Dame is the only character with multiple costume changes. Some of them will need to be very quick, so you’ll need someone to help you change. You and I will set up camp in the star’s dressing room. And you’ll spend most of your time in there in your underwear; that is, bra, girdle and knickers. Talking of which…”

She thrust the bra’s shoulder straps over my arms and stepped behind me to fasten it. It fitted well, as she had predicted, but it was huge. I couldn’t see over it at all. How was I going to run around when I couldn’t see my feet? It also got in the way of any upper body movement, including swinging my arms.

It was most comfortable to fold them underneath my new bust in what I immediately realised was a typically feminine stance, especially for middle-aged ladies with large breasts. Which explained that, I suppose. I’d always wondered.

“I would have expected them to be much heavier,” I said. “Josie used upholstery foam for Daisy’s boobs, which were smaller, but I’m sure these are lighter than they were.”

“They’re deliberately made of lightweight, elastic material, so they can bounce around without slowing you down. I’m sure you realise that real breasts are much, much heavier than those. Or maybe you don’t?” she asked slyly. “Have you had the opportunity to test the real thing much?”

“A gentleman never tells,” I said, primly.

She laughed, and returned to her rummaging in the cupboard.

“Theatrical costumiers don’t seem to make the equivalent padding for your hips and bum,” she called over her shoulder. “They seem to assume that it will all be sewn into the dresses, but that’s a lot of work, so our Dame has always worn a standard, off-the-shelf girdle, which we pad out to the shape we want. I think I’ve got an old one of Arthur’s from when he was younger and slimmer. Sadly, we’ve been able to economise on the padding in recent years…” She smiled ruefully. “Ah, here it is!”

She thrust what looked like an old-fashioned Playtex girdle (like my grandmother used to wear?) into my hand. It was a little grey and worn, and the elastic round the waist and leg openings was stretched out. Polly saw me regarding it dubiously.

“Don’t worry, it’s perfectly clean. I’m meticulous about that when I put my costumes away. Just for today I’ll let you put it on over your own underpants, but in future you’ll be wearing big old-fashioned bloomers under it. They’ll all be new and you’ll have a clean pair each time.”

“Is that because of having to strip down to my lingerie again?”

“That’s it,” she confirmed. “Even if that doesn’t happen in the bedroom when you’re surrounded by rat kids, it will happen in the scene when the Alderman accidentally tears your dress off.”

She helped me wriggle into my girdle. It had a lot of padding with only a small amount of space for me inside and it was quite a struggle pulling it up as far as my waist. When we’d finally managed it, I had a bulbous lower half that perfectly matched my voluptuous upper half.

“I’ll have to order you a new girdle, I think – bet no one’s said that to you before!” she giggled. “I don’t think that one will last. It looks like the elastic’s perished. It was subjected to a lot of stress in Mother Goose five years ago, and it’s been in storage ever since.”

She went over to her workbench and took a measuring tape out of one of the drawers.

“OK, I’ll take all your measurements for you to give to your team.”

When she’d finished, I took a photo of her notes on my phone to give to Ruth. Polly opened the wardrobe and pulled out a brightly-coloured dress on a hanger.

“Why don’t you put on one of Arthur’s old Dame costumes? With your padding, you’re nearly the same shape as he was, so you’ll be able to see the full effect – wig, padding and frock.”

Without giving me the chance to think about it, much less object, I found that she was zipping me into a dress Arthur wore as Dame Trott, the hero’s mother in Jack and the Beanstalk.

“It’s a bit loose in places, where Arthur is broader than you are,” she said. “Otherwise it’s not a bad fit. Let’s go and show the others.”

So we trooped back downstairs. I was required to mince around the living room in my best Dame manner. Charlie was delighted and even Arthur managed a slightly frosty smile, though he sucked his teeth at some of my over-feminine and un-Dame-like moves.

“He still looks more like a real woman than a Dame,” he grumbled.

Eventually Polly called a halt.

“I need to go. I’m meeting up with my team to talk about what we have to do to the basic dresses your people will be making, and who’s going to do what. I’ll see you later at the rehearsal room.”

“Wait!” I cried. “You can’t leave me like this!”

She laughed.

After the Pantomime

By Susannah Donim

A spare time hobby slowly turns into a lifetime choice for Nick.

Chapter 4 - Rehearsals

Nick learns to be a Dame.

I persuaded Polly to remove the dress, wig, jewellery, and especially the greasepaint, before she went out to meet with her fellow LADS seamstresses. I spent the rest of the afternoon going through the script with Arthur. I had to admit he was very good. He knew exactly how to make the most of every funny line and how to milk the response. He warned me of what could go wrong in the frequent audience participation sequences and how to handle it when it did. He offered situation-appropriate replies to any heckles and suitable put-downs for any smart-aleck kids who might try and disrupt the children’s games.

“You’re a man!”

“Wish I could say the same for you, sweetie!”

“Actually, ‘Are you a man?’ is more likely in your case,” Arthur added with a sardonic grin. I didn’t think that was terribly funny.

* * *

When she returned after her meeting, Polly brought takeaway for three for an early dinner. We agreed to go all together to the rehearsal room, so I would leave my car at their house. I was beginning to feel apprehensive about the evening.

I helped Polly load Arthur and the wheelchair in the special van via the electric platform at the back. She put the chair’s brake on so it wouldn’t roll around and secured it with a special seat belt.

“I feel like a piece of luggage here in the back,” he grumbled as I got in the front passenger seat. I began to see what Polly meant when she said he was a difficult patient.

As we got him out at the other end, Arthur was still giving instructions.

“Don’t forget everyone else has been rehearsing twice a week for nearly two months. Tonight’s read-through is just for your benefit. We’ll only be doing Sarah’s scenes but almost everyone will be there. They’re a good bunch, and they’ll make allowances, but you’ll need to hit the ground running.”

The LADS rehearsal room was the village church hall. Polly explained that the vicar was an amateur thesp himself and had appeared in several of their productions. His bishop didn’t allow him to let LADS use the hall for free, but he gave them a much-reduced rate.

Charlie met us at the door.

“All your scenes are already blocked out,” he said, “and everyone else should know their moves. You’ll just have to fit in with them. I don’t think you’ll be able to make any changes to what Arthur was doing, certainly not anything major. But we’ll just be doing a table read-through tonight so you can meet everyone, try out your lines, and get a feel for the shape of the show.”

Looking up at us all from his chair, Arthur explained that we’d been all the way through the script that afternoon. Charlie was pleased.

“So we might be able to get up and walk through some scenes too. Fantastic! Did you work on her voice as well?” he asked. “The script will help of course. The words are what a woman would say; you just have to say them as a woman would – with feminine intonations and cadences.”

Arthur nodded. He and I had discussed this.

“At first he just sounded ‘camp’ like Julian Clary or Larry Grayson, which wasn’t right at all,” he said. “We worked on feminine rather than effeminate. I think he’s getting it.”

Although he didn’t sound convinced.

“We also agreed that I wouldn’t try to speak in a woman’s voice,” I added, “and definitely not in a falsetto. I’ll stick to the male range. As Arthur says, no one is trying to hide the fact that I’m really a man.”

“You’ll probably have to use your normal voice anyway to have any hope of reaching the back of the auditorium or the people up in the ‘Gods’,” Charlie agreed. “Not that the Victoria Little Theatre has Gods, as such.”

“I don’t dare speak in a higher register anyway,” I said, lowering my voice. “It would sound exactly like Daisy Duquesne, and I’m trying to avoid reminding anyone of her. This is a small town. There could easily be someone in the audience who was at the Club that night.”

“Could be,” Charlie agreed. “Anyway, we’d better get on. Come and meet our cast.”

* * *

We were a little late because of the fuss with the wheelchair, but when we finally got into the hall through the Disabled entrance, everyone made a big fuss of Arthur, which he seemed to enjoy despite his doleful expression. I noticed an older lady, plump and pink-cheeked, making her way over to Polly, presumably realising that she needed as much sympathy as her husband, if not more.

I hung back. I knew no one there, and assumed I would be introduced eventually. I wasn’t looking at the throng around Arthur and Charlie, but I overheard a few snippets of conversation.

“He looks awfully young, Arthur,” said someone.

“Do you really think he’ll be any good?” said someone else. “The Dame holds the whole show together.”

“We think he’ll be very good,” said Charlie. “We’ve seen him doing stand-up. He’s great with an audience.”

“Aye, well, beggars can’t be choosers anyway,” muttered Arthur.

Thanks, mate.

Charlie turned round and pulled me into the throng.

“This is Nick, everyone.” There was a cheerful chorus of ‘Hi, Nick’s’. “Come on, let’s get started,” he said. “We’re only going to read the scenes involving Sarah tonight, so I’ll just summarise what happens in the scenes she’s not in.”

He led me over to the middle of the room where two large trestle tables had been pushed together with uncomfortable-looking metal-framed chairs all around. The tables were already covered in drinks, snacks and scripts. Someone offered me a choice between beer or wine. A LADS rehearsal was no place for soft drinks, apparently. I took a tin of lager, with thanks. Charlie seated me in the middle of one side and pulled up his chair to my left. Polly pushed Arthur’s wheelchair in to my right.

There were about a dozen of us. We went round the table introducing ourselves, as they do in business meetings (where they call it the ‘Creeping Death’). Nobody ever remembers people’s names this way, unless you take the trouble to write them down. I scribbled those I heard clearly on the back of my copy of the script.

First were two pretty girls called Millie and Lily, who were sitting together. They were playing Alice Fitzwarren and Dick Whittington himself, though I didn’t remember which was which at that time. Next to them was an older guy who was Alderman Fitzwarren; then the plump lady who was to play the Fairy of the Bells. The Captain and the First Mate of the ‘Saucy Sal’ were next; and then the Narrator, a short, tubby fellow called Joe. There were also a couple of rat henchmen, non-speaking parts, who had come along to work on some slapstick business. That wasn’t going to happen tonight because of Arthur’s accident and my introduction, so presumably they were only hanging around now for the company and the beer.

Two names stuck with me. One was the vicar, the Reverend Roderick Miller (“Call me Roddy”). He was playing the villain, King Rat. Uncharitably I wondered if he would be any good, or if they’d given him the part because he let them use the hall for next to nothing. It turned out he was very good. They all were.

The other actor whose name I managed to remember was Pete Dobson, and that was because he was playing Idle Jack, and he and I had lots of scenes together.

When it was my turn, I told them my name and limited qualifications – a few evenings of stand-up which was where Arthur and Charlie had seen me. I didn’t mention that I had been in drag at the time, or that I hadn’t actually been in a play since junior school. Most of them had heard of the Club. A couple had even been along on an Open Mic Night, though not on one when I was performing – either as myself or as Daisy.

“The only other speaking part is the Sultan of Morocco,” Charlie said, when we had finished the introductions. “He doesn’t appear till the second Act, so he’ll be along later. The other big role is Tommy the Cat. It’s a non-speaking part obviously, so he won’t be here tonight. You’ll see a lot of him though. He’s a great mime, really funny. We also have a small orchestra and a chorus of singers and dancers, but you probably won’t meet any of them till much later. You’re not in any of their scenes.”

“You should also mention the kids from our local primary school,” put in Arthur. “They play the rats. We’ve got the whole of their Year 3 – thirty of the little buggers. When they’re all on stage at once you can hardly move for kids. At least half of them will probably be picking their noses at any given time.”

“They should make a quite impressive plague of rats though,” said Charlie, who clearly didn’t dislike children as much as Arthur.

“I’ll read out the stage directions as we go,” Charlie said to me, “so you’ll know what’s going on in each scene. He raised his voice to address the group. “I’d like you all to deliver your lines in character, please. Treat it as another rehearsal. I’m hoping that everyone except Sarah will know their words by now, so try not to refer to your scripts if at all possible.”

There were a couple of grunts around the table. I guessed a few of them weren’t exactly word perfect yet.

“OK, here we go,” Charlie said. “With the curtains still closed, the house lights go down and the Narrator steps on stage from the wings.” We won’t bother with that for now. It doesn’t involve Sarah."

Joe pretended to look disappointed. I suspected he was glad he wasn’t going to be tested on his lines tonight.

“The curtains open on the street outside Alderman Fitzwarren’s house and shop,” Charlie continued. “The townspeople sing and dance to a London song. When they finish, they troop off, leaving the Alderman and his daughter to set the scene: business is bad because of a plague of rats. Then the sky darkens and the rats invade the stage. The Alderman and Alice run off as King Rat comes on and rants at the audience."

Roddy gave us his first speech. He was brilliant. He knew his lines by heart and delivered them with exactly the right balance of menace and humour. He would have the littlest kids quaking with fear then laughing in relief at an unexpected joke.

“Nicely done, Roddy,” smiled Charlie. There was a respectful round of applause.

“But I think I’ll just summarise the scenes that don’t involve Sarah,” Charlie interrupted, “or we’ll be here all night. Fairy Bow Bells appears and promises to help the people against his evil schemes. King Rat sneers and exits stage left. The Fairy exits stage right.”

He turned to me. “OK, your first scene. Sarah comes out of the Alderman’s house carrying a mixing bowl. She is stirring something in it with a large wooden spoon. She catches sight of the audience.”

I started reading from my script. I tried a feminised version of my own voice, deeper than Daisy’s, but with female inflections. The part seemed to be all one-liners – the kind of humour I had specialised in at the Club, albeit rather cornier and more suitable for kids. I began to see why Charlie had gone looking for an experienced comic to replace Arthur. Pity he could only find me.

I got to the end of my opening patter.

“Now are you getting the hang of the plot?” I read. “I know some of you find really complicated stories like this one difficult to follow. So let me catch you up.”

“She takes the spoon out of the bowl and points in each direction as she summarises the story,” said Charlie, reading the stage directions again. “She walks downstage as she speaks and the curtains close behind her, leaving her alone with the audience.”

“So – London Town.” I mimed pointing behind me. “Plague of rats led by the Big Bad.” I pointed to what might have been stage left. “Fairy promises to help.” I pointed to the imaginary stage right. “I didn’t know there were fairies in London…”

Presumably that was intended to be suggestive, so I gave the cast members, Millie and Lily, opposite me a suitably filthy leer. The girls giggled.

“Anyway, I mustn’t keep you, boys and girls. I must get back to my cooking.” I put my head down to my imaginary mixing bowl and sniffed. “Oh dear, I think this has gone off. Better get rid of it.”

I mimed hurling the contents of the bowl out into the audience. The contents of the bowl would be sweets, of course.

“You’ll have to take handfuls at a time, I think; not all in one go,” interrupted Arthur. “So you can scatter the sweets as widely as possible.”

I nodded.

“And that’s the end of your first scene. Well done,” said Charlie.

There was a discreet smattering of applause, not to mention some relieved-looking faces. It seemed Arthur and I hadn’t been the only ones who doubted I could do this. Mind you, he was still wearing his unconvinced face.

“Lot of work to do,” he said, gracelessly.

“The next scene is played out in front of the curtain and introduces Dick Whittington and Tommy the Cat,” said Charlie. “Sarah’s not involved, so we’ll move on. Next: the curtains open again and we’re in the Fitzwarrens’ shop.”

So in this version of Dick Whittington, Sarah wasn’t just the cook; she was a ‘maid of all work’ around the Fitzwarren household. I assumed this was because Arthur was writing himself a bigger part – which I now had to master in just over four weeks.

“Sarah is bending over with her back to the audience, trying to reach something on a low shelf. She is showing off her plump rear. She looks over her shoulder and sees the audience.”

“Oh, hello, boys and girls!” I yelled.

“Hello, Sarah!” the team yelled back, gamely.

“I think we can take the ‘Hellos’ as read from now on,” Charlie said. A couple of cast members feigned disappointment. “This scene introduces Idle Jack,” he continued, “and then the Captain and First Mate of the Saucy Sal. So let’s just do the dialogue that involves Sarah, shall we?”

There followed much snappy patter and innuendo, moving the plot along, and setting up Sarah and Idle Jack as a comedy double act.

Sarah: “Every time I’m down in the dumps I buy myself a new hat.”

Idle Jack: “I wondered where you got them from.”

When we’d finished in the shop, Charlie summarised the next scene, which didn’t involve Sarah. Dick gets a job and meets Alice. We discover that Idle Jack is in love with her too, like Buttons with Cinderella, I suppose.

The next scene was in my bedroom. I’ve put my curlers in and I’m getting undressed and into my nightie when a swarm of rats pour in – with plenty of opportunities for comic business. They knock things over, steal my clothes, shoes and underwear, and so on. I have a few funny lines early on in the scene, but there’s not much dialogue once the rats appear.

It ends with Alderman Fitzwarren and Idle Jack running in with shotguns to save me. There will be a lot of loud bangs here – blank ammunition of course. I will have to do a lot of screaming and trying to conceal my nightwear and general state of undress from the men.

What will make the scene difficult is that most of the rats are played by primary schoolchildren and we won’t get many opportunities to rehearse with them.

In the next scene King Rat comes out secretly and frames Dick for trying to steal the Alderman’s money, and he gets the sack. He and Tommy start off on the journey back to Gloucester. They pause on Highgate Hill, when they hear the bells calling out the famous ‘Turn Again, Whittington’ sounds, orchestrated by the Fairy of the Bells.

“OK, Act One finishes with the kitchen slapstick scene,” said Charlie. “This only involves Sarah and Idle Jack. Everyone else can take a break. Who’s going to the pub? My shout.” Alderman Fitzwarren and Second Rat raised their hands. “Mine’s a pint of IPA, please. You want anything, Nick? Pete?”

The others went off to the pub and we got down to the big comedy scene. Charlie resumed.

“The kitchen of Alderman Fitzwarren’s house. There are ranges and cooking utensils along the back wall and a large old-fashioned chef’s table upstage. Sarah, in her cook’s uniform, is rolling pastry at one end of the table. The rest of the table and every other surface around the stage is covered in custard pies. At least two dozen will be needed.”

He stopped reading.

“They’ll be cardboard plates covered in Crazy Foam, of course.” I nodded. “Sarah breaks off rolling pastry. She comes downstage to address the audience directly.”

That was my cue. My dialogue included cooking jokes and sympathy for poor Dick.

“As Sarah is addressing the audience, Idle Jack tiptoes in. The audience see him; Sarah doesn’t. Jack picks up a pie in each hand.”

The kitchen scene was especially complicated as we have to throw pies at each other, ducking and dodging, hitting and missing. Then we ask for volunteers from the audience to come up and help us.

“We’ll get members of the cast to go down into the audience and pick two boys and two girls,” said Charlie at this point. “There’ll be a team fight – Sarah and the girls against Idle Jack and the boys. There’ll be funny, fast music throughout. It should be like something out of Benny Hill.”

“Make sure you pick small, innocent-looking kids,” said Arthur. “One little bleeder gave me a black eye last year. My make-up had to be even heavier than usual to hide it.”

“Point taken, Arthur,” said Charlie, eyes raised to heaven. “It’ll probably be Alice picking the girls and Tommy the Cat picking the boys. I’ll make sure they understand the selection criteria. Anyway, everyone will get covered in Crazy Foam and the kids will go back into the audience with boxes of chocolates and paper towels. Oh, that reminds me – I need to insert a note in the programme that the foam is harmless; it won’t sting the eyes; and any kid selected for the custard pie fight will come out cleaner than they went in!”

I laughed but I was particularly worried about the kitchen scene. I could see it would take a lot of rehearsal. Pete Dobson and I would have to choreograph some precision pie-throwing or the whole thing could turn to complete anarchy; worse: it wouldn’t be funny. Really funny slapstick is much harder than it looks.

The others started appearing again, back from the pub. They had Dave, the Sultan of Morocco, with them. When everyone was settled, we went through the second Act as we had the first. It was exhilarating – and terrifying. I had so much to learn.

The evening continued. There were no great problems with the dialogue, but it became apparent that future rehearsals would have to focus on the actors’ movements, rather than their words. In addition to the kitchen custard pie fight, there was a scene near the end in which Sarah tries to seduce Alderman Fitzwarren. I keep trying to throw my arms around him, and he keeps ducking out of my reach. We would have to choreograph lots of variations of this theme if it was to be funny rather than just repetitive.

That was the scene that ends with Fitzwarren accidentally ripping my dress off, leaving me in my old-fashioned underwear, shift and bloomers. I run screaming off the stage, Fitzwarren chasing after me with my dress. The dress removal, aided by the fact that it would only be held on by Velcro strips, would need a lot of practice.

So Charlie’s last thought of the day wasn’t surprising.

“You’d better start learning your lines, please, Nick,” he said, a little apologetically. “It’s very difficult to get your movements around the stage right if you’re reading from a script and all your attention is focused on your dialogue. Also, if you wouldn’t mind, I think you should do all your rehearsals from now on in costume. You need to get used to moving around in full old-fashioned female clobber.”

He turned to Polly as she was getting Arthur and his wheelchair ready for the return journey. She was way ahead of him.

“No problem, Charlie,” she said. “I’ll sort him out a suitable rehearsal dress and shoes. You’ll probably need all the padding too,” she said to me, “because it will affect how you move. Come round some time tomorrow.”

Charlie asked all the cast members who had scenes with Sarah to be back at the hall for the next evening. They were mostly able to oblige. One of the girls couldn’t make it because of an evening class, and Roddy had a squash match, but would come along afterwards.

After returning to the Whitmores’ house and picking up my car, it was eleven o’clock before I got home. Having had plenty to eat and drink during the evening I went straight to bed with my copy of the script. I might have managed to learn my lines for the first scene before I fell asleep…

* * *

I arrived at the MyOwnCouture.com office the following morning at around ten o’clock to find everyone hard at work. Ruth and Vicky were poring over Arthur’s designs, working out how to encode them for the NC cutting machine. Eddy and Mike were down in the cowshed fine-tuning the printer and adjusting the tension in the sewing machine.

“Nice of you to join us,” Ruth said when she saw me.

“I didn’t think you’d need me first thing.”

“We don’t,” she snapped. “You might have helped yesterday afternoon though – with finding fabrics and dyes and placing orders…”

“I was busy.” I got my phone out and found the screenshots of Polly’s notes. “Here are the new Dame’s measurements, by the way.”

“Oh,” said Ruth, nonplussed. “I expected to hear from Charlie or Polly Whitmore. How come you have them?”

“I met up with them yesterday,” I said vaguely, “and offered to bring them round.”

“If you had them on your phone, you could have just texted them over, or you could have given Polly my number and she could have sent them straight to me.”

I feigned not listening. I busied myself with switching on my computer and logging in.

Vicky was looking uncomfortable, like a timid forest creature sensing a gathering storm.

“I think I’ll just go and… er… see if Eddy and Mike need anything…” she muttered.

Ruth didn’t seem to notice her leaving.

“Anyway, why were you there?” she asked sharply. “You don’t have anything else to do with LADS, do you? Apart from helping us get the contract to make the new Dame dresses?”

Why was she so curious about my movements all of a sudden? She clearly sensed a mystery. You could almost see her nose twitching.

“Charlie and I went round to see Arthur,” I said. “He came out of hospital yesterday.”

“I didn’t realise you knew him so well.”

“Well, I don’t really,” I admitted. “We went to see if there was anything we could do. Charlie was afraid Polly would struggle to cope on her own, with Arthur in a wheelchair and all the costumes to finish. We had a very nice afternoon, looking at Polly’s costume collection and talking about the Pantomime tradition. Arthur’s very knowledgeable. Then we helped Polly with the wheelchair. Arthur had to get to the village hall in the evening for a rehearsal.”

“Did you see the new Dame?

“Oh, er, yes. They had a read-through with him last night.”

“Is he any good?

“No, he’s rubbish…” I began.

Shit, this wasn’t going to work, I thought. I might as well come clean. She’ll find out eventually anyway, and then she’ll be cross with me for keeping it from her.

“Oh for heaven’s sake… It’s me, alright? I’m going to be the Dame. Those are my measurements. And I’m not going to be around here much because I’ve only got four weeks to learn a really difficult part.”

“You?” she said, incredulously. “How on earth can you be the Dame?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Well you’re not old and fat, for a start.”

“And the compliments keep coming…” I said. “I don’t think there’s an actual rule that the actor playing the Dame has to be old and fat, it’s more like a guideline.”

“But the Dame is a really key part,” she said. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll make a fool of yourself?”

“Well, that’s rather the point, isn’t it?”

I smiled. She didn’t. She continued staring at me like I owed her a further explanation.

“Look, I’ve been doing some stand-up at the Club in the village. That’s where I met Charlie and Arthur.”

There was no need to mention that the introduction came through Josie when I needed to borrow Arthur’s high heels. Ruth was still staring at me, non-plussed. It seemed further explanation would be necessary.

“So I’ve had some experience of telling jokes to a live audience.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why should I?” I asked, genuinely puzzled. “It’s nothing to do with… here.”

I nearly said ‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ but that would have sounded mean. But it wasn’t, was it? Sure, we’d moved on from being just business partners to a more cordial relationship, but we still weren’t exactly close friends, were we? I meant back then, of course, before last week’s bedroom antics. That might have changed things a bit.

“It’s what I do after work,” I tried to explain. “We’ve never discussed our hobbies with each other, have we? I mean, you’ve never invited me to join you for an evening of… actually I don’t know what you do in your spare time.”

“Apart from going out to dinner, getting pissed, and screwing around,” she said, humourlessly. “Apparently we have those leisure interests in common.”

“Fair comment,” I said, hoping to make peace. “But my last performance on Open Mic Night was ages before we… er, hooked up.”

Actually Daisy’s performance was the previous Friday, but ‘ages’ is a nice vague time period and the said ‘hooking up’ happened very suddenly.

“And we didn’t talk about our personal lives in the heat of passion, did we?” I persisted. “We were too busy… wrestling.”

“I would have liked to have seen your act though,” she said, slightly mollified. “When are you on again?”

“Oh, I won’t have time now till the New Year. I’ll be too busy with the Panto. But you shouldn’t be feeling left out. The only people I know who’ve seen me perform are my brother and his wife – oh, and…”

Oops.

“…and?” she prompted.

“… and Eddy,” I confessed.

“Eddy’s seen you do stand-up?” I nodded glumly. “Well why didn’t he mention it? Why didn’t he invite me? Wait till I get my hands on him!”

She stood up and stormed out, not mollified anymore, and slammed the door behind her.

I was just starting to get my breath back, when she threw the door open again.

“And I am definitely going to the Panto, if only so I can throw rotten fruit at the Dame!”

Not if Sarah the Cook can stun you first with a glacier mint from her mixing bowl, I thought, but didn’t dare say.

* * *

Each of the MyOwnCouture.com team trooped in during the morning to offer their best wishes for my forthcoming starring role, and to chortle about looking forward to seeing me in women’s clothes. Eddy waited till Ruth went out to lunch before coming up to the office. He looked a little shell-shocked. She had obviously given him a hard time for not inviting her to go with him to see me perform.

“I suppose we should have invited her,” he said, “but she does rather cramp my style. She told you about our little arrangement, I understand?”

“Yep, but don’t worry, I haven’t told anyone else. Mike, Vicky and Mo don’t know, do they?”

“No, and I’d like to keep it that way, mate. You know why.”

“I’ll keep your secret, if you keep mine.” He looked blank. “Daisy Duquesne,” I whispered. (Walls have ears.)

“Oh right,” he laughed. “No need for her to know that the Dame isn’t the only drag act you’ve been doing! She likes to wear the panties in any relationship.”

He hurried back to the cowshed before Ruth returned. I wondered what he meant by her ‘cramping his style’. Then I remembered that he had been very friendly with Frank, the Club pianist. Developing a liaison with another gay man would be much more difficult if your fiancée is sitting next to you.

As requested by Ruth, I spent most of the morning on the internet and the telephone looking for suppliers of fabrics and dyes, checking their prices, and negotiating.

* * *

After a hurried lunch at the Manor House I went back to the Whitmores. Polly explained that Arthur had gone into their office. He wasn’t really needed there but Polly had begged Rob, their eldest son, to come and get him to give her some relief. She seemed glad to see me.

“If Charlie hadn’t asked you to wear dresses and padding for the remaining rehearsals, I would have suggested it myself,” Polly said, as she led me back up to the costume room. “Moving in skirts and high heels is difficult enough if you’re not used to them, but your underwear affects your movement too. Remember that a woman’s stance and gait, even her mannerisms and gestures, are all influenced by her shape, her weight, and her clothing, particularly her underclothing. That’s especially true if her body is, shall we say, ‘abundant’ – as yours will be – and if she wants to wear firm control shapewear to mould her ‘abundance’ into something more acceptable.”

I laughed. “I remember what it was like parading around your living room yesterday in that Playtex girdle. It made my bum sway from side to side and I had to restrict my stride. The elastic in the girdle was really tight. And the bra wasn’t much better. It was like wearing a harness. As you said, the padding inside was springy and not too heavy, but I couldn’t see over it. I had no idea where I was putting my feet.”

“Right,” she said, “and that means you have to take delicate, little steps, and hold your hands up high to keep your balance. We can practise that. So strip off and let’s get your shapewear on. This time take your underpants off too. I have a nice pair of satin bloomers for you. I’ll go next door if you’re still feeling shy. Call me when you’re ready.”

The bloomers were baggy on me. They were frilly round the waist and leg holes. They came down to just below the knee. They were white cotton and very soft to the touch. When I had them on, there was one very obvious, very large problem that Polly hadn’t warned me about. With no alternative, and totally mortified, I called her back. She sized up my difficulty, so to speak, immediately.

“Yes, Arthur had the same problem,” she grinned, “though maybe his was not quite so… extensive. We’ll put that padded Playtex girdle over… it all. That should make it go away.”

She held out the girdle for me to step into, and helped me pass the frilly bloomers through the padded girdle’s tight confines. My little problem did go away eventually, though it was very uncomfortable for a while.

“Wouldn’t it be better to wear the bloomers over the padded girdle?”

“That’s the plan, yes, especially as you will be seen in just them and your shift. But if the girdle is going on first, we’ll have to make it a panty-girdle, and you’ll need at least three of them as they’ll have to be washed after each performance. And of course you’ll need a larger size in bloomers. But don’t worry; that’s all in hand. Now that we have both your real and your padded-up measurements, Mary, my assistant, and I are off to the specialist ladies’ underwear store in London tomorrow. I should have it all ready by the weekend, so you’ll only have to put up with this lot for a couple of rehearsals.”

She handed me a cheap pair of stockings and helped me attach them to the girdle’s suspenders.

“I keep forgetting – you’ve done this before,” she laughed. “Now let me help you on with your bra.”

With the padded bra and girdle on I was beginning to feel like Sarah again. Polly handed me an old-fashioned shift.

“Victorian ladies would have worn a corset over this,” she said, smiling. “I’m assuming you’d prefer to avoid that?”

“I think the girdle is quite tight enough,” I said. “I do need to be able to move about.”

The shift was similar to a modern camisole, but matched the bloomers in material – white cotton – and frilliness. This one was short, only coming down to the top of the thighs, and it had an elasticated waist. With the two on together I felt like a cheesecake actress from a 1960s comedy film.

“Petticoat next,” she said. “I’m hoping that your people will get the dresses to us in time for us to sew the petticoats into them. That will make dressing and undressing you that little bit quicker, which might make all the difference. It’ll be essential for the dress the Alderman tears off you anyway.”

She held out what looked like a big bell-shaped explosion in a chiffon factory for me to step into. It had an elasticated waist and reached down to mid-calf. All this femininity was becoming overwhelming. Polly noticed.

“You’ve gone quiet, dear. All becoming a bit much, is it?” She smiled sympathetically. “Arthur always says the key is to embrace it – jump in with both feet. People respect commitment and professionalism. You can’t let anyone see that you’re embarrassed or afraid of making a fool of yourself. You want them all to be saying ‘Wasn’t the guy who played the Dame brilliant? I could never do that’.”

She was right of course. I gave her a grateful smile but was still lost for words. She reached for the ‘Jack’s Mother’ dress I had worn the day before. She dropped it over me and zipped it up.

“This will be fine for rehearsing,” she said. “We might as well put your wig on too. Then you can see what it feels like to be wearing a wig while you’re running around tonight.”

I didn’t actually see why I would need to do that. Was she afraid it might slip? But then I remembered seeing a boy actor in one of our school plays jerk his head round too sharply, and the audience all watched in horror as his wig flew off and hurtled across the stage. No amount of clever ad libbing would enable an actor to recover from that indignity. I made no protest as Polly pulled the wig cap over my head.

“A little tip, by the way,” she said, as she adjusted the wig and gave it a good brushing. “You’ve probably noticed that women wave their hands around a lot more than men. We use them to emphasise what we’re saying, I suppose, but it’s also because we don’t have pockets in our skirts and dresses to stick them in. So cock your wrists.”

I did so and immediately recognised the femininity of the gesture. I remembered Josie’s instructions when she and Tom took me out to the restaurant as Daisy.

“Then hold your hands up and out for balance and move them around a lot for emphasis as you talk. All that, plus your swaying backside, will give a very feminine appearance to all your movements, albeit turned up to eleven, as Arthur says.”

She reached down below the dressing table for a large shoebox.

“And just wait till we get you up on high heels,” she smiled. “If you think your bottom was swaying before, wait till you’re in these babies!”

She drew a handsome pair of black, patent leather, lace-up high-heeled boots from the box. They were ankle height and I was glad to see they had good, solid blocky heels, rather than stilettos.

“Arthur found lace-ups were essential,” Polly said. “Running around the stage in high-heeled slip-ons was just too dangerous. Fortunately you can wear the same shoes throughout the show, and you’ll be able to get all your dresses on and off over them.”

I slipped my nylon-covered feet in, and she began to lace them up.

“I’ll do this for you at the show too,” she said. “I realise you’ll have trouble bending down with your big boobs and tight girdle.”

“Thanks. I can’t even see my feet over my bust, and I don’t think I could get down that low anyway.”

“OK, stand up now, and walk around a little. Tell me how it feels.”

It was amazing. I was obviously a Pantomime Dame and could in no way pass as a real woman off-stage, but I felt totally feminine. With my hands out wide as Polly had advised, and my rear swaying from side to side, I started to believe in myself as Sarah the Cook. On the minus side, I felt fat and old.

“I feel like somebody’s mother,” I said.

She laughed. “That means you’re half-way there. Arthur says that sometimes on stage you can just disappear into the character, almost like an out-of-body experience. Of course, you have to surrender yourself to the role. Forget about Nick for a while and become Sarah. That’s method acting and maybe it sounds silly for a comedy role in a Panto, but you should try to imagine Sarah’s life, her back story, her desires and aspirations.”

“So Sarah is… that is, I am a plump, middle-aged widow, working as a cook and housekeeper for a rich bloke, who I fancy and want to marry…”

“You’re getting it. OK, let’s try some more feminine actions. Take hold of your skirt in both hands and lift it, as though you were climbing stairs or negotiating a puddle.”

I did so, and received more flushes of female feelings.

“Now let’s try a curtsey.”

“I don’t remember a scene where I would have to do that.”

“Don’t you have to acknowledge an order from Alderman Fitzwarren?”

“Oh yes. I suppose it might be appropriate then. I’ll see what Charlie says.”

I tried a curtsey, as instructed. It was more difficult than I expected because of my padding and tight underwear. With some help from Polly I eventually got it.

“That’s good,” she said. “Now you can curtsey at the end of the show when everyone else is bowing.”

* * *

I couldn’t go anywhere dressed as I was, and it wasn’t worth getting changed when I would only have to put all my Sarah clobber back on for the evening’s rehearsal, so I spent the rest of the afternoon pottering around the Whitmores’ house with Polly. She said I could help her with her chores to get into the feminine mindset; maybe explore Sarah’s back story as a housewife. I didn’t think that was likely to help much but I could hardly refuse after her kindness. Also fetching and carrying for Arthur since his accident had left her behind schedule with her housework. So I found myself vacuuming, ironing, and baking mince pies for Christmas. She gave me a frilly bib apron from her Dame accessories to keep the flour off my dress. I was reminded of my mother every time I passed a mirror.

She also gave me a sewing lesson and we sat down together to add some lace and frills to the Principal Girl’s costume. I quite enjoyed that and she said my stitching was the neatest she’d ever seen by a beginner, especially a male beginner.

She also called me Sarah all afternoon, to reinforce my immersion in the role, I suppose. But I couldn’t help remembering what she’d said the previous afternoon about Arthur in lingerie getting her motor running. I really hoped dressing me up as Sarah wasn’t getting her all worked up. It wasn’t that she was unattractive, but that would be a complication I didn’t need right now.

Arthur’s son, Rob, brought him back at about half-past five. He was highly amused to see the strange lady in his mother’s kitchen taking mince pies out of the oven. When he saw it was me in my costume he laughed heartily. I realised this was a precursor of what I would have to put up with from everyone I knew, so I forced myself to laugh with him.

Arthur grumbled something about, “You’ve made him look like a proper woman,” to Polly, but she ignored him.

After Rob had gone, the three of us sat down to soup and sandwiches, then got ready to go to the village hall. Polly produced a suitcase to put my own clothes in.

“I’ll help you change back after the rehearsal,” she said. “We’ll put all of Sarah’s things back in the suitcase afterwards. Then you can practise being her at home if you want. Also I may not always get to the rehearsals, so you’ll need to be able to get into your costume and padding by yourself – well, as much of it as you can manage anyway.”

* * *

When we got to the hall everyone gathered round me and Polly, congratulating her on how well I had turned out.

“She looks great,” said Pete Dobson.

“Well, it’s an old dress of Arthur’s,” said Polly modestly. “We don’t have her proper costume yet, and of course she’ll look much better with make-up on.”

“She’s already much prettier than Arthur was,” said Millie, or maybe it was Lily. I really must work out which of them was which before Opening Night.

Predictably, Arthur scowled. “She’s not supposed to be pretty.”

It didn’t escape my attention that everyone was referring to me as ‘she’. I supposed that could only help me get into character. I would have to get used to it.

“OK, everyone, your attention, please,” called Charlie. “A couple of announcements before we start.”

He read out a rehearsal schedule for the next week. We all took notes. Not unexpectedly I was on call for every evening.

“Act One tonight,” he continued. “We’re going to run all the dialogue, without scripts.”

There were several groans around the room. He turned to me.

“How are you getting on with that, Nick?”

“I think I’ve got my first couple of scenes memorised,” I said nervously.

“Crawler,” someone behind me said, good-naturedly.

“Excellent,” said Charlie. “Keep up the good work.”

He turned back to address the whole group again.

“Finally, I’ve arranged for publicity photos to be taken on Saturday afternoon. It should be fine weather. So I need all the principals to come with their costumes, or as much of them as you have so far. We’ll meet at the Theatre at two o’clock. Go in by the Stage Door. Polly and her team will be in the dressing rooms to do your make-up and help you get presentable. Anyone got a problem with any of that?”

No one objected.

“OK, let’s make a start. We won’t be doing the musical numbers or dances tonight, just the dialogue and moves. Act One, Scene One, beginners, please.”

Joe the Narrator, the Alderman and Alice (who turned out to be Lily, so Millie must be Dick) made their way up the side steps onto the stage. The rest of us settled in canvas chairs round the room. I remembered to sweep my skirt underneath me as I sat down.

“No books, please!” Charlie called.

The Alderman looked guilty and dropped his script on the steps.

* * *

The rehearsal went well. Everyone knew their lines except the Alderman and me, and even I managed quite well for my first two scenes. Arthur had been through all my words with me, suggesting the timing for each joke and pointing out opportunities for comic business. Now I was fully equipped with high heels, skirt, padded bust and bum, I could milk all the innuendo, jiggling my bosom and patting my curly coiffure as a Dame should.

But me not knowing my moves slowed us down. Charlie told me to improvise, and he would only correct me if where I went didn’t fit with how he had blocked out the scene with the rest of the cast. A couple of times he had to tell me to move downstage or upstage or to the left or to the right, and sometimes he had to come up and walk me through a more complicated move.

It was hard work, and Arthur didn’t exactly speed things up with his many ‘helpful’ interjections, but I could hardly object as I had begged him to coach me. Eventually we managed to get through the whole of the first Act in a little under three hours. It should run an hour and a quarter, and we had had to leave out the action scenes which would be choreographed in more detail later.

We called it a day a little after ten, and Polly and I withdrew to the office where she helped me out of my dress and shapewear, and removed my wig.

“I’d better look after this,” she said. “It shouldn’t be packed flat in your case. I’ll bring it back for every rehearsal I can get to – at least until your people get the dresses to us. Then I think all us seamstresses will be working flat out.”

“Yes, I’ll check on their progress tomorrow morning,” I said, taking the gentle hint. “But now I need to go and learn some more lines.”

I put on Nick’s clothes and packed Sarah’s away in the suitcase. Strangely, I was sad to see her disappear. I was already looking forward to becoming her again tomorrow night, when we would do the same for Act Two.

* * *

It was just before nine. I’d tried to get in early, not wanting to give Ruth the opportunity to be rude about my time-keeping again, but I’d been learning lines till one o’clock in the morning, and I struggled to get up any earlier.

“Well, if it isn’t Dame Sarah,” she said, when I got into the office the following morning. “Show us your knickers, love!” she called in a raucous Northern accent.

“They don’t say that in Pantos,” I said primly. “Such language isn’t suitable for kids.”

She snorted. She clearly still resented Eddy and I excluding her from what she thought would have been a fun evening, and her sense of humour still hadn’t rebooted. We couldn’t work together like this. It didn’t seem fair, but I would have to apologise. Now might be the best opportunity as Vicky wasn’t in yet.

“Look I’m sorry I didn’t invite you to the Club for Open Mic Night,” I began. No need for her to know there had been several Open Mic Nights. “But I had a good reason.”

“Oh?” Snort.

“Yes. It started on my brother’s Stag do,” I blundered on. “You and I hadn’t even met then. We all did stand-up on a Club Open Mic Night, and the manager suggested I had another go. I agreed but I thought I’d probably be crap, and I didn’t want anybody to see that, except Tom and Josie.”

“What about Eddy?”

“Well he knew about it because he’d started hanging out with us at the Club by then.”

“And you turned out to be good enough for Charlie to invite you to take over as Dame?”

“Er, yes.”

“Why didn’t he ask any of the other amateur comics at the Club?”

“Maybe he did. He never said I was his first choice.”

This was getting to be kind of fun. Maybe I could have a go at improv?

“But why would he think you’d be any good in drag?” Ruth said, apparently still unconvinced.

“Dunno, but a panto dame isn’t a drag queen. Anyway people say I’m a little… androgynous.”

She stared at me closely.

“Yeah, I can see that. That’s why Eddy wanted to hang out with you, of course.”

“What? You mean he thought I was gay?”

“Yes, and that’s why you haven’t seen as much of him socially since he found out you weren’t. And why you’ve seen more of me… as it were.”

“OK, well how about dinner tonight, to celebrate us being friends again?” Was that a smile? “Oh wait, I can’t. I’ve got a rehearsal – and lines to learn.”

The smile vanished, if it had ever been there.

“Rain check?” I asked hopefully.

“Until after the Panto, you mean?” she said scornfully. “I don’t think so, posh boy. Or maybe I should start calling you ‘posh girl’ considering how you’re spending your time off now.”

“Please don’t.”

“I think I’ll ask Charlie if I can come and watch one of your rehearsals…”

Christ, no!

“Anyway, I’ve already explained why you and I can’t be seen out together. It would be bound to get back to Eddy’s parents and then we’d be in big trouble.”

“Well, let’s hope MyOwnCouture.com takes off soon and you can be independent. Talking of which, how are the Dame dresses coming?”

“Good question,” she said, reverting to her business-like self. “Vicky and I have finished all the programming. Let’s go down to the cowshed and see how they’re getting on with setting up the fabrication.”

When we got down there, Eddy was lying underneath one of the cutting machines grunting, and Mike was tapping away at the control console. He waved when he saw us.

“Eddy thinks he’s found the alignment fault. These are old second-hand machines, as you know, and one of the bolts that holds the platen to the table had worked loose. That may have been all it was. He’s tightening it now. Then we’re going to try making your first day dress.”

He turned back to the console monitor.

“The suppliers delivered all the material late yesterday afternoon,” Ruth said, “and we did all the dyeing we needed to do last night. The cloth should be dry by now.”

“We’ll do one run with our cheap test material,” said Mike, “but we won’t know whether it’s working properly until we try it with the real fabric. This scrap stuff we use for testing has a completely different thickness and weave.”

The grunting stopped and Eddy emerged, looking a little greasy and dishevelled.

“OK, Mike, try it now.” He saw us and called, “Hey, you two – great timing! You’re about to see us make our first successful garment.”

He made his way to the washbasin in the little kitchenette we’d installed and started scrubbing his hands and arms with industrial cleanser. He usually had to do this several times a day as oily machines and fine ladies’ frocks don’t mix.

“He’s been saying that all week,” Ruth said dubiously.

But Eddy was right this time, at least for the cutting process. The design of the dress was fairly simple but still required three pieces to be cut. As each piece came off, he gave it a cursory inspection then transferred it to the fabrication machine which would stitch the pieces together according to the pattern.

“This is the tough part,” he explained. “I put each piece on this plate here and Mike enters its ID number. The machine then ‘knows’ where it should go and how to stitch it to the other pieces. In this test run we’re using just one cheap fabric, but we could use several different materials. We’ll have to do that for you, ‘cause Pantomime Dame dresses are always bright colours and bizarre patterns.”

“Don’t you have to put each piece on the platen in a particular position?” I asked.

“No,” Ruth explained, “you only have to get it roughly right. The software running the machine knows the shape of the piece and how to align it on the fabrication bed for stitching to the other pieces. This is how we’ll make the more complicated dresses which use several fabrics in different colours and patterns.”

When Mike entered the ID number of each piece, the machine hummed and a roller started up and moved the cloth into position. When all three pieces had been added, everyone crossed their fingers and Mike pressed the ‘Go’ button. Immediately two robot arms swung around. Each one grasped a piece of cloth and held it in position in two places along its length. The arms moved together, then a third arm with an attachment that looked like a sewing machine dropped down and started stitching. The whole thing was blindingly fast.

“Wow!” I said. “It’s quick.”

“Yes,” Ruth agreed. “You can see why we need to get some sort of conveyor belt to move the cut pieces from the cutter to the fabricator. As it is, the human interaction there slows the process right down. If we could automate the interface, we could speed everything up dramatically. The operator would only be needed to monitor the process and throw the stop switch if something goes wrong. We should be able to make literally hundreds of dresses a day – all computer-controlled, and with no limit on the number or variety of designs.”

This was why I wanted to invest in MyOwnCouture.com. Ruth and Eddy had real vision. They could make a fortune with this…

“Here you are, Dame Sarah,” said Eddy, thrusting the test dress in my arms, a stupid grin all over his face.

“Gosh, my first dress!” I smiled.

“But not your last,” Ruth chuckled, examining the garment closely. “It’s perfect, Eddy, not a flaw anywhere. Let’s do the real thing now. Then Nick can take it over to Polly.”

“Wouldn’t you like to try it on?” said Eddy. There was a little sparkle in his eye.

“Not much point really,” I said, “not without all my padding.”

Eddy looked a little disappointed. He and Mike went over to their stock room to get the bolts of cloth they would need for Sarah’s first day dress.

“What a relief!” Ruth said after they’d gone.

She displayed one of her rare smiles. It lit up her entire face. She went from being merely beautiful in an austere way, like a marble statue, to seriously attractive.

“We’ve actually had a handful of other enquiries come in via the website,” she went on, interrupting my train of thought (and just as well too), “but we’ve got to prioritise your dresses because of the tight deadline. We really needed Eddy and Mike to crack this so we can get on with serving new customers.”

* * *

The team worked solidly through the day and by mid-afternoon had finished four dresses to the basic pattern – my first and second Act day dresses, and two kitchen outfits. I would take those over to Polly before going on to today’s rehearsal.

“So that’s all the simple stuff done,” said Ruth.

The team were celebrating. We were enjoying a special afternoon tea of sticky buns and sparkling wine – my treat.

“So we have your nightdress and ballgown still to do,” Ruth continued. “We can adapt our mermaid dress for the gown, but we need a decision regarding the nightie.”

“What decision?”

“If you remember, I suggested you might go with a baby doll – funny and sexy.”

“Arthur won’t like it,” I said. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to parade in front of hundreds of people in such a feminine garment. “And I really don’t want to have to shave my legs.”

“But Charlie is the director, and he sounded all in favour, and Polly will provide you with long bloomers or directoires knickers, won’t she? You won’t have to get rid of any body hair, except maybe below the knees.” She grinned wickedly. “Though it wouldn’t do you any harm to get your legs waxed and see what real women have to put up with.”

“Hard pass on that one.”

“Of course, if you’re wearing a baby doll nightie, you’ll probably need a negligée as well. Ask Polly if she has a suitable one, because we’ll have to choose the colour and fabric for the baby doll to match it.”

It seemed as though the decision had been taken regarding my nightie.

* * *

As it happened, today’s rehearsal was to start early as the primary school children were coming in straight from school to rehearse the rats’ scenes. They were doing the Act One town square scene first, then the climactic scene in the Sultan’s palace where Tommy kills King Rat. The bedroom scene only involved the Alderman, Idle Jack and me. It was fairly simple, so Charlie decided to leave that till last. That way if they ran out of time and the kids had to go home, we could work on one of my other scenes.

As I wasn’t in the Town Square scene I didn’t have to be there early. So I called Polly and told her I would come over with the four dresses we had made that day. She was delighted but insisted on checking them before mobilising her team of seamstresses to add all the accessories. I therefore had to put on my shapewear in her back room again and get ready for more costume fittings. The fit was perfect and Polly was very pleased.

“As long as the other two are as good as these, you can tell Ruth that we’ll come to her for all our costumes from now on,” she said. “LADS do four shows a year at the Victoria Little Theatre, one for each season, plus an open-air Shakespeare in the Palace Gardens. They won’t all require anything as elaborate as the Panto, but we often do period dramas and our choices are constrained by the cost and time required for making costumes. If your company can make the basic clothes this quickly, that will expand our range.”

“That’s fantastic,” I said. “Ruth also mentioned that she wanted to talk about the possibility of the ladies in your team working with us on the more elaborate dresses we sell. You know, the accessories and frilly bits – pardon my technical jargon – that we can’t make with our machines.”

“I’ll ask the girls next time we’re all together. Some of them might well be interested.”

“Oh, and she wanted me to ask you about the nightdress…”

Polly thought the Dame in a baby doll would be an absolute hoot and quickly dismissed any objections Arthur might raise.

“I’ve got a negligée that he wore in Panto a couple of years ago,” she said happily. “If Ruth can make a shortie nightie to match it, that would be wonderful. I’ve got a nice pair of lacy bloomers you can wear under it to keep you decent, but they only come down to the knees, so we’ll have to shave your legs. I’ll do it for you, if you like. It’s not as easy as you might expect. You’ll probably cut yourself several times if you try.”

* * *

Still in my rehearsal outfit of shapewear and an old dress, I helped Polly get Arthur’s wheelchair into the van and we all went on to the rehearsal together. Arthur made his usual interjections but on the whole it quite well. The children were getting tired by the time we got to the bedroom scene, but they loved acting with a man in a dress and they seemed to wake up. The highlight was me standing up on the bed, screaming, with my dress up around my waist, my underwear on full view, while the little rats ran around me squealing.

Afterwards, I grabbed a quick word with Charlie.

“Ruth wants to know if she can come along to watch a rehearsal…”

“Sure, why not?” he said. “We encourage people to get involved with LADS. That’s how we keep the membership fresh and growing.”

“I told her you wouldn’t allow it.”

“You mean you fancy her rotten and you don’t want her to see you pretending to be a comic middle-aged woman?”

“No, no, it’s not that…” I protested, astonished at Charlie’s sharp insight.

“OK, Nick, I’ll be the bad guy for you,” he laughed. “Tell her that it’s a strict LADS policy not to allow members of the public to see us in rehearsal. She’ll just have to buy a ticket like everyone else. She’ll see you being Sarah eventually anyway though, won’t she?”

“But by then I might actually be good at it, and I won’t feel such a fool.”

* * *

The rest of the week saw more rehearsals, more lines learning, and more costume fittings – still behind closed doors; I never let anyone at MyOwnCouture.com see me en femme.

On Saturday we prepared to do the publicity shots in full dress and make-up. I was terrified of being seen out in public in full Sarah mode, not to mention being photographed and my picture appearing in the local press. But I had made my bed and was now going to have to lie in it. The only way to escape total humiliation was to be a very, very good Dame. As Polly had said, I would have to embrace it and not let anyone see I was afraid of making a fool of myself.

I had to be at the theatre an hour before everyone else so Polly could put together a suitable costume and do my wig and make-up. Her team hadn’t finished with the accessories for any of the dresses we had produced, so I would have to wear an old dress of Arthur’s. She had brought several along to try, so I struggled into my shapewear and we tried each one. Eventually she chose a gaudy yellow bell-shaped dress with diamond cross-hatching in red and orange tones. It had a lace-up bodice which Polly tightened as much as she could. This pushed my bust up dramatically to form a great round shelf almost under my chin.

The dress came down to mid-calf and I wore a pair of red and yellow striped tights underneath it. At least I wouldn’t get too cold standing around outside in the bright November afternoon sun. By now I was used to my high heels and my big padded bra, not to mention the feminine stance and mannerisms that went with them.

I wore a curly blonde wig which Polly had styled into pigtails wrapped around lengths of stiff wire, so that they stuck out at silly angles. She crammed a ridiculous yellow chef’s hat down on top of it all to indicate that Sarah was the Cook. The impression was reinforced by a big lacy pinny. With the over-the-top make-up she had developed that first afternoon I realised, to my relief, that I would be unrecognisable as Nick Rawlinson.

The photo shoot took over an hour, during which time we were all standing around outside the theatre, smiling and waving at passers-by. I had to be in most of the photos, so I didn’t have the chance to get too cold. Inevitably, Charlie selected one of me with Dick and Idle Jack for the posters which would appear all over town.

* * *

Early the following week MyOwnCouture.com delivered my ballgown and my baby doll nightie, which was ridiculously revealing.

“I can’t wait to see you in that, posh girlie,” she said. “We’ve got our tickets for the Friday night. I think I’ll ask Polly if I can have it back afterwards. Then you can wear it just for me in the privacy of my bedroom.”

“You’re weird,” I said. “You do realise it’s just a part in a play, don’t you? It’s all make-believe.”

“I don’t think I’m the only one who’s weird. Anyway, that’ll be the only way you’ll get in my bedroom again.”

* * *

Polly’s team finished their work on my costumes in plenty of time. The basic dresses were now much more elaborate, with aprons and bodices and frills everywhere. They also provided petticoats and crinolines, stockings and knickers. Just trying on my outfits and learning to move in them was becoming a full-time job.

The baby doll nightie with matching negligée and bloomers was utterly outrageous. I would have another wig with curlers in it and a sleeping bonnet on top. The whole outfit was completely over-the-top and I fully expected gasps of astonishment and howls of laughter when I appeared in it. Oh well, that’s Panto.

* * *

And as the hectic rehearsal period continued, and opening night drew inexorably closer, a strange thing happened. Sarah started to come alive in me. At times she seemed to take me over completely. My movements around the stage became more feminine. When I was at home or in the office, and wearing my usual clothes, I found myself sweeping my non-existent skirt under me as I sat down. My speech patterns, based on Sarah’s lines which I now knew by heart, were those of a middle-aged woman. I was becoming a method actor.

The MyOwnCouture.com team must have noticed me walking funny and several times I only just stopped myself calling someone ‘Dearie’ or ‘Sweetie’. I definitely did call out ‘Hello, boys and girls’ as I went into the cowshed one morning. Eddy and Mike looked at me nervously, but we all laughed it off. If Ruth had been there, she would never have let me hear the end of it.

More worryingly, I found I now had Sarah’s entire life story in my head, updated to the 21st century. I ‘remembered’ being a little girl in a poor family; leaving school at fifteen and working in a bakery; marrying young and having two sons who joined the navy, and whom I never saw; and becoming a widow in my early forties.

None of this was anywhere in the script, and it was obviously silly to imagine a back story for such a grotesque comic creation, but it helped me to ‘find’ the character on stage, and even if it was a comedy role it would make my performance ‘truthful’. Charlie complimented me on how well I was doing and even Arthur mumbled a few guarded words of praise.

But what would become of me – the Sarah me – when this was all over?

After the Pantomime

By Susannah Donim

A spare time hobby slowly turns into a lifetime choice for Nick.

Chapter 5 – The Panto

Sarah the Cook starts to take over – and who is Auntie Elsie?

The last two weeks of rehearsals went like a flash – literally so, as every time I was in costume someone from the Society seemed to be taking photos. ‘For publicity,’ they kept saying.

We all knew our lines by now (well, mostly) and knew our moves (well, approximately). A lady who taught dance drama at the local college helped with the musical numbers and dances, but the cast’s two-left-feetedness still drove Charlie demented right up to the dress rehearsal. I was lucky not to be involved, as I can’t sing a note and couldn’t be trusted to dance in high heels anyway.

We wouldn’t be able to get into the theatre until the Sunday before we opened, as the previous show, a zany farce called Up the Bridal Path set among the county horsey set, didn’t vacate the premises until two hours after their last performance on the Saturday, which would be well past midnight. Our stagehands had built all our sets in workshops lent to them by the various local businesses who sponsored us, but they couldn’t start assembling them in the theatre until seven a.m. on Sunday morning.

Then they had until lunchtime, when the cast and orchestra arrived for the Tech Run. This was a full run-through in costume but concentrating on lights, sound and the special effects – like the Bow Bells, and making the Fairy and King Rat appear and disappear in puffs of smoke. The Tech Run is invariably fraught with tension as things rarely go according to plan. Sometimes the techies have to improvise solutions to problems they could never have anticipated. The evening would be reserved for the Dress Run, which was positively the last rehearsal before opening night.

The cast all had to be at the theatre by eleven, to get into costume and make-up. We needed to be ready in case the stage team managed to finish early. I was very pleased to have the star dressing room, but when I went in, I soon saw why it was necessary.

Polly was already there and had laid out everything we needed for Sarah. My three wigs on their stands took pride of place on the dressing table, the rest of which was cluttered by boxes of stage make-up. A rack of dresses and petticoats filled the middle of the room. Bras, panty-girdles, bloomers and stockings were laid out on a long table against the opposite wall, on which Polly had hung our publicity shots and the photos that everyone had been taking throughout rehearsals. I was the only one in costume, so you had to look quite carefully to see that I wasn’t just a fat middle-aged actress rehearsing with the rest of the cast.

Next to them was a cardboard mount with photos and programmes from previous LADS productions.

“Arthur always liked me to put them up in his dressing room,” she said, when she saw me staring at them. “He said it made him feel part of the great theatrical tradition.” She looked bereft for a moment. “Silly old fool!” she sniffed.

“Hey, he’ll be back next year,” I said, touching her shoulder. “He won’t be able to stay away.”

“You’re probably right,” she said, and managed a smile. “Come on, let’s get you ready, love.”

* * *

The first problem we encountered at the Tech Run wasn’t of a technical nature at all. By noon Joe the Narrator hadn’t turned up. At 11.30 Charlie started making frantic phone calls to him and to everyone Charlie could think of who might know him. Nobody had a clue where he was.

By half-past twelve the set was finished and the stage crew were starting to get fidgety. It would be a long day for most of them. So Charlie decided we’d have to make a start. He would read the Narrator’s part. When he did, we all realised why he had chosen to focus on directing. He was flat and limp and completely tone deaf to the jokes. His direction was the epitome of ‘Do as I say; don’t do as I do’. If he had to play the part for real, the show would be off to a dreadful start. The rest of us would have to spend the next hour working to rescue it.

But after the Narrator’s opening monologue the Tech Run went reasonably smoothly. There were a few scenes, especially those with the Bow Bells and on board the Saucy Sal, where the set didn’t perform quite as expected, or the Stage Manager didn’t bring the sounds and the lights in on cue. The storm in the second Act didn’t work the first time. The crew struggled to synchronise the thunder, lightning and the sound of the rain, and the ship’s rocking was unconvincing. But they assured us that these problems were quite normal and exactly what the Tech Run was designed to sort out. We had to run through each of those scenes three or four times, and there was a ten-minute hiatus while the crew secured the rocking ship more securely to the revolving platform.

Our primary school kids provided audience participation when they weren’t on stage being rats. After they had been warned not to do Pete and me any permanent damage, the four of them picked to join in the kitchen custard pie fight had great fun. We had to stand very still, and in some cases bend down a little, to make sure the kids had easy targets for their pies.

The Tech Run was also our first real opportunity to check whether my various costume changes could be accomplished in the time available. We had discovered earlier that a couple of them would be tight, so Polly requested that those be done backstage rather than in my dressing room, which was downstairs and two or three minutes away. So I would now be parading in my bra and bloomers in front of the stagehands. I just hoped they would be professional about it.

So could I change in and out of my elaborate costumes in time? Polly was amazing. For each change I made my way to her in the dark, clambering over ropes and stage weights behind the backdrop, to our corner, which was lit by a small desk lamp, shaded so that its light didn’t shine towards the stage. She had a printed list of the dresses and accessories required for each scene and had arranged everything I needed in the correct order on a trestle table. She must have worked incredibly hard to organise this. Before I had got my breath back from the previous scene, she was already removing my hat and gloves, and unzipping my dress.

While I was standing there in my shift, bloomers and petticoat, she inspected me to make sure everything was in order for the next dress. I stepped into it; she zipped it up; and I sat down for her to renew my make-up. Frequently she would have to dab away the sweat first.

As we were only yards away from the ongoing scene and separated from it by only a few millimetres of painted canvas, everything had to be done in complete silence as well as semi-darkness.

The Tech Run finished at about half-past four and Charlie declared a welcome break for rest and refreshment. He warned us all to be back and in costume by six for make-up, and ready to start the Dress Run at six-thirty. In the meantime he would drive round to Joe’s place and find out what had happened to him.

* * *

At a little after six most of us in the cast were sitting in the stalls with cups of tea. A stagehand was lecturing us on where to stand when the wooden and cardboard Saucy Sal was bucking up and down prior to its sinking. The excited Year 3 kids were up on the stage running round, getting in everyone’s way, and learning new swear words from the frustrated stage crew (which they would later try out on their parents to receive a well-deserved clip round the ear).

Charlie returned looking haggard. We welcomed the interruption, until he revealed what he had found out.

“There was no one in at Joe’s but a neighbour told me he and his wife were at the hospital so I rushed round there. Apparently, he’d been putting up Christmas decorations at work and fell off the ladder. He landed badly and has broken several bones. He’s out.”

We all expressed our sympathy for Joe and promised to go and see him in hospital as soon as possible.

“You’ll have to do his monologue, Charlie,” said Alderman Fitzwarren.

“I can’t! I’m not a performer. The Narrator opens the show. If he’s rubbish it gets the whole thing off to a dreadful start.”

Secretly we were all glad he’d realised that.

“But there’s no one else,” said Pete. “Can we do without it?”

Charlie was looking at me.

“Well, yes, I suppose we could do,” he said, “but how about we merge it in with another piece that’s spoken directly to the audience?”

Everyone else was looking at me now. For some reason I felt that my bra was digging into my shoulder blades a bit more fiercely, and my girdle felt tighter.

“Well,” I began, “I suppose I could do his lines and combine them with introducing myself as Sarah then, rather than later on. We could just move that section up to the opening. It would shorten my piece in front of the curtain after the Town Square scene, which might make changing the scenery a bit tight. I could add in a few more gags there if they need more time. Give me a minute with a script and a pencil, and we can try it out…”

* * *

We started the Dress Run at about ten to seven. The house lights went down. I stepped through the curtains and was immediately dazzled by a spotlight focusing on me. I couldn’t see the audience clearly but it looked like there were more occupied seats than I had expected. I began the opening patter.

“Oh, hello, boys and girls,” I began, in a loud voice full of excitement and bonhomie. “How are you all? Are you having a good time?”

I paused for some audience reaction. The other cast members and the kids and whoever else was out there called out ‘yes’.

“Pardon?” I said, my hand to my ear. “I asked, are you having a good time?”

They all answered ‘Yes’ more loudly.

“Why? What are you doing?” I said, which raised a few proper laughs. Ken Dodd, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

The Narrator’s role – now mine – was a bit like a warm-up man in a studio recording of a sitcom. I had to set the tone for the show with a few corny jokes, some topical references, some rude remarks about people coming from nearby towns (Saffron Walden and Bury St Edmunds bore the brunt), and instructions to turn mobile phones off. It seemed to be going quite well.

“Sorry, I should have introduced myself,” I continued. “I’m Sarah the Cook; well, I say Cook. Actually, I seem to do everything for Alderman Fitzwarren.” I paused and gave my audience a suggestive look. “Sometimes I think he takes advantage of me. Anyway, he loves my dumplings.”

I paused again on that line. This was the moment to do something exaggeratedly feminine. I folded my arms under my bust, hitched up my bosom, tossed my head and primped my hairdo. The tiny audience managed a few good-natured chuckles. Whoever was out there – friends of Charlie’s? – had obviously been primed to react to give the cast a bit of a lift. Otherwise the Dress Rehearsal can feel a bit flat.

“Well, he’s a widower,” I continued, “and my husband died a little while ago.” I gave a little, theatrical sob. “I nursed him in his last illness. I used to rub grease all over his back to make him feel better. It didn’t seem to help. He went downhill really fast.”

I paused again to give them time to get the joke. Now for a barrage of one-liners.

“He always used to help me in the kitchen. He had a black belt in cooking. He could kill you with one chop.” Beat. “We had a very happy married life. Mind you, I was naïve and innocent when we met. I used to think Coq au Vin was making love in a lorry.

“I remember one of the last things my husband said to me before he died. What are you doing with that hammer?” Beat. “He came to a sad end. He fell into a huge vat of granulated coffee. It was a terrible way to go but at least it was instant.”

The unseen spectators were chuckling heartily now. I felt encouraged. They’d obviously heard all the jokes many times, but they seemed to appreciate my delivery.

“Ooh, I’m so tired today,” I continued. “I’m absolutely knickered.” I turned sideways, as though talking to someone in the wings. “No, dear - knickered. My breath’s coming in short pants.”

I puffed and blew a little to fit the line. I was fully proficient in feminine phrasing and mannerisms by now. I gripped myself around the torso and panted some more.

“I’ve been trying to lose some weight,” I said. I turned sideways and stuck my chest and bottom out. “Can you tell?” My vision had adjusted to the light now. I caught the eye of one of the girls in the audience – Millie, I think. “Don’t you dare!”

“I’ve always been a big girl,” I sighed theatrically. “In fact, everyone in my class at school was enormous. They had to stop us doing cross country running because we dented a viaduct.” A couple of people laughed out loud at that one. “So I’m wearing my ‘Harvest Festival’ corset today – all is safely gathered in.”

Another pause to leer at any older ladies there might be in the audience.

“Well I have to go now, but I’ll check back with you later on to make sure you’re keeping up. Tell you what – could you say hello when you see me? When I come on, I’ll say, ‘Hello, boys and girls’, and you say, ‘Hello, Sarah!’ as loud as you can. Shall we try it?’

I paused to get some audience reaction. There were some cheerful grunts.

“Hello, boys and girls!” I yelled.

“Hello, Sarah!” they shouted back.

“Sorry? Did you say something?” I said. “I thought I heard a soft whisper on the wind. Come on, you can do better than that! Hello, boys and girls!”

“Hello, Sarah!” they yelled, much louder.

“Mm, all right, but try to do better next time! I’ll see you all later. Now – welcome to Old London Town…”

I stepped back into the wings as the curtains opened. I was followed by flashes. Someone was taking photographs again.

* * *

The first Act ran fairly smoothly apart from a few instances of forgotten lines, Alderman Fitzwarren being the main culprit. I fluffed a couple but improvised my way out. I think Charlie was the only one who noticed. At both the Tech Run and the Dress I had to mime throwing sweets out to the audience from my mixing bowl – the LADS budget didn’t run to any additional goodies for rehearsals – but I didn’t expect that to be a challenge on the night.

My action scenes were still a worry. My next was the bedroom strip-tease with the little rats running around me as I was stripping off my day dress and getting into my all-too-revealing nightie. But we had practised that often enough that it actually went smoothly. There was more flash photography but I was getting used to it by now and barely noticed.

My last scene of the Act was in the kitchen. We’d only done the custard pie fight with actual crazy foam once before, when we discovered that the cardboard plates became slightly heavier and more unwieldy when loaded, so the choreography needed a little tuning. Also if the stuff gets in your eyes, it doesn’t hurt, but you do have to pause to clear your vision. So we had to adjust the timing slightly whenever either of us scored a direct hit. We were confident that the audience’s laughter would cover any pauses for wiping down.

We called for four more volunteers from the rat pack and Alice and Tommy went down into the stalls to pick them. It was actually quite hard to tell the boys from the girls in their little rat costumes. We hoped that wouldn’t be a problem on the night, but these days who knew?

Anyway they had a great time smothering us and each other in foam. This part couldn’t be choreographed, of course, so it was all improvised, which put an additional load on me and Pete. We had to referee the fight; arm our little guests with pies; and take a few more hits ourselves; all while stopping them from actually killing each other.

After about five minutes of this mayhem Pete blew a whistle and he and I wiped the kids down. On the night we would also hand out the sweeties and the paper towels. And that was the end of Act One.

Charlie didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the performance, so I didn’t get any feedback on whether my opening was OK till we broke for the interval. He and Arthur approached while I was relaxing in the stalls with Pete and Polly. My voluminous skirts and petticoats overflowed the seats. I was wondering who the mysterious strangers in the audience were, and where they had gone, because they weren’t in evidence now.

“Your opening was fine, Nick,” Charlie said. “We’ll go with that if you’re OK with it.”

“Not much bloody choice now,” said Arthur in his usual cheery manner. “This production’s doomed. These things happen in threes, you know. Who’s next for the broken bones? You’d better be careful in those high heels, young Nick.”

“Yes, thank you, Arthur,” Charlie and I said in unison. We grinned at each other.

“I’m just saying…”

“Oh, shut up, Arthur,” said Polly. “Not everyone’s as superstitious as you, you know. In fact, I’ll go the whole hog and wish you all good luck for the week.”

The old thespians all looked at her in horror. Wishing an actor good luck before a performance was the ultimate bad luck.

“Well, I’m not saying ‘break a leg’,” she said. “There’s been enough of that already.”

“OK, gather round, everyone,” called Charlie. “Just a few notes from the first Act, then we can get on with the second. Firstly the ‘London Town’ song in the opening scene. That was probably the best you’ve ever done it, but a couple of people were still singing flat. If you can’t keep in tune, for God’s sake, mime…”

* * *

It was after half-past eight when we began the second Act, which opens on the docks. Because of the rat infestation the Alderman needs supplies from Morocco to sell in the store and he hires the Saucy Sal. For some reason, he decides to join the ship himself and brings his daughter Alice along as well, which of course makes no sense at all.

They bring their servants with them too: Idle Jack and me as the Ship’s Cook. This gave me an opportunity for another costume: my girly sailor suit, a short Navy Blue dress with white piping along the collar sleeves and hem. Of course, because it was short, I had to wear yet another pair of bloomers in matching Navy Blue. These came down to just below the knee, with elastic and lace around their leg holes. The lower half of my shaved legs were in full view. The costume reminded me of an old-fashioned bathing beauty outfit. I felt like a sex object. There was a matching bonnet, like a mob cap, also in Navy Blue with white piping.

In this scene everything is haste and confusion as the Captain and his First Mate want to sail with the tide. There was very little dialogue, just lots of tricky choreography with sailors – the chorus boys and girls – running round carrying the ship’s supplies, bumping into each other, dropping boxes on each other’s feet, and so on. We principals had to do much the same, scurrying around each other, having lots of near accidents. Hopefully it would be very funny. The scene ended with me, Idle Jack and the Alderman telling lots of old, off-colour nautical gags before boarding at the last minute.

In the midst of all this confusion, unbeknownst to the rest of us but hopefully very obvious to the audience, Dick Whittington and Tommy the Cat stow away too, in search of fame and fortune.

The second Act went well. The storm special effects were excellent now. The ship rocked alarmingly; we threw ourselves from side to side like Kirk and Spock on the Enterprise. It was so unsteady we hardly needed to act at all, and I was the most off balance in my high-heeled boots. We sank with all hands, as planned. The ‘Under the Sea’ scene in Davy Jones’ locker was spooky and could frighten some of the little ones, so Idle Jack and I had some swimming gags to lighten the mood.

After the technical challenges of the ship and the storm, the scenes in Morocco were relatively easy. I had another costume change for the street encounter in which I try to seduce the Alderman, and he accidentally rips my dress off. Down to my old-fashioned frilly underwear, I scream and run off stage squealing. The Alderman chases after me with my dress. Well, he has to marry me now, doesn’t he?

Then into the Sultan’s palace where Tommy kills all the little rats and Dick kills the big one. The Sultan gives him half his kingdom and offers him his daughter’s hand in marriage, but Dick will only wed Alice Fitzwarren; and everyone lives happily ever after.

The whole show finished with singing and dancing at the Sultan’s Palace Ball. I was now in my mermaid-style ball gown. This was my most difficult costume. It showed my every feminine curve (all padding of course) and I could hardly move in it. I end up with the Alderman as planned, and we have a little dance duet in which he dips me low. Every time we did it, I prayed that his back would hold out, because if he let go of me, there was no way I could avoid falling on mine.

With just a few minor stoppages it was after half past ten when Charlie called us together for his Second Act notes. We all listened carefully and promised to take his comments on board for opening night. His main instruction was to pick up the pace, or we’d have complaints from parents about keeping the kids up too late.

Overall the amateur cast had shown why LADS was so well-regarded locally, and why they regularly won prizes at drama festivals. I had done my best to rise to their standard.

I never got round to asking Charlie who his guests were.

That night at home I promised myself I would read through all my lines one final time, but I fell asleep half-way through Act One.

* * *

On Monday morning I got an exciting telephone call from Gerry MacAulay, the biochemist working on the new hand-held blood sugar testing device. As planned, they had made arrangements with our local hospital to try out their prototype with their diabetic patients, and had completed the first round of clinical trials, with extremely promising results.

With my help they had approached a bank for full financing. Their start-up venture manager was very impressed and he wanted a meeting this week to discuss contracts. I had pointed out that I couldn’t do an afternoon meeting at their London HQ as I needed to be at the theatre by six o’clock. We were offered early Friday morning. I suggested that we should agree as long as the real decision makers would be attending. Otherwise, as I knew from my time in big firm accountancy, these negotiations could drag on for months. When Gerry mentioned that we were in conversation with other banks they agreed.

This was progress, but it meant that Gerry, his partner, Steve, Will Holford and I would need to spend most of this week preparing. We planned to get together at Will’s office, as he had all the relevant model contracts there, and his firm could make a conference room available all week. We were convening at 10.30, so I called in at MyOwnCouture.com before heading off.

Ruth’s office door was partially closed. There was no light on so she was probably out, but there was plenty of natural light in there in the mornings, and I knew she often worked like that to deter visitors and other distractions. She could still hear what was going on outside.

“Hi, Nick! We didn’t expect to see you today,” said Vicky, when I entered the open-plan office.

“I just came round to drop off a copy of our programme. I got them to put in an advert for MyOwnCouture.com. I took the content off the website. It was all a bit last minute, or I would have checked with Ruth for her input.”

Vicky started thumbing through the programme.

“How did your dress rehearsal go?” she asked.

“Very well,” I said, stretching the truth only slightly. “It’s going to be a great show. Are you coming?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. We’re all going on Friday night. Can’t wait to see you in the dresses we made for you!”

I smiled. “I hope you’re not coming just so you can laugh at me? Like Ruth?”

I turned my head to her office door. No sign of life.

“What? No!” Vicky looked genuinely shocked. “Pantomimes are great fun – and we think you’re amazing!”

I wondered who she meant by ‘we’. I knew she and Mike had started dating.

“I could never get up on stage in front of a lot of strangers,” she continued, “especially… dressed like that. I’d be shell-shocked. Respect!”

“Nice of you to say so,” I smiled. “It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I think.” I pointed over my shoulder with my thumb. “And her relentless mockery certainly hasn’t made it any easier.”

“Oh, that’s just Ruth. She likes teasing people.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and grinned. “Especially you…”

She found the page with the advert. “Oh, here it is! It’s great – and in full colour too.”

The ad said the same sort of stuff Mo had put on the website; indeed, I’d lifted the content directly from the home page, with the same pictures. “Come to MyOwnCouture.com – you can design your own dress, or pick one of our fashionable styles. Choose from our wide range of colours and materials. We can print any pattern or design. Just send us your measurements and we’ll manufacture a unique dress to your exact specifications. Get precisely what you want at a fraction of the price on the high street or anywhere else online.”

“I also got them to put in a credit on the page with the cast list – see there at the bottom.”

“The Dame’s costumes were designed by Arthur and Polly Whitmore, fabricated by MyOwnCouture.com, and finished by the LADS wardrobe team,” Vicky read out.

“That was very kind of you, Nick,” said Ruth, emerging from her office. “Every little bit of publicity helps.”

Had she heard what I said? She must have. Oh well, she would know what I thought of her by now. The smell of burning bridges assaulted my nostrils.

“You’ve still got make-up around your eyes and nose, by the way,” she said. “I hope you don’t have any important meetings today.”

I grabbed my handkerchief and started rubbing randomly.

“Here, let me.” She took my handkerchief and held it out. “Spit, sweetie,” she said.

I spat, just like I’d always done when my mother told me to when I was little. It didn’t occur to me to refuse then – or now. She rubbed my face vigorously. I wasn’t looking at Vicky but I could hear her trying to stifle a snigger.

“That’s a little less obvious, but you need cold cream really. Saliva doesn’t work that well on modern cosmetics.”

“Um, thank you,” I mumbled.

“Eddy and I are going on Friday night too,” she said. “Can we come to your dressing room after the show? Maybe buy you a drink? I know we can’t do that on Saturday night. You’ll have the cast party after the show, won’t you?”

“Er, yes, that would be great,” I said. I was anxious to change the subject. “So how are you getting on with those other orders?”

“They’re done and despatched. I’m going to send out an email asking the customers for feedback.”

We all fell silent.

Awkward.

“The website got nearly a hundred hits yesterday,” Vicky said.

“That’s great!”

“None of them turned into orders though,” Ruth said.

“Still…” I said. “Early days.”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Well, I must be off,” I said. “We have a contracts meeting for the diabetic testing guys. Looks like they may have got more funding.” I turned to go. “I’ll probably be in meetings with them most of this week, so… I may not see you till Friday night.”

I made for the stairs. I sensed Ruth following.

“You know, you really shouldn’t take the things I say so seriously,” she said, quietly.

I turned. “What things?”

But she had gone back into her office and closed the door.

* * *

The rest of the day passed agonisingly slowly. We made good progress at the meeting at Will’s office, but my mind was hardly on contract negotiations. Tonight was opening night! I rushed off to the theatre as soon as I could get away.

Too nervous to eat dinner, I soon found myself in the little dressing room with Polly. She helped me into my padded bra and panty-girdle. Then I pulled a fresh pair of white patterned stockings up my legs and Polly helped me secure them to the girdle’s suspenders.

“Nervous?” she asked.

“As a cat on a hot tin roof,” I said.

She laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s Panto, not Tennessee Williams. Everyone’s here for a laugh and you’re a good stand-up comic, totally at home with an audience. If things go wrong, you’ll improvise something and they’ll love it.”

“I wish I had your confidence.”

“It’s the anticipation; you’ll be fine as soon as you get going.”

I stepped into my frilly bloomers and sat down so that Polly could do up my high-heeled boots. I wriggled into my shift.

With my underwear and padding in place, she began on my wig and make-up; the false eyelashes, heavy eyeshadow, thin arched eyebrows, the rouged cheeks, the bright red lipstick, and the little upturned prosthetic nose, with its own touch of rouge – to suggest a heavy drinker, maybe?

Polly paused to check her work. We both examined my image in the mirror. And slowly the magic started to happen. Sarah came out and looked around her.

I looked from my reflection to Polly’s and back again. I saw two plump, middle-aged ladies, one too heavily made-up. I was over the moon to be one of them.

“What do you think, Sarah?” Polly said.

“It’s fine, sweetie,” I said in Sarah’s voice. “Just darling!”

Polly laughed. I was preening myself, checking my hair and make-up like any matron at the mirror in the Ladies’.

“She’s taken you over, hasn’t she?” Polly said with a smile. “That’s good – it means Nick has gotten out of the way, and you – Sarah – will give a great performance. This always happened with Arthur, though perhaps not as much as this. Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

“Only in my dreams, lovey.”

“There are other differences too,” she mused. “Arthur’s age and figure meant he had to play the Dame as a roly-poly mum; or Granny in Little Red Riding Hood; or occasionally the stern headmistress type. So there was always a generational gap. The kids saw him as a parent figure. You come across as younger. You could be the cool aunt, younger than their mums and dads, and more fun. Maybe even a big sister.”

I thought about that, and whether it might change my performance. Perhaps in the slapstick scene?

Polly was holding out my petticoat for me to step into. The rustle of nylon was thrilling. Then she was zipping me into my garish day dress and adding a matching ribbon to my hair.

And there I was: Sarah the Cook, ready to go out and kick bottom. I giggled at the excitement to come.

* * *

It was 7.25 on Opening Night. The curtains were still closed. I was standing with Charlie in the wings looking through the little one-way hatch at the audience.

“I thought you said the Monday was usually the worst house, not much more than half full? I can hardly see any empty seats.”

“Word must have got around,” Charlie said.

“How?

“The review in tonight’s paper probably helped. It was really good – best we’ve ever had.”

“What review?”

“Oh, didn’t I mention? I invited the staff of the Echo and the Post along to the Dress Run. They brought their families. They had about a dozen kids between them.”

“So that’s who all those extra people were!”

“Yep, and they all had a great time. Most of the kids are going to drag their parents in again later in the week.”

“I didn’t see any of them in the interval.”

“No, I sent them off for free drinks and ice creams in the bar. It was a rehearsal after all. We didn’t want them listening in while we did Notes and fixed problems. It would’ve spoilt the magic. I dare say they rushed off quickly at the end to file their reviews for the morning papers.”

“What did they say?”

“Very enthusiastic. Both singled you out for special praise. ‘Best Dame in years,’ one of them said. Arthur’s fuming.” He chuckled. “Mind you, the amount of our booze they guzzled, the reviews should have been good.”

The house lights dimmed. The buzz of conversation fell to nothing. The opening music started.

“Hey up!” he said. “You ready for the off?”

A spotlight fell on my side of the stage, a couple of feet from my high-heel boots. I stepped out into its glare.

“Oh, hello, boys and girls,” I began, as though surprised to see all those strangers outside my home and place of work. “How are you all? Are you having a good time?”

* * *

It was every bit as wonderful as I’d hoped.

I found out a lot about myself that night. You need to expunge every drop of cynicism from your body to play Panto, especially if you’re the Dame. Panto is all about innocence. Fortunately that message had permeated the minds of our audience, young and old alike, and they had taken it to heart. They laughed loudly at my better one-liners and groaned cheerfully at the corny jokes. They joined in enthusiastically with the calls of ‘Hello, Sarah!’

My early scenes went well. I got a lot of laughs in the bedroom scene. I went behind a screen to take off my day dress (which Polly had unzipped for me just before I entered), and reappeared wearing my skimpy baby doll and frilly bloomers. This was greeted by whoops of surprise and delight from the audience, who had probably never seen a Dame in such a revealing outfit. Not that it actually revealed anything, of course; it was a triumph of titillating design by Polly. The whoops turned to belly laughs when the little rats entered and I jumped squealing onto the bed.

But I’d been dreading the kitchen slapstick scene. I was in now my white Cook’s outfit with long, frilly bib apron and Chef’s hat, which wasn’t going to stay on my head for very long once the custard pies started flying.

“He’s behind you!” the kids all shouted, their excitement, frustration and panic evident in their high-pitched voices.

I whipped round, just in time to see Idle Jack duck behind the table, but of course as Sarah I didn’t see him. I turned quickly back to the front, my skirt and petticoats swishing round with me.

“No, he isn’t!” I yelled at the audience.

Behind me, I knew Pete would have popped up again.

“Yes, he is!” they all yelled, even louder.

I whipped round again. Pete ducked again. I turned back.

“Oh no, he isn’t!” I yelled.

“Oh yes, he is!” they yelled back, as Pete popped up again to make rude gestures to my turned back.

I folded my arms under my enormous fake boobs, and hoisted them up, resulting in two outrageous and dramatic wobbles, which yielded whoops of delight from the audience, though for some reason the laughter from the mums was loudest.

“Now, look, boys and girls…” I went on.

The kids were screaming with laughter now, and their mums and dads were clearly happy that their offspring were happy. I had the audience in the palm of my hand. Time to turn round…

…and receive a custard pie right in the face.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” I squealed, removing my hat and wiping crazy foam from my face. “I thought we were friends!”

“We did!” all the children yelled at once.

“Oh no, you didn’t!”

“Oh yes, we did!”

Pete and I then got into our choreographed custard pie fight. The idea was that I would keep just missing him, and he would connect with a pie in my face or my bottom every time I missed.

Eventually I called a truce and stepped downstage.

“I think I’m going to need some help here,” I said, with a mouthful of crazy foam. “Would any little girls in the audience like to come up here and help me?”

I thought little girls were supposed to be shy? But there were lots of calls of “Me! Me! Me!” – which was a relief. Lily, as Alice Fitzwarren, appeared from the wings stage left and made her way into the stalls. Mindful of her instructions, she picked two hysterical but harmless-looking five-year-olds to come up and throw a custard pie in Idle Jack’s face.

“Hang on,” he said. “That’s not fair! “Would any little boys in the audience like to come up here and help me?”

More cries of “Me! Me! Me!” and Tommy the Cat, appeared from stage right and went down to choose a couple of frantic little boys.

When they got on the stage one of the boys, a ginger-haired little horror, turned to me and said loudly, “Are you a man?” Just as Arthur had predicted.

“Not tonight, sweetie,” I said. “And what’s so great about men anyway?”

The women in the audience gave an almighty cheer.

We got the little ones lined up with their pies and Pete blew his whistle. Five minutes of mayhem ensued. Pete and I tried to make it look like we were dodging but we had to make sure we stood still enough for all of the kids to score at least one hit each. They were just starting to turn on each other when Pete blew his whistle again to signal the end of hostilities. We took our respective little ones by the hand to the front of the stage. Jack led his little boys in a bow, and I and my little girls curtseyed. (They were surprisingly good at that. Do they still teach little girls to curtsey?) The audience clapped and cheered for all they were worth.

We gave the little ones their paper towels and chocolates and Alice and Tommy led them back to their seats and their proud parents. Jack and I waved and retired upstage as the curtains closed and the house lights came up. I was delighted that Charlie and most of the cast came on to congratulate us.

“That was brilliant, Nick, Pete!” said Charlie. “I don’t think I’ve seen the kiddy audience participation bit done better.”

There were cries of “Hear, hear!” and a little round of applause. We thanked them and staggered off to recover and get cleaned up.

Polly gave me a hug when I stumbled into my dressing room, and showed me a copy of the paper with our review in it. It was glowing, to say the least.

“I knew you’d be good,” she said. “They were eating out of your hand – and this is only the first night!”

“Thanks, Polly, but I had no idea it would be such hard work. I’m totally knickered.”

She laughed. “You’re coming down from an adrenaline high. You need to eat something to keep your blood sugar up, and drink to stop yourself getting dehydrated – just like tennis players do between sets.”

She handed me a banana and a weak orange squash.

“I couldn’t do this without you,” I said, honestly. “You couldn’t put a drop of Scotch in that, could you?”

“I certainly couldn’t, you naughty girl! Now come on, let’s get your dress off. The interval’s half over.”

* * *

In the second Act the docks, ship and underwater scenes all went well. The technical problems were all behind us, it seemed.

After the interval I didn’t have so much to do in Act Two, just a little two-hander joking with Idle Jack and my futile attempt to seduce Alderman Fitzwarren, which led to him accidentally ripping my dress off. Most of the drama was with Dick, Alice and King Rat.

So we made it to the end unscathed. As we came on to take our bows, the audience showed their appreciation. We came on in little groups or pairs, according to our significance. First the chorus boys and girls; the Captain and the First Mate; then the Alderman paired with the Sultan. King Rat and the rat kids came on next. Roddy pranced around menacingly, scowling and hissing at the audience, who cheered and booed him delightedly.

Pete and I came on together next and the cheers got louder. Pete bowed and I curtseyed, of course. Some of the audience actually leapt to their feet clapping and cheering. We separated and dropped back to let Dick and Alice come on last. The applause that greeted them didn’t sound as loud, but I’m probably biased.

We took three curtain calls. I was in seventh heaven.

* * *

Having had only a banana since lunchtime I was starving, so after Polly had helped me change back to Nick, we met up with Arthur and Charlie and went to a local Indian restaurant that stayed open late. There was an inevitable post-mortem on the evening’s performance. Charlie admitted that he was pleased, but still not satisfied. There were still areas where we could be slicker, more professional, he said, and the pace was still too slow in places, but – he admitted – not in any of my scenes. If anything, I could slow down a little.

Arthur had a quite different, but familiar, point to make.

“You’re still not really a Dame,” he grumbled. “I’ve watched the whole show three times in the last two days, and you get more feminine every time.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” asked Polly. “Tonight’s audience clearly loved him. He’s holding up a mirror to all our feminine foibles – but not in a nasty way. The women in the audience were in fits…”

“But the Dame isn’t supposed to be a Drag Queen,” he spluttered. “In fact, it’s worse than that. You’re doing female impersonation. It’s only your masculine voice that gives away that you’re a man at all!”

He was getting worked up. Maybe his leg was hurting, but I knew he felt strongly about this. Charlie and Polly tried to argue with him, but I interrupted.

“No, Arthur’s right,” I said. They all looked at me, surprised. “I’ve taken it too far. Quite honestly, I don’t know what Sarah is now. She’s not a Drag Queen, I hope, but she’s certainly not a traditional Pantomime Dame.”

Arthur looked a little mollified.

“But I’m afraid I don’t think I can change anything now. I can only do it like I did tonight. It was comfortable; anything else would be too much of a strain.”

“Quite right,” insisted Charlie. “Don’t even think of doing anything different. It would put everyone else off, for a start.”

“Maybe I’ve invented a new type of Pantomime Dame,” I suggested, not too seriously.

“Don’t give yourself airs,” Arthur snorted. “There’s plenty tried to do it like that. It’s still not right.”

“And when did you last get a standing ovation, Mr Gloomy Guts?” asked Polly.

If she were only thirty years younger…

* * *

The rest of the week followed Monday’s pattern: hard work with Gerry, Steve and Will during the day; mad panic at the theatre to get ready, Polly running round with my dresses, wigs and make-up; hard work and laughter in the performances; and happy audiences of families having a great night out. How lucky was I to have been asked to join LADS, the best amateur theatre company in England? The word had got around and we were sold out every night.

I went out to eat after the show each night but not with the Whitmores again. Polly apologised, but she didn’t want to hear Arthur criticising me again for not playing the Dame his way.

Friday came around all too soon. I had to exchange Sarah’s padded bra and girdle, petticoats and garish dresses for a formal man’s business suit, which I was amazed still fitted me. I had got so used to my big wobbly boobs and padded bum.

Gerry, Steve, Will and I went up to the Bank’s headquarters in London on an early train. Having been wide awake, giddy with excitement at one o’clock in the morning, I was still half asleep.

But the meeting went well. Gerry gave a PowerPoint presentation outlining the technology and its benefits, and Steve followed him with graphs and statistics of the results of the clinical trials. I then managed to wake up in time to present our financial projections, which as expected generated a lot of interest. We were also able to tell them that the Department of Health were very keen and intended to offer us a contract on a trial basis.

The Bank’s consultants gave us a grilling but we were well prepared and had answers to all their questions. We tabled Will’s draft contracts and their lawyers declared themselves mostly satisfied. That meant that they would crawl all over them for the next two weeks and demand numerous pettifogging changes, but the real decision makers were in broad agreement.

This was a big step forward, and it meant that I now owned twenty per cent of a potentially great business and might soon have an alternative source of income. Also, poor Will might finally get paid for his excellent work. We opened a bottle of East Coast Main Line prosecco on the train home.

This meeting was also good practice for the similar one we would be having soon for MyOwnCouture.com.

* * *

The Friday night show was the best yet. The audience were the most enthusiastic and vociferous so far. I staggered back to my dressing room to find Polly and Ruth there with enormous grins on their faces. Ruth rushed up to hug me.

“You were brilliant, Nick!” she gushed in a manner completely unlike her. “I had no idea. Now I see why we haven’t seen much of you lately. You must have been working so hard!”

“It’s been a labour of love though, hasn’t it, dear?” said Polly before I could acknowledge Ruth’s uncharacteristic compliments.

She pulled me down into my chair and started unzipping my dress. This was the mermaid ballgown of course, and I was always glad to be able to get out of it.

“So I’m going to take you out to dinner,” continued Ruth, “by way of congratulations, and to acknowledge everything you’ve done for us at MyOwnCouture.com.”

Polly had removed my wig and was now attacking my make-up with cold cream. Meanwhile Ruth was reaching for a garment bag that was hanging from the handle of a cupboard. She unzipped it with a flourish. Inside was a dark blue cocktail dress covered in shiny spangles. I recognised it as one of MyOwnCouture.com’s standards.

“Ta daa!” she announced grandly. “I made it from your measurements, of course, and with a high neckline. Polly warned me that you wouldn’t be in a position to show any cleavage.”

“Wha-a-a…?” I began. It was a conspiracy!

Any further questions from me were silenced by Polly rubbing away at my lipsticked mouth. She took up the story.

“Ruth explained why you can’t go out with her as yourself, so we came up with this idea,” she said. “You’ll look lovely in that gorgeous dress.”

“Hang on…!”

Then I noticed that Polly had started putting new make-up on me, which seemed to include little strips of wrinkly latex. And now she was reaching for a different wig, one with curls and streaks of grey.

“Hey – grey wig? And you’re doing ageing make-up too, aren’t you?”

“We thought you would look more convincing as an older lady. That’s why we haven’t changed your padding. Your figure is just right for late middle-age. Now get those silly Dame tights off. I’ve got a lovely pair of light grey seamed stockings for you – your girdle has suspenders – and these shoes should fit you.”

I did as I was told, not sure why I was going along with this.

“These glasses will help your disguise, just in case there’s someone at the restaurant who was at the show. They’re theatrical props with plain glass.”

She handed me a pair of women’s cat’s eye glasses. I put them on and gazed in the mirror. The ageing make-up, the grey wig, and the glasses made me look like I was in my sixties. I also looked more like my mother than ever; not at all like Sarah; and not even remotely like a man.

“The finishing touch!” laughed Ruth. “You’re brilliant, Polly.” She held out the dress for me to step into. “Now, most of the people around here who know me have also met my mother, so you’ll have to be my aunt. Come along, Auntie, put your lovely dress on!”

“Wait a moment,” said Polly. “That dress needs a slip – here.”

She passed Ruth a pretty, cream-coloured underslip, which I started to put on over my head. I hesitated, feeling that some token resistance was required. “I’m not sure about this…”

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” said Polly. “You’re not afraid of a little challenge, are you? Just make sure you use your ‘Daisy Duquesne’ voice, not your ‘Sarah the Cook’. She’s too mannish.”

“I’m not confident I can fool people that I’m a woman in public – in a well-lit restaurant!”

“Are you kidding?” said Ruth, holding the dress out again. “You’ve just spent three hours being a woman, and you were completely convincing in your femininity. Everyone said so.”

Polly was nodding. “Remember to take little steps, and sweep your skirt under you when you sit down. You’ll be fine. I’ll pack your men’s clothes in your suitcase,” she said.

“And don’t worry, I’ll help you get undressed later,” added Ruth, with a twinkle that wasn’t like her at all.

Polly giggled. “Now a lady of your age would definitely be wearing some jewellery.” She brought out a silver necklace and fastened it round my neck. “This will also cover up your Adam’s apple, not that you have a prominent one. I doubt most people would notice it. I have some clip-on earrings and a ladies’ watch somewhere. She started rummaging in her case. “And don’t worry – this is all stage stuff, completely worthless.”

She clipped the earrings and the watch on me, and slipped an engagement ring and a wedding ring on my finger.

“Oh, and you’ll need this,” she said, passing me a weathered cream-coloured handbag.

I held it open while she transferred my wallet and keys into it. She added the cosmetics she’d just finished using on me. Then she went over to the corner and started packing up Nick’s belongings.

“I don’t understand why I’m doing this,” I said. “Why am I letting it happen?”

“Well either you want it,” Ruth said with a knowing smile, “or you want me.”

“Or both,” added Polly, helping me into a smart ladies’ overcoat.

* * *

We took Ruth’s car, as I didn’t want to risk driving in unfamiliar high heels, or being stopped while disguised as an old lady. I wondered what happened to the other members of the MyOwnCouture.com team. I assumed Ruth had told them she wanted me to herself tonight.

We went to Agnelli’s again, which proved to be a mistake. It was nearly eleven o’clock and, afraid that the kitchen might be closed, we rushed in. I was tottering slightly on the high heels Polly had shoved on my feet, and didn’t realise that Ruth had stopped suddenly in front of me. I nearly barged into her.

“Ruth, darling! How nice to see you again,” called Angela Cross. “Come and join us.”

She waved. I grabbed her elbow to hold her back.

“I can’t sit with them! They’ve already met me as Nick!”

“You don’t look anything like Nick,” she hissed. “Try not to talk too much and you’ll be fine.”

“Ruth, I can’t…”

“Oh for God’s sake, grow a pair!” She giggled. “And I mean boobs, not balls, of course.”

She grabbed my hand and led me over to the Crosses’ table. A waiter appeared from nowhere to seat us and take our coats. I ordered a white wine spritzer and Ruth asked for a half of cider.

“Are you hoping to eat? You’re awfully late,” said Bill.

“Yes, we’ve come straight from the theatre…” Ruth began. The Crosses were looking expectantly at me. “Oh I’m sorry, This is my Auntie… Elsie. Auntie, this is Bill and Angela Cross.”

“We’re friends of Ruth’s fiancé’s parents. Have you met Eddy?”

This wasn’t fair. It took me weeks to get into the mindset of Sarah the Cook. Now I had seconds to become Ruth’s Auntie Elsie. Why Elsie, for Pete’s sake? At least it was better than Gladys.

“Er, yes,” I began in my higher register voice, the one I had developed for Daisy Duquesne. “Sweet boy.”

Ruth looked at me in surprise. She hadn’t expected me to sound like an actual woman. Was she disappointed that I might actually get away with this?

“We’re just finishing our coffee, but we’ll keep you company till you’ve ordered,” said Bill. “What did you see at the theatre?”

“Dick Whittington – the LADS Panto,” Ruth said.

“Any good?” asked Angela.

“Not bad at all. They’ve got a new Dame this year. She’s absolutely brilliant – had the audience in the palm of her hand. Oh, you’ve met her – him, I mean – haven’t you? It’s Nick Rawlinson, our Finance Manager.”

My face felt flushed. Did she really think I was good or was she just having a laugh?

“He’s a bit young to be playing the Dame, isn’t he?” said Bill.

“Yes, I would have thought he could be the leading man,” said Angela. “He’s quite good-looking.”

I tried hard to look unconcerned, but I was blushing hard.

“Oh, do you think so?” said Ruth innocently. “I hadn’t noticed. Anyway, in Panto the Leading Man is always played by a girl. She was quite good too.”

“Perhaps we should go and see it,” said Bill. “Will there be tickets left for tomorrow night?”

“I think Nick said they’re sold out,” said Ruth. “There might be some left for the matinee.”

“No good,” he said. “I’ve got a golf tournament tomorrow.”

We just managed to get our order in before the kitchen closed. Fortunately Ruth and Angela dominated the conversation so I didn’t have to say much. I just sipped my spritzer in a ladylike manner. The Crosses showed no sign of recognising me, or indeed of noticing anything suspicious at all. I began to breathe more easily, my over-tight girdle notwithstanding. I would have to eat sparingly tonight or risk severe indigestion. How do women wear these things all day?

My reverie was broken when Bill got to his feet and said, “Well much as I’m enjoying squiring three such beautiful ladies, I have an early tee time tomorrow, so if you’ll excuse us? Come along, Angela.”

“Oh, him and his golf,” his wife grumbled. “Well it was lovely to meet you, Elsie. I hope to see you again soon – perhaps at the wedding?”

I was about to get to my feet, but Ruth clung onto my dress to stop me rising. Oh yes, I’m a lady not a gentleman tonight. I smiled and muttered appropriate pleasantries.

“What did he mean by ‘squiring’,” I asked in my feminine voice, after the Crosses had gone. “Does that have sexual connotations? Was he propositioning us?”

Ruth burst out laughing.

“That was brilliant! Where did that voice come from? You sounded just like a woman! Why didn’t you talk like that as the Dame?”

I explained that the Dame is supposed to sound like a man. That was half the joke, but she didn’t get it.

“What are you going to do when they tell Eddy’s parents they met your Auntie Elsie?” I asked. “Hideous name, by the way; thanks for that. And what if they invite her – me – to the wedding?”

“Well it doesn’t matter, does it? Because there isn’t going to be a wedding. Anyway, if the worst comes to the worst, we can always drag you up again. You make a fantastic Auntie Elsie. But this is why you’re here dressed like that. I couldn’t risk going out with you as Nick again.”

Despite the excitement of the evening’s performance, the unfamiliar clothes, the tight girdle, and the sheer terror of being outed as a geriatric cross-dresser, I thoroughly enjoyed the meal, and drank too much, seeing that Ruth was driving again. So when we got back to her flat, and Eddy wasn’t there as usual, I was a pushover.

She soon had my dress off but I insisted on removing my wig and glasses before we did anything. I didn’t think I could make love to this beautiful and confusing woman when I was looking so much like my mother – or grandmother. I peeled off the latex strips and she gave me some cold cream to work on the rest of my make-up.

“You’ll have to help me with my bra,” I admitted, slightly embarrassed. “I can’t reach the fastenings behind me and it’s too tight for me to wriggle out of. Polly usually does it for me.”

“Well, this is new. I don’t think I’ve ever had a sexual partner who wears a padded bra and girdle before. I’m tempted to leave it on you,” she laughed. “It’s dead sexy. To say nothing of your big, round, womanly rump.”

“That’s padding too. You know that, right?”

My pitiful look must have moved her, or else she was afraid I wouldn’t be able to perform while wearing such feminine garments. She couldn’t see what was happening down below because of the restraining effect of my panty-girdle.

“OK, come here then, Auntie,” she said. “Your stiff undies would probably scratch me in my sensitive places anyway.”

She then took enormous pleasure in slowly stripping me of my slip, stockings, and bra. With each item her breath grew more ragged. By the time she reached my panty-girdle, she was practically panting with desire and my erection was getting painful.

“Polly said that she and Arthur had fantastic sex with him dressed as a woman,” she breathed. “At first I thought they were weird, but I totally get it now.”

“Too much information,” I said, and tossed her onto the bed, just to show that I could.

There followed a longer and even more exciting lovemaking session than last time. Afterwards I was just dozing off when she murmured quietly in my ear.

“If you’re going to sleep over regularly, we’d better get you a nightie,” she said. “By the way, who’s Daisy Duquesne?”

But I was asleep, or at least pretending to be.

Ruth was corrosively honest, controlling, confrontational, and I was afraid might just be the love of my life…

* * *

She woke me in the nicest possible way at about eight on Saturday morning. This time – and for the first time – we actually made love, as opposed to just fucking like demented rabbits. It was slow, soft, gentle, and affectionate. It wasn’t as sensual as our two previous mad, passionate trysts but in many ways I enjoyed it more. I hoped she did too. I didn’t dare ask for feedback, or a status update on our relationship, in case I got a disappointing response – and I knew Ruth wouldn’t lie to spare my blushes. But discretion is the better part of valour, I told myself. It was just cowardice really.

“You know this is the third time we’ve done this,” I said, diffidently.

“I haven’t been counting,” she said. “And your point is…?”

“Well you’ve heard the old expression: ‘once is happenstance; twice is coincidence; but the third time is…’”

“Enemy action?”

“I was going to say, ‘getting to be a habit’.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Not to me, but I would like to think it was a little more than just… y’know… physical.”

“Mmm, well I admit that you’ve been gradually creeping around my mental block, posh girl…” she said.

“I wasn’t trying to. You’ve made it very clear I’m from the wrong side of the tracks, as it were.”

“Well sometimes you don’t seem like an aristocrat at all.”

“That’s because I’m not. My Dad’s a landowner, not a lord, for God’s sake. And do you know how difficult it is to make a living from owning land? Assuming you don’t sell it to developers, which he couldn’t even if he wanted to, ‘cause it’s designated as agricultural land and they’d never get planning permission to build on it.”

I don’t think she was listening. She snuggled into me. Her long hair was tickling my nose again.

* * *

We lay in till nearly eleven, when I had to get up and have something to eat. I needed to be at the theatre for one o’clock in time to get ready for the afternoon matinee. Ruth went down to her car to fetch my suitcase and I dressed as a man for the first time in what felt like ages. Later she ran me back to the theatre so I could pick up my car and go home to the manor for a change of clothes.

In the car I invited Ruth to the cast party but she thought it would be too risky. In a large gathering it was too likely that us being together – again – would get back to the Deveres.

“No, I’ll see you in the office next week,” she said. “We have to prepare for the presentation to the Bank. You will be able to come, won’t you?”

“But I’m an investor, not an employee…” I began.

“But I don’t know the financials as well as you do. If they ask me any questions about our accounts, I’ll be lost.”

“Well if you want to be the MD you’ll need to learn all that.” She looked worried. “OK, I’ll give you a thorough briefing before the meeting.”

She wasn’t entirely reassured. In the end we agreed that I would attend the presentation but not speak unless they asked a difficult financial question that she couldn’t answer. I didn’t see what the fuss was about anyway. MyOwnCouture.com’s accounts weren’t complicated.

“So do you want to get together tomorrow?”

“Better not,” she said. “You need to wind down after this week, and try to remember how to be Nick again. Besides if you’re not Dame Sarah or Auntie Elsie, I won’t be as turned on.” She laughed.

“You’re a pervert, you know that?” I said.

“I’m a pervert? I don’t go to restaurants dressed as elderly people of the opposite sex!”

* * *

I reported to Polly before the Saturday matinee. While I was undressing, she asked me how my evening with Ruth went.

“It was very pleasant,” I said, discreetly, “and thank you for your part in it.”

I handed her the suitcase with Auntie Elsie’s clothes and my padded bra and girdle in it.

“No, no,” she said, “this is your dress. Ruth made it for you. It’s lovely but LADS has no use for it, and it certainly won’t fit me.”

“Thanks, but I can’t see myself wearing it again.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” she laughed. “Not if you’re going to go on seeing Ruth! By the way, I suggested the ‘older lady’ thing as I thought you wouldn’t want to look like Daisy Duquesne – in case you bumped into someone at the restaurant who had seen her at the Club last month. Of course, I didn’t tell Ruth that; just that men are more convincing as older ladies.”

“Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. I’m sorry, I thought the two of you had concocted a little plot to embarrass me.”

“Well perhaps there was a little of that too,” she laughed. “Here, I’ve got you clean underwear for today – brand new bra and panty-girdle,” she said. “I sewed the padding into them just this morning. Let me help you with your bra.”

I put my arms through the straps and she secured the hook and eye fastenings. Then she handed me the new panty-girdle. I knew my way around ladies’ shapewear well enough now to struggle into it unaided. Then I sat down for her to fit and dress my wig.

“So are you and Ruth an item now?” she said, conversationally. Butter wouldn’t melt…

“To be honest, I don’t know what we are,” I sighed. “She needs everyone to think she’s still engaged to Eddy. She explained why, did she?”

Polly nodded. I really didn’t mind sharing this with her. She was like a surrogate mother. Not that my own mother was dead or anything, just never around, and I would certainly not have discussed my love life with her.

“She seems fairly keen on you.”

She had finished setting my wig and was now giving it a good seeing-to with the hairspray.

“Sometimes she seems to be, yes; other times she goes out of her way to embarrass me. When we first started working together, she made it clear she disapproved of me and my family background. You can’t tell from her accent but she comes from working-class Northern stock.”

“Oh an inverted snob, eh? The only good Tory is a dead Tory?”

She reached into her make-up kit for my prosthetic nose and some adhesive.

“Something like that. Didn’t stop her taking our money though. She doesn’t seem to realise she’s a capitalist herself now.”

“Careful! Arthur always says the Theatre should be a politics-free zone.”

“Well that’s just daft! Every good playwright in history, from Shakespeare to David Hare, has been political!”

“Not Panto though.”

“No, not Panto. Thank heavens!”

We laughed.

“OK, hold still now,” she said. “False eyelashes time.”

Soon Sarah was looking back at me in the mirror. I thrust the unpredictable Miss Braddock to the back of my mind. After all she was hardly a suitable partner for a middle-aged widow lady like me.

* * *

At two o’clock precisely, I stepped out to give my opening monologue. The audience responded well – they might have been the best bunch so far. There was lots of laughter at even the oldest and corniest jokes. As I came to the end, I stepped backwards as usual, calling, “Welcome to Old London Town…”

The curtains failed to open.

I stopped involuntarily. Someone – Charlie, I think – whispered, “Improvise!” from the wings behind me.

Every actor’s worst nightmare. I put my hands on my hips and hitched up my bosom – feminine mannerisms came naturally now – and stalked back to centre stage. I turned to the audience and rolled my eyes. Sniggers. Some people probably suspected something had gone wrong; others were prepared to believe it was part of the show.

“Apparently, London are out,” I said. “We may have to leave one of those little red cards. You know: ‘We called but there was no answer’.”

The sniggers had turned back to decent laughter. Most of the grown-ups now knew there was a hitch. I turned round to face upstage, knelt down and stuck my head under the curtain, like a charlady scrubbing the steps. I thus presented my enormous round backside to the audience, which generated the biggest laugh yet.

“What is it? Early closing?” I yelled.

Lots of good-natured laughter from the audience now. This lot seemed determined to enjoy themselves. I turned back to face them.

“Apparently rats have eaten through the ropes,” I said. “You may have heard we have something of a rat problem? If you feel them running over your feet, or up your skirt or your trouser leg, don’t worry. They don’t bite… much. Have you all had your tetanus jabs?”

I was running out of ideas now. Suddenly I felt tension in the cloth and, to my relief, very slowly the curtain started to rise.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” I said, “we apologise for the late running of this service. Something to do with leaves on the line, or the wrong kind of snow, or something. And now, “Welcome to Old London Town…”

And I sashayed off stage right, my ample hindquarters wiggling violently from side to side. The audience clapped enthusiastically. Some of them actually cheered.

“Well done, Nick,” said Charlie in the wings. “That could have been nasty. Great improvisation! We may keep it all in for tonight.” He grinned.

“What happened?”

“The automatic gear failed. They had to raise the curtain manually. It’ll be like that throughout the first Act, I’m afraid. They’re hoping to fix it at the interval.”

“Oh well, the show must go on.”

* * *

After that shaky start it actually went very well. The audience appeared to have enjoyed being part of a traditional amateur theatrical cock-up, and admired how we – I – recovered and made the most of it. Also, according to Charlie and Arthur maybe as many as half of them – mainly the kids – had no idea that anything had gone wrong.

We had about three hours between the last curtain call of the matinee and the start of the evening performance. The main event was the ‘Little Rats’ Feast’ for the kids, as they wouldn’t be allowed to stay up after the show for the cast party. It was held in the theatre cafeteria, and it was a LADS tradition that for shows with children involved, we Principals had to serve the food at their party. As Sarah the Cook, in my kitchen costume and frilly apron, it was my job to bring out the sausage rolls and the jellies. Happily it was Idle Jack and Dick who had to stop the inevitable food fights, and Polly’s team who had to tidy up everyone’s costumes afterwards.

Polly offered to help me change back to Nick after the children’s party so that I could go out and get something to eat, but I didn’t think it was worth it for just an hour and a half. It wasn’t just the dress and the underwear, I would have to take Sarah off, and then put her back on again later. I didn’t want to do that. I was perfectly comfortable being her, and I wouldn’t have the chance again after today. Irrationally, that made me sad. Maybe I could bring her, or someone like her, back for next year’s Panto?

Charlie ordered in pizza and sandwiches for those of us who weren’t going out, so Polly, Arthur and I ate in my dressing room. Arthur was friendly and even cheerful – for him. He seemed to be reconciled to the fact that I was a very different Dame, and that it wasn’t that I had deliberately chosen to ignore his teaching. He accepted that Sarah was the Dame I had to be. We spent a jolly couple of hours, mainly with the Whitmores reminiscing about their years with LADS.

My mother and father were coming with Tom and Josie to the evening performance and to the cast party afterwards. At my invitation they dropped into my dressing room half an hour before the start. I was sitting at the mirror in my padded lingerie but with a ladies’ negligée (borrowed from Polly for the occasion) over it, to keep me decent.

I introduced them to Polly who was brushing my wig and repairing my make-up.

“We’re not putting you off, are we?” my Dad said. “Do you need to meditate, or ‘centre yourself’, or any of that bollocks?”

“No, Dad,” I smiled. “We amateurs don’t need to do any of that stuff. In any case this is our seventh performance. We know what we’re doing now.”

“I still can’t get over this,” said my mother. “You never showed any interest in ‘am dram’ at school, and now look at you – a great actress!”

She, Polly and Josie laughed. Tom and Dad looked a little uncomfortable.

Mum and Dad went to look at all the LADS photos and programmes on the far wall. At their request, Polly went over to tell them all about their previous productions.

Josie turned to me when she was sure my parents weren’t listening.

“You’ve come a long way from Daisy Duquesne’s ten-minute performance on Open Mic night,” she said.

“It’s true,” added Tom, “and apart from that silly nose and the over-the-top make-up, you actually look like an older version of Daisy.”

“I must admit, I never saw this coming when I helped you create her,” said Josie. She turned serious for a moment. “You do realise it may not be easy to put all this behind you?”

I felt Sarah wake up inside me and take an interest in the conversation.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

“Oh I think you do,” she said. “Some of my friends came earlier in the week. They were raving about your performance – something about how you made Sarah ‘real’.”

“It’s just acting,” I insisted, with a confidence I didn’t feel. “Just a bit of fun for all the family. It will be over and done with tomorrow, and on Monday – back to work.” I called across to Dad. “Things are starting to take off with Gerry and Steve, as well as MyOwnCouture.com. I need to update you. How about a pub lunch tomorrow?”

“Sure. That would be great,” he said. “But we ought to go and take our seats now. I want to order some interval drinks and get a programme.”

“Take a couple from the box over there on the table,” said Polly, squirting my wig with hairspray.

“I’ll sign them for you as well, if you like,” I said.

“As Nick Rawlinson or as Sarah the Cook?” asked Tom. “Anyway, break a leg, mate.”

Polly and I winced. Tom, Josie and Dad made to leave. My mother lingered.

“What’s this I hear about you and Ruth Braddock?” she asked.

My mother had always been Gossip Central for our area. As a vet she travelled around a lot and met everyone. People told her things while she had her hand up their cow or was worming their dog.

“Nothing to hear. We provide finance to her business. She’s engaged to her partner anyway.”

“Nick, I always know when you’re fibbing,” Mum said sternly.

My mother has a natural authority about her. People just instinctively did what she told them to. That had been true for my entire childhood, and Tom admitted freely that she was the only person he had ever been afraid of.

“I think I should leave you to it,” said Polly, clearly embarrassed. She knew I was fibbing, but she also knew why. “You’re all ready anyway, Nick. I’ll see you backstage.”

She left. My mother got up to follow her.

“We’ll talk about this at lunch tomorrow,” she said. “I don’t want to upset you and ruin tonight’s performance…”

Too late, Mum.

“… But I’m sure you realise that you’re in a very delicate situation. If she’s engaged, it can’t go on. Someone’s going to get hurt.”

The ten-minute warning sounded just after she left but I needed to take a minute. I stared into the mirror until I couldn’t see Nick anymore, only Sarah. I wet my forefinger and primped my hair a little. I took out a lipstick and touched up my lips.

I hitched up my bosom, got to my feet, and taking my skirt in my hand, prepared to climb the stairs.

Sarah the Cook made her way up to the stage for the last time.

After the Pantomime

By Susannah Donim

A spare time hobby slowly turns into a lifetime choice for Nick.

Chapter 6 – After the Panto

Nick puts what he has learned as a Pantomime Dame to good use.

After the Dick Whittington curtain fell for the last time our stage crew had to strike the set so that the next show – the professional Panto – could move in. Meanwhile the cast had to change for the party and then help with packing up the costumes and everything else into Arthur’s two largest vans. In my dressing room Polly helped me strip and cleaned off my make-up, while I said a sad goodbye to my lingerie and dresses. My costumes and wigs were much more elaborate than anyone else’s, so Polly and I were the last to join in the packing. It was more or less all done by the time we got out, and we just had to load Sarah’s dresses, wigs and make-up onto the second van.

The Panto cast party was also the LADS Christmas do, which explained why the ballroom of the town’s second biggest hotel was packed with people I didn’t know. When we arrived, Tom, Josie and my parents were standing up at the bar talking amongst themselves and looking a little lost. I parted from the Whitmores with grateful thanks for everything they had done, and led my guests to our table which was near the back. My family were effusive with praise for the show and my performance in particular.

“Frankly, I didn’t know you had it in you,” said my father.

“I can’t believe how good you were at being a woman,” said my mother. “I don’t usually like Pantomime Dames. They always seem grotesque caricatures of women, but you got the tone just right. Your voice – and your mannerisms! I know it was supposed to be a comic performance – and you were very funny – but sometimes, if I closed my eyes, I could almost see my mother up there.”

She seemed wistful. Then she remembered, as I did, that Granny was an old bat.

There was booze and a buffet. By now it felt like we in the cast were all old friends but in reality I hadn’t known a soul there six weeks earlier. So the conversation at our table was mostly family stuff while all around us people were talking about the show, and comparing it with past triumphs.

Eventually, when everyone had eaten their fill and there were more empty bottles than full ones remaining, the LADS Chairman called for silence and announced the annual awards ceremony. Last year’s winners, ineligible this year, presented the prizes to their successors. They started with the minor prizes, at least from the point of view of us actors. First up was Set Design; someone I didn’t know won for Camelot. Then came Best Stage Manager. I guessed ours was out of the running following the curtain fiasco, even though it was hardly his fault. Polly was a popular winner of the prize for costumes. She’d done the wardrobe for three of this year’s five productions, but the committee particularly singled out her work on the Panto. In her little speech she kindly acknowledged the contribution of MyOwnCouture.com and recommended all the ladies check out our website.

Introducing the acting awards the Chairman explained that, in the spirit of the times, they’d done away with distinctions between actors and actresses, and were now giving just three prizes for ‘Best Performance in a Musical, Drama and Comedy’. But first, we were all happy to see Millie get the prize for ‘Best Newcomer’. She’d made a superb Dick, playing a difficult straight role with charisma, slapping her thighs heartily, and leaping around with great athleticism. She also looked fantastic in tights, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with it, despite four-fifths of the Committee being men.

‘Best Performance in a Musical’ went to the guy who played Arthur in Camelot. The Drama prize went to Beatrice in the summer open air production of Much Ado About Nothing.

As the Chairman announced the last award of the evening, my heart leapt as I saw Polly wheeling Arthur up to the front.

“The award for the Best Comic Performance of 2018,” the Chairman said, pausing for dramatic – nay, melodramatic – effect, “goes to Nick Rawlinson for Sarah the Cook in Dick Whittington.”

That was a popular decision too, not least with my family and the cast of the Panto. I staggered to my feet and strode in as masculine a manner as I could to the front to collect my prize. Arthur even managed to crack a watery smile in the enthusiastic applause and the glare of the flash photography.

We all parted at nearly two o’clock in the morning amid pledges to keep in touch. Polly also made me promise to audition for a part in the Spring production, which would be one of Alan Ayckbourn’s early plays.

* * *

Over lunch on Sunday I was expecting the third degree from my mother about Ruth, but she was called away. This was unusual at this time of year. It wasn’t lambing season. In fact baby farm animals are rarely born in December, but then not all veterinary emergencies are to do with births. We all hoped it wasn’t an outbreak of some hideous agricultural disease.

So Dad and I were alone in a quiet corner of our local, with pints of Old Badger ale and steak and kidney pies. We spent most of the meal talking about our various business ventures, and whether Josie was pregnant. I thought not, but he said he knew they were trying.

“What was your mother saying about you and Ruth?” he said casually over coffee.

“No comment. I can neither confirm nor deny…”

“I wouldn’t blame you. She’s a cracking bit of stuff…”

“Da-a-a-d!”

“…but she’s engaged to Eddy, isn’t she?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Fine. Don’t tell me.”

“When I can, I will. I promise. Assuming there’s something to tell.”

“OK, I trust you.” He sighed. “But your mother won’t.”

“I know. I’ll steer clear until the situation is resolved… one way or another.”

* * *

There were still three weeks till Christmas. Ruth and Vicky worked hard to upgrade the website software. We now had the extension that animated the figure’s face as well as her body. It scanned the customer’s photo (assuming she had uploaded one) and matched many fixed points to corresponding ones on the template. So now when the figure strutted down the catwalk she was smiling and laughing and making sexy ‘come hither’ expressions – all with the customer’s own face. We tested it first with Vicky and it worked beautifully. Then Ruth embarrassed me by using the publicity photo of Sarah the Cook, wearing Auntie Elsie’s dark blue spangly dress. It even worked for her. It was positively grotesque (in my opinion), but it was undeniably realistic.

The next big thing was MyOwnCouture.com’s meeting with the Bank. This was to be on the Friday of the week after the Panto. On Monday Ruth called the team together in the upstairs office to plan what we would say. We would be allocated an hour and a half for the meeting. The presentation was to take no more than forty minutes, leaving sufficient time for questions.

“I’ll open and talk about the concept – the website and the user experience,” Ruth began. “I’ll describe how the software works in general terms, but we need to keep the details secret until we have appropriate Non-Disclosure Agreements in place. Till then it’s our Intellectual Property and extremely valuable. That should take about a quarter of an hour. Then I’ll hand over to Eddy to run a demo of the website. OK?”

“Do you know if any member of the Bank’s team is female?” I said.

“Why?”

“Well, we could demonstrate the site by actually making a dress for her.”

“That’s a great idea!” said Eddy. “Make them part of the demo. Pull them in.”

Ruth was nodding. Everyone seemed to like this plan.

“In fact, you might go further,” I went on. “When you’ve finished the design, you could send it from your laptop over the internet to the machines in the cowshed. If Mike was there, he could pass the design to the cutting machine, and then on to the fabricator. We could rig up a webcam and show them the dress actually being made. You could even show him packaging it up to mail to her – all in real time, during the presentation in their office, and while they’re watching.”

“That would be really impressive!” said Vicky.

“We’d need to ask the Bank lady for her measurements,” Ruth said. “She might be embarrassed…”

“Mike might need help,” said Vicky, ignoring Ruth’s objection. “I suggest I stay behind just in case. There wouldn’t be much for me to do in the meeting anyway.”

Mike hastened to agree. He looked pleased and relieved.

“It’s a risky strategy,” said Ruth. “What if something goes wrong?”

“Well there are various precautions you can take,” I began. “I mean, you can influence the woman’s choice of dress during the demo, to stop her doing anything too fancy. It would have to be a standard material and colour. You won’t be able to dye the cloth or print a pattern within the hour, but Mike can hold up ‘ones we prepared earlier’ to the camera, to show what you can do.”

“That should work,” said Eddy. “I guess the worst-case scenario would be if the machines break down, but they’re running smoothly at the moment. We’ve done half a dozen dresses since Nick’s Panto costumes with no problems at all. I say it’s worth the risk.”

“The point is to demonstrate the end-to-end process for real,” I said, “and that includes showing them why you need investment – because you can’t afford to automate everything; because you need new, better machines; because you can’t do the fancy stuff or work with exotic materials. As long as they can clearly see the potential, it doesn’t matter too much if something does go wrong. It just underlines the need for new investment.”

“What if they’re all men?” said Vicky. “Can you check with them?”

“I can try,” said Ruth. “If they are, I could ask one of them to bring his wife’s measurements along.”

“That would probably be the strangest request they’ve ever had at an investment meeting,” said Eddy.

Even Ruth laughed.

For the next hour we thrashed through the details of the presentation. We changed the running order. Mo was asked to prepare a series of screenshots from the website for Ruth to incorporate in her PowerPoint presentation. Eddy and Mike had to do the same for the machine control software, and also to take some photos of the machines working.

“You realise this will be a negotiation?” I said, as we were finishing up. “They’ll want a share of the business, and they’ll probably want to put one of their people on your Board.”

“Who are our Board?” Vicky asked.

“Eddy and I own 40% of the company each,” said Ruth, “and Nick owns 20%, so we’re the Board. I’m the MD; Eddy’s the Operations Director…”

“I thought I was the Technical Director?” said Eddy.

“Well, OK, you’re both,” she said. “And Nick is the Finance Director.”

“Really?” I said. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well you should have read the stuff that Will’s been sending us. We’re a limited company now, and therefore as a Director you are responsible for one-fifth of our debts if we go bankrupt.”

“Shit! Maybe the Bank will buy me out.”

“Maybe, but they’re not going to give you a hundred grand, are they? We’re not worth that much yet. You’d be better off waiting till we’re a rip-roaring success.”

“But it does mean that if you and Eddy fall out, I have the casting vote,” I said.

I really only said it for a laugh, but the black look on Ruth’s face was worth it anyway. Eddy chuckled quietly.

“Can I buy some shares?” asked Vicky, apparently oblivious to any atmosphere that might or might not have developed.

Ruth smiled. “Your faith in us is much appreciated, babe, but we’re not planning a share issue at the present time. As to your question, Nick: yes, we are aware that we’re going into a negotiation. Eddy and I have discussed what we’d be willing to accept.”

“And we’re willing to walk away if we have to,” he added. “There are other banks.”

“Do you need Will to come along?” I asked.

“I don’t think so this time,” Ruth said. “This session is just to get their agreement in principle. If they approve investment, there would have to be a subsequent contract meeting. We’ll definitely need him then.”

The meeting broke up and Eddy and Mike went back to the cowshed. Mo and Vicky returned to their workstations to get on with preparing the presentation.

“Thank you for your contributions, Nick,” Ruth said. “Your ideas were really good.”

“Nice to be appreciated.”

She gave me a quick glower for appearances’ sake and vanished into her office behind a closed door. Any further development of our personal relationship would have to wait.

* * *

I went down to the Club that evening. I hadn’t been there for over a month because of the show.

“Hello, stranger,” said Lee, emerging from his little office. “You were really great in the Panto. I was there on the Wednesday.”

The Club was closed on Wednesday evenings, so that was presumably the only night he could have gone.

“Thanks, Lee. Glad you enjoyed it. I was just wondering when the next Open Mic night will be.”

“Oh, we don’t have any during December – office parties and so on. We’ll start them up again in the New Year. Are you going to bring Daisy Duquesne out again?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. That was a one-off, but I have some new material I’d like to try out – as myself.”

“Sure, sure, but lots of people keep asking about Daisy. That would be really popular. I could put the word out…?”

“Well my new stuff is about my experience with the Panto. I wondered if I might do some of it in the guise of Sarah the Cook – without costume or make-up, of course.”

She was still somewhere inside me and occasionally clamoured to come out.

“Aren’t you afraid people will notice the resemblance to Daisy?”

“Well it hardly matters if Daisy never appears again, does it?”

* * *

Ruth didn’t manage to find out anything about the Bank’s negotiating team, but when we were ushered into their conference room at ten o’clock on Friday morning we were delighted to see that there was a woman on their side of the table. She was middle-aged, very smart in a frilly white blouse and a pin-striped skirt suit, and wore a friendly smile. Ruth, Eddy and I exchanged glances. We would go for it!

“Good morning,” boomed a dapper, silver-haired gentleman, clearly the senior executive. “I’m Richard Latham, Director of the New Ventures unit here. On my left is Margaret Villiers, my Deputy, and just so you know, she’ll be taking over from me around Easter so, if anything, you have to impress her more than me.”

He paused and smiled. She smiled. We all smiled.

“And on my right is Justin Sealey, our technical consultant. Justin, would you like to help our guests set up?”

Eddy was carrying our best laptop and the consultant helped him connect it up to a seventy-five-inch Ultra-HD monitor mounted on the end wall. He then plugged in an ethernet cable and Eddy was able to confirm that the laptop was connected to the internet. While they were doing this, Ruth introduced the three of us, briefly describing our backgrounds and qualifications. She called me her ‘Financial Adviser’. Apparently, I had been demoted from FD.

Ruth’s presentation was very impressive, both in its content and her delivery. She was clear and confident, giving just the right amount of information about the fashion industry and the potential size of the market to convince her audience of the potential for our services. She then moved on to the ‘user experience’, which she illustrated with screenshots from our website.

After a little less than fifteen minutes, she handed over to Eddy who explained what the software did. With the aid of more screenshots, from the cowshed control computers this time, he described our machines and how we proposed to develop them further when we had the necessary funding. He showed photographs of all our equipment and of the stores, which were full of dyes and bolts of cloth. He and Mike had put in a lot of work to tidy up and the cowshed had never looked better.

As far as I could tell, the Bank team were giving us their full attention and even enjoying the show. Justin was particularly interested in Eddy’s piece and interrupted a couple of times to ask quite technical questions. Eddy trod carefully, answering in general terms but blocking detailed enquiries with comments about ‘our proprietary software’. The consultant seemed a little frustrated but Latham intervened. He obviously knew the score; we were protecting our intellectual property until contracts and NDAs had been signed.

After finishing his slot, Eddy sat down and Ruth took over again.

“I’m delighted to say that we are already trading successfully. Our first big order was for the Lavenden Amateur Dramatic Society’s Pantomime…”

What? She hadn’t told me she was going to talk about this!

“After an accident destroyed a number of their costumes, they asked us to help replace them – at very short notice.” She started showing photographs of Sarah’s outfits as they came off the fabricator. “We made all the Dame’s basic dresses – several different styles and designs – in just under two weeks. Most of them were ‘bespoke’; that is, non-standard. After all, few modern women want to dress like a Pantomime Dame.”

Everyone smiled at that. Some men do though, I thought to myself, and it appears I’m one of them.

“So we had to program those from scratch,” Ruth continued, “but any new design only takes our programming team an hour or so to encode. Each of Sarah the Cook’s dresses needed at least two different materials; some required three. They are mostly in gaudy colours too, so we had to do a lot of colour matching and dyeing. But our system can do that efficiently, so the only delay was in waiting for the material to dry after the dyeing. I have some photos of the finished products…”

Pictures of Sarah – me – started appearing on the screen.

“Now, as you will see, the finished dresses are much more complicated, with all sorts of frills and flounces. That one has a false bodice and an apron. We’re not set up to do any of that, so they were done by the Society’s seamstresses. We think there could be a good market in theatrical costuming, and not just Pantos, but historical plays too. We’re confident our software can cope, but we would new machines to make all those accessories.”

I was aware that Margaret was looking at me oddly. First she looked at a close-up of Sarah, then me, then back at the screen. She caught my eye and smiled.

“The Society order was worth £2,000,” Ruth was saying, “and we’ve had seven further orders to date, with excellent feedback from our customers. Our web designer has worked hard to optimise our Internet footprint and there are clear signs that it’s working, but obviously we would do much better if we could increase our advertising budget. We’ll be leaving copies of our accounts with you, and Nick can give you our full financial picture if you need more detail.”

All of the panel were scribbling notes now.

“Finally, I imagine you would like to see a demonstration of our system in action?”

The Bank team were nodding and smiling, so Ruth took the bull by the horns.

Turning to the only woman on the panel, she smiled and said, “Margaret, if we made you a dress, I hope you wouldn’t think we were trying to influence you unduly?”

“You can do that? What – here? Now?”

“We certainly can.”

Eddy was at the laptop. She motioned to him to log in to our website.

“What you see on the screen now is exactly what a customer would see when she goes to our site. First she selects a type of dress from our range of styles.” Eddy clicked on the Style icon and the gallery appeared. “We have eleven basic products, but can offer variations on each, such as neckline, skirt length, shoulder straps, and sleeves. Do you see anything you like?”

Margaret glanced at Richard. He smiled encouragingly. Justin was grinning.

“Well I quite like that cocktail dress,” she said diffidently. She was pointing at the picture of the BodyCon dress, and studying the accompanying blurb. “Probably in a ‘medium’ fitting. I don’t think I can get away with ‘snug’ anymore.”

“Rubbish,” said Latham gallantly.

Margaret laughed. “Do you have it in a dark blue?” she asked.

“Certainly,” Ruth confirmed. “Let’s make that for you, shall we? Now we need two things: your measurements obviously, and a photograph. You’ll see why later.”

Eddy had put up the form into which the customer was supposed to enter their details.

“I’m not sure I can remember all those measurements.”

“Well they’re not all essential, but the more you can enter, the better the fit will be. I do have a tape measure with me…”

“Oh I don’t think I could…”

Latham interrupted. “I quite understand that Margaret might not want to be measured up in front of four men, like a prize heifer,” he said with a smile. “However I was going to suggest we take a short coffee break anyway. Why don’t you two ladies go to the powder room and get the measuring sorted out? I’d really like to see how this all works. I’m intrigued.”

I could have kissed him for that intervention. (Well, I couldn’t have kissed him, but Sarah or Daisy could have.) Margaret made no further objections and she and Ruth left to go to the Ladies’. Knowing his place, Justin took our coffee orders and went to the table at the back of the room where refreshments had been laid out.

“I must admit, this is a breath of fresh air, compared to many of the new venture proposals we have to wade through,” said Richard, conversationally. He accepted a cup of coffee and an oatcake biscuit from Justin. “We have to refuse some because they’re impractical; others because they’re too ‘niche’ and would struggle to find a market; but yours passes both those tests. After all, your market is half the human race!”

“That was Ruth’s thinking,” Eddy confirmed, “and if we can address the ‘accessories gap’, as she calls it, we can start doing really fancy stuff like wedding dresses.”

“I can see you’re not quite as au fait with the jargon as your partner,” Latham said, good-naturedly.

Justin joined us, handing me and Eddy our coffees.

“I’d like to see your designs for the new machines that will do all those fiddly bits,” he said.

Obviously he was also unfamiliar with the unique language of the fashion industry.

“I’ll bring them with me next time we meet,” Eddy confirmed with a smile, while implying that the consultant wouldn’t be seeing anything unless there was a next time.

We had used up all our allotted time by now, but the Bank team showed no signs of wanting to leave. Soon the ladies returned, chattering like old friends. Ruth was very good at this, I thought admiringly. Justin organised coffees for the two women and Ruth sat down at the laptop to start entering Margaret’s measurements.

“You boys don’t need to look,” she said sharply to us.

I didn’t think Margaret had anything to be embarrassed about but we dutifully turned our backs. Ruth continued.

“With the customer’s permission – GDPR and all that – we can encrypt and store her measurements for her, so she only has to enter them once. That should encourage repeat business. Now I just need to upload your photo from my phone, and I’ll show you what the customer would see next.”

Thirty seconds later, music started up on the monitor’s powerful speakers and a model with Margaret’s face and figure sashayed professionally down a catwalk in a beautiful dark blue cocktail dress. It was covered in sparkling sequins and looked very much like my dress when I was Ruth’s Auntie Elsie, except that Margaret the model was clearly much more beautiful and feminine.

Model Margaret looked over her shoulder and smiled at us. The real Margaret gasped.

“The CGI’s great, isn’t it? We think this will be a real selling point,” Ruth said, quite unnecessarily, judging by the open mouths on the panel. “The customer can see what she will actually look like in the dress she’s designed.”

“It’s even better than checking yourself out in the mirror,” said Margaret, “because you can see yourself from behind, and walking.”

“So that’s what you’d have looked like if you’d gone into modelling rather than banking,” said Richard, goggle-eyed.

“Oh hush,” said Margaret, who was clearly loving this. “Can you really make that dress?”

“Send it, Eddy,” said Ruth. “You can bypass the payment form, can’t you?”

Eddy nodded and clicked the Send icon. The message came up saying, ‘Sending design to Manufacturing’.

“He has now sent the encoded instructions to the cutting machine. Can you log into the control terminal, Eddy?”

Eddy switched windows on the laptop. A much simpler page with a few lines of typed instructions appeared on the conference room monitor. A steady beeping started up.

“That beep will be heard by the operator in the workshop,” Ruth explained, “telling him that a new job has started up. As you can see, the system gives him instructions on which cloth to load. When he’s ready, he hits Enter and the cutting machine starts up. Can you bring up the webcam, Eddy?”

Eddy switched to another window and suddenly we could see a view inside the cowshed and Mike clipping a roll of dark blue cloth into the cutting machine. He stepped across to the control machine, pressed a button, and the cutter started up. I noticed Vicky hovering nervously in the background.

“If I remember rightly, this design requires two pieces of cloth to be cut,” Ruth said. “One for the bodice and one for the skirt.”

The cutting machine finished and there was another beep.

“Now the operator has to carry the cut pieces across to the fabricator and lay them on the platen in approximately the position specified by the design code. The software knows the shapes of the different pieces and how to align them properly on the fabrication bed for stitching together. The machine won’t start until its sensors confirm that the pieces are in acceptable positions. They don’t have to be exact. Eventually we want to link the two machines together so that a human operator won’t be necessary.”

After a couple of minutes the fabricator beeped. Mike appeared and scooped up the completed dress. Vicky joined him in front of the webcam and he held the dress up against her. They both smiled and waved.

The Bank panel gaped, speechless.

“Well, I’m b…” said Margaret, and dried up.

“Exactly,” said Richard. He turned to Ruth. “Can you do one for my wife? I still haven’t got her a Christmas present.”

“I’ll give you the website address,” said Ruth with a smile, “and a price list.”

Latham laughed. “Well, I think we’ve seen all we can take in today,” he said. His colleagues nodded. “I just have a couple of questions. First, staffing. How many of you are there?”

“In addition to the three of us, there’s Mike who helps Eddy, and Vicky, our programmer. You saw both of them on the webcam. We also have Mo, our part-time web designer, and we retain Will Holford, as our legal adviser.”

She was clearly implying that I was a full-time employee, which was a little disingenuous, to say the least, but this wasn’t the time to contradict her.

“Have you a growth strategy?” Ruth looked blank. “I mean, if the business takes off as you hope, you’ll need more staff, won’t you? Have you planned how you’ll ramp up your numbers?”

“Not yet,” she admitted.

“I understand,” Latham said, kindly. “You might see it as putting the cart before the horse, but I recommend you put a staffing plan in place alongside your financial strategy. You won’t be able to deliver the latter without the former. We can help you with that anyway. If nothing else, you need to get a secretary for yourself and Nick. You’re going to be much too busy to do all the admin yourselves.”

There were a few more questions, which we answered by passing over copies of our accounts and the monthly reports of website traffic Mo had generated so far. Finally, Richard summed up.

“Well, I think I speak for the panel when I say we’re very keen to proceed to the next stage. We’ll get our standard pack off to you as soon as we can – NDAs, investment conditions, and so on. If we can get all the paperwork filled in before Christmas, we can get together again to finalise contractual arrangements in the first week of the New Year.”

That will give Will Holford something to read over the Christmas break, I thought.

“That would be wonderful!” said Ruth. “Margaret, would you like me to send your new cocktail dress here to the Bank or to your home address?”

“Here will be fine, thank you, Ruth. I can wear it to our Christmas party.”

“Don’t forget you’ll need a slip with it. I should have mentioned, we can’t sew linings into our garments yet. That’s something else we need funding for.”

“I’ll remember.”

Eddy disconnected the laptop and started packing up. We all got up to leave. There were warm handshakes all round.

When we got outside the building Ruth astonished me by throwing her arms around my neck and smothering me with kisses.

“What was that for?” I asked when I had got my breath back. “I didn’t do anything. I hardly needed to speak all morning.”

“We wouldn’t have even got here without you,” she said, now a little embarrassed by her emotional display.

“Plus you scratched her itch when she really needed it – three times, wasn’t it?” said Eddy, with a grin.

I didn’t remember telling him that. So I wasn’t the only one who’d been counting.

* * *

MyOwnCouture.com had several more orders before Christmas. Some were from people who had seen the name in the Dick Whittington programme, and one – gratifyingly – from Richard Latham for a Christmas present for his wife. They kept the team busy up till Christmas. Also Ruth and I spent a couple of days at Will’s office studying the Bank’s Investment Guide. They offered a number of options. All variations insisted on a seat on the Board, but the number of shares the Bank Director would be able to vote depended on the level of risk they believed they were taking, and therefore on the form in which we took their support. For example, for a simple advance of half a million, they would require 20% of the shares, which Ruth didn’t like. A more attractive option was that they would just buy and lease us the new machines we needed. For that they would only require 10%. But Eddy was keen that we own all our machines ourselves. He didn’t want to ask anyone for permission to make changes to them.

I also had to produce a five-year financial plan, which involved making some optimistic and completely unfounded assumptions about growth. Fortunately the Guide helped a lot there. Will sent off a list of ‘clarification questions’ in the last week before the Festive Season shutdown, not expecting the answers till New Year.

* * *

On the Friday before Christmas Eve we invited all our venture teams up to the Manor House for a festive drinks party. Those teams that hadn’t made their breakthroughs yet pumped Ruth and Eddy, Gerry and Steve, with questions, and I was glad to see their morale shooting up. I resolved to try and spend more time with all of them, even though that would mean spending less with MyOwnCouture.com. The party was the first time Ruth had seen the scale of what Dad and I were trying to do. After I had introduced her to the others, she seemed a little subdued, given the happiness of the occasion.

After the party everyone began disappearing for Christmas. Ruth went back to her parents up in Manchester. I soon found myself missing her company. Eddy was staying in the flat, presumably spending the season with his many boyfriends. So he and Ruth would be apart from Christmas Eve till the second of January. I wondered whether either set of parents would find that odd.

The five of us had a brilliant Christmas at home, doing all the usual stuff: eating and drinking too much, watching TV, and playing stupid party games. We were glad to get out of the house on Boxing Day. We went to the Club for a wine tasting party. We sat with Polly and Arthur, who was now getting around with crutches, much to his wife’s relief. In addition to the house band, led by Frank, the entertainment was provided by a young comedian who had started at the Club’s Open Mic night and had just turned professional. Tom wasn’t impressed.

“He can’t tell a proper joke to save his life. This is all just being rude about politicians and media people. Any fool can do that.”

“You’re better than him, Nick,” said Josie, “and Daisy’s much better.”

“Who’s Daisy?” asked my mother.

“Ah…” I said. I looked at Tom and Josie.

“Nothing good ever comes from keeping secrets from the people you love, Nick,” said Polly quietly.

I assumed she was talking about Mum and Dad, but she knew about me and Ruth too, so…

“OK,” I said, “Daisy is me. As you know, I did Open Mic night half a dozen times this year. Once I did it as ‘Daisy Duquesne’. Josie helped me drag up.”

“And bloody good she was too,” said Lee, who had just come up behind me and had obviously overheard the conversation.

He pulled up a chair and joined us, uninvited. Well it was his club, I suppose.

“When we realised I could ‘pass’, we just thought my performance would be more effective if no one knew Daisy was really a man. I wasn’t trying to keep secrets.”

“It was seeing him as Daisy that convinced Charlie and Arthur that he could play the Dame,” said Polly.

“That explains a lot,” said Dad.

“I’m still not convinced he can,” grumbled Arthur. “He wasn’t a proper Dame.”

But no one was listening to him.

“So who else knows about Daisy?” asked my mother.

“Just the people at this table, plus Charlie,” I said. “Oh and Eddy, and Frank over there.” I didn’t think it was worth mentioning Harry and Mac.

“Not Ruth?”

“No.”

“Oh, Nick!” My mother sounded disappointed in me.

“What? She’s just my business partner. She’s not part of my private life.” I saw Polly raise an eyebrow. “Well not properly. It’s… complicated.”

“I like Ruth,” said Josie.

Tom nodded. There was an awkward silence.

“Anyway, when are we going to see Daisy again?” asked Lee, who wasn’t privy to the cause of the general discomfiture. “It’s been six weeks and people are still asking after her, and she’s the only female comic we have at the moment.”

“Yes, Nick, please!” said Josie. “It’ll be such fun.”

I had been looking forward to getting back to stand-up, but I’d intended to do it as Nick. Eventually they wore me down. I had to promise that Daisy would be back on the first Open Mic night of the New Year, the second Friday in January.

“Can I borrow your high heels again, Arthur?”

Mum and Dad looked at me, then at Arthur. Polly laughed.

* * *

Josie insisted I spend one of the days between Christmas and New Year with her. Her plan was that she make me up as Daisy in the morning, then we would go to the nearest large shopping centre for lunch and buy a new outfit for me to perform in.

“What was the matter with what I wore last time?”

“Honestly!” she said, exasperated. “You’re going to have to work harder than that if you want to be a proper girl!”

“I never said I wanted…”

“No woman would wear the same outfit twice for performing in public. Besides it wouldn’t fit.”

“What are you talking about? I may have put on a couple of pounds over Christmas, but it won’t make that much difference.”

“But we’re not talking about you, are we? Daisy will be two and a half months more pregnant. Your bump will have to be noticeably bigger. We’re going to get you a maternity dress.”

“Can’t I just have an abortion?”

“Absolutely not! I’m against abortions, especially for men.”

* * *

So I reported to Tom and Josie’s place at nine o’clock in the morning on the Friday after Christmas. I was soon up in their spare bedroom again, stripping off. The bed was covered in the familiar items that made up my Daisy disguise, plus a couple of new strange-looking objects.

“I’m glad to see you’ve shaved your legs,” Josie said when I was down to my underpants. “That will give us more options.”

“I didn’t,” I said. “I mean, Polly did it for Sarah’s bedroom scene.”

“Yes, I remember, but that was a week ago. Your stubble’s getting noticeable. I’ll get my Ladyshave.”

“Hang on! It’s two weeks before my next appearance as Daisy.”

“But by then your legs will be really hairy again, and shaving them will be that much harder. You should do it every couple of days between now and the eleventh of January.”

So I had to stand in the bath while she removed all the hair on my legs. Unlike Polly she went all the way up to the seam of my briefs.

“Aren’t you getting a little carried away?” I said. “A six-months-pregnant lady doesn’t wear miniskirts.”

“You never know though. I’m just being thorough. I’ll do your arms and hands too, while I’ve got my razor out.”

I’d learned there was no point in arguing with my sister-in-law. Come to think of it, all the women in life seemed to be able to boss me around – my mother, Ruth, even Polly. Was it me, or them?

“OK,” said Josie, breaking into my unsettling thoughts, “how does that feel?”

“Stings a bit.”

“Well, I have some moisturising cream but you’re supposed to wait for half an hour before applying any lotion to newly shaved legs. I’ll rub some on then. We can start getting you dressed while we’re waiting.

She led the way back into the bedroom.

“Here,” she said, handing me a new grey spandex garment. “Take your underpants off and put this on while I go and clean up the bathroom.”

“What is it?” I said, examining it suspiciously.

“It’s a maternity panty. Here – read the box.”

She went back to the bathroom. I hurriedly dropped my briefs and stepped into the strangely-shaped garment before she could get back and catch me naked. She wouldn’t give a fig of course, but Tom might not understand. The panty was tight around my thighs but very baggy from my groin upwards. No doubt Josie was going to pad it out to make me look six months pregnant.

I heard the bath taps running, presumably as she washed my body hair down the drain. I picked up the box the panty came in. The label read, ‘Seamless, breathable mesh Mid-Thigh PettiPant Maternity Shaper. A Blend of Nylon and Spandex. Provides gentle support and a relaxing comfortable fit. Perfect under dresses to prevent thigh chaffing.’

Josie came back. She glanced at me, sizing me up.

“Are you sure this is the right size?” I asked.

“I think so. You’re a ‘Large’, which covers dress sizes 14-18.”

“It seems awfully loose,” I said, flapping the surplus material around my waist.

“Well it won’t be when we’ve filled it with padding, dummy.”

She reached for the pack of upholstery foam and her scissors.

So began the padding process. She cut off strips of foam and I crammed them into the panty, front and back, and forcing them right down to surround my genitals. From there we added more and more strips, gradually filling the panty up to the top. Josie had to reach down inside to adjust the position of the strips of foam and smooth them out. This became a little intimate and she couldn’t have failed to notice my growing erection – again – but she just laughed it off with another flattering remark about the Rawlinson family heirlooms.

By this time my butt was twice as big – almost as big as Sarah the Cook’s had been – and my waist had completely disappeared. The panty’s waistband – if you could call it that – was now half-way up my chest. This was a strange feeling, as I was normally used to my waist being approximately at navel level.

After a good half an hour of this effort, Josie called a halt.

“I think that works,” she said. “I was concerned that the foam would over-stretch the material and cause it to sag unnaturally, but that spandex is very firm. We’ve padded it out evenly and the panty’s natural shape looks just like a baby bump at the front and a big round bum at the back. It’s good enough; pregnant women aren’t all the same shape, after all. Let’s get your bra on next.”

She helped me on with a new bra in the same style as the panty, and began stuffing it with foam.

“This is a larger size than you wore last time as Daisy, because women’s breasts grow throughout pregnancy. You shouldn’t have too much trouble with this. It’s not as big as the one you wore as Sarah. Polly said that was 42D. I’m amazed you could move at all!”

“But that was padded with a different kind of foam. It was much lighter than this.”

“Well, the extra weight in all those feminine places should force you to move like a pregnant woman. At this stage of your pregnancy, you would probably be getting pain in your back or pelvis, so even sitting down and standing up can be a challenge.”

“May I remind you I’m not really pregnant?”

“Obviously, but you’re trying to make people think you are, so you should try to move like a pregnant woman. Slow and steady, and try to keep your back straight. Are you going to perform standing up or sitting down?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. Anyway, it’s called stand-up for a reason.”

“But it wouldn’t be realistic for a six-months-pregnant woman to stand up for ten minutes if she didn’t have to.”

“I suppose not. I’ll ask Lee to put a chair out for me. Obviously I won’t be able to use the mic stand.”

“OK, and you should straddle the chair. Turn it around. Sit astride it, keeping your arms arched and resting on the chair’s back. Lean forwards. That’s how pregnant women are supposed to sit on hard-back chairs.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.” A thought occurred suddenly. “You must have done some research. Am I going to be an uncle, or occasionally an aunt?”

“I wish.” She sighed. “No, Phoebe, one of my old school friends, has just had a baby, and I helped her through the pregnancy as her mother wasn’t around. Little Evie is gorgeous. I’m a godmother.” She snapped out of it. “Come on. Let’s get you dressed. I borrowed this maternity top from Phoebe. She’s quite a big girl – like you!”

It was a black polka dot smock that came down to mid-thigh on me. It had three-quarter sleeves and an elasticated waist which accentuated my figure and showed off my baby bump. We paired it with grey skin-tight trousers and black flats I borrowed from the LADS wardrobe. It was around half-past ten by now, so we stopped for a break.

“Just your wig and make-up to do now, and maybe some jewellery,” she said, as we sat down in the kitchen with our coffee and chocolate digestives. She grinned. “You realise you’ve worn make-up much more often than I have over the last month? You should learn how to do your own.”

“Why? I won’t need it ever again after Daisy’s performance on the eleventh.”

“You sure about that?”

“Pretty sure. If I ever get invited to a fancy-dress party, I’ll go as a cowboy.”

“Boring!” she said. “What about a Vicars and Tarts party? You’d make a much better tart than vicar.”

I laughed, thinking – not for the first time – how lucky my brother was.

“Come on, Daisy,” she said, “Let’s get you finished. Here’s your handbag. We need to get to the shops.”

“Why, by the way? Surely I’m dressed OK for the Club as I am? Why should we spend any more money?”

“It’s not about that,” she said. “It’s to get you out and about and comfortable as a six-months-pregnant lady so you can look natural at the Club. We’ll probably need to do it again next week for practice. It won’t hurt to get you some more things. Don’t you want to try a maternity dress on?”

I didn’t answer, but I had to admit she was right. I very much wanted to try a maternity dress on. I wondered why…

* * *

Josie and I had a great afternoon lunching and shopping as sisters-in-law. She only had to pull me up a couple of times for sitting with my legs apart or taking too long strides.

“Mothercare next, I think,” she said, as we repaired our lipstick in the Ladies after lunch.

It was quite fun browsing, pretending to be looking at baby clothes and nursery furniture. Then we found the maternity dresses, and Josie persuaded me to try one on.

“Anything but those hideous dungarees,” she said. “You’d look like a fat labourer with a huge beer belly.”

“Oh, thanks very much, sis!” I said, sarcastically, reaching for a couple of dresses.

“You’re a size 16, by the way; you might get into a 14.”

“Got it.”

I chose a sleeveless denim smock dress with floral embroidery on the pockets, and a smarter two-piece dress with a white lace bodice and blue pleated skirt. The latter might even be a good choice for Daisy’s stand-up routine – or sit-down, I suppose I should call it now. I looked around for the changing rooms and headed off.

“Don’t forget, you’ve got three months to go,” she called after me. You’re going to get a lot bigger yet! Don’t get anything too tight.”

“OK,” I said, chuckling at the thought of my bump getting bigger.

“I’m just going outside to call Tom,” she said. “Won’t be long.”

The assistant at the changing room asked if I needed any help. Obviously I declined politely in my best girly voice. I found an empty cubicle, put my handbag on the seat, and took my top off. I could try both dresses on without removing my leggings. I was a little surprised that I felt no anxiety about entering such an exclusively feminine environment alone, but gradually during the day I had felt a Daisy persona forming and taking charge, just as had previously happened with Sarah. It hadn’t worked that way with Auntie Elsie, presumably because I hadn’t been her for as long, and I was terrified of exposure for most of the time.

I tried the denim dress on first and stepped out of the cubicle area to examine myself in the large mirrors. The assistant couldn’t help but try a little sales pitch.

“Good choice, madam,” she said. “It’s a sensible, practical dress, just the thing for everyday wear.”

I smiled and agreed, enjoying the fantasy. Daisy would probably have bought it, if she had actually existed, I thought. I went back in and changed into the second dress. This was much more romantic, the sort of thing one would wear for a night out with the baby’s father. I didn’t see Josie coming up behind and joining me at the mirrors. She caught me posing in the second dress and twirling wistfully.

“That’s really nice,” she said, “though it doesn’t really go with your grey pants. We need to buy you some tights. But you should definitely get the dress for your show. It’s much more attractive than your black top. How much is it?”

I dropped my voice so that we wouldn’t be overheard.

“I’m not actually going to buy anything, you idiot! I’m not pregnant, or even a woman!”

I felt Daisy bridling at that inside me. Josie carried on as if I hadn’t spoken. She grabbed the label.

“Look, it’s in the sale – it’s only thirty pounds. How did the other one fit?”

“It was fine,” I hissed. “Now can we go?”

“I’ll buy both of them for you,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye, and loudly enough for the assistant to hear. “Because you’ve been such a good girl,” she added, more quietly.

“Allow me, madam,” said the assistant, seizing her opportunity and blocking any further attempts by me to stop my sister-in-law buying me two dresses. “Would you like to wear that one out? I can just take the label to the till.”

So with Mothercare carrier bags containing the denim dress and the clothes I came in, Josie and I made our way back to her car. I had to admit I loved the swirl of the pleated skirt around my legs. I was also aware of attracting more attention than I had in my boring black smock. Perhaps I would wear this dress to the Club. It would definitely be better with stockings and heels though…

“Well, that was a very successful shopping trip, I think,” Josie said, as I secured my seat belt over my bust and baby bump. “Don’t you agree, Daisy?”

“Yes, and thank you for the dresses.”

“My pleasure. I think Daisy is coming along nicely. I only caught a couple of people looking at you askance.”

“What?”

“Yes, a couple of women in the cafeteria obviously clocked you. Didn’t you notice?”

“No! Christ, I would have died…!”

“Well they were sitting just a couple of feet away and were watching you for a good half an hour.”

“So what gave me away?”

“I don’t know, but I’d guess your figure. If you look closely, and you know what you’re looking for, you can tell that your curves are just padding. They don’t move right. Female flesh jiggles and wobbles – certainly on a woman of your dimensions.”

“OK, that’s it! I quit. I’ll call Lee and cancel Daisy’s spot. Nick can go on instead.”

“No, no, no! Not after all the trouble we’ve gone to. Nobody will notice anything when you’re only on view for ten minutes at the Club. Your voice and mannerisms are near perfect now.”

It took her most of the journey home to persuade me to reconsider, and when we got back Tom joined in. They probably wouldn’t have succeeded if Daisy herself hadn’t weighed in. It seemed that she was a very determined, if imaginary, lady…

* * *

New Year came and went. Tom, Josie and I went up to London to see the fireworks and party with old university friends in Notting Hill. We had a great time with drinking games, strip poker, and casual sex (for everyone else). Unusually for us no one got arrested; perhaps we were getting old.

I was back at the Manor House by late afternoon on New Year’s Day and spent a couple of hours going through my emails. There were lots of messages of congratulations for my performance in the Panto from LADS members and supporters, some of whom I knew, many I didn’t. It was gratifying but it also made me sad that it was all over and I would never see Sarah in the mirror again. Charlie reiterated Polly’s invitation to audition for the Spring Ayckbourn. It was flattering but I saw myself as a stand-up comedian (and Pantomime Dame), not an actor.

More orders had come in at MyOwnCouture.com. They were well into double figures now, not even counting the Dame costumes for Dick Whittington. Those hadn’t been bought through the website, so I would need to chase LADS for payment. I was trying to remember who the Treasurer was. I knew I’d been told. Was it Roddy? I should also prepare an income statement for December. The Bank would want to see that at the next meeting.

Ruth asked us to be in early the next day as we’d need all hands to the pumps to deal with the new orders and prepare for the contracts meeting. I stopped to think. I never intended actually to work on any of my ventures. Just hand over the money, monitor the spending, and take my dividends as a major shareholder from those that succeeded, while stomaching the losses from those that didn’t. I even had dreams of selling my shares and making my fortune if any of them turned out to be the next Amazon or Apple. So how was this happening? How did I end up being an unpaid finance manager, cum office administrator, cum bloody secretary? I sighed. I knew perfectly well what happened. Ruth happened.

I dropped an email to Will to ask him what he thought of the Bank’s Investment Pack and check his availability. It occurred to me that Ruth should have done that (or at least her secretary), but she had been leaving all our dealings with Will to me. She probably felt uncomfortable asking him for help, given that we weren’t paying him – yet. Which reminded me: I would need to put an allowance into the business plan for legal fees.

There were more emails from the guys at my other business ventures. I would probably need meetings with most of them this week or next to review progress and go over their accounts. MyOwnCouture.com and the diabetic testing project were going well, and it looked like another one was taking off: virtual reality headsets which didn’t give you motion sickness.

Another of my ventures was with university friends who had set up a data analytics company specialising in town centre traffic information. Normally this was hard to obtain as it came from ‘official’ sources, and was invariably out of date by the time it was available. My guys planned to fly drones over their customers’ target areas taking very large numbers of photographs over a period of days. This would enable them to analyse traffic flows in and out of business parks, shopping centres, distribution depots, storage facilities, factories, etc. From that they could estimate sales, hiring, production and inventories weeks before official numbers came out. My support had enabled them to improve their drone fleet and cameras, and to beef up their number-crunching computers. They were at last generating interest across a range of retail and industrial businesses. We reckoned it would soon be time to approach a bank for major funding.

Sadly I reckoned I would probably have to pull the plug on our venture in fitness instruments which had gained virtually no traction in the last three months. The ‘Uber for Private Planes’ idea wasn’t looking promising either. It was a clever idea but it turned out that the owners of the planes were generally too rich to worry about empty seats on their flights, and there weren’t enough potential customers looking for the said seats. Oh well, win some, lose some.

Vicky and I arrived together at half-past eight the next morning to find Ruth was already in the office. We exchanged greetings; enquired how we all had enjoyed the holidays; and thanked each other for our gifts. Then we got down to work.

It was a busy week. Ruth and Vicky processed the online orders that had come in over the Christmas break and four new ones that had arrived since. All of the orders involved mods of some kind. One woman wanted a BodyCon dress with a higher neckline; another wanted an A-line with spaghetti straps; and so on. The software had been designed to manage that kind of mixing ‘n’ matching, so processing each order required no manual intervention. Most of the effort went on colour-matching and dyeing, and on printing the customers’ sometimes esoteric choices of pattern. Then it was just a matter of scheduling the dyeing and printing with the cutting and fabricating. We all looked forward to automating that.

Ruth was happy to hand over the management of the latest orders to Vicky, Mike and Eddy. She wanted to spend some time encoding a new offering: maternity dresses, which I thought was ironic, given my circumstances. Perhaps I’d be able to buy Daisy’s stuff from MyOwnCouture.com in future. Wait! What was I thinking?

On the Wednesday Will dropped in to talk about the Bank’s Investment Pack and their draft contracts. We emailed some clarification questions and made some counter-offers for the type of support we wanted and the corresponding number of shares they could have.

On Friday morning their response came. There were no show-stoppers. The contracts meeting was arranged for the last Wednesday of January. That was fine for me. I would be able to concentrate on Daisy’s second appearance for the moment. I still had to put my material together and memorise it.

I asked Ruth out to dinner (etc) on Friday. She said she would have liked to, but couldn’t afford to be seen out with any man except Eddy, as she had explained. I gently suggested we just did the ‘etc’ at her place. She said that she would have enjoyed a romantic dinner (etc), but without the tender precursor she just wasn’t that itchy at the moment, so didn’t need scratching. I briefly considered getting dragged up again, perhaps as Auntie Elsie so as not to risk being confused with either Nick or Daisy. That certainly seemed to get her excited last time for some reason, but I decided the idea was ridiculous, and hardly a good basis for a relationship. But did I want a proper relationship? Did she?

This wasn’t getting us anywhere. But then, was there anywhere to go? I hoped it wouldn’t be too long before Ruth and Eddy were independent of the Deveres.

* * *

That weekend Tom was away on an agricultural college course, so I agreed to go out with Josie again as Daisy. The extra practice wouldn’t hurt. She had borrowed another maternity dress for me from her friend, Phoebe.

“What was the matter with the ones you bought me last week?” I asked, puzzled.

“Nothing, but Phoebe offered and I didn’t like to refuse.”

“You haven’t told her anything about me, have you?” I asked as she attended to my stubble with her Ladyshave.

“Only that I have a pregnant friend who is short of money. She was glad to help. We just have to return everything when you’re finished with it. She wants another baby soon.”

“Glutton for punishment, eh?” I couldn’t imagine anyone deliberately loading themselves down with the kind of weight I would be carrying. “I’m surprised she wasn’t more curious about me. I thought women liked to club together over pregnancy, new babies, etc.”

“Oh she was curious, but I told her you were on your own, separated from the baby’s father, and weren’t feeling very sociable. She understood.”

“Clever – and true enough. I’ve certainly never had intercourse with a man. Does that make this a virgin birth?”

“OK, enough blasphemy. Get your knickers on, Daisy.”

She helped me into another pair of maternity panties and matching bra, and adjusted the padding. I felt the weight and adapted my stance to manage the ungainliness of my six-months-pregnant figure. Josie passed me a plain, emerald-green ankle-length shift dress. It was sleeveless and I was a little worried that it left my rather obviously male shoulders bare.

“This is a dress!”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“I mean I can’t wear my leggings with this, can I? Won’t I need…?”

She held out a pair of knee-high hold-ups.

“Thanks,” I said.

I sat down on the bed and struggled to get them on. My enormous bum and distended stomach kept getting in the way. Since I had the option – as real pregnant women didn’t – I should have put the socks on before my massive padding. I eventually managed to slip my nyloned feet into my black flats.

“Now you’ll need something on top of that,” she said, handing me a short white lacy cardigan, “to hide your muscly arms and shoulders. Just do up the top button. You’d never be able to fasten the rest over your enormous tummy anyway.”

“I’m not fat though,” I said, primly. “I’m pregnant.”

Josie chuckled. “Let me do your wig and make-up next. Then we can go down the shops.”

“OK, but I’m really not buying anything new for Daisy.”

She had me stand in the doorway for a photograph. I suspended my handbag over the crook of my arm.

“You look really demure like that,” she said. “Just like a sweet little old-fashioned pregnant housewife.”

I tried to smile shyly.

“‘Demure housewife’ isn’t really a suitable look for telling jokes on Open Mic night though,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t know. It would certainly catch a few people by surprise to hear some raw and vulgar stuff coming out of the mouth of a prim little preggy lady.”

I didn’t really do ‘raw and vulgar stuff’ but it was worth thinking about. Being a ‘prim little preggy lady’ might be a little embarrassing, but surely I was past that now, having been Sarah and Auntie Elsie in public? Not to mention naked except for padded ladies’ lingerie in Ruth’s boudoir…

We had a very pleasant afternoon at the local shopping centre. I tried on a few maternity outfits but managed to convince Josie that we shouldn’t buy Daisy any more clothes. But she had been quite right. The outing worked wonders for my confidence. Sitting, standing and walking as a woman was second nature to me now, and Josie had no need to remind me about keeping my legs together or using my hands and arms for balance in the feminine manner.

In fact, while I was standing outside the Ladies reading a woman’s magazine and waiting for her to emerge, a strange man tried to chat me up. Who does that to a pregnant woman? Wasn’t he afraid my husband would come along and beat him up? I struggled to respond politely to his advances without encouraging him or giving myself away. Fortunately Josie appeared and summed up the situation instantly.

“Come along, Daisy,” she said, ignoring my assailant. “The boys will be waiting for us.”

“Thanks, sis,” I said, when we were safely out of sight. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Now you know what we women have to put up with,” she said, with a snort. “But at least you know your disguise is effective. No one’s ever tried to pick me up outside the Ladies’.”

* * *

Life went on as usual for the next week. I went to meetings with all my other ventures. Gerry called to say that the bank funding was confirmed. He was talking to two small engineering companies about manufacturing. Meanwhile Steve had already lined up three hospital trusts and two clinical commissioning groups who wanted to buy devices as soon as they were available.

Orders were coming in steadily now at MyOwnCouture.com. Ruth had come up with lots of new designs and Mo added them to the website. I still dropped in to see Ruth whenever I could. I got the impression she wouldn’t have minded my company in the evenings but she still didn’t want to be seen out with me. I spent most of my leisure time honing my – that is, Daisy’s – act.

The big day arrived. Lee was happy to make his office available again as I still didn’t want to mix with the audience before or after my performance. I didn’t want anyone who knew Nick to make the connection. Lee promised I would be on somewhere in the middle of the evening, around ten o’clock.

Josie helped me get ready as usual. With some misgivings I had allowed her to persuade me to wear my ‘demure’ outfit. She did my hair – that is, my wig – slightly differently, to look more like a soccer mom. I carried my handbag, which I had decided was an essential prop. She dropped me by the Club’s back entrance at half-past nine and came in with me, bringing my suitcase with Nick’s clothes. After giving me a last-minute inspection, she went round to join Tom and Eddy in the audience.

Lee came to fetch me at just after ten. He laughed heartily at my outfit.

“Oh that’s brilliant,” he said. “Way to stand out from the crowd! OK, you’re on next. Huge audience tonight. I don’t know whether it’s because we haven’t had an Open Mic night for six weeks, or because I let everyone know you’d be on.”

I laughed. “It can’t be that. Daisy’s only done one gig.”

“Don’t be too sure. Anyway there’s a small group of your peers out there – Mac and Harry and the rest. They’re dying to see you as Daisy again.” I must have looked alarmed. “Don’t worry, they’re all sworn to secrecy. They’re good guys; they won’t give you away. Come on, now. Two minutes.”

* * *

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lee announced, “back by popular demand, and telling jokes for two…”

OK, Lee, that was quite cute.

“…please welcome – Miss Daisy Duquesne.”

I took the mic from Lee, stepped out into the spotlight and smiled for the audience. I did a little mock curtsey, as low as my padded figure would allow. I heard some gasps of surprise and a few uncertain laughs. A woman at Open Mic night was rare enough, but a pregnant woman, and one dressed like a suburban housewife? With her handbag over her arm, as if she were on the way to the hairdressers?

I wasn’t a raconteur. In all my performances as Nick, Sarah or Daisy, all I had done was roll out one-liners. I didn’t – usually – do observational humour. But there wasn’t much point in pretending to be a six-months-pregnant woman if I didn’t talk about that…

“Thanks for having me back. My performance last time was described by critics as ‘electric’ and by electricians as ‘critical’.

“As you can probably tell I’m quite a bit further up the spout than I was before. It’s on my mind quite a lot these days, so if you’re a man, you might want to look away now…

“It took me a while to get pregnant. It wasn’t happening. My husband has a sex manual but he’s dyslexic. I was lying there and he was looking for my vinegar.”

OK, that was just silly, but the silly ones often break the ice.

“So I went to the doctor and asked ‘Why aren’t I getting pregnant?’ I’m doing all the right things: I’m not drinking; I’m taking my vitamins; I’m sticking a pillow under my bottom. He said, ‘Are you having sexual intercourse on a regular basis?’ and ‘I said, well I can’t do everything’.”

They were getting going now, hopefully thinking I may be funny as well as funny-looking.

“For me, the weirdest stage of pregnancy was when people weren’t sure whether to congratulate me or buy me a gym membership.

“What’s the difference between a pregnant woman and a supermodel? Nothing—if the pregnant woman’s partner knows what’s good for him.

“I’m not sure if it’s the pregnancy hormones that are making me a bitch, or if I have a valid reason. If the baby can really hear everything from inside my tummy, I’m pretty sure her first word is going to be ‘Fuck!’”

That got my first belly laugh. I sighed inwardly. You can always rely on bad language to get a laugh, especially when you look like a demure little lady who wouldn’t say boo to a waterfowl.

“I’m really not looking forward to the actual birth. They say that when you are in the middle of labour it’s like watching two very inefficient removal men trying to get a very large sofa through a very small doorway. Only in this case you can’t say, ‘take it through the French windows’.

“My childbirth instructor says it’s not pain I’ll feel during labour, but pressure. In the way that a tornado might be referred to as an air current.”

There was a continual underflow of laughter now. From what I could tell, it was led by middle-aged women, and a few husbands – people for whom these were not so much jokes as memories, painful but nostalgic.

“But I intend to have a natural childbirth. In the sense that it’s completely natural to take drugs to alleviate excruciating pain.

“My husband asked when’s the best time to get an epidural – it’s immediately after learning that your girlfriend is pregnant.

“What’s the most common pregnancy craving? For men to be the ones who get pregnant. And what would be different then? Maternity leave would last for two years with full pay, and morning sickness would rank as the nation’s Number One health problem.”

Closing stages now. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, laughing and whooping.

“I just want to eat all the time. This morning I told my husband to put the chocolate biscuits somewhere I couldn’t reach them, so he put them on the floor.

“God gave men a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run both at the same time.”

…I wrapped up and took my bow. Lee came on, clapping. I handed him the microphone.

“Daisy Duquesne, ladies and gentlemen!” he called.

The applause got louder. I took another bow. I love this!

* * *

I hurried back to Lee’s office before any of my adoring public could catch me. I slumped in his desk chair and unpinned my wig. The sweat was running down my forehead, streaking my make-up. I reached for my handbag to get a tissue to dab my face. I bent down to get my shoes off. Josie would be here in a moment to help me change.

I was rubbing my feet and trying to reach round my tummy to remove my knee-highs, when the door swung open. I caught a quick glimpse of Josie but she was quickly elbowed aside by another familiar figure.

“Daisy Duquesne, I presume?” said Ruth. “So that’s why Charlie and Arthur picked you to be their Dame! It all makes sense now.”

She was furious.

Author's Note: As freely admitted above, when it comes to telling jokes Nick and Daisy are plagiarists. The author therefore wishes to acknowledge the great comedians from whom their jokes have been, er, nicked: Victoria Wood, Jo Brand, Sarah Millican, Joan Rivers. My humble apologies to any I have failed to acknowledge.

After the Pantomime

By Susannah Donim

A spare time hobby slowly turns into a lifetime choice for Nick.

Chapter 7 – The Secretary

Ruth makes Nick pay for keeping secrets from her. His ‘transformation’ becomes more permanent.

Ruth stood with her hands on her hips and demanded an explanation.

“I don’t know why you’re so angry,” I said, wearily. “This is nothing to get upset about. I had a lot of jokes that only worked from the viewpoint of a woman. Before Christmas Josie persuaded me to do a stand-up in drag. It was just for fun, but I looked passable and it sort of got out of hand. People seemed to think I was really a woman. Tonight was only the second time I’ve done it, and definitely the last – Daisy Duquesne’s farewell appearance.”

Ruth didn’t seem to have been listening to my perfectly reasonable explanation of my unexpected apparel.

“I thought we were becoming… close, but you never told me about… any of this!”

“Well, obviously…” I stuttered, too embarrassed to be coherent. “I wasn’t going to tell a girl I… liked… that I was dressing as a woman... I didn’t want you to think…”

I ground to a halt. What on earth could I say? I felt ridiculous. I was sitting at Lee’s desk in my wig cap, streaky make-up, maternity dress and padding. My handbag was on my knee, and I was rubbing my nyloned feet. I had a flashback to my time as Sarah the Cook, when I often entertained visitors in my dressing room, half-in and half-out of extravagant women’s clothing. But this was completely different.

If I’d ever hoped that Ruth and I might have a future together, I could definitely forget that now. She must have thought I was a total pervert. But she was just getting started.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised. You’ve been lying to me ever since I’ve known you!”

That was below the belt and completely untrue.

“I’ve never lied to you. Not once! Sure, I haven’t told you everything about me, but then you haven’t told me everything about you either.”

“Well I certainly don’t have a secret as big as this!”

“As big as what? I’m an amateur stand-up comic; you knew that. And I’ve done a couple of gigs in drag. So what?”

“Not to mention the whole Pantomime Dame thing. You obviously get your kicks dressing as a woman!”

“For the purposes of entertainment only!” I said, angrily. She was actually getting too close to the truth as I was beginning to realise, but it wouldn’t do to admit it. “I won an award for my Sarah!”

Josie had closed the door and was leaning on it, trying to be inconspicuous, but now she must have felt she had to say something.

“Ruth, please! It’s true – it was all my idea. Nick’s not… weird… or anything.”

We both turned to her. She must have realised that the ship was sailing and it would be better to jump on it and leave us alone.

“OK, I’ll just… Let me know… somehow… when you’re ready to change back, Nick.”

She left and closed the door behind her. But her intervention might have helped, because I got the sense that Ruth might be calming down a little.

“But why did she make you pregnant, for God’s sake?”

“Her little joke. Also it draws attention from anything that might give me away, and it covers up my, you know… things.”

“Oh yes,” she said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “Good idea. ‘Cause they’re so huge.” She raised her eyes to heaven.

“Look,” I said, ignoring her belittling of my manhood, “you and I… we’ve never made a commitment to each other. And you’re the one who said she couldn’t be with me, given the difference in our backgrounds. You even said your parents would disown you for going out with a toff.”

“Don’t give me that! You know we were getting past all of that. I thought you cared about me.”

“I do care, you idiot! Why do you think I keep asking you out? You keep turning me down.”

“You know why I…”

“Yeah, yeah, but if you cared about me, you’d have found a way to make it work.”

We stared at each other for a moment. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I was tempted to go to her, but I didn’t see how being embraced by a man in make-up, a wig cap, and a maternity dress with a huge baby bump was likely to improve her mood. So I just looked at her, helplessly. I was about to give up when she slumped down in Lee’s other chair.

“OK… OK… how about this?” she said eventually. “I’ll go out with Daisy!”

“Huh?”

“Well, I didn’t recognise you – Nick – I recognised Dame Sarah! Nobody will connect Nick with Daisy. We can go out together then. You can be my girlfriend or secretary or something. It won’t matter if the Deveres hear I’ve been seen out with another woman. Maybe Eddy can come with us sometimes. He and I can act all lovey-dovey in public and his parents will think everything’s tickety-boo.”

“So you want me to drag up every time I go out with you? Do you know how long it takes to get this lot on and off? I’ll be spending half my life getting in and out of ladies’ underwear!”

“Oh well, if you think I’m not worth a little of your time…”

She trailed off when I didn’t respond. I thought about it for a moment. It was mad! I couldn’t do this… could I? True, I had admitted to myself that I enjoyed the outings with Josie as well as my act at the Club. It was really no great imposition being Daisy. But my disguise wasn’t good enough for everyday, was it? It was OK on stage, not moving about and with the nearest person ten feet away, but I’d never get away with it close up, in normal light… would I? I recalled what Josie said about the unnatural stiffness of the padding.

“I don’t think it’ll work,” I said at last. “I don’t think my disguise is good enough.”

“Oh well, forget it then,” she said, getting up and not bothering to hide her disappointment.

I couldn’t leave it like that.

“If I do this bizarre thing, what will you do?”

“What do you mean?” She sat down again.

“I’ll be humiliating myself, and God knows what else, to prove my commitment to you. What will you do to prove your commitment to me?”

It felt a bit petty when I put it like that, but I sensed it was now or never with Ruth.

“Oh, I see. Do you want me to dress as a French Maid or something?”

“No, that would be stupid. I mean, you’d look fantastic…” Was that a hint of a smile? “…but it’d be stupid. I’m looking for a commitment, not fancy-dress games.”

“Well... I could say ‘I love you’. Would that help?” She looked a little embarrassed, which didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

“It might – if you meant it. But words are just words, aren’t they? And sex is just sex. Love is something else. You have to show it, not just talk about it.”

“Wow! Deep!” she said. Her anger seems to have abated. “I don’t suppose the way I lost my rag when I discovered you’d been keeping important things from me would count, would it?”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“Well, I suppose it would be a start…”

She came over and kissed me – hard.

“How come every time I touch you these days, you’re wearing a bra and a girdle?” she said, smiling. I relaxed a little and returned her smile. “But I mean it about you being Daisy, if you’re going to be seen with me in public.”

“I understand,” I sighed. “I’ll try and work something out. What about tonight? Are we…?”

“If you put your wig back on, you can come back to my place – Daisy.”

I reached for the wig as I got up to go.

“By the way, you haven’t said what you thought of my act. Was I any good?”

“Let’s just say you’d better perform better than that tonight.”

My sternest critic.

* * *

We lay in bed, post-coitally content. Ruth’s bedroom floor was strewn with two dresses, two bras, two pairs of panties, two pairs of nylons, and quite a lot of unnatural-looking padding.

“How come everyone had seen you as Daisy except me?”

“Well, I didn’t know how you’d react. I never know where I am with you…”

“Are you ashamed of performing as a woman?”

“No, but that’s performing. You’re asking me to pretend to be a woman in real life.”

“Rubbish! It’s just another performance – you’ll be playing the part of my secretary. It will save us the cost of another member of staff. It’s not as though you have anything better to do.”

“Come on! You met the people on all my other ventures before Christmas. I have lots to do.”

“Hah! Occasional meetings that you can easily take by phone. You’re just too stuck-up to work for a woman in a menial position!”

“Again with the class prejudice?”

“Yes – to prove to me you’re not a full-of-himself toff. Besides if you can look as good as a woman as people say you do, we can go out together all the time. I’m fed up of hiding. No one can be suspicious about a boss having dinner with her secretary, especially if she’s six months pregnant. If you want to be with me, you need to prove it.”

“But why do I have to be pregnant?”

“In case we bump into someone who’s seen Daisy at the Club, dumbo.”

* * *

The following day I called Polly and asked if she could meet with us in private. She readily agreed, obviously intrigued when I mentioned I would be with Ruth.

We called in the late afternoon. Arthur was in the lounge watching the football results on television. He grunted hello but expressed no interest in why we were there. Ruth being with me would have allayed any suspicions he might have had that I was up to something with his wife. I doubt that was in his nature, but in the dressing room Polly and I had been as close as an unmarried couple should ever be.

The three of us settled in the breakfast room with cups of tea and chocolate biscuits. I explained what I was trying to do and asked if she had any ideas as to how my Daisy disguise could be improved.

“Seriously?” said Polly.

“It seems it’s the only way to persuade this mad bitch that I love her.”

Polly raised an eyebrow at my description of my beloved.

“Are you sure you two want to be together?”

“Yes, we’ve reached the ‘terms of endearment’ stage,” said Ruth. “I’m ‘mad bitch’, apparently. I’m trying to come up with something for him. ‘Lying pansy’ is favourite at the moment.”

Polly sighed. “I warned you about keeping secrets from the people you love, didn’t I?” she said to me. “How long do you intend to do this for?”

We hadn’t actually discussed this.

“A week,” I proposed, nervously.

“A couple of months,” Ruth said, firmly.

“What!”

“A week is nothing like long enough,” she said. “It would be too easy to laugh it off as a joke. This is about commitment. You know that.”

“But I have other commitments. We have a contracts meeting for MyOwnCouture.com next week. And I still have to meet regularly with my other ventures, and solicitors, and banks. I can’t go as Daisy!”

“Conference calls – without video, of course. Say Nick is away on business. You don’t have to speak much at these meetings anyway, do you? You hardly said a word at our session with the Bank.”

She was right about that at least. Apart from progress meetings with my project teams, I only really needed to be there to listen to keep up to date, which I could easily do over the phone.

“There must be some other way I can show you I’m serious about you.”

“Such as what?”

“Can’t I just slay a dragon or something?”

“Sure – if you can find one.”

I tried one last tactic.

“But are you sure you’ll want to be with me after all this? With everyone laughing at me and my reputation in tatters?”

“You’re exaggerating,” she said breezily. “Anyway, I’ll take the risk. So, do you have any suggestions for a better disguise, Polly?”

“Well, if you’re really sure…”

She paused. Ruth held her gaze. Polly sighed.

“Arthur has a friend, James, who cross-dresses. He uses a service that does realistic prostheses, wigs, make-up, and so on. Apparently, they’re really good. James reckons he’s never been ‘read’ as a man and he’s nowhere near as… uh, pretty… as Nick.”

She had the grace to look a little embarrassed at describing me thus.

“That’s what we need,” Ruth said firmly. “How do we contact them for an appointment?”

“They’re very discreet. They don’t advertise at all. You have to know someone. I’ll ring James.”

She went into the sitting room to make the call. Ruth came over to me.

“She’s right to be concerned though,” she said. She touched my face, almost tenderly. “There’s no point in doing this if we’re just going to resent each other afterwards.”

“No, it’s OK,” I said. “I think the problem is that we both hate showing any weakness… No, I don’t mean weakness, I mean vulnerability. We need to overcome that – with each other at least. I’m learning – playing Sarah helped – but you need to let me in more. Can you do that?”

Before Ruth could reply Polly returned, still on the phone. She gave Ruth a scrap of paper and a pen.

“James says he can’t give us Transformations’ number, but if you give him yours, he’ll get them to call you.”

“They’re called ‘Transformations’? That sounds ominous,” I said.

Ruth wrote her number down. Polly returned to the other room, reading it out into the phone as she went.

“I take your point about vulnerability,” Ruth said when Polly had gone again, “and I think you’re right. I’ll work on that. I may find it easier to share with Daisy.”

“But I’m Daisy… oh, never mind.”

Polly came back and we chatted while we finished our coffee. The ladies discussed how the LADS wardrobe team might support MyOwnCouture.com with the frilly bits (not their terminology). Ruth was keen to start selling wedding dresses as soon as possible but couldn’t see how our existing machinery could do more than make the basic garment, after which there would still be a lot of work which would have to be done by hand by skilled seamstresses. They agreed that Polly would come in on Monday afternoon to discuss designs.

We were just getting ready to go when a call came through to Ruth’s mobile – ‘Number Withheld’. She answered quickly. It was Transformations. She listened.

“Pregnant, yes… six months. Good enough to pass close up in good light… Well, the sooner the better,” she said, “but weekdays are difficult… Yes, I appreciate you must be busy at weekends…”

She turned to me. “Looks like we’ll have to put aside a weekday morning or afternoon. What works for you this week?”

I checked the calendar on my phone. “I could do Tuesday or Wednesday pm,” I said

“Wednesday afternoon looks best,” she said into the phone. “How long would we need…? Really? As long as that…? Oh yes, I could drop him off and come back later, I suppose… ‘Daisy’… Yes, that’s right… Yes, we have some suitable clothes. We’ll bring them with us… Thank you. Can you text me the address…? Good, we’ll see you on Wednesday at 2 o’clock.”

She hung up.

“You didn’t ask how much it would cost,” I said.

“Why would I? I won’t be paying.” She smiled. “You know I don’t have any money, posh boy.” She stood up. “Thanks for everything, Polly. We’ll get out of your way now. See you on Monday.”

Polly led us out. We’d come in separate cars due to Ruth’s paranoia at being seen alone with me. She left first and told me to wait five minutes before following. After waving her off, Polly turned to me.

“Are you really going through with this?” she said.

“I know. It’s a pretty big deal. I don’t think Ruth appreciates that. It’s one thing to do a drag act a couple of times, or play the Dame in a Panto, but dressing as a woman in real life… I’m not happy about it, but I think I have to do it.”

“Dressing you up as Daisy may not be the real point, you know,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, LADS did The Canterbury Tales a while ago.”

I looked at her as if she’d gone senile.

“It’s relevant, trust me,” she said. “Have you ever read The Wife of Bath’s Tale?”

“Remind me.”

“A young knight at King Arthur’s court commits a rape and is to be put to death for it, but the queen intercedes on his behalf and presents him with a challenge: to discover, within a year, what women want most in the world. He roams throughout the country asking every woman he meets, but they all give different answers, none of them convincing. On the last day he meets an ugly old woman who tells him she can save his life, but if she succeeds, he must pledge himself to her in return for her help. He agrees.

“Back at the court the knight gives the queen the answer the old woman gave him: what women most desire is for their husbands to let them have their own way. All the women at the court agree that that was the right answer, and the queen spares the knight’s life. The old hag then demands the knight marry her. He is horrified but keeps his word.

“On their wedding night she reveals that she is a fairy and offers him a choice: he can have her ugly but loyal and good, or he can have her young and fair, but also coquettish and unfaithful. Finally, he replies that he would trust her judgment, and asks her to choose whatever she thinks best. Because his answer gave her what she most desired – the right to choose for herself – she becomes both beautiful and good. They have a long, happy marriage, and the woman is always completely obedient to her husband.”

Polly looked at me, expectantly. I looked at her blankly, clearly not the reaction she had hoped for.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! You’re giving Ruth what she wants, to prove your love for her. The more of an imposition it is for you, the more certain she can be of your love. It’s touching really.” She paused. A cloud came over her face. “But a fourteenth century parable is one thing… I just hope she doesn’t come to regret what it does to you – both.”

* * *

The next day I had lunch with my parents. They would have to know what I was planning to do, so I tried to explain my absurd predicament.

“Did you lose some sort of bet?” asked my father.

“No, nothing like that,” I said. “It’s about commitment and trust. Ruth and I… well, let’s say we’re attracted to each other, but she feels she can’t trust me because I kept things from her.”

“What things?” asked my mother.

“Well my Daisy Duquesne act mainly, but I didn’t mention I was doing stand-up in the first place. Mind you, back then we were barely even friends, and anyway I thought she was engaged to Eddy. So as I said at the time, there was no particular reason why I should have told her that, or anything else about myself. I also kept my involvement in the Panto from her for as long as I could.”

“I don’t think you can be blamed for not telling a potential girlfriend you were dressing up as a woman,” said Dad, “particularly if you thought she was engaged to someone else at the time.”

“But you can see how it looks now, can’t you?” said Mum. “You claim to be in love with her, but you haven’t exactly been sharing, have you?”

“No,” I sighed. “If I had known then what I know now, I would have told her everything from the beginning, especially as she seems to find my female impersonation sexy.”

They both raised their eyebrows at that.

“So she sees this as a way of testing your – what word did you use? – commitment?” said Mum.

“That’s about it, yeah.”

“Bloody funny way of testing boyfriend material, if you ask me,” said Dad, “checking out what kind of girlfriend he’d make.”

* * *

At ten to two on Wednesday afternoon we sat together in the Transformations Reception waiting for our consultant. Ruth was surprisingly quiet. She clearly had something on her mind. I assumed she would share it with me when she was ready.

I passed the time by comparing her with the receptionist, Angela, who was a total babe. Ruth was leading 5-4, and I was hoping to see Angela stand up so I could complete my analysis by comparing their lower halves, but she remained resolutely seated behind her desk, her caboose and legs concealed from my view.

Ruth cleared her throat.

“You don’t actually have to do this, you know,” she said, to my astonishment.

“What? But you…”

“It was always more about you showing you were willing to do it, than actually going through with it.”

So Polly had been spot on.

“Where’s this coming from?” I said.

“I’m just afraid that you’ll… hate me for making you do this.”

She looked thoroughly miserable now.

“OK, who are you, and what have you done with Ruth Braddock?”

She gave a wan smile. She looked… vulnerable – a first for her?

“I’m serious,” she said.

“Well, don’t be,” I said, putting my arm around her. “I want to do this. I need to do this – to prove myself to you. I have no problem being Daisy for a while if you’re my prize at the end of it.”

She buried her face in my shoulder. I distinctly heard a sniff.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” I said, “and I certainly won’t hate you for it.”

No response.

“Anyway, if I quit now, even after what you’ve just said, you’d never really know if I would have gone through with it, would you?”

She looked up at me, her expression a mass of contradictions. I had no idea what else I could say. Fortunately, I didn’t need to speak. A large, tweedy woman had appeared from nowhere.

“You must be Daisy?” she said to me. “I’m Ingrid McLaughlin. I’ll be your consultant.” She turned to Ruth, who was doing her best to recover her poise. “I don’t need to know your name, madam, or your relationship with Daisy, but I assume you’re in charge?”

She obviously believed that Ruth was going to be Daisy’s boss, and I suppose she was right. She had also called Ruth ‘madam’, not ‘miss’, so she was probably assuming we were married. She was clearly used to dealing with ‘alternative’ marital relationships, which meant we could probably rely on her discretion.

Ruth had recovered her composure by now, and quickly confirmed her authority over me.

“If you would like to follow me,” said Ingrid, “I’ll show you our facilities and explain what we propose to do for Daisy.”

It felt odd to be referred to as Daisy while I was still entirely Nick, but that was the least of my forthcoming humiliation. Ingrid and Ruth discussed me as though I wasn’t there. Presumably she was used to dealing with submissive husbands and dominant wives. But if Ruth thought that was going to be the way of things in future, she had another think coming. We were going to be equal partners or not partners at all.

I picked up the suitcase of Daisy’s clothes that Josie had put together for me and followed the two women, who seemed to be getting on very well. We went first to Ingrid’s office where she reviewed her brief.

“As I understand it, you want Daisy to be able to pass as a woman who is six months pregnant in ordinary, everyday settings?” Ruth nodded. “So, in the office, at the shops, in restaurants, and so on?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you need to be able to deceive people who know her real identity?”

“No, all her friends and family are aware of this arrangement,” said Ruth. “We only need to fool people who don’t know Ni… her male self.”

“So you probably don’t need any special prosthetics to disguise her face then.” She turned to me. “May I?”

Without waiting for an answer, she reached out and lifted my chin up with her hand, which despite the painted nails and jewelled rings, I noticed was surprisingly large. She was staring intently at my neck.

“Her Adam’s apple is quite small,” she continued, “barely noticeable, but she should probably wear high collars as much as possible.” She dropped her hand. “Now, may I ask: how much experience does Daisy have of female impersonation?”

“Quite a lot, actually. She played the Dame in an amateur Panto before Christmas and won ‘Best Actor’.”

I hoped Ingrid didn’t live anywhere near us or she would be able to identify me quite easily. But she didn’t seem interested – or impressed.

“A Pantomime Dame is hardly proper female impersonation.”

“He… sorry, she has also performed stand-up comedy and no one realised she wasn’t a woman.”

“Indeed?” said Ingrid. “That’s much more like it. You might get away with just the physical disguise and no training then. Now, how long do you want this to last? Because if it’s for more than a week or two, Daisy will have to get bigger – a lot bigger, as she nears full term.”

I hadn’t thought of that! That was a good reason to end the whole thing sooner rather than later.

“So it might have to be just a couple of weeks then after all,” I said hopefully.

“Shush, dear,” Ruth said. “If we want it to last a couple of months, say, can you help with that?” she asked Ingrid.

“Oh yes. We’ve taken several men all the way through full nine-month pregnancies.”

Good grief! There must be some truly perverted people around, I thought. Perhaps what I was doing wasn’t so far out after all.

“We can make a prosthesis which can be enlarged gradually,” Ingrid continued. “You could even do it at home by adding water, but we don’t recommend that. The prosthesis tends to distort and swell unrealistically. We use a special gel, so it would be best if Daisy comes to us once a week for her top-ups.” She turned back to Ruth. “I do agree that you should be thinking of months rather than weeks, by the way. Our services don’t come cheap, and as it will be a fixed price, the longer she is Daisy, the better the value for money. We won’t charge for the weekly top-up visits. Anyway, you don’t have to decide now.”

She paused to gauge our reaction. I was resigned. Ruth was excited.

Ingrid resumed. “There is one thing you do have to decide now – a slightly delicate matter. Will Daisy need to appear naked?”

“She certainly won’t!” I said.

Ingrid looked at Ruth, the ghost of a smile on her otherwise professional countenance.

“May I ask why you need to know?” asked Ruth. “Although I think I can guess…”

“Because we can make the prosthesis ‘anatomically correct’ down there, and it would be good enough to fool anyone that Daisy is completely female – short of a trained clinician performing a ‘hands on’ inspection…”

I was gaping at them both in horror.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Ingrid,” Ruth said, smiling.

“Very good. The reason I ask, you see, is that the full prosthesis would need to be secured with adhesive for the duration of the exercise, completely denying access to Daisy’s male parts. It could then only be removed by a highly skilled operator using a special solvent.”

“Absolutely not happening!” I protested vehemently.

“Calm down, dear,” said Ruth. “And the alternative?” she asked.

“If she doesn’t need to be anatomically correct in her private parts, the bottom of the prosthesis can be secured using an almost invisible fastener. In both cases the subject’s testicles will need to be returned to the abdominal cavity for maximum comfort, and the subject will then need to sit to relieve herself while wearing the device. Its orifices will be perfectly aligned with Daisy’s own, of course. However in the second option, the full male equipment can be liberated without too much trouble, albeit with a little assistance from her partner.”

“Yes, option two would be best,” Ruth said, to my relief. “I do like the idea that he can’t get at his tackle without my help, though.” She giggled for only the second time that I’d known her. “Would Daisy be able to wear a swimming costume?”

“Oh yes, although I’d recommend a one-piece,” said Ingrid, with a smile. “She’ll need prosthetic breasts that match of course, and they will have to be secured with adhesive for them to move properly, and to avoid the danger of them falling out of her bra.” Ruth nodded. “Well, I think that’s everything. Are we going ahead?”

“Oh yes, I think so,” said Ruth. “Are you happy, Daisy?”

“I’m content to proceed,” I said, resignedly. “‘Happy’ is not the word.”

“You need to know our fees, of course. I’ll just print off our invoice and a contract for you to sign.”

She turned to her desktop and opened a menu. She selected some options and clicked Print.

She folded the invoice in two and gave it to Ruth. She passed it straight to me without looking at it. When I saw the total, I almost fell off my chair. This would severely deplete my savings. I would have to put off changing my car for another year, or even two. MyOwnCouture.com had better start making me rich soon. Meanwhile Ruth was happily signing the contract.

“Right,” said Ingrid, briskly. “The first step will be to get an accurate 3D image of your body. Follow me. Our photography suite is next door.” She turned to Ruth. “If you’d like to wait here for a moment, please, madam. I’ll be right back.”

I couldn’t help noticing that I was given brusque orders, but Ruth received polite requests. I was pretty sure Ruth had noticed too.

The photography suite was a small dark room with a dim red light. There was a sort of dais in the centre.

“You stand on there,” she said. “The cameras move around you on the rails.” There were three cameras at different heights. “They build up an accurate three-dimensional composite image of your body. The software helps us design the female shape you want. Then we use 3D printing to make the prosthesis. Strip off, then.”

When I was down to just my underpants, she got me to climb up onto the little platform. There were footprints on it showing me where to stand, like at airport security X-ray booths. She made for the door.

“When I’ve gone, drop your underpants on the floor,” she said. “I’ll tell you what you need to do next over the loudspeaker.”

When I was sure she’d gone, I stripped naked, as instructed. I wondered if she and Ruth could actually see me. Well there wasn’t much point in being bashful now.

In a moment Ingrid’s voice came through. “Are you ready?” she said. “The lights will be going off in a moment. Stand as still as you can with your arms horizontal and out to your sides.”

I complied, and the little red light went out.

“Starting the process now,” she said. “The camera lights will be very bright. Try not to blink.”

The lights were incredibly bright after the darkness. The cameras starting orbiting around me, snapping pictures every second or so. After two circuits they stopped. The bright lights went off again and the small darkroom lamp came on.

“There’s a dressing gown on the back of the door,” Ingrid said over the speaker. “You can put it on and come back to the office.”

The robe was a plain pink woman’s dressing gown. I supposed I would have to get used to wearing such garments. I returned to Ingrid’s office with my arms full of Nick’s clothes.

Ruth and Ingrid were at the computer console. Ruth turned as I entered and grinned when she saw what I was wearing.

I noticed that my suitcase was now open and empty, and the clothes, underwear, and accessories Josie gave me for Daisy were strewn across Ingrid’s table, together with my wig on its stand. I stuffed my – that is, Nick’s – clothes into the case. This would probably be the last time I would see them for a while.

I looked over Ruth’s shoulder at the monitor. I was embarrassed to see a revolving three-dimensional picture of my naked body, with my private parts pixilated out.

“Now I’ll superimpose an image of a six-months-pregnant woman over your body, using measurements that correspond to the clothes you brought,” Ingrid said.

A new figure appeared, a pregnant female but with my face. I realised then what Josie had meant when she said I was ‘androgynous’. I knew it was my face with my short hair, but it really didn’t look out of place on the very female body.

“As you can see, the figure is mostly green, which is good as it means that Daisy’s male anatomy is well inside the pregnant female shape. The red areas are where his body protrudes beyond the female template – just the shoulders and upper arms, where his male musculature exceeds that of a female of a similar height. There’s nothing we can really do about that, but if you keep those covered up in something feminine and lacy, I doubt anyone will notice. There would normally be red areas around the waist and chest too, but of course they are subsumed within the expanded breasts and the baby bump.”

I had to admire the technology despite my misgivings.

“So now I can make an abdominal prosthesis and breast forms to fill out the green zones.” She turned to Ruth. “This printing stage will take about half an hour. Then we have to fit him and get him dressed and made up. I would guess it will be about two hours before Daisy will be ready to leave.”

“OK,” said Ruth. “I think I’ll go off to the shops. See you later, Daisy.”

She made to leave, then turned back. She closed the suitcase and picked it up.

“I’ll take this with me, shall I? Remove any temptation to bottle out.”

She laughed at my forlorn expression and left me to Ingrid’s mercies.

* * *

While Ingrid organised the 3D printing, I was shown into a treatment room where I had to remove my robe and lie down naked on a massage bed. A jolly lady called Vera covered my private parts with a towel for decency’s sake, and then began to subject me to an all-over waxing. I queried the need for this torture but Ingrid made it clear that it was necessary. They couldn’t attach breast forms to my chest if there was any sign of masculine hair there, let alone glue a pregnancy belly over hairy loins and genitals.

Vera offered me a stiff whisky as a kind of anaesthetic and I accepted gratefully. That turned out to be a good decision. I had no idea waxing would be so painful! How could women do this regularly?

Vera finished by massaging me all over with a soothing lotion, which helped a lot.

“Since you’ve said you’re going to be Daisy for at least two months, I’m using a lotion with a low dosage of female hormone.” I must have looked alarmed. “Don’t worry, it’s not strong enough to affect your virility or make you grow real breasts, but it should slow the growth of your body hair. I take it you didn’t enjoy the waxing?”

She then turned me onto my back again so that she could attach my breast forms. She had brought several pairs and checked each of them against my chest to get the best colour match.

“Ingrid said to give you 42Cs,” she said. “If you’ve never had forms attached to you before, these may take a bit of getting used to.”

She wasn’t kidding. They were nearly as big as the ones I had worn as Sarah, but those had been of springy foam. These were seriously heavy and immediately affected my balance when I stood up, but they jiggled as I moved, just like the real thing.

“You should put your bra on straightaway, dear,” said Vera. “You need the support. Otherwise the forms’ weight might hurt the skin of your chest.”

She held up the bra that Josie had packed for me. It was pale blue and lacy; very pretty, in fact. I slipped my arms through the shoulder straps and she fastened it behind me, expertly adjusting the sliders on the straps and fastening the clasp.

Ingrid came in then with a huge lump of smelly, flesh-coloured plastic on a trolley. She saw me wrinkling my nose.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “the latex smell soon disappears.”

The ‘abdominal prosthesis’ was basically a pair of shorts, but with a very high waist and coming down to just above the knee. But it didn’t look much like shorts because of the blubbery flesh round the buttocks, hips, thighs, and especially the huge dome round the front where my baby bump would be. What was most impressive was its texture. The buttocks and thighs wibbled and wobbled at my touch, but the baby bump was smooth and firm, like a fully-stretched pregnancy belly. It looked and felt just like the real thing. At Ingrid’s invitation I tested the weight and found it a strain to lift even with both hands. No wonder she had brought it in on a trolley.

“The material is precisely the density of actual flesh,” she said. “So now you know how much weight a pregnant woman has to carry around. And of course this is only the equivalent of six months. If you do as your… mistress… suggests, and see out the full nine months, it will get a lot bigger and heavier. You will find you will have to move exactly as a real pregnant woman does.”

She said all that in a ‘and let that be a lesson to you’ manner. It didn’t seem worth the effort of pointing out that whatever Ruth was to me, she certainly wasn’t my mistress. Let the tweedy old bat think what she likes.

With a sniff, Ingrid left it to Vera to help me on with this appalling device. I stepped into it and she helped me pull it up. It was incredibly heavy. There was a sort of zip, like the seal on a freezer bag only much finer, which ran from inside one thigh, up to the groin, and down the other thigh. It was open at the moment and my male parts were exposed and available for use (as it were), but the discomfort and embarrassment of the experience had ensured that my member remained flaccid and quiescent.

“Now the next part is tricky,” said Vera. “Let me help you. You might find it a little uncomfortable at first, but you’ll get used to it.”

She had to kneel down in order to reach under my now enormous stomach and inside the opening between my legs. She deftly levered my testicles upwards into the abdominal cavity from which they had descended when I was thirteen (if I remember rightly), and manoeuvred my penis into a special tube. She then closed the zip, up one leg, across, and down the other. All my male parts were now packed tightly and invisibly under fake female flesh. Only an expert eye would have been able to distinguish the view from what one would expect to find between a real woman’s legs.

“Good,” she said, standing up. “You should now find that when you need to wee, just relax, and it will flood out of your faux vagina. Of course, it will spray – realistically – so you’ll need to sit down, and wipe thoroughly afterwards. Also, make sure you open the zip and wash yourself inside and out at least every couple of days. You’ll find it easiest and most comfortable to do that in the bath.”

She paused, no doubt to enjoy the horrified look on my face.

“Now, as you will have noticed, the prosthesis is quite heavy, and it would soon slip down, as there’s nothing to hold it up. So we’ve lined it with a special adhesive that also prevents perspiration. That will have set by now. It should be quite secure.”

“What? You mean I’m stuck in this thing?”

“Well, yes, but you don’t want to be walking along the street and suddenly find your abdomen around your ankles, do you? The adhesive does break down after a while, but the prosthetic will loosen anyway as you lose the top layer of skin cells – about twelve to fourteen days.” She grinned. “Don’t worry, we have a solvent for the adhesive in case of emergency, and we’ll check you out every week when you come in to have it enlarged. We need to make sure you’re not developing a rash or anything, but we rarely see any problems like that.”

I needed to sit down. This impersonation was going to be much more convincing and comprehensive and irreversible than I had expected. Was it too late to back out?

“You’d better put some panties on, dear. You’re a naked lady down there now.”

I scurried across to the pile of clothes on the table and with some difficulty stepped into a pair of maternity panties that matched my bra. They came up well above my waist which wasn’t surprising because I didn’t have a waist anymore.

Maintaining my balance was a challenge with all this additional weight in unfamiliar places. The foam padding Josie had used was awkward and cumbersome, but at least it was light and I could take it off at the end of the evening. My new breast forms and this humongous prosthetic were really heavy, and they moved just like real female flesh. I would have to move and sit and stand and waddle just like a real pregnant woman. And I couldn’t take them off. What had I done to myself?

I caught sight of my ungainly pregnant figure in a mirror on a cupboard door. I felt feminine and vulnerable. I was beginning to see why they called this place Transformations.

Josie had packed the pleated dress she had bought me the previous week, some knee-highs, and a pair of black one-inch heels, presumably on loan from LADS. I might have to buy some more shoes if I’m going to be Daisy for a while, not to mention more bras and panties. They would have to allow for my tummy getting even bigger. More expense.

Next on the agenda was a session with a lady called Sharon who would be my beautician. She put my wig on and brushed it into shape. She didn’t approve.

“Tell me,” she said, “did a relative of yours buy this wig when she lost her hair due to chemotherapy?” I nodded. “Thought so. It’s a bit obvious, I’m afraid, and it really doesn’t suit you at all. It’s for a middle-aged lady. We can do much better.”

I must have looked dubious. She hastened to reassure me.

“Don’t worry. Everything’s included in the price. Now what hair colour would you like?”

“I think I’d better stick with my natural colour.”

“Good choice. Then when your own hair grows out, you may be able to dispense with wigs entirely.”

I didn’t tell her that by the time my hair was long enough for a girl’s hairstyle I wouldn’t be Daisy anymore. The way I felt at the moment I wouldn’t be Daisy next bloody week. I just hoped Ruth would let me out of this ridiculous enterprise without ending our relationship before it got started.

Sharon tried a number of wigs out on me.

“Now this one is somewhere between a long pixie and a short bob,” she said.

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said, “but I do like that one.”

“Good, and it’s not much longer than your own hair is now. In about a month or so, I’ll be able to do a style just like that for you.”

Despite my growing misgivings I actually enjoyed my hour with Sharon, learning what colours were right for me, and how to apply my make-up properly. She also persuaded me to let her do my nails. I never kept them particularly short and she filed them to a better shape and painted them bright red.

I enjoyed her piercing my ears rather less, but she promised me that most women of Daisy’s age and class (what class?) would have pierced ears. She gave me some antiseptic swabs to use on my lobes until the bleeding stopped, and put some silver posts in the holes, which I needed to leave in place for forty-eight hours before putting real earrings in.

When she’d finished I couldn’t deny that Daisy looked a lot better, and much more convincing. I added all the products she’d used to my handbag.

I stood up and examined myself in Sharon’s full-length mirror. My face and hair were perfect. My new feminine flesh moved realistically as I turned. I could now be confident that Daisy would fool anyone.

* * *

I called Ruth to collect me. When we met in Reception, she was clearly impressed.

“You look fantastic!” she gushed, as she led me out to her car.

With all my additional weight wobbling unpredictably, I was struggling to keep up with her. I was forced to waddle, my enhanced butt swinging from side to side. The one-inch heels weren’t helping. Why hadn’t Josie packed flats?

“Look at how you’re walking! No one would ever suspect you were a man. Your Daisy disguise is perfect!”

“It had better be, considering how much it cost.”

“How much?”

I didn’t see any reason not to tell her, so I did.

“Shit! You’re kidding!” I shook my head sadly. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?” she said.

“I wasn’t, but feel free.”

“I thought you said you were poor?”

“Well, I certainly am now.”

It was a lot of money to throw away if I was only going to be Daisy for a few days. On the other hand, being stuck – literally – with this preposterous figure was no joke.

Ruth opened the passenger door for me. I suppose I would have to get used to people treating me like a pregnant lady. That wouldn’t be so bad, I supposed. I’d always get a seat on the bus; not that I ever travelled by bus. There was no way I could step into the car, so I turned sideways and plumped down bottom first. Then with some difficulty, I swung my legs in.

“Wow,” she said, “this is great! I’m going to get to see what it’s like for a new father-to-be looking after his pregnant wife! We’ll have a nice dinner tonight, just the two of us, then back to my place.”

“You still want to be with me? Even when I look like… like this?”

“Even more so, for some reason! I don’t understand it myself. Perhaps it’s just the novelty, knowing it’s really you under there. I don’t know.”

“I always said you were weird.”

I just hoped the novelty wouldn’t wear off.

It certainly hadn’t by that evening. We had the nice dinner that she had promised at our favourite restaurant, where – ironically – we didn’t see anyone either of us knew. Afterwards, at her flat, we worked out how to free my ‘belongings’ from the diabolical prosthesis, and lever my balls down again into a fully functional position. There’s a knack to it, which I hoped we would master quickly, because it certainly wasn’t a comfortable process.

But it was worth it. Ruth was an animal. Being encumbered as I now was, I had no choice but to lie back and take it.

* * *

Ruth insisted we both went into the MyOwnCouture.com office the next day.

“You’re going to have to get used to seeing people in your new guise. Might as well get it over with straightaway. I’ll explain it all to them.”

She oversaw my dressing and make-up. When I mentioned that Sharon had given me a cosmetics lesson, Ruth had me do my own make-up while she supervised.

“I’m impressed with your make-up skills, Daisy,” she said, stifling laughter. “But we’ll have to get you more clothes. You can’t get by with just the stuff you borrowed from Josie’s friend and the couple of dresses she bought you last week. You need everyday office wear and especially more underwear.”

For my first appearance in the office I decided to wear the denim smock dress Josie bought me, with the pretty white lace cardigan I wore for my stand-up performance.

When Ruth had finished helping me get ready, and returned to the bathroom to complete her own ablutions, I stayed sitting in front of her dressing table looking at myself. I could just about see Nick’s androgynous features behind the wig and make-up, but I didn’t look the least bit masculine. I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t too upset at what I saw. I was relieved that I would almost certainly get away with my disguise – that is, that no one was likely to call me out in public as a cross-dressing pansy – but it was more than that. I was excited that Daisy was going to have a life of her own. I wanted to get to know her better.

I realised that being Sarah had made it possible for me to be Daisy. More to the point, maybe being Sarah had made it necessary for me to be Daisy. I needed to keep that from Ruth. I couldn’t let her know that this might not be an endurance test but almost a pleasure.

But that didn’t allow for the ordeal of pregnancy…

* * *

When we got to the MyOwnCouture.com upstairs office, a little later than usual, I waited by the barn office door while Ruth went into the cowshed. She emerged with Eddy and Mike in tow. They looked at me curiously. We all went into the barn and upstairs to the open plan office. I hadn’t realised what a struggle the stairs would be in my condition. I wondered whether we could afford to put in a lift.

Vicky was already in and sipping her first coffee of the day.

“This is Daisy Duquesne, everyone,” Ruth announced when they were all seated. “She is going to be our Financial Controller, reporting to Nick, as FD.”

Everyone looked at me and then at her. Vicky started to giggle, until Ruth shot her a look.

“Come on, guys, what’s this really about?” said Eddy, who wasn’t afraid of her. “We know the two of you have been doing the deed, but what’s he dressed up like that for?”

Mike and Vicky looked at him, shocked. They had not been in on the odd couple’s deception. Eddy was quite open about his sexuality now but left it to Ruth to explain about their need for the Deveres’ money.

“I’m sorry we kept the two of you in the dark about the true nature of our relationship, but I hope you can see why? And I need hardly say that we need to keep it a secret between the five of us?”

They nodded. The confirmation that Eddy was gay obviously didn’t come as a surprise to either of them.

“It all makes sense now,” said Vicky.

“Except for why Nick is dressed like that!” said Mike.

“So are you gay too?” asked Eddy, still a couple of paces behind the conversation, “’cause if you are, I wish you’d told me sooner.”

It seemed Eddy was another ignoramus who equated cross-dressing with being gay. I was a little disappointed in him.

“He’s not gay,” said Ruth firmly. “The point is, I can’t be seen out and about with Nick, but no one can object to me being with my secretary, can they?”

“Hey, I’m not your secretary!” I objected. “You just said I was the Financial Controller!”

“Yes, but that’s not enough work for a full-time employee, so you’ll have to double up as my secretary.”

“No way!”

Ruth sighed. “All right you can be joint secretary to me and Nick. How’s that?”

“Hardly any better at all!”

“Well, it will have to do.”

We locked eyes, each demanding the other back down. Mike interrupted our battle of wills.

“Aren’t you embarrassed, being dressed like that?” he asked, clearly fascinated.

I welcomed the distraction.

“Not really,” I said. “I might have been, before the whole Panto Dame thing and doing stand-up in disguise, but I’m getting used to impersonating a woman now. I don’t see anything to be embarrassed about. Half of mankind are women.”

“The better half,” Ruth stressed.

“And people say I can get away with it…?” I added.

“Absolutely!” Vicky gushed. “You’d never be mistaken for a man!” then she realised what she’d said. “Oh, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean…”

“No, that’s all right,” I smiled. “That’s precisely the point. It feels like Daisy is a performance, a live improvisation. I’m creating a new persona, so Nick is away for the moment and I’m trying to make Daisy real.”

“It’s partly the pregnancy thing,” said Vicky, trying to cover her embarrassment. “I mean, it’s so totally womanly…” She realised she wasn’t making it any better and decided to stop digging. “I think I’ll shut up now.”

I hoped Ruth was paying attention. I wanted her to see that, if her objective was to embarrass and humiliate Nick, it wasn’t going to work, because I wasn’t Nick at the moment. I was Daisy, and why should Daisy be embarrassed dressed like this? Being pregnant without a male partner was another matter of course. Lots of girls would be embarrassed about that. Daisy would have to be a modern feminist. A woman – even a pregnant woman – needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

“Fine,” said Ruth triumphantly. “If Daisy is real, she can be my secretary. We have to find you something to do while you’re here, and where else are you going to go dressed like that? Now come on, we were out for an entire afternoon. Things will have been piling up. I’ll have filing and typing for you, Daisy.”

She got up to go into her office. The others hadn’t moved.

“That can’t be the only reason why Nick’s come in as Daisy,” said Eddy, obstinately.

“It isn’t, but it’s all I’m prepared to say at the moment,” Ruth said.

“And for the avoidance of doubt, it’s not because I’m transitioning,” I added. “This is purely temporary… to prove a point.”

They clearly weren’t satisfied with our partial explanation but realised they weren’t getting any more.

“Well, whatever floats your boat, guys,” Eddy shrugged. “Come on, Mike.”

The meeting broke up. Eddy and Mike returned to the cowshed and Vicky went back to her workstation. I followed Ruth into her office, still a little put out about being appointed her secretary.

“Since when has anyone here ever filed anything?” I said. “Or had anything worth filing? All our important documents are online.”

“There’s lots of paper invoices from suppliers, and copies of order forms, and letters from the local council and the Health & Safety Executive. They’re all over my desk. All your responsibility now, Daisy. You’ll have to sort out the network drive too. I can never find anything.”

“That’s because you give every document a stupid name and file it as either ‘Temp’ or ‘Miscellaneous’, and you leave incoming documents as email attachments, so no one else can see them.”

“And now I have a secretary who can organise everything properly.” She dropped her voice. “Think of this as part of your ‘commitment’.”

“You’re taking advantage,” I hissed. “We’re supposed to be lovers – equals – not mistress and servant. I can still walk away from this, you know!”

“Well I suppose that’s up to you, but you need to understand: we can be equal partners when we’re alone together, but here at the office, I’m the boss,” she insisted. “At least as long as you’re Daisy. Nick may be my equal, but you’re not him, and you can’t be for a while, can you?”

I was about to raise further objections, but she pre-empted me.

“Look, Latham was quite right when he pointed out that our staffing levels were dangerously low, but we can’t afford to take anyone else on yet – you know that. And I need a secretary. Nick and I both do. Daisy will be a godsend. Say you stay until it’s time for you to go on maternity leave? By that stage we should be on our feet, judging by the rate that orders are coming in now, and the new services we can provide with the Bank’s support. Then we can hire more support staff and you’ll be off the hook – as Daisy and as my secretary.”

“I just hope you appreciate what I’m going through for you. This doesn’t feel like a fair deal.”

She nodded. “I’ll make it up to you somehow, I promise.” She seemed sincere.

“Well, all right, but you can make your own bloody coffee, boss!”

Still feeling I’d been manipulated I settled down to be Daisy the secretary without further complaint – for the moment.

It was still a mortifying experience. I found that my bump got in the way of working at my desk because it was hard to get close enough to my workstation to use the keyboard and mouse properly. This gave me an excuse not to work too hard. It wasn’t much, but childishly I decided that any little opportunity to annoy Ruth was welcome. To be fair, Ruth really did treat me as an equal out of the office – an equal girlfriend, unfortunately.

“Can’t you at least call me Nick when we’re alone together?” I said in bed the next night after another frantic coupling.

“Too dangerous. I might forget in company. Anyway, I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face. You really don’t look like a Nick anymore.”

Since she had me wearing a long maternity nightie – which she thoroughly enjoyed burrowing under – I could hardly dispute that.

* * *

To reinforce my acceptance of my new life, on the Saturday of that week Ruth invited Josie to join us to go shopping for more clothes for me.

Being six months pregnant – or at least being the same shape as a woman six months pregnant – affected everything I tried to do. Walking – waddling – was an effort and I could hardly keep up with the others. I didn’t dare drive, as Daisy didn’t have a licence or insurance in her name and I would be exposed if I was in an accident. But even getting in and out of Ruth’s car, a Ford Fiesta, was a struggle because the seat was so low, and as for a sofa or an armchair – forget it.

We began with shoes, as I was still wearing the one-inch black heels Josie had borrowed from LADS. I had no other options, apart from the flats from the same source. We found that in ordinary shoe shops the choice was limited as my male feet were at the very top end of the size scale for women’s shoes. Fortunately at the shopping centre there was a large discount store with a bigger range. I bought two pairs of comfortable one-inch pumps, and a rather frightening pair of very elegant two-inch heels – for formal wear, the girls said. I wasn’t sure when Daisy would need formal wear.

We spent the rest of the afternoon traipsing round the women’s departments of the big stores with me trying on nursing bras and maternity panties, skirts, tops, and dresses. We made multiple trips back to the car with bags.

“That should see off anything still remaining in my bank account,” I said, but Ruth wasn’t the least bit concerned.

I hardly saw another man all afternoon. I began to be concerned about oestrogen poisoning.

In the middle of the afternoon they took pity on me and we stopped for coffee and pastries. During this break they bombarded me with expectant mother conversation.

“Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?”

“Have you decided on a name yet?

“When is your next scan?”

“Is your hubby excited?”

“Eat up, Daisy! It’s too late to worry about your figure now, you know.”

And of course I had to respond in kind, pretending to gush at the excitement of giving birth. The others laughed loud and long, but eventually I had them laughing with me, not at me. It was just like what Polly had said about playing the Dame: don’t let anyone see that you’re embarrassed or afraid of making a fool of yourself. You want them all to be saying ‘Wasn’t the guy who played the Dame brilliant? I could never do that’.

When we were finally ready to leave, the car park had filled up and there wasn’t room to open the passenger door wide enough to allow a pregnant lady of my girth to get in. So Ruth had to back out first, leaving me clutching my Mothercare bags, with my handbag over my shoulder, while the January wind whistled up my skirt. I made the mistake of grumbling about it when I eventually flopped into my seat. She just laughed. I made a silent vow to impregnate her as soon as I possibly could to see how she liked it.

* * *

Eddy was now co-habiting with some boyfriend, so I moved into Ruth’s flat. We shared her bed. I didn’t have to put up with my baby kicking me of course, but I still had to sleep on my back because of my oversized breasts and tummy. The continual pressure on my bladder meant I had to cut down on my drinking in the evenings or I would have to get up several times in the night to go to the toilet. I couldn’t drink alcohol while at a pub or restaurant either, or I would face disapproving looks from all the other diners.

And, yes, I was well aware that real pregnant women had to put up with all this and much more, but at least they could expect a fulfilling reward at the end of it in the form of a lovely bouncing baby. I wasn’t sure what I could expect at the end, or even if it would end at all.

The rest of my disguise had to stay in place, but being able to open up my prosthesis and make love to Ruth in a semblance of normality was some compensation. She had to go on top, but this just seemed to make her even wilder and her orgasms even more thunderous.

So the sex was better than ever, but everything else was a nightmare.

* * *

My – Daisy’s – role as Financial Controller was becoming increasingly important to the fledgling company. I was responsible for ensuring that all accounting allocations were made appropriately and documented. I also managed our cash and oversaw accounts payable, accounts receivable, disbursements, payroll and bank reconciliation. It was important, but with only five of us, not onerous – yet.

A couple of days after my introduction as Daisy, the secretary, I was in the office on the phone to a supplier ordering material. I was aware of Mike and Vicky watching me open-mouthed. Mike liked to hang around Vicky on his frequent breaks. She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she encouraged him.

“Wow!” said Vicky, when I hung up. “Your Daisy voice is really good. You didn’t sound like that in the Panto.”

Patiently I explained that a Dame isn’t trying to hide the fact that she’s really a man, but people are supposed to believe Daisy is a woman, hence the higher-pitched voice.

“I thought you’d have to do some awful falsetto,” Mike said.

“No, I guess I have a naturally flexible voice, but I did do a little research,” I said, conversationally. “Finding a higher pitch is the most critical part. On average a male voice is about an octave lower than a female’s. The books say: try humming at a higher pitch until you become familiar with the sound and can imitate it without thinking about it.

“I’ve also tried to train myself not to talk loudly or forcefully. Not only is that not feminine, it’s also more difficult to maintain a higher pitch. You try to limit the space your voice comes from, using your tongue and the back of your throat to reduce resonance. It takes practice but if you get it right, your voice sounds smaller, less boomy.”

“Eddy said you practised by doing stand-up as Daisy?”

“Daisy’s back story is a bit more complicated than that.”

This seemed an appropriate time to explain to my junior colleagues. I’m sure Ruth’s explanation had left them wondering what was going on.

“It just sort of… happened,” I said. “I’d done stand-up at the Open Mic night a few times, and we all noticed a sad lack of female comics. I had some good jokes for a woman comedian, and my sister-in-law persuaded me to a do a spot dressed as a woman. When she’d finished with me, I looked quite convincing, so we decided not to make it a drag act, but to create a new identity – Daisy Duquesne.”

“Is that how you got the part in the Panto?” Vicky asked.

“Sort of. We borrowed some shoes from LADS which meant that their director was in on the secret. When their usual Dame was in an accident, they asked me to step in.”

“But why did you make Daisy pregnant?”

“Josie’s idea again. The baby bump concealed my, er… wedding tackle, so I didn’t have to wear anything uncomfortable. Also she had a smock for me which was the sort of thing women wear when they’re pregnant. Anyway I got away with it. Nobody suspected Daisy wasn’t real, but now I’m afraid to let anyone know she’s really Nick. There might be some serious backlash. People might say I was being sexist; that I was patronising women; mocking expectant mothers; and so on. So now I need to stay pregnant, in case we bump into someone who saw me performing at the Club.”

At this point Ruth came rushing out of the office. Her main concern at the moment was preparing for the contracts meeting with the Bank. She had been reviewing the material we’d produced, and trying to get her head around my five-year business plan.

“Daisy, I need you to explain Nick’s financial model again.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again. If neither you nor Nick are going to be there next Wednesday, I need to be able to answer all their questions.”

We’d both got used to treating Nick and Daisy as separate people, but Mike and Vicky looked a bit puzzled.

“Nick will be on the speaker phone. He can explain if you get stuck.”

“Yes, but I’ll still look a fool, won’t I?”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” I sighed.

* * *

Ruth worked me hard as her secretary. She was a visual person, really good at drawing and sketching, particularly fashion, but she wasn’t a great wordsmith and had never been taught to write a business letter. So she was delighted to leave all that to me. She didn’t dictate, as such, she just said things like, “Daisy, order forty yards of lightweight calico.” She never remembered who we might have got the stuff from last time, or whether the product was satisfactory, or whether the supplier had been reliable. So I would have to check all that out and identify the appropriate product code, or maybe browse other suppliers’ websites to get a better deal and delivery times. I would then arrange payment in my other role as Financial Controller. Ruth, Eddy and I were all signatories on the company bank account, but I decided that for the moment only I would have a debit card. I was also responsible for consolidating customer payments from PayPal and WorldPay into the company bank account.

In between dealing with Ruth’s correspondence and my financial tasks, I reorganised our network drive so that ‘born digital’ documents were saved in folders with meaningful names. I sorted out her mail client, filing emails that other members of the team might need to see in a shared network folder. I created a user ID for Daisy and arranged for all of Ruth’s and Nick’s emails to be forwarded to me as their secretary.

I sorted out Ruth’s office filing cabinet – in which she only seemed to keep fashion magazines and Jaffa cakes – and set up a proper system for paper documents. This meant that it was now possible to see the surface of her desk, which in turn meant that I had to clean it.

Dad and I weren’t renting the barn and cowshed to MyOwnCouture.com as ‘full service’ offices. That is, we hadn’t engaged cleaners, so the team had to tidy up after themselves. As Nick I had dodged these duties because I hadn’t been around much, but now that I was there every day, and in a more junior role as Daisy the secretary, Ruth insisted I did my share. The rule was that the boys kept the cowshed clean and tidy, while the girls did the barn offices and the downstairs kitchen. I assumed that my unique circumstances meant I could do either, but Ruth laughed that off. I would be a cleaning lady like her and Vicky. There was no way I could work around the heavy machinery in my condition.

It was true that washing cups, dusting and vacuuming were more my speed now. Privately I was glad about that. There was no way I could do any heavy lifting in the cowshed, and didn’t feel that my masculine pride was affronted. I only had to look in the mirror to have any remaining male ego crushed.

The first time I had to do the washing-up, I got rather a lot of soapy water down my dress due to my clumsiness and ungainly shape. So when it was next my turn Ruth took great pleasure in dropping a comedy bib apron over my head ‘to protect your lovely dress, Daisy dear’, and tying the straps round my waist in a granny knot so that I was trapped in it till she released me at the end of the day. I hate washing dishes and arranged for a dishwasher to be installed in the kitchen at the earliest opportunity.

I organised the supply cupboard up in the barn office and the store cupboard down in the cowshed. In the kitchen I replenished our refreshments, brought the milk in every morning, and called the local delicatessen every day with our sandwich orders.

In other words, I did all the menial jobs around both the upstairs office and the cowshed, except make coffee. I can’t honestly say I didn’t enjoy my new life, though it was hard work for a woman, I mean person, in my condition, but as I did my humble secretarial tasks I found a strange sense of satisfaction and contentment. Nick the entrepreneur faded into the background and Daisy the secretary took me over. This was useful work. It helped my bosses, I mean partners, be more productive, and that was good for the company.

It was a good thing that my other ventures didn’t require my personal involvement. Most of them didn’t involve large machinery like MyOwnCouture.com. Their costs were mostly salaries and expenses. I dialled in to a few meetings and approved expenditure remotely. So far I hadn’t needed to attend in person or expose my new persona to anyone else.

On the Friday night Ruth and I went out to our favourite restaurant. She was much more relaxed as it wouldn’t matter if we were seen together. Again we saw no one we knew, which was slightly irritating as it meant I could have gone as Nick, but we had a wonderful evening – and night.

* * *

At the end of the first week I returned to Transformations for a ‘top-up’. I lay on my back on Vera’s massage bed, while she searched for the tiny, almost invisible inlet valve on my prosthesis. She was holding a fearsome looking hypodermic.

“Don’t worry,” she said, when she saw me looking at her apprehensively. “I’ll be injecting this fluid into the prosthesis, not you.” She smiled. “The process is completely non-invasive.”

Ingrid, who was supervising, said, “You should be aware that the foetus grows most rapidly between 23 and 27 weeks,” she said. “Typically, the baby doubles in size during this period, going from about eleven inches long and weighing just over a pound – the size of a grapefruit – to nearly two pounds and fourteen and a half inches long. That’s about the size of a head of broccoli.”

“Why should that matter to me?” I queried. “I don’t have a real baby in there.”

“No, but to be realistic we will need to add 3-4 ounces of fluid each visit for the next month and a half. You will definitely notice that after a few weeks.”

Terrific. I was already feeling the discomfort and inconvenience of being pregnant. But it was going to get much worse.

* * *

The Bank contracts meeting went well. Ruth, Eddy and Will went in person. I dialled in but Will was happy to represent my personal interests as well as those of the company, so I didn’t need to contribute much. Despite Ruth still not really understanding how spreadsheets work, my financial model wasn’t criticised, largely because we had already exceeded the sales estimates – which I had originally been afraid were over-optimistic. I wondered whether I should have inflated them even further, but I couldn’t see any upside to that. We seemed to be getting what we wanted. There was no need to start setting targets we might then struggle to meet.

The Bank was prepared to offer up to half a million pounds additional funding in four tranches of £125,000, each of which would require the transfer of 5% of our shares. We now desperately needed the money, as we had more or less run out of cash. We would need to declare precisely how each payment would be spent, but the Bank understood that a good quarter of the first payment would go towards salaries for Mike, Vicky and Mo, and some of the ever-patient Will’s fees. All payments needed to be approved by both the Bank’s representative and our own Board. That might have seemed odd, but Richard Latham explained that they wanted to make sure we all supported our growth strategy and would work together to achieve it.

The Bank’s representative was to be Margaret Villiers, and she would be a Non-Executive Director. The arrangement was that shares would be issued in such a way that Ruth and Eddy would each transfer 2½% of their shares to the Bank.

Ruth wanted to know why I, also a Director, didn’t have to part with any shares, but Will was quick to point out that according to the contract he had drawn up for me, they would have to buy them back at the rate I originally paid – effectively £5,000 per share – plus interest. They certainly couldn’t afford that, and in any case I could always refuse to sell.

When the complicated sums were done, Ruth and Eddy had 37½% each, I still had my 20% and the Bank had 5%. This meant that as long as Ruth and Eddy were in agreement, they could still do whatever they liked, but otherwise either of them would need my support. If I were to abstain, the Bank could decide which of them to back.

As the meeting was closing down Ruth asked Margaret how she wanted to work with us. She said we needed to arrange a proper Board meeting within the next couple of weeks and she would attend. It was set for Friday week, to give us time to prepare a full breakdown of how we intended to spend the first tranche of the Bank’s money. As Finance Director, that would be my – Nick’s – job, and he would task his secretary – Daisy, i.e. me again – to prepare the paperwork. Hopefully, the Board and the Bank would be able to approve the proposal with no difficulty.

* * *

Orders were coming in thick and fast now. Eddy and Mike were swamped, so Vicky and I had to help them out. It was back-breaking work for someone in my condition. The manual parts of the process – organising the dyeing and printing designs when an order required that; the mounting of different bolts of material prior to cutting; and the never-ending carrying of cut pieces to the fabrication platform – were now starting to cause delays. I had humped the heavy bolts of cloth from the storeroom to the cutting machine and back many times before I became Daisy, but I couldn’t manage it now. The weight I was already carrying and my cumbersome figure made it too difficult. So I joined the distaff side of the operation, working on the dyeing and printing, or passing cut pieces between the machines. We knew that Ruth was busy up in her office – she was no shirker – but we all slightly resented that she never put in a shift down here at the coal face.

It was frustrating that all this manual work was necessary because eliminating the need for human intervention in the manufacturing process was the whole concept of MyOwnCouture.com. Eddy hardly had any time to do any proper engineering, but he had managed to design a sophisticated belt mechanism to move cut shapes from the cutter to the fabricator. This was now a full-time job for one person. So if his design worked, it would save an average of twenty minutes per garment and an entire person’s time.

He had also come up with a dyeing and printing machine, which was driven by NC like the other equipment, and could be linked into the conveyor belt mechanism. These two additions to our little factory would genuinely revolutionise our manufacturing process.

Both new machines could be built by modifying some existing machinery which Eddy had sourced second-hand, but they would still cost nearly a hundred thousand, and would therefore use up most of the first tranche of the Bank’s funding. Without them we couldn’t scale up, and we couldn’t grow.

But Ruth wouldn’t approve it.

After the Pantomime

By Susannah Donim

A spare time hobby slowly turns into a lifetime choice for Nick.

Chapter 8 – Daisy’s Promotion

From pregnant secretary to Madam Chairman…

We three directors were meeting to compile our list of how we proposed to spend the Bank’s first £125k before our first Board meeting with Margaret.

I was still Daisy, still pretending to be six months pregnant, and very uncomfortable on a hard chair in Ruth’s small, hot office. The skirt of my dress was splayed out, as I had long ago given up trying to keep my knees together. My maternity bra was digging into my shoulders and my maternity knickers were riding up. I really didn’t want this meeting to go on for long. I needed to get to the Ladies to adjust my underwear.

We were all agreed on the money we needed to put aside to pay salaries and settle our debts, but that left just under a hundred thousand. This was enough to buy the second-hand machines Eddy wanted and which he could modify to automate most of our manufacturing process.

But Ruth wanted to spend the money on expanding our range to include wedding dresses, theatrical costumes, and more elaborate accessories. These would also require new machinery, specialist design consultancy, and a lot of man-hours writing new software. She wanted to spend what was left over on marketing.

Eddy couldn’t believe Ruth’s attitude. He maintained that they always intended to automate the process. That was the whole point of MyOwnCouture.com, its business model, and its Unique Selling Point. That should be our priority. If we didn’t do this, we would risk being unable to meet even the current relatively modest demand.

Ruth insisted that we were starting to get attention from both the industry and the potential customer base. We had a unique opportunity and we needed to work flat-out to build our brand. If we didn’t, someone else with deeper pockets would come along and steal our thunder.

Eddy argued that if we followed her approach we would end up failing thousands of customers. At least if we did nothing, we’d only be failing hundreds. While if we did what he wanted, we would satisfy all our customers, and that would be a much better base to build our brand on.

This was the first time I had ever seen Ruth and Eddy arguing about something as fundamental as the company’s strategy. It was clear they weren’t going to agree.

“Eddy, is there any way we could get the machines more cheaply?” I asked in Nick’s voice, to remind them that whatever I now looked like, I was there in my capacity as Finance Director and major investor, not as Ruth’s secretary. “Maybe on a leasing basis?”

“That was my first thought,” he said – crossly for him. “But the current owner of the machines I’ve got my eye on needs a quick sale to fund new plant. He’s not interested in leasing, and he says he has other potential buyers. And, before you ask, buying suitable machines new would be three times as much.”

“Well, that seems to put you in the hot seat, Nick,” said Ruth, emphasising my name. I couldn’t remember the last time she had called me anything but Daisy – to emphasise my subservient role. “You have the casting vote.”

She was so sure that I would support her. So was Eddy, which was no doubt why he was sulking.

“When was the last time you were down in the cowshed?” I asked her.

“What’s that got to do with it? A couple of days ago; I can’t remember. Hey, I’ve been doing my share!”

“I’m not saying you haven’t. I just think you should get an up-to-date picture of what’s going on down there.”

Eddy looked at me hopefully.

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Daisy, just vote!” Ruth fumed.

“Come downstairs, Ruth,” I said, quietly. “Now, please.”

She looked angry, then puzzled. I think she knew I was capable of standing up to her. I just hadn’t for quite a while. Now I was.

“All right, all right,” she said, “not that it will make any difference.”

But it did. The three of us walked around MyOwnCouture.com’s manufacturing facility together. Every surface was covered in pieces of material, paper work orders, work in progress, finished dresses waiting to be boxed up, and boxes waiting to be dispatched.

I checked the sweet little ladies’ watch Josie had lent me. The Parcelforce van would be here in less than an hour. We needed to stop this arguing and work together to get as many orders ready for collection as possible.

Ruth was studying the chaos, silent and stony-faced. Her first remark was unexpected.

“Why all the paper? I thought the whole point was to keep everything on the computer.”

“Because there are now four of us processing orders,” Eddy explained. “We were getting in each other’s way when we all tried to find the information we needed from a single monitor and keyboard. It was just easier to print the orders out. Now when any of us finishes a job we take the next work order from the pile. Each one has an ID number which enables us to pull down the right design data to send to the machines.” He smiled ironically. “So much for the paperless office, huh?”

“And the fully-automated process,” I added, to try and rub it in.

“If we go with my proposal, it will still be 4-6 weeks before we can automate those parts of the process that can be automated,” Eddy said. “This chaos will get much worse before it gets better.”

“Turnaround of an order has already crept up from one day to three,” said Mike, who had appeared at Eddy’s elbow when he realised that something important was happening.

“All right,” Ruth said, with bad grace. “I get it. We’ll go with your proposal. Call your friend with the machines.”

She stomped off back to her office.

“Daisy! I’ve got some filing for you to do!” she called over her shoulder.

* * *

When we got back to her office, I raised the question of my attendance at the Board meeting.

“I’ll have to go Transformations and get myself turned back to Nick,” I said.

“You don’t have to go to all that trouble. You can dial in from the Manor House. In fact, perhaps you’d better move back there for a while.”

“If that’s what you want, but I think it’s a little immature of you to blame me because you can’t have what you want this time. You know this is the right decision.”

She glared at me, too angry to speak. She did know it was the right decision. She was just cross because someone else had seen it before she did.

“I told you I wanted us to be equals,” I went on. “I may have to be your secretary here in the office for the moment, but I’m not your servant. I’ve never lied to you, and I will always tell you the truth, even when you don’t want to hear it.”

“Oh, go to hell!”

I knew it was mainly her pride that was making her behave like this, but I had my pride too. If I apologised now and tried to persuade her to reconsider throwing me out, she would just treat me as her doormat forever after.

So that evening I went back to Ruth’s flat while she was still in the office and filled a couple of suitcases with Daisy’s clothes. I left my key on the kitchen table.

I went back to my annex at the Manor House and my empty rooms. While I was still stuck (literally) with my breasts and abdominal prosthesis, I would have to continue to dress as Daisy, but I would arrange an appointment at Transformations to turn back to Nick as soon as possible. I felt I had fulfilled my commitment to Ruth, but it seemed she no longer wanted me – as Daisy or Nick.

* * *

It turned out that Margaret Villiers was a tricky so-and-so. We were expecting her on Friday for the Board meeting, so naturally she turned up on Thursday afternoon. I was there, as Daisy the secretary, sitting outside Ruth’s office finalising our proposal to the Bank. Ruth hadn’t spoken to me all day. She looked tired and angry. She looked terrible, for her.

I don’t know how Margaret got into the barn. Someone must have left the door open downstairs. That was always happening; it didn’t close properly by itself. I goggled at her like a rabbit in the headlights.

“Ruth mentioned she had a secretary now,” she said, with a smile. “So do I call you Daisy or Nick?”

I couldn’t think what to say. Deny everything? Ridiculous! Try to laugh it off? Eventually she took pity on me.

“I recognised you as Sarah the Cook in those pictures Ruth showed us at our first meeting. Not that Daisy looks like Sarah, but they both look a little like Nick,” she laughed.

I tried to be cool.

“You’d better call me Daisy, I suppose,” I said, “seeing how I’m dressed. But this isn’t what you think.”

I spoke in Daisy’s voice, which seemed to catch her by surprise, but she recovered quickly.

“I don’t think anything actually. Was being the Panto Dame something to do with you living as a woman now?”

“They’re not… unconnected.”

“Are you transitioning?”

“No… no, really.” She looked sceptical. I sighed. “It’s a long story.”

“Well, I don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect the profitability of MyOwnCouture.com.”

“Quite the reverse, actually. Nick only ever dropped in from time to time before, but as Daisy I’m Ruth’s full-time secretary. So in effect we have additional staff now – as Mr Latham recommended.”

Ruth appeared. She must have heard the voices outside her office and come to investigate.

“Oh hello, Margaret, how nice to see you!” she said.

Margaret noticed immediately that Ruth wasn’t looking her best.

“Are you all right, Ruth?” she said. “You look… tired.”

“I’m fine. You’ve seen from our reports that orders are booming. We’re all working flat out. Coffee for two, Daisy!” she snapped.

These were virtually the only words she had said to me since ‘Go to hell’, yesterday.

“Yes, Ruth,” I said with a smile concealing gritted teeth. Just this once, I swore to myself. “How do you take it, Margaret?”

“White without, please.”

I stood up to go down to the kitchen. It was now Margaret’s turn to look surprised.

“Pregnant?” she said. “Why on earth…?”

“It really is a long story,” I said.

“I’d love to hear it,” Margaret said, “but maybe later…?”

Ruth ushered our guest into her office. Five minutes later I was knocking on the door carrying a tray with two coffees and a plate of assorted biscuits. I went straight in without waiting for an answer.

“How’s the proposal coming along?” Margaret was asking.

“Daisy?” said Ruth, her eyebrows raised.

I put the tray down on her desk.

“Just finished. Shall I print off some copies?”

“Yes, please.”

I went back to my workstation. I printed three copies of the proposal and handed one each to Ruth and Margaret.

“Please stay, er… Daisy,” Margaret said. “I may need you – or Nick – to explain your proposed investments.”

I swept my skirt under my inflated bottom and painfully lowered my bulk down into the uncomfortable office chair. Margaret watched me, fascinated. She picked up her coffee and took a custard cream. For the next half an hour we went through the proposal. Margaret asked a few questions and requested a few minor changes, but seemed happy enough with the big picture.

When we had finished, she said, “I’m sorry about turning up unannounced. I thought it would be a good idea to come down a little early and see how things are going – informally. Then tomorrow’s formal Board meeting should be straightforward. By the way, you know it has to be minuted?”

“Daisy can take the minutes,” said Ruth. “She is my secretary, after all.”

“Actually I don’t think she can,” said Margaret, doubtfully. “She’s Nick’s proxy, isn’t she? And he’s a share-holder. She – he – they would have a conflict of interest. Can you suggest someone else?”

“It would have to be either Vicky or Mike then. Vicky’s the more literate.”

“Fine,” said Margaret. “Also, the rules say I have to chair the first meeting, as the only non-executive director. But don’t worry, that’s just until we can elect a permanent chairman. That’s another reason I came down early – so that we can agree the agenda. After that my only role as chairman will be to make sure that every item is discussed and appropriate decisions taken.”

With that, she got to her feet, stretched, and said, “Now I’m particularly keen to see the – what do you call it? – the cowshed? We’ve only had a glimpse through the webcam lens on your laptop. I see from the proposal that that’s where most of the initial investment will be going.”

“Absolutely,” said Ruth, hypocritically giving no indication that that wasn’t her preference.

We took Margaret down to the cowshed. The others had managed to tidy up a little since they were expecting her visit tomorrow, but they had far from finished. Margaret was no engineer but she still managed to ask lots of intelligent and informed questions. I could see that Eddy and Mike were quite taken with her.

Towards the end of the tour, when she thought no one was looking, she turned to me and said quietly, “Are you free tonight? I’d rather like to talk to you. Are you comfortable dining out as Daisy?”

“Yes and yes,” I said. “I’m quite used to it, for my sins.”

“I’d rather like to hear about them too,” she smiled, “if you’re willing to share with your new colleague?”

“I have reasons for keeping my situation confidential, but if you can’t trust a senior banker, who can you trust?”

She laughed. “I’m staying at the White Hart in Lavenden. They have quite a good restaurant, I hear. Eight o’clock?”

* * *

I pondered over what Daisy should wear for a business dinner. My choice was obviously limited but the previous Saturday with Ruth and Josie I had been persuaded to buy one posh maternity outfit for evening wear: a black, short-sleeved, V-neck top, and a long pink floral skirt. I no longer had a waist of course. The skirt’s waist band was just below my bust.

I called Josie to ask for her help in getting ready. She was delighted and rushed straight over. I was sitting at my dressing table in just my slip, contemplating my make-up choices. I had laid my chosen outfit on the bed.

“Brilliant!” she said. “Ruth will love you in this.”

I realised she thought I was going out for a romantic evening with Ruth. I had to disappoint her.

“Sorry, no. It’s a business dinner with a lady from the Bank. She’s here for our first Board meeting tomorrow.”

I paused. Tom and Josie were my closest friends, as well as family. Josie was like a sister to me – closer, if anything.

“Look, you might as well know. It seems that whatever Ruth and I had is over.” I told her everything that had happened. “I don’t think she really appreciated the sacrifices I’ve been making for her.”

Josie raised an eyebrow. “Sacrifices? Come on, Nick, you love being Daisy.”

“Hey, it’s a lot of effort! It’s pretty uncomfortable most of the time, and sometimes very embarrassing.” She looked unconvinced. “Be that as it may,” I continued, “she seems to over-react to everything. I’m beginning to think the woman is a flake.”

Josie laughed. “Trust me – all women are flakes from a man’s point of view, and I speak as a woman. You need to stay as Daisy for a while longer. You might start to appreciate how the other half thinks.”

She started checking through my cosmetics. She ran her hand over my cheeks.

“I see you’ve shaved really closely. Your skin’s very good for a man. I think a minimum of foundation, and maybe a little rouge for your cheeks. Now, pay attention, please. You know I love doing this for you, but I may not always be available. You need to learn how to do it for yourself.”

“They taught me the basics at Transformations, but I’ve never done proper evening make-up.”

She started work. Sultry evening-Daisy began to replace daytime office-Daisy.

Eventually Josie stepped back to evaluate her efforts. She had gathered my hair – that is, my wig – into a tidy bun at the back. I turned my head around to look at it. It wasn’t quite an updo, nor a ‘schoolmarm’. It was quite attractive. In fact, combined with the evening make-up, it made Daisy quite a stunner.

“You know, you really have no right to look as glam as you do – you actually being a man under all that,” she said, with a grin.

“You’ve done a fabulous job,” I agreed.

“I bet you’re the prettiest pregnant lady there tonight.”

“Hah! Perhaps if I’m the only pregnant lady there tonight.”

“Thanks very much!” she said, pretending to be offended.

“Not your fault. Even you can’t make a silk purse out a sow’s ear.”

She snorted. “I despise false modesty,” she said. “It may offend your masculine pride, but you know very well that Daisy is a babe – well, two babes, in fact.” She giggled. “Seriously, you really should stay like this for a while,” she said. “I’m sure Ruth will come around, but she might doubt your commitment if you give up at the first sign of stormy weather.”

“You may be right, but I don’t have much choice for the moment anyway. I’m booked in at Transformations to have my top-up on Saturday morning, but that appointment isn’t long enough for them to remove my forms and prosthesis. It’s too soon for the adhesive to have softened, or the top layer of my skin to have flaked off. So apparently it would take them an hour to un-glue everything. They can’t fit me in for that till next week.”

“You should still go for your top-up. There may be a cancellation.”

I stood up and put my top on. The V-neck exposed an embarrassing amount of cleavage.

“Do you think this is OK?” I asked her.

“It’s fine – very impressive. Those falsies from Transformations are amazing! You really can’t tell them from the real thing. You should wear that necklace I lent you though, to conceal your little Adam’s apple, and the watch and rings that go with it.

I picked up my skirt and tried to hold it out far enough from my distended stomach to step into it. Josie laughed and helped me.

“Will there be anything else, madam?” she said. “I’m beginning to feel like a lady’s maid.”

* * *

No longer being able to drive, I had to call a taxi to take me to the White Hart. The driver, Avi, was a charming Indian gentleman who rushed to offer me his hand when he saw I was struggling to get out of the cab. He waited patiently while I rummaged in my handbag for my purse and some cash to pay him. I gave him a decent tip. He smiled his thanks and insisted on seeing me up the steps and into the hotel.

I could get used to this, I thought. It briefly occurred to me that underneath my artificial feminine flab I was probably twenty years younger and considerably stronger than my gallant protector, but for now I was quite content to play the helpless female.

It wasn’t a large hotel and Margaret was waiting in the bar area opposite Reception. She waved when she saw the doorman helping me off with my coat.

“You look amazing,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re really…”

“That’s very kind of you to say so,” I interrupted her, before she could reveal my secret. “It’s not all my own work, I have to admit. My sister-in-law has been my partner-in-crime throughout.”

“Don’t worry, Daisy,” she said, “I wasn’t going to give you away. I was only teasing. But seriously, you are 100% convincing. That top’s lovely, but very bold, if I may so. Did you see how the doorman was looking down your cleavage?”

“What?” I squealed, my free hand leaping involuntarily to my bosom. “I didn’t realise…”

“Oh, relax!” she laughed. “It’s fine. If you’ve got it – and you’ve certainly got it – you should flaunt it. Every woman dresses to emphasise her best features. Seriously, I hope you can unwind and just enjoy yourself this evening. I’ve got us a quiet table in the far corner. We should be able to discuss all our secrets without being overheard.”

“You have secrets too?” I queried.

“I’ll tell you mine, after you’ve told me yours.”

The waiter had approached and led us to our secluded table in the half-empty restaurant. Since I was now forewarned, I looked to see if he was gawping down my décolletage, and I wasn’t disappointed.

He gave us our menus and took our drinks order. Since there was no one within range (apart from him, and I didn’t care what he thought), I risked asking for a white wine. Margaret was amused when I told her I hadn’t been able to drink in public since New Year.

“The Bank will pay for this, by the way,” she said, when she realised I was scanning the prices with some concern.

“That’s very kind,” I said. “It’s been an expensive month.”

“I can imagine. I assume everything you’re wearing is new?”

“Everything I’m wearing, and everything I’m wearing underneath everything I’m wearing,” I confirmed. “And that’s where it really gets expensive.”

That seemed as good a point as any to tell her my story, which lasted, with appropriate pauses, through placing our orders and consuming our starters. I told her everything except about Eddy being gay and needing to keep that from his parents. That might have undermined the Bank’s confidence in the financial probity of MyOwnCouture.com. I reassured her that Ruth and Eddy were still close friends even if they were no longer engaged.

“So being Daisy was a bit of fun that got out of hand?” Margaret said when I came to the end of my story.

“That’s right. Ruth was angry that I’d kept my stand-up performances from her, particularly those as Daisy. When it looked like we might be developing a relationship she said she couldn’t be with someone she couldn’t trust…”

“…and making you be Daisy was a test of your sincerity? Pretty weird test!”

“Well there might have been a little more to it than that.” I paused. She looked at me encouragingly. “On the night she came to the Panto she dragged me back to her place… in drag, as a sort of real-world variant of Sarah the Cook. It seemed that something about her lover being in women’s underwear gives her an additional… stimulus… in the bedroom.”

I blushed. Maybe I was revealing a little too much? But Margaret laughed. She was obviously more broad-minded than I would have expected from a banker.

“I’d heard of couples where that sort of thing happens,” she said. “I’ve never tried it myself, of course.”

“Of course not.”

“Perhaps I’m missing out…”

“No comment. You should ask Ruth. On second thoughts, don’t. It seems that our relationship is on the rocks now, and that I won’t be Daisy for much longer.”

“I sensed a bit of an atmosphere this afternoon.” Of course she did. This woman was sharp. “I hope you two will make up – for the good of the company. But we’re straying too deeply into the personal now. You’ve explained everything that I was curious about. I’m satisfied the Bank is not sponsoring a nest of perverts.”

“Thank you, but I will say a little more, because it could be relevant to your support for MyOwnCouture.com.”

“Okay…?”

“Ruth was angry with me because I supported Eddy’s proposal to spend the first tranche of money on further automation, rather than hers on marketing and expanding our range of products. It took her a while to see that without new machinery we wouldn’t be able to meet our existing demand, let alone the ten-fold increase she is hoping for. She is very good at what she does, and the company is her brainchild, but she’s no businesswoman. I may be in love with Ruth, but I’ve put a lot of money, and even more of my own time, into MyOwnCouture.com, and I will not let her ruin it.”

“Thank you, Daisy – Nick – that’s pretty much covered the rest of what I wanted to talk to you about. My colleagues and I feel the same way about Ruth. She’s a visionary and she’s created a marvellous venture that I’m convinced will make all our fortunes, but she will need someone to haul her back to reality from time to time. I’ve seen your CV. I know you’ve had a solid business grounding with one of the top firms. She needs you – one of you, Nick or Daisy – and it looks like you’ve already realised that and begun on the right foot. Let me be clear: the second and subsequent tranches of our financial support will depend on me being assured that you can control her.”

“But even you and I together can’t outvote Ruth and Eddy if they agree on what to do.”

“No, but I can live with that. Eddy has no more experience of running a business than Ruth, but he has his feet on the ground, I think. If they both agree on strategy, and recognise the value of your advice, it’s probably fine.”

The main business of the evening over with, we settled down to enjoy our main course. She had the sea bass. As the Bank was paying, I tucked into a Tournedos Rossini with chips.

“Eating for two, I see,” Margaret laughed. “You’re lucky you don’t have to worry about your figure anymore.”

I laughed. “Do you have children?”

I thought we were becoming close enough to ask a personal question. Then I realised I was beginning to think of us as friends – women friends, which was a new experience for me.

“Two: a son in his second year at Cambridge, and a daughter doing her A levels this summer.”

“Wow, you really don’t look old enough!” I blanched. “Oh my God, was that patronising? I’m so sorry!”

“It might have been patronising from Nick,” she grinned, “but I’ll take it as a compliment from Daisy.”

“Then maybe it was matronising. Is that a word?”

“Well, It is now. It means we’ll have to stick to girl talk for the rest of the meal. Can you manage that?”

“No problem. I’m becoming an expert.”

“So where did you get that lovely skirt?”

“Josie dragged me round at least a dozen womenswear shops last Saturday. I lost track of what I bought from where. I think it was Mothercare, actually.”

“I notice that you’re wearing an engagement and a wedding ring. So Daisy’s married? Who’s the lucky man?”

I laughed. “There isn’t one. Josie suggested I should wear these. Not sure why. It’s not like I would attract unwanted male attention in my condition.”

“You’d be surprised. Some men find a heavily pregnant woman irresistible.”

I thought back to the stranger who tried to chat me up outside the Ladies…

At that point the waiter reappeared to collect our plates. I allowed him to refill my wineglass. As he left a young couple approached. I couldn’t place them, which immediately got me worried.

“Aren’t you Daisy Duquesne?” the man said. “We saw you at the Club. You were brilliant! When are you on again?”

“Oh, er, I don’t really know,” I said, flushed with relief that I hadn’t been ‘read’ as a man in drag. “Probably not till after the baby comes, and then I suppose I might be a little busy…”

“That’s a shame,” he said, then hurriedly added, “but congratulations anyway.”

He was clearly afraid he’d just suggested it was a shame I was having a baby.

Margaret was obviously enjoying this, but I was aware that the young woman had spotted my full wineglass. She grabbed her boyfriend’s arm and dragged him away.

“Did you see she was drinking?” she hissed as they withdrew. “In her condition?”

“That’s none of our business,” he said. “You know these showbiz types…”

“It’s apple juice!” I called after them, but I don’t think they heard.

Margaret laughed. “So Daisy is a star of the comedy club circuit?” she said.

“I’m a long way from there. This is the first time that’s ever happened, I swear,” I said.

We returned to friendly girl talk through dessert. When the coffee arrived, I assumed that the interview part of the evening was over with, but I was wrong.

“What’s your end game, by the way?” Margaret said, abruptly.

“How do you mean?”

“Well I can’t believe you intend to work as Daisy, secretary to the MD, forever, or even as Nick the FD. So what will you do when the company is successful? Go public? Sell up, and retire rich?”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead, to be honest.”

“Well, just remember, the Bank would be keen to buy your shares, and I’m sure we could give you a much better price than either Ruth or Eddy could manage.”

Food for thought...

* * *

I was in early the following morning in my smartest ‘pregnant office girl’ dress for the Board meeting. I checked out my own, Nick’s and Ruth’s emails.

There was one really significant email that morning, from Rixi Davenport, a fashion journalist. She was a freelancer but she was often published in a national newspaper. She had heard of MyOwnCouture.com and wanted to interview Ruth. I knew Ruth would be very keen to grab that free publicity, so I checked her diary and sent Rixi some possible dates and times.

None of Ruth’s other emails required any action on her part so I responded to them as her secretary, Daisy Duquesne, and sent her short ‘FYI’ messages explaining what I had done and why.

I was downstairs in the kitchen making myself a coffee when I heard the outside door open and Ruth making her way up the stairs to her office. On a whim, I broke my own rule and made her a cup, the way I knew she liked it.

She was surprised when I knocked on her door and put her coffee down on a coaster on her newly-tidied and cleaned desk. I was surprised to see that she was looking even more haggard and worn than yesterday.

“Thank you, Daisy,” she said in a low voice, almost a whisper.

She didn’t look at me, but she wasn’t looking at anything else either. I was getting worried.

“Are you all right?” I said.

“Just tired.” Something seemed to occur to her. “I’m surprised that you’re still here, as Daisy the secretary, I mean.”

“Well, I know some things have changed,” I began, “but most things haven’t. The company’s doing better than ever. You – and Nick – still need a secretary, and I’m still committed. So why wouldn’t I still be Daisy?”

She gave a wintry smile. Maybe she was starting to see her glass as half-full after all.

* * *

As Margaret had predicted, the Board meeting ran smoothly thanks to all the preparation – ours and hers. We met in the open plan office with two desks pushed together as a Boardroom table. Vicky had been a little surprised to be asked to take the minutes. Margaret instructed her to record Mr Nick Rawlinson’s apologies for absence, and that Ms Daisy Duquesne was present as his proxy.

I had expected that the first item on the agenda would be a vote to elect our permanent chairman, Ruth presumably, but Margaret had put that at the end just before ‘Any Other Business’. So first we had the accounts, which I – Daisy – had to present as Financial Controller, standing in for Nick, the FD. This was mostly good news, in that our revenues were now exceeding our operating costs, but of course we had a long way to go before our net profits would begin to make a dent in our debts (including the company’s debt to me, Nick).

We then reviewed the proposals for how we would spend the Bank’s initial cash injection. Again, Margaret had already seen everything informally and was happy to rubber-stamp our suggestions. So finally we came to the election of the chairman for future Board meetings, and that was when the only surprise of the day came.

“On behalf of the Bank, I would like to nominate Nick Rawlinson,” Margaret said.

It was difficult to say which of the rest of us was the most surprised. Vicky dropped her pen on the floor.

“I don’t know why you’re all looking so surprised,” she continued. “He’s the logical choice. He’s the only one of you with any business or financial training; he’s as fully committed to your success as any of you – you only need to look at how he’s dressed to see how determined he is; and he already holds the balance of power, as it were, if – or, more likely when – you two major shareholders disagree.”

“But this is my company…” Ruth began.

“Our company,” Eddy corrected.

“I think that rather illustrates my point,” said Margaret, wryly. “And it still is your company. Ruth is the creative engine; she owns the product lines and our unique designs. Eddy is execution; he solves problems and delivers solutions. Nick won’t interfere with any of that. He’ll just make sure that the company stays afloat long enough for the two of you to realise your dreams.”

The way Margaret presented it made perfect sense, but Ruth wasn’t listening. Her pride was hurt – again.

“Did you know about this?” she said to me accusingly.

“No, I didn’t – honestly,” I confirmed. Ruth looked sceptical. Did she know about our dinner at the White Hart? “I did meet with Margaret last night… for a chat, but she didn’t mention this.”

Margaret quickly confirmed what I said. “In any case, the fact that you’re upset simply shows you don’t understand how businesses are run,” she said, a little cruelly, I thought. “Nothing has changed. You and Eddy still control everything – as long as you agree. If you don’t agree, Nick decides. You should think of him as the referee, not a player.”

Margaret was now showing what a strong character she was. No wonder she had done so well at the Bank. I was sure she would chew up and spit out any hapless sexist male who tried to treat her like ‘the little woman’. Then I realised that dinner the previous night had been about the Bank interviewing a potential Chairman – who didn’t even know she – I mean, he – was a candidate.

Ruth was simmering, speechless. I liked to think that the logic of Margaret’s argument was worming its way into her brain, but her pride was putting up strong defences against it.

“Well, I think it’s a great idea,” said Eddy. “I support Nick’s nomination.”

Whoa, that was unexpected! But then Eddy wasn’t interested in money and had no wish to be in charge. Also he was no fool. He knew this was non-negotiable if we wanted the Bank’s support.

“So what do you think, Daisy?” said Margaret with a smile. “You have Nick’s proxy. Which way would he want you to vote?”

I paused for thought. I didn’t hold out much hope for a future with Ruth now, but to vote for myself would surely put the matter beyond doubt.

“I think Nick would want me to abstain,” I said, hanging my head, because I knew what it would mean. With both Eddy’s and Margaret’s shares behind me, Ruth couldn’t win by herself.

“Good,” said Margaret. “That means Nick is duly elected. Therefore as you are representing him, Daisy, I will hand over the chair to you.”

“Oh, er, yes,” I said. “Last item on the agenda: any other business?”

Everybody was too stunned, especially Ruth. She gathered up her papers and left. She didn’t go into her office. She went down the stairs and out of the building.

So Daisy had been promoted. She was secretary to the Chairman of the Board now, as well as Ruth’s secretary and the company’s Financial Controller. I wondered how many hats I could wear at once.

* * *

My commitment to being Ruth’s heavily pregnant secretary was most sternly tested at night-time when I had been carrying my excess weight around all day, and that evening I had more or less decided it was time to ring down the curtain on this fiasco.

It was nearly half-past ten, and I was getting ready for bed. I had removed my make-up with cold cream and wiped my face. I had just changed into a pretty maternity nightie, lent by the lovely Phoebe (whom I still hadn’t met). I always took my wig and wig-cap off last as – irrationally – I didn’t like to see Nick’s face on Daisy’s body. I was reaching for the pins that held the wig in place when the doorbell rang. I put on a negligée and went to answer it.

It was Ruth.

“Can I come in?” she said, pushing past me without waiting for an answer.

“Er, yeah, sure,” I said to her retreating back.

As far as I could remember she had never been to my rooms at the Manor House before, but she seemed to have no trouble finding her way. She marched in and took a look around.

“Nice place,” she said. “Very masculine. I’m surprised you haven’t done anything to make it a little more… girly.”

“That’s because this is Nick’s place, and there’s nothing girly about him,” I said, slightly irked by her implication.

“No, obviously not,” she smirked. “I love your nightie, by the way, Nicky dear. Very pretty.”

“Daisy insisted. Nick's pyjamas don't fit her figure – obviously – and she's not comfortable sleeping in the nude.”

“But you're Daisy,” she said, a puzzled expression on her face.

My speaking in the third person on behalf of both Nick and Daisy obviously threw her. She was trying to work out whether I was being serious.

“Are you developing a split personality?” she said. “Should I be worried?”

“Dunno. Perhaps you should ask Nick when you see him. Oh, wait, you won't be seeing him for a while, will you? Thanks for that, by the way.”

Ruth winced, but if I sounded bitter, it was because I was.

“You have a real talent for throwing me off-balance,” she said crossly. “I don't know why I put up with you!”

“Is that what you came here to say? At half-past ten at night?”

“No,” she said, lowering herself into my TV lounger, by far the most comfortable chair in the sitting room. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink? You can have one yourself. I’m sure it won’t harm the baby.”

I sighed. “What would you like?”

“Something with vodka, please. I don’t think I’ll be driving any more tonight.”

What did she mean by that? Bloody woman! There had better be some sort of apology coming, or at least a concession, or maybe an attempt at reconciliation, or something.

Two minutes later she had a vodka and orange in her hand, and I was nursing a scotch on the rocks. I plumped down in my other armchair, which was much more difficult to get out of in my condition.

“I cried all evening when I discovered you’d taken all of Daisy’s things and left your key,” she began. “I never cry.”

And just like that, all was forgiven and forgotten.

“I hoped that it meant you weren’t giving up being Daisy for me, or why would you bother taking her things? Then when I saw you were still her the next day… I began to hope I hadn’t messed it all up after all. Then I realised that you had no choice anyway – until you could go to Transformations and get your thingies unglued.”

“No,” I said, when she paused for breath, “it looks like it won’t be as easy to give up being Daisy as I thought.”

“The whole situation was a mass of contradictions. I didn’t know what to think.”

I couldn’t help but smile inwardly. ‘Mass of contradictions’ was the exact phrase I had used to describe her expression at Transformations when she was trying to decide whether to make me go through with this ordeal.

She stood up and went to look out of the window into the inky blackness of rural England in late January.

“By this time I couldn’t really remember why I was angry. You and Eddy had ganged up on me…”

“Ruth, I…”

“…for my own good. I had all sorts of mad plans for the Bank’s money, but I would have destroyed everything we had built if I had got my way. Thank you for stopping me.”

“Ruth, we…”

“And then today, you took my company away from me…”

“But we…”

“…except that it was our company – yours and mine and Eddy’s… Ohhh!” she howled in exasperation. “I can’t do this… I can’t do anything without you.”

She turned toward me. Her voice had been so strong, so forceful, so Ruth, that I hadn’t realised the tears were streaming down her face.

“Is that… vulnerable… enough for you?” she gasped through wracking sobs.

For a moment I thought she was trying to make a joke, but there was no laughter in her eyes, only bitter tears.

I got up and moved as quickly as my wibbly-wobbly body and my nightie and negligée and high-heeled mules would permit. I threw my arms around her. Though my baby bump prevented me getting as close as I wanted, I held her tight as she sobbed quietly. I felt our breasts smooshing together.

* * *

She stayed the night and it was as good as it had ever been – better. In the morning she put on one of my – Nick’s – shirts and wandered around examining everything critically and looking as sexy as Jane Fonda in Barefoot in the Park (1967). She was still a little subdued, for her.

“I don’t know why you came to live at our flat,” she said. “This place is much nicer.”

“I thought that was what you wanted. Does that mean you want to move in here?”

“Yes, please.”

“You’re not concerned that people will find out you’re not living with Eddy?”

“It’s fine, as long as no one finds out I’m living with Nick. But I won’t be, will I? I’ll be with Daisy. It’s OK if I’m seen giving my secretary a lift home after work, for example; and your house is secluded. No one will know if my car is here overnight.”

We had got down to business so quickly the evening before that she still hadn’t fully explored my wing of the house. Still in my nightie and negligée, I waddled after her as she wandered around.

“You have two bedrooms here, don’t you?”

“Three, actually, and yes, of course you could have one for yourself.”

“No, silly. I mean there should be one for Nick, and one for me and Daisy.”

I laughed. “That would only be temporary. I’ll have to stop being Daisy in another three months anyway. I can’t be pregnant forever.”

“No, but you can just slim down to a normal-sized secretary. You could say you’ve had the baby.”

“And what do I say happened to it?”

“Well, let’s see… who’s the baby’s father?”

“Oh, he’s gone. Disappeared as soon as he discovered I was knocked up.”

“So what do unmarried mothers do… if they can’t manage alone?”

“Oh, give the baby up for adoption, you mean?”

“Yes, tell everyone you always planned to do that, and made the arrangements months ago. They took the baby away from you in the hospital. It was heart-rending, but you’re slowly getting over it. It’s a wonderful story.”

“OK, yeah… not exactly stand-up comedy material…”

“So you’ll do it? Stay as Daisy?”

“For the moment. If that’s what you want.”

“It is. You’re a great secretary!”

* * *

So I agreed to be Daisy Duquesne, unmarried mother-to-be indefinitely, and my life as Ruth’s secretary by day and lover by night went on. She enjoyed bossing me around in the office, but was careful now not to go too far. I didn’t need to threaten to resign anymore. I could always remind her that I had Nick’s proxy, and he was Chairman of the Board.

I didn’t pretend to understand why she wanted me to stay as Daisy, unless it was a way of preserving some level of dominance over me. It had occurred to me that she might have some hidden lesbian tendencies, but her performance in our bed seemed to refute that theory.

Anyway, I didn’t mind, or at least I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the inconvenience of pregnancy. I went to see Vera at Transformations every Saturday morning for her to add a few more ounces of fluid to my prosthesis. As the weight I had to carry around increased, the discomfort and the awkwardness of my movements got steadily worse – as Ingrid had predicted. When I thought about this happening for another two months, I got a little depressed. I got no sympathy at all from Ruth of course.

In principle we shared the housework at home, but I seemed to end up doing most of the wifely tasks like washing and ironing. I didn’t mind too much. I was used to household chores as I had been looking after myself alone for a while now. (At least it wasn’t difficult to tell my underwear from hers – my bras and panties were much bigger and much less sexy.)

Ruth tried to apologise for not doing her share, but I told her I understood. She was working long hours. In addition to dreaming up all her new designs, she also had to work out how to make them with our machines. Vicky could write the actual programs, but she wasn’t capable of translating a picture of a dress into a series of cutting and stitching instructions.

Ruth also explained that her mother hadn’t made her help much at home. Determined that her daughter would ‘make something of herself’ she let Ruth concentrate on her schoolwork. When she wasn’t doing that, she was designing and making her own clothes. She said she had ‘sewing machine hands’, rather than ‘dishpan hands’, from earliest youth.

She did, however, take great pleasure in being my ‘husband’ – helping me in and out of her car, and carrying more than her share of the shopping, which I really appreciated. I liked being pampered. I thought about sending her out in the evening for pickles and ice cream…

* * *

On my fourth visit to Transformations, Vera gave me a thorough check-up. She used her solvent to remove my breast forms and abdominal prosthesis to check on the condition of my skin underneath. It was a little red, as was to be expected, but there was no sign of any infection. She gave me another all-over waxing, which wasn’t anything like as painful as before. The ‘mild hormone cream’ seemed to be doing its job.

I felt self-conscious as she rubbed the soothing antiseptic cream into my groin, genitals and the surrounding area, but surprisingly I also felt naked without my breasts. It felt like I was missing something important. I was much more comfortable when she later replaced my forms and prosthesis and I could get my bra and maternity panties back on. It seems Daisy had taken over more than I had realised.

While I was there Vera took me in to see Sharon to check my wig. Once she had taken it and the wig-cap off, she declared that my hair was long enough for a proper style, and I allowed her to give me a tidy bob, as similar to the wig as she could manage. I felt much better after that. I had gotten used to wearing the wig and wig-cap, and had almost forgotten how uncomfortable they were. I realised I had rarely been out without them since the day of the Panto Tech Run.

* * *

The Manor House was big, with a central unit and two wings. My rooms were at the back of the East wing, the old servants’ quarters. I had my own entrance on the opposite side of the building from Mum and Dad’s, and it was quite possible to go for days without any of us bumping into each other. In fact, ever since my first visit to Transformations I’d been avoiding my family, except for Josie. I had told them what I was planning to do and why, but I could hardly hide Daisy from them forever. So one weekend, when Ruth was up in Manchester celebrating her parents’ anniversary, I had lunch with them all.

I did my best with my hair and make-up and wore a new knee-length maternity dress in green silk. I was afraid I might be overdoing it all, but I wanted to put as much distance as possible between Daisy and Nick in my family’s eyes. So when I waddled into their part of the house in my pretty dress and one-inch heels, and with my handbag over my shoulder, I was met with astonishment on my parents’ faces, and amusement on the part of my brother and his wife. They had all known what I was planning to do since that lunch the weekend before I went to Transformations, but the reality was proving to be a shock. I was the elephant in the room, literally and metaphorically.

“It was partly my fault,” admitted Josie, breaking the awkward silence. “When the idea of him doing stand-up in drag came up, I persuaded him to try and look like a real woman. Being pregnant was my idea too.”

“Well, maybe, Josie love, but I know my sons, even if one of them is currently a daughter,” Dad said. “Tom’s easily led, as you know better than most…”

“Hey!” said Tom, but it was true. He wasn’t fooling anyone.

“…but no one could persuade Nick to do something he didn’t want to do. He’s as stubborn as a mule.”

“Or a pregnant woman,” put in my mother, with one of her trademark ironic smirks.

“Well, he takes after you, love,” said Dad, which quickly wiped the smile off my mother’s face.

I knew that’s what he thought of me, but I hadn’t considered it before giving in to Ruth. Was he right? Did it mean that in some way I wanted to live as Daisy? If so, what did that say about me?

Dad turned to me. “So why are you doing this?”

“For Ruth,” I said. “I must love her, I suppose. This…” I indicated my dress, tummy, boobs and hair. “…is all about proving that.”

“Bizarre! And when will it end?”

“Well, I can’t be pregnant forever. I’ve got about two months to go. If I can stick it out, I reckon I’ll have proven my commitment to her satisfaction.”

No need to mention just now that Ruth wanted me to stay as Daisy afterwards.

Tom snorted. “And what is she doing to prove her commitment to you, little brother? This mad Northern bitch?”

Josie hit him on the shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice. He’s a big lad, Tom, and solid muscle. Maybe he was still fuming about my father saying he was ‘easily led’.

“Actually, that’s a good question,” I replied, ruefully. “She’s promised to think of something.”

“Well, it’s a shame you won’t be able to come with me to the rugby at Twickenham anymore.”

“What? Why not?”

“Don’t be a silly girl! It’s a lads’ day out, boozing, swearing, telling dirty jokes. You’d cramp our style. Besides Twickers is no place for a pregnant woman.”

“That’s a bit sexist, isn’t it?” I was aware I sounded like a whiny girlfriend.

“Don’t worry, dear,” said my mother. “You can join Josie and me on one of our girls’ days out. We can go to the spa, get our nails done…”

“Shopping, aerobics and… ooh, the ballet!” added Josie.

I may not have thought this through…

* * *

Meanwhile the company’s reputation was growing even faster than my stomach and orders were coming through steadily. Margaret was very pleased. She told her colleagues at the Bank that all we had to do was ‘scale up’ (management-speak) and we would soon pay off our debts, and be in profit. After that, who knows? An IPO? Ruth began to hope that we wouldn’t need any more money from the Bank, but she was still financially naïve. I was pretty sure we’d need at least the second tranche of funding.

This success meant we were still swamped in the cowshed. The new equipment was delivered about a fortnight after our inaugural Board meeting, and Eddy and Mike worked round the clock to set it all up and interface it to our old cutting and sewing machines. While they were doing that, the rest of us faced a further three weeks of chaos as incoming orders continually threatened to overwhelm us. Even Ruth was spending most of her time in the cowshed now.

Eddy’s previous experience with linking machines and implementing Numerical Control was invaluable, and he and Mike managed to get it all done much sooner than they had predicted. When the new kit and a jury-rigged conveyor to carry the pieces of cloth through the process, were fully up and running, they made all the difference. At last a dress could be made entirely automatically from start to finish. All we had to do was load the appropriate materials at one end and we could watch a finished dress come out of the other. This was true even if the customer wanted a design sprayed on the cloth. The printing was automated now too. We started to clear the backlog.

The only complication was if a design required a non-standard colour, as we still had to operate the dyeing process manually and then wait overnight for it to dry. So Vicky put a trap in the website software which flagged a request for an unusual colour and notified the operator, so that he or she could prioritise the dyeing process. Mo inserted a warning on the website that non-standard colours would mean a longer delivery time.

Ruth added more designs, still relatively simple clothes that we could make with our existing software and machinery. Mo revamped the website with the new designs and added testimonials from our growing number of satisfied customers – including Margaret, the Lathams, and Polly on behalf of LADS.

* * *

The day I had arranged for Ruth’s interview with Rixi Davenport arrived. Both the Barn offices and the cowshed were spic and span and everything was humming along nicely. I was ready to bring in refreshments for my boss and her guest. Could we do anything else to impress the journalist? Was there anything I had missed? It suddenly occurred to me to check our customer records, and there it was: Ms R Davenport. She had bought a short-sleeved wrap dress just two weeks ago. As far as I could see nothing had gone wrong. The transaction was completed in good time and the dress was delivered within forty-eight hours of the on-line order – well within our target turnaround time. I knocked on Ruth’s door.

“Just thought you should know, boss…”

Ruth liked me to call her ‘boss’ in the office, even though strictly speaking, I – Nick – was her boss, though she would never admit it.

“…this Davenport woman bought a lime-green wrap dress from us a fortnight ago. She might just turn up in it, I suppose.”

“Thanks, Daisy,” she said. “I’d like to think I would recognise my own creation, but forewarned is forearmed.”

The barn office doorbell went at that moment. I hurried down the stairs as fast as my swollen figure would allow. I opened up to a smiling woman in a lime-green wrap dress. I guessed that she was in her early thirties, and to my newly attuned eye she was wearing too much make-up, hurriedly applied. Daisy was becoming catty, Nick observed from deep down inside her.

I welcomed our guest, introduced myself, and led her, slowly and painfully, up to Ruth’s office. She met us at the door.

“Welcome, Ms Davenport,” she said. She pretended to look the journalist up and down. “So how do you like your new dress?”

“It’s great, I love it! It may be a bit much for an informal interview, but I thought you’d like to see it on. Lots of people have told me how much they like it and asked where I got it.”

“I hope you told them.”

“Of course! Please do call me Rixi, by the way,” she said. “May I call you Ruth?”

“Certainly, and you’ve met my secretary, Daisy?”

“Indeed, but I assume she won’t be your secretary for much longer?” Rixi said. “Is that lovely maternity dress one of yours?”

“Actually, it isn’t, but we will be adding maternity dresses to our product line very soon. Please do come in and sit down.”

I took their orders for coffee and withdrew. When I returned with the tray, the interview seemed to be going very well.

“Oh, I have lots of ideas for new designs,” Ruth was saying. “As soon as we have the necessary tooling, we’ll be offering coats, wedding dresses, pyjamas, nighties, maternity dresses, and lingerie. With our system, we can make virtually any clothes.”

“It sounds like a dream come true for you,” said Rixi. “Most young designers have to wait ages before their creations get to market.”

“That’s right, and I intend to invite other budding designers to submit their ideas to me, and we’ll feature them on our website. Each month we’ll pick the best of the submissions and make a dress to that design for the winner, free of charge. Also, if any other customer orders a dress to the winner’s design, she’ll get a royalty.”

Rixi was scribbling furiously. Later Ruth took her down to the cowshed and introduced her to the others. Rixi took lots of photographs on her state-of-the-art phone. I managed to avoid being in any of them.

The interview appeared the following week in the women’s section of one of the quality Sunday supplements. In addition to reporting everything she discussed with Ruth and Eddy, Rixi also described her experience with designing and buying her dress through the MyOwnCouture.com website. She confessed to being completely hopeless with computers but boasted proudly of how simple she had found the whole process, and how impressive it was to see her animated self strutting down the catwalk in her new dress. She also spoke highly of the quality and great value of her purchase.

Ruth and I read the article at home and were delighted, but I could see a potential problem. Despite it being Sunday I called our Internet Service Provider. It was a good thing I did because access to the site increased by a factor of a hundred that day. If I hadn’t warned them to expect that, our website would undoubtedly have fallen over. That led to a big bump in orders, and despite the new automation equipment, it was all hands to the pumps again the next day.

There was another potential problem. There was now no way of concealing from the Deveres what their son and his fiancée were doing. Ruth was not interning at a fashion house, and Eddy wasn’t doing an advanced degree. A rough few days followed and Eddy had a hard time placating his parents. He only escaped being disinherited because his father at least was impressed by their enterprise and pleased with the growing success of MyOwnCouture.com.

But he still didn’t dare tell them that he was gay and his engagement was bogus. So Nick still couldn’t be seen out with Ruth. If I wanted to be with her, it would have to be as Daisy for the foreseeable future.

* * *

It was a very busy but productive month. I had four top-up sessions at Transformations, at two of which I had to put up with waxing again, but these sessions were becoming progressively less painful, and there was less stubble to remove each time. Alas, after four top-ups, I was noticeably fatter and even more uncomfortable.

Our second Board meeting was imminent. As I was to chair this, I took a moment to think about the agenda. I sat at my desk, contemplating. I had kicked my heels off and was staring at my nylon-covered toes, but in this position I couldn’t reach round my bloated tummy to rub my sore feet. Pregnancy was a pain…

My monitor pinged; an email had arrived. It was from Margaret:

“Daisy,” it said,

“I’m sure you’re well-prepared for the Board meeting on Friday, but I thought you might like to see a pro forma agenda that we often use with new venture boards. Feel free to ignore it if you have your own preferred way of running meetings:

• Introductions and apologies for absence [I assume Nick will be absent again?]

• Minutes of the last meeting [can you remind Vicky to distribute these?]

• Matters arising from the last meeting [I don’t think there were any specific actions, were there?]

• Financial report [presumably you, standing in for Nick again?]

• Operations and technology report [Eddy]

• New products and services report [Ruth]

• Any other business

By the way, I intend to come down on Thursday. I won’t drop into the office this time, but can I treat you to dinner again? Same time, same place? I think it would be helpful for you and I to have discussed anything sensitive before the Board meeting. I think you know what I mean.

Kind regards,

Margaret.”

She knew full well that we didn’t ‘have our own preferred way of running meetings’, but I acknowledged that she had saved me some time and effort. I couldn’t think of anything to add or change, so I sent it out to all the Board members under my own name (and without Margaret’s personal comments, of course), reminding Ruth and Eddy that they would have to prepare reports. I sent a copy to Vicky too, asking her to take the minutes again, and to distribute the first meeting’s minutes as soon as possible.

I then replied to Margaret’s email accepting her invitation to dinner. Now, what was I going to tell Ruth without provoking her paranoia? More importantly, what was I going to wear? Margaret had already seen my one decent outfit. Did I have time before Thursday night to nip into town and buy an evening dress?

Margaret hadn’t asked me not to tell Ruth about this meeting, so I did, having learnt the hard way not to keep things from her. I told Eddy too. They wanted me to promise to tell them everything, which I really couldn’t do. I promised to tell them everything that was relevant to the company, and said – quite truthfully – that I had no idea why she wanted this session. I said that last time it was mostly social, getting-to-know-you stuff. Margaret had mainly been curious about how and why Nick Rawlinson had become Daisy Duquesne.

Ruth, being Ruth, felt excluded and wasn’t happy.

* * *

I managed to get away for a couple of hours on Wednesday morning to go dress shopping. I was embarrassed to admit it, but I knew I would miss that when Daisy took her final bow. Trying on dresses and twirling in front of mirrors was great fun.

While there I saw some especially sexy maternity lingerie and a caftan gown in metallic lace, and I couldn’t resist. I looked forward to seeing Ruth’s reaction. I hoped Phoebe would like it all. She was planning to have another baby soon. If her maternity clothes fitted me, then surely mine would fit her. So everything I bought for pregnant Daisy would eventually be hers.

I went a little upmarket and found a lovely Renaissance maxi dress in brilliant violet for my second dinner with Margaret. I had decided that I prefer floor-length skirts. The more of my legs I could hide, the better I liked it. The only problem was that it emphasised my baby bump rather than disguising it, not that concealment was a viable option now. Are all women as big as this at eight months? Maybe if I wore my white lacy cardigan with it?

The dress was expensive, and I had a crisis of conscience about the money I was spending. When was I likely to wear it again? Both the colour and design of the dress were very striking and I was a little concerned that I would attract too much attention, but as Margaret said, if you’ve got it, flaunt it. After another month’s worth of top-ups I’d certainly got it.

When Ruth saw it, she was astonished.

“You must really be enjoying this to spend so much money on a dress you’ll only be able to wear a few times,” she said. I started to object. “No, I’m glad. I never meant this to be a punishment for you. Anyway, I suppose I can be sure you’re not planning on making a pass at Margaret – not dressed like that!”

I asked our local taxi firm to send Avi for me again, as he had been such a gentleman. He jumped out of the car when he saw me waiting outside my entrance to the Manor House and offered his arm to help me into the car. He was just as solicitous at the other end and I made sure I gave him another good tip. In my condition I really appreciated old-fashioned gallantry. I didn’t see it as incompatible with feminism at all.

It was nearly five weeks since I last saw Margaret and she made no attempt to hide her surprise.

“Wow, you’re really going for it now, aren’t you? That’s a beautiful dress!”

“Thank you,” I said. “And it shows much less cleavage, as you will have noticed. I was mortified when you pointed out my near-toplessness last month.”

She laughed. “It really wasn’t that bad,” she said. She looked quickly around her and dropped her voice. “And those fake boobs of yours are completely undetectable. They jiggle just like the real thing.”

“Only the best,” I agreed, “and they’re just as heavy as the real thing too.”

I stretched a little and rubbed my sore back.

“Oh sorry,” she said, “let’s get to our table and sit down.” She waved to a waiter. “But how is it that you’re even bigger than last month? You don’t really have anything in there, do you?”

Once we were settled at our quiet table at the empty end of the hotel restaurant and had placed our orders, I explained about the Transformations service. She was fascinated. For the next half-hour our conversation ranged widely but mostly on women’s subjects – fashion, make-up and hairdressing, family life, children, babies. I had to use my imagination at times, but I kept my end up.

“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly, “you quite make me forget that I’m not here with a close woman friend. I know you’re acting a part most of the time, but you’re getting really good at this. Are you sure you’re a man under all that?”

“Positive,” I said, “but it may be a while before I can prove it to you. I had hoped that going through the rest of my pregnancy would satisfy Ruth that I’m serious about our relationship, but it looks like she wants me to stay as Daisy for a while longer.”

“You mean she’s decided she prefers Daisy to Nick? What will you do?”

That outcome had been preying on my mind.

“I honestly don’t know. It can’t last indefinitely though, can it? That would be pretty strange, wouldn’t it? She’s not a lesbian – I can guarantee that – and although she’s a strong character, she’s not a dominatrix, and I’m certainly no submissive. This prosthesis is pretty uncomfortable but it's not bondage in the traditional sense.”

“Ah, but you do give in to her most of the time, don’t you? Being Daisy is proof of that.”

“Up to a point, but not about things that really matter. I will certainly stop her from making any bad business decisions, I can assure you – if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No, you’ve already shown you can do that. I’m thinking about your relationship and where it’s going. You have to admit, it’s an unusual situation…” She stopped and threw her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry, time out. It’s none of my business. I’ve overstepped the mark.”

“No, that’s all right. I’m happy to talk about it with you. It’s healthy. I can’t discuss it with my family; they’ve already shown that they don’t understand; and I’m scared of raising the matter with Ruth, for fear of breaking our fragile connection. But I know I will have to – soon. I’m thinking that the watershed moment will be when we decide the baby must come. I need to set a time limit after that.”

Our starters arrived and Margaret changed the subject. We discussed the Board meeting. She had seen all our reports and was very happy with our progress. We agreed that the main task for the next month would be to decide whether we needed a second tranche of funding – I told her I was pretty sure we would – and how we would propose to spend it. I predicted that Ruth would insist on grabbing the lion’s share of the money to expand our product line, which might need another specialist machine, and would certainly need some sophisticated program development. Margaret said she could see no reason to oppose that but we would have to prepare a very detailed proposal to get the Bank’s approval.

“I do have an item of ‘Any Other Business’, by the way,” she said. “I thought it would be a good idea to talk it through with you in private first – in your capacity as Chairman, or his proxy.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

I had expected something like this, but she had lulled me into a false sense of security with all our girl talk.

“Staffing – two items. First, you need a machine operator or two – relatively low-level posts. It’s ridiculous for Eddy to be dyeing and printing and carrying pieces of cloth around; he’s your senior engineer! And it’s not much better for Mike to be doing that either. He’s almost as well-qualified as Eddy. If you keep him doing unskilled tasks like that, you’ll lose him.”

I personally thought Mike would stay as long as Vicky was still around, but I took her point.

“Second: in addition to being Ruth’s secretary you are also the Financial Controller, the deputy to Nick the FD, and the de facto Office Manageress. At this rate you could easily end up being the HR Director too. Daisy the secretary needs a secretary.”

“You’re right, of course,” I said. I thought for a moment. She waited patiently. “Do you think it might be better if I raised this under AOB – rather than you, I mean?”

“I was hoping you’d suggest that,” she said. “I’m conscious of being an outsider, and I wouldn’t want Ruth or Eddy to think I’m interfering.”

“Heaven forbid!” I said with a grin.

She laughed. “One more thing: everyone in the company knows of your dual identity and most of the reason why…”

She had clearly sensed that I hadn’t told her everything. I said she was sharp.

“…but what about the new staff? Will they be told that Daisy and Nick are one and the same?”

* * *

Of course, I hoped that by the time we had taken on new staff, Daisy would be consigned to history, but I was no longer confident of that. She seemed to be more of a permanent fixture every day.

At any rate when I got back home after dinner, I was able to tell Ruth that Margaret had agreed that we needed to support all her ideas for new ranges and designs. She was delighted. She span me round and started unzipping my new dress.

“You realise we will need another tranche of funding?” I pointed out over my shoulder. “And that means the Bank’s holding of our shares will go up to 10% – at your and Eddy’s expense.”

“We’ll still have 70% between us,” she said.

She had now revealed my new black matching bra and maternity panties, which drew a sharp intake of breath.

“Whoa, you little minx! When did you get those? No more business talk now, missy. Lie back and drop your knickers. You have something I need under all that black lace. I’ll help you get it out.”

She giggled and grabbed a new black see-through babydoll from a shopping bag she’d hidden in her wardrobe.

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing you in this. If I ever have to fire you as my secretary, you can get a job as a plus size lingerie model.”

Briefly I wondered whether Ruth’s obsession with seeing her boyfriend in women’s underwear was entirely healthy, but the thought was soon pushed out of my brain by more pressing matters…

* * *

Our second Board meeting went well. Each of the Directors (or in Nick’s case, his proxy – me) gave their reports. Every performance indicator was in the green and everyone was happy. We agreed that we would need the second tranche of finance, and that most of it would be spent on whatever Ruth needed to expand our product range. She said that her ultimate goal would be for MyOwnCouture.com to become a one-stop-shop for custom-made women’s apparel. We all approved.

Under AOB I raised the subject of staffing. With Margaret’s help I had prepared a brief analysis of our needs and the Board approved the immediate recruitment of a machine operator and a secretary, with the expectation of hiring one more of each next month. As Office Manageress I accepted an action to begin the recruitment process.

I had one more item of AOB to raise: a warning note. In the first quarter of the year it looked very likely that our revenues would exceed our debts and operating costs; that is, we would be in profit. (I now realised that the Bank’s funding and my original support didn’t count as debt as we received shares in compensation.) If this was repeated in the second quarter, then the company would have to start paying rent to my father. Thanks to Will’s foresight, the original contract linked the amount due to profits; the more profit, the more rent, up to a predetermined limit.

Margaret asked if our premises were big enough to cope with the escalating demand, or whether we needed to consider moving. Nobody wanted to do that. We liked our current location and laughed about working in a barn and a cowshed. Vicky said she sometimes felt like a milkmaid in these surroundings. Ruth said that was quite appropriate as I was nearly as big as a moo-cow, which she seemed to think was funny. We all smiled to be polite and Margaret suggested we move on.

I said that we didn’t need any more space upstairs. We were only using two of the six desks in the office regularly; a third when Mo was in. Also I often worked down in the kitchen on my laptop as I struggled to get up and down the stairs in my condition.

We turned to Eddy to comment on the available room in the cowshed. He said that it would be big enough for the foreseeable future. There was plenty of unused space to expand into. The real constraints on further growth would be the machines, he said. What we had were old and jury-rigged, and prone to breaking down. Also we could only make one garment at a time. Admittedly each took only a few minutes, but with the rising demand we would soon need to be able to make two or even three simultaneously, unless we kept the machines running twenty-four/seven, in which case they would probably break down, and so we should have more machines in case of that. Also, any new kit should be custom-built to Eddy’s designs, not second-hand stuff that he had adapted.

We all agreed to go ahead with new machines for two additional production lines. Speaking on behalf of the FD, I had to admit that we couldn’t realistically pay for them even on hire-purchase, or lease them, from our current revenue stream. We would therefore have to ask the Bank for the third and fourth tranches of funding. Margaret confirmed that she would ensure this was approved.

Ruth and Eddy would then have 30% of the shares each, while I and the Bank would each have 20%. In principle, this would mean that if Ruth and Eddy disagreed over something and Margaret and I each backed one of them, there would be a tie. I asked Margaret later how that would be resolved and she said that as Chairman of the Board, Nick would have the casting vote. I wondered if Ruth realised that.

* * *

As we were in a hurry for new hires, after the meeting I called a local employment agency that my father used, rather than advertise. I thought that would be acceptable as these were fairly low-level roles. I asked them to make sure that all the candidates were briefed that the potential employer would be MyOwnCouture.com, a fast-growing fashion start-up, and that all work would be on site at our location. There would be little, if any, opportunity to work from home. Might as well do everything I could to weed out the non-starters.

Ruth overheard the telephone call and wandered over as I hung up.

“So you’ll meet the potential new hires as Daisy then?” she said.

“I suppose so. I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“Is that the faint odour of burning bridges I smell?”

* * *

At the close of our second Board meeting we were buoyant and upbeat for the future, but we couldn’t sit back on our laurels. Mike and Vicky had been keeping the machines going while we Directors were drinking coffee and munching our chocolate biscuits. With just the two of them, they were beginning to fall behind. So when Margaret set off for the station in a taxi, Eddy and I headed for the cowshed to help out. Ruth stopped me before I could reach the stairs.

“Actually, could you just step into my office for a moment, Daisy? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

So I went in and parked my expanding bulk awkwardly in her spare chair. She turned her monitor round so we could both see the screen.

“What do you think of these?”

“Maternity dresses!” I said.

There were four beautiful designs: three medium-length, one full; two in pastel colours, one floral. The floor-length dress was in black.

“They’re gorgeous! I really like that mid-length floral dress. It looks so cool and comfortable! Are you ready to add those to the site?”

“Yes, and I’ve written the software instructions to make them – but there’s a problem.”

“I’m not going to like what comes next, am I?”

“You might,” she said cryptically. “You see our ‘standard female figure’ template won’t work for a woman more than about four months pregnant. Her figure is just too different.”

I saw what she meant. We could adapt for different female sizes – OK, for skinny girls and fat girls – by just shrinking or inflating the standard template, but that was no good for a pregnant figure. If we inflated the tummy to the six months pregnant size, the breasts and buttocks would swell grotesquely too. She would need to develop a new template. I began to see where I fitted in. She saw that the light was dawning for me.

“You will do it, won’t you, sweetie? I don’t know any other pregnant ladies just at the moment, and I don’t want to have to pay anyone.”

I sighed. “What do I have to do?”

“The best way would be for you to strip down to your underwear and let us cover you with those motion capture sensor things. That will kill two birds with one stone: the sensors will give us a perfect 3D image of your sexy preggy figure, which I can use to generate the template. Then if you move around doing everyday pregnant woman activities, I can make the film from it. We obviously can’t use the catwalk or disco dancing animation for a woman in your condition.”

“And where exactly do I have to do this? We don’t have any of that equipment here.”

“I have an old university friend in Bath - Josh. He is a junior partner in an animation studio. They mostly work for video games companies, but they have all the kit and he’s happy to help us with it sometime when it’s not in use. In fact, it’s free this coming Sunday afternoon. We could make a weekend of it.”

She made it sound tempting. I hadn’t had many outings as Daisy.

“You haven’t told Josh about me, have you?”

“I’ve just said I need to get some film of a pregnant woman, and I’ll be bringing a friend with me. Don’t be so sensitive!”

“Well, as long as I don’t have to be on my feet all day…” I began.

“No, no, no, I’ll look after you, I promise!” She grabbed me and covered me in kisses. “Thank you so much for doing this!”

Well, it might be quite fun I suppose.

After the Pantomime

By Susannah Donim

A spare time hobby slowly turns into a lifetime choice for Nick.

Chapter 9 – After the Birth

Is Nick’s future, Daisy? Or is Daisy’s future, Nick?

Our weekend began with my weekly appointment at Transformations. This was one of the long ones, so Ruth dropped me off and went to the shops. As usual Vera removed all my prosthetics, waxed away the small amount of stubble I now had, and soothed the irritated skin with hormone-laced balm. Then she injected another few horrid ounces of fluid into my baby bump.

As she was finishing and I was putting my bra and knickers back on, Ingrid came in to look me over.

“Excellent!” she said, rubbing her hands together. “You’re one of our best transformations ever, and certainly our best pregnant lady. How do you feel?”

“Horribly bloated,” I said. “I’ll be really glad when this is over.”

“Don’t forget that at eight months a real pregnant woman would be feeling a range of symptoms that you can’t share: leaky breasts, heartburn, indigestion, Braxton Hicks contractions… You’re getting off lightly.”

“I’m certainly getting indigestion,” I protested.

“Yes, that’s probably because of the weight pressing down on your digestive system,” she said, learnedly.

“I’m also short of breath; I’m tired all the time; my back hurts; and my ankles are swollen.”

“Well, try and keep off your feet,” she said briskly. “See you next week.” She swept out.

“Not long to go now, Daisy,” said Vera, more sympathetically. “Have you thought what you’re going to do next month? You’ll soon be overdue to give birth.”

“All options are on the table,” I said, “but I think I may be back for a new, slimmer prosthesis.”

“I’ll speak to Ingrid. Maybe she’ll do it at a discount for repeat business.”

* * *

I hadn’t got around to insuring Ruth to drive my BMW (and with her driving I wasn’t sure I wanted to), so we went to Bath in her Fiesta. It took three hours via the A10, M25 and M4, stopping for lunch at Reading services for a fast-food meal you shouldn’t give to pregnant ladies.

Ruth hadn’t been back to Bath since her university days and was excited to revisit her old haunts. She was disappointed to find that her favourite restaurant had closed down. She dragged me round the Green Park Station market and then up to the rest of the shops. I soon discovered that Bath is very hilly and not designed for a woman in my condition. I began to wish I had worn flats rather than a pair of my new one-inch heels.

Nevertheless, we found an excellent hotel that Ruth had always wanted to stay at when she was a student but hadn’t been able to afford. It certainly wasn’t cheap, but she blithely assumed I was paying. I did, but I used my new company credit card. Well it was a business trip, wasn’t it?

I had been concerned that someone might object to two women sharing a room with one double bed, but nobody raised an eyebrow. If anything, they were even more welcoming to us apparent lesbians than to their straight guests. The town was trendier than I had expected.

After a nice dinner, we took a bottle of wine upstairs to our room (so that no one could see me drinking) and made the most of the double bed, though our coupling was getting increasingly difficult as my baby bump swelled. Ruth was always on top now.

In the morning she showed me round the famous Roman baths, which I enjoyed immensely, despite having to do more walking. After a light lunch we headed to MoCap Studios. Ruth told me that Josh’s father had helped him buy part-ownership of the business, which was currently booming.

Josh was the archetypal computer nerd: short, bearded and bespectacled. He was also a human dynamo. He whizzed around the studio switching banks of computers and cameras on and off, and talking nineteen to the dozen to Ruth whenever he passed her on his travels. He covered everything he had done in the three and a half years since he had last seen her in about ten minutes. She was surprised that he had met and married the girl of his dreams in that time, and his wife was now three months pregnant with their first child.

I sat on a comfortable leather-bound swivel chair in front of a huge ‘green screen’ with my feet up on a soft tuffet. I hadn’t been so comfortable for weeks. I thanked him sincerely for his kindness.

“I thought you’d appreciate it,” he smiled. “I know how my Lizzie likes to put her feet up to ease her back. She wanted to come along and meet you guys, but she had bad morning sickness today and I made her rest up.”

“It should be starting to fade now,” I said. “It usually doesn’t happen much after twelve weeks.” I had done my homework.

“Oh, is that when yours stopped?” he asked.

“Well, I didn’t get much morning sickness,” I said. I could see that Ruth was stifling laughter. She loved hearing me talking about all my feminine experiences.

“You were lucky!” he said.

“Or male!” Ruth mouthed silently behind his back.

“Anyway, I think we’re all set up now,” Josh said. “I’m afraid you’re too…”

“Fat!” said Ruth happily, filling his pause.

“…too pregnant to fit in one of our lycra motion capture suits, so we’ll have to cover you all over with our micro sensors.” He turned to Ruth. “Do you want to do her face as well? I’ve noticed models on catwalks don’t show any emotion at all.”

“Yes, please. The figure in our current animation template is laughing and smiling and being sexy. So we’d like that for the one based on Daisy as well.”

“So when you superimpose your customer’s face on the template you want her features to move realistically too?”

“That’s the idea.”

“OK. I’ll have to ask you to strip to your underwear, please, Daisy. I need you to get down to just your bra and knickers. Any loose clothing will interfere with the sensors doing their job.”

“I’ll help,” said Ruth, who never missed an opportunity.

This was worrying. I knew the Transformations prostheses were really good, but would my fake flabby female flesh stand up to such close examination?

For the next twenty minutes the two of them stuck tiny little sensors all over my prosthetically-enhanced, heavily pregnant body. Fortunately the studio was well-heated.

Josh was a little stunned by the sheer extent of my gravid figure, clearly not looking forward to his Lizzie being at the same stage. However he showed no sign of realising I was anything other than what I appeared to be. He apologised profusely and unnecessarily when sticking sensor dots in my more intimate places, apparently not realising that most of my female private parts weren’t really mine at all.

He had the experience to know how to position the sensors on my face. There were far more of them than anywhere else on my body, and they had to go in every little crack and crevice and move with my facial muscles.

“These will capture every movement,” he said, “so feel free to express yourself as much as you like.”

“But no pulling silly faces,” Ruth added.

“I hope they come off easily,” I said.

“Oh yes, they’ll just peel off – like post-it notes. In fact, they’ll fall off by themselves in about an hour as your perspiration dissolves the adhesive, so we’d better get busy. I’ve got a few props – bits of household and office furniture, and so on. You can do things like working at a computer, doing housework, or pushing a shopping cart. We can superimpose the backgrounds later. You’ll have to mime in front of a green screen.”

It was a strange afternoon. To begin, he took a few general shots which could be used for static poses, then we moved on to various scenarios. First, I pretended to be typing emails at my workstation, frowning with concentration. Those pictures would be used for selling maternity office wear.

Then Josh brought out an ironing board and a steam iron, and I mimed pressing my husband’s shirts, with a happy, vacant expression. Then I pretended to do some vacuuming and dusting. For the housework I was supposed to be singing along to the radio, so – more smiles. The animated me would be wearing slacks and an apron, or maybe a housedress.

Next, I pushed a shopping cart around a non-existent supermarket to sell outdoor maternity wear. Finally I mimed arriving at a restaurant. Josh, wearing a proper motion capture suit, played the waiter, helping me off with a motion capture coat, and sitting me at the dining table. This clip would be used for evening maternity wear.

We finished at about half-past four. Ruth helped me pull all the sensors off, enjoying checking out all my nooks and crannies. She helped me get dressed again while Josh processed all the captured video. It still needed suitable backgrounds, which he would add later. He promised to get it done over the next couple of days.

Ruth thanked him enormously and tried to press him to accept some payment. He told her he would wait till she was rich and famous, then send her a bill. He invited us to come to their home when my baby arrived, so that Lizzie could get a little practice with a newborn. I thanked him for the invitation without exactly accepting it, and Ruth promised not to leave it so long before her next visit. He expressed an interest in coming to see us at MyOwnCouture.com and she said we would be delighted to have him.

We set off on our three-hour journey home at about five o’clock. When we got back, we went straight to Agnelli’s for dinner. I drank white wine and to hell with anyone who looked askance.

We got back to the Manor House at about eleven. I was knackered. I sat at the dressing table in my nightie removing my make-up.

“I think my next project will be clothes for little girls,” Ruth said with a twinkle in her eye. “Again, the standard template won’t work because little girls don’t have breasts. Now who do we know who has a feminine stance and mannerisms but no breasts?”

“Well don’t look at me,” I said, looking down at my ample bust. “These are glued on.”

“I can get the solvent from Transformations. You’d look sweet in a gymslip or a party dress…”

“I think you’d better start looking around for a real little girl,” I said, getting up and heading for the bathroom. I slammed the door behind me to show what I thought of her idea.

I think I heard her laughing as I sat down to tinkle.

* * *

A call for Nick from Will Holford came through early on the Monday morning after our weekend in Bath. Each of us had our own direct line on the Barn network, but I had diverted all of Nick’s calls to my, that is, Daisy’s phone. It had a little screen which showed both the incoming number (if the caller hadn’t withheld it) and the extension they were calling (which was how I knew it was for Nick).

I looked around quickly. I was alone. I had been catching up on emails while Ruth and Vicky were down in the cowshed. Now was the perfect time for a confidential talk with my lawyer.

“Will, hi!” I said in Nick’s voice, struggling a little to recall what it should sound like. “What’s up? Good news? Bad news?”

“Both, in a way, I suppose,” he said. “Gerry and Steve have received an offer for their company from one of the big pharmaceuticals. I can’t name names over an open line, but trust me, you’ve heard of them. They’re required to make the offer to all shareholders through their agents, and that’s me, of course, so I’m calling you.” He paused to allow me to catch up.

“Is it a good offer?”

“Very good for Gerry and Steve, fairly good for you. They value the company at £7.5 million, which means your 20% holding is worth a million and a half.”

“Whew!” I sat back in my chair on my inflated buttocks, feeling the weight of my distorted stomach pressing down on me. “So what’s the bad news?”

“You’ll be out with just the cash. The deal is contingent on Gerry and Steve staying on, but the bidders aren’t offering you a role. The other two have to sign three-year contracts and most of their remuneration will depend on them not leaving in that time. They will hand over all their shares immediately but will get bonuses in the form of new share options if the company does well. They could be multi-millionaires by the time their contracts are up.”

“Or they could go broke. I think a fifteen-fold return on my investment in about eight months is quite satisfactory.”

“Less my fees, of course.”

“Of course.” I was glad Will was finally getting something for all his hard work.

“I’m glad I let your father, talk my father, talk me into getting involved in Rawlinson Ventures,” he said.

“You’ve more than earned it, mate, and hopefully there’ll be more to come. I suppose Gerry and Steve will want to take this, won’t they?”

“Oh, I expect so. They’d be mad not to. They’ll be continuing to do what they enjoy at much less personal risk, earning six figure salaries, and with three million each in the bank. But I called you first, so I don’t know how they’ll react yet. The deal depends on all the current shareholders agreeing to the sale. Even though Gerry and Steve own 80%, the bidders won’t proceed if there are any maverick hold-outs. Pharma is a sensitive industry; they can’t afford to have someone they can’t control attending their Board meetings, even if he can always be outvoted. He’d have lots of inside information to spill to outsiders – the Government, the press, their competitors…”

“I get it. Anyway you can tell the boys that I won’t stand in their way, and give them my congratulations. I can afford that Aston Martin Vantage now!”

Not that I’d be able to drive it till I stop being Daisy…

The next question was: should I tell anyone about this? It would be bound to affect the power balance between me and Ruth. She might decide she’d been right about the rich posh boy all along and end the relationship. On the other hand, if she found out before I told her, she would accuse me of hiding things from her again. OK, I would tell her, just not yet…

I didn’t think I would tell the family now either. My mother would never be able to keep such a big secret, and if not her then Tom or Josie would be sure to blab about something so exciting. But I would have to tell Dad. My big score was only possible because of him; he deserved to know his faith was justified, and maybe I should pay him back what he lent me?

Anyway, no need to do anything for the moment. I hadn’t got the money yet.

* * *

Meanwhile office life went on. Eddy had finished his specifications for our new equipment and they were with a machine tool maker, but it would be another four weeks before anything could be delivered. Meanwhile orders continued to rocket and completion times were getting longer. We now needed to operate sixteen hours a day, so we were working in shifts. Because of the stress we were putting on the machines, either Mike or Eddy had to be on hand at all times to deal with any breakdowns.

A gap between shifts was essential or the old machines would overheat, so one week Mike and Vicky would work from seven a.m. till three, then Eddy and Ruth would take over from four till midnight. Then the following week they would swap over. I had to be there throughout the day because the secretary and Office Manageress was needed to run the company throughout business hours – and I never seemed to be off the phone dealing with suppliers, couriers or customer enquiries.

When Ruth wasn’t on shift or sleeping, she was trying to keep our designs fresh and add to them. Josh had sent her all the processed videos and the pregnant lady template, and she was hoping to get our maternity wear up on the site as soon as possible. So now all the housework and shopping fell on me. I got used to pitying looks as I staggered round the supermarket, straining to reach the handles of the shopping trolley over my huge tummy.

Half-way through this difficult period, we had to introduce daytime shifts on Saturdays and Sundays, just to catch up. Mike and Vicky put up with it all like heroes. We Directors set aside some cash to give them hefty bonuses.

The upside of this frenetic and tiring activity was that we were starting to make serious money. Profitability was way up and we were beginning to attract attention from both the fashion industry and the business world. Rixi’s paper asked her for a follow-up article in greater depth. Also, one of the women’s journals called. They wanted to do a six-page spread with colour photographs. Daisy would have to hide or pull a sickie that day. I couldn’t afford to have my picture appear in a national magazine.

Ruth was getting ratty because taking her turn in manufacturing was cutting into her designing time. It was about to get worse as she would be involved in interviewing potential secretaries, although she understood that additional staff would ease the situation a little. The first candidates started appearing the following week. As Office Manageress and now Head of Human Resources (apparently), I did all the first interviews. The secretaries that I liked I passed to Ruth for their second interview; the operators I passed to Eddy.

We had to make it clear to all the candidates that until our new machines were on stream, they would be expected to take their turns on evening and weekend shifts, although we hoped that situation would only last for a month or so.

* * *

I saw six candidates for the secretary job. We didn’t – couldn’t – specify the sex of the post, but we could demand a standard skill set, and as it turned out, the candidates were all women. At the first interview it was fairly easy to rule out a couple of them who seemed to be looking for an easy life. No way would they be able to stand the pace at MyOwnCouture.com. Of the others, one stood out: Sherry – spelt like the drink, not Tony Blair’s wife, she insisted. Her CV actually had a date of birth (most didn’t) which put her at twenty-six, the same age as me. I guessed that she was a little older than the others.

She was from a country family, though her father was ‘something in the city’. Her mother worked part-time in a local auction house, being their expert on porcelain. Sherry had listed riding as her main hobby and her CV including a long list of prizes from shows, point-to-points, and gymkhanas. She seemed very bright and I asked her why she hadn’t been to university.

“Puberty, mainly,” she said with a smile. “I was very academic in my early teens. I went to a grammar school, which was a bit of a crammer, and they pushed me to take my GCSEs at fifteen.”

I looked down at her CV and saw a cluster of As and A*s.

“I did OK in them, but in the sixth form I discovered boys, somewhat belatedly. After that, schoolwork rather took a back seat. I blew my A levels and gave up on university. I went to secretarial college, for something to do really.”

She paused. I smiled encouragement. I had interview technique training at Atkinson Stern, and I remembered being told that if you, the interviewer, keep quiet, the interviewee becomes desperate to fill the silence and often tells you things they wouldn’t usually have talked about. I noticed from her CV that she graduated from her college with a Distinction.

“I did OK there, and had no trouble finding a good job, but after a couple of years I got married and was out of the workforce for a couple of years. That didn’t take, so here I am again. I don’t really see my work as my life, to be honest, but I love fashion, so when this opportunity came up, I leapt at it. I saw a couple of articles about Ruth Braddock – this is her company, isn’t it?”

“She is our chief – well, only – designer, yes. She is very ambitious for MyOwnCouture.com. Anyone who gets in on the ground floor, as it were, can hope for great things in time. The job is advertised as a secretarial post, but I expect you’ll be taking on more and more responsibility later – especially if you know fashion.”

“Would this job be to replace you?” she asked, clearly thinking of my forthcoming ‘confinement’, as they used to say.

“Not really. This…” I patted my bump. “…was a mistake and I’m giving the baby up for adoption the moment it’s born. All the arrangements have been made.”

She looked surprised, but knew better to inquire further.

“I’ll probably only be away for a week or two, then we’ll be working side by side. At the moment I’m the only secretary, and I support both Ruth and our Finance Director, Nick Rawlinson. I also seem to double as Office Manager and Financial Controller, so in the first instance I expect you’ll be taking over most of my secretarial tasks. How are you on a computer, by the way? You appreciate that MyOwnCouture.com is an entirely digital company?”

“I’m not bad,” she said. “Fully trained anyway. We did a lot of work with Windows, MS Office, SharePoint and the Internet on our course.”

Judging by her modesty about her GCSEs and her college diploma, ‘not bad’ probably meant she was a wizard. We would be lucky to have her.

“OK, I think I have all I need for the moment,” I said. “I’d like you to meet with Ruth. As her secretary – at least at the moment – I manage her diary, so let’s see if we can find you a slot. Could you do tomorrow morning by any chance?”

“Yes, any time. By the way, I love your website! I bought two dresses from it a couple of days ago, before I even knew there was an opening here.”

“Oh, well, if you like I’ll take you down to the cowshed and see if they’re ready. You can take them with you and we’ll save on postage.”

“Cowshed?”

* * *

“I liked her, and I agree she’s the best candidate…” said Ruth after meeting Sherry the next day. “Well, judging by the CVs, as she’s the only one you’ve actually let me meet.”

“I think she’ll be great,” I said. “You’ll be making her your assistant in no time. She might even have what it takes to help with the designs.”

“You’re my assistant. Don’t you want to… assist me anymore?”

“I want to assist you all our lives, dopey, but as Nick, not as Daisy. You’ll need Sherry when I hang up my bra for good. Anyway, don’t let’s think too hard about the future. We need another secretary right now, and Sherry will be great.”

“OK, but… look, I can trust you around her, can’t I?”

“What on earth do you mean? Look at me! From her point of view, I’m a nearly nine-months-pregnant, obviously heterosexual woman. Even if I were inclined to hit on her, she’d run a mile. For God’s sake, haven’t I proven myself to you yet – with all this?”

I waved my arms up and down around my distorted, distended, hyper-feminine figure.

“Well, yes, but she’s one of your lot, isn’t she? The horsey set? And I’m obviously not.”

“I haven’t been on a horse since I was eight,” I said, “and I hated it then. Our family are more the Range Rover-y set.”

I rang Sherry to say she was hired if she still wanted the job.

* * *

I went through a similar process with the six youngsters the Agency sent along to interview for the machine operator post. We would have to train anyone we hired to work with our unique machinery, so we offered this as an unskilled post. All I could really do was try and find candidates who seemed personable and eager to learn. They were all seventeen and eighteen-year-olds.

I introduced myself as secretary to the Directors. A couple of the boys seemed to think that meant their three or four low grade GCSEs would place them above me in the hierarchy. That in itself didn’t bother me in the slightest, but I took it as a strong indicator that they didn’t get the idea of ‘starting at the bottom’. They would probably be arrogant and difficult to train. The others showed much more humility. Unfortunately in one case it was because she was just thick. That left two girls and a boy. I asked all three to come back and meet with Eddy and Mike. Let them work out which of the kids they liked. Hopefully at least one of the young candidates had some mechanical aptitude.

Eddy believed in practical tests so he had them all change a plug, fix a puncture on my old bike (yes, it had three punctures), and set up a flat screen TV from scratch. Only Ginny, one of the girls, managed all three tests. Eddy and Mike were pleased because they both liked her the best anyway. She was a great kid. She was bright, eager to learn, and so full of energy it made me in my current state feel tired and envious.

So now we were seven. I spent the next week showing Sherry how things worked in the office, and how to find important documents in the filing cabinets and on the network. Ruth gave her as much of her time as she could and agreed with me that she might be able to help with design work in due course. Meanwhile Eddy and Mike showed Ginny the ropes down in the cowshed. We soon had two more people to take their turns on the manufacturing shifts.

Margaret came down for our third Board meeting. She didn’t suggest dinner the night before, so I didn’t have to explain anything to a jealous Ruth. We took the opportunity to introduce her to the new girls. She was pleased to see we were hiring and after spending a little time with each of them, heartily approved our choices.

Sherry took the minutes of the Board meeting. She was a little surprised that I was in the chair, as she had believed that I was only the senior secretary. I explained that as Financial Controller I reported directly to Nick the Chairman and FD, and had his proxy when he wasn’t able to attend. I deflected her further enquiries about when she would meet Nick.

I was able to report that our financial situation was even healthier than last month. We were now seeing significant repeat business. As anecdotal evidence I cited one of our earliest clients who had now bought three more dresses in different styles. Also, although we still weren’t offering wedding gowns, one bride-to-be had bought three bridesmaid dresses in our mermaid style, and one matching baby doll for her little flower girl. We engaged Polly and her team to finish them off with lace and flounces.

In his report Eddy described his progress in assembling and testing our new production machines. He hoped that one would be ready within the next two or three days. If that performed as he expected, they could get the second running very quickly afterwards. He proposed to work with two fully automated lines while he and Mike took our original machinery out of action to give it a thorough overhaul and upgrade. He suggested we would need another new operator when we had three machines up and running.

Ruth was ready to launch several new products including maternity clothes and uniforms, but was waiting for the new equipment to be ready, as Eddy had promised it would be much easier to add accessories and more complicated designs with the custom-built machines. She and Vicky had nearly finished all the programming. She wanted the next big development project to focus on the website. It would need a fundamental revamp soon. Navigation had become cumbersome as we had added so many new product lines.

She and I had discussed it a lot and I had offered some ideas, but I was still surprised when she proposed that I help her with the site structure and layout, now that Sherry was available to take over my secretarial tasks. I realised that would lock me into being Daisy for a little longer, but I couldn’t think of any reason to refuse. We would engage Mo again to do the actual development.

* * *

Eddy and Mike managed to get the first new production line working on schedule and Ruth and Vicky began testing their new design software. There were a few bugs in the more complicated accessories but the team’s experience made short work of those. So the face-lift to the website had now become a priority. One change that Ruth wanted to make was to introduce colour photographs of real women wearing our clothes. She proposed to email our customers asking for volunteers to send us pictures of themselves modelling the dresses they had bought from us. We would put the best photos submitted, with the customers’ comments, up on the site alongside the existing pictures – which were all Ruth’s own sketches, because we had never had the money to pay proper models.

This ingenious idea seemed to have lots of benefits: our customers would be delighted, Ruth believed, to be fashion models in a small way; we could get their testimonials; and of course, we wouldn’t have to pay anyone anything. Win – win – win! Always assuming the photos and comments were good enough to publish.

“Of course, we don’t have any customers for the maternity dresses because they’re new,” Ruth said. “So you’ll have to do it,” she added casually.

“What? I can’t do that!”

“Why not? You’re tall and pretty and preggy enough.”

“No, I mean, I can’t have my face in a maternity dress – or any dress – on our website. Someone is bound to recognise me as Nick!”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I invited Josh to come for the weekend and take the pictures. He’s bringing some kit. You won’t be recognisable. We can use the big hall at the Manor House, can’t we?”

“Only if my family all promise to go out.”

Fortunately there was a major agricultural show that weekend and they were all going. So I spent another Sunday afternoon being photographed. Josh plastered my face with his little sensors again, this time so he could disguise my features. Ruth had made up one of each of her designs – six in all – in my size. She did my hair and make-up (around the sensors) for each dress and the two of them told me how to pose for each.

“Am I supposed to smile, or what?” I asked. “Because you won’t actually be using my face or expression, will you?”

“Oh yes,” said Josh. “My software will let Ruth change your features however she wants, but your expression will still come through.”

“So smile, babe,” said Ruth. “Try and look like you’re enjoying yourself.”

I was. As Daisy I was loving this. Well what girl doesn’t secretly dream of being a model? I felt Nick cringing a little inside, but it was getting easier and easier to ignore him.

The photo session was a success and the pictures were soon up on the site, along with a message that said, “All these garments are available off the shelf in size 16”. I hated the idea of parting with these gorgeous dresses, but I suppose selling them was only reasonable as I now had very little time in which to wear them. Maybe I could keep them in case we decided I should have a second baby…? (Joke.)

The pictures seemed to get a lot of favourable attention. Josh disguised my features using his technology just enough that I was unrecognisable, but all the team claimed they could still see that it was me. I couldn’t see Nick in them at all, so I’m not sure how that worked. Sherry and Ginny didn’t understand why my face needed to be changed. I suppose they assumed I was just shy.

We now had two full-time, fully automated production lines running, but we had added lots of new designs, which had increased orders again, so we were still running flat out. We needed the old machines back up as soon as Eddy and Mike had overhauled them, and then we would need another operator. We started thinking about a fourth production line. Eddy reckoned we could increase throughput still further if we customised each line for specific garment types.

* * *

My weekly visits to Transformations continued. The discomfort of my pregnancy was becoming extreme now. I could only put up with it because I knew the end was in sight, but I couldn’t complain because in this, as in so many other ways, I was just like any pregnant woman.

Both Ginny and Sherry were asking when I planned to go on maternity leave. I couldn’t keep putting them off with claims that we were still overstretched. Babies don’t care that mommy is busy. Finally the time came when I couldn’t realistically be nine months pregnant any longer. Ruth wanted me to disappear for a week and then come back as a slimmed down Daisy. I agreed but emphasised that I couldn’t be her, pregnant or not, for much longer. I needed Nick to come back soon.

We discussed the situation with Ingrid and Vera. We agreed that at the next session, which was one where Vera would be removing all my prostheses for cleaning them and waxing me, I would need a new slim bottom half. Ingrid said that the new prosthesis should have stretch marks because I had been so big, and it should look as if I still had to lose my ‘baby weight’. When I protested, the others laughed and said that women take a lot more than a week to shed the extra pounds put on in pregnancy. Eventually I agreed when Vera pointed out that a little pot belly would help conceal my wedding tackle, just as Josie had said back when this all started. Otherwise she would have to bind my genitals up tightly and that would be uncomfortable.

And so the great day arrived. Ruth and I showed up at Transformations with a suitcase of clothes from Josie’s mother’s stash, and a brand-new bra and panty set in my proposed post-maternity sizes. Vera applied her magic solvent to remove my breast forms and ease me out of my now-gigantic abdominal prosthesis. She was gently rubbing me down with her soothing lotion, and Ruth was watching with a lustful eye, when Ingrid appeared. Vera handed me a robe.

“I still have your original measurements,” Ingrid said, “but I think we should take another set. You’ve been carrying some heavy weights around for three months now. That’s like going to the gym every day and pumping iron. You may have lost a few pounds.”

She set up the photographic suite and I went in and dropped the robe. As I stood on the little platform I was astonished at how much lighter I felt, almost like I could defy gravity if I jumped in the air. I felt stronger too, which made sense, I suppose. If it had been like I was carrying weights around all the time, of course I would have developed bigger muscles. My arms looked no thicker than before though, because I’d been bearing the load in my legs and trunk, not my biceps. That was just as well; it would have been awkward if Daisy’s muscly arms were bursting out of her blouses.

Ingrid was right. It turned out that I had lost nearly six pounds since my original photographic session.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t make the new prosthesis with your old measurements,” she said. “We would have needed a lot of adhesive to make it fit properly. Anyway it will take an hour or so to make one with your new statistics. Do you want to wait or come back later on?”

Ruth was about to answer when I had a thought.

“Actually, can we come back one day next week?” I said. Ruth looked at me in surprise. “Daisy can’t be seen around for a week or so, and I’d like to spend some time as Nick. Is Sharon available to maybe give me a unisex hairdo, remove my nail polish, and so on?

“Yes, I think we can manage that,” said Ingrid.

She and Vera went off to make the arrangements. I started to get dressed. Nick would look odd in Daisy’s smock and tights, not to mention her high heels, but I could probably get home without being seen. I eventually left with my hair smoothed back with some greasy stuff and gathered in a low man-style ponytail.

Ruth was looking disappointed now.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “Daisy will be back at work a week on Monday, but she’s supposed to be resting up this week after having her baby, so she can’t be seen around anyway. This is an opportunity for Nick to reconnect with friends and family. They haven’t seen him for nearly three months.”

“I suppose so,” Ruth said, “but we need Daisy back as soon as possible. She’s essential to the company. And you realise you and I can’t be seen out together this week?”

“But Nick can show up in the office for once.”

“Are you sure about that? You don’t think Sherry or Ginny will recognise you?”

“I’ll risk it.”

“They’re bound to notice that Nick has pierced ears…”

“I’ll just laugh and deny everything.”

She gave me a scornful look. “You need to decide what you want. Till then I’ll move back to the flat. Good thing we haven’t sub-let it yet.”

“You don’t need to do that. I’ll be back here next week to become Daisy again.”

But she was adamant.

“I’ll see you next week then. Come on, I’ll drop you off at the Manor House and collect my toothbrush.”

* * *

It was good to be Nick again, although it took me a day or two to shake off my feminine movement and mannerisms. Tom helped enormously there by laughing his head off whenever I did anything girly. We played squash. He teased me about my shaved legs and beat me hollow because, although I was lighter and stronger, I was badly out of practice. I went on a lads’ night out with him and some old mates from school. I drove him and Josie to the seaside in my BMW 230i and we had a great day.

But none of it was as much fun without Ruth, as Josie pointed out.

I didn’t go into the MyOwnCouture.com office as Nick in the end. I knew Ruth was right. Our new girls would be sure to recognise me. I would probably have to come clean eventually, but I wasn’t ready to end the deception yet.

I did go to meetings with my other ventures though. The anti-nausea virtual reality headset project was ticking over. I had asked Will to help them apply for a patent for their design. He had engaged a patent lawyer he knew and they were cautiously optimistic. The team still wanted to manufacture and sell their equipment themselves, thinking that was the way to get really rich, but I didn’t think they appreciated the work and cost involved with that. I argued that having a patent first would both protect them and expand their options; for example, selling the rights to an existing manufacturer to make and market the product under licence. Fortunately they saw the sense in that.

The data analytics guys had hit a roadblock: there were too many areas where they wouldn’t be able to get permission to fly their drones. At the moment they were building complicated spreadsheets to determine whether their business model would be viable with no-fly zones in critical places.

Gerry and Steve were delighted to see me – it had been a while – and we had a happy, boozy lunch catching up. They made a very generous gesture. They promised that if their business took off as they hoped, and they received share options as bonuses, they would transfer 20% of them to me. Gerry said he thought that was only right, and in the spirit of our original agreement. There was no contract for this, and nothing could compel them to do it if they changed their minds when the time came, but knowing them as I now did, I believed they would keep their promise. Time would tell. Meanwhile I could expect my £1.5m (less £100k for Will) by the end of the month. The accountant in me knew that would complicate this year’s tax return, but in a good way.

I went round to see my father that evening. He was glad to see me as Nick again. I managed to get him alone while my mother was out on some veterinary emergency or other. I told him about my windfall. He was delighted and felt vindicated that just one of my ventures had tripled our total investment, but agreed to keep the news to himself for the moment. He refused point-blank to take any money back. I decided to pay for him and Mum to have a really good foreign holiday and made him promise not to object.

I reminded him that MyOwnCouture.com was going from strength to strength and was even more promising in terms of returns. I told him that he would soon be getting rent money from them for the offices.

“And how is the lovely Miss Braddock?” he asked, with a slightly sardonic expression on his face.

“She’s fine – I think. I haven’t actually seen her since last weekend. I can’t go into the office as Nick now, and she still can’t afford to be seen out with me.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“Go back to being Daisy for a while, probably – at least until the situation is clearer. But I can’t be Daisy forever.”

“Well, it’s not impossible, but it would certainly be very difficult,” Dad agreed. “At the very least, you probably need to set up a bank account and get a driving licence in her name. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. I do like Ruth, but you have to admit that she’s…”

“A mad Northern bitch?”

“…unusual, I was going to say. Little cracker, though, eh?”

“Da-a-a-d!”

* * *

To my surprise I began to miss being Daisy. I didn’t miss being pregnant but I missed the pretty, delicate clothes. I missed wearing tights or stockings. I missed silk panties. I missed make-up. I missed having breasts, for God’s sake! I even missed wearing a bra. Could Vera’s hormone-laced lotion be responsible for this? Or had it been a gradual but inexorable process beginning from when I first dragged up as Daisy, and exacerbated by being Sarah the Cook, and Auntie Elsie?

So I didn’t put up a fight when Ruth dragged me back to Transformations. I wore a smock and leggings, the baggiest of Josie’s mother’s stash, as we didn’t know how big my new prosthesis would make me. Vera gave me a check-up as usual, with Ingrid supervising, but I escaped waxing this time. In fact, it rather looked as though I was now growing no more body hair than the average twenty-something woman.

First Vera stuck my old breast forms back on. Without my massive lower half as a counterweight, my 42Cs felt heavier than ever.

“Your breasts get bigger in pregnancy, as you know,” Ingrid said, “and they won’t shrink again until you stop nursing, so there’s no need to change them for smaller models yet.”

I loved that she was treating me as though I had just given birth and was now nursing my baby.

Then Vera brought out my new abdomen. If I thought the pregnancy prosthesis was hideous, it was nothing compared to the new one with its flabby tummy, stretch marks, and cellulite thighs and buttocks. It had the same fastenings underneath, but that was about all I liked about it. It was also smaller and stiffer than its predecessor, and more of a struggle to get on. I donned a new bra and panties as quickly as I could.

I stood in front of the mirror, aghast at the sight. I could almost feel the adhesive starting to set, imprisoning me in this hideous object for the next month. It was sickeningly realistic. I could pinch a good fistful of my new flabby flesh.

“I don’t believe any woman would have a baby if she knew she’d end up looking like this,” I said.

“Some women don’t have a choice,” Ingrid snapped.

I must have touched a nerve. Ruth tried to lighten the mood.

“You’ll just have to work hard to get your figure back, Daisy,” she laughed. “You can start coming with me to aerobics. I’ll buy you a leotard.”

“It’s like I have middle-aged spread! Sod aerobics. I’ll just get a tummy tuck - and then a new prosthesis.”

“Sharon’s ready for you,” said Vera. “She’s got lots of ideas for your new hairstyle. It’s long enough now to give you more choices.”

Ruth persuaded me to try a tint and perm, for the full feminine experience. Who was I to argue? As this would take at least an hour and a half, she went off to the shops again. She took my new measurements and promised to buy me more panties and tights. My old bras fitted of course, but they were practically the only clothes I had that did. I wanted to shop for new outer clothes as well, but Ruth wouldn’t hear of it. She said she had a much better idea, but left me wondering what she meant.

I always enjoyed Sharon’s company and we chatted about Transformations; how it got started; how she liked working there; and the strangest things she’d had to do. She told me that the overwhelming majority of their work was for men becoming women. Very few women seemed to want to make the reverse journey. She supposed that most of their clients were transgendered but they never asked about their motives. In some cases, she thought they were going into hiding, on the run from the police or a criminal gang. In those instances, it was much better that the Transformations staff didn’t know.

She described two recent clients she had found interesting. The first was a wealthy, educated man who wanted to become a working-class housemaid. Everyone had wondered what made him do that. At first they had thought he was transitioning, but that wasn’t it. The second was a young man whom they transformed into a fat Hispanic cleaning lady. They thought there was some complicated financial reason for that but couldn’t imagine what. Both transformations were totally convincing and the clients seemed very pleased with the results.

I didn’t volunteer my motives, and she didn’t enquire. She did say one more thing, and with a twinkle in her eye: in all the most interesting cases, the client had a strong-willed female partner.

I eventually emerged with new make-up, bright scarlet nails, and medium length curly hair. When Ruth came back to pick me up, she was delighted.

“I knew you’d clean up nicely, Daisy,” she said. “Just wait till I get you home.”

She certainly kept that promise and our lovemaking was so much more satisfying without my massive baby bump. I even got to go on top once.

* * *

The next day, Sunday, Ruth revealed her master plan. She drove us into the empty office – with the new machines we had no need of weekend shifts just at the moment – and set about making me a whole new wardrobe using the company’s facilities. I would now be dressed exclusively in Ruth’s designs.

“It’s like having my own live action dress-up dolly,” she said, taking all my most intimate measurements.

We were there alone most of the day and I was continually stripping down to my bra and knickers to try on another of her creations, straight from the fabricator. She made me model them all and took photos but promised not to put them on the website, at least not without photoshopping my face to make me unrecognisable.

Because of the modern cutting and sewing tools Eddy had added to the production lines, Ruth’s new designs could be fancier than before. She was planning to add wedding dresses to our portfolio soon. Eddy had checked that the new machines could handle much softer and more delicate fabrics without damaging them, so Ruth was confident she could produce gowns as intricate as anything a bride could buy in an expensive shop. Furthermore, they would be much cheaper, could be delivered more quickly, and would fit better!

Ruth was particularly proud of a beautiful pale blue skirt suit, which made me look like the Duchess of Cornwall. She insisted she had designed it for the office with me specifically in mind. The skirt had pleats, which we hadn’t been able to do before. The jacket had a high collar, buttons down the front, and a belt. She had had to buy in things like the buttons and the belt buckle but our new machines were capable of sewing the buttons on and finishing the belt automatically. She also made me an identical suit in pink and a very smart form-fitting sheath dress, which I wasn’t sure I would wear very often as it really highlighted my baby weight pot belly.

* * *

I returned to work as Daisy the next day. I had only been out of touch for nine days but during that time I had – theoretically – given birth, handed my baby over to adoptive parents, and recovered from labour enough to be up and around. Sherry and Ginny were astonished at my fortitude. I told them I couldn’t afford any more time off, as you forfeit maternity leave rights if you give up your baby. Ruth and Vicky feigned equal amazement in support of the fiction. At coffee break on the day I got back, we five ladies were sitting downstairs in the casual meeting space by the kitchen.

Everyone had questions, real or pretend. They wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl, of course. I said, boy. Did he look like me? Well, no, he looked like Winston Churchill, as all new-born babies do.

“How much did he weigh?” asked Sherry.

“Eight and a half pounds,” I guessed, hoping that sounded plausible.

There were pursed lips all round. Was that too much?

“Still, you’re a big girl,” said Ruth, “so you must have a wide pelvis.” She was loving this.

“How long were you in labour for?” asked Sherry.

“About eight hours.” I thought that was about average for a first-time mum.

Ginny, being the youngest female in the office, had been particularly enthralled to watch me coping with my pregnancy, and was fascinated and terrified in equal measures by the birth process. I remembered that during her interview she had mentioned that her mother had died when she was little, and she had had no one to learn ‘women’s things’ from when she was growing up.

“Did it hurt?” she asked, transfixed.

“Well, yes, it did, I’m afraid.”

“A lot?”

“Quite a lot, yes.”

“Gosh!” she said, then, diffidently, “Can I see your stretch marks?”

Bloody hell! Is that the sort of thing women ask each other when there are no men around? Or was it just innocent little Ginny?

“I’m not sure that would be appropriate here in the office…” I said, looking at Ruth, Vicky and Sherry for support, “and we don’t know really know each other that well…”

“Oh, go on, Daisy,” Ruth said, being about as supportive as she ever was. “You know she’ll only keep pestering you till you show her.” She glanced at the outside door. “You’re safe. The boys are busy in the cowshed.”

I sighed and stood up, appreciating how much easier it was now to get out of an armchair. I untucked my blouse and lifted it up as high as my bra, exposing my hideous tummy flab and stretch marks. I hoped the prosthesis was as realistic as I had been promised. I also hoped she didn’t ask me to lower my skirt and panties, because there would surely be a lack of realistic recent scarring down there.

The look on Ginny’s face was worth the embarrassment.

“Oh, that’s it!” she whispered, appalled. “I’m never getting pregnant.”

Ruth and Sherry, both ten years older than Ginny, laughed. Vicky joined in with a little less enthusiasm. They all promised Ginny would feel differently when she met the right boy. I retucked my blouse and sat down again. The conversation returned to more pleasant aspects of the working woman’s life.

“By the way, when will we get to meet Nick?” Sherry asked, out of the blue.

“I don’t know really,” I said, concerned at this new direction. I could feel Ruth tensing beside me too. “He has a lot of other businesses to look after.”

“He’s not really interested in fashion, so he delegates all our day-to-day financial stuff to Daisy,” added Ruth. “She has a much better understanding of our business.”

“Still, isn’t it a little odd that our Finance Director never comes into the office?” suggested Ginny.

“He travels a lot too,” I said. “But he and I talk often. We’re very… close.”

I suddenly realised what they might make of that.

“So is he the father of your baby?” asked Ginny, guilelessly. “Is that why he’s never around now?”

“Ginny!” said Ruth and Sherry, more or less simultaneously.

“Sorry, sorry!” Ginny said quickly. “Gosh, that was really insensitive, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t worry, dear,” I said, feeling like an elderly aunt. “I’m not upset. And no, Nick wasn’t my baby’s father. He’s a good friend and has helped me a lot. He’s just very busy, that’s all.”

More lies and deception. How can I ever own up to being Nick now?

* * *

We were all too busy for the story of Daisy’s week off to interfere with our work for long. MyOwnCouture.com was really making waves now. Ruth was doing an average of two interviews a week and she was even invited onto the local television news magazine, Look East. When the crew came down to film everyone at work in the barn and cowshed, I hid myself away in the Manor House. Later we all gathered at the local pub to watch Ruth’s segment. She was brilliant, and in her element.

One of the magazine articles claimed that Ruth’s designs and the quality of our products were serious competition for established designers, at least for those whose clothes the average woman could buy in the leading department stores and shopping centre boutiques, if not quite rivalling the trendy Paris fashion shows.

As a result, our orders took another quantum leap. Eddy and Mike finished the overhaul of our original machinery and added the new tooling to it. That gave us three operational production lines. We needed to hire another operator. I called the Agency.

We had our next monthly Board meeting. I declared that we were now able to pay the salaries of our four junior staff out of revenue and recommended a bonus of 25% of their annual salaries to Mike and Vicky. I added that now would be a good time for that as they had just announced their engagement.

Ruth and Eddy approved my suggestion, which was therefore carried. Margaret made no objection but asked when I expected that the three of us were going to start taking more than notional salaries, presumably in the form of dividends. We agreed we’d look to do that before the end of the financial year.

That would mean Ruth and Eddy would no longer be dependent on financial support from the Deveres, and they could break off their phony engagement…

Meanwhile Ruth was insanely busy with all of the publicity and was struggling to find time for new designs. She had been invited to present at a fashion show in Berlin and speak at a conference in Rome. There was talk of nominating her for ‘Young Businesswoman of the Year’, which I felt was a little ironic as she still didn’t have much of a clue when it came to running a business. That was down to me, supported by Margaret and Sherry.

But Ruth was living the dream. She was also too knackered in the evenings to do much more than eat the meal I cooked, drink the wine I poured, and join me in bed for a good seeing-to.

I had no complaints at all about the sex, but I wondered how I had become a secretary by day and a housewife by night. I made the mistake of pointing that out once. The next thing I knew I was being presented with a 1950s housewife dress, fresh off the fabricator. It was pink with white polka dots and low-cut to emphasise my big bust.

She had also got hold of a ‘dumb blonde’ wig from somewhere, a ribbon that matched my dress, and white high heels in my size, and that’s how I had to serve dinner that night.

I felt very silly, but loved it, and I knew she had done it for fun, and because she cared and was aware that she had been neglecting me.

* * *

But living and loving with Ruth was worth any sacrifice. At bedtime, just to tantalise her, I would strip off my outer clothes and stand in just my bra and panty-girdle in front of the bedroom mirror removing my make-up and combing my hair. Well it seemed my role was ‘sex object’ now, so why not live it to the full?

I wouldn’t get very far before she would push me backwards onto the bed and start unzipping my prosthesis to liberate my blunt instrument. Usually I let her straddle me and use her strong thigh and bottom muscles to propel herself up and down, but every now and then I would flip her over and make love the normal way, just to prove I was still stronger than her. To be honest I didn’t enjoy that as much because of the way our breasts mashed together. I couldn’t feel anything in mine of course, but I was always afraid of hurting hers.

* * *

One night we were getting into bed. I was in a lime-green baby doll nightie and Ruth was fiddling with the zip on my prosthesis. I was trying to decide how to break it to her that I wanted to set a final limit on my time as Daisy.

I was just drawing breath to open this potentially difficult discussion when she spoke first.

“I think we should make it official.”

“Make what official?”

“Our relationship.”

“Fantastic! Does that mean you want to get married?”

“No – well, not to Nick.”

“Well what did you mean then?” I asked, puzzled.

“I mean we should tell everyone about us – Ruth and Daisy.”

“What?”

“Well, why not? Everyone who matters already knows anyway.”

“But I don’t want to live as Daisy indefinitely!”

“Why not? You’re obviously loving it, and you know I prefer Daisy, the chick with the dick, to Nick, the rich posh boy.”

She couldn’t still be living under her previous delusion that my family were loaded. She’d been to our house several times. My parents’ cars were ten years old and they didn’t even have a flat screen TV. But I still hadn’t told her just how rich I was now.

“I admit that Nick sometimes makes me feel inferior because he’s so good at everything, but I like you being Daisy, my subordinate at the office. I suppose it’s because it lets me be dominant, but it’s not just that. It’s like Polly said, you get my motor running hotter when you’re Daisy.”

For some reason I couldn’t phrase the most obvious objections – something to do with me actually being a man.

All I could come up with was, “What about the company – and the Deveres’ money? Are you ready to do without it yet?”

“Well, we don’t need it as much as we did – in fact, if the business continues to grow, we’ll soon be completely independent. Anyway, they won’t stop supporting Eddy. They still want him to succeed. I suppose they’ll cut it back, as they won’t want to help me anymore…”

“But you said…”

“…that they’d cut us off if Eddy came out as gay and called off the engagement. But that isn’t what would be happening. I’d be coming out as gay and calling off the engagement. They won’t care about that. I don’t think they ever liked me much anyway.”

“You’ll need to talk to Eddy first.”

“I already have. He’s fine with it.”

She looked at me hopefully, but sensibly gave me time to think. I didn’t need long. I just wondered what my family would say. Then I realised that what they thought didn’t matter to me as much as giving Ruth what she wanted.

“OK then.” I said. “I suppose I should take my fake my wedding ring off. Everyone already knows it didn’t work out.”

“Right, but keep the fake engagement ring on. Now that you’re engaged to me, I don’t want anyone trying to steal my honey.”

Epilogue

To be honest I wasn’t sure whether this would work. I would have to create a new identity for myself as Daisy Duquesne and the State doesn’t make that easy. Sure, it’s not illegal to live under two different names, as long as it’s not for the purpose of fraud; I didn’t need to change my name by deed poll; and I didn’t want a sex-change (and Ruth certainly didn’t want that for me).

But I might have to get a Gender Recognition Certificate, which can take up to two years. It would also require evidence from a qualified doctor that I have gender dysphoria, which was moot, to say the least.

But without a GRC, I wouldn’t be able to get a driving licence as Daisy, well not one that said ‘Female’ on it anyway. Also, you can’t – legally – have two driving licences in different names, so if I get one as Daisy, I would have to surrender Nick’s. Much the same applies for a passport.

So for the time being I had to accept that I would only be able to drive when I was Nick. Fortunately, having bought some of their special solvent from Transformations, I could change to Nick relatively easily – albeit a rather effeminate version of the original Nick with pierced ears and girly hair. So far I have resisted the temptation, despite Ruth’s increasingly determined pleas, to get breast implants, which would make it much more difficult to be Nick occasionally.

To get a bank account in Daisy’s name would require full disclosure. You might think it would be like trying to open an account for your professional name – after all ‘Daisy Duquesne’ was originally Nick Rawlinson’s stage name for performing at the Club. This is perfectly legal in itself, but banks are reluctant to do it. To prevent money laundering there are extremely strict laws about banks having to ‘know their customer’. I would have to disclose all of my – Nick’s – real details, but even then they would be issuing me with cards, cheque books and statements under a totally different name. I could then go to another bank and set up an account there with an independent false identity.

In the end I compromised. I made an appointment at my bank as Nick and took all the relevant evidence of my real identity – passport, utility bill, etc. I explained that I was working in the fashion industry and I needed to do so with a female persona. That raised eyebrows in itself but they didn’t enquire further. Also I occasionally did a drag stand-up act. So there might be transactions on Nick Rawlinson’s account in the name of ‘Daisy Duquesne’, and I would be grateful if they would accept them. When they saw the scale of my assets, they were only too happy to oblige me and made an appropriate note on my file.

I would also need a GRC if I wanted Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to deal with me as Daisy, so that was out for the moment too. Fortunately I was MyOwnCouture.com’s Financial Controller, so no one else ever needed to see that any payments from the company to Daisy actually went into Nick’s account. I also signed all company cheques as Nick, being careful not to let anyone at the office see me doing it. We didn’t use cheques much anyway.

On the bright side, MyOwnCouture.com is succeeding beyond our wildest dreams. We’re making out like bandits. I took home £50k in dividends in our first year; Ruth and Eddy made half as much again, so whenever we are out together, Ruth pays. She likes to emphasise my status as ‘the little woman’.

“I’m treating my secretary to dinner,” she says to the waiter, proffering her credit card, “because the little dear works so hard.”

I love that, but I really must pick a moment to tell her about my revenue from Gerry’s company. I’m still considerably richer than she is, although she’s slowly gaining on me. The value of our shares has rocketed. My original 20% of £100,000 is now worth fifty times that. Margaret keeps offering to buy me out but I won’t sell while I’m still with Ruth. Anyway, I bet we would get even more if we took the company public.

Ruth has become a big noise in the fashion industry, and is bringing Sherry along as her chief assistant – she seems to have a real nose for trends. I’m glad about that because Ruth is happy to send Sherry to some of the shows and conferences on her behalf. Having to do them all herself had meant that I hardly saw her. I couldn’t go abroad with her as Daisy of course, having no passport. I did go with her as Nick once, praying that no one asked me to open my luggage to find Daisy’s underwear and dresses, not to mention her prostheses. I never went again. Apart from the whole process being too nerve-wracking, fashion events bore me rigid.

So do I think Ruth and I (Daisy) will make a go of it? Well, not really, no. There are lots of reasons to be pessimistic – not least that I’m still a man and don’t want to live as a woman all the time. I need my couple of days as Nick every three weeks. My best hope is that when she tires of her she-male lover, she might settle down with Nick, with marriage and children. (When she gets pregnant, I’ll have the chance to put her through everything she put me through!)

It’s all possible – if we both want it. But she is a mad Northern bitch, after all. Anything could happen.

The problem is that I have probably burnt my bridges, as she put it. Daisy can’t just disappear – questions would be asked. If I want to go back to being Nick permanently, I’ll have to own up to everything.

I also miss stand-up. Living as Daisy makes it difficult for me to perform as Nick. Lee keeps pressuring me to do another gig as Daisy, and I might just do it.

But Nick will have to be back soon, though still in dresses – it’s nearly Panto season!

The End

Author's note

I think Nick's probably right. Despite their current passion for each other, I doubt he and Ruth will make it in the long term. She's too controlling; too determined to have her own way. He's easy-going and willing to give in to her most of the time, but he's no submissive and he'll dig his heels in over anything that really matters to him – as we saw over the first tranche of bank funding. Their relationship was saved then when she realised she was in the wrong, but what will happen when she doesn't?

She's also paranoid and has a mighty chip on her shoulder about the difference in their backgrounds. He still hasn't told her that he's a millionaire now. Maybe that doesn't matter; MyOwnCouture.com is doing so well that all three of them will be millionaires soon - perhaps a buy-out, maybe an IPO? On the other hand, if she finds out he’s already rich (despite his earlier denials) before he tells her, she's likely to be furious.

How long will Nick stay as Daisy? At the moment he's enjoying living her life, but how long will that continue if he breaks up with Ruth? And what of Daisy's future? She seems to be playing a lot of roles at the company. Will they be enough for her? Also, she needs to be allowed to be Nick from time to time. Ruth never likes that.

But then I suppose everyone's future is uncertain – Nick’s and Ruth's maybe more than most – but things look good for the moment, and I suppose that’s all any of us can ever hope for.