Annie and her Granny

By Susannah Donim

Steve’s mother runs the secretive Transformations consultancy. This means he has a number of interesting jobs over the years.

Chapter 2 – Watching My Weight

Steve finds that fat isn’t just a feminist issue.

As Milly, I had been unable to meet up with my school friends. I had kept in contact by Skype and text as we needed to plan our holiday, though I obviously couldn’t use video. I had to pretend that my phone’s camera was bust. But now that I was me again, I was out every night playing squash or six-a-side at the leisure centre, or round at a mate’s place for Warhammer or PlayStation games. I blamed my absences on my job, and how hard my mother was working me. A couple of my nerdier friends were jealous that I was earning money and working with computers, but I turned their enquiries aside by claiming it was just a boring office job really. I was just glad that no one noticed anything odd about me. Apparently my two weeks as Milly hadn’t done me any permanent psychological damage. At least, nobody said I was walking funny.

I assumed that my leisure time would be my own until the end of August when we would be off to Newquay, but it wasn’t to be. The following Monday morning when I turned up at my workstation in the Bunker, I was dragged off to Vera for another defoliation.

“We were very pleased with how the first test went,” my mother explained while I was enduring ‘torture by wax’ again. “But Milly was relatively slim and her prostheses were quite small and light. Most men need to be padded out much more generously to make realistic women, to compensate for their wider shoulders and bulkier torsos. There is a risk that a bigger and heavier prosthesis might fall apart earlier.”

“So you’re going to make me into a circus fat lady?” I said, none too pleased with the way the conversation was going. “Owww!” I added as Vera ripped a strip of wax and hair off my chest.

“Oh, it won’t be that bad,” said Vera, reassuringly.

“No, no,” added my mother. “Not quite that bad…”

She removed a cover from the top of a trolley that had been behind me, up against the wall. I craned my neck to look. All I could see was a mountain of flesh.

“Couldn’t I be a man for a change?” I asked, hopelessly.

* * *

It was that bad, of course.

They had my measurements now so I hadn’t needed to be around when my mother was selecting the size of fat lady she wanted me to be, and printing the necessary prostheses. Not that she would have paid any attention to pleas for clemency.

This was a one-piece outfit, as I needed considerable padding around my trunk and waist as well as breasts, hips and thighs. It was like a grossly inflated, flesh-coloured one-piece bathing costume with long bulbous sleeves.

I had to strip stark naked – an embarrassing experience in front of two women (even if one of them had seen me in the nude many times before). I had to step into the ghastly thing, pull it up, and slip my arms into its big wobbly sleeves which came down to my elbows. Soft floppy flesh hung from my upper arms.

Then Vera had to repeat the process of manoeuvring my genitals into the suit’s safe haven. She invited me to flop down on her table (which creaked alarmingly under my weight) while she applied make-up at the suit’s edges.

“How big is this thing anyway?” I asked, gobsmacked at the size and weight of it.

“I estimate you’ll be somewhere around eighteen and a half stone – about 260 lbs,” said my mother. “It would be risky to make it any bigger. Even though you have a healthy, young, male musculature, you’ll still be carrying around 120 lbs more than you’re used to. You’ll need to take it easy.”

“I doubt I’ll have much choice.”

“You’ll probably need at least a size 20 dress, by the way,” said Vera. She’d finished playing with my tackle and was washing her hands.

“What about jeans?” I asked, hopefully. “What size would I need for pants?”

“No idea,” she said, “and they’d look awful. Anyway, you’d have to go to a store and try some on. Why bother?”

Good question. I felt that as a boy I shouldn’t be at ease wearing dresses or skirts, but they would probably be more comfortable than wearing tight trousers or slacks over this lot.

“We can do that if you want,” said Mum. “We’ll have to go out and about, just as we did when you were Milly, to make sure your disguise fools everyone.”

Terrific. Would I have to show this body off in a department store fitting room?

“Why is all this necessary?” I grumbled. “Surely none of your clients will want this amount of blubber?”

“It’s mostly about the testing,” my mother reiterated irritably. “We need to test the other extreme from petite little Milly. If this works as well as that transformation did, then we can be confident of everything in between. But actually some transsexuals need to be padded up a lot to look realistically female. Also, some men put on a lot of weight when they take hormones. So it will be helpful to let them experience what it’s like to be an obese female. That wouldn’t put off someone with real gender dysphoria, but it might be a rude awakening for a fantasist”

Vera was behind me now and I felt her closing a fastener which ran from my tailbone up to the back of my neck.

“Hang on!” I squealed. “How am I supposed to get out of this?”

“You might need a little help,” Mum admitted, “but it’s not much different from what any woman has to do when she’s taking off a dress that zips at the back.”

“I’ll lend you a Zipper Hook Helper,” said Vera, kindly.

“I don’t want you to take it off till we’ve finished the test anyway,” said Mum. “You need to eat, sleep, work and play in it. We want to subject the prosthetic to all the stresses and strains of daily life. If it’s going to break up from rough treatment, we need to know.”

That was fair enough, I suppose, but this thing was so heavy I couldn’t imagine doing anything strenuous in it. Getting in and out of bed would be as much ‘rough treatment’ as I could manage.

“Another objective of these tests is to assess how well the transformation supports the experience of living as a member of the opposite sex,” Mum added learnedly. “Does it all feel realistic?”

“How on earth am I supposed to judge that?” I asked. “I’ve never lived as a woman, let alone one this size!”

“You’ll have to use your imagination,” my mother said crossly, “and Vera and I will be watching and asking you questions. We’ll learn a lot from your answers, and we can use them when marketing the service to our clients.”

“Assuming my answers are even printable.”

Vera chuckled. “You’d better get some undies on, dear, for decency’s sake.”

She handed me an absolutely enormous pair of white granny panties and a bra like two parachutes. Realising I was now not only a fat lady but a naked fat lady, I put them on as quickly as I could. Both women smiled when they saw me expertly fastening my bra behind me, despite my vastly increased girth.

“I see your time as Milly has taught you some new life skills,” my mother said sardonically.

“Yes, I’m sure you’ll find your facility with bras very useful when you get yourself a proper girlfriend,” added Vera.

I ignored their woeful attempts at humour, never my mother’s strong suit.

Both my bra and knickers felt tight, although ‘felt’ might be the wrong word. All my unwanted additional flesh seemed to be trying to escape from my underwear, but I couldn’t actually feel anything at all. My bra straps were digging into my shoulders; my boobs were spilling out of the cups; and the crotch of my panties was disappearing up the gulf between my gigantic buttocks. All of which would no doubt have been very uncomfortable if all the flab had actually been me, but it wasn’t. I therefore ‘felt’ dangerously insecure, like something was going to flop out at any moment, or maybe something else was going to break with the strain. I envisaged my bra flying across the room and taking someone’s eye out. But all of actual ‘me’ was wrapped up tightly inside my cocoon of blubber.

The prosthesis was really heavy. I needed to sit down again. I collapsed in Vera’s desk chair like an elephant seal. It creaked even more alarmingly than the table had done, but I was distracted by the sight of my huge, flabby thighs.

“What’s the matter with the skin on this thing?” I asked. I peered over my shoulder to examine my mighty backside. “Has the 3D printer developed a fault?”

“No, dear, that’s your cellulite,” said my mother. “Sad to say, it’s quite realistic.”

I must have looked blank.

“Cellulite is a condition in which the skin has a dimpled, lumpy appearance – like that,” Vera explained, gripping a roll of fat on my thigh and running her fingers over the surface. “It mostly affects the buttocks and thighs. Fat deposits push through the connective tissue beneath the skin.”

“I never heard of it,” I said. “Do men get it?”

“It can affect both men and women, but it’s more common in females, because of the different distribution of fat, muscle, and connective tissue.”

“Do you have it?” I asked Mum, tactlessly.

“None of your business!” she said crossly.

Vera laughed. “Between 80 and 90 percent of women have cellulite, especially if they’re overweight,” she said.

“So at your size, it would be a virtual certainty,” added Mum. “Let’s do her head and neck now, Vera.”

“What?” I said, alarmed. “What do you mean?”

My mother spun the chair around to face the mirror.

“You look ridiculous with your skinny male head on a big fat female body. Vera will stick some additional prosthetic pieces on your face and chin. With Sharon’s make-up skills, your face will match your body.”

“Here,” said Vera, holding out a plus size dressing gown in the familiar pink cotton. “You can’t go round in just your bra and panties.”

I covered myself up gratefully and stepped into a pair of matching mules. Vera was now smearing adhesive onto a small piece of flesh-coloured flab. She sat me down again. Then she held my head back and pressed the fleshy thing onto my neck. It stretched from ear to ear.

“This chin piece will also cover your Adam’s apple.”

She held it in place for a count of sixty, then let go carefully. It wobbled like the rest of my new body but stayed in place. I now had a convincing double chin – actually more like a treble – but it was proportionate to the rest of my flabby body.

She reached for another piece and started applying her glue.

“Just one of these for each cheek now,” she said.

“I assume that’s medical adhesive, like you used on Milly’s breasts?”

“Spot on,” she smiled. “So don’t try and remove any of these without the solvent. You’ll hurt yourself.”

She pressed the cheek piece on me and held it in place, as she had with the chin. Then she repeated the process with the other cheek. When she finished I was able to see myself in the mirror. My face now matched my body – obese and feminine.

My mother, who had been watching the process with forensic interest, pronounced herself satisfied.

“Thank you again for doing this, Steven,” she said, and left, without giving me the chance to say ‘my pleasure’, which of course I wouldn’t have.

Vera led me next door. The first thing I noticed when called upon to move was just how ungainly I had become. My gait could only be described as ‘waddling’. My huge butt swung from side to side as I walked because it had no choice. I had to swing my arms out wide to keep my balance, and even to help propel myself forward.

The prostheses were so effective that Sharon only needed to apply a little plain foundation to smooth over the edges. Then she got on with the rest of my make-up. I was a little puzzled when she started peeling short strips of latex off a pad in her case.

“What are they for?” I asked. “They’re not normal make-up, are they?”

“I’d forgotten you’re an expert on cosmetics now,” she grinned. “No, Ingrid wants you to look middle-aged, because the majority of our clients are. Your own skin is too smooth for that, so I’m adding some latex wrinkles.”

There was no point in arguing. On the plus side, now that I was ‘plus size’, it would mean that I was even less likely to be recognised by anyone I knew.

When she had finished, and added a wig styled as a typical woman in her forties would wear her hair, I was allowed to check myself in her full-length mirror.

“Smile,” Sharon said. “That will bring out the effect of the wrinkles best.”

I did my best, though I didn’t feel I had much to smile about. She had done a very simple make-up: a little mascara and pale lipstick in addition to the light foundation. The latex wrinkles round my eyes and my double chin were very convincing.

An obese woman in her late forties smiled back at me from the mirror.

Vera started handing me clothes suitable for the ‘larger lady’, and got me to try them all on. I’d never really enjoyed ‘dressing up’ but I suppose it wasn’t too bad, though I was horrified at the size of my new bottom.

“You’ll have to wear opaque tights or stockings when you go out,” she said. “You’ve got great legs – well, below your great fat thighs, I mean – but they’re just a little too muscly for a middle-aged woman. With 50 denier hose, your male muscles could be mistaken for feminine curves.”

* * *

“So let me hear your suggestions for where I put Jennifer on display,” said my mother that afternoon in the tea room.

Yes, I was Jennifer now, just when I’d got used to being called Milly. But by popular vote, I didn’t look like a Milly anymore. According to my mother’s five minutes of research on the internet, ‘Jennifer’ was the most popular name for women born in the mid-seventies. (She’d wanted Barbara, which I vetoed.)

Now I was sitting with the Transformations team discussing their latest experiment, in which I played the key part – again. I was wearing a hideous floral dress, size 20, and struggling to keep my fat thighs together in a lady-like manner.

“Weight watchers,” said Sharon, to general laughter.

I, increasingly becoming Jennifer, failed to see the humour.

“Actually, that’s not such a bad idea.” My mother smiled and made a note. “The other ladies there are bound to check her out thoroughly.”

Gulp!

“In that case, what about the gym?” Sharon suggested.

“Much as I’m sure we would all find it amusing to see the fat lady in a leotard doing aerobics, there would be a problem there.”

“Yes,” agreed Vera, “perspiration. Those parts of her prostheses that would be visible wouldn’t be sweating, which would be very suspicious. It also wouldn’t be comfortable for her – she’d be sweating buckets under the prostheses.”

“Not to mention that it would be dangerous for her to do an active exercise session carrying 120 lbs of excess weight with muscles used to half that,” my mother added.

I was glad that Mum cared enough not actually to want to kill me, despite the evidence to the contrary.

“What about pushing a baby buggy around town?” suggested Vera. “That always attracts a lot of attention.”

My mother looked dubious. “I quite like that idea in principle, but I don’t think I could trust Jennifer to look after a baby, even if I knew where we could borrow one. Anyway she looks too old to be a new mother, and not old enough to be a granny.”

Well thank heavens for small mercies…

“But there’s nothing to stop her pushing a shopping cart around the supermarket,” she continued. “That’s a good everyday activity for a middle-aged woman.”

Could be worse, I suppose.

“I wouldn’t have thought parading me around as Jenny, the fat lady, is really necessary,” I suggested. “We already know that our prosthetic disguises are completely believable.” Sharon was nodding; the others non-committal. “I mean, if I can convince everyone around the shopping centre that I’m a thirteen-year-old girl, a middle-aged woman should be no problem.”

“What’s your point?” my mother said, testily.

“Well the only reason for me to keep this thing on for any length of time is to see if its bulk causes it to break up, isn’t it?”

“He’s probably right,” said Vera. “And if he’s not enjoying it…”

“Thank you, Vera, and I’m not,” I said forcefully. “I’m not one of your clients, Mum.”

My mother sighed. “Well, all right,” she said. “I don’t mean to torture you, but if you’re not prepared to make some small sacrifices for the business…”

“Okay, okay,” I said, aware that I might be in danger of losing my bonus. “Let’s compromise. Two trips: a supermarket run – with you – and maybe one other outing.”

* * *

I reported to Vera to be readied for my shopping trip. I told her how uncomfortable my knickers were and she dug out a gigantic pair of granny panties from somewhere.

Then she gave me a short-sleeved pink blouse and a tight blue skirt to wear. I looked terrible. My vulgar top was low-cut and my bra was visible. Also you could see my panty line through my skirt. I slipped my feet into a cheap pair of women’s trainers with Velcro fasteners. Seeing me struggling to bend over, Vera did them up for me.

“This is a horrible outfit,” I said, looking at my ugly, pudgy self in the mirror. “Why have you dressed me like this?”

“It’s another test,” she said, apologetically. “When you were Milly you went to a fashionable mall with lots of high concept shops. This time, Ingrid’s going to take you to a more downmarket shopping centre to see if the working-class women who shop there are any more observant. So she wants you dressed as a harassed housewife, the kind of poor woman who doesn’t have nice things, nor the time to make the best of herself when she’s only going out to get groceries.”

She completed my outfit with a hideous pink hoodie. Then she escorted me next door to Sharon who put my wig in curlers and covered it with a scruffy headscarf.

“No make-up today?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t fit with the image Ingrid wants,” Sharon said, a little crossly. “She seems to think that a fat working-class woman with three kids hasn’t got time to put her face on in the morning.”

“So I’ve got three kids, have I? That would explain how I got so fat.”

Sharon lowered her voice and checked that Mum hadn’t sneaked up behind her in that creepy way of hers.

“I don’t think your mother has ever met a real working-class woman,” she added conspiratorially.

We examined my reflection in her mirror together. She snorted.

“If you still look like this when your hubby comes home, you can forget about getting any tonight.”

I laughed but Sharon’s professional pride hated to let a client out of her salon looking anything other than the very best she could be. At this point my mother appeared behind me.

“That’s excellent,” she said when she saw me. “Come along, Jennifer, let’s see whether you pass muster at the supermarket.” She gave me a scruffy handbag, which I suppose was appropriate for my slatternly appearance. “You’ll find your shopping list and a purse with a hundred pounds cash in there.”

* * *

She drove us to the shops in the company’s anonymous white van. We used this for transporting any large equipment, and I certainly qualified. There was also a bench of comfortable seats in the back.

“I would have preferred you to be able to go by yourself, but you’re too young to drive, of course,” she said as she drove us into the less salubrious part of town. “Not that you look it at the moment.”

She chuckled – meanly, I thought. I sat in silence. I let her enjoy herself without commenting. If she found my lack of response irritating, she didn’t show it. But I didn’t consider her a friend at the moment, so I didn’t feel like conversation. She soon gave up on small talk, which she was generally crap at anyway.

Briefly I wondered why I was in a bad mood. I could only assume that Jennifer was in charge of my personality at the moment and resented having to look so slovenly. It seems I was finding my feminine side. Before I could pursue this line of thought any further, we pulled into the shopping centre. My mother parked outside a discount supermarket.

“Off you go then, Jennifer,” she said. “Get yourself a trolley and start shopping.”

“What? You’re not coming in with me?”

I looked at her in surprise and not a little trepidation.

“Oh, I’ll be inside in a minute, but I won’t be with you.”

“You mean someone as posh as you wouldn’t be seen dead with a fat lower-class slut like me?”

“Well, yes,” she admitted, “but mostly because I need to watch you, and check other shoppers’ reactions.”

I didn’t argue. I wanted this humiliating experience over with as quickly as possible.

“Remember all your lessons on feminine movement and you’ll be fine,” she said encouragingly.

I was dubious. ‘Feminine movement’ was one thing for a nimble thirteen-year-old in school uniform. It would be quite another for a middle-aged porker like I was now. My ass was almost exactly twice as wide as Milly’s had been and God knows how much heavier. I waddled off to collect a trolley from the stack by the entrance.

I made my way inside and soon merged in with the other shoppers, mostly working-class housewives dressed like me, although few of them were in my weight class. Lugging my 260 lb frame around the store was enough of an effort that I was soon sweating and panting. I received several sympathetic smiles, which I returned, but otherwise nobody seemed to pay me any special attention, apart from a couple of teenage girls who were browsing a display of cheap smartphones. One of them pointed at me when she thought I wasn’t looking. Her friend sniggered and grimaced.

“God, if I ever get as fat as her, shoot me!” the first girl said.

“Totally!” agreed her friend.

I found myself blushing under my facial prostheses. Either they misjudged how loudly they were speaking, or more likely they didn’t care if I heard them. I turned into the next aisle as quickly as I could.

Not knowing the layout of the place, my shopping took me longer than was necessary. Several times I saw my mother watching from a distance. The other shoppers probably thought she was a store detective. That would keep the shoplifting to a minimum today.

At one end of the shop there was a section devoted to women’s clothes. I decided it would be realistic for me to spend a little time browsing there. In the lingerie section, the shapewear caught my eye. That one-piece corsetty girdle thing would hold all my flab in much better than my tight bra and granny knickers. And I had another two weeks as Jennifer. Might as well be comfortable.

A smiling assistant had come up behind me.

“I see you’re looking at our corselettes, madam,” she said. “They’re really very comfy for fuller-figured ladies like us.”

She was definitely ‘fuller-figured’, though sadly not as much as me.

“I’m sorry,” she lowered her voice a little, “I couldn’t help but notice your…” She whispered, “…Visible Panty Line. You’d be much more comfortable in one of those. It will change your life – truly!”

Are shop assistants always as forthright as this with prospective customers? She must have been on commission, I thought.

“We’re doing a ‘two for one’ at the moment,” she added.

“Sold!” I said. “Can I have one in black and one in white?”

“Certainly, madam,” she beamed. “Size 20, is it?”

“It is,” I confirmed with a sigh. “You have a good eye.”

She rummaged in a drawer beneath the display and passed me two cardboard packets with pictures of sexy ladies in underwear on the front. They were both marked ‘Size 20’ though neither of the models could have been more than a twelve. The price of each was £29.99, but both packets had a ‘Two for One’ label.

“These have garters, by the way. You’ll want to wear stockings with them,” the assistant said, helpfully.

“How much?” I sighed.

She reached for a packet from the drawer.

“These are our cheapest. Twelve pounds for a packet of three pairs.”

I nodded. I put all my purchases on top of my groceries, prepared to leave them behind if they brought the total to over £100.

I made my way, puffing and blowing, and sweaty with the effort, to the check-out. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my mother over at the newsstand pretending to read a magazine, but actually watching me and everyone around me.

When the assistant rang up my purchase, the total came to £98.47. Mum wouldn’t be pleased to get so little change out of her hundred quid.

Well screw her. We poor, working-class women deserve a treat sometimes too.

* * *

“Why did you buy those?” she asked when we were unpacking our groceries in the kitchen of our flat.

“I think they’ll be more comfortable than the underwear Vera gave me. My bra is digging into all the parts of me that aren’t prosthetic, and I’m constantly afraid of snapping the waist elastic in these baggy knickers and they’ll slip down. This whole thing is embarrassing enough; that would be too much.”

“But we’re supposed to be monitoring the rate of decay of your prosthetic! That shapewear will support it. It will probably last much longer now.” She tutted. “Well, you’ll just be stuck as Jennifer for longer. You might even miss Newquay.”

“It’s all booked and I’m going – even if I have to break into Vera’s office for the solvent. What you mean is, you will spitefully withhold my bonus.”

“I don’t know what I’ve done to make you so angry with me.”

“Apart from making me spend my summer holidays dressed as various women, you mean?”

“Oh stop moaning. The experience will be good for you.”

“Why on earth would you think that?”

“You’re learning what it’s like to be a woman in the modern world. You’ll be a more considerate boyfriend and husband, when the time comes.”

“Assuming this whole traumatic experience doesn’t lead to me preferring men!”

“Don’t be silly. A little harmless dressing-up can’t change your sexual orientation.”

“Well I hope you’re right, but I’d much rather we weren’t taking the risk.”

* * *

I took the shapewear and stockings up to the flat, and to the room I had used as Milly, which I now thought of as ‘the Girls’ Room’. Vera had taken away all Milly’s clothes and replaced them with Jennifer’s – mainly voluminous house dresses, huge bras and panties, large stockings, and nighties like tents. All a far cry from Milly’s delicate and fashionable things, which she took to the company wardrobe room.

I sat on the bed and regarded my new body sadly. Of course, I knew intellectually that all the flab on my face and body was fake, but it felt real, and it certainly looked real. The transformation was so good that the experience was exactly how I’d imagined a fat middle-aged woman would feel – ugly and alone.

I went into my – that is, Steve’s – bedroom to play a video game on his PlayStation. Sitting at the desk, the chair creaked ominously under me. My mother bought it for me when I moved up to the middle school at age eleven. I had grown a lot in the last five years and really needed a new one. It was barely suitable for a smallish sixteen-year-old boy. Jennifer’s eighteen-and-a-half stone corpulence threatened its very existence. My new hips were squashed in tightly at the sides anyway. Sighing, I stood up, and to my embarrassment, the chair came with me. After a struggle I managed to work myself free. It was yet another indicator of what a stout middle-aged lady had to put up with.

Defeated, I went back to Jennifer’s bedroom. I stripped off the ghastly top and skirt and unhooked my bra. I nearly fell over forwards as my huge floppy breasts were released from their bindings. I pulled my knickers down and stepped out of them.

I ripped open the box with the black shapewear in it. It fastened at the front, so it was quite easy to step into it, wrap it around me, and button it up. It was at full stretch over my obese body but it was surprisingly comfortable. All the wobbly flesh was now held firmly in place and the difference was astonishing. It even gave me something of a waist.

I opened a packet of stockings. I sat down on the bed and struggled into them, remembering Vera’s lesson on how to avoid laddering nylons. Attaching them to the corset’s garters took me a while. I hoped it would get easier with practice – not that I wanted to be Jennifer for long enough to get that much practice.

I stood up and caught sight of myself in the wardrobe mirror. I was astonished to find my reflection quite sexy, despite my obesity – or maybe even because of it? Chacun à son goût, I suppose, but what did it all say about my developing sexuality?

I went to the wardrobe and picked out one of my least repugnant dresses, a pink, floral, ankle-length number. I stepped into it and managed to do it up with a struggle (and Vera’s Zipper Hook Helper). My mother had provided me with several pairs of shoes from the company wardrobe. I slipped on a pair of low-heeled sandals.

I looked at myself in the wardrobe mirror again. For the first time I felt that being Jennifer might not be too bad. I would be able to live as her for a couple of weeks, as long as I didn’t have to play the seedy, down-at-heel housewife again.

Unfortunately, I only had two corsets, and I would be pushing my luck to ask my mother for another, so I had to get used to washing the one I’d worn during the day before going to bed each evening. There was a large mirror over the washbasin, and I’d look at the fat lady in her nightie and curlers, ironing or washing her underwear, and wonder where my life was going.

Sleeping was difficult too. The gigantic fleshy appendages on my chest and backside made it impossible to get comfortable. With my huge boobs it was awkward to lie on my tummy, and when I lay on my back, my buttocks lifted my lower half off the bed. I quickly developed a pain in my lumbar region, which wasn’t supported at all. I tried tucking a pillow under there for support, and that helped a little, but I rolled off it when I tossed and turned during the night, putting me back to Square One. That left lying on my side, which would be intolerable for a woman with real boobs my size, and wasn’t much better for me. I couldn’t feel any pressure on the breasts themselves, but their weight pulled down on my chest and hurt my skin where they were attached.

I gave my mother a full report, as part of my duties as a test subject, but she wasn’t very sympathetic.

“You’ll get used to it,” she said.

“I don’t want to get used to it!”

“Oh, just lie back and think of England,” she said, “and the money.”

* * *

So Fred had another new programmer to work with. For the next two weeks his assistant would be a fat, middle-aged lady in various gruesome floral house dresses and other frumpy outfits. He thought this was highly amusing. Also, female programmers of my age (and girth) were rare as hen’s teeth, so now we could claim to be a real equal-opportunity employer. I pointed out that he was now Transformations’ only male employee.

He treated me exactly as he always had, but called me ‘Jennifer’. Actually sometimes he seemed a little embarrassed about the whole thing, but he and the rest of the staff soon got used to seeing me waddling between the tea room and the basement computer suite (where I had to be allocated a large, reinforced desk chair).

* * *

I was dreading what my mother would choose as my second – and hopefully last – outing as Jennifer, but eventually it came as a pleasant surprise. I was to be her partner at the Bridge Club. She was a Bridge fanatic, and played to a high standard – possibly county level. She competed in regional tournaments regularly and often finished in the prizes. Locally, she played Duplicate Bridge every Wednesday night at a club in town often with Fred. He was a scientific player; he always tried to play mathematically with the odds. Mum preferred to rely on her instincts; she called it ‘flair’. With this fundamental difference in styles, their arguments were legendary but they often made a very effective team, each compensating for the other’s weaknesses.

She had taught me to play cards when I was little. I understood ‘tricks’ and ‘trumps’ when my hands were still too small to hold thirteen cards at once. She moved me up from Whist to Bridge when I was eleven. She explained the mechanics of the bidding and the play, and then gave me a pile of her favourite books to read: Mollo & Gardener’s Card Play Technique; Eric Crowhurst’s Precision Bidding in Acol; and Hugh Kelsey’s Killing Defence at Bridge. I was fascinated and read them all from cover to cover – twice.

Soon I demanded the opportunity to play against proper opposition, and throughout my teen years I played most Saturday evenings with Mum and Fred. Our fourth was Dolly, Mum’s elderly maid of all work. She was a member of the same club and despite her age was feared and respected as a cunning and unpredictable player.

I never played there myself. Wednesday was a weeknight and the sessions finished too late when I had school in the morning. During the holidays I always seemed to be either away from home, revising for exams, or busy doing other things with my mates. My mother told me I wouldn’t enjoy it much anyway. Not many young people went there. Most of the other players were dozy old ladies or sharp, aggressive middle-aged men. She said the former were poor players and the latter were rude and unfriendly. I thought her assessment of her fellow Bridge fanatics said more about her than it did about them, or why would she be so keen to go every week? It didn’t bother me anyway; our Saturday evening games were enough for me.

But now I would be going to the club as Jennifer and partnering my mother. I dug out my books.

* * *

So that Wednesday I put on my best – i.e. least worst – dress. It was floral, as all my dresses seemed to be, and still more tent than garment, but I had come to accept that as inevitable, given my portliness. It was also low-cut, emphasising my humongous bust, but perhaps that would put some of the ‘aggressive middle-aged men’ off their game. I wore a lacy cardigan over it for decency’s sake.

Mum lent me a pearl necklace, some clip-on earrings, and a smarter handbag. I was getting used to carrying this ultimate feminine accessory but still didn’t like it much. Sharon helped me do a middle-aged lady’s evening make-up and hairstyle.

When I felt as ready as I was ever going to be, I went downstairs to meet my mother in the hall. I was early. While I waited for her, I continued to revise our bidding system.

“Well, you certainly look the part,” she said, when she finally appeared. She must have seen my anxious expression. “Don’t worry. Just remember to act like a lady and you’ll be fine. Everyone here says how good you are at being a woman. You can do this easily,” she added breezily.

In this mood she always reminded me of my primary school headmistress, a ‘jolly hockey sticks’ harridan in twin-set and pearls. She wouldn’t take no for an answer either.

I wasn’t much reassured. I followed her out to the car. As with most SUVs, the passenger seat was quite high. The combination of my weight and my tight shapewear made it quite a struggle to get in. I was also wearing my highest heels, which I wasn’t used to, as I always wore the sandals at home. I smoothed my dress down under me, turned sideways, stretched up, and flopped down in the seat like a beached whale. One of my shoes nearly came off, but I managed to catch it just in time.

“Not a great start, dear. Not very lady-like,” my mother complained, as I swung my legs round. “You’ll have to do better than that when you get out again. There might be lots of people in the car park.”

“I’m not worried about getting out,” I said. “I’ll have gravity on my side.”

“Well, just make sure you don’t fall over,” she said. “It would take four strong men to lift you up again.”

She sniggered. I may have complained about my mother’s sense of humour before…

“Very funny.” I was now engaged in a different struggle – fastening my seat belt. “I don’t think this strap is long enough to go all the way around me.”

“Of course, it is. You’re not adjusting it right.”

She leaned over to help me. With an effort she managed to slide the clip all the way to the end of its travel, which was just enough to get the belt round my enormous tummy. If I’d been any fatter, we would have had to get an extension to it. As it was, I had to arrange it between my boobs in a way that would surely have been very uncomfortable if they’d been real. I was getting a good picture of how difficult everyday life must be for a 260-lb woman.

The club met in the function hall of the local church and there was plenty of space in the adjoining car park. When my mother had brought the car to a halt and switched off the engine, I released the belt and opened the door, preparing to get out. With my current lack of agility, it seemed like a long way down from the car’s high seat to the ground. I slid out. I felt my dress, sticking to the plastic seat, ride up behind me. When I got my feet on the ground, I quickly brushed it down and made myself decent, but not before two men, getting out of their car next to ours, got a quick flash of my behind and a good view of my corset and stocking tops. As they made their way inside, they were chuckling quietly, as was my mother. I wobbled a little in my heels as we followed at a distance.

Inside the hall the women greatly outnumbered the men, and elderly women outnumbered younger ones. A couple of the less decrepit men were unfolding card tables and putting out chairs around them. An officious-looking woman was putting name slips and personal score cards on each table.

“That’s the Honourable Harriet Bairstow, the club secretary,” my mother said, out of the corner of her mouth. “She thinks she’s a good player, but she can barely count to thirteen if you ask me. She’s also a royal pain in the…”

At that moment she saw Dolly, who was just sitting down at one of the tables, and waved. We went over to join her. She was playing with Fred tonight. He hadn’t arrived yet so Dolly was occupying herself with her knitting, which she carried everywhere in her huge handbag.

As we made our way across the room, we exchanged friendly greetings with several people, most of whom gave me unashamedly curious glances. Mum had warned me that might happen. It wasn’t a large club and everyone knew everyone. A new face was always of interest. I smiled at one and all and tried to keep up with my mother. This wasn’t easy as she took long, confident strides, while I was stuck with my fatty’s waddle and little steps, to try and stay ‘lady-like’.

“You look wonderful, dear,” rasped Dolly. “Completely convincing.”

Many years of heavy smoking had all but destroyed her voice, which was barely audible over the clicking of her knitting needles. She knew how nervous I must be feeling and was trying to reassure me, unlike my no-nonsense mother, who had never had a moment’s nervousness in her life. I thanked Dolly warmly, and lowered my bulk into a dodgy-looking chair to her right. It groaned a little but held firm.

Fred arrived and joined us. My mother filled in the name slips. Apparently my last name was ‘Smith’. The four of us chatted quietly about Bridge while we waited for everyone else to take their seats. We would be playing a form of the game called ‘Duplicate Pairs’. The idea is to eliminate the luck of the cards as far as possible. This is achieved by everyone playing the same deals. The bidding and the play are conducted as in ordinary Rubber Bridge, except that the cards are not mixed together as each trick is played. The players lay the cards they play in a line on the table in front of them. When the deal is over, the score is agreed with the opponents and recorded. Then the cards, still in their respective sets of thirteen, are placed in separate slots in a special board.

At the end of each round, one of the pairs moves up to the next table and the boards that they played on that round are passed down to the table in the opposite direction. So each hand is played several times during the evening by different players and the scores compared at the end. In this way it doesn’t matter how good or bad the hands you have been dealt may be; what matters is how well you played them. For example, if you defeated a contract that was successful all the other times it was played, you would get a top score; or if you bid and made a slam that no one else had attempted, that would also earn you a top. You get two points for each pair you beat on a hand, and one point for each pair you tied with.

Like most clubs we also used bidding boxes. These devices are plastic boxes with two slots, each containing a set of bidding cards: one with thirty-five cards with symbols of bids, and the other with cards for the other calls – pass, double and redouble. Bidding boxes have several advantages over oral bidding: they reduce noise in the room; they prevent the bidding being overheard at neighbouring tables; they allow easier review of the auction if you have lost track; and they reduce the opportunity to pass unauthorised information to one’s partner (whether intentionally or not) by the manner and intonation in which one makes one’s bid. They were first used at the World Championships in 1970 because the Americans were fed up with losing to the brilliant Italians, who they assumed had to be cheating. (They weren’t – mostly.)

Some clubs – and ours was one such – have invested in an electronic scoring system. Instead of writing the score for a deal on a piece of paper, you enter it in an app on your phone. The score is then sent to a laptop over a wi-fi link. This means that the overall results are available as soon as the last board of the evening has been played.

Eventually the evening’s Tournament Director rose to start proceedings.

“Good evening, everyone,” he began. “We have nine tables tonight, so we’ll be playing a Mitchell movement with three boards a round.”

There were some groans from the older members as that meant we would be playing twenty-seven deals, and that would make for a long evening. As it was after half-past seven, we wouldn’t be finished till well after eleven. Refreshments were available throughout from the hall’s little kitchen, so we wouldn’t need to stop for a break.

With nine tables, there would be eight other pairs playing the same hands as us, so the top on each board would be sixteen points.

“Take your pair number from the table you’re starting at,” the TD continued.

Out of deference to Dolly’s age, Mum and I would move at the end of each round. That made us East-West pair 3. Fred and Dolly would be North-South pair 3 and would be stationary throughout.

“The boards have all been pre-dealt by computer as usual, so you can start to play as soon as you’re ready.”

There would normally be a lot more instructions, but everyone there was experienced with duplicate pairs. And so the evening began.

It went very well for us. We started against Fred and Dolly with two straightforward hands that would probably be average scores for both pairs, but on the third Dolly misguessed the location of a key queen and made a trick less than she could have. Others might do likewise, but I estimated that would be worth about 75% - twelve out of the sixteen points available. It’s wise to keep a running estimate of your score, so that you can decide how hard to press in the later stages.

The TD called for the first move. Fred, who as the North player did the scoring, passed the boards to Table 2. Mum and I gathered up our things and prepared to move to the East-West seats at Table 4.

“Don’t forget your handbag, Jennifer dear,” my mother said sharply.

She was right. I had picked up my pen and personal scorecard but forgotten the one item that a real woman would have been most careful about.

“Charlie, by the way,” Mum whispered.

This was the code we had agreed. At Bridge, it really helps to know the standard of the opposition. Everyone in the room was a stranger to me but my mother knew them all. Our next opponents, North-South at Table 4, were ‘Charlie’, that is ‘C’ standard. Liberties could be taken against such opposition, which Mum quickly demonstrated. The cards lay our way on the first hand of the round and she pushed to a horrible slam.

“I’d better take this before the rats get at it,” said the little old lady to my left, leading out her ace, and showing beyond doubt that Mum’s assessment of her ability was spot-on.

It was the only lead to let the awful contract make, and I quickly wrapped up the rest of the tricks with the aid of a finesse and some even breaks. I was happy to estimate 90% of the match points for that one, and that was conservative. Our opponents congratulated us, without seeming to notice how badly they had been robbed.

One of them asked me where I got my lovely dress. I realised they weren’t here for the intellectual challenge, but for the social chit-chat. I had no idea where my ugly floral tent had come from, so I smiled sweetly and told her it was very old and I couldn’t remember where I’d originally bought it. Female courtesy conventions required me to compliment her in return, so I told her how much I loved her hairdo, which was an interesting mixture of colours not found in nature.

The opponents played the next hand and their declarer miscounted trumps. We had to do nothing clever in defence to beat a contract that would be made by everyone else.

As the evening progressed my mother pronounced most of our opponents to be ‘Baker’ with a couple more ‘Charlies’. She didn’t push the boat out again quite as far as she had against the little old ladies at Table 4, but we made steady progress, and I reckoned we were in with a good chance of winning. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the game when things went right.

On the minus side, it was a constant strain to concentrate on the hands while having to chat to our opponents like a middle-aged lady with other middle-aged ladies; or put up with the rudeness and snide remarks of superior men who assumed I was just another dozy old biddy.

Constantly having to heave my plumpness into and out of the hard seats didn’t help either, and my feet were hurting in my unaccustomed high heels. Worse still, the weight of my prosthesis, combined with the tightness of my corset, pressed uncomfortably on my bladder. I had to make several embarrassing trips to the Ladies, a problem I fully intended to raise with my mother later. Well she said she wanted to know how the transformation made me feel.

“Handbag!” she hissed, as I got up for my third trip to the toilet at around twenty-past ten. “And don’t forget to check your make-up while you’re there.”

I realised I had left most of my lipstick on my coffee cup.

When I returned, Mum led me to Table 1 for the penultimate round. I was introduced to Harriet Bairstow and her meek-looking husband, George. It was immediately clear that Harriet and Mum didn’t like each other much.

“We’re always glad to welcome visitors here,” George said cheerfully, clearly unaware of the hostility between my partner and his.

I smiled and said hello. Harriet looked as though any friend of Ingrid’s would be an enemy of hers until proven otherwise. I took an instant dislike to her too, but that might have been because she was slim and expensively dressed, while I was neither (especially not slim). Internally I wondered at my reaction. Being ungainly and overweight, any woman might be jealous of someone as elegant as Harriet, but why would I feel that way? After all, I knew my flab was fake, though I found myself forgetting that more and more. Was Jennifer taking me over? Was I getting used to being a middle-aged fat lady? Something else to discuss with my mother later.

The first two boards against the Bairstows were uneventful. They bid and made game, probably average-minus for us; then we bid and made game, hopefully average-plus. The third board was much more competitive.

I had a decent balanced hand. I reached for the One Heart card in my bidding box. George overcalled One Spade. My mother bid Two Spades. As we would rarely want to play in a suit the opponents had bid, we used this ‘cue bid’ to show a sound raise of partner’s suit. Good, that confirmed that we had the majority of the high cards and the hand belonged to us.

Harriet put down the red Double card to show her partner that she had Spade support.

I put down the bidding cards for Three Hearts. This was the weakest call I could make; a pass would have transferred the decision to my partner and would have been at least an invitation to continue. I was near minimum with no useful distributional values.

George passed, as did my mother showing that she had nothing extra either.

Harriet bid Three Spades, putting the cards down crisply and confidently.

Well I knew what to do to that, and I certainly didn’t want Mum to bid Four Hearts. Out came my red Double card.

It was a massacre. My mother led a trump. Knowing we had the majority of the high cards, she realised it was important to cut down ruffs in dummy. We led trumps every time we were on lead and poor George finished three down, more than game our way would have been worth even if we had bid and made it, which we weren’t going to. Harriet was furious.

“What did you have?” she screamed at her unfortunate partner, though having watched the play with ever-increasing fury, she would have known by now if she was a decent player.

“King, Queen, Ten to five Spades and an outside Ace,” I murmured absently, having been working out his hand myself. “But the cards lay badly for you…”

It was a perfectly reasonable one-level overcall. Harriet had been worth a raise to Two Spades – just – but no more, and she had shown that by her Double. Her Three Spades bid was what sank their ship.

She looked daggers at me but quickly turned back to berating George. My mother caught my eye. She frowned and shook her head, almost imperceptibly. She was quite right. It was bad form to get involved in the opponents’ combative post mortem.

My mother was gloating quietly to herself as we moved for the last round. “I knew that would happen,” she said quietly, when there was no chance of being overheard over Harriet’s railing at her husband. “She hates being outbid.”

“It was a bit lucky to play her on that deal then,” I said. “It could have been tailor-made to exploit her weakness.”

We grinned at each other, which would have been a touching mother-son moment, except that at the moment I looked more like her fat younger sister than her offspring. When we reached Table 2, and my mother saw the opposition, she muttered ‘Able’ sotto voce to me for the first time. The good-looking older gentleman in the North seat introduced himself as Alf. His partner, Colin, was his son. Colin was only a little older than me – that is, than Steve – though obviously I – that is, Jennifer – had to pretend to be old enough to be his mother.

“A pleasure to meet you, gentlemen,” I said. “And it’s so nice to see someone of your age playing with all us old duffers,” I said to Colin, who greeted my matronly comments with a stony look.

If these two were really ‘A’ class, we would have to be on our mettle. Three bad boards against them could cost us first place, although they would probably have inflicted equal damage on all the other East-West pairs too.

The first deal was a straightforward game in no-trumps with nine easy tricks, no more, no less; bound to be average. On the second hand, Colin pre-empted on a long weak suit, but Mum and I had no difficulty reaching our game, which was easy to make, knowing so much about Colin’s hand from his bid. I tried to estimate how many tricks Colin would make if we had simply doubled his Three Hearts for penalties. I thought his sacrifice would have cost less than the value of our game, so the board was probably average-plus for us.

On the last hand of the evening my mother got carried away again. I was strong enough to open and then stretched a little to jump the bidding on my long spade suit. Mum had a powerhouse, so I soon found myself in another slam; a grand, this time, Seven Spades. I needed all the tricks. Colin led a trump, the standard lead against a grand slam, trying not to give anything away.

When dummy went down, I saw that this was a much better contract than the earlier small slam, being no worse than finding the king of diamonds in Alf’s hand on my right, or an even break in the Heart suit.

I looked for extra chances. I drew trumps, cashed the Ace of Clubs and ruffed a club. Then I crossed to dummy with the Ace of Hearts and ruffed another club. Nothing good happened there; dummy’s Jack wasn’t a winner. Before testing the hearts or taking the critical finesse, I decided to run the rest of my long suit.

Colin usually played quickly. He flicked his cards out of his hand with an audible snap, and tossed them down on the table with an air of authority. No doubt he thought this affectation would intimidate us middle-aged ladies, and we’d make mistakes through our nervousness. Good thing I only looked like a middle-aged lady.

Nevertheless, he had an insufferable air of smugness, as though he knew the contract was going down. So I was very much afraid he had the crucial king over my ace and queen. But as I reached the end of the Spade suit, his discarding had slowed down considerably and he was looking increasingly uncomfortable.

It wasn’t hard to see why. I had kept all three of dummy’s remaining hearts, two of which were winners. They were on his left. If he had started with four or more hearts and also had the king of diamonds, as I suspected, the last spade would squeeze him. He would either have to let a heart go, establishing the small one in dummy, or bare his king.

On the last spade he reluctantly threw a diamond, as I thought he would. I discarded dummy’s last club. If I was right, he now held three hearts to the jack and the diamond king alone. If he was as good a player as he thought he was, he would have seen this position coming and bared the king smoothly earlier on. With no reason to suspect the odds-against squeeze had succeeded, I would cross to dummy and take the losing finesse into his stiff king.

I took the two remaining top hearts. Colin followed throughout but Alf discarded on the last one. So Colin definitely started with four and had the master jack left. But was his other card the diamond king? I would look silly if Alf had it all along! After all, I now knew that he had begun with five diamonds to Colin’s three, so the odds were that Alf had the crucial king…

But you have to follow your instincts, don’t you? I called for dummy’s diamond, Alf followed low, and I… played the ace. With hatred in his eyes, Colin dropped the king, and I tossed the now winning queen on the table to claim the grand slam.

“What made you play the ace?” Colin asked rudely. “You must have known Dad had more diamonds than me.”

“Female intuition,” I said sweetly.

“Well played, partner,” my mother said, for what I think were the first words of praise she had given me that year, or pretty much any year.

“Yes, indeed,” smiled Alf, graciously. (He did have a lovely smile, I – that is, Jennifer – noticed, and he was quite handsome for a gentleman in his fifties.) “But you did rather give the game away there, old son,” he continued, chuckling.

He was a good sport and appreciated competent card play, which was probably a rarity at this club. He entered the score. Colin had gone very red.

That board had taken a while to play, for obvious reasons, and ours was the last table to finish. The other players, who had all finished before us, were happily discussing the evening’s hands and making quite a hubbub. I hadn’t noticed the noise, having been concentrating on the play.

I remembered to pick up my handbag and thanked our opponents. Then we returned to Table 3 where Fred and Dolly were waiting for us.

“Any good?” Fred asked.

“Not bad,” my mother said, with her usual indifference. “Jennifer made a grand slam on a squeeze and a good guess on the last board.”

‘Good card reading’, I think she meant.

“Gosh!” said Dolly appreciatively. “Well done, you!”

“As soon as I discovered the layout of the hearts I knew the contract could be made as long as I could guess who had the king of diamonds,” I explained. “If Alf had it I could finesse; if young Colin had it, he would be squeezed down to the singleton king. Fortunately he didn’t see the squeeze coming and he made the situation obvious…”

“‘Young Colin’?” laughed Fred. “He’s older than you!”

“Don’t be silly, Frederick!” I said. “I’m old enough to be his mother!”

Everyone laughed at that, even Mum. Well, her mouth turned upwards at the corners a little.

Dolly lowered her voice, though its hoarseness rendered her attempts at secrecy unnecessary. “We middle-aged fat ladies can still have fun, can’t we?” she said, and winked.

She had obviously overheard me complaining about my condition earlier in the week. I was amused that she still thought of herself as ‘middle-aged’. She was seventy, if she was a day.

“I have the results,” announced the TD. Everyone fell silent. “The winners North-South with 57.5% are Alf and Colin Morris.”

Everyone clapped briefly. I was glad the last board hadn’t cost Alf the top spot.

“The winners East-West with a truly magnificent 71.8% are Ingrid Jones and our visitor, Jennifer Smith.”

The applause was much longer and louder.

We got up to leave. I would need to visit the Ladies again soon. As I struggled to my feet, Alf came over to congratulate us.

“A great pleasure, Jennifer,” he said, taking my hand. “I do hope we’ll see you again. Colin could do with a few more lessons like tonight.”

He was charming. I smiled. Then, still holding my hand, he drew me aside. He lowered his voice, and when he was sure no one else could hear, continued, “You know, my dear, my late wife was a fuller-figured lady too. You are undoubtedly the most beautiful – and sexiest – lady I have met since she passed. Could I persuade you to have dinner with me one evening soon?”

My God! How the hell did this happen? Blushing like mad, I explained that I was flattered but I was only visiting Ingrid for a week or so, and my time was fully committed.

He sighed. “Oh well, you can’t blame a fellow for trying.” Then he shocked me by winking and actually kissing my hand! “Faint heart never won fair lady,” he said.

Fair lady – me? At my size? Clearly there was no accounting for taste.

Jennifer’s heart was all a-flutter within me as we made our way to the car park. Dolly and my mother were giggling like elderly schoolgirls, which was completely out of character for Mum.

“Alf is a widower, by the way,” she said. “Colin’s mother passed away a couple of years ago. Breast cancer. Very sad.”

“I’m sure we could arrange to get the two of you together,” added Dolly, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Yes, there’s a mixed pairs event at the club next week,” said Fred. “Alf will be looking for a partner.”

For a moment I was tempted. Then I mentally slapped myself. What was I thinking? It would be tantamount to a date! I put it down to enjoying fooling people with my impersonation. Not everyone could play a person of a different age, sex, and size so convincingly.

Yes, that must be it.

* * *

I served out the remainder of my sentence as Jennifer, without my mother forcing me to make any further public appearances. Strangely, I got used to being a fat lady, and realised I might actually miss my shapewear, tent dresses, stockings, make-up, and wigs in various colours and styles. On my last night I asked Mum if we could go out for dinner to a restaurant where no one would know us. I wouldn’t have minded a second visit to the Bridge Club, but it was a needless risk.

It was a lovely evening. I was dolled up to the nines and I attracted some appreciative glances from male diners, despite my excessive bulk. I realised that we fat women can still be attractive to the opposite sex, if we make an effort.

My mother complimented me on my performance. We talked about my experiences as Milly and Jennifer, and I accepted they hadn’t been all bad. I also told her how the perfection of the disguise had an unexpected effect. I had found myself actually becoming Milly and Jennifer to some extent. I admitted I would miss them both. Mum looked quite thoughtful after that. No doubt she was wondering how she could exploit it in her marketing efforts.

In any case she made me pose for some photographs in lots of different clothes, wigs and make-up. I didn’t mind, as long as I couldn’t be recognised as Steve. It was actually quite fun.

My prosthesis held up for the whole of the two weeks, but Mum didn’t object to me removing it so I could go off to Newquay with my mates for the last week of August. The bonus she had promised proved to be surprisingly generous. I could now afford surfboard rental and lessons too. I could also have afforded to buy my rounds, except that I couldn’t convince any of the pub landlords that I was eighteen.

* * *

So now we knew we could photograph people with our high-speed, high-definition cameras; produce perfect 3D models of them in the computer; match them against their desired shapes; and produce perfect prostheses for their transformation.

As Vera had predicted, she, Sharon and my mother were soon inundated with customers old and new. Mum even had to take on a receptionist and a secretary to deal with enquiries and handle clients.

She remodelled most of the first floor to provide hotel-style accommodation for up to four clients whose transformations needed an overnight stay. Two local girls came in every day to keep the rooms clean and look after the guests. We also extended the kitchens and hired catering staff.

Soon there was call for additional services, such as training in feminine movement, which led to a lot more work for Alice Parr. Of course, all our staff were made aware that discretion was paramount. No one apart from my mother would ever know the real identities of any of our clients and even she always used their new names.

Business boomed.

Appendix – Jennifer’s Squeeze

Here is the hand on which Jennifer made a Grand Slam in Spades against Alf and Colin:

The bidding:

(1) Conventional – asking for aces
(2) Two aces plus the Queen of trumps (Spades)

The end position: when Jennifer leads her last spade, Colin is squeezed down to the singleton King of Diamonds. Declarer still has a guess: did Alf always have the key King or has Colin been squeezed? Jennifer guessed correctly because of Colin’s initial air of confidence, and his obvious increasing discomfort as he is forced to make five discards on the run of the Spade suit.

Annie and her Granny

By Susannah Donim

Steve’s mother runs the secretive Transformations consultancy. This means he has a number of interesting jobs over the years.

Chapter 3 – A Few More Little Jobs for Mother

Transformations has developed some new, even more interesting technology, and of course a test subject is needed.

I didn’t have to endure any more testing after my last day as Jennifer. My mother was satisfied with the quality of the new prosthetics and the 3D printing process that produced them. I had thoroughly enjoyed helping Fred with the software for the photographic processing, and the experience had proved invaluable. In fact, I’ve worked with him through most of my summer holidays ever since (fortunately without having to be a test subject again).

Two years later I did well enough in my A levels to get a place at Cambridge to read Computer Science, and Fred’s patient teaching made my university course easy. So now, at the end of my second year, I had come home as soon as I could get away, expecting to work with him for most of the long vacation. This would count as ‘work experience’ for my degree course.

* * *

Very early on my mother had converted one of the first-floor rooms into a staff common room and instituted the tradition of morning coffee and afternoon tea. She found this was a great way of getting the various specialists to exchange ideas. It seemed to work well.

After finishing unpacking, I made my way downstairs. When I got there, Dolly was just wheeling the trolley in, immaculate as ever in her maroon polyester uniform and apron. She still worked in the kitchens and was a key member of the cleaning staff, although she mostly stuck to vacuuming and dusting now, as she had difficulty bending down low. She was our oldest and longest-serving staff member and was well past normal retirement age. She was medium height with only a slight stoop, but she moved slowly due to her age and considerable girth. Everyone liked her and as far as I knew she had very little else in her life beyond her granddaughter and her work with us. My mother said there would be a job for her here for as long as she wanted one. She had been especially supportive when my father left us, though I could barely remember those dark days.

“Oh hello, dear,” she said when she saw me. “Ingrid didn’t mention she was expecting you today.”

She started unloading side plates and cakes onto the long table against the wall.

“No, I decided to leave early. There was nothing to keep me there after exams. I’m not a rower and I wasn’t going to a May Ball.”

“Oh, what happened to that girl you liked? What was her name?”

“Rachel. It didn’t work out.”

My so-called girlfriend had started seeing a graduate rugby player behind my back. He was solid muscle and about a foot taller than me, so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was doing Land Economy or something; one of those strange courses that seem to be reserved for postgraduates on mysterious scholarships, purely to strengthen a sports team for the annual varsity match against Oxford. Not everyone at Cambridge is a genius.

“I never promised we were exclusive, you know,” Rachel had said.

Well I had wanted it to be exclusive, and I thought she did too.

“That’s a shame,” Dolly said. A bright idea seemed to occur to her. “You should meet my granddaughter, Annie. You’ll like her. She’s just started working with your mother. She’s moved in with me until she finds her own place in the area.”

“That would be nice,” I said, with a totally bogus smile. The last thing I needed just at the moment was a blind date arranged by Dolly. I was sure her Annie would feel the same way.

I took a cup of tea and a Chelsea bun and sat down in an armchair with that morning’s Times. A couple of other people I knew wandered in and came over to say hello.

“Hey, stranger!” said Sharon. She gave me a hug and kissed my cheek. “How did your exams go?”

“Not too bad. I’m probably OK for a 2:1.”

“That means he’s walked a First,” said Vera through a mouthful of fruit scone, “like last year. But why are you back already? Shouldn’t you be boozing and womanising till the end of term?”

Overhearing that, Dolly caught my eye from over by the tea trolley and tutted sadly. I explained about Rachel.

“Aww, never mind, love,” said Sharon. “There are plenty more fish in the sea. Hey, you should meet Dolly’s granddaughter. She’s working for your Mum now, and she’s lovely.”

At that moment, right on cue, my mother walked in. She was talking animatedly to the prettiest girl I had seen for quite a while. Mum saw me and waved.

“Steven! How lovely!” she said. “I didn’t expect you for a couple of weeks.” A cloud came over her face. “You haven’t been thrown out, have you?”

“Of course, he hasn’t!” said Vera. “He just couldn’t wait to come home and start working for you and Fred again.”

I reassured her and explained about Rachel for the third time in ten minutes. She commiserated.

“So I thought I might as well come home. My tutor waived the residency requirement, saying I could make it up next term. She knew I had a summer job to go to, one which was related to my course.” I grinned. “I didn’t mention that I would be working for my mother, and that the job would have waited.”

At that point the girl she came in with made her way over to us carrying two cups of tea.

“Here you are, Ingrid,” she said, giving one to my mother.

“Thank you, dear. Annie, I’ve told you about my son, Steven, haven’t I? Steven, this is Annie. She’s just joined us. She’ll be working with me on some exciting new projects. Her speciality is stage make-up and facial prosthetics. We’re hoping that you and Fred will sort out the programs for 3D printing…”

“You’re breaking your own rule, Ingrid,” said Fred, who had just come up behind her. “No shop talk at tea break. I’ll tell Steve all about it when he actually starts work.” He turned to me. “How are you, kiddo? Great to see you. You’re looking fit. College life obviously agrees with you. How’s that girl of yours? Rachel, wasn’t it?”

He sensed everyone looking daggers at him.

“What? What did I say?”

Without me noticing, Vera and Sharon had slipped away quietly, and Fred and my mother went over to get some cake and talk to Dolly, so somehow I found myself alone with Annie. We soon found we had a lot in common. She had just finished her degree course in Theatrical Arts at London, and was also waiting for her results. So she was a year ahead of me, but we were the same age because I had taken a gap year and she hadn’t.

Despite the ‘no shop talk’ rule (which everyone but Fred ignored anyway) we soon found ourselves talking about the business. I explained that I had helped write the software for our unique 3D imaging and printing.

“Fred’s the creative genius, of course,” I admitted, “I just helped with the coding, but I’m hoping I can be more useful now.”

“Fred’s great,” she said. “I really like him…” She paused. “If I’m not being too nosey… What is he to you and Ingrid?”

“Well, it’s complicated…” I began.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have intruded.”

“No, no, it’s OK,” I hastened to reassure her. “You should know, if you’re going to work here. There’s quite enough secrecy as it is, and you’re Dolly’s granddaughter, so you’re practically family, aren’t you?” She smiled. “It’s like this. The house and grounds belong to my father. It’s one of those ‘entailed’ estates, passed down strictly through the male line.”

“What – like in Pride and Prejudice? I thought that would be illegal by now.”

“I don’t think so… it’s still exactly like in Jane Austen’s time. So, when my father dies it will all come to me, as the eldest, actually only son. Not that I expect to change anything. The business makes good money, according to my mother, and these old houses are expensive to run. Anyway there’s not much of the original estate left. Most of the land has been sold off to pay taxes and so on. I don’t know if I’ll work here after I graduate, but I’ll keep it just as it is for as long as my mother still wants to run her business from here.”

“But where’s your father?”

“He left us when I was little. I hardly remember him. At first, after he moved out, he would come and visit at weekends, but gradually his visits became less and less frequent until they stopped altogether. As far as I know, he’s still alive – well, he must be or I would have been contacted by the solicitors or whoever when I turned eighteen. I think my mother knows where he is and how to reach him, but she’s kept it from me. I’ve asked her many times but she won’t budge.”

“She’s quite a strong character, your mother,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Oh, you’ve noticed?” I smiled. “When Dad moved out, he took nothing with him, she says, and he gave her exclusive use of the estate, with Power of Attorney and everything.” I took a breath. “Fred was his best friend, and Dad asked him to look after Mum and me. And he did, in every way but one. He’s been a substitute father to me, but he’s gay, so of course…”

She caught her breath. “Oh I didn’t realise…”

“No, he doesn’t advertise, or practise much, as far as I know. He keeps a couple of rooms upstairs for when he’s working late, but he doesn’t actually live here, and he never brings anyone back. So, I have no idea what he gets up to in the evenings and weekends, or holidays.”

“What about the business? How did that start?”

“Mum set it up. She had some experience in disguises, make-up, and so on. Come to think of it, she’s never told me what she did to learn all that. I think being secretive comes naturally to her. It can be quite annoying. Later Fred had the idea of using 3D imaging and printing to make much more convincing prosthetics. We started doing that four years ago.”

No need for her to know the role – roles – I played in getting that going.

“Well, thanks for telling me all that.”

“That’s OK. You’re easy to talk to.”

I swore I was off the fair sex for the summer after Rachel, but…

“If you want to talk some more, I’m free on Saturday night…?”

She was, and we did – that Saturday and every chance we had that summer.

* * *

The following Monday morning I was pleased to have been invited to sit in on the regular weekly meeting of the Transformations senior staff. Annie saved me a place next to her. Fred was there of course. The other attendees included Vera, Sharon and Alice Parr, the only member of staff apart from my mother who used her surname with customers. She maintained that having to call her ‘Miss Parr’ ensured her students treated her with respect. Mind you, I had no idea whether it was her real name, or even whether she was married or not.

My mother used her maiden name, McLaughlin, at work. No client ever knew our family name, ‘Jones’, which she used everywhere else. She strode in at ten o’clock on the dot.

“Morning, everyone,” she called above the chatter.

A respectful silence fell. It was like being back at school and my mother was the headmistress.

“As you all know, we’re very good at body prosthetics,” she began, “and that’s fine for clients who aren’t too concerned about being recognised. So far, the majority of our business has been concerned with helping men disguise themselves and live as women. Often they have no need to change their features – either they don’t care if they’re recognised, or they will be living in an environment where they won’t encounter their family or old friends at all. So giving them a new female physique, plus hair and make-up, is often sufficient.

“But the face is obviously a very important part of any transformation,” my mother continued. “Many clients have features which are too obviously masculine to make convincing women.”

She was looking pointedly in my direction as she said this, presumably because it wasn’t a problem with me, Mr Blanditty Bland.

“The point is that many men have quite acceptably feminine faces. That’s why female-to-male transsexuals rarely need surgery to give them squarer jaws or stronger foreheads. They can get away with having feminine features, whereas transwomen with strong masculine faces have great difficulty living in role. Male-to-females often need surgery to pass. The best surgeons begin with a lower and mid-level facelift, to smooth away masculine, middle-aged jowls and produce more youthful, plumper, feminine cheeks. Next, they do a brow-lift, which also smooths out any masculine groove between the eyebrows. Then they will usually reshape the nose to make it smaller and rounder. Finally, they shorten the distance between the nose and upper lip, lifting the lip and making it fuller. That, by the way, is both the simplest and the most feminising procedure of all.

“If everything works, there will be no need for implants, fillers, or Botox, but the surgery is still painful and expensive. We can mimic most of that with our facial prosthetics. It’s not a permanent solution obviously, but it’s a good first step, enabling a client to live as a convincing female for long enough to be sure that full SRS is what he wants. Also, many of our clients have begun to ask whether we can disguise them so that they are unrecognisable in their new lives. We believe we can address both requirements by providing facial prosthetics which completely change the features.”

She paused. I appreciated this overview of the Transformations services, though presumably her longer-serving staff knew most of it already. But I could tell by the reactions round the room that what she said next was completely new to everybody.

“It should also be possible to make a client look like somebody else, which would be very exciting,” she said, with dramatic understatement.

“To make them look like another person, you mean?” I said. “Someone… real?”

“Yes,” she said, annoyed at being interrupted. “I intend to offer such a service as soon as possible, and that is why I am delighted that Annie has joined us.”

Smiles all round, and a smattering of applause. Everyone had met Annie by now, and her obvious enthusiasm and sunny disposition were already proving popular.

“You all know her qualifications, and as she develops her designs, she will be working closely with all of us. Fred, where are we with the new equipment for capturing details of the head and face? Did you talk to the chap that Daisy mentioned?”

“Yes, that was Josh at MoCap Studios in Bath. We need images of the shape of the head, the contours of the face, and the texture of the skin, in very fine detail. Josh reckoned the best way to capture what we need for 3D printing would be to use the same system they use for motion capture. Each tiny sensor transmits a signal to a receiver on a nearby computer, which can register its position relative to a reference plane to a thousandth of a millimetre. With all of those readings our software could construct a very accurate wireframe 3D image of the model’s head and face.”

Some of his audience looked confused.

“But why do we need motion capture sensors?” asked Vera, voicing all our thoughts. “Our subjects will keep still while we record them, won’t they? We’re not going to start making films, are we?”

Fred hurried to explain.

“MoCap use CGI for rejuvenating or aging an actor’s face, or for turning him into an alien or a monstrous version of himself. In this way, when he smiles, say, all the laugh lines, wrinkles and dimples move on the movie creature’s face precisely as they do on the actor’s real face. We need the same, but for a real-life model, as we can’t correct our errors in post-production. The sensors Josh recommends are a bit more expensive than any alternatives but they’re by far the most accurate. They will send continuous real-time signals to the receiver, so we can see how the disguised version of the face on the computer screen moves and changes as the model’s expression changes. We believe that will give us the information we need to make the necessary prostheses using our usual 3D printing techniques. We can also use the sensors for other purposes, like animating the images for advertising, and so on.”

Not that we actually advertised as such, but we did put out an online newsletter to our regular clients, and encouraged them to forward it to any of their friends and contacts who they thought might be interested.

“What about the software?” I asked.

“The sensor manufacturers bundle data capture software with the product,” Fred said. “We just have to customise the interface to the 3D printer.”

“Which we’ve done before,” I said.

“Indeed. It will be a little different, but much of the basic processing will use the same modules as the torso imaging. They calculate the variances between the client’s head and face and the proposed disguise.” He turned to my mother. “I’m going to ask Steve to work with Annie for the last part. That will be to build the 3D model of the client’s head, and print the prosthetic pieces needed to change the face to the desired new features.”

That would be great! I would be working closely with Annie all summer.

“Do you have any concerns from what you’ve heard, Annie?” my mother asked.

“Only that when it comes to making facial prosthetics to make you look like another real person, there are limits,” she said. “We can make prosthetics to duplicate another person’s features. We can stretch thin layers of imitation skin over wrinkles to hide them and make you look younger – up to a point, anyway – and we can add latex wrinkles to make you look older; but there’s not much you can do if the shapes of the two people’s skulls are too different. Also, you can’t disguise big disparities in their facial architectures; for example, if your eyes are significantly closer together than theirs, or if the distances between the brow and nose, or the nose and mouth, are too different. If you have a small nose we can make it bigger, but not vice versa; or we can elongate a short chin to match someone else with a long one, but we can’t do the reverse. That would all take major surgery.”

My mother was nodding.

“Yes, all good points. There will always be limitations of that nature; I see that. Thank you, Annie.”

“And of course, the MoCap technology can’t always be used for making you look like another person, can it?” I said. Some of the group looked blank. “Well, sometimes we won’t be able to get our target in here to attach our little sensors to them, will we? Sometimes we’ll need to be able to work from photos, or even just a description.”

“Yes, I think we all understand that, Steven,” my mother said, a little tetchily, I thought.

“Perhaps we could hire a police sketch artist, part-time,” I said, not altogether seriously.

“The plan is to gradually build up a database of skull types and facial architectures,” said Fred. “Then when we only have a photograph to work from, we can try superimposing the features on the three or four best fits from the database, until we get as close as we can.”

“But first we have to get as many complete images online as possible,” Mum added. “That means everyone here will be subjected to the process; also any of our clients who are willing to help; and anyone else we can think of, short of pulling people in off the street. We still have to maintain our privacy.”

“You first though, kiddo,” said Fred amiably. “We only have you for a few weeks before you go back to college. Besides, you’re used to being our primary test subject, aren’t you?”

I shushed him as surreptitiously as I could. I’d rather Annie not find out about Milly and Jennifer and how I spent that summer four years ago.

* * *

At our first planning session Annie and I agreed that we would each spend a few days researching. She already knew a lot about theatrical make-up, masks, wigs and so on from her course, but she would investigate further, especially regarding the materials required. Fred would need to know whether the fluid plastic he used in the 3D printer for prosthetics would work for face pieces, or whether he would have to go back to his German supplier for something new.

Meanwhile I would investigate facial recognition techniques, which we agreed would be the basis of the photographic processing. The principles would be the same as for 3D modelling of the torso, except that many more reference points would be needed, each corresponding to one of the little motion capture sensors. The 3D model of the face and skull would then be constructed by ‘joining the dots’ again.

The requirement for more ‘dots’ meant we would need to process much greater volumes of data, faster. The computers would have to be upgraded for that, which Fred was understandably excited about.

My mother also invited Annie and me to sit in on some of her client interviews, so that we could begin to get a feel for what she had to deal with. The most common problem was that most male customers were bigger and broader than women of the same height, but it was hard to get them to accept that they would only make convincing women if they let us pad them out – a lot, in some cases. Sometimes it took all her diplomatic skills to persuade them that they were never going to be Angelina Jolie. The fair ship, HMS Petite, had sailed for most of them long ago. If they wanted to be convincing, Hattie Jacques was more likely to be their future.

I didn’t get to see many of these client interviews in the end. For some reason, most of the clients didn’t mind Annie sitting in with my mother, but they didn’t feel comfortable with a man watching them spill their innermost desires. Mum offered to help me resurrect Milly or Jennifer so I could join in, but I passed.

* * *

Outside work Annie and I were inseparable. We spent our evenings – and nights – together whenever we could. My mother was quite relaxed about Annie pottering around the flat at all hours and in various states of undress. I was a little surprised by this, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been. Mum was many things – most of them disagreeable – but she certainly wasn’t a prude. My bedroom door had a lock on it, but we were never disturbed anyway.

Annie gradually took over my second wardrobe and chest of drawers. I moved the clothes I wore least often into what I still thought of as ‘Milly and Jennifer’s Room’. Annie asked me how it came to be known as that. Before I could scrape up an answer that was neither embarrassing nor a lie, my mother said they were lodgers we once had, which I suppose was sort of true. It was another example of her ability to find shades of grey.

Annie rarely invited me back to her grandmother’s house, although Dolly must have known we were sleeping together. In fact, I’m pretty sure she was pleased, and keen to take the credit for matchmaking. She certainly continued to greet us both at tea and coffee breaks with a smile and a laugh.

I was definitely falling in love with Annie, but I didn’t say so. I don’t know if she felt the same way; I didn’t dare ask in my insecurity. Rachel must have hurt me more than I thought. Or maybe I was just being stupidly male.

At work Fred was now delegating more sophisticated tasks to me as my knowledge and confidence grew. I also lightened his load by taking over managing the network, which was always a chore. But progress on the new prosthetic systems was slow. Annie would soon need access to the computer models Fred and I were developing, but we were finding the motion capture sensors a pig to calibrate. The problem was with the reference plane which refused to settle and stabilise if the subject moved. In the end it was easiest to provide a set of clamps to hold the head still. After that we started to make progress.

* * *

One day, mindful that my mother was not the most sensitive parent on the planet (to say the least) Fred asked me how I was doing, personally.

“It’s great to see you and Annie together,” he said kindly. “Are you over that Rachel girl?”

“Rachel who?”

He laughed.

“By the way, Fred,” I began, “how do you feel about this new venture – providing impersonation as well as transformation?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, the more I think about it, the less I like it. If it works, a client could impersonate anyone whose photograph he could produce for us to work from. How many legitimate uses could there be for that? I can think of maybe two: the personal security business and the ‘look-alikes’ trade.”

Fred said nothing. I took his silence as encouragement to continue.

“A professional bodyguard could disguise himself as the client and act as a decoy for kidnappers or assassins. I suppose the look-alike business is OK, as long as it’s done for entertainment only, not for deception; but the whole point of the technology is that it should genuinely be good enough to deceive. It will probably be too expensive and laborious for just a party or a prank.”

Fred was nodding.

“Meanwhile the applications of truly convincing impersonation technology for the purposes of fraud – or worse – are too many to count.”

“Have you talked to your mother about this?”

“I tried to, but she wasn’t interested. She just repeated that she never lets her clients reveal their motives for using our services, and what we don’t know can’t hurt us. She’s like an arms manufacturer. She only makes the bombs; she doesn’t drop them on anybody.”

He winced at my metaphor but didn’t argue.

“To be honest, it’s been bothering me too,” he said, “but I’m not sure what to do about it. You know how difficult it is to get your mother to change her mind. She’s just like Margaret Thatcher was – always convinced she’s right.”

Neither of us had anything further to say. Having shared my concerns, I stopped worrying. I would be spending the whole summer with Annie…

* * *

“That’s not too tight, is it?”

Annie was screwing in the clamps which would hold my head still.

“No, it’s fine… owww!”

“Sorry,” she said, unscrewing the left clamp slightly.

She and Fred had spent half an hour sticking little micro-sensors to my skin. They were all over my head, face and neck. I looked like I had the worst case of acne in history.

“Just try moving your head a little,” called Fred from the workstation on the other side of the room.

I did, without success.

“OK,” he continued, “I think we’re all set. The reference plane is fixed and nothing happened when you tried to move. When I say ‘go’, you can begin.”

Annie had found something for me to read which she hoped would exercise all the muscles in my face. As my head movements were now severely restricted, she had rigged up a sort of lectern and put one of my favourite books on it, opening it at an especially good bit.

“Just relax, Steve. Read out loud and try to make all the appropriate expressions to reflect the story,” she said. “Laugh and smile at the funny parts; frown where it’s sad; and so on. We need it to be natural – don’t pull funny faces – but we want you to use all your facial muscles, if possible. Then, when we stick prosthetic pieces on you to make you look like someone else, they’ll fit the contours of your face perfectly and move naturally with all the lines and creases.”

“I get it,” I said, and began reading.

It was an extract from Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad. I tried to react as much as possible to Terry’s fabulous prose. It wasn’t difficult. Granny Weatherwax always made me laugh – and cry. Annie turned the pages for me as if the book was a musical score and I was a concert pianist. After about fifteen minutes my face was starting to ache. If I didn’t have any wrinkles before, I was pretty sure I would now. Eventually Fred told me I could stop.

“Processing the raw data will take about an hour,” he said. “I need a break.”

So we went upstairs to the lounge and sat with cups of coffee and chocolate digestives.

“Fred said you’ve been a test subject before?” Annie asked.

Fred had discreetly picked up a copy of the day’s paper and taken a seat over by the window. He was having a go at the crossword.

“Yes,” I admitted. “My mother says I have a nondescript face. Perfect for experimenting on.”

“That’s a bit unkind!”

“Par for the course for her, but she meant that I should be easy to transform. Most people can’t remember what I look like when I’m me, so how would they see through a disguise?”

“That’s not fair,” she said loyally. “You have a very handsome face.”

“You’re too kind, and may be biased,” I said, hopefully. “The point is, you should be able to make me look like just about anyone, with the right prosthetic additions.”

“Well, up to a point yes, but we still couldn’t make you look like someone with extreme features.”

“Do you and Mum have someone in mind then?”

“Well, yes we do, actually, and it should be easy.”

She looked a little embarrassed. When she told me, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

* * *

The test on my data went well. It was spooky to watch the wireframe, skeletal 3D model of my head slowly revolving on Fred’s monitor.

“That’s the basic frame,” he said. “Now I’ll fill in the flesh.”

He clicked his mouse. The figure stopped revolving and gradually the software filled in the spaces between the lines with curved skin-coloured panels. Fred smoothed any remaining sharp edges.

Annie squealed with delight. “That’s amazing!”

“It is quite impressive, isn’t it?” Fred said. “But I haven’t finished yet.”

The figure was easily recognisable as me, but it was a little… off. I struggled to work out quite why.

“This module fills in the spaces using generic colours and textures,” Fred explained. “Now I’ll download detail from the stored photographs we have of you. The program will then paint over the image with your actual skin colours. It will add all your blemishes too, Spotty!”

Annie laughed. I protested.

“That must be an old photo you’re using,” I said. “My adolescent acne cleared up two years ago!”

Fred had been teasing. He brought up a recent high-resolution photograph, taken the previous September after our summer holiday. He put it side by side with the computer model. Now I saw what had been wrong with the latter. It looked like me all right, but the skin tones were uniform and too pale. He clicked his mouse again. The figure’s skin gradually changed colour to match the photograph. Now it was more tanned, and both skin colour and texture varied realistically, darker on the nose and forehead, paler round the eyes. It also developed my freckles and added the birthmark I had on my upper lip. There was now no discernible difference between the photo and the computer model, which started revolving again.

Annie gasped. We looked at each other. I turned back to the figure. It was incredibly lifelike, in 3D and Ultra HD. Did the back of my head really look like that? I was relieved to see there was no sign of a bald patch yet.

Suddenly and without warning, the figure on the monitor opened its mouth and started reading about Magrat, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg flying to Genua. I nearly jumped out of my skin, even though I knew it was coming. Without flesh, it had looked like me but had been unreal. Now it was fleshed out and animated, and it was like watching a high-resolution 3D movie of myself. Did my voice really sound like that? I knew I was no James Earl Jones, but I hadn’t realised how high-pitched and reedy I sounded.

* * *

Over the next week everyone on the staff went through the same recording process – even Angie, the receptionist, and Dolly, the tea lady. Annie was particularly keen to capture her Granny’s features, because as an older person, she had a fine matrix of wrinkles and loose skin. Annie didn’t put it quite like that in securing the old lady’s cooperation, of course. Anyway Dolly was flattered and delighted to take part in her employer’s important work.

Annie, Fred and I took it in turns to run the sessions. Meanwhile we worked on adapting our processes for making body prosthetics to do the same for the features. Eventually we were ready for the test and, inevitably, I drew the short straw. I sat in Sharon’s make-up chair. She had given me a close shave and was now dressing a suitable wig.

Meanwhile Vera was preparing the face pieces Fred and I had printed. With a fine black marker pen, and using a template produced by our 3D printer, she carefully drew guidelines on my face to help her stick the prosthetic pieces in the right places.

“It was the obvious choice,” Vera said, in response to my grumbling. “Annie says you have nearly identical ‘facial architectures’.”

“I know that,” I sighed, “but you can understand why I’m less than enthusiastic about it.”

“Oh yes,” she sympathised. “I hope she promised you a nice bonus again, like she did when you were Milly and Jennifer.”

That was a point! A bit more money wouldn’t go amiss. I thought back to that summer. It had been four years since I had said goodbye to Milly and Jennifer. I had been just Steve ever since, with no regrets, but that didn’t mean I didn’t think about the two females I had been. The experience hadn’t been all bad. I grinned inwardly at the thought of Alf’s gallant invitation to Jennifer, who he found attractive because I was as fat as his late wife.

Vera was now applying adhesive to the first piece. I returned to the present.

“How long will I be stuck with this lot?”

“The usual – about two weeks, unless we remove it with the solvent first. But Ingrid needs to know how long these prosthetics will last. Feel free to treat them roughly – I mean, with a rigorous make-up regime, not shaving, obviously! You won’t be the only guinea pig, by the way. We think the adhesive will break down more quickly for some people than for others – we all have different amounts of natural oils in our skin – so we need to test it quite widely. I think your mother has invited some of her regular clients to try it out, free of charge.”

“She’ll probably get a queue of guys wanting to be Marilyn Monroe.”

It took her twenty minutes to glue all the prosthetic pieces on. A familiar face was starting to appear over my own. My nose and mouth were in the same places but they were now shaped differently, and my cheekbones seemed to have moved a bit. By the time she’d finished, the prostheses had covered virtually all my face and neck, also concealing my Adam’s apple. It was like wearing a thin, flexible mask, although there were areas where no pieces had been applied and parts of me still showed through. As my own skin was tanned, and the prostheses were paler, my face looked like a patchwork quilt.

“The prosthetics are the right colour of course,” said Vera. “I just need to paint all the areas where your own skin is showing.”

She dabbed away with a paintbrush. When she finished, she signalled to Sharon who had been watching the process, fascinated.

“OK, Shaz, you ready with her wig?”

So I was a her again now, was I? Can’t say I’d missed that.

First, Sharon tucked all my hair under another wig cap, reminding me of the discomfort of wearing a hairpiece all day. Then out came a short brunette wig, already styled in the familiar severe bun. She pulled it down over my head. I felt its Velcro lining gripping the mesh of the cap. She adjusted it carefully and reached for a comb and a brush for a final primping. When she was satisfied, she sprayed my new coiffure all over to hold it in place. Then she set about applying an understated daytime make-up.

“The finishing touch,” said Vera, passing me a pair of ladies’ spectacles. “Plain glass, of course.”

The face in the mirror staring back at me sullenly was all too familiar. Shit! What will Annie say when she sees me? She was out this morning on some errand. I hadn’t seen her since breakfast.

But she’d probably say, “Hello, Ingrid!” because I was now the spitting image of my mother.

There was still work to do, of course. Sharon gave me a manicure, painting my nails an understated pink. My mother was never flamboyant. After that Vera and I went back to her room where she gave me an all-over waxing, which was just as bad as I remembered. Then she stuck breast forms in my mother’s size – 42C – on my chest. Finally I had to wriggle into an abdominal prosthesis to complete my plump, middle-aged figure.

I noted, ironically, that she might not have had much cellulite on her thighs and buttocks four years ago but she certainly did now, and so of course did I. At least I was a hundred pounds lighter than Jennifer had been.

“What are these wrinkly, wobbly grooves around my mid-riff?”

Vera chuckled. “Those are stretch marks, dear.” I must have looked blank. “From childbirth, you ignoramus!”

“Oh, terrific. I must be the only person in history to have stretch marks from giving birth to himself! Look, there’s something really wrong about this, Vera,” I said as she helped me to get dressed. “A man shouldn’t see his mother naked.”

“Try not to think about it. You’re Ingrid now, so you’re only looking at yourself.”

She helped me put on a plain black bra and matching granny panties. “I can’t believe I’m wearing my mother’s underwear,” I said.

“You’re not,” Vera replied. “She made sure you have the same styles and sizes she usually buys, but all your undies are brand new. You saw me taking them out of the packet.”

“Small mercies,” I said.

She handed me a pair of tights. “You remember how to put these on without laddering them?”

I nodded and sat down at her desk chair to do so. Then I slipped my feet into a pair of black ladies’ shoes. They were in my size and had only one-inch heels. My mother usually wore at least two-inch, so these shoes would minimise the height difference between us.

The rest of my outfit was not new. She helped me put on a plain white blouse and a smart grey check suit of my mother’s. The skirt was quite snug around my new hips. When I sat down on the office couch it forced me to keep my knees together.

“Engagement ring, wedding ring, ladies’ watch, bracelet,” said Vera. “All cheap fake copies of your Mum’s, but slightly larger to fit your bigger wrist and fingers.”

I took the proffered jewellery and slipped the pieces onto my newly manicured hands. She fastened a pearl necklace – also fake – around my neck. I supposed I should be glad my mother never used perfume. She reckoned a couple of swipes of underarm deodorant was good enough for anyone.

“You’ll need earrings,” Vera said. “I assume you don’t want your ears pierced?” I shook my head firmly. “Then it’s these, I’m afraid. I hope you don’t find them too uncomfortable.”

She attached a pair of discreet clip-on pearl earrings to my lobes.

At which point the door opened. Fred and Steve came in, with Sharon following behind.

I gaped. Vera snickered.

“Surprise!” the new me said to me.

The new Steve’s voice was much higher than mine. Surely they wouldn’t have…? She wouldn’t have…?

“Annie…?” I stuttered.

She looked concerned when she saw how shocked I was. She turned to Fred, her hands on her hips in a very unmasculine, but very Annie, fashion.

“I told you we should have warned him!” she said crossly. “We could have given the poor boy a heart attack!”

“Yes, sorry, kiddo,” Fred said apologetically. “It just seemed too good an opportunity to miss.”

“I did say there would be other test subjects,” said Vera. “Annie’s been here all morning. It’s been quite a challenge to keep the two of you apart.”

Most of her disguise was superb. She’d obviously tucked her long blonde hair into a tight wig cap. The medium-length mousy brown wig on top of that looked just like my untidy mop. Her facial prosthetics were as perfect a reproduction of my features as mine were of my mother’s. She was wearing one of my bulky winter sweaters, which was a little incongruous for June, and a pair of plain jeans.

“But what happened to your boobs?” I spluttered.

“My breasts are tightly bandaged under my hairy chest piece,” she said, “and it’s quite uncomfortable too.”

“And what about your… you know, down below…?”

“It’s another abdominal prosthetic; only mine is supposed to flatten my bum and broaden my waist,” she said. “It’s very tight as well.”

She twirled to give me a good view. I think her bottom stuck out a little more than mine – that is, Steve’s – did, but I might have been fooling myself. My Ingrid-bottom stuck out a mile, of course (or felt like it did).

“She’s supposed to be straight up and down, like a man,” said Vera, “but the prosthesis can’t completely conceal her feminine behind. Overall she’s quite buff though, isn’t she?”

Indeed she was. In fact, she looked more… muscly than I normally was – am.

“And the prosthesis doesn’t have a… boy bit, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Annie continued blithely. “It’s just padding. I still have to sit down to pee. But let me have a proper look at you.”

Sighing, I stood up and did a similar twirl for everyone. She reached out – up – to feel my cheek.

“That’s amazing!” she said.

“Yes, even if you and the real Ingrid were standing side by side, I’m not sure we’d be able to tell which of you was which,” said Vera.

“Yes, it works because you’re so slim and your Mum is… um, a little…” Sharon began. She trailed off, aware that she was on the verge of being rude about her employer. “Anyway, your figure fits entirely inside hers.”

She looked around nervously. My mother could move very quietly when she wanted to.

Fred was looking at Annie and me, appraising us professionally.

“I think the real clincher is that your faces don’t look like masks,” he said. “Because our prosthetics follow the lines and creases of your faces – that is, Ingrid’s and Steve’s faces – they look completely natural. That’s the problem with even the best masks; they don’t move right and they look false. I think we’ve managed something truly different here.”

“I agree,” said the real Ingrid, from the doorway. “Congratulations to all of you. This is a superb achievement.”

“And quite a sight!” said Fred. “Two Ingrids!” He suddenly realised that my mother might not have taken his remark as a compliment. “I mean, a sight for sore eyes, of course,” he hastened to add.

My mother gave him her patented stony look, which she normally reserved for me.

“Now we must devise some appropriate tests,” she said. “I have some chores to do in town. The two of you can do them now.”

* * *

Annie was three inches shorter than me; that is, than Steve. So in addition to having her breasts tightly bandaged, and the uncomfortable abdominal prosthesis, she was wearing elevator shoes which affected how she walked. These were only two inches, so they didn’t completely close the gap. As I was now wearing high heels, she was still two inches shorter than me.

All in all, her disguise was less successful than mine. She also hadn’t had any ‘boy training’, so with her high voice and her feminine movement and body language, I desperately hoped we wouldn’t meet anyone I knew in town. They would be bound to think I had become a sissy.

“You can pick up a few things from the supermarket, then I need you to go to the bank,” my mother said. We were sitting in her office while she briefed us for our trip. “By the way, Steven, your nail polish and rings look good, but you should wear a pair of ladies’ gloves. The Manager might want to shake hands. Yours aren’t too big for a woman, but they’re probably a little rough. It’s quite normal for a woman to wear gloves when shaking hands with a man she doesn’t know well.”

“I’ll fetch you a large pair from the wardrobe room,” said Vera, and set off.

“Now there are cash and cheques to pay in,” my mother continued, “and some documents to put in our safety deposit box. That will be a good test actually. They know me there, and will only get the box out of their vault for me personally. You’ll have to show my ID and sign a form, so you’ll need to practise my signature.”

“Hold on! Isn’t this fraud?”

“No, actually. We’ve never really discussed it, but you’ve been a signatory for all our accounts since you turned eighteen. Remember all those forms I had you sign? And that goes for the safety deposit too, so it’s all completely legal. If they realise you’re not me, we’ll have to own up obviously, but there can’t be any criminal intent because you are the joint owner of all the assets. I’ll explain to the Manager if it becomes necessary.”

“But I don’t know anyone there. It’ll be a complete giveaway if I don’t recognise people you’re supposed to know.”

“It will be alright. The only member of staff I know personally is the Manager, Mr Nuttall. He says we’re an important account, with the business and the estate, so he always helps me himself when I need to get into our safety deposit box. I’ve arranged an appointment for three o’clock this afternoon.”

* * *

I managed to persuade my mother to let me drive us into town in her old Range Rover. I argued that Annie wasn’t insured to drive my little Toyota Yaris disguised as me, and it would look odd to anyone we knew if I drove it disguised as my mum. Meanwhile I was insured to drive her car but not the company van. She turned over the keys with bad grace.

“Couldn’t you get any higher lifts for your shoes?” I asked Annie on the way to the car. “Everyone who knows us both knows that I’m taller than my mother.”

“I tried four inches but I could hardly even stand in them,” she objected. “It was like trying to learn to walk on stilts. Also anything over two inches is really big and clunky – like clown shoes. Hey, you could have worn flats.”

“These were the lowest heels available in my size from our wardrobe department. It seems our cross-dressing clients don’t want to wear flats.”

“Understandable, I suppose, if they’re desperate for femininity, poor dears.”

“You do realise I’m not a cross-dresser, don’t you?”

“You could have fooled me,” she said, with a twinkle. “Anyway, you’ve done it before, haven’t you? I can tell by the way you move and speak, and your gestures and mannerisms are totally womanly.”

“Well… yes… she’s bribed me to be a ‘test subject’ before,” I admitted.

“Oh, yes! You must tell me all about that!”

“No chance,” I said, opening the car door.

I put my handbag down in the passenger footwell. I had finally begun to see the benefits of a lady’s bag. As a man, whenever I changed my clothes or jacket, I had to transfer all my stuff – keys, wallet, phone, handkerchief, etc – to the new outfit. I would have no such problem as a woman. In fact my smart skirt suit had no pockets anyway. I had nowhere to put anything – hence my need for a handbag – but also there was nothing to spoil my suit’s sleek lines or interrupt my smooth feminine curves…

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to drive in heels?” Annie said as she sat down, interrupting my train of thought.

“I’ll manage… and that’s not a question a twenty-year-old man would ever ask his mother when she’s driving them to the shops.”

“I suppose that’s true,” she conceded. “Don’t forget you have to call me ‘Steve’,” she said.

“‘Steven’, actually. My mother never calls me ‘Steve’.” I sighed. “And you have to call me ‘Mum’.”

She giggled in a way that no twenty-year-old man would ever do.

“This is going to be fun!”

“Oh yeah? Who for?”

I fastened my seat belt, which was perfectly adjusted for me; that is, for Ingrid Jones.

* * *

When we arrived at the shopping centre we were nearly an hour too early for our appointment at the bank, so we decided to do the supermarket run first.

As we went up the escalator from the car park, Annie dropped behind. I looked round. She seemed to be staring at my back… or more precisely, my backside, in my tight grey skirt.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, waving at her to catch up.

“Just enjoying the sight of your bum wiggling its way up the stairs,” she grinned. “Steve has a pert, sexy little bum, but yours is big and round, Mum. Even sexier, in my opinion.”

“You shouldn’t be talking like that,” I scolded. “If you’re Steven, I’m your mother, and that’s quite inappropriate; and if you’re Annie, I’m your employer, Ingrid McLaughlin, and I’ll sack you for impertinence.”

“Spoilsport,” she grinned, but she joined me on my step of the escalator and we linked arms, like a mother and her son.

“And why are you scratching your…” I lowered my voice. “…crotch padding so vigorously?” I asked. “Is it itchy?”

“I’m just trying to get into character. That’s what boys do all the time, isn’t it?”

“No, they don’t! Which boys have you been watching? I don’t do that!”

“Well, you kind of do, actually, when you think no one’s looking.”

“Well, stop it! It’s disgusting.”

She chuckled. “I’m quite enjoying this.” She winced. “If only it didn’t hurt my breasts so much.”

“Welcome to the world of us crash test dummies.”

* * *

With each of us taking half the list, the shopping didn’t take long, even with me taking little steps and clip-clopping around the store in my tight skirt and high heels. The most embarrassing moment was when I had to go to the pharmacy to collect my mother’s HRT prescription. I tried to persuade Annie to do it, but she pointed out that she was Steve, a young man, now. I was the middle-aged lady, and how would I feel if anyone I knew saw me collecting my mother’s very feminine medication? I saw her point.

We were under instructions to watch each other and the shoppers around us, to see if anyone saw through our disguises. I noted that Annie was doing her best to take long strides, swing her arms, and generally act ‘butch’. It looked very false to me, but I suppose I knew what I was looking for. Anyway she didn’t seem to attract any undue attention.

She said much the same of me when we caught up at the till. The check-out girl called me ‘madam’, which caused Annie to giggle to herself. There was a young man standing by the cashier, and he asked if I needed any help getting my groceries to the car. I declined of course, saying I had my son with me and pointing to Annie. The assistant looked at her dubiously, probably not believing that she could carry the heavy bags full of tins and bottles, and he was right. But we kept our purchases in the shopping trolley as far as the car park, Annie wheeling it for me gallantly, if a little inexpertly.

When we had finished unloading the groceries into the car boot, it was time to keep our appointment at the bank. We reported to the enquiries desk and I gave our names, saying we had an appointment with the Manager. I spoke in my highest register, which I hoped would approximate my mother’s rich contralto. I heard Annie gasp; she hadn’t heard my Ingrid voice properly yet.

“Ah yes, Mrs Jones,” said the receptionist, a charming little Indian girl. “If you’d like to follow me…?”

She led the way through a door marked Private into a back room. There was a big conference table with three chairs. Down at the far end were flasks of hot drinks and a plate of biscuits.

“Please help yourselves to refreshments,” said the receptionist. “I’ll let Mr Nuttall know you’re here. I’m sure he won’t keep you waiting long.”

The coffee and cookies were excellent, obviously reserved for their most favoured clients. At the last minute I remembered to sweep my skirt under me as I sat down, to stop it getting wrinkled. Keeping my knees together and denying the world a view of my black lace panties came back to me naturally. Annie chuckled and ostentatiously slumped in her chair with her legs wide apart, to show that she didn’t have to worry about such decorum now that she was a boy.

“Sit up straight, Steven,” I said. “Don’t slouch.”

“Sorry, Mum,” she grinned.

I smiled back. I tried to get into the spirit of our transformations. It didn’t have to be all bad, I supposed. I sipped my coffee, holding my cup up primly in a parody of ‘the Duchess taking tea’. I noticed the red streaks around the lip. I hadn’t seen that around a cup I’d used since being Jennifer, four summers ago.

“Don’t forget to repair your lipstick before we leave, Mum,” said Annie with a smile.

“Thank you, dear,” I said heavily. “But again… not the sort of thing a boy says to his mother. And I hadn’t forgotten. I shall ask to use the Ladies before we leave.”

At that moment the Manager came in, carrying a ring binder. He was exactly as my mother had described him: very tall, about six-two, bald, wire-rimmed glasses.

“Afternoon, Mrs Jones,” the Manager said with a smile. “Lovely to see you again.”

“Good afternoon, Mr Nuttall,” I said.

I put my coffee cup down and stood up. I hoped he wouldn’t remember my mother’s voice too clearly. If I pitched mine as high as I could, we sounded alike to my ears, and we had the same accent, but someone else might detect a difference, especially if they had met my mother frequently.

He didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. He thrust out his hand for me to shake. I remembered to keep mine limp. I was glad I was wearing my gloves. Mum had been right; my coarse male hands might have given me away, even with my nail polish and ladies’ rings.

He looked enquiringly at Annie.

“Oh, I don’t think you’ve met my son, Steven, have you?” I said. Well, I knew he hadn’t.

“No, I haven’t had the pleasure,” he said. “Very nice to meet you, Steven. It’s about time Mrs Jones brought you in to see us, given that you’re a signatory to all the accounts and boxes.”

He smiled. They shook hands. I hoped Annie remembered to use a firm masculine grip. At that moment the receptionist came in with two metal containers about the size of laptops, but about twelve inches tall. Nuttall turned and watched the girl putting them down on the table.

“Oh, I don’t think Mrs Jones will want the old box, Sunita,” he said.

She picked it up again.

“It’s all right,” I said, “you can leave it. I don’t think Steven has ever seen what’s in it.” Well I knew he hadn’t. “This will be a good opportunity for him to acquaint himself with its contents.”

“Fair enough. Thank you, Sunita.” The girl smiled and left. “Now, if I could just ask for your IDs – a formality in your case of course, Ingrid, but we must do things by the book, mustn’t we?”

I opened my handbag and rummaged inside for my purse. I took out my mother’s ID and handed it over. I had reluctantly given Annie my wallet and she was fishing in it for my driving licence. Eventually she found it and handed it over. The Manager gave both documents a cursory glance and quickly handed them back.

“Good, good,” he said.

He reached for the first metal box. I noticed that each box had two locks. He took out a key and unfastened the left-hand lock on each of the boxes.

“I won’t ask you if you’ve brought your own keys, Mrs Jones,” he smiled. “I know you’re much too efficient to have forgotten. Now I understand you have some cash and cheques to deposit in your business account?”

“Oh yes,” I said, and reopened my handbag.

I gave him the smaller of two bulky brown envelopes my mother had given me. This one came with stern instructions not to lose it. While the bag was open, I took out a little key ring with two small keys. Nuttall opened the binder and passed me a printed form.

“If you could just fill in the next line and sign it as usual? I’ll go and deposit this lot.”

We shook hands again and he left.

“Your Ingrid voice is really good!” Annie said admiringly.

I thanked her and studied the form the Manager had given me. It had several lines. My mother had completed the first dozen or so on previous visits. Now I just had to fill in my name (INGRID K JONES, Mrs) and the date, and sign it on the next available line. Even if I hadn’t been practising my mother’s signature, there were several previous examples there for me to copy. I wondered if Nuttall realised how insecure that was. But then he had already checked our identities. My mind drifted back to my earlier conversation with Fred and the ‘many applications of impersonation technology for fraud’.

I picked up the key ring to open the boxes.

“Which box are you supposed to put Ingrid’s documents in?” Annie asked.

“I didn’t even know there were two,” I replied.

I unlocked both boxes. Then I took out the second brown envelope and tore it open. Hopefully the contents would make it clear which box they belonged in.

“Should you be doing that?” Annie asked.

“Why not? You heard Mum – I own everything in here just as much as she does. More so, as it all comes to me when my father dies…”

Actually that only applied to the estate, not the business, but I assumed I was her main beneficiary. Maybe Fred owned half? Maybe the mysterious second box contained my mother’s will?

“…probably,” I added.

There were several smaller envelopes inside. I leafed through them. The only writing on each one was a name. Most were just forenames; a few included an initial as well, presumably for the surname to distinguish between two customers with the same first name. I saw Daisy, Maria, and several others. I flipped open the lid of the first box, which was nearly full. There were many similar envelopes, again with just a name on them. The top two were marked Nancy and Rosie. I didn’t see any men’s names.

“I think one of our clients was called Daisy,” I said. “She recommended the MoCap studios guy we got the sensors from.”

I tore open the Daisy envelope; photographs fell out. Annie was horrified, but her curiosity quickly overcame her caution. On top was a picture of a pretty woman in her underwear. She was very obviously pregnant.

“What do you think it means?” Annie asked.

“I think Daisy must be a client – I assume all the others are too.”

“So some of them might be men?”

“I think they might all be men,” I said.

“Surely not Daisy!” she said. “Look at her!”

We skimmed quickly through the other photos in the Daisy envelope. They seemed to be in chronological order, starting with a young man being waxed, then fitted with breast forms. Then there were some pictures of him stepping into a pregnancy prosthesis, which looked like the kind of thing we made using our 3D printing process.

Then he was being made up and his hair dressed to become the woman in the first picture. In the following photos, she grew ever bigger as her pregnancy proceeded. Then suddenly she wasn’t pregnant anymore, just a little dumpy, still needing to lose her baby weight, as it were. That was the last picture. There was a handwritten record at the bottom of the pile with a few notes about the process and the client, none of which were any use in identifying him.

“But why would a man want to disguise himself as a pregnant woman?” Annie asked, baffled.

“No idea – and we have a policy of not asking, remember?” I put the pictures back in the envelope. “A more pertinent question is, why is Mum keeping all these photographs, and in a safety deposit box? I would’ve thought she’d have the originals online somewhere.”

“Security, I suppose,” suggested Annie. “Backup, in case of a data loss.”

“Maybe,” I said.

My mother couldn’t intend to blackmail her clients, could she? I’ve never pretended to understand her – and I wasn’t sure I fully shared her code of ethics (or lack thereof) – but I couldn’t imagine her doing anything quite so downright criminal. Perhaps the business wasn’t the money-spinner I had always imagined it to be. Then another thought struck me.

“I don’t think these photos are a necessary part of the process. We wouldn’t need them for 3D printing of prosthetics. These are a record of everything that was done – including hair and make-up. And I don’t think the clients knew they were being taken!”

“But why? How?”

“Look carefully,” I said. “None of the subjects are looking at the camera, or smiling. They clearly don’t know they’re being photographed. Also, all the pictures are taken from the same position, and the camera angle is downwards.”

She gasped. “You mean there might be hidden cameras in Vera’s and Sharon’s rooms?”

I nodded. I rummaged down to the bottom of the box and found the two envelopes I expected to find: Jennifer and Milly. I took them out and put them in my handbag. Annie raised an eyebrow in enquiry. I didn’t explain. I didn’t particularly want my girlfriend to see pictures of me as a boy, naked, then as a girl, also naked.

I put all the other envelopes back in the safety deposit box they had come from and reached for the second box. Unlike the first, which had been nearly full, this one was nearly empty. I lay all its contents on the table: a birth certificate; a marriage certificate; a passport; some photographs; various examination and degree certificates; some handwritten references from schoolteachers, university tutors and employers; the Last Will and Testament of Richard Steven Jones. All the documents of a life – my father’s life. If he was still alive, how was he managing without these? There was no death certificate, but I didn’t suppose that meant anything. I opened the Will and skimmed it. It was very simple. Everything went to my mother and me, with the usual protections.

Neither of us said anything. Annie realised that what I had found had affected me deeply. She looked concerned.

There was a knock at the door. The Manager came in.

“Sorry to interrupt…” he said.

Then he realised I was upset, but of course he didn’t know why. He apologised, in case it was something he had done. I reassured him that everything was fine.

“There’s absolutely no rush, Mrs Jones, I just wanted to give you your receipt for the cash and cheques.”

I took the slip. I noticed that the total was a little over five thousand pounds.

“Only I have a meeting shortly, so I may not be available when you are ready to leave. Just press the green button on the wall when you’ve finished. There’s no hurry. This room is free now until we close.”

“Thank you, Mr Nuttall,” I managed to say, remembering to use my Ingrid voice.

He turned and made for the door.

“One other thing…?” I said. He paused. “Are you sure that no one else has been in here and accessed these boxes?”

He looked concerned.

“That’s quite impossible, I assure you.” I didn’t say anything. He seemed to think I wanted further reassurance. “Apart from myself and my staff, the only person who has ever even seen those boxes is your good self….” He paused. “Oh, and that other lady you had with you that one time – Mrs Johnson, was it?”

“Er, yes,” I said. “Thank you, Mr Nuttall.”

I couldn’t ask him any more without raising his suspicions. As Ingrid I obviously should know who Mrs Johnson was, and on which occasion she was with me when I came here.

He smiled and left. I began putting my father’s documents back. I turned my keys in the right-hand locks on each box, and went to press the green button. Sunita soon appeared. She completed the locking process for the boxes and dropped them down a chute in the wall which presumably led to the vault. We followed her out.

Outside the bank, Annie turned to me.

“OK, I’ll ask it,” she said. “Who the hell is Mrs Johnson?”

“No idea,” I said. “Come on, let’s get back to the car. I’m dying to get these stupid earrings off.”

* * *

When we got back we unloaded the shopping and gave my mother a report of our mission. She was pleased that no one had caught us out. She quizzed us in detail about our meeting with Mr Nuttall, the Bank Manager. She had been concerned that he would have suspected something.

“Either your performance was exceptional,” she said, “or it’s true what they say – people see what they expect to see.”

“A little of both, I expect,” I said modestly.

“But he was brilliant. He sounded just like you,” Annie said, to my great satisfaction. “And you would have thought he’d been a woman all his life,” she added, which I found considerably less gratifying. She grinned at me.

“By the way,” I said, “they brought us two boxes.”

“Stupid man!” she grunted. “He knows I haven’t looked at the old box for years.”

I didn’t bother mentioning that it was the receptionist’s mistake.

“We put the envelopes you gave us in with the others, but why does the second box have all my father’s documents?”

“Oh, he left them behind when he moved out,” she said. “I put them there for safekeeping when we remodelled the main house for the business. I didn’t want them to be mislaid in all the confusion. You remember what it was like back then.”

I did. The builders were in for six months. They cleared out and renovated the basement for the computers; they fitted out most of the ground and middle floors for offices; and they created four self-contained apartments on the top floors. They also installed a lift. Everything we owned had to be moved several times during the building works. It would have been easy to lose one envelope full of documents. Indeed we never found my primary school workbooks which my mother claimed to have been keeping for sentimental reasons. I wasn’t convinced that was actually her motive, as she was the least sentimental person I knew. She was probably keeping them to show my future wife and embarrass me with my childish efforts at writing and drawing. I hoped we’d lost my baby pictures too, but they showed up eventually.

* * *

Annie went straight to see Vera when we got back to ask for help in removing her ‘Steve’ disguise. My mother tried to object, but Annie said the breast bandages and the chest prosthesis were just too uncomfortable. They agreed the design needed work. Fortunately it seemed we had far fewer female customers who wanted to be male. I had no such excuse of course, so I resigned myself to being my own mother for at least another two weeks.

Still feeling a little tender in her more sensitive parts, Annie decided not to ‘sleep over’ that night and went home to her grandmother’s house straight from work. Mum and Fred were playing Bridge that evening, so the three of us had an early dinner. Fred annoyed us both by chuckling to himself about dining with two Ingrids, and how that might be too much of a good thing.

Strangely I found myself reacting to his childish humour in pretty much the same way as my mother did. I’d heard that all daughters eventually turn into their mothers, but I hadn’t realised it could apply to sons too. By the time the two of them left for the Bridge Club, Fred was looking confused as to which Ingrid he would actually be spending the evening with.

I decided on an early night. I went along to the Girls’ Room; the one that was originally Milly’s, then Jennifer’s, and would now be ‘Ingrid the Second’s’.

My mother had generously covered the bed with ladies’ wear for me: two clean nightdresses, several unopened boxes of new lingerie and tights, and some of her own suits and dresses. She obviously intended I stay in my new role as long as possible. It was reasonable, I suppose. By now we knew that our custom-made breast forms and abdominal prostheses would last indefinitely, and would fall off before they broke up, but the face pieces still needed to be tested to destruction. We couldn’t have a client’s face dropping off at an inopportune moment.

I threw my grey suit jacket on the bed and sat down at the dressing table to take off the rest of my jewellery, the stupid clip-on earrings having been removed as soon as we got home. Then I unzipped and wriggled out of the tight skirt. I hung the suit up in the wardrobe. The blouse buttoned at the back. What was that about? Vera had helped me into it but how was I supposed to get it off? Eventually I managed to undo the cuffs and the top two buttons at the back of my neck, and could then take it off over my head.

Why do women deliberately give themselves such a hard time over their clothes? I knew I could get myself into trouble there. Someone would say ‘we only wear tight dresses, uncomfortable underwear, and high heels because men make us…’

Down to my bra, knickers and tights I stood up and inspected my image in the mirror on the wardrobe door. Even though I looked every one of my mother’s forty-eight years, she was still a handsome woman, and undeniably sexy in just her lingerie, and so of course was I now…

I suddenly became uncomfortable staring at myself in lingerie and stockings. I plumped back down at the dressing table. My mother had thoughtfully provided cosmetics and feminine lotions exactly like the ones she used, so that I could remove my make-up.

I applied cleanser to break down and take off my foundation and blush, and an oil-based product to remove my lipstick. That might not have been necessary, as it wasn’t particularly long-wearing, but it was all part of the test. I was supposed to treat the prosthetic face pieces just as I would my own skin, under the harshest make-up regime a woman would use. In accordance with my instructions, I finished by covering my face with cold cream.

My feminine ablutions completed, I put on a pink nightie and a negligee, and slipped my feet into a pair of fluffy mules. I realised I wasn’t tired and looked around for something to do. I wandered along to the sitting room and switched the television on. By nine o’clock I’d exhausted my interest in that and I still wasn’t sleepy. I made myself a cup of tea.

Then one more idea occurred to me. I took the brown envelopes from my handbag and went down the back stairs to the offices. Everywhere was quiet and dark. I put the lights on. Fred and my mother wouldn’t be back till after eleven, and so what if they found me here anyway?

I looked closely at the photographs of myself as Milly and Jennifer. I sat where I reckoned I must have been when they were taken. That would mean the cameras were… over there.

I got Vera’s chair from her desk and moved it to the corner of the room. Standing up on it and stretching my neck I could just see a small black dot, high up on the wall. You’d never notice it if you weren’t looking for it. I got right up close. Something in the middle of it was reflecting the light. A camera lens? So that was where the pictures in the safety deposit box had come from.

Annie and her Granny

By Susannah Donim

Steve’s mother runs the secretive Transformations consultancy. This means he has a number of interesting jobs over the years.

Chapter 4 – Annie and her Auntie Ingrid

Steve walks a mile in his mother’s shoes.

Annie’s exam results came through the next day. She had got a very creditable 2:1 and that night we went out together to celebrate. Unfortunately I was still totally Ingrid so we were limited to a chaste meal at a posh restaurant. We would attract a lot of unwanted attention if we went to a rave, for example.

At first, I suggested that we go as boss and employee – we could pretend it was a business dinner – but Annie didn’t like that idea.

“That would be much too formal,” she said. “We wouldn’t be able to show any affection at all. You’ll have to be my mother. Then we can at least cuddle and hold hands in public.”

“Hell, no! I don’t want you to call me ‘Mummy’, not even in fun,” I said.

“OK, my aunt then. I’ll call you ‘Auntie Ingrid’.”

“That’s hardly any better…”

But I had to settle for that. My predicament was slightly alleviated when I pointed out to my mother that I would have to borrow her car, purse, and most especially her credit card. My own bank card had ‘Mr Steven A Jones’ on it, and she – and therefore now I – wasn’t insured to drive my car. She didn’t like any of it, but she couldn’t argue with my logic.

“Just so you know – the cost of the meal is coming out of your bonus,” she said, passing me her handbag with ill grace.

“Thank you, mother,” I said. “Now I’m going to raid your wardrobe for your poshest dress.” I grinned. “I don’t suppose many boys get to say that to their mothers.”

“Maybe more than you’d think,” she said.

I also borrowed her best jewellery. So the new Ingrid and her temporary niece had a delightful evening. We were dressed to the nines and attracted a lot of attention for all the right reasons. A handsome father and son approached us to suggest we dined with them, but we declined politely.

* * *

That night was the first time Annie and I slept together with me in my Ingrid prosthetics. She said she had been looking forward to it but it was awkward in several ways. I stripped off my beautiful dress, tights and panties, and lay on my back on the bed with my legs apart. This posture was profoundly embarrassing, but my discomfort just made Annie laugh.

Firstly, although I managed to find the tiny fastener on my ‘abdominal prosthesis’ and unzip it, I couldn’t liberate my equipment without help. Annie stepped into the breach, as it were. Fortunately, she just found my situation hilarious rather than disgusting, which I think would have been my reaction. At first she tried to extricate my testicles before withdrawing my member from its confining tube, but that didn’t work and actually hurt quite badly. So she tried it the other way round with more success, though only slightly less pain. With my penis free, my balls descended from their cavity, and I could shed the prosthesis entirely.

Unfortunately, the bruising experience was enough to render my wedding tackle inert, hopefully temporarily. So we decided to finish getting ready for bed, in the hope that the time required for our ablutions would be sufficient for my equipment to recover. Annie grabbed her nightie and withdrew to the en suite bathroom, while I sat, mostly naked, at the dressing table to remove my makeup and wig. Finally I took off my bra, dropped it in the laundry basket with the rest of my underwear, and jumped into bed, pulling the duvet up to my neck.

Annie emerged from the bathroom. “Now you’re mine, fair maiden,” she boomed in what she obviously intended to be a rakish voice, and drew the covers right back with a dramatic flourish. My fake breasts were exposed.

Involuntarily, I squealed and pulled the duvet back to conceal my nakedness. Annie laughed with surprise.

“What on earth’s the matter?” she said.

“I’m naked under here,” I said, beginning to feel embarrassed for quite different reasons.

“So what? There’s no one here but us.”

“But…” I stuttered. “You can see my breasts…”

“They’re not real, you idiot, and I’ve seen the rest of you naked lots of times.”

“I know,” I said, “but it just feels wrong somehow. I can’t explain it.”

“Such modesty!” she laughed. “You’re desperate to hide two lumps of plastic from your lover!”

She reached under the pillow and fished out the pink nightie I’d worn the night before.

“OK, OK, put this on,” she said. “I’m not going to even try to work out the weird psychology going on here. Too tired.”

I put the nightie on over my head and pulled it down over my breasts. For some reason I immediately felt more at ease.

“You’re sure you don’t want the panties that go with it?” she asked.

“No, they’d only get in the way,” I said with a grin.

She quickly joined me in bed. She wasn’t too tired to indulge in a little burrowing under my nightie or to make the most of what she found there. For some reason Ingrid’s face and breasts didn’t put her off. In fact, if anything my smooth body and feminine upper half just seemed to spur her on to greater efforts than ever before.

* * *

My life as my mother’s double continued. She now had me conducting interviews with clients. She said it would be a good opportunity for me to learn how the business worked first-hand, given that clients weren’t comfortable with Steve sitting in on their interviews. Also it would give her time to catch up with her paperwork.

First she had to run me through the various procedures, and the additional services we could offer, like Alice Parr’s female movement classes. It also gave us the opportunity to see if any of our customers noticed any difference between ‘Ingrid One’ and ‘Ingrid Two’. No one did.

That was sometimes a problem round the office. I spoke in my ‘Ingrid’ voice most of the time as it came naturally now. On several occasions I noticed Vera or Sharon or Angie being hesitant in conversation until they were sure which Ingrid they were talking to. Dolly was just bemused by the whole business. After a while they realised that at tea and coffee breaks I was the one who gobbled down the cake and doughnuts, having no need to watch my figure. Eventually everyone could tell which of us was which from the differences in our voices, and they got used to there being two Ingrids around.

Annie stayed most nights now, in the Girls’ Room, in the big double bed with me. She went back to her grandmother’s house every few days for clean clothes and to see if Dolly needed anything, but she was gradually bringing most of her wardrobe over to our flat.

At bedtime I would remove my wig and wig cap and squirm out of my abdominal prosthesis with Annie’s help, to wash both it and my sweaty, squashed-up loins. But I still couldn’t remove my breasts or my mother’s face. So I continued to go to bed with Steve’s hair and bottom half and Ingrid’s face and top half. For some reason Annie found this even more erotic.

With my big floppy breasts I still didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in the nude, and none of Steve’s pyjama tops would fasten over my bosom, so I slept in one of my mother’s nighties or sleep sets.

Annie and I did our laundry together and she was always amused to find another woman’s cosmetics on the dressing table and her knickers and tights drying over the bath. There was no danger of getting our underwear mixed up. Hers was skimpy and sexy; mine was middle-aged and strictly utilitarian. She reckoned she could fit both of her breasts into one of the cups of my bras.

In the morning she would lie in bed watching me get up. I went into the bathroom first to wriggle into my abdominal prosthesis. I could get it on by myself; it was getting out of it again that was difficult. I tried to take a bra and panties in with me, but Annie insisted on watching when I took my nightie off and put my underwear on.

Then I would sit at the dressing table in my lingerie, put on my wig cap, and do my make-up. This never took long as my mother’s watchword for cosmetics was ‘Spartan’. Finally I would put my wig on. From that moment on, Annie insisted on calling me ‘Ingrid’.

My mother decided that having to share clothes with her son gave her the perfect excuse to expand her wardrobe, so she dragged me out to go shopping together as twins. That way, she explained, she could decide what would look good on her by seeing what looked good on me first.

As Ingrid, I was now in charge in the office. My mother crept about in the background checking up on me and everyone else, which didn’t make her any more popular. The others kept coming to me for decisions, and gradually, with Mum’s help, I learned enough to manage.

Today I was dressed in a new smart navy blue, scalloped-detail skirt suit over a plain white blouse. I had picked out the suit myself on one of our shopping trips. My mother had been dubious, thinking it was a bit ‘fancy’, but she didn’t deny it looked good on me. I was wearing nude tights and my black slip-on court shoes. Since I no longer had to worry about towering over Annie as my diminutive ‘son’, I was up to three-inch heels now and could manage them with no difficulty.

I had an interesting meeting with a young man who wanted to set up a new business. He believed he would meet with greater success if he ran it as a woman. He didn’t reveal any details, and of course I didn’t ask, but my imagination ran wild. No doubt there were lots of possibilities but for some reason all I could think of were brothel ‘madam’ or maybe professional dominatrix.

I warned him that with his body shape he would only be convincing as a buxom, middle-aged woman. He didn’t seem to mind that at all. Well, good luck to him.

Afterwards I made my way to the tea room where my mother was in conversation with Annie.

“How was the meeting?” Mum asked when she saw me.

“Routine,” I said. “He’s booked in for his imaging session next week. I took a deposit. He wants to be known as ‘Angelique’.”

“Fine,” she said. “Well done.”

I was aware that Annie was looking at me with a little smile on her face.

“How much longer do I have to do this for?” I asked, grumpily. “When can I go back to being me?”

“Please, Steven,” said my mother impatiently, “remember that you are my employee. I am paying you – quite well, actually – so you have to do whatever I tell you to…”

“Within reason…” I said.

“I hardly think a little dressing up is unreasonable. Anyway, I’m afraid it’s part of your job to help test our new processes. You have unique qualifications.”

“So that means I’m you until your face falls off me?”

“Yes, and you might have to be someone else after that!”

“Aren’t you worried about the psychological damage this might be doing to me?”

My mother snorted. “Just think of it as playing a part – like a professional actor. They don’t get ‘psychological damage’ pretending to be someone else.”

“What ‘unique qualifications’ do you mean?” Annie asked, fearing that our conversation was in danger of getting overheated.

“She means my ‘blandness’,” I said bitterly.

“Stuff and nonsense!” my mother said scathingly. “I mean his physical versatility. We can transform him into any average-sized man or woman. He’s also very good at female impersonation. You must have noticed! His walk and mannerisms are perfect, and he knows how to dress, do his make-up, fix his hair, walk in heels, carry a handbag…”

“All right, all right,” I said. “She gets it.”

My mother didn’t seem to realise that she was impugning my masculinity in front of my girlfriend and making me uncomfortable. Annie sensed I needed reassuring.

“Well, I think he’s brilliant,” she said taking my arm, “and dead sexy!”

She kissed me on the cheek, to avoid ruining my lipstick. She tweaked my bra strap, then hugged me close, resting her head on my enhanced bosom. I sighed.

“Hi there!” Fred hailed us, as he made his way over. He was nursing a cup of tea and a rock cake. “Which of you three lovely ladies would like to be my ‘plus one’ at the Mayor’s Garden Party?”

Annie and my mother both turned to look at me.

“Oh no,” I began. “The sooner I can get out of this clobber, the better. I’m certainly not going to any posh social occasions dressed like this.”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” said Fred jovially. “I remember your time as Milly and Jennifer. You went completely native. Now you’re doing the same again with your Ingrid.”

Annie was laughing her head off.

* * *

“You’ll need a smart new dress – floral, as it’s a Garden Party.” Annie had appointed herself my couturier for this affair. “I’m thinking ‘Mother of the Bride’-type,” she continued, “and definitely a fancy hat.”

She thrust an online store catalogue in front of me. She had marked some examples.

“Don’t go mad now,” I said. “I’m only going along with this because my mother promised it would be my last outing as her.”

“Yes, dear,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard. “I found this brilliant website for women’s clothes. It’s called MyOwnCouture.com,” she said. “Come on, we’d better do this in the bedroom.”

She grabbed her laptop and ran up the back stairs. I followed at a more sedate pace, appropriate for my mother’s age and my relative inexperience in her high heels.

“Why can’t we take the lift?” I muttered to her retreating back.

I found Annie in the Girls’ Room, her computer open on the dressing table.

“You choose what you want from a wide variety of styles and colours; enter your measurements; and they send you the finished dress.” She took a tape measure from the dressing table drawer. “OK – strip off.”

Sighing, I complied. My smart skirt suit and blouse were soon on the bed and I was standing there, the image of my mother in my bra, girdle and stockings – not that I’d ever seen my actual mother in her lingerie. Annie got busy with her tape measure.

“You’re 42-34-40, dress size 16,” she said, after wrapping the tape around my various places, most of which were actually padding. “Not so bad for a woman of your age, Ingrid.”

“How do you know how old my mother is?”

“Well, I don’t. I’m guessing.”

She grinned. I was getting used to my girlfriend feeling me up while I was wearing women’s underwear, but I still felt pretty stupid. To cover my embarrassment, I grabbed her and leaned in for a kiss. She responded warmly. I felt her hands groping my butt, despite the bulbous padding, my girdle, and my thick granny panties. They moved deliciously down my legs to my stocking tops where they paused to snap the elastic of my suspenders. I rubbed my boobs up against hers, the lace on our bras scraping together. I stood back.

“You might as well take a good look while you have the chance,” I said, “because this will be you in twenty-five years’ time.”

“Huh?”

I struck a provocative pose.

“Flabby tummy, cellulite, droopy boobs, stretch marks…”

She pulled away in mock anger. I grinned. She knew I was teasing.

“Well maybe you won’t be around to see my… my decrepitude!” she declared. “Maybe I don’t want to spend the next twenty-five years with a... a professional transvestite.”

“Hey! I’m not a…”

She raised an eyebrow. I was going to lose this argument. After all, I was standing there in bra, panties, suspender belt and stockings; with a middle-aged lady’s hairstyle and makeup. And I was being paid for it.

“OK, maybe I am… at the moment. But it’s not what I’m planning as a career…”

“Ah, but what is your mother planning…?” she began.

She trailed off. It was a good question. I couldn’t think what to say either.

“OK, look,” she said, getting back to business, “we need to find you a dress for next Sunday. I’ve checked your mother’s wardrobe, and she doesn’t really have anything suitable.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “She never goes anywhere apart from the Bridge Club. The dress I wore to the restaurant the other day was the nicest thing she had, and even that was years old.”

“She really is quite unusual, your Mum, isn’t she?”

“You have no idea,” I said.

She sat back down at the dressing table and reopened the laptop.

“Now the website says that they can guarantee a better fit with more measurements.” She read a list from the web page. “Neck, front waist length, back waist length, shoulder, and arm length. I’ve never heard of most of these, but there’s a diagram.”

She carried on measuring me. She was entering the numbers as she went.

When she’d finished, I asked, “Um, seriously… does me doing this dressing up – this testing stuff for my mother – put you off at all…?”

She turned and smiled. “Not at all, actually. You’d think maybe it would, wouldn’t you? But it doesn’t. I find it… exciting. Hasn’t that been obvious in bed the last few nights? With me burrowing under your nightie and playing with your boobs?”

I found myself blushing… and nodding.

“Can I get dressed again now?” I asked.

“What?” She was distracted again, reading the instructions on the website. “Oh, yes.”

I put my blouse, skirt and shoes back on.

“It suggests that for best results we should send them a head and shoulders photograph.”

She reached for her handbag and took out her phone.

“Seems like a lot of trouble,” I grumbled. “What do they need that for?”

“Dunno. Smile!” she commanded.

I hesitated… but why not? After all, I looked exactly like my mother. No one would see Steve in the photograph. So I complied. There was a flash. She pressed some buttons on her phone and transferred the picture to her laptop via Bluetooth. Then she uploaded the photo to the website and went back to browsing the available dress styles. I joined her at the dressing table.

“I like this one,” she said.

It was navy blue silk with a pink floral pattern, three-quarter-length. She was right. It looked ideal for a Garden Party.

“But you’ll need a jacket with it. You can’t afford to show your bare arms. They’re too masculine.”

“Thanks for that,” I said. “I haven’t felt very virile for a while now.”

“Well, you certainly felt virile to me in bed last night,” she said crudely. “You need a bracelet and a ladies’ watch too – to distract from the thickness of your wrists.”

I don’t think she’d picked up on my need for reassurance. She was scanning the site for accessories. She soon found a matching plain pink jacket and hat.

“I can change the colour scheme,” she said.

She selected some variations, but both of us preferred the original in navy and pink.

“I think I have… that is, my mother has a handbag in that shade of pink,” I said.

“Good, because you’ll need to buy some shoes too. Your mother’s won’t fit you.”

She pressed the Done icon to signify she was satisfied with her selection. Immediately the web page vanished and a model with my mother’s face and body – my face and body now – began strutting down a catwalk in the beautiful outfit Annie had selected. We were watching a rear view, and Ingrid’s – my – broad hips and generous rear were wiggling their way down the walkway. The likeness was uncanny.

“Wow!” Annie breathed. “How do they do that?”

“It has to be CGI, but it’s brilliantly done. Really impressive! I wonder if they’re hiring?”

“You already have a job.”

Ingrid reached the end of the catwalk, turned, and favoured her audience with a beaming smile, the likes of which had never been seen on my mother’s face in real life.

“That spoils it,” I said. “It’s not like her at all anymore.”

“No,” Annie agreed, “but it’s just like you.”

We paid for the outfit using the business credit card which my mother had reluctantly entrusted to me.

It arrived, three days later, in plenty of time. I quickly checked the fit, which seemed fine, then put it away till the big day.

* * *

The following Sunday morning Annie helped me get dressed and made up. The outfit was everything the website had promised. I stood in front of the wardrobe mirror in the Girls’ Room, bowled over by my appearance. Annie had taken special care over my make-up – much more than my mother ever did herself. Ingrid had never looked so good, or so feminine, and it wasn’t even her! The lovely dress was complemented by matching shoes and jacket, the pink handbag, and a broad-brimmed hat with pretty pink artificial flowers on it. I twirled and preened; I admit it. I looked like the Duchess of Cornwall and I felt like the Queen Mother (when she was young).

“It’s beautiful,” Annie said. “You should get all your dresses from MyOwnCouture.com from now on. It’s a perfect fit.”

I shot her a filthy look. “It’s a perfect fit for my mother,” I said. “I’m not expecting to need any more dresses after this.”

“We’ll see,” she said enigmatically.

I changed the subject. “Don’t I need a slip with this dress?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s a lovely slinky material. It won’t stick to you or ride up, but it’s still thick enough to conceal your underwear. Give me a twirl, sweetie.” As I did so, she glanced down at my backside. “No Visible Panty Line on that beautiful big round bum of yours!” She giggled. “Anyway, it will be too hot today for another layer underneath.”

At that moment the real Ingrid came in to inspect me before letting me represent her in public. The look of astonishment on her face, behind me in the mirror, was almost worth all the trouble and potential embarrassment. She saw me looking at her, snorted, and stamped out of the room.

“I assume that means she approves,” said Annie.

* * *

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in late July. Fred arrived – late, as usual – to take me to the Garden Party in his Jaguar F-Pace. He was ridiculously proud of the huge SUV, but with his notoriously mediocre driving skills, he would have been better off with a little Yaris like mine. He always had to drive round the Tesco car park for ages, trying to find a double space that he could get the monstrous beast into without scratching the vehicles on either side.

Fred held out his hand to help me up into the oversized vehicle. I collapsed into the passenger seat. I thought back to the last time I found myself struggling to get in a car. This had been hard enough but there was no way I could have got into this silly thing as Jennifer. It had been more difficult than I had expected as Ingrid, because of having to step up to the high seating position in my unfamiliar heels.

“Thanks for doing this, Steve,” said Fred. “I really didn’t want to come on my own. It only encourages the rumours…”

He paused, aware that his sexuality was a subject we still hadn’t discussed.

“It’s fine,” I said, “I’m quite looking forward to it. But you owe me one,” I continued. “And please don’t forget to call me ‘Ingrid’ this afternoon, Frederick dear.”

I carefully laid my beautiful hat on the back seat. It would need to be attached to my wig with the long hatpin in my handbag. The forecast was for ‘sunny intervals and a light breeze’. I didn’t want to have to chase my hat across the Mayor’s garden, especially in these shoes.

“My mother wouldn’t be seen dead at a social event like a Garden Party,” I continued, “especially togged up like this.”

“Too true,” Fred said. “She’s not a very sociable person, is she?”

“Understatement of the year. She hates small talk; she isn’t much interested in other people’s lives; and she can’t discuss her work, can she? Doesn’t leave much scope for conversation.”

“She doesn’t go in for chit-chat at the Bridge table either,” he said. “She’s happy to discuss the hands – where I went wrong in the bidding or the play, for example – but that’s about it.”

Fred pulled out onto the main road as we both laughed gently at my mother’s quiet sociopathy. I took a compact out of my handbag and checked my lipstick in its little mirror.

“How come you’re invited to this shindig anyway?” I asked him.

“I run Adult Evening Classes in IT at the Sixth Form College,” he said. I hadn’t known that. “That makes me an honorary local government officer,” he continued, “so I get invited to their annual summer do at the end of term.”

“Hang on, they can’t have invited everyone who works for the council. That would be at least a thousand people!”

“Oh far more. No, I think it’s mainly people involved with the College, and anyway there must be some kind of rota. I’ve been teaching IT for three years now and this is the first time I’ve been invited.”

A nasty thought struck me. I haven’t met anyone outside the company who actually knows Ingrid well, apart from possibly Nuttall, the Bank Manager.

“You realise I only look like Ingrid. My impersonation of her is only skin-deep. Will I know anyone there? Or, more importantly, will Ingrid know anyone there?”

“I doubt it,” he said airily. “I’m pretty sure she’s never even been to the College, and as you said yourself, she doesn’t go out socialising much.”

I hoped he was right.

* * *

He wasn’t. The first person we saw as we stepped onto the duckboards laid across the Mayor’s huge back garden was the Honourable Harriet Bairstow, the Bridge Club secretary. She too was dressed to the nines. She was there with her husband, George, who waved cheerfully when he saw us.

I paused to check my appearance: wig straight; hat secured with hatpin; handbag over the crook of my left arm; my right linked in Fred’s left. Best foot forward, remembering how to walk like a lady, bottom wiggling provocatively, stately as a galleon. I was grateful to have Fred to lean on; the duckboards were uneven and I was in high heels. Full of forebodings, we made our way over to the Bairstows.

“You realise we’ll have to remember this entire conversation?” I said sotto voce to Fred. “We have to tell Mum everything. The Bairstows will be very suspicious if they see her at the Bridge Club next week and she can’t remember a conversation from four days earlier.”

Fred agreed glumly and muttered an apology for getting us in this fix.

I tried to think how my mother would greet Harriet. I remembered from my one meeting (as Jennifer) with her four years ago that they weren’t friends. I decided on ‘polite, but frosty’.

That certainly turned out to be her choice. Fred and George were shaking hands, and I wondered whether Harriet and I would be doing girly cheek kisses, but she made no move at all toward physical contact. So no ‘mwah, mwah’ then. It wasn’t really my mother’s thing either.

“Hello, Ingrid,” Harriet said, keeping her hands to herself and her wine glass. “I didn’t think this sort of affair was your cup of tea at all.”

I briefly explained that I was only there to keep Fred company as his ‘plus one’.

“Poor Fred!” she sympathised tactlessly. “I love your dress, dear,” she continued. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in such a… feminine outfit.”

Harriet was clearly an expert in the barbed compliment, but it was fair comment, I suppose. My mother’s penchant for austere skirt suits was well known.

“My son’s partner chose it,” I said, trying to be friendly. “She has very good taste.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that Steven has a girlfriend,” Harriet said with a catty smile. “To be honest, I always thought he might be gay.”

What? How dare she! As far as I could remember I’d only met this horrible woman a couple of times as Steve. What had made her think I was gay? Of course I had now met her twice more while wearing a dress, wig and make-up, so perhaps this wasn’t the time to debate the matter. Beside me, Fred must have realised I was bristling and about to say something stupid.

“No, no,” he said, taking my arm gently. “Steve is definitely straight. He has had several steady girlfriends that I know of. I think this latest little lady might even be serious.”

I calmed down and thereafter tried to make polite but monosyllabic responses to Harriet’s brazenly spiteful conversation, all the time wondering whether to punch her on the nose or scratch her eyes out with my pretty, enamelled, shocking pink nails.

Disappointed that her thinly disguised insults to my lack of elegance and femininity were apparently falling on deaf ears, Harriet excused herself and wandered over to where the Mayor and Mayoress were holding court. Standing alone now, I moved closer to Fred. Would it be appropriate for me to link my arm in his again? I decided against it. It had been reasonable when we were walking over uneven ground, but it would be an unmistakable mark of affection while we were just standing here. He might get the wrong idea, and so might everyone else.

He and George had already begun discussing the hands from the previous Wednesday’s Bridge Club session, which posed another problem for me. Ingrid had been partnering Fred and would have remembered the most interesting hands as well as he did. I couldn’t be part of this conversation. I decided to go and get a drink as Fred was driving. A long trestle table covered by a snow-white linen cloth offered a range of wines, white and rosé in ice buckets. There were also kegs of beer but quaffing a pint would hardly be ladylike.

“What can I get you, madam?” asked a pretty girl on the other side of the table.

She was wearing a white blouse and black trousers, which were protected by a smart, gender-neutral white apron round her waist. Further up, a young man, identically dressed, was helping another female customer.

“Oh, a white wine, please,” I said.

“We have Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc.”

“Which would you recommend?” I asked, floundering. I wasn’t usually a wine drinker.

“Well our Chardonnay is made in an oaked style, giving it spice, honey, butter and hazelnut flavours. It’s rich and complex and has aged well. The Sauvignon Blanc is lighter-bodied with a crisper, juicier jolt of acidity.”

“Wow! You really know your wines!” I said.

“Actually, I googled them both before I started serving,” she said with a grin.

I laughed. She was great. I briefly wondered if I could get her phone number, then remembered how I was dressed. Perhaps I could ask for it on behalf of my son, Steve? Oh, but now there was Annie…

I snapped back to reality. She was waiting for an answer.

“I’ll try the Sauvignon Blanc. I’m in the mood for something lighter.”

The girl smiled and reached for a glass.

“Quite right,” said a voice beside me. “These affairs can be really heavy.”

I turned. It was the woman who was being served further down when I arrived. She was carrying a tray with four glasses of white wine on it.

“Are you here on your own?” she asked with a friendly smile.

“No, but my… companion has found a friend from the Bridge Club and they’re talking squeezes and end-plays.”

“Oh, come and join us then,” she said. “I’m with a little group of abandoned wives. We’ve commandeered a table over there in the shade.”

It would have been rude to refuse, and in any case I wanted to sit down and get my weight, both real and fake, off my high heels. Also, sitting in the shade sounded a lot better than standing in the sun. My dress was light silk, but I was wearing tights and that was over my granny panties and ‘abdominal prosthesis’. A cool breeze was wafting gently up my skirt, but I was still in danger of overheating, and I wasn’t sure how far I could trust my feminine deodorant.

“I’m Maggie Tyler,” my new friend said as she led the way. “My husband is an independent councillor, which means he works very hard but will never be Mayor. That honour only ever goes to the most senior Tory.”

I introduced myself as we arrived at the table. The three other ladies, all beautifully turned out and of varying shapes and sizes, welcomed me to their company.

“I’m Ingrid Jones,” I said. “I’m only here as a ‘plus one’.”

“Aren’t we all, dear?” laughed a plump woman in a bright yellow dress with an elaborate hat.

There were introductions all round. The large lady was Beth. The others were Sue and Liz. I hoped I would remember all the names. I realised nervously that if there were any giveaways in my disguise, this group would surely sniff them out.

“I love your dress, by the way,” said Maggie. “Where did you get it?”

“Online, actually,” I admitted. There were incredulous looks all round. “It’s a site called MyOwnCouture.com. You can design your own dress, based on some simple patterns. Of course, I’m hopeless with computers. My son’s girlfriend found it and helped me.”

I had to describe the site and how it worked. They were fascinated. I just hoped my enthusiasm and description of the process didn’t sound out of character.

Then I had to get up and do a twirl. The other ladies were most impressed with the quality and fit of the dress. Beth and Sue came over to feel the material. As they poked and pawed me, I had to giggle girlishly with them, rather than grab them back and propose a threesome behind the mayor’s hedge, which might have been my preference. I could feel the pressure within my ‘abdominal prosthesis’ and fervently hoped the fabric was as robust as Fred claimed. As far as I could remember it had never been subjected to this particular test.

Eventually my new companions completed their rigorous inspection and returned to their seats, all promising to check out the website. I made myself comfortable and listened to their happy chatter. They were talking about their children, which was something we all had in common. It seemed I must be the oldest as my son was at university, while their kids were all still at school. I smiled and laughed with them but didn’t contribute much. I wasn’t confident of either my voice or my ability to make middle-aged lady conversation.

One thing I soon noticed: everyone asked a lot of questions, and not just of me, the newcomer. At first I thought they were just nosey, but I began to realise that was the key to feminine discourse. Men are always keen to tell you about themselves, which leads to macho willy-waving and competitions for bragging rights. We women (we women?) are much less obsessed with ourselves and more interested in our companions and their experiences. Or maybe it’s just competition in a different form. I had to describe my marital status and what I did for a living, but I managed to make both sound sufficiently boring that no one pressed me for details.

After a while, Liz, a skinny blonde in a slightly too fussy and frilly pale blue dress, turned to me and asked, “So do you know anybody else here then?”

“I think the only people I know are George and Harriet Bairstow,” I said, taking another sip of my wine, which was really good.

“Oh God, Harriet! Ee-yuck!” squealed Beth. She stopped with an audible hiccup and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh sorry, is she a friend of yours?”

“Not exactly, no,” I admitted with a smile. “I only know her from the Bridge Club. We’re more rivals than friends.”

Not that Harriet was in my mother’s class as a Bridge player.

“Good,” Liz said. “I can’t stand that stuck-up cow!”

There were approving nods all round.

“She gets invited to all these do’s because she was at school with Honoria,” said Sue. I must have looked blank. “The Mayoress,” she added.

“They deserve each other, if you ask me,” said Beth.

I looked over to the other side of the garden and, sure enough, Harriet was in earnest conversation with the Mayor and the Mayoress. I was glad to have found a way of avoiding her and settled down to get plastered with my little group of wives.

As the afternoon wore on, we took it in turns to go and replenish the wine glasses. I definitely kept up with the other girls. It looked like my impersonation of my mother was turning me into an oenophile. When it was my turn I took the opportunity to go to the Ladies first. This was a trailer, presumably hired for the event, and parked on hard-standing next to the patio. The entrance to the Ladies was at one end. The Gents was at the other.

Inside, the Ladies was surprisingly clean and tidy with three pristine cubicles, and washbasins with large mirrors for us to check our make-up. I found a vacant stall immediately and went in to relieve myself of three large glasses of white wine. I was used to peeing sitting down by now, with my dress hiked up to my waist and my tights and knickers round my ankles. The abdominal prosthesis allowed me to urinate through my faux vagina quite realistically, but it did take some serious mopping up. I must have used half a roll of toilet paper.

I pulled my panties and hose back up and remembered to check that I hadn’t trapped the back of my dress in my knickers. I flushed and stepped out of the stall. I went over to a basin, washed my hands, and repaired my lipstick in the mirror alongside two other ladies. I primped my hair and checked the angle of my hat. I had never felt more feminine – or sheepish.

As I came out, I bumped into Fred, who was just about to go into the Gents.

“Ah, there you are, Ingrid,” he said. “I hope you don’t think I’ve been neglecting you?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“I saw you’d found some friends. Are you… er… fitting in?”

I knew what he was driving at. He was concerned that a twenty-year-old male might be out of his depth with a group of raucous, half-cut, middle-aged women, even if he was dressed and made up to be indistinguishable from them. I pretended not to understand.

“Why wouldn’t I?” I said, mindful of people milling about us on the way in and out of the toilets. “I’m with a group of other ladies just like me.”

“Er… right… well… well done,” he stammered, and turned to the door of the Gents. “We can go whenever you’re ready,” he said. “Come and find me. I’m certainly not going to interrupt you with that little gang of yours. I’d be terrified.”

I laughed and made my way back to get another round of drinks in.

For the next hour or so the five of us settled in at our merry table in the shade. We talked of any and every subject of interest to middle-aged women. We were bosom friends by the time I had seen off my fourth glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and I reckoned the others were ahead of me. The conversation got progressively earthier. At first it was weddings and children, but soon sex and periods were coming up a lot. When I was called upon to relate my own horrible experiences I tried to improvise on the sex by putting myself in the place of Rachel and Annie, but I had to admit – shamefully – that I had never really had a problem with my periods. Their reaction was envy, that I had escaped a revolting experience, and sympathy, in that I was missing a juicy talking point.

Every now and then a guilty-looking husband would approach, clearly afraid he would be in the doghouse for neglecting his wife. At that point the conversation became utterly proper; the relevant wife made her husband well aware of her displeasure; and he was sent away with a flea in his ear. Shrieks of laughter invariably burst out before he was out of earshot and the conversation returned to Magnitude Eight on the Vulgarity scale.

I thoroughly enjoyed the company of Maggie, Liz, Sue and especially big fat Beth, who was a scream. I definitely had too much to drink. Late night boozing in the Students Union bar hadn’t prepared me for the amount of wine we ladies put away that afternoon. As the vino exerted its effect, my shy, monosyllabic contributions to the conversation gradually became longer and more frequent. I also found myself giggling helplessly at my fellow plus-size plus-ones’ anecdotes. I just hoped I was keeping my voice and laughter consistently within the female range.

When Fred eventually braved the lionesses’ den to drag me away, my handbag was stuffed with paper napkins bearing the girls’ contact details. I had no choice but to respond in kind, so I gave them the number of my smartphone. It was the same one I had used as Milly four years earlier and everyone teased me about its age. I would enter their names and numbers into it later, so that I would know who was calling and could answer in the appropriate voice. But I said that I was expecting to be away for a while on business, so they shouldn’t be surprised if they only got my voicemail. Liz said she would invite me into their WhatsApp group.

When it was finally time to go I had to lean heavily on Fred as I tottered across the lawn towards the little enclosure where the Mayor and Mayoress were entertaining their VIP guests. Fred spoke for us both in thanking them for the invitation and their hospitality. I stayed silent. Not least because the garden was starting to sway from side to side.

“We had a wonderful afternoon,” he said.

“We’re very glad you enjoyed it,” said the Mayor politely. He clearly had no clue who either of us was.

“I can see how much Ingrid enjoyed it,” said Harriet, who was standing next to her mate, Honoria.

I waved and smiled. My alcohol-induced happy state wasn’t going to be spoiled by Harriet’s snarkiness. We said our goodbyes. As we made our way to the car, I seemed to have forgotten most of what I had learned about walking in heels. I don’t think I would have made it without Fred to catch me whenever I stumbled, which was often.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this, ‘Ingrid’,” he chuckled. “I’ll have to get you plastered more often.”

“I hope I haven’t ruined my mother’s reputation,” I burbled, between hiccups.

“Don’t worry. She could do with loosening up a little. Anyway if Harriet or anybody else tries to talk about the afternoon with the other Ingrid, she can legitimately claim she doesn’t remember anything about it, and they’ll probably believe her!”

As Fred drove us home, I felt the beginnings of a hangover coming on. I desperately hoped I hadn’t given anything away during the drunken afternoon.

When we got back to the house we tried to sneak up to Fred’s rooms to avoid my mother, but she had seen the car and was quick to intercept us. She was furious when she saw the state I was in. She made us give a blow-by-blow account of the afternoon and was only slightly mollified when I explained that I had hardly any conversation with anyone she knew. She hit the roof again when I admitted to getting blotto with four other women. I hadn’t given any of them the real Ingrid’s contact details. I just hoped she would never bump into any of them round town.

God knows what she would say to Harriet if she tried to make fun of her for getting drunk at the Mayor’s Garden Party…

* * *

Annie and I had still been seeing a lot of each other (as it were) while I was Ingrid. She didn’t seem to mind going to bed with someone who looked like a middle-aged lady, as long as I could remove my abdominal prosthesis and she could access those parts of me she needed. If anything, my disguise got her even more excited, which was puzzling but very welcome. I wasn’t so keen on us going out together in public. I found it difficult to keep my hands – and lips – off my gorgeous girlfriend, but such affection would have seemed very odd when the world saw me as a tubby matron in a severe grey skirt suit, and she was calling me ‘Auntie’.

I was keen for the charade to be over, so I had Vera inspect my facial prosthetics every morning for signs of wear and tear. I was in two minds about them. On the one hand I was longing to go back to being me, but on the other, if they broke up and fell off too soon, I would only have to go through the whole experience again with an improved version. Every day they stubbornly refused to show any signs of disintegration. Finally, two and a half weeks after I first became my mother, I persuaded her that they were as robust as the body prosthetics.

“Does that mean I can go back to being me?” I asked her at morning coffee.

“I suppose so,” she said, “and I’ll have to start doing the client meetings again. Pity, I’ve appreciated the break.”

Actually, I had quite enjoyed being Ingrid McLaughlin, Transformations Consultant. I was always happiest practising my coding in the Bunker, but interviewing clients made a nice change. Still, being Steve again meant I could go out with Annie as myself.

So with my mother’s approval I rushed to Vera’s office to get her to remove all my Ingrid-parts with her miracle solvent. Naked except for the panties I had come in (which were now too big for me and were threatening to descend at any moment), I hurried up to the flat with my arms full of Ingrid’s clothes. I dumped all but the underwear in her room. My bra, panties and stockings went in the laundry basket.

I moved my stuff into my own room and dressed as Steve again for the first time in nearly three weeks. It felt weird not wearing a bra – indeed, not having huge heavy boobs on my chest and needing a bra. I struggled a little with my balance. Not wearing high heels made things easier but my slimmed down caboose still wanted to wiggle from side to side. My boy clothes seemed rough and uncomfortable. I hoped I wasn’t hooked on silky knickers and nylons.

Finally, I returned the rest of my mother’s clothes to her bedroom. I wondered about the beautiful outfit I had worn to the Garden Party. Would she donate it to the client wardrobe or keep it for herself? She had nothing like it, as far as I knew. Would seeing me make ‘a better her than her’ change her sartorial preferences?

I hurried off to find Annie. She was in her office, prodding at a cast of somebody’s head. Her hands were covered in clay, plenty of which transferred to me when she threw her arms round my neck and kissed me.

“It’s great to see you back,” she said when she came up for air. “So where are you taking me this Saturday?”

Before I could answer my mother put her head round the door.

“I thought I saw you bound in here,” she said. “I just wanted to say that I’ll be away this weekend. Dolly and I are playing in the qualifying heat of the County Ladies’ Pairs. It’s up in Peterborough this year so we’re staying in the hotel on Saturday night, as the journey is so tiring.”

She meant that Dolly always fell asleep during an hour and a half in the car, and didn’t wake up till half-way through the first Bridge session, having made half a dozen horrible mistakes. They had yet to make the cut for the Final after several attempts.

What luck – Steve’s first weekend back and we would have the flat to ourselves for two whole days! We had a great time, just being a normal boy and his girlfriend, rather than a reluctant female impersonator and his/her enthusiastic groupie.

There was just one odd incident: for some reason I couldn’t find any of my pyjamas. I know I had at least two clean pairs in my chest of drawers. I would have been quite happy sleeping in the nude but Annie insisted I wear one of my mother’s nighties which was still in the laundry basket. In one sense that felt wrong, but in another it felt delicious!

* * *

To crown a great weekend for us all, my mother got back on Sunday evening to announce that she and Dolly had got through to the elite County Ladies’ Pairs Final for the first time ever! They even finished in the prizes of the qualifying session, and my mother proved it by banging two bottles of decent French wine down on the dining room table. I was happy about that because it meant that Annie and I could look forward to having the flat to ourselves again three weeks later, when Mum and Dolly would be playing in the Final.

She had called Fred on the way back with the good news and he brought a bottle of bubbly round to celebrate. With five of us that went quickly, Dolly guzzling two glasses in double-quick time. I was opening a second bottle from our cellar when my mother suddenly pulled a sour face, inappropriate for the celebrations. I asked her what was the matter.

“Harriet Bairstow qualified as well,” she said. “By the way, I had to put up with a lot of rude remarks about me getting drunk at the Garden Party.”

“I didn’t think she was good enough,” I said, trying to get her back to the Bridge. “Has she really improved that much in the last four years?”

Dolly snorted.

“No, but she has started paying people to play with her. She’d persuaded some American expert to play with her in the Ladies’ Pairs Qualifying.”

“Is that allowed?” Annie asked.

“Sadly, yes,” said Fred, “and it’s getting more and more common in county and regional congresses. There always seem to be a few wealthy no-hopers paying an expert to play with them.”

“In fact, many international teams are put together by sponsors,” said my mother. “It’s how a rich person gets to be a World Champion. They field a team of six. At any time there will be two pairs playing and one resting; five world-class pros and a rich palooka, who pays their wages and expenses, and bonuses if the team does well.”

“The sponsor has to play a certain percentage of the hands to be designated a World Champion if his team wins,” added Fred. “His professional partner does his best to limit the damage when the boss is playing, and the other four try to recover the deficit when he’s sitting out. So Harriet has started doing the same. I think she’s hoping to sponsor a team and play for England one day, but to do that she has to get some good results in local and regional events.”

“Why, if she’s paying her partners and team-mates?” I asked.

“There aren’t that many good ‘hired guns’ around,” said Fred. “So they can pick and choose, and they’ll only work for a sponsor if they think they have a hope of winning things with her.”

I got the second bottle open and we didn’t let the iniquity and unfairness of Harriet trying to buy herself a place in the England Women’s team spoil our evening.

* * *

The next few days were the best of my life; I had found the woman with whom I would spend the rest of my life.

It was early August. It was holiday time and our client workload was light. The weather was perfect. My mother decided, with a show of reluctance, that she could do without us for a few days, so Annie and I went off to Newquay where I tried to teach her to surf. She was a good swimmer, and had as much fun falling off her board as she had trying to ride it, but in the end I had to admit defeat and we spent half my bonus money on some proper lessons for her. She soon un-learned what I had tried to teach her, and the excellent coach managed to undo all the damage I had done to her confidence.

We stayed in a snug little ‘B and B’, ate fish and chips, drank scrumpy cider, and were as happy as if it had been the best hotel on the Cote d’Azur.

We returned, with regret, during the evening of the second Sunday in August. Annie went back to her grandmother’s house to make sure the old lady was all right.

* * *

In the middle of the next week, back at work, we were having our morning coffee. Dolly was telling us how much she was looking forward to the Final of the County Ladies’ Pairs the weekend after next, when she suddenly turned pale. She dropped the cup she was pouring and clutched her chest. Then she collapsed slowly onto the olive-green carpet.

We rushed to help. I tried to lift her up.

“You shouldn’t move her, should you?” Annie squealed in obvious panic.

“I’m pretty sure that’s only if she might have a spinal injury,” I said.

“That’s right,” said my mother. “We need to get her feet higher than her head. Help Steven get her onto the couch, Fred.”

Between the two of us, we managed to get poor Dolly onto the couch and laid her out flat, with her feet sticking up over the arm at the end. She was already starting to come round.

“Just stay still, Dolly,” said my mother. She had taken out her mobile phone and was dialling.

“I’m all right,” Dolly was saying, struggling to get up. “Pills… bag….”

I pushed her down gently. Annie rushed to get her Granny’s handbag and rifled through it, finding a small brown pill bottle.

“Give her two,” said Mum, over her shoulder.

I grabbed a coffee cup and filled it with water. Annie helped Dolly take her pills. Mum was talking into her phone now.

“Just lie nice and still for a moment or two, Dolly,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Yes… yes… I understand,” my mother said into the phone. She turned to Dolly. “Steven and I will take you over to the hospital at Lea,” she said. “No arguments now.”

Mum had generously arranged private medical insurance for all the staff. The local NHS practices were overstretched and never objected to their patients going directly to private clinics, for check-ups or minor ops, as long as they were kept fully informed. The Lea was the nearest private hospital to the house.

I expected Dolly to object but she nodded quietly. Annie sat down beside her and took her hand.

“They’re expecting us as soon as we like,” said my mother. “They’ll notify her family GP and get access to her notes. We’ll take the van. Do you want to come too, Annie dear? You can sit in the back with your grandmother.”

Annie nodded. She’d have to be there sometime today anyway. As Dolly’s next of kin, there would be forms to sign, and so on. Also the doctors shouldn’t be telling Mum and me anything without either Dolly’s or Annie’s permission.

* * *

By the time we got to the hospital, Dolly was insisting it was all a fuss over nothing and she should be back at the house. She had been planning to clean out the ovens in the main kitchen that afternoon. They were a disgrace, apparently. Eventually she was persuaded that since we had come all this way (a twenty-minute drive), she might as well have a quick check-up.

She was soon transferred to a stretcher trolley, and we waited with her while my mother filled out the various inevitable insurance forms and handed over her credit card details. Dolly confirmed that the heart pills were the only medication she took regularly, and that she wasn’t diabetic or allergic to penicillin. She remonstrated with us for wasting money and everyone’s time. Annie seemed to be far more worried and upset, and I did my best to keep her calm.

As promised, a consultant cardiologist, Mr Waheed, was available within minutes of our arrival. He seemed very kind and reassuring and he soon took Dolly off into a consulting room. The receptionist invited the three of us to help ourselves to coffee and cookies in the family waiting area. To keep Annie’s mind off her grandmother’s condition, we set about the crossword in one of the broadsheet papers. After struggling with the compiler’s warped mind for several minutes without success, a thought occurred to me.

“Why is she being examined by a cardiologist, Mum?” I asked. “And how did you know about the pills?”

My mother looked a little shifty.

“She has some… history,” she said. “She didn’t want me to tell anyone, so that you didn’t worry about her. But I suppose it will all come out now anyway.”

“Granny has heart trouble?” Annie said in a panicky voice.

“Well, yes,” admitted my mother. “She collapsed with chest pain and nausea once before. About eighteen months ago, it was. Her doctor diagnosed mild ‘stable angina’ and gave her the pills. That’s when she finally gave up smoking. As far as I know she hasn’t had any episodes since, but they said she should take it a bit easier. She insisted that she carry on working for us, but that was one reason why I hired the additional cleaning staff – to reduce Dolly’s workload. Anyway, the doctor said she should have an annual check-up and call the surgery immediately if she had any more symptoms.”

We all fell silent. Annie was looking very worried. Her lower lip trembled almost imperceptibly.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” my mother said, taking her hand. “People can live a perfectly normal life with what Dolly has. She just has to keep taking the medication and be careful not to overdo it.”

Annie tried a little smile, almost successfully.

About half an hour after he disappeared with Dolly, Waheed reappeared. A quiet woman in white nurse’s scrubs hovered discreetly behind him. He addressed Annie, as next of kin.

“I’m pleased to say that your grandmother is feeling much better. I’m satisfied that this little… episode is behind her now...”

Annie gave an audible sigh of relief and began to thank the doctor. I sensed there was a ‘but’ coming.

“…but I’d like to keep her in for twenty-four hours for observation, and I think we should run some tests. I would recommend an angiogram.”

We all looked blank, so he went on to explain.

“We use X-ray imaging to examine the heart’s blood vessels to see if there are any restrictions in blood flow. We inject a dye into the femoral artery. It shows up in X-rays as it flows through into the heart. Then the machine takes a series of images of the blood vessels.”

“So what happens if you do find a blockage?”

“We may be able to open a clogged artery during the same procedure. We push a tiny balloon along the blocked artery to stretch it open. We would probably also insert a short wire-mesh tube called a stent. That would be left in place permanently to allow blood to flow more freely.”

“It all sounds terrifying!” said Annie.

“Well, it’s a fairly common procedure nowadays. I agree that it is quite invasive, and it’s not totally risk-free. Complications are rare, though.” He checked Dolly’s notes that her GP practice had sent over. “But I see your grandmother had all the non-invasive tests they could give her eighteen months ago – electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, stress test – and they were largely inconclusive. Her doctor gave her the medication but decided not to go any further then, given her age, but to wait and see. I would have done the same.”

“Is it all really necessary now?” asked my mother, in her headmistress voice.

“I think so, I’m afraid.” Waheed was unfazed. Headmistresses didn’t frighten him. “My examination this afternoon suggests that her heart is noticeably weaker than before. We really need to do something about that before it gets any worse.”

“So when will you do it?” asked Annie in a small, sad voice.

“We should leave at least twelve hours after her most recent meal. Can you tell me when she last ate?”

“We had breakfast together this morning,” said Annie. “We finished at about eight o’clock. She probably had a couple of biscuits and a cup of tea around half-past ten – just before she felt ill.”

Waheed checked his watch.

“We’d probably better leave it till first thing tomorrow morning then,” he said. He looked around for the nurse, who appeared at his elbow as if by magic. “Can you find her a bed, please Sharmila, and get her checked in? She might as well have a late lunch now, and a sandwich at tea-time, but no breakfast tomorrow.”

The nurse disappeared to do his bidding.

“If you’d like to come with me, I’ll take you to her,” he said.

We spent half an hour or so with Dolly in the examining room until the porters came for her. The doctor recommended we leave her to get settled in. We could come back at normal visiting hours that evening. Understandably she was far from her usual cheery self, but she accepted that she was in the best place for her condition and that things might have been a lot worse.

* * *

They did the angiogram at eight o’clock the following morning. It involved opening the femoral artery so that the dye could travel up into her heart. Afterwards, to close up the wound, a beefy nurse had to press down on it with all her weight for several minutes until the blood clotted and scabbed. Then Dolly had to lie flat for several hours to avoid reopening the cut. For that reason we weren’t encouraged to come and see her until after lunch.

Dr Waheed intercepted the three of us outside Dolly’s private room before we went in to see her. That suggested bad news was coming, and it was.

“I’m afraid the angiogram revealed several blockages in her coronary arteries. A couple of them are well over fifty per cent blocked, and the artery walls are in poor condition. All that means that her case is not suitable for an angioplasty. We can’t be sure until we can examine the heart directly, but we will probably need to graft a new artery to replace each damaged one. For that the only option is a bypass. This is quite a serious operation, but without it she is at high risk of a heart attack at any time. I’m very sorry.”

There was a lot more technical language (including horrendous phrases like ‘coronary artery bypass surgery’ and ‘median sternotomy procedure’, which I intended to look up afterwards), but the bottom line was that Dolly was going to have a serious operation with a substantial risk. Also to get to her heart the surgeon would have to crack her sternum down its length. So obviously she would need a long period of convalescence, for much of which she would be bedbound.

“There is a further complication, I’m afraid,” Waheed continued. “Mrs Thompson hasn’t consented to the operation yet. I got the impression she wasn’t actually afraid of the procedure, but she says she won’t put you to the expense. I’m not sure what the financial situation is. Perhaps you should talk to her?”

“I certainly will!” said my mother in a determined voice.

The headmistress was back and girding her loins. She was about to storm in, when she stopped and turned to Annie and me.

“Just give me a minute alone with her, would you?” she said. “By the way, Annie, I assume you do want your grandmother to have this operation?”

Annie nodded vigorously. “It sounds awful, but you have to trust the doctors, don’t you? They’re the experts, and if they’re saying she could die without it...” She was on the verge of tears. “Maybe I’m being selfish, but I’m not ready to say goodbye to her.”

The tears arrived. I held her tight. My mother nodded and pushed open the door.

* * *

Between Annie’s tearful pleading and my mother’s stern insistence that all the costs would be covered by the company insurance scheme (not completely true – there was a substantial ‘excess’), Dolly capitulated. The operation was scheduled for the following day – a great benefit of having private medical insurance, but it also showed how serious the Consultant judged Dolly’s condition to be. We left Annie to spend the rest of the day at her bedside.

I returned at the end of visiting time. I felt Annie shouldn’t be alone and insisted on taking her back to our flat. She didn’t object, blubbing softly on my shoulder as I drove us home.

We had a takeaway dinner with Fred and my mother. We opened one of the bottles of Merlot she and Dolly had won at the County Ladies’ Pairs Qualifying, but it was a much less cheerful evening than the last time we were all together – the night after their great triumph.

“That reminds me,” said Annie to my mother, as we were sitting down to eat. “I think what has upset Granny most was letting you down. You won’t be able to play in the Final, after all these years of trying.”

“Oh you must tell her not to worry about that.”

“It was all she talked about,” Annie continued. “She asked me to remind you to let the organisers know so they can contact the reserve pair.”

“Yes, of course.” My mother was looking thoughtful. “It’s not till next weekend though, is it? There’s no hurry.”

“I suppose not, but there’s no doubt about it, is there?” Annie persisted. “She won’t be able to play. Even if the operation is a total success, she’ll be bedridden with her chest wired and heavily bound up until her breastbone mends. Then she’ll need physio. Recovery will be at least four weeks; at her age probably more like six. She might be able to get out of bed after a fortnight, but she won’t be able to move much.”

“No, no, I understand,” said my mother, “but we might be able to make alternative arrangements.”

“Yes, maybe she could play online from her bed,” I suggested. “She’d need a tablet PC with the right app. The other three players could play as usual and an official could enter the bids and plays which would then appear on her screen…”

I tailed off. A lot of people now played Bridge online and I had got excited with the technical possibilities, but I couldn’t imagine the old fogeys of the County Bridge association going for anything like that. Easier just to drop her and Mum from the competition.

“That, might work, yes,” said Mum dubiously.

I wondered what else she could be thinking of.

“I’ll talk to Dolly as soon as she’s out of surgery and allowed visitors,” she said. “In the meantime, would everyone please keep her illness a secret? No need even to say she’s in hospital for the moment. She won’t want to see anyone apart from us anyway, will she?”

We all agreed, though none of us could work out what she had in mind…

* * *

It was actually two days after Dolly’s operation before we were allowed in to see her. Dr Waheed met with us first.

“I’m glad to say that the operation was a success,” he began.

Annie let out a sigh of relief, but my mother and I could tell from his demeanour that there was more to come.

“As I think I mentioned, the angiogram couldn’t tell us everything. The full extent of the damage to the coronary arteries often isn’t apparent until we have direct access to the heart. Unfortunately in Mrs Thompson’s case, the damage was more severe than we had hoped. She was a heavy smoker for most of her life, I believe?”

We confirmed his understanding. I didn’t like his use of the past tense.

“So we had quite a lot of repair work to do. This has left her very weak, I’m afraid.” He obviously noticed Annie’s downhearted expression and hurried on. “I’m optimistic that she can make a full recovery – that will depend on how well the grafts ‘take’ – but it will be a long, slow process.”

Annie went in to see her alone first while Mum and I sat in the waiting room with the excellent coffee and cookies – another benefit of ‘going private’. After about twenty minutes Annie came out.

“You wanted a word with her alone, Ingrid?” she said.

“Yes, thank you, dear. I’ll only be a moment.”

My mother went into the private room. Annie came and sat with me. I could see she was fighting her tears.

“She looks ten years older,” she said sadly. “She could hardly speak.”

“Anyone would struggle after what she’s been through,” I said. “She’ll be back to her old self in a month or two – better, in fact. Don’t forget she’s been managing on half a heart for a while now. She’ll be fitter than ever when she’s back on her feet.”

Annie looked at me with genuine hope in her eyes.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” she said. She smiled. It was like the sun coming out after a week of rain. “I love… your optimism.”

“Careful. You nearly said those three forbidden words.”

She laughed and moved in for a hug. Nothing more was said until my mother came bustling out.

“It’s all settled,” she said briskly. “Come on.”

Before we could ask what was settled, she was dragging us into Dolly’s private room. Although well prepared I was shocked at how ill she looked. I forced a smile onto my face and drew in a breath to say how well she looked.

“Dolly has something she wants to ask you, Steven,” my mother said, before I could speak.

“Yes,” she rasped, her voice softer and hoarser than ever. “I’d be very grateful if you would take my place and win the County Ladies’ Pairs with your mother.”

I said I’d think about it.

Annie and her Granny

By Susannah Donim

Steve’s mother runs the secretive Transformations consultancy. This means he has a number of interesting jobs over the years.

Chapter 5 – The Substitute

Steve has qualms about the propriety of the favour his mother asks of him, but he has no idea of where the deception will lead.

“No, no, no!” I shouted in the car on the way home. “It’s a mad idea; completely bonkers; and almost certainly illegal!”

“You said you’d think about it,” my mother said accusingly.

“Well I couldn’t turn Dolly down flat, not with her lying half-dead in hospital!” I realised that was a poor choice of words. I turned to Annie. “Sorry, I…”

“It’s OK. You were being insensitive for emphasis. I get it,” she said sarcastically.

“It’s perfectly feasible,” my mother argued. “You know our system can make you an exact replica of Dolly…”

“I know it can,” I said, before realising I had walked into her trap, “but that isn’t the point.”

“It’s one weekend of your time…”

“It’s not that I couldn’t do it,” I blustered, “I just shouldn’t. It’s unethical, immoral…”

My mother thundered on as if I hadn’t spoken.

“…and you like playing Bridge. You’re always saying you don’t get to play enough against decent opposition. These will be the cream of the County players,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken.

“Women players.”

“Are you saying that women Bridge players aren’t as good as men?”

“No!” Was she accusing me of sexism now too? “It’s wrong because it’s the Ladies’ Pairs and I’m not a woman!”

“But you could be, for one weekend, easily. No one would ever know.”

“I’d know. It’s cheating!”

“How? We’re not arranging any secret signals or fixing the cards somehow. You’d be in exactly the same position as every other lady player.”

I paused for breath. Could she really not see this was wrong? Or was it me?

“Why can’t you just find another woman to play with?”

“That wouldn’t be allowed. Dolly and I qualified as a pair. If either of us is unavailable, the first reserves get to play.” She paused, trying to think of another persuasive argument. “You know… I bet you wouldn’t even be the first!” she added, slyly.

“Huh?”

“I bet some male Bridge player has entered a Ladies’ Pairs somewhere in disguise, if only for a bet. If it comes to that, I’d wager some woman has entered a Men’s Pairs somewhere.”

“Oh, you’re just making things up now,” I said. “Are you really so determined to play in the County Final that you’d enter with your son in drag?”

“You wouldn’t just be doing it for me. It would be for Dolly too.”

Ouch! Low blow.

“She was really upset at having to let me down – as she saw it,” she hastened to add. “I just hope it doesn’t affect her recovery…”

My mother’s hypocrisy was breathtaking. This was such a completely stupid idea, so why did I feel like I was losing the argument? I turned to Annie in desperation. She had been uncharacteristically silent throughout.

“Oh, just say yes, Steve,” she said, to my horror. “You know you’ll give in eventually.”

I stared out of the window for the rest of the journey, not trusting myself to say anything more. But if I had to do this, by God I would get something out of it; something my mother didn’t want to give.

* * *

She really didn’t like my condition.

“There’s a reason we no longer see your father,” she said.

“Don’t care,” I said. “I have the right. Besides, you’re obviously in touch with him.”

“I haven’t seen him for years,” she insisted. There might have been a slight, almost undetectable, emphasis on ‘seen’.

“But you know how to contact him. You must do, as he owns this place, not you.” She didn’t deny it. “So that’s my condition: I get to meet with my father, or you find someone else to dress up as Dolly next weekend. Maybe Fred will do it.”

“This is blackmail,” she said weakly.

“It certainly is. Well spotted. So what?”

She sighed. “All right, I agree – but I’m not telling you anything till after the Ladies’ Pairs Final.”

“So you’re asking me to trust you to keep your word?” She actually looked shocked, and maybe a little hurt. “All right, I suppose,” I conceded.

“If you do this for me, I’ll tell you how to find your father,” she said.

“You mean you’ll tell me why he left? Why you two split up?”

“No, that story isn’t mine to tell. I’ll help you meet him. If he’s prepared to talk to you, I’ll fill in the gaps afterwards…”

I think she understood that if she reneged on her promise, she wouldn’t see me for dust. Now there was just the little matter of becoming a seventy-year-old tea lady for a weekend’s Bridge.

* * *

I grudgingly admitted that it might take me a few days to get used to being Dolly so the process started on the Wednesday morning. As usual I had to undergo an all-over waxing, but it was less painful than previously because it was only three weeks since I’d had it done to become my mother. Or maybe I was just getting used to it. Or maybe my body was taking the hint and not producing as much hair.

My 3D image was already stored in the computer, so I didn’t need to go through the embarrassing naked photography session again. Dolly’s image had been taken earlier too, while we were building up the database, so it was easy enough to print the prostheses required to turn me into her. So there I was, sitting in front of the mirror in Vera’s room, wondering how I let myself get talked into these things. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t have happened if Annie hadn’t joined the opposition party.

First, Vera marked guidelines on my face using the computer-printed template, as she had when turning me into my mother. This enabled her to position the facial prostheses correctly. She could then glue them on in the right places to turn me into Dolly. There were far more pieces than there had been for my Ingrid disguise, because Dolly’s skin was thinner and floppier and more wrinkled. This, plus the fact that she was significantly overweight, meant that any differences in our ‘facial architectures’ – which fortunately were not too noticeable anyway – were easily concealed.

I now had wrinkly bags under my eyes and many deep lines across my face. Dolly’s plumpness gave me a double chin, not a scrawny neck, so the prosthetics easily hid my Adam’s apple.

It was fascinating, though grisly, to watch my twenty-year-old male features slowly turn into those of a seventy-year-old woman. Dolly’s face sat incongruously between my male haircut and my male body.

Vera pronounced herself finished and Sharon appeared carrying a grey wig. It was styled in a short bob which Dolly liked because ‘it kept her hair out of her eyes while she was working and was no trouble to look after’. Sensible lady. With my wig cap and wig in place, Sharon began applying some limited make-up. Dolly never wore much when she was working.

The most unpleasant part was when she painted my teeth. She cranked the chair down so I was practically horizontal, like at the dentist’s.

“Dolly still has her own teeth; well, most of them,” she said. “But yours are too white for an old lady, especially one who smoked heavily for years. I don’t think she ever did anything to remove the nicotine stains, and although they do fade after a while, her teeth will always look a little yellow.”

Sharon picked up a photograph and studied it carefully. When she put it down on her table I saw that it was of Dolly with a wide, friendly smile. It was true that her teeth were not her best feature.

Sharon dipped her fine paintbrush in a pot of yellow paint and bent over me to get a closer look.

“This would last about a month, I think,” she said. “But I can remove it whenever we want with the right solvent.”

“Thank Heaven for that,” I said, when I was allowed to speak. “This is only till Monday morning, remember.”

Sharon changed brushes and picked up a little pot of some black substance.

“I’m putting a little shading down the sides of the front teeth and on the gums. At Dolly’s age there are gaps between her teeth as the gums have receded. I obviously don’t want to do any real damage, but we need to make your smile look like that of a seventy-year-old. That means I need to fake broken and cracked teeth.”

She kept referring back to the photo as she worked.

“I think that’s pretty close,” she said eventually. She returned the chair to the upright position so that I could see myself in the mirror.

Once again, the Transformations 3D printing process and Sharon’s hair and make-up skills had triumphed. There was no doubt at all who I was looking at in the mirror: Dolly Thompson, elderly cleaner, tea lady, and aspiring Bridge champion. It wasn’t that bad, I decided. I knew from her old photos that Dolly had been something of a beauty in her youth, and she had aged quite well. Then I tried smiling and immediately wished I hadn’t. My teeth looked awful.

The rest of me still needed to change. No one had asked Dolly to be photographed naked, but Annie was able to provide her measurements in detail, and we had access to all her clothes, so it wasn’t too difficult to create a prosthesis for me. It was a one-piece like Jennifer’s, though fortunately not as fat. Also it had long sleeves and came down to well below my knees, to provide realistic seventy-year-old skin all over me. So it was more like a lumpy, wrinkled full body suit, cut off at the wrists and ankles.

“I’ll have to put age make-up on your hands, of course,” Sharon said.

With Vera’s help I struggled into the suit, and tried to remain calm while she did the usual embarrassing thing with my testicles and penis. When she finally had them securely tucked away, she dropped a major bombshell.

“Since you’re only going to be wearing this from now till Monday morning, I hope you won’t mind that I’ve applied the adhesive all over you. It’s always better to secure your prosthetics firmly, and as you know, it controls your perspiration.”

“You might have told me first!” I protested.

“You might have said no,” she grinned.

She started the lengthy process of smoothing my new skin down all over me.

“Just lie back and enjoy a little massage,” she said. “We need to smooth out any air bubbles. They’d look really weird, like you had something alive and moving under your skin.”

When she was satisfied that the adhesive was set and my elderly, wrinkled skin was as well attached as possible, she went over to her desk and passed me my new underwear.

“As for your impersonation of Ingrid, these are new, and the same brands and sizes that Dolly wears – Annie checked her drawers and went into town to get them for you. She also picked up a few of Dolly’s clothes from home.”

I dropped down off the table, my new droopy breasts swinging uncomfortably. I immediately felt the weight of Dolly’s excess flesh. I was now heavier than Ingrid, though still lighter than Jennifer. The key difference was that my new body was soft and floppy. I would need some hefty shapewear to achieve a decent figure.

“You’d better not move like that from now on,” said Vera sternly. “A seventy-year-old lady can’t jump down off a table! In future, you need to let someone help you with any energetic physical manoeuvres – and stairs. Dolly has bad knees. You know she walks with a stick, don’t you? Actually she can manage without it well enough. To be honest, I think she uses it to get sympathy.”

I’d forgotten that. She didn’t use it round our offices, claiming it just got in the way, but she leaned on it when she went in and out of the church hall where the Bridge Club met, because there were some awkward steps. Inside she would always claim one of the stationary pair seats, propping her stick up against the wall.

I acknowledged Vera’s warning but still got my bra and knickers (tight, voluminous granny panties) on as quickly as possible. This was far worse than seeing myself in my mother’s naked body, awkward as that had felt. I wondered if Dolly had realised the implications of asking me to impersonate her?

I stopped and examined my new body in Vera’s wall mirror. Apart from the all-over wrinkles, and the flabby cellulite from my waist down to my knees, the main thing I focused on were my breasts. Milly’s had been small and perky; Jennifer’s had been massive, but still firm; my mother’s a little smaller and only slightly saggy; but Dolly’s clearly needed a stiff bra to have any respectable shape at all.

Vera saw the horrified expression on my face.

“Growing old is the worst,” she said, “until you consider the alternative.” I was still speechless. “It’s just as bad for men, you know,” she continued, not unkindly, “just in different ways. But of course, you tend to die off earlier, so you’re spared the worst of it. And in fact Dolly’s not in bad shape at all for her age. It’ll be another ten to fifteen years before the rot really sets in for her.”

“What happens – happened – to…” I found I couldn’t frame the rest of the sentence. I raised my hand to my chest.

“Your dangly boobs?” she said, without a hint of embarrassment. “It’s mainly falling oestrogen levels after the menopause, and maybe also some sun damage from UV radiation. The skin and connective tissue of the breast becomes less hydrated, making it less elastic. With loss of elasticity, the breasts lose firmness and fullness and can develop a stretched, looser appearance. It’s not uncommon to change your cup size as you age. Dense breast tissue is replaced by fat as the aging process continues. I understand it was quite a clever bit of programming by Fred to make the tissue density vary for elderly flesh.”

He hadn’t mentioned he’d done that! I held up my arms, fascinated by the soft flesh that dangled loose. I pushed my left underarm with my right hand; it wobbled like jelly in a polythene bag.

“That’s called a batwing,” Vera said helpfully. “Most women over forty have them. Fat and sagging skin starts appearing under your upper arms. It’s a combination of factors: increase in overall body fat mass, more of which localizes to the arms in some women; loss of muscle mass in the arms, causing the skin to hang more loosely; and the loss of elasticity in the skin.”

I had quickly got used to my three previous female impersonations and even started to enjoy myself a bit, but this was different. I was very fond of Dolly, but actually being her…! Oh well, at least it would only be for a few days, and I wouldn’t have to show myself in public much – just the weekend playing Bridge with strangers. Then I remembered Harriet Bairstow would be there. She was always condescending to Dolly. I hoped I’d be able to keep my temper. It would be a dead giveaway if frail, seventy-year-old Dolly knocked Harriet on her ass – highly popular, no doubt, with everyone who knew her, but a dead giveaway.

Vera gave me a pair of thick support tights. I sat back down on her stretcher table to pull them on. They were tight (hence the name?) but surprisingly comfortable.

“These are great,” I said to Vera, “they feel like they’re holding in all the wobbly wrinkled flesh on my bum and thighs.”

“I think Dolly wears them for her varicose veins actually,” she said. “They improve the blood flow by putting pressure on your legs to help the blood vessels work better. The arteries that take oxygen-rich blood to your muscles can relax, so blood flows freely; and the veins get a boost pushing blood back to your heart.”

I must have started to look bored, but Vera was unrepentant.

“Any old lady with bad legs would know this stuff, so you should too,” she said. “To summarise, the tights keep your legs from getting tired and achy. They can also ease swelling in your feet and ankles as well as help prevent and treat varicose veins. They may even stop you from feeling light-headed or dizzy when you stand up. The blood keeps moving, so it’s harder for it to pool in your veins and make a clot.”

“OK, got it,” I said, impressed by Vera’s detailed anatomical knowledge. “Can I get dressed now?”

She sighed. “The impatience of youth…” she began, and laughed. “…and of old age, apparently. You’ll need a slip first.”

She handed me a cream underslip. I pulled it on over my head and tried to wriggle into it, but it was tight and I found it difficult to get it over my bust. Vera helped me, pulling it down to my waist, but then even she struggled to get it over my huge butt.

“You’re going to need a lady’s maid to get dressed in the morning, aren’t you? I hope Annie will volunteer.”

“I imagine she’ll insist on it.”

“Good! Here – pick a dress.”

Annie hadn’t brought much of a choice: three, all with long-sleeve, high-collars, and floral designs. I chose a dark blue silk dress, with a design of yellow flowers and green leaves. It was quite pretty actually.

“Let me help you on with that, Dolly,” said Vera, emphasising my new name. “I know you’ll struggle with zipping it up.”

“Thank you, Vera dear,” I said, trying to get into character.

The dress came down to mid-calf on me. It would have been nearer the ankles on the real Dolly.

She had also provided a pair of shoes from the company wardrobe. They were the kind Dolly would wear, but in my size and with low heels. I stepped into them.

“You need to stay sitting down as much as possible so that no one notices you’re taller than you should be.”

“Hopefully I won’t meet anyone who knows Dolly that well,” I said.

I discounted Harriet because she was so self-obsessed, she probably never noticed anything about anyone else.

“Right – accessories,” Vera said.

While Vera was decorating me with bracelets and a pretty pendant necklace, Sharon returned to attend to my hands. She began by painting my nails in a subdued pink – Dolly’s favourite. Then she stuck thin latex strips all over the backs of my hands and painted them an aging darkish brown colour. Then she added additional darker blemishes.

“Liver spots,” she said to my enquiry. “They’re harmless and quite common in older people.” She was copying from photographs again. “Annie took these yesterday on her phone. I’m trying to make exact copies of the spots on the real Dolly’s hands – just in case some sharp-eyed observer notices. Very unlikely, I know, but it costs nothing to be precise. And don’t worry: none of this will wash off.”

I hadn’t been worried till she said that. For how long would I have the hands of an elderly lady? Vera slipped an old wedding ring and a cheap engagement ring on the third finger of my left hand.

“That means you two are engaged,” Sharon quipped. “No – married!”

Vera chuckled. I glowered.

“OK, you’re done,” said Vera. “I’ll call your mother for her inspection.” She passed me a slightly worn tan handbag. “Annie picked this up from Dolly at the hospital. She doesn’t need it there. It’s full of her – now your – belongings, so make sure you look after it.”

“I’ll put the make-up I used on you in there too,” said Sharon.

I opened it and found an array of feminine paraphernalia including some tissues (clean), a hairbrush, and Dolly’s purse, in which were her driving licence and car keys. She drove a ten-year old Mini Cooper very slowly (though she was probably a safer driver than Fred in his monstrous Jag). Not that she drove anywhere much these days, just between her home and the office or the shops. If I did take it out, I would have to remember to drive like a little old lady.

There was a pair of glasses in there too. I put them on. They didn’t seem to make any difference to my vision.

“How will Dolly – the real Dolly – manage without these in hospital?” I asked.

“No, she still has her own specs; those are plain glass copies,” said Vera. “Don’t let anyone else get their hands on them. They’ll see they’re not prescription.”

My mother came in as I was rummaging in ‘my’ handbag.

“Come on then, let’s have a look at you,” she said, leading me back to Vera’s mirror.

There I was again: unmistakably Dolly in every way.

“Oh yes, that’s really good,” my mother enthused. “You’ve done a marvellous job on her, girls.” She turned back to me. “Now, Dolly, you’ve got three days to get into character. For a start you need to stoop. You have a bad back and sore knees, so you should bend forward a little and hunch up your shoulders.”

She took hold of my shoulders and pulled them down into what she judged to be the right posture. Vera came over.

“Here,” she said, “this will help.”

She handed me Dolly’s stick. I took it in my right hand and leant heavily on it.

“Other hand!” my mother said testily. “Now, hobble around a little. Try to copy Dolly’s walk, if you can.”

It took me a while but eventually the ladies agreed I was duplicating Dolly’s stiff gait well enough.

My mother looked at her watch. I instinctively tried to check mine, but of course found an unfamiliar ladies’ watch on my wrist. I struggled to decipher its tiny face. I could barely see the minute hand, let alone the hour. How on earth did Dolly manage with this? I guessed she thought of it as jewellery, rather than as a timepiece. She rarely needed to know the time anyway these days.

“Lunchtime,” Mum announced. “Let’s go up to the flat. There are a few more things we need to discuss before you bump into any of the other staff here.”

* * *

My mother and I shared a light lunch in the flat’s kitchen. She started on her instructions straight away.

“Your big problem will be your voice, obviously,” she said, through a mouthful of cheese on toast. “Fortunately, Dolly’s is deep for a woman and hoarse, because of her age and the years of smoking. You should try to say as little as possible. As long as we’re together, I can do all the talking and explain that you’re getting over a cold and have virtually lost your voice. If you have to speak, just try and keep it to a throaty whisper. Try it.”

I thought for a moment. What did Dolly sound like?

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” I rasped.

“Yes, well, that phrase is a typing test rather than a vocal exercise, but never mind. That wasn’t at all bad actually. It was strained and breathy but quite feminine. It even sounded a bit like Dolly’s Norfolk accent. You’re quite the mimic, aren’t you?”

I accepted her praise graciously. God knows it happened seldom enough.

“Now the only people who know about the deception apart from you, me and Annie, are Vera and Sharon. Oh, and Fred. I’d like to keep it that way, so if you bump into any of our other staff during the rest of the week, you’re really Dolly, all right?”

“Don’t worry,” I said in my normal voice, “I’m going to stay up here till it’s time to get into the car to Peterborough.”

“Actually I think you should go downstairs and show your face to the catering staff and the other cleaners. You need to practise with a real audience, and where it won’t be a disaster if you make a mistake.”

“But won’t they expect me to start cleaning and making tea?”

“Well they know you were taken to hospital at the beginning of the week. We’ll tell them you’re still convalescing, and that you only came by to say hello, and show everyone you’re on the mend. You can serve the afternoon tea in the common room, if you like.”

“But I don’t know where everything is in the kitchen. People will be suspicious if I don’t know the routines.”

“You’re right,” she admitted. “I’ll ask the kitchen staff to set everything up in the common room, then you can just serve it. Let’s go down now and you can say hello to everyone. Just remember to look frail and sickly.”

That would be no problem.

* * *

The rest of the staff were glad to see Dolly back. They knew she’d been taken ill, but not the details, and they didn’t get any more from me. I just pointed to my throat and smiled apologetically, showing my decrepit teeth. My mother stayed with me and we did the rounds of the staff areas. She explained that I would serve morning coffee and afternoon tea as usual but that would be all for the moment, as I was still convalescent. She gave instructions for the catering staff to make up the afternoon trolley and take it to the common room at the usual time.

We had arranged that whenever we encountered someone who Dolly should know well, or who she worked with, Mum would surreptitiously squeeze my hand and mumble their name in my ear. She didn’t think anyone would notice, and that way it wouldn’t appear that Dolly’s illness had given her amnesia too.

After I’d said hello to everyone my mother led me into the utility room behind the kitchen. After making sure we wouldn’t be overheard, she said, “This is your little cubby hole, Dolly.”

She opened the door and reached in for a maroon uniform that was hanging on a hook on the back of the door.

“I think Dolly normally uses in the downstairs Ladies, but you might as well change here,” she said. “I’ll close the door and stand guard.”

“Wait – do I really have to dress as the tea lady?”

“Well, of course, dear! That’s what you are, after all.”

I realised she was serious. I sighed and took the uniform dress from her.

“Here, let me help. I’ll unzip you.”

My pretty blue dress dropped to the floor. I stepped out of it, and my mother hung it up where the uniform had been. I put the polyester maid’s uniform on over my head and smoothed it down. She handed me a white half-apron. When she saw I had no idea how to tie the strap in a tidy bow behind my back, she tutted and did it for me. Then she reached into the cupboard for one more degrading item.

“Oh not a maid’s cap as well!” I protested.

“It’s only a headband. Stop moaning! It’s part of the uniform we introduced when we took on full-time catering staff. You know Dolly’s a stickler for looking smart, and you could be seen by a client at any time.”

She fastened the headband over my grey wig, and stepped back to assess the damage she had done to me.

“Smile, dear,” she said. “You know Dolly’s always cheerful.” I complied with ill grace. “Perfect!” she said. “Now you look exactly as Dolly does when serving afternoon tea. Let’s go up there. You can tidy the room while you’re waiting for the trolley to arrive.”

Gee, thanks Mum. So I was going to substitute for Dolly at more than just playing Bridge.

* * *

Annie came in while I was pouring tea for Sharon and Vera. She saw me in my maroon polyester uniform dress, apron and headband, and goggled. Sharon waved and went off to get herself a plateful of cake.

“Wow! I really thought Granny was all better and back at work for a minute,” Annie said. “You look amazing!” She paused to give me a thorough inspection, then said, “Cup of tea, please, Granny.”

That came as a shock. I poured her a cup with ill grace.

“You’re usually much more cheerful when you’re giving your granddaughter her tea, Dolly,” said my mother, coming up behind me. “Are you still feeling under the weather?”

“I’m fine, thank you, Ingrid dear,” I said, trying to get back into character.

I forced a smile. Annie stepped back horrified, her hand to her mouth.

“Your teeth!” she said. “What have they done to you?”

“Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “It’s just paint and blackener. You must have done ageing make-up on actors on your Theatre course…?”

“I have, but that’s much more realistic. You look like you’ve got receding gums and broken teeth, and they’re yellow.”

“Just like your grandmother’s in fact,” said Sharon, slightly miffed. Annie had somehow praised and criticised her work at the same time.

I handed them their teas and looked around. It was early yet and there was no one about who wasn’t in on our secret.

“I still don’t see why I have to dress as a skivvy,” I grumbled.

“Hey, my grandmother is not a skivvy!” Annie protested, as angry as I’d ever seen her.

Before I could apologise, my mother explained to her.

“I want him to do what Dolly does, because only the three of us, Fred, Vera and Sharon know he’s not actually her, or that she’s been in hospital for a week, and we need to keep it that way. The more people who know, the more likely it is that our little deception will leak. So he needs to do most of what she usually does – which includes how she dresses.”

“Well I don’t mind serving tea and maybe doing a little light hoovering, but I’m damned if I’m going to be your maid of all work…”

“We’ve been over this,” my mother snapped. She turned back to Annie to explain. “Everyone knows she’s been ill, so he doesn’t need to work as hard as the real Dolly. It would probably kill him if he tried!” She turned back to me. “I’ll let you off cleaning the big oven until you’re feeling better.” This was her attempt at humour. “You won’t be able to use the computers of course…”

“What? Why on earth not?”

“Because Dolly’s computer-illiterate. In fact, she’s terrified of the things. Have you ever seen her down in the Bunker?”

I hadn’t. She didn’t even go in there to dust. She was afraid of breaking something, or being electrocuted.

“I suppose you can go down after hours when everyone else has gone…”

“So that’s your plan for getting twice as much work out of me for the same money, is it? I do Dolly’s job during the day, and my own at night?”

“Don’t be silly,” she scoffed. “All this will be over by Sunday night. Why don’t you just have a little fun with it? Honestly, you can be so childish sometimes.”

She went off to talk to Charlotte, our nurse, who had just come in.

“She’s right, you know,” Annie said, still smarting from me calling Dolly a skivvy. “I’ll leave you to serve the others then, Granny,” she said loudly.

* * *

We had agreed earlier that we would both sleep at the house Annie shared with her grandmother (i.e. me). Fortunately, she’d got over her anger by the end of the afternoon, and she drove us home. Dolly’s house was a tidy little three-bedroom semi-detached in a cul-de-sac just outside the town. She and her late husband had brought up two children there, and like many widows she was determined to die there, in the house with all her happiest memories in it. Annie’s Dad and her aunt called regularly, but they lived too far away to see her more than two or three times a year, including Christmas. They’d been informed of her current health situation, but Dolly had insisted they shouldn’t come down. She had Annie, she said, and that was all she needed.

When we got home, Annie fetched my stick from the boot and helped me out of the car. She also brought out the suitcase containing Dolly’s dresses and all the underwear she had bought me. I was back in my pretty blue dress, having returned the hated maid uniform back to its hanger in my cubby hole.

“The neighbours might be watching, so you need to stay in character,” she said.

“Understood,” I said. “I definitely saw a curtain twitch next door.”

“That’s Mrs Davies. She’s a nosey old cow. Granny can’t stand her. She’s sure to have noticed you’ve been away from home, but if she calls round ‘to see if we need anything’, I’ll deal with her. You can be in bed, convalescing.”

I hobbled into the house, leaning on my granddaughter-girlfriend. I continued to walk and talk like Granny Dolly, until we were inside, with the curtains closed.

“Should be OK now,” Annie said. “Just be careful in the dining room and the back bedroom. Those are the only two rooms that share walls with Mrs Davies’ house. Mind how you talk in there.”

First, Annie showed me round. I’d been in the sitting room and the kitchen on previous visits, but I needed to know the house a little better if I was going to be able to find anything over the next few days. We then spent a very pleasant evening doing not very much. I cooked spaghetti Bolognese and we opened a bottle of wine, a decent chianti. After dinner Annie fetched me one of Dolly’s old lady nighties and her dressing gown and fluffy slippers. I looked at her sceptically.

“Well what did you think you were going to wear to bed?” she asked. “You didn’t bring any pyjamas, and Steve’s wouldn’t fit you now anyway. And I’m certainly not having my grandmother sleeping in the nude. Not in my bed anyway. I assume you do want to sleep in my bed?”

I reached for the nightie before she could change her mind.

“Of course I do. I just thought you wouldn’t want to sleep with me when I’m… like this.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re still you underneath. It’s hardly gerontophiliac incest, is it?”

“That wasn’t what I was afraid of,” I said, “mainly because I don’t know what it means.”

I took my wig and wig cap off to go to bed, of course.

“You look totally weird like that,” Annie protested, “with Granny’s face and Steve’s hair.”

“Sorry, but I couldn’t possibly sleep in those things.”

“Hang on! I’ve got an idea.”

She rushed out of the bedroom. I followed, puzzled. I found her rummaging in a large chest of drawers in Dolly’s room.

“Ah, I knew I’d seen this somewhere.”

She was brandishing a strange-looking frilly pink nylon thing.

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s a sleep bonnet. You wear it to bed when you’ve got curlers in. Put it on.”

“I haven’t got curlers…”

But she was already forcing the silly thing down on my head and tucking my hair under it.

“That’s better. Now you look like my lovely Granny again, instead of some horrid hybrid.”

She gave me a chaste hug and a kiss on the cheek.

I caught sight of myself in Dolly’s mirror. In my nightie and bonnet I looked like Red Riding Hood’s grandmother before the wolf got at her.

* * *

So we slept in Annie’s bed, but of course we couldn’t ‘do anything’, thanks to Vera sticking this damned prosthesis on me. Thankfully Annie wasn’t fazed by my disguise and was as affectionate as ever, even if all we could do was kiss and cuddle.

In the morning I soon realised my mother was right. Getting dressed as Dolly was a lot easier with Annie helping me. She also knew much more about make-up and how to dress a wig than I did, and she was determined that her Granny would look her best every day. I tried to watch what she did carefully. I would have to do it by myself at the hotel on Sunday morning. I didn’t want to rely on my mother to help me.

“I’m really enjoying dressing you up,” Annie said on Thursday morning. “Don’t forget – I never saw you as Milly or Jennifer. I’d love to see you as a pretty schoolgirl.”

“There may be photos… somewhere,” I said vaguely.

I knew exactly where they were, because I had lifted them from the safety deposit box. I had intended to bin them, but in the end I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it.

“But it’s too late now anyway,” I continued. “I was a skinny sixteen-year-old when I was Milly. I’m much bigger and stronger now.”

Well I had broadened out a little, but not much, to be honest. I posed like a circus strongman, which looked ridiculous in my little old lady dress, support stockings and heels. Annie laughed.

“That just means that Milly would be a grown woman now,” she said. “I wonder what she would be? Secretary? Nurse? Waitress? Flight attendant? Ooh – bunny girl!”

“Sadly, we’ll never know, will we?” I said.

“Never say ‘never’, sweetie,” she said.

* * *

Thursday and Friday passed smoothly. I got used to being Dolly; imitating her walk; doing her chores in the kitchens and around the office; and perfecting my Dolly voice while talking as little as possible.

Annie seemed to be enjoying herself ‘looking after me’, and my mother was sweetness and light (for her) as she became more and more convinced we were going to get away with it.

Saturday morning finally came round. I wasn’t going to be a housemaid-cum-tea lady today so we got out Dolly’s best clothes. We chose a silk blouse in silver and a black skirt suit. Annie found a matching broad-brimmed hat with a black band and a white chiffon rose. I’d liked wearing a hat at the mayor’s garden party. I decided Dolly would wear a hat to go to church, so why not for Peterborough?

Annie helped me with my hair and make-up again, but ‘for best’ this time. She did it almost as well as Sharon would have done. She found some clip-on earrings for me too.

My mother came to collect me at just after nine o’clock. Annie helped me into the car and put my stick and overnight bag in the boot.

I kissed her goodbye (not on the lips – the neighbours), and said, “Now don’t you go finding yourself another young man now that your boyfriend has been turned into an old lady.”

“I promise, Granny,” she giggled. “Anyway the spell will be broken on Monday morning, won’t it?”

“Assuming Fairy Vera hasn’t run out of magic solvent, yes.”

My mother interrupted our banter impatiently.

“Oh close the door, Dolly, for heaven’s sake,” she said. “We have a long drive ahead of us.”

All the world loves a lover, except my mother.

* * *

The playing area at the hotel was a quiet function room on the first floor. We went in to check out the format of the competition. Fourteen pairs had qualified. We would play two boards against every other pair; that is, twenty-six deals in each session.

There were two sessions on the Saturday, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, and one on the Sunday afternoon. So we would play every other pair three times over a total of seventy-eight hands. That was quite a lot of Bridge for one weekend. Stamina – mental and physical – would be a factor, so the competition probably favoured the younger players. That was another reason why our competition might underestimate an old dear like me.

Nevertheless I found that people treat frail old ladies very well. I had doors opened for me. People got up to help me to a seat. They fetched me cups of tea. Even better, when the Tournament Director saw me and my stick he kindly allowed us to sit at Table 1, North-South, which made us the only pair who didn’t have to move at the end of each round. So hopefully no one would notice my excessive height.

Younger players also underestimate us little old ladies – I used to do it myself when I was Steve – and that creates a lot of opportunities at the Bridge table. No doubt some of our opponents would overbid against us, thinking the harmless old biddy wouldn’t double and couldn’t defend. Wrong! We hoped for some good scores that way. They would also assume that I wouldn’t be any good at playing the contract, but I was ‘good’ before I went up to Cambridge, and since then I’d played at the University Bridge Club regularly for two years – against junior internationals. This old lady was determined to show her opposition a thing or two about declarer play.

As we sat down to start the first session, we looked around to assess the opposition, as did everyone else of course. My mother recognised several pairs and suggested we use the same code we had adopted at the club when I played as Jennifer. She reckoned there were only three or four ‘Able’ pairs, but also far fewer ‘Charlies’ than at the club.

I only recognised four players. There was Harriet Bairstow, whose partner was the American professional, Jane Campanella. Jane was by far the best player in the room. I remember seeing her picture in an old Bridge World magazine. She had won various big tournaments in the States and once played for the American Ladies Team. What on earth was she doing here?

The other people I knew, to my horror, were two earnest young ladies from Cambridge: Janet Lee and Sheila Musson. They were third years; that is, they had just graduated. They both played in the university first team with male partners. I hadn’t seen them playing together before. I told myself there was no way either of them would recognise me unless I gave myself away. My disguise was too good. They were starting only one table away from us, but to my relief they showed no interest in me. My mother didn’t recognise them because they didn’t compete in our local club events, so I told her how I knew them and warned her they were ‘Able-plus’.

We played them on the second round. I knew that left to themselves they were unlikely to make mistakes, so we could hope for averages at best, and if they found some expert play beyond the rest of the field, we would get a poor score. Some people believe that you should tighten up your game against strong opposition, but I think that if they’re going to beat you anyway, it’s worth taking the odd risk to try and disrupt them.

They played a fiendishly complicated bidding system, as many undergraduates do, but I suspected they wouldn’t know it that well as they hadn’t played together much. So when on the first board my mother passed as dealer and Sheila opened One Club, their system’s strong bid, I made a pushy pre-emptive jump to Three Diamonds, to rob them of bidding space and jam their communications. If it went wrong, and they doubled for penalties, I would just have to hope that it would be a good sacrifice; that is, that the penalty would be less than the value of the enemy’s best contract.

Unfortunately this time my suit wasn’t as long as it should be and my overall values weren’t really good enough, so it was an awful bid and very risky. My mother would undoubtedly rip me a new one if it went wrong, but I hoped the girls would never imagine a little old lady like me could do something so bold, and they wouldn’t double. If they ‘took the money’ it would probably be too expensive for us, unless my partner had a miracle fit for my diamond suit.

Janet on my left turned to my partner.

“How strong is that?” she asked.

You are entitled to ask questions about the enemy’s bidding system, though you have to be careful…

“Weak,” said my mother. “As it says on our convention card,” she added in a slightly acid manner.

My mother’s irritation was justified. By asking that question in that tone, the girl had communicated to her partner that she had a decent hand. That’s ‘unauthorised information’. If her partner took advantage of it, that would be cheating.

But Janet laid down the red ‘Double’ card, which gave the same information legitimately. This just showed a decent hand. It wasn’t for penalties, although her partner could pass if she deemed that best. I mentally crossed my wrinkled and painted fingers.

Sheila was a good player but she was now facing a difficult decision. She knew her side had most of the high-card strength but there wasn’t enough bidding room to find out everything she needed to know – how high to bid and what suit to play the hand in. That’s the trouble with artificial systems: her opening bid showed strength but didn’t say anything about her best suit.

Four Hearts was the bid she chose, giving up on a slam hunt, and that ended the auction. I led a top diamond and Janet put her hand down as dummy – it only had two hearts. Sheila’s disappointment was palpable.

“Oh, I thought you’d have more hearts,” she said.

“Normally I would,” her partner agreed, “but what do you suggest I bid? I hoped you’d pick a black suit.”

It was true. She had to show strength and her partner might have spades or clubs. Then everything would have worked out. My pre-emptive bid seemed to have done its job. Five minutes later they were two down, vulnerable. This would surely be a good score for us. It might even be the only plus score our way. I calculated that Three No-trumps or Five Clubs would have been easy. Sheila could have tried Four Clubs; that might have worked out better.

“Did you see what she had for her pre-empt?” Sheila hissed to her partner.

“It was a bold bid at just the right time,” said Janet magnanimously, smiling at me. I liked her much more than the aggressive Sheila.

“Have I done something wrong, dear?” I asked innocently in a throaty whisper.

When you get a bad result at this form of Bridge, it’s best to forget it as quickly as you can – just like an unforced error at tennis. Dwelling on it only leads to making mistakes on the next hand. I knew Sheila was prone to flights of fancy and suspected she might try and recover the lost ground somehow.

On the second board of the round neither side was vulnerable and Janet was the dealer. She and my mother passed. Third to bid, Sheila opened One Spade. This is a classic position for light openings to make life more difficult for fourth hand, who presumably was strong. I had no other reason to suspect shenanigans on her part. I did indeed have a strong hand with a singleton spade, so I made a normal takeout Double, asking partner for her best suit. I don’t know whether Janet suspected her partner might be spoofing, but she had four-card support and a few high cards, so she had to jump to Three Spades. There is a convention that enables you to check on the strength of a third-in-hand opening, but it’s not much used in England, and the girls weren’t playing it.

My mother passed, as did Sheila, and I doubled again, still for takeout. Everyone passed this. Did I detect the ghost of a smile on my partner’s face?

I led my trump to stop them making tricks by cross-ruffing. It was a bloodbath. Sheila’s One Spade was a full-blooded psychic bluff bid. She had a small doubleton in spades and a very weak hand. She hoped that would stop us finding our best spot, or maybe misplace the cards when we eventually played the contract. But my mother had six spades to the King and Jack and was more than happy to pass thereby converting my Takeout Double into a Penalty Double. Sheila now found herself playing in a 4-2 fit for the second deal in succession. She was four down, doubled. That was worth 800 points – more than the normal Three No-trumps our way. Another likely top.

Why did Sheila, a good player, make such an outrageous bid? She thought that we wouldn’t know how to deal with the psych. She wouldn’t have tried it against opposition she respected, but she still thought we were two old ladies without a clue. She didn’t know it but we were actually good enough to deal with much tougher problems than that. The girls were very quiet after this. I almost felt sorry for them.

Having made such a good start we were on a roll. Bridge is like that. Sometimes everything you try turns out badly; other times you can’t put a foot wrong. We had an edge against all the ‘Baker’ and ‘Charlie’ pairs and held our own against the few ‘Ables’.

At the end of the afternoon session we were in second place. The only thing that marred my mother’s satisfaction was that the American pro had managed to carry Harriet to first. The Cambridge girls were just above half way, which must have been a big disappointment to them.

We were about to head off to a quiet restaurant my mother knew – and where she was sure we wouldn’t meet any other Bridge players, which might have put pressure on me to speak – when another familiar face appeared. George Bairstow was coming up the hotel’s main staircase, no doubt looking for his wife.

“George!” said my mother in surprise. “What are you doing here? Don’t tell me Harriet made you give up your Saturday afternoon golf to come and watch her?”

“Hello, Ingrid… Dolly,” he said. I smiled to acknowledge his greeting. I had nothing against George. “No, I’m here playing. Didn’t you know? They hold the County Men’s Pairs Final at the same time and in the same hotel. We’re downstairs in the ballroom. This is the first time both Harriet and I have qualified for the Finals. The boards are all computer-dealt, and we play the same hands as you ladies. So I’m taking Harriet out for dinner and we can compare results.”

“I’m sure she’ll be keen to do that,” said my mother with an ironic smile. “She and her American friend did very well.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” he said. “The more the merrier!”

Good old George! He was such a sweetie himself that he had never noticed the bad blood between his wife and my mother.

“That’s very kind of you, George,” Mum said, “but we’ve made other arrangements. Have a nice dinner.”

At that point she caught sight of Harriet heaving into view. She waved in what someone who didn’t know her might have thought was a friendly fashion and dragged me off to the lift. Well I couldn’t manage the stairs with my knees, could I? As it was, I struggled to keep up while leaning on my stick and trying to maintain my Dolly persona.

* * *

After a very good Italian meal with only a very little red wine, we returned for the evening session. This didn’t go quite as well. We didn’t do anything obviously wrong, but we were a little unlucky on a couple of hands and we didn’t get as many free gifts as we’d had in the afternoon. I suppose the other players must have realised they needed to take us seriously. A couple of the ‘Able’ pairs had good sessions and stormed past us. We slipped to fourth. Happily (for my mother) Harriet and her partner also failed to live up to their early form and fell to third place. Still, we’d done well in a high standard field, and it was a very good day overall.

I’d noticed my mother tiring a little at about ten o’clock. She didn’t make any horrible mistakes but there were a couple of hands where she might have competed further and given the opponents a more difficult decision, which they then might have got wrong. Naturally I didn’t say anything. There is never anything to be gained by criticising your partner’s play. But I was glad that she would have a good night’s sleep before the third and last session.

We were sharing a twin room of course. We were both a little coy about getting undressed in front of each other. I pointed out that I had seen her naked a lot lately – in the mirror. For some reason that didn’t make her any more relaxed.

Meanwhile I was embarrassed showing her my wrinkles, cellulite, and droopy boobs and buttocks. I only took my blouse and skirt off in front of her, and went into the bathroom to remove my bra, panties, girdle and stockings, and put my nightie on.

I also removed my wig and wig cap there and put on my sleep bonnet. I’m not sure why. It just felt odd now having Dolly’s face and Steve’s hair. My mother looked at me sceptically, but didn’t ask.

That was definitely one of the weirdest nights I could remember.

* * *

At most Bridge congresses one can enjoy a little gentle sight-seeing on the Sunday morning (assuming you don’t go to church), but this was Peterborough. It doesn’t really have sights to see, unless you like ring roads and roundabouts. So we had an excellent and very filling buffet breakfast, and checked out of our room as late as we were allowed.

As Dolly, I couldn’t really go for a bracing walk, in case we encountered other Bridge players who might wonder how my legs got so much better overnight. So we spent an hour looking round the magnificent 12th Century cathedral. Sitting in a pew at the back of the nave, resting my feet which were sore from the still unfamiliar high heels, I saw a lot of old ladies like me admiring the grave of Henry the Eighth’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon; the original burial site of Mary Queen of Scots; and the commemorative plaque to Edith Cavell, the nurse shot by the Nazis. I reflected ruefully that looking round churches was about my limit now that I’m in my seventies.

We actually spent a really nice morning together, leaving me to muse over how we got along so well as Ingrid and Dolly, when we argued continually as Steve and his mother. What was that about?

Mum was raring to go when we took our seats at two o’clock on the Sunday afternoon, but before the last session began, the Tournament Director had an announcement to make.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said. “I’ve just been on the phone with the Chairman of the Selection Committee of the English Bridge Union. As you may know, they are very keen to encourage more strong ladies pairs to try out for our national team. So she has promised that the top three in each county’s Ladies Pairs competition will be invited to play in the pre-trials for the English Ladies’ Team next year.”

There was a little buzz of excitement at this news. Then the session was under way.

Half-way through we faced Harriet, who was puffing and blowing a little, and Jane, who was maintaining the poker face of a true expert. My mother couldn’t help rattling Harriet’s cage a little.

“Such a shame you and your partner won’t be able to play in the England trials, Harriet – if you do finish in the top three, that is,” my mother said, trying her best to sound sincere.

“Why on earth not?” Harriet bristled.

“Well… you’re American, aren’t you, Jane?”

Mother smiled sweetly. Jane smiled back but said nothing.

“Actually, she’s married to an Englishman and has been living in London for five years,” Harriet said. “That fulfils the residence requirement. I checked.”

Her smile reminded me of those Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp.

Jane did very well on the first board scoring an overtrick by squeezing me in the minors. My mother could have prevented it by leading a different suit and breaking up the squeeze, but this required a little more imagination and card reading than she was capable of. The cards lay their way on the second board too, but Jane wasn’t able to manoeuvre the auction to ensure she played the contract, and predictably Harriet messed it up, making a trick less than the field. So in the end it was a more or less average round; honours even.

And so the afternoon wore on. We were still getting the better of most pairs, and by the end I reckoned we might have moved up, or at the very least held our position. My mother was keeping an eye on Harriet and was delighted to point out quietly that she was looking rattled.

Finally it was all over. Predictably two of the best Ladies pairs in the county finished first and second. They were popular and worthy winners, highly regarded by the majority.

We were third! We won a mixed case of Tesco wine between us, and even got a little cheer from some of the other players. Brilliant! Even better, we had pushed Harriet and Jane down to fourth – just out of the prizes. The Cambridge girls were fifth.

We managed to dodge the Bairstows and hurried back to the car as quickly as I could walk without raising suspicion. As soon as we were on the road I called Annie to tell her how we did. She was delighted and promised to have a bottle of wine open and ready for when we got back. I forgot to mention that I was going to get a trial for the English Ladies Team.

“When are the Trials anyway?” I asked my mother after ringing off.

“November, I think,” she said.

“Well Dolly should be fit enough by then.”

She didn’t reply. I looked at her. She was concentrating on finding her way onto the bypass.

“Though I don’t think she’ll be quite up to the required standard…”

Still no comment.

“You do realise I can’t play in the Trials? For one thing, I’ll be back at college, and for another, I’m still not a woman.”

“Yes, dear, I understand.”

But did she really, or was she hatching another scheme?

“We’ll have to withdraw,” I persisted, “due to Dolly’s age and general health. She could never play for England anyway – all that stress, international travel…”

“Of course not,” my mother agreed. “But that doesn’t apply to you, does it? You’d be fine. The Trials will only be one weekend out in the middle of term, and I’m damned if I’m going to let Harriet bloody Bairstow buy her way into the England team!”

It was early evening by the time we got back. Mum dropped me off at my – Dolly’s – house, where Annie was waiting to celebrate both our result and my last night as her grandmother.

* * *

First thing the following morning I reported to Vera’s room. I was getting pretty desperate to become Steve again (and resume relations with Annie). I stripped off my dress, slip, stockings and girdle, embarrassed at exposing my wrinkly, droopy body, even though Vera knew better than anybody that it wasn’t really me. She reached for the solvent bottle. I lay down on her table. Everything was ready.

Then my mother burst in. “Stop!” she yelled.

It wouldn’t be true to say that I had been half expecting this, but I had certainly been afraid of it. My previous transformations had all lasted more than two weeks, to give the various prostheses a rigorous workout. This had only been five days. I was ready to refuse vehemently to go along with any further testing, but I would never have guessed the reason for my mother’s interruption.

“We have a problem,” she said. “George Bairstow has been on the phone. Harriet is convinced we must have been cheating.”

“Huh?” I was baffled.

“You played better than Dolly ever has, and of course we beat Harriet and stopped her getting an England trial. So she’s sure there must have been foul play.”

Harriet’s arrogance and hubris were breathtaking, but surely this couldn’t lead anywhere?

“So what?” I said, scornfully. “She can’t prove anything. She won’t find any evidence, because there isn’t any, because we weren’t cheating.”

“Well you kind of were, weren’t you?” put in Vera. “You didn’t play in the first round, so you weren’t really entitled to play in the Final.” My mother shot her a black look. “And then there’s that ‘not actually being a woman’ thing…”

Vera wasn’t afraid of my mother, and she had her own code of ethics. She was perfectly happy to help me impersonate Dolly, but she didn’t really approve of why I was doing it. If it comes to that, I didn’t either. Mum chose to ignore her comments.

“Of course she doesn’t have any evidence,” she said. She paused. “So she’s hired a private detective to look for some.”

“She’s done what?”

“His name’s Treacher apparently. I looked him up. He mostly does divorce cases.”

“But what could some sleazebag gumshoe possibly find? If we actually had been using illicit signals or something, it’s far too late to prove it now, isn’t it?”

I knew they video all the players in major international competitions, and they had caught some very subtle cheats that way, but there were no cameras at the East Anglia Ladies Pairs’ Final.

“Of course, but according to George, Treacher’s brief is just to watch us carefully, especially you, and report back anything suspicious.”

“Well he won’t find anything suspicious about me, because I won’t be Dolly anymore, will I?”

“But what if he finds out that Dolly’s been in hospital for the last week and a half and has had major surgery? That would certainly have stopped her playing two days of Bridge in Peterborough, wouldn’t it?”

“Shit!”

“Exactly,” she said. “We’re going to have to be even more careful about keeping Dolly’s current condition and location a secret, and you’re going to have to stay as you are until Treacher stops watching you, or till the real Dolly is ready to come home. You’ll have to continue to live her life as normal so that he doesn’t see anything suspicious to report to Harriet.”

“I can’t! I can’t pretend to be a seventy-year-old tea lady for another – what – two weeks?”

“Maybe more than that. She’ll be in hospital for at least another four.”

“I think Dolly’s seventy-six actually,” said Vera, which wasn’t helpful at all.

“You don’t seem to appreciate,” my mother said, “this isn’t just about being exposed as cheats to everyone in the Bridge-playing community. This could be an existential threat to our business. If Treacher finds out you’re not Dolly, he’s going to want to know how you can look exactly like her. He’ll come sniffing around here. That in itself would be enough to scare away most of our customers. They rely on our discretion. And if he finds out what we do here and tells Harriet, she’ll expose us for sure. We’ll lose everything, and we may face conspiracy charges if they follow up on our clients and find that any of them have been using our services for criminal purposes.”

I didn’t know what to say. There was a long silence. I looked longingly at the bottle of solvent in Vera’s hand. A thought occurred.

“Wait a minute… why did George tell you all this?”

“Because he thinks Harriet is behaving appallingly. He called her a sore loser. They had a major row about it.”

I couldn’t imagine George rowing with anybody, least of all Harriet, but good for him.

“Still why did he tell you? Even if he’s cross with Harriet, it seems like a betrayal.”

“Well George and I… we used to… let’s just say we were good friends once. Obviously that ended when he married Harriet.”

Was she admitting to an affair with George Bairstow? Was that before, during, or after my Dad? I was chewing that over, when Annie came bounding in.

“Where is he? Where’s my boyfriend?” She saw I was still Dolly, sitting in just my bra and knickers on Vera’s table. “Oh, is there something wrong?”

“You could say that,” I sighed. “I’m afraid you’re going to have two grandmothers for a while yet. Can you help me on with my underslip?”

* * *

To Annie’s disappointment and my absolute disgust, I had to agree to stay as Dolly for the foreseeable future. Also the excuse of still being convalescent wouldn’t hold any longer, as I had obviously been fighting fit (for a seventy-six-year-old) over the previous weekend. We would have to sell Dolly’s collapse as a blip; nothing to worry about.

That meant I now had to do all of Dolly’s duties. So that evening, when all the cleaning and catering staff had gone home, my mother gave me a comprehensive tour of the kitchens and overnight accommodation areas, so that I knew where everything was, and could take up my role as tea lady and maid-of-all-work without arousing the suspicions of the rest of the staff.

We couldn’t even let Treacher know we were aware of his activities. Presumably he was a good enough private dick that he wouldn’t be spotted by a seventy-six-year-old charlady or her granddaughter? So if we ever did see him, we would have to pretend we hadn’t, or he might realise we’d been tipped off.

That turned out to be difficult, because he wasn’t actually very good. Apparently Harriet was too cheap to hire a real professional. When we came out of our drive that evening in Annie’s car, there was a blue Fiesta parked just a little way along. When we drove past, it immediately pulled out to follow us.

Annie and her Granny

By Susannah Donim

Steve’s mother runs the secretive Transformations consultancy. This means he has a number of interesting jobs over the years.

Chapter 6 – Maid of All Work

Steve moves in with his girlfriend, but not at all as he would have wanted.

I now moved in with Annie full time. Under better circumstances that would have been great, but she said she would need to call me ‘Granny’ all the time, even when we were alone, because of the danger of giving the game away if she forgot and called me Steve in public. I hated that and found it a little hard to believe, but I couldn’t persuade her otherwise.

Also she said it was hard not to call me Granny seeing that I looked – and increasingly acted – exactly like her. I assumed she was teasing, but I still had to get used to answering to ‘Granny’. I suppose it helped me with my performance, but I really didn’t want to get used to my new life as an elderly lady. It was depressing to have to fasten myself into an old woman’s underwear and zip up her frumpy, floral dresses. Also, I seemed to wearing frilly aprons all day, with my maid’s uniform at work, and then at home sharing the cooking and housework with my granddaughter – I mean, girlfriend.

I grudgingly accepted all this, only insisting on not being Granny in bed, which sadly was still a chaste(ish) affair because of my glued-on prosthesis. At least Annie wasn’t suggesting we sleep in separate bedrooms, which would have really got me worried.

Nevertheless we had to maintain the illusion that we did sleep apart, in case Treacher was parked outside. We kept the curtains at the front of the house closed all the time – nothing suspicious in that, was there? – and switched the bedroom lights on and off realistically. As Granny, I went to bed before ten o’clock most nights, after which I padded next door (in my nightie and bonnet) for a cuddle.

We reviewed my new wardrobe together. Dolly’s clothes were respectable and economical; that is, dowdy. If she had ever tried to be fashionable, she had given up long ago. I saw skirts and dresses, all falling to well below the knee; blouses and sweaters, all with long sleeves; but no trousers at all.

Our morning routine was similar to how it had been when I was Ingrid. Annie particularly enjoyed watching me squeeze myself into Dolly’s stiff shapewear, and was always keen to help.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Granny wearing slacks,” Annie said. “I remember her saying something about pants not suiting her because of her… er, large hindquarters.”

“Huh! Tell me about it,” I said, looking over my shoulder and studying my duplicate of her backside in the wardrobe mirror. “It’s like sitting on a cushion.”

“So – extra comfy then?” she grinned.

“Maybe, but this cushion gets up when I do and follows me around all day, stuck to my backside.”

Annie looked stern. I was disparaging her beloved grandmother.

“Don’t be embarrassed about your big bottom, Granny!” she said. “You have a fine figure for a woman of your age!”

I snorted. She smiled again.

“Oh, come on, I know that’s not really you, silly! Steve has a lovely, sexy little butt. Mind you, there’s something even sexier about seeing you like that…”

I was a little mollified, though a bit puzzled about her last statement. Was my transformation turning my gorgeous girlfriend kinky? I remembered her insistence on watching me put on my lingerie in the mornings when I was my mother…

I changed into one of Dolly’s – my – least frumpy dresses and went downstairs to start supper. I was now every inch an elderly lady in my floral housedress and pinny, cooking for myself and my beloved granddaughter.

* * *

We travelled to and from work together, usually in Annie’s car. I did drive Dolly’s old mini occasionally but I didn’t like it much, and wasn’t comfortable driving in my heels and tight women’s clothes. Whichever car we used, we were soon being followed by the blue Fiesta. We noted his registration number. We also got a good look at Treacher himself over the next few days, hopefully still without him realising we knew he was following us.

We became quite used to him dogging our footsteps. I wondered how he had discovered our place of business in the first place. Harriet certainly wouldn’t have known it. But it would have been easy enough for him to find out where Dolly lived, so he must have followed Annie and me from Dolly’s house the morning after the Ladies’ Pairs Final.

It soon became clear he wasn’t at all interested in Annie. Whenever we separated – for instance, if Annie dropped me at the shops while she went off somewhere else – he invariably followed me. This was good, in that it meant Annie could visit the real Dolly in hospital, but bad because I was under even more pressure to make my impersonation flawless. That meant doing everything Dolly usually did.

It also made me paranoid. What if Treacher intercepted one of the kitchen staff on their way home and bribed or cajoled them into watching me carefully and reporting back to him? Like any small business we suffered frequent turnover of support staff in catering and housekeeping. We stressed the importance of discretion to them, for the benefit of our clients, but we couldn’t expect the same loyalty from people who had only been with us for a short time as we could from the likes of Vera, Sharon, and of course, Dolly.

My paranoia included worrying that Treacher might have broken into Dolly’s house and planted listening devices, despite the burglar alarm which we used rigorously whenever we went out. I asked Fred if he could get hold of a device to ‘sweep’ a building for bugs. He chuckled but obliged, and I used the detector every day when we got home before I allowed myself to break character. I suggested Fred do the same for the company offices, but he didn’t take me seriously.

Annie, Vera, Sharon, Fred and my mother told me everything they knew about Dolly’s life, and Annie quizzed the real Dolly further when she visited her. Between them they managed to put together her weekly routine. She actually led a busier life than I had realised. On Tuesdays I would have to drive myself to the Winter Gardens to play bingo. Wednesday was Bridge, usually with either Ingrid or Fred. Thursday was Dolly’s day off and in the morning she went to a Seniors Swim at the local leisure centre.

On Friday evenings she had a Ballroom Dancing class, which was a bit of a surprise, given what I knew of her knees. Perhaps Vera was right and she had been exaggerating. Also, once a month she did the flowers for the Sunday services at St Marks with her friend, Betty. That was coming up soon, I noted.

None of these activities appealed much, but at least Annie volunteered to come with me. I was concerned that Dolly would have friends at both bingo and dancing. I asked her to pump her grandmother for information about the people she knew – with photos, if possible.

Worst of all, I had to learn to knit. One of the waitresses mentioned that she hadn’t seen me knitting lately. Had I given it up? I muttered something about arthritis in my fingers but realised I was going to have to learn if I wanted to keep my impersonation convincing. Fortunately Vera was a near expert. She said it was ironic because Dolly had taught her how to knit a while ago and now she had to teach Dolly back.

I suppose irony doesn’t actually have to be funny, or maybe I was just finding it hard to see any humour in my situation.

I had to learn a whole new vocabulary: how to cast on and off; plain and purl stitching; how to switch between two balls of wool to make knitwear with patterns of more than one colour; and different kinds of stitch. I found it all much harder than it looked. Maintaining a constant tension in my yarn was particularly difficult. An early exercise was to knit a six inches square of material. The first row was almost exactly six inches, but the last row was less than four, because I had tightened up. I would have to spend every spare moment with my wool and needles. Annie found it hilarious.

At work Dolly enjoyed a privileged position as the boss’s friend as well as her employee, but she was determined to do her bit and not to take advantage. So morning coffee and afternoon tea were her – my – responsibilities exclusively, and in between, I had to fill in wherever I was needed. Everyone recognised the need not to overload such an elderly employee. I was therefore never asked to clean the ovens, which required elbow grease as well as awkward bending down, but I did have to take my turn in cleaning lavatories, which was humiliating and definitely not what I had expected my first paid job to entail.

After a week of this new life, I was beginning to settle into Dolly’s routine. I got used to strapping myself into my tight shapewear to force my flabby, droopy flesh into the form of a respectable matron, and I got used to making up my old, craggy face into something I could stand to look at in the mirror.

I became accustomed to spending my days in stockings, high heels, and a maid’s uniform, at the beck and call of housekeeping staff – dusting, vacuuming, serving in the cafeteria, washing-up, and helping the other girls to make up the rooms when we had clients staying in the overnight accommodation. No one outside our little circle seemed to suspect anything, presumably putting any unusual behaviour on my part down to my recent illness. And I had to do it all with a big smile on my face because Dolly was always so damn cheerful.

When I got home I changed out of that blasted maid’s uniform as soon as I could. Unfortunately none of Dolly’s own clothes were much better. It looked like she hadn’t bought anything new, let alone attractive, for ages. I wondered if my granddaughter might take me shopping at the weekend?

But eventually I began to relax a little and mostly didn’t find being a tea lady and housemaid so bad. I would still have preferred to work with Fred on software development, to vacuuming and scrubbing toilets, but after carrying Dolly’s weight around all day, when five o’clock came round, I was generally too tired to go down to the Bunker and start working on the computers, so Fred had to manage by himself for the moment. In any case, Treacher would be waiting somewhere until I left and was bound to be suspicious if I seemed to be working twelve-hour days.

* * *

The following Tuesday I had to get dressed up smartly to go to bingo. Annie warned me that all the other old ladies there would be merciless to any of their number who didn’t make the best of herself. So I took a little longer over my hair than usual and tried to remember what I knew about evening make-up.

I chose a dark blue dress with white polka dots. It had a lace collar and more lace round the cuffs of its long sleeves. I stood in front of the wardrobe mirror, checking my appearance. I reached up under my skirt to pull my underslip down properly. There was no danger of it showing as the dress came down to well below my knees.

I wore a pearl necklace and matching clip-on earrings, which I thought went well with my dress. I thought I looked nice, but what did I know?

“That dress is lovely on you, Granny,” Annie said, coming up behind me.

“Thank you, dear. It’s just right for an old biddy like me, isn’t it?” I said mournfully.

She must have detected something in my tone. She moved in for a hug.

“Be brave, babe,” she said softly in my ear. “This won’t be for long.”

She couldn’t know that. I sighed. I knew she was only trying to reassure me, but as long as I was stuck being an old lady I couldn’t be with this wonderful woman, at least not as I wanted to be. Suddenly my predicament started to overwhelm me. I found myself struggling to hold back tears. Annie realised I was upset and hugged me tighter.

Comforted a little, I got a grip on myself, pulled free, and managed a smile.

“Come along, Annie dear,” I said in my husky Dolly voice. “We shall be late.”

She helped me on with Dolly’s best coat and a matching round, cloche hat. They were a muted pink colour, and I found a chiffon scarf that went well with my outfit. I stepped into a pair of one-inch heels and picked up my handbag. I was as ready as I would ever be: a little old lady ready for an exciting night out. Bingo – yuck!

Seeing how nervous I was, Annie had volunteered to come along and ‘look after me’. She drove us to the venue. She helped me out of the car and into the hall; hung up my coat; found me a seat; and made me comfortable. Then she went to get me a glass of cider.

“It’s not so bad being an old lady when I have a doting granddaughter to look after me,” I said, when she came back. She laughed and kissed me – on the cheek, of course.

“Look after your handbag now, Granny,” she said, and hung it on the back of my chair.

There were several old dears who knew Dolly by sight, and well enough to exchange a few words with, so I had to try and make ‘old lady conversation’. This began with mutual compliments about our dresses. It soon moved on to enquiries about hair and make-up, then to complaining about our various ailments.

One lady told us all about her varicose veins. Equipped with Vera’s tuition on the subject I was able to commiserate with her and explain how my support stockings helped me with mine. They had me lift my skirt to demonstrate, and told me how good my legs were for a woman of my age.

Fortunately nobody there was a close friend so I survived the evening well enough. The main problem was boredom, at least for me. I enjoyed the chat far more than the bingo and was pleased – though a little embarrassed – to find I had no difficulty fitting in with the group.

Annie told me that if there was ever a slump in the software business, I could have a long and successful career as an old lady. She joined in with the bingo enthusiastically. She won ten pounds on my behalf and got quite excited at times, but I can’t say I understood the appeal.

At a mid-session break I looked out into the car park, and there was the blue Fiesta.

* * *

I played Bridge with Fred on the Wednesday and quite enjoyed myself. A lot of people came up to congratulate me on our success in the Ladies Pairs Final, which was nice. Harriet was conspicuous by her absence. That was a shame in a way because I’d hoped a little friendly conversation with her might have persuaded her to call off her hound. When I got up to hobble to the Ladies half-way through the evening, I saw that he was outside in his damn Fiesta as usual.

When the evening’s results were announced, we had come top of the pairs sitting North-South. Fred hugged me and kissed me on the cheek to celebrate. I couldn’t really object. I suppose he would have done that with the real Dolly, and to do less might have seemed suspicious. Or maybe he’d just forgotten who was under the old lady façade. I was often in danger of forgetting myself.

* * *

On Thursday morning I really didn’t fancy showing off my old lady body at the swimming pool in nothing but a swimsuit, but I came under a lot of pressure from both Annie and my mother to go through with it.

“The trouble is, we don’t know how much of Granny’s routine Treacher has found out,” said Annie. “So if you start doing something she doesn’t, or don’t do something she usually does, you might raise his suspicions.”

My mother weighed in with a completely different argument.

“This will be an excellent test of how effective your ‘old lady’ disguise is,” she argued. “See if anybody notices anything odd about you.”

“But I’ll have to go in the women’s changing rooms. If it isn’t effective, I could be arrested!”

Neither of them seemed to be impressed. I changed tack.

“Can’t you come with me?” I asked Annie.

“It’s for seniors, isn’t it?” she said. “I’m about fifty years too young.”

“We could easily do something about that,” I said eagerly. “This is Transformations. You could see for yourself what it’s like having a flabby tummy, cellulite, and droopy boobs.”

“Hmm, tempting…” she said, “…but I’ll have to pass, I’m afraid. You’re on your own, Granny dear. I’m sure you’ll have a great time.”

I turned to my mother. “You would have two ‘old lady’ test subjects showing themselves off in public.”

“Sorry, Dolly, we’ve got three clients coming in that morning. I need Annie. Have a nice swim.”

The class was at ten o’clock and I turned up at the leisure centre half an hour early. The women’s changing rooms weren’t busy and I soon found an empty cubicle. I undressed and stepped into Dolly’s swimsuit, a black one-piece with a little skirt down to mid-thigh. It had blue flashes forming a trendy abstract design. I pulled the straps up over my shoulders and tugged the back of the costume down to encase my wobbly buttocks properly. I tucked my droopy boobs into the push-up bra. This had a neck hook closure and seemed to lift my breasts up nicely, preventing spillage.

I realised I was showing quite a bit of cleavage – not necessarily a good thing for a woman of my apparent age – but I felt well supported. So far, so good then; the suit seemed to be as effective at keeping me ‘respectable old lady-shaped’ as the stiff shapewear I had just taken off.

I took off my wig and wig cap and stuffed them in the bottom of my bag. I tucked Steve’s unruly mop into an old-fashioned pink ladies’ bathing cap, checking carefully that no strands of brown hair were visible where only grey should be seen. I stepped apprehensively out of the cubicle.

There were a couple of other old ladies chatting over by the washbasins. They had obviously finished their swim and were now restoring their hair and make-up at the mirrors.

I paused to check my appearance. All I saw was Dolly, exactly as I would have expected her to look, with her plump, floppy curves and droopy, wrinkly skin. Even her – my – fat legs had the wrinkles, cellulite and varicose veins they should have had. The other ladies smiled at me as I passed but showed no particular interest. I smiled back, embarrassed at being caught admiring myself, and hobbled through the footbath at the exit to the pool.

It was nearly empty. There were three or four people sedately doing lengths. Both sexes were represented. I put on my goggles and slipped into the water. For someone recently used to the chilly waters off Newquay, the pool was very warm. Fred had assured me that my padding was waterproof and would help me with my buoyancy rather than dragging me down, and so it proved. He was right – my generous boobs and buttocks actually helped me stay afloat. I joined the lengths swimmers, confining myself to a dignified old lady breast stroke. Steve’s energetic freestyle would have looked seriously out of place.

At ten o’clock one of the centre staff came out and blew her whistle. I noticed more elderly people had materialised since I had got in the water. Most of them were still shivering at the edge of the pool, but now gingerly made their way down the steps and into the shallow end.

The class began. There were about a dozen of us. It was a mix of aerobics, physical jerks, and help to improve our strokes, with water safety advice thrown in. There was plenty of opportunity to chat to our neighbours. The jolly lady next to me confided that she was only doing this because her grandchildren were now old enough to learn to swim, and this would give her the opportunity to spend more time with them. I smiled and sympathised.

I glanced up at the viewing gallery, which was a huge glass panel all the way along one wall of the restaurant upstairs. There was Treacher, sitting at a table by the window, drinking coffee and watching all us old ladies carefully. I suspected he wouldn’t be able to work out which of them was me, but I tried to stay in character. Blast the man! How much longer would I have to put up with this?

* * *

On Friday evening I was back at the leisure centre, but now in the sports hall for Ballroom Dancing. Annie helped me get ready. I needed a long dress and evening make-up, both of which were a challenge for me in my present guise, but when she’d finished I didn’t look too bad. I managed to persuade her to come too. We couldn’t dance together, of course, and I was very glad to see there was no man there less than twice her age.

I’m completely tone deaf and knew little about waltzes, foxtrots, quicksteps or tangoes, but Rachel had dragged me along to a couple of Ballroom Dancing classes at Cambridge. I’d quite enjoyed it, despite my ignorance. Mind you, I had never done it in high heels or backwards. I was used to leading, but I found I had learned enough to fake it.

I had several keen partners, all elderly gentlemen. Most of them seemed to know Dolly quite well, and that she couldn’t do any of the more vigorous dances because of her back and knees. The real Dolly had described all the gentlemen she could remember to Annie, and I’d spent ages memorising everything I was supposed to know about them. She particularly warned me of a couple of old rogues with wandering hands, and when I was on the dance floor with them, I spent most of the dance pulling their mitts off my corseted butt and back up to my waist.

One old fool tried to dip me. He soon found that I was heavier than I looked and his back went. We spent several embarrassing minutes locked in position with me nearly horizontal, screaming at him not to let go, until someone came to support me and pull me back up to my feet.

Because of the known average age of the dancers, there was always a St John’s Ambulance crew at the hall, and they took my partner, still locked in position, to Accident and Emergency. Apparently this was a regular occurrence and all in a day’s work for them.

I spent the rest of the evening shuffling backwards round the dance floor to the slower dances, supported by tall, strong men. No one else tried to dip me, and it was all very pleasant.

I thought I caught a glimpse of Treacher in the crowd, but I wasn’t sure. Annie didn’t see him. But the blue Fiesta was in the car park when we left. It followed us home through the town, keeping a few cars back.

* * *

So I found I could survive life as Dolly; more than that, to my surprise I found it was actually becoming comfortable. At first, I had to concentrate hard to slow down my movements and reactions to emulate a septuagenarian of the opposite sex. I had to restrain the twenty-year-old male who would otherwise react too quickly and move too fast. Now, moving slowly like an old lady was becoming instinctive. When I first started trying to act like Dolly, I always had to pause and think ‘what would Dolly do?’ in any situation, but increasingly the right reaction was becoming natural.

My knitting was getting better too, and I reached for it whenever I sat down for a rest. I even got it out in the car to and from work, to Annie’s great amusement. I always seemed to improve quickly when I set myself a project. Dolly had a huge collection of wool with a preponderance of pink, so I decided to knit a cardigan in that colour. I thought I might try a pattern of red and yellow roses on it too, and went to Vera for help. She was surprised and asked whether I wanted to learn to sew as well. I think she was being sarcastic, but it reminded me that there was an old sewing machine in our spare bedroom, and I made a mental note to check it out that evening.

I began to look forward to dancing on Fridays. Some of the old gentlemen were truly charming and two of them asked me out to dinner. For a moment I was tempted – after all, Dolly would probably have accepted, wouldn’t she? – but sanity prevailed. I didn’t need any more complications in my weird life just at the moment, and besides, what would Dolly say when she came out of hospital to find she was in a relationship with an elderly Lothario?

Thinking about that brought me up short. Was I actually starting to adapt to the life of an old lady? At times it seemed like Steve had left and the spirit of Dolly had moved in. Was I actually becoming her? That would hardly be surprising, given my current form and the need to impersonate her completely. It seemed like years since I had been a young man. Was I in danger of losing myself?

Still didn’t like bingo though.

* * *

These sinister thoughts started me worrying about my relationship with Annie.

One night I was sitting at the dressing table in my nightie, sponging off my make-up, and staring sadly at my wrinkled old lady face. Annie was lying on the bed. She had a magazine open in front of her, but she was watching me carefully.

“Are you all right, Granny?” she said, anxiety evident in her voice.

I sighed. “What happened to that nice boy you used to go out with, dear?” I asked her in my Dolly voice. “He hasn’t been around for a while, has he? What was his name? Steve Something? I thought you liked him.”

“I did,” she said, earnestly. “I mean, I do!”

I don’t think she knew whether I was being serious; I’m not sure I did. Maybe she thought Dolly had taken me over completely.

“He’s away for a while doing a really important job,” she rushed on to say, “but he’ll be back soon, and I’ll be waiting for him – however long it takes.”

“That’s nice, dear,” I said, rubbing cold cream into my face. I put on my sleep bonnet and got up to join her in bed. “Now move over and make room for Granny.”

That night I had a horrible nightmare that I had aged fifty years and changed sex. What was worse was that when I woke up, I found that it was true.

* * *

It was now three weeks since I had first been glued into my prosthesis and the adhesive was finally working loose. I arranged with Vera to take it off so that she could clean and disinfect it, and I could do the same to myself.

That all went smoothly but I knew I would have to put the horrid thing back on again before I could leave that night as the faithful Treacher would be waiting outside. Surely he must be getting fed up by now? But I supposed he was on a nice little earner from Harriet and would be in no hurry to give it up. I wondered what he had told her about me. I hoped George would tell my mother if Treacher found out anything significant.

This time I made Vera promise not to glue the body prosthesis back on me. She sympathised and showed me that it could actually be separated into two parts. I allowed her to use adhesive for the top half, so I was still stuck with my bulbous, droopy breasts, flabby tummy, and batwing arms, but I insisted on being able to remove the abdominal section. It was a struggle to get on and off, but that meant it was tight enough to stay up by itself, as long as I didn’t do anything too energetic, which was obviously impossible..

That decision turned out to be fully justified that night, and our resumption of normal(ish) relations was a double celebration. Annie had been to see her real grandmother while Vera was wrestling with the fake one and ‘her’ prosthesis. Dolly was feeling much better. She was starting to get restless stuck in a hospital bed and was keen to get back to her own home, though probably no keener than I was.

“When I saw her today, Granny said she was very grateful for what you’re doing,” said Annie in bed that night. “She would never have asked you to do it if she had known what would happen.”

“And I wouldn’t have agreed, believe me.”

“She just didn’t want to let Ingrid down. She reckons she owes you a big favour. When she gets out of hospital, she’ll look for a way to reciprocate.”

“She said that? ‘Reciprocate’?”

Annie nodded.

“That means ‘to go up and down’, doesn’t it?”

Annie giggled.

“Well perhaps you’d like to go up and down on her behalf?”

Nodding enthusiastically, she pulled up my nightie and reciprocated. A lot.

* * *

With the prospect of no longer being Dolly in sight, albeit in the distance, I finally got round to holding my mother to her promise. She hadn’t mentioned it, obviously hoping I’d forgotten.

“I strongly advise you not to do this, Dolly; I mean, Steven,” she said. “I’m sorry,” she smiled. “Your disguise is so good, it’s easy to forget.”

We were alone in her office, but she too had gotten into the habit of only calling me Dolly, to minimise the risk of mistakes.

“It’s all right,” I said bitterly and, I noticed, in my Dolly voice, “I’m used to it now.”

I was becoming more and more concerned that changing my appearance was changing my persona too. I found myself humming as I hoovered the carpets and polished the furniture and poured the tea. I smiled sweetly and called everyone ‘Dear’. I wasn’t sure I could walk far in Dolly’s shoes without my stick now. I swear I was starting to find it difficult to get up off my knees after cleaning a toilet. So it was quite a shock to be addressed as ‘Steven’ again after three weeks of only answering to ‘Dolly’ or ‘Granny’.

“I promise you really have nothing to gain by meeting him,” my mother continued, “and you might find it upsetting.”

“I’ll take that risk,” I said. “I’m twenty years old, mother.”

At that point I happened to catch sight of the elderly maid in the mirror and realised that my words sounded ridiculous coming from her, but I ploughed on.

“I think I can handle a conversation with my father, even if we haven’t seen each other for more than a decade.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer to meet him when you’re back to being Steven?” she said.

“Maybe, but I need you to give me the details now. I may not be able to wait. It will soon be time for me to go back to college – assuming this Treacher thing is over with by October. If Dad asks about my disguise, I can tell him I’m testing your latest products. Presumably he knows what we do here, so he shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She sighed. “You will need to contact him through a waitress at the Little Café in Royston. It’s opposite the station. Her name is Rita Johnson.” I remembered that was the woman that Nuttall, the Bank Manager, mentioned. “That’s all I can tell you.”

I was pretty sure it wasn’t all she could tell me, but it would be enough, at least for now.

* * *

So that Saturday Annie drove us to Royston. We parked in the station ‘Pay & Display’ car park and Annie paid for a one-hour ticket.

“Here, Granny, hold onto my arm,” Annie said. “I’ll help you up the steps.”

“Thank you, dear,” I said gratefully, in my creaky ‘old lady’ voice.

I struggled up the steep staircase from the car park to the street, mimicking the laborious movements of a fragile female septuagenarian. I moved slowly and painfully, leaning heavily on my walking stick. The ascent was actually a challenge with all my bulky padding, even in only one-inch heels.

“Is he watching?” I asked, in a softer voice, trying not to move my lips.

My spectacles were plain glass but they were still thick and they inhibited my distance vision. Annie took a surreptitious look back over my shoulder.

“Afraid so,” she confirmed. “You need to stay in character.”

This still felt very strange as only last night I had been making love to Annie with a vigour quite incompatible with the elderly lady I appeared to be. The weight of my portly figure had meant she had to go on top, which I found a little humiliating, but there was no doubting her enthusiasm, or her agility. It was the best lovemaking session we’d had in the two months we had been together. I had hoped we were getting serious, but my current circumstances had definitely thrown a spanner in the works. How could I talk of our future together when I was living as a seventy-year-old woman, and her grandmother into the bargain?

We made our way toward the little diner. I pretended to lean on her arm.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she said. “You’ve only just found out about him. Why not wait till you’re you again?”

“But who knows when that will be?”

We had reached the door of the diner. I looked inside.

“Come on, there’s a table free at the far end,” I said. “I’ll sit with my back to the window, so you can keep an eye out for our friend.”

Annie helped me off with my overcoat. I leaned my stick against the wall and hung my handbag over the arm of my chair. Sweeping my dress underneath me, I sat down, glad to get my extra weight off my feet. I was careful to make sure that my skirt covered my wrinkled legs in their support stockings. My tight shapewear helped me to keep my knees together.

“I’m still amazed at how convincing you are!” Annie said softly, taking the seat opposite me. “You’d have to know my Granny really well to be able to tell that you’re not her.”

“Thank you, dear,” I said, trying to stay in character. “Any sign of you-know-who?”

“I can’t see him at the moment, but I expect he’s watching us from somewhere.”

The tired-looking waitress with the short, fake-looking ginger hair was approaching with a smile and two menus.

“Morning, ladies,” she said brightly. “How are you today?”

I stared at her closely. Her name badge said ‘Rita’. She looked puzzled at my scrutiny, then nervous. I was sure she had recognised me; that is, Dolly. I looked around. There was no one nearby to overhear me.

“We’re fine,” I said in my normal voice. “How are you, Dad?”

* * *

It was seven o’clock that evening. We had spent the day pottering around Royston, which is nearly as interesting as Peterborough, waiting for Rita to get off duty. Now we were at her little one-bedroom flat. She – he – was passing out tea and biscuits.

“I recognised you as Dolly immediately,” he said, “though I hadn’t seen her for years. Your disguise is brilliant! It’s impossible to see a twenty-year-old man under all that. How on earth do you do it?”

“The technology is just an extension of what we’ve been doing for the last four years. Presumably you know about that?”

He nodded. “I do still see Ingrid from time to time. We have to meet at the bank for me to sign documents occasionally. But there must be more to it than that?”

“There is, but the formulation of the skin texture for the flesh pieces – my wrinkles, the bags under my eyes, the dewlap and so on – that’s all down to Annie. She’s a genius with facial prosthetics.”

My girlfriend blushed prettily but didn’t bother with any false modesty.

“When I recognised Dolly, I wondered why you were here, of course,” he said, “but when a young male voice came out of your mouth, I nearly fainted. How did you know who I was? Did Ingrid tell you everything?”

“No, she just said that if I wanted to meet my father, I had to see Rita Johnson first. It wasn’t hard to work out.”

“I’d love to see what you really look like.”

“Oh, here!” said Annie, reaching into her handbag.

She took out a picture we’d had taken at Newquay. We were in our swimsuits. She looked fantastic in her bikini; I looked a little smug to be with her. My father studied it with a strange, lost expression on his face.

“What a great picture!” he said, with a sniff. “You both look so... happy. You do look a lot like me when I was young.”

He fell silent. After a minute, I cleared my throat.

“I assume Mum used to help you dress before you moved out, did she? And that’s how she got started in the business?”

He pulled himself together and returned the picture to Annie.

“Yes. After leaving school she did Business Administration at the local college. Her first job was working in the theatre – backstage. She loved that. She had been in school plays, and she was very good, but she never wanted to be a performer. She didn’t like to be the centre of attention. But the job meant she learned a lot about make-up, costumes, and so on. Anyway, although I was – am – completely hetero, I’ve never been able to resist the urge to cross-dress. She knew I was active in the gay/trans community, but we were in love, and we told ourselves it didn’t matter. After we married, I suggested we use the house as a place where my friends could dress, and she volunteered to help. I think she saw it as a way of keeping us together. We never did anything nasty; no bondage, sado-masochism, or anything. We just helped guys play out their cross-dressing fantasies – being schoolgirls or maids or whatever. All in complete secrecy.”

“So what went wrong?”

“We both changed over time, I suppose.” He sighed. “I realised I couldn’t carry on as a Lord of the Manor who just had an odd hobby. This…” He gestured towards his face and boobs, and swept his hands down his skirt and stockings. “…is who I really am.”

It was ironic. I had no wish to cross-dress, let alone adopt a feminine identity, but somehow I was following in his footsteps anyway, just not in quite so high heels.

“So, are those…” I hesitated. I realised he might not want to answer my impending question in front of Annie.

“Are my breasts real, you mean?” he smiled, apparently not in the least embarrassed. “They’re certainly real to me, but, no. They’re just top-quality forms, and glued on. I haven’t undergone any procedures apart from electrolysis to remove all my body hair. I do take a very mild female hormone – your mother provides it – but it’s only enough to smooth my skin, not to make any major physical changes.”

“But you needed to live as a woman?”

“Not just any woman – I couldn’t be the Lady of the Manor either. There was something else in me. I needed to be a servant – a maid or a waitress, all the time. I think I was uncomfortable with my privilege. I hadn’t earned any of what I owned, so I felt I didn’t deserve it. I needed to start again at the bottom…” He sighed.

“Ingrid did what she could to help me, and persuaded me to stay. I lived as her maid for six months. Then you were born and she needed me even more. It was wonderful for a while. I wore a Nanny’s uniform! That was when I was happiest, I think. I loved taking you to the park in your pram and chatting to the other ladies there about our babies.”

He sighed, a euphoric look on his face. I was impressed at how completely feminine he was, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. He’d been living a totally female life for more than twenty years.

“But in the end I had to move out,” he continued sadly. “I couldn’t let myself get attached to you, or you to me. There was no way I could be a proper father to you, and I was terrified that knowing what I was would damage you for life. I left Ingrid with everything – the house, the estate, all our money, and you. She deserved it all. None of this was her fault.”

I was beginning to see what my mother had meant when she said that I had nothing to gain by meeting him. This was a sad story, and it was serving no purpose but to satisfy my curiosity and depress my poor father all over again.

“I found a bedsit in town and used my contacts to find jobs as a cleaner, maid, nanny, whatever,” he continued. “I came back every month or so for a while, dressed as a man, but I couldn’t keep doing that. As you grew, became a toddler, I found it too hard to play with you and then leave. When you started to talk, you would ask about me when I wasn’t there, wanting to know where I was, when I would next be coming. I was starting to become too important to you. We both agreed a clean break was necessary. I didn’t want you to have a pervert in your life, especially not your father...”

We both protested at this description of himself.

“Maybe attitudes have changed,” he admitted, “but we’re talking about nearly twenty years ago, remember. That’s how even I thought of myself back then.”

Silence fell again.

“So is that still how you live?” I asked.

“Yes, I work two jobs now, as a cleaning lady in the mornings and waitress at lunchtime and dinner time. I’m off this evening, in case you were wondering.”

He realised that we were looking around the flat. It was clean and well decorated; very feminine; but very small.

“Ingrid sends me small gifts of money from time to time,” he smiled. “At first I sent them back, then the flat needed a new boiler, then I had a huge bill on my little car. I think Ingrid has always felt guilty that she couldn’t tolerate my… urges. I always try to reassure her that none of it is her fault; that it’s all down to me, and I’m sorry I hurt her, but…” He trailed off.

“I’m just glad Fred was around. He was one of my best friends. I knew I could rely on him to keep an eye on you both. You know he’s gay, I suppose?”

“Yes, though he’s not ‘out’, as such.”

“Silly boy,” said my father, shaking his curly red head.

“Don’t you get lonely?” Annie asked.

“I have an on-off partner, a woman who has just the right sort of kinks to enjoy my company, in bed and out. I’m lucky to have found her, but… well, let’s just say there are reasons why we can’t be together all the time.” We must have been looking sympathetic. “It’s fine, really. We’re not in love or anything.”

He reached for the teapot to give us refills.

“But you haven’t told me why you came as Dolly?” His plump, feminine features darkened. “Are you… like me? Was this Ingrid’s idea, to show me what I had done to our son?”

“Yes, it’s her fault, but no, that’s not why. Actually I had no choice.”

I went on to explain that I wasn’t a cross-dresser, and how my mother had got me involved in testing the technology. It hadn’t occurred to me before that perhaps she was also testing to see if I had inherited transvestism from my father…

I explained my current predicament. He tutted when I got to the part where my mother used emotional blackmail to get me to play in the Ladies’ Pairs. He made me promise to send his best wishes to the real Dolly. Towards the end of the story, when I mentioned we were even now under surveillance, he gasped. He stood up and went to the window. Opening the curtains a tiny crack, he peered through.

“Yes, I can see a blue Fiesta out there. It’s on the other side of the street, about thirty yards down. You’ll need to be careful when you leave.”

“You realise he’ll try and investigate you too now?” I said.

“Let him,” he smiled. “He won’t find anything. Rita’s back story is bomb-proof – birth certificate, National Insurance number, driving licence, even a passport, though I haven’t been abroad since becoming her. Ingrid spent quite a bit of money with her contacts to make sure I’m legit.”

“He may wonder why we’ve come to see you though,” said Annie. “What our relationship could be.”

My father gave that a little thought.

“Well, Dolly and I knew each other well once. She knows all about me. We were close when I was growing up and she was housekeeper at the Manor. She stayed on when Ingrid and I got married. Then my father died and I couldn’t keep the maidservant inside me any longer. Dolly didn’t want to have anything to do with Rita, so she left, and I can’t blame her. We don’t see each other anymore, but we’ve kept in touch – Christmas cards, birthdays, and so on. So we can let Treacher think that Dolly and Rita are old friends.”

“That’s all right then,” I said, “but I may have to come again sometime to make it realistic.”

He smiled. “Fine by me… Dolly.”

We got up to leave.

“Keep the picture, Rita,” said Annie, pushing it across the table to him. “We have the digital version on our computer.”

* * *

When we got home I reported back to my mother for her side of the story.

“Your father’s… compulsions… did make me angry at first,” she said. “I hated pretending to treat him as my maid. It didn’t help that I am physically bigger and stronger than him. He was – is – clearly submissive, but I’m no dominatrix. I loved him. I wanted him to hold me, and comfort me, but he just wanted to wash and iron my clothes and clean the toilets. I don’t know when he stopped loving me, but I eventually stopped loving him. I wouldn’t be the mistress to his housemaid any longer, so he moved out to find someone else who would. I’m happy that he has.”

Her version of the sad story wasn’t exactly the same as his, but I suppose it was close enough. I could see that she felt guilty that her love wasn’t strong enough to tolerate his sexuality.

“What about the house, and the business?” I said.

“Everything is in our joint names – his original name. We still have a joint bank account – separate from the Transformations business account – but he never takes any money from it. I assume he has a personal account in his new name. I don’t know how that works, how he pays tax, deals with the Revenue, and so on. I’m sure he’s not cheating them or anything, but I suspect what he does isn’t strictly legal.”

“So, was making me a test subject for all your transformation techniques anything to do with him?”

“Only insofar as you take after him physically, rather than me, and are therefore an ideal test subject.” I must have looked sceptical. “All right,” she admitted, “maybe I needed to find out whether you had inherited any of his proclivities as well. For my own peace of mind, and because if you did, perhaps I could help you.”

* * *

When Annie and I turned up for work on Monday morning Fred met us inside the front door.

“Ah, there you are, Dolly,” he said. “Mrs Jones and I are out on the patio. When you’ve changed, would you bring us some coffee, please?”

I was about to ask what the hell, when he put a finger to his lips and winked. I choked back my protest. We must have visitors, I assumed.

“Would you like a cup too, Annie?” he said. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “Bring a cup for Miss Rogers too then, please, Dolly.”

He turned and walked away. Annie shrugged and grimaced at me, then followed him. Feeling more like a skivvy than ever, I went to the kitchen. I put on my maid uniform and made coffee for three. If I was the maid, I reasoned, I wouldn’t be joining them.

When I got out to the patio the three of them were sitting at one of the wrought iron picnic tables arguing quietly but fiercely. Annie looked particularly upset. I put the tray down on the table and reached for the fourth chair.

“Don’t sit down, Dolly,” my mother hissed. “We may be being watched.”

So I stood there, like a maid, with my hands clasped in front of my apron.

“Do you want me to curtsey as well, madam?” I said icily. “Only I don’t know how.”

“Don’t get all huffy, for heaven’s sake, Steve,” said Annie. “The situation’s bad enough already.” I looked at her incredulously. “Please! They have good reason to be cautious.”

“Thank you, Annie,” said Fred. He turned to me. “Steve, when you asked me to get you a bug detector, I laughed, but I actually got two. I gave you one and kept the other. I’ve been sweeping the ground floor areas most mornings, feeling a bit silly, but today I found three listening devices. I apologise; you were right and I was wrong.”

That changed everything. I saw why they were treating me this way. It didn’t make me any less angry, but at least I understood.

“Where were they?”

“One’s in the hallway, which is why I had to act as if you were the actual maid this morning. Sorry about that,” Fred said. “Another was in Vera’s office, presumably because Treacher noticed it’s the biggest consulting room, with the most equipment. The third was in the staff common room. He probably couldn’t get into the photography suite or the Bunker. We keep them both locked, and there’s no sign of tampering. After that, I went through the whole building. It took me ages, but I didn’t find any more bugs.”

“How the hell did he get in?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” Fred said. “I’ve been round the building but I can’t see any signs of tampering with any of the doors or windows. Mind you, there were a couple of upstairs windows open round the back.”

“And I’m afraid we may have forgotten to set the security system,” said my mother.

That seemed quite likely. I had taken over responsibility for doing it since coming back home in May but now I was living at Dolly’s place. Mum might easily have forgotten it was her job again to set the burglar alarm.

“Or he may have an accomplice,” suggested Annie.

The others obviously hadn’t thought of that.

“I’m going to move Vera to another office,” said my mother. “It’s not just that we can’t afford for Treacher to hear anything that suggests Dolly might not actually be Dolly; we can’t have him listening in while she’s working with a client either. It’s a good thing that Vera and Sharon keep their offices tidy. Hopefully he won’t have seen anything that gives away what we do here.”

“Especially in the dark,” Fred added.

“We’ll have to do something about the other bugs though,” said my mother.

“You could put a radio close up to the one in the common room,” I suggested. “That should be enough to make sure he can’t make out anything we’re saying.”

“Good idea, Dolly,” said my mother, emphasising the name, “and maybe we could pile some boxes up against the one in the hall. Oh, this is a damn nuisance!”

“On the bright side, it’s a pretty desperate move by Treacher,” said Fred. “It’s not illegal to follow someone for the purposes of gathering information, as long as you don’t harass them, but this is breaking and entering. He couldn’t have known whether there would be a burglar alarm. Hopefully it means he hasn’t been able to find anything useful about you, and this is his last throw of the dice.”

“You need to tell Dolly here the really bad part,” said my mother.

Fred looked embarrassed, but ploughed on.

“Unfortunately the bug detectors I got are cheapo kit from Amazon. They’re commercially available gadgets, and we can’t be sure they’re good enough to find the most modern listening devices. He may have planted other, more sophisticated bugs. The ones I found may be just decoys. It’s an arms race; if someone comes up with a better bug, then someone else has to develop a better detector. The most recent ones are incredibly expensive and hard to source. I’m working on it, but in the short term we just need to assume he can hear everything we say inside this building, and at Dolly’s place too.”

“That’s why we’re having coffee outside,” said my mother. “Luckily it’s a fine day. And we can’t have the maid sitting down and joining us as an equal because he may be watching from the trees on the other side of the fence…” I turned to scan the horizon. “Don’t look, you idiot!”

“He wouldn’t be able to see us from over there,” I said scathingly. “It must be two hundred yards away.”

It seemed to me they had gone from not taking the problem seriously enough to being utterly paranoid.

“If he can afford bugs, he can probably afford a pair of powerful binoculars,” my mother countered.

“I just hope he can’t lip read,” said Annie. “That’s why we’re sitting with our backs to the fence. You’d better keep to ‘Yes, Madam’ and ‘No, Madam’, if you’re going to stand there.”

“I’m not calling any of you ‘Madam’!” I said through gritted teeth. “Anyway I can’t believe a second-rate dick like him can afford such expensive kit.”

“Probably not,” my mother agreed, “but Harriet can – easily.”

I poured their coffees in silence and reached to take the tray back to the kitchen.

“OK, look,” said Fred, as I turned to go, “I agree we may be over-reacting. But we don’t know what he can see or hear. We’ll figure something out, but for the moment you have to be a hundred per cent Dolly. Everywhere, all the time. Even in the car to and from work. I’ll sweep Annie’s car before you leave tonight, but a car is even easier to bug than a house. You should find somewhere he can’t see you and sweep yours too; I mean Dolly’s mini.”

“I’m sorry about all this, Steven,” said my mother.

“Yeah, well that doesn’t do me a lot of good, does it?”

“It gets worse,” said Annie. “The same applies at home, doesn’t it? He may have planted bugs we can’t detect there too. You know what that means. I’m so sorry.”

“Seems there’s a lot of ‘sorry’ going around, but I’m the one who really has cause to be sorry.”

Annie started to say something, but I stormed back to the kitchen and my new life as a cleaner and tea lady, twenty-four-seven. Suddenly I was a lot less comfortable having to live Dolly’s life without respite, and being treated as her by all my nearest and dearest.

That evening I swept Dolly’s house again and still didn’t find any bugs, but according to Fred that didn’t mean we were safe.

* * *

It was a horrible week. I wasn’t able to be myself at any moment, not even at home. Not only did Annie now treat me as her Granny all the time, but I had to sleep alone too, in case Treacher had bugged our bedrooms without us knowing. I didn’t bother taking my lower half prosthesis off at all now. What would be the point?

I still didn’t think he could have gotten into our house. I had been diligent about locking up and setting the alarm. So I rather resented not being able to sleep with Annie. I would be going back to Cambridge in about three weeks, assuming this ludicrous situation was resolved somehow by then. I might not see her again until nearly Christmas, so I wanted to make the most of the remaining time we had.

My mother’s reasoning was that if Treacher had planted listening devices we didn’t know about, he presumably had done it at about the same time as the ones Fred had found. He wouldn’t take the risk of breaking into either of the buildings twice. So we probably hadn’t been bugged before, but we might have been now.

Whatever. I was now a full-time elderly maid and cleaning lady. With that, I realised I was well on the road to becoming my father: we were both male, heterosexual, and living and behaving as lowly servants of the opposite sex. The only difference between us was that he wanted that, and I didn’t. (Yet?)

* * *

Having left early for the summer, I had to be back in Cambridge by the first day of Full Term, or make arrangements to defer for a year. So as the weekend approached, I was more and more desperate to find some way of bringing my ghastly situation to an end. I was close to giving up, and begging Vera to remove all my prostheses and let me return to being Steve, even if it meant Harriet would win, and even if it meant losing the business.

Another problem was, where could we hold a council of war, given that I was a maidservant and couldn’t be seen sitting down and chatting with my employer and her senior staff? In the end Annie came up with the answer. This was the week when Betty and I were supposed to be doing the flowers at the church for the Sunday services, but she called to say that her husband had booked them a last-minute holiday – a week in Malaga. So Annie volunteered to help me. (That was just as well, as I didn’t know Betty, and knew even less about arranging flowers.)

She checked the routine with the real Dolly. On Saturday afternoon we would go to the florist in the High Street at about five o’clock just before it closed, and collect several baskets of flowers which the owner would have put aside for us. We would take them to the church and put them out in various strategic places – the altar, round the lectern, under the big stained-glass windows, etc. We didn’t actually need to do much flower arranging. The proprietress of the flower shop would have done most of the hard work by packing the baskets tastefully.

The plan was that Annie and I would collect the flowers in her car and drive to the church, presumably with Treacher following. We would leave the car in the church’s tiny car park, go in, and start arranging the flowers. Fred and my mother would park in town and walk to the church, making sure they got there before we and our shadow arrived.

They would find a dark, quiet corner inside and try to stay unobserved. It might be a little more complicated if there were other worshippers present, but we thought this would be unlikely, given the size of the Church of England congregation these days. There was choir practice in the evening but there were no services on Saturday afternoon, so the place was usually empty.

When we were sure that the detective was staying outside, the four of us would find a quiet spot – perhaps in the vestry if the vicar wasn’t around – to have a proper planning session. I looked forward to making my increasingly desperate opinions known. I was not going to become my father!

Saturday came and everything went like clockwork. We picked up the flowers and our tail, and parked in the church precinct, as planned. It took us three trips each to get all the baskets inside, me hobbling painfully as usual. I rather resented Treacher sitting in his car watching and not volunteering to help an old lady.

When we got inside, Fred and Mum were sitting in a pew in a dark corner at the back. You wouldn’t have noticed them if you weren’t looking for them.

Annie and I put the flowers out in record time. She checked the vestry, which was devoid of priests and lay persons. She waved and beckoned us from the door.

“We don’t have long,” Fred began. “Treacher will get suspicious if you spend hours arranging a few flowers, and it’s not as if there’s anything else to do in a church.”

“Praying, maybe?” suggested Annie.

“Never mind all that,” I interrupted angrily. “I cannot – will not – stay as Dolly any longer. I need an escape plan, and if you can’t help me, I’ll just go and break into Vera’s cupboard for the solvent and rip all this crap off myself, and hang the consequences!”

“Sorry, Steve, I should have led with the good news,” said Fred. “Dolly called Ingrid from the hospital this afternoon. She tried to reach you, Annie, but couldn’t get through.”

“They’re talking about her coming home soon,” my mother said. “So we need to discuss how you can ‘hand over’ to her, as it were.”

“I think you’ll have to have an accident,” Fred said, “so that we have a reason to take you to hospital. Presumably Treacher will follow. As far as the staff on Reception are concerned, we’ll all be there to visit Dolly, but…”

“…but when we get there, you can duck into the Ladies,” said my mother.

“While Ingrid, Fred and I go to Granny’s room,” said Annie. “You disappear and she’s back to being my only grandmother.”

She smiled at me, almost as she used to when I had been Steve.

“It could work, I suppose,” I nodded. “But how do I get out of the building without him seeing me? I don’t think I’ll be able to get to the back door or the goods entrance or whatever.”

“Well, it won’t be practical to get all your prosthetics off and turn you back to Steve at the hospital, even if we could find a private room,” said my mother. “But you can take another wig and a change of clothes, maybe some dark glasses. Then you can change in the bathroom and leave by the front door as a completely different old lady.”

Everyone approved of that idea.

“We’ll have to make sure the hospital doesn’t let Treacher in or give him any information – like how long Granny has really been there,” said Annie.

“They won’t usually give out any information of that kind to anyone other than family,” said Fred. “To make sure, we can warn the staff on Reception that Dolly is being stalked by an ambulance-chasing lawyer or something, and not to be fooled by anyone pretending to be a friend or relation.”

“Or emergency services,” I suggested. “He might have some kind of fake documentation.”

There were still some details to thrash out, not least what sort of accident I was going to have, but we were all satisfied the plan was workable; a bit desperate, but workable. We would put it into operation two days before Dolly was due to be released. Any less wouldn’t be realistic for a sudden accident that required hospitalisation. Any sooner – like going ahead right now, for instance – risked giving Treacher time to find a way around hospital security and discover how long Dolly had actually been there. That meant I would have to be Dolly the maid for at least another week.

“Do you think Treacher is looking tired, by the way?” said Annie. “When I came back from the hospital yesterday, I drove past his car and I’m sure he was asleep.”

“Good,” I said. “I hope he drops dead from exhaustion.”

The others looked a little embarrassed at my lack of charity. They clearly hadn’t appreciated how much I was hating my new life as an old lady. Fred cleared his throat.

“I’m not surprised he’s knackered,” he said. “He has to watch you all day, then listen to the bugs’ recordings all night.”

“He probably falls asleep doing that,” said Annie. “He won’t hear anything interesting there, will he?”

All agreed.

“Time we went,” said my mother, looking at her watch.

“There is one other thing,” I said, as the others were getting ready to go. “I know you have a hidden camera in Vera’s room.”

Annie looked surprised.

“How on earth did you…?” Fred began.

“It’s just to protect ourselves in case a client causes… problems,” my mother interrupted.

No doubt she was concerned that I would be angry that they had filmed my various transformations, and she was right, but that wasn’t what was on my mind right now.

“I don’t suppose it was running over last weekend, was it?” I asked.

“It’s triggered by a motion sensor, but Vera sometimes turns it off when she’s alone.” Fred had seen my point of course, and was getting excited. “She did have a client last thing on Friday, so she might not have switched it off before she left. It sends the images to a 2 Terabyte hard disk on the network. I’ll check it out as soon as we get back. Shit! Why didn’t I think of this?”

“I don’t understand,” said Annie. “What’s so important?”

“Fred’s nasty little spy camera just might have caught Treacher planting the bugs over the weekend,” I said. “This could give us leverage if we need it.”

* * *

When our planning session was over, Annie ran me back home, then rushed off to the hospital. As usual I watched her go, ready to text her mobile and warn her if Treacher followed her for a change. I opened the sitting room curtains to give Treacher a good view of the little old lady doing little old lady things. I settled down with my knitting while she was out. I was determined to finish my cardy before going back to being Steve.

When Annie returned she was full of news and dragged me into the little back garden to pass it on without being overheard. In case we were being watched she pretended to do some weeding while I hung out some of my underwear and stockings on the washing line.

Jubilantly she announced that after nearly four weeks Dolly’s doctor judged that her heartbeat was strong and regular; her blood pressure was normal, or at least acceptable; and her sternum was sufficiently healed that they could remove the cast and the wire.

The bad news was that it was likely to be ten days to a fortnight before she could go home. She still needed constant monitoring after such a serious operation, and would need physiotherapy to rebuild her strength. Also, when she did finally come home, she would be under strict instructions to spend most of her time lying down or propped up in an armchair. No heavy lifting; in fact, she wasn’t allowed to raise her arms above her head, as this would put pressure on the knitting breastbone which could open the break up again. This would mean she would need help getting dressed, or even to put her nightie on, so Annie would need to be back home with her. I had an open invitation to join them until it was time for me to go back to college.

“It’ll be nice to have a man about the house for a change,” said Annie, with an ironic smile. “By the way, Fred called me on my mobile. He has some very clear video of Treacher entering Vera’s office at two o’clock on Sunday morning, and planting his listening device behind one of the photographs on her wall.”

* * *

Of course I was disappointed that I would be Dolly for at least another week, but with a definite end in sight, I decided I could stick it out. It would be stupid to ruin everything at the last minute after all I had already put up with and the hard work I had done on my impersonation. Besides I still hadn’t finished the cardigan, and I had to sew the buttons on.

So we were back to the bingo on Tuesday. I won an early round, so I tried to look as if I was enjoying myself. Annie still seemed to love this night out with the elderly women. She warned our neighbours when their numbers were called out if they didn’t notice. She ran round helping the other old dears get their barley wines and halves of cider. Not being young and mobile, I had to sit and watch her, bored out of my mind.

There were a couple of other young women doing similar tasks for their elderly relatives. I mused that if I’d been Millie instead of Dolly I could have helped too. It wasn’t the sort of thing that Steve would have done, so where did that thought come from?

* * *

I played with my mother at the Bridge Club on the Wednesday. We were early and took our usual seats, North-South at Table One, so that as poor old Dolly I didn’t have to move. We were horrified when Jane Campanella joined us, sitting in the East seat. We had nothing against her. We hardly knew her, and liked what we knew, but it meant that Harriet would occupy the West seat when she arrived.

“I never got the chance to congratulate you on your result in the Ladies’ pairs,” she said with a smile. “Harriet said that was the first time you’d qualified for the Final. Well done indeed!”

That was nice of her, I thought. My mother obviously thought so too and ‘reciprocated’. They had a friendly chat while we waited. I kept glancing out of the window into the car park, but there was no sign of a blue Fiesta. Had Treacher given up, or was he assuming he could take a three-hour break while we were here playing Bridge?

I dragged my attention back to their conversation. Mum couldn’t stop herself from suggesting that Jane would have done even better in the Ladies’ Pairs Final if she hadn’t been in harness with Harriet. Jane smiled thinly but was much too diplomatic to comment. Professionals who spoke ill of their clients soon ran out of paying customers.

“You seem to be very interested in the car park, Dolly,” Jane said to me suddenly. “Are you expecting someone?”

I must have been looking out of the window too much. While I struggled to come up with an answer, my mother weighed in crossly.

“We’re being followed,” she said. “There’s a man in a blue Fiesta. He makes Dolly nervous.”

Too right he did. He – and bloody Harriet – were responsible for me spending my summer as an old lady.

“You mean you’re being stalked?”

She sounded sceptical, as well she might. Neither my mother nor I were typical stalking material, not being young and beautiful.

“No, he’s a private detective. Not a very good one either as we spotted him three weeks ago.”

Jane was incredulous. “Why…?” she spluttered. “What…?”

My mother looked at me. I shrugged. I couldn’t see any reason not to tell her. What’s the worst that could happen? She might tell Harriet we’re on to him, but that would surely bring this farce to an end one way or another.

“Harriet hired him,” my mother said. “She couldn’t see how Dolly and I could beat her at the Ladies’ Pairs, and take the third spot in the England pre-Trials. She’s sure we must have been cheating somehow, and she hired that man to follow us to find out how.”

“Follow me, actually,” I said, in my best, croaky whisper. “Ingrid’s a good player, but Harriet thinks I played above myself, and she’s suspicious. We don’t have a hope in the Trials, by the way. We’ll be lucky not to come last.”

“He also broke in and bugged my offices,” added my mother.

“What! Did you go to the police?”

“We don’t really have any proof. We found the listening devices, but we can’t prove who put them there.”

We both knew that was a lie, but there was no way my mother wanted Plod wandering around our place. We’d never see some of our clients again. Also, there might be some advantage in Treacher thinking he had got away with it.

“Well…” Jane was clearly at a loss. “I’ve never heard of such a thing! I thought you were all friends.”

My mother had the grace to look embarrassed.

“‘Friendly rivals’ would be a better description,” I said. “Like Federer and Nadal…?”

Actually that was a bad example. By all accounts Rafa and The Fed were good mates off the court.

“Probably best not to say anything to Harriet,” my mother said. “I’m sure she’ll stop it all soon. There’s nothing for him to find… obviously.”

“Understood,” Jane said, “but I’m not at all happy about this.”

Harriet arrived at that point. She gave us a curt nod, clearly not pleased with Jane’s choice of first-round opponents. She immediately engaged her professional partner in a discussion of a complex area of their bidding system and the friendly conversation came to an end.

It wasn’t a great evening for us. We didn’t do much wrong but neither did most of our opponents. Jane played one hand against us brilliantly; I didn’t expect to get many match points on that board. We finished a little above average. Harriet and Jane came top of the East-West pairs. Perhaps that would satisfy her and persuade her to call off her hound.

But he and that flaming blue Fiesta were back when we left and followed us home.

* * *

Friday was Ballroom Dancing again. I still looked forward to this, despite my continuing misgivings that Annie would find a new partner she preferred. I had raided Dolly’s wardrobe and found a pretty wrap dress she obviously hadn’t worn for years. It was white cotton with a swirly black pattern. Annie said it was quite ‘art nouveau’, but I doubt she really knew what that meant. I certainly didn’t.

Anyway it covered up what it needed to, while making interesting (and misleading) suggestions about what might be underneath. In a moment of madness I had bought a new extra-uplifting longline bra for my big droopy breasts, and I carried my enhanced embonpoint proudly before me onto the dance floor.

When we arrived we were both quickly snapped up by mature gentlemen, my partner being considerably more mature than Annie’s. His name was Gregory. He was tall, at least six inches taller than me, even though I was wearing my highest heels.

“What do you like about Ballroom?” I asked him, by way of making conversation as we swirled around the dance floor.

He considered thoughtfully.

“It’s a wonderful way to get to know someone,” he began. “Dancing closely together is the ultimate expression of romance, forging a human connection. I’m not that good with words, you see, so I take it to the dance floor and get swept away by the music…”

He suited the action to the words and executed a complicated double turn, sweeping me around as if I weighed nothing, which I absolutely didn’t. He was clearly stronger than he looked. As Dolly, with bad knees and a stiff back, I couldn’t cooperate properly, so he was actually lifting me clear of the floor for most of this manoeuvre.

“Not bad for someone who’s not very good with words!” I panted, getting my high heels firmly back on the ground before he – or I – got any more swept away.

“So does that mean you’ll have dinner with me at last?” he asked.

I tried an enigmatic smile. “I wouldn’t rule it out,” I said. “Ask me again next time.”

After all it wouldn’t be me next Friday, and Dolly might like him. Not that she would be attending ballroom dancing for a while yet.

“I certainly will,” he said, with what he thought was a sexy twinkle, but it just looked like there was something wrong with his eye.

He pulled me in closer. We were now dancing cheek-to-cheek. I didn’t resist. That would have been rude, and anyway it was quite nice.

* * *

When we got back I checked my voicemail. There was a message from my mother. George Bairstow had called her to tell her that Jane Campanella had resigned as Harriet’s partner. That meant that we could withdraw from the England Ladies Trials without letting Harriet in!

So Mum had told him that she and I were going to withdraw too, citing my age and state of health. I quickly deleted the voicemail in case Treacher found a way to hack it. Presumably my two friends from Cambridge would take the third spot. If Sheila could control her wilder urges, they should do well.

It felt like things were finally going my way…

Annie and her Granny

By Susannah Donim

Steve’s mother runs the secretive Transformations consultancy. This means he has a number of interesting jobs over the years.

Chapter 7 – Dolly Returns

Can Steve finally return to normal?

The Friday morning was bright and sunny and Dolly the maid was again required to serve Ingrid, Fred and Annie morning coffee on the terrace behind the house. I pottered about laying out cups and saucers and plates on the wrought-iron picnic table, pouring coffee, and handing round pastries – all as slowly as possible so that I could be party to the conversation without sitting down as though I were with my equals.

When she spoke to George, my mother had asked him if Harriet intended to cancel the Treacher investigation now that none of us were playing in the Trials. He said they’d had a big row about the money she was spending, but that as far as he knew, she was as determined as ever to prove that something strange was going on with Dolly, despite Treacher’s complete failure to come up with any evidence. Apparently even the detective had suggested to her that she was wasting her money.

“So I suppose we have to go ahead with Operation Get-Steve-Back, as planned,” said Annie.

“Hoo-fucking-ray,” I muttered, wiping my coffee-stained fingers on my apron.

My mother looked at me sharply. I smiled sweetly and attempted a mock-curtsey.

“They’ve decided to discharge Granny on Monday morning,” continued Annie.

“So your accident should be late this afternoon,” suggested Fred, “so that it’s Visiting Time when we get to the hospital.” A thought struck him. “We have a wheelchair somewhere, don’t we?”

“Good idea,” said my mother. “Say she has a fall in the kitchen…”

“Or something falls on her,” said Annie.

“I can bring the big van round to the front, which presumably he’ll be watching,” Mum continued. “You can wheel her out, looking appropriately concerned. We’ll put her in the back and I’ll drive us all to the hospital. I’ll stop by the front entrance, then you two can take fake Dolly to the real Dolly’s room while I’m moving the van to the visitor’s car park.”

“No doubt Treacher will follow us,” said Fred to me, “so you’ll have to stay in the wheelchair till we get you inside.”

“They know me well at Reception now,” said Annie, “and I know my way around, so we can go straight through to Granny’s room before Treacher can get in. When I was there yesterday, I warned them to be on the lookout for unwanted visitors as you suggested, so they shouldn’t answer any of his questions or let him in to see her.”

“He may still manage to bluff his way past Reception,” said my mother, “but by the time he gets to Dolly’s room, he’ll find her already in bed and you two with her. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

“And what about me?” I asked.

“I’ve packed a bag with full instructions,” my mother said. “You can jump out of the wheelchair and dive into the first Ladies toilets you pass. You change, put all of Dolly’s clothes back in the bag, and stroll back out to Reception. When you get there, call a taxi, and come back here. Report to Vera and she’ll remove all your prostheses.”

“We’ll take your stick and the wheelchair with us and leave them with Granny,” said Annie. “I’ll pick up any of your things that you’ve left at the house and bring them back here with me tomorrow.”

“There’s just my toothbrush and a couple of books, I think. The rest of my personal stuff is in my – that is Dolly’s – cubby hole in the kitchen. Oh wait, I finished the cardigan. It’s on the sideboard in the sitting room.” I smiled. “It’s a present from your Granny.”

“How kind!” she said. “And good to know that my boyfriend can do all my knitting and sewing from now on.”

“Good, I think that’s everything,” said my mother. “Any questions, anybody?”

“When do you think we can disable the bugs?” I asked Fred. “I know we won’t have to pretend I’m Dolly anymore after this, but we’ll still have to be careful what we say.”

“I’m working on that,” said Fred. “I’ve got a friend who’s a security expert. He’s agreed to come down with state-of-the-art sweeping equipment to make sure there are no more sophisticated devices anywhere. Regarding the three we know about, he reckons from my description they’re a cheap type that tend to fail after a couple of weeks anyway when their batteries die, but they can always be disabled by exposing them to a strong magnet. If we do that to all three over an extended period – say a week or so – Treacher will probably think they just failed of their own accord.”

“Even if he’s suspicious, he surely won’t care enough to do anything about it,” said my mother. “He won’t have got any useful information from them, and Harriet is bound to pull the plug soon.”

I collected their coffee things and went back to the kitchen. I had just one more working day as Dolly, the elderly maid!

* * *

We started Operation Get-Steve-Back at about a quarter past five. We had no clients staying overnight and all the catering staff had left, so we had the kitchen to ourselves. We plugged in a radio and turned up the volume, just in case there were any bugs there we didn’t know about.

“Soft voices, now,” my mother whispered, handing me a large overnight bag.

I suggested we cover some part of me with tomato ketchup so I could look like a bloody mess when they wheeled me out, but Annie and my mother vetoed that idea.

“There’s no need to ruin Dolly’s uniform,” my mother said. “We’re assuming you got a bang on the head, and we’re taking you to hospital in case you have a fracture or concussion. No blood involved.”

“You little drama queen!” chuckled Annie.

I slipped my mobile out of my apron pocket and into the bag. My mother looked dubious.

“I’ll need my phone, won’t I? If only to call a cab.”

“Well, make sure it’s on ‘Silent’,” she said. “We don’t need it ringing at a sensitive moment.”

I complied, then signalled I was ready. Mum turned off the music. Fred took a pile of large pans and casserole dishes down off a shelf and threw them violently at the tiled floor. The metallic clatter reverberated around the room. I screamed and groaned theatrically, feeling very silly as there was probably no one listening.

Annie untied my apron for me and helped me settle in the wheelchair with the overnight bag in my lap. She covered my legs with a rug, took my maid’s cap off, and gave me an empty ice pack to hold to my forehead. I rested my head on the back of the chair, and closed my eyes.

“I think we’re ready,” said my mother. “Remember to look like you’re in pain, Steven. I’ll go and get the van. I’ll meet you out front,”

Fred pushed the wheelchair through the hall and out of the front door. Annie followed close behind him, wringing her hands and trying to look scared and apprehensive. I feigned semi-consciousness as they transferred me to the back of the van. Fred folded the wheelchair and pushed it and my stick in after me. He got in the back and sat beside me, while Annie climbed into the front passenger seat.

My mother drove as fast as she dared to the hospital. It was a tricky balance. She needed to make it look as though it was an emergency, but she didn’t want to lose Treacher – this time we actually needed him to see where we were going – and of course she couldn’t afford to attract the attention of any traffic cops.

I couldn’t see what was going on from the back, but Annie had opened the little communications window and was giving us a running commentary. As we had feared, Treacher must have found a vantage point in the woods beside the driveway, because for most of the twenty-minute journey he was just a few cars behind us. So we had been right to be cautious when we were outside. He had found somewhere to watch us from.

We pulled into the hospital and my mother parked the van in a Disabled space close to the front entrance. Fred opened the back doors and got the wheelchair out. He and Annie settled me in it again, with the overnight bag and the rug, while my mother moved the van to the main car park. As she pulled away I noticed the blue Fiesta pulling in at the main gate.

When we were safely inside I slipped the ice pack under the rug and sat up straight, trying to look bright and alert, but the fact that I was in a wheelchair still attracted the attention of an efficient-looking nurse at Reception. I hoped the rug concealed enough of me that no one would notice that my maroon dress was actually a maid’s uniform.

“Is she all right?” the nurse asked, rushing over.

“She’s fine,” said Annie. “I’ve just brought her to visit her sister, my grandmother.”

“Oh it’s you, Miss Rogers,” said one of the girls on Reception. “It’s fine, Betty. So Dolly has lots of visitors today, does she? That’s nice.”

“Yes, thanks, Dawn,” said Annie. “My friend, Mrs Jones, is right behind us. You remember her?” Dawn nodded. “She’s parking the car.”

Fred had pushed me as far as the Fire Door through which were the patients’ private rooms. As she reached us, Annie called back.

“But I think that horrid lawyer fellow I warned you about might have followed us in,” she said to the Reception team. “Can you please make sure he doesn’t find his way to Dolly’s room? And it is absolutely not OK to tell him anything about her illness!”

“That’s fine, Miss Rogers,” said the girl she had called Dawn. “I’ll get one of our security guys up here just in case.”

They would comply with Annie’s instructions. This was a private hospital. They knew we could take our business elsewhere.

There was a Ladies’ toilet just through the Fire Door. No one was in sight, so Fred stopped and I jumped out of the wheelchair with an agility belying my apparent years. I left the stick, the icepack and the rug on the seat and dived into the bathroom. Annie and Fred hurried on to Dolly’s room.

The Ladies was empty, which wasn’t surprising. It was still early for visitors and all the patients’ rooms had their own en suites. I quickly locked myself in the Disabled cubicle, as it had more room to move.

By now I was adept at getting my uniform on and off. The zip down the back of my dress was no impediment these days, so I was soon standing there in just my bra, knickers and tights. By now I was quite used to seeing Dolly’s body where mine should be. I barely noticed my wrinkly arms, cellulite legs, and droopy breasts and buttocks.

I lowered the toilet seat and put the overnight bag down to see what delights my mother had provided. I found a pink handbag first, containing a pair of sunglasses, various cosmetics, a hairbrush, about fifty pounds in cash, and a short typed note with instructions on how to do my make-up. She had obviously forgotten I was a near expert there, having had to make myself up as four different women in my time.

I reached in the bag for my new clothes. As long as they were significantly different from anything Dolly had, they would be fine. I extracted a shocking pink blouse and a garish yellow trouser suit with a red rose pattern. Dolly wouldn’t be seen dead in any of this lot, so I suppose they were exactly what was needed. I was just afraid I would attract too much attention in this grotesque outfit. I put everything on over my existing underwear and tights. A perfect fit, as I expected; Vera and my mother knew their business. But my God, my bum looked big in these pants! No wonder Dolly preferred skirts.

At the bottom of the bag was a pair of gold high-heeled sandals and a long blonde wig, carefully packed so as not to lose its shape. I changed into the sandals and put my plain shoes and maid’s uniform back in the bag. As Dolly, the highest heels I’d worn were for Ballroom sessions, and they were only two inches. The sandals were three and a half. I tried a few steps around the cubicle and was glad I had practised out of sight. I would have to walk with care. And a swagger. And my huge bum would be swinging from side to side, practically out of control.

I would need to use the mirror over the basin outside to do my make-up but I had to change my wig before leaving the cubicle. Off came the grey – hopefully for the last time – and on went the brassy blonde. I adjusted it as best I could without a mirror, then I picked up my handbag and the overnight bag and stepped outside.

My appearance in the bathroom mirror was quite a shock. I quickly got out the hairbrush and gave my new wig a good brushing. There was a small can of hair spray among the cosmetics and I used most of its contents to get my new long blonde tresses under control.

Finally I set about my make-up. I examined what my mother had given me: bright scarlet lipstick, mascara, purple eyeshadow, blush. Dolly never wore anything like them. I scanned the instructions. There was little there I didn’t know already; the essence of the message was ‘more is better’. I set about the task, as directed.

When I had finished, I looked like a faded Hollywood starlet, pretending to want to pass unrecognised in the street, but actually calling everyone’s attention to her. The dark glasses were the finishing touch. My face was still Dolly’s, but the combination of long blonde locks, gaudy make-up, and dark glasses completely obscured her features. I also looked like a crumbling sixty rather than seventy-six. This could work!

I stepped outside the Ladies, my handbag over my shoulder and the overnight bag in my left hand. I walked – sashayed – back towards Reception, trying to look as if I owned the place, and making my walk as different as possible from Dolly’s walking-stick-supported limp.

When I got there the first person I saw was Treacher arguing with the girls on Reception. There was no sign of my mother. She must have beaten him in and got to Dolly’s room while I was still in the Ladies.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Dawn was saying, “we’re not allowed to give out any information regarding patients.”

He was still arguing when I strutted past them and sat down in the waiting area off to the side. He barely glanced in my direction. I got my phone out of my handbag and opened the Uber app. I arranged a ride home and reached for a women’s magazine while I waited. I could hear Treacher still arguing with Dawn. A hulking security guard appeared from somewhere and was making his way toward the desk.

“Can’t you at least tell me if she’s here and being looked after?” Treacher persisted. “I’m very worried about her.” And he did sound worried. Who knew he was such a good actor?

“I’m afraid not,” she said firmly. “All patient information is strictly confidential.”

“Ah, so she is here!” he said with a triumphant note.

Well he knew that anyway. He had seen her – me – going in.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” Dawn said, sounding like a politician. “I repeat, all patient information is strictly confidential. Miss Rogers, her next of kin, is with her now. You’ll have to talk to her.”

Yep, a career in politics definitely beckoned for that young lady. I struggled to keep myself from chuckling – or applauding. I buried my nose in my magazine. According to one of the garish colour photographs, Michelle Pfeiffer was sporting a hairdo exactly like my new blonde locks – to rather better effect, I was forced to admit. She was sixty-something, wasn’t she? Why did she look so much better than me? It wasn’t fair.

Treacher gave up and left. When I was sure he wouldn’t see me, I went to the window to watch him going back to his car. He was soon out of sight. I waited a minute or two but there was no sign of the blue Fiesta leaving the car park.

I texted Annie to say that my new disguise was fine; that Treacher had been here and hadn’t recognised me; but that she, Fred and my mother should be careful when they leave, as he might follow them instead.

The girls on Reception were clearly puzzled as to who I might be, but I was minding my own business and didn’t seem to need anything from them, so they didn’t bother me.

My Uber arrived after about ten minutes. The driver came into the Reception area and called loudly for Steve. I’d forgotten that the account was in my real name. I hurriedly gathered up my things and wiggled my way over to him. I noticed Dawn looking puzzled.

“It’s Stephanie really, of course,” I said to the driver, in the voice I had cultivated when I had been my mother. He nodded, but for some reason the girls didn’t look any less puzzled.

* * *

The journey home was uneventful. No blue Fiesta. I rushed up to Vera’s office as soon as I got back. She was still there although it was after half past six.

“Wow, look at you, Dolly!” she said when she saw me. “I love the new image. You look twenty years younger!”

“I’m not Dolly,” I said, going along with the gag. “I’m Stephanie, her little sister, but I’d rather be Steve again, if you don’t mind a little overtime.”

She laughed. “I knew I had one more customer tonight. You’re the only reason I’m still here. Let’s get that ridiculous wig off you first.”

I sat down in her client chair and she removed my long blonde locks and the wig cap. My own hair underneath them was wild and unkempt and needed a wash.

Then she moved on to removing the abdominal section of my prosthesis. That was straightforward as it wasn’t glued on. She gave me a pair of paper knickers – in Steve’s size – to keep me decent while she began work on the chest piece. This required her to work her solvent under its edges – the neck, the sleeves, and the waist. Then she peeled off as much as had come free. This hurt a little because stubble had grown on my arms and chest after the original waxing. Vera then worked a little more solvent under the new edges, and peeled again, and so on, until eventually I was able to get the whole thing off me. That was quite a relief; there had been moments when I thought I was going to be stuck in it forever.

“That was easier than it might have been,” she said, handing me one of our famous pink dressing gowns. “You’ve been in it for more than three weeks, so you’ve lost the top layer of skin and the adhesive has come away with it.”

She picked up the prosthesis pieces and put them in a large cardboard box.

“I hope you’re going to burn those,” I said, with some passion.

“Er… actually, no. Your mother has asked me to put them in storage.”

“What on earth for?”

“Just in case she ever needs you to be Dolly again.”

“Never going to happen!”

“She said you’d say that, so I’m supposed to tell you that if it does ever happen, and you’ve made me destroy these, she’ll make you pay for their replacements.”

I snorted. She laughed.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll never see them again. I’ll do the face and neck pieces next.”

This required more work with the solvent, but the pieces were much smaller, so they came away more easily. She added them all to the box. Finally she removed my nail varnish and gave me some stuff that smelt like paint-stripper to get rid of the latex strips and make-up for the ‘old lady hands’ Sharon had given me. I went over to her washbasin and washed my hands several times. They gradually began to look like those of a young man again, but I was afraid I would never get rid of the smell of turpentine.

“Ta daa!” she announced. “Welcome back, Steve Jones!”

I could have kissed her. In fact now she’d got all my wrinkly prosthetics off and was rubbing me down with soothing lotion, I did kiss her.

“Thanks for staying late,” I said. “I’m really grateful.”

“That’s OK. I knew you’d be keen to get back to being Steve.”

I checked my appearance in the mirror in front of the chair. My face was red and sore from the solvent and losing the top layer of skin. The rest of my body wasn’t much better.

Vera cupped my chin and opened my mouth with her other hand.

“There’s a little more to do yet, I’m afraid. We need to get rid of the yellow paint on your teeth. You have to brush with this toothpaste. It’s another kind of solvent, so try not to swallow any. It’s not poisonous or anything, but it will probably upset your tummy if you swallow too much.”

She passed me a new toothbrush. I dipped it into the solvent and started scrubbing.

“You need to be really thorough,” she said. “Make sure you spread the cream everywhere and brush it well in.”

I scrubbed and scrubbed. At first, I couldn’t see any difference but gradually the yellow stain started to fade. Vera handed me a glass of water and a small plastic bowl to spit into.

“Here, you need to rinse your mouth out every minute or so.”

Eventually she stopped me and examined the results of my labours. The solvent left a strange after-taste, like mint-flavoured turpentine. It wasn’t actually unpleasant.

“Not bad,” she said. “That’s probably as good as you can do for the moment. The solvent is doing its work. The last of the paint will soon fade and your teeth will gradually go back to their original pearly-white.”

She turned back to her desk and picked up a sharp-looking instrument which looked like the tooth scraper dentists use for removing plaque.

“I just need to get rid of the black shading on your front teeth and gums. It’s a thin plastic film, rather than paint, and it’s probably ready to come off anyway. Sharon would have had to replace it soon if you were going to stay as Dolly any longer.”

She bent over me to scrape my teeth. I hate going to the dentist at the best of times but I was so desperate to be me again, I made no protest (apart from a little whimper when her sharp blade pricked my gum, which I hoped she didn’t hear).

* * *

So my time as Annie’s Granny came to an end. We were both delighted that Dolly was recovering and that Steve could return to a normal life. Treacher had kept watch at the hospital throughout the weekend until Dolly was discharged on Monday morning. Annie and I picked her up and took her back to her house and Treacher followed us. Annie warned her to be careful what she said in case the house was bugged after all.

Fred’s security expert came down that afternoon with his state-of-the-art bug detector. It took him two hours in our building and half an hour at Dolly’s (posing as the gas man) to declare both premises bug-free. So the ones Fred had found were the only ones Treacher had planted. That was both a relief and an annoyance – we hadn’t needed to be so careful what we said all the time.

For the next few days Annie divided her downtime between our flat (more precisely my bedroom) and her grandmother’s house, as the old lady still needed looking after. After her operation her doctor counselled against returning to work at Transformations for several weeks at least, so she was mostly housebound. Treacher watched for two or three more days, but by the end of the week his little car had gone and didn’t return.

Annie professed to be delighted with the cardigan I had knitted and wore it all the time, even though it had turned out shapeless, with an uneven splodgy pattern unrecognisable as roses, and with irregular buttons, two of which fell off in the first week. I kept offering to repair it, but she said she loved it just the way it was.

* * *

I didn’t have as much time to spend with Annie as we would have wanted, as I had to be back at college for the beginning of Full Term. I had only just been restored to myself in time. I would be away from home – and Annie – for eight weeks. After the dramatic summer together, it would be hard for both of us. Still, there was nothing to stop us meeting up at weekends, either in Cambridge or at home. We also kept in touch using WhatsApp and Skype. We were both glad that the flames of our relationship were burning ever stronger, despite our separation. Annie was concerned that I would meet somebody new in the sexually-charged atmosphere of the university social scene. And I did meet several girls at the computer laboratories, at parties, and at sporting events, but none of them was a patch on Annie.

So we both went back to our respective grinds. I got stuck into my third-year curriculum. Meanwhile at home Transformations was busier than ever. Annie started conducting the first meetings with clients, to lighten my mother’s load.

The only sad event of that Autumn was that Dolly decided she had to retire. She had recovered well from her very serious operation. Many of her previous symptoms like dizziness and shortness of breath had all but disappeared, but she had to admit that she was no longer up to the physical demands of her job. So my mother needed to find a replacement. Because of the growth of the business, and of our clients’ continuing need for anonymity, she decided Dolly’s replacement really needed to be ‘one of us’. So she set about recruiting a housekeeper who could take charge of our catering and accommodation staff, and whom she could trust with our innermost secrets – no easy task.

I made a suggestion but she dismissed it out of hand.

* * *

Very few undergraduates are allowed to keep cars in Cambridge, so at the end of term Annie brought my Yaris over to Cambridge to collect me and my luggage. I drove us back while she gave me all the news from home.

“The new housekeeper started this week,” she said, with a smile and a sly sideways look at me. “I think you’ll be pleased. You’ll like her.”

Did that mean my mother had accepted my suggestion after all? But Annie was in a teasing mood and refused to elaborate.

“Oh and we’re going to a Christmas Fancy Dress party next week.” I groaned. “No, no, it’ll be fun. I’ve already got our costumes picked out. They’re panto themed.”

“I’m not going to a party as Mother-bleeding-Goose!” I said. “I don’t want to get dragged up again. I always seem to get stuck that way for weeks.”

“Don’t worry,” she said smoothly. “You’re not going as the Dame, I promise. I’m going as Cinderella. You’re my Prince Charming.”

“Oh well, that’s all right then.”

I didn’t think it through, did I?

* * *

Was it really only six months ago that I last arrived home from college and piled my belongings (suitcases, dirty washing, books and laptop) inside by the service lift? The feeling of déjà vu was tempered by the only significant difference between the two occasions: Annie. Otherwise it was much the same.

We took my stuff upstairs then went back down to the staff room where afternoon tea was in progress. The woman in the maroon maid’s dress pouring drinks and handing out slices of fruit cake was not Dolly. I didn’t recognise her at first because the fake-looking ginger hair was now a tidy bun of pepper-and-salt brown, tinged with grey. Hearing us enter, she turned and smiled. It was Rita Johnson, my father. My mother had taken up my suggestion. That was a first.

“I understand I have you to thank for getting me this job?” he said, handing us cups of tea.

“We needed someone who could run all our catering and accommodation, and who we could trust to keep all our secrets,” I said. “It was the obvious solution. To be honest, I didn’t think she would go for it; or if she did, that you wouldn’t take it.”

“Well, I was very surprised when she contacted me, but delighted.” His face fell. “I’ve been alone a long time.” He looked a little embarrassed. “Anyway, it’s great to see you as you at last, and happy.” He smiled at Annie.

“Is Mum making you… welcome?” I asked, not quite sure how to ask the question I really wanted to ask.

“My employer, Mrs McLaughlin, has been very kind,” he said carefully. “She has even allocated me one of the little bedsits in the accommodation wing – temporarily, until I’ve found somewhere to live, locally.”

“I see,” I said. “I thought she might have…”

“I’m working on it,” he said, taking my meaning, all too well.

“Actually, I might have an idea about that,” said Annie, who had missed the subtext of the conversation. “Granny and I have a spare room if you’re interested. We could let you have it cheap, if you’d be willing to help me look after her.”

“That would be wonderful!” His eyes lit up. “I’d love to. How is Dolly now?”

Annie launched into a description of her grandmother’s state of health, but at that moment my mother came in and drew me aside.

“I don’t want you getting the wrong idea about this,” she said. “Him – I mean her – coming on board now is just convenient for both of us.”

“Well, it’s been a ‘marriage of convenience’ for you both for a while now, hasn’t it?”

“Very funny. My point is she’s the company’s housekeeper, Mrs Rita Johnson, and nothing more.”

Maybe, but they loved each other once. Anyway I looked forward to getting to know my father at last.

* * *

I wasn’t pleased when I found out what Annie had planned for the Fancy Dress Party. It was being given in London by a friend from her University Theatre course.

“Now I don’t want you to get angry…” she began.

“Thank you for the warning,” I interrupted. “Those are words which give me advance notice that you’re about to ask me something for which I will be fully justified in losing my temper.”

“Yes, maybe that wasn’t the most sensible way to broach the subject,” she said. “Anyhoo, the guys and gals on my course have held a Fancy Dress party just before Christmas every year since we were all freshers. We didn’t see why graduating this summer and all going our separate ways should change that. In fact, all the more reason to get together. We can catch up, swap stories, maybe even help each other out, career-wise.”

“Not angry yet,” I said.

“Don’t worry; it’s coming.” She grinned ruefully. “The past couple of years the Fancy Dress has become a little… competitive, shall we say?”

“I can feel my hackles rising…”

“So this year I want to do something really spectacular.”

“Well, I can see that if you do it properly the Cinderella and Prince Charming costumes give you a lot of scope,” I said, naively. “I mean, they could be really ornate…”

“Oh yes, they certainly will be that,” she grinned. “But I’m not talking about the Disney Cinderella; I’m going for a panto version.”

She paused, bracing herself for the explosion.

“What’s the difference?” I asked, baffled.

She sighed. “In the Cinderella panto Prince Charming is the Principal Boy.”

“Well, yes, I imagine he is. I suppose Buttons is a bigger part but…”

“Oh for Heaven’s sake! The Principal Boy in any panto is played by a girl!”

The explosion arrived, a little late but no less violent for having been delayed.

* * *

Needless to say, my mother, Vera and Sharon were more than happy to help prepare me for the party. Vera gave me another all-over waxing the day before. It was nearly three months since the last one and I hadn’t missed it at all. While she was rubbing me down with soothing lotion, my mother came in wheeling a trolley with the familiar hideous lumps of fake flesh on it.

“I’ve made her figure as slim as possible while still concealing the male musculature underneath,” she said. She was talking to Annie who was just behind her. Neither of them seemed the slightest bit concerned at the naked male prone on Vera’s table.

“There’s no need for any facial prostheses, of course,” she went on, “because Steven’s face is so… androgynous.”

“So this is what Milly would look like four years after her first appearance?” said Annie.

“Not quite,” said my mother. “Sixteen-year-old Steven made a totally believable thirteen-year-old schoolgirl then.”

My mother passed her some photographs. I thought I had seized the only copies. I should have known better. Annie looked surprised – and amused.

“He was a late developer,” my mother added by way of explanation, or maybe she just liked embarrassing me. Yep, that was it. “Anyway, I doubt that he would get away with being a seventeen-year-old girl now. Mid-twenties, I would guess, but let’s see, shall we?”

Annie turned to me. “I’ll call you Milly anyway, shall I?”

I grunted acquiescence; like it made any difference. Vera turned me on my back and started slapping adhesive on my bare, hairless chest.

“One thing I don’t understand,” I said. “If we pretend I’m a girl throughout, why would anyone be impressed by my costume? I mean, I know it will be very beautiful and everything but…”

“…but it will only be special if people know you’re a man,” Annie finished. “They’ll find that out at the big reveal at midnight. We always do that. Everyone whips off their wigs, masks, hats or whatever, and there’s a vote for the best effort. Judging by your previous attempts at female impersonation, you’ll win easily.”

“Hang on! I don’t want everyone there to think…”

“Think what?” she said tersely. “That Steve Jones is a cross-dresser? You don’t know anyone on my course, do you?”

“Well… no.”

“So all they know is that I persuaded an unnamed male friend to be a guinea pig for my make-up and costuming skills.”

“Well… OK,” I said, still uncomfortable with the whole idea, but slightly mollified.

“So I’ll carry on calling you Milly after the ‘reveal’,” Annie said. “Or would you prefer ‘Stephanie’?”

“Can you keep still now, please, Milly?” said Vera. “I’m sticking your breasts on, and I don’t want you to be lop-sided.”

I suppose I should have been grateful that the usual ‘abdominal prosthesis’, lush with curvy padding, was of the type that allowed access to my male equipment, albeit only after some discomfort and outside help. At least Annie was familiar with the process.

And I would have to get used to wearing feminine underwear again.

* * *

The point of a Principal Boy in panto is that everyone should know she’s really a girl, in the same way that everyone must know the Dame is a man.

So my costume was a frilly white blouse, a gold silk tunic, a frilled stock (which should cover my Adam’s Apple), a red brocade frock coat with wide gold lapels, fishnet tights, and high-heeled boots, which proved a bit of a devil to get into. I would wear black spandex panties underneath. In theory they would be concealed by the tunic and coat, but in practice they were all too visible whenever I sat down or bent over. Still, no worse than what women tennis players expose every time they play.

I would be wearing full ladies’ stage make-up and a bright auburn wig. The finishing touch would be a smart black tricorn hat with gold braid.

Despite her earlier claims, Annie’s outfit was the classic ‘Disney Princess’ version of Cinderella in a beautiful pale blue. It consisted of a satin bodice with a sequin-embellished panel and a mesh overlay; puff sleeves; an organza split peplum; and an organza skirt accented with glitter, with a petticoat containing several layers of stiff, fine Tulle netting to create fullness.

When we tried on our costumes my mother insisted on taking several photographs. The whole session felt a little like prom night. Despite my lack of enthusiasm for having to undergo yet another female transformation, it was impossible not to be excited in these gorgeous outfits. A little frightened of the high-heeled boots, I practised my girly swagger and thigh-slapping, a panto tradition for the Principal Boy.

“These costumes are amazing!” I said. Vera and my mother agreed vigorously. “How on earth did you find the time to make them?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “I got MyOwnCouture.com to make the basic clothes. I just had to embellish them. I chatted with Daisy, their MD, when I had them make your Garden Party dress. She told me they made the Dame’s costumes for their local amateur panto last Christmas, and that gave me the idea.”

She turned to Ingrid.

“Daisy’s one of our clients, isn’t she?” My mother was inscrutable. “That’s OK, I know you’re not supposed to tell me.”

I remembered there were photographs of a Transformations customer called Daisy in the bank safety deposit box and Annie had seen them. If she was really a man, she was very convincing – and very pregnant – in the pictures. I was amazed, yet again, at what our processes could do.

“Since your prostheses are stuck on, you’ll have to stay as Milly until we get back here on Sunday morning,” said Annie, as we were taking our costumes off. “We won’t be able to wear this lot on the train to London, of course, so we’ll have to travel up in ordinary clothes and change when we get there. We’ll have to find something nice for you to wear for the journey.”

“Way ahead of you,” said Vera. “You can keep that bra on, Milly. Here are the matching panties. Don’t worry – all your underwear is new.”

Sighing, I carefully unrolled the fishnet tights, dropped the spandex knickers, and stepped into the ordinary pair Vera was proffering. I stopped and examined myself in her mirror.

“Yes, Milly has definitely put on weight since she was a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl,” said my mother, unsympathetically. “I’ve had to give her a much bigger bust.”

“But that’s only because her alter ego is a big, strong man now, with broader shoulders and a muscly torso,” said Vera, kindly.

“Well, I don’t know about ‘big’,” my mother said, “or strong, come to that.”

“Well my boobs certainly feel bigger than before,” I said.

I pretended to pose like a lingerie model. By now I was quite used to the women in my life padding me up to borderline obesity and then laughing at me for being overweight. That didn’t mean I liked it though.

Vera gave me an unopened packet of tights. By now I was well-practised in putting them on without laddering them. Then Annie, Vera and I went down to the wardrobe room. I tried on half a dozen dresses. Both of them banned trousers.

“Not with your plump posterior,” they said.

We eventually settled on a sleeveless chiffon midi dress with a blue and white floral pattern and a sharkbite hem. It was gathered at the neckline, front and back, and had an elastic waist and a matching self-tie belt – just right for a girl with a disproportionately broad mid-section (like me). I was a little concerned that my manly arms might give me away, but they wouldn’t be on show for long. I would be wearing a ladies’ overcoat for the journey to London and my Principal Boy blouse had long sleeves.

“We don’t have a great range of shoes in your size, I’m afraid,” said Vera, “but these should go well with that dress.”

She was offering me a pair of white pumps with a one-inch heel. Given that I would be spending the evening in boots with a three-inch heel, I was very happy with that choice. I also took a mid-length soft shell parka with a faux fur hood, hopefully sufficient for the mid-December weather, a colourful silk scarf to conceal my masculine neck, and a black suede handbag. Milly was equipped for her weekend.

“I hope you appreciate all this,” I muttered to Annie, as we made our way up to the flat with all my new clothes.

I felt a little additional grumbling was necessary, lest she begin to think I actually enjoyed all this crossdressing. That would be an easy mistake for her to make, given that this was the third time she had seen me in female disguise.

“Of course I do,” she said, stepping in for a hug. I felt our boobs mashing together. “But I hope you’ll enjoy yourself too. It’ll be great fun fooling everyone, won’t it?”

“Maybe,” I said unconvinced. “What do we win, by the way?”

“Oh there’s no prize – just bragging rights and the admiration of my peers.”

Great! All this trouble and potential humiliation, and not even a tangible reward.

* * *

Annie had studied at a specialist Arts College, one of London University’s smaller institutions. It only offered courses in Theatre, Film, Music, Dance, Fine Arts and Art History. The Theatre faculty didn’t try to compete with the best-known Drama Schools like RADA, LAMDA and Webber Douglas, but focused on what might be called the theatrical support services, such as stagecraft and studio work – ‘green screen’ special effects, film editing, sound mixing, etc. Obviously wardrobe and make-up were part of that and those were Annie’s specialties.

By a mutually beneficial arrangement, the college provided short individual modules to students from the bigger schools, on the principle that only a tiny fraction of drama students would ever make a decent living as actors, but if they were absolutely determined on a life in show business, they might find a niche backstage with the right training. However the college’s Theatre faculty admitted only thirty full-time degree course undergraduates each year. As a result, everyone knew everyone and they formed a tight-knit group, supporting each other through the travails of student life in the capital. It probably helped that there were twice as many girls as boys – less testosterone-fuelled competition.

Annie drove us to the station on Saturday afternoon, Milly having no licence. On the train to Kings Cross we drew no more attention than was normal for two not unattractive young women – certainly not the kind of attention we would have received if one of us had been detected as a man in drag. So I had to accept my androgyny and admit that another of my mother’s transformations was an unqualified success.

Our costumes were neatly folded in small wheeled suitcases. These were no impediment on the Tube and the journey to the venue was uneventful.

The party was to be in the college’s Student Union premises. We arrived about an hour and a half early, which gave us plenty of time to get ready. We entered through a large multi-purpose hall where a small group were hanging decorations. A boy was up a rickety-looking stepladder reaching out precariously to tie one end of a banner to a window catchment, while several girls were giving him contradictory directions from the safety of ground level.

Annie clearly knew most of the group and went over to say hello. I followed dutifully behind. She introduced me to them all as ‘my friend, Milly’, but I was too busy watching the boy up the ladder to catch their names. I briefly wondered if I should be volunteering to help with the more hazardous aspects of the decorating, but (a) I was supposed to be a girl tonight; (b) I was scarcely dressed for climbing ladders; and (c) I had no particular skills to offer in that context anyway.

The women’s locker room was in a corridor off the hall. There were already a few girls in there in a state of undress. Annie continued with the introductions, watching me slyly to see if I was suffering any adverse reactions from seeing her friends in the semi-nude. But this wasn’t my first rodeo; that is, I had been in women’s locker rooms before, so I managed to stay in control. The sight of their bare boobs and buttocks further impaired my ability to remember any of their names though.

I looked around to see if we had any serious rivals in the prizeless Fancy Dress competition. Inevitably there was a girl dressed as Vampira, all heavy Goth make-up and indecently low-cut black dress, and another as Ariel, the Little Mermaid, her torso naked except for two large seashells, and her legs encased in a green fish tail. I wondered how she expected to dance in that.

Annie seemed to know both girls well and was immediately engrossed in one of those boisterous conversations that only women seemed to have, where everyone was talking at the same time but somehow they were all taking in everything that everyone else was saying. I think it’s a female super-power which has evolved to keep men out of any serious conversation.

While my love was thus occupied, I made my way over to a quiet corner and claimed some space. I opened my suitcase on a bench and started taking out the components of my costume. I took off my parka and hung it and my silk scarf in a nearby locker. I remembered how to unzip my own dress unassisted and it soon joined the coat on a hanger.

I was now standing in a women’s changing room in bra, panties, tights and pumps, surrounded by actual women in a similar state. How did my life turn out like this? (And what was I complaining about anyway?)

I picked up my black costume knickers and sat down on a bench to take off my pumps and tights. I threw them in the locker and paused to take a good look around. No one seemed to be watching me. I fervently hoped that my various prostheses were up to close-quarters inspection if someone did glance in my direction.

I turned my back to the room and dropped my white everyday panties. I was now completely naked except for my bra. My big round feminine buttocks were exposed to the room. I quickly stepped into the Principal Boy spandex. The roof didn’t fall in. There was no outcry.

I reached for my gorgeous black Micro Diamond fishnet tights. I would have to be especially careful putting these on; a ladder would be a disaster. Coincidentally, at that very moment, there was a loud crash from the hall down the corridor. A ladder disaster of a different kind? I managed to keep control of my tights, which was all that mattered to me.

I stood up to smooth and straighten my leggings. I was now attracting some attention. Well, let them stare. I didn’t think my legs were anything to be ashamed of. I grabbed my boots and sat down again to put them on. Seeing me struggling, Annie finally excused herself from the catch-up conversation with her friends and came over to help.

“Wow! You have great legs, Milly darling, especially in fishnets,” she said, levering my right foot into its imitation-leather prison for the evening.

“Great legs for a girl, you mean? I’m not sure that would be a compliment for a man.”

“For a boy, or a girl,” she smiled. “You’re a bit of both tonight, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t come across many men wearing fishnet tights.”

“And yet here you are. So sexy!” She turned her attention to my left boot. “You’ll need to be careful tonight, by the way. A couple of the girls here are fully ‘out of the closet’, and your legs may be hard for them to resist.”

“Well, you need to make sure they know I’m taken. You’ll just have to pretend you’ve changed sides since leaving college, won’t you?”

She chuckled. “Okay, I can do that. I promise not to leave my sweetie on her own this evening.”

“See that you don’t! Or I may not be here at midnight for the big reveal.”

“Okay, okay, consider me warned.”

She had finished with my left boot. I put on my blouse and started doing up the little ivory buttons. She put her suitcase beside mine and opened it. A great froth of pale blue bubbled out. She saw me looking at it and read – or misread – my mind.

“You know, it did occur to me that I could have come as Prince Charming and you could have been Cinderella. You would have gone along with that, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe next year,” I said, making light of her unsubtle implication.

I reached for my tunic, shrugged it on, and buttoned it up. It was tight, and the darts did nothing to conceal my substantial bust, but at least my knickers were covered as long as I was standing up. I would have to cross my legs female-style whenever I sat down. I tied my frilly stock round my neck.

I turned to Annie to ask her for help with my hair and make-up. She had already put on her chemise and was stepping into a gorgeous pair of frilly blue pantaloons over her knee-highs.

“No problem, sweetie,” she said, “but you’ll have to fasten my corset first.”

“Delighted,” I said, looking forward to getting a tiny bit of revenge for all the stupid underclothes I’d had to wear that summer.

In the end I took pity on her and didn’t pull the bodice’s cords too tight. I was now playing lady’s maid again, and I’d probably have to help her out of it all later as well. Something to look forward to.

The dress was next. First I held her hoop skirt steady so that she could clamber inside; then I helped her lower her Tulle petticoat down over it; then the organza skirt; and finally the peplum top.

“You’re going to boil in this lot, babe,” I said.

“We all have to suffer for our art,” she said, struggling to line up her various undergarments.

“Huh! Tell me about it,” I muttered.

“Protesting too much again, aren’t we?” she said. “C’mon, help me with my shoes. I can’t even see my feet and I can’t bend in this corset.”

She sat down on the bench, the hoop making her skirts stick up in the air, exposing her frilly drawers. I heard cheers and catcalls from behind me across the room. I quickly shoved her feet in her silver sandals and fastened the straps. She had thought about doing glass slippers but dismissed the idea as impractical.

We sat down together at the mirrors to do our make-up. With little freedom of movement Annie had to sit bolt upright, the many layers of petticoat and dress pouring down to the floor, the hoop raising them up in front and behind.

“I wonder how women sat down in those days,” I said.

“They probably didn’t at dances,” she said. “I imagine they swooned a lot though.”

She reached in her handbag for a hairbrush and started on my wig. When she finished, she took some black ribbon and tied a low ponytail of the kind that dashing young men wore in the eighteenth century. I began on my make-up under her instructions. When she declared herself satisfied, it looked way over the top to me.

“This is a bit much, isn’t it?” I said.

“It’s supposed to be,” she said. “It’s stage make-up, and you’re the Principal Boy. Your eyes and lips have to really pop.” She winked. “And you’ll still be practically invisible next to me!”

Right! I would do everything I could to upstage her. Get ready for a really flamboyant Prince Charming. I put on my brocade jacket and arranged my tricorn hat on top of my wig. I admired myself in the mirror. The complete costume looked amazing.

But when Annie had finished her own make-up, and arranged her long blonde hair in the famous Disney Cinderella updo with the blue headband, I realised no one was going to upstage my gorgeous girlfriend tonight, least of all me.

* * *

It was a great party. The Student Union bar was open, well-stocked and well-manned. There were external caterers who served an excellent hot buffet.

There was dancing. Two boys came to break us up and Annie obliged with a mischievous smile at me. She obviously knew them both well from her student days. She insisted on swapping partners after a couple of dances, which was a relief, as the first boy was starting to get a little grabby. I still had to put up with a slow dance with the second boy, but Annie made sure it didn’t go beyond that.

“Didn’t you feel Peter’s hands on your bum?” she asked, a little crossly, when we were briefly alone.

“Well, I had an inkling,” I said, “but there’s a lot of padding back there, so I didn’t actually feel anything till it was too late.”

“Well you’ve obviously given him ideas. He and Brian are watching us closely.”

Bridge Over Troubled Water started up – another slow dance opportunity.

“Let’s give them something to watch then, shall we?” I said.

The boys were making their way over to us, but I grabbed Annie and dragged her out to the middle of the dance floor. She made sure I felt her hand on my bum this time and I reciprocated. As the song drew to a close, I dipped her and kissed her long and hard. When we came up for air, the boys had vanished.

Lots of people came up to congratulate Annie on our costumes. A girl called Wendy, who was dressed as Cleopatra, said she wasn’t at all surprised.

“You come up with something amazing every year,” she said. “I loved your Marie Antoinette last Christmas.”

I gathered that Annie had been the stand-out star of the wardrobe course, with an amazing eye for fashion and an encyclopaedic knowledge of historic costume. I asked her about that.

“Well, you can’t always get authentic materials nowadays,” she explained, “and you wouldn’t want to use what was available in medieval times, say. Their clothes were heavy; and dull by modern standards, unless you use very rare and expensive dyes. We usually have to take short cuts to keep costs down, but it’s easy to get historic costumes completely wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Wendy was nodding throughout this. She turned her attention to me.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Annie, “I didn’t introduce you, did I? This is Milly, my Prince Charming.”

I smiled and gave her an elaborate, and very theatrical bow.

“Milly’s a terrible ham,” Annie added.

“She’s your ‘plus one’, is she?” he said. “I never realised you were gay.”

“What are you talking about?” Annie laughed. “My Prince is a very handsome man!”

“Yeah – as if!” Wendy smiled. “Well, whatever humps your camel.”

And she wandered off to look for her Mark Antony.

* * *

On the stroke of midnight, the music stopped. A spotlight came on and started roaming the room, its operator presumably looking for the most interesting revelations. In accordance with Annie’s instructions, I doffed my tricorn hat then reached up and tore off my wig revealing Steve’s short brown hair. The spotlight shifted abruptly to me. I tried to stand tall and straight and manly. There were audible gasps around us, and the spotlight moved on.

By popular acclaim Annie’s costumes won the virtual awards for this year. I got the kind of puzzled looks I had been expecting.

Cleopatra, Vampira and the Little Mermaid rushed up to congratulate Annie.

“So you came all the way here dressed as a woman?” asked Wendy.

I nodded. I didn’t mention I’d be going home the same way.

“Bit cheeky to get changed in the Women’s locker room though,” said Vampira, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Well it would have given the game away if I’d gone in the Men’s,” I countered, in my deepest, manliest voice. “Anyway, I didn’t look.”

“Liar!” she said, thrusting her half-exposed bosom in my face, to emphasise how difficult it would be for any red-blooded male to ignore it. I grinned.

“So what’s the deal with you two?” asked Wendy. “Is she – I mean, he – your actual boyfriend?”

I was about to answer when Annie took my wig and put it back on my head, adjusting it until it was straight.

“Yes, he is,” she said. “But tonight he’s Milly, my Principal Boy.”

“So are you transgender then?” asked Vampira.

I was about to make a vehement denial, when Annie spoke for me.

“We don’t know yet. He’s a work in progress.”

Words failed me.

* * *

At about two o’clock in the morning the party started to break up. We had booked a guest room in the Student Union building, as the last train home left Kings Cross at half-past midnight. We collected our street clothes from the lockers and made our way upstairs.

“I really enjoy being with you when you’re in female mode,” Annie said as I was helping her get out of her elaborate costume. “After all you’ve been my girlfriend, my Granny, and my mother-in-law, and we’ve always had a great time, haven’t we?”

“Well, yes, we have,” I admitted. “Though strictly speaking when I was Ingrid I wasn’t your mother-in-law. For that we would have to be…”

I ground to a halt and busied myself with the cords of her bodice.

“Married, yes,” she said, undeterred. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

“No, no, it would be amazing, but…”

“Well when are you going to ask me then? Or should I put on that horrible Steve prosthesis and ask you?”

“No, no, I’ll do it,” I said. “But are you sure? I mean, it was a great party and we’re both pretty drunk. This may not be the best time to be talking of lifetime commitments.”

“Maybe not, but we’ll never find out till you get on with it, will we?”

“OK,” I said.

I took a deep breath and dropped to one knee, hoping my lovely fishnet tights would be OK on the coarse guest room carpet tiles. I cleared my throat, horribly nervous for some reason.

“Will you marry me?”

She giggled at my ‘semi-recumbent posture’, then she considered. What on earth was she thinking about? I mean, this was her idea, wasn’t it? Or was she just teasing – again?

“I need you to admit something first,” she said eventually.

“What?”

“That you have actually enjoyed your various outings in female disguise.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I’ve enjoyed them – a lot – and I’ll want to keep on doing them. Transformation is my thing, and I’ll want my husband to be in it with me, and even to be my wife some of the time.”

I didn’t have to think about that for long. Even if I didn’t enjoy female impersonation that much, Annie would be worth it.

“OK – deal.”

“Fine. That means you can be my mother-in-law-to-be sometime. By the way, where’s my ring?”

* * *

Everyone back home was delighted at our news. Well, nearly everyone.

“Are you sure about this?” said my mother. “You haven’t known each other very long.”

We were having lunch at the flat. I was Steve again. Annie had gone home to check on Dolly and Rita.

“More than six months now,” I pointed out, “and we survived being separated for the whole of the Michaelmas Term. Anyway the wedding won’t be until next June after I’ve graduated. If either of us gets cold feet, there’s plenty of time to back out.”

My mother nodded, not convinced yet, but partially placated.

“But that’s not going to happen,” I insisted. “Sometimes you just know, don’t you?”

Open mouth, insert foot.

“I thought that was true once.” She sighed. “You do, when you’re young and stupid.”

“How are you and… Rita getting along, by the way?”

Might as well keep digging, I suppose.

“Fine,” she said abruptly. She got up to collect the dishes. “I think she’ll be a very effective housekeeper.”

“Not really what I meant…”

But she had disappeared into the kitchen where she was scraping the remains of our lunch into the organic waste bin. The dishes clattered loudly as they fell into their slots in the dishwasher.

I hadn’t even finished my chips.

* * *

We were six for Christmas that year. My mother and me, Annie and Dolly, Fred and, somewhat to my surprise, Rita. My mother warned me not to read anything into it.

“We wanted Annie and Dolly with us, didn’t we? We could hardly leave Rita there all alone. It would be very mean, our grotesque personal circumstances notwithstanding.”

I thought ‘grotesque’ was a little harsh, but I didn’t say anything. Besides I thought I had detected a little thawing between my parents. My father was definitely working hard to impress his long-estranged wife, despite getting little encouragement. However she did at least treat him as one of the family over Christmas.

The three real ladies, Annie, Dolly, and my mother, and the honorary lady, Rita, took charge of the food preparation over the Festive Season, and did so brilliantly and more or less harmoniously. Fred and I managed the drinks, and made sure no one was ever dry. Some people get belligerent when under the influence, but I had long ago noticed that my stern mother tended to mellow out when she drank. By bedtime on Christmas night she was mellow as a newt, and was snoring softly, her head resting on Rita’s plentiful bosom. (I wanted to enquire as to the status of said bust – it definitely looked too real now to be padding, or even a Transformations prosthesis.)

The rest of us gave Rita encouraging smiles and crept away quietly to our respective bedrooms, leaving them to it, whatever ‘it’ might turn out to be. Anyway after that evening, their relationship seemed to be warmer, though my mother still swore that she would never sleep with Rita.

Annie and I went up to London on New Year’s Eve to a party with some of my Cambridge friends. It was a suitably rowdy gathering and we narrowly avoided being pulled into the fountain at Trafalgar Square (at -2°C). On New Year’s Day we had lunch with Annie’s friends from the Fancy Dress Party. They were fascinated to see what I looked like in ‘real life’, and I could tell that some of them were still convinced I was gay or transgender, or both. I found that a little tiresome but we made no attempt to convince them one way or the other.

All too soon the Festive Season was over and Annie was driving me back to Cambridge for my penultimate term. I realised that time was marching on. In six months I would no longer be a student and would be a married man to boot!

Annie and her Granny

By Susannah Donim

Steve’s mother runs the secretive Transformations consultancy. This means he has a number of interesting jobs over the years.

Chapter 8 – My Wife’s Mother-in-Law

Steve’s new normal – and the 'little sacrifices' he has to make.

Annie and I were married on the 29th June at the local Registry Office. It was a completely conventional wedding; i.e. Annie wore the dress, and she looked absolutely gorgeous. I asked Fred to be my Best Man, and he was brilliant.

It was an opportunity for me to get to know Annie’s family better. I had only met them a couple of times, as they lived up North and didn’t like to travel much. Her mother was lovely, and I got on well with her brother, a big bluff guy with a great sense of humour. Her father was not exactly unfriendly, but he made it clear that no one was good enough for his little girl, and that I would be on probation for many years to come.

On my side of the family, there were two ‘mothers of the groom’. My real mother wore a skirt suit as usual, but at least she had temporarily abandoned her favoured battleship grey and gone for something in a royal purple.

My Dad, whom I introduced to everyone as ‘Auntie Rita’, my father’s sister, was radiant in a mauve floral-patterned dress with a matching hat. As far as I could tell, no one suspected him of not being what he appeared to be. He was actually slightly slimmer than my mother, which I think made her a little jealous. Everyone assumed my father was dead, or gone away, and none of us corrected that impression.

The previous six months had been hard work for us all. I was a third-year undergraduate with exams to pass and a dissertation to write – mine was on digital imagery and 3D printing, obviously. What Fred and I had done together was ground-breaking, but the really clever stuff was mostly him, and I didn’t want to take credit for his work (although he insisted he didn’t mind). Anyway, I had written plenty of original code which was very advanced for a third-year student, so I was quietly confident my dissertation would be well-received by the examiners. I didn’t mention how my mother’s work actually made use of our techniques.

In fact, Transformations’ new processes quadrupled our business almost overnight, though as I had predicted it was a little disappointing how many of our clients just wanted to look like Marilyn Monroe.

The number of new faces checking in and out meant that we had to hire an additional receptionist. My mother also decided we needed to beef up our security procedures, given what Treacher had got away with. She brought in a private firm to patrol the premises twenty-four seven. (She got an especially good deal as their CEO was a client. Now that we could make sure he was unrecognisable, he liked to spend his weekends as a Harijan dishwasher and cleaning lady at a local Indian restaurant.)

Both Ingrid and Annie were working flat out, as were Vera and Sharon, and with me still at Cambridge Fred had struggled without my support. Even Rita was hard pressed to keep the accommodation and catering running, and we had to refurbish two more empty rooms for overnight accommodation.

My mother was hoping that Annie and I would gradually take over the business and she didn’t want to hire anyone new until I was around to be part of the planning and decision-making. Annie was certainly happy with her role as it gave her the opportunity to practise her craft in ever more interesting and challenging ways. With that in mind, she was developing contacts within major film studios. She was confident that our transformations would reduce the need for expensive CGI when an actor had to look older, younger or monstrous.

But I wasn’t sure I wanted to make my career with Transformations. I was determined to keep my options open. My degree would qualify me for state-of-the-art jobs in Artificial Intelligence, secure networking, Virtual Reality, and lots of other great stuff. I had feelers out with both large, long-established firms and dynamic new start-ups. I was happy to defer a decision till after the wedding. We had a wonderful honeymoon in Italy: Rome, Florence, Venice and then a few relaxing days at Lake Como.

We got back on a Saturday evening in mid-July to receive a major, life-changing surprise. As I had long hoped for, but had more or less given up on, my mother’s attitude to Rita had softened. Now they wanted to go away together!

* * *

Mum and I were alone in the flat on that Sunday afternoon. Annie had gone to relieve Rita who had been keeping Dolly company while we were away.

“So does this mean you’re getting back together?” I asked.

“Not exactly, no,” she said.

She hesitated. Was she actually embarrassed? I couldn’t remember seeing my mother self-conscious before.

“The point is, we’ve both been lonely, and we’ve found we get on as well as we always used to.” When she saw my reaction, she rushed on. “But as friends, not lovers, at least so far.”

“So what are you going to do? Where are you going?”

“I don’t know yet. Your father, I mean Rita, is organising everything.”

“But you’ll be going as two women, sharing a bedroom and everything?”

“We’ll be working all that out as we go along. That’s the whole point. But we’ll be starting off as mistress and maid, unfortunately.”

“Nobody does that these days!” I protested. “When did you last see a woman travelling with a maid – except for Saudi princesses and maybe Hollywood starlets?”

“Quite,” she agreed. “That’s what I told him; her, I mean. She said that if that doesn’t work out, she would be my ‘companion’.”

“What, like the financially embarrassed gentlewoman paid to accompany a noble lady or her daughter on the Grand Tour?” I laughed. “That’s straight out of Agatha Christie.”

“Even earlier, I’d say – Victorian.” She sighed. “I did manage to get a concession out of her. She will take a complete outfit of men’s clothes, and will wear them at least once for me. She wouldn’t hear of it at first. She said she’d feel a fool dressing up as a man and didn’t have any men’s clothes anyway. I said that wouldn’t be a problem. We have plenty in our wardrobe room. In the end, I told her it was a deal-breaker, and she gave in.”

“Well, I think it’s wonderful. I hope the two of you have a great time, and find each other again.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Steven. We’ll never be husband and wife again.”

“But maybe ‘wife and wife’?” She grimaced. “Anyway you’ll be together, and not lonely anymore. That’s the main thing.”

She smiled. It was an odd, unfamiliar sight. Then I realised why it looked weird. It was a smile that actually reflected some genuine inner satisfaction, even happiness. The most I could remember ever seeing from her before was a ‘conventional’ smile; a smile to be polite; a smile designed to fit the occasion.

Then she spoilt it. A calculating look came into her eyes.

“I’m glad you’re pleased,” she said, “because of course, Rita and I going away for an unspecified time will mean you and Annie will be in charge of the business.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll manage. Fred and Vera and Sharon will still be here, won’t they? And Miss Parr, and Angie, and the new girl. What’s her name? Edie? We may have to hire a new housekeeper…”

“I don’t think you quite understand. While we’re away, you’ll have to be me.”

“Well, I think I can do your job…” I began, not liking the sound of this.

“Don’t be obtuse. You know what I mean. You’ll have to do my job as me.”

“What? Why?”

“Because our clients don’t like new faces and they certainly don’t like their consultant to be a man. I’m sure you remember their reactions when I asked if you could sit in.”

I did. They were uncomfortable talking about their cross-dressing or transsexualism with a male who wasn’t their doctor or psychiatrist.

“Well, Annie can do the consulting, can’t she?”

“Not by herself, she can’t. The business has grown too much. I’ve been working a sixty-hour week while you were on your honeymoon. Anyway, she doesn’t know the ins and outs of the business as well as you do.”

I desperately tried to think of reasons why I couldn’t do this…

“We already know you give a perfect imitation of me,” she said. “No one saw through you at all last summer, did they? You did a good job consulting.”

She hadn’t said anything like that at the time of course. But now it suited her to lavish praise on my efforts.

“We’ve still got the specs for your prosthetics,” she added.

That was one reason gone.

“And it may not be for long,” she continued. “We’re still reacting to the boom that came from the new facial prosthetics. The business may die down to its previous level again, in which case Annie will be able to manage alone. Or we may be back in a couple of weeks if things don’t work out.”

There went another reason to refuse. She paused thoughtfully.

“If you can’t do this, I don’t think Rita and I will be able go away… together.”

How is she so damn good at this? This emotional blackmail?

“I’ve just realised,” she added, “I can’t remember my last holiday…”

Aarggh!

* * *

Annie took it very well.

“It’s not a problem, is it? You’ll be Ingrid during the day and Steve in the evenings – well, his lower half anyway.” She grinned. “You can’t remove your breasts or Ingrid’s face every night, obviously.”

“You can’t be happy about this!” I said. I looked pleadingly at her.

“I don’t mind – really,” she hastened to reassure me. “This is our family business. It’s worth making a few little sacrifices for.”

“Little?”

“I told you how much I like transforming you. It’ll be fun,” she continued, “and you can be Steve at weekends; well, every other weekend anyway. Or every third…”

The discussion continued all evening, but she gradually convinced me to go along with my mother’s plans on a temporary basis – for everyone’s sake (or at least everyone else’s).

So on the Monday morning, back I went to Vera, who took great delight in waxing me all over… again.

“You know, you really should have all your body hair removed permanently if you’re going to keep doing this,” she said. “I did that for your father, you know. It’s not painful; well, not as painful as regular waxing anyway; and I’m sure Annie will appreciate a totally smooth husband -or wife!” She giggled.

“I’ll think about it,” I said through teeth gritted against the pain.

Afterwards I lay on her table, smarting, while she rubbed me gently all over with the soothing lotion. This was the only part I liked.

“We don’t know how long you’re going to be Ingrid for, do we?” she said. I shook my head. “So I’m using a new lotion. It has a low dosage of female hormone.” I looked up sharply. “Don’t worry, it’s very mild. It won’t affect your virility or change your figure – much – but it should slow the growth of your body hair. You may not need any more waxing.”

By now my mother had appeared with new versions of my Steve-to-Ingrid prostheses, hot off the 3D printer. She stood and watched as Vera used a marker pen and the template from the printer to draw guidelines on me. That done, she began gluing on the prosthetic pieces.

It was fascinating, but dispiriting, to watch my mother’s face gradually replace mine. I had a new nose and chin; well, double chin. What little masculinity my face had once possessed was replaced by the familiar femininity of a middle-aged woman. My mother was in good shape for her age, but I’d really hoped not to have to put up with wrinkles and loose skin – again – for quite a few years yet.

The prostheses covered my face almost completely but they were soft and light, and they moved naturally as I changed my expression. Vera took up her paintbrush for the finishing touches, concealing the few remaining places where my own skin was still showing.

“Excellent,” my mother said. “I’ll call Sharon. Come up to the flat when you’re dressed, please, Steven. I have a lot to go through with you.”

Our resident beautician appeared moments later with a wig and her little case of cosmetics, brushes and sprays.

“I’ve got a client under the dryer in my room, so I thought I’d better come to you,” Sharon said. “This is weird, ‘cause I just left one Ingrid next door, and now here’s another one; or at least you will be when I’ve got your wig on you.”

She stretched a wig cap over my head, tucking any errant strands of my real hair inside. She paused.

“Actually your own hair is nearly long enough to give you an ‘Ingrid do’, maybe with some extensions. Would you rather I did that? You could go without the wig then.”

“But I want to be Steve at weekends,” I said.

“You could always brush it differently,” Sharon said. “Maybe wear it in a little man ponytail.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said, “but I’m hoping I won’t need to be my mother for that long.”

In the mirror I saw Vera and Sharon exchanging glances. Did they know something I didn’t?

“OK, sure,” Sharon said, returning her attention to my head. “Just let me know if you change your mind.”

She pulled the wig down and adjusted it carefully, checking that it was secure. Then she ran a brush through it and gave it a good spraying. When she finished I turned my head from side to side. My mother’s familiar stern schoolmarm bun was clearly visible on the back of my head.

“If I’m stuck as my mother for any length of time, I am definitely changing my hairstyle,” I muttered.

“At last!” Sharon trilled. “I’ve been trying to get you to do something sexier with your hair for years! I mean, the other Ingrid, of course. Sorry, it’s so easy to get confused…”

She reached into her little case and took out some very plain cosmetics.

“You can do better than this lot too,” she said, applying some pale foundation.

“Maybe I will,” I said, very aware that my mother’s preferred make-up scheme was understated, to say the least.

Next she applied a little mascara, eye shadow, and a light lipstick. Then she moved on to my nails, filing them tidy and painting them a familiar pale pink with a gloss finish.

While they were drying, I lay on my back for Vera to attach my breast forms; droopier than Milly’s, but not as droopy as Dolly’s. When she was satisfied that the adhesive had set, she helped me into a new 42C bra, very plain.

“So, are we gluing you into your abdominal prosthesis?” Vera asked.

“I suppose we have to,” I agreed grudgingly. “It’s much more comfortable when it doesn’t move around, and there’s too much risk of it slipping at an embarrassing moment if it’s not stuck on. Just make sure you leave the usual opening ‘down below’.”

Vera smiled and helped me wriggle into the fearsome thing. My genitals were once again concealed and inaccessible to me, though if I knew Annie, she would find a way around that obstacle tonight. I stood up and stepped into a pair of sensible knickers which matched my bra. Sadly, they did nothing to conceal the roll of flab that now adorned my tummy.

“Here are your glasses, Ingrid,” said Vera. When I looked at her askance, she continued, “Well, you might as well get used to answering to that name again.”

I took the ladies glasses, put them on, and turned to the mirror. The familiar plump, middle-aged figure stared back at me, complete with cellulite on her thighs and buttocks, stretch marks, and the beginnings of batwings and a double chin. I shuddered.

“Your mother sent down a complete outfit for you,” Vera said. “It’s in the case on the desk. You don’t need my help to get dressed, do you? I mean, you’re an expert with women’s clothes now, aren’t you?”

My mother had left me a smart, black skirt suit (big surprise), with a white, nylon, long-sleeved, V-neck blouse. My legs were encased in plain tights and my feet in black, patent leather, two-inch heeled pumps, from our wardrobe store. They were three sizes bigger than my mother’s, and the only visible indicator of which of us was which.

My jewellery was next. I slipped the copies of my mother’s rings onto my fingers, the familiar ladies’ watch on my left wrist, and a silver bracelet on my right. The finishing touch was a fake pearl necklace, indistinguishable from the one my mother would never be seen without.

I made my way upstairs. She was sitting at her desk in the alcove off our dining room, where she kept her computer. The filing cabinet in the corner was open and several folders were piled on her desk. She motioned to me to pull up a chair next to her. I did so, and plumped my fake, rotund bottom down next to her real one, remembering to smooth my skirt under me at the last moment.

She began without preamble, or any comment about my appearance. Apparently she now took it for granted that our technology had once again made me her perfect double.

“I’d like the fact that you’re substituting for me to be kept to our little ‘Inner Circle’, if possible,” she said.

“Fine by me. The fewer people who know about this the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

I knew who she meant but for the avoidance of doubt she reeled off the list.

“That means Annie, Fred, Vera, Sharon and Dolly. Oh, and Alice Parr. She’d notice something wrong immediately anyway. In fact I’d like you to spend some time with her. She can get you moving like me, and she knows my mannerisms and speech patterns very well, and can train you to reproduce them too. Then your impersonation will be perfect.”

I wasn’t looking forward to that. Miss Parr was something of a martinet. I envisaged marching up and down with a pile of a books on my head. At least I would be the boss this time and wouldn’t have to learn to curtsey. I wasn’t even sure that would be possible in my tight skirt and three-inch heels.

“None of our other staff need to know,” my mother continued, “and it’s much less of a risk to the business if no one else does know. Agreed?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so,” I agreed tentatively. “But it won’t be for long, will it? I’m not sure I can fool everyone all the time. When I sat in for you last summer, doing a few client interviews, it was for less than two weeks, and I didn’t interact with the household staff much, but I’ll have to now, won’t I, as we don’t have a housekeeper? Also, you were always around if I needed you, and you still did all the admin.”

“True, but Annie was new then. She’s been here for a year now. She knows quite a lot about the business side, and you can always call her in for a ‘consult’ if there’s something about a client’s transformation that you’re not sure of. She’s probably better at that than I am now, in fact. You’ll manage between you.” She paused. “So she’ll be the Chief Transformation Consultant, but I want you to be the Managing Director of the business, and for that there are other things you need to know.”

She paused and reached for the folder on top of the pile.

“First, Fred and I have created a new identity for me while I’m away.” She saw my quizzical look. “Don’t ask how we did it. It’s better that you don’t know, in case something goes wrong. You’ll have ‘plausible deniability’. The point is, while I’m gone, you will be the only ‘Ingrid Jones’ and the only ‘Ingrid McLaughlin’.”

“Who will you be?”

“I’ll be going by Kathleen – my middle name – Johnson. That way Rita and I can be sisters if we ever have to explain ourselves, like to a hotel receptionist. I have a new mobile phone. Here’s the number – for emergencies only. Otherwise, don’t call me; I’ll call you.” I must have looked concerned. “Oh don’t worry. I’ll check in regularly to let you know we’re all right.”

She was obviously less worried about whether we would be all right.

“Now, in this folder are all my personal documents,” she continued. “You need to go through them and make yourself familiar with everything. Put everything back in the safe when you’re finished. You know the combination, don’t you?”

I nodded and took the file. It held all the usual stuff, very similar to my father’s documents which I saw in the bank safety deposit box: birth certificate; marriage certificate; school reports, exam certificates; and her Will.

“Your passport is in here. Won’t you need it?”

“No, but you may need it. I don’t know if Rita plans for us to go abroad but I have one for my new identity. Fred assures me that both our passports will stand up to any scrutiny, but it’s probably an unnecessary risk to use them.”

Far too risky, I’d say. You never know when you’ll be picked to be X-rayed when you go through security at airports.

“Are you going to change your appearance?” I asked.

“I’ve bought some new clothes, and I may change my hairstyle, but I’m not going to use any of our prosthetics, if that’s what you mean. I can’t be bothered with all that stuff.”

But she didn’t mind me having to put up with them – and indefinitely, apparently!

“Here’s my – your – handbag. Your purse is in there, with your driving licence and credit cards. You need to lock your Steven Jones IDs and bank cards away in the safe. Don’t try to use them while you’re me.”

“You mean I should use your credit cards? Isn’t that fraud?”

“Certainly not. You’re a signatory on all my accounts – business and personal. You’d only be drawing out your own money.”

“But I’d still be pretending to be someone I’m not!” I protested.

“But you’re not defrauding anyone; it’s your money as much as mine. You won’t even need to forge my signature, at least not very often. I do almost all financial transactions online. The PIN numbers and passwords are in the safe. I haven’t written a cheque for years.” She looked exasperated. “Oh, stop worrying. Firstly, nobody will suspect anything – your disguise is too good; and secondly…”

She took the file back from me and drew out some documents from near the bottom.

“…these are Lasting Powers of Attorney for Property and Financial Affairs, signed by your father for the estate and by me for the business. This shows that you have full authority over all our assets.”

Wow! I never thought she trusted me to that extent.

“That means you can be me all the time. You won’t need to change back to Steven at all.”

Why on earth would I want to be my mother all the time? I was about to protest, but she was picking up another folder and resuming her lecture.

“Now this next file is our family investments,” she said. “I’ve tried to diversify, but I suppose I’ve always been a little risk-averse. We’ve got Life Insurance, ISAs and Unit Trusts, but I don’t dabble in the Stock Market. Of course, there’s no mortgage on the estate.”

The numbers flashed past my eyes as we scanned the documents together. I didn’t take in the details but it was obvious we were comfortably off.

“I’ve always tried to fund new developments from profits, to protect our family assets,” she said. “Now this next file is all about the business – just the really important documents. All the day-to-day spending and receipts are in the top two drawers of the filing cabinet, but most of that stuff is on the computer anyway. Fred can show you if you ever need to know.”

We spent the next hour going through the business accounts. They weren’t complicated, but again I was surprised at how well we were doing.

“Fred and I only take notional salaries to minimise our tax burden,” she said, without bothering to explain what that meant. “We’re the only shareholders, and we take most of our remuneration as dividends from the company profits after corporation tax.”

She paused again, perhaps sensing that I was sinking under this deluge of information.

“Do you have any questions?” she asked.

“Millions, but I’d better look through all these files first.”

“Fine, but don’t forget I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll need to take the Range Rover to carry all our stuff. I’ve insured myself – that is, yourself – to drive your Yaris and I’ve insured Steven to drive the company van, so you should be all right for transport in both your guises.”

I sat back in the chair, exhausted and bewildered.

“Don’t slouch like that, Ingrid,” she said, without a trace of humour. “You’re not a navvy. You’re a respectable lady now.”

I snapped my knees together and sat up straight.

“Sorry, er, Kathleen,” I said with as much grace as I could muster (not much).

“You should make yourself comfortable as me,” she said. “I’m taking most of my casual clothes and all of my underwear. We’ve saved the lingerie you wore when you were me last year, but you’ll still have to buy a lot of new things. Do try not to be too different. There’s no point in deliberately attracting attention. You can make a few minor changes if you must, but you should live my life as closely as you can. Obviously you and Annie will want to go out together, but you know I don’t go out much, and I don’t have many friends, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to live as me. You can play Bridge with Dolly or Fred on Wednesdays.”

She sat back, watching me carefully. I think she realised I was feeling overwhelmed.

“I’m terrified, Mum,” I said, serious for a moment. “Not just that I’ll give myself away, but I might make some really bad mistakes and ruin the business.”

“I have confidence in you,” she said gently. “You’ve grown up a lot recently. I’m sure it’s Annie’s influence,” she added, not willing to give me too much credit. “I wouldn’t be risking this if I didn’t think you could do it. I’ll trust your judgement in deciding when you can let Ingrid ‘retire’ and go back to being yourself.”

It still sounded suspiciously like an actual compliment. But it sounded horribly like she was saying goodbye for ever.

* * *

My mother and ‘Auntie Rita’ were ready to leave after lunch the next day. Annie, Dolly and I saw them off from our private entrance round the back. If I hadn’t known it was her, I might not have recognised my mother. She was wearing jeans! They must have been new; they might have been the first pair she had ever owned. Her top was a T-shirt with the words, ‘I’m with Stupid’ and a finger pointing to her left, presumably where my father would be sitting in the car.

She had let her hair down; it was held back in a brightly coloured Alice band. She wore dark glasses, completing the job of making her unrecognisable. The combination also made her look at least ten years younger; certainly much younger and more attractive than me in my dowdy, business-like grey skirt suit.

Meanwhile Rita was wearing a simple black dress with white collar and cuffs. It looked like a maid’s uniform, but without a cap and apron it could have passed for a plain house dress.

My mother isn’t one for long drawn-out partings. We hugged briefly and she reiterated her confidence that Annie and I would be fine. She said no more about how long they would be away. She didn’t tell us where they were heading. She might not have known herself. She was driving; Rita was navigating.

After they’d gone Annie had to rush off to a client session and Dolly went back to the kitchen catering office. She had insisted on standing in as housekeeper until either Rita returned or we found a full-time replacement for her. That way, my contact with staff outside our Inner Circle could be minimised. Annie agreed to this only as long as Dolly promised not to do any hard physical work herself.

To make things easier – and so that Annie could continue to keep an eye on her – Dolly would stay with us during the week, sleeping in the Girls’ Room. She would go back to her own house for weekends. Annie and I would sleep in my mother’s room, better to help me get into the mindset of being her. Steve’s room would stand sadly and symbolically empty.

I went back to my mother’s – my – office. I took off my suit jacket and sat down at my desk. I put my handbag in the drawer. I kicked off my high heels and rubbed my stocking feet. I would have to get used to shoes like these.

I reached for the day’s mail, but then I paused, staring into space. Belatedly, I realised I was no longer just testing prostheses in the guise of Ingrid McLaughlin Jones, I was her now; indeed the only person answering to those names. This was real – and scary. For as long as my parents were on the road ‘finding themselves’, like hippy teenagers in some dopey seventies flick, I was a forty-eight-year-old woman, running a business, with people depending on me.

I opened Ingrid’s – my – computer and checked my diary. I had no appointments that afternoon, which would give me the chance to respond to the day’s post and incoming emails. Tomorrow I had prospective new clients both in the morning and after lunch.

Annie came in at a quarter past three; she caught me staring out of the window.

“Finding it all a bit overwhelming, Ingrid?” I frowned. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “You know I have to call you Ingrid even when we’re alone. Someone might overhear. And it’s not just that I don’t want to risk making a mistake in company, it’s because it’s the best way of helping you get used to your new role as the lady boss.”

“What if I don’t want to get used to it?”

She looked at me reproachfully.

“You can’t always have what you want.” She tutted. “I hoped that the boy I fell in love with, and the man I married, would realise people are depending on him, and suck it up.”

“You sound just like my mother sometimes.”

“Well if I sound like her and you look like her, we should be able to manage together, shouldn’t we?”

I sighed. She must have realised I wasn’t in the mood for humour.

“Look, Steve, it’ll be OK,” she said soothingly. “You can do this, really you can. You already know your impersonation is virtually flawless. No one caught you out last year.”

“That was a summer job. It was only two weeks.”

“It may only be the same this time.”

“I have a nasty feeling it will be longer, maybe much longer.”

“We’ll manage,” Annie said.

But that wasn’t what I was really worried about.

“Will we? And what about us?” She looked puzzled. “We’ve been married less than a month and your husband has gone. You’re living – and sleeping – with your mother-in-law, for Heaven’s sake!”

“Is that what this is about? I don’t care as long as we’re together. I lived with you as my Granny for most of last summer! Look, this…” She waved her arms at my plump, feminine body. “…doesn’t matter. We can be husband and wife in bed at night and properly every other weekend. We’ll be fine.”

I had nothing more to say. She came over and put her arms around me.

“Think of it as like wearing a uniform for a job. Lots of people do that – policemen, soldiers…”

“Maids?”

“Ooh, yes please. I’ve always wanted my own lady’s maid!”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“Hey, I had enough of that when I was your Granny – and don’t expect me to curtsey!”

“Come on, it’s tea-time,” she said. “We need to go down and show everyone that the captain is on the bridge and everything’s ship-shape.”

* * *

Despite my misgivings I had to admit that the next two weeks went smoothly. The first thing I did was call our accountant and arrange to have Annie and Steve appointed as the third and fourth Directors and shareholders of the company. My mother hadn’t suggested this, and hadn’t given her permission, but if she didn’t like it, she shouldn’t have left me in charge, should she? Mr Nuttall, the Bank Manager, witnessed the signatures – Fred’s and Ingrid’s – mine. I was well practised in forging my mother’s by now.

I had no problems with my share of the client interviews, only passing one on to Annie. This was a rich young lady who wanted to impersonate her brother for a Fancy Dress party, and since Annie was the only one of us with any experience of female-to-male transformation, it seemed best that she handle it.

I accepted that outwardly I was now a perfect duplicate of my mother. My remaining challenges were to get her mannerisms, speech and behaviour right. So I had three half-day sessions with Miss Parr, who I had to admit was superb at her job. She began by reminding me of the anatomical reasons why men and women moved differently, and gave me exercises to help me stress the feminine. My prostheses helped here; my weight distribution was now emphatically female. My enhanced breasts, hips, thighs and buttocks in my tight skirts limited my ability to move any other way, so Miss Parr just had to make me more aware of their effects, and help me adapt.

Then she moved on to social behaviours. Society expects different things from men and women – aggression from men, compliance from women (or at least passive aggression) – and whatever our personalities, we mostly tend to conform. She agreed that this was less true of my mother, who had become fiercely independent over the years because of her circumstances. However her dominant personality did not display itself as a need to dominate social groups. She was more likely to remain silent in the background, listening – often with disdain – while others attempted to lead, and then do precisely what she wanted all along.

I wasn’t sure how this analysis helped me, but agreed that whatever else my mother might be, she was never chatty. I needed to learn to button my lip sometimes.

Miss Parr also helped me with Ingrid’s speech patterns, sentence construction and vocabulary. There were certain words she never used and others she used all the time. There was also a soft lilt to her speech, a rising inflection, and a faint East Anglia accent. I recognised all these when they were pointed out to me. I found imitating them quite easy, probably because my own speech was similar, having grown up listening to her.

Miss Parr finished my course of instruction with a list of mannerisms and gestures to learn – things she had noticed over the years that were distinctly Ingrid. My mother had a way of twirling the pearl necklace she habitually wore, as I now had to.

When outside she walked with her arms folded under her bust, especially in cold weather. I was sure there were complex psychological reasons for this, but all I had to do was remember to duplicate it. In any case it was more comfortable, as I could move quickly – at least as far as my tight skirts would allow – without getting a violent pendulum motion going on my chest.

The rest of the Inner Circle helped in their different ways, correcting me when I said or did something too unlike Ingrid. The essential message was: be brisk, brusque and business-like. Cut out the smiles and laughs, and don’t even think about telling jokes. Anyone would think my mother was a real gloomy Gussie. Oh wait – she was.

My mother often kicked her shoes off when she sat down at her desk. (She would have been mortified if she had known everyone had noticed that.)

She never fastened the buttons of her skirt suit jackets. She always fastened the buttons of her silk lace blouses right up to the neck. She also held her handbag in a certain way, often fiddling with the strap. I had to do that for fifteen minutes under Miss Parr’s watchful eye.

* * *

I played Bridge with Dolly on the first Wednesday and with Fred the next week. Annie and I went out to dinner a couple of times, during which she insisted on calling me ‘Mummy’. I could hardly object now. I paid with my mother’s credit card.

Otherwise I preferred to stay at home in the evenings. In the privacy of the flat, things could be different. I could let my hair down and change out of my stern business suit into one of the two or three casual dresses my mother had left me… that is, that I now possessed.

At home both Annie and Dolly encouraged me to be myself – my real self – as much as possible, although increasingly I was becoming a strange hybrid of Steve and Ingrid. This confused Dolly enormously, and I was sure that she often forgot that I wasn’t really Ingrid. Annie and I just found it easier to accept that.

Nevertheless the three of us got on well. We cooked and ate dinner together; we watched TV; we played board games; we laughed; and we shared the chores: laundry, ironing, cleaning, shopping.

As my male clothes were tidied away in Steve’s old bedroom, it was just like we were three real women sharing a flat. There was continual competition between us for the two bathrooms and make-up mirrors. Our female underwear, tights and stockings were always drying over the bath or draped over radiators everywhere.

At the end of the day Annie and I would retire to our bedroom and she would sit happily on the bed as I stripped off.

“I’ve missed this,” she said, as I stepped out of my dress. “It’s been nearly a year since I’ve seen you as Ingrid doing a strip-tease for me.”

I posed seductively in my shapewear: my boobs bursting out of my bra; and my striated tummy, cellulite thighs and buttocks clasped tightly by my girdle. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I was looking unashamedly sexy – for a plump forty-eight-year-old.

“It’s a bit odd though, don’t you think?” I said, provocatively. “I mean, I have to do this…” I brushed my hands up and down my voluptuous figure. “…but it must be some kind of fetish if you like it.”

“So what?” she said. “What’s a little dressing-up between consenting married adults? It’s not bondage, is it? There’s no unhealthy domme-sub stuff going on. It’s all harmless, isn’t it?” She grinned. “And for some reason it turns me on more than any ‘vanilla’ foreplay.

“Must be something to do with your obsession with transformation,” I suggested.

“And/or your delight in being transformed,” she said.

What would be the point in arguing? I certainly didn’t hate it anymore. Not sure I ever really did.

“Now, knickers down, Mummy darling,” she said firmly. “Let the dog see the rabbit…”

I think she liked it more because she got to go on top. My excess flesh and ungainly figure made it less comfortable the other way.

* * *

As she had done the previous summer, Annie would lie in bed in the morning watching me transform back into the stern lady boss. I would lift up my nightie and secure my wedding tackle back in my abdominal prosthesis. Most days I needed her help to ‘arrange myself’ comfortably. Then I would step into tight spandex knickers or a pantiegirdle, and she would fasten my bra for me. (I could do it by myself after all the practice I had had, but she was always keen to help.)

Wig and makeup were next, and from then on I was Mrs Ingrid Jones to my wife and friends, and Mrs Ingrid McLaughlin to clients. That would be the routine for the next two working weeks.

We managed to keep the weekend in between free for once. I desperately needed clothes as Ingrid, so Annie and I spent most of the Saturday morning at the nearest shopping centre. I had some difficulty persuading her that I wasn’t of an age or figure for Victoria’s Secret, and she grudgingly conducted me round the more prosaic secrets of Marks and Spencer.

“They advertise everything from light control vests to VPL-free knickers – styles to smooth out those lumps and bumps,” she said, reading from a pamphlet. “That sounds like exactly what you need,” she grinned.

I did find wearing just a simple bra and bikini panties very uncomfortable. My generous prosthetic flesh bulged out over the edges of any underwear that was too tight or brief. I couldn’t actually feel anything through the padding of course, but the overall sensation was that parts of me were trying to escape all the time. Annie therefore recommended firm shapewear, to keep all my synthetic blubber under proper control, and with the added benefit of emphasising my plump, curvy female form.

“Our collection of shapewear for women is designed to give you a sleek, streamlined silhouette with seam-free bodies, sheer slips and waist cinchers. Take advantage of the latest technologies for day-to-night comfort: shaping knickers, shaping bodies, waist and tummy control…”

“All right, all right,” I growled, grabbing the leaflet from her, and dropping it into our shopping trolley. “Bad enough I have to get all that stuff without you announcing it to the world.”

We made our way over to the appropriate section, my wife sniggering all the way. There was, as usual, no sign of any sales assistants, but for once that was a blessing.

“Do you want to try this body on, Mummy?” Annie asked innocently, holding up a colourful box with a picture of a plump model in her one-piece ‘Plus Size Body Slimming Shaper’.

For a moment I was confused, then I realised what she meant.

“No, I don’t! Look we know my sizes. Let’s just grab a range of stuff and go. This is M & S; I can return anything that doesn’t fit.”

“I’m not sure that’s true for lingerie, Mummy-in-Law dearest, not if you’ve actually tried it on, but anything you say.”

She dropped several cardboard boxes of matching longline bras and granny knickers, bodyshapers, girdles, and at least two dozen packs of stockings and tights into the basket. I tried to drag her over to the till.

“What’s the hurry?” she said. “You’re out clothes shopping with your daughter-in-law. It’s supposed to be fun.”

“Maybe for you, but I’m not comfortable browsing in Ladies’ Underwear, especially not in ladies’ underwear.”

She giggled. “OK, let’s head over to the dresses section.”

With little experience of shopping for women’s clothes, I didn’t really know what I was looking for, so I had to trust that Annie would choose dresses and skirts appropriate for her mother-in-law, and all with long sleeves, appropriate to conceal her feminised husband’s overmuscled arms.

I had to admit she had excellent taste and, against my better judgement, I found I was quite looking forward to wearing her choices. Mind you, anything would be better than my mother’s dull skirt suits. I particularly liked the look of a light blue sheath dress with a lace bodice. I just had to try it on.

It went well with my necklace and earrings. I realised that not so long ago I hadn’t even known what a bodice was, and I certainly wouldn’t have known what clothes went with what accessories. It looked wonderful on me. Annie didn’t have to work too hard to persuade me to buy it.

“We know your size, more or less,” she said, with a twinkle, “so there’s really no need to try on everything that catches your eye. We’d be here all day. Anyway you can definitely exchange any outerwear that doesn’t fit, or that you don’t like.”

“That’s a relief,” I said. “I’m not comfortable stripping off in women’s changing rooms.”

“I wasn’t aware that you made a habit of that.”

“Not a habit, no,” I said, blushing to remember my first girly shopping trip as Milly. “Look, can we go now? This is exhausting and our basket is practically full…”

“Sure… wait!” Something had caught her eye. “You don’t have any trouser suits, do you?” she asked. “Or any casual pants at all?”

“No, actually,” I said. “In fact, I think the first time I’ve ever seen my mother in trousers was the jeans she was wearing when they went away.”

“Well, you must try some on then!” she said, excitedly. In a lower voice, she added, “I’m dying to see that fabulous bottom of yours in pants.”

She quickly picked out a selection of trouser suits and threw them at me. She then pushed me towards the women’s changing rooms with my arms full of clothes on hangers.

I tried on a business trouser suit, and a floral one-piece suit which I wouldn’t be able to wear without its matching jacket as it exposed my masculine arms and shoulders. I even tried on a pair of jeans.

I was only too aware of the size of my big round rear in all of them, but there wasn’t much point in being embarrassed about it. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, I thought, as I posed and gyrated for Annie’s delight. She insisted we buy them all. She was practically drooling.

As I emerged from the changing room, having put my own dress back on, I was alarmed to see a face I recognised, though it took me a moment to remember where I had seen her.

“Ingrid!” she called in a voice that would have been heard over in Menswear. “You’re back! Why didn’t you call?”

It was Maggie Tyler from the Garden Party.

“Oh… er, I meant to, but I’ve only just got back,” I stammered. “This is my daughter-in-law, Annie. Annie, this is Maggie Tyler. We met at a ‘do’ last summer.”

Maggie had finished her shopping and was heading for the café. We arranged to meet her there after we’d paid for my new clothes.

“I met Maggie and her friends at the Mayor’s Garden Party,” I explained to Annie in the check-out queue. “We hit it off.”

“You mean you got blotto with them,” Annie chuckled. “I remember that day. I’ve never seen you so drunk, before or since.”

“They were a good bunch. I had a great time.”

“Well you must arrange to see them again. Ingrid should have more female friends, especially as she’s not in a relationship.”

“What are you talking about? Both of us Ingrids are in relationships!”

“But the Ingrid you’re pretending to be isn’t in a relationship with a man, is she? So she needs women friends.”

“So you, my wife, are encouraging me to go out, maybe getting drunk, with half a dozen other attractive middle-aged women?”

She laughed. “It does sound odd put that way, doesn’t it? But you know what I mean. And I’m assuming that I’ll be the only one who actually gets into your knickers.”

By this time we had reached the café and located Maggie. She waved. She was at a corner table with three coffees and a tray of cakes. We made our way over and sat down, dropping our bulging shopping bags beside us.

“Wow!” Maggie said. “You look like you bought the whole store!”

“Well, I’ve been away working and I decided I needed a whole new wardrobe to celebrate my… return,” I explained, sticking as close to the truth as I could. “It’s lovely to see you again, Maggie.”

Maggie asked how long Annie had been married – she probably remembered that I hadn’t mentioned my son having a steady girlfriend the previous summer – and congratulated her. After the usual good wishes regarding married life, she turned to me.

“So are you back for good now?”

“Um, probably…”

“Because, if so, you must come out with me and ‘The Girls’. You were a big hit at the Garden Party.”

“Really? I don’t remember…”

“I’m not in the least surprised!” Maggie said. Annie laughed. “None of us remember much about that day, but we all enjoyed ourselves so much we’ve tried to keep the little group going. We have a slap-up meal in a restaurant once a month.”

“That sounds wonderful, Mummy!” said Annie, with a twinkle in her eye. “You must go. You can wear one of your smart new trouser suits! I’m sure Steve and I can find ourselves something to do while you’re out.”

I looked at her askance, irrationally feeling jealous of Steve making time with Annie when I wasn’t around. Maggie laughed, without really knowing what she was laughing at.

We exchanged details. (The other Ingrid had long ago thrown away the scruffy napkins from her handbag.) So now I had another date for my diary.

* * *

Our encounter with Maggie at Marks & Spencer convinced me that if I was to impersonate my mother convincingly for any length of time I needed to know more than I did about her personal history. I remembered my fellow Garden Party ladies as a nosey lot. They asked many probing questions on that drunken afternoon, and I had had to make up my answers, none of which I could remember, due to the amount of Sauvignon Blanc I had drunk. No doubt it would be much worse at our restaurant date. They would all know each other well by now. As the ‘New Girl’ I would be fair game for the Inquisition. That was how female bonding worked.

I realised that I knew very little about my mother’s early life. As a normal boy growing up, I had shown no interest in my mother’s girlhood, and she, being the taciturn woman she was, had no inclination to share.

Since I was now forced to be my mother, I felt no compunction in rooting through her belongings to get to know her better. I searched the whole building, looking in places I had rarely been as Steve. I searched the flat, especially her – that is, my – bedroom; then the rest of the Manor House, the attics, and the outhouses.

I found surprisingly little of use; endless bric-a-brac everywhere, but just the usual stuff: old toys in the attic; rusty bikes in the garage; souvenirs of places visited long ago and forgotten all around the flat. In dusty cupboards I found old school essays and end of term reports – hers as well as mine. There had always been lots of books everywhere, but I noticed for the first time that they were mostly non-fiction – politics, history, science, and school and university text books. There were very few thrillers and no romances at all.

In the bedroom there were old clothes she’d clearly never got round to sending to the charity shop. There were dresses and skirts, and – to my surprise – trousers. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her in pants. In fact, I didn’t think she even had any. I tried a couple of pairs on, along with some dresses and skirts that were lurking on hangers at the back of a little-used wardrobe in the spare room. Sadly my prostheses made me too ‘broad in the beam’ to get into any of them (especially the slacks). Judging by the styles, they had probably been fashionable when my mother was young and slender.

I considered making myself new, slimmer prostheses to replicate my mother as a young woman. I could say I’d been on a crash diet, but it would be highly suspicious if Ingrid went from a size 16 (OK, OK, 18, sheesh!) to a size 8 overnight. Anyway with a thinner figure, my smart skirt suits would then be too big for me. I needed to continue to wear them for work, to maintain my image as Ingrid McLaughlin with clients.

I didn’t find much to document the life of a forty-eight-year-old married woman and mother of one. Two things stood out: where were the photos, and why was there nothing – nothing – of my father’s? Were the contents of that safety deposit really all she had kept of his?

Finally in a cardboard box, under a dusty pile of old curtains, at the back of my mother’s wardrobe, I found four photo albums. I had a quick look through them. According to the notes and labels, each seemed to cover about five years; the oldest starting in 1979; the most recent going up to 2001. It was fascinating to see familiar faces, decades younger. But the pictures just raised more questions...

So one evening, when Annie was out with Dolly at bingo, I went along the third floor corridor to the other wing and Fred’s rooms. He had mentioned that he would be staying overnight as he was running a long program down in the bunker and it would require his attention at around midnight. I knocked.

“Oh, hello, Ingrid,” he said, clearly surprised. “I thought you went to bingo…?”

“No, I’m ‘excused bingo’,” I said. “I have to do a lot of embarrassing stuff to pretend to be a middle-aged lady, but Annie and Dolly know how much I hate that silly game, so they let me off.”

He laughed. “OK, come in,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing for Ingrid, but Steve needs your help.”

I stepped inside and went into the flat’s elegant sitting room. Fred shut the door behind me. I dumped the photo albums on his coffee table, and sat down on the sofa, sweeping my skirt underneath me, pulling my knees together, and crossing my legs at the ankles. Fred chuckled.

“What?”

“You’re really good at that,” he said.

“What?”

“The feminine movements and mannerisms,” he added. “No one would ever suspect…”

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” I interrupted, grumpily. I felt myself blushing. “Never mind that. I want you to tell me about some of these old photos.”

“Oh,” he said, his face falling. “Where did you find those?”

“It wasn’t easy.” I explained about my current quest for Ingrid’s background. “But the most recent of these albums finishes about eighteen years ago. My mother seems to have stopped keeping photos not long after I was born.”

“I’m sure it was nothing to do with you, old son.” He chuckled. I raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, it’s just that you don’t look like anyone’s son nowadays. Old, maybe…”

He chuckled again. I folded my arms under my bust; an Ingrid gesture of disapproval that was thoroughly ingrained in me by now. Fred recognised that look.

“OK then, but I’m going to need a drink. What can I get you?”

I requested a glass of red wine. I was in the habit of asking for feminine drinks now, but I actually preferred a glass of wine to a pint of bitter. He got himself a whisky and soda. He brought the drinks over and came to sit down beside me. I scooted along, tidying my skirt as I slid.

He opened the first and oldest album. He sighed and turned back to me for confirmation. I nodded.

“Well, if you’re sure. I just don’t see what good will come from raking over the past. We’re all very different people now.”

“I’m very different – obviously,” I said, indicating my dress and figure. “You’re all just older.”

“All right, all right.” He turned a few pages, skimming faded black and white photos. “OK, the first few pages here are obviously pictures your grandparents took of your mother when she was little. I’ve never seen these.”

I looked at the pictures of an unfamiliar little girl. She could have been my mother, I suppose. She was often accompanied by little boys, her younger brothers. They were usually smiling and engaging in rough and tumble games. She was an aloof and serious child.

“Your grandmother died young, didn’t she?” Fred said. “Your Mum would have been eight or nine at the time, I think?”

“Eight,” I said. “Both my grandmothers died before I was born, but I never thought about the effect that losing her mother at that age would have had on Ingrid. She must have had to grow up fast. That was – what? – 1979? I suppose my grandfather would have expected her to take on maternal responsibility for her brothers.”

“Spot on,” he said. “Certainly when I started going to their place to see Ingrid, she was always in charge – of the house, the catering, and of the behaviour of your uncles. What happened to them anyway? I lost touch with them after Ingrid and I left school.”

“One lives in America; the other went to Australia. We exchange cards for birthdays and Christmas. They used to send me small amounts of money until I turned eighteen. We don’t really talk about them much. I think Mum is afraid they emigrated to get away from her, or maybe they were disgusted by my father, their brother-in-law, and how his… oddities… would embarrass them.”

He nodded. “It’s a shame when families lose touch.”

Fred’s parents were old-fashioned, or what nowadays people would call ‘bigoted’. I assumed they had disowned him for his sexuality. Even though he wasn’t ‘out’ as such, he would have had to open up to them. There would have been conversations about girlfriends, marriage, children… wouldn’t there?

I turned over more pages, Fred making appropriate comments as I went. The little girl in the photographs had turned into an unsmiling teenager. There was a birthday party at which she was grudgingly attempting to blow out thirteen candles on her birthday cake. The only person in the picture who wasn’t family was a very young Fred.

“I first got to know her when we were in our early teens.”

“Yes, you met at school, didn’t you?”

“We were in the same class at the local grammar school. We were thirteen. Neither of us found it easy to make friends. I was a nerd, and Ingrid, well… she didn’t seem to have much in common with the other kids. She played hockey and netball – quite well, actually – but she didn’t hang around with the other players. She didn’t watch TV; she wasn’t interested in pop music, or make-up, or clothes. Also, having to look after her brothers and get them fed and off to school had made her a little… bossy.”

He was struggling to describe the thirteen-year-old Ingrid without making her out to be a dragon-in-the-making.

“So everyone thought she was a stuck-up little cow, when actually she was just… shy?”

“She was never exactly shy, but she had no small talk, no social graces, no time for fools or silly kids behaving like silly kids…”

“So the two of you became friends on the ‘misery loves company’ principle?”

“Sort of,” he smiled. “I got teased a lot; she was largely ignored. Then we were put together for a nature project in science class, mainly because no one else wanted to partner either of us. Actually that’s not quite true. I was good at science, but I knew that the kids who offered to work with me were just hoping I’d do it all. So I approached Ingrid, and that was the beginning of our friendship. Our project won by a mile, and your mother more than did her part. I could do all the science and the maths easily enough, but she organised us and kept us focused. She’s been managing us both ever since.” He paused. “I probably wouldn’t still be around without her.”

There was a moment’s silence while we digested what he’d said. I thought this might have been the first time he’d admitted it to himself. A gesture of sympathy seemed appropriate. Instinctively I put my hand, with its rings and pink, polished fingernails, on his. In my mind I was Ingrid now, a woman, and Fred’s oldest friend. Then I realised that my mother probably wouldn’t have done that, and I remembered who I really was. I withdrew my hand, embarrassed. Fred just smiled, not fazed in the least. I sipped my wine.

We reached the end of the first album. I opened the second. There were more pictures of family events – outings, holidays, school activities. There was one of my mother in the junior school play, which presumably sparked her interest in theatre. Next to it was a clipping from the school magazine praising her performance. Then, suddenly, there was my father. His first appearance in the album was in a group with Fred, my mother, and some of their classmates. It looked like a school outing. They were all in hiking gear.

“Your Dad arrived in the fourth form, at the beginning of GCSEs,” said Fred, seeing that I had spotted him in the photo. “He’d been at a private boarding school before that. No one ever told us why he had to change school at fifteen. It might have been something to do with his mother dying. The disruption could only have made a horrible situation worse for him.”

I turned more pages. The photos were still mostly of the McLaughlin family, but any that included outsiders were invariably of Fred and the young Richard Steven Jones.

“He was funny, charming, and good-looking,” Fred said wistfully. “His family were well off – obviously, since they owned this place – but his mother was sick and his father was always away on business. Richard believed his Dad kept a mistress in a flat in London, but he has never known for sure. Anyway, he fell in with Ingrid and me immediately. No idea why. Perhaps he realised we were outcasts; each damaged in our own way. Perhaps he saw we needed him.” He laughed.

“It was a kind of ménage à trois, I suppose. We loved each other, in our different ways. Ingrid loved Richard for his gentleness, kindness, sweetness. I’m not sure when that love became physical – it was none of my business – but I was happy for them both. I was never jealous of either of them…”

He seemed to think that remark needed further explanation. Perhaps I’d looked sceptical.

“I’ve never been very passionate – physically, I mean,” he explained, almost apologetically.

I looked at more pictures of the three best friends: the independent, serious girl; the gay boy who wouldn’t admit he was gay; and the gentle boy who perhaps should have been gay but wasn’t.

“So when you first met my father, he was… just a normal teenager?” I said.

“No, but it was a while before Ingrid and I realised that he was just as damaged as we were. Don’t forget: most of the time he was an only child rattling around by himself in this huge Manor House with a bedridden mother and a mostly absent father. When his Mum died, his Dad hired Dolly as their housekeeper. She was a widow, and on her own; her son and daughter had left home. So she moved in here and rented out her house in town. Richard wondered whether she and his father were… intimate, but I don’t think so, looking back. The London mistress theory was always more likely. Anyway Dolly soon became crucial to young Richard. I think that may have been when his desires started to take root...”

“You mean that watching Dolly made him want to be a maid?”

“It was a lot more than just watching. She was his everything – mother, father, big sister, nanny, cook, all rolled into one. He admired everything about her. He used to follow her around. Then he started to help her look after the house.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “It’s huge; far too big for one person to clean.”

“Agreed, but perhaps she shouldn’t have let him wear her spare apron and cap when he did it…”

No, I thought, that was probably a bad idea. I’d found there was something about dressing as a maid…

“She had to wear a uniform?”

“Yep. That was going out in private houses by the eighties of course, but remember your grandfather was born well before the war. The Manor House would have had several servants when he was growing up, and they would all have been uniformed. And Richard’s mother had a full-time nurse – also uniformed. In fact, I think it might have been the cost of his wife’s twenty-four-hour care that made your grandfather decide to get rid of all the other servants. But when he hired Dolly, I doubt it would have occurred to him not to have her wear a uniform, although from what she’s said, she actually liked it, and obviously Richard did too.

“Too much, in fact,” I said ruefully.

Fred grunted. I took another mouthful of wine. He went back to the album and turned a few more pages. Some of the pictures now included more teenage faces.

“With Richard on our team, as it were, we fitted in better at school, or perhaps it was just that we were all growing up. Whatever the reason, the teasing stopped and the three of us found we had a wider circle of friends. We had regular gatherings at the Manor, often as many as a dozen kids, making use of the pool, the tennis court, the putting green, and the grounds. None of the rest of us had access to anything like the Manor House or its facilities, and with your grandfather away on business all the time, there was virtually no adult supervision. Dolly kept her eye on us as best she could, but frankly it was just good luck that no one got hurt. Or pregnant…”

I recognised the backgrounds in some of the pictures now. Some of them were taken here at the Manor.

“So who took all these photos?” I asked.

“Well up to 1987 your grandfather would have taken them using the family camera, but Ingrid got a Polaroid for her sixteenth birthday, so she took most of the ones in these pages. Richard and I insisted that she let us take some, so that she could be in them herself.”

He stared at the pictures of happy teenagers, at first just the three of them, then gradually many more joined in. I assumed Fred was remembering the faces of the other kids, some of whom he wouldn’t have seen for more than thirty years, and was trying to put names to them. Or maybe he was just staring into space.

As I watched, a solitary tear escaped from the eye nearest me and rolled slowly down his cheek. He brushed it away without seeming to notice. I pretended not to either. I was beginning to regret asking him to relive these times. Perhaps he was right; no good could come from raking up the past. He cleared his throat.

We returned to the albums. The next batch of pictures we saw was of the three of them at a fancy-dress party. It was labelled ‘Christmas 1987’.

“I remember that very well,” Fred said. “It was the first ‘grown-up party’ most of us ever went to. Richard managed to persuade his father to let us hold it at the Manor, and with no chaperones. I don’t think the old man was being particularly kind or generous; he just didn’t care enough to say no. He wasn’t planning to be at home then anyway. Dolly was totally against it but she was overruled. Richard even got his Dad to pay for her to have a long weekend with her son and his family up North, so that she wouldn’t be there to spoil our fun.

“We were all around sixteen, so of course in theory no alcohol was allowed, but a few bottles of some unspecified spirits found their way into the punch, and there were quite a few six-packs of cheap lager around the place if you knew where to look. Most of the vomit went into the flower beds round the back, fortunately.”

He laughed, but I hadn’t been listening that closely. I was looking at the pictures of the guests in their costumes. Fred was a cowboy in a Clint Eastwood poncho; Ingrid was a very pretty Alice in Wonderland; and my father was a maid.

It wasn’t a sexy French maid outfit with frilly petticoat and fishnet stockings. It was an old-fashioned, working housemaid uniform, a black dress complete with starched white bib apron and mob cap. Presumably the dress was one of Dolly’s, but he must have hired the apron and cap because there was no way Dolly would have worn such archaic items in the eighties. Fred saw me looking at the picture.

“Richard’s hair wasn’t really long enough for a girl,” he said, “but with his maid’s cap on you couldn’t tell. He was wearing proper make-up, quite well done, and he looked totally convincing. He would have fooled anyone who didn’t know him. He did fool some of the strangers who had come as ‘plus ones’.

“But it was how he behaved at the party that got me and Ingrid worried. He answered the door as a maid; he curtseyed to the guests as he let them in; he took their coats. Then he ran around all evening carrying trays of food and drinks, always curtseying, and addressing his class mates and their friends as ‘madam’ and ‘sir’ and ‘Miss This’ and ‘Mr That’. Most people thought it was a hoot and happily treated him as a maidservant, which he obviously loved. A few of them, mainly boys who had never had time for him at school, made quite nasty remarks about his sexuality, deliberately intended to be hurtful, but he was oblivious. He just kept the act going, behaving exactly like a lowly domestic.

“Ingrid was distraught. She was desperate to dance with him and maybe sneak off for some innocent smooching – we were only sixteen – but he just played the maid all evening. By about nine-thirty she’d had enough. She grabbed him and told him to stop acting the fool. He broke away from her and said she must excuse him. He was just the maid and he had his duties. I could see that she was really upset so I joined in at that point. He must have realised he’d gone too far and apologised, saying it was just a bit of fun. He took his cap off and they went over to the dance floor.

“She was mollified then, but when she and I met at school on the Monday morning she asked me what I thought he’d been up to. What could I say? Most of the time they were great together, and they were obviously falling in love. I didn’t think he was gay and I hoped that everything would be back to normal when he was back in his own clothes. I didn’t tell her what he told me later; that on the Sunday, when everyone who had slept over had left, he had put his full maid uniform back on and worn it all day while he cleaned and tidied up. When she got back on the Sunday evening, Dolly was astonished at how tidy the place was. She was delighted that her fears had been unfounded.”

“She might have been more concerned if she knew why,” I said.

Fred nodded. “Of course, none of us knew anything about cross-dressers then,” he said, “and even if we had, we might have just accepted it. So what if your heterosexual boyfriend likes to wear women’s clothes occasionally? It isn’t necessarily a show-stopper. It might even be stimulating to a relationship, in a kinky kind of way. Well, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

He laughed. I couldn’t help blushing. I pressed my knees together more tightly and pulled my skirt down to cover them better. Embarrassed, I took another sip of wine.

“But your father was – is – a very particular kind of cross-dresser, isn’t he?” Fred continued. “That wasn’t apparent back then. He may not even have known himself. Certainly, his need to live and work as a humble domestic didn’t become overwhelming for another ten years.”

He paused. What he had said filled in a lot of gaps and made good sense. He got up to fetch the wine bottle and refilled my glass, chuckling slightly at the lipstick on its rim. I thanked him and took another slurp.

I realised he was watching me carefully, and I immediately guessed why.

“You’re thinking that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree, aren’t you?” I said. He didn’t reply. “Well you’re wrong. I’m doing this…” I indicated my Ingrid face, boobs, and dress. “…for my parents’ sake. I’m cross-dressed, yes, but I’m not a cross-dresser. When they return, I’m hanging up my bra and knickers for good.”

“I think you’re doing it for Annie too, aren’t you?” he said quietly. “And you wouldn’t dress as a woman if you really couldn’t stand it, even for her, would you? I think you’re ‘a very particular kind of cross-dresser’ too. Just not the same kind as your father.”

I was on the edge of anger, but I wasn’t going to quarrel with Fred. I respected him too much, and he had always looked out for me.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” I said. “Let’s just whiz through the other two albums, shall we?”

There wasn’t a lot more to see. If my father dressed up again, he didn’t do it in any photos that found their way into my mother’s albums. GCSEs passed, then A levels. All three of them did well, and Fred and Richard went off to Cambridge. But my mother had to stay at home and settle for the local Technical College. Her father didn’t want her to go to university and leave him and her brothers to fend for themselves. But the separation was only a few miles and she and Richard saw each other every weekend. There were far fewer pictures of their college years, and there were lots of new faces. Pictures of Fred often included other men, rarely women. I didn’t comment.

Their Graduation photos came next, at the end of the third album. Then my parents’ wedding photos appeared early in the last album. They would have been about twenty-four. Fred was Best Man, of course, so officiating for Annie and me twenty-something years later must have given him a bitter-sweet feeling of déjà vu. The nuptial pictures were clearly taken by a professional. A framed copy of the one of my parents as bride and groom was also on the wall of the sitting room of our flat. My mother looked beautiful and happier than I had ever seen her. My father was very handsome; I could see no signs in his face of Rita Johnson, the worn and haggard cleaning lady he would later become.

I scanned my other relatives: my two grandfathers, both deceased, and my uncles who now lived on other continents. There was Dolly too, at the back of the group photo, beaming with happiness. Immediately after the wedding photos in the album were some taken on their honeymoon, in the beautiful Sicilian resort of Taormina. Some kind soul had taken a picture of the newlyweds in the Roman amphitheatre, and they looked as happy as could be. There were a few more photos of my father when they returned home, doing things that newlywed husbands did. He and my mother fixed up the unoccupied wing of the Manor House, and moved in. It was in a separate part of the building from his old rooms and my grandfather.

“Richard mostly kept busy taking over the family’s business interests,” Fred said, getting up to refill his drink. I declined another glass of wine. “I gather they were extensive and quite sufficient to keep him and his new wife comfortable. Ingrid was working at the local theatre, as you know, although they didn’t need her salary.”

But, as Fred explained, major changes were coming.

“I didn’t see as much of your parents in the next two years,” he said. “I had joined a start-up software house which was growing quickly on the back of the Dot-Com boom. I learned a lot, but in those days, I always seemed to be travelling, mostly to the USA, especially the Pacific North-West. So I missed the key events. Firstly your grandfather died – that was less than a year after the wedding – and your Dad inherited the estate.

“With the old man gone, there was nothing to stop your father from indulging his growing obsession. He started going to cross-dressers meetings and making contacts. Then he bought himself a set of modern maid’s uniforms and spent his days as Rita, the Manor’s new uniformed housekeeper. At first he promised always to change back into men’s clothes before Ingrid got home, but that didn’t last. Soon he was cooking their evening meal in his uniform, and then he was sitting down to eat dressed that way too. I know Ingrid hated it, but she still loved him, and she learned to tolerate his strange hobby – even when he started calling her ‘madam’. It’s amazing what you can put up with when you love someone, isn’t it?”

He paused again. Was that another comment on my relationship with Annie? If so, I didn’t rise to the bait.

“She even used what she had learned working backstage at the theatre to make him a more convincing woman,” Fred continued. “His new friends were impressed with the improvements in his feminine appearance and begged her to do the same for them. She reluctantly agreed but charged them hefty fees for her services. That led to her starting Transformations later, of course. She had the skills and the client base.”

“Was Dolly still working at the Manor? What did she make of it all?” I asked.

“No, she and Richard had a falling out over his dressing and she left, much to Ingrid’s dismay. I think Dolly blamed herself for what she thought of as his perversion. He begged her to stay. He said it would be just as it had been when he was at school; they would be two maids working together in the big house. But she couldn’t take it. She was really upset. I don’t think you’ll see any more pictures of Dolly in this last album. She didn’t come back until after your father left and Ingrid started the business. That’s when I returned as well. I think you know the rest, don’t you?”

I nodded. I scanned the remaining photos. There weren’t many more. In some, there was a blurry uniformed maid at the back of a group, or in the corner of the room. You could never quite make out her face, but you could tell it wasn’t Dolly.

“Your father converted one of the attic rooms into a ‘maid’s quarters’ and put all his feminine things up there. His men’s clothes stayed in the wardrobes and cupboards of the master bedroom, and he still slept there – in a nightdress – but Ingrid told me he used to get up at six, get dressed as the maid, and go off to do his morning duties, bringing his mistress breakfast in bed at seven-thirty. When she went in to work at the theatre, he’d start the day’s cleaning or cooking or laundry. He even started going out to the shops dressed as Rita, and bought some cheap second-hand clothes from the local charity shop.

“He worked very hard, but only at being a maid. He sold off the portfolio his father had left, so that he could devote all his time to housekeeping. Ingrid put up with this weird life because she loved him, but she wasn’t happy. That’s when she really started to…”

He paused, trying to find a diplomatic way of expressing himself. I saved him the bother.

“Turn into the humourless harridan she is today?”

He frowned, but didn’t argue.

“Then she got pregnant,” he said. “Ironic, really.”

The last few pictures in the album were my baby pictures. In a couple of them you could just make out the uniformed Nanny in the background, but again you couldn’t see her face.

“He stayed for a while after that, as you know, but eventually he decided that he was just going to ruin the lives of his wife and son. Ingrid helped him create Rita Johnson properly and put Richard Jones to rest, and he left.”

Fred fell silent. We both sat back, lost in thought. I checked my little ladies’ watch. We had been talking and drinking for nearly two hours and were both emotionally wrecked.

“I’m sorry for putting you through all that, Fred,” I said, getting to my feet and smoothing down my skirt. “I hadn’t realised it would be quite so… draining.”

“It’s OK,” he said. “It was cathartic for me. Good to get it all out in the open. You see now why I was dubious about you acting as your mother’s test subject? I was afraid it might trigger something in you that would make your life as unhappy as your father’s.”

I smiled and tried to reassure him. I wasn’t unhappy – I had Annie. Not unhappy; confused, yes, especially about the future…

I realised I had learned as much about Fred and my father as I had about my mother. In any case for the moment I would just have to be my own version of Ingrid; my own woman. I hoped I would be a happier, better-balanced lady.

* * *

The second weekend was approaching and we hadn’t heard from my parents. I didn’t know whether to be worried or not.

I had kept the weekend free and arranged with Vera to be liberated from my disguise last thing on Friday afternoon so that Steve could reappear. I was not going to be put off. I lay on her table starkers while she rubbed solvent under the edges of the prostheses.

“It seems to be taking a long time, Vee,” I said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “It’s because the adhesive hasn’t started to break down yet, and the top layer of your skin seems to be more persistent than most people’s.”

She grunted, and tugged, and rubbed more solvent in, and tugged again.

“Oww!”

“Sorry! I’ll have to take it more slowly.”

In the end it took nearly an hour to get everything off me. Finally, Steve appeared from underneath, but a raw, red, blotchy and very sore Steve.

“I think you may have to stay as Ingrid for three weeks at a time, kiddo,” Vera said, apologetically. “That should be long enough for the prostheses to come off easily. I don’t think either of us wants to go through that again.”

I agreed, grudgingly. I thanked her, then got dressed as myself and gathered up my Ingrid clothes. Annie was waiting for me upstairs, and made an appropriate fuss over having her husband back.

* * *

We had a great weekend. We played Mixed Doubles at the tennis centre on Saturday afternoon and went to a nightclub in the evening, with dinner and dancing. On the Sunday we drove out to the seaside at Frinton. It was bright and sunny and we even risked a brief dip in the North Sea. This was how summer days should be in England. (The nights were even better – and I got to go on top for once.) We decided that we were very lucky, even allowing for our unusual circumstances.

We scoffed scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream at a picnic table outside a little seaside café. As I refilled our teacups, a cloud came over. I shuddered. The sudden chill reminded me that I had an appointment with Vera at eight o’clock next morning.

“If I’m going to be Ingrid again – maybe for three weeks this time – I’m going to make some changes,” I said, in a quiet voice, not wanting to be overheard by the other diners.

“Ooh,” said Annie, excitedly, “such as what?”

“Clothes, for one,” I began. “I hate my grey skirt suits, and my boring hairdo. Come to that, I’m fed up with wearing a wig. I’m going to ask Sharon if she can do something with my own hair.”

“Great idea!” she said. “I’ve never understood why Ingrid insisted on dressing like a schoolmarm.”

“My theory is that she didn’t want to attract men, given her… unusual marital situation.”

“So either she didn’t want to be unfaithful to your father even though he’d deserted her, or she was just off the male sex generally…”

“Or both.”

“Yes,” Annie nodded. “So you’re going to make more of yourself, are you, New Ingrid? In that case, you should get out more too. We can go to restaurants, the cinema, the theatre. We can play Ladies Doubles, as well as Mixed.”

“Oh, I’m not sure about that. I’m a lot stronger than most women. I can hit much harder. I might give myself away.”

“Not when you’re wearing your heavy Ingrid prostheses, Porky,” she pointed out. “Your plumptious boobs will get in the way of that deadly kick service of yours. You won’t be able to run as fast either, but you’ll look great in a tennis dress.”

Her imagination was motoring now.

“What about Ballroom Dancing? You enjoyed it when you were Granny. All three of us could go!”

“But we’d all have to dance with strange men. I’m not sure I could trust you,” I said, with a mock stern expression.

“What about you?” she giggled. “You were very attractive in your Garden Party outfit. I dread to think what those dance floor Romeos will make of you in a sequinned ballroom dress.”

I laughed. I couldn’t imagine being propositioned by any of those sad elderly dancers, however beautiful my dress.

“Come on, we need to get back,” she said. She passed me the last scone. “Eat up. There’s no point in worrying about your figure, is there?”

It was a good day. Just before bedtime a text came through to both my Steve phone and my Ingrid phone.

‘Wont be back this week. Keep up the good work. – K’

* * *

We woke early the following morning to make the most of my remaining time as Steve. We dragged that out as long as we could but all good things must come to an end. At eight a.m., while Annie went to pick up Dolly, I packed a little case of frumpy Ingrid clothes and underwear, and reported to Vera. The waxing was much quicker and less painful this week, and after giving me a quick rub-down with the soothing, hormone-laced lotion, she was soon gluing my prostheses on.

“So you’re going to be Ingrid for a while longer?” she said, conversationally.

“Seems like it,” I sighed. I told her about the previous night’s text. “I hope they appreciate this.”

“Look on the bright side,” the ever-optimistic Vera said. “You’ve got a beautiful young wife who loves you – in both your guises. You’re your own boss, more or less. You’re fully employed, making good money at safe, indoor work. You even live above the shop, so no commuting. Lots of people would give their eyeteeth for all that.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I said. “So I should try and make the best of it?”

“That’s the spirit… Ingrid,” she smiled. “Now come on, get your bra and knickers on and make yourself respectable.”

“Could you make arrangements to remove my body hair permanently, please?” I sighed, finally accepting the inevitable.

Vera smiled and got out her appointment book.

I went off to my office, fully dressed in my boring skirt suit, my boobs bobbing, my big bottom swaying, my heels clicking, my nylon-covered legs rasping against one another. I hated Mondays.

* * *

Sharon was delighted when I asked her to do something with my hair. As it had been a while since I’d last had it cut – when do students ever go to the barber? – she decided it was long enough for a shortish feminine hair style without needing extensions. But I would have to have it coloured to match my mother. Unfortunately Ingrid suffered from a sort of ‘reverse vanity’ and so had never had it tinted. It was therefore a mousy brown with irregular streaks of grey. This would be a challenge for Sharon to match, but surely no one would notice if the streaks weren’t in exactly the right places? My mother always wore her hair up in a bun anyway.

I reported for my makeover first thing on the Tuesday morning. I took off my suit jacket and sat down in Sharon’s chair. She wrapped a brightly-coloured protective smock around me and set to work. She began by washing, trimming and tidying my hair. At this point it suddenly occurred to me that Steve might look weird with a too obviously woman’s hairdo. Oh well, he was only going to appear for one weekend every three weeks. He could always wear a baseball cap.

Sharon started colouring individual strands of my hair with a grey spray.

“This is the opposite of what hairdressers normally do,” she said. “They’re usually asked to colour early grey hairs brown of course, but sometimes an older woman who has tinted her hair for years decides to stop all that and gradually let the natural colour come through. I call this ‘transitioning to grey’. It will probably make you look a little older. The other Ingrid – sorry, I mean Kathleen – may be cross about that.”

“I doubt she’ll care actually,” I said. “My mother isn’t vain. In any case, I want a new make-up regime to compensate, please.”

“Brilliant!” she cooed. “I’ve been dying to doll Ingrid up for years. She could make so much more of herself. We’re going to have a great time.”

“Just so long as we’re finished by eleven. I have a client session.”

“No problem,” she said, reaching for her curling wand.

Like all good hairdressers Sharon kept up a continual patter of conversation that she thought a woman of my age would find interesting – “to get the full experience,” she told me, with a wink. In general, these were not really topics to capture the imagination of a twenty-one-year-old male, but the experience was educational – as was all the time I spent with her and Vera.

The time passed quickly and I learned a lot more about babies, periods and the menopause – something due for me anytime now – than I knew before, or had ever wanted to. It reminded me of the drunken conversation at the Garden Party, so I supposed it could come in useful if I ever saw ‘The Girls’ again.

Finally Sharon sat me under her old-fashioned helmet dryer and handed me some magazines to read. I scanned the selection.

I quickly dismissed Slimming Magazine, Good Housekeeping, and Hello! Sharon saw me looking at Cosmopolitan.

“I think that’s probably a bit young for you, Ingrid,” she grinned. “Same for Marie-Claire. This is more your style.”

She picked out an old copy of Woman’s Weekly. I snorted, but took it from her. Better than nothing, I supposed. There were actually some very interesting knitting patterns…

I was engrossed in a recipe for caramel latte cake when Sharon came to say I was finished. I returned to the chair in front of the mirror and she combed me out. She then spent a long time fussing with colour charts and a huge range of expensive-looking cosmetics, before muttering something about ‘autumn colours’ and starting on my make-up.

When she eventually released me from my smock and span me around so that I faced the mirror for the first time, I nearly fell out of the chair. I still had all my mother’s features, but this was not an Ingrid I had ever seen before. A short pepper-and-salt bob of real hair had replaced the wig in its ugly bun. My make-up was professional and striking. The woman in the mirror was borderline beautiful. No, OK, must be realistic; I was just on the wrong side of that border.

I stood up, gawking, unable to take my eyes off my image. I didn’t think a baseball cap would suffice to conceal this work of art when I was Steve again. I would probably have to wear a wig just to look like myself.

“Happy with that?” asked Sharon, with a twinkle in her eye.

“‘Happy’ isn’t the word,” I said when my voice returned. “You’re a genius – especially considering what you had to work with.”

“That’s not fair to your Mum,” she smiled. “I always knew I could make her – you – eye-catching, but I admit, you’ve turned out better than even I had expected.”

I picked up my jacket and slipped into it. Today’s suit was a brown pinstripe.

“My new look doesn’t feel right with this ugly outfit,” I said. “I must do something about that.” I checked my little gold ladies’ watch. “Oh, if we hurry, we can just catch the end of the morning coffee break. I’m dying to see what the others will think.” I reached for the Woman’s Weekly. “Is it OK if I take this?” I asked.

“No problem,” she said. “It’s probably the sort of thing you should be reading now, if you want to be Ingrid properly.”

Before then I hadn’t thought about my transformation in those terms, but now I realised I did ‘want to be Ingrid properly’; with no half-measures. My lovely new hairdo and make-up had extinguished the last of my reluctance.

When we walked into the coffee lounge, there was a sudden hush, then gasps as heads turned in my direction.

“Ye Gods!” said Fred. “If it wasn’t for that ugly suit, I would never have recognised you.”

“Thank you,” I said, “but it’s Sharon who should take the credit.” Then I whispered so that no one else could hear, “You’d never dare be so rude about my outfit if I were the real Ingrid, would you, Frederick dear?”

He grinned. “You’re quite right, of course,” he said. “From now on I’ll be sure to treat you with the proper deference, Mrs McLaughlin, ma’am.”

Well if I had to be Ingrid, I wanted to be treated with respect. Then he spoilt it by winking.

I went over to get a cup of coffee from Dolly. She was back in her old role of tea lady, but no longer in a maid’s uniform. She wore a smart black dress, as befitted her elevation to Housekeeper. She could, perhaps should, have delegated this menial task to one of the younger catering staff, but she insisted. She just loved being here with us all at our morning break.

“You look amazing, Ingrid,” she said. “Are you going to stay like that?” I nodded. “You’ll cause quite a stir at the Bridge Club. I can’t wait for Harriet to see you!”

Of course Dolly knew perfectly well that I was Steve underneath, but like everyone else she had started to treat me as Ingrid all the time now.

* * *

The Wednesday Pairs at the Bridge Club was my first outing as Ingrid 2.0. I chose something from my new Marks & Spencer’s collection, a smart casual dress in dark blue with white polka dots. I wore a lace cardigan with it, nude nylons, and three-inch heels. When I walked into the church hall on Fred’s arm, heads turned as they had at coffee break the previous morning. Everyone – well everyone except Harriet – was friendly and complimentary.

I was surprised to see Jane Campanella there. She waved when she saw me and beckoned us over. She was sitting at a table on the opposite side of the room from Harriet. Her partner this evening, presumably a client, was an elderly lady called Doris, who I vaguely remembered to be rich but clueless.

“Hello, Ingrid,” Doris said as we sat down. “You look very nice tonight. New hairdo?”

“Yes, thank you for noticing. I thought it was time for a change. Are you well?”

Doris nodded and exchanged pleasantries with Fred. I turned back to Jane.

“Nice to see you again, Jane. Not playing with Harriet, I see?”

She smiled. “No, our little arrangement is over.”

If so, why was she still around? I couldn’t see why an American international, albeit in exile over here, would want to play at our little backwater club if she wasn’t being paid to, but I could hardly ask.

“I had to join your fine club to play regularly with Harriet, and even though that partnership is kaput, I’m determined to get my subscription money’s worth.” That was a somewhat unconvincing answer to my unspoken question. “I’d love a game with you one night, by the way. You and Dolly were most impressive in the County Ladies’ Final.”

“Er, yes,” I said, “that would be great.”

I couldn’t see why not, but this was one sharp lady – certainly sharp at Bridge anyway. There was no reason to think she would see anything suspicious about me, was there? Come now, no need to get paranoid, Ingrid (I mean, Steve).

At the end of the evening Fred and I came top of the East-West pairs. Jane and Doris were just above average North-South, one place above the Bairstows. Doris was delighted; it was her best result for months.

Fred was helping me on with my coat when Jane appeared.

“Good result, you two!” she smiled. “Do you have your diary handy, Ingrid? Can we fix a date?”

“Oh yes,” I said, reaching into my handbag.

I found my phone and opened up the calendar app. We arranged to play together two weeks hence. If I wasn’t still Ingrid then, I’m sure my mother would enjoy a game with Jane.

“For some reason I assumed you’d use an old-fashioned diary,” she said, watching me struggling to enter the details with my long, painted nails. “I didn’t picture you keeping your appointments on your phone.”

“That was true until recently,” I said. “But my son is a computer expert – just graduated with a First from Cambridge – and he said he was ashamed that his mother was still living in the Dark Ages.”

“I taught him all he knows,” put in Fred.

“I’d love to meet him,” she said. “Why don’t we all get together for a drink or dinner sometime?”

“That would be lovely,” I replied, “but I’m not sure when that might be. He’s just got married and I know he and my daughter-in-law are very busy.”

I couldn’t see how Steve and I could both make it on the same evening.

* * *

Annie persuaded me to go along to Ballroom Dancing that Friday, with her and Dolly. I feigned reluctance at first but I actually quite fancied the idea. I hadn’t exactly hated it at Cambridge with Rachel and had quite enjoyed myself as Dolly. Unfortunately my mother had nothing appropriate in her meagre collection of clothes, and I hadn’t been looking for evening dresses at M & S. Vera thought I might find something suitable in my size in the company’s wardrobe room, and we went along together to look. I was dubious about finding anything I’d like in a collection that was intended for cross-dressers and transsexuals.

“When I was Dolly I just did the slow, sedate dances,” I said. “I sat out when they played the faster ones like the Tango and the Quickstep. As Ingrid I’ll probably do the same. So I suppose I should be looking for a long dress, like the one I wore before?”

“Probably,” she agreed. “You’re not planning to enter any competitions, are you?”

“Hardly, but why do you ask?”

“Generally in competitions the women’s dresses are designed for specific dances. For example, if you’re doing the Tango, you’d choose a short dress, a mini actually, with a frilly skirt. For a waltz, you want something long and flouncy, with an ankle-length hem. But those are all a bit elaborate – and expensive – for a casual night out.”

“Well I’m not entering any competitions, so I just need something all-purpose, and certainly not short. I haven’t got the legs for it.”

“Actually you do, but you’re supposed to be in your late forties so you shouldn’t be showing too much.”

She was rummaging through the wardrobe, examining a rack of long dresses.

“It wouldn’t be appropriate for you to wear a mini. I think you want something mid-calf – any longer and you might trip over the hem. Here! This is perfect!” She checked the label. “And it’s size sixteen – just right!”

“It’s a bit elaborate, isn’t it?” I said.

It was labelled ‘Teal Ballroom Smooth Waltz Dance Dress’. It had what would be a virtually skin-tight bodice for a large-busted lady like me, covered in elaborate floral decoration, and long, flowing chiffon skirts, all in a dramatic turquoise colour. Crucially, it had long sleeves. It was a cross-dresser’s wet dream – no wonder it was in our wardrobe. I loved it as soon as I saw it.

“It’s just right for Ballroom Dancing,” Vera insisted. “Now I’m sure I saw a pair of size ten high heels in teal somewhere, and a matching clutch bag.”

* * *

I needed a girdle and a proper corset and quite a lot of help from Annie, my lady’s maid, to get into the dress.

My hair wasn’t long enough for anything complicated but Vera had found a tiara, a matching necklace, and clip-on earrings, all with fake emeralds to match my dress, in our props cupboard.

“I feel horribly over-dressed,” I said to Annie as we made our way into the leisure centre sports hall.

“You look fine,” she said.

“Much better than fine actually,” added Dolly, with a grin.

“I feel like a drag queen,” I grumbled.

We caused quite a stir when we went in. Some of the people I had met when I was here as Dolly came over to greet us.

“Hello, everyone,” said Annie. “This is Ingrid, my mother-in-law.”

A couple of the women realised that she must have got married since we were last here, and congratulated her.

“Three generations of lovely ladies all together!” exclaimed Gregory, the elderly Casanova who had asked me out to dinner when I was Dolly. “But where are all the gentlemen in your family?”

“Good question!” said Annie. “I’m newly married but I can’t seem to persuade my husband to come dancing. He’s shy, which is a shame because he’s a lovely mover.”

I was glad that Annie had made it clear to all the men crowding round us that she was here for the dancing and nothing further.

“Well, it’s an ill wind…” said Gregory. “Shall we, my dear?”

He offered his arm to Dolly. She had been fully briefed and took it with an enigmatic smile. I wondered if she would accept his dinner invitation when he, inevitably, repeated it. A tall, thin, gawky-looking guy asked Annie to dance. I guessed he was in his early forties. That left me alone, a wallflower. That didn’t last long.

I must have danced with a dozen different men by the time the evening came to a close, and I can’t pretend I didn’t enjoy it. There was something truly sensual about being whirled round the dance floor, my beautiful dress swirling around me in cascades of turquoise chiffon. I had been afraid of falling off my high heels, but all my partners were too experienced – and strong – to let that happen.

I explained my lack of skill to everyone, after which, whenever we came to a complicated part where I didn’t quite know where my feet were supposed to go, I found they were up in the air, and then returned to earth in good order. I began to see the appeal of Ballroom – though I wasn’t sure why the men enjoyed it so much. It looked like hard work for them lifting clumsy, heavy lumps like me.

The last dance was a waltz to ‘Moon River’, and I was sorry it was all over for the evening – except that my last partner got a little too friendly. We were soon dancing cheek-to-cheek.

“One of those old fools pinched my bottom!” I said to Annie as we collected our coats and handbags from the Ladies’ Cloakroom.

“How could you tell?” she asked, with a laugh. “Your actual bottom is shielded by the best part of two inches of Fred’s finest plastic blubber, not to mention your corset and spandex girdle!”

“That’s the trouble – I didn’t feel anything! I just happened to look round at the right moment and saw him doing it.”

“So what’s the problem? You didn’t seem to mind when Peter did it to Milly last Christmas.”

“That was different. Anyway I knew Peter would feel stupid after the big reveal at midnight. The problem here is that I don’t know how many times the old lech did it before I caught him.”

She laughed. “That’s the trouble with being so attractive. He probably thinks you’re a right slut and were encouraging him! What did you do anyway?”

“I pulled my hand free to take a swipe at him. You should have seen him flinch! Then I realised I would probably kill him if I connected, so I just stormed off. What will I do if he’s here next week?”

“He’ll probably have forgotten, or he may just try his luck with some other woman.” She looked at me slyly. “So you enjoyed yourself, Mummy? You want to come again?”

“Well… OK, it wasn’t all bad, dear,” I admitted. “Maybe once more. Where’s Dolly?”

“Gregory offered her a lift home, and she accepted.”

“Oh OK, so it’s just you and me then.”

“Yes, and I can’t wait to rip that dress off you…”

“That’s no way to talk to your mother-in-law. I’ll race you to the car.”

“Not in those heels, you won’t,” she cautioned. “You’ll break your pretty neck.”

Then I noticed something. I put my hand up to my ear.

“Shit! I lost an earring when I nearly hit that old fool.”

“We’ll have to get your ears pierced before next week then.” I started to argue but she hushed me. “Ingrid’s ears are pierced,” she said. “Someone may notice if yours aren’t.”

I sighed and agreed. I finished doing up my coat and hung my handbag over my shoulder. Then a thought struck me.

“I’ll have to get another dress for next week, won’t I?” I said. “I mean, I can’t turn up in the same outfit two weeks in succession.”

“Now you’re talking like a proper woman,” she laughed. “I’d say your transformation is complete.”

 

Epilogue

Will Annie and her new mother-in-law live happily ever after?

My parents’ quest to find themselves went on. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Kathleen’s texts became less frequent, and no longer mentioned coming home. I assumed they must have found new happiness. I was pleased for them. But where did it leave me? I was now getting used to living two lives; most of the time as the lady MD of a small and very successful business; increasingly rarely, as her own son and Annie’s husband.

One evening we were in bed, relaxing after an energetic session of love-making. Her head was resting comfortably on my breasts, which she insisted on calling my ‘soft fluffy pillows’. I rarely removed my abdominal prosthesis now, but it was open at the bottom (obviously) and my wife’s nimble fingers were idly playing with what they found up there, in the hope of encouraging it to return to active service.

“Do you think I’m becoming effeminate?” I asked. It had been preying on my mind.

“No, no,” she murmured. “You’re much too feminine to be effeminate, Mummy darling.”

“Ha ha. I meant is Steve becoming effeminate? I only get to be him every third weekend now. I’m frightened I may forget how to be… er… manly.”

“Well you were pretty manly five minutes ago, despite your big boobs and frilly nightie.”

“I’m glad you thought so, but I’m referring to when we’re out and about as… us. I’m getting so used to walking and sitting like a tubby matron, all thrusting breasts and wiggling bottom. If I carry that over to when I’m Steve, people will say you married a sissy.”

She finally realised I was serious.

“Well, I suppose you do tend to be a bit… swishy… when you first change back, but that quickly wears off. What brought this on?”

“Well, after the meal the other night, I reached for my handbag to repair my lipstick, and I nearly had a heart attack when I saw it wasn’t over the back of my chair where I always leave it. I thought I’d been robbed! Then I remembered I was Steve…”

She laughed. “I remember that! You had this panicky look on your face. I wondered what was going on, then the waiter arrived with the bill, by which time you’d recovered. I forgot to ask you what had been the matter.”

“I’m worried I may be behaving like Ingrid all the time now, even when I’m dressed as Steve.”

I felt so stupid. She hastened to reassure me.

“Don’t worry, babe,” she said. “That was probably a one-off. It’s just that this way of life is still all new to you. I’m sure you’ll soon get used to switching between your two identities – like Superman and Clark Kent.”

“I hope you’re right… but you will tell me if I start prancing around like an off-duty drag queen when I’m Steve, won’t you?”

“Will do,” she smiled. “But you should just try to relax and enjoy it. I think it’s actually a brilliant arrangement.” I looked at her sceptically. “Well, if we ever experience marital difficulties, I know I can talk it over with my mother-in-law and my husband will get the message.”

I snorted. She sat up and looked at me thoughtfully.

“If you’re wondering whether you’re going to be stuck as your own mother for ever, things will have to change when we have kids, won’t they?”

“Whoa! You’re not pregnant, are you?”

“No, no, but I would like to start a family while we’re young… while Steve and I are young, I mean.”

“Sure, me too… but I don’t think I’m ready to be a father just yet.”

“Ah, but if I had a baby now, you wouldn’t be Daddy, you’d be Granny most of the time, wouldn’t you? Again!” she grinned.

There being no baseball bat to hand, I threw a pillow at her. One of our real pillows, I mean.

* * *

Looking back, I’m surprised how easy it was to take over my mother’s life, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she took me over. I suppose a certain amount of ‘personality bleed’ is inevitable if you are living as someone else day-to-day. I looked like her and I sounded like her. Through constant practice, I now stood like her and walked like her, and I reacted to any situation exactly as she would have.

I explored the rest of her belongings, at least everything she hadn’t taken with her. As far as I was concerned it was all mine now. I had earned it. I had added lots of new feminine items too: sexier underwear, nighties and hose, brighter make-up, and of course new dresses, including two more for ballroom dancing.

I had to buy lots of shoes, of course. My mother’s were all too small for me, and she was never very interested in footwear anyway. She didn’t own many pairs and had taken most of them with her. Annie and I spent a couple of hours in a shop that specialised in shoes for ladies with large feet. My choices were much fancier than anything in my mother’s shoe collection. As Annie gleefully pointed out, I was much more feminine than the other Ingrid.

She also had far more jewellery than I had realised, and hadn’t taken much with her, presumably for fear of losing valuable pieces in transit. With my newly-pierced ears I took delight in mixing and matching earrings, necklaces, and bracelets.

I was probably 90% Ingrid and only 10% Steve now – inside as well as outside. I spent my leisure time doing things a middle-aged woman would do. I had my hair done (by Sharon of course) every week. I cooked and did my share of the housework. I played Bridge and tennis.

I went Ballroom Dancing, floating round the dance floor in the arms of strong older men. (They had to be strong to lift me.) I still wasn’t in the least attracted to any of them, but I found it easy enough to tolerate their close contact and was even amused by their clumsy attempts to woo me.

Annie and I went dress shopping together. We had occasional meals out and went to the cinema and the theatre. I remembered how knitting had relaxed me when I was Dolly, so I bought needles, wool, and some patterns, and started on… another cardigan. (Stick with what you know.)

I went out for dinner with Maggie and ‘The Girls’. I got a lot of sympathy for being a singleton, but the stories the others told about their husbands made me glad I didn’t have one.

At first I was afraid I wouldn’t fit in, but I soon found I already had a lot in common with them all and relished the opportunity to continue my education as a middle-aged woman. I had a great time. We swapped recipes, make-up secrets, shopping tips, underwear disasters, medical emergencies, and outrageous sexual experiences. (I had to ask Annie to help me with anecdotes in that area. She couldn’t come to these outings, of course. They weren’t for girls of her age; only for us mums and middle-aged matrons.)

The Girls admired my new cardigan and I was proud to admit I had knitted it myself. Beth sniggered and said she thought you had to be an old lady before you were allowed to knit. She was shouted down. (I didn’t tell them that I had been a Granny when I had learned.)

I got used to being ogled by men in public places. I was aware of them watching my bottom swinging from side to side in my tight skirts, and occasionally even threw in an extra wiggle for their benefit, to enjoy their reaction. I found the attention flattering, though at the same time it made me a little uncomfortable.

I suddenly realised that this was precisely the contradictory reaction of all attractive women throughout history. My education in ‘how the other half lives’ continued apace. I got my first wolf whistle when passing a building site in town, and I loved that, while trying to appear scandalised, of course.

Kathleen’s texts remained brief and uninformative. They really only ever contained two unambiguous pieces of information: that their journey was doing everything they had hoped for in their relationship, and they weren’t coming back yet. She said very little about where they were or what they were doing, but reading between the lines I got the impression they had settled somewhere.

I wondered whether they were living as mistress and maid, rich lady and companion, sisters, or lovers. Whatever, it was pretty obvious they weren’t heading home anytime soon.

But ‘identity drift’ meant I no longer cared about being trapped in life as my mother. I’d got used to being both Mrs Jones and Mrs McLaughlin. Being a woman in the eyes of the world – even a middle-aged woman – was no great hardship. It was only a few ‘little sacrifices’ after all, and as long as Annie was happy, why should I object? And as Vera had pointed out, I was very lucky in both my career and my domestic circumstances. I even managed to think of my frumpy skirt suits as the proper uniform for my job.

* * *

As she had promised, Annie bought me a pretty tennis dress and we played together as two ladies. She had been right that my prostheses handicapped me enough to offset the advantages of my masculine muscles. Even though my ungainly physique amused the spectators as I scuttled around the court, I could still cover the ground better than most females at the club – hopefully not suspiciously so.

Sadly my generous boobs – sorry, breasts – got in the way enough to completely bugger up my service action. Steve could smash down services at 100 mph, but I, Ingrid, could only roll them in, hopefully with enough spin to cause the returner some problems.

Playing tennis was important as it was virtually the only exercise I took now, apart from ballroom dancing. I could only play squash on those weekends when I was Steve and divested of my prosthetic encumbrances, but it was no fun getting slaughtered by opponents I used to beat. That was partly because I was out of practice, and partly because spending nineteen days out of every twenty-one shaped and loaded up like a plump matron completely destroyed my reactions, to say nothing of my sense of balance.

Annie called me ‘Mummy’ most of the time now, which I had got used to, but since to all intents and purposes I had become my mother, it was important to me that she didn’t forget that I was still Steve underneath – at least at bedtime and every third weekend. The real Steve appeared just often enough for no one to suspect that my wife might have killed me for my money. I was comfortable as either of my personae, but increasingly I was happier as Ingrid. She was more real to me now; Steve had become just play-acting.

I rarely joined my old friends as Steve, and when I did I found I didn’t fit in. I no longer enjoyed boozing and talking about football, and I was rubbish at video games now too. Yes, it was partly being out of practice, but mainly I just couldn’t take it seriously anymore. I found I was comparing myself – my Ingrid self – with the pneumatic damsels in distress we heroes were supposed to be rescuing. Suddenly I found the games too violent and disgracefully sexist.

Being a middle-aged lady most of the time had changed my priorities, I suppose. In fact, I found I could barely remember what Steve used to do for fun. I seemed to recall going to a lot of parties, which reminds me: we’re going to the university alumni Fancy Dress Ball again this year – as Beauty and the Beast. Annie has been experimenting with increasingly elaborate Beast prosthetics. I tried to set a limit on it. I didn’t want to wear anything too heavy, but she laughed and said that wouldn’t be my problem. My problem would be managing Belle’s elaborate ball gown, especially the corset I would have to wear to get into it…

* * *

I now played Bridge regularly with Jane Campanella and she had become a good friend. (I heard that Harriet was disgusted when someone mentioned that Jane was playing with me because she wanted to, and not because I paid her.) We entered the County Ladies Pairs that summer, qualified easily for the Final, and won the whole event. I had never aspired to be a Women’s Bridge Champion, but I was quite proud of the achievement. It certainly didn’t take me long to quash any qualms I might have had about entering. After all I was a woman now in every way that mattered. I had no unfair advantages over the other ladies by virtue of my real sex. Bridge is a cerebral, not a physical game. I would have refused to play in the England Ladies Trials though, but entry wasn’t on offer to the winners this year.

I drove us to and from Peterborough for the Finals weekend, and Jane suggested we stop for dinner on the way back at a country pub we both liked.

“Just lock the trophy in the boot,” she said. “We don’t want it stolen – at least not till we’ve engraved our names on it!”

We settled down at a quiet table in the corner and talked about some of the hands we’d played.

“I think you had more difficult decisions than I did over the three sessions,” she said, referring to the weekend’s Bridge, “and you got most of them right. I must say it’s relaxing not having to mastermind the bidding and the play to compensate for my partner’s weaknesses. That gets so exhausting!”

I allowed myself just one glass of wine, as I was driving. Jane indulged in rather more, which might explain how she came to say what she said next.

“I’m actually enjoying my Bridge again, playing with you. I haven’t really had that feeling since I broke up with Mary Jo…”

That was her American International partner. She’d mentioned the famous Mary Jo Kupperberg many times.

“…and I know I wouldn’t have won this weekend if I’d been playing with the original Ingrid. What happened to her, by the way?”

Shit! What? What?!

“I… er… I don’t know… What do you mean ‘the original Ingrid’?”

“Come on, babe, I know you’re not the same person who played with Dolly last year.” I must have looked terrified. She rushed on. “Hey, don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone. What could I tell them anyway? I don’t know which of you is the real Ingrid.”

“I’m the real Ingrid,” I insisted, and I realised that was true now.

“Yes… well… everyone else seems totally satisfied that you’re Ingrid, and you look exactly like her… exactly like her. It’s spooky, actually.”

“So what makes you think that I was a different person last year?”

I had cold chills running down my spine by now. This was the first time anyone had shown any suspicions…

“Your Bridge. Firstly, you’re a much better player than the previous Ingrid was, but also I’m trained in ‘Table Presence’. I notice people’s ‘tells’ – mannerisms, nervous habits, twitches, tics, what you look like when you’re thinking, and so on. That can be just as helpful in Bridge as in Poker.”

She took another sip of wine, pausing to gauge my reaction. I tried to remain inscrutable but my heart was pounding, the blood pumping loudly in my ears.

“The most noticeable difference is speed of play,” she went on. “I only played six hands against the other Ingrid last year, but I saw that when she didn’t know what to do, she just guessed and played quickly, like most amateurs. Having played many hours with you, I know you think much more deeply. You hate guessing, as all good players do. You count the hand – it’s surprising how many decent players don’t do that. It’s a bit of a chore but it pays dividends. Also, you look for any subtle indication as to how the cards lie, any straws in the wind, bids not made as well as ones that were, opening lead choices… All that means you play more slowly.”

She paused again, clearly expecting me to comment.

“I think maybe your ‘Table Presence’ might just have an overactive imagination,” I said.

“I don’t think so, sweetie. Look, I don’t care – as long as there’s nothing sinister going on.”

Did she just need reassurance? Could I do that without blowing everything?

“I can neither confirm nor deny your supposition,” I said, carefully and pompously, but the cat was out of the bag now.

“Fair enough, but I’ll still take that as a yes. So what should I call you? What’s your real name?”

“My real name is Ingrid,” I smiled. “I’m quite used to it now. I probably wouldn’t answer to anything else.”

It seemed she didn’t suspect that whoever the person under the disguise was, she was at least another woman!

“So what happened to the real – OK, original – Ingrid?” she asked. “Is she still alive?”

“Hell’s teeth, yes! You don’t think I killed her, do you?”

She smiled, then shrugged, but said nothing.

“No! No, this is all her idea,” I said. “She’s gone away with her ex…” (I specifically avoided saying ‘husband’.) “She’s hoping for a reconciliation, but Ingrid also needs to be here in person for our business, so I’m minding the store for her.”

“You must be a really good friend, to put your life on hold and take over hers.”

“We are… very close,” I said, “and I wasn’t giving up anything worth having.”

“Well, your disguise is amazing. How on earth do you do it? Plastic surgery?”

“Trade secret, I’m afraid. No one else has guessed. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Of course, I won’t! No one would believe me, would they? I’ve no real evidence. Anyway I want to keep playing Bridge with you. We need to find some decent teammates and enter some national events. Then the next Trials, then…”

I might have to talk her out of that. Bridge players aren’t rock stars but I still needed to stay out of even the tiniest bit of limelight.

* * *

The business continued to flourish. Annie and I were working full time. Also we had to recruit assistants for both Vera and Sharon, which wasn’t easy, particularly for Vera whose job was highly specialist, to say the least. My main concern was finding girls who understood the need for discretion. Through Daisy I managed to find a solicitor who came up with a suitably worded ‘Non-Disclosure Agreement’. One of the new girls said she didn’t realise she needed to sign the Official Secrets Act to become a hairdresser. I had to channel my mother to give her a stern look, rather than burst out laughing.

Annie’s efforts at breaking into movies were also bearing fruit. She won a contract to do make-up special effects for a new horror movie. We brought all the actors to our studio for their 3D imaging sessions, then Annie and Vera applied their prostheses on set in one of the film company’s trailers which we fitted out specially.

The Producer was very pleased, and the actors were delighted that they wouldn’t have to spend hours in make-up every day (having had to get up at four in the morning for the privilege). Fitting our prosthetics was much quicker. The downside was that they had to stay as monsters for the duration of the shoot, or two weeks, whichever was the shorter. That wasn’t satisfactory either, so Fred promised to try and find a new way of attaching prosthetics that would allow them to be removed every night. The movie hasn’t been released yet, but we’ve heard on the grapevine that Annie has a very good chance of being nominated for a BAFTA for the make-up, maybe even an Oscar.

So life was good, which of course is precisely when the unexpected happens. I was working in my office when Angie called from Reception. I quickly checked my calendar. I had no meetings planned for the rest of the day.

“I think you’d better come down, Ingrid, if you don’t mind,” Angie said apologetically. “I’ve explained to this gentleman that you don’t see anyone without a prior appointment, but he’s insistent. He says that you’ll want to meet him if I just tell you his name.”

“Which is?” I asked, sceptically.

“Treacher.”

“I’ll be right down.”

* * *

Frank Treacher turned out to be charming in person. He smiled and shook hands warmly when I stepped out into our Reception area and introduced myself. His voice was deep and refined with no trace of an accent.

I took him upstairs to my office, collecting Annie on the way. Whatever the man planned to threaten us with, my wife needed to hear it too, as a fellow Director of the company. I also asked Dolly if she could arrange some coffee and biscuits. I told her who my guest was and suggested she might bring the refreshments in herself, rather than tasking one of the junior catering staff. It might be instructive to see his reaction to meeting her properly.

“So how can we help you, Mr Treacher?” I asked when he and Annie had made themselves comfortable in my office guest chairs.

“Well, I think maybe we can help each other, Mrs Jones.”

So it was to be blackmail, was it? Anger was rising within me and must have reached my face, but my mother would not have lost her temper. She would have remained cool – frigid, in fact – so I did too. But Treacher must have read my reaction.

“A business arrangement, I assure you,” he rushed to say.

Annie and I said nothing. He took this as encouragement to continue.

“I assume from your recognition of my name, and your willingness to meet with me, that you are not unaware of my previous engagement…”

“Your hounding my grandmother, you mean?”

Annie had not been trained to maintain a stony silence when that was what was needed.

“That’s putting it a little strong, isn’t it?” he said, turning to her. “I tried never to intrude. To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether you had even spotted me.”

Annie snorted, but I suppose we might not have if George hadn’t warned us. As it was, we were onto him from the outset – not that he needed to know that now.

“But you’re satisfied there was nothing suspicious to see?” I said. “Dolly’s life was perfectly normal and innocent…?”

“Oh yes, absolutely,” he said. “How is she, by the way? I saw she had an accident. Not too serious, I trust? She was only in hospital for a couple of days, wasn’t she?”

“Indeed,” I said. “Merely for observation. A shelf collapsed and some kitchen utensils fell on her head. They just kept her in to make sure she didn’t have concussion.”

“That’s a relief,” he said. “I was terrified it might have had something to do with my following her.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Well, you can ask her yourself,” I said.

“And apologise,” Annie added.

“Come in,” I called.

Dolly came in, wheeling her trolley. The aroma of hot coffee wafted in. She saw Treacher immediately, but didn’t acknowledge him at all. He stood up.

“I think I owe you an apology, Mrs Thompson,” he began.

“Do sit down, Dolly,” I said, “and join us.”

I played waitress, pouring the coffees and passing round the biscuits, while Treacher attempted to ingratiate himself with Dolly. I thought this was ironic, given that he had never actually followed her – only me, disguised as her.

“Harriet Bairstow was my client,” he went on. “She believed there was something suspicious about your and Mrs Jones’ success at the County Ladies Pairs and engaged me to look into it. I advised her that merely following you around was very unlikely to reveal anything, but she was determined. She said that if I didn’t want to take her money she would find someone else who would. So I agreed. The private investigation business has its ups and downs, you see, and things hadn’t been going too well lately.”

He had the grace to look a little ashamed at this point. No one interrupted. We all looked at him expectantly. He paused to take a mouthful of coffee, but surrounded by three fierce, stony-faced women, he obviously felt compelled to continue.

“I kept telling Mrs Bairstow I was sure there was nothing to find, but she insisted I continue.” He turned to me. “She said she was curious about your business, Mrs Jones, and suggested I focus on that. So I started watching these premises when Mrs Thompson led me here. I eventually noticed that a lot of ordinary-looking men went in, and a disproportionate number of exotic-looking women came out.”

So that was it. This man knew enough to ruin us. It would be blackmail. Oh well, we’ve had a good run, and he certainly wasn’t going to get away with it unscathed.

“So you broke in and planted listening devices to find out more of what we do here,” I said.

He looked alarmed, as well he might.

“What? No! No, no, I…” he stuttered.

“We have video,” I said quietly. “We automatically film everything in our studios. You’re clearly recognisable, planting bugs.”

He slumped in his chair.

“I think it’s called ‘mutually assured destruction’,” Annie said. “You ruin us; you go to jail.”

“I don’t understand,” he said. “How would I ruin you? I don’t want to ruin you!”

“You couldn’t,” I said. “My daughter-in-law is exaggerating.” I gave Annie a warning look. She subsided a little. “Everything we do here is completely legal. We don’t break into other people’s houses and plant bugs. But our clients require discretion – just as a Private Investigator’s do.”

He nodded. Obviously he was beginning to understand why we had never called the police after his break-in, but he was shrewd enough to realise that was still an option.

“So, assuming Dolly is prepared to accept your belated apology…” She nodded, still managing to keep a straight face. “…perhaps you would like to explain why you’re here?”

“Well, according to my enquiries – my discreet enquiries – you have the ability to change people’s appearance; that is, to make someone look exactly like someone else…?”

He paused, obviously hoping one of us would confirm his theory. None of us spoke.

“I should stress that this is partly based on the unusual number of film stars and other celebrities who have been appearing at parties and social events in the vicinity.” Pause. No response. “Even dead celebrities.”

I suppose we should have expected something like this. Still…

“And what makes you think we have anything to do with that?” I said.

“It’s just a theory,” he smiled. “Like Mrs Bairstow’s theory that another lady – a much stronger Bridge player, begging your pardon, ma’am – might have substituted for Mrs Thompson in the County Ladies Pairs Final. Of course, there’s absolutely no evidence of either theory…”

“But?”

“…but I saw several Marilyn Monroes coming out of this very building, a Judy Garland as Dorothy, a very large Shirley Temple, and at least one Margaret Thatcher. I have photographs, which no one else need ever see, especially Mrs Bairstow, and which I will happily destroy, because if my theory is true, such a service would be of great use to me just at the moment…”

Oh now we were getting to the point. I wondered what shady deal he was wanting to involve us in.

“I doubt we can help you, Mr Treacher,” I began, but he interrupted.

“…And might help me save a life,” he added hurriedly.

What?

“What?” I said.

“There have been death threats to a local dignitary. I’ve been asked to help. It occurred to me that if you were able to disguise a skilled operative as this… dignitary…”

“He could act as a decoy, and the police – presumably aided by you – might be able to apprehend the culprit?”

(That was a phrase my mother would have used, I noticed. Steve would have said, ‘catch the bad guy’.)

“She.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The threats were made against Honoria, the Lady Mayoress, to persuade her husband to cooperate.”

“And do what?”

“No idea. I suspect it’s something to do with council contracts, or planning permission, or something. The Mayor has only told me what he thinks I need to know. He’s been to the police, of course, but he had no concrete evidence – the threat was verbal, delivered to him alone in a dark corner of a multi-storey car park. So all the cops could do was advise him on improving his home security, and maybe send a couple of extra constables along to any public functions he and his wife were due to attend.”

“So how did you get involved?” I couldn’t help asking. I was fascinated with the whole situation.

“He and I go way back. I helped him out a while ago when someone had managed to get some photographs of him with… someone he shouldn’t have been with. The family’s stinking rich, but the money’s hers, not his. He couldn’t afford a messy divorce, politically or personally. To be honest, I think he may be a bit of a crook himself.”

He stopped, hoping for a response. I needed to think. I turned to stare out of the window. I could hear Annie crunching chocolate biscuits and fidgeting.

“Supposing we were able to do what you’re asking, disguise someone as Honoria,” I began tentatively, “do you have a ‘skilled operative’ in mind?”

“Well, no, not really,” he admitted. “I’m pretty much a one-man-band, and tough lady detectives don’t grow on trees, as it were. It’s kind of an unsuitable job for a woman. Hell, it’s an unsuitable job for most men.”

Annie snorted again. Dolly laughed.

“If we were to provide such an… agent, it would be expensive,” I said.

“I imagine it would.”

“Very expensive. I mean, there would need to be – what would you call it? – danger money too.”

“Money’s not a problem,” he said confidently. “The Mayoress is frantic. So’s the Mayor, surprisingly. It wouldn’t surprise me if he would be glad to get rid of her, so I can only assume Honoria has been very careful with her will.” He chuckled.

“Let me think about it,” I said, getting to my feet, and extending my hand.

He took it. We shook.

“It’s been fascinating to meet you, Mr Treacher.”

“Frank, please. May I call you Ingrid?”

“I’ll let you know my decision by this time tomorrow,” I said, ignoring his request to be friends.

“Thank you for listening anyway,” he said. He took out his business card and placed it on the desk. “There is some urgency about this. Honoria is scared to go out.”

I accompanied him to the front door and watched as he got into a new BMW 1-series. So he’d upgraded from the little blue Fiesta. He must have made a fortune out of Harriet, even more than Jane did.

I went back up to the office. Annie and Dolly were still there, talking excitedly. They stopped when I came in, and turned to me.

“I hope you’re not thinking of doing this,” Annie began.

“It’s much too dangerous, Steven,” said Dolly.

Being called ‘Steven’ threw me for a moment. I had only been ‘Ingrid’, ‘Mrs Jones’ or ‘Mrs McLaughlin’ for weeks now.

“Honoria is tall, about my height,” I said. “She’s actually a little slimmer than I am; I mean, than my mother is.”

“You might get shot!” Annie said.

“She’s got lovely clothes,” I said dreamily. “You should have seen the frock she was wearing at the Garden Party! And her hat!”

“Or kidnapped, and then shot!” she persisted.

“It’s a lot of money – you heard him. We could practically write our own cheque.”

“You can’t do it!” Dolly said.

“Why not?” I said. “Look, you two, this girly stuff is all very well, but don’t forget there’s a man under the dresses and the lingerie and the make-up. I need a little excitement now and then. Being Ingrid has become routine. I need a new challenge.”

“You could enter some dance competitions,” suggested Annie.

“Or you could take up embroidery or crochet, now you’re so good at knitting,” suggested Dolly, who might not have been entirely serious.

“I mean a challenge beyond dancing and dressmaking. Besides…”

“Besides, what?”

“I think I’d make a great Mayoress. The Mayor may not want the real Honoria back afterwards!”

Author’s Afterword

I’ve always wondered: if you find yourself living someone else’s life, looking just like them and having to react to everything just as they would, what would that do to you? Would it stop being just an impersonation? Would their personality take you over? Would you actually become them?

This seemed to happen to Steve when he was stuck as Dolly for a month. It’s not surprising, is it? If you dress as an old lady; if you have an old lady’s face and body; if everybody – even your family and friends – treats you as an old lady; and if you spend your work and leisure time doing only things that an old lady would do… Well, it wouldn’t be surprising if you became an old lady in your mind too.

It seems to be happening to Steve even more now he is living as Ingrid, perhaps indefinitely. As a hard-working lady CEO she has no time for the frivolous pastimes Steve used to like – pub crawls, sport, video games. She even finds the “muscly barbarian rescues nubile, big-busted maiden” type of video game unsavoury and sexist – just as his mother would.

Of course, Ingrid 2.0 is a Steve-ified version of Ingrid, as shown by her desire for a new hairdo, brighter make-up, and more modern clothes (though still only ones suitable for a middle-aged matron, not a young woman of Steve’s actual age).

It sounds like she won’t miss being Steve, and would be content to be Ingrid full-time. (I wonder what would happen if she were invited to a social function over a weekend when she was supposed to be Steve? Would Steve have to skip a weekend; i.e. remove the prosthetics for hygiene purposes, then put them straight back on again?)

I also wonder whether it has occurred to Annie that she fell in love with Steve, not Ingrid. If Ingrid’s personality takes him over, how would it affect their relationship? Would she continue to see Steve underneath? Or maybe she will continue to love Ingrid 2.0 because of her fetish for transforming her husband? Talking of which, she has threatened to make him spend time as her wife. When might that happen?

The big cliff-hanger is Treacher’s offer. It sounds very much like Steve might take it. He is clearly attracted to the excitement of another transformation, not to mention the danger. Not many twenty-year-old men get the chance to be the Mayoress of their home town; to become a rich woman, with beautiful clothes, a big house, exalted status… oh, and a villainous husband too. What’s not to like? I can just see him in a posh frock declaring the village fete open, can’t you?

Happy trails,

Susannah

P.S. Coming soon: The Earl Maid