CHAPTER 16
“Maman! What am I to wear today? Can I not wear the same dress as yesterday? Elle has not seen it!”

My mother’s voice came up the stairs. “Margot has”

“Yes, but she will not---oh, my mother! You have, have you not?”

“I have done what, my sweet?”

“Asked them both back for the evening!”

She sat on the steps just upstream of the bridge. Two hours now, as the Ouse roiled and surged round the old stone and debris span in the eddies. Soon, perhaps, the flood markers in the pub downstream would need another notch, and the gardens to her right would be submerged. Winter rains, winter floods, who gave a shit, really? All part of a world she had tried to engage with, that had spurned every attempt she had made to join. The light was fading slowly on a miserably grey and washed out February afternoon, and as it went, so would she. There was only so much strength given to a person, she thought, and when that was gone, so were they.

CHAPTER 58
“What next? I suggest we prepare some sort of announcement”

I looked at him, wondering if he meant that I should make a tour of the various offices and cubicles. He was typing, though.

“I am drafting an e-mail for general distribution, and I am going to add a reminder that the Department has some very strict rules on diversity and equality, not to mention bullying. Here is my position, Mi…ss Carter. I do not like this at all. This is disruptive and abnormal, but I am as bound by the rules as any other staff member. I will not, CAN not, offer you my best wishes, but I can assure you that the niceties and the rules will be respected. Do we understand each other?”

CHAPTER 13
What can I say about that year? It was truly a rebirth, as Sophie emerged into the world almost as the Venus of Botticelli. I simply wore more clothing than the goddess in the painting.

CHAPTER 12
That term continued, and my friends became closer. The late Summer soon gave way to gales up the Manche, and the leaves span off the trees and into piles of awkward mulch on the footpaths. Serge had disappeared into a past that felt to me sometimes as if I was watching some elderly motion picture, sepia and silent. Sophie, she was here and now, and in laughing colour. My breasts, no longer ‘teats’ but true breasts, were slowly emerging from their lair in my chest. I do not mean to say that I suddenly developed attributes to match my age, but that it was no longer a case of a sensitive pair of nipples but of a true cushion forming behind them. If only one thing could withdraw from view as others appeared.

CHAPTER 54
They flew down in the end, and it was a serious crowd at the airport. Rachel and Larinda did the driving, as well as the accommodation, but in the end I had given up on the idea of having so many people around one table and booked a corner of the Dysentery, the inevitable nickname of the Dynasty Chinese restaurant. Will had called a favour in from a friend, a pretended sleepover, and would be on the train for the meal. Mats, sleeping bags, spare beds, we finally found enough nooks to fit everyone in, helped by that fact that several were sharing.

CHAPTER 10
The meal was, of course, superb, for that is where my mother keeps her strength, or at least part of it. There was also the strength she showed every day, in her love and support of her new daughter, but it was in the kitchen where she shone.

CHAPTER 9
And school days passed, until the weekend came, and each day began with the assembly of what was becoming, for me, a type of second family. We girls would meet on the bus, tease and be teased, and pass comment on everything from the colour of a teacher’s hair to the particular gifts and failings of boys.

CHAPTER 52
They weren’t that noisy, in the end, but I found Rachel slightly out of sorts the next morning. I had just filled the kettle to do my wifely duties, and she joined me in the kitchen. Her hair was all over the place and, to be blunt, she really needed a shower, but there was a slight edge to her expression.

“You OK, Rach?”

CHAPTER 7
September came, and the new school year was there in wait for me. I was actually impatient, because despite my most careful inspection, the drugs Maman had secured for me did not appear to be doing anything at all. What had worked, or was at least beginning to, was the careful attention she had paid to those few hairs that were starting to appear on my face.

CHAPTER 6
It was indeed a wonderful Summer, but it had to end with the return of the August people and the imminent opening of the new school year. Everything had changed for me, and it was a delight. Our neighbours, the new ones, had only seen me as that tall and bony girl who had moved in with her mother and the big policeman, and the local shopkeepers treated me as just one more woman doing the morning bread run.

CHAPTER 4
In the end, the fear got to me. It had been a rush, leaving the old place with a chest, and it was a delight to be dressed so beautifully in the hypermarket, but the closer Roland’s little car got to our flat the more nervous I became, till I begged him to stop so that I could change. I was so frightened that I insisted it be done behind a hedge on a side road, and when I returned, in scruffy jeans and baskets, as Maman had described them, and flat in front, I felt as if a door was closed, slammed in my face. She saw, and had a tissue ready for my tears almost before they fell.

CHAPTER 49
“Hiya James. You are James and you are my friend, aye?”

He smiled, which was always a highlight of my life. Karen saw, and smiled with him.

“Out in the open, Jill?”

“Aye, for today. Brought the support crew, like, but it is still a little off. We sort of thought London, you know, all used to seeing oddities, all strangers. Just wanted…”

CHAPTER 2
And he sat there, and sat there. Not a word, for at least five minutes, which seemed an age, and I wondered what he would do. He was my big brother, the man who took up Papa’s torch when he dropped it in the mud. He drew a long, soughing breath.

“Does anyone else know?”

PART 3
Geoff explained our idea, with Eric’s help. The former looked across to me, frowning.

“I only learned some of this to try and keep up with Steph. If it’s talking about bits of bikes, I’m fine. This is something else”

Janet came in at that point, and Pat took her aside, putting away his mobile. I watched her face as he spoke, and each little nugget of Roland’s story led to a definite reaction on her face, culminating in an expression I found deeply scary. I had had my doubts about Janet’s agenda when we first met, but she had proven true to her declared position, and the change in Pat’s mood had been profound. This was something new from her; this was rage. She caught my gaze, and her jaw set. There was a sharp nod, an affirmation of our common cause, and she was gone again. Pat returned to the table.

“PIE! Get off my bloody face!”

The bastard dog was sat right on my chin, and even though most of his body was on my chest his smelly rear was just under my nose, tail swishing across my face. Jim’s voice filtered through the black and white fur that blocked my vision.

“Down, Pie! Sorry, Dad”

CHAPTER 46
I thrashed a little in the morning, trying to get the nightdress to ride down rather than up. I don’t know why, but every time I wore one it ended up around my waist. Nothing to do with Larinda’s designs on my body; simply some odd set of mechanics at work.

CHAPTER 45
Larinda’s head lay on my shoulder as the twin prop droned South, Rachel snoring gently across the aisle of the half-full plane. We had seen Will off on his own flight home, and there had been tears on all sides. I fully understood how he was feeling, for while I had found acceptance both at home and where I lived, he only had us anywhere near him, and one brief glimpse of the promised land to show him what could or might be.

CHAPTER 43
They were soon back, and John went for the throat, as if he had been weighing it up as the other two flirted.

“Will, where’s your Mam from?”

“Valleys, up around Ponty, that area”

“In English? Bit more detail?”