Just then the telephone rang, making the ache in her head focus to a sharper pain.
‘Hello.’
‘So, you’re awake then.’
‘What do you want?’ She asked impatiently.
‘I can’t believe you made me sleep on the couch last night. You behaved like a total nutcase. It’s always the same with you isn’t it? I try my best and you always want more.’
Here we go. He’s had enough and he’s going to dump me, another one for the list of time wasters.
‘Sorry if I want a lot from a relationship, but I’m not into shagging around.’
‘I wouldn’t start if I were you, you know what I meant. What was last night all about anyway?’
‘It’s not just last night. It’s just that now I feel like you’re gonna clear off and leave and that you might go off me. If you don’t feel the same I’d rather you just said so and buggered off.’
‘Same as what? As you? Course I do. I keep telling you I’m nuts about you.’
‘If you say that once more I’ll stab you to death. It’s what people say at school when they’re twelve.’
‘So what is it you want me to say then? What am I supposed to do?’
‘That’s just it, you don’t know do you? Trouble is I’m not sure I do either. Ring me when you’ve thought about it.’
She replaced the receiver on the base unit and decided to go back to bed and sulk with her cup of coffee. She loved Jack so much, but she had to be sure he wanted her as much.
Half an hour later the doorbell rang. Annoyed, she threw on her robe and stamped her way to the front door.
‘I love you. Loads. I am in love with you. I love everything about you. Even your big hair and that grumpy look on your face, your frankly awful feet and that night-before-smell you have. Katie, I’ve loved you for ages, I thought that was obvious. You keep on behaving like a mental patient and I keep on coming back, so stop it. Everything will be okay if you just get a grip.’
‘Good morning to you to,’ she said with a devious smile, ‘And I don’t smell and what’s wrong with my feet?’
Jack followed her inside and they sat in the living room where he’d slept the night before.
‘I’ve got a bag in the car too.’
‘Why, you going somewhere?’
‘Here I hope. If that’s what you want. Can you stand me all day every day?’
‘Do you mean that?’ Katie studied him for signs that he was winding her up.
‘If you want commitment from me and proof of how I feel then I’ll do whatever it takes to convince you. Plus I can keep an eye on you should there be any unwelcome callers. I love you so much that I hate leaving anyway and I’m here most nights as it is so if you wanted me to…’
‘Shut up rambling,’ she said, flinging both arms around him. ‘Of course I want you here. It would be perfect. Do you really then?’
‘What?’
‘Love me?’
‘Oh yes. Lots.’
‘Oh that’s a relief I thought it was just me.’
‘What?’
‘That loved you. I’m glad it’s mutual.’
‘Are we sorted then? Are you sure now?’
‘Yeah, but there is one more thing,’ she added coyly.
‘What now?’ He sighed.
‘I feel all grubby from last night and perhaps I do smell a little bit. Could you possibly come and help me get clean all over in our bath?’
‘Our bath eh? Lead the way. I’m feeling a bit dirty myself.’
‘Excellent. Then you can do absolutely anything you like to me.’
* * * * * *
Rhia awoke and rolled to her right to be confronted by a sleeping Ben, his nose slightly larger than normal with a small cut on the bridge, his eyes blackened and swollen. She smiled, hardly able to stop herself reaching out to touch him. This felt so right to her, to be here with him, so perfect, the ever so slight swelling of her stomach a growing reason why she hadn’t been. She hoped he wouldn’t wake just yet because he’d probably want her to leave; he’d been drunk and confused when he’d asked for her. Now he’d be sober and embarrassed when he saw himself in the mirror. He wouldn’t want her here.
She slipped out of bed and crept downstairs, walking around, looking at objects that were once so familiar, she’d forgotten some of them were even here. She picked up a picture of herself and Ben two Christmases ago taken at his parents house. They were wearing party hats and kissing under a huge sprig of mistletoe hanging above them. She smiled at the memory, looking around the room. It smelled the same, the things were the same, but somehow it didn’t seem like hers anymore, it had been so long since she’d lived here with him.
‘Morning you.’
She spun around and caught her breath. ‘Ben, shit you made me jump. How do you feel?’
‘Like I lost,’ he replied flatly. ‘I wondered where you’d gone.’
‘Just nosing around, I haven’t been in here for a while.’
‘I’m glad you’re here, you can make the coffee while I have a shower. I feel horrible.’
‘Ben.’ He turned back to face her. ‘I’m sorry. For all of it. And I know it doesn’t matter, but I still love you. I think I’d forgotten how much until last night. I was watching you sleep and… Oh I don’t know, it was just…’
He smiled at her. ‘I know. It was right.’
She made the coffee and waited for him to come downstairs from the shower. Minutes later he appeared, cleaner and fresher, the cuts and bruises prominent.
‘Your phone beeped while I was upstairs. It better not be Steve or…’
‘Why would he bother? There’s nothing left for him to say. He’s probably taken that transfer by now anyway.’
She took the phone from him, her hand shaking. She sighed with relief.
‘Just a message from Jen. Christ, she’s moving to London with her bloke. I’ll have to ring her later.’
They sat, looking at each other. She wanted to hold him in her arms and never let go, but she didn’t dare.
‘I feel a bit better now. I was in such a mess last night. I couldn’t get you out of my head. I wanted you so much but I couldn’t bring myself to call you. Then I was so confused when I got outside and I said your name first and you came.’
‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
‘You knew I would.’
‘I’m glad you did. It was nice to have you here.’
‘And now?’
‘What?’
‘What about now? Is it nice to have me here now?’
‘It always was. My feelings never changed. They won’t change.’
‘After everything?’
‘In spite of it all.’
What about…’ She paused, touching a hand to her gently rounded stomach. ‘What about the baby?’
He sighed and looked down at the mug in his hand. ‘I know it’s far from ideal, but it is what I wanted, to be a dad I mean, to have a family. I don’t know if it’ll be okay either, but I’m willing to try.’
Rhia remained silent for several moments, then looked up at him, suddenly struck by a thought.
‘Why didn’t you say something? All this time. Why did you pretend you were okay?’
‘I didn’t want to admit I missed you. I wanted you to think I was alright after what you did.’
‘Oh Ben,’ she said, moving to sit next to him. ‘We’re not at school anymore, there’s no need to try and impress anybody. I wanted to see you so many times and I didn’t dare because I thought you hated me, that you didn’t love me.’
‘I told you, my feelings never changed.’
Again they were silent; absorbing what had been said, taking occasional mouthfuls of coffee.
‘I’d like to come home,’ Rhia said finally, ‘If you want me to.’
Ben looked at her, a slightly surprised expression on his face. ‘Of course I do,’ he answered, ‘I thought you already had.’
; Extract from All the fun of the Fair, available now for Kindle
Number Seventy-Three
Gerald Grimman didn’t consider himself to be different from anybody else. He’d realised in his early teens that he wasn’t the type of boy to whom girls were generally attracted. He wasn’t tall, athletic, particularly clever, witty or good looking. In fact he was quite short and, in his teens, was enveloped by a generous layer of puppy fat.
Throughout his school years Gerald had been fairly anonymous, leaving aged sixteen to manoeuvre from one college course to the next until all options for further study were exhausted. It was then, in his early twenties, that Gerald was unable to further avoid gainful employment and found work of a mundane nature doing something nonspecific in an office. He proved himself adept at both filing and boiling a kettle and over a period of years worked his way up from Trainee, to Assistant, to Senior, despite his having no real clue as to the worth of the tasks he completed each day. That, Gerald assumed, would be that. He would work until he retired and then live out his days in a Care Home until his death. Then, as Gerald entered his forties, his grandparents died suddenly.
This in itself was not unduly upsetting. Gerald’s grandparents were both approaching their 90th year and had enjoyed full lives with barely a day of illness between them. For years they’d maintained the use of a car, adamant in the face of suggestions that they were too old to be safe behind the wheel, citing their need for independence.
They regularly drove the length and breadth of the country on spur of the moment excursions and weekends away, preferring even to drive to a local supermarket for a pint of milk rather than walk to the nearest corner shop.
It was, then, considered ironic yet somehow fitting that Gerald’s grandmother be killed by her husband driving over her as he reversed the car from the garage. Feeling a thud but not hearing her scream, he exited the car to find his wife’s dead body trapped beneath the vehicle. He promptly collapsed from a heart attack and the couple were found by a neighbour, side by side, the car engine purring gently next to them, as if the vehicle was somehow watching over them.
This unfortunate episode proved timely for Gerald and the benefits were twofold. Being their only grandchild Gerald could do no wrong in the eyes of his grandparents and, what with relations being strained between them and Gerald’s parents owing to a comment made two decades earlier about Gerald’s father not being first choice for their daughter, Gerald suddenly found he had inherited two adjoining houses in Morecambe.
This immediately solved Gerald’s accommodation problem and he was finally able to move out of his parent’s house – his meagre salary proving prohibitive to buying a pad of his own – and into number seventy-three Westminster Road (much to the relief of his long suffering father and to the disappointment of his mother who loved having her only son under the same roof).
The second benefit took a little longer to realise and was brought about by Gerald’s eagerness to avoid getting any job which might possibly be classed as a career rather than simply a means to an end. With money he’d saved by living at home for so long, Gerald was able to procure the services of a solitary tradesman to help convert the two houses (number seventy-three in which Gerald planned to live and number seventy-five next door) into a number of flats and, over further months, gradually let them. To say this conversion was to a minimal standard was something of an understatement but it provided a steady, if unremarkable, source of income. It also allowed Gerald all the free time he needed to indulge his other passions, one of which was snooping into the lives of others, the other being transvestisism.
Gerald’s story, so far as he knew from speaking to other transvestites, was unremarkable and this is why he didn’t consider himself to be any different from anyone else, aside from the fact that he liked to dress as a woman.
His first memory of feeling out of place was aged eleven. Gerald, along with his small group of friends, had begun to notice and discuss girls; how pretty, or not, they were and so on. As far as he knew, his feelings were the same as any other boy approaching puberty. Over the following months Gerald began to think increasingly about girls and it was soon the case that, regardless of which topic he and his classmates began to discuss, girls became the focus of all conversations.
It was around this time that Gerald first became aware of a difference between himself and his friends. While their talk was growing increasingly explicit, even animal in its content, Gerald found his feelings were of respect and a level of admiration for his female classmates and women in general. There was one female teacher in particular – Miss White the maths teacher – whose short yet trim body shape, subtle make-up and bold coloured, very feminine clothes were especially attractive to Gerald. He also took a keen interest in the way she wore her hair and privately marvelled at the volume she achieved.
Gerald was an only child and as such his only access to women’s clothing was via his mother. Although far from ideal Gerald tried on various pairs of his mother’s knickers and stockings, even wearing them to school on days when there wasn’t any PE or swimming classes. In the evenings, or more usually at weekends, Gerald also experimented with his mother’s make-up, comparing and contrasting the rather limited colour selection to suit his own skin tone.
Throughout secondary school this secret dressing was Gerald’s sole outlet for his feelings as he could not possibly share the secret with his parents and was certain that he’d be ostracised, ridiculed, even bullied, if his secret was exposed at school.
As this addiction to wearing women’s clothes developed so too did Gerald’s desire to dress as a female from head to toe. One weekend, using a wig purchased from a charity shop and by stuffing toilet paper down his mother’s bra to form breasts, Geraldine was born.
Unfortunately for young Gerald, owing to the constraints of living at home with his parents, the chances to dress were limited to whenever he was alone in the house. As such, when he inherited and subsequently moved into number seventy-three Westminster road, Gerald was quick to indulge himself.
Already adept at shaving and trimming his body hair, Gerald was now free to buy more fashionable clothes and make-up; he even treated himself to a few wigs in more flattering styles than the one from the charity shop.
The first time Gerald dressed and saw himself in the new full length mirror he’d bought as a treat he was stunned. Instead of a slightly pudgy, pale faced young man he saw a woman looking back. He felt vibrant and completely alive but, more than this, he felt utterly comfortable.
Such was the novelty and thrill of his new sense of freedom that Geraldine remained in full dress for a month after moving into his new home, only returning to being Gerald to shop and when he needed to meet the workman regarding the conversion of the houses.
On the face of it, after almost a decade of wandering through life, directionless and his desires kept secret, Gerald’s life was now close to perfect. Owing to the death of both grandparents – killed by that which they loved the most, their car – Gerald now had his own house and a source of income from the flats. He was also free to dress as Geraldine anytime he pleased. But it did not alter the fact that he was lonely.
Now in his fifties, Gerald was all but resigned to his life. He was a member of a number of transvestite clubs and societies and enjoyed an active, often hectic, social life. His feminine style had matured with age but he still experienced the same thrill from dressing as he had that very first time as a teenager.
But he’d never had a proper girlfriend, had never moved in circles where he might expect to meet a suitable woman. His friends were almost exclusively other transvestites, his only other interaction being the occasional exchanges with his tenants, although Gerald was largely indifferent towards them. The only exception to this being old Mrs Hird, his longest serving tenant and the only one for whom he felt any genuine affection.
Gerald had just finished trying on his new outfit, a floor length Venetian lace gown slashed to the thigh, which he p
lanned to wear to the forthcoming ‘Tv Dinner’ being held at a luxury hotel in Harrogate when he would become Geraldine for two whole days of drinking, dancing and who knew what. The dress had cost nearly one hundred pounds from a shop in town and, although he wasn’t convinced the assistant believed it to be for his girlfriend, Gerald didn’t care because the gown looked spectacular, especially with the matching shoes.
He was just hanging the gown at the back of the wardrobe and contemplating relaxing in a bath plenteous in various oils, when his peace was fractured by someone pounding on the front door. It was Mrs Hird, the Bag Lady, in her youth a singer, dancer and all round show girl now a lonely old lady who lived by the seaside. Gerald had often thought it was a shame how life panned out for people. Certainly he felt sorry for Mrs Hird. Fearful that she would either break the glass with her walking stick, or have a stroke in the hall, Gerald dashed to the door.
‘Ah, there you are Grim-man.’ The old lady’s genuine cockney accent still in evidence although she hadn’t lived in London for nearly fifty years.
‘It’s Grimman.’
‘There’s water in me bathroom.’ Mrs Hird said, though she pronounced the word as barfroom.
‘Well, Mrs Hird, there would be, surely.’ Gerald replied patiently.
‘Coming from the ceiling though ain’t it, bloody great load of it.’
‘Oh right. Bugger.’
‘It’s ‘im upstairs, there’s music an’ all.’
‘Christ. Okay Mrs Hird, I’ll have a word with him.’
Gerald didn’t particularly like Alfie, the resident of the flat above Mrs Hird. He appeared taciturn and unobtrusive, as if hiding something, which aroused suspicion in the landlord. But then, Gerald didn’t particularly care for any of his tenants and, even though he was fond of Mrs Hird, the images from the origination of her Bag Lady nickname still regularly filled his nightmares.
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