CHAPTER 11
I’d already met the neighbours, though. I was riding down to the surgery, not being driven, so it was a little difficult to stay in stealth. Anyway, I’d had more than enough of wearing binders. It was only drizzling on Tuesday morning, so I was in basic cycling tights, winter jacket and fleece hat rather than full-on waterproofs, which meant my shape was rather obvious. As I pulled down the garage door, I saw Thelma Moran dumping a rubbish sack into her wheely bin. No way out.

“Morning, Thelma!”

“Harry… you came back a bit burnt round the edges, then”

“Yeah. Bloody hot out there”

“You…”

She turned to check that the bin lid was down properly, then launched straight into things.

“What’s going on?”

“Sorry?”

“Skirts, Harry. And…”

A wave of her hand towards my chest.

“Boobs. Boobs and skirts and pink hats. Larry was asking if you were some sort of perve, or whether… What’s going on?”

I shook my head.

“Nothing bad, love. Trust me. Now, I need to go, doctor’s appointment, but will you be in later?”

“Mary gone away?”

“No. Term time now. I can stop in for a chat if you want, when I’m back”

“Please, Harry. And… Oh, I’ll see you later”

I clicked into my pedals to ride off, and all the way to the surgery and through the stabbing I was fretting about her direction. I stopped into a supermarket to pick up some chocolate biscuits, as well as two pizzas for the evening meal and another pack of nude tights, then started the ride back, my elbow lightly sore from the needle. A knock at the Moran’s door, slip off my cleats and hang up my jacket, and she was almost ready to pour tea.

“Picked up some choccy bics, just in case”

“That’ll be nice. Harry, or do I call you something else now?”

I slumped a little in my armchair.

“Ellie, Thelma. Short for Elspeth”

“I’d heard that. I’d also heard it was from Ellison”

“I lie badly”

“I know. You also don’t always keep your bedroom curtains properly closed”

“Oh shit”

“Basically, yes. I’ve been trying to work it out for a long while”

She sat back in her chair, her expression unreadable, at least to my eyes.

“I knew someone once, Harry. When I was a lot younger, before I met Larry. He liked my wardrobe. I haven’t told my husband this, so please treat it as in confidence”

“Of course”

“This man, I caught him pleasuring himself one day, wearing some of my underwear. It was an experience that left me feeling soiled, not just the mess he made on my tights. Mary is a friend; if this is the same, then I need to know, and I will do my level best to get her away from you, or rather you away from her. Do you understand that?”

I couldn’t speak, so just nodded, and she took another mouthful of tea, as well as picking up a biscuit.

“As I said, Mary is a friend, and I will not see her hurt. On the other hand… I was watching the two of you as you left the other day, with your friends. In women’s clothes. Who was the man with those very blue eyes?”

She must use bloody binoculars.

“Friends of ours, Greg and his wife Sandy”

“They seemed to take you at, I don’t know, face value? Mary was holding your hand, too. Where were you going?”

“A social evening for my work”

“Right. So this isn’t what I feared, then. Just a different sort of worry. You are one of these trans people, then”

I could do no more than nod, which brought a hint of a smile.

“You poor sods, both of you. Hormones?”

That wave at my chest yet again, and I confirmed that as the reason for my sore arm.

“Blood test, Thelma. Doc Kumar is being very attentive”

“Not exactly surprised, Ellie. Bit more interesting than ‘I’ve just got this rash’ and flu jabs. Refill?”

She was Mother once again, then looked at me sharply as my hair flopped forward over my shoulders.

“I have been waiting for something like this for a while, Ellie, some hint as to which of the two sides you fell on. I still have my doubts, you must understand. I need an agreement from you, for now”

“What do you mean?”

“I feel… I’ve always trusted you, ever since you two moved in. Good neighbours are a gift. I tend towards believing your side of this, but I still have some very unpleasant memories. Now, I may decide to confront Mary directly, I may wait for her to speak to me. Either way, please let her tell her story without you preloading it”

“We haven’t spoken, then?”

“We haven’t spoken. These are lovely biscuits, by the way. Do tell me about Australia”

I spent a couple of hours with her, accessing some of my pictures via my phone, before taking my bike back to our garage. I changed into a loose T-shirt and jogging bottoms before starting to slice and dice a mixed salad from what was in the fridge. Mary came in the door at quarter to five, muttering darkly about some child or other, and I kept my silence about Thelma Moran.

It became a routine once again, as Mary went out each morning for work, I sat at my laptop with refreshments close by, and worked steadily through sets of accounts as said refreshment slowly cooled, forgotten. I am sure I put in more hours working from home than I usually did when office-based, but I didn’t care. My first three weeks back from the other side of the world shot by, until I felt that I really needed to get back in with the others as our deadlines started to tighten up.

It was pretty much a non-event, in the end. I loaded my panniers, as I always had, with some ‘civvy’ clothes and basic toiletries, rode to work, and changed. The only difference, of course, was that the clothes I changed into each day were a skirt or a dress. The shock-horror aspect seemed to have been dealt with on that social evening at the Hart, and besides, everyone was so busy there was minimal time for gossip. The one good thing was that our bosses, in a burst of eco-greenness or something, had decided years before to encourage cycling, and so I had a shower cubicle to use as a changing room.

Mary was almost always home before me, which was nice, right up until, “Thelma Moran had a word, Ellie”

Oh.

“No easy way to put this. She basically asked if this was sort of the real you, or if you were just another knicker-wearing wanker”

I couldn’t work out which way she was going, till she laughed happily.

“So I says you’re no wanker, not diving into my wardrobe, and now I can’t help remembering that chat we had”

“Eh?”

“You told me you hadn’t been in my wardrobe, and then, well, we sort of made it ‘our’ wardrobe, anyway”

“Time for my confession then---No! Not that! Thelma made me promise not to tell you, but that’s past, and secrets are corrosive”

“What is it?”

“When I had that blood test, she grilled me. Made me promise to let you give your side of things without me hovering or prompting”

“Keeping secrets…”

“It isn’t right, I know, but, well, just this once”

“Twice”

“Sorry?”

“About who you are, love. Can’t really think of a bigger lie than that one”

She looked down at her lap, then up again, once more locked on my eyes.

“Both a bit understandable, I suppose. At least we confirmed one thing, and that was that our vows were absolutely true. That’s what I’m clinging to, love”

Another surprising burst of laughter.

“Did she really talk to you about some bloke splashing it all over her tights?”

“She did”

“Well, how about we both take our tights off and make a mess of the bed, love?”

All I will say is that my wife seemed to be getting fonder and fonder of my chest. I had no complaints.

Work continued to get more frenetic as the weeks started counting down, which left me sitting on my bike one morning trying to work out how we had arrived in March without my remembering February. The toilet issue had died a rapid death, it seemed, and each day I sat there in dress or skirt seemed to bring another slight increase in acceptance. I was almost living the dream, it seemed, apart from the workload. I was dreaming in Excel and spreadheets in general, and I am sure I was apportioning in my sleep.

March turned into April, windows and doors of opportunity slammed, and we had the Morans over for tea.