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Encounter. By Tanya H. A Do you remember that long, warm, dry summer nine years ago? All those stories about tarmac melting and railway lines buckling, those wildfires up on the moors near Leeds? Even now I still dream of the heatwave's last day, when the weather broke and the thunder rushed flashfloods through valleys and streets all over. The dream comes with HD clarity and even though I know what's going to happen I can't stop it remorselessly playing back. I'm back in my van bawling along to Elvis aint Dead by Scouting for Girls, high on life, chucking the van into the bends on some hedge lined B-road in the arse end of Gloucestershire. There's a joy of parcels in the back and the next one set for some guy a mile and a half away, according to the Satnav. I wonder if he ever got that package. I hurtle around another bend - offside, 3rd gear nice and smooth - and there she is, half sitting on the overgrown footpath by a break in the hedge. Young girl, dark skinned, black haired, mouth open in pain, clutching at one ankle. It looked like she was in a school uniform - black pullover, skirt, tights, shoes; white shirt and a purple tie. Masses of thick black hair partially hide her face, but can't conceal the hurt. And there's nobody else in sight. No cars behind. No sign that some speeding bellend has over-cooked the corner and tumbled into the field throwing her out. Just me, my van and the injured girl. I never did found out how she'd ended up there. Should have driven on. What kind of man would that have made me? Should have phoned for help and then driven on. But, there are too many bastards in the world for that; bastards who would love to find a pretty girl, vulnerable on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. So I stand on the brakes, put on my hazard lights, back up to where she was, stick my truck on the verge. All the time wishing for another car to appear - somebody who take on the responsibility I had just accepted; maybe even an ambulance, LIVES responder. Even a bloody copper would have been better than nothing. "Hey up, love. Okay. Can you hear me? I've got a first aid kit in the cab. My name's Colin, what's yours?" She just cries! Boy, does that noise screech down my nerves, right down to the bit inside my head that's hardwired to help kids; you know that place? She cries and sobs and snot runs from her nose and tears from her eyes. Only mumbles and snatches of letters can get through all that upset. "It's going to be okay, love. I'll get you an ambulance. Where's your Mum and Dad, eh? Are they close, are they hurt too?" "Hurts," she says, gulping down a sob. I'm close enough to see how badly swollen her right ankle was. Her tights were torn over the swelling, blood welled from a slash in her dark skin. Dusty soil coated her sensible shoes, grass seeds were caught in her tights, like she'd been in a hedge bottom. Now I've got a problem haven't I? That rain we've all be wishing for is coming; hammerhead piles of thunderous cumulo-nimbus are muscling up towards me and the rain is a grey curtain only a mile or so away. We're going to get piss-wet through in a few minutes. But Garry Glitter, all those priests, football coaches, care workers and other paedos are telling me that a big bloke like me carrying some girl, no more than 12, 13, 14, is going to open himself to a world of pain. I need to be careful, to protect myself against allegation, suggestion, rumour. People's lives have been ruined. But I couldn't leave her there, storm's coming. So I had to help her up, put my arm around her to take her weight - careful not to let my fingers touch her. And all the time I'm helping her to the air-conditioned paradise of my van not a single bloody car goes past - if I had stopped in that field opening for a piss there would have been endless, gawping bus trips trundling past. "Thank you," she sniffs. "Thank you." She smells of sweat and spices. I get her up into the van, into the passenger seat, just as the first fat drops of summer rain started thumping the windscreen. I clamber into the driver's side and unlock my phone ready to phone the cops. "Thank you," she says and some thickening resonance in her voice draws my attention to her. What beautiful eyes she has. Big and brown and deep and wonderful and drawing me in and in and in until ... That's when I always wake up. Sometimes I'm screaming. B Last time I'd seen him he'd worn a beard, thick and glossy, vigorous and lively. I'd believed it had suited him. This clean shaven look was not one I'd seen on him for some time - how long? Grey was showing at his temples, though his hair was not yet receding the way his dad's had and he had grown it long and thick enough to make a reasonable ponytail gathered from the nape of his neck. It gave him the look of a trendy teacher, or social worker. Was it really nine years? I did the maths - it was, nine years (almost to the month) since my van, and much much more, had been stolen. Nine years is a long time; people change, memories dull. You might say all those things, raise your eyebrows and question my certainty, but the adrenaline firing my belly, the hairs spiking my skin, my fingers clenching into fists said I was right. It is him. I'd know him anywhere. Around me, the hotel lobby is busy with the evening's check-ins and folk gathering for the restaurant. In the angry rush of recognition all that was closed out until only he and I are left. Even my own anxiety about the forthcoming dinner date, that had been making it exceptionally difficult for me to sit still, is eclipsed by this ghost. Before I can think I'm on my feet - instinct? Fight or flight? I watch him walk casually to the reception desk, lay down his small case and look expectantly towards the receptionist. She's on the phone and acknowledges him with a small wave and a practiced smile. He nods, cool, confident - at ease. I like his suit, understated and well fitting. He clearly looks after himself, none of the pot bellies so common amongst the males around me. Very trim, for a middle-aged bloke. He will be forty-nine on October the 14th - each year I write him a birthday card then post it into a bin. I must confront him. I will walk over there and look him in the eye, face up to him and hit him hard with what I know. The words rise into my throat, I take a step and then another. He sees me! Those brown eyes, more wrinkles at their corner than I remember, touch mine for a moment - I dare myself to hold them. Nothing. He looks away, not even a quiver of recognition, back to the receptionist, taps his fingers on the counter with gentle impatience. Why should he recognise me? I am nobody to him. Another step, I need to hear his voice, I want to see the pores in his skin, that chicken pox scar at his temple. One step, then another, thoughtlessly leaving my handbag and portfolio on the sofa, I am utterly focussed on him, like a cat with a sparrow. Until I leave the carpet around the easy chairs and my spike heel clicked conspicuously on the tiles near the reception desk. He looks again. The same way most men do when they hear that click. I almost freeze, like being caught in the act of doing something expressly forbidden. Heat fills my cheeks and for the first time in many years I am self conscious, stupidly self-conscious, of who I'd become. But I make myself walk to the desk, to stand near him - close enough that I could reach over and brush that fluff from his jacket's sleeve. "Hello," he says, sociably. Voice is deep and mellow, though not as I remembered it. A salt droplet trickles down between my shoulder blades, though the hotel lobby is cool. "Hi," I mumble. I snatch at a slip of paper, bearing the hotel wifi code, and hurry back to my handbag with the sick premonition that I'm about to fall off my heels, tear my skirt or somebody will point and laugh and jeer, "Man!" My hands are trembling slightly when I pick out my phone and make myself check the messages. Just one, from Chloe - miss you. Enough to tease a little smile. "Tabitha! You look like you've seen a ghost." I almost flinch out of my skin, but it's only Tony - thin, stooped, creased, old. My boss. "You okay?" He looks concerned, sits stiffly beside me. I try another smile, feels false. Nod a little. "Miles away, sorry. Thought I saw somebody I knew. From ages ago." The words come in a rush, falling over each other; as though I had to explain myself to him. "Are you ready?" he wonders. "The taxi's outside." Another nod. I need a moment, but a moment can't be had. This is important, a big deal for both of us; a new client, bigger profile. Tony smiles, encouraging. Is my lipstick okay? Too late. I'll check when I get there. I try not to stare when we get up and head for the revolving doors, but that man is now deep in conversation with the receptionist. That man! Of all the hotels in all the world I have to be in the one to be confronted with Him. The man I used to be. C At a fashionable, very modern curry house on the edge of the city, about a ten minute ride from the hotel, Tony and I met the client, Mr Singh. He looks fat and sounds Indian, wearing a very smart suit and good shoes. He speaks slowly and clearly, and does not stare at my chest so I quite like him. As we wait for poppadoms and pickles I tug self-consciously at my hem, wish I had worn trousers and try not to be too hand-wringing anxious as he examines my portfolio. Tony had helped me put it together. As much as this award will be a big boost to his company, he has shown an avuncular interest in my development, ever since I came as an intern and much of this is for me. If we get the contract he will make me a partner, he has all but said so - despite his other partner having reservations about my apparent age of twenty six. "This is fine work, Miss Kowalksi," says the client, setting my portfolio aside carefully. He has already made a light comment about the apparent disconnect between my appearance and name. I am often asked why an apparently Asian woman, my genetic background is predominantly Benghali with a post-war confusion of added Irish, should have a name like Tabitha Kowalski. The easy answer is because I was allowed to choose my new identity, within certain parameters. Tabitha is for a cat I'd loved when I was living with my Grandparents, when Dad had been in hospital: Tabitha the Tabby we called her, though she was jet black with amber eyes. Kowalski is for my Grandpa. He'd jumped into Arnhem with the Polish Parachute Brigade. Though he came back Stefan Kowalski hadn't, after diving to take a bullet meant for Grandpa. "Imaginative, passionate," says Mr Singh confidently. "Remarkable from one so young." Only me and a very secretive part of the Ministry of Defence know exactly how old I really am - forty-nine; the same age as the man I used to be: the man in the hotel lobby - Colin Jameson. He won't go by that name now, utterly forbidden in the same way I wouldn't have been allowed to call myself Pradeepta Chatterji. "I think we should work together on my project," says Mr Singh. He has white and even teeth, seems to enjoy showing them in a smile. He shakes my hand, then Tony's "We should have a drink, don't you think?" said Tony, later on, as we walk away from the taxi. "To celebrate," he adds when I don't reply. "You did brilliantly, came across really well." I thank him, find another little smile. Truth be told, despite the good news, I'd felt on edge throughout the meal, nervous and uncomfortable; like I was wearing Pradeepta's life. This is a feeling I haven't had for, let's see, about six years. Not since meeting Chloe at least. And now the hotel, just a plain, ordinary Premier Inn, looks as imposing as a prison, or a hospital. (Or an partially mothballed air base in deepest Wales.) He is in there - Colin Jameson As Is. What was mine. I feel diminished beyond my stature; a ghost of what I was. The meal sits heavy and low in my belly, I want to kick off my heels, feel hot water running over my skin, the spread of a bed under my back. I need to hear Chloe's voice. Not have a drink with Tony. But he looks so keen for that celebration, like a benevolent old vulture, with his angular face bobbing eagerly at the end of a long neck and he has been good to me, taken a chance with the petite Asian girl from nowhere. So I smile again, nod. "We should." Tony claps his big hands with delight, suddenly childlike. "But only one. I must ring Chloe." I have to hear her voice again, to ground me, bring me back to this life. "Ah, the missus." He always calls her that - a term of acceptance, mirroring the way he refers to his own wife. I had already messaged her about the meeting's positive outcome. I miss you. Love you. We're going to get the contract. Still love you. Will he be in the bar? The old me? They had warned against using terms like, "the old me." Whoever that man in there is, he is not the old me. Likewise I am not the old Pradeepta Chatterji. They went to a lot of trouble to keep us apart - safer, they said - easier to cope with, they emphasised. Like anyone of them had the first fucking idea of what we went through. Go through. The thought of seeing him again terrifies, fascinates and repulses me. But the idea that I might never see him again drives a hot, fizzy panic through me. Not concentrating, I catch my shoulder on the sliding door, stumble and drop my handbag. "Tabitha! Are you alright? What's wrong?" "Nothing, nothing at all. I missed the door is all." For a moment I forget myself, forget my shortish skirt and almost bend from the waist to recover my bag; almost bare the full length of my legs and opaque tights to the taxi driver and the scrawny guy smoking nearby. But I come back to what I am, bend like a princess from the knees keeping them properly together. Wish I'd hidden in trousers. Wish Chloe had come with me. "Tabitha?" His voice is soft and warmer now, face furrowed by concern. "Just missed the door," I said, with weariness, sadness maybe, hanging on every syllable. As though every one of the years I have experienced, but this body has not, rush me all at once. The human brain is amazing thing. Experts in all facets of the brain, all sworn into the Official Secrets Act, have tried to decipher, rationalise and theorise what has been done to me and the other victims. Biology states that the brain I reside in is the one Pradeepta grew up with, it has double X chromosomes and is awash with oestrogen or progesterone depending on where the moon is. Personality-wise I am all Colin and one of the incongruous things I have brought into this life from my old one is a taste for real ale. The Premier Inn bar doesn't have much of a choice, but Boddingtons will do. Chloe, a wine and spirits girl, says the only time she enjoys the taste of beer is when kissing a foam moustache from my top lip. As she isn't there, I sup my pint with a little more decorum - in a ladylike fashion if you will, unless you are one those dinosaurs who hates to see a woman with a pint in her hand. The first swallow is perfect, cool and smooth and chocolate. I am probably going to struggle to finish the whole thing, on top of my still heavy dupiaza, but would never order a half-pint on principle. Tony, who has a thing for trendy lagers, takes a sip of his Corona. "You look very preoccupied, lass," he says after a minute or so of contemplation. "I thought you'd be buzzing." Words fail. I mumble something about being tired, then I assure him of my excitement, readiness for the challenge. It seems to the be the right sort of answer. Then I thank him, for the opportunity, for having faith in me. Colin Jameson had been a van driver - a parcels delivery man. Now I am an architect. Having been apprenticed to Tony's company, I had been tasked with designing a ticket office and waiting room for a railway station outside Middlesborough and somehow my design had won a railway industry competition. Thanks to the publicity surrounding my award (when Chloe had made me wear a glittery dress and false eyelashes) I was now going to be designing a clubhouse for a prosperous golf club outside Chester. So it wasn't all bad, was it? Those years working through education opportunities Colin Jameson hadn't been interested in hadn't been wasted - had they? My phone vibrates softly in my handbag. Another text from Chloe - two emojis: a heart and a cup of coffee. Not long after we met she started calling me Her Espresso, on account that I was short, dark and mysterious! We met on the outfield of a college cricket pitch in Winchester, where I went to study architecture. I had just taken a cruelly delivered, high-speed bouncer to my left breast as was rocking, sobbing and trying to bit back the tears from showing. There was a cricket match in the balance and I was, as usual, the last wicket. Cricket is another bleed over from my old life, though less incongruous as Bangladesh, where Pradeepta's parents were born, is crazed for the sport. As Colin Jameson - 6'3 tall, broad across the shoulder and fast in the legs - I was a pace bowler of with spped and accuracy enough to regularly streak a ball past the facing batsman and straight through middle wicket. When I batted those big arms meant I could sizzle balls over the boundary more often than not. Perhaps if I'd had more structure in my childhood, less time being passed from one relative to another when Dad was ill, I might have been a proper cricketer and never been driving that van. As tiny Tabitha I'm no batsman, and I haven't got the muscles for fast bowling, but I have a sharp eye, nimble fingers and supple wrists. I bowl crippling spin now. Once, when turning up for a game with the team I play for now, I heard one of their veteran batsman turn to his mate and groan, oh bloody hell it's her again. When you're a small person, getting some big lad out with a cunning spinning delivery is actually more satisfying than smashing his wickets into next week. But as much as I am a favourite for taking wickets I can't do much more than block when it's my turn to bat, so I always bat last and on that most wonderful day when Chloe first spoke to me I was helping cling onto a game - with only a few balls remaining we were just a couple of runs short. Which was why that bastard had just bounced a fast ball right into my boob. "Let me have a look, I'm a paramedic," I heard her say, through the thumping pain. I'd seen her there, on the outfield with some mates - enjoying the sunshine but not interested in the game. Plump, fair, taller than me - like everyone else - with a dazzling smile, bubbling laugh and eyes that had come my way more than once in the afternoon. Some lad had giggled. "Don't listen to her, she isn't trained and just wants to fondle your tits." "Dec, you are such a dick," she'd said, kneeling before me. She'd worn a floral sun dress that left much of her enticing cleavage on view, her hands were warm when she took mine. "Take some deep breaths," she'd suggested. Her voice had that gorgeous Welsh accent, so serene she could have announced the apocalypse and you wouldn't have worried. She gave me a tissue for my weeping eyes. "A little ice would be good. Any of you goons want to stop staring and looking uncomfortable and find her some? Some arnica would be good too, you have to rub it into the skin, stop the bruising, it will." She had me on, let me have a look. "I should go and phone her," I say to Tony, who nods understandingly. Taking another sip of my pint, I headed back outside, thinking to find some fresh air and privacy out there under the stars. There is neither. Just as I dial Chloe I notice a tall figure walking away from a dark, sleek Volvo estate parked on its own a few metres away. For all the night's cool, a hot flush rushes my face when I recognise Him. Raising one hand, waving it towards the car I see a key glint before the car beeps and flashes its hazard lights as he locks it. He faces me with a pleasant smile, takes a thin, hand-rolled cigarette from his lips. Immediate surprise and distaste - I have never smoked, I find the smell, the ash and whole act repulsive. "Hello again," he says and jets his smoke away from me. His size, presence and years makes a child of me. Even balanced on tall heels I have to look up to him and once again I hate being so short. "Oh, hi." Sounding lame, loose, useless. "Good day?" He raises his eyebrows as he said it. Had I ever done that when making small talk? "Not bad, thanks. You?" "Good. Busy, but satisfying. Perhaps the best of days, workwise at least." Then Chloe's voice burst like a flock of skylarks from my phone and I step away from his smell and voice and face and my past. He politely turns his back as I answer her and for all the turmoil of the moment I can't help a silly, girlish smile filling my face. It's like she's there with me. I fall contentedly into her chatter chatter chatter, wrap myself in her wild enthusiasm for the golf pavilion I'm going to design (even though golf is definitely not even anywhere close to being considered to be shortlisted to be her thing) and love her breathless description of her shift on the ambulance: stuck in the queues at the hospitals, the patients and casualties, the banter between her and Jayjay, the guy she normally crews up with. While she talks the shadows that Colin Jameson unwittingly brought with him and the long, damp chill of that old airfield at Creivie Point are driven back by her unrestrained sparkle. And I won't let her go. I keep the conversation tripping along, as though we are on the sofa together, across the kitchen table together, sharing a pillow. How is the cat, is the tap still dripping, did the neighbour cut their lawn, what did she listen to on the way to work, what did she have for lunch? "I miss you. I love you, I love you, I love you." She laughs. I can imagine her with her head thrown back, mouth spread wide, shoulders shaking, breasts bouncing as she chuckles. "When did you get so needy, Tabs?" "When I'm two hundred miles from you, Lo." "Have you unpacked yet?" she asks. "No time, the traffic. I didn't even have time for a shower." "Go then, go and unpack, have a shower and go to bed and think of me." "I always think of you." While I am so immersed in our nonsense, Colin Jameson As Is goes inside. When I notice his absence a sensation of loss chills me a moment and I miss Chloe's next words. Tony comes out, smiles to see me still on the phone, to the missus, and mimes that he is going to bed. I wave good night. Perhaps my old body is in the bar, should I go and look? I need Chloe's sunshine more. When the goodbyes are done, when she has told me how much she loves me, with such intensity my spine tingles and my nipples grow hard, I finally start to notice the autumn cool and go in. Some well meaning staff member has cleared my pint. The bar is empty, but for a middle- aged couple, hand in rand, shoulder to shoulder, quietly reading together and sharing a bottle of red wine. No sign of HIm. I am anguished and relived at the same time. Jesus, what would I say to him? Hi, that's my body you're driving. How do you like it? Look at the compact model I ended up in! Whatever I said, as soon I mentioned the name, Creivie Point, he would know what I was to him. That name is like a hypnotised, subconscious trigger for all of us. But I don't know if dare trigger it in him. D My room is cool and dark, it's almost eleven and the hours since my alarm sounded this morning pull at me. Removing my skirt and blouse I hang them ready for morning and turn my attention to the overnight bag abandoned on the bed. After I've deposited my toiletries in the en- suite I find Chloe has been repacking for me at some point since last night for the white cotton knickers I had chosen have been replaced to something much briefer, lacier and redder. Chloe fervently believes that nobody can be uncheered while wearing pretty panties. They have been wrapped around our vibrator which in turn has a shimmering red ribbon made into a bow around it. No wonder she'd been so curious as to whether I'd unpacked. As ever, her simple thoughtfulness brings a smile, and with that smile still gracing my lips I brush them with the tip of the vibrator, as though I can still taste her there. Better than any therapy, Chloe showed me the sheer, glorious joy of being woman. My bra, knickers and tights are stripped ready for the washing machine at home and I pause at my reflection in the big, wide mirror over the en-suite's sink. You may have already picked up some mental imagery about my height and biological heritage. In flat shoes I stand at 5'1, wear size 8 clothes and can shop VAT free in the children's section if something there catches my eye - or more often, catches Chloe's eye. "I'm not a doll," I have said a couple times when she presents her latest find, whether from Tescos, a charity shop or some highbrow boutique. Chloe sees my petite frame as a challenge and her fashion sense knows no bounds. Like I said, she has given so much I don't think I could refuse her anything - apart from teetering platforms. They didn't work at all - even though they made me wonderfully taller. "Many women would be pleased to have such an attentive personal dresser," she might say, with a pretended sniff of umbridge. Were it not for my gorgeous personal dresser I would spend each day in shapeless slacks, baggy tops and flat, lace up shoes. My skin is a lighter, caramel brown than a real Benghali woman, something to do with that Irish blood I mentioned earlier. My eyes, as you would expect, are dark brown and they look larger in my face with everything else being so petite. When I look in the mirror now I don't see a stranger, having had nine years for it to grow familiar, but tonight I don't feel at home. Were it not for my breasts and luxurious pubic hair I could pass as a girl for my hips are slight and my waist not particularly well defined. I am only C cup, but on a 32 inch band this makes me a little top heavy. I was led to believe, early on at Crievie Point, that bustiness is a trait for the women in Pradeepta's family. Under my left breast is the four centimetre scar where I tried a self mastectomy at Creivie Point; my left breast is slightly larger than the right, so I went for it first. I have more slash marks on my thighs, though they are truly faded now. I also stabbed my tummy, a few inches below my navel, when starting a rough hysterectomy with a pair of kitchen scissors. The damage wasn't well targeted, and I was quickly restrained, so I retain the potential for conceiving and carrying a baby. After that they put me on suicide watch; though I was still able to persuade another victim to hack off all the hateful hair Pradeepta had been growing since she'd been born. I remember those times with distaste, I should have managed better, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and I was the first misgendered victim. They hadn't been set up to deal with that particular problem, though it shouldn't have been so difficult to forsee. I wasn't the last, but they were able to offer better support for the others. I can't be bothered to wash my hair this late so I twist it into a messy bun and deftly secure it with a barrette. Chloe's hair is as pale and fine as blown spider silk and she has cajoled me to grow mine out. Nowadays I hardly notice its heavy touch around my shoulders and putting it up in different styles is kind of cathartic, when I have time. I wallow in the shower for ages and ages; usually I love the sluice of water from my smooth skin, the tumble of sound that isolates me from all outside, but more memories crowd. At first, at Creivie Point, I'd refused to wash myself for Pradeepta had only been fourteen when she was taken, barely out of puberty. Though I'd established full physical control by then, touching her body made me, Colin Jameson As Was, feel perverted - disgusting. More tears. Maddie, the lead medic on my wing, got me a sponge on a stick so I could avoid hand to skin contact. What an amazing person - she went on to lose a leg in Afghanistan. I broke the policies and visited her in hospital so our roles could reverse and she could weep on my shoulder. Our vibrator goes under the pillow, but when I turn off the lights and pull the covers over me, as much as I stare into the darkness and listen to the cars outside, as much as I try to centre on what is good and happy and beautiful, what comes to mind is Creivie Point. The Army still has an enclave there, also a US Navy listening station lingers - according to Google, though I never saw any of that. The view from my room in a wing of the old officers" mess overlooked a sweep of blown meadow grass and the weed spotted concrete of runways, taxiways and dispersals that hadn't supported an aeroplane's weight since the 1970s. Beyond were cliffs and the Atlantic - always grey in my memories, always chopped. I don't recall ever seeing a blue sky there, but memory is a selective thing. Five others were in the wing with me, three men and two women, with a lead medic and medical assistant on hand 24 hours a day. All the staff were Army, Navy or Air Force, but they all wore civvies and used given names rather than ranks. They must have been well picked, I never had a complaint against them personally, and they did their best in uncharted circumstances. We had a games room, a lounge with access to all the films and tv shows you could imagine. The food was excellent, military chefs at their best with a healthy budget, the rooms well furnished, proof against Atlantic storms and well decorated. We had books and magazines and access to study materials, whatever we wanted. We could go to the huge, barely used gym on the base - to a strict rota so we never came across victims from other wings; there were military PTIs to make sure we could have an exercise routine to keep us fit. It was even possible, with a chaperone, to walk out of the camp and try your walking boots against the rocky coastal paths. But it was still a prison. No, an asylum. We were kept there, closely observed, regularly assessed - to see if what had been done to us would drive us mad. I think I came close, but like I said, I was the first to be misgendered. I was also one of the last to leave, when victims stopped coming and the facility was closed down. Progress was being made by then - so they said. They'd given me a Navy psychiatrist, a specialist in post traumatic stress and there was Maddie who had done enough tours of Iraq to put me back in my box when the whining about being a teenage girl got too much for her. "Fuck's sake, Col!" She'd said plonking me in front of a mirror after I'd thrown a shelf worth of books across the room. She always called me, Col. Never Colin. She was a sturdy Lancashire lass, with spiked hair and tattoo'd fists. "It's a fucking vagina, not a fucking tumour. Get over it." "But I'm supposed to be a man," I'd screamed, in my adolescent voice and flounced into a sofa where I sulked, arms folded. Going through teenage turmoil was no better the second time - as much as your adult personality tries to rationalise things all the flooding hormones still propel you through the awful mood swings. "Two legs, two arms, full set of fingers - two eyes, all your brain - whatever of it you had at any rate - and a good set of teeth. Lots of lads -" She'd stopped herself, but I knew what she'd been about to say. She'd saved people, she'd told me snippets of it, out there in Iraq and the implication was clear. I should be grateful. "What's your fucking problem?" "Bollocks!" I'd yelled, but a little quieter. Then I heaved myself from the sofa and started picking up the books. A real teenager wouldn't have done that. "Besides," she said, softly and touching my shoulder, picking up a couple of paperbacks herself. "You have great tits. You should get to know them, an investment in time you won't regret. Lots of lads I know... If they had tits like yours, fuck me, they'd draw the curtains and never leave the house. Know what I mean?" I did. Colin Jameson had been a tit-man, but as far as the world was aware, Colin Jameson was dead. Until he showed up at this Premier Inn. E That night I endure the van dream again, for the first time in years and once again I wake with the sheet tangled around me, sitting bolt upright with a scream caught in my throat. I could have cried. I felt the sobs making my shoulders tremble, my eyes prickled with old tears and the raw scab of emotion that should have healed by now was pulsing like it had never gone away. It was 5am. Chilly. I pee'd, washed my hands, sipped cool water. My pyjamas were damp. I tucked myself into the bedding and stared at the ceiling. My hands closed about our vibrator - though I love making was far far from my needs at that moment it reminded me of hugs, companionship, Chloe's warmth to absorb my shivering. Colin Jameson is somewhere in the hotel. He might be in the room next door. He might be laid there awake right now staring at the ceiling and thinking about the moment when his body was taken and when he was given mine. Who had he been before? Had he stayed a man, been a woman; young or old, black or white, rich or poor? What had his first moments in my body been like? My first waking moment in Pradeepta's body had been on the edge of the road staring at the sky. A diesel engine, revving too much, sounded like it was being raced away. My van? Had this been some kind of elaborate ambush designed to steal it? The sky was grey, with varying shades of grey clouds scudding along. The sun was searing white, for the rain must have quickly passed. Grey grass waved in the edge of my vision and the leaves of the Hawthorn hedge close by were a myriad of greys, dappled white in places by the sun. I tried to move a hand to shade my eyes, but my right arm was numb and wouldn't move. When I tried the left hand all it did was a palsied flutter against my hip. I managed a blink, then closed my eyes as tight as I could for the sun was truly glaring. Then I passed out again. Voices woke me. They seemed to be a long way away, and muffled - as though my ears were full of cotton wool. "Can you hear me?" said a woman. I wondered sleepily who she might be talking to. A shadow fell over me, blanking the sun from my face. "How long's she been here?" asked a man. Something touched my cheek, started moving along it with tiny feet. I needed to brush it away, but my hand just trembled again. Fireworks exploded across my vision, I tasted iron and somebody made a grim groaning noise. I shook, like I was made of rags, all flopping around. A hot wash spread between my thighs. Shaking like a jelly, rocking and twitching. It went on for ages, or it felt like it did. My chest wobbled horribly. "Don't touch her," the woman shouted sharply. "She's only fitting, I want to move that rock away from her head." "Don't touch her!" Louder, insistent. Who were they talking about? The Indian girl I'd found? Must be. "Op Acoustic," the woman snapped. "Op Acoustic! Don't fucking touch her." "What are you on about?" "Knobber." The woman again. "Didn't you see the briefing? Tell the Control Room it's Op Acoustic and don't touch her, for fuck's sake, or you'll get it too." Tremors took me again, like I was an earthquake. My teeth rattled together, though I wasn't cold. None of the voice sounds, colours, sensations made any sense so I blacked out for bit longer. When I looked again a rubbery, black gargoyle was peering at me with big, black insect eyes and a circular snout with a drip of water balanced at its bottom. "She's awake," the gargoyle said, with a voice of soggy cardboard. "Can you hear me?" My tongue was thick, dry and my mouth tasted foul. I might have mumbled something. Above me the sky had been obscured by some white plastic that rippled in the wind. My whole body ached like I had been running for hours and hours and there was an angry, throbbing pain bounding in my left ankle. "What's your name, duck?" the gargoyle asked, but it wasn't a gargoyle - it was a gas mask, with tinted eyepieces. Scary. What was happening to me that needed people with gasmasks? Some kind of terrorist attack? Oh please no! Some of that chemical stuff was very very bad. "Colin," I said, but my tongue was too swollen to sound the word properly. "Colleen? Good girl, listen we're going to get you shifted in a minute. We'll have to roll you onto a stretcher, don't think you'll be able to walk just yet. "Not Colleen, Colin," I insisted. Good girl? He needed clearer goggles in his gas mask. something touched my ankle and I yelped from the sheet of pain shrieking up my leg. I must have twisted it when I was getting out of the van - or being got out of it. "Colin?" the drip finally dropped from his gas mask mouthpeice. Another started forming. "What's going on?" I muttered. "Need a drink." I tried sitting, but there were straps across my chest. "Hang slack here a minute, mate," said gargoyle. He passed from my field of vision - my head was restrained as well. Like one of those people being packaged up for the ambulance after a nasty crash, when they're worried about spinal spinal damage. And where was the girl? And why was I in a tent? A green suit appeared over me. Inside a great cuboid helmet with a clear front I saw a middle aged bloke with a beard and wild eyebrows. There was a hoop through one of his nostrils. It said "Doctor" on the front of his suit. "Hiya. How're you feeling?" he said, in a harsh Irish accent. "Shit. What's going on?" "What's your name?" "Colin, Colin Jameson." "Well fuck me, that's a first. Did you have a car, Colin? "What do you mean?" I coughed, my throat was so dry. "Can we get a little water here?" the Doctor yelled. Another gargoyle came. This one had a camouflaged suit, like a soldier. A straw was offered to my lips, I sucked greedily, but wasn't very good at it. Cool water ran down my chin and pooled in the hollow of my throat. What little I got across my tongue felt amazing. "Describe your car, please." "Van. Has it gone? Where's the girl? She'd hurt herself, her ankle." "Don't worry about her. Tell me about your van, matey. It's been nicked, and we need to find it as quickly as we can." So I described it, my parcels van - though the company would be able to track it. When I was done the Doctor nodded. "Good stuff. Now, we need to make you a bit more comfortable. Just a sharp scratch." Something pricked my arm. I felt a cool rush under the skin, then my vision started closing down. I tried to ask about the girl, but faded into sleep before I'd got more than a couple of sounds out. They kept me in that induced coma for three weeks while they worked out a strategy for explaining how I'd become a teenaged girl. F Later in the morning, when breakfast was calling, I went through the familiar routine of pulling on panties, the red ones Chloe sent, easing my breasts into a bra, smoothing black opaque tights over my legs, fastening my blouse and stepping into a pencil skirt. I felt clumsy, like I was dizzy, drugged, drunk. I brushed my hair with short, brutal strokes and left it loose. Picking up a lipstick I stared at it a moment, then dropped it back into my toilet bag. Today is not a day for lipstick. Today, as I slip on my heels, I feel dirty, guilty, wrong. I empathise with closet transvestites, compelled to sneak into women's wardrobes and ease the pangs in female clothes. After packing my things ready to check out, I creep into the hotel restaurant feeling like I'm dirty, unworthy, disgusting. If a scowling waiter had directed me to some grim corner, with bare bench seats, stained tables and chipped crockery I should have gone, with eyes down, as though that were all I was due. Instead he smiled, took me to a window seat where I could look over the landscaped grounds and the pond where a pair of ducks were cruising in the autumn sunshine. I shouldn't have to feel like this, I don't deserve to feel like this! I've done my time; I have biology, society, cultural expectation on my side; I've had the belly cramps, the swollen, tender breasts; I've had wolf-whistles sent my way, had men blatantly objectifying me, had the most indecent proposals put to me; I have earned the right to be comfortable being a woman. Though for many months I was certain I should have gender reassignment so my little body could be surgically and chemically reformed as male. A few thousand pounds of therapy and a lot of honest, hard self reflection helped me on the way to becoming Tabitha Kowalski, but mostly it was Pradeepta Chatterji kept me female. Pradeepta means "glowing" by the way. When I found her on the side of that road she'd been missing for eighteen hours from Wolverhampton. Both her parents are surgeons, in Birmingham and Pradeepta was their only daughter. As far as I know they never found the body she ended up in. The people at Crievie Point were careful about compartmentalising information like that, but Maddie told me they had never found her. Nobody will ever know what Pradeepta would have become, had she not been seized in like I was. I have never met her family, never spoken to anybody about her or what kind of person she was. She might have wanted to be a doctor, a scientist, astronaut or General. She might have wanted nothing more than bouncing, beautiful babies of her own, but I am all that's left of her. I am not a shrine or a memorial, but one day stood on the clifftops at Crievie Point I resolved that things could have been worse, thank you Maddie, and that I owed good custody of this body to the memory of Pradeepta. Who knows, she may turn up one day and ask for it back. After Crieivie Point and all that therapy I came to be comfortable as a woman. Perhaps the fact that nothing tangible of male-me came across, only my thoughts, memories and personality, helped that transition. All my biology is female. Nobody is sure if my lesbianism comes from Colin's attraction to women or Pradeepta's. I have tried sex with a man, a little drunkenly while at college, and while I did enjoy the physical act (biology again) having a guy penetrate me is just not satisfying emotionally. I admit, I find some men attractive, but I wouldn't want to live with one. At my last assessment I learnt that of the seven of us who were misgendered only one went for gender reassignment. Of the others, three are in heterosexual relationships, two are homosexual (hello) and one is living in some kind of commune in Wiltshire where she can make love with whoever she wants. Chloe took me several stages further from being comfortable in my sex - she very patiently showed, cajoled and encouraged me to enjoy it. Skirts were something I came to late. I still have my first skirt, though the elastic in the waistband has gone and I can't wear it anymore. It came from an Oxfam shop in our home town and has a Miss Selfridge label sized for age 13/14. It's a billowing white peasant skirt with a lacy hem that touches me midway between knee and calf. The third time I put it on Chloe immediately almost dragged me from the house. Don't get me wrong, I was well used to wearing female things by then; panties because they fit my shape properly, bras as a necessity, trousers and tops for the same reasons as panties. Skirts were something different - skirts are utterly female. The first time I wore one was as a result of an ambush brilliantly executed by Chloe. She waited until I had just come from the shower and was partially dressed ready for another day at college. Standing there in bra and knickers, blinded as I pulled on a t-shirt, she casually announced that she had found something for me in the Oxfam shop and I should try it on. There and then. "We talked about this," I said when I saw what was in her hands. Chloe - Why don't you ever wear a skirt? Me - I never found one I wanted to wear. Chloe - Never ever? Me - Never ever ever. I'd silenced her with a kiss. "It will look great on you. An besides, when you were in the shower I went psycho and cut all of your trousers in half." "Then I'll go to college in my underpants." "I slashed holes in all those, right where your lady parts will show." "Then I'll wear yours." "You'll need both hands, or braces, to keep mine around your skinny, boy hips." I took the skirt from her hands, she knew I would, and we both laughed. "It will look silly." "Just try it." "See. It looks silly!" "It looks great on you, give me a twirl." "i will not! I feel really silly." "Your gorgeous colour really goes well with white." The second time was a day or two later, when curiosity overcame me while Chloe was at work. After pulling on the skirt I stood there before our mirror and thought, guiltily, that, yes, it didn't look bad. And it did suit me, and I didn't look odd wearing it - I just looked like... a girl. The third time I actually wore it outside, in public where people could see me and the whole "getting dragged out of the house" was just an act, well mostly an act. Chloe and I went for a walk; along the river, through the town, around the park and up to the castle where we promenaded along the battlements with the breeze whipping the skirt around my legs until I forgot to feel silly and even, dare I admit it, quite liked the way it felt. Even when I stopped, it kept moving, flowing around me. It was the thin end of the skirting wedge. "It's really smart and professional," Chloe said, a few weeks later, when she showed me the charcoal grey pencil skirt she'd found. It had a neat little split up the back. "Just the thing for your new job." Meaning my internship at Tony's company. "Trousers are just the thing for my new job." I had splashed out on a smart, expensive trouser suit from Next. Had even taken the bold step of buying a pair of black court shoes with an inch of heel to wear with it. "Mix it up, Tabs. You have such great legs." Nowadays I tend to wear shortish skirts or dresses quite a lot. It feels very ordinary, most of the time. Except in high summer, when bare brown legs are a distinct advantage, I'll wear tights with them - smooth opaques or sensual sheers. If you add, to a short hemline, 3 or 4 inches of heel my legs look longer, I look a little taller and well meaning checkout staff don't ask for my ID so much when I try to buy beer. Easily the best thing about wearing a skirt is the moment when Chloe edges her fingers under the hem, when I might part my thighs slightly for her. I miss her. Back in the Colin life, I used to like a good hotel breakfast. Kelly and I liked an occasional weekend away in a nice hotel and I was a proper fan of a heaped plate of bacon, sausage, egg, beans, mushroom, black pudding and toast. All washed down with lots of builder's tea. Now my stomach is much smaller I don't have fry-ups so much, but today I feel so out of myself I go to the hotplate and pile the calories onto my plate like I was a waistband busting trucker. I am just considering whether or not to tempt fate and the smoke alarm with the toaster when I realise Colin As Is has just stepped up to the coffee machine. Still looking good in that understated suit, still with his hair in a glossy ponytail, glowing with middle-aged man health. When he glanced up and saw me hovering near the toaster with my greedily filled plate he gave me that warm smile from last night. "Hello again," he said. "We should stop meeting like this. People will talk." I have fantasised about this moment, on and off, for the last nine years. Not so much of late, but the opening runs something like this. Me - I was at Crievie Point as well. Him - Stunned into silence. Me - Glad to see you're looking after the chassis. Better than I did. Look what you could have won! What I actually said was, "Oh. Hi." He is within touching distance and the fantasy takes me that I can reach across, touch my finger tips to the back of his hand and I'd be catapulted back in there, where I'd belonged. For a heartbeat the idea is so compelling that I almost do it, my hand twitches ready for the movement, but I fight it down. The notion is complete bollocks. I know that, because they tried it - back there. Perhaps he senses some of the turmoil seething in me. for his face is arranged into a soft, concerned, enquiring expression. As though he's about to ask if I'm okay. Heat fills my cheeks, I spin around, almost drop my breakfast, and hurry away to my table feeling like he's watching every single one of my hurried, skirt constrained, heel clicking steps. It's so unfair. This time yesterday I was nervous, excited, comfortable in myself. Now I feel like I'm tumbling back to the dark place. Sitting heavily, my belly rebels against the thought of the meal before me. Tears prickle so I screw my eyes shut and take a deep breath, then another. Maybe I'll have to ring that helpline number, it's memorised in my phone, though I have never used it. I walked out of the Creivie Point with my head up and my eyes fixed on the new start, the new life, new education the government had promised. And that smiling bloody waiter has sat Colin As Is right opposite where I can't fail to look at him, watch him and where he can watch me resolutely not eating my cooling fry up. I almost want to get up and walk out, to create space between my turmoil and its cause, but modesty keeps me in my place, eyes down, cutting a fried egg into ever smaller pieces. He slips off his jacket, the movement draws my eyes. He's wearing a smart, short sleeved shirt and there, just showing on his left bicep, is the crap tattoo I'd had done when I was seventeen, when me and my drunk mates thought it would be cool. We'd all had the same one, in the same place - Tom from Tom and Jerry. I could only see the lower half of the cat's body, but I knew the smug expression the cartoon cat was wearing. I can't believe he hasn't had it removed or covered by some other design. Then our eyes meet. That smile again. "I have the strangest feeling that I know you." How could he! Was there a ghost in the machine? Some fingerprint of me and mine that lingered after I was pushed out that, even now, could sense me through my woman disguise? Have any of the government specialists looked into paranormal stuff like that? "I don't think so," I murmur. My mouth is so dry I sip at some orange juice, but it tastes flat. My legs are jittering up and down under the table. "I have a good memory for faces, though I do meet a lot of people in my work." An easy target for the curiosity sitting inside me. "What do you do?" "A few years ago I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to do something I'd always thought about. I'm a counsellor, specialise in neuro-linguistic programming. Love it." Perfect. Another fucking counsellor. Though I had used the same opportunities and government funding to take my love of Lego and drawing and translate them into a degree in Architecture. Who was in there? I couldn't bear the thought of finding out. There is a wedding band about his finger. I bet he has a perfect house, perfect wife, perfect fucking Volvo and amazing kids who will run up yelling daddy daddy daddy whenever he gets home from rearranging and smoothing over the shit in other people's lives. When I was in there I'd been a van driver. I'd watched football, played cricket, drunk real ale. This version was a counsellor who loved a bit of neuro-linguistic programming. I can't help but think he's making better use of the chassis than I did. Me and Kelly had divorced two years before that last delivery, but she'd always seen marriage as a ride not a destination. There hadn't been any kids involved, thank god. I couldn't have handled her seeing me like this. They told her I'd been killed, in a car crash. Officially that's what happened to all of us. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine." It came out sharper than I'd intended. Stupider than I wanted to sound. I'm gathering myself up to walk out of the restaurant when Tony ambles in. He sees me, convinces the waiter that we are together and weaves a course through the tables with a friendly wave. He sits between me and New Colin. "Hungry?" says Tony. I shrug. "I was. Not now." "Nervous? Don't be. It's in the bag." Tony has toast and muffins. I ask the waiter to take mine away, with an apology for the waste. I take an apple and a banana on the way out, refuse to look at New Colin, rush up to my room to clean my teeth, grab my bag and promise to meet Tony in the car park. We're going to drive to the golf club, to see the site, so I can get a feel for the location, the history, the ambience to help me with the design. And forget Modern Colin. G Another text from Chloe, she is on an early shift - I am wet thinking of you coming home today. Despite everything, her gorgeous sentiment touches me the way she knew it would. Standing stock still near the window, eyes closed, I can feel her breath between my thighs, the tip of her tongue parts my lips with silky pressure. Or another sensation, no - sensations - tumbling one over the other in slow succession; when I am soft and heavy and purring in deep, serene pleasure; when my legs are as wide as they can be and Chloe murmurs loving encouragement; when she so slowly, so carefully fills me. I am delightfully stretched and full and the slight, pulsing movements of her hand and fingers draw amazed gasps from me. Nothing has ever felt like this - not the fingers, vibrators, wine bottles, nothing. "There," she says. "You can look now." She smiles with pride, achievement, satisfaction as I follow the line of her arm to the point where my swollen, heavily lubed labia are tight around her wrist and sigh with wonder. Nobody had ever made me feel so beautifully before. The first time we made love I cried with the sheer emotional release. The first time we kissed I laughed, then we laughed together and the people around us stared. "What was that for?" she'd whispered, and nuzzled my ear while she said it. "Nothing I've done for ages has felt so right as that kiss." So she kissed me again. She'll be home when I get back, after an early shift - assuming they don't get kept on late again. Chloe loves being a paramedic, but I wish she worked more regular hours. Wish she was here. Wish I had never stopped to help the thing that looked exactly like Pradeepta Chatterji with a badly sprained ankle. When they woke me up that ankle was still bound in a tight support bandage, though I couldn't feel it at first for I was flat on my back, woozily staring at a bland, white ceiling with a humming fluorescent light with dead flies trapped in its diffuser. "Colin, hello. Can you hear me?" All I can move is my head. I turn to the voice, a woman. It's hard to focus, my mouth is furred. "Where am I? What happened?" I mumble, my voice grates. "My name is Claire. I'm a Doctor, in the Navy. I've been looking after you. How do you feel?" "Why can't I move?" "You've been in an incident, you've been attacked." She sounds so calm, her accent neutral and precise. Attacked! I don't remember that. Was it the girl? But she was crying, hurting. No no no. She reached out and her eyes were deep pools that drew me down and down, held me still as she stretched a slim brown hand to and touch my wrist, when I was just about to phone for the police. "The girl!" I croaked. Her touch had been ice. "What do you remember, Colin?" Claire asks. I shake my head. What I remember I have no words for. "Cold," is the best I can do. "You've been changed," she says, softly. "But it's okay. You're fit, healthy, young." "Changed?" "It's happened before, to other people. We'll help you get manage, I promise. You'll be well looked after." I heard velcro tear, at my left arm. Claire squeezes my left hand, moves it away from the bed. I'm tied down, to the bed. "You can have a look now, okay?" She presses a mirror into my hand. I feel so strung out I can hardly lift it, but as it comes to my eyeline I see the mirror supported by a thin, brown arm and clasped in thin, brown fingers with pale, short nails. Not my hand. Not my arm. Changed! The mirror shakes, it's hard to keep it still so Claire helps and for the first time of the rest of my life I see the face of Pradeepta Chatterji, of Colin Jameson, of Tabitha Kowalski. I screamed. If Claire hadn't been so quick I'd have dropped the mirror and maybe broken it and then what kind of bad luck might I have endured? I might never have met Chloe. Bouncing tits when I walked repulsed me. Sitting down to piss made me rage. The pity I saw in my fellow victim's eyes made claws of my fingers and made me grind my perfect white teeth. Nobody could answer the "how', but I was hungry for the "why'. Why me? Because I was the conscientious, decent guy who pulled over stopped to help a crying girl. I was there to be taken, to replace the broken body it had already stolen from Pradeepta. Because we hunted it. "Remember those fires, on the moors near Leeds?" Claire had asked me some weeks later. The wounds to my breast, belly and thighs were healing. The drugs they kept me on made me mostly numb. I wasn't screaming so much, but I often found myself crying - puberty! Why are we so hard on teenagers? We were in her office, rain sluiced over the window. I kept my knees tight to my chest and watched the water streaming over the glass. "Colin?" "Yes, I remember." "We said they'd been started by hikers, do you remember?" The media had been full of their irresponsibility, starting a fire on the tinder dry moors. The police had been criticised for not finding them. "It was a crash," Claire said. "Not many people know that, but you have a right to be told. It was a spaceship. An alien spaceship." You don't want to believe shit like that do you? An alien fucking spacehip crashes in West Yorkshire and sets fire to the moors. Bollocks. But, what else have you got that can shift the memories, experiences, likes, hates, humours, tastes of one thing into the biological space previously occupied by another. Such a thing is presently beyond us. When you get that kind of thing happening to you, you believe. I sat there in a girl's body I hated and listened. What else did I have? "There was a survivor," Claire says. I might have wept, silently. She would have hugged me. "The survivor must have been found by a Mr Steven Killingholme, a seventy five year old retired teacher from Saltaire, he was walking his dog. We think the dog might have found the alien. Steven was reported missing by his daughter and found two days later in Derby train station by a police officer. When they tried to speak to him whatever was in Steven's body jumped into one of the policemen. There was a certain amount of confusion, as you can imagine and the alien, for that's what it was, escaped in a police car. It happened a couple more times. The government set up an operation to deal with it, to try and manage the whole thing." "Op Acoustic?" I muttered. "You are the twenty third known victim of this creature and the first we know of that has been..." "Ended up a woman?" "Yes. Though, there are more now." Forty eight people are known to have been moved from one body to another. There won't be any more. For now, and that is probably the saddest part of it all. We don't know how or why or anything like that because when a team of scared, chemical warfare suited armed police officers finally confronted the creature and the body it was wearing in the waiting room at Truro bus station they shot it dead. It died in a twenty one year old nursery worker's body, Tegan Watnall of Brighton, almost ten months after I had been taken to Crievie Point. As sad as the alien's death makes me, I can't find it in my heart to blame those cops. The chemical warfare suits were pointless, anybody who knew anything about Op Acoustic knew that. They were just to buy time, but any skin to skin contact could see the alien jump and those coppers knew it. Perhaps they should have got medals for going forward to try and detain the thing, but as it was they became part of the massive state orchestrated cover up that Op Acoustic became. Nor can I find it inside me to hate the creature, whatever it was and whatever its motivations for being on Earth and taking my body. I never told anybody about the moment it touched me, other than how cold its touch was. There were no words. But I saw a vision clearly in that moment and I believe that what I saw was the creature's home. I saw swathes of scintillating rainbows, forests of colours that I couldn't match from the most comprehensive swatch. I glimpsed rivers and gardens and structures that arched and swept from the ground and through those shimmering woods. And people. Just shapes, colours, sensations - its people, maybe its family, lover, friends. And the loss. The heartbreaking loss as it took me, and the sorrow. I wish they hadn't killed it, but perhaps it was for the best. What would its fate have been at the hands of MI6 or the CIA or FBI and NASA and Porton Down and Quantico or any other of those narrow, information- hungry, government institutions? Before I leave the hotel room, ready to get out and leave this Premier Inn behind me, never to return I hope, I look into the mirror, square my shoulders and stare critically. Everything I need is ahead of me. Don't look back, Maddie said, when I was wheeling her and her weeping stumped leg around the gardens of the hospital. Never look back. Even though the past has blundered into my life and twisted my head around and made me look at it. Take a deep breath, Tabitha. Eyes front, look to the future. I open my toilet bag. Take out a redbrown lipstick, twist the base to extend it and examine the colour carefully. This is one I picked for myself, because I liked the shade. I found it in the York branch of The Body Shop when I had gone in to buy bath salts for Chloe. It is the only item of make up I have ever bought and I chose it because the sales woman there was wearing it. She and I shared skin colour and as the lipstick looked good on her I fancied it would suit me. I went over and asked her which it was and she showed me where it was in the displays. I apply it deftly, smooth my lips together. It looks good, gleams subtly - I quite enjoy the slick coating on my lips, makes me very kissable. I have mascara too and sweep some carefully onto my lashes. Tony can wait another few minutes - a woman's prerogative to be fashionably late. These ears, my ears, have always been pierced, though I don't often wear earrings. I know there are a pair of gold studs in my handbag though, a present I have always carried from a friend at college to wish me luck when I graduated. This is the first time I have worn them. Chloe will be pleased, she'd love to buy earrings for me. Look forward, Tabitha. Another deep breath. "Sorry I'm late, Tony." He's making a poor pretence at indifference, pacing up and down by the main entrance where he can watch the stairs, reception desk and car park. But he does smile. "You look great," he says. "I'm really proud of you." Tony doesn't drive, but he likes being driven and he likes my Land Rover, though not as much as Chloe and nowhere near as much as me. When I had been only Colin I had always wanted a Land Rover of my own, but never had the cash. My maroon, short wheelbase Defender is called Chester and cost an awful lot of money. I feel like a doll driving him, and get many funny looks; he is stupidly expensive to run and but is so much fun to trundle around in. Financially, even without my wages from Tony I am comfortable. Op Acoustic sees to that, as it saw to my A- Levels and my college tuition. All of us victims are classed as a military veterans, though I never served. I have a service number and a service