IN NOCKTON VALE - Man: Wanted - Final Chapter - Part One

A Man & His Woman

1

I blazed down the hill to Chauncy centre them braked hard on the cusp of the mini roundabout, only realising then how furious I was.

I hammered on the steering wheel with my fist then hammered on it again. I didn’t know where I was going. I knew where I had intended to go when I’d left the house as a woman, but now I was a man again I was nothing but confused.

Further down the hill straight on was the top end of Breton and Billy’s hotel. That was where I had meant to go. But I was utterly conflicted now and couldn’t get Sangeeta’s face from my mind, the shock I'd seen there when she’d realised the secret I’d kept from her from the beginning.

I snarled and turned the wheel hard right, ignoring the route down toward town. Instead I cut through the suburbs to where Chauncy merged with Deerbarrow and cut down to the ring road there. I didn’t even look left toward Breton when I reached the Ockham roundabout. I made a right and powered down the main road, getting angrier and angrier as I wound myself up.

I’d made a mess of everything. I’d ruined both my lives. Everything was in a tangle now and I had no idea of the way forward.

I got off the main road and took the narrow road up toward the ridgeline. There had been a fair amount of traffic on the ring road but up there, there was none. The lane only went to one place and this late at night it was long since closed, but I needed some space and distance to think. I needed silence and solitude.

The road flattened as it turned to follow the ridge. There were farmer’s fields to my right now, open and spacious, and to my left the hill dropped sharply down to the Heights and the deepening valley. I followed it straight as far as it ran, the gates of Crackshaw, the old stately home. There was a lay-by there outside the gates and I pulled into it. There might have been other cars there – teenagers causing trouble – but there weren’t. It was empty.

I parked up pointing across the valley and got out, still fuming. I leant against the front of the van and looked down across the town. It was a clear night. The U-shaped valley was filled with glittering lights. I could see every district laid out, the contoured bumps of Hillfort and Breton. I could see the old Abbey ruins on their mound in Howekirk and even the castle, all the way down by the river. On the opposite ridgeline, the lights of the Oliver Spragg glimmered merrily, punters inside no doubt drinking their livers dry.

The sounds were muted. The detachment I’d craved was right here. It was peace. But in that peace my thoughts jabbered and moaned, filling my head with an internal noise.

Why was my life so complicated? Why couldn’t it be simple? And it had been simple once, when I'd been with Billy. Everything had been laid out before us.

Ever since we’d broken up, it had all gone to crap. My life was a turmoil of disaster and empty promises, and none worse than this life I'd found here in Nockton Vale as a man. It had all come together so perfectly. I’d become the perfect man with a career that wasn’t failing; a lover who obviously cared about me. It was like all my dreams come true.

But it was a lie. I wasn’t a man. I couldn’t be a man.

Except with the ring on, that wasn’t exactly true. I was a man right now.

I looked down at the ring on my closed fist, gripping my wrist.

The transformation was trickling on, even now. And pretty soon it would be sealed forever. I would have changed so much on the inside, when I took it off there would be no difference between the ringless me and the ringed me.

I could be Geoff forever, with Sangeeta by my side and a great new business and life here in my hometown.

Except I’d ruined even that now. Because Sangeeta had seen me change. She knew it was all an illusion. She knew the man she was falling for was nothing but a woman in disguise.

I slipped off the ring and in a welter of tiny fireworks became myself again up there in the darkness, and then I sagged against the van, feeling weak.

I had actually been considering remaining a man for the rest of my life. But surely it was for the best that the decision had been taken away from me. Sangeeta would never want me now. And besides, I had Billy waiting for me.

Billy; at long last. How much I'd ached to hear the words he’d spoken this evening. I'd hoped so dearly that he would come to miss me and realise his mistake; that he’d come and find me and say he was willing at last to try again. It was all I ever wanted.

I would be a fool to turn away from that now, so close to achieving my dream.

I looked out across the valley and then drew back my hand, the ring tightly clenched in it, ready to hurl it out into the night, impossible to find again.

I tensed my arm, readying myself.

Then I closed my eyes and lowered my head, letting my hand fall loosely back to my thigh, the ring still caught in it.

I truly had no idea which path I should choose.

But I realised something.

I realised that I couldn’t know until I'd faced Billy as myself; as Alison.

I had to go to him and listen to what he had to say. Only when I looked into his eyes would I know whether I could bear to let him in again and carry me away into that wonderful life of burning passion.

Only then would I know how this was all going to end.