The Brothers Grimshaw

Chapter 1

Wade and William Grimshaw were twins, Wade being the eldest by twenty minutes. They were not identical twins. In fact, the differences could not have been further apart if their parents had demanded them on a wish list.

Wade was a big baby with dark hair and a cry loud enough to make the nurse who took him away wince. William, on the other hand, was almost too small and was a quiet bundle with blonde locks that made the nurse smile as she took him to a humid crib. June, their mother, was just glad it was all over and even gladder when the doctors told her that it had been her last roll of the baby-making dice. She could have no more as some important bits of her were no longer working. Now, she thought, she and Frank could have some better sex without having to resort to condoms, while she had an excuse to deny Bruce, her husband, of his conjugal rights more often.

As they grew, the two boys remained as far apart as could be. Wade bonded with Bruce, his father, and was taken out to football matches, boxing fights and even to the pub in his stroller. William, now known as Billy, became a mothers’ boy. He was a quiet and studious child and, as June often told her friends, a joy to have around. In school Wade became the sports star as well as the school bully and Billy excelled in maths on top of his normal studies. Wade left school to go to work and moved out of the family home to go and live with his father, who had left June a couple of years earlier.

Actually, his leaving was forced upon him by having an eighteen month jail term to serve for an assault in a pub fight and, when he was released, June would not have him back. She was now in a full-time arrangement with Frank and Frank was very supportive of Billy, who he doted on as if he was his own. June often wondered if it had been possible to bear two children from different fathers at the same time.

Billy went on to achieve a higher education and then found himself a good job while Wade skirted with the law and worked as a labourer on a building site, alongside Bruce. Together they were a team of tilers and had become quite well known for their antics in the pub on payday. Both were well-known as womanisers and they type of woman they attracted was not the sort you would take home to introduce to your mother.

Billy stayed living at home, got himself promoted at his job and did well for himself. The only thing that eluded him was companionship of a female. That is, until one of the local girls sat down next to him while he was enjoying his lunch break in a local café. She told him that her name was Sally-Ann and that she had admired him for some weeks before plucking up the courage to speak to him. She seemed genuine and they chatted. When he had to go back to work they had made a date for lunch the next day. Billy worked through the afternoon wondering about Sally-Ann and feeling somewhat conflicted. She sounded all right, even if she did dress a bit ‘trashy’; but a lot of girls he saw these days dressed in a similar fashion.

They dated a couple of times and she was a fast mover, taking Billys’ virginity not ten days after meeting and several times after that as Billy found that he quite enjoyed it. Three weeks later she announced that she was pregnant, and that as he was the father of her child, they should get married. Now Billy may be gentle and studious but he could also count and the numbers here did not add up. At least not until her father, a huge brute of a man, assured him that he would be the son-in-law or get ‘rearranged’.

Frank and June were no help at all. They had been planning to sell the house and buy a camper van to go travelling in. Billy was the only thing holding them back so they would be happy to see him leave. The marriage date was set, some six weeks hence, and Billy was sent out to look for a place for them to live. Sally-Ann told him that wherever he picked would be all right with her and left him to it. Billy knew that he had to find somewhere or face the consequences so took the odd day off work to search for a place. He found a nice little flat, part of a semi-detached house and not far from his job. He was an accountant by now, and doing very well. He often wondered why Sally-Ann never offered to put in any money or effort but the place he chose was within his budget on his own wage.

The wedding was to be in a registry office and the wedding feast was at the local pub, in their back room. Everything was planned to be quick, easy and cheap. Actually, he thought that was an apt description of his bride-to-be. As you can see, he was not happy with his lot but he had a sense of duty and, if he was the father, then he will be the husband.

As the wedding day got closer his brother Wade came to see him, telling him that there were a bunch of guys that had been told about the coming nuptials and had decided that Billy deserved a stag night on the Friday night before the wedding. When he heard that Billy wondered if he could steal away under cover of the pub crawl and get out of the whole thing, but he thought of his job and his reputation and dismissed the original thought. What worried him was that Wade told him that everything was arranged.

On the Friday he was farewelled from work for two weeks and, clutching a bottle of whiskey and a card signed by the other four that worked in his office, he went home, full of dread. He made sure that he dressed in his oldest clobber for the stag night, strongly suspecting that Wade had devised some evil plan to degrade and humiliate him and he did not want to mess up good gear. Wade collected him and they walked to the pub with Wade telling him that he was a very lucky fellow. There was about a dozen already there and he was cheered as they entered and a drink was thrust into his hand.

The person that did the thrusting was his father.

“Congratulations, William, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

His hand didn’t hold an empty glass for the next hour as they all got plastered and then moved on to another pub. Billy, by now, could hardly stand but he was still able to notice that, in the next room in this pub there was a bunch of girls who looked as if they were having a break from a hookers’ convention, and there, in the midst of all the trollops, was Sally-Ann.

I suppose that what happened next was inevitable. The basic premise of the stag night was to humiliate the groom and this night proved no exception. He was unable to withstand the ministrations of his ‘mates’ when they took him into a secluded back room of the pub, undressed him and then redressed him in womens’ clothes, including a padded bra and dress, stockings, shoes and a wig which was glued on. His last moment of consciousness was having someone holding his head while a person made his face up. He opened his eyes to look into those of his smiling bride-to-be and then he lost all contact with the world.

His inert body was paraded through the pub to much hilarity and then taken out to the main road where he was tied to a lamp-post for all to see as they passed by. After that all of the girls and guys joined forces and went off to another pub to get totally plastered, leaving Billy out in the open wearing the dress. There were many pictures taken before they went.

The stags and hens continued their entertainment and forgot all about Billy at the lamp-post. They would come back to get him ready for the wedding in the morning. About two in the morning Wade and Sally-Ann ended up in Wades’ bed together. If truth be told, it wasn’t the first time, or even the twentieth. As they coupled in much the same way they had to start the baby she carried, she thought that it was a pity she had to marry the runt of the family. Even Wades’ father would be better and she should know, having been under him a couple of times as well.

Saturday morning dawned and Wade and Sally-Ann got up and dressed. He put on his suit for the wedding as she left to go home to put on her wedding dress, a slightly more sensible version of what she normally wore. This meant that the skirt nearly reached her knees and the top showed slightly less cleavage than usual.

When Wade and a couple of his mates arrived at the lamp-post there was no sign of Billy. All that was left was the rope they had used to attach him to the post. Of the cord they had used to bind his hands there was no trace at all. They went looking around the local streets to no avail and then went to Sally-Anns’ home to tell her that her groom had disappeared. Her father was less than impressed.

“My daughter is going to get married today to a Grimshaw and if the intended one is not here then another will take his place – get it!”

So it was that when the wedding party assembled it was Wade who was standing next to Sally-Ann while her father stood behind him with an open flick-knife in a hand hidden in his pocket. When Frank and June arrived they were shocked that Billy was not there and they were told that he had left Sally-Ann in the lurch and Wade was going to get married instead. June could not understand it, her best son would not do a thing like that! They could not understand why Sally-Ann was so easy with the state of affairs until Frank murmured.

“That’s it, the numbers didn’t work. Billy isn’t the father. I bet Wade had some part in that side of things by the way he is going along with this.”

Frank and June waited until her son was wedded and then kept hold of their card and present as they left; Frank saying that he would be finding out what went on as he could never believe that Billy would take off like that. Back at their house he searched Billys’ room, finding all his clothes, his wallet with all his money and an envelope with the details of a flat and a set of keys. Frank was sure that there had been foul play and decided to get to the bottom of all this.

Chapter 2

That Saturday Billy was some way away and in a world of pain. He was in among some long grass somewhere and his arse felt like it was on fire, as did his groin. He also hurt all over as if he had been tumbled around in a big cement mixer. He remembered one time during the night when a dick was being pushed into his mouth but that was just a fleeting moment of lucidity.

As he came to his senses he realised a number of things. One was that he was out in the open, wearing the remnants of a dress with long hair falling over his face. The second was that he knew that he must have been orally and anally raped several times. Thirdly he had pissed himself and the last was that he was extremely lucky that he didn’t drown in the vomit that covered his chin and the ground around him. He then thought that he may have been better off if he had died because, by the look of the sun in the sky, there was no way he had been at the wedding. His wrists were bound and he was jammed in a trench next to a water-course and he contemplated his chance of survival until he fainted.

Fortune does, sometimes, favour the fair, and a walker out with his dog found him and called for the police and an ambulance. He was taken to hospital as an unknown, freed, stripped, cleaned and operated on before the day was out. When he finally opened his eyes again he saw his mother sitting next to him, crying. He made a sound and she jumped up, pressed a bell push and cried even harder.

The nurses came in and fussed around him, giving him a sip of water and spending as much time getting his mother settled down. For a while he wondered which one of them was the sickest. In the end, his mother was led out of the room to recover while he was being looked at. The nurses took readings and some blood and refused to answer him when he croaked.

“Where am I?”

Finally, they left him alone until Frank came into the room with a chap that had the look of the police.

“I’ll tell you what is going on when I can but first,” Frank said, “The Inspector here wants to ask you a few questions before anyone else gives you any information.”

The policeman cleared his throat. “Now, what can you remember from the Friday before your wedding day?”

Billy thought back and took the policeman through his day, from going to work, getting a card and a bottle of drink. He said he had not opened the wrapping to see what they had bought for him. The policeman nodded as he went on, saying how he had got ready for the stag night and Wade picking him up from home. He said that things got very hazy but he could say that his birth father had been there and he could name a couple of the other guys he had met before but they were all Wades’ friends.

He got to the bit where they dressed him and then shook as he remembered the face of the person putting on the make-up.

“Sally-Ann was there” he said “I’m sure that she was in on it. Where else could Wade have got the dress, underwear and the wig?”

The policeman asked him if he could remember anything else and he started crying.

“Only having a dick pushed into my mouth, sometime during the night.”

The policeman thanked him for his honesty and told him that most of it matched the information they had already been able to gather. When the policeman had left Frank took Billy into a hug and comforted him as he cried himself back to sleep. “Just like a baby,” Frank thought, “He could have been my baby.”

When Billy next opened his eyes it was morning and he felt better; still hurting but better. The nurse brought him some breakfast which was mainly porridge which she spooned into his mouth for him. He asked when he was going to be told anything, anything at all and she said that today he would be given all the news, some of it he may not be happy about.

“I suppose Sally-Anns’ father is out to get me, having missed the wedding.”

“That, young Billy; is the least of your worries. I can tell you that the wedding went ahead and your bride is now your sister-in-law.”

She left him and he started laughing. He was still chuckling when Frank and June arrived.

“Someone looks happy?” Frank said.

“Is it true that Wade ended up marrying Sally-Ann?” Billy asked.

His mother smiled. “It was a lovely wedding, dear. The brides’ father was very close to Wade the whole time. I was sure he had a weapon in his pocket.”

That news made Billy break down into laughter again.

He was then told how Frank had gone looking for him and contacted the police. When he had been found they had called Frank in to see if the victim of a homosexual attack was the person they had found. Frank had told them that it was Billy and that Billy was certainly not a homosexual but had been last seen on his stag night, tied to a lamp-post. This he had found out from Wades’ father who had shown him a photo. This started the police to look at things in a different light, and they had looked at CCTV of the area, finding a skinhead gang cruising in a car.

With that information they had ordered DNA matching of the various fluids found in Billys’ anus and one skinhead had been matched to it. The problem being that the guy was already in breach of bail and being looked for already.

“It could be that they saw you all made up and helpless, took you away to where you were found and raped you before giving you a good kicking,” Frank said.

“Kicking?” asked Billy.

His mother started crying again. “Yes dear, they must have kicked you around before leaving you, expecting you to die before being found.”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, son,” said Frank, “But they kicked you until they took your manhood away and the doctors here had to finish the job while you were still under. You have been effectively neutered and you don’t even have a penis there now. There was so much damage to your groin and anus that they did a full sex-change to save your life. I’m not sure that it would be something you would have wanted in order to live but your mother and I gave our authorisation for the operation. Forgive us but we wanted you alive, even if you are not the man you used to be.”

Billy was aghast. “You’re saying that I am a girl down there now while the rest of me is the same guy I used to be?”

“That’s pretty well it. I’m sorry but you now have choices that no man should have to face and I can tell you that we have put our travelling plans on hold to support you. You know that I love you more than your actual father does and I will continue to love you if you stay as a eunuch or go the full way to being female. I cannot help you decide but your mother and I will stand behind you every step of the way.”

With that they both kissed and hugged him and left him to contemplate his future.

The next time his doctor came to see him Billy asked him to sit and explain what may happen to him with the different choices he had to decide upon. The doctor told him that if he did nothing he would gradually show some female characteristics because his body was no longer producing testosterone. This would include some muscle loss, skin changes and a general loss of ‘definition’. He could stop that by being on testosterone pills, or even regular injections, but he would have no libido and could become a little ‘girly’ in his demeanour.

The other thing he could do was to take a course of estrogen which would accelerate the changing of his body mass and skin condition but he would, over time, grow small breasts and would probably be taken as gay, even if he wore very manly clothes. The third option, he was told, was to have the other operations to give him breasts and a female voice and to then live as a woman in most aspects; with the only thing he could not do was to have a baby.

Before he left Billy to think about things further, he dropped a bombshell.

“Just remember, Billy,” he said, “If you walk out of this hospital without doing anything, any future actions would be at your expense. At the moment, because you are a victim of crime, anything we do to alleviate your suffering is covered and will cost you nothing except a little more time with us.”

This, Billy realised, let him very little room for thinking about it.

That afternoon his employer came in to see him, having been told about the situation by June. He told Billy that his holiday leave had been converted to sick leave. Billy had hardly ever taken a day off and he was told that he did not have to come back to work for another two months or more, if needed. Billy asked if it would make a difference if he came back as a girl and he was told that it was not a problem, the office would be better with him, or her, back in it because he was a very treasured employee. That hit Billy to the core but he was able to keep his tears in until his employer had left.

Two days later his employer came back to tell him that there had been some research done on what Billy could get if he sued his brother, his father and Sally-Ann. Billy was adamant that he would not do any such thing because he had the idea that Wade was suffering enough by now. His employer then told him how much he could draw from various compensation funds, including a pension if the doctors decided that he would be unemployable. Billy was determined that he would continue working if he could, even if he was wearing a dress at the time.

Actually, he was starting to come around to the idea of living the rest of his life as a woman. It was just clothes, after all. The next time his mother came to see him she showed him a card she had received from Wade and Sally-Ann, nearly at the end of their honeymoon. It had a picture of a Martello Tower with a bikini clad maiden with the caption ‘Enjoy the sea and sand on Jaywick Beach’.

“Bit of a cheap place you picked for a honeymoon, Billy. Two weeks in a chalet at Jaywick is not where I would have liked to jet off to,” she said.

He laughed. “I did that as a point to make. I knew the baby could not be mine but she thought she was marrying the Golden Goose. I just wanted to point out that I was not a push-over. I have to say that, after all that has happened to me, I think that a lifetime with Sally-Ann may have been worse than what I now face.”

They chatted a bit and then he asked “Mum, what names did you consider if you had born a girl?”

She thought for a bit. “Well, your father was very keen on names starting with W, which is why you ended up as Wade and William. He refused to consider having a daughter but we did think that Wendy would have been in the running.”

They sat in silence for a while and he smiled. “Mum, if the doctors go ahead and make me look more like a woman, I would like to be your daughter Wendy.”

Chapter 3

His mother sat back and said “Are you sure?”, and he nodded. She then hugged him; well as much as she could with him swathed in bandages. He then explained that he could go back to his job as Wendy and that it would be much easier doing that than trying to get by as a half man – half woman.

He told her that he would be able to live in the rooms he had already leased and that he could afford it on his wage if he lived carefully. That would free Frank and her of any need to look after him. They could go off in the camper and live their own life. If he was given compensation it would make everything a lot easier. His mother told him that Wade and Sally-Ann were living with Bruce, his father, who was not pleased with that but Sally-Anns’ father had already delivered her belongings.

He had told the doctors that he would take the full option and they started making plans and setting a timetable. The biggest job had already been done so it was just the cosmetic changes. The only hold up was that his other injuries had to heal first. He had suffered extensive bruising, four cracked ribs and fractures in both forearms where he must have tried to deflect the kicks, even though he had no memory of that.

Next time his employer came to see him Billy told him that he would return to the job as Wendy Grimshaw and he was told that he need not worry about the paperwork, the office would sort all that out and had already organised his lease payments for his rooms, negotiating a two month delay in starting the payments, seeing that his situation was so dire. Billy told his employer that he was very grateful and was told that he was needed more than ever because there were plans to expand the business and Wendy Grimshaw was pencilled in as the new branch manager.

This time he did cry which embarrassed the both of them for a few moments. He finally got it together enough to say “Thank you, sir; you have no idea how much easier that would make it for me to go through the next few weeks.”

“Enough of that ‘sir’ stuff in future, Wendy; you can call me by my name; Geoffrey or Mister Wilson if we are with clients.”

Billy sniffled and then smiled. “Thank you – Geoffrey.”

After that it was a straight-forward process to re-sculpture the rest of his body, face and vocal chords. As time passed her first operation healed and eventually the tubes started to be removed. There were lots of small decisions to make; the shape of her jawline, the fullness of her lips, the pitch of her voice and, biggest of all, the size and shape of her breasts. She now had regular visits from psychiatrists and physio-therapists to get her brain in tune with her future and her body in tune with her present as it evolved.

Geoffrey came around regularly, oddly bringing bags with grapes and, once, a small bunch of flowers that he said would brighten up the room. Frank and June were also regulars but she was never visited by her actual father or her brother and sister-in-law. Her mother kept her up to date with what she had heard about that little family which was becoming more dysfunctional as time went on and Sally-Ann started to show.

Finally the day came when she was up and walking around wearing a nightie and dressing gown. The doctors said that everything medical had been done. They had not held back, seeing the government was footing the bill, and the new Wendy was so good in her new skin there was no way that anyone would say, “Oh, there’s Billy in a skirt.”

It was more likely that, “Hey, who’s that babe?” would be heard. The psychiatrist surprised Wendy by telling her that there was two-week stay in a special clinic where she would be given training in all things womanly as well as supervised shopping for her new clothes, all still on the compensation package. After that Wendy was taken to her new home for the next two weeks.

That two weeks taught her many things, the main one being that she was far better at being a woman. Previously the old Billy went along with things so as not to make waves; the new Wendy was more positive in what she wanted and, when she finally opened the door of her flat, she was ready to take on the world. The following week she went back to work, finding her new outlook made her a better finance manager. Two weeks later Geoffrey took her to lunch and then showed her the new branch where she would be the manager.

Wendy did a little redecorating in the flat; adding a feminine look to the place and making it a brighter home to be in. Her wardrobe grew slowly, as finances allowed, and she settled into her new life. Her mother and Frank had sold the old house, bought the camper and were off on the continent somewhere. She would get cards from all sorts of outlandish places and was happy that they were enjoying themselves.

Her work was demanding, now the manager of a branch of her own. To her it was her world and the clients were her extended family while the other two girls who worked with her were like siblings. Because they had been employed for the branch by Geoffrey and her, they were not aware of her previous life, only that the original office used to have a good finance manager called Billy who had been involved in a serious accident and was no longer working.

Life carried on for more than a year before an event took place that altered things. She was out, one Saturday morning, doing some shopping and had stopped at a little café for lunch. The place was full and she heard a vaguely familiar voice ask “Is that chair vacant? Do you mind if I join you?”

She looked up and saw Sally-Ann with a small tray in one hand and the other controlling a pusher with a toddler in it. She smiled and said “Certainly; that’s a lovely baby there, what’s her name?”

Sally-Ann put her tray on the table, sat down and pulled the baby out to hold on her lap. “Her name is Gretel and I’m Sally”

“Welcome to my table Sally and Gretel, I’m Wendy.”

As they ate they chatted, as women do, about nothing and everything. Sally then said “It’s so good to be talking to someone who isn’t calling me names, care to join me in one of their cakes, my shout?”

Wendy nodded and Sally stood and put Gretel into her arms. “I hope she will be good for you, I’ll just go and get them, vanilla slice OK?” Wendy nodded again and looked at Gretel in her arms and her heart melted.

She made goo-goo noises and the baby smiled at her and giggled. She was hardly aware of time passing when Sally came back with the cakes on a tray.

“She likes you” she said as she put the slice in front of Wendy.

“I rather think she does” said Wendy “She is adorable.”

She allowed Sally to take the baby back. “What’s this about people calling you names; you don’t look as if that would be called for?”

Sally-Ann was silent and then obviously decided something for herself. “It’s a long story,” she said, “Going back to when I first was expecting. I was part of a rather trashy crowd which I now realise were not the friends I thought they were. They are mostly on the game now, earning good money and dying quicker than most. I got involved with a guy who gave me Gretel but he didn’t want to marry me and give up his drunken ways. I targeted his brother who was nice but a bit quiet. He had a good job and I thought that, at least, my child may have a good home. Well, something happened and I ended up with the father of my child as well as having to live with my father-in-law. They are both womanising drunkards and the names they call me would make wallpaper peel. I am just their dogsbody and they are out at the pub and often don’t come home until the early morning, usually waking me up to get them breakfast.”

“What about the brother, then. What happened there?”

Sally-Ann looked very sad and said, in a small voice. “I was part of a prank which put him in hospital with life-threatening injuries. I was drunk at the time and had been egged on by my friends. It was my husband who thought up the joke; he wanted to humiliate his brother. I think that he was a little jealous that his brother was doing better in his life.”

“So what did you say to the brother afterwards?” Wendy asked.

Sally-Ann looked down at her baby and then whispered. “Nothing. My husband was too ashamed to see his brother after that night and forbade me to contact him. His father was also involved in the prank and was afraid of being arrested after what happened so he also laid down the law that we would stay clear. It’s only now that I have had time to reflect on my own stupidity that I have come to loathe myself and take all the abuse that’s thrown at me every day.”

Wendy sat for a moment. “What would you say to the brother if you met him today, say, as if he was sitting opposite you at this moment?”

Sally-Ann thought for a while. “I don’t know. It would depend on how angry he was with me. I was young, stupid and desperate to be accepted and cared for. I suppose I would ask for his forgiveness.”

She then looked across the café where a pair of gay guys were sitting; one with his arm around the other, and said “I look at those guys and hope that I would meet him again because I am sure that he would end up that way, seeing what was done to him.”

Wendy sat for a few moments, thinking about her finances and the contacts she had made through work. “Sally-Ann, I can help you if you want. I have contacts in the private investigation business who I help with their finances. What say we get them to follow Wade and Bruce and get you enough evidence to divorce him and get out from your bad situation?”

Sally-Ann sat with the blood draining from her face. “I didn’t tell you my full name or even the name of my husband. Who are you and how do you know these things?”

Wendy pulled some smelling salts out of her bag, opened the bottle and waved it under Sally-Anns’ nose until she was a better colour. Then she said “The reason I know these things, poor Sally-Ann, are the same reasons I know about your father and his determination to see you out of his house, the fact that you have a birthmark on your left breast and the fact that your honeymoon was two weeks in a chalet in Jaywick. One of the last images in my brain of you was when you were putting make-up on my face and my world was taken from me.”

“B-B-B-Billy?” Sally-Ann whispered.

“No longer Billy, I am Wendy and started to be on that night that the skinheads took me from the lamp-post and raped me before kicking the Billy out of me. I have been Wendy since that night but it took a little while and several operations to perfect.”

The smelling salts were needed once more.

Chapter 4

When Sally-Ann had colour back in her face she looked at Wendy with wonder in her eyes. “You look as if you have been a woman all your life, I would never have guessed. Why didn’t you scream and hit me when I sat here?”

Wendy smiled. “Because I know now what a woman will do to protect her baby. I have held Gretel just the once but I would put my life on the line to protect her. She was almost my daughter, even though my brother had been the father. I am not angry with you, Sally-Ann, maybe a little disappointed that you got caught up in things that night, especially as the next day we were supposed to have married. How do you think our married life would have been after the humiliation if I had not been taken from that lamp-post? I don’t think that we would have stayed together for very long, in spite of your father.”

“Look, this place is a bit too public for further discussion.” said Wendy “My place is just a few blocks away; it was where we would have lived if none of that had happened. What say we walk there and I’ll put the kettle on and you can let me hold Gretel while we plan your escape?”

They put Gretel back in her stroller picked up their bags and left the café, but not without wrapping the cakes they had not eaten in serviettes to take with them. They walked to the flat arm in arm, taking turns to push Gretel.

“I can’t believe this,” said Sally-Ann, “Here I am walking along with the person who I helped destroy and she is friendly.”

Wendy laughed. “Sally-Ann,” she said, “I am always friendly; that is why I am good at my job. I help people with a smile and they give me money to do it. You don’t see any finance managers who are not friendly, even if they have to pretend it. I don’t forgive my father and brother, though, and will do whatever I can to pull their world down around their ears. What Wade planned that night was heartless and cruel and I was asked if I wanted to sue him. At the time I thought that being married may have been prison enough but I can see now that I was wrong. We will get the two of them over a barrel and set you free, one way or another."

At the flat Sally-Ann took one look round and started crying. Wendy held her as she sobbed her heart out. Gretel just sat in her stroller and looked at the two of them. Wendy comforted Sally-Ann because she knew that this was the watershed, the moment that Sally-Ann would either cut and run back to her old life or else stand up for herself and fight. In the end Wendy got her sitting at the kitchen table while she put the kettle on.

Sally-Ann held a tissue to her. “I’m so sorry, Wendy; just seeing where I would have lived was just too much for me.”

Wendy told her that she understood; today must have been a big shock.

With Gretel sucking on a bottle, the two of them had their tea and finished off the cakes they had brought home and then got to the substance of what needed to be planned. Sally-Ann was now sure that she was determined to divorce Wade and Wendy had an idea how they could make it work. She had a customer who ran an investigation business called CSI, standing for Colin Simpson Investigations. The guy specialised in divorce cases and Wendy knew how well he was doing at it because she did his books. She told Sally-Ann that Monday she will get in touch with him and set up a meeting.

“Colin,” she said, “Is used to working evenings so we can meet after the two targets have gone to the pub.”

Before Sally-Ann left they exchanged phone numbers and hugged for a long time.

“Thank you, dear Wendy; you have no idea what a load has been lifted from my shoulders meeting you. I’ll wait for your call. Almost any night is good as Wade does spend a lot of time out of the house.”

Wendy watched her walk away down the road and wondered about the abuse that had brought Sally-Ann down to the level she had been when she sat at that café table. It must have been relentless and then thought that it was typical of her brother to humiliate his own wife without any thought or care. “No love” thought Wendy “just a few moments of lust is all it takes to ruin your life.”

Sally-Ann had said that her evenings were usually watching the TV alone so she could leave it going and slip out the back door. Wendy called Colin and they arranged a meeting at Wendys’ home on Tuesday evening and he would pick up Sally-Ann in the street at the end of her back alley. Wendy called Sally-Ann and it was all arranged. It worked well and they had a very productive meeting and Sally-Ann was taken back home again afterwards. Colin then returned to Wendy to discuss the job further with her.

He wanted to know just how far Wendy wanted to go with getting the evidence and Wendy said that whatever it took to get the divorce made easy would be all right.

Colin thought for a while. “Wendy, I’ll set up surveillance on those two. I can get an idea of what they get up to and then I will see if I can get photos of the two of them with other women. I will then get in touch with the women and find out whether they had been paid or not. I have an idea for a high-risk scene which may get those two put away, if only for a few weeks. That will give Sally-Ann a chance to get out from under.”

Two weeks later Colin had enough evidence, both photographic and statements, to let Sally-Ann start proceedings. They went ahead with the last scene that had been planned, however, one that could work well or badly. Colin had arranged a couple of transvestites that he had worked with before to bump into Wade and Bruce at the pub.

Of course, the boys, being quite a bit under the weather by this time, did not see just who they were with until they were back at the ‘girls’ flat. When they discovered what they had gone home with there was shouting and a bit of slapping and screaming before a couple of off-duty detectives, friends of Colin, just luckily passing by, heard the ruckus and burst in. Wade and Bruce thought they had been set up for blackmail and things got pretty violent before they were on the floor in cuffs.

The transvestites gave evidence that they were sure the two men knew what they were, the detectives gave statements that they were just passing and thought they had better do their duty and Colins’ part in all of this never came to light. The court case was open and shut. Assault, assaulting an off-duty policeman, disturbing the peace – it was enough to put Bruce back inside for six months and Wade got three with no previous cases other than drunk and disorderly to his name. Sally-Ann entered divorce proceedings, offering the previous evidence that had been collected as work that had been done prior to the time that her husband had been arrested on top of the court case records.

By the time that Wade walked out of prison, his job had gone, his home had been sold to pay Sally-Ann for her compensation and the truck he and his father used in their work, along with all the tools had been sold at auction to cover legal costs. He had no home, no job and now a criminal record. His life had been shattered and he was angry.

That Sally-Ann had divorced him was not a problem, he was happy to be rid of her but the rest of it made his blood boil. He moved a little way away and started working as a labourer on a construction site until he could get together with his father and start tiling again. That future was also taken from him when, just a week before his release, his father died of massive kidney and liver failure, brought on quicker by drinking prison rotgut.

The funeral was a small affair at a crematorium. Frank and June came back from Italy by plane, leaving the camper in a holiday park; Sally-Ann and her father were there with Gretel. Wendy was there as well. Wade came in and sat at the back and wept tears of self-pity. No-one else cried. Actually, no-one else really cared. Bruce had been a bad husband, a bad father and a drunken lout right to the end. June said that he probably felt no pain as he died, being so drunk he couldn’t feel anything. Everyone saw Wade and no-one spoke to him except Sally-Ann who wished him well, making sure her father was close by. One thing that Wade noticed was that Billy had not shown and another was just how Sally-Ann, Gretel and this other woman seemed to be close.

Time passed, everyone aged and events unfolded. Geoffrey had become so entranced by Wendy he left his wife and proposed. The wife got the house and a settlement and Geoffrey got Wendy and a smaller place. Wendy didn’t take much persuading to move out of the flat. Sally-Ann got a job near Wendys’ office and they both took turns looking after Gretel as she grew.

Eventually Sally-Ann met a guy who was happy to take on another mans’ child as long as he could father one of his own and they married. This time Wendy was at the ceremony but standing beside Sally-Ann as Matron-of –Honour, just as Sally-Ann had stood next to her when she had married Geoffrey.

The wedding made it to the local paper because Sally-Anns’ husband was a bit of a celebrity in the local area. Wendy was named as Wendy Wilson. Wade saw the paper as he took a break from his ditch digging and decided that it was time for a little payback. He was sure that it was this Wendy who helped his wife get a divorce, she would never have had the guts without some form of help.

He did a little digging himself and found out where Wendy Wilson worked. One day he took some time off and scouted the area, finding her office and following her at a distance to see where she went for lunch and after work. He was certain that no-one would recognise him now, with a beard and unkempt hair along with the slimmer body from all of the manual labour he looked nothing like his former self.

A week later he made his move, grabbing Wendy from behind and dragging her into an alleyway, telling her that he was going to get payback for what she did to him.

Unfortunately for him he had not noticed that the entrance to the alley was in CCTV coverage and he was just about to give Wendy a beating when he was grabbed by a couple of policemen and arrested. The court proceeding took an odd turn when Wendy was called to give evidence. Wade had stated that he had been led to his actions by Wendy interfering in his life and helping his wife divorce him, on top of, somehow, Wendy being implicit in his fathers’ death.

Wendy stood in the witness box and was asked to state her name. She said “Wendy Wilson”

The lawyer for the prosecution started his cross-examination by asking “Has that always been your name?”

“No, I was once known as William Grimshaw, the defendant is my brother and the wife that divorced him was supposed to have been my wife instead.”

At that Wade fainted dead away and the case was adjourned until he could be revived.

When the case resumed the prosecution took Wendy through the events that led her to where she was now and it buried Wade totally. With his prior conviction, also for assault, he got five years and it was a broken man who was led from court, unable to look at the person who had once been his brother but now stood next to her husband, holding one hand of his daughter Gretel. The other hand was being held by Sally-Ann, who had her new husband alongside her.

Wade never again saw the world outside prison. He drank the rotgut and injected the drugs that seemed to be readily available behind bars. He died from an overdose of bad heroin.

The brothers Grimshaw were no more but still as different as ever.

One now lived as a woman and happily alive - and the other didn’t.

Marianne Gregory © 2022