8. THREE BECOMES A CROWD

Poor old Ivan gets another shock...

Ivan Bramble might have enjoyed a second drink, sitting in his corner in the Squire’s Head, but for that wretched boy Eddie Toothbalm. He’d seen the lad off, of course, he was good at seeing kids off, he’d learned the hard way in the classroom and even as a woman it worked perfectly well, that mixture of acerbic sarcasm and half-veiled threats. But he was aware that the youth was watching him out of the corner of his eyes, and the more he became aware of it the larger the corners of those eyes seemed to get. So in the end he’d reluctantly finished his pint and sauntered with a confidence that looked quite wrong in a woman, out of the pub and into the afternoon air.

But first he’d gone via the toilets.

He might have made the expected mistake, but he didn’t. As if he’d done this sort of thing ever since he’d been old enough to use public toilets unaided, he pushed the door to the ladies conveniences open and wished there was a urinal somewhere, something familiar, something he could understand. Not that he’d have been able to use one. But sometimes familiarity can become comforting.

Then it was homeward bound. He passed a few familiar faces and had to hold back from acknowledging them, and they pulled back from acknowledging him, probably because they didn’t recognise him. Yet he’d always enjoyed the brief discussion a man can have with neighbours and friends. But now he had to walk on by and keep himself to himself.

He was looking forward to a bit of solitude, but that was not to be.

There was a man who could only be a plain-clothed detective waiting by his flat door when he arrived back home, and he looked as if he might have been on guard for some time, though what he was guarding, and why, didn’t seem at all obvious. After all, he wouldn’t have to guard a locked door, would he?.

“Mrs Bramble,” he said, rather abruptly, “I thought I’d wait for you, soak up the ambience of the neighbourhood for a few minutes away from the hustle and bustle of the streets...”

“If that’s what you want to call me,” he/she said, sullenly, he/she thought. It wasn’t this officer’s fault, but he’d been unable to think of a way he might introduce his spontaneous and most unwanted sex-change without seeming to be a liar and fantasist. After all, if any of his male acquaintances turned up in a frock he’d do little more than mock them unbelievingly.

“I thought that’s who you were, Mrs Bramble,” the officer said as she (Ivan thought of himself as she for the moment, though he hoped it wouldn’t last, not after that fright in the Squire’s Head with a fifteen year-old creature twanging his bra strap and leering mischievously at his chest. In fact, he wanted to get rid of bra straps altogether, and as soon as possible. He’d never in his life felt less fond of bras and the straps that supported them, and there had been a time when… but that had been years ago and the joy usually involved helping them off.

If I’d been born a woman then I’d probably try to do without the support of something as mechanical as a bra, he though to himself, and he could feel the straps of the one he was wearing digging slightly into his shoulders.

“You’d best come in, then,” he/she said. What was he? He or she? It was confusing not knowing. And demeaning. It involved a perceived loss of identity.

The detective followed her into her kitchen and watched her as she put a kettle on her hob.

I’ve never met a woman quite like this, he thought as Ivan prepared two cups for tea, she seems to want to deny who she is, and we’ve reason to believe she’s not legally Mrs Bramble. The woman called Maureen holds that position in life! So who is this, what did she call herself, Evana Bramble?

“We’ve had a DNA result,” he told her, collapsing his own thoughts..

“What DNA?” she asked.

“The corpse next door...”

“You mean the man with maggots for snot?” she said, and regretted the tone of her voice the moment she’d let the words out. After all, he wasn’t a teenage reprobate and this officer deserved a little bit of courtesy.

“If that’s how you look upon him,” sighed the policeman, not Inspector Piggott but his colleague Sergeant Smethson.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “you must forgive me if I sound a little … choleric. I’ve just been subject to … innuendo ... from a teenage boy, and I didn’t like it one bit. You wanted to tell me about the DNA?”

Sergeant Smethson sighed. “I’ll sit, if I may. It’s been a long day and I’ve been on my feet for most of it,” he said.

“Of course. And you can have a cup of tea as well.” Was that trying to sound too welcoming? After all, what have the police got to do with me? I’m a divorced man who lives on his own, a schoolmaster for my sins… How can any of that interest the police even though a corpse was found next door? The corpse of a thief, that is, of a man who stole my electricity. Yes, mine!

“Then I’ll put your mind at rest. The man in the flat next door isn’t your husband...”

“I told your inspector that!” interjected Ivan. “I made it very clear that I can prove it! But the Inspector wasn’t for listening to me, but to a rather nosy electric company representative.”

“We’ve also ascertained that your husband...”

“Let’s drop the your husband thing. He’s not my husband. Never has been. In fact, he couldn’t be my husband...”

“The man next door was a very close relative to your husband, though,” explained the sergeant, completely ignoring her outburst. Then he cleared his throat, probably for effect. “Did he have a twin brother?” he asked.

“You mean I … that he might have a clone around…?” asked a bemused Ivan. “an identical Ivan? No, I’m sure he didn’t.”

“Not identical, but very similar,” conceded the sergeant. “A twin, but not an identical twin. Or a brother of around the same age. Our best estimate is that your very late and maggoty neighbour was around fifty… But the DNA would tend to indicate the sort of genetic closeness there is between siblings.”

“I never had … I never heard of a brother,” mumbled Ivan, hopefully correcting himself in time.

“Maybe it was something he kept hidden even from you,” grinned the sergeant. “We all have cupboards, you know, and some of those cupboards have skeletons living in them...”

“So let me get this straight. The man next door, the dead man, must have been either a non-identical twin or a close brother of Ivan Bramble?” mused Ivan, almost confusing himself, especially when referring to himself as someone else. He was getting to be too used to being female, but it didn’t help him see things as though through a looking glass, dispassionately.

“I’m afraid that it gets to be even more complex than that,” said the sergeant slowly. “You see, we’ve checked with Somerset House and on the date your husband was born there were three births under the surname of Bramble. And all three were born to the one woman, a Mrs Jane Bramble. Triplets. And they all survived. So your husband has one brother and one sister, all sharing his birthday.”

“Triplets!” Ivan had never heard anything as preposterous as that in his life! He was one of three? Then he had always, had the back of his mind… no, he hadn’t, that was fanciful thinking, he’d never even dreamed of being part of a trio of infants developing in the same womb.

“I’ve got siblings?” he gasped.

“You?” asked the sergeant, frowning.

“Me. You see, I’m Ivan Bramble and I woke up this morning without a willy and I hate the way things are...”

Sergeant Smethson looked as if he was about to make a juicy and possibly highly offensive suggestion when the doorbell rang.

“Excuse me. I hate visitors,” muttered Ivan, and he almost ran to open the door.

There was a constable there, and he rushed in, past Ivan to where the sergeant was sitting.

“Excuse me!” protested Ivan.

“Sir!” gasped the constable, “We’ve found him!”

“You have?” asked Smethson, “who have you found?”

“Ivan Bramble, sir, and he’s been murdered stone dead! In a ditch, in a field out Quarryvale way! Its horrible sir, really horrible … they used acid!”

© Peter Rogerson 18.12.18