Lady of the Shades (34 page)

Joe
. . . What would he think of this? I can never tell him, whatever the outcome. I can never tell anyone. This is the sort of truth you carry deep in your heart and never reveal. If I
walk out of this alive, I’ll invent something for Joe. I’m good at that. I carved a living out of stories once upon a time.

Greygo leads me to his mother’s bedroom and heads for a built-in wardrobe.

‘Hold it,’ I snap, edging ahead of him, sliding open the doors. There are four shelves loaded with clothes and boxes. ‘Are these the costumes?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘But there’s also a bag stowed away beneath the lowest shelf. I’ll need that to create the full effect.’

I back out of the closet and tap the gun’s trigger with my finger. ‘Don’t come up with anything that looks remotely like a weapon,’ I warn him.

Greygo gets down on his knees and reaches into the dark. He emerges with a stuffed plastic bag. I tell him to dump the contents on the floor in the middle of the room. A shower of padding,
corsets, bras, tights, knickers. I stare at the undergarments, then clear my throat, forcing back the bile, which is rising again. ‘Put them on,’ I croak.

He undresses without argument, revealing a smooth, shaven chest, arms and legs. He pauses at his boxer shorts. ‘Would you mind looking away?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ed, please, there’s no need to –’

‘Just do it.’

Greygo sighs dolefully, then slides down his shorts. His genitals have been waxed bare. His nudity unsettles me. I’m not homophobic, but seeing him like this, thinking of all that has
passed between us, I feel nauseous. Though not as much as many men in my position might. I’m surprised by that. I thought I’d be more bothered by the gender side of things. Maybe I will
be, later, when I’ve had time to think and reflect. Right now, everything has the unreal quality of a dream.

‘Get dressed,’ I snarl, averting my gaze.

It’s a complicated process. Each step must be followed in exact order. It looks uncomfortable, especially around the groin, but Greygo seems at ease and takes no notice of the biting
straps.

With all the padding in place, in all the right places, he rolls on the tights and fastens the bra over the synthetic but real-looking breasts. Then he returns to the wardrobe. He picks a red
dress, steps into it and slides it up over the tights, straps and padding. I expect him to turn and ask me to zip him up at the back, but he manages it himself, then slips into a pair of
high-heeled shoes.

Then there’s just the wig. He takes it out of a box, fixes it in place, throws his head back and beams at me, turning on his full range of charms.

My breath catches in my throat. I step backwards, shocked, almost dropping the gun. The disguise will need a few more touches before it’s perfect. His features are incredibly similar to
his mother’s, but there’s still something masculine about his face minus make-up and lipstick, earrings and eyelashes. And he needs to add coloured contacts. Yet even at this halfway
stage, the figure is unmistakable.

‘
Andeanna
,’ I groan.

Gregory Menderes raises an eyebrow, purses his lips and says in
her
voice, ‘The one and only.’ He grins sexily. ‘A kiss for old times’ sake, Ed?’

I can’t answer. I can only stare at the face of the man who is the woman I fell in love with and killed for, and wait for the furies of insanity to sweep down from the tormented heavens
and take me.

Greygo sits at the dressing table, working on his face. I watch Andeanna swim into being in the mirror, and I’m amazed by the transformation. It isn’t just the
look. As he progresses, he
becomes
a woman — the way he moves his hands and arches his neck, the frame of his shoulders, the subtle sway of his hips as he leans forwards and
backwards on the chair, the way he crosses his legs. Even knowing who it really is, I have to forcibly remind myself that this isn’t Andeanna — a he, not a she, a cruel conspirator to
be executed, not a restored lover to be adored.

‘It was a set-up from the start, wasn’t it?’ I mutter.

‘Of course,’ he answers in Andeanna’s voice.

‘Not like that,’ I snap. ‘Use your own voice.’

‘This
is
my voice, darling,’ he answers without changing key.

‘Stop it,’ I warn him, ‘or so help me . . . ’

He sighs like Andeanna did when talking about her life with the Turk. ‘You don’t understand, Ed. When I’m dressed like this, when I have this body and face, I
am
my
mother. I can’t alter my voice to suit you. If you want me to speak as Greygo, I’ll have to shed these clothes. Do you want me to do that?’

‘No.’ It’s difficult facing him in this guise, but if he took it off, I’d spend the rest of the conversation wanting him to put it back on. I don’t think I’d
be able to believe he’s Andeanna –
my
Andeanna – without seeing him as her all the time. ‘One question before we start. Did you arrange the murder of your father to
get your hands on his money?’

Andeanna shakes her . . . No. I must think of him as he really is.
Greygo
shakes
his
head.

‘Nothing that venal,’ he says. ‘I’m surprised you had to ask.’

‘Just wanted to make sure.’ Sitting on the bed, I rest the gun in my lap and nod for him to begin.

‘I assume you know the full story, how my mother discovered my father in flagrante delicto and lost her head?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. That saves us a lot of time. Let’s cut to
my
beginning. Love for my mother took precedence over all others. That included love for my father and you.’

‘For
me
!’ I snort.

He smiles but doesn’t press the point. ‘My mother always knew that I was . . . shall we say special?’

‘Let’s say bent as a boomerang,’ I correct him.

He shrugs. ‘I was never overly bothered about sex, so it’s a moot point. I wasn’t afraid of what I was, but I was conscious of my father and how the truth would hurt him. It
was hard enough telling him I was intent on becoming an actor, but if I’d told him I was gay . . . I think he could have forced himself to accept me, but it would have stung him to his core.
I didn’t want to bring more misery into his life, not after what had happened with my mother, so I’ve been mostly celibate. I even had a few flings with women, to make it look as if I
was a hot-blooded hetero. Anyway, my sexual orientation isn’t the issue here.’

‘Isn’t it?’

He shakes his head. ‘What my mother saw in me as a child wasn’t a craving for cock – pardon me for being so crude – but a desire to be feminine. I loved dressing up,
trying on beautiful clothes and undergarments. I wanted to be part of that world of glamour and disguise. Sex had nothing to do with it.

‘She knew I used to sneak into her room and raid her wardrobe. In fact, sometimes I’d find clothes that were too small for her, which I’m sure she bought with me in mind. My
father, on the other hand, knew nothing about it until he discovered me dressed in one of her outfits when I was nine years old. He thrashed me to within an inch of my life.’ Greygo’s
face softens. ‘I never blamed him. It’s how people of his generation thought. Hell, it’s how many of
our
generation think.’

Greygo smirks at me. ‘What about you, Ed? We never discussed it before. Where do you stand on the homosexual issue?’

‘Live and let live,’ I grunt. ‘I’ve no problem with gays. But I’ve no interest in them either.’

‘That’s a shame,’ he murmurs, pouting playfully.

I stare at those lips. I think about all the times I’ve kissed them. The hardcore hetero in me wants me to recoil, to maybe bash them to shreds, to make him pay for what he did. But in
truth, I’m not bothered. I should be, but I’m not. I loved Andeanna so much that I don’t think I would have cared if she’d turned out to be a tranny, not if everything else
had been on the level. I could have lived with that. It was an adjustment I would have been happy to make. For her.

‘That was the only time he hit me,’ Greygo continues. ‘After that, I went underground, with the help of my mother. She took me under her wing and let me dress up when he
wasn’t around. She taught me how to apply make-up and wear the clothes, but also how to remove all traces of my alter ego when I left her room. Through her, I learnt the importance of
separating one’s identities.

‘She was so brave,’ he says softly. ‘My father would have beaten her terribly if he’d found out. It was the one time in her life that she betrayed him, and she did it for
my sake.’

‘Not the only time,’ I contradict him. ‘There was her affair, too.’

He chuckles. ‘With
Axel Nelke
? Surely you know better by now. I don’t know where Andrew got the idea that she was having an affair. Bond played along with the lie for
reasons of his own. So did I. But you must have come to understand how devoted and loyal she was. She could never have betrayed my father.’

To my surprise, I realize he doesn’t know about her fling with Gardiner. A spiteful part of me wants to immediately shatter his illusions, but that would mean a detour, and I don’t
want to waste time. I came here to learn, not enlighten.

‘I was devastated when she died,’ he continues, eyes cloudy. ‘It wasn’t just my mother I’d lost, but my teacher, confidante and friend. She wasn’t only a huge
part of my regular life, but
all
of my secret life.’

I start to say how hard it must have been, sympathizing with him out of habit, then stop and frown. ‘But she isn’t dead.’

‘I know that now,’ he says, ‘but I didn’t then. At the time I thought, along with the rest of the world, that she’d perished in a car crash. I mourned for many
years before I discovered she was still alive.’

‘How did you find out?’ I ask, then silently warn myself to be careful — he almost has me feeling sorry for him. I have to remember what he’s done. Save the pity for
myself.

‘I’d known for a long time that something wasn’t right with my father, the way he responded when my mother’s name was mentioned, the guarded looks he shared with Bond. I
began to eavesdrop on conversations and search through his files when he was away, to no avail.

‘The breakthrough came when I was arrested.’ He laughs. ‘I used to visit tranny bars and clubs — for the fashion, not casual sex. I was at a private party when it was
raided. Since I was underage, I was taken into custody. I had to phone someone but I didn’t dare call my father, so I rang Bond. I knew my mother had relied on him and hoped that I could too.
He bailed me out and took me back to his place.

‘Bond said nothing about what I’d been up to — he didn’t want to know. He mixed a drink for me, let me have a bath, lent me some of his clothes. Then he was summoned away
on business. My snooping instincts got the better of me. I found letters from St Michael’s Psychiatric Hospital referring to a patient by the name of Deleena Emerson. I got straight on the
line to her doctor and demanded to know the truth. I threatened to expose him if he refused to cooperate.

‘I was appalled,’ Greygo mumbles. ‘My father loved her. I couldn’t understand how he could have done that to her. I didn’t know about Christina Whiteoak at the
time, and could think of no reason why he . . . ’

Greygo can’t bring himself to say ‘ruined her life’ or ‘destroyed her’. It’s the first true indication I’ve seen that Gregory Menderes really did love
his father.

‘Did you go see her?’ I ask.

‘Of course. I fled, hailed the first cab I found and offered the driver as much as he wanted to drive me to Darlington. When I got there . . . ’ He stops, lips thinning.

‘It’s OK,’ I tell him. ‘You can skip this bit. I’ve seen her. I can imagine.’

He nods gratefully. ‘Cutting a long story short, I sat down with Bond when I got back and forced the story out of him. I couldn’t approach my father. I never did. To the very end he
assumed that I thought she was dead.

‘I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to hate somebody, but who? Not Bond — he was only following orders. Not the staff at St Michael’s — they were strangers who had
been bullied or bribed. There was only one person I could truly hate, and that was the one person I could never bring myself to despise — my father.’

‘Explain how you
couldn’t
hate him,’ I interject.

Greygo shrugs. ‘I loved him.’

‘But he stole your mother from you. He wiped her mind and locked her away in a madhouse.’

‘I know, but that aside . . . ’ He laughs sickly. ‘What I mean is, I knew I should hate him, I knew I had to hate him, but I couldn’t make myself. I wanted him to pay for
what he’d done, but I could no more attack him than I could cut out my own heart then sew it back in again. I couldn’t hate or harm him, Ed. But Andeanna Menderes
could
.’

Greygo rises from his chair at the dressing table and turns. He looks so feminine that for a moment I truly forget who he is and almost race across to clutch Andeanna and kiss her and tell her
how much I’ve missed her. I catch myself in time, but only just.

‘This isn’t a mere disguise,’ Greygo says, taking several steps towards me. ‘I’m not just pretending to be a woman. When I transform, I transform completely. When I
was with you as Andeanna, I didn’t know where I ended and my mother began. I wasn’t playing. I
was
Andeanna Menderes.’

‘Are you pleading innocence?’ I sneer. ‘Copping some fucked-up schizophrenic plea?
It wasn’t me, it was my mummy
. Is that what you’re trying to
pull?’

‘No,’ he sighs. ‘I planned the seduction and the assassination. I was behind it all, and self-aware every step of the way. But when I was immersed in the part, it was total
immersion. It went beyond role-playing. Look at me.
Listen
to me.’ He touches his throat and strokes it sensuously. ‘I have to speak like this when I become her. I have no
voice of my own right now. If my life depended on it, I couldn’t do Greygo’s voice or any of the others.’

I stare at him blankly. ‘What others?’

He looks surprised. ‘I thought you knew.’

I think furiously and it hits me. ‘Etienne Anders.
You
were the mystic.’