The New Woman (31 page)

Out on the streets, the weekend had begun. I heard the footsteps of children on their way home from school, galloping along the pavement, whooping at one another. I heard the tapping of a stick and knew it was the old man who lived on the top floor. A little later I heard female voices, and caught a glimpse of court shoes.

But I was in my own world. I was about to do something terrifying and wonderful.

In my bedroom, I pressed the first dose out of their packets and laid them in a careful row on top of the chest of drawers. I’d finally been given the green light to begin hormone therapy. The endocrinologist had calculated my dose of female hormones, which would send the signal to my body that I was indeed a woman; then there were antiandrogens to suppress the testosterone and turn off the male tap. A double whammy. Don’t expect miracles, they’d all warned me; it’s hard to get this right. There will be a lot of finetuning.

I viewed the pills with fearful reverence. I wouldn’t turn into a page three girl overnight; at first the war would be fought at a cellular level. Yet this was the first real physical step. Over weeks and months my body really would change: I’d become more and more of a woman; less and less of a man. Imagine that.

This was it. I was about to cross the Rubicon.

Or was I?

I took off Luke’s suit and shirt and tie, and became Lucia. That made me feel stronger. For a long time I stood absolutely still, looking at those pills. I picked up the glass of water, and raised my eyebrows at the person in the mirror.

‘Sure, now?’ I said aloud. ‘Is this really what you want?’

The last time I’d tried to change myself physically, I was three years old. My mother and Janey’s mother put us in the bath
together. I remember we had a new kitten, a soft tortoiseshell who regarded the entire world as a toy. I looked at Janey as we blew soap bubbles, and spotted something I’d never noticed before.

‘Janey’s hurt herself,’ I said to Mum. ‘She’s got no willy. Where’s she put it?’

The two mothers fell about laughing. They kept trying to control themselves, then catching each other’s eye and bursting out again. Janey’s mum was actually crying with the hilarity of it all.

‘She’s not hurt!’ she gasped, wiping her eyes. ‘She’s a girl, you silly peanut. Girls don’t have willies. They have tuppences.’

I had no idea what this meant, but I didn’t want them to laugh at me anymore. We got out of the bath and into our nightclothes. I was truly amazed by the news. So it wasn’t Janey who was faulty, it was me. I envied her. I wanted to have a tuppence. Then I had a good idea.

A few minutes later, when everyone else was playing with the kitten in the sitting room, I trotted away and into the kitchen. I had to climb on a chair to get to the knife block. I chose the biggest one, slid it out of the block and carefully lowered myself from the chair. Then I took off my pyjama bottoms and sat cross-legged on the floor. I was frightened that this was going to hurt but I was very, very determined. I was going to be the same as Janey.

I don’t know what would have happened if my mother hadn’t walked in. Fortunately I was ineffectual with a knife, and I wasn’t nearly as brave as I thought I was; but Mum kept it razor sharp and I’d managed to break the skin. It hurt far more than I’d expected, and I was howling with the pain and the terror of seeing so much blood. Poor Mum. I still remember her horrified shrieks, and Janey’s mother running in. I remember bawling my eyes out, and Mum yelling,
Don’t ever, ever do that again!
Later, when we were sitting by the fire, she gave me a piece of chocolate cake, pressing me against her chest and whispering in my ear,
We won’t tell Daddy about this, eh?
And we never did, because
one thing my mother and I both knew—but never said—was that Daddy must be looked after and shielded from the nastier things in life. I did that, right up until the day he died. But now he was gone, too far gone even to be spinning in his grave.

These hormones looked a lot less savage than my mother’s carving knife. I was doing this for that small child, sitting on the kitchen floor. I was doing this for the misshapen woman who watched me from the mirror. She was so hopeful. She was willing me to go on.

I threw the pills into my mouth, swallowed, and chased them down with water. The Task Force was on its way.

‘Feeling any different yet?’ I asked.

Lucia smiled.

That night, I dreamed of a baby in a forest. I felt the milk coming and knew it was for her. As I fed her, she gazed up at me as though I were a goddess. I had never known such love; I’d never felt such happiness and peace. Everything in the world was hushed.

The forest was a cathedral with green glass windows. Shafts of silver poured through the canopy, glowing in droplets on the leaf litter all around me. It was morning. We were safe. And no wolves came.

Eilish

It was long, long after midnight. I lay in a Lukeless bed, gazing up through the skylight. A brilliant moon shone full onto my face. I’d been close to happy this evening, and yet I was crying. Is this how it feels, I wondered, when a marriage finally slides out of your hands?

Oh, Jim. He’d given me such a gift. I hadn’t been on a date with anyone but Luke since I was twenty-four years old; yet there we were, off school turf and in our glad rags. Kate was right about one thing: The Lock’s a romantic place for dinner. Our
table was nestled up to a window, right above the water. There were candles, and the reflections of coloured lanterns gleamed and rippled out in the darkness. I took that first sip of wine, savouring the rich depth of it. It seemed a crime to be here and not in love.

I wasn’t going to talk about Luke. I wasn’t going to act the jilted wife. I asked Jim about his sons, Bill and Matthew, who were roughly Simon’s age. Jim was very amusing on the subject of Bill’s latest girlfriend, who sounded completely off her head. By the time the venison arrived, we’d moved on to Kate’s dig in Israel. Jim was on his best behaviour until I noticed that he was gazing at me much too intently.

‘Lipstick on my teeth?’ I asked.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he said.

‘Flatterer!’

He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t just mean you’ve got a frock on and you scrub up well. I mean really beautiful, in every way.’

I thanked him. It was wonderful to hear someone say that, because I harboured this nagging fear that I must be frumpy, or boring.

My phone beeped from the depths of my bag.

‘Sorry,’ I said, reaching for it. ‘Infuriating when people text over dinner. I’d better turn it off, before you confiscate it.’

I glanced at the message, saw it was from Kate, and laughed out loud.

SOBER?????

I typed quickly.
As a judge. How is Owen?

OMG he stood me up. Hello to Chadders. Remember no going home 4 coffee.

‘Kate,’ I said, as I turned off my phone. ‘Keeping an eye on me. She says hello.’

‘And hello to Kate from me. I bet she said some other things as well.’

‘Well, yes. She does have views about her mother and her physics teacher cavorting around the countryside. But she’s
level-headed. She’s coped with Luke’s coming-out far better than Simon has.’

I saw Jim’s eyes flicker, and wondered what he was thinking. He was holding the bottle of pinot over my nearly empty glass. I half-heartedly protested; said I had to pace myself, muttered something about having to drive. He mentioned a taxi.

‘Simon’s struggling?’ he asked, as he poured.

‘That’s putting it mildly.’

‘Is he all right?’

‘I don’t know, Jim. I’m not sure he is all right. His dad was his hero. If Luke was in the carpentry shed, Simon was too. If Luke was in his study, Simon took his homework in there. Luke’s a keen cricketer and—whaddaya know?—so is Simon. Career decisions, business problems, worries about Nico, Simon ran them all by Luke. And then one day, out of a clear blue sky . . . well.’

Bugger. I’d been determined not to talk about Luke, but here I was, burbling on. I described Simon’s anger, his drinking, his adamant refusal to let poor Nico see Luke. ‘He’s a bit of a mess,’ I concluded.

‘Sounds like it.’ Jim looked thoughtful. ‘He was doing so well, wasn’t he? Career, lovely wife. On an even keel. It was good to see.’

Odd choice of words.
Even keel
. I wasn’t aware that Simon had ever been rudderless.

‘He wasn’t unhappy, was he?’ I asked. ‘When you taught him?’

Jim shrugged. ‘Well, you know. He had his moments.’

‘I’m not sure I do know.’

‘He hasn’t always found life easy, has he? Bit of a loner. He had people he knocked about with. Not sure he liked them much.’

And that’s probably true, I thought as I tried to remember Simon’s teenage years. To my shame, it was all a bit hazy. I was working full-time; Kate was young and turbulent; Simon seemed focused on his A-levels, and, anyway, he tended to talk to Luke more than to me. He didn’t seem to be a squeaky wheel, so he got no oil.

Dessert arrived then, and the conversation moved on. The rest of the evening passed in laughter and warmth. Jim and I always had plenty to talk about, but tonight there was an extra energy. Even without Luke, I thought in surprise, there can be good moments.

‘New Year’s Eve,’ Jim said, as he was helping me into my coat. ‘My place. I’m having a party. Be there, or be square.’

‘I can’t have an affair with you, Jim.’

He feigned indignation. ‘The invitation was to a New Year’s Eve shindig, not my bedroom! But, purely out of interest . . . why can’t you?’

‘I’m not quite divorced,’ I said. ‘It would be adultery.’

‘Semantics.’

‘And you’re a colleague.’

‘That’s never stopped anyone before.’

He was right. Sometimes you could cut the atmosphere in our staffroom with a butter knife.

‘Okay,’ I said, as I pulled on my gloves. ‘I’ll rephrase. I can’t have an affair with you
yet
, Jim. Luke’s only been gone five months.’

‘And I’ve waited fourteen years for you.’

‘I hope you’re getting a taxi home,’ I said severely.

He opened his arms. ‘This isn’t the wine talking! I’m shtonecold shober.’

I grinned, and deflected him, and soon we were laughing again. Jim was so buoyant compared with Luke; he was lighter in his being. We were among the last to leave, stepping out of the warm restaurant into a frosty night. The moon had risen. We chatted for a while, loitering between our two parked cars.

Finally I looked at my watch, saw that it was after midnight, and said I’d better go.

‘I’ve had a wonderful evening,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Another time?’ he asked, holding my door as I got in.

‘New Year’s Eve,’ I said. ‘Thank you. I’d love to come.’

Thirty-two

Kate

Frigging Owen.
Half an hour late. She sat in a corner of the George and Dragon, reading
Private Eye
and trying not to look as though she’d been stood up. There was a band on that night, but the place wasn’t hopping because their music was truly awful. It was a middle-aged man and woman, each with a guitar, playing what sounded like seventies folk and singing in really annoying nasal voices. At the end of every song they’d stop and drone on about what the next song was trying to say—as though anyone cared.

‘This one’s really important to me,’ the man was saying. He dipped his head down to the microphone like a rock star. ‘You know, it’s about my journey, really, because I just realised I wasn’t fulfilled, and now I’m just in a really good place, so, yeah, this is sort of my story.’

And they were off again, warbling away. The song sounded exactly the same as the last one, and the one before that. Kate looked at her watch and cursed. Owen was now thirty-seven minutes late. Another ten, and she’d leave. She was meeting her dissertation supervisor at nine tomorrow, and there was some work she needed to do before then.

Mum would be at The Lock right now, with Mr Chadwick. Bloody hell. Those two teachers were bound to get tipsy and
giggly. It didn’t bear thinking about! To pass the time, Kate sent Eilish a text; then she grinned at the reply. This thing with Mum and Mr Chadders was funny . . . except that it wasn’t. What about poor Dad?

There was a guy across the room, sitting with some other people. She’d spotted him when she first came in. Quite hot. Open-necked shirt, jacket, jeans. Might be thirty, might be younger. She could see him looking her way. When she caught him out, he smiled at her. Kate went back to
Private Eye
. She wasn’t here to pick up men. She was here to meet Owen and listen to whatever it was he had to say.

Then again, he ticked all the boxes, that guy. She found herself speculating about him as he stood up and headed for the bar. He had friends, and he was buying a round. Not a loner, then. Or a loser.

He’d just passed Kate’s corner when he hesitated, laughed to himself, and swung back to speak to her. He looked her in the eye but seemed slightly diffident, slightly wary of being told to piss off. Just wary enough. Any more would make him awkward; any less would make him an arrogant twerp.