The New Woman (41 page)

At the age of nineteen, Simon Livingstone learned something about himself. He learned that he wasn’t capable of pushing broken glass into the face of another human being. He hurled the bottle against the wall.

‘I should kill you,’ he said. ‘Someday, someone
will
kill you.’

She reached to touch his face, and he felt her fingertips. He took hold of her shoulders and pushed with all the strength of his fury. It was like knocking over a rag doll. She hit the ground hard, and lay in a puddle.

‘I am Jessica,’ she sobbed, again and again. ‘I am Jessica.’

For a moment he felt sorry for her. Then he remembered the sniggers of his flatmates. This freak had made a fool of him, and he–she was still manipulating; still trying to get sympathy. Well, the games were over. He strode out of the car park and away through the centre of town. He’d fallen for a guy. He had touched and kissed and lusted after a guy. What did that make him—gay? Perhaps he was. After all, he’d been attracted to another man. He felt filthy. He felt betrayed. He couldn’t imagine ever feeling happy or normal again.

The next day, Quinn reported that the lady boy had left his job at the hotel in the middle of the night, without stopping to collect his wages. At around the same time, a text arrived on Simon’s phone. He read it, deleted it, and blocked the number. But he couldn’t erase the girl in the club from his memory.

So so sorry I didn’t tell you before. Thanks for the happiness. I am Jessica.

Forty-two

Luke

Judi had gathered nine members of the management committee in a conference room, and made sure there was coffee. I was pleased to see both Benjamin Rose and the senior partner, Sarah Arkwright. The managing partner, a bean counter called Giles Lea, and some of the practice heads I knew very well; others less so. They were politely baffled to be collared in this way, looking at their watches.

‘I need to be away by eight,’ warned Sarah. ‘I’ve got another meeting elsewhere.’ She was an indomitable warhorse who struck terror into the hearts of trainees.

‘You will be, Sarah,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk fast.’

I was getting much, much better at this. I had my spiel ready, and it took exactly three minutes. When I’d finished, there was a lot of leg shuffling, and throat clearing, and Benjamin asking unhurriedly,
Let me just understand this, Luke
.
You’re telling us that you are transsexual?
One of the litigation partners—Hugh Tolly—fired up his iPad and began reading emails. Others looked stunned, or intrigued, or amused.

‘What are the implications?’ asked Sarah. Her voice was crisp. She wanted to cut to the chase so that she could get away.

I began to answer, but was interrupted by Hugh Tolly. ‘Are you going to have a sex change?’

‘I’ve already told you that I’ll be presenting as female. So yes, that will be a change of gender.’

‘Oh, come on.’ There was a taunting, school-bully ring to his voice. ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. Are you going to have The Operation?’

I smiled at him. ‘If you mean will I be having gender reassignment surgery at some point in the future, the answer is that I haven’t yet made that decision. Also that it’s none of your business. It isn’t generally regarded as polite to ask intimate medical questions.’

‘Why haven’t you resigned?’

‘I’m not sure it’s called for.’

‘Of course it’s bloody called for. I’m calling for it. From what you’ve told us, there are compromising photos of you all over the internet.’

Judi leaned towards him across the conference table. ‘You’ll be aware of the discrimination laws,’ she said pleasantly. ‘If you look at our website, we do rather brag about our equal opportunities record. Look on the bright side! This will be a feather in our diversity cap.’

‘This isn’t about discrimination,’ said Hugh. ‘It’s about loyalty to this firm. We rely on professional relationships. We’re going to lose half our clients if they have to take advice from a wolf in Granny’s nightie. He needs to clear his desk.’

Sarah had clearly heard enough. ‘Shut up, Hugh, before you get us all into expensive trouble.’ She had a very penetrating voice. Hugh shut up.

To my own surprise, I found I was thoroughly enjoying this meeting. I was running on adrenaline and it felt terrific, like flying. After years of hiding, years of fear and shame, I had finally broken cover and was standing in the open. I was who I was. My mind was clear and focused.

‘I would like to transition at Bannermans,’ I said. ‘That means present myself full-time as female. Judi and I
had
planned to roll
it out in an organised way: give out plenty of information, allow the whole thing time to normalise. It’s been done before, as you know. There are transgender people in the legal profession—well, in every walk of life. We had a detailed timetable, working towards July.’

‘But you’ve been outed,’ said Benjamin, without rancour.

‘I have, Benjamin. And I’m sorry.’

He brushed away the apology. ‘Which changes everything. So your new plan is . . . ?’

‘We have hours, days at the most, before these photographs arrive on the first screen here. Once that happens they’ll be on
every
screen. It’s no good hoping people will refuse to look or share them—of course they will. Heck, I would, if Hugh was wearing his Spider-Man costume.’

There was some laughter. Hugh scowled at me.

‘We’ll have to pre-empt the arrival of those photographs,’ said Giles Lea. ‘Damage limitation.’

Judi took a stack of paper from a file, and slid copies of a document across the polished surface of the table. Like me, she was in her element. ‘I’ve already prepared a memo. Here it is. My suggestion is that I send it out at eight o’clock on Monday morning, by email, to absolutely everybody, including support staff and caterers. You can see I’ve included links to a website—it’s excellent, very informative about gender identity. I’ve also sourced an organisation who can come in and run training workshops, if you think that’s necessary.’

Hugh snorted and asked how many man hours did we intend to squander? Political correctness gone mad, he said.

‘I hate to agree with Hugh, but I can’t see why training would be necessary,’ remarked Sarah, who’d scanned the letter within five seconds. ‘Surely we can educate ourselves. Have we taken advice on how to handle the situation?’

Judi nodded. ‘I’ve just come off the phone from an ex-colleague of mine who’s experienced something very similar. The advice is that Luke should stay at his desk for the next
week. It won’t be much fun for him, with these images floating around, but if he simply disappears it’ll fuel more speculation—quite apart from the practical difficulties of rescheduling his diary. From next Friday, he’ll take some leave. While he’s gone, we change the website details and letterheads and do other admin. He’ll return to Bannermans in the new gender role on March the ninth. We’ll send out another memo closer to the time, about feminine pronouns and other landmines to avoid.’

‘By “new gender role”,’ said Hugh, ‘I take it you mean as a transvestite.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s something different.’

‘Christ, I loathe doublespeak! Don’t we have a dress code for partners? Are fishnet stockings on the list?’

‘Nothing wrong with fishnets. I look smashing in them myself,’ said Sarah. There was another ripple of laughter, and I was grateful to her.

‘Right.’ She stood up. ‘Sorry to break up the party, but I have to leave now. This is all perfectly simple. There’s no point in chucking your toys around the cot, Hugh. We can’t by law discriminate against . . .’ she glanced down at the letter ‘. . . against Lucia, even if we wanted to. It’s a pity we’ve been bounced by these wretched photographs, but there it is. Let’s get on with the job. Good work, Judi. Best of British to you, Luke.’ She was getting ready to leave as she talked, throwing a black velvet cloak around her shoulders.

The meeting broke up. Judi said she’d speak to me over the weekend and hurried out. Hugh stomped away, but most of the others managed to meet my eye. One said I knew where she was if I wanted to talk, and asked how Eilish was coping. Another muttered, ‘You’re a bloody dark horse,’ but he looked more stunned than revolted.

Benjamin and I were the last to leave.

‘I’ve caused a scandal,’ I said, with a grimace of apology.

‘Makes a refreshing change from adultery.’

I thanked him for staying late, and he said it was no trouble because he’d planned to visit his mother in her nursing home and she preferred him to arrive after her favourite television program. He and I took the lift together, watching the numbers counting down.

As we reached the ground floor, he spoke again. ‘Nature or nurture, do you think?’

‘Not nurture. I’m pretty sure I was born with this conflict.’ The lift doors opened, and we stepped out into the lobby. ‘I don’t know, Benjamin. The fact is that nobody knows why I am as I am. Psychiatrists and geneticists and endocrinologists, and theologians from every religion, and . . . nobody has a bloody clue. My sister says I’m a sinful but curable soul.’

‘Do you agree with her?’

‘I know I’m not curable. Perhaps I’m a sort of divine conversation piece, like a Rubik’s cube.’

We parted company outside the revolving doors. Benjamin flagged down a taxi for himself.

‘What about you?’ he asked, as a driver pulled in. ‘Where are you headed now?’

I smiled. ‘I’m going home.’

Eilish

He was a figure in an overcoat, walking up the dark platform.

It was after eleven when I collected him from the station. I’d hit a traffic diversion on the way into town, and was almost late. I hurried across the bridge and down the steps just as the train was pulling away. There he was: my husband still, though I’d applied for decree absolute. He halted when he saw me. I stopped too, with my hand on the staircase rail and my foot on the bottom step. It was Luke; Luke with his dark eyes, and the reticent smile I knew so well, and the way he always held his head—upright and steady, like a gentle soldier. The other passengers passed us by. We were alone.

I spoke first. ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’

‘The very same.’

I stepped forward, barging into him, and we clung to one another. I kissed him for the first time in all those months—it was the only right, natural thing to do. I tasted the salt of my own tears, and perhaps of his too. We walked to the car with our arms around one another and talked all the way home. It was difficult to know where to start, because there was so much ground to cover. I wanted to know how Bannermans had taken his news; I pressed for every detail of his conversation with Penny O’Neil. We talked about my job, about my world; about what was to come.

‘Kate’s coming on Sunday,’ I said, as I parked outside Smith’s Barn. ‘She thinks this world is too big and bad for us to manage it without her. And here we are. Welcome home.’

He reached out to my hand on the steering wheel. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said. ‘So much.’

I leaned across and kissed him again. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then his arms were around me. I wanted to arouse him, to persuade him to come back into my bed. I wanted my husband back again—not Jim, not anyone else; I wanted Luke. I slid a hand under his shirt, feeling the warmth of his body as I ran my fingers across his ribs and up towards his chest.

‘I’m not the same.’ His voice was sharp with warning. ‘The hormones.’

I froze, terrified of what I might have been about to touch. Then I fell out of the car and rushed into the house. I heard him follow me into the kitchen. My hands were shaking. I didn’t know what to think, or what to say.

You idiot
, I told myself.
You knew he was taking oestrogen. We all know what happens when a man does that.

It was no good. I couldn’t skirt around this subject. I had to ask. ‘Are you growing breasts? And what else . . . ? Oh my God.’

‘The hormones are ending the war inside me. They’re bringing peace. They’re also changing me—very, very gradually.’

I watched as he took off his coat and cradled a fanatically purring Casino in his arms. He was Luke. He was still Luke. I’d known him in a thousand roles and moods: as an embarrassed young man at the ballet, and a confident professional; as a father, a lover, a son. I’d seen him shattered as he held Charlotte’s lifeless body; joyous at Simon and Kate’s achievements; I’d seen him making sandwiches for Robert on their last outing together, gently helping the old man into his car. I’d seen him overcome by lust, and pain, and love, and rage, and helpless laughter. I’d seen him drunk. I’d seen him depressed. I’d seen him singing and dancing on a table in a skirt. I had walked with him through thirty years of light and shade and changing seasons.

And now here he was in my kitchen, and he was different again; but he was still the same person. There were physical things: his hair was much longer now, curling around the nape of his neck. It looked rather stylish and piratical. He’d never been plump, but in the last seven months he’d lost a lot of weight. His shoulders were not quite so broad as I remembered, his jaw not quite so strong nor so stubbled; in fact, his complexion seemed almost boyish. There was a new quality about him, something translucent and light and comfortable. He was beautiful in a strange, gypsyish way; but . . . well. Younger. Not quite male; more androgynous.

‘You look good,’ I said. ‘Whoever you are.’

He smiled at me. ‘So do you.’

‘You’re really going to go on with this?’

There was no evasion, no embarrassment, no uncertainty. ‘I’m really going to go on with this.’

Everything had changed since that awful day, back in July, when he’d walked all night in the storm before coming home to confess. That day he was broken. Now—perhaps for the first time since I’d known him—he was whole.

I knew now. I knew what I wanted to do.

‘Then be her,’ I said. ‘If I can’t have Luke back, I want to get to know Lucia. Tomorrow we’ll go out together and face the
gossips. They’ll all have seen your picture by then, so let’s give them the real thing. The pub, the shop, everywhere.’