Touchy Subjects (25 page)

"We don't know that she won't repeat the behaviour," said Kay, quavering.

JJ stood up, then. Her hands hung heavy by her sides. "That's right," she said hoarsely. "You all don't know the first thing about anything."

The silence was broken by Carola, reading from the Policy Book again. "In the case of an act of violence, the co-op may proceed directly to step three, eviction."

Everyone stared at her. None of us had noticed the smell, till then, or the smoke fingering its way along the corridor. Only when the alarm began to squeal did we come to our senses.

In the kitchen the cork notice-board over Rachel's curry pot had gone up in flames. Di threw a bowl of water at it, putting out the fire and soaking Kay's pajamas. The smell was hideous. Phone messages, recycling schedules, minutes of meetings, a postcard from an ex-housemate in Java, and a pop-up card I'd got for my eighteenth birthday were all black and curled as feathers.

The eviction clause was never put to the test. JJ gave her notice the next day.

I was so full of rage I couldn't uncurl my fingers. "You could have stayed," I told her in her bedroom, not bothering to keep my voice down. "Why do the petty bureaucrats always have to win? It's Iona we should have kicked out, or Carola. All you did was defend yourself for half a second. Why is physical violence so much worse than the emotional kind, anyway?"

JJ said nothing, just carried on stowing away her rolled-up socks in the bottom of her backpack.

"My father hit my mother once," I told her, "and you know what?"

That made her look up.

"She deserved it. The things my mother used to say, I should have hit her myself." Now the tears were snaking down my face.

"Ah, Luce," said JJ. "Don't cry."

I sobbed like a child.

"I'd like to have stayed," she told me. "But I just don't feel welcome anymore."

"You are! Welcome to me, anyway," I choked, ungrammatically.

JJ came over to hug me then. I didn't quite believe she was going to do it. She hunched, a little, as if her back was hurting her. She took me by the shoulders and warily laid her heavy head on my neck. I could feel her hot breath. She smelt of jasmine.

A mad idea came to me then. "Well, I'll move out, too," I said brightly. "We can find a flat to share."

I could see her answer in her face, even before she shook her head.

My ribs felt cold and leaden. "Where are you going, though? You don't have anywhere else to go. Listen, why don't I ring round some of the letting agencies for you? I've nearly a thousand pounds in my account. You can have it."

Her head kept gently swinging from side to side, saying no to everything. "I'll be OK," she whispered.

And then I saw in the back of her dark eyes that she did have somewhere to go, she just wasn't telling me. So I took a step backwards and put my hands by my sides.

The taxi took her away." 'Keep in touch," I shouted—a meaningless phrase, because JJ and I had never touched in our lives except for about five seconds, just before she left.

I didn't stay long at the Welcome myself, as it happened. Once I started college in the autumn, it seemed to make more sense to live in a student residence so I wouldn't have to trek across town.

The letter didn't reach me for months, because by then Di was off in Tibet and the others at the Welcome claimed to have mislaid my new address. I finally read it the day after Christmas, sitting on a park bench in the college grounds.

If I say hi, this is John, you won't know who I mean, will you? I used to think if anybody found me out, it would be you, Luce. Sometimes you used to look at me so intensely, like there was something on the tip of your tongue, I thought maybe you knew. But I was probably just kidding myself so I'd feel less guilty about bullshitting you all.

They said the hormones would be hard. But what I've found much worse is not quite belonging anywhere and having to lie all the time. Not that I ever had to actually claim to be a woman, because none of you ever asked.

And I am one, you know. Inside. Not where people usually mean by inside, but farther inside than that. I've
known since I was four years old. I'm not John anymore, except on my birth certificate; I don't think I ever really was. I've been JJ for a long time now. That's why it wasn't exactly a lie, what I let you all think. To have said "Hi, my name is John" would have been the biggest lie.

But the body I've got is mostly wrong, still, and the doctors won't give me the operation because they say I'm not serious enough about wanting it. According to their classifications, I should wear makeup and tights and get a boyfriend. I have to keep telling them that's not the kind of woman I am. I spent too many years pretending already, to want to start all over again.

I did like living in the co-op, more than I showed, probably. Most days I was able to forget about the whole man/ woman business and just be one of the girls. I'm sorry I cocked it all up in the end (no pun intended).

I just wanted to tell you something, Luce, that's why I'm writing. I just wanted to say (here goes), if I had the right body—if I had any kind of body I was wanting to show or share, or if I could feel much of anything these days—then it would be you I'd want to do it with. You'd be welcome. That's all. I just thought I'd tell you that, because what the hell.

It all happened years ago. I wouldn't believe how many years, except for the date on the letter, which I keep folded up small in a sandalwood box with a couple of other important things, like my grandfather's pipe and an iris from the bouquet Di chucked me at her and Theo's wedding.

These days I have a very normal happy life, in a two-dykes-and-their-dogs-and-their-mortgage kind of way. I'm not quite so picky anymore, and I don't let myself correct people's grammar, at least out loud. Last I heard, the Welcome was still going, though I don't know anyone who lives there. I wonder are the potatoes still sprouting down the back of the garden, the ones I watered with JJ? I thought I saw her at Pride one year—or the back of her neck, anyway—but I might have been imagining it.

In case this sounds like some kind of doomed first-love story, I should admit that I was grateful there was no return address on that letter. I was young, that summer—younger than I knew, it occurs to me now. JJ must have known that I wouldn't have been able to write back; that I'd have had no idea what to say.

Her letter has gone all shiny at the folds. I don't read it for nostalgia; I prefer not to read it at all. It brings back that bruised, shivery feeling of being in love and making one mistake after another, of waking up to find myself in the wrong story. I keep the letter in my box for anytime I catch myself thinking I know the first thing about anything.

Fiorenze (Florence), Stazione Rifredi, Monday, Day 1. Caffé Latte.

George had a brown leather notebook to record his impressions so that he could tell his friends at college exactly what Italy was like, rather than blabbing on vaguely. The caffè latte was much weaker than in the college café in Loughborough, but subtler, more authentic. He was killing half an hour in Stazione Rifredi, which had turned out not to be the main Florence station; because it had said
F
I
O
R
E
N
Z
E
on the sign, he'd leapt off the train like a twat, so now he had to wait for a local train to take him south to Stazione di Santa Maria Novella, which was the real one. He thought the Italians should label things more clearly.

They eat and drink standing up at the counter, very odd—meant to be laid-back Mediterranean people?

People kept leaving the door of the buffet open and the February air skated in. But the guidebook said you really had to come off-season if you wanted to see the art without peering over stinky hordes.

As soon as he got to Florence proper, George went into Santa Maria Novella, the first church on his list.

Said to be finest Gothic church in Tuscany. Stripy b/w facade, not at all like Gothic at home.

The wheels of his suitcase squeaked embarrassingly on the church's flagstones. It was hard to see in the chapels, but he'd brought his small torch, as the guidebook had suggested. He leaned against the wall and penciled in some notes.

Lots of martyrdoms (St. Lawrence on his griddle, St. Catherine? with breasts on plate, St. Sebastian stuck with arrows) and a raising of Drusiana, who she?

George had picked out the Hotel Annunziata because the guidebook said it was cheap, five minutes from Ponte Vecchio, and had lashings of atmosphere. It was three floors up over a posh wineshop. The Signora who ran the place could have been anything between sixty and ninety; despite his Linguaphone course, he couldn't understand a word she said, and he thought she must be speaking some kind of heavy Tuscan dialect. She uncurled a hand at the frescoes in the lounge, then led him down a skinny corridor to indicate the toilet and the shower. The Signora took George's passport away to her own apartment for a few minutes, leaving him standing round gazing at the frescoes, and then she came back with a police form for him to sign. He wondered whether all tourists had to do that or just young guys, potential troublemakers.

Unpacking in his bare square room, it occurred to George that he might be the only person staying there. He hadn't heard any voices, but maybe the others would come in later. This place was like something from another century—the pensione from
A Room with a View.

No view but what can expect for €49 a night? What's that in sterling?—must check. Hallway's got stucco putti, I think probably real. For lunch had pasta in gritty squid ink (not good), outside became there was a bit of sun but pretty cold.

George had been planning this trip ever since he was seven and saw a film about the Medicis. He was doing social studies at Loughborough but was thinking of changing to art history. His Florence itinerary was only provisional; he knew he probably wouldn't get to all these churches and museums, but he meant to try, because for all he knew he'd never be here again. (His aunt had always wanted to go to Bali, but now she had emphysema.) If he started to flag, he could always have an espresso.

George knew the statues outside Orsanmichele were nearly all copies, but he had decided that looking at the full-size copies in their original setting was actually more authentic than looking at the originals (brought inside to escape the acid rain) in the museum, and besides, the museum was shut on Mondays.

The guidebook says most tourists rush right past Orsanmichele wh. is prob. single most important series of early Renaissance statues. I know I'm one too (a tourist) but they repel me (tourists, not statues). E.g. trying to soak up ancient atmosphere in this little piazza Santa something-or-other but scooters keep roaring by and there's two girls at the next table with Liverpool accents.

The guidebook said the closed museum also had an excellent
Transition of the Virgin.

There's just as much art about Mary as about JC, really, they're like his 'n her deities. What was she transitioning from, I wonder? Sounds like a sex change.

George just wanted to know, so that the art would make sense; he wasn't into any of that stuff personally. He'd stopped going to church when he was thirteen, and his parents hadn't seemed bothered.

In the Baptistery he craned up at the ancient mosaics. There was Jesus, twenty feet high, with under him all the sarcophagi opening and the dead crawling out, the ones on the left being escorted away to heaven by huge trumpeting angels,

and the poor buggers on the right being grabbed by devils like something out
o/Star Trek,
leathery bat wings, and enormous Satan munching them two at a time!

The Baptistery doors were those famous ones Ghiberti had won the competition for in 1401, and George stood with his arms folded and tried to examine the panels closely, but tourists kept pushing past him to get in and out.

In a tiny
osteria
he ordered
pasta e fagioli,
thinking it was pasta with beans, but it turned out to be a bean soup with a few bits of pasta in it, and he was still hungry afterwards. He read his guidebook in bed and thought of asking the Signora for another pillow. There was a bell beside the door to her private apartment, but he didn't want to hassle her; she was probably down on her arthritic knees saying the rosary or something (though, actually, her radio was on). His phrase book didn't have
pillow
in it; he would have to mime the concept, or bring along the one pillow he had and point to it, and then she might think he was allergic to it. Never mind, he could sit cross-legged and lean back against the wall.

Tuesday, Day 2.1 know it sounds pretentious, but this isn't a holiday—it's a pilgrimage.

George stood flinching under the shower, fiddling to try to find something between scalding and icy. His hair was still wet as he hurried past the Duomo. He felt like Michelangelo, on his way to choose a block of perfect translucent Carrara marble by the dawn light. Passing a tour party who were emitting the usually clicking and whirring sounds as they squinted up at Brunelleschi's orange dome, George was gratified that he'd decided to leave his camera in his room in Loughborough. This way he would really see things and really remember.

Standing in Piazza della Signoria beside gigantic statues, e.g. Donatello's Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes, noticed I was standing on a purple circle which turned out to be a disc of porphyry to mark where Savonarola (the hellfre-spouting, bonfire of the vanities priest) got burnt alive on 23 May 1498. Fuck!