Sex and Other Changes (9 page)

‘I doubt that,' she said. ‘You don't seem to me to have a good mind for anything.'

‘Oh fuck off,' he shouted.

‘Case proven,' she shrieked triumphantly.

He flashed two nicotine-stained fingers at her and sped off. She saw that at the back of his van someone had written in the thick grime, ‘I bet you wish your wife was as dirty as this van' and suddenly all her anger left her and she laughed inwardly at the thought of the little runt driving around all day, oblivious.

She pulled in to the side. She was breathing very hard. She had been so angry that she might have had a stroke. When she'd calmed down she drove carefully home, parked the precious Peugeot and phoned Mr Beresford to say she had a migraine, that she'd tried to get to work, got as far as the Boulevard (in case someone had seen her) and had suddenly felt that she couldn't make it. He was sympathetic. After all, she hardly ever took days off, and, besides, she knew that he rather fancied her, even though he was too much of a gentleman to show it.

The moment she'd made her phone call she knew that she'd made a big mistake. The house was so silent. Gray was at school, Em was at work, Marge was sleeping and Bernie was watching her sleeping. She had never known number thirty-three so silent. It clanged with silence.

She was trapped. She couldn't turn up at work and say, ‘False alarm. I find I haven't got a migraine after all.'

She was alone with her emotions. She went to the front door and fetched the mail. Yet another offer of reduced car insurance.
Yet another letter from Tom Champagne of the
Reader's Digest
. And a questionnaire from the Royal Mail. Would you describe your postman as ‘neatly dressed', ‘reasonably dressed', ‘averagely dressed', ‘untidily dressed' or ‘badly dressed'? Is he ‘very friendly', ‘fairly friendly', ‘averagely friendly', ‘rather unfriendly' or ‘very unfriendly'? Is he ‘very polite', ‘fairly polite' … well, you get the style.

She filled in that he was untidily dressed, very friendly, extremely impolite, any other comments? ‘Yes, he has twice exposed himself to me in the front garden, in a very friendly, very impolite manner. He has also kicked the cat and broken three elves and a heron.'

She left the completed questionnaire on the kitchen table, in the hope that Nick would read it that evening and deduce how desperate she was.

There was nothing for it after that but to clean the house from top to bottom, except for the granny flat. Mrs Pritchard did that once a week, and that was disruption enough for Marge.

Alison was feeling an emotion that was strange to her and repugnant. She was feeling self-pity. She told herself not to be so ridiculous, but she couldn't help it. It should have been her. She hoovered with savage feminist resentment, forcing the horrid little machine across the hateful carpets. She really did hate carpets sometimes. God, how she longed to have cool Spanish tiles and elegant rugs, not these coffee-stained, winesplashed, asthma-inducing housing estates for carpet mites.

‘Nick, I hate you,' she said later as she lifted his odious photograph of the management team at the Cornucopia, all teeth and trousers, to dust round it.

She dusted round their wedding photograph. If they had known what was in store …! She dusted round the photographs of Em and Gray at various stages in their little lives. Her eyes filled with tears. This was intolerable. It was becoming a habit.

She picked up the wedding photograph again and stared at it and knew that all her efforts to hate Nick had failed.

She loved him, damn it. She admired him. She'd have described him as a wimp, if the word hadn't had connotations of strength that he didn't possess, and now here he was showing courage and determination and imagination. She knew better than anyone how much of all those things a sex change took.

She had always tried to be fair and just, and she realised now just how unfair she had been to Nick in blaming him for his monstrous self-absorption. That was simply the nature of consciousness. Hadn't she been exactly the same, planning her every move, unaware of the great journey he was making in his head?

She felt sick with nerves at the thought of him at the clinic. Oh, Nick, if we could only start the day again and I could say nice things at the station. Supposing he's killed in a train crash.

Don't even think like that, Alison.

She went to the kitchen, made herself an instant coffee, put a quarter of a spoonful of honey in it though normally she didn't sweeten it.

Bernie drifted in, in his braces and frayed shirt, and coughed shyly. It was the little cough he used before he asked a favour.

‘Of course you can, Dad,' she said.

‘I haven't said owt yet,' he said. He hung on to his Yorkshire dialect in this foreign place.

‘Whatever you want you can have, Dad,' she said. ‘You're my dad.'

He frowned. He didn't like her making it as easy as that.

‘Seeing you're here today,' he began, and the thought struck him for the first time. ‘Why are you here today?'

‘The works are being fumigated. Legionnaires' disease.'

‘Oh. We had that in a chimney in Wath-on-Dearne. Archie Millington's dad who wasn't really his dad died of it.' He coughed again. ‘Seeing as you're here, I thought … it was
Marge's idea like … I thought …' cos Tommy Pilbeam and one or two others play doms in t'Coach on a Thursday dinnertime, and seeing as you're here, Marge thought … she's a saint, that woman … “I don't like you stuck here with me all day,” she said. “It's not right.” Just for an hour like.'

‘Of course I don't mind,' she said, answering the question he hadn't quite dared to ask – was she really so difficult to approach? ‘Be as long as you like, but you aren't going like that.'

‘Aren't I?'

‘Look at yourself, Dad. You look like a scruffy old man. Smarten yourself up. Imagine there's a young barmaid there.'

‘There
is
a young barmaid there.'

Suddenly he looked about two inches taller and when he went to say goodbye he was that smart, you could have thought he was going to a wedding, not just for a few hands of fives and threes, which he'd taught the locals who had never played it, and a couple of pints of mild and bitter, which was a very popular drink in Throdnall.

She kissed him and he looked very surprised and said, ‘What's up wi' you?'

She waved goodbye as if he was going to the North Pole, and then she sat with her mum for an hour or so. The granny flat was foetid with heat and old age, but it was strangely peaceful. Marge hadn't the energy to resent dying.

After that she set to in the kitchen, making one of her soups. The whole kitchen came to life when she cooked. Suddenly it didn't seem sad and sterile and suburban any more. People should cook more, she thought, then their houses would buzz and smell nice; they'd be happier.

She remembered the questionnaire and realised that she no longer wanted Nick to read it and realise how desperate she had been.

She went to the table, to throw it in the bin, but it had gone. The freepost envelope had gone too.

Could Bernie have taken it and posted it? Surely not? He never raised a finger to help. He certainly never used his initiative.

She heard him shuffling up the drive. She opened the door. He stood there looking foolishly surprised, with his key held towards the keyhole that was no longer there.

‘Service with a smile,' he said.

‘Dad?' she said. ‘Did you post a questionnaire that was on the kitchen table?'

‘Aye, I did,' he said. ‘I saw it were completed like and I remembered what you said t'other day: I never raise a finger to help, I haven't shown any initiative around the house since the day I moved in.'

‘Did I say that?'

‘You've been in a funny mood lately, and I thought, “Hey up, our Bernie, this is your chance to show her. So I popped it in t'envelope, and posted it in t'box in Badger Glade Rise. Did I do wrong?'

Yes, Dad, you've probably caused utter mayhem at the sorting office.

‘No, Dad, of course you didn't.'

She kissed him.

‘Hey up!' he said. ‘Twice in one day. What's happened to the woman? She's going all continental on us.'

She got to the station twenty minutes early. She stood on the platform. A lazy wind had sprung up. There was litter between the lines, and a child's yellow breakdown van, and a pear squashed by a train. The wrong kind of pear?

His train was going to be seventeen minutes late – reasonable going for the Throdnall line. Her 5op parking ticket was valid for forty minutes. If it over-ran because the train was late, and she was fined, she'd challenge it in the courts, she'd refuse to pay the fine, she'd go to prison if need be, no, she wouldn't, that was stupid.

She felt very nervous. She didn't remember when she had felt so nervous. She wasn't a nervous woman.

Supposing he'd decided he wouldn't go through with it. How disappointed he'd be. Supposing he'd been rejected as unsuitable. She felt so anxious for him and for herself. It wouldn't be a good omen for her if he was turned down.

By the time the train arrived it was twenty-two minutes late. She stood by the footbridge, looking both ways for him as Throdnall Man in his many forms strode by. Some strong, some weak, grey, tired, sagging, skins as lifeless as their briefcases. And there he was, her man, well, her partner, her … her Nick. He looked so frail, but not grey at all, he looked golden, her golden girl. It was just a flash, and then it was gone. She kissed him soberly, carefully, Throdnall-ly, not wanting to seem too emotional, not sure how emotional he was feeling.

‘How did it go?'

‘All right.'

So British.

‘Only all right?'

‘Well, pretty well, really. On the whole. I suppose. Well, very well, I suppose, really.'

So Throdnall.

‘I mean nothing was said, nothing was actually said, perhaps nothing is said on these occasions, but it sort of seems by implication as though it's been tacitly agreed that I've begun the process. The doctor was OK. He has very large knees, but he was OK. God, though, it isn't half going to be a long-drawn-out process. Years.'

Her heart sank. Years for him, and she hadn't even started!

‘Oh they gave me a letter you'll have to sign, if you're prepared to.'

He handed it to her, and she stood and read it, there on the platform.

I understand that my husband has requested that you recommend to his GP that he receive female hormones and possibly an anti-male hormone drug.

I understand that some of the effects of these substances on my husband may be loss of sexual drive, loss of the capacity for penile erection, breast growth, feminizing contours of the hips, and an accelerated course towards more feminization and possibly sex change surgery, including removal of the male genitalia and creation of female genitalia. There may also be side effects such as damage to the liver and increases in cholesterol and levels of fat in the blood. Depression may result, especially with the anti-male hormone drug. An additional complication of female hormone treatment is the possibility of deep vein thrombosis (blood clot in a vein or blood vessel) that could result in a medical emergency and possibly death. The chances of this occurring are increased if my husband smokes.

With this information I nevertheless grant you full permission to notify my husband's GP that my husband may be given female hormones at this time and anti-male hormone drugs in the future, should this be considered to be indicated by his psychiatrist and requested by my husband at that time.

My signature to this letter is being witnessed by a solicitor and by my husband.

They gazed at each other, there on the platform. They were all alone. The train had gone, the passengers had gone, even the porters had gone. They both felt over-awed by the letter's tone, and by the immensity of the tasks that lay ahead. It all seemed almost too much when expressed in such official language.

‘Aren't you scared?' she asked.

‘Of course I am,' he said.

She kissed him on the cheek, then put her arms round him.

‘I think you're very brave,' she said.

He looked at her in astonishment. She saw him realise that the astonishment was tactless. She watched him try to hide it. She laughed.

‘What's so funny?' he asked.

‘You are,' she said.

They were very worried about how Bernie would take it, now that the moment had come at last.

‘I'll have a little chat with him,' said Nick.

Alison went pale. She knew his little chats.

‘Well, be tactful,' she said. ‘I know your little chats.'

Nick was indignant.

‘Oh, come on,' he said. ‘This is all myth. A family joke, if you like. I think I'm actually rather a sensitive and considerate human being. That's why I'm suggesting taking him to the pub, to be on his home ground, as it were, not mine. Tact.'

They didn't go to the Coach, where Bernie knew people, but to the Rose and Crown, where the landlord had had a quadruple charisma bypass, and privacy was guaranteed.

Nick bought a pint of mild and bitter for Bernie, and a gin and tonic for himself. Bernie said the beer was undrinkable, but drank it; they discussed Clinton's re-election (‘They like a man with lead in his pencil', ‘That's your considered political reaction, is it, Bernie?'); and football, which was difficult with Nick knowing nothing about it (why should he care about people who earned in a week what he got in a year?); and then he plunged in.

‘Bernie,' he said, ‘you know I said I was going to have the … er … that sex change business. Become a woman.'

‘Oh aye,' said Bernie. ‘It's not summat that slips your mind. Still on, is it? I didn't see owt happening. I thought mebbe you'd changed your mind.'