Alex as Well (14 page)

THERE’S SOMETHING HAPPENING between my mother and Sierra’s mother. My mother has gone pale. Suddenly she backs up. She’s walking backwards, not looking where she’s going. She abruptly turns right and heads out the front door. She looks like some kind of crazy remote-controlled doll.

I follow her, and watch from the doorway. She’s stalking along, but she’s not swinging her arms. She looks like a sleepwalker. The teacher on duty has seen her, but she is too far away, up near the canteen. The teacher starts walking towards my mother, slowly at first. Arms folded. Curious.

My mother is heading to where Amina, Julia and Sierra are sitting. She has a piece of paper in her hand. She’s unfolding it. It flaps in the wind.

Oh no. I stand on tiptoes, and then I squat down, with my arms over my head. I don’t want to know.

My mother stops. Sierra looks up. My mother is waving the paper in front of her. I can’t hear what they’re saying. Sierra sneers, backchatting.

But you can’t backchat to my mother. She will explode.

My mother takes a step forward. She grabs Sierra by the hair. She is rubbing the paper on Sierra’s face. She is screeching. I hate it when she does that. It fills me with dread. It makes my bladder feel weak. It undoes me.

Sierra claws at her face. She falls off the seat. My mother stands over her. Amina has her hands on her cheeks. Julia has shrunk against the wall.

The teacher is running now. Kids are crowding around, the way they do when there is a fight.

Sierra is scuttling backwards on her hands.

The teacher has reached my mother.

‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ she says in her penetrating teacher-voice. She takes my mother by the elbow. My mother is stomping her feet like a three-year-old. She’s still waving the paper.

Another teacher—a man—is running across the playground. He takes my mother’s other arm. They lead her away.

Sierra is crying. Julia puts her arms around Sierra’s head, comforting her.

IT WENT KIND of crazy. I had to wait in the school counsellor’s narrow, concrete-walled office, but I could hear my mother shouting in the foyer, ‘I was just protecting my child!’ and Sierra’s mother going nuts, saying she had called the police, and my mother would go to jail for what she had done. But in the end they took my mother away in an ambulance, not a police car, after she did the rolling on the floor thing. They thought she was having some kind of fit. I would have told them that’s just what she does when she’s not getting her own way, but nobody asked me.

Sierra’s mother took Sierra home too. Through the crack in the door I overheard other office staff saying that Sierra’s mother would definitely sue the Department of Education, and she would probably win. She would go off on WorkCover, and be sitting pretty. They said it would be enough to pay out her mortgage, and then after
a year or so she’d probably get a job in the private sector. Because whatever else anyone had to say about her, she was a good administrator.

I don’t understand why the Department of Education should pay for my mother being insane.

Once the ambulance has gone, the deputy and the counsellor come in and close the door. I want Crockett, but they call my father to pick me up.

I say, ‘Look, you needed a birth certificate for my enrolment—now you have one. Do you want to ask my mother for a vaccination thingy, now that you’ve met her? Or are you happy to take my word for it?’

It doesn’t matter anymore, though. I will have to start all over again at a new school. And this is going to happen every time, because I didn’t just appear out of thin air. I was Alex Stringfellow who went to a boys’ school. It’s on my paperwork.

Unless I invent a whole new name, and get Crockett to say that I’m in witness protection or something, so they don’t ask, but that will make them even more curious.

I don’t see how I can get away from the old Alex. At least, not without a huge effort. He’s hanging off me. He’s quiet sometimes, but he’s always there, like a shadow.

The deputy shakes her head. ‘But I don’t understand—you were previously enrolled in a boys’ school?’

‘My mother wants me to be a boy. She is, like, a total mental case. Can’t you see that? That’s why I want to
be emancipated, and that’s why I need to speak to my lawyer.’

The counsellor sits there with two pieces of paper.

‘Can you explain how you come to have two birth certificates?’

I sigh. ‘My parents had the girl one annulled and reregistered me as a boy.’

The deputy and the counsellor look at each other, perplexed. ‘I don’t understand how they could have done that,’ the deputy says. ‘I mean, why would the registry allow that? You can’t just make someone a boy.’

The counsellor shrugs. They look at the papers again, heads together.

The counsellor has a coffee cup that says
World’s Greatest Mum
.

I’m not drawing them a picture of the noodle. I shouldn’t have to show everyone. I shouldn’t have to explain myself to every person I meet.

‘Who is the current legal guardian? The Pam woman has handed back the belongings to DoCS, so she’s not the guardian. Did someone from DoCS call back?’

The counsellor scratches her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

I look out the window. They have a little rainforest garden out there between the buildings. A boy runs through to collect a tennis ball.

‘Can we return her to the father?’ The counsellor asks. ‘I mean, is this a disclosure?’

The deputy is flipping through a big folder with
‘welfare policy manual’ written on the spine. ‘In all my years, I have never come across this situation.’ She snaps the manual shut and slips it back on the shelf. ‘What do you want us to do, Alex?’

I rub my eyes. I’m so tired. I’m going to have to go through this every time.

‘I don’t know. I want to be worrying about the normal things, like, whether I have a pimple.’

I feel the prickle of tears and take a breath. But we’re not normal. Are we? We’re never going to be normal. It was fun to play at being normal. Now it’s time to get real. This is going to be as bad as what happened at Joey’s. I could keep going from school to school, enrolling as a girl and seeing how long it takes for someone to find out. Is it worth it? Holding my breath like that? What for?

What other option do I have? I don’t even think I can go back to being a boy now. I’m just going to be this endless in-between thing that everyone despises.

‘Do you want to see your father?’ the counsellor asks. She is rubbing her chin. I wonder what the right answer would be. I bite my lip. I do want to see him. I want to go home, but it’s not home, really. It’s a hollow place full of lies.

I pause and take a breath. ‘I want to have a family who can love me as a girl, and just be normal. They say I am a weirdo and a pervert. If I was normal they would not be like this with me.’

The World’s Greatest Mum says quietly, ‘They
shouldn’t say that to you, but you know, you can’t change other people. You can only change you.’

‘Someone should tell that to my parents,’ Alex says.

A lady from reception pokes her head around the door.

‘The father is here,’ she whispers, but when she pulls the door back it’s not my father at all. It’s Crockett.

He’s all sweaty, because he hurried. He ran when he got my text. Crockett is my friend. He knows about the noodle and he is still my friend.

‘Hello,’ I say. My voice is all hoarse and wavery. I am so pleased to see him that I burst into tears.

He sits down and he talks to them. He has his hands linked behind his head. Relaxed. They talk about literacy programs, P and C meetings, the rugby program, and the recent problem they have had with plovers on the oval.

Eventually, I get it together, and then my father arrives.

His face goes all rigid when he sees Crockett, but they shake hands.

The deputy orders a pot of coffee.

Crockett nods at me. The most reassuring nod. It says Crockett’s going to get it sorted. At least for now.

MY FATHER THINKS it’s important that I go to see my mother in hospital. I don’t really know how to get out of that.

We walk down the hallway, past people who have flowers and stuffed bears. I’m trying to figure out what to say to her, but I’m not coming up with anything. My heart is shards of ice.

In her room, she’s lying on the bed, with the back tilted up, fully dressed on top of the covers. She’s been watching television. There are Fantales wrappers all over the little wheelie table.

When she sees us, she chokes a little bit, and then she holds out her arms, as though she’s expecting a hug. My dad leans in and embraces her, but I slouch against the wall with my arms folded.

‘Alex, honey,’ she says, ‘come on over here.’

I don’t budge.

‘You’re not going to be petulant, are you? I’m getting really quite tired of your hissy fits. If you’re going to throw a tantrum, you should be throwing it at your little friend Sierra. Did you know she has been spying on us? She came to our house snooping, and asking if you had a cousin. She’s the one you should be angry with—not me. I was on
your
side.’

Alex clenches his fist, but I deliberately unfurl it and press it against the cold wall.

‘Come on now. It’s time we moved past this, isn’t it?’ she says.

I nod.

‘You can come back,’ she says. She’s smoothing a Fantale wrapper on the table with her fingers. ‘But you need to understand that things are going to change. We have to communicate with each other. You can’t go off and make your own decisions. We make decisions together, as a family. You’re still a child, you know, however grown up you think you are.’

I rest my head against the wall and close my eyes. She’s never going to change.

She goes on. ‘You don’t understand—this is about your hormones. It’s like you’re drunk. You can’t make good decisions when you’re like this. This is not a democracy, you know. And when you pay your own bills you can make the decisions. But until then you need to trust that we’re doing the best for you.’

Trust? She’s talking about trust? Alex fumes.

I remember the counsellor saying that you can’t change other people. It might sound like something Oprah would say, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

She’s getting worked up. ‘You’ve always had every single thing you wished for. If you go out there on your own, you’re just going to become a junkie, or worse! But it doesn’t need to be like that. All we’re asking for is a little bit of courtesy. It’s not that hard.’

She takes a breath, and then she smiles at me. She has caramel stuck in her teeth. She has crazy eyes. She’s a psycho. A psychopath is running my life.

I look at my dad. ‘I’ll wait in the hall.’

‘Don’t you turn your back on me, Miss Sunshine!’ she calls out. ‘We’re having a conversation here! This is exactly what I’m talking about. Goddamn! Haven’t you learned a single thing?’

We’re going to have the same argument for the next thousand years.

It’s better to let it go. And I’ve decided, that’s it. Just like that.

It hurts, but it feels like there’s a knot in my heart—it’s just loosened and unfurled. Nothing can tie it back together again.

IN THE CAR on the way home I look out the window. ‘I’m going to go and stay with a friend for a little while. It’s my turn to have a holiday from you two,’ I say.

‘I want you to stay,’ Dad says.

We drive in silence for a moment while I gather my thoughts.

‘I think I could probably sort it out with you, but she deliberately went out of her way to humiliate and shame me in front of people that I care about. I don’t think I can forgive that.’

‘Your mother is having a mental breakdown,’ he says.

‘You know what she could have done?’ I turn to him. ‘Anything, except assault my friends in front of the whole school! And then she has the nerve to pull me up about
my
behaviour?’

‘She’s not well, Alex,’ he says. ‘When we love people then we forgive them and we support them when they’re
going through something.’

‘Well, I guess I don’t love her then.’

When I turn to him again he is crying.

This makes me even angrier.

‘What the hell are
you
crying about? Who’s supporting me through my thing? Has she been calling
you
a pervert? Has she been coming around and pushing around
your
friends?’

‘I don’t have any friends,’ he counters.

‘It’s no wonder, because you’re a—’

‘That’s enough!’ he interrupts. ‘Don’t say things like that, Alex, it’s hurtful,’ he begins.

I swear under my breath.

‘If you try to hurt people, then how does that make you different from what you claim your mother is doing? At least she’s not doing it on purpose. Do you want to know why I don’t have any friends? Because I go to work, and then I come home and parent you. You are now, and have always been, a hyperactive, self-obsessed little shit, and caring for you is exhausting. So, yes, you should cut her a break, because she’s been doing it twenty-four/seven for fourteen years, and even a very strong person would be at the edge of their capacity, and Heather is
not
a strong person.’

He pulls into the driveway and presses the remote to open the garage.

‘For the record, I always wanted to tell you about your intersex condition. But your mother was the one who
was home with you. She was here. I wasn’t. She felt it would be best to wait until you asked. And I should mention, you still haven’t actually asked anything. You have guessed, and assumed, and accused.’

He glares at me.

‘And when you’re grown up enough to have a proper conversation, I am happy to answer any questions you might have.’

I’m lying on my bed. There is no pillow. I left it at the Podge Lodge. I’m staring at the ceiling. Yes, I’m feeling sorry for myself.

I don’t really know what to do now. I want to ring Crockett, but I’m worried I’m starting to look a bit obsessed. It’s just that I have no one else. I can hide here for a while, but I need to move out before my mother gets out of hospital. There has to be an end to this, and I can’t organise that myself. Someone else has to find me a place. There’s nothing to pack. The only things that I care about are in a plastic bag at the DoCS office.

Now I’m just waiting.

You could have a wank, Alex suggests.

Shut up, you idiot.

What? It will make you feel better. Endorphins.

My father is watching television downstairs. At least, the television is on, and he is down there. He’s not usually home at this time. It’s too early for him to cook
dinner. There’s not enough time to do anything else. This is where a proper dad would ask me to shoot hoops, or play Wii. I know he thinks he is busy parenting me right now, but that’s not what I remember. I remember him holding me down.

And then I recall that some of the times he held me down, it might have been because I was having a bit of a tantrum.

You are a shit, Alex says. And it’s not just Mum and Dad who think so. Those reports in the attic said you were a shit too.

I’m not sure what to do about my dad. We could arrange visits or something. He could take me places—like to the zoo or maybe we could go and see a movie. And he has to be nice to me, or I won’t go.

That stuff about being grown up enough to ask was a cop out. Because that first night—back at the beginning—when I said I felt like a girl and my mother had the big hysterical fit, he left. He just walked out. That’s not exactly grown up, is it.

My mobile rings, and I grab it. But I frown at the number. It’s Lien. What does she want?

‘Hello?’

‘You’re not at rehearsal,’ she blurts.

‘Didn’t you hear what happened at school today?’

‘Yes.’ She waits, but I don’t have anything to add, thinking it’s self-explanatory.

‘Are you injured? Are you sick?’

‘No,’ I snort.

‘What’s the hold-up?’

I just lie there holding the phone like a nong, because I don’t have an answer to that. I kind of assumed all of that was over now.

‘You’re our cover girl. You made a commitment to me, and I expect you to keep it. We’ve had all of the art printed. It’s too late to change your mind. And, besides, I have a client here, right now, who is ready to sign contracts. I have vouched for you. I told her to bring her cheque book.’

Then Lien gives me this whole lecture about being punctual and professional, and how it’s not a good look to get a reputation amongst clients for being a princess.

I’m lying there, grinning, because Lien is as mad as hell. She knows about the noodle, and she doesn’t care. She cares because I am late. She cares enough about me being late to yell at me. But none of this is personal to her. It’s business, and my noodle is irrelevant.