Alphabet (33 page)

Brian looks on, uncomprehending, as Simon unpacks it all.

‘That's it?' he asks. ‘
That's
what you wanted?'

An essay,
Starting to Study
informs Simon, should have an introduction, stating the area of enquiry, a central section in which the argument is developed by means of examples and quotations, and a conclusion, which reminds the reader of the initial proposition and summarises the argument(s). Quotations from books must include the full title, author, edition and page number; periodicals must be cited by means of title, year and serial number. Essays are written to a set length and sticking to this is an important discipline . . .

Starting to Study
is a triple-sized paperback, printed on thick, glossy paper with a column of text down the right side of the page. Occasional illustrations and acres of white space are to the left: are you supposed to leave it like that, or write in it? When the book is opened, ink fumes gush from the pages, fill his lungs and head, then vanish, volatile, intoxicating, new. Towards the end of
How to Study
is the list of questions he will later on choose from, many of them followed by the word
Discuss
, which, like its sister
Consider
, means that you need not come to an absolutely firm conclusion. What is an individual?
Discuss
. What do we mean by society?
Discuss
.
Discuss
the term
anomie
. What do we mean by ‘rights' ?
Discuss
. Using two or more examples, discuss the idea of works of art having a purpose or function . . .

The way things are expressed gets right up his nose:
Will take
me time to get used to
, is the way he puts it in the introductory letter to his tutor, Michael Barnes Ph.D. but basically, he's on cloud nine. First of all, he must do exercise 1, on how to summarise what you have read. He'll need a bigger dictionary. More books. A
highlighter pen
, whatever that is.

‘How long are you going to be in here?' Brian asks. ‘We're going to have to come to some kind of arrangement, if you're going to keep wanting things.'

41

The stationery Charlotte uses is smooth, ivory-coloured; the handwriting has generous loops on the
y
s
g
s,
h
s and so on; it shows no signs of haste or excessive pressure on the page. There's just Simon's name, then a dash. No dear, no yours sincerely, best wishes, certainly not any love at the end. Conversational.

Obliged is not something I do! I like to communicate, I have lots of friends. You struck me as unusually open-minded when you were put on the spot, and since I have no intention to live a lie, I really need that kind of person in my life. When I meet one, I try to keep in touch (and vice versa with the opposite). But at this point I am not always in the mood to sit down and write, so don't worry if sometimes I take a while to get back to you.

Open-minded?
Well, Simon thinks, that's something new.

You did look very rough when I saw you. I do hope they give you something decent now that you can eat, though from my experience there, I suspect not. As for me, my dose has gone up and I'm having to go on a diet, very boring but necessary to get the proper shape. You were right, I have been super-busy, what with celebrating, seeing my doctor, social worker, etc., shopping for some decent outfits, and finding somewhere of my own to live. Mum is very sweet but the two of us in the same small place is a recipe for disaster: hard for her to realise that while I may be in a changing body, I have not gone back to being fifteen! Of course, she has had to put up with a lot and I'm lucky that she has.

It's not open-mindedness as such, Simon decides, because it's not as if he had found himself next to some queer that might have jumped on him. It's something else. Because it's nothing to do with him, he can be more curious than he might have been otherwise.

The new address above is from the first of May. Soon, I'll be even busier fixing it up. What I've got is a sweet little first-floor flat, walking distance to town, but very run-down.

Also, I have to find work and this isn't going to be easy, given what I did to the Abbey National: I don't think I told you but I had a good job there. I was really sick of the wait and it seemed to me that they could easily afford £15,000. I do regret it, not only because we all have to be patient for what we want, etc., and because they were actually very decent to me beforehand, but also because it now turns out that the nine months I spent inside might not count, for some reason, towards the time I've spent living as a woman. I have to test myself by living ‘as a woman' for about two years. I had already done a year when I was arrested. So I'm fighting it, of course.

There's a lot to explain if you're new to it, and Simon, I get sick of going over this again and again. It can make me feel very tense and it is all a means to an end as far as I'm concerned. The social part of being a woman comes very naturally to me; I have always been this way inside. What I have to go through physically is to make the outer reality match the inner one. Hormones are taking me a good part of the way and they make me feel so good it's almost like being stoned. I'm finishing off the electrolysis. Then, when they are sure that I can cope, the surgery: it probably sounds impossible to you but I've met many people who have had it done. You couldn't tell the difference and after that I will live a full life and there aren't words to express how desperate I am for that to happen. I enclose a couple of photocopies that will give you more detail. My experience is very like Angela's in the second article. I knew things were wrong from when I was small. So no, this is not at all a matter of being made into someone else, but of finally becoming me.

       Charlotte.

By now, Simon has quite enough writing to do. Too much, even. So, why is he wasting his time on this, reading about androgen and oestrogen, et cetera? Is it because what he has got here is a person, neither woman nor man, but something more basic, something underlying, glimpsed by accident, impossible to forget? The real thing? He doesn't know and thinks he is probably on a hiding to nothing. But still, for now, he continues.

I have been moved onto the wing. The cell is clean, etc. There are some very unpleasant people here, but they mainly keep themselves to themselves. I feel OK but have to be very careful what I eat. I am studying a book by someone called Durkheim, who says, among other things, crime is normal and useful. Interesting! My tutor tells me I have to slow down, break things into smaller parts and focus more, instead of trying to get everything I can think of crammed in at once. How? He did send examples so I hope to work out what he is getting at.

Work is the main blot on the horizon. We all have to put time in at the laundry. Not good physically: a hot, dim dirty-looking place. You've got about forty of these outsized grey machines, washers and dryers. There's a constant churning noise from the machines and extractors. The air is full of damp fluff which sticks in the hairs of your nose. Sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths, shirts, jeans, mail and diplomatic bags, washers, drier, pressing, folding and packing . . . This week I'm pressing sheets: a pair of you take turns to remove the sheet from the wheeled bin that comes from the drier; between you, you spread it on the board, then both pull down the top half. Steam gushes around the edges. Then open, wait a second, fold, press again. A monkey could do it, so at least I get a bit of time to think, except that I've been put with a bloke who couldn't stop talking if you put a gun to his head.

You tell me I'm open-minded. I'm flattered, and will try to live up to the impression you have of me. I might even add it to my collection: do you remember? The words on my skin. Mind you, it would have to be a DIY job, because I am certainly not letting any of this lot in here anywhere near me.

Thank you for the articles you sent. I have read them all. It is scary stuff, but also amazing that you will have all that done and then come out of hospital after just a week.

How can you be sure? Suppose
,
afterwards
,
you realised it was a
mistake
? He doesn't dare to ask that. There are other things to be said.

It is good to be trusted with knowing all this and I admire your spirit and determination, Charlotte. It takes some bottle to go through with something as drastic as this.

The letter goes off, unsealed, for the censor to gawp at, but really, he doesn't think about that very much any more. He has a ring binder for his university assignments, another for his tutor's replies. He has various exercise books, Property of HM Prison Service, DO NOT REMOVE, for his notes on different subjects. In one of these he has started the list of words he hasn't got around to getting inked:
introvert
,
heterosexual
,
erotophobic
,
nonce
,
open-minded
– it's all rather like the Golden fucking Notebook, which drove him mad at the time he read it, but there you are. The letters from Charlotte will be kept in a new box, because even though he did get the old Adidas box back, it was broken at the corners, so he put an elastic band round it and started over. And another thing: he just writes and sends the thing off and he doesn't keep copies of his own letters this time around. It's all different.

Simon,

Let me know if I can help getting you books. I go to town most days. Things are good. I am on a bit of a roller-coaster and very dependent on how people see me when I am out, but overall I am making quite a bit of progress on all fronts, including a very boring computer course (but at least it is free). If I pass, Tony, a friend of a friend, says he will give me a job.

I do know that this is a huge thing to be doing, but at the same time the surgical side of things, which everyone including me focuses on too much, is only part of it. It's like a door that I am going through, at the end of a long journey.

I like to think that it is still me that is on both sides of the door. But perhaps I won't know until it's done.

I know if it was an operation for reasons of illness, I would be terrified about the physical side of things and all that might go wrong, but as it is I am looking forward to it, and assume that everything will be fine. My only regret is that I have to be put to sleep and just lie there, that I can't do it myself. My friends from the support group think I am crazy to say this, but maybe you will understand.

I now have my appointment to meet the surgeon. I hope I like him. Again, since it is a kind of birth, I wish it would be a woman, but there are only men doing it at the moment. Really, I am just lucky to be born at a time when it can happen at all.

I enclose some photos so that you can see who you are writing to.

The photos aren't there, of course; he has to apply for them and wait. Receiving them, he feels a kind of dread and can't look straight away. Finally he sees that the Victor-becoming-Charlotte in the photograph is sitting at a wrought-iron table in a garden wearing a forties kind of dress with a wide belt and heeled sandals. The pose is slightly twisted, to accent the waist. The earrings and necklace match. Victor has almost gone, but all the same, Simon can still see traces of the person he met in the hospital. And yes, he can just about follow the idea of going through a door at the end of a journey. It's all right, it's not his business, so be it . . .
No
: it's utterly mad! Skin from the penis is used to make the inside of the vaginal opening. The glans penis is integrated into the clitoris. To create a fully realistic effect, the outer vaginal lips make use of follicle-bearing skin from the scrotal area . . . What can you say to someone who wants to do that?

The lounge in your flat looks quite something, especially the curtains on those big sash windows. Also the polished wooden floors and rugs. Are they Indian or something? It looks very warm. You don't see colours like that in here, as you know. As for the picture of you, Charlotte, well, it must suit you out there.

The news here is that yesterday I had an interview with a Mr O'Hara from the Parole Board. According to Alan, and Joanne, Mr O'Hara will make some kind of report on me, which, along with all the other reports, including Alan's – which he says is very positive – will be sent to the Board. Maybe I can write something myself too. Then some time soon (they don't give you a date) the Board will read it all and decide whether or not I can move to a lower-security classification. Well, if I did, quite apart from getting out of the ****ing laundry, and having a few more freedoms, then the next time they reviewed me, they might look towards release. Having said that, it all seems rather remote.

Impossible.
Terrifying
. . .

I'll probably get knocked back. I know for a fact that there's a psychiatrist who has given me a very poor report. And the fact is that actually I'm pretty happy here, what with the course and your letters to open the world up a bit. So, as long as I can keep studying, I don't mind too much how it turns out.

I am glad to hear that you will meet the specialist.

And also, not glad: the truth is that the more Simon thinks about Victor's transformation the more it worries him. The medical procedures, the risks of anaesthetic and so on: as a one-off, that's life, it's nothing. Squeamishness he'll eventually be able to put aside. But when Victor has become Charlotte, will she stop writing to him? Too busy, too happy, to bother? Or will these letters somehow become more difficult for Simon to write, when something more like a real woman is opening them? Or will he be writing to someone he doesn't know at all, instead of just someone he hardly knows? Will he, Simon, lose interest, once things are resolved? After all, he has problems with women. Ambivalence, fear, anger, small things like that.

I must admit, though, it is a bit like you are going off into outer space. What do your friends say about it? Good, that you can talk to people who have been through it already. What are your plans for afterwards?