Sex and Other Changes (25 page)

‘You can of course cancel all these initiatives when you return.'

‘I could, couldn't I? We'll see.'

She felt tired even at the thought of the battles that lay ahead. She forced herself to meet Ferenc's eyes – and it was strange, she felt a little trickle of energy returning, no, of
new
energy, of energy as a woman, as Nicola, as herself.

‘Thank you, Ferenc,' she said. ‘You've … you've been a help.'

That disconcerted him!

When he had gone she felt more tired than ever. It was all too soon. But, beneath the tiredness, she felt for the first time that she was truly happy as Nicola. No exultation. No excitement. Just a feeling of real contentment.

Then it dawned on her what the great consideration was that had been hanging just out of reach of her consciousness.

She was no longer in a Real Life Test. She had passed the test. Real Life itself beckoned. A new life beckoned. Now she would really be a woman. She wanted to meet new people. She wanted to reinvent herself.

She didn't want to live at number thirty-three any more. Alan had been wonderfully supportive, but she had stayed with him too long. All that was over. It was the past.

How on earth would she tell him?

Seeing my husband as a woman for the first time was a rather eerie experience, like having a decorator paint your house in his choice of colours while you're cruising the Norwegian fjords and coming back to find he'd done it in exactly the same shades as before. There was a feeling of anti-climax, mixed in with a little relief.

I was relieved of course, both for Nicola and my own future chances, that the operation had been a success. I was relieved, as well as disappointed, that the pale, strained, exhausted face that stared at me from the bed was so unchanged.

Nicola was so very, very tired that first time, and the dreadful Prentice was there – if he ever comes to Australia I'll warn you! – but I found that things didn't get much easier with succeeding visits. We didn't seem to have much to say to each other any more. Inspiration always seems to dry up in hospitals.

What worries me is that Nicola seems not to have thought about her future, whereas I've been thinking about it more and more. I think she truly believes that she'll be able to continue to live at number thirty-three. I don't think it's possible. Where would she sleep, for a start? We can't go on sharing a bed for ever. I should have told her to go at least a year ago, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Her op was such a frightening business. But now that it's over, well, our life together is over. She is a new person. She needs new adventures, as, quite soon, I will too.

But how can I find the strength to tell her? Oh, Jen, I wish
you were here to give me strength. I've had to be strong for so long that I think I'm exhausted. I wish we weren't separated by half a world.

When you're in hospital you get institutionalised and the world outside seems very far away. I didn't feel that while Nicola was in hospital I could tell her about the very sad incident with Dad.

It was Saturday morning, very bright, unseasonably mild, I was preparing food for the weekend, Em was out with Carl, Gray was in his room. Dad had popped down to the park, he loves the park, ‘It's a very ordinary park, is Bradwell Park, but I don't know what I'd do without it. It's my life-line,' he said to me once, and I was chopping some red onions and watching two blue tits and a coal tit on the feeders, when the doorbell rang. In films, if it's going to be something horrid, people react with horror to the doorbell before they go to the door, as if their bells never rang except for things that were horrid, but this was real life and I didn't have a care in the world at just that moment. I thought it might be Jehovah's Witnesses or Mrs Willoughby wondering if I had any coriander, and there was Dad standing there with an
extremely
young policeman.

I recalled a comment Dad made the other week when Nicola said that she knew she was getting old because policemen were getting so much younger, and Dad said, ‘Wait till you get to my age. Even Popes are getting younger', and I thought, ‘Yes, he is getting old. He must have forgotten where he lives.' I felt a wave of compassion for him. He can be infuriating, but I love him, but anyway it wasn't that, and I suppose I should be grateful, but in a way it was worse, and of course I soon realised how silly it had been of me to think that he'd forgotten where he lives, because if he had he wouldn't have been able to lead the policeman to the house.

The policeman was pink-faced and perspiring with embarrassment. He looked as if he was only just out of nappies.

‘What's happened?' I asked, suddenly fearful.

‘It's the mothers,' began the policeman. ‘It's the mothers down at the park.'

‘They've complained to the police about me,' said Dad. ‘Bitches. They've ganged up and complained.'

‘The mothers think … they don't like him watching their children in the playground,' said the very young policeman.

‘I just like to sit on my bench and watch the kiddies playing,' said Dad. ‘I like to hear their laughter. I like to hear their excited squeals on the swings. I lose myself there. I like to watch their healthy little bodies.'

I met the policeman's eyes. It was a pity Dad had mentioned their little bodies. It showed, of course, how totally innocent he was, but I wasn't confident that the policeman would be sophisticated enough to appreciate that.

‘We have no reason whatsoever,' began the policeman slowly, quarrying the officialese out of his mind with a supreme effort, ‘to believe that there is anything untoward in Mr …?'

‘Kettlewell.'

‘… anything untoward in Mr Kettlewell's relationship with, or attitude to, the said children. No reason whatsoever, Mrs …?'

‘Divot.'

‘Divot. However, a complaint has been made and we are bound to investigate said complaint. May I come in and ask you a few questions?'

I had to let him come in.

‘I'm very sorry to do this when you're upset,' said the policeman. He seemed kind. I worried about his future in the force.

‘Upset?' I said.

‘I noticed that you'd been crying. We're trained to be observant.'

‘I was peeling onions. Red onions. They're supposed to be milder but I think they're getting less mild. I was watching the birds on our feeders, as innocently as Dad was watching the children.'

The policeman asked for our names and the names of everyone living in the house, and I found myself worrying about whether I should tell him about Nicola, and I must have given myself away, because he said, ‘Are you sure you've mentioned everybody?'

‘Well there's my husband,' I said.

‘Name?'

‘Nicola Divot.'

‘Nicola?'

‘Yes. He's in hospital at this very moment, actually. She's just had the operation.'

‘Ah! Is your husband manager at the Cornucopia?'

‘That's right.'

‘Oh yes, I've met h … her.'

He wrote it all down.

‘His sex change has nothing to do with Dad, or sex. It's gender alignment really.'

‘Oh, I know, but I have to do the paperwork. There's been a complaint of a potentially serious nature. Er …' He blushed. The incipient boil on his neck reddened. ‘What is the name of Mr Kettlewell's doctor?'

Dad just sat there, slumped, staring glassily into space. I don't think he was even listening.

‘Do I have to give that, if you believe Dad to be innocent?'

‘If he's innocent you've nothing to fear.'

‘Doctor Rodgerson.'

‘Thank you. We will need to ask him one or two questions. Just a formality.' He turned to Dad and spoke in a loud, slow voice. ‘Mr Kettlewell, have you ever been charged with any criminal offence?'

‘Stealing a street lamp on Christmas Eve in Castleford in nineteen thirty-seven,' said Dad.

‘Nothing wrong with your father's memory,' said the policeman. ‘Thank you, Mr Kettlewell. I don't think you'll hear any more of this.'

‘So that makes it all right, does it?' said Dad. I was pleased that he could be angry.

‘Leave it, Dad,' I said. ‘It's not the young man's fault.'

‘Bitches!'

‘Dad!'

‘What it is, Mr Kettlewell,' said the policeman. ‘They aren't bitches. They're just mums what's worried for their kiddies.'

I saw him to the door, stood at the porch with him. He'd used cheap after-shave, and his breath smelt of boiled sweets.

‘The thing is,' he said, ‘I don't think he should go down the park no more. I'd rather it was just done informal like. I don't want to have to issue an exclusion order.'

An exclusion order to keep our dad from the park! What is the world coming to?

Dad was staring glassily into space when I went back in. I offered him a beer.

‘Oh, that'll really help, won't it?' he said. ‘I'm banned from the playground. I'm a dirty old man if I smile at a kid. If I offer them sweets I'm in prison, a beer'll make a lot of difference, won't it?'

‘Well don't have one then.'

‘Well, no, I may as well.'

I got Dad a beer and returned to the onions, but now my
tears were real. A starling went to the feeders, and the tits flew away. It was the way of the world.

‘I like to hear the kids' laughter,' said Dad. ‘I like to look at their smiles. I enjoy their joy. Seeing kids with their life ahead of them … well, it reconciles me to my life ending. I think that people like what them mothers think I am should have their goolies cut off very slowly with a blunt instrument and served to them lightly grilled. How the hell can they think I'm like that?'

I began to fry the onions though I'd lost all heart for the pork casserole (free-range, lived outside, we'd seen the farm they came from).

‘I wish I'd died years ago,' said Dad. ‘I called her in t'paper shop Marge again yesterday. Me mind's going.'

‘Your mind isn't going, Dad,' I said. ‘Look at the way you remembered that street light you nicked, which you never told us about. I didn't realise I was being brought up by a criminal.'

He didn't smile at my feeble joke. He was beyond jokes, where he was.

‘Aye,' he said, ‘but that just makes it worse. When your mind starts going, you remember things from far, far away. Me mum and dad took me to Brid for the day when I were six. I can still remember that t'bus had an advertisement for Smith Kenyon's Eucalyptus and Menthol Pastilles. You see! Alzheimer's.'

Oh, Jen, I haven't written as much as this since I had to do essays at school. I wrote such letters to you when we were younger, I poured out my heart, but I didn't send them. I didn't want to burden you. I was wrong. Burdens aren't nearly as bad as not being close. I feel so close to you as I write this.

Thank you for the photos. How big Craig is now and …

*

Alan didn't tell Gray or Em about Bernie being banned from the park, he couldn't bring himself to, but he did get very angry with Gray when the question of where Nicola would sleep came up, and Gray suggested putting Bernie in a home.

‘Don't you ever dare say that again,' he said. It was unfair of him. He was angry because of the park incident, but Gray didn't know of the park incident, because he hadn't told him.

He got the kids together one evening before supper, and he said, ‘Listen. Your father comes home next Tuesday. I don't think it's suitable for us to share a bed any more. Now I can't ask either of you to give up your room …' He paused. He had had a wild hope that one of them would offer, but neither of them did, and he couldn't really blame them.

‘I can't,' said Gray. ‘It's my existence. It's my link to the world.'

‘Good idea to leave it then and start to
live
in the world,' said Em.

‘I don't like your world. It has you in it,' said Gray.

‘Children!' Alan shouted. Children! Gray was seventeen and Em was coming up to twenty-two. ‘No, Gray, I couldn't ask you to leave your room. Not because of the Internet. Because of your A-Levels.'

Em said nothing. Well, she brought Carl home in her lunchtime occasionally. She thought Alan didn't know, but he had smelt sex and male feet in her room a couple of times when he'd checked it to see if it was clean enough for Mrs Pritchard to clean.

‘No,' he said. ‘I'm going to sleep on the Zed-bed in the sitting room.'

‘You can't sleep in the lounge for ever, Mum,' said Em.

He didn't reply. He let it sink in. He didn't think they'd given a thought to the possibility that their father might not be there for ever.

*

On their journey back to Throdnall, as they slipped through the rolling Midlands countryside, through the trim villages and anonymous little towns, with the rain sparkling in the sunshine and a double rainbow in the west, Nicola was very quiet, obviously tense. One always feels very exposed on leaving hospital, and the immensity of what lay ahead was suddenly weighing on her. Alan drove very carefully. He didn't want to jolt her insides. This made it seem a bit like a funeral procession.

He told her the sad business about Bernie and how changed she'd find him. He was dispirited. He was defeated.

He took a deep breath.

‘Have you given any thought to the sleeping arrangements?' he asked.

‘What?'

‘Well I don't think we can go on sharing a bed for ever.'

‘No.'

‘I'm going to sleep on the Zed-bed.'

‘You can't do that.'

‘What else do you suggest? You have to have a proper bed. You're recovering from a major operation.'

‘I suppose so.'

‘It wouldn't be fair on the kids. Not at this stage. They're too old.'