The New Woman (23 page)

Full circle. Here she was, twelve years on, visiting Charlotte’s tree and shit-scared again. She knew now, of course. She knew what had been torturing her dad that day.

The letter was printed, but there was also a handwritten note in blue ink. Kate was pretty sure he’d used the pen they gave him for his birthday. Simon had had it engraved, and asked if she would like to contribute. Sweet, really. That boy had his good moments.

Darling Kate, this letter explains itself. I have—as you would say—cocked up big-time. Recent events have demonstrated that people must be warned to expect changes in me. If they are not warned, and are caught unawares, they may be very shocked. I must be totally open from now on, every step of the way.

Kate reread this paragraph. The wording bothered her, especially as her dad had a gift for understatement.
Recent events? What frigging recent events?

I’m sending Mum a copy too, though she and I discussed these things when we met some weeks ago. Thank you for keeping her company. I know it isn’t fair to ask you to carry so much. I am only beginning to find out who I am, but I do know who
you are. You are my brilliant, tolerant and beautiful daughter. I do not deserve you, but I do love you.

Dad XXXXX

Kate lay flat on her back. She could see nothing but endless blue, dappled by Charlotte’s leaves. This lawn had always been mossy. The grass felt like a dry cushion under her head, smelling of herbs. She lifted the letter up in front of her face.

My dear family,

I am writing to all of you so that there are no more secrets. Keeping this secret for so long has been my greatest sin.

The word ‘sorry’ is hopelessly tame. I’ll say it anyway. I am sorry.

It is difficult to write this letter. Difficult, because I am trying to express feelings which I barely understand. Difficult, because I know I am hurting all of you. But I must try. My behaviour will seem like madness, selfishness, or perversion to you. I did not do at all well when I first tried to explain to some of you. I am sorry (there’s that inadequate word again) that I was not prepared. The decision to confess took me by surprise—though not, I appreciate, as much as it did you.

In some fundamental way, most people’s minds match their bodies. You, Kate, don’t like the labels of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’. I applaud that in you. But the fact is that you’ve always been allowed to live, dress, talk, and express yourself freely. I have not been so lucky. I’ve said that I feel trapped in the wrong kind of body. It’s worse than that, really. It’s as though the real me is smothered underneath the false one—alive, but unable to speak or move.

Those of you who are female, please try this bit of mental gymnastics: imagine waking up one day and finding that there’s been some switch—maybe an alien abduction!—and you now inhabit a male body. You mustn’t wear jewellery or make-up anymore. Your hair must be cut. You can’t wear
feminine clothes or shoes or anything remotely pretty, even underwear. None. You have to pretend you have no interest in those things. Your body is all the wrong shape and size, and you hate it, so you try to avoid mirrors. From now on you’re treated as a man by other women. You have to fit in with men. You have to pretend to be one of them. You must talk as they do, be interested only in what interests them. You must never, ever slip up. You live in constant terror of slipping up, and with constant inner turmoil.

Now imagine that this is a life sentence. You will live, love, die and be buried in that wrong body. Nobody will ever know who you really are.

This was me. I became exhausted. I became brokenhearted. I couldn’t go on.

That’s all very well, you say, but what’s unforgivable is the fact that I lied for so long! I have no defence—except to say that I fell head over heels in love with a girl called Eilish French. I was under her spell, and remain so to this day. Everything would be all right, I was sure, if she would share my life with me. I dared to hope. Was I so wrong to grasp at happiness? And, of course, having married her, I had to keep going. And so the years went on, and I kept on burying my real self.

Since I left Smith’s Barn I have researched and taken advice. The process is complicated; I don’t know exactly how things will unfold. What I can promise is that from now on I will tell the truth.

I’ll soon start taking oestrogen and something to block the testosterone. If I can find the courage, I will eventually try to live as a woman. Not just any woman—one woman in particular. I’ve known her all my life, because she is me. Her name is Lucia.

Each of you will have to decide what this means to you. I fear what lies ahead, and I would welcome your company on the journey. My dream is that you will accept me as I am.

Even if you cannot walk with me, perhaps you could try to forgive me.

With my love always,

Lucia

Kate read the letter three times. Then she shut her eyes and did as he’d asked. She imagined looking into a mirror and seeing a grown man. She imagined being a spy behind enemy lines, in constant terror of discovery. And, just for a moment, she thought she understood.

Eilish was in the kitchen. Her face was set, as pale as the letter on the table in front of her. ‘That’s that, then,’ she said, taking off her reading glasses.

She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want a cup of tea. Kate followed her as she marched down to the garden shed. It doubled as Dad’s woodwork room, and smelled of timber and linseed oil. Eilish emerged with a pair of clippers and began to slice the heads off roses—all the roses, whether they needed pruning or not. Mostly not.

Eilish

‘He’s certifiably insane,’ yelled Simon, who’d jumped out of his car and was waving the letter at me. ‘He’s actually signed himself Lucia!’

I completely agreed with him. Kate had gone off to meet a friend in the Bracton Arms, leaving me to wreak havoc in the garden. My hurt throbbed and pulsed and threatened to explode. Perhaps I’d feel better if I screamed and hit things. The foulest words were forming in my mind: things I’d like to say to Luke, things calculated to hurt him back. Seeing it all written down—knowing he had sent the same message to all the family—was too much. He claimed to have fallen head over heels in love with a girl called Eilish French.
Love?
Love didn’t mean lying. Love didn’t mean hijacking another person’s life
just to make your own look conventional. Love didn’t mean making someone feel diminished and humiliated and used.

‘He says he wants hormone therapy,’ bellowed Simon now. ‘Well, I’ll help him with that! I’ve castrated four dogs today. I’ll be happy to oblige.’ He made a snip-snipping motion with his fingers. I did the same with my secateurs, decapitating another rose. Soft heads carpeted the ground around my feet. The destruction wasn’t as therapeutic as I’d hoped.

I wished Simon hadn’t driven straight out here in this towering rage. I had enough rage of my own. He looks ill, I thought. He’s too pinched, too shadowy around the eyes. And he smells of alcohol. He must be hard to live with—poor Carmela, poor little Nico. Luke’s selfishness is like a pebble thrown into a pond, causing ripples that spread and spread, ruining people’s lives. How did I ever love such a self-centred, vain creature?

‘You’ve got to have him sectioned,’ said Simon. ‘
You
have to do it. I can’t. You’re his wife.’

‘What, locked up?’

‘Locked up, yes, until they cure him. They’ll give him massive doses of testosterone, I expect. Something for psychosis. It has to be curable.’

I knew this idea was ridiculous. I was sure that Simon knew it too, in his heart. Still, the thought of Luke being cured was an attractive fantasy.

‘Male hormones,’ I said, edging out from between two prickly rosebushes. ‘Nice idea. I don’t think it’s as easy as that, though.’

I headed across the lawn towards the shed. It was another burning day. Simon fell into step. Even his walk was agitated. Sweat darkened his shirt between his shoulderblades. ‘Look, Mum, I’ve asked around and I’ve got a name for you. A really good solicitor. No connection to Bannermans.’

‘To advise me about the Mental Health Act?’

‘To advise you about divorce.’

I stopped in my tracks.
Divorce
.

‘There’s no rush,’ I said. ‘Plenty of time for that.’

‘No, there isn’t plenty of time. You need to get on with it, pronto! This woman I’ve found is meant to be a real terrier. She’s in Oxford. I think you should ask for an emergency injunction to protect the house, your savings and the pension. We’ve got to get the money tied up before he blows it on having himself turned inside out in some weird Asian hospital.’

‘He’s not a fiend, Simon.’

He began to speak with forced calmness. I found it patronising. ‘Mum, we have to face the facts. He’s not rational. He’s behaving like a kid in a sweetshop. Grab, grab, grab, not caring what damage he causes. How’s he paying for these hormones? Can he get them on the NHS?’

Thinking back, I remembered what Luke had said over lunch. ‘He mentioned a clinic . . . he wanted to talk about money. I expect he’s paying out of the joint account, or maybe with one of the credit cards. We’ve never divided our finances.’

Simon clutched at his head. ‘Oh my God! Call the bank. Tell them to freeze everything. You’ll end up on the streets, with your life savings in the pocket of some dodgy backstreet quack.’

Luke’s the enemy now, I thought as I logged into our internet banking in the airless study, and ran my eye down the transactions. He was my comrade. Now he’s a shadowy foe who’ll steal all our money if he gets the chance.

‘Found it?’ asked Simon.

‘Um . . . can’t see anything unusual coming out of the bank accounts. Hang on, let’s look at Visa. There’s a few internet purchases—what are they? And . . . yes. This is it. Two payments, each a hundred and fifty pounds . . . they’re to something called
Baytrees Clinic
.’

Simon was looking over my shoulder. ‘It’s just the beginning. The cost of this will be astronomical. Hormones won’t be cheap, and when it comes to surgery, the sky’s the limit. You might lose this house.’

‘He couldn’t take out a mortgage on Smith’s Barn without my knowing,’ I said, trying to convince myself. ‘We own it jointly.’

‘Mum, open your eyes! You’ve got to start fighting back.’

Luke’s letter was still lying on the kitchen table. He’d added a handwritten line:

Eilish, I know my lie was unforgivable. But I want you to know that you have saved me, year after year. I wasn’t lying when I said I love you. Thank you.

You asked too much
, I thought.
You took too much. You have broken me.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let’s call that solicitor.’

Twenty-five

Kate

Mathis was driving. He seemed to have no sense of danger at all, and Kate had her hands over her eyes for much of the journey. There was thunder in the air. She was sticking to her seat.

‘Turn left here,’ she ordered. ‘Then at the end of the—Christ’s sake, mind that bike!’

Mathis braked sharply, and they all slewed forward. Kate felt lucky to be alive as she staggered onto the pavement outside what used to be her home. Behind her, Mathis reversed the car into a tiny space intended for motorbikes.

John had got out too, and took her arm. ‘Wait till he’s parked. We need a surgical strike.’

‘This isn’t an SAS raid,’ she protested. ‘Owen isn’t an evil genius. He’s a common or garden wazzock.’

‘Kate, we watched you being a nanny to that boy for two years. He’s more controlling than any psychopath, and we’re not taking risks. We’re going to grab your things and get you out of here.’

‘I’m the getaway driver,’ added Mathis, coming around the car. He did something in radio, and had the kind of wistful beauty that made schoolgirls giggle. John was a cherubic accountant, born with a receding hairline. He finally came out of the closet as a student, when he fell in love with Mathis. They were the only
people she’d told about her father. There was nobody else she could trust not to laugh.

‘See us as your bodyguards,’ said John, ‘wearing shades and earpieces.’

They had reached the front door, and were squeezed between dustbins and an overgrown hedge, limp and dusty after weeks without rain. Kate was about to press the bell when the door opened. The last scales fell clattering from her eyes. Owen looked peaky and petulant, and he was wearing an orange T-shirt she’d always loathed.

‘Ah,’ he said sarcastically. ‘What an honour. I was going to dump your stuff at Oxfam.’

‘Hilarious.’

‘Hello, Mathis, hello, John. Did she tell you she vandalised my best shirt?’

He turned his back and walked down the hall towards a pile of boxes, bin bags and a stereo system. Mathis and John swooped on them and began carrying armfuls out to the car. Kate was following suit when a small, barking object burst out of the bedroom, ricocheted around the confined space and knocked Owen’s bicycle right over.

‘Baffy’s missed you,’ said Owen, turning back. He was smiling.

She picked up the little dog, nuzzling his fluffy head while Owen gave her a blow-by-blow account of the night Baffy ate chicken bones and had to be rushed to the vet. She followed him into the kitchen so that she could write down a forwarding address. Before she knew it, they were both sitting at the table. Owen’s hair was sticking up and his socks were half off his feet. He looked defenceless. He needed somebody to care for him.