The New Woman (44 page)

‘There was one other thing I wanted to run by you,’ she said.

‘Go ahead.’

‘I’m trying very hard to get my head around this thing you’re doing.’

‘I know you are.’

‘Mm.’ We were inching forward, packed like sardines in a can. ‘But every time I call you “Dad”, it trips me up. For me the word “Dad” conjures up male things. It’s you . . . but it isn’t you. And you sure as hell aren’t Mum. I’ve got a mum already, and one is enough. So I thought, if you didn’t mind, I’d try calling you Lucia.’

We’d got to the barrier. I turned back to give her a grateful hug. ‘Please do,’ I said. ‘That would be perfect.’

The train was full, and I didn’t get a seat until three stations before my own. I didn’t mind. It was as I stood in the aisle, letting my body move and sway with the train’s rhythms, that I finally grasped what I had achieved that day. The nameplate on my door wasn’t a dream, it was real. The woman looking back at me from
the dark windows of the train wasn’t a dream; she was real.
You are me
, I thought.
I am Lucia Livingstone.

A young man was sitting at a table, watching a film on his iPad. I don’t think he cast more than a glance in my direction, but perhaps he registered the grey in my hair, because he stood up and offered me his seat. I declined it with a smile, but my soul was singing.

Woo-hoo
, I thought.
Go, Luce.

Forty-six

Eilish

What makes us who we are? Countless things; more than humanity is ever likely to understand. All I know is that by becoming a woman, Luke didn’t lose himself. She found herself. For seven months I’d raged and grieved for what I’d lost. I still grieved, but now I also celebrated her new-found peace. I’d loved him enough to love her, too.

She made mistakes, of course. In her first week at work I twice had to stop her from heading off to work looking like a Christmas tree.

‘So many pitfalls,’ she complained on Thursday morning, as I made her remove a silk scarf that clashed with the rest of her outfit. ‘I used to open the wardrobe and grab the first clean shirt. Now it’s just a constant stream of decisions.’

‘Um, I’m afraid that necklace doesn’t show above your collar,’ I said. ‘Here—d’you want to borrow mine?’

She looked into the mirror, touching the string of green glass beads. ‘This was a birthday present from Chloe. I thought she’d be pleased if I was wearing it this evening.’

‘And it’s lovely, but it’s the wrong length. Hang on, I think I can adjust it.’ I managed to clip the necklace several links further down, so that it was short enough to show. ‘How’s that?’

I wanted to protect her fragile happiness. I wanted people not to sneer. Her hairstyle softened the outlines of her face, and she was humming under her breath. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that she was once Luke. She turned around with a smile. ‘Perfect! Thank you,’ she said, and kissed me on the cheek.

She was drinking coffee while I pottered about. I’d made it for her in our one remaining red and yellow cup. Bryan turned up with the post as well as the newspaper, and I looked through the mail. Two bills, a bank statement, an invitation to somebody’s silver wedding anniversary.

And one other.

I tasted bitterness in my mouth when I saw that last one. I’d been expecting it. I didn’t want to open it.

Lucia looked up from her newspaper.

‘From the court?’ she asked. ‘Go on. It might just be a speeding ticket or something.’

With a heavy heart I slid my hand under the flap, took out the paper and scanned its contents. ‘Decree absolute,’ I said. ‘We’re divorced.’

That bitter taste grew stronger. For a time, we were both silent. There were no words for this. I couldn’t look at her.

‘We knew it was coming,’ said Lucia. ‘I can’t expect to stay here with you forever.’

I put the letter to one side, and took her hand. ‘But we’re still family, aren’t we?’ she added, with a desperate smile.

I agreed that we were. Then I rushed off, saying I must get ready for school. Those wretched tears arrived as soon as I reached my bedroom. I had to hide for a while; in fact, it was a good half-hour before I felt composed enough to come out.

‘We’re both running late. I’ll give you a lift to the station, if you like,’ I called, as I hurried along to the bathroom to brush my teeth. When Lucia didn’t reply, I came out of the bathroom onto the gallery, holding my toothbrush. She was standing by the kitchen table.

‘Luke? Oops, sorry, Lucia? Did you want a lift?’

She looked blankly up at me, rocking slightly on her heels, backwards and forwards.

‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

‘He’s . . .’ She walked right around the table, hitting herself on the upper arms. It was a primeval gesture, as though she were a creature in pain. I dropped the toothbrush and ran down the stairs. As I reached her I saw that she was horrified. Her eyes were wide.

‘You have to tell me,’ I said, frightened now. ‘Is it Kate?’

When she finally managed to get the words out, they seemed to choke her.

‘He killed her,’ she said.

Police have released the identity of a transsexual sex worker found dead in a South London bedsit on Monday evening. The mutilated body of Callum Robertson, 22, who also used the name Chloe, was discovered by police after a neighbour reported hearing screams. Adam Stuart Walsh, aged 35, was arrested near the scene. Police are not seeking anyone else in connection with the incident.

An autopsy has yet to be carried out. Police sources indicate that the attack involved a sharp object or objects, and described it as savage and sustained.

The neighbour, who asked not to be named, told reporters that she looked out into her hallway after hearing sounds of a struggle in the bedsit next door. ‘I saw a man walking towards the stairs, covered in blood,’ she said. ‘He told me, “I think I’ve killed something.” So I locked myself in my room and called the police.’

Callum’s mother, Kirsty Robertson, has made a plea for the family’s privacy to be respected. ‘We are broken-hearted. Callum was a good lad who made some wrong choices. We just want to get him home. He needs to be among his family again.’

Lucia

‘I was going to see her,’ I kept saying. ‘I was going to see her. D’you think, if I just give her a call, it might turn out she’s fine?’

‘No,’ said Eilish, who’d rung Bannermans and asked them to cancel my appointments. ‘I’m so sorry, but I don’t.’

I felt sickened by the gleeful prurience of the newspaper, with its mention of blood and mutilation and the transsexual sex worker called Callum Robertson. All I could think of was Chloe lying with her throat cut and God knows what other cruelties inflicted upon her.
Mutilated
, the paper said. And I was wearing her green glass beads.

The wolves had dragged Chloe out from her hiding place in a hollow tree, and they’d torn her apart. I couldn’t save her.

‘I should have warned her to be careful,’ I said.

‘Darling.’ Eilish touched my hand. ‘From what you’ve told me, she was far more street-wise than you will ever be. I know she was young, but if anyone seemed able to take care of herself it was Chloe.’

Which was true. In fact, it was Chloe who had done the caring. Chloe, with her nervous laugh and her perspex heels. She cared for me.

When I couldn’t stand inactivity a moment longer, I rang her local police station. After a lot of explaining I was put through to Detective Inspector Dave someone-or-other. I told him what I knew about the man Chloe had planned to meet. He took my details. Although they’d already made an arrest, they wanted to piece together the last hours of Chloe’s life.

‘Look, there’s a mistake in the paper. She wasn’t Callum Robertson,’ I said. ‘That wasn’t the name she used. She was a woman called Chloe.’

Yes, he said. They were aware that the deceased had an AKA. They’d looked into the appropriate response. She had made no application for a gender recognition certificate, and the next of kin wished her to be referred to by her male name.

I felt impotent rage. ‘“Chloe” wasn’t an AKA. It was
her
name. Look at her—she was obviously trying to be a woman! She didn’t have the money to apply for the certificate yet, but she was a woman.’

‘Your view is noted,’ he said tersely. ‘Thank you.’

I asked him for the family’s contact details. No, he said, he couldn’t help me there. There were issues of privacy. If I wanted to give them a message he would pass it on.

‘Please ask them to phone me,’ I begged him. ‘Tell them I was a friend of hers.’

He sounded doubtful.

‘I’m a solicitor,’ I added, as though my profession made any difference.

He’d had enough of me, and ended the call. I stood helplessly in my warm kitchen in my trendy converted barn. I felt disgustingly privileged. Chloe was lying in a cold morgue, to be dissected by someone who would find her body a fascinating example of the preoperative transsexual. To the press she was a lurid weirdo, a creature who lived underneath a stone. Her family would take her back to Manchester. They’d talk about their son and brother who’d gone wrong, and who had paid for it with his life. They’d cut her hair. They’d force her to be Callum forever.

‘I wish I could stop them,’ I said to Eilish. ‘I can hear her now, laughing and saying, “Bloody hell, no, don’t let that mob get me.” ’

‘You’ve got no say in it, surely? They’re her family.’

I had to try. I phoned the newspaper, and quoted the Gender Recognition Act at them. It’s meant to protect the privacy of trans people. They didn’t care. ‘Sex-swap’ stories sell papers, so Chloe’s murder boosted their sales. Privacy wasn’t too high on the priority list.

Then I called Neil, of the Jenny Marsden group. He too had only just heard, and was horrified. We talked for a time, and he said he’d let everyone else know.

I’d run out of practical things to do, but I just couldn’t keep still. That’s the thing about grief: it hurts, and it can’t be escaped. I paced around and around the kitchen until Eilish suggested a walk in the garden. She took my arm, and we stepped out through the folding doors into a morning that felt alive and mellow. A gauzy haze hung across the lawn, but the sun was breaking through. There were leaf buds on the trees and even the first bursting of blossom. Chloe couldn’t smell the spring. She was twenty-two, and she’d never laugh again.

‘I can’t believe she’s dead,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it. So much hope, so much vivacity.’

I hadn’t even realised I was crying until Eilish handed me a tissue.

‘Thanks,’ I said, as I took it. ‘Sorry.’

‘Luke would have had a large white hankie in his pocket, ready to whip out if his nose was running.’

‘Lucia is hopelessly disorganised. I find the lack of pockets confusing.’

My father’s tree was coming into leaf. Nature goes on, even when life ends. The sun still rises; the world is still beautiful. As we neared the pond, a pair of ducks glided away, leaving a wake on the glassy surface. Their serenity clashed with the images of violence and hatred in my mind. I imagined Chloe happy and excited, getting ready for her date; I imagined the terrible moment when she realised he was going to kill her.

Eilish and I stood quietly, our two figures reflected in the water.

Forty-seven

Kate

If Adam Stuart Walsh, thirty-five, were sitting in an electric chair right now, she’d cheerfully throw the lever.

‘But
why
?’ she asked Eilish, who’d met her at the station. ‘What kind of moron murders a lovely person like Chloe?’

‘He panicked. That’s what he’s telling the police, according to the latest reports. They’ve charged him with murder.’

‘Panicked!’ Kate kicked the car, before getting into it. ‘What, because she laughed too much?’

‘He didn’t know she was transgender. He says they’d had a good night out, gone back to the bedsit for . . . well, coffee. He assumed that meant sex. Then she mentioned it in passing, as though he already knew. He lost his head.’

‘Oh well, that explains everything,’ said Kate, as she slammed the door. ‘I mean, if someone doesn’t walk around with a big placard saying “trans woman”, obviously they deserve to be hacked to death.’

‘He did think that. Exactly that. He said he thinks they’re vermin. He says Chloe brought it all on herself. He thought she’d tricked him.’

Kate kept her eyes fixed on the familiar road unfolding ahead, battling an urge to burst into tears. She’d only heard the news
last night, when Lucia phoned. It had been the worst phone call of her life; she’d felt sick ever since. She couldn’t get Chloe out of her head. They’d had Christmas lunch together, gone for a walk, joked about
The Sound of Music
. They’d been ice-skating. Now Chloe was dead, and all because some lowlife had a hang-up.

‘She was a great person,’ she said. ‘Honestly, Mum, I wish you’d met her.’

‘I wish I had, too.’

‘She loved Dad—Lucia.’