Golden Boy: A Novel

by Abigail Tarttelin

  ‘It’s just on the rumour mill at the moment. We’re dealing with it. We think it originated from a student’s blog,’ Dad says quietly. ‘I didn’t know Daniel had seen it.’

  ‘My friend Mouse told me at school, ’cause her big sister told her, stupid,’ I say to Dad.

  ‘Don’t call me stupid, Daniel,’ Dad says in a deep, scary voice.

  ‘Well, have you got them to take the blog down?’ Mum says to Dad. ‘That could be really harmful.’

  ‘Lawrence is on it.’

  ‘Whose blog?’ Max asks.

  Mum looks over at him. ‘What did you say?’

  He looks at Dad. ‘I . . . which student?’

  ‘You don’t need to know, Max,’ says Dad.

  ‘Dad!’ Max whines.

  Dad looks at Mum and then Max. ‘We’re threatening to sue the blog site itself for publishing slander and trying to get in touch with the student. They’ll most likely take it down shortly.’

  Max moans like he’s ill.

  ‘AND,’ I shout over them, angry that they’re ignoring me, ‘he said I was special and different and vital to the human species’ winning position in the race and he was LYING!’

  ‘Daniel, stop yelling at your brother!’ Dad says, growlingly.

  ‘Why do you think I was lying?’ Max says, exasperated like he’s annoyed with me.

  ‘YOU WERE LYING!’ I scream. ‘I’m not special. Everybody wants to know about you, Max, and they never use pictures of ME in the papers, and no one is interested in ME, and I don’t play for a sports team because I’m not good enough, and I never win anything. It’s all about YOU. EVERYTHING’S about you, and I’m sick of it!

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ says Mum. ‘Of course you’re special. You’re special to us. Max is only being blogged about because of a bad thing.’

  ‘This isn’t between me and you, Mum,’ I say. ‘This is between me and MAX THE LIAR!’

  Max sort of sinks onto a chair at the table like a boat capsizing, and he says, ‘I didn’t lie.’

  ‘Yes you did! You lie all the time now! I never know what’s going on! I HATE YOU!’

  ‘Daniel!’ Max takes his hand away from his mouth. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t lie. I just didn’t want to tell people Sylvie was my girlfriend in case something happened. And I haven’t gotten anyone pregnant. Sylvie and I . . . We’re not going out anymore, anyway.’

  Max and Mum glance at each other then look away immediately.

  ‘Well what about me being special?’ I ask him. ‘That wasn’t the truth, was it?’

  ‘It was, ’cause—’

  ‘It WASN’T! Everyone loves you!’

  ‘OK! It wasn’t! Stop screaming!’ Max shouts at me, standing up and picking up his bag. ‘Fine, it wasn’t the truth. You get to be normal like everyone else. I’m sorry that’s so awful but you’ll find out one day that it’s way, way better than the alternative.’

  ‘You think I’m too young to know ANYTHING!’ I shout back as Max walks towards the kitchen door.

  ‘That’s not true,’ Max says angrily. ‘I tell you about loads of stuff!’

  ‘Sometimes things are too complicated for people to understand when they’re young, sweetheart. That’s why you explain things to people slowly so they can take everything in,’ says Mum, sighing at me.

  Then Max looks at Mum and Mum looks at Max and then Max looks away, at me, and Mum looks over at Dad, who looks at the kettle, and I realise they are all ignoring each other.

  ‘What is going on here? What has been going on for the last month?’

  Max looks at me like he knows I know something, while Mum does a fake laugh like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, and Dad makes the tea and ignores us all, shaking his head like he doesn’t know what to do.

  ‘You’re all much more educated than me because you have all been to big school, you know way more words than me, you all know ALL OF the words to tell the truth with, but instead you lie to me and twist truths so I MISINTERPRET THINGS!’ I scream this last part.

  ‘Daniel!’ Dad says, and he shoots Mum a look and she shoots Max a look and Max shoots her a look and their eyes meet and Max looks confused and Mum looks guilty and Dad looks sad.

  ‘All of you communicate increasingly poorly as you explain more complex things!’ I shout, and then I am very, very tired, and I give everybody a weary look and I leave the room.

  Max

  Everything is breaking apart.

  It’s Thursday, the night before the operation, and I’m in bed. Downstairs I can hear music playing. Dad has some people over, working to delete the blog and clear up the rumour before it’s reported by the papers. Mum is with him. Daniel is playing a computer game. I can hear the muffled gunshots from his room. It’s as if tomorrow isn’t happening. It’s almost Christmas. I’m wearing my Christmas pyjama bottoms, which are soft and red tartan, and a light jersey jumper, and my socks.

  I’m lying in bed, on my side, thinking, feeling horrible. Feeling crushed and empty and spent and aching. I touch my stomach. It’s just a small bump. I feel it sometimes now, to see if it’s grown, when I’m in private. I’ve been having these fantasies. I’ve been feeling torn. I wanted to talk to Sylvie about it so much. But her face, when I told her. She was just . . . it was too much. She couldn’t take it. She raised her hands to her head and muttered ‘no no no’. She was panicked. She was gulping for air like a fish out of water.

  I was so embarrassed. I felt like I could just die, right there on her carpet.

  I saw her grasping for this bag, then she put it to her mouth and she said she just wanted things to go back to normal, for me to get rid of the baby, as if it was nothing, as if by a quick operation we could right all the wrongs. I thought about how all the doctors have always said that about me: that surgery could make me normal, get rid of the ‘problem’. I felt suddenly angry, angry at her for having such a huge reaction when I’ve been keeping it all inside for months, angry at her for not holding me, angry at her for knowing what I am. I shouted at her. Then I ran. I just ran.

  Tears slide down my face in the bed. They leak out of me. I feel like it’s always dark in my head these days. Everything has gone sour.

  Even now, I want to talk to Sylvie more than anything, so badly. But I can’t. I can’t talk to anyone. I need to talk to someone who will get it, maybe someone else who’s pregnant. I thought about asking Auntie Julie, but I don’t want her to know. I’d rather as few people know about it as possible. So that leaves Mum and Dad, who won’t get it, and Archie, who might, maybe. And one more person: Hunter.

  Could I talk to Hunter? He’d probably just freak out. But I don’t know. He didn’t seem to think what he did was wrong. He seemed to think we did it, together, when we were talking. He seems to really like me. It’s so weird. All the years we were friends and I never thought about us in that way. We were always hugging and stuff, but we were little kids. Little kids hug each other. We’ve shared bedrooms on every holiday our parents have taken together since we were babies. We used to go camping all the time. Maybe if I told him he would . . . I don’t know. I could at least talk to Hunter about everything. About how I’m feeling. Maybe I could just talk at him, let it all out. There’s no one else.

  He’d probably want it. Because he likes me, and because it will be like me and him, mixed together. We’re both smart. We’re both attractive. He’d probably love to have a baby with me; it would tether me to him.

  Oh my god. This is insane! Hunter held me down! Hunter held me down and still managed to look me in the eye and tell me I enjoyed it, that we had fun. Screw Hunter. He gave up his rights to this conversation when he walked out the room back in September, and left me there alone. Screw him.

  It’s not going to happen. It’ll be over tomorrow.

  Although I’m smart enough to know nothing will really be ‘over’, that nothing will ‘solve’ the problem of the baby, or me. There is no right way to do this. It’s all guesswork.

  I guess t
hat’s parenting for you, I think bitterly.

  At least a part of it will be over. Maybe the rawness of it will go away too. I touch my stomach. I don’t want to think about this anymore. I don’t want to think about tomorrow.

  I turn over on my pillow and try to shut my ears to my mind.

  But I start to think instead about what Daniel said, how angry he was at me. I think about how little he and I and Mum and Dad have talked recently. About how little Mum and Dad have talked to each other recently. About silences when we’re together while Daniel chatters on. I used to go hang out with Daniel all the time, but now I feel like I can’t stand to be around him. I know why, two reasons: I’m jealous of him, for being normal, for not having these problems, and secondly, I don’t want to lie to him, and something about everything just doesn’t feel right. I feel like I’m as bad as the people who would think being intersex was weird. There’s something about the whole situation that doesn’t feel honest.

  I’ve always thought people should just be as they are. Daniel’s perfect, even being so weird and awkward. So’s Sylvie. They are great. Part of the reason I love them both is because they are so kooky. So, am I fine as I am? Should I just be half and half and tell people to deal with it? And if I am fine as I am, then is this baby fine as it is?

  I cover my head with the duvet. Every thought I think convinces me a little bit more that I’m either insane or halfway there. My head feels so full of shouting voices that I can’t tell which one is my own. Which opinion is truly mine? Who am I? Does the fact that I don’t have a gender even matter? Or does it mean I am absolutely alone? Will anyone ever understand me just wanting to be me, or will they all think I’m a freak, forever?

  Can I keep this secret always? Or will the secret slowly poison my family?

  I think about Mum’s face and Dad’s face, if I told them I wanted to stay this way, to be able to have kids when I grow up, be able to do all the normal things, just . . . differently.

  I’m an idiot. I feel sick at myself, getting this confused. It’s just my hormones. This is what happens when you get pregnant. You get emotional and hormonal. But aren’t our hormones part of what give us feelings in the first place? Aren’t those feelings valid?

  Archie called the house today and spoke to Mum about the hysterectomy etc. Dad made out he was busy so he wouldn’t have to hear it. The surgeon who will do the corrective surgery is going to be present during the abortion to look at my insides close up, and see what he can do and when he can set up the hysterectomy and other surgeries. Then he’s going to talk to us about it when I wake up from the anaesthetic.

  I keep imagining the conversation in my head, wondering what he’s going to say. I wonder how they sew vaginas up. I wonder what it will feel like when it’s done. This is what I’ve had, all my life, and now they’re telling me I have to have a scrotum and testicles. I imagine how I’d feel if I were a woman, and I was told I’d have to be changed like that. I know I’m not one but . . . I’m not a man either. Let’s face it. I’m not a man. And I don’t know if I want to be.

  I have until tomorrow to think this all through, and it’s too soon. It’s too much, too soon, and I feel like I’m being pulled in different directions, because I’m so panicked too about Mum and Dad and how much I want to make them pleased with me, make them happy again. Mum has been weird with me lately, but then she was so nice to me on the day in London. Dad keeps trying to talk to her but she won’t speak to him, then she tried to speak to him about my surgeries and he won’t talk to her. It feels like our family is falling apart. Daniel must be so upset.

  I wish we could have talked about this more as I grew up. There are so many things we haven’t said, that I don’t know about how they feel. About how I feel. I feel like this point of view needs to be more developed before I make decisions like this. But Dr Flint, somewhere in his monologue, made a good point. If I don’t have the operations now, I’ll start to look different. Or rather, everyone else will start to look different, and I’ll stay the same. This is the turning point. This is the time when whether you are a boy or a girl counts. And you have to pick one. Why? Because those are the rules. Everything else is a non-entity.

  I wish I could just tell everyone. I wish being me was normal, or if not normal, then accepted. I wish I didn’t have to hide all these thoughts. I wish I didn’t have to be alone with this, to worry that I’ll always be alone. Maybe that’s the worst thing about being intersex. That I can’t tell anyone. I don’t want to be alone anymore.

  There is barely any energy left in my body, but I get up and go through to Daniel’s room.

  I open the door softly, and whisper, ‘Danny?’

  ‘Max?’

  ‘Hey, are you crying?’

  ‘No,’ Daniel says in a muffled voice.

  I push the door almost shut, and he lifts up his duvet cover. I climb underneath and tuck him in.

  ‘I’m sorry, Max.’ Daniel sniffs.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I whisper.

  He sobs. ‘I was so mad you didn’t tell me ’cause you don’t talk to me anymore.’

  I watch him sniffle and rub his eyes for a bit and then I give him a hug and he settles down.

  ‘I’m sorry too, Daniel, OK?’ I say. ‘I promise I’ll talk to you more. There’s been a lot going on.’

  ‘But you’re my brother!’ he says. ‘You can’t lie to me anymore.’

  I regard him solemnly, and I say, ‘I won’t lie to you anymore.’ I hold up my little finger. ‘Pinky promise?’

  ‘Pinky promise.’ He nods and takes my finger.

  I settle my head on the pillow.

  ‘What has been going on, Max?’ Daniel asks me.

  ‘Just . . . a lot of real stuff.’ I turn to him. ‘You know how we always battle on those games like World of War?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I feel like I’ve been battling in real life. I feel exhausted and sometimes I get too tired to talk.’

  ‘You’ve been sleeping a lot.’

  I ruffle his hair. ‘It takes a lot of energy to fight against real things.’

  ‘More than pretend things?’ he says.

  ‘Yes. Way more than pretend things. Big, scary real things,’ I say, and I close my eyes.

  Daniel

  Max falls asleep for a bit, but I want to ask him a question, so I poke him and he wakes up.

  ‘Errr, what?’ he says.

  ‘What’s the scariest thing in the world, Max?’

  ‘Poltergeists!’ Max hisses funnily at me, and then does a big yawn. ‘Do you want me to get the torch?’

  ‘No, no torch.’ I put my hand on his mouth to stop him from speaking about spooky stories. ‘I mean the scariest real thing in the world.’

  ‘Poltergeists are real,’ he mumbles from behind my hand.

  ‘No they’re not.’ I frown at him. ‘And neither’s Santa.’

  ‘Ouch,’ he says, and half-laughs, even though this is totally inappropriate because it’s disrespectful to the memory of Santa, who was real when we believed in him.

  ‘Mum and Dad are so whispery these days. I want to know about grown-up stuff,’ I tell Max. ‘What is the scariest real thing, Max? And you have to tell me out of loyalty. I must know. You promised never to lie to me again and you did a pinky promise.’

  Max looks at me. In the dark, his seaweed-colour eyes are black with one small, thin oval of light from I don’t know where. He breathes out and I know he’s going to tell me, so I take my hand away from his face and I wait. He looks straight in my eye for a long time then swallows and moves a little forward on the pillow.

  He thinks for a bit and then he opens his mouth.

  ‘The scariest thing is a secret,’ he says very slowly and sort of rhythmically.

  ‘How can a secret be scary?’ I ask scornfully, but wanting very much to know.

  Max swallows and breathes again, and looks at me. He thinks a bit and bites his lip.

  ‘Secrets are like invisible maggots,’ Max sa
ys slowly. ‘No. They’re like zombies, OK? They eat away at your brain . . .’ He touches my wrist. ‘You know, like the zombies in Deadland. And then they get out, and they eat at your guts so you’ve got none, you’ve got no guts, and you can’t be brave. And they eat . . . your vocal chords, so you’ve got no voice. You can’t speak. And they eat . . .’

  ‘What? What else do they eat?’

  ‘They get out of you and they eat the air around you. They make it all thin, so you can’t breathe. Then they eat the other people around you. They eat . . . they eat Mum and Dad.’

  ‘Is that what’s happening now?’

  He pauses. ‘Yes. But you can’t ask them about it, OK? Because then they will know I’ve told you all this, and they’ll be mad at me.’

  ‘I swear I won’t tell them.’

  ‘What do you swear on?’

  I think. ‘Both their lives.’

  ‘Wow. OK.’

  We’re both quiet for a minute, but then I have a question. ‘All of them?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Will it eat all of Mum and Dad until there’s nothing left?’

  ‘No . . .’ He looks around, like he’s thinking. ‘It eats bits of their souls and worries around . . . like, goes around their brains, nibbling at their brain cells. So they get mean and snappy, because that’s what happens when your soul gets eaten. And . . . and the eating keeps them up at night, because it hurts, so they get tired. It . . . it eats at love, and empathy, so the things that bind you to other people get gnawed away at, until they’re thin and easily breakable.’

  ‘What’s empathy?’

  ‘Empathy is where you understand other people, but . . . you feel the understanding, rather than think. It’s different from sympathy. It’s like where you can imagine yourself as that person. You know what I mean?’

  ‘Like me and you? Because I sometimes imagine I’m you.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  I think. ‘Because you’re Max.’

  ‘And who’s Max?’ Max asks.