by Jackie Kay
‘No, that’s all right. I’d rather not,’ May said. What did she want to see a picture of Josephine Moore’s wife for? It was absurd. May took the photograph the journalist had given her. Josephine was wearing an elegant suit: her lovely lips were blowing her trumpet.
EDITORIAL
What happened to Josephine Moore? Look at this photograph. There she is, bright as a button, chocolate brown eyes. The picture is grainy and if it had a sound it would crackle and spit. There she is. Standing next to her house on a dark stone street. She is holding the hand of a much younger Edith Moore. Her smile is her best smile, you can tell. The best smile for the discerning eye of the camera. It is not every day her picture was taken. She is wearing a pleated skirt. Her knees are bare, but she has on white ankle socks. A white blouse. No matter how long you stare at the photograph, the clothes she is wearing will not change. They are locked in their own time, with their own stitches. But every time you look at the little girl’s face, you will see something different in it. The first time there is the wide smile. The second time there is something about the eyes that draws you. The eyes of a girl who knows she is going to be somebody special. Is that possible? Or are you seeing things? No, there it is that look. That look that is years ahead of its time, waiting. Bright and burning. Does she look at all tomboyish with that confident sparkle in her eye, that wild look? No. No, that couldn’t be said. She looks just like a little girl. A happy little girl. She is holding her mother’s hand, not tightly. The hands rest in each other. One hand is the other’s cradle. Look at this photograph. Look at it again. And again. This is Josephine Moore when she was seven years old. The woman next to her, holding her hand, is her mother, Edith Moore. This photograph was taken in Greenock, the small Scottish town where Josephine Moore grew up.
GOOD HOTELS
He’s run out of malt. He picks up the phone and speaks in a low voice. He asks for half a bottle of malt. ‘What kind of malts have you got?’ He stands at his door listening for the room service man. When he hears his step approach he opens the door, bringing his fingers to his lips, telling the man to keep quiet. He signs the room service man’s board and whispers something about his baby being asleep. He closes his door, gently. It takes him another two whiskies to pluck up the courage. He will go to her door. He will tell her he’s splitting. No contract signed anyway. No fucking deal.
His heart is beating fast now. Fast enough for him to think he can smell his own blood. Got to have it out. This book is starting to eat away at him. Imagine this photograph of his father as a little girl in a book with sinister captions. His father keeps coming back to him. He won’t stop it. He won’t let him alone. Coorie in, coorie in, he says and tucks him into his bed. He likes the sounds of the words his father makes and his father likes them too. The sounds of the words and the snug warmth of his covers. Coorie in, he says. Coorie in. He knocks on Number 308 loud enough for her to hear over her blaring TV.
THE STARS THIS WEEK
Tonight has an edge to it, as if the darkness itself was anxious. The moon is out already. The moon is out there moving through the quick swirling clouds, in and out of the waves. Appearing one minute, bright and glorious, and disappearing the next. A full moon tonight. The stars glint down at her. She is not long for this world, she tells herself. Maybe it’s the last time the stars at night will brighten up her night.
She comes in from her doorstep, from looking right up into the wide night sky, from watching the moon being chased by advancing clouds. Oh, it’s a wily one, the moon. It can always get away. She closes her door and locks it. Puts on her chain. She double checks everything is as it should be.
Edith Moore sighs as she puts the kettle on. Listening out for any strange noises in the night. It might be a sheltered house, but sometimes that can attract bad yins that know there are only elderly folks and a lazy warden. The old Larch folk are sitting ducks.
Josephine, Josephine. She takes off her slippers first, then her skirt, folding it on the back of her bedroom chair. She slips out of her slip. She pulls her tights off and straightens them out, putting her fingers into the empty foot and pulling them back up. They’ll do another day. She pulls off her bloomers, bending to get them off her feet. Bending is painful now. Her back is affected by arthritis and so are her hips. She pulls her cotton nightdress over her head and puts her dressing gown on. She goes into her bathroom and rinses out her pants. Last thing at night, she always rinses out her pants. You can’t start another day with dirty pants in the house. Hanging her pants over the radiator, she wonders why the heating is still on. She was sure she turned it down. The kettle whistles. She makes herself a good cup of tea, a tiny splash of milk. She likes her tea piping hot. Not too strong. She takes her tea through to her bedroom turning off all the lights as she goes. She sits up in her bed and sups her tea. She can’t read tonight. She can’t even open her book. There are no sounds except the noise of the heating system, burping and gargling into the night.
GOOD HOTELS
‘I don’t believe you!’ Sophie Stones says shrilly.
They are sitting in the second-floor bar of the hotel. In the corner. On the leather couch. They are amongst the last people up. It is one in the morning. Colman is knocking back a Lagavulin. Sophie has a cognac.
‘How can you renege on our agreement like this?’
‘It’s my morals. I can’t do it.’
‘You? You’ve got morals?’
‘I’ve got more morals than you’ve had hot dinners,’ Colman says drunkenly. ‘You wouldn’t know a moral if it slapped you in the face,’ he says, trying for something better.
‘I don’t see what is immoral about doing this book,’ Sophie says, and burps.
‘Yeah, right. That’s your problem.’
‘Who do you think you are?’ Sophie hisses, furious, drunk and feeling sadly sexual.
‘Who do I think I am? I am Colman Moody, the son of Joss Moody, the famous trumpet player. He’ll always be daddy to me. I’m not stopping now just because there’s been a turn-up for the books.’
‘A turn-up for the books? You’re pissed as a newt. You must be out of your mind. We’re both rat-arsed. Let’s not talk any more. Cole. The book wouldn’t do your father any harm. One, he’s dead and two …’
‘I thought you said we shouldn’t talk any more.’
‘Two, it will help people remember him. It is only the truth. You’re not going to make things up.’
‘How can I take that whole suitcase of letters from Edith Moore and put them in a book?’
‘You didn’t mention a whole suitcase? Really?’
‘See, there you go again. No morals. No fucking morals.’
‘Who are you to accuse me? It’s not fair, Cole. Don’t be unkind.’
‘Stop calling me Cole, that’s what my pals call me. You’re not a pal.’
Edith Moore. Edith Moore is in front of him at the seaside, holding the hand of a small girl, his father. The girl has a mass of curly black hair, like himself. She is deaf. The girl takes a liking to him and starts to play with him. Then she leads him down to the basement. They are suddenly in a rich house. All the time, they are speaking in sign. Suddenly the whole place starts to fill with water. Water leaking in from everywhere. Colman puts the deaf, curly-haired girl on his back. He is going to have to save her from drowning.
He climbs stairs, frantic. Spiral stairs leading up to the webbed feet. Spiral stairs that crumble underneath him. He takes two semi-circle steps at a time. He has got a little girl’s life on his back. He has to save her. Has to save her. Has to.
*
He wakes up sweating. He is lying in bed next to Sophie Stones! Fuck, how did that happen? He can’t remember anything. The last thing he remembers is the bar. His watch lights up in the dark. It is 4.00. He gets up quietly and picks his stuff up from the floor. His silk boxer shorts, his trousers, his shirt. He stuffs the lot under his arm and creeps to room 310. But he hasn’t got his fucking card. He is standing outside in t
he corridor, starkers. Totally ridiculously naked. He puts his hand over himself to cover himself, protectively. Christ, he can’t stand in the buff like this for the rest of the night. His clothes! Thank God he brought his clothes out. There they are lying next to his door in a bundle. He must have dropped them. He picks up his trousers and rummages through the pockets for the card. Nothing there. He pulls his trousers on in a hurry. Shit. Nothing for it but to face reception at four in the fucking morning and ask for another key.
EDITORIAL
What does the ghost writer do if the ghost gets cold feet? If the ghost gets the ghouls, the spooks, the heebie geebies. What does the ghost writer do when the ghost is no longer interested in the material? Does that make the ghost writer redundant? How does a ghost writer convince a ghost that the subject is worthwhile?
Fact: ghost writers often fall in love with their ghosts.
Fact: like biographers, they get haunted by their material. Very soon they are incapable of keeping a clear boundary between their life and the life of their subject. Many ghost writers believe they are the real authority on their subject and not the ghost themselves. They tend to get irritable if their subject disagrees with them.
INTERIOR
It dawned on me falling asleep drunk last night, just as I was falling asleep with Colman curled up beside me. It turned her on. Dressing up as a bloke and blowing that horn turned her on. There has been too much talk about Joss Moody just wanting to play the trumpet. There have been articles about how there were no women jazz musicians in the 1950s. There has been some sympathetic murmuring. Some people who are very understanding.
But if you told those people that it was nothing to do with the trumpet, if you told those people that it was fuck all to do with the trumpet, what would they say to that? Would they still offer understanding? She liked wearing those bandages, didn’t she? She liked the big cover up. Going about the place taking everybody in. Going to the Gents. She got a buzz going to the Gents, didn’t she? Slicking down her hair. Getting a new man’s shirt and taking out the pins, the tiny pins. Shaving. Working up the lather.
Most of all, she liked the power. The power: the way women treated her, the way men treated her. Walking down the street with that walk that she must have practised. I’ve got her on video. She studied that walk all right. She didn’t just wake up one day and decide to be a man. She must have practised first. She must have given it a lot of thought. It can’t have been easy for her, hiding like that. Stressful. Whenever I’m hiding something, I find it raises the anxiety levels. My heart beats quick with deceit. She moved town, didn’t she? She moved away from Greenock then she became a man. Had to find a city, Glasgow, and then a bigger city, London. She couldn’t risk staying in touch with her own mother, not for long. When was the last time Edith Moore saw her daughter? I hope Colman thought to ask that. She’s studied that walk. That cool look. Yeah, she liked playing the trumpet all right, but there was more to it than that. She liked being a man. Pure and simple.
The public might hate perverts, but they love reading about them. Why? Because everybody has a bit of perversion in them. Every person goes about their life with a bit of perversion that is unadmittable, secretive, loathed. I know this. I have my own skeletons in the cupboard. So does Sarah, although she’d never admit it. There are some things families never talk about.
When I wake at 7.10, Colman is gone. I never even heard him leaving. I get up and look around the devastated room. The bottles and the glasses and my clothes fanatically folded on the chair, though I have no memory of folding them. There’s a note on the dresser. ‘No can do. Sorry, mate, Colman.’ I grab it and screw it into a ball, a tight paper ball. I aim it at the waste paper basket. Bastard. Fucking bastard.
I turn the tap on in the bathroom. Mate. He is trying to humiliate me. He knows he can’t turn back now. There’s too much at stake. I’d be a laughing stock. I’ve told everybody about this book. I’ll sort him out later on. It was just the drink. Just the drink talking. I shouldn’t have allowed us to drink so much. I wanted him to talk, not walk. He’s probably still asleep next door. Better let him sleep it off.
I found out that my father was not a man but a woman ten weeks ago when I went to the funeral parlour in North London where his body was laid out. If I were to say I was astonished, that would not be strong enough language. I was in total shock. I felt betrayed. I couldn’t actually believe it. But I had to believe it. There were the parts of a woman’s body for all to see. On the person who I thought of as my father, the breasts and pubic hair looked disgusting. Freakish. He might as well have turned into an albino. That would have been less shocking. His pubic hair and breasts looked grotesque, monstrous. I was so shocked by this and by my own reactions that I decided to write a book.
I thought that if I wrote a book about it, it might help other people. I know that not many people will ever find themselves in my position (count yourself lucky) but on the other hand unusual things happen to many people and anybody that has had anything freakish happen to them will relate to this book. I had to write this book so that I could understand my father and so that I could understand myself.
I look over what I’ve written. It is only a rough, but I’m quite pleased with the effect. Good idea to say ‘he’, that’s what Cole does. I can touch it up later, after breakfast, here and there, change a word or two. Maybe take out that (count yourself lucky). Colman is bound to see from this that I’m not going to write the usual Hack book, that I’m not The Ghost Writer From Hell. I have my sensitivities too. He will probably be flattered by how well Sophie understands him. I’ve got him under my skin. Isn’t that a jazz song? That could be the title. Yes! I do my triumphant fist. Especially now, if the whole book is written as Colman. Under My Skin. Utterly brilliant. I will propose it to him. Later, after a bottle of good wine and a good dinner. We could try that Thai tonight. He might be surprised I’m still speaking to him. I’ll miss Colman when we finish this book. Silly Cole and his stupid note!
HOUSE AND HOME
The seagulls are flying in the shape of a letter from the alphabet. V. One seagull is a rebel and is going off the other way. My eyes follow it. The sky is bleached. It is windy. I walk down to Kepper by the coastal path, the sea below me. I have grown old with this sea in my life. The wind is the sea’s wild dancing partner. It bites my face, scratches the back of my neck. I remember taking Colman’s small hand and holding on to it tightly, walking down this same path into the village. I remember always ending up carrying his fishing net. I wonder if he remembers any of that?
When the papers first started printing their terrible lies I felt faint. I was horrified at what I read. I imagined every person I knew reading those headlines. I imagined Joss reading them. For that first three days, I felt my whole life was ruined. Not just by Joss’s death, but by the reporting of his death. But now, the newspaper articles have moved on like crows in search of other carrion and I have become yesterday’s news. If Colman does this book, it will all flare up again. I can’t take that. I have to do what I have to do. I have written to Colman telling him if he does this book, I will never see him again. I have written to her too, Sophie Stones, to tell her if she proceeds with this book, I will be contacting my lawyers. What would your parents think of you doing a book like this against people’s will, surely they wouldn’t approve, I wrote. I thought if she has had any upbringing at all, that will trouble her. I have written the hotel in Glasgow’s address on the two white envelopes.
‘How are you, Mrs Moody?’ Mrs MacGonigal asks me in the post office.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘And you?’ I slide my letters under the hatch.
I got a lovely letter this morning, forwarded on by our secretary. A wonderful letter, from a group of women jazz musicians that want to form a band. They want to call it The Joss Moody Memorial Band. It has given me hope. I am not sure whether Joss would actually have liked the idea or not. But I like it.
TRAVEL:
The Coast R
oad
The local bus follows the old coastal road round to Lair. The sea on the right of him. He sits by the window, staring out. It’s been so long since he’s been down this road. The hills in the distance; he recognizes the shapes. The Giant’s Forehead, the Long Finger, the Sleeping Hare. This is the third bus he has been on today. From Buchanan Bus Station Glasgow, to St Andrews, from St Andrews to Pittenweem, from Pittenweem to Kepper.
In St Andrews, he had an hour’s wait for the next bus. He phoned Bruce Savage, the butcher.
‘Ah, Colman, Colman, how are you?’ Bruce said. ‘Sorry to hear about your dad.’
He was the first person to say that to Colman, that simply. It startled him. ‘Can you give my mother a message?’ Colman asked him. ‘Can you tell her I’m coming to see her on my own. My bus gets in at four-twenty.’
‘Rightio, no problem,’ Bruce said.
‘Thanks, make sure you tell her I’ll be on my own, will you?’
‘On your own. I’ve got the message,’ Bruce said, laughing. ‘What’s happened? Has she broken your heart then?’
The bus rounds a high tight bend, he is on the other side of the harbour. He can see Kepper in the distance. His face, close to the bus window. The same old fishing harbour where he spent many many hours as a boy. His father and him and Angus on the old rowing boat. Waiting for the line to bite and tug, opening his tin of maggots, or his tin of fresh bait, attaching floats and flies to his line, choosing hooks. Reeling in the odd sensation and battering it with his mallet. The fish sometimes jumped out of his hand and flapped about the boat, even after it had died. It always startled him, that after-shudder of fish. Sitting in silence, him and Angus and his father. Keeping quiet for the fish, to attract the big catch. The special silence of fishermen. He can see his father now, holding up the three pounder by its tail, grinning from ear to ear. ‘I’ve pulled it off,’ his father says.
