by David Nobbs
He no longer welcomed his father’s cards. His father wrote, on his eighteenth birthday card, ‘How I wish you were here to share the incredible views of Istanbul from the incomparable Bosporus, old son. What a shame this is such an important year of study for you.’
He tore the card into twenty-seven pieces – his best yet. He felt that if he’d controlled his anger he could have topped thirty.
Nick and Alison didn’t have access to any place where they could make love without tension. To do it in Garibaldi Terrace would seem like a betrayal of trust. To do it in Upcot Avenue would be like suspending weightlessness on the moon. Neither of them minded this at all, though each pretended to.
The first time they spent a night in bed together was in Prentice’s father’s static caravan near Filey. They’d gone over there for a party. Prentice had said it was fancy dress. They’d gone as Helen of Troy and Achilles. Alison was used to dressing up and made a convincingly warrior-like Achilles. Nick was extremely shy and self-conscious about the whole thing. Somehow his unease made him disturbingly attractive as Helen. At the time they thought it all a great joke. Later, much later, looking back on it, they wondered how they could have been so naïve.
They only thought it a great joke until they arrived at the party to find that no one else was in fancy dress, not even Prentice.
‘You are a bastard, Prentice,’ said Alison.
‘That’s true,’ said Prentice.
Nick and Alison got so drunk in their embarrassment that when they got to bed they fell asleep straightaway, and in the morning they were so hungover that they made straight for the toilets. Alison held Nick by the shoulders while he retched into the bowl. He found that extraordinary. He didn’t think many women would have done that.
Would Nick and Alison ever have made love to each other, would they ever have married each other, if the driver of a white van hadn’t fallen asleep at the wheel just two days after Daniel Divot had arrived home on shore leave?
It’s impossible to know. The driver did fall asleep, Nick’s parents were killed instantly, he was all alone in the world.
Oh he had uncles and aunts, and a granny with dementia near Knebworth, and cousins, but they were never close.
One of his uncles made all the funeral arrangements. Nick drifted through the nightmare, rudderless, steered by Alison. On the morning of the funeral she dressed him. In the church she held his arm and led him to and from his seat. At the funeral tea she held him when she thought he was going to faint. That night she fucked him for the first time.
They had woken up that morning as friends, chums, a bit more than platonic but a lot less than sexual. During that one day Alison became his father, his mother and his lover.
Where did they make love? Friends in Throdnall would find this difficult to believe, but it was on the back lawn of his parents’ house, just beside the tool shed, under the stars, on a groundsheet (Nick was subject to chills of the kidneys as a young man). Mock ye not, though. Grief is a great aphrodisiac, and Nick was a fine and fervent lover that night, for all his inexperience. He turned his sorrow into love, and poured it into Alison.
The following week, Nick passed his driving test first time, to everyone’s astonishment, and the week after that, heady with excitement and independence, he set off on what he called La Grande Route de Sympathie, or Der Grossmitzgefuhlstrasse. In other words, he drove round rural England in an elderly Ford Anglia which he was only just capable of controlling, and spent two nights at each of five different outposts of Divots. He returned with a multitude of vague offers of future support, but had met no great warmth. ‘Divots tend to be good people, but they take some getting to know,’ his Aunt Jessica warned him. Long before the end of his little trip, the excitement was a thing of the past, and independence seemed a lonely game. He proposed to Alison on the day of his return, and she accepted him. They were both eighteen.
The wedding was a quiet little affair. The loss of both Nick’s parents forced it to be so.
He risked a break with his family by not inviting any of them. As he wrote to his Uncle Stanley, the unofficial leader of the tribe, ‘If we invite anyone we have to invite everyone. We can’t afford to invite everyone, so we’re not inviting anyone. We hope you’ll all understand.’
He relied on Uncle Stanley to pass the message round. He half hoped that somebody might say, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll pay’, but nobody did.
So Bernie and Marge were there, and a smattering of Thurmarsh friends, and Prentice, and Jen, and the registrar of course, and the photographer, and that was about it.
The men wore suits. Prentice, the best man, already showing intimations of obesity, told Nick, ‘You look better in a suit than any eighteen-year-old should. You look as if you were made for suits.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be a compliment.’
Alison wore pink in the knowledge that she needed help to look feminine, but her dress was simple in view of the recent tragedy and of her temperament. Jen looked tactlessly gorgeous in virginal white, which Alison thought inappropriate and inaccurate. Anyone who had seen them on the steps of the register office would have assumed Jen to be the bride.
Marge, with Alison’s permission, wore the dress in which she had got married to Bernie twenty-three years before. She could still get into it, but only just. Bernie, awkward in his shiny best suit, had tears in his eyes when he saw it.
‘You still look a picture, love,’ he said, ‘and I don’t mean no Picasso neither.’
‘I hope so,’ said Marge. ‘I daresay it looks old-fashioned, but we have to put on a show for them. It’d all seem so straggly else.’
‘Straggly?’
‘Forlorn. They’re marrying under a cloud. We’ve got to pull all the stops out.’
‘Oh aye. We’ve got to pull all the stops out.’
So there was champagne at the reception, which was held in a small private room at the Midland Hotel, where they were watched over by photographs of railway engines from the golden age of steam, and there was a slap-up, sit-down breakfast of lobster, steak and Black Forest gâteau, washed down with lashings of Mateus Rosé. Nobody could say they weren’t well done by.
Prentice made a short speech, full of tasteless references to the activities of the wedding night, references so oblique that luckily nobody understood them. Then he read out the telegrams. There were three.
‘ “Good luck – Uncle Stanley, Auntie Flo and all the Divots”,’ read Prentice.
‘Very nice,’ said Marge.
‘ “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. That leaves you quite a lot – Len Pickup”,’ read Prentice.
There was laughter, but not much.
‘ “Wish you could be sitting here beside me in heaven, old son – Dad”,’ read Prentice.
There was a stunned silence. Nick went white. His mouth opened but no sound came. He swooned. Alison grabbed his face before it crashed on to the table, and lowered it gently. He soon came round. Sweat poured off him.
Prentice sat with no expression whatever on his jowly face.
After the meal the drink flowed. Bernie went on to pints – ‘I can’t be doing wi’ fancy drinks, me’ – and the other men followed suit. Nick felt obliged to join in, though he hated pints. He just couldn’t find room for all that liquid. And as the drink flowed, people moved around, and tongues were loosened.
‘I hope it isn’t an omen,’ said Jen to Alison.
‘You hope what isn’t an omen?’
‘That stupid telegram.’
‘You hope it isn’t an omen of what?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing.’
‘You hope it isn’t an omen of nothing. Well, that’s brilliant.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes, I do know what you mean. You hope I’m not going to be happy.’
‘That’s a dreadful thing to say.’
Jen ran from the room in tears. Alison had to go to the Ladies’ room to calm her an
d bring her back.
In the Ladies’, Alison kissed Jen and said, ‘Oh, Jen. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done to you. I’ve been horrid.’
‘I deserved it,’ said Jen. ‘I resented you because you’re clever.’
‘I resented you because you’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful, Jen.’
They hugged each other and kissed each other and began to help each other repair their ruined make-up.
‘Who’s Len Pickup when he’s at home?’ asked Marge.
‘He never is at home,’ said Nick. ‘He’s a womaniser. He kept calling and trying to do odd jobs when Dad was at sea. He used to bring his tool box. It was enormous.’
‘Did he get anywhere?’ asked Bernie.
‘Now then, Bernie,’ warned Marge.
‘With his tool box,’ said Bernie. ‘I’m talking about his tool box.’
‘Nowhere,’ said Nick. ‘He mended a few fuses, but it’d be easier to get into Fort Knox than into my mum.’ He blushed scarlet. ‘Oh hell,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean … that wasn’t … I … Oh Mum! I’m sorry.’
Marge leant across and kissed him, warmly, left her cheek on his for a moment. He was astounded. Nobody in his family had ever kissed him as warmly as that.
‘I must go and see if those girls are all right,’ she said.
Marge put her head round the door of the Ladies’ and saw her two daughters standing at the washbasins and chatting and laughing like … like loving sisters.
‘Come in, Mum,’ said Alison. ‘We were chatting about the hotels in Cyprus and that awful dirty old man on the beach.’
Marge entered. How typically British, she thought. We sit in silence on trains till three minutes before the terminus, when we begin to speak and discover that all the people we’ve been avoiding are extremely interesting. Alison and Jen had begun to talk properly for the first time two hours before Alison went off to lead a new life.
‘It’s nice in here,’ said Marge.
‘Go and tell the boys to come and join us, Jen,’ said Alison.
While Marge was out of the room, Bernie approached Prentice.
‘Why did you do it?’ he asked.
‘Joke,’ explained Prentice. ‘I’m training to be a comedian.’
‘It wasn’t funny,’ said Bernie.
‘No, I’m quite pleased about that, actually. A comedian has to overcome his fear of failure. I’m quite pleased with how I handled myself.’
‘Not a thought for Nick’s feelings, then.’
‘We can’t afford to consider the feelings of our audience. We’re lost if we do.’
‘Well, I thought it was very offensive, Prentice.’
‘Probably. But then we’re here to expand our boundaries.’
‘I’d have expanded your boundaries if there hadn’t been ladies present. I’d have punched you in the face if this wasn’t a three-star RAC hotel.’
‘Well, good, I got a reaction, then. It’s indifference I dread,’ said Prentice complacently.
Alison approached her mother and led her over to the window, which afforded a view over the railway line and the signalbox to the messy canal and river beyond. An Inter-City train was pulling out towards Sheffield.
‘Mum,’ she said. ‘We don’t want you to feel any of that losing a daughter nonsense. Our home will be your home always.’
‘That’s very nice of you, Alison,’ said Marge, ‘but you’ve got to put Nick first now, you know.’
‘I’ve discussed it with Nick. He’s in complete agreement.’
‘Oh, it’s been passed nem. con., has it? That’s nice.’
‘What?’
‘You sound like a management committee, not a young couple. It’s very nice of you, but it’s your wedding day, and you’re emotional. Don’t make rash promises.’
When Alison had moved off, Bernie sidled over to Marge. He touched her bottom briefly, put his arm round her waist, and looked out at the fading day.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘What do you mean – “Well”? Well what?’
‘Well, do you think it’s gone well?’
‘Well there’ve been almost more tears than at the funeral, but, weddings, that’s par for the course.’
‘It’s all so quick.’
‘Oh, I know. They’re so young.’
‘I know.’
‘They know so little.’
‘I know.’
‘We know too much.’
‘I know. I mean, he’s very nice … very nice …’
‘He is very nice. He’s a triumph of the individual over the environment.’
‘You what?’
‘I read in the Reader’s Digest – are people more shaped by their environment or their heredity? But there’s no warmth in his family, and yet he has warmth. Where does it come from? Not from his environment or his heredity. From him. It comes from him. There is nowhere else.’
‘I see what you mean. Oh aye. He’s a triumph of the individual over the environment when you look at it that road. It’s just … we … well … I think there’s summat a bit … a bit odd about it all.’
‘Odd?’
‘Not quite right.’
‘Oh dear. Not quite right in what way?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. Summat not quite right.’
‘Oh dear. About him?’
‘No, not really.’
‘About Alison?’
‘No, not really. About … them. Him and her together. I hope I’m wrong.’
‘I’m sure you are.’
‘I expect I am. It’s probably that telegram. It’s cast a damper.’
3 A Revelation in a Popular Store
On her thirteenth wedding anniversary, Alison had a blinding revelation. It didn’t occur on the road to Damascus, but in Marks and Spencer’s, in Throdnall, in the menswear department.
When she got home, she sat at the dining table and wrote to her sister in Sydney.
33, Orchard View Close
Throdnall
Warwickshire TL2 5XJ
Dearest Jen,
I had a revelation this morning, in Marks and Sparks of all places. I decided I needed some shirts, and I walked into the menswear department, and started looking at the shirts, and suddenly I thought, ‘No, Alison. Wrong!’ I’d forgotten, in a dreamy, confused moment, that I was a woman. I just stood there, stunned, among all the dully displayed rows of trousers and jackets (Throdnall isn’t Milan). And I thought, ‘Alison, this is ridiculous. You’ve read about those sex change operations. You can have one. You don’t have to be a woman for ever. You can do something about it.’
A great excitement swept over me. You remember how fearless I used to be? My spirit’s been rather ground out of me by matrimony and motherhood – but it’s still there.
An assistant approached me and said, ‘Can I help you, madam?’, which was a little miracle in itself in Throdnall, and I said, ‘Not with what I need, no,’ and went over to the women’s department and bought some sensible blouses for my new job. I start work on Monday as Personal Assistant (do you have that title in Australia?) to the MD of Throdnall Carriage Works, and I’ve been getting nervous. Me, nervous? How far I’ve sunk!
Now, of course, with the prospect of a far greater change, I don’t feel nervous about my job at all. The old Alison is back – ironically, she’s back because she’s realised that she doesn’t have to be Alison for ever!
I can hear you thinking, ‘I know she was always a bit of a tomboy, but sex change?? Why?? What’s she referring to when she says, “I can do something about it”? About what?’
About my situation, Jen. About my agony. About all the things that I have never mentioned in any of my letters, which have been minor masterpieces of evasion.
I know that this will all come as an enormous shock to you, Jen, and to Bruce …
She paused to allow herself a little smile, in which affection was mingled with contempt. It was somehow symbolic of Jen’s lack of
originality – she had never had an original thought in her life, as far as Alison knew – that the Australian she had married should be called Bruce.
… but I hope in the end you’ll quite like the idea of having a brother!
Don’t be alarmed, Jen. Nothing’s going to happen in a hurry. I’m going to need to do an awful lot of research. I couldn’t possibly do it till Emma and Graham are a lot older. I rather doubt if I could do it while Mum’s alive. (She’s looking older suddenly, and thinner, which worries me, but you know what she’s like, she won’t go to the doctor, she says, ‘They’ve enough on their plate without worrying about me’, which is ridiculous.) So, please, Jen, you must promise not to mention a word of this in your letters to Mum and Dad.
I’ve had a dreadful recurring dream, Jen, all my life as long as I can remember. I dream that I’m in the womb, assuming that I’m going to be born a boy. Sometimes I wake up at that point and am absolutely mortified when I remember I’m a woman. I reach down to say a friendly good morning to my prick, and there isn’t one! Other times the dream goes further and I am going through the process of being born – horrid, messy, what a shock – and everyone looks at me and screams, even Mum screams. That’s so terrible, Jen, I wake crawling with sweat. Sometimes it takes me hours to forget Mum’s screams.
I know how proud you always were of your breasts. I’m ashamed of mine. I hate them. I think of them as aliens, sometimes I’ve felt I could chop them off with a kitchen knife, I’ve felt frightened to be in the house on my own for fear I’ll do myself a dreadful injury. I know that sounds mad, but my incarceration in a female body has been driving me mad.
