by David Nobbs
‘I always preferred boys to girls. Mum thought it was because I was over-sexed. I never told her it was because I felt like them, not because I fancied them. I think I knew instinctively that she might find that an even more dangerous thought than sex. I think I knew that this was my naughty secret which must never be revealed.’
She told him about being sent home from school for swearing, about her hatred of netball and lacrosse, about the day an uncle from London took her to White Hart Lane and she saw Spurs beat Wolves and felt that she belonged there in that vast aggressive mass of maleness, so that she was hooked into a lifetime of completely avoidable misery season after season.
She told him, just slightly shyly, how strange she had found the act of copulation, in particular the element of submission. She had never grown to love it and had been grateful when it disappeared from their lives quite naturally. She told him that she had found the sight of an erect penis absurd rather than stimulating, how a schoolfriend’s parents had grown an asparagus bed and one May she had seen the asparagus coming up like rows of erect penises, how she hadn’t much liked asparagus since, let alone … she let him finish the sentence in his mind. She was, after all, still a woman. She couldn’t be too indelicate.
However much we tell, we never tell everything. Nobody does.
She didn’t tell him – it would have seemed like a betrayal of Nick – that her dear husband’s penis had not been vast, as she had discovered from the only other man she had ever slept with, although she supposed that it was possible that Hungarians had unusually large penises, and Nick’s was normal. She had never seen any league tables of international penile dimensions, though in this age of tables and lists it was inconceivable that one didn’t exist somewhere.
Doctor E.F. Langridge MB ChB FRCPsych FRANZCPsych nodded, even looked on the verge of smiling once or twice. Outside, far away, Alison could hear a siren. It emphasised the calm in the room, rather than disturbing it.
‘You’ll know from your husband’s experiences what a lengthy process you’re putting yourself forward for,’ said Doctor Langridge. ‘On the whole the problems are greater for women wanting to become men than for men wanting to become women.’
‘Surprise surprise.’
‘It seems odd to see feminism raising its ugly head …’ He frowned at his inappropriate choice of phrase. ‘… from a woman on the verge of abandoning womanhood.’
‘I’m not abandoning it because we get a raw deal. I’m abandoning it because I have to because I am not a woman.’
‘Well anyway there is one part of the process that women find easier than men, and that is the Real Life Test.’
‘Well I suppose women wear trousers and shirts quite naturally, while men don’t wear skirts and dresses.’
‘True.’
‘There’s a great tradition in theatre of laughing at men in drag, but not at women dressed as men. In pantomime the comic is a man dressed as a woman, the hero is a woman dressed as a man.’
How she’d suffered, taking the children to pantomimes in Throdnall. They featured ‘B’ List or even ‘C List celebrities and they were tacky.
‘You’ve thought about all this quite a lot,’ said Doctor Langridge.
‘A great deal. A very great deal.’
‘During the period of your Real Life Test you will be given testosterone by injection. Your voice will deepen. You will develop facial and bodily hair. You will become more muscular. Now I really must talk you through the operation, or rather, operations. I’m afraid that for women there are several.’
‘I might have guessed.’
‘Mrs Divot, this is due to God or evolution or a combination of the two and not prejudice or cruelty on the part of the medical profession.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
Her throat was dry. She sipped the water so thoughtfully provided.
‘I’m merely pointing out what you’ll have to go through without any guarantee of a happy future at the end of it.’
‘I can guarantee an unhappy future if I don’t go through with it, so what have I to lose?’
‘Several parts of your body for a start. Now, I … I must ask a very important question. Do you want to have a penis?’
‘Well … er … yes, I … I would like one, please, if … er … if there’s one going. I mean, surely … er … to become a man … er … without one would be a very incomplete process?’
‘Let’s not fool ourselves, Mrs Divot. This is going to be an incomplete process whether or not you have a penis. You will not have testes. You will still have female chromosomes. Now I need to ask you a question that will surprise you because you won’t have thought about such a choice. What is the thing that you most want from your penis – sexual gratification or urination?’
‘Goodness, what a question.’ She took another sip of water. It began to feel very hot in that screamingly quiet room. Sometimes she found it difficult to think silently. This was one of those times. She had to articulate her thought processes as she was thinking them, in order to think them. ‘Well, I mean, one would have to say that sex is generally regarded as a far greater source of pleasure than peeing.’
‘That is undoubtedly true.’
‘On the other hand, you can live without sex, but you can’t live without peeing.’
‘That is undoubtedly true, too.’
She couldn’t believe that they were taking this conversation seriously, yet she realised that they had to, it was at the heart of the matter.
‘Although if nobody used penises for sex the human race would have peed itself to extinction long ago.’
‘True yet again.’
‘Which doesn’t help much, and yet I suppose it does, because … because, do you know, I have to say, rather to my surprise, and rather to my disappointment, that the answer’s urination.’
‘I’m glad of that. I cannot guarantee you a satisfactory sex life as a man, but I can almost certainly promise that you’ll be able to stand at a urinal with the best of them. Note that I say “almost certainly”. In this dangerous area nothing, but nothing, comes with a guarantee. I really must point out that, while there are of course nerves in the clitoris, in its elongation into a penis there is no probability – not even, I would say, a possibility – of a capacity to have erections and/or orgasms.’
Doctor Langridge had not been speaking in a loud voice, but now he began to talk in little more than a whisper.
‘I’m not a surgeon, but I’m now going to tell you what’s involved in the operations that you will need.’
He went through the details of the mastectomy, hysterectomy and phalloplasty that Alison would need to undergo. His voice was calm and kind and methodical. It would have been impossible to have described the gruesome details less harshly, and Alison was a brave and determined woman who refused to flinch. Injections did not worry her, dentists did not alarm her, the sight of blood did not upset her, she watched operations in films without flinching. Yet by the time Doctor Langridge had finished his detailed account of the horrors that her body would have to endure, her knuckles were almost as white as Nick’s had been in that very chair all those months ago.
When he had finished there was silence, a long silence. Alison could think of no suitable comment with which to break it. She waited patiently.
‘So,’ said Doctor Langridge at last, ‘do you still want to go through with it?’
‘My kids used to say, “I need an icecream,” ’ said Alison. ‘I’d say, “No, you don’t need an icecream. You want an icecream.” It’s the other way round with me. No, Doctor Langridge, I don’t want these operations. I dread them. But I need them. Oh God, Doctor Langridge, how I need them.’
15 Bon Appetit
Alison and Nicola faced each other across the sitting room,’ lounge, in a slightly combative way, although Nicola had no idea why they were being combative. Alison stood with her back to the log-effect fire and it crossed Nicola’s mind that she looked a bit like the squire in fron
t of his hearth, but she still didn’t twig.
‘Special occasion?’ she said. ‘Dinner? What is all this?’
‘I’ve something to announce. Something to tell you all. I’d like to tell you first, now, before they all come through.’
Bernie was watching snooker in the granny flat, Gray was officially doing his homework but was more likely to be surfing the net, Em was packing in readiness for her visit to Paris to see François. They had the room safely to themselves, as usual.
‘Nicola? When you said you were going to change sex … oh shall we sit down? This seems so confrontational, and there’s nothing confrontational about it.’
They sat down, Alison on the settee, leaving Nicola the Parker Knoll.
‘When you said you were going to change sex – and afterwards when you began your Real Life Test – you said that I’d been very understanding about it all.’
‘Well I thought you were.’
‘I was understanding because I understood because I knew all about such things because I’d read all about such things. You must be able to see what I’m driving at. Use your instinct. You’re a woman.’
Nicola gawped at her. It couldn’t be. She … she didn’t know what to say. She was so shocked that she couldn’t bring herself to articulate the words.
‘Yes,’ said Alison. ‘I was planning to become a man. I wasn’t going to do it while Mum was alive, but I had definitely decided to do it. You pre-empted me.’
‘Good Lord,’ said Nicola. ‘Good Lord. I never …’
‘No. You were utterly wrapped up in your own journey. You didn’t have room to spare a thought for me.’
‘Oh, Alison, Alison. I’m so sorry.’
‘Well now it’s time for my journey.’
‘What??’ Nicola still hadn’t realised that she actually intended to do it.
‘I’ve seen Doctor Langridge. There’s a long way to go, as you know, but I seem to have sort of been accepted. You’ll have to sign a letter just like I did.’
Nicola could think of no articulate reply. She was shocked.
‘You aren’t shocked, are you, Nicola?’
‘Of course I’m not.’
‘You couldn’t be. Even you couldn’t be hypocritical enough to be shocked.’
‘No. Quite. No, I …’ Nicola was floundering. ‘I … I’m not remotely shocked. I mean, not in the sense of “shocked”. Surprised, yes. Astounded, yes. I mean … I just can’t get over it. Both of us.’
‘Come and sit beside me. Hold my hand.’
‘What?’
‘Is that too awful to ask? We are man and wife. Well, woman and wife.’
Nicola went over to the settee and held her hand. Alison gave her a sudden kiss on the cheek. Nicola didn’t feel entirely comfortable about that.
‘What about the family?’ she asked. ‘You have to think of them, Alison. You just can’t do this to them.’
Alison leapt up from the settee. Their time together there had been brief.
‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ she said. ‘I support you through thick and thin and then you tell me I can’t do it.’
‘Only because you’re doing it second, and it’ll be too much for them to take.’
‘So if I’d got in first you’d have dropped the whole idea, would you, for the sake of the family?’
‘Well …’
‘You wouldn’t have, would you?’
‘We can’t know, can we? It’s hypothetical.’
‘It’s not hypothetical. It’s hypocritical.’
‘I’m thinking of them, Alison. It’s nothing to do with me any more. And …’ Nicola stopped abruptly.
‘And?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No, go on. You can’t stop now.’
‘It’s going to … no, it’ll be all right, I expect.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘No. It’s all right.’
‘No, sorry, I insist that you tell me what you’re talking about.’
‘Money. It’s going to stretch our resources, but we can do it.’
‘I don’t believe what I’m hearing.’
‘That’s why I didn’t want you to hear it. That’s why I stopped.’
‘So we can afford you doing it, but not me. Is that it? Terrific’
‘I didn’t say that. I was just stating the obvious, that if we both do it privately, money will be tight. We’ll manage, though. Just. We’ll manage, Alison.’
Nicola didn’t have a leg to stand on in these arguments, and she was honest enough to admit it to herself, if not to Alison.
If she didn’t have a leg to stand on, they might as well sit down again. Nicola held Alison in her arms and gently pulled her down on to the settee. She didn’t want to, but she didn’t feel that she could do otherwise.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just that it’s been such a shock. I mean, I can hardly believe it. It’s such a coincidence.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What?’
‘Look back on those early days in Thurmarsh, Nicola. We were outcasts in a world of gender clichés. It was our sexual ambivalence that attracted us to each other in the first place.’
‘So the thing that’s attracted us to each other is what’s driven us apart.’
‘Yes.’
‘Sad, really.’
‘But a fact.’
Nicola squeezed Alison’s hand. Alison squeezed hers. And that was that. No increase in intimacy beyond that was possible to them under the circumstances.
‘I’ll get dinner,’ said Alison.
They ate in the dining room. For some reason everybody in the family complained when they ate in the dining room, but Alison didn’t see the point of having one if you didn’t use it. Nowadays lots of homes had through rooms and the dining area was just part of the lounge, and many homes didn’t have a dining area at all. Alison found that quite awful. To her having meals together was the centrepiece of family life. She thought that our civilisation was hurtling towards its end, but she kept quiet about it.
She couldn’t pretend that their dining room was exciting. It had the chill stamp of disuse upon it, like a roped-off parlour in a damp, stone-built stately home. It was quite small, and you couldn’t have the coal-effect fire on full-blast or the person nearest to it roasted.
On the wall above the hostess trolley there was another Ferenc Gulyas – Lake Balaton, he said, although it looked suspiciously like Derwentwater to Alison.
She had done her best to create an atmosphere – lit some candles – dimmed the lights – drawn the curtains against the sodden Throdnall night.
Things passed off fairly peacefully during the French onion soup – Bernie slurped but Alison didn’t comment, she didn’t want to provoke – but Em and Gray began sniping during the coq au vin. Em had abandoned vegetarianism the moment Giorgio appeared on the scene. ‘It’s a battle we’re never going to win,’ she’d told them, sheepishly. ‘I’m going to support free-range, natural, organic foods from now on. That’s a battle we can win. It’s fine being radical, but you have to have practical goals.’
Alison had caught Nicola’s eye and she’d half-smiled. Before he’d begun his sex change process he’d have made some sarcastic comment about Em’s opinionating, like ‘Really? Hang on while I get some paper and make a note of that.’ Not any more. She was becoming softer, less sarcastic, gentler. A nicer person.
‘Lovely,’ said Em of the coq au vin. ‘Don’t tell me you can’t tell it’s free-range and organic. I mean it tastes …’
‘… happy,’ interrupted Gray. ‘It tastes very happy. Bit pissed off about being decapitated, but basically happy.’
‘Do shut up, Gray,’ said Em wearily.
‘I was agreeing with you,’ protested Gray insincerely.
‘It’s expensive, I know that,’ said Bernie. ‘I were with her when she bought it. She told me what it cost. “How much??” I said. I were flambergasted.’ That would have
been all right, but he went on to add, ‘Fads are stupid.’
‘Fads??’ said Em, rising to the bait like a starving salmon. ‘Stupid?? Oh. Caring about animals is stupid, is it? Caring about animals is faddish, is it?’
‘Sorry I spoke,’ said Bernie complacently.
Alison should have held her tongue, but she was tense, and she wasn’t brilliant at holding her tongue, and she didn’t.
‘No you aren’t,’ she said. ‘You’re out to make trouble tonight. Snooker not going well?’
‘Switched it off,’ said Bernie. ‘Couldn’t bear it. Jimmy White’s leading Stephen Hendry five-one.’
‘I thought Jimmy White was the one you liked, Gramps,’ said Em. She was trying to make amends. There was a good girl buried under all her nonsense.
‘He is,’ said Bernie. ‘Marge loved him. I turned to her just now, at the end of the fourth frame, which Jimmy won on the black, and I smiled at her, and she wasn’t there. That’s one of the saddest things about losing somebody. You lose the pleasures you used to share.’
There was a silence at that.
‘She’s been gone months.’ He could never bring himself to use the word ‘dead’. He always had to soften it. ‘Months. And I turned to her as if she was there. It’s the first sign of Alzheimer’s.’
‘It isn’t a sign of Alzheimer’s, Bernie,’ said Nicola. ‘It’s a sign of a great and wonderful love.’ She seemed almost embarrassed by her emotion, emotion that she could never have shown as Nick.
‘Mind you, to be fair,’ said Bernie, ‘she liked Stephen too. But she wanted to mother Stephen, but she’d have fancied a night on the tiles with Jimmy. Vulnerable, you see. What it is with women and sport, they fall for the vulnerable ones. Jimmy White, George Best, John McEnroe. They fall for the ones who wear their hearts on their sleeves.’
