Sex and Other Changes

by David Nobbs

  ‘You’ve got a garden full of them. I needn’t have bothered.’

  ‘I was under the impression it was the thought that counted. Well, well, you look well.’

  ‘I am well.’ Slightly too late, she added, ‘Oh, and so do you.’

  Good old Nicola. Still the same old Nick. But Alan managed not to say this.

  ‘This is strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

  ‘So … how are you really, Nicola?’

  Nicola reminded herself that she mustn’t sound too content.

  ‘Oh, I’m all right. You know. Really.’

  ‘Good.’

  Noises. Meaningless noises in a suburban hall.

  ‘I brought some wine. Californian.’

  ‘Oh no. Wrong, Nicola.’

  ‘Oh dear. Poor Em.’

  The spicy parsnip soup went down a treat. Bernie slurped more than ever and had a spicy parsnip chin. He burped twice and didn’t apologise or put his hand in front of his mouth. In the lounge his zip had been undone. Now it was done up, but a bit of shirt had got trapped in it.

  Gray and Em were very silent. Em was sullen, sulky. Her jaw seemed very big when she sulked. Gray had a far-away smile, an old-fashioned soppy grin, on his immature, now only slightly spotty face. With his glasses and his dark hair he had all the appearance of intellectual brilliance, except for one thing – intellectual brilliance.

  Nicola had to keep the conversation going. She talked about the residents of the flats at number eight. She described Lance in an amusing way which she felt was disloyal, but surely he would have understood that the party had to go with a swing. She talked of Mrs Milner in flat two, a deeply boring woman only interested in one thing – Mrs Milner of flat two. She talked of the young couple in flat five who weren’t interested in anybody over the age of thirty. She couldn’t wait for them to begin to get old. She described the ex army officer turned struggling financial consultant in flat six, who introduced himself, as he picked up a local election leaflet in the communal hall, with the words, ‘Hello. I’m Captain Simon Bancroft. Straight in the bin, don’t you think? The only good Liberal is a dead Liberal.’

  She made them laugh, though perhaps not quite as much as she had hoped, and she made herself sound lonely without wallowing in it.

  Alan couldn’t believe how chatty Nicola had become now that she was a woman.

  The moussaka went down well. They all liked Alan’s moussaka. Cousin Freddy had once said, ‘I’ve eaten moussaka in every corner of Greece, but none of them’s the equal of yours, Alison’, which was his way of telling them how much more travelled than them he was.

  Alan watched Bernie packing the stuff into his hygienically challenged mouth – he didn’t clean his teeth properly, his breath was bad these days – and he thought, ‘I’ll end up hating him.’

  ‘Dad?’ he said. ‘Is it all right?’

  ‘Very nice,’ he said.

  ‘It would help if occasionally you offered a compliment. It’s a bit humiliating to have to force them out of you.’

  Bernie looked at Alan in astonishment.

  ‘So, Clinton got away with it, then,’ said Nicola, breaking up a brief silence that she had found unbearable.

  It sounded absurd, suddenly thrown into the melting pot like that apropos of absolutely nothing. It sounded even more absurd when nobody else commented on it. Well, Bernie belched, but you couldn’t put that down as a political comment.

  Alan saw Gray look at his watch, and it irritated him.

  ‘Keeping you, are we, Gray?’ he asked.

  ‘What? No, but I do have to keep an eye on the time,’ said Gray. ‘Mustn’t miss Choo Choo.’

  ‘Choo Choo?’ repeated Nicola.

  ‘I know. It’s a bloody stupid nickname,’ said Gray, ‘but it’s what they call my girl friend from Chattanooga.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s about time you started meeting people in real life?’

  Nicola was always brilliant at laying herself open to criticism when she was Nick, thought Alan, and it seems she still is.

  ‘I’ve seen what a real life love affair has done to my parents,’ said Gray bitterly. ‘My career at Pricewaterhouse’ll be knackered before it starts.’ Then he remembered that bitterness wasn’t cool. ‘Actually it’ll be quite a talking point at uni,’ he said, ‘telling people that my mum and dad are now my dad and mum. At least it isn’t boring. Excuse me. Internet time. Sorry, Dad. Won’t be long.’

  He slid out of the room as if he hoped he was invisible. Em sent him on his way with ‘Give our love to Choo Choo’, which he greeted with the scorn it deserved.

  There was another silence. Alan thought about his dad and began to wonder if he should have a confrontation with him; things couldn’t go on the way they were. Then he had a very silly thought. It was seven minutes to nine. He would have it out with Bernie if he burped without apologising before the clock struck the hour. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t. Absurd.

  ‘Is the moussaka all right, Dad?’ he prompted.

  ‘Very nice, thank you.’

  Well fucking well say so. The use of the swearword, even in the silence of his head, surprised Alan. His journey to manhood must be speeding up.

  In the event, Bernie didn’t burp before the clock struck nine, but he did fart, and again he didn’t apologise.

  And just after the clock had struck he said, ‘Oh dearie me’, and within two minutes of that he burped. All in all, Alan felt he had the moral right to read the riot act.

  Nicola smiled bravely, and Alan knew that she just didn’t want to be there, and he found this distressing. He’d always been the real strength in the house, he knew that, but now he felt impotent.

  Gray returned with an even soppier smile on his face, said, ‘Sorry about that. Nice chat,’ and resumed his silent consumption of moussaka.

  Em stood up.

  ‘Sorry, Dad,’ she said to Nicola. ‘I don’t want to be rude, but I can’t bear seeing my brother mooning over some stupid virtual love affair with some virtual girl the other side of the virtual world.’

  ‘Real love affairs haven’t done you much good,’ said Gray.

  ‘Gray!’ hissed Alan.

  ‘You look great, Dad, like your hairstyle, but I have to go to my room,’ said Em. ‘Sorry, Mum. Great moussaka.’

  She left with a certain dignity. Nicola felt quite proud of her.

  Nicola and Alan smiled at each other and neither of them had the faintest idea what the other’s smile meant.

  ‘Oh dearie me,’ said Bernie. Self-pity and sour burps emerged from his mouth in roughly equal quantities.

  ‘I see travel agents are very worried about the low level of summer bookings,’ said Nicola over the chocolate mousse. Her attempt to get a topical debate going thudded dismally into the buffers of silence.

  As Alan began to clear away, Bernie said, ‘Well, I think I’ll be off to bed, then,’ and Alan said, ‘Yes, Dad, you’ve had a hard day. All that burping takes it out of a man.’ The sarcasm escaped Bernie. He didn’t listen properly any more, so he said, ‘Good night, Nick,’ and Nicola said, ‘It’s Nicola, Bernie,’ and he said, ‘Good night, Alison,’ and Alan said, ‘It’s Alan, Dad,’ and Bernie said, ‘Is it any wonder I’m losing my … ?’ and he stopped dead and stood with vacant, frightened eyes and said, ‘What are those round things called that you lose when you lose them?’ and Alan said, ‘Marbles, Dad, and you aren’t losing yours, you really aren’t,’ and kissed him, and he said, ‘Good night, Alison dear. Sorry I can’t call you Alan, ‘ti’n’t in me,’ and Alan thought, ‘Maybe he still is capable of being saved. I’ll have a real go at it.’

  Nicola went to Em’s room to say goodnight. Em came to the door and Nicola didn’t like to go in: the room seemed very private and steamy with unrequited sex.

  ‘Sorry about tonight, Dad,’ she said.

  ‘No, no, I understand,’ said Nicola.

  And then Em said something that went straight to her dad’
s heart.

  ‘What is it about me and men, Dad?’

  No longer, ‘Men are such bastards.’ No more bitterness. Just … incomprehension and sadness.

  ‘Your time will come one day, Em. Your time will come.’

  ‘Love you, Dad.’

  ‘Love you.’

  A long, deep, motionless hug, two women, father and daughter, in a cool corridor outside a hot bedroom.

  ‘Sweet dreams, Em.’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  Then Nicola went shyly to Gray’s room. Fair’s fair. She made sure to knock on the door this time.

  ‘Just a moment,’ he called out.

  What was he clearing up, hiding away, wiping away?

  ‘All right. You can come in now.’

  Nicola entered. The bed was unmade. The room seemed to her to be full of computer equipment and recording equipment and music centres and laptops and DVDs and screens. There was a large poster of Dennis Bergkamp over the bed.

  Gray was seated at his computer. He smiled at Nicola but his eyes remained serious and his expression was strained.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t need new glasses?’ she said.

  ‘I wondered when the first bit of criticism would seep in.’

  ‘It wasn’t a criticism,’ said Nicola through gritted teeth. ‘Why do you assume everything’s a criticism? It was a constructive comment designed to help. Everyone needs new glasses from time to time, for God’s sake.’

  She wished Gray didn’t irritate her. She wished that she could feel as proud of him as she did that night of Em. She thought, Why can’t I get closer to Gray? I gave birth to him, after all, and then she realised how absurd that was: of course she didn’t give birth to him, Alan did. ‘The product of my loins’ was the rather coy expression that perhaps she was seeking, but it shocked her, and in a way pleased her, to realise that she had instinctively thought of herself as Gray’s mother. It was a real sign of how much she was now thinking of herself as a woman. What she hadn’t appreciated when she changed sex was that the process of adjustment would continue for years, perhaps for ever.

  She thought of that solitary act of love that had brought Gray into the world, of how very nearly he had never been born, as millions of children are never born every day due to contraception, sterility, impotence and exhaustion. How many happenings and coincidences are needed to bring any of us into the world? How fragile, how extraordinary, how unbelievably fortunate is the existence of any of us, but especially of Graham Benson Divot, the product of two gender confused parents whose last real act together had led to his existence. She suddenly felt extraordinarily moved. She longed to say some of this to her son, her miraculous son.

  She touched him on the shoulder, said, ‘Love you, old thing,’ in a hoarse voice and left him to whatever it was she was leaving him to.

  Tears had sprung into her eyes. She needed a pee. (Those two things were not connected.) She went to the en suite and stood – stood at the loo before she remembered – oh my God – two minutes ago she’d forgotten that she hadn’t given birth to Gray because she hadn’t been a woman, and now she had forgotten that she had to sit to pee because she was a woman. She knew all about gender confusion, but this was ridiculous.

  She had arrived at her old home as a happy single woman. She left as a lonely father. It dismayed her to realise that she could no longer live happily in the cocoon that she had woven.

  It was only five past eleven when she left. She hadn’t wanted to stay.

  Alan watched her drive out, and then tip-toed to the granny flat. He couldn’t hear any sound, but he could see, through the thin crack where the door didn’t quite fit, that the light was still on. He knocked quite softly.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me, Dad.’

  ‘Oh, come in, Alison.’

  There was an absolute fug in the granny flat, an airless aroma of human wind and mothballs. Both bars of the electric fire were on, despite which Bernie was wearing a cardigan and a jacket.

  He was watching television with the sound turned down. Alan didn’t make the mistake of commenting. He had once said, ‘Don’t you want the sound turned up?’, and Bernie had found the devastating reply of ‘No. It’s rubbish.’ On this occasion it was some kind of chat show, and Anne Robinson was speaking. Alan had to admit to himself that she was better with the sound turned down, but on the other hand he felt that she was better still switched off, so he switched her off.

  ‘I were watching that,’ said Bernie indignantly.

  ‘And now you aren’t,’ said Alan. ‘You never know what’s round the corner in life, do you? Dad! Listen to me. I don’t want to put you in a home, but I will if you go on like you are.’

  Bernie looked at his daughter in astonishment.

  ‘What have I done wrong now?’ he asked, in his hurt little-boy voice, his self-pitying voice. ‘I haven’t done owt.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Alan. ‘The stonemason’s working on it now.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Carving your tomb stone. “Here lies Bernard Kettlewell. He didn’t do owt”. I’ve told him to get it ready.’

  Bernie gasped, belched, didn’t apologise, stared at Alan.

  ‘I don’t think I’m going to like you as a man,’ he said.

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ said Alan. ‘I love you, Dad, but you’ve become idle, boring, unhygienic, smelly, selfish, ungrateful and …’ He paused dramatically. ‘MISERABLE AS HELL.’

  Bernie just stared, mouth open. He was shattered.

  ‘There’s no point in your living here as you are because you don’t enjoy one single thing about it. It’s an ultimatum, Dad. Start enjoying life or you go to Honeyfields.’

  ‘Honeyfields? I hate Honeyfields.’

  Alison had put him in Honeyfields Residential Care Home – the worst in the area, and that was saying something – deliberately, for a long weekend, so that he’d know what it was like. A couple of the staff had been excessively nice, overly caring, so she had been practically certain that they were cruel in private. She had hated every moment of that weekend, thinking of him in there, but she had felt that it had been worthwhile as a Dreadful Warning.

  ‘What do I have to do?’ he asked.

  ‘Talk. Think. Listen. Wash. Bath. Clean your teeth. Do up your zip. Avoid self-pity. Put your hand in front of your mouth and apologise when you belch. Stop saying “Oh dearie me” when I’m doing my very best for you. Give praise without being prompted. Take an interest in Em and Gray. Take an interest in me. Go into the garden when you can’t avoid farting. Take some exercise. Live.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘For the moment. I’ll think of some more when you’ve done all that.’

  ‘I apologise for being born,’ he said pompously. ‘It were right inconsiderate of me.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Alan. ‘Stop thinking about yourself all the time.’

  ‘You’re a hard woman, Alison. I can see why you want to become a man.’

  ‘I’m saying all this for your sake, Dad.’

  Alan didn’t know whether Bernie believed him. He didn’t know whether he believed himself.

  ‘It’s not very nice waiting to die,’ said Bernie.

  ‘Exactly!’ Alan almost shouted. ‘Exactly. Don’t you see that you’re bringing on the very thing you fear. Goodnight, Dad.’

  Alan kissed him, and Bernie looked at Alan imploringly. Then he farted, but he did apologise.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it comes up on me unexpected like.’

  Next day he made no comment on what Alan had said, but Alan heard him running a bath.

  23 A Bluffer’s World

  Nicola never felt the same about number eight, Lane Road, after that dinner. She realised that she needed to get away from Throdnall if she was truly to lead a new life.

  There were two reasons for this. She couldn’t start a true new life as a woman if everybody knew that she was a woman who had been a man; and
she found it difficult to get away from her past role as the man of the house at number thirty-three.

  Not that she wanted not to see her children. She loved them. She never ceased to be astounded that she met so many parents who didn’t love their children. She found that one of the saddest things of all in a sad society.

  But she would always be a visitor to her children now, and the best visitors don’t live practically next door.

  There was a difficulty, though, about moving. She had a safe, reasonably well-paid job at the Cornucopia. She couldn’t see herself landing as good a job anywhere else unless she was able to conceal the fact of her sex change, and she couldn’t face the idea of living a lie. She was a woman who had been a man, that was her history. If the subject didn’t come up, so much the better, but to hide it would be to deny her history, to deny her true existence.

  She wouldn’t go through life saying, ‘Hello. I used to be a man,’ but she wouldn’t deny it when asked. If people said, as they did, ‘What big hands you’ve got,’ she wouldn’t say, ‘Well, yes, I was a man, you see,’ any more than she’d say, much as she might like to, ‘Yes. All the better to throttle you with.’ She’d say, ‘I have rather, haven’t I? Big feet too, I’m afraid,’ and hope the subject would be so boring that it’d be dropped. But to actually hide her past, to live a lie, she had no taste for that.

  Where could she live, within commuting distance of Throdnall, but where her past history wasn’t likely to be known? There was only one possible answer. I’m sure you’ve guessed it. Cluffield.

  Cluffield is a strange place. It’s only twelve miles from Throdnall, yet it could be fifty miles away for all the impact Throdnall has on it. It isn’t really a town, it’s more like an overgrown village, a dormitory village for Birmingham, and it’s to Birmingham that Cluffield people look for a night out. The arts are virtually unknown in Throdnall, there isn’t a truly first rate restaurant, even the late night fighting’s better in Birmingham. The odd Cluffieldian (and most Cluffieldians are odd) might pop into Throdnall very occasionally to eat at ‘Le Flageolet’ or the ‘Trattoria Positano’, but none would be likely to venture into the Cornucopia. She could almost certainly lead an anonymous life in this jewel in anonymity’s crown, finding her feet (her large feet) as a woman.