by David Nobbs
She was served by his mother. It was that sort of day.
‘Gordon not here?’ she asked.
‘It’s a Thursday.’
‘Ah!’
Why just ‘ah!’? Why not, ‘So what’s the significance of Thursday, Gordon-wise?’
‘Two sirloin steaks, please.’
She wanted to say, ‘Mrs Fowler, will you tell him that I long to touch his beautiful, ordinary, exquisitely stubbly countryman’s face?’ She couldn’t say that, of course, but she could have said, ‘Will you tell him I called?’
She didn’t say anything. She had used up her store of courage in the kitchen. She bought her two sirloin steaks and left.
24 A Strange Game of Scrabble
The first thing Alan saw when he came round was the smiling face of his husband Nick. He looked very odd. What on earth had he done to his hair, and why was he wearing …? Of course! He was a woman. And she … he … was a … woman without breasts. She … no, he … felt a stab of disappointment. He had lost his breasts and gained nothing. There was still such a long way to go.
Nicola reached out her hand to him. Alan almost refused to respond. It didn’t seem appropriate somehow. Then he relented. He didn’t have the strength to resist.
‘I wanted to be here when you came round,’ said Nicola. ‘I remember how lonely I felt at first.’
‘I let you down, you mean.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Have they said anything about how it’s gone?’
‘I’ve only spoken to Mrs Mussolini. You don’t get much out of her.’
Alan tried, very cautiously, to move his body. There wasn’t a great deal of pain, but then this was only the double mastectomy. The really invasive stuff was still to come.
Mrs Mussolini entered slowly, like a ship in full sail approaching its berth.
‘Ah! Mrs Mussolini!’ said Nicola. ‘How have things gone?’
‘ “Mrs Mussolini”!’ she gasped. ‘That is not my name. My name is Mrs Pethers.’
‘I’m sorry. I got confused.’
‘It has been satisfactory. Mr McWhinnie’s work is always satisfactory.’
She strode off angrily. They weren’t surprised.
They shared a little horrified guilty smile when she had gone, and Alan thought, I find it hard to believe there is a Mr Pethers.
‘Poor man,’ said Nicola.
‘Mr Pethers?’
‘Yes.’
You can’t live together for over twenty years without developing the ability to think the same thoughts at the same time, and for a moment or two Alan felt, in that white, starkly antiseptic private ward, that they were still a close married couple. Then he remembered that they hadn’t been that close for years, and now they weren’t close at all, and he didn’t want to be that close, any more than Nicola did. He had a long, long journey to make, and he would need to put all his emotional strength into that. Oh Lord – Nicola had been talking and he’d missed it. He didn’t want her to talk. He wanted to sleep.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I missed that.’
‘No, I was just saying, you remember the Parkers who used to be at number thirty-eight. They’re living in Cluffield now. I saw her in Spar. Nothing remotely expensive in her trolley. They’ve really come down in the world. Rumour has it that they’re going to open a new shop in Plockwell using her sister’s name because of the bankruptcy, so maybe they aren’t as naive as we thought.’
‘Ah.’
‘Don’t try to reply, Alan. I’m telling you things you don’t need to reply to, because I know how tired I felt after my op.’
‘Meaning that I tired you out?’
‘I didn’t say that. Anyway, I had to endure Prentice. You’ve been spared that.’
‘Thank God.’
‘I’ll be off in a moment. You won’t want me staying too long.’
‘I stayed too long, did I?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
She leant over and kissed him.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘There’s no need to come every day. We aren’t husband and wife any more.’
‘Don’t you want me to come?’
‘It’s up to you.’
‘How are you today?’
‘OK. OK.’
‘How did you sleep?’
‘Not well. I was upset with myself for what I said to you. “It’s up to you.” Awful. It’s very kind of you to come and I appreciate it. It’s just that …’
‘I know. I know. I wasn’t upset.’
Mrs Mussolini entered and Nicola infuriated Alan by apologising to her.
‘I’m so sorry I called you Mrs Mussolini yesterday.’
What was the point of that, from new Nicola? It was so old Nick.
‘It’s quite all right,’ said Mrs Mussolini frostily.
When Mrs Mussolini had gone, Alan couldn’t resist criticising Nicola for it.
‘I thought it was really silly apologising to Mrs Mussolini,’ he said. ‘All it did was remind her.’
When it was time to leave, Nicola said, ‘Shall I come tomorrow, then?’
‘I don’t want to upset you,’ said Alan, ‘and I don’t want to upset myself-1 can do without another bad night – but it really is up to you.’
Gray was very uncomfortable. He would have been all right visiting a virtual ward in Patagonia or a hospital visitor chat line in Tokyo or sending grapes via www.intgrape.com, but seeing his actual breastless mother in bed in an actual hospital ward and depositing his unimaginative little gift on top of an actual bedside cabinet with its array of bottled waters, he was most uneasy – more uneasy, perhaps because he was older and more aware of sexual identity, than he had been with Nicola.
They talked about his homework and his looming A-Levels, but it was like drawing teeth.
‘I suppose I’d better go,’ he said after three-quarters of the longest hour in the history of time. ‘I said I’d email my girl friend at eleven and it’s over an hour home by train.’
‘How is Choo Choo?’
‘Oh, this isn’t Choo Choo,’ he said, with a touch of scorn, as if Alan should have known that. ‘This is Juanita. She’s Peruvian. She lives in Arequipa. That’s a very beautiful city in the south of Peru. She’s lovely.’
Alan didn’t know if he was doing the right thing in asking further questions about Choo Choo, but he felt that he needed to try to improve his understanding of his son’s mind – he felt this extra pressure because of knowing that Gray wasn’t Nicola’s, even though Gray would never know that – so he decided that he would ask.
‘What happened to Choo Choo, then?’
‘We all make mistakes, Mum, and Choo Choo was an adolescent blunder, I suppose. I mean I am only eighteen. I can’t be expected to get everything right. Judgement of personality isn’t easy.’
‘True.’
When he left, he raised his arm in a gesture of cool farewell, and went to the door of the little white ward.
‘Aren’t you going to kiss me?’ asked Alan. ‘I’m still your mum, and kissing isn’t childish except in Britain, and you’re a citizen of the world, so you shouldn’t be embarrassed by such things.’
‘I’m not embarrassed at all,’ said Gray, glaring at him. Then he smiled sheepishly and went over and leant down towards the bed rather awkwardly and kissed Alan very carefully, as if he thought that pressure on the cheek might kill him. ‘Love you, Mum,’ he said in a gruff voice. That meant a lot to Alan.
‘I wish I wasn’t going off while you’re still in hospital, Mum.’
Alan smiled to himself. Both his kids had decided that they’d call him Alan. Both of them still called him Mum. He liked that.
‘Don’t be silly, Em. You booked it before I got my dates. You go and have a lovely time. You never know, you …’
Alan realised that it would upset Em if he finished, so he stopped, but it was too late.
‘… might meet some marvellous man?’ Em snorted derisively. ‘Are there any?’
‘One or two.’
‘I don’t think they’ll be in Paxos, somehow.’
Em clearly didn’t want to talk about it any more, and it was obvious that she also didn’t want to talk about her mum’s sex change or the operation. In desperation she began to talk about food.
‘What did you have for tea?’
‘Fish pie. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t like mine.’
‘Was the crust potato or pastry?’
‘Oh, potato. Quite nicely browned. The food isn’t bad. There were nice bits of white fish in it, and salmon. Farmed, of course.’
‘Can you tell?’
‘You must be joking.’
‘What did you have with it?’
‘Broccoli and carrots.’
‘Yuk.’
‘They weren’t bad, though, Em.’
They discussed the pud, the breakfast, the lunch, the previous day’s meals, then what she’d ordered for the next day. Then Em said, ‘Well, I suppose I’d better be on my way. Sorry I …’, and then she gave Alan a very brief kiss, said, ‘Sorry I …’ again and left, blowing a kiss from the door.
Alan finished her ‘Sorry I …’ for her. ‘Sorry I can’t talk about anything except food with you. Sorry I can’t cope better with your defection. Sorry you had to betray your sex. Sorry I was born into such a dysfunctional family. Sorry Fm still living at home and still working for the Advertiser. Sorry I haven’t got as much talent as I thought I had. Sorry I have such an appalling track record with men. Sorry Fm not a better daughter to you. Sorry I still love you. Sorry I came. Sorry Fm going. Sorry we aren’t close any more. Sorry I keep having to say, “Sorry”.’
Bernie sent a card. It read, ‘Sorry I can’t come. I can’t handle this. I do love you, but you’ll always be my little girl to me. But thank you for not doing it while Marge was alive.’
Nicola took to visiting every other day. Alan was making good progress. It was very peaceful to sit in the day room and play Scrabble.
Nicola took her first seven letters and looked at them and thought, Oh my God. What are the chances of that? This is a test of just how competitive I am. Should I do it or not? Would it upset Alan, anyway? Hardly, surely?
Mrs Mussolini walked in, eyes hungry for things she could tidy up.
‘Oh, Mrs Pethers,’ said Nicola. ‘Do you play Scrabble?’
‘I have been known to.’
‘Well, look at my letters.’
Mrs Mussolini looked.
‘Good Lord!’ she said. ‘That is astonishing. That’s uncanny. What are the chances of that?’
‘Well, should I do it?’
‘I think so. Oh yes. I mean it’s true you’re wasting two esses, but the bee can go on a double square and you double the whole word and you get fifty for using all seven letters, so that’s … six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve, doubled that’s twenty-four, plus fifty that’s seventy-four.’
‘I was meaning from the point of view of tact, not tactics.’
Mrs Mussolini blushed, bristled, bridled and became even more starchy than usual.
‘I wouldn’t know about tact, would I?’ she said. ‘If I knew about tact, people would hardly refer to me as Mrs Mussolini behind my back, would they?’
Alan’s heart sank as he realised that Nicola was going to apologise again.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really can’t tell you how sorry I am.’
But that won’t stop you trying, thought Alan.
Mrs Mussolini spotted a dribble of orange jelly on the half-finished jigsaw of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, so she brightened up and rushed off to gather it in.
‘Well come on,’ said Alan. ‘What on earth is this word?’
Nicola put her word down on the board.
BREASTS.
‘Why on earth should I be offended by that?’ said Alan. ‘I chose to have them removed.’
‘I know, but nothing’s as simple as that, is it?’ said Nicola. ‘I chose to have done everything I had done, but it’s still mutilation, still traumatic’
‘You don’t regret it, though?’
‘I don’t regret having it done. I regret that it was necessary. I regret the condition to which we were both born. You’re pleased to lose your breasts, but you can’t be pleased to be scarred. We are creatures of compromise, you and I.’
‘This is too deep for me just yet,’ said Alan. ‘Let’s play the game.’
‘Well, it’s your go.’
Alan studied his letters for quite some time.
‘I feel very uneasy about this,’ he said. ‘I was hoping it wouldn’t fit on to your word, but it does, and it scores me far more than any other word, so I suppose Fm going to have to do it.’
He laid six letters on the board to form a word with the first of Nicola’s esses.
HYBRIDS.
25 The Man From the Farm Shop
As she sped along the dual carriageway in the direction of Cluffield, Nicola sang Ella Fitzgerald songs. She did not sing them like Ella Fitzgerald.
She felt guilty about being so happy to be leaving the family, but she didn’t let the guilt spoil her joy.
She was a woman, she was free, she was speeding towards the Farm Shop in the morning sunshine, it was good to be alive, especially in view of the alternative.
She had looked after Alan well, cooked him his favourite meals including a shepherd’s pie at least as good as his, and seen him make a rapid recovery from his operation.
She had listened to Em’s excited chat about Paxos and above all about Andropolos. ‘All right, I know, you think I’m stupid, it’s a holiday romance, he’s a waiter, but, believe me, Andropolos is different.’
Dutifully, inevitably, she had made a moussaka. ‘Not as good as Mum’s, but not half bad, Dad, just as good as on Paxos. Oh, Dad, would you mind if I interviewed you for my series, “Women Who Make Throdnall Tick”?’
‘Not at all, sweetheart.’
She didn’t really want the publicity, somebody from Cluffield might read it, Gordon might read it, but what could she do? She couldn’t refuse Em.
Gray had said to Em, ‘I’m really glad you’re happy. It pisses me off when you’re miserable when I’m happy because it makes me miserable that I’m happy and I like to be happy that I’m happy.’ Em had said the nicest thing that any of them could remember her saying to Gray. She’d said, ‘Piss off, idiot.’ But she’d said it nicely.
And Bernie! He had apologised when he burped, he hadn’t farted in public once in more than a fortnight, he’d started going to the Coach again, he’d started playing dominoes again. ‘I thought I couldn’t, ‘cos me mind was going. It isn’t. Sid Wheeler and I beat Tommy Hazledene and Dan Cosgrove six games end away. Couldn’t do that with Alzheimer’s.’ He’d said, ‘Nice moussaka. Thank you’ without being asked. He’d also said, ‘This wine tastes funny’ about the retsina Em had brought back, but when he was told it was Greek he’d said, ‘That explains it’, and drunk it perfectly happily. Nicola just couldn’t believe the change in him.
No, it had been a happy time and she hadn’t slept too badly on the Zed-bed in the lounge. She smiled at the thought of the family and how much she loved them, she sang loudly and almost in tune, and she made such good progress that she missed the turning at the Halfway Inn completely. Imagine it, for weeks she had dreamt of seeing Gordon, she had a schoolgirl crush on him at the age of forty-three, and she missed the turning. She let out a great scream of laughter at the absurdity of life.
However, by the time she had reached the outskirts of Cluffield, gone round the big roundabout, and back down the dual carriageway to the Halfway Inn, she felt altogether more sober and more sombre. She might get Gordon’s mother again. Gordon, even if she got him, might not feel about her as she did about him. He was a mother’s boy. He might be gay. Oh God, she hadn’t thought of that.
How pretty the shop looked, in its smart green and red livery. Could a shop have livery? How nice the old farm cart outside looked,
stacked as it was with luscious vegetables in carefree profusion.
She got Gordon! He was there!
He served her with four lamb chops, two for her and two for her non-existent companion.
Her courage failed her and all she made was small talk.
Next time she was served by his mother, so summer was beginning to fade before she had the chance to pluck up her courage and say what she wanted to say to him.
‘Two rump steaks, please.’
He got her two rump steaks.
‘I don’t suppose you’d like to come and eat one of them,’ she mumbled. Yes, mumbled. Judge her not too harshly, sophisticated reader. It is very difficult for a woman to say something as forward as that, even for a woman who has been a man, in fact, perhaps, especially for a woman who has been a man.
He looked at her in astonishment.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.
‘I … wondered if you’d like to come and eat one of them,’ she repeated.
‘That’s what I thought you said.’
‘Well?’
‘Well … when?’
It seemed too forward to suggest that evening.
‘Well … how about … tomorrow?’
‘I can’t really. It’s Mother.’
‘Yes, of course.’ How craven! Why not ask why Fridays are impossible? ‘Well … er … how are Mondays for you?’
‘Mondays are difficult, with Mother.’
‘Yes, of course. Tuesday?’ she asked with diminishing hope and increasing embarrassment.
‘Tuesday,’ he said reflectively. ‘Now then. Tuesdays are a little awkward.’
It wasn’t an absolute, abject rejection. Did she dare continue? Yes, Nicola, Heroine of the Cornucopia Kitchen, Unflinching Victim of the Surgeon’s Knife, you can do it.
‘Wednesday?’
‘Now then, the thing is … the thing is … I don’t know that I’m entirely comfortable coming to a woman’s house. Not when I don’t know her. How about my taking you to the Red Lion next Wednesday? They do a good grill, there’s a lot on the plate, and it’s very reasonable.’
That’s how they started, her and the mother’s boy.
An unlikely match? Have you not noticed how people of similar levels of attractiveness usually fall for each other? At one end of the scale there are couples of extraordinary beauty and glamour, at the other end you’ll see two people who are both revoltingly ugly gazing with rapture into each other’s bloodshot eyes. Well, you may think that Nicola’s slow, shy, farm-shop mother’s boy was no great catch, but she was a sex change woman who had never been to bed with a man, had no great confidence in her body, and was coming to courtship for the first time at least twenty-five years later than most women. On the whole, therefore, it was a meeting of equals. Besides, Gordon was kind, he never said anything nasty to her, his manners were impeccable, he really was good looking, and I won’t have him mocked, do you hear?
