by David Nobbs
He remembered that he had fought against the jealousy – been out to dinner at the Positano with Nicola and Eric – managed gradually to be able to see them without feeling wretched. Well, now he was a man. Well, as much of a man as he would ever be. Soon he would be leading his own independent life …
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No. No. Nothing.’
Please don’t interrupt with these trite remarks, Nicola. I’m busy. I’m thinking deep thoughts about you.
Soon he would have his own adventures. It was absurd to envy Nicola her adventure.
He didn’t, anyway. He had overcome those feelings before he went into hospital.
He sniffed.
‘I’ll get you a tissue.’
‘Thank you.’
He blew his nose very gently, as if even that degree of activity might send pain coursing through his body.
That was why he felt guilty. He’d remembered. He had never truly apologised to Nicola. Never truly given her relationship with Eric his blessing.
Absurd to do it now, exhausted, fragile, half-anaesthetised. Absurd.
Must. Had to.
‘Nicola?’
‘Yes.’
‘I hope you and Eric will be very happy. Truly happy.’
‘Thank you.’
Nicola went over and gave him a quick little kiss.
‘Thank you,’ she repeated.
‘I felt jealous at first.’
‘Did you? Good Lord.’
Ha ha!
‘You know I did.’
‘Don’t worry. You’re tired. Relax.’
‘Yes.’
‘I hope you meet somebody wonderful.’
‘Thank you. I have a funny feeling that I will.’
‘I’m sure you will. You’ll make a great man, Alan.’
‘Thank you.’
Alan was beginning to feel excruciatingly uncomfortable physically.
‘I need … I can’t bear lying in this one position any longer,’ he said. ‘I need to move.’
The need was overwhelming, it was like a severe attack of claustrophobia, but how difficult would a move be?
‘Do you need help?’
‘No. No.’
He began to turn on to his side, very slowly, very carefully, so carefully. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. He felt an indescribably piercing pain around his crutch, and he gasped.
‘Nicola,’ he squealed. ‘I think it’s come off.’
‘What?’
‘My new penis. It’s dropped off.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘I can feel it flopping around in my bandages. Ring the bell!’
Nicola rang the bell.
‘It can’t have,’ she said.
‘It has. It has. Oh God.’
‘They’d stitch it on absolutely securely.’
‘Well, I’d have thought so.’
‘It’s a trick of the nerves.’
‘Oh God, I hope so. Oh God, it’s terrible.’
It was Mrs Mussolini. It had to be. Life was like that.
She assured them, back to her starchiest in defence of Mr McWhinnie, that things put on by him did not drop off.
‘He’s a surgeon,’ she assured them frostily, ‘not a builder.’
She thought he might be in the building. Grudgingly, she went to hunt him down.
He wafted in on a tide of self-importance.
‘Now then,’ he said with jovial contempt, ‘what’s all this nonsense?’
Alan felt a bit of a fool, talking to Mr McWhinnie about his new penis, especially in front of Nicola, but he couldn’t expect her to leave till the crisis was over.
‘It’s my penis,’ he said.
Mrs Mussolini went even redder than usual.
‘I do have one, do I?’
‘A small one.’
The sky, uniformly dull and grey though it was, seemed to have become extremely interesting to Nicola.
‘It … couldn’t have dropped off, could it?’
Mr McWhinnie smiled. It was the lofty, superior smile of a great surgeon. Then he saw the depth of anxiety and revulsion on Alan’s face, and his own face suddenly became human, warm, concerned. He began to speak to Alan as to an equal.
‘No, Alan, honestly, it is utterly impossible for it to drop off. I haven’t just sewn it on. I’ve made it integral. It’s your clitoris transformed. Your fear is perfectly natural; having been a woman you have no built-in defence against castration anxiety, and the nerves play terrible tricks after operations.’ He looked at Nicola and Mrs Mussolini and then back at Alan. ‘While we’re on the subject, Alan, a word of warning. Don’t expect too much from this penis of yours. It’s very young.’
Mr McWhinnie swept out. Mrs Mussolini was dragged along in his slipstream. As she got to the door, Nicola spoke and Alan realised, to his horror, that she was going to apologise again.
‘Mrs Prothers?’
Tethers.’
‘Sorry. I just wanted to say how sorry I am for what I said last year.’
Nicola!!!
That night, still considerably under the influence of the anaesthetic, Alan had extremely vivid dreams. He was Mussolini’s right-hand man, only Mussolini wasn’t Mussolini, he was Eric, except that he wasn’t nearly as tall as Eric, and he was known as II Erico to his friends, and ‘The Little Furniture Restorer’ to his enemies.
He awoke feeling very uneasy. He didn’t want to have Eric in his dreams. He had settled his emotional worries about him. The man had no business to be lurking in his subconscious.
He fell asleep, and II Erico was there again, but this time Alan was nothing as important as his right-hand man. He was a foot soldier in the Italian army. Many platoons were lined up in St Peter’s Square under a broiling sun. II Erico, ‘The Little Furniture Restorer’, stood on the balcony and gave the order, in Italian, which Alan understood in his dream, ‘Parts private inspection for the purpose of, trousers … wait for it … trousers … drop.’
All the men dropped their trousers in unison.
‘Underpants … drop.’
All the men dropped their underpants in unison. Teams of nurses marched on to the vast square, led by Mrs Mussolini.
The Pope, extremely frail, struggled on to the balcony and stood beside II Erico.
Mrs Mussolini pointed to Alan’s tiny young prick and laughed. Everybody laughed. St Peter’s Square was rocked by a great rumbling, growing, spreading roar of laughter. Terrified pigeons took wing. Mothers clutched their babies to their breasts. II Erico roared with laughter. Beside him, the Pope jumped up and down with glee and hugged himself.
Alan awoke bathed in sweat, stinking, and steeped in anxiety.
Luckily it was Pat’s turn to bathe him.
Gray made teasing small talk but Alan knew that he had something important to tell him. He waited patiently.
‘Mum,’ Gray said at last, ‘I’ve something to tell you.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. I’m … I’m engaged.’
‘What??’
‘Don’t sound so surprised, Mum. Not everybody thinks I’m a hopeless case.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘Yes you did.’
‘No, what I meant was … well … who to?’
‘Oh, Mum. That’s hurtful.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll assume that you’re still befuddled by the anaesthetic, even though it has been four days. Surely you must realise, Mum. Juanita. Who else?’
‘Oh I see.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Mum … sorry, you’ve had a major op, you’re in pain, I mustn’t upset you, but … I’m disappointed in you. We live in a multi-cultural world. What does it matter that she’s Peruvian?’
‘Of course that doesn’t matter. What disturbs me is that you’ve never met.’
‘Mum, we have. We’ve met in our minds. Isn’t that the most important place? That’s what you don’t understand. There’s no difference between virtu
al and real any more.’
‘So, is it going to be a virtual marriage?’
Gray looked a little sheepish.
‘Well, no, actually. I suppose it ought to be, but … no … we want to be together.’ He smiled – still sheepishly, but it was still a smile: ‘We’re just old-fashioned softies at heart – and I’m not sure virtual sex has a great deal going for it, to be honest.’
‘Good. Good. Well, congratulations.’
‘We’ve both been saving up for her fare. Why do you think I chose to go to uni at Warwick?’
Because you didn’t have the bottle to go away?
‘I suppose you thought it was because I didn’t have the bottle to go away. It was so that we could save.’
‘If you’dtoldus …’
‘If I’d told you, you’d have mocked me. You’d have called it my internet romance. You wouldn’t have taken it seriously. She’s coming over in about a month, Mum. Oh, Mum, you look great. You really do. Honestly.’
Alan was surprised and touched to hear such a compliment from Gray, but then he spoilt it in a manner so typical of Nick that just for a moment she forgot that he wasn’t Nick’s son.
‘But then I’m so excited that everything looks great to me at the moment,’ he said.
‘It’s good about Gray, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, it is, Em. Well, scary, risky, I’d have thought, but, yes, if it works, great.’
There was something different about Em, Alan thought. She seemed more at peace with herself. He didn’t like to comment on it in case his comment destroyed that sense of peace.
‘So, how’s things, then?’ he asked, hoping it would come out as ‘And how are things going in your personal life? How do you really feel about Andropolos?’
‘Things are all right. Things are going all right.’
Hardly an answer. Evasive.
He tried to move. Em saw his pain and said, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine. I just get very irritated and tense lying here in one position, but it’s still agony moving. So, what are you doing with yourself?’
‘Oh, this and that.’
Very evasive.
‘I went to an Indian restaurant with a friend last night.’
‘Oh. Which one?’
‘The Taj Mahal.’
‘I meant “which friend?” actually.’
‘Oh, Mum, you’re being so inquisitive.’
‘You’re being so evasive.’
‘Mum, I admire what you’ve done. It’s EFT.’
‘EFT?’
‘Extraordinary For Throdnall. You’ve gone for what you want and I admire that, but it’s made life difficult for me. I can’t have heart to heart chats with you now you’re a man. I’m sorry, it may be stupid, but it’s changed things.’
‘All right, no heart to heart, but I have a long time to think about things here, and I’d like a simple answer to a simple question. Are you happy, darling?’
‘Yes, I’d say I am, Mum. Yes.’ She smiled. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Is she envious of Gray? Is she very upset about Andropolos?” ’
‘Well I haven’t liked to ask about that.’
‘Oh, Mum. No, I’m not upset about Andropolos. I broke it off with him, not he with me.’
‘That was important to you, was it?’
‘Well, yes, it was. I still like him. He’s a good guy.’
‘I never thought I’d hear you say that about anyone.’
‘Oh, Mum!’
‘So why did you break it off?’
‘I came to chat to you, not to be grilled.’
‘Sorry.’
Silence. Alan moved again, very very carefully. A stab of pain down there. God, he felt raw.
‘I don’t really have an answer, Mum, except … it just wasn’t right. You’re probably relieved. Hardly a great catch for your beloved daughter, a Greek waiter. But he won’t stay a waiter. He’ll be a successful restaurateur. Food’s in his blood. I’m glad I still respect and like him, though. It’s done wonders for my faith in …’
She hesitated, as if she wasn’t quite sure what she had faith in.
‘Men?’ prompted Alan.
She shook her head.
‘Human nature,’ she said.
A very fat African lady with a smile as wide as the Sahara wheeled in the late drinks trolley, which had a very annoying squeak. It was half past eight. Almost time for sleep. Alan dreaded the nights.
He had an uncomfortable feeling that, although he had enjoyed a rare moment of intimacy with his daughter, she had left unsaid as much as she had revealed.
‘Well hello!!’
The little ward suddenly seemed very small when it had twenty-two stone of blubber in the middle of it.
‘Prentice!’
‘Well I had to come and see you. Must do my bit. I was so upset about not coming last time.’
‘A very important holiday.’
‘Well it was free, Alan. I could never resist anything free.’
‘Have a grape.’
‘Thank you. HI have several. So, how’s our new man?’
‘All right. Coming on.’
‘Fantastic. Hey, listen, this’ll amuse you …’
‘Why do I doubt it?’
‘Alan! No, on the bus coming over, because I don’t drive and I can’t afford taxis …’
Alan did a violin mime, slightly too flamboyantly, and winced as the pain struck him.
‘It’s true. M’m. Nice grapes. Mind if I take a tangerine?’
‘Be my guest.’
‘No. I’m not exactly flush. People see a financial consultant with shabby shoes and no car, they think, if his advice is that good, why isn’t he rich?’
‘What about the comedy?’
‘Bookings have dried to a trickle. A trickle, Alan. I rang the manager at Droitwich, asked him why he wouldn’t have me back, he said, “You’re obscene.” I said, “Excuse me. I don’t do obscene.” He said, “Not your act. You!” ’
‘Oh, Prentice, that’s cruel.’
‘Quite. M’m. Delicious tangerine. Mind if I have one of those peaches? They look luscious. Thanks. So, in the bus, I suddenly thought, “I am not only obscene, I am obese. And the word ‘obese’ can be made from the word ‘obscene’.” So I started amusing myself by making other words out of “obscene” and, do you know, they all fitted me. All of them. Isn’t that uncanny?’
‘Such as?’
‘ “Cobs”, which is what I sweat. “BO”. Not actually a word, I know, but highly applicable.’
‘I don’t like this.’
‘No. Listen. “Scone”. What I have too much of with jam and cream. “Cones”, as in icecream, see above. “Been”. What I am if you put “has” in front of it. “Snob”. All my pseudo-intellectual guff about comedy. “Cons”. What I do to my audience.’
‘Stop it.’
‘ “Scene”. What people make when I try to fuck them.’
‘Prentice! Why are you saying all this?’
‘To cheer you up.’
‘I’m finding it extremely sad and depressing.’
‘Well there you go.’
What a double whammy. It was the king of double whammies. Prentice and Mr Beresford in one evening.
He couldn’t believe that Mr Beresford came. He had never spoken to the man or even seen him out of the context of work, unless you counted those dreadful Christmas parties, but they were work really. Horrid things. Mr Beresford looking absurd in a paper hat, bellowing out a joke from a cracker, ‘What worker drives his customers away?’ and being childishly disappointed when Connie hadn’t the sense not to blurt out, triumphantly, ‘A taxi driver’, thus ruining Mr Beresford’s moment of glory and her prospects of promotion.
Now, there he was with his bag of grapes, with only three minutes of recovery time between him and Prentice.
Mr Beresford didn’t even like him! Since the announcement of his sex change he had virtually been ostracised. After
all the work he had put in towards organising the reception for the launch of the tilting carriages, he hadn’t even been invited. Anyone who was anybody in railways had been there – ‘arrivistes from Virgin, virgins from Arriva, con artists from Connex’, as he’d put it in his usual forthright biased way – but no Alan Divot, née Alison Kettlewell.
An unworthy but splendid picture crossed Alan’s mind. He imagined Mr Beresford on his way up meeting Prentice on his way down. He imagined Prentice saying ‘It’s love at first sight. Those eyebrows. Irresistible’, and throwing himself on Mr Beresford by the lift doors. His heart hammered with the hatred that he felt for these two men. He was having a heart attack! He forced himself to calm down, he wasn’t having a heart attack, the hammering slowed down, sweat poured off him, he hadn’t heard a word of what Mr Beresford was saying, and Mr Beresford hadn’t even noticed that anything was wrong.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I rather missed all that.’
‘What?’ Mr Beresford noticed him properly for the first time. ‘I say, are you all right?’
‘Hot. Very hot. Couldn’t dampen a cloth and run it over my forehead, could you?’
Mustn’t hate. Hatred was self-destructive. Be a man, Alan. You almost are, after all. Try to see the funny side.
It wasn’t too hard to see the funny side of Mr Beresford returning with a damp flannel and solicitously wiping his forehead for him. He looked so awkward and out of place. It quite restored Alan’s heart and humour.
‘Thank you, Florence,’ he said.
‘What? Ah! Florence Nightingale. Me as Florence Nightingale. Very droll,’ said Mr Beresford. ‘Glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour. I see you’re a bit over-stocked with grapes. Sorry.’ For a moment Alan thought that Mr Beresford was going to take home the ones he’d brought. He did have a mean streak. ‘No, I was just bringing you up to speed with developments at base. Things are looking up.’ That seemed unlikely, in view of the disastrous news that Bangladesh had got the contract for the Northern Vision Three-Car Units. ‘Everything is hunky-dory.’
He pulled his chair close to Alan’s bed. Alan thought that his transformation must be difficult for Mr Beresford. He had always suspected that the man held a bit of a torch for him as Alison, and the awful thought occurred to him that maybe he still did! Maybe he was bisexual. Maybe he wouldn’t have been too displeased if Prentice had thrown himself on him.
