by Fay Weldon
There was a silence. Valerie wondered if she’d taken the wrong tack.
‘No indeed,’ agreed the She Devil. ‘What a joke that would be! And I suppose you’d like our little Prince here to process with me, King and Queen of the fancy dress ball?’
Valerie thought about this for a moment, and then began to declaim rather than speak.
‘Diavolessa, we must be seen to honour youth, beauty and innocence as well as the wisdom of old age. Let the young bury the old! Let the old rejoice with the young!’
‘Valerie,’ said the She Devil, ‘calm down. Save it for the brochure.’
Valerie was quite pink from excitement. Tyler felt awed. This glorious impassioned creature in his bed, or at any rate he in hers. And what had she said? ‘This thing can run and run.’ How life could change in the space of a day. Years with the Jobcentre Plus and now this.
The She Devil turned to Tyler. ‘You’d better be careful, young man. Next thing you know you’ll be the Corn King, sacrificed to make the crops grow.’ And to Valerie: ‘I’ll think about it, my dear. What choice do I have, faced with so much enthusiasm? But I must have a private word with my grandson. I think we both deserve it. It has been a long time coming. But perhaps we should go to my office, I don’t know.’
Valerie said she thought there was no need.
After leaving them together, Valerie would have been seen to give a hop, skip and little leap once she was out of the room, had there been anyone around to see. As it was, Valerie found she had to turn on the electric lights once she was on the stairs. Ms Bradshap always maintained it was a wicked waste to keep corridor lights on permanently and all were on time switches. But the sky had suddenly darkened, a habit it seemed to have got into lately; the wind had turned to the east and grey clouds were tumbling into black.
Chapter 8
Family Bonding
Tyler considered the She Devil and wondered what all the fuss had been about. She sat upright in her chair, as if there was a cord running from the top of her head to the ceiling. She was wearing a wig, a kind of fuzzy bird nest cloud round her head of a neutral colour, a style the twins occasionally favoured and described as retro. The rest of her quite large bulk was draped in dark purple velvet with an occasional glitter of diamonds, diamanté, or glass – how did one even tell which?
But the eyes, if one dared to raise them, seemed hurt rather than cruel, glittered with what Tyler could only describe as a terrible wounded intelligence. At any rate that was something he shared with her. If he inherited from Bobbo, he also inherited from the She Devil. It was why he sometimes made bad jokes which seemed normal to him, but others found horrible and shrank away. Valerie seemed able to cope with it, even appreciate it, which was no doubt why she enjoyed sparring with the She Devil as she did.
Between Valerie and himself the sparring took a sexual form: it worked itself out through limbs, holes, rubbing and squeezing, coaxing, gaping or prodding flesh, ending inexorably in an explosion which started everything over again, as in the Big Bang, with the possibility of new life. His mother referred to it, with disdain, as ‘animal instinct’. He relished that. Orgasm was what made the world go round, each thrust an encouragement to the infinite. Valerie obviously liked him, loved him, or said she did. He was more cautious, less certain of a lasting commitment. Hermione’s hurtful ‘lacks finesse’ still rang in his ears. Had Valerie been faking her own recreation of the universe? Had he done his best and failed? In which case he was getting renewed and she wasn’t.
In some ways men had it easier than women, they pretty much usually had orgasms: perhaps that was the main thing women so resented. What the ithyphallic High Tower beamed out to the world was not so much encouragement to others but a cry for help. Valerie might claim to be bi, but she was probably basically and permanently and forever gay, a born lesbian. And in the meantime he was so hungry! How long since he’d eaten?
The She Devil seemed able to read his mind; she rose from her armchair, not without difficulty – Tyler tried to help but she’d have none of it – went over to the kitchen alcove, took a frozen M&S fish pie from the little fridge, put it in the microwave and brought it over cooked, with fork and spoon. In the meantime there was silence, just the sound of waves breaking at the foot of the High Tower, which Tyler took to be companionable. He wolfed the food down. It was still rather cold and raw in the middle but Tyler didn’t mind.
‘Better?’ she said.
‘That was a very grandmotherly thing to do,’ he said. What on earth had Nicci been going on about, and Matilda? The destroying, narcissistic mother? Unless of course, this friendliness was as much a fake as Valerie’s orgasm. All women were a bit mad, and the She Devil, though long past the menopause, still seemed to have a lingering femaleness about her, if you forgot the face.
Better always to look at her eyes than the face, which would put anyone off. If Tyler had had such looks, he would not have ventured out at all. His own wall eye had been bad enough: it had cramped his style no end. He had preferred to go about amongst familiars than strangers; people who were accustomed to what he looked like. Only when the eye had been fixed had he begun to live any kind of normal life. If he was young for his age, and people said he was, this was why. He was a mixture of too much understanding and too little.
The She Devil asked after his mother Nicci. Tyler tried to explain her without being too unkind. The sudden rages which had plagued his childhood, the way he’d learned to soothe and placate, anxious to prevent the moment when the maternal face would turn from an angel’s to a devil’s, devouring and smothering. How his sisters defied her instead of co-operating, as he, Tyler did, but they didn’t seem able to leave home either. The rows, the noise, were addictive for them.
The She Devil observed that evidently his mother had chosen to join the ranks of the working classes rather than stay in the middle, who were far less noisy. Here at the High Tower everyone was middle class – they defended themselves with acid tongues. It did not mean they were happier, just more reserved in expressing their objections to life, times and other people. So more work got done. And she’d heard that Nicci was a good feminist. That was a cheering thing to hear, and she hoped that Tyler would ask his mother and sisters to come to the burial tomorrow, and join in the celebrations. They would be very welcome if they did.
Tyler said that one way or another it was unlikely. His mother thought all men were the enemy, the High Tower was the source of all evil, and if she knew he was even talking to the She Devil she would have kittens.
The She Devil seemed a little surprised, then said she could see Tyler might have had a hard time of it as a child. Self-pity overwhelmed Tyler, unaccustomed as he was to sympathy and understanding. He wept, he spoke, he searched for words, and searching, found them, all too many of them.
It had been his great misfortune to have been born as a boy. Even his mother had wanted to abort him because he was the wrong sex. All along the way girls had it so much better than boys. It had begun in nursery school: if you ran round and shouted and rolled on the floor they said why couldn’t you be more like a girl and offered you Ritalin to keep you quiet. After that there’d been women teachers all the time. Men couldn’t get teaching jobs, or didn’t apply for them. They meant trouble. Parents of little children feared paedophilia; get to fifteen and girl pupils fell in love and claimed rape. Male teachers were constantly on gardening leave. Girls learned by copying, boys by understanding principles and applying them. Girls were bound to do better than boys, since teaching was done by women. He’d have liked to learn Latin but there was no Latin teacher. Too male a subject. Of course his mother favoured girls, girls didn’t get ill, have autism, or get acne: they passed exams, got to college, got jobs, wore nice dresses, went shopping with their mums, chewed men up and spat them out. He worried about his sisters: they confused ‘nasty’ with ‘strong’. They’d never find anyone to commit, because who’d ever want to? Women ruled the world. Men were second-class citizens and
he was fed up with it.
‘Just like your grandfather,’ said Lady Patchett, when Tyler had finished his rant, sniffled a bit and seemed calm again. ‘Moan, moan, moan! And look where it got him. Downstairs in my freezer, or perhaps in the cold room, whichever the girls decided.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ said Tyler, bitterly. ‘Men die, and women shove you in a freezer and bury you outside the back door.’
‘Exactly,’ said his grandmother. ‘But feeling the way you do, you could always choose to become a woman? It’s easily done.’
‘Chop off my willy? No thanks,’ said Tyler.
‘No one gets it cut off any more, dear child, accept a few nutters determined to make a perverse point. It gets reassigned, peeled like a banana, turned inside out. Bits fitted in here and there, no sensation lost. Add a few hormones and Bob’s your uncle – or indeed your Auntie.’
He couldn’t tell if she was joking or if she was being serious.
‘Think about the advantages, no more humiliations, no more remorse. No more fear of failure to get it up, premature ejaculation once you do, no more accusations of rape to worry about. No more abortions to pay for.’
Whatever it was she was being very indelicate and pressing buttons he would rather not have pressed – he could see again where his mother and the girls got it from. It was hereditary. She was summing up his life in clichés and throwing it away, as if it meant nothing.
‘Then you can be my heir,’ she said. ‘Solves everything for me. Another fish pie? I can tell you’re a hungry boy.’
‘Yes. Thanks, please.’
He spoke without thinking. It was true. He was still hungry. She warmed another fish pie and he ate.
‘The money’s in a bank account in Switzerland. I’m certainly not going to leave it to a man, and I don’t like the sound of your sisters, let alone your mother. It has to go somewhere. There’s quite a lot of it. All the money Bobbo did ten years in jug for. But at least I looked after him in his old age. No one can say I didn’t. “The Moving Finger writes and, having writ, moves on” and all that. I don’t suppose you did poetry at school?’
‘They made us learn The Schoolboy. William Blake. The girls all liked it. I didn’t know what he was talking about.’
‘Really? “How can a child, when fears annoy, but droop his tender wing?” How much better to have been one of the girls. If you can’t beat us, join us,’ said the She Devil.
Perhaps she was mad. She couldn’t mean all that about the money. But what she was saying wasn’t totally mad, Tyler found himself thinking, as he scraped away the last of the browny crust round the edge of the dish. A girl! No more worrying about ‘finesse’, size and buoyancy. Rather, the feel of a dress, the freedom of the thighs, a bosom to push it up, a waist to belt it, the moving silkiness on the skin – but all that stuff about money – the old lady was out of her mind. Or just bullshitting.
There was a knock on the door. It was Valerie, warning him that the canteen was about to close and if Tyler wanted to eat he’d better come now.
‘I’ve seen to all that, Valerie,’ said the She Devil ‘You don’t need to interfere. Come here. Be my witness.’
Valerie found the She Devil’s notebook, the She Devil scrawled, Valerie witnessed, the She Devil tore out the page, which Valerie then folded and stuck it in her bra. Tyler was surprised she wore one, so self-uplifting did her small neat bosom seem to be.
‘Just go away now, the pair of you,’ the She Devil said. ‘Trouble with you, Valerie, is you’re all hot air. I make real things happen. Now just go away.’
When they were out in the corridor Tyler asked what it was that Valerie had had to witness.
‘Just another of her wills,’ Valerie said, airily. ‘She makes them all the time. This one leaves everything to you, her granddaughter, Tyler of the IGP. But with an “a” instead of the “y”, then the “e” and “r” struck out and replaced with an “a”: “Tayla”. Oh, she thinks she’s so smart! But it does suit you. Oh, my darling Tayla! Shame she has nothing to leave – she’s already given it all to the IGP.’
Chapter 9
Valerie And Tyler
Valerie had felt uneasy about leaving Tyler alone with the She Devil, and rightly so. Gaia alone knew what she was playing at. It seemed that the wicked old woman was actually trying to bribe Tyler to have a sex change. He would make a very pretty girl, it was true, but hardly the point. It was a no-brainer: she, Valerie, was as fit to run a big charity as Tyler was not.
The She Devil was not actually in the habit of making wills, and it might just possibly be valid, so Valerie would keep it by her just in case. It need never be found, but in case of need might have to be. And who knew what the need might be when the time came for the old lady to die.
‘Tell me about the money,’ said Tyler. ‘I did think it was kind of, just old-lady talk. She really hasn’t got any then?’
Valerie replied, truthfully enough, that mad old Bobbo was always claiming she had millions in a Swiss bank that were rightfully his, but that came through Samantha who was scarcely a reliable narrator, being a few cards short of the full deck.
‘That girl talked to ghosts. Like a lot of dipsticks round here.’
‘I don’t like to think of the old man just shoved in the freezer,’ said Tyler. ‘Supposing he’s not properly dead and wakes up?’
‘Too fucking late,’ said Valerie, rather callously, he thought.
‘And I can’t believe it’s legal to keep a dead body at home.’
‘It’s not in Oz, but it is here. And I don’t suppose it makes much difference to the dirty old bugger now.’
It was difficult to talk because her phone kept ringing. Luxuriette were agitating about having to change éclairs from artificial to real cream because Ms Bradshap said otherwise she’d take money off the bill. Amethyst were on the phone all the time about this building problem or that, and she told them to sort it out themselves, similarly Femina Electrical, fussing about lighting and wet wires should it rain – everyone worried about the weather. The She Devil was right about one thing: left to themselves women were more than able to get things done; it was just that through the ages opportunity had been snatched from them. Valerie herself was gifted at delegating. The She Devil acknowledged that. Valerie turned her phone to silent. Tyler needed her attention.
Now they were heading for the canteen, 2CC/4, as Tyler was still a bit hungry. Valerie had survived quite happily all day on decaff and pumpkin seeds (available 24/7 from the canteen), plus surreptitious caffeine pills and the occasional serious uppers which a rather fanciable girl on a motorbike turned up monthly to provide, and was surprised that even after a fish pie Tyler still had an appetite for the crispy curry, by now almost curry brittle, but he didn’t seem to notice. He bit into it with his perfect, astonishingly white teeth. Valerie shivered to watch the hardness break through the crust and find the softness, and the flicker of the pink tongue as it licked the lips. She was seized by desire; she must get him back to her bed as soon as possible.
Lillian behind the counter seemed rather alarmed to find a male in the canteen – they were a rare sight, though sometimes the exigencies of good manners and/or Equalities Law made their presence inevitable – but Tyler did not look like someone from Health and Safety or HMRC. Valerie explained on impulse that Tyler was crossing over and Lillian beamed, said ‘Go girl!’, and went off to find some mayonnaise to help Tyler’s curry brittle go down.
‘Don’t go so fast, Val,’ Tyler said, ‘I haven’t decided yet. This is rather major. We don’t know for sure about the money,’ which shocked Valerie as being rather a venal sentiment in the circumstances.
She thanked Gaia that she’d got him away in time from the evil old cow. On the other hand, judging by Lillian’s reaction if she, Valerie, could present Tyler as trans she could have him live with her here in the High Tower. How else were they to be together? And the old bat could hardly object, it having been her mad idea in the first place. And
the She Devil would at last stop her stupid arguing about heading the Widdershins Walk with Tyler by her side. The She Devil would throw on her red velvet cloak, put on her crown, and off they’d go together. Ellen would get her pics, social media would buzz, add a funeral and Tyler as trans – oh wow! Next thing, Widdershins would go so totally global, and it was all the doing of Valerie Valeria: her mother would be so proud of her! Everything was going her way. And look at the weather, not a cloud in sight except a few gathering round the edges. Tyler was such a darling; now he was worrying about her turning her phone off – wouldn’t she miss important calls? – and nagging about her taking wake-up pills (and trying to get her to eat a dolphin-free tuna sandwich – yuk).
And then they were in the bedroom and it was heaven, every nerve in her body alive; she didn’t at all mind the sudden invasion of her body space. ‘Every thrust a welcome thrust!’ The words formed in her head, creating their own reality, driving her deeper and deeper into a submission so joyous she could hardly believe it, only rejoice in it. Mindless, mindless...
For some reason the cover of one of the old Mary Fisher novels came to her – lovely tender girl and glorious man, eyes and lips meeting, and love, love, love. All you need. Except it wasn’t all she needed. Everything built up to climax but then the climax just didn’t happen. Tyler the love object was also the hero in the porn films, the attacker, the invader of unwilling flesh, battering, damaging, frightening. It was all too personal, too intimate, too alive, not safely filtered through a screen. What with one thing and another she hadn’t plugged her phone in. It might be out of juice. Out of juice was out of touch. Valerie had better bring this to an end, quickly. She uttered a few obligatory squeals and moans and Tyler came, rather noisily: more like a long shout of triumph than a female squeal of pleasure. But you could always have the vocal cords tightened to deliver a feminine murmur of satisfaction. If that was what you wanted.
