CHAPTER 14
I paused for an attempt at thought. All my plans were collapsing around me, and it was as if I was in a river taking me where it wanted to go, regardless of how hard I swam. She sat there in Her Chair, a dumpy old woman, close-cropped grey hair giving back almost as much light as her glasses.

“What have you done?”

There was no accusation there, just a neutral tone, inviting me to speak. Her voice was soft, and it was clear my mother was worried. However big, ugly and hairy I got, I was still her little boy, which of course was the problem.

“Nowt, as such, Mam. It’s a bit, well, more than that. Shit, it’s like our Neil, OK?”

That was it, out. She stared for a moment, then spoke, still calm.

“Are you telling me you are a homosexual as well, son? Is that why you and that woman you married, you know?”

“She does have a name, Mam”

“Not in this house she doesn’t. And tell her to stop sending me Christmas cards”

I paused a moment more.

“Yes, Mam, I am gay”

“Thank god one of my sons has given me grand bairns, then. Are you trying to tell me you are leaving Siobhan for a bloke?”

Breathe again. “No, Mam, I do not fancy men”

Her composure cracked at that, and her brow furrowed a little.

“What do you mean you divvent fancy men? You have just told me you are homo whatever”

“I am. I fancy women.”

“I don’t under…oh bloody hell, you are telling me you are one of them? Transvestites?”

“No, Mam, I am telling you you had a daughter fifty three years ago but it was botched, aye?”

To my horror, she started to cry, and I went to her, careful of the hip.

“Absolutely useless. What the hell did I ever do right, cause all this, all this is so wrong. One’s a puff, one’s a shit, and you, oh hell…”

I let her sob into my chest for a while, until she was able to push me away a little.

“Get the bottle and a glass, please, Rob”

The bottle was in the sideboard, her old tipple of Gordon’s gin, and I saw there was dust on the cap where she hadn’t touched it for years. I found a similarly old bottle of tonic water and to my relief it was sealed, and made up her normal mix. When I returned she had finished cleaning her face.

“Sit over there, Rob. Or is it some other name now?”

“I have had another name most of my life, Mam. It’s Gillian, Jill”

She stared off into the distance. “You were our first, and we didn’t know, those days, what you would be. We went through names, your Dad and me, family names, and of course when you were born, it had to be your Dad’s name, and his Dad’s, and his Dad’s…”

“Mam…if I had been born, well, right, a girl, aye, what?”

“Norma Anne”

I started to laugh at that, and she stared at me.

“Sorry, Mam, I ‘m just grateful it wasn’t going to be Norma Jean!”

She frowned, just for a second, and laughed as she got the joke.

“Mam, you have done nothing wrong. Look at my friend Karen, her husband has a son, aye, he’s autistic, sort of, and nobody knows what causes that, aye? Terry loves him to bits, does his best for him, I can see that now, and James…James loves his dad, and he shows it as best he can, but it’s nobody’s fault. It’s like our Neil…”

“No. That was all down to that man. He turned my boy”

“No, Mam. He didn’t. What he did was let Neil see who he really was, aye? I spoke to him, before he got ill, yeah, and Neil is what he is, always has been. Just like me”

“When did you decide this, Rob?”

“Ach, I said to one of my friends, it was Karen, I said, like, it was when I first started to be able to control my bladder”

Her voice was very quiet. “You told some other woman before your own mother?”

I couldn’t help it, and I started to cry. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Mam. I just wanted to wait until you had gone, and then, but, I couldn’t, I couldn’t take any more, and I had to, and I don’t wish you dead, I don’t ever want you dead, I just didn’t want to hurt you…”

She was crying again. “Come here…Jill”

We wept together, my Mam holding her daughter as I tried to work out what I was going to do. It was out, now, for good or bad.

Eventually, we came back under control, Mam stroking my hair as I knelt beside the Chair. She took a sip of her gin, grimaced, and said “Kettle, I think”

As I rose for the ritual, she said, still hesitating over the name slightly,

“Jill…Gillian. It’s nice. Look, this explains one thing, but I want an honest answer, aye?”

“Of course, Mam”

“It wasn’t Neil getting into my clothes, was it? I always assumed, you know, with him being a puff that…things were never back quite how I’d left them, and tights; tights stretch, and they don’t go right back for a while, so I knew, aye? Just answer one question, will you?”

“What, Mam?”

“Did you, you know, in my clothes…”

She made a gesture, and I had to laugh, as my elderly mother made a wanking motion with her right hand.

“Kettle first, Mam, and then I’ll explain, but…no, never, aye?”

Once the tea was made, I sat by her and talked her through it.

“Mam, I wasn’t dressing up for excitement, aye? I was doing it to try and be myself, just for a bit, just while the rest of you were out, like. There’s no sexual bit to it. Look: our Neil fancies men, aye? That’s all about who he likes, it isn’t about him, about who he is. With me, it’s about who I am”

She smiled. “But all he is is a shirtlifter, aye? You, you’re a tuppence licker as well as being…whatever it’s called”

“Norma Carter, I didn’t know you knew words like that!”

“Gillian Carter, your Dad was a squaddy, so how could I ever NOT know them!”

I had a moment of surprise, warmth, as I realised my own mother was deliberately using my real name. It was clear she was having major problems with the situation, as I had known she would, but her strength of character, her Matriarchal power, was there, and she was doing the best she could. Ah well, on to the next little bombshell.

“There is something else, Mam”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, at least you cannot tell me you’re pregnant. What next?”

“It’s Von, Mam. You know she’s moving to be by her parents, like, and I can’t go?”

“Aye…”

“Well, it’s not just that, Mam. It’s…well, I met someone else”

“And what are you going to tell her about all this?”

“She knows, Mam”

“And?”

“She’s just about OK with it, just not happy that, you know, what we do will have to stop at some point, like”

“If you youngsters waited before jumping into bed, you’d be a lot better at things than you are”

“I’m fifty three, Mam”

“And I changed your shitty nappies, aye?”

Then my meaning hit her. “You’re wanting to get it all cut off and all, aren’t you”

“Aye, I suppose I am. Look, I have to have at least some time in my life to be myself, just once, aye?”

She was nodding. “I understand quite a bit, pet. This is what those games with the pills were about, isn’t it? You gave up hope”

Tears again, I couldn’t help it. “I tried, Mam, I tried to be a boy, and when it got too much, yes, that was what it was, and I’ve tried to be a man, and I can’t, and I just want…”

She is my mother, and she loves me, as a parent should, unconditionally. That doesn’t mean all is accepted, all is forgiven, but that the love doesn’t go away. She was proving that. As she hugged me once more, she murmured to me.

“It’s expensive, isn’t it?”

“Aye, Mam, it is. I will have to do a lot just to get rid of the hair, for starters. I don’t know how much the NHS helps, but if, when, I get the big one done, I think I should go abroad. They tend to be better at it, or so I am told”

“Well, I’ve got some savings”

“No”

“I helped your brother out when he got the new house”

“Aye, but he’ll pay you back”

“Aye, he said he would, but I’m not expecting it any time before the Second Coming. You can pay me back, but the money is there if you need it”

“Mam, you would put money up for, you know, one of your sons…?”

“Daughter. My daughter tried to leave me twice because nobody understood. She doesn’t get a third go. Three’s a charm”