Totally Insane 11–Complications.
by Angharad

For T. Happy Birthday, sweetheart.

“You didn’t wear a corset did you, Nan?” I asked not entirely sure what a corset was.

“Of course”–she gave a little giggle at this–“not, I wore a corselette, like all ladies did then; we attached our stockings to them.”

“Didn’t you wear tights?”

“Later on, they really only took off when miniskirts came in, as they would have shown too much of the stocking top and the suspender. Plus the fact that the stockings stopped the corselette from riding up.”

“What’s a corselette?” I asked not quite sure.

“It’s an undergarment, which features a bra and extends down to your groin: usually they have a bit which goes between your legs, but not always. If they do it fixes with hooks and eyes or poppers.”

I think my eyes must have popped, because Mummy gave me the queerest look. “Why don’t you show her when we go back, Mum?” she said to Nan.

“I think I might still have one, somewhere.” She pretended to search her memory.

“The bottom drawer of your dressing table, Mum, that’s where they always were.” Mummy looked at me, “She forgets, I used to have to help with the laundry.”

“Like you make me do?” I beamed.

The woman on the adjoining table said, “I think all kids should learn a few things around the house especially if they go away to college.”

“Brian doesn’t do very much though, does he?” I asked feeling a bit exploited.

“Brian wouldn’t bother breathing for himself if he could find someone else to do it for him,” responded my mother rolling her eyes, “be grateful, that you are being taught life-skills which will stand you in good stead for later on, young lady.”

“I quite enjoy helping you, it’s more fun when you do chores with someone else.”

“How true,” said my Nan, looking wistful, “yet how sad, they always seem to forget.”

“Who forgets, Nan?”

“Men! Who else?” She looked cross for a moment as if remembering something, then she looked at Mummy and me and started to laugh. We laughed with her, although I wasn’t quite sure what I was laughing at, other than my Nan’s laugh.

I worked back through what had been said, and decided that, men don’t like doing many chores if they can help it. If by some strange phenomenon, Brian ever became one–if only they’d make slug pellets in different colours–a man, I mean, it would seem he’d been practising doing nothing most of his life.

I puzzled some more: Daddy worked quite hard and often had paperwork to do when he was at home, but so did Mummy, marking and so forth; yet it was she who got the dinner and washed up, okay we have a machine for that, but I don’t remember Daddy using it. I tell a lie, he did when she had flu last year, ‘cos he asked me if I knew how to work it? I didn’t but I figured it out when he asked me to sort it, grrrrrrrr! He was treating me like a girl then, in some ways, ‘cos he’d never have asked Brian. I don’t think Brian knows the word kitchen, except in the context of some magical place where meals appear, cooked by fairies. I blushed when I thought of this last word, if I help, he would say it was definitely cooked by fairies, or one in particular!

Daddy does do things to the car. I thought for a moment, no he doesn’t except put petrol in it, it goes to the garage now for everything, and he used to pay me for cleaning the inside. I’d vacuum inside and wipe all the windows and the dashboard. He used to give me a tenner a month for that, I used to do it every week, would take about half an hour. Brian was supposed to cut the grass, except he usually has some excuse for not doing it. I’m not allowed to use the petrol mower, so that’s one job he can’t shove on to me.

Brian is quite good at computer games and he watches loads of telly, but apart from that, and chasing girls, he doesn’t do much, oh he goes to the gym. We have a gym club in school, which you can join when you’re twelve or older. I don’t fancy it, I mean, I don’t like, want to get fat, but who needs muscles that bulge. In Brian’s case, I’m sure his head is full of muscle rather than brains.

“Have you thought of doing ballet?” my Nan said to someone, maybe my mother, I was zoned out thinking my own thoughts.

“Kylie! Your Nan is talking to you!” my mother said sharply.

“Oh, sorry, Nan, I was miles away,” I blushed.

“Are you going to do ballet, like your Mummy did, and so did I. They still talk about my entrechat.”

For some strange reason, Mummy started to giggle and said while still giggling, ” Does my entrechat look big in these?”

I started to laugh too, mainly because Mummy nearly fell off her seat, she was laughing too much, but Nanny was going rather red and glowering. I thought discretion was the better part of valour, and asked Nanny where the toilets were.

Going to the ladies was still a voyage of discovery for me. My heart was still perched somewhere close to my throat as I opened the door, and I half expected someone to challenge me one of these days. Maybe I look better or more convincing than I think.

The loo at this café was very basic, a single little room, I think they could quite reasonably describe as a cubicle, of which, half the space was full of boxes of baked beans or cooking oil–oh, and one of toilet rolls. The hot water was cold, and the liquid soap had run out, and the paper towels were those horrible green ones–like drying your hands on cardboard. We have them in school, or we did until some of the year nine boys stuffed them down the toilets and blocked them all. We were all sent home for the day and the towels disappeared from then on.

There was a big sign which said, ‘PUT PAPER TOWELS IN THE BIN NOT DOWN THE TOILET! LAST YEAR IT COST US A THOUSAND POUNDS FOR DRAIN CLEARANCE, AND YOU A TEN PER CENT INCREASE IN THE COST OF YOUR MEAL.’ Perhaps some of year nine had been here?

I wandered back to the dining area and Mummy and Nan were in deep conversation, Nan spotted me and signalled to Mummy that I was on my way back, so they must have been talking about me. I’m not really surprised, I am a bit of nine-day wonder. Mummy looked guilty and smiled falsely at me.

“All right, poppet?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m like, okay.”

“More shops, Kylie, or have you had enough?” asked Nan. I wondered if this was some sort of test on my girliness, so although I had had enough, I said to carry on.

Actually, what I said was, “No, I haven’t had enough, shopping is great fun, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah, real fun!” groaned my mother, “You wait till you have to do it for your children!”

“I won’t have any, Mummy, remember?” I said and felt my eyes well up.

She put her arm around me, “I forgot, Sweetheart, sorry.” Once out in the street and less likely to be overheard, she said, “Kylie, I am sorry, but you seem like such an ordinary girl, I forget you’re special.”

“That’s okay,” I said sniffing.

Nan took my hand and squeezed it, “You could always adopt, so you might have children yet.”

“I might,” I sighed.

“Never mind, Kiddo, you can help look after Baby Sarah next week.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot that.” I felt so much better.

“Who’s Baby Sarah?” asked Nan.

“The woman who lives across the road from us–Mrs Johnson–it’s her baby. Kylie loves her, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“It’s not half term yet is it?” asked my Nan.

“No, but we’re still sorting out her schooling arrangements,” Mummy shrugged.

“If it had been half term, Kylie could have come and stayed with us,” offered Nan, “Would you like that?”

“Oh yeah!” I said with enthusiasm. “Can I use your computer?”

“I should think so, if Gramps isn’t using it, he writes his sermons on it.”

We came to the Mothercare shop and I asked if we could go inside. My mother looked puzzled. “I want to get something for Baby Sarah,” I said leading them in.

“What are you looking for?” asked Nan.

“I want to buy her something, a present.”

“You mean a toy?” Mummy asked.

“Yeah, something like that,” what are those?” I pointed at some white pad things.

“They’re pads to put in a nursing bra.” My mother smiled at my confused look.

“You mean nurses have special bras?”

“No, sweetheart, when you breastfeed a baby you drip a bit and those pads absorb the drips and oozes.”

“Drips?” My mind was boggling. I knew of breast feeding in theory, at least I knew that women had breasts to feed babies. But the mechanics of how they plugged them in, had never quite been explained.

Nanny came up with a book, “Look Kylie, this is how it’s done.” The book explained all about babies and their care. The pictures showed all these cut away sections of boobs and things, and how the milk forms in the glands and is secreted through the nipple. I had never thought about it before, maybe Mrs Johnson will allow me to watch her, which is probably as close as I shall get to doing it myself. I felt sad again then.

“Would you like this book, Kylie?” asked my Nan.

“No it’s alright, thank you. I mean it’s not as if I shall ever need it, is it?”

“You never know what will happen by the time you grow up, young lady. What we see as miracles now, they’ll probably be doing every day.”

“That would be some miracle, Nan.”

“I don’t know so much, I remember reading about some bloke, in the States I think, who took special hormones and things to breastfeed his child.”

My mother looked horrified, but I thought it was wonderful. “Okay, Nan, I’ll have the book, if that’s okay?”

She smiled and went to pay for it. While she did that, Mummy and I looked at some teething rattles, made of rubbery stuff in bright colours. They rattled when you shook them, and babies could teethe on them. I knew what teething was–getting teeth. Then I wondered where they came from, ‘cos the gums are in the way, so the teeth have to come through the gums–yeuch. No wonder they cry, that would bloody hurt. I suddenly had this surreal image of teeth pushing out all over my body and itching and hurting, then popping forth–gross.

I was just at the bit where the teeth were causing my boobs to grow and were poking out of my very red and sore nipples, when Nan shoved the book in my hand and I jumped, dropping the teething ring I was holding.

“Goodness, Kylie, you are jumpy.”

“Sorry, Nan, I didn’t see you coming.”

“I’m beginning to wonder if all this is a good idea,” said Mummy, “ever since you started it, you’ve become rather absent minded. Maybe we should stop it?”

“No!” I said much too loudly, and people turned to look at me. My mother glared.

“Sorry, Mummy, I mean I don’t want to stop at the moment and I need to see Dr Schlessinger again next week.” I only apologised to stop her carrying out her threat, which I neutralised by imagining my nipples growing and these teeth growing out the end and biting her. I blushed when I thought how weird it was, but was that what they meant by ‘milk teeth?’

“Do you want that for Baby Sarah?” asked Nan, “Give it to me and I’ll get it.”

“No, Mum, she’s got some money of her own, let her pay for it herself.” The protest meant I had to extract my purse from my little bag and spend some of my ill-gotten gains. As I did so, I wondered if I would get a chance to earn some as easily as before with the baby sitting.

Back out in the street, and some four pounds worse off, we moseyed up and through the other shops. Nan bought me a new skirt in a small children’s boutique, and not to be out done, Mummy gave me the top I was admiring to go with it. I decided I would wear it to see my shrink, next time. I also wanted to take her a present, but didn’t know what–maybe a pot plant. I’ll talk to Mummy or Mrs Johnson about it.

This girl business seems to be growing on me. I thought about my outburst in the street, about babies and my never having one–was it all getting too much. I mean a week or two ago, I was a boy–or thought I was; now I’m a girl–or think I am; or am I? The truth is, I don’t know anymore.

I know that Mummy and Daddy are supportive, and while Mummy likes the idea of having a daughter, I don’t know if that is just liking the idea rather than the reality. It’s one thing to think about or fantasise, but another to walk the talk. Nanny and Gramps are supportive too, which is lovely–but I know, if I changed my mind tomorrow, they’d just shrug their shoulders and welcome me back as their grandson, probably with a sigh of relief.

I don’t know what to do, I really don’t. Dr Shrink-slinger seems to think I’m gender variant or whatever, so she would probably expect me go with it. As for saving my money for plastic surgery, I wasn’t joking at the same time, I wasn’t being entirely truthful because it depended upon if I was still being a girl. I mean, if I go back to being a boy, I won’t need boobs, will I? But if I stay as a girl, I won’t need a winkie. Still, once I caught it in my zipper, and it hurt rather a lot!

So does plastic surgery hurt? I’ll bet it does, imagine having someone chopping at your eyelids–yeuch! Yet people do it to improve their looks, or so they think.

We were looking in the window of a shop as these thoughts were going through my mind. Mummy and Nan were looking at the things displayed there, I was looking at myself. How girlish was I?

In the improvised mirror, obviously in a skirt, I looked like a girl, but as I leaned closer to the glass, I examined my face and hair and other bits. My jaw was narrow and my nose was small and slightly upturned, my ears are small–well they would be as they roughly measure the same as a line from your eyes to the end of your nose. My eyes are quite big for a boy, and green, quite bright green and my reddish hair means I have loads of freckles. My hair is long and thick and my hands and feet are reasonably small. I look like a girl. Perhaps I really am a girl? Dr Slushfinger thinks I am, or one inside a boy’s body.

I hadn’t noticed that the olds were chatting and speaking to me. “Kylie, I do wish you’d stop going off in a daydream.”

“Sorry, Mummy.” I can’t seem to do anything right.

“Nanny asked if you thought that dress was beautiful? The cream one.” She pointed and I followed her finger to the back of the window, where a cream wedding dress was displayed. It was indeed beautiful and I agreed.

“Would you like one like that when you marry, Philip, is it?”

I blushed furiously, “Nanneee!”I replied indignantly, “I’m not going to marry anyone for a long time, possibly never.”

She winked at me, “Okay, darling, your secret is safe with me, just don’t tell Philip he will have a long wait.”

“We’re just friends.” My blushing and protests would probably have got me hanged years ago, especially at Elsinore, where Hamlet suggested, ‘the lady doth protest too much.’ How do I know? We did it in school recently, not the play but the quotation.

Our teacher, Mr Robinson, told us briefly the plot of the play, which is scary–I mean, they have ghosts and things, and they’re murdering each other or planning to do it. If that’s politics, I don’t think I’ll bother voting when I’m older, they all seem pretty rotten–like the ‘State of Denmark.’

“What do you think of that one?” Mummy pointed at a lacy one in the middle of the window.

It was beautiful too. “It’s nice, it’s okay.”

“So which one would you choose?” She threw this at me and once more I felt my right to be considered a daughter was being challenged.

I stepped back from the window. There were five gowns on display. They were all lovely so how could I choose? “I’d need to try them on before I could say that,” I said my hands perched on my hips.

Mummy gave me a sideways look and Nanny nearly fell off the pavement laughing. “She’s got you there, my girl,” she said looking at my mother.

“I do like the one at the back with the muff thingy,” I said. It was a satin affair with some fur or feathers decorating it and also the muff.

“Where would you carry your posy?” My mother was not going to give up.

“Oh, I’d have a page boy carry it behind me on a silk cushion,” I said dismissively, then giggled as I had a sudden vision of the troll Brian in satin knickerbockers!

“Should I tell your father to start saving now, sounds like you’re going to want a wedding with all the trimmings. That dress is three thousand pounds, to start with.”

My stomach flipped, three thousand pounds–that’s like more money than I’ve ever owned. “Maybe we could look in Oxfam, they might be cheaper there.”

“Cheaper still if you live in sin,” my mother muttered away to herself.

“I heard that, Rosemary, and you of all people should know better. Besides, Kylie, wants her Gramps to tie the knot for her.”

I caught sight of Mummy blushing as she steered us back towards the car.

Nanny provided us with a quick tea of sandwiches and cakes and we said our goodbyes to my doting grandparents.

“Don’t forget, Kylie, if you want to come up at half term, we’d love to have you, wouldn’t we, Gramps?”

Gramps gave me a huge hug and said, “Of course dear,” then to me, “Take care, darling, I think you’re a very brave young lady but do be careful, at times it’s a dangerous place, this world of ours.” He slipped something in my hand–a twenty pound note. “Buy yourself something nice.”

I hugged him back and kissed him on the cheek, “Thanks, Gramps, I do love you.”

“I love you too, young lady.”

Then I gave a monster hug to my Nan. She reciprocated by squeezing me and whispering, “It’s nice having a granddaughter, but I loved you as a grandson too.”

“I know, Nan,” I said back. “Thanks for all my lovely things.”

“You’re welcome, darling girl.” She kissed me on the cheek, and stroked my hair. “Such a pretty child,” she said almost absently, “much too pretty for a boy.”

“Come on, Missy, let’s go before you talk Gramps into buying that dress.”

“What dress was that?” he asked.

“Only the dearest in the shop.” My mother seemed intent on embarrassing me.

“What shop?”

”The Bridal Shop.

His jaw dropped as he goldfished.

“Well you did ask which one I liked.” I blushed as I spoke and saw she blushed too.

“Ask a silly question,” she muttered, “Come on, let’s see how the boys got on at their football match.” She hugged and kissed them both and we got in the car and drove off.

The boot was full of things for me, plus Gramps had given me a bunch of flowers picked from his own garden.

“Gramps gave me some money,” I said to my mother as we drove homewards.

“That was nice of him, how much?”

“Twenty pounds.”

“Gosh, that’s quite a lot, Kylie.”

“I wondered if I should share it with Brian?”

“That would be very kind of you, but he wouldn’t with you, so why not put it in your bank account?”

“I feel guilty, I’ve had so much this past week or so.”

Mummy put her hand on my knee, “You have done well, young lady, but Brian hasn’t done too badly either. Don’t feel guilty, we’ve enjoyed spoiling you, and at least you are always grateful for anything you get.”

“What did Brian get, then?”

“The football match was a Premier Division one, Manchester United and somebody. The tickets cost a small fortune. I don’t see how anyone can afford to go regularly to such things.”

“I don’t know why they’d want to go in the first place, I think I had the nicer day; thank you, Mummy.”

She glanced at me and smiled, “I’m glad you enjoyed it, sweetheart.”

~~~~~~

Thanks to Gabi for more rapid improvements and head hitting.