Please be aware that this is not a pleasant episode.

CHAPTER 15
It had gone again when I woke, just hovering at the edges of memory. John was back, ready for work, and I also had to do something to push along Jane. Call it resentment, call it realism, but I was still paying out for the house each month while a cuckoo lived there rent-free.

Pete was quieter over breakfast, and subdued on the drive back to college. He pulled up into one of what he called the “raspberry” bays and switched the car off.

“John, that was one hell of a weekend. In all sorts of ways. We both have a lot of thinking to do here, and probably best that we do it in our own space. There are …accommodations I need to make in my mind, and they are not easy.”

He stared hard at me.

“I am very fond of Laura, I always was, but you are not Laura. I can see her in you, and she came back a lot over the weekend, but you are not her. I don’t know whether to say ‘yet’, because I have a big problem there. Would you be going down such a route because you wanted to, or because you felt us pushing you? Your mother gave you no choices this weekend, and that sat badly with me

“I want you healed, and I want you happy. Whatever route works out to be right for you is not for me to say, and it is not for your mother to decide. Be your own man, John”

We looked at each other, and as one started to laugh. “Be your own man” for god’s sake! And after a quick look around, he kissed me smartly on the mouth and I got out to start unpacking our respective wheels.

That week I saw him only in college, but we spoke on the telephone each evening, and naturally I did so as Laura. It felt natural, and it felt good, and I felt more and more that John was a character in a literary sense. I had spent all my working life disassembling texts, and almost all of my personal life treating the world as an academic exercise, and suddenly that was a reality: my persona was drifting from the subjective.

Jane was being surprisingly efficient, and had already had the house valued. She seemed remarkably cheerful when I called her, and then admitted the reason.

“I am pregnant, John. Something you could never do for me, it seems, and it would appear that it was a good job you didn’t, as there is no way on Earth you could ever have been a father. Keep that in mind with whomever she is.

“I don’t hate you, John, we are just wrong for each other and I would rather it were neatly and quickly done. I will let you know what the valuation results are and we shall have a clean start”

Perhaps I should introduce her to Laura….no, not yet. There again was an ambush thought, an assumption. Pete had been absolutely right; I could see clearly now what my options were, all I had to do was work out which one was right for me, and only for me.

A couple of days after the revelations, I had my next session with Mary Oliver. I knew it would be an interesting one, to say the least, and my apprehension was increased when I saw the other person in her room. He looked rather like a cartoon bank manager, all plumpness in a suit, and Mary introduced him as Alan Johnson, a hypnotherapist. She asked him to wait outside while we went through the week’s events, and I found myself stalled. Where to start?

“Where do you want to start, John?”

“Laura is what my mother and Pete have been calling me…”

I ended up talking almost non-stop for forty minutes, Mary prodding me along with little questions as I endeavoured to get across my sense of recovered moods, of a painting by numbers partly finished.

“So are you John or Laura?”

Did I say ‘little’ questions?

“I really do not know. The full answer, or as full as I can make it, is that it seems that Laura is who I declared myself to be when I was young, and John is who I have been since whatever it was that my mother is keeping from me. I see that person as Old John. Since recent events hit me, I have been changing, and I find myself seeing Old John as someone else, as a persona rather than a person”

“So, are you John, Old John, or Laura?”

“I was Old John, but I never want to be him again. I think I am both of the other two, but I have no idea, and perhaps I should say no idea yet, as to which one is my future.”

“Does there have to be a choice?”

“I think so. I think that the name is really just a label, I remain myself, but I think I need to fall one side of the divide or the other”

“Male or female, eh?”

“I believe I wouldn’t be comfortable on a tightrope, Mary.”

“OK. I’d like to see how we get on with Alan, if you don’t mind now”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was lying on the couch, calm, relaxed, and wondering when it would all get under way, and suddenly realised the clock hands had moved. I was also soaked in sweat, and when I swallowed my throat hurt. I looked up to see Alan and Mary at a tape recorder, and heard the whine of it being rewound. Alan was mopping his brow, and Mary looked grim. It had already been done, I realised. I sat up. Alan nodded to Mary, and took a piece of paper from her that looked like a prescription, then left.

“So what did you find out, Mary?”

“Oh, John….”

She looked down at her notes, and I could see the wheels turning as she thought.

“John, it seems that a lot of what I suspected was rather on the mark. We have a recording of the session, and I am going to play it to you. You will get very upset, and I have asked Alan to pick up a prescription for you. I want some promises from you. I want you to talk to your mother about this, and I want someone with you for the next few days while you come to terms with it. I also do not want you to ride home today. Do you have anyone who can come and pick you up?”

I was now in real fear. I gave Pete a ring, and he said he could be at the surgery in ten minutes as he was still at college, and that led me to make another decision: whatever had come out I wanted him to hear with me.

Alan was back with a paper bag from the dispensary just before Pete came in, and I was surprised Mary took his presence so easily. She handed me two of my pills with a glass of water and told me to take them, and when I asked what they were she said “Valium. They will help relax you a little. Doctor’s orders, John”

They seemed to fuzz the world as they kicked in, and Mary started the recording. Alan whispered something to her and left the room. I thought I caught the words “not twice”

The tape started with a sequence familiar to everyone, the calm voice of the hypnotist, the instructions to close the eyes, the ‘When I say wake up…’

Mary started talking.

“Hello, it is 2005, who am talking to?”

“John Evans.”

My voice was cool, stilted, very careful in its enunciation.

“Who are you, John?”

“I am a university lecturer. I specialise in textual analysis, particularly in English literature of the 19th to 21st centuries”

“What do you do for fun, John?”

“I do not understand your question. I read, that is what I do”

“Is your tutor group all male, John?”

“I do not recall.”

“Don’t you look at them?”

“I mark their work. Why would I need to look at them?”

“John, you are four years old. It is your birthday. Is it a good day?”

My voice lost its precision, and became softer, not sounding like a little boy but speaking like one.

“Is a nice day. Got a cake wiv candulls. Got to blow’m all out.!”

“Who’s with you, John?”

“SLaura. Wanna be Laura. M not John.”

“Who is with you, Laura?”

“Mummy, and Daddy, an Pete, an Beffan, an boys, an Sally, an Jill, an Caffy, an Suzy, an Wendy, an Kelly”

“Who’s your favourite?”

“Mummy! An Daddy!”

“Apart from mummy and daddy, who is the best?”

“Pete!”

“Why is he the best?”

“Gonna get married to Pete when ma big girl”

“Have you got any presents?”

“S”

“Are they nice ones?”

“No. Sall football stuff.”

“Laura, you’re at your fifth birthday party now. Any nice presents?”

“I’ve got a bike!”

“What are you going to do with your bike?”

“Go riding with Pete!”

“Laura, it’s February 1985. You are in hospital. Why are you in hospital?”

“I broke my arm”

“How did you do that?”

“Not supposed to tell. I was naughty.”

“How naughty were you, Laura?”

“Very naughty, Daddy said. “

“What naughty thing did you do?”

“ I played Snow White with Pete and Daddy saw, and Pete ran away”

“What did Daddy do?”

“He took me to my room and I got spanked with his belt”

“How did your arm break?”

“Got to say I fell off my bike”

“Did you?”

“No, was when Daddy was carrying me up the stairs”

Mary stopped the tape at that point, and wiped her eyes. Pete was hugging me, I realised through my drug buzz, and I felt the dampness of his tears. Mary started the tape again.

“It’s your eleventh birthday. Do you have any nice presents?”

“Yes, Mum’s got me a Spesh road bike in a small size, it’s still too big for me really, but with the saddle at its lowest I can just about ride it. I‘m going to get some shorter cranks and then I can see if I can start time-trialling”

“Are you having a party?”

“Why would I have a party?”

“To invite your friends to, Laura”

“Who is Laura?”

“It’s October 1985. You are in hospital”

There was no reply, just sounds I slowly worked out to be sobbing.

“Why are you in hospital?”

“It huuuurts”

“It is now the night before and you are in bed”

“Sleepy, don’t want to talk”

“Are you warm, Laura?”

“All warm an snuggly”

“Who is with you?”

“Barnaby”

“Who is Barnaby?”

“Smy teddy”

“Is anyone else there”

“Daddy here to tuck me in”

“Is he happy?”

“No”

“Is he talking to you?”

“Yes”

“Can I hear what he is saying?”

“Not allowed those words”

“It’s OK, you are allowed to just this once. What does he say?

“Fucking fairy”

“Just tell me what he says and what you say and I will listen”

“Fucking fairy showing me up. Please don’t hit me Daddy, I didn’t mean to be naughty. Fucking little girl. Please Daddy, not tonight.

The voice on the tape, surely not mine, started to sob.

“Please Daddy, not that, it hurts. So you want to be a fucking girl? Then you can be Daddy’s girl!”

Mary’s voice interrupted.

“All Is calm, Laura, nothing hurts, I just want you to tell me what Daddy is doing”

“He’s pushing his willy into my bottom”

“What is happening now?”

“No Daddy ,it hurts! Mummy, tell him, please, I don’t like it!”

My voice went into a scream of agony. Mary stopped the tape. All of us were in tears, and I realised that without the drugs I would probably have left the room in my own little way. Pete was shaking and hugging me so tight I had difficulty breathing. I managed to get free, and walked over to the desk. Picking up Mary’s phone,I rang my mother.

“Oh, hello dear”

“WHY DIDN’T YOU FUCKING DO SOMETHING TO STOP HIM?”

“Oh. You know, then”

“WHY?”

There was a long pause, and then, coldly, calmly, she spoke.

“I DID stop him, dear”

Oh.