CHAPTER 59
That was the start of so much, that lunchtime, and for the rest of the day, and about the next fortnight, I endured the steady flow of colleagues past and into my room under a variety of excuses who wished to see the freak. Nine Days’ Wonder is the phrase, and that was what I felt, and once nine days were up I hoped to be allowed to settle down and get on with it. The next hurdle to present itself was my first control visit.

I had been assigned a small furniture shop for my first day out professionally as Jill. And I dressed the part. Yet another bloody cream blouse, with some grey trousers and matching jacket, but Larinda’s double present giving a hint as to who I was. Platform pedals meant flat shoes, and loafers are loafers, but I wore ‘footsy’ nylons rather than socks. It is all about perception. The trader did a sort of double-take as I walked in.

“Er…Mister Carter?”

“Mizz Carter, Mr Khan”

“This is very…irregular. Do they normally allow such…clothing when you are at work?”

“Mr Khan, if you wish to say something offensive, please do so in words rather than in significant pauses. This is not exactly atypical of how women dress, aye?”

“Yes…Mizz Carter, but you are surely not a woman?”

I was caught between two stools just then. I didn’t know whether I should abuse him or cry in shame and frustration, but just then his wife, who was also, it seemed, his bookkeeper, general dogsbody and cleaner, started saying something to him in whatever language it was they shared, and after a brisk exchange she spoke to me herself. As she opened her mouth, she turned to him and snapped off a rebuke, in English.

“Husband, I am not speaking to a strange man, this is a woman, so shush!”

She stared at him long enough for him to turn away, and then looked at me again.

“We have this thing where we are from, the khusra. This is…please, if I wrong you, I am apologising, yes? It is the woman who is not a woman, but is a woman, but her body is…I am not good with this, I am sorry. But I understand, AS DOES MY HUSBAND, that sometimes God does things that are perhaps not the way we would wish, so, if this is what we are seeing today, then I welcome this lady to our home and to our shop, and SO DOES MY HUSBAND”

The subtext of that was very, very clear. He played ball, or she didn’t, and he was still young enough to be concerned about who played with his own balls, or at least kept him warm in a crappy Redhill winter. The rest of the visit was a piece of cake, and I quickly realised that Mrs Khan was a woman who not only understood the concept of morality, but tried to bring it to life. There are moments in my job where I have found ‘moral’ people whose concept of honesty is to find a reason to justify each and every non-business claim they can. She was different, and for only the fifth or sixth time ever I found myself arguing with a trader that no, it WAS a legitimate business expense and YES they could claim it. I worked out that her ‘honesty’ owed her three hundred quid. Not a huge sum, but better than a kick where it hurt. Her husband kept out of the way, but if that was a sample of my future professional life, I might just survive.

As I came out, I rang Larinda.

“And how…?”

“I was read, and hubby got a bit off, like, but his wife told him his fortune, nooky-wise, and, well…look, love, this is important, aye? I know I can never, will never be able to walk into anywhere and be seen as anything other than a bloke in a frock, but, well, I knew that, always knew it. It’s just…it’s just that I can now see myself living the life I was meant to, aye? And with you, hell, anything must be possible”

There was quite a long pause at the other end. “Jill, you do realise how hard this is for me? I’m a straight girl, straight as they come, yeah? The only thing keeping me going is that I love YOU, right? Not your cock, not your hairy bits, not your bank balance, but you, the man, the person, the woman, the fuck knows what. You talk about that shopkeeper, and it’s like I’m the one there. Shit, I have to be blunt here. I would have really preferred someone who was---look, take it the right way, yeah? I would have really preferred someone who was normal, but I look at it now, and that person wouldn’t be you, and I prefer you, and, shit, I think you know what I mean”

I couldn’t answer, and then her voice came back, this time with the specific tone of voice I knew came when she was making a joke, or being ‘naughty’

“Jill…when they cut it off, yeah? Do you think we could, like, have it stuffed and mounted? You know, so I could, well, mount it?”

“Love, I think the trick is to leave it on, but sort of inside-out, aye?”

“Bugger. I shall have to make a mould of it then, like that groupy, the plastercaster girl”

I laughed. “Lass, you are seriously odd at times!”

“No, love, I am just very, very confused. Look, just make me a promise, yeah? Don’t ever change who you are, cause then I’d be lost”

I spent the rest of my day thinking about that conversation. So much of what I was doing was so utterly selfish. The suicidal thoughts, the long years of collapse into the bottle and solitude, what was that all about? Look at Alec, what he had been through, Jim, Neil, even bloody John Forster. For fuck’s sake, James and John, both pairs, they had endured more than I had. Was my lot in life so much worse than anyone else’s? I was alive, I had much of my health, and most importantly I had not only good friends but a partner, a lover, who was quite simply the best thing that had ever happened to me since birth. Did I need more?

The answer was sitting there like a grinning imp. Yes, I did. For good, bad or the purely selfish, I had to go to my grave at the very least as the person I had to be. I realised that this was what Alec had warned of, during one of our sessions, the doubt, the uncertainty within certainty, and with a leap into empathy I knew that I was feeling almost exactly as Larinda did, that what I needed, what I yearned for, would wound someone I loved.

I rang Alec. I could see no alternative. Whatever incoherent crap I gave him still seemed to make sense.

“Jill, let me get this clear with you. You are terrified you are hurting Larinda, yes?”

“Dead bloody right I am!”

“Jill…sod it, this isn’t me being professional, yeah, this is me talking to a friend, to…to a woman I love as a sister. Shut up, my turn. You need to realise this therapy game can be two-way, yeah, and you have done as much or more for me as I may have done for you, so take a compliment for once”

He paused for breath, but I was left speechless. “Look, Jill, I understand suicidal ideation, so does Sal, so does Stewie, and that’s because we have all been there. Well, not Sal, as far as I know. You know what the worst thing about that shit is? The waste. People who, if they had just given themselves a few months or years, might have seen a different world, or perhaps a different self. You, people like you, you can’t do that, because the different self never happens. John, my John…”

Oh. Another pause, and then he picked up again. “John has hidden most of his life, and it nearly killed him. He has the option of coming out, and he has, and he can make a go of a life. You can’t, but, and I will be brutal here, Larinda can. That is what you really, really need to get your head around. If you are certain about your gender then you can never, ever relax, it will always be that fabled pachyderm standing between you and the telly. And the truly shitty thing is that Larinda will know it, and all the time she is with you she will be hating herself for what she has made you do”

“So you are saying…”

“Shush, still my go, you rang me, yeah? Short form: Larinda will cope, or she won’t, if you switch over. If you don’t, neither of you will. Got me? If we are all lucky, you will cope together. If we aren’t, then, it’s like a divorce, and better than a fucking funeral”

Yet another pause. “Jill, none of that is from my professional chair, OK? Just, well, I care. I can’t really put it better than that. I’ve been there, seen it, but they don’t have a T-shirt for it, yeah? Speak to Sal, some time when she is off guard, ask her about Mel. Realise this, you are so bloody lucky in who you have about you, we both are, but neither of us has been very observant. Look, go home, see Larinda, do whatever you do to make yourselves feel happy and loved, and count your damned blessings, right?”

After we finished, I started to do just that, and all he said slowly sank in. There was one word, shining in the middle of it all, and that was ‘love’. I set off home.