CHAPTER 5: THE GREAT DIVIDE

The room was still in almost total darkness, but the luminous material covering the hands of the alarm clock confirmed that Sunday November 28th had arrived.

The date that for the last week and a half had been stamped, chiselled and seared into the surface of every brain cell I possessed was no longer in the future.

It was today. It was now.

I didn’t get up immediately. Although less than a month would have gone by before I’d be sleeping in this bed again, I was unable to dismiss an irrational fear that during my absence it might change beyond recognition, that I’d return to find its shifts and creaks as strange as those I was to encounter tonight.

The feeling soon disappeared. I threw back the covers, drew up my knees and leapt into that weird and wonderful world called the rest of my life.

I ran myself a bath — this was a special day, after all — and sank so deeply into the foamy water that it was lapping at my chin. The currents I created by swishing my hands to and fro stimulated the two small but clearly visible mounds swelling from my chest into behaving like fully developed breasts, encumberances I didn’t really want but knew I had to be ready to live with. The various pills and potions I’d been taking had brought about other, more pronounced changes: my hair was thicker, shinier and slightly darker; my arms had grown plumper, my hips were wider and my thighs distinctly chunkier; from my crotch protruded only a sliver of flesh, no longer than a fingernail, which seemed each morning to shrink further into the safety of the slit behind it.

Yet I had no underlying awareness of being female. If I looked like a girl, even from a distance — Lisa had taken dozens of photographs of me in West Park, down by the harbour and on Staincliffe beach, as if I was emigrating to New Zealand rather than moving a mere sixty miles along the coast — on the inside I was the same person I’d always been. I continued to study the league tables, I wanted a moped more than ever, and my interest in rock music was undiminshed. Good luck to the member of staff at Lowdales Hall who tried to browbeat me into forsaking Jethro Tull for T Rex or the Bay City Rollers!

Back in my room I dressed quickly, having decided on my outfit days ago. The impression I wanted to give my new school was of someone who’d come to terms with being a girl but saw no need to make a big deal of it. To that end I’d settled on the jumper I bought the first time I went shopping with Lisa, a pair of dark brown cords, grey ankle socks and black platform shoes. The prospectus had stressed that pupils would not be required to wear a uniform, stipulating only that denim was prohibited during normal school hours, so it appeared that I’d be free to cultivate whatever image I liked.

I took more time over my hair, putting in the dead-centre parting I’d preferred ever since it first crept over my ears in the summer of ’69 and combing it forward in an attempt to imitate the windswept, faintly dishevelled look Sonia Kristina favoured.

“Will she make it? Can she take it?” I sang softly to myself.

Of course she could. She’d got this far, hadn’t she?

I went into the spare bedroom and spent a few moments in front of the mirror examining my profile from different angles, taking a particular pleasure in the way my cords hugged the undeniably womanly curves between my waist and the tops of my thighs. I had a bum too, one that according to Lisa moved in the most delectable fashion when I walked. She’d shied away from pointing out that if she found it appealing then so might boys; the looks I was getting used to receiving from them made that observation unnecessary.

Before going downstairs I conducted one final sweep to ensure that I hadn’t left anything behind, then lifted up the small red suitcase which was the only luggage I’d be taking with me — a trunk containing the bulk of my belongings had been despatched on Thursday — and took my latest acquisition, a belted mustard skiing jacket, from its peg. It was amazing how widely a father’s wallet could be persuaded to open once he’s read a solicitor’s letter promising him several thousand pounds in compensation and a similar sum to be held in trust until his child reaches the age of majority.

The same wallet had also injected thirty quid into my Post Office savings account, which now stood at…erm, thirty quid. Apart from the loose change in my back pocket it was all the money I had. I wasn’t counting aunt Rachel’s fiver; that was staying in the tobacco tin where I’d stashed it more than a month ago. It had been spoken for ever since Lisa said how much she liked Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells A Story.

“Don’t forget to write,” she’d reminded me yesterday evening. “I want to know every little detail.”

Then she’d squeezed my hand and ruffled my hair. For a few moments I’d been staring at the world from outer space.

If only she hadn’t pulled away so abruptly when I went to hug her.

Where’s your smile today? Did she let you down?

Try to see she didn’t mean to make you feel so sad.

I closed the door and walked quickly down to the front room. It was beginning to get lighter outside, but the curtains would remain drawn until next Saturday, when mum and dad returned from grandpa’s funeral.

As I deposited my case on the floor and draped my jacket over the arm of the sofa I tried hard to ignore the irksome suspicion that Lisa Middleton — like my grandfather, like Plug and Gash, like Skelty Boulton’s Bible readings and Rafferty’s weaselly face — was already part of my past.

For a town that could claim with some justification to be one of the birthplaces of the railways, Stockton-on-Tees didn’t have a particularly impressive station. The arched roof was in a sorry state of repair, with many of its glass panels missing; the bays at both ends of the two main platforms were choked with weeds; the buffet had served its last customers when Harold Wilson was in power, the Beatles were still together and the till was full of threepenny bits, sixpences and ten-shilling notes. This morning, however, a healthy sprinkling of would-be travellers had congregated here due to the Sunday engineering works that had diverted the express trains from their usual route. I’d be catching the next one that came through; they all called at York, where I had to change for the fifty-five minute run to Scarborough.

“I still say you should’ve let your father drive you down,” said mum. “It would’ve been just as quick.”

“The lad’s made his decision,” dad put in before I could reply.

I started to speak, then thought better of it. The black dress mum was wearing beneath her overcoat reminded me that the last thing she needed at this difficult time was for people to sound as if they were ganging up on her.

She fussed with the flap of my jacket. When she opened her handbag I feared there might be a serious possibility of her taking a handkerchief from it, moistening it with her tongue and using it to wipe my face.

Instead she handed me a small bag of boiled sweets.

“Mmm, barley sugars,” I remarked without a trace of irony.

“Save some for Thursday,” she advised me. “It’s a long way down to Reading. You’ve got your ticket safe, haven’t you?”

“The Poole train, remember,” said dad.

“I know,” I muttered, trying hard to disguise my irritation at his having insisted I travel cross-country rather than via London. Would he have done that if I’d been male?

The station bell rang, heralding the imminent arrival of the service to Kings Cross. Mum frowned, as if it signalled the approach of a thief come to steal from her nearly three years of active parenthood.

“Well, this is it,” she said. “Don’t forget to ring when you get there. Are you sure you don’t want any more change?”

“I’ve got plenty,” I assured her.

“And don’t go wandering off exploring if Miss Corrigan is a minute or two late picking you up. I know what you’re like.”

“I won’t.”

By now all eyes were turned to the right, and the broad curve that brought the line into the station. Soon the bottle green diesel locomotive appeared at the top, provoking a flurry of activity around us.

Dad stepped forward and held out his hand.

“Good luck, son,” he said as we shook.

I didn’t correct him. The expression he wore told me he was starting to appreciate how much this moment meant to me.

The engine roared past. We gravitated towards the northern end of the platform, where the rearmost carriages would stop and I’d have a better chance of finding a seat.

Dad opened the door while mum inclined her head so I could give her a peck on the cheek. This was as demonstrative a display of affection as we’d ever shared.

“See you on Thursday, then,” I said as I climbed aboard.

“Take care,” mum called back.

“Look after yourself,” cried dad.

Or that was what I’ve always assumed they said. I wasn’t really listening.

I remember waving to my parents as the train slid forward. I remember laying my case flat on the table, unfastening it and taking out the latest edition of Sounds. I remember looking up when we rattled over the Tees viaduct at Yarm, and again when we joined the main line at Northallerton. I remember the elderly couple sitting across the aisle who didn’t know quite what to make of me.

But most of all I remember the words the guard spoke to me less than two minutes after we left Stockton.

“Ticket please, miss.”

That was when I was certain my journey was really underway.

York station was busy, even at half-past eleven on a Sunday morning. Everywhere I looked people were on the move, hurrying across the footbridges or wheeling trolleys full of cases along the platforms in search of those elusive few square feet of private space. The air beneath the four curving spans of glass and wrought iron buzzed with the sounds of whistles being blown, doors being slammed shut and engines idling before thundering into action. Above them the echoing tannoy announced the departures of trains to destinations that to me were no more than points on a map or places that merited a weekly mention when the football results were being read out: Inverness, Aberdeen, Derby, Cheltenham, Plymouth, Huddersfield…

And Scarborough!

11.43 from platform 6, calling at Malton and Seamer, just as the booking clerk at Stockton had promised.

I joined the throng making their way towards the bridge, each step taking me closer to the new world that would soon be opening up for me. I felt a sense of independence that was quite dazzling; the credit for whatever success I achieved in the weeks and months to come would be mine and mine alone.

For the first ten miles or so of this second and final leg there was little of interest to be seen, just flat, bare fields, lonely farmhouses and stands of leafless trees. Superimposed upon them were the images that took shape before my eyes — of buildings, of classrooms, of dining halls, of playing fields, of the dormitory I’d be sharing. But I dismissed them as illusions, extrapolated from a few glossy photographs in a sixteen-page prospectus. Whatever the future had in store for me, it was unlikely to resemble my expectations. The other pupils were the unknown factor, just as they’d been at Newburn Grammar School. Pansy’s would be the one familiar face set against the scores of others soon to come crashing into my life.

Towards this upheaval I sped, north and east, the Yorkshire coast coming closer with every bridge, gate and bush that flashed past. I thought about Clare Corrigan, and whether we’d get on. I thought about the Sunday lunch my mother would be preparing for two instead of three. I thought about Lisa, wondering if she was thinking about me.

It started with a station on the edge of an industrial estate that materialised out of nowhere. Then there were steep slopes on either side of the line, the hill to the right topped with a memorial of some kind. Streets, warehouses, factories, depots and gasworks closed in. A long, open platform, the type built for excursion trains in a bygone era, slid by the left-hand window.

The clock tower. The tall buildings with their opulent frontages. The wide boulevard leading to the shopping centre, its central reservation planted with roses. This was Scarborough, jewel in the crown of Yorkshire seaside resorts, and for the next two and a half years I could call it my home!

Suddenly I saw Newburn for what it was — a dull, neglected backwater, a grimy cage whose bars were those of limited opportunities and a tendency to be content with second best. If it had taken the most bizarre of circumstances to set me free, I now believed that learning to be female was no exorbitant price to pay for my liberty.

This optimism was to be shattered within seconds by the yellow Ford Capri that drove up to the station entrance. The woman at the wheel was an attractive brunette, her hair cut in a medium-length bob. I estimated to be in her early thirties, despite the fact that her embroidered cream blouse and pleated dark brown skirt were a little prudish for someone clearly several years away from surrendering to the onset of middle age. But it was her companion, a young, vivacious blonde with short, heavily lacquered curls, wearing a turquoise cardigan over a flowery dress, whose painted nails beckoned me closer. And I hadn’t covered half the distance before I realised that the grin forming on those scarlet lips belonged to Pansy Porter.

I lowered my case to the ground. Pansy had been at Lowdales for what, a fortnight? Did all the pupils look like this? Would they demand that I adopt the same image?

Pansy wound down the window.

“Well, are you just going to stand there staring?” she said.

“You…you’re a…” I spluttered.

“I’m a Kitten, dear. Now get in before the pigeons all assume you’re a statue and start building nests behind your ears.”

And that was how she introduced me to one side of the Great Divide at Lowdales Hall.

It took less than a quarter of an hour to reach the school. Clare and Paula — I couldn’t think of her as Pansy any more, not in that get-up — gave me a running commentary so I didn’t lose my bearings entirely. From the station we travelled west to the ring road, which took us to the former village of Scalby, now the northernmost suburb of the town. Turning left at what on a weekday would have been a busy crossroads, we headed along a winding lane that quickly ascended a sharp incline overhung with trees and emerged onto a flat stretch before diving just as precipitously into a small but deep valley carved by a bubbling stream flowing through more dense woodland. Lowdales Hall was situated on the southern side of the road, about three hundred yards from where it swung south towards the village of Eversdale.

“Calling it a village is a bit of an exaggeration,” said Clare as she guided the Capri down the short track to the car park in front of what to my eyes seemed a vast country house. “There’s a pub, which is strictly out of bounds by the way, and a shop which opens when it likes. If you need to buy more than crisps and fizzy drinks you have to wait until Saturdays, when we run mini-buses to Scarborough.”

“Unless you’re pals with one of the girls who’s old enough to drive,” added Paula.

“And are you?” I asked.

“I’m working on it.”

The car crunched to a halt. I opened the door and breathed in air that felt fresh and invigorating. The woods still rose highly in every direction, lending the surroundings a cosy seclusion matched only by the eerie silence.

“You’re used to the constant hum of background traffic,” explained Clare, anticipating my question. “When you live in a town your brain filters it out. You have to come to a place like this to experience the difference.”

Paula didn’t accompany us inside, but made for the path that took her to a long, low building that appeared to form part of a separate complex.

“What was all that about her being a Kitten?” I wanted Clare to tell me.

“It’s our very own sorority.”

“Your what…?”

“A sisterhood, based on the ones you often find in American colleges.”

“But Paula’s only been here a couple of weeks. How did she persuade them to let her join in such a short time?”

“She didn’t have to. The Kittens are keen to recruit younger pupils. A large proportion of them are in their final year, so they’re always on the lookout for anyone who’s adjusted well enough to agree to have her hair done and conform to their dress code.”

“That rules me out, then,” I laughed.

“Don’t be too sure, Peter. She’s far too diplomatic to have said so to your face, but from what she’s told me about you I’m in no doubt that Paula considers you a prime target.”

“She can take a running jump,” I growled to myself as we came to the steps going up to the main entrance.

Clare didn’t allow me long to take in the paintings of idyllic rural scenes, the elaborate chandeliers, the beautifully upholstered chairs arranged around the coffee table in the alcove beside the secretary’s office, or the lavish carpet covering the staircase at the far end of the hall. Instead she ushered me through a series of corridors to a more prosaic flight that ended on a landing flanked by rooms from which emanated the sounds of raucous but adrogynous laughter mingled with the less ambivalent tones of a Richie Blackmore guitar solo.

“You shouldn’t have any problems with Chris,” she said. “She has her moments, but most people here do.”

“She’s not a Kitten, is she?”

“She wasn’t the last time I saw her.”

Clare knocked softly on the door bearing the number 23. It was answered by a plumpish figure with long, untidy chestnut hair, wearing scruffy jeans and a loose rugby shirt that couldn’t disguise the extent of her substantial bosom.

“Peace has ended, has it?” she sighed, looking me up and down.

“Take no notice,” said Clare. “She’s just grumpy because her team lost yesterday.”

“Lost? We were bloody annihilated. The sooner they get rid of that idiot Robson the better.”

“You’re an Ipswich fan?” I smiled. “You should try supporting Newburn Town.”

Clare glanced at her watch.

“Okay, you’ve got half an hour before they serve lunch. After that I’ll come down and give you the grand tour. Oh, and Chris, since the company’s gone to all the expense of installing en suite facilities may I suggest you make more regular use of them?”

With that she left us to it.

“A bit of a bugger, this, isn’t it?” said Chris.

“We’ll survive.”

“No thanks to the likes of her. All she cares about is bloody exam results.”

“She seems quite nice…”

“We’re here to study and get decent grades. Nothing else matters. If we fail, the contract goes to some other school.”

“What about adjusting?” I asked. “Don’t they have classes for that?”

“You’re joking. There’s a shrink you can go and see if you wake up wanting to do yourself in, but she’s only there because they’re covering their backsides. Most of us don’t, so we muddle along as best we can. That’s how all this Toms and Kittens business started.”

“Toms?”

“It’s short for tomboys.” She pushed her hair back from her forehead. “Look, I’ll fill you in while you’re unpacking. I’m Chris, by the way. Christopher Nayland as was, not sure who I’ll be once I’m finished with this place. And you are…?”

“Carolyn,” I said.

The instant those three syllables issued from my lips I knew I’d crossed the biggest boundary of all. I hadn’t meant to disown Peter quite so early in my career at Lowdales, but the deed was done.

Peter Stokes was history.

Carolyn Stokes had her whole life in front of her.

Yer look different somehow. Yer voice ‘as changed an’ all.

And she’d never lie about her new identity again.

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