My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress (20 page)

Norrie was a transvestite – though at the time I was unfamiliar with the term. To me he was simply a man who liked to ‘walk out' dressed as a woman. Given what I now know about those less enlightened times, I realise that Norrie was fearless. He was also polite, happy and inoffensive – or a ‘harmless cretur', as my mother used to say.

The gossip fingered Norrie's mother Maggie as the architect of this situation. She wanted a girl child and, on giving birth to a boy, could not accept him. She thus condemned the infant Norrie to years of frilly boyhood and the adult Norrie to a life of long-line bras and scent. I'd see them at close quarters on the late bus I sometimes took from school. Maggie made a brash statement without speaking; her face was a powdered mask of panstick pink, her hair as black as a raven's wing. She swelled out of high heels and tight frocks, carried a handbag in front like a Highland dancer's sporran. Being a teenager, stilettos and handbags interested me greatly. Once I peered into the gaping mouth of Maggie's bag as she paid the bus driver. Inside I saw a collection of surrealism that would have inspired an entire Dali series: a make-up bag, a pension book, a pair of worn tights, a pound of pork sausages, an upper row of dentures and a clock.

Since Norrie lived just a couple of fields away from us, I had the opportunity to observe him at close quarters. His daywear collection consisted of ‘safe' biscuit-coloured separates: a belted raincoat, polyester slacks, a buff-coloured handbag and matching Scholl sandals. He wore a felt beret to conceal his baldness and a powerful amount of slap and powder to conceal the traitorous evidence of a razor.

In fact, if you'd sat him down in a hip London nightclub, he could easily have passed for the artist David Hockney, similar glasses and beret being the Hockney signatures at the time.

This bland mode of dress in public was deliberately adopted to neutralise the impact of his cross-dressing. On seeing Norrie for the first time you tussled with the dilemma of how to pigeonhole him – not quite a man, but then again not really a woman.

Most of us hate nonconformity; we judge and label and box everyone we meet in order to still the panic that sheer eccentricity can bring. Norrie knew this all too well; consequently he dressed ‘down' in public so as not to cause offence, and ‘up' in private when all those judgemental eyes were looking the other way. The Norrie I'd observe through the meadow gate when idling on a Sunday afternoon was not the colourless figure who shared those bus journeys from school. He'd have emerged from the drab chrysalis of that dowdy raincoat and metamorphosed into an exotic butterfly that shimmered and flitted within the safe confines of his garden.

His summer collection – his ‘private' wardrobe – looked as though it had been put together in a darkened room by a myopic seamstress. Norrie would parade about his garden, committing every sin in the fashion bible. There was a crêpe-de-Chine frock in a furious
cadmium orange (I knew my palette now with all that painting); a satin blouse with fearless flounces rampaging everywhere down the sleeves, round the cuffs and opening onto a hairy chest. He favoured preposterous shoulder pads, long before Nolan Miller put them on the dames in
Dynasty
and
Dallas
. There were skirts of the floaty, pencil and A-line variety, and all finished with pairs of stilettos that looked even higher than the Yankees'. Polka dots fought with checks, and violent reds screamed at timid pinks. This was courageous dressing at its best – or worst, depending on which side of the fence you were leaning. Norrie could have shown those staid ladies of the Women's Institute a thing or two.

Often on lazy Sunday afternoons his mother and he, emboldened by the sun and sparseness of the traffic, would stroll out to the end of their lane, and venture onto the public highway, or the ‘county road' as we called it. Those were acts of bravery. On these occasions Norrie would camouflage his baldness with a brassy, blonde wig or shelter under a straw hat the size of a griddle. At a distance, with the light behind him, he looked positively female. A short-sighted motorist would not have suspected a thing.

I also used to see him shopping in Draperstown with his mother on Saturday afternoons. In my early teens those trips to the town were the highlight of my week. Morose and silent as usual, father would taxi mother and me between the shops. First the grocer, Mr Kelly in High Street, where she bought the flour and tea and sugar and whatever other basic foodstuffs were needed. Her purchases were always basic.

The shop had shelves going all the way up to the ceiling, filled with tins and bottles and packets of every description. It was a fascinating panoply of colourful
labels which took my eyes for a walk and relieved the boredom of having to listen to those adult conversations. There were bottles of Camp coffee and Sanatogen wine; tins of Birds custard, and Ovaltine and Horlicks which mother sometimes bought to help her sleep; there was Persil washing powder and big yellow cakes of Sunlight soap.

A door set into a section of the wall opened onto the hallway of Mr Kelly's home. Both door and wall were festooned with various items of haberdashery and first-aid. You were not aware of this gap, until his wife would come in through it, creating a magical breach and setting all the dangling zips, plasters and whatnots in motion.

Mother would read from her list and Mr Kelly would fetch the items. Often he'd have to climb a ladder to reach the otherwise unreachable, his expert hand plucking the products from the shelves. As he stretched and leaned outwards I'd giggle to myself, thinking he resembled a skilled monkey up a tree.

He wore a snuff-coloured shop coat and always had a pencil lodged behind his ear. When all the groceries were assembled on the counter he'd free the stubby pencil and lick its tip. Mother always asked the same question.

‘What's the damage, Hugh?'

And he'd proceed to tot up the bill, mumbling to himself as his eye roved over the purchases and mother stood waiting for the bad news.

Our next stop was the butcher for the Sunday cut. I didn't go in there because I hated having to look at all that dead flesh, too visceral and too malodorous for my young sensibilities.

The last stop was Burns's clothes shop, which I loved. It smelled of new fabric and fine leather and its long, cool interior stretched itself around a corner on two levels. It had counters polished to a high sheen, used
mainly for measuring and cutting cloth. This shop was the final gasp of the Drapers Company, set up all those centuries earlier. The rails of overlapping garments were mustered in ranks and files, the more expensive items swathed in protective layers of cellophane. The shoeboxes were stacked to the ceiling and labelled to correspond with size and sex.

Upstairs in the ladies department mother would chat to Miss Quinn, the elegant assistant, and try on whatever coat or dress caught her eye. Miss Quinn was tall, slim and perfectly groomed. She had long nails and long eyelashes and I knew my mother – who was probably not much older – felt like a dud beside her. I was in total awe of this lady. She replaced the Yankees in my head, holding up a picture of polish and refinement that I dreamed one day would be mine too.

I'd linger among the rails of clothing while mother fitted on various ‘costumes' and covertly watch Miss Quinn touch up her lipstick. Sometimes she'd catch me peeking and would flash me a smile; I'd quickly turn away, feeling guilty, and gaze out of the window at all the hurrying Saturday shoppers.

Finally the curtain would swish back and out mother would come, looking proud in the chosen outfit. She'd wheel and shift in front of the large mirror, her head going this way and that, advancing and reversing as the praise flowed from the assistant.

‘Mary, it's lovely,' she'd hear. ‘It's really you, just perfect for your colouring and dark hair.'

And mother would smooth down her stomach and say: ‘Are you sure it doesn't make me look fat?'

‘Not a bit of it,' Miss Quinn would lie glibly, lifting a finely arched eyebrow and adding helpfully: ‘But if you want I can let you have the latest Playtex eighteen-hour girdle at a good discount.'

So mother would muse and flirt with the idea, a conflict of figures and desire and what-would-he-say going on in her head. She'd always err on the side of caution.

‘Oh, it's lovely, Anne,' she'd say with a tinge of sadness, ‘but it's too dear; I couldn't afford it. He would go mad if he seen it.'

And Miss Quinn, being kind, and eager to make a sale, would bat in with that well-aimed sale clincher.

‘Nonsense, Mary! Don't worry about him or the price. Sure you can put a deposit on it and pay it off.'

And with that mother's mind was settled, the deal was done. Miss Quinn would expertly tear a swathe of brown wrapping paper from a roll by the counter, fold the garment into a neat parcel and secure it with a length of string. Mother would give that ‘to hell with it' smile as we left the shop. I knew she was experiencing that rare and sudden rush that comes with blatant misbehaviour.

She bought most of what we wore in this way, paying in instalments, making the odd purchase for herself which she'd hide from father's disapproving eyes until she found the appropriate occasion and time to wear it.

Now and again, especially at sale times, I'd see Norrie and his mother in the ladies department, rooting through the lingerie. Norrie couldn't try the items on – for obvious reasons – and you were greeted with the bizarre sight of him holding up in front of his chest a succession of bras and slips. All would be done as quickly and furtively as possible, and all for his mother's approval.

Burns's shop provided me with some prize items which made me feel very special too. Those communion and confirmation frocks, a green coat with a shiny buckle which I adored, and a pair of patent-leather shoes which were so beautiful I could hardly bear to wear them. I kept
them in their box under the bed and, if I felt sad or bored, would take them out and caress them, standing them on the tissue paper to admire. Those shoes were only for wearing on very special occasions.

After these Saturday forays we'd like as not arrive home to find one of our neighbours on the doorstep: John Mallon, who regularly ceilidhed on a Saturday night.

John was a sober bachelor, just like my uncles. He wore a long serge coat, in dubious black – the colour of choice for the wifeless man, since it didn't show the dirt and therefore excused the need for care and attention. Like Robert's raincoat it covered a multitude. Even on stiflingly hot summer evenings I never once witnessed the shedding of that weighty coat. He accessorised it with a pair of matching wellingtons and a cap that bore the lustre of a decade's wear or more.

John Mallon's modes of transport were rather unusual – not least because the demands of driving a car had obviously proven too great and forced him to adopt inferior, and rather imaginative, alternatives.

He had a Bella scooter to begin with, the very poor relation of Eddie's BSA. It was a beige-and-maroon affair and it heralded its slow approach with a long, low, thrumming note. That unusual yet all too familiar sound on a Saturday evening never failed to bring all us children to the window and mother to the edge of despair.

‘God,' she'd complain, ‘it's not that John Mallon again – coming on a Saturday night, of all nights, when I haven't a wain or a stitch washed for mass! Me heart's a breakin'; I may give this place up.'

But there he'd be, making his gradual approach on the Bella, the black coat winging out leisurely at his sides. In the twilight glow of those summer evenings he could have passed for an overweight Count Dracula (if you can
imagine Dracula in a flat cap). His generous frame dwarfed the little bike so much that it appeared as though he moved towards us under some supernatural propulsion.

From the Bella he graduated to a bubble car, a curious little vehicle; it had a windscreen that looked like the bulbous eye of some intergalactic monster. This three-wheeler was steered by handlebars, had a large, front-opening door and a top speed of 35mph.

It was designed and built in 1953 by one Ernst Heinkel, the man responsible for the Heinkel-111 bomber. The story goes that after the war the Germans, their struggle having ended prematurely, were left with a surplus of forward turrets from their Luftwaffe bombers. In the interests of economy they employed Mr Heinkel to come up with a solution and his answer was the bubble car. It was in production for four years, after which time the Germans sold the design to Dundalk Engineering in the Irish Republic – and so it was that Mr Mallon acquired his Heinkel bubble car.

Of course I was unaware of its history back then. John used to give me a lift from school in this contraption which, even as a child, caused me great embarrassment. I was not to know, as I sat in the bubble watching the hedgerows gliding past, that the humble plexiglas dome I gazed out of might well have soared above the cumulus and borne witness to the fear and fury of some hapless RAF fighter pilot as he screamed his way towards eternity.

On stopping in our yard John would raise the car door and emerge from his bubble like a chick hatching. He'd ceilidh for a good hour or two, dispensing the stories and latest gossip of the day. In winter he carried an oil heater in the little car and would transfer it indoors on arrival. This heater was as weird looking as the bubble: it
was a large, round dish-like affair – much like today's TV satellite-dish – with a tiny, red mantle at its core. John would sit at the roaring range with the heater strategically placed between his legs (central heating of another mode entirely) and discourse with father at length.

Their tedious conversation was the remit of all the visitors to our house. There were no heated discussions on Darwinian principles of natural selection here, I'm afraid; no debate on the importance of Cocteau's contribution to European modernism, or even Kandinsky's influence on abstract expressionism in the 20th century. No, sadly there was little to send my imagination rampaging down new thought-provoking paths.