The New Woman (11 page)

‘You married Mum,’ she burst out suddenly. ‘You had Simon and me. You’ve never said a word about any of this before.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘And I’m sorry.’

It sounded so inadequate. I swung into the drop-off area outside the ticket office, and turned off the engine. For a long time, both of us stared straight ahead. I felt as though my chest were weighted with stones. In the end, I forced myself to get out of the car and retrieve my luggage from the boot. Kate followed me, chewing fiercely on her lower lip.

‘You know where I am,’ I said.

‘Yes. But I don’t know
who
you are.’

‘That makes two of us.’

‘Sod off, old man.’ Brave Kate. She forced a smile, and stepped forward to hug me. ‘Or old . . . whatever. I’ll see you soon.’

For a last moment, I held her in my arms. I imagine we looked like any other father and daughter, saying goodbye at a commuter station on a Sunday night. Then I picked up my things and walked away, into exile.

Eilish

He was gone. Worse than gone. He’d never existed. The Luke I loved was fictional. I’d built my entire life around a made-up character.

Out of some need for order, I began to straighten things in the kitchen. There was little point, of course. It was just a sham. All of it. Thirty years of sham. Even the red and yellow coffee cups we’d bought at a street market because we thought they were fun (or did he think so? Was that just part of the charade?); even the kitchen table, heart of our home; even that photo on the fridge. There we were, drinking coffee outside a Parisian cafe, posing for the street photographer.

I went to stand in front of the picture, a red and yellow cup in my hand. Luke hadn’t shaved that day. I remembered feeling happy holiday lust at the exquisite roughness of his stubbled jaw against mine. I could feel it still. The sunshine was making us both squint, and I was grinning. Luke wasn’t. He looked as he always did: slightly uneasy, slightly absent, more or less happy. That was Luke. What was he really thinking, as he rested his cheek against mine and gazed into the lens? Was he hating every second of it? Was he dreaming of his secret world?

I’d hurled the first cup before I knew I was going to do it. It hit the tiled floor with a sharp crack and exploded, shards of china spitting in all directions. I picked up another and did the same. Then another, and another, and another. I mourned for them even as I systematically destroyed them. Soon the only one left
was my favourite: more red than yellow, with a random pattern that always made me think of musical notes. It lay upside down on the draining board, cowering, awaiting its turn to be broken. I snatched it up.

That last survivor was saved by the phone, which rang as I hesitated.

Hope made me answer it. Maybe it was Luke, already asking to come home? This was all a mistake: a dream, or a misunderstanding, or temporary insanity.

‘It’s me, dear.’

Not Luke. I sagged against the kitchen counter. ‘Meg. Hi.’

‘Thank you for a lovely day.’

The social niceties. ‘Not at all. Our pleasure. Thank you for coming.’

‘Was it a migraine?’

For a moment my mind was blank. Then I remembered. ‘Yes. Sorry, yes. A migraine. Hit me like a train.’

‘I didn’t know you suffered from migraines.’

‘Hardly ever.’

‘Nasty things.’ A pause. ‘Is everything all right, dear?’

Well, no. Everything was not all right. Everything was smashed, in red and yellow fragments around my feet.

Meg’s voice had sharpened. ‘Eilish? You there, dear? Where is Luke—can I speak to him?’

‘He’s gone,’ I whispered.

Eleven

Luke

This time, there was no white-haired stranger to keep me company.

The train was taking me further and further from my home. I felt as though I were wearing a big sign on my chest and everybody at the station, everybody in the carriage, knew of my shame. Giggles escaped from a group of schoolchildren sitting behind me. My shoulderblades twitched. Children were laughing. I was four years old.

She woke up in the racing-car bed her daddy had made for her. A million butterflies were dancing in her stomach. After breakfast, Mum got out the clippers and cut her hair (
You want to look smart, don’t you?
), and then she had to put on the green uniform—sandals, shorts and a brand-new Aertex shirt. She hated these clothes, they made her feel horrid, but she didn’t say so because that would make people sad. Her daddy took a picture with his big camera. My brand-new schoolboy, he said.

Now here she was, in assembly. Real school! This was nothing like nursery. She’d never seen so many children before. The new entrants sat in a ragged line at the front. Somewhere in the great
green crowd behind her were Wendy and Gail. She felt happy to know that Wendy was there, but she was scared of Gail.

A boy she knew from nursery had plonked himself down next to her. He was fidgeting. His name was Alex, and he wore glasses. Her best friend, Janey, sat on her other side. She and Janey were holding hands. Their mothers had met in the baby hospital where they were born. Janey smelled of the honey soap that lived in the bathroom at her house. She was wearing a pinafore dress and had a matching green bow in her hair. Luke was sure her own hair would grow long and curly like Janey’s, if only they would stop cutting it.

‘Your little girlfriend,’ Mum was always saying, when Janey came to play.

‘I shouldn’t be surprised if those two got married,’ Janey’s mum once said, holding her coffee in one hand. ‘They’re like twins.’ The two mums seemed to like this idea, and started going on about how they would both be mothers-in-law. Luke was pleased. She and Janey would have a house of their own. And a puppy.

A tall woman was clapping her hands for silence, yelling, ‘Welcome to the new school year!’ Luke knew who this was: Mrs Parry, the boss. She had fluffy hair and sagging cheeks, and she talked on and on. Alex fidgeted more than ever. Luke tilted her head to see the ceiling. It had cracks in it. One of the cracks looked exactly like the scary witch off
Snow White
, the one with googly eyes. She was surprised that her sisters had never mentioned the interesting fact that there was a googly-eyed scary-witch crack at their school.

She could smell the school dinner cooking. She hoped it wasn’t liver, because she’d tried liver once and it was so horrible that she’d been sick. Gail had told her they had liver sometimes at school and they had to eat it all, and if anyone was sick the teachers made them eat the sick. Luke hoped this was a fib. She was imagining what sick might taste like when she noticed two older children standing next to Mrs Parry. One was a red-haired boy, the other a girl with a ponytail right on top of her head. Her
face looked like Granny’s Pekingese dog’s, squashed and grumpy as though she’d just run face-first into a wall.

‘Moira and Carl are cloakroom monitors,’ said Mrs Parry. ‘They’re going to help you new entrants find your shoe lockers and coat hooks. They’ll also show you where the toilets are, and tell you about our toilet rules.’

Luke wondered what a shoe locker looked like.

‘Ladies first!’ cried Mrs Parry. ‘Girls—that’s it, up you get—follow Moira to the girls’ cloakroom.’

Janey and Luke scrambled to their feet, still holding hands, and joined the other four-year-olds clustering behind Moira. Luke knew she was a girl and Janey knew it too. People called her a boy sometimes, and Daddy said things like ‘C’mon, son, let’s us blokes go and fix the tractor.’ But they’d made a mistake, and now was her chance to put them right.

Mrs Parry was smiling down at her. Luke didn’t like the way she was doing that. Then the whole school began to laugh. She looked around, trying to guess what this funny thing might be.

‘Not yet, dear,’ said Mrs Parry. ‘I’ll be calling for boys next. They’ll be going through that other door. Over there, see? That’s the way to the boys’ cloakroom.’

The laughing all around her grew into a big wave. She saw children pointing and felt her forehead creasing up. She hoped she wasn’t going to cry. She held very, very tightly to Janey’s hand. Janey clung to her, too.

‘You can sit with your friend when you get to Mrs Mason’s room,’ whispered Mrs Parry. ‘But first, Carl will show you the boys’ cloakroom. You’ve got a peg waiting just for you, with your name already on it! Isn’t that fun?’

‘But I’m a girl,’ said Luke.

Mrs Parry began to look like the witch with the googly eyes. ‘Don’t be silly.’

‘I’m a girl!’

‘Shush. Now, come on, let go of your friend’s hand.’

Luke wouldn’t let go. ‘But
why
am I a boy?’

The googly eyes flickered down to Luke’s new sandals and back again, as though she were checking. ‘Because God made you one.’

‘I think God made a mistake.’

‘You will go through
that
door with the other boys. And that is final. Now, let go!’ Mrs Parry was cross now. She leaned down to drag Janey’s hand away.

Luke couldn’t bear it. She had to make them understand. She yelled at the top of her voice, ‘
God made a mistake!
’

The crying thing was happening. She couldn’t stop the howl from coming out of her mouth, nor the tears and snot from running down her face. Janey was being led away through the forbidden door. She was crying, too. She stumbled along with her head turned, looking back. Then Luke was all alone, and the whole school was laughing at her. The whole world was laughing. She stood wailing in front of the crowd, feeling ugly in her green shorts. She wished she was dead.

Someone must have gone and got her sister, because she heard Gail’s voice in her ear. ‘You stupid,
stupid
little bastard.’

‘Tell them I’m a girl.’

‘Shut up!’ Luke could hear the smack in her voice, and covered her bottom with both hands as Gail dragged her over to join the boys. ‘And turn off the waterworks.’

Luke couldn’t turn off the waterworks. She cried when Carl showed her a peg with
Luke
written beside it. She cried when they showed her the shoe locker, which was just a place to put shoes. She cried when she saw the boys’ toilets, with a pool of wee and soggy toilet paper on the floor where some boy had missed. Eventually she stopped crying out loud, but she carried on crying in her stomach. This gave her a stomach ache. She thought she would cry forever, because she’d learned something on her first day at school.

God had made a mistake.

‘Tickets from Cottingwith,’ said the guard, holding out his hand.

‘Sorry.’ I fumbled in my wallet to find my season ticket. ‘Miles away.’

He nodded, flicking this particular passenger no more than a casual glance. No doubt he saw a greying man, utterly unremarkable, wearing cotton trousers and a polo shirt.

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said. He was already moving on.

Twelve

Eilish

I dropped down from the stile and began to walk, feeling the crunch of corn stalks under my feet. Each step sent up a small puff of dust. Day was draining from the sky, but I could still see the whole field, all the way to the footbridge.

I was looking for Kate. I’d glimpsed her earlier, arriving home from the station. She’d left the car door open and run straight out here. She used to do that when she was a teenager, usually after a fight with Simon; screaming with sisterly rage as she plunged through Gareth’s precious crop. My policy was generally to leave her to simmer down, but if Luke was home he used to go and look for her. He would sit and listen to her troubles. Then they’d walk back to the house together, and I’d feel like the outsider.

It didn’t take long to spot the slim figure on a cotton-reel bale. She was lying flat on her back, like Snoopy on top of his little doghouse. She didn’t stir as I walked up. I thought perhaps she’d taken Luke’s side and wasn’t speaking to me. It wouldn’t be the first time. I lowered myself onto the stubble, leaning my back against her bale. I felt calmer out here. The evening sky seemed honest and open after the deceitful shadows of the house.