1

The yellow sun of late summer shone on the fronts of the terrace houses and on the flagstones before them. It was nearly dinner time. A Shell tanker bulked in the street. Children ran and shouted. A girl with a headscarf over her curlers slouched along, antagonistic, female unfeminine and heavy­-legged in the middle of the day.

My father would be battering fish and dropping them into the pan and wiping his hands on the damp cotton cloth. Mrs Wilson would be wrapping and serving.

It was not a very poor district. The houses had inside lavatories and most of them had had baths put in. But in the sunshine the streets looked their worst.

The men of these streets would have to laugh about me because they had to be as bluff as the next man.

And the women would have to despise me for wanting to be like them—though they felt themselves to be sacredly superior to men.

I knew them.

I wanted to be far away from this street of bricks.

I saw the board sticking out, rectangular: fish and chips.

I stopped. I turned round and walked away. I would go to Cotting­ham and see Shirley.

I walked back the way I had come. My case and my raincoat were becoming burdensome. I caught a bus to the city centre. When I got to the railway station I handed my case in at the left-luggage office. I wondered if the man who took the case thought that I looked effeminate and that the case might be full of women’s clothes. I wished that it were. I asked for the case back and opened it and put my raincoat into it and gave it back to him.

On the train I thought about Jim. I hoped that he was getting better. I thought that I would like to send him some money. Perhaps I could send him a pound in an envelope so that he would not know from whom it had come. It would buy him some cigarettes.

The train took about a quarter of an hour to reach Cottingham.

Most of the town was on the side of the station on which I got out. On the far side were some allotments doing well in the sun and a wood that looked as though it would be interesting to walk in—but was probably privately owned and protected.

The summer afternoon was pleasant in the countryside. A breeze turned the leaves of a sycamore tree. Privet hedges were neat and firm. On a lawn a sprinkler went round and round. A woman of about thirty, slim and smart, came out of a house and down the garden and got into a small car to drive away. Perhaps she was going to buy clothes. Her husband might worrit and smoke in Hull’s working afternoon, but he could never wear the nice clothes. He could only have clean collars and pressed trousers. As long as he was healthy he would be expected to work. He was not free in the afternoon.

A young girl walked on the footpath. Her hair was black. The breeze folded her summer dress as she walked. She walked along pretending to be unconscious of her happiness. There was something intelligent in her movements. Perhaps she was down on the long vacation from Oxford. Perhaps she was a clever model, come home for a rest from London. The first was possible. The second seemed unlikely. She was not tall enough. I was tall enough.

Perhaps she had once been a boy. Did she know that there was a street with a fish-and-chip shop in it, that there were bluebottles flying about round the empty fish boxes in the back yard? No. The gardens and the trees and the summer after­noon had always been hers.

She was carried along by the pleasant afternoon and by the money of her parents and by the money-getting young man who would come for her and by her children and by all the pleasant summer afternoon of her life.

She would have to be married in a white gown with a head­dress of spraying net. How excited she would be, dressing on her wedding morning. When she was dressed and ready she would be weak with nervousness.

Sweating like a June bride.

I wished that one day I would sweat like a June bride, sweating weakly and femininely from nervousness and happi­ness in white satin.

First there had to be money. Money bought the houses and the gardens and bought the clothes that the women wore. Only money could buy the female hormones and the cunning surgeons­.

Before I could make enough money I would be old and thick-faced. Nothing could be done.

The only way to get to Cottingham was the way that Shirley had done it.

But the homosexual daddies would pretend to have more money than they really had. I would not find one who had five thousand pounds to give away. And, in any case, I might not be able to make myself go through the horror.

I wondered if Bill was good at thinking up new things to do to Shirley. An architect ought to be imaginative.

Shirley’s house was a cube with a roof of green tiles on top. It had a picture window and a garage door that swung upwards. It stood alone in its own garden. Bill’s father had paid four thousand pounds for it. There was a tree in the garden near the gate. Its branches were lopped but it had covered itself with leaves that shook in the breeze. It was a beech tree.

All this Shirley had achieved by being as she was. Men had built the house by laying bricks with their rough hands, by sawing wood and bending pipes and putting in electric cables. But, now that it was complete and part of the world, Shirley lived in it. She had got what she wanted by being, not by doing.

Shirley and Bill might have an argument, and Bill might say the more intelligent things, but always Shirley would be the woman. Bill might lose his temper and strike her, but she would still be the woman.

I pressed the bell. A double note sounded inside the house. I pressed again. The double note sounded again.

Shirley was wearing a dress of mustard coloured cotton. She had been out in the sun on previous days. Her face had an even, pale tan that made her grey eyes look lighter than usual. My eyes were grey. She looked fresh and happy.

‘Hello, Roy! What are you doing here? Come in. I’m busy just now. I’m going to make some pastry.’

I went in upon the carpet in the hallway.

‘Gwen’s gone to a party,’ she told me as I followed her into the kitchen. ‘I’ll have to fetch her at four o’clock.’

The kitchen was white paint and formica tops and alumi­nium pans shining. The two wooden chairs were painted red.

‘You’ve left hospital, have you?’

‘I was discharged this morning.’

‘Have you been home?’

‘No.’

‘What have you been doing till this time?’

‘I decided to come and see you.’

‘Have you had any lunch?’

‘No.’

‘Would you like some egg and chips or something?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘You must have something. Haven’t you had anything since breakfast?’

‘I don’t feel hungry.’

‘I’ll fry you two eggs. Would you like that?’

‘I don’t really want anything, thanks.’

She fried me two eggs and mashed a pot of tea. While I was eating she started making pastry in a large bowl.

‘How are you now, do you think?’ she asked.

‘I’m a lot better.’

‘Have you got rid of those peculiar ideas?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You mean you’re not sure?’

‘Not really.’

‘Well, I suppose these things take time. But do you feel that they did you any good at the hospital?’

‘As much good as it was possible for them to do, I suppose.’

She looked up from what she was doing. ‘Really, Roy, you are dreadfully apathetic!’

‘It’s the way I’m made.’

‘But you can’t go on like this. What’s to become of you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why don’t you make an effort? You must be a lot better or they wouldn’t have discharged you. Can’t you try to make something out of your life?’

‘I think they discharged me because they lost interest.’

‘Of course they didn’t. I can’t believe that. They don’t do things like that.’

‘They know when they’re up against a brick wall.’

‘You don’t still have that crazy idea about wanting to be a woman, do you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Anyway, you won’t start stealing things again, will you?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m not sure of anything.’

‘It’s no good being like that, Roy. You must pull yourself together. Life isn’t easy for anybody. What would happen to Bill and Gwen if I gave way to every ridiculous idea that came into my head?’

‘They wouldn’t get any home-made pastry.’

‘Exactly.’ She smiled.

She told me at length that I ought to get myself better employment than helping in the shop. I listened to her and wondered if I would ever make pastry for anyone.

When I said that I would have to be going she asked me to find my own way out because she had her hands in flour.

I had an opportunity. I said, ‘May I use your lavatory?’

‘Of course. You know where it is. First right at the top of the stairs.’

I went up the stairs and saw that the door to the front bed­room was standing ajar about a foot. I moved stealthily with my weight on my toes, and pressed against it. It did not make any sound in opening. The room was still and silent. There was pale blue wallpaper. On the bed the cover was of peacock blue. There was a wardrobe and a chest of drawers and a dressing table all in limed oak. At home Shirley had always kept her underwear in the chest of drawers. The carpet I trod on was pale blue. It was thick and soft. I made no sound. I went to the chest of drawers and opened the top drawer, easing it carefully open about two inches. I could see that it contained Bill’s shirts, clean and pressed. I closed the drawer. I tried the second drawer. It creaked as it came open. I stopped. My hands were beginning to sweat. I opened the drawer further. It was empty. I pushed it back. It creaked again as it went home. I opened the third drawer carefully. It moved easily. It was full of Shirley’s underwear. There were things in pale orange and in blue and in black and in white. The scent was exciting. I took out a black slip and then searched about until I found a pair of black panties. I was on the point of putting them into my jacket pockets when I told myself that I ought not to take anything that I did not need. What I needed was a suspender belt and some stockings. The girdle that was hidden in the attic at home was old. And I thought that I might feel more feminine in a suspender belt. But perhaps Shirley did not have a suspender belt. Perhaps she wore a girdle all the time now that she was older. I did not need a girdle. If I had treatment, I might become softer. I put the black slip and the panties back. I searched and touched what I thought was a suspender belt, but when I drew it out I found that it was a yellow brassière. Then I found a suspender, but it was attached to a girdle. Finally I found a suspender belt in the far corner of the drawer. I was very glad to get it. It was yellow. The suspenders struck the edge of the drawer as I got it out. They rattled on the wood and jingled. The noise made me cringe with fear. I got it into my pocket. Then I decided that I wanted the yellow brassière to match it. The one I had at home was pink. I found the yellow brassière again and put it into my pocket. I thought of looking for a yellow slip and knicker set, but I did not want to steal too much from Shirley. There were several rolled-up pairs of stockings in the front of the drawer. I took two pairs. The stockings I had at home had ladders or holes in them. When I was taking the stockings I saw a pair of blue panties decorated with a lacework of white flowers. They were very pretty. I wanted them. I had three pairs of knickers at home—but ordinary people had lots of pairs. It was necessary. I wanted these. I took them and put them in my pocket. Then I tried to straighten out the things in the drawer so that it would not be obvious that they had been touched. I closed the drawer. I tiptoed out of the bedroom.

I went into the lavatory and turned the handle so that there was the sound of flushing. I ran down the stairs. As I got to the door I called out:

‘Cheerio.’

Shirley called back from the kitchen: ‘Cheerio, Roy.’

I was outside in the summer afternoon. I had a suspender belt and a brassière and two pairs of stockings and a special pair of knickers.

I wished that I had found a yellow slip and knicker set to match the suspender belt and brassière. The Have-nots had to take from the Haves.

All the things I had in the attic had been stolen from Shirley before she left home. She had things that I was not allowed to have. And so I was forced to steal from her.

If it were not for my father, I could send away for things that could be delivered by post. But there was right-minded­ness. I was forced to steal.

I had to have women’s clothes because I was a woman in the head. They could oppress me, but they could not get into my head. It was as impossible for anyone to make me believe that it was better to be a man than a woman as it would have been for them to make me believe that the streets where I lived were better than Cottingham. In their hearts, they must know the truth themselves, but they had to keep pretending for the sake of decency—while all the time they knew that men, with their grotesque sexual organs, were always indecent. To be a man was to be horrible. It was ridiculous that I should have been sent to a mental hospital. It was perfectly sane for me to want to be a woman. It was my body that was wrong, not my mind.

I had stolen clothes again. I was myself despite everything. In the end they would learn that they could not change my mind.

I had stolen a pair of blue and white panties.

I wished that it had been possible to steal a nice dress—or the suit that Shirley had been wearing the day she visited me in hospital. I would have liked to wear that suit very much.

I hurried on. I was sweating.

At the station I was told that there was nearly a hour to wait for a train to Hull.

I hated men’s lavatories. They always seemed dank and, however clean they might be, one always imagined the strong amber tang of the male. I hated homosexuals most when I thought of them doing things in such places. I remembered the joke about the lavatory attendant who was told that he could take his holidays at his own convenience.

I walked up and down the platform and worked up anger about what I had read about the sinking of the Titanic. Boys had dressed themselves as women to try to get into the boats. They had been discovered and thrown out and they had been called cowards because they did not want to die. But women who were dressed as women had been helped into the boats. A woman of middle-age who had had the best of her life could be saved, but a boy who had hardly had any life at all had to be left to die. It was possible that some of the women who got away from the Titanic became suffragettes and paraded about demanding equal rights with men, until the war started in 1914.

I concluded that women were adults on calm waters, but when the ship began to sink they wished to be counted with the children. They thought it right that any boy should die so that there would be a place in the lifeboat for some stupid, selfish, moral-minded, parasitic woman.