19

When I woke up next morning and discovered myself in the black nightdress I was pleased with myself.

I wished that I had not imagined what I had imagined the night before. I did not approve of that kind of thing. It seemed inhuman, because it did not fit to the rest of my thought. There was something religious about it.

I felt annoyed when I had to take the breasts out of my brassière in order to disguise myself as a boy to go to the bathroom.

I washed and shaved the sides of my chin.

It would be necessary to buy a large stock of razor blades. I did not want to have to go into a shop to ask for razor blades when I was dressed as a woman.

It was hateful to have to shave. There were just the patches on the sides of my chin, but they would have to be gone over every morning. Hair remover would have no effect. The hairs grew because I had been born a man child.

‘Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived.’

I had read that even hormone treatment could fail to remove the beard. Masculinity was a hideous disorder.

That morning I went to the bank and drew all my money out.

I went to a chemist shop and bought three large packets of razor blades and three sticks of shaving soap. It was a supply that I estimated would last me more than two years. I did not try to estimate how long my five hundred pounds would last me. It looked a lot of money in ones and fives and tens. I must be very sure not to lose it or have it stolen.

Seeing a lot of money in cash made me determined. I had to be myself. In the afternoon I made an expedition to a chemist shop to buy cosmetics. It had to be done whether I liked it or not.

There was only one assistant in the shop, a woman of about thirty-five. Her duck-egg blue coat was starched and crisp and she was well-groomed. She looked a nice woman. I was relieved that I was not going to be served by a girl. If there had been a man behind the counter, I would have asked for aspirins or barley sugar. As it was, I could not start speaking.

She asked me what I wanted.

I said I wanted a lipstick.

She asked me what shade I wanted.

I thought that she must be able to see that I was a pansy and that I wanted the lipstick for myself. But it was true. I was a pansy and I did want the lipstick for myself.

In a daze, I bought a lipstick and some eye shadow and some black for my lashes and a compact. The woman served me impersonally and politely. It was dream-like. I could have stayed with her all afternoon, she was so understanding.

No doubt she would tell about me afterwards. Probably she would laugh. But afterwards did not matter. She served me as though I had come for a toothbrush. I would have liked to think that she was extremely kind and tolerant and knew that what could not be cured had to be endured.

I was out in the street again and on my way. The woman I had left behind me could not send for the police to pursue me. The money I had paid her was legal tender.

But I did feel rather ill.

I told myself that I must stop being ashamed. It was a dishonest feeling. Really I was glad that I was as I was. It would have been best to be a woman, but it was better to be a transvestite than to be a man.

I decided against buying a pair of ear studs. In my black coat I would be emphatically unsentimental. Ear studs might look unnecessary.

Perhaps the woman in the chemist shop had thought that I was a girl dressed as a boy. The thought lightened my tread.

I went into a hardware shop and bought a small plastic bowl so that I could wash my face in the bedroom after my experi­ments with make-up. I would leave it behind me when I set out. It would puzzle Mrs Ford.