20

One had to have a woman’s National Insurance card to get employment as a woman. But Wendy Ross had no official existence. I would have to live on the money I had and on hope—simultaneous fires destroying all government records.

I had heard that London was as expensive to live in as it was depraved.

I would go to Leeds.

But then I began to think that there would be no danger of my being recognised in Hull. I saw that when I was dressed and my face made, I was quite different from Roy—or Brian. As a boy I was small, but as a girl I was tall. And when my face was made it looked far better than the mask I wore as a boy.

It was one evening after rain, while I was out walking to get through the days until my hair was long enough, that I finally made up my mind to stay in Hull.

Pavements were washed clean. It would be cold later. Now the air was fresh and mild. Not many people were about and the traffic had slackened. Cars went past travelling fast. It was shortly after tea time. The buses came past almost empty.

I turned off Beverley Road and went along towards Spring Bank. Some minutes of walking brought me to a district that was called The Avenues. I had strayed into this district before. I liked it. There were wide streets with very wide grass verges with old and well-grown trees. Once it had been a quarter where moneyed people lived, but now money took people out to Hessle and Kirkella and Willerby and Cottingham. The houses of The Avenues had been turned into flats that sheltered schoolmasters and social workers and local government officials. Inside there would be art teachers painting pictures and English masters writing novels. People who had passed examinations came to this district. The air was soft with literacy. The cars were small, but the Sunday papers that went through the letter boxes would not contain the life stories of people who had changed into leg-showing girls. In the Sunday papers that were delivered in this district most matters were problems.

This was where I would come to live.

I would say that I had been at home in Cottingham until my mother had died, and I had come to Hull, untrained for anything, knowing nothing of the world, a demure rentier. I would let them explain everything to me. There might be some interesting people to get to know.