23

I awoke in darkness. But I knew that it was morning. I switched on the lamp and looked at my watch. It was five past four. I could not go to sleep again.

I switched off the lamp. The bed was warm. It would be cold in the street.

I dozed, and had a morning dream in which I was in an open carriage in bright sunlight. I was wearing a white dress with a long, full skirt. A handsome policeman sat with me. He held a large bunch of flowers, and he was picking the petals and letting them fall from his hand onto my lap. He did it very thoughtfully and slowly, as though he were doing it with special kindness because I had so often been unhappy.

I awoke again and switched on the lamp. It was after five.

The time was come. I had to get out of bed.

I got up and started to dress, careful to make no sound.

I dressed with great care, making sure that everything was right. This time I was not putting on the clothes only for myself but also to be accepted. I would wear these things all day. I would not take them off until I undressed to go to bed in a new place as a new person. Or I might be taken to the police station in them. My stomach seemed to be falling. It was a sensation like going down in a lift. And I had a picture of downfall through the breaking of elastic. I laughed at myself.

It was necessary to put my razor over the sides of my chin.

Then I began to make my face. The concentration stopped my nervousness. My eyes took a long time.

When my face was satisfactory my confidence was increased. I was the girl in nylon stockings and high-heeled shoes.

I combed my hair. The fringe came to the front and all the rest went back. There was the little crossways parting on top of the front of my head, and there was the clipped-off piece standing up. The hair at the back went behind my ears. I wished I had a pair of ear studs. I wished that I had bought a brush so that I could try to make my hair shine. Yet it looked quite pretty. It was not as long as I would have liked it—but it was long enough. The fringe was just above the eyebrows. It made my face an altogether different shape from Roy’s face. I wondered if I was really the type of girl to have a fringe . . . It would have to do.

I went and put my nightdress in the suitcase.

There was over five hundred pounds in the suitcase. The only pockets I had now were the pockets of my raincoat. If I got parted from my money, I would be finished. I thought of making a roll of some of the notes and putting them in the top of my stocking like women used to do in films. I rejected the idea as behaviour unbecoming a young lady from Cotting­ham. I would have to buy a handbag.

I put on the black coat and pulled the belt tight. The lipstick and the compact and the key of the suitcase and some money went into the pocket. I realised that I did not have a lady’s handkerchief.

I was ready.

I studied myself in the mirror.

Yes, I was a girl.

But my knees were feeble and my insides were sinking again.

It was after half-past six. Through a chink at the top of the curtains I could see that it was full day outside. Mrs Ford would be up and preparing breakfast before eight o’clock. I did not want to go out too early because a young woman carrying a case very early in the morning could attract attention. I would set out at seven.

I put the watch in my pocket. The watch my father had given me was in the suitcase. I would not be able to wear either of them.

I sat down in the arm chair.

After I had been sitting a few minutes I began to feel very ill with nervousness. I felt that I could be sick, and I wanted to use the lavatory, but I could not risk going along the landing.

I rocked to and fro and talked to myself. ‘You’ll be all right, Wendy. You’re a pretty girl. There’s nothing to worry about. People will think you look very nice. You only have to have courage. You’re going to be very happy. And when you’ve proved that you can live as a woman they’ll have to help you. You only have to have courage.’

It did no good at all.

I started retching. I leant forward. My stomach strained. But nothing came up. It stopped for a moment, and then another spasm came. I thought, ‘If this doesn’t stop, I can’t go.’ It stopped.

I lay back in the chair and shut my eyes. I was in despair. I would be known for a male at once. People would stare at me. I would want to fall down dead. The police would come. I would be taken to the police station at Queens Gardens and charged with behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace. I might go to prison, or to Borstal. At best, I would be sent back to the mental hospital. The mental hospital was the right place. I was certainly completely insane.

But I had to go. It had to be done. In a short time from now I had to get along the landing and down the stairs and out of the front door into the street.

I said, ‘You’ll either go or I’ll kill you.’

I was weak with fear.

I opened my eyes and saw my coat and the bottom of my skirt and the tips of my knees in the stockings. It looked like a woman. It did not look like anything else.

I took the watch out of my pocket. It was nearly half-past six. The house was still.

I prayed. ‘O God, I have reason to hate you, but you are all-powerful and my hate cannot harm you. Have mercy on me this day as you might have mercy on a fly. Let me go. I know that I am degenerate and loathsome, but, if you let me live as a woman, I promise I won’t do anyone any harm. Let me—’ I stopped. I said, ‘I know you, God, you’ll not let me go. I know you of old. You’re always on the side of the big bat­talions. And you’re a well-known liar. It says that people only have to ask to receive, but when I was a child I prayed over and over to be a little girl, and you never answered my prayers. You ignored me, just as you ignored my mother. I’ve not forgotten. I’ll never forget. You can do your worst. Go on and destroy me. I’m the sort of person you usually destroy. I’m about your size. I saw some of the people you’ve destroyed when I was at the lunatic asylum. You must be very proud of yourself!’

I felt better after that.

I went to have a last look in the mirror.

Yes, I was a girl. I was pretty. My lips looked very nice. Perhaps a little more eye shadow? No, of course not.

But what I saw in the mirror might be an illusion.

I got the case and went to the door. With my free hand I turned up the collar of my coat and folded the front closed. Then I had to put the case down to get my shoes off. After which I got myself into position with my case and my shoes in my left hand and my right on the key of the door.

I turned the key. I put my hand on the knob.

I took my hand away from the knob and took the watch out of my pocket. It was ten to seven.

It was now.

I turned the knob and eased the door open. There was a very slight squeaking. The landing was empty. The house was silent.

I started forward, and immediately I became aware of the nature of my clothes. It was a skirt that was open, not trousers that were closed. My legs touched and I felt the stockings catch together. My face felt heavily painted. I was conscious of the lipstick on my mouth. I seemed to myself to be like a great girl doll. I looked down and saw my feet on the carpet. The reinforcement at the toes of the stockings was scientifically complex.

I floated like a Zeppelin to the end of the landing, and there I had the shock of remembering Mrs Ford’s dog. It would be asleep in the back room downstairs—or it might be awake. If it heard me, it would start barking.

I began going down the stairs. My skirt limited me. I was afraid that I might fall. I had to be careful that my case did not bump against the wall.

I was at the bottom of the stairs. My heart was running like a machine.

I reached the front door. There was a Yale lock. I put my case down and then set my shoes on the doormat in front of me. The danger of making a noise was considerable as I cockled about to get my feet in, but I had to get my shoes on somehow. When they were on I found that I was panting as though I had been running. There was a pain in the centre of my chest.

I took hold of the knob of the Yale lock and attempted to turn it. It would not turn. I tried to force it to turn. It would not turn. Then I realised that the little catch next to the knob had been used to fasten it. I pushed the catch up. I turned the knob to the open position and pushed the catch down.

I took up my case in my left hand and put my right hand on the door knob. I was panting hard. There was a loud click as the door knob turned. I pulled. The door jerked slightly and stuck. I pulled harder. The door jerked again but remained shut. I pulled as hard as I dared. Again the door jerked. But it was stuck.

I must either get the door open or get back to my room.

There was a bolt at the bottom of the door. I bent down and unslid it.

I put my hand on the knob again. I turned it. It clicked. I pulled. The door came open about an inch.

I opened the door. The morning was cold and clear. The street was as the street had been. A car went past on the near side of the road. In a panic, I started to close the door again. But I prevented myself.

I stepped out and stood on the doorstep. It was the most self-conscious moment I had ever experienced. I was standing in the open in broad day dressed as a woman. All the world could see me. People in London, Paris and Bangkok could see me. A car went past on the far side of the road, and then another. Perhaps the drivers had noticed me. I wanted to get back inside the house. I was disgraceful and grotesque. The door was still open behind me. I could go back. I could do something with my hair so that it would not be seen that I had cut it into a fringe. There was water in the bowl to wash the make-up off my face. I could not go forward, for I was not able to get down off the step.

I put out my foot and stepped down. The sound of my heel striking the concrete was the sound of a woman’s high-heel. Its ring was shocking.

I was walking. I wished that I were invisible. It would not be far before there were people staring at me and laughing at me. I was walking in a skirt with my face painted.

There was a man in brown overalls and a jacket coming towards me.

My legs kept moving. My face was a doll’s face. I did not blink. I looked straight ahead. The clock in my head stopped.

The man passed me.

I did not know whether he had stared at me or not. I was so self-conscious that I seemed to have hardly any conscious­ness left over for anything outside myself. What I could see had no solidity. The street was made of lathe and canvas with nothing behind it. There were people moving.

I had a vague understanding that I was walking in the wrong direction. I should have turned left outside the house and gone towards the city centre. But I kept walking straight ahead. I thought that, if I turned round, I would be face to face with a policeman. And I was not sure that I could make a full turn.

They were early morning workers who were passing me. I dare not look to see if they were taking any notice. I focused on objects hundreds of yards along the street.

I thought, ‘I may walk along Beverley Road until I’m out in the country.’

The heels made me feel as though I were walking on stilts.

Three women in headscarves were coming towards me. They were talking loudly. As they passed me one of them laughed. The noise almost threw me from my height on stilts. I seemed to reel. There were then some moments in which I knew that everybody could see that I was a boy. I was enormous, I was extraordinary, I was a giraffe. I wished I were a giraffe, I wished I were back in Africa. I wished I could run like a giraffe.

I found myself walking in front of a row of shops. I saw a cheeky boy. He looked at me. I looked at a car that was coming past. The man in the car looked at me. I looked at the radiator of the bus that was coming behind the car.

I seemed to be trying to hurry, and my skirts were dragging on my legs. I began to have a sensation that my clothes were slipping down, except my coat, which seemed to be getting shorter. It seemed possible that all four suspenders would come unfastened at once.

I put my right hand into my coat pocket and dug my fingers into my clothing to hold the things underneath.

I was a fantastic shape. And the ground seemed to be tilting. The fringe on my forehead made me feel like a gorilla with a daisy chain to crown it.

I thought, ‘Sooner or later I’ll come to a policeman, and that will be the end. I’ll be glad when it’s over. I can’t stand any more.’

There was a middle-aged woman coming past. I thought she had a kind face. I wanted to say, ‘Help me. Hide me. Please hide me.’ I looked at her eyes. She looked back at me. There was no surprise or contempt in her eyes. We were simply two people meeting each other’s glance in the street.

I began to reason with myself. No one was taking any special notice of me. People were not staring at me. The woman who had laughed had done so because of something her companion had said to her.

Happiness was beginning.

I tried to meet the eyes of another woman, but she was looking past me.

I felt afraid again.

A young man looked hard at me. I wanted to put my hand over my face. He looked away. He was shy. I realised that he had not looked at me because he thought that I might be male but because he saw that I was like a female.

I had come through. It had happened. I had always known that I could do it. The lie and stupidity that had gone on for so many years was shown to be a lie and stupidity. I had become myself. They would never make me dress up as a boy again. I would destroy the male clothes that I had in the case. They had no business to be in my case. Mine was a woman’s case. I was a woman, a girl, a female, a female animal, a female creature, not male, never male.

In London, Paris and Bangkok the streets were full of cheering people. In Bangkok people were standing up in their boats cheering. Hull was aware. The whole city was proud of me. Down Hessle Road men stood bareheaded to sing ‘My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl’ led by the Salvation Army band. On far-flung Bilton Grange there was shouting. There was mighty singing on Wincolm Lea and terrific clog-dancing at Stoneferry. At Pearsons Creek the hornpipe was being danced. There were strange frolics in The Land of Green Ginger. And in White Friar Gate they were putting up a noble Te Deum.

How I loved my city! I was walking along the pavement dressed as a girl in bright daylight.

I covered some distance in a state of marvellous elation before I discovered that I needed very much to get to a lavatory. The public lavatories were in the centre of the city, and I was still walking in the wrong direction.

‘If you hadn’t been in such an idiotic flap about nothing, you’d have turned left when you came out of the house. What were you so frightened about? Silly bitch! Still, never mind, you’ve done very well. Now you’ll have to turn round and go down to the railway station and lock yourself in the lavatory—like one of the three old ladies—and you can stay there until you’ve composed yourself. You’ll need some for soon. There’s your voice to worry about, but we won’t get into a heart condition about that until you’ve got it firmly into your thick head that you look all right.’

I crossed the road, being cautious and waiting until there was a lull in the traffic. I did not want to be knocked down and be discovered for a boy by some Calvinist Scots doctor at Hull Infirmary. Nor did I want to be forced to make a dash in my high-heels and tight skirt. As it was I had to run a few undelicate steps to avoid a car that came up unexpectedly fast.

I would have to pass the boarding house. But it would be on the opposite side of the road from me, and nobody would be coming out until half-past eight. Anyway, if they saw me, they would not know who I had been.

I kept looking, and at last I saw the reflection of a tall, splendid girl in a shop window. I thought of going back to pass the shop again. It was difficult to feel sure that I was the person I had seen. It was not possible to go back because I had to get to a lavatory. The next time I saw the girl I observed that she was tripping along as though she was in a hurry. It looked as though she was hurrying to catch a train. She was tall and exciting. Roy had always been a small, nondescript person when reflected in shop windows.

I skipped in the air quite involuntarily.

But I wanted to get to a lavatory very much. I was so intent on reaching the city centre that I hardly noticed a policeman. He was standing on the kerb looking at the traffic. I passed behind him.

My skirt and my shoes made it so that I could only hurry by means of many small steps quickly taken. My discomfort was increasing. Yet I was glad that I was restricted and only able to hurry like a woman.

By the time I reached the railway station I was too uncom­fortable to have any reflections about entering a Ladies’ lavatory for the first time. I was almost in collision with a woman who was coming out.

After I had relieved myself and rearranged my clothes I leant against the wall and closed my eyes. I was comfortable and happy. It was as though I was in a shower-bath of happi­ness. I had survived. I had come through the streets as a woman, and no one had stared at me and no one had laughed at me. And here I was, safe in the Ladies’ lavatory. I had done it. My appearance was accepted. The woman who had been going out as I had been coming in had not shown any signs of indignation.

I opened my eyes and took the watch out of my pocket. It was not quite a quarter to eight. I had been out of the house for about three quarters of a hour. It seemed much longer.

Certainly my prayers before setting out had been foolishness, for, if there were a God, he would not have allowed me to be so happy as I was now. But I wished that there was a God so that I could thank him.

I was Wendy Ross. It was exciting. The clothes that I was wearing were real clothes. I was brilliantly alive. The old city had been turned into a place where I was living a dream.

Soon I would set out again and walk about as a girl. It was almost too wonderful to believe.

At the moment I was safe. No policeman could come into a Ladies’ lavatory. If a policeman came in, I would scream.

I wondered if I could scream.

My voice was the next danger.

I spoke aloud to practise my new voice: ‘This is my case. Actually, it is red. I require tea. A cup of tea, please. Two cheese sandwiches, please. A girl has to eat. A cup of tea, please. Truly, I require tea.’

I heard someone coming into the lavatory. I hoped that she had not heard me talking.

I emerged into the hall of the station. A train had just come in and people were hurrying. I was another person in the morning bustle. People could be looking at me. I kept biting my lower lip.

There were two buffets in the station. When I had gone to Cottingham on the day I came out of hospital I had had a cup of tea in the large buffet near the side entrance. It would be safer to go to the small buffet opposite the newspaper stand this morning.

I walked up and down outside the buffet. The thought of having to speak to someone was daunting. But my suitcase was becoming wearisome, and a young man behind the counter of the paper stand was watching me. Then a policeman came marching from the far end of the station, and I was through the door and inside.

A family of travellers, father, anxious mother, and two little boys, was drinking tea. A thin man was looking at the Daily Mirror. Behind the counter there was a rounded woman, as homely as a brown teapot, and a younger woman who appeared to suffer from something. The older woman looked as tough as she looked good-hearted. No doubt, if there was trouble in the buffet, the older woman would hold the fort while the younger woman ran out to fetch a policeman. I thought that it was not impossible that the younger woman would be running for a policeman within a few seconds.

I presented myself at the counter.

The older woman said, ‘Yes, honey?’

The ‘honey’ gave me an instant of pleasure. It was sym­pathetic, as though she had a rough husband and five kids and supposed that I had similar experiences coming to me.

My mouth moved and, ‘Tea, please,’ came out. It was a small rough sound that I made, much deeper than I had intended.

‘You’ll have to wait a minute, honey. The water’s gone off the boil.’ She stood with her hand on her fine, capacious hip in an attitude of waiting. ‘It’s not too warm this morning.’

I nodded.

‘Of course we can expect it. It’s Hull Fair soon, and then it’ll be Guy Fawkes, and then it’ll be Christmas.’

The younger woman interrupted the procession of the seasons. ‘It’s boiling, May.’

I got a cup of tea and took it to one of the tables. It was a good cup of tea and very hot. I felt it all the way down into my empty stomach. When I put the cup down I saw that I had left a trace of lipstick on the rim.

The man with the Daily Mirror glanced at me.

I studied my cup.

Perhaps I would feel more confident after I had had some­thing to eat. ‘Cheese sandwich’ was not a difficult thing to say. Sibilants should be the easiest sounds.

I went to the counter and whispered, ‘Two cheese sand­wiches, please.’

‘We haven’t got any cheese, honey. There’s egg-and-cheese and there’s ham.’

I whispered, ‘Two egg-and-cheese, please.’

‘Have you got a cold, honey?’

‘Yes.’

‘I can hear. It’s nasty when you lose your voice.’

She gave me two egg-and-cheese sandwiches on a plate.

‘And another tea, please,’ I whispered.

I got the plate and the cup and saucer back to my table.

I could not go through life whispering as though I had lost my voice through a cold.

The Daily Mirror man glanced at me again. He was a very ordinary man of about thirty-five. I imagined that he was an electrician or a plumber. He probably spoke with a thick Hull accent.

I concentrated on my sandwiches.

The two little boys of the travelling family began running up and down.

There was danger. Children might see what adults missed. I could almost hear a child’s voice exclaiming, ‘Daddy, why is that man dressed up as a woman?’ I winced. I remembered that I had read that children were the terror of public trans­vestites.

One of the little boys halted and put his thumb in his mouth and looked at me. My mouth stopped munching egg-and-cheese sandwich. Then he took his hand from his mouth and turned away. He was satisfied that I was as I should be. I nearly smiled at his mother.

I was satisfied that I was as I should be. I was still very nervous, but confidence was coming surprisingly quickly.

I would have liked to tell somebody how happy I was. But I was alone. I had to sit with my knees primly together, alone.

The man with the Daily Mirror was looking at me again. I was glad. He was not an interesting man, but he was looking at me because I was a girl. I was glad.

I was glad about everything. I was glad that the world was round and that there was law and order and that I was Wendy. I was glad that I had been born to be alive on this day wearing the clothes I was wearing. Glad rags. Difficulties had been overcome. Despite everything, I had managed to be glad.

The self-satisfied and the secretly jealous might call me a pervert. But what did I care for them? Even when I was a poor thing in trousers I had known that they were contemptible. They were mean, dull, coarse, ugly, vulgar, brutish, ignorant, cowardly and hypocritical. And they were jealous of me. I was a smart young woman. They were mostly middle-aged and disappointed. They had never had as much courage as a rat required to make its way in the world, and their meagre consolation was to hate those who had courage. They might try to sneer at me, but had they done so many things success­fully in their lives that they could rightly sneer at anyone? I was above them. And yet I could tolerate them—so long as they kept their distance. They could look at me.

I wanted them to look at me. I was a girl. I wanted men to fall off ladders looking at me. I wanted to stop the traffic.

It was gorgeous to be alive.

A womanly walk took me to the bookstall to hold up a copy of Vogue and give money for it without speaking. Then I took myself to the Ladies’ Room. It was still early in the morning, and I was the only person there. I went to one of the mirrors. The face was surprisingly solemn for a girl who felt so happy. After touching up my lips I sat down and affected to look at the magazine I had bought, but I had to go back to the mirror to marvel at myself.

When I next looked at my watch it was after nine o’clock.

I went to an expensive shop behind the War Memorial and whispered to the young assistant that I wanted a handbag. She fitted tightly into a black dress and looked at me as though to show me that she was better at being a woman than I was.

‘We have a wide range of hondbogs, modom.’

My mouth fell open when she said ‘madam’. I felt as though I could have flown if I had wanted to.

She waggled away down the shop and I waggled after her.

I chose a small bag of soft black leather. It was very simple. It cost me four guineas.

When I got back to the Ladies’ Room at the station with the intention of transferring the money from the case into the handbag I found a stout woman in a leather coat standing astride. She had a cigarette hanging from her mouth and she was feeling about in the pockets of her coat like a man. She frightened me.

‘Have you got such a thing as a light?’ she asked.

I forgot to whisper. I said, ‘No, I’m sorry. I don’t smoke.’

She went out.

As quickly as I could I got the money out of the case and into the handbag.

Then I took the case to the left-luggage office. I could not remember whether the man who took it was the same man who had taken my case on the day I came out of hospital. The case I handed him was as different from the case I had handed in that day as I looked different from the person I had looked that day. Mrs Ford could burn that old case if she liked. I was Wendy, and Wendy owned a spanking red suitcase. The man who took it could not have suspected that it contained male clothing. But there was nothing wrong with a woman having men’s clothes. It was not immoral like a man having women’s clothes.

I walked in the shopping streets. Whenever I could I ob­served my reflection in plate glass. I stood to look at clothes in shop windows, which was a welcome new freedom.

I went into a store and was pushed round with the crowds and carried up and down the escalators. It felt like Christmas.

I saw myself in a full-length mirror. I was in a black coat with the collar turned up and the belt pulled tight, tall and dashing. The copy of Vogue was sticking up in the pocket. The face looked at me detachedly. It seemed the face of a girl who had been going about as a girl all her life. She was a lively, ironic girl. Her legs were handsome.

A woman came between me and the mirror.

I bought a box of pretty handkerchiefs. At another counter I bought a shoe-horn and a set of manicure implements in a blue leather case and a hair brush. I held the things I wanted with my money and got served without having to speak. At another counter I bought a box of powder and a big powder puff and some hand cream and a bottle of nail varnish and a sponge that was shaped like a fish and two bars of special soap and a bottle of bath salts and a bright red waterproof moppet cap for putting on when I had a bath and some shampoos. Then I found a home-perm set that was said to curve the hair but not to curl it. I bought it and I bought some hair lacquer.

I was becoming light-headed, and I almost went to buy lingerie­ for the sake of buying lingerie, but I checked myself.

I took my parcels to the cafeteria, where I drank coffee and thought a hymn:

‘Venus as the morning-star is Lucifer. Chaos is truth. Truth is chaos. Now I am in ecstasy, for I live in the instant. It is the lightning flash that reveals the earth. I am helpless in reality.’

Then I thought that it was not womanly to be rebellious. I must think comfortably. I needed something of special absorbency to put into my head. Through my ear or up my nose? That made me laugh.

What I needed was somebody to talk to.

I went back to the station and got my case and took it to the Ladies’ Room and put my parcels in it.

A taxi to The Avenues would be nice, but then I thought that I would like to walk and be seen. It was a long way, but I was a healthy girl.

As I went along I considered the fact that the stout woman in the leather coat had not been surprised by my voice when I had apologised for not having a light for her cigarette. I decided that I would not do any more whispering. A Cotting­ham accent would be enough.

Before I got to The Avenues my feet were hurting. Every step was painful. I was a woman. It was interesting to be hurt by high-heeled shoes. The pain was more intense than I had expected it would be. When my foot struck the ground the ball of my foot felt as though it were going to burst with pain. My toes were fiery hot. I tried to put more weight on my heels, but it was nearly impossible to do that. My toes and the front of my foot had to withstand pain. I supposed that I would get used to it. I would certainly go on wearing high-heels no matter how painful it was.

When I reached The Avenues I discovered a Y.W.C.A. hostel. The notion of going in and asking if they had any vacancies had an appeal. I put it away. Even on so successful a day there had to be a limit to audacity.

I found a street that I liked. The fallen leaves were thick on the grass verges and there were drifts of brown and yellow leaves on the pavement. I splashed through the leaves, imagining that they might cool my poor, burning toes.

I picked a house at random and went into the garden and up to the front door. There were three bell pushes, one above the other, each with a perspex covered card giving the name of the occupier of the flat. At the bottom was Mr, Mrs C. R. Biggs. I pressed. There was a burring sound deep inside the house. Then there was silence. I pressed again.

A broad shouldered woman of about thirty opened the door. She wore a green sweater and fawn corduroy trousers. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m looking for accommodation. Could you help me at all?’ My voice sounded well-educated. Well-educated women often had deep voices.

‘Oh, well, now then. Well, there’s the YWCA. Have you tried there? If you go to the end of the street and turn to your right.’ She leaned out of the doorway and pointed. She was a big woman. I thought that, if anyone had to choose the male between us, they might choose her.

I said, ‘Well, actually, I’m looking for a flat or something like that.’ My voice was doing very well—but I must keep it from becoming too loud.

‘I don’t know.’ She frowned and put her hand to her neck. It was a gesture that many women used to show that they were pondering something. I thought that I must learn to do it.

‘You don’t know of anywhere where there’s a room empty, do you?’ My voice was excellent. I wanted to go on talking.

‘I don’t think so. I’m sorry I can’t help you.’ She shook her head in regret, but suddenly brightened. ‘Just a minute. Mrs Nelson might know of something.’ She pressed the middle bell push.

‘Have you just come to Hull?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Actually, I was living with my mother in Cottingham. She died and—’

‘Oh, I’m sorry!’

Someone was coming down the stairs inside. The big woman turned. ‘Do you know of anywhere vacant round here, Janice?’

Janice, who was small and fair, arrived at the door. ‘I don’t really know. There’s the YWCA. . . .’

‘She wants a flat,’ explained the big woman.

Janice did not know of any vacant flats or any vacant rooms.

The big woman suggested that I go to the call-box at the end of the street and ring estate agents.

I thanked them and left them.

I did not know how to use a telephone. I went to another house and rang the bell.

At some houses there was no reply when I rang. At others I had conversations with women. They were all young women. One was superbly pregnant. She had fur-lined slippers and a toffee-­paper stuck to her smock. They were all friendly and wanted to help me, but none of them had any information about vacant flats or vacant rooms.

My arm was aching with the case and I was thinking that I was not going to be able to find a place in The Avenues, when I rang a bell and the door was opened to me by a woman of about twenty-four or five with honey-blonde hair. She wore a loose white sweater with a polo neck and a dark green skirt.

‘I hope you don’t mind my bothering you,’ I said, ‘but I’m looking for a flat or a room. You don’t know of anywhere that’s empty, do you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ she said simply.

Her eyes were blue-grey. She was very good looking.

‘Could you tell me where it is?’

‘It’s up at the top of the house. It’s been empty for some time. I don’t think the landlady has got anybody for it. I could ring her and see. Would you like to come in?’

I went into the hallway.

Her hair was to her shoulders and curved under at the bottom.

‘It’s only one room,’ she said, ‘but I believe there’s a sink and a cooker.’

‘That would be all right.’

‘She’ll want a month’s rent in advance.’

‘I can manage that. May I sit down while you make the call? I’ve walked all the way from the station and my feet are killing me. I’m not used—’ I stopped myself.

‘Yes, of course.’

She led me along the hallway.

‘All this ground floor belongs to my husband and me. We’ve been here since we got married. That’s the bedroom.’ She indicated a door we were passing, on the opposite side of the hallway from the foot of the stairs. ‘We don’t use the front room. The Johnsons live upstairs and then there are two rooms above that. There’s the empty one and an art student girl lives in the other. The Johnsons are very quiet.’

She opened the door at the end of the hallway and took me into a room that fitted my idea of The Avenues. Neither of the leather arm chairs could be occupied by a husband who washed at the kitchen sink when he came back from work. Nor could a husband in overalls sit at the table. There was a smell of books. And filling the wall between the door by which we had entered and the corner of the room there was a framework packed with books that had high-class modern covers.

I had known that there were such civilized rooms as this, but I had never been in one before.

She asked me to sit down.

I stroked my clothes neatly behind me and sat down in the arm chair near the bookcase and took my shoes off at once. I sighed.

She went and picked up the receiver of a lime green telephone that stood on the sideboard. ‘I think I know Mrs Cartwright’s number,’ she said, and she started dialling.

I was sitting with my legs thrust out before me wiggling my toes. I felt that they had suffered as much as they could be expected to suffer, even in the cause of femininity. But the relief of getting my shoes off and my thoughts about my feet did not distract me altogether from being impressed by the place into which I had penetrated. I looked at the books in the bookcase. The Failure of Myth, The Plays of Bertolt Brecht, An Examina­tion of Education. I decided that the husband must be a school­master.

And they had a television set. I supposed that they only watched intellectual programmes.

She got through to Mrs Cartwright and explained that there was somebody wanting the room that was empty. ‘—a young woman’, she said. She put the receiver down and turned to me. ‘She’s coming round. Would you like a cup of tea?’

I said that I would.

She went through into the back kitchen and I could hear her filling the kettle.

I sat looking down at my clothes in wonder.

She came back with a tray of tea things.

‘How are your feet?’ she asked.

‘They’re getting better.’

She was a complete woman. I wished that my hair was as long as hers and I wished that my hips were as wide as hers. She could have a baby. I liked her clothes. My black raincoat and black skirt and black shoes seemed harshly new. She had been a middle-class person all her life.

‘Have you just come to Hull?’ she asked.

‘Yes. I lived in Cottingham with my mother.’

‘It’s very nice there.’

‘It’s very quiet. My mother died.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It was an accident with an electric blanket.’

‘That must have been terrible for you.’

We talked politely.

My social position was much higher than it had been when I was in trousers. I was now a nice girl from Cottingham, which was considerably more than being an intelligent boy from east Hull. I reflected that it required less hard work for a girl to climb in the caste system than for a boy. One day a Northern novelist might write a book in which the poor lad at the mill climbed to become the Duchess of Golightly.

I told her that my name was Wendy Ross. She told me that she was Marguerite Stephenson and that she and her husband were both schoolteachers.

‘It’s really lucky that it was today you came,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t very well this morning so I couldn’t go to school. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been anybody in. The Johnsons both go out to work. I suppose I’ll have to go this afternoon and show my face.’

Suddenly she said, ‘Would you excuse me? I’ll have to go and see if William is about.’

She went through into the kitchen again. I heard her open the back door. She called, ‘Puss, Puss, Puss.’

The cat came into the living room preceding her. It was a grey Persian cat with amber eyes. It came warily on silent paws with tail set high, caring nothing for the world outside itself, so beautiful that it did not need to love anyone. It rubbed itself against my legs, a contact from which we both had pleasure. I stroked it. It raised its back to my hand. I knew how it felt.

William seemed a laughably wrong name for such a cat.

The landlady arrived.

I got my shoes on and stood up.

She was a keen-looking woman. Her suit had been much worn but it had cost a lot of money. I felt that my clothes were cheap—but I did not have crows’-feet round my eyes. Her powder was too thick.

I said, ‘Would it be possible for me to have a look at the furnished room you have to let?’

‘I’ll have to have a month’s rent in advance,’ she said. ‘And I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for cash. Is that all right?’

‘Yes.’

I hoped that my ability to pay would not make her think that I might be a prostitute.

She was looking me over.

I felt like a large child.

‘Where have you been living?’ she asked.

‘I was living in Cottingham with my mother until she died. Actually, I’ve come to Hull to look round for something to do. I have some money my mother left me and I’m living on that. I expect I’ll have to have some training of some kind. I don’t really know what would be suitable. The only job I’ve ever had was once when I helped at a riding school—though that wasn’t really a job.’

I knew that my clothes were not the clothes of a girl who had once been part of the healthy, respectable countryside, and my voice was not at all the voice of a girl who loved horses, but the riding school was an inspiration. It made the old woman content that I was a good girl—she was probably too far behind the times to imagine that I might be a bad boy.

She said, ‘Well, you’d better come and have a look at the room and see if you like it. I think you will. It’s just comfort­able for one person.’

She led the way. I followed her up the stairs. The banisters were painted white. It was all as genteel as I had wanted it to be. She showed me the bathroom and then we went along the first landing. At the end of the landing a flight of stairs ran up to the attics. I thought of the attics at home. All this was more spacious and more substantial and for taller, better educated people. There was carpet and the two doors were painted white.

She put the key in the lock and opened the door to the front attic.

It was a woman’s room.

Half the ceiling sloped, but a large window broke out of the slope to overlook the front street. There was a table and two chairs and a comfortable arm chair with a blue cover on it. The single bed had a bare mattress.

‘You’ll have to get some bedding,’ she said. ‘Mrs Stephenson might lend you what you need until you get settled in.’

There was a wardrobe and a dressing table with a mirror that had hinged wings. At the end of the room there was a sink and a cooker.

I wanted to live in the room as a young woman. The room was obviously intended for a woman. It was better than I had expected. The wallpaper was yellow and grey in vertical stripes.

I told Mrs Cartwright that I liked the room and that I would take it.

She showed me how to turn the gas fire on and showed me where the gas and electric meters were.

I received the key and a rent book.

When she had gone I took off my coat and my shoes and lay down on the bare mattress.

I stretched my arms. I was happy and I was tired. The day seemed to have been going on for many hours. I stretched my legs out straight and pointed my toes. I had never been more pleased with myself. In half a day I had travelled across millions of light years. I had done what was impossible. I was new-born.

Courage was the best virtue and it was given the best rewards. I liked the grey and yellow wallpaper.

What I had done was correct. It was better to do what one wanted to do than to attempt creepy sublimations. It was better to live as a woman than to be a neurotic dress designer. It was better to live as a woman than to be a miserable hero and rush about the desert like a headless chicken.

I would have to remember to hitch my skirt when I sat down. All day I had forgotten that one should hitch a tight skirt to keep it from seating. I could sit in the blue armchair with my legs crossed, in my room, which was a woman’s room. I would buy clothes and hang up coats and dresses in the wardrobe. I would put my underclothes in the drawers of the dressing table. The mirror of the dressing table had wings so that I would be able to see myself in profile. I might leave my stockings in the bathroom on the floor below. There would be my washing on a line in the back garden of the house.

I smiled.