7

Sometimes Marguerite’s femaleness made me feel as though I wanted to rush to my room and attack myself with a razor blade. With June I was always cheerful. She had a boyishness. She said that I had the figure for slacks.

I told her that I had a pair.

‘Why don’t you wear them?’

‘I don’t like trousers.’

‘Haven’t you ever worn them?’

‘Yes. Actually, I used to wear them nearly all the time. I got fed-up with them.’

‘You ought to wear them. You’re tall and slinky. You’d look good in trousers.’

I said, ‘It’s a sin to wear clothes of the opposite sex.’

‘How is it a sin?’

‘It’s a sin against God and Nature,’ I said with mock solemnity.

‘That’s silly,’ she said. ‘If they haven’t got a zip at the front, they aren’t the clothes of the opposite sex. Anyway, I used to have a pair with a zip at the front. I didn’t feel sinful in them. I just felt tough and ruthless.’

‘I was brought up with extreme strictness,’ I said.

‘You weren’t.’

‘I was.’

‘You weren’t at all, Wendy. I can tell.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Because there’s something strange about you. It wouldn’t surprise me if you turned out to be a Russian spy.’

‘Do I look like a spy?’

‘Yes. You look a bit dangerous.’

‘That’s not a very nice thing to say to anyone.’

‘I wouldn’t mind people saying it to me. I’d like to look like you. And then there’s your voice.’

‘What’s wrong with my voice?’

‘It’s a man-trap voice. There’s a sort of sexy growl in it.’

I was stunned with pleasure. I said, ‘I don’t think I like being discussed like this.’

Occasionally June and I went to the pictures. Once we went to the New Theatre and saw a play.

June did not enjoy walking along in the street as I enjoyed it. She tended to hurry to get to where we were going.

Walking at night was different from walking in daylight. In daylight I was a girl enjoying freedom. Under the streetlights I was a fragrant woman who had suffered from the world in some subtle, feminine way—though June’s good humour sometimes spoiled the mood.