12

June said that I could go home to Scarborough with her for Christmas. I said that I did not want to. She said that I would be lonely on my own and she tried to persuade me. I told her that I did not mind being on my own and that I did not like Christmas.

On the day she left she gave me a pack of two pairs of nylons. I said, ‘Snap!’ and gave her a pack of two pairs of nylons. She said goodbye and wished me a Merry Christmas.

Then Marguerite told me that she and Philip were going to spend Christmas with her parents in York.

There would only be the Johnsons in the house over Christ­mas. I did not know them.

I made a sound parcel of the sweater I had bought for my father and took it to the post office. When he saw by the postmark that I was still in Hull he would wonder why I did not come home for Christmas, but he would not know my name and address. On the card with the sweater I had written ‘Roy’.

I came back from the post office and lay on my bed and cried.

After a while I said to myself, ‘You can either be a girl or a human being. You have to choose.’ I answered myself, ‘I’ve chosen.’

I got off the bed and went to the mirror to see how much damage the crying had done to my make-up. I was pleased to find that I looked quite pathetically pretty with my eyes full of tears.

My detachment made me laugh.

Then I started trying to scream. I was trying as hard as I could and at the same time stopping myself. There was a rattling noise in my throat. I was choking. I knew that I had become hysterical.

I was against the wall, beating my fists on it until I thought that bones must break. The pain was violent, but it seemed to be happening to my fists and not to me.

Suddenly I slipped down and sat on the floor with my legs folded carefully and neatly to the side. My high-heeled shoes were together. They looked very real. It was as though I had never seen them before. I touched them. They belonged to me. My skirt was drawn tight. It curved over my thighs and was flat at the front. It was a grey flannel skirt. It was real. The tears were falling out of my eyes onto the skirt. Where they fell on the grey flannel they made spots of black.

A male head was big enough to live in, but a female had to live in her body. A woman lived under her skirt. Under the skirt was warm darkness. Soldier ants had big heads, but the queen ant in the darkness at the centre of the nest was a belly.

I thought, ‘A skirt like this is supposed to mean that one is a woman. But dummies in shop windows wear skirts like this. They aren’t women. Dummies in shop windows don’t go home for Christmas. They have to stay in the shop windows looking gay and disdainful. While people are eating Christmas dinner the dummies are standing in the shop windows. Only a walking policeman sees them.’

Marguerite had asked me if I would look after her cat over Christmas. That would be company. And I could buy a bottle of whiskey and make myself drunk. I wondered whether I would be able to swallow whiskey. I imagined that it might burn my throat.

The time would pass. I composed myself.

I got to my feet and went to repair my face.