The Art of Being Normal

by Lisa Williamson

‘I know! It was pretty devastating. Up till then I was convinced my destiny was to be the white Beyoncé.’

  I snort with laughter.

  ‘I don’t blame them though,’ David continues. ‘I was, am, pretty dreadful.’

  ‘So what’s the dream now?’ I ask. ‘Now that being the next Beyoncé is off the cards.’

  ‘I want to work in fashion,’ he replies. ‘To be a designer maybe. Or a buyer.’

  ‘I can picture that,’ I murmur.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah, what do you want to do?’

  ‘God, I dunno.’

  ‘But you must have some kind of idea?’

  But the future is just like it’s always been for me, cloudy, full of obstacles.

  ‘Look, I’m feeling kind of hot, I’m going to get some air,’ I say, standing up.

  David jumps up too. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  We step into the cold, past the smokers gathered outside, huddled together on picnic tables.

  ‘I’ve got the bestest idea ever,’ David whispers in my ear, his breath warm with booze. ‘Let’s go swimming!’

  ‘Are you mental? It’s November.’

  ‘So? Where is your sense of adventure? You’re meant to be the crazy one, remember? The junior-hacksaw killer!’ he slurs, jabbing me in the chest.

  ‘Shut up,’ I hiss. ‘People are looking.’

  I take him by the arm and lead him away from the pub. David shakes me off and grabs my arm instead, dragging me across the road and towards the beach. I’m too floppy with drunkenness to do anything but let myself be dragged, stumbling, over the wet beach. The tide has come in and only a few metres of beach remain. David collapses breathless on the sand, yanking off his Ugg boots before wriggling out of his tights. I turn my head away.

  ‘C’mon, Leo!’ he cries, pushing me down on the sand. And before I know it I’m taking off my trainers and socks and rolling up my jeans to the knee and following David to the shore.

  He takes my hand and looks at me, his eyes shining.

  ‘After three?’

  ‘This is insane. You’re insane.’

  ‘Shush! After three?’

  I find myself nodding.

  ‘One, two, three!’

  We run into the surf, the icy water hitting our ankles.

  We scream in unison.

  ‘It’s freezing!’ I yell.

  ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ David cries, holding on to both my hands and hopping from foot to foot.

  ‘You’re officially mental!’ I yell.

  ‘Good!’ he yells back.

  We splash about for about five minutes, every few seconds screaming our heads off at the cold, until an unexpected wave hits us, soaking us from the waist down and sending us scrambling back to shore in wet defeat.

  We fall on to the sand, shivering as we hunt for socks, tights and shoes in the darkness. David finds his phone and shines it over the sand.

  ‘Aw, look at your feet!’ he says, shining the phone over them like a spotlight. ‘They’re so tiny!’

  I bat him away.

  ‘Hey, I was still looking!’ he says. ‘They’re well cute.’

  ‘Pack it in, will you?’ I say, pushing him away. I catch him off guard and he goes toppling over on his side. He gurgles with laugher and rolls on to his back.

  ‘Look, I’m a sand angel!’ he crows, opening and closing his arms and legs.

  I stand up.

  ‘C’mon, Kate,’ I say, folding my arms across my chest. ‘I’m dying of hypothermia here.’

  David stops flapping his arms and gazes up at me.

  ‘What?’ I ask. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  He closes his eyes, a blissed-out expression on his face.

  ‘You called me Kate.’

  37

  I’m dying. I’ve got to be. There’s no other explanation. My head is throbbing and my throat feels like it’s lined with razor blades. I groan and roll over. It takes me a few seconds to realise where I am, that I’m not in my bunk bed at number seven, Sycamore Gardens, but on a lumpy mattress in a bed-and-breakfast in Tripton-on-Sea. I open my eyes. The flimsy curtains hanging at the windows do nothing to stop the room flooding with light. I wince and bury my head in the pillow before daring to open them again, more slowly this time. On the radiator our things – my jeans and socks, and David’s tights and dress – are draped haphazardly. I turn over. David is curled up with his back to me, snoring softly. Last night, just after he’d informed me he was having the best night of his life, he threw up in the toilet of our tiny en suite bathroom. He then staggered around the room getting undressed, crashing into the wardrobe before finally collapsing into bed.

  I fumble on the floor for my phone. Last night I set an alarm for seven so that we could have breakfast and be camped out at Dad’s house by eight. I rub my eyes and squint at the display. It’s blank. I frown and stab at the buttons. Nothing. The battery is dead.

  ‘David,’ I say, poking him in the back. ‘David, wake up.’

  David groans and pulls the duvet more tightly around him.

  ‘Not finished,’ he mutters, yanking a pillow over his head.

  Panic rising in my chest, I scramble over his dozing body, snatching up his mobile from the chest of drawers on his side of the bed. I press the button. The display blinks into life. 11.46 a.m. I drop the phone on the floor and leap out of bed, grabbing my clothes.

  We’ve missed breakfast by nearly three hours, not that it matters. Mrs Higgins tuts loudly as I tear down the stairs, past the reception desk, David chasing after me, yelling my name.

  I run down to the seafront, dodging pedestrians, my lungs and calves on fire, my head still banging from the hangover of my life. I only slow down when I turn into Dad’s street, jogging along the pavement, counting down the numbers until I reach number eighteen. There is no car in front of the house. I press my face up to the window, looking for signs of life.

  ‘Shit,’ I cry.

  ‘Who you after?’ a voice calls.

  I jump away from the window.

  An elderly man holding a watering can is standing in the front garden of the house next door.

  ‘Er, Jimmy, I mean, Jonathan, Jonathan Denton,’ I say. It feels weird saying Dad’s name out loud to a stranger.

  ‘You just missed him. Back later, I imagine.’

  ‘Right, thanks.’

  The man smiles and nods before going into his house.

  I wait until he’s out of sight before kicking Dad’s door.

  ‘You heard what he said, he’ll be back,’ David says, having finally caught up with me, wheezing heavily. ‘Stitch,’ he adds, massaging his stomach.

  ‘He doesn’t know that for sure though, does he?’ I spit. ‘He could be out all day and night for all he knows.’

  ‘But probably not,’ David says, continuing to rub his stomach.

  I glare at him. ‘I should never have drunk so much last night. What was I even thinking? The night before something as massive as this, how stupid can you get?’

  ‘You were having fun, Leo. It was a really good night. Actually, scratch that, it was a great night, it was one of the best I’ve ever had.’

  ‘But it shouldn’t have been!’ I yell. ‘Don’t you get it?’

  David backs away, and for a second I think he’s going to cry. He doesn’t though, carefully adjusting his wig instead. It’s flat on one side from where he slept on it, and his day-old make-up is smudged and creased.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ he asks.

  ‘We’re going to wait.’

  I sit down on the wall of the house, directly opposite Dad’s, David reluctantly perching beside me. It’s cold, colder even than yesterday, and in the mad rush of leaving the B&B, I didn’t bring my gloves or hat with me. To pass the time, David tries to encourage me to play games with him – I spy, and animal, vegetable, mineral – but I refuse to join in. I’m not in the mood. Plus I’m too angry with him.
If I’d come alone, I’d never have got myself in that state. I’d have been here at eight o’clock on the dot, fresh and prepared and focused. I block out David’s voice and stare at Dad’s house, scared if I take my eyes off it, it might crumble away to nothing. Finally David stops trying to talk to me and plays Candy Crush Saga on his mobile instead.

  After an hour my stomach begins to rumble. After two hours, the sound is almost deafening.

  ‘We need to eat, Leo,’ David says quietly.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I know you like to think you’re superhuman, but you’re not. Besides which, if I don’t eat soon I might faint, or be sick.’

  ‘Do what you like.’

  David stands up and heads up Marine Avenue in the opposite direction from the sea. He returns a few minutes later.

  ‘Look, there’s a café literally at the end of the road. Come get warm for a few minutes, have something to eat and come back refreshed.’

  My stomach lets out another angry rumble.

  The café is warm and steamy with red-and-white checked plastic cloths on the tables and ketchup and mustard in oversized squeezy bottles. We order a mountain of cheese on toast and mugs of scorching hot chocolate. Although I’m starving, I have to force the food into my mouth, barely tasting it. While I’m picking at the last few crusts, David goes to the toilet to fix his hair and make-up. He overdoes the blusher, but I don’t have the energy to tell him so.

  When we return to our spot, a shiny blue Volvo is parked outside Dad’s house.

  He’s back.

  I stare at the house.

  ‘You ready?’ David asks.

  I stand up and begin to cross the road, David close behind. Even though I’ve been imagining versions of this moment for years and years, I still have no idea what I’m going to find behind the front door of number eighteen. I’ve got my fantasy version of what happens, of course. Dad recognises me immediately, flinging his arms round me in joy. Straight away he accepts his baby girl is now a teenage boy and invites me to live with him, and I get to start my life all over again, fresh and clean. That’s what would happen if my life was a feel-good family film; one with a plinky-plonky piano soundtrack and good-looking actors playing all the parts. But my life’s never been a feel-good family film. Not even close. So perhaps this is my time. Maybe it’s finally my turn for something good to happen.

  I open the front gate and it’s like I’m a puppet and some puppet master in the sky is controlling my movements and steering me up the short path towards the front door, like I’m floating almost. Somehow I make it to the door. I raise my hand to knock but before my knuckles have connected with the glass, the door opens.

  I know it’s him straight away. It’s like he’s stepped right out of the photograph in my wallet. He’s piggy-backing a little boy, who is about four years old and wearing a Spider-Man costume beneath a navy duffel coat with fat red toggles. Whenever I’ve thought of Dad over the years, I’ve never ever thought of him with a family, not once. I’ve spent my whole life imagining him as a bit of a wanderer, going from place to place, a free spirit. I’ve never once pictured him with a wife or kids. I feel stupid.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asks. His voice is deep and far posher than I was expecting. I search for some recognition in his eyes but find none.

  I open my mouth to speak but no sound comes out. David, who I’d forgotten was beside me, jumps in.

  ‘Are you Jonathan Denton?’ he asks, although we all know the answer.

  ‘Yes. Who wants to know?’ Dad asks, a slight frown on his face.

  This must be what it’s like to see someone famous out and about. You convince yourself you know them because you’ve seen them on telly and in magazines, but it doesn’t prepare you for seeing them up close. And you think you know exactly how you’ll act when you do, but when the actual time comes, you sort of fall apart.

  I finally find my voice but it sounds like it doesn’t quite belong to me.

  ‘You used to know Samantha Binley?’ I say.

  Dad’s face changes then, sort of darkens. He lets Spider-Man slide down his body. Spider-Man looks up at me. He has babyish versions of Dad’s eyes. Green with amber flecks. My eyes. My half-brother.

  ‘Babe, have you got the keys?’ a female voice says. Dad moves to the side and a woman appears beside him. She’s pretty with tanned skin and dark-brown curly hair. The next thing I notice is that she’s pregnant. When she spots us on the doorstep she rests her hands protectively on her bump. A ring sparkles on her left hand.

  ‘What’s all this then?’ she asks, not unkindly.

  ‘Collecting for charity, aren’t you?’ Dad says smoothly.

  ‘Ooh, what charity?’ the woman asks.

  ‘Animals,’ David says. ‘Endangered species.’

  ‘You get Archie in the car,’ Dad says to the woman, ‘I’ll sort this out.’

  ‘OK, babe,’ she says. ‘Come on, Archie, sweetheart.’

  Archie gives me one last curious look before scampering after his mum to the shiny blue Volvo. The Ford Fiesta from the photograph is clearly long gone.

  As soon as the woman’s back is turned, Dad’s mask falls.

  ‘C’mon then,’ he says grimly, leading us into the hallway. I can see through into the kitchen. It’s bright and modern. The fridge is plastered with pictures Archie must have painted, all of them featuring brightly coloured stick people, the same set of three over and over again – Mum, Dad and Archie. A perfect little family.

  ‘You said you were here about Sammy?’ he says, his voice brisk and business like. He directs his question at David, still clearly totally unaware who I am.

  ‘I’m her kid,’ I blurt.

  Dad’s eyes narrow and move across to me.

  ‘You’re one of Sammy’s kids?’ he says slowly.

  I nod. ‘I’m Leo. Leo Denton.’

  Me saying Denton makes him flinch that tiniest bit.

  ‘I’m one of the twins,’ I add, my voice almost a whisper, ‘Megan and Amber. I’m Megan. Only I’m not Megan any more, I’m Leo.’

  I recite my date of birth. All the time Dad’s expression stays neutral, unnaturally so, like he’s trying his very hardest not to react to a word I say.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he says, folding his arms across his chest, smiling this smile that doesn’t go anywhere near his eyes, his voice artificially calm and cold.

  ‘But you must. I’m telling you the truth, I swear. I can show you my birth certificate if you want.’ I start to fish in the pocket of my hoodie, my hands shaking, but I can’t find it. I must have put it in another pocket. I start to turn them out, panicking I’ve lost it.

  ‘No need for any of that,’ Dad says briskly, resting his hand on my arm. ‘Now I don’t know why you’re here, kid, if it’s money you’re after or what, but I’m really not interested.’

  Fresh panic starts to rise in my belly.

  ‘Look, this has nothing to do with money, or my mum, I swear. She has no idea I’m even here. I’m yours, I promise you I am. I’m transgender; it means I was born in the wrong body. I’m Leo now, but I was born Megan, one of the twins, your twins.’

  Dad rubs his forehead and swears under his breath. ‘Look, I think it’s time for the two of you to leave,’ he says, looking up and making a move towards the door.

  ‘But you can see he’s yours!’ David chimes in desperately. ‘Any idiot can see he is. Look at his eyes; they’re exactly like yours. They’re identical. Just look at them!’

  And for a second Dad does look at me and I can see that he sees it too. That he knows. But then he’s rearranging his features and pushing us towards the door, his hand on the small of my back.

  I shake him off, and turn around. Red hot rage is building up inside me, only this is different to the usual sort; it’s loaded with something extra – desperation piled on top of the anger.

  ‘But I’ve come all this way!’ I cry. ‘You’ve got to let me tal
k to you. I’ll come back tomorrow if you like. Or we could meet in town or something. I don’t want money, or to cause trouble or anything like that, I just want to know you, and for you to know me.’

  Because right now I’ll take anything I can get.

  Dad takes me by the shoulders and for a hopeful split-second I think he’s going to have a change of heart.

  ‘Please?’ I say.

  Dad’s entire face is dark and mean, his mouth set in a firm line.

  ‘Look, you’ve got the wrong man,’ he says roughly, ‘so I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen next. You two little freaks are going to walk out this door and never come back. Got me?’

  Freaks. He practically spits the word.

  ‘Babe, is everything all right?’ the woman calls from outside.

  ‘Yep, just coming,’ he calls back over his shoulder; from ice cold to sunny in the blink of an eye.

  He opens the door and breaks into this big showman smile. And the penny drops then that this woman, his wife, has no idea about me and Amber, or Mam, or Cloverdale. Of course she doesn’t. It’s like that bit of Dad’s life has been erased from his history.

  The kid, Archie, is sitting in a booster seat in the back of the car, bouncing up and down. And in that moment I hate him. I hate this little innocent kid who hasn’t done a thing wrong. And I hate the baby in the woman’s belly too. I hate them so much I could burst.

  Dad is behind us, forcing us out of the door, on to the path. He locks the door behind him and overtakes us, striding down the path and climbing into the car. He starts the engine and drives off, his eyes looking resolutely ahead the whole time, leaving David and me standing in his little front garden, frozen to the spot. The only person who looks at us is Archie. He twists round in his seat and stares right at me – his babyish eyes locked on to my grown-up version – until the car snakes round the corner and out of sight.

  38

  ‘Leo?’ I whisper.

  But Leo doesn’t look at me. He just stands there, perfectly still apart from his fists, which clench and unclench, slowly at first, then faster and faster. There’s a moment of absolute quiet before he lets out this terrible howl and takes off round the garden, tearing it up like a wild animal. He drags the wheelie bin and turns it upside down, scattering rubbish all over the neat paving stones. He takes the terracotta plant pots that sit in a neat row under the windowsill and smashes them in turn against the wall, before stamping on the rose bushes so they bend and snap. He kicks the front door repeatedly and for a moment I’m worried he might kick it right in. Then he’s thumping it, his fists hammering against the wood. And all the time he continues to howl and I’m pleading for him to stop, screaming, begging him. A neighbour from across the road opens her window and yells at us, saying she’s going to call the police. Leo raises his head and swears at her. She gasps and shuts her window.