‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
I nod.
Max looks around the room and chews the top layer of skin off his lip.
‘OK,’ I begin. ‘If a doctor can’t decide whether a newborn is a boy or girl, they can check three things: the sex chromosomes, meaning whether you’re genetically a boy or a girl; the gonads, meaning whether you have testes or ovaries; and how the body responds to hormones. Sometimes they do gender assignment surgery straight away. Sometimes it’s necessary, sometimes it’s . . . not.’
Max clears his throat.
‘Do you want to ask a question?’
‘No. Sorry,’ he looks down at his knees and wriggles uncomfortably. ‘Keep going.’
‘In instances where intersex people have surgery at birth, some people aren’t happy with their assigned sex, some people say surgery is genital mutilation, some experience reduced sensitivity, and many people require further surgery later in life.’
‘But I didn’t have surgery.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
I pause. ‘Your father didn’t want you to have it.’
‘Dad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not Mum?’
‘It just says your dad in your file.’
‘So . . . did Dad not want me to have it because they would make me a girl?’
‘I don’t know, Max.’
‘I can’t imagine my dad wanting me to stay like this,’ Max says, more to himself than me. ‘He’s such a, like, family values person.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know. He always seemed the more traditional one. He’s the one who wanted to get the big house and to have the two kids and stuff. That’s what Mum said.’
‘Do you and your mum talk a lot?’
Max’s eyes slip to the side. ‘We used to. I don’t know. We haven’t recently.’
‘So,’ I continue, but Max interrupts me.
‘What sex did the doctor want to assign me?’
‘A girl when you were born, then they suggested that you be assigned to a male sex at nine, and again pressure was applied to do this at thirteen.’
‘Why?’
‘A lot of the surgery is done based on what you have on the outside, which is why many intersex people lose their ability to have babies. When you were born, in the mid-nineties, surgery was getting more refined, and so doctors still wanted you to have surgery, but instead of wanting to assign you a male gender based on your outward appearance, they advised assigning you a female gender based on your sex organs. When you were born, you had a vagina. Inside your body you had two gonads. One was an ovotestis, meaning half ovarian tissue and half testicular. As far as I can understand, ovotestes very rarely work, and are thought to be prone to certain tumours, so many doctors choose to remove them. Yours, like many people’s, was removed shortly after birth. You also had a uterus and an ovary, but you had no testicles at all. Are you following?’
Max is groaning. ‘Yes.’
‘Max?’ He looks up.
‘I know you are a little embarrassed, but remember I am a doctor. I deal with all sorts of embarrassing things, mucus and pimples and warts and I also run an after-hours clinic here where I talk to many young people about these issues. So, for me, this is not really an awkward conversation. OK?’
He nods shyly. ‘Thanks, Archie. Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise, please.’
He makes an effort to smile.
Poor kid, I involuntarily think. Then, Don’t get emotionally involved.
I clear my throat. ‘When you were born, you also had a small phallus, and couldn’t immediately be assigned a gender. Your father wouldn’t allow you to be operated on, except to have the ovotestis removed. It says in your file that your parents chose the name Max because they felt it would be gender-neutral. Then you grew up and you acted like a little boy and everyone treated you like a boy. This is all according to your notes. So, at nine, the doctors suggested you have the surgery to turn you into a boy.’
‘Why at nine?’
‘Well, firstly, the phallus looked more male by then.’
Max blushes. ‘Oh.’
‘They knew because—’
‘Because of the photographs.’
‘You remember that?’
Max rolls his eyes unhappily and shrugs.
I continue. ‘You were relating to boys, acting like a boy and, crucially, you weren’t growing like a girl. You weren’t showing any signs of breasts, your penis was bigger, so a specialist suggested surgery to remove all your internal female organs at nine, and then again at thirteen. Then when your parents wouldn’t consent, a course of male hormones was suggested, which they agreed to.’
‘Yeah, I remember that. Why did my parents agree to the hormones if they didn’t agree to the surgery?’
I think back. ‘I don’t know. It didn’t say in your file. Perhaps it was a compromise.’
Max nods, and we sit in silence for a moment as he thinks. Then he looks up at me through his hair and lets out a long breath. ‘So,’ he asks, ‘what am I?’
He watches me nervously, his green eyes marred with turbulent thoughts.
‘Firstly, I just want you to know that I think your parents haven’t told you this because they didn’t want to overwhelm you. Because intersexuality is rare, parents can often feel isolated and confused themselves, and I think they didn’t want you to feel like that, growing up. Also, Max, maybe the reason your parents didn’t do the surgery when you were younger is because sometimes when parents pick the baby’s sex, the baby grows up and feels like the other sex. Or they don’t feel comfortable being either. A lot of doctors and parents get it wrong.’
‘Archie,’ Max interrupts me. ‘Tell me what I am.’
I pause a moment, then nod.
‘I can’t tell you why you are what you are, but you are what is known as a true hermaphrodite, born with both ovarian and testicular tissue. People with true hermaphroditism can have three different karyotypes, meaning the combination of chromosomes. The sex chromosomes, X and Y, define whether you’re chromosomally male or female or both. For true hermaphrodites, possible karyotypes are 47,XXY, 46,XX/46,XY or 46,XX/47,XXY. Intersex people, just like people of male or female sex, are born in all shapes and sizes, so even a similar diagnosis to another person could mean you look fairly different.’
‘Wait . . .’ Max begins, then falters, holding the sides of his head with his hands as if he cannot concentrate. ‘So, is female XX?’
‘Yes, and male is XY.’
‘Can you please,’ Max lowers his head miserably, ‘just tell me if I’m a boy or a girl?’
‘Max, I told you, you’re neither. Your karyotype is 46,XX/46,XY.’
He puts a shaking hand up to his lips and looks at me. He lets out a choking noise.
‘My personal opinion is that your parents held out on surgery, not because they couldn’t decide whether you should be a boy or a girl, but because they knew you didn’t have to choose either.’
‘Fuck.’ Max leans over his knees and puts his hands to his face. ‘Fuck,’ I hear, mumbled, coming through tears. ‘Shit. Sorry.’
‘Are you going to be sick?’ I ask.
‘I . . . I don’t know.’
I get my sick bucket from the corner of my room and hold it on the floor underneath him. I crouch down and touch his hair awkwardly. He shakes beneath my fingers. Tears fall off his face and pat the metal bucket like rain.
‘Max,’ I whisper. ‘This is a good thing. You don’t have to make choices, you don’t have to have surgery, you can just be you.’
‘I don’t want . . .’ he whispers, then his voice fades away and he shakes his head. He sits up, and his cheeks are streams of water. ‘I don’t want to be me.’
‘Oh, Max.’ I struggle to find words to comfort him. ‘I’m sorry. Look, I shouldn’t have told you this way, I should have let your pa
rents do it, but I thought you should know, particularly with the baby.’
‘Oh shit, the baby,’ he sobs.
‘Max—’ I take hold of his hand and he grips mine fiercely.
‘Jesus, I was so sure I could just come in here and solve all the problems and have the surgeries and just be a normal brother, you know?’ He rubs his eyes with his other palm and I notice how pale he looks, how red they look. ‘I looked intersex up on the internet last night, and I saw how girls could look like boys and boys could look like girls, and I was just so fucking sure I’d come in and you’d tell me yes, I was a boy, and everything else was just a mistake that I could ignore and get rid of. I want to get rid of it.’
‘The baby?’
He wipes his arm across his face. ‘No. I don’t know. I mean everything. I want to get rid of everything that makes me a complete freak.’
‘You’re not a freak, Max! Don’t say that.’
‘Archie . . .’ he cries, and I put my arms around his head.
‘Alright, OK . . .’ I say soothingly. ‘Please don’t cry.’
‘Is my appointment scheduled for the abortion?’ Max asks quietly, wiping away his tears, calming himself down. ‘Sorry about the crying,’ he mutters.
‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘I was going to ring this evening. The appointment is next Friday at nine a.m., at the hospital.’
‘Good. I want it all removed.’
‘You want a hysterect—?’
‘Everything.’ He cuts me off, checking his face in the mirror above my desk. ‘Like Mum said.’
‘OK,’ I say doubtfully. ‘If that’s what you want, I can arrange for you to see a specialist to discuss a removal of all your female anatomy. Then perhaps they can schedule an operation before Christmas.’
‘What’s going to happen to me?’
I frown. ‘In the operation?’
‘No.’ He sits silently, struggling. He looks exhausted.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Am I, like, going to get more boyish? Am I going to get facial hair? I don’t know anything. Am I going to get more girlish?’
‘Honestly, Max, I don’t know,’ I reply. ‘Perhaps there are some tests—’
‘Forget it, it’s fine,’ says Max abruptly, blushing. ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’ He wipes his face on his sleeve one last time. ‘Thanks for telling me and sorry to barge in. I just wanted to know. It was bothering me.’
He stands up. ‘Sorry for the crying,’ he murmurs again, hurrying out the door.
I leap out of the chair and grab the door before it closes after him.
‘Max! Come see me anytime!’ I call down the corridor. But it’s empty. He’s already run out.
Max
After I see Archie, I decide to bunk off school. I was gonna go back in, but I walk out of the clinic and clock the wall of the graveyard at the end of the car park and walk towards it like a zombie. I grab the top of the wall, grazing my palms, pull myself up and over the little buckling, rusted iron fence, and lie down in the cold grass. It’s freezing, but I can’t move, flat on my back in my blue parka with the hood up, and fake fur all around my face. My chest heaves but I force my eyes to stay dry. I swallow it up, all of it, choking on it as it goes down. I don’t think about anything, just concentrate on nothingness, the shapes that move across my eyelids when I close my eyes. I really want to go to school to see Sylvie and try to explain things to her, but I feel too miserable, too eclipsed, too unable to function.
Sylvie finds me anyway.
With my eyes closed, I feel a body moving close to me and I jump, thinking it could be Hunter.
‘Thanks for the welcoming reaction, Walker.’
‘Sylvie . . .’ I try to sit up.
‘Don’t,’ she says, placing a hand firmly on my chest. We share a look and I settle back down on the ground. She lies on her side, her face turned in to mine, her breath in my ear, in the same way Hunter lay with me in my bed after the thing.
I watch the sky, the clouds sliding across it. Everything seems grey and bleached out. After a minute Sylvie murmurs, ‘What’s wrong?’
I wipe water from the corners of my eyes. ‘Nothing. I’m sorry.’
‘Arse.’
‘Arse?’ I look at her.
She nods. ‘Arse.’
I wriggle around onto my side. ‘OK. There is something wrong. But I can’t tell you what it is.’
Her mouth squidges up and moves to the side. ‘Did you get someone pregnant?’
‘No,’ I stress, closing my eyes. ‘No, no, no.’
‘OK, Max, OK,’ she says, shaking me gently. ‘I believe you.’
‘The test was for . . .’
‘It wasn’t for a friend, was it?’
‘Um, I can’t tell you.’
‘But it wasn’t, was it? So what else is there? Did you have sex with someone else the other week?’
‘Oh,’ I realise something suddenly, taking my hands away from my mouth, noticing a fingernail is bleeding. ‘You think I’ve had sex.’
‘Errr . . .’ she says.
‘Oh my god.’ I get wide-eyed. ‘You’ve had sex?’
‘Well, yeah. I thought you had too.’
‘No. I thought you hadn’t too.’
She thinks for a minute. ‘How have you not had sex? You get off with everybody.’
‘Get off with,’ I clarify. ‘Means kissing.’
She props herself up on one elbow and leans away from me doubtfully. ‘You some cray cray Christian, now your dad’s a big politician? Is it no sex before marriage? Is that the freaky deal here?’
‘No.’ I smile slowly. ‘I’m not cray cray.’
‘So you didn’t knock anyone up?’
‘No, I couldn’t have,’ I reply truthfully.
‘So who was the test for?’
I hesitate. ‘I can’t tell you. But . . . I hope that’s OK because . . .’ I bury my head in my coat. I shouldn’t be saying it. I should be telling her she shouldn’t hang around with me, that it’s disgusting. I mean, I’m with child. Urgh.
I get tearful, but I look up into her eyes, because I don’t want to be cowardly. I wet my lips and kiss her once quickly.
‘Because I really like you,’ I say, with a little sigh of tension coming out and making the air steamy. ‘I like you more than I’ve liked anyone, ever. You’re pretty amazing, and I think about you a lot – a lot, a lot. And . . . I really, really don’t want you to hate me or think badly of me.’
‘I couldn’t think badly of you,’ Sylvie says. ‘Annoyingly.’
‘Why annoyingly?’
‘I don’t like depending on people. I don’t like it when they can affect my emotions.’
‘Wow,’ I tease. ‘You’re so sophisticated. You have commitment issues already.’
‘Well, I am an older woman.’
‘By, like, a week!’
‘I’m cleeeearly way more experienced.’
I knock her knee with mine, laughing. ‘Shud urrrp. You’re so weird! Someone tells you they like you and you tell them it’s annoying and you’ve had more sex than them.’
Sylvie shrugs. ‘I’m bad. A badass.’
‘You are.’
‘It’s sexy.’
‘Yes, but I think I’m supposed to say that.’
‘Go on then.’
I pause, shyly. ‘You’re sexy.’
‘You’re sexy, Max.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Let’s get off.’
‘OK.’
Karen
Max walks in from school through the main door. It’s still a surprise when anyone walks through it, as we’ve used the back door for so long. I’m in the large living room, having a coffee, reading a brief. I see Debbie walk past him spryly.
‘Hi, Max, how are you?’ she says, all bounce and joy and idealism-fired energy, which I find very exhausting to watch at the moment.
‘Good, thanks, Debbie,’ I hear Max say politely. ‘How’s everything going?’
&nb
sp; ‘Oh, so well,’ she replies. ‘Everybody loves your dad. He’s pretty much a cinch for MP, but he wants to get out there and shake everybody’s hand anyway. It’s like, Stephen, you can’t shake everyone’s hands!’
I sometimes wonder if Debbie has a crush on Steve. I sometimes wonder if Steve notices. He’s not like that, really, but . . . I don’t know. Power corrupts, so they say.
We haven’t talked about Max having the abortion or a hysterectomy since the appointment with Archie, because Steve has suddenly become even more busy. I think it’s on purpose. I have too, I suppose.
‘Are you excited about the debate at the Lloyd George Centre?’ she is asking Max.
‘Yeah, sure,’ he replies, not sure at all.
‘So many people are coming. Two candidates, battling it out in front of such a big audience, all livestreamed to the web. It’s so exciting, how new technology has transformed politics. It’s really about creating drama for the debate. If Stephen comes across as the most exciting prospect for MP, you’ve got people. That’s really our tactic. You’re going to be there to support Stephen, right?’
‘Steve,’ Max corrects her, absent-mindedly. ‘But yeah. Great.’
I see him go past the open door of the living room and up the stairs.
Five minutes later, he comes back down, in different clothes: a purple zip-up hoodie from Topman that I bought him for his birthday, a blue T-shirt, and grey cords from All Saints. I expect him to walk straight past but he stops and dips his head into the living room.
‘Mum?’ he says calmly. ‘Can we talk?’
I put my brief down shakily, smile at him and nod. A week ago, I felt I knew everything there was to know about him. Now I feel like I know nothing. He’s been having sex with boys, or maybe just a boy. He’s been lying to us, to me.
Debbie walks past the door again, and Max and I eye her suspiciously.
‘My room?’ he suggests.
I follow him up the stairs, smoothing out the lines on my face, calming myself, even as my heart beats so fast. He will apologise, I think. I will forgive him, but I will set new boundaries, a curfew, I will make him admit when and where and who he has been with.
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