Cards of Identity

by Nigel Dennis

  A week later I took my place in an enormous queue and after a few days waiting was shown into the consulting room. The identifier was glancing over my history, and said crossly as I entered: ‘Really, I think people should give a little more thought to the consequences of the ideas they propound! Take this dog business, now: in theory it is perfectly correct, but how exactly are human beings supposed to practise it?’

  A retort came to my lips, but he waved his hands violently and cried: ‘No, don’t tell me. Anyway, I’d much rather ask questions than hear answers. I think the best approach to your central difficulty will be an oblique one. For instance, are you accident-prone? There seems to be a leaning to it in your family.’

  I recited, as well as I could remember, my blunders with knives, mangles, banana-skins, crockery, slippery stairs, puddles, and so on. I was somewhat ashamed when I had finished, but the identifier merely marked a cypher in a box and said: ‘That seems fairly good. Your choice was always a normal one; in fact, I should say rather unenterprising and dull. So don’t let’s bother with your dreams, which would be as humdrum as your accidents. Tell me some stories about your father: this is the oblique approach again: by telling me about him you in fact tell me about you. I must warn you that anything you say will be taken down and used in evidence.’

  I told him all father’s ideas about sex. It was father’s belief, I said, that a pure male (who did not exist) would want absolutely to dominate a female. A pure female (who did not exist either) would want absolutely to be dominated. In fact, however, such definitions were ridiculous. I drew a chart to show how, in everyone, the male-female elements criss-cross interminably, and how their patch-work is rendered convoluted by the attitude the person takes towards it, so that one finds such interesting paradoxes as women who are relatively hairless in a physical sense but have enormous psychological beards, and men whose excessively-small moustaches proclaim the essential frailty of their masculinity. I then briefly summarized the thousands of in-betweens who fill the extremes from full-beard to hair-line moustache, and demonstrated conclusively that to define anyone as male or female was an affront to the intelligence.

  ‘In brief, then,’ he answered, ‘it’s up to you?’

  ‘It’s nothing of the sort,’ I replied. ‘Anyone who makes a sexual decision is returning us to the Dark Ages.’

  ‘Well, let’s try it another way,’ he said; ‘not so oblique, either. Which sex – assuming such to exist – do you most enjoy flirting with?’

  I told him I was not bigoted: my emotions, I said, responded to virtually any mixture, with little preference as to type, colour, build, stature.

  He made a sound like a shot-gun going off. ‘That’s what I wanted,’ he said: ‘Remember it, next time you loose those dogs of yours. You are a born sailor.’ He wrote a huge M on my card and cried: ‘Good morning! Next, please!’

  So I was to be a man! The very thought brought every female element in me into play: I went straight to bed with a sick-headache, took aspirin, and had a good cry. Soon there was a knock at my door and in came a husky sergeant in the uniform of one of the women’s services. ‘What’s the matter, love?’ she said, taking my hand: ‘The whole house is shaking with your sobs.’ ‘I’ve been classed as a male,’ I answered, laying my cheek against her iron paw. ‘And what’s so awful about that?’ she cried in a deep bass voice: ‘it seems to me you’d make a sweet little man. And what’s wrong with being a man, anyway,’ she continued indignantly, as if personally insulted: ‘Some of my best girls are men. If you are so full of prejudice when you are hardly out of your teens, you won’t be very nice to know at forty.’

  ‘It was not prejudice brought me to this,’ I retorted angrily: ‘it was standing on my principles.’ I then told her about father’s teachings and my examination by the identifier, and she patted my shoulder and said: ‘If there were more women like your father, this would be a cosier world. But he’s past helping, so let’s see what we can do for little you. The first thing is to find you a nice, friendly unit. And don’t worry about your definition. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s literally a war-measure, a yard-stick the authorities require to get themselves to scale. They feel that if they can place you, it won’t be long before they grasp themselves. Still, it might be a good thing to have you re-identified. You can always appeal, you know. But what good will it do? You don’t think you’ll shake off your old problems by taking on a new sex, do you? That’s escapism.’

  ‘Of course I don’t!’ I answered, with a fresh burst of tears. ‘I only ask to remain neither one nor the other. If you won’t understand that, who will?’ – and letting my mouth fall open with a sort of crab-like quaver, I bent on her that gaze of heart-rending disappointment which has wrung the withers of husbands through the centuries.

  To my horror, she received it with a most vulgar guffaw, and folding my face against her rough uniform she said: ‘Of course, you are simply too adorable to live! I shall keep you here for my very own. We’ll have dressing-up parties and I’ll show you to all my friends. But listen. I have to go on duty now, but I’ll be back before night. I’m going to put you in my room and while I’m away I’m going to discuss your case with some people I know and see what can be done. Don’t worry about your definition: by the time the authorities have fed your sex into the right machine and come out with a unit, we’ll have you cosily settled where you’ll like it best.’ She then yanked me, sniffling, from my bed and dragged me upstairs to her own room, where she made me comfortable in a big chair beside the gasfire. ‘Be a good little mannikin while mother’s away,’ she said, wagging a huge finger at me – ‘and don’t let anyone in.’ The door closed behind her and, to my surprise, I heard the key turn in the lock.

  No sooner was she out of hearing – half down the street, that is – than I jumped from my chair, dried my eyes and began to explore the premises (sometimes, I must confess, I see myself every inch a woman!). The furnishings were of a rather rough kind – a good deal of leather on the chairs, a pair of buffalo horns, dumb-bells, and heavy curtains, much like a good club. To my surprise, the main decoration was a huge picture of a ferocious man wearing a black beard down to his heavy watch-chain. In one corner of him was the inscription: ‘To my own little Violet, from her great, big, loving Papa.’ Dear me! how very inappropriate! I thought, and looked closer at what seemed to be a leg of mutton at the side of the picture. It proved to be the shoulder of a woman: obviously Violet’s mother, who had been chopped ruthlessly from the picture. Sprigs of rosemary were tied neatly to the four corners of the frame.

  More curious than ever, I examined the other photographs on the walls: there was simply no end to them. Some were of school hockey and lacrosse teams, and of the staff with the prefects: Violet appeared in all of them, invariably sitting in the middle and obviously the captain of everything. Then there was a photograph of Violet dressed in a huge leather coat, astride an enormous Matchless double-knocker with a great grin all over her face: there had been a pillion-passenger, it seemed, but she (if she it was) appeared to have suffered the fate of Violet’s mother and been savagely scissored from the picture. Indeed, there was hardly a photograph in the room which did not have at least one gaping space with the outline of a human form: I wondered what happened to these poor ghosts; were they mutilated and burnt, and if so, what had they done? Some of them, it seemed, had been chopped out because they were destined for higher things: there were, for example, three photographs of girls which were enlargements made from these chopped-out miniatures: they looked rather silly, vapid girls to me, with round sheep’s eyes, tender skins, and beat-me-daddy expressions: I put the tip of my tongue out at all of them. But of all the photographs, none impressed me more than that of Violet with no less than seven six-foot women all standing in Arctic clothes beside a tent in the snow. Underneath was written: ‘Everest Expedition 1935.’

  Well, young lady (if such you are), I said to myself: you’ve got into the lion’s den all right. I then ope
ned a large wardrobe in the bedroom and was astonished to see hanging from the door-rail a black beard exactly like Violet’s father’s, with hooks to go over the ears. Equally interesting was a wide range of men’s suitings – cut, I must say, with just a touch of effeminacy; but how else, in view of the contours, can one cut a man’s suit to fit a woman? They ranged from plus-fours to very distinguished evening-dress, including a concertina hat and an opera cloak. There was also a choice of swagger-canes, knobkerries, and blackthorn walking-sticks; and there were shoes without number, mostly the sort of brogues that men nowadays find too heavy.

  I might have dallied for hours, fingering these coarse stuffs and these trim appurtenances of a man-about-town, had I not decided to explore the second, smaller wardrobe. I gave such a gasp when I opened the door, because a wave of scent poured out and I found myself staring at a row of expensive dresses and nightdresses, with a bottom rail fairly hidden by sparkling high-heeled shoes, wonderful open-toed sandals, and slippers of every kind, from sleek to furry. It was simply too much for me: without a second thought I whipped off my jacket and trousers and tried on an absolutely ravishing evening-dress.

  I say ‘tried on’; but put-on would be the better description. For no sooner had I got it over me and was tripping gaily to the long mirror to fall in love with myself (which is what try-on really means) than I heard the terrifying sound of a key turning gently in the living-room door.

  I knew it was not Violet: I would have heard her thunderous steps. Who was it, then? I stood, my mouth warbling little moans of terror, the back of one palm pressed against my lips. Infinitely slowly, the door opened; at last, a terrifying feline face was poked cautiously into the room. On seeing me, it gave a scream of rage, burst in, and without a word of explanation ran five sharp finger-nails down each side of my face. ‘So you’re the one, are you?’ it screamed, grasping me by the hair (which fortunately was navy-cut) and attempting to throw me into the fire: ‘Oh, what I’ll do to you, you sneaking little harpy, you two-timing little chorus-girl, you little female ant, you runty little slip, you smirking snippet off a Chiaparelli march-past! And in my dress, my own sea-wave taffeta! Oh, oh!’ She began to rip it off me, leaving me exposed in my woollen combinations and striped suspenders, the sight of which seemed to add to her rage, causing her to scream: ‘Oh, a double-harpy, a witch in man’s pants, a little Violet’s monkey, a suspendered copy twice removed!’ At this, I found my voice – which, much to my surprise, emerged almost in a deep baritone. ‘You get out of here, you beastly girl!’ I bellowed: ‘do you think I can’t defend myself? How’s that, and that …?’ and, oh dear, I gave her a good old one-two with the left and right, and when I had her rocking seized one of Violet’s heaviest brogues and went at her with it, roaring like a bull. But next minute she was gone: I heard her squeals ringing down the stairs. For a moment I stood panting, brogue in hand; then in response to an angry cry from an American corporal on the lower floor: ‘Hey, you guys! A little less—noise if you don’t mind!’ I slammed-to the door and fell back into my chair.

  Now, my tears began to flow again; I touched my poor scratched cheeks with my palms and lamented my miserable condition. If this is how dogs behave, I thought, I would rather be something else – and I had been saying this to myself, between sobs, for quite half a minute before it dawned on me that for the first time I was questioning a tenet of my father’s. At this, guilt rolled over me in waves and I abandoned myself utterly to sobs and groans.

  Thus occupied, rolled-up in a cocoon of self-pity and self-accusation, I did not hear the door open – only a man’s squeaky voice saying: ‘Hullo, dear! Not idle tears? Do let Harold help you. Harold loves to help.’

  He was the slimmest thing you ever saw, with blond hair like silk. You could see right through his skin to the bewitching little bones underneath: he would have made a delicious feast at a banquet of cannibal elves. His hands, which he held before him wrist up and fingers down, were limp as cheesecloth, and instinct told me that his purpose in thus displaying them was to let them precede him into a strange place and give advance evidence of his utter harmlessness. I saw at once that I must take a strong masculine line with him, so I stood upright and said sharply: ‘What are you doing here, you shrimp? Did Violet not tell you to stay away?’

  He giggled like anything and answered: ‘No, dear, you know quite well she didn’t. But of course you are absolutely right to suggest she did. It shows that although you don’t know her one bit, you do understand me. And understanding is so much more important than knowledge, I always think.’

  This put me on my guard. People who can deliver this sort of talk at a moment’s notice are always able to take care of themselves, no matter how limply they may dangle their hands. Clearly, my visitor was disguised. But as what? I couldn’t imagine.

  ‘I really think,’ he said, looking at me tactfully under his long eyelashes, ‘that you should put a little more on. But not on my account. On the contrary, if woollen combinations are your preference, nothing, absolutely nothing in the world, would persuade me to utter the smallest criticism, let alone the least reproach.’

  I was now in a quandary. What, if anything, should I put on? Skirts or trousers? I am no fool, and I saw very quickly that this naughty little fop was attempting to shame me into declaring my sex. So I replied very coolly: ‘Thank you, I prefer to remain as nature made me. May I ask your business?’

  ‘Such an awful old fright,’ he answered, ‘isn’t he?’ and pointed at Violet’s father. ‘It simply gives me gooseflesh to look at him. One can almost see him wielding the knout. On some bare slave.’

  He shuddered, and gave me a very appealing, humorous look. It melted me a little because it suggested that poor buttercups like ourselves do manage to keep up our spirits with little jokes about the boots that crush us. So I asked him: ‘Are you a friend of Violet’s?’

  ‘I’m not sure that friend is quite the word,’ he replied fussily, working his little face through a series of grimaces and leaving little lines and wrinkles behind which he carefully smoothed out again with his finger-tips. ‘There now, look what you’ve done: you’ve given me crows-feet,’ he said petulantly, glancing into a little mirror which he drew from his pocket. ‘No. I adore Violet, but friendship is rather different. I never think of Violet at all, never give her a second’s thought, until I am feeling dispirited and crushed. Then, I have a sudden vision of those refectory-table legs, those square hips, that crimson face, and that hair like pig’s bristles. I rush to her for mother-love. One glance at her is enough to reduce me to sheer jelly. I never leave her without feeling that there is more hope and serenity in the outside world than there was when I fled from it. But this time, oddly enough, I have come to ask her advice.’

  ‘It seems odd to me,’ I said tartly, ‘that you should come for advice to one whom you don’t credit with much intelligence.’

  ‘But, dear, she has no intelligence. She lay on it ages ago, like a sow, my dear, and crushed it, absolutely drove it into the mud of her sty. It made her feel vulnerable. After all, let’s be fair to Violet: what does she want with intelligence? All she wants is people to prod her respectfully in the hams and say: “There’s a prize boar if ever I saw one.” That’s really the trouble nowadays, you know. God forbid that I should object to the sexes having changed places, but I do think sometimes that the women are going a little far. Let them be men by all means; I gladly abdicate that exhausting role. But must they be Visigoths? Do they have to look so repulsive? Do they have to carry imitation to the point of parody? I, for one, am never amused by Violet’s famous parlour-trick.’

  ‘To which of them do you refer?’ I asked cleverly.

  ‘I mean the one with the policeman. I simply crawl under the table … But never mind. I suppose I’m old-fashioned. Today, I had hoped to consult her about my play. There’s a part with two Amazons fighting over a captive. I simply can’t imagine what to make one of them say in the heat of a particular moment. Perhaps that de
pends on the sex of the captive.’

  ‘So you write plays?’ I asked, rather pleased to have the conversation on a higher level.

  ‘Only a play. It’s one I’ve always had.’ He sighed. ‘It really is going to astonish people when it’s performed. It is so entirely new.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, you see, it’s an interpretation of contemporary life disguised as a tragedy of the age of Pericles. It starts with a porter coming on and saying how corrupt everything is in Athens and that if the king doesn’t take propitiatory steps immediately, there’s bound to be a seven-years’ famine. The chorus takes up this theme and goes on about famine for a long time. At last the king comes on, with his advisers and mother and so-on, and they decide there’s simply no doubt any more; they must get a directive from the oracle. The chorus are very pleased and chant a long time about the wisdom of this decision, but you can tell by a rather malicious grimness in their tones – you know what choruses are – that the king’s in for a nasty shock. And how right they are, my dear! The oracle looks-up some gizzards and tells him that the only way he can save the city is by sacrificing the first person he meets when he gets outside.’

  ‘Surely there is nothing new in this?’ I said. ‘I seem to have read it all my life.’

  ‘Oh no you haven’t, dear. Who do you think is the first person the king meets on leaving the oracle?’

  ‘Someone he is very fond of, of course.’

  ‘Exactly. Well – it’s his mother.’

  He stared at me with a look of maniacal triumph. But when he saw that I was unmoved, even puzzled, he began to explain desperately: ‘You see, she was so worried about what the oracle would say that instead of staying in bed as her son told her to do – she has a weak heart, you see – she secretly hobbled to the temple. In fact, she listened at the keyhole. So when he comes out with his sword drawn, she proffers her naked breast. It’s going to be the most dramatic moment since Oedipus screamed – and so much more up-to-date. Every thread of life as we live it today, every vital question, will be drawn, as by invisible wires, to this incredible, unanswerable, unresolvable moment. The king must choose between his mother and Athens: that is to say, between mother and art. It’s sheer horror! Don’t ask me which he plumps for. Every time I think of his agony I cry so much that I can’t go on writing. That’s why I’m just concentrating on the odd bits pro tem., like the Amazon battle.’