by Nigel Dennis
Harold gave a slight scream and went on reading.
‘But is that not true? Well, I am going to find out. Next time you find yourself in the clutch of some bar-room Jove, I shall not be there.’
Harold screamed again.
‘No, I shall not. I shall watch your struggles with complacent negligence. When you are carried from the scene, shrieking, I shall not wind my horn. I shall not whistle-up my dogs. We shall see then how you emerge from the bonfire which has resulted from your childish obsession with matches. If anything remains of you thereafter –’
Harold gave a third scream and drummed his ankles.
‘– If anything remains of you, it will perhaps be a more orderly remnant, more discriminating in its choice of friends, more sensible of itself, less ready to cast its bread upon the waters, leaving a better taste in the mouth than is the case at present.’
‘What’s the time?’ said Harold.
The gentleman consulted his wrist-watch and replied: ‘It is exactly eleven twenty-nine.’
‘Then I must turn over,’ said Harold. He did so. ‘I’m sorry I interrupted,’ he added, ‘do go on.’
‘I shall certainly do so. What I see ahead of you, Harold, is middle-age. No, don’t scream. I’m only being cruel to be kind. I was once every inch as slim as you. When I entered a room, I, too, did so like a graceful spinning-top. Like you, I tormented my elders and betters, mocking their sage flesh with fluttering and suggestive glances. Like you, I veiled a heart full of trickery and malice under looks of hapless innocence. Indeed, I know it all so well, that when I look at you now, my glance penetrates you from end to end.’
‘I like that,’ said Harold.
‘Of course. But you won’t when you have become impenetrably fat. And you are going to be fat. You are the type who becomes exceedingly fat. You are going to look like a Queen’s Pudding. The creases that you are at this moment so easily smoothing from your eyes are going to be gullies, Harold, deep passages down which your elderly tears will flow between banks of mountainous tissues. Your hair will not grey; oh no. It will never know a charming silver. It will fall from your head, as silky hair always does, sliver by sliver, and leave not a wrack behind, only the domed sheen of a moribund chamber-pot. You will be a repulsive sight; your feet flat, hot, and heavy; your gait a rolling wobble; your knees – but let us say nothing of them. Burnt, indeed, immolated, at both ends, your candle will not last the night, if only because there will be no night to give it harbour.’
Harold began to cry. Well-pleased, the gentleman continued: ‘In short, you are in mid-passage, Harold. Two more years of your present identity is the very most you can expect. Now is the time for you to learn from my experience. What did I do when, like you, I saw myself approaching the middle of the journey? Did I press on, oblivious, keeping to the dear, familiar road of beauty, youth, and malice? I did not. I resolved then and there to trim my nails and cut my losses. Before Nature could rob me of my hair, I myself clipped it to the brosse. My shirts of many colours I gave to younger men. My suits became double-breasted and severe; my necktie a firm, simple bow. I learnt to walk stiffly upright; I charged my languorous hands with a chubby firmness suggestive of aesthetic dignity. I voluntarily became tubby before my time; I cleansed my house of the riff-raff which haunted it; substituted for the ever unmade double-bed the refined bust, the well-chosen tea-cup, the select objet d’art…. And turn that sun-lamp on to some higher part of you or you will be a Botticelli from the waist-up, a Bronzino from waist-down.’
Sniffling, Harold obeyed.
‘Let me continue. I saw, even at that early stage of my life, that the reward of age is not wisdom but despotism. I trained myself to be hard, crusty, and ruthless. I made myself feared. I killed the butterfly in me and became a managerial figure. No one knew in what shape I might appear – a tyrannous interior-decorator, an authority on harpsichords, a racing motorist, a designer of winter-gardens and connoisseur of camellias, a royalist historian, a distinguished general. I even made a brief venture into marriage – a condition I would still be in were it not for the fact that my strength of character and ferocity made it impossible for me to stimulate the soft, spineless role of an up-to-date husband. And what has been the consequence of all this? Does anyone regard me in the way they will soon regard you – as a repellent old Micawber whose puffy antics and sloppy ways provoke only derision and boredom? Do I live a lonely, drunken life, cooking myself precious little dishes over a dirty gasfire and obtaining from food the gluttonous joy that I am denied by my fellow-girls? Far from it. I am a well-to-do, revered and powerful figure. That Establishment which we call England has taken me in: I am become her Fortieth article. I sit upon her Boards, I dominate her stage, her museums, her dances, and her costumes; I have an honoured voice in her elected House. To her-and her alone-I bend the knee, and in return for my homage she is gently blind to my small failings, asking only that I indulge them privately. The few who dare to sneer at me, do so well-behind my back, and when I find them out my revenge is subtle, immediate, and deadly. When I look at you, Harold, sprawled beneath that lamp like an earthworm on a sunny stone, it is not envy or admiration I feel … it is joy – joy that no one can ever turn my stone over and render me a revolting slug, condemned to a dark, wet world of slime and misery. … What? Weeping again? You do not want the Establishment to seize you, try you, and imprison you, to be considered degraded even by the House of Lords and corrupt even by the evening press? You object to standing in a magistrate’s court hearing your psychological oddity explained to three rich grocers and a retired colonel? You don’t want every illiterate in town to make you responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire, or to become the victim through whom the Establishment will threaten all who detest it? You do not wish to be sponged upon by golden-haired youths who will spend what they squeeze from you on orgies with others more handsome and robust? Surely you need have no fear of that. It is you who will be begging from them – piteously reminding them that you, too, were once comely and exotic. But the young never read the terrible messages that are writ on tombstones, Harold, nor do they throw away good money on ancient mariners.’
Poor Harold! I had been sorry to hear that he had been keeping such bad company and that his character, as I had suspected already, was of a weak kind. I was glad, on the other hand, to know that there was some older man to take an interest in his future and explain how worried the Establishment always is about the Roman Empire having lasted only a thousand years. But it did seem to me that he was having it laid on pretty hard. It touched my heart to see him lying there, burnt quite red in some places and merely tinged in others, his eyes red with tears, the cold cream smeared all over his pretty book, his insteps twitching with his sobs. It was to save him from further humiliation that I gave a genteel cough.
At once the older man gave me a most sympathetic smile and started across the room. On reaching Harold, he paused, struck him a sharp blow on the buttocks, and cried: ‘Stop!’ When Harold, with a yell, burst into more tears, he slapped him again, saying: ‘Immediately! This is the last warning!’ I was impressed to see that within a few seconds Harold’s tears had disappeared and only a silent quivering remained to indicate his distress. The Master switched off the sun-lamp and said: ‘Now, go and get dressed at once. You are a horrible sight.’ And Harold, sighing, rose to his feet and went obediently to the door. I was sorry to see that though he staggered in an ungainly way at first, by the time he reached the door he was moving in his usual affected way, as if totally unimpressed by the sermon he had just received.
‘So you are the bearded lady?’ said the Master, sitting beside the sofa with a smile. ‘Well, my dear, let us first get one thing quite clear. It was purely as an act of humanity that I gave you refuge here, and if you are one of the gang with whom Harold associates when my back is turned, I assure you that you will leave immediately.’
I was most offended by such a rude beginning. I was about to say so, in the strongest lan
guage, when I took notice of the extreme severity of his face and changed my mind. ‘Far from being one of any gang,’ I answered simply, ‘I am an unhappy, persecuted person who has suffered only misfortune as a result of clinging to the strictest principles.’
‘You had better tell me the whole story, then,’ he replied, ‘And no lies and exaggerations, please. I am never fooled.’
‘This will be the fourth time I have told “the whole story”, in a single week,’ I answered, ‘and yet it is already ten times as long. Only a few days ago it had a long beginning and no end; now, the beginning is negligible as the end stretches into interminable nightmare. A week ago, I stood firmly upon my past; today, it has disappeared and I am swimming in incomprehensibility. It used to worry me not to know who I was, but I find it far worse not knowing when I am.’
I then told him the whole story, weeping vigorously when I reached the moment of my parents’ deaths because I knew that from now on they would play no part whatever in my life.
‘And so,’ he said, when I had finished, ‘what is the situation now? In what identity do you intend to face the future? Are you going to choose one of the sexes as your own or are you going to continue on the undetermined course laid down by your parents?’
‘I cannot see myself doing either,’ I replied. ‘It seems that the choice I have to make is quite different from what my parents supposed. It seems that nowadays one must choose between being a woman who behaves like a man, and a man who behaves like a woman. In short, I must choose to be one in order to behave like the other. This is going to be much more difficult: already I can see the confusion that will mark my life; the overlappings of the real and the feigned; the mingled half-bass, half-soprano; the incessant switchings, self-reminders, lapses, and interludes of sexual forgetfulness.’
‘Oh, come now,’ he said, smiling: ‘You make it seem too complicated. Let us suppose you decide to be a sort of Harold. Clearly you will see yourself as a sort of accidental man whose aim is to overcome your handicap as quickly as possible. The first step in this direction is to keep the word “girl” uppermost in your mind. This is a decisive, transitional word, specially contrived to fit your particular difficulty. Once you start thinking of yourself as “girl”, you will find yourself quite at home in the feigned role. The important thing is to get the word “woman” out of your mind: you can be a girl-man, if you know what I mean, but not a woman-man. Similarly, if you decide to follow in Violet’s footsteps, you can become a man-girl, but not a man-woman. Do you follow?’
‘Do you really see me a man-girl like Violet?’ I asked, smiling.
‘Why not? Don’t imagine that all men-girls have to look like oxen. There are many, like you, who are slim and delicate and make up for lack of poundage with a hard, cold power which is a great deal more impressive than sheer weight. No, the great thing to remember about this intermediate zone of ours is that your choice is as wide as it would be in the normal world. You can be a languishing type of man-girl, a ruthless type of girl-man. You can also be anywhere in between; there is no fixed register. Moreover, any time you find your chosen role unsuitable, you can make a complete switch.’
‘You mean, decide to be just a man or a woman after all?’
‘I am not sure about that. It’s the most difficult role of all nowadays. Once you start being the girl-man father of five, with girl-man boyfriends on the side and so on; or a man-girl mother with lady-friends-well, I know it’s done, but it’s a dog’s life, believe me. One small marriage, yes, simply to keep the conventions, if you are ambitious. But don’t overdo it.’
‘Tell me frankly,’ I said. ‘What would you do in my position?’
‘Will you,’ he asked, after a little thought, ‘think me impossibly dowdy and old fashioned if I suggest that your first decision should be anatomical?’
He must have seen from my face that I was astounded, so he continued quickly: ‘First decision, I said. Whatever you may choose to do, you should really start out with – well, how can I put it? – a clear picture of the basic potentialities. Your trouble up to now, as I see it, is that you have been suffering from a grave handicap but have not yet decided on which side of the fence it is, so to speak. In short, are you a deviated woman or an inverted man?’
‘I never thought of such a thing,’ I answered.
‘I could probably tell you in a minute,’ he said, with a twinkle.
‘But I hardly know you.’
He smiled, and said: ‘It was I who popped you into bed.’
My mouth fell open. I looked down at my silk pyjamas and cried: ‘You mean, you know already?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ he answered gently.
I lay for a moment without speaking. Then, setting my teeth and drawing a strong breath, I turned to him and said: ‘Tell me.’
‘Can you face it?’ he asked earnestly.
‘Yes, yes!’ I cried, beating the sofa with my fists. ‘Only, tell me.’
‘Very well,’ he said, taking my hand in a firm grip. ‘You are a …’
Alas! at that very moment there was a light rat-tat on the door-knocker and a sound of youthful whistling – the sort of sound one associates with urchins and barrow-boys. That, at any rate, I am sorry to say, was the impression the sounds made upon my host, whose eyes immediately lit up with interest, while he dropped my hand and cocked his ear towards the front door. We heard the Philippino go down the passage and open the door: at once, the voice of a girl-man said: ‘I’m dreadfully sorry to intrude at such an hour, but Lord Lamprey simply ordered me not to pass through London without calling on his best friend. I would have come hours earlier but I was detained – forcibly detained, my dear – by some scandalous people in Wapping.’ At this, my host left my bedside instantly and went to the door, calling: ‘Come in, come in! How is Lamprey’s wound?’ Even the stoutest of girl-men, I am afraid, lose their poise where a peer is concerned: to the abnormal vanity of their type, they add the snobbishness of you and me.
He returned with a slim lad in uniform and promptly said to me: ‘I can’t introduce you because I haven’t the least idea who either of you is. Do excuse me if I leave you briefly’ – and with that they both left the room.
No sooner were they out of hearing than I sprang off the sofa and cried: ‘Harold! Harold! Do come at once, Harold! It’s most important!’ But I called for five minutes before the door opened and Harold appeared, looking sulky and cross. ‘What is it now?’ he asked in a high voice. ‘If it’s more of that endless business about your sex I’d rather not hear a word. There’s muddle enough in a girl’s life without your adding your tedious bewilderment. And what does it matter, anyway? Who cares what sex anyone is? Who cares about sex, for that matter? Not I.’
‘You will when you hear what I have to say,’ I replied firmly. ‘Harold, that girl-man who has just come in is not a girl-man at all.’
‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘What else would he be?’
‘He’s a she, Harold. She’s the man-girl who scratched my face. Voilet has sent her as a fifth column.’
He gave a scream and ran from the room. I heard him shrieking and raving up the stairs: a second later the Adonis, still stark-naked, raced through the living-room, closely followed by the Philippino with a broom. An awful tumult began upstairs: roars and shouts, the crash of broken Tanagra. But I hardly heard it. Someone, outside, struck the window of the living-room a sharp blow; a pane fell in, a huge hand pushed the edge of the black-out curtain to one side. Next minute I saw staring at me through the aperture the terrifying face of Violet herself, a Commando knife clutched between her teeth….
*
The next minutes were the most terrifying of my life. Much as I would have enjoyed a good faint, manliness told me this was no moment for it. Instead, I screamed till my lungs gave out – and yet, transfixed by Violet’s glare, could not have run from the room had not a happy accident occurred. Upstairs, a window opened and there was a scruffling sound; I heard a feminine scream and
the Master’s voice saying firmly: ‘I’m sorry, dear, but there’s no alternative. Push, Carlo!’ Next minute, there was a colossal thud and Violet’s face shot backwards into the night. They had thrown the man-girl imposter out of the top window; she had landed on Violet’s neck.
However manly I may be in other respects, I am enough of a woman to pity those who are injured in battle. I thought now what a hard day it had been for poor Violet, crushed beneath an oak table under police-officers and Amazons, and then risen only to be struck on the neck by a plummeting girl-friend. But even as my heart softened, my muscles stiffened as an even louder roar came from outside, and the sound of hammer-blows on the back door. I heard Violet bawl: ‘Come on, men, one – two – three, altogether,’ followed by a shattering crash: at once, the Master came racing down the stairs, crying sharply, to Carlo, Harold, and the Adonis: ‘It’s a siege, girls! We hold that door to the death!’ Outside, Violet shouted in her deep voice: ‘If you wish to avert unnecessary bloodshed, hand her over and our forces will withdraw.’ To which the Master retorted in cold, high tones: ‘Not to every Liza in Lambeth! We’ve got him and we’ll keep him!’