by Jackie Kay
But today something did shock Albert Holding. Today, Albert Holding did gasp.
What happened has made him think new things and it’s been some years since Holding has had a new thought in his head. He has been thinking about men and women. Ever since the young man got so distressed and pulled him back and forth, shaking him, he has been thinking about men and women. The differences between them. It never occurred to him to think of those differences before, except of course those obvious ones that he is confronted with every working day of his life.
The body came in at nine-thirty this morning. One of Holding’s men went to the house and collected it. There was nothing particularly unusual about the death. The man had had a fear of hospitals and had died at home, being cared for more than adequately by his devoted wife. Holding sat down for his morning cup of tea. He finished that, rinsed the cup in the sink, washed his hands with surgical wash and set about his new arrival, the famous trumpeter Joss Moody – though Holding had never heard of him until today. His funeral wouldn’t be until Friday because it would take some organization. Anything over three days is a definite case for embalming. He had booked the embalmer and she would be coming in some time today.
He started to get the body ready for the embalmer. He took off his pyjamas, a rather expensive pair of pyjamas in a cream linen, very trendy for a man of his years. He took the bottoms off first. The first thing he noticed was that the man’s legs were not hairy. Then Holding noticed that he had rather a lot of pubic hair. A bush. The absence of the penis did not strike him straight away. Perhaps because he was expecting it, he imagined it for a while. When he did notice after a few moments that there was no visible penis, he actually found himself rummaging in the pubic hair just to check that there wasn’t a very, very small one hiding somewhere. The whole absence made Albert Holding feel terribly anxious, as if he had done something wrong. As if he was not doing his job properly.
He began to take the pyjama shirt off. He noticed his hand was shaking slightly. (Under normal circumstances, he prided himself in having a steady hand with his dead.) The top button came away in his hand. It was an imitation bone button, quite lovely. Albert didn’t know what to do with it. He stared at it in his hand. A few bits of cream thread were still attached to it. He pulled them out so that the two tiny eyes were clear. An image of himself as a young boy scrambling under the table to discover a much missed button of his mother’s rushed towards him. His mother ruffling his hair, telling him she’d never been able to find another one like it. Albert put the bone button in his back trouser pocket to keep it safe, in case it was asked for. He took a deep breath and continued undoing the rest of the buttons. Underneath the pyjama shirt were several bandages wrapped firmly round the chest. He undid the large white safety pin. It was exactly the sort of pin you’d find on an old-fashioned nappy. And so he began to unravel the whole length of bandage. It was quite a difficult business, because of course Holding couldn’t sit the body up. He had to keep turning the body on its side. Holding pulled a bit of bandage, turned it on the side, rolled the body over to the other side to pull some more. This went on for some time. Holding was sweating by the time he had finished. He could feel the heat of his own breath. He laid him on his back again. Even though Holding was expecting them, he still gave out a gasp when he saw them. There they were, staring up at him in all innocence – the breasts. In terribly good condition for someone of his years. Pert, alert. Small enough to have remained hidden beneath those bandages. The nipples were dark plum colour. Holding had a strange feeling staring at those breasts that was difficult for him to articulate to himself. It was as if they knew they had hardly been seen by anybody. As if they knew they were secrets. There was something in his surprise that made him feel the breasts were some sort of archaeological find, as if he himself had dug them up. Albert Holding looked at the pile of bandages on his parlour floor. They were like the bandages of an Egyptian mummy.
He didn’t mean to but he happened to glance quickly at the face. It gave him quite a turn. The face had transformed. It looked more round, more womanly. It was without question a woman’s face. How anybody could have ever thought that face male was beyond Albert Holding. How he himself could have thought it male! There she was, broad-boned face, black hair, with spatterings of grey, full lips, smooth skin. Quite an extraordinary looking woman. Her body was in good shape. Her stomach lean, muscles taut. Albert wouldn’t have said she had a particularly womanly shape, but the fact that she was a woman was now beyond question.
It had never happened to him before. He had never had a man turn into a woman before his very eyes. He felt it to be one of those defining moments in his life that he would be compelled to return to again and again.
He wondered who knew about this woman lying on his table. Who knew what. The ‘devoted wife’ obviously knew. The doctor would surely have noticed. He would have to wait for the death certificate to come in to see what it said. Mrs Moody had mentioned nothing of this. Holding racked his brains to try to remember her exact words on the telephone. My husband has died and I would like you to arrange the funeral. He already has a plot. Yes, she had mentioned the plot. He remembered that because it was unusual these days. The graveyards were more overcrowded than inner cities. She had said her husband was rather well known; he remembered that too. Albert wanted to ring Mrs Moody and say something, but he was not sure what. Even although he had seen with his own eyes that the body lying in his parlour was that of a woman, he still found himself referring to it as ‘Mrs Moody’s husband’. He couldn’t think what else to call it but ‘Mrs Moody’s husband’.
The thought of speaking to Mrs Moody filled Albert Holding with terror. The son had phoned this morning saying that he would like to come round and visit his father and pay him his last respects. Holding had explained to the young Mr Moody that he’d be better waiting until after the embalmer had been. Less upsetting. Natural colour restored. But the young man said he wanted to see his father ‘natural’. Jesus! The young man had sounded totally straightforward. He obviously didn’t know. But then Mrs Moody had sounded straightforward too.
Holding looked at his parlour clock. The son would be round any minute! Holding rushed around her wondering how he could make her more presentable. Quickly, he dabbed some last minute powder on her face to take the slightly green tinge off. Not that the son would be looking at the face all that much. Holding’s nerves were high. He was not good in a crisis. He could never think of the right words to say. He practised a few versions to himself, covering her up with a white sheet. Did you know that … Were you aware that … I presume you did not in fact realize … Nothing sounded that good to him. He would just need to come right out with it.
It seemed to Albert that he himself had a hand in the mistake. What if there was an inquiry? What if the doctor never properly examined the body? What if the medical certificate read ‘male’. What if the wife turned up with the death certificate which said male too? Holding pulled open his special drawer to check that his red pen was still there. If there was anything untoward in the death certificate, he would be duty bound to correct it with this very red pen. He picked it up and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. This pen would need to do the deed. He almost wished it would happen. If he could have the satisfaction of brutally and violently obliterating ‘male’ and inserting ‘female’ in bold, unequivocal red, then at least he would have something to do. The idea of having nothing to do in such an unusual business, nothing official, was horrifying. Then, of course, there was the press to consider. If Mrs Moody’s husband was as famous as Mrs Moody said then doubtless the press would be interested. The body might be refused a burial. If the registrar did not provide the suitable death certificate then the body could not be buried. What if he spent nights where she appeared to him as a woman and nights where he appeared to him as a man?
When the young man arrived at Holding and Son late Monday morning, Albert was struck by his good looks. He couldn’t help but noti
ce them. He was tall, dark, graceful, with shiny black hair cut into a very definite shape. He was dressed very casually in modern clothes. Mr Moody looked nervous, but no more nervous than most young men whose fathers have just died. Most people did not relish coming through Holding’s parlour doors. More often than not, they entered hesitantly, almost stepping back rather than forward. There would come a small moment, as they were coming in through the door, which Holding always held open, when they would decide that it absolutely had to be done. At that pivotal moment most people would take quite a shocking large step into the parlour. Albert Holding would close the door behind them and say, ‘Come this way.’
It was not like this with the son of Joss Moody. Holding couldn’t possibly take him straight through. He had to delay. The words were a struggle. There was no language to make it easy for Holding. The young son had obviously steeled himself for the occasion and said, ‘I’ve come to see my father, Joss Moody. I spoke to you earlier on the phone. I won’t believe he’s dead, you know, until I see him in the flesh.’ Holding hid his face beneath his handkerchief and coughed awkwardly. ‘Yes, that’s understandable. A lot of people say that.’ ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to get it over with,’ Joss Moody’s son said. ‘Yes, indeed,’ Mr Holding replied. ‘By all means,’ Holding said, playing for time, ‘I will take you through to see your father, but there is something I want to say to you first.’ ‘Can’t it wait?’ the young Mr Moody said. ‘I’ve got to see him now or I’ll lose my nerve.’ ‘Were you aware … I mean did you know that … I presume in fact that you must be conscious of the fact that …’ ‘What are you ranting on about? What’s going on? Take me to see my father!’ Colman almost shouted. ‘What I mean to say,’ Holding said, coughing into his fist, ‘is that your father is not a man at all, but a woman. In other words he does not possess the male body parts, but instead the person lying through next door that I am given to understand is your father is actually a woman. She is in possession of the female body parts.’ But somewhere in the middle of his second sentence, the good-looking young man grabbed his collar and shouted into his ear, ‘What’s your game? Tell me what’s your fucking game? Is this some kind of a sick joke? Where’s your boss? I want to see the real fucking undertaker.’ He shook Holding back and forth, almost lifting him off his feet. Holding couldn’t stop coughing. He felt like he deserved it. He deserved to be shaken like this. He deserved to be slapped across his face. He had never experienced violence before. His glasses skidded across the floor. ‘I can quite understand—’ he began.
‘You don’t understand nothing. You sick bastard. Get me the man in charge.’
Holding scrabbled on the floor, picked up his glasses. There was nothing for it. He said, ‘Are you absolutely positive you want to see her?’
‘What are you talking about? Let me see my father. What’s wrong with you?’
Holding continued to speak quietly, forcing calmness into his voice. ‘If you are quite sure you can handle the shock of it, come this way, please. You will need to see for yourself.’ He took him through and pulled back the white sheet.
All afternoon, the son’s face has repeated itself to Albert. That look of utter dismay and disbelief. That look of fury and sickness. It was quite an ordeal to witness. All his working life he has assumed that what made a man a man and a woman a woman was the differing sexual organs. Yet today, he had a woman who persuaded him, even dead, that he was a man, once he had his clothes on. That young man believed his father was a man; who was he to tell him any different? An entirely different scenario occurred to Holding. What if he had said nothing at all? Who would have been the wiser? What if he had simply waited until the embalmer had come and done her job? Dressed her up in the man’s suit and tie. After all, Holding was well used to the business of disguising dead bodies – making them look presentable even when they had suffered quite horrific injuries, making the face resemble the old face, using make-up unsparingly, dressing the body up in presentable clothes, even if it came to Holding in rags. Holding had made many a corpse look absolutely stunning in his coffins with his beautiful silk cloths and fine woods. Of course some people could only afford the standard box, but he always did his best for everybody. There was nothing he had not seen. Until today. This was a first all right. This was a first.
INTERVIEW EXCLUSIVE
The first time, right? Right, the first time I brought a girlfriend back home, my father was weird, come to think of it, very weird. Name was Melanie. Why I liked her was she told me her mum had had another baby before she was born that she called Melanie as well. The first Melanie died, cot death I think, something like that. My Melanie was originally called Ruth, but when her mum took her out in her pram all her pals forgot she was Ruth and called her Melanie. So Melanie stuck; her mum called her Melanie and so did everyone else even though it wasn’t nowhere on her birth certificate. I liked her for that. I felt sorry for her. Didn’t seem a good start in life being called after a dead sister. She said a strange thing to me once. She said she felt like she was both of them. That freaked me. But I liked being freaked. I was at that age – what fifteen? sixteen? – when being freaked was the next best thing to sliced bread. That’s the only state we really liked to be in, completely freaked out, sucking in our breath. Strung out, rattling.
I told Melanie that I was originally called William Dunsmore and we pissed ourselves laughing for ages.
When I first took Melanie home, my mum made a good fuss of her. My dad shook her hand and said, That’s a real firm handshake you got there, Melanie,’ as if he was an American or something. I took Melanie to my bedroom and kissed her and called her Ruth as an experiment and she called me William and that turned both of us on. I was playing Freddy Mercury and doing his high Queen voice. My dad couldn’t stand Freddy Mercury so when I heard the knock at my door I thought that he was going to say, ‘Turn that noise down.’ I opened the door and my dad’s standing there looking weird. ‘Can I have a word, Colman?’ he said. ‘Can it wait?’ I said, indicating that my girlfriend was there. ‘No. I’m afraid it can’t.’
So I go downstairs then and sit in the kitchen listening to my dad cough and splutter. ‘What is it?’ I says, irritable. He’s looking worried but more than that, something fucking more than that. He’s looking jealous. As if he’d like to be in my shoes, know what I mean. I thought at the time that he’s just pissed off getting old. I says, ‘I’m not doing anything that need worry you.’ He says, ‘One thing can lead to another, Colman. I want you to be careful.’ Pronouncing every syllable. All I need to do to get rid of him is play ball with him. So I says, ‘Fair enough’ and ‘Thanks for the tip, old man.’ He goes to the living room looking sad as shit. I go back and tell Melanie and we piss ourselves laughing again. ‘Where is he living?’ Then she calls me by my other name and pulls me towards her. But that’s enough of that.
He was edgy around Melanie, that’s for definite, always asking her too many questions. I’d have to interrupt and say, ‘Hey, what is this, the Gestapo?’ and he’d throw me a burning scowl. ‘Just interested,’ he’d say. ‘Is there something the matter with being interested in somebody? Would you rather I just ignored your friends? Melanie, Colman doesn’t want …”
That’s enough,’ I’d shout and pull Melanie to my room. Melanie would say, ‘What’s the problem, Colman? I don’t mind your dad asking me things. He’s sweet.’
Melanie became the second of my friends to be favoured with a trumpet lesson. She picked up what my father told her right away – not to blow straight into it, but just over it. He said seriously she had real talent and could become one of Britain’s best women trumpet players. He went on about this: trumpet players were mostly men, it was time a woman like herself gave the guys a fright, a nice wee fright. No kidding. She could do it if she was interested; that’s all it takes, interest and intuition. Oh, and practise. My arse. He could help. That’s what I felt it was about. He was trying to steal my girlfriend, give her these fake lessons, and comp
letely screw me up. I wondered if all fathers did this to their sons to stay virile, or if it was just mine. It was around that time that he started offering Mel and me a glass of wine with our meal – which we didn’t refuse.
The day Mel said to me, ‘Cole.’ (We liked that, Mel and Cole, Cole and Mel. We liked writing it down on windows, notebooks, bus stops, toilets, bedsteads; we were a team. An item.) ‘Cole, I think your father’s really attractive. He’s so gentle, so different from other men.’ The day Mel said that to me I chucked her. Fuck that for a bowl of bananas. My parents asked where she was, if we’d rowed, what was the matter. They liked her. I wouldn’t talk about it. I retreated into my sulky, no-speak world. That was it. Fuck the lot of them. I didn’t come out of that world for a long, long time.
She turns the tape off. Leans forward. ‘This is exactly what we want,’ she says smoothly. ‘Perfect. The details are wonderful. Wonderful. I think we’ll leave it for today and continue tomorrow. Is that OK? It’s a fascinating story. How do you feel about telling it?’
‘I dunno,’ he says, and ruffles his hair. ‘It will take me ages to come to terms with it all. It’s too much.’
‘I think you’re coping marvellously, if you don’t mind me saying so. Just give yourself time. Give yourself permission.’
‘Permission? Come again?’
‘All I’m saying is don’t feel bad about feeling bad.’