Death of a She Devil

by Fay Weldon

  ‘If you would really rather be a girl, Tyler,’ she said, ‘we could be so happy together.’

  Tyler said nothing but he was beginning to think she could be right.

  When Valerie looked at her phone she found the battery was shockingly low and there were twenty-five missed calls.

  Chapter 10

  No Walk

  The World Women’s Widdershins Walk was cancelled, defeated by the weather.

  What had happened to an otherwise perfectly planned event was a lightning strike to the High Tower. Security had been up top with Femina Electrical – some kind of bird strike having pushed a few aerials out of true, affecting both reception and transmission at this crucial time. Leda (for it was she) had had the bright if rather suicidal idea of flying a kite – in honour of Deborah Franklin, Benjamin’s common-law wife, the real power behind the throne – in order to protect the girls. But the lightning had struck the High Tower, not the kite, and all were lucky to be alive. Leda had to be hospitalised with nasty burns on the arm. ‘Suicidal or stupid,’ the paramedic (male and unfeeling) had observed. Valerie had to agree. Leda had already caused so much trouble.

  Cell phones were mysteriously not working. The electric garage doors wouldn’t open, so Tyler, fleet of foot and with Last of the Mohicans staying power, had run down to the Auto Solo Garage outside the village to contact the outside world by sending out a hundred and fifty emails, each with its regrets emoji. Not all arrived, out after all that, some getting blocked by spam filters as mass postings, some, it being so near Christmas, were simply not opened. Fifty-two of those invited turned up. One for every week of the year – Valerie noted, even in her distress that she could somehow use that in the next brochure. But no time now. She was too busy.

  Worse, the top of the High Tower where it faced the sea, just above the aerial platform, was the epicentre of the strike and a great chunk of masonry knocked off had fallen straight onto the new wooden walkway and its scaffolding and smashed the lot. Thank Gaia Amethyst were still on their supper break so there were no injuries amongst them. But walking the Walk was out of the question, widdershins or even clockwise. A flood tide was rising and the wind was up, whipping the waves into frothy orgasms, and it looked almost like the High Tower logo.

  Valerie’s battery had gone dead when the electricity went, and there’d been nothing she could do but creep back into bed with Tyler.

  ‘Just as well,’ Tyler had said. ‘Better cancelled than a disaster.’ Which was annoying of him but Valerie had to admit Tyler was right. His lips were so lovely and tender, his skin so soft and moist... Leda’s mouth tended to be dry and flakey but Valerie had never liked to say so.

  Valerie could acknowledge a falling off in her usual efficiency. After all she was in love and therefore justified. There was such a thing as a life–work balance. The sex had been cheering and good but not perfect. It obviously had been for Tyler, but she craved perfection, and would not rest until she had it. She sighed at the wilfulness of the universe, and returned to the work side of the balance: a useless smartphone was going to mean a hell of a lot of exhausting running around.

  She thought of what Tyler had just said: perhaps, all in all, the necessity for a cancellation could actually be seen as a blessing? It would not do to have a disaster at this stage in her career; inexperience had led her into trying to cram too much into too small a space of time. With Amethyst still putting up the scaffolding at this late date, she had been cutting things very fine indeed. Too fine. But she, Valerie Valeria, was the kind to acknowledge her own shortcomings. How else did one learn? Meanwhile she was in love.

  Chapter 11

  Bobbo’s Funeral

  Bobbo’s burial ceremony was brought forward to 10 a.m. the next day, and kept simple. To make death a matter of parity, of inclusivity, some sort of solemn rite was needed to support Valerie’s initial concept: without the Widdershins Walk the interment might disappoint, be too like burying a dead tom cat in the back garden. A private family burial here and now was appropriate and should forestall gossip about the manner of death or silly jokes about the freezer. If anyone heard spades clanking on rock as Security dug into muddy sand in pouring rain, no one would have reason to gossip. If the body had to be re-interred as time went on, so be it. This was now and that would be then.

  At least Tyler and Valerie were in attendance. Samantha was invited, and came. Dr Simmins was invited, and did not. The weather was far too atrocious, the She Devil claimed, for her to venture out; apart from that she had told Ms Laura that if Valerie was going she would not – Lady Patchett was at her most petulant, Ms Laura complained.

  Security turned up in force – Tyler feared they were only too glad to see the back of his grandfather and came to celebrate rather than to mourn. Leda, of course, was still in hospital. It was very much pompes funèbres au naturel, the coffin-less body, shroud-wrapped and pathetically small, placed on the sandy soil of the grave, soil so thin it seemed already to be caving in.

  The service was taken by Ms Fawkes, one of the younger IGP members at sixty-four, who found a site called Church Services for Unbelievers on Google and downloaded something from that. But there was precious little said in affectionate remembrance, large lumps of hail soon replaced raindrops and the little cluster of mourners had to retreat to the lee of the tower for shelter. Everyone returned once the hail stopped bouncing to try Amazing Grace, but the wind and rain whisked their squeaks away and drove the words back down their throats, so they soon gave up.

  Ellen had her camera under her umbrella and took a few useful shots, and Valerie’s phone was back in action battery-wise so she could tweet and instagram away: ‘Braving the storm – the family mourns; male and female mingle in pursuit of parity.’ Alliteration was always good.

  The grave was filled in, or more or less fell in. Ms Octavia watched her woven bamboo linen shroud disappear under shovelfuls of sand – £175 down the drain; she could get a replacement but it was a lovely off-white tawny colour and she had been rather keeping it for herself when she died. But giving Bobbo a shroud rather than a bed sheet was the right thing to do. Good karma went to the giver, not the taker. Samantha threw in a rather pretty wreath of garlic – leaves and stalks intertwined and cloves as pendants. The rain and wind stopped, clouds parted, a ray of sun came down and hit the grave. All were taken aback. It seemed a rebuke from on high. If no one would take proper notice of Bobbo, heaven would. There was a moment of silence. Tyler felt justified, though he was not sure what for. Clouds parted further and he too was now in direct sunlight, though others were left in the dark. They were all staring at him.

  Then the clouds joined up together, and the sun was hidden. The source of Tyler’s epiphany, or whatever it was, had moved on; the funeral was over, an unknown number of guests would be coming in an hour’s time, expecting a Widdershins Walk which wouldn’t happen and a funeral which already had.

  Valerie hoped to find the time for one more tryst with Tyler before the guests arrived. Dressed as he was in a white belted raincoat borrowed from Ms Octavia, he had looked so beautiful in the ray of sunlight, like the statue of Christ in the Catholic church in Kangaroo Valley when she was a child. She took it as a sure sign that they were meant for each other. But Tyler hadn’t had breakfast and was hungry. She left him in the canteen telling him if anyone expressed surprise at his gender he was to emphasise that he was transiting. She gave him her cardigan because he was shivering with cold. She, Valerie Valeria, hardly ever felt the cold. Perhaps the motorbike girl’s wake-up pills had something to do with it.

  She went off to compose a quick poster explaining to those who turned up that they were at a cancelled event, but that everything would be done to make this birthday party a success. That they should admire the fervour of the storm: pray for themselves as mariners in their own lives, that the She Devil was in mourning for her husband who lay shipwrecked at peace in the place he loved so much – but somehow her very talent for words exhausted her: it was
all too difficult: there would be no poster: let the guests find out for themselves what was going on. Really she could not take responsibility for absolutely everything all the time any more.

  Chapter 12

  The Party

  Valerie decided to help the Luxuriettes fill the éclairs with cream. They could never have got it done if a full complement of guests was expected. If she’d known about the lightning strike, she’d have stopped Leda flying her kite – well, possibly. The sausages had not turned up. She’d not checked when she should have checked. Twenty-five unanswered calls! This was what no orgasm could do for a girl. Tyler simply had to become Tayla. Same lovely person but without all that primitive thrusting in the wrong place.

  The Lantern Room had been hastily given a coat of white paint by the light of oil lamps, the better to set off the antique sofa, hung with Christmas bunting – old sparkling strings of it found at the village shop, a job-lot from Woolworths, now defunct – and looked really pretty; though perhaps rather less so once the power was back on. But the guests were appreciative, genial and generous in their condolences – ten of the fifty-two were males, a good straw in the wind. The wine was good and plentiful, the chicken pie and the vegetarian option – courgette lasagne – really something. The side dishes all had calorie labels on them. The éclairs were in great demand, being in short supply and the icing chocolate not carob.

  The first guest came promptly at one, the last drunken guest drifted away at midnight. Arguments about gain and loss, cost and catering and who paid what for what would have to come later. Ms Laura, or someone – but this was no time for recriminations – had forgotten to send off the cheque for the insurance.

  Outside the great windows rain, hail and sleet still blustered at three o’clock. It was decided to pull the blinds down and turn up the lighting, now the High Tower actually had its power back. It was the shortest day, after all. Meaningful! Forget New Year. This was the start of the real, new future of parity. Valerie tweeted and instagrammed: ‘And ten of us were men! The more the weather blustered, the more optimism blossomed!’

  That was on the Saturday. Sunday was spent clearing up. The She Devil stayed closeted in her room finishing an article for Academica Feminica and did not turn up for Monday’s Board meeting. A vote of thanks went to Valerie for her enterprise in weathering the storm. Due to an Act of God only some fifty guests had been able to attend, but all had bonded, mixed and networked, which was, after all, what the point was. Tom Brightlingsea of De-Gender Now had created a working partnership with Mandy Masters from Anti-Trafficking Concern.

  There were some issues yet to be faced and overcome. Ms Sidcup the Treasurer estimated a loss of £230,000 in the budget – Amethyst were having to bring in heavy machinery and possibly male labour to deal with the masonry fall, Femina Electrical had asked to be released from their contract – and so forth, but she was sure a rise in the membership fee from £8 to £10 would compensate. Ms Sidcup said she was finding the duties of Treasurer in such a rapidly expanding organisation to be too onerous considering her age, and if everyone agreed she would like formally to share the job with Valerie who had a head for figures. Everyone agreed, and Ms Sidcup’s longtime dedication to and hard work for the IGP was recognised, Ms Sidcup thanked and Valerie welcomed.

  Valerie invited everyone to welcome the She Devil’s grandchild Tyler, soon to become Tayla, who would be taking up residence in the Lantern Room during his transition. The new library would be in the Castle Complex. There was to be a World Women’s Widdershins Walk a year from now, by which time true international recognition could be achieved. There were some murmurings from the floor but Valerie, as acting Chairperson, brought the meeting quickly to an end.

  Part 3

  Tyler In Transition

  Nurse Hopkins

  There, you see! There was no need at all for all that wooo-h, wooo-h, wooo-h-ing round the High Tower. The same plot development could be achieved without grotesque faces pressed against windows in a rainstorm, spooky winds or spilled lentils. All one needed, apart from a dead rat, was a timely lightning strike to spoil the phallic perfection of the High Tower by knocking off its seaward side (rather as an earthquake spoiled the picture-perfection of Mount Ruapehu in New Zealand), get Leda out of the way – and thus serve Momus’ purposes well enough. No need for the whole Tower to come tumbling down or anything like that: Mary Fisher’s dry-rot threat was not required.

  The connection between Leda and Valerie was stronger than Valerie was prepared to admit. Momus’ view was that any sexual contact between two people has a lasting effect: the reverberation of the least-considered one-night stand links you to all sorts of other life paths. Casual sex may not create babies any more, but that is a mere failure of intent, Momus argues, a thwarting of the great basic urge to propagate the species; and what should have happened but didn’t is still there on the files, as it were.

  The union of Valerie and Leda, short-lived as it might be, meaning so little to Valerie and so much to Leda, weighed heavier on the cosmic scales than did the union of Valerie and Tyler. Painful events may lie buried, but are not forgotten. Leda suffers; the pain in her poor burned arm is nothing compared to the hurt in her heart. Momus remembers the least of his children, bit-part players as well as leads.

  Unlike Mary Fisher with her moaning and pity-me-ing, I don’t resent my present state one little bit. I am happy where I am, thank you very much. I have always had rather a dread of heaven – all that flapping round with wings and worshipping, nothing to do but glorify, glorify, glorify and no events. The ultimate in boring. I don’t think I am being punished so much as rewarded.

  Look, I earned my salvation in my early days, all that nursing and caring for the deformed and wretched with the She Devil, and then looking after hard-working women the way we did at Vesta Rose. True, I did pretty well out of Vesta Rose, turning it in time into VestaRoseagency.com, a global organisation, as big as Uber, saving working women from the domestic chores that once ruled their lives. I was always one for praxis, not principle. True, I became very rich, which is seldom approved of by heaven, though Momus sees it rather differently, something at least plotworthy. Praise be to Momus, who has put me here to hurry on events in the service of plot rather than literature, spokesperson for my old friend the admirable She Devil who did so much to raise women out of servitude to their present state of grace.

  But even She Devils have to die, and faced with the prospect of her successor Valerie Valeria employing the same cosmetic technology she herself once used – but this time to turn man into woman – the She Devil finds herself anxious and disturbed: what has she instigated? Male science has stealthily moved ahead, surreptitiously effecting a secret but potentially winning move in the battle between the sexes. The She Devil has not noticed. She has allowed herself to fall behind the times, and the times now move so fast that is hardly surprising. Man now controls the best weapon woman ever had, the body he so envied, its very moods and subtleties. He can become her, suck her up, subsume her. What will happen to the She Devil and her heritage? The old dream comes true all right, man will be as woman was. But what comes next?

  The She Devil sulks, she takes sleeping pills, she eats too much, she regresses, she takes her own pulse to check it’s still there, she is frightened of losing her step, of falling badly, of dying. Her little fridge bulges with squirrelled food, she stuffs her mouth with cream cakes, she steals Valerie’s Mars Bars, she eats unhealthily and too much; then, bulimic, vomits her past up again. Ruth is in a bad way. I would help her if I could. She is my friend.

  I stare in her window and am almost inclined to start wooo-h, wooo-h, wooo-h-ing like that idiot Mary, to startle my old friend into the awareness that suicide is no answer, but I know Momus wouldn’t like it.

  Tyler

  Valerie rose from the bed and stood naked and beautiful at the window, her arms raised to heaven. She had been faking it again, Tyler was sure, but her thwarted passion seemed to have an alter
native route on standby: religion. She was a wonderful sight, slim yet curvaceous, the pale almost translucent skin alight with energy, tender yet immensely powerful – a High Priestess summoning powers. She was completely nuts. ‘Mother Gaia, send your bounty down upon us, bless us on this day, for we the young have done your bidding. Let the old wither and perish like leaves on the tree, for they have closed their eyes to you.’ The prayer ended, the invocation was over. Valerie slipped back into bed with Tyler. He had the most enormous erection.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ Tyler had said to Valerie when they’d got back to bed after the Widdershins Walk post-mortem, and things had calmed down just a little. ‘But you’re moving rather faster than I’d anticipated. That was the first I’ve heard about me moving in with you.’

  ‘It was on the spur of the moment,’ said Valerie. ‘I needed to nail in your status as a TS woman: IGP women aren’t accustomed to having a man turn up at a meeting, let alone one who looks like you. It would soften the blow if one of their number, Tyler, both feminist man and feminist woman, were to occupy the valuable and beautiful space of the Lantern Room here to be nursed through the pain and bewilderment of transition. It would be so symbolic, especially after Bobbo living there. Victory indeed! And the plan for the Lantern Room to be used as an open-access library has been dashed anyway, not by gender issues, but by two communications – one from Health and Safety saying that the stairs must be widened for public access, and the other one from the Planning Department saying that because the building is Grade One listed the stairs must not be altered.’ Tyler ignored the last bit.