“Why must there be something wrong with him? Why must you always see it in that way?”
“He is unlike any man I have ever known.”
“So? SO?” demanded Conchetta. “He is a little different but am I supposed to love him less for that? He is my boy and he will always be my boy – whatever you say.”
“Yes,” muttered his father. “That’s the problem. It was always Zac, Zac, Zac…”
“Are you jealous of your own son?”
Zac had never heard his mother speak this way, so angry and so… confrontational.
“Don’t be ridiculous Conchetta!”
“Ridiculous? I’ll tell you what is ridiculous. It is ridiculous to think that someone can change who and what they are by sheer willpower alone. You believe that you can think yourself ‘normal?’ Make a choice? Now that IS ridiculous!”
“You can never be reasonable when it comes to this.”
“So what are you saying? That it is my fault?”
“You mollycoddled him…”
Zac hold his breath in the ensuing silence.
“You are beyond stupid.”
Conchetta spat the words out coldly. Zac could not believe his ears. What had got into her?
“Am I? Am I really?”
“You seriously think a mother can change what her child is inside because she loves him too much?”
“Conchetta, he behaved like a girl! He ran to you, clung to you, hid behind you. You never forced him to face what he is - a man.”
“It is you who cannot face what he is. YOU.”
Zac heard the impatient scrape of a chair. His parents’ angry voices began to swim and recede. He had to be sick, couldn’t hold it much longer. His stomach burned.
It was true Conchetta had been his refuge as a child. He remembered so clearly running to her when things were wrong, as they often so were, and the sensation of sitting in her lap with his head on her chest while her fingers caressed his hair so softly. “My poor boy,” she would murmur, “my poor little chap.” ‘Chap’ was such an English word and it sounded strange in her French accent. Her adoption of the foreign expression touched him, somehow.
Tears began to smart behind Zac’s closed eyelids. Had it not been for her acceptance… The pain in his stomach was so intense now he was going to throw up for sure. Then his mother’s voice came into focus again, cutting suddenly through his discomfort. It had a tone he did not recognise. Goading. Cruel, almost.
“And you…what about you? Perhaps it’s your fault, hmm? Perhaps this ‘femininity’ you are so afraid of is because of your genes?”
Zac heard Conchetta’s heels tapping on the floor and then her voice hissed. “If being exposed to masculinity is so important in all of this, perhaps then you were not man enough. Hmm?”
“There was nothing…”
“Nothing you could do? No, of course not! It was all my fault and you could not combat my malign influence over our son. So you did nothing but hover like a dark presence over all of us, making your disapproval so obvious the boy did not know what he could possibly do to make you accept him.”
“Accept? You want me to accept that my son is… is…”
“Yes! Yes I want you to accept! Whatever comes after ‘is’, I want you to accept. Is gay… is different… is feminine… is Zac. Whatever it is, I want you to accept because he is your son. Your child. And you know why else? Look! Look in that bed… No, you can’t, can you? You are not brave enough to face the truth. That… THAT… is where not accepting gets you. He nearly died. Zac felt so bad about himself that he nearly died. Is that what you want?”
“Perhaps it would have been better…”
His father’s voice sounded strange. Zac felt his heart constrict, as though someone squeezed it in his hands. His father squeezing the life out of him.
There was silence, then Conchetta muttered an obscenity in French. A door banged shut. Zac lay rigid. Had his father gone? He heard a sniff, then the sound of stifled sobs again. The sound pained him. Even now, he could not bear to hear his mother cry without comforting her in the way she had always comforted him. A hand gently touched his head. He forced his eyes open in time to see a figure turning from the bed. But it was not Conchetta. He realised, with a wave of confusion, that it was his father.
What should he make of that, he wondered. It was too difficult to work out. Zac closed his eyes, drifting, drifting far away. The door clicked softly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Zac
Outside the door, Zac steeled himself. He didn’t want any awkward questions. Marianne looked up, her face clouded by irritation as the door opened but she broke into an instinctive smile at the sight of the tall, dark-haired figure who entered.
“Zac!” she exclaimed.
“Hello Marianne. How are you?”
Marianne’s smile faded as she looked closely at his face. It was grey, as though every drop of blood had been sucked from it.
“Better than you, by the looks of things.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re even thinner than before.”
“I’m fine.”
“Why were you off for such a long time?”
“I’ve come to take you out for a walk. Shona said you had asked to go out into the garden?”
“Why were you off?”
“I wasn’t well.”
“What was wrong with you?”
“Shall we put your cardigan on or would you like your jacket?”
“What was wrong with you?”
“I wasn’t well, Marianne!”
Zac felt a rush of emotion. Perhaps that was a good sign. For the last week, it had seemed as if everything inside him was dead, but Marianne… he felt invaded by her scrutiny. It was as if she could reach him in the dead place inside, perhaps because she knew that dead place existed. Zac suddenly wanted to sit down.
“You still talk like a lawyer!” he scolded, trying to sound light-hearted.
“You are not off for more than three weeks with something trifling,” said Marianne, motioning that she wanted her blue cardigan that had been discarded on the end of the sofa.
Zac reached for the cardigan and began to help Marianne into it, pushing her right hand through the sleeve first.
“Well, I’m fine now,” said Zac.
Marianne reached out her hand and unexpectedly grasped Zac’s.
“You do not need to pretend with me, Zac,” she said quietly, with more tenderness than Zac expected or was used to.
He felt his eyes sting. Perhaps the doctors were right. It was too soon to come back to work. But he could not stay in the house any longer. He had returned to his parents’ house after his release from hospital so that Conchetta could look after him while Abbie was at work. He had found it a difficult period. They had never discussed his reason for trying to end his life but that was what he would have expected. It was only Elicia who ever spelled things out in his family but even she had been quiet. They had all been too afraid to talk, his father’s eyes following him silently, his mother’s thin, hopeful smile and quivering fear lacerating him with guilt. Elicia laughed even more than usual.
Conchetta had found him, arriving at his door entirely spontaneously with some post that had arrived at the house for him. She knew it was Zac’s day off but had thought he was out when he did not answer the doorbell. She was disappointed, but let herself in with the key Zac had given her, hoping he would return before she left. Sometimes, she did a little light cleaning and cooking for Zac and Abbie and as she opened the door, it occurred to her that she could surprise them by leaving a meal for this evening. Perhaps a tagine, she thought as she opened the door, something that would cook slowly. Instead, she walked into unexpected horror.
The last thing Zac recalled before slipping into unconsciousness was Conchetta’s scream, the high-pitched hysterical scream that told him he had got it all so wrong. Even as he drifted into no-man’s land he understood the primitive nature of her anguish. He ha
d heard a cow once, bellowing long into the night when its dead calf had been removed. Conchetta’s scream had reminded him of that. In the weeks since the overdose, the memory of that scream had been the only thing to pierce Zac’s indifference. Until Marianne.
“You do not need to pretend with me,” Marianne repeated, dropping his hand.
Zac said nothing, placing her left arm awkwardly into the other sleeve of the cardigan. Pretence was his whole life. He was used to it.
“You are skin and bone, Zac.”
“I have always been thin.”
“Not like this.”
“I know I look awful.”
“What? You do not look awful! That is not what I am saying. I am saying you must look after your body.”
“I hate my body.” The words were out before Zac could think about them. He flushed.
“Hm,” said Marianne, non-commitally, her gaze unflinching.
“Don’t look at me like that!”
“How long have I known you, Zac?”
“Oh I don’t know… two years maybe. Three?”
“Whatever it is, long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
“To observe. To know something of your struggles.”
Zac said nothing.
“When I first met you, I felt as if knew you already. I thought perhaps it was because you reminded me physically of Raymond. The same black hair and flashing dark eyes. But then I realised that it was more than that.”
“What was it?
“There was something familiar about your spirit.”
Zac’s fingers stilled in his wrestle with a cardigan sleeve. He looked at her almost fearfully.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think that what I recognised in you was a quality that Raymond had.”
“Oh? What was that?”
“A sense of otherness. He knew what it was to be an outsider and I think you do too, Zac.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Okay Zac.” Marianne’s voice was soothing, like she was stroking a fretful child, which made Zac feel more uptight than ever.
He pulled the cardigan over her shoulders.
“Shall we go? Perhaps to the bench by the rhododendrons? You like that bit of the garden, Marianne.”
Marianne sighed. “Very well, Zac. Let’s go.”
Marianne looked almost feverish, Zac thought when he entered the residents’ lounge, pink-cheeked and bright eyed.
“At last!” she exclaimed.
“What’s wrong Marianne?”
“I have been waiting for you to arrive.”
“Well, it is nice to be needed!”
“What kept you?”
“This is my normal starting time. What on earth is wrong with you? You want to go out, is that it?”
“No. Well yes. But not yet. I have something to show you first. Take me up to my room.”
Zac looked at her uncertainly. She seemed so agitated it concerned him.
“I have had an idea,” she continued. It has been playing around my head while you were off and today I feel more sure of it. I want to show you something in my room. Quickly. Come on Zac!”
Zac wheeled her chair out of the lounge and up the corridor.
“Close the door,” Marianne commanded as he wheeled her into the room.
Zac hesitated. He did not like to close doors when dealing with residents on his own.
“Close it!”
He stuck out a foot and lightly pressed the door behind him as he wheeled the chair through.
“Over to the dressing table.”
Zac sat on the edge of the bed while Marianne reached for a jewellery box and placed it on her knee, before using her hands to push against the dressing table and manoeuvre herself round to face Zac.
“Why do you hate your body, Zac?”
“What?”
“You said you hated your body yesterday.”
“Did I?”
“You know you did!”
“Oh, everyone hates something about themselves, Marianne. It is no big deal.”
“We share something in common, Zac. We are both trapped inside our bodies. Me by illness and old age, you by….” She paused. “Please tell me why you were off for so long.”
“I…”
“Please.”
“I took…” Zac came to an abrupt halt. He could not say it. “I just got unwell. A bit stressed.” He smiled half-heartedly. “Looking after you Marianne – that’s wot done it!”
“You took… what?”
Marianne waited but Zac did not reply.
“Perhaps,” she continued, “you tried to find a way out.”
“Perhaps.”
“Raymond too,” she said.
Zac’s head jolted up to look at her.
“Raymond?”
“I’d like to tell you about Raymond.”
“Tell me what?”
“He was a transsexual.”
Zac felt his throat constrict. He did not want to hear that word.
“That was Raymond’s ‘otherness’. I am not certain what yours is Zac. But I know it’s there. At first, I assumed you were gay. Then I realised that did not quite fit. There was something deeper, just as there was with Raymond. It is a hard thing to define, but when you have lived with it, you recognise it. I think you are struggling as he struggled.”
“No… I… why are you saying such a thing?”
“Denial is dangerous.”
“I am not in denial,” Zac said desperately.
“Well, I am wrong then.” Marianne fingered the box on her knee thoughtfully. “Raymond and I made so many mistakes.”
“Why did…?”
“Why did he marry me? I think you can tell me that better than I can tell you, Zac. Why are you with Abbie?”
“I…”
“Because a little bit of you loves her. And a big bit of you wants her because she is your chance of normality. Isn’t that the case?”
Zac looked so stricken by the question that Marianne reached out a hand to his cheek.
“You are the son we could have had, Zac. Raymond and I. You remind me so much of him.”
“When did he…?”
“He has been gone a long time.”
Zac was silent for a moment.
“I wasn’t going to ask the question you thought I was.”
“What question?”
“You thought I was going to ask why he married you, but I wasn’t.”
“So what were you going to ask?”
“Why you loved him.”
“Love does not cover what I felt, Zac.”
Zac looked at her curiously. Such passion she spoke with. Unabated, unchanged, flickering inside the rubble of her ruined body as it must always have done.
“You loved him even though…”
“Even though, in spite of, because of. All of them. I could live with what Raymond was. It was he who could not live with what he was.”
Zac wondered for a moment if all this meant that, unlike him, Raymond had been successful in his suicide attempt, but he did not like to ask. There was something about confronting the question that made him uncomfortable, scared even. He looked at the bright rays of dancing dust and light that streamed in the window and felt suddenly cold.
“I tried to encourage him to live part of his life as a woman but to include me,” Marianne continued. “For a while it was enough. But he needed more. He wanted to transition.”
Zac shivered.
“Transition?”
“To become a woman. Take hormones. Have surgery.”
Zac’s stomach was beginning to tighten into the familiar twisted knot. Perhaps that was how Raymond died. He felt nauseous and needed to move from his seated position. He wished he could lie back, stretch out on Marianne’s bed.
There was a short knock and the door pushed open. Shona popped her head round.
“Ah Zac…” she said. “I wondered if you were here
. I’ll just leave this door open.”
“Close it!” screamed Marianne, enraged.
But Shona disappeared, leaving it open.
“She is kind, Marianne,” protested Zac. “You are so awful to her.”
“She is a ninny.”
Zac sighed.
“We need to go. But you were going to show me something?”
“This,” said Marianne. Her thin gnarled fingers twisted at the lock of the jewellery box on her knee. A burst of tinkling music from ‘Doctor Zhivago’ played as the lid opened. Zac watched as she lifted something out, something on a pale, delicate lilac ribbon. Then he saw that it was a silver key.
“What is it?” he asked
“We had a flat, Raymond and I. In the south of France. It is still there.”
“Really?” said Zac, surprised. “Who looks after it?”
“An old friend.”
“A wonderful place to have a flat. Marianne. What a shame you can’t use it.”
“Yes.”
Marianne fingered the key greedily.
“Shall we go out to the garden now?” asked Zac.
“I want you to go,” said Marianne.
“Oh…” said Zac, standing up.
Marianne held the key up.
“No, no… to the south of France. You need a holiday. You have not been well.”
She held the key up, dangling it at the end of the lilac ribbon.
“I can’t do that. Marianne. I…” Zac faltered. “That’s very kind of you but… I can’t possibly. I’ve been off work already and …but thank you. Thank you for the offer.”
“It’s a key to more than a flat, Zac. This place… it will show you things, help you discover things.”
“What things?”
“Yourself. Whoever you are.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Zac was silenced.
“I don’t know anyone in the south of France,” he said eventually.
“You know me,” said Marianne. She looked up at him, her eyes luminous with animation. “This is not all selfless, Zac. I have a plan. I want you to go, but I want to go too. No, no don’t look at me like that! I have thought hard about this. I have unfinished business there. Take me with you. Go to the south of France and take me with you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Chrysalis Page 8