“Where is Elicia?” demanded his father. “How long are we supposed to sit here and wait?”
“Here she is!” said Elicia, entering the room in a rush. She swept by her father planting a kiss on the top of his head. “Stop being an old grump!”
She threw herself in between Conchetta and her father and looked up quizzically at Zac.
“What’s this about, bro?”
Where to begin, thought Zac. Three pairs of eyes watched him: his father’s wary and hostile; Conchetta’s dark and anxious; Elicia’s full of careless insouciance.
“Is Abs coming?” asked Elicia, her voice sounding inappropriately bright in the room.
Her father tutted quietly.
“No,” said Zac.
“Oh,” said Elicia. She turned to her right to look at Conchetta and raised her eyes questioningly, bemused at the flatness of Zac’s tone.
Zac took a deep breath. Despite his preparations, he did not know where to begin.
“Elicia,” he said. “Do you remember when you were a teenager and you were a bridesmaid for Lizzie?”
Elicia looked at him and frowned.
“Remember, you wore a peach silk dress?” continued Zac, misinterpreting her silence.
“Well of course, I bloody remember, Zac!” said Elicia. “What are you on about? You gather us all here like somebody’s died and then ask me about being a bridesmaid to Lizzie?”
“Give him a chance, Elicia,” murmured Conchetta.
“Loved that peach dress, mind,” said Elicia.
“So did I,” said Zac.
“Did you?” Elicia sounded surprised.
“I wore it.”
There was a second’s uneasy silence, then Elicia giggled.
“This isn’t funny,” said her father.
“I think it’s hilarious!”
She looked at Zac and something in his eyes made her smile freeze on her lips.
“Elicia…” said her father.
“Are you serious?” asked Elicia, looking at Zac and ignoring her father.
“Totally.”
“When?”
“You were out. It was hanging in your room. On the door of the wardrobe.” Zac caught sight of his father’s face and swallowed. “I unzipped it and took it out and I… I tried it on.”
“What?” said Elicia. She stood up and went over to Zac’s chair, sitting on the arm. “Zac?” She took his hand. “Zac, why?”
“Because I wanted to know what it felt like. I wanted to see…”
“What you looked like?”
“Yes… no… I wanted to feel what I looked like. I know that doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes it does,” said Conchetta quietly. She moved to the other arm of Zac’s chair and sat down, taking her son’s hand.
“Oh for God’s sake! I’ve had enough of this,” said her husband, beginning to ease himself up from the chair. “I told you, Conchetta. I’ve told you for years what I feared but you wouldn’t listen.”
“Stay where you are!” snapped Elicia.
“Go on, Zac,” said Conchetta.
“It made me feel like… like…”
“Like WHAT?” said Elicia.
“Like me,” said Zac.
“At peace?” said Conchetta.
“No, not at peace. I looked too ugly. It was too much a reminder of what I wasn’t. But I felt like… I knew what I SHOULD be. I felt happy and unhappy at the same time. Euphoric. Distraught. I knew that if you came home and saw me you would be disgusted.”
“No Zac,” said Conchetta. “You could never disgust us.”
“Yes, he could,” snapped his father.
Conchetta’s face contorted and she turned away. Elicia glared at him.
“Is that all you can say?” Zac asked quietly. His father held his gaze steadily but for once, Zac did not look away. “You’ve made me feel small all my life,” continued Zac. “As I grew up, I just kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller. The more I tried to please you, the less good you made me feel about myself.”
“Oh of course! I should have known it would all come to this. It’s all my fault you’re a freak!”
“That’s enough!” said Conchetta.
Elicia laid a comforting hand on her arm.
“Ignore him.”
“You think I can help what I am? That I can change it?” Zac’s voice was even.
“Yes! Yes I do, actually!” His father’s voice exploded in anger. “I think you could at least try. Look at you!” He waved an infuriated hand. “Look at you… that stupid floppy hair. Those ridiculous clothes… I have told you often enough what I felt about this… this unnatural behaviour.”
“Calm down, dad,” said Elicia.
“Walking about like some poofy hairdresser. Giving the neighbours something to talk about all these years. Making us all a laughing stock!”
“Oh for God’s sake!” said Elicia. “Who cares about the bloody neighbours?”
“I do! I care about the bloody neighbours, Elicia, but obviously nothing I care about matters.”
“I am sorry,” said Zac, sitting down.
“Don’t apologise to him, Zac!”
“It matters,” said Zac. “What he feels.” He turned to face his father.
“I am sorry I cannot be what you want me to be. I look like a man but I feel like a woman. I don’t know why that has happened. I don’t know, dad. It is not a choice. I only know I can’t change it.”
His father’s face, hard as granite, began to crumble. He sat down suddenly, hiding his face behind his hands.
“At least, not my mind,” continued Zac calmly. He felt pity as he looked at the hunched figure in front of him. But how could he stop now? He had to finish this. “I can’t change my mind, but it is possible I can change my body.”
“I knew it! I knew it!” said his father into his hands.
“Oh stop it!” snapped Elicia to her father. “At least the façade has fallen at last. We have all tiptoed round for years pretending that nothing is wrong and I for one am sick of it. Sick of it! Why was nothing ever said openly? Why was the atmosphere in the house so awful?”
“It would have been even more awful if it hadn’t been for you, Elicia,” sad Zac. He smiled. “Bubbly, bright Elicia…”
Elicia turned to her brother.
“Zac,” she said, taking his hand, “we would only ever want you to be happy. I’m glad you’ve told us.”
Zac reached out his other hand and gently wiped a tear from her face.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “Please.”
“What about me?” said Zac’s father.
“Oh Zac,” said Elicia. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, ’Licia. I just don’t know.”
“What about Abbie?”
Zac said nothing.
“Does she know?”
“Some of it.”
“Do you love her?”
He shrugged, unable to answer.
“Will she stand by you?”
“I suppose it depends what I do…”
Outside, the wind had whipped up and there was a sudden rush of noise in the chimney. Zac looked out, watching the treetops wave with increasing ferocity. Conchetta had sat silently but stood up now and walked over to Zac. She put her hands on both cheeks. They felt slightly rough on the smoothness of his skin. He looked into her dark eyes and smiled faintly.
“Sometimes,” she said, “it takes a lifetime to know yourself, Zac. Take your time.”
He nodded.
Her voice dropped.
“Just know this,” she whispered, “whoever you are, whatever you become, you will always be my Zac and I will always love you.”
Zac put out his arms and pulled her to him. It was only when he looked over her shoulder that he realised his father had left the room.
Zac held Conchetta close, felt her arms squeeze him hard like they had when he was a little boy but somehow, he was now the comforter, Conchetta the comforted.
He heard the outside door close, his father’s footsteps on the gravel path outside. He had a sudden flash of memory. That day when Zac was barely conscious in hospital. The sound of his father’s crying. It was real that sound, just as real as the closing door. A feeling of calm descended on Zac. Perhaps some day, that particular door would open again.
Zac felt strangely peaceful as he waited for Abbie. He plugged in his laptop and waited for it to fire up. Perhaps Marianne had been right after all and he had found a part of himself in the south of France: a little steel. He still did not know what he wanted but he had taken a step closer. There were no neat answers in life.
What had he learned?. An image of Maurice’s dishevelled figure sprang into his mind. Crumpled trousers and stubbled chin and the gentle, all-encompassing warmth of his eyes. Yes, he had learned from Maurice. He had learned about self-loathing and where it led you. He had learned about self-acceptance. Authenticity, Zac thought, as the screen of his laptop lit up. Authenticity led to true happiness. And yet you had to be careful about authenticity. Being authentic with the wrong people only led to rejection. The cursor whirled on his laptop as he clicked on the internet and he paused. Could he risk authenticity? He couldn’t risk not being authentic, he told himself firmly.
The door banged. Abbie did not come in the room straight away. He had told her he needed to speak to her and he wondered if she was bracing herself out in the hall. He lifted his head and listened intently for movement. Poor Abbie.
“Hi.”
She stood in the doorway, not entering the room. She was dressed in a steel grey coat that normally he liked against her blonde curls but today it made her look pale and washed-out. He felt guilty when he looked at the purple-tinged shadows beneath her eyes.
“Hi,” Zac said. He held out a hand, palm towards her and she smiled faintly and moved to him, putting her hand palm to palm with his before entwining their fingers.
“Want anything?”
She shook her head.
“Just you.”
“We need to talk.”
“I know.”
“Maybe some tea?”
She shook her head again. Zac could see the fear in her eyes but there was something else, something he did not normally recognise in her. A resolute quality. A determination to face what had to be faced.
“You are not sleeping properly,” he chided, drawing a finger softly down her pale face.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
It was true, he realised, despite everything.
“When you phoned from France, you said there were things you needed to tell me. “
“Sit down here.”
Abbie did not take her eyes from his face.
“You seem different,” she said quietly.
“How?”
“I don’t know. More… in control.”
“Well…”
“Just tell me Zac!” she said quickly, with a rush of impatience. “You are leaving, is that it?”
“Not exactly. It’s up to you.”
“What do you mean?
“When you hear what I have to say, you have to decide if you want to stay.
Abbie sat perched on the edge of the seat next to him, her eyes scanning his face constantly.
“So tell me.”
“You know about the dressing, Abbie…. the clothes… and you haven’t wanted to talk about it, but now I must.”
Her eyes dropped.
“I told you it began in my teens.” Zac took a deep breath. “It was my awful secret and it was also my comfort. It was the only thing that made me feel real. It fulfilled something in me and I didn’t know what it was or what it meant. I just knew that on a very basic, instinctive level, things felt right when I dressed that way.”
Abbie did not look up, but Zac knew how intently she was listening. He had carefully prepared the first part of his speech but the rest of it suddenly deserted him.
“Abbie, I don’t know if you can imagine what that feels like, to carry what people consider a sordid secret but which feels to you like the most natural thing in the world. It made me feel like a freak, a pervert. Every time my father looked at me I felt like he saw right through me.”
Still she would not look at him.
“I longed to be normal, to be like everyone else. I wanted to be like the other boys, do as they did, feel as they did and…”
“And you couldn’t?”
“I couldn’t, no. I wanted to be a girl. I felt that was what I was meant to be.”
“You liked boys?”
“Abbie, this is about gender, who you are, not just who you fancy.”
Finally her eyes flicked up at him.
“You used me.”
“No! I swear, I…”
“Yes, Zac. You did.”
Her blue eyes suddenly looked startlingly cold within the paleness of her small, pinched face.
“Tell me something,” she said. “Was any of it real? Did you feel anything for me?”
“Oh Abbie, of course!”
“There’s no ‘of course’ about it.”
“I…”
“Did you love me?”
Zac felt his new-found sense of calm draining away.
“Well?”
Abbie seemed to be shrinking into something tight and small in front of him.
“Why can’t you answer, Zac? It’s a simple enough question.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know why you can’t answer? Or you don’t know if you loved me?”
“Please!”
“Which?”
“I…”
“Which?”
She was relentless, Zac thought. He felt slightly in awe of her in this mood. But she had every reason to be relentless.
“Because you know what Zac? I loved you.” She stood up, and her voice dropped as she turned from him, her last few words lost.
“Sorry?”
She turned back to face him.
“I said, I still do.”
Her anger had suddenly distilled into a deep sadness. Zac could feel it snaking out to him in an umbilical cord of pain and suddenly, he didn’t want to sever it. He didn’t want to let go.
“Abbie, don’t go. Not yet. Please.”
“What’s left to say?”
“There are things I want to tell you.”
“What? You can’t even tell me if you love me.”
Zac hesitated. “I love you, but I don’t know yet if it’s enough.”
“At least that’s honest,” Abbie said, but her hand went up to her face and she wiped one eye with the heel of her hand. “But if you don’t know, then it’s not enough. Not enough for me.”
“Come here… please. Don’t leave like this.”
Abbie hesitated, but moved towards him and sat down again on the sofa and looked at him, waiting for him to speak.
“What do you want to say? What are the things you want to tell me?”
“Abbie, you are beautiful and sweet and any guy…”
“Don’t, Zac!”
Abbie lay back on the chair, emotionally exhausted, then rolled her head to the side to face him.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “It’s not enough.”
Zac flinched. “When I said ‘not enough’, I meant that I don’t know if it’s enough to get us both through the next bit of this.”
“Which is?”
“I need to be true to myself. Abbie, I need to tell people and not hide away. The secrecy is eating me up.” Zac picked up her hand and took a deep breath. “I have to consider all my options and that includes surgery. I am not sure… but I need to examine the option.”
He told her then about France, picking his way through his experiences. He hesitated when it came to Alain, but he had to be honest if there was to be any chance. There was silence when he finished. He heard a beep from his laptop as it went into sleep mode.
“I don’t know if it’s enough either,” Ab
bie said eventually. Tears were running down her cheeks.
“If what’s enough?”
“What I feel. Because your secret, Zac, is about to become my secret. Your confusion is going to be mine. Your exposure, my exposure. And I’m not sure I can do it. I love you, but I’m looking ahead and all I can see is pain and I just…” She broke off. “I’m sorry.”
Zac shook his head.
“Don’t be.”
He rolled his head round from the back of his chair to face her, matching her movement, their faces just inches apart. He respected this new resolve in Abbie.
“Don’t ever think I didn’t care. I did. And I do. It’s just…”
Abbie reached out and gently placed one finger on his lips.
“You don’t need to say any more.”
He smiled. “It’s your choice now.”
“You want me to be with you through this? Is that what you are asking?”
“I can’t ask and I can’t expect.”
“And I can’t promise.”
“But we can try.”
“One step at a time.”
“And if it gets too much…”
“Yes, if it gets too much…”
He pushed her hair back from her face tenderly.
“You need a good night’s sleep.”
“Zac, we can be friends.”
“Always.”
“Maybe a good friend is better than a good lover.”
“Maybe.”
“Lasts longer.”
“Yeah.”
“Sex or intimacy – if you had to choose one, which would it be?”
“Intimacy,” said Zac instantly. “Closeness.”
Abbie smiled faintly.
“You?” asked Zac.
“Same.”
“Although…” said Zac.
“What?”
“Sex is okay too.” He grinned at her and she laughed, despite the internal pang. Did he mean with her or Alain?
“What’s wrong?” asked Zac.
“Nothing.”
“Abbs…”
The Chrysalis Page 23