The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone Read online

  ‘Mate, that’s a tranny. Ask the DJ at Moroney’s, his sister works at the White Hart. That leggy blonde was seen taking a shower. He’s got tits! He’s saving up for the op, going to have it in Thailand.’

  Without another word, Simon retreated to his bedroom. He sat on the floor, feeling sick. Soon he heard his other housemates coming home. At first there was suppressed laughter, and then gales of it. They weren’t good at keeping their voices down, and what he heard made him hate them all. Snogged a lady boy! . . . Is he a shirt lifter? . . . Poor old Livingstone, didn’t know he was that desperate!

  He wanted to kill somebody. When he opened his bedroom door, someone said, ‘Hi, Simon,’ as though nothing had happened. Then they all exploded. They slapped him on the back—in a friendly, patronising way—and asked him how it was, and were her tits real, or silicone?

  He smiled weakly and accepted the cans of warm lager they offered him. He drank quite a few of them. Later, when the others were watching Doctor Who, he quietly left the flat. His blood was racing by the time he got to the White Hart. His mind was on fire. He’d got down on one knee . . . he’d said the word love! Hell, he–she would be laughing at him now. Simon would make him–her stop laughing.

  It was dark behind the hotel. Very dark. Not quiet, though, because people were coming home from the pubs. Beer bottles lay discarded beside the recycling bin. He picked one up by the neck, and smashed its base against a wall. Then he sent a text.

  Come out. I’m round the back, by the bins. I’ve got something for you.

  They decorated the tree together, singing along to Christmas carols on the stereo. The fairy lights didn’t work, and Simon had to nip out and buy some more, but that was all part of Christmas. Even Rosa seemed interested, until she began to whimper, and then wail.

  Nico gently touched her face. ‘She’s hungry,’ he said. ‘You’d better stick her up your jumper, Mummy.’

  ‘There are already some presents to go under the tree,’ Carmela told Simon as she swung the baby off her back. ‘In the cupboard where I keep my shoes. Could you get them?’

  Simon looked through the pile of presents, leaving aside the four with his father’s handwriting on them. He’d give those ones away. He put the rest into a pillow case, slung it over one shoulder and carried it downstairs, making Father Christmas ho-ho-ho noises.

  ‘You’re not fat or jolly enough to be Santa,’ said Carmela. ‘And if you ever grow a white bushy beard, or prance about with a pack of elves, I shall divorce you.’

  Nico had parked himself on a stool, watching his mother feed the baby. He’d got used to the sight and didn’t seem at all jealous. Later that evening, Rosa would be grumpy, and her parents would carry her up and down, up and down; but right now she was tucking in with happy murmurs.

  When Simon emptied his sack under the tree, Nico scrambled off the stool. ‘Will the proper Santa be coming?’ he asked, looking at the treasure.

  ‘Mm. Down the chimney.’ Simon felt guilty about lying to his son. He considered himself an honest man, and yet here he was, spinning a right old whopper. Next year, he thought, I’ll tell him the truth. Or maybe the year after that.

  ‘Does the sleigh come down the chimney, too?’

  ‘The sleigh . . .’ God, what lie was he supposed to tell now? ‘Um, I think it stays on the roof. But, hey, we’re going to ask Granny and Kate to come on Christmas Day, and see our tree.’

  ‘Will Grandpa be coming?’

  Simon’s smile froze.

  ‘Well?’ asked Carmela, her eyebrows raised in sarcastic inquiry. ‘I think you’d better answer the question. Will Grandpa be coming?’

  Nico was standing beside the Christmas tree, fiddling with the front of his T-shirt. His excitement had been popped, like a pin in a balloon. Simon remembered how it felt to be small and anxious. He sat down and drew Nico close.

  ‘Shush,’ he said. ‘Let’s not worry about that now.’

  ‘He will be coming, won’t he?’ Nico’s voice was high, and he twisted the front of his T-shirt in both hands.

  How could Dad do this to us? How could he be so selfish?

  ‘No,’ said Simon. ‘Grandpa can’t come anymore.’

  Thirty-four

  Lucia

  I got dressed, looked in the mirror, and knew I had to do better. I had higher standards now. Genetic women have had all their lives to learn how to be women; even the ones who wear jeans and trainers. They’re socialised as women. They are women. When Kate was younger she had a stack of teen magazines, full of make-up and fashion and hair. She pretended to despise them, but she still bought them. She can do femininity when she wants to.

  I’d tried to give myself a crash course, but the internet was no longer enough. The wig was too young for my face—I saw that now. My make-up was clumsy, my clothes were dated, my posture wasn’t quite right. I gave myself away with a thousand tiny signals.

  I needed help.

  When I phoned her at home, Judi sounded as though Christmas had come early.

  ‘You want me to do a Trinny and Susannah on your wardrobe?’ I could imagine her rubbing her hands. ‘How about tomorrow morning? I’ll come around to your place.’

  When Judi says she’s going to do something, she delivers. She arrived bang on time, clutching two suitcases full of her cast-offs, which, she said, dated from skinnier days. Some of the clothes looked brand new.

  ‘Off you go,’ she said briskly, holding out a swirling skirt and a blouse. ‘Let’s see these on you. I bought them in a sale and it was a big mistake, but I think they’ll suit your colouring.’

  ‘You want me to try these on? Now?’

  ‘I’ll wait here while you change in your room. Don’t forget your shoes and falsies, will you? Never try on clothes with the wrong shoes or underwear. That’s the first rule of shopping.’

  ‘How d’you know I even own falsies?’ I asked, feeling myself blush.

  ‘Lucky guess. It’s nothing new. Flat-chested women have been wearing padded bras forever, and I know more than one who owns a pair of bottom-enhancing knickers. Why not? Been going on ever since Henry VIII padded out his codpiece.’

  I changed slowly, mortified at the idea of parading around cross-dressed in front of a colleague. I had to steel myself to walk back into the kitchen, but Judi was supremely relaxed. ‘Give us a twirl,’ she said, and I did. By the time we’d got to the third outfit, I was having fun. There were dresses, skirts, smocks and voluminous blouses; a sumptuous, impossibly soft pashmina and a floaty cardigan. Of course they didn’t fit perfectly. Many were too roomy, especially across the bust; some were too tight in the shoulders or the waist. Judi made them work—a belt here, or a scarf, or a button moved across; she’d brought a needle and thread for the purpose.

  Leggings were a revelation to me. ‘They’re marvellous,’ I said, as Judi showed me how to layer them with dresses or smocks. ‘Neither Eilish nor Kate owns a pair, I’m pretty sure.’

  ‘Eilish is too classy. Kate would probably rather be seen dead. I love ’em, though. They’re forgiving to those of us whose waists aren’t exactly hourglass.’

  We took a break for coffee while she looked through my existing wardrobe with a critical eye. I felt intensely self-conscious, as though she were reading my diary. I’d begun hiding clothes the day I locked a stolen petticoat into my tuckbox in the attic. I had never shown anybody before.

  ‘Hmm, quite old-fashioned,’ said Judi, holding up a blue dress. ‘The colour’s not right for your skin, it’ll be ageing. I think the whole effect is a bit . . . granny. You’re not old, Livingstone, you’re in your prime! Rock it! And what’s this? Oh my God, no . . . Where in the name of Hades did you get this monstrosity?’ She was staring in horror, as though it might bite her, at a frilly pink blouse.

  ‘That? Oxfam.’

  ‘What were you thinking of?’

  ‘I liked the colour,’ I admitted sheepishly. ‘What’s wrong with it? A bit too lurid?’

  ‘Nothing’s wro
ng with it—except the cut, the colour and the fabric. It has to go, unless you plan on standing on street corners?’

  Next, she pulled a chair in front of the mirror and suggested a make-up lesson. Eilish wore very little; she had a natural kind of beauty. Kate neither needed nor wanted warpaint. Judi, on the other hand, was the sort of woman who never left the house without lipstick. The golden rules, she said, were subtlety and contouring. She showed me how to apply foundation while avoiding the mud-pie effect, and blusher without it making me look like a Russian doll. She warned me off red lipstick. ‘You need less flashy colours,’ she said, producing one from her handbag.

  As she messed about, we discussed the ‘rollout of Lucia Livingstone’, which was what Judi called my transition at work. She treated it like any other office project, including the major software overhaul we’d endured the previous year.

  ‘You’ll have to let the management team know well in advance,’ she said. ‘Give them a date when you’re going to be fetching up as a babe.’

  ‘I don’t want to do it.’

  ‘They can’t kick you out. Look down . . . look up . . . See how I’m just brushing that onto your upper lashes? Keep still, if you don’t want to be a panda.’

  ‘Come on, Judi. There are ways and means of levering me out. We both know that.’

  ‘What date do you have in mind? How about January? New year, new woman.’

  ‘Far, far too soon.’ I couldn’t move, because she was still wielding a mascara wand millimetres from my eyes. ‘Maybe the following year.’

  ‘Your hair’s getting quite long,’ she said, spraying it with water. ‘I think we can do something with it. I had a talk to my stylist last night, and he gave me some tips on—I’d stress that these are his words, not mine—on making guys look like gals. Ultimately, he says, you need a fringe, just to soften your forehead. That’ll make a huge difference.’

  I’d never had mousse in my hair before. Actually, I didn’t know such stuff existed. I was fascinated by the way it expanded with a quiet fizz when Judi sprayed it into the palm of her hand. She made me tip my head upside down and blasted it with a hairdryer (‘to give it bounce,’ she explained, as I spluttered), and then dried my hair in layers so it framed my forehead and jaw. I watched the transformation in the mirror, and I wanted to dance.

  ‘You’re a genius!’ I cried. ‘An artist!’

  She put down her hairdryer and regarded my reflection with a half-smile. ‘D’you know what, Lucia? You scrub up pretty well. I think those hormones are having an effect already. It’s hard to put my finger on it . . . D’you think your skin’s softer?’

  ‘Impossible,’ I scoffed. Secretly, though, I agreed with her. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I did feel different: more serene, somehow. My sex drive was definitely less—I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but it was a fact. And that morning, for the first time, I’d noticed a soreness and sensitivity across my chest.

  ‘Let’s go out for lunch,’ she said.

  My euphoria slid away. ‘I can’t. I’ve never eaten in public. People will read me.’

  ‘Read you? What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that they’ll see me for what I am.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right then, because what you are is a friend of mine.’ She picked up a pair of earrings and handed them to me to clip on. ‘Your first visit to a cafe as a woman. My first visit to a cafe with a transsexual woman. Sounds like fun! Let’s go.’

  I lay in bed that night with a cup of tea by my side, wishing Eilish were there to share my triumph. Things were happening! I’d filled my wardrobe with new clothes; I’d been made up, my hair blow-dried. I’d wandered through Spitalfields market dressed in a long, full skirt, and browsed the jewellery stalls, before eating tagliatelle and sharing an excellent bottle of chablis with a girlfriend.

  I never thought I’d see the day.

  Thirty-five

  Kate

  This was her first Christmas as the child of a broken home. She had friends who’d been through it when they were small; they talked about shuttling from Mum to Dad and back again, eating two Christmas dinners, opening two lots of presents and generally being carved up like little Christmas turkeys. They always ended up blubbing by the end of the day. Christmas was a nightmare for them.

  Kate’s memories couldn’t have been more different. The routine had been the same, year after year. She and Simon got up early and sat on each other’s beds to open their stockings. At ten, the family walked along the lane to church. Afterwards, Kate, Simon and the other village children would play kick the can in the graveyard while their parents were queueing up to shake hands with the vicar.

  There was always a crowd at lunch: lots of family, and whichever cat they had at the time scoffing turkey giblets from a bowl on the floor. Normally there’d be a distant cousin or aunt, or some waif or stray with nowhere else to go—like Stella, when she was between husbands. To Kate, as a child, it was all perfect.

  So she had no right to grumble about the fact that at the age of twenty-three she finally had a broken-home Christmas. Simon and Carmela had issued a general invitation; general to everyone, that was, except her dad. Kate was wondering what to do about this when she had a call from her grandmother.

  ‘Carmela’s so kind to ask me,’ said Meg. ‘I think I should meet this new baby. But what about poor Luke? I hate to think of him alone on Christmas Day.’

  That was when Kate made her decision. ‘Granny, don’t worry. Go and be gobbed on by Rosa, who, I must admit, is quite cute. I’ll have lunch with Dad. We’ll sit around and pull sad and lonely crackers, and get quietly stonkered together.’

  Meg sounded heartened. ‘Would you do that, dear?’

  ‘You think I’d rather spend the day with Simon and Wendy, wearing a stupid paper hat?’

  Kate was glad she’d made that decision, because her dad perked up when she told him. How the mighty were fallen! A year ago he was Mr Popular and Respectable, hosting a houseful of guests; now he was grateful for one visitor to his bare little basement flat.

  ‘Don’t you ever look up your London friends?’ she asked him.

  ‘Well, no. Not often. They tend to ask questions about why I’m living here.’

  ‘But you’ll have to come out sometime,’ she argued. ‘Won’t you? If you’re really going to . . . what’s the word?’

  ‘Transition.’

  ‘Why haven’t you told anyone? Are you having second thoughts?’

  There was a pause, and Kate held her breath. Maybe she’d hit the nail on the head. Maybe it hadn’t worked out for him. If he was going to turn back, he’d better get a move on. Mum wouldn’t wait forever.

  ‘Our human resources manager wants it to happen tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Judi. You might have met her.’

  Kate was surprised. ‘You told her?’

  ‘She got it out of me. She can’t understand why anyone would hesitate to become a woman. We went on a shopping expedition. It was fun.’

  Kate snorted, muttering about women who shopped as a pastime.

  ‘Judi celebrates being female, Kate. It isn’t a crime.’

  ‘Actually it is a crime, if what she’s celebrating is being vacuous. Women are still not respected, Dad, and why? Because they’ve bought into this giggly fun shopping crap.’

  She heard him laughing. Nice sound. ‘Don’t be such a killjoy.’

  ‘Not all women think shopping is fun. Don’t expect me to go into ecstasies over totes and bright yellow Italian shoes.’

  ‘Yellow shoes?’ He sounded intrigued. ‘I must hear more! The Italians make bright yellow shoes?’

  Kate sighed, and said she’d see him for lunch on Christmas Day.

  She’d been feeling sorry for her father, thinking of him as a Nora No-Mates, but when she fronted up on Christmas morning he wasn’t alone after all. She could see two figures in the kitchen as she passed the window. One was her dad; the other was a young woman, sitting at the table. Her hea
d was thrown back and Kate could hear laughter. She also caught a waft of roast chicken, and a blast of Neil Young from the stereo.

  The basement door was locked—unusually—but Luke came trotting over to open it, beaming out through the glass. He was in his shirtsleeves, wearing a plastic apron Kate had given him after a trip to Florence. It had a picture of Michelangelo’s David on the front, arranged artfully (or possibly tastelessly) to make the wearer look improbably well hung.

  Luke’s eyes were bright as he held out his arms. ‘Happy Christmas, darling girl!’ he cried. ‘Now, come and meet someone.’

  As Kate followed him into the kitchen, his visitor unfolded herself from the chair. Beautiful, thought Kate, but not pretty. She wore thigh-length boots, like Puss in Boots, and a red silk scarf around her neck; braided hair cascaded from a high ponytail. Above all, she had terrific posture. Kate had seen women with her kind of looks on the cover of Vogue—all cheekbones and legs—though she suspected that their clothes cost a thousand times more than this woman’s outfit.

  ‘This is Chloe,’ said Luke. ‘My daughter, Kate.’

  Chloe’s reaction was wildly enthusiastic. She held out her hand, then seemed to change her mind, laughed, and grabbed Kate in a bear hug.

  ‘This is great!’ she cried. ‘You’re the archaeologist, right? You dig stuff up? Lucia’s told me all about you.’

  Gender, eh? It was funny; when you were with people like her dad and Chloe, you stopped thinking of it as a binary thing. It confirmed what Kate had long believed: that the world isn’t yin and yang, it isn’t black and white, and it certainly isn’t bloody Venus and Mars; it’s so much more fun than that. Chloe couldn’t hide her male voice, and the silk scarf covered an Adam’s apple, but she was female. There was no hint of a chip on her shoulder when it came to education or money or race or gender. They’d broken the conversational ice before Luke had got around to pouring Kate a glass of bubbly. Chloe already had her own, and clinked it against Kate’s, saying, ‘Cheers, m’dear.’