The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone Read online

  ‘By “new gender role”,’ said Hugh, ‘I take it you mean as a transvestite.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s something different.’

  ‘Christ, I loathe doublespeak! Don’t we have a dress code for partners? Are fishnet stockings on the list?’

  ‘Nothing wrong with fishnets. I look smashing in them myself,’ said Sarah. There was another ripple of laughter, and I was grateful to her.

  ‘Right.’ She stood up. ‘Sorry to break up the party, but I have to leave now. This is all perfectly simple. There’s no point in chucking your toys around the cot, Hugh. We can’t by law discriminate against . . .’ she glanced down at the letter ‘. . . against Lucia, even if we wanted to. It’s a pity we’ve been bounced by these wretched photographs, but there it is. Let’s get on with the job. Good work, Judi. Best of British to you, Luke.’ She was getting ready to leave as she talked, throwing a black velvet cloak around her shoulders.

  The meeting broke up. Judi said she’d speak to me over the weekend and hurried out. Hugh stomped away, but most of the others managed to meet my eye. One said I knew where she was if I wanted to talk, and asked how Eilish was coping. Another muttered, ‘You’re a bloody dark horse,’ but he looked more stunned than revolted.

  Benjamin and I were the last to leave.

  ‘I’ve caused a scandal,’ I said, with a grimace of apology.

  ‘Makes a refreshing change from adultery.’

  I thanked him for staying late, and he said it was no trouble because he’d planned to visit his mother in her nursing home and she preferred him to arrive after her favourite television program. He and I took the lift together, watching the numbers counting down.

  As we reached the ground floor, he spoke again. ‘Nature or nurture, do you think?’

  ‘Not nurture. I’m pretty sure I was born with this conflict.’ The lift doors opened, and we stepped out into the lobby. ‘I don’t know, Benjamin. The fact is that nobody knows why I am as I am. Psychiatrists and geneticists and endocrinologists, and theologians from every religion, and . . . nobody has a bloody clue. My sister says I’m a sinful but curable soul.’

  ‘Do you agree with her?’

  ‘I know I’m not curable. Perhaps I’m a sort of divine conversation piece, like a Rubik’s cube.’

  We parted company outside the revolving doors. Benjamin flagged down a taxi for himself.

  ‘What about you?’ he asked, as a driver pulled in. ‘Where are you headed now?’

  I smiled. ‘I’m going home.’

  Eilish

  He was a figure in an overcoat, walking up the dark platform.

  It was after eleven when I collected him from the station. I’d hit a traffic diversion on the way into town, and was almost late. I hurried across the bridge and down the steps just as the train was pulling away. There he was: my husband still, though I’d applied for decree absolute. He halted when he saw me. I stopped too, with my hand on the staircase rail and my foot on the bottom step. It was Luke; Luke with his dark eyes, and the reticent smile I knew so well, and the way he always held his head—upright and steady, like a gentle soldier. The other passengers passed us by. We were alone.

  I spoke first. ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’

  ‘The very same.’

  I stepped forward, barging into him, and we clung to one another. I kissed him for the first time in all those months—it was the only right, natural thing to do. I tasted the salt of my own tears, and perhaps of his too. We walked to the car with our arms around one another and talked all the way home. It was difficult to know where to start, because there was so much ground to cover. I wanted to know how Bannermans had taken his news; I pressed for every detail of his conversation with Penny O’Neil. We talked about my job, about my world; about what was to come.

  ‘Kate’s coming on Sunday,’ I said, as I parked outside Smith’s Barn. ‘She thinks this world is too big and bad for us to manage it without her. And here we are. Welcome home.’

  He reached out to my hand on the steering wheel. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said. ‘So much.’

  I leaned across and kissed him again. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then his arms were around me. I wanted to arouse him, to persuade him to come back into my bed. I wanted my husband back again—not Jim, not anyone else; I wanted Luke. I slid a hand under his shirt, feeling the warmth of his body as I ran my fingers across his ribs and up towards his chest.

  ‘I’m not the same.’ His voice was sharp with warning. ‘The hormones.’

  I froze, terrified of what I might have been about to touch. Then I fell out of the car and rushed into the house. I heard him follow me into the kitchen. My hands were shaking. I didn’t know what to think, or what to say.

  You idiot, I told myself. You knew he was taking oestrogen. We all know what happens when a man does that.

  It was no good. I couldn’t skirt around this subject. I had to ask. ‘Are you growing breasts? And what else . . . ? Oh my God.’

  ‘The hormones are ending the war inside me. They’re bringing peace. They’re also changing me—very, very gradually.’

  I watched as he took off his coat and cradled a fanatically purring Casino in his arms. He was Luke. He was still Luke. I’d known him in a thousand roles and moods: as an embarrassed young man at the ballet, and a confident professional; as a father, a lover, a son. I’d seen him shattered as he held Charlotte’s lifeless body; joyous at Simon and Kate’s achievements; I’d seen him making sandwiches for Robert on their last outing together, gently helping the old man into his car. I’d seen him overcome by lust, and pain, and love, and rage, and helpless laughter. I’d seen him drunk. I’d seen him depressed. I’d seen him singing and dancing on a table in a skirt. I had walked with him through thirty years of light and shade and changing seasons.

  And now here he was in my kitchen, and he was different again; but he was still the same person. There were physical things: his hair was much longer now, curling around the nape of his neck. It looked rather stylish and piratical. He’d never been plump, but in the last seven months he’d lost a lot of weight. His shoulders were not quite so broad as I remembered, his jaw not quite so strong nor so stubbled; in fact, his complexion seemed almost boyish. There was a new quality about him, something translucent and light and comfortable. He was beautiful in a strange, gypsyish way; but . . . well. Younger. Not quite male; more androgynous.

  ‘You look good,’ I said. ‘Whoever you are.’

  He smiled at me. ‘So do you.’

  ‘You’re really going to go on with this?’

  There was no evasion, no embarrassment, no uncertainty. ‘I’m really going to go on with this.’

  Everything had changed since that awful day, back in July, when he’d walked all night in the storm before coming home to confess. That day he was broken. Now—perhaps for the first time since I’d known him—he was whole.

  I knew now. I knew what I wanted to do.

  ‘Then be her,’ I said. ‘If I can’t have Luke back, I want to get to know Lucia. Tomorrow we’ll go out together and face the gossips. They’ll all have seen your picture by then, so let’s give them the real thing. The pub, the shop, everywhere.’

  ‘You want me to walk into the Bracton Arms?’ he asked, looking apprehensive.

  ‘Oh yes. I’ve a good mind to take a picture of Ingrid’s face when she sees you, and share it on Facebook.’

  We sat side by side on the sofa, in the warmest spot in the kitchen. From time to time we held one another’s hands. We’re awfully fond of one another’s company, I thought sadly, for an almost-divorced couple. Casino draped himself over Luke, his purrs dwindling to happy sighs. Baffy snoozed on the cushion I’d bought him.

  Luke had seen Ricky Tait’s photographs. Apparently they weren’t hard to find.

  ‘How bad?’ I asked.

  ‘I look like Beethoven on a bad hair day.’

  ‘That’s the paparazzi for you.’

  It was almost two wh
en I looked at my watch and said I’d better turn in. Luke’s bed was made up in the study, but at least he was in the house. I slept well that night; better than I had for a long, long time. I heard him going to and from the bathroom, and tried not to imagine what he was wearing. But it was all right. I was all right. The world was turning, and I was not going to be flung off.

  Forty-three

  Kate

  They were definitely off their heads.

  She’d been dropped at home by a friend half an hour ago, to find her parents just setting out for church. That wouldn’t have been unusual, except for the fact that her father was presenting himself to the good folk of East Yalton as a woman. The pair of them seemed hell-bent on public humiliation.

  ‘The new vicar invited us,’ insisted Eilish. ‘He collared us in the Bracton Arms yesterday, said he was expecting us in church this morning.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ scoffed Kate. ‘Everyone knows the C of E is super-trendy nowadays. The Reverend Niceguy probably thinks the whole resurrection thing is just a metaphor. This is all very modern and inclusive, but it won’t stop Colonel Smyth from turning purple and threatening to horsewhip you. It won’t stop Hattie the ancient verger fainting. What if the servers point-blank refuse to hand over the bread and wine, Dad?’

  Luke looked anxious. ‘I’m sure the vicar wouldn’t allow that. But you don’t have to come with us, Kate.’

  Of course she had to go. Someone had to shield her parents from the viciousness of the human race.

  ‘We stopped for a drink in the pub yesterday,’ reasoned Eilish as the three of them were walking along the track towards the village. ‘Nobody fainted, and nobody horsewhipped anybody. Mind you—gosh, folk can be rude. A couple of people actually got up and walked out.’

  ‘Bloody rednecks! Who were they? I’ll pay ’em a visit.’

  ‘Never mind. Ingrid and Harry were very welcoming.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Kate rolled her eyes. ‘I know. I heard all about it from Sophie. By the way, Dad, you’ve got a new fan. Sophie thinks you make a very impressive woman. She waxed lyrical about your eyes, and how you’re so tall and slim.’

  ‘Really? Well, that’s kind.’ Her dad was almost blushing. He was—

  Kate stopped her own train of thought in its tracks. She was going to try to use the right pronouns from now on, even when she was only using them in her head.

  She was immaculately made up, wearing a midnight-blue dress with her pashmina. Leather boots, which Kate rather envied. Gold earrings, and a beret. Kate had always thought a beret would suit Luke, and she’d been proved right. The new woman looked a bit too chic for a country church, but that had to be a fault on the right side.

  ‘Ingrid and Harry came bustling over the second we arrived,’ said Eilish. ‘Leaned on the bar and asked intrusive questions. Such personal things! Suddenly, Luke’s genitalia becomes fair game as a subject for discussion. Everyone wants to know whether he’s having surgery. People are obsessed with the surgery! Why is that? It’s ghoulish. I was so relieved when the vicar came over and interrupted them.’

  ‘The clergy are getting younger and younger,’ sighed Luke. ‘Or am I getting older and older?’

  Kate wondered whether this interfering do-gooder had any idea how much courage it was taking for her parents to front up in church. Well, she’d give him a piece of her mind. She flexed her fingers. If she saw a single sneer this morning, or heard a snide remark, she was going to let fly. She felt very protective of her mum and dad. They’d been through enough.

  There were three bells in the old tower, of three pitches, and whoever was ringing seemed to be tolling them entirely at random. The sound was comforting. This church had stood right here, in these fields, for hundreds of years. It had witnessed the Great Plague, the Industrial Revolution and two world wars. It didn’t give a damn what her father was wearing. She opened the back gate and followed her parents down the path, their footsteps crunching. Kate knew every corner of the graveyard from playing all those games of kick the can. She could recite the family names on the stones: Samuels, Smyth, Donaghue, Bell, Roach. She’d hidden behind the tiny, tragic graves of infants, and the massive family mausoleums. Hundreds of real people over the centuries, each Beloved or At peace or Taken from us too soon. Every one of them has a story, she thought. They’ve had their tragedies and love affairs. Perhaps some of them were like Dad. If so, they took their secret to the grave. She was glad her father wasn’t going to do that.

  Near the church, their winding path drew close to the main one. They’d been spotted, and it was clear that the news was out. People glanced sideways at them. One or two waved but hurried on, as though they didn’t quite know what to do or say. Finally, an elderly couple approached. Kate knew them from her days in Sunday school, where they’d been teachers. Mr and Mrs White, she used to call them then. Olly and . . . oh bugger. What was Mrs White’s name?

  Eilish laid a hand on Luke’s arm as the Whites came up to them. ‘Hello there, Yvonne and Olly,’ she said breezily. ‘Lovely morning.’

  ‘Eilish!’ bellowed the man. His voice was a little too jolly to be natural. ‘Am I in time to get a notice into the parish newsletter?’

  ‘Oh dear—too late, I’m afraid. I emailed it to the printer yesterday afternoon.’

  He saluted her, for reasons best known to himself. ‘Never mind, ma’am, my fault. Next month will do.’

  There was an awkward pause, before Yvonne cleared her throat.

  ‘Um . . . It’s lovely to see you, Luke,’ she said.

  It was all too much for Kate, who had the nervous giggles. ‘It’s okay, Mrs White! You don’t have to pretend everything’s tickety-boo. Dad’s wearing a dress, for Pete’s sake. She’s got earrings and heels and bouffy hair. You’re allowed to be a bit gobsmacked.’

  Mrs White laughed too, slightly hysterically. ‘I wasn’t sure of the etiquette,’ she said. ‘To be perfectly honest, I’ve never met a . . . a . . .’ She looked wildly to her husband for inspiration. ‘Oh dear, I don’t even know the right vocabulary . . . I’m totally at sea. What do I call you? I’ve never been in this situation in my life before. Neither has Olly, have you, darling?’

  Luke smiled. ‘Look, Yvonne. Olly. It’s very simple. We’ve known one another for years. I hope we can still be friends now that I’m Lucia. Don’t worry about the vocabulary—I won’t take offence as long as you don’t call me a freak.’

  Yvonne began to shake Lucia’s hand, then changed her mind and air-kissed her instead—but carefully, as though she were afraid of creasing Lucia’s clothes. ‘You do look . . . well, marvellous, actually. Come and share a pew with us,’ she said. ‘We’ll be your bodyguards.’

  When they reached the porch, Kate lingered a little behind the others. The organ was wheezing away gently; she could already smell dust, damp and furniture polish. She smiled at the sight of Hattie the ancient verger, with her hymnbooks, peering myopically out at them. Some things never changed. Hattie spoke to someone over her shoulder, and Kate glimpsed a figure in a surplice. The new vicar, presumably.

  She watched as her parents paused, side by side, on the threshold. Their hands touched, then briefly entwined. She was proud of them. They were about to be divorced, but when the chips were down, they were a team.

  ‘Right,’ said Lucia, taking her wife’s arm. ‘Let’s face the music.’

  As they stepped inside, Kate could just make out the vicar shaking their hands. Full marks, she thought grudgingly. He’d made sure he was there to meet them. He was waiting to greet Kate, too. It was gloomy in the old building, after the brightness of the day. Her eyes took time to adjust, and for several seconds he was a silhouette against the east window. When he came into focus, she saw that he was staring at her incredulously.

  ‘Kate,’ he said, and she felt a grip on her hand.

  She began to laugh.

  Forty-four

  Simon

  It had been another long day. He didn’t finish writing up his notes unt
il after seven.

  His dad had moved home now, and was living as a woman; called himself Lucia, apparently. So he was the village joke, like something off Little Britain. Simon was baffled. Mum, Kate, Granny, even Carmela, seemed able to perform some kind of mental gymnastics that he couldn’t understand. They were lucky, because they hadn’t lost the person they’d loved.

  He found his colleague Sven in the clinic, injecting a diabetic cat with insulin.

  ‘Coming for a drink?’ Simon asked.

  Sven was in his forties, and had teenage children. All the clients, both animal and human, loved him; his bedside manner was irresistible. Simon wished it were contagious.

  Sven looked at his watch. ‘It’s a bit late.’

  ‘Never too late.’

  ‘Why don’t you go home, Simon?’ Sven lifted the cat back into its cage and stroked its head for a moment. ‘You have a family. What’s the point in all this hard work if you don’t go home to them?’

  ‘You think I’m drinking too much.’

  ‘I think you should go home. Straight home.’

  To his own surprise, Simon took Sven’s advice. He’d try to make it right with Carmela. The troubles had gone on too long; he missed the old days, when they were happy. He was home by seven-thirty, dropping his keys on the table the hall. Carmela wasn’t around, and there were no sounds from upstairs. Nico was probably asleep. He got so tired now that he was a schoolboy.

  Shrugging out of his jacket, Simon wandered into the kitchen. Carmela must have been having a spring clean, because the place looked pristine. He took a bottle of wine out of the fridge. Something steamed in the slow cooker, but he wasn’t hungry.

  He walked back to the kitchen door, looking towards the stairs. He stood in his shirtsleeves, a glass in one hand and the bottle in the other.

  And he listened.

  The house was quiet. Very quiet. No footsteps, no murmur of the radio. No yells from Rosa, who loved to party at this time of the evening.