Now You See Me (27 page)

‘Wha
t
doe
s
turn Carly on? Do you think you know? What turn
s
yo
u
on, for that matter? I don’t think I have the faintest idea. Perhaps Carly does.’

‘Jude, it’s four a.m. You’re tired, you’re sounding a bit mad. Are you sure you want to go on with this?’

‘Perhaps it’s time I went a bit mad. Perhaps I’m sick of being the solid, trustworthy one
.
Tha
t
certainly doesn’t seem to turn you on.’ Judith slides a hand over the table and takes the glass away from Tess. She sips at the wine. ‘How long is it since we made love?’ she says. ‘Weeks? Months? I feel like every cliched cuckolded husband. I feel your contempt and your dismissiveness every minute we spend together. Why do you stay, Tess? Why don’t you just piss off?’

Tess makes a sudden, jerky gesture. She grasps Judith’s free hand in both of hers. ‘Are you really asking me that? I stay because I love you, and you know it.’ Her voice is gentle, apprehensive, soothing, all at the same time.

‘Or because I offer you security, a safety net. I don’t nag; you’ve trained me not to question your behaviour, to tiptoe round your moods. You toss me a crumb of affection from time to time, to keep me sweet; you tell me I’m the only one who understands you. I’m finally realising it’s all a con, Tess. I’m living half a life with you and I’ve become grateful for even that.’

Her voice has risen and she takes a deep breath and begins to speak again more quietly. ‘And you live only a fraction of your life with me. You’re like an iceberg. Your real life goes on somewhere else, way below the surface of what I know — of what you tell me. I think I’ve finally had enough.’

‘Judith,’ Tess has tears in her voice. ‘Don’t do this. I’m a mess, I know it. I keep thinking I’ll work it out, it’ll be all right in the end, but somehow it doesn’t happen. The days go by and I manage, any way I can, and then it’s weeks, months, and I haven’t addressed anything. The only thread I hang on by is you. You mustn’t doubt that. I’d be dead if I didn’t have you.’

‘Well, I feel half dead already,’ Judith says, extracting her limp hand from Tess’s clutching fingers. ‘Every time we have this sort of confrontation — it’s about once a year, isn’t it? Every time, you pull this same line about how I’m all that keeps you going, and every time I fall for it. It’s a very sick pattern, Tess, I’m finally seeing it. If we can’t break out of it then there’s no future for us.’

Tess is holding herself very still in the shadows. Judith says nothing, waiting. Finally Tess says, ‘What do you want me to do? What can I do?’

‘You have to want to do something yourself,’ Judith says. ‘It can’t be just for me, that’s no good.’

‘Well, but if you tell me what you want,’ Tess says, surprising Judith as she does occasionally, by her logic. ‘If you can tell me that, then at least I’ll have something to measure what I want against.’

‘I want to trust you,’ Judith says slowly, working it out. ‘I want to be in a relationship with you where we meet as equals. I don’t want to be your mother any more, whom you hate and love in the same breath, the person you lie to and manipulate and come crawling to in fits of guilt. I don’t want to be the one who enforces the rules of good behaviour, the judgemental one, the one who punishes you when you’re naughty. Or the one who doesn’t, who withholds punishment or censure.’

‘Gosh,’ Tess says, with a shaky laugh. ‘It’s a big thing when you look into it, isn’t it?’ She nudges her chair forward so that she is once more dappled with light. She leans her elbows on the table, hands to her temples, her hair falling across her face in frosted sweeps. ‘All right. I understand why you don’t want to tell me what to do, that I have to make my own decisions. But you can give me advice, can’t you? Any friend would do that. What’s your advice?’ Her voice seems very small in the dark room.

All Judith’s instincts make her want to reach out and comfort her, but she resists. ‘I think you need professional help,’ she says calmly. ‘I suggested Fran and you wouldn’t listen. But you need to see someone, again. I can’t be your therapis
t
an
d
your lover and I don’t want to be your therapist.’

‘Do you still want to be my lover?’ Tess asks softly.

Judith stands up. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Despite everything, I do. But not tonight. Not as a sop to my anger. Not until I’m sure you know what you want. I’ve moved your things into the other room. I think it’s better if we give each other some space for a while.’

She puts a light hand on Tess’s head as she leaves. ‘Goodnight.’ She goes into the bathroom and pees, then cleans her teeth. There is silence from the dining room. When she reaches her bedroom she shuts the door and hugs herself, hard, trembling.

*

When Tom knocks on the door it swings slightly open. He hesitates and calls, ‘Rosa. Are you there? It’s me.’ There’s no answer, so he comes inside and closes the door. He walks through the house and looks into the backyard. She’s not there. Perhaps she’s ducked out to the shop, he thinks, and goes into the kitchen and glances at the table, where they’d always left each other notes. The pad is in its usual place, but there’s nothing written on it.

He puts the jug on, then cocks his head, listening. Music is playing somewhere, the Stones. He goes into the hallway; the music is clearer, it’s coming from upstairs. He puts his foot on the first step and calls again: ‘Rosa. It’s Tom.’ He thinks he hears a faint reply and waits. After a while he goes on up the stairs. The music is loud from their bedroom. He goes to the open door, then stops short, startled. Rosa is lying on the bed, wearing a see-through bra, black stockings held up with a suspender belt, and high-heeled shoes. Her legs are sprawled apart.

He turns away from her. ‘Rosa. What are you doing?’

‘I want you back, Tom. Isn’t this what you like? Isn’t this what Carly does for you?’ She has made up her face, with silver eye-shadow and vivid lipstick.

‘Rosa, don’t. Put some clothes on. You said you wanted to talk.’

‘What’s the matter?’ She shouts at him. ‘Aren’t I doing it properly? What have I got wrong? Do you want to put on a bra and stockings, too? I’ve got spares.’

He comes over to the bed and pulls the sheet around her. He sits down and takes her hand in both of his. He lowers his head and kisses her palm. She starts to cry.

‘Rosa, you know you don’t want it like that. You hated it when we did this before. Don’t do it to yourself.’

‘Tom, I want what you want. If this is what makes you happy, then we’ll do it this way. I can’t bear living without you, Tom. I can’t bear it.’ Her mascara has streaked into the creases around her eyes. He takes a tissue from the bedside table and dabs at her face tenderly.

‘I’m not attractive to you, that’s the trouble, isn’t it?’ she says, gasping, trying to control her sobs. ‘Carly’s so beautiful. I bet you’re beautiful when you’re all togged up, too, Tom. I guess you beautiful people just naturally want to hang together.’

‘Rosie, you’re the most attractive woman I’ve ever known,’ Tom says. ‘You deserve far better than me. You should just give me up as a bad job, find a real bloke who’ll love you properly and look after you.’

‘I don’t want a real bloke.’ She laughs weakly. ‘I want you. But you want Carly. So there it goes.’

Tom slumps with his head bent towards the floor. ‘I don’t want Carly,’ he mutters. ‘She wants me. And I’m so hopeless, so fucked, that I’ll go where I’m told and stay where I’m put for anyone who’ll tolerate me as I am.’

She sits up and pulls him towards her. ‘Tom, tell me about it. We’ve never properly discussed it, these needs of yours. It’s my fault — I didn’t want to face it. I thought it was a sort of aberration, that it would go away if we ignored it.’

‘It’s not your fault, Rosie. Don’t ever think that. I couldn’t talk to you about it, either. I was so confused and tormented by the whole thing.’ He gestures towards the tape deck on the dresser, blaring ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. ‘Remember when Jagger and the boys all got into their drag and gave concerts? It was like poking out their tongues at the establishment. For a while I thought that’s what I was doing, too. But it took me over.’ He stops speaking and stares at his clenched hands.

‘Tell me, Tom,’ she says, sniffling and reaching for another tissue. ‘At least let me understand why I’ve lost you.’ He draws a breath that is like a groan, and he begins to tell her.

‘When I put on women’s clothes I feel whole,’ he says. ‘A part of my mind knows I probably look ludicrous, clumsy, but that doesn’t matter. What
I
fee
l
is liberated, freed from all the fraught aspects of being a man. But I feel like more of a man, too, if you can understand that. I feel potent and virile. It’s not that I want t
o
b
e
a woman, and I’m not homosexual, Rosie. I tried that, and it isn’t for me. And I’m not a candidate for the dick operation, either. I’m sexually attracted to women, but there’s a part of me that wants to be like them, too, and when I can indulge that part of me I feel able to do anything.’

He gets up and walks to the window. For a while he looks out at the garden as she watches him, then he says, ‘I’ve lived a secret life for years. I’ve betrayed you in ways you haven’t guessed at.’

‘What, Tom? Tell me.’ She is dry-eyed, now, feeling him become more of a stranger every second. She clutches the sheet around her shoulders.

‘I’ve gone to prostitutes,’ he says, in a rapid, toneless voice. ‘Men and women. Transvestites who let me dress up with them. I kept clothes in my room at work. Some evenings I’d put on a dress, a wig and make-up, high heels, and wander round the streets. Oh, not round here. I kept it out of my own backyard. I’d go into bars and coffee lounges, get into conversations, persuade myself that everyone thought I was an attractive woman. I’d tell people my name was Tanya. I’d ignore the looks that passed around, the smirks. The laughter that started up when I left. I had to ignore it.’

‘I do think it’s ludicrous,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, but I do.’ She is working it out for herself, why she feels this way. ‘When you see drag queens, it’s different somehow; it’s so theatrical, larger than life. It’s showbiz, a parody. You’re entertained by them, you suspend your judgement. And they do it with flamboyance — there’s something naughty and in-your-face and sexy about it. But an ordinary man wanting to dress as a woman — it’s laughable, something most women would feel scorn for.’

He comes back to sit beside her. ‘Why?’ he says. ‘For most of this century women have been able to dress in men’s clothes — you fought for the right to do so. We don’t find you contemptible in your shirts and pants.’

‘No,’ Rosa says slowly. ‘It’s also to do with power, I think, partly. We still believe men hold the power. If the powerful start to behave — dress — like the powerless, they demean themselves, somehow. Oh God,’ she screws up her eyes. ‘I’m making a mess of this. I’m sounding like someone in one of your ethics classes.’

‘No, you’re not,’ he says, his voice sad. ‘But men of our generation, who’ve been convinced by women like you that we shouldn’t any longer exercise our traditional male power, where do we go? We look at you, at women, and we see a different, intriguing sort of power, and you’re saying we’re not allowed to reach for it. We’re not allowed to be one thing any more, and we’re ridiculed if we try to emulate the other.’

‘Yes, I know, it seems unfair. But our femininity’s our only real power against men, I suppose. We’re threatened when you seem to be wanting that as well. What does it leave us?’ She sighs, trying to put her thoughts in order. What he has said about going to prostitutes and the rest has lodged shockingly at some level of her mind that she can’t examine yet, but it is interfering with her conscious train of argument. She goes on, fumbling after what she now thinks Fran had been pointing her towards.

‘It’s also a gut reaction, Tom, irrational, out of my control. I feel disgust at the thought of you dressed as a woman; I think it’s pathetic. And it’s hard to be attracted to someone you find pathetic and disgusting. As a man you attract me. As a woman you don’t.’

Tom remains silent, staring down at the floor.

‘Tom,’ she puts her hand on his knee. I think it’s something to do with my own personal insecurities, too, on a level that I haven’t properly worked out. Something to do with my self-image, I think. That I’m not fully confident of my own identity as a woman. I need t
o
b
e
the woman, with you.’

‘Rosa, it’s not that I want to be a woman, I told you that. But when I dress, I feel taken out of myself. My inadequate, male self. However I look to you,
I
fee
l
attractive and, yes, empowered — I think you’re right that it’s about power somehow — in a way that I don’t usually.’

She shakes her head. ‘I can understand that, just. But the impulse to make yourself look ridiculous ... Oh well,’ she gives a trembling laugh, ‘at least we’ve opened the matter up for discussion. But there’s such a gap. Obviously it’s a compulsion, something you can’t help. I’m not sure I can help my reactions to it, either. I don’t know if we can work it out, do you? You and me, Tom, how do we work that out?’

‘I don’t think we can,’ he says. He looks squarely at her. ‘If it gives you any satisfaction, I’m at least as unhappy as you are. I’m living with a woman I don’t love and I hate myself.’