Introduction

Part One

NO NAME

Dr. Strickland said, 'Of course your thinking is still very dualistic.'
    I knew what he meant. I could have told him that he should not talk like that to a person who had not been to university, but there was no need for me to pretend about that. I did not really care that I had not been to university. I knew what I wanted.
    If I had gone to university, I would have liked to go to Oxford. I had read about it. The only things I liked doing at home were reading and dressing up.
    Dr. Strickland was a tall man, lounging in his swivel chair. His face was long and pale. It was a face that would have been more suitable for a young man but it had grown middle-aged. His eyes did not look as confident as I thought a middle-aged man's eyes should look. He was like a student.
    I was pretty. I sat neatly, small and careful in a black sweater. I was conscious of the stomach in the middle of me. In the beginning there was the stomach that reproduced itself without sex. Now there was the stomach, and below it the sexual organs, and above it the brain. Sometimes it felt as though there were two things, the mind and the body, and the mind wanted to leave the body. It felt like that when I was too pure and intellectual. When those times came I was frightened that my mind might float away from my body. I might be sent to Ward Nine for the rest of my life to live in the dream world with the old men.
    Dr. Strickland was talking to me.
    From where he was sitting he could look out of the window and see the wallflowers growing in their little squares in the lawn and the drive with the sun shining on it and the lodge at the gate and the cars passing on the road.
    I could not concentrate on what he was saying.
    My father had looked ill when he was hitting me. He had dragged me by the collar as though to get me to the sink. Suddenly he had punched me on the top lip. Then he had punched me in the body a few times. If we had been able to stop my mouth bleeding, I would not have had to go to Dr. Booth.
    I still felt amazement when I thought of that young woman coming to ask for her stolen panties back. But they were her knickers. Perhaps she felt that her vagina had been stolen and she had to have it back. She was a fetishist.
    Most people were fetishists. If it was not one thing, it was another.
    It would soon be dinner time. After he had finished with me Dr. Strickland would go outside and get into his car and go home. His wife would be preparing his dinner. She would be in the kitchen in her clothes. I wished that I were his wife. She had his social position without having to moil with insanity. She did not have to do with all the miserable and hopeless things that crept about in the hospital. She would be cooking dinner. They had a little boy. He might be playing in the garden because it was a summer day. She might go out and pick him up and carry him into the house to have his dinner.
    My mother night have carried me into the house once. I could not remember. The main fact about my mother was that she was dead. My sister, Shirley, had taken her place.
    Shirley told me that our mother was shouting to the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness when she was dying. She died of cancer. Shirley said she was twisted up in the bed through the pain.
    Even if I were able to get a lot of money and have an operation, I would never have a little boy. Mrs. Strickland did not know how happy she was. It was part of being Mrs. Strickland not to know how happy she was. If she did not take it all for granted, she would not be herself; she would be like me pretending to be Mrs. Strickland. In her bedroom there would be drawers and drawers and a wardrobe full-of clothes. She could choose what she would wear. All the time she was dressed up, but for her it was not dressing up; it was just being herself. There was day after day of being a woman. When she went into a room the gentlemen stood up. When she went to wet she had to sit down. She had no choice. She was always a woman.
    If she ever woke up to find that she was Roy Clark, the shock would cause her mind to leave her body, and she would have to be taken to Ward Nine to live with the old men. She would be fortunate if her mind never returned to her body. And all the time I would be Mrs. Strickland. I would have her clothes. No one would ever know. I would have to be very careful at first until I learned all about her. I would have to find out about her past life by questioning, without it being known that I was questioning. Dr. Strickland would make love to me.
    He was saying things to comfort me. He always ended the interviews by saying things to comfort me.

The ward was on the ground floor, and at the far end there were french windows that led out onto a square of grass with a hawthorn hedge round it. When one stood at the french windows one could see the cooling towers on the outskirts of Hull. At night one cold see the lights of Hull.
    After dinner Jim and I took our cups of tea and went out of the french windows and sat in deck chairs on, the little lawn. Jim had been determined to be my friend ever since my first night in the ward. His appearance made me think of the White Knight. There was his white hair and his stained grey suit and the brown shoes that he kept telling me he had bought in Australia. His face was sad and his eyes were blue. His hand trembled as he put his cigarette to his mouth. He sucked on it and blew a steady stream of smoke.
    'When I was in Australia I got very low sometimes. Do you know what it is to-be right down, Roy? No, you don't; you're too young. I got right down. When I got into bed at night I used to want to die. They're such hard people out there. There's no humanity. I went to this coffee bar place kept by this Italian bloke. And he says to me, "They're hard. They've got no humanity". That's Australia. I've been there and I've seen it, Roy. To look at me, would you think I've been to the other side of the world?' He turned his pale eyes on me for an answer.
    I was not sure what he wanted me to say. I said, 'Well, you look like a man who's seen a few things.'
    It was the right answer. He made a wink and pushed out his bottom lip. He spoke slyly and confidentially: 'You know, Roy, we're on a good thing here. Three meals a day and as much supper as you want and a good bed to sleep in. That's the main thing: bed and board. You've got to have something in your belly and you've got to have somewhere to sleep. Here we are, and it doesn't cost a penny. "Eat all, sup all, pay nowt". Isn't that the Yorkshireman's philosophy?'
    'I understand so,' I said.
     He went on talking and started explaining himself to me as he often did: 'You see, my trouble is that I've always been too soft. That's why I've never got married. Women like a man who goes forward and get what he wants. They want a go-setter. I let other people get in first. It's the money that women are interested in. You've got to have the money. My trouble was that I didn't want any more than would satisfy my needs. I just wanted to go on and have enough. Why do people have to be trying to trample on one another? Tell me that, Roy.'
    I told him that I did not know.
    He said, 'I'll ask Sam if we can go out for a drink tonight'

I had not liked the hammering in the male occupational therapy room. The female occupational therapy was much more gentle. In the warm summer afternoons it seemed to me to be a civilized place. At three o'clock two of the patients made tea in a great, blue enamel teapot.
    The men worked at a table in one corner.
    That day I was helping to put a string seat on a stool. The old man I was helping was impatient with me. He pushed me out of his way. At either side of his forehead there were deep scars where his skull had been cut into many years before is an attempt to help him. To him the making of the string seat for the stool was very important. When the sister came to ask him how he was getting on he shook his head as though the job were going badly. I decided that it would be best for me to leave him to himself.
    I sat and talked to Larry, who was making a carpet. Larry had been a merchant seaman. He was about forty, small and lively. I only knew him from meeting him at occupational therapy. He was in a different ward from me. Some of the things he told me were very strange.
    ' ... The anchor locker is right up in the peak. And these Indians must have stowed away in it. And when we dropped anchor to wait to start getting through the Canal there was blood and bits of arms and legs and gut and all sorts coming out of the anchor port. You see, when the anchor goes down the chain whips round and round. It's lashing about all over. And these Indians must have been sat on the chain. They didn't stand a chance. The old man said there must have been two men and a woman in there. He worked it out from the bits we found. The first mate was badly for a week.'
    Having told the story he got his tin box out of his back pocket. He said, 'I've had this box for nearly twenty years. I wouldn’t like to lose it.' He always said that when he took the box out for a cigarette. It was a flat tobacco box. All the paint had been worn off or had been scraped off and it was polished bright. He offered me a cigarette. He offered me one every afternoon, and every afternoon I told him that I did not smoke, and every afternoon he said that I was very sensible.
    I went and looked out of the window. There was a lawn and, beyond, part of the male wing of the hospital. I could see into one of the wards. I did not know which ward it was. There were people moving about. They seemed to be shifting furniture.
    I thought that it might not be a real ward that I was seeing. Perhaps, if I left the window where I was standing and went into the male wing, I might not be able to find the ward where the furniture was being shifted. Perhaps it only existed for me looking out of the window. Yet, if I could see it, it existed as much as it could exist for me. Even if I went across and found the ward, I would only be able to see it, and, even if I tried to get more assurance by touching the walls and the furniture, I could never be absolutely certain that it existed. Even if all the doctors in the hospital came and told me that it existed, I could never be sure. I thought that for me, everything might be an illusion. I remembered that I had often thought about the possibility when I was about eight or nine. I had thought that I might be dreaming everything and that I might wake up and find I was really a little girl.
    Two rooks came down and walked about on the lawn.
    There was no way of being sure what was going on outside myself. Two and two only made four inside my head. Outside my head there was no such thing as mathematics, only in other people's heads - if there were other people.
    Everyone lived inside his head: But people who were well and sane imagined that it was possible to get outside. That was how a man could fall in love with a woman.
    The rooks could not find anything. They flew away.
    I had a picture of my mind as a long tube. It started at the top very thin and almost transparent and went down getting wider and wider and rougher and stronger until it was like the trunk of a tree. At the bottom it was planted in the ground. But when I looked at the top again I found that it stretched up and up, getting thinner and finer so that it became like a strand of cobweb that reached up and up, right into the sky. That frightened me. The danger was that the cobweb part at the top might break off and float away.
    I told myself firmly that my mind was not really like that. I told myself to think about my mind. I should be like a rook, and not know that I had a mind. When people were healthy they did not know that they had minds, just as people did not know that they had kidneys unless there was something wrong with their kidneys. And I remembered that Dr. Strickland had once talked to me about the different parts of the brain so that I would know that there was not really anything that could float away. It was all inside the skull, safe and sound.
    But they had cut into the old man's head.
    They would cut a piece off the brain, but if I asked them to cut a piece off my body they would refuse.
    Perhaps Dr. Strickland had many patients who asked to be turned into women. He might be sick of hearing it. Probably he became angry with them.
    I tried to imagine him getting angry with me. I imagine his shouting, 'Get out, you gruesome creeping thing - you caterpillar!'
    I wondered why I had thought of a caterpillar. After a moment's thought I decided that it must have been because caterpillars turned into butterflies. That pleased me.

Jim was in the bathroom getting shaved when I got back to the ward.
    He strained his chin upwards to scrape his neck. I was glad that I only had to shave two little patches at the sides of my chin where a few hairs grew. He rattled the razor in his shaving mug.
    'I'm just getting myself ready for after tea,' he said. 'Sam says we can go out. I thought we'd go to the Greyhound.'
    'I don't like going down to the village much,' I said.
    'Why not?'
    'Well, they know where we've come from.'
    'To hell with 'em!'
    'Well -'
    'To hell with 'em!' He rattled the razor in the mug violently.
    'I'd like to go to Hull,' I said.
    'I haven't got the money for a trip to Hull. Anyway, we're not supposed to go as far away as that: He started shaving his top lip, leaning forward to peer into the mirror.
    I turned on a tap and turned it off again.
    He finished his shaving and wiped his face. He examined himself carefully in the mirror, touching his face here and there. 'Jim's the lad,' he said to his reflection. 'A bit knocked about, but he's still the lad.' He turned to me and held up a fist. 'Look at that. It'd fell an ox!' He grinned.
    I thought that it would be a poorly ox that he could fell.

The Greyhound was not a village pub. It was a roadhouse that had been built in the thirties. The exterior had an elephantine streamlining. From the car park in front it looked like an Egyptian temple that had been designed to travel at several hundred miles an hour.
    Inside it had been modernized. There was unstained wood and creeping plants.
    We went in just after six o'clock. The bar was empty.
    The manager knew where we were from. He served us and then ignored us.
    Jim had a pint of mild. I had a lemonade. We went and sat in a corner.
    'When I was in Australia I never had a decent drink. They've no idea. The pubs out there are no good at all. They're more like public lavatories than pubs. You just get in and do your drinking and get out. They close at six o'clock!' He moved his leg out from under the table to show me his foot. 'I bought these shoes in Australia. What do you think to them?'
    'They're very nice.'
    'It's along way to go for a pair of shoes!' He laughed. He took a long drink of his beer. Then he said, 'You know, a young lad like you ought not to be stuck in that hospital. You want to get yourself out of it and see a bit of the world. My trouble was that I didn't get out to Australia until it was too late. I was over fifty when I went out. That was too late. I should have gone when I was a young man. You want to get things done while you're young. You want to get yourself overseas or get yourself to a college or something. You're wasting your time in that hospital. There's nothing wrong with you. You know -' He stopped. Then he said, 'If you went away, I wouldn't have anybody to talk to. You won't go away, will you, Roy?'
    I was embarrassed. I said, 'I don't know.'
    He looked at me intently. I looked back into his blue eyes for an instant. I had to look away.
    He said, 'You've made all the difference for me. It's been different since you came.'
    I looked at my glass.
    Then he was saying, 'I'm an old daft-head. Here I am going on like this. You must think I'm as balmy as I'm supposed to be!' He laughed and slapped his hand on his knee.
    He drank his beer and looked about him. After a while he, said, 'What do you think to this place, Roy?'
    'It's all right.'
    'You're not much struck?'
    'It's all right. I think it's rather nice.'
    'They're all like this nowadays. They get so they're more for women than for men. Everything's for women nowadays. There was a time when they had spittoons in pubs. That was before my time. Would you like that?'
    'I don't think so.'
    'No, I don't think I would either. Filthy. Tell me, Roy, what would you like the world to be like if you could make it yourself? Imagine you could have everything just as you wanted it.'
    'I don't know what I'd do.'
    'You should have some idea. What would you like out of life?'
    'I don't know.'
    'When I was your age I was full of ideas. I suppose I used to spend most of my time dreaming. When you get older you can't get dreams -if you do, you soon find yourself doing things wrong. You get in a mess.' He stopped. 'How old would you say I am?' he asked.
    I felt sure that he must be in his sixties. I said, 'About fifty-six.'
    He shook his head. 'I'll be sixty next. And what have I to show for sixty years of trailing about? Bed and board in a nut-house.' He took a drink of his beer. 'Once, when I was a lad, I fell in the Albert Dock. I should have drowned.'
    He had two pints of mild and I had two lemonades. When other customers began to come into the pub we came away.
    We walked back to the hospital. It was a gentle, summer evening.
    I was glad that my father would never be in circumstances like Jim's. My father had had some success. He owned a fish-and-chip shop and he had Mrs. Wilson. A man had to have a woman. Mrs. Wilson could not marry my father because she was a Catholic. Even though her husband had run away, she could not marry my father. It was ridiculous. But she seemed quite happy playing hide-and-seek.

I lay in bed. The ward was quiet. Everyone was sleeping or trying to sleep. Half-way down the ward light came from the office. The light fell on a bed and across the floor. I turned over and closed my eyes.
    I tried to think of getting ready to go to a party.
    I was in a large room with tall windows. It was evening, and heavy curtains were drawn across the windows. Everything in the room was of the best and most feminine. The furniture was light and elegantly made. It was not modern. I did not know about furniture so as to fix on a style and period. The chair seats were covered in striped silk, pink and white. There was an elegant dressing table with a large oval mirror. On the dressing table were expensive jars and boxes that contained creams and powders. There was a big powder puff. It was so big that I thought that it must be only for decoration or as a toy.
    I was sitting at the dressing table making up my face. I was wearing a black slip and smoke-thin nylon stockings. On my feet were slippers. The slippers were backless. At the front they had small blue rosettes. The slip I was wearing had lace at the hem and net and lace at the top. In the mirror I could see my black brassiere through the net.
    I decided that my hair should be down. I saw that it was straight but curled under slightly at the bottom. It was the colour of polished bronze. I had brushed it until it shone. I shook my head, and my hair swung. It was glorious. It was so abundant. I ran my hand into it. It was happiness to have long hair.
    I put some cream on my face. I did not know what purpose the cream served, but I understood that it was usual to put cream on before powdering one's face. I wondered whether it was only older women who needed face cream. Then I powdered my face. I was careful not to put too much powder on. I powdered my neck and the top of my chest. I inspected myself in the mirror. It was as I wanted it. It was smooth, there were no patches where the powder was too thick. It did not look as though I had powdered my face at all. That was as it should be.
    I took up my lipstick. It was large and heavy, a sheath of pale gold. I took off the top. I twisted it. A pointed torpedo of intense red emerged. I painted my lips with clean, sharp strokes, leaning forward to the mirror, now pursing my lips, now tightening them. I finished and put down the lipstick. My lips were as they should be. There were no smudges outside the edges of the lips.
    Next I painted my eyelashes. And then I put on slight touches of eye shadow.
    My face was made. It was perfect. I looked extremely pretty. I sat looking at myself for some time, turning my head this way and that and smiling at myself. I was delighted.
    I got up and went across to the wardrobe. It was joy to be a pretty girl walking in that room.
    I opened the wardrobe. And there was a dress of scarlet watered silk. It was a brilliant scarlet. I took it out and held it up. It was heavy and sumptuous. The skirt was very full. The bodice was simple and looked as though it would be tight. The front was cut square. I hugged it to me. I pressed it to my face.
    I went to the wardrobe again. There was a pair of red shoes that matched the dress. The heels were high and at the front they were cut down square to echo the front of the dress.
    I would have to take off the black slip I was wearing because of the way that the front of the dress was cut. And I would have to wear a special brassiere with the straps coming down to the sides instead of to the front. I might not have a black brassiere with the straps coming down to the side. If the brassiere I found was not black, I would have to change my panties. And my suspender belt was black. I would have to change everything.
    I would not be ready in time. The time would pass very quickly, and I would not be ready. The time would pass, and I would grow old.
    I had never been to a party.

The kitchen was next to the office. There was a sink with draining boards on either side and large cupboards for crockery. There was a gas ring for boiling water for morning coffee and the tea we had at meal times and the cocoa at supper time and the odd cups of tea that Sam, the charge nurse, needed through the day.
    Jim seemed very cheerful while we were washing up. He sang and talked nonsense.
    'When I was in Australia I used to go shooting kangaroos. I used to go out into the bush and bag a couple of brace of kangaroos and I used to bring them back and sell them to a butcher. I made thousands of pounds. Have you ever tasted kangaroo, Roy?'
    'I can't say I have.'
    'Very like rabbit, only bigger. Get a good kangaroo steak down you, and you feel like a - you feel like jumping up and down. You can't stop jumping.'

We took pills after breakfast and pills after dinner and pills after tea, blue pills and white pills and green pills and yellow pills and red pills and many permutations of parti-coloured pills. I took blue pills. I had just taken my after-dinner dose when a young male nurse came into the ward and called out, 'There's a visitor for Mr. Clark.'
    I got up.
    It was Shirley.
    My sister looked as though she was frightened at being in a mental hospital. Perhaps she thought that a lunatic might rush out on her. But when a saw me she seemed reassured.
    She was very like me. In heels she was as tall as I was, but if we were both wearing heels, I would be the taller. I was five foot seven. When I had had the chance to wear her clothes they had fitted me, except that I had not been able to wear her shoes since I was about fifteen.
    Her hair was the same colour as mine, between fair and brown.
    She was wearing a dark grey suit and looking smart. Besides her black handbag she carried a shopping bag of yellow leather.
    'I've just come to see how you are. I didn't know you were in hospital till last week. I went round to see Dad, and he told me. I couldn’t come before today. I had to get the woman next door to look after Gwen. I didn't want to bring her with me. Dad says you've been in here about ten weeks. I didn't know anything about it till last week. Dad didn't say, whether he'd been to see you or not.'
    'No, he hasn't been.' I thought, If Shirley were in hospital my father would visit her every week.
    'He's been too busy, I should think,' she said.
    'Yes, I suppose so. Anyway, he sends me money.'
    'That's good. And are you getting any better?'
    'I'm all right. It's very nice here.'
    'I've brought some things for you: She opened the leather carrier bag. She gave me three large bars of chocolate and two paper- backed novels.
    I thanked her. I took the things and put them in my locker. Then I introduced her to Jim.
    They shook hands.
    Jim was nervous. 'I didn't know Roy had a sister. He's a very quiet lad' He grinned foolishly.
    I said, 'Would you like to go to the cafeteria, Shirley? We can get a cup of tea.'
    The cafeteria had pale green walls. It was in the centre of the hospital, between the male and the female wings. I thought that the room must once have been a large storeroom, for there were no windows. Neon lights shone all day. It was like a railway station buffet. Patients sat at small tables drinking tea or coffee out of coloured plastic cups.
    Shirley said that the cafeteria was very nice. Then she said, 'Dad's very well. He was cutting fish when I was there. He can cut as fast as ever.'
    To me it seemed strange that, though Shirley had married an architect and left the fish-and-chip shop, there was never any stiffness between her and our father. I lived with him and worked with him, but I was never as close to him as she was when she came to see him. It was not easy for me to understand how she could come from middle-class Cottingham to the part of Hull where we lived and not have any difficulty in talking to our father.
    I supposed I was a snob.
    She said, 'You must get yourself a better job, Roy. I said so to Dad, and he agreed. He said that when you get better you can go back to working for him if you want to, but he agreed with me that you ought to try to get something better.'
    'I thought that he wanted me to work for him,' I said with pretended sulkiness. 'That's why I had to leave school.'
    'That was a mistake, Roy. But it's no use worrying about what's past. You're still a boy, you've got your whole life to make. You can study. You're clever. If you set out to do it, you could get yourself to a university even now.'
    'It's no use. I'm a lunatic.'
    'Of course you're not a lunatic. Lots of people have psychological trouble. You've got your whole life before you. You'll get over this. What you did wasn't so shocking.'
    'Did Dad tell you about it?'
    'Yes, he told me.'
    'All about it?'
    'Yes.'
    'About his hitting me?'
    'Yes. He said he couldn't help it. He said he was sorry that he did it. You must try to understand how he felt, Roy. He was brought up in a hard world.'
    'Did he tell you about what I did?'
    'Yes'
    'What did you think?'
    'I thought that you had been very foolish. But I did think that you must have been under some kind of strain and had a breakdown. I suppose it just came over you. It isn't unusual for a young person to have trouble of that kind.'
    I said, 'Do you mind if we go for a walk outside? I'm feeling a bit sick all of a sudden.'
    Behind the hospital there was a rose garden with gravel paths and rose beds enclosed by grass verges. The red and white roses climbed on rustic frames. Here and there along the paths there were park benches. The roses were well trained and the grass verges were closely shaved and cleanly edged. It was a place for visitors to see. The less reliable patients were kept out, lest they pick the roses or lie down on the grass. It was a formal garden for formal people.
    Shirley said that the garden was very nice. She asked me if I was feeling any better. I said that I was. We sat down on a bench.
    'Don't you think you ought to get yourself a better job?' she asked in a tone that made the question mean that she was convinced that it was my duty to find myself better employment.
    I don't know,' I said.
    'Of course Dad had the idea that you'd take over the shop after him. But I think that he understands now that that wouldn't really suit you. There's a good living to be made out of fish-and-chips, but I don't think that you ought to spend your life in the shop. I think that the cause of your trouble is lack of opportunity for self-expression. You're too much shut in on yourself. Don't you think that might be the case, Roy?'
    'I don't know.'
    'Working with your father is all right, but you don't meet anybody. And you're very different from Dad.'
    'I don't punch people in the face.'
    'That's not fair.'
    ''It's true.'
    'You mustn't feel bitter against your father. He lost his temper. It's not easy for people of his generation to understand things. You must realize that some people are very afraid of anything that might seem abnormal. He was very upset. After all, it could have been worse. If that woman had gone to the police...'
    I did not say anything.
    'What's the food like here?' she asked.
    'Not too bad. It's all rather heavy stuff. I think they want to fatten us up so that we look well-cared-for.'
    'What treatment are you having?'
    'Pills.'
    'Is that all?'
    'I go to see Dr. Strickland sometimes.'
    'Is that doing any good?'
    'I don't know.'
    'You must have some idea.'
    'I don't think it's doing anything.'
    'Why not?'
    'Because it's not possible for it to do anything.'
    'You mustn't talk like that. I understood that they could cure trouble like yours quite easily. If you cooperate, they'll be able to help you.'
    'I don't really want to cooperate.'
    'Why not?'
    'I want what I want, not something else.'
    'I don't understand.'
    'I want what I want, not what other people think I ought to want.'
    'But you have to behave reasonably.'
    'Why?'
    'We all have to behave reasonably.'
    'Nobody behaves reasonably.'
    'Of course they do.'
    'Of course they don't. If everybody behaved reasonably, everything would stop.'
    'That's just talk, Roy.'
    She had always been able to dismiss my arguments before they were developed.
    She went on, 'Of course you should never have left the grammar school when you did. It was bound to upset you. But you know, Roy, you could still catch up. There's that money Mother left you. You'll soon be twenty-one, and then you can use the money to do some private studies. I'm sure that Bill would help you in any way he could. With the interest that's built up, you should get well over five hundred pounds. You can do quite a lot with five hundred pounds.'
    'It would cost nearer five thousand pounds.'
    'What would?'
    'Nothing.'
    'It sounds a very expensive nothing.'
    'It is. It's a very expensive nothing.'
    'Well, I think that five hundred pounds spent on your education would do more good than five thousand pounds spent on nothing.'
    'You think I ought to be like Bill.'
    'No, you don't have to be like Bill.' 'You think I ought to be like Bill and smoke a pipe.'
    'You don't have to be like Bill - and you certainly don't have to smoke a pipe.'
    'Thank you for that.'
    'I don't understand you, Roy. What have you got against Bill?'
    'Nothing. I like him. But I don't want to be like him.'
    'You don't have to be.'
    'Yes, I do.'
    'Am I upsetting you?' she asked.
    'No. I'm sorry. Don't pay any attention to me.'
    We did not speak for a while. Somewhere around the male side of the hospital a motor mower was droning about its business.
    I said, 'They're always cutting the grass here.'
    'They keep it very nice.'
    We sat without speaking again.
    I said, 'Does Bill enjoy smoking his pipe?'
    She was surprised by the question. She smiled. 'Yes, I think he does. Why? Are you thinking of getting one?'
    'No. I just wondered if he enjoyed it.'
    'He seems to.'
    'Perhaps he only pretends to enjoy it.'
    'What on earth for?'
    'Because he thinks he ought to enjoy smoking a pipe.'
    'Instead of cigarettes, you mean?'
    'No, because he thinks it's the moral thing to do.'
    'You're being silly, Roy.'
    'Then I'm in the right place.'
    'I didn't mean anything like that.'
    I said, 'Were you upset when Dad told you what I'd done?'
    'Naturally I was upset.'
    'Didn't you know I was like that?'
    'Like what?'
    'Like that.'
    'I don't know what you mean.'
    'Didn't you know I was mad?'
    'You're not mad.'
    'Yes, I am.'
     'No, you're not, Roy.'
    'I've been mad ever since I was little, ever since I can remember. Do you know what Dr. Strickland said to me?'
    'No.'
    'He said, "We are born mad, we grow old and miserable, and then we die". It was what some German had said.'
    'That doesn't sound very well calculated to cheer anyone up.'
    'I was born mad.'
    'Don't be ridiculous'
    'Yes, I was. I've always been the same as I am now. And I don't see why I should have any desire to grow old and miserable!'
    'We all have to grow old.'
    'But we don't have to pretend to like it.'
    'I don't know what you mean.'
    'I mean that I don't want to be cured. I want what I want, not what other people think I ought to want.'
    'What do you want?'
    'I want to be a woman.'
    'That's just your illness, Roy.' Her voice was at its most soothing.
    'That's what other people call it.'
    'That's what they must call it. Obviously it's an illness.'
    'But I've always wanted to be a girl, ever since I can remember.'
    'I'm sure you're mistaken. You haven't always had that thought. It's just come on because you're not very well.'
    'I've had that thought ever since I can remember.'
    'But you won't think like that always. You'll get over this trouble and you'll meet someone and fall in love with her.'
    'I don't think so.'
    'Don't you like girls?'
    'Yes - but not like that.'
    'You're not a homosexual, are you?'
    'No, I'm not. I would never do the horrible things they do. I hate homosexuals. The thought of them makes me feel sick.'
    'Then, if you feel like that, you'll certainly be cured. It's just a phase you're going through. I'm quite sure you don't want to be one of those revolting creatures that change sex.'
    'Yes, I do.'
    'I don't believe it'
    'It's true.'
    'It can't be true. Everyone regards them as a joke. You can't seriously mean that you want the whole of your life to be a dirty joke?'
    'I don't care.'
    'Well, I care.'
    'I can't be respectable just for your sake.'
    'There is such a thing as self-respect.' 'How much self-respect can I have as I am now?'
    'I'm sorry, Roy, but I was rather taken aback. You mustn't feel too badly about being in a psychiatric hospital. Lots of people have psychological illnesses.'
    'I didn't mean that.'
    'What did you mean?'
    'I meant that, if I were a woman, I wouldn't be stealing women's clothes.'
    'Oh, I see.'
    'Did you know that I used to wear your clothes when you and Dad were out? And I've stolen things of yours.'
    'Yes, I knew. I didn't say anything because I thought it would pass off.'
    'You can never hide things from people. What you mean by self-respect is only trying to hide things.'
    'No, it isn't. You ought to be able to see your illness as an illness. I don't believe that people with sexual peculiarities should be punished, but it's impossible to pretend that they aren't ill. The trouble is that these things are glamourized nowadays. The cheap Sunday papers get hold of a story, and they make out that somebody who ought to be confined in a place like this has done something wonderful. It's sick. But, anyway, you're not like that. You'll get better. And then you'll go on and get married and settle down, and you'll forget all about this nonsense. Because it is nonsense, Roy...'
    She went on for some time telling me that it was nonsense. But I was thinking that, all the time she was telling me, she was a woman. I thought how much sweeter her life was than her husband's. I thought of Bill's pipe. How harsh and dull his pleasures were, and how tender and bright her pleasures were. As I sat there I could not feel that there was no sense in wanting what I wanted. I thought that every man, in his heart, must wish that he were a woman.
    I went with her to the front gate to say good-bye. She said that she would come again.
    I knew that she was right in the way that I knew that Dr. Strickland was right. But their right was outside of me.
    Shirley was sure that the world was as orderly as the rose garden. For her a system of behaviour had brought desired results, and thus she was secure in the illusion that two and two made four outside her head.
    I felt that, if I could be a woman, I could believe in the world. I would be part of the world, like Shirley.
    When I got back to the ward Jim said, 'It's easy to tell you're brother and sister.'
    He was busy setting out the tea things. I helped him.
    The hospital lumbered on with me inside it.

The end of my stay in hospital started one night when Jim and I went to the Greyhound.
    Jim spoke of the Australians.
    '... wide open spaces and narrow minds, cold beer and ignorance...'
    He drank his beer and smoked his cigarettes. He seemed to be his usual self.
    He never had more than three pints. He had told me that in his young days he had been able to drink six pints without noticing much effect. That evening he had two pints and then half a pint.
    We were walking back to the hospital. The fields were silent. We walked where a row of great trees, heavy with summer, lined the way. The air was soft and cool.
    'Isn't it a beautiful evening?' said Jim. Then he said, 'How would you like to stay out all night? We could sleep in a wood.' He put his hand on my shoulder.
    I became tense. I said, 'Do you think there'll be enough milk for the cocoa?'
    'You know, Roy,' he said confidentially, 'you are very like your sister. If you were dressed as a girl, you'd be just like her. Have you ever been dressed as a girl, Roy?'
    I felt dizzy. I struggled on, trying to pull away from him. 'Are you a girl?' he asked.
    'No, I'm not. Come on. We have to get back.'
    'I think you are a girl, Roy.'
    He dropped his hand from my shoulder and put his arm round my waist. I struggled to get away from him. He tried to put his head against mine. I wrenched myself free and broke from him.
    'Roy!' he shouted. He sounded as though he was hurt.
    I turned. 'What's the matter? Stop it, Jim.'
    'I want to hold you, Roy.'
    'I don't want you to.'
    'Why not?'
    'Because I don't.'
    'Why not?'
    'Look, Jim, stop it.'
    'But you're a girl, Roy.'
    'I'm not. Leave me alone.'
    'Just let me put my arm round you.'
    'No.'
    'Just for a minute.'
    'No.'
    'Why not?'
    'Because you can't.'
    'I want to.'
    'Stop it, Jim.'
    'But I love you, Roy.'
    I started walking away from him. I felt unsteady on my feet. It was as though I could not judge the distance to the ground.
    He caught up with me. 'Don't you like me, Roy?'
    I kept walking. 'I like you. But you can't do this.'
    'Why not?'
    'You can't.'
    'I'm fed-up. I want to kiss you.'
    I started to run.
    He shouted after me, 'I'm not like that. Don't think I'm like that. It's you, you little pansy!'
    I went straight to the kitchen when I reached the ward. For some reason I got hold of a cloth and started rubbing the bottom of the sink as though it were dirty.
    Things had happened to me before, but it was worse this time because I knew Jim and liked him.
    I got the kettle and filled it and put it on the gas ring and turned the gas on.
    The male nurse who was on duty came in. 'Are you trying to do away with yourself?' he asked. 'It's a good idea to put a light to the gas after you've turned it on.' He struck a match and put it under the kettle. The gas ring thumped into flame. 'We'll have to get you down on the suicidal list.'
    I could see that Jim had come into the ward. He was standing by the side of his bed with his hands in his jacket pockets. Somebody spoke to him. He did not answer.
    I hoped that he would not come into the kitchen for a cup of cocoa. He did not often want cocoa after he had been to the pub.
    He did not come.
    I washed up after all the cups had been brought back. Then I cleared everything away. When I looked out again Jim was in bed.

I lay in bed thinking about what had happened.
    Jim was not a homosexual. If he had been, it would have been noticed and he would have been kept away from me. It was just loneliness and beer. Anyone could have had such a fit. He was only a poor old man. He would not do it again. It would soon be forgotten.
    I said to myself, 'He said that I was a girl.' I put out my hand and took hold of the rail at the top of the bed. I smiled to myself in the darkness.

Next morning Jim did not sit next to me at breakfast. He sat at the far end of the table and did not look at me. After breakfast we worked together at the washing up, but he did not speak to me. I asked him a question about Australia to show him that I wanted to talk to him. He did not answer me.
    When I had the coffee made I took him a cup. He was sitting in one of the arm chairs at the end of the ward reading a newspaper.
    'I've brought you your coffee, Jim. Tell me if you want any more sugar in it'
    He looked up at me and said, 'Bugger off, you bloody little pansy!'
    I put the cup and saucer down by his chair; I went back to the kitchen and stood at the sink. I put my hand across my eyes and pressed. I stood with my hand pressed over my eyes trying to prevent myself from crying. I kept saying to myself, 'Jim isn't well. Jim isn't well.' Then I sat down on a chair by the draining board and started crying. Someone came into the kitchen. I did not see who it was. He went out again. When I stopped crying I went to the sink and put cold water on my eyes.

I sat in a deck chair on the little lawn outside the ward and thought about getting into the female nurses' quarters and putting on clothes there.
    I thought that I would like to wear a nurse's uniform. I imagined myself being a nurse, proceeding neatly down corridors and remaining neat and calm in the midst of mental and emotional confusion. I would like to clip a fountain pen at the front of my starched, white pinafore.
    I imagined that if I could get into the nurses' quarters and dress myself up, I would immediately turn into a woman. The instant I finished dressing my body would change. I would be able to walk out and not get into trouble. If I were stopped, I would be able to say that I had put on the clothes because I had suddenly turned into a woman, and that, unless someone provided me with other women's clothes, I would stay dressed as I was. I could not be expected to go back and put on my own clothes, they were men's clothes. What did they think I was, a transvestite? A peanut?
    I started to laugh. I laughed and laughed.

Jim asked to sweep the floor instead of washing up in the mornings. When Sam asked him why he did not want to wash up Jim said, 'It's a job for a Mary-Anne, and you've got a Mary-Anne to do it.'
    We avoided each other in the ward, planning our ways in the restricted spaces to keep from meeting.
    I thought that a few moments of embarrassment should not be allowed to become permanent. I would have liked to go to him and say I wanted to be friendly again. I wished that the cause of the trouble was that I had done something to offend him so that I could apologize.
    Sometimes I talked to myself about him: 'I can't help it if I don't want him to touch me. If I was a girl, I wouldn't want him to touch me. Anyway, he should have a wife. He's not homosexual, he just thought that I looked nice. He can't blame me for that. He's a neurotic. He blames the Australians for being as they are. He wanted to go to the other side of the world and find a place just like England, except for the sunshine, and when it wasn't as he wanted it he blamed the Australians. He's a fool.'
    But I knew that I was angry at what had happened and not at Jim.

Without Jim the days were not the same as they had been before.
    I considered making a trip home. I could have got permission to go home for an afternoon. I thought about it, but decided that I did not want to face my father.
    And Mrs. Wilson would be staying on after helping in the shop.
    Statues of the saints stood round in the church where you put sixpence in a box and took a pamphlet on Papal Infallibility or the Rhythm Method, and Mrs. Wilson was lying in bed waiting for my father to get his trousers off.

It was late one evening that I first thought that Jim's behaviour was becoming odd. He was standing at the bottom of the ward looking out of the french windows at the light of Hull in the distance. I realized that he had been standing there every evening for some time.
    He stood with his hands in his jacket pockets as he had stood by his bed on the evening of the incident. He was still standing there when the rest of us were getting into bed.
    The next evening he was standing there again.
    He moved about the ward with his shoulders hunched and his head forward. His tread seemed to have become heavier. At meal times he did not talk about Australia anymore. At breakfast one morning, when it was raining hard outside, someone asked him whether he wished he were back in Australia.
    'I bloody do! I wish I was out of your way, and all you balmy buggers in here! And don't think I went out for ten pounds. I paid the full fare both ways.' His eyes caught mine. 'I can see you looking. You know what I think about you!'
    When I was clearing away after the morning coffee he came and stood at the kitchen door. 'You think you're very clever, don't you?' he sneered.
    I continued putting the cups away in the cupboard and tried not to look at him.
    'You think you're clever, creeping about. I've seen you creeping about, you bloody little pansy, I've seen you trying to get out of the way...'
    He went on for some time. When I had finished putting the cups away I pretended to be wiping down the draining board.
    He stopped quite suddenly and went away.
    I knew I had caused his illness. The fact that I had not done it by any action made no difference. I had caused it. I thought that it might be right for me to leave the hospital. It was possible that my being in the ward was disturbing Jim day by day. I could not tell anybody about it, but I could ask to be discharged.

One afternoon there was a tall nurse in the occupational therapy room whom I had not seen before. She was fair and athletic looking. I could imagine her in Sweden leaping about with a hoop in her hands. In her hands she carried some skeins of blue wool and she was looking for a place to sit.
    I indicated to her that there was a chair empty next to me.
    She came across. 'I'll come and sit amongst the men.' She sat down and put the skeins of wool on the table and started winding very fast to make a ball. She pushed the wool away on to the table after each burst of winding to prevent it being pulled to the edge and falling off.
    I asked her if I might hold the wool for her.
    She thanked me.
    I took up the skein she was winding from and held it stretched between my hands.
    She said, 'I had to bring it up here. You can't do anything on the ward, they're always wanting something.'
    She was a few years older than I was. I thought that if I were very fair and athletic, like her, I would want to play tennis.
    'Do you play tennis?' I asked.
    'Yes. But I'm not very good.' She smiled. 'Do you play?'
    'No. I just thought you might.'
    'Do I look the type?'
    'Yes, you do. I can imagine you playing at Wimbledon.'
    'You haven't seen me play.'
    'Have you a nice uniform?'
    'I've got the uniform I've got on.'
    'No, I mean tennis things.'
    'Do you call that a uniform?'
    'Well, it's smart and neat, like a uniform.'
    'I see what you mean. Is that what they call it now?'
    'I don't know. It might be. They're always changing the names of things. What's your tennis outfit like?'
    'Just a white slip thing. It's very plain.'
    'You don't believe in frills and pink pants?'
    'No.' She lifted high the ball of wool she was making to clear a tangle. 'When you play like me you don't want to draw too much attention to yourself. My forehand isn't too bad, but I haven't any backhand at all. I have to run round everything.'
    'Has your tennis slip any decoration on it?'
    'There's a sort of small rose-thing at the side. Here.' She put her hand to her left shoulder. 'It's done in black and red silk.'
    'Is the skirt pleated?'
    'There's just two box pleats at the back.'
    'It sounds very smart. What's the neck like?'
    'It's just circular.' She drew it on her chest.
    'Do you like square cut necks?'
    'Sometimes.'
    'Would you like to have a cocktail dress in red watered silk with a square cut neck?'
    'It might be very nice.'
    'With a tight bodice and very full skirt?'
    'It might be very nice indeed. Do you know somebody who's giving one away?'
    'I'm afraid not. I just imagined it. Would you like to wear a dress like that?'
    'Yes, I think I would. But I never get invited to cocktail parties.' She put in a fierce burst of winding. 'You seem very interested in clothes,' she said.
    'I am a bit.'
    'You'll like it in a fortnight's time then. There's the fancy dress ball. There's one every year. Everybody gets dressed up. Last year there was a man from Male Ward Three in a full suit of armour made of cardboard. It must have taken hours to make.'
    'What did you go as?' I asked her.
    'It's only for the patients. I was on duty. I could have gone as a Dutch girl. I have a pair of wooden shoes that my brother brought me back from Rotterdam.'
    I said, 'You'd have needed a long full skirt made of heavy material with lots of petticoats underneath to fill it out and a white cap with wings at the sides and a little shawl round your shoulders and crossing at the front.' I was drawing the things on myself. I put my hands to my face. 'You'd have to have your face made up with two round patches of rouge on the cheeks so that you'd look like a Dutch doll.'
    'It would look lovely!' she exclaimed. 'You could dress up like that.'
    'I meant you.'
    'But you could dress up like that. I'd lend you the shoes.'
    'I'd look awful.'
    'No, you wouldn't. I can just see you. You'd have to get a blonde wig. A lot of Dutch girls are blonde.'
    'I don't want to dress up.'
    'Why not? You might win a prize.'
    'I'd feel silly.'
    'Nobody bothers about that. You might win a prize. You'd make a lovely Dutch girl.'
    'Do you think so?'
    'Yes, I'm sure you would. I'll bring the shoes tomorrow and you can try them on.'
    'But where could I get the other things I'd need?'
    'You'll have to go and see Sister King. She's in charge of the things for the fancy dress ball. There's lots of costumes that they lend out every year. She has some blonde wigs that she lends out to the men. Some of them come dressed as women - they look terrible! She might have a Dutch girl costume, and if she hasn't, she's sure to have things that can be made into a Dutch girl costume.'
    'She might not want to lend me the things.'
    'Why not?'
    'She might think I shouldn't dress as a girl.'
    'Why not? A lot of men come dressed as women.'
    'But that's only in fun.'
    'Some of them are a scream!'
    'But I'd be trying to look nice.'
    'It doesn't make any difference'
    'It does.'
    'How?'
    'People might not like it.'
    'Nobody would mind. Why should they?'
    She had not seen my father looking ill when he was punching me. For her there were no rats racing on a treadmill.
    As her body was cool in her clothes, so her mind was cool and comfortably in place. I wished that I were like her.
    I wanted my body to be cut into until I was emptied. Then I would be bandaged and wrapped in white sheets, quiet and empty. I would be unable to move. I would have become part of the world.
    That night when I thought of going to the fancy dress ball as a Dutch girl I realized that I would not be happy doing it. I would have to wear my own things underneath, and there would be no happiness in looking like a girl if I did not feel that I was a girl.
    I wondered what surprise the nurse would have shown if I had told her that I wanted pretty things to wear underneath and some sticking-plaster to fix myself up. She would have remembered at once that I was a patient.
    The next afternoon she brought the shoes to the occupational therapy room.
    I told her that I had decided not to dress up for the fancy dress ball. I said that I was afraid that the people in my ward might make fun of me.
    'Oh, you don't want to care about that. You're probably too sensitive.' She addressed Larry who was standing near, 'I want him to dress up for the fancy dress ball. Don't you think he ought to?'
    'I'm going as a pirate,' said Larry.
    She turned to me. 'There, you see, a lot of patients dress up. If nobody dressed up it wouldn't be any good.'
    'What do you want him to dress up as?' asked Larry.
    'A Dutch girl. I've brought these clogs for him to try on.'
    'I should think he's a bit shy of dressing up as a lass.'
    'There's no need for him to be.' She turned to me. 'Is that it?' she asked.
    I said that it was.
    'I know how he feels,' said Larry. 'You wouldn't get me to put a dress on.'
    When the nurse had gone Larry spoke to me as an older to a younger man. 'You don't want to be dressing up as a lass,' he said, 'you might give folks the wrong idea. I've seen 'em when I was at sea. You get a lot of queers in the merchant navy. I remember one night I was on watch, and this big queer came up on deck in a baby-doll nightdress and pissed over the side. Great big bloke in a baby-doll nightdress pissing over the side! I thought, Bloody hell! He was a decent bloke, but he was as queer as buggery. You get 'em like that sometimes. Folks who haven't been to sea don't know nowt.'

My discomfort at what was happening to Jim increased. It was wrong that a weakling should have damaged a man who had survived for so many years; who, through private and common difficulties, had struggled on day after day and maintained a dignity.
    I shut my eyes tight and bent my head. But when I opened my eyes and raised my head again I found that I had done nothing to help Jim.
    I had not done wrong. I was wrong. I had no more intent to be loathsome than had a jellyfish, but, like a jellyfish, I was loathsome. I had seen them lying on the beach at Bridlington, blots of bloody jelly, like the phlegm of some giant consumptive.
    Men were as wholesome as sunlight and singing in the morning. And women were as gentle as evening and as perfect as sleep. But I had no time of day.
    Male-hipped trawlermen were nimble on the deck. And mothers held helpless babies to the breast. But all I could do was to cause illness in a poor old man.
    Mr. Allsop, a handsome man who was a commercial artist and an alcoholic, spoke to me about it. 'Poor Jim has gone right off. They'll be shifting him out of this ward. God knows what's wrong with him.'
    'I suppose he's just relapsed,' I said.
    'Yes, I expect so. Mental illness is very strange. What are you in here for, Roy?'
    'I was run-down - worried.'
    'I had to come in here because I couldn't get in the house for empty bottles.'

I must leave the hospital. I must go home and leave it behind. My father would have me back to work for him. I would take the eyes out of potatoes and swill the yard and stand by the chip pan again in my white coat.
    The young woman in the next street might have talked to people about my stealing her panties off her line, so that the customers in the shop might know about me, and they might know that I had been away in a lunatic asylum, but they would not be able to harm me. They would not climb over the counter to punch me and kick me. And if they laughed at me I could pretend that I did not know what they were laughing at.
    However long I stayed at the hospital Dr. Strickland would not be able to do the right thing for me. Nor could I do the right thing for him. He could not send me for hormone treatment and operations, and I could not alter my mind to please him.
    I told myself that, beneath his kindness and beneath everything he said, he must surely despise me.
    Perhaps one day I would come back to him as a woman. He would have to stand up when I entered his consulting room. He would want to touch me, and then I would be able to despise him in return. I would say, 'Had you done this for me, I would have let you touch me. But you failed me. I despise you. If you try to touch me, I shall scream for help.'
    At my next interview with him I would tell him that I wanted to be discharged.

I was to see Dr. Strickland on a Tuesday morning. The fancy dress ball was in the evening of that Tuesday.
    On Monday after tea Sam came into the ward carrying what looked like a pile of old clothes. He was followed by a young male nurse with more things.
    'This is the stuff for the fancy dress ball,' Sam announced. 'I want all you lot dressed up for tomorrow night. You're supposed to be just about fit in here. I want you to set an example to the rest of the hospital.'
    It occurred to me how fantastic was the idea of a fancy dress ball in a lunatic asylum. Before I came to the hospital I believed it would be a place filled with Napoleons and popes and kings and queens. I found that I had been mistaken. But now the patients were going to dress up and pretend to be mad men and mad women.
    Sam and the young male nurse had put their loads on the table.
    'There it all is,' said Sam. 'You can pick where you like. Look, here's a three-cornered hat.' He picked out a battered cardboard hat and put it on his head.
    Most of the things on the table were old and worn. It looked like the wardrobe of an amateur operatic society of extreme poverty. There was a faded red tunic with many buttons missing and a policeman's helmet that appeared to have been trodden on.
    Mr. Allsop held the helmet up. 'This probably happened down Hessle Road on a dark night.'
    There was an imitation Elizabethan ruff made of muslin that was grey with dust. There was a sailor's hat with H.M.S. TASKER on it. There were many old jackets and trousers of no particular interest and some women's dresses.
    Sam said, 'There's more stuff to come. Sister King has some beards and things. Anyway, sort out what you want from that lot there, and if there's anything that anybody wants, I'll get it before she goes off duty. It'll be no good tomorrow; she'll have nothing left. I want to see every one of you in some sort of costume tomorrow night. We've got to enter into the spirit of things.' He took off the three-cornered hat and went away to his office.
    The young male nurse felt that it was his duty to be encouraging. He kept pressing things on people. 'See if this'll fit you.'
    'I've got a jacket. I want some black trousers to go with it.'
    'What are you supposed to be, Mr. O'Brien?'
    'A concert pianist.'
    Mr. O'Brien, who was a small, round, balding man, had put on a tail coat that was much too big for him.
    'But that jacket doesn't fit you,' reasoned the young male nurse. 'Look at the sleeves. And the tails are nearly touching the floor. You'll hang yourself in it' - which was tactless because Mr. O'Brien had once attempted to hang himself. 'Give it to Mr. Allsop, he's the concert pianist type. Can you play the piano, Mr. Allsop?'
    'Like a fish.'
    The nurse picked up the three-cornered hat and put it on my head. 'It suits you,' he said.
    'Who am I supposed to be?'
    'I don't know - but it suits you.'
    I took it off and put it back on the table.
    Jim had joined the group. He stood gaping with his hands pressed hard down in his jacket pockets. 'What's all this?' he asked.
    'It's for the fancy dress ball, Jim,' said the young male nurse. 'Do you think you'll feel well enough to go?'
    'I don't think so. I've felt lousy today.'
    'You can go and watch, Jim.'
    'I don't want to watch anything. What do you think I am?'
    'Well, go and sit down, Jim. You need to take it easy when you're not up to the mark.'
    Jim began to move away. But then he stopped and came back to the table. He took hold of one of the women's dresses, a cotton thing with red and yellow flowers. He pushed it towards me as though he were trying to see if it would fit me. 'Here, this is for him,' he shouted. 'Put this on him! Put this on him!' He laughed. 'Here, this is for you, Roy petty. You can dance and kick your legs up.'
    The male nurse took him by the arm. 'Come away, Jim, and sit down.'
    Jim thrust his head forward and glared at me. 'You're neither nowt or summat. I know you. You're a bloody little pansy!'
    Sam had come out of the office. 'What's the matter, Jim?'
    'Do you know what he is?' demanded Jim pointing at me.
    'It doesn't matter what he is,' said Sam. 'Come on, Jim, I think we'll have you in bed. You're overwrought.'
    'He's a dirty little pansy!' shouted Jim.
    Sam and the young male nurse took him away to his bed.
    I heard him saying to them, 'What do you think to a bloody little pansy that gets himself dressed up in his sister's clouts?'
    I wanted to wrap my arms about my head and shut everything out. I wanted to roll up like a hedgehog.
    Mr. Allsop turned to me. 'My God, you look sick!'
    When Jim lay quiet in his bed Sam came away. 'He'll have to be moved from here. He'll need electric treatment. I can't think what's come over him. He was doing so well, and then he just started going down hill.'
    Somebody said, 'It makes you wonder how he managed in Australia.'
    'If he ever was in Australia,' said Sam. 'I should reckon he's always been the same. I should think he's been in this sort of place before, but he'd never let on.'

While I was making the cocoa that night Mr. Allsop came into the kitchen.
    I wanted to tell him that Jim had been wrong about me.
    I said, 'Jim's very ill.'
    'Yes,' said Mr. Allsop, 'poor old chap, he's gone right off it.'
    'What do you think is the matter with him?'
    'I don't know. I expect he's a schitz.'
    'He was talking nonsense after tea. I couldn't understand him. Could you understand him?'
    'No.'
    'It was just rubbish, wasn't it?'
    'I expect so.'
    'It's just because I'm not very big and I'm a bit pale.'
    'I expect so.'
    'You don't believe I do anything like that, do you?'
    'Of course not.'
    'But I don't.'
    'Of course not.'
    'I don't.'
    'What you do is your affair, Roy.'
    'But I don't, Mr. Allsop.'
    He went out.
    They all knew.
    I stood holding on to the edge of the sink. I thought that, if I did not move at all, I might be able to disappear.

On Tuesday morning I kept my eyes on what I was doing while I worked. I tried not to look up so as to avoid meeting anyone's eyes.
    Jim was taken away.
    I thought that perhaps he had guessed about me because he was once like me himself. I wondered if he had a sister.
    I went to see Dr. Strickland at half-past eleven.
    He did not want me to leave the hospital. He said that he did not think that I was well enough to go home.
    But I had decided. I was calm and kept saying the same thing. 'I want to go home.'
    'Why?' 'It's no use my staying here, I can't be cured.'
    'Cured of what?'
    'I want what I want, not what I ought to want.'
    He picked up a sheet of paper from his desk, looked at it for what seemed like a whole minute and then screwed it up and dropped it over the edge of the desk into the wastepaper basket.
    He looked at me. 'I don't want to keep you here if you really want to go home. This place isn't a prison. I suppose I can only hope - for your sake - that you'll behave sensibly. You're not a fool. Try to remember that you won't prove anything by behaving like a fool. Do you think you'll start stealing women's under-clothes again?'
    'No.'
    'If you do, you might find the police tramping all over you. Would you like that?'
    'No.'
    'Neither would I. Very well, you can go home tomorrow. But I'd like to see you at the Wilberforce Hospital in Hull sometime. You'll get a card through the post.'
    I said, 'I hope it doesn't seem that I'm ungrateful for the help you've given me.'
    'Why should it? If you want to go home, you want to go home. There's no point in your staying in hospital for the rest of your life.'
    I said, 'I'm sorry I couldn't co-operate properly. I've been wasting your time. I've read about people like me. They go to psychiatrists but it's never any use.'
    He told me that when I got home I ought to go to see the local doctor, Dr. Booth, who had sent me to the hospital. He also said that the psychiatric social worker, Mrs. Turner, might visit me.
    The interview ended. He could go home to his dinner. His wife would be waiting.
    Whenever he had been talking to me he had been waiting for dinner time to come so that he could go home. Nothing he had ever said to me had been real. I was only a sickening boy with a sickening madness. I was not a girl. The bright coloured dream that I could see was to him a filthy abscess. Certainly he must feel contempt for me. He was a man, and what I was must be contemptible to any man.
    I would not go to see him at the Wilberforce Hospital.

After tea those who were dressing up were busy with their costumes.
    Mr. Allsop appeared in heavy black boots topped by red socks, black football shorts, a long green pullover with a polo neck and a very flat cap. The cap was geometrically level on his head and had been pressed to its thinnest and flattest. His white legs coming from the boots looked as though they were stretched upwards to his body rather than supporting his body. In his hand he carried a wooden spear, which had once been the staff of a large but cheap flag.
    'Ask me what I am,' he said to Sam.
    'What the hell are you?'
    'A prehistoric Yorkshireman.'
    Mr. O'Brien was wearing the guardsman's tunic and the policeman's helmet, both of which were too big for him.
    'Mr. O'Brien,' explained Mr. Allsop, 'is a ceremonial Black-and-Tan.'
    David, a powerful, good-humoured man, with a hunch of shoulder and a strong, pugnacious head, was dressed as a woman. His large mouth was painted red, and the black he had put on his eyes added to their boldness. On his head was a yellow wig. The tresses were dry and without any likeness to human hair. His breasts were enormous and lumpy, bulging out in the red woollen dress that was strained across the shoulders and empty about the hips and buttocks. His legs were hard and muscled and blackened with hairs. I thought of a savage islander of the Pacific who had killed and eaten a lady missionary and then put on her clothes.
    There was laughter as he thudded about on the floor of the ward.
    Mr. Allsop said, 'You look ravishing, David.'
    'Chase me, sailor, I'm the last bus home!' shouted David, and he swung round grinning, showing a breadth of shoulder and a strength of arm, a massive cheerful obscenity.
    'I think I'll walk,' said Mr. Allsop.
    Others had done what they could to make costumes. Nothing seemed to fit. There were pieces of string holding things together.
    A middle-aged man who was always very quiet was wearing the dress with red and yellow flowers that Jim had thrust at me the night before. He held a yellow wig in his hand. His head was bald. He smiled a gentle smile. I thought of middle-aged transvestites living their harmless lives. I imagined a Hindu gentleman wearing a sari and hoping that he would be a woman in his next existence. I pictured a successful Japanese businessman dressed as a geisha girl drinking tea behind paper blinds; a middle-aged German, who had once been a Hitler Youth, long-faced in an expensive blonde wig; an Italian gentleman sweating in a tight skirt; a worried American gentleman putting off painful high-heeled shoes as he sat writing to a mail order company for a rubber bosom. It was sad. They were all growing old and they would never be women.
    Sam reviewed the costumes and approved: 'A very good effort. I've never seen such a crew. A very good effort.'

The ballroom was a great, stark hall that was reached by a corridor in the female wing of the hospital. There was a stage at one end, and on the stage the members of the small band that had been hired for the entertainment were sorting out their music and tuning their instruments. They were worldly looking men in dinner jackets. The drummer was a small, cruel-faced young man with a pointed beard.
    Round the hall were rows of chairs, which male nurses were pushing and shoving and rearranging. Other male nurses stood in conversation, smoking and self-assured.
    A convoy of old men arrived escorted by two male nurses. None of them was in costume. They were from one of the wards for people who were almost beyond participation in any activity. Some of them would be completely insane. They were made to sit on a row of chairs at the back. The male nurses placed themselves at either end.
    People were arriving in all kinds of costume. There was a butcher with a striped apron and a straw hat carrying a cardboard meat axe. There was a lady in a crinoline having difficulties with her parasol. There was a tough old woman dressed as a witch with a pointed black hat and a broomstick trailing from her fist. Larry came in with a red and white cloth tied round his head and a black patch over one eye. He brandished a cardboard cutlass. There was a ghost bobbing along in a white sheet. There was an undertaker in a tall hat with black crepe round it. His face was painted yellow. There was a man dressed as a cook with a huge white hat and a frying pan. Mr. Allsop talked to a sorrowful John Bull who had a toy dog on a string for a bulldog.
    I sat and watched the dancing. I could only dance in my dreams.
    Many odd couples moved and revolved over the floor.
    David, a ghastly, bright red woman, danced with a tiny pale girl dressed as a milkmaid. Two women dressed as men danced affectionately. A queen in a crown danced with a man in a sou'wester and oilskins. A schoolmaster in cap and gown danced with a girl in a paper grass skirt. Two pretty nurses dressed as nurses danced carefully together to encourage the others.
    The Chief Male Nurse went up on the stage and announced that Dr. Toeman and Mrs. Toeman would judge the costumes. He directed that all the people in costume should form themselves into a procession round the hall. Then Dr. Toeman and Mrs. Toeman went up on to the stage to be in a position to make their decisions.
    The people in costume began to form up into a column. There was some jostling. Suddenly a man in a kilt was set upon by a red man with a single green feather in a band round his head. Male nurses rushed in, and both men, the innocent Scotsman as well as the violent Red Indian, were taken away and out of the hall.
    The band attacked 'Sons of the Sea' with gallantry. The head of the column went forward round the hall and joined up with the tail. And then the whole procession was revolving. There was lurching and walking proudly and laughing and waving to the uncostumed who sat watching. Mr. Allsop came past with his flat cap level and his spear held perpendicular. Mr. O'Brien staggered past under his policeman's helmet. John Bull had his dog trodden on and the string broke. The lady in the crinoline was still having difficulties with her parasol. She thrust it about, endangering eyesight. A party of Arabs marched past in robes that had once been bed linen. The man in the sou'wester and oilskins held up a string of cardboard fish for display. A plump lady skipped past dressed as a French sailor. A girl came along dressed as a drummer boy. Her drum was a real drum and she rattled on it bravely with drumsticks. She wore a red tunic that fitted her tightly to show that she was not a boy, and white knee breeches and white stockings. On her shoes were silver buckles. She had tied her hair back with a bow of black silk and she wore a black three-cornered hat.
    On they rumbled. They were more real than men and women in the world outside. In the sober world there were illusions of choice. But at this fancy dress ball there was consciousness. The French sailor was a volunteer, not a complaining conscript. The queen with a cardboard crown was a queen by choice, not by accident of birth. Here was no pretence. Or so it seemed to me.
    If I had not been a reasonable person, I would have liked to join them, dressed perhaps as a can-can girl, vulgar and blatant. I might have shouted, 'This is what we have become! Once only our stomach and our sex had desire, but now our brain has desire! Madness is the lust of the brain!'
    Dr. Toeman and Mrs. Toeman had picked out the winner of the first prize. It was the girl dressed as a drummer boy. She received a large box of chocolates and some stockings. To me it seemed unjust 'that she should be allowed to dress as a boy and be given stockings.
    The procession marched on again. The lady in the crinoline received the second prize. It was another box of chocolates. One of the Arabs received the third prize. He was handed a box of cigarettes.
    There was a fourth prize and a fifth prize and a sixth prize - I lost count. Nearly half the people in costume got something. The last prizes were packets of cigarettes. Finally Dr. Toeman held up his hand and said, 'I'm sorry, that's all there is. But I can see some people I would have liked to have given prizes if we hadn't run out. It's a pity. We'll have to have more prizes next year.'
    Tomorrow I would go home.

Part Two

ROY AND WENDY

THE YELLOW SUN of late summer shone on the fronts of the terrace houses and on the flagstones before them. It was nearly dinner time. A Shell tanker bulked in the street. Children ran and shouted. A girl with a headscarf over her curlers slouched along, antagonistic, female unfeminine and heavy-legged in the middle of the day.
    My father would be battering fish and dropping them into the pan and wiping his hands on the damp cotton cloth. Mrs. Wilson would be wrapping and serving.
    It was not a very poor district. The houses had inside lavatories and most of them had had baths put in. But in the sunshine the streets looked their worst.
    The men of these streets would have to laugh about me because they had to be as bluff as the next man.
    And the women would have to despise me for wanting to be like them - though they felt themselves to be sacredly superior to men.
    I knew them.
    I wanted to be far away from this street of bricks.
    I saw the board sticking out, rectangular: FISH and CHIPS.
    I stopped. I turned round and walked away. I would go to Cottingham and see Shirley.
    I walked back the way I had come. My case and my raincoat were becoming burdensome. I caught a bus to the city centre. When I got to the railway station I handed my case in at the left-luggage office. I wondered if the man who took the case thought that I looked effeminate and that the case might be full of women's clothes. I wished that it were. I asked for the case back and opened it and put my raincoat into it and gave it back to him.
    On the train I thought about Jim. I hoped that he was getting better. I thought that I would like to send him some money. Perhaps I could send him a pound in an envelope so that he would not know from whom it had come. It would buy him some cigarettes.
    The train took about a quarter of an hour to reach Cottingham.

Dunswell Lane, Cottingham, in the early 1960s

    Most of the town was on the side of the station on which I got out. On the far side were some allotments doing well in the sun and a wood that looked as though it would be interesting to walk in - but was probably privately owned and protected.
    The summer afternoon was pleasant in the countryside. A breeze turned the leaves of a sycamore tree. Privet hedges were neat and firm. On a lawn a sprinkler went round and round. A woman of about thirty, slim and smart, came out of the house and down the garden and got into a small car to drive away. Perhaps she was going to buy clothes. Her husband might worrit and smoke in Hull's working afternoon, but he could never wear the nice clothes. He could only have clean collars and pressed trousers. As long as he was healthy he would be expected to work. He was not free in the afternoon.
    A young girl walked on the footpath. Her hair was black. The breeze folded her summer dress as she walked. She walked along pretending to be unconscious of her happiness. There was something intelligent in her movements. Perhaps she was a clever model, come home for a rest from London. The first was possible. The second seemed unlikely. She was not tall enough. I was tall enough.
    Perhaps she had once been a boy. Did she know that there was a street with a fish-and-chip shop in it, that there were bluebottles flying about round the empty fish boxes in the back yard? No. The gardens and the trees and the summer afternoon had always been hers.
    She was carried along by the pleasant afternoon and by the money of her parents and by the money-getting young man who would come for her and by her children and by all the pleasant summer afternoon of her life.
    She would have to be married in a white gown with a headdress of spraying net. How excited she would be, dressing on her wedding morning. When she was dressed and ready she would be weak with nervousness.
    Sweating like a June bride.
    I wished that one day I would sweat like a June bride, sweating weakly and femininely from nervousness and happiness in white satin.
    First there had to be money. Money bought the houses and the gardens and bought the clothes that the women wore. Only money could buy the female hormones and the cunning surgeons.
    Before I could make enough money I would be old and thick-faced. Nothing could be done.
    The only way to get to Cottingham was the way that Shirley had done it.
    But the homosexual daddies would pretend to have more money than they really had. I would not find one who had five thousand pounds to give away. And, in any case, I might not be able to make myself go through the horror.
    I wondered if Bill was good at thinking up new things to do to Shirley. An architect ought to be imaginative.
    Shirley's house was a cube with a roof of green tiles on top. It had a picture window and a garage door that swung upwards. It stood alone in its own garden. Bill's father had paid four thousand pounds for it. There was a tree in the garden near the gate. Its branches were lopped but it had covered itself with leaves that shook in the breeze. It was a beech tree.
    All this Shirley had achieved by being as she was. Men had built the house by laying bricks with their rough hands, by sawing wood and bending pipes and putting in electric cables. But, now that it was complete and part of the world, Shirley lived in it. She had got what she wanted by being, not by doing.
    Shirley and Bill might have an argument, and Bill might say the more intelligent things, but always Shirley would be the woman. Bill might lose his temper and strike her, but she would still be the woman.
    I pressed the bell. A double note sounded inside the house. I pressed again. The double note sounded again.
    Shirley was wearing a dress of mustard coloured cotton. She had been out in the sun on previous days. Her face had an even, pale tan that made her grey eyes look lighter than usual. My eyes were grey. She looked fresh and happy.
    'Hello, Roy! What are you doing here? Come in. I'm busy just now. I'm going to make some pastry.'
    I went in upon the carpet in the hallway.
    'Gwen's gone to a party,' she told me as I followed her into the kitchen. 'I'll have to fetch her at four o'clock.'
    The kitchen was white paint and Formica tops and aluminium pans shining. The two wooden chairs were painted red.
    'You've left hospital, have you?'
    'I was discharged this morning.'
    'Have you been home?'
    'No.'
    'Would you like some egg and chips or something?'
    'It doesn't matter.'
    'You must have something. Haven't you had anything since breakfast?'
    'I don't feel hungry.'
    'I'll fry you two eggs. Would you like that?'
    'I don't really want anything, thanks.'
    She fried me two eggs and mashed a pot of tea. While I was eating she started making pastry in a large bowl.
    'How are you now, do you think?' she asked.
    'I'm a lot better.'
    'Have you got rid of those peculiar ideas?'
    'I don't know.'
    You mean you're not sure?'
    'Not really.'
    'Well, I suppose these things take time. But do you feel that they did you any good at the hospital?'
    'As much good as it was possible for them to do, I suppose.'
    She looked up from what she was doing. 'Really, Roy, you are dreadfully apathetic!'
    'It's the way I'm made.'
    'But you can't go on like this. What's to become of you?'
    'I don't know.'
    'Why don't you make an effort? You must be a lot better or they wouldn't have discharged you. Can't you try to make something out of your life?'
    'I think they discharged me because they lost interest.'
    'Of course they didn't. I can't believe that. They don't do things like that.'
    'They know when they're up against a brick wall.'
    'You don't still have that crazy idea about wanting to be a woman, do you?'
    'I don't know.'
    'Anyway, you won't start stealing things again, will you?'
    'No.'
    'Are you sure?'
    'I'm not sure of anything.'
    'It's no good being like that, Roy. You must pull yourself together. Life isn't easy for anybody. What would happen to Bill and Gwen if I gave way to every ridiculous idea that came into my head?'
    'They wouldn't get any home-made pastry.'
    'Exactly.' She smiled.
    She told me at length that I ought to get myself better employment than helping in the shop. I listened to her and wondered if I would ever make pastry for anyone.
    When I said that I would have to be going she asked me to find my own way out because she had her hands in flour.
    I had an opportunity. I said, 'May I use your lavatory?'
    'Of course. You know where it is. First right at the top of the stairs.'
    I went up the stairs and saw that the door to the front bedroom was standing ajar about a foot. I moved stealthily with my weight on my toes, and pressed against it. It did not make any sound in opening. The room was still and silent. There was pale blue wallpaper. On the bed the cover was of peacock blue. There was a wardrobe and a chest of drawers and a dressing table all in limed oak. At home Shirley had always kept her underwear in the chest of drawers. The carpet I trod on was pale blue. It was thick and soft. I made no sound. I went to the chest of drawers and opened the top drawer, easing it carefully open about two inches. I could see that it contained Bill's shirts, clean and pressed. I closed the drawer. I tried the second drawer. It creaked as it came open. I stopped. My hands were beginning to sweat I opened the drawer further. It was empty. I pushed it back. It creaked again as it went home. I opened the third drawer carefully. It moved easily. It was full of Shirley's underwear. There were things in pale orange and in blue and in black and in white. The scent was exciting. I took out a black slip and then searched about until I found a pair of black panties. I was on the point of putting them into my jacket pockets when I told myself that I ought not to take anything that I did not need. What I needed was a suspender belt and some stockings. The girdle that was hidden in the attic at home was old. And I thought that I might feel more feminine in a suspender belt. But perhaps Shirley did not have a suspender belt. Perhaps she wore a girdle all the time now that she was older. I did not need a girdle. If I had treatment, I might become softer. I put the black slip and the panties back. I searched and touched what I thought was a suspender belt, but when I drew it out I found that it was a yellow brassiere. Then I found a suspender, but it was attached to a girdle. Finally I found a suspender belt in the far corner of the drawer. I was very glad to get it. It was yellow. The suspenders struck the edge of the drawer as I got it out. They rattled on the wood and jingled. The noise made me cringe with fear. I got it into my pocket. Then I decided that I wanted the yellow brassiere to match it. The one I had at home was pink. I found the yellow brassiere again and put it into my pocket. I thought of looking for a yellow slip and knickers set, but I did not want to steal too much from Shirley. There were several rolled-up pairs of stockings in the front of the drawer. I took two pairs. The stockings I had at home had ladders or holes in them. When I was taking the stockings I saw a pair of blue panties decorated with a lacework of white flowers. They were very pretty. I wanted them. I had three pairs of knickers at home - but ordinary people had lots of pairs. It was necessary. I wanted these. I took them and put them in my pocket. Then I tried to straighten out the things in the drawer so that it would not be obvious that they had been touched. I closed the drawer. I tiptoed out of the bedroom.
    I went into the lavatory and turned the handle so that there was the sound of flushing. I ran down the stairs. As I got to the door I called out:
    'Cheerio.'
    Shirley called back from the kitchen: 'Cheerio, Roy.'
    I was outside in the summer afternoon. I had a suspender belt and a brassiere and two pairs of stockings and a special pair of knickers.
    I wished that I had found a yellow slip and knickers set to match the suspender belt and brassiere. The Have-nots had to take from the Haves.
    All the things I had in the attic had been stolen from Shirley before she left home. She had things that I was not allowed to have. And so I was forced to steal from her.
    If it were not for my father, I could send away for things that could be delivered by post. But there was right-mindedness. I was forced to steal.
    I had to have women's clothes because I was a woman in the head. They could oppress me, but they could not get into my head. It was as impossible for anyone to make me believe that it was better to be a man than a woman as it would have been for them to make me believe that the streets where I lived were better than Cottingham. In their hearts, they must know the truth themselves, but they had to keep pretending for the sake of decency - while all the time they knew that men, with their grotesque sexual organs, were always indecent. To be a man was to be horrible. It was ridiculous that I should have been sent to a mental hospital. It was perfectly sane for me to want to be a woman. It was my body that was wrong, not my mind.
    I had stolen clothes again. I was myself despite everything. In the end they would learn that they could not change my mind.
    I had stolen a pair of blue and white panties.
    I wished that it had been possible to steal a nice dress - or the suit that Shirley had been wearing the day she visited me in hospital. I would have liked to wear that suit very much.
    I hurried on. I was sweating.
    At the station I was told that there was nearly an hour to wait for a train to Hull.
    I hated men's lavatories. They always seemed dank and, however clean they might be, one always imagined the strong amber tang of the male. I hated homosexuals most when I thought of them doing things in such places. I remembered the joke about the lavatory attendant who was told he could take his holidays at his own convenience.
    I walked up and down the platform and worked up anger about what I had read about the sinking of me Titanic. Boys had dressed themselves as women to try to get into the boats. They had been discovered and thrown out and they had been called cowards because they did not want to die. But women who were dressed as women had been helped into the boats. A woman of middle-age who had had the best of her life could be saved, but a boy who had hardly had any life at all had to be left to die. It was possible that some of the women who got away from the Titanic became suffragettes and paraded about demanding equal rights with men, until the war started in 1914.
    I concluded that women were adults on calm waters, but when the ship began to sink they wished to be counted with the children. They thought it right that any boy should die so that there would be a place in the lifeboat for some stupid selfish, moral-minded, parasitic woman.

My father was a strong man. He was three inches taller than I was, but he did not look tall. Mostly his head was thrust forward from the shoulders. It was an aggressive look. He had been a handsome young man. There was a photograph of him that officially should not have been taken when he was in the East Yorkshire Regiment in Normandy. He was a sergeant. The others were sprawled on the grass grinning at the camera. He was resting on his elbow, withdrawn, as though he knew that time would pass and Normandy would be a summer long ago. His face was lean and virile then. It was heavier and softer now. He had helped to win the war. People might walk in Paris and in Oxford and talk of this and that as though the future would wait forever, and a beautiful woman might move in a spacious and elegant room with yellow roses in a bowl upon the table; and all because my father had struggled from the sea on the first morning of Normandy. Evil had not been broken by considered words and the accepted indignation of the well-educated, but by men like my father, by my father himself.
    When he opened the shop door to me he was surprised. Then he seemed pleased. But he did not touch me. He could never touch me in affection. He had struck me in anger, but it was not possible for him to put his hand to touch me because he loved me.
    He could kiss Shirley.
    I had some of Shirley's clothes in my pockets, but he did not know that.
    'I've been discharged,' I explained. He might have thought that I had run away from the hospital.
    'I'm a bit surprised. Come in. Why didn't you write and let me know you were coming? Give me your case. Have you had your tea?'
    We went through the shop and into the kitchen.
    'When did you leave the hospital?' he asked.
    'This afternoon.'
    'Did you have any dinner?'
    'Yes. I had my dinner at the hospital.'
    'You'll be ready for your tea. Get yourself sat down.'
    He seemed to be glad to see me. It was as though he had forgotten what I had done.
    I said that I would take my case upstairs to my bedroom.
    I slept in the back bedroom. It had been Shirley's room. I had a double bed to myself. My father slept in a double bed in the front bedroom without Mrs. Wilson.
    There were no material shortages. Always there was enough food and enough money. And there was enough time in which it was not necessary to work so that he could go to visit Mrs. Wilson and I could dress up. We were well off. If I had wanted a motor cycle, my father would have bought me a motor cycle, and if he had been willing to be taught to drive he could have bought himself a car. Mrs. Wilson often told him that he ought to buy a van I could spend ten pounds for a new pair of trousers - but I could not spend five pounds for a skirt in blue poplin, a skirt that would swing as I moved and make me happy. I sometimes thought that my life was like a forced march on rations of corned beef and tinned spinach.
    I took the things I had stolen from Shirley's out of my pockets and put them at the back of the bottom drawer in the big chest of drawers. After tea I would take them up to the attic and put them with my other things.
    My father was pouring out the tea when I got back to the kitchen. 'I didn't come to visit you because I thought you might be better left alone. I thought you needed to be away from things for a bit.'
    'I was all right. Thanks for the money you sent.'
    'You have to have something. Are you all right for money now?'
    'Yes. I've got about fifteen pounds in my back pocket. I haven't spent much.'
    'You don't spend enough, and that's a fact. You want to enjoy yourself a bit more instead of moping about and reading all the time. I think you spend too much of your time stuck in the house. When I was your age I was out every night.' He went to the mantelpiece and found a ten packet of cigarettes. He got one out and lit it.
    I realized that he was tense. I thought that he must have been having Mrs. Wilson in to sleep with him while I was away.
    He said, 'Our Shirley came to see you, didn't she?'
    'Yes.'
    'She said she was going to. That was a bit ago. I haven't seen her since then. She was upset when I told her you were badly. She thinks a lot about you. And Mrs. Wilson has missed you. She's had to look after the chip pan and run the chipping machine as well as serving. I gave her a hand when I could. We were falling over each other on Friday dinner times and Saturday nights. I thought of getting somebody into help out, but I didn't know when you'd be coming back. We did well this dinner time. I went through three trays of fish. Haddock's a bit pricey just now. Mrs. Wilson has been staying on Wednesdays and making tea. She'd have been here tonight, but she's sitting in with a woman in her street whose husband has just died.'
    Now that I was back Mrs. Wilson would not be able to be alone with him in the house. When she did come in the evenings we would all have to watch the television.
    I would have liked to make a bargain whereby Mrs. Wilson came to live in sin with my father in exchange for my being allowed to send away for clothes and dress up when I wanted.
    Such a bargain was impossible. We all had to play hide-and-seek. I thought that it was not unlikely that my father had punched me in the face because of a build-up of annoyance at the times that I had been in the house when he wanted to make love to Mrs. Wilson.
    It was difficult to keep calm about hypocrisy. I had to try to remember that I was very intelligent, while my father and Mrs. Wilson were only ordinary people.
    Considering that I was a nuisance, my father was managing to seem glad to see me.
    After tea I went up to my bedroom and got my bedding out of the wall cupboard where it had been stored while I was away. The bedding was quite dry and fresh. There was no dampness in the house. When I had made my bed I went to the big chest of drawers and got out the things I had brought from Shirley's. I took my shoes off and went upstairs to the attic. There was a front attic and a back attic, both with sloping ceilings and fanlights. I had slept in the back attic before Shirley had left home. There was a little catch on the lock for locking the door from the inside. I closed the door behind me and slipped the catch. If a man came and put his weight against the door, the catch would snap at once. The floor was bare. The single bed was bare. The room had looked bigger when I had slept in it. There had been lino on the floor and furniture. All that was left of the furniture was a wickerwork chair with its seat burst through. In the corner, under the slope of the ceiling, was the wooden fat- box that contained the dozens of pieces of the electric train set I had not particularly wanted one Christmas. I had liked playing with Shirley's doll's house until my father had got rid of it. One could play a story with a doll's house. On the far side of the bed there was a wall cupboard between the flue that ran up the wall and the corner of the room. I went across and opened the cupboard. On a shelf there was an old copy of a children's book, Chatterbox. Some of the stories in it were intended for boys and some were intended for girls. The girls' stories were mostly about the boyish adventures of schoolgirls. I had supposed that the heroines wore the navy blue knickers that the little girls wore at the school I went to. It had been after I had gone to the grammar school that I had stopped wanting to wear the navy blue knickers and be a little girl and started wanting to grow up to wear knickers of silk and nylon and have breasts. I fixed my finger nails on the end of the floorboard at the bottom of the cupboard. It was difficult to move the board. But as soon as it moved it came up. The pillow case was there. In it were all the women's clothes I had. Underneath the pillow case I kept some copies of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and all the cuttings I had been able to collect about people who had changed into women. I pulled the pillow case out. It was heavy. It was tied at the end with a piece of string. I took off the string and stuffed the things I had brought from Cottingham into the pillow case. I retied the string and pushed the pillow case back under the floor. I replaced the floorboard and closed the cupboard door.
    Tomorrow was Thursday. My father would go to Mrs. Wilson's. I would be able to dress up.
    I went down to the kitchen and presented myself to my father as though I were an honest boy.
    We watched the television.

Always the slowest job was preparing the potatoes. They had to be put through the potato machine and then every one had to be looked at and any eyes or bad patches taken out with a potato knife.
    It was with a feeling of the beginning of long labour that the first bucketful of rough potatoes was lifted up and poured into the machine. The potatoes thumped and rumbled round in the machine and the water hissed and swished. Then muddy water started to come out round the edges of the hatch at the front. The rumbling and hissing continued, and soon the water was coming out clean. After about a minute the hatch was opened, and the potatoes came pouring out, white and pale yellow. The hatch was closed, and another bucketful of potatoes went into the machine.
    Each skinned potato had to be taken in hand and picked before it could be thrown into one of the galvanized dolly tubs filled with water. In winter one's hands lost feeling in the cold water and the cold from the concrete floor came up through the soles of the rubber boots and through two or three pairs of socks to make one's feet agony. And in winter the potatoes had more eyes and more rotten parts in them. In summer the work was only tedious.
    It was Thursday morning. We were doing the potatoes for Friday dinner-time opening.
    Because of the weeks I had been away from the job I noticed the alkaline smell of the potatoes. The din of the machine and the background noise of the big refrigerator running was violent after the quiet of the hospital.
    'The spuds have been a hell of a job single-handed,' my father shouted.
    By eleven o'clock he had sung all his songs and we had two dolly tubs full of potatoes.
    'I think that should do. You go and make a cup of tea, Roy, and I'll swill down. They won't be delivering the fish till tomorrow. But I have nearly enough cut in the fridge. I want to change the fat in the fish pan this morning.'
    While we, were drinking our tea he said, 'You want to get yourself to Anlaby Road this afternoon. Yorkshire are playing Kent. It's a nice day. You want to get yourself down there.'
    'I don't like cricket much,' I said.
    'You want to get to like it. You want to get yourself interests.'
    After we had had our tea he changed the fat in the fish pan and I cleaned the inside of the shop windows.
    At half-past twelve I went to make the dinner. We had boiled potatoes and a tin of peas and a tin of corned beef followed by tinned apricots and tinned cream. I made everything look as nice as possible. I often thought that I would like to dress up to get dinner ready. When Mrs. Wilson cooked our dinner for us she always made Yorkshire pudding. She could make very light Yorkshire pudding. Shirley's Yorkshire pudding had always been too heavy. I had once tried to make Yorkshire pudding - it was like lead.
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