The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone (30 page)

One of them was texting under the table while I turned a blind eye. The Christmas term was coming to an end, after all, and concentration levels were dropping all round. The other was choosing, from the box I’d given him, a book to take home. I noticed a face at the window, and waved. Jim Chadwick. He saw I was busy and moved away, but I was pretty sure he’d wait until the end of the lesson.

‘Got one, miss,’ said the boy with the books. He was holding out a paperback with a picture of a soldier on the front, bristling with bandoliers and murderous weapons. He often picked that one. He loved a bit of gore.

‘You’ve read that already, Zane. About five times. But that’s okay, you can borrow it again. You’ve done really good work today. Jamie, who are you texting?’

‘Santa,’ Jamie replied promptly. ‘He says he’s got his sleigh parked outside.’

The bell rang while I was deciding whether to laugh or hand out a detention.

‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Have a good weekend. Say hi to Santa from me.’

As they opened the door they almost ran into Jim.

‘What’re you reading, Zane?’ he asked, holding out his hand for the book. ‘Ah.
Crack Shot.
Nice one.’

The two boys set off for freedom, joining a great throng that milled across the quad. Jim stepped into my room and closed the door behind him.

‘It’s Friday,’ he said, folding his arms.

‘Yes. I know that, Jim.’

‘Dinner at The Lock, tonight?’

‘Tonight? Um . . .’

He sat down in the chair Zane had just vacated. ‘Yes, you can. I know for a fact that you were meant to be helping with a rehearsal for the school play this evening. I know for a fact that the rehearsal has just been cancelled. So, unless you’ve got yourself another date in the past hour, you’re unexpectedly free.’

I could get all dressed up, and go to a gorgeous restaurant by the river. I could spend the evening laughing with Jim, sharing a bottle of wine, enjoying adult conversation of a kind I craved, especially since Kate had left.
And let’s face it
, said the wicked floozy inside me,
he’s easy on the eye.

But Luke.

He walked away. You owe him nothing.

That’s true.

Don’t risk it
, counselled the prude in me.
Dinner doesn’t come for free. You go to The Lock, the next minute he’s pouncing on you in some taxi, and then you’re back at his place, taking off your clothes. Nobody but Luke’s seen you naked in thirty years! Do you really want to show those stretch marks?

‘I promise you,’ said Jim, who seemed to be a mind-reader. ‘Not a single string. I’ll behave impeccably. Unless you don’t.’

I was teetering at the top of a fairground ride, fearing to launch myself onto the crazy loops and whoops of the roller-coaster.
I was being asked on a date. An actual date, with a man I liked very much.

Luke’s gone. He didn’t love you enough.

‘All right,’ I said.

Was the blue and white top a mistake?
Avoid horizontal stripes at all costs
, my mother used to say.
They’ll make you look big, Eilish; and when I say big, I mean fat
. On this occasion she was wrong, because I seemed to have the opposite problem. I’d lost weight since Luke left. The figure in the mirror looked like a bustless bag lady in those unforgiving stripes.

I hadn’t got dolled up in months; I was out of practice, couldn’t even find a pair of tights without a hole in them. It was daunting but—I had to admit—fun.

Discarding the stripes, I tried on my little black dress.
You can’t go wrong with a little black dress
; that’s my mother’s wisdom again. It looked good, but . . . no. Luke loved that dress. He helped me choose it. I couldn’t date another man in a dress Luke chose. I took it off.

Trousers? No, too dowdy. This little skirt? No! Much too short.

What does a fifty-something almost-divorcee wear on a date?

‘This is ridiculous,’ I said out loud. ‘Stop pratting about, Eilish Livingstone! It’s just Jim. It’s not a visit to Buckingham Palace.’

In the end, I plumped for the black dress because nothing else worked so well. Then I caught myself searching through my drawers for a matching lace bra and knickers. The prude in my head was scandalised.
What d’you think you’re up to? Who’s going to see them?
Nobody was going to see them. All the same, best to be colour-coordinated. Ah, here they were. They still fitted perfectly.

Kate phoned as I was blow-drying my hair. She wondered if she’d left a particular book in her room; her tutor wanted it back. I looked and found it, and promised to post it.

‘Owen asked to come round,’ she said gloomily. ‘Says he wants to talk.’

I was pleased she was confiding in me. Kate and I had broken through some barriers in those weeks when she lived back at home, just after our world had imploded. There was more honesty between us now than I could ever remember. Perhaps she saw me as more human and fallible; for my part, I’d learned that she was an adult.

‘Did you say yes?’ I asked now.

‘Mm. I’m meeting him at eight, in the local. Can’t bring him back here—Mathis and John would have a fit. The thing is, Mum . . . I’ve still got a soft spot for the guy. But if we get back together, I know where we’ll end up.’

‘Do you want my advice? Feel free to ignore it.’

‘All advice gratefully received.’

‘Okay.’ I was struggling to put in earrings with one hand, but gave up and sat down on the bed. ‘I don’t think Owen’s the man for you.’

‘Really? I thought you approved of him.’

‘I was being polite. Let’s face it, Kate: he’s a wimp and you’re not. If I’ve learned one thing from this disaster with Dad, it’s that it’s best to be honest right from the start. Otherwise there’s just a whole lot of misery in store.’

There was a brief silence. I was afraid I’d annoyed her.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You’re bang on. There’s no future in it, and I’ll have to tell him so. He can be very persuasive, though. If he turns on his lost-boy routine . . .’

‘I think you’d better stay sober, and in a public place. And if I were you, I wouldn’t invite him in for coffee—especially if Mathis and John aren’t in. No coffee, no matter what.’

‘Good plan.’

I asked about an essay she was writing—it sounded fascinating, actually, made me wish I’d been an archaeologist—and we talked for a time, but I had one eye on the clock. At seven-thirty I said I had to go. She was instantly curious.

‘Go?’ she echoed. ‘Go where?’

I had no choice. I had to tell her. As I’d expected, the news had quite an effect. I could almost hear her falling off her chair.

‘
Mr Chadders
?’ She gasped, caught somewhere between hysterical mirth and revulsion. ‘Sorry . . . sorry . . . let’s just get this straight. My old science teacher and my mother are going out on a . . . on a . . . Oh, Lordy Lordy!’

‘It’s not a date,’ I declared tartly. ‘It’s just two colleagues meeting up out of the work environment. We’ll probably talk about education all evening.’

‘Yeah, and work colleagues never hook up. What are you wearing?’

‘Just a, um, a dress.’

‘You’re wearing that black lacy thing, aren’t you, Mum?’

How the hell does she know that?

‘The Lock is only a tarted-up pub,’ I said. ‘I’m meeting an old friend in a pub. Just as you are, in fact. That’s all. I’ve insisted on driving myself, so I won’t be drinking.’

‘It’s a date, Mum. Face facts. The Lock’s a very romantic spot, especially at night.’

I felt anxious. Perhaps I was making a mistake. ‘Do you think I shouldn’t go?’

She’d stopped laughing. ‘No, no. I’m sorry. Of course you should go. I’ve got a lot of time for old Chadders, one of the best teachers I ever had. Quite hot too, in a lab coat and Bunsen burner sort of way. And now it’s my turn to hand out advice. Feel free to ignore it.’

‘Let’s hear it.’ I was looking under the dressing table for my handbag. I’d be late if I didn’t get a move on.

‘Stay sober,’ she said. ‘And in a public place. And don’t invite him in for coffee—’

We finished the sentence in chorus.

‘No matter what.’

Luke

I locked the front door of the flat with the Yale, and then with the deadlock, and then I bolted it. Simon’s visit had made me wary.

Out on the streets, the weekend had begun. I heard the footsteps of children on their way home from school, galloping along the pavement, whooping at one another. I heard the tapping of a stick and knew it was the old man who lived on the top floor. A little later I heard female voices, and caught a glimpse of court shoes.

But I was in my own world. I was about to do something terrifying and wonderful.

In my bedroom, I pressed the first dose out of their packets and laid them in a careful row on top of the chest of drawers. I’d finally been given the green light to begin hormone therapy. The endocrinologist had calculated my dose of female hormones, which would send the signal to my body that I was indeed a woman; then there were antiandrogens to suppress the testosterone and turn off the male tap. A double whammy. Don’t expect miracles, they’d all warned me; it’s hard to get this right. There will be a lot of finetuning.

I viewed the pills with fearful reverence. I wouldn’t turn into a page three girl overnight; at first the war would be fought at a cellular level. Yet this was the first real physical step. Over weeks and months my body really would change: I’d become more and more of a woman; less and less of a man. Imagine that.

This was it. I was about to cross the Rubicon.

Or was I?

I took off Luke’s suit and shirt and tie, and became Lucia. That made me feel stronger. For a long time I stood absolutely still, looking at those pills. I picked up the glass of water, and raised my eyebrows at the person in the mirror.

‘Sure, now?’ I said aloud. ‘Is this really what you want?’

The last time I’d tried to change myself physically, I was three years old. My mother and Janey’s mother put us in the bath
together. I remember we had a new kitten, a soft tortoiseshell who regarded the entire world as a toy. I looked at Janey as we blew soap bubbles, and spotted something I’d never noticed before.

‘Janey’s hurt herself,’ I said to Mum. ‘She’s got no willy. Where’s she put it?’

The two mothers fell about laughing. They kept trying to control themselves, then catching each other’s eye and bursting out again. Janey’s mum was actually crying with the hilarity of it all.

‘She’s not hurt!’ she gasped, wiping her eyes. ‘She’s a girl, you silly peanut. Girls don’t have willies. They have tuppences.’

I had no idea what this meant, but I didn’t want them to laugh at me anymore. We got out of the bath and into our nightclothes. I was truly amazed by the news. So it wasn’t Janey who was faulty, it was me. I envied her. I wanted to have a tuppence. Then I had a good idea.

A few minutes later, when everyone else was playing with the kitten in the sitting room, I trotted away and into the kitchen. I had to climb on a chair to get to the knife block. I chose the biggest one, slid it out of the block and carefully lowered myself from the chair. Then I took off my pyjama bottoms and sat cross-legged on the floor. I was frightened that this was going to hurt but I was very, very determined. I was going to be the same as Janey.

I don’t know what would have happened if my mother hadn’t walked in. Fortunately I was ineffectual with a knife, and I wasn’t nearly as brave as I thought I was; but Mum kept it razor sharp and I’d managed to break the skin. It hurt far more than I’d expected, and I was howling with the pain and the terror of seeing so much blood. Poor Mum. I still remember her horrified shrieks, and Janey’s mother running in. I remember bawling my eyes out, and Mum yelling,
Don’t ever, ever do that again!
Later, when we were sitting by the fire, she gave me a piece of chocolate cake, pressing me against her chest and whispering in my ear,
We won’t tell Daddy about this, eh?
And we never did, because
one thing my mother and I both knew—but never said—was that Daddy must be looked after and shielded from the nastier things in life. I did that, right up until the day he died. But now he was gone, too far gone even to be spinning in his grave.

These hormones looked a lot less savage than my mother’s carving knife. I was doing this for that small child, sitting on the kitchen floor. I was doing this for the misshapen woman who watched me from the mirror. She was so hopeful. She was willing me to go on.

I threw the pills into my mouth, swallowed, and chased them down with water. The Task Force was on its way.

‘Feeling any different yet?’ I asked.

Lucia smiled.