Beneath the Blonde Read online

  Gaelene had forgotten lots of things about Shona. She’d completely forgotten Shona loved yellow. In fact, she’d pretty much forgotten all about Shona. But that was all right. Shona would help her remember.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Given the days’ notice Siobhan had allowed them, Greg’s Aunty Pat and Uncle Dennis had done wonders. The dining table at the far end of the large blue-painted kitchen looked as if it was about to topple with the weight of chicken, cucumber, egg cress sandwiches, what seemed like several carcasses worth of sausage rolls and a flotilla of butterfly cakes. After the nuptial fuss and hurried photos in Queenstown they’d caught the plane as planned, picked up their hire van at Rotorua and driven the two hours it took to get to Pat and Dennis’s “batch”. On hearing the word Saz had assumed a small cottage by the sea, perhaps a New Zealand version of Derek Jarman’s Dungeness cottage, if a little less horticulturally stimulated. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The Marsden’s home had been created from the shell of their forty-year-old weatherboard house and added to at weekends and holidays over a three year period until what Pat and Dennis had fashioned was a five bedroom, newly finished, extremely desirable retirement residence. Greg’s aunt and uncle had lived by the coast for the first fifteen of their married years and when Dennis’s work had taken him to Auckland they had chosen to let rather than sell the small house where they had started their marriage. When Dennis retired they had sold the big house in Auckland and returned to the coast, remaking their environment with the extravagant proceeds from the Auckland house sale. Using their old home to create the core of the new house, they had transformed a small wooden bungalow into a show home. Inside it was all huge windows and wood-panelled flooring. A lifetime of pouring over copies of New Zealand House and Garden had left Pat with a wealth of ideas and finally she had the real wealth with which to achieve them. Greg was astounded. Though he had seen photos of the work in progress, he had not expected his aunt and uncle to have achieved so much. Or that they would have done it in quite so much style.

  They arrived at eight in the evening, with the sun just setting behind the distant Kaimai range. At first Greg was convinced they had come to the wrong house, shaking his head at the size of the building in front of them, but the number on the letterbox was the same and Siobhan assured him that the woman wiping her hands on her apron and waving at them from the balcony was definitely her—”It is your Aunty Pat, babe”—she whispered to him just before she jumped out of the passenger seat and bounded up the steps and into Aunty Pat’s outstretched arms, shouting and waving her wedding ring hand the whole way.

  The whole day had been bitter for Saz. She was unable to run away, stuck in New Zealand with the happy newlyweds, stuck in the plane with the newlyweds, stuck in the car with the newlyweds. She couldn’t talk to anyone about what had happened, Molly, her usual sounding board, being the last person she wanted to confide in and, because Siobhan insisted on celebrating her wedding with her “new family”, her day was given over to doing nothing but dance attendance on Siobhan’s whims. None of which involved coming clean with the police about what had been going on.

  Late that night, after poring over the Polaroid wedding photos and listening to the new album, after the praising of the wedding ring, after all the sandwiches and sausage rolls had been finished—carefully made to a special vegetarian recipe just for Siobhan—after the pavlova had been brought in and crowed over, the endless cups of strong tea finally turned to wine for the ladies and bottles of beer for the men, and just as everyone was starting to settle down, Saz made the mistake of asking Pat about the pretty little blonde girl in the variously aged photos on the wall.

  She realized she’d made a huge error as Pat stuttered, “That’s our … daughter … she’s, um …”

  Dennis tried a little harder with, “She was … something happened to her … she was …” then he too turned white and his speech ground to a halt.

  Greg jumped in to save his aunt and uncle further distress, “That’s my cousin Gaelene. She’s dead. She died years ago. When she was sixteen.”

  Saz muttered a quiet “Sorry” and Dan shuffled to the window, overcome by a sudden intense interest in the full yellow moon.

  Looking around at the embarrassed faces in the room Greg continued, “See, we’re no better at talking about this kind of shit than the English … oh fuck …”

  He ground to a halt, looking at Siobhan for help but she was too interested in the light glancing off her wedding ring to notice. He tried again, “Um … how about … must be a while since we measured my height, eh, Aunty Pat?”

  His aunt, glad of a chance to change the subject and well into her fourth dry sherry, jumped up a little unsteadily and the others followed her out to the kitchen. Maintaining an edgy distance from Siobhan, Saz stood with Dan as they watched Dennis measure Greg against the side of the walkin pantry—the only piece of wall in the whole house Pat hadn’t repainted—and made a new mark beside all the other little ones that indicated Greg’s growth over the years.

  Saz, relieved that the subject had been so abruptly changed, was impressed by the display of extended family closeness, but nevertheless she wondered why they had no marks for their own daughter and more urgently, if this Gaelene was the same one mentioned on the flower card.

  She asked Dan as they piled the plates into the dishwasher and finished the cooking pans together, “Don’t you think it’s a bit funny that there weren’t any wall marks for their own daughter?”

  Dan shook his head, “I don’t know. Maybe. People do funny things when someone dies.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, my mum’s sister died when she was in her early thirties and my gran just went nuts. Made this huge bonfire in the back garden and burnt all of my aunt’s stuff. Some people make a shrine to their dead people and some just wipe them out like they were never there. Maybe they had a wall for her and painted it over. It must have been a long time ago.”

  “Maybe. Greg’s really lucky he gets on with them so well. He must have spent a lot of time with them as a child?”

  “I think so. Certainly he’s always talked more about his aunt and uncle than his mum and dad.”

  “What happened to his own parents? Do you know how they died?”

  Dan shrugged and passed her back the cake tin, “There’s a bit of gunge still on this. Nah, I don’t know that much about Greg’s stuff, only the basics. They seem very fond of Greg anyway, the aunt and uncle.”

  “What about Gaelene? Do you know anything about her?”

  Dan pulled the plug to drain the sink, “Saz, look, I really don’t know any more about Greg than I’ve told you. He and I have never talked that intimately. He was closer to Alex than to me. I was closer to Alex too.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought Alex was that easy to be close to.”

  “He wasn’t. Which goes to show how not close Greg and I are. You know, we’re colleagues and we’re friends. But not close friends. I think the only person Greg ever really talks to is Siobhan. That’s just how it is. If you want to know all Greg’s sordid details, you’re going to have to ask him yourself.”

  Saz nodded, “Yeah, I think I will.”

  When they had finally put everything away, it was already one-thirty in the morning and Dan excused himself to go to bed, “I’ve had it, Saz. I’m off, early start tomorrow.”

  Saz turned from where she was wiping down the kitchen sink, “Oh? I thought we were all just supposed to lie around in the sunshine all day—wasn’t that the scenario in Siobhan’s itinerary?”

  Dan shrugged his shoulders, his long pony-tail lifting and waving against the weight of muscle, “Maybe, but I’ve had enough of playing unhappy families with the band. We’ve got two more days in this country and I’m not prepared to spend them doing as I’m told just to keep Siobhan calm. We’ve done their happy little het wedding and quite frankly, I’d just as soon get out of here right now. I’m a pretty superstitious kind of guy
and the thought of just sitting here, getting a tan and waiting for the third bad thing to happen doesn’t exactly fill me with delight. Particularly not if the third bad thing is me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Nice though Pat and Dennis are, I noticed signs of a thriving if small gay community in Auckland, I’m going to spend my last two days there and join you lot back at the airport.” He smiled at Saz, “You’re welcome to join me—where there’s gay boys there’s usually gay girls somewhere close.”

  Saz shook her head, she’d had more than enough of girls for the time being, “No. I don’t really think that’s in the job description. But thanks anyway. Leave me the details of where you’re staying though, will you?”

  “Checking up on me?”

  Saz nodded, “Yeah. Why not? I’m superstitious too. Have you told Greg and Siobhan?”

  Dan laughed, “I’m not that brave. I had a quick word with Greg this afternoon. He said he’d do the dirty work for me. Pat’s taking me in to catch the early flight tomorrow so I’ll be well out of the way before her ladyship wakes up. I mean, this is lovely,” he said, gesturing at the wide expanse of night ocean through the windows, “but it’s a bit too bloody much of the outdoors for me, I’m a city boy at heart and I rather like the sound of Queen Street. Goodnight, chica. See you in duty free!” Dan threw her his tea towel and turned on his heel, whistling a slightly sharp version of “Downtown” as he went out the back door and downstairs to his basement room.

  Hanging up the sodden tea towel, Saz realized how frightening the whole thing must have been for Dan. Unlike Greg and Siobhan, he’d not been allowed to know the full story, fobbed off with excuses and half truths until yesterday, but like them, he’d seen two of his best friends killed within a week of each other. While he didn’t have to suffer the anxiety of wondering where the next bunch of flowers was going to come from, he also hadn’t, until recently, been allowed the dubious comfort of knowing that there was at least one person out there who knew a little of the truth.

  Her thoughts were interrupted just a moment later when, returning from a long beach walk, Greg and Dennis clumped up the back stairs and into the kitchen. Saz was about to offer to make them both a quick nightcap when she saw that Greg’s face was flushed red and Dennis’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. Dennis grabbed Greg in a fierce hug, holding him tight until Saz thought the younger man just had to break. Eventually Dennis broke away and with a long look at Greg, wished them both goodnight.

  Saz waited a beat and then turned to Greg, “Do you want to tell me what’s going on? Tell me about Gaelene? There’s obviously some link with all the stuff with Siobhan,” she shrugged and held her hands out for emphasis. “But, really, I have no idea what it is.”

  Greg closed the door after Dennis, speaking quietly, “Yeah, I’m sorry. I should have told you ages ago.”

  Saz sat down at the kitchen table and waited for him to join her, “So what happened to Gaelene?”

  Greg heaved a massive sigh and turned to look out at the moon, now high in the bright starred sky. He nodded in confirmation of his own words, “I killed her.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  When Gaelene left New Zealand aged sixteen, she left with not one blessing to speed her on her way. Not from her mother who couldn’t bear the thought of losing her baby and not from her father who said if she really meant to go away and follow her plan then she need never come home again. And certainly not from Shona, practically just a pen friend now, their friendship reduced to two letters a year, maybe an occasional phone call or quick coffee if they happened to find themselves in the same town, by sixteen their interests so diverse there was no basis for conversation. At least that was what Gaelene thought.

  For Shona it was different. As far as Shona was concerned, she was happy just to be near Gaelene, vibrant conversation or not. Shona still made contact with Gaelene’s parents whenever she was in Auckland or when they were visiting friends on the coast. She held on to her childhood for as long as she could, intended to hold on to Gaelene for as long as she could. Not that Gaelene thought to ask for Shona’s blessing when she left, or cared that she didn’t have her parents behind her either. Gaelene was going to follow her star. She knew they didn’t understand, probably would never understand. And she also knew that as far as her own heart was concerned, she had no choice but to leave.

  Her first stop was the Netherlands. She’d done the reading, visited every library she could gain access to, spoken to her own local doctor, then to the referred hospital psychologist, to the first psychiatrist, the second and third psychiatrists, to expert after expert, each one claiming to know what was best for her, each one certain she should wait, take time, take still more time, think again. Each one convinced that the reasons the medical system gave for waiting until eighteen, twenty, twenty-one, were sound, valid reasons. Each one demanding that Gaelene put off her future, delay her life, for just another year.

  After a tortuous route of stopovers and delays, rescheduled flights and a long six-hour wait at Heathrow, Gaelene finally left her last plane at Schippol, caught the first train into Amsterdam, ate welcoming pofferjes with a cup of sweet coffee, bought a few essential items of clothing, made a phone call home to tell her mother she was safe and then took the next train out of the central station to Utrecht. She booked into a tatty hotel for one night and, locked into the shared bathroom, removed her clothes. She stood naked in front of the mirror and stared at herself, at her height, at her long legs, her narrow hips, her barely indented waist, her wide shoulders. She ran her hands over her body, lifting her fingers so they escaped touching her breasts, the small, just rounded breasts of a sixteen-year-old girl. The breasts she wanted rid of. She reached into her toilet bag and in the stark fluorescent light took out a pair of scissors. She laid the scissors on the bench in front of her and, after a deep breath, picked them up in her left hand, holding her hank of shoulder-length hair back with the right. In one fast movement she freed herself of the female indicator of long blonde hair. With a smaller pair of nail scissors she neatened the edges, leaving herself with a ragged urchin cut. She took out the wide crêpe bandage and, pulling it tight enough to constrict her breath, she bound her breasts into a masculine chest. Already her shoulders and upper arms were muscled from a daily swimming routine, hours in the gym and nightly push-ups. She threw her bra and knickers into the rubbish bin where she had earlier discarded her jeans and T-shirt. She didn’t need to throw the clothes away, they were as male as they were female. It was a gesture, the deliberate disposal of her past. She opened the bag of new clothes by her feet and pulled out a pair of boxer shorts, a new black T-shirt and a new pair of jeans. She added socks and heavy black boots. Gaelene bent down and collected her belongings, joyfully dumping the old in the rubbish bin, carefully folding the new into her canvas bag. She was ready.

  Greg stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. He was a tall, fairly thin, just beyond pubescent boy. He was a sweet-looking young man. He was male. And when Greg let himself out of the toilet and the old Dutch lady wagged her finger at him in annoyance and let out a stream of furious foreign babble, pointing several times to the picture of a woman on the door, he could have kissed her in gratitude.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  At almost seventeen Greg started injecting himself daily with a chemical version of the hormone testosterone. Within three months the irreversible effects had started, his periods stopped, his voice had begun to break, he was developing what started to look like an Adam’s apple, he began to grow the faintest fluff of down on his chin and upper lip. He also suffered mood swings, several outbreaks of particularly virulent acne and, until his doctor had sorted out exactly the right levels of testosterone, a slight degree of jaundice resulting in a yellowing of his pimpled skin. For Greg, this was a minor burden to bear. He continued to live and dress as a man. As a boy, for that is what he was.

  He moved to England and continued the treatment started in Utrecht, working
sixteen-hour days at two jobs to support himself and his treatment. He continued to badger his local GP for a referral to an NHS treatment centre. He was continually refused.

  At eighteen he travelled to San Francisco, visited a transgender clinic and then was referred to a private plastic surgeon. He had a full mastectomy, completely removing both of his small girl breasts and repositioning the nipples. He spent only the minimum time in hospital, completing his recuperation on the sofa of two other patients at the clinic who had befriended the young man when they were receiving treatment in the Netherlands. He returned home broke, weak and very happy. He continued to work out, replacing girl tissue and sweet soft fat with solid boy muscle, his pectoral wall a rippling product of committed self-development.

  At nineteen he increased his hormone intake, and drank sweet woodruff tea by the bucketload for the care of his liver. It was another year before he discovered fennel, juniper, rosemary and rose oils had the same effect. Two years later he had incorporated the herbs and the oils into a daily regimen, having also added selenium, thiamin and Vitamin E to the equation.

  At nineteen and a half he increased his daily workouts and doubled his vitamin doses to prepare for the hysterectomy which left him with a thin scar line just above his increasing patch of pubic hair, in pain but tired and elated.

  After the hysterectomy he took two years away from the operations and began even more intensive therapy to prepare himself for the final operation, meeting his psychotherapist twice a week and his group once a week. He was throwing money at his body and the shape changing was absorbing cash at an alarming rate. The beginning of the last stage started at twenty-one and the long and painful process finally finished close to his twenty-sixth birthday. Leaving him with a long, deep scar from tissue removal on his left arm and, through the miracles of modern prosthetics, he had a working penis. He could piss standing up and he could fuck lying down, just like any other boy.