Sex and Other Changes Read Online Free Page B

learn anything interesting at school today?’
    â€˜Not really. Why’s your hand shaking, Mum?’
    â€˜I must have been thinking about rather frightening things.’
    â€˜What frightening things?’
    â€˜Oh, things from a long way away, Em. Wars and things.’
    â€˜Oh. I don’t think there should be wars, Mum.’
    â€˜Nor do I, Em.’
    â€˜If we can see that, why can’t everybody? Are they stupid?’
    â€˜No. I’m afraid there are some wicked people in this world of ours, Em.’
    â€˜I know. Sandra Copeland, for one. She pulled my hair again today, the cow.’
    Alison smiled. It was a weary smile. She realised, looking at Em in all her innocence, what a long time it would be before she could begin her sex change. She felt sad, but calmer than she had felt for a long time.
    She went back into the dining room, sat at the table, picked up her letter to Jen, read it with the speed-reading techniques she’d learnt at a course in Luton, sighed, stood up, fetched a box of matches, lit a candle (she’d make the table really pretty, this evening, for their first anniversary dinner in the house) and held the candle to the letter. When it had all been reduced to ashes, she swept it carefully into the Habitat waste-paper basket, seated herself at the table again, sipped her instant coffee, grimaced, and began to write another letter.
    33, Orchard View Close
    Throdnall
    Warwickshire TL2 5XJ
    Dear Jen,
    This has to be hurried as it’s our wedding anniversary. I’m making Dover Sole, Nick’s favourite. I start my new job next week, went to Marks and Sparks today and bought some blouses. Very sober and sedate. Not me at all. I’ve been appointed PA to a man called Clive Beresford. He’s the big wheel behind Throdnall Carriage Works. It’s quite a job to have landed and a big increase in pay. He asked me if I was going to have any more children. I said, ‘No, we’ve oneof each and they’re fine and we’re happy with that,’ and he said, ‘Excellent. Keep taking the precautions,’ and I said, ‘I will!’
    I must say we are lucky. Em is lovely and Gray is very bright.
    She didn’t think Jen was clever enough to deduce from that that Gray wasn’t at all lovely, and they weren’t sure if Em was bright.
    Things are going very well at the hotel. Nick was very bucked this week. The local rag called it ‘The jewel in the Throdnall crown’. The manager has to retire next month, he’ll be sixty-five, and Nick has high hopes of promotion. We’ll see.
    Sorry this is so brief. Where does all the time go?
    Lots of love from us all to you all.
    Alison (and Nick, of course)
    Jen didn’t send letters, just cards and an odious round robin at Christmas. ‘Craig is the best outside half Mr McWilliams has ever seen at seven years old. We gave Kelly a violin for her fourth birthday. Mrs Carstairs says you can’t hold a prodigy back.’
    She dreaded the day when Craig and Kelly would turn up on their gap years with their gap teeth and their outdoor smiles and their irritating suntans and their bloody violins and rugby balls.
    Well, she’d have a shock for them. She’d be their Uncle Alan.
    She tried to make the table look stylish with flowers and candles, although she knew that on the rare occasions when he cooked Nick did that sort of thing much better.
    The room still looked bare, without any pictures on the walls,and that scratty sub-Laura Ashley wallpaper would have to go, and it was a pity there still weren’t any curtains to draw, but never mind, they’d make their own atmosphere.
    Nick brought roses, lovely roses, kissed her on the cheek, said, ‘Nice day?’, and she found it so difficult to resist replying, ‘Not bad. Bought some blouses. Decided to change sex. You?’, but all she said was, ‘Quiet. How about you?’
    â€˜Not bad. Brian remembered