‘Of course,’ said Pylyp. ‘Goodbye, then. Kiss Ustym Karmaliuk for me.’ And with that, he hung up the call before Beverley could even say another word, leaving her a little stunned.
‘Charming,’ she muttered, but nevertheless, she reached down and did exactly what he had asked, resting her lips on Ustym Karmaliuk’s shell for a few moments and ignoring the insistent chiming of the bell, which rang through the house, echoing off the empty spaces and making her feel more alone than ever.
ABSENCE IS PRESENCE
Unlike the reception area, Jeremy’s office was a testament to good taste, with a bespoke wooden KARE desk, a pair of floral armchairs from Anthropologie and a sequence of framed album covers on the wall, displayed to suggest that he might be a boring old solicitor but he still liked to kick it big time with the kids. The two men took a seat opposite each other, manspreading with such ferocity that a sturdy bridge could have been constructed between their crotches.
‘Before we get started,’ said George, holding up his right hand like an Indian chief in a fifties Western, ‘tell me that I’m not going insane.’
‘You’re not going insane,’ replied Jeremy.
‘Your receptionist out there. You used to have a chap called Aidan, didn’t you? Your new girl told me that he never existed. But I’m certain that I remember him. Or have I completely lost it?’
‘Ah,’ said Jeremy, nodding his head. ‘Technically, you’re correct. Or, technically, she’s correct. One of you is technically correct but, honestly, I’m not sure which one.’
‘I’m not following you.’
‘That, in fact, was Aidan at the reception desk,’ explained Jeremy.
‘But that was a girl.’
‘Indeed. The thing is, Aidan now identifies as female and has asked that we call her Nadia. She’s, you know, transitioning. Or rather he’s transitioning. I think that’s right, isn’t it? He’s transitioning into a she? Or have I got it wrong? Was she always a she? To be honest, the whole thing’s a minefield. All I know is that I keep using the wrong pronoun and, every time I do, you’d think that I was expressing support for a campaign of ethnic cleansing.’
‘That was Aidan?’ asked George, leaning forward, his mouth dropping open in surprise. ‘That girl out there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, now,’ he said, shaking his head as he considered this. ‘I have to say, he’s done a bloody good job of it. I never would have guessed. He looks just like a girl. Quite an attractive girl too.’
‘You can’t say that.’
‘What, I can’t say that she’s attractive? But she is!’
‘No, you can’t say that he looks just like a girl. There is no he. There’s just a she. And she doesn’t look like a girl, she is a girl. Although, yes, you probably shouldn’t comment on her physical appearance either. You need to think before you speak these days, George, or they’ll come after you.’
‘They being?’
‘The Wokesters.’
‘The what?’
‘People that are, you know, constantly alert to every injustice in society, every perceived slight, and who are just desperate to let you know when they’ve found one. They seek them out with all the urgency of truffling pigs.’
‘My daughter’s dating a chap like that,’ said George, adopting a forlorn expression. ‘He has terrible body odour. I don’t know how she can stand it. He told me recently that he’d forced UCL to withdraw an invitation to a visiting American professor simply because he’d once served in the Bush administration.’
‘Oh, he sounds terribly Woke.’
‘The poor man wasn’t even a Republican and had written a book defining some of George W.’s worst crimes. But the fact that he’d served at all was enough to make him persona non grata. In my day, we would invite people we didn’t like to our campuses and then debate them. Put the bastards in their place. Not just ban them from the outset. It’s cowardly. And shows a shameful lack of oratorical skills.’
‘I think it’s called de-platforming.’
‘I’m sorry, but that’s not a real word so I won’t entertain it.’
‘Then you’re not Woke.’
‘I’ll have you know, I was Woke when everyone else was still napping.’
‘You do have a good track record on this, it’s true,’ admitted Jeremy. ‘Didn’t you name one of your sons after Lech Wałęsa?’
‘No, Nelson Mandela.’
‘Oh yes. Very Woke.’
‘And I named the other one after a Greek homosexual.’
‘Even Woker.’
‘Of course, I left Beverley to choose our daughter’s name.’
‘Ah,’ said Jeremy. ‘Well, that’s not Woke.’
‘Why not?’
‘The man choosing the sons’ names but leaving the girl to the mother? That’s not Woke at all.’
‘Well, all I remember is that I was awake every night with that girl when she was a baby,’ he said. ‘The boys weren’t much trouble, but Elizabeth screamed the house down for about a year. In that regard, she hasn’t changed much. She named her after Elizabeth Taylor, you know.’
‘Wonderful actress.’
‘No, the writer.’
‘Well, who’s to say?’
‘Beverley is. She insists upon it. But anyway, getting back to Aidan—’
‘Nadia.’
‘Yes, Nadia. When did this all happen?’
‘It’s been in the pipeline for quite some time now, as far as I can tell. But Nadia herself only started coming into work a few weeks ago. Aidan left on a Friday at five o’clock as usual and Nadia turned up the following Monday shortly before nine with a look on her face that said, One word and I’ll have HR down on you like a ton of bricks. Still, she seems happy with her decision, so good for her. No, not her decision, her choice. No, hang on, I don’t think I can say that either, can I? It wasn’t a choice. Her authentic self, that’s what I mean. She seems happy with her authentic self.’
‘Can one even say happy? Or self? Or with?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Can one use recognizable words at all or even speak in syntactically correct sentences?’
‘It’s risky.’
‘Well, good luck to her, I say,’ said George with a shrug. ‘Whatever gets you through the day is fine by me. But I don’t see why she couldn’t have just told me that when I was out there rather than making me think that Aidan never existed. For a man my age, it suggests early onset Alzheimer’s. How was I to know?’
‘You weren’t.’
‘As it happens, I’m on her side. Or, to be more honest about it, I couldn’t care less what she does or how she presents herself. I have enough problems in my own life without dealing with hers too. But why not just say, Actually, Mr Cleverley, you knew me as Aidan over the last few years, but I’ve realized that’s not the identity for me, and I’d appreciate it if you would call me Nadia from now on. Would that be so difficult? It just feels to me like she wants to be able to tell people that I didn’t acknowledge her existence.’