Without a Trace by Malcolm Forsythe

Author:Malcolm Forsythe [Forsythe, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Thursday

In the small hours of Thursday morning Gerald Turner awoke from one of the nightmare dreams he’d been having since his father’s suicide. He lay awake in bed, haunted by memories. The memory of his mother’s ravaged face in those last weeks as the cancer destroyed her . . . a face so beautiful a few short months before. The memory of his father’s death leap. And that terrible letter.

As a boy, it had always been a puzzle to Gerald why an attractive young woman like his mother had married his elderly, balding father. When he was thirteen, he asked her.

‘He wasn’t bald when I married him,’ Rachel laughed. ‘Why did I marry him? Well . . . he was kind to me . . . very kind. And I liked him . . . I still do. And . . .’ She gave him an arch look. ‘I was pregnant with you. I needed a husband.’

‘You mean he’s not really my father?’

She hesitated. ‘Quite honestly, darling, I’m not really sure. He certainly could be. And the other candidate vanished with the speed of light when he heard I was preggers.’

‘I don’t like the thought of you . . .’ Gerald’s voice was strained. ‘You and him . . . if he’s not my father . . .’

‘You mustn’t be jealous, you silly boy. There’s nothing to be jealous of.’ She put her arms round him and kissed him on the mouth.

Rachel Turner had longed for a baby daughter. When Gerald was born she satisfied her yearning by dressing him in girl’s clothes. She continued to do so until he was four and even then, for years after, he wore girls’ underwear and went to bed in a nightdress.

There were no girls at the secondary school Gerald attended. The school governors had fought off combining with a girls’ school during successive upheavals in the education system. The absence of girls meant that in school plays female characters had to be played by boys. Gerald Turner, with his feminine looks and slim build, was always one of the boys chosen for a female role. He didn’t mind. He loved acting and he wasn’t embarrassed at playing a female.

Shortly after his fourteenth birthday he played Juliet in the school’s production of Romeo and Juliet. It was a turning point for Gerald. He discovered he not only loved acting—he loved dressing up as a girl.

The pleasure of wearing female apparel soon turned into a fixation. He started dressing in his mother’s clothes and parading about in them when he was alone in the house.

One day Rachel came home unexpectedly and found him in her bedroom wearing one of her outfits. Gerald began stammering excuses.

‘It’s all right, darling,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind you wearing my clothes if you want to.’ She eyed him critically. ‘Actually, they fit you rather well.’

He looked at her in astonishment. ‘You really don’t mind?’

‘Of course not. I know how much you like it.’

‘You mean you knew?’ Relief flooded over him.

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