Sex and Other Changes Read Online Free PDF Page B

his name Jolomo. Another was a windswept picture of Bernie’s beloved Dales by Richard Bolton. The fourth was a Hungarian landscape by Ferenc Gulyas, Nick’s assistant manager. It was too tortured for a sitting room, but he had come round with it as a surprise present for their twentieth anniversary, and he might come round again, so they felt they had to hang it.
    â€˜I’ve something to read to you, old girl,’ said Nick.
    Alison hated that phrase. She was only thirty-nine, for God’s sake, and soon she would begin the process of ceasing to be a girl. She knew that it was a reflection, probably unconscious, of something his father used to say, but oh Lord it was patronising, it was so slippers and leather patches on the elbows, so oldest member of the public school common room, so coated with the dust of a blessedly forgotten England.
    He picked up a broadsheet, cleared his throat, and began to read.
    â€˜ “Hope for sex change whelks”.’
    She gawped at him. She felt that she must have looked like a mullet that has got stranded on the North York Moors. Her first thought was that he had discovered that she was planning a sex change; maybe he had found one of the books that she had borrowed from the library. She’d thought they were safe enough in the dark cupboard behind the flour and the bicarbonate of soda – he never baked – but he must have discovered them.
    â€˜ “Spare a thought for the sex-change dog whelks”,’ he read. ‘ “Tomorrow will decide their fate.” ’
    â€˜How long have you known?’ she asked.
    â€˜Known?’ he said. ‘I don’t quite know what you mean. About the whelks? Only since last week when I read about them and, I don’t know, I thought maybe if I introduced the subject via whelks, because this isn’t at all easy for me, Alison, and I know it’s not going to be easy for you, that it might make it a little easier. I think you can guess what I’m driving at. Don’t make it too difficult for me, Alison.’
    Fury followed her amazement. It hadn’t taken her long to realise that he was telling her that
he
was planning to change sex. She just couldn’t believe it. Her mind was in a whirl. She felt outraged that he could have so little understanding of what she had been thinking, so little knowledge of her. She was damned if she’d make this easy for him.
    â€˜Go on,’ she said grimly.
    â€˜Go on?’
    â€˜About those poor whelks.’
    He didn’t want to go on. The whelks had served their purpose, or rather they had failed to serve their purpose. They hadn’t made things easier. He wanted to get it all over and done with.
    â€˜Read on,’ she commanded. ‘It’s interesting.’
    â€˜ “Representatives of the world’s governments are meeting to decide whether to ban a chemical used to coat the bottoms of ships which is causing female dog whelks to grow penises, thus endangering the species. The chemical is also building up in other sea life and has been found in people who eat fish.” ’
    â€˜I’ll never go to the Throdnall Whaler again.’
    â€˜Alison! Take this seriously! Please!’
    â€˜I
am
taking it seriously, Nick. I’m devastated for those poor whelks. Go on. You can’t stop now. I’m riveted.’
    What could he do?
    â€˜ “Dog whelks, which mainly live on beaches between the high and low tide marks, have long been one of Britain’s commonest seaside creatures. But they have disappeared from large areas because of their bizarre transformation.
    â€˜ “Scientists collecting whelks discovered to their surprise that they could only find male ones. Close inspection revealed that half were females who had unaccountably grown penises.
    â€˜ “The scientists suspected that tributyltin, the anti-fouling paint most widely used on the hulls of boats and ships, was to blame.