The Disputants.

Tags

Censorship, E.U.S.A. Presidency, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University, EUSA, Freedom of Speech, Humor, Identity Politics, President of E.U.S.A., Students, Transgender, Transphobia

A taxi came before dawn, with Reggie already seated in it, to collect Pippa. This early in the morning, they both looked eerily blank, as if the consciousness hadn’t begun to fully circulate in them yet. Pippa had immediately rolled around her face so that it gazed out of the window, as level as a shelf. Reggie stared straight ahead and only his fingers moved, dancing tremblingly on his knees.

Had he more energy, he would have dredged up a ghostly, early-morning voice and asked Pippa whether she had done anything to get ready for their encounter. But he doubted that she would have answered. She always grew offended by the idea of preparing for things. She held that spontaneity had a kind of magical power to it whereas formal preparation would never get you anywhere.

In his mind he had moved on to replying to what she would have said, were she speaking. This woman, Janet Harristane, would have been rehearsing for this morning for days. She would have been posing like Napoleon in front of her dresser mirror, her face blazing like a beacon, as she breathlessly delivered what she imagined to be perfect, world-destroying putdowns. She would be enormously overexcited about this morning. By contrast, Pippa was just winging it. She was presuming that in the chemistry of her encounter with Mrs Harristane, she would simply come off the better.

Pippa had assured Reggie that she had slept for a whole three hours. She was so gaunt that it looked as if she hadn’t slept since Christmas. Reggie took situations as they came and he had only had a couple of dizzying gulps of sleep himself. But the recklessness of Pippa’s capering around the clock made him nervous. If more was at stake – if Pippa and Mrs Harristane had had to fight a duel with rapiers this morning – then Pippa would have paced about, fretting and impatient, throughout the night. She would have turned up bug-eyed and with her hair sticking out in wisps and tripping over her own feet with confusion.

She would not let herself doze in the taxi and nor would she allow the headlamps of her mind to rest on the forthcoming encounter. The only sign that Reggie could see that she was apprehensive was that she had apparently forgotten about the existence of cigarettes. Usually she would be rolling her second or third one by this time.

When they arrived at the building, it looked as dead asleep as every other building that they had seen that morning. But once they were inside a smiling lady had appeared immediately to collect them. She congratulated them on finding the building and then they trailed after her, all the way up some stairs and down an unbearably prolonged and featureless corridor to a waiting area. Here the space suddenly opened up. There were low swivel chairs for people to slump themselves in and low disc-shaped tables, as thin as wafers, for them to place their coffees on.

The morning had already deposited Mrs Harristane here. She was trying to sit up uncomfortably in one of the low chairs and wearing her coat and scarf in such a way as to announce that she was refusing to be parted from them. Reggie had nodded pleasantly but Pippa had veered away like a shark at the mere sight of her. Reggie and Pippa had assumed that somebody, some underling, would rush up to offer them coffee and they were both peering about into the different corners of the interior in anticipation.

All at once, Mrs Harristane had lumbered upright. She was staring at Pippa, agape. “My word? Tori?”

Reggie did not know what to say. The effect was so eerie that it was like one of those moments when the universe has missed a breath and it seems to be choking.

Pippa had frozen for a moment and then swung away again. “For fuck’s sake, she thinks I’m fucking Tori,” she muttered.

Reggie was bewildered. Tory was a person? He had hitherto only heard “Tory” being hissed at people as a term of abuse. He had turned to Mrs Harristane to try to address the confusion but he instead found that she was rapidly explaining it to him. “Of course, how foolish of me. I last saw Tori… I don’t know, it must have been about fifteen years ago. She wouldn’t look the same now as she did back then. But goodness, it is striking the similarity.”

“Tory is a… a relative?” Reggie prompted her.

“She wanted to be the Conservative candidate in the election… I cannot mind which one now. My sister June interviewed her but she didn’t think she was appropriate. There was another panel, which I was on, and we interviewed her. I thought she was very impressive…” Mrs Harristone had stopped self-consciously. She evidently found it disorientating to have been beamed – almost as a physical fact – so far back into the past, so early in the morning. Pippa remained standing some way off, with her back to Mrs Harristane.

The producer reappeared, smiling, and she waved them together into a huddle. They were on in under ten minutes. They were to mute their phones and she offered to take anything off them that rustled or jingled. Pippa did not surrender her single front-door key whereas Mrs Harristane produced what appeared to be the keys to an entire farm, all hanging from a metal hoop and looking strangely like the feathers of a squashed bird.

“Let us play a game,” the producer proposed. “This will help us to relax and warm up and build some rapport.” Pippa glared as if her face was stinging whilst Mrs Harristane looked dubious about the wisdom and dignity of them attempting to search for any rapport.

“So let’s speak about the furthest that we’ve ever gone east. I’ll go first. The furthest I’ve ever gone east is Krakow. That’s the furthest I’ve ever got. It’s sad I know, the faces are still white, there’s still no spice in any of the food. Shows what a boring life I’ve had. But I would love to go to India one day…”

It had struck Reggie that he had not yet heard a sound from the radio show. He had thought that it would be playing proudly and anthemically from everywhere all around the building, from over a tannoy system. He had consulted Pippa about Good Morning Edinburgh when the programme had first been in contact with them. Quite inevitably, neither of them had even heard of it before, let alone listened to it.

 “Newcastle,” Pippa snapped. “I went to some clubs there once. I don’t have any time to go abroad – or any money – what’s the fucking point?”

The producer smiled, still brightly but with a small tinge of distress.

Reggie could not begin to envisage who would be tuning into them this morning. You would overhear such a show now and again, when you were riding in a random taxi or when you were waiting in a café for your drink and a radio was playing in the kitchen. But in these situations nobody was actually listening to the radio. It was being more provided as a reassurance that society was still continuing somewhere out there, along with a vague sense that you were still in contact with it.

Mrs Harristane found that she had to think through her answer. “You see the furthest east I’ve ever been is… Edinburgh, I suppose. I know what you’re imagining but I’m not trying to be clever. I travelled with my husband on a round-the-world package, Istanbul, Thailand and then San Francisco and the Big Apple…” She then looked awed by the idea of the planet being round, as if it had somehow bolted out of the flat maps on which it was normally kept.

“This is SO STUPID!” Pippa screamed.

Very bravely the producer was still smiling. “Ah, they are signalling to me. It is our time…” She had opened a characterless-looking white door, a door that none of them had until now seen was there and that she seemed to have conjured out of the wall. Now she was steering Pippa and Mrs Harristane inside.

As soon as the door had shut on Pippa, a number of thoughts came blindingly to Reggie. I want to chew gum, he realised hungrily, I want to chew on something. He had a long strip of gumballs bundled up in his jeans pocket that looked like one of those belts that are fed through submachine guns. He dragged some of it out and disengaged two of the capsules from it and threw them into his already-chomping mouth.

Next he thought, I want to fuck. The door that had closed on Pippa had left him alone with his desire and as he chewed his gum it fell into a rhythm, already in his mind, of a clock ticking down. He wanted to fuck a girl, any girl, before the door opened again.

The producer was still standing beside him. He peeped at her slyly. Not bad, he thought, she was in her late forties at least and probably unlikely to jump at the prospect of sex with him, but he had to do something, even if it was only talking, just so he had the feeling that he was doing something. The clock was ticking down.

“Hey,” he spun around and threw out his hands. “Can we watch the recording? You have a room where we can watch?”

She smiled back at him, apparently glad to have something fresh to organise. “Sure, it’s this way. We can watch but please don’t disturb the studio director. If you have some paper or something to hand, I can ask Andy to autograph it for you if you like?”

She led Reggie to a second door, a little stretch up from the first, and opened it for them both. Inside there were three heavy chairs facing a long glass window, a layout that to Reggie’s mind faintly resembled that of a lizard house in a zoo. To Reggie’s annoyance, the man who had glanced at them as they entered, a clearly administrative man in thick spectacles, was seated in the middle chair. He blinked and nodded as the producer put a thumbs-up to him but he did not look at Reggie any further.

What was unsettling about this studio was that there were so few people on the ground here. It was near to resembling a séance, a tiny conspiratorial cell whose incantations would connect with thousands and thousands of spirits, teeming invisibly on the air.

The producer pointed Reggie to the chair nearest the door. He had wanted for her to sit down in the farthest seat, with him standing beside her, but dutifully he slid himself into this chair instead. He chewed his gum lustily and pulsated within his clothes.

He was aware that other voices were coming into the room but they seemed to be being piped in over their heads, as though a feat of ventriloquism was taking place.

“… so next: is it important that controversial issues are discussed on our university campuses? Or should we ensure that everybody feels welcome and safe? With us are two guests who don’t quite see eye on eye on these questions. Janet Harristane is an agony aunt for the Daily Express, who has been accused of trivialising the needs and experiences of sufferers of gender dysphoria. After a troubled trans teen who wrote to her column had ended their life, she expressed remorse and renewed her Catholic faith. But when she was invited to a debate organised by the Edinburgh University Catholic Students’ Union, pressures from the student body caused her to be disinvited again. Janet Harristane, we give a big Good Morning Edinburgh to you.”

“Oh.” This was after a long and startled pause. “Oh, thank you!” She had clearly missed the beach ball he had thrown her.

“Pippa Blackwood is the elected president of E.U.S.A, the Edinburgh University Student Association. She has campaigned for Janet to be banned from across Edinburgh University, for – and I quote – “inciting hate and denying the right of trans people to exist.” Pippa Blackwood, we give a big Good Morning Edinburgh to you.”

“Thank you Andy.”

Andy had been speaking with a very careful, cobweb gentleness but his eyes shone watchfully. Reggie imagined that if he had been listening to this on a radio, without any idea of what Andy had looked like, then he would have still pictured or somehow divined those shining eyes.

He thought that it must be difficult for anyone in Andy’s position to get the tone right at this time of the morning. Too cheerful and your listeners would start the day irritated; too gloomy and they would turn over in their beds and go back to sleep. Possibly after years of minor tweaks and recalibrations, Andy had settled on the voice that he had now. Gentle, perplexed and only faintly or tastefully gladdening.

Gently, this voice had lifted Mrs Harristane into the air, like those invisible ropes that allow performers to fly in pantomimes. She already sounded flustered and her own voice seemed to be losing all of its spirit and wherewithal as it talked. Hers was exposed horribly as an untuned and ineptly scraping instrument when compared to the very careful, very measured gentleness of Andy’s.

“These students… well, I mean… it’s all very well and good but when I was their age lots of young men went into the army. That was a normal thing back then – I mean everyone thought it was a natural thing for the young to do – a place for them to cool off. And they had to be in great danger and sometimes they died. I have friends whose children died defending the Falkland Islands. And now I’m hearing that young people cannot cope with words, with hearing ideas and words that they don’t like. It’s bewildering to me. It’s like I’m not visiting a university in my own country. I’m visiting another planet.”

Reggie chewed his gum and pulsated. Glancing swiftly at the studio director, he saw that he was totally absorbed in the discussion within the glass tank. Reggie wanted to unbuckle and pull down his jeans (there was nothing underneath) and then nod to the woman standing beside him to start jerking his penis. A giddiness fluttered over him, like the wings of an unseen dove, and his head swam deeply. Only a single thread of his fibre was left to snap and then he would plunge.

He bridled, dismayed. The producer had walked away from his chair to consult with the studio director.

Andy was chuckling softly. “Another planet, eh Pippa Blackwood? What do you say to that?”

“It’s HER who’s ANOTHER PLANET Andy. Maybe she should stay in the Falklands War WHERE SHE BELONGS. She COMES WADDLING onto our campus, where she’s NOT WELCOME and NEVER INVITED and she’s menacing EVERYONE WHO’S TRANS with her VILE, RANCID, REALLY ABSOLUTELY VILE… it’s not funny actually, it’s actually not funny…”

“Hi, er…” Reggie had raised a finger and he then realised furiously that he must have looked like a schoolchild.

The producer looked around at him in confusion.

“Is there a person outside who sells coffee?”

There would be some bored girl standing behind a counter yawning. There would be a cupboard or a storage area or something with shelves that he could hurry them into.

 “Coffee… er? Yes, there’s a cafe downstairs. Not sure it’s open…”

 “With a girl there?”

The producer gazed at him. Reggie’s face continued to hang stupidly, unflinchingly.

Meanwhile, Mrs Harristane was now squeaking and snorting so abruptly that she could have been living her last seconds. Suavely, and with only a pinprick of concern, their host released her back into the discussion.

“This isn’t somebody from any university I’ve heard of. A scholar – a student? She shouldn’t be allowed to even clean the windows!”

 “I AM THE ELECTED REPESENTATIVE OF THIRTY THOUSA…”

“Pippa,” Andy chimed in sorrowfully, “if you will allow Mrs Harristane to respond…”

“I have worked for over twenty years as a professional agony aunt. I have corresponded with thousands of young people who you may call “trans” – whatever gobbledygook that is – but who I call highly disturbed and extremely unhappy…”

 “ONE OF THEM KILLED THEMSELVES…”

The producer spun around as if she had been bitten. “Mute her mic!”

“She doesn’t need a mic,” the studio director pointed out. “She’s doesn’t even need the electricity.”

“That is defamation,” Mrs Harristane warned. “The inquest found no connection between my column and…”

“I don’t wish to get into that.” Andy was labouring to smooth things over again. “There are sensitivities here and I should remind our listeners that if they are affected by any of the issues in this discussion, there is a list of numbers that can offer them support on our website. Go on, Mrs Harristane.”

“This jumped-up little miss says she represents the students. But does she actually represent these “trans” people of hers? Does she know even the first thing about them? Does she actually know a single person in this sad and extremely unfortunate condition?”

There was a moment of silence and then it was leaning into just too much silence. A detectable hesitation.

“I represent all the students, of all genders and sexes,” Pippa blustered. Mrs Harristane laughed nastily. The realisation had shot into Pippa’s eyes like tiny goggling dots that she had to do something – anything – to regain the initiative. “What trans people DON’T NEED is a RANCID OLD CATHOLIC, with all of your WEIRD BRAINWASHING who wants that NOBODY EVER HAS SEX. This is all your TWENTY YEARS of GRAND ADVICE. You RANCID, HATE-FILLED, SEX-HATING… aye, SO-CALLED ADVICE from a PAEDOPHILE CHURCH!”

Andy’s mouth had opened but it seemed to be blocked and moving as if it was underwater. The producer had windmilled her arms and the studio director had flung himself down on a button and now jaunty, celebratory music was crashing over the studio. There was another crash. Pippa had broken out of the white door and she was raging down the corridor, weeping. She waved to collect Reggie as she passed him.

“…that FUCKING RANCID OLD BITCH!”

“It was good Pippa,” Reggie urged. He wondered why he was running and next he did not know where they were both racing to. “You got everything across really well.”

“I don’t.” Pippa had stopped and turned to him and she was crying openly. “She’s right. I don’t know anyone who is trans. She’s right.”

I have to think fast, Reggie thought. I have to get her out of here. “Don’t worry, don’t cry Pippa. Don’t cry, come on… this way…”

They passed another area that had opened up, this time into a café layout. Reggie looked at the grey, tired old man in the black apron who was grinding coffee and he shuddered.

“You represent thousands of them,” Reggie told her soothingly. “Don’t listen to what she says, don’t let her get to you.” Hang on, trans? – a little bell was tinkling. “And… ah, in fact… actually I might know a guy who can help us…”

[Previously in this story arc: “The Cashless Cake.“]