what Kitty had said, that day in Stamford Hill - that I was too much like a boy.
192
I remembered Mrs Dendy's reaction, when I had posed for her in trousers: She's too real. The very suit that I had worn then -the blue serge suit that Walter had given me on New Year's Eve - was here, beneath my bed,
MBT Wave, still crumpled in the sailor's bag with all the other costumes that I'd taken from the Brit, I slid from the mattress and drew the bag free, and in a moment I had all the suits upon the floor. They lay about me, impossible handsome and vivid in that colourless room: all the shades and textures of my former life, with all the scents and songs of the music hall, and my old passion,
MBT Raha, in their seams and creases.
For a second I sat trembling: I feared the memories would overcome me,
mbt outlet, and set me weeping again. I almost returned the costumes to the bag - but then I took a breath, and willed my hands to steady and my dampening eyes to dry. I placed my hand upon my breast - upon the heaviness, and the darkness, that had so strengthened me.
I picked up the blue serge suit and shook it. It was horribly creased, but apart from that not damaged at all by its confinement to the bag. I tried it on, with a shirt and a neck-tie. I had become so thin that the trousers sagged about my waist; my hips were narrower, my breasts even shallower, than before. All that spoilt the illusion of my being a boy was the foolish, tapered jacket - but its seams had not been cut, I saw, only tucked and sewn. There was a knife on the mantel that I used to slice my bread; I seized it, and applied it to the stitches. Soon the jacket was its old, masculine self again. With my hair trimmed, I thought, and a pair of proper boy's shoes upon my feet, anyone - even Kitty herself! - might meet me on the streets of London, and never know me for a girl, at all.
There were one or two obstacles to be overcome, of course, before I could begin to put my daring plan into practice. Firstly, I must properly reacquaint myself with the city: it took another we