Finding Kevin

by Peter Gifford

Kevin Smiggins had always wanted to be a woman. Not that he knew it, however. He owned a Lone Ranger doll that he played with well into his teens. He wore large glasses. He tried to play football but he got passed over for the team after he kicked the ball with his arms crossed – he was watching the girls play netball on the next field. He spent way too much time in the library.

After school things didn’t really improve in the manliness department. Kevin lived in a small village where everybody knew everybody. For a few years people would point and whisper when he went by, but it wasn’t long before almost everyone had forgotten he existed. Old ladies liked him. He got a job working in a small haberdashery shop, but when old Mrs Field finally died at an ancient ninety-four he found the skills learnt over twenty-two years of dusting shelves and arranging porcelain figures weren’t much in demand. Luckily Mrs Field had no other family and left him the little she had in the world.

Kevin lived in small cottage that was very old and sat on the edge of the village. His living room was below the level of the footpath outside. Often he would sit on the windowledge and watch the occasional pair of feet pass by. One day he noticed a particularly nice pair of heels and without any warning the thought popped into his head: “what would it be like to be a woman?” Kevin suddenly felt good. It wasn’t a shocking thought at all. It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed he was different. He knew he had no interest in settling down with a nice girl, or going down to the pub to rest a pint on his belly and talk about Manchester’s chances in the final. He’d always just accepted that he wasn’t like other men in the village, and left it at that.

But now this new thought had appeared, and it settled down in his head, arranged the cushions in a comfortable kind of way and made as if to stay.

After sitting there for a while (long enough for a pair of working boots to pass by outside on their way to the corner store where Kevin now worked two days a week), another thought appeared. Kevin got up and went upstairs to the attic, where he found the box that held Mrs Field’s things. Out of the box he took a nice tweed skirt, a light blouse and a head scarf. There were a pair of black heels which fitted Kevin perfectly, to his surprise. he put on the things and looked at himself in an old full-length mirror.

Kevin rather liked what he saw. In fact, he felt better than he had in years, better than he thought he ever could feel, in fact.

The next morning Kevin, dressed in a twill calf-length skirt, a cream blouse with a bow at the front, black heels, a warm overcoat and a headscarf tied at the front, left his house and walked tentatively down to the corner shop. It was his day off. The bell rang brightly as he opened the front door and smelled the family smell of tea, fertilizer and pet food. Mr Black stood behind the counter with his back to Kevin as he shuffled carefully inside. “Be with you in a moment” said Mr Black. Kevin suddenly felt very hot under his headscarf, and considered opening the door and running down the street, heels and all. Instead he grabbed a box of wooden clothespegs and put them on the counter, looking up at the tall fat back of Mr Black.

“Righto, now what can I do you for” said Mr Black, as he turned around and looked down at Kevin.

“Packet of crisps please” said Kevin in a funny little squeaky voice.”

Mr Black just looked a little strange in the face, but he put a packet of crisps in a bag with the clothespegs and said “that’ll be fifty-two pee madam.”

Outside, standing on the pavement clutching his packet of crisps and his box of clothespegs, Kevin grinned from ear to ear.