She coped by creating a secret world, tiptoeing into his sister Elizabeth’s room at their 11th-floor flat in Pollokshaws, south of Glasgow. Elizabeth was a year older and her clothes fitted Robert. Picking the moment carefully, he would sneak into his sister’s room and put on her clothes. Dressed in his sister’s clothes, he felt more comfortable and more secure. He liked that feeling. The difficulty was getting to see the result in the bathroom mirror, which was downstairs.
Once, when alone in the flat, Robert was downstairs, checking his outfit in the mirror. Then the sound of an opening door. His dad unexpectedly arrived home from work. Men in 1970s Glasgow never came home early from work. This day his dad did and there was 13-year-old Robert, dressed as a girl. Tights, skirt, top, make-up, the whole shebang. And Bill Millar in the hallway. For God’s sake.
Neither Dad nor Robert said a word. The bathroom door closed quickly. Bill Millar went upstairs. Robert pressed his back to the door.
He hasn’t seen me. He hasn’t said anything. I’ve got away with it. He began removing everything. De-girling. Clothes gone. Face scrubbed.
And then from upstairs, the shout: “Are you finished in there yet?”
Robert ran upstairs, sat on his bed and waited. It was late when his father finally came to his bedroom. A man wrestling with words and struggling. He could have said: “You know, I saw you dressed as a girl today, Robert.” He could have said: “What the f* are you playing at, kid?” He could have said: “No son of mine ”
Instead, Bill tried to understand. Tried his best to express something soft through the awkwardness of a working-class Glaswegian man in the 1970s. “You’re going through puberty, adolescence. We all went through it. It’s a natural time. It’s confusing too.”
And his son, the boy who wants to be a girl, isn’t relieved to hear the pastoral tone. He’s crawling under his bedsheets. It’s excruciating. Oh Jesus. Don’t, Dad. Anything but this. Be angry even, but not this.
Bill confirms that he and Mum have had a talk. Oh, no, he’s told my mum. Oh Jesus. What’s she gonna say? Why the f* would you tell her?
“So, your mum and I, we don’t want you to worry. You’re a good wee lad. And this is just a thing that you’re going through. As I said, lots of people go through it. Puberty and all that.”
And then: “I went through it. Yes, when I was growing up, I was a bit confused as well.”
Robert is thinking: “You’ve dressed as a girl as well? It’s not just me, then? Why didn’t you say that at the start? Maybe it really is just a phase? Maybe I’m not a freak show like they say in the magazines or the papers. My dad was confused as well. It passed for him. Look at him, he doesn’t wear dresses any more. Just look at him. He’s fine now.”
His dad gets up to leave. Bill Millar walks out of his child’s bedroom in Glasgow in the 1970s. Touchy-feely is years away. Man-to-man is all there is, even if one man is a boy whose sole contribution to the conversation has been a mortified grunt. Bill Millar has that face on. The face says, it’s OK, I’ve talked about that. Whatever it was, I’ve talked about it. I’ve dealt with that. I’ve done my bit. I’ve asked you. You’ve listened. I can report back downstairs. Job done.
“So that’s it, son. Yeah. Now go to sleep.” Bill Millar’s footsteps faded down the stairs. Robert lay there, a curled-up comma of a boy, fretting in his bed. Questions he wanted to ask now raised their hands — too late.
His mum never, ever mentions the subject. Nobody ever mentions it again.