Colette Kirkby
Point of View
For the most part, Colette’s narrative is in a standard first person, past tense mode. However, when talking about Natasha or describing events at which Natasha was also present, she slips into present tense and refers to Natasha in second person: “you come into the room”, for example, rather than “she came into the room”.
Personal Data
Full Name
- Colette is always rather vague, when she is prepared to discuss the matter at all, about the reasons behind choosing Colette as her true name. She claims to have no recollection of having thought of herself by any other name (which is more or less accurate) but she has never let on about Colette being the name given her by the strange little girl she met at the swing park one summer’s day back in July 1966. “I shall call you Colette, it suits you much better,” she had said.
- Galadriel (we may safely assume) she took from Lord of the Rings.
- Kirkby (as in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire) is a place Colette associates with happy childhood memories. She, however, pronounces it with the middle “k” replaced by a glottal stop, rather than being entirely silent, and with the vowel sounds noticeably clipped.
Previous Name
Colette, without necessarily knowing why, was never comfortable with the name “Graham” and never understood how her parents could have made such a ghastly mistake in giving it to her in the first place. Only once her true name had been revealed to her did she begin to comprehend though it was not until around 1983 that she would officially change her name to what it is now.
Jason's assertion that she had previously been called Charles was untrue and we must assume it was, indeed, intended as a wind up.
Alternative Name
Colette sometimes uses her maternal grandmother’s name where a Japanese name feels more appropriate but there is something much deeper and more profound going on than that: something so personal between the two of them that I (Natasha) would never dare ask her to reveal.
Racial or Ethnic Origin
It is through her maternal grandmother, Takako Miyazaki, that Colette is one-quarter Japanese. From her grandmother, Colette learned to speak Japanese and about many other aspects fo Japanese culture. The rest of her is pure Yorkshire, more or less. She is equally proud of both sides of her heritage.
It should be noted, however, that Colette’s maternal grandfather, Walter Langford, lived his whole life in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire and considered himself to be an East Midlander — something that he was never ashamed to impress upon Colette. Now, whilst there is, perhaps, a case to be made at the cultural level, me duck, the fact remains that Walter’s parents were both Elmetian Fae, born and raised in the West Riding.
Date of Birth
Colette rarely tells anyone exactly how old she is or when her birthday is. This reluctance may, in part, be ascribed to her innately private nature but it is also part of a deliberate guard against anyone, by chance or design, making a connection to her former identity. It seems likely, in any event, that she does not celebrate her birthday in any conventional sense and that, if she marks the day at all, she does so by herself with some special ceremony at home.
The years, apparently, do not lie heavily upon her as Jennifer puts her age at only “mid to late twenties”. The glib and rather misleading answer she normally gives to satisfy casual curiosity about her age is that she does not remember having seen the 1966 World Cup Final. This is only true in as much as she does not remember seeing it for the simple reason that she did not see it but, otherwise, 30 July 1966 is a day etched upon her memory in such vivid detail that it might have happened yesterday: the day she first knew that she was Colette. A birthday of sorts.
Place of Birth
Circumstances of Birth
Friday the Thirteenth...
Gender Identity
Colette regards herself, first and foremost, as female (and has done for almost as long as she can remember) and conducts her day-to-day life on that basis without a second thought; her former identity she thinks of only as an “accident of birth” that has now been rectified. Whilst she might once have wished also to put behind her the notion of being transgender — and, even now, will only reluctantly discuss the details of her own situation with those she considers her closest friends — internally she is not only reconciled to the fact but embraces it as an important and positive aspect of who she is. Though it may sometimes be difficult and go against her better judgement, Colette will not now, when push comes to shove, shy away from standing up and being counted as transgender.
Pronouns
Colette, rightly, will take offence if you deliberately and knowingly misgender her with masculine pronouns (he/him/his), even if referring to a time when you might have known her in her birth identity. She will correct you, politely and as discretely as the circumstances permit but do it again and your card is marked. Even the use gender-neutral pronouns, once you have been told that she prefers feminine ones, might be interpreted as a deliberate and hostile erasure of her identity.
Sexual Orientation
Perhaps due to her social anxiety issues, Colette has never had any romantic or sexual partners and would probably identify as aromantic and/or asexual were it not for the fact she is insufficiently concerned about the matter to give a name to her lack of such feelings. Nevertheless, Jason believes (or at least wants others, including Jennifer herself, to believe) she has a crush on Jennifer even though there is no real evidence to back this up. She is close to Jennifer, certainly, but only because she is one of the few people Colette is relatively comfortable being around, one of even fewer she is actually prepared to trust.
When we first meet Colette, however, she is only hours away from the beginnings of intimate sexual relationships, first with me (Natasha) and then with Kumiko. Not that this, necessarily, will invalidate her asexuality for, as I later explain to Victoria C, ours is a relationship that “entirely transcends the standard models of sexuality”. In other words, Colette — without ever once thinking of us as sophisticated sex toys — is comfortable being intimate with us very much because we are robots. It remains doubtful that she will ever go on to develop such feelings for other humans, even Jennifer.
Relationships
Footnotes
(1) At the time of Colette's birth, Sheffield was still considered to be part of the West Riding of Yorkshire.
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