Trumpet

A coroner, Dr. Krishnamurty, enters the room with Joss’s body. She removes the bandages wrapped around Joss’s chest, noting his breasts. Examining further, the doctor realizes Joss’s body has other physical characteristics associated with women and rewrites the death certificate to say “female.”

Colman tells the story of his youth to tabloid reporter Sophie. He describes his life as “messed up.” He says the children of famous parents have it rough, especially when they do not possess the same abilities and talents as their parents. Colman concludes that his life has been a series of failures.

Colman says the Glasgow adoption agency was grateful for Millie and Joss, a biracial couple, because they thought it would be difficult to find parents for Colman, who is also biracial. The family moved from Glasgow, Scotland to London, England when Colman was a young boy. They bought the cottage in Torr because it was less expensive than staying in London. Colman says he has keys to the London house and knows where his mother keeps her important documents. He feels he deserves to raid these papers now.

Colman remembers being in Glasgow with his mother when a Black man got on the bus and a white man addressed him with a racial epithet. His mother raged against the white man and then stormed off the bus too soon, making them walk a long distance.

Colman shares that he sometimes felt his father liked his friend Sammy more because Sammy could play the trumpet. He describes his father challenging him to be a well-rounded person; he admired his father when he was young. Ironically, his mother once said the worst thing one could do is lie.

Colman then describes his parents’ relationship. He says he never knew his father’s secret, claiming no man wants to have a lesbian for a father. Still, he wonders what his father had to endure when he was growing up. Colman says Joss had a lifelong loathing of doctors and never went to one. This contributed to Colman being afraid of doctors as well.

After his father died, Colman met the undertaker at the funeral home; the latter asked if he knew Joss’s secret. The novel cuts to the past, with the undertaker leading a clueless Colman to Joss’s body. Colman confronts his mother, and she repeatedly apologizes. Colman says she will be lucky if he decides to attend the funeral—which he does. He describes the service as being a musical celebration where many old band members showed up and cried for Joss.

The novel cuts to the registrar of legal documents, who is seldom surprised by anything. When Millie gives him the documents related to Joss’s death, the registrar believes he is looking at two different people’s information. Finally, he realizes Joss was a man who was assigned female at birth. He treats Millie with deference and curiosity. The registrar allows her to use the name Joss Moody rather than Josephine Moore (Joss’s birth name), though on the death certificate, he notes Joss was female.

Millie receives a second letter from Sophie; it refers to personal information that only Colman would know. She thinks about Colman and what he was like as a young boy. He had terrible tantrums until one day, they stopped. Now that he is a grown man, Millie feels she has no control over him.

Millie’s mother would occasionally stay with her and Joss, which made her anxious—as her mother was condescending to Colman. Millie’s mother had alopecia, which caused bald spots that she tried to conceal. Once, when Joss had the flu, Millie’s mother insisted she take him to the doctor, but Millie refused.

Millie packs away the mementos that remind her of Colman’s youth. When she goes to the butcher’s shop and market, she sees someone who reminds her of Joss. She feels disappointed when it is not him. The locksmith comes in the afternoon to change the locks so Colman cannot get into the Torr house as he can the London house.

Millie feels herself undergoing changes; she loses weight because of her grief. She finds Joss’s final to-do list. The one item he did not check off was: “Write EM. I can’t think who EM is” (92). This causes Millie to realize there were many things about Joss she did not know. He told her only a few things about himself, including his birth name being Josephine. Millie wonders what it was like for Joss to be a young girl. She recalls another dream in which she sees Joss wearing a pinstripe suit. They take a train to Scotland and exchange clothes. For once, Millie dresses like a man and Joss dresses like a woman.

Millie remembers what it was like caring for Joss. For the final three days of his life, she did not sleep at all. She imagines herself walking with him to the edge of life, where she says she can feel him crossing over. Millie opens a bureau and takes out a shoebox full of photographs, looking at one picture after another of Colman. She remembers photos taken at the ocean. Joss would never swim in the sea, always keeping his clothes. When Millie looks at photos of him now, she sees a woman rather than a man.

Albert Holding, the funeral director, is committed to his work. He knows some people are ready to die, while others are not; some grieving families cope better with loss than others. His motto on the uniqueness of each death is “Death hath ten thousand several doors for men to take their exits” (103). Because he often talks about his profession, Albert has lost friends over the years.

Albert pretends that his is a family business because it comforts people. He talks to the corpses and isn’t shocked by death. However, he feels shock upon receiving Joss’s body. As Albert prepares Joss for embalming, he reacts to Joss’s female characteristics. He remembers that Colman wants to see his father and will arrive early. When the young man arrives, Albert attempts to ascertain if he knows his father’s secret. Confused and angry, Colman demands to see Joss. Albert takes him into the next room and shows him the deceased Joss.

The narrative cuts to the past, as Colman describes bringing home a girlfriend, Melanie, for the first time. Like many other characters, Melanie has two names: She was originally named Ruth, but family acquaintances call her Melanie after her older sister who died in infancy. Joss initially responded oddly to her, but taught her to play the trumpet to great success. Colman later broke up with Melanie when she said, “Cole, I think your father’s really attractive. He’s so gentle, so different from other men” (119).

The narrative shifts to Sophie switching off her recorder. She and Colman are having tea in a hotel lounge. Sophie praises Colman and encourages him to share more personal remembrances. Colman expresses self-loathing and privately wishes he was drinking bourbon. He toys with the idea of returning to his parents’ London home to search for his parents’ important documents. Sophie offers to pay his expenses. She asks about a letter Joss left for Colman, asking him to read it to her.

Colman broods about his father’s behavior. These are things he has not shared with Sophie, such as the precise way Joss shaved every day—which he now perceives as his father “mocking” manhood.

Sophie looks at herself in the mirror and acknowledges she is uncertain how to tell Colman’s story. Convinced this story is a sellable book, she wrestles with the title. All her potential titles center on calling Joss a “transvestite” rather than a crossdresser; she admits not knowing the difference between the two. Ultimately, Sophie would like to understand what motivated Joss, and appreciates Colman divulging more details about his father. She wonders how Joss successfully “pretended” to be a man for decades, and why would he do so for the sake of playing music.

Deep down, Sophie feels she is inadequate. She compensates for this by buying designer clothes and believes she deserves riches more than anyone she knows.

A third-person narrator describes Joss playing his trumpet. The writer describes the highs and lows, the sheer ecstasy of playing, and the impact of the music on listeners. Joss used the trumpet as a sort of light-speed travel device, taking him down to the smallest infinite point, then lifting him back up. Through his music, he looks backward at his past. It allows him to go back to when he was a young girl, to the time of his birth, where he sees a midwife bringing Josephine into the world, before cleaning her and handing her to her mother. Joss also goes forward with the trumpet and watches the fingers of the undertaker preparing his body. Meanwhile in the present, the crowds in various clubs call for more because they, too, feel transformed by his music. Joss goes beyond his personal identity to become an expression of eternal concerns, like slavery, the sun, and music itself.