Diary of a Provincial Lesbian (4 page)

‘I don’t understand.’

‘How am I ever going to meet anybody? There’s nowhere in this town. When mother goes I’ll be just another lonely, aging woman. I won’t even have a past worth looking back on.’

‘But why a job at a charity shop?’

‘
You
go there.’

Quelled my instant denial. Swallowed and nodded.

She continued. ‘I’ve noticed quite a few younger lesbians going in there. I’m not talking really young, more your age. Attainable lesbians. So I thought, give it a try Miriam. Nothing ventured etcetera. What do you think?’

I agreed.

Got home late because Miriam insisted on showing me all the clothes she’d bought. Very nice. Saw several articles that I would have bought myself. Tom came in and said, ‘This is not a glorified dress shop and I hope that lots been fumigated.’

That evening wished Georgie was at home to discuss: my meanness of spirit, Miriam’s desperation.

Sat Feb 7th

Nic dropped
Thompson and Morgan
seed catalogue through our letterbox while I was out at the Post Office photographic booth taking my picture for a new passport. Had spent ten pounds fifty on three attempts. First attempt so pale that I looked as if my face was made of ectoplasm and it was peering out from the 'other side’, second attempt and I’m leaning forward, mouth open in the middle of exclamation of ‘Oh blow it’ as flash goes off in my face. Third try, which had to be final as I had no money left, I look like an embittered woman who after leaving booth intends to walk into the sea with a hundredweight of stones in her pockets.

Attached to seed catalogue was a purple post-it note saying, ‘Margaret. Maybe we can reconnoitre in the next few days?’

(Nic’s partner Simone has no interest in gardening except for her annual demand for ‘Colour! Anything but green. We’re surrounded by green and I hate it! I’m a hot pink woman!’)

Look up ‘reconnoitre’. As I thought - t
o survey or inspect an enemy’s position.

Nic and I have surveyed the enemy’s position for the past three years, which means the gardens in our neighbourhood. Nic’s ambition is for
her
garden to win the golden trowel in the Bittlesea Bay Best in Bloom Competition. It is automatically assumed that I will be happy with a Certificate of Distinction. So far Nic’s won the bronze trowel and an Order of Merit for her patio planters.

However this year I have different ideas. I don’t want to enter the competition or spend the summer watering, weeding and worrying. With the help of Deirdre’s woman gardener I’m going to turn my hillside garden into a wildflower meadow.

Georgie coming in from an overnight stay at a Travel Inn in Hemel Hempstead sees Nic’s note and catalogue on the kitchen table and says, ‘It’s great the way she always includes you. Any chance of a coffee?’

Fill kettle mulling over the fact that my loved one’s inability to make herself a cup of coffee is becoming an issue. Wish there was a pleasant way to respond, ‘You know where the kettle is.’

Georgie takes her coffee and a Mars bar up to her office. I take out secret pad of graph paper and secret paperback on how to create your own meadow. Also various colour pencils. Begin sketching.

Feb 9
^th

Travel up on the train to London to visit Laura who is in hospital for a minor operation. Twenty years ago Laura and I worked for Marks and Spencer. She was in charge of ‘men’s socks’, I was 'leisure wear’. It was a happy time only ever spoilt when our conversation was interrupted by customers or a supervisor.

Some days earlier when I’d told Deirdre about the possibility of my hospital visit she’d said with narrowed eyes and an accusatory note to her voice, ‘You’ve had rather a lot to do with the sick and dying over the last year or so, haven’t you?’ as if I was someone with a passion for hanging about hospitals waiting for people to die.

Defensively I’d countered, ‘They often need to talk and I’m a good listener. I’m patient, punctual; bring in a variety of useful and imaginative gifts...’

I’d lost her. She stretched her plump arms above her head and cried, ‘Oh why can’t we all accept death with good grace and just shuffle off when our time comes? Ill people give me the heebie-jeebies, they’re totally self absorbed.’

‘They have to be. They’re going through a gruelling personal experience.’

Deirdre slapped her forehead - a sign of some flash of insight she’s about to share with me. ‘I think at least eighty-five percent of ill people, maybe ninety-five percent, bring illness on themselves by being self absorbed in the first place.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I know so.’ Goes on to list everyone she knows who’s died or nearly died, finding instances of self absorption in every case.

On train I work on A. Oakley’s latest letter to the
Listening Ear.
Subject: what constitutes a successful public lavatory? I itemise: availability, cleanliness, privacy. Man sauntering through ladies’ facilities wielding mop and bucket, shouting ‘anyone need a new roll?’ is untenable. Have any other readers suffered a similar experience?

Feb 10
^th

Laura survives operation. Nurse telephones to say, Laura doing fine but has over-taxed her vocal chords. It seems that Laura has a low pain threshold. Actually nurse says in caustic tone, ‘Laura has a low discomfort threshold’.

Buy book of wildflowers. Begin studying kerbside flora. See daisies, buttercups and dandelions. Cheerful, brightens up the pavement but hardly exciting.

Feb 11
^th

Nic telephones to ask whether I’ve chosen what I want from her catalogue. Say ‘Yes’. She says she and Simone will collect catalogue and my order after dinner this evening.

I retrieve catalogue from paper recycling box and search through for some plant that might possibly suit my hillside meadow. Choose Lady Slipper Orchid, a lily called a Sea Daffodil which seems appropriate to the seaside and also a new variety of Comfrey guaranteed not to become invasive. Go upstairs to back bedroom and role play in front of the full length mirror how I’m going to tell Nic I will not be joining her in the competition this year.

Ploy 1. The dishonest play for sympathy:

Nic, vis a vis the competition I don’t feel well enough to tackle it this year.
Hand loiters around breast bone to signify unspecified weakness.

Whatever’s the matter with you?

Pause. Too tempting of fate for me to imply anything serious in breast bone area;
My right foot’s not what it was.

Nic looks bewildered. Simone and Georgie will cease their own conversation and start listening.

Ploy 2. The dishonest play for sympathy and understanding:

If you don’t mind, Nic, I’ll give the comp a miss - I’d rather like the summer to take time out for reflection.

On what?

I did lose my parents recently.

Surely that was five or six years ago.

And then the guinea pig died.

Did it?

And Samson massacring the little blue tit family nesting in the back wall, last spring.

Did he?

As Deirdre next door says, I’ve had a lot to cope with in the way of the ill and dying.

Have you?

At which point Georgie intervenes,
Take no notice Nic. Of course she’s doing the competition. She’s like this every year, imagines she’s not up to it.

They arrived at eight thirty. All four of us sat down at the kitchen table. Nic, Simone and Georgie were in splendid moods. Georgie loves having her friends dropping in. She becomes warm, generous and... happy. Perhaps we should live in a commune. Gave Nic back her catalogue with my order.

Nic observes, ‘Not very impressive Margaret. You mustn’t be so timid with your garden. Just because you’ve got a one-in-three slope doesn’t mean you can’t be adventurous. It’s a matter of compensating for sunburn, poor irrigation, clay soil, etcetera. I’ll add on a few more. Now when are we off to size up the enemy? Sort out the wheat from the chaff, their weaknesses and their strengths. Yes, top me up Georgie. I love a good drop of red.’

Georgie tops up all our glasses. I lean forward, my arms folded on the table in front of me in what I see as a relaxed pose, ‘The thing is Nic... ’

Simone yawns, looks at her watch, our clock. ‘Someone tell me what the correct time is please?’

‘Eight forty-five’, says Nic. ‘So pick an afternoon. I’m all yours.’

‘But the thing is Nic... ’

Georgie interrupts, ‘The thing is Nic, the bloke next door has asked her to join his Neighbourhood Watch Scheme a couple of afternoons a week, Margaret doesn’t feel she can put in the required amount of time with the gardening.’

Stunned I manage to nod my head, ‘I really can’t this year, Nic. Any watering or weeding you need help with... ’

‘And even that may be a problem. You know, I need the car for work and it’s a good two mile walk to your house,’ Georgie says.

Nic beams. ‘I quite understand. No problem. To be honest I rather fancy having a shot at the prize on my own this year. I feel lucky. Got the bronze. Been there, done that. I say skip silver, go for gold. Mind over matter. I’m visualizing that golden trowel mounted on a dark oak plaque above the lounge fireplace.’

Later when they’ve gone home I ask Georgie how she knew I didn’t want to enter the competition. She said, ‘I heard you practising your speech in the back bedroom. Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t want to do it?’

‘I thought you’d be annoyed. Nic is your best friend.’

‘Nic’s quite capable of winning her golden trowel without any help from you. Just one thing, I wasn’t lying about the bloke next door and the Neighbourhood Watch. He’s popping in next Tuesday about five o’clock to speak to you. You don’t have to say “yes”. You can say “no”.’

But could I?

Feb 12
^th

Georgie off to Argyllshire this morning. As always when setting off to vistas new, she was remarkably cheerful. She says that it wouldn’t do for both of us to get miserable and someone in the family has to maintain a stiff upper lip.

Feb 14
^th

A splendid day! Got up and fed the cats. All in good humour, even Tilly who allowed me to rub the top of her head with my chin after her usual ‘Nood norning’. ‘Nood norning Tilly,’ I said. Must watch this. Could become an embarrassing habit. ‘Nood norning’ is becoming second nature to say while ‘Good morning’ is starting to sound like a greeting in a foreign language. Made cup of tea and allowed myself, as it was a rather special Saturday, to add two chocolate bourbon biscuits. Took this back to bed. Ate both bourbons before tea cool enough to drink. Allowed myself two further bourbons. Opened the bedroom curtains and lay in bed listening for the postman. Ours is a quiet street apart from the seagull cries and I can hear the postman when he is several houses away. He whistles old tunes made famous by singers like Connie Francis and Pat Boone which I imagine could be very irritating for his partner (if he has one), but is useful for alerting those lying expectantly in bed to his proximity.

This morning he was whistling
San Antonio Rose
. Mum used to have this on an LP by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. A very long time ago. I know not how I remembered so much information, I just did. Perhaps some early babyhood memory of Mum dancing round the sitting room on her own.

Up my front steps the postman clumped.
Clump, clump, clump! Clatter!
went the letterbox, followed by a soft thud as the post landed on our patterned coir door mat.

Listened for his retreating
clump, clump, clump
. Once, several years ago I whizzed down to collect the post wearing only bra and pants. Met postman’s startled eyes peering through letterbox at me. Disembodied voice says, ‘This one won’t fit through the box, what shall I do?’ ‘Just leave it on the step please,’ I’d called out before darting hunched into the sitting room. Letterbox clattering shut. Was mortified. Heard postman’s exclamation, ‘Blimey! She’s a big girl!’

Bills, bank statements, a jiffy bag, but yes, there it was. Georgie had remembered - my Valentine’s Day card. Took card and jiffy bag back to bed. Opened card - two ducks sitting next to each other on a squashy red sofa kissing with open beaks. Words:
We’ll always be quacking good friends
and inside,
Love Georgie
. In the jiffy bag was a CD of the soundtrack from La Moulin Rouge which she’d forgotten that she’d liked more than me. I know I shall grow to like it.

Not worth sending Georgie anything and anyway I don’t exactly know where she is. ‘Moving around Argyllshire,’ she’d said vaguely. ‘So pretty much incommunicado. Which doesn’t mean that you’re not in my thoughts, Margaret.’

NB. Did say jokingly, ‘Might be worth buying a pied-à-terre in Scotland, you’re up there such a lot.’

Georgie said, ‘That might not be such a bad idea.’ Of course she was also joking.

Her Valentine Card from me is waiting on her desk. I opted for grey kittens cuddling over a ball of wool. I wrote, ‘Mew, mew, mew - I love you,’ which sounds embarrassingly sentimental but I do believe, in a long term relationship, it pays to work at keeping that romantic spark alive.

Also I’ve bought her a white shirt from Thomas Pink; slightly fitted styling. Next month, March 20th, first day of spring, is our anniversary. I visualize Georgie wearing a pair of black, high waisted, flamenco style trousers and this shirt. Collar open, sleeves turned back from her wrists. ‘Ho-lay!’

Think back to our first ever meeting, Georgie on one bench me on another, Brighton seafront, March 20th 1994. I’d said, ‘Do you think that seagull’s in difficulty?’ and she’d answered, ‘It’s not a seagull it’s a paper bag,’ and we’d both started laughing. At that time Georgie lived in Brighton, I was there on a week’s holiday getting over the break-up of a four week relationship. Georgie was with someone but that was almost over although it took her nearly a year to get completely disentangled and move in with me. She has a heart as soft as butter.