Diary of a Provincial Lesbian (21 page)

‘To Tilly,’ I intone. I do not raise my cup, which is empty.

‘Get ’em out then,’ Deirdre says and I fish Tilly’s box of ashes out of my rucksack.

Say hesitantly, ‘Deirdre, the terrace is rather crowded for chucking ashes hither and thither.’

Deirdre grabs the cardboard box. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Turns to crowded table on other side of us, ‘You won’t mind if we scatter my friend’s cat’s ashes will you?’

Woman with stiff grey perm replies, ‘You will be careful. We don’t

want it flying back over our salads.’

‘Of course we’ll be careful. These ashes mean a lot to my friend, we want them nestling in mother earth not on your lettuce and tomatoes.’

Inside I cannot help starting to shudder with laughter. There is something truly marvellous about Deirdre. At that moment I admire her hugely. Get to my feet. Lick my index finger and test the wind’s direction. It’s in our favour.

‘What should we say?’ Deirdre asks.

‘Nood norning, Tilly.’

‘Oh you and your talking cat. Very well.’

We toss the ashes out over the balustrade. They fly forward in a fine grey shower. ‘Nood norning, Tilly,’ we say together. And then we shout it. We bellow ‘NOOD NORNING, TILL’ so that many feet below us, down on the beach, people look up and start waving. We wave back.

August 18
^th

Trawl through
Lonely Hearts
column in local paper. Have never noticed these before. They’re slotted in between
Situations Vacant
and
Articles for Sale Under Five Pounds
. No
Women wanting Women
or
Men wanting Men
. Not too many
Women wanting Men
. Most of the column taken up by
Men wanting Women
: Read following:

‘Who’ll start the bidding? Stunningly attractive man mid-forties wants to share his peak of condition with like-bodied female. If you’ve got it, why not flaunt it my way?’

Fight urge to leave a sultry voiced message on advertiser's voicemail.

‘I’ll start the bidding. One sack of compost over your BIG HEAD.’

August 19
^th

Take in tomatoes and sweetcorn for Miriam and Tom. Both pleased with tomatoes but seem apprehensive re. sweetcorn.

‘There won’t be any beetles in them?’ Miriam asks. ‘In the supermarket they’re all clean and yellow.’

Reply that there shouldn’t be any beetles. Notice that both Miriam and Tom double knot the carrier bags, no doubt to prevent escaping beetles.

August 20
^th
Very late for TM Accountancy this morning as Lorraine Carter called an urgent staff meeting, which involved not opening Russell’s till quarter past nine instead of nine o’clock. Announced that the store would be closed for ten days during September for a re-fit. ‘Whoopee,’ I whispered under my breath, which LC, who has supersonic hearing, picked up. Announced with gaze drilling into my forehead, ‘Staff with employment record of under six months will not receive salary for that period. I think that’s just you, Margaret.’

Leave store. Make my way through throng of furious customers demanding entry. During sprint to office imagine scenario where I lure Lorraine Carter into a dark cellar. As she makes her way down chilly stone steps the shadows conceal booby trap of mops, brooms and Lorraine’s spare set of golf clubs, positioned half way down. ‘Aargh!’ as LC topples forward. Does not die but, during several days confinement in cellar, reaches an understanding of the more empathetic approach needed with her staff.

Late afternoon set off for my Wheeler’s Watch. It’s raining. Wear storm-proof jacket with the hood up. Do not wear Wheeler’s Watch sash as I’m feeling rebellious. Walking down Stirling Avenue - through the rain I see the familiar figure of Janice coming towards me on the same side of the road. Am about to shout
hello
and wave but before I can do this she crosses over, carries on past me without a single glance.

Could, should have called out to her but have uneasy feeling that she was actually avoiding me.

August 21
^st

Visit Deirdre and Martin. We are not watching a film tonight, we are sitting in ‘the library’. Late yesterday afternoon Deirdre telephoned an antiquarian bookseller and ordered six yards of hardback books with red or green covers and gold lettering. Specification: must be mint condition and no dust. There are four incomplete sets of Dickens and Thackeray, several large tomes by GK Chesterton and the abridged works of Shakespeare.

Take in bottle of port as that seems in keeping with Regency Buck chic. Deirdre says, ‘No, but thank you, I prefer passion fruit but Martin might imbibe.’

Martin does.

Actually, the room looks okay apart from resembling a stage set. Martin wears his dressing gown over silk pyjamas and leather slippers, so he looks exactly the part, but Deirdre, in a kaftan covered with a pink, red and black circular pattern belongs to another theatrical production - say a play set in the nineteen-sixties.

‘What you thinking?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know what I’m thinking yet.’

‘You don’t like it?’

‘I think I like it. I thought you didn’t like books.’

‘They’re not books, they’re interior decoration. I intend to get the cleaner to wipe them over with disinfectant before yacht varnishing them - should facilitate dusting.’

Martin gets between me and Deirdre with the bottle of port and my glass. He is frowning hugely at me and dilating the famous nostrils, which is a signal that I am on dangerous ground.

‘It all looks lovely,’ I say quickly.

‘You don’t mean that,’ says Deirdre.

‘I do mean it.’

‘You don’t. Say what you really think. Go on everyone else has had their four pence worth...’

‘Deirdre, all I was thinking was that the room looked extremely nice in a theatrical way but that you didn’t quite match it...’

Martin pulls the face of one in extreme pain while Deirdre looks furious.

‘Please don’t get angry,’ I say.

‘Actually, I just don’t do anger,’ she says angrily. ‘Why should I have to match?’

‘Of course you don’t have to...’

‘I don’t want to match. If I wanted to match I would match. I’m happy not to match. Other people might want to match, not me!’ Flops back in Regency striped chair and stares furiously at a dingy oil painting of a horse and foal.

‘Stop it Deirdre,’ Martin says.

‘I will not stop it.’ She begins to blink rapidly. ‘It’s true. I don’t match. I don’t match with anything or anybody. Always the odd woman out. The butt of every joke, the fall guy...’

I stand next to Deirdre’s chair (more of a throne) pat her shoulder, ‘Come on Deirdre, I didn’t express myself very well. Why ever should you have to match your furniture? You are you, unique.’

‘You don’t mean that either.’ Pulls miniscule pink handkerchief from sleeve.

‘I do.’

Martin pats Deirdre’s knee briskly. ‘You need a Jaffa Cake.’

Deirdre looks tremulously at Martin. ‘I do. I need a Jaffa Cake. Margaret, I insist you share our Jaffa Cakes.’

August 23
^rd

Book in with Michelle at Hair Today. Watch her in the mirror as she dispiritedly pulls at my lack-lustre locks. Not much left of the aubergine highlights. Does not appreciate my self-styled fringe.

‘You have made a mess,’ Michelle says.

‘Won’t that be a challenge for you? Rather fun?’

Regret the word ‘fun’. Can read in Michelle’s grimace that ‘fun’ is a nasty, uncool word that her nasty, uncool, middle-aged clients use.

‘Doesn’t make my job any easier. What’s it to be this time?’

‘Same again.’

‘The copper tint?’

‘No, the blonde and aubergine highlights.’

This time, while she works on my hair, I receive a lecture. What is the point of her making me look like a celebrity if I then neglect my hair? Don’t I realise that I’m very lucky to have so few lines and wrinkles, considering.

‘Considering what?’

‘Considering your age. What’s your self image like?’

In surprise I look up at Michelle and she grins back at me. ‘I’ve been on a course. Understanding the client’s psyche. I’m not just a hairdresser anymore, I’m a beauty therapist. Premature aging of skin, hair and body can be put down to drink, fags or depression. I reckon you’ve got depression.’

Admit that I have had depression and that at the moment it’s not easy to think well of myself. This information galvanizes Michelle.

While my hair is in tin foil she cleanses, tones and moisturizes my face and neck, setting each little product bottle in a row on the shelf in front of me.

‘How you feeling?’

‘Soothed.’

‘Want some more?’

‘Go on then but no eye makeup.’

‘Spoilsport. I’ll use a bronzante.’

‘A what?’

‘Wait and see. Eyes closed, head back.’

An hour later eyes open and face forward I find I look relatively wonderful. I am tanned, I sparkle, I glow from the neck upwards. Michelle looks equally pleased.

‘Know who you look like?’

‘No, tell me.’
Sharon Stone, Susan Sarandon?

‘Dame Judi Dench.’

‘I’m much younger than Judi bloody Dench.’

‘That’s what I meant, a young Dame Judi Dench.’

I settle up. Give Michelle a sizable tip. Buy all the beauty products.

Michelle says, ‘Put that lot on everyday. Look like a star, feel like a star, get treated like a star.’

Walk home, features carefully positioned. Study new me in hall mirror. Like what I see but how to reconcile young Dame Judi Dench with also being a Jedi knight?  Log on to the Bittlesea Bay Badger Protection Society website and become their sixth member. Almost immediately I receive an email welcoming me and offering a chance to
See Badgers at Play!
Am also offered an information pack for the remittance of two pounds fifty which covers printing costs plus tea and biscuits at each meeting.

August 25
^th

Wear cotton beanie hat to Russell’s as don’t want LC to see my particularly attractive hair before Supperette Club on Saturday. Very hot. Head threatens to explode.

August 26
^th

Ditto.

August 27
^th

Lorraine Carter’s Supperette Club is surprisingly well attended. Seems that women have come from as far as Brighton. Early on I overhear someone say, ‘I’ve come all the way from Brighton. Quite a slog to get here.’

The club is in a room at the back of the Felgate Arms, a pub tucked away on the outskirts of Bittlesea Bay, which Georgie and I passed many times, always making a comment on how uninviting the building looked. However, the back room has been transformed. NB. Realise having never been in back room have no real way of knowing what it looked like before but assume the addition of pink and purple balloons, a banner proclaiming ‘Welcome! Women of the South Coast!’ and at least twenty candles are down to Lorraine Carter who is wearing a natty striped shirt (plus trousers and shoes) and making introductions in a confident drawl. Sees me and calls out, ‘Ah Margaret...’ Comes close and murmurs, ‘You have made an effort, dear.’

I have made an effort. Have slapped on all Michelle’s unguents, including the
bronzante,
and wear a pair of black linen trousers and a white shirt, which sets off my bronzed face and neck. Notice my hands and wrists look unhealthily pale and resolve to keep these (when possible) out of sight.

Lorraine takes hold of my arm and uses me as a battering ram to break into an already animated circle.

‘This is Margaret. She’s a writer. Rather well known in literary circles. Margaret, I’m sure these ladies will look after you. Rather shy,’ she says to ladies, before heading towards the open door where more women are arriving.

My arm is grabbed again. ‘You’re Sarah Waters aren’t you?’

 Admit that I’m not, nor Jackie Kay or Stella Duffy. Someone says, ‘Perhaps she’s the mother of a famous lesbian writer.’ Someone else states quite aggressively, ‘Well you’re certainly not Jeanette Winterson,’ as if my next strategy might be to try to pass myself off as Jeanette Winterson. Am about to explain that I am nobody in particular, when in my head I hear a chorus of Deirdre’s and Michelle’s voices,
Big yourself up, Margaret, act like a star, get treated like a star...
Modestly confess to being a diarist in the reportage style of Samuel Pepys. Immediately an expert on Pepys steps forward, face radiant at finding a soul mate. She says, ‘Can we get away from this crowd and have a really rigorous discussion?’

Respond quickly. Say, ‘Actually no. At the moment I’m up to here with Samuel Pepys,’ and pull an expression of intense exhaustion.

‘I quite understand. He’s so very comprehensive, so detailed, so historically absorbing...’

I hold up hand, laugh, step backwards, turn on heel and head for supper table. For six pounds I am able to buy a large bowl of salad, a large baked potato and a large plate of vegetable curry, plus a raffle ticket that gives me the chance to get in free the following month. As a non-smoker I take my various plates and sit with my non-smoking sisters in the spacious and brightly lit non-smoking section. Find myself staring wistfully across to the darkened, candle-lit, smoke filled smoking area where the women look much more mysterious, sophisticated and the kind of women I might like to know. Find myself thinking of Georgie.

A non-smoker offers to buy me a drink, tapping a plastic bottle of Buxton Spa water tantalizingly. ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I’d love one.’