Calendar Girl (5 page)

“No. But I bet his parents know what his sexuality is!” called Helen over her shoulder as she picked up the glasses for another trip to the bar leaving Saz with Judith.

“God knows why I love that woman. Well anyway Saz, why don’t I check out John Clark for you? Big sister is everywhere and I’m sure I could get some info from British Telecom, I can certainly find out if he’s got any sort of nasty record.”

“Are there nice ones?” Saz looked up from her fresh gin and tonic.

“Yeah, Madonna sings country with k.d.lang. No, stuff like soft drugs aren’t going to be of much interest in conjunction with Miss Months of the Year. But blackmail, or fraud, or any tacky sex stuff really … could be helpful. Yes, indeedy, Detective Chief Inspector here I come!”

Judith gleefully rubbed her hands together.

“This is absolutely why I became a policewoman – Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew …”

“Helen Mirren! Don’t worry Saz, end of the week we’ll have it all for you. In fact, come over for lunch on Sunday, after all Judith will be keeping the home fires burning, so perhaps you’d like to keep me warm? I mean we could … aaagh!”

Helen sprang up as Judith tossed a handful of ice cubes down her front, spilling two half eaten packets of crisps and all of Saz’s drink, mostly over Helen.

Saz took that as an indication that if she stayed any longer it would soon end in tears and that if she drank any more her morning run would be an agonizing experience. She made her goodbyes, agreed to meet Helen in the coming weekend and squeezed through the mass of bodies to go home. Alone. And happy.

Neither of us had ever lived with anyone before. As in “living with” – de facto, common law, live-in-lover. Wife. We’d both fought it off because of the obvious lack of freedom, the lack of “self-time” scared us. Had been sacred to each of us. Because of the commitment and because no one had ever wanted us to live with them. But five months into our relationship it became inevitable. Inexorable, like death. Dolores professed to be glad for me but I could tell she was sceptical. It wasn’t just my feminine intuition – she told me so.

“I don’t mind you moving out Maggie, really I don’t. I think it’s very … healthy. And I’m really happy for you, for both of you, but you know … if you ever want to come back, if you ever want to come grovelling back, if you ever need to drag your small and devastated ounces of pride back here … there’s always the spare room.”

“Or the other half of your bed Dolores? Listen sweetheart, even if it didn’t work out. I wouldn’t want to live with five people again. With five ‘wimmin’ again. With five women, two dogs, six cats, a host of ex-lovers and a dozen or so assorted therapies. I’m moving on Dolly, moving forwards, I don’t want to live in the Moosewood Cookbook any more.”

“Yeah, well, thanks very much. No, no it’s fine, leave Susie Fat Cat with me, desert us all – only don’t come to me for a quick snack on Yom Kippur.”

I think Dolores was most pissed off, not because I was leaving our co-dependant rabbit warren of a communal household, but because I was moving in with another Jewish woman. It had always pleased her, appeased her, to think that she and I could never have worked out because of some inherent anti-semitism flowing in my Catholic veins. As long as Dolores could convince herself that we were not suited because I couldn’t cope with her (adopted) cultural heritage and her (just discovered) collective unconscious, she could ignore the fact that our relationship hadn’t worked simply because Dolores was mad. And she never did the dishes.

We searched for somewhere to live for most of February. Cold, grey, rainy, windy February. Cheap squalid flat after expensive palatial apartment. She of course, had a “proper job” and therefore much more money than me, always had, and so had no idea that ugly could be made beautiful with a tin of matt vinyl magnolia and a couple of tons of carpet cleaner. She wanted
House and Garden
and she wanted it now!

She wants everything “now”. Maybe she has it.

Finally we found it – through a friend of a friend’s ex-lover; naturally. Two floors up, halfway down a hill, with panoramic views of the Thames – through binoculars (and only in autumn and winter – the other seasons meant that the leaves on the huge green oak obscured all views except those of the dogs pissing against the trunk). Nice place, light and airy and completely empty. Open for us to put whatever mark on
it we would. Furniture shopping was hard – she wanted “Little House on the Prairie” and I wanted “The Starship Enterprise”. We compromised and ended up with the inside of a genie’s bottle (harem red and gold with half of Kew in the window boxes) in the lounge and virginal simplicity in the bedroom. I painted, she called me on the phone three times an hour and we moved house in March.

It was then the shit with her family really hit the fan.

“I’ll kill her” – her father.

“My poor baby” – her mother.

“Don’t you touch my children” – her sister.

“What are you paying that therapist for?” – her brother-in-law.

“You’ve made a fool of me” – her father.

“How could you move so far away?” – her cousin.

“But what about the family?” – her mother.

Yes indeed, what about the family? So loving, so close, that when she’d come out four years earlier they’d decided it was a phase and ignored her. Well no, ignored IT. Still spoke to her – just not about the thing that mattered. She was twenty-eight at the time. Obviously too young to know her own mind. This loving close family that refused to accept their daughter in reality. This loving, cloying family that thought she was sick. But most of the venom they reserved for me, the big mean nasty dyke who’d contaminated their baby and brainwashed her.

“She’s after your money.”

“She’s using you.”

“She’s taking advantage of you.”

I never had that much power over her. Not even when I wanted to. She always did exactly what she wanted. Always.

Until now.

They refused to meet me or hear my name mentioned. It spoilt their closeness to let an outsider in. When her older sister had married, the husband didn’t quite take her name, but he might as well have. He got a job in the father’s firm, a company car and they rented a house from the cousins who were in real estate. I believe the idea was “not losing a daughter, but gaining a business partner”. I, on the other hand, could hardly go to work in the family business – not a lot of call for a vegetarian shiksa in kosher butchering.

Butchering.

We lived together but she went to see them every Friday, occasionally she’d even stay the night, it made me furious that she’d trot along to see these people who despised me. I felt betrayed and consulted my Jewish friends.

Esther said it was inevitable.

“They’re old, they’re Jewish, you’re a woman, you’re a shiksa for God’s sake! What do you want, enlightenment from grandparents? I’m sure her friends are right – they’re probably lovely people, she’s probably right to love them, they just can’t cope with this one thing – well these two things really, you are Catholic after all. It just goes against everything they’ve ever believed in. Everything they hoped for her. You can’t hate them for being just as bigoted as at least three quarters of the population. Give them time. It probably won’t make any difference, but at least you’ll get used to it.”

She was wrong. I never did get used to being hated by strangers.

I went to Dolores who told me it was anti-semitic to think that Jews couldn’t be as aware as anyone else. It was
Catch 22 and I was well and truly caught. Courted and caught.

I’m free now.

The Woman with the Kelly McGillis Body said she loved them, they were her family, she promised she’d never let them separate us and anyway they’d be sure to come round in time.

A month is time. So is a decade. So is a century. How long did she think I’d wait?

Her mother rang yesterday. I listened as she left a message on the answerphone.

“Darling, it’s Mummy. I’m worried about you. We haven’t seen you for weeks. Are you all right? Please call me.”

Weeks! I last spoke to my father four months ago. I last spoke to my mother in 1986, two months before she died. Her mother never asks about me. I think it would make her sick to say my name. I wiped the message off the tape. What kind of a grown woman calls herself “mummy”?

The first three months were the worst. Our rough edges ripped the soft underbelly of the cosy coupledom we were hoping for. We had to rub hard against each other to sand the edges down. But while we were still raw we had the best sex.

It was so hard getting used to each other. She had different sleeping patterns – bed at midnight, up at 8.30am. I learnt to get up with her, make her tea, kiss her goodbye and then go back to sleep. I cooked for her, made her
packed lunches, had a cup of tea ready for her when she came home. I took care of her. She got sick and I made her chicken soup. Real chicken. I found myself becoming her wife without any sign of a proposal. I’d never lived with just one person before. She’d never lived with anyone but her family and then eight years living alone. She learnt to eat regularly. To bathe by candlelight – I can’t stand bright light in the bathroom. She learnt to love 60s comedy programmes. I read the Haggadah. We had sex everywhere. The kitchen, the big sitting-room – filled with her books, thirty-six boxes of books carried up three flights of stairs. Mostly by me – she was never very strong. Made love in the tiny hallway – me pushed up against the door of the linen cupboard, forced against the door of the linen cupboard. In the bathroom, hot from my bath and getting so sweaty and wet I had to plunge straight back in again. And making love in our bedroom, with its sloping attic roof and the very tip of the Canary Wharf Tower just visible above the oak. Red light blinking at us. Winking at us. Phallic at us. We made love daily. Twice daily. Thrice daily. I went to work sore from sex and glad of it.

And then the ecstasy wore off and we settled down to Real Life. She worked days, I worked nights, we kept weekends and occasional free nights sacred for each other. At first she went out visiting her friends when I was working, but I didn’t like it when she came home later than me. She arranged to meet them at lunchtimes. Occasionally her work took her out of London for a couple of days and she still saw her family three Fridays a month, but saved one for me. Sometimes she even slept over at their house, in her old childish single bed. But every other day I was there at six when she came home from work and she was there when I came home late. I loved to know she’d be there waiting for me. I loved the security of knowing she’d always be there.

Always be here.

She wasn’t as tidy as me. But she learnt.

I wasn’t as clean as her. But I learnt.

I cooked mostly. She ate and loved my food. I ate and loved her body. I adored her legs. She adored how I ironed her T-shirts. I wore her clothes. She never wore mine. I gave her a stuffed toy. An elephant. She never named it and it became Ellie to both of us. We took Ellie on his first Gay Pride march. It was her first march too. Her first march of any kind. She educated herself in politics and I educated myself in Jewish festival lore. At New Year she went to her family for the first night and we had friends over for the second. Nuts and honey cake to start, spicy Mexican food to follow. At Passover I learnt to cook with matzo meal. At Yom Kippur I went hungry and thirsty. Dolores relented and said,

“So I was wrong. So her family hate you and she still loves you. As Grandma Bernstein said ‘Never kill a chicken until you’ve counted its feathers’ – loses a bit in translation huh? I’m sure it meant something appropriate in Yiddish.”

As I said, Dolores only met her grandmother those few times.

We lived together as wife and wife for three years. It was happy and fulfilling and then I found out stuff. Stuff I couldn’t have imagined. I never lied to her. I never lied. I was always completely honest. But she told me fibs and I found out.

I hate lies.

Saz woke up feeling uneasy. Why? What was she doing today that would require less than a jubilant greeting of a new grey afternoon? It took her a while to get the clear thought in her head, but when it came it dawned like January over London – cold, dreary and no hope of Christmas to enliven the proceedings. She was having lunch with Caroline. Caroline her ex-lover. Caroline the reason she had vowed to remain celibate for at least two lifetimes. Caroline with the delicate thin body, the deep green eyes, the tiny pale lips, the fine cheekbones. Caroline with the new Australian lover.

Saz and Caroline had been together for eighteen months when, one Saturday morning as they lay in bed, Caroline said she had “something difficult to say”. Saz felt the cold hand of terror grip her stomach and waited for Carrie to explain why she hadn’t wanted to make love, the first thing they did every morning. She lay passive and listening as Caroline said the traditional:

“I’m sorry, I love you, you’re wonderful, it’s not your fault … believe me, I’m sorry but …”

But she’d met someone else.

But she’d only known her for ten days.

But it was enough.

But she had to do what she had to do.

But she never meant to hurt Saz.

But she had to be true to herself.

But they could still be friends.

They parted two days later. Caroline promising to stay in touch and Saz promising herself holidays, bottles of gin, free and easy sexual liaisons, lots of parties, something, anything … just stay sane. Saz called Caroline several times in the next month but Caroline was always too busy to talk for long. Finally a letter came saying she was sorry, but perhaps it would be for the best if Saz didn’t call anymore, a clean break and all that …

And now here it was eleven months since that letter and Caroline, knowing her habits, had managed to catch Saz just at her most vulnerable – the moment when she came in from her run, just before she turned the answerphone on as she was about to go back to bed.