Stardust Diaries 2007

by Swan, Tarn

  Mum and Priscilla called at the shop yesterday. They wanted to view engagement rings. Priscilla has always hankered after a pretty engagement ring to show off when he's dressed up. Twinkles had words with him about what was and wasn't stylish. Mum reminded him the ring wasn't for him it was for Prissy, therefore what he liked and considered tasteful was immaterial. She then slagged off everything Prissy liked. In the end she and Twinkles whittled it down to a choice between an opal, emerald and diamond cluster and a more traditional sapphire and diamond cluster. Prissy chose the opal cluster.

  Mum had been adamant she didn't want a ring. She'd been there done that and still had the ring in her jewel box. The temptation proved too much when faced with a tray of glittering gems. She changed her mind and decided she fancied an engagement ring after all, choosing a single stone fire opal. Both rings had to be sent away for sizing. Priscilla's needed to go up a couple of sizes and mums' down a size.

  Mum phoned me after leaving the shop. First to tell me all about the rings and then to inform me Twinks looked tired and I needed to make him have an early night. I obeyed the maternal edict and packed him off to bed straight after dinner. He was out for the count by half past nine and bless him, thanks to his cold he snored solidly until the alarm went off at half six this morning. He still looks washed out. Colds are horrible things. There's nothing you can do but wait until they're finished with you.

  I'm getting a tingle in my nasal lining and a prickling in my throat, so it's perhaps as well that we’re going out for dinner this evening. I can go through the procedure of feeding my cold without having to go to the trouble of cooking for it beforehand and washing up afterwards. It's Brian's birthday. He’s invited us over for dinner.

  9th March ~ A Potted History of the Pink Parrot

  Our good friend Brian owns several clubs and bars. He employs managers to oversee them while he generally keeps an eye on things from above so to speak. The only club he manages in person is the Pink Parrot. It's his base, the place he likes to spend most of his time. It was initially the brainchild of a close friend of his, a man called Kristopher who he met on the club circuit when they were both young men. Kristopher, or Kristy as his friends called him, was a singer and dancer who incorporated aspects of drag into his stage act. He eventually made a bit of a name for himself as a female impersonator on the cabaret circuit.

  Kristy came to realise just how few bars and clubs were transgender tolerant. Cross dressers were okay on stage, but attitudes were less generous when it came to actual club clientele. Kristy was a great believer in diversity and the right of a person to be who they felt they should be and to feel good about it. He wanted to create a place where people could gather and have a good time and not be judged or persecuted for who they were or how they dressed.

  He and Brian set about creating a transgender Queendom. The Pink Parrot was born. At first it catered mainly for the transgender community. The leather bar downstairs came into being later when a restaurant based there went out of business and he and Brian expanded the premises.

  Kristy's great strength had been in recognising how hard and how frightening it was for some people to come out of the closet, in whatever respect, and he was renowned for his generosity in welcoming and assisting such people in the process of gaining confidence.

  Twinkles and Lulu knew Kristy well and spoke of him with deep affection and respect. As young, nervous transgender and wannabe drag queens going out into the wide world for the first time they were lucky enough to fall through the doors of the PP. Kristy offered a warm welcome, help, support and advice. Twinks honours him as the man responsible for teaching him to apply his foundation and blusher with immaculate precision and also how to walk more femininely when wearing high heels.

  I only met Kristy twice, but I liked him. He was a warm and friendly being with a natural gift for putting people at ease. When I met him he was in the process of moving to France. He'd met and fallen in love with a man while doing a series of cabaret shows over there. He sold his share of the club to Brian and went to France, where he and his partner opened a similar club and were successful and very happy.

  So what’s the point of this potted PP history? Well when we arrived at Brian’s to celebrate his birthday the other evening we were met with some shock news. Brian had not long since received a phone call from Kristy’s partner Eriq to say Kristy had passed away late on Tuesday evening. He died of lung cancer, though he had never smoked in his life, except passively due to working in smoky clubs and bars.

  Poor Brian was in no mood for celebrating his birthday, and certainly in no mood for cooking. He hadn’t even known Kristy was battling cancer. Eriq said Kristy had not wanted friends fretting about him. Twinkles was devastated by the news and all in all it was a sad and painful evening.

  Twinks and Brian talked and reminisced about Kristy, about what a wonderful man he had been, which inevitably lead to talk about Steven who had also known him. A great many tears were shed. I comforted and consoled and then along with Martin took on the task of half-heartedly finishing off the meal that had been in preparation when the phone call came.

  I felt sorry for Martin. He didn't know what to do, and wondered aloud whether he should sling his hook and go back to Scarborough for the night. I persuaded him he should stay, as Brian would need him later.

  He replied, “but will he want me, I mean really want ME, or will he just go on wanting what he can no longer have?” He started crying. “I can't compete with his past. I don't just want to be needed. My mother needs me for Christ's sake. I want someone to want me for me.”

  What can you say and what can you do in circumstances like that? I had three unhappy men and no real way of making any of them less unhappy. Maybe in its way the grief Brian and Twinks were experiencing was a less complicated unhappiness. It was right and natural to feel pain at the passing of a much loved and respected friend. Martin's unhappiness was more complicated. Where did he fit into Brian's life, where could he fit? They had as yet no shared history. All Brian's friends past and present were strangers. He couldn't grieve for Kristy or for Steven, whom he felt overshadowed by.

  I tentatively put my arms around him to comfort him while uttering sympathetic sounds. He clung to me. I think he's a man that really craves physical contact, and I mean contact beyond sex, and sadly he isn’t getting it from the man he wants it from.

  Kristy’s death has hit Twinks hard. It’s another change in a season of things changing at too fast a pace for his personality to be comfortable with. He declined to go out this evening. He’s curled up on the couch next to me, sleeping, but not peacefully, not judging from his face. His upset was made worse because he tried unsuccessfully to phone Lu and then emailed and texted him with news of Kristy's death. He hasn't heard back. He feels let down. He also fears that his fears about Natalie now being Lu’s best bosom pal have become reality and he’s out in the cold.

  19th March ~ Breakfast with the Poison Princess

  Mirror mirror on the wall who is the moodiest queen of all?

  I think we all know the answer.

  He was in one of his poison princess moods this morning. I couldn't do a thing with him. I stoically got on with my breakfast as he sat at the table clutching his flimsy silk robe tight about his person. His face could have turned milk to premium Stilton with one glance. Nothing was right for him. It was freezing, frigging weather, frigging hail and snow at this time of the frigging year. It had had all winter to frigging snow, but no, it waits until spring. It'll kill all the daffodils.

  Frigging work. He hated frigging work, boring, same old thing, and same old faces. Pat was getting on his breasts again with her snide comments. If he was Don he’d frigging sack her.

  No he didn't want any bran flakes. Did I know how much salt they contained? Frigging disgrace, you think you're eating healthy and you're overdosing on salt, enough to give you a stroke. He didn't want anything to eat. He was on a diet. He’d put weight on. Natalie said so, frigging
bitch, and I could do with losing a pound or two. My paunch was back and my love handles. It wasn’t good for a man my age to be overweight.

  I told him I wasn't overweight and neither was he and why didn't he go and have a nice hot shower to warm him up if he was cold. He should have put a warmer robe on, one that actually covered the cheeks of his arse.

  He didn't want a shower. The shower was manky. He hated showering when the shower was manky. How could I not know, after all these years, that he hated showering in a manky shower. It was disgusting. It was my turn to clean it; most of the hairs in it were mine anyway. Why did I have to shed so much hair? He glared at me. “It’s like being shacked up with a moulting old mongrel.”

  “Oh charming analogy, thank you!” I glared back at him, my patience thinning to the point of anorexia.

  He grasped his robe more tightly about him. Talking of mongrels, had I heard, was I listening to that mongrel next door, frigging barking, howling and yapping. It did it every morning. It got on his nerves. It was a nuisance that's what it was, a frigging nuisance. In fact, he abruptly stood up, and before I could stop him he yanked open the back door and bellowed at Brownlow's mutt.

  “SHUT UP YOU MANGY TRIPE HOUND!”

  To be fair, it complied, for about two seconds and then it started up again, adding to the din by hurling itself against the wooden fence.

  Right. I'd had enough. My patience surrendered and waved a white flag. Firmly closing the door I addressed his complaint about being cold by installing some central heating on his person. I applied my hand to his buttocks until they took on the properties of hot coals. Stalking out of the kitchen clutching his burning orbs he tearfully declared I was a difficult man to live with.

  Huh, he ought to try living life my side of the fence and see how difficult a man he is to live with.

  Before we launched ourselves out into the whirling blizzard of a spring morning to begin our working day he put his arms around my neck.

  “Sorry, Tarn, sorry for being a bad tempered brat. Do you still love me?”

  “Course I do.” Slipping my arms around his waist I drew him into conciliatory cuddle.

  After we'd made up he asked if he'd been very horrible to Lulu the previous evening. I said yes.

  “Was I really bitchy and mean?”

  “You were.”

  He looked at me sadly and then snarled. “Good! The jammy cow deserved it! She flounces back here, gets her job back at the post office and now she’s back on stage at the PP. Cherie should have held open auditions for chorus girl, not just given the job back to Lu because,” he mimicked Cherie, “she has the experience, darling.”

  Flinging open the front door I indicated by way of a dramatic arm gesture that I wished him to head for the car forthwith.

  Yes, the seafaring queens have returned. Natalie and Lulu are back on shore and already Lu and Twinks have quarrelled. It's like old times. He’s jealous because Cherie Pie and Lady Sophia had a falling out a few days ago thus leaving a vacant space for chorus girl that Lu quickly filled.

  22nd March ~ Sudden Death

  Twinks and I were supposed to be going to see a local theatre production of Thoroughly Modern Millie this evening. He loves all that twenties style shimmy and glamour. He had his fringed flapper frock all set to wear. I ended up giving the tickets to Katie and Frank, not that Frank has gone. He's of the opinion that real men don't go voluntarily to the theatre to watch musicals. Musicals are something the missus forces you to watch on the telly when you'd rather be watching the footie or a macho action film. Katie, after scolding Frank at length for his unromantic and chauvinist attitude, has taken Gabby. She was a very happy stand in for her dad.

  Despite not being much in a mood for frivolity, Twinks helped Gabby dress up for the occasion. She looked really sweet and pretty in her feather headdress and boa. I got a hard look from the mini flapper when I suggested perhaps she was a little bit young for makeup. Twinkles rolled his eyes and told her I couldn't help being old fashioned on account of being born in Victorian times.

  Why aren't we going to the theatre? Well I haven't withdrawn the jaunt as a means of discipline. He had an awful experience at work this afternoon. It's left him shaken and upset. He and Tina were manning the shop over the lunch hour period when a man came in to look at ruby and diamond eternity rings. Twinkles served him. The man told him the ring was a surprise for his wife and was to celebrate their forthcoming ruby wedding anniversary. Forty years of wedded bliss with the lass he loved.

  He chose a ring and Twinks assured him if the size was wrong they could soon rectify it. He took payment and was in the process of gift-wrapping the ring when the man gave a sharp cry and collapsed. Twinkles said he knew the man was dead before he even hit the floor. The life passed from his face and the person who had been smiling and talking with such animation was gone.

  As an assistant manager Twinkles was obliged to take a first aid course some time back. I've also done one. But as he said, theory is one thing reality is quite another.

  While Tina called an ambulance Twinkles tried desperately to resuscitate the man by going through the techniques taught on the course insofar as he remembered them. He was utterly terrified he was doing the wrong things and if someone more proficient had been on hand the victim might have been revived.

  When the paramedics arrived they took over and with all their expertise and equipment couldn't save him. They said it looked like he'd suffered a massive coronary. They told Twinks he'd done all he could and he wasn't to reproach himself in any way.

  Both he and Tina were so upset by what had happened that Don drove them both home, delivering Tina to her parents and staying with and comforting Twinks until I got home. Don is a nice man, courteous and habitually kind and patient. Twinks is fortunate to have him as a boss and he knows it. He teases me sometimes by saying if Don were gay I'd have some serious competition.

  He's curled up on the sofa with Lulu at the moment getting cuddled and cosseted. They're friends again. Honestly, for as long as I've known those two they've fought and bickered, bitched and sniped at each other and yet as soon as a crisis hits they're there for each other.

  I'm glad Lu didn't like life at sea and came back home. Too many holes get left in life when people we love leave us. It was a great relief and joy when the space left by Lu going away proved only temporary.

  My services as a waiter are required. Two empty wine glasses are being waved in my direction. This is the second and it will be the last glass for Twinks tonight. I know my man. This business hasn't fully hit him yet and too much alcohol will only make it hit harder still.

  4th April ~ The Three Must Be Queers

  I could happily have murdered his majesty this morning and thrown his body off a bridge without a second thought.

  We were in the car heading in a work-wise direction when Twinkles espied our neighbour Ray Brownlow crossing the road after picking up his morning paper from the newsagents.

  “Look at him. He’s too frigging tight to pay for his paper to be delivered. If it were left to miserable misers like him the humble paper boy would be an extinct species.”

  Reaching over me he blasted the car horn, which startled me badly enough, but caused Brownlow to just about rocket out of his skin with fright. He lumbered for the safety of the pavement like a grizzly bear on anabolic steroids. His face was a picture, and not a pretty one, as Twinkles gave him a cheeky wave as we passed. He waved back with two fingers and a torrent of invective.

  Twinkles, the naughty boy, just about wept with delighted glee. He really is a wicked little sod at times. Not even the slapped leg and irate bollocking I gave him wiped the joyous smirk from his face.

  Brownlow might have almost shit himself with shock, but he got his own back in kind. We arrived home this evening to find a disgusting smelly mound of doggy poo making a statement on our doorstep. Brownlow had gathered every dog turd he could find in his garden and made us a gift of them. I was cross.

 
Twinkles was all for hurling the filthy mess back into Brownlow's garden. I told him he'd caused enough bother and I'd wallop his bare backside until he couldn't sit down if he caused any more. I insisted he clean away the mess and swill the path.

  Apart from the Brownlow incident it's been a beautiful day today, sunny and warm. We've had a busy couple of weeks. We had a mini break last weekend at Centre Parks in Elveden Forest. We went with Karen, Paul and Dominic. It was wonderful. The baby loved it, though he's not really a baby-baby as such anymore. He’s two and loves running and jumping everywhere. He’s a real little chatterbox.

  Twinks keeps dropping hints about Karen and Paul having a little brother or sister for Dominic. To my horror, one evening after a nice meal and several glasses of wine he bluntly asked Paul if his sperm count was up to spec. Paul cuffed him smartly about the head and said his sperm count was just fine thank you very much.

  Twinks engineered to leave them alone for a couple of afternoons while we took Dominic out, so they could romanticise and make babies. They romanticised, but if they made babies only time will tell. I don't think it will. Karen likes her career and while juggling job and one child might be manageable, she has doubts about whether she could make it work with two.

  As I predicted Twinks had a rough few days after the incident when the customer died of a heart attack. He got himself in a real state of anxiety. The man's widow wrote to him and thanked him for trying to save her husband, who had no known history of heart trouble. Far from being a comfort the letter upset Twinkles even more. He tortured himself with thoughts he could have done more and didn't deserve her thanks. He was probably a murderer by courtesy of neglect and incompetence.