by Kathy Lette
Because feminism was simmering in the nation’s psyche, opportunistic men started calling themselves ‘male feminists’. The term ‘new man’ even made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, though it was removed once it was realised that, like the yeti and the Loch Ness monster, there were rumoured sightings of such creatures but no actual proof of existence. My girlfriends and I joked that ‘new man’ was just a phrase men were passing through … Okay, we were drinking vino at the time. But basically the 80s bloke only called himself a ‘male feminist’ in the hope of getting a more intelligent bonk.
I’m not kidding. Urban centres were awash with metro-sexual men who were emoting all over the place. They were so in touch with their feelings they were practically ovulating. While an emotionally articulate man is attractive, so much emotion should have made us suspicious. While it’s true that blokes who cry are in touch with their feelings and sensitive, it usually panned out that the only feelings they were sensitive to and in touch with were their own.
The Aussie parental rule for offspring is ‘out the door by 24’, but most of us left home much earlier, mainly so we could have sex. We shared inner-city terrace houses, squeezing into broom cupboards advertised as ‘cosy living spaces’, working two jobs to cover the rent, forging new friendships, making mistakes, bedding mistakes and climbing up the job ladder, sometimes lad by lad, wrong by wrong, while desperately trying not to fall into the yawning Grand Canyon–esque chasm between our feminist beliefs and our behaviour.
To afford the rent, I had a minestrone of professions – seedling transplanter, kissogram girl, encyclopedia seller, bookshop assistant and human street sign for a gym. (The promotional sandwich board I wore around town read ‘Fat and ugly?… Wanna just be ugly?) But I really scraped the bottom of the job barrel when I took the crappiest job known to humankind – quite literally, working as a bedpan emptier in a hospital. The girls say it’s where I got my toilet humour. (Ha ha.)
Let me introduce the girls I’m talking about. First there’s Kerrie, whom I’ve known since schooldays. Bottle-blonde, tanned and with tailored teeth, she worked on A Current Affair as a researcher while hoping to become an on-screen presenter.
She’d introduced me to Soula, short for Anastasoula, a warm and generous Greek girl just out of teachers’ college, whom she’d met by answering an ad for a house share in Darlinghurst. When Kerrie’d broken up with her long-term surfie boyfriend, she’d moved in, along with a trendy trousseau of pot plants, posters, bathroom scales, skim milk, rock music, waterbed and diet-inducing signs to stick on the fridge proclaiming that ‘Boiled eggs are beautiful’.
Soula was already sharing with a woman she’d met at aerobics class. Julia, at twenty-three, was the most worldly woman we’d ever met. She was a boiler-suit-wearing, dungaree-clad journalist, activist and feminist who also volunteered with the Prisoners Action Group. She reckons that, as Aussies are all descended from convict stock, these men are the crème de la crim.
Julia was best mates with Rowena, who also moved in with us. Ro, a graphic designer, reckoned that being sexually liberated could be very oppressive. She said that our generation was so busy being laid, we’d somehow mislaid the essential ingredients of romance, adoration and devotion. And that great emotion was what made sex truly sensational. Giving up on macho Aussie blokes, she’d set about broadening her heterosexual horizons with various visiting European writers, directors and artists she met at festivals.
I just wanted to find a bloke who didn’t think that ‘mutual orgasm’ was an insurance company. I’d never been able to replicate the hot, hot sex I’d had with the first love of my life, clearly because I loved him. Which is why I felt such a pang when Mum posted on one more letter from Garry.
Sat 13th I think
Dear Deb,
Hope you are well and happy, wherever you are. I guess you are still pissed off at me. I must have eaten an extra bowl of stupid that morning in Byron. Hey, if I’d been any dumber then you’d have to water me once a week.
I know you reckon I should just wipe my mouth as there’s still a bit of bullshit on my lips. But I miss ya heaps. I’ve never met a chick like you. I love ya Deb.
I’m surfing pro now. Got an offer to go live in Hawaii. If I don’t hear from you, I reckon I’ll take it. But I just want you to know that you’re the only girl I’ll ever love.
G.
To be honest, I was momentarily ambushed by emotion. But Mum also sent an update on an old school friend of mine, Frieda. We’d been at Brownies and Girl Guides together, but then at high school her freckly, pale, scrawny frame had meant instant teenage ostracism. She’d tried so hard to be liked by the boys, but they just ended up using and abusing her. They’d gang-banged the poor girl and bragged about it later. Mum said Frieda had a kid now and was living on the housing estate – and had thrown her life away. I threw Garry’s letter away then, too. I didn’t want anything to do with the boys from the burbs. Hell, it was time to broaden my heterosexual horizons. But I was soon to learn that, while Cleo magazine was always going on about women faking orgasms, some men could fake a whole frigging relationship.
So, now meet my gal pals and housemates, Kerrie, Soula, Jules and Ro …
Married men – The Kangarucci Cowboy
Kerrie stood in front of the mirror wearing nothing but a paper bag over her head. She looked at herself through two serrated eyeholes. The phone rang.
She acknowledged it with hostility. The look was from a girl to the side of whose head a phone had been permanently attached since primary school. This, she decided, shrugging into her kimono, was how to tell you’d finally grown up – when the phone rang and you hoped it was not for you.
‘What?’ she demanded.
‘What?’ The voice on the end of the phone echoed Kerrie’s except for its telltale suburban ring of rising inflection. ‘Sorry … I can’t hear you. Is that Kerrie? Kezza, is that you? You sound like you’ve got your head in a paper bag.’
‘I have.’
‘What?’
Kerrie unbagged her ear, shook free her hennaed hair and elaborated. ‘Cleo magazine said if you put your head in a paper bag and then look in the mirror starkers, you can see yourself for the fat, ugly, revolting slob you really are. You know …’ Kerrie sat on the arm of the lounge chair and crossed her waxed legs. ‘… objectively.’
‘You’re not fat, you’ve got a lovely fig–’
‘Can it, Debbie.’
‘I wrap my legs in Glad Wrap,’ Debbie confessed down the phone, abandoning platitudes, ‘then go to bed with my electric blanket on. It sort of sweats the fat off.’
‘That’s disgusting.’ Kerrie lit a cigarette. She had given up smoking that morning. ‘How demoralising. Wait till the “Sisters” hear about that one.’
‘How’s Russell? Back from OS?’
‘Not yet. I’m just taking the time for some beautifying while he’s away. I’m waxing and exfoliating my every pore to within an inch of its life.’
‘Saw him on teev the other night and he’s looking mega, you know … mega distinguished. Vogue listed him in their “Best Dressed Men” section. He must be unreal to talk to. All those exotic countries he reports on … jeez. Greenland, Peru, Chad …’
‘I used to find him boring.’ Kerrie nibbled some scarlet varnish off her thumbnail. ‘Until I stopped listening.’
‘You’re rapt in him, admit it.’
‘Russell has one topic of convo. Himself. At least telly journalism is occasionally an interesting line of work. I thank God regularly that he’s not a plumber. Then I’d be listening all day to the details of sewerage blocks and S-bends. Where are you?’
‘Still at work. You haven’t forgotten the big girls’ night out have you? Tell Soula to keep that night free.’
‘Soula’s out late-night shopping. Probably gone to Formal Wear to hire a hymen. If you’re Greek, you can’t get married without a …’
‘You’re so off to her, Kez. She’s only having an affair.
And it’s better than ending up with the latest dag her mum’s lined up. This one’s called Petro. He’s a big choc, you know, really woggy …’
‘I found Bride magazine in her room with that dipshit Wayne’s name doodled all over it. She wants to marry that moron!’
‘So?’ Debbie rushed to camouflage her surprise. ‘It’s about time you got serious about someone.’
If she hadn’t been so depressed, Kerrie would have laughed out loud. There was nothing she wanted more than a monogamous relationship. The irony was that you had to sleep around a lot to find one.
‘I don’t mean to stickybeak,’ Debbie stickybeaked, ‘but, ah … when’s Russell going to … leave?’
Kerrie was one of the new breed – brittle, brash, a best-of-both-worlds feminist, who insisted that the blokes butter their own unsexist slices of toast and darn their ideologically sound socks, but also jack up the car in the teeming rain and belt the burglar over the head with the breadboard.
‘Look. Russell and I work well together. We go to different parties, hang out with different friends, vote for different parties, fuck different sorts of people.’ Kerrie let her kimono fall open and scrutinised her thighs for cellulite. ‘In fact, we’re doing everything to keep our relationship together.’
The voice at the end of the phone gave a resigned sigh, then resumed with a tentative vivacity. ‘Girls’ night out. I put a note under your bedroom door this morning. Choy’s. On the twenty-fifth. Circle it in your diary. No excuses.’
‘What about you? Are you finally over that waxhead you keep waxing lyrical about? Who are you seeing?’
‘A total spunk from work. He’s coming over on Friday. At seven. So make sure you’re out. And put the date in your Filofax, right? All the old surfie girls from school are coming, and all our other pals. It’s gonna be huge.’
‘Cheryl? Tracey? Leanne?’
‘Yep. I’m even going to try to find Frieda.’
‘Cool. Okay. Gotta go. I’ve got cellulite to pummel. Bye.’
Russell glanced furtively over both shoulders, then darted into the back lane. On these secret assignments he always parked miles away, wore dark glasses (even at night), secured a solid alibi and never entered by the front door. He felt the keen stab of danger in the pit of his stomach. Fear of being recognised meant that Russell experienced more terror in the backstreets of inner Sydney that he did in war-torn Beirut or Belfast. He stole up to the kitchen window and peered in over the pot plants. A look of bewildered panic passed over his photogenic face.
Startled, Kerrie swung the kimono round her body, one bare, Glad Wrapped leg protruding. Russell swaggered through the swinging doors that separated the laundry and the kitchen. Known for his R. M. Williams riding boots, upfront tough-talking, and designer Italian jeans, newspapers had nicknamed him ‘The Kangarucci Cowboy’.
‘Russell, what are you doing here?’ A blush stained Kerrie’s face. In fact, her whole body had gone vermilion.
‘Oh, I can’t stay long. No need to go to any … trouble.’ He cast furtive glances at her legs.
Russell pulled Kerrie to her feet. She struggled to disentangle herself from his pneumatic kiss. Retrieving her mouth, she used it to tell him where to go.
‘Don’t be like that, pet. Haven’t I travelled halfway round the world to see you?’
‘They said at work you were attending a television executive dinner tonight.’ She jerked away from him, wrapped herself more securely in the cocoon of her kimono and flounced into the living room.
‘Functions! Dinner engagements. Parties! You don’t know what I’d bloody well give to have every evening to myself … like you.’ Kerrie shot him a venomous look then turned away to light another cigarette. ‘I left early. I had some …’ He slunk over once more and squeezed her left buttock. ‘… pressing business to attend to.’ He rotated her towards him and Kerrie nestled into his neck, her anger momentarily muted by a bad case of the hots. ‘Besides,’ he crooned, ‘what would life be without a few risks? Jesus!’ He jerked away from her embrace, grasping his neck. ‘Don’t mark me!’
‘That’s what you came for, isn’t it?’ Kerrie snapped. ‘A bit of stomach-to-stomach resuscitation?’
‘Pet, we don’t want the press speculating about anonymous lovebites, now, do we?’ Russell’s smile suddenly congealed. ‘Stomach? What’s wrong with my stomach?’ Panic-stricken, he sucked in air and held in his paunch. ‘You don’t think I’m getting flabby, do you?’
Kerrie eyed him up and down as he scrutinised his own reflection in the full-length mirror. With his Gucci belt, Fiorucci leather battle jacket, tinted contacts and designer jeans neatly corrugated by Stuart Membery underpants, Russell had all the taste money could buy.
‘At any rate, Kezza, that’s not true. You know I’m committed to less gender-orientated relationships. But how can we ignore our naturally strong peno-vaginal interactional rapport?’
She slammed the palm of her hand against her forehead in despair. It was the 80s; Romeos didn’t romance anymore, they ‘related’. ‘Oh God, Russell. There is more to … to an affair, you know, than an all-night performance and well-read penis.’
Russell caught another glimpse of her Glad Wrapped thighs. ‘Oh pet, listen. I don’t really think I’m up to anything too experimental tonight.’ Kerrie looked at him quizzically. ‘Besides,’ he faked a chuckle, ‘I think I must have skipped the chapter you’re up to. I knew I shouldn’t have just looked at the pictures.’
‘What?’ She followed his gaze. ‘This? Oh.’ She let the kimono fall open and wrenched off the layers of Glad Wrap. ‘What did you think it was? The Christo School of lovemaking? I was just wrapping up a few leftovers. Waste not, want not.’ Kerrie’s mouth contracted into a sour grapefruit moue as she perched on the furthest end of the couch. ‘Well, where’d you get the tan?’ she asked bitterly. ‘North Queensland?’
‘What tan?’ Russel looked at her with wary incomprehension. ‘Oh, this tan …’
‘You’ve been back in the country for two weeks and haven’t called me.’
‘It was supposed to be a secret assignment.’ Lying had become a reflex for Russell. ‘Anyway … Oh, look, it was boring and exhausting and I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Well, you should’ve taken me too, and then it wouldn’t have been so boring.’ Kerrie flashed an icy smile in Russell’s direction. It was a grin that could have come out of an Esky.
‘Then it wouldn’t have been a secret assignment, babe, now would it? It was all boring business. When we went for a sauna, business. When we sat around the pool, business. When we went sailing, business, business, business.’ He crossed to the fridge and peered inside. ‘The place was crawling with the polyester brigade. Touristy types, you know?’ Russell left the door ajar, leaned on it and focused on Kerrie with the sincere look he usually saved for stories about the starving millions, or a kindergarten kiddie with AIDS. ‘Is that what you’re upset about? My trip to Queensland?’ His tan had turned grey in the murky spotlight from the fridge fluorescent. ‘Or is there some other little thing?’
‘Oh, no, nothing much at all. You’re selfish. You’re insensitive. I only see you from midnight to dawn. You reminisce about exotic women you’ve had all round the world straight after we make love.’ Kerrie launched into a frenzied cleaning-up of the lounge room. At the foot of the stairs she made precarious piles of magazines, hairbrushes, astringents, facial toners, high heels and novels – all the usual detritus of a packed female household. ‘There’s graffiti in the dunnies at work that says I face-sat my way into television! You confine your affection to times of erection. You have two kids. You don’t invite me to enough places, let me meet enough people. You have a wife you don’t love, but won’t leave.’ Kerrie shrugged, sweetening her sarcasm with a smirk. ‘That’s all.’
Stalling for time, Russell interrogated the contents of the fridge before saying, finally, ‘The initial stages of a relationship are always a period of adjustment.’ It was as if h
e’d inscribed each word in the air.
‘Nine months is “initial stages”?’ She flopped down onto the couch in dismay.
Sitting in the fridge were two lemons, an open bottle of soda water, some leftover tuna casserole and an onion wrapped in tinfoil. At least Imogen kept a well-stocked kitchen, he’d say that for her. ‘I didn’t want to rush you. Or interfere with your space, your lifestyle.’
‘I don’t have a lifestyle! I have a life! And a boring one at that. You never even take me out to dinner.’
‘What about that cosy little hideaway we discovered?’
‘An obscure steakhouse in the back of bloody Bourke, that we can only go to in the dead of night so that no one will recognise you. Great!’ Kerrie buried her head in the cushions. It was the unoriginality of the scenario that appalled her. She thought of the hordes of heroines who had draped themselves fervently over stanza after stanza of classical love poetry. On the passion scale, her little drama was doggerel. Abridged.
Russell let the fridge door suction shut. He read the message underneath the magnetised chocolate biscuit on the freezer compartment: ‘Women have many faults. Men have only two. Everything they say, and everything they do.’ He lifted the magnet, letting the message flutter to the rotting seagrass matting. ‘How insensitive of me …’ He strode back into the living room and cupped her chin in his manicured hand. ‘Angel pie, I understand.’
‘You do?’ She swallowed a sob.
‘Yes,’ he said expansively. ‘You’re premenstrual.’
Kerrie groaned and lurched to her feet. ‘I’m sick of being your “girl on the side”.’
Russell winced. ‘What do you want, then?’
Kerrie felt sick. She didn’t know. A spasm of alarm gripped her heart. ‘I don’t want …’ She hesitated, on the verge of a confused confession, and looked to him for help with the translation. She caught Russell gazing into the mirror. He held in his stomach, then patted his rib cage appreciatively. Kerrie steeled herself once more and looked away. ‘… to be the girl in the middle. Who was there tonight?’
