Swan Songs

by Swan, Tarn

  Lulu turned down the role of Danny saying he couldn’t perform as a man on stage. It made him break out in hives. He wanted to be one of the Pink Ladies. Natalie also said she didn’t do anything on stage that didn’t involve heels, makeup and several feet of wig. It seemed that everyone wanted to be a Pink Lady and no one wanted to be Danny Zuko or a T-Bird. As Twinks said, Rydell High had been a mixed schools not a frigging ladies college and someone was going to have to play a male role. In the end Big Mary agreed to be a T-Bird, as did Maurice, Val and Sandra. Rick the barman was persuaded to play Danny (he was brainwashed by a not so subtle propaganda campaign that involved PP patrons complimenting him on his resemblance to a young John Travolta) the stage was set and rehearsals were planned. I mentally prepared myself for theatrics, tears and tantrums as routines were worked out and costumes put together. What I wasn’t prepared for was the bombshell that Teddy dropped on Thursday evening. Rick has dropped out of the project because a friend has invited him to go on a cruise in October (or as Twinks bitterly called it, an offshore shagging trip) and he won’t be around for the contest.

  It looked like the whole thing would have to be called off, until I very generously stepped in. Only of course I had not generously stepped in. I had been volunteered behind my own back. Twinkles told everyone that I was willing to take on the role for the honour of the PP. God knows how he thought he was going to talk me into it. As I coldly pointed out to him I am no actor, singer or dancer and I have no desire to be an actor/singer/dancer. Unlike my little limelight seeker the very thought of having to get up on a stage and perform anything in front of anyone fills me with abject terror.

  He tried to sell the idea to me. I didn’t have to be a singer. The whole point of lip-synching is that you mime to someone else’s singing. All I had to do was learn the lyrics and Teddy and Maurice would teach me a dance routine. It was easy. I would enjoy it. I wasn’t in a buying mood and I said I wouldn’t enjoy it, because I wasn’t doing it and he’d had absolutely no business telling everyone that I would. Dorothy chose that precise moment to deposit a mess on the sitting room carpet and I came close to exploding. I gave Dorothy my considered opinion of her bad manners and put her out in the garden. I then told Twinkles that he could clean the mess up, seeing as she was his guest.

  Setting a kitchen chair in the middle of the sitting room floor I told him that when he’d cleaned the mess up he was to sit on the chair and stay sitting on it until I got back from having the bath I hoped was going to soothe my frazzled nerves and soak away my murderous desires.

  Twinkles has a large collection of bath oils all of which make exaggerated claims about their benefits. Pushing aside my scepticism I selected one that claimed to induce calm by soothing away the strains and stresses of the day and poured the entire bottle full into the bath. The ensuing fumes induced a fit of coughing. Lying under the blanket of generously scented bubbles I closed my eyes and tried to rebalance my senses. I was highly indignant about having a canine fiend and an unwanted stage role foisted on me without so much as a by your leave. It was typical Twinkles impulse. He thinks about one moment in time and gives no consideration to the fuller implications. I thought that he’d been a bit edgy for a few days. It had probably been slowly dawning on him that I wasn’t likely to be happy about the decisions he’d made without consulting me. He never means to upset me and he never means to be selfish, he just has a rather lateral way of thinking and acting. It was pleasant in the bath and it did relax me a little, though I fervently hoped that the pungent scent would dissipate from my skin before I had to go out in public. My manliness would be compromised if I exuded aromas of lavender and roses everywhere I went.

  When I returned downstairs he was sitting where I had told him to sit and my heart softened. He looked all forlorn and boyish with his big sorry-for-himself eyes and I’ve been misunderstood yet again expression. Steeling myself I gave him my considered opinion of his bad manners in agreeing to things without consultation. To volunteer me for something without asking was breathtakingly rude. I was not only angry about it I was hurt by his lack of regard and respect for my feelings. He said he was sorry and he now realised how selfish and thoughtless he’d been in concentrating on pleasing other people, without thinking about whether it would please me. He said he hadn’t meant to upset or offend me. I accepted that, but I still disciplined him. Pulling him to his feet I took down his trousers and briefs and then seated myself on the chair and drew him across my lap. In my estimation he deserved a sore bottom and I made sure he got one. The spanking was followed by an early night for him because as much as anything I needed some breathing space.

  Dorothy howled mournfully all night long so consequently neither Twinks nor I were exactly fresh on Friday morning. I staggered downstairs to discover that she’d destroyed a couple of tea towels, messed on the floor and chewed the table legs. I was livid. I hauled Twinkles out of bed and made him clean up the mess while I took the hellhound out for a walk. I decided to work from home that day, worried that in our absence Dorothy would dismantle the entire kitchen. I told Twinks that he could forget about going out to the PP over the weekend, as we couldn’t possibly leave Dorothy home alone. He wasn’t chuffed and asked why I couldn’t stay in while he went out, as it didn’t need both of us to look after one smelly pooch. By way of reply I inserted a very large flea in his ear and several handprints on his backside and consequently he went silent and sulky on me. I cared not.

  You have no idea how relieved I was when Teddy turned up on Sunday evening to collect that dog, though I must admit that by then she was behaving at least civilly around me. I reckon that given a week or so I could turn her into quite a nice little dog, not that I volunteered or anything.

  It was definitely not one of our better weekends.

  9th September 2005:

  Sunflowers For Danny Zuko

  Twinkles bought me flowers yesterday, expensive flowers from Charles Blaine the exclusive florist that has a shop a few doors down from his shop. Charles is gay, pretentiously so and he expects to be treated as a special case. In fact he’s an elitist and he gets on my nerves. I met him a few times before I knew Twinkles. The circles we moved in crossed from time to time. He’s one of those people that are often referred to as being frank when in fact they’re just downright rude and dismissive of other people’s feelings. Charles is toxic. I was once at a function where he publicly outed someone for ‘his own good.’ It disgusted me. Enforced outing is a practice I disapprove of. Not everyone wants to own or announce their sexuality, certainly not until they’ve fully come to grips with it themselves. This is especially true for people who grew up in a less liberal age, as in the case of the gentleman he outed who was in his mid-fifties. I believe it has to be the decision and free choice of the person concerned, no one has the right to force the issue for them. To my mind it’s just as bad as pointing a finger and yelling ‘he or she’s so gay,’ while meaning it as a term of abuse. If someone is still internally struggling with their sexuality, then it doesn’t help to have people like Charles pointing a finger and yelling, ‘he’s gay,’ or as he yelled ‘you’re one of us aren’t you, dear?’ It’s abuse in its own way. The poor man was almost in tears by the time Charles had finished persecuting him. He left the function and I haven’t seen him around since.

  Twinkles says that Charles is a prick. If he were straight he’d still be a prick and maliciously outing gays for other reasons. Some people are just pricks whatever their sexual orientation, but at least Charles is a prick with a talent for arranging flowers. This is true. The flowers, a hand-tied arrangement of sunflowers, are absolutely gorgeous. They look stunning on my desk.

  After much deliberation, soul searching, agonising and a heart to heart talk with my mum (oh do it you miserable sod, don’t be as uptight as your father, it won’t kill you. You might actually have fun and it’ll mean the world to Twinkles) I agreed to have a stab at lip-synching to John Travolta singing Summer Nights on the proviso that
if another suitable candidate showed up I would hand over the role immediately. They do say that you should do something out of character once in your life and getting up and performing on a stage is completely out of character for me. Twinks as you might guess is thrilled and I’m now the best thing since sliced bread, hence the flowers and much love. I on the other hand am terrified. The contest is in late October and it can’t come slowly enough for me. I must be mad, either that or I seriously need to take a course in how to be a much stricter Dominant. Sad brown eyes and the absence of a toe-curling smile should not be able to sway me so easily. I’m a disgrace to household dictators everywhere. I’ll be getting one of my pips torn off if I’m not careful.

  My main quarrel with Twinkles had been his lack of respect in arranging things without consulting me first and he’d been punished for that. When I thought about it, I would have been doomed to be part of the lip-synching venture anyway. Some of the rehearsal sessions would inevitably take place in the dining room and I knew from experience that I’d get dragged in one way or another, if only to play referee and end quarrels and temperamental arguments. Costume committees would meet in the sitting room and I’d end up playing mannequin or being asked to pin this and that. Twinks would be playing the song over and over again and getting me to help him with learning the lyrics and miming in time to the music. I would have ended up playing Danny to his Sandy anyway. The only difference now was that I’d be playing it on a stage in front of people. Oh God, me on stage with Twinks! What have I let myself in for?

  Better go, Twinks is hysterically bawling my name. It sounds like an insect alert. I just hope he hasn’t tried to glue a spider to his eyelid in mistake for one of his false lashes!

  12th September 2005:

  One Wedding And A Fuming

  On Saturday morning I dropped Twinkles at work and then called in at the garden centre to see if they had any spring bulbs in stock. Twinkles has managed to dig up most of the existing ones over the course of the summer. He likes lots of instant colour and instant results when it comes to gardening, so he tends to buy tons of bedding plants which he clumps all over the place, usually managing to choose spots that contain daffodil and tulip bulbs. Once the plants are in he then loses interest and it’s up to me to keep them watered, fed, weeded and to replant any undamaged bulbs while he lounges back and takes credit for how lovely the garden looks when it comes into full bloom.

  I returned home to find a letter from our number one fan lying on the doormat. I was dismayed to say the least, every time a lull occurs between one letter and another I always hope it means the campaign is finally over. What chilled me most this time was that the note was directed solely at Twinkles. It informed him that he would be cast into the fiery pit of hell for the sin of homosexuality, but first he would be broken on the wheel for his defilement of the form of woman. I felt sick and not least because of the disgusting, savage imagery that had been forced into my mind. There was no way I was going to let him see that little message of love, it would give him nightmares. I destroyed it. There was no point taking it to the police. I’d talked to them until I was hoarse and all I got was the standard, ‘we’ve done all we can, sir.’ There were fingerprints on the letters, but they didn’t match any that were held on record, enquiries had drawn a blank and we told just to get on with life in the hope that the sender would either get tired of his/her campaign or somehow slip up and give a clue to their identity that the police could follow up. To be fair I suppose the police do have bigger priorities than chasing writers of poison pen letters. I worked off some of my frustration and anger in the garden, planting the bulbs I’d bought and tidying up the borders and lawn.

  Saturday afternoon brought unexpected visitors in the form of my dad and Gill. They had a surprise for me. Though to be honest it felt more like a shock at the time. Dad calmly told me that he and Gill had tied the knot that morning, just the two of them with Gill’s mother and a friend standing in as witnesses. I was thoroughly taken aback and rather hurt. In fact I was very hurt. Dad told me that neither he nor Gill had wanted a big fuss. They had just wanted a discreet ceremony to legalise things before the baby was born. Gill patted her stomach and said that she doubted she would have got a wedding dress to fit over her bump and anyway, she found the idea of getting married in front of a lot of people while heavily pregnant to be very unappealing and she hoped I understood? I said yes and congratulated them both. Seeing as I didn’t have champagne to offer them I offered tea, which they accepted.

  Dad came into the kitchen while I was making it. He apologised. He could tell I was hurt, but there was no need to be. The lack of invitation had not been meant as a snub or rejection. He and Gill had just wanted a very low-key ceremony. They’d both been married before and felt no need for the wedding trimmings. There had been no ulterior motive and it wasn’t a way of distancing himself from Maryann and me so he could concentrate on his new family. I jokingly asked if I would always be daddy’s little boy and he cuffed me smartly up the back of the head and said that remarks like that indicated I’d been living with Twinkles for too long. For some reason I suddenly asked him outright if he liked Twinkles. He said no, not always, but he liked that he made me happy. I then found myself asking if mum had made him happy and he said yes, once upon a time she had made him very happy. I asked if he missed her and he said sometimes he did. It was difficult not to miss someone you’d spent a large part of your life with. He missed her friendship, she had always been a good friend and he hoped that one day when some of the hurt had abated that the friendship would re-emerge. He’s not one for emotional displays my dad, but he put his arms around me saying quietly, ‘the things that really matter haven’t changed, son. I’m still your dad, she’s still your mum and we both love you and Maryann. I wouldn’t change that part of my life for anything. It was supremely good while it lasted.’

  After they’d gone I sat for a while feeling, I’m not sure, kind of lost I suppose. It felt like the end of something. I don’t know how to explain it. I got out the photo albums and looked at the memories trapped on glossy paper. Time moves on, people move on, things change, people change, but the child part of me would never change. It was static, trapped and held like a fly in amber somewhere deep inside me. I turned the pages of the album looking at pictures of myself and Maryann unwrapping presents under changing Christmas trees and blowing out birthday candles, donkey rides on beaches, first wobbly bike rides without stabilisers, gap toothed smiles, taking our little world for granted. My parents had given me a happy childhood, a good start and my hurt, unlike Twinkles’ hurt, was not based in those days. Mine was based in the breakdown and loss of something I had believed in, something that had felt solid and good to me. The fact that my father had now married someone else actually confirmed that the breakdown had taken place and it was permanent. My parents had given my sister and I the best of themselves. They’d watched us grow and come into our own as people and when we’d no longer been dependent on them they’d looked at themselves and found they no longer had any common ground, or anything to give to each other. I suppose I selfishly wanted my parents back together as a security blanket of some kind, something that symbolised the comfortable, safe innocence of my childhood days, when if I fell I had two people willing to pick me up, comfort me and make everything all right again. I was glad I was alone and that Twinkles wasn’t around to see me cry, because I was embarrassed by my emotions and how raw I felt. I put the albums away and went out for a long walk.

  By the time I went to collect Twinkles from work I was feeling better and had gotten things in perspective. In shattering contrast Twinkles chose to get them completely out of perspective. He never misses an opportunity to take umbrage with my dad. In retrospect I think I mistimed telling him about the marriage, as he’d obviously had a hard day. He looked tired and there was no smile for me when I walked into the shop at half past five, which is never a good sign. As we walked to the car I asked him if he was all right and he said he
’d just had a busy day with Don being on holiday. He hadn’t been able to get out for a proper break and he’d missed meeting me for lunch. I told him about dad and Gill’s visit, he’s my partner after all and I wanted to share it with him. As I said, I mistimed it and he decided to go overboard with his reaction. He fumed because we hadn’t been invited to witness the marriage. He said they’d gone behind our backs because they were ashamed of us being gay. Gill obviously thought we’d embarrass her by exchanging cock rings in front of the Registrar or something, or maybe she thought he’d want to be a bridesmaid and turn up in a frock and upstage her, not that it would take much to upstage Gill. A frigging bag lady could upstage Gill because she had no sense of style, etc, etc, insult, insult. Des (my dad) was a cheapskate and had obviously kept the nuptials secret so that he didn’t have to shell out on a wedding reception and a cake, the tight-fisted bastard! He hoped I’d given them a piece of my mind. I told him to calm down because I was fine with it, though admittedly I had been a little bit hurt when I found out. I’d since mulled it over and I could understand that in the circumstances they had just wanted a no fuss wedding and that was their prerogative.

  Twinks wasn’t prepared to accept any excuses. He was determined to view it as a personal insult and a put down. They needn’t think we were sending them a congratulations card or a present, because they didn’t deserve it. I told him I’d already bought a card and a bottle of champagne, as well as some flowers and chocolates. My view being that weddings, however low key, had to have some air of celebration. He told me not to bother putting his name on the card. I told him we were a couple and I would sign the card and gifts as being from both of us. What was done was done and we had no choice but to respect their choice when it came to how they got married and that was that. I couldn’t understand why he was in such a strop over it. I was sure that if they had invited us he wouldn’t have been that keen to go. He said it was the principal of the thing, which to my mind basically translated into, I’ve had a crappy day, I’m in a foul mood and this is just the excuse I need to throw a fit.