Swan Songs

by Swan, Tarn

  22nd October 2005:

  Birthday Bleatings

  It’s my birthday today and I awoke to breakfast in bed and I mean that literally. Twinks caught the heel of his mule in the hem of his special occasion black silk negligee and tripped headlong, hurling the contents of the lovingly prepared breakfast tray straight over my unsuspecting and peacefully slumbering person. I awoke gasping and spluttering, soaked in Bucks Fizz and sprinkled liberally with scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and triangles of lightly buttered toast. Fortunately there had been no room on the tray for the pot of freshly brewed coffee he’d also prepared otherwise it could have been very nasty. In my shock I loudly demanded to know what the hell was going on. Twinkles clambered up from the floor looking almost as shocked as I felt. He stared at the devastation and burst into tears saying he was utterly useless and he’d ruined my birthday. Pulling him into a squelchy hug I told him not to worry and I appreciated the sweet sentiment. He told me off for getting egg on his best nightie and then sent me to shower all the fizz, egg and salmon out of my hair while he changed the bed.

  He took the day off work in honour of my birthday and once I’d showered and we’d put together another breakfast we spent a pleasant morning in the freshly remade bed opening cards and presents. He accompanied the ritual with his usual critical commentary on quality. The card that dad and Gill sent was tasteless and cheap, six for a pound off the market, so typical of Gill. She’d skin a flea for its pelt. Mum’s card was too sentimental, ‘to a beloved son’ sounded more like an epitaph than a birthday greeting and had I noticed that Prissy’s name was notable by its absence. Things were obviously cooling. I firmly removed his mobile, as he made to call and ask her what had gone wrong. Aunt Helen’s card was insultingly homophobic, though I still haven’t worked out why. He obviously couldn’t think of anything else to say about it. Lulu’s card and gift were too nice. The bitch obviously still had designs on me, why else would he spend that much money on a card and book voucher. He’d be having words with her later. I also lost points for being a little bit too enthusiastic about the book voucher. He as usual had gone overboard with his gifts, a beautiful designer shirt that I absolutely loved, he does have a very good eye for clothes. He also gave me a CD, a DVD, an expensive bottle of wine, a box of his favourite chocolates and a beautiful pair of elbow length blue satin evening gloves trimmed with sparkling sequins. He fluttered his eyelashes at me and I solemnly handed over the chocolates and gloves and said why didn’t he look after them for me. He charmingly thanked me, put them aside, yelled GOAL and leapt on top of me in a way that a world-class footballer would have been proud of. He went on to give me a birthday gift that wasn’t available in any shop.

  Mum dropped by before lunch to wish me a happy birthday and give me her gift, a hand knitted jumper that she’d purchased from a country craft fair. Twinkles stared at it aghast and said he hoped the poor sheep that had given up its fleece for the wool never saw the result, or it would hurl itself off a cliff. Mum called him an acid tongued queen who didn’t know good craftsmanship when he saw it and stomped off to the kitchen to put the kettle on. I gave Mr rude and insensitive a swat across the backside and then hastened to join mum in the kitchen before she rearranged the contents of the fridge and made a start on organising the cupboards to her satisfaction. I told her the jumper was much appreciated and hugged her. It is actually ghastly, like a Christmas jumper taken totally out of context and all the more hideous. I’ll wear it once while visiting her and then quietly relegate it to the back of the wardrobe. From there, in due course, I’ll pass it onto a charity shop, though one out of town in case she spots it.

  Twinkles scared the wits out of both of us by suddenly screaming for help. We dashed into the sitting room to find him staggering around with the sleeves of the jumper wrapped around his neck. He claimed the spirit of the sheep had possessed it and was seeking vengeance for abuse of its wool. Mum crossly retorted that she didn’t come here to be insulted, so he asked her where she usually went and then collapsed on the couch laughing. Someone was heading for a birthday spanking if they didn’t calm down and it would be the birthday boy giving it instead of receiving it.

  Mum exercised a glorious revenge as we sat chatting and supping tea. She casually told him that Britain’s first case of avian flu had been confirmed and that a parrot had died. She said the parrot concerned was one of a flock that was specially bred to provide feathers for Boa’s and other fripperies of the sort favoured by glam trans and drag queens. Scientists believed that some of the feathers provided by the diseased parrot had found their way into fans that had been sold over the Internet and could actually harbour the virus. As Twinks has only recently bought a feather fan from ebay (as she well knew) he started to panic demanding that I have both him and the fan checked for signs of bird flu. It was mum’s turn to collapse into giggles. I told them they were as bad as each other and they’d try the patience of a saint. Twinks smartly said he hoped I wasn’t casting myself in the role of saint, as I was far from it. He and mum then reunited and spent a pleasant ten minutes listing all my sins while eating chocolates.

  In respect of my birthday we’re having a dinner party this evening, so I’d better go and give Twinkles a hand in the kitchen before he starts complaining about being taken for granted and having to do everything around here.

  28th October 2005:

  Sleeping Beauty

  This week has already lasted for a fortnight and it’s still only Thursday! The weather has been abysmal, torrential rain causing swollen rivers and a threat of flooding. My temper isn’t much better. In fact if Twinkles doesn’t cool it I’m afraid its set to burst its banks and overflow, sweeping away all in its path. With the dreaded lip-synching contest fast approaching activity has been at fever pitch in our house. Teddy, Maurice Lulu et al have been round here every spare moment rehearsing. I am heartily sick of Grease and ‘Summer Nights’ and miming and dancing and having Twinks snapping that I’m out of synch, out of step, out of character and frigging clumsy with it, and all because I stood on his foot by accident. We had a row last night after everyone had left. I told him I was tired, fed up and I was taking this evening off and moreover our house was to be a Grease free zone and if he so much as hummed a note of ‘Summer Nights’ in my presence I would wallop his arse five shades of Barbie pink.

  I’m unrepentant. I’ve had enough. I’ve been driven like a slave all week, insulted, nagged at and I need a break before I go mad. Twinks is totally obsessed. He woke me up at two a.m. on Monday morning because he wanted to go through a dance step with me. On Tuesday morning he roused me at five and suggested I go out for a run and do some sit-ups in order to tone up in preparation for wearing tight jeans and a figure hugging white t-shirt for my John Travolta role. I suggested he went back to sleep and let me do the same or the only thing I’d be toning up would be my right hand as I bounced it off his bare backside. I’ll be glad when this ruddy nightmare is all over and I pledge I will NEVER do anything like it again.

  I’ve felt cold all evening, in fact for a while there I thought I might have to put on an extra sweater and not because of the weather. Ever since I picked Twinks up from work he’s been giving me the cold shoulder along with chilly looks and a frosty tone of voice in reply to any enquiries I make of him. He didn’t want fish and chips for tea and he didn’t want me eating them either, or my paunch would be hanging over the top of my jeans. The lip-synch judges would knock points off our presentation. I had them anyway. I was hungry. I like fish and chips. I needed comfort food and salad just isn’t up to the job. I further incurred his wrath by adding a couple of pickled onions and some mushy peas to my non-musical grease fest. He hoped I wouldn’t be farting all evening and stated that no way was he kissing someone with onion breath. I said that seeing as he hadn’t been invited to kiss anyone with onion breath there was no problem, so why didn’t he just get on with eating his salad. I’d quite ruined his appetite. Getting up he clattered out of the kitchen mak
ing a noise reminiscent of a cross hamster with overlong claws skittering across a hardwood floor.

  Instead of going over to Lu’s flat to rehearse, he chose, in an act of premeditated perverseness, to stay in. I knew what he was about…trying to induce guilt in me for taking a night off. He would likely sit with folded arms and tight lips, looking hard done by while shooting me resentful glances. Sure enough the guilt campaign soon got underway. The moment I walked into the living room and sat down ready to relax he began with the expressing annoyance via magazine trick. It involves picking up a magazine, flicking through its pages without actually reading what’s on them and slapping it back onto the coffee table before picking up another one. The page turning is accompanied by multiple deep sighs to indicate boredom and disgruntlement, and so on. I wasn’t putting up with it. As soon as he started with the page flicking I plucked the magazine from his hands, rolled it into a tight tube, pulled him to his feet and whapped it smartly across his behind several times. I let it be known that if he pushed me any harder he would get a proper spanking followed by an early night. He’s currently sewing black sequins onto the costume he’s making for the PP Halloween Ball. He’s not happy, but he’s toned down his attitude. He’s selfish to the bone when he’s in the grip of obsession, and he needs to be reigned in or he drains the energy out of everyone, including himself.

  A quick recap of the week. The birthday dinner party went well, we had a lovely evening, no fights, tears or tantrums. I teased Twinkles by putting on the jumper that mum bought me. He said I looked like a cheesy 1950’s knitting pattern model and all I needed was a pipe and slippers to complete the look. I told him I liked it and I was considering asking mum to buy me a few more in different colours. He said it would be over his dead body and looked so cross that I hugged him and confessed I was only teasing. He said Tops weren’t supposed to tease and I was a bad boy. That was our last ‘cuddly’ evening before Grease clogged the plughole of our relationship.

  I’m wanted again. He’s demanding I attend, as he’s pricked himself with his sewing needle and drawn a speck of blood. I wonder if there’s a remote chance of him falling under an enchantment for a hundred years like Sleeping Beauty? At least then I’d get a break and the pleasure of awakening him with a kiss when I was good and ready, not that I could last a hundred years without him, a few hours maybe, but never a hundred years.

  29th October 2005:

  Thug In A Frock

  Some days you get the feeling that God has singled you out for target practice. My car broke down yesterday evening. I had to call Twinks and tell him I was waiting for the AA and I had no idea how long they were going to be so it would probably be best if he got the bus home from work. He was not chuffed and made it known, but there was nothing I could do. It wasn’t as if I’d made the car conk out on purpose and actually I was less than chuffed with the situation myself. I felt he was being bloody selfish and unsupportive in the circumstances. In consequence we had a bad tempered exchange over the phone and hung up in mutual dislike of each other.

  The AA turned up in due course and did their duty finding some kind of electrical problem that they sorted and I then went on my way. Arriving home to an empty house I found a familiar unpleasant envelope on the mat along with what looked like a gas bill, a phone bill, a bank statement, several circulars and a letter from my aunt/godmother in Scotland. I knew her epistle would read like a combined obituary column and a script for ‘Our Life In Their Hands’ giving hideous details about various operations and deaths undergone by friends and relations. She would then end it with a forecast of who looked likely to die within the next month or so and I knew that after reading it I would feel suicidal or at least mildly depressed. I wasn’t in the mood for any of it. Leaving them unopened I shoved the whole unappealing bundle into the hall table drawer and went to make a soothing cup of tea.

  Twinkles was late, even given the unpredictability of public transport, and I was beginning to clock watch and feel guilty about snapping at him over the phone. Part of me began wondering whether he’d left me for someone nicer he’d met at the bus stop or whether he’d gone to Lulu’s to pay me back for being ‘a curmudgeonly old ratbag,’ in which case we’d be having words. I called his mobile, but it was turned off. I experienced a surge of fear, remembering what had happened last time his mobile was off when I hadn’t expected it to be. I got a grip. It was highly unlikely that activists had kidnapped him for a second time. The house phone rang and I picked it up to hear his dulcet tones. Relief turned to anxiety when he informed me he was at the police station. He was too upset to be coherent and I told him I was on my way.

  His right eye was swollen almost shut and bruising was already beginning to purple the surrounding area down to the cheekbone. An officer had given him first aid and an ice pack. I gathered him to my bosom and demanded details of how he came to be in a police station with a black eye that a pugilist would be proud of.

  He’d been helping a woman with a young child get on the bus, he taking the folded up buggy while she took the baby. A man, who’d obviously been in the boozer all afternoon, had roughly pushed in front of her, as she made to step onto the bus, almost causing her to lose her balance. He then called her a stupid cow for getting in his way. Twinks remonstrated with him. The man turned round and called Twinkles some very nasty names backed up by a fist in the face. Twinkles reacted to the pain and humiliation of unexpected and undeserved attack by walloping the bastard responsible behind the knees with the folded up baby buggy, thus felling him. He then leapt upon him, grabbing his hair and pounding his head off the floor of the bus. He was furious; screeching how the hell was he supposed to play sweet and demure Sandy Ollison while sporting a black eye. The judges would knock points off for him looking like a thug in a frock. The bus driver called the police. Twinks, the attacker and the mother (who had taken the opportunity to insert her foot into the mouth of the rude person while he was down) and the baby, inclusive of pushchair had all been taken into custody.

  I perhaps should have reprimanded Twinkles for his actions. He shouldn’t have hit back like that, because he lost the moral high ground by doing so. However, I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with him, I was too busy reserving it for the creep who had punched him. Anyway, a mutual agreement between all concerned meant that no charges were brought and all were cautioned and sent on their way with warnings to mind their future behaviour. It’s a sad thing when a victim becomes a criminal for hitting back at an attacker, but that’s the way the law seems to work.

  We still went out last night. He didn’t wear any make up because his face was too tender. He made a rare PP appearance dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt, though naturally his nail polish was immaculate. Nothing was lost as he thoroughly enjoyed being the centre of attention and sympathy. His tale of how he came by his black eye grew in the telling. He was a have-a-go-hero who had rescued a damsel and child from the hands of a brutal bus travelling warlord. I barely saw him all evening, as he was in hot demand as a dance partner. Young and sexy male partners at the transvestite end of the PP aren’t that easy to come by and the PP girls made the most of Twinkles’ male outing. Empress Gloria gave him her phone number and told him to call her any day, any time, because she had a thing for men who looked like they could hold their own in a fight…their own what is the question that sprang to my mind.

  His eye is less swollen today, but it’s still very bruised. I’ve told him not to wear heavy makeup again tonight in case it makes it worse. He argued me down to a light dusting of loose powder to at least tone down the colour. He had his fill of sympathy last night and he just wants to look glamorous again. We’re having a dress rehearsal at the PP this evening, early on while it’s quiet. Cherie Pie is going to educate us in stagecraft. Val has just dropped out of the contest on account of a strained knee ligament (lucky sod) and Cherie has agreed to fill the void and play a T-Bird. Twinks and Natalie rather unkindly commented that she was big enough to fill a frigging void i
n space never mind a slot on stage. I resisted an urge to box both their ears and settled for giving them a hard look, which made no impression on them. I am, to say the least, slightly nervous about performing on stage. In fact I’m terrified. I’ve been up and down to the loo all day. My bladder seems to have been stricken with a terrible case of stage fright. God knows what I’ll be like when it comes to the real thing.

  I’d better go and squeeze into my jeans, which to my mind are unnecessarily tight. How I’m expected to move in the wretched things without cutting off the circulation to something vital I really don’t know. It’s a good job I’m not planning on fatherhood. My sperm count will be negligible by the time I’m finished playing Danny Zuko. On the other hand my blood pressure will be off the planet.

  4th November 2005:

  Camels And Life In The Doghouse

  I haven’t had much spare time this week with one thing and another. There was a crisis at work when a married member of my staff ran off with another woman. I’ll miss Selina she was a good worker. My only complaint is that she left an important project half finished so I’ve been busy completing it at home. My boss blames me for the Selina situation. He reckons that my being openly gay seduced her into exploring the dark side of her own sexuality and really he’d much prefer it if people just remained quietly closeted. There’s not a lot you can say to that.

  So anyway, here’s some catching up news from the past week. I had one of those straw and camel moments last Monday (Halloween) evening. You know the sort I mean, just one more thing than you’re able or willing to cope with. I picked Twinkles up from work hoping he’d be feeling more sweetly disposed towards me than he had been when I dropped him off that morning. He wasn’t and it was plain I was still well and truly in the doghouse as a result of what had happened on Sunday, or rather what didn’t happen. My enquiry about how his day had been was met with a perfunctory and un-enlightening grunt. He got into the back of the car and closed the door with attitude. I took my life in my hands and told him I would much prefer him to sit up front with me, adding that his continued sulking was inappropriate. I felt I’d expressed enough regrets and I’d like some forgiveness please.