by Liann Snow
"One of what – those? No! Not Eva! I can't believe that! I thought she had a man now. What d'you mean though, was?"
"I wouldn't know now, would I?" (Don seems to regret his remark. He looks up and almost catches Faith's eager gaze. He looks down again.)
"Well, you see her ex twice a month. What does he say?"
"My brother? I can't ask him about that!"
"Well, how d'you know then, if he didn't tell you?"
"You're right he did, but it was a long time ago. They've been separated two years, you know."
"They're still married though."
"Scarcely."
"What I mean is, they've never divorced. I wonder why not? Are you saying she left him for a woman? Did he tell you that?"
"I told you we don't discuss her. Anyway, I don't see him every time I go up, I don't know where you got that idea. Your imagination runs away with you sometimes. I go up for the football, not to cross-examine my brother about his private life."
"Don't get cross, Donald. It's just a bit of gossip, something exciting for once. Anyway, you started it."
"Don't know why I said it. Almost wish I hadn't."
"You're too serious Donald. Relax! Smile! Just a bit of scandal in the family. It's all right, I'm just teasing, probably isn't true anyway and it's really sad for Phil to be all alone and abandoned. I'm sure he deserves better. I half thought he would come back to London when everything changed for him –"
"He ought to be a happy man! He's still got the dogs, he's still got the big beautiful house, he's got his angling cronies, he's got fresh air, scenery, hills, rivers – you name it, he's got it!"
"He lost his wife and the job he went up there for."
"He was compensated for not getting the job, you know that; they settled out of court. He got enough to keep the house on and start up a business in something he really likes doing. I don't think he needs feeling sorry for Faith, you can have a wonderful way of life up there."
"Maybe we should move up there, then."
"Be fair, Faith! Your job, my job, Carol in her final year. Don't be daft, girl! It can't be done. Anyway, we're alright as we are."
"I know, Don. I was joking, that's all."
"I didn't get the joke. Must admit, sometimes your so -called jokes go right over my head."
"Never mind. I amuse myself."
"If that's good enough for you, Faith, it's good enough for me."
~ ~ ~
Phil's wife was one of those, was she? No wonder she left, then. How could she stay with a man if she wanted a woman? But she married him though, didn't she. Why? Wasn't she one of those then? Or was she and she didn't know she was? Would it be possible to be one and not know? Maybe you could be one and not know all your life. How awful! Though you wouldn't know it was awful because you wouldn't know you didn't know. And, if ever you should find out, well then you could just go and live your life the way you ought to, loving whoever it was natural and necessary for you to love. Though of course you'd probably find yourself suddenly very unpopular with friends and family for absolutely no good reason, and you would probably have to run off and have no more to do with them, which is probably exactly what she did. (Including me, she had no more to do with me. And that's probably why. Which is a very foolish and unnecessary conclusion for me to come to, as I never knew the woman before she married Phil and scarcely ever saw her afterwards. Her being up there in that grand big house, which I remember very well indeed, thanks very much, and me being down here in, well, here.)
So what is Eva doing now, then? I remember he told me she's got a new man, I distinctly remember telling Pearl. That must mean she's changed back again to being with men. It's all very confusing. Does that make her bisexual? Don't think I could cope with that. I'd have to be one way or another. Uh oh, he's off again...
"He's a funny bloke though, my brother. I'll give you that, Faith. Never was much for the women. Fish! Those cold-blooded creatures are his joy. He can sit for hours on that riverbank, covered in gabardine, come rain or shine, waiting for a nibble. Always was like that and always will be.
When we were kids he'd never do the roaming around gang stuff that we all did. He'd find some other solitary type to sit in silence with, or go off for hours by himself down by the creek where the wood yard used to be or over the quarry and that would be it, gone for the day.
Usually he'd have nothing to show for it. Come back empty-handed apart from whatever type of rod and line he had at the time, 'cause he's been through them all, as you might imagine Faith. Knows the ins and outs of the whole thing, flies and flights and baits and habitats, all the paraphernalia. What there is to know, he knows it. And a lot of good it does him, too."
"It got him Eva."
"Don't talk stupid, woman! How did that get him Eva? I told you he spent all his time sitting on the riverbank with the mist rising around him. How did that get him Eva?"
"Well, something did, and a good job –"
"A good job! Weren't we just saying they made him redundant? He pulled up his roots for that firm and the job was so short-lived, they had to compensate him!"
"I meant in London. Phil's had good jobs all his life. He's had a definite career, you can see the stages of it if you look."
"Stages? I really think you should look for a job in Personnel, Faith, you being so good at seeing stages in people's working lives. I suppose you'd like to advise me on the stages of my career too, while you're at it. Stages! You're the one who's missed their vocation, if anyone has."
"I probably have, you're right."
"It's obvious he had a good job in London. That's why they had to compensate him – because he left a good job in London. We all know that, it's nothing to do with stages or definite careers or any of that."
"Then she left him."
"He got the job he lost the job; he got the girl he lost the girl."
"It wasn't like that Don. Not really."
"I know it wasn't, Faith. I just get tired of it all sometimes, family history. Digging it all up. What's the point?"
"You're like that too, aren't you, about the football? Like he is about fishing."
"You're right, of course. We're all a bit obsessive, us blokes. Must be the hormones."
"Brain damage. I read that usually blokes have bigger heads, so they have a harder time coming out and often get brain damage. When they're born, I mean."
"Usually? Surely not. I can't see that. My mum never said, she would have said."
"Of course she didn't, Don. Women don't, especially mothers. It's an open secret though. They're brought up to revere the male sex, and cherish their boy babies, so of course they don't go around complaining about their damaged brains. They all have them though, it's commonly known."
"It's funny something being commonly known and I've never heard about it. Don't you think that's odd, Faith?"
"Maybe we don't read the same things, Don."
"I should hope we don't, if that's the kind of rubbish you fill your head with. One of your women's magazines, I suppose. Still fighting the battle of the sexes. All that went out in the eighties, all that feminism lark, when people had to face up to a few harsh facts of life."
"It's not feminism, it's scientific fact. I'm only glad I didn't give birth to a boy, that's all I'm saying."
"I expect you're talking about the Third World, I expect that's where you're getting confused. In those sort of countries I can quite imagine a near-epidemic of brain damaged males. In fact I could well imagine that could be the root cause of many of the worst ills that beset the modern world."
"Who said modern? It's been like this since the year dot. Since the beginning of time. Big-headed boys being born the worse for wear. Probably not one of them in good shape, and yet they rule the world and women continue to prop them up. And it's not specially the Third World either, it's every number of world they've come up with so far."
"Now Faith, I really do have to call a halt there. I really don't think this conversat
ion is leading anywhere, except to you getting one of your headaches. It's obvious to me, Faith, that you're annoyed about something, probably me. If you would just tell me what's annoying you, I could try to put it right and we could have our tea. Otherwise, we'll just be standing here in the kitchen with the dishes still unwashed till tomorrow breakfast.
"Now then, Faith, be honest.. What's up? What have I done? I did apologise for not bringing you a Valentine card home at the weekend. Circumstances beyond my control, I've already said. I made up for it later, didn't I? Look, old girl, don't upset yourself, let me help you with the dishes. I could do the washing up, and the drying up too if you don't feel like it."
"Well you could if you don't mind. I could go and watch TV."
"Oh. I thought you might want to put some chips on or something. Then we could watch TV together, later on."
"We've just had breakfast Don. I was going to wait till Carol came in before we ate again."
"You could wait forever for that one. I could be dead of starvation by the time she showed her face."
"She was always such a favourite with you, Don. Now listen to you."
"How could she be a favourite? She's the only one we've got! You can't have a favourite if there's only one to choose from Faith, now can you? What you mean to say is that I used to make a fuss of my only child, as you did too, Faith, if you'll admit it. Nothing was too good for that girl. We had to make a fuss of her, simply because she is an only child. They're always spoilt, they're supposed to be."
"I was an only child, Don."
"Case proven, I think."
"No. I wasn't spoilt. I didn't have much at all."
"I know, I know. One doll, one book, one friend, and she was imaginary."
"She wasn't imaginary, Don."
"Just irony, Faith. Now, will you please put those chips on before your one and only husband becomes a skeleton before your very eyes."
"All right."
~ ~ ~
Imaginary? If she only had been, I'd have been saved a lot of trouble. A lot of joy too though, if I'm honest.
Monday, February 21
Faith is glaring rather than staring out of the baker's shop window. She is feeling unusually irritable.
How odd. How annoying. First I never see her. Then I see her three times in one week. Then I never see her again, no matter how hard I look. I suppose I should try harder. Find out where she goes, and get all my courage up and go there too. Otherwise I'll have to wait till Christmas and see if she comes in for a Christmas cake!
Wonder where she would go? To work, I suppose, but I don't know how to find out where that would be. Unless I follow her again, which might not be such a good idea. Apart from work, I assume she has a social life to which I could invite myself. Obviously she has a girlfriend, but they may not always be together, and even if they are, and I bump into them somewhere, sometime, they won't know me from Eve so it won't matter.
Don't know quite what I want from this woman, maybe nothing. The card was a mistake I expect. I enjoyed it though – exciting, romantic. The most thrilling thing I've done in ages. (The red lingerie didn't turn out quite as thrilling as I'd hoped, I must admit. Although Don certainly liked it.)
Secrets are fun though. I definitely like them. So long as they're not guilty secrets, and I've done nothing to feel guilty about. I'm sure I never would. No, I'm definitely the faithful type, it's just an adventure, like being a spy, trying to find out about someone and nobody knowing you're doing it
.
Now, I must think this through. People like her have special places to go. How do they find out about them? If I wanted to go somewhere special I would look it up in the local paper, or Don would come up with an idea. (Not that he bothers much anymore.) Now, where would she look? Do they have that kind of thing in the local paper? I bet they don't, though I don't see why not, really. Gay people are people too aren't they?
Anyway, I could have a look there, and then I could look in one of those listing magazines that they have in the newsagent. I'm sure I must be able to find something somewhere and then I'll take a chance on the most likely looking place and go there. Which is going to take a lot of nerve, now I come to think of it. In fact the very thought of it gives me butterflies.
One step at a time though, I might not even be able to find out anything. Maybe it's all on a secret network of leaflets and telephone numbers that I don't know about or else it's written down in ordinary papers and magazines but in some sort of code that's impenetrable to ordinary people.
What if though, it would be printed in such a way that if you did understand it you would know at once and for certain that you were in fact one of them too, even if you didn't think so before that, because as a matter of undeniable scientific fact only gay people could read that particular way of writing? It then becoming unavoidably clear that you are one of them because the language that only gay people can understand is as transparently clear to you as a shop window. What if it turned out to be like that?
I don't suppose it will do, though. Which may well be a good thing, it was all sounding a bit science-fictionish and creepy, and anyway people might not want to know something unavoidably true like that, something that might change their life even if they don't want it to. (That might have been what happened with Phil's wife. She might not have wanted to know. But of course I'm only going on half a story that Don picked up somewhere and I don't really know what happened there. Perhaps that wasn't why they separated at all. Don always said I let my imagination run away with me.) But what if Don could read this secret language that only gay people could read, if it existed? Or me? What if I could?
I wouldn't have to tell any one though, would I? I would still have a choice wouldn't I? I wouldn't have to live a life that would put me on the edge of society would I? The kind of life that would give people an excuse to hate me? I don't think I would be able to do that – not unless I was feeling especially brave. Maybe then I could.
"Oh, sorry, Pearl. What were you saying?"
Tuesday, February 22
Faith is in bed. Next to her, her husband is snoring. Faith gets up. Goes to the mirror on the dresser. Opens her nightie.
"Not bad for my age," Faith thinks. "He wouldn't know though would he? Doesn't even look most times. Just sticks it in. Doesn't need to look, I suppose. Knows where everything is by now."
Closes her nightie. Climbs back into bed, not as warm as before. "Thought that Valentine Day stuff might have changed things. The lingerie I bought was just the kind of tarty outfit women wear in his videos. I thought it would make more of an impression than it did. To begin with, I certainly got his full attention. Didn't last, though. Back to his old tricks right away. The direct route is the shortest, so I suppose I can't blame him for taking it, but every time?
Women together ... what would that be like ... couldn't be any worse than him can it? Haven't "got anything" though... as they say ... bread and bread ... Still, in those films of his they seem to enjoy themselves. Then the man comes in. What if he didn't, though? What would happen then?
Don't look like real women, those girls in the films. All tarted up in suspender belts and long bleached hair and shiny, slippery looking bodies. All that bleach! They'd be bald before they were forty. They'd have to wear wigs!" She suppressed a smile. She couldn't imagine forty-year-old women in one of those films. The men would find them ugly, like they found their own wives ugly, though they wouldn't admit to it.
She knew it wasn't Spring yet. The crocuses out the back were only just starting to show bits of green, but it was on its way! The days were getting longer, the sun seemed to shine more readily at the dust on the shelves.
She'd have to have a spring-clean; soon she would.
Wednesday, February 23
On her way home from work, Faith slips into the corner shop. She is not sure where to find what she wants, or even what exactly it is.
She lowered her gaze from the top shelf, only to meet the enquiring eyes
of the newsagent.
"Twenty Silk Cut please," she said.
"Twenty, love?" The young Indian handed her the pack. She noticed his royal-blue sweater had a hole in the sleeve. "Nice weather we're having, isn't it?"
"Very nice," she said, buttoning her coat.
She hadn't smoked in five years, she hoped she wasn't going to start now. She put the unopened pack in a bin when she got round the corner. She hoped the young man in the shop didn't see, he would think her mad. He would probably be right too.
Where on earth was she going to find the kind of magazine that would tell her where women go when they want to find other women? At least she'd had sense enough not to ask him, although clearly his curiosity had been aroused by this respectable-looking middle-aged woman, seemingly hypnotised by the kind of magazines that such women usually manage not to notice.
