Authors: Grace Wynne-Jones
‘Maybe we should go to a marriage counsellor.’
‘Maybe. Let’s talk about all this another time. I’m partly to blame too. I like to think I’m not, but it seems maybe I am.’
That silence again. ‘I’ve been watering your plants.’ Bruce’s voice is softer, calmer now.
‘Thank you, Bruce.’
‘Did you know that basil must be watered in the afternoons?’
‘I’ve read that label too. I’m not sure if it’s right.’
I feel drained when I hang up. But lighter. As though I’ve
been travelling so long I don’t care if I arrive any more. As if all this stuff about life and relationships making sense is a bit of a joke anyway. What I need to do now is cut some carrots and get the potatoes on to bake.
Somehow everything gets done. It’s like I’m watching myself do it. Then the doorbell rings.
I don’t panic. I walk slowly into the hall. A normal family
weekend, that’s what we’re going to have. A nice cosy time.
I square my shoulders and prepare my smile as I open the
door. And there stands Katie. My dear, darling Katie, with
a rucksack by her side.
‘Mum!’ Katie throws her arms around me. ‘This is Sarah.’
Sarah is petite and olive-skinned. She has short black hair
and almond-shaped eyes.
‘Hi Sarah!’ I beam. ‘You’re very welcome.’
But Sarah doesn’t seem to be responding. Her round,
friendly face appears to be frozen in shock. She’s looking at
something behind me, and her pretty eyes are growing wider
and wider. Then I feel something nudging at my sleeve.
I must have left the back door open because it’s Rosie.
Rosie wanted to welcome them too.
Chapter
10
Rosie’s been a great
success with Katie and Sarah this weekend. Katie’s convinced that Rosie shares her passion
for the songs of Brian Allen, though frankly I think she’s using it as an excuse to keep playing the bloody things.
She brought loads of his CDs with her. Apparently Rosie
wiggles her tail every time Brian’s big hit, ‘Do It To Me Baby.
Do It’ comes on. ‘Peel off those panties – peel them down,’ Brian croons at full volume in his deep, authoritative voice.
‘Let’s just do it. Let me into you. Oh baby! Oh baby! That’s
right. That’s right, baby. Yeah – com’on.’ Then he lets out
an awful screech, and the rhythm section mimics the sound
of bedsprings.
As we sit down to dinner Brian is still moaning and
groaning in the background. ‘I hope he uses condoms,’ I
say as I dish out the shepherd’s pie – I made a lentil casserole for Charlie. ‘Let’s give him a little rest, shall we? He must be
exhausted.’
‘Oh, Mum, don’t be so anal,’ says Katie.
‘What did you say, young lady?’ I almost drop my serv
ing spoon.
‘Anal – as in uptight.’ She gets up reluctantly and goes over
to the hi-fi, which she turns off.
‘Look, we’re eating now, okay?’ I say firmly. ‘The only ori
fice I want to be reminded of at the moment is my mouth.’
This makes Sarah giggle and Charlie smile. Katie, however,
goes into one of her sulks.
‘And to think your favourite song was once “The Teddy
Bears’ Picnic”,’ I muse as I watch her stabbing her shepherd’s
pie sullenly with her fork. ‘Still Brian is
very obviously
heterosexual, so maybe you’ve decided you are too.’
After dinner Katie and Sarah ask Charlie about his work.
Katie was a bit cool with Charlie at first.
‘Hello, Kate,’ he’d beamed when he first met her.
‘Katie,’ she corrected him sternly.
After a while she opened up though. She and Sarah are
really impressed by all the bands he’s worked with as a
recording engineer. He hasn’t actually met Brian Allen, which
of course would be the icing on the cake. He has, however, met a trombonist who worked on Brian’s first album.
‘Really!’ Katie almost jumped off the sofa with excitement.
‘What did he say Brian was like?’
‘Very professional,’ said Charlie, somewhat guardedly. ‘Very approachable and friendly. He went out for a drink
with some of the lads after the session. Likes a particular
brand of German lager apparently.’
‘Which one?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten its name.’
‘Oh.’ Katie sounded disappointed.
Charlie brightened. ‘And butterscotch. I remember being
told he liked that too.’
‘Butterscotch.’ Katie repeated the word reverentially.
I got up to go to the loo. As I reached the door I heard
Charlie ask her, ‘So, how are things at college?’
I wanted to linger outside the door to hear her answer, but
I knew Katie would sense this. She doesn’t
let me get away with much. Even so, none of them seemed to notice when I
returned. They were in a huddle and I heard Katie whispering
e
arnestly, ‘I’m not that surprised, but it’s still hard to accept.’
Then she looked up at me and said, ‘Oh, you’re back.’
‘I can go out again if you want.’ I tried to make it sound
light-hearted.
‘Oh, don’t be silly, Mum!’ Katie exclaimed, half-bashful.
She looked over at Charlie, who smiled supportively. Then
she got up and gave me a hug.
‘Anybody want a cuppa?’ Charlie asked.
‘Oh yes, please,’ Katie beamed. ‘Can I have mine in the
teddy mug?’
‘Well, your mother usually uses that one,’ he looked at me
wryly. ‘But I’m sure she won’t mind just this once.’
‘What does a recording engineer actually do?’ asked Katie, when we all had steaming mugs before us and were helping
ourselves liberally to choccy biscuits.
‘Fifty per cent is technical,’ Charlie answered. ‘You know – pushing faders and adjusting levels – making sure things
sound good. The rest is psychological.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Musicians get a bit uptight in the studio sometimes.
It makes them feel better when I come along and adjust
the mikes a fraction or something. Half the time it’s not
necessary.’
‘So why do you do it?’
‘Anything that helps them helps me. I understand what
they’re going through.’
‘Charlie’s a musician.’ I always have to add this bit of
information. He never mentions it for some reason.
‘Really!’ Sarah gets enthusiastic then. ‘What do you play?’
‘The saxophone, mainly.’
‘I play the guitar. Do you have a guitar here?’ Sarah looks
round the room.
‘Yeah, I do. Upstairs someplace. I’ll get it if you like.’
‘Would you?’ Sarah bounces delightedly on her floor cushion.
And we end up having an impromptu concert with Charlie
playing his saxophone, Sarah the guitar, me tapping on the
table and Katie shaking a jar of lentils. Rosie, our audience,
sits on her rug near the door and watches us all with rapt
attention, though she occasionally scratches her ear against a
chair. Satchmo, Charlie’s cat, has wisely decided to go outside
for a stroll.
Then the top of Katie’s jar of lentils comes off. They scatter
all over the place and Katie and Sarah collapse in a heap on the floor in a fit of giggles. Charlie looks over at me then, in
a strange way that makes my stomach lurch. I really didn’t
expect him to look at me like that. I don’t know what to do.
I look away, and then back at him, only he’s now looking at
the girls. It’s probably just my imagination.
When I look at the girls myself I see that Sarah’s arm is lying
across Katie’s breasts in a very comfortable, familiar, way.
‘Oh shit,’ I think. ‘And just when the evening was getting
all apple pie too.’
That night, when everyone has gone to bed, I hear Katie
sneaking into Sarah’s room. This is, of course, something I
had feared, but there’s nothing about how to deal with it in
Lesbianism: Old Myths – New Realities.
So I just lie there,
rigid with indecision, while my head swims with lurid pictures
of my daughter licking another woman’s vagina. I wonder
if they’ve brought a vibrator and lubricator with them, and
what it feels like to hug bare breast to breast. In fact, if my
daughter weren’t involved, I would have found the situation
quite interesting. But as she is involved, I quickly work myself
into a state.
It’s hard enough adjusting to the idea of my wide-eyed innocent daughter having a sex life at all, let alone this one.
I want to charge into Sarah’s room and shout…‘Stop it. Stop it at once!’ like I used to when Katie and her friends had dramatic and noisy pillow fights.
But they wouldn’t stop it, I know that. They’d just do it somewhere else. I’d alienate them – that’s what I’d do. And
Katie wouldn’t visit any more.
‘If only Bruce were here,’ I think. ‘Then we could sit and
fret together.’ Since we’ve masqueraded as ‘liberal’ parents
for years, it seems only fair we should share the heat as Katie
calls our bluff.
‘Well at least she can’t get pregnant,’ I think forlornly, as
I pace round my room. All my self-help books tell me to
emphasise the positive. ‘What am I going to do? I can’t go
back to bed with this going on.’
I know what Bruce would do. When he can’t sleep he watches television. He’d tune into an old black-and-white
thriller about giant cockroaches terrorising a hairdresser’s or
s
omething, and tune out. But I can’t tune out. I have to talk
t
o someone.
Thankfully Charlie is still awake when I tap on his door.
‘Charlie – Charlie – can I come in?’ I whisper urgently.
‘Yes. Yes. Of course. Just a moment.’
He’s doing up the top button of his jeans as he opens the
door. I stumble gratefully inside. ‘What is it? You look worried.’