by Lucy Ellmann
After a reasonably thorough introductory period on the terrace, Pietro Fortuni dragged me off the mat and led me indoors to his bedroom. Napoleon had once owned Pietro Fortuni’s bed, or slept in it, or at least sat on it. Pietro Fortuni swiftly took off his clothes, except for his socks, and then undressed me, uttering little compliments here and there. Some ardent pummelling ensued, continually interrupted by the telephone, which Pietro Fortuni bounded off to answer in the living-room – this must have been the reason for the socks. He spouted lively Italian into the receiver. By his second or third disappearance, he took with him the unexciting and unnoticed gift of my virginity, thus adding me to his collection of charmless animals. He fucked another orifice or two, before dumping me at a bus-stop outside Florence. I’ve always associated the event with Napoleon.
The life-like richness of hand-painted porcelain, the magic of lead crystal, brought together as never before.
Another of Franny’s offerings was Gonzales, a Nicaraguan refugee. He’d heard of me through Franny and came over to have help on the English in a pamphlet he’d written about the Sandinistas. Franny had told me he was a great lover – and of course I wanted to do what I could for the cause. He started kissing me almost immediately, with a scaly armadillo-like tongue that Franny hadn’t mentioned. The Sandinista guerrillas were left to their own devices (consciousness-raising and camouflage, as far as I could ascertain) as he unzipped his jeans in order to reveal a prick that stood straight up like a seventeen-year-old’s. He fucked like a seventeen-year-old too, coming, and going, within ten minutes. He never spoke to me again – must have been scaling his contact with foreigners down to a minimum.
‘I can’t get no satisfaction.’
34a, The Close, Canterbury 1975
Fat, with frizzy, mousy hair and baggy clothes, I morosely massaged the cold gray substance before me until it was so smooth I could no longer feel it. I liked this damp, complacent flesh. I moulded webbed feet, wings, an elephant’s trunk, an angular skull, a dinosaur’s tail: I’d made another monster.
With some effort, Franny had persuaded Daddy to let me go to art school, and me that I wanted to go. Saskia wondered why I didn’t study fashion, but I concentrated on sculpture, and of course Art History.
Daddy and Saskia came to visit me, worried about why I was so depressed. They’d become more or less aware that I was barely attending the art school (designed to be turned into a factory if need be), drinking a lot of dry vermouth, and taking only children’s books out of the library. We drove to a fairly fancy pub they’d spotted on their way into town, and ordered Sunday lunches. The food arrived, and I was just about to start eating it, when Daddy said, ‘You know, you’d be a lot happier if you lost some weight.’
The food stuck in my throat after that. I couldn’t bear to be seen stuffing my fat face. Instead, I felt like killing my father, but the knife beside my plate wasn’t satisfyingly sharp enough. As soon as they dropped me off afterwards, I went to the local shop and bought a loaf of Mother’s Pride, thick-sliced, and consumed nine-tenths of it (all rolled into doughballs, minus the crusts), sitting up in bed in my bed-sit. I thought of making some noodles after that, but felt too sick to get up.
A girl has to avoid her father between the age of puberty and the time of her marriage. If they meet in the road, she hides while he passes, and she may never go and sit near him.
Gwendoline and Gertrude
Ulysses Road 1983
‘But what I want to know is, what shall I do about my tubers?’
‘I’ve always been fascinated b–’
I switched the radio off – somebody’s always been fascinated by something. Skirting round the white slabs of overcooked noodle, the semi-dissolved tomatoes and the pyramidal remains of potatoes, I was searching for what was left of the cauliflower (under the mistaken belief that cauliflower has some nutritional value), and nearing the conclusion that I’m not much of a cook, when the phone rang.
‘Oh, Susan, dear, how are you?’ Saskia, at her most alarmingly effulgent. I responded with my customary reserve.
‘I’m eating soup. How are you?’ I felt she would somehow know I was eating something, in fact that was probably why she’d called, so I thought I might as well admit it.
‘Oh, very well, my dear. Can’t talk long, I’m afraid. I’m just calling to give you some exciting news!’ Pause, so that I would have to ask, ‘What news?’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Well, you know your father’s friend, Jill? Oh, of course you do, you met her at that little do of ours. Susan? Are you still there, Susan?’
‘Yeah. Yes, I know Jill.’
‘Well, she has a friend at the University of Utah.’ Another pause. Was this supposed to interest me?
‘Oh, does she?’
‘Yes. And this friend is putting on an Art History conference in Copenhagen and, wait for it, she wants to know if you would like to give a talk!’
‘WHAT???’
‘She wants to know if you’d like to give a talk in Copenhagen!’
‘Of course I’d like to! What on? What did you tell her? When do I leave?’
‘Oh, your father will have all the details. I just couldn’t wait, I had to tell you!’
‘But I never even – How did she hear of me? Do you know, Saskia?’
‘Oh, I don’t know much more. You’ll have to ask Daddy all that.’
‘God, this is incredible. And a friend of mine just asked me to come and stay with him in Copenhagen!’
‘Ohhh. Who?’
‘Now don’t get excited. He’s gay. And, you forget I’m living with Jeremy!’
We giggled in a friendly fashion about this and then said goodbye. I had definitely lost my cool with Saskia, but it seemed to please her, which she suddenly seemed to deserve. Brushing this perplexing development aside, I spent the night surveying the glorious future spreading before me: international renown. I tried to think up a topic to lecture on. ‘Aloofness, from Chardin to Christo.’ ‘Artistic Absence and Abstinence.’ ‘Fake Ready-Mades, from Oldenburg to Louise Nevelson.’ ‘Why Claes Oldenburg Doesn’t Do His Own Sewing.’ ‘Yoghurt-Buying in Modern Britain.’
I called my father in the morning. He enquired about my financial affairs, which he often alleviated, the state of my car, which he’d given me, and the progress of my Ph.D., which he had some hopes of my finishing. After receiving fairly optimistic appraisals of all three, he seemed about to hang up, so I had to say, ‘Uh, Daddy, I was just wondering, do you know anything about a friend in Utah, I mean a friend of Jill’s in Utah? Saskia said she maybe wanted me to give a talk-’
‘Oh, it’s Fran they want! I don’t know where Saskia got the idea it was you. So silly!’
‘ah.’
‘I’m sorry she told you …’
‘No, that’s okay. I’ll recover. I, uh, just wanted to see Sweden, that’s all.’
‘Denmark.’
‘What?’
‘Did you say Sweden?’
‘Is Copenhagen in Denmark?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh well, I wanted to go to Sweden, so that’s okay.’
Swigging the rest of my tea, I caught a glimpse of my own eye in the shiny bottom of the cup, and quickly looked away.
I took my coupon to the local grocery store. They didn’t have any Woolite, but as I was inspecting their range of biscuits, the man in charge crept near me and said, ‘You’re beautiful.’ I pretended not to have heard, giving him the chance to bethink this opinion. I was leaning over the cucumbers when the guy repeated his statement and kissed me on the cheek. Adroitly side-stepping the situation, and the cucumbers, I asked him how you cook baby aubergines, several of which nestled, warming, in my palm. He shrugged, and suddenly looked foolish to me, wandering around after customers while his wife was frying baby aubergines in lemon and garlic for him at home.
Banana Split
(They told me to keep track!)
Franny had given my affair with Jere
my at best three years, and thought he was depressing me. Jeremy told me not to let Franny stay too often because she seemed to depress me. Jeremy was in fact the first method I’d found of keeping Franny at bay.
I was thinking about English Central Heating when the DHSS man arrived to check whether Jeremy and I were living together or just cohabiting. The English have adopted Central Heating like some kind of cargo cult, like wooden airplanes in Papua New Guinea or the non-functioning fridges prominently displayed in Russian living-rooms. All the English seem to know is they’re supposed to have these sharp-looking metal objects scattered around the walls – they’re not interested in heat. But what can one expect in a country where a plug on an electrical device is considered an optional extra? The DHSS man decided we were just living together.
After he’d gone, I sat down and wrote a letter to Chris, with whom I had not bothered to communicate for thirteen years:
Dear Chris,
Sorry not to have been in touch for twelve years. Sorrier than you may imagine, in fact. I can’t get you out of my system. Please come fuck me soon so I can see you’re no better than other men. Come soon.
I’m living with a guy who likes crisps and yoghurts in bed when he has a cold. He treats me well whenever I’m sick and brings me Lemsip, but immediately feels very hard-done-by and gets sick himself and needs crisps and yoghurts brought to him.
I’m writing a Ph.D. but not getting it done. I lie on the floor listening to hard-luck stories on the radio.
Recently I retrieved the shoe-box full of your letters, from our house in Oxford. How could you have loved me so much? Come fuck me soon.
That done, I decided to take a walk on Hampstead Heath. It was twilight, with a bright thin crescent moon low in the sky. Joggers passed, no muggers, so I went deeper. I sat on a bench in order to feel all alone in the dark. I almost managed this before the cold and the fear began to dominate.
I got up. It was very dark as I began to move. Aiming as well as I could for the dimly recollected route I’d come by, I caught sight of a dark form like me on a bench not far off, and became convinced that this person, unlike me, was a psychopath. I deeply regretted being on the Heath after dark, when it was known to become infested with psychopaths. I acknowledged that I was terrified, all too aware of my own vulnerability. Feeling very weak but ignoring fatigue and my conspicuous heart-beat, I walked very fast uphill. Darkness and tiny sounds. I cut across a field hoping it would lead somewhere and that no psychopath would notice me marching across open terrain. I squelched through soggy grass, hearing the sound of water trickling everywhere.
My aim was good: I came out near Kenwood House, that bastion of decency, and marched out into the lighted street with a great sense of my own strength and resilience.
Several strong cords are fixed to this and
these are fixed to a special harness.
I registered defeat: Franny would be impossibly self-congratulatory now about the shopping expedition. She’d actually gotten me to try on and buy several articles of clothing I’d probably never have the guts to wear.
‘Okay, now let’s go have a drink,’ I said, lugging the semi-welcome bags out of the shop.
‘Nope. Time for ice-cream!’ declared Franny, steering me off Oxford Street towards a fairly Americanized ice-cream parlor within sight. Franny sure knew how to have a good time.
She ordered a Hot Fudge Sundae, emphasizing her interest in a lot of cream and a lot of hot fudge and anything else the establishment might think of plopping on. Still her favorite, I noted: Hot Fudge. Fearing her equally familiar displeasure if I didn’t join in her brand of self-indulgence – the danger of falling into the Gwendoline & Gertrude trap – I ordered a concoction of similar magnitude, though featuring a banana.
The mood was restless as we awaited our ice-cream. I tried to make conversation: ‘There was something I wanted to ask you, but I can’t remember what. When are you coming to London again, by the way?’
‘I hope those sparkly pants are ready in time for Copenhagen,’ Franny replied (they were being shortened). ‘Where did we get them? That was a good place. Aren’t you glad you came? About time you got out of all those terrible baggy things. See? Aren’t you having a good time? Well, aren’t you?’
‘Top Shop.’
Franny began searching frantically for her wallet. I was about to tell her it was on her lap, when her Hot Fudge Sundae arrived. Its purple paper parasol had failed to protect it from a hailstorm of chopped walnuts. Franny sent it back, claiming that she had never agreed to walnuts.
‘God!’ she exclaimed. ‘They still don’t know anything about ice-cream in this country.’ She craned her neck to see if any innocent bystanders had taken this insult in.
After the walnut contretemps, Franny was even more fidgety. She collected dollops of my undisputed item on her index finger, and then took a spoon to it. I tried to divert her attention with more conversation.
‘Hey, leave some of it for me!’
As we delved into the same mound of whipped cream topped with caramel syrup, I quelled my desire to defend my ice-cream with physical force if necessary. Sitting back in a gesture of dog-like submission, I enquired about her man-friend of the moment.
‘Oh God, Suzy! He has the most beautiful body. Just wait till you see him! He’s so American – big shoulders, big jaw, big everything!’ She smirked.
‘Really?’ I asked, moving closer to my ice-cream.
‘But why does he never come?’ she asked mournfully.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, brightening a little with this peculiar revelation.
‘With my Hot Fudge Sundae, what did you think I meant, fuck it!’ She dropped her spoon on top of my banana affair and almost rose up off her swivel seat.
‘God Almighty, why don’t you eat some more of my thing if you’re so hungry,’ I offered diplomatically. ‘For Christ’s sake!’ I added.
She looked a bit sheepish then, I thought, and said, ‘No, thanks, I don’t like yours. I particularly don’t like that obscene banana sticking out of it.’ The dish was nudged back in my direction.
‘Christ,’ I said.
Franny’s Hot Fudge Sundae returned with merely a cherry on top this time, embedded like a belly-button in a virtuoso whipped cream display. She accepted it. I considered trying to draw her attention to the resemblance of the fudge elements to pubic hair peeking out of frilly white lingerie, but settled instead for a private fantasy in which her order was swiftly deflowered by mine.
We were supposed to meet the great Rod, and old Jeremy, at a pub of Jeremy’s choosing in Soho. Jeremy had given us the wrong name and the wrong street, or at least one or the other, but somehow Franny and I got there, only about half an hour late. They were hunched over in a corner: Rod was giving Jeremy a detailed description of the production of Tristan and Isolde that he and his ex-wife had seen at Bayreuth a few years back. Jeremy was fascinated. No, really – Jeremy loved Wagner (in fact any passive activity that took up a great deal of time).
It was a while before we could complain about being misdirected to the pub.
A SURE METHOD OF REDUCING
WEIGHT WITHOUT DISCOMFORT
Foods to be avoided
Over-fat people nearly always eat too
much fat-building food, particularly
starchy foods, sugar, candies and sweet
desserts. The following articles should
be rigidly excluded from the dietary:
candy, sugar, preserves and sweetmeats
of all sorts, ice-cream, sweet desserts, fat
meats.
Write for a free copy of our
comprehensive booklet:
‘Girth Control’
One day I was unable to attend a lecture at the Courtauld given by an Impressionism expert famous for his frequent use of the phrase, ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’, because I felt sick. When Jeremy came home and sat down on the bed in which I was lying, I nearly threw up. I was
still feeling sick the next day, so I went to the doctor. He suggested a pregnancy test.
‘But what about my feeling sick?’ I asked.
‘The two could be related, you know.’ He peered at me.
‘But it can’t be Morning Sickness! I feel sick all the time!’
It was a shock to Jeremy and me that we were fertile.
The Lacto-Dextrin Method
It must be remembered that with
Lacto-Dextrin liberal quantities of
roughage to supply bulk, and paraffin
in some form to supply lubrication
must be taken. Both bulk and
lubrication are needed.
A Winter Wedding
Around the time when Jeremy and Suzy were discussing the significance of her pregnancy and whether or not it should be allowed to continue (Jeremy suggested not, on the grounds that he would feel inclined to love the child and their relationship was too unstable to warrant such a commitment; Suzy suggested continuing the pregnancy, on the grounds that otherwise she would feel inclined to commit suicide), Fran was finding it increasingly hard to reach Rod. Having allowed for the two weeks he was going to be in Germany visiting his ex-wife and child, Fran began calling the Art History Department office. The secretary did her best to head Fran off at the pass, as per usual. Life revolved around this woman’s whims: decisions about salaries and schedules, admin., admissions and assignations, all depended on her likes and dislikes, her long lunch hours. But finally Fran found Rod, shooting his mouth off in the Top Bar, with a tactile young German grad student hanging on his arm.
Rod phoned Fran that night to tell her she hadn’t loved him enough: they both agreed that the break-up was all her fault. She avoided all three university bars after that. It was agony to meet him, and he was always somewhere, seeking out a new ear for an old story. She was amazed he ever got anything done. She, by contrast, devoted herself to non-stop work on her long-awaited, already-advertised book, The Con-Artist Exposed: Violence and Humiliation Committed in the Name of Art. She believed, like her father, that scholarship was the only antidote to emotional turmoil.