by Liz Byrski
‘Years ago I had a very close friendship, a loving friendship with a woman called Colleen, that ended abruptly after almost eight years. I’ve never seen or spoken to her since the day we parted.’ She stops to focus her thoughts, looks down at the book.
‘When I first read Truth and Beauty I thought it was going to tell me something about my friendship with Colleen. We were both in our twenties when we met. I’d left home after a huge falling out with my parents and I wanted to get away. I eventually got a teaching job at a posh high school for girls in Melbourne. That was where I met Colleen, we started there on the same day. I taught French and history, Colleen taught maths and geography. We liked each other straight away, and we ended up sharing a house. It was a very close friendship. We shared everything, our hopes and fears, our clothes, our books, even our darkest secrets, which weren’t really dark at all, but we never shared our beds.’
Simone suddenly has misgivings and stops abruptly, staring down at the floor, wondering what they will think of her – a woman in her sixties who sounds like a teenager.
‘Are you okay, Simone?’ Adele asks. ‘You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.’
‘Of course not,’ Judy adds. ‘We can stop this anytime.’
‘I don’t want to stop,’ Simone says firmly. ‘I really don’t, but it’s difficult, I’ve never talked about this before.’
She looks around, manages a smile, and begins again. ‘I think we were both pretty emotionally naive and needy, me more so than Colleen, probably because I was learning to live with the scar on my face, which I’d acquired some months earlier. Boyfriends came and went, but never seemed significant. I assumed, I suppose, that we would always be together. She filled a gap in me that made me a better, more complete person. I never had a sister, not even a really close female friend before. Just Geoff and Doug, when I was young.’
‘So this Geoff is the person you had dinner with on Friday?’ Judy asks. ‘Sorry, but I missed out on some of your conversations this past week.’
Simone nods. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘And you said that he’s told you something that made this more confusing.’
‘Yes, and I’ll get to that in a minute. One evening Colleen came home with another girl – Lorraine. I’d met her a few times and didn’t like her much, and they’d had a bit to drink. I was just about to go to bed, so I said hello and disappeared into my bedroom.
‘The next morning, when I got up, I saw that Lorraine’s shoes were still where she had kicked them off, so I realised that she must have stayed the night in Colleen’s room. Anyway, it was a Saturday, and I had a shower and dressed and went out and didn’t think any more of it. But that evening Colleen told me that she and Lorraine were in love, and she’d asked Lorraine to move in with us. They’d been seeing each other on and off for several months. They were a couple.’
The silence when Simone stops speaking is laden with anticipation. The three other women are staring at her, willing her to go on.
‘I was devastated, and outraged, paralysed by the most overwhelming jealousy and hurt. I was mad with it. I wept, I shouted. And Colleen was clearly stunned. She kept saying, “But I’ve been out with other people, and that didn’t bother you. It’s no different, you’ll still be my best friend.” She didn’t seem to understand that it was different because Lorraine was a woman, and that had she fallen in love with a man I could always be the most important woman in her life. I felt I’d been robbed of my primacy in her life because her lover was another woman.’
‘So what did you do?’ Adele asks. ‘Did you explain that to her?’
Simone shakes her head. ‘Foolishly I didn’t. I was young and stupid, and obviously impulsive. I packed everything and moved out the next day. I actually think I flounced out. I wouldn’t speak to her, wouldn’t say where I was going. I avoided her at school, handed in my notice and left at the end of that term. I never spoke another word to her, despite her efforts to try and talk to me. I’ve never seen or heard from her since I left the school. And for months I was lost and grief stricken, and deeply confused. My overwhelming feeling was that something fundamental had been ripped away and I would never get it back. I believed I had lost the love of my life.’ Simone stops again, shrugs and sighs.
‘And you and Colleen were never lovers?’ Adele asks. ‘Not ever?’
Simone shakes her head. ‘Never. There was never anything sexual between us. And much later, a year or more after I walked out, I was still asking myself the same questions. What was this? Was it love or friendship, what did it all mean? Can you actually be in love without it being sexual? Why did I feel and behave like a spurned lover when I had never wanted to be her lover? And why did she wait so long to tell me – they’d been seeing each other for months and she’d never spoken about Lorraine in anything other than a casual way until she brought her home that night. I still don’t know the answers to those questions.’
‘I think it was pretty outrageous to have invited Lorraine to move in with you both when she hadn’t even mentioned it to you,’ Ros says. ‘Have you ever tried to contact her?’
‘No. I couldn’t bear to at the time, and then I just left it too long.’
‘Would you try to find her, if you could, like you found Geoff?’ Judy asks.
‘I don’t know. I don’t see any point now. All I know is that she went back to Ireland at some stage, with Lorraine. I heard that from one of the other teachers I bumped into when she was on holiday in Hobart. What I want to know and what Colleen wouldn’t be able to answer anyway is, what was wrong with me that I couldn’t bear not to be the only woman in her life? Am I actually a lesbian, and if so, why can’t I fully inhabit that identity? If not, then why couldn’t I let Colleen have this love and still retain our friendship? I didn’t know the answers then, and I still don’t know them now. And the only friendship between women that in any way mirrored the intensity of what we’d had was the friendship that I read about in Truth and Beauty.’
‘But that seemed to me to be such an unequal sort of friendship,’ Adele says, with obvious caution. ‘This wasn’t the case with you and Colleen, was it?’
‘No, that’s right,’ Simone says, ‘but it doesn’t explain my reaction . . . does it?’
‘It doesn’t, but . . .’ Ros hesitates.
‘Go on,’ Simone says.
‘I don’t want to presume . . .’
‘Presume all you want, just talk to me.’
Ros raises her eyebrows. ‘Okay then, perhaps you were in love with Colleen. You had a love affair without sex, which I’d call a relationship. Perhaps Lucy Grealy and Ann Patchett had something similar.’
‘Does it matter what you call it?’ Judy asks.
‘It only matters in that it’s confusing,’ Simone says. ‘I suppose I’ve questioned my sexuality because – and now you are going to think I am totally weird – because I feel no sexual desire for either sex, and although I can flirt with both men and women, flirting is a game in which I never want to score a goal. It’s a step towards something that doesn’t interest me. Something else drives me, a different sort of connection that I can’t define.’
‘But you have a son,’ Adele says, ‘so presumably you had a relationship after you left Colleen?’
‘No,’ Simone says. She puts down her cup and looks away, staring out of the window to the garden. ‘I had my son without having sex. I desperately wanted a child, but had no man in my life and didn’t want one. My son is the result of an accommodating male friend and a turkey baster.’
Adele gasps, claps a hand to her mouth. ‘You didn’t really?’
‘Really,’ Simone says. ‘Is it so very odd?’
‘Well . . .’ Adele hesitates, blushing, ‘it’s . . . it’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think it’s odd,’ Ros says. ‘Back in the early days of the women’s movement
– the early seventies – I knew a few women who used the turkey baster, but they were pretty cagey about telling anyone. They were committed to the idea that being a single parent was the best solution for a woman, and for her children.’
‘Hmm,’ Adele says, ‘I didn’t realise that.’ She turns back to Simone. ‘But do you really mean that you haven’t had a relationship since Adam was born?’
‘Well actually I’ve never had a relationship with a man at all,’ Simone says. ‘I had some casual sex when I was young, when I lived in Paris, and then later, when I first lived with Colleen and after that. I had a few brief and unenthusiastic interludes, but nothing serious, nothing that lasted more than a couple of months. And it was never something that I sought out.’
‘Crikey,’ Judy says, ‘I thought I was odd because I’ve only ever had a couple of brief relationships and a few casual flings since I left Ted.’
‘But why, Simone?’ Adele asks.
Simone hesitates, torn between needing to talk about this and wishing she’d never started to. She’s struggling to behave as though she is totally cool with talking about it, while simultaneously discovering that she is actually not cool at all. ‘I am asexual,’ Simone says. ‘It’s not as uncommon as you probably think. There are lots of people who simply don’t feel sexual attraction to anyone. But there are various forms of asexuality – I mean, some people have romantic but not sexual attractions to others of the opposite sex or same sex. And we’re all capable of, and frequently long for, a full and rich lifelong relationship as much as anyone else.’ She stops suddenly, seeing the expression on Adele’s face. ‘Oh, Adele, I can see you are amazed by this.’
‘I am,’ Adele says, ‘amazed and fascinated. I’d no idea.’
‘Me neither,’ Judy says. ‘I’ve always been a bit half-hearted about sex, but I thought that was just me.’
‘I was never half-hearted,’ Ros says, and everyone explodes into laughter. She smiles. ‘Actually I was enthusiastic and always considered myself rather good at it, and James and I had a very robust sex life, I’m glad to say. But I do know several women who feel, like Judy says, half-hearted about it, especially once they’ve had children. And I know one woman who, like Simone, is asexual and very much at peace with it.’
‘It’s easy to live without sex,’ Simone says. ‘I’ve never missed it, I never really think about it and I’ve never sought it. But I have sometimes cooperated out of politeness!’
There are more hoots of laughter.
‘I can’t believe you said that,’ Adele says. ‘That’s hilarious.’
‘Hilarious but true.’ Simone smiles. ‘And since I stopped being polite the year I turned fifty, I’ve felt much better about myself. There’s a feeling of congruence that comes with it. Accepting who you are feels quite powerful. My only problem is trying to understand what happened with Colleen, because I loved her, but I felt no desire for her. It all made more sense when I actually started to explore asexuality. I’ve sometimes wondered if I’m homoromantic, which is having romantic but not sexual feelings for someone of the same sex. But while I loved Colleen it wasn’t a romantic sort of love, more like I imagine you’d love a sister. I’d always had the feeling that someone was missing from my life, and I believed that Colleen was that person.’
Judy nods. ‘I certainly don’t feel I’ve lost out on anything by not having had a sex life for years. I feel I’ve missed out on love and friendship, but not sex.’
Adele shakes her head. ‘I am so ignorant,’ she says. ‘I knew none of this. I’ve always been,’ she hesitates, flushing, ‘um . . . enthusiastic about sex but often found it very disappointing.’
‘Many men are hopeless lovers,’ Ros says. ‘Not that I have vast experience, but I’ve been involved in many conversations with lots of women.’
‘I’ve wondered . . .’ Adele says cautiously, looking down at her feet, ‘. . . well, I’ve thought it might just be because I’m embarrassed about my body. I’ve always been big, and never in great shape. There have been times when I’ve felt real shame when a man looked at me as though I wasn’t what he was expecting. That certainly curbs one’s own enthusiasm.’
Simone listens as the conversation continues, wondering whether, in fact, revealing herself like this was wise. No one actually freaked out. But has it changed the way they see her? Perhaps, she thinks, this is just who I am and perhaps that’s the answer. What else was I hoping to get from this?
‘This is fascinating,’ Judy says, ‘but, Simone, you did say that there was something else, something that Geoff told you – can you tell us about that?’
Simone nods. ‘Sure,’ she says, and she begins to talk about her childhood, her friendship with the Marshall twins, their closeness, Claire’s kindness, and the strain that had developed in her parents’ relationship. She tells them how the boys had visited her in Paris and how, when she got home the following year, their house had been sold and the boys and Claire were gone.
They listen as she tells them of the fight with her father, the methylated spirits, the subsequent stay in hospital and the fact that she left home as soon as she could after that. ‘And that’s when I moved to Melbourne and met Colleen,’ she says.
‘Does your son know about the turkey baster?’
Simone laughs. ‘Yes, he knows. We joke about it as the virgin birth. He’s met his biological father and they get on well together.’
Ros smiles. ‘But, Simone, what did Geoff tell you that was so important that you’ve been brooding on it ever since?’
‘He told me that the reason they left was that my father got their mother pregnant while all us kids were away. My mother found out, there were terrible arguments, tantrums, threats, and eventually Claire sold the property and she and her boys went back to her family in England. So what Geoff told me, and what I’ve been brooding on, is that I have a half-sister, young enough to be my daughter – and more than ten years older than my son. Her name is Paula.’
She takes out her phone, shows them the photograph of Paula with her brothers.
‘Before they left my father begged them never to tell me. But Geoff told me that he and Doug wrote to me in Paris, not saying anything about Paula, just telling me where they’d be. They sent it care of my aunt in Paris, but she was my mother’s sister, and I can only assume that either Mama must have told her to destroy it, or perhaps she sent it to me at home and my parents destroyed it.’ She looks down at the photograph. ‘When Geoff showed me this I felt an extraordinary sense of recognition – she does look like my father and I feel joined to her. I grew up as an only child. Adele, you and I have talked about this, about how being an only child is quite distinctive in the way we think about ourselves, and how we relate to other people.’
Adele nods. ‘Yes, of course – it’s central to who we are.’
‘So imagine you suddenly discover that you are, in fact, a sister, even if just by fifty per cent.’
Adele is obviously taken by surprise. ‘I can’t imagine how I’d react to that,’ she says. ‘It would challenge everything I think I know about myself. I have no idea if I’d feel a connection as you do, Simone, or whether I’d feel anger or resentment, freak out, or want to run away. It would throw my understanding of my past and myself into chaos.’
‘Exactly,’ Simone says. ‘And now what I want most is to meet Paula. But I have to face the fact that she may not want to meet me.’
‘But Simone, how did all this happen?’ Judy asks. ‘I suppose your father and Claire had an affair?’
‘They must have. Geoff said he’d fill me in on all the details when Doug gets here,’ Simone says. ‘I do think he’s holding back and is a bit edgy about it. Anyway, I’ll know soon.’
‘This is all getting away from what Simone was asking about the nature of her relationship with Colleen,’ Ros says. ‘History and literature are packed with instances of passionate friendships
between women, and how threatened men were by them and the steps they took to separate the women friends. Of course some of those passionate attachments were sexual, but many weren’t. So, I stick with my belief, Simone – that you were perhaps in love with Colleen, just as you might be in love with a sexual partner of either sex. I don’t think sex defines love or being in love. We make things what we want them to be – if we’re brave enough, that is.’
‘I’m getting awfully hungry,’ Judy says, suddenly.
‘Me too,’ says Ros. ‘Shall we continue this over dinner? Who’s night is it?’
‘It’s mine,’ Adele says, getting to her feet. ‘I made a chicken pie, and the veggies are all ready to go too.’
‘I’ll come and help you,’ Judy says, getting to her feet and following Adele out to the kitchen.
Simone sits silently. She feels drained, but relieved to have spoken about this at last.
‘That must have been quite hard,’ Ros says quietly. ‘But sometimes just airing something helps, doesn’t it?’
Simone nods. ‘It does, it has. Although I don’t understand how or why!’
‘Time to draw lots,’ Judy says later, when they have cleared away the dinner plates. ‘Only Ros and Adele left. Which of you will go first?’
They look at each other across the table. ‘Shall we toss a coin?’ Ros asks.
‘Good idea,’ Adele says and she fetches a dollar coin from the housekeeping money they keep in a box in the kitchen.
Judy takes the coin. ‘Ready? Adele, you’re heads; Ros, tails. Here we go.’
The coin falls to tails.
Ros pulls a face. ‘Okay,’ she says, ‘where are the marbles?’
Judy holds out the black velvet bag. Adele reaches in and draws white.
‘Oh dear!’ Adele says, sighing. ‘Okay, I’ll go and get the books.’ She heads for her bedroom and picks up the books from the side table, turns, then stops at the bedroom door, remembering the moment she had left her house, locked her front door, got into the taxi and headed for the airport for the flight to Sydney. So much seems to have shifted since then. I’ve changed, she thinks. Just being here with these three women has changed me. And she runs back down the stairs.