The Microcosm

by Maureen Duffy

  Nearly finished their little tête-à-tête. Wonder who they’ve been taking apart. Here comes Nan’s little mob back from their smoke in the lavatories. Not very nice really having to go in there everytime you want a drag. There ought to be a restroom where you could smoke or else time to get to the canteen stead of drinking your tea chained to the bench. Notice the blackies all stick together when it comes to a break. Always reckon that big one’s butch. Looks just like that one who gets down the House, the one Matt asked me if I could fancy. Like I said I don’t mind, I mean the world’s big enough but they don’t attract me; don’t think I could go with one. I like fair people best even though Jon’s so dark. Myra was mousey really though when we’d been swimming a lot that summer and lying about in the sun it got a sort of golden tint in places. Interesting though when you think about it that it don’t make no difference the colour: there’s them like us in all races. Fancy them harems too and all the men thinking it’s such a sexy idea dozens of beautiful women just sitting about all perfumed and painted waiting for the lord and master to crook his little finger and say, ‘I’ll have you tonight,’ and all the time they weren’t waiting at all. Wonder what happened if he found out or perhaps he didn’t mind. After all they go in for little boys a lot in eastern countries I heard somewhere so maybe they take it all for granted. Must have been rather a comedown having to put up with a fat old man if you was used to someone younger and better-looking. You’d have to think of it as just a job to earn your keep like the pros do and if there were enough of you it wouldn’t come round all that often.

  Back to work; there’s the foreman getting out his little whip to get our noses to the grindstone. I’ll save them last two biscuits for our cup of tea when we get in. Mustn’t eat too many or I’ll be getting too fat and then Jon will be wild. Besides no one’ll want me if I get the size of a house. They ought to have telly in here to keep your mind off things while you’re working, I mean just in the breaks so you don’t go thinking too much and upsetting yourself. That’s the trouble with having a good imagination you can be miles away and all caught up in what you’re romancing about that’s why I’m no good going shopping without a list. I get carried away so easy and don’t come back with half I should. That’s why I like it best when Jon comes too cos she never forgets what we’re supposed to be out for and I can enjoy meself and talk and laugh and make up stories without worrying I’ll get home and find I got nothing in me bag for our dinners. Oh she’s like a rock Jon and just what I need. ‘You’re too fly-by-night by half,’ mum would say, ‘and I dread to think of the poor devil that’s got to keep you.’ Maybe that’s why she’s so fond of Jonnie, sees how good she is for me and asks no questions, doesn’t care so long as I’m happy and in a home of me own, getting some nice things together which is more than she ever had from our dad.

  France, that’s where we’ll go this year if I can talk her into it. I bet there isn’t one in this whole shop that’s been to Paris say though Nan put it about they was flying to Majorca last year she and her husband. Full of it she was for weeks and then suddenly she went all quiet and we never heard no more so I don’t reckon they ever got there. But you can have some stunning times in Paris; lots of the girls go and you can get a list of the clubs there from those who’ve been and have yourselves a real ball. They’re more broad-minded in Paris, used to all sorts, artists and people so who’d notice us. Make up a foursome that’d be best with someone who speaks a bit of the language, and then I can just see us strolling along by the river and sitting out on the pavement to eat, wine with every meal, a different club every night. Trouble is you wouldn’t be content with just once, I reckon, as a taster; you’d want to be going back there again and again and this hole’d seem even worse after a holiday like that as if you’d wandered into a film by accident. Still that’s life for most people without even a chance to get away like we can. If I can only talk Jon into it. I’d be so good you’d think I’d grown wings if I thought at the end of it there’d be something like that, and I wouldn’t sit about and mope when we come back so you needn’t be afraid of that. I’d be so full of new ideas, things we’d seen and done, you wouldn’t know the place or me. I’d need some new clothes though. That old red moiré’s getting a bit past it for evenings out if you’re really going places not just seeing the same old mob who’ll think yes that’s Sadie and no more. Going among strangers is different and the Parisians are supposed to be ever such smart dressers I wouldn’t want Jon to be ashamed of me always being so neat and handsome herself. I’d need me hair done too before I go with a new tint to it; this auburn lights is nearly grown out. What about Mitzi? She’d have to go to the kennels. Mum’d be glad to have her but I wouldn’t trust him; come home boozed one night and tread on her he would. Oh there’s a lot to think about if you want to branch out, see the world before you’re too old to enjoy it.

  It’s alright for Jon; she’s been about a bit. Join the army for a life of adventure only from what she tells me the kind of adventures they had weren’t the sort the government had in mind. Now there’s another thing they never had on telly: women in the forces. That’d make a smashing play. Still if they told the truth about what really goes on there’d be a riot with hundreds of butches all queuing up to sign on. Fancy them officers searching through your kit when there’s a raid on. What do they think they’ll find? Letters and photographs mostly Jon said and there’s a liberty when you think of it quizzing through people’s private things. Oh I love it when Jon tells me about her time in the army cos you can just see her when she’s telling it in that uniform so confident and cool. Never had no worries Jon; no am I or aren’t I and what did I ought to do about it. Just took it all as a matter of course. Like when Matt asked her if she ever did by herself and she said, ‘Yeah I might if ever I was without a woman for long enough but I never been without a woman for long.’ Made me go all cold and wanting to have it there and then straight away except that we’d got people in to tea and I’ve never cared for some of these tales you hear about all in together girls nice fine weather girls. Now I think that is perverted if they like.

  The story I like best is the one right at the end when she’d sent in her papers for her discharge and they posted her to a new camp cos she’d been in hospital and they closed her old one down while she was in there or something. I never get that bit quite right cos I’m dying for her to get on to the next where she gets to this camp and finds the whole place is full of it and they call the dormitories married quarters. Then what happens? Oh yes she won’t get mixed in it because she knows she’s going out any time now and besides she’s already got a girlfriend and troubles enough of her own there. A sergeant she was then and they’d asked her to go for an officer but she said no cos her girls like her and bring all their worries to her but they wouldn’t do that anymore if she was to become an officer. So practically as soon as she gets to this camp the top brass gets a whiff of how things are and a big blitz is on with pryings and pokings and everyone up on the mat in turn. Comes Jon’s go and she stands there to attention. ‘Easy sergeant,’ says the brass and explains what they’re after Has she any suspicions although they realise she hasn’t been there long. Haven’t they searched the kit she wants to know. Oh yes they say. Then you know more than I can tell you. But we thought you might have heard something that could help us in our enquiries. I’m afraid not, says Jon. Then they start to get tough. Those who are found will of course be dishonourably discharged. It would be a pity after fourteen years sergeant and with a record like yours. Are you sure you’re not involved yourself. Quite sure, says Jon. Why are you so sure? Because none of them attract me, says Jon. Surprise on all their faces. Do you mean that you are admitting to homosexual practices? Yes, says Jon, but not within the camp, though I’m not saying it mightn’t have been different if I’d liked any of them. You’re very frank in your comments, they say. Why shouldn’t I be? I’ve got nothing to lose. I’m going out anyway. It’s just a matter of time before the papers come
through. So you won’t help us then? I’m afraid I can’t. You’ll never stamp it out you know, no matter how much you try. If you stop it here it’ll come out somewhere else. It’s only natural, says Jon. Well, we shall see about that sergeant and we shall certainly have to consider your case very carefully in the light of what you’ve said. And then they dismiss her.

  Oh I’d give anything to have been there, to have been a little fly on the wall and seen it all. But they left her alone after that cos she’d shown them she didn’t care and spoken out Jon reckons, though the blitz went on and they did catch one or two and discharged them. Jon knew too much after all that time about the whole set-up and about the officers who were involved cos a lot of them was as bad or as good as the ordinary privates. When the time come she found nothing had been said and she’d got her honourable discharge after all. A bit after they closed that camp and separated them all up. Never stamp it out Jon says and you can believe it when you see all them butches from the barracks come down the House sometimes though she thinks it’s a shame on some of the kids go in knowing nothing and then find it’s either that or the little soldier boys from up the road as if you was one of them floozies used to follow the army round in the old days like I see in that serial where the young captain didn’t know which to marry: the beautiful young lady he’d left behind or the dark gipsy-looking girl who’d looked after him when he was wounded in battle. Lovely that was and really something to look forward to every Sunday just as it got dark. Course they never said that’s what she was cos of family viewing but anyone with a grain of intelligence could’ve worked it out in a flash.

  She’s been about has Jonnie and that’s one of the things I liked her for when we first met; took it all so cool instead of getting all het up. Still we’d never have got off the ground if she’d rushed it too much cos I swore I wouldn’t have nothing to do with no one not ever again not after that blonde butch taking me home when I was plastered so I never know what I was doing or what she was up to neither and still couldn’t remember when I come to in the morning except that me nails was all broken and there was bits of skin in them where I’d clawed at her back. She showed me the marks. ‘Look what you done,’ she said and I said I was sorry. ‘But what was you doing to make me?’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember? Then it couldn’t have been nothing too terrible.’ And there was that thing, like the one Jonnie and me made once only it didn’t seem much good maybe cos I never been with a man, and it was all broken. ‘You didn’t use that on me?’ She laughed. ‘Well it must be your fault if I scratched you. There must have been some reason for it.’ And she laughed again. Real rough she was, sadistic and I swore I’d never go with anyone again. Kept it up too for nearly a year til Jon came along. Sore I was for nearly a week and I’d warn anyone against her if I thought she was after them. Was she got me drunk too though I haven’t much of a head at the best of times and it’s always then that me and Jon have our little set-tos. Wasn’t I crying all over Rae last time we had a party and telling her all me troubles, how Jonnie didn’t love me no more and it was all me own fault. Sat there and listened all serious she did, ever so nice, though you can see just by looking at her that she’d never been used to drunks crying in her lap. Still she manages Matt and they say she likes a few though I’ve never actually seen her real drunk.

  Must say the second half’s going a bit quicker than the first and needs to too. Shan’t be long now and then home and see what Mitzi’s been up to left all alone on a Saturday morning. I’ll pop along to the Seafry and get us some fish and chips for dinner. That’ll be quickest then a bit of shopping for tomorrow, back for tea and a few minutes sit down then it’ll be time to start getting ready for this evening. Rick’s going to pick us up in the car so I can wear me light coat since we won’t be standing freezing at the bustop. Better too when Jon’s got her best suit on in case someone gets too nosey though they can’t tell as a rule til she opens her mouth. It’s the voices give them away and then people start to look cos they don’t know what to make of it. We been lucky though, never any real trouble, beatings up and things like some have. That Tony’s face was a mess the other week behind them sunglasses. I couldn’t stand to see Jon get bashed about. I’d clout ’em with me handbag if they started on her. Makes me feel sick to think of it, violence. Like our dad. Animals that’s all they are. Always the young ones, the teds and what are they afraid of that’s what I’d like to ask them. I wouldn’t go with them if I wasn’t with Jon. That’s what’s so stupid. I mean if Jon turned into a man I’d have to leave her. Oh it’d be terrible. She’d like it though. I know she would cos she said once she doesn’t think of herself as a woman. That’d be a dreadful choice. What would I do? Still it isn’t likely now after all these years so I won’t think about it. No sense in worrying over something that’ll never happen. It’s a shame for Jon though. I mean think of the money she could be earning, the jobs she could have with her experience if she had’ve been born a boy stead of working her guts out doing overtime to make it up to the lowest wage the old boy on the broom gets paid. There was that once she brought home thirteen pound at the end of week. That was a lovely week. She’d rather I only came on part-time I know and so would I but we couldn’t manage with six pound a week rent even if I screwed and scraped like mum used to. You can’t do it these days. It’s seeing all them lovely things on telly make you discontented so you’re struggling and striving all the time for that little extra. Maybe we’d do better on the pumps like Matt but you’re out in all weathers there, it’s got to be on a busy site to bring in the tips and you can be turned off anytime and then where would we be? Out on our ear if we couldn’t pay up at the end of the week and there’s the few sticks of furniture on the never-never to be kept going somehow. Bloody funny we’d look standing in the street with all our goods and chattels and nothing to feed Mitzi. Like a Victorian melodrama and very amusing I’m sure, a great big laugh from a rumbling belly.

  There you go again imagining the worst, making up terrible tragedies to frighten yourself to death with, wasting your time when you could be thinking something nice and cheerful to pass the rest of the morning. No wonder Jon gets wild with you sometimes. But I wish she wouldn’t go all silent, wish she’d up and tell me straight out what she’s thinking or even give me a good clout round the earhole. I mean I could understand that better but when she just sits there saying nothing I forget we’re not speaking, me thoughts go running on and before I know where I am I’m singing some song or starting to tell her a story as if we wasn’t in the middle of a blazing row if you can call it a row when nobody’s letting out a word in case it’s just the wrong one. And it’s always me who’s the first to make it up. Not that I mind. I like it better like that cos it shows she’s stronger than me and that’s how it should be. I don’t think you can have respect for anyone who gives in to you all the time. I get frightened when I’m in one of my paddies that I’ll do or say something, something I don’t mean, something that’ll mean the end of everything and then what would I do? Would Jon take me back? Say I went off with someone like that blonde butch and everything cos I was miserable? That was the only reason last time cos I’d been on me own since Myra went and I thought who cares anyway what I do? Who’m I saving it for? Was it before or just after I lost me job and had to get out of that room? Not that there was anything to miss in that miserable hole, more like a morgue than anywhere for the living. That was why I went home with her I remember now. ‘Come home with me darling,’ she says all sweet, ‘if you haven’t got nowhere to go.’ And all the time she was buying me drops of gin and orange and I was drinking ’em down like a silly bitch not thinking til I was so sloshed I couldn’t see out of me eyes. She was ashamed in the morning though I could see that, didn’t feel so bigsy then. That’s why she let me stay on though I never let her touch me again. Went down the House most evenings to get away from her and just sat in a corner by meself. One or two tried to get friendly but I’d had enough. I told them no go.

 
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