by Joan Smith
‘Loretta!’ Sally leaned forward and up to plant a kiss on Loretta’s cheek. She was small and thin, her short black hair framing a heart-shaped face which gave her the look of an inquisitive pixie.
‘Come in.’ She had lowered her voice to not much more than a whisper, and she glanced over her shoulder into her flat as if she wanted to say something without being overheard. All that came out, though, was: ‘They’re in here.’
Loretta, puzzled, followed Sally into the flat. Something was wrong, that much was clear, but there had hardly been time. . . She glanced covertly at her watch and saw she was only a few minutes late.
‘Don’t worry about being quiet,’ Sally said in her normal voice, pushing open the door of the front room. ‘Peter’s taken Felicity to his mother’s for the night.’
Loretta stepped into the room over a toy fire engine which was lying on the threshold. Gently, she moved it away with her foot so she could close the door. When she turned round she was surprised to find not two but three women looking expectantly at her. Two of them said hello, while the third, a complete stranger, offered an uncertain grin. She was young and pretty, in short skirt and patterned tights, and she sat close to June Price on Sally’s old Habitat sofa. Nobody said anything for a moment and Loretta looked to Sally for guidance.
‘This is a friend of June’s,’ Sally announced, opening her eyes wide. ‘Carol – sorry, I’m terrible at surnames.’
‘Carol Macklin,’ June supplied. ‘D’you want to sit here, Loretta?’
She gestured to the space beside her, on her left, but it was a polite rather than a welcoming gesture. Loretta had a sense that, accidentally or otherwise, June and Carol had set up an exclusion zone at the heart of the room. She wondered who Carol was, and why June had brought her.
‘No, it’s all right, I’ll –’ She looked quickly across the room and moved towards a battered armchair. ‘Is this free?’
‘Yes, help yourself. Tea, Loretta? You don’t drink coffee, do you?’ Sally waited by the kitchen door.
‘Tea would be wonderful!’ Loretta said fervently, sitting down. She realized at once that her enthusiasm was out of all proportion; she had been offered a drink, not a three-course meal. It must be the atmosphere in the room, she thought, feeling stiff and unable to relax. She concealed her discomfort by reaching for the loose cushion behind her, trying it in several positions as though it was the only source of her unease.
‘That’s better,’ she said at last, flexing her shoulder muscles and looking across at June. ‘Well – how are you? Still in the same job?’ The last time they had met June was working as an administrator in a law centre, an endlessly frustrating position with long hours and inadequate resources.
‘Yes, but I only do three days a week now. There’s no money – the council’s rate-capped, of course. But it does mean more time for other things – I’m doing a part-time MA, so it’s worked out quite well. . .’
June shot a glance at Carol, who had turned away to examine the contents of a revolving bookcase next to the sofa. Loretta waited for June to continue the conversation, observing that her hair was shorter and lighter, and her customary jeans had been replaced by a skirt and handknitted jumper. When June remained silent she gave a slight shrug and turned to the remaining member of the group.
‘How about you, Sue?’ she asked brightly. ‘You’re looking well.’
‘Oh – yes.’ Sue closed the magazine she’d been flipping through and gave Loretta a startled look. Loretta had the very strong impression that she, too, would much rather be elsewhere. ‘I’m sorry about Sandra,’ Sue said abruptly, pushing her longish hair behind her ears.
Loretta acknowledged this remark with a slight nod, reluctant to talk about the accident until Sally came back from the kitchen. She had no clear idea about the form the meeting was supposed to take, and she wondered what was keeping Sally.
‘Where are you working these days?’ she asked, to keep the conversation going. ‘Same school?’
‘Yes – I’m just about standing it. We got a new head last year, and he’s not very. . . Well, I’m looking elsewhere,’ she said shortly. Sue taught physics in a comprehensive school in Hackney.
‘I thought I had some Earl Grey,’ said Sally, coming back into the room and handing Loretta a mug. ‘Careful, it’s hot. I couldn’t find it, so I’m afraid it’s Indian.’ She drew up a Lloyd Loom chair, recently painted white, from a corner of the room and sat down. ‘Oh, thanks.’ She leaned forward and took a handful of photographs from June. ‘I’ll show you these later, Loretta,’ she said, putting them back in an envelope. ‘They’re just of Fliss.’
Silence fell, and Loretta noticed out of the corner of her eye that Sue had picked up her magazine again. She studied a framed poster over the fireplace, a well-known Hockney print of a swimming-pool, and tried to recall whether meetings of the group had always started as awkwardly as this. Perhaps at the very beginning, she thought, straining to remember, but not later on; once they’d got to know each other, there was always someone who wanted to pass on a piece of news – Sue announcing that she’d finally told her violent boyfriend to move out, Sally talking about her ex-husband’s attempts to persuade her into a reconciliation, Sandra confiding that living alone in London was more difficult than she’d anticipated.
‘Um – I suppose it’s up to me to start,’ Sally said suddenly, sitting up straight with the photographs in her lap. ‘This meeting was my idea, I thought of it as soon as Loretta told me –’
‘Actually –’ They all looked at June, surprised by the interruption. ‘Actually, before you get going, there’s something I’d like to say.’
Loretta glanced at Sally and back to June, noticing that next to her on the sofa Carol was examining one of her shoes in minute detail. There was something about the women’s proximity, their intense awareness of each other even when their attention was apparently elsewhere, that gave Loretta a sudden inkling of what June was going to say. The knowledge was so unexpected, so great a diversion from the stated purpose of the meeting, that she immediately sensed trouble ahead. She was pleased for June, of course, but how would they get back to the subject of Sandra?
‘I didn’t want to come tonight,’ June was saying, a little defiantly. ‘When Sally rang me I said – I told her there wasn’t much point. It’s dreadful hearing someone’s died but – well, it hasn’t got anything to do with me now ... I sort of feel – to be honest, I don’t think I should ever have been in the group.’
‘Why not?’ Sally looked puzzled, and Loretta realized she was still in the dark.
‘OK.’ June took a deep breath. ‘Remember when the group started? I was still living with Geoff – I must’ve driven you all mad. One week I was going to leave him and the next I’d changed my mind – I was scared. I remember saying that, but not why –’ She bit her lip and went on. ‘I had these feelings, I’d had them for ages, and I thought if I left Geoff. . . You didn’t make it any easier, you were all so bloody net.’ She stopped and looked at Carol for support.
‘Oh, June! Why didn’t you say?’ Sally had at last understood the situation, and she looked astonished. ‘That was the whole point of the group, being able to say –’
‘That’s why I’m telling you,’ June interrupted. ‘I couldn’t say anything. It didn’t seem – I suppose when I saw the ad in Spare Rib and it said a group for separated women I sort of hoped – but I soon got the message. All the rest of you were interested in was men. That’s not exactly what I mean, I’m not putting this well – I know we talked about different sorts of relationships, but always with men. You know, whether it was different if you weren’t married, or you didn’t actually live with them ... I don’t think the group helped me at all, looking back, I just felt the odd one out all the time.’
‘So did Sandra,’ Loretta said without thinking.
‘Sandra?’ June looked astonished. ‘But she – she dominated the group. There were times, only once or twice I admit, when I was
going to say – wait a minute, why are we always talking about heterosexuality, and then I looked at her and I just couldn’t –’
‘Why not?’ Sally demanded.
‘Because she –’ June opened her hands in front of her as though her point was too obvious to be worth making.
‘You mean – you think she was anti-gay?’ Sally’s tone gave the impression that she was ready to argue.
June gave a short laugh. ‘Not so much that as – I don’t normally use words like heterosexist, but she behaved as though gay people never existed. Especially after she had an affair with that man, the one she met at the health farm.’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling to convey what she thought about health farms. ‘It was all – oh, he’s so good in bed, I just never knew it could be like this –’
‘She is dead,’ Sally said coldly, glaring across the room.
‘It was you who wanted me to come here,’ June shot back. ‘I’m just explaining. . .’
‘You have to allow for her background,’ Sally protested. ‘She’d never lived in London before, she’d spent all her life in Hampshire being a wife and mother – you have to admire her for having the courage to break away from that. Where she came from, there probably weren’t many gay people –’
‘You’re saying there aren’t any lesbians in Hampshire? Or any gay men?’
‘Of course not! But I doubt if it’s so open – you’ve just told us how difficult you found it to come out in London. All I’m saying is, I’m sorry you feel like this about Sandra and I think you’re being a bit unfair. It was very hard for her, leaving Tom and the kids –’
‘She hadn’t really left him.’
June crossed one leg over the other and described circles in the air with her right foot. Loretta, feeling in some obscure way that the argument was her fault for innocently mentioning that Sandra had felt left out, was reminded of an angry cat twitching its tail. She noticed that Sue had wisely gone back to her magazine and sighed, wishing she had one.
‘What do you mean?’ Sally was waiting for June to elaborate.
‘Well, she was still sleeping with him.’
‘Was she?’ Sally sounded surprised.
‘Oh yes. I met her once at the Special Clinic, she’d got some infection from the bloke at the health farm – ironic, isn’t it? And she was worried to death about giving it to Tom.’
‘Do we have to have this discussion?’ Sue asked sharply, shutting her magazine and tossing it on to the floor. ‘I’d really rather not sit here while you two argue about Sandra’s sex life.’
‘I didn’t bring it up,’ Sally protested.
‘It’s the last thing I want to talk about,’ June insisted.
There was a strained silence and Loretta looked at the sunlight on the water in the Hockney painting. Even though it was only a print it glinted with captured light, and she shivered, suddenly aware that the room wasn’t very warm.
‘I’m sorry,’ June said helplessly, after a moment. ‘This is exactly why I didn’t want to come.’
‘It’s my fault,’ Sally said, gripping the arms of her chair. ‘It was my idea.’
‘June – remember the time,’ said a voice Loretta didn’t recognize. She swivelled round from the Hockney to see that Carol was speaking for the first time. ‘We said we’d try and be there for the beginning. . .’
‘Oh.’ June looked torn. ‘Some friends of ours are playing at a club in Stoke Newington. . . We said we’d get there by half nine. I’m sorry.’
‘Well –’ Sally seemed to be about to say something, then changed her mind.
‘I’m glad to have seen you all,’ June continued, rather formally now. ‘Our coats. . .’
‘Your coats – oh shit!’ Sally had jumped to her feet, scattering photographs of her baby all over the floor. She went down on her knees and began picking them up.
‘I’ll do it,’ Loretta knelt beside her, glad of something to do. ‘You get the coats.’
Sally got heavily to her feet and disappeared through a door which she shut behind her. She was gone for a couple of minutes, and Loretta was looking for a safe place to put the envelope containing the photos when she came back into the room.
‘June.’ Sally handed her a black coat. ‘Carol.’
The two women stood up.
‘Well – thanks for the tea.’ June moved towards the door, Carol in her wake.
‘Don’t – I hope you enjoy your concert.’ Sally trailed behind them.
Loretta called ‘Goodbye’ and a moment later heard the sound of the front door being opened. Sally came back into the room and threw herself down on the sofa.
‘God,’ she said, propping her right elbow on the back of it. ‘I had no idea.’
‘What of?’ asked Sue. ‘That June was gay or that that was going to happen?’
‘Either. Did you, Loretta? I know you weren’t keen on the meeting.’
‘Only because we hadn’t met for so long –’ Loretta began.
Sally interrupted her. ‘I feel terrible about the whole thing. The group, I mean, not just what she said about Sandra. It never occurred to me that she. . .’
‘That was her point, I think,’ Sue said succinctly. ‘Feeling awful doesn’t help. What’re we going to do now?’
‘Now?’ Loretta looked at her watch. ‘Go home, I suppose.’
‘Oh no,’ moaned Sally. ‘You can’t leave me here in this state. Can’t we – does anyone fancy a pizza? That place on Islington Green? Anything to take my mind off it.’
‘I suppose I could eat something,’ Loretta said slowly.
‘I don’t mind,’ Sue said, getting up. ‘I’ll get the coats.’ She disappeared into the room Sally had gone into earlier.
‘I’m sorry, Loretta,’ said Sally, not looking at her. She was carrying the Lloyd Loom chair back to its corner.
‘Oh, forget it – it might’ve worked. Maybe if Bridget had been here. . .’
‘Maybe. I was going to ask you – I thought it would come up naturally, but as it hasn’t. . . Did you get hold of Tom? You were going to ask him about the accident, where it happened and so on.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Loretta shook her head. ‘I’ve tried him several times and he’s always out. I wondered if he’d gone away for a few days. I’ll have to speak to him some time, I’ve still got Sandra’s clothes and things. . .’
‘Will you let me know? It doesn’t make any difference, really, I’d just like to know –’
‘Yes, I’ll give you a ring.’ Loretta remembered the photographs and went over to the table where she’d put the envelope, anxious to get off the unhappy subject of Sandra. There were about a dozen pictures, most of them showing Felicity, or Felicity and Sally. ‘Gosh, she’s big for her age. She’s got a nice smile.’
‘She’s very advanced – it’s not just me that thinks so, it’s the clinic as well.’
There was the sound of a lavatory flushing – Loretta remembered Sally’s bathroom was off the bedroom – and Sue came back with her own and Loretta’s coats in her arms.
‘Weighs a ton,’ she said disapprovingly, handing Loretta her fake fur.
‘It’s very warm,’ Loretta pointed out. ‘Ready?’
‘Yes,’ said Sally, eagerly leading the way. ‘Just slam the door – I’ve got the keys.’
Loretta brought up the rear, making sure the door to the flat was firmly shut. ‘Is it still raining?’ she called out, retrieving her damp umbrella in the hall.
‘Pouring. Whose car shall we go in?’
‘Let’s take mine.’ Loretta joined Sue and Sally on the steps, a gust of wind snatching at her umbrella and turning it inside out.
‘Oh hell,’ she said, trying to right it. ‘I’ve broken one of the spokes. We’ll just have to run for it.’
The three women hurried down the steps into the wild night, pausing on the pavement to link arms against the wind. Then, proceeding like some ungainly, night-fearing animal, they struggled up the street to where Loretta had left her
car.
Chapter 6
Loretta waited until the following afternoon before trying Tom Neil’s number again. She did so reluctantly, and only because of the practical problem of Sandra’s luggage. Until the previous evening she had managed to push her own guilty feelings about Sandra to the back of her mind, but the events at Sally’s flat had revived them. It did not help that June’s remarks, however justified, had demonstrated the partial truth of Sandra’s claim that the women’s group had been hostile towards her. Loretta thought that the sooner she came to some arrangement with Tom Neil the better, then she could forget the whole business.
She was so used to getting no reply from the Winchester number that she was unprepared when the phone was picked up. A female voice requested her to hang on; she heard a clatter as the receiver was put down, and a whine in the background which sounded like a vacuum cleaner. It stopped abruptly, and the phone was lifted again.