Darkness more visible

by Finola Moorhead

  'Good one!' Margaret Hall, like many of the cyber-savvy generation of feminists, thinks old warhorses incapable of humour.

  Daisy plucks at her stole. 'I think the revolution is about changing hearts, I really do.'

  'We came to dance. Let's bop, Daze?' Haze invites.

  Rory enthusiastically harangues the pale Dracula at her side, Alison Hungerford.

  Gurls hang together, watching and being watched, an identifiable group, laughing, arguing, brooding, flirting, playing, spatting, knowing, wearing the disparaging nomenclature like comfortable waistcoats.

  'The SCUM Manifesto hit the streets, taking the establishment by surprise before it knew what feminism was about,' Rory proclaims. 'Solanas knew it all and drew the logical conclusions. She not only asked the questions, she provided the answers. Not only did she preach, she practised her doctrine. No privilege at all enabled or assisted her.'

  She is interrupted by a jolly dyke from Coffs Harbour, trying to keep her filter-cigarette alight through a long cigarette-holder. 'So who are you birds dressed up as?' The gurls look at her without comment. Rory, passable as an early-nineteenth-century aviatrix, with goggles pushed up over a leather skull-cap, easy shirt, flared joddies and boots, looks at Ilsa for help.

  Ilsa feels she has little in common with lesbians defined by sexual preference and in couples, confined by personal romance. She says, 'Her reading going no further than detective fiction, Lord Peter Wimsey apparently fits the bill as her Orlando personality.'

  'Haven't read it, exactly,' the newcomer responds, completely without guile. 'Whatshername is too complicated for me.'

  'Dorothy Sayers,' educates Ilsa, as she thinks. Amazons and Sapphists, lesbians of ancient Greece, the land-dwelling horsewomen with their arrows and bows, helmets and shields, were warriors while the sophisticated island people of Lesbos were into poetry and love-making.

  'No one takes Valerie Solanas seriously any more, Rory,' Dee says and shakes her head, unused to tresses around her ears. She doesn't want to talk with the woman who calls women birds.

  In the sea air, the mixed bunch on the balcony, come and go. Company makes Rory loquacious; she can't help herself. 'She was the most passionate woman of last century, but it didn't come from her heart. It came from her mind!'

  'Is there a difference?' Ilsa asks, rhetorically.

  'No,' Dee decides. 'Chinese medicine locates the mind in the heart, anyway.'

  The electronic music suddenly stops. The ball is colourful, well-attended and camp. Pretence drowns pretension. Preening boys are silent while older poofters flirt. Gross, glorious darlings perform in the lull.

  The drama teacher introduces a live act. Judith Sloane, dressed as a medieval troubadour, takes the stage, and with her acoustic guitar sings a Joan Baez classic. The smoking crowd cluster at the door and windows to listen. When she finishes her set, enthusiastic applause is laced with sarcastic mumbles. Madrigal music fills the speakers.

  Rory wants to finish what she was saying. 'They called Valerie mad. Naturally, seeing she was a prophet.'

  'A Cassandra. My mother used to say, "You're as mad as Cassandra".'

  Alison leans her back against the railing and rolls a joint. Fiona and Dee wait to share it.

  Ilsa, ever amazed at what she doesn't know, remarks, 'I never heard that expression, and I did Classics at school. Cassandra was Trojan. And…'

  'Must be a class thing. All my mother knew about her was Cassandra was mad. My mum had lots of great lines,' Fi says.

  'Yes, mine too. But, back to the point,' Rory wants to take control of the conversation. 'Solanas drew their fire and they have been firing ever since at any woman who pokes her head out of the hide and calls out the defects of…'

  'Aren't we all mad?' Alison asks laconically. Dee notices, in the lighter flame, her pupils are like pins.

  'The female must stay the second sex, or else. We fear for our survival. It makes cowards of us all.' Rory doesn't take any notice of the males stepping out in meticulous imitation of Elizabethan fun.

  'And hypocrites. What are you doing here, Rory?' Dello demands, 'This is a gay and lesbian do and you're a separatist.'

  'The separatist voice is, actually, the voice of diversity,' Rory explains. 'Anyway, there's not a lot to go to any more.' The ball has changed its momentum. She gives up trying to have a meaningful discussion.

  Inside, lipstick lesbians and drag queens, young gays and heavy older women, in their fantasy of androgyny, melt masculinity and femininity into make-believe with their fancy dress. The recorded music after Judith's nostalgic performance is the special tape, prepared for the occasion. Rory goes in.

  Alison, in her high-collared cape, gravitates to Maria, who is a motley and impressive dowager in a cloak in a fur hat. 'From Muscovy,' she pats her head. And smiles, warmly.

  'Where's Sofia?' Alison's pale face paint is splashed with blood-red lips, and her voice is smouldering.

  'She wouldn't come to anything men are at. But I can't resist a social,' Maria grins, becoming attracted.

  Alison laughs, 'Same reason Chandra isn't here. Let's go down to the sand.' Dracula takes the dowager's hand.

  When Rory finally enters the hall, she falls promptly in love. Margot Gorman, the harlequin, dances with the virgin queen, with swirls and bows, high hands hardly held. Totally made-up in Elizabethan garb, Margot's partner is camping it up for all to admire. Courtiers, youths on roller blades, circle around them as if on ice-skates, having studied the opening scene from the film, Orlando. The drama teacher looks hot and bothered in puff-sleeved velvet doublet, striped bloomers and tights. Dismayed and entranced, Rory muses on the authority of money, here the pink dollar, and class, the odd ignorance of the erudite Ilsa, with a side of her mind excited by the presence of others and herself a fool on the verandah, while she figures out how to catch the jester's eye. Her stare is direct, her feelings obvious. Margot herself is feeling cranky and bloated, although she is slim and attractive in skintight colour. She goes through the paces, steps gracefully, without enjoyment. Rory is confused by her sudden emotion: should she make contact or just stand back and admire? Whatever, her night is made. She watches and waits.

  Virginia makes moves with Cybil whose breasts push into a peachy cleavage against the cloth of her costume. They hand the little dog to each other and laugh and carry on.

  Rory thrusts her hands deeper into her bomber-jacket pocket as she stands, an island in a sea of moving people. Judith Sloane, the troubadour with her mandolin across her back, seductively arouses the interest of a handsome Koori from Kempsey, whom she introduces, charmingly, as if they are intimate already. A big-haired redhead grabs Rory's elbow and tries to make her dance with her. Rory solidly refuses.

  'I'm Tiger Cat,' she growls, and flirts outrageously. Rory is not impressed at being thrown off balance by a body-builder in leopard spots.

  Judith whispers, 'She fancies you, go for it.' Rory's fair skin blushes brighter red. Embarrassed, she reluctantly moves a few steps. Rory prays to the goddess, and is rescued from the attentions of the muscly feline by Margot, who takes her hand, raises it and swings her into a version of the Pride of Erin. She reddens again, and trips, and stumbles.

  'You don't want anything to do with her,' Margot murmurs as she steadies her.

  The disc jockey stops the music and the MC comes to the microphone. 'Now is the time for the judging of the best dressed.'

  Rory leans towards Margot and says, 'Your friend will be sure to win.'

  'Yes, he loves dressing up,' Margot affirms, watching Tiger Cat search out another loose gurl.

  'Well, they do, don't they?' Rory is shy. 'Mind if I go out for a fag?'

  Margot nods, distractedly.

  Rory adds hopefully, 'Wanna come?'

  'Okay.' Outside, Rory rolls her cigarette and mumbles, 'I'm Rory by the way.'

  'That your real name?' Margot responds. She stands staring at the sea rolling like midnight silk disturbed by a draught.

  'Well
, it's really Rosaleen.' Rory again suffers verbal trots, 'O'Riordan. What do you think of Orlando?'

  'Saw the movie,' answers Margot. 'I found it a bit boring. What was the point?'

  'Something to the effect of…' Rory finds her fluency disrupted by her feelings. 'If you have a male body you are a human being. Orlando is not free when a woman, the dresses, strict rules of society etc. make it impossible for her to do anything. Go hunting and running and so on. Plus her property is entailed. Men got the money.'

  'Oh, fair enough.' Margot's expression is sad. 'I can relate to that. I've always been pissed off that they don't have to suffer periods. Or premenstrual tension.'

  'Well, that's related, of course. The pain, the crabbiness, could be about self-hatred. Simply not wanting to be a woman. Because we have it so hard. Even those butches who try to change gender. Males trapped in female bodies are given credence,' Rory explains. 'It's not an equal choice.' She notices that Margot is not listening. 'You know? I meant, men have always loved dressing up in female garb and they have the freedom to do it without loss of self.' Secretly Rory is chiding herself for her lecturing tone. 'What's wrong?' she asks.

  Margot hesitates. 'I found a dead adolescent in a toilet block, yesterday. Don't exactly feel like celebrating.'

  Clapping inside is loud with whoops and squeals as the prizes are given out. Sean Dark as Elizabeth the First gets a magnum of champagne, and Virginia, a bottle of whisky, as the most believable Orlando.

  'I think I'll go home soon,' Margot says but doesn't move. 'Look!'

  Rory's eye follows her finger. Down on the beach, Maria and Alison make an eerie couple. The on-shore breeze lifts Maria's cape into a billowing balloon and Alison's high-collar cloak into fluttering bats' wings against the moonlit waves, a shot from a black and white movie.

  'Almost Gothic, isn't it?'

  Rory laughs in agreement. 'Very.'

  Scraps of the evening came into my head, as I drove through the silvery night, sober and unaccountably angry. Tiger Cat prowling around the gurls: what's she up to? When I got home I just sat at my kitchen table leafing through the morning's paper. Not really reading. Sean, fortunately, is a small, wiry guy, and the drama teacher's boys positively Shakespearian, but most of those transvestites are so big, apart from being as ugly as sin, and half the women were awful. That Judith Sloane had a nice voice, but her choice of song made me groan. The other half, like my new friend, Rory, and the prize-winning Orlando, looked as if they'd be comfortable whatever they wore. Except, possibly, what most women wear, say, as wedding guests, stockings and frocks. Fashion. Rugby League bonding sessions are a bit of a worry. Newspapers are full of the doings of psychopaths. And the crazy things rich people do with their money. Eventually I bundled them up for recycling, cleaned the place and went to bed.

  The phone woke me.

  Maria screamed, 'I'm being murdered. Sofia has me by the neck and she's throttling me.' This would be hard to believe except Maria is a large woman who could maintain hold of a hand-piece and be shaken at the same. She would barely wobble, not lifting a finger in her own defence. Did Maria prefer the role of victim, or was she afraid of her physical strength? Fat people are frightening because they sit on you. I looked at the time, and that did not make me any more patient. It was three in the morning.

  'What did you do?' I asked, assuming the attack was provoked.

  'Nothing. Threatened to ring you,' Maria gasped. 'Which I am.'

  Sofia hissed in the background. Putting in the effort to be patient, I wondered why Maria always rang me when in distress. What am I to her, a link to the real world?

  I heard the receiver fall on what sounded like the marble top of the coffee table in their lounge-room. Vicious words were exchanged.

  'Sofia! Sofia, pick up the phone,' I demanded.

  Sofia did that but before she could speak she sobbed. I waited.

  They began tearing strips off each other. I listened to their argument. Maria was called a sloth, a slug and a slob who made lecherous eyes at any young piece who came in the door, but this—whatever this was—was going too far. Sofia was insanely jealous. Maria couldn't even enjoy herself in her own house. Didn't Sofia have a life of her own? 'Pashing and slobbering, making a fool of yourself, Maria.' Sofia said she should call the police, 'It's perverse, pederasty.' Maria cried, 'She is not that young!'

  Irritated, I heard the verbal abuse, the tears, the screams. I was, I guessed, being used. Relationship junkies. Energy-crawlers, people in these constant, repetitive relationships have an incredible sense of self-importance. That's what I felt in the early hours. Sofia picked up the phone and addressed me, 'She's right, Margot. I will murder her. I would be doing all the pretty girls a favour. It won't be my fault.'

  'Put Maria on again, Sofia,' I commanded.

  'She'll be the death of me,' Maria said quietly. 'I'll let you get some kip, Margot. Sorry.'

  'Why did you ring me? What do you want me to do about it?' I asked, feeling that I should do something.

  'I don't know. I thought you could help me, but, of course, you can't. I must have filed away your number in my brain as someone to ring in an emergency. A reliable person, just in case.' Maria laughed, deprecating herself.

  'Okay.' Calmly, I asked, 'What did you do? Why is it so bad this time?'

  'I slept with her.' There was a tinge of sarcasm in her voice. 'That's what Sofia thinks. Let her think that.'

  'So it's not true?' I wanted to get the facts clear, at least.

  'What if it is?' Maria countered, defensively.

  'Do you want to hurt her? Why don't you have a break from each other?' I hoped I kept the exasperation out of my voice.

  'We're like two thick planks stuck together, frozen solid. A paralysis.' Maria explained, then said hopelessly, 'I cannot leave her.'

  Sofia began begging close to the mouthpiece, 'We've been eating each other for life-times, the gutless fat oaf makes me miserable.'

  'For godsake, respect,' I pleaded. Exasperated.

  After ruining my important REM sleep, they simply hung up. Back in bed, I tossed and turned, stewing, disturbed by my intuition more than anything else. Truly mad women love the night. Like vampires, they're feverishly conscious at night. So, the corollary holds: if you want to stay sane, let sleep reign at night. Let dreams work their magic and sort things out. All your worries are like fiddle-sticks to your subconscious mind. Maintain beauty sleep. I will buy an answer machine on Monday.

  The telephone rang again about three-quarters of an hour later. Spookily, no one was there. Just silence. A nuisance call. It brought back my fear of harassment by a conspiracy of unknown operatives arising from my being a possible whistle-blower. Risky business, having worked for the Authority and knowing too much. They chase me in various vehicles, particularly semi-trailers. They bore down on me as I rode my bike on the open road on my round-Australia trip. Was the full moon making a lunatic of me, too? I am not paranoid. There was a semi in the car park on Friday evening. And what if Tiger Cat is working for them?

  In the local paper is a map of parts of Great Dividing Range, including Lesbianlands, with a tender for lease to go about mining exploration. Fresh gurls freak out, but older hands say it happens all the time. The land was mined, just as it was logged, years ago.

  'The goddess will protect us from the patriarchy outside, don't worry.'

  The moans of long-gone Amazons, locked in the forbearance of rock, tell Roz, Pam, Olga and Nicole that in the denial of the strong female self is a misunderstanding of the entire human race. Out in the bush where gurls make up anecdotes, write poetry, create artefacts of little witches, the four who are not interested in stomping to acidhouse take advantage of the moon to light their way to eat a meal together and make their own music. The communal kitchen near the creek is no more than poles holding up a tarpaulin protecting wooden packing cases, with cutlery and crockery, blackened billy, three-legged cast-iron pot and fire. Odd musical instruments collected over the years,
or left behind, have a box. Pam plays a pipe and Olga drums.