She wonders, and feels safe enough to ask, how Nicola and Jacky feel about the circumstances surrounding her relationship with Jane. By this she means the fact that she is married with children and that she is Jane’s boss.
They have only sympathy for the hard road that they know Linda and Jane will have to travel. They make no judgment other than to say that the way in which women find themselves in terms of their identity in mid adulthood is part of patriarchal life. In their experience, these situations are not uncommon. And although they have no children themselves, they both know how important they are to any mother.
The evening ends with a suggestion from Jane’s friends that they join them and some other women, whom they think Linda will like, for supper at the end of September. She accepts and pictures in her mind’s eye, as they make the taxi journey home, Jane at her side as her partner in the company of like-minded people. She likes the idea. She is entering a double life. Just now, it all seems possible.
She picks up a message via her remote from her answer phone at the house. She is monitoring it so that Ken will not be aware that she is at Jane’s flat. But this message is from Susan. She is back from Rome and would like to see Linda before she goes out to Spain. Is that going to be possible?
They have one evening left before they fly out together via London to Santiago. Linda thinks quickly. She really just wants Jane to herself. And, frankly, she is getting just a bit weary of Susan’s current pickle. She has a limit to how long her listening ear will be sympathetic. But what nicer thing to do so than introduce Jane to Susan properly? She returns the call as soon as Jane agrees and they suggest one of the fish restaurants near Jane’s flat. Susan is out but Linda leaves a message.
Coming together at night into each other’s arms now has a familiarity about it. Lovemaking is as gently passionate as it was at the island hotel and lasts for hours at a time. The mornings are theirs and so they are now into a rhythm and pattern of being together that is still new but already has its own little rituals of intimacy, laughter and looking after each other. Linda knows there is already no going back from this relationship, even if she wanted to.
She rings Ken in the late morning. He is offhand and niggled about details of what Linda is doing, why she delayed going out to Spain and why she wanted to see Santiago with Jane rather than get to him and the children. The fact that it is a place of fascination for historians and archaeologists somehow sounds hollow, even to her.
“Well. I suppose I did lie to him,” she acknowledges to Jane later. “I don’t do that. But I honestly can’t feel guilty. He seemed to be trying to catch me out rather than to be enquiring how I’ve got on. That rather put my back up. But I contained my irritation. By the end of the call he was a bit better and it felt easier again.”
She sees Jane brace herself for the next question.
“How did you feel about him?”
Linda looks at her and raises her eyebrows in a way that indicates some guilt.
“Jane, you can’t live with someone for all these years and share your children with him without loving him dearly. And I do. But what I feel for you is different. It’s passion, of a kind I’ve never felt before. It’s a connection – I don’t know – words are so inadequate, aren’t they? It’s a total feeling. I’m as much in like with you as I am in love with you.”
Jane laughs and takes Linda into her arms. She does not want to hear any intimate details of Linda’s forthcoming return to Ken and neither of them refers to it again. The clock is ticking against them and they have to leave to meet Susan. In the lift down from the flat Jane comments,
“It doesn’t sound as though Spain is such a good idea.”
“I’ve dealt with Spain. You’re coming and – wait for it – I’m staying in Santiago with you for two nights.”
Kate laughs with delight.
What did Ken say, for God’s sake?”
“I just told him what I thought I’d do and he was silent for a bit. He muttered something about our family holiday being interrupted but he didn’t disagree. I’ve e-mailed his parents and they are happy for you to visit.”
“I think it might be better if I just see Santiago on my own and then come over to join you.” reflects Jane.
“No, no. I want to spend as much time with you as I can. I also hope we can spend some time with the children. I think they will like you.”
It is left there. The harbour side is busy with tourists and city dwellers out enjoying the warm summer evening. It all brings a vaguely Continental feeling to the area around Jane’s flat. It would be natural to stroll hand in hand anywhere other than in the city where they both work. But they do not, instead linking arms and smiling in silent recognition at the two women whom they do see who are holding hands.
“Good for them,” Jane laughs.
As they enter the restaurant, they see that Susan has already arrived and is half way down a glass of red wine. Jane watches Susan’s face as they walk towards her. She seems open and warm. She greets Jane first with a kiss to the cheek and says she is delighted that Jane could join them. She hugs Linda, and Linda thinks she hears Susan chuckle.
“You two look healthy - all the Hebridean sun, I take it?”
As soon as the conversation turns to Spain and Linda’s imminent departure, Linda
informs Susan that Jane has agreed to go out to Santiago with her so that they can spend some more time together. She looks at Susan with a twinkle of the eye and waits for her reply.
“So I take it congratulations are in order?” is how Susan phrases it.
Jane laughs as Linda replies.
“Very much so.”
Susan laughs too, raises her glass and toasts them,
“I wish you both so much happiness.”
Linda glows with the moment of acceptance. So they talk and share their relationship and its creation in the Hebrides with another trusted friend. But this time is different from when they met the two women. There is a hesitation; a kind of implicit double-checking that it really is all right with Susan.
But it is a good evening, further cementing Jane and Linda by Susan’s endorsement. If Susan has any note of caution, it is only based on pragmatism – that taking Jane to Ken’s parents is sailing very close to the wind. Linda simply retorts that they can handle things.
The restaurant is alive with people – every table taken and the waiters working at full, cheery speed to keep the guests fed. It is easy for Linda to occasionally touch Jane’s hand or cheek. Everyone seems oblivious.
Over the last glass of wine from the litre carafe, Linda finally asks Susan what progress there is on ‘the other matter’. Susan replies obliquely that there could be further problems. The chap concerned might be home now or sometime soon, she understands. It is all a matter of what he does or what the other person fishing about finds out. She has heard and done nothing since getting back to the city. Something else happened to take her attention off that business for a while.
“Uh huh.” Is Linda’s only response. And then, as if to change the subject, she says,
“How’s Bill, by the way?”
Linda detects a flicker of what she thinks is irritation in Susan’s face. Her reply is
non-committal. Jane clearly decides on a tactical visit to the toilet, leaving the two to talk about Susan’s private business, and spends far too long washing her hands. She even manages a few seconds’ chat with the headwaiter before returning to the table. Bless her, Linda thinks. It gives Susan and her a bit of time to hear Susan’s news. There is little more about Ramsey. But Linda can hardly credit what she listens to in the next few minutes.
After she left Bill, Susan met some Italian man at Rome airport and the flight was delayed. He bought her drinks and then sat with her on the flight. Linda fears that she knows what is coming next. And she is right. Susan had dinner and, Linda gathers, much more besides with the man. No wonder Susan has problems with her life. Linda nearly loses patience but realizes that this is n
ot the time. For now, Linda is the only person in whom Susan can confide.
She acted on impulse and with drink taken. She regretted it afterwards. The man’s name was Alberto, Susan says, and for once she quite liked the man. This just brings a raised eyebrow from Linda and, seeing it, a laugh from Susan. Between them, they suddenly see the humour of the flight home and of Susan’s indiscretions and both are in tears of helpless laughter when Jane rejoins them.
“Susan is just back from Rome,” Linda explains, drying her eyes and making a valiant attempt to bring Jane back into the conversation and to give them all something to focus on. “She’s been telling me her adventures.”
Jane has the sense to ask no questions. But Susan proves ready to open up in front of Jane and to talk very generally about her time with Bill, basically saying the relationship was nice but not what she hoped it might be. She does not refer to Alberto. She looks thoroughly wistful as she says,
“Watching you two tonight, I know what I’m missing. Not,” she adds hastily, “that a woman would be my cup of tea, you understand.”
This causes another ripple of laughter around the table.
The conversation shifts to debating whether the same intensity of women’s
relationships is to be found between men and women. Jane and Susan think not, but for different reasons. Jane thinks that nothing could equal her experience of being within a woman-to-woman relationship. Susan is quite lost as to how it could satisfy – by which she meant sexually. Linda thinks the intensity could be the same, though she does admit that her love for Ken has always been of a different order, somehow, to her feelings for Jane.
It is a good, warm evening and they part with warm kisses from Susan to each of them. They are now a trio of friends, a trio which each feels will continue from a solid foundation. Well, Linda thinks, it is as solid as the divide between Susan’s sexuality and theirs will allow.
None of them pays any attention to the neighbouring tables or to the people sitting at them.
Before flying out to Spain, Linda listens as Jane rings her brother. His delight for her that she has found her partnership is evident and, having met Linda, he is able to say that he likes her very much. He too knows what Jane is letting herself in for in terms of being involved with a married woman. He does not mince his words in saying so but brother and sister both know that Jane is beyond the point of dissuasion. He does advise her, though, not to tell their parents, protecting his sister from twofold disappointment – their reactions to the gender of their daughter’s final choice of partner and the moral issues entailed in Linda’s married status. Jane has no difficulty in accepting this advice. After the call, which she has sat silently through, Linda points out that he was talking a great deal of sense.
They land at Santiago – a small rural airport – to a different world of temperatures in the high seventies. The place is full of an unusual array of foreign travellers, mainly backpackers of all ages. Outside the terminal, travellers arriving at the airport after the completion of their pilgrimages sport walking crooks adorned with shells. These are walkers and modern-day pilgrims who have traversed the pilgrimage route across the north of Spain to where the remains of Saint James now lie in the cathedral – or so religious tradition has it.
Their hotel is stylish, sitting on the edge of an enormous square in Santiago. It is almost a museum in its own right with its mediaeval cloisters and array of antique oak furniture. From the doors of the hotel it is a one minute walk to the ornate and gold embellished Cathedral, one of the most impressive that either women has ever seen. Even to non-religious people such as themselves, it is still an overwhelming experience to join the queue of pilgrims, all here to see the remains of Saint James.
The days and nights in Santiago are as Linda imagined they could be, both
women increasingly convinced that they are in a long term and committed relationship. Linda tells Jane again, though, that she cannot and will not contemplate leaving Ken until the children are independent. Jane sees at once the logic of what Linda says. It is only a matter of five or six years, time in which they can spend as much time together as possible. At one level, it will be an eternity; at another, it is time that they can use to build their foundations for later. In the safety of their togetherness, here in Santiago, it is almost easy to contemplate. But she knows that what she basically wants is to be with Jane on a day-to-day basis.
Sensible and adult as she tries to be, Jane says that it is hard to accept that Linda’s mothering instinct will come above everything else. But relief lies in the fact that Linda is putting her long-term future in Jane’s orbit and not in Ken’s. Jane finds that she has no compunction in the thought of being a party to the end of a marriage.
In the quiet of their nights in Santiago, and away from the immediate pressures of their first days and nights together, they have some time to talk in the small hours and to learn more about the different pasts that brought them to this point. There is less for Linda to tell Jane. She had attractions and always knew of her feelings just as she described them to Susan, but her life with Ken was as inwardly conventional as outwardly apparent. Linda’s only regret is that she had never told her mother about her feelings for women, and of course, when her mother was killed in the Canadian car crash, the chance was gone for good. She lies in Jane’s arms, grieving for her mother and for lost opportunity and crying for the first time in her life for the distance that she created between herself and her parents. Jane holds her, nursing her silently in the dark until the tears ease. Linda’s brother Danny knows nothing. Perhaps she should tell him, one day.
Later, she asks Jane what her parents know. Jane talks quietly, her lilting accent carrying the pain of so many years of struggle before she arrived at this point.
“Basically, I came to the University for all the professional reasons you know but also because, I guess, I was running away. I grew up in small town America near the Colorado Mountains. I went to High School there and had one or two boyfriends. And. Yes, I slept with them. But I adored my best friend Jennifer and, well, just wanted to be with her all the time. We went to dances together with the guys and petted with them in their cars – you know the way it is. Anyway, Jennifer got serious over this guy Gary and they got married when I was twenty-one. I was sort of gutted, you know, but even at that age I didn’t really know why. That seems crazy now. Well, after that, I went on, finished college and graduated in American literature. I met a man called Ricky when I started teaching and we dated for years. He wanted to get married and I kept putting it off. We were eventually sharing a flat and it was OK, I guess, but I met a woman – she was a teacher too – when I was thirty. It was like Jennifer all over again except I knew now what it was that I was feeling. We had an affair. I couldn’t say it was more than that. But then Ricky found out and told my parents in a bid to keep me. God, it was like World War Three in the family for a while. Ricky put pressure on me to leave Carole and I stuck it out for a while but I couldn’t fight all of them plus the culture. My family are pretty devout churchgoers, so you can imagine what it was like.”
She reaches out for Linda and squeezes her hand before continuing.
“So, basically, I eventually just upped and left. I went to New York, studied archaeology. And the rest you know. I taught for a while over there, came and made a new life here.”
“What about your personal life now, since you came here?” Linda is hoping to hear that there has been no one else.
“Well, you could call me a nun, a veritable nun, till I met you.” Jane laughs.
Linda feels the relief of knowing that there has been no one else in the time they have known each other.
“Terry, over in Business Studies, is a nice guy and we have a lot of fun. And for a while I thought about him, just to marry him and have children for my parents’ sake. But that would have been crazy. I know now what truly being in love is.”
Jane goes on in more neutral vein.
“Your cultu
re over here is a funny mix. You are free, within boundaries, to be yourself but unless you want to go to pretty low dives in this city, to be honest, it’s more a question of networking – like we do at the flat and with people like Jacky and Nicola.
Otherwise, I don’t say anything. People make all sorts of assumptions. At the moment I’m seen as straight. People make that assumption because I’m outgoing, pretty and fun at a party. So, by definition, I must be straight. I suppose I don’t want to rock the boat of people’s perceptions. If there’s any question of being gay, they redefine you right away. And there’s no going back. I tried being out in New York and got pigeonholed. I suppose I was stereotyped. No – now I just say nothing and let people make their own assumptions.”
Linda cannot argue. But Jane, thank God, did not follow the conventional route that she herself took. If she had, she would, no doubt, have been the all-American wife and church-going working mother, who visited the parents and parents-in-law regularly, celebrated Thanksgiving with the family every year and drove into the mountains to the family condo every summer. She says as much to Jane who confirms that she would never have met Linda if she had not broken free of the expectations on her. And, she says, it is not as if she minds sex with men. She doesn’t. It is more that she never felt the intimacy and closeness with a man that she feels with a woman. But she also knows that the very existence of these feelings prohibit her from making any permanent commitment to any of the men she met. Now there is Linda and this is what she has been waiting for.
So they talk, listen and make long-term plans, living as well for the moment in Santiago. They enjoy the town, the awesome cathedral with its pilgrims’ mass and the baroque architecture. Mostly they enjoy each other. They wander the streets in the day, eat in the hotel in the evenings and make love by night. They buy and exchange different, but similar gold rings.
The drive to Llanes is long and quiet as each prepares for the days ahead. The grandeur of the mountain scenery is not lost on them, though, and Linda drives with care and competence, pointing out landmarks to Jane as they go.
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