by Pat Rosier
“You’re so forceful tonight! Are you going to tie me up?” Suzanna holds up her hands in mock submission.
“Don't be silly!” As Ann takes off her scarf she twirls it over her head, swinging around and tossing it towards the hook holding her coat. It misses and she leaves it where it falls.
“I am thinking,” says Suzanna, “that this exuberance is not entirely to do with me.”
“But it is partly, a big part. Get something to open this.” Ann holds up the wine.
“Yes, ma'am.”
They eat and drink, talking about books and films and managers who are rubbish at managing, flirting with their eyes, socked feet touching, then intertwined.
“Loo!” says Ann, and disappears around the corner. Items of clothing come flying out. Suzanna drops hers on the floor, fast, and is under the duvet when Ann slinks back, humming a tune, startled when Suzanna is not at the table, then jumping onto the bed.
For a couple of hours Ann does not think about children or books or paintings.
“Do you remember that scene in Harry Meets Sally, the one in the restaurant where she shows him what a fake orgasm sounds like?” Ann is on her elbow, running her finger around Suzanna's face when Suzanna asks the question.
“Uh huh.”
“Well, speaking for myself, there’s been no faking going on in here tonight.”
“Nope. No faking.” Ann lies down. They snuggle. And giggle. And kiss, light kisses now.
“Do you know what I like about you, kiwi girl?”
“Let me think. My gorgeous figure. My highly intelligent mind. My irresistible personality.”
“Yes, all that. Don't blush, I mean it. And as well as that, the way you think and do. Like tonight. My guess is you’d decided to stop being, well, just a little bit coy, and be the passionate woman you are. And you did. I like that.”
“And I like,”—Ann pauses for a moment—,“I like that you know what you want, like an uncomplicated present tense, and make that clear. And that you have beautiful smooth skin, so different from mine and so the same.” She lays her arm against the other woman's. “Look, we—our arms—the colours, they so look good together. And you are extremely perceptive and have such, such stunning long legs and know what to do with them. In and out of bed.” Ann hides her face in the other woman's shoulder. “I'm not being coy, really,” she mumbles, “I just love the smell of your sweaty armpit.” Then they are both giggling, with an exhausted hysteria that ends with Ann hiccuping and Suzanna having to run for the toilet.
She comes out wearing the white towelling robe and puts on the jug. “Cup of tea? Coffee?”
“Tea, thanks.” They sit on the sofa, close, touching along clothed arms, blowing on their tea. Ann will go when it is drunk. She can't stop herself saying, “Tell me about your fam …,” but is stopped by a finger on her lips.
“Present tense,” says Suzanna, “here and now. Please.”
Ann agrees to take a taxi, and lets herself into a quiet house of sleeping people. No email tonight, she thinks.
The next night, Ann takes ingredients, including a ready-to-go mesclun salad, and makes pasta in Suzanna’s tiny kitchen. More assembling than cooking she insists, which is just as well, there are only two pots and no pan. “The sauce is basically from a jar with a couple of things added.”
“Delicious!” is Suzanna's verdict, “Just like you.” And the dishes don't get done.
Ann wants to go ice skating again, without children and with Suzanna, who demurs, she's never done it, she’s a klutz at things like that, she'll spend all the time on her bum, it will be embarrassing. In the end she agrees and Ann sets off home, walking, to go online and book a skating session. The walk takes longer than she expects, and she’s glad to arrive at the familiar street. There aren't many people about, but a car slows as it passes, and makes her more fearful than she wants to be.
Two places left for the next day, Saturday, in the afternoon. She books them as she sends a text to Suzanna, mentally crossing her fingers.
“O K if u prmise 2 lick my bruises,” comes back within seconds. Great. Sylv and Irena are having a party that night and Ann is invited, if she can face the trek back from Barnet afterwards. She can. They’ll cruise around the shops after skating until it’s time to go to the party, maybe she’ll find that present for Chloe. She’s determined not to get her anything maternal or domestic.
Two weeks until Christmas and it’s everywhere. Even Good King Wenceslas makes sense and the idea of mangers and church services is almost enticing. Every New Zealander should experience at least one northern Christmas, Ann thinks.
“If you think this is Christmas, check it out in Germany some time,” suggests Chloe. Their Christmas tree is assembled out of a box, but the decorations are lovely, nothing like the tinsel and tat familiar to Ann, but painted figures and tiny wooden parcels and decorations that have been in Chloe's family since she was a child. The strings of coloured lights are tiny, too, they twinkle, star-like, when they’re turned on for half an hour before the twins go to bed. Jo stands in front of the tree clapping. 'Ingle Bells is sung by everyone present, even Chloe.
Joshua decides to make a Christmas cake. Ann gets her mother to email the recipe from the Edmonds Cook Book and she and Joshua make it together. She takes photos of the children stirring, and sneaking fingers-full and everyone in the kitchen and the splendid mess of it all.
“Don' be sick in cake, Mummy,” says Chris when he sees his mother holding the bowl in a crooked arm while she stirs. They all laugh and he thinks about being upset for a moment, then laughs too. Mummy is still sick most days and sometimes looks tired, but she is matter-of fact about it and never bad-tempered with the children. Ann is developing a fondness for her cousin-in-law of the quick mind that isn’t always obvious. She can add sums of money in her head very fast and almost casually finishes many of the puzzles in the daily Guardian that are a mystery to Ann. When she comments, Chloe shrugs and says she likes to keep her brain in shape.
The sun is trying to shine through the cloud when Ann and Suzanna meet to go skating, creating an eerie light that suggests magic, or at least uncertainty about what the world is up to. The tube is full of well-wrapped people; Ann wonders how many gloves London Underground has at the end of winter. She’s got used to wearing a pull-on woollen hat when she goes outdoors, something she has never done at home; in Wellington's coldest winds she ties a scarf over her head, here that’s not at all up to the job. Besides, you need that scarf around your neck, to stop the cold seeping down inside your coat from your collar. In Wellington a southerly wind smacks at you and you fight back, here the cold creeps into your clothes from any direction and has you in a remorseless grip if you let it get a hold.
There is chaos at the rink. The cafe is crowded, the hot chocolate and gluhwein stands are under seige, while the atmosphere is indisputably gay—people enjoying themselves, being nice to each other, having fun. On the ice, Suzanna is stiff with fear at first, but soon they are cautiously circling the rink together. Then they are gliding as a twosome, hands joined across the front of their bodies, still cautious, with nothing like the verve and style of Josh and Chloe, but good enough. The noise, the movement they are part of, the music, it’s exhilarating.
“You win, I'm actually having fun!” And Suzanna moves them faster.
“Seven years in London and I've never done that before!” she says, as they exchange the skates for their own shoes. “Next year I might just organise the gang here.”
Ann won't let Suzanna pay for anything and gets them both mugs of hot, spicy wine. “Ms Visa has it all under control,” she insists. She wants to ask where Suzanna was before London, but instead talks about finding a present for Chloe.
“What about the shop at the Science Museum? It's just around the corner, has a heap of stuff, though I've never really looked at it. And after that I'm taking you to see Fortnum's windows.” That reminds Ann of her first visit to London, when she went into Harrod's food hall and bought a loaf
of bread, just to get a Harrod's bag, and saw an amazing pyramid of seafood and ice, right there in the aisle, a work of art.
The Science Museum shop is a cornucopia of things designed to turn children on to science. The two women plunge in. Maps of the night sky won't do it, nor children’s telescopes. Not robotic toys, or colourful number games or logic puzzles. The actual Science Museum corner looks more hopeful, and the Newton's Cradle is tempting. Then Ann sees, two shelves over, a pile of boxes and looks around for a shop attendant to open one. She takes out a small, wooden abacus. It’s unfussy, nicely made, with coloured wooden beads that slide easily along their tracks.
“I'll take one,” she says. It won't do on its own, but it’s a start, a recognition of something about Chloe.
“You could get some perfume or something as well,” Suzanna suggests, maybe as a way of not saying she finds the abacus a strange choice. “Come on, Fortnum's windows.” The windows are indeed a sight, a whole other dimension from what Wellington’s Kircaldies can offer. Fairy tale scenes, some with scary and scared figures. A Santa's workshop, of course, winter-scapes, a whole village in the snow with tiny windows lit up, an ice-maiden creature being pulled by unicorns in the sky, reindeer, food. A stemmed plate of immaculate cup cakes is the focus of one whole window. Oh, and Paddington Bear. Ann oohs and aahs, then insists on going inside.
“I come for the windows, not to shop,” says Suzanna.
“I'll do the shopping.” Ann buys a box of chocolates with the elaborate Fortum and Mason design on the lid for their party hosts.
“That will surprise them.”
“Good. What now?”
“Food, I'm starving, but not here.”
So they walk towards Knightsbridge and get a Picadilly Line train to Leicester Square. “Obvious really,” Ann says, “but Kennington and Knightsbridge are almost neighbours across the river, and have such a different feeling.”
“Toffs,” said Suzanna. “Toffs live in Knightsbridge. I get twitchy after a while. Kennington suits me better.”
“Me too. It’s a place where people I know live, where I might live. Knightsbridge makes me feel like an ignorant colonial, that I might fart, or say something outrageous without knowing it.”
“I think the Nancy Mitford stuff, you know, U and non-U maight have gawn. It's money that counts, so to speak, in the Knaightsbridges of the world these days. Leicester Square, however, is for everybody. What kind of food do you fancy.”
“The kind you eat. Other than that …”
“Okay, there's a Thai place down here that does a tolerable tom yum soup.” Suzanna grabs Ann’s hand and leads her down a side street. Inside the restaurant it’s steamy and crowded and noisy. They find seats near the window and Suzanna goes to the counter for big bowls of spicy liquid piled with noodles. The spoons are plastic, Chinese style.
“I’m having such a good time in London,” says Ann between slurps, “thanks to everything, including you.”
“Speaking of good times, how about coming back to mine tonight and stopping over?”
Ann shakes her head, and sees the other woman's eyes drop to the table and her hand grip her spoon. Then she looks up, smiling with the lower half of her face, and says, “Cheers, babe.”
“It's just …”
“No need to explain. Just a thought. No strings, remember.”
“No, really. I want to say. There's three other families with children, you know, friends of Chloe and Josh, coming around tomorrow and I said I’d take the twins out first thing, to Macdonald's near Elephant and Castle so help me, which apparently has their favourite inside playground, while the parents get things ready. Then I'm in charge of stories, nursery rhymes and singing with under-fives. I need a night’s sleep for all that.” The only part she leaves out is wanting to catch up with emails, especially to her friends.
“Cool, cool, cool, Ms Conscientious.”
They finish the soup in silence and head for the tube. People, mostly good-natured, jostle and push on the crowded footpath. On the train, standing, leaning together with the movement of the train, Suzanna says,
“I'm going north on the 24th. Back 30th. Wanna hang out new year's?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. Very much.”
“And you'll be movin' on, as they say, soon after that?”
“Uh huh. To Paris. By Eurostar on the January the 6th.”
The party house is two-level semi-detached, white-painted. There are only a few people there when they arrive, including the neighbours, also a lesbian couple, who make much of having lesbian neighbours.
As the house fills, Ann is constantly introduced and is pleased to see Tanya, and Jac. Jac's partner Fee (“short for Fiona”) who she hadn’t met, is a sales manager for Marks and Spencers. “Works in retail,” Ann remembers. After a glass of wine she doesn't feel quite so self-conscious at being an object of curiosity. Everyone knows Suzanna, and she overhears someone describe her as Suzanna's “new catch.”
She answers a lot of questions about New Zealand. If I were a travel agent, I'd be mobbed, she thinks. The women, though, want to go to her home country rather than plan to. "Soooo far, sooooo much for an airfare.” seems to sum it up.
Background music barely penetrates the noise of women talking and laughing. Suzanna appears and tops up her glass from one of the two bottles they brought with them.
“Okay? Need to be introduced more?” she asks, emptying her own glass and refilling it.
“Please, no, I’ve forgotten enough names already!” She puts her hand over her glass as someone passing holds up a bottle. “Everyone is very friendly. And curious,” she adds. “They all like you. I think that one over there,” —she indicates a woman who couldn't have been over thirty, in a short, short skirt, red tights and a halter top—“is keeping a watch on you.”
Suzanna rolls her eyes. “Nice woman, major crush, looking for someone to look after her. It won't be me, there's quite enough looking after in my life already.” As Ann opens her mouth to ask for more, Irena comes over with an Australian from Perth who wants to be introduced.
By the time they are leaving, at ten-thirty because they have to travel to the other end of the northern line, Ann has noticed that many of the women, as at the pub, drink a lot more alcohol than she is used to seeing. She supposes most of them won’t be driving, unlike at home, and is slightly amused to notice her own disapproval.
Suzanna, she realises, as her arm is grasped on the way down the few front steps, is one of those who has been “knocking it back” as her friends might say. A pang of homesickness has her wishing for the familiarity of women she has known a long time, a milieu where she is more than a visitor. She takes Suzanna's hand and matches her step.
“Thank you for taking me,” she says, “that was a nice party, friendly women.”
“My pleasure,” Suzanna replies sweeping her free hand in an exaggerated flourish. They just miss a train and have to wait fifteen minutes for the next one. At least there are seats. After a couple of stations Suzanna's head is drooping onto Ann's shoulder. The train jolts at a station and she sits up and shakes herself awake.
“You know, kiwi girl,” she says, looking straight ahead, “you have gotten under my skin in a way I don't usually allow. And it WON'T DO. Oops, didn't mean to shout. But it won't. Do.”
Ann can't think of anything to say.
“Quite right,” Suzanna’s words are slightly slurred, “nothing to be said about that, just that it won't do. In the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
“You really don't want to know, babe.”
“Yes, I do want to know!”
“Maybe it's that I don't want to tell you. Am not going to tell you.”
While Ann is trying to think of something to say that will keep the conversation going, Suzanna's head falls back onto her shoulder and she is definitely asleep. Ann does her best to counter the movement of the train.
“That was not my intention.” Suzanna is suddenly an
d thoroughly awake. “My intention was to spend the ride home sweet-talking you into coming home with me. Can I change your mind in two stops?”
“No, I'm sorry, really I am, it's just …”
“Got it, got it.”
They set off from the station in opposite directions. Ann pauses at her corner and looks back, reassuring herself that the woman walking away from her is well able to get herself safely home.
*
Two hours on a Saturday morning in Macdonald's is an eye-opener for Ann. She manages a bacon and egg muffin for herself, and the coffee isn't bad. The children have happy meals. Whoever dreamed up happy meals should be forced to eat his or her own words, Ann thinks, at least once a day. The twins certainly know the Macdonald's playground routines. Take your shoes off. Wait in line for the slide. Get off the slide as soon as you hit the bottom. Dash back to your person now and then, check they're still there, grab a cold chip or two and eat it fast so you can get back to the food-free playing area. And they're only two. And a half. Jo is firm about the half.
There's one angry Mum and a couple of disinterested ones, one reading, the other playing a handheld game. And several Mums paying attention to what their children are doing. And Ann, who others might, of course, see as a Mum.
“Go!” Chris has appeared at her elbow. It's ten past nine, fifty minutes until they can head home. She buys them a snow cone each and insists they sit on a chair to eat them. Chris, she notices, takes deliberate licks, studying the shape of the white goo after each one, turning it to keep an even shape. Jo barely looks at hers, licks and swallows fast, then sits happily enough on her chair gazing at the other people while Chris finishes.
“Let's go for a walk around the block,” says Ann as she puts them in the stroller. Getting all their outdoor clothes on takes up a good five minutes.
“Okay,” says Chris. He's learning some of her words.
“Home. Mummy,” says Jo.
“Okay,” she says. “But we'll go the long way.” She'd like to have them out of the stroller and walking, but is scared one of them will run onto the street, or they’ll go in different directions. There's a watery sun, so she leaves the clear plastic cover in its tray underneath their seat. People going the other way move over to make room for the stroller.