Footnotes to Sex

by Mia Farlane

‘Is that all right?’ Tamsin put the bottle back into her bag, and stepped inside. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ she said.

  They went to the sitting room. May turned on the gas heater, and opened the curtains, while Tamsin, taking off her jacket and settling herself on the sofa, explained that she had ‘heard back’ already: she’d got the job at the YMCA near Tottenham Court Road! ‘I’m going to be at the front desk, on reception. I can see it getting really busy. I’m going to have to keep my sense of humour!’ she laughed. ‘Well, it won’t be boring, that’s for sure. And I can even have a room there until I get a flat.’ She took a swig from her bottle, and passed it to May, wiping her mouth with the back of her palm.

  Tamsin was, May conceded as she shook her head and mouthed ‘Oh, no thanks’, attractive – in a conservative sort of way; and some women do find conservative women attractive: because they seem to need protecting; they need guidance and an interpreter at times.

  May smiled politely into the silence. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? Tea?’ She heard the front door open.

  ‘Tammy!’ Jansen appeared at the sitting-room door, holding some paper bags of food.

  ‘Hey! Jan! Whoo!’ Tamsin swung up off the sofa, and cupped her right arm around Jansen in a version of a hug: something she might’ve learned in the army perhaps, a sort of side-on ‘semi-hug’.

  ‘Jan’: May tried the name in her head. Definitely not the same effect; there was less substance to it. May attempted, with a pocket-sized smile, to look on happily at this mini ex-soldiers’ reunion. ‘Tammy’ was now perched on the sofa next to ‘Jan’, telling her about her first day on reception. May sat, redundant, at the table. She was hungry. Jansen was holding on to the paper bags, laughing. May took the bags from her, and opened them: in one, a coconut cake (Jansen’s) and a carrot cake (May’s); she folded up the bag, and opened the other one: one mushroom and one spinach pastry; they’d been heated up. May went to the kitchen, divided up the pastries, put them on three plates, and brought them back to the sitting room.

  ‘Oh, this looks good. Thanks.’ Tamsin took her plate.

  ‘Thanks, darling,’ Jansen said.

  May sat down at the table with her plate.

  ‘You two have just been on holiday, haven’t you?’ Tamsin asked, addressing them both.

  ‘Yeah, Bexhill-on-Sea,’ Jansen said.

  ‘Yes.’ May nodded obediently. The afternoon had been hijacked.

  ‘A bit of quality time together,’ Tamsin said. ‘That’s important, isn’t it.’

  ‘It was pretty cold and windy on the beach, but there was a café in the pavilion that was sheltered, and we bought a cake and hot drinks there.’ Jansen had put the plate next to her on the sofa, and was pulling off her jumper as she spoke.

  ‘Hey!’ Tamsin exclaimed, pleased. ‘You’re wearing that shirt I gave you years ago!’

  Unfortunately, this was true. Jansen happened to be wearing that ugly old army shirt; it was all frayed around the collar, so Jansen only ever wore it in bed now, which was all right, but sometimes at the weekend, when she couldn’t find anything else, she’d say this one would do.

  Tamsin smiled a goofy little smile. Then, ‘So, how’s the driving going?’ she asked. ‘Any more famous people to dazzle us with?’

  ‘Not since Sean Connery.’

  Tamsin took a bite of her pastry. ‘“Congratulations on your Oscar. And may I just say”,’ she said through a mouthful, ‘“that you look great in a kilt”: brilliant!’ She laughed.

  ‘I had a New Zealand rugby player, too, just the other week,’ Jansen remembered. ‘What was his name? You can’t remember, can you, May? Umm…’

  ‘Let’s think…’ Tamsin said.

  ‘Sorry to be rude,’ May cut in, ‘but I’ve got to go and get some work done.’

  ‘You teachers are such hard workers,’ Tamsin said.

  ‘Not really.’ May shrugged. ‘Anyway, nice to see you.’ She went to the bedroom, flipped open the suitcase and pulled out Francine’s articles. There were four more days to go before the book launch; perhaps she should get on with the covering letter, so she could take it to show Francine.

  Francine Brion has asked me

  Francine Brion, whose work I have been researching, has asked me

  Francine Brion has asked me

  (Yes, better to keep it simple.)

  Francine Brion has asked me to send you these flyers, as she thought you might like to obtain copies of her articles. A collection of…

  Was a covering letter even necessary though? What about just:

  With compliments, Francine Brion: (address, telephone number). UK contact: May Woodlea (address etc.)

  That would mean they might contact May. She decided to make herself a coffee, and have some of the carrot cake.

  Half an hour later, Tamsin ‘had to be off’. Walking past the open bedroom door, she waved at May in a vaguely military-but-friendly way. ‘Oh!’ May feigned surprise and disappointment. ‘You’re going now?’

  Once she was sure Tamsin had left, May returned to the sitting room. ‘She’s invited you on a silent retreat?’

  ‘Yes, May.’ Jansen collected up the plates and cups.

  ‘So you can stare at each other all day? I think that’s creepy.’ May held her stomach, as if she were in pain. ‘There’s something really illogical – don’t you think? – about inviting someone on a silent retreat.’ May followed Jansen to the kitchen. ‘I think it’s quite rude, actually; she didn’t mention me.’

  ‘Would you have wanted to go?’ Jansen started washing the dishes, running them under the hot tap, and putting them on the drying rack.

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Oh, yeah… for sure.’

  ‘How would she know? Perhaps I like going on silent retreats.’

  Jansen pulled out the plug.

  ‘And she probably expected you to say yes.’

  ‘She’s allowed to ask.’ Jansen handed May a tea towel. ‘She’s lonely.’

  23

  The Book Launch

  May arrived half an hour before their arranged meeting time. The reading was in the basement. She went downstairs. Rows of chairs filled nearly half the room. A few women were still wandering around the bookshop with glasses in their hands, but most people had already secured their seats.

  Francine was sitting at a table at the back, wearing a comfortable-looking jacket, rich dark brown, with a strip of velvet around the collar; she had a pile of books in front of her, and she was sitting, one hand cupped, mock-ironic, under her chin, in a listening pose, next to another woman; they were laughing. May went over to them. She would have preferred it, she would have felt more comfortable (perhaps), if Francine had been alone, but at a book launch that couldn’t be possible.

  ‘Tiens! Te voilà, toi!’ Francine pulled a chair towards herself for May. ‘Anne, this is May; May, this is Anne, a very dear friend of mine. The writer I told you about.’ Francine got up as she finished her sentence; ‘I’m going to circulate.’ May was being fobbed off onto the extraordinary Anne Béranger: Parisian-chic, May observed, in that ill-looking gaunt-faced way.

  May smiled and came up with a sentence: she said, ‘Francine’s told me so much about you.’ She didn’t want to be there. She hated her hair at the moment, too: it was turning into a mushroom, and she should have done something about it.

  ‘How do you know her?’ Anne Béranger was younger than Francine – perhaps by about ten years – and had a smoker’s voice.

  ‘I rang her.’ May kept her answer brief; she didn’t like being interrogated, especially not by this ‘very dear friend’ woman.

  ‘Quite simply!’ Anne was both impressed and mocking. ‘And she asked you if you’d read her latest œuvre?’

  ‘I told her I was thinking of doing a thesis on her.’ May tried to maintain her dignity.

  Anne laughed. ‘She’d have been flattered!’

  ‘I was doing research for a PhD, but I’m not now. I’m dropping the PhD idea�
�� for now.’ Why was she telling this to a complete stranger? Sometimes she had an honesty problem. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about deferring for a while, so…’ May watered down her confession, ‘I’m going to have to let her know.’

  ‘That would be a mistake, I think. She adores playing Pygmalion. When I told her I would be continuing my job as a translator, she accused me of ambivalence; she said I was incapable of fully assuming my writer identity, whereas, on the contrary, it’s the financial security I need in order to write. Of course, she has a private income, so… In here,’ Anne tapped the side of a leather satchel sitting on a chair next to her, ‘is the manuscript of my first novel. It’s taken me over five years to get it all written out, then one more year with the editing and the revising. Francine’s offered to read it once more, before I send it off. I want to be sure I’ve captured the era.’

  May said nothing. Anne continued.

  ‘I did a lot of research: Evelyne Le Garrec, Françoise d’Eaubonne, Monique Wittig… I went to the Marguerite Durand library, scoured the seventies publications – I spent hours in there; and I read relevant history books, Françoise Picq, et cetera, Marie-Jo Bonnet – have you read her work?’

  ‘Do you mean Les Relations amoureuses entre les femmes? Or Les Deux Amies, which has just come out?’ May asked; she was being competitive; she was showing off. Her heartbeat sped up.

  ‘Francine knows her, of course.’ Anne ignored May’s question.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ May said, not to be outdone, although she had probably just sounded defensive.

  ‘Oh, look: they’re going to start.’ Anne stood up. ‘I’m going to go and get that front seat.’ She rushed off.

  May found a seat at the end of the second row, next to a string of carefree chatting women. Francine had taken off her jacket now, and she was scanning the room; she looked supremely relaxed, she looked superb; everything about her: how she stood there, and what she was wearing, the cuff of her shirtsleeves slightly folded over; she was relaxed, and yet smart. She looked… ‘stunning’ was the word. Noticing May, she raised her eyebrows, pleased with herself and conspiratorial. That was it; May could no longer deny the obvious: she was in love with Francine; she was in love. And, naturally, naturally, she had just ruined things by talking to Anne; May wished she’d never met the woman. She felt like leaving. She felt like crying. She would have to tell Francine she was deferring now, now that she’d blurted it out – how had that happened? – to this Anne-writer-friend, to someone she had only just met; May would have to tell Francine this evening.

  A woman was gaining attention by tapping the side of a glass with a pen. ‘S’il vous plaît! S’il vous plaît!’ she called out.

  All talking stopped.

  ‘Welcome, all, to Pause Lecture,’ the woman began. ‘We are very happy to see you gathered here in such numbers in order to hear Francine read from her work Troisième personne singulière. Francine has published articles in various magazines too numerous to list. Troisième personne singulière brings together these articles in one volume. At last, I think you will all agree.’ She smiled, turning to Francine. ‘But now, I shall let her introduce her work to you more fully.’

  Francine rubbed her hands together, and then she yawned into them. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and a few people laughed, as if she had just made a joke. Francine smiled, took off her glasses, wiped the lenses on the cuff of her sleeve, and then she spoke: ‘I always like to begin… gently,’ she said, putting her glasses back on again. She had a small cold sore, May noticed, on her bottom lip. ‘When I wake up in the morning, I lie there with my eyes closed for at least half an hour. Half an hour, at least. I feel it sets me up well for the day. It centres me.’ She turned to the woman who had introduced her. ‘Shall I perhaps choose one of my previously un published essays?’ Francine asked her. ‘No one is going to want to hear me read from the old ones, are they?’ The woman offered this question over to the audience, who nodded their enthusiasm, and Francine opened her book somewhere near the middle. She coughed, took a small sip of water, and began.

  And then May began: worrying – about having to tell Francine (the evening of her book launch) that she had deferred. May heard nothing of what Francine said: not because May wasn’t interested (she was interested; in fact, she wished she had the text in front of her), and not because she couldn’t understand the words; she understood each individual word; it was all the words put together, all strung together so fluently that was the problem. It required a certain level of concentration. Francine could clearly have thrown the book onto the floor and continued to the end of the essay, without any difficulty; she knew it all by heart; every now and then, she stopped for a few significant seconds, looked out at her audience, repeated a word, and went on. May prepared her response: she was keen to go back and reread the text now, she would say; she would look forward to reading it once more for herself; she didn’t want to comment until she had read it properly, of course; she’d say that the rhythm, the rhythm of the text, it had such a beautiful rhythm; it had distracted her. May looked at the stairs just behind Francine, and imagined herself floating away, up the stairs and out of the door, up, up, up into the sky, above the Parisian rooftops.

  Francine had stopped speaking. ‘It is this recognition,’ Francine went on, after the pause. ‘This recognition, and this recognition alone,’ she was now looking directly at May, and May blushed, ‘that will allow it.’ Francine smiled. There was a respectful silence, Francine closed her book, and the applause started. What recognition? May clapped. Francine had looked at May for a reason: it was a gift, and May had missed it.

  Eventually, May went to buy the book, then queued up to get her copy signed. She waited until last, so as to have no one behind her, and because she was in no hurry to go back to the hotel. She wanted to make herself available to leave with Francine – should Francine want to go out for coffee – so that she could tell her how much she had enjoyed the reading, how glad she was to have been there. She had to mention the deferral, too, of course. After getting the book signed, May lingered near the English section while women drifted away, up the stairs.

  Anne, too, was hovering, much to May’s annoyance.

  ‘So, Anne, shall we go for a drink? May will come with us.’ Francine was ready to leave.

  It was dark outside. They walked down narrow streets, south towards the Seine, past closed patisseries and jewellers: Francine and Anne speaking; May listening.

  ‘You who are an eclectic reader, Anne – have you read L’Ange et les pervers?’ Francine asked.

  ‘Oh yes yes of course, but many years ago now. If I am remembering it well, there was a good deed leading into a tidy “happily ever after”. For me it lacked spice; there was no sensuality. In fact, I do think I found the tone rather moralizing.’

  ‘Moralizing? You must be thinking of another novel. In this one, no one ends up on the narrow path of righteousness; no one is punished. All the characters are entirely free.’

  ‘Apart from the children.’

  ‘That’s true – you’re right.’

  ‘And the pregnant woman,’ Anne added.

  ‘Yes, obviously, the pregnant woman; but what you need to know is that she was based on Renée Vivien: Mardrus’s rival in love.’

  ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘It’s revenge,’ Francine told her. ‘An attack via literature.’

  ‘Fascinating.’ Anne turned to May. ‘And what about you? Have you read this book?’

  ‘Of course she’s read it,’ Francine said. ‘She has read a great deal, our May.’

  She had read it, but she had no thoughts right now; she had no ideas about anything. She wished they would just ignore her.

  ‘Did you find the tone moralizing?’ Anne asked.

  ‘Perhaps slightly…’ May ventured.

  ‘Really?’ Francine was surprised; she was put out. ‘And in what way?’

  ‘Careful. You are going to have to defend yourself now!’ Anne warn
ed.

  ‘Perhaps,’ this wasn’t going to be good enough, ‘the fact that the main character – the angel – chose to adopt the unwanted son –’

  ‘Exactly!’ Anne agreed. ‘The angel corrects the sins of the perverts.’

  ‘The adoption was an act of selfishness. No, if there is a moral of the story – and it is rather a moral within the story – it is not to be found at the end. That would be an over-simplistic reading.’

  ‘I’m not saying I disagree with you,’ May defended herself – not that she knew what she thought, of course.

  ‘Who did you identify with in the novel?’ Francine now asked her.

  ‘I don’t think I identified with anyone…’ Or had she? May tried to think.

  ‘Ah! That’s revealing. So the story meant nothing to you at all? It didn’t touch you?’

  ‘Yes, it did.’ May tried to remember which of the characters she had identified with; there was more than one…

  ‘In that case, you identified with one of the characters – necessarily. Perhaps you saw yourself in the angel.’

  ‘The poor girl! Leave her alone,’ Anne said, and she let out a little laugh.

  May said nothing. She probably identified with the pregnant adulterous woman, the pathetic crying one; she couldn’t say that. ‘I’d have to think about it,’ she said in the end. She felt like just walking off; she felt like leaving them.

  ‘She refuses to tell us,’ Francine concluded. ‘She doesn’t want to tell us, for fear of being judged. It’s too sad.’

  ‘Perhaps she couldn’t identify with anyone,’ Anne proposed. It was possible she was being supportive; May couldn’t tell.

  ‘There is always a character with whom one can identify – if only one is willing to admit it – at least one, usually more than one. For centuries we have been reading literature about heterosexuals, translating the genders to our own experience (I can do that of course: I identify with both the man and the woman), since for ever. No, I’m sorry’ (Francine rarely, or never, apologized, and this was not an apology), ‘I’m sorry, but she is merely refusing to tell us,’ she continued. ‘She is too frightened.’