by Jane Juska
It being June when we first arrived, all six of us wore khaki Bermuda shorts, white shirts, and Wigwam socks in Keds. We must have looked like a troop of Boy Scouts. Likewise, we were all virgins. Or so it was assumed. We never talked about sex or boyfriends because here we were twenty-one years old and we didn’t have any. We had each other, though, and we laughed and talked our way around Ireland and Scotland and the Continent and Scandinavia, hitchhiking sometimes, riding buses and trains, and all day every day loving what we saw and the people we met and each other.
We were a hit in London and in the rest of England, too, because we were Americans and women, and only ten years earlier Americans had helped win the war and now had as their president Dwight David Eisenhower, the hero who had helped to bring an end to the war. How times have changed. In 2004, Londoners avoided conversation with me about American braggadocio abroad and the swagger of the American president, who in only four short years had become the most dangerous man in the world. Just as well: I didn’t want to talk about my government’s criminal behavior, and I enjoyed London newspapers in large part because they relegated news of the United States to the inside pages.
In 1955 we stood at the side of the road—two of us, the other four hiding in the bushes—and stuck out our thumbs. When a lorry stopped—”Hallo there, girls, you’re Yanks, are you?”—we ran, all six, and jumped onto the back of the truck or scrunched ourselves into those tiny cars and said, Yes, yes, we were Yanks and proud of it.
What we were after was getting laid, and at the same time we were terrified we might. One of us confessed that in high school she had let her steady get to second base (nipples), but aside from a kiss here and there, we were American innocents abroad. What delicious horrors might befall us in Paris or Rome or—decadence, here we come—Hamburg. First stop: London.
London on less than five dollars a day—our thousand dollars included boat and airfare—kept us busy finding a place to sleep; boys were of secondary importance. When we did find a youth hostel or a grungy little bed and breakfast—Oh god, I loved those breakfasts, everything fried up and greasy, even the tomato—we spent our evenings arguing over whether or not we needed to behave properly because we represented our country or whether free will was ours for the taking. Sarah said yes, we did have to behave; Pat said no, we represented ourselves. This was the closest any of us had yet gotten to an honest philosophical debate, and we kept it up until Pat got disgusted and left for Paris early, where, oh boy, she went all the way and more than once, too.
Those of us who remained in London and represented our country behaved properly, and as a result no boys were interested in us, probably because in our Bermuda shorts and Wigwams we looked more like boys than girls, probably because we were having such a good time with each other we weren’t interested in them. This was before lesbianism was invented. Or, more accurately, before we ever knew there was such a thing, though Sarah’s psychiatrist father, in a triumph of intelligence over ignorance, had given her The Well of Loneliness when Sarah was in high school, which was probably why it was Sarah who let her high school steady get to second base. In that novel, written by a woman named Radclyffe Hall, the heroine—named Stephen by her father, who wanted a boy—grows up on her rich father’s country estate into a mannish adult. She is elegant-looking, prefers jodhpurs and boots to skirts and slippers, cuts her hair short, and lives all her life in a well of loneliness surrounded by people who stare at her and talk about her behind her back, forcing her, finally, to abandon the woman she loves. Even Stephen’s father steers clear of her; could Sarah’s father have intended the book as a warning? In 1928, the year of its publication, the book was banned in England because of its sympathetic portrayal of that kind of woman. So Sarah, growing up in the 1950s and having read what happens to girls like that, was determinedly heterosexual and, to prove it, in her sophomore year unhooked her bra in the backseat of Brad Morris’s car. The power of words. When Samuel Goldwyn wanted to make a film out of The Well of Loneliness, someone questioned the tastefulness of such a project, and Goldwyn, never at a loss for words, many of them wrong, answered, “Where there’s lesbians, we’ll use Albanians.”
When I wasn’t giggling with my friends, I read banned books, books that were banned in America and in England, too, except I found them in little London bookshops. I knew what I was looking for: Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, and when I finished them, I read all the books that being an English major at Michigan had left no time for. In London every book I had ever wanted to read was in Penguin paperback and cost an amazingly low two and six. Reading was affordable on under five dollars a day.
Now, fifty years later, books have brought me once again to London: This time it is my own book, from which I will be reading all over town. Gee, I might even get laid. This time I wouldn’t be afraid, except if he were elderly and tried to climb the four flights of stairs to my room and his heart or knees or both gave out. Won’t hurt to look, though, and off I go to do a little pub crawling. Maybe that’s why my publisher put me up there—so I would stay put, behave properly, and represent my country as it should be represented: Shut up and remember your manners.
Soho is a rowdy place. Its history includes people like Dylan Thomas, Francis Bacon, and Louis MacNeice, artists and writers who frequented the pubs, got drunk, read their writing aloud, talked about art and life, and passed out. The French House is one of those pubs. It’s even in the guidebook. I didn’t know it was famous then; I just went in the direction the room clerk at my club pointed, and when I came to a pub overflowing with people who, drinks in hand, weaved right out onto the curb and into the street, I went in and stood at the bar. Champagne seemed the thing to order, some kind of celebration was surely in order. And everyone was very, very nice to me; nobody said, “You’re a Yank, are you,” and spat at my feet. They asked me how I came to visit this fair city, and when I told them I was a writer, they bought me more champagne and gave me cigarettes. I don’t smoke anymore, so these cigarettes were utterly delicious, and nobody gave me bad looks—as they would have in America—when I blew a smoke ring right into the air above the barman’s head. I had two cigarettes. What a night.
But it’s not over. There at the end of the bar is a very old man, older even than I, older than anyone else in this pub. He is wearing a trench coat, like the ones John le Carré’s spies wear, only this trench coat is very, very dirty, stains down the front, pockets and sleeves frayed at the edges; it looks as old as the man wearing it. The man is talking up a storm to a young couple, who are trying to look interested and failing. He is showing them a book, which I move closer to get a look at—I am very nosey when it comes to what people are reading. The old man turns to me, lanks of hair falling onto his forehead, and smiles, revealing that he has some but not all of his teeth. Beneath his coat he is very thin and, if he weren’t stooped, would stand quite tall, maybe six feet. His name is Stephen Fothergill and he is selling his book. It is a memoir of times gone by, of places in Soho, the French House being one, in which writers and artists congregated and talked about their art. “I was a very young man then,” he tells me, “and I was thrilled to be in the company of men who had made writing and painting and poetry their lives.”
“What about women?” I ask. “Did women writers come here, too?”
“There weren’t any women writers,” Stephen answers, and at my look of disbelief adds, “at least none who came at night to Soho.” He smiles. “The women who came to Soho at night were not your usual sort. Some were artists’ models, some were the mistresses or girlfriends of artists and writers, some were prostitutes, some were all three. They had no independent lives of their own. Women writers?” The idea is new to him. “I suppose they minded home and hearth, no time to muck about with the poets and novelists who came here.”
I tell him that I, too, have written a memoir, which makes me a woman writer who is here to muck about with the crowd. Times have changed, he agrees. More visitors tha
n regulars descend on the French House these days, and on the weekends hordes of young suburbanites invade Soho. And my ears tell me that people in this pub are not talking about writing, not most of them. Most of them, somewhere in their thirties, are talking loudly back and forth about media, about public relations, about graphics, about software, about getting ahead, the implication being that they are ahead, just listen to how loud they can talk. Stephen and I shake our heads. “The world has gotten noisy, hasn’t it?” His smile is rueful. “My hearing isn’t what it used to be, and often I’m happy it isn’t.” Was the French House, in the days of his young manhood, quiet? “It was not like this,” he answers. “People bent their heads over manuscripts or talked intensely but softly until the drink took hold, and then someone might raise his voice, fighting might ensue, though serious brawling was rare. But a constant din like this? No.”
Stephen’s memoir costs ten pounds. I buy a copy and promise to bring him a copy of my book the next night; every night Stephen travels an hour and a half from his home to Soho, hoping to sell his book, which he carries in the pocket of his coat. He offers to buy me a glass of champagne. “No, thank you, I’ve had quite enough.” It’s time for me to start climbing the stairs to my room at the top. I lean over and kiss Stephen on his paper-thin cheek. His skin is that velvet of a very old person. “Good night,” he says. “Come tomorrow.” Stephen’s memoir is called The Last Lamplighter.
Unfortunately, I will have to disappoint Stephen because the next night I am impressed by my publisher into making an appearance at a bookstore. It is a wonderful evening, the audience is warm and welcoming, and—the bookstore has a wine bar! Hear this, you Puritan booksellers in the United States. In London people can buy a glass of wine if they wish; at the end of the evening, if they buy the book, they are refunded the price of the wine. This is creative merchandising.
But I must keep my appointment with Stephen. Two days later, book in hand, my book, I walk to the French House, once again overflowing with boisterous young people and more than a few tourists who have read about this place in their guidebooks. Stephen has buttonholed two of them and is peddling his memoir. He is pleased to see me, though he does not appear to have changed his clothes since our first meeting two days earlier. It comes to me that Stephen may have no clothes to change into, that my earlier suspicions are correct and that Stephen is not just old and eccentric but poor.
I hand him his memoir, the one I purchased from him on our first meeting, and ask him to sign it. He does. I hand him my memoir, he asks me to sign it “To Stephen” and I do. Then he tells me, “Of course, I will not be able to read it.” Stephen is almost blind. “I have a very strong magnifying glass at home; perhaps that will help, but I think not enough.” Damn, I have two copies of my book in large print sitting on my desk back home. Stephen says, “I will ask my home help to read it to me. I’m sure it’s very interesting.” Oh lord, all those sex parts. I can see this well-meaning woman flinging the book to the floor, refusing to continue. I can’t blame her; I can’t read those parts aloud either. And there, in my imagination, in Stephen’s flat, a gas heater in one room, Stephen will sit until time to board the train again and find his way to the French House and perhaps another sale of his memoir.
No, I do not want to make love with this man. But I love him—and the champagne I am drinking. I want to clean him up, comb his hair, get those teeth brushed, take that trench coat to be cleaned, shine his shoes, and hope the home help hasn’t quit for good so she can wash the underwear. I want to hold him; he is a valiant soul and so very much alone. I take his face in my hands and kiss him, this time on the mouth, a perfectly respectable kiss but as tender a kiss as I’ve ever given or received. “Thank you for your book,” we say to each other. And off I go to the fourth floor and then British Air and then home.
There is no pub crawling to be, done in Berkeley, not by the likes of me; and there is no cause for celebrating. While I was gone, Jo’s house sold to the highest bidder: seven hundred seventy thousand dollars. Jo bought it in 1983 for sixty thousand. I wish she were here to enjoy the profit. And cook me roasted potatoes and chicken and little tomatoes, and pour me wine the way she used to, and talk sense to me when I need it and nonsense when I don’t. I wish she were here to read with me.
CHAPTER 20
the young one
Once while plaiting a wreath
I found Eros among the roses.
I grabbed him by the wings
And dipped him in the wine
And drank him down.
Now inside my limbs
He tickles me with his wings.
—ANAKREON, “The Rub of Love”
HURRY UP, GRAHAM, come back to me before I slip and fall in the shower or go blind like Stephen. I am empty without Graham. It is surprising, though it shouldn’t be, how much time, interior time, I spend thinking about him, writing to him, waiting for him to write back or phone. He is gone. He is with his wife, he has a young life, maybe he will become a father, and what will he want with me then? Goddammit, he is my muse! He reads my stuff, tells me my transitions are lousy, tells me I verge on the profound and then back off (I’m lazy, he suggests). He tells me I’m funny and smart, and now he’s traveling somewhere in Italy. Well, sure, she probably wanted to go to Italy and so they did. I miss him, and when I look real life squarely in the face, I have to admit his help with my writing has become something of a trickle. I may be looking at past tense here. Hell. His absence is a huge emptiness in me. Oh, Graham, I remember when you came to see me and stayed in my cottage, your feet dangling out over the futon that was our bed, and afterward we walked around my neighborhood and you said, “This is wonderful. I could live happily here.”
Well, so could I. Let’s hope I am allowed. Because—uh-oh—in the front yard of my landlord’s house is a FOR SALE sign. I am on the market again.
3 Bdrms, 2.5 Baths, Fireplace, Formal dining room, Eat-in kitchen, Bay view from master suite, Separate in-law unit, $949,000.
What can happen to me is that the new owners can kick me out if they claim my cottage is needed by an in-law or some other kind of blood relative. If the new owners decide to keep me, they can raise my rent—again. I say this to everybody, even strangers, because in a niche neighborhood of a niche market, word of mouth is powerful. So everybody is listening and looking, and I am leaning (gently) on the people two doors down, who live in a cottage double the size of mine, for which I would pay much more than it’s worth. Sell me your home, I will make it worth your while. It’s easy. You buy my landlord’s property, we just sort of exchange houses. Why is it that good ideas like that rarely get heard by anybody who matters? I wish I could claim discrimination: racial or gender or age. Guidelines abound, and then I might have a chance. But no, it is the numbers that discriminate against me. Banks won’t lend me money, not because I’m a woman of a certain age or color, but because my earning potential is not actuarially high enough to allow so great a risk. I am really on my own here, without a dad to guide me, and on my own doesn’t get me much in the way of desirable living quarters. At a time like this I wish I had a husband, one with money. I know, today’s woman pays close attention to her financial independence, and bully for her, I am a fan. But I am not a woman of today; I am a woman of yesterday, and all those yesterdays found me working hard, loving my teaching job, earning a steady salary, and saving nothing. I am a financial orphan. And it is storming out there.
A man would come in handy for two reasons: money and size. With a big rich man I would be safe and warm, far from the ravages of the outside world, in a house where, if he insisted, I suppose he could live, too. Would I give up my independence for him? Well, I’d certainly like the chance to consider it. So where is he?
Maybe in Walnut Creek. Walnut Creek is a town, small city, some forty miles inland from Berkeley, and tonight I am scheduled to read in their Barnes & Noble store and sign books afterward. It will be a distraction and, yes, indeedy, I could use one. I would n
ot wish to live in Walnut Creek; it is hot out there, you would need air-conditioning, and while it has charming (expensive) neighborhoods, its downtown is full of stores for rich people: Tiffany, Armani, and also a bunch of stores for the young and soon-to-be affluent: Crate & Barrel, Banana Republic, Pottery Barn, though Pottery Barn just made it in, there being some discussion over whether or not it had polished its image to the brightness demanded by retailers in Walnut Creek. There are no stores in Walnut Creek for poor people: You have to go miles to find a Dollar Store or a Wal-Mart. Another reason I would not wish to live in Walnut Creek is that many people who do live there are white and retired and look like me. Different colors of people don’t live in Walnut Creek; they don’t even work there. I like my people all mixed up. A last and probably most important reason I would not live there is that I don’t have enough money. It’s pretty expensive in Walnut Creek, though I don’t know if it’s a niche market. Probably it is. Would I give up my reverse snobbery if someone bought me a house in Walnut Creek? Well, I’d certainly like the chance to consider it.
Barnes & Noble is full of people on all their floors. One of my favorite sights: people sitting on the floor between the aisles of books, turning pages, some reading to their children in the comfortable chairs Barnes & Noble is smart enough to pepper their stores with, still others standing in the aisles, deaf to the world around them, intent on the book they’ve opened. Reading is dead, some pundits proclaim, but in my experience stores like this and the libraries I visit and the cafés I frequent are filled with readers, people for whom the printed word provides a time out of mind, a refuge from the world’s unsteadiness, and an appreciation for the permanence of print. For a time, we are out of touch, incommunicado, away from our desks, neither landing nor taking off. For a time, we are safe at home.