by Kirsty Eyre
‘Lorn, do you have a hot-water bottle?’ he booms.
She looks up at me, her head in my lap, her legs dangling over the arm of her two-seater sofa. ‘Just ignore him. He’s a pervert.’
‘Do you actually get on with him?’ I say, tucking her hair behind her ears.
‘I think I feel sorry for him.’ She sighs, staring at the ceiling and hugging a pillow to her chest. ‘His parents don’t know who he is, and at times I’m not sure that he does. They’re in a home. Alzheimer’s.’
I run my fingers over the scar on her forehead. ‘You know I always thought you disapproved of me.’
‘How so, Shit Angel?’ She strokes my arm.
‘Outing me to all Grandma’s friends at bridge club for starters.’
She sits bolt upright. ‘I thought they knew!’
‘Only Grandma and Beatrice.’
‘Shit, I’m sorry,’ she says, burying her head in her hands.
‘Then there was that newspaper article on London gay saunas you gave to my dad, remember that?’ I say, rolling my eyes.
‘No?’
‘It wasn’t that long ago!’
‘I remember cutting out an article on genomics for you.’ Her face crumples. ‘Oh Jesus, is that what was printed on the other side?’
‘You have no idea how much anguish you caused my dad!’ I laugh.
Then within seconds, something inside me switches and there it is: the elephant in the room that is the bull sperm incident. Part of me wants to bury it deep inside and pretend it never happened, but it’s too late, I’ve projected the thoughts now and the atmosphere has become tense. I stare at the carpet. ‘We should probably talk about the time when—’
‘I never breathed a word,’ she blurts. ‘It was all Andy.’
Quick as a flash I turn to face her. ‘Andy didn’t go to our school!’
‘No, but his mates from judo did.’
I throw myself back on the sofa. ‘You realize there are people who still think that’s why I’m gay?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My auntie June maintains I’d be straight, had I not been so traumatized by the whole sperm experience.’
‘No disrespect, but your auntie June is bat shit.’
It’s only when she laughs that perspective sets in and I realize I’ve been carrying around this dead weight of humiliation for the best part of seventeen years, whilst nobody else has given a damn and the only people who can remember are not exactly the benchmark for ‘sane’. A ball of shame on an invisible chain. All those moments I thought Lorna had one over on me. All those times I imagined she was thinking about it. I’ve allowed the whole thing to grow completely out of proportion. Talking about it out loud, all these years later, I know I sound ridiculously tetchy. At the end of the day, Andy Pickering was just some bored, hormonal teenager and Lorna just happened to be there. She didn’t start the rumours. She didn’t find it funny. She just witnessed it; guilty by association. And as for Andy Pickering, his reputation will forever be in the gutter since he got charged with sheep rustling.
Lorna rolls against me and pulls her fingers through my hair. ‘You know, there were so many times I wanted to kiss you.’
‘Example?’ I trace her face with my forefinger.
We lie facing each other, propped up on our elbows. Our eyes are now inches from each other’s, our mouths a fraction closer. ‘When I was deworming the cattle and you had a little cry. At the Ridgecroft Country Show in the pantomime cow suit. At your auntie and uncle’s vow renewals.’
‘I seem to remember thinking I repulsed you then.’
‘Why?’
‘That dirty look you gave me when—’
‘When you were kissing Joely?’
‘Yes.’
She chews her fingernails. ‘Yeah. I didn’t much like that.’
‘I can’t imagine you being jealous,’ I say, taking her hand and placing it on my waist.
‘There was another time, which you probably won’t remember, but I’ll never forget.’ She closes her eyes and grimaces at the memory. ‘At the #SaveOurDairy event in London and I had to present you with the Milker’s Booby Prize rosette …’
‘And practically stabbed me in the chest!’ I say.
She opens her eyes. ‘I know it was awful. I was awful.’
I look into her big, grey eyes and wonder whether ‘taking things slowly’ is a solid enough foundation for asking her to accompany me to Kat and Bev’s wedding. The Louis de Bernières passage that Bev and Kat want me to read talks about love being a volcanic temporary madness followed by an enduring friendship once the passion subsides. Are my roots entwined with Lorna’s, or am I in love with the idea of being in love? Did the Queen have this dilemma when she started dating Prince Philip?
I run my fingers across the horseshoe-shaped scar on her forehead, which has been there ever since I’ve known her, but I’ve never asked her about.
‘How did you get this?’ I say, studying the silvery pink line. ‘I mean, I know you got kicked by a horse, but …’
‘A foal.’ She lifts her hand to it. ‘I was thirteen and got way too close. You never came to the livery, did you?’
‘I’ve never felt a connection with horses,’ I say. ‘Give me cows any day. You know where you stand with cows. They’re less temperamental.’
A row of paintings hangs on the wall next to the bookcase. Watercolours of sand dunes. Poppy fields and oak trees. A march hare in long grass.
‘Is this your stuff?’ I say, and then momentarily panic that I’ve just revealed myself as an art philistine and that this is the work of a famous artist I’ve never heard of.
She nods, thank fuck.
‘They’re great,’ I say. ‘Do you have any more?’
She gets up, takes a heavy hessian-bound book off the bookshelf and plonks it on my lap. The hard, scratchy cover pulls at my tights. I open it. Sketch after sketch of women entwined: women entwined on the grassy edge of a brook, women entwined in a Victorian bathing pond, women entwined to form the gnarly skeleton of a dead tree, women entwined on lily pads floating on a green-blue pond. All of them naked. They’re amazing – art gallery amazing. The sort of paintings that transport you places and make you feel that you too are lying on a river bank on a summer’s day, surrounded by nymphs, long grass tickling your back, your bare feet touching cold, wet rock.
She peers over my shoulder at her work. ‘Eighteen months ago, I had a bit of a midlife crisis and decided I’d had enough of sticking my hands up cows’ bottoms. I started applying for Fine Art courses all over the place.’
‘And?’
‘And I got on a course at the University of Washington,’ she says.
‘Washington DC?’
‘Yes.’
I turn to face her. ‘You’re going to Washington?’
‘The course started three months ago. A vet from Hathersage was going to buy out my half of the business and I was going to start afresh but …’ She stares at the carpet and chews on her lip. ‘OK, you were a big part of why I stayed.’
‘Really?’
Her eyes flick back to mine. ‘I got cold feet about leaving. I love this part of the world and the business was going well. And then there was you. You’d just found out about your dad and leaving didn’t feel right.’
Warmth fills my core.
‘I was supposed to sign over the business the day I was deworming your cattle, but I couldn’t.’ She looks into my eyes. ‘I do think rather a lot of you, you know.’
I feel fuzzy inside, a bit like I did when Dad said I could have my first pet. ‘Thank you.’
‘Lorn?’ Guy’s voice booms from below.
She ignores him, which I figure gives me carte blanche to slide my fingertip under her bra strap and trace the contours of her collarbone. She kisses me. My finger zigs and zags down her sternum. Her chest rises as I brush my hands over the curves of her breasts, and she kisses me harder.
‘Lorn!’ Guy bangs on the door.
‘Belinda’s car’s blocking me in.’
We giggle like schoolgirls.
‘One sec,’ I shout, kissing her again.
When I get outside, I realize the Land Rover’s got a flat tyre. I manage to reverse enough for Guy to get his car out, but it pulls hard left and feels all baggy. Lorna taps on the window. ‘Have you got a jack?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ I instantly feel like a moron.
She opens the boot, rummages under the fake floor, locates both the spare tyre and a drawstring bag containing a jack, and has the Land Rover hoisted and secured within seconds.
‘Pry bar wrench?’ she demands, holding out her hand.
I tentatively hand her what may or may not be a pry bar wrench and am relieved when she crouches down unquestioningly and removes each lug nut, one at a time.
‘Spare?’ she says, blowing dirt off her hands.
I roll the spare tyre over to her, which she fits before I’ve got the flat one back in the boot. She’s bloody amazing. A-Team amazing.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘And if you don’t mind, I’ve another favour to ask.’
‘Shoot.’
I look into her eyes. ‘Would you come with me to Bev and Kat’s wedding?’
She throws her arms around my neck. ‘I’d love to!’
Everything seems to have clicked into place with Lorna. She’s relaxed. I’m relaxed. It feels so good not having to walk on eggshells, constantly worried about my appearance, my lack of polish, my lack of interest in glossy magazines and designer homeware. Looking back on it, dating Joely was pretty exhausting. Straightforwardness is so refreshing. Why have I pissed away so many years second-guessing girls?
*
When Dad finishes his course of radiotherapy in early December, we buy a lopsided Christmas tree from a man on the corner at Longshaw in celebration. The dusty box of decorations on top of Grandma’s wardrobe comes up trumps with garish baubles and squashed pinecones spray-painted gold. At the bottom of the box, in a bed of blue tinsel, sits my mother’s painted metal nutcracker – devoid of arms, legs and facial features. The golden thread that once stemmed from the centre of his tin helmet has been replaced with a loop of pale blue cotton. I pick it up and press its cold body into the palm of my hand and wonder what my mother would look like now.
I would like to think that she’d be one of those cool mothers who dress like a rock star, swear with carefree abandon, and don’t dye their hair. She’d have great taste in music, educating me on the latest indie bands, inviting me to gigs, swapping vinyl. She’d love Dolly Parton, for sure. We’d talk about anything and everything over a pot of tea: travel, politics, our plans for the future, Dolly. She’d be perky and fun. As much a friend as a mother. She’d be sixty-one years old.
‘How’s about fish and chips tonight?’ Grandma says, trying to rescue tinsel from the jaws of Speedo. ‘I could get Bea round and we could make a bit of a do of it. You could ask Lorna.’
‘Sounds good,’ I say, untangling a box of fairy lights. ‘Anyone you’d like to invite, Dad?’
‘Not really,’ he says.
I sort through a pile of Christmas cards as he affixes the plug to the end of the tree lights. One from Charlie, wishing the three of us the merriest of Christmases ‘in spite of it all.’ A cheap one from Uncle Pete and Auntie June with a close-up of a bauble. One from Tazzy, featuring a hedgehog in a duffel coat and red wellies. An Oxfam snow scene from ‘everyone at Birchover Farm’. Two penguins kissing under mistletoe from Bev and Kat. A jolly Father Christmas signed with ‘love’ from Marjorie and Graham. And a single robin on a snowy tree stump from ‘Pat’, the lady from the bowling club, who sent him a ‘Get Well Soon’ card, another pyramid of kisses under her signature. ‘What about Pat?’
‘Pat?’ Four creases appear in his forehead.
I pass him the card and underline the kisses with my dirty thumbnail.
‘Interesting.’ His eyes twinkle. ‘Though I’m going to have to be a killjoy tonight. I’m too bloody exhausted.’
We decorate the tree with red and gold baubles and a set of lights with half the bulbs dead. Dad looks up, his forehead wrinkled in contemplation as I place the demonic angel I made at primary school on the top. Grandma and I wait patiently, thinking he’s going to say something life-changing, but instead he says, ‘I can’t wait for fish and chips to taste like fish and chips again.’
As I’m pegging Christmas cards onto gold-flecked thread, I realize Dad’s just like me. Or at least, I’m just like him. He puts up barriers because he doesn’t want to get hurt. He lost Mum, and he doesn’t want to lose anyone else. He’s happy to give, but not to take, because that way he owes nobody. On the face of it, it’s so simple. Beneath the surface, though, there’s a complex web of logic. Farming may have chosen Dad, but Dad also chose farming. Not just as a profession, but as an all-consuming lifestyle. A lifestyle that legitimizes never having the time for romance. Never having the space for loneliness. Never having to verbalize your feelings. Cows understand without having to do any of that.
However, judging by the way Dad is now standing at his laptop in the kitchen, browsing ‘Pat Gillingham, Baslow Crown Bowls’ on the local Sportsfield Trust website, it looks like he may be lowering his barrier. And, you never know, fish and chips might taste like fish and chips again one day.
I pack my battered leather carry-all with wedding essentials (constituting a lot less gear than I deemed necessary six months ago) and get Grandma to dump me at Chesterfield station on her way to the big Sainsbury’s.
‘Are you not taking Lorna?’ Grandma pulls up on double yellows.
‘She’s joining me tomorrow.’
She nods. ‘Have fun! Hi to the girls!’
I walk through the ticket office, the taste of freedom on my lips. A bedraggled acrylic Christmas tree stands next to the entrance to the platform, looking as though it’s been crammed into a suitcase between annual outings for a good few years. I think about how it will feel to walk back into my flat and sleep in my bed once again. I think about the girls and the infinite choices that London offers, whether it’s things to do, places to eat or people to meet. I board the train, excited and nervous, like a new mother spending her first hour away from her baby. I’m sure the agency staff will cope, but I just wonder what the cows will make of it all.
St Pancras looks different when I get there. Bigger and glossier than normal. Rows of pigeons line the blue metal arcs supporting the glass roof, cooing and fluttering above the gold gilded clock, whilst people cuss and dart below, as if operated by remote control. A crowd-drawing thirty-foot Lego Christmas tree stands on the floor below, commanding spectators from every level. Elaborate yuletide window displays line the thoroughfare. Golden cuckoos pop out of wooden clocks with shiny presents in their beaks, and miniature glockenspiels chime ‘Silent Night’. A man in a Starbucks apron offers free samples of caramel apple spice latte, gingerbread cappuccino, eggnog mocha and crème brûlée hot chocolate. Infinite beverage flavourings on one small tray. In London, anything is possible. I feel alive.
I take the Northern Line to Elephant and Castle, where a temporary Christmas market flogging translucent wrapping paper and cheap gadgets sprawls across the entrance to the defunct shopping centre.
‘Give us a smile, darlin’!’ a man in a duffel coat yells as he empties a bowl of bruised satsumas into a brown paper bag. ‘Ten for a p’aand. Ten for a p’aand.’
The streets smell of raw haddock, a fishmonger slinging bloodstained ice out of a bucket, which crunches underfoot.
‘Any bag a tenner, darlin!’ A lady selling knock-off designer handbags at market prices jangles her money belt.
I make my way along the Old Kent Road, ducking behind a row of shops selling African root vegetables and mobile phone covers. A cat fight has broken out between two women in Aztec leggings, just next to our tower block. The stairs to the third floor smell of piss. Home sweet home.
‘Phantom of the Opera’ blares through the windows o
f my flat. Maria comes to the door dressed in a black silk kimono and fluffy pink mules. She holds a plastic pink flamingo watering can in one hand and a Curly Wurly in the other.
‘Bilbo!’ She hugs me, dripping water down my spine. ‘Sorry,’ she says, gesturing to the watering can. ‘It’s for the benefit of the gay couple opposite. We’ve got a bit of a competition going with “balconies in bloom”.’ She makes her way over to the windowsill and waters what look like fake petunias.
‘Aren’t they plastic?’ I say, gesturing to the flowers.
‘Yeah,’ she says.
I’ve missed Maria. Inside, it doesn’t feel like much has changed. The furniture is as I left it, save the new zebra print throw on the sofa. It smells the same. Draughts creep through the same cracks. The tea stain on the hallway carpet is still there. The bathroom door still opens out the wrong way.
‘So, I won’t get to meet Darius this weekend?’ I say, noticing that a couple of framed photos have appeared on the hall walls. Maria all liquid-eye smitten, and him all Mediterranean sex.
She shakes her head. ‘His shoot doesn’t finish until Sunday and then it’ll be Monday by the time he can get on a flight from Adelaide.’
‘Shame.’
I open my wardrobe door, and a bonier, older version of the girl I last saw in this mirror stares back. What used to be shoulder-length hair, layered at the ends, is now long, unkempt and ragged with split ends. My face is harder somehow, my skin more brittle. My hands are the worst – dry, wizened old lady’s hands with gnarled veins and skin like wrinkled stockings.
My maid-of-honour dress hangs on the door – a silver silk evening gown with spaghetti straps. I try it on – what fitted me perfectly a few months ago now hangs off me. It’s also so transparent that the birthmark above my belly button is visible. I search for appropriate undergarments to make it inoffensive, but the only thing that really works is wearing my swimming costume underneath; inside-out, so as not to reveal its fluorescent block-brick pattern.
We share a dinner of M&S sandwiches, and Maria puts on the fairy lights and reaches for the Disaronno. The square black cap crunches, dislodging flecks of crystallized sugar onto the carpet. Dolly Parton blurts out ‘9 to 5’ from the record player. It’s good to be back, but at the same time, I’ve forgotten how to relax: I’m already worrying about Basile and her eye-worm. Will I ever be able to reintegrate into society?