A Family Lunch

We love A Different Spring by Maggie Redding. This extract skilfully evokes memories of many a fraught Sunday Dinner, not to mention our own Coming Out stories. 

Lydia is lonely. She has been a widow for five years. She longs for her daughters, Ellie and Kate, to be of more significance to her, but they have busy lives. Kate and her partner Dan always have money troubles; and Ellie, well, she has her own kinds of trouble too. Her grand-daughter Polly still has time for her, but she's 16, busy growing up. After a fraught family lunch one Sunday, relationships break down completely ...

Ellie was in the sitting room. Tall, slender, in a black sweater and trousers, she looked neat, her fair hair in a new short style and brushed off her face. She leapt to her feet as her mother came into the room. They hugged each other, Lydia wanting to hold onto her longer because she had seen so little of her recently. 

'Are you okay, Mum?' Ellie said. She looked happy, radiant, even. 

'I'm fine, dear. You?' 

'Wonderful,' Ellie said. She seemed to want to say more but changed her mind. 'It's good to see you, Mum.' 

'I haven't seen you for ages, not since Christmas,' Lydia said, unable to resist the observation as Ellie already began to move away from her. She tried to hang onto her, one hand slipping along Ellie’s arm to her fingers as her daughter gently and gradually withdrew the grasp until only their fingers were loosely touching, then the connection was completely broken. 

'I know. Busy enjoying life,' Ellie said. 

'Well, so am I, which would explain it, wouldn't it?'  The up-beat comment disguised her disappointment. 

'Listen, Mum, I have some news. I want to tell everyone when we’re all together, sitting down for our meal.' 

'Good news, is it? You look as though it is. I have some news too.' She was getting a life too, a new life, and it was difficult. She needed support in the decision she was making. 

'Really? I can't wait for you to tell us.' 

Dismissed with the insincere words, Lydia had doubts that Ellie thought her mother's news was likely to be significant. Once past a certain age, you didn’t really count, if being a mother ever counted; unless of course, you stopped behaving like the all-caring, all-suffering mother and wanted to ‘get a life’, as Polly had put it. When she had got a life, with Peter, the disapproval never waned.  

Dan appeared, having changed into his old clothes now he had come home from work. Short and dark, he was never smart, even for visitors. He sloped about the house, hair dishevelled, slippers down at heel, as though he was in a dream. He greeted Lydia. She sat in one of the chairs that were low and uncomfortable. Her heart began to pound as tension built up in her. Doubts about her plans were magnifying. Was she doing this merely to be noticed by the family? This could be a new reason for abandoning the sale and purchase. She could summon a dozen other reasons. She must focus on the meal. Kate had gone to a lot of trouble. Herself and her agonising, she could analyse those later. 

Redundancy or not, Kate and Dan had truly gone to town with this meal. Lydia hoped they had not got into debt in the process. Perhaps Ellie had helped out financially. She wished she had been asked to contribute. The meal was cassoulet. 'Pork, duck and beans,' Kate explained, 'amongst other things.' 

'Beans make you…,' Polly began. 

'Polly!' Kate said. 

Nick appeared, greeted Lydia with a kiss; then everyone was asked to go to the dining room. Lydia found herself next to Polly, much to the delight of both of them. She was anxious about telling her news and Polly would be an ally. 

'This is lovely,' Lydia said, regarding the meal before her. 

'I'm not eating meat,' Polly said. 

'Why not?' Kate looked up. 

'I'm vegetarian now.' 

'Get on with it,' Kate told her. 

When the meal was well underway, Ellie, across the table from Lydia, looked over to her. 

'Mum has some news. Are you going tell us what it is, Mum?  Are you ready, to tell?' 

Placing her knife and fork on her plate, Lydia surveyed her audience.  She took a deep breath. 'I'm moving,' she said. 

They all gazed at her, as though they did not understand. Was it so unlikely? 

'What, moving house?' Kate said. 

'Where to?' Ellie said. 

'I have a purchaser for the house and I’m moving to a flat.' 

'Flat?' Kate’s face screwed up in disbelief. 'A small one or a vast apartment?' 

'A small one. Tarascon Court. Between here and the house.' 

'That's for old people,' Kate said and the contempt in her voice was undisguised. 

'It’s a scheme of flats for retired people,' Lydia said. 'It’s not a home. I’m nowhere near ready for that yet.' 

'Why?' Ellie said. 'Why are you doing this?' 

'The house is too big for me now. It’s too lonely. I'm getting older. Perhaps you hadn't noticed.' 

'You're not old,' Ellie protested, although as though the word was an insult or a failing. 

Don’t they see? Don’t they see, the way she walked, the wrinkles, the slowness? Did they not consider each of her birthdays, for which they gave her elaborate cards, as a mark of time? Were they unable to compare every Christmas with the previous one? 

'Have you had a good offer on the house?' Dan asked. 

Under the table, on her lap, Lydia's hands began twisting round each other. This was what she feared. The arithmetic, especially Dan’s arithmetic. She must plan, make yet more decisions. 

'Good enough,' she said. 

'Make sure you're not sold short,' Dan went on. He liked money, was always full of good advice about it but never had any. 

'Gran’s got to pay the mortgage off,' Polly said. Bless Polly, she could see beyond words. She was growing up. Her comment resulted in more vacant stares at Lydia. 

'Are you happy about this?' Ellie asked. 'I mean, moving to a retirement flat...' 

Like everyone else to whom she had spoken about this situation, Lydia did not want to confess to the doubts, the grief and the sleepless nights the plan had engendered. 'Of course I am.' 

'Oh, well,' said Kate, not giving away anything but her disinterest, 'I suppose you want to do it.' 

'I'm sure we all wish you luck,' Ellie said. She cleared her throat. 'Can I tell my news now?' 

That had got Mum out of the way, Lydia reflected. Now for the real people, the younger people, the ones who still ‘had a life’. 

There was a murmur of agreement rippling around the table. Lydia noticed Ellie’s hand was shaking. She wondered why this could be. She had made similar announcements before, perhaps not in the celebratory setting of a family meal, but many ‘this is the one’ statements, which subsequently all proved to be not about ‘the one’. 

Ellie took a gulp of wine. 'I've met someone,' she said. 

Nobody voiced the thought, ‘Again?’  But it hovered over the gathering. 

'Tell us,' Polly said. 

'How lovely.' Lydia made an effort. 'Yes, tell us all about him.' 

Ellie took a deep breath. Her cheeks were two spots of pink. Lydia could not understand what her anxiety was. A rapid list of reasons flicked through her mind. Old?  Young? Divorced? Foreign? Disabled? Not yet divorced? 

'It's not a him, it's a her.' 

A stunned silence hit the room. 

Dan summed it up, a gleam in his eye, and, Lydia surmised, a fantasy in his mind. 'You mean, you're a lesbian?' 

'Good grief,' said Kate, 'I never thought of that. When you hinted at someone new, I went through a list in my mind. Was he foreign, or old or perhaps very fat or something? I never thought of a woman.' 

Beads of perspiration were breaking out on Ellie's brow. 

'What's her name?' Polly said. 

'Rosie. She's a dance teacher. I met her at the dance studio I go to.' 

Kate leaned forward. 'What does she look like?' 

'Very attractive.' 

'Older?  Younger than you?' Kate asked. 

'Younger. By two years.' 

Now everyone noticed that Lydia had not contributed to the questions. They were all looking at her. She knew she looked less than delighted. She was much less than delighted, she was thoroughly disturbed.  

'Mum?'  Ellie was frowning. 

'I'm sorry, Ellie, but have you thought this through?' 

'Thought?'  Ellie was annoyed. 'This is not a head decision. This comes from the heart.' 

'That’s what I mean. You need to think about these things. I am surprised at this choice.' 

'It's not a choice. It's who I am.' 

'Then why has it taken you so long to find out who you are?' Lydia knew her voice sounded sharp, but it was not as sharp as her thinking. Ellie, lovely though she was, could be so impulsive. 

'Why not?' 

'You haven't a clue what you're letting yourself in for...' 

'Mum!'  Ellie protested. 

'Are you desperate not to be on your own, or something?  Why have you settled for this?  How do you expect me to take this - this bizarre notion seriously, when I’ve watched you for years go from man to man and always end up with a crisis?' 

Nick moved. He threw down his cutlery and his napkin. He jumped to his feet and shoved his chair backwards from the table. He glared at Lydia. 

'You bloody bigot,' he snarled and left the room. The language made her gasp as did the assumption behind it. 

'I'm not a bigot,' she protested, close to tears. 

Polly leaned back in her chair, placing her knife and fork carefully on her plate. 'I'm not eating any more,' she said. She turned to Lydia. 'I don't know how you can sit there like that after you've upset Ellie so.' 

'Shush, Polly. It doesn't matter,' Ellie said, close to tears herself. 

'But it does,' Polly, too, was tearful. Now she addressed Lydia. 'I can't sit here with you after you've said that. We have lessons at school about not being prejudiced against gays.' 

'Polly, I'm not prejudiced,' Lydia began. 

Polly rose, gave Ellie a hug and quietly departed. 

Lydia began to tremble. Kate and Dan, when she at last dared to look at them, allowed grim smiles. Kate reached out to Ellie across the table. 

'Ellie, I'm so sorry. I didn't know it would be like this. I really didn't. You should have told me. I wouldn’t have organised this.' 

'No. I know. Neither did I. I'm sorry too, that all your efforts have been for nothing. I thought, Mum, you might be a bit negative, embarrassed, even, but not like this, not react like this.' 

Ellie was sitting opposite Lydia, well-placed for confrontation. They glared at each other. Lydia could not understand why they did not ask her for her reasons. 

'It's not your fault, Mum.' 

'No, it certainly is not.' The words were out before she heard what Ellie meant. 

'No, Mum. I'm not going to give you credit for my total and utter happiness, if that’s what you think. What I was going to say was that it is your generation that are set in their ways and can’t update as things change.'  Ellie turned to Kate. 'Rosie says it’s mostly the older generation who are so prejudiced against us.' 

Dan had resumed his meal as though he was no part of this family. 

'You think you are trying to change my mind, don’t you?' Lydia said. 'Let me ...' 

'Yes,' said Ellie, the beautiful, golden Ellie, 'I'm trying to clear up a couple of outdated attitudes that you are hanging on to. Sex seems to be a problem with your age group. It's sad for me to realise that you had two children and two marriages and you don't understand the power, the loveliness, of sex.' 

Wrong, wrong, wrong!  Lydia wanted to shout. Who was prejudiced now? 

She stood up, rucking the tablecloth as she did so. She was shaky, sure that her knees were going to give way. 'I think I'll go home. You don’t want to listen to me.' 

'I don't have a car now, Lydia,' Dan said, still eating. 

She mopped her mouth on a napkin, pushed her chair out of the way. She stumbled out of the room. Kate followed as she was about to reach for her fur-fabric coat.  

'Don't go like this, Mum. You're making a fuss about nothing.' 

'Nothing? If you let me explain...' 

'Well, what a pity,' Kate hissed, her face close to Lydia's, 'what a pity you didn't make a fuss about my life instead of being so keen for me to marry that redundant creep in there.'  She returned to the dining room.  

Lydia was abandoned in the hall, disorientated. Kate had acknowledged difficulty in her marriage and, with regard to Ellie’s announcement, no one would allow her to speak. She sank onto the stairs, sitting there, not sure what to do, whether to leave or return to the dining room and to try again. 

Kate, Dan, and Ellie had been left silenced in the dining room until Kate went back in there and burst into tears. Lydia could hear her. 'I would never have expected this,' she sobbed.  

'We shouldn't be surprised,' Ellie said. 'Our parents’ generation have what we think of as outdated ideas about a lot of stuff. This is only one of them.' 

'Don't make excuses for her, Ellie.' Kate raised her voice, intending to be heard beyond the dining room. 'She was unkind, really.' 

'She thinks I'm so bad, it's justified. She thinks that insults are not as bad as my – my behaviour.' 

'Doesn't she, don’t all her friends, talk about things? Don't they watch television? Read the newspapers? Don't they have sons and daughters, grandsons and grand-daughters who get up to things they didn't when they were younger?  Doesn’t she know about same-sex marriage?' 

'She's just a bitter old bat because she didn't have fun,' Dan said. 

 'Don't you start!' That was Kate. 

'Shush!'  Ellie said. 

'No, I won't shush. She's not his mother. We’ve only got one mother, Ellie, and she's turned on us. You, especially. Didn't you think she might react like that?' 

'I thought she’d be low key about it, but not, not like this. We're her daughters.' 

'Doesn’t she love us?' 

'Believe me, she thinks that's what she's doing. I don't know why she thinks it's wrong, but she does, and she wants it right.' 

'You know,' Dan said and his slow deliberate way of speaking was even more slow and deliberate, 'we could find ourselves being just the same towards Nick or Polly or both in ten or twenty years’ time, about some other issue.' 

'That's true.' Ellie said. 

'I'll never,' Kate said, 'never, ever, treat my children with such hatred as she has treated you, Ellie.' 

'I didn’t see any hatred,' said Dan. 

'Oh, be quiet, you,' Kate said to him. 

'It remains to be seen. Do you really think that was hatred?' Ellie was determined to be understanding and Kate would not cope with that. 

'She should at least show a bit of tolerance,' Kate said. 

'Tolerance? How patronising! What I need is acceptance. Total acceptance.' 

Me too, thought Lydia, trying to shift her position on the stairs. 

'Look,' came Ellie’s more upbeat tone, 'I think what I need is a nice coffee. Shall I go and make it?  Let’s all go back into the sitting room.' 

'I'll make it,' Dan volunteered. 'I'll clear this lot too. You go into the sitting room.' 

Dan emerged into the hall, laden with a precarious pile of plates of uneaten food. 

'You go back in,' he said to Lydia as Kate and Ellie slipped past her.  

'I think I ought to go back home. Will you call a taxi for me?' 

 

BY his Mistress going to Bed: a response to John Donne

The famous erotic poem Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going To Bed by John Donne challenged Sylvia Daly to write the same scene from the woman's point of view.

A Response to Elegy XIX

by the poet John Donne

Oh, I am coming Sire, thou needst not fret,

On that my mind and heart are truly set.

But hold, you speak of tryst as if a tussle,

When needs demand thou service first my muscle.

My girdle is releasing tight-bound flesh,

Now resting from its bonds and choking mesh.

All draped in linen, hidden is my form,

To still the rush of awful ardour’s storm.

Cast not your mind on lewd arousing things

Dwell much on matters grave for earls and kings,

Let not thy hand move on to standing rod,

Before my maiden lanes your lust has trod.

And whence I move into our shared bed,

Direct your efforts firstly to my head,

To kiss and feed upon my swollen lips

As pollen for the bee from flower sips.

Then moving slow as hawk upon the wing,

Caress my neck, my shoulders, make flesh sing.

Your eager hand may then to clasp the part

That bondeth with a golden thread my heart.

Hold fast your ardour then and vision lest

Your seed escapes its cool and rounded nest.

Secure a blindfold o’er your lusting eye,

Until you hear my voice in passion cry.

Oh gently move into my hidden place,

And seek the grail all eased with frothing lace.

With care do part the seals that hide this prize

From brutish hands and dim unseeing eyes.

Work not to conquer this all-hallowed ground,

For maiden’s fern doth cover riches sound,

That those who brutish covet for their spoil

Will lose.  Victory needs not battle’s toil,

It takes not reckless act nor hero’s dare

To part the leaves of sweetbush maidenhair,

And massage gentle strokes the hidden pearl

Until my breath do pant and toes up-curl.

My cries will tell you when the deed is done,

The gasps that truly mean we are as one.

Then let your sceptre bring its kingly flood

With jet to cool our lover’s burning blood.

Into my secret place where pleasure lies

For both will know of ecstasy’s sweet sighs,

A paradise all shared, and double bliss

Not one betrayed by Eros’ Judas-kiss

Where taking all your pleasure leaves your mate,

Abandoned in hot, dull, frustrated state.

So, heed my words if you would all impress

For this receipt owes man his great success.

 

Sylvia Daly 

 

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Sylvia says, 'I have rather careered about for most of my working life, which means I can...clean a chimney, pluck a pheasant, teach typing, extract honey from a hive, play the piano accordion, write a poem and a song. From a long line of ne’er do wells, am carrying on the honourable tradition. Oh, yes, and am learning to play the viola. Originally from the East End of London, came to Brighton via Wales, West Cork, Hereford, Eastbourne, Worcester and Ramsgate and am loving it. Old now, grave beckons...bring it on.'

'This is how we disappear from history ...'

Now You See Me 

Jane Traies

Enjoy this extract from Now You See Me, a collection of life stories from older lesbians across the UK, recorded by Jane Traies over nearly a decade. The stories are told in the women's own words and vividly recreate a time when being a lesbian meant either hiding your true identity or paying the price for breaking society's rules. But there is plenty of joy here too: whether snogging to Dusty Springfield songs, or cruising women by bicycle. The personal is still political in this moving and inspiring book.

One day, early in the Second World War, a lorry full of prisoners-of-war trundled down the main street of a small market town in Middle England on its way to deliver the men to their work on local farms. The County Secretary of the Women’s Land Army watched it from her office window, and took particular note of the driver. Perched up in the cab of the lorry in shirt and cravat, her beret at a jaunty angle, the only woman driver employed by the War Agricultural Committee was certainly an unusual sight. Aged twenty-two, with a preference for wearing breeches and a passion for motor-cars, Joan had left her respectable middle-class family far away and earned her living in a string of non-traditional jobs. She had tried to join the armed forces when war broke out; judged medically unfit, she was now determined to help the war effort in other ways, and driving was what she did best. The Secretary of the WLA who watched her so intently that morning was a respected local figure: a forceful unmarried lady of good breeding, she was well known for her powers of persuasion. And she had plans for that young driver. 

Which was how Joan, though entirely unqualified for the job in question, was persuaded not only to leave the ‘War Ag’ and join the Land Army, but to become the Warden of the local ‘milkers’ hostel’. For only six pounds a week, she was to be responsible for recruiting, training, supervising and deploying dozens of young women from all over the country who would be sent to local dairy farms to fill the places left by men called away to fight. It was a challenge, but Joan rose to it with characteristic enthusiasm, teaching the girls to pass their proficiency exams as well as to milk cows and ride motorbikes. One day, she heard reports of a particularly good milker, equally skilled with hand and machine, working on a nearby farm that was soon to be sold. Joan drove out to see if she could persuade the girl to come into the hostel when her employment ended. Slipping quietly into the milking parlour, she watched from the shadows as a shy, dark-haired teenager expertly milked out her cow. The pail was brim-full, the milk frothy: the girl was clearly exceptional. Joan recruited her on the spot.

I can tell you that much of the story, because later in her life Joan wrote and spoke very entertainingly about her Land Army days, including that moment in the milking parlour when she first met Peggy. But the story of their lives after that, of the sixty-plus years they were to live and work together, was never told; which is why I have not used their real names in this account, and why the rest of their story is not included in this collection. Like so many women of their generation, ‘Joan’ and ‘Peggy’ never publicly acknowledged the nature of their relationship. Both are dead now; their long love story was not acknowledged at either of their funerals, and is known only to a handful of their friends. This is how we disappear from history.

I was born in 1945, so I’m a generation younger than Joan, but I’m still old enough to remember the time when it was quite usual for lesbian and gay people to live their whole lives in the closet. I have seen how secrecy can become a habit that is impossible to break, even when social attitudes change: many lesbians of my own generation, too, have a history of not telling all, and therefore of being invisible to the outside world. Even among those who appear in this book, not all have felt able to use their real names. For some, being part of this collection has been an act of real courage, an act of coming out. Others, as you will discover from their stories, have been out for years. Our stories are all different.