Calendar Girl Read online

  My recent loss. It sounds like an obituary.

  We all had dinner together that night. The three kids, Dolores and Annie, Keith and I. Just like any other happy, extended family. I almost believed it too, until we were settling down to a good old-fashioned argument about who should do the dishes when the telephone rang. I froze. Nailed stiff to my seat as Dolores and Annie nearly killed each other in a mad dash to get to the phone before I did. Which was a little pointless really, as I couldn’t have talked to her even if I’d wanted to, my throat was so dry. Keith and the kids started talking across the table as loudly as possible so I wouldn’t have to hear Annie’s mumbled

  “I’m sorry, I told you, she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  But I did hear it, my x-ray ears even heard her say my name. Or maybe they didn’t, but the shiver that ran down my spine and the convulsions in the pit of my stomach certainly signalled that she had.

  I think I hear her whispering for me now, but I know she’s not. She can’t be.

  Annie walked back into the kitchen and took my hand.

  “You know, you can talk to her if you want to.”

  “No she bloody well can’t, what good will that do?”

  Dolores grabbed my other hand to stake her claim.

  “That bitch has treated her like shit and Maggie doesn’t ever have to talk to her again.”

  “I’m not saying she does, Doll. I just think, that as Maggie left in such a hurry, there may come a point when she wants to speak to her, and if there does, then that’s OK. OK?”

  Annie’s voice was calm, but the look she gave Dolores above my head was pure threat and Dolores had no choice but to give in. I was still shaking, so she took me upstairs and tucked me into bed like a small child.

  There’s nothing like a loss to make you into a child again. I feel very small just now.

  Still, my new life quickly became routine. I fell into living with all those people like it was the easiest thing in the world. Perhaps it was, certainly living with six other friends has got to be easier than living with one lover in a rotting relationship. Perhaps because it seemed so ordinary, so much like what had been planned for me in my genetic and sociological background. I’d get up with everyone else at about seven thirty in the morning, see them all off to work and school with a smile, and then, to “pay for my keep” I’d do that housework thing – dishes, dust, and vacuum followed by “Woman’s Hour” at 10.30am. I’d have my cup of coffee and toast and pretend to be “real”. It was like being Snow White. And when the serial was over I’d realise the pretending was over too and I’d climb back into my bed and start to cry again. God knows what the neighbours thought, perhaps they were all at work, perhaps they never heard me. Or maybe they just thought it made perfect sense, all that screaming coming from that “lesbian’s house on the corner”. I kept it up for nearly three weeks, staying in bed until everyone came home in the evening. I’d get up then for a couple of hours, but I was always asleep by ten o’clock – all that crying wore me out. I almost lost my voice and my eyes stayed red from too many tears and too much sleep.

  Perhaps the crying wore her out too.

  She stopped calling after the second week. Dolores said Victoria Cook seemed to think she’d gone away. To the States she thought. It seemed to make Dolores angrier than it made me.

  “How dare she just piss off and go and have a holiday? Who the hell does she think she is?”

  If there is a choice of emotions, Dolly will always take anger – it’s over quickest. What pissed me off wasn’t the idea of a holiday, but the fact that the information came from Victoria Cook.

  I tried to explain how she’d always loved the idea of a trip to America, especially New York. She used to talk about it a lot. Said it was her favourite city. I told her she’d change her mind if she ever actually went there. But she said no, she was sure it would be just as exciting in real life.

  I guess she knew what she was talking about after all.

  New York certainly can be pretty damn exciting, though she doesn’t seem quite so full of its praises now.

  CHAPTER 20

  Hospital food

  Towards the end of my sixth month in Annie’s home I began to feel real again. My life had totally changed. I wasn’t performing any more, I had none of my own clothes – I’d refused to let Dolores go back to our place and pick things up for me. I hadn’t seen any of “our” friends, just those of Dolores, Annie, Keith. All my things, all my books, even my address book was back at our flat. I was starting to feel like a real person again, but I wasn’t sure who that person was anymore. I was starting to be a “one” instead of a couple and it was hard to work out exactly what I thought about anything. It was like I’d slowly come alive and on looking around discovered that I’d made my home in limbo.

  It had been one of my usual mornings – they were all out, the housework was done and my hour with the radio was just beginning, something about women in management I think and then the phone rang. I was feeling so calm I decided to answer it but even as I picked up the receiver I knew it would be her.

  “Maggie?”

  Her voice, her soft, sweet voice cut through my calm like a roasting knife cuts through the hot flesh of a chicken, my anger and pain spurting out like drops of hot fat, my brain was telling me to put the phone down but my arm wouldn’t do it.

  “Maggie? Darling, it’s me.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Well, I …”

  “What can you possibly want?”

  “I want you sweetheart.”

  She started crying, her voice wavering through the earpiece, “I need you.”

  “What’s to need? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m in the hospital Maggie. I need you. Please come.”

  I took the address, quickly locked the house and ran to her. Ran to the tube. Ran through my tears. Ran straight into it.

  I’ve stopped running now. But then I couldn’t help myself, she needed me and I would be there for her. I would stay with her as long as she needed me, like Nancy to Bill Sykes. Only even sicker.

  But there’s only so much pain that even I could take.

  I found her at the Accident and Emergency section of King’s College. She said a motorbike had hit her. It looked more like a bus. She said she’d been on her way to her mother’s. Came out of the tube, crossed the road and wham! She’d been hit.

  As I looked at her I felt like I’d been hit too.

  The nurses asking the questions believed her. They probably see a lot of it. Women who’ve been hit by fast moving vehicles. Or say they have. She told them it had happened the night before, late, the bike hadn’t stopped. She said she’d gone home in shock, her own car in the garage, she’d travelled all that way home on the Northern Line, hadn’t thought about going to the hospital. Didn’t realise she might need to until she saw herself in the mirror and saw what the other late night travellers had been staring at. Until she woke up in the morning crying with pain. She got up and took herself to the hospital. They sent her to X-ray and then said they’d better admit her – “We’ll just keep you in today for observation, dear.” They wanted to keep an eye on her black eye, possible concussion, sprained ankle, cuts to the face, hands and arms and fractured rib. I offered to take her home, but they said they’d rather keep her in for the night – so much for all those NHS cuts they keep bleating about. I saw her in pain and went into caring mode. Straight into it, like nothing else had happened, like we hadn’t been apart at all.

  Like we’d never been apart.

  She had to talk to a policewoman, gave me as her next of kin, the policewoman just smiled – maybe it was the uniform, but she looked like a dyke to me. The policewoman asked a few questions about the bike, the rider, none of which she could answer.

  “I just stepped out and it was there,” was all she kept saying. The policewoman took a few notes but didn’t seem to take it very seriously.

  I wonder how hurt you have to
be before they really care. Dead?

  I suppose they have that reserve of all medical type people, where once you’ve seen someone mangled or garotted or shot or something equally hideous, then you’re not likely to be impressed by a couple of cracked ribs.

  Not like me. I was very impressed indeed.

  They cleaned her up and then put her into a thin white bed in a sterile room with four other women. I stayed with her as long as I could, but in the late afternoon they made me go. No pushing, no shoving, just that firm nurse’s authority where the uniform does all the talking and you don’t have any room to argue. The nurse was my age or younger, but it was her world and she held all the power.

  “You have to go now dear. Come along. She’ll be able to go tomorrow but for now she needs to rest. Come back in the morning, she’ll be feeling a lot better then and you can have a proper chat. Off you go.”

  A proper chat. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had one of those.

  Had it only been weeks or was it years? She smiled at me from the bed, we’d hardly been able to speak to each other anyway, there was too much to say and we both knew that once we started we’d never be able to contain the torrent of words. We held each other in silence for a few minutes and then I left. I didn’t kiss her. Her face was cut and bruised anyway and I didn’t want to hurt her.

  I didn’t want to hurt me.

  I walked out of the building and up the street, feeling like I was seeing it for the first time. The street, the trees, the world. It looked sharp and bright. The year had turned while I’d been in mourning. And it felt great. Awe-full. For some reason I was very scared. And very happy. She’d come back to me. She’d needed me. She’d called me. Wherever she’d been, she’d needed me in the end. Whoever she’d been with, it had been me she’d turned to. Me she trusted. Me she needed to comfort her. I felt like I had an identity again. Like the little green plastic wristband the hospital had given her. Hers gave her name and reference number. Mine said “HERS”. I walked home revelling in the weak sunshine, swimming in the cold air, my head reeling with the contradictions. It was pointless. And I loved her. She’d treated me appallingly. And she loved me. I hated her. She had lied to me. She had cheated me. And I loved her. It kept coming back to that. That’s all it ever came back to.

  That’s all it ever amounts to. I loved her, therefore I had to be with her.

  I love her. Therefore she has to be with me.

  I went home. To our home. I pulled the curtains and let in the light. I looked at it. Looked at what my life had become. Five rooms, tastefully furnished. She’d tidied up, kept it all clean and ready. Waiting for me to come home? She’d gone out without turning on the answerphone though, so I couldn’t pry into the messages her life had taken since I’d left. There was a pile of mail for me. Mostly letters from the bank, bills, leaflets and publicity for a dozen new plays. A few angry notes from venues where I’d cancelled gigs with little notice. A postcard from my father, staying with my aunt and uncle in Dorset, with love from all three of them and a reminder to call more often. I walked through the flat opening curtains and windows. Into the bedroom, our bedroom. I ignored the bed, pulled open the wardrobe door and stared at my clothes, wondered why it all looked so tidy and then remembered I’d been throwing all the old stuff out when I’d “left home”. I felt like a stranger. Like a trespasser.

  I made myself a cup of coffee and braced myself to call Dolores. Luckily Keith answered the phone.

  “Keith? It’s Maggie.”

  “Where are you? Are you OK?”

  “I’m fine. I’m at home.”

  “Oh?”

  “She’s home Keith.”

  “With you now?”

  “No. She’s in the hospital.”

  I told him about the accident, about how hurt she looked, how raw. He listened and, because he was not Dolores, he said “All right sweetheart. It’s up to you. You know you can come back here if you want to. You know there’s plenty of room.”

  “I know. I just feel that I …”

  “Ought to give it another go?”

  “Yeah, I suppose so, I don’t know, I know Dolly’ll say I’m an idiot.”

  “She can talk! You have to do what feels right Maggie. Sometimes you have to do what feels right, even when you know it’s not.”

  “Hey, Keith, how did you get to be so aware?”

  “I’m a father and a widower – even politics can’t teach you what that’s taught me. Look after yourself Mag and call me if you need anything.”

  We hung up. I finished my coffee thinking about Keith. It was typical really, even when I’d gone out with men they had never been like him. I’d always gone out with the bastards, the good-looking heart breakers. My teenage best friend had always had the “good guys”, the ones you could happily take home to your mother – and, of course, she’d always treated them like shit. Gay or straight, the imbalances of love always exist, hiding in the dark corners of rosily lit rooms, waiting to trip you up, knock you over, knock you out.

  Just waiting. A silent trap. Sharp pain or orgasm – a scream sounds the same when you open your mouth to let it out.

  I went to sleep in our bed that night. Alone but for the shape the sense of her made next to me. Her smell, my left arm lying where her right arm would lie beside it, my left toes stroking the place where the top of her right foot would be. She lay asleep in a hospital bed and I slept with her ghost.

  A spirit can be a very comfortable bedfellow.

  As long as you’re asleep.

  CHAPTER 21

  Dream topping

  I dreamt about her that night. Dreamt that she was walking towards me stumbling and holding her arms out to me. I’d run to her. She was crying. But just as I reached her and put out my arms to comfort her she’d turn into someone else. Dolores, Annie, Keith, my dad. And they’d laugh at me and push me away, then it would start again. It was on the top of a big cliff and I’d have to run and run to get to her and every time I did she turned into someone else. Then the dream changed again and we were both running through a series of corridors, hospital corridors I think. I don’t know what we were running from but I know it was getting closer and closer and I was scared of it. I couldn’t run as fast as her and she was ahead of me, pulling me on. Her fingers digging into the flesh of my upper arm, then her grasp slipped and she was holding my wrist, pulling at my wrist, she was hurting me, I couldn’t keep up, I screamed at her to let me go and she did, she ran on in front of me, she wouldn’t look back and she left me there, in the dark. She just left me.

  I woke up scared. Alone and scared. I dressed and practically ran all the way to the hospital, determined to get her out and bring her home and keep her there with me.

  I did.

  They let her come home with me on the strict instructions that she rest for a week. She’d called her office from the hospital and told them not to expect her in for a while. I took her home and unplugged the telephone. I didn’t even want answerphone messages to disturb us. She slept for most of that day, I only went out to get more milk. Late that night, it was a Wednesday, she woke up, wide awake and came into the lounge. She turned the TV off and sat beside me on the sofa.

  “I guess I’ve got some explaining to do, huh?”

  “Yeah, you could put it that way.”

  “I’m going to tell you something. I want you to listen to the whole story before you say anything. OK?”

  I nodded and sat down beside her.

  She told me it all. How she’d met John a few months after we’d moved in together, just as she was having those initial “Is this it forever, then?” panics. We were going through a bad patch and it was one of those times when all her job had to offer was routine office work. She was bored. So she agreed to meet him for dinner. On a Friday so I wouldn’t be suspicious.

  “Didn’t your parents care?”

  “I told them I was working. Work’s important to them, you know that.”

  She had dinner wit
h him the first time, and then a second, that’s when she refused to tell him her name. That’s when she made up the name. She told him to call her September. Told him it was more exciting that way.

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always liked make believe.”

  “But couldn’t you have played it with me?”

  “No. We had a real life. We have a real life. I didn’t want to jeopardize that by playing games with it.”

  “Well you were playing the bloody Olympics with me. You lied to me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  She liked the mystery of it. The intrigue. It looked like she actually liked having to lie to me. Then she told me about the wig and the contacts. I didn’t believe her at first so she got them out of the wardrobe. At the very back, in a small case behind the “maybe” bag that was still waiting to be sorted through. I made her put them on. It was amazing, and I thought I was the actress! Even bruised and tired, the effect was incredible. She looked much more glamorous, not the stunning, sharp beauty I’d first fallen in love with but someone similar, a little softer, a little more “girly”.

  “One look for the girls and one for the boys, huh?”

  “You’ve got to believe me Maggie, I never had sex with him. I liked him. Liked meeting him, liked being with him. Liked having this sort of ‘other life’ thing.”

  “So where does New York fit in?”

  “New York?”

  She looked surprised.

  “In the card, the one dated on my birthday, the one I found, he says ‘Hope you had a good time in New York’ – what’s that then? Somewhere to play at being a redhead?”

  “No hon, you’re the only redhead in my life. New York was … it was just to see if I could do it.”

  “What?”

  “We’d been together ages, right?”

  “So?”

  “I was feeling restless, scared. I didn’t want to break up, but I know what I’m like. I run away. I push people away if they get too close.”