Diary of a Provincial Lesbian by V. G. Lee

they do little else but sit, change my tack and try to teach them to stand. Both cats look blank.
    Over fresh drink ask Laura what she thinks of my hair?
    ‘It’s different.’
    Ask Laura if she thinks Georgie misses me?
    ‘Who knows?’
    Give up on me and ask Laura what Iris is up to?
    ‘Working.’
    ‘At Easter?’
    ‘She never stops. She’s brilliant at whatever she does.’
    ‘What does she do?’
    ‘No idea.’
     
     
    April 12 th
    Got home around mid-day. Whenever I’ve been away recently, even if it’s only out shopping down to the town I can’t help a feeling of anticipation creeping in as I run up the six steps leading to my front door. I expect letters even when there’s no post, or a note, or a message on my answerphone. Something, anything from Georgie. And now Easter has come and gone, and it’s our first Easter apart and of course - there’s no something, no anything, just nothing.
    As I’m carrying my case upstairs the phone rings. Rush downstairs knowing it will only be Deirdre.
    ‘Goody-goody, you’re back. Fancy a run out somewhere?’ Deirdre asks.
    No, no, no. I don’t want to run anywhere.
    ‘Perhaps tea at the cafe?’ I suggest.
    ‘I could murder a cake,’ Deirdre says. ‘Only we’re not eating cakes.’ This is more of a question than a mission statement issued on behalf
    of herself and Martin.
    ‘Well I’m definitely not eating cake,’ I say firmly.
    ‘We could still meet up.’
    ‘Yes lets.’
    ‘What about a visit to Sissinghurst? Vita Sackville West did the garden; she’s one of yours isn’t she?’ Deirdre asks.
    ‘Deirdre, it won’t be brilliant there at this time of the year.’
    ‘How about Charleston? Vanessa Bell. I hear her fellah was a gay boy. I wouldn’t stand for Martin playing around like that; I’d...chop off his balls’. Even over the telephone Deirdre reminds me of a skittish Shetland pony.
    I say, ‘I’d love to go to Charleston but not today. Let’s meet for tea and compare diaries.’
    Didn’t know if Deirdre had a diary. She’d told me that her memory’s phenomenal and she doesn’t need to write things down. Can’t stand reading either. Says, I have a go at a book but after a page or three I think, ‘what’s he droning on about? Get to the point, mate.’
    ‘But it’s Bank Holiday, what about a picnic in the car. We could park in the car park and look out at the sea?’
    ‘No.’
    She moots the possibility of a barbecue later if the sun comes out, tea and cake in Debenham’s which is no ‘longer her sort of store apart from their John Rocha towels and bedding’.
    I respond by being vague, hoping that Deirdre will get the message that all I want is to be left alone. She doesn’t. Finally cite Kipling’s ‘the cat that walked by itself’.
    After a pause for reflection she replied, ‘Lord Dudley can be a solitary cat but generally he can’t get enough of me and Martin’s company.’
    ‘What I mean is I’m a solitary cat.’
    I can almost hear her wrinkling her nose as if I’d announced, ‘I’m a groovy chick.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘Sometimes I rather like my own company.’
    ‘Oh, me too.’ Her voice becomes dreamy. ‘I love staring up at the night sky imagining all those planets...’ She tails off as her imagination fails to provide an answer as to what all those planets might be doing.
     
     
    April 19 th
    Janice the gardener arrives at 10am. Comes in round the back and taps on my kitchen window. I open the door and say, ‘Tea, coffee?’
    ‘Tea,’ she says.
    When I turn round from plugging in the kettle I find Janice sitting at the kitchen table studying my television guide.
    ‘Just seeing what’s on,’ she says, turning the pages.
    I notice her fingers are stained green. Is this a gardening marketing ploy? Yes, I truly have got green fingers. No really. Make tea and bring it and biscuits to Janice. Sit down opposite. Some green and blue in the crease of her chin and the fine lines each side of her