CHAPTER 8
She was in another floaty thing. I don't wear that sort of thing myself, but I can appreciate it on another woman. There's a lot of crap spouted about women like me, women like us. Who's the 'man', which one's the 'woman'? It's not like that, at least with me. I just find men odd. Not exactly repellent, not truly disgusting, but just wrong, profoundly so. I wondered whether that was how Sar had felt, from the inside?

Siá¢n, though, she was definitely to my taste. I had never seen myself as fancying a redhead, but it was the woman herself who shone out. I waved to her, and got an answering smile. This could work.

That thought woke me up fully. I had danced around my sexuality all my life, only really accepting it when pressed by a lost friend who was well over four feet tall. The nights with Cathy had been fun, oh yes, but I was beginning to understand that I needed more. I looked at Mam and Dad and I wanted what they had, just dressed differently. They stuck together, they supported and cared for each other, and they loved in a way I could only dream of. I mean, I knew they argued, everyone does, but in the end they always kept their eyes on the important thing. Never let the sun go down on your anger, Proverbs whatever. As Siá¢n took her seat, I smiled again. She clearly assumed it was for her, but in reality I was wondering if there were any men left who felt able to tell Dad what they thought of his daughters.

“I am not having vindaloo, and neither are you”

I was a little puzzled. “Eh?”

“Makes me fart too much. Got the menu? Ta!”

A quick check that they had what she wanted, and the waiter was at her shoulder.

“You like to order drinks?”

She looked at me, eyebrows raised, and I took the hint.

“Two Carlsbergs, butt”

“Half pints?”

Siá¢n snorted. “A drink that's gone before you know you've started it? Na, pints, please”

As he went off, she grinned. “I saw what you were drinking the other night, aye?”

I grinned back. “Guilty. So what are you going for? Starter?”

“Na, get too fat if I eat all that. Girl's got to watch her figure, if she wants other girls to watch it, aye?”

I laughed out loud at that one. “Bit cards on table, isn't it?”

She smiled more softly. “I suppose so. It's a bit odd, this bit. Normally, I meet a woman, we get on OK, but I can't assume, can I? There's all that hinting and teasing out, and in the end she's straight, and it's almost a waste of time”

“Almost?”

“Aye, almost. Sometimes I salvage a friendship, sometimes all I get is advice on sex and travel”

The beers arrived, and she took a mouthful before continuing. “You haven't been there, have you? I mean, I watched you with Kev, all poise and confidence, but you haven't been out, have you?”

I felt my mouth twist. “No I haven't, not really. I mean, everyone knows which way I swing, but, well, the only swinging I've done was at Sar's place, and as that has always been at a lesbian and gay night, it's sort of, well, a better bet, aye? Unless the women are, you know, perving?”

“Fag hags”

“Eh?”

“Yank term for women who like to hang around with woofters”

“Ye gods, we are going to have to work on your tact, woman! Vicky out tonight?”

“She is indeed. I think your mate is smitten, been on the phone every day, aye? Gone to the pictures, they have, so I'm looking forward to her not remembering anything at all about what was on. He's a good'un, isn't he?”

The waiter was at my shoulder this time. “Aye, I think so. Ready to order?”

Mushroom rice to share, a Bombay potato, naan bread, a lamb dupiaza and a chicken Madras, and she insisted on asking for some Bombay duck.

“Too salty and fishy for me, girl”

“Well, you can have one of my poppadums then. Just don't take all the minty stuff”

Meaningless filler. Cards on table, indeed. “You still want to meet my sister?”

Another sip, a longer pause. “Aye, I do. You were a bit sharp with me–no, shush! I was saying what I thought, and you were defending your family. It happens. If I meet...her, I can make my own mind up. I know what I said, and if I was wrong, I can say sorry. To both of you, aye?”

“You were wrong”

The grin again. “I am a stubborn soul, Lainey. If I change my mind, it's cause I can see it was wrong. And only then”

The food arrived, and we turned to other subjects. They sounded just like the meaningless filler of earlier, but there was a deeper current in flow, as we danced around each other's lives and dreams. We ate, we drank a couple more pints each, and we found out who the other was.

“Lainey, your parents: they OK with your sister?”

“Ych, they are now, I think. I mean, everything about her fits, aye? Never did before. I mean, I've always known about her. It was my suggestion she do drugs at college”

Siá¢n started a little at that, and I raised a hand. “No, pharmacy stuff, Boots, Addison's style drugs”

I had to laugh. “See, I knew she would be going down the route she's on, so I suggested she get a weekend job at the chemist's, aye? Then she could nick the stuff she needed”

“Bloody hell, woman. How old were you?”

“Twelve or thirteen, I think”

Another sip, another long pause. “She was thinking of it at that age?”

“She was thinking of it from nappies, Siá¢n. Always known, she has. That's how I can take it so easily. It's a cliché, aye? I can't lose a brother I never had, so I'll love the sister that's always been there”

She looked away at that point, and I was shocked to see a tear hanging in her eyelashes. Sod it. I reached out for her hand, and she gripped mine like a lifeline.

“You OK to talk, Siá¢n?”

She nodded sharply, taking her napkin to her eye for a second and then grimacing at the mascara stain.

“Aye, I suppose. Elaine, your family, aye? They all so solid, so accepting?”

I chuckled. “Not accepting, girl, but they are realists, and they can see when things are set in stone, see the way the wind blows, and...”

Decision made.

“...and when you meet them you will understand. Not so with yours?”

A glare, fading. “No, not so with mine. Good Chapel folks, down at Zion or up at Bethel every Sunday, depending on who was leading the service. That thing we were talking about earlier, aye? I got it wrong in school, in sixth form. And the word got back”

“Ah”

“It's so common, aye? You get on so well, and you try and add the little touches, the odd hug, and then one day you see if you can take it on a little, give a little push, and she wasn't, and neither was she accepting, and nor were her parents. So I finished my A-levels and I left, simple as that”

She took a much longer drink. “Haven't spoken to them since. That was what got me about Vicky coming to stay. It's odd, aye? She knew I loved her, and I knew she couldn't give it back, yet she never dropped me, never threw it in my face, and she's only a cousin, aye? And my bloody parents, they just disown me, pretend I was never born!”

I realised she was close to full-on tears, so I just continued to hold her hand, which was rather nice, and spoke softly about Sarah instead. Gradually, Siá¢n came back to me.

“She'll be home soon, aye? Exams and then a job. Need to watch her, though. Skirt's a bit short, heels a bit high, that sort of thing”

Siá¢n sobered. “She into men or women?”

I remembered that conversation with our parents. “I don't think she fancies women at all. That's the worry, that she ends up meeting the wrong man, and he gets upset when he finds out, you know”

“You have her back, though”

“Aye, but that's easy at home, and easy for her in Aber. It's when she gets out and starts work, aye? I can't be there all the time, can I?”

She giggled. “I can see your mother now, Lainey. All the women in your family so maternal?”

And that was the evening salvaged. The table held all the cards we had needed to show, and she held my hand as we ate, and no we didn't, not that night.

It got better, and Kev was still smiling, as was Sarah when her results came back, getting a 2.1 with honours. She seemed to spend half her summer holiday searching through the papers and writing letters until the day finally came when she was offered an interview with Addison's, a very big chain of chemist's shops.

“What the hell do I do, Lainey? What do I wear?”

“You wear the stuff you wore for the girls, Sar. You have nothing else suitable”

“No, I mean, I can't pretend I'm real, can I?”

“What did you put on the application, chwaer fychan?”

“My details, aye?”

“No. What did you say you were?”

A very small voice. “Male”

“Then you have two choices. You go there dressed as you should be, and stare them down, or you run away and hide again. I'm not hiding you any more, so it's down to you”

In the end she went off dressed exactly as I had specified, and when she came home she was pissed. I cornered her in the kitchen as she tried to make some coffee.

“And?”

“They took me on! Morriston branch, start in three weeks. Just need to find a flat”

There was more there, but I didn't push. “What was the interview like?”

She leant back against the sink. “Odd, aye? Started out all Mr Powell this, Mr Powell that, and in the end it's all Ms and Miss. The leader, Duw what a cow I thought, and then she's complimenting me on my degree and my courage”

Yes, definitely more. I left it at that, though. She was moving on, and I remembered Siá¢n's crack about being maternal. Give her some space, Lainey.

In the end, she found herself a flat, and Dad and I helped her to move in, Mam looking wistful as her baby flew free.

Work continued, of course, as did the Kevin and Victoria saga, and Vicky's new confidence seemed to infect Siá¢n, for she was relaxing more and more, and, to be blunt, we had timed one evening for when Vicky was staying over at Kev's and, well, it was all I had hoped for up until I had to leave in the morning and it hit me very hard.

I was actually falling in love.