Swan Songs Read online

  Twinks was as high as a kite when he came off stage. He was still wearing his costume and had pinned my corsage of orchids and roses onto one of the straps. Every inch the Hollywood Starlet he weaved in and out of the crowd, positively sparkling, greeting friends with theatrical screeches, demanding praise for his performance, doling out hugs and kisses, offering autographs and flirting with absolutely everyone in sight. I didn’t mind. I enjoy seeing him happy and I knew the only person taking him home would be me. Midnight came and went. Mum left for home shortly after seeing in the New Year with us. She got a lift from Priscilla the Preacher, a straight cross dresser so called because he teaches Religious Studies at one of the local Catholic colleges.

  I was chatting with friends when I suddenly noticed that Twinks was getting rather unsteady on his high heels, in fact not rather, but very. I hurried across to him just in time to prevent him crashing to the ground as he caught his heel in the hem of his gown. I was cross. I’d kept an eye on how much he was drinking, firmly telling him to make his sixth glass of Champagne his absolute last. He’d obviously been quaffing on the sly. I sat him down at a table before he fell down and told him to stay put while I found a quiet place from which to try and summon the cab I’d pre-booked a little earlier than arranged.

  I was gone less than ten minutes, stepping outside in the fresh air to use my cell phone. I’d just finished the call when Brian, breathless and wild eyed, shot out of the door and told me to get back inside pronto because Twinkles was involved in a row and it was getting ugly.

  I arrived on scene to find Twinkles holding his rival Natalie, the one who had told him he was getting fat, in a headlock, while screeching a torrent of invective. Tearing at Natalie’s curly blond wig, he ripped it off and hurled it across the dance floor to the cheers of the patrons who were enjoying the spectacle. Natalie retaliated by raking her false nails down Twinkles’ leg, badly laddering his tights. Blood spillage seemed imminent. Brian grabbed a screeching Natalie and hustled her off and I grabbed Twinkles, restraining him. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait too long before the taxi showed up. Much to the driver’s amusement Twinkles fell asleep, snoring the whole way home. I had to carry him indoors, undress him, and remove his wig, false eyelashes and makeup before putting him to bed. He would never have forgiven me if I’d let him go to sleep with makeup still on his face, like some cheap slut. No doubt I’ll find out in due course what sparked the fight between him and Natalie, not that it takes much. Life with Twinkles is a lot of things, but no one can ever say it’s dull.

  2nd January 2005:

  Rustlings In The Night

  Strange rustlings woke me at four this morning. I feared that mice had invaded the bedroom. Then I realised the sounds were coming from Twinkles side of the bed. I lay for a few moments enjoying the sheer silliness of him trying to eat sweets in the dark while trying not to wake me up. He’d reach very carefully under the bed, pick one out of the tin he had stashed there, and then very, very slowly unwrap it before putting it in his mouth and trying to chew it silently, which is very difficult with a toffee. In his efforts to authenticate how ill he felt yesterday he’d stayed in bed for the duration, refusing to eat anything except the odd slice of dry toast. Hunger had obviously gotten the better of him.

  I craftily waited until he reached for the next sweet before suddenly snapping the bedside lamp on. He got such a fright that he almost fell out of bed. He tried to claim that he’d been sleep-eating and knew nothing about it and that I could have killed him by switching the light on like that, sadistic bastard that I was. I sadistically confiscated the sweets.

  He finally dragged himself out of bed at half past eight, coming down into the kitchen, yawning and scratching his balls in his usual morning fashion. Seating himself at the table he gave me a sour look as I poured him a cup of tea from the Clarice Cliff teapot he’d bought me for Christmas. ‘You’re not supposed to use that,’ he said, ‘it’s a decorative collectors item’ (Twinkles likes me to collect things and the teapot indicated exactly what he’d like me to collect over the coming year) It’s a teapot I said reasonably, you make tea in it. Raising his right buttock from the chair he delicately farted by way of reply. Considering he spends a proportion of his life parading around in feminine attire, none of the fairer sexes more refined sensibilities seem to have rubbed off on his base male side. Though as he said, it was a fallacy that women didn’t fart, they were just much more cunning about it. He also claimed I scratched my tackle and exuded wind just as often as he did, but I’m sure I don’t, or if I do, I do it with a modicum more grace and discretion.

  I reminded him we had some issues that needed discussing, including him crying off work early and subsequently reducing the bathroom scales, expensive ones, to a heap of nuts, bolts and springs on New Year’s Eve. We duly discussed. He admitted he shouldn’t have skived off work leaving the rest of the staff short handed on a busy day and yes he could and should have called me and stopped me making an unnecessary journey. He admitted that bouncing the bathroom scales across the landing in a rage had been childishly destructive, and yes he’d gone on drinking long after I’d told him to stop, but it wasn’t every night you got your big break into show business and it deserved to be celebrated. Plus it had been New Year’s Eve and everyone knows it’s bad luck not to get drunk on New Year’s Eve.

  Then we moved onto the debacle with his Jenny come lately rival, Natalie, queen of the peroxide wigs. Twinkles admitted that maybe, just maybe, he might have triggered the row that led to the fight when he overheard Natalie bragging that she had scored a date for later and he had made the comment: ‘who with, Bobby Palm and his five brothers,’ while making illustrative hand gestures. Natalie had rounded on him, saying it was fortunate that Twinks had found someone who had a kink for chubby little queens with no taste in clothes. She had then poked a disparaging finger at his corsage saying it looked like something that a member of the Women’s Institute would wear to a funeral. Well, nobody pokes Twinkles’ orchids and gets away with it. He told Natalie that her wig looked like something Dolly Parton reserved for cleaning the car with. Natalie had then snatched his corsage off and stamped on it, so Twinkles reckoned honour demanded he do the same to her wig. Honour also seemed to demand that he puncture one of her expensive silicone breasts with his teeth. I suggested that perhaps it might be a good idea if he made an effort to bury the rivalry between him and Natalie. He said the only thing he’d like to bury was Natalie, preferably with a wooden stake through her heart. I told him that he could replace our bathroom scales and Natalie’s left tit at his own expense.

  We were supposed to be going over to Brian and Steven’s place for dinner this evening to celebrate Steven’s birthday, but Brian apologetically called to say that the cold Steve had caught at Christmas seemed to be settling on his chest and he wasn’t feeling too well. I told Brian not to worry and sent Stevie our love and get well soon wishes.

  3rd January 2005:

  Arachnophobia

  This year’s festive period seems to have gone on forever. It’s always the same when Christmas falls on a weekend. Today is yet another Bank Holiday. I’ll be glad when it’s all finally over and we can get back into something resembling a normal routine again.

  I got a heck of a fright this morning. I was downstairs in the kitchen in the process of making some tea when the most terrible screams came from upstairs, accompanied by footsteps galloping up and down the landing in frenzied panic. I dashed upstairs, my heart pounding, wondering what the hell was going on. Twinkles, wild eyed and naked, leapt into my arms, tightly wrapping his arms around my neck and his legs around my waist, babbling about being attacked, while pointing at his second favourite dressing gown, which lay abandoned on the landing. I was puzzled. I know it has a fur trim around it, but it’s fake and I truly couldn’t see it attacking him.

  It turned out that when he finally got his arse out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom to begin his morning ablutions, he’d discovered one
of his false eyelashes perched on the bar of soap on the sink. It’s a frequent occurrence, you get used to finding his eyelashes all over the place. I found one in the milk jug once. Anyway, he reached out to retrieve it, only as he did so it uncurled itself and turned into a monster spider. As soon as he touched it, it leapt straight up the sleeve of his dressing gown, scurrying up his arm. He hates spiders, he really does. I must admit when I picked up his dressing gown and saw it; I didn’t blame him for screaming. I wouldn’t have been too keen to have it running amuck over my skin. It was one of those great big ugly garden spiders, the type that hunts and jumps on its prey. I released it back into the wild suppressing several unmanly shudders as I did so. He’s still upset, he’s lying on the couch in the sitting room with a cold compress on his forehead. To cheer him up, I’ve promised to give him a foot massage and paint his toenails this afternoon. There’s a charity do on at the PP this evening and he wants to wear some gold open toed sandals and thus his feet must look their glamorous best.

  5th January 2005:

  What’s Troubling Twinkles?

  I’m worried about Twinkles. He’s barely spoken a word since I picked him up from the shop this evening. At first I thought he was in a strop with me because I was almost fifteen minutes late. I got held up in traffic and he has absolutely no patience. He hates waiting around, especially when it’s cold and damp like today. He claims it makes the feathers in his boa go frizzy. He sat silently through dinner, poking his pasta around his plate until it congealed and wasn’t worth eating. I demanded to know what was troubling him, to which he replied nothing. I said there was obviously something wrong, because he’d barely spoken two words since we’d got home and he had a face on him like the chief mourner at a funeral. At which point his temper flared. Accusing me of always bloody nagging he swiped his plate of rubberised pasta off the table and then stormed out of the kitchen. He’s upstairs resting now. I deemed bed to be the best place for him if he were feeling inclined to be volatile. I can see that something has upset him, but I’m not prepared to play sitting duck to his temper all evening. I’ve also told him that I’m not prepared to play a round of guess what’s bothering Twinkles and he can have a few hours brooding space if that’s what he needs, but then whether he likes it or not, he’s going to talk about what’s ailing him. He might appear an all out extrovert and heart on his sleeve type, but I know he has a reclusive corner to his personality, a place where he hoards certain things and frets over them. It isn’t good for him, or me. I know he was a bit upset when Lulu’s sprained ankle didn’t turn out to be as bad as first thought, which sounds awful, but let’s face it we all think selfish thoughts sometimes. He didn’t want Lulu permanently maimed, just out of action for a while longer, but it was not to be. As a result his break into showbiz, via the stage at the PP, has thus proven to be a little short lived. Lu had pipped him to the post for the original position as PP chorus girl and now he had cut short his role as understudy and stand in. We’d had the full tears, tantrums, and life is a bitch and so is Lulu, routine. It was aired and over with. This is something quite different.

  7th January 2005:

  Funeral, What Funeral?

  Taking a break from the office I had a saunter through Debenhams on my lunch hour today and noticed that some Elizabeth Arden makeup products were on 50% off. Rummaging somewhat self-consciously through the bargain basket I was lucky to find two of Twinkles favourite Arden products: pure black defining mascara, which he wears during the day as it darkens and emphasises his own lashes without looking too obvious, and black volume building mascara which he uses to make his false lashes look even more lush. No matter whom you live with, if you really love them you have to show an interest in what interests them, otherwise you end up living with only ‘half’ a person and that’s not good for either partner. You have to appreciate and love the whole person, even the bits that might initially make you uncomfortable because they’re outside your personal sphere of known experiences. No one said relationships had to be easy. In Twinkles’ case it means I have to keep in touch with his feminine aspect and also the things that go with it. I bought two of each type of mascara, at half price they weren’t to be missed. He gets through it by the gallon and he doesn’t like the cheap stuff. Sadly, none of the lipsticks were in shades he liked, though I did buy some cheek colour that had a little bit of sparkle in it. Twinks likes a little bit of sparkle.

  The two girls behind the counter irritated me. For a start, they could have challenged a once a year Halloween drag queen to a tacky makeup contest, and won. They stood rudely whispering and giggling the whole time I was looking through the basket and when I paid for the stuff one of them gave me a smug smile and said, ‘I’m sure your wife will love those.’ I smiled politely back and said, thank you, I’m sure he will and then I asked if the store stocked WoMan sheer toe to waist nylons in sizes to fit men over six feet tall, as he’d laddered his last pair and was planning to go out this evening in a mini skirt. Twinkles is actually a rather petite five foot seven, so he doesn’t really have that much of a problem getting stockings and tights to fit him, but the exaggeration was worth it to see the look on her face. The day that Debenhams openly sell tights, stockings and lingerie for the transgender community is the day I’ll know that equality has finally arrived.

  I presented Twinkles with the makeup as soon as I picked him up from work. Usually he adores getting presents especially unexpected presents, but there was no elaborate shriek of pleasure when he opened the bag and looked inside. He smiled his thanks and leaned across to kiss me, but then sat quietly gazing out of the car window all the way home.

  News of his father’s death seems to have sucked all the sparkle and colour out of him. The way he’d found out was horrible. When he told me what had happened I was so angry. Some friend of the Lane family had taken it upon themselves to mount a moral crusade. Going into Twinkles’ place of work she had loudly berated him for not having had the decency to attend the funeral of the father he’d apparently helped to put in an early grave with his depraved lifestyle. Seeing as his family didn’t have the decency to inform him that his father was ill, let alone that he’d died, it was a bit hard to take.

  I asked why he hadn’t called me and why he hadn’t asked to leave work early in the circumstances and he shrugged and said because the circumstances didn’t warrant that kind of respect. Since then he’s said very little about the subject. In fact he’s said very little about anything. Part of me wants to sit him down and demand that he talk to me about his feelings, but I’m not sure that’s the approach needed just now. He’s undoubtedly upset, but I’m not certain what form it takes, or exactly what it’s composed of. I suspect that Twinkles himself is also uncertain about it and needs time to evaluate what must be a hodgepodge of conflicting emotions.

  8th January 2005:

  Cathartic Street Theatre

  Even before I opened my eyes this morning I intuitively sensed that something wasn’t quite right. For a start Twinkles was up without any coercion from me, which in itself was disquieting. I could hear him moving around. Even more disquieting was the fact that I couldn’t bring my right arm forward, mainly because it appeared to be tied to the bedpost. I opened my eyes to find him standing in front of the wardrobe mirror, fully dressed. I re-closed my eyes, held them shut for a few seconds and then reopened them, but he was still standing in front of the wardrobe mirror fully dressed and I mean FULLY DRESSED. Furthermore I was still cuffed to the bedpost with one of the leather and chain restraints that we use to spice up our sex life from time to time; only it isn’t usually me wearing them.

  I politely demanded to know what the fuck was going on, a request that was met with silence as he concentrated on getting his lipstick right. Incidentally, I have to report that he looked amazing; sort of gothic Vivienne Westwood meets Phantom Of The Opera. He was wearing a scarlet and black dress, one that mum had helped him make for the PP’s Hallow-Queen Ball last year. It was straight and short
at the front, revealing black lacy stocking tops and red frilly suspenders, while cascading in tiers of ruffles to his ankles at the back. It was pulled in tight at the waist with laces and cut low on the breast, revealing a very convincing cleavage, he uses a combination of silicone push-ups inside his bra and clever makeup to create the illusion, and he does it very well. He was also wearing a gothic style wig of tumbling black curls and his makeup was incredible. He’d painted a reddish bronze mask around his eyes and stuck glitter and jewels around its edges, which gave the effect of one of those Venetian ball masks. He must have been up for hours.

  I spoke to him calmly, even though I felt far from calm, having a very sudden sick suspicion about what his intentions were. I told him he looked wonderful, but he really couldn’t turn up for work dressed so flamboyantly. Capping his lipstick he turned from the mirror and bluntly told me he wasn’t going to work and not to fret, Tarn darling, he’d already let Don, his boss, know. He then confirmed my suspicions. He was going to pay his respects to his dear bereaved family. Very sorry though he was to have taken such drastic action he wasn’t going to un-cuff me, because I’d stop him and he didn’t want to be stopped.

  I don’t often call him by his real name and he knows when I do we’re in serious territory. I told Jonathan he was not to leave the house and he was to un-cuff my wrist immediately or there would be repercussions. He stood for a few moments, as if deliberating then shook his head, said ta-ta and walked out of the room. Fury surged through me, not so much at what he’d done to me, but at the circumstances that had triggered it. I was scared for him. He was in no state for a confrontation with his acidic mother and sisters, or more to the point, with that vicious old bastard, his grandfather. The man would verbally crucify him. Quickly swinging my legs out of bed I stood up. Bracing one bare foot against the headboard I grabbed the chain connecting me to it and pulled with all my might. The restraint didn’t give, but with a splintering of wood the bedpost did.