Swan Songs Read online

  Just as dad was leaving our house there was a commotion in the close when a motorbike screeched to a halt just behind dad’s parked car, almost hitting the bumper. I heard the blood drain from his face in the dark. Mine drained from my face, in fact my entire body when I saw who was riding pillion on the bike. It was Twinkles. He was dressed in pedal pusher jeans, gold open toe sandals, a t-shirt and flimsy jacket…and no crash helmet. He wouldn’t have stood a chance of escaping injury not even in a minor accident. He waved a cheery goodbye to Lulu, as he roared off manically peeping his horn and then turned towards the house, promptly tripping as he caught his heel in the storm drain. He’d obviously been boozing, another point in his disfavour. Tottering up the path he insulted dad by advising him where to buy condoms from and then grinned at me and disappeared into the house. Dad glared after him and then crisply told me that I ought to have words with my bad mannered man. I fully intended to.

  He claimed I was being unreasonable. Lulu didn’t have a spare helmet yet. He’d only got the bike today, and it wasn’t that far a distance, nothing could possibly have happened. He hadn’t walked home, had he? He was home all right, wasn’t he? And he’d saved me having to drive over and collect him, so what the Mary Poppin’s was I ranting on about? I was rendered furious by his wilful disregard for his own safety, and that’s what it was. He’d wanted a ride on the bike and nothing as mundane as proper clothing and crash helmets was going to stop him having what he wanted when he wanted it. I stripped off his jeans and pants, put him across my knee and gave his bare backside my considered opinion as to its spoilt owner’s flawed reasoning. I then got the wooden spoon from the kitchen and did another tour of his bottom with it. From time to time a hand spanking just doesn’t seem sufficient for discipline purposes. The spoon stings like heck and I made sure that Twinkles would never again think about getting on a motorbike in anything less than full leathers and crash helmet, not without remembering what the consequences were likely to be, if he was lucky and didn’t get killed before I could get my hands on him. Once he’d calmed down he apologised. I was right, he just couldn’t wait to have a ride on the bike and he had convinced himself and Lulu that accidents weren’t that common, and they always happened to other people anyway. I said in future he was to think about what Tarn would want in the circumstances and not what Twinkles wanted and that would guarantee not only his general safety, but also the specific safety of his backside. He sarcastically commented that if he always took into account what I wanted he’d be so safe that he’d die of boredom, never mind anything else.

  25th February 2005:

  The Bequest

  From time to time, Twinkles’ father would call and they’d arrange to meet in a little café near Victoria Bridge overlooking the Tees. They’d exchange small news and stunted talk for an hour or so before saying an awkward goodbye. Twinks was always unhappy for a few days after the meetings and part of me wanted to forbid them because I couldn’t bear to see him hurting, but I didn’t. I had no right. Only Twinks could make that decision and he obviously needed the contact no matter how unsatisfying and painful, and I guess his father did too. I was introduced to him once only. He seemed essentially pleasant, but embarrassed, a man painfully embarrassed by life and by the fact that his son was not only gay, but that he also liked to wear women’s clothes. The time I was present at one of their meetings Twinkles got up to avail of the facilities. I watched his father’s eyes follow him across the room. There was a look there that is hard to describe, hurt, confusion mixed with, I don’t know, love and maybe remembrance of the child that his son had once been. The lines around his mouth deepened, as if he were in pain. I felt uncomfortable witnessing such rawness.

  A few days ago, to his astonishment, Twinkles received a letter from his father’s solicitor. His father had left him something in his will. The bequest turned out to be a small amount of money and some personal items, as well as a letter for him and, to my great surprise, a letter for me too. He hasn’t opened his letter yet. He picks it up, stares at it and then puts it down again. I asked if he would like me to open it for him, but he said no, he would do it himself when he was ready. One of the personal items was a gold watch. It’s an old watch, a beautiful thing that once belonged to his paternal great grandfather. Twinkles remembers his dad wearing it, and how it annoyed his mother that he did so in preference to a watch that she had given him. He reckons it was one of the few times his father ever held out against her will. He keeps touching the watch and removing it from his wrist in order to read the names inscribed on the back beginning with Edmund Lane, under which is engraved the name of Twinkles’ grandfather, William Lane, and then Twinkles’ father, Richard Lane. Under Richard Lane, freshly engraved, is Jonathan Lane. A family heirloom passed with love and pride from father to eldest son. There is no more room for further names. The line ends with Jonathan.

  The note to me read: ‘Thank you for allowing Jonathan to be himself, no one ever did that, least of all me. I wanted to make him into something that I understood and that the world could understand, not for totally selfish reasons, but to save him further pain and grief. He got enough of that inside his own home. I was wrong. All I did was cause him more grief and confusion by trying to set him against himself. I used to hear him crying at night, but I didn’t know how to help him, except to try and make him conform to the world around him and to the standards of his grandfather. The day he left home I thanked God, because he would have been lost if he’d stayed. Take care of him. I wish you both a lifetime of happiness together.’

  The note both touched and saddened me, but it devastated Twinkles. He broke down as he recalled how he used to lie in bed crying and sometimes wishing he could go to sleep and never have to wake up again, not to die exactly, but not to live either because it frightened him so much. He was a child then, a young teenager struggling not only to come to terms with being gay, but struggling with the added complications of his transgender inclinations. Sleep at least offered a kind of rest that living did not, and with the hope of some hazy kind of resurrection: ‘wake me up when the world understands what I am, when I understand what I am, wake me up when I’m normal, whatever normal is.’ He wishes his dad could have told him in person the things he’d written in the note or even just hugged him. It would have made all the difference in the world to know that he wasn’t struggling alone.

  We’re still waiting for a counselling appointment to come through for him.

  27th February 2005:

  Night Of Fallen Stars

  There was a Diva do at the PP last night. They happen about once a month. Everyone has to dress up as a glamour icon even those who don’t normally do drag. It’s not one of my favourite occasions to be honest with you. I dislike being just about the only male dressed as a male in a room full of grossly exaggerated Liz Taylor’s, Cher’s, Judy Garland’s, Lisa Minnelli’s, Britney Spears, etc, etc. Twinks claims I would enjoy it more if I entered into the spirit of the thing, but I refuse point blank to even consider dressing in drag. I didn’t go to last night’s shindig. I really wasn’t feeling too good. I’ve got a heavy cold and a rasping sore throat. Twinks tried hard not to be cross with me, but he was. He hates me being unwell at the best of times. It makes him feel edgy and anyway he likes me to be there, giving him all my attention and going to the bar to replenish his glass while he holds court with his friends. Plus he was Madonna and he needed me as an accessory i.e. his Guy Ritchie. He claimed I’d feel better if I went out, it would take my mind off feeling lousy, but I declined to accessorise. All I wanted was an early night. While he was getting ready I ordered a taxi for the return run incurring his wrath when I informed him that I’d booked it for one a.m. What did I think he was, some kind of cross-dressing Cinderella who would turn into a frigging pumpkin if he stayed out past one? I told him that in my opinion one o clock was more than sufficient and if he didn’t like it he could just stay in. He went out.

  He duly arrived home in the pre-booked tax
i…along with Diana Ross (aka Lulu) who had had a bust up with his latest boyfriend and was in a state bordering hysteria, no doubt aided by the amount of alcohol he’d sloshed down his gullet. He had been crying so much that his makeup had great white streaks in it (really, one has to ask whether it’s quite pc blacking up these days?) and his false eyelashes had come adrift. One was sitting on his upper lip like a Charlie Chaplain moustache, while the other had become entangled in his hoop earring and looked like a spider on a trapeze. Twinks wasn’t much better, nor were the several others who had poured themselves into the taxi in order to offer solace and comfort to their rejected sister in arms (or stilettos) I confiscated the vodka and gin, switched off the recording of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow,’ made black coffee and soothing noises all round, packed Madonna off to bed, and settled the rest down with blankets and pillows.

  The sitting room this morning looked like the reception room at the Betty Ford Clinic scattered with the wrecks of fallen Stars waiting to be rehabilitated. I ended up serving tea, painkillers and sympathy to Diana Ross, Judy Garland and Bette Midler. My own little star is still abed as I write and I have painkillers on standby ready for when he surfaces, though I’m not yet certain whether I’ll be serving them with sympathy.

  1st March 2005:

  Christening News

  If there’s one thing Twinkles hates more than me being unwell, it’s being unwell himself and I can’t say I find it a bundle of laughs either. He’s not what you’d call a patient patient. He’s caught my cold and sore throat, only of course with him it’s flu and tonsillitis…and what kind of cruel and thoughtless man infects his poor partner with such evil germs? I apologised profusely and spent yesterday pandering to the invalid, tucking him up in bed with plenty of Lemsip, hot water bottles and sympathetic cuddles. I have to confess that by half past eight last night I was running a bit low on sympathy, especially when he called me upstairs to turn over the page of a book for him as he claimed he was too weak to do it himself. There are days when being single and heterosexual seem distinctly appealing.

  Karen and Paul called to inform us that they’d set the date for Dominic’s Christening. It’s on Easter Sunday. The news cheered Twinkles and he immediately began to make plans about what he was going to wear, which started alarm bells ringing in my head. I felt it essential to nip in the bud any ideas he might have about going dressed in full and fancy fairy godmother mode, before he got too carried away. I told him gently but firmly that this wasn’t an appropriate occasion to fully dress up for exactly the same reasons it hadn’t been appropriate to do so for Karen and Paul’s wedding. He wasn’t pleased and has been decidedly huffy ever since, but he’s accepted it, which is more than he did for their wedding. That was a day that was. I ended up in a tussle with a Miss Susie Wong who had invited herself to the wedding in place of Twinkles. It was also the day I realised how much I loved the latter and wanted to make a commitment to him, and one of these fair days I might just write about it.

  6th March 2005:

  Queen Rage

  We had yet another letter from our anonymous friend yesterday morning, it read ‘Repent or BURN!’ The word burn had been formulated in capital letters and coloured red, which gave it an air of childish spite that was worrying, some of the nastiest deeds are carried out by adults who have never intellectually matured beyond that kind of childishness. I didn’t show it to Twinkles. I didn’t want to upset him especially as he’s still unwell. His cold settled on his chest. Twinks being Twinks got hysterical about the possibility he had contracted Aids and this was the first sign. As we both had HIV tests done when we got serious and wanted peace of mind to take our sexual relationship beyond contact by condom I told him it was highly unlikely, unless he’d been playing away from home and not taking aforementioned precautions. I made him an appointment with the doctor who prescribed antibiotics for a chest infection while assuring him it was highly unlikely to develop into pneumonia.

  There was no PP for him on Friday or last night, which did nothing to offset his grumpiness over feeling ill. It got worse when Lulu dropped by yesterday afternoon with gossip of Friday night’s happenings at the PP. He told Twinks that Natalie had stood in for one of Cherie Pie’s backing singers who had gone down with a bad case of chicken pox. Inwardly groaning and entertaining a strong desire to strangle blabbermouth Lulu with my bare hands, I watched as Twinkles went visibly green with envy then purple with fury, demanding to be reassured that the ‘conniving bitch’ wasn’t as good a backing artiste as he had been at New Year. Mr Insensitivity cheerfully reported that actually she had been rather good and Cherie had been pleased with her performance buying her a champagne cocktail by way of thanks. Twinks managed to last out until Lulu departed and then he erupted. Queen Rage is not a pretty sight and not for the faint hearted. HRH threw a tantrum that put any reputedly thrown by Sir Elton John firmly into the shade. We had yells, screeches, thrown objects, copious tears and demands for Natalie’s ugly head to be severed and stuck on a pole along with that of Cherie Pie: ‘the cheap tart never bought me a champagne cocktail.’ He ended up coughing so badly he was almost sick. He’s fortunate he’s ill, because at any other time that kind of tantrum would have earned him a trip over my knee for a bloody good smacked bum. He wanted to get dressed and go to the PP, but I soon nipped that idea in the bud. He spent the evening writing an entertaining little story about the hideous murder of a two-bit drag queen slut called, oddly enough, Natalie.

  It being Mother’s Day today I invited mum over to ours for lunch. She accepted and gleefully told me that she’s bought Twinks a surprise present, something he’s been after for ages, a Barbie Makeover Magic Deluxe Styling Head. She’d bought it on ebay for an absolute snip. She’s a real sweetheart sometimes is my mother. Twinks will be thrilled. It will cheer him up. We’ve bought her a huge box of Thornton’s chocolates and a bottle of champagne for Mother’s Day. Of course she’ll complain that she’ll put on weight with the chocolates and then bluntly turn down Twinks’ offer to help offset some of the calories by helping her eat a layer or two.

  13th March 2005:

  Comic Relief

  Twinkles still isn’t one hundred percent. This chest infection has really taken it out of him. I think the emotional stress of his father’s death and the hassle from our anonymous pest has lowered his immunity.

  We enjoyed mum’s visit for lunch last Sunday, though I was irritated when she turned up bringing what amounted to a food parcel with her. She does it all the time. It drives me up the wall. She still doesn’t quite believe that two men living together know how to look after themselves and can actually manage domesticity very well. Twinkles adored the makeover styling head and they both spent several happy hours playing with it, though they did have a brief spat over whether blue eye shadow could ever be blended with pink and not look like something requiring medical intervention. I refused to pass judgment on the matter knowing from experience that it would only bring me grief from one or other or even both of them. I groaned when he began interrogating her over her relationship with Priscilla. She refused to be drawn on the subject, saying coyly that they were friends again and let’s just leave it at that. Twinks didn’t want to just leave it at that. He wanted details, lots of details and of an intimate nature. Only a hard look from me convinced him that it might be wise to back off. He is SO nosey and the questions he asks make my toes curl with embarrassment.

  Mum seems to have come to terms with the prospect of dad getting remarried and starting a second family. She asked me to tell him that she wishes him all the best, adding mischievously, along with many sleepless nights. Twinkles sweetly told her that Gill’s taste in soft furnishings made hers seem almost acceptable, almost. He’s a wicked little wind-up merchant at times. Mum got her own back. She thoughtfully asked if he would like her to give him a facial, as being ill had taken its toll on his complexion and aged him by a good five years. She might not be an official drag queen, but she has the bitching abilities
to qualify for membership of the club.

  On Friday night Twinkles wanted to tog up in his finest regalia and go partying at the PP. I was less than popular when I told him I didn’t think he was quite up to it yet. He argued the point saying he felt fine and a night out would do him the world of good. I disagreed saying that spending the night boozing in a smoky atmosphere would do nothing for his chest and, as is my right under the terms of our relationship, I was putting my foot down on the matter. He argued some more, but I kept my foot down and not just because of genuine concerns over his health. I knew that if he did go out he’d go out with all guns blazing in Natalie’s direction. He’d spent much of the week practising bitchy remarks (something he denied) as well as watching all his favourite drag queen videos and making notes of their most cutting jibes. Worse, I noticed that he’d made up the Barbie head to look like Natalie…complete with a realistic bullet hole that would have done a movie makeup artist proud painted into the centre of her forehead. I was not spending an evening keeping two cat fighting queens apart. By way of mollification I told him that if he rested and promised faithfully not to go for Natalie’s throat, or criticise her dress the moment he sets eyes on her, that we’d go to the PP for a few hours on Saturday night.