Swan Songs Read online

  As it was Red Nose Day we watched the Comic Relief fundraiser on TV. There were some very harrowing scenes. I was almost in tears on more than one occasion. I blame the emotionally evocative music they play in the background. The scenes of suffering are bad enough in themselves, but your response is then honed by the accompanying musical commentary. It’s a kind of exploitation when you think about it, emotional blackmail albeit in a good cause. Twinkles, bless him, was in floods, especially over the terrible suffering of the HIV victims in Africa. He ended up with red eyes as well as a red nose. I had to unplug the phone and confiscate his cell phone in the end before he totally bankrupted us by pledging money. He donated £300 of the £500 his dad had left him in his will. As a footnote I caught him on the computer at half past two in the morning, composing an email to all western governments and Bill Gates, demanding to know why they hadn’t, with all their wealth wiped out or at least substantially reduced world poverty. I have to say some of his language was a bit colourful. It made Bob Geldof sound genteel. I told him to save it to draft and review it in the morning. I then dragged him back to bed.

  As promised we went out on Saturday night and to my secret relief Natalie didn’t actually put in an appearance. Rumour had it that she’d gone down with chicken pox. Twinkles sourly mumbled ‘huh, more like cowpox,’ but otherwise was fairly well behaved, though he did have his claws out for Cherie Pie, criticising her frock: too tight across her fat arse making it look like she was trying to anally retain a camel and couldn’t quite manage to keep the humps up there. Her wig looked like a Lily Savage cast off, and her choice of songs, so kitsch and eighties gay anthem, darling, get over it and get with it. All in all he enjoyed himself.

  Well, it’s time to lay down the quill for today. We’ve got a visitor due.

  14th March 2005:

  Hard Labour

  For the first time yesterday afternoon we were entrusted with the sole care of baby Dominic while his parents had a few hours respite. Twinkles was a bit nervous about it and to be honest so was I, though of course I didn’t let on. I pretended that the prospect of having care of such a tiny fragile thing was a walk in the park and actually that’s where we ended up, walking in the park. Twinkles couldn’t wait to get behind the handle of the pram and even before Karen and Paul’s car was out of sight he had the brake off and was revving it up. My pronouncement that I, as head of household, should get first push was completely ignored. Indeed I got my hand slapped just for trying to tuck the covers around the baby. He made it clear that he was in charge of the pram and all its contents. I had to content myself with walking beside Twinkles as he happily sailed along every bit the proud surrogate daddy showing Dominic off to every person that even faintly glanced in our direction, and coughing loudly to attract the attention of those who didn’t. We visited the duck pond and then the play area where Twinkles sat on a swing with Dominic in his arms, though I did draw the line at him taking the baby on the roundabout. I didn’t want him being sick, Twinks that is, not the baby. He just can’t take anything that spins round. I’ve recently bought a new digital camera and I took some beautiful photographs. I even managed to persuade Twinks to hand Dominic over for a second so that I could be photographed with him.

  I insisted on having a push of the pram on the way home, majestically rising above Twinkles attempts to run down my pushing technique and criticise my curb negotiation.

  Babies look like they ought to be easy to manage, but they’re not and they’re exhausting because they work on a kind of continuous loop system. No sooner are they fed, winded and changed than it’s time to do it all over again and then again and then some more.

  By the time Karen and Paul arrived to collect their son at seven o clock Twinkles was flat out on the couch snoring his head off and the sitting room looked like a herd of wildebeest had torn through it, strewn as it was with baby care paraphernalia. I asked how they’d spent their free afternoon and they both blissfully sighed and replied, asleep! I could appreciate that. Being a parent is not a cushy number. It’s 24/7 hard labour. All the same I felt a small pang as the bundle of joy was reunited with his parents and they took him home. Fed, changed and sleepily content he was adorable. After they’d gone I crashed into a chair with the full intention of joining Twinkles in the land of nod, only no sooner had I closed my eyes than he stopped snoring and mumbled something about being hungry and needing a drink, after all he was still recuperating from illness. Heaving myself back to my feet I staggered to the kitchen. Who needs a baby! I have my own source of 24/7 hard labour.

  21st March 2005:

  Fly Little Bird

  Twinkles had a second session with his counsellor today. I was there at his invitation and with the counsellor’s agreement. He likes me to be close by, he says it gives him confidence and also means that when he gets emotional there’s someone on hand who can legitimately give him tactile comfort, something the counsellor can’t do. He talked about what it was like to grow up in a household dominated by a man who considered any opinion other than his own to be invalid, in fact heresy, and how that had made it even harder to try and define himself. From an early age he realised he was different and had instinctively recognised that this difference would not be accepted in his family. He wondered whether his interest in dressing up as a female stemmed from a desire to try and be normal in the same way as his sisters, because if he were a girl then his attraction to boys was perfectly natural. Also his mother seemed to prefer girls to boys. He told the counsellor what I already knew, about how he started to secretly dress up in his mother and sisters clothes when he was about six or seven and then he told her something that I didn’t know. When he was twelve years old his grandfather caught him posing in front of a mirror wearing a bridesmaid dress that his eldest sister had worn to a cousin’s wedding. Twinkles then described how he was subsequently marched into the bathroom and forced to stand under a freezing shower and how whenever he tried to get out his grandfather would shove him back in, telling him he was a dirty pervert who had to be cleansed. In the end he had huddled in a corner of the cubicle waiting for it to be over. He was finally hauled out, but his ordeal wasn’t over. He was forced to stand on a chair in the middle of the dining room, still wearing the wet dress, as his sisters and mother ate dinner and the old man preached on about depravity and sin.

  When he finished the tale Twinkles grinned and made a joke of it, saying that at least for once they were all looking at him and not ignoring him and his one regret was not taking advantage of his moment centre stage to do a Judy Garland number. Neither the counsellor nor I laughed, in fact I was fighting an urge to cry. His words might have sounded flippant, but the way his body was shaking told a different story. This was memory at its most painful, little wonder he couldn’t bear to recall it too often.

  The counsellor asked if his father had been there and Twinkles said no he’d been away on business on that occasion. She asked how he felt about his absence. Twinks was quiet for a while and then shrugged, but she pressed him and he admitted to feeling deeply angry because he hadn’t been there. She asked if part of the anger might be rooted in fear that even if his dad had been present he would have done nothing to save him from his ordeal.

  Twinkles suddenly broke down, sobbing that he used to dream that his father would take him away somewhere, but he never had. He’d taken all the crap the old man had flung at him and done little to stop it being flung at his only son. When he confessed to his father about being gay he was instructed not to breathe a word of it to anyone else. A few days short of turning seventeen he was told to pack his belongings and get out of the house and not come back. His father had found him a flat, paid the bond on it and would help him pay the rent, anything rather than have him in the same space.

  The counsellor said at least he hadn’t been thrown onto the streets. To her it sounded like a weak man’s way of saving his son from anymore pain and grief at the hands of his grandfather rather than a personal rejection. I think it
helped Twinkles to be offered this other perspective of something that had hurt him so deeply. He saw only that he had screwed up a huge amount of courage to come out to his father and had subsequently been cast out.

  I think the counsellor was right. I think Twinkle’s dad was in fact setting him free, releasing him, so he could find himself properly. That’s what he meant in his note about if Jonathan had stayed in that house any longer, he would have been lost. It was a case of opening the cage and saying fly little bird.

  He showed the therapist his watch, taking it off so she could see the names engraved on the back of it. Pointing at the last name he told her, ‘that’s me, my dad had it specially engraved for me before he died.’ There was a lump the size of a tennis ball in my throat. He looked so proud and yet so very wistful. If only there was some way of re-living childhood and erasing all the painful bits, but then the past helps make the present and who we are is based on what we were. Good and bad together. Perhaps we just need to learn to re-evaluate the bad, to look at it from another angle, forgive what needs to be forgiven and then lay it quietly to rest. He still hasn’t opened the envelope from his father. I didn’t want to press him, especially while he was unwell, but I think he needs to confront it soon.

  On the way home we passed a car parked by the side of the road with the driver struggling to change the wheel. Twinks gave a shriek that rendered me almost deaf and demanded I pull over and help, as it was Kev! I pulled over and he bounded out, hugging Kev, whoever he was, and chatting ten to the dozen as I rolled up my sleeves and got on with the task in hand. I didn’t mind too much being lumbered with the job of mechanic as he happily socialised. He needed something light and distracting after the heavy session with the counsellor. Kevin seemed a nice sort of lad and thanked us profusely for our help. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but for the life of me I couldn’t place where I’d met him before. I asked Twinkles to put me right as we went on our way. He gave another ear shattering screech and asked if I were going senile. It turns out that Kevin is only that fiend in a frock…Natalie. I almost lost control of the car when he told me. I couldn’t believe it. Twinks had been all lovey-dovey, darling, pleasure to help you, mate, with someone he’s usually plotting to kill. Apparently Kev is okay, he’s a sound lad. It’s just that BITCH Natalie that he can’t stand. Men in frocks! I’ll never understand them.

  27th March 2005:

  An Easter Parade

  Twinks has been carried away with wild imaginings this week. As a consequence he was absolute hell on earth to live with. For a start he was excited and nervous about the impending Christening, worrying about whether he’d drop Dominic in the font, or possibly develop a nervous form of tourettes syndrome and start swearing and saying inappropriate things in response to the priest’s questions. And then there was the possibility that God would smite him dead for being a frock wearing homo the moment he set foot on hallowed ground, or even worse, what if he had a road to Damascus moment upon smelling the incense and became a rabid convert with a fervent desire to recant his sexuality and donate all his frocks to Oxfam? There was also a big Easter Parade event at the Pink Parrot lined up for Saturday with the winner being presented with the coveted Miss Springtime Queen title. As you can imagine, the light of competition burned fiercely within him. He spent a lot of time planning his trousseau and being very secretive about it, with very good reason as I later discovered.

  I woke up at three a.m. last Monday morning to discover him missing from bed. He was downstairs on the phone, chatting to Lulu and plotting ways of finding out what the other girls, especially Natalie, were planning in the way of costumes for the parade. On Tuesday I woke again at three a.m. this time to discover him on the phone to mum grilling her about how his dress was coming along and was she following his design and should he come over and help her sew on the sequins? She said that if he called her at that hour again she’d sew something and it wouldn’t be sequins. On Wednesday I woke at four a.m. to discover him in the sitting room listening to Filthy Gorgeous by the Scissor Sisters, while twirling his hula-hoop around his waist to try and trim it so he looked good in his frock on Saturday. I consequently banned him from using both phone and hula-hoop between the hours of nine p.m. and eight a.m.

  On Thursday morning, surprise, surprise, he was tired and grumpy and didn’t want to go to work. He demanded I phone him in sick. I refused. He’s had enough time off lately. He flung a tantrum, closely followed by one of his pink fluffy mules, which struck the skirting board, snapping the heel clean off, which sent him into hyper-tantrum. He bounced up and down (and don’t think I’m exaggerating either, he has no shame when it comes to letting rip) screeching that it was my frigging fault and I’d ruined his favourite footwear. He then flung the other mule, which narrowly missed me and crashed onto the dressing table, sending everything flying. I certainly was not putting up with that kind of behaviour from him. He went to work with a well-walloped backside. I sent him to bed straight after dinner that evening, lights out, no television and no reading telling him that if he insisted on acting like an overtired toddler I was going to treat him like one. He wasn’t suited, but he didn’t argue, not with the ghost of my earlier disapproval still lingering on his bottom.

  Being an office worker I was off on Good Friday and so was Twinkles. The Company he works for is very small and the owner is a Methodist who still observes religious occasions, which makes a nice change in these material times. Most retailers remain open through rain, wind, shine and festival. The enforced early night had done him the world of good. He slept right through and was charm itself when he got up, until he went to slip his feet into his pink mules and remembered he no longer had any. We had tears. I comforted him, while gently pointing out that it was his own fault. He pointed out that while he might be stupid he wasn’t a complete cretin and he was fully aware it was his own fault, which made it even worse because he’d really loved his fluffy mules and he was glad I’d spanked him. He’d deserved it for his rotten destructive temper. I’ll buy him another pair in due course. After all, he does look adorable in them. We spent that afternoon at mum’s house. She helped him put the finishing touches to his Easter costume, which I still wasn’t allowed to see. Twinks said he wanted it to be a surprise on Saturday night. It was certainly that.

  Twinks started getting ready for the PPQP (pink parrot queen parade) at two on Saturday afternoon, bathing, waxing his legs and underarms (my boy really suffers for his art, my eyes watered in sympathy as he tore the wax strips off) fixing and painting his nail extensions, etc. He surpassed himself with his makeup, executing a subtle pastel version of the Viennese mask around his eyes, enhancing it with glitter and paste jewels. He asked if I’d be an absolute love and go on ahead of him to the PP. He’d follow on in a taxi. I wasn’t too keen, not seeing the point of paying for two taxis when we could pay for just one. He told me the dress he was going to wear was very close fitting and he was going to have to push up, tuck back and secure his tackle and he was frightened that having my gorgeous person in close proximity would cause him to get a hard on and he’d end up shagging his own arse. To keep him happy I duly went ahead on my own.

  The PP is colourful at the best of times but on any kind of festive occasion it’s even more so. Some of the Easter hats being sported made those designed by David Shilling and worn by his mother Gertrude look positively tasteful and plain. Boy George would have been green with envy. In fact I think I spotted him squatting under one of the hats. He wasn’t wearing it mind you, but the queen who was didn’t seem to mind, in fact she looked positively delighted. Some of the dresses were a bit garish and over the top to say the least. Big Mary’s skirts were so voluminous that they could have doubled as a venue for a Scissor Sisters concert. Queens aside, some of the other PP patrons looked like extras from the gay porn movie industry. One guy was wearing nothing but a vest-thong thing that was so skimpy it looked like it would fold down into a condom packet. Another was wearing nothing but an
array of chains linking his various piercings and was partnered by someone wearing a fireman’s helmet and a pair of work boots, and that was it. I have to say his axe was pretty impressive! Dressed in blue jeans and a white t-shirt I stood out like a sore thumb in all my simple plainness. Still, I got two propositions and an indecent proposal, so I must have looked reasonable enough.

  I was starting to get worried about Twinkles and was on the verge of calling him when he arrived. Brian, to whom I’d been chatting, took one look at Twinkles, another at my face, and hastily announced the start of the parade, telling all the competitors to quickly make their way to the stage. Twinkles looked stunning, absolutely jaw dropping. He was wearing an Audrey Hepburn style wig with a very simple curved feather headdress attached. His dress was pale yellow silk, strapless and moulded to his body, flaring out at the bottom into an elegant curved little train. Its only adornment was a sweep of glittering sequins that curved from his right bosom down to the left side of the train, serving to emphasise his figure. His figure, even more than the simple elegance of the outfit, caused a stir. Hourglass didn’t come into it. I could have fitted my hands around his waist it was so tiny. No amount of hula hooping produced a waist of such minute dimension. Natalie arrived just after Twinkles and in comparison looked like an overblown rose. She was dressed in a bright pink creation composed of many ruffles and bows, topped off with a wide brimmed hat stuffed full of flowers. Clever boy that Twinks is, he guessed that every queen in the house would likely be overstated and had opted for an understated style that conversely made a huge statement. I was astounded, but let me tell you, not in a good way. Taking him by the arm I quietly told him that as soon as the parade and judging were over, we were going straight home, regardless of the outcome. He didn’t contradict me. He’d anticipated no less.