Mum always said this would be a critical time in my life. Mum’s an astrologer, like her mother and her grandmother before her. I’m not really into it yet, so I can’t say it will run in the family, but you don’t forget when you’re told “From 2012 to 2015 Pluto will be conjunct the Sun on your birthday so be up for some major challenges!” I’m a Capricorn; I do challenges. But I’m typically fond of my own company and it came as no surprise when Graeme announced one day that I was impossible to live with, would I please apologise to Beth and Fred, and he was leaving.
I met Graeme at Uni. It was the first time I’d had a man in my life since I could remember. When we first started chatting over coffee and carrot cake and he asked me about my family he clearly found it hard to come to terms with my less than conventional upbringing - two mothers, both into naturism and one involved with the occult, who loved each other completely and had little time for men.
“What about their Dads? Their brothers? ... Uncles?”
“Never met them. Fred ... sorry, Freda, that’s Mum ... never knew her father, and Beth’s Dad was a bit of a loser. Escapist. Drank a lot. The women in their families were always strong. And politically active - always on some march or other. Mum and Beth met at Greenham Common and ended up in the same tent.”
Grae rolled his eyes, which I found quite offensive. But it didn’t put him off, and over the months we progressed from sharing seminars, library visits and late-night clubbing to sharing a bed. Over the summer vacation I took him home and Mum did his chart.
“I hope you’re serious about this chap,” she said, “ Because he won’t be easy to shift! He’s making himself thoroughly at home already - clearly likes to have women around. Fussing over him. Are you sure you can cope?”
I wasn’t sure, actually. I’d go down the garden or onto the campus lawn with a book and Grae would appear next to me with a heap of course papers to pick my brains. A quiet moment with the washing-up would end abruptly with warm arms around my waist and the sweetest kiss on the back of my neck. During the holidays, taking the dogs out now meant a dog apiece and undisciplined races around the conker trees in the park. Which was all very lovely, but after a couple of years of unmarried bliss I was pining for solitude.
I began escaping for whole, delicious, mutinous afternoons. I went wandering, visiting galleries, punting on the slow local river with only the midges singing to me, reading and writing in teashops. While Graeme moped round the house, not really helping, and complaining to whichever of my mothers would listen.
... Until the day that enough was clearly enough, and my would-be life partner and very best friend declared himself the most miserable, lonely man in the world. I neglected him, rejected him, abandoned him. He had run out of options and out of patience. Even the kindness and generosity of Freda and Beth who had opened their house and their hearts to him couldn’t persuade him to stay. I obviously needed no-one - especially no man - in my life, so he would be gone forever and he hoped this would make me happy.
If he thought his parting gift to me was the mother and father of all guilt trips he was utterly mistaken. We all waved Grae goodbye at the front gate one chilly September morning and watched the fog swallow him as the dogs ran back to the warm kitchen in search of breakfast. Mum and Beth and I all heaved a mighty sigh of relief.
“A sweet boy, Charlie, but very clingy. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The Pluto transit was, however, far from over. I was fidgeting. Much time was now spent in displacement activity - staring pointlessly at on-line singles sites, shredding the bits of Graeme I found at the back of drawers, behind the sofa, under the bed; resurrecting long-abandoned jeans and jumpers, getting my head urgently back in gear for the final year of studies. Back on campus everything not irrefutably mine was ejected from my room. I had blank walls, a blank bed, and a blank heart. It was glorious. There was no sign of Graeme - and I later heard that he had left. Where to? I didn’t care.
In the autumn chill I bundled skirts away in a suitcase and stuck to the sweaters and jeans. I joined a choir, cut my hair, started an evening art class and otherwise kept my nose to the grindstone and myself to myself. A decent degree in modern languages would set me up nicely for a career in journalism maybe - even the media.
Oh what great Finger In The Sky propelled me to that art class?
One Wednesday evening in November I was putting the finishing touches to a charcoal sketch of three chrysanthemums in an old army boot when there was a touch on my hand.
“That’s actually rather good!”
The class tutor bent closer and I could feel her breath on my right ear.
“Just a little more shading in those creases and the texture of the leather will be really pronounced...”
She took my hand with the charcoal stub in her tanned fingers and guided it over the darker areas of the image. Her breath smelled of violets.
“There.”
I turned to look up at her. She was smiling. The smile dazzled me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Charlie, isn’t it? You haven’t been coming to the class for very long, yet I can see how much you have progressed.”
Her voice, so close to my ear, was deep and intoxicating. Unnerved, I moved sideways a little.
“Do you know what, Charlie? I think you would benefit from extra tuition. Why don’t you drop by my place after class and we can talk about it. You certainly have a gift. Look, here’s my address...” she pressed a card into my hand ...”It’s only a short walk. Turn up at ten - I’m a late bird - and we’ll have a quick chat over a glass of wine.”
The hour between 9 and 10pm felt like an eternity. If Eros were real, he would have had an empty quiver. Every arrow of unaccountable desire had without warning struck me to the core. Was this really me? Despite my background I had never, ever, been attracted to another girl, another woman. But Stevie Wilson, who I hardly knew and was probably old enough to be my mother, was shockingly melting my heart.
At 10pm precisely she was on her doorstep waiting for me. In her room, full of pictures and drapes and perfectly chosen objets d’art, was a day-bed exotic with cushions. On the edge of this we perched side by side with glasses of Merlot as Stevie questioned me about my love of art and then challenged me to draw her portrait.
“Now? Here?”
“Yes. Now. Here’s a cartridge pad ... a soft pencil should do. Let me adjust the lamp.”
My hands were shaking so much that after only a few strokes I dropped the pencil. We both moved to fetch it. Stevie’s cheek brushed mine. She didn’t move. I was rigid.
“You are beautiful,” she said.
I couldn’t speak.
She stroked my face with both her hands, then took me in her long, tanned arms and laid me ever so gently on the floor. I was burning up. Then she kissed me. I was utterly lost. In the lamplight we lay together all through that night until dawn brought the sounds of the waking city more and more insistently into the room.
Stevie stretched, untwined her strong body from mine, wrapped her robe tighter and moved to the kitchen.
“Coffee or tea?”
I joined her, full of questions.
“We know nothing about each other!” she exclaimed as the toast nearly bounced onto the floor. “You’re doing a BA, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you from? Not from the south.”
“No. North Midlands.”
“I used to live up there, over twenty years ago. Oh dear, I sound old! I don’t feel it.”
“Why me?”
Stevie paused, cafetière in hand, turned burning eyes on me, said,
“As soon as you walked into my class, so natural, so edgy, so ... different ... I knew you belonged to me. You belong to me.”
She poured coffee. Her robe slipped, showing a small, perfect breast. I felt dizzy.
“Charlie what?”
“Charlie Hamilton-Haycock.”
The coffee spilled onto the counter and dripped rhythmically on the kitchen floor.
“I knew a Beth Hamilton. And a Freda Haycock.” All the colour had drained from her face. The tie on her robe came undone and the silk parted. For the first time I saw Stevie completely naked.
And that’s how I met my biological father.