Easy Does It
The next few weeks were pure agony. To around the woman I loved, and hear her say wacky and stupid and brilliant things and not being able to fling my arms around her and kiss her till we were both cackling with laughter? To bump into her in the corridor and have to tear my eyes away from her face, to not be able to view the smile that twitched at the corners of her mouth? To stand in my bedroom, press my face against the window, gaze at her pruning roses with the sunlight streaming through her messy hair, while pretending she was a stranger and I didn’t know every tiny inconsequential fact about her – how she smelled, how she slept, how she laughed? It was the worst pain I’d ever been in.
There were moments, of course, moments of bliss. They would occur at one, two, three in the morning, both of us lying in my bed with our legs tangled up and the sheet messily wrapped round us. She’d have her eyes closed, lightly running her long fingers up and down my arm and tunelessly humming along to whichever song was on the record player. I’d be gazing at her face, taking in every tiny detail, tracing her lips delicately. Sometimes she’d gently bite my fingers and I’d squeal, then lean down to kiss her. In moments like these, all the stress evaporated from my mind.
But then the sun would rise, and the birds would start singing, and she’d have to leave, and the whole miserable cycle would start again.
Our life at Regatta had evolved as well. I did another couple of nights as a solo act – telling jokes, singing songs, playing my guitar – all while Katya watched me from the side of the makeshift stage, her eyes gleaming. Once, on the train back, she shyly confided to me that she was dying to get back on the stage, and I of course let her. We were a massive hit. We’d do whatever we fancied – lip synching ferociously to ABBA songs, doing short stand-up skits.
One night, I was playing a Cyndi Lauper song on my guitar while Katya performed a sort of interpretive dance with a ribbon behind me. Leaping about, twirling, taking herself very seriously. I could scarcely sing for laughing. When I’d finished, we both went to the front of the stage to bow, and to squeeze out any last-minute tips. The crowd was much bigger now, we were drawing people in from Manchester, Bristol, Oxford – I once even talked to someone from Cardiff who told me they came just to see me and Katya perform.
Breathless and sweaty, Katya joined me at the front of the stage.
“Thank you so much for watching us, guys! Enjoy the rest of your evening, there are some terrific acts coming up later! Make sure to tip the barman: he’s so cute, that’s the only way he’ll ever pay attention to you!” I joked. The boys in the audience giggled outrageously and the leather-bound barman obligingly raised his studded hat.
“And hey, if there’s a song you’d like to see us perform one night, make sure you tell us and we’ll ignore you! ‘Cos it’s our show…” I said, nudging Katya subtly.
“And not yours!” she chimed in, taking the hint. That was sort of our catchphrase at the end of every set, but Katya often glazed over and forgot to say it.
There was a big cheer for that, as the patrons made their way over to the bar. Katya and I grinned at each other and slipped backstage to peel off our sweaty costumes. I’d made a few more dresses since my first, and tonight was wearing a mock Scout’s uniform, complete with a hot pink sash and badges I’d made myself. Katya was wearing a leotard with her name picked out bold Soviet-looking text that she switched for a button-up shirt, acid washed jeans and a denim jacket with a glittering hammer and sickle on the back. I slipped my hand into hers and she grinned at me before we weaved our way through the crowds and onto the dance floor, where I rested my head on her shoulder, she wrapped her arms around me, and we swayed in peaceful synchronisation while the Bee Gees crooned ‘More Than a Woman’.
The train journey back went by in a rush. My head lay in Katya’s lap, my hair spilling out across her legs, while she stared out the window and played with a few strands of my hair. It was a late enough train that we had gotten over our self-consciousness, and besides the only people on it were pissed teenagers and bleary-eyed businessmen slumbering against the windows, creating puffs of cloudiness whenever they breathed out, their heads jolting on their curled hands whenever we slowed to a stop.
We’d faced hostility on trains before, but the only resistance tonight was someone darkly muttering ‘commie’ on seeing Katya’s bold jacket and glaring at us as we left the train. My stomach knotted itself with dread and worry, but Katya stayed calm.
“I mean, I AM a communist but it doesn’t mean that they have to treat me like shit,” she proclaimed cheerily and I spluttered with laughter, simultaneously thrilled and embarrassed by her outspoken unapologetic nature. Having lived my whole life in the shadows, I was still coming to terms with shouting my beliefs instead of whispering them. It took practice to live loudly and proudly. But Katya had told me stories of people in America – Harvey Milk, and Marsha P. Johnson, who were fighting and screaming and making a noise. I spoke their names like they were prophets, and I was a devoted follower. I often got emotional thinking that all over the world, there were girls like me, girls curled up in their tiny rooms and wishing for a better life, and hundreds of miles away in a magical land called America there were people fighting for us.
We reached the top of the driveway as dawn was bursting through, just as it had on the first night we had kissed. That seemed like a world away now, though it was only a few weeks. We stumbled across the gravel together, clumsily pecking kisses on each other’s faces and giggling incessantly. The laughter died on my lips when I recognised a dark figure standing in shadows by the front door. My insides froze.
My mother.