‘What are you all TALKING about?’ she shouted. Amy has a very loud voice.
‘We’re talking about boyfriends,’ said Lizzie.
Amy opened her case and took out one of her eleven Barbie dolls. ‘BARBIE’S got a BOYFRIEND,’ she yelled. ‘He’s called KEN. She’s going to MARRY HIM. I’ve got her a BRIDE’S DRESS.’
‘Amy darling,’ said Lizzie. ‘I keep telling you, Barbie is never going to marry Ken.’ Bewilderment and disappointment spread across Amy’s face. ‘Barbie has been going out with Ken for almost forty years without tying the knot,’ Lizzie explained patiently as she passed round the honey-glazed poussins. ‘I’m afraid Barbie is a commitophobe.’
‘What’s a COMMITOPHOBE, Mummy?’
‘Someone who doesn’t want to get married, darling. And I don’t want you to be one when you grow up.’
‘What are you all talking about?’ said Alice, whose blonde pigtails were spattered with black paint.
‘Boyfriends,’ said Frances.
‘ALICE has got a BOYFRIEND,’ Amy yelled. ‘He’s called TOM. He’s in her CLASS. But I HAVEN’T got one.’
‘That’s because you’re too young,’ said Alice wisely. ‘You still watch the Teletubbies. You’re a baby.’ Amy didn’t appear to resent this slur.
‘How old’s your boyfriend, Alice?’ Catherine enquired with a smile.
‘He’s eight and a quarter,’ she replied. ‘And Tom’s mummy, Mrs Hamilton, she’s got a boyfriend too.’
‘Good God!’ said Lizzie. ‘Has she?’
‘Yes,’ said Alice. ‘Tom told me. He’s called Peter. He works with her. In the bank. But Tom’s daddy doesn’t know. Should I tell him?’ she added.
‘No,’ said Lizzie. ‘No. Don’t. Social death, darling.’
‘Tiffany, have you got a boyfriend yet?’ asked Alice.
‘Er, no,’ I said. ‘I haven’t.’ She went off and sat on the swing with a vaguely disappointed air.
‘You know, it’s horrible being single in the summer,’ I said vehemently. ‘All those happy couples snogging in the park, or playing tennis or strolling hand in hand through the pounding surf … ’
‘Personally I think it’s much worse in the winter,’ said Emma, ‘having no-one to snuggle up to in front of an open fire on some romantic weekend break.’
‘No, I think it’s worse being single in the spring,’ said Catherine. ‘When everything’s growing and thrusting and the sun’s shining, and it’s all so horribly happy. April really is the cruellest month, in my view.’
‘Being single in autumn is the worst,’ said Sally ruefully, ‘because there’s no-one to kick through the leaves with in the park or hold hands with at fireworks displays.’
‘Well, I often envy you single girls,’ said Lizzie darkly. ‘I’d love to be single again.’
‘Well, we’d love to be you,’ said Catherine, ‘with such a nice husband.’
Lizzie gave a hollow little laugh. I thought that was mean. I glanced at Martin, quietly painting away.
‘Love is a gilded cage,’ said Emma drunkenly.
‘No – “Love conquers all,”’ said Catherine.
‘“Love means never having to say you’re sorry,”’ said Frances, with a smirk. ‘I’m glad that’s true – otherwise I’d be unemployed!’
‘“Love’s the noblest frailty of the mind,”’ said Lizzie. ‘Dryden.’
‘“Love’s not Time’s fool,”’ said Sally. ‘Shakespeare.’
‘“The course of true love never did run smooth,”’ said Emma. ‘Ditto.’ And for some reason, that cheered me up – I didn’t know why.
‘Come on, Tiffany – your turn!’ they all chorused.
‘Er – “Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all,”’ I said. ‘Tennyson.’
‘However,’ said Lizzie, ‘according to George Bernard Shaw “there is no love sincerer than the love of food.” So eat up, everyone!’
On Saturday the first of August I opened The Times, turned to the Rendezvous section and found my ad, under ‘S’ for ‘Sparky’. I was quite pleased with it. It didn’t look too bad, alongside all the ‘Immaculate Cheshire Ladies’, ‘Divorced Mums, Thirty-nine’, and ‘Romantic’ and ‘Bubbly’ forty-five-year-old females looking for ‘Fun Times’. No, ‘Sparky’ was OK, I reflected as I went up to the Ladies Pond in Hampstead to seek refuge from the blistering heat. ‘Sparky’ might just do the trick, I thought to myself optimistically as I walked down Millfield Lane. ‘No Men Beyond This Point’ announced the municipal sign sternly, and in the distance I could hear the familiar, soprano chatter of 150 women. I love the Ladies Pond. It’s wonderful being able to swim in the open air, free from the prying eyes of men, totally calm and relaxed – though I must say my new high-leg Liza Bruce swimsuit with the cunning underwiring, subtly padded cups and eye-catching scallop trim is extremely flattering, and I do sometimes think it’s completely wasted in an all-female environment. However, the main thing is not to pose, but to swim. To gently lap the large, reed-fringed pond, where feathery willows bend their boughs to the cool, dark water. To commune with the coots and moorhens which bob about in its reedy shallows; or to admire the grace and beauty of the terns as they swoop and dive for fish. But sometimes, when I’m sitting there on the lawn afterwards, gently drying off in the warmth of the sun, I wonder about myself. I really do. I mean it’s so Sapphic! Lesbians every-where! Lesbians young and lesbians d’un certain âge; lesbians pretty, and lesbians physiognomically-challenged. Lesbians thin and lesbians fat; lesbians swimming gently round the tree-lined lake, or disporting themselves in the late summer sunshine. And there I was, sitting on the grass, reading my ‘Sparky, kind-hearted girl’ ad again and feeling pretty pleased with it actually, whilst discreetly surveying beneath lowered eyelids several hundred-weight of near-naked female flesh and wondering, just wondering, whether I found it even vaguely erotic, when this attractive, dark-haired girl came up to me, bold as brass, and put her towel down next to mine.
‘Hello,’ she said with a warm smile.
‘Hello.’ Excuse me. Do we know each other?
‘Mind if I join you?’ My God – a pick-up! My Sapphometer went wild.
‘Er, yes, do,’ I said, pulling up the strap of my swimsuit and quickly adjusting my bosom. I discreetly surveyed her from behind my sunglasses as she removed a bottle of Ambre Solaire from her basket and began rubbing the sun lotion onto her legs. She was clearly a ‘lipstick’ lesbian, I decided. The glamorous kind. Her nose and
