need some cash?” asked Veronica as she carried two mismatched cups with mismatched saucers to the little coffee table and put them down on a pile of New Ideas dating from 1974.
“No, I need some surprises! Thank god you’re here and I’m hanging out for you to stay longer than usual: another surprise! This could be a real red-letter day. But don’t think I’m complacent. Tomorrow’s another day, some bright spark said once, and if this day gets too exciting tomorrow’s bound to be shit.” She looked at her daughter who was putting sugar in her cup of tea obviously not paying attention to her mother.
“You’ve already put sugar in your tea.”
“I take two.”
“Yes, I know. I was just trying to be polite.”
So to change the subject, “You said you had something to tell me.”
“Oh that.” Sally immediately became weary. She sat there with her eyes closed as if garnering the strength to go on. And then... “It’s always hard to tell you of an idea I’ve had because you’re so dismissive of my ideas, always have been.”
“M-u-m,” whined Veronica as a warning. She only called her that on occasions like this.
Sally took a deep breath and sighed her idea: “I’m going to take out a loan and turn the front room into a bed-sit so I can rent it out.”
“That’s a great idea,” said Veronica all smiles.
“A-n-d,” drawled a big-eyed Sally staring at her daughter.
“Oh,” and Veronica’s face fell.
“I need you to go guarantor on the loan.”
“Oh Mum! I don’t know whether I can do that.”
“Of course you can do that. You’re self-employed. You keep telling me how well you’re doing. You’re always so busy. Even I have to make an appointment to see you.”
“If you need more money I can help you out a bit every now and then.”
“It’s not the money, it’s the company.”
“But you’ve always lived alone.”
“Technically, yes, but there’s always been someone around.”
“You want a man to move into the front room?”
“Not necessarily. I was thinking more of a university student. The uni’s not far away. A young girl, perhaps, who would come and go and bring some life back into the house.”
And make you cups of tea and cook you meals at night. “University students are very busy people, studying and getting on with their own lives.”
“You’re enthusiasm for my idea is overwhelming,” she said flatly. “As usual.”
“OK. Will you let me think about it?” said Veronica depressingly aware of the disappointment she had sparked.
“Mah! I know what that means.”
“I promise I will think about it,” she said as seriously as she could. And then to change the subject, “So let’s look for that money.” She got up and immediately started taking books at random from the shelves.
“Not like that,” chastised Sally. “You need to do it methodically.” And she put her tea down and got up and joined in starting at the end of the bottom shelf. While she leafed through book after book Sally chatted away about someone she heard of who very successfully took in a university student and she stayed for four years! Veronica was only half listening: what was really on her mind was the slight unease she felt about explaining her job, to a loan manager - a stranger. It was easy putting “Psychologist” on an airport exit card but another thing entirely explaining to a loan manager. Would they happily agree to her guaranteeing a loan if they understood her work? She didn’t think so. There must be another way. Her disquiet at explaining her job led her to wonder if she really knew how to explain it. She had never explained it to anyone. Diane thought she knew what it was so didn’t ask. What did Jack know? What did Jack understand? How exactly would she explain it? Was her need for a man really a need to get out of her job? This question disturbed her. It was like making eye contact with herself in the mirror. Shit! What’s wrong with me? Was her lonely life really a protection from other people’s opinions? From their judgements? Their assumptions? Their prejudices? Was looking for a man similar to looking for misplaced money in a dusty library of books?
“Found one!” shouted Veronica as a $20 bill fluttered to the floor out of the pages of Jennifer Weiner’s In Her Shoes .
“Hurray!!” shouted Sally, overdoing it a bit.
At the little garden gate, as Veronica was leaving, Sally could not contain her curiosity. “Darling, I need to know what you really think about ... about my idea.”
Veronica looked her mother in the eye and said, “I’m not completely sure, yet, but I promise I will think about it. How much will it cost?”
"Twenty five thousand dollars,” said Sally with a look of concern on her face.
“Right.” It was a lot more than she could get her hands on. A loan was the only way. “Just let me think about it.” She was now thinking of her own fears. She would have to understand how she was going to explain her profession to a stranger, so she simply said, “I’ll call you.”
“Bye.”
Veronica kissed her mother on the cheek; she smelt of ponds cream and book dust.
“Bye.”
As she got into the car her mobile phone buzzed: it was a message from her five o’clock : Mr. Pyne wanted to reschedule. He was sorry for the late notice: world war three had broken out – Mr. Pyne was known for his exaggerations - but he had still made the payment and would contact her soon. She thought no more about it except for a brief reminder to call and cancel the babysitter when she got home.
What did concern her was the unresolved issue of her own attitude to her work. One could call it social work. She did, but when sex was involved was it social work still? Yes. Veronica stood firm: she had seen a need for strong psychology-based personal consultancy work and because such a profession didn’t exist she was confronted with the fact that the closest freelance occupation was the sex industry. Sex, and its use in her chosen profession, had occurred to her early in her mental planning and she was pragmatic enough to understand that sex played a very important part in the social and psychological makeup of the clients she hoped to attract. Being a graduate with a psychology degree made her also understand that it was usually ill-taught attitudes or bad role-models that caused sexual, psychological, and social dysfunction and that if her plans were to be fulfilled the issue of sex as a tool of her trade had to be addressed. And that’s exactly what she did: she addressed it and accepted it. The times in which she lived also made it possible: modern internet banking technology, freer sex industry laws and a growing sense among women of their own sense of their self-worth. Why then, now, was she influenced by Diane’s barbed comments? Was her chosen profession something she needed to plan to get out of? Was that what she really thought? It wasn’t conscionable when she set up her website, “The Red Site” and began operating (her marketing prowess wanted her to call it the ‘red
