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Love and Be Silent
by
Hannah Leighton © 2009
The sound of his own heels clipping joyfully along the High Street, gave George Chandler a shiver of pleasure. He had finally done it! All the planning and heartache had borne fruit. For a fleeting moment, he thought guiltily of his wife Lynne and the email she would find when she got home. It had taken him weeks to compose - no months. He had password protected the file - until last night. With one last glance at the screen, George had clicked on send and watched as the email disappeared from sight. He hastily shut down the computer and flicked off the light on the way out. No turning back now.
Passing the window of Dixons, George gave a discrete twist and turn. It wasn’t the display of technology that caught his eye but his own striking image. He was impressed by what he saw and allowed himself a small smile of pleasure. He was glad to have chosen the two-piece in the end. In the store, it had been difficult to conceal his excitement - there had been such a bewildering choice and for a moment he was tempted to succumb and grab armfuls of dresses and head for the door but he controlled himself and feigned casual interest as he picked out a cotton outfit in blues and greens and took it to the Pay Desk. It was a birthday present for his wife, he had explained to the cashier as she bagged up. She didn’t look convinced. A tall, spotty girl with buckteeth, her eyes ran the length of his torso, stopping at the glitzy bracelet clattering on the counter as George tapped his number into the machine.. You couldn’t fool Amanda Shaw. She had seen it all before.
George had ached to add a pair of black shiny, stilettos to the outfit. What could be more feminine? But he knew from experience – having tried out Lynne’s in the privacy of their bathroom, how difficult it was to walk naturally, Especially after a lifetime of walking in men’s shoes. And besides, he didn’t want to look like a drag queen. Until now, his rich chestnut hair, having been grown long, had been worn in a trendy ponytail. No one had questioned his motives. “Mid-life crisis” his wife had muttered to their daughter Jan. Now, as he swept down the High Street, it swung unfettered across his shoulders, complimented by dusty cloud foundation and a touch of pink lipstick.
Jan yawned and stretched cat-like fashion along her bed. She folded her arms behind her head, and gave out a long sigh. A-levels were almost over, Thank God! Her life could get back to some sort of normality again. Until the results, that is. Her parents wanted her to go to University but she had resisted. In the end, they had reached a compromise. She would take a year out and think about it. Her mother had found her a temporary job as an admin assistant in her company so that Jan could use the money to save for her back-packing trip round Australia. Jan now closed her eyes and images of the Sunshine Coast mingled with that of the new man in her life. Across the floor of her room, half-opened DVD’s and heaps of worn-once clothes lay waiting for her mother’s usual cries of - “can’t you at least hang them up?” And a tobacco tin lay discretely hidden under her bed.
On her wall hung an iconic poster from the 70’s. It showed, amongst a mass of adoring screaming fans - their faces upturned to the stage upon which guitars were being thrown and smashed - the hunched figure of a man, head lowered on to his knees and face hidden by a mass of long tangled hair. It now looked down impassively on Jan as she mouthed tunelessly to the music on her headphones. She had found the poster in the loft on a recent hunt for memorabilia for a 70’s night at school. The photo had been taken from the stage. At first she hadn’t recognised the figure huddled in the centre of the crowd. Amongst the sea of ecstatic faces screaming and waving at the act on stage, his isolation had marked him out. An observant photographer had picked out the forlorn figure and the photo was featured in a Sunday Colour Supplement. The picture had become almost as well known as Hockney’s tin of Soup and George had become an unwilling celebrity. As Retro was now “In” Jan seized on the poster calling it “Cool!”
Lynne swung her car into the drive and came to an abrupt halt, pulling the handbrake more forcefully than she had intended. It had been one hell of a day and all she wanted to do was to pour a stiff drink and climb into the shower. The company was in trouble and the meeting had turned into bad-tempered accusations of who was to blame. Redundancies loomed large. She threw her coat over the end of the stairs and headed for the fridge. After pouring herself a glass of wine, she made her way upstairs calling out to Jan as she went. “You up there?” She was greeted by silence. Looking in on her room, Lynne saw Jan’s long legs swinging in time to some unheard beat, her blonde, shoulder-length hair trapped beneath a snake of wires. She turned and acknowledged her mother’s appearance with a thumb's up. Lynne mouthed – “tea in an hour” and closed the door. In the bathroom she took a gulp of chilled white wine and stretched to turn on the shower. She could hear the welcoming “pitter-patter” of water as she headed back to her bedroom. Lynne stopped off in the study to turn on the computer. Tossing her clothes onto a chair in the corner, she grabbed a towel. The familiar “beep” of the computer warming up, followed her into the bathroom. A small icon of an envelope appeared at the bottom of the screen indicating that she had mail. Lynne threw down the towel and stepping into the hot steamy shower, threw back her head like some sun-starved sun-worshipper.
She would open it later.
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