FF (February 2013) V.G. Lee - Diary of a Provincial Lesbian

Diary of a Provincial Lesbian is a book that can be enjoyed by women and men, by anybody who has ever asked themselves the question: ‘What is love?’. The heroine, Margaret, thinks she has found love, until her partner Georgie gives her the classic book Diary of a Provincial Lady, and an empty diary where she can record her own life. The following year will bring changes she doesn’t expect, to her life and to herself. In this novel, filled with the comedy and sadness so typical of all our lives, VG Lee shows what love really is, if it’s expected to last beyond the first thrill of meeting. She also shows the importance of other types of love – the love of pets and of friends, and the importance of accepting those close to us with all their faults. As always, VG Lee makes the reader laugh out loud and also cry, and by the end of the novel the main character and the readers are no longer the same.

VG Lee’s novels have been endorsed by Sarah Waters, Stella Duffy and Time Out, and she was shortlisted in the Stonewall Awards for Writer of the Year at the end of 2012. She is also a stand-up comedian and regular comedy feature writer for The Lady magazine.

If you like any of these book, support the author by buying it.


Sample

January

Jan 3rd

Georgie away working for a few more days. Am woken at 5am by Tilly’s plaintive cry. I peer over the edge of the mattress. Tilly (small, elderly black cat) is addressing the drawer of our divan bed - nowadays she thinks this is where I live when I’m upstairs. I pat her head and she starts back as if I’ve struck her with a rolled newspaper. Since going deaf everything is a surprise to her. She’s become disorientated and wakes every two hours imagining its dinner time again.
For such a frail old cat Tilly manages to beat me down the stairs. I have a bird’s eye view of her hurrying along the hall and into the kitchen. Feel a pang because she used to be plump with thick soft fur. However she is still an extraordinary cat. She can say ‘hello’ and ‘good morning’, or at least she can say ‘mellow’ and ‘nood norning’. Were she younger and finer looking I could have carved out a career for her in advertising. As elderly cat she might be able to follow in the late Thora Hird’s footsteps advertising stair lifts and step-in baths. Small raddled feline disappears into step-in bath; ‘Nood norning’ is heard above the sound of rushing water.
Tilly remains surprising athletic, managing to jump from floor to chair, to table, then the leap of four foot between table and work top where her empty plate waits. ‘Nood norning,' she says cheerfully as if she’s only just spotted me.
By the time I’ve fed Tilly, Georgie’s cats, Samson and Delilah, have appeared looking bemused by the early hour. Feed them as well. Take two Nurofen. Go back to bed. Hear Tilly scrabbling in her litter tray. Put pillow over my head.

NB.1 Sometimes need to resort to two pillows over my head.

NB.2. Follow on from this reflection with further reflection that one day I will be discovered smothered by pillows over head. Who by? Probably not Georgie as she will be at a hotel in the Outer Hebrides. The front door emergency key holders. Mr Wheeler, DIY neighbour (left hand side), wanting to know if I have any wire for his Strimmer; Deirdre, neighbour (right hand side) wanting to know if I feel up to a full English breakfast anywhere; Miriam (work colleague) wanting to know how she goes about meeting younger women. The police will be called.

‘No sign of forced entry. She must have known her killer.’
All key holders have watertight alibis. Deirdre telephones our local paper, the Listening Ear.
‘I’m devastated’, neighbour and close friend sobs, ‘Margaret will be sorely missed. She leaves behind three motherless cats.’
Lesbian woman (this for those reading local paper unsure what sex a lesbian might be) found murdered. Neighbour discloses that she saw women coming in and out of lesbian love nest, morning, noon and night. Multiple arrests expected.
Radio Four: The sleepy seaside town of Bittlesea Bay was rocked today by the news that...’
Samson tentatively inserts his paw under pillow and finds my chin. Taps gently, then unsheathes claws and gives chin a playful scratch, ‘What the devil is that under the pillow?’
I emerge. Samson looks delighted.
‘Yes?’ I challenge.
‘Grub up,’ Samson telepathises.
Look at clock. Still only five thirty-seven. Get up. Empty litter tray. Feed everybody again.
Make tea. Help myself to a chocolate digestive. Take tea back to bed. Search for Farming Today on the radio. Finally find a farmer using an emasculator on an unknown animal; ‘You need to be careful how you use it,’ he says to the presenter. ‘Remember nuts to nuts.’
‘I’ll certainly be careful to remember that,’ I tell the radio and switch the farmer off.
Downstairs I hear the cat flap bang three times. Peace at last. Will sleep. Cannot sleep. Am wide awake. Get up and open the curtains. Red clouds streak the huge sky - a bad omen for the day but impressive. It is too early in the year for the seagulls cries to be really raucous - I can only just hear them like the sound of protesters on a distant march. Down below, at the edge of the town, a train trundles along taking the very first of the morning’s commuters into London. Slowly Bittlesea Bay begins to waken.

Jan 5th

Georgie home tomorrow. Georgie, Georgie, Georgie! Normally I wouldn’t be so Georgie fixated but we parted on an acrimonious note. It began on the morning she was setting off to Edinburgh, when she called down to me, ‘Margaret, another cup of coffee wouldn’t go amiss.’
I experienced an increasingly familiar sensation of being a housekeeper and Georgie my employer. This was not the same sensation that Jane Eyre felt in the company of Mr Rochester. Initial thought that I must stop wearing aprons and marigold gloves because they were becoming something of a uniform bedded down into a feeling of resentment that she would be away in Scotland on business from the 29th of December to the 7th of January. When I’d said, ‘But that means I won’t see you over New Year,’ she’d replied, ‘But you saw me over Christmas.’
Should have asserted immediately that surely women who were about to celebrate their tenth anniversary expected to spend all major holidays together. As always said nothing while fuming inwardly.
Made fresh coffee which in our house means Instant but with newly boiled water.
‘I could murder a couple of digestives.’
Was reminded of deceased mother whose response to any childhood requests to do something had been, ‘What did your last servant die of? Exhaustion?’
Put several biscuits on to side of saucer. Carried coffee and biscuits upstairs. Georgie attempting to close suitcase in the middle of the landing nodded in the direction of her study desk. The words I hoped to hear were ‘Thank you’ or ‘You’re an angel.’
Georgie said, ‘You’re not still sulking over me being away, are you?’
Vigorously denied sulking for any reason at all however Georgie’s departure was tight lipped on both sides. Every day since have wished that Georgie was home so that any unpleasantness could be ironed out.

NB. (Unsure of what NB stands for. Will ask Georgie on her return. Seems appropriate to diary entries.) For Christmas Georgie gave me this diary - a large leather covered desk diary with four pages for each day. Also as a complementary gift, a copy of Diary of a Provincial Lady by EM Delafield, which is a gently funny book made up of articles written in the nineteen thirties about the provincial life of a married woman and her family. Georgie said, ‘I’m sure you could write something light and amusing - you often make me laugh.’
Am going to try. Will not let Georgie read it till the end of the year. Will not even let Georgie see that I’m writing it. As I write keep before me image of next Christmas Eve, me in festive dressing gown (not yet purchased) as I appear like Eamonn Andrews with my big book. Sometimes in my daydream, we sit either side of a roaring fire, sometimes Georgie sits one side of the roaring fire and I sit at her feet, but always we drink Ovaltine (our Christmas Eve night cap) as I read out hilarious Diary extracts.

Jan 6th

Visit my neighbour Deirdre which entails sliding open a section of our back fence. Deirdre is sitting at her computer, Lord Dudley next to her on the table sprawled in a cardboard box lid. (We are a cat loving street, dog lovers next street up the hill near the dog walking areas.) Neither Deirdre nor Lord Dudley look up.
‘She back tomorrow?’ Deirdre asks, her eyes fixed on the multicoloured pattern on her computer screen.
‘Yes.’
‘You pleased?’
‘Very.’
‘What you doing later?’
‘Cleaning.’
‘Fancy going to the caff?’
‘Not today.’
‘Why not?’
‘Cleaning.’
I make tea in Deirdre’s immaculate kitchen; do not in any way feel like Deirdre’s housekeeper. Deirdre already has a cleaner, someone to do her ironing as her partner Martin has to have two clean shirts every day, and a laundry van which is another story and proving problematic.
Sit opposite Deirdre while I drink my tea. She is an impressive woman, big, strong bodied, with a very pretty, doll-like face and masses of yellow curly hair. Small but bright blue eyes. She is a successful packaging designer. That is what she calls herself. Or a successful woman. Or a happy woman. Or sometimes with a sensual swivel of her shoulders, ‘I’m just great! Stupendous! FANTASTIC!’
She has advised me to also talk this way about myself.

Go home. A message from Georgie saying she can’t get home till tomorrow; the roads are blocked by snow. Not to bother trying to ring back - her mobile’s still not working.
Day not completely wasted. Deirdre and I go up to the Bittlesea Bay Café for a full English breakfast which lasts from 11am till 4pm. Came home, snoozed, watched the last half of an early Gregory Peck film set in Burma, finished stripping the banister, fed the cats, emptied Tilly’s litter tray. Watched forecast. As always it was wrong, showing Scotland undergoing a freak spell of spring-like weather. Blonde, vapid weather woman predicts: A mild night in the northern parts of Britain. Slept fitfully.

Jan 9th

Georgie got back yesterday looking tanned. It’s amazing the difference these all over tanning booths make. There are several down here in Bittlesea Bay but yes, I appreciate that she wanted her top-up tan to be a surprise for me. She looks terrific. Out food shopping together in the supermarket caught a glimpse of us reflected in the store window and it was rather disconcerting. I mean, we’ve always looked quite different, but suddenly our differences seem much more marked and at odds. Georgie is tall, well built, (all the hotels she stays at have a gym), has dark hair with quite a bit of distinguished grey - in fact Georgie looks as if she might be a celebrity. I am a Margaret. I look like the worst sort of Margaret; middle height, middle build, middle coloured brown hair, middle coloured brown eyes.
To be more specific; we are a case of Pierce Brosnan going out with the actress Frances de la Tour. Yes, I realise Frances de la Tour is an extremely attractive woman. In just about every department she’s more than a match for Pierce Brosnan, only physically, and I suppose I’m talking about glamour here, there’d be a disparity. And I’m definitely the Frances de la Tour character, only there’s not even a hint of show bizz about me.
Did not discuss this with Deirdre who has adopted Martin’s habit of chanting ‘Loser, loser,’ whenever somebody makes a negative statement about themselves, decided to take problem in to Miriam at work on Monday.

Jan 12th

This afternoon I walked along the seafront on my own. Georgie collating information accumulated while on business trip. It was freezing cold. The rain had turned to a fine sleet. Even so I sat on a bench and tried to pick out Beachy Head which was a faint and distant shadow. Sea a murderous grey. Watched a fishing boat tack out past the pier then change its mind and race back towards the haven of the fishing fleet end of the beach. Finally, frozen, I turned in from the sea and made my way to the Bittlesea Bay funicular railway. By the time I came out on the brow of the cliffs, the fishing boat had been dragged up onto the shingle. Stood and watched before going in the café. Inside, enveloped by muggy warmth, I nursed a hot chocolate and reflected on who I would like to look like given the choice. Came up with a line drawing of a cowgirl.

Jan 12th

First day back at work since Christmas Eve. My boss, Tom Matthews, dropped a copy of the Listening Ear on my desk indicating its front page headline: Bittlesea Bay’s official lesbian community reaches double figures!
Tom says, ‘They’re taking over the town. First estate agents, now
lesbians.’
‘Whatever next?’ I replied. If the figures were true, Tom Matthews was employing a fifth of the lesbian population.
TM Accountancy is a small firm. A tiny firm. There is Tom; and me and Miriam who job share. I work from nine thirty to one thirty, Miriam from one to five thirty. We choose to overlap by half an hour so that we can shut the office and sit on the back step while Miriam has the last cigarette of her working afternoon and I eat my sandwiches.
Officially our job title is Accounts Typist. Unofficially we are also Secretary, Invoice Clerk, Filing Clerk, Coffee and Tea Maker and Plant Pot Waterer. In quiet moments I read female detective novels and Miriam reads science fiction.
Miriam is in her early sixties and refers to herself as a semi-retired lesbian or sometimes a very tired lesbian. Today as it was teeming we huddled in the doorway rather than our usual perch on the step. Not always easy discussing my problems even with Miriam. I’m sure she’s thinking what am I bleating on about; at least I’ve bagged someone. Miriam appeared thoughtful and then said, ‘Yes, I can see it might be difficult living with a woman as damnably attractive as your Georgie - however she obviously likes the way you are or she wouldn’t have stuck around all this time.’
Which was surprisingly encouraging.
Miriam went on to talk about herself, announcing her New Year’s resolution to have a relationship with a younger woman.
‘Shouldn’t be too difficult as most women are younger than me,’ she said, puffing away at her cigarette. ‘Pity about my body going to pot.’
I insisted that what I could see of her body (not necessary to specify neck, wrist, inch of ankles between sock and trouser leg hems) looked extremely trim. On the contrary I insisted that I was the one who had let my body go to pot.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but of course you have Georgie.’

Jan 14th

Miriam’s mother has her third bout of flu since November. Tom Matthews always surprisingly sympathetic where Miriam’s mother is concerned. I am inclined to think that Miriam uses her mother to get days off work but wouldn’t dare even moot this possibility to Tom. On his desk is a photo of his own mother with him in her arms - he is about six years old and wearing a Fairisle sleeveless pullover, (as well as shirt, shorts, socks etc). Tom’s mother is smoking a cigarette; in fact her cigarette seems in danger of setting boy Tom’s curly quiff alight. Tom often looks fondly at this photo while giving dictation.
While I’m musing on Miriam’s mother and Tom’s mother I spare a thought for my mother who is dead. She also smoked. Recall that when I had a splinter in my finger she sterilized the point of her darning needle by putting it into the lit end of her cigarette then used the needle to gouge out my splinter.
Tom interrupts my childhood recollections with the query, ‘Are you just wool gathering Margaret or is there something constructive going on behind your dazed expression?’
Quickly respond that I am making a mental list of the gaps that need filling in the stationery cupboard.

Jan 15th

Miriam’s mother near death’s door. Tell Georgie over dinner. Georgie unimpressed. Says, ‘Miriam’s mother’s always at death’s door. I bet you a fiver that she’ll be right as rain by next week.’
‘Not this time. Tom’s pencilled question marks through the last half of next week in case he has to go to the funeral.’

Jan 17th

Last night