This Much Is True

I haven’t spent much time thinking about men, really. My world has been largely female-centred, and I’m perfectly happy with that; I don’t feel I’ve missed out. Women’s souls are fascinating and compelling, not so with men. Of course, I retain some life-long male friends and they are precious; but there is no groin excitement when I’m with most men (nor they with me!), and as I’m not sexually interested either in their bodies or in their souls, for me they become peripheral beings. I am not hostile, but if they attempt to bully or scorn me, I will instantly retaliate, usually verbally. I realise I’m generalising but from my experience I find that the range of thought and conversation in most men is limited. They’re not interested in feelings. Many men react with horror and fear when a woman starts crying. From this harsh judgement I exempt actors and homosexuals. Perhaps because gay people have been oppressed and scorned themselves, and still are in many places, they have an awareness of the dark side of life and a corresponding capacity to laugh, spread joy and express love. The gay world can be silly and trivial and excluding, but I’m glad I’m gay; I relish and appreciate my camp friends, I admire their style and panache, their energy and bravery,

I wouldn’t want to be straight for the world. In the dreadful AIDS time in the eighties, I lost thirty-four friends; beautiful, talented, funny, warm gay boys — I mourn them, it was a terrible loss. What the boys do in bed I’ve never understood. I can hardly bear the thought of anal sex. I’ve never been fucked up the bum and I’m happy to die wondering (as Mummy might say). But I won’t castigate anyone for their sexual practices, unless they’re cruel or violent.

I formally became a lesbian in the summer of 1966. At school, I’d had crushes on girls and they were all-consuming. My father knew the father of one of my ‘pashes,’ and had talked about it with him in an amused way; they never realised that it was sexual. Men don’t take lesbianism seriously, unless they want to watch. That’s not a service I have ever provided. But my school ‘cracks’ generated passion so intense that I felt cut in two, almost fragmented by it. I was obsessed with the objects of my affection. I would follow them and moon over them. (When I say moon, I don’t mean that I would expose myself. I’ve only done that to Warren Beatty, and he completely deserved it. The expression of shocked surprise frozen on his face still tickles me even now — more of this later.) But up until my mid-twenties, I’d never put two and two together. So, when it did finally dawn on me that I must be a lesbian, it came as a bit of a bombshell.

Early in 1966, I got picked up on the tube in London. There was this girl: multicoloured trousers, short black hair, intense eyes. I became conscious of her gaze, looking at me in a direct way, unwavering and decidedly inviting. When I got off at Lancaster Gate, she got off too, and somehow or other, and I’m really not quite sure how, we ended up back at my flat and there it began. We didn’t sleep together — but it was exciting. She was Norwegian; later, when Heather and I had met and I was telling her about it, she called her ‘Norwegian Wood’, which apparently is a Beatles song about a mysterious girl who turns up, sparks passion and then vanishes for ever. This encounter stirred me up. Even when I went to synagogue, all I could think about was sex, and how much I wanted to have love affairs with other women. Let us say, I was ready.

My old Cambridge friend, Carey Harrison, had become a director at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester. He invited me to join the company and take part in his first play, Dante Kaputt, but I was to start my time there with the well-known potboiler The Cat and the Canary.

I arrived mid-season: the other company members had already got to know each other, so I was on my own. The stage manager was a surly girl with bleach-blonde hair in corduroys called Marion. We hit it off instantly. After rehearsals one April evening, Marion and I walked home together and I invited her in. We sat on the sofa and had a cup of hot chocolate and a talk. I think she was lonely too. Then I began to feel that feeling… a hot moistness in that department. There was a pause and Marion moved closer to me — and kissed me. I responded, my heart racing. Her second kiss was rather different, more aggressive — she pushed her tongue into my mouth. I pulled away and asked, ‘Is this sex?’ I couldn’t believe it. And that was in 1966. ‘Is this sex?’ I remember quite distinctly that I asked her. It was a genuine question, because it was so new to me.

Marion smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. Well, it sure was.