This Much Is True

But may I say strongly that being a lesbian is not enough — it’s not all there is; it’s simply another adjective to describe a person. And when people say, ‘Oh, you must meet X, she’s a lesbian too,’ I groan with irritation. I don’t want to live in a lesbian world. I want to live in The World, with everyone else. I would never deny my sexuality — indeed I am often accused of trumpeting it far too stridently and often — but please don’t shut me or anyone else in a lesbian cage. Some gay women only want to be with gay women. I don’t. I pick the people in my life because of who they are, not because of who they sleep with. Let’s open the closet and take our place in the world.

Heather

I didn’t have a mature, loving relationship until I was twenty-seven. But once I found her, I knew. She and I have been a pair, in love and in life, for fifty-three years.

Heather is my polar opposite. She is reticent, incredibly private and reserved. I know this is her worst nightmare: to be exposed and publicly known in a book. I have never given her full name in interviews and I’ve asked her permission to write about her here. It’s all right for me to be exposed: I quite enjoy the idea of exploring my innermost self and handing it out in little parcels. But she doesn’t.

We sat down, and I said, ‘You know I’m going to have to mention you, don’t you? You are the central person in my life. How can I not speak about you? That would be absurd.’ And she said, ‘Yes, I see that. I wish it weren’t necessary, but I can see that it is.’ I’ve made sure that I don’t overstep what she would want. But celebrating the love of your life is important.

Let me tell you about how I met Heather.

It was all thanks to one of my dearest school friends, Katerina Clark. When Katy went back to Australia to ANU — Australian National University — and I went to Cambridge, we continued to write to each other. During the five years after I’d left Cambridge, Katy was at Yale doing her master’s degree. Two scholarships were given annually to Australian women graduates: Katy had one, and Heather was the other recipient. (Katerina and Heather were both from Canberra, so when they went to Yale, naturally they became friends.)

I wrote to Katy and told her my big news about being gay; she replied, ‘Oh! My best friend here is a lesbian… you should meet.’

In the summer of 1968, Katy said that she was coming to London for a research trip, and her friend, this lesbian called Heather, would be coming with her. I replied suggesting we meet up. I thought it might be quite exciting, but Katy told me: ‘Don’t tell Heather that you know she’s a lesbian, because she wouldn’t like me betraying her confidence.’

It was arranged that she, Heather and I would go with a couple of other Australians to see The Charge of the Light Brigade, the film about the Crimean War, directed by Tony Richardson. They picked me up in a VW to go to the film; being the fattest, I sat in the front and showed off noisily all the way there, talking about cock-sucking and farting.

Behind me, I glimpsed this creature with white-blonde hair, which I find devastatingly attractive, and I just knew. I can remember it as if it were yesterday — the absolute knowledge that this was the woman that I had always sought and longed for. And she, of course, was in blind ignorance of how her life was about to change: I knew that this was for ever, but she didn’t, she didn’t have a clue.

When we got to the cinema, I insisted on sitting next to her. I didn’t look at the film at all, which Heather found disconcerting and odd: for the entire movie I turned my whole gaze on her. I drank her in, and she was discomforted by this, as you can imagine. I’m not sure Katy enjoyed the film much either; she was worrying I would let slip what she’d told me.

Years later, I saw the film. The violence of the war, guns, noise and stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen were all a long way from the passionate emotions I had been harbouring.

Afterwards, I said to Katy, ‘Bring Heather to lunch on Thursday, and don’t tell her that you’ve told me that she’s gay.’ Of course, we didn’t say gay then, the word was queer — and we were queer. Katy said, ‘Miriam, I can’t not tell her.’ Katy’s got that thing, you see — integrity — that gets in the way sometimes. Nevertheless, she promised she wouldn’t tell her, and she didn’t. I then said, ‘Just say you’ve got an appointment at two o’clock and you have to go, and you leave us two alone.’

Katy was never comfortable with even the whitest of lies, but she agreed and so, on the Thursday, they arrived. We sat down to eat. Suddenly, in the middle of lunch, Katy leapt up and said, ‘Oh, God! Is that the time? I’m really sorry but I’ve got to go.’

I saw her out, and at the front door she turned and sternly said, ‘Now, don’t you say anything because she’s going to be really…’ and I said, ‘No, of course I won’t!’