Oy Vey My Daughter's Gay (7 page)

“I
said to my mother-in-law, ‘My house is your house’. She said, ‘Get the hell off
my property.’ ” – Joan Rivers

John made it clear, early on, that he had absolutely no
intention of telling his family that Lila was gay. His attitude was that it
wasn’t anybody else’s business and that we should keep it that way for the
foreseeable future (or better yet, until he died). John was always a much more
private person than me, so, while I was disappointed, it didn’t really surprise
me.

As you might have guessed, I was a bit more vocal. While I
didn’t plan to send out cards, I thought it was only fair to Lila that, if and
when the opportunity arose, we should tell people, starting with my family.
Sadly my parents had passed away, but, as you know, that didn’t stop me from
assigning my mum a conversation part. I think she would have liked that.

I suppose, telling people was one of my ways of coming to
terms with Lila being gay. I had to respect John’s choice, but I wasn’t happy
about it, feeling that it was just one more way in which we were letting Lila
down. John’s dad died when John was thirteen, so, by the time she came out,
Lila only had one remaining grandparent. Had Lila been closer to her, she might
have told her herself, but her grandmother inexplicably began to lose interest
in her in her teens. She appeared friendly enough on the surface, but phased
out all present giving. This has been very hurtful for Lila and I don’t
understand it. She maintained her interest in Lee a little longer, but was not
close to him or his family either. I held out on the gay thing for a few years.
Lila by this time was feeling increasingly peeved that when she visited, her
grandmother had never asked her if she had a boyfriend.

“What’s wrong with me? Why doesn’t anyone in Dad’s family
think it’s weird that I don’t have a boyfriend? Not that I
want
a
boyfriend. But at least grant me the courtesy of thinking I
could
have a
boyfriend, if I wanted one…which I don’t!”

I didn’t know what to say. It hurt me so much that my
daughter was being ignored. Occasionally I would force information about her
granddaughter on my mother-in-law, whether she wanted to hear it or not. Then
one day, completely out of the blue, she spoke up.

“It’s funny that Lila’s never had a boyfriend,” she said.

I couldn’t believe I’d heard correctly.
Sorry John, but
this rare show of interest in Lila’s life might be my only chance.
I took a
deep breath and asked, “Did you ever wonder why that is?”

Her answer really threw me. “I know why it is.”

“
Really
?
Why?”

“Because she prefers girls,” she said.

My heart was pounding. This was totally unexpected and
surprisingly perceptive. I’d obviously underestimated her. “How on earth did
you know that?” I said, waiting with bated breath for her answer.

“Because you told me!” she said.

Could it be possible that my powers of thought were that strong?
Either that, or I was losing my mind. “Honestly, I didn’t!” I assured her, more
than a little scared.

“Yes you did,” she persisted. “You told me you went out for
a walk with her one day, and she just said, ‘Mum, I’ve got something to tell
you. I’m gay.’ ”

“Well, now I know I never told you, because that’s not how
it happened!” I said, feeling more than a little relieved.

She looked at me, nonplussed but still adamant. “Well
that’s what you told me!”

While I was shocked and confused by this conversation, I
was also curiously elated. Maybe this new communication would herald the start
of a new era of closeness and understanding between us. We had never been
close. When John and I got married I sensed she really wanted him to marry
somebody else. She didn’t have anyone in particular in mind − she just
wanted him to marry somebody else! As far as I’m aware, she never told him
that, but then again discussion was not her strong point. When John was
seventeen, and his brother fourteen, a stranger appeared at the door and asked
to speak to their mother. When John later enquired of his mum who he was, her
explanation consisted more or less of the words, “Oh, that’s Billy. And by the
way, we’re getting married and he’s coming to live here with us.”

She and I were just too different. I was an excitable,
loud, opinionated Jewish girl and she was an unemotional, reserved Presbyterian
whose family motto, as I’ve said, should have been ‘Least said, soonest
mended’. If
I
had a family crest (and I might well commission one with
the money I make from this book− if the Pound Shop takes orders), the
motto would read, ‘Least said,
never
mended’. My trademark
straight-talking got us off to a bad start the first time we met, when she
instructed nineteen-year-old John not to stay out too late. Having a brother
who often disappeared for days at a time, I felt no compunction about reminding
her that “He’s a big boy.” Talk about marking your territory!

Anyway, all that was behind us now. Now we were bonding
over Lila’s sexuality, this promised to be the start of a new era. We could
stay up late into the night sharing our deepest and darkest secrets. I might
even get to the bottom of why she had distanced herself so much from Lila. I
wasn’t convinced it was because she was gay, although that would have been the
obvious answer. Truthfully, I think it was more likely to be because Lila was
training to be a doctor. John’s mum had always had an unspoken yet obvious air
of ‘I’m working class and proud of it’. One of her biggest compliments was to
say of someone, “He (she) is so down to earth: just an ordinary person, like
us.” She possibly felt that Lila was going above herself (and the family) by
becoming a doctor. Whether she also felt Lila was ‘going above herself’ by
being a lesbian, we’ll never know and, sadly, in her later years, ill health
made any chance of their reconciliation impossible.

“I have given up reading books. I
find it takes my mind off myself.” - Oscar Levant

As a child, Lila had absolutely no interest in dolls.
Maybe that should have been my first clue that she was a lesbian. I’m joking,
but the only memory I possess of Lila clutching a doll is in a photo. It was
taken by a neighbour who thought it would look cute. It’s unclear whether she’s
hugging it or trying to behead it. Given that, I’m glad she wasn’t
interested in holding her baby brother.

The only dolls Lila ever actually owned were two
cheap Barbie imitations that came as a naked, hard plastic, eerily
staring pair. Lila tore open the package, promptly named one doll ‘white
face’ and its partner ‘coloured face’ and instantly relegated them to her
toy box. They never saw the light of day again. Both dolls had beige faces,
although one was a little darker beige than the other. She couldn’t be
bothered (and refused) to dignify them by giving them names, but
felt obliged to differentiate them somehow− so she went for a scientific
classification and, duty executed, promptly ignored them.

I couldn’t understand it. I’d loved dolls when I was a
child. One of my earliest memories is of dragging my mum to my best friend Lana
Banana’s house every day, just so I could stroke and cuddle her one-armed,
one-eyed, soft-skinned doll. (Most of the dolls in those days were made of hard
plastic, or cloth with ceramic faces.)

Of course lots of girls don’t like dolls, but aren’t they
usually tomboy types who prefer to play with their brothers’ cars, and climb
trees? Other than the ‘Who Cares about Sex?’ game, which she claims was mainly
to entertain Lee, Lila did neither of these things. Her friend Julia had given
her a helping hand to get into that almond tree. The opportunity of pelting her
brother, Lee, with almonds was obviously too tempting to resist. Other than
that, Lila was a physically timid child, with absolutely no desire to improve
her skills. Amazingly, adult Lila now rates hiking and white water rafting
among her favourite holiday activities.

Although she didn’t like dolls, Lila did own a large
selection of soft animal toys that had very clear and individual personalities.
They became known collectively as ‘Grizzle (her first and favourite teddy) and
the Grizzettes’. However, Lila didn’t wrap them in blankets or sing them to
sleep. Dolls’ prams and cots didn’t feature on her Christmas list. Rather, the
toys became props for her storytelling skills. Lila created jobs and
relationships for each one. Miss Piggy owned a beauty salon; Glow Worm ran a
flying school. (Strangely she wasn’t very good at coming up with creative
names.) Some toys were married, and some divorced. Apparently she’d always
suspected that Grizzle was gay, but in these days he hadn’t ‘come out’. Not in
our hearing, anyway.

Every Sunday morning in our sunny Spanish sitting room,
Lila would line up the toys on the sofa and entertain a rapt Lee with the
latest instalment of their wonderfully detailed adventures.  Occasionally,
Lee’s own soft toys were allowed to join in: Dogger
⁸
, named for his
favourite book about a dog, and Mr Disgusting, a giant toy gorilla, so named
because he could stick his finger up his nose. Luxuriating in the rare pleasure
of a long-lie, we too were captivated and enthralled by the stories unfolding
from the nearby room. Lila was also an avid writer and began recording and
illustrating her stories almost as soon as she learned how to write, spending
her teenage years authoring full-length books.

One day Lila was inspired to start a new and rather
specialist collection: little rubber gorillas, all of whom shared one
interesting and very specific feature. When squeezed in the tummy, their
penises popped out! At our nearby British holiday resort of Magaluf (think
‘Blackpool in the sun’), the ‘Penis Gorillas’ −as Lila so vocally and
anatomically correctly named them− were the ‘must have’ tsatskeh* of the
season. It was inevitable that she would happen upon them eventually, as
‘tsatskeh hunting’ was a favourite pastime for both her and Lee and she had
quickly exhausted all the innocuous items on the shelves.

Lila was fascinated and delighted by the ‘Penis Gorillas’.
They were just so cute, so entertaining. What could a parent do? I wonder what
my dad’s reaction would have been if I’d chosen one of them in Woolworths for
my farmyard collection when I was Lila’s age! At first glance they appeared
perfectly innocent, lined up on her bedroom shelf, arms akimbo, knowing grins on
their slightly sleazy faces. Hopefully there wasn’t any deeper psychological
issue behind her choice of collectables. Had she lopped off the penises and
made a collection of
them,
I would have been worried! As it
was, it seemed like a relatively harmless collection for a nine-year-old girl
to own, although we dreaded it when she invited unsuspecting visitors to see
her bedroom. “I like your little gorilla collection. You have quite a lot of
them, don’t you?” the unsuspecting visitor would typically remark.

Encouraged by this, a grinning Lila would pluck one from
the shelf and press its tummy. “Yes. And look what they can do!”

Lila had a more innocuous collection of the ‘My Little
Pony’ toys – pastel coloured plastic ponies with manes designed for brushing – which
were popular at the time. Lee took great brotherly delight in reducing her to
tears by taunting in a singsong voice, “My Little Pony, skinny and bony.” Apart
from the Grizettes and the ponies, Lila wasn’t interested in toys. (I’m
reluctant to call the Penis Gorillas ‘toys’.) She remained committed to her
first love: books.

Living in Spain for most of her childhood, in those far-off
days before the Internet, it was a challenge to keep up with her insatiable
demand for reading material in English. One of our happiest memories occurred
at our much-frequented second-hand English bookshop. One day the owner took
eight-year-old Lila’s hand and led her, conspiratorially, into the back room,
with us following and intrigued. There was a huge, battered cardboard box in
the corner which Lila was invited to explore. She just stared, mesmerised by
the sheer number of books the huge box held.

I bent down and lifted out a few of the books. They were
all by Enid Blyton, Lila’s favourite author at the time. It turned out to be
full sets of ‘The Famous Five’, almost forty books in all. Lila went very
quiet. She looked at John, and then at me. “Can I really get them
all
?”
she whispered to me. The grin on my face answered her question. I was too
choked up to speak.

Then ‘Anne of Green Gables’
⁹
entered Lila’s
life, a character who she tells me is responsible for her lifelong enthusiasm
for redheads. In the book, Anne, an adopted orphan living in rural Canada, had
a best friend whom she described as a ‘kindred spirit’. Thereafter Lila
cherished a dream of finding her own kindred spirit. But unlike Anne, ‘kindred
spirit’ became Lila’s secret code for a girlfriend, rather than just a friend.
When the book was turned into a film in 1985, John and I watched it along with
Lila, and we all sobbed our way through a full box of tissues. To this day Lila
is still very emotional about films. Often the opening credits are enough to
reduce her to tears.

During Lila and Lee’s childhood years, reading to each of
them in bed every night became a sacred ritual. Being three years apart and of
the opposite sex, they inevitably favoured different books. It added an extra
hour on to the bedtime routine, but I cherished these special times, especially
on cold winter nights, when we often questioned our move back to Scotland.

Lee and Lila were safely tucked up for the night in their
respective beds in their separate rooms, warm and sleepy with their slightly
damp, freshly shampooed hair falling across their pillows. Outside, the rain
pattered softly against the window, while, inside, the muted light from the
bedside lamp cast a comforting glow on the room. I could faintly hear the
gentle hum from the heating boiler in the hall; the quiet, muffled voices
coming from the TV and then the floorboard that always creaked. The crisp click
of the kettle announced that reading hour was almost up and a cup of tea was
imminent. All was right with the world.

As a teacher, it always made me sad that some parents stop
reading to their kids when they become capable of reading by themselves. Both
they and their child miss out on such a mutually enriching experience.

One huge bonus of living in Scotland was having access to
libraries. Our local one became Lila’s favourite haunt. Apparently, she never
found any books overtly featuring lesbian characters during her childhood,
although she always thought that George in Enid Blyton’s ‘Famous Five’ was a
bit suspect. She became obsessed with Noel Streatfield’s ‘Shoes’ collection,
and later Judy Blume’s books. (I loved Judy Blume and read all of her books
avidly to my classes.)  One day, aged around eleven, Lila brought home one of
her books I hadn’t encountered. ‘Forever’ was a very moving and graphic account
of first sex. I flew through to Lila’s room.

 “So what did you think of ‘Forever,’ Lila?”

“I liked it. I thought it was really good.”

It was, actually. Extremely good.

“You realise that the characters in the book were
seventeen, and that these issues (I had to stop myself from saying, ‘the other
thing’) won’t affect you for at least another seven or eight years?’

Lila rolled her eyes. “Yes, mum. I know. I’m not stupid.”

Little did I know that that particular brand of ‘other
thing’ would
never
affect her!

*
Tsatskeh: Yiddish, (cheap) trinket or play-thing