Occam's Razor; and Other Pertinent Maxims for the Practising Bisexual
"Occam's Razor: Also: Ockham's razor
Noun, mid-19th century. The principle (attributed to William of Occam, or Ockham) that in explaining a thing, no more assumptions should be made than are necessary."
~ The Oxford English Dictionary.
ONE
Of course, the (entirely incorrect, needless to say. Needless to even think it. Why was she even thinking it?) assumption had been made by others before. Serena had heard it said about her, behind her back and to her face too, and laughed it off, every time. It just went to show how people's minds worked, the baseness that they attributed to everything, and everyone, all of the time.
So she was a tough, no-nonsense, successful career woman, now divorced and no steady man in her life, true enough. But that wasn't so unusual, was it, in the twenty-first century? The failure of the marriage was, clearly, a consequence Serena could lay firmly at the philandering Edward's door. She hadn't strayed, had she? (Unlike Bernie Wolfe. With a woman. In the desert). No, it had all been her ex-husband in that department. Perhaps Edward had mused aloud about her warmness with others (there was nothing particularly intimate about helping a colleague who had locked up their back!) and coldness towards him; but it took two to make a marriage, and just one to break it (was it the intimacy of war? Living in close quarters, was that it? How had it started?), and he was the one who had taken what they had and torn it apart, not her.
Fine, so there had not been, since Edward, any long-term male companion to speak of (lots of women find men a bit boring), but was it her fault if the likes of the Robbies of this world weren't up to snuff? (of course she had been disappointed when Robbie had turned out to be a rotter. How could one mistake such a feeling for relief!) Ask any woman her age, any age: a good man was hard to find (everyone knew this), and harder still to keep hold of (truisms, truisms, everywhere!). People were always looking for gossip and scandal and, where none was to be found, inventing it ("you cheated on your husband with a woman!", the girl had shouted; and the absurdity of it, surely a ludicrous falsehood, and then Serena had seen Bernie's face, and knew at once it was true. A part of her knew it even earlier. Which part, Serena?) Particularly true of those who worked in hospitals, for some reason; the NHS practically ran on a rumour mill (were they already talking, someone, somewhere, about the two of them, wrapped up in one another on the theatre floor?). But really, Serena had told herself, for quite some time, not that long, but you know, just something of a time (really not that long. A perfectly sensible length of time. As long as she had known Bernie? More recently? Longer ago?), really it just demonstrated the inherent danger in making assumptions. Because, after all, the truth was far more mundane, wasn't it?
The men Serena met were all somewhat hopeless. (And the women, Serena?) None, after all, quite measured up; were quite worth the leap of sacrificing her independence (she hadn't chosen solitude. It had been foisted upon her. Exhibit A, Edward: philanderer. Exhibit B, Robbie: no backbone. Exhibit C, Bernie Wolfe: taking so bloody long to make a move… Oh god). For a time, it was true, she had idly thought of Ric on quiet evenings alone with a bottle of Shiraz, but in truth, there was nothing much there other than a mutual respect ("we are equals", Serena had said, and meant it. And later, wondering aloud if Bernie had any real appreciation for her. Had she really said that?) No real chemistry with him (which is sometimes there, right from the very first moment someone says the word "cactus"). There was nothing particularly lesbian was there, about a woman her age, with a failed marriage behind her, serious responsibilities at work and at home, determining that the men around her were not worth taking up, and she simply preferred her own company? (Nothing lesbian about that. No. The thoughts you have at 2am after a bottle of Shiraz and your fingers hover over Bernie's number in your phone, and then over other places…Well.) And, yes, fine, true enough, Serena was capable of enjoying the company, every now and then, at perfectly reasonable and acceptable intervals, of close female friends (one in particular). That was all perfectly normal! Serena was perfectly entitled to make that decision, as a rational human being. A simple, uncomplicated, really quite boring lifestyle choice.
By lifestyle choice, of course, she meant the choice to go to work (see Bernie), come home (think about Bernie), take care of Jason (Bernie really was great with him, they had such a rapport) and leave things there (no more glasses of Shiraz. No more thinking about Bernie Wolfe. It has been less than a day since our last Bernie-fantasising incident). That was a lifestyle, was it not? If not quite a life. Even if, as she told Bernie as they talked freely over an open chest cavity, all of us were really lonely after all.
That had, of course, just been a turn of phrase! Near-philosophical really. We come into this world alone and leave it on similar terms, of course, and hospitals were like ships (where was this going? Bernie was in the army, not the navy. Gosh, was there a uniform?) sailing around in the dark waters at each edge of the world, between life extant and extinct, birth and death, the beginning and the end, occasionally hitting stormy weather (and so much better to ride out a storm with someone you trusted and could reply upon, batten down the hatches, settle in for the ride. Cling onto.) Serena hadn't meant, had she, when she spoke about loneliness, to clumsily allude to that gnawing need to touch others, to that urge to touch Bernie Wolfe (of all people!), to that physical ache at her very heart and core that made her hold Bernie's gaze a few seconds longer than she really ought (it doesn't bear thinking about. Don't) to that hope every night that Bernie would ask her for that drink at Albie's (she had just lit the touch paper), would perhaps ask her to do other things (that would be… nice), to the urge that came upon her a dozen times a day to reach out and put her hands on the trim, strong, good god did she hit the gym every day or what? – exceptionally fit (big macho army medic) woman who –
No. That hadn't been what she had meant at all. She was a dyed in the wool heterosexual, thank you very much! One could be friends, good friends, with a lesbian! – or a bisexual woman, or whatever Bernie was – without anything else going on! To think any other way would be homophobic. And probably heterophobic too.
Serena now tried to recall if Bernie had actively expressed any kind of identity, and considered that she hadn't quite heard her say anything aloud, but then Serena herself had been on a NHS diversity training course, and apparently these days it wasn't so unusual for women, in particular, not to identify any specific way, and in any case what did it really matter, as Bernie was her friend, colleague, equal and co-lead, and whatever she got up to in bed, out of it, whatever, wherever, with whoever was none of Serena's concern –
For a moment, for a sudden, horrid, but entirely genuine moment, she had thought, when she had seen that silly woman in the hospital bed with her stupid (and later revealed to be self-inflicted) injury, and heard the recognition in Bernie's voice, and felt the slight air of mystery and intrigue pervading the scene: the registrar, REALLY? Couldn't Bernie do a little better than this immature, irresponsible slip of a girl? And the rush of relief when it transpired that she was Bernie's son's girlfriend, and never had been with Bernie at all.
To be glad that a friend hadn't settled for less than she deserved, was just the simple concern of one pal for another. It didn't mean she was…
"SERENA CAMPBELL, LESBIAN."