Jane looked around at her partner, Jo Mills as they readied themselves to go out on a Satuirday night but this time was different. For the younger woman, this was a step into the unknown as this time, they weren't heading off to Chix but were honouring their promise to childmind Rose while Nikki and Helen were going in their place. Quite frankly, Jane felt nervous as nothing in her life's experiences had really prepared herself for this expeerience. She had spent years of being footloose and fancy free around London's nightspots, sandwiching this between her hours as a hardworking nurse at st. Mary's hospital. Over the last seven years, she'd slipped into a lifestyle of domesticity that she originally hadn't know she'd got to want. She'd found unexpected advantages, especially as Jo Mills had mellowed out as she'd drifted into discovering a sense of peace with herself that she'd not known before. It enabled her to reveal unexpected boldness in her personality that Jane had found very much to her taste. Everything was going along swimmingly but her partner's offer to help their friends goout was something she couldn't deny but it made her anxious at the same time.
This evening, Jo was ready dressed iun a trim pair of jeans, flat brown sensible shoes and a white top as a contrast with her typical slinky black going out dress while Jane had finally chosen her outfit that she supposed conformed to a vague idea of respectability.
"I can see you're looking forward to this evening," she observed in as light-hearted a manner she could conjure up.
"I am. It's like riding a bike. You never lose the knack," Jo replied breezily. A sense of returning to her toots had made her temporarily blind to other considerations.
"Like sex eh? You'd better put me down as a virgin in this area of life. Sure, I help babies come into the world but I'm really struggling with the way they get personalities of their own. I really don't know what I'll be like."
Beneath Jane's joking manner of speaking, her partner could see that Jane was really nervous, something she'd never seen before.
"Just relax Jane. I know what I'm doing and children aren't that hard to deal with," Jo answered, attempting to be reassuring. To her surprise, it opened the floodgates to a lot of feelings the younger woman had dammed up..
"I don't really know how how this sounds but here goes. I'm not the kind of woman that goes gooey eyed over children or has any mystical connection with them. I leave that to the mothers.. I deliver babies and I look after them asnd their mothers because that's my job. I really care enough that I want to do my bit to heal people but I can't understand how it is that mothers go through all that stuff."
"I think that you're dividing up women between the maternal kind and those who aren't," Jo said, drawing her partner into her arms knowing that they always talked
better that way."I bet you see the joy on women's faces when their babies are placed in their arms. You don't get to see them when the baby's crying and that same mother is is getting frantic with worry just how in hell she can calm that after babies and children takes a lot of learning. natural mothers don't exist, not in my experience sweetheart," Jo said slowly and gently.
"Thank God for that," Jane said impulsively, the first words that came to her mind."I'm still going to be relying on you a hell of a lot. I know I'm going to be nervous when I see her."
"I wasn't going to suggest anything different darling. We'll go over tonight and see what happens," Jo said reassuringly. Unknown to Jane, she'd done her research and had found from Trisha that Rose Stewart-Wade was a very remarkable child and something told her that Jane would take to her. .
A parallel conversation was running its course several miles away from where Jo and Jane were deliberating.
"Are you sure you don't mind us going out and our friends looking after you," Helen was asking Rose but in reality she was speaking to her inner voice of guilt.
Rose stood with her feet apart, looking square in the eye at Helen, unconsciously borrowing that mannerism off her mother.
"Mother, they're friends of yours. They'll be interesting like your friends always are. Besides, it will be a break for all of us...I mean a holiday for all of us," Rose added helpfully with an adroit last minute shift in emphasis.
"OK, we'll see how things are when they come, check out how we all get on," Nikki said guardedly, having been looking on with interest. She was just as undecided as Helen but something from Jo Mills' manner had prompted her to think that this was feasable. She'd remembered how their offspring had transformed Trisha and Sally-Anne when they'd called round.
"It means that bedtime is as normal. They're coming early well before we're due to set out," Helen finally pronounced as she finally got her head together..
"Yes mother," Rose said meekly. Both women knew that their daughter's hyper-active mind and interest in people could lead her to stay awake way past her bedtime so that she became irritable and crabby the next day. Thwey looked round at each other as they were already washed and dressed in their evening wear. It seemed strange for Helen to be once again wearing her favourite low cut green dress and Nikki was wearing her waistcoat, white shirt and best trousers.
"Isn't there something we're supposed to be doing?" wondered Nikki hazily. "Oh yes, our makeup." The two women hazily thought back to the days before Rose had entered their world and remembered the time they'd spent in the search for endless perfection before the mirror. Nowadays, times were different. It was just when they had just finished off their makeup when moment that their front doorbell rang. Now the two of them really were committed to the prospects of going out and enjoying themselves. It felt so strange.
***** .
When Jo presented herself the front door with Jane, she decided that now was the moment of decision- the first few moments of encounter would decide everything. As the front door opened, the two women were momentarily surprised to see a little girl appear through the opening gap and look boldly at them with remarkable self-possession.
"Hello, you must be Rose. I'm Jo Mills and my friend here is Jane Lancaster,"Jo offered, making sure that she wasn't talking over the little girl's head in both senses of the word.
"My mothers are just getting ready so I'll take you through," Rose said with the utmost gravity that made Jo blink. They trailled in after their guide and finally mwet their friends as they came out of their bedroom, Helen having avoided smudging her lipstick by sheer luck as the doorbell rang.
"Wow, you guys look great," exclaimed Jane as she took in their sharply dressed and stunningly finished off selves.
"Well, we just threw it together. I can't believe how long we used to take getting ready," Nikki said self-deprecatingly."You've met Rose already but it'll help for her to get to know you both."
The expression on the little girls spelled out eager assent and they all sat down comfortably.
"Hi, I'm Jane. I've met you before only I don't suppose you'll remember. I'm a nurse at St Mary's Hospital and I helped deliver you when you were born," Jane suddenly found herself blurtring out all of a sudden.
All at once, Rose broke into a big smile and broke into laughter.
"You're really funny. I like that. You're really cool," she finally said. Jane faintly blushed with pleasure as it suddenly mattered that this interesting, unplaceable creature approved of her. It broke the ice.
"Believe it or not Rose, I'm not used to children but I'll learn," she confessed.
"Then you've made a great start," came the prompt reply which made Jane think that this little girl raises the bar pretty high.
"So what sort of things do you like? What interests you?" Jane asked feeling perfectly natural. With great relief, Rose decided that this nice, friendly grownup didn't talk down to her as a child. She started chattering away to Jane, using her hands expressively in a way that was all her own until she suddenly broke off, putting her hand in front of her mouth.
"I'm sorry. I should be talking to both of you. I just get carried away like always," the charming little girl apologised to the increasingly entranced Jo Mills. Gone out of the window were well-meaning questions she'd mentally listed of schoolwork, friends and hobbies. Just let it all come, she reckoned. Finally, Nikki checked her watch, reckoning it was safe and the right time to set off and exchanged glances with Helen.
"Right Rose, we're setting off. You're happy about our friends looking after you?" Helen ventured, more a statement than a question.
"Oh yes, " grinned Rose, nodding her head eagerly, attracted by the novelty of
the situation.
"So I hope we don't get to hear you've got too excitable and kept Jane and Jo up We'll be back after you're asleepand they'll grass on you if there's anything to grass with. You know how it goes," chimed in Nikki after Helen's stern admonition.
"I'll be good. Promise," Rose answered very appealingly with her wide open green eyes. Both women gave her the benefit of the doubt.
"Oh, get going mums," Rose urged slightly cheekily as she saw them still frozen to the spot. Helen laughed lightly and kissed Rose lightly on her cheek, followed by Nikki. They became conscious of the taxi they'd ordered tooting briefly on his horn as they were running late. The last sight the two women caught before they were out the front door was their friends' reassuring smiles. Jo at least had been there before.
"I know you Helen. you're still feeling guilty about going out and supposedly abandoning our daughter even if there's a hundred reasons to think otherwise," broke in Nikki's quiet tones as they sat in the baqck seat of the taxi and letting it sweep them onwards out on the town.
"You can be annoying when you're right," retorted Helen, clearly pretending to be annoyed.
"Be prepared for our daughter debriefing us tomorrow. You know the way that she misses nothing. We've brought her up to tell the truth and there's no point kidding her that we haven't been miserable all evening," Nikki replied laconically as the street light cast a momentary illumination of the profile of her face. This was answer enough, thought the far-sighted Helen.
"So we're permitted to hold hands and kiss while we're in the taxi? We haven't done it for years," grinned a suddenly perky Helen impishly, looking proudly at their sleek appearance. A clasp of her left hand and a pair of soft lips laid on her own was sufficient answer and she woke up to the sight of her lover's inimitable soft brown eyes and full lips. She reached out for Nikki, feeling confident that they might improve a bit on the good old days as going out meant more to them this time around.
When the two women moved through the front door of Chix, passed through admission and along the corridor and into the dance area, they were overwhelmed by the explosion of sights and sounds. The soft pulsing music and garishly flashing coloured lights burst through the darkness, revealing split second visions of swaying was all too much yet it conjured up some old forgotten dream that had haunted the back alleys of their minds. These were transformed into waking life with almost unbearable intensity. Yet Nikki remembered hazily that she and Trisha had created this wonderland in another incarnation ago into which Helen had first ventured a lifetime ago or so the smaller woman slowly realised. It was their heritage, they mouthed to themselves as smiles of pleasure spread over their faces so they belonged here.
"Hey you guys. how lovely to see you both again." called out a familiar voice from out of the brief hole in the wall to wall music. It was Trisha, followed by a grinning Sally-Annewho materialised from out of the darkness and into the multishaded light. They advanced towards them in apparent slow motion, George and Alice and Beth and Karen trailing in their wake as golden visions of sheer perfection.
The two women affectionately kissed their friends and found themselves the centre of a crowd. Hey, how good it felt to be coming home, they thought, as theitr senses started to surrender to the familiar rhythms.
"What do you want to do first, join the dance or talk upstairs?" Sally Anne asked after the initial excited chattering had subsided a bit. She asked with an expansive welcoming geasture more in her voice than in her hand movements. Tears pricked in the eyes of the two women who felt that they werre at the heart of things. They were welcome, they were wanted.
"We'd like to dance for a bit to prove we're not too rusty and then we'll catch up with conversations we've missed if that's all right with everyone," Nikki answered, automatically including everyone with their wishes and pitching up her voice to club level sounds.
With a grin, Karen gently boogied her way onto the dance floor, her right hand trailing
back and clasping Beth's. A magnetic compulsion drew the others onto the dance floor and, all at once, Helen was fascinated by her lover's cool dance moves and was loving the taller woman all over again. Through Nikki's eyes, Helen presented a curvacious vision of loveliness whose sensuous moved were only a move away from the passionate woman of their bedtime.
Many hours later, they were making a move back onto the dance floor from the VIP room where they'd run a helter skelter ride down flashing waterfalls of conversations with old friends, laughing joking and fondly reminiscing. They'd come a long way from priovate discussions about child development and school matters. It felt good to banish these concerns to the extremities of their subconscious thoughts for one night, to have unashamed fun on their own and have time for their own needs and desires. As Karen and Jo followed them down the stairs, they exchanged benevolent glances relating to their friends, having been there before.
"Can I have the pleasuire of the next dance with you darling?" Nikki asked of her lover with a kiss on her hand with a gentle smile before clasping her well formed hand again.
"Of course sweetheart. You and me forever," murmured Helen, raising her outstretched arms and ready to be embraced for a slow dance. A shiver of excitement ran through both women's systems as they moved up close, both of them now slightly drunk. Ever since they'd first stepped into this magic realm, they'd become much more phytsically affectionate with each other than they'd been accustomed. They'd not crossed an invisible line up to which Rose would be comfortable with the normality of two mothers. It was the price they'd had to pay. Right now, they'd burst through these constraints just for the night in a way that made their senses come alive. Helen tucked her head into the certain shelter of the taller woman's shoulder and the cotton candy music. Everything was perfect as they swayed to the music, their arms wrapped around each other. When they finally kissed each other, long and deep, they felt silent applause reach out to them.
Back at their home, Jane was pleasantly surprised how meek and obedient Rose was when they put her to bed at the appointed hour after hearing their friends' 'd had a pleasant evening as Rose chatted in a way that gained their genuine interest.
"That was easier than I expected," commented Jane as they tiptoed away.
"That's Rose's way of putting in a bid for us to be regular childminders," laughed Jo knowingly.
They looked around the living room which was restful and serene thanks to the subdued lighting and warm colouring. They knew their friends were likely to be out for a good long while letting their hair down after such a long absence from Chix. Jane looked to her partner what to do next depending on how solid a sleeper the little girl was.
"They said we could feel freeto put on the TV or play a CD as long as it wasn't Led Zeppelin or something like that," suggested Jane.
The other woman's gaze was irresistably drawn to the extensive and varied CD collection and finally zeroed in on a CD of soft, beguiling music that she knew Jane liked. In the meantime, Jane poured out two glasses of wine following their friends' generous invitation.
"We're finally settled down darling," Jo murmured contentedly, putting her feet up. Her drink was in one hand and her other arm was around her partner's shoulder. They were tired, the light were soft and low and the music was hypnotic. Soon, their eyelids drooped down on their cheeks and they slid into a pleasant, never never land, all of their own.
The mysterious sounds light footsteps paced into the hall in the dreamstates of the two sleeping women. They weren't sure if they were real or not.
Nikki and Helen had opened their front door with exaggerated care as they wobbled slightly from the taxi up the path to the front door, arms wrapped round each other. Once inside, they slipped off their shoes in the darkness and teetered their way down the hall, bottling up attacks of the giggles. Finally, they squinted at the sight of their two friends in the dlow of the sidelights, fast asleep and wondered what to do next. as suppressed laughter leaked through their guard, their two friends waking dreams morphed into actuality as flickering eyelids let in spasms of light and dark. Finally, they focussed on two women, leaning against the vertical perspecxtive at an angle and saw that party spirits slopped over the edges of Helen and Nikki's consciousness even while they tried to act normally.
"Hey you guys, you've obviously had a night out on the town," yawned Jane as she hazily figured out their friends' appearannce out of nowhere."Do we feel wrecked?"
Helen flopped down on the armchair on Nikki's lap. Her mind wanted to organise stuff but the spirit was flagging. Finally, she got her mind to speak sense.
"Do you really want to go home this time of night? You can stop here if you want spare cushions to make up a bed, I think."
Jo finally pulled herself together,extinguished the red light of the CD player and put the CD back in its case. The temptation was irresistable. Besides, Rose was sure to love their company the next morning. Everything felt right.