The day after the Pride parade was one of slow lethargic recuperation from the expenditure of intense energy, of getting up late and laying around at home in a state of domestic lassitude. Helen half-heartedly summoned up the energy to head off for the local newsagent and she had the feeling of going back to reality as homely faces queued patiently for service and buying tickets for the vain hopes and impossible dream of the winning the National Lottery. She rifled briefly through the newspapers whose headlines were on a different planet and finally chose the Independent. It was a let down not to see their good friend Beth Pritchard's by line on an article covering Pride on the front page. Instead, there was the same boring political bollockb that all the other newspapers had featured.
"Oh no," she murmured to herself. She ought to have foreseen it, she murrmured to herself. Feeling tired and jaded, she grabbed at the newspaper, hoping that Beth's article would be somewhere in the depths of the paper, bulked up as it was with various supplements. She tottered off home and vowed to read the paper once she'd had a strong coffee and a cigarette to help her concentrate.
Roisin and Cassie were similarly tired the next day but they were cheered up by having made a vital connection. Inspired by the kaleidoscopic mental images of that day, they'd fixed up to go to Chix the following Saturday night with their new friends and childminding arrangements were fixed up on the spot.
After the family struggled its way through the basic necessities of the day, both women couldn't help noticing that Michael had something on his mind. He was friendly and sociable enough but kept giving them sidelong glances as if he were scrutinising them for some strange reason. The more time went on, the more it bacame obvious that someone was going to have to make the first move.
"You don't mind us asking but there's something on your mind. You don't have to talk but it's a lot easier if you do," Cassie asked ever so gently.
It did the trick. He was tired and wasn't in a communicative mood but he now knew enough that stewing on his thoughts didn't help him. He'd been with his mothers and their friends all day so he thought, here goes nothing.
"Mums," Michael suddenly said with an intense questioning look in his eye and clearly thinking about things."You're not saying that when I grow up, I mean more than I am right now, I'm sort of expected to be like the other men on the march and be with other men".
Cassie's first instinct was to burst into laughter at the absurdity of the question but reined herself in at the last minute. Michael was asking a terribly serious question about his identity which may have been lurking around for months if not years and now he had the courage to ask it and be treated seriously. She looked sideways at Roisin who was clearly wrestling with the same conundrum and finally the right words phrased themselves in her mind. She spoke in slow serious tones and looked him in the eyes..
"You're asking a very good question and my thoughts run like this. Roache and I will support you with any partner you care to end up with just so long as you get treated right and you treat that person right. This parade is about men and woman who make choices like Roache and I have. It certainly isn't choice you make, we'll learn to be good mums to help you if you need it. Whatever we don't know, we'll learn."
"Cassie's put it right. we'll both be there for you and Niamh when it's your turn," added Roisin making sure their daughter wasn't neglected.
"That is such a relief," exclaimed Michael as he blew air out of his lungs with sheer relief." You are the best mums ever."
"You make it sound like going for an operation," observed Niamh out of nowhere. This shaft of unconscious wit made the other three burst out in affectionate laughter. Of course the little girl was a few critical years down the line.
"Lets see what's on television together," suggested Cassie. She fancied some mysterious children's film, something nice and innocent for all of them to curl up on the sofa together gto watch.
John Deed had spent the Saturday hard at work previewing the trial papers which had been dropped on him as Judge Jackson, an ambitious young fogey, had gone unexpectedly sick for no clear reason. Muttering to himself, he knew he was up against a tough time limit and he picked up the phone first thing in the morning to put Kristine off.
"John, you have salved my conscience. I've let a tonload of essays pile up that need marking and a lecture to prepare for. If I let myself down spectacularly, I'll never be able to face my students. I was just about to phone you to explain this.
With a huge sigh of relief, John exhaled breath which he hadn't been aware that neervous tension had been holding back. It made him aware that he was less inclined to be on his own than he used to be but this didn't bother him as it once might have done.
"Well, I suppose duty comes before pleasure for both of us from time to time Kristine," he said, a sense of relief filtering through the formality of his words.
"We'll compare notes this evening on the phone and see if you can drag yourself away over to my place," Kristine replied in her light and pleasant tones. This cheered them both up.
Halfway through the day when he broke off for a cup of coffee to clear his head, he phoned up George for a random chat. To his mild surprise, there was only a recorded voice explaining her absence. The same happened when he tried Jo so he ended up leaving a message on George's ansaphone and went back to his studies.
On Sunday morning, he picked up his copy of the Independent that was left for him and the headlines turned him sick to his stomach. He suspected that part of his world was about to tuirn on a hinge and he knew that this was nothing to do with his love stuffed the paper onto the passenger seat as he got into his car to head off to Kristine's flat.
To Beth, that weekend was a mixtute of frenetic activity and bitter disappointment. After her tour of the Pride parade had finished, she'd zoomed back to her office and in an inspired burst of activity, her fingers had flown around her computer keyboard as she rattled off her article straight off the top of her head and, on vetting it for final submission, she had reckoned that she'd put together an inspired piece of writing that concisely covered a lot of territory, both physical and emotional. She had noted with satisfaction that any of a selection of photographs would help bulk up her article. She had zoomed off from the office to meet her friends in Trafalgar Square. Intuition had prompted her to check out the rather nice restaurant that caught her eye. As she pushed her way throiugh the double doors, she had felt as if she were on her last legs. Through the gap, Karen had came into view, her face lighting up with pleasure and her arms spread wide. As she had sunk into her lover's arms to hold and be held tightly, she had reckoned that this was delicious recompense for all her hard slog of the past few hours
When she got hold of her copy of the Independent on Sunday, she stared with sightless eyes at unexpected developments. It was one of life's ironied that she was supposed to be the media savvy professional yet she'd totally overlooked the political news story that had steamrollered everything else aside. She impatiently rifled through the paper and fury boiled up inside her as a drastically cut down version of her original article appeared on Page 12 minus any photograph while journalists whom she had no time for drivelled on pointlessly on an area of life that profoundly bored her. She was more political than most but was not interested in the long running political soap opera.
"The basta\rds. Those frigging sub editors sitting on their fat backsides have cut my article to pieces," Beth shouted angrily, waving the crunched up paper around.
"Hey sweetheart, I know how you feel but don't let it get to you," Karen urged in soothing tones even though her heart sank at the prospect that the front page article was only the start."You've done your best for us. You've really tried. You're our woman on the inside of the media, don't ever forget this."
Karen was the only woman that Beth would accept such well-meaning efforts to calm down as she knew what traumas her partner had gone through in the past. The fair-haired woman drew her into her arms and made shush-shushing sounds into her ear and Beth surrendered to the feeling of being comforted. She knew that Karen was as much annoyed as she was but it was true that the act of trying counted for something. They moved onto the sofa, their favourite place for intimate heart to hearts and embraced each other for a long time before coming to the surface. They would have to move on and upwards.
Since Rose's birthday party, Emma and two other girls had become increasingly close in the same proportion that they became more estranged from their form mates. They decided that they liked each other very much and were huddled up in a corner of the playground after the last lesson that morning and quickly eating the school meal in the barn of the school dining room where they felt themselves overheard all the time. While they were having a good gossip, Rose just happened to let slip the Pride parage she'd been on with Niamh and Michael and their mums. Whern Emma pounced on this, Rose meekly added that they'd been dancing on a float in fancy dress with all their mums friends.
"And you never told us about this? I can't believe it. Tell us more about it," Emma exclaimed, her curiosity, love and annoyance all being aroused by the way her friend's revelation casually slipped out. Rose immediately felt uncomfortable and guilty. She'd assumed that her friends wouldn't have related to this project as they didn't have two mums.
"I didn't think you'd be interested," she said sheepishly after the rest of her experiences had dribbled out in bits and pieces.
"Rose, we know you do the coolest things. You should have given us the chance," Emma pronounced, folding her arms across her chest.
"All right, I should have told you. I'm really sorry. I want to make up for it somehow," she said at last in faltering tones.
The other three girls exchanged glances. The answer was obvious.
"Well, we could have a sleepover at your house. Your mums are lovely and kind and, after all, they know us," Emma answered, rustling up a selection of arguments that could be deployed to Rose's mums.
Rose cheered up straightaway as this idea set her mind whirling away. She knew that her mums wouldn't have any problems with Emma staying over but two more friends involved practical problems. They had more reservations about the disastrous consequences of Rose staying over at Emma's house.
"I'd love it but it could be difficult- I mean all of us," Rose answered slowly and tentatively.
"Come on Roase, you know it's a great idea," urged Denny, a small girl with short fair hair.
"don't pressure Rose," cut in Emma very loyally. She knew her friend better than anyone and could sense her turn the idea over in her mind. She trusted Rose to sort matters out in her own time and fashion.
"Oh no," the other girl complained. She was Donna, a lively girl with naturally curly dark hair and a fresh complexion."It's Matha. It's so not my favourite subject."
The four girls clattered across the school yard. None of them paid the least attention to the fact that Rose had consolidated her wierd reputation in the eyes of the right-thinking crowd and didn't bother that they'd attracted wierdness by association.
On Monday night, Rose flopped herself down in front of the TV as she was so tired. The channel that came up featured a man in a studio talking loudly and confidently but she couldn't understand a word he was saying as he was using all kind of long words. She guessed that he was supposed to be telling everyone what was going on in the world but it puzzled her why he wasn't saying anything about the pride event she'd gone on with her friends. When the man started asking another man all sorts of questions, she couldn't understand the other man either. If she weren't so tired, she would have switched channels long ago.
"Mums, what's thisv programme all about," she asked querulously,.
Nikki came out of the kitchen where she'd been helping with the dinner and took in everything at a glance. The Sunday newspaper that Helen had bought from the newsagent had told her the worst.
"There's going to be what they call a General Election. Several groups of people have different ideas on how we should live. Every five years or less, they ask us who we want to vote for in each town or village and the group that gets the most numbers in most of the towns gets elected," Nikki said carefully, choosing her words with the greatest care.
"But they all sound the same," Rose said with her devastating logic as a man came on the screen from an outside link. His hair was combed back from his forehead and he spoke in what seemed to Rose to be in a superior conceited manner.
"That's true to some extent," Nikki answered with careful deliberation. Oh what a load of shit I'm talking, her inner voice corrected her. She knew that this man was referred to as "hug a hoodie" and was filmed riding his bike to look oh so caring for the environment but she was not deceived by his blandishments. Gut instinct told her that this man was just as dishonest as Fenner eveer was and he wasn't a million miles different in his manner from Helen's ex-partner from years ago, Sean Parr."Correct that Rose. They're all getting way more like each other than ever. It's like choosing between HP baked beans and Heinz baked beans," confessed Nikki with a rush of fierce emotion.
"But they're all men. Wouldn't a woman be better?" questioned Rose as her gaze panned back and forth between one party leader and the other. Both sounded insincere to Rose's critical ears.
"Twenty to thirty years ago, we've had bad experiences of a woman in charge. She passed a law called Section 28 which meant that if your teacher said nice things in class about the way our family lives or Cassie and Roisin's, she or he could be in trouble. They thought that it encouraged other families to live like that."
"But what's so wrong with that?" asked Rose in wide-eyed surprise. She couldn't get her head round the absurdity of such thinking.
"You may well ask Rose. You might think that's a relic of the bad old days but I don't trust them not to do the dirty on us. A leopard doesn't change its spots," continued Nikki
"The trouble is that this lot have undone the damage but they've done a lot of dreadful things in other areas. They've told so many lies for a start," chipped in Helen from the kitchen as she finally set the meal to cook in the oven. She'd been overhearing the political discussion and she couldn't resist making a contribution once she was free to do so.
Rose's curiosity wasn't satisfied as her mums didn't really make sense. a surge of questions came into her mind and out of her mouth.
"Well, where do these parties come from? Can't anybody start a party? I mean you and John Deed talk more sense than those do. Any of you could lead a party," protested Rose volubly.
"That's a very goos question Rose,"Helen said very her eyes started to glaze over. Nikki was similarly stuck for words. Their daughter's questions had taken them aback as they'd never cared for party politics and therefore never confronted the big picture. They'd helped to fight specific injustices to themselves and their friends through the court and got to know the legal fighters for freedom. Before then, they'd fought injustices within the prison system from their different perspectives. They'd taken part in the antiwar movement which was a crusade against the powers of darkness. But politics as a whole? John Deed had spoken scathingly to them of Neil Haughton and seen him from afar as he'd confronted him on a picket line. They'd inferred from this that politicians were morally sleasy and didn't want to get too close to that world for fear of being contaminated. But how could they explain this to their daughter?
"It's difficult to explain Rose. If we thought that politics was fair and honest, we'd throw ourselves into it. The problem is that ordinary women and men are shut out. It's their game and not ours. The only way we can make a dent is to devise ways and means that don't confront them where they're expecting us. It means that you do end up carrying on fighting to be who you are and try and change things indirectly. That's what Pride is all about," Helen said, her words gathering certainty and conviction as words formed themselves from out of her unconscious. Nikki placed one hand round her partner's shoulders, her big brown eyes overflowing with emotion.
Rose said nothing. Her eyes were wide open as she heard and remembered everything. She felt the presence of those two infinitely loving and caring women standing over her and protecting her. In turn, they were conscious that their superbly bright child didn't ask them which way they were going to vote at the General Election.