Girl Woman Other Page 2
instead he’s President for Life of our family
he doesn’t know I’m a dyke, are you kidding? Mum told me not to tell him, it was hard enough telling her, she said she suspected when pencil skirts and curly perms were all the rage and I started wearing men’s Levis
she’s sure it’s a phase, which I’ll throw back at her when I’m forty
Dad has no time for ‘the fairies’ and laughs at all the homophobic jokes comedians make on telly every Saturday night when they’re not insulting their mother-in-law or black people
Amma spoke about going to her first black women’s group in Brixton in her last year at school, she’d seen a flyer at her local library
the woman who opened the door, Elaine, sported a perfect halo of an afro and her smooth limbs were clad tightly in light blue denim jeans and tight denim shirt
Amma wanted her on sight, followed her into the main room where women sat on sofas, chairs, cushions, cross-legged on the floor, drinking cups of coffee and cider
she nervously accepted cigarettes as they were passed around, sat on the floor leaning against a cat-mauled tweedy armchair, feeling Elaine’s warm leg against her arm
she listened as they debated what it meant to be a black woman
what it meant to be a feminist when white feminist organizations made them feel unwelcome
how it felt when people called them nigger, or racist thugs beat them up
what it was like when white men opened doors or gave up their seats on public transport for white women (which was sexist), but not for them (which was racist)
Amma could relate to their experiences, began to join in with the refrains of, we hear you, sister, we’ve all been there, sister
it felt like she was coming in from the cold
at the end of her first evening, the other women said their goodbyes and Amma offered to stay behind to wash up the cups and ashtrays with Elaine
they made out on one of the bumpy sofas in the glow of the streetlight to the accompaniment of police sirens haring by
it was the closest she’d come to making love to herself
it was another coming home
the next week when she went to the meeting
Elaine was canoodling with another woman
and blanked her completely
she never went again
Amma and Dominique stayed until they were turfed out, had worked their way through numerous glasses of red wine
they decided they needed to start their own theatre company to have careers as actors, because neither was prepared to betray their politics to find jobs
or shut their mouths to keep them
it seemed the obvious way forward
they scribbled ideas for names on hard toilet paper snaffled from the loo
Bush Women Theatre Company best captured their intentions
they would be a voice in theatre where there was silence
black and Asian women’s stories would get out there
they would create theatre on their own terms
it became the company’s motto
On Our Own Terms
or Not At All.
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Living rooms became rehearsal spaces, old bangers transported props, costumes came from second-hand shops, sets were extracted from junk yards, they called on mates to help out, everyone learning on the job, ad hoc, throwing their lot in together
they wrote grant applications on old typewriters with missing keys, budgets felt as alien to Amma as quantum physics, she balked at becoming trapped behind a desk
she upset Dominique when she arrived for admin sessions late and left early claiming headaches or PMT
they rowed when she walked into a stationery shop and ran straight out again claiming it had brought on a panic attack
she had a go at Dominique when she didn’t deliver the script she’d promised to write but was out late night clubbing instead, or forgot her lines mid-show
six months after its inception, they were constantly at loggerheads
they’d hit it off as friends, only to find they couldn’t work together
Amma called a make-or-break meeting at hers
they sat down with wine and a Chinese takeaway and Dominique admitted she got more pleasure setting up tours for the company than putting herself in front of an audience, and preferred being herself to pretending to be other people
Amma admitted she loved writing, hated admin and was she really any good as an actor? she did anger brilliantly – which was the extent of her range
Dominique became the company manager, Amma the artistic director
they employed actresses, directors, designers, stage crews, set up national tours that lasted months
their plays, The Importance of Being Female, FGM: The Musical, Dis-arranged Marriage, Cunning Stunts, were performed in community centres, libraries, fringe theatres, at women’s festivals and conferences
they leafleted outside venues as audiences left and arrived, illegally plastered posters on to billboards in the dead of night
they started getting reviews in the alternative media, and even produced a monthly Bush Women samizdat
but due to pathetically poor sales and, to be honest, pathetically poor writing, it lasted for two issues after its grand launch one summer’s evening at Sisterwrite
where a group of women rolled up to enjoy the free plonk and spill out on to the pavement to light up and chat each other up
Amma supplemented her income working in a burger bar at Piccadilly Circus
where she sold hamburgers made of reconstituted cardboard topped with rehydrated onions and rubbery cheese
all of which she also ate for free in her breaks – which gave her spots
the orange nylon suit and hat she wore meant customers saw her as a uniformed servant to do their bidding
and not her wonderful, artistic, highly individualistic and rebellious self
she slipped free crusty pies filled with apple-flavoured lumps of sugar to the runaway rent boys she befriended who operated around the station
with no idea that in years to come she’d be attending their funerals
they didn’t realize unprotected sex meant a dance with death
nobody did
home was a derelict factory in Deptford with concrete walls, a collapsing ceiling and a community of rats that defeated all attempts at extermination
thereafter she moved into a series of similarly squalid squats until she found herself living in the most desirable squat in the whole of London, a Soviet-sized former office block at the back of King’s Cross
she was lucky enough to be one of the first to hear of it before it filled up
and stayed upstairs when bailiffs set a hydraulic excavator at the main door
which triggered violent countermeasures and prison sentences for the head-bangers who thought a bailiff down deserved a good kicking
they called it the Battle of King’s Cross
the building was thereafter known as the Republic of Freedomia
they were lucky, too, because the owner of the property, a certain Jack Staniforth, living tax-free in Monte Carlo, loaded from the profits of his family’s business in Sheffield cutlery, turned out to be sympathetic to their cause once news reached him from his estate holding company
he’d fought for the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War
and a bad-investment of a building in one of London’s seediest districts was a forgettable footnote to his accounts
if they looked after the place, he wrote
they could stay for free
they stopped the illegal tapping of electricity and opened an account with the London Electricity Board
likewise with the gas, hitherto powered by a single fifty pence piece jammed into a meter
they needed to set up a management system and gathered one Saturday morning in the lobby to thrash it out
the Marxists demanded they set up a Central Committee of the Wor
kers’ Republic of Freedomia, which was a bit rich, Amma thought, seeing as most of them had taken ‘a principled stand against the running dogs of capitalism’ as an excuse to not work
the hippies suggested they form a commune and share everything, but they were so chilled and laid back, everybody talked over them
the environmentalists wanted to ban aerosols, plastic bags and deodorant, which turned everyone against them, even the punks who weren’t exactly known for smelling minty
the vegetarians demanded a non-meat policy, the vegans wanted it extended to non-dairy, the macrobiotics suggested everyone eat steamed white cabbage for breakfast
the Rastas wanted cannabis legalized, and a reserved plot on the land out back for their Nyabinghi gatherings
the Hari Krishnas wanted everyone to join them that very afternoon banging drums down Oxford Street
the punks wanted permission to play shouty music and were duly shouted down
the gay guys wanted anti-homophobic legislation enshrined into the building’s constitution, to which everyone replied, what constitution?
the radical feminists wanted women-only quarters, self-governed by a co-op
the lesbian radical feminists wanted their own quarters away from the non-lesbian radical feminists, also self-governed by a co-op
the black radical lesbian feminists wanted the same except with the condition that no whiteys of any gender were allowed inside
the anarchists walked out because any form of governance was a betrayal of everything they believed in
Amma preferred running solo, and mixing with others who didn’t try to impose their will on anyone else
in the end a straightforward rotating management committee was formed with various rules against drug-dealing, sexual harassment and voting Tory
the plot out back became a communal space featuring scrap metal sculptures
courtesy of the artists
Amma managed to lay claim to a typing pool so large she could jog around it
with its own private toilet and sink that she kept blissfully clean and suffused with floral scents
she coated the walls and ceiling with a striking blood-red paint, ripped up the corporate-grey carpet, threw a few raffia mats on the wooden floor, installed a second-hand cooker, fridge, bean bags, a futon, and a bath reclaimed from a junk yard
her room was big enough for parties and big enough for people to crash
the disco beats of Donna Summer, Sister Sledge, Minnie Riperton and Chaka Khan swirling on vinyl got her parties going
Roberta, Sarah, Edith, Etta and Mathilde Santing were the soundtracks to her end of night seductions
behind the eighteenth-century black lacquer Chinese screen, rescued from a skip outside the old Chinese Embassy
she worked her way through many of the women of Freedomia
she wanted one-night stands, most wanted more than that
it got to the point where she dreaded passing her former conquests in the corridors, like Maryse, a translator from Guadeloupe
if she wasn’t knocking on Amma’s door in the middle of the night begging to be let in, she was lurking outside it to harass whoever was getting what she wanted
this progressed to name-calling from her window whenever she saw Amma approach the building, all of it coming to a head when she tipped a bucket of vegetable peel over Amma one day as she passed beneath her window
infuriating both the environmentalists and the management committee who took it upon themselves to write to Amma that she ‘stop shitting on her own doorstep’
Amma wrote back how it was interesting that quickly people turned into totalitarian fascists once they’d been given a little power
but she’d learned her lesson and wasn’t short of attention; groupies queued up for Amma and Dominique as the main players of Bush Women Theatre
everyone from baby dykes in their late teens to women who could be their mothers
Amma didn’t discriminate, she bragged to her friends that her tastes were truly egalitarian as they traversed culture, class, creed, race, religion and generation
which, happily, gave her a bigger playing field than most
(she kept her predilection for big tits quiet because it was un-feminist to isolate body parts for sexual objectification)
Dominique was more selective and monogamous, serially so, she went for actresses, usually blonde, whose microscopic talent was overshadowed by their macroscopic beauty
or models whose looks were their talent
women-only bars were their hangouts
Fallen Angel, Rackets, the Bell, the Drill Hall Theatre bar on a Monday where the lesbianarati hung out, and Pearl’s shebeen in Brixton on a Friday night run by Pearl, a middle-aged Jamaican woman who stripped her basement of furniture, set up a sound system and charged at the door
Amma experienced commitment to one person as imprisonment, she hadn’t left home for a life of freedom and adventure to end up chained to another person’s desires
if she slept with a woman more than two or three times, they usually went from attractively independent to increasingly needy
within the space of a week
she’d become their sole source of happiness as they moved to assert their authority over her autonomy, by any means necessary
sulks, tears, accusations of selfishness and heartlessness
Amma learnt to head all women off, to state her intentions upfront, to never sleep with the same person twice, or pushing it, thrice
even when she wanted to
sex was a simple, harmless, human pleasure and until her late thirties she got a lot of it
how many were there? one hundred, another fifty? surely not more than that?
a couple of friends suggested she try therapy to help her settle down, she replied she was practically a virgin compared to male rock stars who boasted conquests of thousands and were admired for it
did anyone tell them to go and get psychoanalysed?
unfortunately one or two of her earlier conquests have been harassing her on social media of late where the past is just waiting to smack you in the face
like the woman who posted that Amma had been her first when they slept together thirty-five years ago and had been so trashed she vomited all over her
it was so traumatic I never got over it, she wailed
or the woman who chased her up Regent Street shouting at her for not returning her calls from around the same time
who do you think you are, you pretentious show-off theatre luvvie? you’re nothing, that’s what you are, nothing
you must be off your meds, love, Amma shouted back, before escaping into the subterranean warren of Topshop
Amma long ago lost interest in bed-hopping; over time she began to crave the intimacy that comes from being emotionally, although not exclusively, close to another person
non-monogamous relationships are her thing, or is it called polyamory now? as Yazz describes it, which as far as she can tell is non-monogamy in all but name, child
there’s Dolores, a graphic designer based in Brighton, and Jackie, an occupational therapist in Highgate
they’ve been in the picture seven and three years respectively and are both independent women who have full lives (and children) outside of their relationship with her
they’re not clingy or needy or jealous or possessive, and they actually like each other so yes, sometimes they indulge in a little ménage à trois
upon occasion
(Yazz would be horrified if she knew this)
the middle-aged Amma sometimes feels nostalgic for her younger days, remembers the only time she and Dominique went on a pilgrimage to the legendary Gateways
hidden down a Chelsea basement in the last years of its fifty-year existence
it was almost empty, two middle-aged women stood at the bar wearing men’s haircuts and suits and looking as if they’d walked straight out of the pages of The Well of Loneliness
the dance floor was dim
ly lit, and two very old and very small women, one in a black suit, the other in a forties-style dress, danced cheek-to-cheek to Dusty Springfield singing ‘The Look of Love’
and there wasn’t even a glittery disco ball spinning from the middle of the ceiling, sprinkling stardust on to them.
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Amma throws her coffee in a bin and walks directly towards the theatre, past the concrete skateboarding area emblazoned with graffiti
it’s way too early for the youngsters to begin their death-defying leaps and twists without helmets or protective knee pads
the young, who are so fearless
like Yazz, who goes out cycling without a helmet
who storms off when her mother tells her that wearing a helmet might be the difference between
a/ getting a headache
b/ learning to talk again
she enters the stage door, greets the security guard, Bob, who wishes her well for tonight, makes her way through the corridors and up the stairs and eventually on to the cavernous stage
she looks out at the empty, auditory wilderness of the fan-shaped auditorium, modelled on the Greek amphitheatres that ensured everyone in the audience had an uninterrupted view of the action
over a thousand people will fill the seats this very evening
so many people gathered to see her production is quite unbelievable
the entire run almost sold out before a single review has been filed
how’s that for demand for something quite different?
The Last Amazon of Dahomey, written and directed by Amma Bonsu
where in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries women warriors served the king
women who lived in the king’s compound and were supplied with food and female slaves
who left the palace preceded by a slave girl ringing a bell warning men to look away or be killed
who became the palace guard because men couldn’t be trusted not to chop off the king’s head or castrate him with a cutlass while he slept
who were trained to climb naked over thorny acacia branches to toughen up
who were sent into the hazardous forest for nine days to survive on their own
who were crack shots with muskets and could behead and disembowel their enemies with ease