People may have been excused for thinking that she meant he was slightly odd. A little unusual. You know, a funny little guy. Anyone who may have overheard her, the nice thirty something woman in her smart dress with matching shoes and bag, may have thought that she was being quite proper in her description, with her use of language.
I knew she wasn't.
She picked up the fine white china plate, from the crisp white tablecloth, with its small pastries and tarts, she offered it to me.
"If you know what I mean," she said. And there was that smile again. Sliding back into character. "Cup cake?" She raised her eyebrows as if in question. She looked down at the plate in her hand and then back at me and tilted her head as she pushed the plate in my direction.
I knew what she meant.
"Um... yes, thank you."
I didn't know what to say? I wanted to challenge her, reprimand her, if you like, but, somehow, she just moved on, as though nothing of any great importance had just been said.
I couldn’t help myself. "What do you mean by that?" I asked.
Her eyes widened. "Do you need a refill?"
"Oh... um." I looked down at my teacup, so did she. It was more than half full.
"Oh, right’o." She looked back up at me, now with the slightest sense of urgency on her face. "When you do then, Ms Till is manning the tea pots, over by the table by the window." She pointed with her right hand. "Okay?"
"Okay."
She took a step back and swept me along with a sweep of her left hand. She gave the deluded self assured smile of a Christian, or a conservative politician, on higher moral ground, with no need of any explanations. Then she looked away.
"Marnie," she said over my left shoulder, with all the gush and enthusiasm of a talk show hostess.
She didn't mean he was slightly odd, or even a little unusual, she meant he was small of stature and gay. She didn't mean it as a cheerful description, she meant it in the most derogatory way possibly, with her “news reader” English and her sickly sweet tone. She meant it as a put down, in that tone that, she is sure that we all think, is scented with lavender.
Or, at least, she meant it from a superior position, a position of normality, that straight people just naturally think they assume.
You see, I had challenged her, had pushed the point. I asked her about the artist's background, what made him who he is, questions she didn't want to hear.
The gallery was one of those white washed suburban establishments with everything in its place and a place for everything. White was the theme; maybe it was meant to infer purity, I think it radiated efficiency.
“So, what do you call this one?”
She cleared her throat. “Two young men playing leap frog.”
Was she delusional, or did she know exactly what she was doing?
The middle class may have accepted queers as a part of the vernacular, but they certainly didn’t want them hanging on their walls.
Nowhere in the glossy broacher did it mention the artist’s gay leanings.
“And the two men under the pier?”
“Fishermen.”
“Fishermen?”
“That’s what we are calling them in this exhibition.”
“Do many people fish at night?”
She looked at me with contempt. I wasn’t so much as raining on her parade, as shitting all over it.
“So, the artist’s background?"
“He’s Melbourne art school.”
“His orientation?”
“Modernist.”
I laughed, she couldn’t be serious. “No, I meant…”
“His work doesn’t allow for him to be married?”
“Well, not quite…”
“Quite?”
“I believe he is…”
“I don’t.”
“I see.”
“Are you expecting many people?”
“Yes. This young man will be very popular, I am predicting.”
“Family values?”
“It will be when I’m through with him.” She gritted her teeth noticeably.
“So how would you describe him?”
“Urbane.”
“Really?”
“I’d ask you not to mention…” She looked at me as though our unspoken truth would fill in the silence.
“Mention?”
She nodded her head as if in conspiratorial agreement. “Mention…”
I widened my eyes, I could feel it, I couldn’t help it.
She widened hers, I can’t speak for why.
We looked like two different rabbits with two different head lights.
“Mention what?”
"Any proclivities... beyond art."
"I see."
"I am pleased that you see," she said. "Is that all?"
"All." I laughed. "It is everything..."
"Wonderful." She turned on her heel and walked away.
