Sarah Salway - Something Beginning With

See Nostrils, Vendetta, X-rated, Youth

Every time I go out now with the girls, we talk about Sally.

I think that nowadays we spend more time thinking about her than we ever did when she was spending time with us. We wonder if she’s really happy, if she thinks Colin is genuine in his desire for her, what it must be like to have such a one-sided relationship. We agree we only have her best interests at heart.

We are supportive even though Sally doesn’t always deserve it. I know that Miranda hasn’t forgotten the time we were talking about making love and she was explaining the importance of truly caring for the other person and how necessary it was to be treated as if you were someone precious.

‘I could never have inappropriate meaningless sex,’ Miranda said finally. She was so earnest that Sally was the only one round the table who didn’t nod.

‘I could,’ Sally said, staring at the businessman on the next table, and ignoring Miranda’s frown. She left the restaurant with the businessman, and afterwards she wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened. Not even when we begged. She said we wouldn’t approve.

It was so typical of her, but even so, the last thing we all want is for Sally’s relationship not to work out.

Whenever I ring Sally to pass on everyone’s best wishes, she laughs.

‘We’re here waiting for you if things don’t work out,’ I tell her but she says that’s just what she’s worried about.

See Outcast, Vendetta

I told Monica at work that I didn’t go out very much in the evening so she invited me around to her house. I thought it was just going to be the two of us, but it was only when I got there that she told me she was having a sex party.

This is like Tupperware for desperate women although we didn’t do ‘it’; in fact not much of the evening was about actually doing ‘it’. There were just lots and lots of gadgets for sale which simulated doing ‘it’. There were about ten women there, all older than me. Monica’s age. We sat in a circle and passed these gadgets round, sometimes without saying a word. Every so often Monica walked round with a tray of little savoury biscuits smeared with hummus and pâté and filled up our glasses with fizzy sweet wine.

The woman who was organising the party was like a perverted Mary Poppins. Just when I thought it was all finished, she put her hand into an enormous canvas bag and pulled out something else. She made us play games and gave us all silly names. I was Glenda G-Spot, Monica was Wendy Wetdream and the girl sitting next to me was Cathy Come. It was hard to know whether to call each other by our real names or the names on the labels the woman stuck on our chests.

Cathy Come and I got into the final of one game where we had to pass an enormous black dildo under our chins between one another without dropping it. Cathy Come cheated because she kept angling it so it was difficult to get hold of. Mind you, I was quite pleased to come second because although Cathy won the dildo, I got a bottle of an apricot-flavoured sauce, which seemed nicer somehow.

I left when the woman drew out a blow-up man from her bag. One of his legs was stapled up from when a dog had got hold of it, she said. The air kept fizzling out of him, and I don’t like to say where the nozzle was to blow him back up.

See Liqueur Chocolates, Names, Toys

It worries me that all everyone thinks about these days is sex. I asked Sally about this and she told me a story the other day about a friend of hers who is a nurse. The friend’s elderly mother came to stay the night before she was due to have a gynaecological examination in the hospital Sally’s friend works in. The mother was very nervous so she spent a lot of time preparing in Sally’s friend’s bathroom before her appointment. She wanted to be very clean because no man had looked at her ‘down there’ before, not even her own husband.

The examination went very well, but just as he was finishing the doctor said: ‘I would like to thank you for making such a big effort.’

Sally’s friend and her mother discussed this afterwards. Could it just be because Sally’s friend’s mother was so clean? Eventually, they went through to the bathroom and looked through the cupboard to see the lotions the mother had used.

Imagine Sally’s friend’s horror when she realised her mother had sprayed her pubic hair with green glitter spray for the doctor. When she went into work the next day, everyone was laughing about her mother’s private parts and how when her legs were wide open, they were lit up like a Christmas tree.

Sally and I laughed too, although I stopped after a while.

‘Why did your friend have glitter in her bathroom anyway?’ I asked, but Sally said I was always too literal.

But now I can’t stop wondering if she sprays herself with glitter for Colin.

See Indecent Exposure, Sex

I used to spend a long time listening out for messages from God. Despite what the nuns said, I thought I had a vocation and if I didn’t concentrate, I might miss the sign. In the same way, I used to check my hands for stigmata every morning.

I never got a message. I know now this is a blessing. Imagine if I had spotted the Star of Bethlehem one night on my way back from a club. Could I really tell anyone without being locked up? Or what if the sign I did get was so stupid, it made people laugh? Like that Victorian couple who also gave up a lot of their lives to listening out for God. When the message finally came, they were beside themselves with excitement. They probably told all their friends, so imagine their humiliation when they eventually deciphered it.

‘Eat more slowly,’ God told them.

See Ambition, Codes, Phantom E-mails

Every time Brian finds me talking to someone at work, he tells me off for being a gossip, but why is it that two men found talking together are thought to be discussing something important but two women are always gossiping?

See Boxing, Glitter, Moustache, Women’s Laughter

There was a little boy in the park the other day. He was dressed in the full England kit, like a miniature footballer. He even had those long socks on and when he ran, he did that sideways swagger at the hips men do to make it look as if they aren’t properly running. Just getting to somewhere quickly.

But then he fell over and his face went all square. Not just the shape of his face, but every little feature in it went square. His mouth was the most obvious. It turned into a letterbox in the middle of this red block. But even his eyes looked like small angular black stamps. His whole body went rigid too and when his shoulders shook, they turned into straight lines that went up and down, up and down, like a lift. I watched as his mother ran up and tried to grab hold of him. It was difficult for her at first because his edges were too sharp, but then he suddenly deflated into a rag doll and she picked him up and took him over to the bench and made him happy again.

Just like that. I saw how she made him happy. One second he was crying and the next he was pointing at a dog and laughing.

I think the secret is in getting the tears out. Some mornings I wake up, and I know I’ve been crying in my sleep, but I just can’t get the tears out. That’s when you think you’re drowning. You’re not sharp or square. Just an empty outline filled up to the brim with lukewarm water that numbs everything inside you. You’re too full to take anything in, and too blocked to let anything out. That’s grief. Everything else is just sadness, and seeing a funny dog can make you better.