My Aunty Cheryl
My aunty Cheryl belonged to the army. She was a big woman, heavy with muscle. I admired her more than anything, when I was a girl. It comes of having five brothers. You want to porve you can do anything they can. And Aunty Cheryl did everything the boys did. My bothers, they would say, you can't play, you're a girl, and Mum couldn't convince them otherwise. But she never approved of war games anyway. Then Aunty Cheryl was showing us a photo of her in uniform, and I jumped up and down, up and down, shouting, "That's me! Girls can so play War!"
I was rather naive then, as little girls have a tendancy to be. I look at old photos, at this grubby girl with her blond plaits, always looking out of place in a dress. I cut my hair short as soon as mother could be enticed thus, and it darkened on its own. As a teenager I am awkward, boyish. Quite unlike Aunty Cheryl in that - she was a curvy, solemn girl. Driven, my pa would say. Mum would roll her eyes, "Bloody obsessive, Cheryl is," she'd say, then remember I was there, and the boys were snickering.
Often I felt it was me against the boys. Always had to best them, be faster, stronger. I had to tackle as hard, score as many goals - I would never play netball - it was a girls' sport. It would prove nothing for me to do well at netball.
I'd kick my brothers if they went easy on me. When I was younger they'd laugh it off, but as I got older, they grew wary. Except Jimmy. He'd keep on laughing. But Jimmy was a bully. Shouldn't say that about my own brother, should I? But he was a bastard. Sometimes I thought he couldn't even be my own brother.
I saw him picking on a girl once, when we were at high school. She was just a fourth former, and they're all a little cocky at that age. I'd just ignore it, but Jimmy decided he had to kick her own. He deliberately sought her out, made scathing remarks, even hit her if she talked back. I don't know why he picked this one girl. Her name was Tina, and she was only little, for all her mouth.
If it had been anyone else I would've done something. But Jimmy always made me feel like a little girl. Little girl thinks she can play, thinks she can fight. Later he'd goad me into drinking more that I could handle - little trollop thinks she can drink with the boys, huh? And I wouldn't drink alcohol for a while after that. Started again when Jimmy went overseas. I started a lot of things again. It was a lot easier without his constant demeaning. Next time I saw him, of course, he was marrying a French girl, and now he's got his own girls, who he's write soft on. Funny that.
The other thing that happened when Jimmy left was I fell in love. Oh, I'd had boyfriends before, but nothing meaningful. Derek was different. They always are. I met him at a party where I'd thought what the hell and downed a few cans. He was this shy guy. It was me talking to him. He must've been scared as hell I thought then, poor kid. Kid, I say, though he'd be fourty-nine now.
What made him different from all those other boys? Not an awful lot. He played the piano, had those slender pianists' hands and big brown eyes that he could look like a puppy. Anyone else I'd want to smash but he - he'd just send me aw and ah-ing, and I'd only known him two weeks when I slept with him.
Stupid girl you're thinking, stupid stupid Carla. How was I to know? The boys I'd dated were wimps, for all their bravado. And this shy kid screwed me, and screwed me over. What Derek meant was this: I was fucked up for a year or so afterwards. He dumped me after two months, upwards and onwards to better things. He was so pathetic, when he broke up with me. I felt sorry for him. Then I hated myself for that. And it doesn't change that for those two months I was desperately, madly in love. I'd never imagined my married name before. Carla Waters, it would've been. Nothing special, but it made me giggle like the girl I'd always denied I was.
After Derek I felt the problem was that I wasn't enough of a girl, destroying all the good Jimmy's absence had done me. But I was miserable. I hated cooking, hated dresses, hated make-up and the fuss about shoes, hated dressing up, hated celebrity gossip and women's magazines. I didn't want to know 101 ways to please my man, despite thinking that I did. Funny, my brothers, even Jimmy, never stiffled me like that. They made me want to try harder. Derek made me think there was actually something wrong with me. My brothers were stupid boys; Derek was my Adonis.
Even my friends who tried talking to me couldn't stop it. I was convince I was defective. More than one of my brothers said they'd bash Derek. With other boyfriends I'd said I could dish out my own punishment thank you very much. Now I was thinking that was the very problem.
It wasn't that I took issue with being a girl. That had always just meant I had to work harder, though I'd deny it. Made me the better once, because I'd been given a handicap. But I wasn't unhappy as a female. Only after Derek did I feel that: that the woman I was wasn't woman enough.
Then Aunty Cheryl died. And I remembered what I'd said as a girl. "That's me." Aunty Cheryl was proof girls so could. Aunty Cherly was proof I could be happy with who I was.
Actually, it screwed me up a little more, her death. I was confused as hell. Till Mum showed my that picture again. Gave it to me. Even my retiring mother knew something was wrong. Made me appreciate my own sex more. I went through a man-hating period after that, and fuck you Derek. Thought about being a lesbian, but really I couldn't be attracted to other women.
My friends would introduce me to guys, tried to get me to lighten up. None of the guys did, but simply the procession there of... I became reaccustomed to males. Trying to best them again, alienation technique. But no longer misognistic. I was enjoying male company. So I was quite prepared when Louis came along.
We don't have kids. I'd be a crap mother. And Louis's selfish enough to prefer being childless. But not selfish enough to expect me to be other than what I am.
I like to think that Aunty Cheryl would like him. I do think she'd approve. Maybe I'm not fighting for my country - not that Cheryl ever got to do much of that. But I'd my own person, and I'd happy. And Aunty Cheryl would be happy with that.