poliphilo

It's 1949. Enid is in Africa, visiting relations. She meets a young man called John who is a friend of her brother's. Enid is 61, John is 37.

There's an immediate connection. John makes sheep's eyes, Enid makes sheep's eyes back. She hints in her diary at a karmic connection,

Even through the medium of Enid's besotted prose John comes across as a creep. People warn her against him, they say he's a schizophrenic, that he has a "bit of a kink". To make matters worse he's in the middle of divorcing his wife. Then he snatches his kids from his wife's care and asks Enid and the people she's staying with to look after them for him

He tells Enid that his wife is a lesbian and has been sexually abusing the three little girls. Enid believes him. He goes on to say that his wife denied him "normal" sexual relations and the children were only conceived after he'd "forced" himself on her. A few lines further on Enid refers to the wife as a "sexual maniac".

Hang on a minute.

But now John is asking Enid if she has ever been in love. She says "Three times" and tells him about the men in her life. The men in her life? Yes, the men. Only the men. No mention of Smithie. No mention of Nina. No mention of Doro. Apparently they don't count. Or- at this moment- matter at all. And slowly it dawns on me that Enid- for all that she spends her life obsessing about women, for all that she sleeps with women- thinks of herself as totally straight.