Not Just A River In Egypt

[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.

Comments

[veronikos.livejournal.com]

I love the cognitive dissonance.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It saddens me that she knew herself so little.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

I was in a similar situation to her when I was much younger, living with my religious parents.

Looking back, it was much better for me to be able to pretend to myself I was straight, so I didn't have to stress about it until I was in a safer environment. Sort of like Stockholm Syndrome. Her life was probably happier with self-deception if she wouldn't have been safely able to acknowledge herself.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like that explanation. I have to keep reminding myself that it was almost unthinkable for a gay woman to identify as such through most of Enid's lifetime. Even Vita Sackville-West- Virginia Wolf's Orlando- sought refuge in marriage.