When Marieke let me and Heather into the Red Rattler for Women of Letters last Sunday I looked around and thought “a glass of red wine!” I left Heather at the bar to order our drinks and made my way between the rows to find a couple of comfortable stools near the stage – “Not so close that we’ll be picked on if they do that sort of thing” said Heather.
I sat down five rows from the front, and close to the aisle in case we needed to dash to the toilet. On my stool there was a soft cushion, a pen, and a stamped postcard, and I saved one for Heather, which had a soft cushion, a pen, and a stamped aerogram. “I’m sorry Naomi, I asked for red wine, but she gave me white. Is that OK?” “Oh, I don’t feel like making a fuss. And really, I’ll be just as happy drinking white.” “Are you sure? You can swap with me if you like.” “Nah, ‘s OK.”
As the Red Rattler filled up, we arranged and rearranged our bottoms on our stools, sipped our wine, and talked over the music. “Heather, see the lounge suite on stage? It’s the same one E has. I’d love it in a warehouse apartment.” “You don’t really like it do you?” “Yeah. Sometimes my taste can be quite camp you know.” “But, Eddie wouldn’t like it would he?” “Actually, I think he would. He mentioned E’s lounge suite last week… said we should’ve asked if she wanted to sell it.” “He’s a funny thing isn’t he.” “Don’t worry darl, I won’t be getting it, it’d look terrible in our place.”
When Nina Las Vegas’s DJ set finished, Michaela came out on stage to compere. She has a lovely droll sense of humour, and she said some odd things, which I can’t think of right now, that stopped conversation because they didn’t quite fit and it reminded me of me and made me giggle. The women – Lally Katz, Loene Carmen, Mandy Sayer, and Libbi Gorr – who had been invited to write letters came out too and sat down on the lounge suite, which I was still coveting a little bit. They had all been asked to write a letter to their most treasured possession and they were now going to read them to us. And I should say that us, was about one hundred women and I saw three men.
Lally Katz went first and wrote to her name-sake’s baby spoons. Even though we loved all the letters, Heather and I agreed Lally’s was our favourite. It was a complete story, and it was about best friends, letter writing, the strong connections made between family and friends, and how looking at a boy, who’s just a friend, from a different angle can change everything.
While Loene Carmen read a letter to her grandmother’s silver lame bikini, a young girl, who may have been her daughter, sat in a chair by the stage wearing said bikini and reading a book. She reminded me of the way my mother’s friends looked at me when I was much younger. I’m finally at that age when I understand what people mean when they say “beauty is wasted on the young”. All that time spent worrying about what I looked like, when I looked like that. Loene’s letter was full of family and dress-ups as lovely, but not as treasured, as the silver lame bikini.
Mandy Sayer brought her Chihuahua Coco who performed tricks for biscuits and was the actual author of a letter to her favourite bowel which she won for performing tricks in The Cross. Mandy was the woman I would most like to have sat down with for a drink, so I could ask her about stuff. She would definitely know about stuff. She would’ve done everything I’ve done and more and done it harder and better and have something to say about it worth listening to.
I’m just not sure if I would suggest we drink a bottle of wine or a pot of tea. She was a little prickly, so my first choice would be a bottle of wine, but she’d convince me to drink more than one bottle and by the next morning I would be lying in my bed wondering what I did and how I got home and she’d be walking through The Cross with Coco to get her morning coffee. So, I’d probably suggest a pot of tea and a plate of ginger crunch. But, as Elif Batauman said writers aren’t known for their “tremendous ease with social interactions and the spontaneity of the spoken word. What are you going to say to someone like that? Especially if you are someone like that?” It’s a conundrum, but realistically not one I’ll ever have to solve. Of course, I have no idea what Mandy’s actually like, I haven’t read her memoirs yet, I’m just guessing and making it up.
Libbi Gorr wrote to her iPhone and was clearly the best performer of the group. I hate my phone. Maybe because it’s a crap prepaid thing I can’t do anything fancy with. I’m actually scared of getting a better phone in case it turns into my most treasured possession. Much like my internet connection. I had to take deep breaths and pretend it wasn’t happening when our modem broke down last Friday night and our ISP said it would take five to ten working days for a replacement to arrive.
Because Holly Throsby couldn’t come at the last-minute, Leonore’s daughter Holiday Sidewinder of Bridezilla played guitar and sang Nancy Sinatra’s Time instead, which was beautiful. After the break, during which I wrote a postcard to Eddie, which I gave to Marieke who posted it along with everyone else’s, Holiday joined the other women for the panel discussion/question and answer session. Questions were asked and answers given. I didn’t write anything down, so I’ve forgotten everything except that it was good.
Finally, it all ended and we clapped fiercely. Heather and I made our way back to the front door and exited into the early evening. As we walked to the train station we promised ourselves we’d come to the next WOL in October, and we admired our surroundings. “I really like how industrial it is around here”. “Are you serious?” “Yeah.” “I’m so glad, because I like this type of area too. I’m sick of gentrification.” “I know. I like things being tidy, but those areas where everything keeps being made tidier and newer somehow end up looking…” “Soulless.” “Yeah, I like these building because they look practical and like work gets done in them. They’re not telling you how fabulous their architect was and they’re not asking you to congratulate them on their clever use of simple materials.”
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