Being Sappho and a Poet Unwilling: A Brief Intrusion into the Life of Yvette Reeman

“I remember wanting to be loved.

“My earliest memories of life are confusion and longing, feelings compounded by a despotic mother and ineffectual father. Mother was a woman who measured the world by two categories: weight (“Did you see Mrs Renfrew? She’s piled it on, the great heffer. A very cruel woman as I recall.”) and the presence of a respectable (eg wealthy) man at your side. To her great despair, I struggled with both and to my great shame, I cared.

“I don’t think she ever heard my silence, the utter apathy I held for her attempts to mould me. Each morning that I descended the stairs, I would be greeted with a cry of “stampede!” swiftly followed by her hysterical laughter. A smile was all I could barely muster. “Go up and weigh yourself and once you’re a better sight we’ll find you a man.” I was 14, and, unbeknownst to mother, hadn’t the slightest interest in being hosed by anyone’s Fireman Sam. I assumed it was the result of my ugliness; my twisted logic that ugly people couldn’t love and so would never be rejected.

“Years passed but nothing happened. No posters of Schwarzenegger or Stallone adorned my bedroom. I had heard mother describe her sister, Joan – the spinster – as ‘one of those people who just don’t love’. And I thought, that’s me. I’m Joan. The Spinster. By now I was 21.

“Mother, however, revelled in the challenge and after years of dismay at my lack of progress, she played her ace, unexpected and dazzling: Derek Lakeman .

“Handsome, with dark, impenetrable eyes and a brooding expression, he seemed quite taken with me and I think it was that feeling, the surprise that someone was attracted to me, which veiled the underlying revulsion.

“Derek knew how to flatter and it was his talent as a wordsmith that allowed flowers and chocolates to become stolen kisses and, before long, a proposal was made.

“Mother was thrilled and so was I. I was no longer a disappointment. I was a woman with a man who had the blessing of her mother. She was fulfilled – everything had happened just as the countless stories and films had said it would.

“My wedding night was one of only two sexual encounters with men. I recall the sweat and internal pain and the persistent wish it would end. It was suddenly as if I had been hurled back to the starting line. His body in mine had felt wrong, the invasion of an alien presence. I had whispered into his ear, “You make me sick,” but I know he never heard.

“Life with Derek was always going to be fragile because it was built upon lies and suppression and our marriage never recovered.

“At first it was awkward but, as everything does with time, the excuses became easier until they flowed naturally and each morning I awoke with the relief I had emerged through another night untouched.

“Untouched by his hand but also by happiness. Day by day, I withered and soon resembled a forgotten porcelain doll. Nothing remained to empower or impassion me, save for the one, quiet uncertainty inside that frightened and at the same time intrigued. It was that secret which, ultimately, protected me from the consequences of what was to come.

“I was working in the kitchen, wearing rubber gloves and a floral apron – a picture of housewife splendour – when he arrived home. Normally he would retire to the living room to watch television but instead he entered the kitchen, his frame filling the door and without the slightest hint of emotion he said,

“There’s talk I’ve married a fucking dyke.”

“I didn’t reply. I wasn’t shocked but somehow could no longer lie.

“It was at this point his fist collided with my face and on the floor of his kitchen I had my last sexual encounter with a man. After he had finished, I was abandoned, soiled by my own urine and blood; too frightened to scream, too weak to stand. I don’t know how many hours I laid there but I do remember the silent tears.

“At night, I slipped out, still in the same clothes, and retreated to my mother’s house. Upon explaining the event that had transpired, all she could say was, “Why didn’t you satisfy him? What’s wrong with you?”

“I at last found the strength to say, “Why didn’t you protect me?” and those were the last words I ever shared with my mother. She died two months later from an overdose. I didn’t attend the funeral.

“Even now, decades later, the bitterness remains. I can’t forgive any of the betrayals – mother, Derek – but I can draw strength from them. No one has the right to demand you be something other than who are and if I can teach that to even one person in my life, then I will have my justice.”

Sadly, Yvette died in 2009, following heart failure. She spent much of her life as, what she called, a ‘professional lodger’ and wanted it to be known that she met lots of kind and, most importantly of all, understanding people.