Sometimes I demonstrated not so much bravery as a sort of naive stupidity. Walking home by myself through Hackney at midnight with my headphones on, listening to British Sea Power, I was almost mugged. I say ‘almost’ because the mugger seemed to lose interest partway through.
“Gimme your money,” he muttered half-heartedly.
I’d just had a lovely holiday in the Greek islands, so I was very relaxed.
“I’ve only got ten pounds,” I said, opening up my purse.
“Oh, forget it then,” he said, and wandered off.
Funnily enough, I almost felt cheated. Aren’t I even worth mugging? I felt like yelling. Come back here and mug me properly. I’d get on that bus if I were you, a local black woman shouted out her window.
I’ve been mugged in a shop. My ex-husband and I were living in Dalston on the edge of Hackney, and I was working full-time and studying in my evenings. I stepped out to buy a pint of milk. Two large men entered the shop. As the shop assistant was ringing up the purchase, one of the men pulled out a gun and shoved it in his face. The other man grabbed me around the shoulders. I squirmed and ran free, went sprinting off down the street, heart thudding. When I returned to the scene to give evidence, the cops didn’t want to know.
Beware of thirty-three – so Jarvis Cocker tells us. Perhaps I should have heeded his warnings, for when I hit this age I suffered some sort of drastic cognitive malfunction. I couldn’t cope with my double load of I.T. and attempted literature. My mind went blank, or hit a blackout. Call it an early mid-life crisis, call it burn-out, call it an undiagnosed brain tumour starting to make its effects felt – suddenly, I couldn’t understand what people were saying to me. Nothing seemed to compute. It seemed as if I was expected to leap through a series of flaming hoops while juggling miscellaneous objects. Most citizens of modern society will know the feeling: we know we’re headed for a breakdown when the demands being placed on us by ourselves or others exceed our adult capabilities. My right shoulder seized up with RSI so I went to an acupuncturist. When I told him I was a writer he said, “So do you think you’re quite a perceptive person?”
“I guess”
“So if a woman was standing behind you staring at the back of your head would you feel it?”
“I suppose so.”
“What if it was the stare of a horny man?”
It was a terrible trick, an invasion of my personal boundaries. I didn’t say anything, but for some reason this comment has haunted me ever afterwards. I think it was because it was such a high-end acupuncturist, situated in Harley Street, no less, that it creeped me out so much more than if it had just been the good old Melbourne Grove Medical Centre.
When my father wrote to the doctor at the Melbourne Grove surgery about the acupuncturist, he was told that he was a ‘revered figure.’ A revered figure who sexually harasses his clients. Great. What was I supposed to learn from all this? That the nice guys finish last? That upper-class British men still think it’s all right to sexually harass women just because they are in positions of power and influence? There was the agent who stared at my tits and told me I ‘looked marketable.’ There was the world-famous poet who made smutty comments to me at a literary prize-giving – something about ‘wanting to take all somebody’s clothes off and lay them out on the table.’ Why, Lord, why? Maybe they were trying to intimidate me into not succeeding. Perhaps it was meant to be flattering, but it came across as creepy.
I went on a city ski trip to Italy with some people from the company. A bunch of yobs were getting pissed in the courtyard outside the hotel window. I waited until three in the morning, and then told them to pack it up.
Shut up ya Aussie bitch or I’ll come up there and rape ya, one gentleman hollered back.
British chivalry at its finest. He started climbing up the railing. I grabbed the nearest bottle of Veuve and hiffed it out the window at him. It narrowly missed him, but fell to the courtyard below and smashed into a thousand pieces. The following morning, a colleague of one of the yobs came up to me and apologized.
“We wouldn’t have bought him along, but he’s one of our best skiers. He doesn’t have any fear. He just points his skis downhill and goes for it.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I wasn’t offended that he called me a bitch; I was miffed that he thought I was from Australia.”
Women are patronized. There’s the boyfriend who says “Hey, you’re really cute when you’re angry,” (thus invalidating a genuine emotion). There’s the friend or acquaintance who comments “Gosh, I just love that dress you have on. So much better than that awful frock you were wearing last week,” or “Your hair looks great dyed red. Especially compared to that jet black colour you had last year.”
But wait. It gets worse. I slogged my guts out for two years solid and was up for accelerated promotion. A new manager named Richard was rolled onto the project. He saw what a good worker I was and especially asked to have me on his team. I didn’t have to ask him a single question and yet Kent, the programmer sitting next to me, continuously asked questions and was still promoted.
“Hey, Laura. In Greece the man beats the woman like an octopus,” said Kent one day, slamming his palm down on the desk with quite some force. Sometimes perceived as difficult was written on my file.
But what about Richard and his managerial skills? Coming into work and shoving his cheque for thirty grand (a gift from some aunt or other) into my face, whilst knowing full well that it would take me ten years to save such a sum. He told me that he’d been kicked out, or rather ‘sent down’ from Cambridge. He gave me all the work and hogged all the glory.
“So who do you think said you shouldn’t be promoted?” he taunted me.
“Evan.”
“And?”
“Thomas.”
“And?”
“Harry.”
“So, what will you do if you don’t get promoted?”
Various options flitted through my mind.
