When Ro’s lesbian life had first begun, at the fateful Women and Sexuality Conference in Melbourne, she had been deeply impressed by a discussion on rules for relationships.
She’d nearly missed the session. She was high as a kite after her night with Alby and didn’t feel that it was necessary to go to the second day of the conference. She had answered her own question about women and sexuality and knew that she would never revert.
But Alby was keen. And so on the final day Ro found herself, a little fuzzy and bleary-eyed, in a session on rules and multiple relationships. Multiple fucking relationships.
It was a fiery gathering, much more so than Can You Be a Feminist and Fuck Men? At that session the heterosexual women were courageous but outnumbered, so the result of the debate was never seriously in doubt.
The Rules for Relationships argument was far from a foregone conclusion. It was enlivened by Sydney women so outraged by the very idea of rules that they could barely listen. They rejected rules. Any rules. Rules were a patriarchal invention which they would not countenance for one minute.
They were offset by a solid mustering, a phalanx of lesbians from Melbourne and Adelaide, many of them socialist feminists. Life in any society, they suggested, even with women in charge, even when run collectively and by consensus, requires structure.
The rules pointed out that so-called love, in a patriarchal world, had not been good for women. It starts when you sink into his arms, and ends with your arms in his sink. So as not to repeat heterosexual mistakes, the lesbian feminist should avoid monogamy. But having chosen non-monogamy, she could not rely on spontaneity. First she had to unlearn old habits. So there would have to be explicit negotiations with lovers and lovers’ lovers.
In subsequent years Ro had stuck, more or less, to these principles. But so far in her relationship with Julia, Julia had not had another lover, and so any rules had not been made explicit. Now negotiations would have to commence, and with Maddie of all people. Ro swallowed gall.
Julia was not interested in rules. She was not a rebel on principle, in the way that Ro was. She was a realist. Practicality came first.
She was finding Maddie useful as a counterbalance to Ro, a defence. Maddie was restful and Julia loved her soft body and her cosy house. She spent happy evenings dozing on the sofa with David Jones, Maddie’s stylish black and white cat, purring on her chest. She wondered if it was David Jones she was actually in love with.
Ro, on the other hand, was not restful at all. When she was firing on all cylinders she was great company. Provided you were in a rushing-around mood yourself and didn’t mind the chaos. Sex was explosive, adventurous, strenuous and fun.
When Ro was down, Julia found her exhausting. For months she was preoccupied with Gerry. Whether she was right or wrong to break up with her. Whether she should go and see her. Whether Gerry would be all right on her own. What Gerry would do without Hester.
Julia was not a jealous person. She believed that she didn’t care enough about anybody to be jealous. Certainly she had no strong feelings about Gerry. She wished her nothing but well, and if Ro wanted to make up with her, why not? It was Ro’s indecision that she found wearing. The soul-searching. The need to go over and over it all, time after time.
When it came to Ro’s ideas about how Julia’s relationships with Maddie and Ro should be conducted, Julia put her foot down.
‘No,’ she said to Ro. ‘I am not going to have a meeting with you and Maddie every week. Not every month,’ she added, seeing Ro about to speak. ‘Not ever.’
‘But we should at least work out basic principles.’
‘No. You and Maddie can work out basic principles if you want to.’
This was not at all satisfactory for Ro. Nevertheless, true to her own beliefs, she made a time to have coffee with Maddie.
They managed the initial niceties. Ro’s smile was stiff and her general expression less than welcoming. But she didn’t realise how grim she looked.
‘I thought we should talk,’ she said.
‘Oh yes?’ said Maddie cautiously.
‘A few basics. You know. Like if we all go to a dance then who goes home with Julia.’
Maddie was taken aback. ‘Doesn’t that depend on Julia?’
‘Yes, but I don’t think we should leave it till the night. We should get it clear beforehand, so no one feels left out.’ She drew breath.
She was not having a good day. Her last letter to Gerry had been marked return to sender and her confidence was in decline. She had an awful feeling that when she and Julia and Maddie went to this hypothetical dance it would be her watching Maddie go home with Julia, not vice versa.
She drew herself up. Principles were at stake here. ‘And I think we should make sure that the time we spend with Julia is balanced.’
‘If you went away for a weekend,’ she added heroically, secretly appalled at the thought, ‘Julia and I should go away for a weekend too, soon after.’
‘Golly,’ said Maddie.
‘And I think you and I should meet regularly. Julia doesn’t want to, but this way you and I know what’s going on in our lives without it all being channelled through Julia.’
‘Yeah. I agree with that. But we see each other at work anyway.’
‘Well, I have to talk to the Collective but I think I’m going to leave. I’ve decided to go back to study.’
‘That’s great, Ro! Study what?’
‘I’m not sure yet. Sociology … English.’
Maddie was genuinely pleased for her. Ro could see that. If her enthusiasm was partly for the end of their working relationship, fair enough. Ro felt the same way herself.
Maddie was an equable soul. She agreed to meet with Ro every three or four weeks and she stuck to it. And as it turned out, they went on meeting, long after there was any official need for it.
At times Maddie drove Ro to distraction. But, on the other hand, Maddie was more credulous than Julia. She was prepared to take Ro at face value as a woman of the world, a debonair adventurer. It often fell to her lot to comfort Ro in times of trouble. But that did not interfere with their mutual acceptance of Ro as being the stronger one, and more out there.