Chapter one
She sits back, Louise Fleming, staring at the emptiness of the night from the hospital window, central London, thinking about her life up to this point, the year is 1945, she is shocked by her own feelings but she finally pulls it together, with some embarrassment. Now he must tell his father.
(Louise was born in 1911, but life didn’t really catch up with her until 1933, when she finished college, becoming a registered nurse (RN), the job her father, Dr. Bruce Fleming, had chosen for her, however he would have preferred her to be a doctor. He had apprenticed in two London hospitals, and, though he loved his job, and was good at it, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, I mean, that’s not really what he would have chosen had he ignored his father’s influence. of course, was one of the two disagreements, or issues between her and her father, an internal struggle for her, because she adored it so much, and so deeply, that it was rooted in the old Victorian tradition, and she was a rather liberated woman in the 1920s- s, a new era, which F. Scott Fitzgerald dubbed, ‘The Jazz Age’.
It was 1945, World War II had ended, and anything less than Doctor Fleming’s opinion, and positions on how it should be, was taboo to him ((he didn’t change)), and when he was with his daughter, struggle seemed to radiate through his flesh to the marrow of his bones, and the thought of changing it would be horrific, unthinkable, disrespectful.
Louise had an affair with Dr. David Marshal, in 1937, before the war, only to find out that he was married, and going back to his wife, somehow relieved him, so he concluded immediately after the incident. It was then that he met Lisa Morgan, sometime in the early months of 1938, he learned a female friend was far more agreeable to him, yes, study, odd as it may seem, seemed right, for he had friends. , someone he could talk to, when he felt dry and dull, and without words, spoke and expected nothing in return; a man would never consider that, he resolved. That’s when he started writing his first book, well, a little before then, but as he tried harder, it wasn’t finished until 1939. His father told him he spent his time on stuff like that. , that she should go back to school, find a husband, have children, so that she can have grandchildren, because she is the only daughter in the family, and being a doctor, it will suit her more. His thought of course was that his sister could do all of that for him; he didn’t need to have two daughters to accommodate his wishes.
But as time went on, he was working on his second book; she uses the pen name, Rose Christianson. In 1942, the second book was finished, but his father had no idea; simply because he wrote, as he said so plainly, for reasons he neither knew, nor cared about. In a way, Louise was dumbfounded that she published two books, but then it was what she fell in love with, and that’s when she started questioning her sexuality.
But it was during his vacation in the spring of 1938, when Lisa and he went to the coast of England, rented a room in a guest house, hiked a nearby mountain, together, swam in a nearby lake, together, talking for hours during a fourteen-night stay. , talking and drinking and smoking, listening to the piano, and being warmed by the fireplace, things change, and everything becomes questionable, but they change nonetheless.
During the war years from 1944 to 1945, they both worked at the General Hospital together, she was head nurse, young, and there were nuns, working sisters. And today, he is standing in the window of the hospital, he has now come to a conclusion after his third book and is now working on his fourth, all in heterosexual themes and plots, coming to the finality, and the reality of his fifth book. will tip the time scale, like it or not, in his favor. She feels free to do so, yes, a little confused, but she admits now that she is a lesbian, and must somehow deal with it, right or wrong to her father doesn’t matter anymore, she is what he wants to be. want to be, or what he feels he should be, not fully understanding why, or caring, that’s all.)
Part two
[1946] Louise left the hospital to meet Lisa in the pub, near Trafalgar Square, it was 10:00 pm, she was working on her fifth book (as I already mentioned), “All Her Young Lovers” it was 1946, she and Lisa had bought houseboat of some of the money given to him on his upcoming book. That would require a hospital fling, one with those tendencies, a bit of a shift to two women falling in love, yes, a sort of take-off from his own life. If she does so wisely, the public will accept her she knows, otherwise she will be labeled as either a writer, and a narrow readership, or limited with the public, and centered solely on lesbianism. This was a thorn in his side, how could he satisfy him, and his public at the same time, and be true to himself and his readers, and how his father would accept him, if he succeeded, surely he would know it.
So Lisa and Louise lived together on the Tames River, facing south, and fished in a boat, and lived in as tight a place as two sardines, but loved it. He’s pretty sure at this point, he’s not going back to a heterosexual relationship, but he’s questioning himself, is he bisexual? He didn’t rule it out completely, not until Lisa found a boyfriend who happened to drop by one day while he was at work, and here they were drinking beer on the upper deck, part of the ship, laughing. She was probably a few years older than him, and they seemed to know each other quite well, having only met once: maybe they were old friends from the hospital, someone she didn’t tell him about, oh well, it was a cramp in her stomah when she saw them together. . And jealousy prevailed, but it was just a wise thought, he couldn’t control Lisa, not like her father wanted her to do, so Louise had to allow this, and she found a doctor friend to sleep with.
On maybe the sixth date, Lisa’s older boyfriend tries to force himself on her, and he pushes her anyway from the boat into the river, he gets soaked; this all happened when Louise came home, she found her way back to the boat, and cursed at Lisa as she walked along the side of the boat to the dock area, and past Louise, they were at that point, deciding not to test her. themselves again, that’s enough, they are who they are, and don’t want to lose each other over short-term pleasures.
Still, his father needed to know, and later that year, Louise confronted him.
“What about your father?” she asked.
“As expected, not good, not good at all, he screamed and called me a faggot, and shook his head, and stomped his feet, and told me that I was going to hell, and that he didn’t want me to be a part of his life anymore, not because we have a lot of each other now.”
There wasn’t much more to say, the father had said his peace, and so had Louise, but her heart was broken because they couldn’t have the daughter and father relationship she had always hoped for, seeing that, so many of them. his friends have.
And the year 1947 came, a bad and good year for Louise, bad because her father got sick and died; She is called to his bedside, and for what it’s worth, reconciles, but still they feel uncomfortable with each other, even then.
This year his new book, became an award-winning book, and he received $100,000 dollars for the rights to make it into a film, even though it would never have gone past the thought stage, he received a check. After taxes, of 40% (a kind of war recovery tax) he had $60,000 dollars, still a large amount at the time. It was time off for her and Lisa, they could now move wherever they wanted, and Louise could write to her heart’s content.
Chapter Three
[1948] Louise and Lisa sold their houseboat, almost had to give away the huge tank, or paid to have it removed and hauled it off and dumped it in the junkyard, but at the last moment, a decent bid came in, about $1000 dollars was fine, and they took it, that was really the last and only decent offer, and they got on a boat, suite bags only, a few boxes of books, and headed for South Africa, Cape Town, out along the coast, this is where they would stay. There they bought a plot of land, 8000 square meters, and built three houses on it, sold two, and with what was left, built an extension on it.
There was a problem though, two men they did business with who helped build the house for and with them, but invested no money, just time and effort, Tom Gerard, and his brother, Hank, resold the house, so, two owners per house. The mistake was that they had written a power of attorney from Louise’s attorney, she had given it during the construction phase and had forgotten to cancel it. There is a court battle, and Louise is finally in charge, I think someone has to, and she is the only one available, sad but true, people and judges are after those they can catch, who have money, who have no place. to run to. It took several years to straighten it out. And Tom and Hank were nowhere to be found. And once again, he was legally robbed, once by the government through taxes, and now by the courts, saying he had to make a profit, the money used to buy the house by the second owner, while another party legally owned it. . Had he not agreed to the settlement, he would have been jailed for fraud, but that would be the last time he would hear of the two boys, a deep scratch.
It was 1950, when it was all over and done with, and he already knew what to do with his writing. I mean, he needs to release his soul into the book, his way of life, without isolating his public, as if to say: take it or leave it. He knew his lifestyle was unacceptable in Europe, particularly England, and America in particular. And so he chose to write about the Greeks.
This is his liberation; he would be a Greek hero, where homosexuality was accepted, as was Plato, and all the great Greek heroes. She could reverse the roles, she became a man, and incorporate lifestyle from book to book, just a little bit, until she hit Alexander the Great, there she will win with her bisexual life, because all humanity loves Alexander, how can they not know . he is who he is.
And as the years went by, he wrote nine books, one after the other, with three tours of Greece, and studied the vases in the museum to find out their lifestyle, every day. She was so good at it, most readers thought she was a man writing from the ancient Greeks, much to their chagrin, they would find out, she was a woman. And so the stint was a one-off run, and she rarely traveled, except for getting a bit involved with South African issues, and a few isolated people in her sex preferences, she made no waves, plus, she lived very far from there. cosmopolitan humanity ever thought of visiting her: she didn’t have to fight for her lifestyle, just don’t boast about it in her writings. And it worked.
He died in 1989; one visit from the BBC for an interview, one from a magazine about her life, and that’s it.
Back to Day ©2007 by DL Siluk
