14. Still Getting There

I cried when she phoned. Or at least immediately afterwards, when I could be totally sure no-one could see.

A week had gone by and I had written it off as just another fun evening out with Steph. Then Ana called and three hours later, I had caned it up the motorway to Vilanova i la Geltr�, where she lived, and was sitting in a restaurant like a happy puppy, wagging my tail and deliriously happy to be with her again.

It would have been great to have ended this tale on a high. But as will have been all too evident from the catalogue of failures that comprise the life and times of Penny Lee, such niceties are never likely to happen.

Ana�s picture still has pride of place on my desk - a wonderful professional head and shoulders shot, taken straight after the spa and makeover day I arranged for her twenty-fifth birthday in May 2005. She looks so excited and lively and her strong tomboy features are subtly softened and I still melt when I look over at her beautiful face. It had been such a perfect day too, in that swanky place just above Barcelona - it set me back a fortnight�s income but that mattered not, as we were together and lived the high life for twenty-four hours. Yes, that was as close to perfect as it gets and I am always reminded of that even now, as those big brown eyes sparkle back at me from the photograph.

Alas she is no longer my partner, though I have plenty of great memories of the weekends we spent together. She was my first true love in my new life and though it was never going to be the long-term relationship I had secretly hoped for, I can hardly complain.

The odds were always heavily stacked against us; so much so that it is remarkable we had those seven months together.

She was twelve years my junior, Spanish, and still living at home with her apparently rather conservative and traditional Roman Catholic parents. Her home was 140 km away - not insurmountably far, but enough to keep us apart during the week. Thankfully, her English more than compensated for my awful Spanish and much of the time we didn�t seem to need words. Maybe that was part of the problem - if we could have communicated better then perhaps I would not have held out such unrealistic hopes.

To make matters yet more complex, she was not 'Out' either, certainly to her colleagues at the nursery where she worked and more importantly, to her mother and father. She always found a reason why it would be inconvenient for me to visit her at home, but I would never pressure her. I knew how desperately difficult it would be for her when she eventually decided to go public. Behind my patience, I was actually screaming inside, wanting to tell the world about us and imagining a fantasy life with her, possibly even marriage and adoption, if that was what she wanted - Spain having just taken the decision to put same sex couples on the same legal footing as heterosexual ones. Yes, I would even have considered starting a family with her, if it would have meant we could be together. Such irony, given that my abhorrence of motherhood had been the main cause of my falling out with that scumbag, Simon.

Stupid old fool that I am, fantasising like that. Ana of course was young and vibrant and just wanted a good time, and I am sure she could sense my deep-rooted desire for a lasting relationship even if I had not expressed it to her, and it must have scared her. She did let me down fairly gently.

The relationship cooled and died just before my 38th birthday at the end of July 2005.

I�ve never been a drama queen, and so my instinctive reaction was just to hide from everyone for a couple of weeks until my brain had rationalised and I could put on my brave face again.

Older and wiser I am. I have to say I�m getting bored with learning the hard way. How old must I be before I simply do it properly in the first place?

I�m sure I�ve many more opportunities to screw up yet to come.

But I can and must be positive.

The Internet has helped me a lot. It is great for me: I don�t have to meet people face to face and I can reveal as little or as much as I want, when I want. I�ve used web technology for a while for work - browser pages over databases if you really must know, but at the end of 2004, when I finally sorted out a robust connection courtesy of some very nice chaps from the office downstairs, I discovered how much fun it can be for social purposes.

Allied to my new-found plaything, I also found a latent talent. That�s immodest of me - I would very much like it to be a talent, but that�s not for me to judge.

Writing.

An ideal hobby for someone who spends too much time on her own and needs to occupy her over-active brain, such as it is. So ideal in fact, that if I have any ambition at all in my new life, it would be to become a full-time writer. Well, more of a hopeless dream than an ambition, I admit. When I sat down in my second year in Spain, to create the first piece of original writing I had attempted since Sixth Form, I�m sure I had fanciful visions of becoming the Kathy Acker for the Twenty-First Century: a wild child with a chequered past, surprising and delighting a small but dedicated readership with lurid tales distilled from my troubled memory and underutilised imagination.

I�m several years and a gulf of ability away from that. But give a girl a break - I�m still trying. Every now and again, I despatch a piece into the ether and see how it goes down. I�m experimenting, with different styles and themes and even identities as an author, for I would rather be judged on my work than anything about me. There are many places on which to publish via the Web and many great people who are prepared to read and offer advice and comment. I like to read other people�s material too, and try to work out what I like and note what techniques are effective. I make my own comments on other�s work sometimes and have struck up electronic ties with all sorts of fascinating and clever folk all around the globe.

Knowing that I shall never have to meet any of them makes for easy friendships. Which also suits me nicely.

The results have been erratic, but aspiring authors seem to be a diplomatic crowd, so the criticism tends to be very gentle. I�ve been polishing my own tact, for the unwritten rule of thumb is never to send anything that you�d hate to receive yourself. It has been encouraging though, receiving compliments and constructive feedback. The only bad news is that the most popular work has been very dubious pornography. My arty, creative stuff and my historical stories have met with little comment; my one excruciating poem, with well-deserved total apathy. I�ve penned some romantic tales and they have been well-received on the whole - not exactly Barbara Cartland, but there�s some promise I think. Yet sadly it is my seedier material that has been surprisingly popular, generating rather more contact with readers than is probably good for me.

I hope it�s not the only type of thing I can write successfully. I suppose I was closer to the subject matter than in my other writing and this reflects in the way I write. Committing my darker thoughts to disk, in the form of short stories, has been my way of expunging them. I can�t really explain where some of the ideas come from - some of it is scary, and I�m usually quite glad to see them safely uploaded, where a few like-minded souls might appreciate them. The new Penny really ought not to think of such things.

Perhaps now I�ve bared my soul in such on such a grand scale in this autobiography, it will be easier.

And so, having revealed myself in all my ignominy, I should perhaps end with a nod to the future. That was after all, what all this has been about - shedding the millstone of my bad past, to make room for the new Penny - socially responsible, considerate of others - the kind of person you could introduce to your grandmother.

It�s an anticlimax, but I don�t really hope for too much from the future. Just the chance to lead a low-key little life. I have a fantasy of course: I would love to be able to write and publish a proper book. One with real pages and a profile inside the back cover, maybe even using my real name. A thriller perhaps, with a feisty heroine. The complete opposite of this autobiography!

But in the real world, looking around me, at my neat little apartment, and my desk busy with current work, I cannot help but feel that things could hardly be better. If publishing this dull tale of my worthless existence helps me ditch the past then it has been worth it. If exposing my despicable secrets can help me move on, then doubly so. I just have to hope that in doing so, I�ve not so sickened those people I want to befriend that I end up back where I started.

I've ticked almost all the boxes on my life laundry list this year -now I have such an amazing and undeserved opportunity now to complete the transformation and live simply and decently, in all senses of the word.

Life is good again.

My new life. Please wish me well.

Next Chapter: Epilogue