Exacting revenge
Petronella Wyatt
The other day I was trying to get in touch with the gay relative of an acquaintance of mine. Recently, he had taken me to meet his boyfriend, who was a bit of a jazz buff, like myself. I had promised the boyfriend a piece of information, but with the slips of memory that seem to dog me nowadays — in America they call it a senior moment, perhaps I was having a junior one — I had forgotten both the name of the relative and his companion.
Nor could I quite remember which acquaintance of mine possessed the relative. So I made a guess. I telephoned this person and explained. 'Can you help me?' I asked. `I need to get in touch with your relative who's gay. But I've forgotten his name. I promised to call his boyfriend, you see, and tell him something.' My acquaintance pondered this and finally answered, `Yes, I know. You mean my relative Gaylord Sanderson. I'll get you his number.'
This name rang only the vaguest of bells, but my memory being what it is I didn't think twice. Once I had ascertained the telephone number, I rang it. A deep male voice answered. 'Oh, hello,' I said. 'It's Petronella.' There was a pause. Perhaps he too had lost his powers of recall. So I added, 'You know, Petronella Wyatt.' Oh,' he replied. 'Yes, I think I've heard of you.' This seemed to me an odd reaction given we had recently met. I prodded further. `We had supper together, don't you remember?'
There was a further polite silence. `Ah. Did we?' This was slightly baffling not to say a trifle insulting. Was I so forgettable? Never mind. One has to live with these slights. 'Yes,' I continued. `The reason I was calling was because I wanted to get in touch with your boyfriend.' Now the silence was even longer. Finally the response came Out in a gasp: 'My what?'
'Yes, you know, that nice boyfriend of yours you introduced me to. I need his telephone number.' This time there was an ice pack in his voice. 'I do not have a boyfriend.' Oh?' I enquired, 'did you split up? I'm so sorry.' By now the man's voice had reached a crescendo of rage. `No, we did not split up. I have never had a boyfriend.'
I was utterly fazed. Stupidly, the only thing I could think of to say was, 'But you're homosexual, aren't you?' This time I felt that if poison could have been injected down telephone lines arsenic would have been squirted into my right ear. 'Am I to understand,' growled the man, 'that you go around telling people that I am a homosexual?"Erm, no, of course not.' I wondered suddenly if he wished to keep it quiet. What a blunder,
The man gabbled furiously down the phone. 'I have never been homosexual in my life. In fact, I would like you to know that I have a pretty good reputation as a ladies man.' This did it. Here was a chance to redeem myself. 'Oh, so you use these men as beards. How clever.' This did not redeem me. He slammed down the receiver.
Perplexed and mortified I telephoned my acquaintance. After I had explained what had happened he said, 'Oh, dear. What a cock-up. When you said my relative who is gay I thought you said my relative Gay. You see we call him Gay for short. Gaylord — Gay. And he does have a reputation as a womaniser and he's pretty damn proud of it, too.'
All day I was sunk in gloom. God knows what revenge might be heaped upon me for slandering an innocent womaniser, even if today calling someone a homosexual is not supposed to be a term of abuse. But evidently this man was from the old school. Time passed and nothing happened. No hate mail. No obscene calls. I began to breathe more easily.
Until last night. At 2.30 in the morning I was awakened by what sounded like either gun shots or someone with a battering ram. The warning lights in the garden had gone on. Terrified, I called 999. The woman was a fat lot of help. 'Put me through to my local police station,' I babbled. 'Someone's breaking into my house.' 'I can't,' she said. 'Call directory enquiries.'
Eh? I could have been dead before I found the number of St Johns Wood station. When someone finally answered I was told that both the police and the firebrigade were outside the house. The firebrigade? I rushed to the window. Flames were leaping up outside. The trees in my garden which stretch both onto the street and touch my bedroom window were on fire, By this time both my mother and Katalin. the Hungarian, were up. My mother rushed outside in a long black leather coat looking like an SS officer who had just received a summons from the Fiihrer.
It transpired that someone had dumped an old car right in front of my door and deliberately set it on fire. The gun-shot sounds were the engine and petrol tank blowing up. The car was by now a husk. The tree covered in foam. 'Are you sure it was arson?' we asked the police. 'Well, it was certainly done on purpose,' they replied. 'Heavens above. I could have been incinerated in my bed. Was this the revenge I had dreaded? Evidently today's society is not as liberal as we all thought.
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