Hilda

Hilda always knew she was a lesbian.

She knew it because of the way she watched women on TV. Their bright hair, red lips and narrow legs, kicking out, side-stepping, every Saturday on Come Dancing.

She knew it because at the hairdressers, when the scissors flicked behind her head and she averted her own gaze, she would stare at the women in the next chairs; twisted curls held back with foil, dark, high-browed eyes, black lashes like wet feathers.

She knew it because she liked to watch women trying on jewellery in the accessory store. She liked the gleam of plastic gems hung at white lobes, fine chains across collar bones, bracelets on freckled wrists.

She knew it because one day she was served sweet potatoes by the woman at the grocers who smiled at her with pink cheeks and asked for eight two pence. If I was a man, thought Hilda, I would ask her out dancing, just so I could watch her bend her elbows.

Then, one day, as she passed a mirrored window, Hilda finally saw the truth. Sex was not the thing at all. It was that really, Hilda knew, she just wanted to be beautiful.