Behind the Mask: Enter a World Where Women Make - and Break - the Rules. Emma Sayle
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year that we all went to Buckingham Palace to watch Colonel being invested with the OBE for his services during the Falklands War, Northern Ireland and Berlin. I watched in awe as the Queen pinned the award on my father’s jacket and congratulated him. Mothership squeezed my hand and whispered, ‘All right, darling?’
I didn’t say anything in reply. I was too proud of my father to speak.
Despite my sometimes-shaky self-esteem and on-going eating problems, I was developing a keen interest in another side of life: boys. My passion for the gardener was long dead, but I had other objects of fascination now. Although I was at an all-girls school, I had a brother, which was an advantage as I was able to snog a few of his friends. Otherwise I met boys at parties or through my parents’ friends. I met Ed at a party during the summer holidays, and he became my first boyfriend. The romance had an expiration date, but I loved holding Ed’s hand and kissing him (we’re still friends). There were other boyfriends after him, and at 16 I went further than ever before. Sex was not on the menu, but there was plenty of exploration and I began to unravel the mysteries of what men were like and what happened when things got steamy, and it’s safe to say that I liked it.
As I got older, I became wilder and more reckless. I was still kicking over the traces, keen to get on with life and taste everything that adults enjoyed. It could have disastrous consequences, like the time I got properly drunk for the first time, aged 16. Colonel was hosting a lavish dinner party at our Cairo house for the Canadian Ambassador. Unknown to everyone else, my endless glasses of Sprite contained double shots of vodka and after a couple of drinks, I became convinced the 28-year-old army officer sitting to my right was deeply in love with me. Colonel noticed my odd behaviour and said, ‘You can try a tiny glass of wine, Emma. It may calm your nerves.’ He wasn’t to know that the wine would prove the proverbial last straw, and my flirtation came to an abrupt end as I threw up violently all over my plate of beef Wellington, stunning the other guests into horrified silence. Colonel dispatched me to my bedroom with military efficiency. He did not offer me a glass of his beloved Châteauneuf-du-Pape for years to come after that.
I lived up to my final Downe House school report from one teacher, which read: ‘I have found Emma to be cheeky, over-excitable, opinionated and thoroughly obnoxious – she’ll go far.’ I thought it was a fair point.
Colonel hoped I would follow in his footsteps and apply to Cambridge University, where he had been both a fellow and bursar of his college, but I decided that wasn’t for me. Instead, much to his disappointment, I chose Birmingham University, to read Sports Science. Before then, I took a gap year paid for by my Del Boy Trotter trust fund, and my first stop was Africa. Colonel had now been sent to Kuwait and was busy with his new posting, while my mother was resettling yet again, and I reassured them by telling them I had a job lined up in Cape Town. The truth was that there was no job, and all I managed in the first week was to get my belly button pierced and lose my memory for most of it after being offered hash cakes. I was mugged in the street and had my passport and purse stolen. When I went to the police station to report the incident, I was groped by a burly Afrikaans copper, who kept muttering, ‘Gee my jou hand. Ek hou van jou,’ while he pawed me. Translated, he was asking for my hand and saying he liked me. I’d had enough of Cape Town, and I swiftly packed my wheelie case and headed to Kuwait to join my parents. They had lined up a job for me at a holiday resort, but I was sent packing within two weeks after I encouraged most of the Filipino staff to go on strike because of their appalling pay.
With time on my hands, I turned my focus to boys and began dating a man. Losing my virginity never felt monumental to me: I knew it would happen when it felt right. That moment came during one date, while we were sunbathing at a poolside. I suggested that it was the right time to do it. He was surprised but willing, and we lost no time in going somewhere private to do the deed. As I was an 18-year-old virgin, I had no idea what I was doing, but pretended I did. Luckily I didn’t expect it to be a magical event – after all, I had no strong feelings for the man, I just wanted to do it – and sure enough, it wasn’t mind-blowing. It was awkward and it hurt, but I was glad I’d done it: I felt more grown up and confident, and I sensed potential. This time might have been a damp squib, but I knew it could be much, much better.
My motto for that wild year before university – and ever since, if I’m honest – was to let go of any inhibitions I had and push the boundaries to the limit. For me, it was part of my journey to self-exploration and finding myself, but I went beyond reckless sometimes. It helped that being a daughter of a diplomat came with privileges and immunity: my diplomatic ID card gave me quite a safety net and turned me and a few other English and American diplomat kids into reckless risk takers. Once, Colonel took me to a party on board a US warship in Kuwait and I enjoyed a marathon kissing session with a handsome Lebanese man there, until my father discovered his family was part of the Lebanese mafia and nipped that in the bud at once. Another time, I was dared to climb on board a superboat belonging to the ruling family of Kuwait. Never able to resist a dare, I gave it my best shot and managed to get on and off without being caught, but the British Embassy heard of my little exploit and my father was ordered to get me under control. Another time I was thrown into jail for being a potential spy after being car-chased by Saudi patrolmen along the Kuwait–Saudi Arabia border. The truth was, no espionage was involved. It was dark, I got lost and I’d forgotten my diplomatic ID card. Colonel had some choice words to share with me when he picked me up from jail.
I wanted fear, risk and exhilaration, but I soon learned that pushing boundaries could have consequences, and not just for me. I was dating an American marine who was a member of the US Embassy security staff. Deciding that Kuwaiti hotels, the beach, army barracks, tankers, helicopters or warships no longer had the thrill factor, we decided the rooftop of the massive, fortress-like US Embassy was the place to have sex. Now that my virginity was out of the way, I had taken to this pleasant new activity with gusto and loved having sex with my hunky marine as often as possible. As we exchanged that devilish look on the rooftop, we both relished the excitement of doing something so daring and forbidden, and that made us throw caution to the winds. But the loud groans that followed meant that it didn’t take long for us to get caught with our pants down. Moments later, security guards armed with rifles swarmed like ants across the rooftops and it was only my marine identifying himself that stopped a full-scale military shootout. Colonel was summoned to the US Embassy for a stern dressing down, and once more I was in big trouble. But he was learning by now that I was headstrong, difficult to control and determined to play as hard as I could.
My crazy gap year came to an end and I headed to Birmingham University to take up my place to read Sports Science. I reluctantly left my marine and we made promises of mutual devotion, but in my first week of university, a friend in Kuwait called to tell me that no sooner had I left than he’d jumped into bed with someone else. So that was that. Despite the activity and excitement of Freshers’ Week, I was miserable, but my heartbreak was swiftly dispelled when I met Aidan. He was tall, dark, athletic and handsome, and his intense piercing blue eyes won me over before he said ‘hello’. We fell in love almost at once, but it was a tumultuous, rollercoaster ride of a relationship and it came with the condition that a break-up never really meant ‘it’s over’. For three years, our big love affair was punctuated by frequents splits and passionate reunions. I loved being with Aidan, but when we were apart, I didn’t slow down. University was mostly a blur of sports, some studying, drinking, making friends and having sex. I made sure that I broadened my horizons, with sex in particular. A foursome with a guy I’d been seeing, his best mate and a girlfriend of mine became a threesome when my friend did a runner, leaving me with two very hot, ripped rugby boys. I tried the other kind of threesome when I was having a drink in a bar with an ice-hockey player and another girl joined us. She and I shared a drunken snog, which was quite fun, and my boyfriend, clearly enjoying the show, suggested we go back to his place. When we got there, he told me he’d like me to go down on our new friend. I was game for anything, so I did, but I decided then and there it wasn’t for me. My boyfriend ended up shagging her, which was fine, but we didn’t last much longer after that, and Aidan and I got back together yet again.
When graduation came, Aidan and I went our separate ways: I headed to London and he moved to Sydney to become a high-flying corporate psychologist. But we stayed good friends and made a promise to each other: if we were