by Kate Davies
Come at seven next Friday. Dad’s joined a wine club so there’ll be lots of booze. Don’t tease him about being nearly sixty or about his thread veins, belly, liver spots etc. He’s feeling a bit delicate.
9. SCARY LESBIAN EYES
I caught the coach to Oxford straight after work the following Fri-day. I wrapped the Hitler biography and wrote a card as we rumbled through West London, hoping Dad wouldn’t mind the wobbly handwriting. I felt sick; I knew I didn’t have to come out to my parents yet, but I wanted to get it out of the way. I’ve never liked uncertainty, and I hated the idea of sitting at the dinner table, listening to Mum talking about party wall agreements and Dad gossiping about his graduate students, wondering how they’d react when they found out. In a way, I wished I didn’t have to do it. Telling them I enjoyed fucking women felt a bit like telling them I liked it from behind.
My mother answered the door wearing a draped sheet-type dress, the sort of thing they sell in Hampstead Bazaar for about a thousand pounds. She’d cut her hair since I’d last seen her – it was cropped close to her head and was greyer than I remembered it being. She looked strange but good, like a national treasure.
‘Julia, darling,’ she said, doing a little twirl. ‘Do you like my outfit?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very bohemian.’
‘I had to stop wearing pencil skirts when I cut my hair. I looked all wrong, like a human Heads, Bodies and Legs.’ She leaned towards me and whispered, ‘Have you seen what they’re doing next door?’
I glanced over to the house next to theirs, currently hidden from view by chipboard and scaffolding.
‘Isn’t it hideous?’
‘I don’t think that’s the final look they’re going for, Mum.’
Mum shook her head and ushered me into the hall. ‘You’re no fun to moan to,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to agree with me and say how awful it is.’
Dad was at the kitchen table, flicking through the Radio Times and ranting on about how one of his colleagues had become a media don and was presenting a documentary about the Victorians on the BBC. Dad has always wanted to present documentaries, but he has a slight lisp, which puts the commissioners off a bit, I think.
‘Just look at his face,’ said Dad, pushing the magazine towards me.
I looked down at the photo of Geoffrey, a fellow English lecturer at Oxford Brookes, standing in front of some stately home or other with his arms crossed.
‘He looks pretty smug,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Dad, sipping his wine. ‘And unnaturally smooth. Like an alien. Never trust a man with a smooth face. Just look at Stalin.’
‘I don’t think Stalin’s face was that smooth, Dad,’ I said. ‘He did have quite a prominent moustache.’
‘Yes, but underneath the moustache, he was extremely smooth, I promise you. Same with Hitler, Napoleon, Cliff Richard …’
I took that as my cue to give him the Hitler biography. We opened the book to the glossy photograph pages and argued about the smoothness or otherwise of Hitler’s skin until Mum came in with the dinner.
‘Now,’ said Mum, as we were all tucking into our roast chicken, ‘have you got over your loneliness?’
‘What?’ said Dad, glancing up.
‘Julia was feeling lonely the other week. I told her to get out there and meet people on the Internet.’
‘And I did,’ I said.
‘See?’ said Mum, smiling a self-congratulatory smile. ‘And?’
Dad sat up suddenly and pointed to the radio. Radio 4 was babbling in the background. ‘Is that that Portia de Rossi woman?’
I listened. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘She has lovely hair,’ said Dad, taking another forkful of chicken.
Mum turned to me. ‘Your father has been rather passive aggressive since I cut my hair. He keeps drawing my attention to celebrities with nice hair.’
‘That’s not true, Jenny,’ said Dad. ‘Your hair is very becoming. It was an innocent comment: I like Portia de Rossi’s hair. That’s all.’
‘Fine.’ My mother speared a roast potato.
‘You needn’t feel threatened,’ said Dad. ‘It’s not as though I fancy Portia de Rossi.’
‘Dad,’ I said, ‘please don’t say the word “fancy” in my presence again.’
‘Well, I don’t. She’s an odd woman. Is she Australian? Is she American? Who can tell? And she’s married to Ellen DeGeneres. Very nice hair, though, nevertheless.’
I looked up at Dad. ‘By “odd”, do you mean “gay”?’
‘No, Julia,’ he said. ‘I have no problem with alternative sexualities.’
‘Good,’ I said, preparing myself.
Mum frowned. ‘You aren’t about to tell us that you’re a lesbian, are you?’
I was a bit taken aback. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Yes, actually.’
‘Really?’ she said, eyebrows raised.
‘Yes, really,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she said. And then: ‘Good for you. Later in life lesbians are quite the thing these days, aren’t they?’
‘I’m not later in life, Mum,’ I pointed out.
‘No, I suppose not,’ she said, ‘but it must be comforting to know you’re on trend.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said. I felt a bit deflated. I’d expected a little bit more of a reaction from her.
I looked at Dad. He seemed to be trying very hard to settle on the appropriate facial expression.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked him.
‘Of course I am.’
‘You’re not,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing! Nothing,’ he said, cutting a potato into unnecessarily small pieces. ‘I just think you’re being silly. You’re not really gay, are you?’
‘Why would I say I was gay if I wasn’t?’
‘Have you got a friend, then?’ asked Dad, much more blustery and starchy than usual.
‘I have lots of friends.’
‘No, a friend friend. A lover.’
‘Not right now,’ I said.
‘Then you’re not a lesbian,’ said Dad, wiping his mouth with his napkin. ‘You can’t just decide to be a homosexual. You have to try it out.’ He stood up and took some mustard from the fridge, as if the conversation was over.
I wasn’t really sure what to say. I opened my mouth, but I shut it again, because I felt as though I might be about to cry. I hate crying in front of my parents, and I do it surprisingly often.
‘Martin,’ my mother said, in her cold, telling-off voice.
‘What?’ Dad said.
‘Don’t listen to your father,’ she said to me. ‘He’s being ridiculous.’
‘I’m not being ridiculous,’ said Dad. ‘I’m just stating the facts. You have to actually have homosexual sex to be a homosexual.’
‘Well, if you must know—’ I started, but Dad put his hands over his ears like a 5-year-old and sang, ‘Lalalalalalalalalala!’
‘You are such a hypocrite,’ Mum said. ‘Do you have no memories of the Seventies whatsoever? What about that time you and I had a threesome with James? And that other time, with Melinda?’
‘Oh God,’ I said, closing my eyes to block out the mental images. James was my dad’s best friend. He looked like David Attenborough. He used to take me to the park and push me on the swings.
‘That was different,’ said Dad. ‘That was what everyone was doing then.’
Which gave me an interesting insight into life in the Seventies. I thought everyone was wearing flares and using typewriters and walking around in the dark because of power cuts. But they were also having threesomes, it turns out, left, right and centre.
It gave me an interesting insight into my parents’ sex life, too. Clearly they were more sexually adventurous than me. I resolved to change that.
‘Well,’ said Mum, while I sat twitching at the kitchen table, ‘I’m delighted you’re a lesbian, Julia. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be interesting. And now you really are.’
Not as inte
resting as my bloody parents, though.
I texted Cat on the way back to London to tell her I’d come out. Well done, mate! she texted back. Let’s go lesbian dancing to celebrate. Tomorrow?? PS do you think I have a German aura? My agent thinks I do.
I texted Ella, too, because I wanted to tell someone who would appreciate the importance of what I’d just done and who wouldn’t immediately change the subject to make it all about them.
Hooray!! So brave!!!! she replied. Please can I buy you a drink to celebrate? Some swing dance people are going out in Dalston tomorrow night, if you’d like to come.
I said yes. For the first time in ages, my life was moving forward, and not in a depressing, hurtling-towards-the-grave way.
I was a bit nervous about going out in Dalston; I hadn’t been clubbing in months, partly because I was always skint and partly because the last time I’d been clubbing I’d taken too much ecstasy and ended the night by cutting my eyebrows off with a pair of scissors. I was fairly sure I’d learned my lesson since then, though. My eyebrows were probably safe.
Alice was a bit suspicious of my new friends. ‘It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? You barely know them,’ she said as we pushed our trolley around Sainsbury’s. She paused in front of the milk. ‘Don’t you think we should switch to whole milk for tea? It really makes a difference to the taste.’
‘Sure,’ I said, about the milk. And then: ‘I think the rules are different with queers. If you find people you like, you hang onto them.’
She didn’t look convinced.
‘You should come out with us,’ I said, putting some yoghurt in the trolley.
She cheered up a bit at that. ‘OK then,’ she said.
‘Cat’s coming too.’
‘Oh!’ said Alice, trying and failing to sound pleased. Alice and Cat pretend to like each other for my sake, but I know they don’t really. We have a three-way WhatsApp group that only I send messages to. ‘How long is she back?’ Alice asked now.
‘Just for a week. She’s got an audition.’
‘What for?’
‘An ad for a German supermarket. Her agent says her aura appeals to Germans.’
Alice started laughing and didn’t stop until we’d reached the cheese section, where we had a minor argument about mature versus extra mature cheddar.
By the time we arrived at the club that night, the queue was snaking around the block. A power-drunk doorman wearing a fascinator with a flamingo on it was walking up and down the queue, picking out people wearing particularly exciting outfits and hustling them inside before everyone else. Cat, Alice and I were not chosen.
‘What if he doesn’t let us in?’ Alice asked, hugging herself against the cold.
‘He will,’ said Cat, smiling at the doorman. He ignored her. ‘Dickhead,’ she muttered.
Ten minutes passed. I began to feel hot and impatient, anxious to get inside. I texted Ella: Sorry. Stuck outside.
Eventually the trendy people ran out and we made it to the front of the queue. But the doorman dropped his arm in front of us like a camp portcullis.
‘You know this is a gay club?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m gay.’
‘You don’t look it,’ he said.
‘Why?’ said Cat. ‘What does a gay person look like?’
‘Even if you are,’ he said, ‘I can’t just let every gay person in London in.’
Bo appeared in the doorway of the club. ‘Hey!’ they called to us. ‘You coming in?’
‘If we’re allowed to,’ I said. I gave the doorman what I hoped was a cold, hard stare.
He swivelled around to look at Bo. The flamingo on his fascinator bobbed in the breeze.
‘Hey, Orson,’ said Bo.
‘They with you?’ asked Orson.
‘Yeah. Can you let them in?’ Bo gave him a golden smile. He didn’t stand a chance.
‘Sorry,’ said Orson. ‘I didn’t realize.’ He stood aside. ‘Have a great night.’
We hurried inside, before he could change his mind.
‘That was really cool,’ Alice said to Bo, in a really uncool way.
‘He was in my year at uni,’ said Bo, shrugging. ‘His real name’s Tim.’
Bo led us to the corner of the dance floor where Ella and Rebecca were dancing, their coats in a pile on the floor between them. Ella was dressed eccentrically again, in a jumpsuit that looked like a tuxedo. I was nervous introducing them to Cat and Alice, but I needn’t have been. The heat and darkness of the club made everyone stand closer together than they otherwise would have done, shouting into each other’s ears like deaf old friends. Soon we were on our second bottle of house red, and Rebecca was talking to Alice – I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but there was a lot of intense nodding – and Ella was teasing Cat about her advert audition.
‘Why are they auditioning British people?’
‘Maybe no one in Germany wants the job,’ Cat said.
‘Are you fluent in German?’
‘Do I look like I’m fluent in German? It’s a non-speaking role,’ Cat said. ‘I just have to look enthusiastic about sausages in a German way.’
Ella laughed again, throwing her head back, showing her perfect teeth. ‘She’s brilliant!’ she said to me.
‘She is,’ I said, and I gave Cat a hug.
The music seemed to get louder and the club hazier, though it’s possible it just seemed that way because of all the wine. People started dancing and we joined in, eyes closed, hands in the air. Bo and Rebecca were dancing together, trying out some lindy hop moves to the EDM.
‘We should go out more!’ Cat shouted in my ear, over a dance tune I didn’t know.
‘Yeah!’ said Alice. ‘I love lesbians!’
‘Me too!’ I said, draining my glass and trying to refill it, then realizing we had run out of wine. ‘I’m just going to the bar,’ I shouted.
‘What?’ Alice shouted back.
‘The bar!’ I did a drink mime.
I pushed my way through the sweaty, smelly bodies, looking over my shoulder at my oldest friends dancing with my newest friends, feeling a surge of happiness and gratitude.
I ordered another bottle of house red and was waiting, half dancing, when I noticed a woman at the other end of the bar, long curly hair, leather jacket, staring at me – a ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ sort of stare.
I looked away, a bit put out, but when I looked back she was still staring, still apparently hating me for no reason. When she caught my eye, she tapped her friend on the shoulder and whispered something in her ear. Her friend turned and then started walking towards me, looking me up and down, like we were in a Western and were about to have a shoot-out. I clutched my glass of wine in what I hoped was a threatening manner.
‘All right?’ she said, raising her chin to me.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘My friend – the one with the curly hair? Yeah – she thinks you’re hot. Are you single?’
I turned the woman down – the staring put me off – and went to tell the others what had happened.
‘Don’t you know about that yet?’ said Ella, taking charge of the bottle and refilling everyone’s glasses.
‘About what?’ I asked.
‘About the scary lesbian eyes. It’s a thing,’ said Ella. ‘If you fancy someone in a lesbian bar, you have to stare at her like you want her dead. And she stares back like she wants you dead.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then you have sex,’ said Rebecca, shrugging.
I looked at Cat and Alice. They seemed as fascinated as me. ‘Without speaking to each other?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes,’ said Bo.
‘But how does that work?’ I asked. ‘How do you go from death stares to kissing?’
‘You just do,’ said Ella. ‘Although I’ve never got past the staring stage, personally.’
‘Try it,’ Cat said to me. ‘Pick someone. See if it works.’
I scanned the room. Several of the les
bians were wearing baseball caps at a jaunty angle. I noticed more than one undercut. I felt out of my depth. And then I saw a woman standing next to the DJ booth who seemed more sure of herself than anyone else in the room. She was probably in her late twenties, tall and angular, with golden skin and short, dark hair, curly on top and shaved at the sides. She was standing up, shoulders back, surveying the room like she owned it, which made her seem even taller; her posture was the first thing I noticed about her. The second thing I noticed was that I found her incredibly attractive.
I looked at Cat. ‘Do it!’ she said.
‘She’s too cool for me,’ I said.
‘She’s not,’ said Ella.
‘She’s looking away now, anyway,’ I said.
‘Go on!’ Alice said.
So I stared at the woman until she looked away from the woman she was talking to and looked back at me. I kept staring. The others sniggered and turned their backs, but they were obviously still half-watching us, because I heard Ella say, ‘She’s coming over!’
The attractive woman walked up to me and leaned towards me, so close that I could tell she was wearing men’s cologne, to introduce herself over the music.
‘Sam,’ she shouted.
‘Julia,’ I shouted back, and as we shook hands, I noticed the muscles in her forearm tense. They were pretty well developed, and I had a sudden vision of that forearm having sex with me.
Sam smiled a half-smile like she knew what I was thinking, holding my gaze. Her eyes were a very dark brown. ‘I like your jumper,’ she said.
‘I like your face,’ I said.
Sam laughed. I felt very pleased with myself. Maybe I wasn’t so bad at flirting, after all.
‘I’ve seen you somewhere before, haven’t I?’ she asked, one arm against the wall, blocking my view of my friends.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. But there was something vaguely familiar about her.
‘Are you an artist too?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said, but then I realized. ‘You know Jane, don’t you? Did you go to a party at her warehouse in Hackney Wick a few months ago?’
She gave me another half-smile. ‘That’s where I saw you. She was trying to chat you up but you weren’t having any of it.’