In at the Deep End

by Kate Davies

  Tears were slipping silently down her face now. She pushed them away with the back of her hand. ‘I’m so spoilt,’ she said. ‘I love Dave. I just don’t want to be a wife.’

  I frowned. ‘But you’re not a wife,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t even asked you to be his wife. He just said he wanted to get married at some point in the future.’

  She didn’t say anything.

  I felt an odd prickle – of jealousy, maybe, or envy, or fear. ‘What,’ I said, ‘you didn’t get married in secret, did you?’

  She shook her head, but not particularly convincingly.

  ‘But he has asked you to marry him.’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you said yes.’

  She nodded again. She didn’t look the way you might expect a newly engaged person to look: smug and shiny and waving her left hand around so that you’d notice her ring. She looked guilty and miserable.

  I said ‘Congratulations?’ with a question mark at the end.

  ‘You aren’t happy about it,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t seem happy about it!’ I said. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say!’

  The shop assistant looked over. I picked up a bra to justify our lingering.

  ‘Now it looks like you’re shouting at me because I don’t like pink bras,’ said Alice.

  ‘I’m not shouting at you,’ I said, which I realized wasn’t actually true when the shop assistant looked over at me again.

  ‘What should I do?’ Alice asked, looking so unhappy that I reached out and hugged her. We didn’t hug each other that often now that we lived together. As I hugged her I smelled her hair and it took me back to university, and I felt a sudden nostalgia for the girls we had been, no commitments to anyone or anything, everything ahead of us, free to make philosophies about marriage and gender politics and career choices without having to put them into practice.

  ‘What do you think, really?’ Alice said, into my neck.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ I said, which told her exactly what I thought, obviously.

  I felt Alice begin to shake. I tried to pull away to look at her but she hugged me closer and then heaved out a sob.

  I grabbed her hand and pulled her down, out of the sight of the Marks & Spencer staff, so that we were sitting on the carpet, our heads amongst the thongs.

  ‘What was I supposed to say?’ asked Alice. ‘He went down on one knee in front of EastEnders.’

  ‘That’s romantic,’ I said.

  ‘He didn’t think I’d want a fuss.’

  ‘But why did he propose in the first place?’

  Alice shrugged. ‘His parents got married after six weeks and they’re still together. And someone he’s friends with on Facebook got diagnosed with testicular cancer, so I think he’s decided life is short.’

  ‘Too short to marry someone you’re not sure about,’ I said.

  ‘But I am sure about him. I’m just not sure I want to be a wife.’

  ‘So tell him that. Just tell him that. If he loves you, he’ll understand. And you’re still sharing a flat with me. You should live on your own, first, just the two of you, see how that works.’

  She looked up at me. ‘He’ll understand, won’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, as if I knew anything about it.

  ‘I’ll just tell him I made a mistake.’

  ‘That’s what you’ll do.’

  ‘OK.’

  She put her head on my shoulder and we sat there for a while.

  ‘But maybe I do want to marry him.’

  I looked at her.

  ‘I don’t know what I want! I don’t want to lose him!’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said a voice from somewhere above us. We looked up. The shop assistant had found us. ‘Can I help you?’ she said.

  I stood up with as much dignity as I could muster under the circumstances, which was not a lot, and held the bra up.

  ‘I’m just looking for a bra for my girlfriend’s birthday,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ she said, frowning, and then, ‘Oh, right. Right.’ She seemed a bit flustered. ‘Right. Happy birthday,’ she said to Alice, who was still sitting on the floor. ‘I’ll let you ladies get on with it, then.’

  As she backed away, I sat back down next to Alice.

  She smiled at me. ‘She thought I was a lesbian.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘So I don’t look boring and conservative at all.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m thinking about getting a tattoo!’

  ‘There you go,’ I said.

  ‘And even if I did get married, I still wouldn’t be boring or conservative.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Caitlin Moran is married.’

  ‘You’re right!’ she said. ‘And Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie!’

  ‘And Amy Poehler!’

  ‘She’s divorced.’

  ‘Which would be an option for you if it doesn’t work out.’

  ‘You’re right!’ Alice said. We left the shop and walked arm in arm out onto the pavement, and we pushed through the crowds of pedestrians, naming cool married people until it was time to go our separate ways.

  23. NOT THAT KIND OF MARRIED PERSON

  Alice and Dave went away to the country for a long weekend in June, which was nice, as it meant Sam and I had the flat to ourselves. We had sex on the kitchen worktop, which made me a little anxious for food hygiene reasons, and on the sofa (wipe-clean, as I’ve mentioned). We did it in the shower, too, though I kept choking on the water when I was going down on her, which wasn’t very sexy.

  When Alice and Dave came back, she was wearing a lovely antique emerald ring, and their engagement was official. I hugged Alice, and Sam and Dave slapped each other on the back, and we toasted their future with warm Freixenet from the off-licence. Alice looked really happy. She even asked me to be her bridesmaid.

  ‘You won’t have to wear a terrible dress,’ she promised. ‘And I don’t want a hen party.’

  ‘I’m fine with organizing a hen party.’

  ‘I just want you to help me choose a dress and stop me freaking out.’

  ‘I’d be honoured,’ I said, and I meant it. But then I thought of something. ‘Do you want me to move out?’ I asked in a quiet voice, so Dave wouldn’t hear.

  Alice grabbed my sleeve and pulled me towards the window. ‘No! Why would I want you to move out?’

  ‘Married people don’t usually live with flatmates,’ I said, although the idea of leaving gave me a horrible lurching feeling, like vertigo, or riding on a night bus after too many vodkas.

  Alice looked horrified. ‘Please don’t move out. I don’t want to be that kind of married person.’

  ‘What,’ I said, ‘a married person that can walk around naked whenever they want?’

  ‘No!’ she hissed. ‘A grown-up married person! And just because we’re married, it doesn’t mean we’ll suddenly be able to afford the rent on our own. We’ll be skint. We’ll have spent all our money on chair covers and two weeks in Mauritius.’

  ‘You could move somewhere cheaper. You could move to Zone Four.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘Don’t you think Dave will want it to be just the two of you?’

  We looked across at Dave. He was doing a bicep curl to show Sam how much his muscles had developed since he’d started doing yoga videos.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Alice said in a small voice.

  ‘You might actually like it,’ I told her, and I gave her a hug. I didn’t want to have to find a new place to live. In my experience, looking for a flatshare in London is like going to a series of interviews for jobs you don’t really want, and being accepted or rejected (but mostly rejected, let’s face it) on the basis of your taste in Netflix box sets.

  I was happy for Alice and Dave, though; I was so in love with Sam that my anti-marriage principles were flying out of the window. I found myself having daydreams about a wedding in a registry office somewhere, Sam in a suit, me in an ironi
c white dress, making a political statement of the whole thing but still meaning every word of our vows. Virginie could be Sam’s bridesmaid, I decided. In my daydreams, Sam had ended things with Virginie because of her overwhelming love for me. Virginie had taken it brilliantly and bought us the Le Creuset casserole dish from our wedding list.

  My wedding fantasies intensified a few nights later. I was lying next to Sam, about to fall asleep, when she said, ‘If Alice and Dave want to live on their own, you could move in with me.’

  Those were the most romantic words I had ever heard. They implied love and commitment and visits to IKEA. They were the opposite of, ‘I have a French lover who enjoys being spanked with a hairbrush.’ I looked at Sam. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Like I said, I love you.’

  ‘I love you’ was still new and powerful. I leaned across to kiss her, feeling slightly drunk with happiness. ‘I love you, too,’ I said.

  Absolutely no one else thought that me moving in with Sam was a good idea. Ella told me that three months was way too soon, even for lesbians, and said she’d ask around to see if any of her friends needed a flatmate. Zhu agreed. ‘You don’t know if you’re going to like being poly yet. You should have your own space.’ And Cat, who was in Birmingham, deep in rehearsals for her next show, a Theatre in Education production about the solar system in which she was playing both the planet Mercury and the spaceship Vostok 1, begged me not to ‘do something so fucking stupid’. She would be back in London after the summer. If I could just hang on until then, I could move in with her.

  I was disappointed; I wanted my friends to feel as recklessly enthusiastic about Sam as I was. But I’d told them too much about her.

  So when Sam called me a couple of days later during my lunch break and asked what I was thinking about moving in, I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea. I felt I was making an extremely mature, sensible decision.

  ‘That’s cool,’ she said. ‘I totally get it.’

  ‘We haven’t met each other’s families,’ I pointed out.

  ‘We should change that, anyway,’ she said. ‘Parents love me. We could go up to Oxford this weekend if you like.’

  ‘Can I meet your dad too?’

  Sam didn’t reply straight away. ‘It’s not like we can just go to Dubai for tea,’ she said. And then: ‘Let’s start with your parents. You actually like spending time with your parents.’

  Which was putting it a bit strongly, but I took her point.

  24. I HOPE YOU’VE BROUGHT YOUR PYJAMAS

  A couple of weeks later, Sam and I were standing on my parents’ doorstep, hand in hand. She was wearing a suit – all black, as usual – and I was wearing a dress that I’d actually ironed. I’d never felt more heteronormative, apart from the fact that we both had vaginas.

  Mum was very welcoming. ‘Sam!’ she said as she opened the door. ‘Lovely jacket. I was wondering if I could get away with masculine tailoring, what do you think?’

  ‘Definitely,’ Sam said.

  ‘I hope you’ve brought your pyjamas,’ Mum said, as she led us through the hall.

  ‘I haven’t, actually, Mrs Blunt,’ Sam said. ‘But I hope you’ll let me stay anyway.’

  ‘Yes! Ahahahaha! Ahahaha!’ said Mum, nudging Sam to show how OK she was with the whole thing. ‘And call me Jenny, please.’

  ‘I will.’

  Mum giggled and looked away. I hate the word giggle, but unfortunately that’s what she was doing. I felt queasy. My mother was flirting with my girlfriend.

  Dad was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. He didn’t look up when we came in.

  ‘Martin? Julia and Sam are here.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Dad, still not looking up.

  ‘I’ve brought some wine,’ said Sam, waving the bottle.

  ‘Lovely,’ Mum said, taking it from her. ‘Claret. Martin loves claret, don’t you, Martin?’

  Dad grunted and kept chopping.

  Sam and I looked at each other.

  ‘Why don’t you take Sam to your room?’ said Mum. ‘I’ll give you a shout when dinner’s ready.’

  We stepped over the optimistic airbed my parents had made up on the floor and lay down, side by side, on my childhood single bed.

  ‘I don’t know why my dad’s being so weird,’ I said as we stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars I’d stuck on the ceiling as a teenager.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Sam said.

  ‘He’s not normally like this. He’s being so rude—’

  ‘He’s getting used to the idea of you being with a woman. Give him a bit of time.’

  ‘This is the twenty-first century.’

  ‘But things were different when he grew up.’ Sam stroked my hair. ‘My mum went nuts when I told her I was gay.’

  ‘How old were you?’ I asked, trying to sound casual. Sometimes Sam shut me down when I asked her too many questions about herself. I’d asked her about her coming-out story before, but she’d been oddly vague about it.

  ‘Thirteen,’ Sam said, flicking a speck of lint from her trousers.

  ‘Did she come round?’

  She shook her head. ‘She was diagnosed just after I came out to her. We never talked about it properly, or made up.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. That’s really shit.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘When did she die?’ I asked, trying to look appropriately serious, trying not to show how pleased I was that she was opening up at last.

  ‘About a year after that.’

  ‘God, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You said that already.’

  ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘There’s nothing to say. It’s just shit. That’s why I don’t talk about it.’ She shifted closer to me. ‘Anyway. Things are different these days. Your dad will get over it.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘I’m always right.’ And she started to kiss me.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said. I could hear my parents in the kitchen, voices raised.

  ‘Why?’ Sam said. ‘Have you ever had sex in this bed?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Time to christen it, then. Better late than never.’ She pulled my dress over my head and pushed her hand into my pants and fucked me as I bit my hand to stop myself crying out as I came, which I did just before Mum called ‘Dinner!’ conveniently.

  Dad warmed up a bit during the meal itself; he couldn’t keep ignoring Sam, because he’s not a rude man really, and Sam was asking very thoughtful questions about his academic work. I was really touched by how lovely Mum was with Sam – touched and ever so slightly disturbed, as she brushed Sam’s hand every time she asked her a question and laughed so hard at her jokes that I could see the fillings in her back teeth.

  After we’d finished our main course, Mum cleared the table, and there was a bit of a lull in the conversation – a pretty uncomfortable lull. I decided to fill it by announcing to the room that Alice was getting married, which I soon realized was a mistake.

  ‘Good for her,’ Dad said. ‘To that northern chap?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Dave.’

  ‘Ah well,’ he said.

  ‘Martin,’ warned Mum from the other end of the kitchen.

  ‘What?’ Dad said, wiping his mouth with his napkin.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Mum.

  ‘I didn’t say anything,’ said Dad.

  ‘But you were thinking something,’ I said.

  ‘What? I just said, “Ah, well.” A perfectly normal thing to say, under the circumstances.’

  ‘What circumstances?’ I asked, ignoring Sam, who was shaking her head.

  ‘Well. I don’t suppose you’ll be getting married now.’

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘You know what.’

  ‘Now that I’m going out with a woman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Maybe I won’t.’

  ‘You know perfectly well that lesbians can get married, Martin,’ said Mum.

  ‘
Not in a church,’ said Dad.

  ‘Dad. You never go to church.’

  ‘Your mother and I got married in a church, thank you very much.’

  ‘And you’ll be buried in a church. Soon, if you don’t stop this,’ said Mum.

  Saying goodnight after we’d had our coffee was a bit awkward, too. Dad seemed very aware that we were going into the same bedroom. I fucked Sam that night – it seemed a waste not to, seeing as my parents clearly assumed we’d be shagging anyway. Afterwards we slept top-to-toe in the single bed like children at a sleepover.

  I woke up the next morning to find Sam already awake, standing at the window. I’d slept for ages, judging by the angle of the sun, which was lighting up Sam’s hair and her cheekbones and the curve of her thigh. How was it possible that someone so absurdly attractive fancied me? I felt stupidly lucky.

  I shifted in bed and Sam turned to look at me. ‘You’re beautiful,’ she said, which made me feel beautiful.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked. I could hear my parents in the kitchen, clattering cutlery and arguing in their morning argument voices (quieter than their evening argument voices). ‘What do you want to do today?’ It was a bright blue day, a perfect day for punting. I had a vision of rowing Sam down the Cherwell, showing off my superior steering skills, while she lay back, sipping Pimm’s in a straw boater, admiring me.

  ‘Nearly eleven. I’d like to see what’s on at Modern Art Oxford. We could stay for dinner if you want.’

  ‘I have to get back by about five,’ I told her. ‘It’s the swing dancing social tonight.’

  Sam turned to look out of the window. I couldn’t see her face, but she had extremely expressive shoulders, and her shoulders were not happy with me.

  ‘Come, if you like,’ I said.

  ‘Obviously I don’t want to come,’ she said. ‘I don’t like swing dance.’

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  She turned to look at me. ‘You always choose your dance friends over me.’

  That was so blatantly untrue that I laughed.

  ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not,’ I said, walking over to her. I wasn’t going to let her guilt-trip me out of going. ‘Come on. I can take you to my favourite brunch place in the Covered Market. Shall we do that?’