Cow Girl

by Kirsty Eyre

  ‘Do you want me to come up at the weekend?’ I say.

  ‘You wouldn’t be able to get here even if you wanted to,’ Grandma says, before dropping her voice to a hushed whisper. ‘I’m a bit worried about your dad.’

  ‘Is this the Bournville thing?’

  ‘It’s not just the chocolate,’ she says quietly. ‘I think he’s got a touch of the dementia.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He does get very forgetful, Billie.’ She waves goodbye to Lorna, who lets herself out.

  ‘About what sort of things?’ I say.

  She scratches her chin. ‘I can’t remember.’

  I try not to smile. ‘Maybe it’ll come back to you.’

  ‘He just gets ever so muddled, like that thing with the food bill the other day.’

  ‘You got Dad to go out for a meal?’ I say, aghast. Dad never eats out.

  ‘Oh no, hang on, that was your uncle John.’

  ‘Dad is John, Grandma. You mean Uncle Pete?’

  ‘Yes. Like I said, ever so muddled.’

  I swallow my laugh. ‘I’ll keep an eye out.’

  Just as I hang up, my phone bleeps with incoming mail.

  Subj: Sunday?

  Hello Billie,

  Are you OK for Sunday? See you 7 p.m. at the London Eye!

  Joely

  Sweet Jesus! Did she get my sexual-orientation-clarification message or did Tel-Useless-4U never send it? Maybe she feels obliged to meet me for fear of coming across as a homophobe if she doesn’t. Maybe she doesn’t give the slightest shit that I’m gay and this is all above-board bonhomie. Maybe she wants me! Any which way, fortune favours the brave, and as Grandma once said before blowing ten quid on a seashell cat ornament during a day trip to Skegness, ‘Life is too short for pussyfooting around.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  VALENTINE’S DAY

  It’s dark and the wind is arctic. I thrust my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket and poke a finger through the hole in the lining in an attempt to identify the small spherical object I’ve spent the last twenty minutes playing with but can’t quite grasp. Joely is officially twenty minutes late when it starts to hammer down with rain. The London Eye is closed due to severe weather conditions. Sandwich boards slam flat and leaves whirl in small tornados as litter gets wind-whipped along the South Bank. A group of tourists huddle beneath the bridge under inside-out umbrellas. People shelter in cafés, bookshops, theatre foyers; anywhere to get out of the driving rain.

  I jitter, unwittingly squeezing the small metal ball between my thumb and forefinger into something flat, and realize I’ve crushed the hollow ball locket Neve bought me two years ago when we were going to buy a place together, but I freaked. Maybe I did push her away. Maybe there is something wrong with me. Maybe I’ll never be able to let anyone in.

  I leave the locket in the lining of my pocket as Joely Chevalier struts towards me in kitten heels and a black poncho, the wind blowing her sleek, dark hair across her face.

  ‘Bonsoir.’ I put on my best French accent.

  ‘Hi!’ She sweeps her hair out of her lip gloss with a leather-gloved hand.

  I’m not sure whether to kiss her on the cheek or shake her hand. Thankfully, she takes matters into her own hands to faire la bise.

  ‘You know some good places around here?’ she shouts over the wind.

  I feel under pressure to come up with somewhere cool but cosy; the sort of place that doesn’t scream ‘date’ but allows intimacy. ‘Yes,’ I say, recalling a small vintage bar Maria and I used to hang out in when she was in a theatre club down the road.

  I lead her along the river’s edge, pointing out London landmarks she probably knows more about than I do. Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament. A gust of wind blows a tray of caramelized peanuts off a small trolley, which clatters and tumbles along the embankment, the cold air sickly sweet with crystallized sugar. We head further along the river and down the side of the neon-lit National Theatre, away from tourist hotspots laden with love hearts and rammed with romance to the Scooter Caffe.

  Joely Chevalier’s eyes dart around the dimly lit room. Couples huddle. Conversation thrums. Pink cupids hang from the ceiling. Heart-shaped confetti covers the table tops. ‘When I Fall in Love,’ blares out of the speakers, and I cringe inside as we make our way to the bar. The mirrored shelves on the back wall boast a rainbow of heavy-duty spirits, from electric-blue Bombay Sapphire to blood-red Campari. I drum my fingers on the counter. The last time I felt this nervous I was having my uterine polyps removed.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’ I pray she opts for wine over coffee.

  Her chocolate-brown eyes run across the row of liqueurs. ‘A cocktail?’ My heart leaps with hope, which I swear she sees. ‘I always ignore Valentine’s Day. It’s just commercial bullshit.’

  ‘Agreed.’ My heart sinks firmly back into place. At least I know where I stand – I can drop my guard but not my knickers.

  We head down a wrought-iron spiral staircase to a candlelit basement with our drinks. Her eyes shift around the room of happy couples. The only seat available is a wicker kissing-chair in the corner. With a heavy shrug of her shoulders, she acknowledges the funny side and sits down, pressing her bag against her stomach.

  ‘How did it go with the professor?’ she says.

  ‘Badly.’ I look at the floor. ‘I’ve been trying to get on a PhD course for three years now and I’m still no closer.’

  ‘Every path is different,’ she says.

  ‘I guess.’ An awkward silence ensues, during which her eyes are drawn to a framed photo of the London Eye.

  ‘Have you been on the big wheel?’ she asks.

  ‘Once. I took my grandma and her friend. They took their knitting with them.’

  ‘Knitting?’

  ‘You know.’ I mime knitting needles. ‘With wool to make jumpers.’

  She throws her head back and laughs. ‘I love this.’

  My shoulders relax an inch. ‘I’m not sure they even looked out of the window.’

  We spend the next ten minutes listing London landmarks and establishing whether we’ve frequented them. The OXO Tower sounds ridiculously sexy in a French accent.

  ‘My husband and I visited the Tower of London,’ she says wistfully.

  I feel like someone’s just stuck a pin in me, the word ‘husband’ hanging out in my head, an unwanted guest. ‘How long have you been married for?’

  ‘We separated three years ago.’ She twirls the stem of her martini glass between her thumb and forefinger.

  I squeeze the broken locket through my jacket pocket lining and gaze around the room, trying to appear blasé. ‘Whereabouts in France are you from?’

  ‘Bordeaux. Though I was born in Versailles.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘It’s like the countryside, though we didn’t have pigs and cows in the house like Marie Antoinette. How about you?’

  ‘I was born in Derbyshire. In a cowshed.’ I try to say the words without thinking them through but it’s already too late: I’m dying on the barn floor with Mum.

  A montage of my mother plays out in my mind’s eye, forged from home videos I’ve watched over and over. My mother sits on a threadbare turquoise sofa, heavily pregnant. Her face is kind and awash with freckles, her expression contemplative. The bottom of her floral smock top has ridden up showing an inch of mottled skin stretched across the bump that is me. Her wedding ring is a smaller version of the one that dangles around Dad’s neck, its yellow gold glinting in the light. The wallpaper behind her is the same one we have at the farm today, but the colours are more vibrant, the blues and greens popping with life.

  ‘Is he kicking?’ Dad says off camera.

  She smiles, her teeth endearingly goofy. ‘How do you know it’s a he?’ Her fingers rub the wings of a ladybird brooch pinned an inch or so below the neckline of her top.

  ‘We’re pretty screwed on names if it’s a girl!’ Dad says, his hand creeping into shot. ‘The only
name we can agree on is Billy.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Billy for a girl? Billie, like Billie Jean King,’ she says, accidentally knocking the ladybird brooch, which makes its way onto the sofa. She picks it up and inspects it. ‘I think it’s a girl. The ladybird thinks it’s a girl too.’ She smiles directly into the camera.

  ‘Ça va?’ Joely Chevalier’s eyes peer into mine.

  I nod. My mum died, yet I got to live. And here I am, sitting in a pub with a stranger when I should really be doing something meaningful and …

  ‘It’s that bad, Derbyshire?’

  I pull myself together. ‘Sorry.’

  It’s not grief – I never knew my mum, so I don’t miss her. It’s not even sentimentality. It’s more the overwhelming burden of feeling that I should achieve great things with my life. That pressure that sits on my chest, strangles my windpipe and haunts me at the most inopportune moments.

  ‘Billie?’

  Moments like this. I feel all spacey and disconnected, like I’m watching someone else on a date, that isn’t a date.

  ‘Maybe we should have met in the lab.’ Joely glances around the room.

  Air compresses in my lungs. ‘No, no. It’s good to have a drink!’ I almost grab her thigh. ‘Can I get you another?’ I gesture to her empty glass.

  She reaches for her poncho. ‘I should probably get my train.’

  ‘Hey!’ I blurt. I want to kiss her. I want her to put her coat back and stay for another drink. I want to spend time with her. ‘We should—’

  She stands up. ‘I’ve got an early start tomorrow.’

  I can’t seem to claw back the moment and, before I know it, she’s stroking my arm in the way you might a frightened hamster and guiding me up the staircase. Desperate to reclaim the evening, I suggest the pub next door, but my voice gets lost in the blowback of a moped screeching down a side street, and we’re now walking at pace back to Waterloo station in painful silence. She envelops her chest in her poncho, navigating bicycles and buses. I’m out of breath by the time we reach the concourse.

  ‘Listen,’ I say as she stands in front of me and reaches into her bag for her purse. ‘I know I shouldn’t say this, not with you being my business sponsor and me being your …’

  She looks straight into my eyes, sending my ovaries on a rollercoaster journey of hope and uncertainty.

  ‘But I really like you,’ I say, determined not to let the moment slip away. ‘I don’t want to freak you out, but I like you a lot.’

  She looks around and, just when I think I’ve made a monumental mistake, leans over and kisses me. I can barely breathe. Joely Chevalier is kissing me. Our torsos are pressed against each other and we are actually kissing. She smells divine. And I’m there, in the moment, engaged in the longest, slowest, most stomach-flipping, hot French kiss of my life. A kiss I shall never forget.

  It’s been nigh on impossible to concentrate at work since locking lips yesterday with possibly the most beautiful woman in the world. I replay the kiss God knows how many times, she finally pulling away and conceding that she really must get her train, leaving me breathless on the concourse. I can’t stop checking my phone either. We’ve had a couple of exchanges, which on the face of them are pretty straightforward, but are loaded with suggestion. ‘Look forward to building our relationship further.’ ‘It’s important we meet regularly to align our synergies.’ ‘Should we meet again next week when you’re back from Paris?’ (Me to her.) ‘Or sooner?’ (Also me.) ‘Tonight even?’ (Me again.) ‘I’m the only one in the lab today as everyone’s at a client meeting.’ (OK, I should probably stop now.)

  At five o’clock, I’m about to leave when the lab door opens.

  Joely Chevalier stands before me in a pencil skirt, high heels and a grey leather jacket with an upturned collar. The scent of fresh flowers lingers in the corridor. Her skin glows and her eyes shine. My stomach fizzes as we stand, face to face under the glow of the emergency light. She props her compact wheelie-case against the wall.

  ‘Are we alone?’ She runs her finger along my collarbone.

  I nod, unable to breathe properly.

  ‘I had to see you.’ She pushes me gently against the wall, the lab darkening as my shoulders press against the light switch. ‘I’m going to Paris, but I had to see you first,’ she says, kissing me on one cheek, her lips brushing mine before kissing the other cheek. Her breath tastes of peppermint. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’ She peels off her leather jacket and tosses it onto her case.

  I kiss her, slowly at first.

  Her tongue finds my neck.

  My fingers navigate the edge of her top and walk their way up her back, our eyes locking as I undo the top button of her shirt. She kisses me long and hard.

  I undo the next button, my hands sliding over her hips.

  Another button. Her stomach.

  Another button. Her buttocks.

  Another. Her back.

  And another. Her breasts.

  My tongue finds its way across her chest. My fingers disappear under her skirt. Her thighs are toned yet soft. Her eyes dart towards the door and, reassured we’re alone, she reaches for the bottom of my sweater and pulls it over my head, our bare skin touching through her unbuttoned shirt.

  I go to undo her bra, at which point she grabs my hand and leads me to the nearest work bench. She pushes me onto the work stool and kisses me from my neck to my stomach, her tongue making its way down to my hips and lingering until I gasp. Then, bringing her head in line with mine, she looks me in the eye and undoes the metal clasp on my trousers. Her fingertips slide beneath my knickers. ‘I can?’

  I kiss her urgently. ‘Yes.’

  My trousers fall to the floor as she tears off my underwear and parts my legs. Gently, she touches me. I rip off her satin bra and press my chest against hers. Tingling all over, my hands move up her skirt, between her legs. Together, we’re a blur of Anglo-Franco soft skin and a harmony of gasps and groans.

  Joely Chevalier stares into my eyes. ‘Paris can wait.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FRANGLAIS AT FERNBROOK FARM

  The last five weeks have been a whirlwind – picnics in Regent’s Park, cocktails in Soho, aperitifs at the top of the OXO Tower, several steamy sleepovers at her flat in Brentford (she has remote-controlled blinds and a Nespresso machine). We’ve shared stories, dreams, her bed, a toothbrush, so I figure I’ve invested enough wit and charm for Joely to come into contact with my avocado three-piece bathroom suite and schizophrenic shower. It may not quite be the perfect backdrop for fantasy girl-on-girl shower sex, but it’s a lot more practical than an hour’s train journey to Brentford after a night out in Soho.

  We lie in my bed drinking coffee and flicking through her Wallpaper magazine, picking out high-end designer interiors we will never own. I feel a bit like Eliza Doolittle in her company: a ‘farmer to pharma’ gentrification project. I’ve never bought a Wallpaper magazine in my life and yet here I am now, oohing and aahing over voile curtains and onomatopoeic manga backdrops (Shazam! Kapow! Kerchang!); a veritable culture vulture.

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ I whisper, trying to sound sultry but struggling with a bit of phlegm and sounding more like Gollum.

  ‘Of course.’ Her eyes consume ‘bold florals on canvas’.

  ‘Is this your first relationship with a woman?’ I ask, and then cringe that I’ve somewhat jumped the gun in terms of our relationship status and want to swallow my fist.

  She folds over the corner of her page and drops the magazine onto my Sainsbury’s economy duvet cover. ‘Twice.’

  ‘It’s just with you having been married to a guy, I thought maybe—’

  ‘Bisexuality has its advantages,’ she says matter-of-factly.

  I prop up the boob that has crept under my armpit (mine, not hers). ‘How do you mean?’

  She lets out a slow exhalation of breath. ‘My parents are not altogether normal.’

  ‘Are anybody’s?’

  ‘Th
ey know about my boyfriends, but not the girls,’ she says casually. ‘They loved Christophe.’

  ‘You and Christophe were a thing?’

  ‘For three years.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, trying to sound casual.

  ‘It didn’t work. He drove me crazy.’

  The thought of Joely getting intimate with Christophe makes my skin crawl; although I want to ask a million questions, I know I can’t handle the answers. ‘You honestly have no preference between guys and girls?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She picks up her magazine, her attention returning to damask wallpaper. ‘Every relationship is different. My mother and father are the perfect example; they love each other but they both have their adventures. My father likes women younger than me and my mother is sleeping with the assistant manager of Monsieur Bricolage.’

  I splutter on my coffee. Is adultery hereditary, and will I too find myself trapped in the deceptive embrace of a polyamorous relationship?

  ‘Do you have moisturizer?’ She gets up to peruse the toiletries on my chest of drawers, which allows me to gawk at her long, toned legs, her womanly hips (mine are so boyish) and her small waist, until I become aware that she can see me in the reflection of my wardrobe mirror. She picks up Bev and Kat’s wedding invitation, which is balanced against my lamp. ‘“Bill plus one”,’ she reads, raising an eyebrow. ‘Who are you taking?’

  ‘It’s a way off yet.’

  She turns to me, flashing a grin. ‘I’m not doing anything on the eleventh of December.’

  ‘You want to come?’

  ‘Sure!’ She studies the invite. ‘It’s in a cinema?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I slip into the silk kimono she persuaded me to buy and immediately feel so much more sophisticated, like I should be serving grapes on a silver platter rather than burned toast on a cracked Sainsbury’s saucer.

  She spreads her fingers over her sternum. ‘I love the cinema. We should go this weekend.’