One Small Step

by M. A. Binfield

  * * *

  There was excitement amongst the chatter on the way to the pub. They enjoyed the 2-0 win as much as any of their recent victories, and the extra drama caused by the vicious tackle that Iris thought had badly damaged Cam’s ankle added to the feverish atmosphere.

  As everyone got changed after the match, Iris had stepped in and insisted that she would take Cam straight home so that she could rest, ice her ankle, and let the painkillers do their work, but once they were in the car, Cam begged Iris to take her to the pub.

  “Please,” Cam said, her voice imploring Iris to do what she wanted. “I don’t want to miss the celebrations.”

  Iris was at the junction leading onto the main road. Left would take her toward Hampstead and Cam’s house, and right would take her toward the pub. Cam leaned across Iris’s body and flicked the lever to indicate a right turn.

  “I bet Jackie can find some ice for my foot.”

  “Painkillers make you bossy, you know,” Iris said, turning her steering wheel clockwise.

  * * *

  Despite the cold December temperatures, colder still now that the sun was down, a few of them braved the cold and sat outside the pub trying to stay warm under the feeble patio heaters. The beer garden was not large, housing six rectangular picnic tables, and at one end, a large built-in brick barbecue—an extravagance of Jackie’s that got used for barely three weeks every summer when the sun poked through the clouds and everyone got their shorts on and starting grilling sausages like mad.

  The outside space sat behind the pub and was surrounded by a low wall. Regents Canal ran along the longest side. The towpath was popular with cyclists and dog walkers, and a gap in the wall halfway along made it possible to stop in for an impromptu drink on their way along the canal.

  Cam had refused to sit inside, convinced that the smell of the Deep Freeze that Megan had insisted on re-spraying all over her ankle would be off-putting to the other drinkers. Iris was unwilling to leave Cam and go inside. This was partly out of concern for Cam’s well-being, partly because she was starting to love Cam’s company, and partly a consequence of the fact that Jess and Vicki had sat outside with them and were offering up anecdotes that again made Iris sound like some kind of sex addict. Iris winced as the discussion had turned to the time that a couple of defenders on a team they were playing against got sent off after they came to blows with each other in a jealous fight over Iris who had, so the story went, bedded them both in the same week. The fight between them was actually nothing to do with Iris, but Jess and Vicki weren’t about to let the facts get in the way of a good story.

  Cam had looked as uncomfortable as Iris felt at hearing the story, and Iris badly wanted the chance to redeem herself with Cam in some way. Iris had slept with both the women—she couldn’t deny that—but it was important to her that Cam understood that she was no longer the Iris who did that kind of thing. She didn’t want old Iris, as she thought of her, to put Cam off being friends with the person she was now. Iris changed the subject, but she felt that Cam was still looking at her a little oddly.

  Waiting at the bar to get some drinks, Iris felt Hazel sidle up to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

  “Amanda’s not coming, in case you were wondering. She texted me half an hour ago and said she had plans. I don’t think she did. I think she just didn’t want it to be awkward.” Iris felt her blood pressure drop a few points.

  “I wasn’t sure. She’d have been within her rights to come.”

  It was often the case that the two teams drank together after a match, and some of their opponents today—with the obvious exception of Mabel, now cemented as Public Enemy Number One with the Cottoms women—were sitting with the players enjoying a drink.

  “I don’t know why I was worrying about her coming. It’s not like we haven’t spoken since the split. We spent hours, days even, going over everything at the time, and we left things in an okay place. I think.” Iris ran her hands through her hair. “It’ll be fine. I just wasn’t expecting it. It’s been ages since I’ve seen her and I hadn’t prepared myself for it.” Iris blew out a breath. Hazel gave her a squeeze.

  “I know, babe, it’s okay. I’m just sorry I didn’t get the chance to warn you. She didn’t say she was playing this week.”

  Hazel turned back toward the lounge with her drinks in hand and Iris called after her.

  “Next time, tell her she should come. I’m sure we can be civilized around each other after all this time.”

  Hazel nodded, and Iris paid the barmaid and picked up her own drinks. What she hadn’t said was that while she was prepared to see Amanda, Iris wasn’t at all ready to see Amanda out with Gina, the woman Amanda had replaced her with. She wasn’t sure when she’d be ready for that, but definitely not while she was single and still feeling so bruised by it all.

  The number of players sitting at the outside tables had reduced. The falling temperatures meant that the inside of the pub was proving too much of a draw.

  “Where is everyone? I was only gone five minutes. What ridiculously forward American questions did you ask them to make them all leave?” Iris smiled as she sat and waited for Cam to suggest they follow the rest of the team indoors for the warmth, and when she didn’t, she felt relief.

  They were now the only occupants of a table sitting at the edge of the pub’s garden. Beside the low wall next to them was the narrow canal path. It was dark already and the canal surface looked murky and still.

  “Vicki’s gone home to get ready for a night out with the Princess. Apparently, Harry’s taking her somewhere very fancy for dinner. She sounded excited but seemed worried about eating with the wrong fork.” Cam took the drink that Iris pushed in her direction. “She said she was pretty surprised they were getting on so well what with Harry being so posh and Vicki being so common.” Cam paused to sip her drink. “I’m paraphrasing obviously. She also said she’s been Instagram stalking Harry and found out that she’s still friends with her most recent ex and said she’s gonna put a stop to that. She told me that staying friends with the ex is an ‘awful lesbian tradition’ that she’s always resisted.” Cam looked at Iris with a guilty expression before looking down at the table briefly.

  “Tell me you didn’t?”

  “I just said she’d obviously made an exception by staying friends with you, and she just looked a bit sheepish. What’s wrong with that?” Cam put her hands out trying to look innocent.

  “You are the worst.” Iris shook her head, pretending to be cross.

  “You never tell me anything. That’s why I have to do my own investigating.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. Especially about Vicki. Though obviously I wouldn’t tell you if there was.” Iris tipped her glass in Cam’s direction and popped out her tongue.

  “True. I’ve learned more from Jess than I have from you.”

  “And most of that is fake news.” Iris sighed. “Where is the little troublemaker anyway?”

  “She’s gone inside with Diane. They looked pretty darn cozy I have to say. Jess looked about ready to make a move.”

  “Yeah, I bet. She’s pretty damn relentless. I keep thinking she’ll get bored of it, but she never does.” Iris shrugged.

  “I suppose it’s one way of keeping fit. It’s got to be easier than running up Parliament Hill.”

  “You enjoyed it. I know you did. And I’m taking you up there again after we’ve tried out your park. I’m actually looking forward to going running with you now that your ankle’s bruised. It’s got to slow you down. We both know I couldn’t keep up with you last time.”

  They sat quietly for a few moments, both watching the ducks on the canal’s surface, barely visible in the murk.

  “When did you get bored of it all?” Cam’s question confused Iris. She assumed Cam was still talking about running. But something in her expression helped Iris to understand she was talking about something else.

  “I mean the relentless womanizing that Jess won’t shut up abo
ut. When did you tire of it? And why don’t you date anymore? I can’t believe you don’t get offers.” Cam sipped her drink and regarded Iris closely.

  Cam had a knack for asking the most disconcerting questions. Iris hesitated before responding. She knew that Cam’s question was the chance she wanted to state clearly that chasing women she didn’t really want was a soulless activity and one she was glad was definitely in her past, but she also knew that making clear she’d put it behind her meant owning up to the truth of it all, and she still felt pretty shameful about the whole thing.

  “I got bored of it almost instantly. I realized that sex without a connection is, well, just sex. Empty and oddly unenjoyable, and sex with a connection, well, that’s a relationship, and I feel like I’ve proved I’m not very good at those. I figure that staying single means I don’t have to expose myself to either, and that seems like a good thing. For me and the women involved, less damaging all round.” Iris wanted to say more, but she felt a hand on her shoulder and stopped. It was Hazel.

  “We’re going home now.” Hazel was hand in hand with Casey. “We’ve got an early start tomorrow. Casey’s making me go on a stupid o’clock flight to Dublin to visit her family.” She paused. “Save me, Iris, there’s hundreds of them.” She spoke in a mock whisper and was rewarded with a playful nudge from Casey.

  “I already promised her unlimited Guinness, and she knows that my family always treat her like visiting royalty. My ma will have been baking for days, but no, she still wants to moan about it.”

  “I do. I like milking the sympathy.” Hazel pulled Casey into a kiss.

  Iris hugged them both good-bye.

  “So cute. Like teenagers in love even though they’ve been together for ages. It’s pretty inspiring actually.” Iris remembered the way that Cam and Ryan had been play fighting at the poetry evening. “I guess you and Ryan are the same though, and you guys have a few years under your belts, don’t you?”

  Cam looked really uncomfortable at the question and Iris wished she had kept her comment to herself. It was a joke among her friends that she had an uncanny ability to divine what would be the worst thing to say in any given situation and then to say it. It was one of the reasons she generally tried to say as little as possible. Iris waited for Cam to find a way to avoid answering the question. They were now the only two people left outside. The cold had finally driven everyone else inside or home.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be intrusive.”

  “It’s not that. I don’t mind the question. I’m just not sure I want to give a truthful answer.”

  For a second, Iris didn’t understand. Then she did. Or at least thought that maybe she did.

  “It’s freezing out here.” Cam pulled the zip on her training top as high as it would go. Cam was only wearing a windbreaker, and the jersey she was wearing underneath didn’t look very thick. Iris had seen the projected temperatures and chosen a warm coat over a thick fleece-lined hoodie. She knew she should suggest that they go inside, but she didn’t want to. A small voice in her head told her that Cam was using the weather to get away from her inappropriate questions anyway. She felt deflated. She was enjoying the evening, enjoying getting to know Cam, and she didn’t want tonight’s chat to come to such a quick end.

  Iris gestured with her head toward the pub. “Do you want to try to get a table inside?”

  “No, thanks, I’ll tough it out. I’m quite enjoying it out here.” Cam shook her head as she spoke and gave Iris a sweet smile. Iris felt the warmth of it register in every corner of her body.

  “Can I at least offer you my gloves? I’m wearing a lot more than you so your need is definitely greater than mine.” Iris handed over her gloves and Cam took them happily.

  “That’s very gallant of you. They told me before I came here that the British were very well mannered, but you’re the only person that’s come close to proving it.” Cam wiggled her fingers at Iris in the gloves, which looked far too big for her.

  “You have very big hands though compared to mine.” Cam paused. “Actually, that’s not very complimentary is it? Sorry.” Cam’s eyes sparkled, and Iris found it hard not to stare.

  Get a grip, Iris warned herself, willing the coldness of the air to counter the heat she felt when Cam looked at her like that. Cam looked down at her drink—a soft drink she had complained about, but which Iris had forced on her given the painkillers she had taken. Cam took a small sip and rolled her eyes at Iris as if to signify how unsatisfactory the drink was. She leaned forward and adjusted the bag of ice Jackie had propped on top of her ankle.

  “Ryan is lovely and I really do love him a lot, but sometimes I think we have so little in common that I don’t know how we’ve built a life together. Or even if we have built a life together. He works, I work. He sees people from his work, I see people from work. He wants to stay home, I want to go out. He wants a big wedding, kids, a dog, and a big yard, and I can’t quite believe that that’s going to be my future. Forget the rest of it; I’m not even sure I’m ready to get married yet if I’m honest.” Cam seemed to have found her voice, and Iris stayed silent, letting her talk.

  “I don’t know why I’m talking to you like this. I have a lot on my mind, and maybe because you don’t know him, I can say it to you. If I say it to my sister, she just tells me he’s lovely and I’ll never find a sweeter man. My mother adores him and always takes his side. She thinks I’ve done well to snag an investment banker and should just be grateful.” Cam toyed with her watch, and then her engagement ring.

  “Don’t get me wrong, he is sweet and I’ve spent four years loving him, it’s just that sometimes we seem like such different people and I don’t feel like he gets me at all. I don’t get myself sometimes so I can hardly blame him, but still…” Cam looked down at the table, seeming self-conscious. When Cam looked up, Iris could see sadness. Iris had the impulse to make her feel better.

  “Trust me, Cam. I know all about loving someone despite what you don’t have in common, not because of what you do. Love works funny like that. You just have to focus on the things that you do really like about him, the things that you do have in common. And keep talking about the difficult stuff. Never stop talking. When you stop talking is when you’re in trouble.” Iris had realized this far too late to save her own relationship but always gave the advice to others, believing that maybe she and Amanda would have found a way through had they only talked to each other.

  “I tell you what, tell me three things you really love about him. It can’t hurt to remind yourself.” Iris leaned forward, wanting to show Cam that she was ready to listen.

  “It wasn’t this cold last winter. What happened to that global warming we were promised?” Cam shivered and rubbed her hands together.

  Iris wouldn’t blame Cam if she was trying to change the subject; they’d managed to get onto very personal ground somehow.

  “I love lots of things about him. He’s driven and he’s decisive, and I think that’s good for me because I’m a bit of a drifter. He loves to eat and I love to cook. I like the way he looks when he sleeps, like a little boy version of his adult self, so sweet and vulnerable and with all the stress he usually carries in his face completely gone.” Cam picked up her drink and took a swallow. “But I don’t want to talk about Ryan. I feel like you’re trying to distract me. Let’s talk about you. Tell me why grown women fight over you, why you don’t date anymore, and tell me about your—very attractive by the way—goalkeeping ex-girlfriend who I assume is the one you stopped talking to.” Cam leaned forward to mirror Iris’s posture, holding her gaze.

  Iris spluttered her beer with surprise, almost spitting a mouthful onto the table in front of them.

  “Wow, that’s very direct, even for you.”

  “Oh, I know. I’m generally not as bad as this, and I can’t even blame the drink tonight. You can either take the blame for being so easy to talk to or I can try to claim concussion from the knock to my ankle. What do you think?”

&nbs
p; “Might work except I’m sober too and definitely not concussed so have no real reason to lay out in front of you the sorry story of my prolonged singlehood. The sad bleakness of that emotional landscape will make you shiver even more than you are already.” Iris paused, not sure whether to continue. “But I will take the chance to say that my love life is nowhere near as exciting or terrifying as Jess likes to make out.”

  “You definitely sounded like a poet then.” Cam studied Iris closely, her gaze making Iris nervous. She hated talking about herself at the best of times, and this was not a subject she expected to get out in the open so soon.

  “But your love life was exciting and terrifying at one point?”

  “It was out of control…I mean, I was out of control, and that is pretty terrifying. I’m not sure it ever felt very exciting. There was far too much self-loathing for that.” She took a breath. “What’s to say? I had a bad breakup. With Amanda, the attractive goalkeeping ex. It was a long-term relationship that ended before I expected it to, and I went off the rails in the weeks afterward. I’m not proud of it. I really was an idiot. I was thrashing around and I did as much harm to myself as I did to the women I got involved with. And then I stopped. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t fair, and I figured out I didn’t want to do it anymore.” Iris had been speaking to her beer bottle. She dared now to look at Cam who was nodding and chewing her bottom lip in thought.

  “And now I’m a model citizen. More sober, more boring, no girlfriend, and absolutely no women fighting over me.” Cam nodded. Iris wanted to know Cam heard her, that Cam knew that was the old Iris, but she didn’t know how to make sure.

  “When did it stop?”

  “Amanda and I broke up about nine months ago. I lost the plot for a couple of months after that maybe, drinking to numb the pain, and sleeping with women I wasn’t really interested in to avoid being alone. While actually feeling as alone as it’s possible to feel.”