In at the Deep End. Kate Davies
I said, still breathing too quickly. I hate being told off. ‘I lost my keys—’
‘No,’ she said, holding up her palm to me. ‘No, no, no.’
I frowned. ‘What do you mean, no?’
‘I mean why were you really late?’
‘Honestly,’ I said, ready to get angry, ‘I must have dropped them in the kitchen—’
‘When we are late for things,’ Nicky said to me in a sing-song voice, ‘it’s because somewhere inside us we really don’t want to go to them. Which reminds me. I had a dream about you last night.’
‘Are you supposed to tell me that?’ I asked. ‘What was I doing?’
‘We’re not really here to discuss my dreams, Julia. Why didn’t you want to come here today?’
‘I did want to come.’
She seemed disappointed. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘What would you like to talk about?’
‘I’d quite like to talk about your dream.’
‘Why don’t we talk about what you did at the weekend?’
I was a bit thrown. ‘I didn’t do much,’ I said. ‘I went to a party.’
She looked at me for a long time. I could feel myself reddening.
‘What happened at the party?’
I frowned. ‘What?’ I said, my face getting hotter.
‘Something happened, and you’re a tiny bit embarrassed about it.’ She looked at me with her head on one side.
‘Well, yes,’ I said, ‘but that’s true every weekend, pretty much.’
‘You had bad sex again.’
‘No!’ I said. ‘I just kissed someone.’
She nodded and started writing in her notebook. ‘Knew I’d get it out of you,’ she said.
‘You didn’t “get it out” of me,’ I said. ‘I’m supposed to tell you things.’
She stopped writing and looked at me again. ‘But you didn’t want to tell me. So you must have kissed someone … unusual. Was it a relative?’
‘What? No!’
‘Look, I’m not here to judge.’
‘Seriously?’
‘My grandparents are first cousins.’ She shrugged.
‘I did not kiss my cousin. All my cousins are teenagers. I kissed a woman.’
She leaned back and crossed her legs. ‘A woman.’ She held my gaze and nodded. ‘That makes a lot of sense.’
‘What—’
‘Was it good?’
I let myself remember the kiss. ‘It was really good.’
‘So. Are you going to see her again?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Did you fancy her?’
I thought about it. ‘Yes. But I’d had a lot of vodka.’
‘So?’
‘So I don’t think I actually want to go on a date with her. I don’t have anything in common with her.’
‘Have you fancied women before?’
I felt I was losing my grip on the conversation. ‘Well, I mean – I had crushes on girls at school—’
‘Have you ever considered that you might be gay? Or bi, at least? Do you think that might be where some of your anxiety is coming from? Not acknowledging who you really are?’
‘Just because I kissed a woman, doesn’t mean I’m gay,’ I said.
‘Answer the question.’
I breathed out. ‘Yes. I’ve thought I could be.’
‘But you’ve never done anything about it before.’
‘… No.’
‘Why’s that? Why haven’t you ever dated a woman? And don’t tell me it’s because no one’s ever asked you.’
‘But no one has ever asked me!’
She stared me down. I picked at the cuticle on my thumb.
‘Maybe I’m scared,’ I said.
‘Of dating a woman.’
‘Yes.’
‘Right.’ Nicky made a few more notes. I tried to read what she’d written. I was sure I could see the word ‘passive’ underlined.
It’s fair to say I was pretty het up by the time I left Nicky’s house. I went for a walk in Clissold Park to calm myself down. I bought a hot chocolate from the café – I don’t like hot chocolate, but I wasn’t thinking properly – and walked past the skate park, down the slope, around the pond and back up the hill, over and over again, my brain a blur.
Sure, I had questioned my sexuality as a teenager, but I hadn’t thought about it much since then. I’d had a horrible, painful crush on Louise from my musical theatre class when I was 16. She’d loved Andrew Lloyd Webber, so I pretended I loved Andrew Lloyd Webber too; I bought a black leotard to match hers, and I stuck pictures of bands she liked on my locker, hoping she’d notice. She never did. I hadn’t fancied her, though. I’d wanted to be her, to be her best friend, to move like she did onstage, to be close to her. But I never had sexy thoughts about her. The way I felt about her had seemed much more real, more intense, than any crush I’d had on a boy. Less trivial.
Which, to be fair, does sound pretty gay.
And yes, I had told Cat that I was bi when I was 17 – but as a teenager, the idea that I might fancy other girls made me feel predatory, like my friends might not trust me, as though I would be a danger at sleepovers. It just seemed easier not to.
Now, though – now being queer seemed positively aspirational. The world felt very different from the one I’d lived in as a teenager. Then, same-sex couples couldn’t marry, and teachers had failed to step in when kids called each other ‘fag’ and ‘dyke’ in the back rows of classrooms, and when people came out, they’d labelled themselves: gay, lesbian, bi. Everything felt more fluid now. Plenty of people slept with men, and then women, and then men again without feeling the need to make a big deal out of it.
‘Excuse me, miss?’ said a park warden. ‘I have to shut the park now.’
I nodded, blinking, and walked out onto the street. I hadn’t even noticed the sun going down.
I thought about what Nicky had said all that week. At night, the idea of sleeping with a woman seemed bigger, filling my thoughts and my bedroom, keeping me awake until the sun came up and the streetlights blinked out. Could I do it? What would it mean? What if I hated it? What if I loved it? What would my parents say? In the morning, I’d wake with my heart racing, wondering whether I should try to make it happen – and how I could make it happen. I was a virgin again, essentially. Would that put women off? What if I was shit in bed, lesbian-wise? There was only one way to find out.
As the days passed, I felt more comfortable with the idea, less nervous, more excited – and angrier, too, with Nicky, for calling me passive. Fuck her. I wasn’t too scared to go out with women.
During quiet moments at work – fewer and fewer these days, because Smriti had a habit of popping up behind people’s desks and saying, ‘Just run me through what you’re doing!’ – I Googled the Civil Service Rainbow Alliance. They organized meet-ups. They even marched in Pride. But the next drinks night wasn’t for