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I heard her sigh.
‘I miss dancing, Mum,’ I said.
‘Of course you do,’ she said. ‘But I did warn you.’
That felt like a low blow, but it was true. Mum had been a ballerina too, and had done all right for herself – a stint at the Royal Ballet, dancing as soloist in a couple of Kenneth MacMillan productions – but it’s hard to have children and keep dancing, so she retired soon after meeting my dad. ‘You’ll be washed up at thirty,’ she had told me, when I got into ballet school. ‘You’ll feel guilty every time you eat a potato. And you’ll never meet a man who isn’t a homosexual.’ But I was sixteen, and when you’re sixteen thirty is ancient, and anyway, being washed up is sort of glamorous, the way being addicted to painkillers is glamorous. I didn’t think I’d be over the hill at nineteen, though. The summer after I graduated – after, against the odds, I’d been hired by the English National Ballet for their production of The Nutcracker – I broke my ankle turning a pirouette on a sticky floor during class and that was the end of that.
I think it was Martha Graham who said that a dancer dies twice and that the first death – the one that comes when you stop dancing – is the most painful. I didn’t know what I was, if I wasn’t a dancer. I didn’t know who I was, either. I felt like the only good and interesting thing about me had been taken away. I still felt like that, sometimes.
‘Look, darling,’ said Mum, ‘I know it’s hard. But I find a lot of satisfaction in doing walking tours. It appeals to the performer in me. You could come home for a while and try it out, see if you like it.’
‘That’s never going to happen,’ I said.
‘Well. The option’s there if you need it.’
I didn’t say anything. The idea of moving home and working at my mother’s walking-tour company made me want to die.
‘I’m not leaving London. All my friends live in London,’ I said, really wallowing in it now. ‘Not that it matters. They’re basically all in relationships. Everyone has someone except me.’ My voice rose to a squeak. ‘I thought I was independent. But I’m just really sad.’
‘Your therapist told you that, didn’t she?’
‘She’s very intuitive.’
‘You’re just feeling sorry for yourself. If you want to meet someone, go online! Isn’t that what everyone else is doing these days?’
‘Last time I went on a Tinder date, the bloke talked for half an hour about why Dysons are the only vacuum cleaners worth buying. And he made fun of how quickly I eat.’
‘Well, darling, you do tend to bolt food down—’
‘Plus I kept getting—’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just – horrible messages.’
Mum whispered, ‘Dick pics?’
‘Yes,’ I said. And then: ‘How do you know about dick pics?’
‘They were talking about them on Woman’s Hour,’ she said. ‘Repulsive!’
‘Exactly.’
‘Still, darling. You can’t complain until you’ve really put yourself out there.’
‘That’s what my therapist said.’
‘Maybe she’s not completely hopeless then.’ She sighed again. ‘Listen, I have to go. If I don’t pay for this shop in two minutes I lose my delivery slot. Do you want to come up for dinner tonight?’
‘No thanks, I’m OK,’ I said.
‘All right. But you’re coming for Dad’s birthday?’
‘Yes.’
‘He wants a nice shirt or a biography of Hitler.’
‘OK.’
‘Take up gardening. It’ll do wonders for your anxiety levels.’
‘I don’t have a garden.’
‘You can always come over and help me with the pruning.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Are you feeling better?’
It took me a moment to reply. ‘A little bit.’
‘Remember, being alone isn’t the same as being lonely. Believe me, being single is a damn sight better than being with someone who makes you miserable.’
In the background, my father muttered, ‘I heard that, Jenny.’
So I gave in, and that Friday, I ‘put myself out there’ for the first time. I’d been watching a lot of US box sets on Netflix, which led me to believe that sitting alone at a bar knocking back shots was acceptable, even attractive, behaviour; it always seemed to lead to handsome strangers saying ‘I’ll have what she’s having,’ and whisking you upstairs for well-lit sex. But it didn’t quite happen like that for me.
I live in Manor House, which is convenient if you like the Piccadilly line and Finsbury Park and kebab shops, but not if you’re looking for a ‘putting yourself out there’ location. I decided to walk down to the Rose and Crown in Stokey; I’d seen Jarvis Cocker there once, and I’ve always found him attractive, despite the age difference. Apparently he used to live in Paris, and I thought his voice would sound sexy saying ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?’ or perhaps something slightly smoother. Not that I expected him to do all the chatting up.
I felt quite powerful when I was getting ready to go out. I’d never been to a pub on my own before. It seemed like the sort of thing a grown-up, sexy, independent person might do – I could see myself swishing in, stilettos clacking, leather skirt squeaking erotically, as I signalled authoritatively to the barman for a shot of vodka. Now, I didn’t own a leather skirt, and I always find it hard to get a barman’s attention, but whatever. I was a good-looking woman taking charge of her own destiny! Maybe I’d find someone I sparked with. Or someone who didn’t laugh when I did my ‘sexy’ face – I’d settle for that at this point.
I put on my good pair of underpants (not as faded as the others) just in case I got lucky, and my most flattering jeans. I didn’t have a clean bra, but hopefully the lighting would be low if I got to the point of taking my top off. I considered wearing heels, then remembered that I’d once bruised my coccyx dancing the ‘Macarena’ in a pair of wedges, so I went for trainers instead. I brushed my hair and nodded to myself in the mirror. ‘Looking good, Julia,’ I said out loud, panicking momentarily before I remembered that Alice was out at a book launch and wouldn’t hear me chatting myself up. (A low point.)
I left our flat and marched down Green Lanes towards the pub listening to the ‘Young, Wild and Free’ playlist on Spotify, my heart beating louder than the music, my breath white in the cold night air. I was alive! Anything could happen!
And then I was at the Rose and Crown and the whole thing suddenly seemed like a terrible idea. The windows were steamed up with the breath of everyone having a lovely time inside without me. But I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d turned back.
I pushed the door open and did my best to swish my way to the bar. It wasn’t easy – the pub was packed with tight-knit groups of friends, laughing at in-jokes, not looking particularly open to being chatted up by lone women. There was no sign of Jarvis anywhere. I sat at the bar and drank a large glass of house red incredibly quickly, trying to catch someone’s eye, but I was hemmed in by tall men leaning over me to order drinks, knocking into me with their rucksacks.
One man did notice me – an old bald man with a very red nose at the other end of the bar. As he raised his pint to me, I looked away, and then realized that I probably looked just like him – a lonely borderline alcoholic, albeit younger and with more hair.
I rummaged around in my bag for a bit after that, trying to look purposeful, a ‘Where are my paracetamol?’ expression on my face – and then my phone buzzed with a text from Alice: Where are you, Jules? Me and Dave going to a party with some of his friends, want to come?
I ran all the way home, my vision jarring as my feet pounded the pavement in that fun way it does when you’ve had some wine and you’re about to have a lot more.
3. THOSE AREN’T MY TITS (#u2d6c042f-2c5c-5ba5-97f3-b952003434e8)
The party was at a warehouse in Hackney Wick, which was quite exciting – the sort of place trendy people who have lots of sex might go on a Friday night, I thought. As we walked up the concrete stairs, edging past a couple in his-and-hers fur coats drinking rum straight from the bottle, my body began to pulse with possibility. Who knew what was on the other side of that door?
‘So my friend Jane lives here with about six other artists,’ said Dave, knocking on the door. ‘She’s a conceptual painter. Her work is kind of confrontational – you’ll see what I mean in a minute.’
The door swung open and we edged our way into the warehouse, past a DJ playing electro on actual decks. The walls were covered in canvases splashed with phrases like You’re a cunt and What are you looking at?
I stopped in front of a huge blue square bearing the words No one likes you.
‘Sell a lot of these, does she?’ I said to Dave, but he was standing at the makeshift bar with his arm around Alice, pouring vodka into two plastic cups.
I looked back at the painting. I was beginning to take it personally.
‘What do you think?’ A woman had sidled up next to me and was standing with her arms crossed. She had a blunt bob and was wearing high-waisted trousers; she looked just like I do in the daydreams where I’m a bohemian novelist (and part-time detective) living in Berlin.
‘They give a lovely homely feel to the place,’ I said.
‘Ha!’ she said, and turned to face me. ‘I like that. You’re funny.’ She held my gaze for longer than was comfortable.
‘You painted them, didn’t you?’ I said.
‘Yep.’
I opened my mouth to say something, but my humiliation had slowed down my thought process a bit.
She waved away my embarrassment with her hand. ‘To be fair, I was going through a bad break-up at the time,’ she said. ‘My new stuff’s much softer. I’ll show you some of it.’ She caught me by the hand and pulled me through the fog of sweaty, dancing bodies to the far end of the warehouse.
‘Here,’ she said. She pointed to a pink canvas with curving purple script that read Your cunt tastes delicious. ‘What does this one make you feel?’
I considered the painting. ‘Flattered? Sort of?’
She raised her eyebrows.
I turned back to the canvas. ‘Violated’ was the honest answer, so I said that out loud, and she seemed pleased. ‘Are these all things someone has said to you?’
‘They’re things I’ve wanted to say to people but never worked up the nerve.’ She looked me in the eye again. Not smiling any more.
‘Right,’ I said, focusing on the painting while I thought of something to say. Was she hitting on me? ‘I guess you’re going out with someone you like now, then.’ I said.
‘Nah,’ she said, shrugging. ‘It was a one-time thing.’
‘Right,’ I said again.
‘You seeing anyone?’ she asked. I could feel her eyes on me.
‘Not right now,’ I said, still not looking at her.
‘You ever been with a woman?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said, flicking my gaze at her and away again straight away. I wasn’t drunk enough for that level of intense eye contact.
‘You should try it,’ she said.
‘Maybe I will!’ I said, in an Enid Blyton sort of voice. I started nodding and didn’t seem to be able to stop. ‘Do you need another drink?’
‘Nah, it’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m on the K. Want some?’ She held out a wrap.
I looked at the wrap. It was made of a flyer for a club night that I’d never been to; the photos on Facebook were full of trendy genderqueer people and I’d always assumed I was too boring to get in. This was my chance to be cool, to be young and spontaneous.
I’d always vaguely wondered what it would be like to be with a woman; I had occasionally masturbated while thinking about Beyoncé, and I’d even half-heartedly come out as bi to Cat when we were 17. We’d talked about it in whispers, and hugged melodramatically, and then somehow I just sort of … forgot about it. Maybe I should seize the moment, have a line of ketamine and a little light lesbian sex. But I’d just read an article in the Guardian about ketamine damaging your bladder, and I can’t even handle cystitis without wanting to scratch my insides out. Besides, I wasn’t sure I wanted Jane to taste my cunt. Apart from anything else, she was obviously a cunt connoisseur, and I wasn’t sure mine would be up to standard. I couldn’t think of anything worse than being the subject of a painting that said something like You need to trim your pubic hair, or Your cunt did not taste as good as that other cunt.
So I shook my head.
‘Another time then,’ she said, already on her way to the toilets.
I looked around for Alice and Dave, but they were dancing in a corner, foreheads together, grinding into each other like a pestle and mortar. I needed wine, a pint of red wine, preferably. There was none in the bar area so I walked around the edge of the room, picking up every bottle I came across. They were all empty or dark with cigarette ash, the butts floating on the surface like drowned flies.
I took out my phone and texted Cat. At a party with Alice and Dave. They are basically having sex on dance floor. Help.
She replied straight away:If you can’t beat em join em, mate. And she put a wink emoji at the end. She knows I hate the wink emoji.
Eventually I found a half-full bottle of vodka on a windowsill and took a swig. It was like a delicious slap in the face, if there can be such a thing. I stood there for a while, drinking and watching the people on the dance floor. Almost everyone was in a couple – a relatively recent one, judging by the level of groping that was going on. I turned and looked out of the window, over rows of graffitied brick walls towards the glow of the Olympic Park, the party behind me reflected in the glass. Fuck this, I thought to myself, drinking a bit more vodka. I was not going to stand there staring mournfully out of a window like a Jane Austen heroine. I too could have a casual fuck. I’d turned over a sexy new leaf. Conceptual artists wanted to have lesbian sex with me. I would find a man and I would snog him. Maybe I’d even bang him if the snog got me in the mood.
I took another swig from the bottle – a longer one this time, till my gag reflex kicked in and my body started to buzz – and then I walked with purpose into the thick of the party, giving what I thought were sultry come-hither looks to the men I passed.
Everything is a little bit blurry after that. Or soft-focus – let’s go with soft-focus. I remember dancing for a while, standing in a big circle, opposite an angular woman in dungarees who was waving her cigarette around above her head, the tip striping the air with fire. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jane emerge from the toilets. She felt her way around the room, her hands against the wall, clearly not trusting herself not to fall over. I looked down at my vodka bottle and was surprised to find it almost empty.
I don’t remember how I met him. The first thing I remember is pushing him out of the circle towards the fire escape, both of my hands on his back, the two of us stumbling and laughing. And the next thing I remember is being pressed up against him, him stroking my face and murmuring to me in his sexy Irish voice. He had green-brown eyes and very red lips, and stubble. He smelled a bit like he hadn’t washed in a few days, but there was something appealing about that, something raw and masculine and unconventional.
I kissed him first. I’m proud of myself for that. He kissed back and pushed me against the fire escape railing so it dug into my back. I closed my eyes and let my hands wander over his arse, using his body to turn myself on. I’d bloody done it. I was touching another human being. I’d broken the bloody spell.
‘Come home with me, like.’ He breathed into my ear, hot and damp. ‘I want to see what’s underneath that T-shirt.’
It occurred to me that the answer to that question was ‘an old M&S multi-pack bra’.
‘I don’t know …’ It was so fucking nice to feel the warmth of another human being, but the world was beginning to tilt and lurch, and the vodka was threatening to reappear.
‘Your tits are so firm,’ he said, running a hand over the pointy edges of my ribcage.
‘Those aren’t my tits,’ I said, picking up his hand and moving it upwards.
He laughed. ‘Thank fuck for that. Come to the toilets with me.’
That’s when Alice’s face appeared over his shoulder. She gave me two thumbs up and ducked away.
I pulled away from him and called to Alice. ‘Wait!’ I began to walk back into the warehouse.
He grabbed my hand. ‘What, you’re not going, are you?’
‘Yeah. Sorry. Thanks, though.’
‘Swap numbers then?’
