nearly sixty or about his thread veins, belly, liver spots etc. He’s feeling a bit delicate.
I caught the coach to Oxford straight after work the following Fri-day. I wrapped the Hitler biography and wrote a card as we rumbled through West London, hoping Dad wouldn’t mind the wobbly handwriting. I felt sick; I knew I didn’t have to come out to my parents yet, but I wanted to get it out of the way. I’ve never liked uncertainty, and I hated the idea of sitting at the dinner table, listening to Mum talking about party wall agreements and Dad gossiping about his graduate students, wondering how they’d react when they found out. In a way, I wished I didn’t have to do it. Telling them I enjoyed fucking women felt a bit like telling them I liked it from behind.
My mother answered the door wearing a draped sheet-type dress, the sort of thing they sell in Hampstead Bazaar for about a thousand pounds. She’d cut her hair since I’d last seen her – it was cropped close to her head and was greyer than I remembered it being. She looked strange but good, like a national treasure.
‘Julia, darling,’ she said, doing a little twirl. ‘Do you like my outfit?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very bohemian.’
‘I had to stop wearing pencil skirts when I cut my hair. I looked all wrong, like a human Heads, Bodies and Legs.’ She leaned towards me and whispered, ‘Have you seen what they’re doing next door?’
I glanced over to the house next to theirs, currently hidden from view by chipboard and scaffolding.
‘Isn’t it hideous?’
‘I don’t think that’s the final look they’re going for, Mum.’
Mum shook her head and ushered me into the hall. ‘You’re no fun to moan to,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to agree with me and say how awful it is.’
Dad was at the kitchen table, flicking through the Radio Times and ranting on about how one of his colleagues had become a media don and was presenting a documentary about the Victorians on the BBC. Dad has always wanted to present documentaries, but he has a slight lisp, which puts the commissioners off a bit, I think.
‘Just look at his face,’ said Dad, pushing the magazine towards me.
I looked down at the photo of Geoffrey, a fellow English lecturer at Oxford Brookes, standing in front of some stately home or other with his arms crossed.
‘He looks pretty smug,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Dad, sipping his wine. ‘And unnaturally smooth. Like an alien. Never trust a man with a smooth face. Just look at Stalin.’
‘I don’t think Stalin’s face was that smooth, Dad,’ I said. ‘He did have quite a prominent moustache.’
‘Yes, but underneath the moustache, he was extremely smooth, I promise you. Same with Hitler, Napoleon, Cliff Richard …’
I took that as my cue to give him the Hitler biography. We opened the book to the glossy photograph pages and argued about the smoothness or otherwise of Hitler’s skin until Mum came in with the dinner.
‘Now,’ said Mum, as we were all tucking into our roast chicken, ‘have you got over your loneliness?’
‘What?’ said Dad, glancing up.
‘Julia was feeling lonely the other week. I told her to get out there and meet people on the Internet.’
‘And I did,’ I said.
‘See?’ said Mum, smiling a self-congratulatory smile. ‘And?’
Dad sat up suddenly and pointed to the radio. Radio 4 was babbling in the background. ‘Is that that Portia de Rossi woman?’
I listened. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘She has lovely hair,’ said Dad, taking another forkful of chicken.
Mum turned to me. ‘Your father has been rather passive aggressive since I cut my hair. He keeps drawing my attention to celebrities with nice hair.’
‘That’s not true, Jenny,’ said Dad. ‘Your hair is very becoming. It was an innocent comment: I like Portia de Rossi’s hair. That’s all.’
‘Fine.’ My mother speared a roast potato.
‘You needn’t feel threatened,’ said Dad. ‘It’s not as though I fancy Portia de Rossi.’
‘Dad,’ I said, ‘please don’t say the word “fancy” in my presence again.’
‘Well, I don’t. She’s an odd woman. Is she Australian? Is she American? Who can tell? And she’s married to Ellen DeGeneres. Very nice hair, though, nevertheless.’
I looked up at Dad. ‘By “odd”, do you mean “gay”?’
‘No, Julia,’ he said. ‘I have no problem with alternative sexualities.’
‘Good,’ I said, preparing myself.
Mum frowned. ‘You aren’t about to tell us that you’re a lesbian, are you?’
I was a bit taken aback. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Yes, actually.’
‘Really?’ she said, eyebrows raised.
‘Yes, really,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she said. And then: ‘Good for you. Later in life lesbians are quite the thing these days, aren’t they?’
‘I’m not later in life, Mum,’ I pointed out.
‘No, I suppose not,’ she said, ‘but it must be comforting to know you’re on trend.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said. I felt a bit deflated. I’d expected a little bit more of a reaction from her.
I looked at Dad. He seemed to be trying very hard to settle on the appropriate facial expression.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked him.
‘Of course I am.’
‘You’re not,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing! Nothing,’ he said, cutting a potato into unnecessarily small pieces. ‘I just think you’re being silly. You’re not really gay, are you?’
‘Why would I say I was gay if I wasn’t?’
‘Have you got a friend, then?’ asked Dad, much more blustery and starchy than usual.
‘I have lots of friends.’
‘No, a friend friend. A lover.’
‘Not right now,’ I said.
