In at the Deep End. Kate Davies

      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.

      ‘Then you’re not a lesbian,’ said Dad, wiping his mouth with his napkin. ‘You can’t just decide to be a homosexual. You have to try it out.’ He stood up and took some mustard from the fridge, as if the conversation was over.

      I wasn’t really sure what to say. I opened my mouth, but I shut it again, because I felt as though I might be about to cry. I hate crying in front of my parents, and I do it surprisingly often.

      ‘Martin,’ my mother said, in her cold, telling-off voice.

      ‘What?’ Dad said.

      ‘Don’t listen to your father,’ she said to me. ‘He’s being ridiculous.’

      ‘I’m not being ridiculous,’ said Dad. ‘I’m just stating the facts. You have to actually have homosexual sex to be a homosexual.’

      ‘Well, if you must know—’ I started, but Dad put his hands over his ears like a 5-year-old and sang, ‘Lalalalala‌lalalalala!’

      ‘You are such a hypocrite,’ Mum said. ‘Do you have no memories of the Seventies whatsoever? What about that time you and I had a threesome with James? And that other time, with Melinda?’

      ‘Oh God,’ I said, closing my eyes to block out the mental images. James was my dad’s best friend. He looked like David Attenborough. He used to take me to the park and push me on the swings.

      ‘That was different,’ said Dad. ‘That was what everyone was doing then.’

      Which gave me an interesting insight into life in the Seventies. I thought everyone was wearing flares and using typewriters and walking around in the dark because of power cuts. But they were also having threesomes, it turns out, left, right and centre.

      It gave me an interesting insight into my parents’ sex life, too. Clearly they were more sexually adventurous than me. I resolved to change that.

      ‘Well,’ said Mum, while I sat twitching at the kitchen table, ‘I’m delighted you’re a lesbian, Julia. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be interesting. And now you really are.’

      Not as interesting as my bloody parents, though.

      I texted Cat on the way back to London to tell her I’d come out. Well done, mate! she texted back. Let’s go lesbian dancing to celebrate. Tomorrow?? PS do you think I have a German aura? My agent thinks I do.

      I texted Ella, too, because I wanted to tell someone who would appreciate the importance of what I’d just done and who wouldn’t immediately change the subject to make it all about them.

      Hooray!! So brave!!!! she replied. Please can I buy you a drink to celebrate? Some swing dance people are going out in Dalston tomorrow night, if you’d like to come.

      I said yes. For the first time in ages, my life was moving forward, and not in a depressing, hurtling-towards-the-grave way.

      I was a bit nervous about going out in Dalston; I hadn’t been clubbing in months, partly because I was always skint and partly because the last time I’d been clubbing I’d taken too much ecstasy and ended the night by cutting my eyebrows off with a pair of scissors. I was fairly sure I’d learned my lesson since then, though. My eyebrows were probably safe.

      Alice was a bit suspicious of my new friends. ‘It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? You barely know them,’ she said as we pushed our trolley around Sainsbury’s. She paused in front of the milk. ‘Don’t you think we should switch to whole milk for tea? It really makes a difference to the taste.’

      ‘Sure,’ I said, about the milk. And then: ‘I think the rules are different with queers. If you find people you like, you hang onto them.’

      She didn’t look convinced.

      ‘You should come out with us,’ I said, putting some yoghurt in the trolley.

      She cheered up a bit at that. ‘OK then,’ she said.

      ‘Cat’s coming too.’

      ‘Oh!’ said Alice, trying and failing to sound pleased. Alice and Cat pretend to like each other for my sake, but I know they don’t really. We have a three-way WhatsApp group that only I send messages to. ‘How long is she back?’ Alice asked now.

      ‘Just for a week. She’s got an audition.’

      ‘What for?’

      ‘An ad for a German supermarket. Her agent says her aura appeals to Germans.’

      Alice started laughing and didn’t stop until we’d reached the cheese section, where we had a minor argument about mature versus extra mature cheddar.

      By the time we arrived at the club that night, the queue was snaking around the block. A power-drunk doorman wearing a fascinator with a flamingo on it was walking up and down the queue, picking out people wearing particularly exciting outfits and hustling them inside before everyone else.