LITMIR.BIZ

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– I was in heaven. I hadn’t danced for so long, and when I had danced it had been my job, tied up with my self-esteem and my body image and whether Cat was going to get picked for a solo over me. I had forgotten what it was like to dance for fun, to be in sync with your partner, with the music. I’d forgotten how free it made me feel. Everyone had their own way of dancing – we switched partners every time we learned a new part of the routine, and I danced with a girl named Annie, who was quite stiff and awkward, and a guy named Ollie, whose arms were loose, like skipping ropes – but everyone, everyone had broad smiles across their faces. You couldn’t not smile when you were swing dancing, it seemed. I hadn’t been so purely happy in years.

      ‘You’re really good at this,’ said Ella when we came full circle and danced together again at the end of the class. Ella was my favourite partner. She flailed her arms and kept kicking with her left leg instead of her right, but she seemed so delighted to be dancing that none of that mattered.

      Some of us went downstairs for a drink after the lesson. I sat with Zhu and Ella and a woman named Rebecca – dark brown hair, a lot of earnest opinions on almost every subject – who had her arm around Bo, very smiley, round glasses, wearing a badge reading They/Them. In fact, all of my new swing dance friends smiled a lot, which was relaxing. I had been worried I’d have to hang out with intimidating people like Jane, now that I was a lesbian.

      ‘Rebecca’s my girlfriend,’ said Bo, unnecessarily. I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to have someone who was that proud of going out with you.

      Bo, it turned out, was a freelance coder, which was appropriate, because they moved in a slightly robotic way. Rebecca worked in social media for Greenpeace.

      ‘She met Gillian Anderson for work the other week,’ Bo said, hand on Rebecca’s knee.

      ‘Such a waste,’ Zhu said. ‘She doesn’t even fancy her.’

      ‘She’s a bit too femme for me,’ Rebecca said, shrugging.

      It was wonderful to be surrounded by queer people, casually throwing words like ‘femme’ into the conversation.

      ‘What do you do?’ I asked Ella.

      ‘I’m a dentist.’ She fiddled with her bow tie.

      I stared at her for a moment. ‘Wow.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘Was that like … a vocation?’

      ‘Not really,’ said Ella. ‘But the money’s good, and I have lots of time to do fun things outside work.’

      ‘Look at her teeth,’ said Bo.

      Ella opened her mouth for me to inspect them, like a horse. They were flawless.

      I started gabbling away about the class, talking too fast and too loudly, about how much I had loved it.

      ‘Own up,’ Zhu said in her teacherly voice. ‘You’ve done swing before.’

      ‘I haven’t,’ I said, but I explained how I used to be a dancer.

      Rebecca leaned towards me. ‘How did you feel about that? Working in such a heteronormative world?’

      ‘I didn’t really think about it at the time,’ I shrugged. ‘I wasn’t a lesbian then.’

      ‘Are you a new recruit?’ asked Zhu.

      ‘Very new,’ I said, because I’d had some beer.

      ‘So,’ said Zhu, ‘does that mean you’re single?’

      ‘Zhu,’ said Ella, shaking her head at me, apologizing silently.

      ‘What?’ said Zhu. ‘Fresh meat!’

      I swapped numbers with everyone before I left. Ella hugged me – a really tight hug – and said, ‘Welcome to the family!’

      I felt the loveliest, warmest feeling of belonging.

      As I was walking home from the Tube, I got a message from Ella. Great hanging out with you! Are you coming next week? I was about to text her back to say yes, I was definitely coming next week, when my phone buzzed with another message.

       Come at seven next Friday. Dad’s joined a wine club so there’ll be lots of booze. Don’t tease him about being nearly sixty or about his thread veins, belly, liver spots etc. He’s feeling a bit delicate.

       9. SCARY LESBIAN EYES

      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

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