Copyright

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

Copyright © Kate Davies 2019

Cover design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover photograph © Ros Roberts/Getty images

Kate Davies asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to events or actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008311346

Ebook Edition © February 2019 ISBN: 9780008311360

Version: 2018-12-13

Dedication

To my one true Spud

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1. SEX NOISES

2. NO-MAN’S-LAND

3. THOSE AREN’T MY TITS

4. UNSEXY SEX

5. NEVER SAY NEVER

6. A SEXY, WORDLESS TONGUE CONVERSATION

7. LICKING THE SNAIL

8. WELCOME TO THE FAMILY

9. SCARY LESBIAN EYES

10. A SEX-CUPBOARD STAPLE

11. WHIPS ARE VERY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

12. A SALTY RIM

13. AUBERGINE EMOJI

14. TEFLON-COATED BY HAPPINESS

15. EMERGENCY DOUGHNUTS

16. NO ONE STARTS WITH JUST ONE JUGGLING BALL

17. I CAN REALLY SEE THAT YOU ARE A MAMMAL

18. AN UNUSUAL LESBIAN SAINT

19. ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET

20. MR LOVER LOVER

21. THE WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

22. GIMP MASKS AND WAGON WHEELS

23. NOT THAT KIND OF MARRIED PERSON

24. I HOPE YOU’VE BROUGHT YOUR PYJAMAS

25. ALL OF THE BAD WORDS

26. SAM LOVES JULIA

27. THIS IS WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS

28. A VERY ATTRACTIVE CAR CRASH

29. BAISE-MOI!

30. CONDOMS ON THE PILLOWS

31. MÉNAGE À TROIS

32. POLYAMORY FOR BEGINNERS

33. SAVING CONTENTMENT FOR MY RETIREMENT

34. ELIMINATION DAY

35. VINDICTIVELY CALM

36. VERY SCOTTISH TINNITUS

37. SHUT IT, YA BAWBAG!

38. SHRIVELLED PEA

39. A TERRIBLE HUMBLEBRAG

40. LEMON DRIZZLE v BLUEBERRY TART

41. EL JEFE

42. NO WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL

43. A COUPLE OF PIROUETTES

44. LOVE, ACTUALLY?

45. SHAG PILE VIRGIN

46. A DYKEY FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN

47. BACK

48. RESIDUE

49. WOW

50. CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR

51. IT’LL PASS

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

1. SEX NOISES

One Saturday morning last January, Alice pointed out that I hadn’t had sex in three years. I knew I’d been going through a dry patch – I’d been getting through vibrator batteries incredibly fast, and a few days previously I’d Googled penis just to remind myself what one looked like – but the full force of how much time I’d wasted not having sex hadn’t hit me till then.

The last time I’d had sex was nothing to write home about either, let me tell you. He was a twenty-one-year-old editorial assistant from Alice’s office with an unusually large forehead, and it happened after a terrible house party that left our flat stinking of pastis. I tried to take him to my room, but a couple were already in there, dry-humping on top of the duvet, so we did it on the fake leather sofa in the living room. I kept getting stuck to the sofa, sweat pooling in the gap beneath my lower back. I don’t think he’d ever fucked anyone before, so it was a bit awkward and thrusty, and he cried and hugged me for too long afterwards. It comes back to me in flashes all the time – I could be boarding a bus, washing my hair, or sitting on a particularly squeaky sofa when suddenly I see his clenched red face or his sweaty pubic hair and flinch involuntarily. Enough to put anyone off sex for, say, three years.

To be honest, I’d always preferred the idea of sex to sex itself. In my imagination, I was experimental, confident, uninhibited, a biter of shoulders, a user of words like ‘pussy’. I could think about sex in the filthiest terms and speak frankly about it to friends – but when it came to actually doing it, or talking to someone I might do it with, I clammed up. I struggled to think of myself as sexy when I was with another person. I struggled to say sexy things with a straight face. It all felt performative to me, ridiculous, too far removed from the way I behaved in a non-sexy context, like I was playing a part in a porn film, and playing it badly. I couldn’t even flirt convincingly, certainly not when I was sober. Which might go some way towards explaining why it had been so long since I’d fucked anyone.

Alice and Dave, on the other hand, did have sex. A surprising amount of it, actually, considering they’d been going out for five years. The Friday night before that Saturday morning, I was alone in the living room, trying to ignore the sex noises coming from their bedroom. Our flat had incredibly thin walls, so it was almost as if I were there with them. How can something that is so much fun when you’re doing it (though not always – see previous note about sweaty sofa sex) be so repulsive when overheard? I didn’t mind living with a couple; having three people in the flat brought the rent down. Also, Dave had several Ottolenghi cookbooks and some very tasteful mid-century furniture, so we were better fed and more stylish than we would have been without him. But sex-noise-wise, I’d had enough.

The next morning, I heard Alice walk Dave to the door. They whispered to each other revoltingly and kissed wetly. I sat on my bed, picking the dry skin on my fingers, practising my speech in my head.

Alice walked into my room without knocking; people tend to do that when there’s no risk you’ll be shagging. She sat on my bed, her hair rumpled, a post-coital smile on her face. ‘Do you fancy brunch?’ she said. ‘I’m starving.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ I said, which wasn’t how I’d intended to broach the subject.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Why aren’t you surprised? What do you mean?’

‘Well – you and Dave sounded like you had fun last night.’

‘You listened to us having sex?’

‘I didn’t listen. I heard. It wasn’t an active choice.’

‘We weren’t that loud,’ said Alice, as though asking for reassurance.

‘You asked him to—’

‘To what?’

I looked away. ‘You know what you asked him to do.’

‘How do I know if you won’t say?’

‘Fine. You asked him to stick a finger up your arse.’

‘Julia!’

‘You’re the one that said it!’

‘That’s private!’

‘So keep your voices down!’

Alice’s cheeks were pink.

There was an unpleasant silence.

‘Did you really hear us?’

‘Yes! I always hear you!’

‘You can’t always hear us. We don’t even have sex that often any more—’

‘Three times a week isn’t often?’

‘Not for us.’

‘Well. I’m very happy for you.’

Another silence.

‘You wouldn’t care so much if you had a boyfriend too.’

‘I don’t want a boyfriend, thank you.’

‘Sex, then.’

‘I have sex.’

‘No, you don’t,’ she said. And that’s when she pointed it out, about the three years.

I went back to bed after that, and stayed there for most of the day, eating cheese and trying to remember what sex was like. I’d never had really, really good sex, the kind that resulted in the sort of noises I heard Alice and Dave making. Oral always felt a bit like someone was wiping a wet flannel over my nether regions, and having a man on top of me made me feel quite claustrophobic.

The thing is, sex had never been particularly high on my list of priorities. In my teens, I was too obsessed with becoming a dancer to worry about having a relationship. I did manage to lose my virginity after my first year at ballet school, though; my friend Cat took me to Jamaica to stay with her grandparents, and I did it on the beach with a boy named Derrick, who had terrible acne and a bottle of cheap rum, which is what led to the sex. We didn’t use a condom; the sheer terror I’d felt afterwards at the prospect of being pregnant and the mechanics of trying to procure a morning after pill without Cat’s grandparents finding out had put me off sex for years after that. I still can’t drink daiquiris. But I was pleased to have got it over with – I felt more sophisticated than the other girls in my year, enjoyed muttering wisely, ‘Don’t do what I did. Wait until you’re ready,’ whenever we talked about sex at sleepovers.

Then there was Leon. I met him during a Freshers’ Week toga party at Warwick. He’d looked very fetching in his white sheet, and it was only later that I realized he wore corduroy trousers every day. Nevertheless, we stayed together, right up until he dumped me just after graduation because he wanted to ‘travel the world’ and be ‘free of ties’. He moved to Peckham three months later and started a graduate training scheme in management consultancy.

Leon and I had quite fun sex in the early days – we tried out the reverse cowgirl, did it standing up in the shower, things like that – but by the end of the relationship he could only get in the mood by listening to the ‘Late Night Love’ playlist on Spotify, and I knew exactly where his hands would be at which point in each track, so it was a bit like an obscene, horizontal line dance. The boring sex was bad for both of us, self-esteem-wise, I think. After we broke up I decided to have a bit of a sex break, and the longer I left it, the scarier sex seemed, like crossing a big, naked Rubicon. I had a couple of drunken one-night stands – including the sofa sex – but most of the time going home alone seemed like a much more sensible, less humiliating option, and far less likely to lead to stubble rash.

I masturbated, though – I had a couple of reliable vibrators, a Rampant Rabbit and a small bullet-shaped one that I took on holiday with me. The only thing I didn’t have was someone to grab my breasts. I tried to do it to myself sometimes, but it wasn’t the same.

Dave made us roast beef that Wednesday night. As he was cooking, I sat on the sofa imagining myself fucking him – something I swear I’d never done before – and I found my heart speeding up a bit. Dave is objectively a very good-looking man, despite his massive beard. I found myself staring at the beard, wondering whether it got in the way during oral sex, and looking at his knuckles, imagining what they’d feel like inside me. I couldn’t look him in the eye for a little while after that. I didn’t really want Dave’s fingers inside me, honestly. But I did want something inside me. Something live and warm and moving and not made of pink latex.

I was more awkward than usual during dinner that night, which isn’t that surprising, really. Dave did most of the heavy lifting, conversation-wise, asking me lots of questions about work in his lovely northern accent and pretending to be interested in my answers, even though I was a civil servant at the Department of Health and Social Care, answering letters from members of the public about foster care and NHS waiting times and other things I’d rather not think about, and he was a graphic designer, which is both cooler and less depressing.

He passed me the horseradish and asked, ‘Get any good letters this week?’

People don’t usually send letters to the government unless they are very angry and very old. But there are exceptions.

‘Got another one from Eric,’ I said.

‘The Bomber Command vet?’

I nodded. ‘He’s upset about the cuts to social care.’

‘Didn’t he write to you about that last month?’ Alice asked, through a mouthful of beef.

‘Last month it was the standard of hospital meals.’

‘Getting old’s a bastard, isn’t it?’ Dave said, but his eyes were fixed on Alice, and I could tell he was playing footsie with her under the table. I stared down and concentrated on the steam curling up from my potatoes, but the footsie continued.

There was a pause in the foot fondling while Alice cleared the table and served our dessert (Ben & Jerry’s), but then it started up again, and it put me off my ice cream – no easy feat. So I ate it as quickly as I could, then pushed my chair back.

‘Thanks for cooking, Dave,’ I said.

‘No worries,’ he said, smiling at Alice.

Alice looked up at me. ‘Stay and hang out with us,’ she said. ‘There’s that Benedict Cumberbatch thing on tonight.’

‘I’m not really into Cumberbatch,’ I said. ‘And I’ve got a bit of a headache.’

I went to my room and switched on my TV. I tried to watch a cooking show, but Alice and Dave were soon snogging so loudly that I could hear them above the shouty presenter. So I opened my laptop and put my headphones on, and then I switched on private browsing and searched for real couples on Pornhub.

There’s something comforting about watching ordinary people having sex; I always think I’d probably do it better than them. Maybe that’s not the point of porn, but I don’t care – their incompetence turns me on. I clicked on a video and watched a thin, pale man adjust his shaky video camera and walk over to the bed where an overweight woman was waiting for him. I pulled my trousers down to my ankles and started to wank as the pale man slapped himself arrhythmically into his partner. That’ll show the patriarchy, I thought. I’m going to give myself an amazing orgasm in about two minutes, because I know how to push my own buttons – I don’t need a man to do it for me.

But then it was over, and I felt hollow and desperate to come again. The video ended, and an ad for Hot local sluts popped up. I flinched and clicked on it to make it go away, but I accidentally clicked on the ad instead, and a woman with huge, spherical breasts filled my screen, panting and rubbing her nipples. I tried to shut it down, but hundreds of windows had popped up, each one filled with hot blondes, or dirty Russians, or naughty teens, like endless mirrors reflected in mirrors. Looking at them turned me on, and that made me feel sordid again, so I slapped down the lid of my laptop and hugged my pillow. It didn’t hug me back.

I told Nicky about my unsatisfying wank. Bringing it up was a bit awkward; it was only my third session and I wasn’t that comfortable with her yet. I wasn’t that comfortable with the idea of being in therapy at all; I never thought I’d have a shrink at 26, even a semi-amateur one. A therapist feels like the sort of thing only glamorous New Yorkers should have, the kind who can afford to buy olives from Dean & DeLuca and who say things like ‘My ob-gyn told me to eat less wheat.’ This is how it happened: I’d been suffering from constant, low-level anxiety, the sort of feeling you get when you realize you’ve forgotten to turn the hob off, but all the time. Then one day I had a panic attack in the middle of a team meeting about letterheads at work, probably triggered by the fact that I have a job which involves team meetings about letterheads. Nobody noticed – it was a subtle panic attack – but that evening I burst into tears in the middle of the Sainsbury’s frozen-food aisle, holding a packet of fishcakes. So I went to the GP.

‘Would you say that you’ve been excessively worried, more days than not, for over six months?’ the GP asked, looking down at a checklist.

‘I don’t know if I’d say excessively worried.’

‘What sort of things are you worried about?’

‘Just – everything, really.’

‘Probably excessive then.’ She smiled at me. ‘Do you think the world is an innately good or evil place?’

‘Definitely good,’ I said, pleased, because I knew that was the correct answer.

‘And you haven’t thought about hurting yourself? You don’t have suicidal thoughts?’

‘Never.’

‘Do you feel like you can’t cope with everyday things?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have trouble making decisions?’

‘Not really.’

‘And do you often find yourself crying for no reason?’

‘No. I mean – I cry quite a lot, but I usually have a reason.’

‘OK,’ said the GP. ‘It’s unlikely that you have clinical depression.’

‘Hooray!’ I said, giving myself a little cheer.

The GP smiled again – a patient smile, I now realize, looking back on it. ‘You appear to have what we call Generalized Anxiety Disorder,’ she told me.

I was very excited to have an actual disorder.

‘I’ll refer you for talking therapy,’ she said. ‘But it might be better to go private – the NHS waiting list is nine months long.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘The Department of Health and Social Care gets a lot of letters complaining about that.’

I felt calmer than I had in ages. I went home and Googled cheap counsellor north London anxiety, and Nicky’s name came up. She was still training to be a therapist, which is why I could afford her, and she had an un-therapist-like way of voicing her very strong opinions on almost every topic. When I told her about the anxiety, and about feeling lost and directionless in life, she said it was no wonder I was anxious, and that my job sounded so dull they should ‘prescribe it to insomniacs’.

Anyway, I told Nicky about the wank. I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into the armchair as I spoke, as though it was recoiling from me. She didn’t recoil, though. She wanted to know all about it.

‘What did the couple look like?’

‘Does that matter?’

‘I don’t know until you tell me.’

‘She was overweight and black. He was skinny and white.’

‘Aha.’ She nodded in a therapist-like way.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ She scribbled something in her notebook and underlined it several times.

‘Do you often masturbate thinking about Alice?’ she continued.

‘I wasn’t thinking about her!’

‘But you said you were wanking out of resentment.’

‘I was pissed off with them for having such loud sex, that’s all.’

‘Because you’re not getting any?’ She gazed at me, unblinking.

‘Look, I’m not repressed, all right? I’d have sex if anyone wanted to have sex with me, but no one has for ages.’

‘So you’re just waiting for someone to offer it to you on a plate.’

‘Well, no—’

‘That’s what it sounds like to me. It’s just like your career. You’ve just decided to sit back and stay in this dead-end temp job—’

‘I’m a contractor, actually, not a temp. And I might apply for the Fast Stream this year,’ I said.

‘Why didn’t you apply last year?’

I hadn’t applied because that would mean saying ‘I’m a civil servant’ when people at parties asked, ‘What do you do?’ and then having to answer a lot of questions about NHS funding and whether I approve of the government. I hate it when people ask, ‘What do you do?’ I assume everyone does, even if the answer is ‘I’m a novelist,’ or ‘I’m a surgeon specialising in babies’ hands,’ because even then you know someone will say, ‘Will you show my book to your agent?’ or ‘Can you look at this lump on my finger?’ I missed being able to say, ‘I’m a dancer.’

I looked at the floor. There was some sort of stain on the carpet – ketchup, possibly.

‘You need to make an effort with your career,’ Nicky said. ‘It’s the same as your love life. You’re not prepared to put yourself out there.’

‘I’m not going to go looking for a relationship. I don’t need one to make me complete. I’m independent.’

She put down her notebook. ‘Are you independent?’ she asked. ‘Or are you really, really sad?’

I maintained a dignified silence.

‘It’s OK to cry,’ she said.

‘I’m not that sad,’ I said.

‘Just let it out.’

‘I’m not crying,’ I said, which wasn’t strictly true.

She handed me the tissue box triumphantly.

I called Cat on my way home from Nicky’s. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts, and I could always rely on Cat to tell me an anecdote about her terrible career to put my problems in perspective.

‘Do you fancy a drink?’ I asked, when she picked up the phone.

‘I wish,’ she said. ‘I’m in Birmingham. Doing the life cycle of the frog again.’ She sounded a little out of breath. She’d probably been having energetic sex too.

‘When are you back?’ I asked, sidestepping a puddle.

‘Not for ages,’ she said. ‘It’s a UK tour.’

‘Ooh!’

‘Of primary schools.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m probably going to get nits again. Or impetigo.’

Cat couldn’t get work as a dancer after school – every company she auditioned for said, ‘You have the wrong body type,’ which is the legal way of saying ‘You’re black.’ But instead of doing what I did when my dance career ended – moving back in with my parents and swearing never to perform again, except to sing my signature version of ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ at karaoke nights – she retrained as an actor. Now she earned most of her money performing in Theatre in Education shows, playing roles like ‘frog’ and ‘plastic bottle that won’t disintegrate’ and ‘uncomfortably warm polar bear’. I think we probably stayed close over the years because neither of us could stand our other friends from dance school, with their OMG I just got cast in Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake! #Blessed Instagram posts. I did feel envious of Cat sometimes, though. She still got to experience the thrill of applause, even though the people applauding sometimes pulled each other’s hair and had to be sent to the naughty corner.

‘Lacey’s playing the frogspawn,’ Cat continued, ‘and she won’t stop going on about the musical she’s writing about periods.’

‘I bet that’s actually going to be really successful,’ I said.

‘It is, isn’t it? Oh God …’

I heard a muffled sort of stretching sound on the other end of the line.

‘Are you taking your tadpole costume off?’ I asked her. ‘Go on, sing me the tadpole song again.’

‘I’m the frog this time. Fucking green leotard is a size too small.’

‘You’ve been promoted!’

‘Very funny,’ said Cat. ‘One of the kids came up to me today and said, “You’re not a real frog. You’re too big.” I swear six-year-olds are getting stupider.’ More stretching and shuffling, and then a grunt of effort. ‘Got it off.’

‘So now you’re naked.’

‘Yep. This is basically phone sex,’ she said.

‘This is the closest I’ve come to a shag in three years.’ I gave myself a mental pat on the back. At least I could joke about it.

‘I thought I had it bad,’ Cat said. ‘Lacey’s been shagging Steve, the new tadpole, all tour, and I’ve been feeling like a total third wheel.’

‘You’re best off out of that,’ I said. ‘Tadpoles shagging frogspawn is all wrong. Sort of like incest.’ I tucked my phone under my chin and unlocked the front door.

‘How are you anyway? How’s work?’ asked Cat.

‘Too boring to talk about.’

‘You need a creative outlet outside work.’

‘No thanks,’ I said. All I wanted to do was watch TV without listening to people have sex. I sat on the sofa, coat still on, and felt around between the cushions for the remote. Come Dine with Me was on, and Alice and Dave were out. This was shaping up to be a good evening.

2. NO-MAN’S-LAND

I was a little late to work the next day, so my usual desk was taken. I waved at Owen, who I usually sit with, across the grey no-man’s-land of desks and chairs. I could feel other people looking up at me from the trenches, so I ducked down into the nearest seat, next to Stan, one of the press officers. I usually try to avoid Stan, because he breathes loudly and eats crisps all day. An unsociable combination. This morning he’d gone for salt and vinegar rather than cheese and onion, which was a blessing.

I couldn’t concentrate on logging the new emails and letters – my session with Nicky was still playing on my mind – so I pulled out the latest letter from Eric, the Bomber Command vet, written on thin, yellowing lined paper in shaky blue biro, and started drafting my reply.

You’re not supposed to draft a stock response to government correspondence – you’re supposed to treat each letter writer as an individual. There are guidelines that tell you how to address a Baroness (‘Baroness Jones, not Lady Jones; it’s important to distinguish Baronesses from women who become Ladies when their husbands become Sirs’) and how to refuse an invitation to a Minister (‘Unfortunately, pressures on her diary are so great that she must regretfully decline’). Sometimes you take letters to the Minister for their signature. Sometimes, if the letter isn’t addressed to the Minister, you sign it yourself. Some people write back over and over again, so working on the correspondence team is a bit like having lots of self-righteous pen pals. Eric, the Bomber Command veteran, wasn’t self-righteous, though.

The care home staff are under so much pressure that they don’t have as much time to spend with us as they used to. I think the cuts to social care are a crying shame. Older people are an easy target, because once we reach a certain age, we’re hidden away out of sight.

Most of the old dears at my care home don’t get any visitors at all. That just breaks my heart. I’m lucky – I have a daughter who comes and sees me twice a week. She’s very good. But it’s very lonely getting older. I miss Eve, my wife, more than I can tell you. She died four years ago. Have I told you about her already?

Lovely Eric. He reminded me of my granddad, who I missed every day. When I was at university, Granddad had written to me every month or so, in wobbly, old-fashioned handwriting, telling me stories about his allotment and his cats, always slipping a ten-pound note into the envelope. I had usually been too busy getting drunk to write back. So I took extra care with my letters to Eric. I typed out the old lines about difficult choices and austerity, and then I asked him to tell me more about his wife, because I knew what it was like to be lonely. I caught myself thinking: At least he had a wife. And then I realized that being envious of a bereaved care home resident was taking self-pity too far, and decided to pull myself together.

I finished my letter and I was wrangling with the printer – usually you have to put the headed notepaper in face down, with the letterhead closest to the printer, but someone had fiddled with the settings – when I saw Owen heading to the kitchen for a coffee. I decided to corner him.

I glanced into the hallway to check that no one was about to interrupt our conversation and asked, ‘How long has it been since you had sex?’

Owen spends most nights gaming, and most of his lunch breaks reading comic books, and not a lot of time with members of the opposite sex. So I thought his response to my question would make me feel better. I was wrong.

He glanced at his watch. ‘Two and a half hours.’

‘You had sex this morning?’

‘That’s right.’ Owen crossed his arms and smirked.

‘No need to be so smug about it.’

‘But I am smug!’ said Owen. ‘Do you know how long it had been before I met Laura? Four years.’ He grabbed my arm and gave it a little shake. ‘Over four years. I hadn’t had a shag since I was twenty-four!’

I felt slightly better after that. ‘I haven’t had sex in three years.’

I could see Owen trying to arrange his face into an expression of sympathy. ‘Poor you,’ he said.

‘So. Who’s Laura?’

He shrugged. ‘We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks.’

‘Great.’ I nodded and smiled, as convincingly as I could.

‘She does roller derby. She has tattoos all over her thighs.’

‘I don’t think I need to hear about her thighs,’ I said, lowering my voice as a group of Fast Streamers walked past the kitchen, speaking to each other in low voices as if they knew something we didn’t, which they undoubtedly did.

‘Sex is great,’ he said, smiling to himself in a way that let me know he was thinking about Laura’s thighs. Or what was between them. Grim. ‘I’d forgotten how good it is.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Don’t rub it in.’

The sex chat made us late to our team meeting. Owen and I huffed into the glass-walled meeting room, breathless, saying, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ as we sat down.

Tom didn’t look up. He had a very passive aggressive management style – that’s what I’d have liked to say in the annual Staff Engagement Survey, but our team was so small I thought he’d trace the feedback to me and passive-aggressively punish me for it. Probably by making me answer all the correspondence about Brexit.

There were three of us on our immediate team besides Tom: me, Owen and Uzo, who was smiling up at me kindly now. Uzo was always smiling at me kindly. She’d been working on the correspondence team for twenty years and had the least ambition of anyone I’d ever met. Whenever I messed up, she’d say things like, ‘Don’t worry, girl. You won’t care when you’ve worked here as long as me,’ and I’d go and quietly hyperventilate in the toilets. She did have a lovely collection of statement necklaces, though.

‘As I was about to say,’ said Tom, still not looking up, ‘they’re bringing in a new Grade Six.’

Owen and I looked at each other.

‘What, another senior manager?’ said Owen.

‘Yes, Owen,’ said Tom, smiling his tight smile.

‘Above you?’ said Owen.

‘Yes,’ said Tom, his smile tighter still. ‘Above me.’

‘But we thought you were going to be promoted,’ said Owen.

‘Yes, well. So did I,’ said Tom. He fiddled with his tie.

‘Fuck,’ said Uzo, which, to be fair, was what the rest of us were thinking.

‘And I have it on good authority that the new Grade Six is hardline on swearing in the workplace.’

‘Shit,’ said Uzo.

‘That was a joke,’ said Tom.

‘What’s his name?’ asked Uzo.

‘Her name,’ said Tom, ‘is Smriti Laghari. I’m pleased to see you were paying attention during unconscious bias training.’ Sarcasm was another of Tom’s management techniques.

Owen took out his phone and started Googling Smriti. ‘She’s with Private Office at the moment. Used to be a banker.’

Groans from around the table. Former bankers were the worst for trying to make the Civil Service more efficient, which often meant getting rid of people and cutting ‘luxuries’ such as having enough desks for people to sit at.

‘According to LinkedIn, her interests include Cardiff University, Pineapple Dance Studios and the London Amateur Violinists’ Network,’ continued Owen.

‘I can play the cello,’ said Uzo. ‘Maybe we could form a quartet. Ha!’

Tom closed his eyes a moment, as though trying to gather his strength. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘We just need to cut down on the backlog before she gets here. Let’s show her what a brilliant, efficient team we are. Shall we?’

We stared at him. He had never used the words ‘brilliant’ or ‘efficient’ to describe us before. Nor, it’s safe to say, had anyone else.

It was dark by the time I left work. I called my mother as I walked down Victoria Street to the Tube, trying not to slip on the lethal rotten leaves that covered the pavement.

‘It’s me,’ she said, as she picked up.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I called you.’

‘Oh, sorry. I’m a bit distracted. I’m on the computer, doing the Sainsbury’s shop. They have a very good offer on olive oil, if you need any.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said, imagining her in the lovely warm kitchen in leafy North Oxford, my dad at the table next to her, reading his undergraduates’ essays and grumbling about how badly academics are paid these days. I suddenly wanted to be there with them. ‘How are you?’

‘Awful, if you must know,’ she said. ‘The neighbours are digging out the basement and doing a loft conversion.’

‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘A nightmare. Nothing but dust and banging. And the mess in the street. They’ve thrown away the Victorian doors!’

‘Not the original features!’ I said.

‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Julia,’ she said. ‘The house is going to look ridiculous. And it’s not as if they need more space. There are only four of them! They’re knocking down all the walls downstairs to build an entertainment centre.’

I was approaching a new tower block on the corner of Vauxhall Bridge Road. It looked like a middle finger, mocking me.

‘Sorry, darling,’ said Mum. ‘You caught me at a bad time. They just came round for a chat about the party wall and called our kitchen “quaint”. What can I do for you, anyway?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m about to get on the Tube.’

‘Wait, darling. What were you calling to tell me?’

‘Nothing much. Just a new Grade Six joining our unit.’

‘Oh,’ said Mum. ‘What does that mean?’

‘She’s going to be in charge of our department. It sounds like she might want to make things more efficient.’

‘I’m sure you’re very efficient, darling.’

‘No, I’m not. And I’m a contractor, so I’m easy to get rid of.’

‘No one has said anything about you losing your job yet. Have they?’

‘No.’

‘Well then. Anyway, it’s not as though you’re the Health Secretary.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘Come on, darling. You know what I mean. You’re selling yourself short, staying in that job.’

‘I’m not qualified for anything else!’

‘Rubbish! You could train to become a Pilates teacher. Or an osteopath.’

‘You think osteopaths are quacks!’

‘Fine. A barrister then!’

‘Be serious.’

‘You could! You could go to law school!’

‘Who’s going to pay for that?’ I said.

‘Or edit books, like Alice does. You have exactly the same qualifications as her.’

‘Yeah, because that’s a great way to make money. She’s been doing it for five years and she still has “assistant” in her job title.’

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

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?’

‘Sure.’ He gave me his phone and I typed in my number with the slow deliberation of the extremely drunk.

My phone buzzed in the taxi on the way home. Gonna dream about you tonight ;) Finn x

I smiled to myself. I’m going to have sex with you, Finn, I thought. And if you’re lucky, I’ll let you have sex with me back.

I couldn’t quite believe how bad my hangover was the next morning. I could practically feel my brain knocking against the sides of my skull when I moved. I lay on my back, as still as possible. What had happened to me last night? Why did I feel like I’d been rubbing a cheese grater against my cheek?

I had a sudden vision of an empty bottle of vodka and a fire escape and a hand fondling my ribcage. Finn. Finn and his stubble. I’d snogged Finn.

Even though I was concentrating very hard on breathing in and out and not vomiting, I felt very pleased with myself. I had kissed an actual man – I had not forgotten how. And although I couldn’t imagine enjoying anything at all at that particular moment, I had a feeling I’d really enjoyed the kiss, too.

Not only that, but I had been about two units of alcohol away from fucking him on a ketamine-covered toilet cistern in Hackney Wick. I closed my eyes and thanked the universe that I hadn’t had sex for the first time in years while in a vodka coma. I wanted to remember such a momentous occasion.

I was woken again by Alice opening my door, which was a little awkward, as I wasn’t wearing any clothes. She handed me a cup of tea; as I took it, I had to clutch the duvet with my chin so she didn’t get a flash of nipple.

‘Feeling rough?’ she said cheerfully.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Do we have any Haribo, or crisps or anything?’ I took a sip of tea. It seemed to curdle in my mouth.

‘I’ll get you some later. Tell me about the guy you snogged!’ Her arms were crossed. She was far too excited about it.

‘I don’t really remember …’

‘He had great hair. Reddish.’

‘Did he?’ I said, putting my tea down and delicately lowering myself onto my back again.

‘Yes! I couldn’t really see his face, though, the angle you were at.’

‘He definitely smelled quite masculine,’ I said, closing my eyes. I could hear birds singing and the pounding of the blood in my head.

Alice took the hint. She padded out of the room, ostentatiously quietly, and returned clutching a pack of Haribo Starmix.

‘Thank you,’ I said, and she sat there, smiling at me indulgently, as I piled the sweets into my mouth, one after the other.

I had a mouth full of cola bottles when my phone started to ring. I reached out for it, swallowing hastily and narrowing my eyes against the glare of the screen.

It was Finn.

I waved Alice out of the room. She went as slowly as she could, clearly trying to overhear as much of our conversation as possible.

‘I feel like shit this morning,’ said Finn. His voice was deeper than I remembered, a lazy drawl.

‘I literally think I’m about to die,’ I said.

‘Not because of me, I hope,’ he said.

‘No,’ I said, trying to ignore Alice, who was standing in the doorway, grinning at me.

‘Cool,’ he said. ‘So, like – do you want to go for a drink sometime then?’ He sounded like he wasn’t arsed either way, and yet he obviously was arsed, because here he was calling me the morning after we’d met. ‘Next Friday maybe?’

‘Sounds good,’ I said. He must actually like me, I thought. This could genuinely lead to sex. I wasn’t sure I could remember how to do it. What if I couldn’t – what’s the female equivalent of ‘get it up’?

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