‘But I won’t know anyone.’
‘I’m sure she’ll sit us next to each other at dinner.’
‘Everyone will talk about books and wanky authors and I won’t know what to say.’
I looked around for someone else to talk to but I was hemmed in by a sea of legs. Legs in jeans; legs in dresses; legs that obviously spent more time in the gym than mine did. I drank my wine steadily, for something to do.
‘Do I have to wear a suit?’
‘I don’t think so. It’s not a traditional wedding. She got a tattoo instead of an engagement ring.’
‘Nice.’
I pushed myself up off the sofa and carried my wine glass to the toilet queue that was already taking up half the living room. I looked around; I vaguely recognized a few people from the Hackney Wick party – the couple in matching fur coats, and a bloke with an undercut who I remembered being a bit of a liability on the dance floor.
And then, in that mysterious way you often can, I felt someone looking at me. I glanced over towards the kitchen and there, framed in the doorway, was Jane, the conceptual artist. A woman with long dark hair was leaning towards her, gesturing and chatting away intently, but Jane was staring straight at me, as direct as one of her paintings. She raised her hand and smiled at me. I smiled back – but then two men stumbled out of the toilet, rubbing their noses, holding hands, and it was my turn.
I sat on the toilet staring at my fingers, the harsh halogen light throwing up every wrinkle, every nibbled nail. I decided to take myself home; I didn’t have anyone to talk to, and I was being stared at by a sexually confident lesbian. I had a feeling that something would happen if I stayed.
As I was putting on my coat, I felt someone walk up to me.
‘You’re not going yet, are you?’ said Jane.
‘I’m not feeling great,’ I said, trying to sound casual, though I could feel my heart speeding up. ‘Not in a sociable mood.’
‘Nor am I,’ she said. ‘But I’d make an exception for you.’
She looked at me till I had to look away.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Stay and have a drink with me.’
There was something compelling about her. My body began to throb with the promise of something I didn’t even know if I wanted.
‘All right,’ I said.
One of the many lessons I learned from the seminal classic Sliding Doors is that the most insignificant-seeming things can change your life. If Gwyneth Paltrow had caught that Tube, she wouldn’t have ended up with such a terrible haircut. And if Jane had poured me a glass of red wine or a beer, I might not have— but I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, I can’t handle vodka. And that’s why everything that happened, happened.
Jane was sitting on the kitchen work top, pouring Smirnoff into two tumblers.
‘Let’s do shots,’ she said, handing one to me. ‘Down it in one.’
We clacked our glasses together and tilted our heads back. I managed to dribble half my vodka down my chin.
‘That’s cheating!’ she said. ‘You have to do it again now.’
She twisted the lid off another bottle of Smirnoff.
A new song came on, with a bored-sounding female vocalist.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Dance with me.’
She jumped down from the work surface and put her arms around my waist. I put mine around her neck, feeling self-conscious, like a girl at a prom in a teen movie, only not, obviously. She moved her hips against mine in time to the bass line. I tried to focus on her face, but it seemed to flicker. The vodka was buzzing in me, and I couldn’t tell if we were swaying, or the room was, or both, but it didn’t matter.
Jane looked up at me through her fringe. ‘I’m going to kiss you now,’ she said. ‘Stop me if you don’t want me to.’
I didn’t stop her. I closed my eyes instead.
I’d never kissed a woman before, except once during spin the bottle at university. That kiss was just for play, though, not so much a lesbian kiss as an impression of one – lips barely touching, tongues waggling around outside our mouths, wet in every sense of the word. Kissing Jane wasn’t like that at all. Her mouth was hard one minute, soft the next. I felt as though we were having a sexy, wordless tongue conversation. She pushed herself into me until I was leaning against the hob. I accidentally pressed the ignition with my bum. I could hear it sparking behind me, like an unsubtle metaphor.
A man came into the room and immediately backed out again, saying ‘Shit, sorry,’ shutting the door quietly behind him. I heard him say, ‘There are two women kissing in there.’
The door opened again as someone peered in to see for themselves. It must have been Alice, because a moment later I heard her voice in the corridor: ‘Julia’s in there! Kissing Jane!’
‘You’re joking.’ It was Dave. ‘Isn’t she straight?’
Jane and I stopped kissing for a moment and looked at each other.
‘You don’t seem very straight to me,’ she said.
I shrugged and pulled her to me again, feeling powerful and young and spontaneous.
‘Come back to mine,’ Jane said.
But I shook my head. ‘I can’t tonight,’ I said. I hadn’t sufficiently recovered from the Finn incident to have drunken sex with a stranger again.
On the night bus home, Dave turned around from the seat in front and smiled, leerily. ‘That was hot,’ he said, breathing beer on me. Not that I could talk; I could barely feel my mouth, I’d drunk so much vodka.
‘You’re disgusting,’ said Alice, hitting his arm.
‘Well, it was,’ he said, scratching his beard. ‘I could have watched that for hours.’
‘Don’t be such a misogynist,’ said Alice. But she turned to me and said, ‘Do you fancy her? She’s sort of dangerous seeming.’
‘Jane’s not dangerous,’ said Dave. ‘She just knows how to get what she wants.’ He was still looking at me, unsteadily. ‘Are you bi, then, or what?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m pissed.’ I didn’t know what I was, or how I felt, except that I was excited.
Alice moved to the seat next to mine and leaned close to me. ‘I don’t think you can really know if you’re gay or whatever until you’ve – you know.’
‘Until I’ve gone down on a woman.’
‘Exactly. It might be disgusting! Like licking a snail.’
‘But blow jobs are disgusting,’ I said.
‘What? No, they’re not,’ said Alice.
‘Yes, they are,’ I said. ‘Who would actually want to put a penis in their mouth?’
‘Not me,’ said Dave.
‘Maybe you are a lesbian!’ said Alice. She seemed very excited by the idea.
‘Maybe I’m a lesbian,’ said Dave.
‘Can we stop talking about it now, please?’ I said.
We swung off the bus into the February air. I let Alice and Dave walk ahead of me, casting one long shadow in the streetlights. I wanted to be on my own for a moment to think about Jane, and to remember the kiss.