You Only Live Once Read online

More awkward silence.

  Oh god.

  I realised there was literally nothing I could do. There was no way out of this. I had to come clean.

  ‘I don’t have a ticket,’ I said quietly.

  Sarah looked at me, her head on one side. ‘Huh?’

  I took a few steps away from hairy Jack and his friends so as not to have to tell the whole pathetic story with an audience. They seemed to have lost interest in us by this point anyway.

  ‘I don’t actually have a ticket,’ I said again. ‘That’s why I can’t go in. I only had one.’

  Sarah looked at me, confused. ‘But … how do you …?’ She looked down at her pink wristband – the one they’d given at the door in exchange for her ticket. ‘Oh god!’ she said, starting to tug at it. ‘You gave me your one ticket! I can’t take that. Here. You take it.’

  I held up my hands and stepped away from her. ‘No! No, that’s not what I meant. I just tried to get two tickets but I couldn’t so I got one and then I thought I’d get another one down here, from someone outside or something but –’

  ‘But why did you say you’d got the tickets if you … if you hadn’t?’

  I just shook my head and fiddled with my sleeve. ‘I don’t know. I got myself in a situation.’

  Sarah was laughing. ‘You’re so weird.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But that is so something I would do.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Totally. I always say things without thinking and just hope I can work out the details later. All the time! Look, let’s go and sit down there.’ She pointed to the beach where a few people were sitting on the stones, some with cans in their hands, some poking disposable barbecues. ‘We’ve got drinks. We can probably hear the band from there anyway. Sort of.’

  I looked down at the beach doubtfully. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You’ve got a ticket. You should go and use it.’

  Sarah shook her head firmly. ‘Nope. I’d rather be with you.’

  I stopped then, and she stopped, and we just looked at each other. ‘Really?’ I said. And that was a moment. There was a shift then.

  ‘Really,’ she said quietly.

  Then we got over the moment and Sarah strode off down to the stones and I followed her.

  To Infinity

  I assumed that if there was to be any time for talking that evening it would largely be focused around the band. With this in mind, I’d done some not-insubstantial research so as not to give myself away.

  I could tell you that The Sneaks formed in 2014 after the lead singer, Jake English, met the bassist, Kyle Noro, when they were both working at the Bridgehouse Cinema in Nuneaton. I could tell you that their first single was ‘We Will Watch’ but that it only charted at number forty-five and it wasn’t until their follow-up, ‘Another Morning’, that people started to get interested. I could tell you all sorts of other facts and figures but as it turned out, I didn’t need any of them. On balance, I was quite glad about this because I’m not sure reeling off Wikipedia pages has ever been the most effective seduction technique.

  We talked generally about what we’d be doing this summer and Sarah was impressed by how much I’d managed to fit in already.

  ‘You’re kind of a do-er,’ she commented.

  ‘Now I am,’ I said. ‘I’m trying, anyway. It’s new.’

  And then I told her all about my near-death experience, my epiphany and my new philosophy to live every day as if it were my last.

  Sarah laughed. ‘I get that. I get that feeling. When my exams finished last month I didn’t even want to plan what I was having for lunch. I just lay on the sofa watching CBeebies for, like, two solid days. Sometimes you just want to relax.’

  ‘It’s more than that though,’ I said. ‘This isn’t just relaxing after exams. I’ve just realised how badly I was doing at life! Like, letting it pass me by. I was pinning everything on the future like this bit was some kind of warm-up. But this is my life! Now! What if I get run over tomorrow?’

  ‘What if you don’t?’

  ‘Well … then I’ll continue having a very nice time, thank you very much.’

  Sarah just laughed and lay back on the stones. I joined her and our heads were close together.

  ‘Have you had a girlfriend before?’ she asked.

  I was slightly taken aback by the forthrightness of the question.

  ‘No one special,’ I said vaguely. Sarah turned her head to look at me and I did the same, so we were lying on the stones with our faces a few inches apart. She raised one eyebrow slightly.

  ‘OK, fine,’ I relented. ‘No one at all.’

  Sarah laughed. She didn’t ask anything else, so I turned my head back and carried on looking up at the sky.

  We could hear the music pretty clearly from where we were. There was a lot of drumming and the words sounded something like ‘That’s not my flamingo, you’re not a flamingo’, which seemed an improbable lyrical selection, but I couldn’t ask Sarah about it as I was supposed to be a huge fan of The Sneaks and therefore completely au fait with all their songs, flamingo-based or otherwise.

  Sarah turned over so she was lying on her front, leaning on her elbows, and I turned and looked at her.

  And then she kissed me. On the lips.

  I was so surprised I didn’t know what to do. I just stayed completely still, like someone having a splinter removed from their face.

  ‘Oh,’ I said when she moved away. ‘Thanks.’

  Sarah burst out laughing. ‘Thanks!’

  She was quiet for a moment. Then she began, ‘Grace …’

  ‘Yeah?’ I looked at her, straight into her eyes. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. I really quite wanted her to kiss me again, so I stayed in position to make it easier for her. Then I thought she might be about to tell me she loved me. It was a bit early for all that but I have heard that lesbians can be intense. Would I have to say it back though? I wasn’t sure that I –

  ‘Are you wearing Buzz Lightyear boxer shorts?’

  I spun round and saw the thick elastic waistband of Ollie’s boxers clearly protruding above the top of my jeans.

  ‘Oh god,’ I groaned.

  ‘To infinity and beyond!’ Sarah read from the slogan circling my waist.

  ‘Oh god,’ I said again.

  Sarah laughed and as there didn’t seem to be anything else I could do, I explained Paddy’s preference for wearing girls’ pants with his princess dresses and how this had led to my predicament. She laughed again and I tried, without much success, to hide the ridiculous pants from view.

  Eventually it got cold on the beach and the crowd started to spill out of Concorde 2 and we decided we too should make our ways home.

  ‘Sorry about tonight,’ I said, as we reached the corner where we had to go our separate ways. ‘I don’t know how I managed to mess it up so royally.’

  ‘Oh, enough of that,’ Sarah said. ‘It was great.’

  Then she leant forward, kissed me on the cheek and said, ‘I’ll see you soon, OK?’

  ‘Sure, OK,’ I said, and managed to resist the temptation to shout ‘WHEN?’ after her, as she gave me a sort of half-wink and strode off down the road, her bag swinging over her shoulder.

  I lay in bed that night typing out texts and deleting them.

  Sorry again –

  No. I’d already apologised. Let it go now.

  Thanks for the great night –

  No. Bland. I needed to think of something sparkier.

  When shall we meet again? –

  No, no, no. Too desperate. A bit stalkery.

  When I still had my phone in my hand, Sarah’s name flashed up. A new message. I almost deleted it in my hurry to open it.

  Her text was just three words:

  I like you

  An Outing

  The next morning, I woke up unnaturally early feeling unnaturally amazing. I could hear birds singing and there was a child laughing somewhere in the distance and the world seemed full of
unadulterated joy.

  I called Til.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Til, the world is full of unadulterated joy!’

  ‘You pulled the library bird?’

  ‘Yep! She likes me. She messaged me. She said “I like you”.’

  ‘Smooth.’

  ‘I’ve decided. I’m going to tell Mum and Dad today. I might want to bring Sarah round, so I need to prep them.’

  ‘Out and proud, eh?’

  ‘So out.’

  ‘I’m going back to sleep.’

  She hung up and I laughed at how grumpy she was.

  Mum and Dad were sitting up in bed reading the newspaper. I went into their bedroom and sat at the end of their bed in between them, my legs crossed.

  ‘Hello, love,’ Mum said, looking up from her crossword only briefly.

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ I said. Importantly, because it was important.

  They both looked up. Mum folded her paper and rested it on her lap. She looked serene. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m a gay. I mean, gay. A lesbian. A gay lesbian.’

  They both kept looking at me. Dad was smiling. Mum took a sip of her tea and smiled.

  They didn’t say anything. They just sat there.

  Why weren’t they speaking? Were they in shock?

  And I was shocked myself actually, about that. Mum and Dad have always been very chilled on the gays front. Mum’s friend Alison at work has a gay son and Mum’s always telling me about his plans for his enormous gay wedding. Dad’s cousin Monica is a lesbian and although Dad doesn’t like her I thought that was because she smokes in the house without asking and because she always pulls Dad’s head downwards and laughs at his bald patch. I never got the feeling that it was because she was living in a flat in Croydon with a cello player called Karen.

  ‘I know it’s a lot to take in,’ I said.

  Maybe they were worried about the grandchildren situation. Or maybe they were just enormous closet homophobes and I’d never realised. This was a startling development. I immediately imagined myself on a well-publicised crusade. I could write a blog and post videos to YouTube all about how my previously loving and supportive parents had turned out to be secret bigots and how I was working hard to turn that around through education and patience.

  They were still looking at me.

  ‘Yes, love, go on?’ Mum said.

  ‘What do you mean “go on”?’

  ‘Tell us the end of the story. You’re a lesbian and you’ve met a girl you’re planning to marry? You’re a lesbian so you’re going to put yourself forward as LGBT ambassador for your school?’

  ‘What do you mean, the story? There is no story! It’s just a revelation. A confession I had to get off my chest. Well, not a confession because that sounds like it’s bad and it’s nothing to be ashamed of, Mum and Dad! It’s just a bombshell, that’s all. A shock.’

  Mum and Dad looked at each other, frowning slightly. Then Mum put her tea down next to the bed. ‘But it’s not a bombshell, Gracie. We’ve known for ages. Are you drunk?’

  ‘What? No! What do you mean, known for ages? How is that true or even possible?’

  Dad looked at Mum and then back at me. ‘Well, when you were a little girl you used to cut out all those photos of the girls from my magazines and put them all over your wall. We thought you liked the clothes at first, but you didn’t seem remotely interested in clothes yourself.’

  ‘What? That means nothing.’

  ‘Then there was that foreign student girl we used to get in to babysit when you were eight or nine. What was her name? Audrey? French girl. You would not leave her alone!’

  ‘I just thought she was nice!’ I protested. Although, I must say, I was interested to note that I had apparently always had a thing for the French.

  ‘I remember Dad saying to me then – she’s going to have an eye for the ladies, that one.’

  Dad chuckled fondly at the memory.

  ‘Ugh! Dad! Please!’

  ‘And then what was all that about Angelina Jolie? Last summer when they had that Brad and Angelina season on Channel 4, you were forever saying how beautiful she was.’

  ‘Once! I said it once!’

  ‘I’m sure it was at least three times, love,’ Mum said serenely. ‘And so we thought that was it – that was you telling us. We didn’t want to make a song and dance about it! We were trying to be sensitive. No one wants to have to hammer home a point, do they. I didn’t want to make you spell it out. That’s why I’ve been dropping a word in people’s ears for you, to save you the faff of having to get round everyone.’

  ‘What? What people?’

  ‘Oh, well, just family really, anyone who might have an interest in what you’re up to. Ollie already knew, obviously. Auntie Kath and Uncle Paul because you’re not always around when they come over so I took the opportunity when they were down for Easter lunch. They were telling us about how their Benji was playing table tennis for Bedfordshire now so I just dropped in that you were a lesbian. You know, just exchanging news. Then there was your nan …’

  ‘God rest her soul,’ Dad added.

  ‘God rest her soul,’ Mum repeated. ‘Then, you know, the other cousins. I expect Kath told Uncle Jim and Auntie Louise because you know she doesn’t have anything interesting in her life, so this would’ve given her something to talk about. Remember when they nearly won those tickets for that cruise and they told us eight separate times about how close they’d come? Imagine if they’d actually won!’

  ‘Anyone else?’ I said, getting off the bed and standing at the foot of it with my hands on my hips. ‘Anyone else you’ve told my business before I’d even worked out it was my business at all?’

  Mum frowned, thinking. ‘Oh,’ she said after a moment. ‘Hilary from Pilates. She kept going on and on about how her Flora is so independent and determined and how she’s going to live in Cambodia for three months to dig a well or build an orphanage or something and one day I’d had enough so I just said, “Well, my Grace is a lesbian, you know.” That shut her up. Couldn’t compete with that.’

  I ignored the complete lack of sense being made here.

  ‘Right. Great. This is all brilliant.’

  ‘Why are you mentioning it now, anyway, love?’ Dad said. ‘Is there someone you want to bring home? I can make chilli if you like. And nachos! Proper nachos. I’ll get some real avocados when I go to Tesco.’

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘There isn’t anyone.’ I’d gone off the idea of telling them about Sarah. ‘You don’t need to buy avocados.’

  ‘What is the plural of avocado?’ Mum said. ‘Is it avocados? Or is it just avocado? Like sheep?’

  I left them discussing this thorny issue and trudged across the landing and back into bed. I was annoyed at them, I thought, for ruining my big moment. But then I realised I was really annoyed at myself. I was the last one to cotton on to everything!

  I was doing life so slowly that other people were having to drag me through these key milestones while I lagged behind, being the last to work out what was going on. If I carried on like this, what else would happen? Would I be telling people I was pregnant as the midwife had her head up my skirt, pulling out the tiny head? Would I be reading articles about how to ace a job interview on the day I was allowed to start collecting my pension?

  I needed to get a grip, to sit up. Life was happening and it was leaving me behind.

  People

  As I was sulking Paddy ran into my room, wearing his Cinderella dress this time. He had something in his hand.

  ‘Got you a present, Gracie,’ he said, dropping something on the bed.

  It was a little parcel of toilet paper with something soft and wet inside.

  ‘What is it, Paddy?’ I asked, not touching it.

  ‘Apples!’ he said, unwrapping the paper to show me the pale yellow mush inside. ‘Chewed it, made it soft.’

  ‘Great, thank you,’ I said, making a face. ‘Can you take it off my bed though, please? I d
on’t want it to make the covers all wet.’

  Paddy nodded earnestly. ‘OK, Gracie.’

  He scooped up the parcel and ran out of my room again.

  Later that day, I recounted my underwhelming coming-out story to Til as we sat in Queen’s Park.

  ‘Everything’s moving quickly, then,’ she said, putting her hands behind her head and lying back on the grass.

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘The opposite, in fact. I’m just trying to catch up now. Oh!’ I said, suddenly thinking of something. ‘I haven’t let the internet know yet.’

  ‘Will they be interested?’ Til asked.

  ‘Of course!’ I said indignantly. ‘People are interested if you have a nice biscuit. This will be big news.’

  I opened my phone and found a video of ‘I’m Coming Out’ by Diana Ross on YouTube. I posted it to Twitter with the caption:

  Just something I wanted to share with you all #sogay

  Til opened her own phone and scrolled down to my update. ‘Ha,’ she said. ‘Classy.’ She lay back down. ‘You like her then? The Welsh library girl?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, thoughtfully. ‘I think I do. I mean, I definitely do, actually.’

  ‘She is hot.’ Til picked a daisy from the grass by her side and idly twirled it around in her fingers.

  I grinned. ‘I know, right. But I just like her, you know. Like, like her. She talks to me.’

  ‘Well, it’s a start, I guess,’ Til said, her eyes still closed.

  ‘Also,’ I said, pushing myself upright and sitting cross-legged, looking down at Til. ‘You know what’s good? Meeting someone new. When do we ever meet new people? The only people I ever see are people from school, who I’ve known since I was four years old, for heaven’s sake. There are six billion or whatever people on the planet and I only see the same tiny, boring selection over and over.’

  ‘Oi,’ Til said, punching me in the thigh without opening her eyes.

  ‘OK, not all boring. But still.’ I put my hand on Til’s arm suddenly. ‘Oh my god, Til, do you know what I think it is?’

  ‘What?’ she opened her eyes and squinted at me, holding her hand up to shield her face from the sun.