As it turns out, as a distraction from losing the second great love of your life, I can highly recommend your sister coming out on Christmas Day, especially with a young woman of colour called Edwina.
Mum covered her initial shock with a flurry of over-effusive welcomes and the promise of tea-making, shepherding Eddie and Treena into the living room, pausing momentarily to give me a look that, if my mother had been the type to swear, would have said WTAF before she disappeared back down the corridor to the kitchen. Thom emerged from the living room, yelled, ‘Eddie!’ gave our guest a huge hug, waited on jiggy feet to be handed his present and ripped it apart, then ran off with a new Lego set.
And Dad, utterly silenced, simply stared at what was unfolding before him, like someone dumped into a hallucinogenic dream. I saw Treena’s uncharacteristically anxious expression, felt the rising sense of panic in the air and knew I had to act. I murmured at Dad to close his mouth, then stepped forward and held out my hand. ‘Eddie!’ I said. ‘Hi! I’m Louisa. My sister will no doubt have told you all the bad stuff.’
‘Actually,’ Eddie said, ‘she’s only told me wonderful things. You live in New York, don’t you?’
‘Mostly.’ I hoped my smile didn’t look as forced as it felt.
‘I lived in Brooklyn for two years after I left college. I still miss it.’
She shed her bronze-coloured coat, waiting while Treena wedged it onto our over-stacked pegs. She was tiny, a porcelain doll, with the most exquisitely symmetrical features I’d ever seen and eyes that slanted upwards with extravagant black lashes. She chatted away as we went into the living room – perhaps too polite to acknowledge my parents’ barely concealed shock – and stooped to shake hands with Granddad, who smiled his lopsided smile at her, then went back to staring at the television.
I had never seen my sister like this. It was as if we had just been introduced to two strangers rather than one. There was Eddie – impeccably polite, interesting, engaged, steering us with grace through these choppy conversational waters – and there was New Treena, her expression faintly unsure, her smile a little fragile, her hand occasionally reaching across the sofa to squeeze her girlfriend’s as if for reassurance. Dad’s jaw dropped a full three inches the first time she did it, and Mum jabbed his rib repeatedly with her elbow until he closed it again.
‘So! Edwina!’ said Mum, pouring the tea. ‘Treena’s told us – um – so little about you. How – how did you two meet?’
Eddie smiled. ‘I run an interiors shop near Katrina’s flat and she just popped in a few times to get cushions and fabric and we started talking. We went for a drink, and later to the cinema … and, you know, it turned out we had a lot in common.’
I found myself nodding, trying to work out what my sister could possibly have in common with the polished, elegant creature in front of me.
‘Things in common! How lovely. Things in common are a great thing. Yes. And – and where is it you come – Oh, goodness. I don’t mean …’
‘Where do I come from? Blackheath. I know – people rarely move to north London from south. My parents moved to Borehamwood when they retired three years ago. So I’m one of those rarities – a north and south Londoner.’ She beamed at Treena, as if this was some shared joke, before turning back to Mum. ‘Have you always lived around here?’
‘Mum and Dad will leave Stortfold in their coffins,’ Treena said.
‘Not too soon, we hope!’ I said.
‘It looks like a beautiful town. I can see why you’d want to stay,’ Eddie said, holding up her plate. ‘This cake is amazing, Mrs Clark. Do you make it yourself? My mother makes one with rum and she swears you have to steep the fruit for three months to get the full flavour.’
‘Katrina is gay?’ said Dad.
‘It’s good, Mum,’ said Treena. ‘The sultanas are … really … moist.’
Dad looked from one of us to the other. ‘Our Treena likes girls? And nobody’s saying anything? And just whanging on about fecking cushions and cake?’
‘Bernard,’ said my mother.
‘Perhaps I should give you all a moment,’ said Eddie.
‘No, stay, Eddie.’ Treena glanced at Thom, who was engrossed in the television, and said, ‘Yes, Dad. I like women. Or, at least, I like Eddie.’
‘Treena might be gender fluid,’ said Mum, nervously. ‘Is that the right expression? The young people at night school tell me a lot of them are neither one thing nor the other, these days. There’s a spectrum. Or a speculum. I can never remember which.’
Dad blinked.
Mum swallowed a gulp of tea so audibly that it was almost painful.
‘Well, personally,’ I said, when Treena had stopped patting her on the back, ‘I just think it’s great that anyone would want to go out with Treena. Anyone at all. You know, anyone with eyes and ears and a heart and stuff.’ Treena shot me a look of genuine gratitude.
‘You did always wear jeans a lot. Growing up,’ Mum mused, wiping her mouth. ‘Perhaps I should have made you wear more dresses.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with jeans, Mum. Genes, maybe.’
‘Well, it certainly doesn’t run in our family,’ said Dad. ‘No offence, Edwina.’
‘None taken, Mr Clark.’
‘I’m gay, Dad. I’m gay, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been and it’s really none of anyone else’s business how I choose to be happy, but I’d really like it if you and Mum could be happy for me because I am and, more importantly, I’m hoping that Eddie will be in my and Thom’s lives for a very long time.’ She glanced over at Eddie, who smiled reassuringly.
There was a long silence.
‘You’ve never said anything,’ said Dad, accusingly. ‘You never acted gay.’
‘How’s a gay person supposed to act?’ Treena said.
‘Well. Gay. Like … you never brought home a girl before.’
‘I never brought home anyone before. Apart from Sundeep. That accountant. And you didn’t like him because he didn’t like football.’
‘I like football,’ said Eddie, helpfully.
Dad sat and stared at his plate. Finally he sighed, and rubbed his eyes with both palms. When he stopped, his whole face seemed dazed, like someone woken abruptly from sleep. Mum was watching him intently, anxiety writ large across her face.
‘Eddie. Edwina. I’m sorry if I’m coming across as an old fart. I’m not a homophobic, really, but …’
‘Oh, God,’ said Treena. ‘There’s a but.’
Dad shook his head. ‘But I’ll probably say the wrong thing anyway and cause all sorts of offence because I’m just an aul fella who doesn’t understand all the new lingo and the way things are done – my wife will tell you that. All this being said, even I know that all that matters in the long run is that these two girls of mine are happy. And if you make her happy, Eddie, like Sam makes our Lou happy, then good on you. I’m very glad to know you.’
He stood and reached a hand across the coffee table and after a moment Eddie leant forward and shook it.
‘Right. Now let’s have a bit of that cake.’
Mum gave a little sigh of relief and reached for the knife.
And I did the best I could to smile, then hurriedly left the room.
There is a definite hierarchy to heartbreak. I worked it out. Top of the list is the death of the person you love. There is no situation likely to elicit more shock and outright sympathy: faces will fall, a caring hand reach out to squeeze your shoulder. Oh, God, I’m so sorry. After that it’s probably being left for someone else – the betrayal, the wickedness of the two people concerned bringing forth affirmations of outrage, of solidarity. Oh, that must have been such a shock for you. You could add forced separation, religious obstacles, serious illness. But We drifted apart because we were living on separate continents is, while true, unlikely to prompt more than a nod of acknowledgement, a pragmatic shrug of understanding. Yeah, these things happen.