awakenings

My first lesson in femininity came at the age of eleven, when I was on holiday in Zakynthos with my family. It was early evening, and my parents always liked to get a few drinks at the bar before we went out for something to eat. Jumping up onto a stool, I asked my dad for a Coke and sat back. My older sister looked across at me, stricken.

‘For God’s sake, Bee, put your bloody knees together,’ she said. She looked up and away from my legs, but her arm flapped in the general direction of my crotch like a flag in the wind.

I looked down at myself, confused. ‘I’m not wearing a skirt. You can’t see owt.’

‘You sit like a man,’ she said, as if that should explain it. Her face twisted in distaste.

Earlier that day, we had scuffled barefoot over our balcony railing to put our Lilos and beach towels out by the pool. Dad said the Germans would be up early trying to nick all the loungers, so we got there first. We played tig between the trees, looked for lizards, dangled our toes in the cool water and splashed each other. When the sunlight spread like butter across our cheeks, we ran to get our breakfast and put our swimming cozzies on, just like we’d always done.

I looked at this stranger with my sister’s face and wondered where she’d come from. I watched her swing one slender leg over the other, toes pointed, spine straight. She was wearing a mini skirt that clung to her like a skin, and her gaze kept flicking towards the barman, a swarthy Greek with long black eyelashes. Leaning an elbow against the bar, with her palm cupping her face and one shoulder thrust forward, she didn’t look twelve. She looked sort of beautiful. Like a dancer, or a model. Like a woman.

I wasn’t sure what the fuss was all about – even if the barman was sort of nice-looking, he was far too old and he smelled like sweat – but I gathered from my sister that we were supposed to be getting him to look at us. I tried to copy her, but in my crinkled orange shorts and tatty trainers, I didn’t look graceful or girly. I looked like what I was: a kid trying to play grown-up. My hair was threaded into a French plait; I’d asked Mum to do it earlier because I liked the feel of her gentle fingers combing my wet scalp. Now, I scowled at my braid and angrily tugged the bobble out.

‘Where you goin’?’ The question followed me as I slithered down from my stool and stomped across the sun-warmed tiles. I glanced back, but her attention had returned to the barman.

‘To change,’ I said.

As a self-confessed control freak, I find nothing more distressing than uncertainty. This stems, perhaps, from my relationship with my father: he never hit me, but his frequent threats to do so left me guarded and skittish. I lived in near-constant dread of provoking an outburst, and the anticipatory tension that wound itself around my spine completely exhausted me. As bizarre as it sounds, I just wanted him to get it over with. Cuts and bruises would heal quickly enough, but the fear never really left me.

Though there is no threat of violence, this situation feels much the same. The walking-on-eggshells anxiety, the crippling indecision, the curling body and constant tension. Am I doing the right thing? Am I being cruel? Am I seeing things how I want to see them, not how they really are? What if I leave and it is a mistake?

I am aware that I sometimes have a ‘grass is greener’ mentality, and that I can occasionally be a bit lazy. I hear so much about people needlessly ending marriages through their own unwillingness to work harder, and I ask myself: is that me? Am I throwing in the towel without even really trying? Is my sexuality just an excuse? I have a good thing here: a caring boyfriend, a beautiful home, a supportive family. Am I tossing it all aside for selfish reasons? Will I ruin my own life, and my son’s, on a whim? Could I learn to fall in love with him again? Should I? The questions flicker across my brain faster than I can process, until I am dizzy and sick with the effort of it.

When I set aside the thorny issue of my sexuality, I know what our relationship problems stem from: D. and I have always struggled to communicate. In the beginning, our vision was tunnelled by passion and our mouths were easily distracted by lustier pursuits. But on dates where this was not an option, the silence broke over us like waves – and while he seemed content with this, I squirmed with discomfort, babbled inanely, and longed for conversation that never came. I remember telling my mother about one of our first dates: I was sitting in a restaurant with D. and staring over at a couple to our left. They were two forty-somethings eating wordlessly with diverted gazes, occupying separate spaces at the same table. In the half an hour since we had arrived, I had not seen them speak once. I asked my mother, with dismay clogging in my throat, ‘Will that be us in ten years?’ And, with the knife-edge of alarm: ‘Is that us now?’

I suppose it matters less how we got here than what we plan to do about it. But that’s the problem: we don’t agree. D. is from determined stock: his family are the type to fix things through sheer force of will, and word ‘surrender’ simply is not in their vocabulary. We often laugh at D.’s dogged attempts to complete impossible tasks. I, on the other hand, have always been rather pragmatic about such things, and my attitude is usually along the lines of ‘Why flog a dead horse?’ Naturally, at this point in our relationship – or lack thereof – we have completely different opinions as to where we should go from here. He wants to try, and try harder, and try harder still…and I am longing to let go.

I suppose, when you think about it, neither option is wrong. But I am more likely to be judged for walking away than for staying. His parents have been together since they were nineteen; his mother surrendered her career after the birth of her first child and never went back since. Despite the fact that I can sometimes see undercurrents of bitterness between them, they have just celebrated their ruby wedding anniversary. Even my mother, who was married to a lying, abusive philanderer, found excuses to stay with her husband for twenty-plus years.

So I am not being pessimistic when I say that they will not understand. Where I grew up, ending a relationship for some wishy-washy reason like ‘unhappiness’ or ‘sexuality’ was considered utter bollocks. If you divorced, it was because he gave you a black eye, or because he shagged all your friends and his idea of a thoughtful gift was a couple of STIs. If you divorced, it was because he’d gambled your life savings or gotten arrested (again) for fighting. A good husband was defined by his ability to put food on the table and avoid beating you senseless. By those standards, D. is an Adonis.

So I am back at square one. Do my feelings justify my exit, or am I just making excuses? Do I stay? Do I try? If I go, will I regret it? Is this my fault? Am I lazy? These aren’t rhetorical questions, by the way. Feel free to pitch in.