Anvita’s eyes widened. “Wow. Is that what passes for tough love where you come from?”
“I have three kids.” Josie’s wineglass was emptying rapidly. “All my love is tough.”
Nope. It wasn’t Josie’s fault, but Rosaline . . . just didn’t like her. Didn’t want to spend time with her. Didn’t want to contemplate going out of the competition while nice normal Josie and her nice normal kids sailed triumphantly through to the final on wings made of niceness and normalcy.
She stood up again. “Anyway, I came here for a drink and, as with so many things this week, I’ve failed to achieve it. I’m going to the bar. Does anyone want anything?”
“The bartender’s cute,” suggested Anvita.
“Anything you can put in your mouth—actually, forget I said that.”
Since no actual drink orders were forthcoming, Rosaline left them to it and was in the process of securing the planned consolatory G&T when Harry—the man she’d driven from her home with an unsolicited and unqualified mental health diagnosis—claimed the barstool a couple of spaces over.
“All right, mate,” he said, with visible discomfort. “I reckon I acted like a bit of a knobhead the other day.”
She’d been braced for something a lot worse. “No, it’s fine. You were doing me a favour and I shouldn’t have . . . got so personal.”
“Your heart was in the right place, though, weren’t it? And I shouldn’t have got so shirty with you.”
“Let’s put it behind us, shall we?”
“I mean, yeah. If you want. But”—he picked at a bowl of complimentary peanuts—“we don’t have to. Like, you shouldn’t have to worry I’ll blow up any time you say anything that’s not Hello or How are your fish fingers.”
To be honest, she was low-key worried about that with most people. Maybe not in such a specifically fish-fingery way. But she’d tiptoed round her parents for nineteen years until she’d untiptoed in the most dramatic way possible—and that kind of thing was probably more habit-forming than it ought to have been. “I don’t really,” she said, taking a fortifying sip of her G&T. “Or if I do, it’s not on you. It’s just blah blah gender socialisation blah blah history.”
“You what?”
“Oh, you know. We teach boys to talk about what they want and girls to talk about their feelings. And then you grow up and you realise you’ve got to do both, and it’s all a bit of a shock.”
He thought about it for a moment. “Not sure I’m good at either. I mean, if I know how something’s gotta be, I can be like, This is how it’s gotta be, but if I don’t, then I’m a bit stuffed.”
“I think that’s the difference, though. Even if I do know how it’s gotta be, I’ll always end up saying, Have you considered maybe thinking about it being this way, but I’m sure you know best.”
“Does that mean,” he asked, “I’ve got to learn to talk about feelings? ’Cos my mates will take the fucking piss. I can’t just sit there being, Guys, we got knocked out the Cup before the quarter finals again. That, like, makes me sad.”
“You know there are more emotions than happy and sad, and that also you can have them about things that aren’t football?”
“I think we’ve read different rule books, mate.”
“Also,” Rosaline said, really hoping this wasn’t breaking some secret man-law, “you talked to me last night. That was about emotions.”
He didn’t seem shocked exactly, but there was a definite colouring, and he did that thing he sometimes did where he rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. “Yeah, but, well. Like I want to say it’s different on account of how you’re a woman and that, but I reckon that’s a bit messed up now I think about it.”
“A bit, but that’s gender socialisation for you.”
“Well”—Harry heaved a deep sigh—“if we’re talking about stuff what gives you emotions, my parkin was bollocks today.”
“Mine wasn’t much better. It might not have been bollocks, but it was definitely in the scrotal region.”
“I’m not sure I want to talk about parkin in my scrotal region, thanks.”
“You brought it up.”
“I did not. I did a perfectly normal swear. You had to make it weird.”
She giggled. “Sorr—No, wait. Not apologising. Fighting my gender socialisation. Suck it, bitch.”
“What?” Harry gave her a fake-startled look. “You can’t call me a bitch. That’s sexist.”
“I’m reappropriating.”
“Leave it off, mate. You’re worse than my sister-in-law.”
Since she’d started seeing Harry as a friend rather than “some bloke with nice arms” she really thought she’d been doing a better job keeping track of his family. “I’m sure you’ve never mentioned a brother.”
“Well, look at you making assumptions.” He folded his arms—which were still nice—but his tone was playful. “Heather’s married to a girl. Sweet story, actually. Met at school. But Caitlyn was well smart and went off to university, which none of my family ever have. But then she and Heather met up again when they was working at the same hospital. Doctor and nurse, bit Holby City, but it works for them.”
Okay, Rosaline. Embarrassingly obvious note to self: working-class people can be queer too. “Wow. Sorry. Actually sorry. That was tragically heteronormative of me.”
“Yeah. Turns out bisexuals ain’t like quinoa. You get ’em round my way too.”
“Oh shut up. Or I’ll sabotage your pudding.”
“You probably won’t need to, mate. I’m pretty sure I’m done for.”
She didn’t want to think about that. “No, you’re not. You can always turn it round the second day.”
“Honestly, I think it’s my time.” He took a swig of his beer. “That’s the thing with putting yourself out of your comfort zone: once you get there, you’re like, Now I’m uncomfortable, what am I supposed to be doing? Besides, I’m not sure there’s anyone I want to send home.”
Rosaline sort of understood and sort of didn’t. There was no one she especially wanted to leave, but she sure as hell knew she wanted to stay. Besides, once she was out of the competition, she’d have to start the whole go-back-to-university saga. And thinking too hard about that made her feel ever so slightly like she’d drunk a cup of somebody else’s vomit.
“I mean,” Harry went on, “no two ways about it you’re a better baker than me. Josie puts a tonne of work in, even if her bakes are sometimes a bit funny. Anvita’s just . . . ”
“Excellent and sexy? If you get knocked out, she wants you to say she’s excellent and sexy.”
“Yeah.” His brow crinkled. “I might not do that. That might make me look like a perv.”
“I don’t think she’d mind.”
“I’d mind. Also, her nan watches this. You can’t go telling a bird’s nan that her granddaughter’s excellent and sexy. But either way, she’s a good baker and deserves to be in the competition. And so does Alain. And Nora’s a granny—and nobody wants to be the one what sent the granny home.”