Page 23 of Great Sexpectations
1) Natasha has a husband with a name I’ve already forgotten. They both work in top-end finance. He plays rugby and I bet he’s the sort that has a homoerotic fascination with striding around a changing room naked, lunging. Always lunging. I’m pretty sure his penis has a name.
2) Next is Heather and her husband, Rupert, who talk about their kids constantly, though seem physically awkward around each other, making me think it’s been an age since they’ve had a truly intimate moment together. When they do fornicate, it’s occasion sex from behind so they don’t have to look each other in the eye. Sometimes with an added finger as a treat, depending on the bedsheet-changing schedule.
3) Arabella is sister three. She’s married to a doctor and has sacrificed her career to be a stay-at-home mother despite a first-class degree in classics. What the doctor wants, the doctor gets. She is most definitely a submissive. You can tell by the way she serves him his meal and he puts a hand out to tell her that’s enough. Most likely, they’ve bought all sorts from my website. The only thing I haven’t supplied are the safe words.
But, naturally, none of them talk about any of this at the dinner table. It’s all a façade of normalcy, kids with very traditional names and Oxford button-down shirts. They all went to university, their lives are very centred around themselves and their success. Cameron doesn’t enter into any of it, but mainly nods and smiles uneasily, occasionally side-eyeing me when someone drops something ridiculous into the conversation about the rising cost of horse-riding and artichokes so I know we’re on the same page.
‘Please have more of the creamed spinach!’ Alicia, Cameron’s mother, tells me.
Alicia and Henry are the two I still have to work out. I’d like to imagine that they are involved in some heavy kink that’s steeped in shame and role play.
‘Thank you,’ I reply. ‘So, have you lived in this house for long?’ I ask, trying to find something vaguely interesting to talk about. Tonight may be awkward, but I’m still going to remember the very good manners that my parents have instilled in me.
‘Well, obviously it’s just myself and Henry now, but we raised the whole family here, didn’t we?’ she says to the table.
‘Le Blanc… did you choose that name?’
‘Yes, because it’s a white house,’ Heather explains to me like I might be stupid. I’m not so stupid that I gave my house a French name when I live in the middle of London, but still.
‘I thought it might be because you’re all fans ofFriends.’
On hearing this, Cameron spits out a bit of wine and laughs hysterically. The rest of the table sit there like I’ve sworn in a foreign language. Come on, people. Friends? Your last name is Cox? It was a cultural TV event. Even my Nan knows who half those people in the show are and the only thing she watches is the horse racing, football andCash in the Attic.
‘Come on, guys. Matt LeBlanc?’ Cameron announces to the table.
‘Isn’t he the lad who didTop Gear?’ asks Natasha’s husband.
‘Yes,’ I confirm. ‘He was also in an American sitcom from the nineties. It was very popular.’ Obviously not in this house. I am mortified my joke didn’t go down well. That’s as funny as you’re going to get from me. ‘Well, it’s a lovely house.’ With all the beige on beige and tasselled lampshades.
‘Remind me what you do again? Events, is it? Like party planning?’ Heather continues.
I went to school with girls like Heather, so her brand of bitch is one I deal with particularly well, especially as I spent most of secondary school with grade-A teenage frizz, braces and porn star parents.
‘Catering. From parties to larger-scale conferences.’
A dry medallion of pork sits in my gullet as that lie is emitted into the air. The deceit is evolving and not particularly well. I don’t even know how to follow on from this. Am I believable? Do I give an idea of menus? What napkins we use? I take a large gulp of wine as the table goes quiet so they all can get a sense of the new girl that Cameron has brought to the homestead.
‘Did you go to university?’ Cameron’s dad asks.
Cameron glares at him at this point and he’s right because it smacks of snobbery, but I don’t let that faze me.
‘I did actually. I went to Leeds, studied business management and spent a year abroad in Shanghai.’
This is not a lie and the flex is necessary here.
Cameron sits up in his chair as even that has come as a surprise to him, but it shuts the table up at least.
‘Did you know that Cameron went to Bournemouth?’ Henry says that name like it’s a bad person who’s done him wrong.
‘Bournemouth is lovely. It’s a great university,’ I say defensively.
‘Yes, for weekend breaks and retirement,’ Rupert at the end of the table jests. ‘I mean computer game design, what even is that?’
There is sniggering as someone makes shooting video game noises.
My eyes widen and I reach for Cameron’s hand under the table, feeling his knee shaking. How on earth does he fit into this puzzle? He’s a world away from everyone in this room.
‘So, what do your parents do?’ Henry Cox says, continuing his interrogation.
