Experienced

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Christmas tree in the front room was demonstrably too large for it. Earlier in the month they had looped every decoration they had over the branches, while listening to an album of ’90s bands singing Christmas covers, but it had still been startlingly bare. To compensate, Bette had bought six strings of fairy lights; the plug socket they were all patched into hummed vaguely when they were on, as if wanting to show off about the work it was doing.

Bette was arranging place settings and Christmas crackers, rubbing smeary fingerprints from cutlery handles with the hem of her shirt. Ash had planned a Christmas dinner, this final weekend before Bristol lost them all to their respective family homes. School had broken up, Anton and Carmen were coming round, and Bette was in the midst of her bit of the preparation: readying the front room.

The dining table had taken a while to come into their lives, and the front room still wasn’t properly big enough for it. They didn’t bring it out very often. It mostly sat in a half-folded state, covered in Ash’s school planning. Getting the table out was a production, something they’d never do without guests. Today it felt like a real celebration, covered in bits of seasonal tat and glitter and touches of gold. Bette looked around, pleased, and flopped down on the sofa to admire her handiwork.

It was strange to look at the table from this angle, she thought. Oddly removed, like she was waiting for actors to arrive onstage. She was struck with a sense of déjà vu, of having had precisely the same feeling before. And then she saw the table as it had been for the mussels lunch: all of them in their usual chairs, utterly creatures of habit. And Ruth, sitting right there, in the space where a sixth chair might go.

It was no secret that everyone else at the table had wanted to add a sixth chair for ages. It had been good when Mei had filled it; so easy to imagine that that could be it. But Bette thought of the wedding, of Mei standing in front of her, desperate for everything to return to normal. Desperate to win her back.

Thought of knowing, unwaveringly, with pure clarity, that it was Ruth she wanted.

Not because she filled a chair, not because everyone loved her, not because it was easy. Not because she made Bette want to be a better version of herself. But because she made it easy for Bette to be entirely and completely herself.

She wanted Ruth to be able to be herself too. To say what she wanted and to get it. But Bette had kissed her, and slept with her, and then stood in a car park and basically shouted about love at her. It had been the exact opposite of what she needed: the opposite of slow.

And it didn’t have to be.

It could all be on Ruth’s terms. She could tell Ruth they could take it slow. Let her see that Bette was ready, and that she could trust her. That she wasn’t going to fall back into bed with an ex. That it was Ruth she wanted. They could date. Ruth could just…come to dinner. Sit at the table. No pressure, no intensity, no U-Hauling, no lesbian urgency. Just two people, taking it slow.

And before Bette could think anymore about the details, could think a plan through, she was walking toward the kitchen.

Usually, when Ash cooked, there was an air of calm that surrounded her. The ease with which she could make things happen, could pull things together, was enviable. But Bette had the sense that she’d perhaps stumbled into a slightly more stressful situation than normal.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Ash muttered, whisking furiously, her eyes mostly on the open book alongside her. “Fucking thicken my arse.”

Bette cleared her throat.

“Yes, I know you’re there. I can practically feel you vibrating. What’s going on? What’s happened? Is the table all right?” Ash asked, still whisking furiously at whatever was in the saucepan.

“I think I have to go and talk to Ruth,” she said, the words leaving her in a rush. “I mean, I really like her. You know that. And I think I need to tell her. Make it clear we can do it on her terms.”

Ash turned off the hob and quietly, calmly put the whisk down on the chopping board. She gripped the counter with both hands, and her head dropped forward. Predictably, the doorbell cut through the silence that had settled, echoing obnoxiously around the hall.

“Bette,” Ash began, her voice sharp and dangerous. “Are you fucking kidding me? There have been so many good moments for us to have this conversation. Weeks of good moments. But now there’s a whole salmon thing wrapped in sodding pastry in the oven and this sauce will not thicken and guests are at the door. Literally at the door. Right this second.” Ash turned, clasping her elbows behind her, as though she couldn’t quite trust herself with her own arms. “I want to shake you, you absolute idiot.”

“I’ll get the door,” Tim said, seemingly unperturbed by Ash’s outburst. Bette hadn’t even realized he was there, perched on the windowsill; between Ash’s panicked whisking and Bette’s big idea, there’d been no emotional space in the kitchen for anyone else. He took a beer from the fridge, levered the top off, kissed Ash on the cheek and stepped quietly out of the kitchen.

“I know this is bad timing to bring it up,” Bette said, apologetic. “I didn’t mean to. Truly. But I need help.”

“Right,” Ash said, sounding utterly exhausted.

“If it makes a difference, it was the IKEA trip that kind of started things in my brain. And running into Heather.”

“Well—I mean—I’m glad,” Ash said, sounding annoyed to be admitting it. “It was meant to help. So what are you going to do then?”

“Oh I have no idea. None at all.”

Ash turned toward her, finally. There was sauce splashed on her shirt above the apron, her eyeliner was smudged out toward her temple, and there was something green on her cheek.

“I wanted your advice, actually,” Bette admitted, cringing as she said it.

Ash nodded, her eyes closed. “And, again, just to be clear, you picked now, this precise moment, to seek that out.”

“No, I’m not an idiot. I would never have chosen right now. There’s a salmon thing in the oven and your sauce won’t thicken,” she parroted, and then regretted it instantly. Ash really wasn’t in the mood to be poked and laughed at. “But I was in the front room and had a thought and then…I didn’t really think. I just came in here.”

“Of course you did.”

Tim’s head appeared round the door. “You’re being pretty loud. I filled them in; didn’t think you’d mind. Carmen has some thoughts, actually? Ruth-wise? If you’d like?”

“It’s the run to the airport!” Carmen said as she helped herself to French beans. Her dress was some sort of knitted gold, the fanciest thing at the table, though between the five of them there was a respectable showing of sequins and shimmer and sharp shirts and great lipstick. “That final bit of a romcom!”

“Well, no one’s going anywhere,” Bette reminded her. “There are no major transport hubs involved. So that’s not what’s happening here.”

“You know what I mean!” Carmen waved her off.

Bette looked at Ash in search of a slightly more grounded reality. It was clear, from the schmalzy look on Ash’s face, that she was going to be disappointed.

“Bette, you’re going to find her, and tell her, and it’s going to be so romantic.” The cooking was done, and Ash had slipped away to fix her eyeliner just before they’d all sat down. She had changed her top and was cozy and happy and completely clean of sauce. She had also, apparently, changed into a complete sap.

“That’s exactly it,” Carmen said, reaching over for Ash’s hand, her eyes practically hearts behind her glasses. It was sickening.

“Guys…” Bette started, pushing her salmon around her plate, nerves playing havoc with her stomach.

“It’s like the end of When Harry Met Sally! You’ve realized you love her. And now you have to tell her!! You want the rest of your life to start!!” Tim burst out, the third glass of cava apparently fizzing through him and coming out in exclamation points.

Bette dropped her head into her hands. “Again, because you’ve clearly all forgotten, my pitch to her is ‘We can just date for a bit’ not ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’ We’re leaving Nora Ephron out of this. Ruth wants to go slow. I don’t want to scare her off. Let’s dial the intensity down just a little.”

She was faced with four incredulous expressions.

“Okay, sure,” Anton said, his tone long-suffering, as though she were denying him a treat. “I mean, ‘We can just date for a bit’ is less romantic. But we can work with it.”

“Let’s work through potential snags. Just so you’re ready.” Ash said, her tone suddenly practical and businesslike, the exact Ash that Bette needed.

“Well, I’ve been trying not to think about this but the night we…you know,” Bette began.

“Fucked,” Anton filled in, and Carmen nodded.

“Sure. Anyway, she told me Gabe wasn’t a problem, and in hindsight I don’t know what that meant. Like, it’s not a problem: we’re non-exclusive? It’s not a problem: we’re not seeing each other anymore? It’s not a problem: he was tied up in a weird pyramid scheme and has been arrested? It’s not a problem: he’s come down with scurvy and is being treated in a specialist facility in Switzerland? I have no idea. So I don’t know if he’s still in the picture.”

“I feel like Heather wouldn’t have given you a nudge if he was,” Ash said with an easy shrug.

It was fair. Practical, rational, obvious. Bette nodded and let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding.

“You’re right.”

“So, it’s just Gabe you’re worried about?” Tim asked as he reached for more sauce. He’d finished his salmon, but spooned sauce onto his plate regardless, then dragged a finger through it. It dripped onto the front of his shirt as he lifted his hand to his mouth.

“I mean, there’s a good chance that it’s still going to be a no,” Bette said, cringing at the vulnerability of it. It was like asking for approval on a selfie; it was clear what her heart longed for everyone to say. She hated to be pitied and cosseted, but this was an ideal moment for some positive reinforcement.

“Well, yeah,” Anton said instead. “That makes sense. But you have to try. You just have to show her you really mean it. You need to make a big romantic gesture.”

“I mean…I do really mean it. So I’ll just—I don’t know, I’ll look her in the eyes and just tell her. Right?”

“What, like—at her house?” Carmen said in horror.

Anton cut in before Bette could defend the idea.

“No. No, come on. It has to be bigger than that.”

“You could sing something?” Tim suggested, miming on what could only be a ukulele.

“I’m not Zooey Deschanel and it’s not 2011. Also, I can’t sing.”

“You need something she can’t say no to,” Carmen mused. “A really meaningful gift. Or take her somewhere she’ll love for a meal? Tell her over oysters and a cocktail.”

Bette couldn’t imagine Ruth being swayed by a gift, or by the promise of a fancy night out.

“I think—guys, I think I just need to tell her?” Bette said, aware that there was a real chance this conversation no longer included her.

“You were talking about some cliff thing,” Anton said, as though she hadn’t spoken. “She wants to jump off a cliff?”

“No, the opposite. She said she couldn’t jump off a cliff into a relationship again. That was the whole thing. She needed to take it slow, to know we’re on the same page. Honestly, I think the lingering ex in my life is what really freaked her out. So I just need to say, ‘Mei isn’t a problem, let’s take this slow.’ But I need to do it now. Before I lose my nerve.”

“So, you could take her to a cliff.”

There was silence as everyone looked at Anton, trying to gauge how serious he was.

“It’s not the cliff we’d need to go to, actually,” Bette said, an idea dawning. “I need to show her I can take it slow. Where’s our closest beach?”

Bette was behind the wheel of Ash’s car, MUNA blasting through the speakers. She was almost at Ruth’s, gearing herself up for being her most convincing, charming self. The romantic gesture that had finally received sign-off from the group demanded a specific location. And so the first step was one she had started feeling anxious about: she had to convince Ruth to get in the car with her.

She arrived at the front door fizzing with nerves, her hand visibly shaking as she knocked. It was Heather who opened it, dressed in striped twinset pajamas, holding a mug of tea. Her eyes lit up as she kept Bette standing awkwardly on the top step.

“Jody?” Heather called into the house, her eyes not leaving Bette. Bette heard footsteps inside, too many to just belong to Jody.

“That’s not actually what I’m…” Bette started.

“Oh, I know,” Heather assured her, fully grinning now.

Jody appeared in the hall, an oversized hoodie exposing one shoulder. They were accompanied by someone Bette could only assume was Leon. She remembered him vaguely from the party; he was tall and gangly, with an abundance of hair and a beanie pulled down almost over his eyes.

“No way,” Jody breathed.

“Yep,” Heather confirmed, still watching Bette, as though afraid she might vanish if she looked away.

“It’s really nice to see you all,” Bette said, digging her nails into the meat of her palm in a bid to get her hand to stop shaking. “I was wondering if…”

“She’s not here,” Jody said, their face painted in delight.

“She’s not…”

“Not home,” Leon confirmed. His voice was softer than she’d imagined. “Hi, by the way. You’ll be Bette.”

“Yep. And you’re Leon? It’s really—anyway I came—I’m here for—” Bette could feel the words sticking together. She took a steadying breath. “Do you know where Ruth is?”

“The ASS Library,” Jody said, waggling their eyebrows suggestively.

“Right,” Bette said. “So I’ll just…”

“You could come in?” Heather offered, standing back from the doorway. “You could have a tea and tell us what’s got you all worked up. We could text Ruth and get her to come home?”

The idea of having to explain the plan to anyone else, for it to be picked over again before she tried it out on Ruth herself, was appalling. Bette stumbled back, almost tripping down the stairs.

“Or not,” Heather said, easily. “Like Jody said, she’s working in the ASS Library.”

“Should we expect her back tonight?” Jody said. “Only, we’ve been waiting for her to get back to start The Muppet Christmas Carol so…”

“She’ll be—I mean—I don’t know,” Bette said. Really, she had no idea how Ruth was going to take any of it. “But I really need to—I’ll get her to text you? If I find her?”

“Good luck,” Heather called after her, in a way that turned luck into a two-syllable word.

Bette typed the Arts and Social Sciences Library into her maps app and clambered back into the car. There was pressure now, a time limit. She didn’t want Ruth to leave the library before she got there, didn’t want her to get home to a story about “Bette being weird on the doorstep.” She had to find her.

“WHERE ARE WE GOING?”

They had been in the car for close to ten minutes, and barely a word had passed between them. Finding Ruth on the second floor, and her agreeing to the drive, putting piles of paper into her backpack and leaving the table to be pounced on, had been such a relief that Bette had forgotten for a moment that it was only the first step. In Bette’s fantasy they would head out of Bristol in companionable silence, along these Clifton streets Bette had once lived on, both excited about all the possibilities to come. She had pictured them with the windows wound down, the air moving over her arm as it rested partway out. Grinning at each other over the console. But, of course, it was December. A week before Christmas. It was freezing; the dump of snow they’d had a week before still lingered in places. The windows were wound up, and they were in the bottleneck that led to the Suspension Bridge. The brake lights of the cars ahead were giving her a headache.

“Bette, where are we going?” Ruth repeated.

She couldn’t just ignore her until they got to the beach. There was a chance that Ruth would simply open the car door and walk away if Bette didn’t at least try to reassure her.

“You said you love a road trip,” Bette said, realizing as she did quite how lame it sounded.

“What?”

“Ages ago!” she said, committing to it. “I was talking about hell coaches and you said you love a road trip.”

“I can see your maps app,” Ruth said, leaning across in her seat. Bette was tempted to hide her phone in her lap, was attached to the idea of the beach being a surprise. But Ruth couldn’t see where they were going, only how long they had left. “And sixteen minutes is not a road trip. It’s a commute.”

“A road trip is an energy though,” Bette argued as they approached the bridge and she tapped her card for the toll. The barrier lifted and they crawled across it. “It’s not all about the destination. Look! Look how beautiful Bristol is!”

It was hard to deny, and Ruth watched the city from the bridge, her head turned to look out of the window.

“The bridge is nice, I’ll give you that. But driving through Bristol’s suburbs on a Sunday evening, feeling like I’ve been kidnapped, no knowledge of where we’re going, is not peak road trip energy.” She sounded exhausted, over it already, and Bette wanted to reassure her, ached to keep her onside.

“It’ll feel more road-trippy in a bit,” Bette hedged. “We’re nearly out of suburbia.”

It was a hopeful thought. But Bette watched as Ruth’s hands anxiously folded over and over in her lap. She was practically vibrating in her seat.

“I think,” Ruth said, her voice tight. “I don’t—can’t we just pull over and talk?”

Shit, shit, shit. No.

“Ruth, it’s a red route. I’m not allowed to pull up here. I just—please don’t worry. We’re going to get there, and you’re going to see it, and we can talk. I have—there’s stuff I want to say. But I don’t want to do this while I’m driving Ash’s car. I don’t want to do it on the side of the road. I want to be able to focus completely on you.”

There was a long silence, and Bette wished that she’d plugged some music in. It would have taken the edge off the tension to have Paul Simon or someone, a good neutral, in the background.

“We’re going to the beach,” she said, as if that might be enough.

“The beach?” Ruth echoed, and Bette sensed an ellipsis. Of course there were follow-up questions. There were always going to be follow-up questions. “Bette, it’s—it’s dark. And we’re miles from a beach. Are we seriously driving all the way to the beach tonight? Which one are we going to? Which beach is ten minutes away?”

Bette didn’t want to tell her yet. The whole point of the thing was that it should be a surprise, should take Ruth’s breath away. Should be so romantic and unexpected that Ruth had no choice but to say yes. But she’d already blown it by saying beach, which was the surprise bit, really, and the road wasn’t a red route any more. Bette weighed her options. They were approaching the big roundabout, and the signs all made it entirely clear where they were going, which arrow they were following.

“Portishead,” Bette said.

“What?”

It was not a curious, happy, interested “what.”

“Portishead. We’re going to Portishead Beach.”

“Why on earth are we going to Portishead Beach?”

“Because we are,” Bette replied, stupidly.

“So you’ve forced me into a car to take me to the worst beach in England. In the dark,” Ruth sounded incredulous. “It’s not even a real beach, Bette. It’s an estuary. You can’t swim there. There are boats. And currents. And—and tides. And it’s December. So we couldn’t even swim anyway, even on a good beach. Which, to be clear, this is not.”

Bette passed the sign that welcomed them to Portishead and stopped at a red light. She looked across at Ruth. Anton had been the one to recommend Portishead and suddenly she hated him. Twenty-six minutes had seemed ideal when he’d flashed her his phone. But she really should have looked at some pictures.

“You know a lot about Portishead Beach,” Bette said, trying to sound bright and relaxed. “How is—how do you know so much about Portishead Beach?”

“Stop saying Portishead. I can’t believe I left a table in the library, an actual table, to go to a stupid non-beach with you in the middle of winter.”

“Well, only five minutes left now!” Bette said, as though being on the beach Ruth clearly hated might somehow improve things.

There was another roundabout, one that took them away from the town and toward the beach. The car climbed, higher and higher, and then a sharp turn led them down toward a line of empty car parks. It was clear no one else had made a winter-evening plan to be on Portishead Beach. It was hardly surprising: it was all mud and tankers and slushy snow and darkness. It was impossibly bleak.

Bette eased the car into one of the parking spots, halfway down the empty row. She turned off the engine.

“Well, this is pleasant,” Ruth said. “Are you going to murder me? Feels like a great spot for it.”

“Look, ugh—fuck—I wanted us to take our shoes off!” Bette risked a glance over at Ruth and found her looking back, her eyes wide. “I wanted to stand on a beach and tell you we don’t have to jump. That I want to date you, and that we can take it as slow as you like. We were going to walk into the water. The estuary. Whatever. It was going to be really romantic.”

She could just make out a bright-yellow sign poking up out of the darkness. It read DANGER SOFT MUD in a font designed to be taken seriously. She was going to kill Anton. Kill him dead.

There was an agonizing moment of silence, and Bette refused to give in to the temptation to look to her left again.

“Bette.”

Screw the mud. They were doing this.

“So if you’ll just come down to…”

“Bette.”

“I’m sorry. Honestly, I’m really sorry. Sorry for making you leave the library and for not thinking of a plan to make the drive nice, and for suggesting Portishead, which was Anton’s suggestion because I wanted a beach that was close, but in hindsight is a really shit place for a romantic gesture. I can see that now, obviously. But if you’ll just…”

“Bette.”

Bette turned to her. Ruth had that look of fond exasperation on her face again, the one from the night they’d watched Tessa and Scott skate. It was unmistakable now, what that expression was. Bette couldn’t quite believe she’d missed it at the time. Bette felt her anxious heart melt in her chest, a tub of ice cream on a hot day, sending warmth all the way down into her belly.

“If you’re with me,” Ruth said, carefully and deliberately, her hands anxiously clasping and unclasping in her lap again, “if you’re really with me, and no one else, then we don’t have to walk in.”

“No?” Bette asked, her brain catching up instantly, her heart full of hope. She reached over and laid a gentle hand over Ruth’s.

“No. I was scared. Scared of being hurt again. But maybe I could just try…not being scared. Or maybe I can be scared and jump anyway. Off the cliff, I mean. Metaphorically,” she added, unnecessarily, though Bette would have jumped off an actual cliff if Ruth had asked. “Probably. I mean, if you like. Honestly, I can’t really imagine you being chill enough to take it slow. And I don’t just want to casually date you. The thing is, I kind of think we might have jumped already. In Edinburgh. And we’re just now—I don’t know. Catching up with ourselves. I’m catching up with myself, at least.”

“Ruth, I…”

“I know,” Ruth replied, which wasn’t an answer to anything she was going to ask, but also sort of was. And then Ruth leaned over and kissed her. Which was precisely, exquisitely, exactly the answer the Bette had been looking for.

It wasn’t anything like she’d imagined, really. They weren’t standing, barefoot and freezing and ankle-deep in water, illuminated by the lights of the marina on Portishead Beach, lights that didn’t appear to exist. They were in Ash’s car, with the little overhead bulb on. The wind was whistling around the car, and her seatbelt buckle was digging into her hip, and the belt itself was still buckled, actually, and hauled her back when she tried to lean closer. But it was also exactly what Bette had imagined. It was Ruth’s mouth, hot and wet and clever. Teasing her, and drawing her in. Giving, giving. Giving Bette everything she’d imagined. Giving her the lights and the romance and the thrill of all of it. Bette felt Ruth sigh, the handbrake in the way between them.

“Hold on,” Bette said, and kicked open her door, threw off her seatbelt and ran round to Ruth’s side. Ruth was out of the car before she got there, and then was pressed hard against Bette’s body, her back against the door to the back seat, her own door still wide open beside them. They kissed again and again and again, Ruth’s hands never straying far from Bette’s face; from her jaw, from her cheek, from her brow, from her lip, as though she needed to map the details of her. As though she needed to be sure of Bette while her eyes were closed, even as she was pressed tightly against her. Bette released her lips for a moment, biting instead at her fingers, sucking them inside her mouth, running her tongue between them.

“We’re not fucking in the car,” Ruth muttered, panting against her cheek.

“Agreed. We’re grown-ups. Grown-ups don’t fuck in cars.”

“Grown-ups absolutely fuck in cars,” Ruth replied, and Bette felt hot all over. “But we’re on the worst beach in the world and this car has a terrible back seat. And even if all of that wasn’t true, it’s freezing and it’s six o’clock and there are probably kids in that skate park. Honestly, I’d much rather get you home and into bed—into one of our beds—than be arrested for public indecency.”

“That feels like a good line to have drawn,” Bette agreed, shivering in her jumper and tights, now that Ruth had pulled back a little. “No fucking on a terrible beach on a Sunday evening.”

“Actually, can we go to yours? If we go to mine then we’re going to have to deal with Heather and Jody and a level of excitement that might actually ruin this whole thing.”

“We can go to mine. Ash is out. At Tim’s. She’s not coming home tonight.”

“You were that confident?” Ruth smirked.

“No. No, I really wasn’t. I was sort of sure you’d say no. But Ash was confident. I thought of the plan over lunch—we thought of the plan over lunch. Oh, I should say—” She was babbling now, could feel her mouth moving too fast, knew the words were stumbling out, tripping over each other, too close together to be smooth. It was hard to care, when Ruth’s smile was wide enough to have to leap over. “Tim knows too. And Carmen. And Anton. They all adore you, obviously. They were very keen I didn’t fuck this up. Their level of investment here is beyond cringe, honestly. They’re obsessed with the idea of you ‘joining the gang.’ Which is a real thing Carmen said, that I have now repeated to you. Anyway, I took the car and Ash was—she knew. She’s known how I felt about you for longer than I have. How I feel about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Ruth said, stepping back toward her door, seemingly unwilling to let go of Bette, one hand still grasped round her waist. “And how do you feel about me, then?”

“Shut up,” Bette said, flushed pink. “Get in the car. And don’t touch me until we get home. Or I may pull over and get us arrested after all.”