In the school car park, after Lawrence has just called Caroline out on her own homophobia, Caroline remains in the car, in the rain, with the wipers going. This is what I think is going on with her:
The wipers beat out a pattern on the dark, soaked screen, making arcs of clarity for themselves before the rain fills them in once more. Lawrence's words ring in her ears, everybody knows. Do they? She watches Kate, laden with bags, books and an umbrella, as she navigates the slick, wet tarmac and makes her way indoors. I watch her comfortingly familiar gait, the sway of her hips as she walks, until the darkness of the doorway swallows her.
Her things are in my bedroom. Her toothbrush stands proudly in a glass tumbler beside the sink, with mine. At night I curl around her like a trap, terrified she'll have gone by morning. But out here it's too real. Here I have a different me to present. I don't know if I am embarrassed by how I feel about her, I don't think I am, or if I just want to keep things private. I tell myself it's the latter, but even my son can see the truth.
I've heard John, thinking he's out of earshot, calling me a dyke, a mad lesbian. He uses the words as they were used back at Oxford - as weapons, on the attack. I can understand why he does it, I suppose – he's wounded and he is mounting a defence – but it doesn't help. Kate is comfortable with these words, she calls us gay, says 'my girlfriend' with confidence but for me it's still language I balk at, so associated with the negative feelings of an adolescence of confused feelings and judgmental communities.
After years I have barely transcended the stigma of being an ambitious, educated woman. I still hear people calling me a bitch in hushed voices in the corridors of my school. I used to flinch at the word, but now I hold it as a badge of honour. Were I a man, my ambition and drive would be seen as an asset but as a woman it was long considered unbecoming, something I should apologise for, especially in the company of men.
Things change, it's inevitable, and I am not caught up with this latest twist in my personal life.
But Kate's name has become a tonic, I hear someone call it and I smile. Words have power, and she knows this more than anyone; her name is a mantra, it emboldens me. Makes me strong. I love the sound of it in my head, I turn it over and examine it. I love the sound of it on my tongue as I whisper it into her ear, into the thick, silence at night.
But these new words, words used to describe me, they are not mine. They are not me. They are still used against me and it makes me feel vulnerable, unarmed. I am not ready to relinquish my control over how the world sees me, especially not here at my school. And I'm too old to take change so lightly. I am not good at things. And being in the passenger seat is one of those things.
I see it in Kate, the hurt, every time I turn away from her kiss when my mother is there, every hushed conversation in the corridors of Sulgrave where she looks at me for some acknowledgment. I will get there, I know I will, but I am not there yet and her disappointment troubles me.
"Oi!" a shout from one teenage schoolboy to another snaps me out of my daze. I switch the idling engine off, freezing the wipers mid-swipe, and I head out into the rain.