The Following Weekend

"Mam, Dad…can I talk to you fer a minute?" Julie was more nervous than she had been in her life. When she was with Vicky, her older girlfriend made her feel like nothing would be an issue between them, no matter how small or insignificant the worry was. This was something else entirely. She'd kept this huge part of herself locked away, deep down inside, for so long. Some of it had been because she hadn't wanted to deal with it head on herself but the other part, the bigger part, had been out of fear of her parents (and friends, colleagues) reaction. She'd heard the stories and seen the news about families disowning their gay children. She'd never spoken to her parents about their thoughts on gay people or ever even heard them discussing the subject. This was completely unknown territory and Julie was all too aware of the irreparable damage that could be done. But she was very happy with Vicky and things were progressing to a point where it was going to be more difficult to deny that there was someone in her life. Not to mention the incident with Freda earlier on in the week and the fact that the entire factory now knew about her relationship with Vicky.

"Julie, love. What's wrong?" Brenda wasn't used to there being anything that troubled her usually placid daughter. She couldn't say the same for her son and constantly worried about what he was up to.

"Nothing's wrong Mam, I just…sit down." Julie waited for her parents to sit down at the kitchen table and took a seat opposite them. They looked at her with such worry on their faces and Julie wondered if hers looked the same but she took a deep breath and went ahead with her much rehearsed speech.

"I've been seeing someone." Her mother grinned at her and then turned to her dad and they grinned and nodded at each other knowingly. Julie clued in pretty quickly by the looks on their faces.

"You knew!?" Julie had thought that she'd been quite good at hiding it, even the evenings she had stayed over at Vicky's but she'd obviously been changed by falling in love and it was all too clear for her parents to have seen.

"We had an inkling, but thought you would tell us in your own time." It was unlike Brenda to be diplomatic which made Julie's think that it was her dad who had suggested keeping quiet about it until she had told them herself. He had always understood her marginally better than her mum, probably because they were of a similar ilk.

"Come on then; what's his name, where did you meet?" Julie's face fell as it became clear that they weren't quite as observant she she'd hoped they'd been. This was the part of the conversation she had been dreading. But Vicky had encouraged her to go through with it, no matter what and that had bolstered her confidence and determination.

"Her name's Vicky and she's a machinist at Mackintosh's." Julie had been prepared to say more but the looks on her parent's faces stopped her in her tracks. Her mum looked shocked and her dad wore a neutral, contemplative expression.

"You didn't mean to say 'she' did yer love?" Her mum almost pleaded with her to say that she hadn't. Eddie put a reassuring hand over his wife's as Julie went to continue.

"I'm sorry if I've shocked yer Mam but it's true. She's a really lovely person and she wants to meet yer both. You can find out for yerself then." Brenda let out a little squeak of indignation.

"If you think, for one moment, that we…." She began to rant but was silenced by her husband before she could say anything too damaging.

"Perhaps if Julie explained a little more about….Vicky….and all of this first, we might be a little more…understanding?" Julie smiled up at her dad and appreciated that he was at least trying.

"As far back as I can remember I knew that I was…different…to the other girls at school. I joined in when they gossiped about boys and stuff but I never really understood it. I just didn't feel the same way they did. And then there was this girl, it doesn't matter who it was now, but I was besotted with her. I thought it was because I wanted ter be her at first; she was pretty and popular and was good at school without being swotty. But I got all these butterflies in me stomach when I was around 'er and I had a million things I wanted to say to her but I could never quite get the words out when it came to it. Anyway, nothing happened, of course it didn't, but it did make me think about what it all meant. I heard the word lesbian one day when I was sixteen or seventeen and went to the library ter look up everything I could about it. Suddenly so much made sense and the more I thought about it the more I knew that this was who I was." Julie had never really used the 'l' word about herself before. Her good friend at Mackintosh's, Yvonne, had worked it out but she'd only implied certain things as opposed to openly saying the 'l' word. Brenda appeared to be getting more upset and Julie wondered if she should continue. She looked to her dad for reassurance.

"Carry on Julie, what happened next?" Eddie prompted his daughter and squeezed Brenda's hand in a gesture of comfort. The policeman in him thought that they couldn't decide how to deal with this without knowing all the facts.

"Nothing much really. I buried it; I thought it was weird and I didn't want ter have to deal with it or other people's reactions. I wasn't even sure that I wanted to be gay, just that I was. I got involved in other people's lives, became friends and babysitters and 'good old reliable Julie' who didn't have a life of 'er own. It's easier ter be lots of things to lots of different people rather than have to think about yourself and what you want. I had crushes on people, women, of course and a couple of the girls at the factory worked it out, but nothing was ever really said, just a sort of quiet acknowledgement that I was different." Freda still wasn't talking to Julie despite the fact that most of her colleagues had been supportive and it was still hard to fathom quite why she'd taken umbrage against it more than most.

"So what's changed?" Julie could tell her father had gone into policeman mode but he had always been careful to enquire rather than to interrogate his family.

"Vicky started at Mackintosh's when Rob was over. We got along really well straight away and had a couple of nights out together where I realised that I felt something for her. But then I decided that I was going to Hong Kong and that was going to be the end of that. I felt sad about it, in a way that I hadn't thought about before. Anyway, when I found out the truth about Rob and Amanda and decided to stay here instead, I found the courage to actually say something to Vicky, so we went on a date. That was two months ago and we've been seeing each other ever since."

"And tell us about her, what's she like?" Brenda continued to sit in silence and simply took it all in. Her mind was a jumble of thoughts and emotions and she wouldn't have been able to construct a sentence even if she had wanted to.

"She's, umm, quite a bit older than me; forty-eight with a grown up daughter. I've met Tina once and she's really lovely too. Vicky was married to Tina's dad but it didn't work out early on so they got divorced. She's been out with men and women, but the last fifteen years or so she's only dated women. She's sporty and funny but she's a little bit quiet like me, more reserved and likes a gentler pace of life. She likes a drink and a laugh too, just prefers to relax at home if she can. We make each other laugh and that's really important for us both." Brenda suddenly got up from the kitchen table and went off upstairs to her bedroom in a state. Tears sprang to Julie's eyes and she couldn't bear to look at her dad.

"I've let you both down, I'm sorry." Julie couldn't feel worse about herself and all of Vicky's support and encouragement had gone flying out of the window when she had seen how devastated her mother had been. Eddie got up from his seat too and for a moment Julie thought he was going to walk out on his shameful daughter too. Instead he came round to Julie's side of the table, wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her forehead as he had done many times before when she was a child.

"Now then, let's make a brew and talk sensibly about this."

"Have you found that thing you thought was missing?" Eddie asked his daughter as they sat on the garden bench drinking their tea. It was a conversation they'd had one late night after Rob had persuaded her to uproot herself and go back to Hong Kong with him. Julie thought about her dad's question for a moment.

"I think I 'ave, yeah." She smiled wistfully as she thought about Vicky waiting for her to come round later that evening. Eddie patted his daughter's knee in a gesture of support.

"Then I'm happy for you and I would like to meet Vicky sometime soon." Julie looked at her father, stunned by his acceptance of her and her relationship.

"Are yer sure?" He nodded and smiled gently at her.

"Yer me daughter. This might not have been what I'd have chosen for yer, but then being lonely wasn't either. I'm sorry if you've not felt able to talk to us about this. I should have been a better father and realised before now." Eddie sat back and took a sip of his tea. He sincerely meant it and felt inordinately guilty for assuming things about his daughter and taking her easy going nature for granted.

"Thank you fer understanding, or at least trying to understand. You've done nothing wrong, neither of you." They hugged each other tightly and Julie began to feel at ease with herself once again, All this uncertainly and tension wasn't natural to her and it made her feel quite out of sorts.

"Your mam will come round eventually, just give her time to get her head around it all. But don't feel that you can't talk about Vicky, or work or whatever else you want to talk about. Just make it a normal part of your conversation so that she can't get away from it." Eddie knew that he would have to face a difficult conversation with his wife later himself, but that wasn't for Julie to worry about.

"Thanks Dad, I was so worried you'd disown me or chuck me out or summat." Julie had felt that way ever since she'd worked out that she was gay and it had been the thing that had frightened her the most. Once she had been working for a few years and had saved up enough money for a deposit on her own place, she'd become so entrenched in her solitary lifestyle that she had become too scared to move.

"Oh love! I'm so sorry you thought that." It really brought it home to Eddie how scared his daughter must have been all these years. He was certainly going to make sure she never had reason to doubt his support again.