Page 31 of Not Strictly Ballroom

“Reyt, it’s my round. Does tha want another?” He doesn’t wait for an answer and toddles off to the bar. The world comes back into focus as I cough, trying to recover from my beer going down the wrong pipe. I snort to dispel the residue that’s coming back down my nose.

My dad sits back, blowing out his cheeks in relief.

Alan glances between us and then fixes his gaze on my dad. “What, you didn’t think we knew about Nick?” He jerks his head at me. I pick up my glass to take another swig. I’m very behind on finishing if Barry is fetching more.

My dad stares wide-eyed at him for a few seconds, a furrow across his brow.

“I mean, the lad doesn’t like football,” Alan pronounces.

I lose my beer again.

“You can’t say that!” I cough, wearing more of my drink than I’d like, which is none.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, I don’t like football, but that isn’t a prerequisite for being gay. There are loads of gay footballers, and fans.”

Alan grunts at me. A noise that means he understands his argument doesn’t hold up, but he’s clinging to it anyway. I bite back a smile. My dad and his friends are cut from the same cloth. They’ll believe what they want to believe and create a world around it.

Barry arrives back from the bar and, with a long-practised art, places three pint glasses down in one go, disappearing for a moment to fetch the fourth, and a few packets of crisps and pork scratchings which he plops down on the table. Beer snacks. This is unprecedented. It’s almost a celebration. My dad, who still looks like he’s in shock, turns to Barry.

“Did you know about Nick?”

Barry is busy opening a packet of pork scratchings. “Aye, suspected, for sure.” Having extracted one, uses it for emphasis as he waves his hand in my direction. “He wears makeup, Frank.”

Again, not an indication, but as I’m currently wearing a bit of eyeliner, I’m going to let that one pass for now. Looks like I got the educator role after all.

My dad runs his hand down his face like he can’t take it all in, and I give him my most reassuring smile. He’ll be alright.

I pick up the full pint glass in front of me and raise it slightly.

“Thanks Barry.”

“Tha’s welcome lad.” Barry nods. “Now tell us ’bout this dance competition. Our Brenda loves that one on the telly. Is it owt like that?”

I spend the next few minutes explaining the similarities and the differences between official competitions and the celebrity versions that are broadcast. I tell them a bit about the regional and the national competitions.

They ask questions, some of them intelligent about the dances, and some of them for fun, like, “Who gets to be t’girl?” and, “Dus thee have to wear a dress?” I decide to take them all in good humour.

When I say that the Nationals are being held at the city hall this year, Alan pipes up. “Ooh, is that what our Maggie’s been on about? She mentioned something the other day. I reckon I might get her some tickets, then.”

“Aye, me too, for our Bren,” Barry chimes in.

They both look at my dad, who’s looking like someone has replaced his friends with aliens.

“You must have got some already, Frank.”

That my dad would want to come along had never occurred to me. I wasn’t sure he knew about it as I hadn’t told him, though of course Mum knew. No doubt she would have found a way to make sure he came along in that subtle way she has with him. I see confusion cross his face, because if there’s one thing my dad isn’t, it’s a liar. But I don’t want him to have to uncomfortably own up to his friends that he doesn’t have tickets.

“Of course he has,” I reply for him, making a mental note to ask Claire if it’s possible to get some really good tickets for my parents.

My dad smiles a look of thanks, and recovers enough to join in the rest of the conversation. He looks more comfortable when talk returns to familiar ground, and we stay for a couple more rounds.

Later, we walk back up the hill towards home. I’m trying to process what just happened. I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling like I just existed in my dad’s life. That he was fine with me as long as I didn’t draw attention to being different. That he could ignore it, sweep it under the carpet.

I discovered he was more accepting the other week. But what he did tonight has blown me away; to own me in front of his friends is no small thing.

Dusk is settling around us, and I don’t know if it’s the effect of the afternoon drinking, or if it’s that time of day—on the cusp between light and dark, when confidences seem able to slip more easily through the cracks—that prompts him to speak.

---