The summer before sixth form, Mei learns about feminism from her father on a trip to Athens. They spend searingly hot days stamping up the steps of the Acropolis talking about the impossible expectations imposed on girls and women. Mei’s father shows her the crumbling temple of Athena Nike, a sacred ionic structure where the people of Athens would go and worship the goddesses of wisdom and war and victory. It is there, gazing up at the disintegration of the divine feminine, that Mei says the word patriarchy for the first time.
They had gone on holiday as a three: her father, Matilda and Mei—so that Matilda could receive treatment at a fertility clinic. She could have used any Harley Street clinic she liked, but she had read somewhere that this Athenian one offered a more holistic approach, one that didn’t put the entire emphasis on the woman and her defective womb. The free IVF treatment offered by the NHS was unavailable because her father already had Mei, a child by another woman. The money wasn’t an issue; Matilda was the kind of woman who paid for private health care. Yet the injustice Matilda felt was something she took to bringing up on holiday, over shallow dishes of taramasalata and honey-slicked feta. The way she spoke about it left Mei feeling like a wasted birth. Mei liked to imagine strangling her stepmum in those moments. Rolling her pressed linen napkin into a lasso, and yanking the air out of her windpipes. She felt sorry for any future siblings she might have. She wondered if it was an act of mercy that her stepmother was infertile.
When Matilda wasn’t having her blood taken or being swabbed between her legs, she would spend her days in the hotel room, sleeping in and ordering bun-less burgers with no pickles. This left Mei and her father to explore the ancient relics of the city, sandwiched between graffitied walls and tourists’ shops. Without Matilda’s compulsive dietary requirements, they are free to seek out the traditional Greek tavernas, eat souvlaki off the stick, drink ouzo out of hazy shot glasses.
On their fourth night, Mei’s father suggests they try a brasserie in the heart of Athens, a recommendation from Matilda’s father—a man who, if he tells you to go somewhere, you go. Even though they arrive for an early seven o’clock dinner there is already a queue spilling out onto the hot street. The sun has not quite set yet, so the air seems saturated, blanketed in a perfect wash of inky blue. The people queuing on the street are beautiful in a satisfying, predictable way. Short skirts and tanned legs and tennis shoes. Pretty children with curls of hair. Mei has her long black dress on. A light cotton with lace inserts. She had never really felt certain in it, but now, on this street, in this light, with these people, she does. Her father stands next to her in jeans and a linen jacket.
Damnit, he says under his breath. I should have made a reservation.
Oh God. Please don’t.
They both smile, knowing what this means.
I don’t know what you’re talking about . . . he says.
Soul stealer.
He laughs, and the woman in front of them turns and smiles at the sound.
Mei’s father had a talent for lying his way into restaurants. Sometimes he’d chance a glance at the reservation book. Sometimes he’d pick the most generic surname and hope that someone else had made a reservation under that same name, which he’d then pretend was his own. Soul stealer was the nickname Mei and Matilda had given him one night, after bluffing his way into a fully booked restaurant. Most of the time it didn’t work, but when it did, the evenings would turn from ordinary to triumphant. They’d laugh and call at each other across the table whatever name had been their golden ticket into the restaurant.
Only once had Mei’s father been caught out. At a Basque restaurant on Russell Street. They’d been desperately trying to find a table for a pre-theatre dinner before one of Matilda’s shows at the opera house, and Mei’s father, miraculously, had been successful with the name Garcia, even offering up a hammy gracias to the waitress as she showed them to their table. They’d just been seated and handed menus when a Spanish man, mid-fifties, with his wife and three kids had arrived with the maître d’. The man accused them of taking his table, and, instead of admitting defeat, Mei’s father had doubled down, arguing. Eventually the manager had arrived with the phone number that the table had been booked under, which was, of course, the real Mr Garcia’s—international area code and all. Even then, Mei’s father had turned the situation on management, calling it a mix-up, a double booking—really quite unacceptable. Then he had grabbed Mei’s hand, crushing her a little too hard, and pulled her towards the door. As soon as they’d left the restaurant, Mei’s father had folded over with laughter, slinging his arm over her and steering her towards a cheap pizza place. Mei had been furious. Quietly seething over thin slices of takeaway Napoli, unable to meet her father’s breezy indifference. Even during Matilda’s performance, Mei’s thoughts kept returning to the restaurant: the man with his smug smile, his wife’s ugly frown, the awkward way the children just stood there. The way in which the Garcias had belittled her father. She had fantasised about hurting them. Rewinding time, taking a fork off the table and wedging it into the soft iris of Garcia’s eye.
A waitress appears with a leather-bound menu and gestures the woman ahead through a glass door, leading to the cool glow of the restaurant.
Mei’s father steps forward.
Kalispera, hello. Do you have a reservation?
Kalispera. Yes. I do.
Great, the woman says, eyes buckling under his gaze. What is the name please?
Smith.
The woman scans the computer screen. Ah, uhh, I’m sorry, I can’t see a reservation under Smith?
Really? I called weeks ago. Are you sure?
I’m sorry, I don’t have a Smith. What time was it for?
Seven.
. . . No, there’s nothing on the system here.
I see . . . That’s very disappointing. I did book. He glances at Mei pityingly. And you don’t have anything free, just for the two of us?
I’m sorry—
Not even at the bar?
I’m afraid we’re fully booked.
Right. What a shame. We were really looking forward to it.
I’m very sorry.
We’ll just have to go somewhere else, Mei.
I . . . Have a few openings next week if you’d like to book now?
We’re leaving in a few days.
Ah, okay. I’m very sorry.
No no, you’re absolutely fine. You have a good night now.
You too, Mr Smith.
Mei felt both an annoyance and a relief as they left.
*
It had been a long time since Mei had been able to spend quality time with her father, just the two of them. She liked walking next to him, his tall body, his thoughtful movements. She liked the way people looked at them together, passing through a cobbled square swapping her mint-choc-chip for his pistachio. She sometimes wondered if people mistook them for a couple, and didn’t entirely hate it. Her father had a way of making the women around him feel more beautiful, including Mei— though she did not consider herself a woman yet. She had seen how the other mothers looked at him at drop-off. The way waitresses and babysitters saw something in him that was lacking in their own fathers, like he was the answer. He had a talent for extracting a gentle femininity at precisely the right moment, so that the effect was one of abundance. Neither too much, nor too little, he was just right. The goldilocks of men. It was a duality Mei knew he had had to cultivate after her mother died, but Mei also suspected it was partly an act, a way of communicating to whoever was watching that he was one of those mystical creatures: a good father who did everything right. While other girls her age would have shrugged off their father’s affections, Mei let him place his hand on her shoulder as they crossed a busy road. She liked it when they played cards a little too loudly together, competitive and laughing, attracting the smiles and nods of neighbouring tables. The truth was that in those moments her mother’s death seemed trivial, something far away and inconsequential. A tragedy that did not belong to either of them. Mei felt pride in knowing that what he had to say to her was above what most fathers divulge to their teenage daughters. She knew he trusted her to understand the complexities of gender roles and Mycenaean architecture. Knowing this gave Mei a haughtiness that she carried in her body, into her first year of sixth form. It sharpened her edges, gave her grace where before there was uncertainty.
Mei had made sure to keep a mental note of all the things she learnt and saw while in Athens, so that she could impress, maybe even spark a competitiveness in Fran. Mei had written to her outside a café, on the back of a one-euro postcard. The street she’d chosen to sit by was loud, car horns tooting. The coffee she drank was the colour of tar, and it made her feel nauseous. She had rushed the message. The final result perfunctory, painting a not entirely truthful picture of the romance of Athens, finished with a line to say she missed her. A few days later at the airport gift shop, Mei had bought Fran a traditional evil eye amulet. She thought it would be romantic, something to protect Fran as she joined Mei’s sixth form. It would be their little joke, holding up the eye to a turned back, like a crucifix to a vampire, shielding themselves from the glares of other girls.
Mei and Fran hadn’t spoken much over the summer holidays. Only the odd text here and there. Fran’s family had gone on a month’s holiday to Antigua for her dad’s fiftieth birthday, and Mei had been keeping up with her constant Facebook updates. Beach-side, bikini-clad photos of Fran, jet-skiing, on banana boat rides. The kinds of sporty holiday activities that made Mei’s stomach flip. These photographs, like most photographs of Fran that were taken without Mei, had a way of unnerving her. She would feel a possessiveness, followed by a panic that Fran was evolving at a rate that she could not keep up with—that if she missed one too many moments, Fran would disappear altogether.
Mei was looking forward to going back to school. Not only because Fran would be joining her, but because she was now a founding member of a new gospel choir. Her singing teacher, Mrs Selwin, had started up the choir during Mei’s last term of year ten, and the introduction of this to Mei’s life had been transformative. For the first time Mei had felt a kind of belonging—stood upright on the tiered seating of the assembly hall, shoulder to shoulder, belting ‘Lean on Me’. She was finally fully included, part of a collective, in which the communal and her own individual expression were in harmony, where Mei could allow herself, her voice, her body, to fill with an intensity she had learnt to dull all her life. A few times now Mrs Selwin had chosen Mei for the solo. Standing in front of the choir, singing acapella into a hall full of cross-legged girls, was utterly exhilarating. When she sang, she felt her power—as if she was forcing everyone closer and further away from her. She could be huge and heard and no one could do anything but watch and marvel and say to themselves, I didn’t know that girl could sing .
All summer, Mei had fantasised about Fran seeing her up on stage. She had fantasised about the two of them walking down the school corridors to art or drama, their friendship bracelets looped and fraying. She imagined showing Fran the secret alleyway where they could go and smoke their Lucky Strikes in breaks between classes. Playing in the orchestra, catching eyes, stifling laughter during the dodgy brass section. Mei had already told the head of music all about Fran’s beautiful playing, about how the harp might be an interesting addition to a chamber group. Mei could play her violin, and weave in and out of Fran’s figurations.
Mei imagined how, looking out across the heads of the second violins, Fran would watch her. She would notice the neck of the violin, Mei’s fingers playing across its length, and feel the twang of desire, the need to lie down in its place and feel symphonic.
It hadn’t yet occurred to Mei that matching timetables were a thing of the past. Mei hadn’t considered that Fran might choose to do the things she hated. Economics. Shaving her arm hair. Clubbing across the sticky floors of Oceana. She hadn’t considered what it might feel like to watch her best friend turn into someone—something—that they hadn’t planned. Sloughing off the bits of herself that Mei was so in love with.