The Case of the Missing Boyfriend E-Book

Nick Alexander

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The Number 1 Ebook hit: over 270,000 copies sold to date Thirty-nine year old CC is living the urban dream: a high-powered job in advertising, a beautiful flat, and a wild bunch of gay friends to spend the weekends with. And yet she feels like the Titanic - slowly, inexorably, and against all expectation, sinking. The truth is, CC would rather be digging turnips on a remote farm than convincing the masses to buy a life-changing pair of double-zippered jeans - rather be snuggling at home with the Missing Boyfriend than playing star fag-hag in London's latest coke-spots. But sightings of men without weird fetishes or secret wives are rarer than an original metaphor, and CC fears that pursuing the Good Life alone will just leave her feeling even more isolated. Could her best friend's pop-psychology be right? Are the horrors of CC's past preventing her from moving on? And if CC finally does confront her demons, will she find the Missing Boyfriend? Or is it already too late?

Leseprobe

NICK ALEXANDER

The Case of the Missing Boyfriend

Nick Alexander

Nick Alexander was born in Margate, and has lived and worked in the UK, the USA and France. He is the author of the 5-part ‘50 Reasons’ series of novels, featuring lovelorn Mark, and when he isn’t writing, he is the editor of the gay literature site BIGfib.com. The Case of the Missing Boyfriend was an eBook bestseller in early 2011, netting sixty thousand downloads and reaching number 1 on Amazon. Nick lives in the southern French Alps with two mogs, a couple of goldfish and a complete set of Pedro Almodovar films. Visit his website at www.nick-alexander.com

Also by Nick Alexander

THE 50 REASONS SERIES50 Reasons to Say Goodbye Sottopassaggio Good Thing, Bad Thing Better than Easy Sleight of Hand

SHORT STORIES13.55 Eastern Standard Time

First published in Great Britain in 2011

by BIGfib Books.

This edition published in Great Britain in 2011

By Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Nick Alexander, 2011

The moral right of Nick Alexander to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from

the British Library.

E-book ISBN: 978-0-85789-631-5

Printed in Great Britain.

Corvus, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd

Ormond House

26-27 Boswell Street

London WC1N 3JZ

www.corvus-books.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Part One

Dead Chuffed

Carpenter Pants

Knowing Where You’re Going

SAD Syndrome

The Right Words

House of Cards

An Arse-Slapping Success

Two for the Price of None

Numb

The Apprentice

Hotline

Men Only

Funny, Awful and Ironic

If It’s Fun, It’s a Sin

Baroque Dreams

A Near Miss

Romance by Design

The Wrong Kind of Rubber

Deflation

Early Exit

Man Poisoning

Too Young to Die

On Any Other Day

Part Two

Autumn Blues

The Ups and Downs of Self-Help

A Mug’s Game

All It Takes is a Plan

What a Waste

Dealing with the Past

Slowdown – Speedup

I’m Fine

Fun and Standards

Disposable One-liners

Test Drive

A Ghostly Presence

Genetics

The Gift of Time

The High

Soup and Sympathy

Surprise Visit

What He Would Have Wanted

Icy Water

Why We Need Prozac

Office Minimalism

Body Double

The Matrix

Choreographed Compromise

Nothing Gay About It

Dodgy Equipment

Short-Sighted Date

Seize the Day

The Day Before You Came

Acknowledgements

EXTRA CONTENT - Read the first chapter of the sequel: The French House.

PART ONE

Dead Chuffed

When I open my front door, the bouquet of flowers that greets me is so vast, so dense, that I can’t actually see who is holding it. The bouquet comprises roses – which I hate – and deep, green sprigs that look like they might have come from the Leylandii in Mrs Pilchard’s garden.

My first thought is, God, how dreadful! And then, in case He, or She, or whoever, or whatever, is listening, I try to think graceful, grateful thoughts instead. For, truth be told, it’s been a stunningly long time since anyone sent me flowers – even awful flowers – and Thinking Your Way to Happiness says one has to work harder on one’s automatic thought patterns, so working harder, one is.

The voice that springs from behind though, is easily identifiable. ‘Hi, babe,’ it chirrups: Mark, my neighbour from upstairs.

In fact, as Mark both lives in the flat above mine, and works one floor up from me at Spot On advertising he is pretty much ‘upstairs’ in one form or another twenty-four/seven.

I’m feeling somewhat disappointed that the flowers are not the long dreamt of Eureka! moment where gorgeous-unknown- secret-admirer reveals that he has in fact been in love with me for years. And then again I’m also feeling somewhat relieved that I will not have to house the horrid bouquet for long.

I squash myself against the wall and let Mark squeeze past. ‘They’re not for you I’m afraid,’ he confirms, ‘they’re for Ian’s mother.’

‘I thought you two split up,’ I comment, frowning and following him through to the kitchen. ‘And I thought she was dead.’ My gay friends have such a constant stream of boyfriends, confusion is always a distinct possibility.

With me, of course, it’s easier – there is nothing to remember. What we need here, I think for the umpteenth time, is a little redistribution of boyfriend material. I hope He/She/It is listening.

‘Well, yes, they’re for her funeral,’ Mark explains, propping the bouquet up in my kitchen sink and turning to face me.

The world is divided into those who dare to address me by my horrific first name, and friends who know better. Mark knows better. ‘So how is my little CC?’ he asks, stepping forward and kissing me on both cheeks.

‘OK,’ I say, vaguely.

‘These are nice,’ he adds, tapping one of my earrings. ‘I haven’t seen you for days! Have you been away or something?’

Still thinking about the earrings, I shake my head a little more vigorously than I would otherwise. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ve been stuck down in Media all week trying to sort out the magazine space for those Hi Five ads. Actually, these are props from that shabby/ chic photo shoot we did for their autumn collection.’ I tap my right ear with my index finger. ‘. . .last worn by Angelica Wayne I’ll have you know!’

Mark nods, impressed. ‘Well, they suit you brilliantly,’ he says. ‘They look even better on you than on her.’

‘If only the rest of me looked like her, eh?’ I laugh, picturing Wayne’s nano-waist and involuntarily pulling my tummy in.

‘I told you, she’s too thin,’ Mark says. ‘She’s ill.’

‘. . . no such thing as too thin in this business,’ I say. ‘Anyway, enough of work . . . So are you telling me that Ian has now invited you to his mother’s funeral?’

Mark grins and runs his fingers through his tiny Tin-Tin quiff. ‘I know,’ he says enthusiastically. ‘I’m dead chuffed . . .’ He pulls a face: thoughtful, confused. ‘Must remember not to say that to Ian . . . dead chuffed. It’s not ideal, is it? But yes, we’re back together.’

I shrug and shake my head. ‘But how? I mean the last time you mentioned Ian . . .’

Mark shakes his head and pushes his lips out. ‘I don’t know really,’ he interrupts. ‘I mean, I was just getting used to the idea of being single again and then his old mama goes and dies, and within hours he was knocking on my door and weeping all over me. He stayed the night, and then we woke up together and, tada . . . we’re an item again. Nothing like a bit of grief to put an argument into perspective eh?’

I shake my head. ‘Apparently not,’ I say. ‘I must remember that one next time someone dumps me. Murdering one of their parents is the answer, it would seem.’

‘But I do think it’s a sign at least,’ Mark says. ‘It demonstrates a certain level of trust and intimacy, inviting your boyfriend to a funeral, don’t you think?’ He looks at me and wrinkles his brow. ‘What’s up? Am I burbling? Or is it that you’re jealous?’

‘Erm, no!’ I laugh, turning away to pull mugs from the cupboard. ‘Do you want tea?’

But of course I’m jealous. I’m jealous but quick enough to realise that being sorry because I don’t have a boyfriend to invite me to his mother’s funeral is a tad on the sick side of sad and best not admitted to. Ever.

‘A cuppa would be lovely,’ Mark says, rubbing his nose and then hauling himself up onto the counter top.

‘So are the burbling and that jiggly foot there a sign of too much coffee?’ I ask, pointing the kettle accusingly at him. ‘Or have you been . . . you know . . .?’

Checking the screen of his mobile, Mark replies, ‘Sweetie – it’s six p.m. on a Thursday night!’

Mark is developing quite a cocaine habit, and I have to say, I am beginning to get a bit concerned about it. But then again, it often seems that half of London is taking the stuff these days. I push the bouquet to one side and fill the kettle. ‘That’s not an answer,’ I say. ‘And well you know it.’

Mark shrugs, rubs his nose again, and grins coyly, confirming my doubts. ‘Maybe a bit,’ he admits. ‘But it was only a booster shot – we had to finish the visuals for Hi Five and I had a hangover. Plus I’m off tomorrow for this funeral thing, so . . . Anyway, I’ll be calm now.’ He takes a deep breath, then says with theatrical poise, ‘So how are you?’

I lean back against a cupboard and smile weakly. ‘Me?’ I say with a mini-shrug. ‘Oh, I’m fine.’

Mark nods thoughtfully. ‘You look a bit bluesy,’ he says.

I shrug again.

‘So is this need-a-man blues?’ he asks. ‘Or empty-weekend blues?’

I laugh. ‘You know me so well,’ I say. ‘Though really I think it’s just plain old February blues.’

Mark chews the side of his mouth. ‘I could probably get you an invite to the funeral,’ he offers with mock seriousness. ‘If you want.’

I shake my head. ‘Not quite that desperate,’ I say.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I guess not. You should call Darren. He’s going to some fabulous pervert view on Saturday. Didn’t he tell you?’

I shake my head. ‘I haven’t seen him all week. As I say, I’ve been stuck down in Media. A private view, you say?’

Mark laughs. ‘No, this one really is a pervert view,’ he says. ‘Some Colombian bondage photographer called Ricardo something or other. It should be fabulous. Apparently the waiters are all going to be dressed up in gimp outfits. It could be a hoot.’

‘And you’re missing this?’ I ask incredulously.

Mark wrinkles his nose and nods sadly. ‘Yeah. Dead in-laws in Glasgow take precedence,’ he says.

‘She’s from Glasgow?’ I say.

‘Yeah,’ Mark says. ‘Though I think you’ll find that was from Glasgow is the correct tense. Anyway, call Darren. He split up with Peter again, so I’m sure he would love you to go.’

‘I take it Ricardo Thingamajig is gay,’ I say, ‘. . . the photographer?’

Mark nods and wrinkles his nose. ‘Probably,’ he says, pushing his lips out. ‘Bisexual at worst, I would think. Or from your point of view, I suppose, bisexual at best.’

I grimace.

‘I’m sure there will be some straight arty types there though,’ Mark says raising one shoulder. ‘And it has to be better than sitting here feeling sorry for yourself in the dinge all weekend,’ he adds, nodding out of the kitchen window at the mass of green shadow beyond.

‘I’ll think about it,’ I say.

Once Mark has drunk his tea and swooped off with his flowers, I sit and stare out of the window at the base of the Leylandii and think about the invitation. A year ago I would have jumped at it. But that was before I started worrying about The Missing Boyfriend.

Of course, in a way, I have always worried about The Missing Boyfriend – I have worried about him, or his absence, so frequently that I have had to shorten it to TMB just to save brain energy. Even when I was dating someone, even when I was married to Ronan, or living with Brian, I still worried about TMB, for the person sitting opposite never quite fulfilled the image I had in my mind’s eye about how TMB would/should/ could be.

It’s not that I am particularly demanding, honestly it isn’t. It’s just that the men I have ended up with have been so spectacularly lacklustre. And ever since Brian . . .

A gloomy image of my life with Brian appears at the periphery of my mind’s eye, like a storm on the horizon threatening devastation. I pause and sigh before swallowing hard and pushing it away.

God it’s still there! Three years on, and Brian is still lurking around the edges of my brain ready to pop up at any moment. Break-ups are survivable. It’s the aftershocks that get you.

Suffice to say that ever since that bastard Brian, finding a man, finding the right man, has started to feel urgent, because of my age. Well, my age and the baby thing.

So Darren and Mark and their boyfriends du jour may be fabulous fun, but I am increasingly aware that they are not the correct route through the maze that is my life – they will not lead me to the TMB.

And so I make a compromise with myself: I will go to the dreaded speed-dating thing again and as a reward I will let myself go to Ricardo Whatsit’s bondage exhibition. And you don’t need to be Mystic Meg to predict which is going to be the most fun.

I reach for my mobile and dial Darren’s number.

Carpenter Pants

Fridays! They’re always the worst. Days stuffed with itsy-bitsy multicoloured tasks that fill every second of the day, but like M&Ms fail to nourish in any way.

I make a phone call here, send a couple of emails there, courier a DVD to the printer.

These days – and in advertising there are many of them – drive me insane. Because though I run around barely pausing for breath, schmoozing here, smoothing ruffled feathers over there, chivvying along and calming down as required, no single task is ever consequential enough to give any kind of character to the day. These days, and they fall often, though not exclusively, on Fridays, leave little or no sense of achievement. They are the kind of day that, when Ronan or Brian would ask me what I had done that day, (usually in response to my state of evident exhaustion) I was hard pressed to think of a single thing I had achieved.

Nowadays no one asks of course – perhaps the only advantage I can think of in being single.

Though painfully vacuous, these days are, however, essential. For without schmoozing, clients look elsewhere, and without smoothing, ruffled feathers fly away. And without chivvying, neither Media nor Creative do anything at all.

It’s four p.m. I put down the phone and sigh. It’s the first time since eight this morning I have had time to think about the ADD nature of the day.

I look over towards the coffee room to see if the dreaded Victoria Barclay is lurking, waiting to assail me with one of her complex look/sigh combinations – a raised eyebrow here, a pouty mouth there. Though the meaning is never explicit, I am always left feeling guilty. Just as with my mother, any look other than a smile leaves me feeling as though I am somehow a disappointment, if not to the partners (of which she is one), then to womanhood, or perhaps even to the entire human race.

And then I think about the chivvying thing again, and realise that Creative haven’t given me anything whatsoever for my Monday morning pitch to Grunge! Street-Wear, so I grab the phone. When the boys fail to pick up their extension I literally jog across the room and throw myself through the closing doors into the lift.

Gotcha! Victoria Barclay, lying in wait, spider-like, gives me the once over, raises an eyebrow and then screws the end of her nose as if I am perhaps smeared in dog shit. ‘Running late for a change?’ she asks.

I smile at her. ‘Not at all,’ I say.

I turn to face the doors and wait for my chance to escape.

Of course, not getting anything from Creative – The Gay Team as I call them – is pretty par for the course really. As far as I can see they just sit around all day talking about their sexual conquests and smoking until half an hour before the deadline, whereupon they somehow miraculously defy gravity or time or something by slinging together some irritatingly fabulous idea.

Whether this ability to do nothing and then come up with the goods at the last possible moment is a sign of their brilliance, or a severe failing on their part, I can never really decide. I often wonder how good the campaign would be if they spent, say, a whole afternoon on one. But with Mark away, and with Jude famously refusing to work weekends (nothing must get in the way of his cycling) this is cutting things even finer than usual.

Sure enough I catch Jude and Darren leaning out of the window smoking. They drop their cigarettes into an old Marmite jar on the window-sill and spin to face me. ‘Oh it’s only you,’ Jude says. ‘Damn! Waste of a good ciggy.’

‘Thank God you’re still here!’ I reply. ‘Where are the visuals for the Grunge! pitch? I just realised, I haven’t had anything.’ I note a slightly hysterical tremor in my voice and decide to get a handle on that.

‘What? For the pervy jeans?’ Darren asks, frowning.

‘German carpenter pants, I think you’ll find,’ I say calmly.

Carpenter pants are in fact black jeans, only with two zips for the fly, one to the right and one to the left of the normal opening. Quite why German carpenters, or anyone else for that matter, should need two zips for peeing is beyond me, but the Grunge! designers are convinced that it’s the next big thing. It is up to us at Spot On to make it so.

Thinking that it’s a bit late in the day for me still not to know this stuff, I ask, ‘Anyway, why do German carpenters need a double fly? Are they, like, really big or something?’

Darren giggles. ‘Maybe. Or just into general perviness.’

I sigh. ‘Come on then,’ I say, ‘spit it out.’

Jude shrugs cutely, and blushes slightly. ‘Well, that’s the real point, isn’t it?’

I frown. I think I’m being naive, one of my specialities – though when you’re surrounded by gay men, it’s often hard to appear anything else. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘I have to sell the damn things. Explain.’

‘It’s so boys can get their tackle out,’ Jude, now seated at his Mac says, matter-of-factly. ‘For you know . . . shagging. Quickly.’

‘Is it?’ I ask, grimacing at the overload of mental imagery this concept is producing. ‘And they can’t do that with a normal fly?’

‘Well no, dear. Not without considerable risk of rubbing it up and down the zip,’ Jude laughs.

‘Not to mention the risk of getting it caught in the zip,’ Darren adds.

I grimace. ‘Is that really the point?’ I say. ‘Or are you winding me up? Surely button flies . . .’

‘No one can get in or out of a button fly in a rush, hon, even you know that,’ Jude says.

Darren nods sadly. ‘That’s why leather-men have had double zips on their gear for years.’

‘But how does having two zips help?’ I ask, picking up a sample pair of the jeans and unfastening one zip and then the other. The rectangle of tissue between the two zips flaps downwards. ‘Ahh!’ I laugh. ‘You undo both zips at once.’

Jude rolls his eyes at my apparent slowness.

‘So I take it you do have an idea to sell this to the general public,’ I say, ‘because dungeon masters are sooo not our target market here.’

Jude beckons me over and Darren squeezes in beside me. ‘I just did this mock-up,’ he says. ‘There are two campaigns – we run the gay one first, in Gay Times, Têtu in France . . . what-have-you.’

He clicks and the screen fills with an image. A guy (beautiful, skinny, photoshopped to perfection) is standing in a pub surrounded by white-toothed, earnest-looking colleagues in business suits. He’s wearing carpenter pants and a sweatshirt, and around his neck is a sketched-in dog collar with a vast long lead which runs out of the door, up into the night sky, and across town before dropping into the hand of a guy who strikes me as a very Village People leather-man in breeches, boots, and one of those peaked military hats. He is heading into the door of another, much dingier looking bar with a neon sign. Across the top of the ad the copy reads, ‘For guys who like to get ^ out.’ Above the ^ is a hand-written ‘it.’

‘Jesus!’ I say. ‘That’s a bit full-on isn’t it?’

Jude shrugs. ‘I’d buy a pair,’ he says.

‘Me too,’ Darren says. ‘That’s brilliant.’

I shoot him a look and turn back to Jude. ‘When you say you have just done this, you really mean, just, don’t you?’

He shrugs.

‘So what’s the pitch?’ I ask.

Jude grins disarmingly. ‘Gay culture is all about invisible signs that only those in the know can spot,’ he explains. ‘Leather wristbands, handkerchiefs in pockets, key chains . . . So here we see a gay guy, by day, in a work environment, and all those suits he’s with have no idea that by night he’s a dirty little bugger.’

‘Truly brilliant,’ Darren says.

‘Whereas, of course, any other gay man will have seen “carpenter pants” (he raises his fingers to make the speech marks) or at the very least this advert and will know exactly what’s going on.’

‘But the target market isn’t only gay men,’ I point out.

‘No,’ he says, clicking on the mouse. ‘It’s not quite finished yet, but . . .’

The screen fills with a soviet-propaganda-style image of a couple. The guy has cheekbones you could hang washing on and biceps the size of my thighs, whilst his girl has an Angelica Wayne nano-waist and a tied-back, blond bob. They are standing with their backs to a scene of urban desolation – London, kind- of after the earthquake – whilst before them is a vast, open vista of green fields, cows and daisies. Along the top is a similar tag line. ‘For men who like to get out of the Grunge!’ The guy is, of course, wearing carpenter pants.

‘So here,’ Jude explains, ‘we’re showing a Germanic alpha- male who lives the hard life in the city, but spends his free time enjoying nature. He is the touchy-feely nature-lover/muscle-man women want.’

‘Is he?’ I ask, briefly trying to imagine myself with the touchy- feely, Germanic, alpha-male.

‘Yes,’ Jude says, ‘and he’s leading his girl away from the grunge of the city for a lovely day out.’

My focus has shifted to the bulge behind the alpha-male’s double-zip combination, and I decide that Jude is indeed right. He is exactly what women want.

‘But what is the double zip gonna do for this guy?’ Darren asks.

I frown at him. ‘Have you worked on this project at all?’ I ask.

Jude shrugs. ‘He hasn’t. But he’s finishing off the visuals this weekend, aren’t you? And the answer is that double-zips aren’t going to do anything for him. It’s fashion, sweetie. But once the trendy straight boys see us gay boys running around in carpenter pants they will want them too. This second ad creates a parallel message about it being to do with the great outdoors – it’s an enabler – it creates a second narrative to let them buy something that they would otherwise identify as gay.’

I nod. ‘OK,’ I say, doubtfully. ‘But heterosexuals do actually have sex, you know.’ I wait for one of them to say, ‘Do you?’ But no one does, which is a relief. Because if I were being truthful, I would have to admit that not all of us do.

‘Yeah, but not in an impromptu whip-it-out kind of way,’ Darren says.

I shrug. ‘It has been known,’ I say, affecting my best wise- woman-of-the-world expression. ‘There are certainly plenty of couples who like to shag in the great outdoors.’

‘Well, then the image is perfect,’ Jude says. ‘You can read it either way.’

‘If he buys a pair for his girlfriend too then that would certainly speed things up, wouldn’t it?’ Darren says.

‘As long as the zips don’t get stuck together . . .’ Jude giggles.

‘So that’s it?’ I ask, forcing a serious tone to interrupt the chatter. ‘This is what I’m pitching on Monday to Clarissa Bowles and company?’

Jude shrugs. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think it’s awesome,’ Darren says. ‘I wish I had made more input, I would have been really proud of that one.’

I shake my head. ‘Jesus, Mary,’ I say. If my childhood priest knew the things I have to sell these days he’d . . . Truth be told, I do remember a bit of a fuss. He would probably want a pair. He probably has a pair. In leather.

Jude rubs my arm. ‘You’ll breeze through,’ he says. ‘You always do. ’

And it’s true. Every material aspect of my life is proof that I can sell anything, even a semi-obscene advertising campaign for completely pointless, outrageously overpriced, double-zipped jeans. I have no idea where this gift-of-the-gab came from, but I’ve been doing it long enough to know that I have it. I just wish I were as good at selling other things, like myself.

‘OK,’ I say, with a nod. ‘I just have to work out how to pitch this without scaring them off. And don’t be late with the story-board on Monday. You know what Clarissa is like about punctuality.’

‘Do we still have a date for the private view?’ Darren asks, as I turn to the door.

I nod. ‘You bet,’ I say, glancing back.

‘Can I borrow a pair of these? They’d be perfect,’ he asks, picking up a pair of the jeans.

I shake my head. ‘Absolutely not.’

Knowing Where You’re Going

In this age of virtual-everything, there is something almost old- fashioned, archaic even, about the concept of speed dating. The idea of going to meet ten guys, face to face, in just over an hour, is not only nerve-racking but also somehow a bit quaint. But as virtual-dating on the internet seems to bring nothing more than virtual boyfriends (rare is the man who turns up to a date, in my experience) – and because my social life in London seems to produce nothing but opportunities for meeting an ever-larger selection of gay men, speed dating it is.

I have to say at this point that I honestly never intended to become such a fag hag. It just somehow happened. I expect a psychotherapist searching for causes would point rather obviously at my brother Waiine’s death, but I honestly don’t think that that’s the reason. It’s simply that I meet a lot of gay guys through work, and, having nothing whatsoever against them, it would be really stupid of me to refuse all the invitations I get to tag along. Because the events they take me to are, almost without exception, more fun than I get in any other area of my life. But tonight isn’t about fun. Not one bit.

When I have fun out with Mark or Darren or my best friend Sarah-Jane, it’s precisely because there are no expectations. Even surfing Meetic can give me some hope because the most obsessive-repulsive of fuck-ups generally describe themselves as happy-go-lucky, good-looking, etc. At least we both get to pretend that they really are the way they say they are.

Speed dating, however, generally leaves me feeling suicidal. The guys here sadly aren’t hiding behind twenty-year-old photos of Daniel Day-Lewis. They are sitting there, leering at you, in all their revolting splendour.

So by the time I have sat talking to six guys who look like they needed a crane to get out of bed that morning, three who sound like they may have had lobotomies, and generally one, funny, witty hunk who, at the end of the session, inexplicably fails to ask for my phone number, I’m ready for the mortuary. Which is why, whenever I can, I arrange to meet Sarah-Jane for a post- mortem afterwards.

SJ is perfect for this because a) she lives in Brixton, just around the corner from The Office – the bar where the speed dating is held – and, b) has been in the same relationship since fish first crawled onto land and so, like all such people, thrives vicariously on my dating nightmares. She also has what personality profiles call a sunny disposition, and, more essentially, remains sunnily disposed after a bottle and a half of Chardonnay.

I arrive at The Office about a minute late.

Speed dating, appealing to people with busy schedules and being organised by Nazis with stopwatches, clearly isn’t something one should turn up late to. Everyone glares at me to make sure that I am aware of this.

Thomas, the organiser, sighs and points me to the end of the row. ‘And you! You can pay afterwards,’ he says in his best schoolteacher voice.

At the rear of the bar ten tables are lined up. Backs to the wall, facing me, are ten guys. They pretty much fit the previously described mix, only tonight perhaps only five are clinically obese – though on second thoughts, the sixth is definitely border-line. Half of them have beards too, which I’m afraid is a no-go area for me. I don’t spend half my life waxing to end up kissing a bunch of pubes.

I scurry by, trying to discreetly check out the guys and the competition, for the most part a similarly comfortable bunch of lassies with their backs to me.

The boys stare at me, some with distaste (presumably at my unspeakable lateness), some with slight leers of interest. All these eyes following me around make me awkward and that awkwardness makes me feel as if I am on a catwalk, which in turn makes the business of putting one foot in front of another seem suddenly terribly complex. This is not helped by the fact that I am wearing my new Jimmy Choos.

And then, two from the end, I see him: dark brown eyes, stubble, neither skinny nor fat, just sort of chunky and sporty, balding . . . Balding is a plus actually – some kind of daddy- complex, I expect. I must go see a shrink one day to find out.

Brown Eyes is wearing a blue, crew-neck jumper over a white shirt, and he’s smiling at me. A good smile, slightly amused.

The smile of course tips the balance and my already floundering feet finally fail, catapulting me forwards. I collapse against an empty chair, pushing it and the table hard into the amply padded tummy of another chunky chappy, who turns out to be my first sparring partner.

I apologise profusely to Barry (yes, Barry – I kid you not) and then Thomas shouts, ‘Are we finally ready?’ and the stopwatch starts.

Whilst wiggling my foot under the table in an attempt at untwisting it, I listen to Barry drone on excitedly about how interested he is in computers and how he prefers Windows Vista even though it got a really bad press. He talks about Windows for two and a half of his allotted three minutes, and then somehow cleverly links to how much he appreciates punctuality in a woman. I spend my own three minutes wishing I were anywhere else whilst trying to sound like a total bitch who is trying really hard not to sound like one, but can’t quite avoid letting her true total- bitch-nature slip out. I think I manage this pretty well because Barry wrinkles first one, then both of his hairy nostrils at me.

I am also thoroughly satisfied by my display of self control: I manage to glance at Brown Eyes only twice. When I arrive, Sarah-Jane is frying slices of tofu in her tiny kitchen.

‘They always disintegrate when I do that,’ I tell her as I hang up my coat and cross the room to kiss her on the cheek.

‘You have to get the pan really bloody hot,’ she explains. ‘burn the buggers before they realise what you’re trying to do to them. So how was dating-hell this week?’

‘Oh, not bad,’ I say. ‘Actually it was bloody awful. But there was one potential, at least.’

Sarah-Jane nods. ‘There’s some Chardonnay in the fridge,’ she says in response to my own bottle of shop-warm Bordeaux. ‘So tell me, what was it like?’

‘As I say. They were all revolting except this one guy.’

‘What’s his name? And what does he look like? Did you get his phone number?’

‘Well he’s got brown eyes,’ I say, ignoring the first question, ‘balding, sort of chunky, a bit rugby-player-ish. Potentially cuddly.’

I pull the wine from the fridge, a glass from the shelf and pour myself a hefty slosh.

‘Sounds good,’ Sarah-Jane says, fishing strips of browned tofu from the pan and pouring in a bag of stir-fry veg. ‘No beard then?’

‘No beard.’

‘So, shaggable?’

‘Trust you get straight to the point,’ I laugh.

But really it’s what I love about Sarah-Jane. Well, one of the many things I love about her. I take a gulp of wine. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Given the chance . . . definitely.’

She takes a sip from her own glass. ‘What did you say his name was?’

I wrinkle my nose. ‘I didn’t,’ I say.

‘INS?’ she asks.

What with her being a chavvy Essex-girl called Sarah-Jane and my being an equally misnamed daughter of a lawyer from Surrey, we have invented an abbreviation for such situations: INS, or, Inappropriate Name Syndrome.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Definitely INS.’

‘Come on then,’ she prompts. ‘What is it? Dwayne? Barry? Don’t tell me . . . Winston?’

I laugh. ‘There was a Barry,’ I say. ‘But no. This one’s a Norman.’

She pulls a face. ‘Eeek!’ she says. ‘Norman Bates! Doesn’t live with his mum, does he?’

I nod. ‘I know,’ I say. ‘Personally I kept thinking about that Spitting Image puppet of Norman Tebbit.’

‘Fucking hell,’ she says. ‘Norman! That’s not good. That’s really not good.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I blame the parents personally. But if there’s anyone who can ignore a bad first name, well, it’s gonna be me really, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ Sarah-Jane says. ‘I s’pose. What’s his surname?’

I shrug. ‘We don’t get that information. Just a phone number.’

‘. . . course. But you got it?’

‘I did,’ I say. ‘There was a Dustin too . . .’

Sarah-Jane winks at me. ‘Now yer talking,’ she says. ‘Always had a thing for Dustins.’

‘Yeah, I thought of you. He was about thirty,’ I say. ‘About thirty stone.’

‘You’re such a fattist,’ she laughs. ‘Does that exist? Fattist?’

I shrug. ‘I know . . .’ I say. ‘I’m not in any other area of my life, honest. I mean, if I have to work with a porker, I don’t even think about it. But having been on a diet since 1971, I don’t expect to then have to sleep with someone who needs industrial liposuction. Does that make me horribly shallow, do you think?’

Sarah-Jane shrugs. ‘Nah, love,’ she says. ‘It’s just, well, I like a bit of padding myself. Anyway, you were born in 1971.’

‘Exactly,’ I laugh. ‘But seriously, you didn’t see them – you honestly have no idea. Dustin looked like Ricky Gervais. A fat version of Ricky Gervais. Talked a bit like him too.’

‘Now, you see . . . I like Ricky Gervais,’ Sarah-Jane says, adding the contents of a sachet of sweet and sour sauce to her mix. ‘I think he’s funny.’

‘Yeah, but not in your bed,’ I laugh.

‘No,’ she agrees. ‘No, I suppose not. Anyway tell me about Norman.’ She pulls a face as she says the name.

I shrug. ‘You don’t get a great deal in three minutes, but he does something in mental health, something to do with half way houses.’

‘Probably lives in one,’ Sarah-Jane laughs.

‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘I thought that already . . . He has two brothers, lives in Clapham, likes walking and reading and classical music and rugby.’

‘I suppose books and music makes up for rugby,’ Sarah Jane says doubtfully.

‘Well, any more touchy-feely and he’d be gay, and lord knows that’s not what we’re after here.’

‘No,’ Sarah Jane laughs. ‘So when are you seeing him?’

I shrug. ‘When he calls.’

‘And if he doesn’t?’

‘In a week if he hasn’t phoned I suppose I’ll call him.’

Sarah-Jane hands me a plate of food and a fork. ‘Yeah, best not to seem over-keen,’ she says.

‘Exactly.’

‘Though this being a heterosexual man, best not leave it too long either, or he won’t remember who you are. Goldfish memory and all that. Did I tell you that George forgot my birthday again?’

In my taxi home to Primrose Hill, I think somewhat tipsily about SJ and George, and then, as if allowing myself a square of chocolate, I let myself think about Brown Eyes.

I have little fantasies about the two of us living a perfect love affair that worryingly resembles a carbon copy of SJ’s life, for Sarah-Jane, who I have known since college, has it all. Such people really do exist.

She has George (who I believe to be the last of the New Men to be churned out before they gave up and switched back to producing Old Men again). She has lovely supportive parents, a great job promoting Macmillan Cancer Trust, Timotei hair, an overactive thyroid gland (it keeps her weight in check, you see), and utter faith that everything always turns out for the best.

She met George at eighteen and has loved him to bits ever since. I’m not jealous of her – I love her far too much for that. No, SJ’s wonderful life warms me up on an almost daily basis, gives me the hope that comes from seeing that happiness does really exist, that people really do manage it, that relationships really can last.

It’s just her certainty in the future I envy. For nothing bad has ever happened to Sarah-Jane, and her belief in life is unruffled. Next year she and George will have saved enough to move, and for George to stop travelling, and for her to stop work and start a family. She knows that, unlike Brian, George will stand by her and remain faithful and be a wonderful father, and I think that despite the odds, despite the bastardly men I seem to meet, and despite the relationships I see crashing and burning left, right and centre around me, she’s probably right.

And I can’t help but think that being so contented about where you have been and being so certain of where you are going, well, that must feel wonderful.

SAD Syndrome

When I wake up on Saturday morning, I can hear rain crashing against the plastic roof of the conservatory. I lie in bed as long as possible until hunger forces me from my pit – it’s just after ten. For as much as rain-when-in-bed is cosy and lovely, rain-once- up depresses the hell out of me. I often wonder if I don’t suffer from that SAD syndrome, though everyone I know wonders that, and if everyone has the same syndrome, isn’t that just called normal life?

Aware that in my best-case-scenario I will have to undress in front of Brown Eyes (I don’t seem to be able to use the Norman appellation just yet), I resist a two-thousand calorie cooked breakfast and make do with a yogurt and a coffee.

I sit at the kitchen table and make it last as long as possible by simultaneously reading the Guardian and staring out at the rain plummeting onto the lawn, but in the end there’s nothing for it: on a cold, rainy, February Saturday, yogurt does not a soul nourish.

I dig some thick-sliced, white, pappy bread from the freezer and toast it and smother it with butter and marmalade and make myself a fresh coffee, this time a frothy cappuccino. I’ll just have to consume nothing for the rest of the weekend to make up for it. I wonder, not for the first time, if it wouldn’t be easier to just vomit everything up like Angelica Wayne does.

The toast soothes and I drift into a much nicer reverie involving my cooking a wonderful healthy lunch for Brown Eyes. I see myself chopping vegetables, and grilling fish like some modern version of a Stepford Wife and then hubby comes in and says, ‘Hello, gorgeous!’ Then, ‘Oh, sorry, love, I don’t think I can handle fish. Not with this hangover.’

Quite why my daydreams always end up so badly I have no idea. Well, I do. That scene is an act-for-act representation of my life with Ronan. He was an alcoholic, and being drunk, or having a hangover, were his excuse for just about anything he didn’t want to do. Or anything he did want to do for that matter.

I try another scenario. Brown Eyes and I are shagging away this rainy Saturday. The bed feels warm and wonderful. He rolls on top of me, slips his way in, and then pauses, looks into my eyes and says, ‘You are still on the pill, aren’t you? You know how I feel about kids.’

You guessed it. Brian.

As a distraction, I spend a leisurely hour and a half plucking and peeling away any evidence that I too might be descended from an ape. Beauty magazines call this pampering, but there’s nothing pampering about it. It hurts. It’s hell.

I dress in my favourite tattered jeans and a paint-stained sweatshirt and head back through to the kitchen, half thinking about food again, half realising that I could have missed a phone call whilst I was washing my hair. When careful checks of the BlackBerry and landline reveal that I haven’t, I turn inevitably back to food and cook two sausages to make an evil thigh- expanding sausage sandwich. I then get a grip and bin one of the sausages and one of the slices of bread. When I have eaten the remaining half-a-sandwich, I shamefully peer into the bin to see where the rejected sausage and bread have landed, but they are in a splodge of dried up cat food which means of course that for now I am saved.

Humm, I think. Cat.

I frown and look around the kitchen. I call Guinness, but he doesn’t appear. I check the office and the bedroom.

I peer out of the kitchen window and spot him at the bottom of the garden sheltering under the Leylandii, and then I see what I have been waiting for for months: a flash of yellow behind the fence.

I open the back door, grab an umbrella from the hall and run outside. Guinness screams his own catty version of reproach at me and bounds inside in a soggy blur.

At the bottom of the garden, I stand on tiptoe and finally catch Mrs Pilchard beneath the Leylandii. Quite what the old bag is doing weeding in the pissing rain I have no idea.

‘Oooh!’ I call out.

Mrs Pilchard visibly jumps. ‘Oh, you made me jump,’ she confirms. ‘Creeping up on people like that! Honestly!’

‘I didn’t,’ I say. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry I made you jump.’

‘Sorry, dear?’ she asks, straightening her back and wiping her hands on her pinny.

‘Nothing,’ I shout. ‘It’s about your tree.’

‘I’m just doing a bit of weeding,’ she says. ‘Lovely day. Such bright sounds.’

I pause to listen, but other than the white noise of the rain and the swish of cars drifting from the main road beyond the roofs I can hear nothing. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Lovely. Now I need to talk to you about this thing.’

‘What thing?’ she asks.

‘This thing!’ I say, pointing above our heads. ‘It’s getting out of hand. It is out of hand.’

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ she says, smiling up at the tree.

‘Well . . . beauty is in the eye and all that,’ I say. ‘But it’s too big. It’s cut virtually all of the sun out. My lawn is dying because of the shadow. I can’t even grow herbs in the kitchen any more. Actually I feel like I’m dying because of the shadow. You have to get it pruned or something.’

‘Pruned?’ she laughs. ‘You can’t prune a tree, dear.’

I think you probably can, but she has gained an advantage, because what I know about trees you could write on . . . well, on something really really tiny. ‘Well, you need to do something,’ I say. ‘Maybe get it thinned, or perhaps . . .’ I cough. ‘Cut it down?’

‘Now why would I want to do that?’ she says. ‘A lovely tree like . . .’

‘Because otherwise I shall phone the council,’ I say, forcefully. ‘I’m sure there are rules about this sort of thing.’

Remaining on my toes to peer over the fence is making my feet hurt, which in turn is adding to my general irritation about the Leylandii, and my dingy kitchen, and the rain dripping down my back, and not ever being able to eat enough food to actually not feel hungry, and not having a boyfriend and the many, many disappointments of life in general.

At this point she places one hand on each hip and smiles at me, and I wonder, not for the first time, if she isn’t a little doolally.

Demonstrating that she definitely isn’t, she says, ‘Well phone them then, dear. They just started a plant-a-tree-and-save-the- planet campaign. Did you see the posters?’

As it happens, I did. They’re everywhere.

‘I’m sure they would love to talk to you about trees,’ she continues.

I shake my head and sigh as she gives me a little wave, chucks a, ‘Ta-ta!’ over her shoulder and struts off into her house.

I return to my kitchen, feeling irritated about the tree, and to be honest, somewhat disappointed that our argument didn’t last longer. It felt like shouting at her was kind of helping my mood. Plus now I still have six hours to kill before I am supposed to meet Darren.

I move through to the lounge and glance at the TV: anaesthetic on demand. I resist it for a few more minutes by pressing my nose against the bay window.

I watch a mother run to her absurdly sized 4x4 whilst sheltering her child with her coat. I see the postman push a trolley of soaked letters past and think that it is somewhat irresponsible of him not to flap the lid back over to protect the letters and that if he delivers a piece of soggy pap through my letterbox, I shall tell him so. In a friendly manner, of course. I don’t want to be invited onto Grumpy Old Women! But he just walks straight on to number forty-eight, denying me the pleasure.

With no further action on the street, I settle onto the sofa nursing the Sky remote. Guinness, who knows that my lap is warmer than the cushion, jumps onto me immediately. He’s still pretty damp, but because it’s my fault he’s so wet, and because his presence, even soaked, is comforting, I let him stay.

My finger hesitates over the button for an instant, and then I realise that I have not one, but two recorded episodes of Desperate Housewives on the hard disk. Watching how those Yankee bitches deal with their problem neighbours is the perfect balm, because, of course, being American, the solution generally involves murder.

I click the button to fast-forward through the commercial break. I suppose that as I depend on advertising for a living, this is somewhat contradictory, but I figure that as the monster that is advertising devours my working week there’s no reason to feed it my weekends as well.

Just as I hit play in order to find out which of the residents of Wisteria Lane have died in the freak tornado that has devoured their homes and ripped up all of the trees (now there’s something to dream about), the phone rings.

As the number is hidden, I hesitate. My first thought is that it could be Brown Eyes, so I should really pick up.

But if it is Brown Eyes and he asks me out tonight I will have to miss the photography party thing, or refuse the date which would seem terribly ungrateful.

Then again, if it is him and he doesn’t leave a message then I shall never know that it was him which would be awful.

And if I do answer and it isn’t him then I might have to listen to one of those new hyper-aggressive double-glazing callers and have to be rude, which always leaves me feeling bad in a you- horrible-person-she-was-only-trying-to-earn-a-living kind of way.

Finally I decide that if it is him and I do tell him I’m too busy tonight because I have an invitation to an art exhibition then I shall just appear to be a jolly hip groovy chick with a seductively exciting lifestyle. In the final millisecond before it switches to voicemail I stab the answer button.

The voice that greets me, though, is not the soulful baritone of Brown Eyes, but the hyperactive twitter of my mother. ‘Oh you are there!’ she says. ‘I didn’t think that you were going to answer and I was just about to hang up myself.’

‘I thought you—’ I start, but she interrupts me.

‘And then I thought, of course, she’ll be out gallivanting around with all her London friends, or shopping or at work, but no! You are actually in.’

‘Yes, But I thought—’

‘I’m so glad I caught you though, dear. I tried to call you yesterday but . . .’

‘I was at work, Mum.’

‘Yes, and then I realised I had the days mixed up. That happens as you get older, you’ll see, and even more when you’re on holiday. The days all just seem to slip into each other. It is Saturday, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Mum. But aren’t you supposed to be in—’

‘Well I am dear. I’m phoning you from the hotel.’

‘OK . . .’ I say vaguely. ‘It’s just that you always say that it costs too much to call from the hotel and—’

‘Yes, but this chap I met bought me this calling card thingy,’ she says. ‘It’s terribly complicated, you have to dial a number and then another number, and then a pin code, and then the number for England, and then your number.’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘What chap?’

My mother doesn’t meet ‘chaps’. In fact even the word ‘‘chap’’ isn’t something she’s particularly comfortable with. She believes that any word invented since nineteen-fifty needs to be quarantined from the rest of the sentence by surrounding it with visual speech-marks. ‘Disco’, ‘DJ’, ‘gay’, ‘laptop’, ‘mobile’ and, yes, ‘chap’ all require inverted commas. I imagine that, on the other end of the line, she has just used her free hand to make them.

‘Honestly, love, it’s like a hundred numbers all together, and it took me three attempts just to get them all right, which is why I’m glad I caught you as I don’t think I would have had the courage to try again. But apparently it’s cheap as chips.’

‘Great,’ I say. ‘What chap?’

‘Oh, he’s just this local lad I met in the souk. He’s been showing me around.’

‘What, like a guide?’ I ask.

‘Humm,’ she says. ‘Anyway, how are you, my love?’

Now my mother virtually never asks me about myself, and when she does she certainly never pauses long enough for me to reply. I am surprised and more than suspicious. ‘I’m . . . fine,’ I say. ‘But who is this guy?’

‘Which guy?’ she asks, suddenly senile.

‘The guy who bought you the calling card,’ I say.

‘Oh him. He’s lovely, darling. I’m sure you two would get on like a house on fire. Anyway, I’m glad you’re OK. I suppose I had better hang up though. If I save some of the card I can give you another call next week, though to be honest, I haven’t the foggiest how many minutes I get with this thing anyway.’

‘Mum!’ I say. ‘Who—’

‘Anyway, have a lovely weekend. Toodle-pip.’

And with that she hangs up.

I sit and stare at the handset for a moment, for everything about the call is wrong, starting with the fact that she called me at all.

Mum has spent the last three winters in Morocco. She stays in a cheap hotel in Agadir with full board from December to March. It would seem that there are lots of oldies doing this now, and she claims that it is cheaper to stay in a hotel there than feed herself and pay the heating bill in England. The way gas prices have been rising she’s probably right. But it remains the case that, until today, not once has she phoned me during these sojourns.

Also, although the form of the call, her inimitable, uninterruptible monologue, is entirely normal, the fact that she sounded so upbeat, didn’t mention her sciatica or her migraines or even her recurrent sinusitis, is literally a first, for her calls are generally more monologue-of-pain than anything else.

And yet the obvious conclusion – that my sixty-seven-year-old mother is having a holiday romance – is unthinkable. Isn’t it?

Or is that just me, doing a classic, my mother-can’t-possibly- have-a-sex-life, thing? My mother-can’t possibly-have-a-sex-life- if-I-don’t, thing . . .

I put the handset back on the base-station and stare blankly at the frozen image on the TV screen: Teri Hatcher is holding a gun and looking nervous. Her arms look uncomfortably thin to me.

The Right Words

When I get out of the taxi in Shoreditch, Darren is already standing outside Old Street station – our arranged meeting place. The rain has stopped and the street is glistening with reflected light from neon signs and passing cars. People are streaming in and out of the station, but it’s not hard to spot Darren: he’s the only person wearing carpenter pants.

As I reach him, I laugh and shake my head. ‘You rat!’ I say. ‘I mean, what’s the point of asking me if you then just ignore what I say?’

Darren grins sheepishly and pecks me on the cheek. ‘I knew you wouldn’t really mind,’ he says. ‘And they’re so perfect for tonight’s event, I couldn’t resist it.’ He grabs my arm and we head off towards Hoxton Square.

‘Only I did mean it,’ I tell him. ‘We’re under contract not to reveal the product before the launch in March. If anyone sees you . . .’ I shake my head.

‘Oops,’ he laughs.

‘Oops indeed. If anyone asks you where you got them . . .’ I lean back and check his bum.

‘No, there’s no brand on this pair,’ he confirms.

‘If anyone asks, say you bought them in a street market in Spain. That’s where they get all their stuff made and there are always strays and rejects popping up.’

‘Sorry,’ Darren says. ‘If it’s really important I can go back and change.’

I sigh. ‘No. It’s fine,’ I say. ‘But don’t make a habit of it.’

‘Hey, I’m so glad you came,’ he says, steering me across the road. ‘I hate going to these things on my own.’

‘Yeah, what happened to Pete?’ I ask. ‘I thought you were in love.’

‘Oh, you know me,’ Darren says. ‘There’s always something wrong. It just takes a few days to find out what.’

‘Like?’

He shrugs. ‘We don’t like the same things, or we don’t have the same view of relationships, or we both want to bottom.’

‘Bottom?’

‘Yeah, we both want to be, you know . . .’ He whispers the final word. ‘Fucked.’

‘Oh, right,’ I say. ‘Sorry. Of course. And with Pete?’

‘Oh, Pete? I found out he wore brown socks,’ Darren says nodding sadly. ‘I couldn’t possibly date a guy who wears brown socks, could you? And they were nylon. Yes, there’s always a brown-sock moment, sadly.’

I steal a glance to see if he is winding me up but he looks deadly serious. ‘I could probably put up with that,’ I say. ‘If everything else was OK.’

A rough-looking girl with a cigarette, coming the other way, barges into my arm and knocks me into Darren’s side. ‘Hey!’ I say, turning to look at her as she heads on down the street. ‘Just, you know . . . look where . . .’

She stops in her tracks and turns back to face me. ‘You got a fuckin’ problem?’ she asks. She looks drunk.

Darren seizes my arm tightly and forces me on along the road. ‘Don’t engage,’ he says. ‘Come on.’

I glance behind to check that the chavvy serial killer isn’t following us, and say, ‘Is it me or is London getting more and more aggressive?’

‘No, it’s terrible,’ Darren agrees. ‘One word out of place and you could get stabbed.’

‘So you’re not joking? About the socks?’

Darren shakes his head. ‘They were horrible,’ he says. ‘The ultimate turn-off.’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘Fair enough.’

We turn down a side street and then into Boot Street. ‘I’m loving these jeans though,’ he says. ‘They’re ever so comfortable.’

‘They look great on you too,’ I say. ‘They really make your arse look good.’ I pause and pull a face. ‘I mean, of course, that they really show off your arse. Your already fabulous arse!’

Darren gives me a circumspect look and raises an eyebrow. ‘I’ve been doing squats at the gym all week,’ he says. ‘My arse better be looking good. You’re looking pretty smooth too, by the way. That outfit makes you look almost attractive.’ He grins at me cheekily.

I’m wearing my favourite D&G little black dress, a black cashmere coat and my Christian Louboutin Robot Boots. ‘Yes, I thought black was safest,’ I say.

‘The boots are perfect,’ Darren says with a nod. ‘I’d quite like a pair of those myself. So what did you get up to last night?’

‘Oh I went to speed dating,’ I say. ‘I hate it, but . . .’

‘I can’t think of anything worse,’ Darren says. ‘I do all my shopping online these days.’

‘Do they do gay speed dating?’ I ask.

Darren wrinkles his nose. ‘I don’t think so,’ he says. ‘Then again, I suppose that’s all our bars and pubs ever are. Speed dating, speed shagging, speed splitting up. So not good then?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Same as you really. There’s always something wrong. There’s always a brown-sock moment when you realise that they have some terrible structural flaw. A terrifying number of them are really badly overweight these days. It’s scary.’