We agree to meet at the Dean Street Townhouse at 9pm. It occurs to me that I have no idea what country he’s texting from.
I wonder if he’d have contacted me if I hadn’t called him.
What does that matter now?
On Friday, I run out of the door at 5.54pm. I’m sure I see Janelle make a note of this in her Book of Snitch. I consider waiting for the bus. I have only three hours’ turnaround time before I’m due back in Soho and an über-emergency-face-and-body-makeover to perform. On Tottenham Court Road I hail a cab, even though I really can’t afford it.
Last night I did as much of the home makeover as I could bear to. I washed my sheets, hoovered for the first time in a fortnight, dried the sheets, and attempted to tidy the piles of recipes, post-it notes and newspapers that adorn any horizontal space in my flat.
I then tried to re-arrange my bathroom products to convey the fact that I am a natural beauty who doesn’t sweat or have body hair: hide all make-up, my razor and deodorant, bring out the cheapest, simplest £3 Superdrug moisturiser (it’s very good, actually).
I am not a total sloven, just messy. My bathroom is always clean, and my kitchen is spotless. I love to cook, and this kitchen brings me more joy than any other room in the flat. Although it’s only Ikea, it’s fairly gorgeous. White units, a grey worktop, a pale yellow glass splashback. The only thing I did in the kitchen last night was pop the bottle of beautiful white wine that Maggie Bainbridge gave me for Christmas into the fridge, just in case.
It’s 6.24pm. Two hours and twenty before I have to leave the house to meet him. I perform all ablutions as carefully as possible but I’m in such a panic that I cut my leg shaving. This happens to me about once every three shaves. I’m clumsy and impatient, but I have the added bonus of having Factor XI deficiency, a harmless but irritating disorder I inherited from my dad that means when I bleed, I take a while to stop bleeding. I once cut myself shaving before I had to get on the Eurostar to Paris for a choux pastry seminar and by the time I got to the Champs Elysees, I had a shoe full of blood. Pas très chic.
It will bleed for at least twenty minutes now, but I don’t have time to sit with my leg up and wait for it to stop, so I end up Sellotaping a wodge of toilet paper to my ankle while I go about drying my hair, flossing, and moisturising.
7.59pm, I remove my makeshift tourniquet and my ankle proceeds to drip blood like a slow-leaking tap. I was planning on wearing tights anyway – it’s freezing out – but I can’t just put them over the wound. I settle for two giant plasters and take a spare pair of tights in my handbag – I’ll have to pop to the loo in the restaurant as soon as I get there and change these, and clean up the blood stains from my foot … sexy stuff.
I put on my soft, slinky Topshop black dress and notice with a hiccup of delight that it has never been this loose on me. Final touches of make-up, perfume, a spritz of fig room spray in the hall, and I’m off.
James is sitting nursing a gin and tonic, chatting to the barman, when I walk in. He grins when he sees me and the barman gives me the once-over too. I have made an effort – high heels, earrings, the hair is behaving well. Or maybe the barman checks me out because there aren’t that many younger women in here – the clientele seems to be 60% gay men, and the rest are middle-aged fashion and media types sporting faux spectacles, frowns and unseasonal tans.
‘Have a drink,’ says James, handing me the cocktail list.
‘I don’t need that, I’ll have an Old Fashioned please, Maker’s Mark,’ I say to the barman, who winks his approval.
James immediately rests his hand on my knee. ‘A girl who knows what she wants.’
‘Well, it took me years of research in the field, but I finally found a drink that I love.’
‘And you never drink other cocktails?’
‘Sometimes. But an Old Fashioned has all the qualities I look for in my booze. Not too sweet, the right size, pretty hard for a barman to mess up….’
‘And what about men, what qualities do you look for in a man?’
I stop myself saying ‘not too sweet, the right size, pretty hard …’ -it’ll sound cheap. Instead I run through the essential criteria that twenty years of dating has reduced me to:
Kind
Funny
Clean
Not mentally ill
Tall, big nosed, and a thick head of hair is a bonus. James appears to tick most of these boxes so far (you can’t judge mentally ill after just two dates). If I say anything on this list, I’ll look too keen.
‘I’m looking for a grown-up,’ I say.
He makes to get up from the bar and leave.
‘And someone thoughtful. What about you?’ I say.
‘I’m looking for someone warm and smart. Feisty. Reasonably attractive …’ he grins.
I wonder if his definition of ‘reasonably attractive’ can encompass a woman with a few stretch marks and a light smattering of cellulite.
‘Would you go out with Nigella?’ I say. Such a good test of a man’s shallowness – can he appreciate a gorgeous woman with a real body.
‘Far too old for me!’ he says.
‘She’s near enough your age, you cheeky git!’
He shrugs.
‘Don’t you think she’s beautiful?’ I say.
‘She’s nice looking. Anyway, looks aren’t everything.’
The maître d’ beckons us over, and as we stand, James reaches under his bar stool and presents me with a bag.
‘I got you something,’ he says.
‘Really?’ I say, shocked. Inside the bag is a large bottle of Aromatherapy Associates Rosemary Bath Oil that he must have bought me in Duty Free, wherever he has been.
‘I know you like rosemary,’ he says. I do? ‘The pasta you ordered at the Italian …’
Bless him, I love the taste of rosemary but I don’t want to smell like a roast lamb. Still, extremely thoughtful and sweet of him.
‘That’s lovely of you, James Stephens. Thank you.’ I kiss him briefly on the mouth and feel his eyes on the back of me as I walk to the ladies’ room to check whether my ankle has stopped bleeding.
The ankle is fine, but I change tights anyway as I have to take off the old ones to dab a slight blood stain on my foot.
When I return five minutes later, there is a bottle of decent red on the table.
‘One of the chefs at work was telling me that this place is famous for its mince and potatoes,’ I say, looking at the menu.
‘I knew you’d be a good woman to go out with,’ he says, ‘I can’t stand girls who don’t eat.’ Men always say this. It is often bullshit and means ‘I can’t stand girls who don’t eat but neither can I stand girls who show signs of having eaten’. It is invariably the same men who say ‘I like girls who look natural’, but actually mean girls who only wear foundation, cover up, pressed powder, blush, a bit of eye pencil and a lot of mascara.
‘Oh, and save room for The Queen of Puddings, it’s meant to be amazing.’
‘Queen of Puddings, isn’t that your job?’ he says, smiling.
‘I wish, I’m only a junior developer,’ I say.
‘Still, it sounds great. I think it’s brilliant what you do for a living … Queen of Puddings. So you just sit around stuffing your face with cake all day, do you?’
‘There’s