Rhys would sit here grunting, eyes flicking towards the exits, foot tapping a rhythm on the floor, impatience greeting my every utterance. Band practice aside, he liked to move in an established pattern between three points on a triangle – home, work, pub – and any deviation left him agitated, almost resentful.
While I appreciate the contrast, it gradually dawns on me that while Rhys was rough going, Simon is all planed, slippery surfaces. There’s nothing to throw a grappling hook into and actually make some headway in getting to know him. There’s one moment his composure unexpectedly wobbles, when I mention a colleague of his who gets all the females in crown court swooning.
Simon snaps ‘Really?’ as if this is incomprehensible and promptly changes the subject. I vaguely wonder if he’s the jealous type.
The discussion turns towards a couple in the same department at Simon’s firm, and how the employees get drawn into their domestics.
‘I’ve always thought it’s a bad idea to be in the same line of work. Too much shop talk, and rivalry.’
‘Ben and Olivia seem to do all right,’ I say.
‘They have their moments.’
‘Do they?’ I’m not entirely sure what he means and try to conceal my curiosity.
Simon pours out the last inches of the wine. ‘Liv wears the trousers, no question. I think moving up here’s the first time Ben’s asserted himself and she’s still getting used to it. I told him, never marry a woman with that much more money than you. She’s going to think she’s the manager in the marriage. And lo and behold …’
‘Does Olivia earn that much more?’
‘It’s not what she earns, it’s the money she’s from. Her dad sold his haulage firm and retired when he was forty or so. Olivia doesn’t have to work.’
Goodness, all those gifts and rich too.
‘Perhaps she likes her independence,’ I say.
‘Oh yes. Don’t get me wrong. Totty breaking the glass ceiling is a fine thing.’
‘Most of what you say is ironic, right?’
‘I’m only sexist insofar as blaming womankind alone for James Blunt’s success. Nightcap?’ Simon asks, beckoning the waitress for the bill.
‘I’d like to get this,’ I say, decisively, also gesturing for the bill.
‘That’s good to know.’
The waitress assesses the balance of power and the bill is handed to Simon on a saucer. He slips his card on top and hands it straight back.
42
When Simon said he ‘knew a place’, I pictured a plush gentlemen’s club with wingback chairs and burgundy Regency stripe wallpaper and crackling fires. Simon would flash membership ID, or give the liveried doorman a Masonic handshake, and the gates would swing open.
Instead we duck down a barely-lit backstreet to a scuzzy den for the kind of career drinkers who can sniff out a late licence with nose aloft, like a Bisto kid.
‘Mind. The yack,’ Simon says, in a tube station announcer voice, his hand gripping my elbow to guide me round a dustbin lid-sized puddle of puke near the door. The venue is marked only by a illuminated white sign advertising a brand of beer. Nearby there’s a gaggle of unsavoury characters who instinctively turn their backs on us in case we gather too much detail for the photo-fit.
‘Know how to show a girl a good time, don’t you? Do you meet clients here?’
‘Ah, come on now. The Rachel I’m getting to know doesn’t need lacy doilies under her drinks.’
He holds the door open for me. I get an unexpected stirring of attraction towards him, simultaneously noticing how tall he is and how well on the way to drunk I am, and that I like it that he has surprises.
The grimy exterior gives way to a grimier interior, a basement with bar stools and a big Wurlitzer-style jukebox, like a super-sized garish toy or leftover Doctor Who prop. The lighting is set to ‘gloaming’, the air perfumed with an unmistakable acidic base note of unclean latrine.
‘Vodka tonic’s your drink, isn’t it?’
‘Thanks,’ I nod, though it isn’t, it’s Caroline’s drink, and I don’t know if this is significant. I find a booth. He puts the drinks down and slides into the seat opposite, trousers squeaking on its vinyl cover.
‘This surely isn’t a Simon-ish place,’ I say. ‘You’re throwing me a curve ball to see if I can catch it.’
‘After one date, or …’ he pulls back a cuff to check what appears to be a Breitling watch, which rather underlines my point – he’ll probably get his arm snapped like a pool cue for it – ‘… two-thirds of one date, how would you know what a Simon-ish place is like?’
‘Come on, of course it isn’t.’ I pause. ‘What was all that stuff about the hypocrisy of marriage at Ben and Olivia’s dinner party, then?’
Simon smirks. ‘I wondered when this would come up.’
‘I’m not asking because I’m bothered,’ I say, curtly, with a smile.
‘Why, then?’
‘Most guests just try to avoid giving offence like that.’
‘Is saying most people are giving up when they settle down that controversial? I bet they agreed with me. I’d question how brutally honest anyone could be on that subject, with their spouse sat beside them.’
‘You weren’t thinking of anyone in particular?’
Simon raises his eyebrow. ‘I’m taking my own advice and going no comment. How about you tell me something about this engagement you broke off?’
‘Do I have to?’
‘Well, it’s usual to find out something personal about each other on a first date, and so far I know that you’re not fond of beetroot.’
‘There’s not much to tell. We were together a long time, we were engaged, it became obvious neither of us was that keen on getting wed and I was the one to say so.’
‘He didn’t want it to end?’
‘No.’
‘Any chance of a reconciliation?’
‘Doubt it.’
Despite my best efforts, my voice has thickened.
‘How long were you together?’
‘Thirteen years.’
‘Ouch. I guessed it was a while.’
I’m sure that Ben will have told Simon this, yet I humour him by asking why.
‘You have the hunted, wary look of the serial monogamist who’s unexpectedly stumbled back into the singles jungle and forgotten she needs a machete.’
I laugh.
‘It’s harder for women,’ Simon says. ‘Single blokes in their thirties look choosy; women worry they look like victims of that choosiness.’
I gasp, and Simon adds: ‘Even when it’s entirely unwarranted. Anyway, there’s worse things. Like Matt and Lucy. What a chore they were.’
I laugh, nodding vigorously.
‘So was Ben quite the boy at university?’ he continues.
‘He had a few girlfriends, yeah.’
‘Surprised you weren’t among them.’
‘Why?’