I was meeting Ben in a little pub in Richmond, near the river, and as I thanked the taxi driver and walked down the street towards it, I was incredibly nervous about seeing him. I started doubting the make-up, the outfit, the stupid skinny tie. I hoped I looked cute and perky, not old and desperate; I dreaded it was the latter.
I had to get in the mood for this, I told myself. I was on a date; Ben was waiting for me. It was supposed to be exciting. Why, then, did I feel like I was going to the guillotine?
It was freezing cold. I could see the pub at the end of the street, on the corner. Ben’s text, telling me where to meet him, had arrived whilst I was leaving B&Q. He was a very chirpy person, I decided. Even his texts were chirpy; he’d put a smiley face and four kisses. He sent another one whilst I was in the taxi, that just said, ‘In pub, waiting for you!’ and another smiley face. I needed that, as just before I’d received it, I’d almost decided not to come. I’d almost told the taxi driver to turn round, but I was too embarrassed and far too polite to do so. I had a bit of a wobble. What was I doing? Sitting in a taxi on my way to meet a man I barely knew, going on a date two days after receiving my decree absolute, putting my toe back into waters that could be murky and full of danger… I was scared stiff. Then I tried to get a grip – it was only a man, it was only a date. Ben was waiting for me; I wouldn’t let him down. How many women had a nice man waiting in a pub for them and wanting to take them to a party, on a Tuesday night?
I arrived at the pub. It had a rosy orange glow pulsing behind its double doors and a man was lolling outside, smoking.
‘Evening, love,’ he muttered.
‘Evening,’ I replied, as I pushed one of the doors open. A whoosh of chilly air swept me inside, along with a handful of swirling autumn leaves – the evening’s drizzle had cleared to leave a clear, dry night with a bracing bite. An orange leaf landed on my shoulder and I flicked it off my fur jacket, then looked around me.
I felt like I’d stepped back in time into Victorian England. The pub was tiny, very warm and a shade of rich, ruby red the Victorians may have referred to as ‘tart’s knickers’. There was red patterned carpet, red flocked wallpaper, red heavy velvet curtains, red walls and a bar panelled in red leather. The Old Bull, it was called. I didn’t know if it was full of it or not, but there were lots of old men in wool overcoats who looked like they were about to put the world to rights. Their conversation was a Dickensian rumble; the background piano music was parlour-style. There was even a scrappy-looking dog, by the fire, its head in a silver bowl of water. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Bill Sykes himself had turned up, swearing at everyone and brandishing a stick.
Before the smoking ban, this pub would have been filled floor to ceiling with the choking fumes of cigarettes and cigars and it would have been impossible to see to the bar, from where I was standing, but the air was smoke-free and as one old boy moved slightly left of his companion, I could see Ben leaning against the bar with a bottle of beer in his hand and a huge smile on his face.
I smiled back, nervously and a little shakily – and stepped towards him, circumnavigating my way round the old men. One let me past with a wink and a raising of his glass. Thank you, Sir. A toast, to the middle-aged lady on her first date in twenty-five years…
Ben looked… cute. He was wearing a red checked shirt, blue jeans and the same brown work-y boots. His hair was damp, the curls darkened – he looked like a friendly lumberjack who’d been caught in a forest rainstorm.
My nerves were really racing now. I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t sure. There were no instant butterflies here. Give it a chance, I thought. Give him a chance. It’s just a date, a pub, a party. Get on with it.
‘Hello,’ I said, as I arrived at Ben. I sounded out of breath, although I wasn’t.
‘All right?’ said Ben. He was grinning. His face made me relax a bit. He liked me. He was nice. I should go with it.
‘Yes, I’m good, thanks. Are you all right?’
‘I certainly am.’
He reached his arm towards me. I wondered what he was going to do. ‘You’ve got a leaf in your hair,’ he said, and he picked it out then smoothed my hair with his hand. I didn’t know how to feel. I didn’t know if I wanted him touching my hair. And I didn’t get a tingle or anything. But then again it was only hair.
‘Oak,’ he said.
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Oh, you should really get to know your trees.’
‘Country boy,’ I teased.
‘All the way,’ he said. ‘Right, what are you having?’
‘A vodka, lime and soda, please.’ I needed it. I had a feeling my hands were shaking.
‘Coming right up,’ he said. And he gave a silly little half bow, like a circus ringmaster.
‘Thank you.’
He winked, downed the rest of his beer and turned to the bar. As he waited to be served I looked around the pub, to distract myself from my nerves. I felt exactly as I had in the taxi. Why had I come here? Why was I on this date? The whole thing was making me feel weird. I was way out of my comfort zone – my comfort zone was lying in a onesie on the sofa flicking through Chat magazine and letting Minstrels dissolve on my tongue. I wished that was what I was doing.
I was the only woman in there, apart from a peeling bust of Rita Hayworth on the wall above the jukebox. It didn’t particularly bother me – all those old men supping and talking; I liked the fact that Ben hadn’t brought me somewhere trendy. I may not have felt wholly comfortable being on a date, but his choice of pub showed he was down to earth and un-showy and it was warm and comfortable in here. The pub was also close to the party, he’d said, and I was glad of that. It was not a night for traipsing the streets, especially in these boots, and I was grateful Ben had possibly taken such logistics into account.
Some Halloween decorations were up, for tomorrow night. A few cobwebs hung from the ceiling, a couple of black felt spiders were dangling from the corners of the room – one tickling an elderly gent on the shoulder. I thought of Will’s summerhouse and all its spiders, and smiled. The end of the bar had a half-baked white sheet draped over it, which someone had cut jagged holes in. There was a broom – which I presumed was a witch’s broom and not just one the cleaner had left lying around – standing upright next to one of the windows, all straggly and dirty-looking. It was all a bit of a token effort, but the locals no doubt appreciated it.
I turned back to the bar and there was Ben’s bum. He had one foot up on the gold pole that ran along the base of the bar, and his bum was sticking out. My first thought was that it wasn’t as nice as Will’s and that it was generally a little slimmer than my ideal. Ben was a bit slimmer all over than my absolute ideal; I liked a quite chunky man, despite Jeff having been as thin and reedy as a rake. Funny that, being married all those years to someone who wasn’t even my type. And hilarious that I’d spent all those years with him only for him to run off with someone else…
‘Okay, Daryl?’
Ben flicked his head briefly back from the bar to me, his face all friendly and genial.
‘Yes, thank you.’
He turned back again.
My second thought was that I must stop looking at blokes’ bums. I looked further up. I liked Ben’s shirt. It was brushed cotton and cosy-looking. He had the sleeves slightly rolled up and the hair on his arms was fair and quite bushy. As he reached into his back pocket for his wallet, I noted nails which were clean and neatly trimmed. Okay, these were all Brownie points, as far as I was concerned. A few boxes were being ticked. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
The bar was busy. Ben kept turning back to grin at me and missing his slot. Eventually he got served. I was hot now and I wanted to take my jacket off, but I knew it would keep slipping off my arm, if I put it over it, so I kept it on. My cheeks, with their added shimmer. were probably glowing bright pink, but that was okay – it was a better look for me than pasty and pale, and they no doubt distracted from my wrinkles.
Ben handed me my drink.
‘There you go.’
‘Thank you, Ben.’
‘It’s Absolut.’
‘Absolute?’
‘Absolut Vodka.’
How fitting. I took a grateful gulp. Ah, alcohol, my old friend in time of need, I thought. I needed its steadying influence tonight. As I savoured it going down my throat to warm my stomach and take the edge off my nerves, I looked around me at all the old men, also gratefully gulping their beers, their whiskeys and their brandies. We’re a funny old nation aren’t we? A nation of right old boozers. Drink after drink after drink we chuck down our throats, down the hatch, bottoms up, before we starting shouting in obnoxious voices, getting off with each other and falling over in the gutter until the least drunk person drags us home. What was that quote? Something like, We may be in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars? Not true if we’ve had a skinful and have passed out with our dress round our hips, an empty bottle of Smirnoff Ice rolling down the street away from our outstretched hand. And I should know; I’ve been there. Well, not quite that bad, but almost. The night Will found me on the drive was not that pretty, that was for sure.
‘Cheers,’ Ben said and clinked his bottle against my glass. He took a big swig. I took another slug of mine. I was glad the pub was so warm and the drink so cold. I still felt a bit weird. Effectively, I was here with a total stranger. Someone I’d met last night for all of ten minutes. I glanced at him, swigging his beer, one hand in his back pocket. He looked happy, friendly, harmless. He seemed okay. I needed to relax. ‘We’ll have a couple here,’ he said, ‘then move on to the party.’
Actually, Ben had three beers before we moved on; I made my drink last the whole time as I suspected it was a double. I relaxed. Conversation with Ben proved to be easy. There were no awkward silences, no stilted non sequiturs. He was very chatty, animated, amusing. He told me all about the day he’d had at work, how he was working on the garden of a huge house three streets away. The couple whose party it was tonight had recommended him for the job.
‘So tell me about these crazy people who have a house party on a Tuesday night,’ I said. I looked forward to hearing about them. I was beginning to quite enjoy his funny stories and his little anecdotes. He was easy on the eye, too. His curls had dried now and he looked very handsome. I looked at his blue eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like if they locked with mine, then I did the same with his lips. Both were plausible situations, at this moment in time, weren’t they?
‘They’re former clients. Arty types. So cool, both of them. She has a quirky gallery and makes sculptures out of chicken wire or something – he’s a film producer. Art school stuff. Black and white. Subtitles because the accents are so obscure you can’t make anything out.’ I laughed. I’d seen some films like that… Jeff had liked a bit of pretension. ‘They don’t do the nine-to-five. That’s how I got to know them. When I was working at their gaff they were always hanging around, drinking gin and stuff. Felix ended up helping me with some of the work – he had some great ideas – and Flick floated around looking glamorous and bringing me endless cups of green tea.’
‘They sound really interesting,’ I said.
‘Yeah, totally. They’re pretty awesome.’ Ben sometimes spoke like a Californian valley girl, which was strange for a grown man in his forties. ‘I’ve had a few subsequent jobs through them. Met some great people.’ He polished off his current beer. ‘Come on then, my lovely. Let’s get out of here and go meet these fabulous folks!’
He put his hand on my back and steered me through the pub. The old men winked at me and nodded at Ben, and the double doors sent us out into the night with a tailwind of heat and light.
It was cold but I didn’t feel it due to my snuggly jacket, the effects of the double vodka and the lingering warmth of The Old Bull. No stars were out tonight, the clouds gathered over London were showing no sign of budging, but our walk was quite pleasant. The pavement was wide and the street was empty of cars. My heels struck loudly on the wide pavement as Ben walked close to me. I noticed his hand was swinging close to mine and I had a feeling he was going to take it, but he didn’t; he sort of bounced along the pavement like an over-excited dog. And he kept looking at me and grinning.
‘You all right?’ he kept asking, every five seconds.
‘Wonderful,’ I said.
And I did feel pretty good. I was out on a date with a lovely man and going to a party at the house of fascinating people on a Tuesday night. What was there to not feel great about?
We arrived outside a massive, double-fronted house. I looked up to three stucco storeys silhouetted by black sky, a massive, walled front garden with a dramatic wrought iron gate and a fairy-lit tiled path that led to the front door. It was beautiful. The house was chucking out the sounds of chatter and laughter and music and through the windows I could see people, and colour, and life. It looked so promising inside, like anything could happen.
Suddenly, I was nervous again. Oh god, they were horrendously posh, trendy people, weren’t they? Was I going to fit in? Of course, I lived in Wimbledon, I was pretty much surrounded by well-to-do people with lots of money, but I wasn’t like that. I was pretty ordinary. I was of East End stock. My Mum still said ‘we was’ instead of ‘we were’ and ‘I done’ instead of ‘I’ve done’. I used to try and correct her but I’ve given up now. I hadn’t been to many posh parties; I hoped there wouldn’t be too many Tarquins and Jocastas barking things I didn’t understand.
I stopped still and just stared at the house for a few moments.
‘Shall we?’ said Ben. This time he did take my hand, and we walked up the beautiful path and the three steps to the porch, my small cold hand in his warm, large one. Two people were already standing on the doorstep; a couple in the doorway were greeting them. There was a bustle of air kisses and hugs and squeals of laughter, and scarves and pashminas and pearls and diamante and dangly earrings and everyone’s breath misted and mingled in the cold night air. Suddenly, the guests disappeared past the couple and were swallowed up into the house, and there we were, on the smooth top step by the front door with its gorgeous stained glass panels.
‘Ben! Oh, how wonderful!’ A petite woman with huge hair and a tiny bird-like body, shrouded in cream wool and feathers, launched herself round his neck. A tall guy in a black polo neck extended his hand for a shake. ‘And you brought a plus one, after all!’ she cried. ‘Miranda is it? Marvellous! Welcome, welcome!’ The tiny rocket of a woman hurled herself at me. My chin nestled in a feathery fluff ball of Chanel No. 5 and cashmere.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘No, I’m Daryl.’
‘Daryl! Yes, of course! Wonderful! I’m Flick, and this is Felix.’ She pulled back from me and allowed Felix to lean forward and air kiss me on both cheeks. Once he’d finished, she put her hands on my shoulders and did that thing where she stared at my face for far too long. I was able to count the specs of glitter on her eyelids; I could see where the foundation on her face met her neck. ‘Where did you find this wonderful creature, my darling Ben?’
I wondered if Ben would say.
He laughed and shrugged. ‘We met last night, in town. She’s a lovely girl.’ That was nice of him. And it was even nicer (and somewhat surprising) to be called a girl.
‘Fabulous! Well, come in, come in. The young people are going round with champagne and we’ll have some flaming margaritas in about ten minutes or so.’
We stepped inside, onto a gorgeous black and white tiled floor. The walls were white and bare, apart from candles set into sconces. Someone stepped forward to take our coats and whisk them away. And Ben took my hand again – still no frisson, pleasant, but no cigar – and in the easy manner of someone who’d obviously been to this house many times before, led me into the party.
The first thing I noticed was that U2 was playing – their first album, War. The second was that impossibly trendy people were lounging on the edges of white leather sofas, standing in clusters by a huge marble fireplace and gathering in chattering packs around waitresses with trays of canapes and drinks. There were a lot of polo necks and arty, statement earrings.
Ben grabbed a beer in a tall glass from a passing tray. ‘What can I get you? Champers?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Coming up m’lady,’ said Ben, in a sudden and rather poor impression of Parker from Thunderbirds and grabbed one for me from another passing tray. I took a sip and we stood there, amongst the posh, madding throng.
‘So…’ he said, smiling broadly.
‘So…’ I said, smiling back at him.
And we didn’t actually speak to each other again for an hour. A couple appeared at Ben’s side, some people he’d met through Flick and Felix, and they wanted to talk to him for ages about lilac trees and bee-keeping, of which he had scant knowledge. A man in a brown shirt started chatting to me about art and literature and what did I think of the Serpentine; I wondered if he meant the gallery or the river. Then Ben got talking to some girls about pergolas, and someone else came up and started chattering on about their bespoke scarf business and was I interested in investing?
The people at that party were extremely sociable. It must be the well-to-do, bohemian vibe. Everyone was over-effusive, huggy and generous with their air kisses: sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes four. There was a lot of wild gesticulating and high-pitched shrieking. Ben knew a lot of the people there. He slapped people on the back, roared with laughter and high-fived along with the best of them. He was one of the gang.
Everyone was really gorgeous in this gang. Exquisitely dressed. There were a lot of very beautiful girls there and they all seemed to be acquainted with Ben. They approached, they stroked his arm. One actually tousled his hair. He appeared to be a sort of dazzling nucleus. And I was seemingly as popular. Loads of people came up to chat. Who was I, they hadn’t seen me before? Where did I live? Who and what did I know?
I’d done all this very posh chitchat for quite a while, when a very animated young blonde in an oxblood leather dress – her eyes slightly bloodshot, her hand gestures way over the top – dragged me off to the kitchen to ‘admire the cheese board’. I wondered if ‘the cheese board’ was a euphemism for something highly illegal, but no, it was an actual cheese board; it was on a massive piece of grey slate and looked amazing – there must have been at least four different types of stilton. I made all the right noises, said yes, it truly was a remarkable brie, then she fixed her bloodshot eyes on mine and told me she worked making prosthetics for films – all the gory scars and stuff. She told me all about her current project: werewolves and zombies, some sort of apocalypse. She never asked me what I did. All the time she was talking, she was leaning against the fridge, and I don’t know why she didn’t stand somewhere else, as she had to keep moving to let people open it. They’d get out what they wanted, then close it again, and she’d move back into place.
‘Ben’s fun, isn’t he?’ she said. She gripped my arm with pincer-like, gold-tipped fingers as she spoke.
‘Yes, he’s great,’ I replied. We were like sentries now, either side of the fridge. I felt a bit of a lemon and wondered where Ben was.
‘I used to date him. Oh, it was ages ago,’ she added hurriedly. What, when she was about ten? I wondered. She was really young. Way younger than me. I wondered, not for the first time, what Ben was doing with me. He was super popular, knew all the right people, obviously knew a lot of younger, hot women. I had the feeling he was out all the time, making friends, making connections. I was just a forty-something, curvy-to-fat weather presenter with a big bum who never went to parties and had forgotten how to make connections and what they were even for.
I waited for her to say something else, but it seemed there was nothing else to add to her story. She just stood there. After a while she opened the fridge to let someone look for a bottle of loganberry cider.
‘It didn’t work out?’ I offered.
‘No.’ Her lips closed with a snap and she started looking vaguely round the room. Then she glanced back at me again ‘Let’s just say we weren’t too good for each other.’ I wondered what she meant and why she didn’t want to say more. Perhaps she was too high maintenance for him. She had that air; she looked a bit… needy, fragile, with her skinny arms and long, aristocratic neck. I bet that was it. She was high-maintenance and he couldn’t be doing with it. He was far too easy-going and carefree for her.
She started talking to someone else – who was rooting in the fridge for more champagne – and ended up swigging out of the bottle with him. I had the urge to do the same, but instead wandered back into the party to find Ben. He was hopping around talking to a guy with a massive hipster beard and put his arm round me as I came up.
‘This is who I brought!’ he announced. ‘This is Daryl.’
‘Hi, Daryl,’ said the guy. It was hard to tell what the lower half of his face actually looked like but he had the most amazing, dazzling green eyes, framed by dark lashes, and some mesmerising eyebrows. Cor, he was quite tasty. And he winked at me.
Ah. I realised what was missing with Ben. This immediate lurch at the bottom of my stomach when he looked at me. This lusty feeling. I’d tried. I’d seen Ben at a distance for much of the evening. He’d be talking to someone else and so would I and he’d catch my eye and give me a slight raise of the eyebrows and a smile. From a certain kind of man this would make a woman’s heart race, make them go all giddy and give them that feeling, but it didn’t with Ben. I was worried a serious spark was missing between us, at least on my part, but I wouldn’t give up on him just yet. There was still time for a spark, wasn’t there? Sometimes sparks took a while to get going, like when you’re trying to strike a match to light a candle on a birthday cake and it takes a few goes? Or when you have a dodgy plastic lighter for the same purpose and it simply won’t ignite?
‘How’re you doing?’ said Ben, close to my ear. ‘Mad party, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ I said. ‘Very friendly people.’
‘The friendliest people in London,’ said Hipster Beard. No one thought to introduce him properly to me. Perhaps he was too good looking for such formalities. Perhaps he was too good looking to even have a name. He smiled in the gap between his beard with full, velvety lips. Sexy, I thought.
‘Oh yeah, yeah.’ Ben nodded really enthusiastically. ‘The best.’
Suddenly the music got turned up. It was David Bowie’s ‘Golden Years.’ An impromptu dancefloor manifested in the middle of the room and Posh Dancing started up. There was a lot of shuffling, some theatrical arm-waving. A bit of swaying. Everyone looked polite though; courteous. There would be no moshing or knee-pumping Madness dancing here.
Ben suddenly seemed more than a bit tipsy. He was all bouncy and skippy, like a kangaroo. He started bobbing energetically up and down on the spot, as though he was on a pogo stick. Perhaps he should have given Sam more of a chance, I thought, at the speed dating tables. Think of the calories they could burn together! Sam, I wished she was here. And Peony.
‘Let’s dance!’ Ben shouted.
‘Okay!’ I shouted back. Give the poor man a chance, I told myself. At least he’s fun. He grabbed my hand – his was all hot and sweaty now – and we took a whirl on the dancefloor. I don’t mean to show off or anything, but I can throw some serious shapes, especially after a couple of drinks. I can hold my own on the dancefloor, especially if I have a good partner. Sam, in particular, is great for a boogie, when we’re both in the mood.
I wasn’t sure how good a dance partner Ben was. He was slightly manic and definitely drunk; he was staggering a bit, wandering a bit, tripping over a bit. I had to pull him back to where he wanted to be more than a couple of times, apologise to a couple of people he bounced off. Yet, despite all that, I began to enjoy myself. Golden Years finished and INXS came on – ‘I Need You Tonight’. I loved that one. I was going with it, at last. Ben and I danced opposite each other and grinned in each other’s faces. His grins were wider and more manic than mine. He was really quite drunk, I decided.
Suddenly he snaked both arms around me and turned me round in what I thought was going to be a dance move, but he pushed me gently out of the dancefloor and to a corner of the room. I was protesting slightly; I’d been really enjoying that. Before I knew it we were away from the crowd and under a Klimt – probably an original – the one of the girl wrapped in the gold blanket (wasn’t that in a film?), and beside a huge sash window which overlooked the posh, tree-lined street outside. The window was open slightly at the bottom, despite the cold night and an ethereal bit of sheer white drapery was wavering in the breeze. The cool air was very welcome to my flushed cheeks.
‘I like you, Daryl,’ said Ben. He took both my hands as though we were about to do-si-do. I had a flashback of school and country dancing, Tommy Jones swinging me round and round until I fell over and got a nosebleed. Then Ben stepped forward so our hands were clasped upwards, like we were making the arch for the end of Oranges and Lemons. Oh god, was he going to kiss me?
He released one hand. He pulled me closer by gently tugging on my skinny tie. He leant his face towards mine.
Oh god. He was going to kiss me.
He kissed me. His lips were hot and dry. Firm. He tasted of beer and brandy. He pressed his lips against mine. I didn’t know how to feel. I hadn’t been kissed for such a very long time. It wasn’t unpleasant. I closed my eyes. He started kissing me properly. I reciprocated. A warm tongue came into play – just. I was glad. I didn’t think I was ready for full-on tongue action. He kissed me a bit more, then pulled his face back from mine and smiled.
I smiled back at him but I was conflicted. I felt a bit weird.
The kiss hadn’t given me any sexual feelings, like a kiss normally does. Like a kiss should do. I didn’t feel any stirrings in the action area, any fizzing in the knickers. I wondered with a terrible start – not that I had ever done it, of course – if this was a bit like kissing your brother.
I don’t think Ben saw it like that. He took my hands again and simply said, ‘Daryl.’ He obviously did really like me. It was a kiss with intent, and that was a very nice feeling indeed. Maybe once we’d given it a few more goes (like the dodgy plastic lighter?) those yummy feelings would come. I had a sudden moment of panic – was I drying up, were there not going to be any more sexual feelings? Had I had all I was going to have? Gabby always used to joke about dried up old spinsters and we used to laugh ourselves silly. Oh god, was it happening? Was it impossible to turn me on?
Then again, I reasoned with myself, I had a feeling that if Hipster Beard were kissing me in this corner, despite the inevitable chin rash, I would have been a lot more enthusiastic. A lot more. Then I felt incredibly guilty. Hipster man didn’t want to kiss me. Ben did. Love the one you’re with, and all that.
Ben certainly hadn’t seemed to notice that anything was slightly… wrong. He looked as happy as a sandboy. He looked like he was about to say something else, when Flick approached him from behind and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘Come on lovebirds, I saw you two making out! Ben, darling, it’s time for cake.’ How embarrassing! Making out? Didn’t they say awful things like that on American TV? And we were hardly lovebirds. I was an old bird – that was about it.
We followed Flick to an enormous glass coffee table to one side of the room, and a pretty brunette waitress came out with a cake in the shape of a director’s chair, Felix’s name on the back. The loud, horsey voices joined in unison for ‘Happy Birthday’ and Ben squeezed my hand again. I grinned at him, he grinned back. I pretended I was really feeling it. I could, I was sure. In time. I had to remember I’d recently come out of a long-term marriage – everything was bound to feel a bit odd.
The crowd was now clapping and cheering. ‘There’ll be a quick turnaround by staff and this place will look like the Addams Family mansion tomorrow night,’ he shouted at me, over the din. ‘Another party. I’m not invited to that one. Probably be an entirely different set of folks. A circle I don’t move in.’ He seemed to move in enough circles, I thought.
‘Not really. I’ve got other plans. I’m out most nights.’
Most nights? At his age? What was that all about? Mid-life crisis perhaps? They were all the rage. Did he have a yellow Porsche at home and a gold medallion under his lumberjack shirt? A Jacuzzi bath and a pair of snakeskin slip-ons? I wondered what Ben was doing tomorrow night. Would he ask me what I was doing? Was that the done thing, these days – two dates in a row? And even if it was, did I want to go on another date with him? He’d kissed me, but it hadn’t been a roaring success. He was Mr ‘Out Most Nights’ Party Party; I was beginning to see him as a little immature.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked me. What could I say: I’m not sure because I don’t know what the actual hell I’m doing here, or whether I even fancy you and can I just go home and think about it for a week or two please? And then let you know?
Instead I said, ‘I’m absolutely fine.’
The cake was whisked off the kitchen to be cut and the crowd around it dispersed, exposing Hipster Beard man and a young blonde, perched on a couple of chairs and snogging each other’s faces off. Lucky cow, I thought, and then, oh sod it. The music was starting up again and Ben was limbering up. I was going to have to dance some more and give this man a chance.
So we danced some more – loads more. To eighties cheese, nineties house, a post-2000 bit of everything. Sam would be impressed. All those calories being danced away. She would have been hilarious about all these posh people. Would have got right in there, talking nineteen to the dozen, dancing her arse off… I wished, yet again, she was here. Gabby would have loved it too. A bit too much. She would have been showing off, doing crazy dancing, flicking her hair around all over the place. Trying to ingratiate herself. Seeing who she could latch onto…
I suddenly wanted my bed. With just me in it. I wanted to go home. I couldn’t dance any more. Not tonight.
‘I’m sorry, Ben, but I think I want to call it a night. I’ve got work in the morning.’ It must have been at least midnight, anyway. Time to go home.
‘Me too,’ replied Ben. ‘I’ve got to level a lawn tomorrow, but I might stay a bit longer. Work off all this beer.’ The amount of beer he’d drunk, he’d be here until five in the morning. ‘Unless you want to come back to mine?’
I really didn’t and I knew from the way he was smiling that he was joking – again. That was a relief.
‘Ha, no, I’m all right thanks!’
‘You don’t mind if I stay?’
‘No, I don’t mind at all.’
‘I’ll see you to a taxi, though.’
‘Great, thank you. I’ve really had a lovely time.’
‘Me too.’
Outside, he used Uber to get me a minicab. He gave me one more kiss, beer in hand, a long peck I had to pull away from as the taxi drew up to the pavement. Again, it wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t amazing.
‘Bye, Ben.’
‘Bye, Daryl. Speak soon.’
I sped away. He was waving to me, like a small child, and I waved back.
I wasn’t sure.
I really wasn’t sure
I still had the horrible feeling I didn’t really fancy him.