Chapter Nine

9.05 P.M.

I could kill Barbara.

I’ll give her this much, she is on the money about her equation between Thursday night and single men, the place is crawling with them. (Something to do with it being pay day, perchance? Anyway, I digress.) These guys are bearing all the hallmarks of boom warriors: they’re attractive, well-dressed, hot-to-trot, all in packs and all eyeing up women. That last one probably being the most important. There’s just one bloody problem, every time a guy approaches us (or, approaches Barbara would probably be more accurate), she yanks me away and, on my behalf, is rejecting perfectly normal, ordinary fellas on the flimsiest pretexts you ever heard of.

Example one: ‘Stay away from him, he has Red Bull breath,’ she snapped as one poor fella walked/staggered away from us. Now, fair enough, the guy may, just possibly have been drinking since lunchtime, there was a LOT of swaying going on and maybe, yes, I did have to keep asking him to repeat everything he was saying he slurred so much, but apart from that there was nothing wrong with him. Oh, yeah and he did burp really loudly into my ear at one stage. But hey, nobody’s perfect.

Example two: ‘Half of what that guy says is just plain stupid, and the rest of it is boring.’ Right, well in fairness, Barbara mightn’t be a million miles off the mark here. This was a guy who just plonked down at our table, asked us what we both did, then launched into his theory about why the computer will be dead in about five years’ time. I think he meant to be entertaining in an ironic way, but then again, there’s always the chance he was just as thick as the wall.

Example three: ‘Eugh, I HATE that “too cool for school” type, he should be taken outside and sprayed down for Tarantinos,’ she groaned about a fella who I thought was perfectly acceptable. To my eyes, anyway. Very little wrong with the guy.

That is, hardly anything. Yes, OK, admittedly he may have been wearing shades indoors, and admittedly, he did go on a bit about how pop culture influenced the beat poets in sixties Merseyside, and somehow, through a lot of rambling and free association, somehow got from that to telling us that he’s the country’s first professional blogger, but nothing I couldn’t have put up with or sanded down over time.

Barbara gets rid of him with one of her level two contemptuous sneers then informs me we’re leaving.

‘But we have a table here. A TABLE! And chairs.’

‘Listen to you, Grandma. Drink up, we’re off. Zero per cent success here.’

‘Thanks so much, but I don’t want your pity. I’ll just sit here and drink all night.’

‘Vick, may I just remind you that, when it’s my turn, I will gladly put my career in your hands, but when it comes to guys, you’re in my house. Now grab your coat, we’re out of here. Quick, gobshite, incoming, two o’clock.’

She yanks me out the door just as a text comes through from Laura, bless her.

ANY LUCK?

Barbara grabs the phone from me and texts her back immediately.

IN FINDING ARSEHOLES, YES.

Laura’s straight back.

KEEP ME POSTED. COULD DO WITH THE DIVERSION. AM HOARSE FROM TRYING TO NAG MY WAY TO A PEACEFUL HOME.

10.15 p.m.

Things are looking up. Barbara is a great advocate of dating feng shui: change location, change luck. So now we’re in Ron Blacks, a bar not so hip that it hurts, yet there don’t seem to be a lot of wedding bands floating around (told you; I’m lightning quick at checking), so therefore for our purposes, it’s a target-rich environment. Put it like this, like Barbara says, if this place was a singer it would probably be . . . Justin Timberlake. It’s packed so she drags me right into the middle of the throng, muttering something about ‘let the games begin’.

Right then. I grit my teeth the same way you see actors doing in submarine movies, and in I go.

11.15 p.m.

YES!!! SUCCESS!!! Can barely believe it myself, but brace yourself; I actually got chatting to a perfectly sweet guy who I honestly couldn’t find anything wrong with. OK, maybe not earth-shatteringly handsome, if he was a movie star, he would probably be . . . Philip Seymour Hoffmann. You know, that bit older, maybe early forties, slightly chubby, sandy-haired, at first glance not much to look at, but then slowly grows on you then you realize that he could actually be considered sexy. OK, so he mightn’t ever get cast as Bond, but he’s not going to scare small children away, either. Slight Scottish accent too, which only heightens his attractiveness quotient even further. He’s wearing a cardigan, it has to be said, but in a Kurt Cobain way as opposed to the way my dad would. Now of course, the deal is he has to ‘pass’ Barbara and her unsubtle polite chit-chat/interrogation which goes along these lines.

‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Ehhh, Eddie.’

‘Age?’

‘Forty-one.’

‘Single?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And not gay?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘Looking?’

‘Aren’t we all?’

‘Proper job? I mean you’re not a contortionist or anything?’

‘Ehh, no, I mean yes, I have a permanent, pensionable job. Is that the right answer?’

You’d have to feel a bit sorry for him, the poor guy must either feel like he’s in a Second World War movie about the Gestapo and should have a light shining into his eyes, or that he’s on a game show and may be about to win a cash prize any minute.

Anyway, in the space of about three minutes, Barbara manages to find out more about him than I would have over the course of probably about three dates, namely that: a) he’s an accountant who works for CarterSimpson, therefore he passes the ‘must have a few quid’ part of my dating cheat sheet; b) he owns his own home and let it slip that he’s just had renovations done. Another box on the list of criteria successfully ticked. This means he’s therefore unlikely to have issues around the fact that there’s a plasterboard lifter in the bathroom chez moi. Oh yeah and no bath. c) Probably the most crucial of all, he doesn’t seem to fancy Barbara, which, actually, is kind of unheard-of. The minute she’s done giving him the third degree, instead of offering to buy her a drink, then slowly but subtly moving into her body space like any fella with a pulse normally does, the miracle happens. He turns back to me and continues the chat. We swap numbers and he says he’ll call and, whaddya know, I actually believe him.

As Barbara drags me out of the bar, no kidding, I feel like breaking into the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’.

Midnight

We had a bit of a row on the way to our next pit stop, on the grounds that I felt she’d severed me from the first interesting SINGLE guy who’d showed the slightest bit of interest in me since, like, Tony Blair left office, but she’s adamant. We’re on a one-drink maximum per establishment and that’s it. Besides, she says, he has my number and if he’s the type of bloke I’m now pursuing, i.e., one that actually wants to be with me, then he’ll call, simple as that. She’s quite right, of course, and this shuts me up. Plus, I remind myself, guys like to do all the running, at least that’s what Miramax Films and just about any movie written by Nora Ephron has taught me. It’s just that, up till Barbara took over ‘project Vicky’, I could never really relax unless I’d practically tattooed my number on to a guy’s hand so he’d REMEMBER to call me and what can I say? Old habits die hard.

12.30 a.m.

Incredible, just incredible. Note to self: remember to send Barbara the biggest bunch of flowers tomorrow as a thank you. No, in fact, send two pizzas instead, timed to arrive just before Oprah comes on. She’d probably appreciate that gesture far, far more. We’ve barely walked in the door of Pravda, yet another packed, Thursday-night hangout for singles, when, with her trained eye, she spots a pair of likely lads over by these Las Vegas-style slot machines in a lovely, dark, thank God-no-one-will-be-able-to-see-all-my-wrinkles-in-this-dim-light corner. I go up to the bar and I’m not messing, by the time I come back with our drinks, she’s already done her twenty questions thing and, with a significant nod, introduces me to both of them. Brilliant, this means they must have passed her stringent quality control tests and I didn’t even have to be there to witness it.

Anyway, the slightly cuter one is called Peter, and if he was played by a Hollywood movie star, it would have to be . . . hmmmmm . . . Ralph Fiennes, definitely. Tall and lean, lovely deep-green eyes, and he looks right at me when we’re shaking hands, always a good sign. The other one is more like an Edward Norton-type with a shaved head, who doesn’t say very much and can’t take his eyes off Barbara.

‘Peter here was just telling me that he’s never been to Pravda before,’ Barbara says, palm outstretched as she’s introducing him to me, which in girl-code means, ‘He’s the one I’ve earmarked for you, so whaddya think?’

‘Really? Is that right, ehh, Peter, is it?’ I say, nodding and smiling a bit over-enthusiastically, so what I’m actually communicating back to Barbara, also in girl-code is ‘Yum, yum, yum. Me like.’

‘In fact, Peter was just saying he’s hardly been out at all since he broke up with his girlfriend, isn’t that right?’

She obligingly points up the second half of this sentence, so again, in girl-code, what she’s actually saying is, ‘single, straight, available’.

‘Yeah.’ He nods. ‘Towards the end, Clare and I hardly ever went out together, it was all staying in watching re-reruns of Only Fools and Horses, like you somehow end up doing when you’re in a long-term relationship. I actually forgot places like this existed.’

Barbara and I exchange a fleeting but highly significant look, which in girl-code means: ‘Did you hear that? He just used the phrase “long-term relationship” and he’s sober.’

‘Clare liked to stay in a lot then, did she?’ Barbara asks, faux-sympathetically. But in girl-code she’s actually communicating to me, ‘Jesus, his ex must have bored the arse off him.’

‘Yeah, but you know how it is,’ he shrugs, in a not-at-all-feeling-sorry-for-himself way. ‘You know you’ve safely arrived in staid-couple-land when you start looking forward to Saturday nights in front of the TV with a takeaway. That’s the first of about ten signs. I should write a thesis, really.’

I laugh and say, ‘So what’s the second sign?’

‘You mean you don’t know? It’s usually when you find yourself in IKEA on a bank holiday Monday looking for a tenner off towel rails, that’s how you can be certain. Well, either that or when you’re pricing decking in Homebase, then worrying that mice might nest underneath it in the winter.’

We all laugh and Barbara, grade A dating wing-woman that she is, steers the friend ever so slightly out of earshot, girl-code for: ‘Right, do your thing and I’ll keep muggins here occupied.’

Honest to God, I don’t know how David Attenborough gets away with making documentaries about dolphins mating, and yet has managed to ignore the subtle yet highly effective workings of girl-code all these years.

It’s noisy and packed but I do manage to have a light and jokey, if brief, chat with Peter, and it turns out he’s been single for over six months, which by my calculation is just the perfect length of time to lapse before you’re really ready to move on and find someone else. Sez me, the girl who hasn’t been in anything really serious since the last pope was alive. Anyway, it turns out he and the ex are in business, they run a language school, so they still do work together. But on the plus side, he seems really cool about this and not on the verge of a nervous breakdown as I would be if I had to keep working with an ex on a day-to-day basis after we broke up. The strain of trying to look fabulous in an ‘I’m SO over you’ manner, day in day out, would probably kill me. The fact that he’s so easy with the whole situation I think bodes well; clearly this is a man of great inner strength and maturity. With a hot bod and lovely bulging pecs to boot.

1.30 a.m.

I’m having such a good time that I’m actually a bit disappointed when Barbara invokes our dating code-phrase, ‘Come on, Vicky, we better call it a night, we both have those early meetings tomorrow.’ Plus, I nearly splutter into my margarita at the thought of Barbara being out of bed before the crack of lunch.

Note to self: we need a new code-phrase that’s a bit more appropriate, and a bit less of an outright lie. Anyway, Barbara’s business here isn’t quite done yet; as we’re finishing up drinks she turns to Peter and says brightly, ‘This was fun, we should do it again some time. Let’s all swap numbers.’

1.45 a.m.

Me and Barbara are in a taxi now, and as the nippy night air hits me, I realize I’m drunkety-drunk-drunk, unlike her, but then she’s famous for having hollow legs.

‘You, you are my absholute and total, total heroine,’ I slur, hugging her.

‘Perfect time for us to get out of there,’ she says. ‘My guy was really starting to bore me. When he said he was a professional painter I thought he meant he was something cool, like an artist, but it turns out he meant apartment blocks. Two coats in one day, he was telling me.’

‘But he has your number now, what’ll you do if he calls?’

‘What I normally do, you dopey innocent. Use him for sex, what else?’

I snort with laughter and tell her about fifty times how much I LOVE love love her and how cool and fab she is. ‘I mean, why shidn’t we do this years ago?’ I slur a bit. ‘Two attractive men in one night? Barbara my sharling, you should teach a dating master-class. You should give sheminars. You should be like this dating guru and you should be out there sphreading the word.’

‘And you are completely twisted and I’m making you drink nothing but water at our next stop.’

3.00 a.m.

Krystal nightclub. You won’t believe this and I can scarcely believe it myself. Me, the man-repeller, the one whose role in life it is to either get stuck at the bar or occupy myself by running to the Ladies to re-apply my make-up a lot while Barbara beats fellas off her with a stick, has just scored the hat trick, yes, you read that correctly, three in a row. Truly this momentous night will be spoken of in awe and wonderment for years to come. Anyhow, here’s what I remember, although it’s a bit vague and hazy, the natural effect of a night’s boozing on me.

2.00 a.m.

We stagger, or rather, I stagger and Barbara just does her sexy, long-legged-glide-thing into Krystal with me still gushing on at her about how fab and sensational she is.

‘Just tell me shis,’ I say. ‘Is tshis like a normal Thursday night out for you? Cos if it shis, I’m coming out with you every Thursday from now till they’re wheeling us in here in bath chairs and we’re both ordering old lady sdrinks, like . . . I dunno, sweet sherry. Harvey’s Brishhtol Cream.’

‘Oh, come on, Vick, you’re fabulous, you’re gorgeous, why wouldn’t any guy want your number? Now cool down, you’re overreacting.’

‘You shthink this is an overreaction? Try being inside my head.’

‘When it’s your turn to be project manager, baby, I know you’ll do the same for me and I make you this solemn vow. You’ll be the first person I’ll thank in my Oscar acceptance speech.’

She has my arm in a vice grip now and is steering me towards two empty bar stools.

‘But shere’s a sofa over there!’ I have to shout over the DJ, but then I switch to an exaggerated stage whisper. ‘I know, we’ll just rob the reserved shign on it and just pretend we didn’t know.’

‘No, we’re sitting here, you big lush. Chances are if I plonk you on a sofa, you’ll only conk out, and I am not carrying you out the door. They know me in here.’

Bar stools it is. We plonk down and about two seconds later, the barman is over like a bullet, chatting up Barbara. It’s only after she introduces me and keeps repeating, ‘But Vicky, you must remember Nathaniel, I told you about him LOADS of times,’ that I eventually cop on. This is not just the Barbara-goggle factor in action, that’s not why he’s all over her like a hot snot, I think she’s slept with him and more than once, if memory serves. To cover my tracks I make a big show of saying, ‘Oh, it’s SO nice to meet you, you’re THAT Nathaniel, of course, yeshh, hi!’ As opposed to the other two hundred Nathaniels that we regularly hang around with. For good measure I think I even throw in, ‘He’shh even miles cuter than you shaid, Barbara.’

‘I’ll have a margarita and can I get a large bottle of still water for my very sober friend here?’ she says. This is girl-code for, ‘You’re making a show of both of us and now you need to sit quietly and drink about five gallons of water while I chat up the cutie barman.’

At least, I think she wants to chat him up. Barbara is sometimes so cool and detached around guys, that it can be hard to tell the difference between someone she fancies and someone she doesn’t. In fact, half the time I don’t think they can tell, either. Anyway, I’m not in any state to argue with her as by now the room is kinda starting to spin a bit.

‘Glass of water here and a margarita for the lady,’ says Nathaniel, not taking his eyes off Barbara, not even for a split second.

‘Ooh, still water, my, my, what are we celebrating?’ says a guy on the bar stool beside me, who I’ve only just noticed. It’s the voice that catches me first, deep and honeyed, very, very sexy. He’s attractive too: older, maybe early fifties, slightly greying. If he was played by a hot Hollywood actor, it would have to be . . . Richard Gere. He’s wearing a suit and drinking a large whiskey and it’s all very rat pack and cool. In fact he looks like the type who might just break out into a chorus of ‘My Way’, any minute.

I try my best to think of something witty and sharp to answer back in a flirtatious coquette manner but all I can come out with is, ‘Yeah, my brothers are always shhaying, drink as much as you like but a pint of water before you go to bed ish your only man, my friend. Reduces your hangover by approxhimantely fifty per cent. Fact.’

Oh God, I must be plastered. Did I really just say ‘my friend’ to a total stranger at a bar? I also think I may have burped a bit, but I’m actively trying to block that out.

‘I love a woman who understands the delicate intricacies of the hangover cure. Although personally I think drinking still water in a late-night club is akin to drinking the devil’s mouthwash. So where were you two beautiful ladies earlier?’

‘Meeting boys. Wisth great shuccess, I have to tell you.’

Now had Barbara not been so engrossed with flirty barman, and hadn’t unofficially clocked off as my dating monitor for the night, chances are she’d have yanked me out of there on account of my having diarrhoea of the mouth, but no such luck, so I rabbit on, drunk and unsupervised.

‘You shee . . . I haven’t dated anyone sherioushly in waay too long and my friend here is just amazhing around guys so she’s . . . sort of taking charge of my love life and we came out tonight on a bit of a mission and . . . what can I shay? Two lovely phone numbers in the can. Shanks to Barbara, in the space of a shingle night, I’ve gone from Mother Teresa to Mata Hari.’

Sober, I’d have crawled under the table and gouged out an eye rather than impart all that info, but honest to God, by now my head is actually lolling.

Anyway, handsome stranger seems to find all this hilarious.

‘Go for it, lady, you carpe that diem.’

‘Shritcly speaking, I shouldn’t really be shpeakign to you until Barbara’s vetted you. Just to make shure you’re not some total arsehole, aka my usual type.’

‘OK, well maybe you’d like to tell your friend Barbara that I’d like to take you out some time, if you don’t mind adding my name to your list of conquests, that is. And please add that my intentions are entirely honourable.’

3.30 a.m.

The taxi ride of shame home. Me, Barbara and Nathaniel the barman, who’s finished one shift and about to start another one, if you get my meaning. Oh yeah, and apparently he had to physically help me out the door of the nightclub, but that’s yet another memory I’m trying to suppress. I get really giddy in the taxi and tell them all about rat-pack man who it turns out is called Tom, no, Tim, no, Tom.

Shit, I must be plastered. Plus I have this awful, nagging memory that when he asked me out, I demanded a pen from him and scribbled my number on the cuff of his shirt. In my defence I thought I was being very femme fatale, but more than likely came across as being anyone’s for a bag of chips.

‘Do you mean the older guy in the corner? Oh yeah, he’s a regular,’ says Nathaniel helpfully from the front seat of the car. ‘Film director, or so he says. Great man for a few drinks. Good tipper, too.’

‘I take my eye off you for two seconds,’ Barbara hisses at me, ‘and you blithely swap numbers with someone un-vetted. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘Yeah, but curioushly, I’m not.’

‘He was in a nightclub on his own, with no friends. Does that tell you anything?’

‘Aloof, bit of a loner, all adding to his general sehxiness quotiensh,’ I slur.

‘Suppose it turns out that he used to be a woman?’

‘All love ish a rishk, but a risk you have to take. Oh look, Barbara! That houshe looks exactly like mine! Skip outside the front door and everything.’

‘It is your house. Now good night, you drunken lush. Drink another litre of water now and I’ll ring you first thing in the morning. Well, first thing in the mid-afternoon.’

She helps me out of the taxi and on to the pavement and it’s only by a miracle the taxi pulls off before I start shouting, ‘Nathaniel, I hope you realishe you’re a very, very lucky man!’

4.00 a.m.

In bed, fully dressed, pillow looking like the Turin Shroud with all the make-up that’s mashed into it, room helicoptering around me. I’m just drifting off into a lovely deep sleep/stupor when the phone beside my bed beep beeps. Three unread text messages, all from some bloke called Eddie. I grab the phone, drop it, then have to haul myself out of bed to pick it up, all the while thinking, ‘Eddie? Who’s Eddie?’

First message was sent at midnight.

HEY VICKY, REALLY ENJOYED MEETING U TONIGHT. WILL CALL YOU TOMORROW. EDDIE X

Oh yeah, now I remember. Cutie Scottish guy, cardigan man, looked a bit like Philip Seymour Hoffmann, which as we all know is a polite way of saying chubby but attractive.

Anyway, there’s a second message from him that came through at about 12.30.

MAYBE DINNER, THIS SAT? EDDIE X

And another one, that came through about 1am.

ARE YOU HOME YET VICKY? WILL I CALL YOU NOW? EDDIE X

God bless Barbara is all I can think as I stumble back into bed. Three fellas in one night? I mean, never mind the law of attraction, by the law of averages, unless I seriously bugger things up, one of them has to turn into a boyfriend.

Doesn’t he?