I’ve never met a Kirstine, never even heard the name before tonight, and my mouth insists on autocorrecting its phonetics. So far, I’ve called her Kirsten, Kristy and Christine. She laughs it off with the learned tolerance of the unusually tall, small and named. Fortunately, Kirstine is a talker, so the opportunities to mispronounce her tricky syllables have been limited. She’s bright, confident and has it all mapped out.
‘. . . and then, maybe a year after that, I should get promoted to junior director. Probably not a bad time to have a baby. Haha! Don’t panic, we only just met. But seriously, babies are on my agenda, and if I get them out before I transition into the upper tier, then it shouldn’t have too big an impact on my momentum. Maybe take ten months off then . . .’
She has kale in her teeth. I’d never had kale until I came to London, but there must be a surfeit of the stuff somewhere, because I can’t seem to open a menu lately without finding it in at least two places. Three, if you include Kirstine’s teeth. I’m not sure what the protocol is here: if I tell her she’ll be embarrassed now, but if I don’t she’ll only be embarrassed later. But I already know I won’t be sticking around for ‘later’, so I fill up our glasses and let her keep talking. She has good teeth, there’s a small chip on her left incisor, but they are otherwise white, straight and, from where I’m sitting, in good repair.
A waiter brings our desserts, and Kirstine – like she has done for the starters and the main course – takes out her phone to photograph her food and upload it onto Facebook.
‘You on?’ says Kirstine, tapping her phone with a highly polished fingernail.
‘I’m a digital recluse,’ I say, and Kirstine laughs quite convincingly for exactly two seconds.
I was never a social media enthusiast, but it became quickly and dramatically less entertaining after I left April on our wedding day. So no more Facebook, which could be considered a silver lining if it means I no longer have to look at pictures of my friend’s puddings.
‘You lost your hair,’ says Kirstine, miming the haircut from my profile picture. The last cut my mother gave me, in fact.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘And I’ve looked everywhere.’
‘Shame,’ says Kirstine, either ignoring or entirely missing my poor attempt at wit. ‘It was nice. So . . . hairdressing?’
‘For my sins.’
For my sins? As far as I know, I’ve never dropped this particular dollop of conversational grout before, and I’m only using it now because I cannot think of a single original thing to say. But as I replay my words, it does strike me that they are uncomfortably appropriate.
‘Pay well, does it?’
‘Not unless you own your own salon,’ I say.
‘And do you?’
‘Er . . . no.’
‘Oh.’
If it weren’t for my Fridays fixing teeth, I don’t know how I’d survive down here. Move in with a bunch of Australians, I suppose, buy less meat, drink less wine, go on fewer dates. Which – with the exception of the Australians – may be no bad thing. It’s occurred to me several times in the last few months how it would play out if one of my hairdressing clients turned up at the dental surgery, or vice versa. It’s not illegal, of course, to cut hair and fill teeth, but some might consider it odd. As far as I can see, I would have two options: claim I have a twin, or flat denial. But I’m not overly concerned. When I’m cutting hair my clients tend to see me in reflection while concentrating on their own, and when I’m fixing teeth they stare at the ceiling and I’m wearing a mask. Besides all of that, I work at a posh clinic and a fairly grotty salon, so the chances of crossover are somewhat minimized. Even so, if I ever do find myself on a third date, or a fourth, or a twenty-fourth, then it’s going to come up, and one revelation leads to another leads to You did what! Somehow, though, I don’t think Kirstine and I are going to make it to date twenty-four. I’d be surprised, in fact, if we make it to ten o’clock.
‘So . . .’ I say, ‘how’s the sticky toffee pudding?’
‘Yum. And the cheese board?’
‘Great. Brie-liant, in fact!’ And I wonder how hard it would be to bite out my own tongue.
At the dental practice we employ two receptionists, two hygienists and five dental nurses, all but one are women, half of whom are single, all of whom can send a text message blindfolded. I hear variations of the same story every week. If a date is going badly, they slip their phone out of a pocket, or purse or from under a thigh and, under cover of the table, they send a pre-typed text to their designated rescuer. Two seconds later your phone rings and the person on the other end informs you your cat has escaped, house burned down, granny exploded. I don’t have a rescuer, so I eat my cheese, and wait for a waiter to pass within screaming distance so I can ask for the check.
Kirstine’s phone rings.
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘it’s my . . . do you mind?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Hi,’ she says into the phone. ‘Is everything okay? No,’ – Kirstine holds a hand to her lips – ‘you’re kidding . . . both legs! . . . That’s awful . . . No, not at all, I’ll be there as quick as I can.’