Love @ First Site Page 13

  "What do you mean?"

  I groan and tell her all about pretending to be someone else when I didn't like the look of the man outside the Gap, then, warming to the theme and embellishing my story with sound effects of horror and indignation, I fill her in on the gorgeous man outside the Hippodrome who rejected me because, according to him, I didn't look like my photograph. I finish it off with the anecdote about the tramp calling me a tight bitch.

  "I mean, the fucking cheek of it!" I shriek down the phone. "Can you imagine anything more humiliating?"

  Olivia is laughing uncontrollably on the other end and it's a wonderful sound. "Stop!" she pleads. "My stomach is hurting."

  Galvanized by the sound of my sister's joy, I swing my legs out of bed and onto the floor. Grinning from ear to ear, I take the cordless down the hall with me towards the kitchen.

  "So I think that's it for me on the Internet dating front," I conclude. "I can't take any more." Ducking into the fridge, I pour myself a long grapefruit juice and take several large glugs.

  "Nonsense, I won't hear of it!" admonishes Olivia. "What on earth will I have to laugh about in life if you don't keep regaling me with your stories."

  "I'll tell you what." I sit down at the kitchen table. "I won't go on the dates. Instead, I'll just make up stories to tell you. That would be far less time-consuming."

  "It won't be the same," she replies petulantly. "Besides, Jess, I really want to see you meet someone special."

  Her voice has turned serious again and I know she's thinking of the future, both mine and hers. It's unspoken, but she's alluding to the fact that if she doesn't make it, she'd like to know that I'm on route to being settled and happy in life.

  "I might meet someone through the usual means, like work," I say halfheartedly.

  "What, the gay hairdresser?" she scoffs. "Or maybe one of the older men featured in an item about prostate problems? Jess, get real. You've got to get out there and seize life with both hands."

  She doesn't actually say "or one day life might slip away from you," but we both know that's what she means.

  "OK, OK," I sigh. "I'll go on a few more dates . . . just for you."

  "No, not for me," she says. "Do it for yourself."

  Spontaneously, we both break out into a chorus of Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves, the song we used to sing as teenagers before we went out for the night.

  I have never loved her more than I love her right now.

  Sixteen

  My name is Tom, I'm 48, and very solvent, with homes in France, an apartment in London, and a 15th century listed home in the country. I'm marketing director for a major PLC and describe work as "playtime." I don't have any hang-ups, quirks, or kinks, I'm just a well-traveled, well-brought-up man of the world who never "goes Dutch." I have a GSOH and listen well, even on my pocket phone. I like a lady to be educated and independent.

  OK, Olivia, this one's for you. Consequently, I have chosen someone who talks of "pocket phones" and "ladies" and sounds more mature than the piece of cheese that fell down the back of my fridge three weeks ago. Memo to self: must retrieve.

  This is a concerted attempt by me to move away from the potential, roguish flibbertigibbets, as my father might refer to them, and steer myself towards someone more obviously straightforward and a better long-term prospect.

  During our subsequent, brief e-mail exchange, Tom suggested sharing a bottle of champagne at the Ritz. And as he was so emphatic about never going Dutch, how could a girl refuse?

  "It could also mean he expects the woman to pay for everything in these enlightened times," teased Madeleine, when I spoke to her on the phone earlier today.

  "In which case, I'll be washing dishes at the Ritz for the foreseeable future," I replied. "He's forty-eight and calls women 'ladies.' He'll definitely pay."

  "Oooh, old and grateful," said Madeleine. "Perfect!"

  Forty-eight? Hardly old, but for a woman with a penchant for "young stud muffins," as she calls them, I suppose it's positively ancient. Madeleine always says the reason she avoids older men is that, when it comes to sex, they just don't have the stamina for the sex marathons she adores but most ordinary women find unappealing in the extreme.

  Having agreed to partake in a bottle of champagne, I have made the date for a Saturday lunchtime rather than midweek, when I'd run the risk of returning to the office slightly worse for wear.

  And as it's the Ritz, I have plucked what can only be described as one of mother's emergency outfits from the back of my wardrobe. Last worn to Emily's christening, it's a beige linen skirt suit, teamed with a cream, short-sleeved cashmere top underneath. I look like I'm going to a job interview.

  In the photo Tom jpeg'd to me, he seems to be on holiday. Sitting on a plastic garden chair with the backdrop of a swimming pool, it looks like one of those generic Spanish apartment blocks you see on the news when there's been an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease or listeria. Wearing just a pair of pale yellow drawstring swimming shorts, he looks in pretty good nick for his age, with thick dark hair just starting to go gray at the sides.

  I can see him now, occupying a corner table in the Ritz tearoom and, surprise, surprise, he looks just like his photograph, although slightly paler.

  "Jess?" He smiles and stands up, his hand extended towards me. His cheeks have the mottled pink hue of someone who likes a drink.

  "Hi." I shake his hand and stand to one side as he wrestles with a chair, trying to pull it out from the under the table.

  "There we are!" he declares triumphantly. "Do sit down."

  The bottle of champagne is already on ice, in a freestanding bucket to one side of our table. I notice his glass is empty.

  He raises his hand towards a waitress. "Would you be so kind as to pour the champagne now?" he asks.

  Nice manners with the waitstaff, I note. That's a tick in the "good" box. "I hope you haven't been waiting long?" I say, in my best heroine-from-1940s-film voice.

  "No, not at all. I come here a lot on my own anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered."

  To me, people dining alone is such a sad sight. Whenever I see it, I silently imagine how they have come to this. Perhaps their wife has recently run off with another man, leaving them bereft and devastated, hating their own company. Or maybe she has died and their children have all grown up and lead their own, active lives, with little time for their lonely, old dad.

  "I stay here on business a lot." Tom's voice interrupts my thoughts. "So rather than sit in my room, which I find rather claustrophobic, I bring a book or some paperwork and eat down here."

  Ah. Never thought of that option.

  I raise my glass of champagne. "Well, it's lovely to meet you, and thanks for this." I notice it's Krug and must have cost him a fortune.

  "My pleasure." He smiles warmly. "Would you like something to eat as well? They do a fantastic kedgeree with smoked salmon, if you like that sort of thing."

  "Sounds great," I enthuse.

  "Shall I order for you?" He looks at me questioningly.

  I nod. "Yes, please do."

  "What don't you like?"

  "Um . . ." I think for a moment. "Broad beans. That's about it."

  He reaches to his side and picks up the suit jacket carefully laid there. As he rummages through the inside pocket, I notice the label is Armani, without an "Emporio" in sight.

  I could get used to this, I silently muse. Chilled, top-of-the-range champagne at the Ritz, and a well-dressed, well-mannered man who takes control and pays for everything. I'm starting to understand why some women prefer the company of older men.

  He takes out a small case and opens it to reveal a pair of rimless glasses. Putting them on, he takes a cursory glance at the menu, then gestures to the maitre d', who is hovering a couple of tables away. While he orders, I take the opportunity to study the roomful of privileged travelers who enjoy a way of life with which I have little or no experience.

  The next table to ours is occupied by "ladies who lunch." Drip
ping in diamonds and the latest Chanel outfits, three of them have identical Hermes Birkin bags in red, costing a few grand each. The fourth is sporting a classic Chanel bag, but with a chrome strap rather than gold, proving it's the very latest. All four, without exception, have hair that looks like it's been injection molded on a conveyor belt. Highlighted blonde bob, side parting, sprayed to such rigidity that when they turn their heads, not a hair moves. Their nails are all perfectly uniform, hands unsullied by the housework of the common woman.

  Tuning in to their conversation for just a few seconds is compellingly dreadful. One is berating her son's boarding school for refusing to keep him there over a long weekend, lamenting that she and her husband will have to forgo their planned skiing trip, whilst another is complaining about the Filipino nanny who looks after her toddler daughter.

  "I came home from the hairdresser's on Thursday afternoon, and Araminta greeted me with the words 'Herro, Mammy,'" she says, mimicking a Filipino accent. "I mean, can you imagine? The nanny will have to go."

  Or better still the mother, I think mutinously, astonished that this woman could relay such a damning story against herself without the slightest trace of irony.

  "All done. It'll be here in a few minutes." The waitress has disappeared, and Tom has removed his glasses again and is now following my eye line to the next table. "Hideous, aren't they?" he whispers. "I see them in here a lot. It's Sex and the City with the whiff of formaldehyde."

  I laugh and take another sip of champagne. "Sometimes I think I'd like a life like that," I muse. "You know, swanning around shopping all the time, meeting my friends for lunch . . . but I know I'd get bored."

  "Worse, you'd be boring," interjects Tom. "They have absolutely nothing to say that's of any interest, and believe me, I have overheard plenty of similar conversations whilst I've been eating alone."

  "What do they talk about?"

  "Hair, nails . . ." He holds up a finger for each subject. ". . . clothes, their kids--when they can remember their names--and lastly, their husbands."

  I take a furtive look sideways again. "I wonder what their husbands do?"

  Tom purses his lips. "They'll be company directors, something big in the City . . . that kind of thing. They will also spend a lot of time away from home under the pretext of work, but find plenty of time to cold call on their warm mistress installed in an all-expenses-paid little pied-a-terre somewhere."

  Initially, I grin at what I assume to be his little exaggeration, then swiftly realize he's deadly serious. "Really? How do you know?"

  He shrugs. "I don't know about them as such." He jerks his head towards the next table. "But I know an awful lot about women like them. I was married to one myself."

  "Really?" I really . . . whoops, there it is again . . . must think of a new word to utter in such circumstances.

  "Yep." He nods sagely. "We didn't even have any kids, so all my wife did all day was drink coffee with her equally idle friends, go shopping and play tennis. On the rare occasions I came home in time, dinner would be something heated up in the microwave whilst our relationship just went cold. So I had a mistress, too. You have to do something to relieve the monotony, don't you?"

  My mouth drops open. Attractive, I know, but I can't help it in the face of such top-notch, revelatory gossip from a man I've only just met. "Blimey," I splutter. Well, at least it's not "really."

  In true soap opera cliffhanger style, two steaming plates of kedgeree arrive as our very own ad break.

  "Tuck in," he says breezily, "this is my favorite thing on the menu, so I hope you like it too."

  He shows absolutely no sign of returning to the fascinating subject of his checkered past . . . well, I assume it's in the past . . . so I take the conversational rudder and steer it back.

  "You were saying about your mistress . . ." I say casually, as if asking him to finish a story about his car breaking down.

  He stops eating for a moment, fork poised in midair. "Oh, that was all a long time ago. I'm a good boy now, though more through lack of opportunity than choice." He smiles, presumably to show it's a joke.

  "So, no mistress and no wife either?"

  "Some would say you can't have the former without the latter," he replies, arching an eyebrow. "But no, I don't have either. The wife found out about the mistress and ran off with her tennis instructor. And once the subterfuge had gone, I found myself tiring of the mistress very swiftly, particularly when, knowing my wife was no longer on the scene, she started nagging me to make a commitment."

  I loathe and detest the word "nagging," mainly because it's never used in referring to men, but I decide to let it pass on this occasion. The conversation is too good to get sidetracked.

  "So you ended up with nobody?"

  "Indeed." He smiles ruefully. "But I'm at an age when I'd rather be on my own than with the wrong person."

  "But you're still shopping around on the Internet, I see."

  He nods. "I'm hopeless at hanging round wine bars, not least because I hate that loud, ubiquitous rap music that sounds like Pam Ayres on steroids. And I tried a couple of traditional dating agencies, but after parting with a small fortune and being introduced to one nymphomaniac and a couple of bunny boilers, I felt it was better to trust my own judgment and use the Internet."

  "Nymphomaniac? Sounds like every man's dream date." I laugh.

  "Sorry, I forgot to mention she looked like Marlon Brando in a dress." He winces at the memory.

  "What about the bunny boilers?" Enjoying myself immensely, I take another swig of champagne.

  He narrows his eyes in thought. "One was just plain bonkers and carried a small rodent-like dog everywhere with her in a basket. She never left the house unless her daily horoscope was a positive one, and said the only reason she'd met with me was because she'd got my date of birth from the agency and our star charts were compatible."

  I chuckle encouragingly and shake my head in disbelief.

  "The second one," he continues, "was really attractive, and we had a lovely time on our first date. I remember thinking, 'Wow, I've hit the jackpot here.'" He stops briefly to finish off the last of his kedgeree.

  "At some point during the evening, I must have mentioned I liked doughnuts, because the next day a basket of them was delivered to my office with a note that read: "Thanks for a lovely evening. Here are a few of your favorite things."

  I raise my eyebrows slightly, curious to know how that makes her a bunny boiler. Because from where I'm sitting, it's an impressively stylish and original gesture. He notes my skepticism. "Which, of course, was a nice touch," he adds, "and I rang immediately to thank her . . ."

  He pauses for dramatic effect, gesturing for the waitress to remove our plates and taking a couple of mouthfuls of champagne. "Then a basket arrived the next day . . . and the day after that . . . and the one after that. In fact, every day for the next two weeks." He shakes his head. "And all the while, she's bombarding my office with calls, issuing instructions to my PA about making sure I get a doughnut with my morning coffee as that's what I like best." He makes a circling motion around his temple with a forefinger.

  "So how did you get rid of her?"

  "I wrote 'return to sender' on all the doughnut deliveries and refused to take her calls. She finally got the message," he says wearily. "But not before she turned up at reception and started sobbing loudly when I refused to go down and see her. She had to be gently removed by security."

  I splutter with laughter, and a small amount of champagne tries to escape down my nose, causing my eyes to water. "Bloody hell," I choke. "You really have been unlucky."

  Grinning, he passes me a fresh napkin. "I know. But enough of my dating disasters, I want to hear all about you."

  We pass the next hour very pleasantly indeed, sharing a hefty slice of black currant cheesecake whilst he asks me all about my background, my family and my job. He proves to be a great listener, interrupting with questions only when he wants to know more about something I have me
rely skipped over. I don't tell him about Olivia's health, preferring instead to talk of our happier days.

  Over coffee, he senses my disillusionment with the world of daytime television and makes some suggestions for facilitating a change in a more serious direction. He even offers to link me up with an old friend of his who makes documentaries.

  By the time we reach a post-coffee lull in the conversation, it's 4 p.m. and even the ladies who lunch have gone home, presumably to refresh their hairdos for some swanky dinner. As they are all stick thin, one presumes they spend a lot of time vomiting.

  "So do you like being a marketing director?" Come on, give me a break. It's taken three hours for me to resort to such a question. Not bad going really.

  His eyes light up. "I love it, because I have such freedom. Being creative . . .," he emphasizes the word, ". . . means you can be where you want, when you want, as long as you have your pocket phone." He points to his matchbox-size mobile--the only thing men boast about having the smallest of.

  "What do you market?"

  "All sorts of products. My company makes everything to do with the fast-food life, from sugar sticks and drink sweeteners to malt vinegar and ketchup packets. I travel all over the world researching new ways of doing things."

  Three slightly more elderly women shuffle into the empty table next to us and settle themselves down.

  "They've had their afternoon nap and come out for high tea," whispers Tom. "They'll all be married to old majors or high court judges." He stands up. "Excuse me, nature calls."

  Watching him cross the room, I notice he moves well. He has the self-assured walk of a man who's comfortable with himself, borne out of a fulfilling career and finally knowing what he wants from life.

  Glowing from a surfeit of champagne, excellent food, and his highly entertaining company, I know I have an important decision to make before he returns to the table.

  Without wishing to sound boastful, I'm pretty sure he would like to see me again. But is the feeling reciprocal?

  Pros: attractive in an elder statesman kind of way, successful, wealthy, warm, funny, generous, a good raconteur, and seemingly emotionally uncomplicated.