let myself in on the secret.’
Pause.
‘At least you do a job that you had to apply for. Ivor thinks I’m some thick businessman’s daughter, a spoilt Injun princess who got everything given to her. I’m not Rupa!’
‘He doesn’t think that.’
‘You heard him. “Airhead”.’
‘He was lashing back, he didn’t mean it.’
‘He did. People say what they really think in arguments.’
‘They say what they think will hurt the most.’
A pause. ‘I need Ivor to be a good person, Rachel. If he’s a shit too, then I give up. I really do.’
‘He is good. He did something you don’t like, is all, and sounds like he doesn’t like it much either, in the cold light of day.’
Mindy rests her head on my shoulder and I put my arm around her. ‘And maybe, when you’ve both made up, if you wanted to be very petty, you could point out to Ivor that, while your phrasing was a little off, “sordidness” is a word.’
Mindy pulls away, perks up.
‘It is? Ha. In your FACE, Johnson.’
41
In the falling dusk, my heels go clip clop clip clop on the pavement, and when I check the time and break into a canter, clipclopclipclopclipclop. I’ve discovered the great thing about living in the city centre is you can walk everywhere and the crap thing about living in the city centre is you have to walk everywhere.
I feel nervous at this date with Simon but I can’t honestly say any nerves come from thinking I might be about to fall head over heels in love, or even head over shreddies into bed. He’s attractive, I can see that. My appreciation is very much of the objective, unfelt, other-ladies-must-like-him variety though. But Caroline’s right, I’m better off behaving like a single person and doing some dating straight away, rather than leaving this step another year. If I feel out of the loop now, well, that’s only going to get worse.
Sometimes I think I need a bossy life sat-nav clipped to my belt. ‘At the first opportunity, make a U turn …’
I reach the corner near the restaurant and slow down, instinctively smoothing the back of my dress to make sure it isn’t caught in my knickers. After hobbling here with the bandy gait of a Monty Python man in fishwife drag, I try for a more fluid swingy motion, one foot directly in front of another.
I read somewhere that the footprints of a debutante in sand are one long line, not side by side. I ignore the shooting pain in my left heel that tells me Manchester pavements aren’t the beach and I’m no book-balancing beauty. I try to paint a beatific sailed-here-on-a-scented-breeze expression on to my features.
After saying I was free and easy where we dined, I had a late-dawning realisation that I didn’t want to go anywhere frighteningly exorbitant with Simon and ratchet up expectation. I suggested an Italian place near the Printworks that’s really an enhanced Pizza Express and expected him to argue to prove he was discerning, but he agreed straight away. Must be in the English gent code that you don’t quibble with a lady’s choice. Or he liked the realistic pricing.
I see Simon’s stood outside, it obviously also being in the English gent code that you don’t enter the venue without the lady. He could’ve heard me coming: I was clattering down the street like a dog that needs its toenails clipping.
He greets me with: ‘Good evening. You look fantastic. Shall we?’
I don’t look anywhere near as crisply-pressed and collected and plausibly first date-ish as him – white shirt, and what could, distressingly, be chinos – but I appreciate the sentiment, and agree we shall.
We’re shown to the sofa in the waiting area, by a gigantic potted palm. The restaurant is a symphony of the tinkle of glassware and cutlery on china and chatter. Black-clad waiting staff flit about in the choreography of attentive service. This is where the rest of society has been spending its Saturday nights, not propped up in bed with a 3-for-2 deal paperback by ten p.m., while their partner heckles Match of the Day.
Simon’s handed the wine list and, as he’s flipping authoritatively through the faux-parchment pages, says: ‘How well do you know Ben, then?’
Not Simon too.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Are you exes, or what?’
‘No. Old friends. Why?’
‘That’s what he said. Yet I got a tetchy lecture about looking after you, blah blah … as if I was the big bad wolf trying to get into your basket.’
I’m touched by this, and surprised. I try not to show it.
‘He’s got a little sister. It’s a common syndrome – big brothers are always protective of female friends by extension.’
‘Right. So you’ve never climbed aboard?’
‘What?’
He’s asking the thing no one else would ever ask as his first question? If I was in a childhood comic book, cartoon Rachel would have a mouth like a cat’s bum and the thought bubble caption ‘GUMPF’.
‘You’ve never hopped on our Benji?’
My shock gives way to laughter at the audacity of the inquiry. I should say: ‘Look at me, look at Ben. Look at Olivia. Look likely?’
The waiter announces our table is ready.
Simon stands up and does up a button on his jacket, as if we’re being led to the podium at an awards ceremony, wine list clamped under his arm like a clipboard. ‘After you.’
When we’ve been handed the menus, I lean across the table and hiss: ‘No, I haven’t. I can’t believe you’re asking that. He’s your friend. Haven’t you asked him?’
‘Always question people separately.’
‘Ah, of course. Perhaps you’d rather do this in the custody suite of Bootle Street nick?’
‘It’s not got mood lighting,’ Simon smiles. ‘I like to know what’s what.’
‘So I see.’
‘Actually …’ Simon now looks uncomfortable, which is novel ‘… the last woman I fell for was married. It’s made me cautious of complications, shall we say.’
‘What happened?’
He acts as if he hasn’t heard me, picking imaginary lint off his sleeve.
‘I didn’t mean to get on to this before we’d ordered the wine.’
‘Let’s go with it. I don’t know all the modern dating guidelines anyway.’
