back garden until quite late, all weathers, all seasons. She knew she wouldn’t see Frankie tonight, either. She’d been going on about a date with Mad Men and a bottle of Shloer. And Imogen was with her mum.
Grace was on her own.
She took a slug from her red wine. Adele was warbling about finding ‘Someone Like You’. She was feeling slightly tiddly already. She wasn’t a big drinker. She didn’t subscribe to Facebook slogan drinking: ‘Wine o’clock’, ‘Mother’s little helper’, ‘For instant happy woman just add wine’ etc, etc. There were people who responded to anything at all with ‘wine!’ She’d never been one of them, and she would never refer to having a ‘cheeky’ glass of anything. Yet, since James had left, she had been reaching for the wine. Her wine o’clock appeared to be the moment that bastard left her.
Feeling like a criminal, she quickly opened a new tab on Google Chrome. Hook, Line and Sinker. An online dating site. She’d heard it mentioned by a couple of mums from school, usually accompanied by a lot of shrieking – one was still dating a man she’d met on it. Grace quickly clicked onto her preferred age range: thirty to forty. Most of the men she scrolled through made her scream aloud they looked so grisly or pathetic or downright predatory. A few looked like serial killers. But, surprisingly, some of them looked okay.
She didn’t dare tell Frankie and Imogen, but she needed a date for something. She had a ‘do’ coming up and there was no way she could go on her own.
Nana McKensie, James’s grandmother, was soon to be celebrating her one hundredth birthday and had arranged a huge family trip to the theatre. Grace was determined to go. She was extremely fond of James’s grandmother. Spry and as mentally agile as they came, you’d never have believed she was approaching her centenary. She still lived in her own home, still pottered round her garden, and still went out for fish and chips with ‘the girls’ every Friday lunchtime. She could text and use the internet and even had a Twitter account. Grace thought she was fabulous, and had gratefully received an email from Nana McKensie after she and James had split, to say she ‘must’ still come, and she must bring a plus one. Sadly, it couldn’t be Daniel, who of course had been invited – he would be away that weekend on a school trip to Paris.
Grace needed a plus one who would show James. She took another gulp of wine and entered her details on Hook, Line and Sinker’s registration page before she could change her mind. She felt like she was doing something very furtive and very naughty. Well, she was! Imogen and Frankie would be horrified. Without thinking about it too much, she ‘friended’ a couple of different men from the local area. One looked quite sporty, another looked like he was on a night out with mates, a pint in his hand. He looked jolly. Friendly.
Almost immediately she got back some dodgy booty call type messages, one asking to see her without her top on. Oh God. She browsed further down the rows and columns of men. One guy looked nice. His hair was a little bit longer, he had an open, kind-looking face and a T-shirt with a puppy on it. She messaged him. Five minutes later, as she was appalled reading about a man who enjoyed sniffing people’s feet, a message popped into her ‘Hook’ box.
‘Hey babe. Are you up for sex? I could cum over.’
Yuk, yuk, yuk. What a sleaze. That puppy had been very misleading. Is that what all the men on here were like? Hook, Line and Stinker was more accurate. She closed down the browser in disgust and slammed shut the lid of the laptop.
Surely there were classier, more sophisticated dating sites? Tinder? No! God, no, not that. Not a sugar daddy thing either, though – she’d heard all about that site. She took another large glug of wine, opened the laptop up again, and googled ‘classy dating agency, Essex.’ The first result that appeared was The Executive Club – yes, that sounded more like it, but when she clicked onto the website, all the men in the sidebar were ridiculously good-looking. Almost revoltingly good-looking. Oh, she should have known. This was an escort agency. It said so. Gorgeous men at your service, it proclaimed, at the top of the screen.
Curiosity got the better of her. The wine was swilling pleasantly around her system. Adele was now ‘Rolling in the Deep’. She read the text in the middle of the page: male chaperones to make you feel special… the perfect man for a dinner date… kind, courteous and handsome and know how to treat a lady… gorgeous straight men who love the company of women. She quickly scanned down the photos. Most of the men looked smarmy, had goatees, were in dinner suits, or suits and ties; a lot were channelling Mr Grey or The Bachelor, from that American TV series. One looked like Gary Barlow and was straddling a ridiculously tiny bike saddle, dressed in pink and grey Lycra.
She stopped at the next photo. ‘Text Greg,’ it said, underneath. He looked nice. Late thirties? Navy blue short-sleeved polo top. Dark blond hair. Handsome grin. Most of the other men had closed-lipped knowing smiles, or one eyebrow raised, like ridiculous Roger Moores; Greg had his face half turned to the camera and was smiling like a normal person. It was a very informal photo. It was as though he’d quickly put up a casual photo with plans to put the real one up later…when he got round to posing in a dinner jacket and hauling up his left eyebrow.
She studied him. He didn’t look like an escort. He looked like an older boy next door – if the boy next door was a cross between Brad Pitt and Liam Hemsworth, that was, not the low-rent Ron Weasley lookalike who always wore a grey tank top, as was actually the case.
Text. Okay. She could just text him, if she wanted to. She could hire him, if she wanted to, to go to the theatre with her for Nana McKensie’s one hundredth. She could afford it. James was paying her maintenance for Daniel, she had her earnings from Hats! and her gran had left her some money, a few months ago. She’d never told James; she didn’t know why. This money was just hers, to be put by for a rainy day. And if this wasn’t a rainy day, she didn’t know what was.
A male escort. It was almost hilarious. Once, years ago, in the large circle of her and James’s London friends, a rather hapless bloke called Ed had turned up for dinner at Wagamama’s one night with a really stunning woman. Everyone had been really surprised – Ed hadn’t had a woman with him for months and he was definitely punching above his weight with this one. They all stared at her for most of the night, and tried to get him on his own so he could be quizzed.
After loads of booze, and when Stunning Surprise Girlfriend had gone to the loo, Ed was drunk enough to ’fess up, after unconvincingly trying to make out he’d met her in a Tesco Metro. She was an escort. Once, just once, he said, he wanted to turn up with a stunning girl on his arm and have everyone wondering.
They never saw her again. Ed must have spent too much money on cocktails, or perhaps he didn’t want any ‘extras’, as at the end of the night he saw her off into a taxi with a chaste kiss on the cheek and they all went to get a kebab.
Grace remembered it was a cold night and how happy she’d felt when James had put his arm round her to pull her in close. When James had kissed her in the street after purposely making them drop back from the others. God, he was handsome. She was his and she loved it. She’d been spectacularly happy… Oh God.
She put James back in the box in her mind and slammed down the lid. James was gone.
After pouring the remainder of the bottle into her glass and taking a huge swig, she grabbed her phone and quickly sent a text to ‘Greg’, before she chickened out, or wondered too much if that was his real name.
Hi, just want to make an enquiry? Grace.
As the text sent, she got up and skipped a bit, nervously, around the room. Then sat back down again and stared at her phone. A text appeared.
