About the Author

SARAH TUCKER is an award-winning travel journalist, broadcaster and author. A presenter for the BBC Holiday programme and travel writer for the Guardian and The Times, she is also the author of Have Toddler, Will Travel and Have Baby, Will Travel. She has also presented award-winning documentaries for the Discovery channel.

Sarah lives in Richmond, Surrey and France with her son. Find out more about Sarah at www.mirabooks.co.uk/sarahtucker

The Last Year of Being Single

Sarah Tucker

www.mirabooks.co.uk

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

How I came to write this book is a story in itself. At a Christmas party, talking to a fellow guest about life, I made a casual remark that I had a novel inside me.

She gave me her card and said she worked for a publisher … This book is the result.

A huge “thank you” to: Karin (the woman with the card), who gave me the break; Sam, the editor who made it happen and who is the kindest, most astute and enthusiastic person you could ever meet – thank you so much for believing in me; and to Paul, who struck the deal without pain and helped me to my first Mini Cooper (S) (yellow with white roof).

To my son, Thomas, who is, and will always be, my sunshine, my true love and inspiration.

To my coterie of friends – especially Jo Moore, Amanda Hall, Claire Beale, Helen Davies, Steve and Paul – who over the past year have proved to be the best friends anyone could ever hope for.

To Simon and Caroline, who both think I should put on my gravestone “Sarah – someone who was so very frustrating but gave incredible pleasure.” I aim to do both. To Kim and Linda and Karin, for listening. Lots. To Hazel and Doreen. I love you both loads. Thank you for being there.

AUTUMN

SEPTEMBER

ACTION LIST

Have fun.

Join gym and work out three times a week. Kick-box and yoga.

Buy goldfish and put in wealth area (have attended Feng Shui class and am told fish in wealth area brings in money). Unhappy as wealth area has toilet in it, which means most goes down the drain. Instructor recommends I put toilet in dining room. Or move.

Buy lots of goldfish and make sure they don’t die. Buy lots of orange candles and light them, ensuring they don’t burn anything. Be wonderful to Paul.

THE DARK PRINCE

1st September

I’ve met the man of my wet dreams.

Well, almost. I imagined some six foot two, dark, olive-skinned, firm-torsoed prince of a man, on a dark, steamy–breathed steed, thundering mercilessly towards me through a forest full of bluebells (aka sex scene from Ryan’s Daughter) and whisking me off my feet and then ravishing me almost senseless amongst aforementioned bluebells. In my dream I have huge, voluptuous breasts and long dark eyelashes—two wish-list firsts. Alas, I have neither in real life. There are no mosquitoes, worms or spiders to distract from the pleasure—and it’s a warm eighty degrees and the breeze is light. He takes me in his arms and then he takes me. Ripping clothes (aka sex scene up against wall and over luxuriant sofa in Basic Instinct with Michael Douglas and tall brown-haired actress wearing brown underwear can’t remember name of but she looked like she enjoyed it). I try to resist his advances. Fail, obviously. He always respects me afterwards.

The dark prince in reality is dark and brooding and has deep black-brown eyes which are set too close together. His eyebrows meet in the middle, which means, according to all Cosmopolitan articles, he is not to be trusted, undoubtedly a wolf and ruthlessly dominant in bed. He has the look of Rufus Sewell. Shiny jet-black hair, curly almost tight ringlets which look good enough to pull. He has a strong, defined masculine body. Harvey Keitel in The Piano masculine body. I visualise him gently toying, stroking, softly kissing my ankles as I play on a piano at least to Grade 7 level. He is completely overcome by the beauty of my calves. I revert back to reality. He looks how men should look rather than how men think men should look. I scan further. He has large hands. No wedding ring. He stares un–smilingly, never lifting his gaze from my eyes.

His first impression of me is my backside. I am leaning over my desk. Trying to get my briefing notes out of a drawer so crammed with briefing notes that it refuses to open. He ‘h-hum’s. I turn round.

‘You Sarah Giles?’ he snarls.

‘Me Sarah Giles,’ I joke.

He doesn’t smile. I flush. Sort of Tarzan meets Jane intro.

I am meeting this dark, brooding Keitel look-a-like for lunch. He hasn’t arrived on a black steed. He’s arrived on the 11.25 from East Croydon to Victoria. He is briefing me on how newly privatised Rogerson Railways is supposed to communicate with its customers. He is a specialist, I am advised, in management consultancy gobbledy-gook. The current buzz-words are ‘customer focus.’ Not passenger focus. Must learn jargon. Passengers are out. Customers are in. This makes loads of difference to the service provided, according to the management consultants. The trains still fail to arrive on time. But the angry passengers are now called angry customers. So there’s a difference. I’m told.

The man of my wet dream is a regional director of a regional headquarters of a region of Rogerson Railways. He thinks he is important. I don’t care if he isn’t. I wanna be his customer, for lunch at least.

‘You’re taking me to lunch,’ he snarls again, still staring unblinking at me.

‘Er, yes. Pizza Express.’

‘Whatever. I prefer pubs myself. A beer man. English beer only. None of that foreign muck.’

I don’t like beer—English or foreign muck—so I make no comment. He asks me to lead the way. I wish I’d worn something short and tight and sexy and, as the Brazilians do, ‘dressed to undress’. Instead I’m wearing eight-year-old Laura Ashley blue and pink flowery culottes and a white T-shirt which leaves everything to the imagination. I do as he asks, realising that everyone in the office is now looking at me. At us. Leaving the office together. I turn round, realising I’ve forgotten my bag. He’s a few paces behind me. Staring at my bum. He looks up, unabashed, unblushing. I flush again.

‘Forgot bag,’ I explain.

He says nothing. He just stares.

We say nothing in the lift. We say nothing as we cross the road to one of the few decent places to eat in Euston Square. I’ve pre-booked, but every other table is taken by people I know in the office. They all look up and smile at me and stare at him. This dark prince has a reputation. I am warned he is a womaniser. That he is amoral. That men hate him. That I am to stay away from him and keep him at arm’s length. That he is dangerous. Of course this makes him utterly irresistible to me and any other girl who has been told to keep clear. Half the people sitting on the other tables have told me as much. All eyes watch as we sit down. I feel as though the wolf will pounce any moment and start nibbling at my calves. Actually, I fantasise about it. Then I revert back to reality.

The only downside of my dark, brooding anti-hero is his name. John Wayne. How can an anti-hero be called John Wayne? There is something almost Easter Bunny about that name. The name denotes someone stoic and noble and macho, but ever so slightly cuddly and loveable. How can anyone live up to that? The Hollywood actor was always the good guy. The faithful husband. The leader. The man’s man. The saviour of every Western, who married Maureen O’Hara in The Quiet Man and never even got to see her naked. He never ravished anyone in his life. How could I take this cowboy seriously?

‘You don’t look like John Wayne,’ I say He looks bored. Disappointed. ‘Everyone says that. That is the first thing everyone says to me. No, I don’t look like the actor John Wayne. My mother, however, thought it was a good name. He was a good actor and a nice man and played good roles. So she gave me this name. And I like it. Sarah Giles, on the other hand, is ordinary and bland. And you, Sarah Giles, are unoriginal.’

He is obviously from the treat-them-mean-keep-them–keen school of how to talk to women. Either that or he utterly detests my company already.

Enough of the small talk. I tell him that I’ve been told to speak to him because he knows about customer focus and that I’ve got to write this report on customer focus and why the regional part of the regional part of Rogerson Railways is failing to communicate with its customers when disruption occurs. He tells me it’s because management is bad and no one communicates. He then asks me if I have a boyfriend and what he does.

I have a boyfriend. His name is Paul. I tell him he works for a bank.

I ask him if he has a girlfriend.

He says this is very personal.

I say he’s asked me a personal question so I’ve got a right to ask him one too.

He says he has. That her name is Amanda and that she is curvy, has fat calves, short squat legs, likes pink, has big tits and large eyes and eyelashes and long blonde hair. I visualise Miss Piggy. Then I revert back to reality.

‘What have you been told about me?’ he says, unblinking and staring straight into me rather than at me. I swear he has not blinked for a good hour.

I tell him that I’ve heard he is a womaniser. That I am not to trust him. That he is amoral and that he will probably make a pass at me and try to seduce me. But that he is also well thought of professionally and has a good mind.

He smiles. It scares me. It looks very unnatural. Like when Wednesday smiled for the first time in Addams Family Values. I ask him to stop smiling and look mean and brooding again. He laughs, which looks more natural than the smile, but the laugh still looks out of place on his face.

We order.

John has a pizza. No fuss. With everything on it.

I order salade niçoise. With dressing on the side. No potatoes. No anchovies. No dough balls. Extra tuna.

John says he will have my dough balls.

I say I will have the dough balls after all, but can we have them on a separate plate?

I order Diet Coke.

No, they don’t do English beer. Only the foreign muck.

He orders Diet Coke too.

I ask him why he has a fetish for English beer. He says he always has. He says he lives in Surrey in a yellow cottage by a railway line and is surrounded by five pubs within walking distance which all do good English beer. It makes him salivate just thinking about it. At which point he starts to salivate just thinking about it. Methinks this is unsexy, so I ask him what else makes him salivate.

‘Cats and women’s legs. I can’t see your legs, so I don’t know if you would make me salivate,’ he says straight-faced, ‘but I have two cats. Hannah and Jessica.’

I try to flirt. I tell him I have nice legs because I used to be a dancer and that I would like to have a cat. He says that he can’t tell me if my legs are good because I’m wearing a disgusting pair of culottes. He also says he will report me to the animal cruelty society if I get a cat, because as I am working full time I won’t be able to look after it properly. He is not joking. Or at least I think he is not joking. He doesn’t smile while he is saying this, which is some relief.

I interview him about customer focus. I fantasise about him drinking beer in a pub in Surrey. It’s the summer. There’s him and me. I’m wearing a short white dress. Hannah and Jessica are there, rubbing their bodies round my ankles and his ankles. And I start to run my fingers through his hair. Very slowly. Then I revert back to reality. Get real, Giles. I’m talking to a guy who works for a regional part of a regional part of the railways called John Wayne.

2nd September

7 a.m. Flatmate Karen is still not up yet. Completely scatty, she makes me feel and look organised. I love her for it. It’s some feat to do that. She is nanny to a four-year-old who is being hot-housed by his financial advisor parents. He can speak two other languages fluently. French and pocket money. She gets a taxi to pick her up every morning at six forty-five a.m. The taxi driver knocks on the door. He usually bangs it a few times. She is always asleep. She gets changed, washed, brushed in five minutes. Between the change and wash I tell her I’ve met a man called John Wayne. She laughs very loudly.

‘Does he ride well?’

‘Er, no. He has a girlfriend. And, Karen, I have a boyfriend.’

Door slams. Boyfriend Paul is two years younger than me. Very sensible. Good with money. Attractive. Charming. Everyone likes him. Everyone thinks he is sensible, good with money. Including me. Been going out with him for five years. Not all good, but know I love him, been through a lot with him, and he is a ‘good catch’. Everyone likes him. Except Karen, who thinks he is too straight for me and has something missing and has a dark side. Her most affectionate nickname for him is Flatliner.

‘You need someone with some va-va-voom, Sarah. He’s a non-starter. He’s insecure and controlling. And a potential bully. And you don’t want that.’

My friends also don’t like him much. They thought he was OK in the early years but as he did better at work gradually became an arrogant, boorish, self-serving prat. But I don’t see much of them these days.

My insecure, sensible control-freak Flatliner lives in a two-up, two-down in Chelmsford. I have a two-bedroom flat in an old Victorian house in Brentwood. Largest commuter town in the country. Full of back-office suits wanting to be front-office Ferrari-drivers. I have a flatmate who pays her rent on time and is fun as well as funny and sensitive and has a boyfriend who doesn’t understand her and lives up the road and is in awe of her and threatened by her and treats her badly. And I have a job at the railways as Situation Manager (I recover situations, or cover over situations—whatever is more pertinent to the issue).During the six months I’ve been there, the company has sponsored me to go on three positive thinking, power and assertiveness training courses in wonderful country hotels in the Lake District and New Forest. And I still can’t say no.

So life is sweet. Ish. Boring but sweet. Until I meet John Wayne.

3rd September

I disagree with Karen. My boyfriend is not boring. I met him at his twenty-first birthday party. He was going out with someone called Gillian. I was going out with someone called David. I thought he was cute, had a smooth dark brown voice and had the most amazing long eyelashes. He told me later he also thought I was cute but that I wouldn’t stop talking about David.

I then met him two years later. At Liverpool Street Station. He liked my legs. He saw me from the back. He told his friend he knew me. His friend bet him fifty pounds he didn’t. He came up to me. Introduced himself and won the bet. He also got a date with me.

The date went well. In a local pub, called the Dead Duck, beamed, mid-eighteenth-century, lighting so low you couldn’t see what you were eating or drinking. And it had an unfortunate sewer problem. Despite the stench of sulphur in the pretty beer garden outside, we managed to make each other feel good. He had lovely eyes. The sort you get lost in. An open, honest face. And a wonderful smile. No pretension or artifice other than he worked in the City in a bank and was aware he was surrounded by people who were full of both.

He invited me back to his two-up, two-down in Chelmsford, which he’d just bought with a heavily subsidised mortgage. He asked if I wanted to see his etchings. The charm of it is that he genuinely did want me to see his etchings. Fabulous and imaginative drawings of dragons and horses and knives and outstretched hands, and swords and leopards and weird and wired shapes and images. Some quite disturbing, others quite delicate and poignant. He had a wide and diverse interest in music. A passion for everything from heavy metal to gentle classics. He played the electric guitar very badly. His rendition of Status Quo’s ‘Whatever You Want’ was diabolical but I said he played OK. He spoke eloquently and with sincerity. He made me laugh. He intrigued me. He loved to cook (although not to wash and dry). He was sensitive and interesting and was interested in me as a person. He asked insightful questions. He gave open answers. He didn’t try to impress and smiled knowingly when I did. He didn’t try to kiss me, and I said I would call him some time next week.

He called the next day. I said I was going to Monte Carlo and would he like to come down for the weekend? Other men had asked if they could join me, but I’d said no. But I asked Paul. Instinctively I knew he was the one. The one you know you are going to love. I suggested we have lunch before I left. On the day I was due to fly out. I took the train to London and met him for a lunch. Neither of us touched the food. We just looked at each other. I told him I had to rush home to get my suitcase so I could then come back into London and get on a flight from Heathrow. The madness somehow seemed logical then, and in keeping with the surreal nature of our relationship.

I went. I didn’t hear from him for a week and thought he’d changed his mind. I then received a call.

‘Hi, it’s Paul.’

I had forgotten who Paul was.

‘Er, Paul who?’

‘Have you forgotten me already? Paul O’Brian. Etchings. Brilliant guitar player.’

‘Er, ah, yes. Etchings.’

I remembered. But lots can happen in seven days. Monte Carlo had turned my head in a week. I’d forgotten this unpretentious doe-eyed boy for the bright lights and fast cars of the principality. When I heard his voice I felt he was coming to save me from myself. Almost heaven-sent.

‘I’m driving down tomorrow and should arrive tomorrow evening. Where are you staying?’

I was staying with a ‘friend’. Andreas Banyan. Fifty-five. Wrinkled, rich and worldly. Half-Egyptian. Half-American. Sounds so sleazy, and perhaps it was. I’d met him when I was in Monaco before and he had introduced me to some of the stars who waft in and out of Monte Carlo like feathers at the Pro Am Celebrity Tennis and Golf Tournaments held there annually. He was old enough to be my grandfather and I kept him at arm’s distance because I knew he wanted more than just a smiling companion.

‘Women should be treated like fabulous works of art. They should be put on display and appreciated, and if you can’t appreciate them any more they should be passed on to a collector who knows how to appreciate them.’

He considered himself a collector and his logic made me sick. I wondered how many ingenues had been seduced by the money people. Andreas was surrounded by many other ‘collectors’ who made me aware they would be happy to appreciate me should Andreas ever fail to do so.

Into this den of iniquity arrived Paul in his blue Golf GTI and his Quicksilver shorts. I wasn’t there to greet him, but arrived the next morning and told him I was so pleased to see him. He didn’t know how pleased.

We ate at the same restaurants I’d visited with Andreas, but with Paul they were somehow so much more romantic. Most of the couples who were eating there weren’t looking at each other. They were looking at other couples. What they were wearing—their jewellery, the labels—but never who they were with. We only had eyes for each other. We only talked to each other. We held hands. We kissed in public. We made love in private. We slept very little. Ate very little. Drank very little. Danced a lot.

On Day Two, we both made the decision to leave early. I introduced Andreas to Paul.

Andreas pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, ‘Sarah, he’s only a boy.’

I whispered back, ‘He may look like one, but he’s a man and I love him.’

I didn’t say what I thought, which was, Anyone would look a boy to you. I thought this too cruel. And honest.

We drove back slowly through France. We’d planned to stay in Monaco for a week, so hadn’t booked anything en route, but somehow every hotel we stopped at and asked had a room—only one—left. Admittedly usually at the top of the hotel. And there was never a lift. I spoke the French. Paul carried the suitcases. That was the deal. I got the better end of it, methinks.

In Avignon we stayed for two nights. I danced along the river and we ate breakfast overlooking the medieval city. Mealtimes were spent gazing into each other’s eyes and talking and talking and talking. Complimenting and in turn being complimented. Needing to touch one another—even if it was only by the fingertips. The electricity was there. In Vienne, our hotel was near to the Cathedral. Perhaps too close for some, as the bells rang out on the hour every hour. But it didn’t matter. We didn’t sleep much anyway. In Versailles I danced down the steps of the palace and practised my best Singing in the Rain skit when it poured on us when we took a picnic in the gardens. It didn’t matter. Paul told me he used to row at school and rowed on the lakes in the Versailles grounds. He almost fell in while pushing the boat away from the side. Somehow he didn’t, but it was funny and we both smiled and I was so very happy and in love and he was so very happy and felt loved.

By the time we arrived home we were totally smitten. In love as in not needing food or drink or sleep. Just needing each other. Nauseating bucket stuff. We ate at his favourite restaurant. Well, we didn’t eat. We just stared at each other for five hours. We emptied the restaurant, despite having been the first customers to arrive that day. The waiters got concerned that we didn’t like the food but we said it was fine. So he ate half the steak and I ate two potatoes. New. After our non-lunch, we meandered to the nearby cricket green, sat on the grass, and watched the local teams play abysmally on the sort of day that only exists in Miss Marple films. Sunny, balmy, no dog turds on the grass. Bees that don’t sting but just buzz happily. No mosquitoes to distract from the pleasure of furtive fumblings. No background noise of car radios or road-rage drivers wishing each other dead. Just hours of kissing and being held and holding and being wanted and wanting and being smug and happy, somehow both knowing we’d met the right person, and weren’t we very lucky, and Room with a View was right and I knew how Helena Bonham Carter felt in the last scene.

Most weekends we would spend all Sunday in bed. Antisocial and not good for the back. Occasionally we would venture to our favourite restaurant by the cricket green. Remembering and creating new memories to tell our children. Making love and sleeping and making love. He was a wonderful, caring, considerate, sexy lover. He taught me ways to please and how to please myself and I became consumed in ways of how to please and tease him. Each Sunday we would get up at five p.m. and I would accompany him to his local Catholic church. We would sing hymns and pray for forgiveness for an hour, then return and make love again. Until we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

I didn’t want to see anyone just in case they took me aside and slapped me awake. I didn’t want to break the spell and perhaps discover it was a dream. A high I couldn’t maintain. I wanted to marry him and have his children and live happily ever after. And this had never been my dream before. I had never met anyone I would want to share an evening with, let alone a lifetime. But this man was good and kind and sexy and honest and made me feel special and told me I made him feel special. Neither of us was stupid. I had split from boyfriend, David, who’d kept disappearing off to Saudi Arabia to ‘find himself’ in an endless desert and strangely always returned a few months later more lost than ever. He had eventually moved out of our flat to Notting Hill, where everyone, it appeared, was as lost and nutty as he was.

Paul had just split from his girlfriend, Gillian, who was still ‘hanging around’. He told me it wasn’t until he met me that he realised how unhappy he was with her. He said he’d continued to see her, but only for sex. Occasionally Paul would say something that would make me stop and think, That’s cruel or mean, but there were so many pluses, what of the negatives? Of the little snide comments about past girlfriends? How they had hurt him and weren’t quite up to his standards—which were high. I felt sorry for her. This pre-Sarah girlfriend called Gillian. She would stalk the house occasionally and ask to see him. He once returned to the house two hours later than he’d said. I’d cooked something simple. Steak. So it was about two hours overdone. And he explained that he had seen Gillian and that she had been very upset and wanted him back but that he had told her it was all over. That he had been very calm about it. That she had looked dreadful. Her nails were bitten and she had started to smoke, but he had moved on. This wasn’t for him. He then kissed me, told me he loved me, and allowed me to go down on him. Bless. And he wasn’t hungry—for food—so not to worry about the steak.

Sometimes Paul came out with lines—as in well-rehearsed verging on the corny ‘I need space/must move on’ variety. I felt somehow he had probably told Gillian the same story when he had dumped his previous girlfriend for her. I occasionally got the feeling he used the same lines, because they came out as sing-song. I knew this because most men I knew did it and most women I knew did it. But, hey, I was guilty of that too. And I felt he was genuine when he looked into my eyes and said he loved me and called me his angel and little pixie and that I was wonderful. And I thought he was wonderful and special because he loved me. And deep down I didn’t want to believe him. And I did.

We got on to the subject of past boy and girlfriends, as you do. And shouldn’t.

Paul—‘What were yours like?’

Sarah—‘I had one, really. David. Who kept buggering off to Saudi Arabia to find himself in the desert and always managed to find his way back home after a few months. But that was it. How about you?’

Paul—‘Well, before Gillian there was Eve, and before that there was Isabel and a girl called Tracy, but she didn’t count, really. I was embarrassed to be seen with her. I used her a bit. I liked Eve. She was short and plump. Sort of like a moped. Fun to ride but not for best. Gillian, who you know of—well, I just got tired of her coz she moaned a lot in the end and wanted to get married and I didn’t want that. And she did. Very mature for her age she was. So was Eve. Isabel was sort of a school romance. You’re breaking my criteria, really. You don’t have a chest, you’re not shorter than me—or really short, which is what I usually go for, for some reason, and you’re not the mature type.’

Sarah—‘Sounds as though you want someone to look up to you and want to fuck your mother.’

Think he was a bit shocked by me being so up-front, but, hey, I’d met the type before. In fact, methinks that most of the men I had met were hunting for their mums. They said they wanted independent-minded feisty women but bottom line is they didn’t. Not really. Problem with independent feisty women is that usually they also like their own space, want to move on and are capable of doing so—and don’t want to do anyone’s cooking, cleaning, ironing, washing. At a push, only their own.

Paul—‘No, I’m not looking to marry my mother. But you have broken the criteria. Most men have a wish-list. Just depends when they decide to break it. Sometimes it’s tried and tested. Sometimes it evolves. Mark, my brother, always goes for townies. Girls who work in London, good job, must be beautiful and have a brain and humour and conversation. Do you have a wish-list of things to look for in a man?’

Sarah—‘Kind, loving, intelligent, funny, nice hands, nice eyes, nice hair, over six foot. Handsome, if possible. Good dancer.’

Paul—‘Well, I’m most of those things. Just six foot, though. And I think you can ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you I’m not a cruel person. As for the rest. You decide. I like a woman with her own mind.’

Sarah—‘Really? Most men I know say that, but what they really mean is that as long as their opinions are the same as theirs, they’re welcome to have an opinion. If they’re not, well, they might as well not have one.’ Paul—‘I’m not like that.’

We’ll see, I thought. But as the weeks rolled on he proved himself to be kind and considerate and generous and loving, and occasionally boorish but a very good dancer and very sexy—in and out of bed. I remember him looking at me one evening and calling me his angel with tears in his eyes and me thinking, Hey, I would love to be your angel. Just yours. Just the two of us. As he would say to me, ‘Two of us against the world.’ I never really got that bit. I never thought the world was against me. I always felt I had to make it work for me. Somehow I had to work with this gritty, nasty world rather than against it. I had to be kind to it, and it would be kind to me. But Paul had other qualities which more than made up for some of his reasoning.

For a start, he was romantic without trying. He never sent Valentine cards. Which miffed me as friends received bouquets and dinners at the Ivy or Samling in Windermere. Instead, on one February fourteenth, he wrote a card …

Dear Sarah

As you know, I don’t believe in celebrating Valentine’s Day. It always seems a pity that people need something as commercialised as VD to show each other they need each other. However, it would appear that you feel you need reminding.

Well, let me take this opportunity to make sure you realise that you are the most important thing in my life. You cause such extremes of emotion. I love you so much sometimes I need to come up to the surface to breathe before I can dive again to be surrounded by your love.

My feelings for you go beyond just affection. I think about everything that affects you. Sometimes you catch me just staring at you—it’s as though I don’t even have to touch you. Just looking at you I feel our love. You are the only person I have ever met who in the same minute can drag me to the edge of despair and desperation and as I’m about to fall grab me and hold me close. You should always know that even when I’m not with you you are in my thoughts and that I can’t experience love unless I’m in your presence, because only then do you release my heart from the prison you’ve built for it, to let me really feel what love is.

You must never doubt me—because through all that has happened to us in the last two and a half years I’ve never really doubted you.

Together, Sarah, we will be something very special. Like everything that’s good in life it has to be worth waiting for. Trust in me as I’ve trusted you. Let me into your world as I’ve let you into my heart. Words can only say so much. Just believe.

Love, your Paul. xxxxx

I desperately wanted to believe. At the beginning we would write notes to each other—at least three a week. My feelings would inspire poetry. Sounds naff, but I sent love poems and letters. Do people do that any more? The old–fashioned way. Handwritten in cards. I was always getting the length wrong and having to use the back cover to complete my work. E-mail and text messaging are so deletable and lazy and quick. Not as clever. Writing takes longer. Means more. Mistakes, smudged by tears, crossings-out and all.

To Paul …

Your name means strength and valour You come from noble stock You’ll travel like your father To find what others mock

You’re a leader and a driver Leaving passengers behind You act when others wonder How quickly works your mind

You understand the Game of Life As though you’ve played it all before Aching as each new morning breaks To improve upon your score

You have few faults in my eyes But my eyes are blind to see All the faults and contradictions That you often find in me.

I’ve never felt this hurt before I’ve never known this joy Echoing through my heart and mind Becoming as fragile as a toy.

Love Sarah xxx

First Christmas I wanted to spend with him. But his father didn’t think it right.

‘You haven’t known this girl long.’

‘I’ve known her for four months.’

‘Not long enough. Just our family should be here, Paul. Can’t she go with her own family?’

‘She doesn’t want to.’

I didn’t want to. Mum was driving me nuts. So I didn’t spend Christmas Day with my love. I spent it with my ex. With David.

David had returned from one of his Saudi I-will-find–my-focus trips, to discover his long-suffering girlfriend had found a focus of her own and he wasn’t in it. After taking all his furniture from the flat we’d shared (i.e. three-quarters of it) when I was away and leaving me with minimalist decor—which had up sides (less to clean and I didn’t like his stuff anyway)—he calmed down. Realised he was a prat. And asked to see me. To have dinner. I declined. But he called after Paul told me we wouldn’t be spending Christmas together. I said I was fine. David said I couldn’t spend it by myself. He said he’d take me out to dinner.

He took me to Paris. By Eurostar. First Class. Montmartre and Sacre Coeur on Christmas Eve and top of Eiffel Tower on Christmas Day. At the top he proposed.

David—‘Sarah, I have something to ask you.’

Sarah—‘What?’

David—taking little black box from his pocket—‘Will you …?’

Sarah—realising what little black box contained and thinking on feet—‘Stop. No. Don’t. I’m not right for you. You know I’m not.’

David—looking shocked and dejected—‘I understand.’ (He didn’t)

Long hug. Saying nothing. Him in tears. Me trying to be.

I said no. I said I was saving him from himself and myself and that in years to come he would thank me. He looked crestfallen, but I was adamant. Plus I didn’t love him. Not that way. We ate at the restaurant in Gare de Lyon. Ornate and grand and value for money—a rare combination. We then returned home, still friends. He dropped me at the bottom of Paul’s parents’ road. I walked up to be greeted by Paul and family as though I was one of them. Although obviously not on Christmas Day.

Looking back, my relationship with Paul in those first years was innocent and special and wonderful and naïve and I wish it could have lasted for ever. But, like the ink on the cards and letters, over time it faded leaving only the impression of happiness rather than the reality of it.

I keep a box of the letters and cards. They stopped about the fourth year. The last note I wrote was a contract of love. I’d applied to so many jobs over the years, I thought I could work the format. A request for a full-time position in his life.

Dear Mr O’Brian

RE: POSITION AS LIVE-IN SPOUSE

I’m writing to express my interest in the position of best friend, lover, occasional domestic, gardener, sexual arouser, hostess, intelligent wit and sleeping partner to Mr Paul O’Brian. My relevant experience and learning points to date include:

• How to balance precariously on knees without using hands, and bending over at an angle. The only thing stopping me from toppling over is will-power.

• How to prove Paul wrong about women drivers.

• How to prove Paul wrong.

• How to sexually arouse myself.

• How to sexually arouse myself keeping Paul guessing as to whether I know he’s watching me.

• How to ring the same person over three times a day, having just seen them in the morning and about to see them that night, and still feel you miss the sound of their voice.

• How lucky I am to be as supple as I am.

• How lucky Paul is to have someone who is as supple as I am.

• How cuddles take on a new dimension when you’re with someone you love.

• How everything takes on a new dimension when you’re with someone you love.

• How I hate electric guitars and never knew it.

• How I must never speak after ten o’clock when I’m in bed with a very tired man who has been working hard all day and needs his rest, unless he’s feeling randy, in which case I’ll have my mouth full anyway.

• How I have a cute arse.

• How Paul thinks I have a cute arse.

• How other people probably think I have a cute arse but Paul won’t tell me.

• How although Paul likes my chest he would like it to be bigger.

• How although I like my chest—I would like it to be bigger.

• How I can watch TV, play records and have a meaningful conversation at the same time.

• How I have a meaningful relationship with little black dresses.

• How having fun and being loyal are not incompatible.

• How I love you …

I would be grateful if you would consider my application in your loyal and gentle care, and hope this temporary position will one day evolve into a permanent one.

Yours sincerely …

See. Sounds naff. But at the time, writing it, it was funny and wonderful and just right. I would keep the letters and cards in a little red box and occasionally look through it on quiet Sunday afternoons if Paul was out with friends. Reading it back, somehow it made me feel just sad and very lonely.

The letters and poems and cards grew less frequent as the months progressed, until the only cards sent were for birthday and Christmas. And, on the fifth year, he sent a Valentine.

Five years in, the romance had faded. We’d forgotten to respect each other and do what agony aunts enthusiastically call ‘working at it’. There was almost a laziness in his attitude towards me. We both, perhaps arrogantly, thought that relationships if they were meant to be didn’t need to be worked at. The agony pages were for other couples who had problems. We didn’t. We were intelligent and sensitive and in tune with our emotions and other people’s.

Well, we did have some problems. I had been through an abortion after going out for nine months, to which he had agreed and paid for. We had planned a long weekend in Suffolk at the Angel Hotel. I had forgotten to take the Pill. Well, I had taken it, but I’d been ill and it hadn’t worked. Obviously, because two months later I’d discovered I was pregnant. I didn’t know if I should tell him. Hindsight is such a wonderful thing, don’t you think? In hindsight I wouldn’t have told him. In hindsight I wouldn’t have told him a lot of things. But I didn’t have the benefit of that, so I told him.

‘Paul. I’m pregnant.’

‘Is it mine?’

‘Of course it’s yours.’

I didn’t expect that question.

He came over to me and hugged me. I think he wanted to be hugged more than hug. I think he was dazed.

Then, ‘What do you want to do?’

‘I don’t think we should have the child. We love each other but we’ve only been going out for nine months. It’s too soon. We want to do so much. Achieve so much. I think if I had the child you would resent me and it and I would resent you and it. That’s not fair on either of us or the child. Will you tell your parents?’

Paul—‘No, of course not. They’re Catholics. They don’t even know you’re living with me, or we’re having sex. This would break their hearts. They wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t get it. Couldn’t comprehend it. So it’s not worth going there, Sarah. Will you tell your parents?’

I was bemused by the fact he thought his parents were naïve enough not to realise we were sleeping with each other, but, hey, like so many things Paul increasingly said, let it pass for now.

Sarah—‘No. Likewise. They’re not interested. They have their life to lead. They are busy and my mother doesn’t want to know what will or could hurt her. So I tell her nothing. My dad’s not well. He thinks of me as his little girl. I don’t want to spoil the illusion. My mum wouldn’t forgive me if I did.’

Paul—‘So we tell no one?’

Sarah—‘We tell no one.’

One week later. Local clinic. Paul drove. Seven a.m. No traffic on the M25. Leafy lanes. Pre-warned there might be demonstrators outside. Anti-abortion. There weren’t. It would take a morning. I could work the next day. They were very kind. Efficient. At twenty-five I was the oldest in a ward of ten women. It was quick. Physically and emotionally numbing. Offered Rich Tea biscuits and sweet tea when I woke from the deepest sleep. Feeling relieved and relief. The other women in the ward were still sleeping. One was awake. She was crying. She’d had a local anaesthetic and she told me she’d seen the baby.

‘I saw the baby. It looked like a proper little baby. I didn’t think it would look like a baby, but you could tell. You could tell it was a baby when it came out. I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect something like that. I expected a little cell and I don’t think I would have had a local if I’d known. I don’t think I would. I don’t think I could go through that again.

That will haunt me, that will. That will haunt me. Wish I hadn’t seen it. Wish I hadn’t.’

I hadn’t seen the baby. I hadn’t seen what had come out of me at twelve weeks. I had been asleep. And I closed my mind to it and just thought it was a joint decision and something that both of us, Paul and I, had decided together and agreed upon. And that it was a dreadful decision to make, but it was the most practical decision, and it would have been unfair on Paul who was just starting out on his career and me who was trying to start one. And there would be plenty of time to have children and we loved each other so it wasn’t a case of that. And we loved each other. And we loved each other. I kept saying that over and over in my head because it made me feel better. Not good. Just better. Reassured.

And I cried, just a little bit.

We drove home in silence. Two hours of it. He cried and went to Confession. Alone, I stayed in the two-up and two-down in Chelmsford and made tea. My mother phoned on the mobile to ask how I was, but really to tell me what she had been doing with Dad that weekend. She asked me if I was OK. I said fine and that I was. She didn’t wait for me to finish and said she had so much to do and had to look after my dad and there was a dinner party they had to go to and she had to get ready and get my dad ready. And she did. I didn’t tell my mother. She was not the sort to listen or offer calming advice. She was the sort to scream and consider every bad thing that happened to me an affront to her ability as a mother, and every good thing something she could either credit to her own influence or, in some cases, feel jealous that she hadn’t done herself. In her youth. Even the good things that happened in my life I think potentially hurt her. I would often think, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her and she can’t hurt me by reacting to things the way she does. Pity. I would have liked a mum. I spent my life in search of surrogate mums.

Paul returned from Confession an hour later, having confessed nothing.

Paul—‘I couldn’t tell the priest anything. I felt ashamed.’

Sarah—‘Isn’t that what the confessional is for? To relieve the guilt? To relieve the sin?’

Paul—‘You’re not Catholic. You don’t understand. Don’t even try to understand what I’m going through. Don’t talk about it any more. Don’t mention it. Ever.’

Paul didn’t tell anyone. I told my friend Helen and my friend Steve. Helen, an old schoolfriend, had had an abortion herself and was wise beyond her years. Steve was matter-of-fact, straight and honest, and I wanted and needed a man’s perspective. Paul didn’t want to talk about his perspective. So we didn’t talk about it again. The abortion was never mentioned. The baby was never mentioned. The weekend in Suffolk was never mentioned. It was a black hole of time we lost. And into it went our innocence.

I locked it away. We weren’t as intimate. We got up at ten a.m. on Sunday mornings and always met friends and had lunch out. Paul stopped going to church.

As an Irish Catholic, he had felt an impact on him greater than he or I could have imagined. The relationship strained under the weight of guilt and reprehension.

Paul—‘You should have told me you weren’t on the Pill.’

Sarah—‘I was on the Pill. I was just unwell and it obviously didn’t work.’

Paul—‘The Pill always works. Now I’ve got to live with it as well.’

Sarah—‘Are you honestly telling me you wouldn’t have had sex with me that weekend if I’d told you there was a chance the Pill might not work? It was a lovely weekend and I didn’t want to spoil it.’

Paul—‘Well, you did, didn’t you?’

Sarah—‘It was a shared responsibility.’

Paul—‘You didn’t give me the option to share it.’

Sarah—‘I didn’t think there was danger.’

Paul—‘You knew there might be.’

Sarah—‘You’ve slept with girls who weren’t on the Pill before.’

Paul—‘That was different.’

Sarah—‘How different?’

Paul—‘I knew about the risk and I took it. I was given no option here.’

Sarah—‘That’s not fair, Paul. Give me a break.’

Paul—‘Why should I? You didn’t give me one.’

Tears. Both of us.

Within the next six months the sex died. I quietly mourned. In silent desperation I would get up and go to work and come back home and go for a workout and organise birthday parties and Christmas drinks and dinner parties and be the devoted girlfriend and feel very lonely. And I knew he felt lonely too but I couldn’t reach him any more and somehow he didn’t want to be told I loved him any more. I loved this man in a spiritual as well as emotional sense. Paul had only a single bed, and we would snuggle up, spoon-like, so close all night. Somehow we managed to sleep and it was fine. We would ring and text each other every day. E-mails were long awaited.

Paul—message received Thanks for a lovely evening. I love spending time with you. I wish we could have spent more time together but there will be other times I know. xx

Sarah—sent You are a wonderful human being. Think of me in lacy black knickers. Nothing else. That’s how I’ll be when you meet me at the door 6pm tonight. Maybe … xx

After dinners out or the cinema the last message would always read something like:

Paul—message received Night beautiful. You are very special to me. Thanx for putting the sun into my summer. And I wish you were here with me in my bed. Lots of love. xx

After work lunches or meetings he would always remember and send:

Paul—message received Hi gorgeous one. Hope lunch went well. Wish I’d been there. You are fabulous. Thinking of u. xxx

We’d go to weddings and listen to the vows. I never caught the bouquet, but friends would always ask in their subtle-as-a-brick sort of way ‘So, when are you two getting married?’ It was a naff cliché and we both ignored it, but as years progressed it started to bug. Breeding insecurity and resentment and cutting communication of how I felt, because I knew it might open the wounds of the abortion again. Which he never talked about. Even when others opened a conversation at one of the many dinner parties we went to and were talked at.

He had been my white knight in his Golf GTI. He had helped me to gain confidence about my body and sexuality. And then he had taken it away. He didn’t feel it was right any more and so we didn’t have sex any more. We hugged naked. We occasionally, in drunken stupors, made love or had sex, but he was always slightly irritable in the morning—as though I had made him to do it against his will. I had tempted him against his better self.

We started to organise dinner parties. To meet his friends and acquaintances. Some of whom initially talked about Gillian a lot, but who eventually realised that Sarah existed too and she was a person in her own right. Paul told me he loved me every day. He e-mailed and texted and called and wrote and every day I felt loved. But not physically loved. Not touched. Which doesn’t matter. Sex isn’t everything. But when you don’t have it at all, it gradually becomes everything. And he hugged me a lot. But it wasn’t like the first nine months. I’d got the chastity belt without even realising it was on.

So by September I was feeling a bit tired of a no sex, no going anywhere relationship—despite the fact I still deeply loved him. I was happy in my little world.

Meeting Paul for lunch today. Our favourite. The Punch Bowl. Posh country restaurant with fine wines. I remember Paul took me here first when we started going out. Arrived at twelve midday. Stayed until six p.m. in the evening. Romantic. Then we walked to the cricket ground and watched them play. Perfect. Fell in love with him.

Five years going out with each other. Perhaps he will propose. Perhaps he will go down on bended knee at the restaurant where we went on our return from that French trip. Perhaps it will be a birthday—his or mine—or perhaps a Christmas or perhaps a holiday overlooking a golden sunset or perhaps at dusk when music is playing in the background. Or perhaps at a concert while the music is live and throbbing. I’ve gradually forgotten to wonder any more. Forgotten to think that maybe this month he will ask me. I didn’t want to ask him. Not even in a Leap Year. Still thought that naff.

Anyway, I knew I would be with him for a very long

time. Perhaps not a lifetime. But still for a long time. But not quite like this.

We arrived at twelve midday. We left at two p.m. Food was good. Fine wines still fine. Conversation still OK. Ish. But less room for gaps somehow.

Sarah—‘How are you, Handsome?’

Paul—‘Very well, Pixie.’

He still called me Pixie. It was an endearing nickname.

I liked it. Felt perhaps when it was in my forties it might not be so appropriate.

‘I will always think of you as my little pixie, Sarah,’ he would say. ‘Even when you’re not little or pixie-like any more.’ Ahhh. Warm gooey feeling inside. Perhaps this was the real thing. Perhaps. Had got fingers burnt before with David, so did I want to do this again?

Paul—‘What would you like to eat? The usual? Melon with Dover sole and new potatoes—right?’

Sarah—‘OK, OK, I know I always have the same thing, but I like it.’

Paul—‘Why don’t you try something new?’

Sarah—‘I have and I don’t like anything else on the menu. We could always go to a different restaurant. And you would think in five years they would have changed the menu a little more than they have. But they tell me it works, so why change it?’

Paul—‘OK.’

Sarah—‘How is work?’

Paul—‘Fine—busy. Love working with Richard. He’s fun and he’s thinking of getting married to Caroline. But she’s a fickle girl; she likes someone else and keeps going back to him.’

Sarah—‘Perhaps it’s not meant to be.’

Paul—‘He’ll win her over, I know.’

Sarah—‘Do you still love me?’

Paul—‘Of course I do. We’ve been through a lot together and I still love you very much. I sometimes sit and think that we could so easily have split at the time of … well, you know … and we didn’t. I love you so much I ache sometimes. I hope you realise that.’

Tears in his eyes.

Sarah—‘I do.’

I didn’t. Tears in my eyes now.

Sarah—‘I love you so much, Paul, but we must try to be kinder to one another. I know that other couples take each other for granted over time and I never want to do that with you. You’re wonderful and I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’

Paul—‘I will always be here for you, Sarah. I will never leave you. I will always love you. You lift my heart to the highest point and yet let me down to the deepest despair sometimes. But I know you are always there for me. Loving me. This is the real thing, Sarah.’

Sarah—‘I know it is.’

He leant across the table and with his forefinger wrote on the palm of my hand I LOVE YOU. I reciprocated. It was something of a little tradition. Even when there had been rows we would always touch hands and somehow everything would be all right. Admittedly we did it less, but it was a sort of innocence that we had managed to salvage through the abortion.

We both wanted to fill silence with something these days. Before it was enough to look at each other in stunned silence, in awe of how lucky we were to have met each other. Today we were more in awe of the fact we were still together.

4th September

A Sunday. Am excited as tomorrow will be seeing or speaking to John again. Have to ask question of him about customer focus. This has put me in a good mood about everything. Am very sweet to Paul. Paul reciprocates and is sweet to me. A master of Latin phrases, Mr O’Brian. Oral pleasure a house speciality.

5th September

I’ve phoned. His PA stops me from getting through. Her name is Medina. I keep wanting to call her Medusa. I visualise snarling snakes emerging from her dandruff-ridden crusty head. Turning people to stone who dare to ask her the time of day. She sounds as though she is in dire need of oral pleasure.

‘Who is this, please?’

‘Sarah Giles.’

‘Does Mr Wayne know what it’s about?’

‘Yes.’

‘Could you tell me what it’s about?’

‘No. It’s a bit complicated.’

‘I’m afraid Mr Wayne is very busy and can’t speak to anyone.’

‘It won’t take long.’

‘Then you can tell me, can’t you, dear.’

(Don’t you ‘dear’ me, you sexually frustrated and probably bearded and moustached Medina-Medusa person.)

‘OK. I want to know what his views are on the customer focus issue raised in the management document issued by Central Office last year and if he could provide me with a quote as I am now writing a report and it needs to be in by two p.m. this afternoon. OK?’

‘I will see if he is free.’

Big sigh.

Muzak. Barry Manilow singing ‘Could it be Magic’.

‘He will speak to you.’

Click.

Silence.

‘Er, hello?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that John Wayne?’

‘Yes. My time is precious. You need a quote. Do you have pen and paper ready?’

‘Yes. Do you know what I’m going to ask?’

‘Medina has told me.’

‘Then fire away.’

‘I have no views on it. Quote, unquote. Is that OK?’

‘Yes. I mean no. I want a quote from you. You must have an opinion on this. You have an opinion on everything else. Cats, English beer, women’s legs. Why not customer focus, which is your speciality?’

‘On that particular paper I have no comment and no opinion. Is that all Ms Giles?’

‘Well, if you can’t give me a comment on this, then who can?’

‘No one.’

‘Great. Well thanks for, er, nothing.’

‘My pleasure, Ms Giles. And thank you for an interesting lunch last week. Are you still wearing those culottes?’

I was. I lied.

‘No.’

‘Good. They looked disgusting on you. You should burn them.’

Click.

‘Rude arrogant bastard.’

‘Ms Giles?’

‘What—er—?’

‘Mr Wayne has handed you back to me. He has suggested I arrange another lunch with you as you don’t seem to understand the issues revolving around customer focus.’ Medina sounded less sexually frustrated.

More amused this time. She had obviously heard what I thought of her boss.

‘Er. Right.’

‘He can do a week on Wednesday. I will book Santini’s. Is that OK with you?’

‘Where is Santini’s?’

‘By Victoria Station. One o’clock. It’s smart.’

‘Fine.’

‘Fine.’

Click.

I’m wearing those culottes again. Screw him. 14th September

I am meeting John Wayne today for lunch in Santini’s. And, no, not wearing the culottes. And I’ve binned them. They were old anyway. Instead I’m wearing a dress. Sort of white, empire line and just above the knee and feminine. Not see–through. Just nice. Virginal. I feel virginal these days. Neat pumps. I look like a potential for the Sound of Music.

I arrive late. Ten minutes past one.

‘You are late, Ms Giles.’

Dark, brooding, rude bastard scowls at me.

I make no excuse. It seems a bit churlish to blame the trains when I actually work for the railway at the moment.

We are shown to our table. Middle of the room. Harsh, unforgiving light. We order sole. And eat in silence. I start conversation.

‘So, do you think Rogerson Railways will improve its customer service?’ I ask.

Stares into my eyes.

‘Who gives a fuck?’

Silence then smile (God, it makes me nervous when he does that).

‘No, really. I think it will get better but it will take time and money, which the government are not prepared to give at the moment. Why are you wearing a bra?’

Somehow the sentences seemed a little incongruous together, and I wasn’t quite sure whether to comment on the first bit or answer the second. So I did both.

‘Do you think the funding structure will change with the new government and do you think privatisation will work? And this dress is slightly see-through and I didn’t want you to see my nipples.’

‘I don’t think the funding structure will change within this government or the next. The petrol and car industry subsidise government coffers so heavily, and the catch-22 is unless the service improves customers will not use public transport over private transport. It’s a pity I can’t see your nipples. I think that would make you look quite sexy.’

I stare straight back into his eyes, which are now boring into me.

‘How do you know all this about the government subsidy and the link with the car industry? Is it common knowledge? Surely there must be some sort of policing committee to stop this from happening or continuing to happen? Travelling by air is still the quickest and easiest way to get around the world. And, yes, it would look sexy, but I don’t want to look sexy today. I want to look professional and have a conversation about airlines rather than my nipples. OK?’

‘I know about the subsidy because we work closely with local government and we get told, like many journalists do—‘ (pointed look here) ‘—off the record about back-handers. What we need to do in the railway is change the culture so that we can better manage the limited funding we have and then we can progress from there. And I like talking about your nipples. Interesting. Are they very responsive to touch? And you have nice legs, Ms Giles. The dress allows me to see that you have very long legs. Long calves. Long thighs.’

John Wayne starts to salivate, which puts me off my sole. I get up, taking my legs and nipples with me to the Ladies’. I can feel his eyes following me, but he doesn’t.

In the Ladies’ I sit on the loo, pontificating whether I should allow him to kiss me. Or pat my bottom. Or hug me goodbye. Of course, he may not want or offer to do any of these things. And, hey, Sarah, you have a boyfriend, right! Yes, yes. Out of mind. Get John Wayne out of your head. Ten minutes later and no pee. I leave the Ladies’ and go back to the table. John is coming towards me.

‘I was going to send out a search party. Thought you’d flushed yourself down the loo. You OK?’

‘Me OK.’

‘Good.’

He escorted me back to the table, now soleless. And asked if I wanted dessert.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Coffee?’

‘That would be nice.’

Two hours, two liqueurs, two coffees and wafer-thin mints later, I was beginning to relax in his company. As we sat at the table, he started very slowly to stroke my wrists. The inside of my wrists. Very gently with his fingertips and then with the back of his hand. It made me feel quite dizzy.

‘Why are you doing that?’ I asked him, knowing full well why he was doing that.

‘Why not?’

Why not, indeed?

‘When you were in the loo, it took me back to when I was a child. Do you know that if you prevent yourself from going for a pee for long enough you might orgasm?’

‘I thought I would just wet myself, or worse get severe stomach cramps.’ (God, this guy is weird.)

‘No, it’s true.’

‘Did you read that anywhere?’

‘No, one of my girlfriends told me this is what happens. It was always very exciting having sex with her when she was dying to go to the loo. She would have the most amazing orgasms.’

‘I presume you weren’t giving her oral sex at the time? Would be a bit messy, what?’

John smiled. (Ughh).’Yes, I suppose so. But keep that in mind next time you go to the loo. Hold on and you never know—you may relieve yourself in more ways than you think.’

This guy was certainly different, and entertaining in a very unexpected way.

‘Tell me about your boyfriend, Sarah.’

‘I told you. He works in a bank. He is a trader. His name is Paul. I love him to bits.’

‘Why aren’t you married?’

‘He hasn’t asked me.’

‘Why don’t you ask him?’

‘I don’t believe in the woman asking the man.’

‘Not even in a Leap Year?’

‘No. Are you still with Amanda?’ (Miss Piggy cropped up in my mind.)

‘Yes. But she may be moving out. She was married before she met me. For a month. She realised on her wedding day she’d done the wrong thing. She was brave to do what she did. I met her on a management training course in the New Forest. She thought I was interesting and asked if I could take a walk with her round the grounds after dinner one evening. I did. She seduced me.’ (Yeah, right.) ‘She told me about her trick with chocolate cake. She said she could smear it all over her chest and I could lick it off her. I’m rather partial to chocolate cake so I tried that evening. Very good it was, too.’

All the while John talked about his chocolate-coated Miss Piggy he continued to stroke my wrists. Occasionally reaching up my forearm to the inside of my elbow. It was as though he was pretending my arm was my leg. That he was playing with the ankle and gently making his way up the calf. Then stopping, and gently pushing to go even further. I was so pleased I was wearing a bra. My nipples have a life of their own.

He continued …

‘You see, Sarah, I went into the railway because after leaving university I trained as a research chemist, but there weren’t many women in that job. Or not that I found attractive. I joined the rail industry, because I considered myself on the fast track in life—‘ (he smirks; I don’t) ‘—because I liked the challenge it presented and also because I thought you’d find more women working in the industry.’

I must admit, I found this argument totally unbelievable and told him so.

‘I thought you would have found other industries with more women in them. Advertising or marketing, for example. Far more women, and attractive ones. Or PR. That industry is full of women who give good head as well as PR … I’m told.’

He smiled.

‘I know. They do. I’ve met quite a few.’

He pays the bill. Scowls at the cost. But he chose the restaurant—not me. I thank him.

‘Thank you for a lovely lunch.’

‘My pleasure.’

He walks and talks me to the station.

‘I came here with a management consultant last week. Her name was Stephanie. She was very beautiful, soon to be engaged and she told me she was quite fixated by me. She pushed me into that alcove over there—‘ (he points at alcove in wall of station) ‘—and ripped my shirt. I had to go back home to Amanda and explain.’

I didn’t quite know if he meant to tell me this because a) he wanted me to do it to him—and wanted to put the idea in my head; b) he didn’t want me to do it, just in case I’d considered doing it, as Amanda might understand once but not twice in a fortnight; or c) he liked Stephanie and she was going to be Amanda’s replacement after the chocolate cake fetish had turned mushy.

I said … ‘Oh.’

Unimpressed by my lack of response and clever riposte, he said he would see me to Liverpool Street Station, to make sure I was safe. I said I would be fine.

‘No, I’ll make sure you’re OK.’

And that’s what he did. Made sure I was OK till Liverpool Street Station. Ten stops Circle Line. Standing up all the way. No conversation. Just lots of staring. Mostly at my legs and then into my eyes. No smile, laugh or sign of light. No wrist or calf or ankle-stroking. Nothing. Very peculiar end to a very peculiar lunch with a very peculiar, sexy, ravishable dark prince.

20th September

I’m bored. I have done nothing to report about. Nothing to recover from. John Wayne has not been in my life. Touched my heart or my wrists. Every time I go to the toilet I think about him. And he was right about the pee thing. I contact his office and get Medina, who says he’s gone away for a fortnight with his girlfriend Amanda. I tell her to tell him he was right about the ‘pee thing’. I tell her John will understand. She huffs that she’s sure he will. I try to find out where they’ve gone. Some hotel in the middle of nowhere with a four-poster bed and an en suite bathroom with a bath for two and a shower for two. Probably. I wonder if he’s tickling her wrists as I’m writing my appraisal on why Rogerson Railways fails to communicate with its customers while disruption occurs. I wonder if he’s eating chocolate cake off her voluptuous breasts. I wonder if it’s chocolate with or without milk, if it’s home-made or from Marks & Spencer. I wonder if he’s drinking English beer or the crap foreign muck and if he’s eating sole in the evening and thinking ever so briefly about me, or about Stephanie, who tore his shirt.

30th September

‘Hello. This is John Wayne.’

Unexpected voice. Unexpected pleasure first thing on a Friday morning. Indian Summer of a morning and John Wayne calling me. Not Medina saying John is on the phone. He is actually calling me direct. ‘I wanted to know how you were.’ ‘I’m fine. Did you have a good holiday with Amanda? Not too much chocolate cake, I hope? Or ripped shirts? Or foreign muck to drink?’

‘It was fine. Amanda is definitely moving out. I’ve suggested she moves out. She needs her own place. She moved into my cottage just as an interim measure. She needs to find her own space. I’ve told her as much. I got your message from Medina.’ ‘What message?’ I’d forgotten.

‘About the pee. Good to hear it worked. Hope you’ve been practising. I find it quite exciting, the thought of you in the bathroom now, Ms Giles.’

‘Whatever turns you on, Mr Wayne.’ Silence.

‘Well, I’m at the Crime Prevention conference in November, which I believe you’re organising. So look forward to seeing you there.’

‘You too.’

‘Goodbye, then.’

‘Goodbye.’

Click.

What a weird conversation. Started so well. So promising. Sort of sexual innuendo. Literal toilet humour and then nothing. Just a goodbye, and a tease about his girlfriend moving out. The Miss Piggy I’ve yet to meet. Perhaps Stephanie will be the replacement. Anyway, girl, focus on your man. Your Paul. Your Rock. Leave the chocolate cake to someone else …

OCTOBER

ACTION LIST

Enjoy work.

Go to gym four times a week. Be able to do the box splits.

Try out new kick-boxing class.

Beat crap out of bitchy girls in office.

Try to seduce Paul into having sex with me.

Drink eight glasses of water a day. GMTV suggested this helps eyes shine.

Eat less low-calorie chocolate drink.

Take vitamin pills. Despite making pee very yellow.

TEXT SEX

1st October

My mobile phone is an extension of my right hand. It is almost a spiritual thing. It is another intrinsic sense. To smell, to touch, to see, to hear and to text message. I have discovered the power of text messaging. It was designed for me. Short and sharp and to the point. Ability to spell totally irrelevant. In fact, lousy spelling adds a certain charm. You can be as smutty as you like. It doesn’t matter. You can say you meant to send it to someone else. That is, of course, if it doesn’t continue to happen after repeated warnings.

Paul works in an office of men. Their bodies are full of testosterone. Their egos are huge and wallets are full. These testosterone-filled money bags are surrounded by women who work there with one goal in mind. To bag these money bags. Ideally by getting them in the sack and getting them to realise that they can’t live without them. These girls are pros. They should work on the streets (albeit SW1 streets), and some of them (I am told) have done so. Anyway, out of every ten who enter the trading room, one usually gets her man. Or someone else’s. Wedding rings are totally irrelevant.

Paul is different. He wears no ring (we’re not engaged), but he’s faithful and loves me. He goes to lap-dance joints because his brokers pay for it, but he doesn’t enjoy it. He tells me so himself. Like a dog, really.

He texts me every morning:

I’ve arrived safely.

I love you.

Hi gorgeous, big confident kiss.

I wish I was still in bed with you.

At Christmas:

I’ve had my first mince pie. I wish you were in my bed.

Miss you loads. Looking forward to seeing you this weekend.

That sort of thing.

Then I started to get:

I wish my cock was in your mouth. It’s so hard at the moment. I loved you in those jeans last night.

Linked:

1/3

What a shame I am not there to ease your horny state. I could take off your knickers lift off your top. Kiss your lips then your nipples. Touch you with …

2/3

my finger then my tongue. Keep licking until you nearly come then turn you over and put my dick in your wetness pulling you onto me with my hands on your …

3/3

hips so I am as deep as possible.

Linked:

1/2

Every inch of my body is gagging for you. I loved you in those jeans last night. I wanted to rip them off you and come all over your …

2/2

… face.

Sort of slightly different in tone.

I contacted him to find out that, no, these messages had not come from him but a salesman called Pierce, who was a close friend of his and was into bondage in a big way, was thirty-eight, on his third wife, and had at least four sex kittens on the go—all of whom worked (loose term) in the Square Mile as secretaries and salespeople, and all of whom liked to be ‘fucked up the arse’ and tied up. Nice.

The aforementioned Pierce was also a Harvard Graduate, played piano, guitar and saxophone and had a wonderful singing voice, lovely home in the country (used to be a pub, now converted with taste and money—the two are not synonymous). Background and appearances can be deceptive.

I contacted Pierce. First of all by text reply, after one particularly explicit ‘cock-sucking butt-wrenching, I know you’d enjoy being fucked up the backside really’ message. And then by phone.

‘Hi, Pierce. I’m Paul’s girlfriend. I think you keep sending me messages meant for someone else. Could you please delete my number from your phone as I don’t want to get them any more? Have a nice day.’

‘I’m so sorry, Sarah. Big apologies. Just that one of the kittens is also called Sarah. I’ll change her name.’

‘Thanks, Pierce.’

2nd October

Seven a.m. Beep on the phone. Message waiting.

I’ve got a real hard-on. It’s really hard and I’m imagining you putting your lips around it and sucking it really hard and I’m aching to get my hands on your big tits.

Definitely not Paul.

I rang the number.

‘Pierce?’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Sarah, Paul’s girlfriend. You sent me another one of your “fucking” messages. Don’t do it again or I will tell Paul and he’ll be furious. OK?’

‘OK. Very sorry, deeply embarrassed and mortified.’

3rd October

Seven a.m. Beep on the phone. Message waiting.

I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re driving me crazy. I imagine your wetness in my mouth. The thought of your nipples is driving me crazy.

Right. That’s it.

‘Pierce!’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Sarah, Paul’s girlfriend. You sent me one of those messages again.’

‘I didn’t. I’ve sent nothing this morning. You must have got it from someone else. Perhaps Paul.’

‘Doesn’t sound like Paul.’

‘Ring the number back.’

‘Er. Well, sorry, Pierce for bothering you.’

‘That’s OK. Bye.’

Click.

I looked at the text message. Didn’t sound like Paul. And now I looked at it again it had a little (though not much) more finesse than Pierce’s drool.

I called.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello? Who is this?’

‘John Wayne. Who is this?’

Heart stopped. Then beat very loudly.

‘Sarah Giles.’

Silence.

‘Have you just sent me a message on my phone … by accident?’

‘What did it say?’

‘Nothing much. It’s just that it was slightly personal—well, very personal, actually, and you sent it to me. Was it meant for Amanda? I think it was. Or Stephanie, perhaps.’

‘What did it say?’

I repeated it.

‘Mmm. Sounds pretty strong, doesn’t it? No, I didn’t send it.’

‘Well, it came from your phone.’

‘Perhaps someone stole my phone and typed it in for a joke.’

‘Who would do that?’

‘I don’t know. Anyway, how are your lovely nipples today?’

‘You did send it, didn’t you? Why?’

Silence.

‘John? You have a girlfriend and a potential bodice-ripper in Stephanie. I have a boyfriend, who I love. Why are you contacting me with messages like this?’

Silence.

‘Hi, you still there?’

‘Yes, Sarah.’ (God, I loved it when he said my name. He made it sound like Sarah, I want to undress you now and make love to you in one word. Amazingly no one else heard that, which is perhaps a good thing.)

‘Did you send me the message?’

‘Yes, Sarah.’

‘Did you mean to send me the message?’

‘Yes, Sarah.’

‘Oh, er, right, then. Well. Don’t send any again. As I said, we’re going out with different people.’

‘Fancy lunch some time soon?’

‘Lunch should be OK. Next week?’

‘Thinking more tomorrow, or the day after.’

‘Er, haven’t got my diary here. Wait a minute.’

I gave myself space to think. What was I doing? Lunch with John Wayne. Had done it before but then I hadn’t had the message before. The signal. The idea of him thinking about me that way was firmly in my mind. Couldn’t get it out of my mind. He wouldn’t be able to do the chocolate cake trick on me. My breasts wouldn’t fill a teacup, let alone a cake tin. I returned to the phone, having not found the diary but found some breath and balls.

‘I can do day after tomorrow.’ Anything or anyone that day would have to be cancelled.

5th October

Day after tomorrow. Don’t know where tomorrow went. Lunch at one p.m. at the restaurant up the road from Pizza Express. None of the staff go there. Food is limited, service slow, you need more than two hours to meander over the courses and wines and coffee.

I was early. Chose the table. He was late. Ten minutes. I smiled. So did he. I went up to kiss him. Both cheeks. He smiled again. His smile was scaring me less each time. Always a good sign. Perhaps because he looked less like a wolf, or perhaps because I didn’t see the wolf-like qualities any more. Only the deep brown eyes, the dark hair and his smell.

John Wayne smelt fabulous. I know women can smell great—but this man smelt of pheromones. I personally believe when he was a research chemist he concocted some artificial ones and impregnated himself with them. Whatever, they worked. I found him more and more irresistible every time I met him. Despite the fact he was just six foot and had a bit of a belly on him, I found the way his mind thought fascinating. Occasionally disgusting but always interesting.

I asked him about his cottage. He told me he’d got all the interior design done for free.

‘What, did you sleep with the decorators?’

‘Actually, yes.’

His story was that there were two girls who were designers that he had known from university, and that he’d kept in touch with them. That they had always liked him and he’d invited them round for the weekend. He’d propositioned them by saying that if they would paint his house inside and out he would sleep with them both all weekend. My mind was whirring round like crazy. Imagining them covered in paint, taking it in turns to sleep with this supposed sex god. I told him this was all bullshit. He said I could phone them and ask. I said it was bullshit and didn’t have to. Anyway, the arrogance of the man was sometimes phenomenal.

He told me that Stephanie’s brain was like a lighthouse to his torch. And that my mind was like a match to her lighthouse. I held in there for the pheromones.

He told me about his sexual prowess at college. How with one girlfriend he only had to touch her breast lightly and she would come.

‘Really? That must have been inconvenient if you were in a pub with friends and you brushed past it by mistake.’

‘It used to be my party trick.’

Why did I like this man? Arrogant, misogynistic, rude, undoubtedly bright and sexy, and pheromonal and animalistic and, and … Keep focused, Sarah. The guy is an arsehole!

He did more of the wrist-tickling and then asked if I would like to see his little cottage. And meet his cats. And have a drink in one of the pubs which do really good English beer (salivating here).

At three-thirty p.m. we get up and go back to the office. Kiss on both cheeks and he smiles again. I positively squeak with pleasure, floating off back to the office and fourth floor.

Text message:

Thank you for a lovely lunch. You are quite lovely Sarah.

Methinks was that quite lovely as in quite amazingly lovely, or quite as in quite almost OK lovely?

I return message:

1/2

Thank you for a lovely lunch. Wonderful company. Don’t believe your story about the decoration, but am sure the cottage is fab. Can’t wait to stroke your…2/2

..…Cats.

10th October

Text message:

Hello Sarah. We’ve never met but John suggested I get in contact with you as you specialise in recovery. I am working on a project for the Change Management Team and wondered if you could help me. My name is Amanda.

Amanda? Miss Piggy Amanda?

Respond:

Amanda—John’s girlfriend Amanda?

Text message: Yes. Can we meet?

Respond: Yes, when?

Text message: This afternoon.

Er. Right. Didn’t expect this.

Three p.m. Amanda Cruise walked into the office. Beautiful, but then I looked at her legs. John was right about everything, but she looked nothing like Miss Piggy.

‘Hello, I’m Amanda.’

‘Hello, I’m Sarah.’

‘I know. John described you very well.’

‘He described you well too.’ (I was wondering which Muppet I was supposed to look like.)

Amanda sat down and we talked recovery for thirty minutes, twenty minutes more than it deserved, and she said thank you, and I said it was a pleasure, and she asked if I would like to go out for a drink and I said fine (really thinking not a good idea) and then she left as quickly as she came.

WINTER

NOVEMBER

ACTION LIST

Have fun.

Have fun.

Try to enjoy dinner parties.

Avoid dairy and wheat products as Anya has told me I am allergic to loads of things, but mainly dairy and wheat. I can eat lots of trout and carrots and garlic. (I live off it for two days and give up.)

Be nice to Paul.

Go to gym five times a week to work off aggression and frustration.

FIREWORKS

1st November

BANG. I’ve gone nearly a whole month without talking to John or Amanda. Or e-mailing either of them. I’ve been manic handling the conference on crime on the railway. Making sure all the speakers know what they are saying and stick to it and don’t nick each other’s thunder or soundbites or unique selling points. That each has equal time and that their graphs and charts and pie charts are the right colour and everything is correctly spelt.

Then there is the catering. Ninety per cent of those attending are male so they want hot food which is plentiful and there on time. So lots of beef stroganoff—for two hundred. Not easy to do. Plus no gristly bits, which the Head of Publicity has told me about. Lots of bigwigs attending. The sniffer dogs will also be there. They don’t want a crime conference being raided for any reason. It would look silly, somehow.

Getting back to the food. Then there is the salady stuff for the twenty or so token women who want salady stuff—unless they are trying to be macho, in which case they’ll opt for the stroganoff. I almost feel like contacting them and asking them what they will want on the day. It’s winter, so it could be hot for all I know. The weather has been unpredictable so far this year. Like my feelings. Up and down in emotional turmoil.

What am I doing flirting with someone at work when I have this fabulous guy at home? Or at least living fifteen miles from me. OK, we don’t have sex. We haven’t for years. But that’s because he wants to save himself now until we are married. But he hasn’t proposed, and I’m not waiting for ever. But apart from that he is fine. And, oh, yes. He’s quite mean with money. But that’s because he is saving for the future. Supposedly our future. So we have a future. So everything will happen soon. But not now. It’s just that not now has been happening for a long time, and I’m becoming an I-want-it-now girl. And I think, if I asked John nicely, he would give it to me. Paul, alas, would not.

Perhaps the only fireworks I’ll see this month will be the ones on the fifth. Hey ho.

5th November

Fireworks. Party. A friend of Paul’s. All our friends were originally friends of Paul’s. All my friends are still my friends. But not of Paul’s. They don’t like him very much and I don’t think he likes them either. He likes to be around people he knows. It’s just that I find them all so incredibly boring. The interesting ones don’t last. The girlfriends who have some fire to them. Some substance. Don’t last. Well, they last for about six months and then disappear into the never-never land of ‘it wasn’t meant to be’. But I liked those ones. Instead I’m always left with the boring ones who are destined to be together. Attached at the hip. Happily having charted their life and two point five children, they won’t have to say much. So they don’t. Fun fun fun.

Fireworks at a friend’s home. This friend had wanted to build his own house and was doing so in Surrey. He’d bought a plot of land that overlooked a valley but also overlooked a motorway and railway line which on a clear day, you could hear loudly. He talked about his architect a lot. Eight to dinner. Patrick and Peter, twins; Kate, Patrick’s other half; Kelly—Peter’s. Then there was Connor and Shelley—who no one liked and everyone talked about when she left the room. I’d known Shelley from nursery school days, but we’d never swapped toys or anything. She’d moved away, then for some inexplicable reason my parents had moved to where her parents had moved ten years later. And we’d ended up at the same comprehensive. Paul and I had bonded through our mutual loathing of her. It had been over a dinner in Versailles.

Paul was talking about friends.

He mentioned a girl called Shelley who was going out with his best pal Connor.

For some reason I said, ‘Not Shelley Beale?’

‘Yes, Shelley Beale. She’s horrid, isn’t she?’

‘Totally. Even the Sunday School teacher said she probably had three sixes on her head.’

‘Match made in heaven, then.’

Mutual disappreciation society was duly formed. Everyone in the ‘group’ hated her, but I was the only one to be honest enough to be cold. Bullshit was never my forte. Not in personal relationships anyway. But perhaps these days I was kidding myself.

As I stood, waving my sparkler about, listening to Paul pontificate about life and love and stuff, I thought, Fuck, is this it?

Text message:

Hi, there. Are you having fireworks like me today? John

Respond:

Yes, but it’s boring the fuck out of me. How you?

Message received:

1/2

Me fine. Pity you’re bored. Been thinking about you a lot. Amanda has been giving me a hard time about seeing you and contacting you again and she’s a good friend of Medina, so she knows if you call my office. How are your …

2/2

… nipples?

Respond:

Nipples erect and firm. Must be because I’m cold. Anything of yours erect and firm John?

Oops, perhaps I went too far. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. Perhaps I should delete all messages received just in case Paul happens to look through at some stage for his loving ‘I am thinking about you’ messages and spots a nipple one.

Message received:

Yes. When can we meet?

Respond:

What’s happening with you and Amanda?

Message received:

She’s moving out next month. She has found her own flat. I helped her look for one.

That was helpful of him.

Message received:

I’m feeling filthy. I wish I could stick my long hard cock in your mouth.

Christ. And I’d thought I was going too far.

Respond:

That’s a bit heavy.

Message received:

Sorry Sarah, I think I’ve sent you a message by mistake. Pierce.

Respond:

Don’t do it again.

I decided to call John rather than risk e-mailing Pierce John’s messages and vice versa. I was just going to ask John how big Amanda’s flat was.

‘John, thought it best we speak rather than texting all the time.’

‘Nice to speak to you, Sarah. When would you like to meet? This Saturday?’

‘I can’t do weekends.’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, just busy.’

‘With the boyfriend?’

‘No. We’ve split up, actually.’ (Why did I say that? That’s a lie. Why did I say that?)

Bullshit. I know exactly why I said that. Deep water here, babes. Mind you, this could make me less attractive in his eyes. I’m not so unattainable any more. I read it somewhere that men who are womanisers—which I had been told reliably by at least twenty of the men and women I worked with that John was—prefer those women who are otherwise attached. Perhaps this was a good thing. Perhaps he wouldn’t like me so much. That and the fact I was due to leave work soon through voluntary redundancy. So perhaps I told him this to get rid of him. Perhaps.

‘Oh. Well, then, how about Friday?’

‘Fine.’

‘Bye, then.’

‘Bye.’

It would have been almost furtive if I hadn’t kept reminding myself that this guy worked for Rogerson Railways. His name was John Wayne. And the whole idea was totally ridiculous. But that was the fun of it. The sheer surrealism of doing something that everyone I knew would utterly disapprove of. After all, everyone liked Paul. Everyone. Then why didn’t I? I think he’d grown dull. Controlling and dull. He wanted a square and I’m a circle and you can’t change a circle into a square and he was trying really hard. So I wanted a bit of freedom. No marriage vows on the horizon, so, hey, why not. Even if it was with a guy called John Wayne who was a renowned womaniser with a fetish for chocolate cake, cats and English beer.

6th November

Call from Amanda. Could she take me to supper as a thank you for helping her out? OK. When? How about Friday? Er, couldn’t make Friday. How about Thursday, then? Fine. Fine. Bye.

10th November

Thursday. Supper with Amanda. Meeting at Victoria Station. I am five minutes late.

‘John says you’re always late,’ she says as I tap her on the shoulder and say hi.

‘Yes, I am. But at least I’m consistent.’

‘John suggested this restaurant in Victoria. Have you been there?’

‘No.’

I was bemused by her continual references to John this and John that. I wondered if she was going to suggest things to eat that John recommended. Fuck John. Well, not tonight anyway.

The restaurant was romantic and intimate and not really suitable for two girls together, but, hey, John had recommended it. Perhaps he got some perverse kick out of his girlfriend, soon to be ex, having dinner with his perhaps soon to be next lover. Anyway, we sat down and ordered. And.

‘John says the sole here is good.’

‘I’ll have the chicken, then.’ I smiled.

Thank God. So did she.

‘Me too.’

Amanda talked about herself. How much she loved John. How she had met him. She omitted the chocolate cake bit and I hadn’t drunk anything so didn’t ask about it. Alas, there was no chocolate cake on the dessert menu, so I couldn’t even ask if she fancied any. She talked about John a lot, and told me that he highly respected me. Really? I thought. Respected me. That’s nice. She told me she’s moving out because she needs her own space and that John has bought her a TV and that he is very generous. I said that was nice. I said that I was pleased he respected me, because I’d thought he only made time for me because he liked my legs. She smiled.

‘No, he likes you for your mind, Sarah.’

She paid. I offered, but she paid. As we left the restaurant I felt rather sorry for her. I don’t know if she really loved John but I wanted to tell her that he wasn’t worth her time, her love or her sympathy. That any man who could treat her so badly didn’t deserve such a sweet, gracious girl. That he was much more deserving of someone who could be as emotionally ruthless as say … me. Anyway, she kissed me on both cheeks and said it had been really fun and turned round towards Victoria Station.

I never saw her again after that. John told me months later that she had thrown a few plates when he told her that we were seeing each other, and that she had cut her wrists and threatened on numerous occasions to kill herself. And that she had started to write a letter to me but had never finished it. Somehow wish she had.

11th November

The Friday.

Message received:

Hi there. Love you. P

xxxxx

Respond:

Love you too.xxxxx

Message received:

What are you doing today?

Respond:

On a training course. In Sussex.

Message received:

Have fun. Love you. xx

Respond:

Will do.

What am I doing? Betraying the sweet guy I’ve known for five years with someone I know to be both devil and deep blue sea entwined. Perhaps it’s the danger and immorality of it all that attracts me. I’ve never done anything very wrong in my life. But surely this is morally wrong? Well, no, I’m not married, am I? And Paul hasn’t proposed, has he? And we’re not having sex, are we? And we haven’t for years, have we? So why not? Amazing how you can logic things out so quickly when you want to. Even when you’re wrong.

I think that’s what men do with their logic. Men automatically think they are right all the time. It’s their mothers. They bring them up to think they can do no wrong. Firstborn are the worst. I can understand why Herod wanted to get rid of them. It was nothing to do with Christianity. It was probably the fact he got so pissed off with men who were first sons being boorish and phenomenally arrogant all the time. I blame the mothers. Anyway, when Paul does something wrong he makes me think it’s my fault. Somehow my behaviour leads to him behaving the way he does. So it’s nothing to do with him. It’s natural. It’s nature. It’s excusable. No, not even that. It’s right, and validated, and therefore I must be in the wrong.

Problem is, this screwed-up logic is catching, so now I validate actions which really are morally wrong. Like the phone call. Like the meeting with John. It’s wrong. But, hey, I haven’t had sex with Paul for years. He isn’t treating me well. We haven’t been getting on recently. But I love him. But he doesn’t understand. So be discreet. And flirt with someone else who makes you feel sexy and wanted and womanly. But that’s not wrong. That’s just being natural. It’s nature. It’s right.

Woke up at eight a.m., knowing I was doing the right thing. Full of the joys of spring despite it being November. Speak to Karen about how I feel. Karen listens. Says nothing. Says it’s natural and it’s nature and I’m right and Paul should treat me better. I tell her what I want her to hear so she validates my feelings and ideas. But I’m using male logic here. So I’m right and I know it.

Karen—‘You’re right. Go for it.’

Sarah—‘I’m being logical and doing what’s natural—right?’

Karen—‘Go for it. Whether you’re right or not. Go for it. A man in your shoes would have left years ago. No sex? No sex is ridiculous. You’ve tried to talk but he won’t talk. You love him, you say, and he loves you, he says. But actions speak louder than words, and his words are empty. There’s something wrong with him, Sarah. Deal with it. Face it. You are. Just not straight. John is a crutch. He may not be Mr Right either, but at least he’s Mr Right Now and he’ll sleep with you.’

John’s asked me over to his little yellow cottage in Redhill. For a drink. After work. I tell Paul I’ll be late home. He’s already working late, so he won’t miss me. He says he will and makes me feel guilty by saying he was thinking of cancelling his night out with the boys. I say, no. You enjoy it. You have fun. I’ll be OK. Some boring course about customer focus and how you can get more by giving more. The irony is wasted on him.

I speak to newspapers about editorial. Meet advertising company in Kings Cross with posh offices. Fantasising about John and his little yellow cottage. He has told me about his cats, Hannah and Jessica. Hannah is fluffy and scatty and lovely. Jessica is beautiful and proud and arrogant. He loves both of them. His tone softens when he talks about them. He talks in the same tone as when he talks about English beer … and my legs. I feel honoured.

I go out at lunchtime and buy a short red skirt. I never wear short red skirts, but for some reason, in November, I consider this to be a practical buy I believe I will get lots of wear from.

We are having a dinner party tomorrow. The day after I visit John’s cottage. Paul has invited some of his friends.

Smoked salmon with avocado? Or fresh figs with parma ham? Decisions, decisions, always decisions. Then chicken in white wine, or coq au vin? Same thing but one has more mushrooms than the other. Fruit salad, cheese and biscuits. Marks & Spencer chocolate sponge pudding. Individual portions with cream or ice cream or crème fraiche? Port, choccies and more port and cigars. Big fat ones for his big fat broker friends. U2, AC/DC and Led Zeppelin. I like Paul’s musical taste much more than I like his taste in friends.

J Day. Seeing John tonight at his place. John at his cottage. Wonder if he has a blue room in his yellow cottage. I’ve seen Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room, and wonder if the yellow cottage will be anything like that. Will he jump on me? Will he try to seduce me? Or will he be cool, in his yellow cottage, with his two cats purring at me?

What shall I wear? What do you wear for someone who looks right through your clothes anyway? What’s the value of buying clothes when they don’t notice what you’ve got on? Knickers are another complete waste of time and material. If the sex is good they’re ripped off——even if they are La Perla—so it’s best just to go with the M&S thong. Or something rippable that doesn’t take half your thigh with it. Stockings and suspenders are too obvious. Trying too hard. And for women with huge cellulitey thighs who have to make them look sexy somewhere. If you’ve got good legs you don’t need to fuss and truss them up. They look great naked.

So I’m wearing trousers. Suede hipsters. Joseph, half price in the sale. With hippy belt. Local shop—Blue Lawn—where everything looks good on me. No sales, but ten per cent off coz I buy so much there. Blouse. Blue Lawn. Semi-translucent. Same ten per cent. No bra. Knickers M&S, soft cotton. £4.99. White. Cut across the cheek. No stockings, suspenders.

Showered with lots of oil. Aromatherapy. Mix of orange and ylang ylang and patchouli. With a touch of lavender. On all the pressure points. Behind the ears, knees, elbows, ankles. Back of shoulders, front of shoulders. In between breasts. Round belly button. Basically anywhere I want him to kiss. Touch. Stroke. I digress.

Shower. Oil. Clothes on. Send text message:

Message sent:

I will be ready for you at 6pm. Where do you want to meet?

No answer. Wait ten mins. Still no answer. Have meetings. About three—back to back. So busy. Everyone remarks how nice I smell, look. Do I fancy a drink? No, thank you. Are you meeting anyone tonight? No, why? Coz you smell, look nice. Etc etc.

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