The Trials of Tiffany Trott
Isabel Wolff

For my parents.

And in memory of my brother

Simon Paul Wolff.

The funniest person I ever knew.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

May

June

June Continued

July

July Continued

August

August Continued

September

September Continued

October

October Continued

November

November Continued

November Continued

November Continued

December

December Continued

December Continued

January

January Continued

February

February Continued

March

March Continued

April

April Continued

May

May Continued

Acknowledgements

Permissions

About the Author

Also by the Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

May

OK. Champagne – tick; Cheesy Wotsits – tick; flowers – tick; balloons – tick; streamers – tick; cake – tick; candles – tick – oh God, oh God, where are the candleholders? Blast – I haven’t got thirty-seven, I’ve only got, um … eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Blast. Blast. Where’s that list gone? Oh here it is. Right. Where was I? Oh yes … candleholders … Twiglets – tick; Hula Hoops – tick; assorted mixed nuts – tick; nosh – tick. Oh gosh. Nosh. Rather a lot of that. I mean, how are we going to get through 150 prawn toasts, 200 devils-on-horseback, 350 cocktail sausages glazed with honey and tarragon, 180 oak-smoked salmon appetizers and 223 spinach and cheese miniroulades? How exactly are six people expected to eat all that? Plus the ninety-five chocolate éclairs? Just six of us. Half a dozen. Or precisely twelve per cent of the original invitation list. Bit of a disappointment, and I’d had such high hopes for this evening. I’d had the sitting-room decorated specially. Terribly pretty Osborne and Little wallpaper and a hand-gilded chandelier. But then I felt like pushing the boat out a bit this year. Going the whole hog. After all, I’ve got something to celebrate – a Very Serious Relationship with a really nice bloke. Alex. My boyfriend. My chap. So nice. Lovely in fact. Really, really lovely. And there are still quite a few people who haven’t met him, and I really wanted to have this party for him as much as for me. And now it’s going to be a bit of a damp squib. But that’s the really annoying thing about entertaining, isn’t it? The way people cancel at the last minute, when you’ve already done all the shopping. Unfortunately I’ve had quite a lot of cancellations – forty-four actually – which means my big bash for fifty is now going to be rather a discreet little affair. This means it is most unlikely to make the society pages of the Highbury and Islington Express. Blast. But then all my friends are having crises with their babysitters, or their nannies have resigned, or their offspring are off-colour or their husbands are unhappy. It’s such a bore when the majority of one’s pals are married and family pressures take precedence over fun. For example, Angus and Alison cancelled this morning because Jack’s got ‘botty trouble’ – did she really have to be quite so graphic about it?

‘I’m terribly worried, it’s gone all sort of greeny-yellowy-orangey,’ she said.

‘Thank you for sharing that with me,’ I replied crisply. Actually, I didn’t say that at all, I simply said, ‘Poor little thing, what a terrible shame. Anyway, thanks for letting me know.’ Then at lunchtime Jane and Peter blew me out because their au pair’s bogged off with the boy next door, and even Lizzie – my best and oldest friend – even Lizzie can’t come.

‘Sorry, darling,’ she said when she called me yesterday morning. ‘I’m really really sorry, but I’d totally forgotten it’s half-term, and I want to take the girls away.’

‘Oh, well, never mind,’ I said, philosophically. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Birdwatching in Botswana. The Okavango’s divine at this time of year.’

Crikey – some half-term treat, I thought, beats a day out at the zoo.

‘I’ve just managed to pick up a last-minute package with Cox and Kings,’ she said, audibly drawing on a cigarette. ‘We’re flying to Gabarone tonight.’

‘Is Martin going with you?’ I enquired.

‘Don’t be silly, Tiff,’ she said with a loud snort. ‘He’s working.’ Of course. Silly me. Poor Martin. And then Rachel phoned last night to say she couldn’t face the party because she’s got terrible morning sickness (‘But my party’s in the evening,’ I pointed out); and two hours later Daisy rang to say she’s got funny pains in her lower abdomen and daren’t come out because it’s probably the baby arriving early. Then this morning Robert phoned to say his mother-in-law’s ill, so they can’t come, and then Felicity rang to say that Thomas is teething and won’t stop blubbing and so that’s it – now we are six. Six singles, as it happens: Sally, Kit, Catherine, Frances, Emma, me and, of course, Alex. My boyfriend. My chap. I may not have a husband but at least I’ve got a bloke. Which is more than can be said for my other single women friends. Poor things. Must be so depressing for them. Being single. At our age. Dreadful. And incomprehensible – after all, they’re so eligible. And so attractive. Especially Sally. She’s really gorgeous. And she’s loaded. But even Sally finds it hard to meet decent blokes. Luckily for me I’ve got Alex. Phew. And it’s serious. Actually I’ve been going out with him for quite a long time now – eight months, three weeks and five days. In fact, well, put it this way – I’ve just taken out a subscription to Brides and Setting Up Home.

I’d like to say it was an unforgettable party. And in some ways it was. It started quite promisingly. Sally arrived first, at seven-thirty, which amazed me as she works twenty-nine hours a day in the City, and OK I know she earns a fortune – I mean her half-yearly bonus is probably twice my annual income – but even so, she’s so generous with it – she’d bought me a Hermés scarf. Wow! You don’t spot many of those around here. That should bring the area up a bit. I can see the headline in the local paper now: ‘Hermés Scarf Spotted in Unfashionable End of Islington. House Prices Hit New High’.

‘It was duty free,’ she said with a grin, ‘I got thirty per cent off it at Kennedy Airport. Oh Tiffany, you’ve decorated in here – it looks lovely!’ She removed her pale-pink cashmere cardigan, revealing slender, lightly-tanned arms.

‘God I’ve had an awful day,’ she said, slumping into the sofa. ‘The dollar dropped ten cents in half an hour this afternoon. It was panic stations. Sheer bloody hell.’

I always find it hard to visualise Sally at work, yelling into her phone in a testosterone-swamped, City dealing-room, screaming, ‘Sell! Sell! Sell!’ at the top of her voice. That’s what she does, not every day, but quite often, and it’s hard to imagine because she’s as delicate and fragile-looking as a porcelain doll. Unlike Frances, who arrived next. Now Frances is by contrast rather, well, solid. Handsome, I suppose you’d say. Impressive, distinguished-looking, like a Sheraton sideboard. She’s alarmingly bright, too – she got a double first in law at Oxford. I don’t think this endears her much to men.

‘Happy Birthday, Tiffany!’ she exclaimed in her booming, basso profundo voice. It’s an amazing voice, deep and reedy, like a bassoon. She was looking smart in an Episode linen suit, dark of course, for court, her auburn hair cut short and sharp around her fine-boned face. Anyway, she’d brought me this lovely book, Face Facts – the Everywoman Guide to Plastic Surgery.

‘That’s really thoughtful of you, Frances,’ I said. ‘I’m terribly interested in all that, as you know.’

‘Yes, that’s why I’ve given it to you,’ she said. ‘In order to put you off. The photos are absolutely beastly.’

And then Catherine arrived, bearing a huge bunch of peonies, her fingers still stained with paint, a faint aroma of turpentine clinging to her long red hair. Catherine restores pictures, painstakingly swabbing at them with cotton buds and tiny brushes, eliminating the grime and dust of decades. Showing them in their true colours, I suppose you’d say.

‘Sorry I haven’t changed, Tiff,’ she said. ‘Hope we’re not too formal.’

‘Well no, it’s just the six of us,’ I said. ‘Everyone else has cried off.’

‘Oh good,’ she said, with a glance at the dining-room table, ‘all the more for us! Gosh those sausages look delicious!’

Catherine is very boyish. She usually wears jeans, and her lightly-freckled face is always shining and scrubbed. And I have never, ever, seen her wear make up. Not even mascara. Not even lip gloss. Whereas I – well, the thing I seem to use most of all these days is concealer. Industrial amounts of it actually, which I carefully apply with a garden trowel, filling in the widening fissures beneath my eyes.

Then at eight Emma turned up with a large box of Godiva chocolates. ‘School was a nightmare,’ she said. ‘I’ve had the most desperate lot of delinquents all day. TGIF, as they say – Happy Birthday, Tiffany – my God, what a lot of food, are you expecting an army?’

‘Er no, just a few regular troops, actually.’

Last to arrive was Kit. ‘Happy Birthday, Tiffany!’ he said, wrapping me in an enormous hug and planting a noisy kiss on my left cheek. Thank God for Kit. I often think I should forget about Alex – where was Alex, I wondered – and concentrate on Kit. My mother thinks I should marry him. My father thinks I should marry him. Lizzie thinks I should marry him. Everyone thinks I should marry him. Why didn’t I marry him? I suppose because the moment when it might have happened came and went years ago. But he’s still my other half – my creative other half, that is. I do the words, and he does the pictures. He’s my art director, you see. That’s how we met – on the Camay account at Gurgle Gargle and Peggoty. But now he’s my knight chevalier, my best male pal and, quite often, my colleague too. I love working with Kit. He’s freelance, like me, and we still collaborate on campaigns sometimes, though what he really wants is to direct TV commercials.

‘Did you get the Kiddimint job?’ he asked as we sat sipping champagne in my tiny garden.

‘Yes, I did,’ I said, picking a few late lilies of the valley to put on the dining-room table. ‘Blow, Coward Spank want the script in three weeks. Haven’t a clue what I’m going to do with it. Never done toothpaste before, let alone kids’ toothpaste. They want a cartoon. I might do something with Macavity, from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.’

‘You mean something like “Use Kiddimint twice a day kids, and Macavity won’t be there!”’

‘Yes. Something along those lines. That sort of thing. If they’re prepared to pay the royalties. What are you working on?’

He grinned. ‘I’m going to be – assistant director on a hairspray commercial!’

‘Kit, that’s fantastic.’

‘I know.’ He could hardly conceal his joy. ‘Cinema and TV. Big budget. It should look great. Head Start hairspray. For Yellowspanner. We’re shooting it in Pinewood, sci-fi style. We’ve cast this Claudia Schiffer lookalike,’ he continued. ‘She’s rather scrumptious, gorgeous in fact – and the way she tosses her hair to camera is sensational! But I’m not telling Portia that,’ he added anxiously. ‘I wouldn’t do anything to make her feel insecure.’

Pity, I thought. It would do no harm at all for Portia – commonly known as ‘Porsche’ – to feel less than one hundred per cent confident in Kit. She walks all over him in her Manolo Blahnik stilettos, leaving a trail of bleeding holes. I don’t know why he bothers. Actually, I do. After all, he’s told me often enough. He bothers because he loves her and has done ever since she tottered onto the set of that vodka commercial eighteen months ago. Portia, you see, is a model, but she’s hardly a model girlfriend. In fact, to be quite honest, she treats Kit like dirt. But he adores her. Isn’t that funny? He worships her. And the more indifferent she appears, the more intense his interest becomes. But then I’m the same. I mean, I’m always incredibly nice to men – and what do they do? Treat me disgustingly. I don’t know why. It’s not as though I don’t make an effort. I listen to them drone on for hours about their problems at work, and then I cook them supper. If there’s a show they want to see, I’ll get tickets for it, often queuing for returns. I buy them birthday cards to send to their mothers, and sew the buttons back onto their coats. And what do they do for me? Not ring when they said they would, then not even remember that they forgot to ring. And sometimes – and this is really annoying – they don’t turn up at all. All the ones I’ve been keenest on have treated me like that. Isn’t that strange? All except Alex, that is. Alex has always been so sweet. So considerate. So thoughtful. For example, he got me a really good discount on my Nina Campbell curtains and he gave me some excellent free advice about paint effects in my kitchen.

‘Look, no-one rag rolls any more, Tiffany,’ he said. ‘And spongeing is such, well, vieux chapeau. I suggest you go for a very simple colourwash in a pale tone, say eau de nil, with the barest hint of teal. That’s what I’ve just done for Lady Garsington – I could get some mixed for you too.’ He also showed me how to accessorise my bathroom properly, with antique stoneware bottles and waffle-weave bath towels and lovely pebble doorknobs – no more naff ceramic fish and bobbly bath mats. Oh no. I’ve really learnt a lot from him. I mean, what he doesn’t know about cracked glazes … but where was Alex, I wondered again. He’s usually as reliable as a Rolex. And then I found myself wondering what he’d got me for my birthday – probably a year’s subscription to the World of Interiors, or something tasteful in the soft furnishings line. He gave me a pair of wonderful velvet cushions in chrysan-themum yellow for Christmas – typically thoughtful. But that’s Alex all over – really, really nice and considerate although … now, I don’t want to sound disloyal or anything, but there is just one thing I’d criticise about him, and that is that he doesn’t play tennis – and I love it. In fact he’s not very sporty full stop. Also, I’m not too mad on his buttoned-right-up-to-the-neck winceyette pyjamas or his habit of playing Scrabble in bed. But then, well, you can’t have everything. It’s all a compromise, isn’t it? That’s what it’s all about. Taking the wider view. And it was so nice to meet someone caring and kind after my miserable time with Phillip. Phil. Commonly known as Phil Anderer. No, Alex was such a refreshing change after all that.

Suddenly Kit stood up and went and leant against the French windows. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t bring Portia with me,’ he said. A slight frown furrowed his brow. ‘You see, she’s got one of her headaches. Didn’t feel up to it. But she said she didn’t mind if I came on my own. Didn’t want to spoil my fun. She’s very good like that. Not at all possessive. I offered to come round and look after her,’ he added with a rueful smile, ‘but she said she didn’t need me. Said she could do without me.’ What a surprise, I thought. From inside the dining-room we could hear the popping of champagne corks and the squeak of party blowers.

‘Wahay – let’s get sloshed,’ I heard Frances say.

‘Yeah – let’s,’ said Emma. ‘Let’s get really plastered. I mean it’s Friday. We work bloody hard. And this is a party. God these canapes are good. Pass me a mini pizza, would you? I had the most horrible lot of fifth-formers today – thick as pig-shit.’

‘Sally, please would you put your laptop away?’ Frances boomed. ‘Relax. The weekend starts here.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I heard Sally reply pleadingly. ‘I just need to have a quick look at Wall Street to see how the pound closed against the dollar – won’t be a sec.’

‘We’re doing the Napoleonic wars at the moment,’ Emma continued, ‘I’ve just been supervising their GCSE project and one particularly thick kid managed to get a nuclear submarine into the battle of Waterloo!’

‘That’s unbelievable,’ said Frances.

‘Quite,’ Emma replied.

I looked at Kit. His black curly hair was a little long, his face appeared tired and strained. He was fiddling thoughtfully with the stem of his champagne flute. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I don’t know what to do, Tiff.’

‘About what?’ I said, though of course I knew. We’d had this conversation many times before.

‘About Portia,’ he said with a sigh.

‘Same problem?’ I asked.

He nodded, mutely. ‘She says she needs more time,’ he explained with a shrug. ‘That she’s just not ready for it. Of course I don’t pressure her,’ he added. ‘I’m just hoping she’ll change her mind. But I’d really love to marry her. I’d love to settle down and have a family. This single life’s a drag.’

‘Hear hear!’ said Catherine, stepping through the French windows. ‘But you’re a rare bird, Kit – a man who actively wants to make a commitment. My God, I’d marry you tomorrow!’

‘Would you really?’ he said.

‘Yes. If you asked me. Why don’t you ask me?’ she added suddenly. ‘I’m sure we’d get on.’

‘Or me, Kit,’ said Sally, following behind. ‘I’d snap you up in a flash – you’d better watch out, Portia, I’m after your man!’ She giggled winsomely, but then an expression of real regret passed across her face. ‘I wish all men were like you, Kit, ready to bend the knee, then girls like us wouldn’t be crying into our hot chocolate every night.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Frances. ‘I’m not crying – I’m out clubbing. Much more satisfactory. And the music drowns out the loud tick-tock of my biological clock.’

‘I can’t hear mine,’ said Emma, ‘it’s digital.’

‘Mine sounds like Big Ben,’ said Frances. ‘Except that there’s no-one to wind it up. But do you know,’ she continued, peeling a quail’s egg, ‘I really don’t care; because finally, after thirty-six years, I’ve realised that the vast majority of men simply aren’t worth having. Anyway,’ she added, ‘who needs one? I’d rather go rollerblading in the park on a Saturday morning than go to Sainsbury’s with some totally useless bloke.’

‘I don’t think you really mean that,’ I said. ‘It’s because of what you do – I mean sorting out other people’s ghastly divorces all day would put anyone off marriage.’

‘It’s not just that,’ said Frances. ‘Though after fifteen years of establishing who threw the breadknife at who in 1979 you certainly do get a little jaundiced. It’s simply that most men are boring. Terribly, terribly boring. Except you, of course, Kit,’ she added quickly.

‘Thanks,’ he said, peevishly.

‘I mean why should I go to all the trouble of pinning down some bloke,’ Frances was still going on, ‘only for him to bore me to death!’

‘Or run off with someone else,’ added Emma with sudden feeling. ‘Just like my father did.’

‘There just aren’t any really nice, interesting, decent, suitable, trustworthy men,’ Frances concluded comprehensively. Yes, there are, I thought to myself smugly. And I’ve got one.

‘I’m just facing facts,’ she said with a resigned air. ‘I’ve weighed up the evidence. And the evidence is not in our favour. So no Bland Dates for me,’ she added firmly. ‘I, for one, have decided to give wedded bliss a miss.’

‘Better single than badly accompanied,’ added Emma.

‘Quite!’ said Catherine.

‘Three million single women can’t be wrong,’ said Frances, who always has some handy statistic at the ready. ‘Anyway, why bother when over forty per cent of marriages end in divorce?’

‘And why do they end in divorce?’ asked Emma with sudden vehemence. ‘Because it’s usually the man’s fault. That’s why. It was certainly my father’s fault,’ she added fiercely. ‘He just fancied someone else. Plain and simple. And believe me, she was plain and simple. But she was younger than my mother,’ she went on bitterly. ‘Mum never got over it.’

‘Men get far more out of marriage than women,’ said Frances expansively. ‘Sixty per cent of married women admitted in, a recent survey that if they could have their time over again, they would not have married their husbands.’

‘I’m really not enjoying this conversation much,’ said Kit with an exasperated sigh. ‘I mean it’s so difficult for men these days. Women have made us all feel so … redundant.’

‘You are redundant,’ said Frances with benign ferocity. ‘What can a man give me that I don’t already have? I’ve got a house, a car, a good job, two holidays a year – long-haul – a wardrobe full of designer clothes and a mantelpiece that’s white with invitations. What on earth could a man add to that?’

‘Grief!’ said Emma rancorously.

‘Ironing,’ said Catherine.

‘Boredom,’ said Frances.

‘Acute emotional stress,’ said Emma.

‘Arsenal,’ said Catherine.

‘Betrayal,’ said Emma.

‘A baby?’ said Sally.

‘Oh don’t be so old-fashioned,’ said Frances. ‘You don’t need a man for that. How old are you now?’

‘Thirty-eight.’

‘Well, if you’re that desperate to sprog, just pop down to the sperm bank or have a one-night stand.’

‘Alternatively, you could arrange an intimate encounter with a turkey baster and a jam jar,’ added Emma, with one of her explosive laughs. ‘I hear they’re very low maintenance and you wouldn’t need to buy any sexy lingerie!’

‘Or, if you’re prepared to wait a few more years, you can dispense with the sperm altogether and get yourself cloned,’ said Frances. ‘That day is not far off – remember Dolly the sheep?’

‘I’d love to have a baby,’ said Sally. ‘I really would. My parents would love me to have one too – they go on about it a bit, actually. But I’d never have one on my own,’ she added purposefully. ‘Cloned, turkey-basted or otherwise.’

‘Why not?’ said Frances. ‘There’s no stigma these days. I’d do it myself only I’m far too lazy. All that getting up in the middle of the night would kill me at my age.’

‘For God’s sake, you’re only thirty-six, not sixty-three!’ said Catherine.

‘What, precisely, are your objections to single motherhood, Sal?’ Frances asked.

‘Well, I just don’t think it’s fair on the child,’ she said. ‘And then some poor man always ends up having to pay for it, even if he never gets to see it and it wasn’t even his decision to have it.’

‘Then the silly bugger should have been more careful,’ said Emma triumphantly.

‘Well, yes. But, speaking personally – this is just my point of view, OK – I think it’s unfair and I know that, well, it’s something that I would never, ever do,’ Sally said. Suddenly a high warble began to emanate from her Gucci handbag. ‘Sorry,’ she said, getting out her mobile phone. ‘This’ll be my update on the US Treasury Long Bond. It’s been a bit wobbly lately. Won’t be a tick.’ She stepped back into the dining-room, where we could see her pacing slowly back and forth while she talked, with evident agitation, to a colleague in New York.

‘Lucky old Tiffany,’ said Catherine, snapping a breadstick in half. ‘She doesn’t have to worry about all this sort of thing.’

‘No she doesn’t,’ said Emma, shivering slightly in the cooling air. ‘She’s got a man. It’s all sewn up and she’s heading for a wedding.’ She cupped her hand to her ear. ‘I can hear the peal of bells already. So when’s he going to pop the question, Tiff?’

‘Oh gosh, well, I mean I don’t … ’ Pity the sun had gone in.

‘Yes. When?’ said Frances, with another gulp of champagne. ‘And can I be your maid of dishonour?’

‘Well, ha ha ha! Erm – I don’t know … er … ’ I glanced at the sky. A thick bank of cloud, grey as gunmetal, had begun to build up. Where had that come from?

‘Are we all warm enough?’ I asked. ‘And, er, who wants another parmesan and red pepper tartlet?’ In fact, I was desperately trying to change the subject because, you see, I really didn’t want to rub it in – I mean the fact that I had a chap, and they didn’t. Because, to be quite honest, I had been sitting there, throughout that discussion, quietly thanking God for Alex. Even if he has got sloping shoulders and a rather girlish giggle which, to be perfectly frank, does make my heart sink at times. But, still, I thought, at least I don’t have to contemplate self-insemination or agonise about my ovaries because a) I’ve got a chap and b) I know for a fact that he likes kids. He really, really likes them. Loves them. I mean he’s awfully good with his niece and nephew – spoils them to bits – and I’m sure he’d be a brilliant father. He wouldn’t mind changing nappies. In fact he’d probably enjoy it. And OK, so I know he’s not perfect – in fact there are one or two other things about him that I’m really not crazy about, including his goatee beard, his outlandish taste in socks, and his thin, unmuscular thighs. But then no-one’s perfect. It’s all about compromise, isn’t it? That’s what enlightened and mature people do. And Alex is really charming. Absolutely sweet, in fact. And certainly not the unfaithful type. Unlike Phil. In fact, when I first met Alex, he was such a gentleman it took him three months just to hold my hand. Which was rather nice. In a way. Anyway, I was quite sure that Alex was about to pop the question. I could tell by the vaguely nervous way in which he’d been looking at me recently. And eight months is quite long enough, isn’t it? At our age? I mean, he’s thirty-eight. I’m now thirty-seven. So what’s the point of hanging around? Why not just, well, crack on with it? It’s not as though he’s got three ex-wives and five children to support; he’s totally unencumbered – another very big point in his favour, incidentally.

So whilst the others continued arguing about the changing roles of men and women and the declining popularity of marriage, I did some mental shopping for the wedding which would be in, what … September? Lovely month. Or if that was too soon, December. I love the idea of a winter wedding. Dead romantic. We could all sing ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ by candlelight, and I could have tinsel draped over the altar and wear a captivating fur-trimmed train. Now where should I get the dress? Chelsea Design Studio? Catherine Walker? Terribly expensive, and in any case if Dad was spending that kind of money, I think Alex prefers Anthony Price. I know Alex would definitely want the flowers to come from Moyses Stevens. He’s very fussy about his floral arrangements. How many guests? A couple of hundred – 217 to be exact, I’ve already drawn up the list, actually. Well, it’ll save time, won’t it? And what about the honeymoon? Probably somewhere arty, like Florence. Alex would really like that. Or maybe Seville. Or Bruges. Somewhere with loads of art galleries and at least seventeen cathedrals. And …

‘Tiffany, where is Alex?’ Catherine asked. ‘It’s a quarter past nine.’

‘Er, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe he’s stuck at work.’

‘What’s he working on?’ Emma enquired.

‘Well, he’s doing up this big house in Pimlico, it’s a total wreck. Brown hessian on the walls. Formica kitchen. Exploding cauliflower carpets. He said he was going to be there all day, but … well, he should be here by now.’

‘Maybe he’s had an accident,’ said Frances helpfully.

‘God, I hope not,’ I said. I went inside and anxiously called his mobile phone. ‘Thank you for calling Vodafone 0236 112331,’ intoned a robotic female voice. ‘Please leave your message after the tone.’ Damn.

‘Um, Alex, hi, um, it’s me. Tiffany,’ I said. ‘And I’m just wondering where you are. Um, hope you’re OK. I’m a bit worried about you, actually. But perhaps you’re on your way. I hope so, because it’s nine-fifteen now and everyone’s been here for quite a while, and to be honest it’s getting a little out of hand – ha ha ha! In fact there’s quite a heated debate going on about gender issues and that sort of thing and I think we need another man to balance it up a bit. So see you soon, I hope. Um. Tiffany.’

‘Gosh it’s getting dark, isn’t it?’ I heard Emma say. ‘Ooh – was that a spot of rain?’

‘Women today have appalling attitudes towards men,’ Kit was saying as everyone strolled inside, ‘and then you all wonder why we run a mile? It’s totally unfair. You refuse to compromise. You don’t want us unless we’re perfect.’

‘No, we don’t,’ they all shrieked, as they flopped onto the chairs and sofas in the sitting-room.

‘Yes, but are you perfect?’ asked Kit as he lowered himself onto the chaise-longue. ‘Ask yourselves that.’

‘Yes we are,’ they all shouted, ‘we’re totally fantastic! Hadn’t you noticed?’

‘Er, yes,’ he replied gallantly.

‘Well I’d happily compromise,’ said Sally, ‘but I hardly ever get to meet men, unsuitable or otherwise.’

‘But you work with thousands of men in the City,’ said Catherine enviously.

‘Yes, but they never approach female colleagues because they’re terrified of being done for sexual harassment. In any case, they don’t regard us as real women – to them we’re just men in skirts. And then when I do meet a nice ordinary guy from outside the City, let’s say a doctor or a vet,’ Sally continued, ‘they tend to run a mile because I’m so … ’ She blushed. ‘I’m so … ’

‘Loaded!’ shrieked Frances and Emma in unison. Sally rolled her eyes.

‘Oh come on, Sally!’ persisted Emma. ‘Your luxury apartment in Chelsea Harbour, your colossal, six-figure salary, you can’t hide them from us, you know. A lot of men would find that totally emasculating.’

‘I was going to say because I’m so busy, actually,’ said Sally. ‘Options traders work horrible hours – that’s the price we pay. That’s the compromise I’ve made. I’m at my desk by seven-thirty every morning, and I’m there for twelve hours. I can’t even have lunch – a sandwich is brought to my desk. And I’m never really off the hook because I have to watch the markets round the clock. And the older I get, the harder it is. So don’t envy me my cash – I think I’d rather have a life.’

As I lit the candles on my cake I mentally gave thanks for my freelance status. I work hard, but at least I can choose my own hours and I don’t have to worry about exchange rates and closing prices at birthday parties – nor do I earn the kind of money which some men might find threatening.

Then, suddenly, I heard someone say, ‘Tiffany … Tiffany! Phone!’ Oh good, I thought as I lit the last candle, it must be Alex. And it was.

‘Happy Birthday, Tiffany,’ he said quietly.

‘Thanks!’ I replied. I could hear the pattering of heavy rain on the path, and, from the sitting-room, the strains of ‘Happy Birthday’. ‘Alex, I’ve been so worried, where are you?’ Happy Birthday to you …

‘Well, actually, to be honest, I just couldn’t face it,’ he said. Happy Birthday to you …

‘In fact, Tiffany … ’ Happy Birthday Dear Tiffaneeeee …

‘ … there’s something I’ve really got to tell you.’

Happy Birthday to you!!!

June

Isn’t it annoying being dumped? I mean, it’s really not enjoyable at all. Getting the Big E. Being handed your cards. Especially when you’re thirty-seven. Especially when you thought the bloke was about to propose. Especially when you thought that, within a matter of mere months, or possibly even weeks, you would be progressing triumphantly up the aisle to ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’. Oh no. Being chucked was definitely not quite what I had in mind on my thirty-seventh birthday. You see, I was convinced Alex was on the point of seeking my hand in marriage – he said he had something to tell me. Instead he simply looked me in the eye the following day and said, ‘I just can’t face it.’

‘Face what?’ I asked suspiciously as we sat at my kitchen table. There was a silence, during which he looked uncomfortable, but calm. His rather soft, girlish lips were pursed together, his cowlick of chestnut hair brushed forward onto his brow. I do wish he wouldn’t do it like that, I found myself thinking, it makes him look like Tony Blair. Then he spoke, and out it all came, in a guilty, logorrhoeic rush.

‘Isimplycan’tfacethefactthatI’mstringingyoualongandwastingyourtime.’ Ah. Oh. Oh dear. He looked rather stricken, then he took a deep breath, inhaling through his aquiline nose. ‘You see I feel under pressure to marry you, Tiffany, and I don’t want to get married, but I know that’s what you’d like.’

‘Oh no, no, no, no, no. I’m not bothered about that at all,’ I said, sipping my Nescafé. ‘Really. I honestly hadn’t given it a thought. I was perfectly happy to go on as we were. Marriage? Good Lord, no. It never entered my mind.’

His face expressed a mixture of puzzlement and relief. ‘Oh. Well, I suppose I was misled by the way you kept stopping outside Berkertex and looking in the window at Cartier and going up to the bridal department at Peter Jones and flicking through wedding stationery in WH Smith. I thought you … I thought you wanted … anyway, the fact is that I really can’t stand the thought of marrying you, Tiffany. Nothing personal,’ he added quickly. ‘But you see, I don’t want to get married to anyone. Ever.’

‘Why not?’ I enquired, hoping that my bright, but not too brittle demeanour would mask my grievous disappointment.

‘Well, I’ve really been thinking about it, and it’s lots of things,’ he said. ‘For a start I like my own space. I’ve never lived with a woman. And I hate the idea of a woman … you know, messing up my things. And then – and this is the main thing –’ he gave a little shudder, ‘the thought of children.’ He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Babies. To be honest the whole idea makes me feel sick. All that crying, and all that, you know, effluent. At both ends. I just don’t think I could handle that at all.’

‘But you’re so good with children,’ I pointed out accurately, whilst mentally congratulating myself for remaining calm. ‘Your nephew and niece adore you.’

‘Yes, but I don’t see them every day. It’s different. And I didn’t really bother with them until they were both safely out of nappies.’

‘But Alex,’ I said slowly, ‘if you don’t ever want to get married, why did you bother to go out with me in the first place?’

‘I liked you. I mean I do like you, Tiffany. And you share a lot of my interests – I mean you like going to art galleries with me, and the ballet –’

‘– and the theatre,’ I interjected.

‘Yes, and the theatre.’

‘And the opera.’

‘Yes, and the opera.’

‘And contemporary dance.’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘And lunchtime talks at the Royal Academy.’

‘Yes, yes, I know.’

‘And the London Film Festival.’

‘Yes … ’

‘And video installations at the ICA.’

‘Yes, yes, all that kind of thing … ’

‘And any number of jazz venues.’

‘I know, I know,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid that’s as far as it goes. I’m not looking for anything else.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see. You just wanted a companion. A female escort. For assorted cultural pursuits.’

‘Well, no – I wanted friendship too. But somehow, well … I could just see the way things were shaping up, and I felt it was time to come clean. I’m sorry if I ruined your party,’ he added. ‘But I just couldn’t face all your friends, knowing that.’

‘It’s all right, Alex,’ I said, fingering the Elizabeth Bradley antique roses tapestry kit he’d brought me as a birthday present. ‘I really don’t mind. Please don’t feel bad about anything. And especially please don’t feel bad about the fact that you’ve just wasted eight months of my life!’ I hissed. Actually, I didn’t say that at all. I just said, ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to take you off my BT Friends and Family list.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I understand.’

‘Would you like some more coffee?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said, staring at his empty cup with a pained expression. ‘But you know, Tiffany … ’

‘Yes?’

He looked genuinely upset now. This was obviously very tough for him. ‘You know I can’t bear instant,’ he said. ‘It really offends my tastebuds. I gave you some very good Algerian arabica the other day, can’t we have some of that?’

‘Of course we can,’ I agreed.

Later that day, as I sat stabbing away at the antique roses canvas with my tapestry needle, reflecting on my newly single status and on the fact that I myself could perhaps be described as an antique rose, Alex phoned. He sounded nervous and unhappy. For one mad, heady instant I thought he might have changed his mind.

‘Yes?’ I said.

‘Tiffany, there’s something else I meant to say this morning,’ he said. ‘Now, I know you’re probably feeling a bit cross with me … ’

‘No, not at all,’ I lied.

‘And I’m sorry to have let you down and everything, but I really hope you’ll do me one big favour.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If I can.’

‘Well, I know you’re probably feeling a bit cross with me and everything … ’

‘Look, I’m not cross,’ I said crossly. ‘Just tell me what you want, will you, I’m trying to make a cushion-cover here.’

‘Well, I’d rather you didn’t, sort of, bad-mouth me to everyone.’

‘No,’ I said wearily, ‘I won’t. Why should I? You’ve been perfectly nice to me.’

‘And I’d especially be grateful if you didn’t tell everyone about that time … ’

‘What time?’

‘That time you found me, you know … ’ His voice trailed away.

‘Oh. You mean the time I discovered you in my bedroom dressed in my most expensive Janet Reger?’ There was an awkward silence.

‘Well, yes. That time.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Of course I won’t tell anyone. And I won’t tell them about the Laura Ashley either.’

‘You should tell everyone about that,’ said Lizzie when she got back from Botswana. ‘That’ll serve him right for dumping you. Bastard. And on your birthday. Bastard.’

‘He’s not a bastard,’ I pointed out accurately. ‘He’s nice.’ ‘He’s not nice,’ she countered. ‘It’s not nice to say, “Tiffany, I really can’t stand the thought of marrying you”.’

‘I’m sure he meant it nicely,’ I said. ‘It’s just unfortunate for me that he took so long to realise he’s not the marrying kind.’

‘Too right he’s not. He’s a complete wimp,’ she said viciously. ‘I always thought so with his mimsy, fussy, girly pernicketiness and his suspiciously refined taste in soft furnishings. And from what you told me about … ’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘ … that side of things, you’d have had more fun with a eunuch! I mean really, Tiffany, you’ve got more testosterone than he has.’ This was probably true. ‘I’m glad you’re not marrying him,’ she added. ‘Mind you, the girls are going to be disappointed – damn! I’d told them they were about to be bridesmaids.’

‘Not yet,’ I said. Not ever, in fact. Because since Alex, or rather Al-ex dumped me, a whole month has gone by. Well, three weeks and five days to be precise. And during that time I’ve been turning everything over in my mind. Reviewing the situation. Mentally rewinding and then fast-forwarding the video of my romantic life. Pressing the pause button here and there, and scrutinising key frames. And I’ve made this momentous, life-changing decision. It wasn’t easy, but I’ve done it. I’ve given up the husband hunt. I’ve chewed it over, and I’m going to eschew chaps. Frances is right. It’s just not worth the pain and grief. Much better to face life alone. So I am now emphatically hors de combat. I have pulled up the drawbridge. The sign says ‘Do Not Disturb’. And I have started to like my hard little shell. The prospect of yet another Saturday night on my own at home in front of the TV no longer fills me with dread. Who needs the romantic darkness of the cinema and dinner tête-à-tête when there’s a Marks and Spencer easicook-lasagne-for-one and the National Lottery Live? My new-found neutrality suits me – no gain, of course, but no pain.

Lizzie says it just won’t do. ‘You’ve got to get out there,’ she said again this morning, bossily, waving her fifth Marlboro Light at me. ‘You’re not doing anything to help yourself. You’ve got to forget about Alex, write him off completely, and get back on that horse.’ I often wonder why Lizzie talks in italics. Maybe it’s because she went to such a third-rate drama school. She paced up and down the kitchen and then flicked ash into the sink. ‘You know, Tiffany, you’re like … ’ I waited for some theatrical simile to encapsulate my predicament. What would I be today? A traveller thirsting in the Sahara? A mountaineer stuck at Base Camp? A promising Monopoly player resolutely refusing to pass ‘Go’? A brilliant artist without a brush? ‘You’re like someone falling asleep in the snow,’ she announced. ‘If you don’t wake up, you’ll freeze to death.’

‘I just haven’t the heart for it any more,’ I said. ‘It always leads to disaster. Anyway, I’m only thirty-seven.’

‘Only thirty-seven? Don’t be ridiculous, Tiffany. There’s nothing “only” about being thirty-seven. To all intents and purposes you are now forty, and then very, very quickly, you’ll be fifty, and then you’ll really be stuffed.’

I sometimes suspect Lizzie’s only being cruel to be cruel. I don’t mind her nagging me. I nag her about her smoking. But I can’t quite see why my lack of a husband and progeny bothers her so much. Perhaps in her funny, crass, cack-handed way, she is trying to be of help. And of course she is thinking how delightful Alice and Amy would look in primrose-yellow bridesmaids’ dresses, or maybe ice-blue, or possibly pale-pink with apricot hairbands, matching satin slippers and coordinating posies – she hasn’t quite decided yet. Anyway, I know, I know that she is right. It’s just that I simply can’t be fagged any more. It’s all too much of an effort – because nice, interesting, decent men with diamond rings in their pockets don’t simply drop from the trees, you have to go out and pick one, or rather knock one down with a very large stick. There are plenty of windfalls of course, but they tend to be bruised and wasp-eaten and I’ve had my unfair share of bad apples over the past few years. But even if I really was pursuing men – the very idea! – I have to face the fact that, as Lizzie keeps telling me, it all gets harder with age. And that’s another thing. Whatever happened to that dewy look I used to have? And when exactly did that little line at the side of my mouth appear, not to mention the creeping crepiness in the texture of my eyelids and the tiny corrugations in my brow? NB: Get more expensive unguents PDQ.

‘I’m losing my looks,’ I said to Mum over the phone after Lizzie had gone. ‘I’m really going down the pan. In fact I’m quite ancient now. Basically, I’m almost fifty. I found my first grey hair this morning.’

‘Did you, darling?’ she replied.

‘Yes. Yes I did,’ I said. ‘Which is why I’m now firmly on the shelf. I’m going off. I’m the Concealer Queen. And this is why I’m being dumped all the time and why men never, ever, ever ask me out.’

‘What about that nice Jewish accountant?’ she said. ‘The one you met last year?’

‘I didn’t fancy him,’ I replied.

‘And that television producer – you said he was quite keen.’

‘Possibly, but his girlfriend wasn’t.’

‘Oh. Oh I see. Well what about that one … you know … whatsisname, the one who does something clever in computers?’

‘Dead boring.’

‘And what about that solicitor you told me you’d met at the tennis club? I’m sure you said he’d called you.’

‘Mummy – he’s got two heads.’

‘Oh. Well at least you can’t say that no-one asks you out.’

‘Yes I can. Because those ones don’t count.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m not interested in them. In fact I’m not interested in men full stop. In any case I really don’t need a husband.’

‘Darling, don’t say that.’

‘No. I’m absolutely fine on my own.’

‘No you’re not. You’re miserable.’

‘Only because I’ve had the wrong attitude. The thing to do is to embrace aloneness. Take spinsterhood seriously.’

‘Darling, no-one will take you seriously if you say things like that.’

‘No, honestly, Mum, I’ll be brilliant at it. I’ll really apply myself. I’ll get a cat and knit blankets for the Red Cross. I’ll develop a passion for cricket and crosswords –’

‘You don’t do crosswords, darling.’

‘I’ll learn. And I’ll man cake stalls at bring-and-buys. And I’ll selflessly babysit for all my friends. I’ll be the most professional spinster there’s ever been – I’ll probably pick up an award for it. Spinster of the Year – Tiffany Trott, brackets “Miss”, close brackets.’

‘Darling, I’m afraid this negative and unhelpful attitude won’t get you anywhere.’

‘I’m just being realistic.’

‘Nihilistic, darling.’

‘But I’m unlikely to meet anyone new.’

‘Don’t be silly, darling, of course you are.’

‘No I’m not. Because I read in the paper the other day that forty-five per cent of us meet our partners through mutual friends and I’ve already met all my friends’ friends. And twenty-one per cent of us meet them through work.’

‘Darling, I do wish you could get a proper job again. All you do is sit on your own writing slogans all day.’

‘But Freelancers Have Freedom!’

‘Yes, but you’re not meeting any men. Except for Kit. Why didn’t you marry Kit, Tiffany?’

‘I don’t want to go through all that again, Mummy. Anyway, he loves Portia.’

‘Don’t your friends know anyone?’

‘No. And when I think about the men I have met through my set they’ve been disastrous – especially Phillip.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said meaningfully. Feckless, unfeeling Phil Anderer.

‘But men!’ I spat. ‘Who needs them? Not me. Anyway,’ I added, ‘I’m not going through all that grief again. No way. Forget it. No. Thank. You.’

Two hours later, the phone rang. It was Lizzie. ‘Now listen to this, Tiffany,’ she said, audibly rustling a newspaper. ‘Listen very carefully.’

‘OK. I’m listening.’

She cleared her throat theatrically. ‘ “Tall, Athletic, Passionate, Propertied, Sensuous Academic, thirty-six, seeks Feminine Friend to share Laughter, Love and … Life?”’ She managed to get a melodramatic, upward inflection into the final word.

‘Yes?’ I said. ‘You read it very well. What about it?’

‘It’s a personal ad,’ she explained.

‘I know.’

‘From the Telegraph.’

‘Good.’

‘In fact it’s a particularly appealing one, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘And you’re going to reply to it, aren’t you, Tiffany?’

‘Yes,’ I said suddenly. ‘I am.’

I also said yes when Lizzie told me that she wanted me to go on a blind date with a colleague of Martin’s. Did I say no-one ever introduces me to matrimonially-minded males? Let me take it back right now!

‘He’s called Peter Fitz-Harrod,’ she said, when she’d finished telling me about the Tall, Athletic Academic. ‘He’s in syndicated loans, whatever they are. I think he lends money to Mozambique. I met him at a company do last week,’ she explained. ‘He’s forty-two, divorced, with two small children. He’s really quite good-looking,’ she added, ‘and very keen to marry again.’

Now I have absolutely no objections to divorced men – as long as the first wife is dead, ha ha! – so I told Lizzie she could give him my number. Then I sat down to write my reply to the Tall, Athletic Academic. I soon got stuck with my pen poised over my best quality oyster-coloured Conqueror paper. How on earth should I go about it? I mean, what the hell do people say? Do they write, ‘Dear Tall, Athletic, Passionate, Propertied … ’, or, ‘Dear Abundantly Erotic Existentialist … ’, or, ‘Dear Bewitching Brunette, fifty-seven and a half … ’? What does protocol require? Maybe I should come clean and say, ‘Hallo there, my. incredibly bossy best friend saw your intriguing ad and told me that if I don’t reply she’ll kill me.’ Maybe I should say, ‘Hi! My name’s Tiffany. I think I could be your feminine friend.’ Feminine Friend? It sounds like a brand of tampon. Maybe I should start, ‘Dear Box Number ML2445219X.’ Maybe I should simply write, ‘Dear Sir … ’

I decided to go shopping instead. There’s nothing like a trip to Oxford Street on the number 73 to clear the brain, and soon I was entertaining positive thoughts about Tall, Athletic, Passionate, Propertied, etc (think I’ll just call him ‘Tall’ for short). By the time the bus was speeding down Essex Road we’d been out to dinner twice. As it pulled away from the Angel he’d shyly held my hand. By the time we turned into Pentonville Road he’d come up to meet my parents. As we drove past Euston station our engagement announcement was in The Times, and by the time we pulled up outside Selfridges half an hour later, we were married with two children and living in Cambridge where he is undoubtedly professor of something terribly impressive, such as cytogenetics. Bus journeys do not normally give rise to such pleasant fantasies. Usually they remind me of the appalling problems I have with men. For example, I step happily on board the number 24, confident that I am going, say, to Hampstead. It all seems perfectly straightforward, the destination quite clear. But then, just as I’m relaxing into my book – ding ding! ‘Last Stop. All Change!’ and there I am, marooned at the grottier end of Camden. And when I gently remonstrate with the bus conductor about my unexpectedly abbreviated journey, he calmly points to the front of the bus where it says, in very large letters, ‘Camden High Street Only’. And that’s what it’s been like with men. I have failed to read the signs. So I have allowed them to lead me not just up the garden path, but through the front door, into the house, through the sitting-room, up the stairs, and into the bedroom, before being shown out through the back door – usually with instructions to cut the grass before I leave. Unfortunately this whole process takes quite a long time, as I have learnt to my great chagrin.

What a fool I am – what a damned, silly little fool. I have let selfish, commitment-shy men tie me up for too long. I have cooked my own goose and stuffed it. Perhaps I could get Tony Blair to introduce legislation, I mused, as I went over to the expensive unguents counter. I’m sure he’d oblige if I asked him to be tough on commitophobia – tough on the causes of commitophobia. Men would not be allowed to monopolise women over the age of thirty-three for more than six months without making their intentions clear. Fines would be incurred, and repeat offenders like Phillip would be sent off for institutional reform in a confetti factory. No longer would men be able to shilly shally around with girls during what Jane Austen called our ‘years of danger’. This would improve our lives immeasurably, I thought as I sprayed Allure onto my left wrist. One father I know, frustrated by his daughter’s four-year wait for a wedding ring, simply put the engagement announcement in the paper – just like that! The boyfriend was whizzed up the aisle before you could say ‘Dearly Beloved’. Other women of my acquaintance have waited for years, and then got dumped the minute they tried to pin the bastard down.

‘I really don’t think we belong together,’ Phillip said after we’d been together for almost three years and I had politely enquired whether my presence in his life was still required.

‘In fact,’ he said very slowly, ‘I now realise that we’re fundamentally incompatible. So it wouldn’t be right for me to marry you. It’s a great pity. But there it is.’

‘Yes, it is a pity,’ I said, as I removed my clothes from his cupboard, trying not to mess up his golfing gear. ‘It’s a pity it’s taken you so long to decide. It’s a pity I didn’t leave you when you admitted you’d been unfaithful. It’s a pity I believed you when you said you wanted me to stay with you for ever. In fact,’ I added through my tears, ‘it’s a pity I met you at all. You’re a good architect,’ I said as I left.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘That conservatory you did for the Frog and Firkin was brilliant.’

‘Thanks,’ he said again.

‘And that loft extension in Putney was tremendous.’

‘I know,’ he said.

‘But you’re useless at building relationships.’

A few months later, I met Alex. It all seemed so promising at first, though he was terribly shy to start with. All those chaste dates – the strain was exhausting.

‘At least he’s not another pathetic womaniser,’ said Lizzie, accurately, after I’d come back un-snogged from my twenty-third date. And he was so nice – and no golf! Hurrah! And no negative comments about my clothes, either. In fact, as it turned out, he really liked my clothes. Especially my lingerie. And my evening wear. But then we all have our foibles, don’t we? Our little peccadilloes. But now look what’s happened. Curtains again. Exit boyfriend stage left. Left.

‘Don’t let them bugger you around any more,’ says Lizzie. ‘Get tough.’ And so now I am tough. If they don’t propose within five minutes – that’s it! Goodbye! Or possibly five weeks. In exceptional circumstances, and if they have a note from their parents, five months.

‘Your pores are rather enlarged,’ said the white-coated crone on the expensive unguents counter as she sat me in front of a magnifying mirror. ‘In fact they’re huge,’ she continued. ‘I’m afraid it’s something that happens with age.’ Oh dear. If I’d known they were that big I could have offered Phillip the use of my face for indoor putting practice.

I bought three tubes of pore-minimiser (£87.50) and a tiny tub of moisturiser – can someone please tell me why moisturiser always comes in such small pots? – and headed home. Then I read the ad again: Tall, Athletic, Passionate, Propertied, Sensuous Academic, thirty-six, seeks Feminine Friend to share Laughter, Love and … Life? Now you’re talking, I thought to myself as I dashed off a letter. Just a few brief details about myself and a not-too-out-of-date passport photo – don’t want to see the guy’s face collapse with disappointment when we meet. I signed it just ‘Tiffany’ with my telephone number, but no address of course – just in case he turns out to be a Tall Athletic Serial Killer. Then I sealed it. As I stuck on the stamp – first class, natch, don’t want him thinking I’m a cheapskate – the phone rang.

‘Oh hellooooo … ’ said a slightly gravelly female voice. Who the hell was this?

‘Hellooooo … ’ it said again. ‘Is that Tiffaneee? Tiffanneee Trott? This is Peter Fitz-Harrod.’ Christ, it was a bloke.

‘Yes,’ I said, shocked. ‘That’s me.’

‘Ah. Well, ha ha ha ha ha! Lizzie Bohannon gave me your number. Ha ha ha ha ha! She’s told me all about you. Ha ha ha ha! You sound absolutely splendid. Would you like to meet me for a drink?’

June Continued

I bet Peter Fitz-Harrod’s wife left him for someone else. I don’t blame her in the slightest. He sounds like a total wimp. Unlike Tall Athletic.

‘Lizzie, why are you setting me up with this weedy little man?’ I asked her over the telephone. Actually I didn’t say that. One has to be tactful with friends who are doing their level best to help one up the aisle. What I really said was, ‘Lizzie, what’s this Peter Fitz-doobery man like? I mean it’s very nice of you to think of me, and I do really, really appreciate it, but to be brutally honest, he sounds like a complete and utter jerk.’

‘I know the voice is a bit awful, but he’s much better in the flesh,’ she said reassuringly. ‘He’s definitely worth a try. Would I suggest him otherwise?’ I was prepared to take her word for it, though I definitely preferred the sound of Tall Athletic. I bet he’s got a lovely voice. All that lecturing – his students must find him mesmerising. He should have had my letter by now. Sporty and brainy – marvellous! What enticing images this conjures: squash followed by a bit of Schopenhauer; tennis followed by the Tate; swimming whilst discussing Solzhenitsyn; hill-walking with a hint of Hindemith. Golf … hang on a mo. Not golf. Anything but golf. If he plays golf, we’re through. ‘No, no, no, you go and play,’ I’d say to Phillip every Saturday morning. ‘You need to relax. You’ve got a very high-pressure job,’ (unlike me, of course). And by six o’clock he’d be back, having played thirty-six – or was it seventy-two? – holes. And then he’d do the same on Sundays. ‘I had a bloody good game,’ he’d say, as he switched on Sky Sports. ‘Bloody good. Tremendous. What’s for supper, Tiff?’

No, I’m putting my foot right down. Tall Athletic is not allowed to play golf. He can play tennis, cricket, croquet, football, hockey, squash, rugby, baseball, basketball, badminton, ping-pong, polo, Eton fives, seven-a-side rugger and darts. He can go surfboarding, rollerblading, water-skiing, rallydriving, scuba-diving, ten-pin bowling, white-water rafting and rowing. He can do heli-skiing, parascending, motocross, hang-gliding, parachuting, sky-diving and three-day-eventing, but if he plays golf – we’re through. Phillip’s much-married mother used to say, in her wearying, worldly-wise way, ‘It’s good for men like Phillip to have a regular sport like golf because then at least,’ and here her voice would drop to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘you know exactly what they’re up to.’ And how my heart would sink, as it always did when she gave me advice of this kind; and later on, when I finally knew, well … how ironic it seemed.

This evening I met Peter Fitz-Harrod for a drink. Here’s what happened. We arranged a rendezvous at the Ritz at six-thirty, and I had planned my escape in the form of a phantom dinner appointment at eight-fifteen. My first blind date for more than fifteen years! What a bizarre thing to do – go to a hotel to have a drink with a man on whom I had never laid eyes before. But having laid ears on him, I wasn’t that excited – just curious to see whether he was as frightful as I imagined. I had described myself to him: ‘fair hair’, I said, deliberately avoiding the word ‘blonde’ – he sounded quite over-excited enough as it was and I knew he wasn’t my type. But I dressed carefully – nothing that Phillip would have made an appalling fuss about, just a pretty little suit and a discreet amount of slap (no foundation – so ageing). As I spun through the swing doors I saw a man in a Burberry raincoat sitting by the night porter’s desk. I looked at him, he looked at me, then he jumped to his feet like a crocodile leaping off the river bank. It was him. Keen as mustard.

‘Hello, ha ha ha ha ha! You must be Tiffaneee,’ he squeaked, offering me a clammy hand.

‘How did you guess?’ I asked him – the Ritz was stuffed to the rafters with thirty-something blondes.

‘Well, ha ha ha ha ha! I don’t know, I suppose you just look like your voice,’ he said.

‘Thank God, you don’t,’ I just managed not to say, because actually, Lizzie was right. He really wasn’t too bad. About five foot ten, with curly brown hair. Blue eyes. Medium build. Discreet grey suit. Black lace-up shoes – well polished. Tasteful silver cufflinks. In fact, quite OK-looking-bordering-on-the-almost-acceptable (NB – do not, in future, judge blokes on basis of voices).

We sat in the bar and ordered drinks. A beer for him, a glass of white wine for me. ‘Sauvignon please, rather than Chardonnay,’ I instructed the waiter in my best ‘girl-about-town’ style. Good God! I suddenly realised I was trying to impress this man. Was I interested? Well, maybe. His ghastly voice had dropped by about an octave, and the nervous machine-gun laughter had stopped. I certainly wasn’t sitting there thinking, You Have Got To Be Joking! In fact, I was smiling quite a bit and I didn’t have my arms defensively crossed. He was really quite nice, I thought, as I nibbled a pistachio. How could his wife have left him? What a cow. Probably led him a merry dance with a string of Latin lovers which she no doubt entertained three at a time in the marital bed, only venturing out in order to blow all his money on Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Poor chap. Obviously been through a hell of a lot. Needs to have his faith in women restored. I asked him about his work, which is scheduling loans to southern African countries. He asked me about mine.

‘Oh – advertising, Go To Work On An Egg and all that!’ he exclaimed enthusiastically.

‘Yes, that sort of thing,’ I replied, without getting into the intricacies of Kiddimint.

‘Vorsprung, Durch Technik!’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

We talked about sport; he hates golf – brilliant! And he likes tennis – even better. I dropped in a strategically sensitive but not at all intrusive question about his children, who he sees every Sunday. Then we ordered another drink. It was all going rather well. Gradually, the conversation became a little more personal. He asked me why I’m not married.

‘I’m too young,’ I said. ‘My parents feel I should wait.’

‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha! That’s very good,’ he said. ‘Very good. Too young! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!’

‘And why did you get divorced?’ I enquired. ‘Was it your wife’s decision?’

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘No, it was entirely mine. My wife didn’t want to get divorced at all. In fact she was terribly unhappy about it. Still is.’ Ah. I see. This took me aback. Men do not normally leave their wives unless they are in love with someone else.

‘She thought we were very happily married,’ he continued above the tinkling of the piano. ‘But I didn’t. She resisted the divorce for months.’ Suddenly I found myself feeling rather sorry for his wife. Why had he left? Maybe he did have an affair, though he didn’t seem the type.

‘I wasn’t interested in anyone else,’ he confided. ‘But the problem was that I found my wife very boring.’ Oh! Oh dear. Boring.

‘Was she very quiet, then?’ I asked him as I fiddled with the stem of my wine glass.

‘Oh no, she had lots to say,’ he replied. ‘She’s not shy or introverted at all, and she’s got a lot of interests. And she really loved being a wife and mother … ’ Oh. Oh, I see. Except that I didn’t really see at all.

‘I was just very bored with her,’ he continued. ‘That’s all I can say. Bored.’ Well, there are worse things to be than boring, I thought. Like unfaithful, controlling, neglectful, selfish, cruel and mean. But boring?

‘She wasn’t very entertaining,’ he explained. ‘And she didn’t pay me enough attention. She just wasn’t –’ he gave an exasperated little shrug –’ … a stimulating partner.’ What was she supposed to do, I found myself wondering, monocycle round the kitchen whilst juggling the Wedgwood and singing highlights from Oklahoma!?

‘And also,’ he leant in a little closer, ‘she was really hopeless in bed.’

Aaarrrggghhh!!! I did not want to know this. It made my stomach turn. By now I was feeling extremely sorry for Mrs Fitz-Harrod. I wanted to go right round to her house and say, ‘Now you listen to me, Mrs Fitz-Harrod, you are well out of it. Your ex-husband is an unchivalrous swine.’ Instead I glanced at my watch. ‘Goodness, it’s five past eight, I really must get going. It’s been very nice talking to you,’ I lied, as a frock-coated waiter brought him the bill.

‘Ditto,’ he replied. ‘I’d love to see you again. We could play tennis,’ he added as I hailed a passing cab. ‘I’ll call you.’

‘Yes. Yes. Do,’ I said as I got in, giving him an arctic smile. ‘That would be nice. Give me a ring some time. Any time.’ Or, preferably, never. Never would be just fine. I sped home feeling slightly depressed. And rather embarrassed, too – after all, I had only met him at Lizzie’s suggestion. I’d have to tell her how ghastly he was – I should never have let her persuade me. Still, she meant well, I reflected as I walked up my garden path, pausing to snip off a couple of pink roses with my nail scissors. They’d look pretty in the kitchen and the scent would cheer me up. I mean it’s not Lizzie’s fault, I thought. She wasn’t to know – she’d only met him once herself. But what a ghastly evening. What a ghastly, ghastly man.

I turned the key in the lock, brightening considerably when I opened the door to see the answerphone’s green light winking gaily at me. My index finger hit ‘Play’. Beep. Beep. Beep.

‘Hello there, Tiffany,’ said a silky-smooth male voice. ‘You don’t know me – yet. My name’s Neville. You were kind enough to answer my ad, and I’d love you to give me a ring.’

When you are thirty-seven, single and childless, there are certain things that people say. They say, ‘Don’t worry, your prince will come,’ or ‘Cheer up! Your luck will change!’ Or – worst of all – ‘There’s someone nice just around the corner.’ I had been about to ban Mum from ever saying that again.

‘No there isn’t someone nice just around the corner,’ I usually say in reply to this well-meant, weekly cliche. ‘There’s probably someone nasty just around the corner. In fact, you can bet there’s a right bastard just around the corner who’s going to get me very interested, waste an awful lot of time and then bugger off, leaving me back at square one.’

‘Don’t worry, darling, there’s someone nice just around the corner,’ she said to me again this morning, but this time I simply said to her, ‘Well Mummy, I think you might be right.’ Now why did I say that? Because Tall Athletic’s just around the corner – that’s why. And he really does sound nice. A gorgeous voice for starters – dead sexy. American. Or at least … well, it was rather embarrassing actually. Because when I realised I had a Sylvester Stallone soundalike on the other end of the line I said, ‘Which part of the States do you come from then?’

And there was this awkward silence for about – ooh, a minute – and then the voice said, ‘Actually, I’m Canadian.’

Anyway, I eventually managed to persuade him not to put the phone down, and we began to chat. Now, I don’t know what other people do on these occasions, but I decided not to talk to him for too long. I wanted us to have plenty to say to each other when we met. So I didn’t ask him about his academic career or what he loves most about the British or anything like that, I just asked him what he meant by ‘Athletic’. And he said – be still my beating heart! – ‘Ice hockey’. Wow! That is such a macho game.

Anyway, we decided to meet at this little Italian café in Soho he knows, because he told me he was a great ‘Italophile’. And this seemed to be true because when he rang off he said ‘ciao’ instead of ‘bye’. ‘Ciao.’ Just like that. Isn’t that great? ‘Ciao.’ Yes, I really like the sound of him. However, there are two drawbacks: 1) he lives in Walthamstow and 2) his name is Neville. Now, Neville is not a great name. In fact it’s pretty awful – on a par with, say, Kevin, Terry or Duane. But then, he’s Canadian, so it’s sort of OK, and of course a lot of famous Canadians do have quite weird names, don’t they, like, um, famous Canadians, famous Canadians – oh yes, Margaret Atwood and Bryan Adams. And as for Neville living in Walthamstow – well I’m sure he’d relocate if we hit it off, which I really think we might.

Why oh why oh why do men feel the need to exaggerate their height? I mean, it’s not even as though I’m particularly prejudiced in favour of tall men – I’m not. It was the ‘Athletic Academic’ bit of Neville’s ad which appealed to me because I really like clever men. Anyway, when I arrived at the Café Firenza – a bit of a dive frankly – I asked for Neville and was shown to a table at the back. I saw this bearded man sitting there – why didn’t I check him for facial hair over the phone? And when he stood up to shake my hand I realised he was no more than five foot eight and three-quarters, which is not tall, it’s medium. And medium is absolutely fine. There is nothing wrong with medium. But it is not to be confused with ‘tall’. So instead of the big, brainy lumberjack of my dreams, there was this rather slight, bearded man, with sloping shoulders, small hands and large, grey, staring eyes. My heart sank into the soles of my Patrick Cox loafers. Still, he did have a very sexy voice – unlike Peter Fitz-Harrod. He ordered the wine, in Italian. This seemed to take quite a long time for some reason, even though it was quite clear to me, from my smattering of restaurant Italian, that he was ordering a bottle of the vino da tavola – rosso. And then, when the waiter had gone, Neville did this funny thing. He just sat there, looking at me very intensely, saying nothing. Just staring. Obviously terribly shy. I smiled encouragingly at him.

‘Are you feeling tense, Tiffany?’ he suddenly asked me.

‘Tense? Oh, no, no, no. Not at all. No.’

‘It’s just that you do seem quite, well, tense. And nervous. I think you are tense and nervous, aren’t you, Tiffany?’ he persisted as the bottle of house red arrived.

‘Mille grazie, Rodney,’ he said. ‘You see, I do have that effect on women,’ he continued. ‘I’m told I make them nervous. I can’t help it,’ he added as he poured wine into his glass tumbler, and then mine. He looked up at me. ‘I seem to have this … power over women.’

Neville was wearing a checked shirt with no tie, the top three buttons undone. And in the hairs on his chest was a white, pus-filled boil, like a tiny electric lightbulb. I found myself staring at it, wondering if it was about to pop. To distract myself I asked him about his academic career, and it turned out he wasn’t a professor of cytogenetics. He wasn’t a professor of anything. He wasn’t even a lecturer. He was still a student – at thirty-six!

‘Still trying to get those O levels?’ I quipped as the wine kicked in.

He looked offended. ‘Actually, I’m doing a PhD.’

‘Wow! What’s it about?’ I enquired, chewing the end of a breadstick.

‘It’s about the influence of Breton ballads on early nineteenth-century Quebecois poetry. It’s really fascinating. You know, you British really have no idea how vibrant Canadian culture is.’

‘On the contrary,’ I replied. ‘I’ve read all Margaret Atwood’s novels. They were jolly good. And I’ve got three Glenn Gould CDs.’

‘You’re all so insular,’ he said, warming to his theme. ‘I mean, there were local elections in Winnipeg last week, but there was nothing about it in the British press. And the Quebec problem hardly gets covered at all, despite the fact that the potential break-up of the Canadian federation is an issue of enormous international concern.’ By this time I couldn’t have cared less if Canada became the fifty-first state in the Union.

‘Don’t mind me,’ he suddenly said with a little, low laugh. ‘I’m very pugilistic. I like to provoke. I get in a lot of fights. I get in a lot of fights over women.’ He shifted in his seat, then hooked his elbows around the back of his chair. ‘Sometimes, I just walk out of tutorials, right in the middle of them – bang! – just like that. My PhD supervisor says I’m a mixture of charm and war.’ Charm and war! Gosh. Charm and bore more like.

He looked me straight in the eye. ‘I’m gonna level with you, Tiffany,’ he said. ‘I’m very … complex. I’ve done a lot of drugs and I’ve had a lot of women. A whole string of them. It’s been pretty easy for me.’ Why, then, the need to advertise his charms in the personal column of a national newspaper? ‘But I’m tired of womanising,’ he added, by way of explanation. ‘I want kids. Lots of them. But only with the right kind of woman. Hence my ad. Now a lot of really gorgeous women have written to me, Tiffany. And one of them is going to be the mother of my children. Maybe it’ll be you, though frankly I think you’re a little bit old for that. But I thought your photo was cute.’

Suddenly he leant forward and said, ‘Guess who holds the world record for break-dancing at high altitude?’

‘Er, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘That’s rather a tricky one. Um, let me guess … not … you?’

He nodded slowly, with a lop-sided little smile.

‘Gosh!’ I said. ‘And how often do you play ice-hockey?’

‘Tiffany.’ He was staring at me intensely again. ‘Enough about me. I want you to tell me all about yourself. You haven’t told me a thing.’ He hadn’t asked.

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go,’ I said. ‘It’s half past eight, and I’ve got an early start tomorrow. But it’s been very interesting meeting you,’ I said truthfully, putting down a fiver for the wine. ‘And, well … ’ I groped for some definitive valediction. ‘Good luck.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Ciao.’

July

I’m going to try the small ads again! You see, I’m beginning to get the hang of it now. But no more weird, superannuated students thank you very much – Eligible Successfuls only from now on! And I must say I rather like these Twin Souls telephone ads, where you don’t have to write off to some anonymous post box and then wait weeks for a reply. You just dial a number, listen to their recorded voice-mail and leave them a message of your own. It’s brilliant because, let’s face it, voices are pretty important. I mean, on paper a man could look fantastic, but then the ‘Successful City Professional, 44’ could, in reality, be a ‘Successfuw Ci-ee Professionaw, Fawee-fawer’. And that wouldn’t do at all, would it? So these answerphone ads are jolly good. Expensive, of course. But then what’s fifty pence a minute compared to my future happiness?

Anyway, having listened to – what? – forty or fifty of these earlier on today I’ve found one I really like: ‘Adventurous, Seriously Successful Managing Director, 41, 6 foot, slim, attractive, amusing, urbane, WLTM unforgettable girl in her 20s/30s who doesn’t mind being spoilt a little, or even a lot.’ His voice was so nice – neither horribly posh, nor obviously plebeian. Smooth without being smarmy. Cultivated, but not cut glass. Perfect. Wonder why he’s still single? Anyway, he can spoil me as much as he likes, and I’ll spoil him right back – with interest. Of course, leaving the reply’s a bit of an ordeal. I felt quite shy actually, and had to have a couple of goes at it, but then hell! We’re all in the same boat here, so what’s the problem? We’re just people who are too busy, too dynamic, too successful, too eligible, too desirable and too bloody attractive to find the time to stop being … um … alone. So we’re just being really sensible about our completely puzzling lack of a life partner and resorting to a little artifice.

‘Hellooooo,’ I whispered into the receiver in the most Felicity Kendalish voice I could manage. ‘My name’s Tiffany. Tiffany Trott. Now, I know you’ll have heard from about seventeen million unforgettable girls in their twenties and thirties, but you don’t need them – you need me! Why? Because I’m happy and busy, and I like jokes and I’m thirty-seven, single, and um … desperate – ha ha ha! No, but seriously … I’m short, blonde, on the fat side and quite jolly. Ummmm … so there we have it. That’s me, Tiffany. Tiffany Trott. So please give me a call soon. PS: I hope you don’t like golf. PPS: Isn’t this fun?’

Wow! That’s it. I hope he gives me a ring – preferably one with a big diamond on it, lozenge cut. On the other hand a large square emerald would be nice or – and this is dead trendy – a right knuckleduster of an aquamarine. Yes, according to this month’s edition of Brides and Setting Up Home magazine, aquamarines are the stone of choice. In the meantime, there’s dinner with Angus and Alison this evening. I suppose I’ll be the only single woman – as usual. And as usual they’ll have invited along some dreary, physiognomically-challenged, halitotic ex-army chap for me, who will have absolutely nothing to say. And seeing me struggle to extract conversation out of him over the curried avocado will make Alison and Angus think how lucky they are to be married, and thank God for that Young Conservatives do in Croydon in 1982, otherwise they’d never have met each other and they’d have ended up sad singles too, like poor, poor Tiffany.

Got that one completely wrong. On several counts. I wasn’t the only single woman – Catherine was there too, thank God. And my ‘date’ was OK-looking-bordering-on-the-almost-acceptable. A GP in his early forties. And he certainly wasn’t dreary. Oh no. He had plenty to say.

Hello, I thought to myself when we were introduced, you’re a bit of all right. A damn sight better than the usual pond life they dredge up on my behalf. He was very flirty. Very animated. He giggled a lot. He drank a lot. Though, like me, he politely declined Alison’s homemade cheese and peanut dip. But he looked incredibly fit and he had a lovely tan. I wasn’t too keen on his stubby little moustache or the gold bracelet on his left wrist, but I really liked his natty turquoise silk embroidered waistcoat. Very unusual. Though Catherine didn’t seem that impressed with him – she looked at him, then looked at me, and discreetly rolled her eyes. But personally, I rather liked the look of him.

Anyway, Angus and Alison ushered us all into the dining-room, and they sat Catherine next to this accountant – now he did look dreary – and they put me next to the GP, who was called Sebastian. And we started to make smalltalk over the macaroni-cheese-stuffed eggs, and he politely asked me about my interests. And when I said tennis, he said, ‘What do you play – singles?’ I found that awfully amusing. And then he kept going on, rather oddly I thought, about how gorgeous-looking Greg Rusedksi is and how much he’d like to be on Greg’s receiving end.

‘Now, there’s herby apple-glazed pork roast next,’ said Alison. ‘Or blue cheese chicken rolls if you’re vegetarian.’

Anyway, then, because Abigail whatsername was pregnant – smugly rubbing her vast stomach all evening – the conversation naturally turned to babies.

‘Are you hoping to have children?’ Sebastian asked me, passing me the bowl of cheesy-topped vegetables.

‘Well … yes … yes, I am actually,’ I replied, as I passed it on. I didn’t really want to discuss it, to be honest, but he didn’t seem to pick up on that at all.

And then he said, ‘How old are you?’ At this point everyone suddenly started listening.

‘I’m fifty-three,’ I quipped, to cover my annoyance at being asked.

‘Gosh, I’d never have thought it,’ he said with a sly grin. ‘I thought you were only – ooh – forty.’ And everyone laughed, except Catherine, who looked horrified. But all the others seemed to find it extremely funny, especially, it seemed to me, Abigail, who’s only twenty-nine. And while I sat there wondering if I have ever, ever in my life said anything so calculated to hurt, humiliate and demoralise another human being, he went on and on and on about the bloody biological clock.

‘I’m sick of seeing late thirty-something and early forty-something women come bleating to me for IVF because they’ve never got round to having babies before,’ he said, adding, to me, ‘so I wouldn’t hang around, Tiffany.’

‘Oh, I’m working on it,’ I said. ‘In fact I’m fairly confident of giving birth before I’m due to have my hips replaced.’

‘By the time women are over thirty-five it’s getting critical,’ he said expansively, pouring himself another glass of Bulgarian Cabernet. ‘Perhaps you should have your eggs frozen, Tiffany.’ And then he went into this really long, detailed spiel about how women are born with all their eggs – hundreds of them – but how they gradually start to go off as we age, and how by the time we’re thirty-seven plus we’re practically infertile and almost guaranteed to give birth to three-headed monsters – that is if we can get pregnant at all.

‘So I do advise you to get on with it,’ he finished, ‘because even if you were actively trying to start a family you might find that, at your age, it takes you ages to get pregnant.’

‘What about Jane Seymour?’ I said, taking a sliver of peach melba cheesecake. ‘Twins at forty-four.’

‘And Annabel Goldsmith had a baby at forty-five,’ interjected Catherine.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and Jerry Hall had another when she was forty-one. They were all absolutely fine.’

‘That’s different,’ he said. ‘They’re rich. And anyway, they’d had children before – it’s much harder having your first baby late.’

‘But Madonna was thirty-eight when she had her first child,’ said Catherine, with an indignant little laugh.

‘And Koo Stark was forty,’ I persisted, because, you see, I always pay close attention to stories like that in the newspapers. In fact Mum cuts them out and sends them to me – I’ve got quite a collection now in the ‘Late Motherhood’ section of my index file.

‘And that other woman, Liz Buttle, she was sixty,’ added Catherine vehemently. ‘Which means Tiffany and I have got loads of time left.’

But Sebastian didn’t seem impressed. ‘You know,’ he said, cutting into the Danish Blue, ‘all this talk about older motherhood being fashionable – it’s total baloney. This is what women like to say to make themselves feel good about it all. But the fact is that children don’t want geriatric parents. It’s embarrassing for them. But then the problem is,’ he added, ‘that if women don’t have babies, then they run an increased risk of getting breast cancer.’

Sometimes. Just sometimes, taxi drivers can be really, really nice. Especially mini-cab drivers. On the way back from Angus and Alison’s – my God, a fifteen-pound fare and I hadn’t even had a nice time! – I saw the driver rummaging in the glove box. Then he passed back a thick wadge of tissues.

‘Thank you,’ I said quietly.

‘Cheer up, darlin’,’ he said, as we sped past the Angel. ‘It may never happen.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know. That’s just the problem.’

Location. Location. Location. Where blokes live is critical, because the fact is – and I don’t know why this should be the case – that whenever I’m going out with someone I nearly always end up going over to their place. And that’s the big drawback about London, isn’t it? The trek across the capital when you’re romantically inclined. Take my ex-but-one Phil Anderer for example. He lived in Wimbledon! Not very convenient for me, but I didn’t like to complain.

‘Oh no, I don’t mind the journey over at all,’ I used to say. ‘It only takes two days on the number 93 and there are so many interesting things to look at along the way.’ And I didn’t resent the fact that he practically never came over to my place because I understood that he needed to be near the golf club and in any case, I quite agreed with him that the back end of Islington can be a very dangerous place. And as for Alex, well although he lived very centrally, in Fitzrovia, behind Tottenham Court Road, somehow I hardly ever went to his flat. Usually we met outside the theatre, or the opera, or the ICA or the National Gallery, or St John’s, Smith Square, or Sadler’s Wells, or the Jazz Café or the National Film Theatre or wherever. Anyway, I’ve given this issue quite a bit of thought, and I’ve decided that there’s no way romance is going to blossom if blokes do not possess at least one of the following postcodes: N1, N4, N5, N16, W1, W2, WC2, SW1 or – in exceptional circumstances – SW3. I do hope my Adventurous, Seriously Successful, Managing Director qualifies on that front. Actually, I haven’t heard a whisper. I don’t think he liked my reply to his ad. Lizzie didn’t like it either.

‘Why on earth did you tell him your age?’ she barked, as we worked out in her local gym. ‘You must be out of your tiny mind.’

‘As he’s very likely to find out how old I am, I might as well be upfront about it,’ I said calmly, as I lay back on the bench and lifted little weights with my feet. ‘Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with being thirty-seven. Thirty-seven’s just fine. Greta Scacchi’s thirty-seven,’ I pointed out.

‘But you’re not Greta Scacchi,’ Lizzie replied, as she pounded away on the running machine. This was true.

‘Daryl Hannah’s thirty-seven too,’ I said. ‘So is Kim Wilde. So is Kristin Scott Thomas.’

‘Don’t talk to me about Kristin Scott Thomas,’ panted Lizzie, as she increased the speed. Oh dear. I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten that if it wasn’t for Kristin Scott Thomas Lizzie would be a very famous actress by now. In fact she’d be as famous as, well, Kristin Scott Thomas. But in 1986 Kristin Scott Thomas beat Lizzie to the lead role in some B movie or other, blighting Lizzie’s career ever since.

‘Well, I like being thirty-seven,’ I added. ‘I feel good about everything at thirty-seven, except my eggs, which are apparently going off according to a sadistic doctor I met last week. Apart from that, I’m in my prime.’

‘Tiffany, you are not in your prime, you’re getting on,’ she said, stopping to light a cigarette. ‘And will you please stop telling these men that you’re short and fat. You’re not.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But if I tell them that I am short and fat then, when they meet me, they’ll be so relieved, having had such low expectations of what I’m going to be like, that they’ll instantly fancy me to bits. You see I’ve worked it all out.’

‘If you tell them you’re short and fat,’ she said slowly, ‘you won’t get to meet them at all. I mean why do you think this Seriously Successful hasn’t called? I rest my case.’

When I got home, the phone rang. ‘Oh, hello, is that Tiffany?’ said the ‘Adventurous, Seriously Successful Managing Director, 41’, whose voice I instantly recognised.

‘Yes, it is,’ I said happily. ‘Hello!’

‘Thank you so much for replying to my ad,’ he said. ‘It was lovely to hear from you. You’re number sixteen million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, by the way.’

‘Oh dear – a disappointing response, then.’

‘And how many other Twin Souls ads have you replied to?’

‘Four hundred and fifty-six.’

‘I see. Well I think it’s very sensible of you not to overdo it. And what do you do?’

‘I’m an advertising copywriter.’

‘Oh. Go To Work On An Egg – Vorsprung Durch Technik, that kind of thing,’ he said.

‘Yes. That sort of thing. Pick Up a Penguin.’

‘Don’t Leave Home Without It.’

‘Helps You Work, Rest and Play.’

‘Lifts and Separates.’

‘Things Happen After a Badedas Bath.’

‘Refreshes the Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach.’

‘Simple. But Brilliant.’

‘Pure Genius,’ he said. ‘Now, tell me, are you really short and fat?’

‘No, not really,’ I said.

‘Well, that’s a pity, because I like small cuddly women.’

‘Nor could I conceivably be described as tall and thin,’ I pointed out. ‘And are you really “Seriously Successful”?’

‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

‘Well, that’s a pity, because on the whole I prefer life’s losers and the walking wounded.’

On and on we bantered. A man with a quick wit – fantastic! Better still, he got my jokes.

Unlike Phil Anderer: ‘You know what your problem is, don’t you?’ Phillip would say. ‘No,’ I’d reply, whilst wondering whether he was going to tell me, yet again, that it was my ‘abject’ dress sense, or the fact that I ‘talked too much’ or had ‘too many little opinions’.

‘What is my problem?’ I’d say wearily. ‘Tell me.’

‘You’ve got no sense of humour … ’

‘Now, I think we should meet,’ said Seriously Successful after about twenty minutes of happy badinage. ‘Do you like the Ritz?’ Do fish like water?

‘Love it.’

‘Good. I’ll book a table for two on … Thursday? At eight o’clock?’

‘Fabbo,’ I said. ‘See you there. But hang on a mo – how will I recognise you?’

‘I’ll be wearing a Hermes tie,’ he said. ‘What about you?’

‘I wear contact lenses.’

‘Good. That’ll be easy then.’

Wahay! I’m having dinner at the Ritz with a quite possibly gorgeous, successful, charming, and very amusing man, complete with outsize bank balance and impeccable taste in neckwear. Does winning the lottery feel this good?

On Thursday evening I showered, dressed carefully in an elegant little Alberta Ferretti linen suit which I’ve had for five years but love, and set off for Piccadilly on the number 38 bus. As I walked through the revolving doors of the Ritz for the second time in a fortnight, trying not to look as though I was on another blind date – and desperately hoping not to see Peter Fitz-Harrod again – I spotted a rather interesting-looking man standing at the reception. Tall, with wavy chestnut hair, fine features and chocolate-brown eyes, he wasn’t conventionally handsome, but he looked very animated and alert. He was beautifully besuited in a Prince of Wales check and, as I approached, I noticed that he had his tie twisted round so the label was showing. He looked at me, raised his eyebrows enquiringly, then suddenly broke into a broad smile.

‘Hallo, Tiffany Trott,’ he said confidently.

‘Hello, Seriously Successful,’ I replied.

‘The Effect is Shattering,’ he added.

‘Thank you. It’s Good to Talk.’

‘Let’s eat,’ he said, gently taking hold of my left elbow and steering me, along the pink-and-green carpet, through the Palm Court bar, towards the restaurant. Now, I thought this instant physical contact was a little bit forward, but I didn’t mind. In fact, I rather liked it. It was nice. Seriously Successful was obviously at home in the Ritz – the waiters all seemed to know him. We were shown to a table on the left, near the large gilded figures of Neptune and his Nereid. The tablecloths were of the heaviest white damask, the china a pure turquoise blue. A silver vase containing two Stargazer lilies scented the surrounding air. I breathed it all in. It was lovely. I looked around at the other diners, substituting their faces for those of Noel Coward, Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh and the Aga Khan.

‘There’s so much history in this room, isn’t there?’ I said.

‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘Edward the Seventh was a regular. Just think, he and Alice Keppel may have dined at this very table.’

Seriously Successful ordered the wine with obvious savoir boire and kept smiling at me over the top of his menu as I perused the hors d’oeuvres. ‘Oak-smoked wild salmon – £17.50.’ Maybe I’d have the mosaic of Devon crab, or the toasted game salad with celeriac wafers, or the artichoke heart with wild mushrooms and asparagus. I really couldn’t decide.

‘I do hope you’ll have something really high-calorie,’ said Seriously Successful suddenly. ‘I love curvy women. May I recommend the terrine of foie gras followed by the roast rack of lamb with a large helping of Dauphinois potatoes, and then the double chocolate mousse – with added cream, of course.’

‘I’m not sure that’ll be enough,’ I said, though the truth was I had the butterflies and didn’t know how I was going to eat anything. I found him so damned attractive. He was very conservative, and yet artistic, too – a devastating combination. He told me about his work – publishing trade magazines – and his passion for playing the cello, which he said he practises every morning. He also told me about his farmhouse in Sussex, and his luxury apartment in Piccadilly – in Albany no less – with Alan Clark living practically next door!

‘So the Ritz is really your local,’ I said as our main course arrived.

‘Yes. And Fortnum and Mason’s is my corner shop,’ he replied. ‘These little stores are so useful.’ He grinned. I smiled back. How incredible to think that such a nice-looking, funny, generous, stylish, eligible man was still single! Amazing. What a piece of luck. Thank God I’d been brave enough to answer his ad, I thought, as I listened to the gentle clattering of silver cutlery. It was such a sensible thing to have done. We talked with startling ease about, well, lots of things – recent films and books, tennis technique and travel, birth signs, politics and paintings, love, life and death. And of course advertising, which he loves. In fact he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of slogans and straplines, including one or two of my own. This was highly gratifying. The evening was going brilliantly well. And then, as the waiters took away our plates after the main course, Seriously Successful removed his napkin from his lap and looked me straight in the eye. And I thought he was going to say, ‘Miss Trott. In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you!’ Instead, he leant forward and said, ‘Now Tiffany, I’ve got a little proposition for you.’

What is wrong with men? Why do they always give me such a hard time? After all, it’s not as though I’ve failed to make any effort with them. Have I not cooked for them and ironed their shirts, including that rather tricky bit at the base of the collar? Have I not planted their gardens and watered their window boxes? Have I not posted their letters and picked up their prescriptions and collected swatches of carpet and curtain fabric when they were having their houses done up? Have I not changed my clothes when they told me they didn’t like them, and lost weight when they said I was too fat? Have I not – have I not trotted after them round the bloody golf course shouting, ‘MARVELLOUS SHOT!’ – even when the ball was clearly heading for the lake? So what, precisely, is the sodding problem? Why is there always some matrimony-murdering sting in the tail? Take Seriously Successful, for example. There I was at the Ritz, lost in love, mentally rehearsing his wedding speech, and naming our children (Heidi, Hildegarde, Lysander, Tarquin and Max) when Fate, with malice aforethought, sneezed in my ashtray again.

‘Now, I don’t want you to be shocked,’ said Seriously Successful, seriously. ‘But I’ve got this little proposition for you. For us, actually.’

‘Oh, what’s that, then?’ I asked airily, fiddling with my pudding fork and hoping that what he had actually meant to say was that he had in mind a little proposal for me. Propositions always sound vaguely dodgy, don’t they?

He fiddled with the knot of his tie. ‘You see,’ he began hesitantly, ‘my wife and I … ’

‘Your wife?’

‘Yes.’ He looked at me. ‘Wife.’

‘Oh.’ My heart did a bungee jump.

‘You see she … Olivia. That’s her name. Olivia and I … ’ He took a sip of water. He appeared to be struggling. ‘ … well … we don’t really get on. In fact, we were never really very compatible in the first place,’ he continued. ‘We’ve soldiered on for years, but recently we’ve just found it pretty intolerable. There’s never been anyone else involved,’ he added quickly. ‘I wouldn’t like you to think that. But it’s just that our marriage is, well, a bit of a farce, really.’

My hopes rose as swiftly on their elasticated rope as they had plummeted a moment before. In that case he could get divorced, couldn’t he, and it would all be OK? I could still have my dream man with his lovely voice and his smart suits and his exquisite neckwear and his jokes.

‘However,’ I heard him continue, ‘we are extremely unlikely to split up.’

‘Oh.’ Oh. ‘Why?’

‘Because her father is my main backer. He lent me a considerable amount of money when I set up my company fifteen years ago.’

‘I see.’

‘I had nothing then. Except my ideas, and my energy, and my ambition. And he enabled me to make a success of it. It would have been almost impossible otherwise. And it has been, well … ’

‘Seriously Successful?’ I suggested.

‘Yes,’ he said with a little shrug. ‘It has. That’s why I have the house in Sussex and the smart flat in town. That’s why I’m wearing a Savile Row suit and handmade shoes. That’s why my daughter goes to Benenden. All because Olivia’s father laid the foundations for my business success.’

‘But if the company’s done that well, couldn’t you just, well, pay him back?’ I ventured.

‘I have,’ he replied. ‘Of course I have. With interest. But it’s not as simple as that, because when he agreed to back me, he said he would only do it if I promised always to look after Olivia and never, ever leave her. That was the condition. He was very emphatic about it, and I said I would honour it. And I will. In any case,’ he carried on with a slight grimace, ‘divorce is so unpleasant, especially where children are involved. I really don’t want to inflict that on my daughter.’

‘Well personally I think adultery’s very unpleasant. I really don’t want to inflict that on myself.’

‘And the reason why I put in that ad is because I’m just, well, rather lonely and love-starved really, and I wanted to find someone I can care for and … ’

‘Spoil a little or even a lot,’ I said dismally.

‘Er. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Someone I can have fun with. And when I talked to you, and met you this evening, and was terribly attracted to you, which I am, then I knew that the person I could have fun with was you.’

‘What the hell makes you think I want to have fun?’ I said. ‘I don’t want any bloody fun. I want to get married.’

‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t actually offer you marriage,’ he said. ‘Not as such. But we could still have a wonderful relationship,’ he added enthusiastically. ‘Though of course it would have to be part-time.’

‘Part-time? Oh I see,’ I said, twisting the handle of my pudding spoon. ‘Well, perhaps you could tell me what that would involve. I mean, how many days off would I get? And would I have any union rights? Would I get the usual benefits and sick pay, and could you guarantee me a minimum wage? And if I were to sign a contract what would happen if Britain signed up to the Social Chapter? You see I’ve got to think about these things.’

‘Don’t be bitter,’ he said, as the waiter arrived with the pudding and cheese. ‘Why did you assume that I was single?’

‘Because you didn’t say that you weren’t,’ I said, throwing my eyes up in anguish to the clouded, trompe l’oeil ceiling. ‘Why didn’t you just be done with it and say, “Suave businessman in dead-as-dodo marriage WLTM curvy girl for fun legovers with absolutely no view to future”? Anyway, you could have told me over the phone.’

‘You didn’t ask.’

‘But you should have said. We talked for long enough.’

‘Well, OK, I didn’t say because I liked the sound of you so much and I was afraid that if you knew my situation you wouldn’t agree to meet me.’

‘Too bloody right. Being someone’s side-order wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.’

‘I don’t know why you’re so shocked,’ he said, with an air of exasperation as he buttered a Bath Oliver. ‘I’m offering something very … civilised. And let’s face it, Tiffany, lots of people have these sorts of arrangements.’

‘Well, lots of people aren’t me,’ I said. My throat was aching with a suppressed sob; tears pricked the back of my eyes. I glanced away from him, taking in the Marie Antoinette interior with its shining mirrored panels and gilded chandeliers. Then I looked at him again.

‘You said it was a proposition. And I don’t accept it. So I’m afraid you’ll just have to put it to someone else.’ I put my napkin on the table and stood up. ‘I think I’ll go home now. Goodbye. Thank you very much for dinner.’

I walked out through the bar, aware of the happy babble of voices, and the merry chink of cut glass. My face was flaming with a combination of indignation and the humid, midsummer heat. What a bastard, I thought as I crossed Piccadilly. Who did he think he was? More importantly, who did he think I was? What a cad. What a … I flagged down the number 38 and stepped on board. Empty. Good. At least I could cry without being stared at.

‘Cheer up darling,’ said the conductor as I sat in the front seat shielding my face with my left hand. ‘It may never happen.’

‘I know,’ I said, as a large, hot tear plopped onto my lap. Especially if I make a habit of dating men like Seriously Successful. What a creep. What did he take me for? I reached into my bag and pulled out my mobile phone. I’d ring Lizzie right now and tell her what a bastard he was. Part-time girlfriend indeed! She’d be sympathetic. I dialled her number.

‘We’re so sorry, but Lizzie and Martin aren’t here at the moment,’ declaimed her recorded voice. ‘But please do leave us a message … ’ God, so theatrical – you’d think she was auditioning for the RSC – ‘and we’ll get back to you just as soon as we can.’ Damn. I pressed the red button. Who could I talk to instead? I had to talk to someone. Sally. She’d dish out some sympathy. If she wasn’t in New York, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Washington or Paris. Ring ring. Ring ring.

‘Hallo,’ said Sally.

‘Sally, it’s Tiffany and I just wanted to tell you … ’

‘Tiffany! How are you?’

‘Very pissed off actually, because you see I’ve just been on a date, a blind date … ’

‘Gosh, that’s brave.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is. Or rather it’s not really brave, it’s stupid. Because you see I met this bloke, this adventurous, seriously successful managing director … ’

‘Yes? Sounds OK. What happened?’ The bus stopped in Shaftesbury Avenue, then – ding ding! - it moved off again.

‘Well, it was all going very well,’ I said. ‘I thought he was terribly attractive, and very interesting and incredibly funny … ’

‘Oh hang on, Tiffany, I’ve just got to catch the business headlines on Sky … ’ Her voice returned a minute later. ‘It’s OK, I was just checking the Dow Jones. Carry on. So what happened?’ Ding ding!

‘Well, it was going really well,’ I repeated. ‘And he seemed very interested in me, and I was certainly very interested in him and then … ’

‘Yes?’

‘Move down inside the bus please!’ Ding ding!

‘He told me that he was married and was only looking for a part-time girlfriend. What do you think of that?’

‘I think that’s awful,’ said the elderly woman sitting behind me. I turned round and looked at her. ‘I hope you gave him what for,’ she said.

‘Yes, I did actually. I was extremely insult—Sally? Are you still there?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘How ghastly. What a creep. But didn’t his ad say that he was married?’

‘No. It didn’t say he was married,’ I said dismally, as we chugged up Rosebery Avenue. ‘It simply said that he was looking for an unforgettable girl in her twenties or thirties to “spoil a little or even a lot”.’ A guffaw arose from behind me. What the hell was so funny? I turned round again and glared at the other passengers.

‘But Tiffany, you should have known,’ said Sally. Ding ding!

‘How?’

‘Because an offer to “spoil” a woman is shorthand for seeking a mistress. Like an offer to “pamper” her, or a request for “discretion”. You’ve got to learn the code if you’re going to do this kind of thing.’

‘Well I didn’t know that,’ I wailed. ‘I know that GSOH means Good Sense of Humour and I know VGSOH means Very Good Sense of Humour and that WLTM means Would Like To Meet.’

‘And LTR means Long Term Relationship,’ added Sally.

‘Does it?’

‘And W/E means “well-endowed”.’

‘Really? Good God! Anyway, I didn’t know that offering to “spoil” someone meant you already had a wife.’

‘Everyone knows that,’ said the middle-aged man across the aisle from me, unhelpfully.

‘Well, I didn’t – OK?’ I said. ‘Anyway Sally, Sally are you there? Hi. I’m just really, really pissed off. Seriously Successful? Seriously Swine-ish more like.’

‘What’s his real name?’ she asked, as we left the Angel.

‘God, I don’t know. I never asked,’ I said. ‘Anyway, whatever Seriously Slimy’s real name is, is no concern of mine. Seriously Unscrupulous … ’

‘Seriously Shallow,’ said the woman behind me.

‘Yes.’

‘And Seriously Sad,’ she concluded.

‘Quite. I mean, Sally, what on earth did he take me for?’

‘Never mind, Tiffany, that was bad luck,’ she said. ‘But I’m sure there’s someone nice just around the corner. Are you going to Lizzie’s for lunch on Sunday?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Well I’ll see you then,’ she said. ‘And chin up.’

I put my mobile phone away and took out my paper. Doing the crossword would calm me down. Bastard. Bastard. Fifteen across: Fool about with high-flyer. Seven letters, first letter, ‘S’. Couldn’t do it. I stood up and rang the bell. As I made my way to the back of the bus an elderly man made a beckoning gesture.

‘Why don’t you join Dateline?’ he said in a gravelly whisper. ‘Much safer. I think these personal ads are rather risky myself.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘I’ll think about it.’

Fool about with high-flyer. I turned it over and over in my mind as I got off at my stop and walked down Ockendon Road. Oh God, there were cyclists on the bloody footpath again.

‘It’s the People’s Pavement you know!’ I called out as the boy whizzed past, practically clipping my left ear. God I was in a bad mood. A really bad mood. Damn Seriously Successful. Damn him. Fool about with high-flyer, I thought. High-flyer. And then it came to me – with a pang – skylark.

July Continued

By the next morning I was much, much calmer. ‘What a bastard,’ I raged to myself. I mean, what a copper-bottomed swine. Disgusting behaviour. Part-time girlfriend indeed! Seriously Successful? Seriously Sleazy. Seriously Shabby. Seriously Scurrilous. But I have only myself to blame – serves me right for doing something so patently risky. Might have known there’d be a catch with this catch. I mean he’s very attractive, at least I think so. And he’s got very good manners, and he’s very amusing and very good company and all that and yes, he’s very successful, and very well-dressed and very sophisticated too and very charismatic. But he’s also very married. Blast. Blast. I stabbed away at the antique roses – I’ve done two small petals actually – whilst I reflected on Seriously Successful’s appalling behaviour and my continuing bad luck with blokes. Then the phone rang. I went into the hall and picked up the receiver.

‘Oh hello Tiffany, it’s um – ha ha ha ha! – Peter here.’ Oh God. This was all I needed. ‘Tiffany, are you there?’ I heard him squeak.

‘Er, yes. Yes, I am,’ I said, ‘but … ’

‘Well, ha ha ha! It was so nice to meet you the other day, Tiffany, and I just thought we ought to arrange that game of tennis.’ Ought we? Oh God, no.

‘I’m afraid I have to decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement,’ I said, recalling Oscar Wilde’s solution to these dilemmas. Actually I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything. I was thinking, fast.

‘Can you go and get your diary?’ I heard him say.

‘Er, yes, hang on a second,’ I said, suddenly inspired. But I didn’t go into my study. I went to the front door, opened it, and rang my bell hard. Twice. And then I rang it again.

‘Oh Peter, I’m so sorry but there’s someone at the door,’ I said breathlessly. ‘I’d better answer it … ’

‘Oh well, I’ll hold on,’ he said cheerfully.

‘No, don’t do that, Peter, I’ll ring you back. Bye.’

‘But you don’t have my num—’

Phew. Phew. I went back into the sitting-room. And then the phone rang again. Bloody Peter Fitz-Harrod. Why couldn’t he take a hint? This time I’d tell him. I’d just pluck up the courage to say, sorry, but that I’d prefer him not to call.

‘Yesss!’ I hissed into the receiver.

‘Darling, what on earth’s the matter?’ said Mum. ‘You sound awful.’

‘Oh, hello, Mum. I feel awful,’ I said. ‘I’m pissed off. With men.’

‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I’m sure there’s someone nice just around the corner.’

‘I’m sure there isn’t,’ I said.

‘Haven’t you met anyone new yet?’ she enquired.

‘Oh yes. One or two. But no-one I’d bother telling you about,’ I said bitterly. ‘No-one I’ll be bringing home for tea, if that’s what you mean. No-one who’s going to be any use, to use that old-fashioned phrase.’

‘Oh dear. It’s just so difficult these days,’ she said. ‘It’s not like it was when Daddy and I were young. I mean, when we were young –’

‘I know,’ I interjected. ‘You just met someone you liked, and they became your boyfriend, and then before too long you got engaged, and then you got married, and you stayed married for ever and ever. End of story,’ I said.

‘Well, more or less,’ she replied. ‘I suppose forty years is for ever and ever, isn’t it?’

Forty years. My parents have been married for forty years. Four decades; four hundred and eighty months; two thousand and eighty weeks; fourteen thousand, five hundred and sixty days; three hundred and fifty thousand hours; twenty-one million minutes; one billion, two hundred and fifty-eight million seconds, give or take a few. They’ve been married all that time. Happily married, too. And no affairs. I know that. Because I asked them. And that’s the kind of marriage I’d like myself. And I don’t care what bien-pensant people say about the complexity of modern family life, the probability of divorce, the natural tendency towards serial monogamy and the changing social mores of our times. I know exactly what I want. I want to be married to the same man, for a minimum of four decades – possibly five, like the Queen – and no infidelity, thank you! I’m sorry to be so vehement on this point, I know that others may take a more relaxed view, but it’s simply how I feel. I mean, the first time my mother met my father the only thing he offered her was a ticket to a piano recital at the Wigmore Hall. What did Seriously Successful offer me the first time we met? A position as his part-time girlfriend. Charming. Very flattering. Thanks a bunch. Well, you can bog off with your impertinent propositions, Seriously Sick – I decline. And then of course there’s another reason why I wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole, and that is that Seriously Successful is ipso facto an unfaithful fellow. Obviously he is, by the very nature of what he was proposing to me. Now, I know what it’s like to be with an unfaithful man, and it’s not nice at all. And I’m not doing that again. Not after Phil Anderer. No way. But then, well, that was my fault. Because it wasn’t as though I wasn’t warned about Phillip – I was. When I first met him everyone said, ‘Don’t Even Think About It!’ – because of his ghastly reputation. And what did I do? I not only thought about it. I did it. I got involved. And I got hurt.

‘It meant nothing,’ Phillip shouted at me, when I found out for certain what I had suspected for some time. ‘It meant absolutely nothing. Do you think I’d risk everything we’ve got for some pathetic little bimbo?’ To be honest, I wasn’t at all sure what we had got. Not sure at all, in fact. But he was very, very persuasive that I should stay.

‘Do you think I’d do anything to jeopardise my relationship with you?’ he said, in a softer tone of voice this time.

‘You just did,’ I pointed out tearfully. But later, I thought maybe I was being small-minded and unfair. Perhaps he just needed to do a bit more growing up – even though he was thirty-six. But quite frankly, when he came back from the ‘golf course’ again with cheap, alien scent clinging to his House of Fraser diamond-patterned jumper, I was thrown into renewed despair. Another bloody ‘birdie’, I realised bitterly. Then you know exactly what they’re up to – his mother’s words came back to haunt me. But then after three husbands I can understand her being, shall we say, a little circumspect. However, having persuaded me to stay, and let another year go by, Phillip had the nerve to dump me. It was horrible, and I’m never, ever, ever, ever going out with anyone dodgy ever again. So you can bugger off with your offensive offers, Seriously Slimy. Yes, just bugger right off, get lost, never darken my door again, let alone buy me dinner at the Ritz or flirt with me or pay me compliments or laugh at my jokes or make me giggle and …

Just then the doorbell rang. Funny. I wasn’t expecting anyone. A man was standing there. With an enormous bouquet. Who the hell … ?

‘Miss Trott?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. Over his shoulder I could see a van marked Moyses Stevens.

‘Flowers,’ he said. ‘For you.’

I brought them into the kitchen, put them in the sink – they wouldn’t fit even my largest jug – and just sat and stared. It was like a floral fireworks display, a golden explosion of yellow gerbera, lemon-coloured carnations, saffron-shaded roses, banana-yellow berberis, white love-in-a-mist and buttery-coloured stocks, all bound together with a curly, primrose ribbon and topped by delicately spiralling twigs. Heaven. And tucked inside the cellophane wrap was a letter.

My dear Tiffany

I specifically asked the florist – Mr Stevens does make exceedingly good bouquets – for something in yellow. Yellow for cowardice. My cowardice, at not being straightforward with you from the start. Can you forgive me? I must say I was rather taken aback by your anger – you were rather fierce you know – but I’ve tried to see things from your point of view. I can only apologise for having upset you with my facetious and offensive offer. I was, in fact, trying to be honest with you, but I appear to have insulted you instead and I can only say that I hope you’ll forgive me enough to remain, at least, my friend. SS PS Graded Grains Make Finer Flowers.

Oh. Well. Gosh. Gosh. I mean, that’s a nice letter. That’s a really nice letter. And what an incredibly thoughtful thing to do. Perhaps I’ve been a bit over the top. Perhaps I’ve been too hard on him. How did he know my address? Oh yes, he had my card. But what a lovely thing to do. He is nice – Oh God oh God oh God, why does he have to be married? Just my luck. Maybe I should think about it. Maybe we could be friends. Why not? Everyone needs friends, and he’s so funny, and so interesting, and he’s got such good taste in ties, and we get on incredibly well. I’m sure we could at least be pals. I’m sure we could. I’m sure.

‘You must be out of your tiny mind!’ said Lizzie, as we strolled round Harrods Food Hall the following Saturday – or rather, as I traipsed after her while she filled her basket with an assortment of prodigiously expensive groceries in preparation for lunch in her garden the following day. ‘Don’t have anything to do with him,’ she reiterated slowly.

‘But I like him,’ I said, as we queued at the charcuterie counter.

‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ she said, as a jolly-looking man in a white coat planed slices off a Hungarian boar. ‘Seriously Successful is not available. He’s married. And, what’s more, he’s told you that he’s never going to get divorced – a pound of Parma ham, please – and you just haven’t got time to waste. Oh, and I’ll have six honey-glazed poussins as well. Basically Tiffany, you’re nearly –’

‘I know,’ I said wearily, ‘I’m nearly fifty.’

‘Exactly. So if you really want to get married stick to single men – God knows there must be enough of them out there. I mean, I really don’t mind if you marry a divorcé, Tiffany,’ she added, as we surveyed the rows of French cheeses.

‘That’s a relief,’ I said absently.

‘I mean, if you married a divorcé you could still get married in church, or at the very least have a blessing and wear a nice dress and everything. And have bridesmaids,’ she added. ‘But getting involved with a married man is not something that should be undertaken “unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly”, as they say. Half a pound of nettle-wrapped Cornish Yarg, please. In fact it should not be undertaken at all.’

‘But I’m not going to get involved with him – he only wants to be friends,’ I pointed out.

This was greeted with a derisive snort. ‘Friends? Don’t you realise that that’s a Trojan horse? If you become “friends” with him, I guarantee it will be only a matter of weeks before you’re sitting desperately by the phone dressed down to the nines in your La Perla, while his wife’s private detective is parked outside your house with his video camera trained on your bedroom window. Is that really what you want? Because that, Tiffany, is exactly what happens to mistresses.’

Mistresses? Mistress. What an awful word. God, no. No way. Lizzie may be brutal, but she’s right.

‘I’m only thinking of you, Tiffany,’ she said, as we wandered through the perfumery department on the ground floor. ‘You’ve been up enough dead ends with men to fill a cemetery. You can’t afford another mistake. Just write to Seriously Successful, thank him for his flowers and tell him, firmly, but very politely, that you can’t possibly remain in touch. Are you OK for moisturiser?’ she added as she dotted ‘Fracas’ behind her ears.

‘Yes,’ I replied as I dismally sprayed ‘Happy’ onto my left wrist.

‘Have you tried the new Elizabeth Lauderstein ceramide complex containing alpha hydroxy serum derived from fruit acids?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fantastic isn’t it?’

‘Incredible. Lizzie, do you think these expensive unguents really work?’ I asked.

‘I believe they do,’ she said simply. ‘OK, Tiff, let’s head home.’

‘Thank You For Not Smoking’, said the sign in the taxi in which we headed up towards Lizzie’s house in Hampstead. Lizzie pushed her Ray Bans further up her exquisitely sculpted nose and lit another Marlboro Light.

‘You know, Tiffany, I’ve been thinking about it all and the fact is that you’re going about this whole thing the wrong way.’

‘What do you mean, wrong way?’ I asked, opening a window to let out the smoke.

‘Well, you’ve been answering ads, and I think it would be far, far better to put one in yourself,’ she explained. ‘That way you’d be more in control. You could filter out the husbands and the head-bangers. I’ll help you write it,’ she added. ‘I’m good at that kind of things – we can do it right now in fact.’

The taxi turned left off Rosslyn Hill and came to a stop half-way down Downshire Hill, outside Lizzie’s house. A vast, white-washed early Victorian pile with a fifty-foot garden – and that’s just at the front. Lizzie and Martin have lived here for eight years, and it’s worth well over a million now. I struggled out of the taxi with her array of Harrods carriers, just like I used to help her carry her trunks up the stairs when we were at school. She went and tapped on the window and Mrs Burton came and opened the door.

‘Thanks, Mrs B,’ she said. ‘We’re loaded down with stuff for tomorrow. I’ve been a bit naughty in Harrods, but never mind,’ she added with a grin, ‘Martin can afford it, and he likes to feed all my girlfriends properly. Where is Martin, Mrs B?’ she enquired.

‘Mowing the lawn,’ Mrs Burton replied.

‘Oh good. I told him it needed doing. OK, Tiffany, will you help me put this stuff away?’

Now, I’m not a jealous person – I’m really not. But, it’s just that whenever I go round to Lizzie’s house I always feel awfully, well, jealous. Even though she’s my best and oldest friend, my envy levels rocket. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the forty-foot Colefax and Fowlered drawing-room and the expanses of spotless cream carpet. Maybe it’s the artful arrangements of exotic flowers in tall, handblown glass vases. Maybe it’s the beautifully rag-rolled walls or the serried ranks of antique silver frames on burnished mahogany. Perhaps it’s the hundred-foot garden complete with rose-drenched pergola. Or perhaps it’s the fact that she has two adorable children and a husband who loves her and who will never, ever be unfaithful or leave her for a younger model. Yes, I think that’s what it is. She has the luxury of a kind and faithful husband, and she has pledged to help me secure the same.

‘Now, listen to me, Tiffany,’ she said, as we sat in her hand-distressed Smallbone of Devizes kitchen. Through the open window I could see Martin strenuously pushing a mower up and down.

‘You are a product, Tiffany. A very desirable product. And you are about to sell yourself in the market place. Do not sell yourself short.’

‘OK,’ I said, sipping coffee from one of her Emma Bridgewater fig leaf and black olive spongeware mugs. ‘I won’t.’

‘Your pitch has got to be right or you’ll miss your target,’ she said, passing me a plate of chocolate olivers.

‘It’s OK, I know a thing or two about pitches,’ I said. ‘I mean I am a copywriter.’

‘No, Tiffany, sometimes I really don’t think you understand the first thing about advertising,’ she said, glancing out into the garden.

‘But my ads win awards! I got a bronze Lion at Cannes last year!’

‘Martin!’ she shouted. ‘You’ve missed the bit by the cotoneasta!’ He stopped, wiped the beads of sweat off his tonsured head, and turned the mower round.

‘Mind you, I don’t know why you want a husband, Tiffany, they’re all completely useless.’ Suddenly Amy and Alice appeared from the garden.

‘What are you doing, Mummy?’ said Amy, who is five.

‘Finding Tiffany a husband.’

‘Oh good, does that mean we’ll be bridesmaids?’ said Alice.

‘Yes,’ said Lizzie. ‘It does. Now go outside and play.’

‘I’ve always wanted to be your bridesmaid, Tiffany,’ said Alice, who is seven.

‘I think I’m more likely to be your bridesmaid,’ I said, ‘when I’m about fifty.’

‘OK Tiff, this is what I suggest,’ said Lizzie, waving a piece of paper at me. ‘Gorgeous blonde, thirty-two, size forty bust, interminable legs, fantastic personality, hugely successful, own delightful house, seeks extremely eligible man, minimum six foot, for permanent relationship. No losers. No cross-dressers. No kids.’

‘I think it contravenes the Trades Description Act,’ I said.

‘I know, but at least you’ll get lots of replies.’

‘I am not thirty-two, I’m thirty-seven. I do not have long legs – I have short ones. I do not have a size forty bust, and I am definitely not gorgeous.’

‘I know you’re not,’ she said. ‘But we’ve got to talk you up as they say in the City. It’s all a question of perception. I mean Martin’s always talking up his stocks and shares to his clients, and some of them go through the roof.’

‘Some of these men are going to go through the roof too,’ I said. ‘What’s the point in lying? Lying will only get me into trouble.’

‘Men lie,’ she said, accurately; and into my mind flashed Tall Athletic Neville, a towering sex-god, five foot eight.

‘Well, I’m not going to lie,’ I said, scribbling furiously. ‘Now this,’ I said, ‘is nearer the mark: “Sparky, kind-hearted girl, thirty-seven, not thin, likes tennis and hard work WLTM intelligent, amusing, single man, 36-45, for the purposes of matrimony. No facial hair. No golf players. Photo and letter please.”’

‘You won’t get any replies,’ Lizzie shouted down the path at me as I left to get ready for tennis. ‘Not a single one!’

Tennis always takes my mind off my troubles. Bashing balls about in my small North London club is so therapeutic. It gets the seratonin going, or is it endorphins? Maybe it’s melatonin? God, I can’t remember which. Anyway, whatever it is it releases stress, makes me feel happy. Or at least it would do if it wasn’t for that wretched man, Alan – such a fly in the ointment. Whenever I’m playing, there he is: the solicitor with two heads. Bald; bearded; thin. The man of my nightmares. It’s not at all flattering being fancied by an extremely unattractive man.

‘Mind if I join you?’

‘No. Not at all,’ I said airily as I sat in the sunshine on the terrace. We made our way onto one of the grass courts – at least he’s not a bad player. We played a couple of sets – he won six-two, six-two, in fact he always beats me six-two, six-two – and then we went and had tea.

‘Tiffany, would you like to see something at the cinema with me?’ he said as he poured me a cup of Earl Grey.

No, not really. ‘Ummmmm,’ I began.

‘The Everyman are doing a season of Truffaut.’

‘Well … ’

‘Or perhaps you’d like to go to the opera – the ENO are doing The Magic Flute again.’

‘Oh, er, seen that one actually.’

‘Right, then, how about something at that theatre?’

‘Well, you see, I’m really quite busy at the moment.’

He looked stricken. ‘Tiffany, you’re not seeing anyone are you?’

Sodding outrageous! ‘I really think that’s my business, Alan,’ I said.

‘Why don’t you want to go out with me, Tiffany? I don’t understand it. I’ve got everything a woman could want. I’ve got a huge house in Belsize Park; I’m very successful; I’m the faithful type, and I love children. I’d be a good father. What is the problem?’

‘Well, Alan,’ I said, ‘the problem is that though you are undoubtedly what they call a “catch”, I for one find you – how can I put this politely? Physically repulsive.’ Actually I didn’t say that at all. I simply said, ‘Alan, you’re terribly eligible, but I’m afraid I just don’t feel that the chemistry’s right and that’s all there is to it. So I’m not going to waste your time. I don’t think it’s nice to have one’s time wasted. And if this means you don’t want to play tennis with me any more, then I’d quite understand.’

‘Oh no, no, no – I’m not saying that,’ he interjected swiftly. ‘I’m not saying that at all. How about Glyndebourne?’ he called after me, as I went downstairs to change. ‘In the stalls? With a champagne picnic? Laurent Perrier, foie gras – the works?’

Oh yes. Yes. Glyndebourne. Glyndebourne would be lovely. I’d love to go to Glyndebourne – with anyone but you.

Why is it, I wondered later as I telephone the classified ads section of the newspaper to dictate my personal ad, that the men I don’t want – who I really, really don’t want – are always the ones who want me? Why is it always the men I find boring and unattractive who offer to spoil me and treat me well and worship the ground I walk on? And why is it that the ones I really, really like are the ones who treat me like dirt? Isn’t that odd? I just don’t get it. But I’m not having it any longer – I’m taking control. I’m going for what I want and I’m going to find it, with my very own sales pitch in the ‘Ladies’ section of a lonely hearts column.

‘I’ve put a lonely hearts ad in the Saturday Rendezvous section of The Times,’ I announced slightly squiffily at lunch the following day. Lizzie, Catherine, Emma, Frances, Sally and I were sipping Pimms by the pergola. In the background, Martin was painting the French windows, assisted by Alice and Amy, whilst we all contemplated the first course of our annual al fresco lunch – Ogen melon and Parma ham.

‘My God that’s so brave!’ said Frances, stirring her Pimms with a straw. ‘Very courageous of you, Tiffany. I admire that. Well done you!’

‘I didn’t say I’m climbing backwards up Mount Everest,’ I explained. ‘Or crossing the Atlantic in a cardboard box. I merely said that I’ve put a personal ad in The Times.’

‘It’s still bloody brave of you, Tiffany,’ insisted Frances. ‘What courage! I’d never have the nerve to do that.’

‘Nor would I!’ chorused the others.

‘Why ever not?’ I asked. ‘Lots of people do.’

‘Well, it would be very artificial,’ said Sally, swatting away a wasp. ‘I prefer to leave my choice of mate to Fate.’

‘Me too,’ said Emma, adjusting the strap of her sundress. ‘I’d rather meet someone in a romantic way, you know, just, bump into them one day … ’

‘Where?’ I asked. ‘By the photocopier? Or the fax machine?’

‘Noooo,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘In the cinema queue, or on the Northern Line, or on a plane, or … ’

‘How many people do you know who’ve met their partners like that?’ I asked.

‘Er. Er. Well, none actually. But I’m sure it does happen. I wouldn’t do a lonely hearts ad because I wouldn’t want to meet someone in such an obviously contrived way. It would spoil it. But I think you’re really brave.’

‘Yes,’ chorused the others. ‘You’re really, really brave, Tiffany.’

‘She isn’t brave, she’s stupid,’ said Lizzie forthrightly, ‘and I say that because her ad is completely truthful. I recommended the judicious use of lying, but she wouldn’t have it. She’s even put in her age. And “One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.”’ She smiled ingratiatingly. ‘Oscar Wilde,’ she explained. ‘A Woman of No Importance.’ Of course. From Lizzie’s great days in Worthing.

‘Did you ever hear again from that married chap you met at the Ritz?’ asked Sally.

‘Er, yes, yes I did actually,’ I said with a sudden and tremendous pang, which took me by surprise. ‘To be honest he’s really not that bad, ha ha ha! Sent me some rather nice flowers actually. To say sorry. I wish … I mean I would like … ’ My voice trailed away.

‘What Tiffany means is that she wishes she could see him again, but I have told her that this is out of the question,’ said Lizzie. ‘She’s got to keep her eye on the ball. Martin! Don’t forget to give it two coats!’

‘What did you do?’ said Emma.

‘I wrote back to him and thanked him, but said that unfortunately circumstances would conspire to keep us apart.’

‘Maybe he’ll get divorced,’ said Frances. ‘Everyone else does. Luckily for me!’

‘He won’t contemplate it,’ I said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’s worried about the effect it would have on his daughter.’

‘So he’d rather have affairs instead,’ said Lizzie, rolling her eyes towards the cloudless sky. ‘Charming.’

‘Common,’ said Frances, fishing a strawberry out of her glass.

‘Understandable,’ said Emma quietly. ‘If his marriage really is very unhappy.’ I looked at her. She had gone red. Then she suddenly stood up and helped Lizzie collect up the plates.

‘Er, has anyone actually met anyone they like?’ Sally asked.

We all looked blankly at each other. ‘Nope,’ said Frances. Emma shook her head, and said nothing, though I could see that she was still blushing.

‘What about you, Sally?’ I said.

‘No luck,’ she said with a happy shrug. ‘Perhaps I’ll meet someone on holiday next week. Some heavenly Maharajah. Or maybe the Taj Mahal will work its magic for me.’

‘Like it did for Princess Diana, you mean,’ said Frances with a grim little laugh.

‘I’m interested in someone,’ announced Catherine.

‘Yes?’ we all said.

‘Well, I met him at Alison and Angus’s dinner party in June. Tiffany was there. He’s an acc—’

‘Oh God, not that dreary accountant?’ I said incredulously. ‘Not that boring-looking bloke in the bad suit who lives in Barnet and probably plays golf ?’

Catherine gave me a withering look. I didn’t know why. ‘He’s very nice, actually,’ she said coldly. ‘And he’s interesting, too. And he’s particularly interesting on the subject of art. He’s got quite a collection of –’

‘Etchings?’ I said.

‘Augustus Johns, actually.’ Gosh. ‘I mean, Tiffany, why do you assume he’s boring just because he’s an accountant? You’re quite wrong.’

‘Sorry,’ I said, aware of the familiar taste of shoe leather.

‘And nor does it follow that men with interesting jobs are interesting people,’ Catherine added. ‘I mean Phillip had an interesting job, didn’t he?’ she continued. ‘And though I would never have told you this at the time, because I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt your feelings,’ she added pointedly, ‘I thought he was one of the most boring and conversationless men I have ever met.’ This could not be denied. ‘And I don’t think Alex set the world on fire either,’ she added. This was also true. ‘But my friend Hugh, who’s an accountant, is actually rather interesting,’ she concluded sniffily. ‘So please don’t sneer, Tiffany.’

‘God I feel such a heel,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s the Pimms. Can I have some more?’

‘Anyway, Augustus John was incredibly prolific and he lived a long time, so there’s a lot of his work out there. Loads of it, in fact. And Hugh’s been quietly collecting small paintings and sketches for years. And after that dinner party he asked me to clean a small portrait that John did of his wife Dorelia, and when he came to collect it yesterday he asked me if I’d like to have dinner with him next week.’

‘That’s wonderful!’ I said, feeling guilty and also stupid. ‘Try and find out if he has any nice colleagues. Single ones, of course.’

Suddenly Amy appeared, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, party sandals, pink sun-glasses and clutching a small leather vanity case. She looked as if she was about to set off on some cheap Iberian package. ‘What are you all TALKING about?’ she shouted. Amy has a very loud voice.

‘We’re talking about boyfriends,’ said Lizzie.

Amy opened her case and took out one of her eleven Barbie dolls. ‘BARBIE’S got a BOYFRIEND,’ she yelled. ‘He’s called KEN. She’s going to MARRY HIM. I’ve got her a BRIDE’S DRESS.’

‘Amy darling,’ said Lizzie. ‘I keep telling you, Barbie is never going to marry Ken.’ Bewilderment and disappointment spread across Amy’s face. ‘Barbie has been going out with Ken for almost forty years without tying the knot,’ Lizzie explained patiently as she passed round the honey-glazed poussins. ‘I’m afraid Barbie is a commitophobe.’

‘What’s a COMMITOPHOBE, Mummy?’

‘Someone who doesn’t want to get married, darling. And I don’t want you to be one when you grow up.’

‘What are you all talking about?’ said Alice, whose blonde pigtails were spattered with black paint.

‘Boyfriends,’ said Frances.

‘ALICE has got a BOYFRIEND,’ Amy yelled. ‘He’s called TOM. He’s in her CLASS. But I HAVEN’T got one.’

‘That’s because you’re too young,’ said Alice wisely. ‘You still watch the Teletubbies. You’re a baby.’ Amy didn’t appear to resent this slur.

‘How old’s your boyfriend, Alice?’ Catherine enquired with a smile.

‘He’s eight and a quarter,’ she replied. ‘And Tom’s mummy, Mrs Hamilton, she’s got a boyfriend too.’

‘Good God!’ said Lizzie. ‘Has she?’

‘Yes,’ said Alice. ‘Tom told me. He’s called Peter. He works with her. In the bank. But Tom’s daddy doesn’t know. Should I tell him?’ she added.

‘No,’ said Lizzie. ‘No. Don’t. Social death, darling.’

‘Tiffany, have you got a boyfriend yet?’ asked Alice.

‘Er, no,’ I said. ‘I haven’t.’ She went off and sat on the swing with a vaguely disappointed air.

‘You know, it’s horrible being single in the summer,’ I said vehemently. ‘All those happy couples snogging in the park, or playing tennis or strolling hand in hand through the pounding surf … ’

‘Personally I think it’s much worse in the winter,’ said Emma, ‘having no-one to snuggle up to in front of an open fire on some romantic weekend break.’

‘No, I think it’s worse being single in the spring,’ said Catherine. ‘When everything’s growing and thrusting and the sun’s shining, and it’s all so horribly happy. April really is the cruellest month, in my view.’

‘Being single in autumn is the worst,’ said Sally ruefully, ‘because there’s no-one to kick through the leaves with in the park or hold hands with at fireworks displays.’

‘Well, I often envy you single girls,’ said Lizzie darkly. ‘I’d love to be single again.’

‘Well, we’d love to be you,’ said Catherine, ‘with such a nice husband.’

Lizzie gave a hollow little laugh. I thought that was mean. I glanced at Martin, quietly painting away.

‘Love is a gilded cage,’ said Emma drunkenly.

‘No – “Love conquers all,”’ said Catherine.

‘“Love means never having to say you’re sorry,”’ said Frances, with a smirk. ‘I’m glad that’s true – otherwise I’d be unemployed!’

‘“Love’s the noblest frailty of the mind,”’ said Lizzie. ‘Dryden.’

‘“Love’s not Time’s fool,”’ said Sally. ‘Shakespeare.’

‘“The course of true love never did run smooth,”’ said Emma. ‘Ditto.’ And for some reason, that cheered me up – I didn’t know why.

‘Come on, Tiffany – your turn!’ they all chorused.

‘Er – “Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all,”’ I said. ‘Tennyson.’

‘However,’ said Lizzie, ‘according to George Bernard Shaw “there is no love sincerer than the love of food.” So eat up, everyone!’

August

On Saturday the first of August I opened The Times, turned to the Rendezvous section and found my ad, under ‘S’ for ‘Sparky’. I was quite pleased with it. It didn’t look too bad, alongside all the ‘Immaculate Cheshire Ladies’, ‘Divorced Mums, Thirty-nine’, and ‘Romantic’ and ‘Bubbly’ forty-five-year-old females looking for ‘Fun Times’. No, ‘Sparky’ was OK, I reflected as I went up to the Ladies Pond in Hampstead to seek refuge from the blistering heat. ‘Sparky’ might just do the trick, I thought to myself optimistically as I walked down Millfield Lane. ‘No Men Beyond This Point’ announced the municipal sign sternly, and in the distance I could hear the familiar, soprano chatter of 150 women. I love the Ladies Pond. It’s wonderful being able to swim in the open air, free from the prying eyes of men, totally calm and relaxed – though I must say my new high-leg Liza Bruce swimsuit with the cunning underwiring, subtly padded cups and eye-catching scallop trim is extremely flattering, and I do sometimes think it’s completely wasted in an all-female environment. However, the main thing is not to pose, but to swim. To gently lap the large, reed-fringed pond, where feathery willows bend their boughs to the cool, dark water. To commune with the coots and moorhens which bob about in its reedy shallows; or to admire the grace and beauty of the terns as they swoop and dive for fish. But sometimes, when I’m sitting there on the lawn afterwards, gently drying off in the warmth of the sun, I wonder about myself. I really do. I mean it’s so Sapphic! Lesbians every-where! Lesbians young and lesbians d’un certain âge; lesbians pretty, and lesbians physiognomically-challenged. Lesbians thin and lesbians fat; lesbians swimming gently round the tree-lined lake, or disporting themselves in the late summer sunshine. And there I was, sitting on the grass, reading my ‘Sparky, kind-hearted girl’ ad again and feeling pretty pleased with it actually, whilst discreetly surveying beneath lowered eyelids several hundred-weight of near-naked female flesh and wondering, just wondering, whether I found it even vaguely erotic, when this attractive, dark-haired girl came up to me, bold as brass, and put her towel down next to mine.

‘Hello,’ she said with a warm smile.

‘Hello.’ Excuse me. Do we know each other?

‘Mind if I join you?’ My God – a pick-up! My Sapphometer went wild.

‘Er, yes, do,’ I said, pulling up the strap of my swimsuit and quickly adjusting my bosom. I discreetly surveyed her from behind my sunglasses as she removed a bottle of Ambre Solaire from her basket and began rubbing the sun lotion onto her legs. She was clearly a ‘lipstick’ lesbian, I decided. The glamorous kind. Her nose and eyebrows were unpunctured by metal studs. She had no tattoos, no Doc Martens, and she did not sport the usual Velcro hairstyle. In fact she was very feminine with a slim figure, lightly made-up eyes and shining, mahogany-coloured hair which fell in gentle layers down her back.

‘My name’s Kate,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Kate Spero.’

‘Tiffany,’ I said. ‘Tiffany Trott.’

‘Are you single?’ she asked, nodding at my copy of The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr Right.

‘Yes.’

‘So am I. Isn’t it a bore? I’m looking for TSS.’

‘TSS?’

‘That Special Someone.’

‘Oh. Well … good luck. Er – are you looking here?’ I asked, casting my eyes around.

‘Oh good God, no! I’m not gay,’ she explained, with a burst of surprised laughter. Oh. Got that wrong then. ‘No, I’m looking for a man,’ she added matter-of-factly. ‘But I just can’t find one anywhere.’ And then she said, ‘Do you know, I never thought I’d get to thirty-seven and still be single.’ And that was really, really amazing because that’s exactly what I say out loud to myself several times every day.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it a drag?’ And then we immediately told each other all about our past unhappy relationships since about – ooh, 1978 or so – revealing them as children proudly display their scars, though I decided not to tell her about my ad. Anyway I’m happy to say that Kate is now my New Best Friend. I mean, we’ve got so much in common. We’re the same age, both single and both desperate. Isn’t that an incredible coincidence? In fact, her birthday is a week after mine. Amazing!

‘What did you do on your birthday this year?’ she asked a few hours later as we strode across the Heath in the afternoon sunshine.

‘I got dumped by my boyfriend,’ I said. ‘What did you do?’

‘I cried all day,’ she replied happily. We walked on in silence for a while, stopping to watch a knot of children flying kites on Parliament Hill. And then Kate said, ‘You know, we should look for guys together. It’s much easier hunting in a pack.’ This was probably true. I’ve often wished that Frances and Emma and Sally would consider it, but they’re determined to leave their romantic happiness to the vagaries of Fate. Or God. But God really didn’t seem to be doing that much at the moment. I preferred Kate’s proactive approach.

‘What we need is singles dos,’ she said firmly. ‘There are lots of them – Eat ‘n’ Greet, Dine ‘n’ Shine, Dateless in Docklands, that kind of thing. I’ll do some research and let you know.’

‘What a brilliant idea,’ I said, as we parted. ‘You’re on.’

In the meantime I waited suspensefully – oh heavens, the torment! – for the replies to my small ad to arrive. Maybe Lizzie was right, I wondered as two and a half weeks went by. Maybe I wouldn’t get a single response – no irony intended, ha ha! Perhaps there isn’t much demand for sparky girls at the moment. Maybe dull girls are all the rage. But, just in case, I went in search of some more expensive unguents in order to look my best for any future blokes. I mean, at thirty-seven, one’s got to take action because, as Lizzie says, my face is going over to the enemy. But I’m not having it – no sir! Crows’ feet – eff off and die! Naso-labial lines – hold it right there!

‘Yes, yes, tricky … ’ said the woman on the expensive unguents counter in Selfridges. She narrowed her eyes in concentration as she scrutinised my skin. ‘You’ve got a luminosity problem,’ she announced.

‘Well, can anything be done about it?’ I asked anxiously. ‘I’ll pay.’

‘In that case the Helena Ardenique multi-action retinyl complex intensive lotion with added ceramides for active cell-renewal should do the trick,’ she explained. ‘Firmness and elasticity are measurably improved, lines and wrinkles diminished by a guaranteed forty-one and a half per cent and luminosity and skin-glow restored. What it does,’ she concluded, ‘is to make your skin “act younger”.’

‘That’s fantastic,’ I said as I wrote out my cheque for seventy pounds.

Then I went home and there, there on the doormat, having arrived by the second post, was a plain, brown A5-sized envelope stamped, ‘Private and Confidential’. And inside that plain, brown envelope, dear reader, were no fewer than thirty-two letters! And what an assortment of writing paper – Basildon Bond, Croxley Script, Conqueror, Airmail, Andrex – ha ha! Some even had hearts and flowers stuck to the envelope! Some were typed, some were word-processed, some were neatly handwritten, whilst others were almost illegible. Illegible, but possibly quite eligible none the less, I hoped as I ripped into them with lepidopterous stomach and pounding heart.

For crying out loud! A Norfolk pig farmer! And, at forty-nine well outside my stated age-range! If I’d wanted a Norfolk pig farmer I’d have bloody well asked for one, wouldn’t I? I’d have placed my personal ad in the King’s Lynn Gazette or Pig Farmer’s Weekly. Anyway, the other replies broke down as follows: five accountants, twelve computer software designers, one data collection manager, two probation officers, one natural catastrophe modeller, three chiropodists, one stockbroker, one master mariner and six solicitors including … including … well, actually, I’m furious. Because when I opened reply number nineteen – a nice, thick pale-blue watermarked envelope – I found a longish letter inside and then this photo fell out, and stone the crows, it was none other than two-headed Alan from my tennis club! What the hell does he think he’s up to? He’s supposed to be infatuated with me, offering to take me to Glyndebourne and everything, and here he is tarting around the lonely hearts columns. I was outraged. And what a flatteringly out-of-date photo – obviously taken in about 1980, he’s much balder than that now! But I must say his letter was nice. It was very open, and said how much he’d like to get married and have children and what a good father he’d make, and how he wouldn’t mind changing nappies or anything, and in fact would probably even enjoy it. He also said he plays tennis twice a week and likes going to the opera – especially Glyndebourne – and went on about how his heart’s desire is a woman of good character complete with strong forehand. Well it’s forty-love to me, Alan, because I’m not bloody well replying, because I don’t think you should be two-timing me with sad women who advertise themselves in the personal columns of national newspapers. Actually, I feel a bit guilty about it, but I can’t write back, can I? I suppose I could always lie and say that due to unexpected demand the vacancy has now been filled. But I think that in the circs it’s better not to say anything. Keep mum. Poor bloke, he’d be mortified if he knew it was me (must tell Lizzie – she’ll hoot!). Then while I was reading letter number twenty-six – very witty actually – from the stockbroker, the phone rang. It was Kate.

‘Eat ‘n’ Greet. This Saturday. Huge summer party in prestigious venue for Successful and Attractive Single People.’

‘Oooh goodee,’ I said. ‘Is that us?’

‘Of course.’

‘Are we going, then?’

‘Yes. We most certainly are.’

The following day I was in my sunny sitting-room going through my record collection; I’ve never had the heart to chuck out my vinyl, somehow CDs just aren’t the same. I was sorting through the singles, and thinking as I did so that what I would really prefer is Long Play, when the phone rang.

‘Tiffany!’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s me.’

‘Oh. Hello.’ He sounded rather cross.

‘I got your letter this morning.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I just wanted to tell you how disappointed I am. Very disappointed. And hurt. Very hurt. Very.’

‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s just that there really doesn’t seem to be much point. In the circumstances.’

‘No point? No point in even being pals?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s no point, because the point is that you’re not free.’

‘But married people can have friendships, Tiffany. It is allowed, you know.’

‘Yes, but they have to choose them carefully. And I don’t think our friendship would be wise.’

‘All I want to do is see you from time to time,’ he said plaintively.

‘Well, that’s not a good idea,’ I said.

‘And I know you’d like to see me.’

‘Well … ’

‘You would, wouldn’t you?’ he persisted.

‘Well, OK, yes, I admit it.’

‘Aha!’

‘But circumstances … ’

‘ … will conspire to keep us apart,’ he said in an irritating sing-song voice.

‘Yes. Yes. That’s right.’

‘But surely we could have dinner together sometimes,’ he persisted. ‘Or see a film? Now, there’s a wonderful concert coming up at the Barbican,’ he went on animatedly. ‘Yo-Yo Ma is playing the Bach unaccompanied cello suites and I really want to go. Why don’t you come with me?’

‘Well … well it sounds lovely, but I just don’t think I should.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t wish to be tempted. That’s why.’

‘So you are tempted,’ he replied triumphantly.

‘Well, well –’

‘Say it!’

‘Yes, I am. OK. Yes. I’m tempted. Happy?’

‘You like me?’

‘Yes. I like you a lot.’ In fact I find you Seriously Sexy.

‘I like you too,’ he came back, more warmly now. ‘In fact, Tiffany, “You’re the Right One, the Bright One”.’

‘Purleeze!’

‘You’re my One and Toblerony!’

‘Now listen, Seriously Successful!’ I said crossly. ‘This really won’t do … anyway, what is your real name?’

‘I’m not telling you,’ he said defensively.

‘Why not?’

‘I refuse to tell you, unless you agree to go to that concert with me.’

‘Well I’m not going to,’ I retorted.

‘Oh, why not?’ he said.

‘Because I know that it would be wrong for me because I’ve got to keep my eye on the ball and frankly, you’re way off-side.’

‘But Tiffany, we could have such fun … ’

‘I keep telling you, I don’t want to have fun.’

‘We could do such nice things together.’

‘I can do nice things anyway.’

‘But Tiffany, we communicate so wel—’

I put the phone down. And then I said, ‘Sorry.’

Who’d have thought that sorting out replies to a lonely hearts ad would be such a mammoth task? I mean, these bulging buff envelopes marked ‘Private and Confidential’ just keep plopping onto the mat.

‘OK, OK, I take it back,’ said Lizzie as we sat at my kitchen table going through the replies. ‘I didn’t think you’d get any. No need to crow. But just think how many you would have got if you’d followed my advice.’

‘I think 114 is quite enough,’ I said as she lit another cigarette. ‘I’m not greedy.’

We sorted them into three piles: Yes, Maybe, and You Have Got To Be Joking.

‘Now here’s a really nice one,’ said Lizzie, waving a blurred photo of Son-of-Quasimodo, fifty-seven, at me.

‘You have got to be joking,’ I said crisply.

‘Why? He’s very suitable,’ she said.

‘He isn’t suitable. He’s hideous,’ I replied.

‘He’s not hideous,’ she said indignantly, exuding two plumes of smoke from her elegant nostrils. ‘He’s a senior partner in a City law firm. He’s probably on 200k. I don’t call 200k hideous. And make sure you phone that stockbroker.’

‘OK, I will,’ I said. ‘But only because he’s OK-looking-bordering-on-the-almost-acceptable and because I liked his witty letter. It’s not about money,’ I added. ‘I mean, Alan has a lot of money. But I don’t care, because I’m not interested. All I’m looking for is a golf-hating commitophile with good character, reasonable backhand and complete absence of facial hair. Is that too much to ask?’

‘Probably,’ she replied. ‘Now here’s a lovely guy,’ she said with a smirk, handing me a piece of torn-off graph paper.

Dear Sparky Girl, I read. Can I light your fire? My name is Stavros. I am art student. Are you blonde? I need pretty sexy blonde model. I do portraits. You could be chapter in history of art. You could be my model only. But maybe, if you really sexy, you could be more than model. But if you ring me, and if you sexy blonde, I buy you meal for sure.

‘Point taken,’ I said, wavering only slightly before consigning Stavros to the You Have Got To Be Joking pile. It was distressing to see how big that pile had grown; it was full of probation officers, undertakers, astrologists, men called Terry, and a bloke from Acacia Avenue, Billericay, who wrote, ‘If I am not in when you call, please leave a message with the security men, pool guy, my housekeeper, or one of my five full-time gardeners.’ One letter was all in German and contained a photo of a man with waist-length brown hair who said he worked in Düsseldorf airport. Another was from a computer consultant called John who wrote, ‘I am sexually insatiable and am looking for a gorgeous babe with class, intelligence, superb breasts and a big bum.’

‘Well, you’ve got the bum,’ said Lizzie.

‘My God – look at this!’ I said, holding up a red foil-wrapped chocolate.

‘Don’t eat it!’ Lizzie screamed, snatching it out of my hand and rushing to the bin. ‘It’s probably poisoned!’

I glanced at the accompanying letter. ‘Oh Baby, the thought of you keeps me awake at night,’ the sender had written, ‘you’re really playing havoc with my sleep patterns. Please, baby, don’t be cruel to me. You know I really, really, really LOVE YOU.’

‘Eighty-five per cent of these men appear to be deranged,’ I said. ‘And the ones that aren’t deranged are largely boring.’ For the same tedious phrases kept popping up over and over again: ‘incurable romantic … all my own hair … red Porsche … all my own teeth … golf in the Algarve … almost divorced … tropical sunsets … no baggage … that special lady … two ex-wives … young at heart … five children … give me a bell’.

‘I’ve got to stop,’ I said suddenly to Lizzie. ‘I can’t take any more. It’s making me feel sick.’

‘OK, we’ll go through the rest another time, but don’t forget to phone that stockbroker,’ she said as she left. ‘I mean a stockbroker would be fine – just look at me!’

Yes, just look at Lizzie, I thought, as she got into her Mercedes. She had gone from actorly impoverishment to a seven-bedroom house in Hampstead. But does she love successful-but-not-terribly-exciting Martin? I have never liked to ask. Anyway, I left a brief, friendly message on Ian the stockbroker’s answerphone and then got ready for the Eat ‘n’ Greet Sensational Singles Party. Quick shower, then black cocktail dress, chunky pearls at wrist and neck, strappy sandals, hair piled up, mascara and lip-liner – voilà!

‘You look lovely,’ said Kate generously, when she came to collect me at seven.

‘No, you look much prettier than me,’ I said, ‘and much younger too, may I say.’

‘Oh, no you look incredibly young – only, ooh, twenty-five,’ she countered.

‘But you look – seventeen!’ I insisted. ‘Are you sure you’re old enough to be in command of a motorised vehicle?’ Having a New Best Friend who’s exactly the same age as me and also single is marvellous – Kate and I compete to pay each other the most lavish, ego-lifting compliments which we would obviously be receiving regularly from blokes were it not for our tragic and frankly perplexing singledom. As we drove through south-east London our confidence began to decline.

‘It’ll be full of desperate, desperate women and really sad men,’ I said as we cruised up the drive of the Dulwich Country Club, set in twelve acres of fabulous parkland. And was it my imagination, or were the regular members of the club sniggering at us as we walked up the steps? And I could swear that the girl from Eat ‘n’ Greet gave us a sweet but pitying smile as she ticked us off the list on her leatherette clipboard.

‘Here we go,’ said Kate, as we were ushered into the champagne reception. She gave my hand an encouraging squeeze. ‘Just smile.’

It’s funny how human nature accentuates the negative. In the conservatory there were about 150 people aged between thirty and fifty-five, but somehow all I could see was men with grey hair and women d’un certain âge trussed up like Thanksgiving turkeys in shiny giftwrap frocks. My heart sank and my jaw was already aching from maintaining my rictus grin. This was hell. What was I doing here? It was dreadful, dreadful, dreadful. But then I began to notice a few men who were perfectly-OK-looking – bordering – on – the – almost – acceptable – in fact some of them looked quite handsome, especially in their DJs. And there were some rather gorgeous girls, too.

‘Oh, she’s pretty,’ I whispered to Kate as we circulated.

‘You’re here to meet men, Tiffany, don’t look at the women. And just keep smiling.’

It seemed to work. If you beam at a totally strange man, he will beam right back. In fact he will come up to you, politely introduce himself and ask you your name. Good heavens! We’d only been there ten minutes and we’d already met three chaps each! Then a gong sounded and we went in to dinner. I found myself chatting to a tall, blond, aristocratic-looking bloke called Piers. Bit of all right actually, and dead posh.

‘I say,’ he said as he consulted the table plan. ‘You’re sitting next to me, Tiffany, how lovely.’

I think this singles scene is really marvellous. It’s such fun. It really is. It’s a gas. But there are drawbacks. I mean, there I was sitting next to aristocratic-looking Piers, and he was telling me all about his divorce and how his wife was unfaithful to him four times – oh how could she, I thought to myself as I stared into his cobalt eyes. And I was just about to start telling him all about my unhappy relationships, and really getting quite interested in him, and to be honest hardly saying a word to the man on my right, which was a bit rude really, except that he was quite happily chatting to a pretty redhead in personnel, when a gong suddenly sounded.

‘We’d like the ladies to stay seated and all the gentlemen to move thu-ree tables to their left purleeze,’ said the major-domo.

Piers looked stricken. ‘But I don’t want to move,’ he said. ‘I’m really very happy just where I am.’ The blood rushed to my cheeks. I smiled shyly at him. ‘Well, I’ll be back,’ he said. ‘After pudding. And we’ll carry on from there.’

‘I’ll … wait for you,’ I said encouragingly, as the white chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis arrived. Piers gave me a little wave as he headed off and then I saw him sit down at a distant table, next to a woman whose youth and attractiveness I could not accurately ascertain at seventy-five feet. Then two new men came to sit on either side of me, both of them OK-looking-bordering-on-the-almost-acceptable. From the other side of the table Kate gave me a little grin – she seemed to be having a jolly time too and was happily chatting away to a charming demolitions expert. Good, we were both getting our fair share of nice chaps.

‘Hallo, erm … erm … ’

‘Tiffany,’ I said, helpfully holding up my name card. ‘Tiffany Trott.’ I shook hands with my new neighbour, who on closer inspection was rather handsome, though he seemed to have had a teensy weensy bit too much to drink.

‘And who are you?’ I enquired.

‘My name’s Terry,’ he said. Terry!

‘That’s interesting,’ I said, ‘because actually Terry is my least favourite male Christian name – ha ha ha! After Kevin and Duane, of course.’ Actually, I didn’t say that at all. I simply said, ‘Hello and welcome.’ He laughed. I don’t know why.

‘Now Tiffany, what do you do?’ he asked. Gosh! Getting right down to business here.

‘Er, try and guess!’ I challenged him teasingly.

‘Well … er … I think you’re a … um, secretary,’ he said as he poured us both some rather good Chablis. I must have looked a bit taken aback because he quickly added, ‘But you’re clearly a very high-powered one. You probably work for a Senior Sales Manager.’ Now I must say this disappointed me. Why had he not assumed that I was employed in some more glamorous field, say as an actress, croupier, television presenter or international horsewoman?

‘Wrong!’ I said. ‘I’m a builder.’

‘Get away!’ he replied. ‘Are you really?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not. Actually, I’m in advertising. I’m a copywriter.’

‘What,’ he said, ‘writing ads? Go To Work On An Egg – that kind of malarky?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That sort of thing.’

‘Vorsprung Durch Technik?’

‘Yup. That’s it. What do you do?’

‘I work on an oil rig. In the North Sea. Bloody dangerous. Never at home. Two divorces. Three kids. Loads of alimony. And how old are you, Tiffany?’ he enquired, narrowing his hazel eyes.

‘Guess!’ I said boldly.

‘Well, I think you’re … twenty-nine,’ he said, passing me an Elizabeth Shaw after-dinner mint.

‘I think I love you,’ I said.

‘Do you? Tiffany, I think I may be a little bit thick for you, but will you marry me?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You see, you’ve kept me hanging around. Normally I expect men to propose within five minutes but you’ve kept me waiting … ’ I glanced at my watch,’ … twelve.’

‘I think you’re lovely.’

‘I think you’re a bit pissed.’

‘Yes,’ he said as the band struck up for the dancing. ‘But in the morning I’ll be sober, and you’ll still be lovely.’ Ah. Obviously an educated fellow.

‘Well, that’s very gallant of you,’ I said. Now, this banter was all very well, but dinner was well and truly over by now and I rather wished that Piers would come back and rescue me. Where was he? Not at his table. I glanced round the dance floor and suddenly my blood ran cold. Piers! Draped around an elegant brunette. How could he? The fickleness of men! I absently bit the burnt almond off a petit-four and poured myself another glass of wine. Terry was chatting animatedly to the woman on his left – no doubt proposing matrimony to her as well. Kate was deep in conversation with a tree surgeon. And I was completely alone. Here I was at a party with 149 other Sensational Singles and not one of them was talking to me. I know, I thought to myself, I’ll go to the ladies’ loo. That way I’ll avoid looking as though no-one’s remotely interested in me. Three men and several dances later I found my way to the powder room on the floor below – very tastefully done up in pseudo Sanderson. As I went over to the basin I noticed two thirty-something women adjusting their make-up in the threeway mirrors.

‘God the men here are ghastly,’ said one of them, whose voice I was sure I recognised.

‘Yes. Wish I was a lesbian,’ said her friend with a snort. ‘The girls are much better-looking than the guys!’

‘But then in my experience the men are always pretty useless at these kinds of things,’ said woman number one. ‘I really don’t know why I bother.’ Suddenly she looked up as she said this, and saw me squishing orchid-scented liquid soap onto my hands. I tried to avoid her gaze, but damn! I’d been spotted.

‘Tiffany Trott!’ she said accusingly.

‘Oh – ha ha! Hello, Pamela,’ I said. ‘Fancy meeting you here, ha ha ha!’ I pulled down a paper towel from the dispenser.

‘Long time no see,’ she said. Not long enough. ‘It’s been years. How are you?’

‘Fine. Fine,’ I said. ‘Fine.’

‘Still single, though?’ she said, with just a hint of satisfaction.

‘No, actually I’m married with five children,’ I said, ‘I just come to these sorts of occasions for kicks.’ Actually I didn’t really say that at all. I said, ‘Yup. That’s right. Single – ha ha! I’m freelance now, so I don’t meet nearly as many people as I used to. This seemed like a sensible thing to do.’ I was aware that she was looking me up and down.

‘You look very, fit,’ she said grudgingly. Fit. That was always the most generous thing she could ever manage to say.

‘I am fit,’ I said brightly. ‘I play a lot of tennis these days.’ You should try it you hideous lardarse!

‘Still in ad-biz?’ she enquired, combing her short, wispy red hair. I nodded. ‘Doesn’t the triviality of it ever get you down?’ she added. She always used to ask me that.

‘Oh no, I find it rather stimulating, actually.’ And in any case we can’t all be English language teachers, can we? God this was awful – it was bad enough being abandoned by Piers without running into ghastly Pamela Roach in the ladies’ loo.

‘Still in Stoke Newington?’ she asked as she removed her huge, pink preppy glasses and reapplied her trademark blue eyeshadow.

‘No, I’ve moved to Islington actually.’

‘Oh. Doing very well for yourself then,’ she said resentfully. And suddenly I remembered exactly why I had never liked her. This constant resentment, and the gatecrashing – not to mention the time I had accidentally left my beloved cashmere cardigan at her flat and it had come back two months later, stuffed in a carrier bag, worn to bits, and stained with black ink from the topless felt tip she had been carrying about in one of the pockets. I never forgave her for that. But persistent and pachydermatous, it took her seven years to get the message.

‘Are you enjoying this evening?’ she enquired carefully. By which I knew she really meant, ‘Are you having a better time than me?’

‘Oh yes – yes,’ I said. ‘It’s quite good fun. I’ve met some rather nice people actually. How about you?’

‘Well, there are so few attractive men,’ she said.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve met some very nice-looking ones,’ I replied. Though unfortunately the one I liked the most has just deserted me for a gorgeous brunette.

‘Well, I haven’t spotted any,’ she insisted. ‘And I’m really not going to compromise. I don’t see why I should.’

I looked at her: spaghetti straps over Herculean shoulders; a strategically-placed feather boa only half disguising the apparent lack of neck; the perpendicular line of her wide, square body uninterrupted by perceptible breasts or a waist; the large, pudgy hands and plate-like feet, and I thought, as I always thought when we were at college, just who are you trying to kid? It’s strange how it’s always the least attractive women who express the most reluctance to compromise. And then I think of someone like Sally, and she says things like, ‘Who on earth would want me?’ But the fact is, Sally is beautiful. And as for me, well my ambitions extend no further than Mr OK-looking-bordering-on-the-almost-acceptable. God, I hope I find him.

‘If you see any good-looking men, put them my way,’ Pamela instructed me as she applied another layer of black eyeliner.

‘Er, sure,’ I said. ‘Anyway, it’s nice to bump into you,’ I carried on mendaciously, ‘but I’d better get back to my table – I’m here with a friend.’

‘Have you got a card?’ she asked as she replaced her glasses. ‘I don’t have your new address.’

‘Er – no, um – I’ll pop one in the post,’ I lied.

‘Keep in touch,’ she called after me.

‘Yes. Yes.’ I won’t.

Phew. Phew. Damn. That’s the problem with these kinds of events, I reflected as I found my way back to my table. It’s such a small world – and that’s the pitfall – you could easily bump into someone you knew and that would be so embarrassing, so dispiriting, especially if you were feeling vulnerable anyway, being seen by someone you didn’t even like and it was ghastly …

‘Tiffany?’ Aaaahhh! What is this? What’s going on? Oh my God, I’ve been spotted again. Who the hell was this?

‘It is Tiffany, isn’t it?’ said this tall, handsome chap with grey hair and blue eyes whom I vaguely recognised.

‘I’ve been trying to catch your eye all evening,’ he said. ‘Jonathan de Beauvoir. Do you remember?’ Of course. Jonathan de Beauvoir. We’d met at that drinks party in Drayton Gardens four years ago. He was terribly nice. He had a very pretty girlfriend then – what on earth was he doing here?

‘I remember you very well,’ I said. ‘We met at that party in Kensington. You were with … er … Sarah then, weren’t you?’

‘Yes. And you were going out with that architect who was dead keen on golf.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘I assume that’s over or you wouldn’t be here. I must say I didn’t think you looked terribly happy.’

‘I wasn’t. In fact,’ I said with sudden candour, encouraged by his kind expression, ‘I was miserable. He was unfaithful. And controlling. And chronically selfish, too. Luckily he dumped me – ha ha ha ha! What about you?’

‘Well,’ he sighed. ‘It’s a long story. I won’t bore you with it. But I’d just love to know how you are. Will you take a turn about the gardens with me?’

‘Yes,’ I said, jumping up and hoping that Piers would see me leaving the dining-room with this tall, drop-dead gorgeous bloke. ‘Yes, let’s go for a little wander. That would be nice. It’s terribly hot in here.’

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