Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating (38 page)

When Lou opened her front door she could see Kate doing what she always did: surveying her messy flat and quickly covering her horrified expression with a smile.

‘Hi,’ Kate said brightly, giving Lou a hug.

Lou let herself be hugged without bothering to lift her arms. She knew her flat was a tip, but she liked it that way. She’d never seen the point of wardrobes when there was a floor to drop your clothes on. Tidying up was a waste of time. Kate’s flat was so clean Lou felt like she’d be squirted with Dettol or tidied into a cupboard at any moment. Kate’s books were shelved alphabetically and the tins in her cupboards were turned so their labels were all at the same angle. That wasn’t a way to live. That was a psychosis.

‘Glass of wine?’ she asked flatly.

‘Why not?’ Kate replied, her bottom narrowly missing last night’s takeaway as she flopped onto Lou’s sofa.

Lou rummaged in the kitchen for her last clean glasses.

‘Actually, I do feel like a celebration’s in order,’ Kate confided happily. ‘I had another date with Tommy last night.’

‘Right.’ Lou did her best to sound uninterested. There was something very irritating about Kate when she talked about Tommy, she’d decided. She lit a cigarette so she wouldn’t have to look at her.

‘It was brilliant!’ Kate gushed. ‘He’s amazing. So funny and interesting and kind and strong. And really confident. And manly. The kind of man who can put up shelves, or pick you up without worrying he’s going to slip a disc.’

‘Mmmm,’ Lou said blandly, and blew out her smoke in a long misty column. She was sick of all this dating agency stuff.

There was an awkward pause. Kate looked confused.

‘I thought you’d be pleased for me,’ she said quietly.

‘What, because you’ve decided Tommy’s the best thing since sliced bread?’

‘Don’t be like that. I really like him.’

‘Do you? Really, Kate, do you?’ Lou flashed her eyes angrily. ‘Because last week you wanted Adonis-on-a-career-fast-track. You had the agency hunting high and low for someone educated and loaded. Mr Perfect with a seat on the board and a six-figure salary!’

‘Tommy’s educated,’ Kate protested.

‘So’s the rest of the developed world,’ Lou replied scornfully.

‘Anyway,’ Kate reasoned, sounding hurt, ‘isn’t it better to be open-minded? Maybe all that prerequisite stuff was holding me back. Maybe what I should’ve been looking for wasn’t Mr Perfect, but Mr Perfect For Me.’

‘Oh, very sweet! Very self-help.’

‘Tommy’s what I want now.’ Kate lifted her chin defiantly.

‘Whatever!’ Lou drew on her cigarette. She knew she was being cruel, but she couldn’t stop herself. She was sick of being nice. She was sick of having to listen to Kate’s supposed problems with her actually quite perfect life. ‘Ever since we went to that Meeting Mr Right talk you’ve been strange, shelling out all that money to join that stupid agency.’

‘You know why I signed up,’ Kate said patiently. ‘I want to meet someone, get married, have kids. It’s quite normal, you know.’

‘Well, bully for you, then.’ Lou gave her sarcasm a free rein. ‘You’ve compromised your standards and found a Mr Average to take you up the aisle and get you up the duff. How wonderfully
normal
!’

‘I’m not saying I’m going to marry him! We haven’t even had sex yet,’ Kate added with a lame smile.

‘Well, at least something’s business as usual.’

‘Meaning what, exactly?’

‘Meaning at least you haven’t changed beyond all recognition. You’re still wearing those cast-iron knickers and walking around like you’re on day release from the convent.’

Kate gasped.

‘Lou, what’s wrong with you today? It’s like you’re looking for a fight.’

‘I’m just sick of hearing about your never-ending quest to get a ring on your finger.’

‘I don’t talk about it
that
much!’

Lou snorted.

‘Yeah, right! Still, at least you’ve moved on from talking about work. Five years of obsessing about Julian really was enough for anyone to stomach.’

‘I don’t obsess about Julian! And besides, who else am I supposed to talk to but you? It’s not as if either of us have
boyfriends
to talk about this stuff with.’

‘Oh, we’re back to boyfriends, are we?’

Kate threw up her hands in exasperation.

‘Maybe we should just leave it for today.’ She rose from the sofa. ‘I’m going home.’

‘What, to phone Tommy?’ Lou sneered. ‘To moan about the friend you think’s beneath you now?’

Kate stopped in her tracks. ‘Lou! What on earth gave you that idea?’

Lou drew sulkily on her cigarette.

‘Isn’t it all about your parade of rich boys nowadays? Isn’t having a drink with your friend and letting life just happen a bit “over” for you?’ She knew she was being unfair but she couldn’t stop now.

‘What’s this
really
about?’ Kate asked. Lou shrugged and concentrated on smoking.

‘Look, you’re great, Lou, but you’re not there when I go to bed at night or get up in the morning. You don’t make me a cup of tea after a hard day at work, or rub my back in the bath.’

Lou snorted in derision.

‘I’m sick of being lonely!’ Kate exclaimed in exasperation. ‘Is that so wrong?’

There was a sudden silence. Kate’s words seemed to hover between them.

‘Did you shag Julian after the Pedigree Pooch event?’ Kate asked suddenly.

‘Does it matter?’ Lou replied in surprise.

‘You were all over him like herpes,’ Kate said sharply. ‘It was embarrassing.’

‘You sitting there with your arms crossed and your mouth pursed was embarrassing. It was like having Mary Whitehouse at the table. Everyone else was managing to have fun.’

‘Oh, what, you mean having fun by fornicating with my boss? What is it with you and bosses anyway? Do you have to shag every single one of them? Well, if you want to shit on your own doorstep with Tony then fine, but don’t shit on mine.’

‘Why so territorial about Julian, Kate?’ Lou’s voice was like cold acid. ‘Are you after him? Because if you are, I’ve got news for you: you’re not his type.’

‘Of course I’m not after him. Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘
I’m
being ridiculous? I’m not the one who’s turned into the sex police! Grow up, Kate. Adults fuck. Get over it!’

‘I’ve got to work with him!’ Kate cried indignantly.

‘So? You didn’t shag him. What’s the fucking problem?’

‘The problem,’ Kate replied, her voice tight with fury, ‘is that all this maneater stuff was funny in your twenties, but now it’s fast becoming pathetic. You’ve got no self-respect, no ambition, no self-worth. Your only significant relationship of the last decade has been with a married
man. Don’t you want to be loved? Don’t you want someone to care about you, to actually give a shit about whether you’ve had a bad day?’

Kate paused, somewhere between anger and pity. She looked at Lou, waiting for a response. Lou was trying to hide the fact that she was shaking. She grabbed the wine bottle and refilled her glass.

Kate sighed, and suddenly sat down.

‘You’re clever, Lou,’ she said gently. ‘What are you doing working in a bar? What happened to having a career? And if bar work is your career, why don’t you own the bar by now? You’re thirty-three. You shouldn’t be the deputy manager; you should be the owner!’

‘I’m happy as I am,’ Lou mumbled defiantly.

‘No, you’re not,’ Kate replied softly. ‘If you were, you wouldn’t be living off junk food and having meaningless shags with men who don’t care about you.’

‘Oh, and you’re so bloody perfect!’ Lou snapped viciously. ‘What the hell do you know about shagging? When did you last have sex, Kate? Actually, when did you last get
screwed
? Sex isn’t all about flowers and poetry and being worshipped on a bloody pedestal, you know. Sex is about excitement and exhilaration and pain. It’s about being fucked to within an inch of your life, not stagnating in the missionary position with the lights off! And relationships?’ Lou felt herself shaking even harder now. ‘I’m not taking advice from someone who has to pay a professional to sort out her love life. It’s tragic! And work? You’ve turned yourself into the busiest person in the western world, not because PR’s so
bloody important, but because it gives you an excuse not to go out. Because, who knows, if you did,
you might actually have fun
! You might actually have sex and get married and have kids and get all those things you want. But if you want it all so badly, why don’t you switch off your computer at six o’clock like any normal person and actually engage with the world? You need to go out and get shagged senseless, Kate! You need to be fucked until you wake up and see what you’ve become!’

A silence suddenly fell.

And then Kate picked up her bag and headed for the door.

‘We’re not twenty any more,’ she said quietly. ‘We shouldn’t be living in each other’s pockets still. I need to get on with the next stage of my life. We both do.’

And she slipped through the door, closing it gently behind her.

‘The sooner you bugger off with a boring husband and 2.4 kids the better!’ Lou bellowed after her viciously. ‘Put us all out of our fucking misery!’

She heard Kate’s footsteps echo in the stairwell. She dragged on her cigarette. Her flat fell depressingly silent.

Alice was finding it hard to be positive. As she plodded through her list of Monday morning calls, listening to her clients recount the wonderful dates they’d had at the weekend, she found herself zoning out.

It had been a terrible weekend. John’s bombshell had left her not knowing what to think, or how to feel. Her instinct was to ring Ginny, but she and Dan had gone away for a ‘working on it’ weekend. Normally gardening cleared her head, but that didn’t help either. She couldn’t even make her usual pilgrimage to Greenfingers in case John was there. Besides, even if she’d wanted to go she couldn’t. Someone must have accidentally bumped into her bike. The spokes on the front wheel were bent and it wouldn’t ride straight.

So instead she’d sat stiffly on her sofa, numbly watching black-and-white movies; not taking anything in, just going over and over everything in her head. She wouldn’t let herself cry; she refused to allow herself a single tear. Every thirty minutes her phone rang, but she didn’t move a muscle to answer it. She knew it would be John, wanting to explain. But what could he say?

The man she’d been falling in love with was a prostitute.

She’d been such an idiot. More than an idiot: a fool. She’d actually dared believe a man like John could have been interested in a girl like her. What had she been thinking? John was handsome, urbane, at ease with everyone and everything. He was
sexy
; women wanted to be with him. Whereas she, on the other hand, was a plain, mousy frump; the most exciting thing she ever did was go round to Ginny’s of an evening. And she was so far from sexy it was a joke. Of course he wouldn’t have been interested in her; anyone with half a brain could see that. How had she let her romantic imagination get so out of control? Was she so pathetically desperate to find her own Prince Charming that she couldn’t see logic and reason?

She’d even been deluded enough to think John might be falling in love with her! But actually, his love was for sale; his embraces could be booked by whoever waved their credit card. The kisses that had felt so magical now seemed dirty. She’d have been just another pair of lips to him, with the same taste as half the other women in the city. Why on earth would she be special, when he had so many other women – elegant, sophisticated,
experienced
women – to compare her with? How could she possibly compete?

Miserably, she wrapped her cardigan more tightly around her.

But what had John been playing at? What had she been to him exactly? She couldn’t help but torture herself as the movie soundtrack swelled and the happy couple fell into each other’s arms. An amusing diversion? A strange
experiment? Some sick kind of bet? Had someone – Sheryl, maybe – been paying him from the start, getting him to string the sad little matchmaker-spinster along so everyone could have a good laugh? Or maybe Ginny had been right. Maybe she did have something in common with Audrey after all . . . a one-sided crush on a man too polite to spell things out.