‘What are you DOING??? Just because I’m on my own, it doesn’t mean I’m, I’m DESPERATE and FAIR GAME. You’re MARRIED! “Oh, oh, I’m Mr Wallaker. I’m all married and perfect,” and what do you mean, “FOUNDERING”? And I know I’m a rubbish mother and single but you don’t have to rub my nose in it and—’
‘Billy!!!!!! Your mummy’s kissing Mr Wallaker!’
Billy, Bikram and Jeremiah burst out from the bushes.
‘Ah, Billy!’ Mr Wallaker said. ‘Your mummy’s just, er, hurt herself and—’
‘Did she hurt her mouth?’ said Billy, looking puzzled, at which Jeremiah, who had older brothers, spurted out laughing.
‘Ah! Mr Wallaker! I was looking for you!’
Oh GOD. Now it was Nicolette.
‘I was wondering if we should say a few words to the parents, to— Bridget! What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for some oatmeal cookies!’ I said brightly.
‘In the bushes? How odd.’
‘Can I have one? Can I have one?’ The boys, mercifully, started yelling and dive-bombing my bag, so I could bend down, covering my confusion.
‘I mean, I thought it would be nice to round things off,’ Nicolette went on. ‘People want to see you, Mr Wallaker. And hear you. I think you’re fiercely talented, I really do.’
‘Not sure a speech is quite the thing right now. Maybe just go down there and case it out? Would you mind, Mrs Martinez?’
‘No, of course,’ said Nicolette coldly, giving me a funny look, just as Atticus ran up saying, ‘Mummeee, I want to see my therapiiiiiist!’
‘Right,’ said Mr Wallaker, when Nicolette and the boys had disappeared. ‘You’ve made yourself very clear. I apologize. I will go back, to not make a speech.’
He was starting to head off, then turned. ‘But just for the record, other people’s lives are not always as perfect as they appear, once you crack the shell.’
THE HORROR, THE HORROR
Friday 5 July 2013
Dating sites checked 5, winks 0, messages 0, likes 0, online shopping sites visited 12, words of rewrite written 0.
9.30 a.m. Humph. OhMyGod. Well. Humph. ‘Foundering’? Man-whore. Lecherous sexist married bastard. Humph. Right. Must get on with Hedda-ing up – i.e. finding all of Hedda’s lines in the rewritten version and putting them back to the way they were in the first place. Which is actually quite fun!
9.31 a.m. The thing about Internet dating is, the minute you start feeling lonely, confused or desperate you can simply click on one of the sites and it’s like a sweetie shop! There are just millions of other quite plausible people all actually available, at least in theory. Have vision of offices up and down the country full of people pretending to work but clicking on Match.com and OkCupid and somehow getting through the lonely tedium of the day. Right, must get on.
10.31 a.m. Oh God. What was he DOING, Mr Wallaker? Does he do that all the time? It’s completely unprofessional.
What did he mean, ‘foundering’?
10.35 a.m. Just looked up foundering: ‘to proceed in confusion’.
Humph. Am going to go back online.
10.45 a.m. Just logged on:
0 people winked at you. 0 people chose you as their favourite.
0 people sent you a message.
Great.
11 a.m. Look at all these men-tarts. Married, but in an open relationship. You see?
12.15 p.m. Jude’s Internet dating was a nightmare – strings of communication with strangers suddenly left unanswered. I don’t want strange bits of men all over the place. Far better to get on with Leaves. Must figure out how the yacht/honeymoon could work in Sweden rather than Hawaii. I mean, Stockholm is warm in the summer, right? Doesn’t one of the girls from Abba live on an island off Stockholm?
12.30 p.m. Maybe will go on Net-a-Porter and look at the sale.
12.45 p.m. What is happening to me? Just put three dresses into my shopping basket. Then logged off. Then logged on again and realized I felt hurt because none of the dresses had winked back.
1 p.m. Maybe will just look at cute thirty-year-olds on Match.com for a minute.
Mmmm.
1.05 p.m. Just spooled down the line of cute thirty-year-olds and screamed out loud.
There, bold as you please, was a picture of . . . Roxster.
MID-MATCH COLLISION
Friday 5 July 2013 (continued)
‘Roxster30’ was grinning cheerfully, the same picture he has on Twitter. He is, apparently, looking for women aged twenty-five to fifty-five – so it wasn’t because I was too old, it was just because he didn’t . . . he didn’t . . . OH MY GOD. His profile says he has ‘particular fondness for walks on Hampstead Heath’ and ‘people who make me laugh’ and . . . ‘mini-breaks in pubs by rivers, with Full English Breakfasts’. And he really likes skydiving? SKYDIVING?
I mean, it’s OK, isn’t it? It’s just what people do? It’s quite funny, it’s . . .
Suddenly doubled over in pain, in my armchair, over the laptop.
1.10 p.m. Roxster is Online Now! But then I’m Online Now too! Oh God.
1.11 p.m. Quickly logged off and paced deranged around the room, stuffing bits of half-eaten cheese and crushed Nutribars from the bottom of my handbag into my mouth.
What am I to do? What is the etiquette? Cannot possibly log on again and have another look at Roxster, or he will think I am stalking him, or worse – better? – looking at pictures of cute thirty-year-olds to smoothly replace him with another toy boy.
1.15 p.m. Just checked my email which is now, of course, as well as being overrun by Ocado emails, and ‘Staff Present’ emails, and emails from various country pubs I have imagined staying in with Roxster, also inundated with endless emails from SingleParentMix.com and OkCupid and Match.com saying: Wow! You’re proving popular today! and Someone just checked out your profile! and Jonesey49 Someone just winked at you.
Stared closely at two recent emails from Match.com. Jonesey49 Wow! Someone just checked out your profile.
1.17 p.m. Could not find out who they were from because have not paid to properly sign on to Match.com. One of them was from someone aged fifty-nine. And the other aged thirty. It had to be Roxster. It was too much of a coincidence.
1.20 p.m. Wow! Jonesey49. Somebody just winked at you! Again aged thirty.
1.25 p.m. Clearly, Roxster has clocked that I have checked out his profile. What am I going to do? Pretend it hasn’t happened? No, that’s just . . . I mean, the whole thing is just . . . You can’t pretend something like that hasn’t happened, can you? We’re human beings and we did care about each other, I thought. And . . . text from Roxster:
Stared at phone, mind spooling through all the texts I’d made up in case he got in touch:
Instead, impulsively texted back:
There was a pause. Then another ping on the phone.
There was another pause. What was he going to say? Something kind? Something patronizingly meant to be kind? Something apologizing? Something that would hurt?
I stared at it. All those mean things I had planned to say . . . My finger hovered over the phone. And then I simply texted back the truth.
Then immediately thought, ‘Shit! Why didn’t I just put one of the less-mean-but-funny ones? Now he’ll just have got his ego-reassurance and bugger off.’ Text ping.
Anoth
er ping.
Me:
And we were off!
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster:
I laughed. I was indeed pleased with myself. There was such a rush of joy and relief that we were back with that secure feeling of knowing someone cares, and understands your sense of humour, and it wasn’t all cold and empty and over, we were still there.
But then at the same time there was a dark, lurking fear of getting back into it.
I waited. Texting ping.
THAT’S DISGUSTING!! That’s absolutely against the rules of . . . of . . . Feel like ringing the police! Surely there should be some sort of DATING OMBUDSMAN who legislates against this sort of thing!
Another texting ping. Stared at the phone as if it was a creature in a space movie. I didn’t know what it was going to do next. It might suddenly rear up into a monster, or turn into a gentle little bunny. I opened it.
Looked eerily from side to side. Another texting ping.
What was he saying? Was he saying he’d rethought the whole thing and wanted to be with me? But did I want to be with him?
Roxster:
And again:
Suddenly had flashbacks to all the delicious dinners and aftermaths we had enjoyed and had to stop self texting back:
Maybe Tom was right. Maybe Roxster wasn’t just dismissing me as a sad old bag. Texted:
This was UNHEARD OF. He must be really, really serious. I needed time to digest this.
Another texting ping.
And another.
Was going to text: but maybe that suggested I thought he was being cheesy and there were onions hidden amongst the nice stuff.
So, again, I just texted what was true.
REKINDLING
Thursday 11 July 2013
Days of continuous sunshine 11, raindrops fallen on head 0 (unbelievable).
2 p.m. Is boiling hot. Still! No one can believe their luck. Everyone is out in the streets, bunking off work, drinking, wild for sex and complaining that it is too hot.
Texting is completely back on again with Roxster and he has been lovely, despite Talitha’s dire warnings about taking someone back after they have dumped you. And despite Tom’s dire warnings about people who are All Text and No Trousers, and professional warnings about the fact that I could only expect a future of mixed messages, and had I thought about what I actually wanted – apart from endless texting and sporadic nights of sex?
Roxster has explained about the curry and lateness on the break-up night, and said he wasn’t – as I suspected all along – having a curry with ‘colleagues’. In fact he was sitting on his own, stuffing his face with chicken korma, poppadoms and lager, because he was so confused, and suddenly overcrowded about being a proper boyfriend, and maybe becoming a father figure. And then, after he made his break-up speech, I seemed completely fine about it, almost relieved, delighted to break up, until the farting rant. And then, after that, he didn’t know what to do. And he is cheerful and sweet and light and so much better than lecherous married bastards. We are seeing each other on Saturday: for a walk on Hampstead Heath.
BLIMEY
Saturday 13 July 2013
3 p.m. Frantic preparation. Had to deal with Mum, who is taking Mabel and Billy to tea at Fortnum & Mason (good luck with that one, Mum). ‘Oh, Mabel’s wearing leggings, is she? Where do you keep your colanders?’
Dived out for leg wax and toenail polish, then washed hair and put on the Summer Concert see-through floaty dress, then thought it was bad karma, so changed it to a non-see-through pale pink one. Then got text from Farzia, asking if Billy and Jeremiah were going to football tomorrow as Bikram didn’t want to go unless they all went, then lost my flip-flops but couldn’t wear my other sandals because they’d squash the toenail varnish, then finally got to the pub with two minutes to spare and rushed to the loo to make sure I didn’t have too much make-up on like Barbara Cartland. Eventually sat down in the fabulous sunshine in the garden, like a relaxed, on-time Goddess of Light and Calm, and, as Roxster appeared, a seagull shat on my shoulder.
It was so exciting to see Roxster, looking gorgeous in a bright blue polo shirt, and be falling about laughing again about the seagull, and just having fun, and feeling like children on a spree, only more sexy. And we had a couple of beers, and Roxster had his food, and tried repeatedly to get the seagull poo off my boob and I was so . . . happy!
Then we set off for our walk, and the Heath was teeming with people rejoicing in the sunshine and complaining about it, couples in each other’s arms, and I was part of one too, arm in arm with Roxster. Then we came to a sun-dappled glade and sat down on a bench we’d sat down on often before. And after Roxster had finished laughing about the red dots he’d noticed on my legs from the leg wax, he looked serious. And he started to say that he’d been thinking, and although he really, really wanted to have children of his own, and really, really thought he ought to be with someone his own age, and didn’t know what his friends would say, or what his mum would say, he just didn’t think he would find anyone he got on with the way he got on with me. And he wanted to do it all, the whole thing, properly, and climb trees on the Heath, and be a dad to Billy and Mabel.
I stared at him. I did really heart Roxster, I hearted that he was so beautiful and young and sexy, but more than that hearted who he was and what he stood for. He was funny, and together, and light, and kind, and practical, and emotional but contained. But he was also born when I was twenty-one. And if we’d both been born at the same time – how could we know what would have happened? What I did know as I looked at him, was that I didn’t want to ruin Roxster’s life. And my kids were absolutely without a shadow of a doubt the best thing that I had in my life. I didn’t want to deprive him of doing all that for himself.
Crucially, though, I suspected that, even though he wanted to, Roxster just couldn’t do it. He would try, but then sometime in a week, or six weeks, or six months, he would go all uncertain again and keep shorting out. And the thing about reaching the advanced age of, er, thirty-five was that I just didn’t want all that uncertainty and emotional roller coaster and pain any more. I just couldn’t bear it.
Moreover, I did NOT want to be like Judi Dench with Daniel Craig at the end of Skyfall, the age difference between whom must be about the same as between me and Roxster. But then, in Skyfall, when you think about it, Judi Dench was actually the Bond Girl, not th
e frizzy-haired one with no character who decided (in a weird anti-feminist twist, surely?) she wanted to be Miss Moneypenny. Judi Dench was the one Daniel Craig really loved, and ended up carrying through the bullets. But then would Daniel Craig actually have had sex with Judi Dench? I mean, if she wasn’t dead? How great if they’d done a beautifully lit sex scene with Judi Dench looking gorgeous in a black La Perla slip. Now there would be a rebranding feminist . . .
‘Jonesey. Are you pretending not to have an orgasm again?’
I looked back, startled, at Roxster who was now down on one knee. How could I have been so rude as to stare into space for so long when . . . God, he was so, so, so gorgeous, but . . .
‘Roxster,’ I blurted, ‘you don’t really mean all this, do you? You’re not actually going to be able to do it.’
Roxby McDuff looked thoughtful for a moment, then laughed ruefully, got to his feet, and shook his head.
‘No, Jonesey, you’re right. I’m actually not.’
Then we hugged each other, with lust and happiness and sadness and tenderness. But I knew that, this time, the game was up. It really was over.
As we let go, I opened my eyes and over Roxster’s shoulder saw Mr Wallaker, standing stock-still and staring at us.
Mr Wallaker caught my eye, impassive, said nothing, and, in his usual fashion, simply strode away.
On the way home, in the midst of confusion, and sadness, and seller’s remorse, and overheating, and shock at Mr Wallaker seeing what looked like an engagement but was actually a break-up, I felt that overwhelming thing that people feel when . . . that I . . . that once again, at a moment of parting, I hadn’t . . . that you absolutely have to tell people that . . . and simultaneously, spookily, the text pinged.
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster:
Me:
Roxster: