I return my attention to the television and there is now a full-blown picture of her you-know-what on the screen. ‘During sexual arousal, and particularly the stimulation of the clitoris, the walls of the vagina selflubricate,’ says the presenter.
‘Come off it!’ I exclaim. ‘Why does she need to show the whole world what her you-know-what looks like?’
‘Vagina? Loosen up, Gilly. Anyone would think you hadn’t seen one before.’
‘I’d rather watch football.’
I take my plate into the kitchen.
‘You can come back, I’ve turned it off!’ Jack joins me in the kitchen. ‘What are you up to tonight?’ he asks.
‘I think I need an early one, hectic weekend,’ I pretend, taking some ice cream out of the freezer. ‘Want some?’ I ask. ‘It’s mint choc chip.’
Jack takes the pot away from me, his face only inches away from mine. His closeness makes me feel like a school-girl with a crush. ‘I want to take you,’ he says, ‘out for a drink.’
I hesitate, though can’t understand why. Here is Jack, the most attractive man I have come across in many months, asking me out. What is there to think about?
‘One quick drink, that’s all I’m asking,’ he says, grabbing his leather jacket and heading towards the front door.
The thing is, it’s never one quick drink though is it?
I show Jack the delights of Hammersmith. We have a drink at a couple of the local pubs, and Jack is intent on paying each time, producing crisp banknotes from his leather wallet with a smooth, ‘Let me, Gilly, my shout.’
At one pub there’s a local quiz night, at another it’s a comedy evening, then we head to a smart bar near Hammersmith Broadway, where someone’s hosting a Chicago-themed fortieth birthday party in the private room upstairs. We enjoy watching women arrive wearing fishnet tights and feathers in their hair and then men wearing sequined jackets and trilby hats.
I discover Jack is even more charming than I’d imagined, and surprisingly easy to talk to. He tells me he didn’t go to university, but got his first work experience job at nineteen as a runner on a haunted house programme. ‘I always thought I was way too good to be running around making tea, but you can never be too proud,’ Jack said. Then he worked for the BBC in the basement of Television Centre in the tape despatch department. Every programme that needed a clip for their show, Jack Baker had to locate it. It was his job to find tape BBC15609, that was some ancient clip from Noel’s House Party that everyone had forgotten about until it was resurrected. ‘I was on my hands and knees trying to find these great big solid black things coated in dust,’ he says.
Jack endured this job for eight months in an airless building, but each morning he’d press his cv on desks in the vain hope that someone would see his promise at tape-locating and coffee and tea-making. But Jack wasn’t complaining when he told me any of this. There was complete acceptance that this is what it takes to make it in the television world. He now gets cross with young twenty-somethings who swan in having done media studies at university and think life owes them a living.
Jack’s first break was working on a dating programme that flew him all around the world to exotic places like Thailand, Turkey and Greece. The show was being made for a major commercial channel, and as a producer one of his main jobs was making sure the contestants had signed their release forms.
‘I know it sounds easy being on a beach, but you try racing round in sweltering heat trying to get through to some Greek guy who’s swimming out to sea to sign a consent form,’ Jack had impressed upon me.
At the final pub Jack and I play a game of pool and drink another beer. I tell him about my old job. ‘It was a shame that the new boss was so terrible,’ I confide. ‘All she cared about was filling in the job sheets and ticking the boxes. She didn’t care about the clients. If we hired out locations for adverts or something she’d bustle in on set, and piss off the cameramen. They couldn’t work with her, so we lost a lot of jobs and she let me go.’
I find myself telling him about Mari’s shop and all the different customers, starting with Blaize Hunter King.
‘I don’t often see the celebs, but their agents who decorate their homes,’ I explain. ‘We also get a lot of rich Russians and Americans. Today this American lady comes in, right, and points to one of the mirrors, saying, “Oh my God, I love this, but what a shame it’s broken in the middle.”
‘“But it’s an antique,” Mari replies. “That’s what you’re paying for.”’
Jack is right in front of me now, positioning the cue on the table and I can’t help myself from tapping his beautiful bottom just as he’s about to hit the ball. The ball swerves, misses the pocket. ‘Ah, what a shame,’ I say, talking closely into his ear. ‘You were doing so well.’
‘One more game, and no cheating this time,’ Jack says over his shoulder, as he excuses himself to go to the loo. When he’s out of sight I brush my hair and flick open my powder compact to look at myself in the toy-sized mirror. I snap the lid shut. Jack is my Monday to Friday man, nothing more. Could be awkward. Quickly I splash my wrist with perfume.
We play one more game of pool before leaving the pub, only to find someone throwing up by the garbage bins and two men swearing at each other, ready for a fight. One of the drunks approaches me. ‘All right, love?’ he leers into my face, before checking me out. Jack steers me away from him, placing a protective hand against the small of my back. I like him touching me. He doesn’t take his hand away for some time.
Jack and I walk home. Hammersmith Broadway is lit up, twinkling lights in trees. Music booms out of clubs, women totter out in heels; the pavements are alive with smokers lighting up.
We take some shortcuts down narrower roads and alleyways. I show him the coffee shop and the butcher’s where I buy my steaks. We walk past a children’s shop, the windows decorated with balloons and coloured cupcakes that cost about a pound a bite. Then I show him the lapdancing club, a famous landmark in Hammersmith. ‘It’s great round here,’ Jack concludes.
‘I nearly left London,’ I tell him. ‘I was thinking about moving to the country.’
‘Really?’ he asks. ‘You’re too young to retire to the country.’
I’m about to say thirty-four isn’t that young, when a car pulls over to our side of the road; a man winds down the window and spits, before driving on. Then we walk past a bright yellow sign that reveals a fatal car crash at 18:00 hours yesterday, a pedestrian killed in a hit-and-run accident, appealing for witnesses.
‘There you go,’ I gesture to him. ‘That’s why I wanted to go.’
‘Oh come on, Gilly. I know it’s awful but . . .’
‘I don’t like walking on my own at night round here either.’
‘It’s hardly Miami Vice.’
I shrug. ‘It’s not worth taking the risk though, is it?’
Jack shakes his head. ‘You’re only young once. Life’s not worth living if you never take any risks, Gilly.’
‘I’m not scared,’ I correct him, though I can’t quite put him straight on my age. I like being thirty-two. I don’t like being thirty-four, it’s too close on the edge to thirty-five. ‘I’m sensible. I also won’t walk in a field with cows.’
‘You only get cows in the country,’ he reminds me. ‘Anyway, what’s wrong with cows?’ He smiles. ‘What have they ever done to you?’
Back at home, Jack and I drink coffee on the sofa.
‘Do you like living on your own?’ I ask him, realizing how much I’d enjoyed coming home this evening and not locking the door behind me.
‘I don’t mind. I’m surrounded by people at work,’ he shrugs, ‘so I like my own space.’
‘You haven’t met anyone since your last girlfriend?’
‘Nope.’
‘Really?’
‘I know it’s hard to believe.’ He smiles.
He crosses one leg over another, runs a hand through his hair. ‘Meeting people is a lottery,’ he claims. ‘It can lead to
a lot of trouble.’
I clutch my mug of coffee, take a sip. ‘Trouble? Tell me more.’
‘No thanks.’
‘I nearly got married you know.’
‘What happened? Did he do a runner?’
‘Yep.’
‘Oh, Gilly, I’m sorry. Oh God, it was a joke, oh fuck, I . . .’
I tell him not to be sorry, that I’m bored of feeling miserable about it.
‘I’m sure the “m”’ word isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. ‘Maybe you had a narrow escape.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I think I’ll be a bachelor for the rest of my life. Much simpler.’
I punch his arm playfully. ‘There are not nearly enough decent men around, so don’t you dare go depriving us of another.’
He smiles.
‘So where do you live in Bath?’
‘In the town.’
‘Why don’t you live in London? Isn’t most of your work here?’
‘Not really, I never know where my next contract will be. My last job was in Indonesia for five weeks. Mum wasn’t too keen on that . . .’
‘Your mum? Why?’
‘She’s a worrier, thinks these places aren’t safe and that I’ll catch some bug like dengue fever or something. You know what mums are like, always worrying.’
‘Mine doesn’t have a clue what I’m up to half the time.’
He doesn’t ask why.
‘She lives in Australia,’ I explain.
‘Oh right,’ Jack nods without asking any further questions.
‘I think you should move here,’ I tell him.
‘Not everyone wants to live in London, Gilly.’ He gets up to leave.
I follow Jack into the kitchen. ‘Sorry. I’m being nosy.’
‘I went to university in Bath and loved it there. I don’t have the time to move right now so I travel to London for work. That’s all you need to know about me.’
‘I’ll shut up right now.’ I pretend to zip up my lips. ‘Are you tired?’ It’s past midnight.
‘No, not really.’
We make ourselves another drink and then move back to the sofa, switching lanes from personal to general; we talk about our political views, does Jack vote? Yes he does. So do I. Does he approve of Barack Obama? Yes he does, so do I. We have so much in common. What does he think of the recent banking troubles? I tell him it’s lucky I don’t have any money to lose. He agrees. We share our pet hate phrases. Jack’s is ‘with all due respect’. Mine is ‘I love him to bits.’ We talk about inventions. Who were those clever people who invented the paper-clip and the elastic band? What genius decided it was a good idea to whisk egg whites and then add sugar to make meringues? Jack tells me that he’s worried that now he’s hit thirty the ageing process will settle in and make itself more at home. ‘I’m vain,’ he admits. ‘They say thirty-three, thirty-four is the problem age, when you just can’t pass for being a 27-year-old any more.’
‘Nancy tells me the trick to looking young is keeping a neutral expression at all times.’
‘Nancy?’
‘My sister-in-law. She’s got no wrinkles. I think she’s had botox.’
‘You don’t need botox, Gilly. You’re perfect the way you are.’
‘Oh please!’ I push him away. Tell him you’re nearly thirty-five. Go on. See if he thinks you’re so perfect then.
‘I mean it.’
I turn back to him, my heart singing with his compliment. He looks into my eyes. ‘Have you got any brothers or sisters?’ I ask, my heart pumping with adrenalin.
‘You’re perfect except you ask too many questions,’ he says.
I hold his gaze. ‘You’re perfect . . . except you avoid answering them.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘It’s never good to give too much away on the first night, Gilly. That’s a golden rule.’
When the time finally comes to go to bed, we say goodnight on the landing. I kiss him on one side of the cheek. He kisses me on the other.
‘Sweet dreams,’ he whispers into my ear, before he goes to his bedroom and reluctantly I go to mine.
In the middle of the night I wake up. I can’t remember, but did Jack say he went to university in Bath, or am I imagining it? Didn’t he say at the pub that he hadn’t gone to university? That he got his first job at nineteen as a runner?
I don’t sleep very well that night.
22
It’s Sunday and Guy and I are browsing in a secondhand bookshop after a dog walk in Richmond Park. It was glorious out today: the October sun warming our backs and faces, the grass glistening with dew, and a deer stood right in front of us, as if we weren’t even there.
I know my time with Guy is borrowed because Flora is back in a month’s time. I ask myself if I would mind knowing that my boyfriend was spending time with another woman while I was out of the country. Of course I would, even if he swore blind there was nothing in it. I know I shouldn’t become too attached to him; yet I enjoy his friendship. Being with Guy is as comforting as listening to the sound of rain when wrapped up safe and sound indoors. It also helps that he never knew Ed. I’m not reminded of my past when I’m with him.
I love this bookshop. It smells of leather and coffee beans, but what I particularly love about it is, like the chandeliers in Mari’s shop, each book has a history and has to be handled with as much care as a fragile piece of glass. I enjoy opening the covers and reading the inscriptions in the front, as much of a story as the tale inside. Old editions of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights are signed for loved ones, touching messages in ink with neat dates by the side.
‘I wish we did that now,’ I whisper to Guy, holding a copy of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and showing him the inscription: ‘To my darling Boot, with my love, Muffin’.
‘Boot?’ Guy raises an eyebrow.
‘It’s nice, intimate, just between them. I’ve never had a nickname, have you?’
He shakes his head.
‘Ed called me Gilly or honey.’ Equally I didn’t have a special name for him.
I clutch the copy of Rebecca, telling Guy my father had read the story to Nicholas and me. I remember loving this particular mystery and being intrigued by the characters, especially the sinister Mrs Danvers. Even Nicholas, who frowned when given hard rectangular-shaped presents, was drawn into the story.
Back at home I make us some lunch: omelettes and a salad. ‘How’s it going with Jack?’ he asks as I beat the eggs in a bowl.
‘Great. We went out last week.’
‘Out?’
‘Just for drinks.’ My mobile rings.
‘Where is it?’ I ask Guy. Together we follow the sound of the ringing; I catch Guy looking under the mess on my desk, and then glancing at the photograph of Megan. Eventually I find my telephone wedged between the sofa cushions, but whoever it was has long since rung off. I have one missed call from Anna, so I quickly call her back. Last night I went out for drinks with a few of her work friends, including the married Paul, whom Anna has been in love with for a long time. It was the first time I’d met him and I was careful not to say, ‘Anna’s told me so much about you.’ No, I was cool, and asked him questions without scrutinizing the poor man. He’d told me briefly that he was in the process of getting a divorce. He’s forty-six and has one son called Benjamin, seven years old. Paul had a gentle quality about him. He was quiet, but interesting, and I discovered that outside work his passion was motor racing. That surprised me.
‘I’m with Guy,’ I tell her, when she asks me what I’m doing. I catch him scanning the books on my shelf.
‘Again?’ she asks.
‘Come over,’ I suggest. He’s now picking up a photograph of Ruskin and me.
‘Too hungover. Paul . . . he stayed the night,’ she whispers excitedly.
‘Oh my God!’ I shriek. ‘More! Tell me more!’ Guy looks across at me.
Anna cruelly tells me she can’t, that Paul is in the bathroom, but she promises to phone later.
I go
back to the kitchen, to finish making the salad, and fill Guy in about Anna, but he’s keen to return to the subject of Jack. ‘What’s he like? Can I do anything, by the way?’
‘He’s lovely. No, nothing. Diet Coke or normal?’
‘Normal.’
‘He’s easy to live with too.’
‘He must have one bad habit,’ he says as he cracks open his can.
‘No. Well, he does leaves his teabags in the sink, but that’s about it.’ Guy detects I want to say more. ‘And?’
I smile. ‘He thinks I’m thirty-two.’
‘How come?’
I tell him Gloria made up my age.
‘Well, you’re only thirty-four.’
‘Nearly five. I wish Gloria hadn’t mentioned my age in the advert.’
‘Just tell him, it’s no big deal. Gilly! You’re blushing. You like him, don’t you.’
‘Guy!’
‘Come on.’
‘OK, I’m attracted to him,’ I admit now. ‘I know he’s my lodger, I probably shouldn’t but he’s . . . God, he’s so sexy.’ I stop. ‘I’m sure nothing will happen.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’s too young.’
‘No he’s not.’
I confess the real reason. ‘I’m out of practice! Honestly, you should see me around him. I can’t relax. I know this sounds stupid . . .’
‘Go on.’
I tell him how I’d hesitated when Jack had asked me out for one quick drink. ‘It’s like I’m nervous of getting hurt again, of being a stupid idiot. I’m putting up this barrier. I don’t want to, but there’s something about him too, that I’m not quite sure about . . . No . . .’ I think out loud, deciding not to make a big deal of the Bath university comment. ‘I’m being paranoid.’
‘About what?’
‘No. Nothing.’
‘Gilly, maybe you’re over-analysing everything,’ he suggests. ‘I think you need to stop thinking so hard and have some fun.’
‘I like the sound of that.’ I raise my can of Coke to his. ‘To having fun,’ I say.
Over lunch Guy and I continue to justify our friendship because we know our friends and my dog-walking circle are beginning to talk about us. Anna says I mention Guy on a daily basis.
Monday to Friday Man Page 11