This wasn’t me, I thought, as I watched Derek and Anthony wander off to The Limelight, laughing their stupid heads off. This so wasn’t me. I’d only been divorced since Sunday; I should be at home, gathering my thoughts and reading inspirational self-help books, not out on the dating scene, putting it about and getting hurt all over again.
I was hurt, I decided, with a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach. I was a fool to think I could get out there, dating and being fun and fabulous. Dex was right, I’d been living in a dream world. There were no nice men out there. There were no nice men for me. I already knew that love hurts, cheats and fails, now I knew that even taking the tiniest chance on it was just a mug’s game. Suddenly I felt stupid, really stupid. I felt stupid in my stupid skirt and stupid heels. My hair was stupid. My face was stupid.
‘Sam!’ I really needed her to come out of the bushes now. I really wanted to go home to my bed. She didn’t hear me. She was wearing Simon’s glasses now; he had his hand on one of her glutes. Was she going to go home with him? I didn’t know. But I needed to tell her I was getting out of here. ‘Sam!’
Sam prised herself free of Simon and teetered over to me, leaving him with his hands in the air and shrugging like a football player who’d just been given a yellow card.
‘Okay, Daryl,’ she said brightly, as brightly as someone who was blind drunk could. ‘Shall we go home now?’
‘Are you not going home with Simon?’
‘No, not tonight,’ she slurred. ‘I’m too drunk. If he still likes me in the morning he can call me. Is this our cab?’
‘Yes, it’s ours.’
‘You okay?’
‘Not really. Dex didn’t turn out to be so great, after all. He only wanted a one night stand. He thought I was up for a quick grope and then back to mine for sex.’
‘Oh no. Has he gone?’
‘Yes, and good riddance to him.’ I wouldn’t be getting a call in the morning, like Sam. I wasn’t worth it, apparently. I was only worth a fumble in a car park and a quick bunk up.
‘Oh dear.’
‘Yes, oh dear.’
‘I’m sorry, Daryl.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have expected anything more.’
‘Don’t be silly! Why not? You’re lovely, Daryl.’ She was clutching at my arm. Doing a drunk-and-earnest face. ‘Any man would be lucky to have you. Look at you! You’re gorgeous… you’ve got a lovely face… you’ve got lovely hair… you wear really nice shoes…’
‘Okay, and you’re drunk and you’re going on a bit. Let’s go home.’
‘O-kaay,’ she nodded.
We got in the taxi and drove out of the car park, with Simon hollering, ‘Baby, come back!’ and running after the taxi, like a dog. Sam muttered, ‘He better call me,’ before slumping in her seat and closing her eyes and I just sat there, gutted and disillusioned (so what was new?), as we made our way out of Richmond. It started raining again, the steady pattering of raindrops and the pendulum-like, rhythmic squeaking of the windscreen wipers providing a fittingly depressing percussion to my despair. I sighed as I stared out of the window into the black night, and watched the melancholy streets flash past.
The week wasn’t going very well, was it?
I had an eighty percent chance of being totally miserable by Friday.
Chapter Fifteen
Thursday
I had a hangover this morning. A hangover from too much alcohol, too much food and the mortification of being propositioned by a predatory man who thought I was an easy touch. I felt sick when I remembered Dex forcing his tongue into my mouth; I felt sick at how I’d flirted with him, all night, innocently believing he liked me as a person. I felt so foolish that I’d imagined dating him, this perfect man I’d just met.
It was a joke! I did need to get real. I was a fool.
The taxi had dropped Sam off first and then brought me home. It was possible Will might have seen me. He may have seen me, staggering up the drive in my ridiculous heels like a forlorn middle-aged joke. He may have seen me rummaging for my keys in my bag, with the injured face of someone who had been lunged upon and laughed at. I didn’t know. But he was out the front now, putting his bag of paper out for recycling, while I was lugging out my box full of bottles and tins. I’d completely forgotten to do it last night, and they came at eight.
‘Let me help you with that,’ he said, setting his bag on the ground and walking over. Great. I looked revolting. I was un-showered and still in my dressing gown, my hair was sticking up all over the place and I had the remains of last night’s mascara (as well as last night’s regret?) clinging to my eyelashes like tiny bits of twig. I would have to start checking if the coast was clear of him, before I stepped foot out of my front door in the mornings looking absolutely hideous and about a hundred years old…
‘It’s all right, I can manage thanks,’ I said, my head down. Eek! I really didn’t want him seeing me like this. He, of course, was fully dressed and nicely groomed, and in a smart navy suit.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, relieving me of the box which he carried down to the end of drive and put by the kerb. He was whistling. It sounded like ‘The Birdy Song’. To my horror, I could suddenly feel my left bosom escaping from my badly-tied dressing gown, but managed to stuff it back in before he turned round.
‘Second date last night?’ he enquired, looking all fresh and genial.
‘Something like that,’ I muttered. No way was I telling him about last night’s disastrous evening! I put my hands in the pockets of my dressing gown; it was chilly.
‘Great,’ he said. Then he looked as though he were about to say something else. Then paused for a moment. Then said something else. ‘So, it’s Halloween tonight.’
‘Ugh, yeah. Again,’ I replied. I’d forgotten all about it. I wondered what it was like round here. Where I used to live, on the other side of Wimbledon, it was always pretty manic.
‘I know. Ha.’ He ran a hand through his hair, did a small boyish shrug and then said, ‘Listen, are you free? Tonight? Do you want to face the onslaught together? Combine resources?’
‘How do you mean?’ I took my hands out of my pocket and used my left to pull one side of my dressing gown tighter across me. The damn boob was in danger of escaping again.
‘Well, Halloween’s quite a big deal on this street. We get a lot of kids trick or treating.’ Same as on my old street, then; there was no place to hide. ‘I had a thought… that maybe there was no point them annoying both of us, separately. I wondered… if you wanted to come over to mine tonight. We can just light the one pumpkin outside my front door, you can put up a grumpy sign on yours saying you’re not in, and we hide out at mine and fling sweets through the letter box.’
‘Oh! Well… thank you… I suppose we could.’ I was so taken aback. He was asking me over tonight. It sounded… lovely. Hiding out from the neighbourhood terrors and munching sweets (well, he hadn’t said that, but I always ended up eating a lot of the sweet stash I’d put by). Lighting a pumpkin and, what had he said? Facing the onslaught together?
‘Yes?’ he prompted.
‘Yes, okay. Thank you, I’d love to.’ I would love to. Especially after last night. A nice night in with some great company and a bit of a laugh was just what I needed. Friendly neighbours having a friendly get-together… This was not a date, and thank goodness for that. There’d be no drinking champagne or dancing to Bowie. No unwanted kissing. ‘What shall I bring? Loads of sweets and a few chocolates?’
‘Yep. Fun Size Mars Bars, Tangfastics, Moams… We’ll get plenty and make sure we have a backup supply. There’s always some little horror in a skeleton costume who grabs half the bowl.’
‘And then doesn’t even say thank you,’ I added.
‘Yes, exactly. And an embarrassed mum lurking behind him in a Puffa jacket, shouting out apologies for his hideous behaviour.’
‘With an even more embarrassed friend standing next to her, wondering how such a good friend o
f hers could turn out to have such horrible children.’
‘Ha, ha! Spot on!’ laughed Will. ‘Well, we’ll be prepared for the buggers. Six o’clock? I’ll make a chilli.’
‘Perfect.’
It did sound fun. Really good fun. I was smiling as I went back up the drive and into the house, my hair and my face and my escaping boob forgotten. He didn’t care that I looked like a hungover, ancient witch. He had asked me over tonight.
I was really looking forward to it.
As I shut the front door and went upstairs to the bathroom, I did a very silly thing. I let my brain get the better of me and started imagining this was a date. He was cooking for me. We were going to spend the evening huddling behind a door in the dark, or in pumpkin-glow candlelight, giggling and pretending to be scared. It did sound quite romantic.
Stop that right now! I had to mentally employ a slapping hand to clock myself around the head with. Don’t get carried away, I told myself. He was just being neighbourly and kind. This was not a date. A date was the last thing I wanted after the week I’d had so far. A date was the last thing I wanted full stop. It was just a friendly joint venture to survive Halloween. There were so many reasons this was not a date. He didn’t fancy me and I didn’t fancy him. He was a sugar addict. He whistled ‘The Birdy Song’. He was also a widower and not ready to move on. Life was not a Hallmark card or one of those Channel 5 Christmas movies they start showing in October, where the widower and his neighbour get together when the real Santa comes into town. Or when the hot widower gets together with the town’s pretty new cupcake-shop-owner after a series of misadventures and romantic coincidences… I was not pretty; I wasn’t young and gorgeous. And my bum was too big.
No, it was a date free zone. Nobody was even going there. But, that was okay. I didn’t see why I couldn’t look forward to the evening anyway, I concluded, as I stepped into the shower and started washing my horrible hair. After my lukewarm night with Ben (who still hadn’t called me, by the way) and my nasty experience with Dex last night, this lovely non-date sounded lovely.
The office looked a little different this morning and it took me only a couple of moments to realise it was all the silly Halloween stuff people had decorated the station with. Elaine had strung up some kind of cartoon ghost bunting between Studios One and Two; Pippa Honeywell had sprayed some white ‘silly string’ everywhere to look like cobwebs, which was kind of annoying and I bet the cleaner wouldn’t be best pleased when she came to get rid of them; and someone had hung up a plastic skeleton above Bob’s desk – one of its toes was resting on a tub of Vick’s VapoRub. Sam had joined in by putting a little plastic pumpkin on her desk and a cardboard bat at a jaunty angle on the top right corner of her PC; she gave me a weary and very hungover wave as I came in and sat down. And Peony was wearing one of Max’s Megadeth t-shirts. I could see her in Studio Two, laughing with Max and twiddling some knobs.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Halloween, and was relieved not to be required to do anything for it any more. When Freya was small it would be a case of traipsing round the streets for hours in the cold as she – in a desperately badly-made costume courtesy of yours truly – begged neighbours prettily for sweets. When she was older she’d beg to have loads of friends over and I’d have to make fruit punch and pumpkin-shaped cookies and organise that revolting game where you put your hand in a bowl of cold tinned spaghetti and everyone shrieks and says it’s brains or something. Whatever it was, over the years, Jeff used to miss the whole thing, arriving home long after it was all over, then leaving me to open the door to the ne’er-do-well older kids and their demands until midnight, while he watched telly and scoffed the designated chocolates.
Freya had sent me a text this morning saying she was having a Halloween party in her flat tonight – she’d be wearing a Maleficent costume and was going to make some green, vile-sounding shots.
Don’t over-do it, I’d texted back. Graduation tomorrow!
I’d hardly forget! she had replied. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine xx’
I knew she would be; she was a very sensible girl. I was more worried about myself. Oh god. The horror. Facing Jeff, and more horrifically, Gabby. What would I say to them? What would they say to me? I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face thinking about it today, anyway. I’d think about it tomorrow.
After I’d researched and written my first bulletin I went over to see Sam.
‘All right?’ I enquired.
‘Dying.’
‘Bacon sandwich?’ I looked over and there were still some left, their edges curling.
‘I might have to, I feel dreadful.’ She did look pretty awful – green around the gills and no longer straight and shiny of hair; it was all frizzy and unkempt. I knew she’d lay her head down on the desk and sleep, if she could.
‘I’ll go and get you one in a minute,’ I said.
She grunted her thanks. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Hungover, but clearly not as bad as you.’
‘No, how are you feeling about that Dex character?’
‘Ugh,’ I said. ‘What a loser.’
‘Agreed,’ she said. ‘What a lech!’
‘Exactly.’
‘So you’re okay about it now?’
‘Yeah. What about Simon? Do you think you’ll hear from him?’
‘I have already,’ she grinned. ‘He called me at six this morning.’
‘He’s keen!’
‘I know!’
Not like Ben I thought, suddenly wondering what was going on with him. I knew there was a three-day rule, or something, about calling someone after a date, but if he’d liked me in the way Simon clearly liked Sam then he would have called me by now. He didn’t want to see me again, did he? I know I hardly saw him as love’s young dream, and even if he did call me I wasn’t sure what I’d say (probably that I wasn’t interested, but hey ho), but I was slightly hurt about it. It was another rejection.
‘When are you seeing him again?’ I asked.
‘Tomorrow night.’
‘Oh, fantastic Sam! I’m really pleased for you.’
Thanks,’ she said. ‘So am I. He’s really nice, Daryl.’
‘Good. That’s so great. Hey, listen, Will has invited me over for Halloween tonight.’
‘Will, your hunky neighbour Will?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ooh, or should I say “woooo”?’ she exclaimed, waggling her hands in mock-ghostly manner.
‘You shouldn’t say either, Sam. He doesn’t fancy me. And I don’t fancy him. There’s nothing going on there. He’s just a friend.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do say so. Tonight it not part of that one-date-a-night nonsense.’
‘How did the decorating go?’
‘Good. We did the hall. Looks lovely.’
‘Great,’ she was nodding, a silly look on her face.
‘Don’t you dare start,’ I sighed. ‘Don’t you dare start saying anything about anything being written in the stars! I am not insane enough to have a fling with my next door neighbour!’
‘Okay, okay,’ she pleaded, holding her hands out. ‘I won’t, I promise.’ She really did look green. I noticed the full-fat bottle of Coke next to her in-tray. The ‘healthy eating plan’ was definitely going out the window today. ‘Do you want some help with your outfit tonight though? Just in case.’
‘No!’ I said. ‘There’ll be no outfit!’
Peony came out of Studio Two. She looked cute in her Megadeth t-shirt and jeans. Sam called her over.
‘God, I’m so busy!’ she proclaimed, sitting herself on Sam’s desk with a big sigh. ‘It’s going to be one of those days. Hey, how did it go last night? The roaring fires, the sexy men in aprons? I can see you’re on the contraband Coke, Sam, so it must have been good!’
‘Daryl got propositioned and I met a new man.’
‘Good proposition or bad proposition?’
‘Bad,’ I said. ‘He looked promising, but turned out to be a sl
eaze-ball. ’
‘Oh dear,’ tutted Peony. ‘It happens. And the new man?’ she asked, turning to Sam.
‘Seeing him tomorrow night,’ said Sam. ‘And Daryl’s going round to her hunky new neighbour’s for Halloween tonight.’
‘Hang on!’ said Peony. ‘I don’t know anything about a hunky new neighbour!’
‘Oh, Peony,’ sighed Sam, placing her head in her hands. ‘You’re so out of the loop. We need a serious catch-up.’
‘There is not a hunky new neighbour!’ I exclaimed. ‘Well, there is, but there’s nothing going on. For the love of god he’s –’
‘– just a friend,’ jumped in Sam.
‘He is,’ I insisted.
‘I can’t keep up,’ said Peony, looking between the two of us. ‘I’m holding you to that major catch-up. Very soon. Right, sorry, I’ve got to get on. Bob’s in a stew about the levels already. Keep me posted!’ she shouted, as she walked away.
‘Keep me fully posted, too, Daryl,’ said Sam. ‘I want to hear how it goes tonight. And I know he’s just your neighbour and he doesn’t fancy you and you don’t fancy him and blah blah blah whatever…’ She laid her head down on her desk, on crossed arms, and spoke to me through her elbow. ‘Ugh. I feel like crap. Can you get me that bacon sandwich now, please?’
Chapter Sixteen
When I turned up next door, at one minute past six, Will opened the door to me wearing a Batman costume.
‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!’ he said.
I laughed. He looked great. A bit too great, actually… my ready laughter provided an effective smokescreen for how utterly taken aback I was. It was a full-on, proper Batman costume. Tight leggings and top bodysuit thing. Underpants as outer pants. Yellow belt. Cape. Mask with ears. He looked incredibly… sexy. I’d never really noticed how tall he was before and now that tallness was encased in Lycra… well, wow. If I thought he was good looking before, I now found that thought magnified by a thousand and leaping around on the roof of a tall building in Gotham City, waiting to be rescued. If that even made sense… I shouldn’t be thinking of him this way, but with him looking like that, I couldn’t help it.
Cloudy with a Chance of Love Page 16