by Isabel Wolff
“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 taste buds. 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 favor.”
“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 realize 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 scrutinizing 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 newfound 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 traveler 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 anymore,” 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 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 hair bands, 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 worked half to death anymore. 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 gray 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 percent of us meet our partners through mutual friends and I’ve already met all my friends’ friends. And twenty-one percent 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-colored 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 dong! “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 learned 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 monopolize 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 inquired whether my presence in his life was still required.
“In fact,” he said very slowly, “I now realize 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 forever. 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 womanizer,” 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 anymore,” 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-minimizer (£87.50) and a tiny tub of moisturizer—can someone please tell me why moisturizer 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.