by Isabel Wolff
“It meant nothing,” Phillip shouted at me, when I found out for certain what I had suspected for some time. “It meant absolutely nothing. Do you think I’d risk everything we’ve got for some pathetic little bimbo?” To be honest, I wasn’t at all sure what we had got. Not sure at all, in fact. But he was very, very persuasive that I should stay.
“Do you think I’d do anything to jeopardize my relationship with you?” he said, in a softer tone of voice this time.
“You just did,” I pointed out tearfully. But later, I thought maybe I was being small-minded and unfair. Perhaps he just needed to do a bit more growing up—even though he was thirty-six. But quite frankly, when he came back from the “golf course” again with cheap, alien scent clinging to his House of Fraser diamond-patterned jumper, I was thrown into renewed despair. Another bloody “birdie,” I realized bitterly. Then you know exactly what they’re up to—his mother’s words came back to haunt me. But then after three husbands I can understand her being, shall we say, a little circumspect. However, having persuaded me to stay, and let another year go by, Phillip had the nerve to dump me. It was horrible, and I’m never, ever, ever, ever going out with anyone dodgy ever again. So you can bugger off with your offensive offers, Seriously Slimy. Yes, just bugger right off, get lost, never darken my door again, let alone buy me dinner at the Ritz or flirt with me or pay me compliments or laugh at my jokes or make me giggle and . . .
Just then the doorbell rang. Funny. I wasn’t expecting anyone. A man was standing there. With an enormous bouquet. Who the hell . . . ?
“Miss Trott?” he said.
“Yes,” I said. Over his shoulder I could see a van marked Moyses Stevens.
“Flowers,” he said. “For you.”
I brought them into the kitchen, put them in the sink—they wouldn’t fit even my largest jug—and just sat and stared. It was like a floral fireworks display, a golden explosion of yellow gerbera, lemon-coloured carnations, saffron-shaded roses, banana-yellow berberis, white love-in-a-mist and buttery-colored stocks, all bound together with a curly, primrose ribbon and topped by delicately spiralling twigs. Heaven. And tucked inside the cellophane wrap was a letter.
My dear Tiffany,
I specifically asked the florist—Mr. Stevens does make exceedingly good bouquets—for something in yellow. Yellow for cowardice. My cowardice, at not being straightforward with you from the start. Can you forgive me? I must say I was rather taken aback by your anger—you were rather fierce you know—but I’ve tried to see things from your point of view. I can only apologize for having upset you with my facetious and offensive offer. I was, in fact, trying to be honest with you, but I appear to have insulted you instead and I can only say that I hope you’ll forgive me enough to remain, at least, my friend.
SS
P.S. Graded Grains Make Finer Flowers.
Oh. Well. Gosh. Gosh. I mean, that’s a nice letter. That’s a really nice letter. And what an incredibly thoughtful thing to do. Perhaps I’ve been a bit over the top. Perhaps I’ve been too hard on him. How did he know my address? Oh yes, he had my card. But what a lovely thing to do. He is nice—Oh God oh God oh God, why does he have to be married? Just my luck. Maybe I should think about it. Maybe we could be friends. Why not? Everyone needs friends, and he’s so funny, and so interesting, and he’s got such good taste in ties, and we get on incredibly well. I’m sure we could at least be pals. I’m sure we could. I’m sure.
“You must be out of your tiny mind!” said Lizzie, as we strolled round Harrods Food Hall the following Saturday—or rather, as I traipsed after her while she filled her basket with an assortment of prodigiously expensive groceries in preparation for lunch in her garden the following day. “Don’t have anything to do with him,” she reiterated slowly.
“But I like him,” I said, as we lined up at the charcuterie counter.
“That’s got nothing to do with it,” she said, as a jolly-looking man in a white coat planed slices off a Hungarian boar. “Seriously Successful is not available. He’s married. And, what’s more, he’s told you that he’s never going to get divorced—a pound of Parma ham, please—and you just haven’t got time to waste. Oh, and I’ll have six honey-glazed poussins as well. Basically Tiffany, you’re nearly—”
“I know,” I said wearily, “I’m nearly fifty.”
“Exactly. So if you really want to get married stick to single men—God knows there must be enough of them out there. I mean, I really don’t mind if you marry a divorcé, Tiffany,” she added, as we surveyed the rows of French cheeses.
“That’s a relief,” I said absently.
“I mean, if you married a divorcé you could still get married in church, or at the very least have a blessing and wear a nice dress and everything. And have bridesmaids,” she added. “But getting involved with a married man is not something that should be undertaken ‘unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly,’ as they say. Half a pound of nettle-wrapped Cornish Yarg, please. In fact it should not be undertaken at all.”
“But I’m not going to get involved with him—he only wants to be friends,” I pointed out.
This was greeted with a derisive snort. “Friends? Don’t you realize that that’s a Trojan horse? If you become ‘friends’ with him, I guarantee it will be only a matter of weeks before you’re sitting desperately by the phone dressed down to the nines in your La Perla, while his wife’s private detective is parked outside your house with his video camera trained on your bedroom window. Is that really what you want? Because that, Tiffany, is exactly what happens to mistresses.”
Mistresses? Mistress. What an awful word. God, no. No way. Lizzie may be brutal, but she’s right.
“I’m only thinking of you, Tiffany,” she said, as we wandered through the perfumery department on the ground floor. “You’ve been up enough dead ends with men to fill a cemetery. You can’t afford another mistake. Just write to Seriously Successful, thank him for his flowers and tell him, firmly, but very politely, that you can’t possibly remain in touch. Are you OK for moisturizer?” she added as she dotted “Fracas “ behind her ears.
“Yes,” I replied as I dismally sprayed “Happy” onto my left wrist.
“Have you tried the new Elizabeth Lauderstein ceramide complex containing alpha hydroxy serum derived from fruit acids?”
“Yes.”
“Fantastic isn’t it?”
“Incredible. Lizzie, do you think these expensive unguents really work?” I asked.
“I believe they do,” she said simply. “OK, Tiff, let’s head home.”
THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING, said the sign in the taxi in which we headed up toward Lizzie’s house in Hampstead. Lizzie pushed her Ray Bans further up her exquisitely sculpted nose and lit another Marlboro Light.
“You know, Tiffany, I’ve been thinking about it all and the fact is that you’re going about this whole thing the wrong way.”
“What do you mean, wrong way?” I asked, opening a window to let out the smoke.
“Well, you’ve been answering ads, and I think it would be far, far better to put one in yourself,” she explained. “That way you’d be more in control. You could filter out the husbands and the head-bangers. I’ll help you write it,” she added. “I’m good at that kind of thing—we can do it right now in fact.”
The taxi turned left off Rosslyn Hill and came to a stop halfway down Downshire Hill, outside Lizzie’s house. A vast, white-washed early Victorian pile with a fifty-foot garden—and that’s just at the front. Lizzie and Martin have lived here for eight years, and it’s worth well over a million now. I struggled out of the taxi with her array of Harrods carriers, just like I used to help her carry her trunks up the stairs when we were at school. She went and tapped on the window and Mrs. Burton came and opened the door.
“Thanks, Mrs. B,” she said. “We’re loaded down with stuff for tomorrow. I’ve been a bit naughty in Harrods, but never mind,” she added with a grin, “Martin can afford it, and he likes to feed all my girlf
riends properly. Where is Martin, Mrs. B?” she inquired.
“Mowing the lawn,” Mrs. Burton replied.
“Oh good. I told him it needed doing. OK, Tiffany, will you help me put this stuff away?”
Now, I’m not a jealous person—I’m really not. But, it’s just that whenever I go round to Lizzie’s house I always feel awfully, well, jealous. Even though she’s my best and oldest friend, my envy levels rocket. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the forty-foot Colefax and Fowlered drawing room and the expanses of spotless cream carpet. Maybe it’s the artful arrangements of exotic flowers in tall, handblown glass vases. Maybe it’s the beautifully rag-rolled walls or the serried ranks of antique silver frames on burnished mahogany. Perhaps it’s the hundred-foot garden complete with rose-drenched pergola. Or perhaps it’s the fact that she has two adorable children and a husband who loves her and who will never, ever be unfaithful or leave her for a younger model. Yes, I think that’s what it is. She has the luxury of a kind and faithful husband, and she has pledged to help me secure same.
“Now, listen to me, Tiffany,” she said, as we sat in her hand-distressed Smallbone of Devizes kitchen. Through the open window I could see Martin strenuously pushing a mower up and down.
“You are a product, Tiffany. A very desirable product. And you are about to sell yourself in the market place. Do not sell yourself short.”
“OK,” I said, sipping coffee from one of her Emma Bridgewater fig leaf and black olive spongeware mugs. “I won’t.”
“Your pitch has got to be right or you’ll miss your target,” she said, passing me a plate of chocolate olivers.
“It’s OK, I know a thing or two about pitches,” I said. “I mean I am a copywriter.”
“No, Tiffany, sometimes I really don’t think you understand the first thing about advertising,” she said, glancing out into the garden.
“But my ads win awards! I got a bronze Lion at Cannes last year!”
“Martin!” she shouted. “You’ve missed the bit by the cotoneasta!” He stopped, wiped the beads of sweat off his tonsured head, and turned the mower round.
“Mind you, I don’t know why you want a husband, Tiffany, they’re all completely useless.” Suddenly Amy and Alice appeared from the garden.
“What are you doing, Mummy?” said Amy, who is five.
“Finding Tiffany a husband.”
“Oh good, does that mean we’ll be bridesmaids?” said Alice.
“Yes,” said Lizzie. “It does. Now go outside and play.”
“I’ve always wanted to be your bridesmaid, Tiffany,” said Alice, who is seven.
“I think I’m more likely to be your bridesmaid,” I said, “when I’m about fifty.”
“OK Tiff, this is what I suggest,” said Lizzie, waving a piece of paper at me. “Gorgeous blonde, thirty-two, size forty bust, interminable legs, fantastic personality, hugely successful, own delightful house, seeks extremely eligible man, minimum six foot, for permanent relationship. No losers. No cross-dressers. No kids.”
“I think it contravenes the Trades Description Act,” I said.
“I know, but at least you’ll get lots of replies.”
“I am not thirty-two, I’m thirty-seven. I do not have a size forty bust, and I am definitely not gorgeous.”
“I know you’re not,” she said. “But we’ve got to talk you up as they say in the City. It’s all a question of perception. I mean Martin’s always talking up his stocks and shares to his clients, and some of them go through the roof.”
“Some of these men are going to go through the roof too,” I said. “What’s the point in lying? Lying will only get me into trouble.”
“Men lie,” she said, accurately; and into my mind flashed Tall Athletic Neville, a towering sex god, five foot eight.
“Well, I’m not going to lie,” I said, scribbling furiously. “Now this,” I said, “is nearer the mark: ‘Sparky, kindhearted girl, thirty-seven, not thin, likes tennis and hard work WLTM intelligent, amusing, single man, 36-45, for the purposes of matrimony. No facial hair. No golf players. Photo and letter please.’ ”
“You won’t get any replies,” Lizzie shouted down the path at me as I left to get ready for tennis. “Not a single one!”
Tennis always takes my mind off my troubles. Bashing balls about in my small North London club is so therapeutic. It gets the seratonin going, or is it endorphins? Maybe it’s melatonin? God, I can’t remember which. Anyway, whatever it is it releases stress, makes me feel happy. Or at least it would do if it wasn’t for that wretched man, Alan—such a fly in the ointment. Whenever I’m playing, there he is: the solicitor with two heads. Bald; bearded; thin. The man of my nightmares. It’s not at all flattering being fancied by an extremely unattractive man.
“Mind if I join you?”
“No. Not at all,” I said airily as I sat in the sunshine on the terrace. We made our way onto one of the grass courts—at least he’s not a bad player. We played a couple of sets—he won six-two, six-two, in fact he always beats me six-two, six-two—and then we went and had tea.
“Tiffany, would you like to see something at the cinema with me?” he said as he poured me a cup of Earl Grey.
No, not really. “Ummmmm,” I began.
“The Everyman are doing a season of Truffaut.”
“Well . . .”
“Or perhaps you’d like to go to the opera—the ENO are doing The Magic Flute again.”
“Oh, er, seen that one actually.”
“Right, then, how about something at that theater?”
“Well, you see, I’m really quite busy at the moment.”
He looked stricken. “Tiffany, you’re not seeing anyone are you?”
Sodding outrageous! “I really think that’s my business, Alan,” I said.
“Why don’t you want to go out with me, Tiffany? I don’t understand it. I’ve got everything a woman could want. I’ve got a huge house in Belsize Park; I’m very successful; I’m the faithful type, and I love children. I’d be a good father. What is the problem?”
“Well, Alan,” I said, “the problem is that though you are undoubtedly what they call a ‘catch,’ I for one find you—how can I put this politely? Physically repulsive.” Actually I didn’t say that at all. I simply said, “Alan, you’re terribly eligible, but I’m afraid I just don’t feel that the chemistry’s right and that’s all there is to it. So I’m not going to waste your time. I don’t think it’s nice to have one’s time wasted. And if this means you don’t want to play tennis with me anymore, then I’d quite understand.”
“Oh no, no, no—I’m not saying that,” he interjected swiftly. “I’m not saying that at all. How about Glyndebourne?” he called after me, as I went downstairs to change. “In the stalls? With a champagne picnic? Laurent Perrier, foie gras—the works?”
Oh yes. yes. Glyndebourne. Glyndebourne would be lovely. I’d love to go to Glyndebourne—with anyone but you.
Why is it, I wondered later as I telephoned the classiñed ads section of the newspaper to dictate my personal ad, that the men I don’t want—who I really, really don’t want—are always the ones who want me? Why is it always the men I find boring and unattractive who offer to spoil me and treat me well and worship the ground I walk on? And why is it that the ones I really, really like are the ones who treat me like dirt? Isn’t that odd? I just don’t get it. But I’m not having it any longer—I’m taking control. I’m going for what I want and I’m going to find it, with my very own sales pitch in the “Ladies” section of a lonely hearts column.
“I’ve put a lonely hearts ad in the Saturday Rendezvous section of The Times,” I announced slightly squiffily at lunch the following day. Lizzie, Catherine, Emma, Frances, Sally and I were sipping Pimms by the pergola. In the background, Martin was painting the French windows, assisted by Alice and Amy, while we all contemplated the first course of our annual al fresco lunch—Ogen melon and Parma ham.
“My God that’s so brave!” said Frances,
stirring her Pimms with a straw. “Very courageous of you, Tiffany. I admire that. Well done you!”
“I didn’t say I’m climbing backward up Mount Everest,” I explained. “Or crossing the Atlantic in a cardboard box. I merely said that I’ve put a personal ad in The Times.”
“It’s still bloody brave of you, Tiffany,” insisted Frances. “What courage! I’d never have the nerve to do that.”
“Nor would I!” chorused the others.
“Why ever not?” I asked. “Lots of people do.”
“Well, it would be very artificial,” said Sally, swatting away a wasp. “I prefer to leave my choice of mate to Fate.”