‘Do you have anything savoury at all?’
‘The lunch menu starts at twelve . . . The brownie’s excellent?’
‘Any chance I could order something from the main menu early?’
He shakes his head.
‘Fine, seed cake and Madeira it is!’ Seed cake is surely the opposite of cake. Still, if it comes with a glass of wine I’ll give it my best shot.
He looks relieved and heads back to the kitchen, only to return two minutes later with my bacon sandwich, which he carries straight past me to the guy behind. I turn round again to check whether the God of Bacon Sandwiches is currently in the E1 area and performing miracles. Nope – the laptop guy thanks the waiter, catches my glare, gives an apologetic smile and reaches for the ketchup.
I mouth the word ‘enjoy’ at him and turn back to check my messages. Oh nice! Russell asking if I’m still going to the cinema, if not could he possibly have the booking reference, rather than letting it go to waste. Yes, Russell, it’s F1U2CK-OFF.
What the hell, I might as well see who else is on Tinder and interested in messing me around and lying to me for a few weeks . . .
Dave, 36, photo of you with your arm around three glamour models in Hooters T-shirts. Next!
Stephen, 35, photo of you on your wedding day, kissing your lovely wife. Next!
Danimal, 33, camera in one hand, willy in the other. Next!
Rick, 38, multiple facial tattoos. Next!
Mike, 36, three photos: a Lamborghini, a motorbike and John Terry.
Why don’t these guys understand that advertising themselves with photos of fast cars, footballers and strippers might impress other guys but it doesn’t impress women?
I am so done with Internet dating. Done with Internet dating, done with all dating, done with men, done with this seed cake. Sod it, if I’m going to have sweet, I’m going in for the custard doughnut.
‘Excuse me,’ I say to the waiter, who’s looking slightly scared of me. ‘Do you still do the doughnuts here, or is it just at Maltby Street?’
‘We do. Custard or jam?’
‘Custard.’ Definitely the custard. The St John Custard Doughnut. I did a half-page review of this doughnut when these guys opened their Maltby Street branch two years ago. It’s the first time we’d ever dedicated that many column inches to a single pastry. (The subs spent a pedantic hour arguing over whether a doughnut is a cake, a pastry or a dessert. I say let them eat cake/pastry/dessert, our readers know what a flipping doughnut is! Though nowadays with your cronuts and your duffins, all the rules have changed.) Anyway, I felt it deserved an entire page, but Sandra wasn’t having any of it – even after I brought in a dozen for everyone to try. Actually, that might have been the problem – a gesture like that earns far too many brownie points.
That’s more like it! The waiter comes over with the doughnut and a relieved smile. He heads off and I pick up the doughnut, count to ten and take a deep breath. Russell has actually done me a favour. He has revealed himself to be an idiot after only three and a half weeks, it took Tom nine years. Russell has freed me up to find someone much better. In the meantime, I am an independent, attractive woman who has my health, friends, two great jobs and can afford to buy herself the best custard doughnut in London. Good, fine, processed.
I sink my teeth into the doughnut and nearly retch with despair.
‘Sorry to be a pain,’ I say, summoning the waiter again, and showing him the inside of the doughnut. ‘But . . .’
‘I’m really sorry, I must have got confused,’ he says, blushing.
‘No, that’s fine – but would you mind bringing me the custard one instead?’
‘Let me just go and check.’
‘What do you need to check?’
‘Hold on.’
I am used to managing disappointment in my life. I am actually slightly more disappointed that this doughnut has jam in the middle than I am about Russell. But it’s fixable.
I see the waiter with his head bent low in the kitchen talking to the sous-chef who looks over at me and shrugs. The waiter catches my glance, stares at the floor, then finally heads back to my table.
‘I’m so sorry about this, but we literally just ran out.’
‘You ran out?’
‘Well, the . . . the thing is, the guy behind you ordered one, then I put your order in, I picked up the jam one, and then a customer bought the last two custard ones over the counter . . .’
‘Hold on, hold on, back up . . . That guy behind me ordered custard or jam?’
‘Erm . . . yeah, custard, he ordered custard . . .’
‘So you didn’t switch our doughnuts?’
‘No.’
‘He just ordered the same as me?’
‘Right, exactly,’ says the waiter, his hands clenching into small, nervous fists.
‘OK. Next question – have you served him his doughnut yet?’
‘Well no, because he ordered a coffee and I was going to serve the two together.’
‘Fine! That’s fine, you can just give me his doughnut then.’
‘Erm, not really . . .’
‘But why? What difference? Either he misses out or I miss out – I vote he misses out. He did get my bacon sandwich.’
‘Yeah, no, I guess that is one way of looking at it . . . the thing is, he knows the guys here . . . he’s in here all the time . . . I’m sorry . . . I can’t . . .’
‘OK, don’t worry. Sorry. I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I’ll just have a word with him myself.’
I take a deep breath, put on a smile and turn my chair round to face him.
He looks up. He looks like someone I know. He looks . . . really nice.
‘Hello,’ he says, and smiles. A dimple, on the right.
‘Hi. Listen, I know this may sound insane, but here’s the thing. I really need that custard doughnut that’s en route to you. I just, I just really do need it. And the thing is, you did eat that last bacon sandwich earlier, and I’d been looking forward to it since yesterday. In fact I pretty much ran here to get it . . .’
He tilts his head to one side. ‘Carry on. I’m listening.’
‘Well, then the poor waiter got all confused, he gave me the wrong doughnut, jam, even though I’d ordered custard – just one of those things, I know, not normally the end of the world. But still, regardless of all of that, I would really appreciate it if you’d let me buy that doughnut off you, because I actually do genuinely need it.’
‘Why do you need it so badly?’
‘Gosh, well, it’s a long story but you wouldn’t believe the morning I’ve had, but . . .’
‘Try me?’
‘No, honestly, I’d rather not, but let’s just say it was not the best. OK, here’s an idea. How about I pay for the doughnut, obviously, and I’ll pay for your coffee as well?’
He raises his eyebrows at me.
‘OK, and I’ll pay for your bacon sandwich too? That’s a good deal, isn’t it?’
‘But what about if I genuinely do need this doughnut very badly, too?’
‘Why do you need it so badly?’
‘Honestly?’ he says, fixing me with the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. ‘I’ve had one of the worst weeks of my life.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘That’s OK,’ he smiles gently. ‘No one died. And it wasn’t your fault.’
‘Then . . . OK then. Well, how about if you just sell me half of that doughnut then?’
He smiles. A smile that could light up a life.
‘A tenner,’ he says.
‘A fiver.’
He holds out his hand to shake on the deal.
‘I’m Adam.’
‘I’m Laura.’
‘You get to choose which half,’ he says, slicing the doughnut confidently in two.
‘Impressive knife skills!’
‘Been training since I was knee-high . . .’
‘Which of us owns the custard on that knife?’ I say.<
br />
‘You want the knife as well?’
‘Not if you’re going to charge me extra for it.’ He must be a City Boy.
‘Remind me never to divorce you. The knife is yours,’ he says grinning.
He’s done a perfect bisection (maybe he’s actually a surgeon?) – and I consider the halves on the plate, each spilling out heavy vanilla-flecked custard. How on earth am I going to sit opposite such a fine-looking man and eat such a messy, all-consuming thing without looking like a wildebeest?
He gazes at his half with a look akin to a man admiring his firstborn, then attacks it with gusto and has finished before I’ve even started. By the looks of it, he’s one of those furiously annoying people who can eat whatever they want and never put on any weight – he has broad shoulders, a strong, lean upper body.
‘If you’re just going to sit there holding it and staring into space, you might as well give it back to me,’ he says.
‘No, I’m just trying to work out where I can find that fiver I owe you at such short notice.’
‘Writing cheques your mouth can’t afford . . .’
‘I’m good for it, honest!’ I say, as I gingerly take a bite from one side and watch as a large dollop of custard falls to the table.
‘Don’t look so sad. You can eat off the tables in here, they’re very clean.’
‘You won’t judge me?’ I dip the tip of my finger into the custard.
‘I’m not going to get on Twitter and tell the world you go round licking tables. Your secret’s safe with me.’
‘I appreciate that, Adam. I’m a very private person, I’m like the J. D. Salinger of table-licking . . .’
‘J. D. Salinger . . . Catcher in the Rye, right?’
‘Yes!’
‘That’s the only GCSE book I ever liked. OK then, Smarty Pants, what does the J. D. stand for?’
‘No idea, Jack Daniels? John Doe? Same as whatever it stands for in JD Sports?’
‘Shame, I was going to invite you to join my pub quiz team . . .’ he says, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair with a look of contentment. ‘I do like this place. They make some of the best bread in London.’
‘The waiter said you’re a regular.’
‘I always thought their bacon sandwich was my little secret.’
‘I thought it was mine.’ I look over my shoulder at the chefs at work. ‘I love it here. The kitchen always looks so relaxed – none of that testosterone bullshit.’
‘What testosterone bullshit?’
‘You know, kitchens where you’ve got a bunch of heavily tattooed macho-men shouting and screaming at each other. Chefs are the new rock stars? Don’t make me laugh! You’ve just flipped the perfect omelette? Come back to me when you’ve actually done something useful like saved a life. Half of those reprobates would be in jail if they weren’t in a kitchen.’
‘Would you like to see the tattoo I had done when they let me out of jail and I became an omelette chef?’ He moves to pull up the sleeve of his jumper.
‘Go on then.’ I guarantee if he’s got a tattoo of anything it’ll be a Merrill Lynch logo.
‘I’ll spare you – I don’t think I know you quite well enough yet.’ He smiles the most outrageously contagious smile, which I can’t help but mirror.
‘We’ll save that for next time,’ I say as I blush. I think I’ve been blushing ever since I sat at his table.
We have been sitting and talking for two and a half hours over a bottle of white wine when his phone rings. He looks at the name on the screen and his smile suddenly falters. ‘Two minutes,’ he says, as he takes the call outside. Don’t go outside! What if you change your mind and never come back?
I take my mirror from my handbag, put on some more lip balm and check that none of the seed cake is stuck in my teeth. Adam is outside, deep in conversation. I hope it’s not with a girlfriend. I’m sure he’s been flirting with me – though since the tattoo conversation, all we’ve talked about are random subjects – the smell of bookshops, the evolving nature of facial hair in East London, favourite pop video from the eighties: me – ‘Sledgehammer’; him – ‘Addicted To Love’.
His laptop’s on the table and I sorely want to open it, to see what the document he was working on so intently was – it looked like a spreadsheet. I still haven’t asked what he does for a living but I’d bet a tenner he’s a banker. His navy jumper and jeans are classic, but they look expensive. His thick brown hair is slightly messy, but not in a poncey I work in digital media kind of way. Until he actually says ‘I am a banker’ I can live in a little bubble of fantasy where he’s a doctor or a human rights lawyer or some other heroic profession.
He walks back in looking weary.
‘Is everything OK?’
‘It will be.’
‘Was that your angry wife on the phone?’– Might as well put it out there.
He laughs. ‘No wife, angry or otherwise.’
‘Do you have to be somewhere?’
He looks at me, thinks about it, and shakes his head. ‘How about another bottle of wine?’
I check my watch – it’s just gone 2 p.m. ‘This might sound weird . . . but . . . no, it doesn’t matter, actually, it’s a silly idea . . .’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, I have two cinema tickets that are going to waste, three fifteen, at the Barbican . . . dumb idea, you’ve probably got plans . . .’
‘I haven’t been to the cinema in years.’
‘You don’t like films?’
‘I love films! I just never have time, with work. How come you’ve got two tickets? Do you just hang around nice restaurants, waiting to pounce on people’s doughnuts, then kidnap them with the promise of a movie?’
‘The minute I’ve got you in the darkened cinema, my crack team of organ thieves will have your liver in an ice bucket.’
‘Not sure my liver’s worth stealing,’ he says, draining the last of the wine. ‘I’ll take my chances. How long’s the walk, twenty minutes?’
‘Twenty-five?’
‘That gives us just under an hour. Can we do another bottle in fifty minutes, do you think?’
We’re walking, well, wobbling, into Chinatown from the pub we went to after the cinema. I’m still clutching the roses, though I wonder, if I ditched them now, would Adam try to hold my hand?
This day is turning out so much better than I could have planned. Half a custard doughnut is better than no custard doughnut. Half a custard doughnut shared with an extremely cute, funny man is much, much better than a whole custard doughnut eaten alone. Half a custard doughnut, and then wine, and a walk, and a film, and another bottle of Rioja, and now a stroll into Soho as the sky turns to night . . . This might just be the perfect Sunday.
‘Ridley Scott will never do anything that touches Blade Runner,’ says Adam as we cross the road and he moves to walk on the pavement side.
‘Thelma and Louise is much better than Blade Runner.’
‘Ivan, one of the guys I work for, is trying to make a film. He keeps flying to LA, telling us he spotted Arnie in Malibu and Clooney down at Whole Foods . . .’
‘What’s the story?’
‘He’s hoping for Scorsese or Coppola to direct but he’ll be lucky to get some talented kid out of film school.’
‘No, I mean what’s the film about?’
‘Oh – it’s his life story: Russian makes his first five million in a dodgy gangster deal, then goes on to run incredibly successful global business, buys mansion in Holland Park, marries trophy wife, applies for planning permission for a double basement extension . . .’
‘Rags to riches, hold the rags . . . And this guy’s your boss?’
‘One of three, yeah.’
God, I absolutely wish this guy did not work in the City. He must be a hedge funder or some other blood-sucking Master of the Universe vampire type.
‘Please – let’s not talk work,’ he says. ‘I’ve got at least twelve hours before I have to go back in, and I’m havin
g such a good time right now.’
Me too.
‘Those roses are starting to look the worse for wear,’ he says, taking them from me. ‘They don’t smell of anything, do they?’
I shrug. ‘I’m more of a tulip girl myself.’
‘Why don’t we give them to whoever at that bus stop looks most in need?’
Of course, how sweet. ‘You do it? I’m quite shy about talking to strangers.’
‘Apparently not when there’s a doughnut involved . . .’
‘How about that woman in the grey coat?’
He walks over and the woman looks up warily. He starts explaining, points to me, then she nods, shrugs and takes them. After he’s headed back I see her smile the sort of shy smile that can’t help itself. It’s the same smile that’s on his face.
‘Why did you buy them, though, if you don’t like them?’ he says.
‘I didn’t . . .’
‘I knew there had to be something wrong with you . . . doughnut thief, organ thief, flower thief, is there no end to your bad behaviour?’
‘Someone bought them for me.’
‘Oh.’ He’s about to say something, then stops himself. His face looks exactly the way mine would if he’d just turned around and said he had a girlfriend. Slightly crushed, slightly confused, trying to work out what to say next.
If I wanted to be mysterious or try to make him jealous, I could tell him about Russell in a way that made me look more desirable. ‘Some guy I’m seeing . . . nothing serious of course . . . though clearly he thinks I’m flower-worthy . . .’ But I’m not mysterious, and I would hate someone to try to make me jealous in that way. And besides, why wouldn’t I tell him the truth? I’m not a liar.
‘I had a date this morning . . .’
‘First date?’
‘Fourth.’
‘Going somewhere.’
‘No. Not really. I mean, not now.’
‘What happened?’
‘Basically he went out last night and shagged another girl.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I asked.’
‘And that’s not OK because . . .’
‘Because I didn’t sign up to be in the harem of a bloke who works in IT!’
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