Dinner for Two

by Mike Gayle

  ‘Yeah, I’ll see you soon.’

  She turns and walks away from me, and I watch her until she has disappeared into Tottenham Court Road tube station.

  oh

  It’s just after three and Fran’s coming into the office with Ellie.

  ‘Good lunch?’ I ask her, as she sits down at her desk.

  ‘Great lunch,’ she replies. ‘Best lunch ever. Shouldn’t have had the last glass of wine, though. All I’m fit for is a long nap.’ She laughs. ‘How was your sandwich?’

  ‘Nothing to write home about.’

  ‘Made any decision about what to do about the thing?’ she asks quietly.

  ‘I’m not going to contact her,’ I say, and wonder why I’m not telling her about my meeting with Nicola. I suppose it’s because it feels too private, too recent. I need to get my head straight first. I need to decide what I’m going to do.

  Fran gives me a half-smile as a show of solidarity but doesn’t say anything.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ I add, a touch guiltily. ‘It’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘If you need to talk—’ she says.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I interrupt, even though I do. ‘I’m okay,’ I add. ‘I’ll be all right.’

  perform

  It’s seven o’clock in the evening and I’m standing at the entrance to Denim on St Martin’s Lane. I walk past the bouncer on the door and scan the room for Izzy. The bar is busy with after-work drinkers, and mellow dance music is playing in the background. All afternoon all I’ve done is think about Nicola, and now I’m going to have to put her to the back of my mind. I can’t afford to let Izzy detect the slightest trace of anxiety. I spot her and her impeccably dressed friends at a table to the rear of the bar, take a deep breath and prepare myself to have a good time on the outside even if inside I’m heading for chaos.

  ‘Dave!’ screams Izzy.

  I smile and wave. As I reach the table she stands up and launches herself at me, wrapping her arms around me in a hug. She isn’t drunk but she’s getting there. ‘How are you, gorgeous?’ She looks right into my eyes when she says this with an intensity that feels like it could pierce my soul.

  I laugh to cover my nervousness. ‘Okay, thanks. No need to ask how you are, is there?’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me.’ She smiles. ‘I can drink you under the table.’ She almost drags me over to meet the ‘girls’. ‘Everybody,’ she says, waving her hands to get her friends’ attention, ‘do you know that my Dave is the agony uncle on Teen Scene?’

  At this everyone sitting at the table giggles, laughs, whoops and mock-gasps, clearly titillated at the thought of having Love Doctor Dave in their midst. I am this evening’s entertainment. And over the next half-hour I enter into an impromptu question-and-answer session as, one by one, Izzy’s drinking companions introduce themselves, if they aren’t known to me already, and then their love ailments, of which until now I’ve definitely been ignorant.

  ‘Let me go first,’ says a curly-haired girl of about twenty-five, who I’m told is freelancing in the Femme office. ‘Hi, Dave, I’m Davina. I’m a designer.’ I shake her hand. ‘My boyfriend Nick is a lawyer and he’s going to work in Hong Kong – for six months. How likely do you think it is that he’ll cheat on me?’

  Izzy’s friends proceed to bang on the table rhythmically, chanting, ‘Love Doctor!’ at the top of their voices, clearly pleased with the fun they’re having at my expense. Getting into the spirit of the evening I hold up my hands to silence them.

  ‘Quiet please!’ says Izzy, getting into her role as mistress of ceremonies for the evening. ‘The Love Doctor speaks.’

  ‘I’m afraid the Love Doctor’s going to need more information,’ I tell Davina.

  ‘What like?’ she asks.

  ‘How long have you been with him?’

  ‘Eighteen months.’

  ‘And . . . well . . . this is a difficult question but has he . . . er . . . cheated on you before?’

  ‘Only once,’ says Davina, sheepishly. ‘It was ages ago when he went on holiday with some of his mates.’

  ‘And he told you?’

  ‘I found out from the girlfriend of one of his best friends.’

  ‘And you took him back?’

  She nods.

  ‘And he hasn’t cheated on you since?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘So you think he might have cheated on you but you haven’t found out?’

  ‘Well, there was this girl in his office who kept calling him a while back but I couldn’t prove anything.’

  ‘What do you think, Love Doctor?’ asks Izzy.

  ‘I’m sorry, Davina, but I say, sack him. He sounds like a loser.’

  The whole table erupts in a round of applause and whoops.

  ‘Me next!’ says an auburn-haired girl to my left. I recognise her. It’s Becca, one of Femme’s junior designers – I’ve met her before. ‘Okay, here’s my dilemma: I fancy this guy who’s a junior designer on one of the mags upstairs.’

  ‘It’s that boy Jake from Download,’ says Izzy, matter-of-factly.

  ‘How do you know?’ asks Becca, surprised.

  ‘Everyone knows,’ says Davina, in a tone that indicates she’s sulking about my solution to her love problem.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ says Becca, going crimson. ‘You’re right.’ She casts a withering glare in Izzy’s direction. ‘Anyway, my question, Love Doctor, is how do I find out if he likes me without letting on that I like him? I don’t want him to know if it’s not a mutual thing. But he does keep looking at me whenever we get into the lift together.’

  ‘You’ve probably just got toothpaste on your chin,’ says a blonde dreadlocked girl to whom I have yet to be introduced.

  Everyone laughs, apart from Becca.

  ‘Why don’t you ask him out?’ I suggest.

  ‘Because that would make me look desperate,’ she tells me seriously. ‘And I’m not desperate.’

  ‘I take it you’ve been stuck in suspended animation since 1954 when that kind of attitude was all the rage.’

  Becca laughs. ‘I just don’t ask men out, okay?’

  ‘What have you got to lose?’

  ‘My dignity.’

  ‘And will your dignity be taking you out on Friday night and showing you a good time?’

  She doesn’t reply.

  ‘Thought not.’

  ‘What says the Love Doctor?’ says Izzy, still camping it up.

  ‘I say, next time you’re in the lift try talking to him. If that works, ask him if he wants to get lunch some time – because lunch won’t sound like a date. If he says yes and arranges a date, odds are you’re in. If he says he’s busy, move on to bigger and better pastures. Next!’

  ‘Okay, here’s a tricky one,’ says the blonde dread-locked girl. ‘I’m Olivia, Femme’s art director and here’s my question: I’ve been friends with this guy since college—’

  ‘Is this Jeremy?’ says a glamorous-looking redhead I recognise as Milly, Femme’s assistant fashion editor. ‘You guys are perfect for each other!’

  Olivia shrugs. ‘I’m not so sure.’

  ‘What’s the background?’ I ask.

  ‘We’ve known each other since college, best mates and all that, seen each other through a lot of hard times, but nothing’s ever happened between us until last Saturday when we—’

  ‘You didn’t tell me any of this when I asked you how your weekend was!’ says Izzy. ‘You said it was okay. I’m meant to be one of your best mates at work! And I’m pretty sure you getting off with the bloke that you’ve been best friends with since college is a bit more than okay. It’s front-page news.’

  Olivia laughs. ‘We just kissed.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know . . . I suppose I want to know if we should take it further.’

  ‘Do you fancy him?’

  ‘He’s cute, and plenty of girls fancy him, but I’m not sure.’

  ‘That d
oesn’t sound good,’ said Becca.

  ‘So you’re not sure if you fancy him?’

  She takes a sip of her drink. ‘I feel comfortable with him, and I love him to bits.’

  ‘What does he think?’

  ‘He really wants to go for it.’

  ‘He would,’ says Milly. ‘He’s a man.’

  ‘He’s not afraid of jeopardising the friendship?’

  ‘He says if it doesn’t work out we can go back to how we were before. But I’m not sure we’ll be able to.’

  Izzy looks at me. ‘What says the Love Doctor?’ she asks, even though she knows exactly what I’m going to say because Olivia’s situation is how ours was when we first got together.

  ‘It all depends on how brave you are,’ I say, holding Izzy’s gaze. ‘It will always be easier just to cool off and let things go back to normal. And, yeah, it might be that things go wrong and you could fall out for good, in which case you’ll lose a good friend. But if you get it right, if you take your time and don’t rush into things, you might get more than you ever dreamed of. You might get someone who will always be on your side, someone you never tire of looking at, someone who’s your perfect soul-mate.’

  I get a standing ovation.

  On a high I get in a round of drinks, and when I return some more girls from Femme have arrived and insist on being ‘Love Doctored’. This is nothing like my nights out with Trevor and Lee or any of my male friends. This is fun. I’m suddenly ‘one of the girls’, listening to all the gossip, the bitching about boyfriends and, for the first time today, I forget how complicated my life is and instead just dish out advice, left, right and centre. To Katie, Femme’s senior writer, I explain that her problem is that she’s a thrill-seeker who likes the fact that her boyfriend Sol cheated on her because that makes him slightly more interesting. I warn Jessica, Femme’s production manager, that any ambiguity in her attempt to dump Jonathan, the trainee architect, would result in him following her around like a dog for the rest of her life; and to Debbie, one of Femme’s freelance writers who has a list of grievances about her boyfriend as long as her arm, I say: ‘He never pays you enough attention, he rarely says anything nice to you, you say you’re not even sure you fancy him any more and that there’s a strong chance he’s been seeing someone else. What are you doing? You’re beautiful, intelligent, and you’re wasting yourself on this guy who doesn’t deserve even a minute of your time.’

  I get my second standing ovation.

  Izzy puts her arms round me and whispers a simple but heartfelt, ‘I love you, Love Doctor.’

  I return her kiss. ‘I love you too.’ And then I remember Nicola, and how heavy this secret weighs on my heart and I’m almost on the verge of telling her everything. But then I pull back and regain control.

  I can’t tell her. I can’t tell her because I’m sure it will destroy her.

  locate

  It’s nine forty-five in the morning and I’ve just stepped out of Goodge Street Tube and I’m heading up the road towards work. I turn on my mobile. I have one message: ‘Hello, Dave, it’s me, Nicola O’Connell . . . er . . . and the time is eight forty-five. I’ve been thinking . . . I . . . I . . . I don’t think I’m going to be able to see you again. It’s nothing to do with you, honest. It’s just that . . . that . . . I think it’s for the best. It was a mistake. I should never have got in touch with you like that. You’ve got your own life. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I’m really sorry. ‘Bye.’

  want

  As I continue up Tottenham Court Road it occurs to me that I should feel relieved to have been handed a Get Out of Jail Free card, that I’ve been let off the hook. Nicola doesn’t want to see me again, Izzy is none the wiser, my life can go back to normal. But I know that ‘normal’ isn’t possible any more because I don’t want to be free of Nicola and I’m not sure she wants to be free of me. It’s clear from her message that she’s more worried about me than she is about herself and, if anything, this makes me want to see her more.

  When I reach the office I decide to call her on her mobile and leave a message. But then, just as I pick up the phone, Fran comes into the office and disturbs my concentration. ‘You’re so going to be freaked out by this,’ she says, waving a magazine in front of my face.

  She holds up the front cover. I can see now that it’s an old copy of Femme featuring an airbrushed former A-list female TV presenter next to her equally famous musician boyfriend. ‘Last night I started rooting through some of the millions of magazines that clog up my bedroom, trying to work out which ones I was going to throw out, when I came across this old copy of Femme and you’ll never guess what I found in it.’ She flicks through the magazine until she reaches the page she’s looking for, then hands it to me. I scan the headline: ‘Does Your Partner Have A Secret Love Child?’ The article has Izzy’s name in the byline and my heart races. I turn to the front cover to check the issue date: January 2000.

  ‘I shouldn’t read too much into this,’ says Fran, matter-of-factly. ‘You know that this kind of topic is regular women’s-mag fodder, along with “Is Your Partner Cheating On You?” and “How To Get Your Man To Give You A Sixty-minute Orgasm” but . . . well, it is a weird coincidence, isn’t it?’

  Izzy’s article consists of three women’s case histories, which detail how they came to discover their partner’s children. The first woman was in her early twenties and had only found out her boyfriend had cheated on her when the other woman appeared at her front door carrying a baby. The second was in her late twenties and discovered by accident that her husband of two years had fathered three kids by three separate women. The third, in her early thirties, was pictured with her two-year-old daughter, claiming that the father was an unnamed married pop star.

  A fact box running down the side of the article really catches my interest. According to statistics, in England and Wales in 1998, of 240,611 births outside marriage, 49,960 had no father’s name on the birth certificate – a strong indicator that the father was either unknown or no longer present in the child’s life. A family law expert explained that the only way a father in the UK could have a child DNA-tested was with the permission of the mother, which she could refuse. This same lawyer also stated that a man discovering he has a child has no legal rights over it unless they are awarded to him by the child’s mother or, failing that, a successful application for a Parental Responsibility Order (PRO). This involves a court hearing at which a judge decides whether the child’s best interests will be served by having the absent father in its life.

  The child’s best interests. I have no idea what they might be. Is it in Nicola’s best interests never to see me if I really am her father? Would it be better for her if I stayed out of her life? Should I try to contact her mum and get things out in the open, or should I try to continue to see her on my own so that we can get to know each other on our own terms?

  More so now than ever, I need to talk. Once again I choose Fran, but the office isn’t the place to tell her. I ask her if she wants to go for a lunch-time drink and she agrees. It might be one of the biggest clichés in the book but I tell myself that a problem shared really might be a problem halved.

  things

  Fran’s bored of Hampton’s so she’s taking me, rather aptly, to Freud, a small below-street-level bar in Covent Garden. As we walk we talk office gossip – which means Fran talks office gossip while I listen: Tina is thinking of dumping her boyfriend, Ellie apparently pulled a C-list soap star after a photo-shoot last week and Gina is getting married.

  We reach the bar and go downstairs. There are three staff behind the counter and a number of couples and small groups of people drinking and eating. Fran and I order Cokes and a bowl of olives, then retire to a table opposite the bar.

  ‘So?’ says Fran. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of your company this lunch-time?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Come on, out with it.’

  ‘Who says I want to talk about anything?’
<
br />   ‘I say.’

  ‘Okay, okay, okay. There is something I want to talk about but not yet. I need a while to warm up. In the meantime, what about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘I’m the Love Doctor, aren’t I? Haven’t you got a love dilemma? How’s things with Linden?’

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘He’s asked me to move in with him.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘I said no.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Loads of reasons.’

  ‘Like?’

  She sighs. ‘I don’t really want to talk about it.’

  This isn’t like Fran. ‘Are you all right?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She laughs. ‘I can’t believe you’re the same grumpy music journalist who walked into Teen Scene.’

  ‘It’s just that—’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong, Dave,’ she says firmly. ‘I’m fine. I know I usually talk about everything but sometimes I talk too much. So I think it’s back to you. Come on, I know it’s to do with that letter. Has she contacted you again?’

  ‘I’ve got a confession about that. I’ve met her.’

  ‘But you told me—’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’m really sorry. I suppose I’m a bit like you, really. It was okay talking about it when it was all theoretical but then suddenly I met her and . . . well, I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘No one else knows at all?’

  ‘Apart from her, me and you.’

  ‘When did you meet her?’

  ‘Yesterday lunch-time.’

  ‘I thought you said you were just going out to get a sandwich. I’m pretty sure I would’ve remembered if you’d said’– she lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper – ’“Fran, I’m going out to meet my long-lost thirteen-year-old daughter.”’ She laughs. ‘So come on then, what’s she like?’

  ‘She was absolutely amazing. I mean there she was sitting across the table from me . . .’