Would Like to Meet

by Polly James

  I keep scrolling down through the email with one hand, while keeping the fingers of the other firmly crossed. It looks as if there’s a photo attached so, please God, don’t let this be another tattooed naked man.

  Never say that God doesn’t respond to prayers, though he has a cunning way of getting back at you for praying to someone that you don’t believe in. It isn’t a tattooed naked man. It’s a million times worse than that.

  Chapter 16

  The guy in the photo of my almost perfect match is Dan. I’m sure it’s him, though I take off my glasses, polish them, then put them back on again to make sure. I even repeat the process several times, but it doesn’t make any difference. Dannyboythesaxman remains Daniel Pinkman, unless Dan’s got a doppelgänger with a hundred per cent match percentage.

  I read the profile information, which makes things even clearer. Dan – my Dan – is on No-kay Cupid, so he must be dating other women.

  I need the bathroom, urgently.

  * * *

  I haven’t actually been sick yet, though I have spent ages retching miserably while my heart bangs away in my ears and my extremities feel numb and weirdly tingly. Finally, I remember the paper bag trick, so I start breathing in and out of the one Joel got with his most recent purchase of sweary socks.

  After about ten minutes, I’m capable of semi-rational thought, which is not the bonus it might seem. I can’t believe Dan’s on a dating site already. Couldn’t he wait to be rid of me? And who the hell has he been dating? Twenty-five-year-olds? I can barely stand to check the requirements he’s set for the women he says he’s willing to date, though eventually I do.

  Ah. He’s looking for someone within a ten-year radius of his own age – which is also my age, so I suppose that ought to make me feel better, but it doesn’t. It just makes the whole thing feel more real. Here’s my husband, father of our lunatic son, putting himself on public display and available to anyone whose fancy he may take. Worse, he looks so good in this bloody photo, there’ll be a lot of women who meet that particular criterion. Why didn’t I notice how sexy Dan still is while we were living together? Maybe he’s had plastic surgery, or perhaps it’s just relief at being shot of me that’s given him back his je ne sais quoi? I don’t know what to think, so I text Eva. She’s the expert in being single, after all.

  “Dan’s on No-kay Cupid!!!!” I say.

  “So are you,” she replies. “So give the excessive exclamation marks a rest.”

  * * *

  I don’t think Dan has had plastic surgery, as I’ve been looking at his photo for hours now, zooming in on his hairline and checking his forehead for Botoxed shininess, but he still looks all-natural to me. I’m staring at his eyes in close-up at the moment, and trying to recall when I last looked into them, as opposed to just glancing at them during conversations about who broke the central heating thermostat, or why Joel leaves dirty glasses under his bed until the contents go mouldy. I can’t remember, nor can I recall what it was like to be able to touch Dan whenever I wanted to, while his face and body could still have been said to “belong” to me.

  The only things I can remember are all those times I didn’t kiss him when he came in from work, or when I sat alongside him on the sofa all night without ever bothering to move closer for a cuddle. We did still hold hands when we walked anywhere together, I think, but that was probably just from habit. And as for sex … oh, God, Dan’s already got a love life with someone else, hasn’t he? I bet he’s been on this bloody site for months, even if joining wasn’t his idea, which is what he claims in the one-line summary below his profile picture: “My housemates made me do this,” it says. “I am obviously easy to manipulate.”

  Easy or not, I could kill Alice and Aasim for suggesting it. And Eva, too, for calling me a hypocrite.

  * * *

  It’s past midnight, Joel’s still out with Marlon and I’m still logged on to No-kay Cupid. Who is Dan talking to on this bloody, bloody horrible site?

  Any of the women on here, including the ones pouting furiously into the camera with their cheekbones sucked right in and the cords in their necks straining from the effort of holding their chins aloft, could end up being my son’s stepmother, and any one of them could be there at every significant event in my life in future: Joel’s wedding, the birthdays of his children (preferably in that order, given recent naked girl events), and their weddings or graduations. The list goes on and on. And if Dan’s new woman is always there, then I’m going to have to smile and be polite to her for the sake of my dignity, as well as for Joel’s benefit. The effort of not killing her will probably end up killing me.

  And any one of these women could be in bed with Dan right now. Ohhhh.

  I feel faint at the thought, and then – while I’m still light-headed – that’s when I do something really stupid. I log out of my account and start trying to access Dan’s instead. I know his email address, so that’s no problem, but what the hell can his password be?

  Chapter 17

  It’s 7:45am, Joel’s been in bed for hours and I’ve been up all night, but I still haven’t cracked Dan’s password. I’ve tried every title of every song he’s ever liked, as well as those of his favourite films, his date of birth, and his parents’ names and ages, as well as Joel’s. Talking of Joel, maybe I’ll try Dan’s favourite description of what’s wrong with him: failuretolaunch.

  That doesn’t work, but then I capitalise the first letter and add the number one. Talk about inspired – I’m in at last!

  Now what? Read the messages, I suppose.

  I swig the remains of my latest mug of coffee and take three multivitamins for strength, along with two Kalms tablets to lessen my caffeine- or anxiety-fuelled jitters, and then I open Dan’s inbox to find out how many emails he’s had from other women since joining the site.

  Oh, Jeesus. Oh, shit, shit, shit. There are loads, most from women who look miles younger than me, and way more glamorous, too. I haven’t got time to read what they’ve got to say for themselves, though I’m absolutely desperate to. I can’t be late for work, because today’s the day for my big presentation, the one the Fembot ordered me to give about upgrading quality. I probably should have asked Dan for tips on that, seeing as he’s obviously been planning to upgrade me for quite some time.

  * * *

  No one noticed that I was still hyperventilating by the time that I arrived at work, and they just laughed when I referred to upgrading “women” twice, instead of “quality”, in the middle of the presentation. They did notice that I was wearing mismatched shoes.

  I kick those off without caring where they land as soon as I get home again, and log on to my computer as fast as I can. Oh, thank God. Dan hasn’t changed his password since this morning, so he can’t have realised that he’s been hacked. I’m just starting to read his messages from those bloody, bloody women when the doorbell rings. Eva’s on the doorstep.

  “You ready, Hannah?” she asks, which comes as a bit of a surprise.

  With all the excitement, I’ve forgotten she and I are supposed to be going to the private view of an exhibition this evening: Fashion through the Ages, or something like that.

  “Yes,” I say. “Almost.”

  Eva gives me a sceptical look, which I can’t say I blame her for, given the state of what I’m wearing, even without the mismatched shoes.

  “I’ll give you twenty minutes to get changed,” she says.

  I manage it, though I don’t look anything like as stylish as the people who are already thronging around the pictures by the time that Eva and I arrive at the exhibition. They’re all dressed in immaculately-cut clothes: edgy black dresses for most of the women, and trousers and cashmere polo necks for most of the men. They’re also sipping Prosecco and saying, “Oh, yah,” a lot.

  Eva reaches out and grabs a couple of glasses from a tray being carried by a passing waiter. She hands one to me, then sips at the other one herself, a thoughtful expression on her face.

  “You o
kay?” she says. “You seem weird. Weirder than usual, I mean. Is it this thing with Dan?”

  “I feel weird,” I say, as I stare at Princess Di’s wedding dress. “And yes, it is.”

  I’m about to continue when Eva’s called away by someone she knows, and I watch as she exchanges air kisses and “Hello, darlings” with a woman whose hands are covered in so many oversized rings that I’m surprised that she can raise them, let alone gesture as wildly as she is. The conversation seems set to go on for quite some time, which is fine by me as I don’t feel up to meeting new people tonight and, anyway, Eva needs to mingle in her new role as editor of Viva Vintage. I smile at her, then get out my sketchbook and start to draw.

  The rest of the evening continues in much the same vein. I’ve moved on to stand in front of David Bowie’s Iggy costume where Eva rejoins me, only to be immediately approached by someone else. I draw another sketch and walk on to the next exhibit, at which point the same thing happens. By the time I’ve seen all the clothes, I’ve done loads of sketches, and I’ve also got through a fair bit of Prosecco, too. Every time the waiter passes, I reach out and grab another glass. He’s started anticipating that now, and passing me one before I’ve even extended my arm.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” says Eva, when she rejoins me yet again. “I keep starting to introduce you to people, only to find you’ve disappeared again. Are you feeling shy or something?”

  “Yes,” I say, at which Eva gives me a hug.

  “Let’s finish up here and go to a bar,” she says. “Then you can tell me properly what’s been going on. But, first, show me what you’ve drawn.”

  She takes my sketchbook out of my hands, then says, “Oh, wow. These are great, absolutely fantas –”

  “Yeah, thanks,” I say, cutting Eva off partly due to embarrassment, but mainly because I’ve just realised I haven’t eaten anything for twenty-four hours.

  * * *

  All I can think of is food, now I’ve realised how hungry I am, so that’s why we go straight to the nearest Indian restaurant rather than on to a bar. Luckily, the restaurant has WiFi, as well as food, so once we’ve ordered and Eva has gone in search of a loo, I make another attempt to read Dan’s messages.

  Oh, God, they’re bad. “Your place or mine, handsome?” says one, all pouty lips, shiny forehead and drawn-on eyebrows.

  “I’m super-flexible,” says another. Her hobbies include yoga, and she includes a series of photographs of her wearing very little, in what she describes as her favourite early-morning poses. They look more like illustrations from the Kama Sutra to me.

  I take a few deep breaths, to stop myself throwing up, and then I open the next message, from a very attractive woman who’s got sensible eyebrows and isn’t pouting, though she’s definitely standing at the funny sideways angle celebrities use when posing on the red carpet at premieres. She’s also a lawyer who loves art, and culture, and travelling – and probably saving the bloody world as well, though I don’t have time to find that out. Eva’s back, much quicker than I expected.

  I stab at my phone in a hurried attempt to turn it off, but so clumsily that all I succeed in doing is pushing it across the table to Eva’s side. Now she’s staring at the screen – the one displaying all the messages unknown women have sent to Danny boy the bloody saxman – so I’ve got no choice but to explain what I’ve been up to. It makes Eva’s day when she hears that I hacked Dan’s account.

  “I didn’t think you had it in you, Hannah,” she says, once she’s finished laughing. Then she picks up the phone and starts searching through Dan’s profile settings, which apparently tell her he only joined the site a couple of days ago.

  “He’s got a better hit-rate than you’ve had since you stopped being ‘up for anything’, though,” she says, a bit insensitively, if you ask me. “Though he obviously hasn’t found the time to reply to any of these women yet.”

  I’d been trying to convince myself that was because he’d remembered he was still in love with me, so he didn’t need to bother with anyone else, though I don’t tell Eva that. I just bite into a poppadom instead.

  Eva helps herself to an onion bhaji and eats it absent-mindedly, while she reads the rest of the messages out loud.

  “Some of these women don’t believe in playing hard to get, do they?” she says. “They’re really up for anything.”

  “I know,” I say. “And even the ones who aren’t sound ten times more interesting than me, and more successful, too.”

  My voice comes out sounding as glum as Marvin the Paranoid Android, but honestly, I’m doomed. Dan’s going to be spoilt for choice on this bloody site, and I’m going to be on my own for good.

  “He’ll be asking himself why he waited so long to get rid of me, once he reads these,” I add.

  “Hm,” says Eva, who’s staring into space and chewing the side of one of her manicured fingernails. After a few seconds, she starts tapping away on my phone, though she refuses to tell me what she’s doing and fights me off when I try to look. What on earth is she up to now? I’m pretty sure it isn’t anything I’d want her to be doing, so I dig around in my bag for my bottle of Rescue Remedy, and tip half of it into my mouth in one go. The quantity I swallow must be fifty times the regular dose, but it makes no discernible difference to how I feel.

  “Rescue Remedy’s a waste of time,” says Eva, putting my phone back down on the table. “It never works, because it’s taking action that makes you feel better. You need to find someone new before Dan does, which you won’t, if you’re too busy fretting about what he’s getting up to. That’s why I’ve done this, to give you a head start on him.”

  She swivels the screen to face me, revealing Dan’s inbox, which is now completely devoid of messages. I take another large swig of Rescue Remedy, which works no better than the first.

  Chapter 18

  I found a bottle of herbal Nytol tablets in the bathroom cabinet when I got home last night, so I took two of those to get to sleep, and then two Kalms this morning before I left for work. As a result, I’ve just followed Eva’s advice and accepted a date with a guy called Will, aka Mr NordicNoirFan on No-kay Cupid. For tomorrow night, so I won’t have time to change my mind.

  I don’t tell Esther about it, because I don’t want any more comments about internet dating being undignified at my age, and she’s too busy to listen to me, anyway. She’s beavering away at something for the Fembot, which she says may earn her a promotion if she does it well. I’m surprised she wants to be promoted, as I thought she hated her job at HOO and wanted to escape as soon as possible, just like me, but now she says she’s changed her mind.

  “I took a demotion to come here, don’t forget,” she says, “to get away from Birmingham – and it’s not as if I’ve managed to get a life outside work since I’ve been here. Not like you, Hannah, gadding about with Eva to glamorous events all the time.”

  Honestly, that is so unfair. First of all, I hardly ever go anywhere, and secondly, I would have invited Esther to last night’s exhibition if she didn’t always say she finds Eva “bossy and insensitive”. I’m in the middle of explaining that, as tactfully as I can, when the Fembot calls me into her office and makes her shock announcement.

  “You and I are going to be on local TV on Saturday lunchtime, Hannah,” she says, “to talk about Happy Halfwits.”

  “But I’m not in the video,” I say. “Not since you edited me out of it.”

  The Fembot looks a bit embarrassed, which is a first.

  “I know,” she says, “and I’m sorry about how that was handled. It’s just that we wanted to leave space for Humphrey HOO the owl, who is your design, after all. That’s why I thought you should come with me to the interview.”

  Humphrey HOO the owl? Since when has he had a name? Since he needed one to be included in the credits of the video? That bloody bird is better known than his creator.

  I don’t actually say any of those things about Humphrey, of course, because the Fembot is still talkin
g.

  “I know it’s at the weekend, Hannah,” she says, “but you can take back the time in lieu. Okay with you?”

  I’m so gobsmacked by the whole thing that I don’t know how to react. Despite what Esther thinks about my manic social life, it’s not as if any leisure time’s easy to fill now that I’m on my own, which is why I’ve got a rowing lesson with Albert booked for Saturday lunchtime. I can cancel that easily enough, but it’s the idea of being on television I object to most. I’m bound to make a fool of myself in a live interview, so that’s exactly what I tell the Fembot.

  “I hear you’ve already made a fool of yourself internet dating,” she replies, “so you should be used to that by now. Now how’s that revised ‘thumbs-up, happy face’ icon coming along? Is it looking good?”

  I shrug instead of answering, and then stomp off to my desk. The face on the icon is positively homicidal by the time I finish it.

  * * *

  It only takes me an hour to get ready to meet Mr NordicNoirFan, partly because Joel is visiting Dan in Birmingham for the weekend and isn’t around to get in my way, but mainly because I’m not expecting Mr Nordic to turn up, so I don’t exactly make an effort. I just wash my hair, which needed washing anyway, then pull on a clean pair of jeans and a fitted black top, and add another coat of mascara to the one I put on this morning before I left for work. That’ll have to do.

  When the taxi driver texts me to say that he’s outside, I glance at myself in the full-length mirror in the hallway and decide it definitely will not do – so then I hurriedly swap my pumps for a pair of heeled ankle boots and spray myself generously with Rive Gauche, before opening the front door and rushing to where the taxi’s parked, while trying fruitlessly to stop my umbrella from blowing inside out. It’s windy and raining tonight, which doesn’t seem a particularly good omen given the soaking I got after my last “date”.