50 Ways to Find a Lover

by Lucy-Anne Holmes

  ‘Sarah, have you been on a date with that eligible photographer bachelor?’ asks Siobhan, Nikki’s flatmate.

  ‘He was gay.’

  ‘I like the bloke who writes the poems!’

  ‘Do you think he really has got a girlfriend?’

  ‘Oh my God, are you the Spinster girl? I want to know about the older man. Have you shagged him yet?’ screams someone I’ve never met with over-applied bronzer.

  ‘No, no. I haven’t,’ I squirm.

  ‘I love your blog,’ yells someone else. ‘Your comments are so funny. That Loveless woman is brilliant.’

  ‘Yeah, what about that porridge woman? She sounded evil.’

  I have only met these girls once or twice. They know intimate secrets about me. I don’t even know where they live or what they do for a living. My life has become a soap opera. I am the workaholic scriptwriter who slaves to keep up ratings. But my show is a hit. It’s thrilling.

  ‘This is a quest tonight!’ I tell them.

  ‘Can we all join you?’

  ‘Yes indeed, ladies.’

  ‘Ahhh!’ they scream. These women are thirty, full of tequila and smell slightly of vomit but they sound like a group of teenage girls watching an effeminate boy band. They look at me, hungry for immoral guidance. I start to explain Quest No. 6: Pulling on a Hen Night.

  Julia claims that you shouldn’t pull on a hen night. She maintains that a hen night is about strengthening the bond between women. I say that sixteen drunken women = male attention = too good an opportunity to miss. Anyway, now I know Julia is into weird fetish clubs it’s best I don’t trust her opinion about anything again.

  The strategy is to pull men through the power of dance:

  1)

  We must dance up to a nice-looking chap

  2)

  Wiggle like a maggot near him

  3)

  When the music fades, lean towards him and say something he would like to hear, e.g. ‘You dance well for a man’ or ‘Fancy a shag?’ (If it is the latter it must be said in an ironic, postmodern way, not in a premier-league-footballer-out-for-a-night-in-Essex way)

  4)

  Engage him in conversation by asking him questions

  So far I can only foresee two problems:

  1)

  There’s no one on the dance floor except an old man in a kimono

  2)

  I look like a haemorrhaging goat when I dance The girls murmur agreement that this is indeed a setback. No one disputes the fact that I can’t dance, which is upsetting.

  ‘So, ladies, we have to get the men dancing. There are plenty of them here by the bar. But we need them on the dance floor and responding to our charms. For this I have a two-part strategy. One,’ I hold up one finger for emphasis. I wish I had a whiteboard. ‘We need to lead the dancing. If we go through here,’ dramatic point to the dance floor, ‘and wiggle they will follow, believe me. Two,’ I hold two fingers up and nod slowly for effect. ‘Two is good because it gets us up close to our subjects. But it’s not for the faint-hearted. I suggest we stand there.’ I point to the area outside the men’s loo. ‘And we create a female fortress. A man is not allowed access to the toilet unless he demonstrates a dance move.’

  Unblinking eyes consume the information. It occurs to me I could become a pulling expert. I could go on Richard & Judy.

  ‘Wow. That’s hard-core,’ says Siobhan.

  ‘Hard-core! That’s not even apple-core, Siobhan,’ I respond.

  ‘All this power’s gone to her head. She’s found her inner dominatrix,’ laughs Julia.

  ‘Don’t get excited, Jules,’ I say. I try to raise one eyebrow but I can’t. ‘I know you’re into that.’ She sticks her tongue out in response.

  ‘So let’s get into two groups,’ I tell them all. ‘The dance-floor group and the toilet group.’

  ‘I’ll stay with you guys,’ Flora informs me and Julia.

  ‘Great,’ we say, wishing someone far less attractive than Flora had said those words.

  The majority of girls head to the dance floor, leaving just me, Julia and Flora to execute the toilet plan. We form a line blocking the entrance to the men’s toilet.

  The first full-bladdered man arrives. We demand a dance move. He clutches his beer and does a limp jerky shuffle. Helpfully I show him the classic fishing-line-reel-them-in move. He attempts it. He looks like someone with bad hiccups who is gesturing for the bill in a restaurant. I am horrified. I let him go and have his pee. Perhaps it’s best some men don’t dance. There is a slight lull in men needing a pee. So we dance to ‘I Will Survive’ in the meantime. We act out every line. We are very inventive. We are the funniest people . . . ever. The next pee needer is gorgeous. Julia and I call him ‘the Fit Fandango’. He does an overexposed Justin Timberlake move where he cocks an imaginary hat and does a quick turn. I am already naming our children when he leans towards Flora and says, ‘Fuck! You’re gorgeous.’

  Julia and I retire from the game then. We suck our tummies and bottoms in and walk to the bar. We buy more tequila. Flora follows us, saying, ‘What a lech!’ The tequilas are downed in silence. We discard our lemons. We swallow a lot to make sure it stays down.

  ‘What did you want to chat to me about, Flora?’ I ask when I think it’s safe to talk without heaving.

  ‘Oh, um,’ she starts. She looks at Julia.

  ‘Do you want me to go?’ Julia asks, sounding surprised.

  ‘Um,’ starts Flora again. She looks very uncomfortable.

  ‘Oh my God, Flora, what’s all this about?’ I ask, alarmed.

  ‘I need to ask you something,’ she says seriously.

  ‘OK.’ I nod to show that she can say whatever it is with Julia present.

  Flora’s face drops like a breast out of a bra.

  ‘Are you seeing Bertrand?’

  Julia and I laugh. It’s a joke. We look at Flora. She’s not laughing. It’s not a joke.

  ‘Sarah and Bertrand!’ splurts Julia.

  Flora looks over her shoulders. She makes sure the girls are still on the dance floor demonstrating the ‘S Club beat’. Then she starts jumping up and down to extricate something in the back pocket of her skin-tight jeans.

  ‘He’s got loads of stuff written about you on his computer.’

  ‘What?’ Julia and I say in unison again. We will have to do something about this.

  ‘Stuff about how much he loves you.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ chant Julia and I. That’s it. We have to spend less time together.

  ‘I was using Bertrand’s computer this evening to print off the map and he’s got a document entitled “Sarah” and there’s loads of gooey stuff written about you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I printed it off. Have a look. It’s bad.’ Flora starts to discreetly unfold a piece of printer paper. But she puts it in her back pocket quickly when we’re saturated by a tidal wave of conga-ing hens. There is widespread nodding, winking and head-tilting towards Siobhan, whose mouth is being very hospitable to a tubby bald man’s tongue. I swell like a proud mother whose child just did well at Sports Day.

  Julia yanks my hand. She nods towards Flora’s maniacal deely boppers, which are cantering towards the Ladies’. We must follow.

  The toilets are huge and white and clean, to the point of being celestial. Julia and I do an autopilot walk to a mirror. We get there and groan. Our make-up has skidded down our faces. Flora has already opened the sheet. We peer down at it.

  I want to tell you how I feel because I’m going slightly mad. I know you will think this is crazy because I am seeing someone and she is your friend. But I wish she was you. I truly believe that you and I should be together. The reason that I’m writing this is because sometimes you look at me or speak to me in a way that gives me hope that you feel the same.

  If you don’t feel the same then please ignore this message. But if by any chance you reciprocate my feelings then we should meet and kiss and disc
uss this.

  Sarah, basically I’m yours if you want me.

  I read it. Then I reread it. When I look up Julia and Flora are staring at me. They have very furrowed brows. It looks like a Leyland lorry ran over their foreheads. I don’t know what to say.

  ‘So how do you feel about Bertrand?’ asks Flora.

  ‘Flora. He’s about to marry Nikki!’ I whisper.

  ‘Yes, but he wishes it was you.’

  ‘Hang about. Billions of people are called Sarah. Why does it have to be me?’

  ‘You’re the only Sarah that Nikki knows, I’m pretty sure. I checked her phone earlier.’

  ‘Fuck,’ blurts Julia. ‘He does always flirt with you.’

  ‘Jules, he flirts with you too!’ I protest.

  ‘Yeah,’ she agrees. ‘Come on, Flora, he flirts with everyone.’

  ‘You haven’t answered the question, Sarah,’ says Flora flatly.

  ‘I have never thought about Bertrand in that way,’ I say stroppily. I back away from Flora. I am starting to feel as though I have been framed for something I didn’t do.

  ‘This is shit, he’s marrying my sister and he fancies you.’ She starts fiddling with the sweets on her edible knickers.

  A cocktail waitress enters the toilets. We remain quiet while she tinkles and then washes her hands. Julia rubs some mascara off her cheek. Flora and I avoid eye contact and sulk.

  ‘Right,’ says Julia once the barmaid has gone, taking control of the situation. ‘We ignore this. You shouldn’t be opening files on his computer anyway, Flora.’ Flora nods. Julia continues.

  ‘It might not be this Sarah. It could be someone else. And it could have been written years ago. We don’t know. What we do know is that Sarah isn’t interested in Bertrand. So we forget all about this. OK?’

  Flora and I nod like truculent teens.

  ‘Hug now, you two,’ she commands.

  We walk slowly towards each other and do a quick halfhearted hug.

  ‘No, hug properly, and make up,’ Julia says, pushing us back together.

  ‘Jules has already found her inner dominatrix. She’s into fetish clubs,’ I whisper to Flora.

  ‘Are you, Jules?’ smiles Flora.

  ‘I hate you,’ Julia says to me with an exasperated smile. Then she wrestles with Flora’s edible knickers to pull a sweet free from her supply.

  ‘Sorry, Sare. Don’t mention anything to anyone, will you?’ Flora says to me and then she turns to Julia and winks. ‘Laters, dominatrix.’

  I turn towards the mirror. I look like Danny La Rue after a pub brawl. I start to apply cosmetic first aid to my face. The thought that Bertrand, or anyone, would be interested in me is laughable.

  ‘Sare, I need to tell you something,’ Julia says seriously. I look at her. She’s blushing. Julia is blushing! This never happens.

  ‘You really are a dominatrix!’ I gasp.

  ‘No!’ she howls. ‘It’s nothing like that. I fancy Si. Your Si, who you live with. That’s why I want to go to the fetish night, you moo.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say.

  ‘Do you mind?’ she asks, concerned.

  ‘But he’s going out with Ruth, Jules.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re not really serious are they?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’ Simon and Ruth’s relationship has baffled me for ages.

  ‘Can you put in some good words for me?’ she asks.

  ‘Jules, you’re my best friend. I always say nice things about you.’

  ‘That’s not the favour though. The favour is please, please, please will you do that fetish club thing with me? I never get to spend time with Si and it’ll be a fun night and Ruth won’t be there. Please, Sare. I will owe you massively.’

  ‘But Ruth’s not invited to the wedding; can’t you just pounce on him then?’ I whinge.

  ‘Yes. I’m going to do that anyway. But I want to put some groundwork in before then.’

  I don’t want to go to a fetish club. I don’t want to wear PVC. I don’t feel comfortable about Julia and Simon getting together. And I don’t want to miss the first episode of the new series of Friday Night With Jonathan Ross.

  ‘OK,’ I say slowly, because I know she’d do it for me.

  ‘Thank you! Thank you!’ she shrieks in my ear as she hugs me.

  forty-two

  ‘Si, have you got any Blu-tack?’ I yell to his closed door. I hear some sleepy sounds, and the word ‘fuck’ as he crashes into a box of Cockaladas and then I see his blinking eyes as he opens the door of his room.

  ‘Urgh!’ he says.

  ‘Morning, sleepyhead,’ I sing.

  ‘It’s eight-thirty-seven. Is this a dream?’ he asks, rubbing his eyes and smiling.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. I’m losing all my blog readers. I need to include more sex and bitching.’

  ‘That sounds healthy.’ He yawns.

  ‘Talking of sex, Jules and I will do that fetish-club thing.’

  ‘Cheers for that, Sare! We’ll have to get Julia over one afternoon to try on the outfit.’

  ‘Have you got any Blu-tack?’ I ask again.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, turning away from me, clutching a towel around his waist and clattering about in his dark room.

  ‘There you go.’ He hands me a small dirty lump of Blu-tack.

  ‘Great. I want to put this picture up of Julia. Don’t you think it’s a nice one?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he says, not looking.

  ‘Si, look at it; don’t you think it’s a nice one?’

  Si fixes his eyes on Julia’s photo and blinks three times. It’s a great photo. I took it on the beach on holiday last year. She’s in a bikini top and shorts, eating strawberries. Julia instructed me to put it on the wall. It will apparently filter into Simon’s consciousness. Then he will fall in love with her.

  ‘Don’t you think she’s attractive?’ I persist.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he says uninterestedly.

  ‘Come on, Si, don’t you think Jules is gorgeous?’

  ‘Sare, she’s Jules,’ he says. He’s getting annoyed with me.

  ‘No, Julia’s stunning,’ I say emphatically.

  ‘Yeah, she’s all right. Nice big boobies. But I think you’re better-looking.’ He retreats back into his room. I’m speechless. Julia is a thousand times better-looking than me. People with white sticks and dogs know that.

  ‘Haven’t I got nice boobies then?’ I shout into his room.

  ‘Sare!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘OK,’ I say, retreating to my room and getting back to my blog. Suddenly I have another thought. I step back into the hallway and shout to Si.

  ‘How’s it going with Ruth?’

  ‘S’all right,’ he mumbles.

  ‘Si, talk to me. Are you happy? Do you think you’ll get married?’

  Si’s face appears through a crack in the doorway. I smile sweetly at him.

  ‘Sare. Promise me you’ll never be this perky at this time again.’

  ‘I’m just being friendly,’ I say defensively.

  ‘You’re just being annoying,’ he says, closing the door on me.

  ‘Si, just one more thing,’ I chirp, knocking on his door again.

  ‘Not if it’s about Julia or Ruth,’ he shouts through the closed door.

  ‘No. It’s about Bertrand,’ I say softly. I realize that I promised Flora I wouldn’t mention this. But I can’t stop thinking about it. And my mum always says that a problem shared is a problem halved.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Has he ever spoken to you about me?’

  ‘What, Bertrand?’

  ‘Yes, Bertrand. Keep up, Si.’

  ‘Sare, I’ve just woken up.’

  ‘Has he ever spoken about me to you?’

  ‘Probably.’ He shrugs.

  ‘Well, what did he say?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Simon.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is important!’
<
br />   ‘You want me to try and remember what Bertrand has said about you throughout the eight years I’ve known him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is this a bad dream?’ he asks, rubbing his eyes.

  ‘Please, Si. Think what he’s said about me.’

  ‘I think he said you had a nice arse once.’

  My eyes suddenly widen. ‘What else?’ I demand.

  ‘Sare. What is wrong with you today?’

  ‘Si, Flora found this love letter on Bertrand’s computer about how much he loves a girl called Sarah.’

  ‘What?’ asks Si.

  I watch Simon’s reactions closely. I became an expert in the behavioural traits of deceivers when I played Goneril all those years ago. If he knows something and is trying to cover it up, he might

  1)

  twitch or chew the inside of his mouth

  2)

  go rigid and avoid eye contact

  Simon doesn’t do either. But he does take a step backwards, which I think indicates surprise.

  ‘A proper love letter, all “I know I’m with someone else blah blah but I’m yours if you want me”.’

  Simon winces. I don’t know what a wince means.

  ‘So has he said anything else about me?’

  ‘Er, no. Look, don’t worry about it. I’ll call Bertrand later and see what I can find out. It’s probably something work-related.’

  He clearly said, ‘Er,’ which might mean he’s uncomfortable.

  ‘Si, it didn’t look like graphic design. It was a Word document.’

  ‘Sare, calm down. I’ll talk to him in a bit. Please let me have another half-hour in bed. Get back to your blogging.’

  I retreat to my room. But I know that Simon’s concerned about Bertrand and Nikki’s forthcoming wedding because:

  1)

  he hasn’t gone back to bed. I can hear him clunking around in his room

  2)