She flicked through this and that. Fashion blogs. ASOS. Facebook. Ugh. Why had she opened Facebook? She hated it. It was a mocking reminder of the life she thought she had.
Before James had gone, she’d been one of those smug, show-offy Facebook mums, constantly sharing photos and happy news with her one hundred and four friends, mostly other mums from Daniel’s posh school. She’d post photos of the three of them on days out, on holiday or at home in the garden, on idyllic weekends. She’d share photos of meals they’d had in restaurants or ones that James had cooked. He was quite an accomplished husband, when he was one; there had been lots of pictures of him smiling proudly over a plate of tuna steaks and chunky chips, piled in a Jenga grid, like they’d seen on the telly.
Daniel’s achievements had also featured prominently in her Facebook photos. Daniel in his Taekwondo outfit, doing a high kick or whatever it was called; Daniel with a fish he’d caught at Hanningfield Reservoir; Daniel at sports day. She’d even posted nauseating photos of her and James with corny captions such as ‘My best friend, my soulmate, my everything,’ while she grinned cheesily and he smiled that lazy, sexy smile of his. Sometimes, to her now extreme horror, she’d even said she felt ‘blessed’.
In the post-James days, she posted nothing on Facebook. Nothing at all. She just scrolled through other people’s stuff, getting angry.
Family life was gone. It was no longer to be celebrated. And, despite opportunities to temporarily drown her sorrows with her friends, the weekends without Daniel were awful. James was making sure of it.
He was purposely unreliable with pick-ups and drop-offs. The very first weekend he’d had Daniel, he’d been two hours late picking him up on the Saturday. Then on the Sunday he’d, without notice, brought Daniel back three hours early, which hadn’t given her enough time to get rid of the hangover from that girls’ night in at Imogen’s. She’d hated greeting them both at the door with a still-puffy face and unwashed, dandelion-clock hair.
She remembered that, despite his premature arrival and the fact she may have still smelled a little bit boozy, she’d fallen on Daniel in relief. Her boy – she’d missed him. Daniel had looked mildly horrified, shrugged her off and bounded upstairs to his Xbox, leaving James on the doorstep, attempting to give his famous grin as an apology. She’d ignored it. She’d quite enjoyed throwing him a curt ‘goodbye’ and shutting the door in his face.
Later, she’d asked Daniel how it had gone.
‘Fine,’ he’d said, giving all the usual detail boys of ten like to give.
‘What did you do?’ asked Grace.
‘Not a lot. FIFA 15 and we got a takeaway.’ Informative. She didn’t dare ask if Daniel had met ‘that woman’. She’d made James promise that when he had their son he wouldn’t see her, but who knows? He could have bribed Daniel not to say anything. She’d rifled through Daniel’s rucksack for new Match Attax cards but found nothing.
Her ex’s timekeeping had remained purposefully awry since. Just to wind her up. Grace sighed, re-adjusted the laptop to a more comfortable position and sipped her wine. She’d probably get the same tomorrow, when James was due to bring Daniel back. Oh, so much to look forward to.
Work had been a nightmare as well. Gideon had been horrible.
When she’d heard, just before her job interview, that the owner of Hats! hat shop was gay, she wasn’t expecting a camp, gossipy and ‘fabulous daaarhling’ cross between Gok Wan and Jack from Will and Grace, but she hoped, if she got the job of course, they’d get on well and have a laugh together – she’d always wanted a gay best friend. Grace got the job, but unfortunately, Gideon disappointed: he was sour, dour and grumpy and totally lacking in charm. Grace often thought he was in the wrong trade: he would tell a woman she looked downright awful in a hat and he swore too much in front of the customers and not in a manner that was remotely hilarious… She still remembered the faces of three rather genteel-looking women when Gideon had emerged from the stock room one time, a cardboard box in his arms, and had announced in an over-loud voice, ‘Oh, pissing hell, isn’t life all such a fucking drain.’
Still, his bluntness was, in a strange way, very good for business. Women left his shop in exactly the right hat, often a complete departure from the one they came in for. If something suited them, he made sure they had it. And the hats were gorgeous, so that helped.
This week she’d finally told Gideon about James, expecting him to pull something from the bag in terms of empathy and sympathy (deep, deep from the bag), but all she got was a terse, ‘Them’s the fucking breaks’ and, ‘I hope you’ve got a packet of tissues on you; I don’t want you snivelling all over the ladies.’ She should have known better. She’d been right not to tell him. But once she had, she found the week very hard as she had to put on a horrid brave front that she couldn’t let slip. She wouldn’t have needed the tissues – she had not and would not cry over James – but she’d stupidly hoped Gideon might rustle up some support if she was feeling a bit down.
It was all hard to get used to. Being alone. Being without James. When you’d hero-worshipped someone for so long, what did you do when your hero has gone?
He had to go though. He had betrayed her, and he knew that would be the end of them. When they used to hold each other at night and say how much they loved each other, she told him if he cheated, that would be it. He’d be out. ‘Absolutely, sweetheart,’ he’d whisper. ‘Absolutely. But that’s not going to happen.’ Now she knew he didn’t mean he wouldn’t cheat, but that he intended never to be found out.
She would not be hurt again. She had to compartmentalise James somehow, put him away in a mental box and lock it tight. And any future man would have to give her a cast-iron guarantee he wouldn’t cheat on her. She would make him write her a contract, in blood.
She flicked up the blind and looked out of the living room window. The street was really quiet when Frankie’s kids were not around at the weekends. Three of them at least would usually be out on bikes, or squealing from the trampoline in their back garden until quite late, all weathers, all seasons. She knew she wouldn’t see Frankie tonight, either. She’d been going on about a date with Mad Men and a bottle of Shloer. And Imogen was with her mum.
Grace was on her own.
She took a slug from her red wine. Adele was warbling about finding ‘Someone Like You’. She was feeling slightly tiddly already. She wasn’t a big drinker. She didn’t subscribe to Facebook slogan drinking: ‘Wine o’clock’, ‘Mother’s little helper’, ‘For instant happy woman just add wine’ etc, etc. There were people who responded to anything at all with ‘wine!’ She’d never been one of them, and she would never refer to having a ‘cheeky’ glass of anything. Yet, since James had left, she had been reaching for the wine. Her wine o’clock appeared to be the moment that bastard left her.
Feeling like a criminal, she quickly opened a new tab on Google Chrome. Hook, Line and Sinker. An online dating site. She’d heard it mentioned by a couple of mums from school, usually accompanied by a lot of shrieking – one was still dating a man she’d met on it. Grace quickly clicked onto her preferred age range: thirty to forty. Most of the men she scrolled through made her scream aloud they looked so grisly or pathetic or downright predatory. A few looked like serial killers. But, surprisingly, some of them looked okay.
She didn’t dare tell Frankie and Imogen, but she needed a date for something. She had a ‘do’ coming up and there was no way she could go on her own.
Nana McKensie, James’s grandmother, was soon to be celebrating her one hundredth birthday and had arranged a huge family trip to the theatre. Grace was determined to go. She was extremely fond of James’s grandmother. Spry and as mentally agile as they came, you’d never have believed she was approaching her centenary. She still lived in her own home, still pottered round her garden, and still went out for fish and chips with ‘the girls’ every Friday lunchtime. She could text and use the internet and even had a Twitter account. Grace thought she was fabulous, and ha
d gratefully received an email from Nana McKensie after she and James had split, to say she ‘must’ still come, and she must bring a plus one. Sadly, it couldn’t be Daniel, who of course had been invited – he would be away that weekend on a school trip to Paris.
Grace needed a plus one who would show James. She took another gulp of wine and entered her details on Hook, Line and Sinker’s registration page before she could change her mind. She felt like she was doing something very furtive and very naughty. Well, she was! Imogen and Frankie would be horrified. Without thinking about it too much, she ‘friended’ a couple of different men from the local area. One looked quite sporty, another looked like he was on a night out with mates, a pint in his hand. He looked jolly. Friendly.
Almost immediately she got back some dodgy booty call type messages, one asking to see her without her top on. Oh God. She browsed further down the rows and columns of men. One guy looked nice. His hair was a little bit longer, he had an open, kind-looking face and a T-shirt with a puppy on it. She messaged him. Five minutes later, as she was appalled reading about a man who enjoyed sniffing people’s feet, a message popped into her ‘Hook’ box.
‘Hey babe. Are you up for sex? I could cum over.’
Yuk, yuk, yuk. What a sleaze. That puppy had been very misleading. Is that what all the men on here were like? Hook, Line and Stinker was more accurate. She closed down the browser in disgust and slammed shut the lid of the laptop.
Surely there were classier, more sophisticated dating sites? Tinder? No! God, no, not that. Not a sugar daddy thing either, though – she’d heard all about that site. She took another large glug of wine, opened the laptop up again, and googled ‘classy dating agency, Essex.’ The first result that appeared was The Executive Club – yes, that sounded more like it, but when she clicked onto the website, all the men in the sidebar were ridiculously good-looking. Almost revoltingly good-looking. Oh, she should have known. This was an escort agency. It said so. Gorgeous men at your service, it proclaimed, at the top of the screen.
Curiosity got the better of her. The wine was swilling pleasantly around her system. Adele was now ‘Rolling in the Deep’. She read the text in the middle of the page: male chaperones to make you feel special… the perfect man for a dinner date… kind, courteous and handsome and know how to treat a lady… gorgeous straight men who love the company of women. She quickly scanned down the photos. Most of the men looked smarmy, had goatees, were in dinner suits, or suits and ties; a lot were channelling Mr Grey or The Bachelor, from that American TV series. One looked like Gary Barlow and was straddling a ridiculously tiny bike saddle, dressed in pink and grey Lycra.
She stopped at the next photo. ‘Text Greg,’ it said, underneath. He looked nice. Late thirties? Navy blue short-sleeved polo top. Dark blond hair. Handsome grin. Most of the other men had closed-lipped knowing smiles, or one eyebrow raised, like ridiculous Roger Moores; Greg had his face half turned to the camera and was smiling like a normal person. It was a very informal photo. It was as though he’d quickly put up a casual photo with plans to put the real one up later…when he got round to posing in a dinner jacket and hauling up his left eyebrow.
She studied him. He didn’t look like an escort. He looked like an older boy next door – if the boy next door was a cross between Brad Pitt and Liam Hemsworth, that was, not the low-rent Ron Weasley lookalike who always wore a grey tank top, as was actually the case.
Text. Okay. She could just text him, if she wanted to. She could hire him, if she wanted to, to go to the theatre with her for Nana McKensie’s one hundredth. She could afford it. James was paying her maintenance for Daniel, she had her earnings from Hats! and her gran had left her some money, a few months ago. She’d never told James; she didn’t know why. This money was just hers, to be put by for a rainy day. And if this wasn’t a rainy day, she didn’t know what was.
A male escort. It was almost hilarious. Once, years ago, in the large circle of her and James’s London friends, a rather hapless bloke called Ed had turned up for dinner at Wagamama’s one night with a really stunning woman. Everyone had been really surprised – Ed hadn’t had a woman with him for months and he was definitely punching above his weight with this one. They all stared at her for most of the night, and tried to get him on his own so he could be quizzed.
After loads of booze, and when Stunning Surprise Girlfriend had gone to the loo, Ed was drunk enough to ’fess up, after unconvincingly trying to make out he’d met her in a Tesco Metro. She was an escort. Once, just once, he said, he wanted to turn up with a stunning girl on his arm and have everyone wondering.
They never saw her again. Ed must have spent too much money on cocktails, or perhaps he didn’t want any ‘extras’, as at the end of the night he saw her off into a taxi with a chaste kiss on the cheek and they all went to get a kebab.
Grace remembered it was a cold night and how happy she’d felt when James had put his arm round her to pull her in close. When James had kissed her in the street after purposely making them drop back from the others. God, he was handsome. She was his and she loved it. She’d been spectacularly happy… Oh God.
She put James back in the box in her mind and slammed down the lid. James was gone.
After pouring the remainder of the bottle into her glass and taking a huge swig, she grabbed her phone and quickly sent a text to ‘Greg’, before she chickened out, or wondered too much if that was his real name.
Hi, just want to make an enquiry? Grace.
As the text sent, she got up and skipped a bit, nervously, around the room. Then sat back down again and stared at her phone. A text appeared.
Hi Grace, hope you’re having a great evening. Would you like to know my prices and range of services?
She panicked. Range of services! This was actually real, wasn’t it? Oh God. She was in danger of completely bottling it.
I’m not sure! Frantic texting fingers.
Do you just want to chat?
Okay.
Oh, relief! Yes, just chat, they could do that.
If that’s okay? she texted again.
Yes, that’s fine. Tell me about what you like?
Oh God!
Do you mean sexually? she texted. I’m not sure a lady like myself is ready for such a question!
No! In general. What do you like doing?
She thought, sucking on the end of a pencil. Sucking on the end of a pencil! She shouldn’t be sucking on the end of anything! She threw it down on the coffee table.
Dining out and roller-skating?
Where had that come from? She hadn’t roller-skated since she was fifteen. Although she did really use to enjoy it, especially if she went with a boy. There was nothing nicer, she thought, than skating round to songs from the charts, holding hands.
Interesting! Would you like to book me for either of those activities?
He didn’t want to chat, did he? It was all just about angling for a booking. She felt a horrible wave of terrified, horrified shame wash over her. An escort! What on earth was she thinking? She drained her glass of wine and wondered if she had another bottle lying around somewhere.
No thank you. Sorry. I’ll get back to you.
Chapter Seven: Imogen
Imogen left her mum’s house to walk to the train station. She took in a deep breath of the damp, cold mid-March air, the month still in lion mode not lamb. She’d stayed over last night and it was a relief to be out of there.
If she was honest, she felt trapped at her mum’s – the green carpet everywhere, the tired décor, the carriage clock on the mantelpiece loudly ticking the hours away. It was claustrophobic. Last night she’d retreated to her old bedroom at 9p.m. when Mum retired, and had read lying on her stomach on the bed with her feet dangling off the end, like she’d always used to.
Her bedroom was exactly the same as it had always been. Peach, tiny floral print wallpaper. A scratched white desk with flaky bits of exposed wood, long before shabby chic became fashionable. A sink in the corner. S
he was the only one of her friends who had one and she used to have it edged in Aapri facial scrub, a tiny bar of wrapped soap, Anne French cleansing milk and an Impulse body spray: Temptation. Still there, on the wooden, wall-mounted shelves, were an ancient Pippa doll (hair cut off, of course) an old cassette machine onto which she’d tape the Top 40 (swearing if the DJ dared talk over the beginning of a record), and a 1986 annual, full of tips on how to get a boyfriend.
In that peach room she had dreamed of having a man. A Prince Charming. The person to take her way from all this. (Ha! Well, that hadn’t worked! She was right back where she started.) She saw how it affected her mum, being alone, with no man to share her life with. Imogen’s father, or the sperm donor, as she liked to put it, had not stuck around. Mum had had a wild and passionate affair with him in her late teens, then he’d moved back to Brazil. That wasn’t as glamorous as it sounded: he wasn’t Brazilian, he just lived there. He’d made little contact once he realised he had a daughter, only sending the occasional, half-hearted cheque. When Imogen was a teenager she’d dreamed of flying to Rio to build a relationship with him but now she didn’t; he’d proved himself not to be worth the effort.
Imogen, the serious schoolgirl with the A grades, was not going to end up alone. She was going to bag herself a great man. The best she could possibly get, and she’d work at it as hard as she studied. She treated having boyfriends at school like a career, trying to climb a rung up the ladder each time. Each boyfriend had to be better than the last.
She reached the end of her mum’s road and headed smartly down the next. She felt happier the nearer she got to the train station – there were shops and convenience stores and takeaway places and noise and smells and life. She was more comfortable in an urban environment; suburbia didn’t suit her. She’d loved drunks shouting outside her window at 3a.m. in Putney, all the noise and the bustle. And she loved going to London to work, despite the fact she hated her current job. Thank God it was Friday.
Year of Being Single Page 6