by Fiona Gibson
And on this damp pavement I have glimpsed not just any old slip-ons, but basket-weave ones, in tan or possibly mustard, with a little strap across the front and a flash of gold buckle. I have nothing against basket weave – for baskets. But for shoes? And he had the nerve to criticise my choice of attire?
‘Don’t you have a babysitter?’ Anthony wants to know.
Oh God. Having insisted on paying the bill, he’d clearly anticipated that there would at least be a snog in return. Or perhaps he expected that, having been treated to the tasting menu, I’d feel obliged to hot-foot it to his boudoir to remove my ‘cheap bit of cloth’.
‘No, well – it’s a bit tricky,’ I explain. ‘Logan’s sixteen and he’d die if I suggested booking a sitter. I mean, most of the ones we know are in his school year so I could hardly ask them to come over and look after him.’
His eyes glaze briefly, as they did when I mentioned being a school secretary. ‘Well, that’s a real shame.’
‘So I really should get back …’
‘Right.’ He blinks at me, studying my face. I’m convinced now that every time he looks at me, he’s planning how to fix me up, like an over-zealous decorator about to be let loose on a clapped-out house.
‘It’s been a lovely evening,’ I add, ‘and thanks so much for dinner.’
‘My pleasure. We must do it again some time.’
Just how does a woman wriggle out of arranging a second date in these modern times?
‘I, er … I’ve got a lot on over the next few weeks,’ I explain.
‘Hmmm. Busy lady, are you?’
‘Er … yes, especially with the meringue thing taking off these past few weeks …’ I’ll be busy whipping up egg whites into the small hours, you see, with no room in my life for a weasly man who’s starting to look more and more doll-like. Not Ken, I decide. More Action Man with his angular jaw and painted-on hair.
‘Meringues.’ Anthony rolls the word around his mouth. ‘I’d love to try them. I’d imagine they’re quite delicious.’
‘Um … yes.’ I check my watch unnecessarily. ‘Well, they sell them in Peckery’s – you know the coffee shop in Hanover Street? And Betsy’s next to St Martin’s Church. Anyway, thanks again—’
‘Can I walk you home?’
‘Oh, no – you live miles away in completely the opposite direction.’
‘Let’s get you a cab then.’ He goes for my arm, clutching it as if, without his support, I might topple over. However, although I felt mildly pissed in the restaurant, the cool drizzle on my face has miraculously restored me to one-hundred-per-cent sobriety.
‘Anthony,’ I say firmly, ‘I only live twenty minutes away. I’d actually like to walk.’ I smile again, and this is when I make my crucial mistake. As I stretch up to give him a polite kiss on his waxy cheek, my brief, bird-like peck is somehow misinterpreted to mean that I desire him very much, and next thing I know, he’s got my face in his hands and has jammed his wet lips on mine as he goes in for the full-on, tongue-jabbing snog.
‘What are you doing?’ I exclaim, springing away from him.
‘Oh, come on, Alice. You’re a saucy minx – I can tell …’
I stare at him, speechless.
‘You older women,’ Anthony adds in a throaty growl, ‘I know what you’re like. You know your onions …’
‘I know my onions?’ I bark. ‘How old d’you think I am?’
He shrugs. ‘Thirty-seven?’
‘Thirty-nine actually.’ I omit to mention that my fortieth is a mere month away. ‘How about you?’
He smirks. ‘You might be surprised to learn that I’m actually forty-five.’ And he’s calling me an older woman? ‘My last girlfriend was twenty-eight,’ he adds, ‘but I’ve finished with younger girls now. Their bodies are great but they can be so vacuous. It’s refreshing to spend time with someone who’s genuinely interested in what one has to say.’
‘I’m sorry, I really have to go,’ I say, cheeks blazing as I turn on my stupid heels and march away.
Mercifully, Anthony doesn’t protest or try to follow me. I walk briskly, overcome by the terrible realisation that, for a ‘woman of my age’, this is probably as good as it gets. God, if that’s a typical example of dating today, then it’s something I’ll avoid from now on. Ugh … the creep, with his foot-baskets and darting tongue, like a lizard trying to catch flies. My bouche is not amused. I walk faster and faster until, by the time I’m almost home, I have virtually broken into an ungainly trot. I take a quick left turn, hurrying past the grand, detached Victorian houses, then alongside the terrace of tenement flats. Although this is a fairly smart area, with an arthouse cinema and coffee shops galore, our block is rather shabby. I am beyond seething as I head in through the main entrance and clatter upstairs to my second-floor flat.
‘I’m home,’ I announce jovially, trying to sound as if I’ve had a perfectly enjoyable night out. In the darkened living room, Logan and Fergus continue to stare at the blaring TV. On the coffee table in front of them lies the detritus of a boys’ night in – greasy pizza boxes, milkshake cartons and a few stray socks. ‘Everything okay?’ I ask, tearing off one shoe, followed by the other.
‘Yuh,’ Logan replies, picking up his red and white stripy carton and taking a big slurp. In the absence of any further response, I commence a slightly deranged conversation with myself: ‘“Hi, Mum, did you have a nice time?” “Yes thank you, it was lovely …”’ In the kitchen now, I click on the kettle. ‘“Actually,”’ I continue under my breath, ‘“it was pretty shitty. But maybe I misread the signs, or I’m so out of touch with dating that, if a man has paid for the six-course tasting menu, he at least expects to ram his disgusting fat tongue down your throat …”’
‘Huh?’ Fergus is standing in the doorway, clutching the pizza boxes to his chest.
‘Nothing,’ I mutter, peering into the fridge so he can’t see my blazing face.
‘You were talking to yourself,’ he sniggers. ‘That’s the first sign of madness, Mum.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ I reply.
He smirks as I straighten up and pour too much milk into my mug. ‘What was that about a fat tongue?’
‘Nothing, take no notice of me, I was just babbling on.’
‘Who were you out with tonight?’ he asks.
‘Just someone I met at Ingrid’s party last weekend.’
He arches a brow. ‘Was it a man?’
Clutching my tea, I lower myself on to a kitchen chair. ‘Yes, sweetheart, but I won’t be seeing him again.’
Fergus cracks a grin, extracts a packet of Jammie Dodgers from the cupboard and rips it open. ‘Good. What d’you need a boyfriend for anyway? You’re a mum.’
Chapter Four
His words are still ringing in my head when I wake up early next morning. While he may only be thirteen, and unable to tolerate virtually the entire vegetable food group, Fergus is absolutely right. I don’t need a boyfriend. I’ve managed perfectly well – well, I’ve managed – being by myself all these years, and have now reached the conclusion that any single men around my age are so baggage-laden they can barely face leaving the house, or are looking for girlfriends born in the early nineties or, as in Anthony’s case, are so clearly wrong for me that I shouldn’t have gone in the first place.
You only went because you were flattered, I remind myself, examining a tea towel which appears to have been used to stem the flow of ink from a leaking biro. In other words, I was momentarily grateful for a glimmer of male attention, which is no way to go about things. Also, that vile, slimy kiss – I can’t get it out of my mind. Is that how it happens these days? In agreeing to a date, was I sending the message, ‘I’m desperately starved of affection so, yes, of course I’ll welcome your fat, probing tongue into my mouth? In fact, you needn’t have bothered with the tasting menu. Half a cider would have done the trick …’
I worry, too, that it’s not just about Anthony, and that the real issue is I have become sex ph
obic. In fact, I suspect that the mere act of removing my underwear in front of any adult male would trigger a panic attack. It sounds ridiculous and it’s not because I’ve had terrible experiences in the past. Even when our relationship was in tatters, getting it together with Tom was always pretty good – but now, doing it with anyone seems wholly alarming and unnecessary. It’s like when you pass your driving test and think, this is amazing – I can finally do what all those other grown-up people have been doing all along. It’s incredibly exciting and liberating. Then months – years – pass by before you find yourself behind the wheel again, and when you’re suddenly thrown into the situation, it’s bloody terrifying. Only with driving, you can at least book a course of refresher lessons …
Anyway, as Fergus so succinctly pointed out, I have no need of a man in my life. I have two big, gangly, gorgeous sons. We have a decent, three-bedroomed flat. (I’ll gloss over the fact that Logan describes it, inaccurately, as ‘poky, like our car – why is everything so mini around here?’) And yes, I do have a Mini – the car, that is, a bright-red model which I like very much. I also have a job I enjoy, at least some of the time (the kids are mostly fantastic, the insurmountable paperwork less so) and there’s my ‘little sideline’, which I absolutely love. So what do I need a boyfriend for really? I’m starting to wonder if meringues really do fulfil all my womanly needs.
For one thing, they are so pleasingly uncomplicated, requiring just two main ingredients: egg whites, beaten to a cloud-like froth, and caster sugar, whisked in until satiny smooth. Follow the correct method and a meringue will never flop disappointingly. There are no nasty surprises, like discovering a portrait of an ex-lover tattooed on the pale curve of a buttock (as glimpsed during an ill-advised one-night stand several years ago), or being informed that four grand’s worth of work might just about salvage my face. Yet they’re far from tedious, as the possibilities for flavourings are virtually infinite. As kitchen inspector Erica observed, the perfect specimen is satisfyingly crisp on the outside, and gooey within – where would I find a man to beat that?
To obliterate lingering thoughts of Anthony’s tongue plunging towards my tonsils, I busy myself by gathering up the jotters which Fergus has left scattered across the kitchen table, and remove the two bulging schoolbags which have been dumped in the middle of the floor. As it’s Saturday, the boys are having their customary lie-in. Perhaps I should be demanding that they get up and do something useful, but I actually cherish these peaceful weekend mornings when there’s no one to moan about my choice of radio station.
I set out my ingredients and start cracking eggs, separating whites from yolks. Humming along to some faintly familiar chart music, I whip up a batch of basic mixture to divide into three bowls, one for each new flavour I’m trying out: strawberries, pistachio and rose water, and little gravelly shards of buttery salted caramel. Kirsty, Ingrid and Viv are coming over later for a taste-in. That’s what we call our regular gatherings, suggesting that my friends come over not just to chat and drink wine – or, in Ingrid’s case, supposedly fertility-boosting raspberry leaf tea – but to ‘help’. I remind Logan of this whenever he declares that I am ‘always’ having them over, as if, at my advanced age, there is something a little unseemly about being in the company of other human beings, purely for fun. Presumably I should interact only with colleagues, tradespeople and Tesco employees.
At around eleven, Fergus is the first to emerge from his boudoir. ‘God, I need food,’ he groans, jabbing a finger into the strawberry mixture and licking it.
‘Hey, hands out of there,’ I exclaim.
He pokes at the caramel bowl.
‘Stop sticking your fingers into everything!’
‘Why? I’m starving. I’m about to keel over, Mum, and you just don’t care …’ He sniggers and makes for the pistachio bowl but I manage to swipe him away.
‘Uncooked meringue mixture isn’t proper breakfast food. If you can wait two minutes I’ll make you some eggs.’
‘Not too runny,’ he warns.
‘No, sweetheart,’ I reply, feigning subservience, ‘I’ll try to do them properly this time.’
‘You doing scrambles, Mum?’ Logan has emerged now, rubbing his bleary, pillow-creased face.
‘Yes, love.’
‘Can I not have mine rubberised like his?’
‘Of course! I’ll do both differently, according to your precise wishes.’ With a smirk, I grab my piping bag and start to pipe out strawberry kisses on a paper-lined tray, frowning as Logan starts jabbing his fingers into the mixture. ‘Please stop sticking your fingers into my bowls,’ I bark.
‘Whoa.’ He backs away, turning to Fergus. ‘You’d think I’d spat in it.’ They both chortle as I swap the two trays of cooked meringues in the oven for the freshly-piped batch.
‘So,’ I say, now turning my attention to their eggs, ‘what are you two up to today?’
‘I’m going to fix my translator,’ Fergus says confidently.
‘How about you, Logan? Is Blake coming over?’
He sighs loudly, clearly overwhelmed by my relentless questioning. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Where to? Who with?’
‘Just out, Mum, with people.’ No further information supplied.
‘Logan,’ I say, stirring their eggs on the hob, ‘you’ll have to be a bit more specific than that. I need to know where you are, hon.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m your mum, dearest.’
‘Yeah, and I’m sixteen, I’m an adult—’ He stops short as my mobile starts trilling; I don’t recognise the number but take the call anyway.
‘Hi, Alice?’ comes the strident male voice. ‘It’s me.’
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s me – Anthony from last night. Don’t say you’ve forgotten already.’ He chuckles disconcertingly.
‘Oh, er … right.’ I shudder. It takes years, and probably living under one roof, before you’re allowed to announce yourself as ‘me’.
‘Thought you might like to come and see a movie later,’ he goes on.
‘You mean today?’
‘Well, yes, if you’re not doing anything. I’ve checked out the Filmhouse …’
God, that’s a little presumptuous. Maybe he interpreted me leaping away from his suckering lips as a sign of being unable to manage my yearning for him – like when you nudge away a chocolate cake in case you lose all control and end up devouring the lot. Or maybe he’s just eager to give me a good going-over with his roller.
‘Sorry, I can’t today,’ I reply, wondering what possessed me to add ‘today’ – ever is what I should have said.
‘Ah, yes, busy with your meringues, I’d imagine,’ he says with a snigger.
The boys are shooting me curious looks. ‘Actually, yes, I’m making a batch right now. Sorry, better go. Can’t leave the uncooked mixture sitting around too long …’
‘Oh, what’ll happen?’ he asks leeringly. ‘Will it lose its stiffness?’
‘What?’ Something sour rises in my throat; sixteen hours later, that amuse-bouche is still fermenting away in my gut.
‘Or are we talking more the texture of soft peaks?’ Anthony enquires.
‘Yes, sort of,’ I say tersely.
‘I’d like to see you brandishing your whisk,’ he growls. ‘I imagine it’d be handy for a little light beating …’
‘Logan, keep an eye on those eggs in the pan,’ I order him, striding through to the living room so as to distance myself from the boys’ flapping ears.
‘They’re rubberised,’ Logan shouts after me. ‘These are, like, teeth-bouncing eggs.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I hiss into the phone.
‘I mean,’ Anthony drawls, ‘a little tap on the bottom would be pleasing.’
I peer at a small muddy smear on the white wall and wonder, briefly, how it got there. ‘You mean with my whisk?’
‘Mmmm, yes …’
The small pause is filled by the sound of his
rhythmic breathing.
‘You have a thing for kitchen utensils,’ I say flatly. He whispers something I don’t catch. ‘Speak up, I can’t hear you.’
‘I said,’ Anthony whispers, ‘I’ve been a very naughty boy …’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ I splutter, ‘you’re not a boy, you’re a forty-five-year-old man, and I hate to tell you but I use an electric mixer. D’you honestly think I could whisk up twenty-four egg whites with a hand whisk? I’d get repetitive strain injury or tennis elbow—’
‘Yes, but I just thought—’
‘Goodbye, Anthony.’ Having ended the call, I return to the kitchen, trying to emit an aura of serenity as I grab my mug of milky coffee and take a big gulp.
‘Anthony?’ Logan repeats with a smirk.
‘Was that Fat-Tongue Man?’ Fergus sniggers.
‘Who’s Fat-Tongue Man?’ Logan enquires.
‘No one you know,’ I say quickly, serving up the eggs, even though no one seems especially interested in eating them.
‘Who’s got a fat tongue?’ he persists.
‘No one, Logan. It was just something stupid I said without thinking.’
‘Anthony’s the man she went out with last night,’ Fergus announces, ‘and he tried to kiss her. That’s why she’s on about tongues. He tried to stick it in her mouth—’
‘For God’s sake,’ I cut in, ‘of course he didn’t. I barely know him …’
‘He snogged her,’ Fergus adds with a shudder, ‘and now he’s calling her at home.’ I dump the egg pan in the sink and blink at my sons. Now, although I still have no plans to see Anthony again – and can’t believe I found him pleasant company as we snacked on Ingrid’s canapés – I do take exception to the suggestion that no man should phone me ‘at home’.