by Matt Dunn
And that’s what Jane did. Took a bite. And with a guy from work, apparently. I say apparently because I wasn’t there, so I’d had to take her word for it. Trust me, she’d said, unaware of the irony in her words. That’s all that happened. A kiss.
Jane had been away at a work conference in Birmingham, of all places, hardly the most romantic of cities. A two-day event at the NEC, and they’d all been staying over in the Hilton Hotel. Anyway, as she tells it, they’d been out to dinner, her and her marketing team, and then headed to the bar, and then to the hotel’s nightclub, and then back to raid one of their mini-bars—I can’t remember whose room she said they were in now. But she and this Martin got chatting, and as everyone else drifted off to bed they were the only two left.
Martin had a girlfriend, she’d explained, so nothing was ever going to happen. And what about you? I’d wanted to ask. You had a boyfriend. Was that not relevant? Besides, she said, she couldn’t remember who’d kissed who. And that made it all right?
It was the drink, she’d said. It wasn’t that she fancied him or anything, apparently, it’s just that alcohol makes her feel horny—which was news to me—and he was there, and I wasn’t…Anyway, they kissed, she felt guilty, they stopped. End of story. That’s how she portrayed it, although she didn’t really admit anything to me. Didn’t give me a chance to feel angry with her. Just sort of told me in a matter-of-fact ‘it happened, let’s just move on’ kind of way. In fact, she even made me feel guilty about getting angry about it. Jesus, Edward. It was only a drunken snog. Get over it. It’s not as if it meant anything. And then she’d stormed out, and waited for me to go and apologize to her for getting angry because she’d been unfaithful to me. Women.
We’d never mentioned it again. But for weeks I couldn’t look at her without thinking about it. How did they kiss? Where did they kiss? And with tongues? Did he touch her? Let’s face it, you don’t kiss someone in a drunken snog and not touch them anywhere else, do you? It would be like trying to drive a car without putting your hands on the steering wheel.
And do you know how I found out? Did she come straight home and tell me, clasping my hand as she tearfully confessed all? Did she bollocks. I found out by email. From her. Although not directly, and certainly not on purpose. She’d forwarded me an email that Martin had sent her regarding the Christmas party, not thinking that I’d scroll down and read the part about him looking forward to catching her underneath the mistletoe. Especially since Birmingham, he’d added.
I knew Martin. I’d even bought him a pint, the ungrateful git. And for a while, every time I kissed her, I kept thinking of his face, which isn’t a good thing if you’re a heterosexual man.
Oh yes, and here’s the best bit: It’ll make us stronger, she’d said, as if what she’d done was a good thing. But tell me something—how do these things ever make a relationship stronger? It’s not like a broken leg, where the bone actually grows back thicker, is it? If your car breaks down, you may get it fixed, but it doesn’t suddenly become faster or safer as a result of the breakdown, does it? Quite the opposite; you’re always slightly nervous that whenever you drive it, it’ll let you down again. Or to take a more extreme example, if you’d had cancer, and beaten it once, you’d still always be worried that the cancer might come back, and worse than before.
Because that’s what unfaithfulness is, isn’t it? A cancer that’s always there in the back of your mind, eating away at the foundations of the relationship. It’s happened once, it could happen again, so you’re always looking for telltale signs or symptoms to show that it’s reappeared. Say you live in Tokyo, and your house gets demolished by an earthquake. Would you rebuild it, knowing that you were in an earthquake zone, confident it’d never happen again? I don’t think so. And at the time, that’s how I felt. Like our relationship had been rocked by an earthquake. And maybe I hadn’t realized just how much damage had been done.
For a while I wondered whether I should try and get even; go out and snog someone to get my own back, but why stoop to her level? The truth is, I hadn’t wanted to. And besides, I’m not the cheating kind. No—I’d just wanted things to go back to how they were between me and my beautiful girlfriend. Though as I think about it, sitting here on the moral high ground, I’m a little troubled by what Dan’s implying: that it wasn’t Jane’s looks that kept me from straying.
It was mine.
7.55 p.m.
We’re standing in the foyer at the Metropole Hotel, where tonight’s speed-dating event is taking place. The organizer, Emily, a pretty brunette, barely glances at me as she hands me a little sticky label with my name written on it, but makes a great show of personally ensuring that Dan’s is stuck on properly. Dan, of course, tenses his pectoral muscle as she does so.
We’re ushered into a side room to join the other hopefuls: a rag-tag collection of last-ones-to-be-picked-at-games who make even me look relatively attractive. They’re all trying to size each other up without making eye contact, and when they spot Dan, I’m sure one or two of them think about leaving.
Dan wrinkles his nose. ‘God, will you look at this shower,’ he says, a little too loudly. ‘And a couple of them could do with taking one.’
‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Why? In case one of them bursts a pimple in my direction? I’m glad I’m not in the same boat as any of them.’
Same boat? Dan looks like he doesn’t belong in the same gene pool.
We help ourselves to our ‘free’ glass of wine, generously included in our £25 entry price, which I down in one; probably not a good idea given my lack of food and the beer I’ve just drunk.
At eight o’clock precisely, Emily claps her hands to get our attention. ‘Now, you bunch of hunks,’ she begins.
‘Bunch of what?’ whispers Dan, looking around incredulously. ‘Is she in the same room as me?’
‘Waiting next door,’ continues Emily, ‘are twenty women, who are all very eager to meet you.’
Dan nudges me. ‘Cue massive disappointment.’
One nervous chap in the corner clears his throat. ‘So, how does this work, exactly?’ He must be about my age, but has the acned skin of a teenager, and speaks like his voice has just broken.
‘Well,’ says Emily, ‘basically, once you get inside, the girls stay still while you move around.’
‘No change there then!’ interjects Dan, provoking a ripple of nervous laughter. Emily looks up sharply, angry at being interrupted, but when she sees who made the comment, her expression changes to a smile.
‘And don’t forget,’ Emily adds, ‘you’ve only got three minutes with each lady, so make every second count.’
She hands us all a clipboard and a pen, telling us we’re to put a tick next to the names of any of the girls we like, and we’re shown through into what I guess is the hotel’s ballroom. True to Emily’s word, there are twenty tables, at each of which sits a girl clutching an identical clipboard. They look up hopefully as we shuffle in, and it’s all I can do not to turn back around as I see their faces fall.
I try and position myself away from Dan, so as not to suffer unfairly in the immediate comparison stakes, but instead he sidles up next to me.
‘Happy hunting,’ he whispers.
I walk towards the nearest vacant chair, the phrase ‘Christians and lions’ running through my mind, as Emily’s shrill voice brings the proceedings to order.
‘Okay, love-hunters. Time starts…now!’ She rings a bell, then moves to stand guard by the door, more, I imagine, to keep us from escaping than in case any hotel guests walk in accidentally.
My allotted table is occupied by a not unattractive redhead whose name, her badge tells me, is Melanie. I’m a little bit nervous, not to mention a little bit drunk, and as I sit down in front of her, I don’t know what the correct greeting procedure should be. When I look up from my clipboard, Melanie is pointedly holding her hand out towards me.
‘Hello, Edward,’ she says, without a trace of a smile.
&
nbsp; ‘Sorry,’ I say, giving her a slightly sweaty handshake. ‘I didn’t know whether there was a “no touching” rule. Like in prison?’
Great. My opening line suggests I have some knowledge of jail procedures. As Melanie picks up her clipboard, locates my name, and uncaps her biro purposefully, I try and remember Dan’s advice. Start with a compliment. Start with a compliment…
‘Wow. You’re gorgeous, Melanie. How come you’re single?’
Melanie looks at me with disdain. ‘I’ve just broken up with my boyfriend,’ she says, flatly. ‘My friends thought this would cheer me up.’
Ah. Big mistake. Change the subject? No—go for the jugular. ‘Oh no. Why was that? The break up, I mean.’
‘We wanted different things.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, I wanted to settle down and have kids, whereas he wanted to shag that little tart from accounts. All men are bastards.’ Melanie stares daggers at me, daring me to challenge her.
‘Oh. So, er, have you ever been to one of these things before?’
‘No.’
‘Me neither.’
‘Really? That surprises me.’
Ah. So far Dan’s ‘get them talking’ strategy doesn’t seem to be working.
‘Er…’
After a further thirty seconds of silence, Melanie folds her arms. ‘Well, do you want to ask me anything else, or are you just going to sit there and look stupid?’
To be honest, just sitting here and looking stupid seems actually to be the most appealing option. I consult my clipboard for help, but it doesn’t provide any. Instead I try to keep to Dan’s advice, even though by the amount of talking he seems to be doing at the next-door table, he’s obviously ignoring it himself.
I take a deep breath. ‘So…’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s your favourite film?’
Melanie stifles a yawn. ‘Fatal Attraction.’
‘Ah. Right.’
Unlike Dan’s sexual partners, I’m beginning to think that three minutes is actually quite a long time. I look around for Emily, willing her to ring the bell, but when I manage to catch her eye she just smiles back at me in what I guess is supposed to be encouragement.
By now, Melanie is drumming her fingers on the table in front of me, and I’m wondering, given her recent experience, whether there’s any point in me trying to canvass her opinion on the current dating dilemma facing the modern women, when finally, thankfully, I hear a ringing sound. There’s a simultaneous scraping of chairs, and we all move around one place.
As a smug-looking Dan sits down in front of Melanie, at least I take some consolation that he’ll suffer the same treatment. Ha! This’ll show him. But something’s happened to Melanie in the ten or so seconds it’s taken us all to change places. In fact, it seems to be a totally different Melanie from the one who’s just given me the cold shoulder. She beams at Dan across the table, and within a moment or two, I actually hear her laugh.
Oh well. As I sit down at the adjoining table, my new partner—a blonde for whom the term ‘buxom’ was probably invented—gives me a cursory glance before staring across at Dan next door. After a minute or so, I have to clear my throat to get her attention.
‘Sorry,’ she says, still gazing at Dan. ‘But isn’t he that guy from the TV?’
‘Yes. Dan Davis. He’s my friend.’
The girl looks at me strangely. ‘Your friend?’
She’s wearing a very low-cut top and her name is, well, I can’t quite seem to make it out, given the curve that her cleavage is imparting on the sticky label.
‘So. Hello, er…’ I’m still struggling to work out what it says on her name tag.
‘Are you staring at my breasts?’
I blush almost instantly. ‘No I was trying to read your name tag. Honest.’ But of course, now that she’s mentioned her breasts, I can’t help staring.
‘Yes you are. You’re staring at my breasts.’ She raises her voice so the whole room can hear her. ‘He’s staring at my breasts.’
The women look round in collective sympathy, and I can feel their icy glares. The men, of course, all stare at whatever-her-name-is’s breasts.
‘I can’t help it. I mean, I’m not.’ I point towards her chest area. ‘It’s your name tag. It’s in the same…vicinity.’
‘You’re doing it again, you pervert.’
At the next-door table, Dan breaks off from telling Melanie how great he is.
‘And you obviously didn’t want them stared at, love,’ he says. ‘That’s why you’ve worn that top.’
My partner, whose name I still don’t know, can’t work out whether to be annoyed at Dan, or flattered that he seems to be paying her some attention before it’s his turn. Equally, Melanie seems to be angry that ‘my’ girl is muscling in on her precious three minutes with Dan, and so gets menacingly to her feet. It’s in danger of getting ugly, until Emily rings the bell furiously.
I move on, thankfully, and sit down opposite a sweet-looking girl, who holds out her hand to me. I shake it nervously.
‘So, hello, er, Rose,’ I say, glancing as briefly as I can at her name badge.
‘Hello, Edward,’ she replies, in the most beautiful Irish accent. ‘Can I just ask you a few questions?’
This wasn’t in my plan. ‘Sure, I suppose…’
Rose fastens a fresh piece of paper which seems to be laid out like a checklist into her clipboard, and writes my name at the top. ‘Okay. Question One. Any history of cancer in your family?’
Huh? ‘No, I don’t…’
‘Heart disease?’
‘No.’
‘Are you a drug user?’
‘Apart from Neurofen? No.’
Rose ignores my admittedly poor attempt at humour.
‘Ever had a homosexual experience?’
I think about this one carefully. ‘Well, there was one time when this guy I’d never met before tried to buy me a drink. Does that count?’
‘Do you smoke?’
‘Yes, but I’m trying to give it…’
Rose’s face falls. ‘Ah. Bad for the sperm count. What underwear do you favour? Boxers or briefs?’
I’m just about to answer when I get an uneasy feeling. ‘What’s this all about?’
Rose puts her clipboard down and cups her hand to her ear. ‘That ticking sound? Can you hear it?’
I listen carefully, but can’t detect a thing. ‘Nope.’
‘It’s my biological clock.’
‘Ding!’
That’s me—not Emily’s bell, and I leap to my feet in shock.
And this is the high point of my evening, as the rest of the ‘dates’ pass by in a blur of enquiries about my financial status to what car I drive. I’m supposed to be a professional interviewer but these girls knock spots off me. One of them talks so much and so quickly I fear she’s taken the ‘speed’ aspect of the night literally, and I zone out, listening in instead to Dan’s ‘enough about you, let’s talk about me’ approach at the next-door table. Amazingly, and yet not surprisingly given the competition, he seems to get away with it.
When finally, after what seems like a lot more than twenty times three minutes, we finish, Emily herds us back into the side room. She collects our tick sheets as she does so, telling us to call her on Monday to find out who our ‘matches’ are. I’ve ticked three, just to be polite, but can’t say I hold out much hope of any reciprocal interest, although that’s probably for the best given my motivation for being here in the first place. As eye-opening as the evening’s been, it fundamentally tells me nothing that I really want to know.
All the glasses of free wine seem to have disappeared, so Dan and I do likewise and head back to the Admiral Jim.
‘Thought there were a couple of nice ones there,’ he says.
‘You think?’
Dan nods. ‘Especially that one who thought you were a perv. She had a real couple of nice ones.’
‘How many did you tick?’
‘None.’
‘None?’
He shrugs. ‘Didn’t need to.’
‘But if you haven’t ticked them, then Emily can’t put them in touch with you.’
Dan puts his hand into his pocket and removes a number of scraps of paper, on which are scribbled various names and phone numbers.
‘Beat the system, you see.’
‘And are you going to call any of them?’
He shrugs again. ‘Shouldn’t think so. Although…’ he says, picking out one and screwing up the rest. ‘That Emily was quite cute.’
I look at him disbelievingly. ‘You go speed dating and end up getting the number of the organizer?’
Dan puts an arm around my shoulders. ‘Well, you’ve either got it, or you don’t.’
And sadly, he’s right. Based on tonight’s performance, I don’t got it.
Monday 7th February
11.15 a.m.
On Dan’s insistence, and although I’m pretty sure what the outcome will be, I call Emily to find out how many ‘ticks’ I got. When she starts off by saying ‘Well, it’s not all about the number of ticks,’ my suspicions are confirmed, but just as I’m expecting her to give me a big fat zero, she actually says ‘one’, and although I apparently didn’t tick her, she’s given one of the girls—Caroline—my email address.
I search through my slightly alcohol-muddled memory of the evening, trying to recall which one she was, before remembering I’d made notes on them all, so I anxiously scan my list, skimming over the words ‘psycho’ and ‘bunny-boiler’ until I come to her name. Caroline: seemed a little distracted, works in admin, drives a silver Ford Fiesta, likes country pubs.
It’s not much to go on, and while I seem to remember that she was actually quite pretty, in truth I forget about it for the rest of the morning. Natasha has already phoned to say she’s not coming in, and by mid-afternoon, just as I’m contemplating snoozing on my desk, I’m surprised by the ‘ping’ of an email appearing in my inbox.