The Plus One

by Sophia Money-Coutts

  ‘No. Not exactly.’ I’d wimped out in the end. Lala had been ‘sick’ on Monday and Tuesday, and by Wednesday I decided I should see what happened over dinner with Jasper before mentioning anything.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I thought it wasn’t worth mentioning. You know. It’s just dinner, no big deal.’

  ‘Polly, how wounding.’

  I laughed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I like you. I enjoyed talking to you at home very much. Apart from your awkwardness and your clumsiness, and your inability to take a compliment, I think you’re funny and clever. And I like those things. Much more amusing than having dinner with yet another Henrietta who talks to me about wallpaper samples.’

  ‘You’ve known a few Henriettas then?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Not that again.’

  ‘OK, I promise. I don’t need to interrogate you any more anyway.’

  ‘Good. Right, now, what are we going to eat? I’m hungry like a wild beast. I’m going to have two starters.’

  It was a long dinner in the end. A two-bottle dinner without any further moments of awkwardness or water spilling or me saying anything embarrassing.

  ‘What’s the deal with your parents?’ he asked at one point.

  ‘The deal?’

  ‘Yeah, you know. Mine are mad but still together, for whatever reason. But… you said your dad… isn’t around, right?’

  ‘Yeah, he died when I was ten, so…’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why did he die?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Heart attack. Really sudden. In the garden one day and then, bang, that was it. Mum found him face down in the flower bed.’

  ‘So you don’t remember him?’

  ‘Not really. I remember Mum being in bed for a long time afterwards, and I lived off a diet of biscuits.’

  ‘Biscuits?’ He frowned.

  ‘Yep. Shortbread and chocolate digestives mostly. And toast. A lot of toast and Marmite went down in our house.’

  ‘Where were you living?’

  ‘A place in the country, in Surrey. But then we had to sell it and Mum moved to London so she could get a job.’ Normally, when I told people my father died when I was young, they looked as awkward as a nun in a strip joint and stuttered some sort of apology. I liked that Jasper hadn’t. He didn’t seem at all awkward. It was refreshing.

  ‘And where’s your mother now?’

  ‘Still there. In Battersea. With her dog.’

  ‘Never remarried?’

  ‘Nope. She’s about as useless with men as me.’ I hadn’t meant to say the last bit.

  ‘Oh really?’ He smiled at me.

  ‘I mean, no. That came out badly. Just being flippant.’

  ‘So is that why you’re so defensive about men?’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Because your father died when you were younger. So, no man has ever matched up and so on?’

  ‘I didn’t realize I was talking to a psychologist,’ I teased. ‘Why the line of questioning?’

  ‘Well, you know everything about me. I’m just trying to level the playing field.’

  ‘Everything? Surely not?’

  He shrugged. ‘I haven’t got any secrets. Apart from being a sexual deviant. Oh, and also I don’t like peas.’

  ‘Now you tell me. That could have been my scoop.’

  ‘Being a sexual deviant?’ He grinned from across the table.

  ‘The peas thing.’

  Jasper laughed. ‘You’re funny,’ he said.

  We carried on chatting, drinking red wine while the tables around us paid and went, and a waiter started sweeping the floor in an obvious, theatrical fashion.

  ‘Could we have the bill?’ said Jasper, sometime later, waving across the room at him.

  I reached down into my bag for my wallet and braced myself for the awkward ‘I’ll pay’, ‘No you won’t’, ‘Let’s split it’ game.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Jasper.

  ‘No, let me, honestly. At least can we split it?’ I said, hoping that he wouldn’t say yes because that would mean I’d struggle to cover this month’s rent and quite possibly have to sell a kidney.

  ‘No, we cannot.’ He put his card down on the table.

  We put our coats on and went outside. I had a weird feeling in my stomach. It was either my seafood risotto or nervousness.

  ‘Thank you for dinner,’ I said, ‘it was great.’

  ‘You are entirely welcome, madam.’

  ‘I think I’m going to jump in a cab home,’ I gabbled. It was nervousness. But why was I nervous? I had no idea whether Jasper was necessarily planning or expecting anything. Apart from he had said that thing about the bedroom, and he did buy me dinner. Which was expensive. So was he after anything in return?

  ‘Let me flag you a taxi,’ he said, raising his arm as a black cab swung around the corner with its light on. See, I told myself, not planning or expecting anything. And I felt the tiniest bit crushed.

  The cab pulled up alongside us.

  ‘’Night.’ I leant forward and kissed Jasper on one cheek, and then moved to kiss him on the other. But he was quicker than me, and suddenly his mouth was on mine and we were kissing. Properly kissing. Tongues and everything.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said a few seconds later to the cabbie, who had been sitting patiently with an open window.

  ‘In you get,’ said Jasper, opening the cab door. ‘Text me when you get home.’ He closed the door behind me and took a £20 from his wallet. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said to the cabbie, handing him the note.

  I leant forward. ‘Can we go to Devonport Road, just off Goldhawk?’

  As we pulled away, I waved at Jasper like a small child – why did I wave like that? – and then fell back into my seat. I fumbled in my bag for my phone just as it vibrated with a message.

  I’d been wanting to do that all night.

  In normal circumstances, I would deem this sort of message a bit cringe. Like something Zac Efron would do in a terrible high school movie. But although I tried not to be – I told myself it was the sort of thing he probably messaged women all the time – I was kind of thrilled. It came from Jasper. Handsome Jasper, Marquess of Milton, playboy who normally dated models and It girls. But I was interrupted from my Mills & Boon reverie because we went over a speed bump and I got the hiccups.

  ‘Good gracious, Polly!’ said Barbara, when I put my basket on the counter the following morning. The basket contained one carton of eggs, one packet of streaky bacon, one packet of ground coffee, one carton of green milk, one loaf of white sliced bread (I wasn’t in the mood for brown), one carton of Tropicana (smooth) and one packet of Jamaica ginger cake.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Polly, my treasure, you look dreadful.’ Barbara shook her head and looked mournful, as if standing over a grave at a funeral.

  ‘Oh, right, thanks very much.’

  ‘And all this!’ Barbara went on, gesturing at the basket. ‘This is enough to feed an army of elephants. You can’t be eatin’ all this on your own.’

  ‘No, no, I’ve got Joe upstairs.’ I’d left the flat minutes earlier to see Joe disappearing into the bathroom with a musical score in his hand and decided the safest option was to evacuate immediately and spend some time – quite a lot of time – loitering in the aisles of Barbara’s shop.

  ‘Out last night then, were you?’ asked Barbara, as she lifted the eggs out to scan them.

  ‘I had a date actually.’ I’d given up on the dinner/date debate given that Jasper had kissed me. I felt the dinner/date line was crossed if someone put their tongue in your mouth.

  Barbara dropped the eggs back in the basket and threw her hands up in the air.

  ‘Oh Polly! Good news. Good, good news. Who with?’ She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Was it with a man?’

  I looked over my shoulder to check that there was nobody in a hurry for their own breakfast behind me.
/>
  ‘Er, yes, yes, it was a man. Sort of tall, blond, very charming.’

  ‘He sounds nice. Oh dear, I’ve broken an egg,’ she said, opening up the carton. ‘Get me another carton of eggs.’

  I walked back to the aisle with the eggs and retrieved another carton.

  ‘And where did he take you?’ asked my interrogator, as I handed them over.

  ‘Just an Italian in Notting Hill.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Barbara, nodding and putting the orange juice in a plastic bag as the door jangled and another customer came through it. ‘But why aren’t you more excited, Polly? I’m more excited than you.’

  ‘Er.’ I looked back again for the other customer, not sure that I wanted a stranger to overhear Barbara’s love-life advice. ‘No, no, I am excited. I’m just a bit surprised, too, that’s all.’

  ‘You Capricorns are never happy,’ said Barbara. ‘Go and have a bath. You will feel better. Auntie Barbara knows. She knows.’

  ‘I will. Thanks. Five million calories should help too,’ I said, picking up the plastic bag from the counter.

  ‘Let me know,’ Barbara shouted across the shop, as I reached the door. ‘Just think, my angel, you could be married by Christmas!’

  Upstairs, Joe had emerged from the bathroom and was filling up the kettle in boxer shorts and his favourite t-shirt, which read ‘I’ll be Bach’ and had a little cartoon of Bach underneath it.

  ‘How was Her Majesty?’

  ‘Oh you know. Being all Mystic Meg about my love life.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I was just telling her about my dinner with Jasper last night.’

  Joe theatrically clapped a hand to his forehead. ‘Pols, of course. Full debrief please.’

  ‘Hang on.’ I put the shopping bag on the side. ‘Scrambled or fried?’

  ‘Scrambled. Did you get bacon?’

  ‘Yup. And white bread and Tropicana and more coffee.’

  ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Right, hand me the bacon and I’ll be in charge of that. You make the eggs and tell me everything.’

  ‘So I went to Lex and Hamish’s engagement drinks first, which was good because I could warm up with a drink.’

  ‘By which you mean three or four drinks, but yes, go on…’ he said, crouching in front of the grill and laying out strips of bacon.

  ‘OK, Clouseau. Anyway, left there after a bit and went to that Italian on Kensington Park Road. And then we sat there for three hours basically, just chatting.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Come on, Barbara Cartland. I need a bit more than that. Did you snog him?’

  ‘Well, he sort of snogged me. But it was a bit awkward because he’d flagged a cab so the cabbie just sat there while he lunged at me.’

  ‘And there was no question of him coming back here?’

  ‘No! I wasn’t even sure if it was a date in the first place.’

  ‘Please,’ said Joe, rolling his eyes.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ I said, ‘he’s a playboy so that’ll probably be it and I’ll never hear from him again. But it was fun.’

  ‘Oh loosen up, Pols. You don’t really know him, do you? You’ve only heard stories about him, right?’

  ‘Yeah, but no smoke without fire and all that. And Lala says…’

  ‘Lala has all the intelligence and sensitivity of this loaf of bread,’ said Joe, dropping two slices in the toaster. ‘Lower, possibly.’

  ‘Well, he did text me in the cab on the way home saying he’d wanted to kiss me all night.’

  ‘I think that’s rather romantic. What did you reply?’

  ‘Just thank you for dinner.’

  He sighed. ‘I wish you were better at flirting.’

  ‘That’s enough, get the plates out. I’m starving.’

  There wasn’t much space in our sitting room. It was more an offshoot of the kitchen than an actual room. The TV was in a corner on a wobbly Ikea stand that Joe had put together when we’d moved in three years before. Then there were two sagging sofas either side of it, each positioned at a slight flare so both of us had the perfect angle for watching telly while lying down. We each had our own sofa: Joe had the brown one, I had a smaller beige sofa bed. A low coffee table was equally carefully positioned between the two sofas so that it was within arm’s reach for both of us. The table was usually covered with at least four mugs of half-drunk tea (me), empty crisp packets (Joe), magazines (me) and music scores (Joe).

  After another trip downstairs to Barbara’s that afternoon, the coffee table was covered with bottles of Lucozade and empty packets of Monster Munch.

  ‘We’ve got to do something, Joe,’ I said, stretching on the sofa. ‘We can’t lie here all day.’ I was also, annoyingly, phone watching. My phone was lying on my stomach so that the second any message came through I’d know about it. It was 3 p.m. and nothing had. Why did girls go so crazy the second any man showed the slightest interest? This time yesterday, I was a fairly rational human being, having dinner later with an interview subject. Twenty-four hours on, I was watching my phone like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. What mysterious alchemy made us behave like this? The only two messages I’d got all day had been from:

  My mother, checking I was still all right to meet for church tomorrow.

  11 a.m. at St Saviour’s. Brush your hair won’t you, Polly love? X

  Bill, asking how dinner with ‘Lord Byron’ went and did I want to go to the cinema tomorrow afternoon to see the new Star Wars film. I’d said no, I’d rather eat my own head, and then roped him into coming to church with Mum instead. Bill could be a soft touch like that.

  ‘Why is he making a soufflé if he’s never made it before?’ said Joe, from the other sofa, frowning at Come Dine With Me. ‘These people are idiots.’

  ‘Joe, seriously. We need to do something.’

  ‘Like what?’ He turned his head to face me. ‘I could honestly lie here all day.’

  ‘It’s too depressing, too sordid. Please can we go and do something?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know, I just need a distraction.’

  He looked pointedly at my phone. ‘You had dinner with him last night, he texted you in the cab on the way home. Can you not be one of those girls?’

  ‘I’m not, I’m not. I’m just…’

  ‘Being needy.’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘OK. Well, if you really want to do something, a friend of mine is having a birthday party in Soho we could go to for a bit.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘You haven’t met him. Anthony. Another gay in the wind section. Plays the French horn.’

  ‘Has he played your French horn?’

  ‘No, he has not.’

  ‘OK. Where’s the party?’

  ‘The Green Carnation.’

  I frowned.

  ‘You know, the piano bar. The one on Wardour Street.’

  ‘Right, so a gay friend of yours is having his birthday party in a piano bar in Soho. Honestly, it’s like something out of The Birdcage. Oh, by the way, I totally forgot, there’s a friend of Jasper’s I met who I think you’d like. Called Max. Handsome. Funny.’

  ‘When d’you meet him?’

  ‘When I went to Jasper’s…’

  ‘Oh dear, Pols. Jasper this, Jasper that. You’ve got Mentionitis.’

  I threw a cushion at him. ‘I have not got Mentionitis. Just trying to help you out. But if you don’t want my help then…’

  ‘We can discuss it on the bus. Come on, let’s go.’

  Three hours later, we were in the Green Carnation, gathered around a table, hangovers gone and three rounds in.

  ‘How long have you and Joe lived together then?’ asked Anthony, a short Scottish man with a shaved head who was wearing a bow tie and shirt, on to which was pinned a badge reading ‘Kiss me quick. It’s my birthday’.

  ‘Nearly four years. Which is longer than any relationship I’ve ever had with a
nother man.’

  ‘Love at first sight?’

  I looked at the bar where Joe was gesticulating to the barman, holding up both his hands to demonstrate that he wanted ten Jägerbombs.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Do you have to put up with all sorts of shenanigans?’

  ‘Occasionally. Although it’s been quite quiet of late.’

  ‘Has it? The Lothario of the Academy losing his touch?’ said Anthony, loudly, as Joe lowered the tray of shots on to the table.

  ‘Anthony, you do talk a load of nonsense,’ said Joe. ‘I’m just having a little pause. And I’ve also got my hands full with my flatmate here.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said another Scot.

  ‘Shots first. Come on, have one of these.’ Joe passed Anthony a Jägerbomb and handed the rest out to various others sitting round the table whose names I had forgotten as soon as I was told them.

  Anthony threw his shot glass back and then put it back on the table with a smack. ‘What’s the gossip then?’

  ‘It’s not gossip. Honestly. There’s literally nothing to gossip about,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, it is. She went on a date with one of the poshest men in England,’ said Joe.

  ‘Oh you lucky cow,’ said Anthony. ‘Who’s that then?’

  ‘He’s called Jasper.’

  ‘’Course he is. Jasper what?’

  ‘Jasper Milton. He has this castle and…’

  ‘I know who you mean, he’s the one who was in the papers the other day,’ said Anthony.

  ‘Exactly,’ replied Joe. ‘And it’s incredibly unprofessional. She went to stay at their massive pile in Yorkshire to interview him, and ended up giving him a blow job under the dining room table.’

  ‘You didn’t?’ Anthony looked thrilled.

  ‘Joe! I didn’t, sorry to disappoint. He just tried to kiss me at the dining room table.’

  ‘But you’re going out with him now?’ asked Anthony.

  ‘No. We just had dinner last night.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing,’ I said simply. ‘Dinner and we kissed before he put me in a taxi home.’

  ‘And have you heard from him since?’

  ‘Well, he texted when I was in the cab but not today.’ I picked up my phone and checked it for the 2,829th time that day. Still nothing.