Unsuitable Men

by Pippa Wright

  ‘Oh gosh, Lysander, that’s very kind of you,’ I said, thinking that really it was anything but; clearly he was just looking for someone on whom to dump an unwanted relation for the evening. ‘I think I might be busy tomorrow night.’

  ‘Doing what?’ asked Lysander.

  I flushed guiltily, as if he could see straight into my pathetically empty diary, its pages free of all social engagements that didn’t involve the senior-citizen residents of Elgin Square.

  ‘Oh, just things,’ I answered airily, trying to convey such a packed schedule that it was hard for me to remember the specifics. There was no way I was going to allow Lysander to manipulate me into this; there was a significant difference between dating a sophisticated urbane older man of, perhaps, forty, and being forced into proximity to an aged rustic whose only regular female company was, I imagined, a wheezing and arthritic Border terrier.

  ‘Aurora, my dear, I suggest you rearrange those “things”. Ethelred may not set your young heart a-flutter but I can guarantee that, firstly, he is, unlike your first date, entirely heterosexual. And secondly, may I suggest that you need to consider your readership? A rich, mature land-owning bachelor would be like manna from heaven to them. Manna from heaven. Think of your column and be a professional for goodness’ sake.’

  ‘I suppose . . .’ I could feel myself beginning to waver.

  Although I considered myself a professional, I wasn’t the kind of professional that regularly spent evenings with rich old gentlemen; that was another type of girl entirely. But I couldn’t deny that Lysander had a point about our readership. Although I had kept the column about my date with Fauxmosexual Lance very light and tame, Tim from IT had forwarded me a handful of complaints that had been emailed in. He’d kindly kept them from Amanda, but if this column was going to work I needed to be able to show that it was a success with our readers.

  ‘Excellent, excellent,’ said Lysander, taking my hesitation for assent. He rocked back and forth a little to get up the momentum to heave himself out of the chair. Once he’d launched himself towards the door he stopped and turned back.

  ‘Cousin Ethelred is sixty-eight,’ he said, looking immensely pleased with himself. ‘Nearly forty years older than you. I think you’re going to find him extremely unsuitable.’

  For the rest of the day, Ticky emailed me brochures for crematoria and care homes. Hilarious. Every time I tried to speak to her about my date with Ethelred she faked vomiting noises. It seemed I had found, in dating an old-age pensioner, the one subject in which Ticky had absolutely no interest. I would have liked to speak properly to Auntie Lyd when I got home, but it was impossible to express the sinking gloom I felt at the idea of my impending date when sat around the kitchen table with my aunt (sixty-three), Percy (seventy-six) and Eleanor (seventy-three). Instead I gave them all a carefully edited version of events.

  ‘An actual Unsuitable Men column, darling?’ asked Auntie Lyd, lighting a cigarette. I wasn’t sure if her curled lip was from disapproval or smoke. ‘As well as Behind the Rope? Won’t you be awfully busy?’

  ‘Behind the Rope’s been cut,’ I said. ‘Changes at the magazine, you know.’ I tried to sound breezy about it; like it didn’t really matter. I’d already given Auntie Lyd enough to worry about, what with the sobbing over Martin and the moving into her house unexpectedly. The last thing she needed was to hear that my work life was a disaster too.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ said Percy. ‘I’ve been working my way through those magazines under the cat’s bed. It’s all quite fascinating stuff.’

  ‘Not as fascinating as unsuitable men though,’ said Eleanor with a girlish giggle. ‘I could tell you a few stories about unsuitables that I have known.’

  ‘If you are going to rehash that pack of lies about Elvis Presley, I shall be forced to leave the room,’ said Percy.

  Eleanor cast her eyes to the ceiling. ‘There was nothing unsuitable about Elvis,’ she said, sighing deeply. Percy’s mouth set in a tight line. ‘Although I find most other men deeply unsuitable in comparison.’

  ‘That is as nothing compared to the perfidy of women,’ objected Percy.

  ‘Well,’ interrupted Auntie Lyd, turning to me, ‘I’m sure you’ll do it just as well as you do everything, Rory I can’t wait to read the first one in the magazine.’

  ‘Oh, it won’t be in the magazine,’ I said. Auntie Lyd’s face puckered into a deep frown beneath her pall of smoke. ‘It’s going to be on the Country House website.’

  ‘Website, dear?’ asked Eleanor.

  ‘Yes, you know,’ snapped Percy impatiently, assuming an air of great knowledge. ‘Internet superhighways, i-telephones, the broadband.’

  ‘Ah yes, the broadband,’ said Eleanor, nodding in bemused agreement. She took a large gulp from her ever-present teacup.

  ‘A website,’ contemplated Auntie Lyd. She tapped the ash from her cigarette into the portable ashtray that she took everywhere. Its lid swung shut as she released the lever. ‘Is that good?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘It’s really great, just where my writing should be in the, er, age of the information superhighway. I’ve already published my first piece.’ Percy nodded approval. None of them had the first clue about the internet; it was easy to let them believe this new column was a good thing instead of a worrying demotion. Not to mention a whole world of weirdness for my personal life.

  ‘Well,’ said Auntie Lyd. ‘I don’t want to have to get one of those Wii machines just so I can keep up with your writing.’

  ‘You can’t read a website from a Wii, Auntie Lyd.’

  ‘I certainly can’t,’ she answered. ‘I will have to find another way of reading it. Well done you, darling. I think you’re very brave indeed.’

  Somehow that made me feel worse than ever.

  12

  Wilton’s was a restaurant I had visited many times before, as it was a favourite of Old Mr Betterton’s, and all of our staff Christmas lunches were held there. To be honest, Wilton’s was a favourite of every Old Mr in London; unchanged since it was founded over 100 years ago, it offered a reassuring menu of seasonal wild game from the Duke of Northumberland’s estate, followed by stodgy school-dinner puddings. Even though culinary fashion had once more swung in favour of seasonal eating and British classics, the restaurant itself remained resolutely unfashionable, and all the better for it, as far as its patrons were concerned. The night I went there to meet Lysander’s cousin Ethelred, I was the youngest person in the dining room by at least thirty years, and one of the few customers who didn’t have to be physically assisted to sit down. Ethelred had not arrived yet, which gave me time to look about the room, decorated with hearty hunting scenes, stuffed birds and assorted antlered creatures gazing down on the room with glassy eyes. Underneath one such mournful mounted head an elderly man appeared to be attached to some sort of personal oxygen tank. It hissed gently as he sipped at his dark-brown soup.

  It was perfect. Country House readers were going to lap this up with their silver spoons.

  A few people smiled over as I settled myself at the table, and my hand stole up to my hair in paranoid fashion. With the use of a lot of hair products, and a careful blow-drying technique, I’d managed to persuade my hair back into the loose curls I preferred. But any unexpected glance had me instantly anxious that my hair had somehow rearranged itself into a formation of triangular ringlets. There was a mirror behind me and I turned around for a surreptitious appearance check. Reflected in the dull shine, my hair seemed, if not gorgeous, at least not laughable. In the mirror, I saw the door open behind me. My unsuitable man had arrived.

  His flaming red hair, a wide white streak running through the front, gave him away as Lysander’s cousin, as did the fact that he looked exactly like Lysander – if Lysander had been inflated to the proportions of a barrage balloon. Ethelred stood in the doorway beaming at the entire room, a smile which was echoed in a waterfall of curving chins that cascaded all the way down to his chest. His vast stomach peepe
d out from underneath a checked pink and yellow shirt, worn under a suit of yellow moleskin which definitely fell into the category of ‘fun’. His largeness was offset by incredibly tiny hands and feet. He opened his arms wide and tiptoed over to me with a delicacy of which I hadn’t imagined a man his size to be capable.

  ‘Aurora?’ he said, rolling his r’s and picking up my hand in both of his. ‘Could this vision, this gorgeous vision, be Miss Aurora Carmichael?’

  I stood up to shake hands, only to find myself grasped in an enormous bear hug which lifted me right off my feet.

  ‘How do you do, Ethelred,’ I squeaked from within his grasp, remembering Old Mr Betterton’s stern admonishment to me in my first week at Country House that saying, ‘Nice to meet you’ was deeply ‘doors to manual’, the kind of thing only said by lower-middle-class people trying to be genteel. I had never allowed myself to say it since.

  ‘Oh, pshaw,’ said Ethelred, releasing me. ‘Has that absurd cousin of mine told you to call me that? My dear Aurora, not all of us have chosen to suffer under the heavy burden of our given name, like that dreadful old masochist. Please, call me Teddy.’ His eyes twinkled as he lowered himself, with the discreet assistance of a waiter, into the leather armchair opposite me.

  ‘In that case,’ I smiled, ‘please call me Rory. No one calls me Aurora except for Lysander, and my aunt if she’s really cross with me.’

  ‘Ha! I should think not! Ridiculous name!’ Teddy laughed, looking positively delighted with both himself and me. ‘Excuse me, young man, the young lady and I will each have a glass of champagne to start.’

  He leaned over conspiratorially. ‘A toast to ridiculous names, don’t you think?’

  I liked to think that working at Country House had trained me well in what Ticky referred to as the ‘pert niece technique’. She had, of course, years of practice thanks to her never-ending social engagements with her godfathers and uncles. For me, since my family consisted of Mum, Auntie Lyd and the occasional visit to Dad and his new family, the technique was something I had had to study and revise like a foreign language, which in a way it was. Although my job was mostly desk-bound, even I had to entertain our more senior columnists or features writers to lunches at times, not to mention attending events where I had been placed next to Old Mr Betterton, who always arranged to sit next to the young female staffers. I had learned that the best way in which to approach such people – men only, of course, the pert niece approach is entirely inappropriate with women – was with a cheeky sort of flirtation that flattered and charmed, without ever being mistaken for anything that might result in an unwanted hand on your knee. A few subtle mentions of ‘my boyfriend’ usually kept the overly keen at bay.

  The aim was that the recipient of the pert niece approach would leave your encounter feeling invigorated, relevant and as if he were twenty years younger, but without the faintest suggestion that you had led him on. You would, of course, feel quite exhausted from having been fascinated by everything he said for hours, but that is why pert niece is a tactic rather than a way of life. Few could sustain it full-time.

  Pert niece worked beautifully on Teddy, who volleyed with an excellent ‘jocular uncle’ of his own. He insisted on ordering for me, something that would have riled me enormously if done by anyone my own age, but which was somehow quite acceptable, gallant even, in these surroundings. I found that I didn’t even have to pretend to be fascinated by him as he regaled me with stories of his Highland estate.

  ‘So, Teddy,’ I asked, pushing my game pie around the plate in an attempt to hide a heavy slab of pastry crust under a pile of greens. ‘Have you never come close to marrying?’

  Teddy coughed in alarm. ‘Marrying? Oh my dear me, no. Haven’t thought about it for decades. Not since before you were born, my dear girl.’ He patted his face with the gravy-spattered napkin that he had tucked, like a bib, under his chins. Then his eyes went misty, and he held a forkful of pie suspended in mid-air.

  ‘Not since Fi McKenneth,’ he sighed, gazing into the distance.

  ‘Who was she?’ I asked, intrigued.

  ‘Fi McKenneth is the finest woman who ever lived,’ said Teddy, his chins wobbling for emphasis. He pressed his lips together firmly as if he didn’t trust himself to speak, and put down his fork. ‘Loved her for years. Wouldn’t have me, of course. Sensible woman.’

  ‘But, Teddy, why ever not?’ I asked, and I was surprised to find I actually meant it. I was sure Teddy must not always have been quite as spherical in appearance as he was now, and he was so charming and entertaining that I was sure he must have had many admirers in the past. Not to mention he was incredibly rich, which tended to excuse any idiosyncrasies of appearance for many women.

  ‘Not every gel is suited to life in the Highlands, Rory,’ said Teddy sadly. ‘Takes a special sort of woman to take on an estate. Fi was clever enough to know she wasn’t the right kind. I, idiotic enough to believe she was.’ He gulped down half a glass of wine in one mouthful. ‘’Course she ended up marrying; three children. Lives in Edinburgh. Went to her and Snorter’s fortieth wedding anniversary only last week. Bloody nice chap.’ Teddy picked up his fork and stared at the pie. ‘Bloody nice chap.’

  ‘And you never met anyone else?’ I asked gently.

  ‘Never wanted to, Rory. Never wanted to. Anyway, the property has kept me so busy . . .’ He trailed off. ‘But enough questions from you. It’s about time I asked you why a delightful young lady finds herself having dinner with a decrepit old chap like me?’

  ‘Oh.’ I hesitated. We had got on so well that I almost wanted to tell him the truth about the column, but it seemed to me that, for all of Teddy’s hearty bonhomie, he was a sensitive soul who would be hurt by hearing that he had been offered to me as a dinner companion purely because of his extreme unsuitability ‘Well, I’ve just split up with my boyfriend and, er, I wanted to start dating again. Lysander said that his cousin was in town and so here we are!’ I ended brightly, back to pert niece.

  ‘Well, how thrilling!’ said Teddy, rubbing his hands together in delight. ‘I had no idea we were on a “date”, Rory Lysander just said he thought I would enjoy your company. Which I must say I do, enormously.’

  ‘And you’ve been lovely company too, Teddy,’ I said. He had. In fact I’d enjoyed our evening more than I’d ever expected to. Not that I felt the stirrings of attraction towards Teddy, far from it, but I hadn’t wanted to climb out of the bathroom window to escape either.

  ‘A “date”,’ said Teddy again, beaming. ‘How extraordinary. Who’d have thought it?’

  He insisted that we order pudding, followed by cheese, with wines to match. The alcohol hardly seemed to affect him, but the steady flow of wine in this warm room was making me feel hugely sleepy. I longed to lay my head down on the tempting plush window seat at the front of the room. I suppose, looking back, I should have realized that my half-closed eyes and generally languid (okay, drunken) demeanour could have been mistaken for someone who was trying to be all come-hithery, but I had felt safe in our firmly (to me) delineated roles of elderly uncle and youngish niece.

  When we finally stepped outside Wilton’s, the cold air woke me up just in time. Teddy turned to envelop me in another of his rib-crushing embraces, but this time there was something a little more to it. One of his minuscule hands shot with astonishing stealth under my unbuttoned coat, pulling me against his stomach as he breathed into my hair.

  ‘You’ve made an old man very happy tonight, Rory, on our “date”. I wonder if you might make me happier still . . .’

  He reached his other hand to the back of my head and I realized with horrible clarity that he was about to kiss me. I froze. I didn’t want to push him away too harshly and hurt his feelings, but nor did I want to be kissed by a man who was a full fifteen years older than my own father. But suddenly he stopped and let me go.

  ‘No, Rory, I just can’t do it,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I know it’s what you want, you’ve made that clear, wit
h your talk of dating and marriage’ – had I? – ‘but one of us has to be strong. I am too old for you. Too old for romance.’

  He turned away from me abruptly. I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t think Teddy was too old for romance, just too old for romance with me, but I was afraid to protest too much in case he tried to kiss me again.

  He turned back, and reached for my hand. While I stood in dumbfounded silence he bent over and kissed my fingers. ‘I’m sure you understand, Rory, that I’m flattered by your interest; flattered and honoured. But I think we should part as friends.’

  I murmured some polite words of agreement, not sure exactly how I had ended up as the one who was being gently let down. I let him hail me a taxi and we said goodbye on the pavement. I waved out of the window until we went round the corner.

  I really wasn’t at all sure who had turned out to be the unsuitable one tonight.

  13

  Ever since I’d moved into Auntie Lyd’s, weekends were the worst. The hours from Friday evening until Monday morning stretched ahead of me as bleakly empty as the Arctic tundra. Sometimes the weight of the days to be filled kept me immobilized in bed until nearly lunchtime, hoping that would make the time pass more quickly. I wouldn’t want to give you the impression that Martin and I had spent our weekends on exciting European minibreaks, or indulging in extreme sports, or doing anything out of the ordinary. In fact we rarely did anything in particular other than wander round the shops, catch up with friends, watch a bit of TV and fall asleep on the sofa after Sunday lunch. But, I had discovered, a weekend of doing nothing with a partner is entirely different from a weekend of doing nothing alone.

  The only good thing about this Saturday was that I didn’t have to tell Lysander or Ticky about my date until Monday. I still wasn’t really sure if it had been a triumph or a disaster. On one level, I had had a perfectly nice evening with a perfectly nice man who had clearly found me attractive and interesting. On another I had been groped, and then rejected, by a corpulent geriatric. I realized that writing about these dates for public consumption was going to be harder than I’d thought; it was one thing to put my own dating life up for the amusement of the website’s limited readership, but quite another to present my dates themselves as inherently laughable. Teddy was a kind man, and I wanted to find a way of conveying that while still being entertaining enough to earn Amanda’s approval. At least, I supposed, I had the entire empty weekend to work out a way of doing so.