by Pippa Wright
‘What is the meaning of this?’ she demanded, as Gordon and his feline passenger raced past Malky’s still-prone form and disappeared out of the front door into the darkness of Elgin Square like some terrible hybrid creature. ‘Who brought a dog into my house?’
I was too mortified to speak. I stared at my shoes, not sure where to look. Certainly not at Auntie Lyd, whose expression was so terrifying that I thought it might turn me to stone if I faced her directly.
Malky found his feet at last; he’d only been down for a moment but it was a moment in which we had moved with terrifying speed from a seduction scenario to one that could have come straight out of Percy’s Whoops! There Goes the Neighbourhood sitcom. No wonder he looked confused.
‘It’s my dog, it’s mine,’ he said, panicked. ‘What the fuck was that?’
‘That,’ said Auntie Lyd, descending the stairs with regal disapproval burned into every step, ‘was Mr Bits.’
‘Call him off, can’t you? He’s torturing my dog!’ shouted Malky, peering out into the square, where Gordon’s continued shrieks, growing closer, then further, then closer again, suggested he had not yet stopped his desperate running back and forth.
‘Mr Bits is a cat, young man,’ said Auntie Lyd haughtily. ‘Not some slavering dog without a mind of its own. He doesn’t take orders from me or anyone else. I’m afraid he’ll just hang on until he gets bored. Your dog won’t come to any real harm.’
‘Real harm?’ Malky demanded, grasping at his hair with both hands. ‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Mr Bits is just showing him who’s in charge. He’ll drop off once your dog gets the message.’
‘What am I supposed to do in the meantime?’ asked Malky.
‘I don’t know,’ said Auntie Lyd, fixing him with a fierce stare. His imploring gaze did not seem to affect her in the slightest. ‘What were you planning on doing before your dog attacked my cat?’
Malky turned to look at me with meaning.
‘He, er, he was just leaving,’ I said, finally finding my voice.
‘Too right,’ said Malky, pulling his coat around himself angrily. ‘It’s a fucking loony unit in here.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered to him, low so Auntie Lyd couldn’t hear me. ‘I’m sorry, it’s all my fault.’
‘I know,’ he snapped, and left, slamming the door behind him.
The next morning, Mr Bits preened himself smugly on the sunny kitchen windowsill. The air of self-satisfaction that usually accompanied him was magnified today. If a cat could have smiled, he would have done. According to Auntie Lydia, who was enjoying telling the story to the entire household, the stealthy dog attack had been his party piece in his long-ago youth; he would sit on the steps outdoors to lure unsuspecting canines towards him, and then ride them out of the square like a cowboy on a bucking steer. Now that he was older, he rarely risked a dog encounter, but clearly he had been delighted with last night’s unexpected triumph.
‘Good morning, dear,’ said Eleanor, raising her whisky to me in a giggly toast. ‘We’ve just been hearing all about last night; you really are a one.’
‘Ridiculous dog,’ muttered Percy. ‘“Foolish cur, that runs winking into the mouth of a Russian bear to have its head crushed like a rotten apple.”’
‘It wasn’t a Russian bear, Percy, dear,’ said Eleanor, wilfully misunderstanding Percy’s quotation. ‘It was a dog. And not just a dog, a man too, wasn’t it, Rory? That’s what I’d like to hear more about, Rory: which unsuitable man was this one?’
Jim chuckled from over by the sink. Now that he’d been appointed unofficial house IT consultant as well as plumber, he seemed to be around even more, getting in the way. Every morning found him in the kitchen; I think he actually timed his work to cause maximum inconvenience – I mean, why did he expressly pick early mornings to hang out in the busiest part of the house? As if he saw me glaring, Jim turned and smiled.
‘Sounds like a busy night, Dawn,’ he said.
‘Nothing special,’ I said. I was not going to be lured into losing my temper, however much I itched to. ‘How about you? Hectic night pumping iron and applying that fake tan?’
Jim looked startled. ‘Fake tan?’
‘Or do you sleep in a sunbed?’ I asked, looking him up and down. He had on another skin-tight top this morning; mercifully slogan-free for once, it was white and long-sleeved but form-fitting enough to allow you no doubt that this was a man who visited the gym often. And probably necked steroids for breakfast. ‘Jim, no one is that colour in the middle of winter without a bit of help.’
‘Or without a holiday in Thailand over New Year,’ said Jim, rolling his eyes and turning back to the sink. ‘Lydia, have you had a chance to look at those bathroom catalogues I brought for you?’
‘Not yet,’ said Auntie Lyd. ‘I don’t really know the first thing about choosing lavatories; I’m not sure where to start.’
‘Well, we need to get the order in soon if you’re going to have the bathrooms sorted by the end of the month,’ said Jim, ignoring me as if I wasn’t there. ‘Maybe I can show you a few more options online later and help you choose?’
‘Ooh, Jim, you promised to help me with my online,’ said Eleanor, batting her eyelashes at him a little unsteadily. ‘Percy says he’s found three websites about himself already.’
‘Not just websites,’ said Percy grandly. ‘They’re called fansites. Where my fans gather in the virtual realm to discuss my oeuvre. Like a stage door in the broadband.’
‘Fansites, then,’ said Eleanor, tipping her glass up to empty it into her mouth. ‘If Percy has three then I am sure I’ll have at least that. Probably more.’
‘I wasn’t able to find a site dedicated to extras on EastEnders,’ sniffed Percy. ‘But perhaps I just haven’t trawled the very depths of the broadband yet.’
‘Percy,’ warned Auntie Lyd. ‘I will be using the computer this morning. I suggest you both go to the internet cafe on the High Street if you want to fight over which of you is the more popular.’
‘I have far better things to do,’ said Eleanor, getting up from the stool and stalking out of the room, gently bumping into the door frame as she turned to go up the stairs. Jim exchanged a frowning look with Auntie Lyd. Although I agreed with their silent concern – Eleanor’s daytime drinking was worrying – it annoyed me that Auntie Lyd was turning to Jim with her anxieties instead of to me. I was family, not a paid employee. Shouldn’t she look to me first?
‘I’d better go too,’ I said, picking up my toast and marmalade. ‘Got a busy day ahead.’
‘Have a lovely day, dear,’ said Auntie Lyd.
‘Yes, have a lovely day working away in your office, Dawn,’ said Jim, waving a spanner at me and smirking. Underneath his seemingly innocent remark I could hear the judgemental subtext: While you slave in a boring office, 1, Mr Spray Tan, am vastly superior in having escaped the nine-to-five. My pumped-up pectorals and I will hang around here, taking advantage of your aunt’s generous nature, finding ways to cheat her out of her meagre savings, while you get paid a pittance for being patronized by posh people all day at a magazine that no one reads.
‘And you have a lovely day messing around in other people’s poo pipes,’ I snapped. Auntie Lyd frowned again, but I was out of the door before she could say anything. She thought Jim was so great, so helpful and kind. She couldn’t see through him like I could.
I stomped crossly to the tube. Some mornings the commute was worse than others, and of course this morning was one of those. As if I wasn’t cross enough. I knew that Jim’s judgement only got to me because I shared it. My love life was laughable. My job was stupid. Not that I wanted to give it all up to become a plumber or a carpenter or anything – I didn’t agree with the suggestion that manual labour was the only key to happiness – but I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever found satisfaction in my work. My main focus had always been on Martin and on our relationship; I hadn’t looked to work for any sort of fulfilme
nt other than the chance it offered me to nose around historic properties and view artworks at close range. Now that I had no relationship to speak of, my work life was suddenly lit up harshly, like a vase on a plinth, and in this bright light there was no disguising that this was one shabby, cracked vase. And I was hardly even writing about art history at the moment – my entire focus was this stupid dating column. For all the satisfaction I was getting from work, I might as well be writing for a magazine like Budgerigars Monthly; at the very least I’d probably get paid more there.
I took one look at the crowd, five people deep, on the northbound platform at Clapham Common, and decided I didn’t have the energy to push my way into the mass. If I went in the wrong direction for a few stops, perhaps as far as Balham, the crowds would thin out and it would be easier to get on a train into town. I turned to face the opposite platform, where a train was already arriving. On the empty southbound tube I picked up a copy of Metro and enjoyed the novelty of having a seat, even if only briefly. Sometimes going backwards was the only way you could go forward; wasn’t that true in life sometimes, too? I had to believe that these dates with unsuitable men, as ridiculous as they seemed, were taking me somewhere better. That being Country House’s dating guinea pig was going to lead me on to better things. Otherwise what was I doing with my life?
21
In the full spirit of going backwards to go forward, I forced from Ticky the password to the My Mate’s Great website and accompanied my morning tea with a browse through the available profiles. To be honest it was more about distracting myself from memories of last night with Malky than any genuine enthusiasm for the online offerings. Even if he still had my number, which he didn’t, I had no hope at all that he would have called now that his poor dog had been mauled by Mr Bits. At least, I consoled myself, I had a suitably dramatic end to that particular column. Although I would have to write it very carefully: our readers, the postbag told us, strongly favoured dogs over cats. I decided to add on a made-up postscript about Gordon escaping unharmed except for his canine pride.
Surfing through the profiles made for depressing reading. I had had no idea of the sadistic nature of internet dating until now. Of course I had heard the usual horror stories – the twenty-eight-year-old supposed triathlete who turns out to be an obese agoraphobic, the professed six-footer who would make a hobbit look tall – but these, it seemed, were the very tip of a horrific iceberg. I had imagined there would be a smorgasbord of eligible unsuitables for me to choose from, and that it would be a matter of simply choosing who looked the most appealing. Instead my assumptions were shaken by the appearance of something on the website called ‘Close Match’, by which a man who had looked at your profile could declare, instead of his interest, his lack of it. I was horrified to see that twenty-two men of whose existence I had previously been unaware had chosen to indicate that they were not interested in me. It felt like being tapped on the shoulder in a bar by someone you had not even noticed, and informed that they didn’t find you attractive.
But this was significantly less worrying than the quality of the fourteen men who had, instead, picked me as a favourite. I knew that Ticky had set the parameters of my ideal match to be as inclusive as possible, but it concerned me profoundly when I saw the terrifying array spread before me. It was like a game of Guess Who – get rid of all of those unable to write without slipping into incoherent text-speak. Ten remain. Get rid of the men who, despite knowing me to be in London, hope I might be available for a first date in Sheffield or Penzance. Seven remain. Ticky, reminding me of the unsuitable-men agenda, refused to allow me to get rid of the man whose photographs all showed him with his hands cupping his face, or half swathed in a scarf in what we both decided must be an unsubtle attempt to hide a double chin. She agreed, though, that I could delete the astrologer who claimed to be ‘uninhibited and adventurous’ as it was all too clear that this meant a world of nipple clamps and partner-swapping that was just a little too unsuitable for my remit. Six remained.
I scrutinized their profiles mournfully, wondering if they had looked at mine with the same feeling of deep foreboding. There was a preponderance of IT professionals looking for a ‘partner in crime’ to ‘make the most of all London has to offer’, which appeared to mean ‘sitting on the sofa sharing a great bottle of wine and a DVD’. Of these I deleted, despite Ticky’s protests, the one who offered ‘free chocolate and shoes!!!!’, as if I were a child whose head might be turned by proffered sweets and shiny things. Sod off, I thought, I can buy my own chocolate and shoes; I can’t ever buy back an hour of my life spent in the company of someone so incredibly tedious. Was I their last resort, too? Had I been spoiled by going out with Martin for so long? I had always known I had been lucky to get together with someone like him. Okay, so he was an accountant rather than a film producer or something glamorous – but he was smart, successful, reliable. Perhaps I had been kidding myself for all this time that I belonged with a man like that, when the reality was not only that he had been out of my league, but that I should be grateful for the attentions of a group of men who closely resembled the freakish customers of the bar in Star Wars, rather than the Han Solo I had hoped for. It wasn’t like I was fresh out of university any more. I was hurtling towards my thirtieth birthday. I guessed this was what people meant when they said you had to make compromises as you got older.
As I clicked open another profile an email popped up from Luke, whose approaches had become more determined the more I ignored him.
I’ll be waiting for you in the stationery cupboard in five minutes. Hurry.
I deleted it instantly. If anyone saw it they’d be forgiven for thinking that I was actually carrying on an affair with him; in Luke’s hormonal imagination I probably was. I shuddered at the thought of Amanda seeing one of his emails – I’d have her attention then, and for all the wrong reasons. I saw Luke lope past my office, smirking suggestively and gesturing towards the room where we kept our supplies.
I ducked my head down and carried on looking at My Mate’s Great. The very best thing I could say about the men from the internet, I realized, was that at least each of them was a total stranger, unrelated to anyone in my real life. If our dates were unsuccessful at least I wouldn’t have to encounter them again on a daily basis like Luke. Surely that was a bonus?
Despite Ticky’s insistence that I should select the most unsuitable of the remaining men for my first internet date, I chose to contact only the ones that I thought had at least the appearance of normality. Once I was a more experienced dater I might be able to brave some of the others, but it seemed wise to me to ease myself into the world of internet dating by going for those who at least seemed like they might be okay; although of course still technically unsuitable in some way.
Dave, twenty-two, was a personal trainer. His profile had been written by his best friend, Bazza, but to be honest I didn’t really read it. It was all about the photographs, which showed him smiling broadly as he hung off climbing walls, crossed marathon finish lines, and clasped a surfboard to his bared chest. Unsuitability rating: low. But he counted as another toyboy.
Stu, thirty-one, was a vet. His photographs all showed him posing with fluffy kittens or adorable puppies. It was shameless, but effective. I half expected to see a photograph in which he cradled a newborn baby, but perhaps he had realized that might be taking it a step too far. His veterinary nurse had written a profile for him, which suggested that either she entertained a vast crush on her employer, or he had dictated it to her to cast himself in the most flattering possible light. Unsuitability rating: very low indeed. In fact I quite fancied him. But he was based in Sussex, so got in on a technicality (long distance).
Sebastian, whose profile had been written by his sister, was thirty-nine. He had worked as a war correspondent in Kosovo, Rwanda and Darfur, which suggested both an admirable social conscience and a sense of adventure. He had recently come back to London after fifteen years away and, his sister said, he was looking
to put down roots. Although all of his photographs were either cropped at forehead level or showed him wearing a hat, which suggested a lack of hair that his profile didn’t admit to, he was attractive in a weather-beaten, sunburned sort of way. Unsuitability rating: another low, but Ticky assured me that single men in their late thirties were all unsuitable commitment-phobes.
As Flickers poked his head into my office I guiltily switched my screen back to a feature on kitchen gardens to disguise my obvious lack of work. Although technically I suppose unsuitable men were work, it still felt slightly embarrassing to be caught perusing the profiles of internet strangers.
‘Rory,’ he asked, ‘have you seen Luke? He disappeared off a few minutes ago and I need him for a mail-out.’
‘Oh,’ I said innocently, ‘I thought I saw him heading towards the stationery cupboard.’
Two minutes later there was a roar of horror from down the corridor. Shortly after that Luke ran past my office pulling his trousers up. And ten minutes after that his work-experience placement was terminated for good.
22
As the days passed, I failed to hear from any of the supposedly unsuitable men I’d emailed. More profiles appeared in the Close Match section. Malky did not get in touch – I tried to tell myself that he would have called if only he’d had my number, but who was I kidding? The only unsuitable man who had seemed to have any kind of potential for suitability had run screaming from my home just like his dog. If this were my own love life, to live as I chose, I would have given up at this point. After all, wasn’t there a whole school of thought that said being single was a rite of passage for women? That a period outside relationships was all about finding your own identity? It was the sort of thing that Auntie Lyd went on about constantly: that no woman could truly say she knew herself unless she had spent a significant amount of time on her own. Perhaps Auntie Lyd’s often alarming confidence in her own opinions was a result of that very independence from someone else’s influence throughout most of her adult life. And yet she’d been so encouraging about my dating unsuitable men. Probably only so that they would act as a vaccine against the truly unsuitable: that the small doses of bad boys would inoculate me from properly falling for the really terrible ones. Or just put me off men altogether, I thought, which Auntie Lyd would probably also support.