by Jane Green
By the end of our lunch, and I swear, no one is more surprised by this than me, I’ve made two decisions. One is to call Ed McMann this afternoon, and the other is that I quite like Amanda Baker. Okay, she’s not someone whom I’d normally consider being friends with, but after our bit of female bonding over lunch, I think she’s quite sweet really, and as we leave I decide that I’m going to try to get her a bit more coverage, work a bit harder for her. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that she’s my new best friend or anything, it’s just that she’s all right, she’s one of us, if you know what I’m saying.
So I go back to the office and pull out Ed McMann’s business card again, and I sit for a while looking at it, and then I pick up the phone and dial his number.
“Hello, is Ed McMann there, please?”
“Who may I say is calling?”
“Libby Mason.”
“And will he know what it’s in connection with?”
“Yes.”
“May I tell him?”
“Tell him what?”
“What it’s in connection with?”
“It’s, umm. Don’t worry. He’ll know.” What is this, for heaven’s sake? The Spanish Inquisition?
And then there’s a silence, and I sit and listen to piped music for a while, and finally, just when I’m about to give up, Ed comes on the phone.
“Libby?”
“Ed?”
“Libby! I’m so delighted you phoned. I was so worried you didn’t get my messages.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I’ve been running around like a madwoman, I’ve been so busy.”
“Never mind, never mind. You’ve phoned now! I was giving up hope! When are you free for dinner?”
“I’ll just look in my diary,” I say, looking in my diary. “When were you thinking of?”
“Tomorrow night?”
Naturally there’s nothing in my diary for tomorrow night, but do I really want to see this man so soon? Nah, I don’t think I do, I think I’d be much happier staying in and watching the box.
“I’m sorry,” I say, sounding as if I mean it. “But this week’s horrendous. How about next week, that’s looking pretty clear.”
“Oh, umm. Okay. Actually, what about the weekend? Saturday night?”
Now Saturday night’s a big night. Saturday night is not a night to give up for just anyone, particularly a man I don’t even fancy, but then again, he’s bound to take me somewhere nice, and he may not be Nick, but he is one of the most eligible men in Britain, and I really ought to be a bit more excited about this than I am, so okay, I’m game on.
And Ed is so excited I can practically hear him jumping up and down. He takes my address and I laugh to myself, wondering what he’ll make of my tiny little basement flat in grotty Ladbroke Grove, because he must live in some unbelievable mansion somewhere, but I don’t really care what he thinks, and he says he’ll pick me up at eight and book somewhere special.
I say goodbye and ring Jules without even putting down the phone.
“I have a date with one of the most eligible men in Britain on Saturday night!” I say, and I do add an unspoken exclamation mark at the end of my sentence, because actually I’m pretty damn pleased with myself.
“Who?”
“Ed McMann.”
“Ed? Ed that we met?”
“Yup.”
“What do you mean, one of the most eligible bachelors in Britain?”
I repeat, word for word, what Amanda told me over lunch.
“Jesus,” she says. “That’s a result. And he sounds much more you than that Nick.”
See? Already Nick’s become “that Nick”—not someone involved in my life, someone in my past, someone who never had a future.
“In what way?”
“Oh, come on, Libby, he’ll probably take you to amazing places and buy you wonderful presents and you’ll love every minute of it.”
“Jules, I think you’re jumping a bit ahead of yourself here. I mean, I hardly know the guy, and I certainly don’t fancy him. At least, I didn’t the other night.”
“Fine,” she laughs. “Let’s just wait and see.”
I wake up on Saturday and have to admit that, while I’m not exactly jumping with joy at the prospect of tonight’s date with Ed, I do have slight butterflies, but I suspect that’s more to do with having a date at all rather than who the date’s with. And I still miss Nick.
I get all the boring chores done—dry cleaners; cleaning the flat; sorting out all the shit I don’t have time for during the week—and then, after I’ve settled in front of the Brookside omnibus, I start planning what to wear.
A black suit, I decide. A suit that’s smart, sophisticated, and always makes me feel fantastic. But I don’t want to look too straight, even though, from what I remember, Ed would make Pall Mall look positively curvy, so I team it with very high-heeled black strappy sandals and a beautiful gray silk scarf tied softly at my neck.
And I look in the mirror and I smile to myself because I certainly look the part, even if I don’t feel it inside, and I feel that I can hold my head up high and walk in anywhere feeling good.
Not that I know where Ed’s planning to take me, but I’m sure it will be somewhere expensive and impressive, and whenever I go to places like that I like to feel well-armed, and the best way of feeling like that is to look fantastic, preferably in designer clothes.
And the flat looks perfect. Well, as perfect as it can look. I even bought armfuls of flowers this morning, and I have to say I’m quite proud of the place, even though I know Ed will probably never have seen anything this small. I’ve done away with the clutter. At least, I’ve swept it under the sofa and into closets, so it looks pristine. I’ve sprayed air freshener around, so it smells like a summer meadow, or so it says on the can, and okay, it wouldn’t pass my mother’s inspection, but I’m damn sure it would pass everyone else’s.
The only thing I haven’t bothered to do is change the sheets, or even shave my legs when it comes to that, because I’m absolutely sure that I will not be going to bed with Ed, or anyone else for that matter, for a while yet, and at the grand old age of twenty-seven I’ve realized that the best contraception of all is hairy legs.
So my outer perfection hides my lower layer of stubble and graying Marks & Spencer knickers, but it hardly matters tonight, and I don’t believe all that rubbish about you feeling more sexy when you’re wearing sexy underwear. It’s crap. As far as I’m concerned you feel more sexy when you’ve lost weight and you’re having a good hair day. Simple as that.
And tonight I have lost weight (I’ve been practically starving myself since my mother’s comment), I’m back to my usual, and I’m having a good hair day, so, when the doorbell rings at eight on the dot, I walk confidently to the door and open it with a gracious smile.
I don’t actually see Ed for a while. All I can see, when I open the door, is the most enormous bouquet of long-stemmed creamy white roses that I’ve ever seen in my life, and they completely take my breath away.
No one’s ever bought me flowers before, you see. I know that sounds daft, but none of my boyfriends have ever been the romantic type, and I’ve always longed for someone who would bring me flowers and chocolates.
I was given chocolates once by a very keen man who arrived to pick me up and handed me a box of Milk Tray. I had to give him ten out of ten for effort, but Milk Tray? They should have been Belgian chocolates, at the very least.
And Jon bought me flowers once, but it was only because I’d gone over to his flat and he’d obviously been out buying loads of flowers for himself, and I was so upset that he didn’t buy me any that I threw a wobbly, and when we left the flat he stopped outside the flower shop and bought me a bunch of wilting chrysanthemums, which was hardly the point. What I remember most clearly about him doing that was his face. He was so proud of himself because he thought I’d be over the moon, but if anything it pissed me off even more.
And here, on my doorstep, is a bu
nch of flowers so big it hides the man standing behind, and as I take the flowers and see Ed, my first thought is that he isn’t nearly as bad as I remember him. In fact, apart from the disgusting mustache, he looks rather nice, really, and we stand there and sort of grin at each other because I’m not sure whether to kiss him or whether that would be too forward, and in the end he leans forward and gives me a kiss on the cheek and says that I look lovely.
I twirl around and he hands me the flowers and of course I invite him in. He stands in the living room and looks around and doesn’t actually say anything, doesn’t say how lovely it is, how clean, how pristine, which is a bit strange because most people, when they come to your house for the first time, compliment it out of politeness, even if they hate it.
I take the flowers and dig out a jug, which is the only thing I’ve got left since I’ve used up my one vase for the flowers I bought myself earlier, and as I arrange them Ed stands there rather awkwardly, so I try to make small talk with him.
“Did you find it all right?” I say, for want of something better.
“I got a bit lost,” he says. “It’s not really my neck of the woods.”
“Where do you live?”
“Regent’s Park.”
“Oh, really? Whereabouts?”
“Do you know the park?”
I nod.
“Hanover Terrace.”
Jesus Christ! Hanover Terrace! That’s one of those huge sweeping Regency Nash terraces that sweeps along the side of the park next to the mosque. I once met someone whose parents live there, and I know that the houses are enormous, and each has its own little mews house at the end of the garden. But maybe Ed has a flat there, maybe it’s not as impressive as I think.
“Do you have a flat?”
“Er, no, actually. I have a house.”
“So you’ve got one of those little mews houses too?”
“Yes,” he laughs. “But I still haven’t figured out quite what to do with it. So how come you live here, Libby?”
“What, in Ladbroke Grove?”
“Yes.”
“It’s the only place I can afford,” I laugh, and wait for him to smile, but he doesn’t. He looks horrified.
“But it’s not very safe,” he says finally. “I don’t think I’d be happy living here.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “You get used to it, and I quite like the fact that there’s such a mixture of people, there’s always something going on. And it’s great place to score drugs.” I can’t help this last comment, it just sort of comes out and I don’t know what it is but something about him being so straight makes me want to shock him.
It works.
“You take drugs?” Now he looks completely disgusted.
“I’m joking.”
“Oh.” And then, thankfully, he starts laughing. “Hilarious,” he says. “You’re ever so funny, Libby.”
I shrug and smile, and then the flowers are in the jug and the jug is on my mantelpiece, and we’re ready to go.
“Libby, I didn’t say this before but you really are looking absolutely beautiful tonight.”
“Thank you.” And thank God I’ve learned to be gracious about receiving compliments. For years I’d say things like, “What? In this old thing?” but now I accept compliments like the sophisticated woman I’m trying so hard to be.
“And I particularly like the scarf,” he says. “It’s beautiful.”
“What? This old thing?” I couldn’t help it. It just came out.
“Is it silk?”
I nod.
“I thought so. Shall we go?”
So we walk out the front door and I can’t help but grin when I see his Porsche—a midnight blue Porsche Carrera, which would have been a convertible had I had anything to do with it, but hell, cars can always be changed, and it’s still a beautiful, wonderful, sexy car.
And not only that. Ed walks round to my side first, opens the door and waits until I get in before closing it gently, and I almost want to hug myself because I can’t believe I’m sitting in a Porsche with one of the most eligible men in Britain, and Jesus, what the hell did I put up with Nick for when I could have had this all along?
“I’ve booked a table at the River Cafe,” he says. “Is that all right?”
All right? All right? It’s fantastic because I haven’t been—it’s far too expensive for my meager pockets—and I’ve heard all about it and it’s the best possible choice he could have made. Plus, and this is important, it’s not too straight or stuffy, in fact it’s pretty damn trendy, and I think I would have been extremely upset if we’d ended up somewhere too grown-up.
“I really wanted to take you to Marco Pierre White’s restaurant, but I couldn’t get a table,” he admits. “I tried begging, but they were fully booked.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “The River Cafe is perfect. I haven’t been and I really want to go.”
“Oh, good.” He smiles at me. “I was so worried you wouldn’t like it. Shall I put some music on?”
“Definitely,” I say approvingly, reaching for the CDs stacked in the glove compartment. “You can always tell what a man’s like by the music he listens to and the books he reads.”
Ed laughs. “So what can you tell about me?”
I pull out the CDs and flick through. Oh dear. Opera and classical music. Lots and lots of opera. Wagner. Donizetti. Offenbach. Bizet. Oh God. I rifle through, praying that there’s something I know, I don’t even mind if it’s something I don’t particularly like, something like, say, Elton John or Billy Joel, but no. Nothing. So I pretend his question was a rhetorical one.
“What would you like me to put on?” Ed says.
“Well, actually,” I say, deciding to bite the bullet and be completely honest. “I’m not really that into classical music.”
“Oh.” There’s a silence. “So what kind of music do you listen to?”
“Pretty much anything and everything,” I laugh. “Except classical and opera.”
“But why not?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I never listened to it when I was young, so I never developed an ear for it.”
“How about this one, then?” he says, reaching over and taking a CD out of my hand. “L’elisir d’amore,” he says, in a perfect Italian accent, the r’s rolling off his tongue. “I think you’ll like this.”
He puts it on and looks at me for approval, and what can I say? It’s all right, really, quite melodic, but it’s opera, for God’s sake, but I can’t tell him this, so I just smile and tell him he made a good choice and that I like it.
And then as we stop at some traffic lights I turn my head and notice that in the car next to us—an old Peugeot 106, just in case you’re interested—are two girls my age, and they’re both looking enviously at the Porsche and at me, and I smile to myself and sink a little deeper into the seat because I’m quite enjoying this. Despite the music.
So I decide that I’m going to make an effort with Ed, even though I suspect he really isn’t my type, but surely he could grow to be my type? Surely if he brings me flowers I could grow to like him? Fancy him? Couldn’t I? I sneak a peek at him driving and feel a wave of disappointment rush over me, because he’s not half as gorgeous as Nick, but then Nick isn’t here, and Ed is.
“Tell me about your job, Libby,” he says, concentrating on the road, but trying to be polite.
“Not much to tell,” I say. “I work in PR on people like Sean Moore.”
“Who?”
I look at him in amazement. “Sean Moore. You must know who he is. He’s the biggest heartthrob since, well, since Angus Deayton.”
“Oh, ha ha. I know who Angus Deayton is! He’s the chap on that program, isn’t he? The news one.”
“Have I Got News for You.”
Ed nods vigorously. “Yes, that’s the one. Very funny show. Always try and catch it if I’m in on a Friday night.”
“And are you usually in on a Friday night?”
“Not usually,”
he laughs. “Most Friday nights I’m working late.”
“Don’t you ever take time off?”
“To be honest with you I suppose I throw myself into work because I haven’t met the right woman yet.”
Now this is a first. I can’t believe he’s telling me this on our first date. And I’m eager to hear more.
“You mean you want to settle down?”
“Definitely,” he says. “Absolutely. That’s why I bought the house in Hanover Terrace. I thought it would be a perfect home for a family and children, but at the moment I’m still rattling around in it all by myself.”
This is getting better and better. The most eligible bachelor in Britain is desperate to get married and he’s taking me out! He’s with me! And I can’t believe his honesty, the fact that he’s willing to admit he wants to get married, the fact that for the first time in my life I’m on a date with a man who doesn’t appear to be allergic to commitment.
Although to be honest, I’m not sure about this whole scared of commitment business. I think it’s become too handy, a useful phrase that men can bandy about whenever they feel like being assholes. And sure, I do believe there are some men who are genuinely terrified of commitment, but there aren’t that many, and for the most part I think it’s that they haven’t met the right woman yet. Because if a man, no matter how scared he professed to be, met the woman of his dreams, he wouldn’t want to let her go, would he? And sure, he might not want to actually get married, but if he were madly in love and risked losing her, he’d do it, wouldn’t he?
That’s what I think, anyway.
And I’m so used to playing games with men, to pretending that I’m this hard, tough, career woman who’s very happy being single and really doesn’t mind, no, loves having relationships which involve seeing each other twice a week if you’re lucky, that I’m not quite sure what to do with someone this honest.
I decide to ask more questions. To see whether he really is for real.
“So how come you haven’t married?”
“I don’t know. I thought I had met the right woman, but then it turned out I hadn’t, she wasn’t the right one. You see, I suppose I’m quite old-fashioned. I don’t understand these career girls, and yes, I think it’s fine for girls to have a bit of independence, but I’m really looking for a wife. Someone who’ll look after me and our children.”