The Case Of The Missing Boyfriend

Dead Chuffed

When I open my front door, the bouquet of flowers that greets me is so vast, so dense, that I can’t actually see who is holding it. The bouquet comprises roses – which I hate – and deep, green sprigs that look like they might have come from the Leylandii in Mrs Pilchard’s garden.
My first thought is, God, how dreadful! And then, in case He, or She, or whoever, or whatever, is listening, I try to think graceful, grateful thoughts instead. For, truth be told, it’s been a stunningly long time since anyone sent me flowers – even awful flowers – and Thinking One’s Way to Happiness says one has to work harder on one’s automatic thought patterns, so working harder, one is.
The voice that springs from behind though, is easily identifiable. “Hi Babe,” it chirrups: Mark, my neighbour from upstairs.
Actually, as Mark both lives in the flat above mine, and works one floor up from me at Spot On advertising he is pretty much “upstairs” in one form or another twenty-four/seven.
I’m feeling somewhat disappointed that the flowers are not the long dreamt of Eureka! moment where gorgeous-unknown-secret-admirer reveals that he has in fact, been in love with me for years. And then again I’m also feeling somewhat relieved that I will not have to house the horrid bouquet for long.
I squash myself against the wall and let Mark squeeze past. “They’re not for you I’m afraid,” he confirms, “they’re for Ian’s mother.”
“I thought you two split up,” I comment, frowning and following him through to the kitchen. “And I thought she was dead.” My gay friends have such a constant stream of boyfriends, confusion is always a distinct possibility.
With me, of course, it’s easier – there is nothing to remember. “What we need here,” I think for the umpteenth time, “is a little redistribution of boyfriend material.” I hope He/She/It is listening.
“Well, yes, they’re for her funeral,” Mark explains, propping the bouquet up in my kitchen sink and turning to face me.
The world is divided into those who dare to address me by my horrific first name, and friends who know better. Mark knows better. “So how is my little C.C?” he asks, stepping forward and kissing me on both cheeks.
“Ok,” I say, vaguely.
“These are nice,” he adds, tapping one of my earrings. “I haven’t seen you for days! Have you been away or something?”
Still thinking about the earrings, I shake my head a little more vigourously than I would otherwise. “No,” I say. “I’ve been stuck down in Media all week trying to sort out the magazine space for those Hi Five ads. Actually, these are props from that shabby/chic photo shoot we did for their autumn collection.” I tap my right ear with my index finger. “...last worn by Angelica Wayne I’ll have you know!”
Mark nods, impressed, “Well, they suit you brilliantly,” he says. “They look even better on you than on her.”
“If only the rest of me looked like her, eh?” I laugh, picturing Wayne’s nano-waist and involuntarily pulling my tummy in.
“I told you, she’s too thin,” Mark says. “She’s ill.”
“...no such thing as too thin in this business,” I say. “Anyway, enough of work... So are you telling me that Ian has now invited you to his mother’s funeral?”
Mark grins and runs his fingers through his tiny Tin-Tin quiff. “I know,” he says enthusiastically. “I’m dead chuffed...” He pulls a face: thoughtful, confused. “Must remember not to say that to Ian... dead chuffed. It’s not ideal, is it? But yes, we’re back together.”
I shrug and shake my head. “But how? I mean the last time you mentioned Ian...”
Mark shakes his head and pushes his lips out. “I don’t know really,” he interrupts. “I mean, I was just getting used to the idea of being single again and then his old mama goes and dies, and within hours he was knocking on my door and weeping all over me. He stayed the night, and then we woke up together and, tada... we’re an item again. Nothing like a bit of grief to put an argument into perspective eh?”
I shake my head. “Apparently not,” I say. “I must remember that one next time someone dumps me. Murdering one of their parents is the answer, it would seem.”
“But I do think it’s a sign at least,” Mark says. “It demonstrates a certain level of trust and intimacy, inviting your boyfriend to a funeral, don’t you think?” He looks at me and wrinkles his brow. “What’s up? Am I burbling? Or is it that you’re jealous?”
“Erm, no!” I laugh, turning away to pull mugs from the cupboard. “Do you want tea?”
But of course I’m jealous. I’m jealous but quick enough to realise that being sorry because I don’t have a boyfriend to invite me to his mother’s funeral is a tad on the sick side of sad and best not admitted to. Ever.
“A cuppa would be lovely,” Mark says, rubbing his nose and then hauling himself up onto the counter top.
“So are the burbling and that jiggly foot there a sign of too much coffee?” I ask pointing the kettle accusingly at him. “Or have you been... you know...?”
Checking the screen of his mobile, Mark replies, “Sweetie – it’s six p.m on a Thursday night!”
Mark is developing quite a cocaine habit, and I have to say, I am beginning to get a bit concerned about it. But then again, it often seems that half of London is taking the stuff these days. I push the bouquet to one side and fill the kettle. “That’s not an answer,” I say. “And well you know it.”
Mark shrugs, rubs his nose again, and grins coyly confirming my doubts. “Maybe a bit,” he admits. “But it was only a booster shot – we had to finish the visuals for Hi-Five and I had a hangover. Plus I’m off tomorrow for this funeral thing, so... Anyway, I’ll be calm now.” He takes a deep breath, then says with theatrical poise, “So how are you?”
I lean back against a cupboard and smile weakly. “Me?” I say with a mini-shrug. “Oh, I’m fine.”
Mark nods thoughtfully. “You look a bit bluesy,” he says.
I shrug again.
“So is this need-a-man blues?” he asks. “Or empty-weekend blues?”
I laugh. “You know me so well,” I say. “Though I actually think it’s just plain old February blues.”
Mark chews the side of his mouth. “I could probably get you an invite to the funeral,” he offers with mock seriousness. “If you want.”
I shake my head. “Not quite that desperate,” I say.
“No,” he says. “I guess not. Actually, you should call Darren. He’s going to some fabulous pervert view on Saturday. Didn’t he tell you?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t seen him all week. As I say, I’ve been stuck down in Media. A private view, you say?”
Mark laughs. “No, this one really is a pervert view,” he says. “Some Colombian bondage photographer called Ricardo something or other. It should be fabulous. Apparently the waiters are all going to be dressed up in gimp outfits. It could be a hoot.”
“And you’re missing this?” I ask incredulously.
Mark wrinkles his nose and nods sadly. “Yeah. Dead in-laws in Glasgow take precedence,” he says.
“She’s from Glasgow?” I say.
“Yeah,” Mark says. “Though I think you’ll find that was from Glasgow is the correct tense. Anyway, call Darren. He split up with Peter again, so I’m sure he would love you to go.”
“I take it Ricardo Thingamajig is gay,” I say, “... the photographer?”
Mark nods and wrinkles his nose. “Probably,” he says, pushing his lips out. “Bisexual at worst, I would think. Or from your point of view, I suppose, bisexual at best.”
I grimace.
“I’m sure there will be some straight arty types there though,” Mark says raising one shoulder. “And it has to be better than sitting here feeling sorry for yourself in the dinge all weekend,” he adds, nodding out of the kitchen window at the mass of green shadow beyond.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.

Once Mark has drunk his tea and swooped off with his flowers, I sit and stare out of the window at the base of the Leylandii and think about the invitation. A year ago I would have jumped at it. But that was before I started worrying about The Missing Boyfriend.
Of course, in a way, I have always worried about The Missing Boyfriend – I have worried about him, or his absence, so frequently that I have had to shorten it to TMB just to save brain energy. Even when I was dating someone, even when I was married to Ronan, or living with Brian, I still worried about TMB, for the person sitting opposite never quite fulfilled the image I had in my mind’s eye about how TMB would/should/could be.
It’s not that I am particularly demanding, honestly it isn’t. It’s just that the men I have ended up with have been so spectacularly lacklustre. And ever since Brian...
A gloomy image of my life with Brian appears at the periphery of my mind’s eye, like a storm on the horizon threatening devastation. I pause and sigh before swallowing hard and pushing it away.
God it’s still there! Three years on, and Brian is still lurking around the edges of my brain ready to pop up at any moment. Break-ups are survivable. It’s the aftershocks that get you.
Suffice to say that ever since that bastard Brian, finding a man, finding the right man, has started to feel urgent, because of, you know, my age. Well, my age and the baby thing.
So Darren & Mark and their boyfriends du jour may be fabulous fun, but I am increasingly aware that they are not the correct route through the maze that is my life – they will not lead me to the TMB.
And so I make a compromise with myself: I will go to the dreaded speed-dating thing again and as a reward I will let myself go to Ricardo Whatsit’s bondage exhibition. And you don’t need to be Mystic Meg to predict which is going to be the most fun.
I reach for my mobile and dial Darren’s number.

Carpenter Pants.

Fridays! They’re always the worst. Days stuffed with itsy-bitsy multicoloured tasks that fill every second of the day, but like M&M’s fail to nourish in any way.
I make a phone call here, send a couple of emails there, courier a dvd to the printer.
These days – and in advertising they are many of them – drive me insane. Because though I run around barely pausing for breath, schmoozing here, smoothing ruffled feathers over there, chivvying along and calming down as required, no single task is ever consequential enough to give any kind of character to the day. These days, and they fall often, though not exclusively, on Fridays, leave little or no sense of achievement. They are the kind of day that, when Ronan or Brian would ask me what I had done that day, (usually in response to my state of evident exhaustion) I was hard pressed to think of a single thing I had achieved.
Nowadays no one asks of course – perhaps the only advantage I can think of in being single.
Though painfully vacuous, these days are, however, essential. For without schmoozing, clients look elsewhere, and without smoothing, ruffled feathers fly away. And without chivvying, neither Media or Creative do anything at all.
It’s four p.m. I put down the phone and sigh. It’s the first time since eight this morning I have had time to think about the ADD nature of the day.
I look over towards the coffee room to see if the dreaded Victoria Barclay is lurking, waiting to assail me with one of her complex look/sigh combinations – a raised eyebrow here, a pouty mouth there. Though the meaning is never explicit, I am always left feeling guilty. Just as with my mother, any look other than a smile leaves me feeling as though I am somehow a disappointment, if not to the partners (of which she is one), then to womanhood, or perhaps even to the entire human race.
And then I think about the chivvying thing again, and realise that Creative haven’t given me anything whatsoever for my Monday morning pitch to Grunge! street-wear, so I grab the phone. When the boys fail to pick up their extension I literally jog across the room and throw myself through the closing doors into the lift.
Gotcha! Victoria Barclay, lying in wait, spider-like, gives me the once over, raises an eyebrow and then screws the end of her nose as if I am perhaps smeared in dog shit. “Running late for a change?” she asks.
I smile at her. “Not at all,” I say.
I turn to face the doors and wait for my chance to escape.
Of course, not getting anything from Creative – The Gay Team as I call them – is pretty par for the course really. As far as I can see they just sit around all day talking about their sexual conquests and smoking until half an hour before the deadline, whereupon they somehow miraculously defy gravity or time or something by slinging together some irritatingly fabulous idea.
Whether this ability to do nothing and then come up with the goods at the last possible moment is a sign of their brilliance, or a severe failure on their part, I can never really decide. I often wonder how good the campaign would be if they spent, say, a whole afternoon on one. But with Mark away, and with Jude famously refusing to work weekends (nothing must get in the way of his cycling) this is cutting things even finer than usual.
Sure enough I catch Jude and Darren leaning out of the window smoking. They drop their cigarettes into an old Marmite jar on the window-sill and spin to face me. “Oh it’s only you,” Jude says. “Damn! Waste of a good ciggy.”
“Thank God you’re still here!” I reply. “Where are the visuals for the Grunge pitch? I just realised, I haven’t had anything.” I note a slightly hysterical tremor in my voice and decide to get a handle on that.
“What? For the pervy jeans?” Darren asks, frowning.
“German carpenter pants I think you’ll find,” I say calmly.
Carpenter pants are in fact black jeans, only with two zips for the fly, one to the right and one to the left of the normal opening. Quite why German carpenters, or anyone else for that matter, should need two zips for peeing is beyond me, but the Grunge! designers are convinced that it’s the next big thing. It is up to us at Spot On to make it so.
Thinking that it’s a bit late in the day for me to still not know this stuff, I ask, “Anyway, why do German carpenters need a double fly? Are they, like, really big or something?”
Darren giggles. “Maybe. Or just into general perviness.”
I sigh. “Come on then,” I say, “spit it out.”
Jude shrugs cutely, and blushes slightly. “Well, that’s the real point, isn’t it?”
I frown. I think I’m being naive, one of my specialities – though when you’re surrounded by gay men, it’s often hard to appear anything else. “Ok,” I say. “I have to sell the damn things. Explain.”
“It’s so boys can get their tackle out,” Jude, now seated at his Mac says, matter-of-factly. “For you know... shagging. Quickly.”
“Is it?” I ask, grimacing at the overload of mental imagery this concept is producing. “And they can’t do that with a normal fly?”
“Well no dear. Not without considerable risk of rubbing it up and down the zip,” Jude laughs.
“Not to mention the risk of getting it caught in the zip,” Darren adds.
I grimace. “Is that really the point?” I say. “Or are you winding me up? Surely button flies...”
“No one can get in or out of a button fly in a rush hon, even you know that,” Jude says.
Darren nods sadly. “That’s why leather-men have had double zips on their gear for years.”
“But how does having two zips help?” I ask, picking up a sample pair of the jeans and unfastening one zip and then the other. The rectangle of tissue between the two zips flaps downwards. “Ahh!” I laugh. “You undo both zips at once.”
Jude rolls his eyes at my apparent slowness.
“So I take it you do have an idea to sell this to the general public,” I say, “because dungeon masters are sooo not our target market here.”
Jude beckons me over and Darren squeezes in beside me. “I just did this mock up,” he says. “There are two campaigns – we run the gay one first, in Gay Times, Têtu in France... what-have-you.”
He clicks and the screen fills with an image. A guy (beautiful, skinny, photoshopped to perfection) is standing in a pub surrounded by white toothed, earnest looking colleagues in business suits. He’s wearing carpenter pants and a sweatshirt, and around his neck is a sketched-in dog collar with a vast long lead which runs out of the door, up into the night sky, and across town before dropping into the hand of a guy who strikes me as a very Village People leather-man in breeches, boots, and one of those peaked military hats. He is heading into the door of another, much dingier looking bar with a neon sign. Across the top of the ad the copy reads, “For guys who like to get^out.” Above the ^ is a hand-written “it.”
“Jesus!” I say. “That’s a bit full-on isn’t it?”
Jude shrugs. “I’d buy a pair,” he says.
“Me too,” Darren says. “That’s brilliant.
I shoot him a look and turn back to Jude. “When you say you have just done this, you really mean, just, don’t you?”
He shrugs.
“So what’s the pitch?” I ask.
Jude grins disarmingly. “Gay culture is all about invisible signs that only those in the know can spot,” he explains. “You know, leather wrist-bands, handkerchiefs in pockets, key chains... So here we see a gay guy, by day, in a work environment, and all those suits he’s with have no idea that by night he’s a dirty little bugger.”
“Truly brilliant,” Darren says.
“Whereas, of course, any other gay man will have seen, “carpenter pants” (he raises his fingers to make the speech marks) or at the very least this advert and know exactly what’s going on.”
“But the target market isn’t only gay men,” I point out.
“No,” he says, clicking on the mouse. “It’s not quite finished yet, but...”
The screen fills with a soviet-propaganda-style image of a couple. The guy has cheekbones you could hang washing on and biceps the size of my thighs, whilst his girl has an Angelica Wayne nano-waist and a tied-back, blond bob. They are standing with their backs to a scene of urban desolation – London, kind-of after the earthquake – whilst before them is a vast, open vista of green fields, cows and daisies. Along the top is a similar tag line. “For men who like to get out of the Grunge!” The guy is, of course, wearing carpenter pants.
“So here,” Jude explains, “we’re showing a Germanic alpha-male who lives the hard life in the city, but spends his free time enjoying nature. He is the touchy-feely nature-lover/muscle-man women want.”
“Is he?” I ask, briefly trying to imagine myself with the touchy-feely, Germanic, alpha-male.
“Yes,” Jude says, “and he’s leading his girl away from the grunge of the city for a lovely day out.”
My focus has shifted to the bulge behind the alpha-male’s double-zip combination, and I decide that Jude is indeed right. He is exactly what women want.
“But what is the double zip gonna do for this guy?” Darren asks.
I frown at him. “Have you worked on this project at all?” I ask.
Jude shrugs. “He hasn’t. But he’s finishing off the visuals this weekend, aren’t you? And the answer is that double-zips aren’t going to do anything for him. It’s fashion sweetie. But once the trendy straight boys see us gay boys running around in carpenter pants they will want them too. This second ad creates a parallel message about it being to do with the great outdoors – it’s an enabler – it creates a second narrative to let them buy something that they would otherwise identify as gay.
I nod. “Ok,” I say, doubtfully. “But heterosexuals do actually have sex you know.” I wait for one of them to say, “Do you?” But no one does, which is a relief. Because if I were being truthful, I would have to admit that not all of us do.
“Yeah, but not in an impromptu whip-it-out kind of way,” Darren says.
I shrug. “It has been known,” I say, affecting my best wise-woman-of-the-world expression. “There are certainly plenty of couples who like to shag in the great outdoors.”
“Well, then the image is perfect,” Jude says. “You can read it either way.”
“If he buys a pair for his girlfriend too then that would certainly speed things up wouldn’t it?” Darren says.
“As long as the zips don’t get stuck together...” Jude giggles.
“So that’s it?” I ask, forcing a serious tone to interrupt the chatter. “This is what I’m pitching on Monday to Clarissa Bowles and company?”
Jude shrugs. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s awesome,” Darren says. “I wish I had made more input, I would have been really proud of that one.”
I shake my head. “Jesus, Mary,” I say. If my childhood priest knew the things I have to sell these days he’d... Actually, truth be told, I do remember a bit of a fuss. He would probably want a pair. He probably has a pair. In leather.
Jude rubs my arm. “You’ll breeze through,” he says. “You always do.”
And it’s true. Every materiel aspect of my life is proof that I can sell anything, even a semi-obscene advertising campaign for completely pointless, outrageously overpriced, double-zipped jeans. I have no idea where this gift-of-the-gab came from, but I’ve been doing it long enough to know that I have it. I just wish I was as good at selling other things, like myself.
“Ok,” I say, with a nod. “I just have to work out how to pitch this without scaring them off. And don’t be late with the story-board on Monday. You know what Clarissa is like about punctuality.”
“Do we still have a date for the private view?” Darren asks, as I turn to the door.
I nod. “You bet,” I say, glancing back.
“Can I borrow a pair of these? They’d be perfect,” he asks, picking up a pair of the jeans.
I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”

Knowing where you’re going.

In this age of virtual-everything, there is something almost old-fashioned, archaic even, about the concept of speed dating. The idea of going to meet ten guys, face to face, in just over an hour, is not only nerve-racking but also somehow a bit quaint. But as virtual-dating on the internet seems to bring nothing more than virtual boyfriends (rare is the man who actually turns up to a date in my experience) – and because my social life in London seems to produce nothing but opportunities for meeting an ever-larger selection of gay men, speed dating it is.
I have to say at this point that I honestly never intended to become such a fag-hag. It just somehow happened. I expect a psychotherapist searching for causes would point rather obviously at my brother Waiine’s death, but I honestly don’t think that that’s the reason. It’s simply that I meet a lot of gay guys through work, and, having nothing whatsoever against them, it would be really stupid of me to refuse all the invitations I get to tag along. Because the events they take me to are, almost without exception, more fun than I get in any other area of my life. But tonight isn’t about fun. Not one bit.
When I have fun out with Mark or Darren or my best friend Sarah-Jane, it’s precisely because there are no expectations. Even surfing Meetic can give me some hope because the most obsessive-repulsive of fuck-ups generally describe themselves as happy-go-lucky, good-looking, etc. At least we both get to pretend that they really are the way they say they are.
Speed dating however generally leaves me feeling suicidal. The guys here sadly aren’t hiding behind twenty-year-old photos of Daniel Day-Lewis. They are sitting there, leering at you, in all their revolting splendour.
So by the time I have sat talking to six guys who look like they needed a crane to get out of bed that morning, three who sound like they may actually have had lobotomies, and generally one, funny, witty hunk who, at the end of the session, inexplicably fails to ask for my phone number, I’m ready for the mortuary. Which is why, whenever I can, I arrange to meet Sarah-Jane for a post-mortem afterwards.
S.J. is perfect for this because a) she lives in Brixton, just around the corner from The Office – the bar where the speed dating is held – and, b) has been in the same relationship since fish first crawled onto land and so, like all such people, thrives vicariously on my dating nightmares. She also has what personality profiles call a sunny disposition, and, more essentially, remains sunnily disposed after a bottle and a half of Chardonnay.

I arrive at The Office about a minute late.
Speed dating appealing to people with busy schedules and being organised by Nazis with stopwatches, it clearly isn’t something one should turn up late to. Everyone glares at me to make sure that I am aware of this.
Thomas, the organiser, sighs and points me to the end of the row. “And you! You can pay afterwards,” he says in his best school-teacher voice.
At the rear of the bar ten tables are lined up. Backs to the wall, facing me, are ten guys. They pretty much fit the previously described mix, only tonight perhaps only five are clinically obese – though on second thoughts, the sixth is definitely border-line. Half of them have beards too which I’m afraid is a no-go area for me. I don’t spend half my life waxing to end up kissing a bunch of pubes.
I scurry by, trying to discreetly check out the guys and the competition, for the most part a similarly comfortable bunch of lassies with their backs to me.
The boys stare at me, some with distaste (presumably at my unspeakable lateness), some with slight leers of interest. All these eyes following me around make me awkward and that awkwardness makes me feel as if I am on a catwalk, which in turn makes the business of putting one foot in front of another seem suddenly terribly complex. This is not helped by the fact that I am wearing my new Jimmy Choos.
And then, two from the end, I see him: dark brown eyes, stubble, neither skinny nor fat, just sort of chunky and sporty, balding... Balding is a plus actually – some kind of daddy-complex, I expect. I must go see a shrink one day to find out.
Brown eyes is wearing a blue, crew-neck jumper over a white shirt, and he’s smiling at me. A good smile, slightly amused.
The smile of course tips the balance and my already floundering feet finally fail catapulting me forwards. I collapse against an empty chair, pushing it and the table hard into the amply padded tummy of another chunky chappy, who turns out to be my first sparring partner.
I apologise profusely to Barry (yes, Barry – I kid you not) and then Thomas shouts, “Are we finally ready?” and the stopwatch starts.
Whilst wiggling my foot under the table in an attempt at untwisting it, I listen to Barry drone on excitedly about how interested he is in computers and how he prefers Windows Vista even though it got a really bad press. He talks about Windows for two and a half of his allotted three minutes, and then somehow cleverly links to how much he appreciates punctuality in a woman. I spend my own three minutes wishing I was anywhere else whilst trying to sound like a total bitch who is trying really hard not to sound like one, but can’t quite avoid letting her true total-bitch-nature slip out. I think I manage this pretty well because Barry wrinkles first one, then both of his hairy nostrils at me.
I am also thoroughly satisfied by my display of self control: I manage to only glance at Brown Eyes twice.

When I arrive, Sarah-Jane is frying slices of Tofu in her tiny kitchen.
“They always disintegrate when I do that,” I tell her as I hang up my coat and cross the room to kiss her on the cheek.
“You have to get the pan really bloody hot,” she explains. “burn the buggers before they realise what you’re trying to do to them. So how was dating-hell this week?”
“Oh, not bad,” I say. “Actually it was bloody awful. But there was one potential at least.”
Sarah-Jane nods. “There’s some Chardonnay in the fridge,” she says in response to my own bottle of shop-warm Bordeaux. “So tell me, what was it like?”
“As I say. They were all revolting except this one guy.”
“What’s his name? And what does he look like? Did you get his phone number?”
“Well he’s got brown eyes,” I say, ignoring the first question, “balding, sort of chunky, a bit rugby-player-ish. Potentially cuddly.”
I pull the wine from the fridge, a glass from the shelf and pour myself a hefty slosh.
“Sounds good,” Sarah-Jane says, fishing strips of browned tofu from the pan and pouring in a bag of stir-fry veg. “No beard then?”
“No beard.”
“So shaggable?”
“Trust you get straight to the point,” I laugh.
But really it’s what I love about Sarah-Jane. Well, one of the many things I love about her. I take a gulp of wine. “Yeah,” I say. “Given the chance... definitely.”
She takes a sip from her own glass. “What did you say his name was?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I didn’t,” I say.
“INS?” she asks.
What with her being a chavvy Essex-girl called Sarah-Jane and me being an equally misnamed daughter of a lawyer from Surrey, we have invented an abbreviation for such situations: INS, or, Inappropriate Name Syndrome.
“Yes,” I say. “Definitely INS.”
“Come on then,” she prompts. “What is it? Dwayne? Barry? Don’t tell me... Winston?”
I laugh. “There was a Barry,” I say. “But no. This one’s a Norman.”
She pulls a face. “Eeek!” she says. “Norman Bates! Doesn’t live with his mum, does he?”
I nod. “I know,” I say. “Personally I kept thinking about that Spitting Image puppet of Norman Tebbit.”
“Fucking hell,” she says. “Norman! That’s not good. That’s really not good.”
“No,” I say. “I blame the parents personally. But if there’s anyone who can ignore a bad first name, well, it’s gonna be me really, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Sarah-Jane says. “I s’pose. What’s his surname?”
I shrug. “We don’t get that information. Just a phone number.”
“...course. But you got it?”
“I did,” I say. “There was a Dustin too...”
Sarah-Jane winks at me. “Now yer talking,” she says. “Always had a thing for Dustins.”
“Yeah, I thought of you. He was about thirty,” I say. “About thirty stone.”
“You’re such a fattist,” she laughs. “Does that exist? Fattist?”
I shrug. “I know...” I say. “I’m not in any other area of my life, honest. I mean, if I have to work with a porker, I don’t even think about it. But having been on a diet since 1971, I don’t expect to then have to sleep with someone who needs industrial liposuction. Does that make me horribly shallow do you think?”
Sarah-Jane shrugs. “Nah love,” she says. “It’s just, well, I like a bit of padding myself. Anyway, you were born in 1971.”
“Exactly,” I laugh. “But seriously, you didn’t see them – you honestly have no idea. Dustin looked like Ricky Gervais. A fat version of Ricky Gervais. Talked a bit like him too actually.”
“Now, you see... I like Ricky Gervais,” Sarah-Jane says, adding the contents of a sachet of sweet and sour sauce to her mix. “I think he’s funny.”
“Yeah, but not in your bed,” I laugh.
“No,” she agrees. “No, I suppose not. Anyway tell me about Norman.” She pulls a face as she says the name.
I shrug. “You don’t get a great deal in three minutes, but he does something in mental health, something to do with half-way houses.”
“Probably lives in one,” Sarah-Jane laughs.
“Don’t,” I say. “I thought that already... He has two brothers, lives in Clapham, likes walking and reading and classical music and rugby.”
“I suppose books and music makes up for rugby,” Sarah Jane says doubtfully.
“Well any more touchy-feely and he’d be gay, and lord knows that’s not what we’re after here.”
“No,” Sarah Jane laughs. “So when are you seeing him?”
I shrug. “When he calls.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“In a week if he hasn’t phoned I suppose I’ll call him.”
Sarah-Jane hands me a plate of food and a fork. “Yeah, best not to seem over-keen,” she says.
“Exactly.”
“Though this being a heterosexual man, best not leave it too long either, or he won’t remember who you are. Goldfish memory and all that. Did I tell you that George forgot my birthday again?”

***

In my taxi home to Primrose Hill, I think somewhat tipsily about S.J. and George, and then as if allowing myself a square of chocolate, I let myself think about Brown Eyes.
I have little fantasies about the two of us living a perfect love affair that worryingly resembles a carbon copy of S.J’s life, for Sarah-Jane, who I have known since college, has it all. Such people really do exist.
She has George (who I believe to be the last of the New Men to be churned out before they gave up and switched back to producing Old Men again). She has lovely supportive parents, a great job promoting Macmillan Cancer Trust, Timotei hair, an overactive thyroid gland (it keeps her weight in check, you see), and utter faith that everything always turns out for the best.
She met George at eighteen and has loved him to bits ever since. I’m not jealous of her – I love her far too much for that. No, S.J’s wonderful life warms me up on an almost daily basis, gives me the hope that comes from seeing that happiness does really exist, that people really do manage it, that relationships really can last.
It’s just her certainty in the future I envy. For nothing bad has ever happened to Sarah-Jane, and her belief in life is unruffled. Next year she and George will have saved enough to move, and for George to stop travelling, and for her to stop work and start a family. She knows that unlike Brian, George will stand by her and remain faithful and be a wonderful father, and I think that despite the odds, despite the bastardly men I seem to meet, and despite the relationships I see crashing and burning left, right and centre around me, she’s probably right.
And I can’t help but think that being so contented about where you have been and being so certain of where you are going, well, that must feel wonderful.

SAD Syndrome

When I wake up on Saturday morning, I can hear rain crashing against the plastic roof of the conservatory. I lie in bed as long as possible until hunger forces me from my pit – it’s just after ten. For as much as rain-when-in-bed is cosy and lovely, rain-once-up depresses the hell out of me. I often wonder if I don’t suffer from that SAD syndrome, though everyone I know wonders that, and if everyone has the same syndrome, isn’t that just called normal life?
Aware that in my best-case-scenario I will have to undress in front of Brown Eyes (I don’t seem to be able to use the Norman appellation just yet) I resist a two-thousand calorie cooked breakfast and make do with a yogurt and a coffee.
I sit at the kitchen table and make it last as long as possible by simultaneously reading the Guardian and staring out at the rain plummeting onto the lawn, but in the end there’s nothing for it: on a cold, rainy, February Saturday, yogurt does not a soul nourish.
I dig some thick-sliced, white, pappy bread from the freezer and toast it and smother it with butter and marmalade and make myself a fresh coffee, this time a frothy cappuccino. I’ll just have to consume nothing for the rest of the weekend to make up for it. I wonder, not for the first time, if it wouldn’t be easier to just vomit everything up like Angelica Wayne does.
The toast soothes and I drift into a much nicer reverie involving me cooking a wonderful healthy lunch for Brown Eyes. I see myself chopping vegetables, and grilling fish like some modern version of a Stepford Wife and then hubby comes in and says, “Hello gorgeous!” Then, “Oh, sorry love, I don’t think I can handle fish. Not with this hangover.”
Quite why my daydreams always end up so badly I have no idea. Well, actually I do. That scene is an act for act representation of my life with Ronan. He was alcoholic, and being drunk, or having a hangover, were his excuse for just about anything he didn’t want to do. Or anything he did want to do for that matter.
I try another scenario. Brown Eyes and I are shagging away this rainy Saturday. The bed feels warm and wonderful. He rolls on top of me, slips his way in, and then pauses, looks into my eyes and says, “You are still on the pill aren’t you? You know how I feel about kids.”
You guessed it. Brian.
As a distraction, I spend a leisurely hour-and-a-half plucking and peeling away any evidence that I too might be descended from an ape. Beauty magazines call this pampering, but there’s nothing pampering about it. It hurts. It’s hell.
I dress in my favourite tattered jeans and a paint-stained sweatshirt and head back through to the kitchen, half thinking about food again, half realising that I could have missed a phone call whilst I was washing my hair. When careful checks of the Blackberry and landline reveal that I haven’t I turn inevitably back to food and cook two sausages to make an evil thigh-expanding sausage sandwich. I then get a grip and bin one of the sausages and one of the slices of bread. When I have eaten the remaining half-a-sandwich, I shamefully peer into the bin to see where the rejected sausage and bread have landed, but they are in a splodge of dried up cat food which means of course that for now I am saved.
“Humm,” I think. “Cat.”
I frown and look around the kitchen. I call Haggis, but he doesn’t appear. I check the office and the bedroom.
I peer out of the kitchen window and spot him at the bottom of the garden sheltering under the Leylandii, and then I see what I have been waiting for for months: a flash of yellow behind the fence.
I open the back door, grab an umbrella from the hall and run outside. Haggis screams his own catty version of reproach at me and bounds inside in a soggy blurr.
At the bottom of the garden, I stand on tiptoe and finally catch Mrs Pilchard beneath the Leylandii. Quite what the old bag is doing weeding in the pissing rain I have no idea.
“Oooh!” I call out.
Mrs Pilchard visibly jumps. “Oh, you made me jump,” she confirms. “Creeping up on people like that! Honestly!”
“I didn’t,” I say. “Anyway, I’m sorry I made you jump.”
“Sorry dear?” she asks, straightening her back and wiping her hands on her pinny.
“Nothing,” I shout. “It’s about your tree.”
“I’m just doing a bit of weeding,” she says. “Lovely day. Such bright sounds.”
I pause to listen, but other than the white noise of the rain and the swish of cars drifting from the main road beyond the roofs I can hear nothing. “Yes,” I say. “Lovely. Now I need to talk to you about this thing.”
“What thing?” she asks.
“This thing!” I say, pointing above our heads. “It’s getting out of hand. It is out of hand.”
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she says, smiling up at the tree.
“Well... beauty is in the eye and all that,” I say. “But it’s too big. It’s cut virtually all of the sun out. My lawn is dying because of the shadow. I can’t even grow herbs in the kitchen anymore. Actually I feel like I’m dying because of the shadow. You have to get it pruned or something.”
“Pruned?” she laughs. “You can’t prune a tree dear.”
I think you probably can, but she has gained an advantage, because what I know about trees you could write on... well, on something really really tiny. “Well, you need to do something,” I say. “Maybe get it thinned, or perhaps...” I cough. “Cut it down?”
“Now why would I want to do that?” she says. “A lovely tree like...”
“Because otherwise I shall phone the council,” I say, forcefully. “I’m sure there are rules about this sort of thing.”
Remaining on my toes to peer over the fence is making my feet hurt, which in turn is adding to my general irritation about the Leylandii, and my dingy kitchen, and the rain dripping down my back, and not ever being able to eat enough food to actually not feel hungry, and not having a boyfriend and the many, many disappointments of life in general.
At this point she places one hand on each hip and smiles at me, and I wonder, not for the first time, if she isn’t a little doolally.
Demonstrating that she definitely isn’t, she says, “Well phone them then dear. They just started a plant-a-tree and save-the-planet campaign. Did you see the posters?”
As it happens, I did. They’re everywhere.
“I’m sure they would love to talk to you about trees,” she continues.
I shake my head and sigh as she gives me a little wave, chucks a, “Tattar!” over her shoulder and struts off into her house.
I return to my kitchen, feeling irritated about the tree, and to be honest, somewhat disappointed that our argument didn’t last longer. It felt like shouting at her was kind of helping my mood. Plus now I still have six hours to kill before I am supposed to meet Darren.
I move through to the lounge and glance at the TV: anaesthetic on demand. I resist it for a few more minutes by pressing my nose against the bay-window.
I watch a mother run to her absurdly sized 4x4 whilst sheltering her child with her coat. I see the postman push a trolley of soaked letters past and think that it is somewhat irresponsible of him not to flap the lid back over to protect the letters and that if he delivers a piece of soggy pap through my letterbox, I shall tell him so. In a friendly manner of course, not like some grumpy old woman! But he just walks straight on to number forty-eight, denying me the pleasure.
With no further action on the street, I settle onto the sofa nursing the Sky remote. Haggis, who knows that my lap is warmer than the cushion, jumps onto me immediately. He’s still pretty damp, but because it’s my fault he’s so wet, and because his presence, even soaked, is comforting, I let him stay.
My finger hesitates over the button for an instant, and then I realise that I have not one, but two recorded episodes of Desperate Housewives on the hard disk. Watching how those Yankee bitches deal with their problem neighbours is the perfect balm, because, of course, being American, the solution generally involves murder.
I click the button to fast-forward through the commercial break. I suppose that as I depend on advertising for a living, this is somewhat contradictory, but I figure that as the monster that is advertising devours my working week – there’s no reason to feed it my weekends as well.
Just as I hit play in order to find out which of the residents of Wisteria Lane have died in the freak tornado that has devoured their homes and ripped up all of the trees (now there’s something to dream about), the phone rings.
As the number is hidden, I hesitate. My first thought is that it could be Brown Eyes, so I should really pick up.
But if it is Brown Eyes and he asks me out tonight I will have to miss the photography party thing, or refuse the date which would seem terribly ungrateful.
Then again, if it is him and he doesn’t leave a message then I shall never know that it was him which would be awful.
And if I do answer and it isn’t him then I might have to listen to one of those new hyper-aggressive double-glazing callers and have to be rude, which always leaves me feeling bad in a you-horrible-person-she-was-only-trying-to-earn-a-living kind of way.
Finally I decide that if it is him and I do tell him I’m too busy tonight because I have an invitation to an art exhibition then I shall just appear to be a jolly hip groovy chick with a seductively exciting lifestyle. In the final millisecond before it switches to voicemail I stab the answer button.
The voice that greets me though, is not the soulful baritone of Brown Eyes, but the hyperactive twitter of my mother. “Oh you are there!” she says. “I didn’t think that you were going to answer and I was just about to hang up myself.”
“I thought you...” I start, but she interrupts me.
“And then I thought, of course, she’ll be out galavanting around with all her London friends, or shopping or at work, but no! You are actually in.”
“Yes, But I thought...”
“I’m so glad I caught you though dear. You know, I tried to call you yesterday but...”
“I was at work, Mum.”
“Yes, and then I realised I had the days mixed up. That happens as you get older, you’ll see, and even more when you’re on holiday. The days all just seem to slip into each other. It is Saturday, isn’t it?”
“Yes Mum. But aren’t you supposed to be in...”
“Well I am dear. I’m phoning you from the hotel.”
“Ok...” I say vaguely. “It’s just that you always say that it costs too much to call from the hotel and...”
“Yes, but this chap I met bought me this calling card thingy,” she says. “It’s terribly complicated, you have to dial a number and then another number, and then a pin code, and then the number for England, and then your number.”
“Right,” I say. “What chap?” My mother doesn’t meet chaps.
“Honestly love, it’s like a hundred numbers all together, and it took me three attempts just to get them all right, which is why I’m glad I caught you as I don’t think I would have had the courage to try again. But apparently it’s cheap as chips.”
“Great,” I say. “What chap?”
“Oh he’s just this local lad I met in the souk. He’s been showing me around.”
“What, like a guide?” I ask.
“Humm,” she says. “Anyway, how are you my love?”
Now my mother virtually never asks me about myself, and when she does she certainly never pauses long enough for me to actually reply. I am surprised and more than suspicious. “I’m... fine,” I say. “But who is this guy?”
“Which guy?” she asks, suddenly senile.
“The guy who bought you the calling card,” I say.
“Oh him. He’s lovely darling. I’m sure you two would get on like a house on fire. Anyway, I’m glad you’re Ok. I suppose I had better hang up though. If I save some of the card I can give you another call next week, though to be honest, I haven’t the foggiest how many minutes I get with this thing anyway.”
“Mum!” I say. “Who...”
“Anyway, have a lovely weekend. Toodle-pip.”
And with that she hangs up.
I sit and stare at the handset for a moment, for everything about the call is wrong, starting with the fact that she called me at all.
Mum has spent the last three winters in Morocco. She stays in a cheap hotel in Agadir with full board from December to March. It would seem that there are lots of oldies doing this now, and she claims that it is cheaper to stay in a hotel there than feed herself and pay the heating bill in England. The way gas prices have been rising she’s probably right. But it remains the case that, until today, not once has she phoned me during these sojourns.
Also, although the form of the call, her inimitable, uninterruptible monologue, is entirely normal, the fact that she sounded so upbeat, didn’t mention her sciatica or her migraines or even her recurrent sinusitis, is literally a first, for her calls are generally more monologue-of-pain than anything else.
And yet the obvious conclusion – that my sixty-nine year old mother is having a holiday romance – is unthinkable. Isn’t it? Or is that just me doing a classic, my mother-can’t possibly-have-a-sex-life, thing? My mother-can’t possibly-have-a-sex-life-if-I-don’t, thing...
I put the handset back on the base-station and stare blankly at the frozen image on the TV screen: Terry Hatcher is holding a gun and looking nervous. Her arms look uncomfortably thin to me.

The Right Words

When I get out of the taxi in Shoreditch, Darren is already standing outside Old Street station – our arranged meeting place. The rain has stopped and the street is glistening with reflected light from neon signs and passing cars. People are streaming in and out of the station, but it’s not hard to spot Darren: he’s the only person wearing carpenter pants.
As I reach him, I laugh and shake my head. “You rat!” I say. “I mean, what’s the point of asking me if you then just ignore what I say?”
Darren grins sheepishly and pecks me on the cheek. “I knew you wouldn’t really mind,” he says. “And they’re so perfect for tonight’s event, I couldn’t resist it.” He grabs my arm and we head off towards Hoxton Square.
“Only I did mean it,” I tell him. “We’re under contract not to reveal the product before the launch in March. If anyone sees you...” I shake my head.
“Oops,” he laughs.
“Oops indeed. If anyone asks you where you got them...” I lean back and check his bum.
“No, there’s no brand on this pair,” he confirms.
“If anyone asks, say you bought them in a street market in Spain. That’s where they get all their stuff made and there are always strays and rejects popping up.”
“Sorry,” Darren says. “If it’s really important I can go back and change.”
I sigh. “No. It’s fine,” I say. “But don’t make a habit of it.”
“Hey, I’m so glad you came,” he says, steering me across the road. “I hate going to these things on my own.”
“Yeah, what happened to Pete?” I ask. “I thought you were in love.”
“Oh, you know me,” Darren says. “There’s always something wrong. It just takes a few days to find out what.”
“Like?”
He shrugs. “We don’t like the same things, or we don’t have the same view of relationships, or we both want to bottom.”
“Bottom?”
“Yeah, we both want to be, you know...” He whispers the final word. “Fucked.”
“Oh, right,” I say. “Sorry. Of course. And with Pete?”
“Oh Pete? I found out he wore brown socks,” Darren says nodding sadly. “I couldn’t possibly date a guy who wears brown socks, could you? And they were nylon. Yes, there’s always a brown sock moment, sadly.”
I steal a glance to see if he is winding me up but he looks deadly serious. “I could probably put up with that,” I say. “If everything else was Ok.”
A rough-looking girl with a cigarette coming the other way, barges into my arm and knocks me into Darren’s side. “Hey!” I say, turning to look at her as she heads on down the street. “Just, you know... look where...”
She stops in her tracks and turns back to face me. “You got a fuckin’ problem?” she asks. She looks drunk.
Darren seizes my arm tightly and forces me on along the road. “Don’t engage,” he says. “Come on.”
I glance behind to check that the chavvy serial killer isn’t following us, and say, “Is it me or is London getting more and more aggressive?”
“No, it’s terrible,” Darren agrees. “One word out of place and you could get stabbed.”
“So you’re not joking? About the socks?”
Darren shakes his head. “They were horrible,” he says. “The ultimate turn off.”
“Right,” I say. “Fair enough.”
We turn down a side street and then into Boot street. “I’m loving these jeans though,” he says. “They’re ever so comfortable.”
“They look great on you too,” I say. “They really make your arse look good.” I pause and pull a face. “I mean, of course, that they really show off your arse. Your already fabulous arse!”
Darren gives me a circumspect look and raises an eyebrow. “I’ve been doing squats at the gym all week,” he says. “My arse better be looking good. You’re looking pretty smooth too by the way. That outfit makes you look almost attractive.” He grins at me cheekily.
I’m wearing my favourite D&G little black dress, a black cashmere coat and my Christian Louboutin Robot Boots. “Yes, I thought black was safest,” I say.
“The boots are perfect,” Darren says with a nod. “I’d quite like a pair of those myself. So what did you get up to last night?”
“Oh I went to speed dating,” I say. “I hate it, but you know...”
“I can’t think of anything worse,” Darren says. “I do all my shopping online these days.”
“Do they actually do gay speed dating?” I ask.
Darren wrinkles his nose. “I don’t think so,” he says. “Then again, I suppose that’s all our bars and pubs ever are. Speed dating, speed shagging, speed splitting up. So not good then?”
“No,” I say. “Same as you really. There’s always something wrong. There’s always a brown-sock moment when you realise that they have some terrible structural flaw. A terrifying number of them are really badly overweight these days. It’s scary.”
“Not so much a problem with our lot,” Darren says. “But I do know what you mean. I notice it when I go out to straight pubs. We’re turning into American burger-eaters. But I suppose if you’re in it for the long haul, you could always choose one and then put him on a diet.”
“Yeah,” I say. “If you get that far... I suppose. But then, couldn’t you just have bought Pete some new socks?”
Darren laughs. “It wasn’t that really!” he says. “God I love that you’re so gullible.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well, you’re jolly convincing.”
“No, it turned out Pete had a boyfriend up in Leeds.”
“I thought he went there for work,” I say.
“Yeah, me too,” Darren says sadly. “But no. They’ve been together for fourteen years.”
“How did you find out?”
“I logged into my email and his came up instead. He had been using my laptop and forgot to log out. And more fool me, I took a peep. And there were, like, three messages a day from this Lee guy.”
“God, how awful.”
“Pete made out that it didn’t matter because of course they have an open relationship, blah, blah... But I asked him, ‘Do I look like a side-dish for bored couples?’”
I giggle. “Great line,” I say. “I never think of things like that until after the event. And?”
“He said that, yes, I did. Look like one, that is.”
“Oh!”
“Well, it wasn’t so bad really. He said, yes, I did, and a very appetising one at that.”
“Smarmy bugger.”
“Exactly.”
“And you weren’t having any of it? Good for you.”
Darren wrinkles his nose. “No,” he says. “I’m thirty-five in October. I always promised myself that if I wasn’t married by thirty-five I would kill myself, so I don’t have time for any pissing around.”
“I know the feeling,” I say.
He pulls me to a halt, and looks up at the blanked out windows of the gallery. “Looks like we’re here,” he says. He pulls an invitation card from his pocket and flashes it at me. It says, “White Box Gallery – Hoxton Square. Ricardo Escobar – Perverted Justice. Private Viewing.”
“Shall we?” Darren asks, gesturing towards the door.
I squeeze his arm. “Sure, but first...” I say. “You wouldn’t would you?”
“What?” he asks.
“You wouldn’t think about... you know...”
Darren laughs. “Oh hon,” he says. “Of course not. These days I don’t even get watery-eyed over them. I’ve had six-inch steel plating fitted all around my heart.”
“Good,” I say. “Because I really like having you around.”
“Come on then,” he says. “This is gonna be good.”

As the windows and doors have been blanked out, the interior of the gallery is a complete surprise. The single, vast, white-walled room already contains about thirty people, mainly rather attractive thirty-something men. They are milling around appraising the huge black and white photos on the walls, or circling the giant installation in the centre. A few are chatting around the drinks table at the far end. Everyone of course is dressed in black.
I feel suddenly nervous. Art exhibitions do this to me. I’m always terrified that someone will ask me for an opinion. For though I generally have the gift of the gab in most social situations, I have never been able to master that weird brand of art-speak people use at exhibitions. My opinions on visual art rarely extend much further than liking or not liking whatever is in front of me.
“Jees! Will you look at that!” Darren mutters, moving into the room towards the centrepiece.
“I know...” I say. “Amazing.”
In the middle of the room are four life sized figures. The first, a bare-chested, steroid-pumped, black-leather version of a gladiator, is standing on a sledge. He is holding the reins of three... how to describe them... virtual husky dogs I suppose you could say. These three “dogs” are actually men though: men on all fours, in harnesses. They are wearing nothing but big labourers boots and leather shorts. They have little pretend puppy-tails and rather unnerving doggy masks hiding their faces.
“That’s incredible,” Darren says.
“And so realisti...” I say. But as I say it one of the reins twitches ever so slightly. “Oh my God!” I laugh, stepping forwards until I am a yard away from the main centurion figure. “They’re real!” I gasp, peering into the centurion’s face, which twitches with a restrained smile.
“Awesome,” Darren says.
I walk around the figures shaking my head. At least ten other people are doing the same. It crosses my mind that we look like a tribal circle surrounding these man-dogs. And as we are all dressed in black, we almost look like we are part of the exhibit – it’s actually quite unnerving. “Ouch,” I murmur. “Are those pretend tails...”
But then I realise that Darren is no longer beside me. He has crossed the room to the drinks table, where a heavy-set yet attractively swarthy guy in a black suit is talking to him. I clomp my way across the marble floor to rejoin him.
“So you like my installation?” Swarthy asks, his Latin accent thick. He picks up a glass of champagne and hands it to me.
“Oh, incredible,” I say. “You’re the artist?”
He nods.
“Well, I’m speechless.” It strikes me as I say it, that being speechless provides excellent cover for having nothing intelligent to say. I must remember it for future exhibitions.
“And my photos?” he asks.
“I haven’t had a chance to look yet,” I reply.
“Ok, well do come tell me what you are thinking when you have finish,” he says. “And you...” He directs this at Darren. “Don’t go before you have give me your phone number.”
As he moves away, I say to Darren, “Wow, that was quick!”
Darren shrugs and leans in towards my ear. “He seems really nice, but he’s not really my type to be honest,” he murmurs.
Darren and I follow the general direction and move clockwise around the room, pausing in front of the first photograph: a vast black and white macro-shot. The photos are taken at such close proximity and cropped so heavily, that it’s hard at first to work out what many of the images are of. This makes the whole viewing process a bit like one of those game shows on TV where you have to identify the object. Only the answers here are ruder of course.
“Wristband?” I venture, studying the crisp image of shiny leather, flesh and chrome before us.
“Yeah,” Darren agrees, tipping his head to one side. “Wrist restraint, and a padlock.”
“They’re amazingly crisp for such big photos,” I say, wondering if that is technical enough to be repeated to the artist. I figure that it probably isn’t.
“They’re actually rather beautiful,” Darren says.
“Oh, is that...?” I murmur, moving onto the next picture.
“I think so, yes,” Darren says. “Isn’t it?”
I move close enough to read the little card to the right: Chrome ring and balls – Ricardo Escobar.
As we move around the room playing our I-spy game, I also get time to check out the wondrous selection of men present. I’m sure that they are all gay, but who cares: it is a visual feast. And I’m shocked, yet again (for this happens every time), just how fit and good looking most gay men seem to be compared to the porkers I meet at speed dating. Of course they aren’t all model material: there are a couple of men in their late fifties, perhaps even early sixties. And there are far too many beards for my liking: sadly the gay community seems to be having a bit of a beard fetish at the moment. But I understand entirely when Darren whispers in my ear, “Cute guys! Honestly, I’d do any of them!”
“Well that’s why Mark calls you Super Tramp,” I say.
“It is indeed,” he laughs. “And see the little guy with the red hair over there... He keeps smiling at me. Could be my lucky night.”
I glance across the room. “He’s a bit small isn’t he? And ginger!”
Darren shakes his head. “Uh-huh!” he says. “I love the pocket-monsters.”
I shrug. “Well, I suppose someone has to.”
“As long as they aren’t too up themselves,” he says. “I find the little ones often seem to over-compensate for their lack of stature by being complete twats.”
“Hitler syndrome?” I say.
“Exactly.”
We are now level with the first of the three dog-men, and I make the most of the opportunity to have a good stare. “That floor must be very hard on their knees,” I say, thinking as I say it, that it’s a terribly old-lady kind of a comment to make, the sort of thing my mother might say. “And are those tail things actually...”
“Yeah,” Darren says. “They are.”
“Ouch,” I say.
“They sell those all over the place now. The masks too. Dog-training is very big at the moment.”
I push my lips out and nod knowledgeably. “I’m sure,” I say, thinking that I will have to get Darren to explain about dog-training to me another time.
“Talk to me about something else,” Darren says as we position ourselves in front of the next photograph. “These pictures are giving me a bit of a... Huh-um.”
“Let’s hope the carpenter zips are well made,” I laugh. “Wouldn’t want you breaking out.”
“Don’t!” Darren says.
I resist glancing at Darren’s zips and turn to face the next picture. “I understand though,” I say. “They are incredibly erotic.”
And it’s true. Though I have never had any kind of leather fetish, and nothing but the most fleeting of S&M fantasies, the exhibition, the semi-naked men in the middle of the room, the pretty guys all around us... it is all conspiring to make me feel dreadfully horny.
“I’m serious,” Darren says. “Change the subject.”
“It’s not easy when you’ve got a yard-wide cock in front of you,” I whisper, laughing. “That is what we’re looking at here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Darren says, pulling off his leather jacket and flopping it over his arm.
“Oh, poor you!” I giggle. “Ok, erm, think about work... Did you finish the storyboard for Grunge?”
“Yeah, I did. It looks great,” Darren says. “Oh, look...” He grabs my arm and pulls me to the centre of the room.
“What?” I ask.
“The shorts,” he says, nodding. “Look at the shorts they’re wearing. Check out the zips.”
I look left and right to check that no one is watching me and lean down to peer at the crutch of the mens’ bondage shorts. I somehow sense that the guy behind the mask is grinning at my close inspection. Sure enough the shorts have double zips.
I straighten up. “You’re right,” I say.
“You see. Nothing new under the sun,” Darren laughs. “God, I think I need another drink, don’t you?”
“I’ll go,” I say. “You stay there and think calming thoughts.”
Amazingly, in the thirty seconds it takes me to fetch two fresh glasses of champagne, Darren has become ensconced in a conversation with the ginger pocket-monster who would be quite beautiful were it not for his size and shocking red beard. But les gouts et les couleurs... as the French say: there’s no accounting for taste.
I linger beside Darren for a moment waiting for red-beard to notice me and include me in their conversation, which, I can’t help but notice involves him regularly touching Darren’s chest. When he eventually does glance at me, he simply raises his half-full glass and says, “No, I’m fine thanks.”
It takes me an instant to realise that he thinks I’m serving drinks. “Sorry, no,” I say, wondering as I say it why I’m apologising. “I’m with Darren.”
Darren turns and breaks into a huge grin. He rubs my shoulder with his free hand – a soothing gesture – before taking the glass from my grasp. “CC, Dave, Dave, CC.”
Darren leans towards my ear and says very quietly, so that only I can hear him, “He’s gorgeous.”
“Oh sorry,” Dave says. “It’s just that you’re dressed the same as... Sorry.”
I glance around the room. The crowd has swollen to about fifty people. I now notice that of the five other women in the room two of them are indeed wearing little black dresses and big boots. They also happen to be serving drinks. I feel myself blush.
“So CC,” Dave says. “How do you spell that?”
“Just ‘c’ – the letter ‘c’,” I say. “Twice. It’s an abbreviation.”
“What for?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, smiling superficially and looking around the room.
“Oh, but it does,” Dave says.
“Don’t” Darren tells him.
“Oh,” Dave says. “Ok. Secrets, secrets!”
Darren goes red and bites his lip. Dave glances at his feet. And then, thankfully, Ricardo joins our momentarily paralysed ensemble.
“So, you have a chance to look?” he asks, nodding and wiggling his eyebrows funnily at me.
Darren nods and raises his glass. “It’s stunning,” he says. “If I were richer I’d buy one.”
Ricardo nods and grins. “Maybe we can think of a way for you to earn one,” he says, saucily. He turns to me. “And you? What are your thoughts? Give me the woman perspective.”
I swallow. Oh God!
“They’re really nice,” I say. I think, “Oh, get a grip girl: Nice? Really Noyce?”
But my mind remains a desert. “I love them,” I add.
The only other thing I can think to say is that they have left me feeling horny, but that hardly seems appropriate. Why oh why can I never think of witty things to say at the right time?
Dave wrinkles his nose and half-laughs, half sneers at me. “Personally,” he says, turning to face Ricardo, “I feel that the exaggerated objectification of the human body as sex-toy is terribly exciting, and I am left wondering, is there not a note of intentional humour, or perhaps even, dare I say it, social comment in your work?” He raises an eyebrow at me.
Ricardo seems unimpressed though. He frowns at him and shakes his head. “No,” he says. “There isn’t.”
“Oh,” Dave says, looking suddenly less smug. He turns back to me, clearly having decided that I am far easier prey. “So what do you do, my dear? You’re clearly not an art critic.” He laughs here at his own joke.
“No, I’m in advertising,” I say.
“Oh advertising,” he says with a definite sneer.
“I take it you don’t like advertising,” Darren says quietly.
“Well, what’s to like?” Dave laughs, clearly unaware that he is blowing his chances with Darren. “It’s really just a form of prostitution, isn’t it?”
“Prostitution?” I repeat.
“Yes,” the dwarf says.
I have already stopped thinking of him as Dave. “Wouldn’t you agree that selling products you don’t believe in, to people who don’t need them, living on a planet that can’t afford the sheer environmental cost of them, is a form of prostitution?” he asks.
I shrug. Again words fail me. Under different circumstances I would agree with him – it’s actually pretty close to what I think about advertising myself. But the rudeness and brutality of his public attack have shocked me. The first phrase that comes to mind is, “Piss off, you opinionated little dwarf,” but I restrain myself.
Darren turns towards me. “Oh,” he says, pulling a face. “Brown sock moment.”
“Yes...” I say. “Indeed! Nylon, methinks.”
“Sorry?” the evil-midget asks.
“So what do you do, Dave?” I ask him, my voice over-sugary in an attempt at hiding my gathering anger.
“Oh, this...” he says, gesticulating to the four guys in the middle of the room. “I’m responsible for this.”
“Oh, sorry,” I say. I turn from Dave to Ricardo. “I thought this was all your work.”
“It is,” Ricardo says. “Dave is a... a sort of fixer for events, aren’t you? He found these beautiful men for me.”
Dave nods proudly.
“Right,” I say. “Well, that can’t have been easy.”
Dave shrugs. “Well, they’re just escorts,” he says, somewhat dismissively I feel, considering that said escorts are all within earshot.
I try to think of a really good put-down, but of course, nothing comes to mind. And truth be told, if I did think of something really good I wouldn’t have the nerve to say it to him anyway. Being bitchy on demand requires training and dedication and sadly, I just haven’t put in the hours.
Ricardo grabs my arm, links it through his, and literally yanks me away. “Come and look at some of the bigger works,” he says loudly.
I bite my lip, unsure if he is having a dig at Dave’s size or not, but I’m grateful to have been saved.
As we walk away, he murmurs into my ear, “Such a nasty little queen, don’t you think? You know, in Colombia we say that they smell funny.”
“Who?”
“The red ones.”
“Oh gingers?” I restrain a snigger because of the un-P.C. nature of the remark.
“But he’s a great organiser,” Ricardo continues. “He has all the good contacts. He had no problem finding four prostitutes to pose naked for selling my stuff. What does he think this is if it isn’t advertising, huh? Now come on, tell me what you really think.”
“Oh, I’m useless when it comes to art,” I say, suddenly feeling that I could quite like this man.
“That’s because you’re nervous,” Ricardo says. “You think you have to say things like, what was it? exaggerated objectification of human body blah blah...”
“Yes,” I laugh. “But honestly. Other than the fact that I think your photos are beautiful, and very arousing...”
“Ah! So they make you feel hot, huh? This is what I want to know.”
I nod and smile at him. “Well, yes, they do,” I say.
“And you know how I get that... how do you say it? Erotic, into my art?”
“Eroticism,” I say.
“Yes. Of course. Eroticism. But you know how I get it to communicate?”
I shake my head.
“I have to be very horny, and very frustrate.”
I nod.
“So no sex, just, lots of temptation. And then it work. It’s funny, huh?”
“So you really do have to suffer for your art,” I laugh.
He nods. “Oh yes,” he says.
“There’s something very powerful about them, quite... I don’t know...”
“Primeval?” Ricardo prompts.
“Maybe, yes,” I say. “I was thinking how tribal the centrepiece looks with all those people walking in a circle around them. Almost like a sacrificial offering or a witch-burning or... Oh, honestly, I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to art.”
Ricardo freezes and then unlinks himself from my arm, then turns to face me and takes hold of my shoulders. He looks like he’s maybe going to give me a good shaking.
He stares madly into my eyes. His own actually have tears in them. “The tribal circle!” he says crazily. “You see it! It is the reason they are there! And you are the only person who see that! I think I love you!”
I slip into a grin. “Well thank-you!” I say. I nod across the room and see Darren crossing to join us. “And thanks for saving me from the red-dwarf.”
I say this last part discreetly, but Ricardo roars with laughter, and repeats very loudly, “The red dwarf! I love this woman!”

House Of Cards

In the nightmare – a scene lifted straight from the French film I watched on Film 4 on Thursday – I am the crazed Betty and my boyfriend is smothering me with a pillow.
I awaken with a jolt to find that I am lying on my front and my mouth is indeed full of pillow. No prizes for interpreting that dream then.
I roll over and take a deep breath and wait for my brain to assimilate the fact that that was a dream, and this is reality.
Grey light is leaking through a gap in the curtains. My mouth is gloopy and disgusting, and the pain above my left eye is really quite stunning. I groan and rub my eyebrow. “Jesus!” I mutter, “What a night!” Though in truth, for the moment, I can’t remember much of it.
In the bathroom I listen as what I assume to be a litre of pure Rum gushes out: Rum. Mojitos... memories are surfacing.
Whilst I wait for two Alka-Seltzer to dissolve (they seem to take forever) I feed Haggis. The smell of the cat food makes me wretch. The noise of the Alka-Seltzer fizzing hurts my head.
I eventually down them but have to remain poised for a few minutes over the kitchen sink as I’m not entirely sure they won’t be coming straight back up.
I look out at the twilight of the garden. It’s just before eleven a.m. but the cloud cover is so thick that it looks like evening already. What light is dribbling through is of course being double-filtered by the Leylandii.
As I stare into the middle distance waiting for the Alka-Seltzer to do its stuff, it starts to drizzle.
I switch the kitchen light on and fill the kettle and slump at the table and try to remember how I got home. For some reason it’s always the first thing I try to remember. There’s something particularly unnerving about not knowing how you got to where you are.
But I soon give up on working my way backwards, and start at the beginning: I remember the exhibition, my sudden friendship with the crazy artist, the endless drinks of Champagne as the crowd dwindled... I remember Ricardo saying that the Champagne was all paid for and that we had better drink it. And I remember doing precisely that.
I recall six of us in a taxi to Brixton, to a Colombian bar – Amazonica, I think – and drinking Mojitos, lots of Mojitos, and... oh God!, dancing sexy salsa with... I’m thinking... V? Victor perhaps?
I pinch the bridge of my nose and struggle to remember.
I make a giant cup of tea and take it through to the lounge. My body aches and the big purple sofa is beckoning to me.
On the coffee table I find a beer-mat from Bar Code, and this prompts another memory: a different taxi, this time just Darren and Ricardo and, yes, Victor, the three of them snorting white lines in the back of the taxi... me being terrified in case the taxi driver noticed.
I didn’t partake, thank God, or my hangover would be even worse. Which is, of course, precisely why I don’t partake: the only effect cocaine seems to have on me is to enable me to drink far more than my body can actually handle, and I could never really see the point in that. Indeed I seem to be able to achieve that perfectly well without chemical help.
I glance at the beer-mat. Yes, Bar Code: stuffed with men – stuffed of course with gay men. I remember feeling too drunk and having to sit down and looking at everyone’s waists around me – an impenetrable wall of jeans between me and the exit. It reminded me of being a little girl and looking up at all the adults, only this time no one was there to hold my hand, no voice coming over the tannoy to save me.
And then Darren went to the bar and didn’t return, and Ricardo vanished, and that left only Victor and I, and I actually thought for a moment that he might kiss me, but he introduced me to a friend instead whose name I really don’t recall, and I felt stupid because, of course, Victor, like the rest of the world was gay, and I felt sick and lousy and had no idea what the fuck I was doing there anyway.
And then I somehow stumbled through the crowd and out into the rain and fell into a taxi. And here I am. The gaps have been filled. Phew!
I sip my tea and snort sadly. The thing about a gay night out really is knowing when to stop – when to stop and go home. And I’m afraid I never seem to get that right. There is always a terrible moment of drunken solitude when I realise that whoever I was with has gone off, or is kissing someone... There is always a moment when I realise that I have become surplus to requirements, and that ultimately I’m an intruder in someone else’s space, a voyeur whose alibi has vanished.
I sip my tea and think, not for the first time, that though I love my nights out with Mark and Darren, this isn’t healthy – really it isn’t.
It’s a bit like watching TV – a useful distraction but ultimately unproductive. I need to reorganise my life. I need to spend more time with straight friends. I need a boyfriend of my own.
And then I remember Brown Eyes and wonder if he has phoned.
I stand and cross the room for the handset. For a second I think I might throw up again. I have to steady myself by holding on to the mantelpiece as I dial voicemail.
There is an instant of hope when the computerised woman – she of the erratic intonation – announces that I have one... new, message... yesterday... at... ten, oh, five... p.m.
I hold my breath for a moment, but then groan as Cynthia’s nasal twang says, “Hi pumpkin. Cyn here. As I’m sure you remembered it’s Carl’s birthday on Thursday, so of course we’re having the traditional ‘do’ on Friday. Hope you can come. The usual crowd. Let me know if you’re bringing anyone. Oh, and no need to worry about food. Just bring lashings of Champagne. It’s the big four-oh!”
Oh God! The traditional ‘do’! The usual crowd! Lashings of Champagne!
I slump back onto the sofa, feeling not only sicker but thoroughly, irrecoverably depressed.
After the break-up, when all the possessions and friends got divided up, I somehow ended up with Cynthia and Carl. That doesn’t sound very appreciative, and I guess that it isn’t really fair – it’s just my hangover doing my thinking for me.
Fact is, that Cynthia and Carl couldn’t forgive Brian for what he had done to Yours Truly, so when everyone had to choose sides, they chose mine. Which is lovely really seeing as they had previously been Brian’s friends rather than mine.
So I’m not ungrateful... it’s just that the traditional ‘do’ means a sit down dinner at their house, and the usual crowd means Cyn and Carl, Pete and Betina and Martin and Cheryl. Don’t get me wrong... they’re all perfectly nice couples. But the truth is that now I’m a single girl, I fit into happy-couple-hell (New! With added children!) about as well as I fit into single-homo-hell...
In fact, I probably fit in slightly better with the gay crowd, for at least they understand that lives and loves are tenuous at best. We at least have that shared knowledge to bitch about.
The happily-marrieds really seem to have no idea. They don’t understand yet just how fragile their relationships are. They don’t realise how reliant they are on their partners remaining sane, and stable, and truthful, and, long-term, how improbable that is.
We: the single, the dumped, the lied-to, have learnt that relationships are a house of cards, and that with the slightest jog of the table everything comes tumbling down.
And it occurs to me that far from the loss of the relationship itself, the most profound thing Brian did to me was to give me that knowledge: that you can be the happiest, luckiest girl around. You can be in love, confident in your future and overjoyed to be pregnant. And then someone (Brian) nudges the table, and wham! you’re a single, childless spare, casting desperately around to try to find someone, anyone to fit in with.
It can happen anytime. And it can happen to anyone. And it happened to me.
And now I think I need to throw-up. And then I need to go back to bed.