Chapter 7

Joey looked disdainfully at the blue and white plant pot holder shaped like a clog. I’d dug it out from the back of a cupboard for his school bazaar’s tombola.
"Ashley’s mum does cakes, and cheese straws," he said accusingly.
He stood there, arms akimbo with a scowl on his face, then, wrinkling up his nose and pursing his lips, he gingerly picked up the offending object from the kitchen table. He examined it closely as if he were an expert from Sotheby’s, before discarding it with disgust.
"It’s rubbish."
It was difficult to disagree. The clog was crap. Nevertheless, I felt obliged to defend the wretched thing and my magnanimity and generosity in donating it to a good cause.
"It’s from Holland," I said defensively, as if this automatically increased its value. "Aunty Thelma bought it back full of tulip bulbs, from Delft."
Joey pondered on this piece of information thoughtfully and then announced, "It’s still rubbish. You say everything in aunty Thelma’s house is rubbish. You say she’s got a heart of gold but the style and taste of a chav."
Why, when I'm in a hole do I unwisely keep digging?
"Never," I exclaimed in an artificially high falsetto voice. "Aunty Thelma’s house reflects her personality, it’s, it’s original." I floundered, waving my arms vaguely in the air as if searching for inspiration, "and it’s full of, of...."
"Kitsch," interjected Joey.
I glared.
"You’ve said it lots of times," he reminded me. "And anyway, if all her stuff’s so nice and priceless, why are you giving it away?"
I stood there flummoxed. My shoulders sagged and I conceded defeat. ‘We could fill it with sweets," I implored. "And it wouldn’t take five minutes to make some flapjacks."
Sensing victory, Joey decided to push home his advantage to see if he could secure further strategic gains.
"Okay," he sniffed. And then, looking decidedly smug, he overplayed his hand.
"Maybe we could make a fancy dress costume as well. Ashley’s mum’s made him a hobbit’s outfit." He studied my impassive face. "It’s got papier mache feet and pointy ears."
I rubbed my hands wearily across my eyes, tired and red-rimmed from the copious weeping fit following my speed-dating cock-up.
"Ashley’s mum’s got a cleaner, a gardener, a husband, she doesn’t go out to work and she has all her ironing delivered in a van," I said in a voice laced with envy.
Then a thought suddenly struck me. "Anyway, how long have you known about this fancy dress costume lark, I can’t remember having a note about it from your teacher?"
Joey squirmed.
"It couldn’t by any chance be lurking about in the bottom of your school bag, could it?" I asked archly. "The temporal vortex where things just mysteriously disappear?"
"Whatever," he said, shrugging nonchalantly as he wandered over to the pantry.
"I suppose Ashley’s mum could rustle you up a fancy dress costume out of thin air," I said. I felt well peeved, trust me to be the only mother at the bazaar with a fancy dressless child.
"Bet," said Joey.
I felt the familiar wave of a grave sense of injustice overwhelm me. It reminded me that despite the fact that Ashley’s mum is a thoroughly decent, kind and inoffensive woman, I often wish that she were dead. At least three or four times a week in fact. Whatever feeble efforts I make at motherhood, Ashley’s mum always does it better. Heaps. I simply can’t compete. She is to me what an Olympic athlete is to a contestant running in a local marathon with the stamina of a truss-wearing octogenarian suffering from a hernia.
I followed Joey into the pantry and scanned the shelves for the necessary ingredients; "syrup, flour, sugar, salt, margarine, oats," I muttered as I grabbed stuff from the shelves and the fridge.
I passed Joey the ingredients as I found them, but it soon became obvious that there were no porridge oats.
"Oats, oats, please God let me find some oats," I muttered beseechingly. My search became more and more frenzied as it slowly dawned on me that I hadn’t got any.
My pantry is like my life, I thought, smiling bitterly at the cruel analogy, it’s an oats-free-zone.
"What’s so funny?" asked Joey.
"Life," I said.
"Does that mean I can’t take any flapjacks to the bazaar?"
His bottom lip began to wobble and his big blue eyes started to swim with ushered tears.
"Of course not ," I said with more hope than conviction
How odd that a child should sense the correlation between comedy and tragedy I thought as I smoothed back his hair from his forehead. "But, if you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, we are not going to make any flapjacks unless I drive like a bat out of hell to the shops in Downmarket. The problem is it would waste too much time driving around looking for a non-existent parking space."
Joey’s eyes widened in fear.
"Or," I said suddenly inspired, "you could pop round to aunty Thelma next door to see if she’s got any."
Joey was out of the door like a flash.
If anyone’s got a spare box of porridge oats floating about I thought, Thelma’s the most likely candidate, because despite the fact that she lives alone, her weekly shop is so huge it could be delivered in a skip. I’m sure she’s got a reinforced trolley reserved for her at the Co-op.
"You never know when you might get caught short," is a favourite aunty Thelma maxim. Any potential world crisis such as a war in the Middle East, or a radioactive leak from a nuclear power station, spurs her into buying industrial quantities of toilet rolls and bottled water, and the first flakes of snow acts as a trigger to fill her three freezers to bursting point. She’s got bottled runner beans going back to the 1970s.
"I lived through the war," she explained to me once. "We used to have to recycle our sanitary towels, scrub them clean with scraps of boiled soap. If the Germans had reached Ruddlesex my dear, we would have been totally unprepared. Mother wasn’t a planner."
The only drawback with Thelma’s food stash I remembered as I saw Joey running joyfully up the garden path with a packet of oats under his arm, is that everything’s usually well past its sell-by-date.
Joey burst into the kitchen bringing with him the scent of autumn and the chill of the dying year.
"I’ve got some Mum," he panted, "and aunty Thelma says she will be across soon to help."
I quickly grabbed the clog and shoved it under the sink before getting out the mixing bowl and scales. Joey blew a layer of dust off the top of the packet before handing it to me. I studied it carefully, only six weeks out of date, insignificant in the circumstances. Surely, any weevils or fungi bits will be incinerated in the oven. Anyway it was a balance between the negligible health risks and my sanity if I didn't get the blasted things made.
Soon the kitchen was a hive of frantic culinary activity with the ingredients being weighed and stirred while Flossie zoomed round hoovering up the crumbs from the floor, wagging her stubby tail with unashamed ecstasy. When aunty Thelma’s head popped round the door it was followed by a pile of folded cereal boxes, coloured paper and a bag of old plastic margarine boxes balanced precariously in her arms.
Within a couple of hours thirty-six delicious flapjacks lay resplendent on the kitchen table and, as if by magic, Joey was transformed into a cardboard pterodactyl complete with a mask and margarine pots slung round his arms like plastic vertebrae sporting magnificent glued-on wings.
"Nigh on thirty years teaching in a primary school comes in handy sometimes," said aunty Thelma as she surveyed her handiwork.
"You’re a star," I said as I kissed her, before rushing out the door laden down with two biscuit tins full of flapjacks.
"You’re bad," said Joey as he manoeuvred his wings into the car.
"What makes you say that?" I queried innocently as I pulled out of the drive.
"You’ve got aunty Thelma’s clog hidden in your bag."
I took a deep breath and frantically tried to think up a suitably impressive excuse but failed miserably.
"Do you think we should keep it then?" I asked him.
He shook his head so vigorously in affirmation that his wings rattled.
"Aunty Thelma’s kind and it would be rank to chuck it."
I felt truly chastened by the time we arrived at the school to queue with crowds of bored parents and excited children to get into the main hall. We were confronted with the familiar ragbag assortment of games and stalls selling recycled junk, while teas were being served against a backdrop of the school orchestra screeching like a cacophony of tom cats being castrated simultaneously.
Joey flapped around excitedly in his fancy dress costume begging for a ticket for the bran tub and a go on the rubber coconut shy.
I was suddenly overcome with a massive sense of ennui as the noise and an overwhelming smell of wax crayons and stale pee seeped into my brain. I handed over a fiver telling him to spend it wisely and then sank gratefully onto a hard wooden chair to enjoy a cup of tea and a bun.
As I watched him run over to Ashley to show off his fancy dress costume my mobile phone rang.
"Hi, it’s Mervin. We’ve got to talk."
My heart sank as I switched to automatic pilot as his plaintive drone bored into my brain like a pneumatic drill. He launched into an epic emotional saga charting my speed dating betrayal. I visualised him, a quivering mass of indignant bristly jelly and distinctively shuddered at the thought.
I gave a yawn as wide as the channel tunnel as I listened to the predictable self-indulgent rant I’d heard from so many men over the years; the palpable sexual chemistry between us thwarted only by my refusal to face up to my repressed sexual urges, how, if I’d only let go I could climb to untold heights of ecstasy and achieve shuddering multiple orgasms that would make my teeth rattle.
"I’m prepared to give you a second chance," he said, pausing for breath.
"I’ll let you know," I said as I turned the phone off and slung it in my bag with more force then was necessary. Dream on, I thought.
Mind if I sit here?" said a voice suddenly.
I turned to see Julia, Ashley’s mum had sat down next to me, her usually placid and perfectly made-up face drawn with school-bazaar-induced stress.
Feel free," I said grateful for a distraction from Mervin's drivel.
We chatted away about the humdrum issues that fixate parents, the iniquitous injustice of SATS, and the progress of the PTAto raise funds for basic school equipment. And then, in the middle of a conversation slagging off the naughtiness of other people’s children in an attempt to delude ourselves that our kids were perfect little angels, she suddenly dropped a bombshell of nuclear proportions."You know I envy you," she said.
"Me?" I squeaked with incredulity.
"Yes, Ashley’s always going on about you, how you’re such a fun mum, so trendy and with-it compared to me. All I hear is ‘Joey’s mum said this, or Joey’s mum said that.’ I feel really dowdy and inferior by comparison."
She look puzzled as I started to laugh and then helpfully thumped me on my back as bits of bun went down the wrong way as I doubled up with mirth.
"I bet you’ve secretly wished that I would disappear from the face of the planet," I said when I’d recovered my breath. I wiped tears of laughter from my eyes. She looked sheepish and blushed so I relieved her of her embarrassment and explained about my own seething jealousy at her apparent mythical status as ‘the perfect mum.’ We both realised we’d been ‘had’ and decided that the best thing to do was to play along with it.
"Mum’s the word," I said as we parted the best of friends.
I was positively jaunty as Joey and I drove home in the car despite the fact that he’d blown his fiver on the bran tub and accumulated a useless heap of tat worth about 50p.
But nothing could dispel Joey’s joy as he’d won the fancy dress competition, judged by the Downmarket mayor.
"She’d got a long chain made out of real gold," said a wide-eyed Joey to aunty Thelma, as he proudly showed off his winner’s badge.
"Did you get anything nice dear?" she said turning to me.
"She won a prize on the tombola," interjected Joey.
I held up an orange Gerbera plant for inspection and offered it to her.
"I’d like you to have it actually as a ‘thank you’ for bailing us out in our hour of need."
"I wouldn't dream of it my dear," she replied. "I don’t expect a present every time I give you a hand. I enjoy it."
Turning to Joey she asked if he could find a nice plant pot to put it in. Joey looked at me inscrutably. "We’ve got just the thing aunty," he said as he ran from the room. He returned triumphantly with the clog and placed it slap bang in the middle of the coffee table.
"Perfect," said aunty Thelma as she popped the plant inside. Just perfect."

CHAPTER 6

Mervin’s hot beery breath fanned my face as he leant earnestly towards me across the table. I sat and listened impassively wondering how, despite every effort to the contrary, I was having a ‘date’ with Spam Man. It was so surreal it made me think about Daniel Defoe.
It's amazing how the memory of a stuffy tutorial at university should spring to mind just then. Old Professor Grimshaw rambling on about Daniel Defoe, how as the father of the novel and a realist writer he created an illusion that there's a relationship between ‘art’ and a hidden reality. The job as narrator, he'd ponderously say was to convey, through words, the ‘truth.’ And, as the author, or ‘God’ was able to demonstrate the workings of Providence, or fate.
It was really quite straightforward. Providence smiled benignly on white, male, rational, adventurous colonialists such as Robinson Crusoe, and they prospered. But a malevolent glare was reserved for enterprising but irrational and morally loose women like Roxana, who invariably came to a sticky end.
I tired to reassure myself that nobody believes that bullshit anymore as I suddenly became aware that random globs of sausage-like meaty bits were glued to Mervin's chin like scabs in between the bristles of his moustache.
Every enlightened person knows that the novel has been used in the past as a tool by the ruling hegemony to oppress women and the masses in order to maintain a white, middle-class, protestant, capitalist, male dominated society.
I watched a sausagey fleck waft down onto the table idly pushing it around as my thoughts continued to drift. If Providence is merely an illusion I reasoned, why, as the author of my own life, was I sitting here being well and truly spammed? And, even worse, why could I see Kathy across Mervin’s acrylic-clad shoulder, flirting for dear life with a good looking man whose body language was saying, "Fuck me, I’m yours." A good looking man who answers to the name of Jack. As in my ex. You really couldn’t make it up.
"So you see," said Mervin, his drony voice dispelling my intellectual ramblings as his hand brushed my knee under the table, "fate has brought us together."
Reality suddenly invaded my thoughts like a wet bum-flannel in the face.
"I think your time’s up," I replied as the ear-splitting sound of a bell rent the air - a bell that signalled it was time for Mervin to move on to the woman sitting at the next table, a move that drew Jack inexorably closer to me.
It hadn’t taken long for my speed dating hopes to be dashed when I walked expectantly into the retro Neon City bar and bumped straight into Mervin. He was instantly recognisable even though he looked like a shady sex-tourist. He was wearing these weird clip-on shades attached to his glasses in an attempt to arrive incognito. As if.
As soon as his eyes adjusted to the low lighting and he realised it was me, he lifted up his shades and embraced me in such a tight hug that they dug into my forehead and left scars. Kathy was mystified.
"Do you two know each other or are you taking the term speed dating quite literally?"
Mervin’s eyes swivelled appreciatively to Kathy.
"We are acquainted," he said. "I’m Mervin Purvis by the way and I was at Rebecca’s house until the early hours last Friday where we spent a very enjoyable evening together sharing our life experiences."
"Is that all you shared Rebecca," she said nudging me in the ribs and giving us both a naughty wink, "or is there something you’re not telling me?"
Kathy and Mervin seemed to find her remark hugely amusing but all I could manage was a thin smile as we made our way to the bar.
"I don’t know about you but the level of talent in here seems pretty grim to me," I whispered to Kathy, "if it doesn’t improve soon I’m going to ask for my money back."
"There’s always Mervin," she teased. "Have you said a nice thank you for the flowers yet?"
I glared at her as we collected our drinks and then wandered over to queue for our name badges and ‘courting’ cards. When a loud bell rang a bottle-blonde woman introduced herself as Shelly. She invited us all to sit down at one of the small tables scattered around the bar and explained the rules of engagement. Women were told to sit tight at a table while the men were instructed to make a three minute visit for a chat during which time you both had the chance to size each other up and decide whether or not you fancied seeing each other again. If the answer was yes, you put a tick against their name on your card, if you thought they were pants you put a cross. Matching ticks meant the agency exchanged your e-mail addresses. Pretty ruthless really, but then natural selection never took any passengers. Survival of the fittest has always been the name of the game. So that’s how I came to be having a ‘date’ with Mervin, the big fat fossil.
It was such a relief when our interview finished and he shifted his bulk to the next table for some other poor unsuspecting woman. I took a sharp intake of breath as I watched Jack edging closer. It turned my thoughts and stomach into complete turmoil. It didn’t help either when a 50-something man sat down in front of me wearing a wig that looked as if it had been hacked out of an old moth-eaten afghan coat.
"Hi, the name’s Ted," he said extending his hand and smiling widely, revealing a set of ill-fitting dentures. Ted was number 28 out of 30 men up for interview as a potential lifelong partner or short-term shagger who had paid £15 quid to meet the woman of his dreams. It was difficult to reconcile the sight of Ted with the blurb in the speed dating literature that hinted obliquely at ranks of testosterone-fuelled men and libidinous women all lined up waiting for a perfect match to ignite their mutual dormant flames of passion. The only interest passion-wise I’d encountered pre-Ted, could be compared to a paraffin heater that had rusted to extinction in some outside lavatory in a northern slum earmarked for demolition under a government regeneration scheme. I wanted to warm myself by a furnace, a fierce heat that could scorch me from a distance, melting my resistance with a sidelong glance that hinted at shared pleasure, tender, raw and desperate, all night long. I thought of Jack and instinctively licked my lips. Ted reached out and squeezed my hand.
"You're a beautiful lassie m’dear," he slathered, as beads of sweat oozed out from underneath the thatch perched on top of his head.
"That’s very kind of you to say so," I replied primly as I swiftly withdrew my hand and sat on it. So, are you in the glamour business then?" he enquired hopefully.
"Good god no," I exclaimed indignantly, "I’m a reporter on a well respected newspaper."
Ted looked a bit shifty and shuffled uncomfortably in his seat before changing tack and asking me all about my interests. I told him I reserved all my passion and energy for the garden.
His eyes lit up like flash bulbs before launching into an eloquent speech about the beloved half-acre plot behind his cottage that he might lose in a divorce settlement. He lovingly described his shallots, his old-fashioned sweet scented bed of roses and all the flowers and salad stuff he’d reared in his greenhouse.
"I won’t miss the wife," he said, "but I won’t-half miss my garden, all my own work for the past 25 years." I thought he was going to cry.
I reached out and squeezed his hand, offering him my heartfelt sympathy as one gardener to another and then covered up his obvious distress by telling him about my less ambitious but equally loved patch of flower-filled ground.
Before we knew it our three minutes were up.
"It’s been lovely talking to you Rebecca," said Ted.
"You too," I replied truthfully as we warmly shook hands.
Lovely guy I thought as I watched him saunter off to the next table. A kindred spirit talking the universal language of flowers, a mutual, unspoken understanding that only true garden lovers can comprehend, an obsession that crosses every social, religious and racial divide.
"Obviously smitten."
I turned my head to see a smiling stranger sitting opposite me, his greenish eyes fringed with long brown lashes, twinkling with amusement.
"No, no, no," I spluttered, blushing furiously, emphasising my disinterest by making slow exaggerated scissor-like movements under my chin, "absolutely no way." Then, leaning forward with my hands splayed on the table I whispered conspiratorially, "he’s hideous, hideous, lecherous and bald."
And then backtracking, so as not to sound like a complete cow, I said obscurely, "but he likes gardening," as if that explained everything.
"Well Rebecca," he replied glancing at my name badge, "there’s no hope for me then. What would you say if you knew I’d only got a slab for a backyard?"
"Well," I said, drawing out the vowel sound to give me time to think up a suitable response, "it’s not an essential qualification, handy, but I could make allowances if there were other, you know, compensations."
My hot little eyes glanced at the shadow of chest hair exposed between the open collar of his shirt, his clean, sharp cheekbones and lithe body clad in arty clothes.
"You mean, like a nice personality?" he queried.
"Yeah, yeah, something like that," I muttered, wondering if hidden in his remark there was a slight rebuff for my character assassination of Ted. Or, was he being ironic because he knew I was a tad interested sex-wise?
I decided to go on the offensive. "So, if you don’t spend your time gardening what do you do instead?
He explained that he was a fabricator, holding out his calloused hands to illustrate that he was a man of manual toil. I also discovered that he loved sushi, Degas and the Simpsons and he had a ten-year-old daughter called Freya who was the light of his life. And he was named Tor because his father loved walking in mountains. I gave him an edited, slightly sexed-up version of my life and then the bell went and he was gone and Jack sat down in his place.
"Well Well, fancy meeting you here," he said, smiling his familiar heart-stopping smile.
"I could say the same to you," I replied. "Where’s the saintly Susan, gone off you has she?"
"I’m here for research purposes actually," he answered a bit pompously.
I arched my brows.
"I’m here with Maggie from the department to analyse the political dynamics of social interaction between the sexes in a post-modern syntigmatic scenario."
‘You mean you’re looking at the new ways people cop off with one another," I answered facetiously.
Jack sighed and his eyes went heavenward. He looked gorgeous as he struggled to rein in his irritation. He took a deep breath.
"So, tell me why you’re here then, you obviously haven’t managed to snare a knob with a double-barrelled name and Range Rover yet."
Conveniently forgetting about Charles Smythe Bothum-Wethum, I managed to look suitably aggrieved at his assumption that I was only on the look out for a rich bloke to look after me, a weary bone of contention throughout the whole of our relationship. Memories flooded back, how we used to argue about his deep-seated insecurity a legacy from his working class background that had left him with a massive chip on his shoulder.
How could I forget the look on his face when he told me proudly that his dad had been a docker and I, unfamiliar with his toned-down Newcastle accent and sounding dead impressed said, "A doctor! Wow. Is he a GP or a surgeon?" Me and my big mouth.
Pointing to Kathy I explained that I was actually here with a girlfriend - a relationship he used to claim I was incapable of achieving because in his book, women with big tits who told men how to give them an orgasm in bed were incapable of female friendships. Too vain and selfish to share. A ball-shriveller in other words.
No, only ‘nice’ women can achieve solidarity with other women, the sort who breast-feed their kids until they are five, have pasty faces scrubbed clean of makeup and sport a chest as flat as an ironing board. Like Susan, who was the biggest bitch in Christendom despite looking as demure as a nun - when it suited her.
"So you’re friends with Kathy?" said Jack, his tone changing from one of slight hostility to one of genuine interest.
"Yes, it was Kathy who suggested we came here tonight, actually," I said, casually looking down to examine my fingernails before hiding them when I saw they were black rimmed from the garden.
"Meow," said Jack.
I bristled with indignation, although I had to secretly admit that my remark could be interpreted as a bit un-sisterly and my gesture might be construed as slightly Freudian - an unconscious unsheathing of claws.
Emphasising every word, Jack went, "She is gorgeous. And then, quite casually, "By the way, did I mention that Susan was seconded to an Australian university for a year - and she’s been there for two?"
"No you didn’t."
"The split’s mutual, we’d grown apart emotionally and geographically - literally. Now, tell me all about Kathy."
I spent the last minute eulogising about her, what a great friend, clever, nice, funny, popular, ten years younger than me, childless and looking for a long-term relationship. Every word felt like a dagger in my heart, or as if I was on the receiving end of a gesture used by Joey when he is really out of order, a finger up the bum - with a twist. Ouch!
I couldn’t work out if I was relieved or sad when he had gone and the ordeal was over and Kathy and I sat down with a drink for a post-mortem of the talent on offer.
Kathy was euphoric. "What did you think of the dark haired chap with the blue eyes who was wearing a Paul Smith shirt? Was he gorgeous or what? I wet my pants as soon as he sat down. God, I thought I was going to come he was so sexy. Did he tell you he was a politics lecturer? He’s got a PhD you know, Dr Manderson he’s called at the university. He said he’s never been married, he’s got no kids but really wants them, he lived with someone years ago but they split and he’s had a string of relationships since but they’ve all been disastrous."
"I was one of them," I said bleakly.
Kathy’s mouth dropped and she smote her forehead with the palm of her hand.
"Of course, Jack, politics lecturer, drop-dead gorgeous, I should have known, I can see now why you were obsessed. Lucky you. Was he good in bed?"
"Rampant," I said woodenly.
We both fell silent.
"Look," Kathy said slowly, "I will understand if you don’t want me to put a tick by his name."
I felt her looking at me closely for my reaction and I briefly struggled with my conscience before giving an Oscar winning performance.
"I Don’t mind a bit," I lied through my teeth, "it was all over ages ago, and as Jack said, ours was just one disastrous relationship in a string of others. I just hope you have better luck then I did, and anyway, why should I care when I could have that babe magnet Mervin?"
Kathy laughed and gave me a hug and I felt a huge sense of warmth and affection towards her and then the conversation thankfully moved on and I asked her advice about the terrible dilemma facing me. Should I be callous and put a big cross by Mervin’s name or be kind and give him a tick so as not to hurt his feelings?
She advised that the best thing to do was to blow him out or he’d be hanging round like a bad smell for ever and I’d never shake him off. I didn’t mention my other dilemma, whether I should put a cross or a tick by Jack’s name. I wanted so much to tick his name, just to see if he ticked mine. If he ticked mine and I didn’t tick his I thought, that would really hurt his feelings, and if I didn’t tick his, how would I ever know if he ticked mine? Round and round I went until I was in a right tizzy.
I managed to avoid filling in my card in front of Kathy as we queued to hand them in. She gave hers in with a flourish but I lingered, standing there chewing my pen looking as if I was agonising over which man to choose. Turning my back I scanned down the list of names quickly putting a tick by Jack’s name and then I looked at the other names to put a tick by Tor’s. I saw Ted Franks’ name followed by Tor Franklin. "Are you ready?" Kathy asked as she tried to peer over my shoulder.
I panicked as I quickly put a tick by Tor’s name and thrust the card into Shelly’s hand.
"All done," I smiled.
"So go on then, who tickled your fancy?" Kathy asked.
Luckily I was able to elaborate in-depth about my interview with Tor. As I recounted our meeting I realised with surprise that I would in fact really like to see him again. Yes, I really hoped that I would find his e-mail address in my inbox the next day.
"I just knew you’d fancy him, he’s just your sort, creative. He’s a sculptor isn’t he, quite successful by the sound of it? Not my type though, not with my analytical brain. He seemed nice too, coming here for his neighbour’s sake, that weirdo in the wig. Poor man, his wife ran off and left him you know, for a woman, the president of the local WI no less. Apparently he found them ‘at it’ in his caravan in Ingolmells. You’d think they’d be too busy, making all that jam."
I was absolutely speechless. Mute. "Are you all right," Kathy asked solicitously as she unlocked the car.
"Don’t even ask," I said as my thoughts ricocheted from my appalling crucifixion of Ted as to why Tor had pretended he was virtually a labourer. Why, why, why? Did that mean he fancied me or not? It was too, too cruel. Did he want to see if I fancied him for himself, or was he being economical with the truth because he didn’t want me to want him.
And then a horrible thought struck me. Was I absolutely sure I ticked Tor’s name and not Ted’s? I was in such a state. I couldn’t remember for sure but I had a horrible feeling......
I’ll soon find out I thought as I lay in bed with the events of the evening playing over and over again in my fevered brain like a sitcom repeat on BBC 2. Tossing and turning, my fevered imagination ran riot with images of Kathy and Jack trying out all the sexual positions in the Karma Sutra. I ground my teeth with jealous rage.
I’m going to look like a dog again for Charles Bottum Wettum tomorrow night, was my last thought as I drifted off to sleep to the sound of the dawn chorus.
I was still bleary eyed when Kathy phoned excitedly at lunchtime. "I got Jack’s e-mail, that means he wants to see me again. I can’t wait. Did you get one from Tor?"
I told her I didn’t realise they would arrive quite so soon and that I’d phone her back. I made my way upstairs to Joey’s bedroom and switched on the computer with trepidation. What would I find? Would I get an e-mail from Jack, or Tor?
It seemed to take forever. Then suddenly there it was. ‘Speed Dating.’ I clicked. The message read: " Your speed dating evening has been a success. You have one e-mail match." It was from Ted. I flung myself down on Joey’s bed and howled.

Chapter 5

I lay in a state of suspended animation dreaming of a sun kissed balcony overlooking the Mediterranean. A flawless blue sky hung like a banner between two sheer white apartment blocks, framing pink floor tiles surrounding the vivid blue slash of a swimming pool; clean, angular lines broken only by the sharp umbrella fronds of green palms, a vista as flat, surreal and silent as a Hockney.
"Mum! Where are my football socks?" Reality punched its fist through the thin veneer of my consciousness and I rolled over and groaned. That philosopher guy, Baulderise or Baudrillard who maintained that art is a simulacrum of reality, was talking cobblers. Life is a small child jabbing you in the back at some ungodly hour of the morning as chirpy and bright as a butcher’s dog. Paint that and stick it in an art gallery.
I crawled out of bed and looked balefully at my tummy cruncher exerciser lying supinely on the carpet with arms outstretched, ready to embrace my flabby body and convert it into a toned, rippling sex machine. I made a vow to start a strict early morning regime - tomorrow.
I dressed in two seconds flat except for my tights, opened the relevant drawer with trepidation in anticipation of the tentacles that erupted in a tangled skein of coloured nylon. I frantically choose from 300 assorted pairs tangled in knots in various stages of decay, ladders, holes and lacy patterns circa 1990, that are too expensive to chuck out, but too naff to wear. I also rejected various sizes and shades of stockings which a champion Krypton Factor contestant would struggle to match up.
Fifteen minutes later and wearing a pair of tights with an ozone-sized hole in the crutch, I extricated Joey’s football socks from a damp pile of washing in the bath. Damn, I’d forgotten to put them on the radiator to dry last night.
The hands on the clock whizzed round alarmingly. I vainly tried to iron the damn things dry with one hand while eating a bowl of cereal with the other. Guilt coursed through my veins like ice. I imagined Joey pale and prostrate against the sheets, ravaged with pneumonia, rickets or the onset of premature arthritis caused through my wanton neglect.
Fortunately it was dispelled instantly after rushing upstairs expecting to find him pristinely dressed in his school uniform, satchel at the ready, but instead found him in his pyjamas grimy and dishevelled with sleep, ruthlessly slaying the Lord of Destruction in Diablo II on the computer.
I’d only been awake for an hour but it already seemed like a lifetime. What bliss it must be to wake up and only have yourself to get ready. A hassle-free start to the morning, casually sauntering down to breakfast, a leisurely read of the newspaper, before cruising off to work arriving at your desk on time, alert and relaxed, ready for a productive day.
After a bout of hysterical arm waving persuading Joey to co-operate and get ready, I zoomed round like a dervish, packing his bag, my bag, his lunch box, my lunch box, fed Gums the goldfish and shoved some dirty clothes into the washing machine. Smug with satisfaction I opened the front door with a sigh of relief only to feel the dog shoot between my legs as it made a dash for freedom and next door’s cat.
I’ve always thought that people who believe they are the reincarnation of some famous long-dead illustrious person like Cleopatra or Napoleon must have a really exalted view of themselves. Why, out of all the zillions of people that have inhabited the earth, should they have been singled out to have been someone memorable in a past life instead of a sheep stealer or a circus freak?
But sometimes, such as an occasion like this, I do have an irrational conviction that the whole world is conspiring against me. God wakes up in a capricious mood, yawns, scratches his arse and on a whim, revolves his clenched fist in a circular motion over the world before singling out with his finger some unfortunate soul to suffer an off day. This morning it was my turn.
Abandoning all decorum I made an undignified dash around the village as Flossie zig-zagged down the main street yapping excitedly after the cat. After three fruitless circuits Squire Percy de Lyle Stocking came into view riding a magnificent hunter with a bull mastiff loping alongside. Fortunately, Flossie made a beeline for the mastiff’s bum and was so distracted having a good sniff that I was able to grab her by the collar and retreat crab-like, dragging her away from the horse’s hooves. I looked up and managed a forced smile at Percy between tortured gasps for breath, peering up at him through bedraggled matted hair, before gabbling an apology like some mediaeval witch. The shame of it.
He smiled munificently as if at a craven peasant and then suggested it might be a good idea to keep my dog on a lead.
Muttering inanely about being in a frantic rush, I dragged a reluctant Flossie off down the road by her collar, slowed down by the fact that she stiffened her back legs in rebellion. They looked as if they had been suddenly struck by paralysis. The strain made me go over very inelegantly on the heel of one shoe. Damn. Percy gave me a salute as he went by at a fast trot, his delectable jodphur-clad backside bouncing up and down in counter rhythm to his horse. God, what a waste, if that guy was straight I’d be in love.
Arrived at work really late after depositing Flossie back at home and dropping Joey off at school because he’d missed the school bus in the excitement.
"You look as if you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards," said Kathy after taking in my dishevelled appearance as I rushed to my desk all hot and breathless.
Funny you should say that," I replied, before regaling her with my morning’s adventure and the tragedy of the Perfect Percy who pretends he’s hot and happening with women when we all know he only has eyes for guys.
I must stop yawning at work. I think I should sue the Broadcaster Herald, my job as a reporter is nothing like it said in the advert. Writing obituaries and 'News from the Women's Institute' is hardly the stuff of Lois Lane and the nearest I get to a Superman is Super Spam Man beamed down from planet Zog. I spent the first half of the morning shuffling through a pile of press releases that were so boring to read that I lost the will to live after the first paragraph.
I decided instead to spice up the reports on the various village shows that have been happening around the county by writing slightly lewd captions about the size and shape of the prize winners’ vegetables. The punters love it.
It's a shame not a lot of things happen of national or international importance in the nowhere land of Broadcaster or next door in Downmarket, home to my invaluable colleague Colin, an inebriated hack in the district office. The best headline we've dredged up was when a cow got its hoof stuck in a bog at the local nature reserve. It took three fire engines and an armed response team from the local police force to extract it. It was the most exciting thing they’d had to deal with for years.
It's a shame there's nothing better to do than torturing the local council by muckraking over their internecine squabbles and their grossly inadequate handling of the council budget, or stoking the dormant flames of local disputes until they erupt into an inferno of claim and counter claim, overspilling onto the letter’s page with juicy accusations so close to the knuckle they give our legal guy palpitations.
I caught up with Kathy and Delia in the kitchen at lunchtime. D had popped in to discuss her weekly society news column, Delia's Diary, she writes it with such effortless style even though the content's as thin as the hair on Charles Bottum Wettum's bonce. I bet the reader's would rather hear about her salacious sexploits than a round-up of the farmer's balls. Maybe I should rephrase that. Whatever, Delia got that job through sheer nepotism and I'm not ashamed to admit it. If you can't do your best friends a favour now and then what's the point of having influence if you hide it under your bushel?
Kathy and Delia are my rock-solid friends due to the fact that we all experienced an intellectual hunger that led us to study on an Access Course at the Broadcaster College of FE, a grey, ugly, concrete dump that nonetheless inspired in us a belief that we weren't after all redundant, hormonal cretins. We were drawn together as we slowly deciphered the contradictions in Haralambos and discovered the lyricism of the Metaphysical poets, emerging triumphant, liberated in mind and spirit and armed with enough qualifications to get us into decent universities.
Where would we be without our mutual sisterly support through the various trials and tribulations of divorce, bereavement, love affairs and the pecuniary circumstances that have almost driven us back into the slavery of female anonymity, a condition spawned by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the 18th century writer who launched the blockbuster fantasy fiction genre with the ‘Social Contract’.
Kathy asked for an update on Mervin. I explained how I'd had a nightmare with the realisation that he'd given me a poke, I almost fell out of bed with the shock until I remembered it had been on Facebook. What a relief!
Delia was wracked with worry about the potential expose that could result following her horizontal jogging episode in the back of the Freelander with Toy Boy and the unwise deployment of the penis ring.
‘A bit of a major cock-up you might say," she laughed half heartedly.
"Well, if this juicy tit bit of tittle tattle ever got out it would create such a scandal that the gossip hounds in the Doom and Gloom would feast off it for weeks," I replied. I suddenly had a horrible thought. "I hope it doesn’t come out before next Saturday."
"What, you mean it’s still in there?" Kathy quipped.
We all fell about laughing and between bouts of bawdy sniggers I told them about my dinner invitation to Humpington Hall from Charles and Mum's reaction when I told her Delia would be there with Henry. Then a thought struck me.
"If the news about the penis ring got out they could hardly go and make polite conversation at the table if everyone knew that Delia’s bits had been buzzed by remote control." The image had us in hysterics.
I offered Kathy and Delia a Cheesy Wotsit and went on to explain how it came about that Charles had asked me to go as his date and then described the sequence of events leading up to it including the miserable Mervin miasma.
"I know just how you feel," Kathy sympathised. ‘I went to a night club in Broadmarket with some some of the girls from accounts and I got chatted up by this bloke who’s breath could strip paint at 90 paces. I lied and said I was in deeply committed relationship with a seismic love life." She sighed sadly.
Delia urged her to elaborate. "He backed off, but unfortunately relayed the information back to his best mate who I’d been eyeing up all evening. He lost interest and disappeared with this woman with fat ankles," Kathy explained forlornly.
She suddenly stuck her out own neat ankle and surveyed it keenly. "I hope mine never get like that," she said. It prompted her to tell us about this new holistic diet that she’s on that involves drinking lots of herbal tea sitting in a yoga position meditating on kind karmas and positive images of lithe Naomi Cambellesque limbs.
"I didn’t lose an a ounce actually," she admitted, "but it gave me a great excuse to keep walking past Dick, the dishy new deputy editor, on the way to the ladies."
I must try it I thought.
Suddenly Kathy sat up and and clicked her fingers. "I know what I wanted to tell you," she said. But before she could elucidate Moyra our matronly receptionist burst into the kitchen.
"There’s been a delivery at reception for you Rebecca," she said, breathless with excitement.
Curious we followed her out of the kitchen into the reception area, festooned with pictures of village fetes, school sports days and ruddy faced councillors at civic receptions.
There lying resplendent on the counter was a bouquet of pink carnations, fragile gipsophila and furry ferns all wrapped up in shiny purple paper and tied with a big gaudy ribbon.
"Oh," squeaked Kathy.
My heart leapt. Who could have sent me flowers? I picked them up and buried my face into the petals inhaling their sweet, heady fragrance.
"Open the card, open the card," came a chorus of voices.
I extracted a pink card from beneath the ribbon with Rebecca Pearce scrawled on the front. I opened it slowly, my heart beating hard with hope. Who could it be? Maybe, maybe, it was from Jack to say he was sorry for being such a heartless, ruthless bastard. It wouldn’t be a day overdue. The thought flashed across my mind like a comet with a shiny tail of sparkling dust, only to have it burst like a boil when I read out the inscription.
"Thanks for such a lovely evening. I hope this is the start of a beautiful and prosperous friendship. Speak to you soon. All yours, Mervin."
I dropped the bouquet as if it was contaminated with ricin. "Yuck!" I wailed and walked off leaving the flowers abandoned on the carpet. I plonked myself down in front of my computer and started to viciously hit the keys with more force than was necessary.
I heard Moyra bustling up solicitously behind me. She thrust the flowers under my nose.
"Now dear," she said soothingly, "it’s not often that a woman gets sent such a lovely bouquet of flowers."
Unfortunately for Moyra that was true. Not even the most inventive and audacious advertorial writer could call Moyra attractive or even ‘interesting.’ The poor thing had been born with looks to die for - literally. Cruelly, Keith the editor once jokingly re-christened her, changing her name from Moyra Hadman to Moyra Never-Had-a-Man and we’ve called her that behind her back ever since. Sad.
"You have them," I said, looking at her kind face, "you love flowers."
She flushed with pleasure. "Are you sure, dear?" she asked.
I nodded and she walked off, gently cradling the bouquet to her ample bosom like a child, savouring second hand a romantic gesture from a man to a woman.
I fell into a slough of despond, faced with the familiar problem of how to detach myself from a persistent Spam Man. My reverie was broken as Kathy bounced up behind me like Tigger on acid.
"I take it that was a no?"
I looked up at the high windows where the only view is the sky and pondered dreamily if it would be fairer to Mervin if I were really truthful. I turned to Kathy. "Do you think it would be okay to be brutally honest rather than get his hopes up?"
Well, it depends on how you phrase it really," said Kathy.
"I thought along the lines of, look, why don’t you piss off and leave me alone as the only way I could have sexual intercourse with you is if I was anaesthetised first."
"I bet you go out with him for a drink next week," Kathy said dryly.
"Over my dead body," I spluttered.
I suddenly remembered that she was just about to impart some spicy piece of information in the kitchen before being cruelly interrupted by Moyra. I asked her to elaborate.
"Oh yes, I forgot in all the excitement," she said. "Forget about old Merv the Perv, we are going to indulge ourselves in the latest spot of man baiting to hit the singles scene this century. I’m taking you speed-dating on Friday and we are going to catch us a man each with maybe a couple to spare."
Well, Kathy’s news really cheered me up, here was a ray of light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Surely out of 20 or 30 men I could snare at least one-half decent guy.
Kathy slapped me on the back as she returned to her desk yelling over her shoulder as she went, "You’ll have no trouble. With your big tits you’ll knock ‘em dead. WMDs or what!"
I clocked a lascivious glance from Dishy Dick who joined in a hilarious ricochet of ribald office banter that continued to ring in my ears as I happily returned to caption more pictures of proud gardeners fondling their engorged vegetables. Things were certainly looking up at last.