Читать книгу The Trials of Tiffany Trott - Isabel Wolff - Страница 8

I’m going to try the small ads again! You see, I’m beginning to get the hang of it now. But no more weird, superannuated students thank you very much – Eligible Successfuls only from now on! And I must say I rather like these Twin Souls telephone ads, where you don’t have to write off to some anonymous post box and then wait weeks for a reply. You just dial a number, listen to their recorded voice-mail and leave them a message of your own. It’s brilliant because, let’s face it, voices are pretty important. I mean, on paper a man could look fantastic, but then the ‘Successful City Professional, 44’ could, in reality, be a ‘Successfuw Ci-ee Professionaw, Fawee-fawer’. And that wouldn’t do at all, would it? So these answerphone ads are jolly good. Expensive, of course. But then what’s fifty pence a minute compared to my future happiness?

Anyway, having listened to – what? – forty or fifty of these earlier on today I’ve found one I really like: ‘Adventurous, Seriously Successful Managing Director, 41, 6 foot, slim, attractive, amusing, urbane, WLTM unforgettable girl in her 20s/30s who doesn’t mind being spoilt a little, or even a lot.’ His voice was so nice – neither horribly posh, nor obviously plebeian. Smooth without being smarmy. Cultivated, but not cut glass. Perfect. Wonder why he’s still single? Anyway, he can spoil me as much as he likes, and I’ll spoil him right back – with interest. Of course, leaving the reply’s a bit of an ordeal. I felt quite shy actually, and had to have a couple of goes at it, but then hell! We’re all in the same boat here, so what’s the problem? We’re just people who are too busy, too dynamic, too successful, too eligible, too desirable and too bloody attractive to find the time to stop being … um … alone. So we’re just being really sensible about our completely puzzling lack of a life partner and resorting to a little artifice.

‘Hellooooo,’ I whispered into the receiver in the most Felicity Kendalish voice I could manage. ‘My name’s Tiffany. Tiffany Trott. Now, I know you’ll have heard from about seventeen million unforgettable girls in their twenties and thirties, but you don’t need them – you need me! Why? Because I’m happy and busy, and I like jokes and I’m thirty-seven, single, and um … desperate – ha ha ha! No, but seriously … I’m short, blonde, on the fat side and quite jolly. Ummmm … so there we have it. That’s me, Tiffany. Tiffany Trott. So please give me a call soon. PS: I hope you don’t like golf. PPS: Isn’t this fun?’

Wow! That’s it. I hope he gives me a ring – preferably one with a big diamond on it, lozenge cut. On the other hand a large square emerald would be nice or – and this is dead trendy – a right knuckleduster of an aquamarine. Yes, according to this month’s edition of Brides and Setting Up Home magazine, aquamarines are the stone of choice. In the meantime, there’s dinner with Angus and Alison this evening. I suppose I’ll be the only single woman – as usual. And as usual they’ll have invited along some dreary, physiognomically-challenged, halitotic ex-army chap for me, who will have absolutely nothing to say. And seeing me struggle to extract conversation out of him over the curried avocado will make Alison and Angus think how lucky they are to be married, and thank God for that Young Conservatives do in Croydon in 1982, otherwise they’d never have met each other and they’d have ended up sad singles too, like poor, poor Tiffany.

Got that one completely wrong. On several counts. I wasn’t the only single woman – Catherine was there too, thank God. And my ‘date’ was OK-looking-bordering-on-the-almost-acceptable. A GP in his early forties. And he certainly wasn’t dreary. Oh no. He had plenty to say.

Hello, I thought to myself when we were introduced, you’re a bit of all right. A damn sight better than the usual pond life they dredge up on my behalf. He was very flirty. Very animated. He giggled a lot. He drank a lot. Though, like me, he politely declined Alison’s homemade cheese and peanut dip. But he looked incredibly fit and he had a lovely tan. I wasn’t too keen on his stubby little moustache or the gold bracelet on his left wrist, but I really liked his natty turquoise silk embroidered waistcoat. Very unusual. Though Catherine didn’t seem that impressed with him – she looked at him, then looked at me, and discreetly rolled her eyes. But personally, I rather liked the look of him.

Anyway, Angus and Alison ushered us all into the dining-room, and they sat Catherine next to this accountant – now he did look dreary – and they put me next to the GP, who was called Sebastian. And we started to make smalltalk over the macaroni-cheese-stuffed eggs, and he politely asked me about my interests. And when I said tennis, he said, ‘What do you play – singles?’ I found that awfully amusing. And then he kept going on, rather oddly I thought, about how gorgeous-looking Greg Rusedksi is and how much he’d like to be on Greg’s receiving end.

‘Now, there’s herby apple-glazed pork roast next,’ said Alison. ‘Or blue cheese chicken rolls if you’re vegetarian.’

Anyway, then, because Abigail whatsername was pregnant – smugly rubbing her vast stomach all evening – the conversation naturally turned to babies.

‘Are you hoping to have children?’ Sebastian asked me, passing me the bowl of cheesy-topped vegetables.

‘Well … yes … yes, I am actually,’ I replied, as I passed it on. I didn’t really want to discuss it, to be honest, but he didn’t seem to pick up on that at all.

And then he said, ‘How old are you?’ At this point everyone suddenly started listening.

‘I’m fifty-three,’ I quipped, to cover my annoyance at being asked.

‘Gosh, I’d never have thought it,’ he said with a sly grin. ‘I thought you were only – ooh – forty.’ And everyone laughed, except Catherine, who looked horrified. But all the others seemed to find it extremely funny, especially, it seemed to me, Abigail, who’s only twenty-nine. And while I sat there wondering if I have ever, ever in my life said anything so calculated to hurt, humiliate and demoralise another human being, he went on and on and on about the bloody biological clock.

‘I’m sick of seeing late thirty-something and early forty-something women come bleating to me for IVF because they’ve never got round to having babies before,’ he said, adding, to me, ‘so I wouldn’t hang around, Tiffany.’

‘Oh, I’m working on it,’ I said. ‘In fact I’m fairly confident of giving birth before I’m due to have my hips replaced.’

‘By the time women are over thirty-five it’s getting critical,’ he said expansively, pouring himself another glass of Bulgarian Cabernet. ‘Perhaps you should have your eggs frozen, Tiffany.’ And then he went into this really long, detailed spiel about how women are born with all their eggs – hundreds of them – but how they gradually start to go off as we age, and how by the time we’re thirty-seven plus we’re practically infertile and almost guaranteed to give birth to three-headed monsters – that is if we can get pregnant at all.

‘So I do advise you to get on with it,’ he finished, ‘because even if you were actively trying to start a family you might find that, at your age, it takes you ages to get pregnant.’

‘What about Jane Seymour?’ I said, taking a sliver of peach melba cheesecake. ‘Twins at forty-four.’

‘And Annabel Goldsmith had a baby at forty-five,’ interjected Catherine.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and Jerry Hall had another when she was forty-one. They were all absolutely fine.’

‘That’s different,’ he said. ‘They’re rich. And anyway, they’d had children before – it’s much harder having your first baby late.’

‘But Madonna was thirty-eight when she had her first child,’ said Catherine, with an indignant little laugh.

‘And Koo Stark was forty,’ I persisted, because, you see, I always pay close attention to stories like that in the newspapers. In fact Mum cuts them out and sends them to me – I’ve got quite a collection now in the ‘Late Motherhood’ section of my index file.

‘And that other woman, Liz Buttle, she was sixty,’ added Catherine vehemently. ‘Which means Tiffany and I have got loads of time left.’

But Sebastian didn’t seem impressed. ‘You know,’ he said, cutting into the Danish Blue, ‘all this talk about older motherhood being fashionable – it’s total baloney. This is what women like to say to make themselves feel good about it all. But the fact is that children don’t want geriatric parents. It’s embarrassing for them. But then the problem is,’ he added, ‘that if women don’t have babies, then they run an increased risk of getting breast cancer.’

Sometimes. Just sometimes, taxi drivers can be really, really nice. Especially mini-cab drivers. On the way back from Angus and Alison’s – my God, a fifteen-pound fare and I hadn’t even had a nice time! – I saw the driver rummaging in the glove box. Then he passed back a thick wadge of tissues.

‘Thank you,’ I said quietly.

‘Cheer up, darlin’,’ he said, as we sped past the Angel. ‘It may never happen.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know. That’s just the problem.’

Location. Location. Location. Where blokes live is critical, because the fact is – and I don’t know why this should be the case – that whenever I’m going out with someone I nearly always end up going over to their place. And that’s the big drawback about London, isn’t it? The trek across the capital when you’re romantically inclined. Take my ex-but-one Phil Anderer for example. He lived in Wimbledon! Not very convenient for me, but I didn’t like to complain.

‘Oh no, I don’t mind the journey over at all,’ I used to say. ‘It only takes two days on the number 93 and there are so many interesting things to look at along the way.’ And I didn’t resent the fact that he practically never came over to my place because I understood that he needed to be near the golf club and in any case, I quite agreed with him that the back end of Islington can be a very dangerous place. And as for Alex, well although he lived very centrally, in Fitzrovia, behind Tottenham Court Road, somehow I hardly ever went to his flat. Usually we met outside the theatre, or the opera, or the ICA or the National Gallery, or St John’s, Smith Square, or Sadler’s Wells, or the Jazz Café or the National Film Theatre or wherever. Anyway, I’ve given this issue quite a bit of thought, and I’ve decided that there’s no way romance is going to blossom if blokes do not possess at least one of the following postcodes: N1, N4, N5, N16, W1, W2, WC2, SW1 or – in exceptional circumstances – SW3. I do hope my Adventurous, Seriously Successful, Managing Director qualifies on that front. Actually, I haven’t heard a whisper. I don’t think he liked my reply to his ad. Lizzie didn’t like it either.

‘Why on earth did you tell him your age?’ she barked, as we worked out in her local gym. ‘You must be out of your tiny mind.’

‘As he’s very likely to find out how old I am, I might as well be upfront about it,’ I said calmly, as I lay back on the bench and lifted little weights with my feet. ‘Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with being thirty-seven. Thirty-seven’s just fine. Greta Scacchi’s thirty-seven,’ I pointed out.

‘But you’re not Greta Scacchi,’ Lizzie replied, as she pounded away on the running machine. This was true.

‘Daryl Hannah’s thirty-seven too,’ I said. ‘So is Kim Wilde. So is Kristin Scott Thomas.’

‘Don’t talk to me about Kristin Scott Thomas,’ panted Lizzie, as she increased the speed. Oh dear. I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten that if it wasn’t for Kristin Scott Thomas Lizzie would be a very famous actress by now. In fact she’d be as famous as, well, Kristin Scott Thomas. But in 1986 Kristin Scott Thomas beat Lizzie to the lead role in some B movie or other, blighting Lizzie’s career ever since.

‘Well, I like being thirty-seven,’ I added. ‘I feel good about everything at thirty-seven, except my eggs, which are apparently going off according to a sadistic doctor I met last week. Apart from that, I’m in my prime.’

‘Tiffany, you are not in your prime, you’re getting on,’ she said, stopping to light a cigarette. ‘And will you please stop telling these men that you’re short and fat. You’re not.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But if I tell them that I am short and fat then, when they meet me, they’ll be so relieved, having had such low expectations of what I’m going to be like, that they’ll instantly fancy me to bits. You see I’ve worked it all out.’

‘If you tell them you’re short and fat,’ she said slowly, ‘you won’t get to meet them at all. I mean why do you think this Seriously Successful hasn’t called? I rest my case.’

When I got home, the phone rang. ‘Oh, hello, is that Tiffany?’ said the ‘Adventurous, Seriously Successful Managing Director, 41’, whose voice I instantly recognised.

‘Yes, it is,’ I said happily. ‘Hello!’

‘Thank you so much for replying to my ad,’ he said. ‘It was lovely to hear from you. You’re number sixteen million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, by the way.’

‘Oh dear – a disappointing response, then.’

‘And how many other Twin Souls ads have you replied to?’

‘Four hundred and fifty-six.’

‘I see. Well I think it’s very sensible of you not to overdo it. And what do you do?’

‘I’m an advertising copywriter.’

‘Oh. Go To Work On An Egg – Vorsprung Durch Technik, that kind of thing,’ he said.

‘Yes. That sort of thing. Pick Up a Penguin.’

‘Don’t Leave Home Without It.’

‘Helps You Work, Rest and Play.’

‘Lifts and Separates.’

‘Things Happen After a Badedas Bath.’

‘Refreshes the Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach.’

‘Simple. But Brilliant.’

‘Pure Genius,’ he said. ‘Now, tell me, are you really short and fat?’

‘No, not really,’ I said.

‘Well, that’s a pity, because I like small cuddly women.’

‘Nor could I conceivably be described as tall and thin,’ I pointed out. ‘And are you really “Seriously Successful”?’

‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

‘Well, that’s a pity, because on the whole I prefer life’s losers and the walking wounded.’

On and on we bantered. A man with a quick wit – fantastic! Better still, he got my jokes.

Unlike Phil Anderer: ‘You know what your problem is, don’t you?’ Phillip would say. ‘No,’ I’d reply, whilst wondering whether he was going to tell me, yet again, that it was my ‘abject’ dress sense, or the fact that I ‘talked too much’ or had ‘too many little opinions’.

‘What is my problem?’ I’d say wearily. ‘Tell me.’

‘You’ve got no sense of humour … ’

‘Now, I think we should meet,’ said Seriously Successful after about twenty minutes of happy badinage. ‘Do you like the Ritz?’ Do fish like water?

‘Love it.’

‘Good. I’ll book a table for two on … Thursday? At eight o’clock?’

‘Fabbo,’ I said. ‘See you there. But hang on a mo – how will I recognise you?’

‘I’ll be wearing a Hermes tie,’ he said. ‘What about you?’

‘I wear contact lenses.’

‘Good. That’ll be easy then.’

Wahay! I’m having dinner at the Ritz with a quite possibly gorgeous, successful, charming, and very amusing man, complete with outsize bank balance and impeccable taste in neckwear. Does winning the lottery feel this good?

On Thursday evening I showered, dressed carefully in an elegant little Alberta Ferretti linen suit which I’ve had for five years but love, and set off for Piccadilly on the number 38 bus. As I walked through the revolving doors of the Ritz for the second time in a fortnight, trying not to look as though I was on another blind date – and desperately hoping not to see Peter Fitz-Harrod again – I spotted a rather interesting-looking man standing at the reception. Tall, with wavy chestnut hair, fine features and chocolate-brown eyes, he wasn’t conventionally handsome, but he looked very animated and alert. He was beautifully besuited in a Prince of Wales check and, as I approached, I noticed that he had his tie twisted round so the label was showing. He looked at me, raised his eyebrows enquiringly, then suddenly broke into a broad smile.

‘Hallo, Tiffany Trott,’ he said confidently.

‘Hello, Seriously Successful,’ I replied.

‘The Effect is Shattering,’ he added.

‘Thank you. It’s Good to Talk.’

‘Let’s eat,’ he said, gently taking hold of my left elbow and steering me, along the pink-and-green carpet, through the Palm Court bar, towards the restaurant. Now, I thought this instant physical contact was a little bit forward, but I didn’t mind. In fact, I rather liked it. It was nice. Seriously Successful was obviously at home in the Ritz – the waiters all seemed to know him. We were shown to a table on the left, near the large gilded figures of Neptune and his Nereid. The tablecloths were of the heaviest white damask, the china a pure turquoise blue. A silver vase containing two Stargazer lilies scented the surrounding air. I breathed it all in. It was lovely. I looked around at the other diners, substituting their faces for those of Noel Coward, Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh and the Aga Khan.

‘There’s so much history in this room, isn’t there?’ I said.

‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘Edward the Seventh was a regular. Just think, he and Alice Keppel may have dined at this very table.’

Seriously Successful ordered the wine with obvious savoir boire and kept smiling at me over the top of his menu as I perused the hors d’oeuvres. ‘Oak-smoked wild salmon – £17.50.’ Maybe I’d have the mosaic of Devon crab, or the toasted game salad with celeriac wafers, or the artichoke heart with wild mushrooms and asparagus. I really couldn’t decide.

‘I do hope you’ll have something really high-calorie,’ said Seriously Successful suddenly. ‘I love curvy women. May I recommend the terrine of foie gras followed by the roast rack of lamb with a large helping of Dauphinois potatoes, and then the double chocolate mousse – with added cream, of course.’

‘I’m not sure that’ll be enough,’ I said, though the truth was I had the butterflies and didn’t know how I was going to eat anything. I found him so damned attractive. He was very conservative, and yet artistic, too – a devastating combination. He told me about his work – publishing trade magazines – and his passion for playing the cello, which he said he practises every morning. He also told me about his farmhouse in Sussex, and his luxury apartment in Piccadilly – in Albany no less – with Alan Clark living practically next door!

‘So the Ritz is really your local,’ I said as our main course arrived.

‘Yes. And Fortnum and Mason’s is my corner shop,’ he replied. ‘These little stores are so useful.’ He grinned. I smiled back. How incredible to think that such a nice-looking, funny, generous, stylish, eligible man was still single! Amazing. What a piece of luck. Thank God I’d been brave enough to answer his ad, I thought, as I listened to the gentle clattering of silver cutlery. It was such a sensible thing to have done. We talked with startling ease about, well, lots of things – recent films and books, tennis technique and travel, birth signs, politics and paintings, love, life and death. And of course advertising, which he loves. In fact he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of slogans and straplines, including one or two of my own. This was highly gratifying. The evening was going brilliantly well. And then, as the waiters took away our plates after the main course, Seriously Successful removed his napkin from his lap and looked me straight in the eye. And I thought he was going to say, ‘Miss Trott. In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you!’ Instead, he leant forward and said, ‘Now Tiffany, I’ve got a little proposition for you.’

What is wrong with men? Why do they always give me such a hard time? After all, it’s not as though I’ve failed to make any effort with them. Have I not cooked for them and ironed their shirts, including that rather tricky bit at the base of the collar? Have I not planted their gardens and watered their window boxes? Have I not posted their letters and picked up their prescriptions and collected swatches of carpet and curtain fabric when they were having their houses done up? Have I not changed my clothes when they told me they didn’t like them, and lost weight when they said I was too fat? Have I not – have I not trotted after them round the bloody golf course shouting, ‘MARVELLOUS SHOT!’ – even when the ball was clearly heading for the lake? So what, precisely, is the sodding problem? Why is there always some matrimony-murdering sting in the tail? Take Seriously Successful, for example. There I was at the Ritz, lost in love, mentally rehearsing his wedding speech, and naming our children (Heidi, Hildegarde, Lysander, Tarquin and Max) when Fate, with malice aforethought, sneezed in my ashtray again.

‘Now, I don’t want you to be shocked,’ said Seriously Successful, seriously. ‘But I’ve got this little proposition for you. For us, actually.’

‘Oh, what’s that, then?’ I asked airily, fiddling with my pudding fork and hoping that what he had actually meant to say was that he had in mind a little proposal for me. Propositions always sound vaguely dodgy, don’t they?

He fiddled with the knot of his tie. ‘You see,’ he began hesitantly, ‘my wife and I … ’

‘Your wife?’

‘Yes.’ He looked at me. ‘Wife.’

‘Oh.’ My heart did a bungee jump.

‘You see she … Olivia. That’s her name. Olivia and I … ’ He took a sip of water. He appeared to be struggling. ‘ … well … we don’t really get on. In fact, we were never really very compatible in the first place,’ he continued. ‘We’ve soldiered on for years, but recently we’ve just found it pretty intolerable. There’s never been anyone else involved,’ he added quickly. ‘I wouldn’t like you to think that. But it’s just that our marriage is, well, a bit of a farce, really.’

My hopes rose as swiftly on their elasticated rope as they had plummeted a moment before. In that case he could get divorced, couldn’t he, and it would all be OK? I could still have my dream man with his lovely voice and his smart suits and his exquisite neckwear and his jokes.

‘However,’ I heard him continue, ‘we are extremely unlikely to split up.’

‘Oh.’ Oh. ‘Why?’

‘Because her father is my main backer. He lent me a considerable amount of money when I set up my company fifteen years ago.’

‘I see.’

‘I had nothing then. Except my ideas, and my energy, and my ambition. And he enabled me to make a success of it. It would have been almost impossible otherwise. And it has been, well … ’

‘Seriously Successful?’ I suggested.

‘Yes,’ he said with a little shrug. ‘It has. That’s why I have the house in Sussex and the smart flat in town. That’s why I’m wearing a Savile Row suit and handmade shoes. That’s why my daughter goes to Benenden. All because Olivia’s father laid the foundations for my business success.’

‘But if the company’s done that well, couldn’t you just, well, pay him back?’ I ventured.

‘I have,’ he replied. ‘Of course I have. With interest. But it’s not as simple as that, because when he agreed to back me, he said he would only do it if I promised always to look after Olivia and never, ever leave her. That was the condition. He was very emphatic about it, and I said I would honour it. And I will. In any case,’ he carried on with a slight grimace, ‘divorce is so unpleasant, especially where children are involved. I really don’t want to inflict that on my daughter.’

‘Well personally I think adultery’s very unpleasant. I really don’t want to inflict that on myself.’

‘And the reason why I put in that ad is because I’m just, well, rather lonely and love-starved really, and I wanted to find someone I can care for and … ’

‘Spoil a little or even a lot,’ I said dismally.

‘Er. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Someone I can have fun with. And when I talked to you, and met you this evening, and was terribly attracted to you, which I am, then I knew that the person I could have fun with was you.’

‘What the hell makes you think I want to have fun?’ I said. ‘I don’t want any bloody fun. I want to get married.’

‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t actually offer you marriage,’ he said. ‘Not as such. But we could still have a wonderful relationship,’ he added enthusiastically. ‘Though of course it would have to be part-time.’

‘Part-time? Oh I see,’ I said, twisting the handle of my pudding spoon. ‘Well, perhaps you could tell me what that would involve. I mean, how many days off would I get? And would I have any union rights? Would I get the usual benefits and sick pay, and could you guarantee me a minimum wage? And if I were to sign a contract what would happen if Britain signed up to the Social Chapter? You see I’ve got to think about these things.’

‘Don’t be bitter,’ he said, as the waiter arrived with the pudding and cheese. ‘Why did you assume that I was single?’

‘Because you didn’t say that you weren’t,’ I said, throwing my eyes up in anguish to the clouded, trompe l’oeil ceiling. ‘Why didn’t you just be done with it and say, “Suave businessman in dead-as-dodo marriage WLTM curvy girl for fun legovers with absolutely no view to future”? Anyway, you could have told me over the phone.’

‘You didn’t ask.’

‘But you should have said. We talked for long enough.’

‘Well, OK, I didn’t say because I liked the sound of you so much and I was afraid that if you knew my situation you wouldn’t agree to meet me.’

‘Too bloody right. Being someone’s side-order wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.’

‘I don’t know why you’re so shocked,’ he said, with an air of exasperation as he buttered a Bath Oliver. ‘I’m offering something very … civilised. And let’s face it, Tiffany, lots of people have these sorts of arrangements.’

‘Well, lots of people aren’t me,’ I said. My throat was aching with a suppressed sob; tears pricked the back of my eyes. I glanced away from him, taking in the Marie Antoinette interior with its shining mirrored panels and gilded chandeliers. Then I looked at him again.

‘You said it was a proposition. And I don’t accept it. So I’m afraid you’ll just have to put it to someone else.’ I put my napkin on the table and stood up. ‘I think I’ll go home now. Goodbye. Thank you very much for dinner.’

I walked out through the bar, aware of the happy babble of voices, and the merry chink of cut glass. My face was flaming with a combination of indignation and the humid, midsummer heat. What a bastard, I thought as I crossed Piccadilly. Who did he think he was? More importantly, who did he think I was? What a cad. What a … I flagged down the number 38 and stepped on board. Empty. Good. At least I could cry without being stared at.

‘Cheer up darling,’ said the conductor as I sat in the front seat shielding my face with my left hand. ‘It may never happen.’

‘I know,’ I said, as a large, hot tear plopped onto my lap. Especially if I make a habit of dating men like Seriously Successful. What a creep. What did he take me for? I reached into my bag and pulled out my mobile phone. I’d ring Lizzie right now and tell her what a bastard he was. Part-time girlfriend indeed! She’d be sympathetic. I dialled her number.

‘We’re so sorry, but Lizzie and Martin aren’t here at the moment,’ declaimed her recorded voice. ‘But please do leave us a message … ’ God, so theatrical – you’d think she was auditioning for the RSC – ‘and we’ll get back to you just as soon as we can.’ Damn. I pressed the red button. Who could I talk to instead? I had to talk to someone. Sally. She’d dish out some sympathy. If she wasn’t in New York, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Washington or Paris. Ring ring. Ring ring.

‘Hallo,’ said Sally.

‘Sally, it’s Tiffany and I just wanted to tell you … ’

‘Tiffany! How are you?’

‘Very pissed off actually, because you see I’ve just been on a date, a blind date … ’

‘Gosh, that’s brave.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is. Or rather it’s not really brave, it’s stupid. Because you see I met this bloke, this adventurous, seriously successful managing director … ’

‘Yes? Sounds OK. What happened?’ The bus stopped in Shaftesbury Avenue, then – ding ding! - it moved off again.

‘Well, it was all going very well,’ I said. ‘I thought he was terribly attractive, and very interesting and incredibly funny … ’

‘Oh hang on, Tiffany, I’ve just got to catch the business headlines on Sky … ’ Her voice returned a minute later. ‘It’s OK, I was just checking the Dow Jones. Carry on. So what happened?’ Ding ding!

‘Well, it was going really well,’ I repeated. ‘And he seemed very interested in me, and I was certainly very interested in him and then … ’

‘Yes?’

‘Move down inside the bus please!’ Ding ding!

‘He told me that he was married and was only looking for a part-time girlfriend. What do you think of that?’

‘I think that’s awful,’ said the elderly woman sitting behind me. I turned round and looked at her. ‘I hope you gave him what for,’ she said.

‘Yes, I did actually. I was extremely insult—Sally? Are you still there?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘How ghastly. What a creep. But didn’t his ad say that he was married?’

‘No. It didn’t say he was married,’ I said dismally, as we chugged up Rosebery Avenue. ‘It simply said that he was looking for an unforgettable girl in her twenties or thirties to “spoil a little or even a lot”.’ A guffaw arose from behind me. What the hell was so funny? I turned round again and glared at the other passengers.

‘But Tiffany, you should have known,’ said Sally. Ding ding!

‘How?’

‘Because an offer to “spoil” a woman is shorthand for seeking a mistress. Like an offer to “pamper” her, or a request for “discretion”. You’ve got to learn the code if you’re going to do this kind of thing.’

‘Well I didn’t know that,’ I wailed. ‘I know that GSOH means Good Sense of Humour and I know VGSOH means Very Good Sense of Humour and that WLTM means Would Like To Meet.’

‘And LTR means Long Term Relationship,’ added Sally.

‘Does it?’

‘And W/E means “well-endowed”.’

‘Really? Good God! Anyway, I didn’t know that offering to “spoil” someone meant you already had a wife.’

‘Everyone knows that,’ said the middle-aged man across the aisle from me, unhelpfully.

‘Well, I didn’t – OK?’ I said. ‘Anyway Sally, Sally are you there? Hi. I’m just really, really pissed off. Seriously Successful? Seriously Swine-ish more like.’

‘What’s his real name?’ she asked, as we left the Angel.

‘God, I don’t know. I never asked,’ I said. ‘Anyway, whatever Seriously Slimy’s real name is, is no concern of mine. Seriously Unscrupulous … ’

‘Seriously Shallow,’ said the woman behind me.

‘Yes.’

‘And Seriously Sad,’ she concluded.

‘Quite. I mean, Sally, what on earth did he take me for?’

‘Never mind, Tiffany, that was bad luck,’ she said. ‘But I’m sure there’s someone nice just around the corner. Are you going to Lizzie’s for lunch on Sunday?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Well I’ll see you then,’ she said. ‘And chin up.’

I put my mobile phone away and took out my paper. Doing the crossword would calm me down. Bastard. Bastard. Fifteen across: Fool about with high-flyer. Seven letters, first letter, ‘S’. Couldn’t do it. I stood up and rang the bell. As I made my way to the back of the bus an elderly man made a beckoning gesture.

‘Why don’t you join Dateline?’ he said in a gravelly whisper. ‘Much safer. I think these personal ads are rather risky myself.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘I’ll think about it.’

Fool about with high-flyer. I turned it over and over in my mind as I got off at my stop and walked down Ockendon Road. Oh God, there were cyclists on the bloody footpath again.

‘It’s the People’s Pavement you know!’ I called out as the boy whizzed past, practically clipping my left ear. God I was in a bad mood. A really bad mood. Damn Seriously Successful. Damn him. Fool about with high-flyer, I thought. High-flyer. And then it came to me – with a pang – skylark.