Black Widow (8 page)

I hate people seeing me cry, especially at work. I know I shouldn't, and I've written about how we ought not to be masking female traits because they might be perceived as weakness, but as we're a long way from winning that particular culture war, it always feels embarrassing.

It could have been a lot worse, I suppose. It could have been in front of Creepy Craig, or a male member of my department.

‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I'm not feeling at my most awesome right now.'

‘And you're desperate to get home. Got it. I'll be out of your hair fast as I can.'

‘Thank you.'

He worked swiftly and quietly, his fingers rattling the keys, boxes and panels opening and closing too fast for me to follow. After a few minutes he called up a log-in screen and asked me to type in my username and password.

It still came up as unrecognised.

‘Damn. I'm really sorry. Look, just let me try one last thing, and if that doesn't work, I don't know: might have to wave a dead chicken at it.'

‘What?'

‘Nothing. Geek-speak for desperation. Don't worry, I think I know what the problem is now.'

He worked the keyboard again, then sighed and sat back as code began scrolling in a window on the left-hand side.

‘Just recompiling something, and if all goes well, we'll both be able to draw a line under the week. Unless you're on-call tomorrow,' he added hurriedly, perhaps suspecting another way he might have put his foot in it.

‘No,' I assured him. ‘So I'm not thinking beyond going home and seeing what Friday night has to offer. More crying, I'm guessing, followed by dinner for one and falling asleep in front of the telly before Graham Norton has even flipped anybody out of the red chair. Not very awesome. Sad, in fact. Have you got plans?' I added. Not that I was interested in hearing about someone else's better life, but I wanted to be polite and more pressingly I needed to get off the fragile subject of myself in case I blubbed again.

‘Yeah. I think I can actually trump you in the sad and pitiful stakes. I'm heading home to do more work on a pipe-dream project that's never going to take off, then I'll have a quick freshen up before heading out to see Blink-183 at the Ironworks.'

I'm not known for my encyclopaedic knowledge of popular culture, but I was pretty sure this didn't sound right.

‘Isn't it Blink-182?' I asked, hoping I hadn't got this wrong and was about to look even more ancient and pitiful than I did already.

‘Not at the Ironworks,' he replied. ‘That's why I win the sad. I'm spending my Friday night going to see a Blink-182 tribute band. Alone as well. I was meant to be going with a mate, but he's got man flu. I was internally debating whether it was sadder to be going solo to a gig or to stay in alone instead. Deciding factor is I've already spent money on the tickets. Anyway, I'm wittering. Should be done here any second.'

He closed the window that had been scrolling code then opened up the log-in box again, gesturing me towards the keyboard with a hint of a flourish.

This time it let me in.

‘You can go home and cry now,' he said, getting up.

‘Thank you. Enjoy Blink-182. Three,' I corrected.

I watched him walk out, closing the door softly behind himself.

I sighed, feeling the last of the energy drain from my body now that I could finally afford to stand down. A line had been drawn under the week, as Peter had put it, and under this day in particular: this day of trials that had started more than twelve hours ago, kicking off with a squat lobster prompting a revelation about what a sad, lonely mess I was.

And now I could go home and cry.

Awesome.

Awesome Diana with her amazing skills. Who wouldn't want to be me?

I was reaching for my jacket when there was another brief knock at the door, then it opened to reveal Peter standing there again. He looked even less sure of himself than the first time. I wondered what he'd forgotten, and hoped to God he didn't need to do more work on my computer.

‘Look,' he said. ‘I was just thinking, and I hope this doesn't seem inappropriate – especially not “harassment complaint” inappropriate – because it's not a pick-up, but I was wondering if you wanted to trade one sad for another. See, I've got a spare ticket for a dodgy Blink-182 tribute band, and after the day you look like you've had, maybe what you need is three guys from Ullapool putting on unconvincing American accents and singing about getting blowjobs from your mom, and I can't believe I just said “blowjobs from your mom”. That probably sealed the harassment thing. But, you know, the offer's there.'

Something inside me lit up, and I was aware of feeling it before all of my rational thought processes could bustle in like disapproving relatives.

It was flattering, even though I knew I wasn't being asked on a date: merely the prospect of being out in the company of someone young, bright, attractive and
male
instantly picked me off the floor. For a moment I caught a glimpse of a different self I might be, and I needed to see myself differently right then. I don't mean I was deluding myself about how he might see me, because for all I knew he only saw some tragic older woman who he was trying to cheer up. I simply needed something to change, and I saw a new possibility for how this miserable Friday might end.

‘Okay,' I said.

He looked a little surprised, and perhaps I was imagining it, but there was a flash of something in his eyes that suggested he was genuinely pleased.

Three hours later I was regretting my decision, cursing my emotional fragility as I waited alone on Chapel Street, feeling like there was a neon sign above my head spelling out the words ‘Stood Up'.

I had spent much of the intervening time asking myself what the hell I thought I was doing. As I cooked and ate, showered and dressed, those glimpses of myself – out having a good time, laughing in easy company – were narrowing, like a constructed future collapsing under the weight of its own implausibility. It was as though the closer time brought me to the reality, the less I could believe in the dream.

I was only going to make a fool of myself, I chided. In fact, I was making a fool of myself already merely by getting dressed and putting on some make-up.

Then I resolved to get a grip. Going out of a Friday evening was not making a fool of myself. Was this how far I had fallen, that I could only perceive myself within a certain context: that of work, endeavour, seriousness and impending lonely middle age?

Nonetheless, I had to pull back six or seven times from ringing his mobile to cancel.

I distracted myself for a while by catching up with my friend Emily on Facebook. We traded some messages, and she told me how things were going with her job and her husband. They were both lecturers at Durham. I replied with some chat about life in the highlands and at the IRI, but I failed to mention that I was going out with a man tonight. I didn't want to invite curiosity or innuendo. It wasn't a date, I kept reassuring myself. Why?

Going on Facebook therefore failed to take my mind off the evening ahead, and inevitably I ended up googling him. He showed up on Facebook and on the Cobalt company site. There wasn't much to be gleaned other than what he had already told me: he was a gamer and a tech geek.

That was when it struck me that he might be googling me too.

So there I was, standing outside the Ironworks, pulling back from ringing to ask where he had got to. I don't know why: he was late, and it was nothing to call and ask what was keeping him. This felt different, though: like phoning up would seem needy or naggy.

I didn't merely feel conspicuously stood up, though: I felt conspicuously out of place, like everybody could see I didn't belong. As a result, I was ridiculously relieved and reassured whenever I saw someone plausibly my age or older going into the club.

Ten minutes ticked into twelve. Six minutes, in my estimation, is the basic margin of error allowing for a three-minute discrepancy either side of the right time on two people's watches. To that I could add bus, train or traffic delays, falling beneath a minimum that was worth sending a text. Though maybe he had sent a text and my phone hadn't received it. That sometimes happened when I hadn't restarted it in a while. Or maybe he had got my number wrong, transposed two of the digits.

I was actually thinking all this shit.

As the time approached fifteen minutes I began to wonder whether it was an elaborate revenge set-up, and that even now he was live-streaming the image of me standing there to a bunch of fellow hospital IT spods. Then I saw him.

Isn't it amazing how turning up late can transform people? How they become a more welcome sight than you remember, or than had they pitched up when they were supposed to? When finally Peter came into view, hurrying along the street in a light jog, I was so relieved to see him that all of my internal doubts as to the wisdom of being here were instantly dispelled.

He was dressed in black jeans and a T-shirt under a leatherette jacket. Somehow he looked smarter than when he had been wearing a collar and tie; or if not smarter, definitely better dressed. He looked right.

I was in jeans too, but I bet he hadn't gone through several changes in and out of them in preference over various trousers that seemed too starchy, too formal, too work-like or too dressy for what I estimated to be appropriate to the venue and the occasion. I had gone through as many changes of top too, with the issue of what looked good proving only a secondary consideration. The principal areas of internal wrangling were the thornier questions of who I was dressing for, what I was trying to say by my choice and whether I was prepared to admit either to myself.

Peter's T-shirt was dominated by a logo that said Blue Sun, above some Chinese characters. It was a fashion line I didn't recognise or a pop-culture reference I didn't get. Neither category would necessarily indicate great depths of arcana.

‘Sorry I'm late,' he said. ‘I was coding. Lost track of time. Reached what they call a flow state. Thanks for waiting. I was afraid you'd have bailed on me.'

He handed over the tickets at the door, the bouncer giving me the most cursory glance. Whatever he was trained to be on the lookout for, I wasn't it.

We headed inside. I was anticipating darkness but it was fairly bright, coloured lights playing around the walls and the crew still busy making adjustments on the stage. There was music playing but it wasn't too loud to speak. I recall being unsure whether that was a good thing.

‘Can I buy you a drink?' Peter asked.

The place wasn't particularly busy: less than a third of capacity, I estimated. I saw two faces I recognised as we approached the bar: a casualty officer called Charlotte and a theatre nurse named Polly. I saw the confusion in their faces as they took a moment to recognise me, thrown by the context with which they normally associated my presence. I guessed that was Monday morning's gossip sorted, but oddly I didn't mind. I wasn't sure what had thrown them more: that I'd be at a Blink-182 tribute show or that I was out with a man, and a younger man at that.

I had taken the car but on the spur of the moment I decided I would get a cab home and pick it up in the morning. Something told me I was going to need more than a couple of mineral waters to get through this.

I was about to ask for a white wine then thought that was probably a bad idea on a number of levels.

‘Just a beer, thanks.'

‘Pint?'

That didn't sound very me, but I could see that the staff were pouring bottled beers into plastic glasses anyway, so I decided what the hell. I was trying not to
be
very me that night, wasn't I?

‘So what were you coding, that caused you to enter this “flow state”?'

‘It's a project I've been working on. Rather technical to explain. It's going okay, but…'

He shrugged, a rather wistful smile playing across his face.

‘What?'

‘Ach, just been over this ground a few too many times. I think I'm getting somewhere and then it, well, I think “peters out” is a particularly appropriate expression. That's why I'm in awe of the application it must take to reach where you are.'

‘It helps if you're a boring swot with a one-track mind and a pathological stubbornness.'

‘Seriously, don't under-estimate it. It takes passion to have a dream and then do what is necessary to really live it. The follow-through, that's my weakness. A lot of grand vision and enthusiasm at the inception, but my past is littered with the debris of abandoned ideas that turned out not to be as clever or as viable as they seemed. I lack your dedication. Guess that's why I can only get a gig in hospital IT.'

He took a sip of beer as he said this, eyeing me over the rim with a mixture of mischief and curiosity.

The part of me that had recently been afraid of an elaborate revenge prank was suddenly on alert, but I didn't have the sense that there was anything malicious going on. More like a gentle dig to see how I took it.

‘So you knew all along,' I said, neutrally.

‘No, not at all. I googled you when I got home. Had to: I got the vibe that there was something they weren't telling me.'

‘I'm not going to apologise to every IT person I ever meet, and I don't need to justify myself over what I wrote,' I told him, feeling myself stiffen.

‘So don't. I'm not going to take the huff over what you said about IT guys any more than I'm going to feel responsible for how other IT guys behaved. I just thought I should let you know I was aware of it, because it wouldn't be right to pretend otherwise.'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘It had to get out there, I suppose. Curse of the age: I hate the fact that people can find out so much about me instantly, all my baggage only a search string and a mouse click away.'

‘Yeah, but it's a blessing of the age too, if you look at it differently. It's not some buried mine waiting to be stepped on further down the line. Instead of you worrying about what I might find out, it's out there right away, so we can both get past it instantly.'