Raven (8 page)

We ordered some food and talked some more and I liked him on a basic level. Rough-cut though he was, he had old-fashioned good manners, pulling my chair out for me, helping me on with my jacket, etc. The kind of escort who would sock a guy on the jaw for making a lewd remark to his date, and that has definite appeal in today's poncy, politically correct world.

When we parted company he said he would like to see me again, ‘when he was in better shape', and I suggested we text each other.

He texted late that night: ‘I really like you and thanks for being so attentive and understanding. Hope very much to see you again soon.'

I knew that my reply, the next day, wasn't what he wanted to hear. It was along fairly standard lines: enjoyed meeting you, you're a decent guy but we haven't enough in common for us to keep seeing each other, you deserve my honesty, wouldn't want to lead you on, blah blah…'

There were a few more messages, then they petered out. And that was the end of my fireman. Looked like I would be keeping my leathers in mothballs a while longer.

*

It's Sunday lunch with the family. Big leg of lamb with all the trimmings, the Bordeaux is flowing, the kiddies (aged two and five) are playing with their vegetables before getting bored and scampering off to watch a cartoon.

We've done politics and the fighting in Afghanistan, Boris Johnson's latest antics and plans for a surfing weekend in Cornwall, the kids' erratic night-time sleeping patterns and our favourite moments from Breaking Bad.

Then, in a lull, Older Son (aged 35) asks: ‘So Mum, how's it going with the internet dating?'

Sara (a vegetarian) looks up from her veggie-and-nut roast and our eyes meet.

Me (noncommittally): ‘Oh yeah, it's been interesting.'

Older Son: ‘Been out on a few dates now, I gather from Sara.'

Me, nodding: ‘Yes I have, an intriguing variety.' I wonder how much I ought to reveal. Okay, here goes. Because I can't resist a little boast. ‘To my amazement I seem to be rather popular with the younger guys!'

Younger Son (aged 29), none too comfortably : ‘How
much
younger? I hope they're at least twenty years older than me.'

Me: small awkward laugh.

Younger Son: ‘Oh Christ…'

Older Son: ‘
Mum
.'

Younger Son: ‘I don't want to know.'

Me: ‘It's just dates. Don't worry. I'm having a nice time. You want me to have a nice time, right? Anyway, last weekend I went out with a fireman.
That
was pretty interesting.'

Older Son (in an approving tone, because as a special constable he's got a lot of time for blokes in the emergency services): ‘Yeah? How did that go?'

Me: ‘He was perfectly nice to me but I really couldn't see us having – you know – a
relationship
or anything. We agreed to part company.'

Older Son: ‘So there was no spark, then?' Cue general laughter.

Younger Son: ‘You mean he didn't light your fire, Mum?' More guffaws.

Me (entering into the spirit): ‘Maybe I'm just too hot to handle!' And as I down another gulp of wine, I catch Sara smiling at me indulgently.

What would I do without this lot? I say to myself, feeling all cosy inside.

Later, as we're doing the washing-up, Older Son says: ‘Just be careful, Mum, with all that dating.'

I don't look at him. ‘Sure.'

CHAPTER NINE

A couple of weeks earlier, on one of my regular inspections of the rascals' gallery of men on the dating site – the unending parade of faces with their sometimes bizarre user-names and occasionally original but more often cliché-ridden profile narratives – one face leapt out and instantly captivated me. Charles2013 was a man in his mid-fifties with classic good looks. Swept-back brown hair, hazel eyes, chiselled face and one of those gleaming white smiles common to Hollywood stars. I clicked on his picture and learned that, unsurprisingly, he was an American expat. And by the sound of it, a real high-flyer, looking every bit the business executive it said he was in the box marked ‘job description'.

He was in such a different league to the other middle-aged men on the site that I wondered what he was even doing on it. Surely he must already have women hurling themselves at him in the ‘real world' – that terrestrial zone that had begun to seem less real to me, in dating terms at least, than cyberspace. For my money it was a no-brainer and I sent him a wink without further ado.

When I received no response I drew the reasonable conclusion that Raven – enthralling though I personally considered her to be – had not triggered an interest. Perhaps I wasn't glamorous enough for this George Clooney-esque catch. Perhaps he didn't like journalists. I knew it couldn't be my age, because his profile stated that he would consider women up to the age of 58, and I was passing myself off as a mere 54-year-old. Whatever the reason, as the weeks went by without so much as a return wink, Charles 2013 simply receded from my consciousness.

So it was with a gleeful squeal that I found a message from him one morning as I flipped open the trusty laptop.

‘Hi "Raven", thank you for looking at my profile and sending a wink. I am flattered! [
He's
flattered?] Sorry for the delay in responding but I've been travelling for the past couple of weeks and just got back to London. I haven't been on this site for a while…'

He explained that he got divorced the previous year from his American wife, who had now returned to the States, and he was attempting to open a new chapter in his life after undergoing a difficult few months adjusting to his changed circumstances. He did a lot of long-haul travelling for his job in a big multi-national company, but London was his base and he loved it here, as did ‘so many of us Yanks'. He signed it ‘Charles', and added a PS: ‘By the way, not all men are rascals!'

He had charm, I thought, and I answered him straight away. ‘Hi Charles. I winked at you precisely because you don't seem too rascally. On the contrary! And for your interest, I grew up in the US myself. I'm sure we'll have much in common. Maybe we can meet for a coffee one day?'

But a scant two or three messages later the coffee idea had, between us, morphed into ‘drinks', and then ‘cocktails'. I enthused about daiquiris, whilst he favoured martinis. This was going splendidly. Then we exchanged mobile numbers and moved on to texting. ‘I'll give you a call tonight,' he wrote. We were rocketing ahead. Graduating to
vocals
already – the final step before an actual meeting, a rendezvous, a
tête-à-tête.
I felt a little thrill.

It was after ten o'clock when my mobile finally rang and I saw Charles's name come up. I'd been dozing in front of an interminable TV documentary about family life in the Middle Ages (tell me about it) and had all but given up on him.

‘Sorry it's taken me so long, I've been on the phone to the States for the past hour. Work! With the time difference, I often have to speak to people there late in the evening…'

His voice wasn't as deep and suave as I had imagined it. Not so much George Clooney as Adam Sandler. And he talked a little too fast and too much, the way people do when they are nervous. But the longer we talked the more he slowed down and relaxed.

We covered the usual topics, e.g. our work and past relationships, and somehow ended up discussing TV shows. He said he hardly ever watched TV, except for the news. I told him about my Breaking Bad addiction and terrible habit of picking up Jesse Pinkman's speech patterns, such as putting ‘yo' at the end of sentences, which made my sons wince, because ‘That doesn't suit an English lady who shops in Waitrose, Mum'. As if I would let that stop me.

‘So how do you use that word “yo”?' asked Charles. ‘Would you say something like “My bunions are killing me, yo”? Not that I've got bunions.'

I giggled. ‘No. You'd say something like [imitating Jesse's voice] “
this shit's the bomb, yo
!”'

‘I see…And what does that mean exactly?'

And so we nattered on, and I began to like him a lot. We made a date for Friday evening and I groaned to myself,
oh hell, that's four whole days away
…

On Friday, as our date neared, I applied my make-up carefully. I'd had my hair done that morning, so it was at its optimum. And I put on a sophisticated yet understated outfit: close-fitting black skirt, silk blouse and well-tailored jacket, with black court shoes which looked smart, if a trifle Maggie Thatcher.

I had texted Sara the night before to tell her about this promising new development on the dating front and she wrote back: ‘Sounds good but perhaps you can humour me and as a safety precaution text me the details of your meeting place and time, the fellow's name and anything else that might be of use in a police investigation.'

‘Ever the optimist, my dear!'

‘Yeah, ha ha…except that I'm serious. So I'm expecting a text saying “meeting Mr. American whatsisname in Mayfair” or wherever, and another one after you're back home safe and sound. Okay?'

‘Okay, will do. Don't worry!'

Charles and I did meet in Mayfair, as it happened. In the swish bar at Claridge's. He had texted me to say he would get there a few minutes early, ‘so that you won't have to wait and have people wonder what an attractive woman is doing alone in a hotel bar'. Exceptionally considerate.

He sent another text moments before I arrived, saying he was sitting by the window in a dark blue blazer and light blue shirt. As if I wouldn't recognise him!

I walked in, spotted him right away and was struck by his looks; he was even more handsome than in his photos, and exuded a collegiate air. He glanced up from the magazine he was reading, saw me standing at his table and rose to greet me. Then he ordered me a cocktail and we sat back and I thought how lucky I was to be sitting in this glorious bar with this handsome man, sipping my favourite cocktail.

Perhaps it was luck, but then again maybe it was good project management.

We had that conversation – which I now knew to be standard amongst internet daters – in which we compared notes on previous dating experiences, at least the ones that were entertaining. So Charles recounted his headliner, the story of the attractive young brunette who kept sending him messages pleading for a date. He would reply, reiterating that, at 26, she was much younger than his specified age range of 45 to 58, but she refused to give up. Having wheedled his mobile number out of him, she proceeded to send him fetching pictures of herself. ‘Nothing improper,' Charles pointed out, ‘just pictures of her looking pretty in the garden, in the kitchen, at her desk, all over the place. In the end, well, you know how weak men are. I gave in and agreed to have a drink with her.'

They arranged to meet before the main entrance at Selfridges, where Charles was standing at the allotted hour, waiting for her to turn up. After bombarding him with so many photos of herself, he was sure he would recognise her. But when he heard his name called out and swung around, he had no idea who the enormously fat woman standing next to him was. That was when it dawned on him that all her photos had been head and shoulders shots.

‘My God,' said Charles, ‘she had a backside the size of this table.' And he tapped the table at which we were sitting. I shook my head in amazement. Then I laughed merrily, with the shameless
Schadenfreude
that a sixty-year-old woman who wears size 10 would naturally feel at hearing such a tale.

His eyes sparkled in the evening sunlight that beamed on him through the window, and he kept them on me while taking another sip of his martini. ‘When I saw
you
standing there, on the other hand, my first thought was: Wow, who's she? I'll tell her I'm waiting for somebody but maybe we can hook up later.'

I laughed again. ‘Schmoozer.'

He told me about another of his dating flops, with a divorcee in her forties, a mother of two young children. ‘I liked her but kept thinking: would she expect me to put her kids through school? I can't take on that sort of responsibility.'

That could have been me, twenty years earlier. The divorced mum with a challenging domestic set-up was a tough gig for any prospective suitor, as I understood only too well. But for me that problem was ancient history. This was now. And the good news was that, in the contest for Charles's affections, so far I was beating the competition hands down.

Time for honesty. ‘I'm older than you think, Charles.'

‘Really?'

I nodded. ‘Sixty,' I said with a mock dramatic flourish. Then I leaned forward, elbows on the table. ‘Do you mind?'

When he replied, ‘Not at all,' I eased back into my chair.

After we'd had three cocktails apiece and the booze had begun to go my head, I suggested we go someplace for a bite to eat. So we headed off down the road to a local Italian restaurant I knew, where we had pasta and a bottle of full-bodied red, and by now I was well and truly merry. But Charles wasn't done yet.

He called the waiter over and ordered two Limoncellos and I thought
uh-oh
. The last time I had indulged in this deceptively potent Italian liqueur, on a Tuscan holiday, I'd woken up feeling as if King Kong were banging on my head. The trouble was I rather liked the stuff and had no trouble downing it. As soon as I'd finished the last lethal drop, Charles asked the waiter for two more of the sticky yellow snifters.

I had been matching Charles drink for drink, although I was five foot four and he was six foot two. Naturally he would be the one to stay sober and I the one to get tipsy and misbehave. I hadn't planned to. In fact I had determined to follow Vanessa's rules to the letter and be thoroughly ladylike and respectable. No inviting him home, no sex on the first date.

That was the plan. But looking across the table at his handsome face, a face I'd been wanting to kiss all evening, and emboldened by the Limoncellos, I opened my mouth and without further ado took the sophisticated, yet understated approach: ‘Why don't you take me home and fuck my brains out?'

His eyes met mine and I didn't note, through the boozy fug, whether or not he smiled or showed any surprise. I only heard three little words: ‘I'd love to.'

I had little recollection afterwards of how we got to my house, only a dim sense of having ridden up and down some tube escalators (another transgression for which Vanessa would no doubt give me the tut-tut treatment). Then all of a sudden I found myself unlocking the door and climbing up the stairs and dropping down onto my bed, with Charles gently pulling off my shoes.

I wriggled out of my clothes, crawled under the duvet and was easing into a heavy sleep when I gasped and sat up abruptly. ‘My mobile, my mobile,' I mumbled. ‘Have to text Sara. Have to tell her I'm okay.' The next thing I knew Charles was handing me my phone. God knows how I sent a coherent text in my woolly state, and with faultless spelling and punctuation, to boot. Just goes to show how the technology has now seeped right into our brain cells. Is that good? I don't know. But all that mattered was that I performed my duty to my daughter-in-law, and with that I flopped back down on the pillow and was over and out.

Sometime in the middle of the night I was awake again, with Charles lying beside me. I reached over and touched his cheek, and he turned to me. My fuzziness was gone. There was just enough light for me to make out his face; he was peering down at me and I thought he was smiling. ‘You all right?' he asked and I answered with a small ‘Mm-hm'.

A little later, as he made love to me slowly and gently, I cried for a brief moment – just a single gasp and a couple of warm tears which wet my face – and had no idea why.

*

It was mid-morning and we were still in bed, talking, our arms around each other, as my hangover gradually slipped away. He described to me the bachelor apartment he bought after his divorce, in a mansion block in Marylebone. ‘It's smaller than the place I had with my wife, but it's got everything I want. You'll have to come over and see it soon.'

For my part, I mused on the matter of my half-owned house and when I might finally sell and move on to…who knew where? With a sigh I said, ‘I'm in limbo.'

Charles didn't ‘do breakfast', so after getting dressed and downing a large orange juice, he was ready for me to drive him down to the tube station. As he glanced out the window at the humdrum 1930s suburban houses along the way, he said casually, ‘You should make your age on the site even lower, to 49. You could easily pull it off. And you'd have an even better hit rate.'

I found his remark vaguely upsetting. Not the bit about my age, obviously. But that he considered it a good idea for me to be dating more – and not fewer – men.

Back home I finally thought to check my mobile and found a text from Sara. ‘Is he second date material, then?'

‘Definitely. Think I'll be seeing him again soon.'

‘So, not too well-behaved not to have sex appeal. Sounds good!'

During my next aqua class, two days later, I swam up to Vanessa, and yelling to be heard above the thumping Abba remix, eagerly told her about the date with ‘my Yank', Charles2013.

She seemed to be thinking hard, as we leapt to left and right in unison. ‘Does he travel a lot, some sort of businessman, lives in…Marylebone?' she called out.