The Dating Detox (27 page)

‘Well, I’m going to the bar,’ I say.

‘I’ll come with you,’ he says.

We walk over and smile at each other whilst waiting for the bartender, an indie-looking dude who seems hungover as hell. (You know what? I’m officially declaring Rule 3 null and void. Obvious flirting is my Achilles’ heel.)

‘What the hell is that Hoxtonite doing in deepest darkest Oxfordshire?’ I whisper to Jake as the bartender ambles down to the cellar to get another bottle of red.

‘I think he must have taken a wrong turn at King’s Cross,’ says Jake. ‘I wish I was that cool.’

‘You’re definitely not,’ I say sadly.

‘I listen to totally cool music,’ he says. ‘Like, um, that Blunt guy and oh, and The Stereophonics…’

I look quickly at him, trying to ascertain if he’s joking. He is. I grin, relieved.

‘So, I thought you dealt with Mitch well back there.’

‘Hmm?’ I say, not really following. The ambling hipster is now pouring the slowest beers I’ve ever seen anyone pour.

‘The Botanist Bust-Up…’

I look quickly at Jake and flush. ‘Uh…yeah. I can’t believe you saw that. It wasn’t my finest hour.’

‘I’ll make sure to toe the line around you…’ he says, grinning. ‘Actually, Minxy, I saw that guy—do I call him your date?—arrive.’

‘Not a date,’ I say hurriedly. ‘Your email was right. Ex-boyfriend. Wanted a chat.’

‘I figured…He bumped into my friend Peter and knocked his drink all over him, and then instead of apologising, he called
him a twat. So when the crowd parted and we suddenly saw you throwing the wine at him, we were thrilled.’

‘Oh God, he’s awful…I thought I saw some guys laughing from my cab. Was that your friends?’

‘Yeah, that was them. I thought you saw me as you were pulling up into Sloane Street, but I wasn’t sure. You should have stopped…’

‘I did, but I was not in great shape that night. You wouldn’t have wanted to see me.’

‘I always want to see you,’ he says lightly, pushing my outstretched arm clutching my debit card away and giving the bartender a 20-pound note. ‘Why do girls always pay everything with debit cards?’ he asks.

‘I’m pretty sure it’s got something to do with menstruation,’ I say, putting my card back into my wallet. ‘Thank you, Jake.’

‘That’s the first time I’ve heard you say my name,’ he says lightly, picking up two of the beers and turning around to head back to the table. I pick up the bottle of wine and the third beer, look up at him and smile.

Back at the table, everyone’s somehow swapped seats, which means I’m now next to Jake. Kate and Sam are in a deep conversation about Italy, and Mitch is entertaining Tara with some private joke.

‘OK. Do you want to play Snap?’ says Jake.

‘Maybe…Can you play Spit?’ I ask.

‘Is that a made-up game where no matter what I do, you’ll still win? Because my little sister does that, and it’s really annoying…’

‘No, no, no,’ I say. ‘Look. You lay them out like solitaire, but only five rows, not seven…’ I explain to him the rules of Spit, and we start playing. I beat him the first three times, but then, irritatingly, he starts to win. He gets faster and faster and the ‘SPIT!’ call and handslap at the end gets louder and harder, till I am laughing in mildly hysterical anticipation of the painful
drubbing I’m about to get as we approach the end of each round.

‘I am winning! I am winning!’ he shouts.

‘Change of rules,’ I say quickly. ‘Continuous Spit. When you finish, don’t wait for the other person to pick up their cards, just deal and go.’ As I say this, obviously, I am picking up my cards, dealing and starting the next game of Spit before he’s had a chance to catch up.

‘Get you, changing the rules,’ he says. ‘You’re so dead.’

Ten minutes later, Jake has caught up and won every round, and has just two cards left to play with.

‘You have to call him the winner sooner or later,’ says Kate, looking over.

‘I know, can you believe this?’ says. Jake, gesturing at me shuffling my enormous hand of 50 cards. ‘Although you have to admire her “never say die” attitude.’

I slam all the cards down. ‘Fine. I’ll let you win this time. Goddamnit, I hate losing Spit. It’s the only sport I ever really play.’

‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but…it’s not a sport,’ says Jake. I’m about to retort, when I’m interrupted by Mitch stretching and making a big lion yawning sound.

‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends…It’s nearly cocktail hour. They’ll be expecting us.’

I glance outside as I reach for my jacket on the seat behind me. It looks unnaturally dark for 5.30 pm. I look harder.

‘It’s not…’ I say.

‘It is,’ says Jake. ‘It’s just started to rain.’

‘If we run, and follow me, we can beat it,’ says Kate. This is absolute rubbish, at least the beating-the-rain part is, but we all scramble out of our seats anyway.

‘Natural born leader, aren’t you?’ says Sam admiringly, helping her on with her coat.

‘After a pint and three glasses of wine, I’m lots of things,’ she smiles coquettishly.

We stand in a huddle at the door of the pub looking out at the grey countryside. The rain is coming down a bit faster now, in quite fat drops.

‘When I say go…GO!’ says Kate, and starts to run. I follow her, with Jake and Sam at my side, and Mitch and Tara following behind, with Mitch calling, ‘You didn’t say go! You have to say it again!’

We run up the little road that the pub is on, and hit the bigger road, where Sam strides ahead to be side by side with Kate and Jake stays next to me. The rain is coming down harder and harder now, and the sky is getting darker and darker.

‘You OK?’ says Jake to me after a few minutes.

‘Fine!’ I call back, trying not to pant too much. The wine is sloshing around my tummy a little, but not too badly. The games of Spit slowed my drinking down.

Suddenly, Kate makes a decisive left turn.

‘Are you sure?’ calls Mitch.

‘YES!’ we all shout back. Ever noticed how brilliant it is to run in heavy rain? Seriously, try it. I’m completely drenched now, my Converses squelching and covered in mud. I look up at Jake. He’s frowning to keep the water out of his eyes and his hair is all stuck to his forehead. Holy shit, he’s sexy.

A sudden bolt of sheet lightning with an almost simultaneous crack of thunder makes us all jump and Tara lets out a scared giggle. The thunder was so loud that the storm must be almost on top of us.

‘Nearly there, guys!’ shouts Kate.

I hear a stumble behind us, and the sound of crashing into bushes. Jake and I stop and turn around. Tara tripped over something and is now lying on her back on the side of the road, laughing helplessly and looking up at Mitch in the rain. He’s smiling down at her, with a look on his face that I have never seen before. I realise with a jolt that he’s in love with her.

‘Are you OK?’ shouts Jake.

‘I’m fine!’ she calls back. ‘Keep going!’

I turn and look at Jake. Simultaneously, we turn back and start running again. Kate and Sam are about 25 metres ahead now, and I recognise where we are. Only a few more minutes to go.

‘Still OK?’ says Jake.

‘Yes!’ I say, smiling up at him and noticing that the rain is getting even heavier when suddenly, Jake trips over something. He’s about to go flying when I grab his hand to steady him.

‘Thanks,’ he says, slowing his running down slightly so as not to let go of my hand. For a second, I enjoy the sensation of my cold wet hand in his big warm wet one, and the feeling that we’re running in unison. Then I start to feel like a retch-inducing scene in a romantic comedy, so I purposely take my hand away and pretend I needed it to wipe the snot off my nose.

We turn up the driveway to Eddie’s house. It’s really bucketing down now, and we sprint as fast as we can and crash through the open front door. We join Sam and Kate in the front hallway, dripping water everywhere and laughing breathlessly.

‘Try not to mess up the hallway too much, children,’ says Eddie, walking down the stairs with some towels for us. ‘We’ve been having a really sophisticated time back here. Talking about art and literature, and whatnot.’

‘Really?’ I say disbelievingly, taking a towel and sponging off my face. I look at the towel. Yep, mascara is everywhere. ‘I have to shower,’ I say, and run up the stairs before Jake can see my panda face. (I know it’s vain, but you know, one has to have standards.) As I get to the top I hear Mitch and Tara arrive.

‘What is with the rain in this hellhole, hmm, Edward?’ I hear Mitch opining noisily as I shut the door to my room. My drunky head wants to lie on the bed and think about Jake, but I’ll just mess it up (the bed and my head), so I go straight to
the bathroom and strip off. Oh God, Bloomie’s leather jacket. I drape it carefully over the radiator—which isn’t on, I’m not that silly—lie the rest of my clothes over the bathtub to dry, and have a long, hot shower.

Next time it’s raining outside, get all clean and wrap yourself in towels, and then get into bed. It’s so goddamn cosy. I’m going to let myself have a little lie down and indulge in thoughts about Jake, without any guilt at all. I don’t care if it’s against the Sabbatical, I’m a little tipsy and I want to think about how lovely, lovely, lovely he is. I wonder if he has any hair on his chest. I wonder what his lips taste like. I w—

Just as I’m about to get stuck into some rather exciting thoughts, Bloomie bounces in, followed by a bathrobed Kate.

‘It’s meeee, darling!’ Bloomie says, jumping on my bed. She’s a tiny bit pissed, too.

‘Hello Bloocinda,’ I say. ‘How did you survive the afternoon without us, then?’

‘Well, it was ah-paw-leng, obviouslahhh,’ she drawls, Posh-Mark style, and flops down on the pillow next to me. Kate stretches out at our feet. ‘Eugene and I had a little nap…’

‘Mm-hmm. Nice and restful, I’ll bet,’ I say.

‘Yes, very restful, thank you, darling, how kind of you to ask…Fraser and Tory have also been in bed, pretty much all day, though, do you know, I think they may have been having intercourse rather than napping. And Ant and Eddie ditched their tennis with Harriet and Neil pretty fast, and started drinking with Benoit…How was the pub?’

‘Ace,’ I say.

‘Mitch is in luff with Tara,’ says Kate. ‘And her him.’

‘And I think Sam is in luff with Kate,’ I say.

‘Well, I think Jake is in luff with you,’ she retorts.

‘Rubbish!’ I scoff. ‘Though he is…nice.’

‘How intriguing all this sounds,’ says Bloomie archly. ‘I can’t wait to see it for myself. Now. I’ve volunteered us to cook dinner, so be snappy with the changing, hmm?’

Kate scrambles off the bed. ‘Back in seven minutes for makeup, please,’ she says.

‘You got it,’ I reply, as she closes the door behind her.‘Bloomie, about your leather jacket…’

‘I already guessed, darling,’ she says airily. ‘A little rain is just going to give it more character.’

Bloomie flips through the American
Vogue
I packed (whenever I am staying somewhere remote, I need a really good fashion glossy to hand, it’s like a security blanket) as I quickly change into some old-but-nicely-tight-around-the-bottom jeans and layer grey and white long-sleeved T-shirts. I add little pink ballet slippers, as my Converses are downstairs and absolutely sodden. Mmm, comfy. Theme-free but comfy.

I flip my head upside down to quickly blowdry my hair, and am slapping on some make-up just as Kate comes in to collect us.

‘The Irish have just arrived,’ she says. ‘I love those guys.’

‘Name?’

‘Conor. Spud. The rhythmic gymnastic guys.’

‘That guy’s name is
Spud
?’

Kate shrugs.

After a few minutes, we go downstairs and into the kitchen, where everyone, except Jake and the Irish guys, as far as I can see, is sitting at the kitchen table with a few bottles of wine. Tara is sitting next to Mitch holding his hand.

He looks impossibly happy with himself, and whenever he says anything he glances at her to see her reaction. It’s extremely
endearing, and I’m just thinking about this, when out of the downstairs loo steps—

‘Laura!’ I exclaim.

‘Oooooooooh my God!’ she squeals delightedly, rushing forward to hug me. It turns out my little Mac monkey from work, the one who entertains me with her dream-chatter every morning, is cousins with Spud.

‘This is SOOO weird!’ she says. ‘Oh my God! How are you? It’s so nice to see you! I mean, I saw you yesterday. But it’s nice to see you again, you know?! This is the most amazing house! On the way up I was saying to Spud, this is so different to London. Like not in a bad way. But just so different! You know? It’s no wonder there was always a country mouse and a city mouse. Because a city mouse would like, totally never survive here. I had to get a cup of tea the minute we arrived just to calm down!’

I grin at her and look around at Bloomie and Kate’s speechless faces. The rapid-fire delivery of Laura’s cuckoo commentary is remarkable when you first hear it, it’s true. Then my eye is caught by Eddie. He’s gazing at Laura with a slightly dopey grin on his face, and offers to show her to her room. Interesting.

Mitch stands up, holding his wine glass.

‘I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for coming,’ he says. ‘I feel that it’s incumbent upon me to take charge, as Edward will just sit back and get drunk. I’d like to propose we have a progressive dinner party.’

‘We’re going to swap partners?’ exclaims Tory excitedly.

‘No, my little flower,’ says Mitch fondly. Tara and I snort with laughter and exchange a look.

‘We’re going to sit boy-girl around the table, and when I say, the boys will all move down two spaces.’

‘So it’s like musical chairs…but it’s totally dependent on your mood?’ says Bloomie.

‘Gekko gets it,’ he nods.

‘Whimsical chairs,’ I say, laughing and slapping my own thigh at my joke. No one else laughs. Sigh. I wonder if Jake would get it.

‘Why?’ asks Ant. ‘In case one of us gets stuck with a dud all night, I suppose?’

Every woman in the room scowls at Ant in tandem, except Laura, who’s peering myopically into her glass of wine. It’s still pouring with rain outside, and any plans for a BBQ have been long cancelled.

‘Boo!’ shout two girlish voices in unison, and Eddie’s twin sisters, Emma and Elizabeth, jump into the kitchen. Everyone shouts at once, and they start giggling. Apparently ‘Mummy and Daddy were being so boring,’ that they decided to come home early from Spain.

‘Do Mum and Dad know you’re here?’ thunders Eddie.

‘Yes,’ says Elizabeth, rolling her eyes. ‘We’re only here for tonight, and then we’re heading up to Ali’s place in Scotland for the week.’

Emma is smiling shyly at Mitch. Oh dear. The last time she saw him was that night in Montgomery Place, months ago. Mitch turned up just as I ran away from Jake, and ended up snogging Emma. It caused a huge fight between Mitch and Eddie. Mitch now has a deer-in-headlights look on his face. Eddie, who never holds a grudge, seems to have forgotten about the whole thing. Thank God. Uber-protective big brother doesn’t make for a fun party host.

The twins rush upstairs to unpack and shower for dinner, as they’ve come straight from the airport.

Bloomie, Eddie and I start cooking, and we’re quickly joined by Tara. Actually, it’s equal parts talking, changing the music on the iPod (lots of the Killers and MGMT), cooking, drinking and ducking to the covered part of the garden for cigarettes.

I’m coming in from one of our cigarette breaks when I notice Jake has arrived, and is sitting down the other end of the table next to Mitch and Sam, laughing at something Mitch is saying.
The twins come back in, all radiant expectancy. Then Laura arrives, followed quickly by the Irish guys, Conor and Spud, freshly showered and changed.

‘This shindig can start now. The party facilitators have arrived,’ announces Conor, looking around the room and making deliberate eye contact with every female except Harriet. Conor pulls up a chair between Emma and Elizabeth and starts twinkling at them, and Spud gets caught in a conversation with Harriet and Neil. Poor Spud.

Eugene and Benoit come over to help us cook, which seems to mean adding butter and salt to everything.

‘You guys are such clichés,’ I say.

‘You cannot steam a steak, chérie,’ replies Benoit.

Feeding a crowd this size verges on ridiculous. We’ve thrown all the sausages in a few pots with some beans, tomato, onions and garlic to make the biggest stew you’ve ever seen, roasted approximately 322 new potatoes, and grilled a few steaks, in case anyone thinks that stew isn’t real food. And we’ve got enough bread to kill good Dr Atkins (were he still alive, God rest his soul). When it finally comes time to eat, it’s past 9 pm. We’ve already drunk a case of wine, the crowd is nice and rowdy, and I’m keeping an eye on the various little dramas around the table.

Tara is sitting on Mitch’s lap up the other end of the table, so Tory immediately jumps on Fraser, though she’s considerably larger and Fraser doesn’t seem particularly comfortable. Emma noticed the Tara-Mitch situation, of course, is very obviously surprised and upset about it, and is now whispering dramatically to Elizabeth.

Eddie and Laura are in fits of private laughter. Perry, Conor and Spud are all flirting with Kate. Sam and Jake are talking to Tara and Mitch. Ant’s been trying to talk to the twins, but they keep ignoring him, so he’s sulkily cutting up bread. Harriet and Neil are talking to each other.

With dinner just about ready to be served, Mitch stands up,
tings his glass with a spoon and starts bossily arranging everyone. There’s nine women and 12 men, which means some of the guys have to sit next to each other. I’m up one end of the table, near Bloomie, Kate and Tory, and for the first course, I’m sitting between Fraser and Sam. I look down and see Jake is next to Laura and Elizabeth. Eddie is down the end too, between his sisters, and trying not to look too put out about it. Emma is guzzling wine miserably and casting cow eyes at Mitch. Elizabeth is being chatted up by Benoit, and loving it.

‘God, I’m shagged,’ says Fraser, leaning back in his chair and taking a long drink of wine.

‘Wrong tense, darling, you mean you were shagging,’ I say.

He smiles at me and lowers his voice. ‘Gosh, yes, Toto…She’s so amazing. I think…I think she’s the one.’

I smile back, thinking, oh, God no. Toto is so very not the one.

‘That’s wonderful, darling, I didn’t know you two would have so much in common,’ says Bloomie.

‘Yah, and it’s so nice being up here in the countrah,’ he continues, gesturing at the pouring rain outside. ‘I love it, I can see myself living up here, you know.’

Tory is sitting across and down a few seats from Fraser, and is now deep in conversation with Spud. Her voice floats up to us: ‘I hate the country. The only thing I like about it is that you can shag outside and no one’s around for miles. But that’s kind of a shame too—it defeats the purpose of shagging outside!’

Fraser grimaces, and Bloomie and I get the giggles. ‘Shut up, girls. Pass the bread.’

Mitch stands up again, and tings his glass to make another speech. ‘Right. Before we start, I’m going to open some bottles of wine to save time for later. Hands up for red. Hands up for white. Hands up for beer…Eugene, mon dieu, you can’t have both, this isn’t bloody France, you know…’

I turn to Sam. ‘This could go on for hours. Bonsoir, Sam, how’s your evening? Would you help me carry the food to the table?’

‘Very well indeed, actually, and I would love to,’ he smiles. He’s quite drunk, I think, and whispers as we get to the kitchen, ‘Your friend Kate is lovely.’

‘I know,’ I whisper back. ‘You should make a play for her.’

‘I think I will,’ he replies, and we start ferrying the big pots of stew and potatoes and the steaks in to the table. It all looks, I have to say, pretty damn good.

As everyone starts serving and eating, I sit down to discover Bloomie, Fraser and Eugene talking about online dating.

‘If I hadn’t met you the old-fashioned way—over a conference call—and I’d been single a few months, then I’d totally do it,’ says Bloomie.

‘No way! It’s too weird,’ says Eugene.‘The person you’re meeting could be a serial killer. They could be a sex maniac.’

‘Really?’ interjects Tory excitedly, tuning in to the conversation.

‘Dude, seriously,’ I say. ‘The odds are that the person is simply tired of meeting people drunk in bars, and has already tried it on with all their friends.’

‘And friends’ friends,’ adds Bloomie helpfully. ‘When you’ve exhausted all the options, why not try to meet someone online?’

‘It’s like…internet shopping. For a man,’ I add. Then again, the old drunk-in-a-bar way always worked for me, I think, but don’t add. I don’t want everyone to start talking about me and dating. Or me and not dating.

‘You should go to the Gumtree website. In the friends/dating page. That really is internet shopping for a man, and it’s instant gratification—just find someone who lives near you…’ says Tory dreamily. She sees Fraser looking at her, aghast, and quickly adds, ‘…uh, I’ve heard,’ and reaches for the wine.

Our attention is suddenly drawn by Mitch shouting at the Irish guys. ‘Why do you guys keep picking on me? Huh? All I’m getting is shit from you. You just turn up, with your accents and your Irish charm, and—and your—and your…’

‘Shut UP, Bitch,’ says Tara affectionately. Everyone starts cheering and wolfwhistling at this, and Mitch stands up and bows.

Fraser raises a hand to get our attention back. ‘Right-o. What sites would one, er, use, then? If one were to internet date?’

I start listing the ones I can think of, then notice he’s surreptitiously typing the names into his BlackBerry and get the giggles again.

Sam clears his throat, and says, ‘I had an internet date once’, getting the attention of me, Bloomie, Fraser, Tory and Kate in one fell swoop.

‘What happened?’ says Bloomie.

‘She was alright,’ he says. ‘I decided to try it a few months ago after I kept seeing girls for one date and either the conversation sucked, or I didn’t fancy her, or vice versa…’

‘…yes, yes, and then what happened? What was she like?’

‘Nothing much,’ he says. ‘She was really nice, actually. Pretty, too. But then, I didn’t really make an effort to see her, and she didn’t make an effort to see me…and it fizzled, really.’

‘Oh. So you rejected her,’ I say.

‘What? She could have contacted me!’ he exclaims.

Bloomie, Kate and I shake our heads. ‘Oh, no. You always have to call her. Always.’

‘I would never, ever call a guy, or text him first,’ says Kate, looking to me for approval. Yikes, I hope she hasn’t really committed my tipsy dating wisdom from last weekend to memory.

‘Oh, me either,’ I say. ‘Although Bloomie dared me to give my phone number to a bartender who looked like Andrew McCarthy when we were 24. I wrote it on a scrap of paper with eyeliner and handed it over and said “Give me a call if you wanna pull something other than beers sometime…”’