50 Ways to Find a Lover (14 page)

‘Oh no!’ I wince, holding the phone to my ear and curling up into a little ball on the floor.

‘And I read this thing about this woman who made up a story about sex and I remembered you using the word “spinster” and I thought it might be you . . . is it you?’

‘Yeeeaas,’ I answer meekly.

‘Well, I read your blog and it says in it that you, um, oh God, how should I put this? Well, really liked me.’

‘This is so embarrassing. I don’t think I’ve ever been this embarrassed, Paul. I’m so sorry.’

‘Well, the thing is I thought we got on really well and when I sent you that letter and invite to dinner I was hoping you’d say yes, but then I didn’t hear anything so I thought at first you might not have got it. I called Royal Mail twice and they said post was getting to you so I assumed you weren’t interested. But then I read your blog and you don’t mention the letter so maybe you really didn’t get it and I was just ringing to check, I suppose. God, this is really embarrassing.’

‘You sent me a letter?’

‘Yeah, the day after we met. I know no one sends letters any more but I thought it was more, um, er’ (small cough) ‘romantic than a text message or a phone call.’

‘Oh. I don’t really open post that often because they’re always bills,’ I say, looking at the huge mountain of post on my floor.

‘Oh well, I sent you a letter, asking you round for Sunday lunch.’

‘When?’

‘Three weeks ago.’

‘Oh.’

‘But we can do it this Sunday if you’re free and if you fancy it?’

‘I’d love to.’

‘Great.’

‘I’ve been reading all the comments on your blog. It’s great, Sarah, you’re like a pioneer for women.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yeah. I am so glad that thing was in the paper, Sarah.’

‘Hmmm, me too.’

I hang up and face my post pile. I rummage through the envelopes until I find a handwritten white envelope. I open it carefully.

I am just rereading it for the fourth time when Simon explodes into my room. I look up at him.

‘Blimey! Check your big grin! Have you been reading those comments on your blog thing?’

I shake my head and hand him the letter to read. He takes it and studies it carefully, a look of intense concentration on his face.

‘Don’t you think it’s nice?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, it’s really nice, Sare. He sounds very . . .’ he thinks for the right word for a few seconds, ‘you.’

‘Do you really think so?’ I gush. ‘Oh my God, Simon, it’s weird that you should say that because he feels uncannily me.’

‘Hmmm.’ He nods seriously. ‘See, I told you you’d meet someone you liked if you looked. I’m popping out, Sare, see you in a bit, and read those comments, they’re really nice.’

I take my laptop from under the bed where it’s been hiding for days. I click on to my blog. I have had over two thousand hits since I last looked and I’ve got ninety-five new comments. I read them slowly. Three people offer me their faces to sit on. Someone from a magazine called
Down and Dirty
offers me a job. But everyone else sends kind messages. My favourite is the most recent one, from someone who calls themself No. 1 Fan.

fifteen

‘Ladies, I would like to propose a toast, as it is a year to the day since I had any action.’ I raise my glass of rosé.

‘A whole year!’ sighs Nikki. ‘No wonder you made some up!’

Nikki wouldn’t know anything about this. Nikki is beautiful and lovely and men have always swarmed to her like wasps around a pint of Stella in a summer beer garden. I met Nikki when I was four, at playgroup. Even then she was the girl that all the boys wanted to do the hokey-cokey with. The first time I played with her she was dressed as a bride because one of the four-year-old boys had asked her to marry him. I was dressed as a parrot because nobody had asked me to marry them. She looked like an angel. But while I was painting my plumage I accidentally got yellow acrylic on her pretty white dress. I was so upset I started to cry and she broke off her wedding to comfort me.

Now, in six weeks’ time, she’s marrying a grown-up man called Bertrand. She met Bertrand years ago in a Brazilian restaurant. Simon had returned from Brazil to see everyone and decided that we should all go out for a Brazilian meal. He made us eat a weird stew made with meat and bananas and showed off by speaking Portuguese to the waiters. He was a bit upset that all the women were far more interested in the handsome Brazilian men on the table next to ours. One of whom was Bertrand. He gave Nikki his phone number and that was that. She moved in with him three weeks later.

‘You’ll be getting some tomorrow, Sarah Wet Knickers,’ says Julia, clinking my glass. I choose to ignore the wet-knickers comment, having risen to the previous six.

‘I won’t be bloody well bonking him,’ I tell the girls, blushing. ‘It’s a Sunday lunch.’

‘Of course you will. You’ll get there, he’ll give you champagne, take you on to his roof terrace and then he’ll say, “Do you want me to suck your nipples?”’ squeals Julia.

‘Julia, you cow, you said you’d stop taking the piss,’ I hiss at her.

Nikki starts laughing too. God, enough is enough, can you stop making me the butt of everyone’s jokes now, please?

This is the first time I’ve been in my local since the blow-out. I suggested meeting at the Wetherspoon over the road, but Julia and Nikki insisted that it was time to lift the Baldy blow-out boycott and return to our usual haunt. I’ve really gone off this pub though. When did everyone get so young? I want to tell all the young boys to pull their skinny jeans up. I feel like an incontinent old woman on the set of
Bugsy Malone
. And I don’t know what I ever saw in Baldy. My sister has always been stunned by the ugly men I’ve gone out with. She says I subconsciously go for the ugly-and-grateful variety. I think Baldy was a case in point. I’ve been watching him behind the bar. He is bending up and down taking pint glasses out of the dishwasher. He looks like a fat child apple-bobbing. Despite this I am still following the guidelines laid out for women facing men who have rejected them:

‘You have to sleep with him, that’s what he’ll be expecting.’

‘No it isn’t,’ I say indignantly. ‘He asked me out before he read the sex blog, remember. I just didn’t open the letter.’

‘Yeah, but now he’s read it it’s different.’

‘Why?’ I say, concerned.

‘It just is,’ says Julia seriously.

‘Help me here, Nikki, what do you think?’

‘Let me get this straight. He knows you haven’t had sex in a year, he’s read an in-depth account of how you want to sit on his face, and—’

‘Stop it!’ I scream, putting my hands over my ears. As I do Bertrand appears. Bertrand is half French, half Brazilian. Which means he is:

He starts to nuzzle Nikki’s neck before taking her face in his hands and kissing her with his tongue. He looks up when he’s finished.

‘Ah, Saaaraah,’ he says in his delicious accent. He smiles at me and blows me a kiss. ‘Saaaraaah, you are spruced up. Where you off to?’

‘Nowhere,’ I mumble, embarrassed. ‘Just fancied wearing a dress and heels. You know.’

‘Very sexee,’ he smiles at me. ‘But why you aren’t wearing ze dress where you untie one leettle bow and you’re naked?’

Everyone erupts. I decide to find new friends.

‘You’re as funny as a fungal foot infection, Bertrand,’ I tell him.

‘Do you know what I want?’ pipes up Julia, changing the subject. ‘I want a conscious shag.’

‘What’s a conscious shag?’ chirps Nikki. She and Bertrand lean towards Julia, clearly hoping to increase their sexual repertoire.

‘As opposed to an unconscious shag, which my shags generally are because they always happen at about four a.m. after a litre of vodka,’ she explains.

‘Oh,’ say Nikki and Bertrand in disappointed unison.

I don’t comment because Baldy is hovering near by. He’s been outside emptying ashtrays so he is holding a bucket full of fag butts.

‘Oh, hi, Sarah,’ Baldy says, doing some very bad oh-I’ve-only-just-noticed-you acting.

‘Oh, hi,’ I say, doing the same.

‘How, um, are you?’ he asks nervously, kicking the table leg with his toe.

‘I’m, um, fine, thanks.’ I am quite enjoying the fact that he is nervous. He probably wants to get my custom back as his takings would have plummeted after my humiliation and subsequent desertion from his pub.

‘I, um, haven’t seen you for ages.’

‘No, I’ve been really busy.’

‘Great.’ He nods, which makes his chins wobble. He stands there smiling at me. I’d like him to leave as the stale-cigarette smell is foul and I want to continue my conversation about Paul’s motives. I am just turning back to Nikki and Julia when he coughs and says, ‘We should go for that drink sometime.’