50 Ways to Find a Lover (29 page)

Clive lives down a cobbled street in Covent Garden. His flat is above his hair salon, which is wedged between a shoe shop and a coffee-and-cake shop. If I lived in Covent Garden I wouldn’t have email or a phone. I would ask everyone to communicate with me by letter or in person. People would say, ‘What’s your number?’ and I’d say, ‘I don’t have a phone, I live in Covent Garden, take my address, write or pop in.’ That way everyone I came into contact with would know I lived in Covent Garden and they would say, ‘Wow, you live in Covent Garden,’ and I would smile modestly and ask, ‘Where do you live?’ and they would say, ‘Penge,’ and I would be happy. Although the downside of living in Covent Garden would be that drunk people descend upon you at bedtime. Clive seems quite happy about it though.

‘Marcus. You’re pissed but you’re gorgeous.’ He smiles, letting us into his flat. I say ‘flat’ but it could be a showroom for an expensive, minimalist furniture shop. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so clean. It must cost him a fortune to live here. I’m a bit worried that the presence of me in my second-hand clothes is devaluing the property. Clive doesn’t seem to mind though. He smiles broadly and kisses me.

‘Hey, Sarah,’ he says. He wears Jarvis Cocker glasses, has the face of a choirboy and his blond fringe is styled in an exact replica of how I had mine on the first day of school. My sister used to say it looked like someone had stuck a builder’s hard hat on my head and cut round it. He wears the sort of clothes that would only look good on him or petite, rich Chinese fashion students: skin-tight yellow jeans, unnecessarily held up with black braces, and a tight red and black stripy T-shirt with no sleeves.

‘What you up to, sailor? Blogging?’ says Marcus, wandering over to the large-screen Mac sat upon the pink plastic desk in the corner of the room.

‘Yeah, been on it for hours,’ says Clive. He stretches.

‘Have you got a blog?’ I yelp.

‘Clive has got the best blog in London!’ says Marcus, puffing up proudly like a pigeon.

‘
I
have the best blog in London,’ I tell them like a cocky kid. I look at Clive’s blog. ‘Or maybe not,’ I add when I catch sight of the graphics on his site; the whole page is pink and all the writing is yellow in a Coca-Cola-style font, and he has pictures.

‘Your blog looks amazing!’

‘Thanks,’ says Clive.

I start to read. It’s called
The Cutting Pages
. He writes tales about the people’s hair he cuts who are quite often famous. I stand and read.

‘Oh my God!’ I shriek, hand to mouth, like my mother when there’s sex on the telly. ‘How can you write this stuff about people? He’s famous, you can’t say you’ve seen better-looking scrotums!’

‘Most of them come to me because of the blog. They get a good haircut and then a good online massacring.’

‘You’re the Simon Cowell of hairdressing,’ I say, impressed.

‘The Simon Cowell of hairdressing. I bloody love that! I’m going to make it a tag line.’ He proceeds to tap away at his blog. He uses all his fingers when he types. ‘Here, I’ll credit the tag line to your blog address and then people can click on it. You’ll get lots of hits from it.’

I fight the impulse to snap his braces and play with his hair and ruffle him all over with love. I thank him instead.

‘So what’s your blog called?’

‘
A Spinster’s Quest
,’ I tell him.

‘Saucy,’ he says.

‘Clive, I know people probably ask you this all the time, but what should I do with my hair?’

Clive jumps up from his seat and starts holding my hair in different shapes. He sweeps most across my face like a big duck wing and holds some up at the back.

‘Sit over there and I’ll get my stuff.’

‘You’re going to do it now?’

‘Yeah, I’m booked up for ages at the salon,’ he says, releasing my hair and rushing out of the room. I move to the swivel chair he pointed me to. I spin around on it.

‘Marcus,’ I whisper. ‘You know how you’re gay?’

‘Hmmm.’ He chuckles.

‘I still think this has been my best date yet.’

He walks over to me and kisses me tenderly on the cheek. ‘Right, time for more booze! Let’s see what’s in here.’ And he crouches down and opens a drinks cabinet the likes of which I haven’t seen since I stopped watching
Dynasty
. He hands me a tumbler with some clear liquid in it, gives one to Clive on his return and takes his over to the computer.

‘Time to read
A Spinster’s Quest
,’ he says intently to the screen.

Clive treats my head like Edward Scissorhands treats bushes. He chats all the time. Clive won the Best Entertainment Bloggie last year and he gets hundreds of hits a day. People even want to advertise on his blog.

‘You’re my blogging hero,’ I sigh.

‘I tell you what people like in their blogs, Sarah. Sex and bitching. Do a lot of one or the other, or better still a bit of both, and a blog is successful. I swear that’s the truth.’

‘Sex and bitching,’ I say firmly.

‘Sarah,’ shouts Marcus, getting up. He looks serious. I haven’t seen Marcus look serious yet.

‘Yep,’ I say.

‘Don’t move,’ says Clive.

‘You know the old bloke you went on that date with?’

‘Yep.’

‘I think it’s my dad,’ he says.

‘What?’ I squeak, spinning around. ‘Is his name Eamonn Nigels?’ he asks. ‘Yeeeeessss. He can’t be.’

‘He bloody can.’

‘But he said he had a son who was thirty-one!’

‘It’s a scientific fact that dads never know the age of their children.’

‘Oh, how weird,’ I say, looking at him.

Then Marcus’s face breaks into a grin.

‘Come here, Mummy.’

thirty-eight

‘Is Sarah working today?’

‘Well, I definitely wouldn’t use the term “working”,’ replies Julia, looking down at me.

Eamonn Nigels leans over the counter. I look up at his face. I am crouching on the floor behind the counter in the café. I am holding a bacon sandwich on a plate. I have been holding the bacon sandwich for a quarter of an hour. I want to eat the bacon sandwich. But I can’t be sure that the bacon sandwich will want to stay in me.

‘What’s the matter?’ asks Eamonn Nigels.

‘There’s a little boxing man in her head. Isn’t there, Sare?’ I nod with the energy of a narcoleptic. Julia does her impression of the little boxing man. I like this. She crouches down and scrunches up her face and then does little boxing moves in front of her face. Eamonn Nigels laughs. Eamonn Nigels’ laugh is like a Mexican wave: it starts with polite shoulder-bobbing but turns quickly into raucous flailing arms and beast-like sounds.

I stand up. It takes a long time.

‘I like your hair.’ He smiles.

Julia coughs.

‘Did you have a big night?’ he asks gently. I nod.

‘She mixed her drinks like a crazy DJ. Didn’t you? White wine, champagne, vodka martinis, whisky and gin,’ lists Julia like she’s playing that game when you remember everything on a tray. ‘Oh, and sambuca!’

It’s not a list I want to be reminded of. My face sets like one of those masks that are supposed to symbolize theatre. The frowning one. Eamonn Nigels opens his arms. I shuffle towards them. My head nestles into his cashmere jumper and I close my eyes. It is a warm, wonderful man-hug. I could stay here for ever.

‘Do you have to work?’ he whispers to my hair. ‘You could come back to my house and I could look after you.’

This seems a strange offer from a man who took me out and didn’t want to see me again. I look at him accordingly.

‘Sarah, I’m so sorry I haven’t been in touch. I went to LA and didn’t take your number. I did try to call here for it. A Polish-sounding man gave me the number of a sex line.’

I smile.

‘Come back to mine. I’ll tuck you up on the sofa and make you tea.’

I have never known such kindness in the face of self-inflicted sickness. My eyes sting with tears. Hangovers make me emotional. I step out of the embrace and take my waitress pad and pen from my apron. I write:

Thank you. But Julia is the worst waitress in the world. I can’t leave her.

I show it to him. He nods and smiles. I write a second note:
I can’t speak. Julia said my breath could kill.

‘Oh, Sarah. I’ve got some theatre tickets tonight. Would you like to come? If you’re feeling better,’ he blusters. ‘It’s on at the Haymarket. I thought we could have supper at The Ivy afterwards.’

Eamonn leaves and I look at Julia. She’s turned the purple colour that people go when they try not to laugh for a long time.

It will be all right, I say quietly to myself. I’ll go out with Eamonn Nigels. All I need to do is:

‘It will be all right, Julia. I’ve got a foolproof plan,’ I say loudly. ‘If this predicament doesn’t get me more than sixty-three readers a day, I don’t know what will.’

‘Eurgh, Jesus, Sare, your breath,’ shrieks Julia, waving her hands in front of her face.

thirty-nine