Don't Marry Thomas Clark Read online

  ‘Mmm…’

  ‘Ah, Aunt Patty says hello! She came with me. We’ve got an appointment to get our hair done at Antoine’s. He’s practically booked up. He couldn’t fit us in before eleven. And to think that I was hoping to go to Penny’s for a massage. You know how much trouble my back gives me this time of the year, what with the weather going from hot to cold all the time – I can hardly move for days on end. Are you still in bed, Sansy dear?’

  ‘Mmm…’

  ‘Unfortunately I can’t come now, how about if we put it off to this afternoon? Oh… How silly of me! At four o’clock we’re going to the Turner’s for a bridge tournament. I absolutely can’t miss it: Brent’s organising a charity dinner for the Camellias. This year we elect the new president and you know how much she covets it. We’ve decided to get that marvellous string quartet in who played at the opening of the Philips’s art gallery, do you remember?’

  ‘Mmm…’

  ‘Oh, gosh, it’s ever so late. I’d best be off, Sansy. You make sure you have breakfast, and I’ll call you as soon as I have a free moment. Love you.’

  I hang up without even looking at the phone and lay there tangled up in the sheets with my nose embedded deep into my pillow. I haven’t the faintest idea what she said. I’m not even sure I knew who she was. With a superhuman effort I raise an eyelid, only to be blinded by morning light, but my attempts to rouse myself prove to be a losing battle, and I collapse back onto the mattress with a thump and fall straight back to sleep.

  I’m woken again by the ringing of the doorbell, which brings me back to reality about twenty minutes later. I hope it’ll stop, but after endless non-stop trills, I give in, get up and start limping towards the front door, hoping for their sake that it’s a matter of at least life or death. I only accept three reasons for being got out of bed: bomb scares, earthquakes and early sales.

  ‘Who the hell is it?’ I ask elegantly, as I open the door with his eyes still half closed.

  ‘What a sight!’ scoffs Rufus, walking in without waiting for an invitation.

  I was, in fact, already well aware that my pyjamas with the pictures of cherries on them were somewhat lacking in sex appeal.

  He slips past me, slaps a noisy kiss on my cheek, then walks into the kitchen, carrying in his arms a white package which leaves behind it a fragrant aroma of coffee and custard. All in all, I think I’ll spare him. This time.

  ‘What the hell did you get up to last night? You’ve got bags under your eyes you could carry the shopping home in. Isn’t your mother here yet? Don’t tell me – she’s got an appointment with Antoine… Good job too, I don’t think she’d have been very impressed by all this,’ he says, waving under my nose a balled-up sock I’d accidentally left next to the sugar bowl. I grab it out of his hand and throw it into the bedroom, certain that sooner or later it’ll find its own way into the laundry basket.

  ‘What have you brought?’ I grumble, rooting through the bag that he has put on the kitchen top.

  ‘Croissants, but I see that you’ve already discovered that for yourself,’ he observes in amusement at the sight of me, covered in icing sugar and with my mouth stuffed with pastry. ‘Big night?’

  ‘What time is it?’ I ask without answering, reaching for two cups from the cupboard.

  ‘Past ten,’ he informs me with a chuckle. ‘Are you aware of the fact that there are people who’ve been working for the last five hours?’

  ‘God have mercy on their souls.’

  I sit on a stool and put the two cups of coffee on the table while he brings over a chair, and as I watch, I can’t help thinking how lucky I was to meet him. He moved in next door two months ago and we’re already like brother and sister. He works as a bouncer in a club nearby, but his dream is to become a film director. For years, he’s been working on a documentary about the social reintegration of drug addicts. He spends whole days stuck in front of a monitor selecting soundbites, photos and music. Sometimes I give him a hand, but he’s a real martinet when he’s working, so it was mutually agreed that we would meet before and after but never during his immersions in drug rehabilitation centres.

  ‘Well? Aren’t you going to tell me about last night?’ he says, picking at a chocolate croissant.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ I snap back. I don’t think I’ve recovered from the trauma of waking up yet.

  ‘Meet anyone interesting? Flirt with anybody? Did you pull?’ he asks, prodding my elbow. He is, without a doubt, very cute. Blond, chiselled physique, green eyes. A bit short, but you can’t have everything, right? Anyway, he’s fun, sweet and charming, but he just can’t seem to get his own life together so all he does is interfere in mine. He knows very well what I got up to last night, and he also knows that if I’d met someone I wouldn’t be sat here eating pastries and looking like an angry Alsatian.

  ‘What did you get up to, then?’ he repeats, unabashed.

  ‘The usual.’

  ‘Who was there?’

  ‘The usual lot.’

  ‘Was there a band on?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And that’s all you’re going to tell me?’ he exclaims, nonplussed.

  ‘Yeah, that’s all I’m going to tell you!’ I shout, biting off a chunk of pastry and glowering at him.

  ‘So Mike didn’t go?’

  ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ I bark as I wipe the crumbs up off the countertop with my fingertips and stick them in my mouth.

  ‘What do you mean you don’t know?!’

  ‘What is it you want? What do you want me to tell you?’ I cry in exasperation.

  ‘Everything! From when he came into Pearl’s, hardly able to walk because his jeans were so tight, until you saw him drag Valery off to the toilets, leaving you sat there on your own, miserable and pissed off again, with your mouth hanging open and an embarrassing trickle of dribble running down your chin!’ he shouts.

  ‘You scumbag! Who told you? I knew they had. You know when? When I opened the door and found you there. I ought to cancel your number,’ I rant.

  He laughs and reaches over to stroke my back affectionately, grabbing hold of me when I try to escape.

  ‘When are you going to stop trailing around after that idiot?’

  ‘He’s not an idiot!’ I say, almost indignant in my defence of him.

  I hate it when they try and put him down just because he’s never shown the slightest interest in me. It’s an attitude that I can’t stand. As if on top of knowing that he couldn’t care less about me, I also have to be told that I’ve got shitty taste in men? Argh, the stress! I’ve been single for five months. The last guy I went out with was Duane: he loved fishing, hunting, Pilates, Irina, Jennifer, Elisabeth and, I imagine, many others. I came out of that one devastated. I don’t often get past the third month, but that time I actually believed that I’d managed it. Seriously! If you get past the third month, it’s all downhill because you’ve already kissed without either of you running off, you’ve been to bed together without, as before, either of you running off, and you have, at least once, had the opportunity of seeing one another in a moment of atrocious intimacy (toilet, nodding off in front of the TV, with flu, throwing up, with a hangover or during an embarrassing call from mother) without, once again, either of you running off. Not quite a serious relationship, maybe, but far more serious than your average quick fling. A situation where, if it really must end, he at least texts you to let you know. And so, if your calculations are right, until you get the bloody message, you’re together. You’re together and happy and you can look pityingly at all your single friends knowing that, deep down, they are dying of envy!

  So you don’t expect to call him on your birthday and hear the moans of a stranger in the background, do you? And you’d never imagine that that’s just one of many strangers who often pop round to visit him and moan with pleasure without, as he often claims, there being anything alarming about the fact. No, of course it’s not alarming. Disgusting, atrocious, a
wful, miserable, demoralizing, yes – but not alarming. There is nothing to be alarmed about. The only thing left to do is feel sorry for yourself.

  It could have been worse, I suppose. I don’t know exactly how it could have been worse, but I prefer to think that somehow, even though I can’t quite put my finger on it right now, it could. And anyway, I got over it immediately. A couple of weeks later, I found Pearl’s, and that’s where I met Mike. I’d never seen anything like him. I’d always thought the guys you see on underwear adverts were entirely the product of Photoshop, but they’re not – they actually exist. They live in herds on secret farms owned by designers, film-makers and photographers. Mostly they spend their days learning soundbites, grazing on testosterone pills and practising their intense expressions. Sometimes they’re allowed out, giving us mere mortals a fleeting view of their handsomeness. They have only one drawback: if you meet their eyes, you’ll end up half-mad and hallucinating that you’re clinging to their naked bodies, beaded with sweat.

  At least, that’s what happened to me, but maybe I’m not typical.

  Anyway, to get back to us, Mike is a concentration of everything I look for in a man: intelligence, charm, quick wit and thick, blond, wavy, wonderfully perfumed hair. The hard part is living with the knowledge that he doesn’t feel in the least the same way about me. Since we met, nothing has ever happened. I’ve tried every kind of look, attitude and hairstyle, but nothing seems to make a difference. He’s friendly enough, comes out with the odd wisecrack, and then fades away exactly as he arrived, leaving behind him a sweet aroma of Dolce and Gabbana. And the worst thing is that he always takes someone else with him.

  Oh, woe is me!

  Yesterday, as usual, he turned up late, so I spent the first hour eyeing the door of the club in anguish. He came in, said hello to the pretty bartender and spent a few minutes flirting shamelessly with her while I tore my beermat into little pieces. After a while, she handed him a rum and Coke and he thanked her – biting his lip in a very, very, very sexy way – walked over to join us and sat next to me. He found his ideal position, comfortably relaxed in his chair with his arm resting on the back of mine, and…

  And the next three hours went by, most of which I spent wondering how long I’d be able to remain motionless so as not to ruin that magical, unique moment of casual intimacy. I was so flustered that I didn’t even know where to look. I only started breathing again when he finally left, accompanied by Valery, the cousin of Alfred, the club’s landlord, leaving me in a state of deep vexation. What an awful evening. And how pitiful I must have looked. First the news from the bank, then this. I didn’t want to worry Kelly or Debby, but what did they expect me to do, somersaults of joy? They must have called Rufus to make sure I hadn’t committed suicide during the night, so now he’s here and trying to cheer me up in his own unique way – by doing his best to make me lose my patience.

  ‘Find yourself a woman, do it for my sake,’ I suggest.

  ‘How do you know I haven’t already?’

  ‘I meant a real one!’

  ‘There’s no point you scowling at me like that. I get plenty of action with the fairer sex, especially since I started working as a bouncer. Every night. Phone numbers, email addresses…’

  ‘Payment orders…’

  ‘Funny, very funny,’ he says sarcastically, while I giggle and try to avoid his eyes. ‘And yet,’ he continues, ‘it so happens that tonight I’ve got a date with one of them. And that’s where you come in.’

  ‘No!’ I snap, without even needing to ask what it is he wants.

  This explains everything: the croissants, the coffee, the kiss…

  ‘Oh go on…’ he whines, while I take refuge in the hall.

  ‘No, forget it.’

  ‘I’m begging you…’ he pleads, following me into the bedroom.

  ‘No, no, no, no, no!’ I answer, trying to push him out, but he gets his foot in the door before I manage to close it, sticks his nose through the narrow gap and starts begging.

  ‘Come on, Sandy, I’ll never ask you for anything again.’

  ‘You said that last time and I found myself in a supermarket car park talking about a dead cat.’

  ‘That’s true, but Herman was going through a rough patch: moving house, his parents splitting up…’

  ‘Rufus, Herman’s not fifteen – he’s nearly fifty.’

  ‘OK, he’s maybe slightly… vulnerable? But I swear that this time…’

  ‘So you’re not going to give up, then?’ I ask, and with an energetic push I try to close the door in his face.

  ‘Please, please, please! Melanie’s a great girl, it’s just that her cousin’s in town and she can’t leave him on his own. I promise you, he’s a normal guy. He teaches literature, he’s thirty-five and in his spare time he teaches golf. You might even find him interesting. Come on, Sandy, you’re not going to spend all night watching some crappy chick flick hoping that whatshisface’ll call, are you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, this time I’m not getting involved.’

  …At nine o’clock I find myself sitting in a Chinese restaurant, sure that I’ve made yet another mistake that I’ll regret for the rest of the year.

  Rufus and Melanie are cooing away undisturbed and I’ve been lumbered with the bloody March Hare. He’s about the same height, at least, and there’s the same gleam of madness in his eyes. Why do I always get the nutters? Sooner or later I’ll write my autobiography and I’ll call it ‘Close Encounters of the Worst Kind: How To Survive Awful Blind Dates – A Practical Guide’.

  Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to worm my way out of this. I’ve tried to escape four times already. The first time was when I saw him outside the restaurant, the second when I pretended to go to the bathroom, the third just before I came back to the table and the fourth when I pretended somebody was calling me. Rufus foiled all attempts, so I resigned myself to it and am now agonizing discreetly behind my menu, unable to make a decision about which is going to have less devastating effects on my already compromised digestive system – the leg of duck, the grasshopper or the pork tongue. The way I’m feeling, I’ll probably throw up before I finish the first course.

  Angus, Melanie’s cousin, seems quite at ease, and trots out technical terms, recipes, origins and interesting information about this or that dish at an impressive speed, leaving me aghast. He’s an expert in oriental cultures? Unfortunately, the truth is a long way from my optimistic predictions, and my stupid curiosity is soon rewarded with some chilling news. After ordering, I ask him to tell me about his job, and he explains, in the following order, that:

  He doesn’t teach literature, he teaches the history of comics.

  The only sport he’s ever practised is live action role-playing.

  His hobby is cosplay.

  ‘Coswhat?’

  ‘Cosplay. You’ve never heard of it?’ he asks, staring at me as though I come from another planet.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ I admit.

  ‘You must be kidding? That’s insane!’ he says, shaking his head and probably wondering how I’ve managed to live without it all these years. ‘A cosplayer, or Costume Player,’ he explains, ‘is a fan of comics, manga and anime films who goes to conventions and events dressed up as his or her favourite characters. We design our own costumes and make-up.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘We dress up. That’s it, really,’ he admits candidly trying to summarize the information as succinctly as possible.

  ‘You dress up. I see…’ I answer laconically. ‘And why?’

  I swear, I honestly thought it was a reasonably intelligent question.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he exclaims. ‘It’s a way of sharing our interests. Why else would we do it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I just find it hard to get my head around the idea of a group of thirty-somethings dressed up as Superman,’ I say, attempting to voice my misgivings.

  He doesn’t take that well at all.

  Obviously offended,
he starts off on a wearying monologue in defence of his fellow cosplayers, of which I absorb only a few random pieces, while inside my mind the final certainties I’d been safeguarding regarding my hypothetical marriage are gradually replaced by the image of me dressed as Catwoman walking down the aisle of a country church towards Popeye, with Spiderman as the best man and Smurfette as my bridesmaid. My uncle Bernard is playing the organ dressed as Dracula and my mother sways provocatively in the red catsuit of Elektra Assassin.

  The horror! The horror! I’m going to kill Rufus tomorrow, I swear!

  Anyway, after this bit of news, I decide to drastically reduce my participation in this increasingly off-putting conversation until the agony ends twenty minutes later. I give Angus the number of a pizzeria, passing it off as my own, wish them all a warm farewell and off I go, categorically refusing a lift.

  I arrive home dispirited, with a splitting headache and a broken heel after surviving a confrontation with a wild manhole cover. I quickly get undressed and take refuge under the covers, embracing Rex, my cuddly dog. I usually leave him on the shelf, but when I have an evening as awful as this one, I get him down and try to find some solace from life in his odour of wool and softener.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask him, as I plump up my pillow. ‘Can’t sleep? Me neither,’ I admit, rubbing my temples. ‘Shall we try a fairy tale? OK… The one about the frog fisherman? No? Wait, I’ve got a perfect one: Rapunzel. Right…’

  And I start.

  ‘Once upon a time there were a man and a woman who wanted more than anything else to have a child. After consulting the most renowned gynaecologists of the kingdom, they decided to adopt an old-fashioned approach, and so it was that, thanks to a bottle of wine and a pair of leopard-print undies, this modest maiden finally fell pregnant. Having found a good excuse for not doing any more cleaning, she hung up her hoover on a nail by the door and went off to bed, leaving her husband to take care of everything. But when the child was born she somehow found herself mixed up in a nasty business involving theft and rampion flowers. Before she got caught she decided to leave her baby in the hands of a professional, who locked her daughter up in a tower along with the loot and bolted the door behind her, awaiting the fugitive’s return. The little girl grew up thus, in total isolation from the world, and from an early age was already manifesting strange glandular reactions, probably caused by the radiation from a nearby industrial landfill site. Her hair, above all, began to grow, and grow, and grow. Apart from that, though, time passed without anything interesting happening. Or at least, it did until the day the Prince, a promising soccer player with good ball control, walked past her window.