But what? What can I do to erase him like he has erased me?
Then I hit upon something and I know what I must do.
I must sleep with someone else.
Is it madness? Have I lost the plot?
No. Actually, it’s a genius idea. I must sleep with someone and soon.
But who?
I smile again at the bloke. He wipes sweat from his brow and I see his fingers are dyed red from an over-handling of chilli sauce.
OK. Maybe not him. But someone.
NINE
‘So you want a new boyfriend?’ Wendy asks on the phone the next morning. I am lying in bed watching Saturday Kitchen, I think it’s called. Someone from EastEnders is telling us she isn’t keen on rice pudding with all the reverence of one describing the time they stared death in the face. I’ve already filled Wend in on the debacle of the wake and the whole ‘discovering Kevin’s a stud’ thing. We both did a noisy shudder, and now we’ve moved on to my new mission.
‘No. A boyfriend is not what I want. A boyfriend is the last thing I want. I just want sex.’
I’ve not told her about my card for Michael.
‘Like a one-night stand?’
I fear she will think less of me.
‘Exactly. Although I could do afternoons. I don’t want to be time specific. Though only at weekends. Or half-terms.’
Like I am desperate to get back with him, which I’m not.
‘Right.’
I’m not going to tell anyone I’ve tried to make contact with him. It’s my secret and I want to keep it that way.
‘Although night-time might be good because it would help to have a few drinks first, so it’s less embarrassing to be taking off my clothes in front of a complete stranger.’
‘What about a half-stranger?’
And we chortle.
‘You do still have to take off your clothes for sex, don’t you?’ I ask.
‘Think so,’ says Wendy, ‘but then, what do I know? It’s been that long.’
‘Right,’ I say, a bit disappointed. ‘I was rather hoping they’d invented a new way of doing it where you could keep your coat on.’
‘And not have to touch?’
‘Even better,’ I giggle. ‘But actually, no. I think it’s the skin-on-skin thing I need, to get over all this Michael stuff.’
‘Careful. You’re starting to sound like a 1970s porno film.’
‘Hey, maybe I could become a porn actress.’
And again we are in mini-hysterics. I hear a click on the line and realize Mum has picked up the receiver downstairs and may be listening in.
‘Yes, I may well become a porn actress,’ I add, for Mum’s benefit/shock.
I can just see it now. I’ll go downstairs in a bit and find her anxious over her Cheerios, worried about my burgeoning change of direction.
‘You will play safe, won’t you, love?’ she’ll whimper, forehead creased with panic. ‘Bareback is never an option.’
And I’ll nod sagely, imagining all my awards at the Porno Oscars for ‘Best Double Penetration’ and the like.
The line clicks again. She has hung up.
‘So how does one go about having sex these days?’ I ask Wendy, sounding for the life of me like the presenter of a BBC2 documentary. A younger Joan Bakewell perhaps, or a less irritating Peaches Geldof. I certainly sound posher than usual.
‘Kagsy, if I knew that, I wouldn’t be sat here right now in my onesie wondering if I should have that extra waffle.’
‘Wend, my motto in life, as you know, is to always have that extra waffle.’
And again, daft Muttley-like sniggering from the pair of us.
‘Do I have to hang around wine bars, sitting on high bar stools, quoting Sex and the City one-liners and pretending to be all ballsy?’ I wonder.
‘Well, that’s one option.’
‘And the other?’
‘Oh, there’s more than one, Kags.’
I find myself sitting upright in bed, ready to take it in, and take it in I do.
These are my friend Wendy’s rules for getting sex in the twenty-first century: ‘How to get SEX’ by Wendy Wolverhampton.
And yes, that is her surname. She, like me, has been socially crippled with a shit name. She says whenever she announced herself in her youth as Miss Wolverhampton, people assumed she was a vacuous beauty queen. I like to think it’s how we became friends.
1. Go on a swinging website. I say swinging – that’s the only way I can describe it. Basically, Wendy says there are websites you can go on to meet like-minded people who want to do things called ‘hook-ups’ for casual, NSA sexy stuff. ‘NSA’ equals ‘no strings attached’, apparently. She tells me the names of some of them. Essentially it sounds like www.ifancyashagbutnotadate.com or www.imaslagbasically.net.
2. Advertise your services as a high-class hooker. Then not only do you get sex out of it, you could possibly afford a string of pearls afterwards. (She makes some joke about a pearl necklace. I don’t get it, but laugh anyway.)
3. Come on to all of my single straight male friends – winking salaciously at them over a glass of wine, running my finger over the outline of my nipple when we’re alone, that kind of thing. (I didn’t even know my nipples had outlines. Maybe I’ve got freaky nips. Oh no!)
4. Hang around the local supermarket weighing the marrows suggestively (I can’t do this. I may get shot) with a trolley full of lube and condoms.
5. Go to a meeting of Sexual Compulsives Anonymous and see if there’s anyone hot there who fancies falling off the wagon.
6. Go clubbing. (For some reason, this one fills me with more dread than becoming a hooker!)
7. Become a contestant on Take Me Out. (Ditto. Plus not orange enough.)
8. Place an advert in the Lonely Hearts column of the local newspaper. (Not sure why it has to be local. Do men who fancy a fumble not like to go very far? Talk about shagging on your own doorstep.)
9. Put a status on Facebook saying, ‘I wanna get laid. Inbox me if you’re up for it.’ See what happens. An hour later change status to ‘Sorry. Been fraped. That’ll teach me to leave my laptop on in school!’ (Thus avoiding all your mates thinking you are desperate.)
10. Go and see Kevin O’Keefe.
Well, who would have thought there were so many options for getting some sex in Cameron’s Britain. I hope he’s proud!
Mum says nothing over breakfast about my prospective porn career. I’m a bit gutted, truth be told, as I’m sure she’d have some fascinating pointers, happy as she is to talk at length about any given subject, even if she knows nothing about it. Just last week she regaled me with the ins and outs of someone’s life. Someone called Tim. When eventually I realized I had no idea who Tim was, and mentally ticked off all my relatives and cousins, double-checking I knew no one called Tim, I asked her who she was talking about.
‘Tim Henman,’ she said, displaying a slightly worrying over-familiarity with well-known tennis players with lots of teeth. Then she went off again, talking about ‘Tim this and Tim that’.
Eventually I interrupted. ‘Mum, how do you know all this stuff about Tim Henman?’
She looked a bit bewildered, then explained she’d read an article in one of her magazines. I asked how long the article was and she held up her thumb and forefinger about three inches apart and yet she was able to bang on for a good fifteen minutes about how she felt he felt about the state of British tennis, and what sort of orthodontic work she assumed he’d had. All from a three-paragraph article. I sometimes think I could leave Mum talking in the kitchen, nip out to the shops, get my hair done, take a cardy back to Marks’s and have a row with the assistant, stomp out in a huff, run the London Marathon, come home exhausted and Mum will still be sat there in the kitchen discoursing on the same subject that I left her rabbiting away about earlier.
So. I am about to tell her I have no intention of whoring myself on camera when my phone buzzes.
Is it him? Is it Michael?
> Has he got my card and is offering an explanation? I grab my phone and take it into the hall. If it is him, I don’t want Mum to see me reading it, in case I get angry or upset or confused. I sit on the second-from-bottom stair, still not looking at my phone, then take a deep breath and unlock it.
OK. It’s not from him. It’s from Meredith.
Meredith: Hey, do you fancy coming to see Mildred Pierce? Might be fun if you’ve got nothing on.
I chuckle and reply: I am fully clothed. Shit.
Meredith: Damn! Come anyway?
I deliberate. Oh, sod it, why not? Me and a houseful of lezzers? Bring it on!
Me: Sure. Text me the address.
Oh well. That’s Saturday sorted.
Mum looks a bit wary when I tell her I’m going to Meredith’s mate’s for the afternoon.
‘For what?’
‘To watch DVDs and drink.’
‘You won’t be eating?’
‘Yes.’
‘What will you be eating?’
‘Jesus, Mother. What do you expect me to say? Minge?’
She looks horrified.
‘I don’t know,’ I continue apologetically.
‘And how many lesbians will there be?’
‘I don’t know. We’ll probably get a takeaway.’
Mum raises an eyebrow. ‘Of lesbians?’
‘No, of food. A Chinese banquet or something.’
‘And what are you going to be? The main course?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mother!’ and I slam my pudding bowl down on the table and do a really good flounce up the stairs. I have a shower. Then, just to wind up Mum, I put on some clothes that make me look a bit more dykey than usual and scrape my hair back into a ponytail. I look like Sporty Spice on a pension. When I head downstairs, she is stood in the hall, arms crossed, tapping her foot passive-aggressively.
‘Well, you can see why Michael lost interest!’ she says, knowing it will rile me. And it does.
‘No, he lost interest ’cos he had you as a mother-in-law!’ I shout back.
She throws her head back and laughs. ‘Ha, ha, ha!’
That’s exactly how it sounds: ha, ha, ha!
‘You weren’t even married!’
I can’t be bothered with her. I see her Uggs lying near the front door. I kick them, open the door, then head out, slamming it satisfyingly behind me. As I head down the street, suddenly self-conscious that I look like I’m going to a Spice Girls fancy-dress party, I hear my letter box fly up and Mum screaming, ‘There’s no need to take it out on my Uggs, Karen!’
I head for the Tube.
The Tube!
I stand outside the station, take a deep breath and walk in. A text comes through on my phone.
Mum: Might go in the loft. Check for rats.
Oh, for God’s sake! I quickly delete it, take another deep breath, then head down, all the time thinking about anything other than Michael.
Rats. Rats. Rats. No, rats are horrible – think of something else, something nice. Er . . . Lily Allen’s baby, Lily Allen’s pram, Lily of the Valley perfume, Valley of the Dolls, ‘Living Doll’ by Cliff Richard, Max Clifford, Max Factor, The X Factor, ex-boyfriends. Oh no, Michael again! I try to delete the browsing history in my brain and start again.
As I rattle along the District line, surrounded by the usual Saturday commutership of shoppers heading for Knightsbridge (yes, even I know they’ll have to change trains) and well-turned-out families heading for the museums of Kensington, I decide a makeover is in order. I take my scrunchy out and lose the ponytail. I only dressed like this to wind up my mum and now I feel a bit daft. If only I could be a bit more like Superman and do some rapid swapping of outfits, but as I’ve not brought a change of clothes, I can’t. Meredith’s mate lives in Chiswick. Chiswick! It’s miles away. Still, when I get off at her Tube station, I pass a row of shops and am able to purchase a cheap but jazzy skirt, so chuck my tired old jogging bottoms in the bin. By the time I arrive at Meredith’s mate’s, I am looking more like a dowdy Baby Spice than Sporty.
I don’t know why I am referencing the Spice Girls like this. I never even liked them.
The atmosphere inside the house is a bit morose at first. Put it this way – Emeli Sandé is playing when I walk in, and some vegetable crisps are being passed round in a Le Creuset casserole dish lined with paper napkins. Someone passes it to me and I almost drop it it’s so heavy. My legs buckle under me and Meredith makes a dive to stop it crashing to the floor. Jeez, are all these women weightlifters or something? Everyone introduces themselves in such quick succession that I don’t take in the names. It’s like watching Family Fortunes and hearing the contestants’ names really quickly but not having name badges to remind you who the hell these people are. Maybe I should suggest name badges. Or maybe I should just try and concentrate. I decide in my head to call them Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mitch and Titch. Meredith is Dave, just to add to the confusion.
As the mood shifts when some Lady Gaga comes on, I decide they’re a jolly lot, though this is the first social gathering I’ve been to in a while where everyone stands in a circle, as if to start playing a trust game in a drama class. I don’t say much, just enjoy the ricocheting one-liners and retorts that can only happen in a gang of mates. Instead of feeling like an outsider, they’re full of such bonhomie that I feel flattered to have been invited. When I do pipe up with the odd throwaway line, they all laugh heartily and give Meredith a look as if to say, ‘Good work, Dave – you’ve brought a mighty fine filly into our fold.’
Because there is definitely something horsey about this crew. I even wish I’d worn an Alice band and a Barbour. It does my self-esteem the world of good and for the first time in yonks I relax and feel a weight lifting from my shoulders. Half of them are PE teachers (Dozy, Mitch and Titch, I think); two of them are partners (Dozy and Dee, I think); one of them’s a lawyer (Dee, though I have a terrible feeling she said her name was Horatia. I could be wrong, and it feels impolite to ask); and they all, bar Meredith – sorry, Dave – have a whiff of the boarding school about them. I dread to think what japes this lot’d get up to after lights out. I bet it’s a far cry from Mallory Towers.
Whoops. Turning into my mother there.
Mallory Towers. I wish I’d read those books now. I bet this lot have. I often find myself pigeonholing whichever group of people I am with by deciding which reading material they would have in common.
Ah, I’m among the Wolf Hall brigade. (Pseudo-intellectuals with a lot of time on their hands. Or compulsive liars.)
Ah, Harold Robbins, eat your heart out. (Mum’s friends.)
Well, how many of you are familiar with the Lucky Santangelo trilogy, hmm? That’s right. All of you! (Not sure, but they definitely sound like fun!)
So these ladies, for sure, have Mallory Towers in common, and probably a smattering of early Jeanette Winterson. Well, Oranges Aren’t The Only Fruit, basically.
As we stand in the kitchen, it starts to rain. I look up to see that part of the ceiling is made of glass. The room darkens as clouds cover the sun and I am reminded of my own lean-to. And him. And as if they’re reading my mind – oh God, telepathic lesbians, who’d’ve thought? – Dozy says, ‘Meredith told us about your boyfriend. I’m so sorry.’
But I don’t want to talk about Michael anymore. He has invaded my thoughts for so long I’ve had enough. I am exhausted by him and my concern about him. I telepathize this back with a strained look. Say, ‘Thank you’. And with a sensitivity you might not get with Jackie Collins readers, say, the subject is dropped and Dozy grins and says, ‘Shall we go and watch Mildred?’
I’m a bit worried that I’ll hate Mildred Pierce and that we’ll have to sit in hushed reverence, marvelling at the beauty of Winslet, like school kids on a trip to a cathedral, so that if one of us whispers something, someone else will do a librarianesque ‘Shhh!’ and point to a sign on the wall that reads:
SILENCE. WINSLET ADMIRATION IN PROGRESS. FFS!
/> Fortunately there is no sign, and actually I am relieved to discover that these women like to chat all the way through an HBO mini-series, which is fine by me. Wine is poured; nibbles are passed round, then dumped tantalizingly on the coffee table. We are all hunched up on two colossal dumpy settees set at right angles, and the TV screen is mahoosive. Like really mahoosive. Like totally filling-your-field-of-vision mahoosive. Every time Kate W comes on the screen there is a collective sigh of admiration, of satisfaction, like this lot are a gaggle of junkies and they’ve just had a spoonful of smack. (That’s how you take smack, right?) And after a while I join in, which amuses them.
At one point Meredith says, ‘See? Even the breeder likes her!’ which makes them giggle, and I suggest getting myself a T-shirt printed saying, ‘Breeder and Proud.’ And when I offer Meredith some nibbles because I’m cramming a shedload of Chinese-style stuff that isn’t potpourri (I mean, who has that anymore?) but looks like it, she insists the T-shirt should say, ‘Breeder, not Feeder,’ which again causes mirth.
Then somehow the chit-chat returns to me again, and with the fortitude of two glasses of wine, I share with them my plan of sleeping with someone in an attempt to move on. They’re keen to fantasize about which bloke they’d sleep with if they had to, and their string of names is hilarious, if slightly scary: Eric Cantona, Dermot O’Leary, Peter Barlow from Coronation Street (mostly, it seems, as a way of getting to Carla) and Alan Carr (comedian, not stop-smoking guru).
Then, from nowhere, I ask a burning question that I don’t think has been that burning but turns out to be. Maybe it’s the drink, and maybe it’s the fact that I get a text from my mum saying: No rats in loft. PS I don’t want you to be a hairy lebian.
(I tell them this. They relish the new concept of lebianism and claim they will only refer to themselves as such from now on. And in case you’re wondering, we pronounce ‘lebian’ so it rhymes with ‘plebeian’.)
The Confusion of Karen Carpenter Page 10
