by Isabel Wolff
“You mended my bicycle. Six times!”
“You used to return my videos!” he retorted triumphantly. “Including the ones I hadn’t even watched with you! And now you have the nerve to tell me you’re not a doormat. You are, Tiffany! You’re in denial. But you are!”
“Well, if I’m a doormat,” I spat, “you’re a bloody BOOT SCRAPER!”
Kit just looked at me. Then he went quiet. I had hurt him. Oh dear.
“Look, Kit, please let’s not quarrel,” I said, grabbing his hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just that we’re not talking about me. It’s you we’re discussing. Your problems. Not mine. And you’ve got to do something about this, Kit. I mean, you’re going to have to be very assertive if you become a commercials director—you know what it’s like on set.”
“I can be very assertive professionally,” he pointed out with a wounded air. “That’s not a problem. In fact, I can be a complete bastard if necessary. But, yes, OK, OK—I admit it, I find assertiveness in relationships very hard. Otherwise I’d have insisted that you marry me all those years ago. Why didn’t you marry me, Tiffany?” he asked. “Just out of interest.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, scribbling on my pad. “Or rather, yes I do,” I added quietly. “It was precisely because we’re too alike.” But if I’d had a crystal ball to give me twenty-twenty foresight, and known then what I know now, perhaps I would have married him, I thought to myself. Was it too late? If Portia left him, then maybe . . . maybe . . .
“I wish you had you know, Tiff,” he said. “We could have saved each other a lot of grief.”
“Look, please would you stick to Portia,” I said, to cover my confusion.
“I am sticking to Portia,” he said. “The problem is that she won’t stick to me.”
“Well, why don’t you do some personal development course of some kind?” I suggested. “Or go on one of those, you know, male bonding bonanzas?”
“What? Those weekends in the woods for wallys? You must be joking,” he said vehemently. “Not my style at all. I’d never do that.”
“Well, you need to do something radical if you want to keep Portia’s interest, and my advice is to do something entirely contrary to your nature, and be a bit mean. Or rather, treat her as neglectfully as she treats you. Just show her what it’s like to be on the receiving end of your partner’s indifference.”
“OK,” he said, biting into a Jaffa Cake. “I’ll think about it. But it’s not going to be easy.” He looked at his watch. “Enough about Portia—Love Hearts. Oh God, ‘You’re My Dream.’ ”
Three hours later, we finished. Or at least we had the bare bones of our pitch mapped out in Kit’s scribbly pictures and my words. It was to be a TV campaign to be launched in the run-up to Valentine’s Day next year.
“Are you having any luck with men?” Kit asked, as he left.
“Yes—bad luck mostly,” I said, “but I’ve got one more bloke to meet from my personal ad. He sounds OK. In fact I’m fairly optimistic. I’m seeing him this Saturday. He’s called Jake.”
“What’s he like?” said Kit.
“He’s a film director, he’s single, he went to Oxford—I mean, he sounds perfectly fine,” I said. “On paper.”
Now, “on paper” is an interesting concept and one to which I’ve been giving quite a bit of thought recently. You see, on paper, advertisements, especially TV advertisements, tend to look very, very silly. A cat that turns into a tiger inside a bottle of vodka. A panda shooting along on rollerskates. A man dressed only in an empty Vitalite tub diving into a forest pool. And then, when you see the ads on screen, they look really great. They work. They do the trick. But when it comes to romance I find that the opposite theory of “on paper” applies. You see, on paper, a lot of men look great. Take Jake, for instance. Now Jake was thirty-eight, five foot eleven, interesting job, well-educated, and with his own mews house in Camden. Fine, you’d think. And I’d thought that a film director would be rather interesting. I liked his letter, he was obviously very bright, with GSOH, and he was looking for a LTR. And he seemed to be reasonably attractive too, though the photo, just a headshot, was somewhat blurred. But, as far as I could tell, he appeared to be OK-looking-bordering-on-the-almost-acceptable. So on paper, Jake was a definite possible. Well-educated. Single. Never married. No alimony. No child support. No criminal record. No notifiable diseases. And all his own teeth. Anyway, he said that he would book a restaurant somewhere in Hampstead, and offered to “pick me up” at the tube. There were lots of great restaurants in Hampstead, I thought to myself happily as I came up in the lift at Hampstead station. I’d already been to most of them with Lizzie when she couldn’t be bothered to cook. There was Byron’s a few doors up from her on Downshire Hill—dead romantic; there was La Villa Bianca in Perrin’s Court and that dinky little French one in Flask Walk. I glanced at my watch as I came through the barrier. I was about ten minutes late. Clearly he wasn’t here yet—damn! There was just that scrofulous-looking fellow standing scrutinizing the local map. Dirty jeans, baggy gray jumper, tie-less shirt, filthy, unkempt hair, and—horror of horrors—scruffy trainers. God! Some men have absolutely no idea. And I was just standing there wishing that Jake would turn up soon because I really hate standing around on my own in public places, when this putrid-looking bloke turned round, held out his hand, and said “Hello. You must be Tiffany. I’m Jake.”
Disappointment. Disenchantment. Disillusionment. Dismay. That’s what you let yourself in for when you set sail for Singles City. From a distance the view looks so attractive—hundreds of unattached, eligible blokes all jostling on the quay. But when you get up close—oh dear. I mean, as I say, on paper, Jake looked perfectly presentable. But in the flesh he resembled a genetic pile-up between Struwwelpeter and Uriah Heep. My heart sank so low it was practically underground.
“Good to meet you,” he said. His hand felt like a wet haddock in mine. “Isn’t this fun?”
“Yes,” I said bleakly, “it’s fun.” We stood outside the Hampstead tube while he looked thoughtfully in both directions, his unbrushed, corkscrew curls flapping gently in the wind. How on earth could I get away? Perhaps I could plead a sudden migraine. Maybe I could remember a pressing deadline. Perhaps I could affect a fainting fit, though I didn’t think I could manage it without fracturing my skull. Maybe I could simply run away.
“I’m awfully sorry, Jake, but I have an urgent appointment with my television,” I said. “I’d forgotten—it’s Noel’s House Party.” Actually, I didn’t say that at all. I simply said, “Where have you parked?”
“Parked? Oh I don’t have a car.”
“Oh. Oh I see. But I thought you said you’d ‘pick me up.’ ”
“Yes. I meant on foot. We can walk. It’s not far.”
“Oh, so you’ve booked somewhere, then?” I asked him as we made our way up Heath Street.
“No, no,” he said. “I thought we could just play it by ear.”
We passed the Calzone Pizza Bar—it looked rather inviting, with green tables and cane chairs—perfectly acceptable, and I was already feeling pretty hungry, having missed lunch.
“I hate pizza,” he said. “Don’t you?”
“No. No. I like it, actually. Pizza would be just fine,” I said.
“Well, let’s keep going, after all the night is still young,” he said cheerfully. Oh yes, I thought miserably. The night was still young. And all the while we walked he talked, nonstop, about films, in this deep, curiously plummy, slightly over-elocuted voice. And, as he talked, his large Adam’s apple lifted up and down in his scrawny throat like a bucket in a well. He was like a walking cinematic encyclopedia—“Truffaut . . . Nouvelle Vague . . . Eisenstein . . . Fassbinder . . . Three Colors Blue . . .” I heard him say.
“My friend Kit wants to be a director,” I said.
“What sort?”
“Commercials.”
“Oh,” he replied, with evident disdain.
“What sort of films do you ma
ke?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve got a couple of things in development,” he said. “But I haven’t got funding yet. You see my style is fairly, well, experimental. My heroes are Cocteau and Buñuel, and of course Peter Greenaway and Derek Jarman.” He turned to me with an expression of exaggerated concern. “Don’t you think it’s really worrying that we have so few avant garde film directors in this country?” Worrying? No. The only thing that was worrying me was the fact that I was hungry, in Hampstead, with this hideous-looking man. What’s more my new shoes were beginning to rub—I couldn’t even make a run for it. We paused outside La Sorpresa—a pretty little Italian place with flickering candles, potted palms and pink tablecloths, but he thought it looked too crowded.
“Too many smokers,” he declared briskly. “I wear contact lenses and my eyes are particularly sensitive. Thank God all the cinemas are smoke-free these days,” he said, as we wandered off again. “Have you been to the National Film Theatre recently?”
“Er, no. But I have been to the Odeon Leicester Square, ha ha!”
He looked shocked. “The NFT are doing a fantastic season of early German cinema at the moment. There are new prints of The Blue Angel, Pandora’s Box and Fritz Lang’s M—one of the great classics of German Expressionist cinema. It’s an incredible movie. And they’re showing some great Senegalese films too, including four by Ousmene Sembene. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Er, very,” I replied, though the only thing I found interesting was the prospect of something to eat. We passed La Villa Bianca—so pretty, with a wrought-iron balcony and red and pink geraniums tumbling down the whitewashed walls. I just managed to catch a glimpse of the menu in the window—venison at £12.50 and grilled fillet of beef at £14.50, before Jake had walked straight past it, muttering disapprovingly about the price.
“I wouldn’t go there on principle,” he said. They probably wouldn’t let him in on principle, I thought, surveying his dishevelled appearance. In Hampstead High Street I spotted Café Rouge.
“Café Rouge,” I said. “That’ll be fine. Let’s go there.”
“Well, OK, I’ll ask, but it looks pretty full to me.” He shot across the road and reappeared a moment later. “As I thought. Full up. Packed.”
“But I’m sure I can see a couple of free tables at the back . . .” I said, but Jake was already heading down Rosslyn Hill. A wonderful Tandoori tang emanated from the Taj Mahal and I drew to a halt outside. “I really don’t like curry,” he said.
“But I do,” I said. “In fact I love it. And if there are so many things you don’t like why didn’t you book somewhere you do like—especially as it’s a Saturday?”
“I think we’ll find something more suitable nearer the Heath,” he said, ignoring me and turning down Pond Street. And then, semidelirious with hunger, something began to obsess me. I was trying to remember the name of that French film in which there’s this group of people who never get to eat. Either they meet on the wrong day, or they turn up at the restaurant only to discover the owner’s corpse, or they finally sit down to a fantastic dinner only for the army to burst in. What was it? Jake would know.
“What’s that French film where they never get to eat?” I asked as the Royal Free hospital came into view.
“Oh, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. One of Buñuel’s greatest. Made in 1972 with Stéphane Audran, Fernando Rey and Michel Piccoli. It’s a brilliantly sophisticated satire on the French establishment. It got the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Wonderful ensemble playing.” Suddenly he stopped, and I found myself staring in amazement at this vast, painted sombrero. “Viva Zapata, Mexican Bar and Restaurant” said the sign. “Eat All You Want for £5 a head!” Jake appeared to breathe a sigh of relief.
“Now this,” he said, “should be fine.”
“You have got to be joking!” I said. I surveyed the tin foil trays of chicken legs and guacamole marinating in the window, the plastic chairs and tables, the hanging ponchos and synthetic cacti, and suddenly my hunger vanished. “I don’t want to eat here,” I reiterated.
“Why not?” he said. “It has charm and character.”
“I’m afraid I simply don’t want to eat anywhere that says ‘Eat All You Want for £5 a head.’ What do you take me for?”
“I take you for an incredibly bad-tempered woman,” he suddenly said.
“I am not bad-tempered,” I hissed, outraged.
“Yes you are,” he countered. “All you’ve done, all evening, is complain. I find you very irritable. And rude.” Rude?
“I am NOT rude,” I spat. “I have been extremely PATIENT and POLITE!”
“No you haven’t.”
“Oh yes I have.” I could feel my eyes begin to fill, while blood from my blister trickled down my right heel into my shoe. “You invited me out,” I shouted, “you didn’t bother to book anywhere, you’ve made me walk a mile and a half, and you’ve raised objections to every single restaurant we’ve stopped at. And now I know the reason why—you wanted to come here because it’s so cheap.”
“Who are you calling cheap?” he shouted back.
“You. And you can bloody well stay here on your own because I’m off.” I saw a yellow light coming down the hill toward us and stepped off the curb to flag it down. “AND,” I flung at him as I got into the cab, “you look a total MESS!” Now that was rude. But I didn’t care. It made me feel better. Gradually my tears subsided and my heartrate slowed. What a nightmare. What a nightmare.
“What a nightmare!” I said to Lizzie the following morning. She had just dropped the girls off for their weekly tennis lesson.
“How ghastly,” she said. “What a creep. I’m amazed you stayed more than five minutes. Did you cry?”
“Only when I got into the cab.”
“And were you rude to him?”
“A bit,” I conceded, “not rude enough, actually.”
“Never abuse men, Tiffany—however gruesome, simply walk away. Maintain your dignity and composure at all times.”
“But Lizzie, if it had been you, you would probably have punched him,” I pointed out accurately. She ignored this, or perhaps she was too busy lighting another cigarette to hear what I said.
“Just keep your head,” she said, exhaling audibly, “and remember, that old cliché about kissing frogs is true.”
“I have absolutely no objection to frogs,” I pointed out. “A frog would be fine. It’s the toads that get me down.”
“Well, this morning, my toad announced that he’s going to his mother’s next Friday,” she said, narrowing her slate-blue eyes as she inhaled. “He says he wants to go on his own. So I said, ‘Fine.’ But I think it’s very suspicious, Tiff. However, I’m no longer convinced that he’s having an affair with Nicola Horlick,” she added.
“That’s a relief,” I said.
“No. I’m pretty sure it’s Jade Jewel.”
“Jade Jewel? The daytime TV presenter?”
“Yes. He’s been videoing Pet Passions and Tip Top! a lot recently. And every time she’s on he sits there, sighing, and saying to me, in this very pointed way, how ‘nice’ he thinks she looks. It’s very peculiar.”
“She probably is nice, Lizzie.”
“Look, if she’s having an affair with my husband, she is not nice, QED. What’s this chart?” she asked, peering at the kitchen wall.
“Oh, it’s something I did last night to cheer myself up. A reward system for ghastly dates.”
Lizzie read it out loud. “For not instantly running away when faced with hideous man on blind date—one gold star. For staying more than five minutes with same hideous man—two gold stars. For staying more than one hour—three gold stars. For not crying in public during course of bad blind date—one silver star. For managing not to be unspeakably rude to hideous man during course of bad blind date—one red star. For losing grip and insulting hideous man on bad blind date—one black mark.
“What’s the prize?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve
already got three gold stars from my horrible date with Jake,” I explained. “When I’ve notched up twenty I’ll be the lucky winner of a ticket in the stalls for Aspects of Love followed by dinner for one in a top London restaurant.”
“You’re going mad,” said Lizzie, with gratuitous brutality. “It’s all getting too much for you. You’re really becoming quite eccentric. You keep making these endless, obsessive lists, and I caught you talking to the vacuum cleaner the other day. You didn’t think I’d heard you, but I did. You said, ‘You silly thing, look, you’ve missed a bit’! You see, you’ve been living on your own too long, Tiffany. You’re becoming very singular. In fact, you’re clearly losing your marbles.”
“If Prince Charles can talk to his plants, I can talk to my Hoover,” I said.
“That doesn’t follow,” she replied. “Because Prince Charles is, at least, addressing another life form. Whereas you’re not even doing that. And do you also sometimes say to it, ‘Shake and Vac, Put the Freshness Back!’ like that idiotic woman on the telly?”
“Yes,” I said. “If I want to. Why not? I’m not hurting anyone, am I?”
“Tiffany,” said Lizzie, stubbing out her cigarette, “may I suggest a holiday?”
“Well, I’m not sure,” I said, “I’ll have to discuss it with my dishwasher.”
Though, actually, I had been thinking of taking a holiday. The Kiddimint job was over and the agency were happy with it, and Kit and I didn’t have to submit our Love Hearts pitch for another month. Why not go away? I had enough money, and I hadn’t had a holiday for two years. Not since I went to Marbella with Phil Anderer. That was a golfing holiday, of course, though obviously I didn’t play—I just watched. For five hours a day, every day, for two weeks. I wanted to go on a drive to Granada to see the Moorish architecture, and the Palace of the Alhambra. It looked so wonderful in the travel guide. But Phillip said it would be much too hot sitting in the car for two hours each way, so we didn’t go. But while he played golf, I read. In fact, I read an awful lot that holiday. I read all twelve volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time. So I got something out of it. But that was ages ago. And Alex never had time for a holiday. Lizzie was right. I really did need a break—but who would I go with now? Maybe Kate would be up for it.
