Would Like to Meet

by Polly James

  It’s not just the wanting to travel, and the cycling, either. He still loves listening to music, and so do I, now I come to think of it – so why the hell did we end up spending all our evenings watching the news or reality TV, instead of going to gigs or listening to albums like we used to do?

  I’m also a bit surprised by what Pammy tells Danny that she enjoys.

  It turns out that she still loves dancing, still wants to live by the sea – or overlooking some form of water, anyway – and she also wants to learn to windsurf before it’s too late, as well as to row. She’s also just recalled how good at table football she used to be, so now she’s planning to order her son to get his old tabletop version down from the loft. I mean I’m planning to order my son to do that, not her. Leading this double life will give me an identity crisis soon if I’m not careful, especially when Danny says he wants to take things up a notch.

  He adds that the reason he wants to is because his landlady keeps saying that Pammy’s a figment of his imagination, one he uses to get out of dating all the women she suggests. It’s a view that’s dangerously close to the truth, so maybe Bonkers Alice isn’t as bonkers as I thought, though I have no idea why Dan’s still talking to her now he’s living in a hotel in Birmingham, instead of in her house.

  Pammy cracks and asks him the same question, and gets an answer straight away.

  I’m still having to pay Alice rent, so she’s still my landlady. I need my room kept free for when I come back from my secondment.

  I’m about to ask when that will be, when Danny continues typing, and freaks me out.

  We should talk on the phone, you know – or text, at least. What d’you think? You up for it?

  I panic so much that I don’t stop to think. I just type, “No”. It sounds a bit harsh when I read it back.

  Being accidentally horrible to Danny makes me feel even more panicky, which probably explains the lunatic thing that I type next.

  I can’t, not won’t. I’m in China, you see.

  China? China? For fuck’s sake, what the hell is wrong with me? I’m committed now, though, so I may as well go the whole hog. Apparently, Pammy’s in an unspecified part of China without telephone access because she’s working on a “top-secret and very sensitive project”. Probably better known as “How to keep digging when you’ve already dug yourself a bloody great hole”. All the way to China, I presume.

  Chapter 34

  Pammy may have been in China yesterday, but she won’t be staying there much longer. Not when she may have been guilty of libelling the Chinese government today.

  It’s all Danny’s fault, or the fault of his latest suggestion, anyway.

  We could Skype each other. It’s about time I saw what you look like without that hat.

  There is no way that Danny’s seeing a hatless me, so that’s why I get a bit carried away when I reply, or rather, Pammy does.

  We can’t. China’s a repressive state, remember? They don’t like it when you try to communicate with the West – and anyway, my being here is supposed to be top secret.

  I add that it’s such a secret that even the people I live with have no idea that I’m in China, though I don’t explain that’s because I’m not.

  Dan doesn’t sound one hundred per cent convinced. First he asks if I’m pissing him about, and I assure him that I’m not, and then he sends me this:

  You’ll have to tell me all about it when you get back, instead. How much longer will you be away?

  However long it takes until he tires of waiting to meet up with me, I suppose. How long is that?

  Not for the first time, I ask myself what the hell I think I’m doing, spending every spare moment corresponding with my husband, when I can’t even tell him that my husband is who he is. I just don’t seem to be able to stop messaging Danny because his replies make me see the world quite differently – just like drawing does. Before, I used to walk to and from work without noticing my surroundings at all, looking down at the pavement the whole time, to avoid tripping over, but now I really notice things. The other day, I even registered how beautiful everything looked after rain, just like it did on the very first day of art school when I got caught in a torrential downpour on my way to register. The day I first met Dan.

  I don’t want to go back to being oblivious to the world around me, so I can’t stop talking to Danny any more than I could stop drawing now that I’ve finally started again. Not voluntarily, anyway. That’s why I keep Pammy’s reply to Danny’s question about how long she’ll be away as vague as possible.

  It’s not decided yet. Could be a couple of weeks, or a few months. I’m not sure.

  Danny doesn’t respond, so he obviously still doesn’t believe a word of this China stuff. I suddenly feel sick and breathless, because I know what he’s going to say if and when he does reply. Better to get it over with.

  You’ll have found someone else you want to meet by then, I suppose.

  As soon as I’ve sent that message, the bloody tears start again, along with the odd snort-cum-hiccup. One of those is so loud, it almost makes me miss the ping of Danny’s reply when it finally arrives:

  Let’s see how it goes.

  Chapter 35

  Danny obviously doesn’t believe Pammy’s China claim because he’s taken his own advice to change his life – by ceasing to talk to her. She hasn’t heard from him all day.

  “Good job,” says Eva when she phones at lunchtime, “seeing your date with Stefan is tonight.”

  “Well, now I come to think of it, Dan did say he’s been really busy this week,” I say. “So maybe that’s all it is.”

  Eva sighs in an exaggerated fashion, then tells me to shut up about Danny and concentrate on “a real man”.

  “I mean that literally, as well as figuratively,” she adds, and then she breathes in deeply, as if preparing herself for one of her long lectures on why I’m wasting my time on Danny when I should be moving on.

  I tell her that Joel’s blown the house up to give me a reason to get off the phone. It’s a credible excuse, as if he doesn’t turn his bloody music down, he’s going to blow up part of it at least, or the speakers, anyway. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up. My great plan was to spend most of today calmly choosing what to wear, and experimenting with my new make-up. By now, I’m supposed to be luxuriating in a scented bath before running the pubic hair-removal gauntlet and then doing other stressful stuff, like eyebrow plucking (hazardous when you go blind whenever you close one eye), all without Joel-shaped distractions.

  He should be at work, like me. The only reason I’m not, is because of Esther, the absolute sweetheart. She offered to write the report the Fembot ordered me to produce when I told her I’d like to work from home today, and added that she’d email it to me later on tonight so I could print it out and take it into work with me tomorrow, ready to prove to the Fembot that I wasn’t just pretending to be working. That way, I won’t get into the twirling one’s bad books – and all I have to do to repay Esther is do the same for her one day.

  The plan would have been a work of genius, if Joel hadn’t woken up with a migraine this morning. He phoned his boss to say he might be late, and for some unknown, and totally infuriating reason, his boss told him he might as well take the whole day off, as everything at the shop was under control, for once. I wish I could say the bloody same for the situation here, but now I’m trying to get ready while a fully-recovered Joel is driving me nuts.

  I’m in the middle of plucking my eyebrows when he comes barrelling into my bedroom to offer me some Haribos. He startles me so much, I end up plucking out a big chunk of loose eyebrow skin, and now the damn thing won’t stop bleeding. I’m not even going to attempt any more hair-removal procedures under these hazardous conditions.

  This decision is proved wise when Joel comes barging back into the bedroom just as I’m trying out a fancy new mascara, one with a wand that curves upwards and sideways, and promises to create an alluring cat’s eyes effect. Not with Joel
around, it doesn’t, unless some cats have one red eyeball from being poked with a mascara wand, or bloody great black splodges underneath said eye from where supposedly waterproof mascara has run during the ensuing waterfall of tears. It’s a really bad idea to site a mirror just inside a bedroom door.

  “For God’s sake, Joel,” I yell. “Can’t you just leave me alone for a minute? My head feels as if it’s going to explode.”

  “That’s a thing, you know,” he says, flinging himself onto my bed and stretching out, as if preparing for a long and leisurely conversation. “Exploding heads, I mean. I Googled it when you said you’ve been hearing loud bangs since Dad moved out, every time you’re about to drop off to sleep. It’s called Exploding Head Syndrome, funnily enough. You’d never have found that out by using Halfwits, would you, Mum?”

  I refuse to admit I’ve even tried, but I am sufficiently interested in Joel’s discovery to put up with him for a little longer. I’ve been getting quite worried about what was going on with these bangs in my head, as I keep thinking I must be about to have a heart attack or a stroke or something, or that I’m losing my mind and imagining the whole thing, which would be just as bad.

  “So, if it’s a known condition, then what the hell is causing it?” I say. It’d be great if I could find a way to make it stop.

  Joel sits up, and grabs my Tangle Teezer from the bedside table.

  “Stress,” he says, as he begins to brush his beard with it.

  * * *

  I somehow survive the Joel-related stress and make it to the restaurant on time, only to discover that Eva wasn’t lying: Stefan really is “unbelievably handsome”, just like she said he was! He’s a composite of every bit of every film star you’ve ever fancied, all seamlessly blended together into a toned, olive-skinned, slightly exotic, heavy-lidded, sexy-voiced beautiful man. And he sounds intelligent, too, and cultured, and … oh, my God, I’ve gone all Mills & Boon.

  I’m handling myself better than the waitress, though. Every time Stefan speaks to her she loses the plot and starts wriggling and giggling, and generally making an idiot of herself. She kept it together long enough to remember what he ordered to drink, but she’s had three attempts at fetching me a G&T so far, and she still hasn’t managed to bring tonic, let alone gin.

  Despite the lack of alcohol, this is a great cafe-bar, much better than stupid Orgasmic, which was about as far from being orgasmic as anywhere could be, though that could have been due to the Gandalf effect. Stefan could make a tent look good. A big tent in the desert, with servants waiting on you hand and foot while you lounge on tons of cushions on a rug-strewn floor, and eat with your fingers by candlelight. It’d be like something out of Lawrence of Arabia, with that really handsome actor in it, the one whose name I can’t quite recall, but who Stefan looks exactly like. A young Omar Sharif, maybe? God knows, and I don’t care. I’m mad with lust.

  Thank Christ for that. Dizzy Gillespie’s finally got my order right, so I down my G&T in one and order another straight away, while there’s still a chance that she’ll retain such hard-won information.

  Stefan leans back in his chair and looks at me appraisingly. He doesn’t even try to pretend that he isn’t, and when I raise one eyebrow quizzically, he just laughs. He laughs again when I ask him if he’s hypnotised the waitress.

  “No, of course I haven’t,” he says, as she comes back with my second drink. She spills it all over the floor because she’s too busy looking at Stefan to bother to ascertain the exact location of the table before letting go of the glass.

  I raise my eyebrow again as she runs off to get a cloth, and Stefan says, “Well, maybe I have – just a little. Want me to try it on you?”

  “Good God, no,” I say. “And anyway, I’m far too sceptical to be hypnotised.”

  Now it’s Stefan’s turn to raise an eyebrow, but he doesn’t seem to be spinning any objects around and his eyes aren’t oscillating like those of the snake in The Jungle Book, so I think I’m safe, until I look across the bar and see a familiar profile silhouetted against one of the windows. It looks an awful lot like Dan, but the bar’s so busy, I can’t see properly as too many people are in the way, and I also can’t see who he’s with.

  It can’t be Dan, anyway, not when he’s still in Birmingham on secondment, so I give myself a virtual shake, then turn my attention back to Stefan. He’s still staring at me with that appraising look.

  “You’re a very beautiful woman, Hannah,” he says, “though your energy’s far too high. We could work on that.”

  “What do you mean, it’s a bit high?” I say. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it? My boss seems to think it is.”

  I think it’s a good thing when applied to waitresses, too, now I come to think of it. There’s still no sign of our food, and I am starving.

  “No, it’s not a good thing,” says Stefan. “Our systems need to be in balance, so what you need is something to ground all that energy. You’re living completely in your head.”

  Which keeps on going bang, along with my heart. I could drown in Stefan’s hooded brown eyes, and I’m about to get even more carried away when, thankfully, our food arrives, so now I can sort out my low blood sugar by eating at last. It must be about to go through the floor, which is probably why I feel so weird.

  I say much the same thing to Stefan as we begin to eat our moules with frites.

  “It isn’t because of lack of food,” he says, “but a lack of something else. Everything’s so high in your system, you’ll feel a whole lot better if we can get you grounded.”

  “And how do we do that?” I say, transfixed by watching him eat, and fascinated by the way he extracts each mussel by using a discarded shell as if it were a pair of tongs. “What exactly does it take to ground a person whose energy is too high?”

  Stefan looks at me, long and hard, then says, “Sex. That’s what reconnects you to the earth.”

  I’ve never felt so disconnected in my life, so I have another gin. And then another, and then another – until, before I know it, I’m feeling a bit woozy and I have a sneaking suspicion that Stefan’s leg isn’t brushing mine by accident.

  “I really can help with that, you know,” he says, fixing his suspiciously-hypnotic eyes on mine. “The grounding process, I mean. Have you ever had a full-body orgasm, Hannah?”

  I don’t answer, as I’m suddenly feeling extremely peculiar. It’s like a hot flush, but not from the same place as usual. I excuse myself, and head for the loos, to give myself some time to think. I thought all orgasms were full-body ones. Has Dan been doing something wrong?

  There’s a massive queue for the toilets and it reaches out into the corridor, so I stand there for ages, swaying slightly and trying to decide what to do about Stefan and the prospect of sex with someone other than Dan. I close my eyes to see if that stops the room from spinning, then open them again when I feel a warm hand on my back.

  “Are you okay?” says a very familiar voice, and I open my eyes to see Dan’s concerned ones regarding mine. I stagger a bit from the shock, at which he puts his arms around me to hold me up. He’s so comfortable to lean against, but when I rest my head against his chest, he moves backwards a little and looks me up and down.

  “You look great, Han,” he says. “Really … great. Gorgeous, in fact, if a tiny bit pissed.”

  I giggle like an idiot, then say, “So do you – pissed and gorgeous. Especially your eyes … and, oh, you smell so good.”

  The volume of the conversations taking place around us has suddenly become much louder, along with the clattering and banging from the kitchen close to where we’re standing, and Dan shakes his head, then says, “I didn’t hear that. Can you say it again?”

  I lean towards him aiming to speak directly into his ear, but he turns his head at the last minute and suddenly our mouths are closer than they’ve been for months and months … and getting closer by the second. I shut my eyes, lift my chin and wait.

  “’Scuse me, pal,” says another f
amiliar voice. “I can manage the lady from here on in, though your generous help was much appreciated.”

  There’s a distinctly sarcastic tone to what Stefan’s just said, but he hasn’t finished yet.

  “Come to your favourite sex therapist, Hannah,” he says, “and let’s get on with that healing process.”

  Presumably he doesn’t mean the healing process that he’s just comprehensively buggered up.

  * * *

  By the time I’ve made it into the loo, thrown up, and finally staggered out again, there’s no sign of Dan but Stefan’s still waiting in the corridor, so I allow him to lead me back to our table like a wobbly-legged foal that’s just been broken-in by a sadistic trainer.

  I sit still, alternately groaning and sipping water, while first he tries to continue flirting and then goes on about his CV.

  “I genuinely am a sex therapist, Hannah,” he says. “Ask Eva if you don’t believe me.”

  I do believe him, as that’s probably why Eva’s employed him to write a column giving relationship advice. I just hope he doesn’t offer any to separated couples like Dan and me, who might otherwise have reconciled. I need to get out of here and find Dan, quick, but when I stand up I feel so dizzy and breathless, I have to sit back down again.

  Stefan orders a brandy from the waitress (who still appears to be under his spell), but he accepts my slurred assertion that I don’t require any more alcohol tonight. We sit in silence until his drink turns up, at which point he knocks the whole thing back in one, waves across to his apron-clad fangirl for another, then goes back on the attack.

  “As I was saying,” he continues, his voice even more slithery and Kaa-like than it was before, “Eva can definitely vouch for my abilities, if you get my drift.”

  He smiles a long, slow, self-satisfied smile, one I’d probably have described as sensual before my encounter with Dan, but which now looks smug, and seedy, too.