Unsuitable Men

by Pippa Wright

  ‘I wish you’d stop interfering, Ticky. I’m perfectly capable of sorting out dates for myself.’

  Yah?’ she asked, disbelieving. ‘Not really seeing it, Roars. Left to your own devices you end up on a date with Lysander’s ancient cousin. I’m just trying to help you get some balance here. One old-age pensioner plus one toyboy equals one man your own age.’

  ‘I have met a very nice man near my own age already,’ I said hotly. ‘We’ve been on one date and we’re going to go on another. Soon, actually.’

  Ticky looked at me suspiciously. She clearly didn’t trust me to make any decisions myself.

  ‘The date from the weekend?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Malky.’

  She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Hmm, sounds unsuitable, I will admit. No captain of industry goes by Malky, that’s for sure. Occupation?’

  ‘Musician,’ I said. She nodded again, looking unconvinced. ‘Unemployed musician,’ I added.

  She looked a little more impressed. ‘Age?’

  ‘I’m not sure – early thirties, probably.’

  At last she was satisfied. ‘Unemployed musician in his thirties – sounds promising, Roars. Totes unsuitable. I fully approve. But nothing wrong with a little back-up, is there?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ I agreed grudgingly.

  ‘Rack ‘em up, Roars,’ said Ticky, beaming at me benevolently like some patron saint of the dateless and desperate. ‘Rack ‘em up.’

  She tapped away quietly at her keyboard for ten minutes before adding, ‘Oh, yah, obvs you already know that Luke is Amanda’s godson, right?’

  16

  The house was dark and quiet when I got home on Thursday night; it seemed, for once, that everyone was out. Usually when the house was empty, Mr Bits would be waiting on the stairs ready to wrap himself around the legs of the first person home in a deranged plea for feeding that risked breaking the neck of his potential feeder as they descended to the basement kitchen. But this evening he was nowhere to be seen, so I was able to head down to the kitchen without clinging to the banisters for safety. For a moment I wondered where everyone was, but actually I was rather pleased to be able to kick off my polite smile along with my heels. I hadn’t lived in a house share since I’d left university; I’d forgotten what it’s like to live with other people who have to be engaged in conversation when sometimes all you really want to do is be silent with your own thoughts.

  I still hadn’t heard from Malky, and was doing my best to stay calm about it. Ticky had explained that there was a whole game to be played here – Malky wouldn’t want to look too keen, and I should remain as cool as possible and absolutely not contact him under any circumstances. But the longer I went without hearing from him, the more desperate I became to see him again. Perhaps I shouldn’t have run away from him like that? I thought I was being flirtatious, but maybe he thought I wasn’t interested. Should I have let him come home with me like he asked? Surely not: I’d only just met him. If this was a game, it was one at which I felt at a distinct disadvantage. It seemed like everyone else knew the rules but me. I had never subscribed to the belief that men and women were from different planets, but everyone else seemed to think so. Auntie Lyd, who rarely let an opinion go unexpressed, had even gone so far as to say that it was about time I got some experience of the battle of the sexes. I wasn’t quite sure how to take this – it’s not like Martin had been a hermaphrodite, I had actually been living with a man for over a decade; was she saying relationships between men and women were always a battleground? When I tried to get her to elaborate, she pressed her lips together and left the room in her usual mysterious manner.

  The radio was on in the kitchen – Auntie Lyd often left Radio 4 playing when she went out, to keep Mr Bits company, as if he might be fooled by The Archers into thinking we were all there, chatting invisibly around the kitchen table. But it seemed to be switched to a sports station tonight, which was weird. A silver laptop was open on the table, which was even weirder – no one in the house owned one, and even if they did, there was no internet access at Auntie Lyd’s. Who could it belong to? I tiptoed over towards it to have a nose at what was on the screen when I heard a sound behind me.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Jim, in yet another one of his horrible tight T-shirts, although this one just had an innocuous pair of binoculars printed on the front. He practically lived in Elgin Square these days. But I was surprised to see him guiltily straightening himself up as he hastily closed one of the kitchen drawers. I knew for a fact this drawer contained nothing more exciting than a roll of tin foil and a collection of ancient folded tea towels, but his studied sangfroid as he loped towards me across the kitchen floor made me immediately suspicious.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded.

  Jim shrugged his shoulders as if it was no big deal that he was hanging out in my aunt’s house, not even pretending to be working, nosing around in her drawers. As it were.

  ‘Hiya, Dawn,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you, too.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked again, my hands on my hips.

  ‘Oh, all right, Dawn, call off the search. You caught me red-handed.’

  I knew it.

  ‘Yes,’ he sighed, raising his hands in surrender. ‘It’s a fair cop. I was looking for something to eat. You’d better put the cuffs on, guvnor. Be gentle with me.’

  ‘Why were you looking in those drawers, then? If you just wanted something to eat, why weren’t you looking in the fridge?’

  ‘Chill out, Miss Marple,’ he laughed. ‘Jeez, I was just checking I hadn’t missed a secret stash of biscuits or anything.’

  A likely story.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought you ate biscuits,’ I said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked, pulling out the chair and sitting down, his legs stretched out as if he planned to be there some considerable time.

  ‘I’d have thought protein shakes and power gels were more your thing.’

  ‘Is that a compliment on my physique, Dawn?’ he asked, leaning backwards to grin at me with his hands behind his head to better display his pecs.

  I ignored him as I took off my coat and hung it on the back of a chair. It was rare enough for me to get an evening alone at Auntie Lyd’s; it seemed typical that it would be spoiled by the plumber hanging about for absolutely no reason. As I walked behind him I saw that Jim’s apparently inoffensive T-shirt was no such thing. The back read:

  Sydney Nudist Beach: Security Patrol.

  Typical.

  ‘I suppose nothing’s working again?’ I asked. I’d become so used to the lack of water at home that I had found myself, just this afternoon, turning the taps in the office loos off and on again for a full minute, gazing in wonder at the gushing water like a time traveller newly introduced to modern plumbing.

  ‘Everything’s working fine.’

  ‘So you just thought you’d hang out here anyway, did you?’ I asked. His presence unsettled me; I wasn’t going to be able to relax knowing he was here, and that made all of my irritation and anxiety about Malky and Martin and Luke and work and everything come bubbling up unpleasantly. ‘Nowhere else you’d rather be on a Thursday night? No life of your own?’

  ‘That’s right, Dawn,’ he said, smirking over the top of the laptop. ‘I’m hanging out here just so I can get a bit more of your delightful company. Anyway, I don’t see you out on the town either.’ He was as impervious as Amanda; nothing seemed to get to him.

  ‘Huh,’ I grunted. Couldn’t he just get the message and leave?

  ‘Remind me again which charm school you graduated from?’ he grinned.

  I glared at him; how dared he imply that I was rude, when he was the one who was making himself at home in my house, uninvited? Well, Auntie Lyd’s house, but still – it wasn’t his house, and yet here he was acting like I was the one who was in the way.

  ‘You can’t connect to the internet here you know,’ I said, as if he wouldn�
�t have realized that already. ‘There’s free WiFi in the Starbucks on the other side of the Old Town Triangle. You should go there.’

  ‘Thanks for the advice, Dawn,’ said Jim. ‘But I’m just finishing off setting up your aunt’s broadband connection.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They didn’t teach you very good manners at that charm school, did they, Dawn? Didn’t anyone tell you it’s “pardon”, not “what”?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Jim, but my Auntie Lyd doesn’t even have a mobile phone, let alone a laptop. Why would she want broadband? And why are you doing it?’

  Jim leaned back in his chair and reached his arms above his head, fingers interlinked as he yawned and stretched. His tight T-shirt rode up a little to show his tanned stomach. In March. I cast my eyes up to the ceiling in disgust. I bet he used sunbeds or, worse, fake tan. The vanity of the man.

  ‘’Cause she asked me,’ he said. ‘Happy to help out.’

  Of course he was. It gave him an excuse to snoop around her property. He was obviously up to something.

  ‘But you’re a plumber,’ I said, somewhat pointlessly, since he was no doubt already aware of this fact, it being written in large letters on the side of his white van after all. It made me suspicious – Auntie Lyd knew nothing about computers or the internet, nor did Percy or Eleanor. Nor, let’s be honest, did I. They – we – were ripe for being ripped off by this dodgy plumber with his dubious claims of computer knowledge.

  ‘Used to be in IT,’ Jim said.

  ‘Oh really?’ I said; it seemed very unlikely to me. ‘So how much are you charging Auntie Lyd for this?’ I wanted him to know that I had my eye on him. He wasn’t going to get away with taking advantage of my aunt. Not with me here to look after her.

  Jim shrugged. No need to get chippy, Dawn. I’m not charging her anything – just helped her choose the right laptop and broadband supplier. Only took a minute, seeing as I’m here all the time anyway.’

  ‘I don’t know why you don’t just move in,’ I muttered under my breath as I went over to the fridge to see what I could make for supper.

  ‘Aurora Carmichael!’ said Jim, in a faux-scandalized voice. ‘But we hardly know each other. And anyway, I don’t think I’m your type. I’ve got all my own teeth, for a start.’

  ‘If you are going to go on about the sixty-eight-year-old again,’ I snapped, turning around from the fridge, ‘that was one date. And who are you to judge what my type is?’

  ‘Steady on,’ Jim laughed, holding his hands out as if to ward me off. ‘Only teasing, Dawn. You date who you like. The care home is your oyster.’

  ‘Actually,’ I said, shutting the fridge door so hard that all the bottles inside rattled in alarm. I’d lost my appetite for supper. ‘Actually, I’m dating a musician at the moment. He’s really creative, and amazing. And young.’

  It was probably stretching it to describe my one date and subsequent by-the-bins fumble as ‘dating’, especially as I hadn’t heard from Malky since. And also stretching it somewhat to call thirtysomething Malky ‘young’ – he wasn’t exactly a Luke-style toyboy. But somehow Jim’s smug face as he sat at the kitchen table, laughing at me in his hideous clothes with his highlighted hair and his fake tan, made me desperate to prove I wasn’t just a tragic dating loser.

  ‘Good for you,’ he smiled. I could tell he didn’t believe me. He probably thought I was making it all up. He probably thought I’d be living with my spinster aunt for ever, like two generations of Miss Havishams; and if Malky didn’t bloody ring me soon, I probably would be.

  As if on cue, my phone buzzed with a text message.

  ‘That’s probably him now,’ I said, unable to suppress a sense of triumph at the opportune interruption, although I was far from certain it would be Malky. But when I read the message from an unknown number, I was relieved that it wasn’t. I hadn’t read anything that filthy since I’d nicked my mum’s copy of Shirley Conran’s Lace when I was at school.

  ‘Jeez, Dawn, you’ve gone scarlet,’ said Jim, chuckling away smugly as he watched me stare at the screen open-mouthed. ‘What’s he said?’

  ‘None of your business,’ I snapped, turning off my phone immediately. I don’t think I could have read the message out loud even if I’d wanted to, and I certainly wasn’t about to show it to Jim. I’m not sure I can bring myself to write it down. Let’s just say that it expressed a wish to, well, become better acquainted with my arse through the medium of spanking. And I had no idea who it was from. I felt a rising panic – had Teddy decided we would suit after all?

  ‘Aren’t you going to reply?’ asked Jim.

  I was saved from answering both Jim and the anonymous text by the arrival home of Auntie Lyd with Eleanor and Percy, carrying programmes from the National Theatre, where they must have been to a matinée. Grateful for the distraction, I threw my phone into my handbag.

  Eleanor’s eyes lit up with delight when she saw Jim seated at our kitchen table. At least someone was glad to see him there.

  ‘Ooh, Jim,’ she trilled, tripping over to him. ‘Is it set up yet? I can’t wait for you to show me how to use the broadband. I think I might need some special, private lessons.’

  Jim smiled. ‘You won’t need lessons, Eleanor, you’ll catch on straight away, I’m sure.’

  Percy grunted from the other side of the table, where he’d settled himself so as to be able to glare at Eleanor. ‘Never underestimate how stupid that woman can be.’

  ‘Percy!’ admonished Auntie Lyd. ‘There is absolutely no need to speak to Eleanor like that – you’re just annoyed she got recognized in the foyer and you didn’t.’

  Percy muttered under his breath, but didn’t answer back, so I assumed Auntie Lyd was right about the source of his vicious mood. Both he and Eleanor were fiercely competitive over who got recognized the most, and Percy had even been known to hang about in the Sainsbury’s on the high street for no other purpose than a hope he might be spotted by his public, which didn’t happen nearly often enough for his satisfaction.

  ‘It’s all done, Lydia,’ said Jim, closing the lid of the laptop and pushing his chair away from the kitchen table. ‘Tomorrow I’ll show you how to get online, and then you’re away.’

  ‘What brought this on? Why do you want broadband all of a sudden?’ I asked Auntie Lyd accusingly.

  ‘Well,’ she said, looking surprised at the harshness of my tone. ‘I was just talking to Jim about it and he made me see how much we could all benefit from having it set up. Apparently I can order all sorts of things without having to drive out of town. And I can read your new column, too.’

  ‘I could have done it for you,’ I said petulantly. ‘It’s not even that difficult. You should have asked me.’

  Two vertical lines appeared between Auntie Lyd’s eyebrows as she frowned at me with an expression that told me to stop talking before I made an idiot of myself. Although really I knew it was already too late; I looked churlish and ungrateful while Jim the dodgy plumber looked generous and kind. But I wanted to be the one who helped her. I felt like a toddler, used to being the darling of the Elgin Square family, disgruntled by a new baby. If that new baby had been six foot three and built like an action hero.

  ‘Don’t understand why a young man like you would leave a good job in computers to mess around with people’s pipes all day,’ muttered Percy, obviously still annoyed and now turning on Jim.

  ‘Have you been speaking to my gran, Perce?’ asked Jim, laughing. ‘That’s just the sort of thing she says.’

  ‘But really,’ said Eleanor, resting a hand on Jim’s arm and copping a surreptitious feel of his muscles. ‘Lydia said you used to be a consultant on the broadband in the City. Don’t you miss it?’

  ‘God, no,’ Jim laughed. I felt even more suspicious of this so-called IT expert. No one gives up a well-paid white-collar job to become a plumber. Something must have happened. Maybe he was sacked. Maybe he was done for embezzling. Maybe he just wasn’t very good at it.

 
; ‘Seems odd to me,’ I said.

  ‘Seems odd to a lot of people, Dawn,’ said Jim affably. ‘But everything I did started to get outsourced to India and Asia, and I didn’t want to compete with that. It wasn’t about the work any more – just about how cheaply you could do it.’

  ‘So you just gave up and became a plumber?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t think of it as giving up,’ said Jim. ‘I just took a proper look at my life – always sat at a desk, always commuting, running around according to other people’s timetables, competing to do the work for less and less money. It didn’t feel like I was giving up a lot when I decided to pack it in.’

  ‘But Jim,’ said Eleanor, whose interest in this conversation was excellent cover for the number of times she could touch Jim (she was well into double figures already). ‘Surely you were qualified to do something other than plumbing?’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Jim, turning to look at her. ‘But I like plumbing. Always have. My dad was a plumber, and I used to help him during the school holidays. It’s satisfying working with your hands: fixing things, making them better. And if your toilet’s overflowing, you don’t want to ring a call centre in Mumbai, you want someone to come round and sort it out. You can’t outsource a blocked pipe, can you?’

  I hadn’t thought of it like that. But still, from IT professional to unclogging drains seemed like a weird career trajectory to me. It wasn’t like getting a seat on the board, was it? Or a company car, or a performance bonus. You might not be outsourced, but you still spent your days with your hands down other people’s toilets. I knew which I’d prefer.

  ‘Mmm, go on Jim, fascinating,’ breathed Eleanor, leaning closer. Percy glared at her.

  ‘That’s it really,’ Jim shrugged. ‘I’m in charge of my own time, I take the jobs I want to take, I’ve got time to go to the gym when I want. It just suits me.’