How to Get a (Love) Life (9 page)

‘Well, I suppose a dog,’ I mumbled, almost to myself.

Roger frowned. ‘Something for your dog?’ he asked.

‘No, um. I was just wondering if you lend dogs? I’d like to borrow a dog.’

‘Borrow?’ Roger frowned.

‘Yes. I mean, well, I might be in the market for one,’ I explained. ‘But, you know, what if a dog isn’t … for me?’ I wasn’t quite sure where I was going with this, but I carried on. ‘Maybe I could, you know, borrow one. Like a test drive?’

‘A test drive?’ Roger said, his eyebrows meeting in the middle.

‘Well, ha ha, you know. Just so I could take it for a spin. To see if it suits me.’

‘A
spin
?’ Roger frowned for a moment before shrugging. ‘Okay … Any particular breed catch your fancy?’

‘Well, I …’

‘Follow me and let’s go and meet some, shall we?’ He swept me confidently through the shop. Wow. Was dog borrowing a
thing
?

Twenty minutes later Roger had shown me many pictures of dog types and provided me with a list of local breeders’ numbers. Then, before I could stop him, he’d picked up the phone and started dialling. ‘Hold on, I’ll just try Garry. He might be able to help.’

I tried to interject but Roger put up a hand and smiled encouragingly. He spoke to Garry.

‘… Lady says she’s interested in your Cockapoo or something similar, Gar.’

He put his hand over the receiver and turned to me. ‘You definitely just want to
borrow
him?’ he checked.

I nodded.

‘Borrow like rent him?’ Roger confirmed.

‘Yes, just for maybe an hour or two to see, you know, if we get on.’

He spoke into the receiver, his eyes never leaving my face, ‘Doesn’t look mad … Women, mate isn’t it …’ Eventually he put down the phone and looked at me. ‘Garry said he knows someone who’ll lend you their dog,’ he said, disbelief etched on his face.

‘Oh super,’ I stammered.

‘If you leave your mobile number with me, we’ll put you in touch with the lady who provides this service.’

‘Right, okay,’ I said, scribbling my number down as quickly as possible, thanking him profusely and practically running out of the door. I scurried out into the street wondering what I had just done.

Roger called me that evening and I arranged to meet Sandra outside the pet shop that Friday, when I would be ‘set up’ with a dog for an hour’s walk. Yes – I had a date with a dog! Maybe I’d be like that woman in the paper – I’d stumble across Mr Right in the park. Then I would get my own dog and we would walk them together. I smiled as I poured myself a glass of Chablis, rootling in the back of the cupboard where I knew I kept a slab of dark chocolate for cooking purposes. I snapped a couple of squares off and popped them in my mouth just as I heard the doorbell ring.

Chapter Twelve

That evening Mark decided to stop by with a ‘cool surprise’ for me. I had come to hate surprises because of the unpredictable nature of them; I liked knowing what was in store for me. Plus, I was doubtful that any surprise organised by Mark was going to fill me with delight. I just had my fingers crossed it wasn’t any kind of bat in a box.

It wasn’t a bat, thankfully. It was, in fact, a brand new helmet he’d bought himself. It had neon go-faster stripes up the side. I had to pretend to examine every inch of its surface and polish the visor for twenty whole minutes before I was allowed to get up and make some coffee.

‘So, I was mentioning you to a friend of mine who also owns a motorcycle, right,’ Mark called as I put the kettle on.

‘Mark, it’s a moped.’

‘No, it’s a
motorbike
and anyway you don’t really understand because you’re a girl,’ he reminded me kindly. ‘Anyway this friend of mine, Steven, is keen to go on a date with you, and I thought—’

‘—Okay, go back, go back. What do you mean you “mentioned me”?’ I asked suspiciously, as I emerged from the kitchen with two mugs of coffee.

‘I just mentioned that you are, you know, single and dating. That’s all.’ I handed him his mug with a stony expression. ‘Don’t worry, sis! I didn’t make out you were a desperado or anything.’

‘Oh,
thank you
,’ I said, voice loaded with sarcasm. ‘You are too kind.’

I sat down at the table and sipped at my coffee.

‘Yeah, well, he is keen and said he’d take you out.’ Mark joined me at the table. I rolled my eyes.

‘Mark, you make me sound like a charity case. I’m not an outreach programme you need to get your friends interested in!’

‘No, no, that’s not what this is. He’s a really nice guy and he is up for it.’ He gave me a thumbs up.

I shook my head. ‘No. No date with your friends, thanks, Mark. I’m not that desperate … at least not yet.’

‘Fine, fine, fine,’ Mark said, throwing up his hands. ‘Do you know what you need to do though, sis?’

‘Watch a film and go to bed?’ I said, smiling sweetly at him.

He waved his hand dismissively. ‘You need to get
online
, start socialising again. Get on Twitter, actually, get on Facebook. Then you can meet people on your terms and see who turns up.’

‘Hmmm.’ I shrugged hesitantly. ‘Haven’t I missed the boat a bit for Facebook?’

‘No! Everyone’s on Facebook. You have to be nowadays. How else do you stay connected with the rest of the world? Look sis, it’ll be good to you. You can get back in touch with some of your old friends.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, not meeting his eye.

I’d been avoiding social networking websites for a few years now. Surely everyone who wanted to be in touch with me, was in touch with me? I didn’t get the whole thing. Why bother? Then Caroline’s face swam before my eyes and I thought of the dare. Of the promise I’d made to myself and the feeling that it was time to face up to the past.

‘Come on. Let me get you started.’ Mark grabbed my laptop from the floor and opened it up onto the table.

I gave him a reluctant nod and Mark went about setting me up on the websites.

‘Right, I’ve transferred all your email contacts onto Facebook. Now just wait, sis, everyone will be messaging you …’

I took a breath and sat down, reading what he’d already written under my profile.

‘You all good?’ Mark said, shrugging on his coat. ‘I’ll be off then. See you soon and I’ll tell Steven he can call you about this weekend.’

‘Hmmm?’ I muttered distractedly, wondering what my ‘Hobbies’ were.

‘Steven, my friend,’ he prompted.

‘What?’ I looked up, and then remembered, ‘Oh, no, Mark. Don’t worry I’m fine, really.’

‘Oh go on, sis, you’ll like him. He’s a good guy.’

‘Well, I … What’s he like?’ I relented.

‘He is good looking apparently, say the girls, and he likes sports. He has a good job in the centre of town and he’s a, well, you know, he’s a …’

‘Good guy?’ I hazarded.

‘Yeah! So he’s up for it. I’ve already given him your number so expect his call, okay?’

‘You’ve GIVEN him my number already? Oh gee thanks, Mark. Give me some element of choice, why don’t you?’

‘What’s that, sis? I can’t hear you,’ Mark yelled, diving out of the flat and closing the door behind him.

Grrr.

Steven called me pretty much the moment my brother left and I found myself agreeing to meet him, ‘wearing something warm’, on Saturday morning. I returned to roaming around the internet and promptly forgot all about it.

Twenty-four hours later and I was still online. Okay, so I did go to work and eat breakfast, but the entire next evening had been spent in front of the laptop screen. It was midnight on a Thursday and I was firmly in cyberspace. I was looking at a friend of a friend of a friend on Facebook. I didn’t know this girl. She was a perfect stranger. I didn’t even know this girl’s friend, who was a friend of my friend. So why was I here staring at her face? Why did I feel the urge to trawl through her cover photos? Why had I noted the groups she’d joined? Why was my stomach twisting at the sight of this sleek individual with her toothy smile and horribly shiny blonde bob? Why did I care? She was just a friend of a friend of someone I used to know.

The trouble was the someone I used to know. He was on Facebook. Brazenly, right here. His profile photo was an image of him on a skateboard, which, on anyone else, would look daft, but on him was cool in an ironic sort of way. I looked at his friends list and didn’t recognise any of them. To be fair, it had been more than seven years since we saw each other, but still. Stumbling across him had come as an enormous, uncomfortable shock. I wondered what he was like now?

I knew I shouldn’t have let Mark set me up on here.

Chapter Thirteen

The next day, feeling both apprehensive and slightly ridiculous, I approached the pet shop on my lunch break. I was wearing a wax Barbour jacket I’d unearthed from a trunk in my bedroom and had pulled on some filthy Adidas trainers to complete my ‘dog-walking’ look. A woman was waiting outside the pet shop, a small to medium-sized ball of fluff sitting on hind legs by her side.

‘Sandra?’ I asked.

‘You must be Nicola,’ she replied. Then she turned to the dog and said in a baby-voice, ‘You said this pretty lady was her, didn’t you?’ She then scooped the dog up into her arms and made me shake its paw.

I glanced up to see Roger in the window eyeing us both.

‘Great. I’ll just take him for a spi … a walk and then we’ll meet you back here in an hour.’

‘Do you have the money?’ she asked, as if we were involved in some kind of drugs drop.

‘Oh, I do, sorry.’ I rummaged in my bag for the cash.

‘I want to go to Primark while you’re gone, you see.’

‘Right. Okay.’ I handed over a tenner, wondering how many items she could get with the note. Loads, probably.

‘Well, I’ll say goodbye then,’ she said, lifting the dog up so that they were face-level. ‘He likes his walks, yes he does, yes he does,’ she said in the baby voice, shaking him a little and then rubbing her nose against his. Ew. She handed the lead to me. ‘I’ll meet you back here in an hour. You kids have fun!’

We walked off up the high street and I swear he started dragging his back two legs, already missing the affections of his owner.

‘Come on, dog, come on, doggy,’ I said, copying Sandra’s sing-songy voice in the hope I could fool it into trotting after me.

Pulling on his lead, I headed around the corner of Park Street and up towards Brandon Hill – Bristol’s premiere dog-walking spot.

I was quite enjoying myself. The dog and I were entertained by numerous games of chase the stick and I loved the feeling of being out in the fresh air, doing something a little different from my normal everyday routine. I realised I had barely noticed if there were many men around to talk to and, as I stopped to catch my breath after a particularly brutal over-arm throw, I reminded myself that the whole point of this exercise was to find a like-minded soul. If I didn’t find someone soon, Caroline would set up me with another eligible young bachelor from her list. I shuddered.

‘Aw, what’s its name?’ came a voice from nearby.

I looked about myself and spotted a middle-aged woman with a black Labrador attached to a lead beside her. I was about to engage in my first dog-walker talk! Only, I realised, I had forgotten to ask what the dog was called.

The woman approached and patted the borrowed dog enthusiastically, as her Labrador sniffed at my shoes, its tail wagging. She looked at me, expecting an answer.

‘Oh, um it’s called. It’s called … It.’

‘It?’ said the woman, with a frown.

‘Er, yes short for … um … short for … Kermit … It.’ I nodded slowly, feeling like an absolute fool.

‘Kermit …’ The woman looked at me, then back at the dog and then back up at me, a worried expression on her face. ‘How … nice. Kermit. Like the frog.’

‘Yes, ha … ha.’

‘Funny name for a dog, isn’t it?’ She laughed.

‘Yes. I suppose it is. Anyway, I best get on,’ I said with false gusto. ‘Come on, It! Come on, you,’ I said, tugging at his lead and wandering away.

He or, rather,
It
, grumpily waddled after me, sad to be leaving the lady and her Labrador.

I scanned the fields in search of any eligible looking men to strike up conversation with, but there were none, unless you counted the very old man over there, walking a Dachshund attached to a piece of string. I suspected he wasn’t
The One
. I sighed. This was no good. And It didn’t seem to like me very much at all. ‘Oh come on,’ I said to It. ‘Let’s get you back.’

As we were walking back down Park Street I decided to drop into the office and show him to Caroline. There was still a bit of time before I was supposed to meet Sandra, and Caroline just loved dogs. I pushed the door open a fraction and indicated to Caroline with a finger to my lips that she should keep the noise down. But, of course, the moment she saw the little dog she started clapping her hands and squealing like I’d just announced it was an unexpectedly early Christmas …

‘Oooh, he’s lovely,’ she said, scooting out from her desk to come and pet him. ‘I didn’t know you had a dog, Nic?’

‘Oh, I don’t he’s a … friend’s.’

‘What’s going on out there?’ James’ voice sounded out from his office.

Caroline giggled.

‘We should go,’ I whispered, backing away from Caroline and towards the door. ‘Back soon.’

It, having clearly taken to Caroline, chose that moment to let out a round of noisy barks.

James appeared in the doorway. I was sure I was about to get into trouble, when James surprised us both. His face lit up and he practically fell over the corner of my desk in his haste to join us. He scooped the dog up into his arms. ‘He’s brilliant.’ He put him back down onto the floor and ruffled his ears. ‘Good boy,’ he said, in a voice strikingly similar to the one he used when speaking to our trickier clients. He picked up a packet of Jaffa Cakes from Caroline’s desk and removed one, ‘Have a biscuit, doggy, have a …’

Caroline reached over, plucked the Jaffa Cake out of his hand and put it straight into her mouth.

James looked aghast.

‘What?’ she mumbled through munching. ‘A waste of perfectly good chocolate. Don’t you dare. And, anyway,’ she said, sponge spraying out of her mouth, ‘Jaffa Cakes are
not
biscuits. Everyone knows that. It has something to do with Marie Antoinette, or tax, or something.’