Raven (20 page)

Apparently Damian's girlfriend grew suspicious, examined his phone and confronted him about my messages (how embarrassing), whereupon he admitted that we had met via Tinder. But then he told her that she needn't worry about me because I was sixty. What a bloody nerve! As if we sexagenarians couldn't cause as much worry as anyone else.

She said she was in her early thirties, the same age as him, and they had been together ‘a very long time'. She sounded desperate and I felt sorry for the girl.

‘Listen,' I told her, ‘we never met in person. It didn't go any further than texting.'

I could hear the relief in her voice. ‘So at least he didn't lie about that, anyway.'

‘No, but a guy with a girlfriend shouldn't be on Tinder in the first place, looking for sex partners. And he's got all these hard-core fantasies about older women. They're not going to go away soon. I don't think you can trust him.'

‘I know,' she said. ‘I've felt that for a long while.' She paused and sighed. ‘I'm glad I called you. Thanks for being honest with me. Men like that are losers. Don't realise what they have till it's gone.'

‘Dump him.'

‘Yeah, I will. Everything happens for a reason, so I guess it's good this happened. I know I really need to move on. I deserve better than this.'

‘Of course you do.'

‘Only problem is, I work with him. So I'll have to keep seeing him around.'

‘Oh, what a bummer.'

We spoke a while longer, then wished each other good luck for the future and said good-bye.

I reflected on how easy it was to view each ‘match' acquired on a dating site or app entirely within the context of its own little self-contained digital existence, to forget that that same man was also living a whole other life in the real world, a complicated life that you knew nothing about, alongside people you knew nothing about. This was the first time that one of those unknown correlated people had reached across and dipped into my own real-world life. And that had a certain shock value.

I regretted the part I had unwittingly played in this woman's pain. On the other hand, perhaps I had done her a favour. In any case I wanted to give her a final few words of encouragement. So before putting the unfortunate episode behind me forever I sent her a text.

‘Be strong. Back in the seventies my generation fought for women's independence. Make the most of it!'

Admittedly I didn't do any of that fighting myself, because I always had other things on my mind besides marching around with banners. But she didn't need to know that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

There could have been all manner of neat Hollywood endings to this book. A particularly fine one would have been for Charles to turn up at my door one day and sweep me into his arms, having resolved his onerous issues, declare that I was The One for him because I was cute and funny and sexy and could converse on so many absorbing topics, and promise that we would never again be too busy for wonderful little me. Good-bye to all the other online contestants, they can carry on a-winkin' all they like, it would be to no avail!

And after this affirmation of love, Charles carries me upstairs to the bedroom (the way Clark Gable carried Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind), and in the course of some fabulous sex which goes on
for hours
I get my long-lost orgasm back and the next thing you know it's ding dong the bells are gonna chime.

But you always knew it wouldn't end that way. Because this is not a romcom with Meryl Streep and Steve Martin. This is real life we've been talking about here, which is even more ‘complicated'.

So I'll tell you the way it really ends. Faithful readers, you've stayed with me this far. Now try to imagine the most ghastly calamity that could befall the Raven, the most awful, gut-wrenching, worst case scenario (after being kidnapped by the Taliban, obviously). Yes, that's
exactly
what happened.

One morning, in one instant, with the arrival on my laptop of a single email, my grand project was brought to a juddering halt. The email was from my long-departed ex-partner, who announced that he would be moving back in with me. Yes, without so much as a by-your-leave, he would be returning to what was once our home but was now
my
home, thereby wrecking my proud new independence.

His return was not due to the sudden realisation that he had made a terrible mistake by buggering off, and couldn't live without me. This was no mea culpa. No, the decision was taken ‘regrettably' for purely financial reasons.

My immediate reaction was disbelief, quickly followed by anger, because my ex wasn't given to making bad jokes (or good ones) and I knew it was no idle threat. A year and a half after he had moved out of our jointly owned house into rented accommodation, our property was still on the market. This was bad news all round, but obviously worse for him. I understood the financial imperatives and had some sympathy for his situation. On the other hand, leaving had been his choice, not mine. When he left it took me months to get my equilibrium back – months of hurt and loneliness and distress. But as you have doubtless gathered over the course of these many chapters, I was now comfortable in my skin, cherishing my freedom and proud of my autonomy. I had rather taken to this whole splendid isolation gig. And the prospect of having to share my personal space once more with the ex who had dumped me, of having him know my business, and who my business was with, was odious in the extreme. In my new incarnation I was retrospectively overjoyed that I had been ditched, and didn't want to be un-ditched, not even for purely financial reasons.

When I explained this turn of events to Vanessa she was outraged on my behalf and proposed a typically uncompromising solution to the problem: ‘You need to get a doctor's certificate saying that being forced to live with him again will be so stressful that you'll have a nervous breakdown and be unable to earn your living. That should do the trick!'

But it wasn't true. And anyway, I didn't hate my ex that much. I didn't hate him at all. I just didn't want him around, dragging me backwards with his presence and its echoes of the past. So I appealed to him to choose some other solution.

Solution One: he could move in with his girlfriend. (Sorry, didn't I mention he had a girlfriend?) But he claimed her place was too small.

Solution Two: he could live with his father for a while. His place was big enough. But no, the ex countered that his extremely aged father lived outside London, was too infirm and would be overly demanding. No lies there.

Solution Three: I could let out the empty bedrooms to lodgers and give him all the money so that he could continue renting a place for himself. But even I realised this would not solve my problem. I'd have as much privacy living with lodgers as I would have living with him. And at least with him I'd be able to manipulate his feelings of guilt to my advantage…

In the end, after much fuming to myself, I realised I could do nothing to forestall this outcome. I could only pray that we wouldn't have to co-exist for very long, that we would be able to shift the property soon, so that we could each take our share of the dosh and run.

It was apparent to me that as well as generally cramping my style, big time, this unwanted new domestic arrangement would put the kibosh on my days of dating dangerously.

I mused on how things might play out. Let's see.

Scrumptious and biddable young man on our first date accompanies me home late at night and asks: ‘Who's that guy in the kitchen making himself a cup of tea?' Whereupon I smile sweetly and consider lying. My lodger? A cousin visiting from abroad? A house-mate? I opt for the truth, on the basis that he is bound to find out at some point anyway. ‘That's my ex.' At this unexpected response the young man looks startled and confused, is no longer biddable, and mumbles something which sounds like ‘Weird. I'm outta here.' Desperately I call after his retreating back: ‘Wait! It's okay! We live together for purely financial reasons!' But it's too late. My hunk, who had promised so much, has disappeared into the night, never to return.

Yep, that sounds about right.

I always understood that part of my appeal to young men, who generally lived with flatmates or their families, was that I lived on my own. I was an independent older woman with a house to herself, total privacy, no one else around to see anything or interfere or create inhibiting factors. But that would no longer be the case.

Perhaps I could get away with a little ducking and diving, like a character in an Alan Ayckbourn bedroom farce. Doors opening and closing in the middle of the night, comic misunderstandings, naked buttocks hurrying down hallways…But I didn't have the stomach for all that. It sounded too tiring. Maybe I was just too old for it.

I also had no need of my ex's shock, disapproval, concern and discomfiture – all of which would come my way in great heaps once he got wind of the racy goings-on in our co-habited house. No, my two dating site memberships were due to expire soon anyway, so I reckoned it was easier to call it a day. Perhaps only temporarily. I couldn't be sure. I had long stopped trying to predict the future, and this Raven, unlike Poe's original, never says Nevermore.

As the day of my ex's return neared, I began to mourn the approaching loss of my liberty. It had taken me to the age of sixty to discover what it was like to live alone. A late baptism of fire, which had at first burned me painfully but which now lit and warmed my world. That solitary life was about far more for me than the freedom to bang boys. It was about the freedom, at last, to be myself, wherever that took me, and lately it had taken me down some shadowy and chancy, not always wholesome but always thoroughly invigorating rabbit holes. My adventures in dating-land. They had been the perfect counterpoint to the other side of me, the side which comprised the softness and unsparing love which I had for my children and grandchildren. No matriarch was more devoted to her family than me.

Matriarch, Raven. Two vastly different roles but I tackled both with gusto, at full throttle. No holding back, no lame-ass half-measures. Isn't that the way to take on any role in life?

*

It was less than a fortnight before my ex was due to move back in, when I got an unexpected text one afternoon from my erstwhile Tinder boy, Jake. It had been two months since we last had contact, on that surreal night when a sloshed Bob fell into my pond whilst I was replying to the brawny young 'un's booty call. Now he was thrillingly on my case again with ‘Hi, sexy. How are you?'

‘Hello, baby. I'm good. But then you already knew that!'

‘Ha ha, yes I did, and you are! What are you up to tonight?'

I wasn't up to anything. And if I had been, I would gladly have un-upped myself to it in favour of a roll in the hay with Jake. After all, the window of opportunity for this pastime would not remain open for long. Which called to my mind the words of Badfinger's evergreen hit song of four decades earlier:

Sonny, if you want it, here it is, come and get it. But you better hurry
'
cause it's going fast.

‘Come on over, Jake,' I texted back. ‘I'd love to see you. xxx'

‘Great…will be there at 8. xxx'

I felt my insides stirring. My world was once more aburst with flashing fairy lights. I tossed my mobile onto the bed and put on my CD of Cher's greatest hits – at full belter volume, of course – then ran myself a warm, fragrant bath. And do you know, as I luxuriated amidst the bubbles, eyes closed, picturing the rampant romps to come, it was as if the diva of divas were right there with me.