The Dating Detox (15 page)

‘Ah, Sass, I am tired of Berlin,’ he says, ashing his cigarette. He pronounces ‘Sass’ in a very clipped way. ‘I’m ready for a change, I just broke up with my girlfriend, and you know…it is time to meet new people.’

I contemplate telling him about my Dating Sabbatical, but decide that it’d be better to not talk about dating. I don’t mind
seeing that he’s nursing relationship wounds—in fact, it kind of makes me like him a bit more—but I’m damned if he’ll discover that I am, too.

‘Do you have many friends left in London from when you lived here before?’ I ask.

‘Well, lots have moved, of course, it’s a big city and I was friends with lots of French and Germans. I do still have two very good friends here…thank goodness,’ he adds.‘It’s hard to move somewhere with no network at all.’

‘Oh, I know,’ I say, and take a sip of my drink. ‘I call my first year in London “The Lost Year”.’

He starts to laugh. ‘That’s like my first year here! I was 24, God, it was so difficult…’

We start telling loneliness stories about being fresh to London and diabolical Saturday nights spent in the West End before you realise that no one goes into the West End on a weekend. Ever.

‘I would rather slash my wrists than spend a Saturday night in Covent Garden,’ I say cheerfully. Lukas agrees. He’s likeably easy-going. I can forgive him for almost tricking me into a date.

We finish our cigarettes and walk back inside to discover Cooper and Stefan talking animatedly about their rock days—Stefan is also an ex-musician—and Felix and Marlena are sitting on the floor together chatting away in German.

Coop starts telling wild stories about tours and fights and groupies and drugs, and for each story he tells, Stefan has a Teutonic one to match it. Soon Lukas and I are in fits of laughter, Cooper’s gone mildly cross-eyed with drink, and Stefan’s face is bright, bright red. He looks at himself in the mirror over the fireplace and shakes his head sadly.

‘This is the reason I took so many drugs in the 90s,’ he says mournfully. He pronounces it ‘druks’. ‘Drinking is so bad for me. Look at my tomato-head.’

Felix stands up. ‘Cooper, I have been talking to your lovely wife, and drinking this lovely champagne, and we have decided
that since she hates to cook and, since we are celebrating, we are going to go out to eat,’ he smiles.

‘WOOOOOO!’ cheers Marlena. I have never heard her say anything so loud.

‘I am booking a table at Nobu Berkeley,’ says Felix. ‘So Cooper, you must call a cab, and that is that.’

This is quite possibly the first time anyone has ever bossed Cooper around. He takes it awfully well: he’s already got his phone out and is dialling his local taxi company. Marlena announces she’s going to start smoking again tonight, and I head outside again with her. God, I love smoking and drinking champagne.

‘Lukas, he likes you,’ she says, inhaling awkwardly and exhaling almost straightaway.

‘Meh,’ I say. I feel a bit light-headed and try to count how much I’ve had to drink. No more till we get to Nobu. Ooh, Nobu. How pre-recession of us. ‘I’m not really interested.’

‘He is a good man,’ she says, clutching my arm and looking into my eyes meaningfully. ‘Felix has been telling me about him. He has just come out of a terrible time with his girlfriend…she was not a good person.’ I nod, feeling mildly scared of her intensity. How much has she had to drink?

Her eyes are slightly unfocused, and she starts talking about what a good person Felix is, and then what a good person Stefan is. Clearly, everyone is a good person when Marlena’s had half a bottle of champagne and four vodkas.

Soon, the minicabs arrive. Marlena, Felix and I are in one, and Coop, Lukas and Stefan in the other.

I check my phone as we walk out the door, and see I have two missed calls. From Rick. At 7.59 pm, and again at 8.43 pm. No message. My hearts skips a beat when I see his name on my phone. I can’t help it, it’s Pavlovian. It’s an egg-white-based dessert.

The other two are already in the back of the cab, so I sit in
the front, feeling slightly tipsy and wondering why the sweet hell Rick would be calling me. We’ve just reached Chelsea Bridge when my phone rings.

It’s Rick.

I let it ring four times, and decide there’s no harm in finding out what he wants: Felix and Marlena are talking in German and won’t be able to hear me over the Turkish pop on the radio.

‘Hello?’ I also decide it’s a good idea to pretend I’ve deleted his number and have no idea who is calling.

‘Ah, finally!’

‘Uh, hello…? Who is this?’ I try to sound detached, busy and uninterested, whilst secretly grinning to myself like a maniac. A tipsy maniac.

‘It’s me. It’s Rick.’

‘Rick! Oh, gosh, sorry, I didn’t recognise your voice.’

Pause. I could say what’s up, but why bother? Make him work for it.

‘So…how are you? What are you up to tonight?’ he says. What’s with the small talk? He never called to ask me how I was when we were actually bloody going out.

‘Ace,’ I say breezily. ‘Although I’m actually just off to a work dinner so I can’t chat…’

‘Anywhere nice?’ he says jovially. Why is he being so nice like this? He sounds weird.

‘Nobu, actually. The Berkeley Square one…’

‘Oh, nice. Say hi to Nick behind the bar for me.’ What a pretentious thing to say. And he sounds surprised I’d get to go somewhere nice for my job, which he always dismissed with an indulgent smile.

‘Will do.’

Long pause.

‘Well, I really shouldn’t stay on the phone, Rick, I’m neglecting people…’

‘Yeah, yeah, I just rang…basically, I rang to say that you and I should have dinner.’

Suddenly, I feel very detached. ‘Really.’

‘Yes. We should have dinner, together, tomorrow night. Seeing you last night…I have a lot of things I want to say to you. So I’ve booked a table at the Oak for 9 pm. You can meet me there.’

Of course he booked the Oak. It’s about two streets from his house, the lazy bastardo. I don’t know what to say.

Naturally, ‘no fuck off’ springs to mind, but it’s so oddly rewarding to have him ask me out like this when I pictured him calling so many times the week after the Pink Lady. The Pink Lady! Fucking hell! Perhaps he wants to apologise. Perhaps he’s desperately in love with me and I can reject him this time. That would be good. My mind flutters around like this for a few seconds till I realise I should speak.

‘I don’t know…’ I say. I know I should say no. Pull yourself together, woman. ‘I can’t…’

‘A drink then?’ he says. ‘I need to talk to you. Come on, please? Do you want me to beg? I will…’

I shouldn’t I shouldn’t I shouldn’t. I think back to Rule 1. The most important Rule of all. No accepting dates.

‘Come on,’ he says, mildly impatiently. ‘Please? I have something to say.’

‘OK…’ I say. ‘But not a date. A drink. Just a drink.’

It’s not a date when I’ve already dated him, is it? I think back to the Rules again. Nothing about not seeing ex-boyfriends in there. Nothing at all. Lalalaaa.

‘Great,’ he says.

‘Chelsea, though,’ I say. I seem to spend my life travelling up to Notting Hill and I’m damn well not doing it to see him. ‘I’ll meet you at the Botanist at 8 pm.’ Ooh, I’m taking charge. This is a change.

‘It’s a date!’ he says.

‘It’s a drink,’ I correct him quickly. My champagne buzz has
been replaced by a mildly guilty feeling that I oughtn’t to be agreeing to this. I ignore it and hang up without saying goodbye. I’ll go along, see what he has to say, and leave. That’s fine. Totally fine. I am still in control of this situation. I am still on a Dating Sabbatical.

When we get to Nobu Berkeley, the other three are already sitting at the table, and have ordered six matsuhisa martinis. Vodka, sake and ginger. Freaking delicious. I sit down and drink about a third of mine in one gulp.

‘When I can’t pronounce it anymore, stop me drinking,’ I say to no one in particular. Lukas grins at me.

I’m sitting between Felix and Lukas. We’re a very loud table. Felix calls over a waiter. ‘Bring us hot miso chips, spicy tuna maki, the sweet potato tempura, oh, and toro tartar to start, and we’ll have six more of these,’ he says, tapping his martini glass. He looks around to the group. ‘They’re my favourites,’ he says apologetically. He has favourites at Nobu?

To distract myself from thinking about the fact that I’ve just agreed to go out with—sorry, meet for a very quick drink so it almost doesn’t count—Rick again, I start looking around the restaurant. I can see some people who I think might be C-list celebs but, as ever in London, it’s the under-the-radar beautiful people who automatically command all the attention. They could be from England, France, New York, Russia, Brazil, or Dubai (or all of the above), look exceptionally well rested and well dressed, and chat to each other at the bar and across tables. Such assurance, such casual perfection. I wonder if they have mantras. Somehow, I don’t think so. Suddenly my eye is caught by a middle-aged guy waving at me from two tables down. I stare at him. He’s in a grey suit and is sitting at a table with a blonde woman drinking sake. He keeps waving, and I stare more. Suddenly, it clicks.

It’s Smart Henry. Serious coin Smart Henry. And he’s beckoning me over to his table.

‘That guy is waving at you,’ points out Lukas.

‘I know, I know,’ I say. Shit, I guess I’ll have to go over.

Smart Henry jumps up when I arrive over. He’s looking kind of bloated and pudgy, despite the slick suit, and much older than his 34 years. Where’s his nice old tweed jacket? I think sadly. He seems thrilled to see me, and gives me a big hug hello.

‘SARAH!’ he exclaims. ‘You look FANTASTIC!’

‘Thanks,’ I reply, slightly overwhelmed. ‘How are you?’

‘SUPER! How are YOU?’ he says. Wow, he was never this enthusiastic about anything before.

‘Super!’ I say, peering at his face in slight shock. He’s so fat and bankery, what happened to the skinny, laconic indie writer who I cried and cried over? ‘How are you, I mean, how’s Harvard?’

‘Off the HOOK!’ Smart Henry says, and introduces me to his date. Her name is Kristina, she’s some kind of Scandahoovian. Fake boobs, fake blue contact lenses, that funny pinched-temple, pulled-eyebrow lift like Kylie and the blonde one from Girls Aloud have. But she has a very sweet smile.

‘You look great!’ he exclaims. His voice has become oddly transatlantic. ‘What are you up to these days? How’s PR?’

‘Uh, I’m still in advertising,’ I say. ‘And you?’

‘I just finished my MBA, you know, so I’m back here with Kristina on the way to Zurich. I’ll be working there from July for a major European VC.’

‘The finance world must be tough right now,’ I say. What the fuck is a VC?

‘A pretty girl like you doesn’t need to worry about that,’ he says, smiling down at me in what—now that he’s fat and middle-aged looking—can only be described as patronisingly benevolent. Is that the kind of thing I used to think was ironic and amusing? He only broke up with me two years ago, has he changed that much? Or have I? No, I’m still me. It must be him.

‘I’d better get back to my…my table,’ I say, smiling at them
both. Kristina’s face looks like it might hurt to smile. ‘Nice to see you again.’

Smart Henry gives me his card—of course—and I walk back to our table, wondering how the devil I was ever in a relationship with that shallow oaf. I sit down and see Lukas peering at me questioningly, and, raising my glass, grin at him and drink it all. Holy crap, Smart motherfucking Henry. Smart Henry is a wanker with a plastic girlfriend. Rick asked me out and I shall reject him in person tomorrow night. High-fives all round.

‘So,’ I say conversationally, feeling the alcohol hit my bloodstream. ‘When did you break up with your girlfriend?’

Lukas raises his eyebrows in surprise, finishes his matsuhisa martini with a masculine flourish, and grins back. ‘Two months ago,’ he says. He pronounces it ‘muns’. He shrugs, and flicks his eyes up to meet mine. ‘She left me, actually. For my friend.’

‘Shut the front door!’ I say. ‘No way. How long had you been with her?’

He is a bit perplexed at the front-door thing, but keeps talking. ‘A bit less than five years,’ he says, then takes a deep breath. ‘They had been having an affair behind my back.’

‘Fucking bastardos,’ I say, wondering a second too late if it’s appropriate to speak like that to a new client.

‘Fucking bastardos indeed,’ he agrees calmly. ‘So, I will move to London. Start again. Meet someone else. Trust in destiny.’

‘Wow,’ I say, surprised he’s so positive, after all of that.

‘And you? You have some fucking bastardo in your past, I think?’ he asks with a smile.

I nod back and give a half smile. ‘Yup.’ And I’m meeting him tomorrow night. Because I am thtoopid.

The food starts arriving, and we get lost in an orgy of tasting and sharing. Felix orders the next lot of dishes—beef kushiyaki, spicy sour shrimp, butter crab and of course, black cod in miso.

As we eat, Stefan and Coop get stuck in a conversation about music, and Felix is talking to Marlena about his kids. Lukas and
I start talking about travelling. It turns out we both went to Venice the same summer about ten years ago and searched desperately for an apparently non-existent Venetian nightlife. It’s a fun, easy conversation, and the rest of the meal passes quickly.

By the time we’ve finished dinner, it’s almost 11 pm. I’ve been trying to sober up and failing, so I’m now concentrating on being quiet. I look over and see that Smart Henry and plastic Kristina have left. Thank hell.

We head downstairs, where the bar is packed with people drinking and talking.

As we walk out past a bunch of loud, moderately drunk guys in suits, my eye is caught by one of them. Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair.

He’s got his back to me, but I’m sure it’s him.

We walk straight past, and all the way down to the door, and I can’t help turning around to stare at the back of his head, just as he turns his head to greet someone. Should I go and say hi?

It’s not Jake. The guy has a monobrow, for God’s sake.

Disappointment floods through me. I’m such a fool.

I turn back to the door, which Lukas is holding open for me, and walk out into the night. Outside it’s an orgy of handshakes and kisses goodbye. I’m dying to turn back to look at the guy inside and make absolutely sure it’s not Jake. But I know it wasn’t. I was—what’s that term? Projecting.