The Only Boy For Me (12 page)

‘Don’t be ridiculous: you’re going to the Ivy, not Burger King. Anyway, it’s about time you bought some nice clothes. Everyone needs a perfect black dress. If he doesn’t turn out to be Mr Right, you can still wear the dress.’

‘I suppose so, but the thing is I don’t really want a Mr Right, I want a Mr Friday Night.’

‘If a man said that you’d say he was a creep.’

‘If a man said that he’d be gay, so shut up. You know what I mean. I like my life the way it is, thank you very much. I can’t be bothered with all this sitting up straight and wearing uncomfortable bras. If it works out it will be complicated and tricky, and if it doesn’t it will be mortifying and tragic. I can’t win. I should have stayed at home.’

‘OK, Little Miss Optimistic, ring him up and say you’re
cancelling because you don’t want to have to sit up straight. I’ll take you to dinner at the Ivy, and you can slouch and I’ll wear your vest. Now stop whining or I shall scream.’

We have lunch at Leila’s office because she needs to get back to her desk. She orders sushi, and almost as soon as she puts the phone down her secretary arrives bearing little trays and chopsticks. I can’t work out if she has trays of sushi ready at all times hidden in her desk, and if so is it safe to eat, or whether the delivery service is just very speedy round here. I demand a fork as I hate eating with chopsticks, which seem designed to make you look like a total berk or a smug bastard who has spend hours practising. Then I lounge about reading magazines while Leila runs about shouting at people and having countless phone calls where she’s charming and seems to be having a chat with an old friend, and then puts down the phone and says, ‘What a total prick.’

For some reason this reminds me of Lawrence, and I’m tempted to wander off to the office just to annoy him. But Barney’s away, so there really isn’t any point. I ring Charlie and discover he loves being at James’s house, and they are having sausages for tea, and Coke, so he’s in bliss, but can’t stop to chat because he is playing a marvellous game with James which seems to involve running round the house screaming. Lucky Kate. I get changed in Leila’s office and then totter round to the car park in my new shoes to stash the bags in the car. Walking turns out to be a bit of a challenge. I wish my new shoes had stabiliser wheels like Charlie’s bike. I manage to get back to Leila in one piece, but have had to hold on to one lamppost and two sets of railings.

Kate’s earrings look brilliant with my new frock, and Leila insists we go out for a quick drink to celebrate my transformation. I confess I can’t actually walk in my new shoes, and she marches me up and down the office giving
me handy hints. Apparently you need to tip your head back, chest out, and hips forward, which I can just about do, but you also need to clench your bottom and pull your stomach in, which I cannot. We walk to a local bar, and I nearly fall over twice and have to have a vodka to try and calm down. Leila starts telling me all about James, and how brilliantly things are going.

‘He makes me laugh, and the sex is great. What more could a girl want?’

‘Can’t think of anything off-hand. So have you told him about the wedding yet?’

‘Not yet, and anyway I’ve gone off all that church stuff, it’s so obvious. But I think a blessing somewhere magical would be nice, somewhere remote like the Sahara.’

‘Leila, I am not trekking through the Sahara just to hold your flowers.’

‘Well, perhaps not the Sahara. But somewhere exotic, with great light so the photos look fantastic. Maybe Barney could do the snaps.’

‘Good idea. If you really want to do twenty-six takes of your wedding, I’m sure I could persuade him.’

As always, Leila meets people she knows, one of whom she slept with last year. I’m sure she could parachute into the middle of the Amazon rainforest and within five minutes she would bump into two old friends and a former lover. We get involved in a long riotous conversation. Suddenly I realise with horror that it’s five to eight and I’m going to be late. Leila helps me stand up and sends a waiter off to find a taxi. She gives me a huge hug, which nearly makes me fall over again, and wishes me luck, and then tells everyone that I am off on my first hot date for decades. The entire bar wishes me good luck. Could slap Leila sometimes but the taxi arrives before I have time to thank her for sharing my pathetic
private life with a roomful of total strangers.

I arrive at Mack’s agency at eight twenty, which I suppose is slightly cool – not like me at all so I’m rather pleased. Mack is pacing up and down in reception, which is not cool at all, so I feel I have a slight advantage. Good thing too, because I practically fall out of the taxi on to the pavement, just as Mack looks round. I pretend I meant to get out this way, and pay the driver. The agency has revolving doors. Mack walks towards them smiling and begins to push the door from his side. I manage to push the door in totally the opposite direction so the whole thing judders to a halt. Mack then takes a step back, the doors revolve very quickly indeed and I am catapulted into reception at great speed. I’m able to slow down before I hit the reception desk, and mercifully do not fall over, but it’s not entirely how I’d planned to make my entrance.

Mack looks at me for what seems like hours, and says with a smirk, ‘Do you always launch yourself into buildings like that? Great dress, by the way.’

‘Thank you. I’m breaking in the shoes for a friend and they’re still a bit lively. I seem to remember you insisted on a black dress last time we spoke. I’ve got my jeans in the car, so I can always change.’

‘No, no, keep it on. Well, at least while we eat.’ He grins, and the security man sitting behind the reception desk coughs and drops his newspaper. Mack glares at him. ‘Look, my car’s downstairs so let’s go off to dinner unless you want a tour of the office.’

‘No, that’s fine. I’m not sure these shoes are up to touring. Food sounds good to me.’

The lift arrives, and Mack explains that he was lurking in reception because Bill, the security man, has the IQ of an ironing board and doesn’t like using the telephone. So he
just tells everyone who turns up after six pm that the person they’ve come to meet has gone home. We descend to the basement car park. The atmosphere is electric, and I’m having difficulty breathing in anything approaching a normal fashion. Mack keeps looking at me, and then looking at his feet. The lift doors open and we walk to his car, which is a grey BMW, one of those special huge ones that looks like it’s been designed to carry the entire Bundesbank to lunch. Mack fumbles in his pockets for the keys and presses a button whereupon the car goes into a little disco routine complete with flashing lights before the door locks click open and the lights come on.

‘Oh I say, how very 007.’

‘Yes, but don’t touch any buttons or you’ll blow us all to kingdom come.’

‘OK. Can I drive?’

Mack hesitates for a second, goes a bit pale, and then says, ‘Sure, why, are you into cars or something?’

‘No, I just wanted to see your face.’

‘Oh very funny. Well, be my guest, but if you drive it into a wall I’ll refuse to speak to you for the entire evening.’

‘I thought these kind of cars usually come with little men in peaked caps to drive them.’

Mack looks embarrassed.

‘Don’t tell me you actually have a chauffeur. Where is he, in the boot?’

‘He’s not a chauffeur, he’s the company driver. I’ve told him I don’t need him tonight, since you’ll be driving. Actually it saves us a fortune on cabs.’

‘I bet it does. Economy drive, really.’

‘No, really it does. Anyway it was part of the set-up when I arrived. Give me some credit: I wouldn’t actually choose this car, or a driver, come to that. But our chairman is rather
keen on all that kind of bollocks. And if he has one we all have to have one.’

‘What, the whole company? Or just the top boys? Because if everyone gets a BMW and a driver I’m applying for a job here tomorrow. I suppose secretly you’re yearning for a Reliant Robin.’

‘Are you going to be sarcastic all night?’

‘Probably. I’m nervous.’

‘So am I.’

‘Shall we start again?’

‘What?’

‘Come here and I’ll show you.’

Mack grins, and visibly relaxes.

‘If you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do, I’d rather wait until we’re out of the car park, if you don’t mind, and off the security monitors. Otherwise poor old Bill will have a heart attack.’

‘Fair enough. Do you actually know how to drive this thing?’

‘Shut up and get in.’

We race out of the car park at astonishing speed, and I sit back and enjoy being driven by someone else for a change. A hideous noise suddenly belts out of the CD player, very loud ‘Smack Your Bitch Up’-type music. Mack brakes and grabs the disc.

‘Sorry about that, I was listening to it this morning for a pitch we’re doing next week. It’s awful, isn’t it?’

‘Not the kind of thing you can really sing along to, unless you hate women and have a serious drug habit.’

‘Quite. Describes our client perfectly. So, do you really want to go to dinner?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bugger.’

‘This dress cost a fortune. It might as well go somewhere posh for dinner.’

‘Couldn’t we just drop the dress off at the Ivy, and go home?’

‘No. Leila made me promise to write down all the famous people I see.’

‘Leila?’

‘Leila Langton; she’s my best friend. Do you know her?’

‘Christ, I know her. She’s terrifying. Do you have lots of frightening friends?’

‘Loads. And she’s not frightening, she’s lovely.’

‘Not if she thinks you’re trying to nick one of her clients, she isn’t.’

‘Oh, that explains it. She said I wasn’t to worry if she turned up at some point during the evening and took you outside for a quick word.’

He laughs, and then suddenly pulls over and stops the car. ‘Now what was it you were going to show me in the car park?’

Never made it to dinner. Barely made it back to Mack’s house. End up ordering pizza at two in the morning. It’s bliss to be in London where you can order things at two in the morning. It’s bliss to be in Mack’s bed. Bliss, bliss. Dress is a resounding success, I lose track of my shoes entirely, and my new bra is awarded a certificate of merit for effort, but is soon discarded as surplus to requirements. I’d forgotten how nice it is to spend hours in bed with a desirable man – it makes a change from chocolate Hobnobs and the remote control although it’s infinitely more exhausting. In between passionate interludes which seem to go on for hours, we talk and talk.

We finally surface at lunchtime on Saturday. I realise I’ll
have to leave soon if I’m going to get home and change before picking up Charlie. Mack startles me by suggesting he drives me home and meets Charlie, and then we drug him so he goes to sleep early. I point out that I don’t think Charlie will appreciate me turning up with a stranger, and will probably refuse to get into the car, let alone take drugs, so we end up deciding that I’ll go home and Mack will drive down later tonight.

Drive home in a daze. Kate takes one look at me and says, ‘Wow. He must be quite something.’

‘Yes, and he’s driving down tonight for an action replay. Do you think I should try to be a bit more cool?’

She looks at me and we both start laughing.

‘Oh Christ, I forgot. Your earrings. Oh God, I’ve no idea where they are.’

I ring Mack on my mobile and ask him to try to find them. He calls back five minutes later and says he’s found one under the bed and another on the stairs, and are they real emeralds, because if so he’s keeping them. I explain to Kate that her jewels are safe, and then Charlie bounds down the stairs and nearly knocks me over, and we have a long cuddle while he tells me all the marvellous things he’s been doing. I feel sure they aren’t as marvellous as what I’ve been up to, but naturally do not say this. His list includes drinking Coke in bed, and throwing wet flannels at Phoebe while she was asleep, and then running away and hiding in the garden. I’m about to remonstrate when Kate explains that Phoebe got her own back with the garden hose, which is why Charlie’s bag is full of wet clothes. I thank her and promise to meet her for coffee at the earliest child-free opportunity.

Charlie is exhausted, and sits happily watching a video and occasionally telling me fabulous snippets from his
overnight stay with James. He’s even willing to have an early bath and supper. I tell him I have a friend coming down later, but he will probably be asleep before he arrives.

‘Is it Leila?’

‘No, a new friend. He’s called Mack.’

‘Like Old Macdonald?’

‘Not really. Anyway, you’ll probably be asleep. But if you’re still awake I’ll bring him in to say hello.’

‘OK, Mummy. Mummy, you know Coke?’

I assume he means the fizzy drink – I hope he does – and say, ‘Yes.’

‘Well, I want it for my packed lunch. It’s brilliant.’

‘Charlie, you know the school rules. Water or juice.’

‘That’s just stupid. Can we have Coke tomorrow for lunch? It’s the weekend, you know.’

‘Yes, probably. We’ll see. Now let’s get you into bed.’ I hope he goes straight to sleep. Sometimes when he’s very tired he falls asleep really early, but sometimes perversely it means he stays up extra late jumping on his bed. He’s chatting to his collection of soft toys as I creep out of the room, telling them how fantastic Coke is.

Mack turns up at nine. He’s brought supper, which is lucky because I have no food in the house and would have had to resort to cheese and crackers, and not much else. We sit by the fire eating, and Mack complains that the village is not on his map, and he had to take compass readings and consult a madman at the local garage to find his way here. I point out that the London A–Z does not cover the villages of Kent, and he throws salami at me. We indulge in a minor food fight, and then begin kissing. The door bursts open and Charlie marches in. He takes one look at Mack and says, ‘Oh, you’ve got cake.’ Indeed there is a cake, a posh chocolate one with lots of swirls of chocolate on it, still in its
white box from a smart Soho patisserie. Mack introduces himself, and I refuse point blank to sanction cake-eating in the middle of the night, but agree to put it in the fridge for the morning.