his wife-slash-girlfriend. And in return he has no right to ask me where I’m going or when I’ll be back. He has no ability to make me fall in love with him.’
Fi stares at me. It may be that she is impressed. It may be that she is horrified. It may be that she is pissed.
‘Christ, how depressing,’ she moans.
‘Tell me I’m wrong,’ I challenge.
We are both silent for a long time. Eventually Fi suggests, ‘Another bottle?’
I return from the bar with a bottle and, because we both need cheering up, a couple of bankers.
‘Fi, let me introduce Ivor Jones and Mike Clark. They’re bankers.’ Fi starts to giggle. ‘That’s with a “b”,’ I hiss through clenched teeth. I’ve seen Ivor and Mike in this pub before. Over the last couple of months we have nodded to each other and occasionally I’ve accepted a drink from Ivor. They’ve been watching us all evening. Then I started to watch them watching us. When it got to the point of them watching us watching them watching us I knew it was time to say hi. They are well and identically dressed. Dark Boss suits, striped shirts, probably off-the-peg rather than Savile Row, saffron Hermes ties. They probably don’t even know they are saffron – they probably describe them as yellow. Ivor distinguishes himself by having a killer Welsh accent that largely renders him incomprehensible but is very sexy. I don’t mind incomprehensible. Most importantly Ivor is wearing a wedding ring and so I leave Mike to Fi.
Ivor’s attractions are not what one would describe as classical. His face reminds me of a soundly slapped bottom. He is pale with a sprinkling of freckles and a small snub nose. On the other hand he is tall (six-foot-two-ish), ridiculously intelligent and appallingly arrogant. Besides which he is begging for it. It would be rude not to sleep with him. His hungry, alert eyes bore into me as he showers us with awful sexist jokes. As he hands round bottles of Becks he asks, ‘How many men does it take to open a beer?’ Without waiting for a reply he tells us, ‘None. It should be opened by the time she brings it.’ Mike and Ivor laugh heartily. I do too, even though I’ve heard the joke before. Fi scowls. Ivor is doing an emotional borderpoint check patrol. Just checking the amount of commitment I’ll require. If I take his blatantly offensive jokes seriously he knows he’s on dangerous territory. If I don’t nettle but counter with a few sheep-shagging jokes, he knows he’s in the clear. Ivor catches Fi’s scowl.
‘Oh, no offence. There’s nothing worse than a male chauvinist pig, is there? Well, except a woman who won’t do what she’s told.’ Again he laughs. Fi is obviously unimpressed. I’m refreshed to find a man who is honest enough to tell it as he sees it. However, for Mike’s sake I hope he tries a more conventional chatting-up approach with Fi. If I could, I’d advise chocolates and compliments.
Ivor is bored with trying to control the group dynamics and his interest now lies in drawing me into a more intimate conversation. He takes advantage of Fi going to the loo and Mike going to the fag machine to invade my body space. He’s sitting on my right and he edges closer. I have nowhere to move, even if I wanted to. He puts his left arm along the back of the scruffy tartan settee. It reminds me of being in the pictures, aged thirteen.
‘So how old are you, Cas?’
‘Thirty-three.’ I never hesitate here. I’m proud to be thirty-three. I think it has much more kudos than, say, twenty-six or eighteen. I certainly feel better than I did then. It’s only women who have a biological Timex who have a problem with saying their post-thirty ages out loud. Pointless really – it’s not as though denial will turn the hands back. Anyway, I know I don’t look thirty-three. As if to prove a point and somewhat predictably, Ivor raises his eyebrows. He doesn’t bother with the cheap compliment that I don’t look my age. He knows I’ll have been told this often enough. Instead he keeps the conversation on track.
‘So when are you going to settle down and make an honest man of your boyfriend?’
‘Honesty is not my thing. I don’t have a boyfriend and I don’t want to be a wife.’ I smile efficiently. So Ivor’s scored a hat trick, discovering the three most