get that. He was counting on me being too wrong-footed and too embarrassed and too flattered – which I guess I was, in a way – to tell him he had to be having a laugh and I wasn’t going to play along.’
‘Exactly! And all that stuff about being treated like a princess – really?’
‘Why? What’s wrong with that? Isn’t it just one of those things people say?’
‘It is and it isn’t. Think about it for a second. What do princesses do? Do they have opinions, or do they sit around looking pretty?’
The only princess that sprang to mind wasn’t actually one, but the Duchess of Cambridge was married to a prince, so she’d have to do. She probably did lots of stuff, I thought. Looking after her kids and being involved with charities and maybe a bit of gardening or photography or whatever. But Alice was right – she spent an awful lot of time, in the public eye at least, sitting around looking pretty.
‘I see what you mean,’ I said slowly.
‘Right. And when you were caught off guard, he showed his true colours. That there is a guy who basically doesn’t like women.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I mean, the things he said to me afterwards, those were pretty nasty and misogynistic. But surely he wouldn’t want to go to all that trouble on a date if he didn’t want to have a relationship?’
‘I expect he does. But only with someone who’s totally compliant and admiring and passive. Look what happened as soon as you stepped out of line. How do you reckon that would play out if you disagreed about him staying out late with his mates while you were left with the kids, or about politics, or about what colour to paint your front room, or whatever?’
‘It’s like what the app says about Pisces,’ I said. ‘Oversensitive, needy and inflexible.’
Alice managed not to roll her eyes, but I could tell it was a struggle. ‘Maybe it’s a Pisces thing, maybe it’s just a character trait. But the point is, do you want to be treated like a princess or like a person?’
I opened my mouth to tell her that what she’d said made perfect sense, and thank her, but the door of the Ginger Cat swung open and Maurice, Ray, Sadiq and Terry strolled in, ready to start today’s dominoes game, and Alice sprang to her feet, sliding through the hatch and behind the bar in one graceful movement.
‘Morning, gents. Your usual?’
The pub suddenly got crazy busy after that, the way it sometimes did, with waves of people coming through the door for no discernible reason – other than the fact that the Ginger Cat was the best pub in South London, obviously – and I had no time to think more deeply about what Alice had said. I barely had time to slip to the gym in the middle of the afternoon, and I rushed through my workout.
Dani wasn’t there, and when I asked Mike if he had heard from her he said she’d been in earlier. He said it in a way that seemed kind of evasive, like he wasn’t telling me the full story, but I didn’t have time to think about that much, either, only to send her a quick text saying I hoped she was okay, and we’d see each other soon.
The evening got even busier, and it was eleven thirty before I made it back up to my flat. Frazzle launched immediately into a vocal campaign for second dinner and a series of detailed complaints about humans who stayed out until all hours and neglected their cats, before flopping down on my bed and asking for his tummy to be rubbed.
I lay down next to him and took out my phone, tapping and scrolling with one hand while fussing Frazz with the other.
Least compatible signs with Aquarius, I read. Virgo and Pisces – well, I’d tried those and as far as I was concerned the app had been bang on the money so far. Third on the list was Scorpio.
Your Scorpio lover operates at a higher level of intensity than most men. His emotions run deep and he feels them keenly – but he will avoid showing what he perceives as weakness at all costs. To avoid getting hurt, he may close his heart and repel emotional intimacy – because he knows that when he falls he’ll fall hard. Prickly and intense, the sting in the scorpion’s tail will be felt if