beautifully written, but not quite what I was looking for. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
‘Just come for one drink,’ Maria had pleaded, and for a moment I had been sorely tempted to go for three. Would a class of seven-year-olds really worry if I didn’t correct their grammar and just gave them a big red tick and gold star instead? But then I remembered Mrs Pullman, who had expressed concern that little Bertie’s answer to What could you do better at? had gone unchecked. How was I to know he’d write spillings?
‘No, I’d better get off,’ I’d said. ‘I’m definitely up for Friday though. My treat, so name your poison.’
‘I’ll hold you to that,’ Maria had laughed as she pulled her coat on, and I smiled ruefully. I was still thinking I should have gone when I was in my car driving down the A23, my hands twitching on the steering wheel, waiting to see if the good fairy or bad fairy would win out.
Just one, said the dark, forbidding figure on my left shoulder.
Go home and do your marking, piped up the pure, angelic voice on my right shoulder, just that little bit louder.
I was pleased I’d listened to her, because as soon as I was indoors, and changed my tartan skirt and polo neck for a dressing gown and slippers, I was happy to be there, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn’t have to leave my snug haven until the next morning.
I didn’t promise I wasn’t going to have a drink though, and poured myself a generous glass of red wine as I psyched myself up to tackle Jacob’s vocabulary conundrum. One final look at my phone and then I’d hide it under a cushion and pretend that I was controlling it, rather than it controlling me.
As soon as I saw the notification from Better Together, a dating website I’d signed up to, I was intrigued. Enough to make me want to read the message in its entirety, enough to put me off marking for just another few minutes.
Hi – just read your profile and you sound like you’re up for some fun.
Was I? Is that how Maria had presented me to the online dating population? A girl who was looking for some fun?
She’d been in hysterics as she set me up on the site, as had I, but we were two bottles of wine in by then, and everything had seemed funny. She’d agreed to change the wording from ‘sex-maniac’ to ‘liberated woman who knows what she wants’ to ‘looking for a good time, life’s too short to be serious’. I couldn’t even remember if that was the final profile we’d settled on, but I guessed it might have been if this guy thought I might be up for ‘some fun’. I didn’t know whether I should be proud or horrified. I supposed that all the time I was behind a screen, I could be anything I wanted to be.
What did you have in mind? I typed, though as soon as I sent it, I held a cushion up to my face and squirmed. If I allowed myself to imagine I was in a bar having this conversation, I saw myself sitting there, my body giving off all the right language, yet my mind in turmoil at what my mother would think. You can never stray too far from a Roman Catholic upbringing.
I’m not looking for anything serious either. Fancy meeting up? he replied.
I wasn’t sure he’d understood the sentiment in my words. When I said life was too short to be serious, I didn’t mean I didn’t want a serious relationship. I was just trying to get across the devil-may-care attitude I pretended to have. I was twenty-eight, with ovaries fit to burst, and a mother who had attended church every Sunday for the past ten years, so that Father Michael would see his way to marrying her only child when the time came. Of course I wanted a serious relationship, if only to appease those who demanded it!
I’d convinced myself that maybe Mr ‘Up for some fun’ was best avoided, but that was until I saw his photo.
‘Blimey,’ I said, out loud, making Tyson jump. He looked at me with his chocolate-drop eyes, staring out between his daft floppy ears, waiting for his equally sappy owner to elaborate. ‘Well, I wouldn’t kick him out of bed on a cold night,’ I said, as Tyson cocked his head inquisitively to one side.