it,’ she said, as a jolly-looking man in a white coat planed slices off a Hungarian boar. ‘Seriously Successful is not available. He’s married. And, what’s more, he’s told you that he’s never going to get divorced – a pound of Parma ham, please – and you just haven’t got time to waste. Oh, and I’ll have six honey-glazed poussins as well. Basically Tiffany, you’re nearly –’
‘I know,’ I said wearily, ‘I’m nearly fifty.’
‘Exactly. So if you really want to get married stick to single men – God knows there must be enough of them out there. I mean, I really don’t mind if you marry a divorcé, Tiffany,’ she added, as we surveyed the rows of French cheeses.
‘That’s a relief,’ I said absently.
‘I mean, if you married a divorcé you could still get married in church, or at the very least have a blessing and wear a nice dress and everything. And have bridesmaids,’ she added. ‘But getting involved with a married man is not something that should be undertaken “unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly”, as they say. Half a pound of nettle-wrapped Cornish Yarg, please. In fact it should not be undertaken at all.’
‘But I’m not going to get involved with him – he only wants to be friends,’ I pointed out.
This was greeted with a derisive snort. ‘Friends? Don’t you realise that that’s a Trojan horse? If you become “friends” with him, I guarantee it will be only a matter of weeks before you’re sitting desperately by the phone dressed down to the nines in your La Perla, while his wife’s private detective is parked outside your house with his video camera trained on your bedroom window. Is that really what you want? Because that, Tiffany, is exactly what happens to mistresses.’
Mistresses? Mistress. What an awful word. God, no. No way. Lizzie may be brutal, but she’s right.
‘I’m only thinking of you, Tiffany,’ she said, as we wandered through the perfumery department on the ground floor. ‘You’ve been up enough dead ends with men to fill a cemetery. You can’t afford another mistake. Just write to Seriously Successful, thank him for his flowers and tell him, firmly, but very politely, that you can’t possibly remain in touch. Are you OK for moisturiser?’ she added as she dotted ‘Fracas’ behind her ears.
‘Yes,’ I replied as I dismally sprayed ‘Happy’ onto my left wrist.
‘Have you tried the new Elizabeth Lauderstein ceramide complex containing alpha hydroxy serum derived from fruit acids?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fantastic isn’t it?’
‘Incredible. Lizzie, do you think these expensive unguents really work?’ I asked.
‘I believe they do,’ she said simply. ‘OK, Tiff, let’s head home.’
‘Thank You For Not Smoking’, said the sign in the taxi in which we headed up towards Lizzie’s house in Hampstead. Lizzie pushed her Ray Bans further up her exquisitely sculpted nose and lit another Marlboro Light.
‘You know, Tiffany, I’ve been thinking about it all and the fact is that you’re going about this whole thing the wrong way.’
‘What do you mean, wrong way?’ I asked, opening a window to let out the smoke.
‘Well, you’ve been answering ads, and I think it would be far, far better to put one in yourself,’ she explained. ‘That way you’d be more in control. You could filter out the husbands and the head-bangers. I’ll help you write it,’ she added. ‘I’m good at that kind of things – we can do it right now in fact.’
The taxi turned left off Rosslyn Hill and came to a stop half-way down Downshire Hill, outside Lizzie’s house. A vast, white-washed early Victorian pile with a fifty-foot garden – and that’s just at the front. Lizzie and Martin have lived here for eight years, and it’s worth well over a million now. I struggled out of the taxi with her array of Harrods carriers, just like I used to help her carry her trunks up the stairs when we were at school. She went and tapped on the window and Mrs Burton came and opened the door.
‘Thanks, Mrs B,’ she said. ‘We’re loaded down with stuff for tomorrow. I’ve been a bit naughty in Harrods, but never mind,’ she added with a grin, ‘Martin can afford it, and he likes to feed all my girlfriends properly. Where is Martin, Mrs B?’ she enquired.
‘Mowing the lawn,’ Mrs Burton replied.
‘Oh good. I told him it needed doing. OK, Tiffany, will you help me put this stuff away?’
Now, I’m not a jealous person – I’m really not. But, it’s just that whenever I go round to Lizzie’s house I always feel awfully, well, jealous. Even though she’s my best and oldest friend, my envy levels rocket. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the forty-foot Colefax and Fowlered drawing-room and the expanses of spotless cream carpet. Maybe it’s the artful arrangements of exotic flowers in tall, handblown glass vases. Maybe it’s the beautifully rag-rolled walls or the serried ranks of antique silver frames on burnished mahogany. Perhaps it’s the hundred-foot garden complete with rose-drenched pergola. Or perhaps it’s the fact that she has two adorable children and a husband who loves her and who will never, ever be unfaithful or leave her for a younger model. Yes, I think that’s what it is. She has the luxury of a kind and faithful husband, and she has pledged to help me secure the same.
‘Now, listen to me, Tiffany,’ she said, as we sat in her hand-distressed Smallbone of Devizes kitchen. Through the open window I could see Martin strenuously pushing a mower up and down.
‘You are a product, Tiffany. A very desirable product. And you are about to sell yourself in the market place. Do not sell yourself short.’
‘OK,’ I said, sipping coffee from one of her Emma Bridgewater fig leaf and black olive spongeware mugs. ‘I won’t.’
‘Your pitch has got to be right or you’ll miss your target,’ she said, passing me a plate of chocolate olivers.
‘It’s OK, I know a thing or two about pitches,’ I said. ‘I mean I am a copywriter.’
‘No, Tiffany, sometimes I really don’t think you understand the first thing about advertising,’ she said, glancing out into the garden.
‘But my ads win awards! I got a bronze Lion at Cannes last year!’
‘Martin!’ she shouted. ‘You’ve missed the bit by the cotoneasta!’ He stopped, wiped the beads of sweat off his tonsured head, and turned the mower round.
‘Mind you, I don’t know why you want a husband, Tiffany, they’re all completely useless.’ Suddenly Amy and Alice appeared from the garden.
‘What are you doing, Mummy?’ said Amy, who is five.
‘Finding Tiffany a husband.’
‘Oh good, does that mean we’ll be bridesmaids?’ said Alice.
‘Yes,’ said Lizzie. ‘It does. Now go outside and play.’
‘I’ve always wanted to be your bridesmaid, Tiffany,’ said Alice, who is seven.
‘I think I’m more likely to be your bridesmaid,’ I said, ‘when I’m about fifty.’
‘OK Tiff, this is what I suggest,’ said Lizzie, waving a piece of paper at me. ‘Gorgeous blonde, thirty-two, size forty bust, interminable legs, fantastic personality, hugely successful, own delightful house, seeks extremely eligible man, minimum six foot, for permanent relationship. No losers. No cross-dressers. No kids.’
‘I think it contravenes the Trades Description Act,’ I said.
‘I know, but at least you’ll get lots of replies.’
‘I am not thirty-two, I’m thirty-seven. I do not have long legs – I have short