I reflected as I went up to the Ladies Pond in Hampstead to seek refuge from the blistering heat. ‘Sparky’ might just do the trick, I thought to myself optimistically as I walked down Millfield Lane. ‘No Men Beyond This Point’ announced the municipal sign sternly, and in the distance I could hear the familiar, soprano chatter of 150 women. I love the Ladies Pond. It’s wonderful being able to swim in the open air, free from the prying eyes of men, totally calm and relaxed – though I must say my new high-leg Liza Bruce swimsuit with the cunning underwiring, subtly padded cups and eye-catching scallop trim is extremely flattering, and I do sometimes think it’s completely wasted in an all-female environment. However, the main thing is not to pose, but to swim. To gently lap the large, reed-fringed pond, where feathery willows bend their boughs to the cool, dark water. To commune with the coots and moorhens which bob about in its reedy shallows; or to admire the grace and beauty of the terns as they swoop and dive for fish. But sometimes, when I’m sitting there on the lawn afterwards, gently drying off in the warmth of the sun, I wonder about myself. I really do. I mean it’s so Sapphic! Lesbians every-where! Lesbians young and lesbians d’un certain âge; lesbians pretty, and lesbians physiognomically-challenged. Lesbians thin and lesbians fat; lesbians swimming gently round the tree-lined lake, or disporting themselves in the late summer sunshine. And there I was, sitting on the grass, reading my ‘Sparky, kind-hearted girl’ ad again and feeling pretty pleased with it actually, whilst discreetly surveying beneath lowered eyelids several hundred-weight of near-naked female flesh and wondering, just wondering, whether I found it even vaguely erotic, when this attractive, dark-haired girl came up to me, bold as brass, and put her towel down next to mine.
‘Hello,’ she said with a warm smile.
‘Hello.’ Excuse me. Do we know each other?
‘Mind if I join you?’ My God – a pick-up! My Sapphometer went wild.
‘Er, yes, do,’ I said, pulling up the strap of my swimsuit and quickly adjusting my bosom. I discreetly surveyed her from behind my sunglasses as she removed a bottle of Ambre Solaire from her basket and began rubbing the sun lotion onto her legs. She was clearly a ‘lipstick’ lesbian, I decided. The glamorous kind. Her nose and eyebrows were unpunctured by metal studs. She had no tattoos, no Doc Martens, and she did not sport the usual Velcro hairstyle. In fact she was very feminine with a slim figure, lightly made-up eyes and shining, mahogany-coloured hair which fell in gentle layers down her back.
‘My name’s Kate,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Kate Spero.’
‘Tiffany,’ I said. ‘Tiffany Trott.’
‘Are you single?’ she asked, nodding at my copy of The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr Right.
‘Yes.’
‘So am I. Isn’t it a bore? I’m looking for TSS.’
‘TSS?’
‘That Special Someone.’
‘Oh. Well … good luck. Er – are you looking here?’ I asked, casting my eyes around.
‘Oh good God, no! I’m not gay,’ she explained, with a burst of surprised laughter. Oh. Got that wrong then. ‘No, I’m looking for a man,’ she added matter-of-factly. ‘But I just can’t find one anywhere.’ And then she said, ‘Do you know, I never thought I’d get to thirty-seven and still be single.’ And that was really, really amazing because that’s exactly what I say out loud to myself several times every day.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it a drag?’ And then we immediately told each other all about our past unhappy relationships since about – ooh, 1978 or so – revealing them as children proudly display their scars, though I decided not to tell her about my ad. Anyway I’m happy to say that Kate is now my New Best Friend. I mean, we’ve got so much in common. We’re the same age, both single and both desperate. Isn’t that an incredible coincidence? In fact, her birthday is a week after mine. Amazing!
‘What did you do on your birthday this year?’ she asked a few hours later as we strode across the Heath in the afternoon sunshine.
‘I got dumped by my boyfriend,’ I said. ‘What did you do?’
‘I cried all day,’ she replied happily. We walked on in silence for a while, stopping to watch a knot of children flying kites on Parliament Hill. And then Kate said, ‘You know, we should look for guys together. It’s much easier hunting in a pack.’ This was probably true. I’ve often wished that Frances and Emma and Sally would consider it, but they’re determined to leave their romantic happiness to the vagaries of Fate. Or God. But God really didn’t seem to be doing that much at the moment. I preferred Kate’s proactive approach.
‘What we need is singles dos,’ she said firmly. ‘There are lots of them – Eat ‘n’ Greet, Dine ‘n’ Shine, Dateless in Docklands, that kind of thing. I’ll do some research and let you know.’
‘What a brilliant idea,’ I said, as we parted. ‘You’re on.’
In the meantime I waited suspensefully – oh heavens, the torment! – for the replies to my small ad to arrive. Maybe Lizzie was right, I wondered as two and a half weeks went by. Maybe I wouldn’t get a single response – no irony intended, ha ha! Perhaps there isn’t much demand for sparky girls at the moment. Maybe dull girls are all the rage. But, just in case, I went in search of some more expensive unguents in order to look my best for any future blokes. I mean, at thirty-seven, one’s got to take action because, as Lizzie says, my face is going over to the enemy. But I’m not having it – no sir! Crows’ feet – eff off and die! Naso-labial lines – hold it right there!
‘Yes, yes, tricky … ’ said the woman on the expensive unguents counter in Selfridges. She narrowed her eyes in concentration as she scrutinised my skin. ‘You’ve got a luminosity problem,’ she announced.
‘Well, can anything be done about it?’ I asked anxiously. ‘I’ll pay.’
‘In that case the Helena Ardenique multi-action retinyl complex intensive lotion with added ceramides for active cell-renewal should do the trick,’ she explained. ‘Firmness and elasticity are measurably improved, lines and wrinkles diminished by a guaranteed forty-one and a half per cent and luminosity and skin-glow restored. What it does,’ she concluded, ‘is to make your skin “act younger”.’
‘That’s fantastic,’ I said as I wrote out my cheque for seventy pounds.
Then I went home and there, there on the doormat, having arrived by the second post, was a plain, brown A5-sized envelope stamped, ‘Private and Confidential’. And inside that plain, brown envelope, dear reader, were no fewer than thirty-two letters! And what an assortment of writing paper – Basildon Bond, Croxley Script, Conqueror, Airmail, Andrex – ha ha! Some even had hearts and flowers stuck to the envelope! Some were typed, some were word-processed, some were neatly handwritten, whilst others were almost illegible. Illegible, but possibly quite eligible none the less, I hoped as I ripped into them with lepidopterous stomach and pounding heart.
For crying out loud! A Norfolk pig farmer! And, at forty-nine well outside my stated age-range! If I’d wanted a Norfolk pig farmer I’d have bloody well asked for one, wouldn’t I? I’d have placed my personal ad in the King’s Lynn Gazette or Pig Farmer’s Weekly. Anyway, the other replies broke down as follows: five accountants, twelve computer software designers, one data collection manager, two probation officers, one natural catastrophe modeller, three chiropodists, one stockbroker, one master mariner and six solicitors including … including … well, actually, I’m furious. Because when I opened reply number nineteen – a nice, thick pale-blue watermarked envelope – I found a longish letter inside and then this photo fell out, and stone the crows, it was none other than two-headed Alan from my tennis club! What the hell does he think he’s up to? He’s supposed to be infatuated with me, offering to take me to Glyndebourne and everything, and here he is tarting around the lonely hearts columns. I was outraged. And what a flatteringly out-of-date photo – obviously