I hissed. Actually, I didn’t say that at all. I just said, ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to take you off my BT Friends and Family list.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I understand.’
‘Would you like some more coffee?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said, staring at his empty cup with a pained expression. ‘But you know, Tiffany … ’
‘Yes?’
He looked genuinely upset now. This was obviously very tough for him. ‘You know I can’t bear instant,’ he said. ‘It really offends my tastebuds. I gave you some very good Algerian arabica the other day, can’t we have some of that?’
‘Of course we can,’ I agreed.
Later that day, as I sat stabbing away at the antique roses canvas with my tapestry needle, reflecting on my newly single status and on the fact that I myself could perhaps be described as an antique rose, Alex phoned. He sounded nervous and unhappy. For one mad, heady instant I thought he might have changed his mind.
‘Yes?’ I said.
‘Tiffany, there’s something else I meant to say this morning,’ he said. ‘Now, I know you’re probably feeling a bit cross with me … ’
‘No, not at all,’ I lied.
‘And I’m sorry to have let you down and everything, but I really hope you’ll do me one big favour.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If I can.’
‘Well, I know you’re probably feeling a bit cross with me and everything … ’
‘Look, I’m not cross,’ I said crossly. ‘Just tell me what you want, will you, I’m trying to make a cushion-cover here.’
‘Well, I’d rather you didn’t, sort of, bad-mouth me to everyone.’
‘No,’ I said wearily, ‘I won’t. Why should I? You’ve been perfectly nice to me.’
‘And I’d especially be grateful if you didn’t tell everyone about that time … ’
‘What time?’
‘That time you found me, you know … ’ His voice trailed away.
‘Oh. You mean the time I discovered you in my bedroom dressed in my most expensive Janet Reger?’ There was an awkward silence.
‘Well, yes. That time.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Of course I won’t tell anyone. And I won’t tell them about the Laura Ashley either.’
‘You should tell everyone about that,’ said Lizzie when she got back from Botswana. ‘That’ll serve him right for dumping you. Bastard. And on your birthday. Bastard.’
‘He’s not a bastard,’ I pointed out accurately. ‘He’s nice.’ ‘He’s not nice,’ she countered. ‘It’s not nice to say, “Tiffany, I really can’t stand the thought of marrying you”.’
‘I’m sure he meant it nicely,’ I said. ‘It’s just unfortunate for me that he took so long to realise he’s not the marrying kind.’
‘Too right he’s not. He’s a complete wimp,’ she said viciously. ‘I always thought so with his mimsy, fussy, girly pernicketiness and his suspiciously refined taste in soft furnishings. And from what you told me about … ’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘ … that side of things, you’d have had more fun with a eunuch! I mean really, Tiffany, you’ve got more testosterone than he has.’ This was probably true. ‘I’m glad you’re not marrying him,’ she added. ‘Mind you, the girls are going to be disappointed – damn! I’d told them they were about to be bridesmaids.’
‘Not yet,’ I said. Not ever, in fact. Because since Alex, or rather Al-ex dumped me, a whole month has gone by. Well, three weeks and five days to be precise. And during that time I’ve been turning everything over in my mind. Reviewing the situation. Mentally rewinding and then fast-forwarding the video of my romantic life. Pressing the pause button here and there, and scrutinising key frames. And I’ve made this momentous, life-changing decision. It wasn’t easy, but I’ve done it. I’ve given up the husband hunt. I’ve chewed it over, and I’m going to eschew chaps. Frances is right. It’s just not worth the pain and grief. Much better to face life alone. So I am now emphatically hors de combat. I have pulled up the drawbridge. The sign says ‘Do Not Disturb’. And I have started to like my hard little shell. The prospect of yet another Saturday night on my own at home in front of the TV no longer fills me with dread. Who needs the romantic darkness of the cinema and dinner tête-à-tête when there’s a Marks and Spencer easicook-lasagne-for-one and the National Lottery Live? My new-found neutrality suits me – no gain, of course, but no pain.
Lizzie says it just won’t do. ‘You’ve got to get out there,’ she said again this morning, bossily, waving her fifth Marlboro Light at me. ‘You’re not doing anything to help yourself. You’ve got to forget about Alex, write him off completely, and get back on that horse.’ I often wonder why Lizzie talks in italics. Maybe it’s because she went to such a third-rate drama school. She paced up and down the kitchen and then flicked ash into the sink. ‘You know, Tiffany, you’re like … ’ I waited for some theatrical simile to encapsulate my predicament. What would I be today? A traveller thirsting in the Sahara? A mountaineer stuck at Base Camp? A promising Monopoly player resolutely refusing to pass ‘Go’? A brilliant artist without a brush? ‘You’re like someone falling asleep in the snow,’ she announced. ‘If you don’t wake up, you’ll freeze to death.’
‘I just haven’t the heart for it any more,’ I said. ‘It always leads to disaster. Anyway, I’m only thirty-seven.’
‘Only thirty-seven? Don’t be ridiculous, Tiffany. There’s nothing “only” about being thirty-seven. To all intents and purposes you are now forty, and then very, very quickly, you’ll be fifty, and then you’ll really be stuffed.’
I sometimes suspect Lizzie’s only being cruel to be cruel. I don’t mind her nagging me. I nag her about her smoking. But I can’t quite see why my lack of a husband and progeny bothers her so much. Perhaps in her funny, crass, cack-handed way, she is trying to be of help. And of course she is thinking how delightful Alice and Amy would look in primrose-yellow bridesmaids’ dresses, or maybe ice-blue, or possibly pale-pink with apricot hairbands, matching satin slippers and coordinating posies – she hasn’t quite decided yet. Anyway, I know, I know that she is right. It’s just that I simply can’t be fagged any more. It’s all too much of an effort – because nice, interesting, decent men with diamond rings in their pockets don’t simply drop from the trees, you have to go out and pick one, or rather knock one down with a very large stick. There are plenty of windfalls of course, but they tend to be bruised and wasp-eaten and I’ve had my unfair share of bad apples over the past few years. But even if I really was pursuing men – the very idea! – I have to face the fact that, as Lizzie keeps telling me, it all gets harder with age. And that’s another thing. Whatever happened to that dewy look I used to have? And when exactly did that little line at the side of my mouth appear, not to mention the creeping crepiness in the texture of my eyelids and the tiny corrugations in my brow? NB: Get more expensive unguents PDQ.
‘I’m losing my looks,’ I said to Mum over the phone after Lizzie had gone. ‘I’m really going down the pan. In fact I’m quite ancient now. Basically, I’m almost fifty. I found my first grey hair this morning.’
‘Did you, darling?’ she replied.
‘Yes. Yes I did,’ I said. ‘Which is why I’m now firmly on the shelf. I’m going off. I’m the Concealer Queen. And this is why I’m being dumped all the time and why men never, ever, ever ask me out.’
‘What about that nice Jewish accountant?’ she said. ‘The