I thought as I sprayed Allure onto my left wrist. One father I know, frustrated by his daughter’s four-year wait for a wedding ring, simply put the engagement announcement in the paper – just like that! The boyfriend was whizzed up the aisle before you could say ‘Dearly Beloved’. Other women of my acquaintance have waited for years, and then got dumped the minute they tried to pin the bastard down.
‘I really don’t think we belong together,’ Phillip said after we’d been together for almost three years and I had politely enquired whether my presence in his life was still required.
‘In fact,’ he said very slowly, ‘I now realise that we’re fundamentally incompatible. So it wouldn’t be right for me to marry you. It’s a great pity. But there it is.’
‘Yes, it is a pity,’ I said, as I removed my clothes from his cupboard, trying not to mess up his golfing gear. ‘It’s a pity it’s taken you so long to decide. It’s a pity I didn’t leave you when you admitted you’d been unfaithful. It’s a pity I believed you when you said you wanted me to stay with you for ever. In fact,’ I added through my tears, ‘it’s a pity I met you at all. You’re a good architect,’ I said as I left.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘That conservatory you did for the Frog and Firkin was brilliant.’
‘Thanks,’ he said again.
‘And that loft extension in Putney was tremendous.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘But you’re useless at building relationships.’
A few months later, I met Alex. It all seemed so promising at first, though he was terribly shy to start with. All those chaste dates – the strain was exhausting.
‘At least he’s not another pathetic womaniser,’ said Lizzie, accurately, after I’d come back un-snogged from my twenty-third date. And he was so nice – and no golf! Hurrah! And no negative comments about my clothes, either. In fact, as it turned out, he really liked my clothes. Especially my lingerie. And my evening wear. But then we all have our foibles, don’t we? Our little peccadilloes. But now look what’s happened. Curtains again. Exit boyfriend stage left. Left.
‘Don’t let them bugger you around any more,’ says Lizzie. ‘Get tough.’ And so now I am tough. If they don’t propose within five minutes – that’s it! Goodbye! Or possibly five weeks. In exceptional circumstances, and if they have a note from their parents, five months.
‘Your pores are rather enlarged,’ said the white-coated crone on the expensive unguents counter as she sat me in front of a magnifying mirror. ‘In fact they’re huge,’ she continued. ‘I’m afraid it’s something that happens with age.’ Oh dear. If I’d known they were that big I could have offered Phillip the use of my face for indoor putting practice.
I bought three tubes of pore-minimiser (£87.50) and a tiny tub of moisturiser – can someone please tell me why moisturiser always comes in such small pots? – and headed home. Then I read the ad again: Tall, Athletic, Passionate, Propertied, Sensuous Academic, thirty-six, seeks Feminine Friend to share Laughter, Love and … Life? Now you’re talking, I thought to myself as I dashed off a letter. Just a few brief details about myself and a not-too-out-of-date passport photo – don’t want to see the guy’s face collapse with disappointment when we meet. I signed it just ‘Tiffany’ with my telephone number, but no address of course – just in case he turns out to be a Tall Athletic Serial Killer. Then I sealed it. As I stuck on the stamp – first class, natch, don’t want him thinking I’m a cheapskate – the phone rang.
‘Oh hellooooo … ’ said a slightly gravelly female voice. Who the hell was this?
‘Hellooooo … ’ it said again. ‘Is that Tiffaneee? Tiffanneee Trott? This is Peter Fitz-Harrod.’ Christ, it was a bloke.
‘Yes,’ I said, shocked. ‘That’s me.’
‘Ah. Well, ha ha ha ha ha! Lizzie Bohannon gave me your number. Ha ha ha ha ha! She’s told me all about you. Ha ha ha ha! You sound absolutely splendid. Would you like to meet me for a drink?’
I bet Peter Fitz-Harrod’s wife left him for someone else. I don’t blame her in the slightest. He sounds like a total wimp. Unlike Tall Athletic.
‘Lizzie, why are you setting me up with this weedy little man?’ I asked her over the telephone. Actually I didn’t say that. One has to be tactful with friends who are doing their level best to help one up the aisle. What I really said was, ‘Lizzie, what’s this Peter Fitz-doobery man like? I mean it’s very nice of you to think of me, and I do really, really appreciate it, but to be brutally honest, he sounds like a complete and utter jerk.’
‘I know the voice is a bit awful, but he’s much better in the flesh,’ she said reassuringly. ‘He’s definitely worth a try. Would I suggest him otherwise?’ I was prepared to take her word for it, though I definitely preferred the sound of Tall Athletic. I bet he’s got a lovely voice. All that lecturing – his students must find him mesmerising. He should have had my letter by now. Sporty and brainy – marvellous! What enticing images this conjures: squash followed by a bit of Schopenhauer; tennis followed by the Tate; swimming whilst discussing Solzhenitsyn; hill-walking with a hint of Hindemith. Golf … hang on a mo. Not golf. Anything but golf. If he plays golf, we’re through. ‘No, no, no, you go and play,’ I’d say to Phillip every Saturday morning. ‘You need to relax. You’ve got a very high-pressure job,’ (unlike me, of course). And by six o’clock he’d be back, having played thirty-six – or was it seventy-two? – holes. And then he’d do the same on Sundays. ‘I had a bloody good game,’ he’d say, as he switched on Sky Sports. ‘Bloody good. Tremendous. What’s for supper, Tiff?’
No, I’m putting my foot right down. Tall Athletic is not allowed to play golf. He can play tennis, cricket, croquet, football, hockey, squash, rugby, baseball, basketball, badminton, ping-pong, polo, Eton fives, seven-a-side rugger and darts. He can go surfboarding, rollerblading, water-skiing, rallydriving, scuba-diving, ten-pin bowling, white-water rafting and rowing. He can do heli-skiing, parascending, motocross, hang-gliding, parachuting, sky-diving and three-day-eventing, but if he plays golf – we’re through. Phillip’s much-married mother used to say, in her wearying, worldly-wise way, ‘It’s good for men like Phillip to have a regular sport like golf because then at least,’ and here her voice would drop to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘you know exactly what they’re up to.’ And how my heart would sink, as it always did when she gave me advice of this kind; and later on, when I finally knew, well … how ironic it seemed.
This evening I met Peter Fitz-Harrod for a drink. Here’s what happened. We arranged a rendezvous at the Ritz at six-thirty, and I had planned my escape in the form of a phantom dinner appointment at eight-fifteen. My first blind date for more than fifteen years! What a bizarre thing to do – go to a hotel to have a drink with a man on whom I had never laid eyes before. But having laid ears on him, I wasn’t that excited – just curious to see whether he was as frightful as I imagined. I had described myself to him: ‘fair hair’, I said, deliberately avoiding the word ‘blonde’ – he sounded quite over-excited enough as it was and I knew he wasn’t my type. But I dressed carefully – nothing that Phillip would have made an appalling fuss about, just a pretty little suit and a discreet amount of slap (no foundation – so ageing). As I spun through the swing doors I saw a man in a Burberry raincoat sitting by the night porter’s desk. I looked at him, he looked at me, then he jumped to his feet like a crocodile leaping off the river bank. It was him. Keen as mustard.
‘Hello, ha ha ha ha ha! You must be Tiffaneee,’ he squeaked, offering me a clammy hand.
‘How did you guess?’ I asked him – the Ritz was stuffed to the rafters with thirty-something