Rubber Gloves or Jimmy Choos? Read online

  I felt like a country hick again. This was unfamiliar and scary. This was where’s-Ben-and-where’s-university. I couldn’t do this. How could I ever know someone as well as I knew Ben? How could I feel so comfortable yet excited at the same time? How could I wash anyone else’s underwear? I felt as though I would never go on a date again. And once again my old friend Panic returned.

  When Sophie went on her date, we stuffed ourselves with pizza and wine, and Jess and Sarah tried to explain things to me.

  Jess’s version: ‘So, you go to a bar, or a club or just out, which is where you’re likely to meet someone. I used to think I’d meet someone at work, but it’s not a good idea to date someone you work with, Ru, take note of that. Anyway, you meet someone in a bar, they maybe buy you a drink, or you can make the first move, it’s 1999, after all. At the end of the evening they’ll do one of three things. Say it’s nice to have met you then leave, ask you to go on to a club or another bar, or ask for your phone number. If it’s the last, then you go home, like Sophie, and wait for him to call. If you go on somewhere else with him, one of three things happens. If he’s lost interest he’ll just leave, he’ll try to get you to go home with him or he’ll ask you for your number. If it’s the second option and you sleep with him, he’ll do one of two things in the morning. He’ll say goodbye and thank you, or he’ll ask for your number. In my opinion, if you sleep with a guy on the first night, you’ll never see him again.’

  I was confused. ‘But what if you get his number?’

  Sarah answered this time. ‘It’s good to take control of the situation. But once you have his number you have to wait at least four days before calling and more if you can. The point is that this way you’re being cool. The cooler you are, the more interested he’ll be.’

  ‘It just doesn’t sound as natural or painless as it was with Ben. You must see it was easier for us at university.’ It still sounded awful to me.

  ‘It may have been easier but it was so haphazard. It’s far more organised this way. You go out once. If it goes well, one of you calls the other after a few “cool” days and you have another date. It progresses that way. It’s much tidier than it was at university,’ Sarah explained.

  How could dating be tidy?

  Jess took over. ‘What Sarah means is that once we started seeing someone at university we saw them all the time but never really knew when we were going to see them. Look at you and Ben. Now we have responsibilities, we have careers to concentrate on, and we need time for ourselves so it takes longer to get to know someone and we have freedom for other things. Dating gives us more freedom than before. It means we can see men but at the same time concentrate on our careers.’

  I felt tempted to ask them where they had got their information: neither of them had dated since moving to London, but I refrained.

  ‘What happened to romance?’ I asked. Jess and Sarah both looked at me. ‘That is romance.’

  I realised then that I would never date again.

  We were still up when Sophie got back and she was full of how wonderful it had been. James was fantastic. He was good-looking, funny, had a well-paid job and he knew how to treat a lady. He took her to a very expensive restaurant, then brought her home. He behaved like a gentleman and said to her, ‘There will be plenty of time to get to know each other.’ She was so happy. James was something in the City, she thought he was a trader, but he might have been a stockbroker, she didn’t know the difference, so she hadn’t wanted to ask him. Jess knew the difference and explained it to all of us. We looked at her strangely, but she wasn’t giving away where she gets her information from.

  ‘He’s so lovely. I’m seeing him on Monday, two days’ time. He’s taking me to the new Conran restaurant. I can’t believe how lucky I am, I really can’t. He’s wonderful.’ With that she swept off to bed.

  Jess and Sarah were playing the cynical sisters as usual.

  ‘There has to be a catch,’ Jess said.

  ‘Obviously too good to be true,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Men aren’t like that anymore,’ they both said. How they got to be such experts on men was beyond me. I just told them not to say anything to Sophie and they promised they wouldn’t.

  My second week of work was not quite as great as my first. In fact, it was pretty awful. Apparently training was over and now it was time for us to earn our keep. I was given a list of people in the ‘trade’, whatever that meant, and I was supposed to sell them advertising space. When Steve explained this to me, I asked him how the hell I was supposed to do that and he asked me if I had paid attention to my training. ‘Of course,’ I replied, knowing full well that I had spent the whole of last week daydreaming about Ben coming back for me. So I had a phone and I was supposed to use it. I remembered something about asking some sort of questions and some sort of facts about the magazine and just as I felt as if I was going to burst into tears, Brian, a nice man who wore a cardigan under his suit jacket, told me to listen to one of his calls. He telephoned a client and introduced himself, explained about the circulation of the magazine, asked if they’d seen it, then offered to send a media pack. That was a successful sales call apparently.

  I took the bull by the horns and called the first person on my list. He was in a meeting so I left a message. The same happened with the next fifteen people I called. This was getting boring. Then I struck gold. One guy called Sam Peterson was in. He sounded interested in what I had to say and accepted a much-needed media pack I was triumphant, until I realised that in my excitement I had forgotten to get his address and had to call him back. I then asked Brian what a media pack was. I made a mental note to pay attention in future.

  The second week ended, and I’d spoken to some people, sent out some media packs and Steve said I’d done well. But, to be honest, it was so boring, having the same conversation over and over again. And I hadn’t actually sold anything yet. I realised that this job was not half the fun I had thought in my first week. I left on Friday, not looking forward to when I would have to return. I explained my fears to Sarah, who brushed them off, saying that I would love it once I got more used to it. Jess laughed and said that in her office they hated salespeople, as if we were a subhuman life form. Even Sophie was devoid of her usual sympathy; she had yet another date with James.

  She had been out with James on the Monday after her first date then again on Wednesday, Thursday and now tonight. She was having a night off tomorrow because she had to go away on a modelling job. I have to admit I was jealous: obviously, in my delicate state of mind, anyone else’s happiness just highlighted my misery. I didn’t begrudge her happiness, of course I didn’t, but I couldn’t help the way I felt. Before she left for her date on Friday she filled us in on James. Dinner, the theatre, dinner, the cinema, dinner, he paid for everything, treated her like a queen. Even Jess and Sarah were beginning to think he must be all right after all.

  Then Sophie made us all happy. ‘I’ve invited him to dinner next Thursday, here, with you guys and Thomas. I told him you were my best friends and I needed you to approve of him.’ She looked triumphant, we all looked happy. We were going to meet this fabulous man. I for one intended to ask him about his friends.

  ***

  When my alarm clock announced to me that it was Monday morning again, it did so joyfully. I jumped out of bed and cursed it. My usual morning routine. I showered, dressed and slapped the minimum national requirement of make-up on. I was out of the flat within twenty minutes. One of the main skills I had developed since moving to London was getting ready for work in this short time and although I’d never be mistaken for a supermodel, I was presentable enough not to scare children.

  You always hear about workers having Monday morning blues, but until you experience them yourself you cannot understand the intensity of the feeling. One of my main objections about working was the culture of living for weekends, the week being just a pain in the arse for your social life. Well, after three weeks of working, I was doing that, even though I ha
d no social life and my weekends were pretty awful too.

  There were two significant events in my third week at work. John made his first sale on Monday, and the fuss made of him made me feel insignificant. So John had made a sale, big fucking deal. I’d make one soon, I was sure. Steve took me aside and did the don’t-feel-bad-this-should-make-you-more-determined speech, but it didn’t I felt even more keenly that this job was a big mistake. I was still talking to people and sending out my media packs, but nothing more exciting than that. I felt disheartened and fed up, and I didn’t want to be working any more. Desolation returned. It had left me only briefly. Life was as bleak now as when Ben had left – actually it was bleaker, because now I had a shit job.

  The other event was Thursday night, when we got to meet Sophie’s man. I had cheered up by then, because I was so excited about it. I couldn’t wait to see if a guy this amazing really existed. If he did I thought about putting him in a museum. Sophie had been working really hard to make everything nicer, including us. We were all told to be on our best behaviour and I’m not sure if it was us or him up for approval – both, I think. She was wearing a lovely black dress, she was flushed from cooking, her hair was tied back but a couple of locks had escaped and framed her face. She looked like an advert for Good Housekeeping. Anyway, she’d cooked and we had wine, so we were certainly ready for him. Actually we weren’t.

  James turned up with two bottles of red wine. He handed then over and told us that it was such-and-such a year and very nice, but as we were hardened plonk drinkers we weren’t very impressed. He also made the mistake of trying to be buddy-buddy with Thomas, who already hated him because he was in love with Sophie himself. He kissed each of us on both cheeks, as if we had known him for ever, which I thought was polite, Sarah made a face, which meant she thought he was slimy. He complimented the house, told us he had heard so much about us, laughed politely when we told him not to believe a word of it, and he seemed OK. He was nice-looking in a clean-cut, clean-shaven, laden-with-aftershave way. A bit too clean, if you know what I mean.

  Sophie cooked us roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (actually that was the only thing Sophie could cook), and it was really good. Apparently it was the only thing her mother could cook too. She had put a white tablecloth, which I didn’t even know we had, on the table, and a candelabra in the centre, lighting the room. It looked a bit like a restaurant, a posh one, of course. Sophie was very nervous around James, which I don’t think is unusual in a new relationship. I noticed, when he first saw her, she held her breath until he said she looked nice. Love can do funny things to you.

  We all sat down to dinner and started drinking James’s wine. I drank slowly, thinking how horrible it was. I looked at Sarah sipping hers and I could see she agreed. Thomas grimaced every time he took a mouthful and Jess didn’t even bother after the first mouthful. James did: he drank in huge gulps, with a noise that made me cringe. Sophie didn’t drink at all: she was too busy smiling at James.

  We started eating and James made overtures at conversation. He asked each of us in turn what we did for a living.

  ‘I work in PR,’ Jess said.

  ‘Oh, really? That’s where you suck up to people and all wander around saying “darling” and being superficial,’ he said, and I couldn’t figure out if he was joking or being rude. Jess obviously thought the latter.

  ‘No,’ she said, through gritted teeth.

  James laughed. ‘Yeah, nothing against it myself but, well, all this creative rubbish is rubbish, nothing like the reality of the City.’

  I thought that Jess was going to hit him, but Sarah stepped in to change the subject. ‘I’m a recruitment consultant,’ she said.

  James took another large swig of his wine. ‘Huh, very nineties,’ was his contemptuous reply. His cheeks had reddened and I guessed that perhaps he was just drunk, drunk and obnoxious. When it came to my turn, I said I didn’t want to discuss it, I’d had a bad week, but I don’t think he even listened.

  ‘What do you do, Thomas?’ he asked.

  ‘My law finals,’ Thomas mumbled. He was looking at his food intently.

  ‘Oh, interesting. In the City you can earn a fortune as a lawyer. You should think about specialising in City law.’

  Off James went. He spent the next half-hour extolling the virtues of the City while wiping gravy off his chin with his sleeve. He spoke of the money to be made, the challenge and the intellect. He made it sound like the most important workplace in the world, the most difficult and the most rewarding. I believed the money thing (I’ve seen Wall Street), but the rest, well, I doubted the intellect because James didn’t have any.

  The second bottle of wine was half empty and James was the only one drinking and burping now. In between talking, dribbling gravy and drinking, he was burping for England. To break the tension I went to put on some music; part of me thought that if I chose well I could drown out the irritating James. I chose Nirvana, which upset Sophie, who ran to the CD player and put on the Beautiful South.

  James was not about to be drowned out. On and on he droned, belittling us all in the process. ‘You and your creative fancies’ and ‘Recruitment is an unnecessary industry’— he wouldn’t stop putting Jess and Sarah down. Thomas looked happy; he had been hoping that James was a jerk. But Sophie didn’t seem to notice, just sat beaming at him the whole time. Sarah and Jess were having trouble meeting Sophie’s eyes and the air was tense, full of hostility.

  Jess evidently felt it was time to retaliate. ‘So if you hate the creative world so much, why are you dating an actress?’ She almost jumped across the table with this accusation.

  ‘Oh, acting’s a hobby for Sophie, she’s really a model and no bloke would ever do anything but applaud the modelling world, eh, Thomas?’ James chuckled, or sneered, I wasn’t sure which. We were all too shocked to react. Jess looked defeated, and no one defeated Jess. Sophie was still smiling. Thomas was getting happier by the minute, and Sarah was concentrating on her dinner. I kept quiet. Luckily thick-skinned James carried on talking. Dessert was served, the CD was changed and still he talked. He was so flash. He talked about his flat in Kensington, his job, again, his holidays, ‘I’m thinking of Barbados this year.’

  At that he looked at Sophie and said, ‘If you play your cards right I may take you.’ Sophie just smiled. ‘I’m buying a Porsche when I get my next bonus. At the moment I’ve only got a BMW.’

  ‘Bad luck, mate.’ James was ignorant of, or just ignored, the sarcasm in Thomas’s voice.

  ‘Well, a Porsche is a man’s car, really sexy,’ he continued. I looked at Sophie, who still seemed oblivious to James’s effect on everyone.

  ‘Well, I guess you need all the help you can get,’ Jess said.

  James ignored her.

  It was awful. Jess was sulking, Sarah was silent. Thomas just sat smiling to himself and I didn’t have a clue what to say. The evening couldn’t end soon enough.

  The following evening Sophie asked us what we’d thought of him. We all went quiet. Jess was the first to break the silence, ‘I thought he was bloody rude.’

  Sophie looked shocked. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you have to admit he was pretty rude about Jess and Sarah’s jobs. He even said you weren’t serious about acting.’ I tried to be reasonable.

  ‘No, he didn’t.’ Sophie was defiant.

  ‘He bloody well did,’ Jess stormed.

  ‘Oh, he didn’t mean anything, he’s just more mature than us.’

  We were all dumbfounded. I was furious, more about Sophie’s defence of him than anything. ‘Actually, Sophie, he wasn’t mature, he was a prick. “The Porsche” is only concerned with status symbols and he sees you as one of them.’ I knew that I was treading on dangerous ground, but she just had to see how awful he was.

  ‘No, he doesn’t, and who’s the Porsche?’

  ‘James. The name suits him, don’t you think?’

  Jess and Sarah giggled.

  Sophie burst into tears.
‘You bitches! He’s my boyfriend, I’m happy and all you can do is be horrible.’

  Oh dear.

  ‘God, you all seem to have totally misunderstood him, he didn’t mean to be rude, but, well, he has an important job and he’s older than us. You just totally misunderstood him.’ It was the weakest defence I’d ever heard, but it was the only defence she had.

  We all apologised and she forgave us. I just couldn’t understand what she saw in him. If it was his money I’d almost understand – I mean, if he really had a Porsche, I’d sleep with him – but Sophie wasn’t interested in money. Their relationship became one of the great mysteries of the world. It was up there with Stonehenge.

  If ever there was a bone of contention in my friendship with Sophie it was the Porsche. She begged me to stop calling him that. I begged her to stop seeing him.

  ‘Sophie, he’s horrible.’ I pleaded for her to see it.

  But Sophie became bitchy, which she never had before. ‘Right, and Mr Wonderful Ben, who made you cry more times than I could count, was so nice.’ She pointed out that every time Ben was horrible to me I wouldn’t listen to her so I was not in the best position to give her advice. I said Ben was never a prat and Sophie got upset I said sorry and it was forgotten until the next time.

  She did make me think about Ben, though. I remembered once when he had won a hockey game and I had stood on the sidelines cheering him on in the pouring rain. At the end when his teammates were engaged in a bonding moment, I had made the mistake of running up to him, throwing my arms round him and kissing him in front of them. Ben peeled me off and said to his team, ‘Christ, it’s OK having sex every night, but putting up with the leech thing gets tiring.’ Then as they all laughed he walked off leaving me dripping wet in the middle of a hockey-field. So, yeah, he was a prick sometimes, but then, as he explained later, I had interrupted a laddish moment and I really should have known better. No, my Ben wasn’t like the Porsche, who wouldn’t have apologised afterwards. I tried to keep quiet, but I hated to see someone as wonderful as Sophie wasting her time on such an idiot. I was trying to be a friend, but the truth was that I was not in any position to cast the first stone. As well as being a bore, I was a hypocrite now. How much worse a person could I become?