Rubber Gloves or Jimmy Choos? Read online

  ***

  I needed some excitement in my life. But I didn’t know how to find it. I had been in London a month now, and things weren’t good. I hated my new job and still hadn’t sold anything. Sophie was in love with the most obnoxious guy I’d ever met and, of course, it goes without saying that I was missing Ben like crazy. (Oops). It wasn’t just my life that was dull, I was dull. Even my friends were getting bored with me. I had been a drama queen for long enough so Sympathy had got bored and left our house. I knew I should take control of my destiny, but I wanted Fate to do it for me. That way I had someone to blame: ‘Fate dealt me a cruel hand,’ I would say, and on the whole it had. I felt I was becoming more and more isolated from the real world; the world I had tried to shun was shunning me. By cutting myself off from the normalities of the world, the world was now cutting me off. I didn’t belong and I wasn’t wanted. I had to get out but I didn’t know how. I was trapped. I had trapped myself. I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to understand.

  I had had so many lectures about getting on with my life that I decided to do the decent thing: I would fool my friends into thinking I was doing just that and hopefully I might fool myself in the process. The first stage in my getting-on-with-life plan involved calling Simon, the guy I had met in the first interview I had for my job. I don’t really know why I decided to call him. Perhaps it was just because I was in the grip of madness and therefore my actions could not be accounted for. I really was in the grip of madness: I heard voices and everything. Or perhaps it was just because it was the sensible thing to do.

  The human heart is a fragile animal: once broken, it does not take kindly to attempts at repair. It’s like a self-healing wound. It mends by itself so there is no point in pushing it. That was what I thought. My friends, of course, felt differently. Jess said that all I had to do was pull myself together, stop being a victim, stop living in a dream world. She said that if I did I would get over Ben in a flash. Sarah said I had to accept that Ben and I were over, accept that I had a life and take control of it. Sophie said that of course I needed time, but (and I hated her for the but) I should be trying to make new friends and build a social life in London. Thomas said that all I needed was a good seeing-to. Thomas was probably right.

  So I did it. I arranged to see Simon. I think the voices told me to so I called him and asked him out. He seemed really pleased to hear from me and agreed readily to a date. We were meeting on Friday, at a bar. I might not have been very modern when it came to my career, but I was when it came to sexual liberation. I felt almost positive: perhaps people were right, perhaps meeting someone else was the best way to get over heartbreak. Although I was excited I was also a little nervous: I wasn’t sure what to expect. After all, this was grown-up dating and I’d never done it before.

  After work, Sarah was at home so, to calm my nerves, I persuaded her that a couple of glasses of wine before we both went out would be a good idea. Sarah sipped her wine, I gulped mine, and before she had finished her second glass I had finished the bottle. I realised that in calming my nerves I had got myself drunk before I’d even left the flat. Then Sarah had a battle on her hands to get me ready. She overhauled my wardrobe and found my favourite black mini-skirt and a sexy chiffon blouse. I thought maybe I looked a bit obvious but, then, I was too drunk to argue. I looked OK before I left but Sarah told me to drink slowly and have something to eat. I wasn’t legless or anything, but I was a bit tipsy and giggly, and my legs didn’t feel very strong. The problem when I get drunk is that my legs seem to lose their ability to hold me up. If I can mentally hold it together I usually fall over, which is a bit of a giveaway. I hoped I wasn’t going to fall over. Before I got into the cab to take me on my first date since Ben (God, that sounded weird), I apologised to Ben for what I was about to do. I told him, silently, that I still loved him and wanted no one else and I wished he was with me. Now, as well as concentrating on not falling over, I had to concentrate on not crying.

  In the cab on the way to the bar I felt truly awful. I began to wonder why I was putting myself through this ordeal, why I had drunk so much beforehand, why I was going. I should have stood up to my friends, told them I wasn’t ready to date. I was such a wimp, I was gutless, I was at the bar.

  It was a large, noisy, modern place, full of young professionals in huge groups, not a quiet romantic-date place, but that was probably a good thing. Simon was waiting for me and kissed my cheek. He was gorgeous, tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. And his legs (I’m a legs woman) were pretty amazing. He ordered a bottle of Chardonnay and we managed to find a table.

  Simon was very enthusiastic, the opposite of Ben. He spoke of everything with such excitement. I was drunk, dizzy and exhausted. And he didn’t stop talking. He told me about his job in sales, on a car magazine, which he loved. He told me about Manchester University, where he had recently graduated with a degree in history. He told me about his older brother and his older brother’s wife and his younger sister and his parents and his dog, called Bobby or Bobble.

  And while he talked I drank. I drank and drank, and finished my second bottle of wine. Looking at him through the bottom of my empty wine-glass, I realised that Simon was what I refer to as a ‘catch’. Not only did he have looks, but he had another quality imperative in a husband: Simon was a gentleman. He went to get me another bottle of wine. I had to hold on to the edge of the table to keep upright. I wondered if he noticed. When he came back, as I was drunk and as I had decided that this could be my man, I decided to impress him. I told him loads of funny stories about my university days (‘you won’t believe the time I stole a traffic cone’), I told him about Clapham and my odd friends, I told him about my shit job and John the geek and Mr Motivator my boss. He laughed a lot so I must have been funny. I flirted, I pouted, I drank.

  Then I told him about Ben. I was drunk (have I already said that?), and I got tearful, which was inevitable, really. I always cry when I’m drunk. Then I asked him if he thought Ben was a low-life bastard and he said he was. Simon said that he’d never treat me like that.

  I woke up. My head hurt. I was in bed, but it wasn’t my bed. I looked and saw Simon. I was in Simon’s bed. I was also naked. I felt sick. I’d slept with Simon, and I didn’t remember doing it. I knew I’d done it: there was a condom lying on the floor. I felt sicker. I’m no nun and I’m no moral judge, but I draw the line at sleeping with a guy I’ve only just met and not even remembering. What if I’d passed out in the middle? God, what if I’d passed out before the start? I felt really sick. I wasn’t used to this situation. Where the hell were my knickers? I hated not knowing where my knickers were. I was so embarrassed. I could see my top, my bra and my trousers, but not my knickers. I looked at Simon. He was sleeping, I really didn’t want to wake him and ask him. What was I supposed to do? Do I leave? Do I have breakfast with the guy? God, no, I didn’t want breakfast. I needed an escape plan. I got out of bed quietly, decided to leave my knickers wherever they were and left.

  I didn’t even know where I was. I found a cab and went home. There I had a long bath and, still feeling hung-over and mortified, I went to bed. I woke at midday and my absence from my bed had been duly noted. Everyone knew of my conquest. Even Thomas had come round to share in my victory. They said this was the first step in getting my life back together. They were all really proud. Until I told them what had happened. You should have seen their faces.

  They were dumbstruck. I had rationalised what had happened and decided it had been Simon’s fault. I had been drunk and vulnerable and he had taken advantage of me. What a bastard.

  This theory was not shared by my friends. They thought it was my fault: 1. I shouldn’t have got drunk. 2. I shouldn’t have got so drunk.

  Then when I told them how I’d left, I faced another attack.

  ‘God, Ru, that’s what horrid men do,’ Jess said, and the other girls agreed.

  ‘Do you realise you’ve probably destroyed his confidence in the sexual department? His life is ruin
ed,’ Thomas said.

  Any defence I had was in vain. They made me so miserable I swore I would never date again. I also made a vow to get some more sympathetic friends. I had changed from being a monotonous bore to being a monotonous boring slut. It didn’t feel like a step in the right direction.

  So, I couldn’t get over Ben and I couldn’t replace him, which left me in a bit of a pickle. I could cry a lot (I did) and I could live with my huge sense of loss, but those seemed to be my only options. Simon, well, the Simon debacle proved everything to me, really: it proved that I was right to love Ben and I was right to want only him, and I was right to feel so completely miserable. Simon had fucked me up and proved me right. But this didn’t make me feel triumphant. Feeling vulnerable didn’t bother me, being taken advantage of didn’t bother me, but my betrayal of Ben did. For some bizarre reason I felt as if I’d been unfaithful to him. I would never, ever be unfaithful to Ben. Although he wasn’t here.

  You know, sometimes you try to solve a problem but you’re stuck in a never-ending circle so you keep coming back to the problem. That’s how I felt. The problem was, I had had sex; the problem was, I hadn’t remembered; the problem was, Simon had taken advantage of me; the problem was Ben. Ben, Ben, Ben. I screamed at him in my head, ‘How could you leave? How could you make me like this? How could you screw up my life?’ And again I was crying. Drink. That explained it. I was unhappy, I drank, I was stupid. Being drunk with Simon, for a while, had made me forget who I was. Actually it had made me forget everything. Perhaps it was just sex. But sex had always meant something to me. Ben was much better in bed than Simon: I always remembered sleeping with Ben. And I cursed Simon for being a typical insensitive-ruled-by-his-penis man, who had used my crisis to get a shag. Are some men born without conscience or is it something they get taught to ignore at school? I stopped crying. Simon was a low-life rat and if I ever saw him again I would stick a red-hot poker so far up his backside he would be sorry for ever (if I had a red-hot poker handy, of course). And at the same time, perhaps I’d stick one up mine.

  ***

  Jess was the third member of our family to go on a date. She went out with ‘someone in PR’, which was all she told us about him. It didn’t go well. ‘Opposites do not attract,’ was her only comment on the evening. We knew better than to push for details. Sophie was in a relationship, if you could call it that, and Jess and I had both had a disastrous date, but Sarah hadn’t been out with anyone. I felt sorry for her; not one bit of testosterone had been flung her way since she’d moved to London, but I didn’t want to mention it. I mentioned it instead to Jess, who thought about it, agreed with me and, not having my sensitivity, brought it up one night.

  ‘Sarah, I’ve been thinking, you haven’t had a date in ages. How about I fix you up with someone I know?’ Ever the subtle Jess.

  Sarah looked at us. ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘But I know a number of suitable men,’ Jess pushed, and I wondered why she’d never offered to fix me up with one of them.

  ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the reason I am not dating, or have not dated, is because I’ve decided to become celibate.’

  We all looked at her.

  ‘Why on earth would you do that?’ I asked. I had never understood voluntary abstinence from the one good thing in the world.

  ‘Because I want to concentrate on my career and men only complicate things. You guys illustrate my point beautifully.’ Sarah was getting stroppy.

  ‘I hope you’re not including me in that. I do not let men complicate my life, nor do I let them take over my life, not like those two.’ Jess was stroppy too.

  Sophie and I looked at each other we both knew better than to try to defend ourselves against those charges. For one thing, they were true, and for another, both Jess and Sarah could be scary when riled.

  ‘No, Jess, I didn’t mean you, although you did spend a fortune on a DKNY top when you had that date with the Opposite,’ Sarah conceded.

  ‘OK, but I’ll wear that top loads. I did not buy it for my date.’ Jess had calmed down a little.

  Then I remembered what had started this. ‘Sarah, are you sure you don’t need any male comfort, not at all?’

  Sarah giggled. ‘You don’t need a real penis to have a good time,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you?’ asked Sophie. We all laughed. Sophie went pink.

  ‘How’s the Porsche?’ I asked, to make her feel better.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without James, he’s so great.’ She went pink again. ‘I think I’ve met The One,’ she declared.

  We all cringed and hoped she didn’t mean it, but none of us said anything: we were all trying to be good friends.

  ‘He’s taking me away this weekend, to Scotland, for a romantic break. I’m so looking forward to it.’ She was still pink and happy and, to be honest, the fact that he was a wanker was irrelevant. It would be irrelevant until she realised it too. She jumped up excitedly. ‘Ru, come and help me choose what to take.’ So for now we left Sarah and her celibacy and went to pick clothes.

  Later, when Sarah and I were alone, I asked her why she was so anti being part of a couple. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be on your own (even if I didn’t understand it), but it is rare. Even Jess, the biggest independent career woman, likes the idea of having a man around. But not Sarah. Even at university she would meet guys, see them for the bit, and lose interest. Ben decided once that she must be a lesbian, just because she wouldn’t go out with one of his hockey mates, but he was just being horrible.

  ‘Sarah, why are you so intent on being single?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, Ru, I know the world seems to revolve around couples – you don’t even need to be a heterosexual couple, just a couple. And I don’t see what the big deal is. You know how organised I like my life to be and I’m scared of disrupting that. I think that’s what men do, they disrupt you, and sometimes it may be a good disruption, but most times it seems bad, and at the moment I don’t need any disruption in my life.’

  ‘But what about fun? What about sex, romance, all those things? It can be magical, Sarah, it really can.’

  ‘I’m sure it can. But at the moment it’s not part of my game plan. I know Jess is always the outwardly ambitious one, but I want to start my own business and I think in a few years’ time I’ll be able to. Then I’ll have to work all the hours to get it off the ground, and when it is, maybe I’ll be able to think about romance. But that’s my priority. It’s the most important thing in the world to me. I know you’re the opposite, and that’s OK, because we have something in common.’

  ‘We do?’

  ‘Yes, neither of us believes the bullshit that we can have it all. If I fell in love now, I know that my plans wouldn’t be half as easy to achieve. Once I’m up and running, maybe I can have everything.’

  ‘Sarah, if because of your career you end up manless and lonely, you can come and live with me and be a rich auntie to my six children.’ I laughed.

  ‘Do you think I’m mad?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Do you think I’m mad?’ I asked.

  We looked at each other ‘Yes,’ we said.

  Chapter Three

  A Perfect Husband.

  The perfect husband will be a perfect gentleman. He will be courteous and complimentary. He will dress well, be handsome and slim. He will be intelligent and widely read, with a good grasp of current affairs. He will engage only in gentlemanly pursuits, such as riding and hunting, and he will have an engaging appreciation of the arts.

  ***

  I decided to make my perfect-husband list. After all, you can’t be too careful in this day and age and I didn’t want to end up with just anyone. Even though I wasn’t actively looking at the moment, and even though I knew Ben was my perfect husband, making the list seemed like a good idea. Just in case, of course.

  Height, over five feet nine; build, slim; hair, yes; eyes, blue or brown. He needs to be clean and relatively devoid of obscene bodily functions – i
.e. farting and burping should only occur when absolutely necessary. He needs to be under thirty and have a job, ideally a well-paid job and a car, but not a rubbish car. A good sense of humour is essential, and he will enjoy making me laugh. An ability to drink and smoke excessively without falling over or being sick. Sporty would be nice, but not obsessed. He must maintain short fingernails. Clean driving licence. He will have great manners – open doors, pay for dinner, never say that you’re overweight, your boobs are saggy or that his ex-girlfriend was better in bed than you are. As a lover he will be attentive to my needs and won’t think that foreplay is a bottle of cheap wine and a pizza. Most importantly, he will not believe that women should work. Oh, and he will be very sexy.

  You must understand that if I was being unrealistic I would ask for a James Bond type, smouldering good looks, huge amounts of money and lots of gadgets, but without the eye for the ladies. However, as I was hoping to find a husband I was willing to compromise. I didn’t think I was asking too much, was I?

  Chapter Four

  ‘There is only one suitable career for a woman: marriage. With marriage comes motherhood. In many ways they are the same. Girls need to learn at an early age how to take care of a man. It is the only valuable lesson we can teach.’

  ‘But surely, Miss, women are capable of more than just marriage. Surely we should encourage their talents.’

  ‘Talents in girls are merely instruments for enchanting men. An accomplished young lady is so much more appealing to a gentleman than one who cannot do a thing. Music, painting, reading poetry, dancing – these are the talents we must encourage in our girls. The only talents girls need.’