Mark Edwards - Forward Slash

Amy leaned down and peered into the narrow space under the bed frame. Through all the dust bunnies she spotted a corner of the laptop case. ‘Wait, no need – I’ve found it!’ she said, sliding her hand under and dragging it out. She brought it back into the living room and switched it on.

‘Nice one,’ Gary commented. ‘But it’s not going to have anything on it that’s not on the new one, is it? I mean, she hasn’t changed her email address, has she?’

‘No … but …’ Amy sat on the sofa with the laptop open on her knee, logged in and scanned the numerous folders still on Becky’s desktop. ‘Look – she was very good at backing stuff up. Not good at filing anything – in her flat or on her computer – but I bet it’s all here. She used to get really paranoid that the computer would crash and she’d lose all her school reports and lesson plans.’

‘Good thought,’ Gary said as she clicked on a folder called ‘Old Emails Back-Up’. There they all were, with a sub-folder entitled ‘Personal’. Dozens of messages from CupidsWeb dating back two months.

‘I had no idea Becky was into Internet dating,’ Amy said.

‘Didn’t you? Well, everyone does it these days, don’t they? Every unattached person, anyway.’ Gary snorted. ‘Quite a lot of married ones too.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe you don’t need to.’ He looked her up and down and she resisted telling him that her own love life was so nonexistent that she doubted even Internet dating could help her.

She turned back to the screen. ‘Internet dating. I wonder what other secrets she was keeping from me?’

Once I’d given Shaun my mobile number, we texted continuously. His texts were dry and funny, and I felt increasingly excited as the day of the date wore on, checking my phone after each lesson period – and sometimes during, too. I managed to resist the temptation during assembly, thankfully.

The home bell finally rang and I did the minimum amount of tidying up in my classroom before bombing out to the car, to go and get ready. But then, of course, I had to bloody run into Simon Pinto in the staff car park. I literally bumped into him – I just didn’t see him, I was so busy reading Shaun’s latest. Poor little Simon, his home life is appalling and he’s got the sort of face that cries out, ‘Bully me!’ I think I’m the only one he talks to. I’ve tried to get him to tell me who is behind the campaign that finds him curled up, crying, behind the bins every day, but he’s too scared. He’s been crying now, and so I take him back into school and sit him down with a Coke and a stale digestive from the staff room. After half an hour, I know all about his nan’s Alzheimer’s and his dad’s drink problem, but nothing about who gave him the long scratch on his face. I give him a lift home, making a mental note to talk to the head about him tomorrow, and trying not to look at my watch to ascertain whether I’ve still got time to wash my hair before the date.

I do have time to wash my hair, just about, and I straighten it into a sheet of blonde that I then immediately worry looks too artificial. I wish I had naturally curly hair like Amy does. Our hair is the exact same shade of blonde, but she can get away with towel-drying and leaving it to dry into perfect curls, whereas mine is neither one nor the other and has to be coaxed in either direction. It’s a source of continual irritation to me.

Shaun and I meet later in a nice riverside pub I have chosen, a short bus ride from my flat. I wonder if I will recognize him – the clearest of his photographs on the website featured a very large black Labrador, with him cuddled up to it in the background. I’d probably be able to pick the Labrador out of a line-up, but Shaun himself looked distinctly blurry. I could see from the picture, though, that he appeared to have a strong jaw, and he described himself as in the six to six foot four category. Bald, but most of them are. How bad can it be, I thought?

I do recognize him, as soon as I walk into the bar, but mostly because he is the only man there alone, and he is sitting on a bar stool staring fixedly at the door. He jumps up when he sees me, bears down on me and shakes my hand vigorously. He doesn’t look anything like six foot tall, let alone six foot four.

‘Becky! You must be Becky. Lovely to meet you.’ He pauses and gazes into my eyes, dropping his voice by about an octave. ‘You look even more beautiful in the flesh than your picture.’

I am pleased and surprised – unless of course he’s just trying to flatter me. But I think he means it. The photo I’ve got up on the website is, even by my standards, not bad. I look almost sexy, and it’s not often that I’ll admit to that. It was taken by my ex, Harry, when we were on a weekend away in Bournemouth, and right before he clicked the shutter, he told me what he was planning to do to me in bed later, so I have a sort of ‘cat who’s about to get the cream’ grin.

Shaun isn’t too bad himself. Despite our flirty texts, I don’t feel any spark of attraction, but I tell myself not to be too hasty. I scrutinize him while he’s pouring the wine. I hadn’t planned to drink wine tonight, because I have a tendency to guzzle it when I’m nervous – but never mind. He has a good profile, but a slightly petulant mouth. He keeps his lips tight when he talks, and I wonder if it’s because he’s embarrassed about the gap between his front teeth, which I’ve had flashes of. He probably is quite a good-looking man, but even though I’m trying to keep an open mind, I can’t help my heart sinking.

He hands me a glass of wine, steers me onto a bar stool and starts to tell me all about himself.

Two hours later, he’s still telling me all about himself, his motorbike, his planned trip around Canada with ‘the lads’, how many followers he’s got on Twitter. He hasn’t asked me a single question, apart from what I do for a living, which was on my profile, so he ought to have remembered anyway. When I tell him I’m a French teacher, his face lights up:

‘Oh, yes! I was going to be a teacher, I’m great with kids. But then I realized that my skills really lay in business, so I did an MBA …’ blah blah blah.

I switch off, and study the collection of pottery jugs hanging on hooks around the top of the bar. I’m bored, but I don’t want to go home just yet. I’ve had three glasses of wine and soon the bottle is empty. I hope I have more fun than this on Saturday, with my next date. Shaun is doing me a favour by being so completely tedious. Onwards and upwards, I think. There are always more.

‘I’m just going to the little boys’ room,’ says Shaun, standing up. I notice that the top half of his body is a lot longer than the bottom half, and his hips are quite wide. I bet he looks stupid on a motorbike. ‘Can I leave you to order another bottle; the same as we just had? Do you think you can manage that?’

I look sharply at him to see if he’s joking, but no, it appears that he isn’t.

‘Yes, I think I’m quite capable of ordering a bottle of wine, thank you.’ But my sarcasm appears to be lost on him.

‘Blimey, is he always that patronizing?’ asks the woman next to me at the bar, applying a thick layer of lip gloss.

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ve never met him before. But I would imagine so.’

We watch him walking away towards the men’s toilet. ‘And he’s got a big arse,’ she says and, although I know it’s mean, we both laugh.

‘Good luck, anyway,’ says the woman, after she’s paid for her drinks.

‘Thanks. I’ll need it,’ I reply, and she fights her way out of sight through the crush around the bar.