Polly James - Would Like to Meet

Even when I can hear Mr Good-Looking, I’ve just realised that I have absolutely no idea how to talk to men that I don’t know – or how to flirt with them, anyway. Every time Mr GL says something complimentary, I either try to laugh it off or I find myself giving him a sceptical look, as if he’s taking the piss. I even say, “Yeah, like that’s true” once, like a sulky teenager. I don’t know why he’s still bothering with me at all – or why I’m bothering with him, either, if I’m honest. I’d far rather be sitting at home in comfy clothes and watching TV, while chatting sporadically with Dan. That seems far less boring now than it did when it used to happen every evening, and being with someone without feeling you have to talk to them is like the Holy Grail, at the moment.

What if I never find anyone else I can sit comfortably in silence with? Mr GL’s fine to look at, and he could be the world’s most fascinating conversationalist for all I know, but he’s not Dan. That thought makes me feel as if I’m going to do one of those sudden sobs that keep catching me unawares, so I clamp my lips together and concentrate on breathing in through my nose, thus rendering further conversation impossible on my part, though not on Mr GL’s.

He doesn’t give up easily, I’ll give him that. In fact, he leans in closer and keeps up a continual stream of chatter about God knows what for the next few minutes, until the buzzing of my phone gives me the perfect excuse to move away from his arm, which has just started sneaking its way along the back of my seat. Too much, as well as far too soon .

“Excuse me a minute,” I say, meaning “for the rest of the evening”. Or even for the rest of my life.

Maybe it’s suddenly become obvious that’s how I feel because, as I open my messages, Mr GL stands up and says he’s going to the bar.

“I’d offer you a drink,” he says, “but … well, you know.”

“Yeah, I do,” I say. “Sorry, but thanks anyway. It was nice meeting you.”

I can’t do this stuff. I just can’t. And it seems Esther can’t either, as the text’s from her, apologising for disappearing, and saying she started to feel unwell so she walked to the taxi rank and is now on her way home. I think I’ll follow her example as soon as I find Eva … and send Dan a drunken text.

* * *

Two people complain to me about the state of the loos as I make my way across the club towards where Eva’s still dancing her arse off. Another asks why there are so few bar staff on duty tonight. They might as well just come out with it and say, “You look way too old to be here, unless you’re running the place.”

That’s not an attitude Eva seems to be contending with. As I push past a group of young guys who are standing watching while she shakes her enviable booty, I overhear them taking bets on “who’s going to shag the cougar”. I just hope it’s not the one I know: Joel’s best friend, Marlon, who I’ve always thought was such an innocent! I make a point of saying hello to him in a very disapproving voice, because I’m in loco parentis as his mum’s not here.

Eva nearly has a fit when I tell her Esther left hours ago, and then she demands to know why I didn’t come and join her, rather than sitting on my own “like a Billy-No-Mates”.

“I wasn’t on my own,” I say, “but I’ve had too much to drink and now I want to go home. You stay, and I’ll call you tomorrow. Just don’t sleep with Marlon, Eva – his mum would not approve.”

Eva promises she won’t, albeit with a certain degree of reluctance, and then she peers at me suspiciously.

“Are you all right, Hannah?” she says. “You look a bit tearful, as well as pissed. You’re not going to do anything stupid when you get home, are you? Like drunken texting, for example?”

“No,” I say.

I’ll probably do that as soon as I get into a cab.

* * *

Dan didn’t answer my texts, or his phone, when I rang that instead – which may explain why I’m now hiding behind a bush in his new back garden, watching him through a ground-floor window. I am officially going mad.

I had no idea Dan’s landlady had a dog! Luckily, it’s one of the handbag kind, so although it snaps at my ankles and yaps when it’s let out into the garden, it doesn’t do any permanent damage, although it does nearly give me a heart attack. If the music Dan, Aasim (the other housemate) and the landlady are playing wasn’t so loud, they’d definitely hear the dog barking and come outside to investigate, so I suppose I should count myself lucky I don’t get caught in fully fledged ex-wife stalker mode. The trouble is, I don’t feel lucky in the slightest and I’m worried I may be losing my mind.

I can’t imagine what got into me, telling the taxi driver to take me to Dan’s on my way home from the club, but seeing my husband enjoying himself with his new housemates when my evening’s been so shitty, certainly doesn’t make me feel any better – and nor does having to fend off a stupid sausage dog with chilly blue eyes and very sharp teeth.

When it first starts trying to bite me, I’m stooping down behind a large evergreen bush, looking in through the uncurtained windows of what’s presumably the dining room. Dan’s in there, sitting at the table with a glass of wine in his hand and engaged in what must be a fascinating conversation, given that he’s paying far more attention to what Aasim is saying than he’s paid to anything I’ve said in years. He looks both animated and relaxed, if one of those adjectives doesn’t preclude the other.

After the dog incident, I probably look even more animated than Dan does, though considerably less relaxed – especially since I’ve just realised who his landlady is. It’s Alice, one of the more junior officers in Dan’s department, the one he always describes as bonkers. I’ve only met her once, briefly, at one of the Council’s Christmas work “do’s”, when she looked at me and nodded when Dan introduced us, then immediately turned her head away and carried on talking to him as if I wasn’t there. While wriggling about a lot, and pulling the wide neckline of her dress further and further off her shoulder, as I recall. She kept saying, “Oops” whenever the top of the dress threatened to fall off completely, as if it was an accident.

Dan said he hadn’t noticed, and he found it funny when I told him later that I thought Alice fancied him.

“She fancies anything in trousers,” he said. “That doesn’t mean anyone fancies her back.”

I took that claim at face value at the time, but I spend my next taxi journey – this time genuinely heading for home – stewing about whether what I’ve just witnessed involved any flirting with Alice by Dan. I’m still undecided by the time the taxi draws up outside my house, as I can’t actually remember how Dan behaves when he is flirting. Hopefully, he’s as rubbish at it as I’ve proved to be tonight. On the basis of that embarrassingly shoddy performance, I’m never going to find a new man and I’m going to be doomed to sleep alone for the rest of my life. Well done, Hannah. Fantastic achievement. Ten out of ten for gross incompetence.

I suppose the only plus is that at least I can wear whatever I like to sleep in now, seeing as no one’s ever going to notice. Joel’s not usually sober late at night, so he doesn’t count, as he’ll either see two of me, or none at all, depending on how close to being shut his eyes are when he finally staggers in after yet another night on the tiles. I’m surprised he wasn’t with Marlon at the club tonight, now I come to think of it, especially now he’s single again. He’s definitely out somewhere, though, as he’s nowhere to be seen when I let myself into the house, so I decide to go straight to bed.