Dan Taylor Is Giving Up on Women (7 page)

Through the mirror she gave me a sly ‘not bad, eh?’ smile.

‘Um, you could wear it home,’ I said, remembering her question, ‘but it depends how close you want to get to the
checkout assistant who has to take out those security tags.’

‘Good point,’ she said as she sashayed back to the changing room, only slightly put off the stride of her signature modelling walk by an outbreak of hiccups.

At the till we queued with a few other women laden with their purchases, collectively vibrating with excitement.

‘I LOVE this dress,’ Hannah said to the uninterested checkout girl as she neatly folded and bagged her outfit.

‘It is a terrific dress,’ I said, before getting an elbow in the ribs for adding loudly, ‘Looking at you in it no one would ever think that you were really a man.’

Hannah calmly paid more than I’d spent all day on that single item. And to think I’d broken out in a cold sweat paying more than fifty quid for a single pair of jeans. Another rush of excitement flowed over her as she took back her credit card and receipt and posh-looking bag. We headed up the escalator to the menswear section with arms linked and bags clattering by our sides. As we rose to the top of the stairs, the bass boom of dance music hit us, islands of exotically coloured clothes appeared, and large video screens displayed — evidently very male — models barely wearing any of them. Head-setted super sales agents were swarming everywhere.

‘That’s it,’ I said, ‘I’m done. We’re going over there for cocktails.’

And thankfully Hannah didn’t argue. At the cleverly positioned second-floor bar we slumped in uncomfortable leather seats. The reflections of a glitter ball twinkled on us as we clinked glasses over a round of martinis.

‘So you did it, mister!’ Hannah said. ‘You got the core of a wardrobe that doesn’t make you look either like a very young fogey, or very old student. The girls will be all over you like slugs on lettuce.’

‘Yeah, these girls you mention, what is it exactly you’re planning for me to meet them?’

‘All will be revealed in good time. But for a start that French bird will notice the change.’

‘Delphine? You think so? I wouldn’t wear this stuff to work though, would I?’

‘No, this stuff is what your mum would call “for best”, but maybe next time she calls you in the depths of Parisian despair because her LOVER is more interested in the sports than her, I might let you go and be a well-tailored shoulder to cry on.’

I shrugged, worrying for the first time in a few hours that maybe I’d missed a good chance today, and that probably Delphine wouldn’t be speaking to me on Monday.

‘I’m not saying she’s not right for you, Dan. But as something of a semi-professional myself in my day, I’ve got to say she’s playing some games here. Nothing wrong with that, everyone does when you get down to it. But if you want to win, and not get too injured when it gets a bit rough, you’re going to need some coaching from a pro.’

‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged again. ‘I think she’s actually just a bit shy and sensitive, and there’s an insecurity people take advantage of sometimes.’

‘Maybe you’re right. And if anyone’s
not
going to take advantage, it’s you. I hope to meet her properly one day.

‘I don’t know if I mentioned, but I LOVE my dress,’ Hannah continued cheerily after a pause. ‘I probably need to be two sizes smaller to wear it with any kind of decorum, but it’ll be perfect for the next occasion that demands a posh party frock. I know! Rob’s brother’s having a baby in a couple of months. It’ll be perfect for a christening!’

‘Tom’s going to be a dad?’

‘Maria was seven months at Christmas.’

‘Ah, I see!’ I said. ‘Tom’s having a baby.’

‘I’m guessing what you “see” is the reason Rob’s got all broody and I’m holding out on him?’ said Hannah, a little darkly.

‘What? Um, no!’ I fumbled. I realised I’d reacted to the news about Tom like it was the missing piece of a puzzle that had been playing in the back of my mind. It would have been a reaction familiar to Hannah from the three of
us watching murder mysteries on the telly, and usually stood out because it was heard about half an hour after everyone else had figured out what was going on.

‘No, it was just, “ah, I see”,’ I continued, ‘because Rob had mentioned how the family was expecting some happy news.’

‘Yeah, that sounds like Rob and you talking,’ she said with a smile, before pouting with martini glass held delicately and a pinkie extended. ‘“I simply mustn’t go into details, old sport, but the dear old Harrison Minors are due for some terribly exciting news.” “Oh, do tell!” “No, no, my lips are sealed!”‘

I conceded that that didn’t sound too believable.

‘I know you two talk about everything — well, apart from unimportant stuff like how members of your families might be going through significant life changes, apparently — it’s what you expect with best chums. I mean, Rob certainly tells me everything you two have been talking about.’

‘Everything?’ I asked nervously.

‘Everything,’ she responded, with a flick of the eyebrows. ‘But anyway, I’m glad he’s talking to somebody else about the baby stuff. He’s finding it a bit difficult at the moment. Not as difficult as he’d find it for the next twenty-one years if we did have a child — but difficult enough.’

‘The time’s not right for you,’ I said, struggling for the right thing to say.

‘The time’s
never
going to be right for me,’ she snapped back. ‘I’ve
told
him. I. Don’t. Want. A. Baby. Neither does he really, he’s just got it into his head I should be providing him with an heir or some such nonsense.’

Twitchily smiling, she finished off her cocktail.

‘Sorry, Dan, we spent all day yesterday rowing about this, and I’m still in attack mode a bit. There’s just this assumption that as a woman I’ll get maternal at some point. I never have been and probably never will be. No kid deserves a mother who doesn’t want them.’

‘Well, if that was your reason don’t they say an instinct for the job can kick in when you do get pregnant? You’d start to feel maternal?’

‘You boys…you must have some kind of biological clock ticking. Rob said something like that himself, although he put it in a way that made me feel more like an uncooperative prize-winning sow. I’m quite happy feeling the way I do now. Gambling on how I’d feel if something changed because of some hypothetical future regret is daft. And Rob thinking he’s ready to be responsible for anything more than putting the bins out is even dafter. I’ve friends with babies, and he has no idea of the strain he’d be putting on us. The timing couldn’t be worse.’

‘Well,’ I said, conclusively.

‘I know. I’m a she-monster,’ she said, smiling, but then blinking a bit and looking away.

A waiter walked past and asked if we needed more drinks.

‘Same again, please,’ Hannah said, standing up. ‘Stay here, I’ll be back in a minute.’

She disappeared out of the bar, and from our table I sat and watched the barman fussily chill glasses and mix our drinks. I couldn’t say I entirely understood what was going on between Hannah and Rob, but it felt as if I’d veered too far into their private lives — had she been crying then? Should I have given her a hug? Tried to explain Rob’s side of it, that he thinks it’d be great for them? Or called him an inconsiderate swine like a sympathetic pal? I had no idea. It was a bit weird to be talking about these things with Hannah — we didn’t usually talk about the big stuff.

But then I couldn’t remember a time when we’d talked as much about anything, good or bad, as we had today. Looking through the bags surrounding my feet, I thought back over the shopping trip. There were T-shirts in there I was still not sure I could ever see myself wearing, but they were probably better than some of the ones I’d thought about buying. At one point I’d picked up one in a nice light blue I thought would follow the colour rules I’d been given. It was only when I was holding it up in front of my chest to show Hannah, and she’d started
laughing so much she’d had to lean against a rugby-shirted mannequin, that I spotted it said
One Sexy Chick
across the front in silvery glitter. Those middle aisles in unisex stores — they’re a perilous no-man’s-land. Once we’d recovered our decorum, Hannah had said the T-shirt just might work for me if I wrote the word ‘WANTED:’ at the top of it in permanent marker.

‘I’m sorry, Dan.’ Hannah gave me a peck on the top of my head as she came back to her seat. ‘I shouldn’t get you involved in our domestics. It’s not fair. Take no notice of anything I said.’

‘Don’t be silly. I was just surprised, that’s all,’ I said.

‘Wait till you see the bill for these drinks.’

We smiled, and it felt as if the day was back on track.

‘Here, look at this.’

Hannah handed me a small bright yellow bag, and I poked through the tissue paper to see the contents. There was some pink and red seventies’ floral pattern, and an elasticated band saying Calvin Klein.

‘I couldn’t help myself. I’d tried to get Rob to buy them last time he was in here but he said they were too nice for him to cover in skidmarks.’

I flushed slightly at being given a gift of underwear. But felt oddly elated too.

‘Wow, you really didn’t need to… They’re great.’

‘I know. He’s had such a crappy weekend, and I’ve given him such a hard time, I thought I should get him something.’

‘Oh. Oh, yeah, well, he deserves it really, even if he is a chauvinist pig,’ I said as I handed back the bag, blushing. I didn’t look directly at Hannah; I didn’t want to know if she’d picked up on my mistake.

‘If his bits aren’t going to be put to practical use they might as well look nice,’ she said, cheerily. ‘He called when I was in men’s smalls. Crisis averted, and he’s back home already.’

We finished our cocktails, and I recovered a bit as we talked about the day. We made smart-arse remarks about the lives of the ludicrously cool, and ludicrously rich, people coming in and out of the bar around us, jokily considering whether there was anyone around that it’d be worth our while to try and pick up.

Then we headed back into the cold and dark of Oxford Street and jumped on the tube. We talked less as the stations rolled by and the Northern Line took us through the increasingly less expensive parts of South London, until we nearly reached the end of the line. At South Wimbledon, and with a quick peck on the cheek, Hannah jumped up to head back to her soon to be lingerie’d-up husband. I stayed on one more stop to get back to my flat, and TV, and another solo takeaway pizza.

Nearer nine than eight-thirty on Monday morning, I dragged myself from South Ken tube to my office, stretching the weekend as far as possible by resisting all thoughts of actual work until after I’d pressed the button on the lift. OK, maybe not all thoughts of work; I’d successfully suppressed the thought of a three-hour meeting with evangelical organic cola marketers and Weird Boring Chris, but had spent much of Sunday evening running through how I’d act casually when I spoke to Delphine.

She’d probably be frosty or a bit hurt, I thought, but I was sure she’d come around when I asked how things had worked out with her and Alex yesterday, and sympathised about what a bastard he was. She’d put two and two together on that, I was sure — in front of you there was a nice guy, off in the pub with his mates was a bastard. Nice guy who was interested in you, or bastard after one thing? Nice guy, or bastard? At some point you weree going to try option one even if it was just for a change, right? Now I was following Hannah’s advice of not being too available too, I was sure this would work. Especially if I let her know how bad I felt about not being able to come out yesterday — and that I was very, very sorry and it wouldn’t happen again, ever.

I made my way to my desk past the pockets of colleagues discussing how great their weekends had been, and how terrible they felt now, then started up my computer and arranged the items on my desk. The monitor got shifted slightly to the left with a research document further to the left of that, so I could look as if I were working if Nigel Pearson floated towards me from that direction. A trade mag was propped on my desk to the right so it could look as if I were keeping up with industry news to people coming in from that direction. What I was actually doing was watching the front door so I could see when Delphine arrived.

I was good and ready to drop in a casual hello as she sashayed towards my desk at 9.08 or 9.24, depending on just how late she was going to be today. Honestly, I’m not stalker-ish, I just had a good working knowledge of her train timetable. And you did begin to see patterns emerge when you sat watching the door for a week or two pretending to read about the preservative qualities of raspberry extract. It was no more creepy than my awareness that at 9.13 every morning financial controller John would saunter past with a copy of
The Sun
under his arm to do the quick crossword in the toilets for twenty minutes — at least I hoped that was what he was doing with
The Sun
in there. He came back whistling anyway.

OK, maybe knowing that was a bit creepy too, but you couldn’t help but pick up this stuff if you were located on a high-traffic corridor and putting any effort into trying not to work.

9.26, and still no sign of Delphine. I went to photocopy the news of the latest developments on raspberry extract so I could take it home in case I needed it, and happened to pass her desk. She definitely hadn’t come in early.

‘Mornin’, mate.’

As I stared at her cubicle from the photocopier I was surprised by the arrival of new boy Jamie, holding another seldom-read market-research publication.

‘Morning,’ I said, tapping the copy button on the machine a couple of times.

‘You might be better off if you put that article on the glass surface rather than holding it in your hand,’ he observed, ‘unless you’re using the copier as a really flash white paper dispenser.’

‘Ha! Yes!’ I said, lifting the lid and neatly lining up the magazine. ‘Not quite awake this morning.’

‘Big weekend too, eh?’

‘Well, you know, medium-sized.’

‘I’ve gotta say, I feel like absolute shit this morning myself,’ he said.

I did notice the bags under his eyes were looking pretty puffy, his shirt looked as if it might have been the one in the dirty wash that smelled the least offensive, and he’d missed quite a few bits shaving.

‘And it’s all her fault,’ he continued, pointing at the empty desk where Delphine should be.

‘Delphine?’ My stomach took a little plunge.

‘Yesterday afternoon got a text seeing if I wanted to go for a pint, so we met up in Chiswick, and it all got a bit messy.’

‘Right,’ I said in as non-committal a tone as I could manage, although the photocopier began spitting out page after page of the raspberry article as my finger buried itself into the green copy button.

‘I’d assumed it was going to be a gang of us, but it was just me and her. Gotta say I thought “‘ello, I’m in here”, but after a couple of beers and some chunky chips this bloke Alex showed up? She’d been texting him a bit while I was watching the goals from the early kick-off. Would’ve thought he’d have been a bit off with me out on the pop with his missus, but he’s a good bloke, for a Chelsea fan. The three of us watched the United game and headed for an early curry — I should apologise now for the state of the Gents this morning, by the way. Think I put the bloke in the next cubicle right off his paper — then home, absolutely bladdered. Email’s just gone round saying Delph is off sick today, which is no surprise. If it wasn’t my second week I’d be hiding under the duvet instead of trying to find a quiet spot to die back here.’

‘Yeah, this is a good location,’ I said, trying to work out how I felt about missing the opportunity to have got drunk and awkwardly bond with Alex the flabby football-obsessed arsehole.

‘I tell you though, if I was him, I wouldn’t have been too chuffed with how she was coming on to me. All the arm-touching, compliments, and flirty eyes. My goodness. And all he did was keep winking at me, and pointing out the fit barmaids when they went past. Must be used to it, I suppose.’

You know what? I thought to myself. Hannah was
right
. My God, it would have been hell to be in that situation. OK, the physical contact and intimacy sounded good, but even I would’ve realised being stuck in the middle of that particular sandwich was the wrong way to be treated like a piece of meat.

‘Maybe it’s just a French thing,’ Jamie mused, ‘or what you get with older women, eh? Anyway, beat hanging out with my hungover flatmates.’

Back at my desk, I immediately started on an email to Hannah, proclaiming her genius in the dark arts of womanliness. I also thanked her for what had been a surprisingly fun shopping expedition and explained how I was now feeling empowered by my new outfits even though they were still all sitting in their bags on the bedroom floor. The only thing that was missing, I concluded, was that if I’d gone to the pub I’d have got felt up a bit, but even in this new world there were still some things I had to do myself.

I sat for a while, considering getting on with some work. But I was mainly thinking a lot about the day before with Hannah, which had been the most fun I’d had in a long time, and what I’d needed after a weekend that had started so badly. Why couldn’t I have been as relaxed and myself on Friday night with Niamh as I’d been with Hannah up West? Why had it been so uncomplicated shouting back and forth about spring fashions over a changing-room curtain compared to texting with Delphine? OK, that second one is obvious: there’s nothing uncomplicated about Delphine.

But would I feel as if I stood a chance with somebody like her if she’d been straightforward? She’d hinted that there’d been a time, when she was doing an Ivy League university exchange programme in the US, that she’d been on the verge of being a model, but hadn’t wanted to go down the same path as her mother. By and large, I didn’t get to hang out with women who could be models, or were the type of whizz that went to the swish colleges that were mentioned on my favourite TV shows. But it wasn’t just about her brains or looks; it was that her life seemed so dramatic and tortured. I barely knew her but I knew a lot about the miserable situations she always seemed to find herself in, and I knew that I could fix them. That I could help her feel better about herself.

Not that I’d want to change her fiery temperament — I could see us having blazing rows. Maybe where she thought I’dbeen flirting too much with other women — hey, it could happen — and me accusing her of something similar. This would inevitably lead to lots of shouting and crockery smashing before we realised that we were just scared because we meant so much to each other, and passionately got down to it on the kitchen floor. We wouldn’t
even worry about sweeping up the broken cups before doing so. There’d be something to be said for a bit more drama in my life, and maybe for a bit more kindness in hers. But how could I get her to realise this? I knew Hannah said I had to keep my distance, and she’d been right, but what now?

From across the open-plan office I heard a scream of anguish and someone repeating, ‘It’s gone! It’s gone!’ The rumour I’d heard that Phil in Frozen Foods had had a blazing row with IT Janice about whether Take That were better with Robbie Williams, or without, must have been true. He should have known better than saying anything that could be construed as a slur on her Robbie. There was a rumour she had his face tattooed somewhere about her person where it would probably give you a real fright, considering what you’d have to be doing to get the chance to see it. I decided I’d better get on with some work. It could get a bit fraught in here later, and I’d want to get out before I was press-ganged into helping poor Phil recreate that big report he’d been doing.

I figured first I’d just send Delphine a quick ‘get well soon’ email to her personal address, but be a bit aloof about it. How would she know I wasn’t being as available as I’d been before if I didn’t tell her?

By half six I was finally out of meetings for the day, after the presentation to the organic cola company. They’d seemed excited that we’d found two viable niche markets for their products: middle-class mothers who secretly acquiesced to their children’s demand for fizzy drinks, and would feel less guilty if it had organic labelling, and secondly ideological vegetarians who just found themselves constantly really, really tired. I checked my email and phone — there were client queries about the public’s perception of the pomegranate, and whether the mango had successfully shed its tag as a ‘minority fruit’. They could wait for tomorrow. Then there was new email from Delphine, Hannah, and Rob.

In my new mindset of playing hard to get with Delphine, I opened the one from Hannah first. It was just a brief message saying she’d enjoyed Sunday too — and how much she still loved her dress — and also complaining that the people who employed her as a knowledge manager were making unreasonable demands upon her to manage a bit of knowledge so early in the week. In a strange PS, she did ask my favourite biscuit; if I had to have a football team, what would it be, and checked that I hadn’t lived outside north-west London when I was a kid. I was told I couldn’t ask why I was being asked, but even I could work out that there could be a date coming at the end of it.

I thought, perhaps for too long, about the interpretations that could be placed on my choice of favourite biscuit, worrying that something with too much chocolate might make me seem a bit flamboyant or decadent, while completely plain might seem dull and austere. After giving due consideration to the potential of fig rolls to conjure up images of exotic fruit and physical stamina, I ultimately decided that crumbly, oaty biscuits might seem a bit effeminate and went for chocolate digestives, actually,
dark
chocolate digestives, as the perfect combo of maturity, a bit of fun, and sophistication. In case it was relevant, I also told Hannah I couldn’t date anyone whose favourite biscuit involved dried fruit and shortbread; I might be desperate, but at some point you had to draw a line. I expressed pride in barely having left London for my first eighteen years, and, grabbing names out of thin air, I decided that Queens Park Rangers sounded like a team that wouldn’t lead to me being stabbed — rarely a sign that a date was going well.

There was also a command in the email to make sure that I keep Thursday free, which sent a rumble of nervy disquiet through my stomach — although that could’ve been the blue-cheese coleslaw I found in my chicken and stuffing sandwich at lunchtime. Apparently I needed to bring my new ‘party clothes’ to the office and be ready for seven. More details were promised nearer the time. After I hit send on my reply, I figured she’d already be on the way home, and I needed to know what she was up to right now, so I sent her a text saying ‘Thursday?’ but all I got back was a two-word response, ‘Yes, Thursday!’

The deliberate mysteriousness did nothing for my digestion.

Delphine’s mail was a little longer. Over a dozen paragraphs, she poured her heart out about how unhappy she was. This had been made worse by feeling down because of her hangover, and also the trauma of having watched a lot of daytime TV, which she’d described as tragic. I think she meant in terms of the soul and the human condition, although it could have been about the dress sense of the various male presenters too.

But from reading about the stuff that was really bothering her, I couldn’t believe the hold that Alex had over her. I could see how he did it though: the put-downs about her appearance, the undermining of her confidence in her English, his need to know where she was all the time, while he appeared and disappeared when he liked, with no indication of where he’d been. All this interspersed with just enough compliments and occasional grand gestures to make her believe he cared. He was a classic case of a narcissistic alpha male with control issues exploiting vulnerability in a trophy partner. A man whose underlying misogyny permeated every aspect of his relationships with women and who became focused on relentless mental bullying of anyone who professed to love him.

I’d seen it on
Loose Women
, so I was pretty sure I’d got my analysis right.

I also knew it wasn’t the kind of thing you could say to someone pissed off with her boyfriend and expect them to believe or thank you. I wondered how much it would cost to have someone else make an assassination attempt on her behalf instead.

While sitting there raging at how a guy like that always got the girl, I had to confess to also feeling a little pleased to see Jamie spoken of in not exactly glowing terms after he spent all afternoon talking sport with Alex.