Take Mum Out

Grow up, I tell my reflection silently. Just be nice and polite and get through this without getting too pissed and making a complete twit of yourself.Surely there can only be another couple more courses to go.

I rejoin my date at our table. Anthony beams at me, and I’m transfixed by his dazzling dental work and unmoving forehead as he says, ‘I’d imagine it’s tough as a single mum, Alice. But for you, covering all the treatments we talked about tonight, I’d be happy to draw up a special payment plan.’

Chapter Three (#ulink_ba9034cd-1704-5852-8a4f-0cd06c7360a2)

On the damp pavement outside the restaurant, Anthony is looking decidedly crestfallen.

‘But it’s only just gone ten,’ he protests. ‘I didn’t imagine you’d have to rush off so soon. Thought we might pop back to mine for a nightcap …’

‘I don’t like leaving my boys too late,’ I say quickly. ‘I’d really better get back.’ It’s a cool, drizzly Edinburgh night, and the fishiness of the amuse-bouche has somehow clung to the inside of my mouth, having obliterated all the other taste sensations. I have also, for the first time tonight, happened to notice Anthony’s curious footwear. I’m not one of those women who’s obsessed with checking out men’s shoes because, they are, after all, only water-resistant coverings for feet. For instance, before she married Sean, Ingrid only ever dated men who favoured black or dark-brown brogues, which seemed crazily picky to me. ‘If you look down and see grey slip-ons,’ she once advised, ‘start running very fast.’

And on this damp pavement I have glimpsed not just any old slip-ons, but basket-weave ones, in tan or possibly mustard, with a little strap across the front and a flash of gold buckle. I have nothing against basket weave – for baskets. But for shoes? And he had the nerve to criticise my choice of attire?

‘Don’t you have a babysitter?’ Anthony wants to know.

Oh God. Having insisted on paying the bill, he’d clearly anticipated that there would at least be a snog in return. Or perhaps he expected that, having been treated to the tasting menu, I’d feel obliged to hot-foot it to his boudoir to remove my ‘cheap bit of cloth’.

‘No, well – it’s a bit tricky,’ I explain. ‘Logan’s sixteen and he’d die if I suggested booking a sitter. I mean, most of the ones we know are in his school year so I could hardly ask them to come over and look after him.’

His eyes glaze briefly, as they did when I mentioned being a school secretary. ‘Well, that’s a real shame.’

‘So I really should get back …’

‘Right.’ He blinks at me, studying my face. I’m convinced now that every time he looks at me, he’s planning how to fix me up, like an over-zealous decorator about to be let loose on a clapped-out house.

‘It’s been a lovely evening,’ I add, ‘and thanks so much for dinner.’

‘My pleasure. We must do it again some time.’

Just how does a woman wriggle out of arranging a second date in these modern times?

‘I, er … I’ve got a lot on over the next few weeks,’ I explain.

‘Hmmm. Busy lady, are you?’

‘Er … yes, especially with the meringue thing taking off these past few weeks …’ I’ll be busy whipping up egg whites into the small hours, you see, with no room in my life for a weasly man who’s starting to look more and more doll-like. Not Ken, I decide. More Action Man with his angular jaw and painted-on hair.

‘Meringues.’ Anthony rolls the word around his mouth. ‘I’d love to try them. I’d imagine they’re quite delicious.’

‘Um … yes.’ I check my watch unnecessarily. ‘Well, they sell them in Peckery’s – you know the coffee shop in Hanover Street? And Betsy’s next to St Martin’s Church. Anyway, thanks again—’

‘Can I walk you home?’

‘Oh, no – you live miles away in completely the opposite direction.’

‘Let’s get you a cab then.’ He goes for my arm, clutching it as if, without his support, I might topple over. However, although I felt mildly pissed in the restaurant, the cool drizzle on my face has miraculously restored me to one-hundred-per-cent sobriety.

‘Anthony,’ I say firmly, ‘I only live twenty minutes away. I’d actually like to walk.’ I smile again, and this is when I make my crucial mistake. As I stretch up to give him a polite kiss on his waxy cheek, my brief, bird-like peck is somehow misinterpreted to mean that I desire him very much, and next thing I know, he’s got my face in his hands and has jammed his wet lips on mine as he goes in for the full-on, tongue-jabbing snog.

‘What are you doing?’ I exclaim, springing away from him.

‘Oh, come on, Alice. You’re a saucy minx – I can tell …’

I stare at him, speechless.

‘You older women,’ Anthony adds in a throaty growl, ‘I know what you’re like. You know your onions …’

‘I know my onions?’ I bark. ‘How old d’you think I am?’

He shrugs. ‘Thirty-seven?’

‘Thirty-nine actually.’ I omit to mention that my fortieth is a mere month away. ‘How about you?’

He smirks. ‘You might be surprised to learn that I’m actually forty-five.’ And he’s calling me an older woman? ‘My last girlfriend was twenty-eight,’ he adds, ‘but I’ve finished with younger girls now. Their bodies are great but they can be so vacuous. It’s refreshing to spend time with someone who’s genuinely interested in what one has to say.’

‘I’m sorry, I really have to go,’ I say, cheeks blazing as I turn on my stupid heels and march away.

Mercifully, Anthony doesn’t protest or try to follow me. I walk briskly, overcome by the terrible realisation that, for a ‘woman of my age’, this is probably as good as it gets. God, if that’s a typical example of dating today, then it’s something I’ll avoid from now on. Ugh … the creep, with his foot-baskets and darting tongue, like a lizard trying to catch flies. My bouche is not amused. I walk faster and faster until, by the time I’m almost home, I have virtually broken into an ungainly trot. I take a quick left turn, hurrying past the grand, detached Victorian houses, then alongside the terrace of tenement flats. Although this is a fairly smart area, with an arthouse cinema and coffee shops galore, our block is rather shabby. I am beyond seething as I head in through the main entrance and clatter upstairs to my second-floor flat.

‘I’m home,’ I announce jovially, trying to sound as if I’ve had a perfectly enjoyable night out. In the darkened living room, Logan and Fergus continue to stare at the blaring TV. On the coffee table in front of them lies the detritus of a boys’ night in – greasy pizza boxes, milkshake cartons and a few stray socks. ‘Everything okay?’ I ask, tearing off one shoe, followed by the other.

‘Yuh,’ Logan replies, picking up his red and white stripy carton and taking a big slurp. In the absence of any further response, I commence a slightly deranged conversation with myself: ‘“Hi, Mum, did you have a nice time?” “Yes thank you, it was lovely …”’ In the kitchen now, I click on the kettle. ‘“Actually,”’ I continue under my breath, ‘“it was pretty shitty. But maybe I misread the signs, or I’m so out of touch with dating that, if a man has paid for the six-course tasting menu, he at least expects to ram his disgusting fat tongue down your throat …”’

‘Huh?’ Fergus is standing in the doorway, clutching the pizza boxes to his chest.

‘Nothing,’ I mutter, peering into the fridge so he can’t see my blazing face.

‘You were talking to yourself,’ he sniggers. ‘That’s the first sign of madness, Mum.’

‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ I reply.

He smirks as I straighten up and pour too much milk into my mug. ‘What was that about a fat tongue?’

‘Nothing, take no notice of me, I was just babbling on.’

‘Who were you out with tonight?’ he asks.

‘Just someone I met at Ingrid’s party last weekend.’

He arches a brow. ‘Was it a man?’

Clutching my tea, I lower myself on to a kitchen chair. ‘Yes, sweetheart, but I won’t be seeing him again.’

Fergus cracks a grin, extracts a packet of Jammie Dodgers from the cupboard and rips it open. ‘Good. What d’you need a boyfriend for anyway? You’re a mum.’

Chapter Four (#ulink_9da95519-804e-5799-8518-1991dd4ef748)

His words are still ringing in my head when I wake up early next morning. While he may only be thirteen, and unable to tolerate virtually the entire vegetable food group, Fergus is absolutely right. I don’t need a boyfriend. I’ve managed perfectly well – well, I’ve managed – being by myself all these years, and have now reached the conclusion that any single men around my age are so baggage-laden they can barely face leaving the house, or are looking for girlfriends born in the early nineties or, as in Anthony’s case, are so clearly wrong for me that I shouldn’t have gone in the first place.