The Trials of Tiffany Trott

‘You don’t do crosswords, darling.’

‘I’ll learn. And I’ll man cake stalls at bring-and-buys. And I’ll selflessly babysit for all my friends. I’ll be the most professional spinster there’s ever been – I’ll probably pick up an award for it. Spinster of the Year – Tiffany Trott, brackets “Miss”, close brackets.’

‘Darling, I’m afraid this negative and unhelpful attitude won’t get you anywhere.’

‘I’m just being realistic.’

‘Nihilistic, darling.’

‘But I’m unlikely to meet anyone new.’

‘Don’t be silly, darling, of course you are.’

‘No I’m not. Because I read in the paper the other day that forty-five per cent of us meet our partners through mutual friends and I’ve already met all my friends’ friends. And twenty-one per cent of us meet them through work.’

‘Darling, I do wish you could get a proper job again. All you do is sit on your own writing slogans all day.’

‘But Freelancers Have Freedom!’

‘Yes, but you’re not meeting any men. Except for Kit. Why didn’t you marry Kit, Tiffany?’

‘I don’t want to go through all that again, Mummy. Anyway, he loves Portia.’

‘Don’t your friends know anyone?’

‘No. And when I think about the men I have met through my set they’ve been disastrous – especially Phillip.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said meaningfully. Feckless, unfeeling Phil Anderer.

‘But men!’ I spat. ‘Who needs them? Not me. Anyway,’ I added, ‘I’m not going through all that grief again. No way. Forget it. No. Thank. You.’

Two hours later, the phone rang. It was Lizzie. ‘Now listen to this, Tiffany,’ she said, audibly rustling a newspaper. ‘Listen very carefully.’

‘OK. I’m listening.’

She cleared her throat theatrically. ‘ “Tall, Athletic, Passionate, Propertied, Sensuous Academic, thirty-six, seeks Feminine Friend to share Laughter, Love and … Life?”’ She managed to get a melodramatic, upward inflection into the final word.

‘Yes?’ I said. ‘You read it very well. What about it?’

‘It’s a personal ad,’ she explained.

‘I know.’

‘From the Telegraph.’

‘Good.’

‘In fact it’s a particularly appealing one, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘And you’re going to reply to it, aren’t you, Tiffany?’

‘Yes,’ I said suddenly. ‘I am.’

I also said yes when Lizzie told me that she wanted me to go on a blind date with a colleague of Martin’s. Did I say no-one ever introduces me to matrimonially-minded males? Let me take it back right now!

‘He’s called Peter Fitz-Harrod,’ she said, when she’d finished telling me about the Tall, Athletic Academic. ‘He’s in syndicated loans, whatever they are. I think he lends money to Mozambique. I met him at a company do last week,’ she explained. ‘He’s forty-two, divorced, with two small children. He’s really quite good-looking,’ she added, ‘and very keen to marry again.’

Now I have absolutely no objections to divorced men – as long as the first wife is dead, ha ha! – so I told Lizzie she could give him my number. Then I sat down to write my reply to the Tall, Athletic Academic. I soon got stuck with my pen poised over my best quality oyster-coloured Conqueror paper. How on earth should I go about it? I mean, what the hell do people say? Do they write, ‘Dear Tall, Athletic, Passionate, Propertied … ’, or, ‘Dear Abundantly Erotic Existentialist … ’, or, ‘Dear Bewitching Brunette, fifty-seven and a half … ’? What does protocol require? Maybe I should come clean and say, ‘Hallo there, my. incredibly bossy best friend saw your intriguing ad and told me that if I don’t reply she’ll kill me.’ Maybe I should say, ‘Hi! My name’s Tiffany. I think I could be your feminine friend.’ Feminine Friend? It sounds like a brand of tampon. Maybe I should start, ‘Dear Box Number ML2445219X.’ Maybe I should simply write, ‘Dear Sir … ’

I decided to go shopping instead. There’s nothing like a trip to Oxford Street on the number 73 to clear the brain, and soon I was entertaining positive thoughts about Tall, Athletic, Passionate, Propertied, etc (think I’ll just call him ‘Tall’ for short). By the time the bus was speeding down Essex Road we’d been out to dinner twice. As it pulled away from the Angel he’d shyly held my hand. By the time we turned into Pentonville Road he’d come up to meet my parents. As we drove past Euston station our engagement announcement was in The Times, and by the time we pulled up outside Selfridges half an hour later, we were married with two children and living in Cambridge where he is undoubtedly professor of something terribly impressive, such as cytogenetics. Bus journeys do not normally give rise to such pleasant fantasies. Usually they remind me of the appalling problems I have with men. For example, I step happily on board the number 24, confident that I am going, say, to Hampstead. It all seems perfectly straightforward, the destination quite clear. But then, just as I’m relaxing into my book – ding ding! ‘Last Stop. All Change!’ and there I am, marooned at the grottier end of Camden. And when I gently remonstrate with the bus conductor about my unexpectedly abbreviated journey, he calmly points to the front of the bus where it says, in very large letters, ‘Camden High Street Only’. And that’s what it’s been like with men. I have failed to read the signs. So I have allowed them to lead me not just up the garden path, but through the front door, into the house, through the sitting-room, up the stairs, and into the bedroom, before being shown out through the back door – usually with instructions to cut the grass before I leave. Unfortunately this whole process takes quite a long time, as I have learnt to my great chagrin.

What a fool I am – what a damned, silly little fool. I have let selfish, commitment-shy men tie me up for too long. I have cooked my own goose and stuffed it. Perhaps I could get Tony Blair to introduce legislation, I mused, as I went over to the expensive unguents counter. I’m sure he’d oblige if I asked him to be tough on commitophobia – tough on the causes of commitophobia. Men would not be allowed to monopolise women over the age of thirty-three for more than six months without making their intentions clear. Fines would be incurred, and repeat offenders like Phillip would be sent off for institutional reform in a confetti factory. No longer would men be able to shilly shally around with girls during what Jane Austen called our ‘years of danger’. This would improve our lives immeasurably, I thought as I sprayed Allure onto my left wrist. One father I know, frustrated by his daughter’s four-year wait for a wedding ring, simply put the engagement announcement in the paper – just like that! The boyfriend was whizzed up the aisle before you could say ‘Dearly Beloved’. Other women of my acquaintance have waited for years, and then got dumped the minute they tried to pin the bastard down.

‘I really don’t think we belong together,’ Phillip said after we’d been together for almost three years and I had politely enquired whether my presence in his life was still required.

‘In fact,’ he said very slowly, ‘I now realise that we’re fundamentally incompatible. So it wouldn’t be right for me to marry you. It’s a great pity. But there it is.’

‘Yes, it is a pity,’ I said, as I removed my clothes from his cupboard, trying not to mess up his golfing gear. ‘It’s a pity it’s taken you so long to decide. It’s a pity I didn’t leave you when you admitted you’d been unfaithful. It’s a pity I believed you when you said you wanted me to stay with you for ever. In fact,’ I added through my tears, ‘it’s a pity I met you at all. You’re a good architect,’ I said as I left.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘That conservatory you did for the Frog and Firkin was brilliant.’

‘Thanks,’ he said again.

‘And that loft extension in Putney was tremendous.’

‘I know,’ he said.

‘But you’re useless at building relationships.’

A few months later, I met Alex. It all seemed so promising at first, though he was terribly shy to start with. All those chaste dates – the strain was exhausting.

‘At least he’s not another pathetic womaniser,’ said Lizzie, accurately, after I’d come back un-snogged from my twenty-third date. And he was so nice – and no golf! Hurrah! And no negative comments about my clothes, either. In fact, as it turned out, he really liked my clothes. Especially my lingerie. And my evening wear. But then we all have our foibles, don’t we? Our little peccadilloes. But now look what’s happened. Curtains again. Exit boyfriend stage left. Left.

‘Don’t let them bugger you around any more,’ says Lizzie. ‘Get tough.’ And so now I am tough. If they don’t propose within five minutes – that’s it! Goodbye! Or possibly five weeks. In exceptional circumstances, and if they have a note from their parents, five months.

‘Your pores are rather enlarged,’ said the white-coated crone on the expensive unguents counter as she sat me in front of a magnifying mirror. ‘In fact they’re huge,’ she continued. ‘I’m afraid it’s something that happens with age.’ Oh dear. If I’d known they were that big I could have offered Phillip the use of my face for indoor putting practice.

I bought three tubes of pore-minimiser (£87.50) and a tiny tub of moisturiser – can someone please tell me why moisturiser always comes in such small pots? – and headed home. Then I read the ad again: Tall, Athletic, Passionate, Propertied, Sensuous Academic, thirty-six, seeks Feminine Friend to share Laughter, Love and … Life? Now you’re talking, I thought to myself as I dashed off a letter. Just a few brief details about myself and a not-too-out-of-date passport photo – don’t want to see the guy’s face collapse with disappointment when we meet. I signed it just ‘Tiffany’ with my telephone number, but no address of course – just in case he turns out to be a Tall Athletic Serial Killer. Then I sealed it. As I stuck on the stamp – first class, natch, don’t want him thinking I’m a cheapskate – the phone rang.

‘Oh hellooooo … ’ said a slightly gravelly female voice. Who the hell was this?

‘Hellooooo … ’ it said again. ‘Is that Tiffaneee? Tiffanneee Trott? This is Peter Fitz-Harrod.’ Christ, it was a bloke.

‘Yes,’ I said, shocked. ‘That’s me.’