Pear Shaped

‘Here’s the picture. Those small pink things on top are called ‘raspberries’, that creamy coloured layer is ‘cream’, and underneath is the raspberry and cream trifle.’

‘Oh, so like a fruit trifle but with raspberries.’

My phone starts ringing. My heart pauses. It’s him. ‘Sorry, I have to get this.’

I leap up and leave the meeting – rude, but Tom always fiddles with his apps when I’m talking, so now we’re quits.

‘It’s James. Are you still free for dinner?’

‘Sure.’ I can pretend to be cool for at least one phone call.

‘Great. It’s a little Italian place at the top of Archway Road, I’ve booked a table at 8pm. Do you mind if we meet there? I’ve got something in town beforehand.’

‘See you there at 8pm.’

I breathe a sigh of relief. He’s just one of those guys who doesn’t like nattering. I walk back into the meeting. ‘Cup of tea, Tom?’

‘You look happy,’ says Lisa, Lady of the Nachos, when I return to my desk. I daren’t tell Lisa the smile on my face is because of some guy. Lisa’s turning forty and in a ‘bad place’ right now. She hates her husband, ever since he ran off with their two-doors-down neighbour. She hates her new boyfriend, because he’s not her husband. She hates her estate agent after he inquired if she was a teacher because she wore flat shoes and no make-up when she viewed the one-bedroom flats in her area. And she hates Devron, because he’s asked her to look at making her nachos range ‘bigger, cheaper and lower in fat’. That’s a tough order with a cuisine based on sour cream, cheap ground mince, cheese and tortilla chips.

‘I’ve been thinking about your nacho problem,’ I say. ‘Tell Devron that if he cuts out the cheese, sour cream and mince he’ll save loads of cash and the fat barometer will go from 9.7 to below a 5.’

She grunts a laugh. ‘He’s already brainstormed names with Tom and come up with Nach-Lows, Nosh-os and Skinny Bandito,’ she says, grimacing. ‘I spent a year in South America researching chillies and look at me now. I’m going to kill myself,’ she says. She looks like she means it.

‘Cheer up, Lisa,’ says Eddie, who is our desk’s resident optimist. ‘At least he hasn’t asked you to rethink your entire range based on what his girlfriend likes.’

‘No way.’

‘Apparently Mandy thinks our Chicken Korma’s not a patch on Asda’s, and says our Madras tastes a bit spicy …’

Lisa rolls her eyes, grabs her fag packet and marches off.

If I’m meeting James at 8pm, I need two hours prep time which means ducking out of work early – doable if Devron is in one of his endless meetings or on the phone to his barely-legal girlfriend, and if Janelle is walking the floors. Janelle is Devron’s rottweiler PA. Devron’s swollen self-importance comes from the fact that he is Head of Food Development at the UK’s seventh largest supermarket. La-di-da. Janelle’s comes from the fact that she is ‘PA to the Head of Food Development at the UK’s seventh largest supermarket’. If you printed that on a t-shirt, she’d wear it at the weekends.

Janelle and I have had an uncomfortable relationship since my first week here, when I saved a status report in a more logical place on the shared drive than:

S:/a4/janellestott/general/dayfiles/2010/js/Qzgg67/4/ac/dc/Y-me

By creating: S:/status reports, I have created a nemesis for life.

Janelle thinks I am disobedient. I think ‘I don’t care what you think,’ and we chafe against each other like an extra-small belt on a woman who likes custard and cream with her apple crumble. (No prizes for guessing who is who in that metaphor.)

I’m in luck – neither of them is visible and I bolt out the door and jump in a cab home.

Home is a mansion block in Little Venice: misleading. When I hear mansion, I think Krystle Carrington’s sweeping staircase, not a one-bedroom, fifth floor flat with no lift. And Little Venice is pushing it – more like Little A40, within a Tango can’s throw of the Westway. Still, Little’s accurate. And if I walk out of my flat and turn left I can be at Regent’s Canal in two minutes, and at Baker and Spice eating a blueberry muffin in three and a half.

I take the stairs two at a time – work to do! I dump my bag on top of my mail on the doormat and head straight for the bathroom, disrobing en route. I’m the lowest maintenance girlfriend on the planet after six months, but a first date is a first date and I have waited three weeks to see this man; I am going to look my absolute best.

My long brown hair is naturally curly. No one but Laura and my immediate family have seen me with curly hair since I was fourteen and no one ever will and live to write about it. When I blow-dry it carefully it takes an hour. Today: seventy minutes. Make up is light and for once I don’t cut myself shaving my legs.

To the bedroom: it takes me seven minutes just to find tights that don’t have a ladder below the knee. I find one of the holy un-holey pairs, and ferret out my best four-inch black heels from the bottom of my wardrobe. One day I’m going to be the type of woman with Polaroids on the front of her shoeboxes. Probably the same day I win the Nobel for Services to Custard.

My dress is fantastic – clingy and low on top, flirty and loose from the waist, in a deep purple that makes my eyes look very green. £40 from Topshop and it passes for Roland Mouret. I’d never normally think it, let alone say it, but I leave the flat looking great. Well, I look great, the flat looks like I’ve been burgled – twelve pairs of tights decorating the bedroom floor and my work clothes strewn down the hallway. Ben, the caretaker in my block, double takes and wolf whistles as he helps me into my minicab.

I’m insanely nervous and hopeful and excited. I haven’t been this excited about a man since I met Nick five years ago. I try not to think about Nick and instead pick up the phone to call Laura, my dating guru, the happiest person I know. She and Dave have been together a decade and yet they look at each other like they’re on a fourth date.

‘I’m on my way,’ I say.

‘Relax. Be happy, keep it light, don’t talk about Nick. Just remember, you are exceptional and smart and gorgeous and funny and any man would be lucky to have you.’ I nod. I believe at least half this sentence.

‘What if I don’t fancy him? It’s been so long I can’t remember what he looks like.’ Other than that he’s manly and his eyes have a deviant twinkle.

‘If nothing else it’s a free dinner.’

No such thing, as even the biggest fool knows.

My cab pulls up outside the restaurant a perfect ten minutes late. I see James through the glass looking slightly panicked that he’s going to be stood up, but when I walk in, his eyes open wide and his whole face lights up.

‘Remember me?’ I say.

‘You’re even better than I remember,’ he grins.

So is he. Thick brown hair with just a smattering of grey, blue eyes, a large Roman nose. Tall and broad, with a stomach that he wears well. I love big men; I love big noses. He must drink a lot of water, his skin is amazing – he looks late thirties, tops. Not a hint of hair product or jewellery or any of the metrosexual accoutrements that adorn modern girly-boys. As he stands to kiss me, he rests a firm hand on my back. There is such confidence in his gesture – a mix of strength and gentleness – that I feel myself start to blush.

‘I’ve never noticed this place before,’ I say, taking a seat and trying to stay cool as he pours me a glass of red wine. From the outside it looks like nothing special but inside it’s cosy and romantic: dark oak tables, simple silver cutlery, half-burned candles, warm grey walls. Every table is full.

‘An Italian friend introduced me to it.’ I wonder fleetingly if the friend was female.

‘So how’s your friend Rob?’ I say.

‘Sends his love! He got an earful from Lena that night.’

‘He shouldn’t flirt with other women in front of her,’ I say.

‘Rob’s a dog. A feisty girl like you wouldn’t put up with that, would you?’

‘Don’t try finding out.’

‘Not my style – I’m too forgetful to be a love-rat. Always better to be honest.’

‘So if your memory was better you’d be Tiger Woods?’

He shakes his head. ‘I’m a one-woman man. I never lie.’

My mother’s voice pops into my head telling my anxious 7-year-old self, ‘An axe murderer doesn’t have axe murderer written on his forehead’.

‘How was your day?’ I ask, taking a sip of wine.

‘Good,’ he says.