50 Ways to Find a Lover (13 page)

‘Oh, Sarah,’ she sighs again, although this time I detect in her voice a slight giggle being stifled.

‘Oh, Val,’ I giggle back.

‘Oh, Sarah,’ she goes again, but this time she sounds graver.

‘Oh Sarah what?’

‘Oh Sarah, your dad’s ever so disappointed.’

‘Why? What’s he done?’ I ask, intrigued.

‘Well, he bought a computer . . .’ she begins.

‘Oh?’ I say. I suddenly stop breathing. Please, God, say he hasn’t learnt how to use it and read my sex blog. Please.

‘Yes, well, you know what your father’s like – he hasn’t taken it out of the box yet.’

‘Oh ho.’ I chuckle with immense relief.

‘We started a computer course at the Age Concern place. Now before you say anything, it’s a very good course. And very reasonable: £15 for the whole term and there’s only seven of us in the class. We’re the youngest people in it. By quite a bit actually. Irish Patrick is the next youngest and he’s seventy-two. Nice man, does like his whisky though.’

‘This is great, Mum. We’ll be able to email each other soon!’

‘Um, well, I’m not sure we’ll be going back, Sarah. You see, Sarah, at the end of the lesson today your dad asked Ted the instructor if he could type in a website thingie that he thought we might like. And Ted said he would. And we all gathered around Ted’s computer and I wheeled Jean over. Your dad was ever so proud. He said, “This is my daughter’s blog” and we all put our glasses on, except Mavis who had forgotten hers so she leant up close to the screen. Well . . .’ My mum’s voice trails off and all I can hear is my heart.

‘Oh bollocks,’ I mumble.

‘Absolutely,’ agrees my mother slowly.

‘So what happened?’ I ask.

‘Well, I haven’t told you any of this. But Mavis loved it and so did Patrick. Patrick enjoyed it a bit too much, if you ask me. But we only got down to the bit where he said, “Do you” . . .’

‘Stop!!’ I bleat. ‘Mum, please don’t quote it to me.’

‘Yes, well, we didn’t read it all, because your dad asked them to turn it off. But, Sarah, he was very upset to begin with.’

‘Oh no,’ I say in sympathy.

‘You see, he wanted to surprise you and write a comment doobrie whatsit.’

‘Oh, this is terrible.’

‘Hmm. But now he’s very angry.’

‘Oh no,’ I say bleakly.

‘Yes, he’s talking about the money we wasted on your education. A lot. Anyway I’m going to get off the phone now because I can hear him coming down the stairs. He doesn’t want to talk to you. This is a tricky one, Sarah. I’m not sure how you’ll sort it out.’

I hang up slowly. Nope, I can’t think of any positive at all, except that at least no one in the Age Concern computer class suffered a heart attack while reading it.

fourteen

‘I wouldn’t go into the bathroom for five minutes if I were you,’ shouts Simon, poking his head into my room.

‘Lovely,’ I say, ignoring Bros.

‘It’s not your birthday, is it?’ he asks, walking up to my full-length mirror and squeezing a tiny whitehead on his chest.

‘No, why?’

‘Well your phone keeps ringing. You should change your ringtone, Sare, that one’s killing me.’

We listen to Bros until my voicemail takes the call. Simon stands tackling his whitehead. I kneel on my bedroom floor writing on an old discoloured sheet with a marker pen. I’m making a banner for my mum to spur her on when she runs the marathon next week. I’m so proud of my mum. Six years ago my grandad was very ill and he went to live with Mum and Dad. My mum looked after him constantly. She said that sometimes it would make her sad. Whenever she felt sad she would wait until he’d dozed off then she would put her trainers on and go for a jog. At first she couldn’t even make it to the postbox at the end of the road, but she persevered and in a week’s time she’ll be running twenty-six miles.

‘Why don’t you answer it?’

‘I don’t want to talk to anyone.’

‘Why don’t you turn it off then?’

‘Because it might be my agent.’ I don’t tell him that I would also answer the phone if it was a number that I didn’t recognize – just in case, and on the off-chance that Paul has been in hospital for three weeks and is now out and desperate to ask me to dinner. I have been thinking about Paul a lot recently. At what point do you stop hoping?

‘You not blogging today?’

‘Nope. I’m making a banner for my mum.’

‘Isn’t that my sheet?’

‘Oh fuck, I thought it was mine.’

‘Definitely mine, it’s a double. Don’t worry, I haven’t used it since you put it in a wash with your purple pants.’

‘Sorry, Si.’

‘Well, I’m pleased you’re up and focused, Sare, not lying about in bed blogging. I was getting worried about you.’

‘Yeah,’ I agree sadly. I miss my blog though. I feel as though I’ve lost a friend. Admittedly I did all the talking in the relationship and the friend clearly had a bad effect on me but I miss her all the same. I miss my quests. I miss checking my site meter. I even miss being scolded for my punctuation. But I would say that the fact I lied about having sex and then admitted to lying about having sex means I am not cut out for blogging, or men, or anything really.

My phone rings again. Please be Paul having just been released from hospital. I am ridiculous. Paul has had weeks to call me. He has chosen not to. Deal with it, Sarah. It’s not Paul. It’s Julia. I ignore it.

‘Sare! Who is it?’ howls Si.

‘Julia.’

‘Answer it.’

‘I said I don’t want to talk to anyone.’

‘Fucking hell, I’ll get it then.’ Simon picks up my phone. ‘Ello ello, Jules. Madam is in the middle of making a banner for her mum. Can I by any chance interest you in a BMW?’

Julia screams down the line. Simon’s body jolts at Julia’s megawatt output and he thrusts the phone away from his ear. We can both hear her. She is so over-excited that we can only make out a couple of words.

‘Fucking hell, Jules, you sound like Vanessa Feltz on E,’ shouts Simon at the phone. ‘I didn’t get a word of that. Breathe.’

‘AaahhhhohmyGooodd
EveningStandard
sexxxxx
EveningStandard
SarahSarahahhhohmyGodsexblogsexRachelBird.’

‘Blimey! Vanessa’s double-dropped,’ chuckles Si. I laugh. I realize that I haven’t laughed for days.

‘Sarah’s in the
Standard
!!’ screeches Julia through our laughter.

‘Why?’ shout Simon and I at the phone.

‘I was on the bus . . .’

‘On the bus, eh, Jules. Then I take it Big Daddy is deceased and you might like to test-drive my BMW,’ Simon says.

‘Big Daddy’s not deceased, he’s just resting in a garage for a few days,’ I tell Simon.

‘Let me finish!’ Julia yells. ‘I was on the bus and this woman was reading the
Standard
in front of me and I could see it was a feature on sex blogs but the bloody woman kept moving around. But when she got off I picked up the paper . . . oh my God. Listen to this: “Female blogger known only as Spinster set herself the task of exploring fifty ways to find a lover. But having read other steamier blogs she decided to lie about her sex life in order to appear more exciting and increase her readership.” There’s this whole article about sexy bloggers. They talk about Rachel Bird’s blog a lot but they mention yours. They’ve included your whole confession quote and given your blog’s address and everything.’

‘AAAAAAAAAGH. I feel like such a knob!’ I wail. I double up on the floor, winded by my own foolishness. It was one thing to admit to making up a sex story to eighty-seven readers, quite another to have it printed in London’s biggest-selling paper.

‘Sare, it’s amazing! Your blog’s famous!’ screams Julia.

‘Julia, it’s awful!’ I yell back.

‘What did you do?’ asks Simon, trying to keep up.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I sob.

‘Tell me!’ screams Si.

‘She made up a sex story on her blog,’ shouts Julia down the phone.

‘This I have to read,’ chortles Simon, handing me the phone and running to the computer in his room.

‘I’ve got to go and scream now, Jules. Bye.’ I hang up. I make the ‘urgh’ sound as loudly as I can in order to block out the demonic cackling coming from Simon’s room. My phone rings again. I answer it without thinking.

‘Hello,’ I croak. The ‘urgh’ sound has made me a little hoarse.

‘Um, is that Sarah? It’s Paul here.’

‘Oh.’ Oh my God, maybe he was in hospital after all.

‘Um, this is quite embarrassing but I was reading the
Evening Standard
and there’s this article about blogs in there,’ he says.