Name & Address Withheld (7 page)

It must have been a combination of these reasons, coupled with her abnormally high temperature and a strange heaven-sent force, that drove Rachel to do something that she had never thought she would ever do. Taking the ‘Ask Lizzie’ column to her study, she wrapped herself in a blanket and flicked on her computer. It was as if an alien force had entered her
body. She half expected Mulder and Scully to appear shouting in the doorway, just as it was too late to save her, but something compelled her to sit down at her computer and type out a letter.

It flooded onto the page. Rachel couldn’t get the sentences out fast enough. Seeing the words on the screen was cathartic, and much less expensive than hiring a therapist, and somehow it was a relief not to have to say any of it out loud. She could admit to herself that she was a bit of a selfish, self-centred control freak with workaholic tendencies who had taken her husband for granted via a keyboard, but actually vocalising it would be a whole different ballgame.

One long, convoluted paragraph later, Rachel looked up. There it was—her life in black and white. She added a few commas and full stops before signing it without thinking, then deleted her name and, remembering the problem page etiquette of her youth, typed ‘Desperate Matt Dillon fan, London’. Smiling, Rachel replaced the pseudonym with the more credible ‘Name and Address Withheld’ and pressed print quickly, before she lost her nerve.

Deleting the document from her hard drive, she held the only hard copy above the wastepaper basket for a few moments, resisting the urge to scrunch it into a ball, instead folding it and putting it in a self-seal envelope. She hadn’t enclosed her address. She didn’t really want or need an answer. But by sharing everything with a total stranger at least now she felt she’d been proactive. She addressed the envelope and slipped it into her briefcase. Maybe she’d post it. Then again she could always shred it tomorrow at the office if she changed her mind.

As she clambered back into bed Rachel closed her eyes and promised herself that she would make more of an effort. Five years of marriage were worth fighting for. She was far too young to be a divorcee. These agony aunts are fantastic, she mused. She felt tons better already.

chapter 5

S
unday morning dawned a little earlier than usual at 56 Oxford Road. Lizzie had been wide awake for a good half-hour, pinching and tensing various body parts and wondering whether it was physiologically possible that she had put on a visible amount of muffin-related weight since Friday night. If she concentrated hard she was sure she could feel a spot on her nose. Perfect timing. A first-date outbreak. She resisted the overwhelming urge to wipe her t-zone on the duvet cover and finally conceded that more sleep was out of the question. Time wasn’t going to tick by any slower if she got up.

Soon Lizzie was languishing in her second bath in twelve hours. Last night’s had promised to detoxify her and this morning’s foaming oil was supposed to be sensual, although it smelt more like a melted down throat lozenge than an aphrodisiac to Lizzie. Maybe that was where she’d been going wrong all these years.

A strange transformation was taking place. Over the last couple of years, via a gradual process of attrition, Clare had introduced a new dimension to Lizzie’s cleansing ritual. A quick splash with soap and water had been outlawed, and
while at first she had complained about the complexity and expense of it all, Lizzie now secretly enjoyed her ablutions. Her brother might have taught her how to spit bathwater a very long way, but he hadn’t given her the inside track on exfoliation and soap-free cleansers. Thanks to Clare, Lizzie now had a beauty ‘routine’ of sorts.

Fifteen minutes ago she had decided to administer an amateur mini-facial to her over-cleansed pores in preparation for lunch. Only now, reading the small print on the back of the tube, it appeared she needed a muslin cloth. But where on earth did you get a muslin cloth before eleven on a Sunday? And what did you do with it the rest of the time? Her bathing idyll shattered, she hurriedly washed the mask into the bathwater and pulled the plug.

Once safely returned to dry land, she inspected her shins slowly to check she hadn’t missed any hairs on her earlier shaving spree while debating what to wear. At least if you met someone after work there was only so much you could do in a maximum of five minutes with mascara, a hairbrush and a hand towel in the Ladies’. Sunday lunch usually called for the ‘girl next door’ look, but this was proving difficult to plan as she didn’t know where Matt lived or where they were going. As Lizzie moisturised all over she couldn’t help wondering whether this was all a waste of time. The more effort she made, the more disappointing the date usually turned out to be. But the pampering was for herself. Honest.

Back in her bedroom, Lizzie stood in front of her chest of drawers, the towel tied round her waist gradually loosening itself, forcing her to gyrate her hips slowly as if trying to keep an invisible hoop aloft. Clare must have thought this was some sort of pre-date limbering up process when she chose that moment to bring Lizzie yet another cup of tea. Maybe it was a thinly disguised attempt at sabotage. Lizzie was sure that she had read somewhere that tea was bad for cellulite. The towel finally fell to the floor.

‘Great, Liz, he’ll love it. The nude look is really in this year. You might think about a few accessories though.’

Lizzie reclaimed the damp cold towel and tied it firmly
round her body, using her armpits to clamp it in place before taking her tea from Clare.

‘Ha-ha…’ A slight edge of panic crept into her voice as she just stared into the open drawer. It might as well have been empty for all the inspiration its contents were currently emitting. ‘What on earth am I going to wear?’

‘Why don’t you start with underwear?’ Clare climbed into Lizzie’s bed to watch her getting ready. She’d given up on dating. She didn’t want to have to think about putting a loo seat down when she stumbled to the bathroom during the night, and her days of removing pubic hair embedded in the soap because Mr Shag didn’t believe in using a sponge were over. But if Lizzie was still determined to give men the benefit of the doubt then at least Clare could experience the first date build-up vicariously, and of course she was there to give Lizzie all the sartorial and moral support she needed.

He could do the justification. The fact he was entitled to a little bit of happiness. The fact he wasn’t having what most people would call a relationship with his wife these days. The fact that he’d found someone to have some fun with. The problem was that, whether it was in name only or not, he was married. Fact. No matter which angle you approached the situation from, he only came out of it one way. As a two-timing, unfaithful lowlife.

It may be a cliché, but Lizzie really was different. And when he’d woken up yesterday he’d felt fresh for the first time in months. He’d walked round London with his eyes wide open, invigorated by the smells of life and the sounds of the capital. Everything appeared to have more colour. Now he was sounding like some sort of love-struck teenager in a creative writing class. There really was no hope.

Matt knew he was being selfish, but being fair hadn’t worked that well for him so far. It wasn’t that he resented his wife’s success, her hours or her focus. Quite the reverse. He’d never done needy. And he’d been so proud of her. Objectively, he still was. He wouldn’t care if they barely saw each other if, when they did, it was special. Now it wasn’t even mediocre.
And she wasn’t prepared to try. That was the problem. One-way traffic. Their relationship wouldn’t have passed even the most relaxed quality control.

Yet, even with all the excuses, devious just wasn’t his style. He was a nice guy, not some Lothario, and frustratingly he seemed to be at the mercy of his principles which apparently weren’t interested in keeping a low profile. He was going to tell Lizzie over lunch. She was an agony aunt; she knew life wasn’t perfect. He’d just have to trust her to understand. And hope she didn’t run a mile.

By the time the doorbell rang at nine minutes past one Lizzie had been pretending to read a magazine on the sofa for the last twenty minutes, but not a word had sunk in. Instead it appeared that the glossy pages were simply reflecting her nerves straight back at her. She didn’t know what she was worrying about, and it had been so long since she’d last been on an official ‘date’ that she couldn’t remember whether she’d always felt like this.

Clare had finally—and thankfully—gone to work just over an hour ago, but that had left Lizzie with nothing to do except sit, sit, sit, check her appearance in the mirror and then go to the loo again. Her clothes said relaxed and weekend but not scruffy, and she’d put enough effort into her accessories and eye make-up to signify effort without trying too hard. At least she was waiting at home and not pacing up and down in the cold, round the corner from where she had actually arranged to meet him, in order to try and be a couple of fashionable minutes late.

She left a few seconds after the buzzer went before sauntering over to the intercom while her stomach looped the loop a couple of times. There he was. Fantastic. She grabbed her keys and cast a quick glance over the radiators. All set for a possible post-lunch coffee. The sitting room was a knicker-free zone.

As she opened the door she wondered…to kiss or not to kiss? Awkward moment number one, and they hadn’t even said hello yet. Dating hell had begun. This was, she reminded herself, why recently she had opted for the being single option. That
and the fact that there hadn’t been a long line of eligible or desirable suitors to hand…not even a short line.

‘Matt.’ She was bright, breezy, and hoped her choice of perfume wasn’t too overpowering. Nothing worse than burning your first date’s nasal hair within seconds of meeting. He seemed unfazed, and didn’t sneeze. All good signs. To her disappointment he resisted the urge to kiss either her cleansed and toned cheeks or her freshly moisturised and glossed lips. She pretended not to care.

‘Lizzie, hi…you look great.’ She really did. In actual fact ‘great’ really didn’t do her justice. Matt could feel his good intentions slipping away. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late. I had to shoehorn my car into a tiny space up the road.’

He had driven. So he wouldn’t be drinking much. Lizzie wasn’t sure if this was good or bad.

‘What do you drive?’ Lizzie craned her neck to look at the row of wing mirrors jutting out into the pavement at waist height.

Matt resisted the urge to answer ‘a car’. Sometimes the oldest lines were not always the best.

‘A Karmann Ghia….’

‘Wow.’ Not Lizzie at her most articulate. But definitely one of her favourite classic cars of all time. Very stylish. A sign? An image of Clare shaking her head appeared. Of course not. Just a car.

‘It’s one of my weaknesses, I’m afraid. I spent my last bonus on having her resprayed.’

‘Convertible?’ Lizzie knew the answer before she’d even asked the question.

‘Of course. Vital for the approximately thirteen sunny days we have every year.’ He grinned, proud of his male logic.

Lizzie laughed. Excellent. He could tease himself, and hadn’t even tried to drop engine statistics into the conversation.

‘Such a great shape. Obviously designed when wind tunnels hadn’t been invented to ensure maximum fuel efficiency.’

Matt nodded. ‘We’ll have to go for a spin in it some time.’

A spin?
A spin?
Matt’s cool temporarily deserted him. No
one had gone for a spin in forty years. Was embracing your parents’ vernacular all part of the ageing process?

‘That’d be great.’ Lizzie hadn’t registered ‘spin’ per se, only the allusion to a follow-up outing before they’d even left the doorstep. Excellent. ‘So where are we off to, then?’

Lizzie managed to sound much calmer and more offhand than she felt. She could feel her blood coursing through her veins and was trying to breathe deeply and slowly without it being apparent to anyone but herself. She didn’t want Matt to think she was about to break into an aria as they were walking along.

‘I’ve booked a table at that flash-looking restaurant on the river. I thought we could probably walk from here. It’s a perfect day.’

‘Fab.’ A man who felt happy eating somewhere that wasn’t a pub, a Café Rouge or a Pizza Express. And he was right, it was a perfect day. Lizzie inhaled deeply as they walked down the road. It smelt like December. That fresh, clear, cold and slightly smoky smell which even in London made you think of log fires and snow-covered copses.

Winter was probably Lizzie’s favourite season. On the days when the pale yellow sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky and frosty grass crunched underfoot, life was good. There was something ethereal about wrapping up in jumpers and fleeces and walking until the tips of her ears and toes froze only to be rewarded with a steaming mug of hot chocolate, or lunch with a mysterious new man…

Matt broke into her reverie. ‘I love days like this. All we need is a bit of snow and a few Alps…’

Yippee—same wavelength.

‘An open fire…logs crackling…and blankets.’ She had meant it innocently enough. Only out loud it had overtones, under-tones and
double entendre
at every turn. Matt fortunately hadn’t picked up on it. He was happily chatting about the positive effects of sunshine on the UV-challenged British public.

As they strolled down towards the river Lizzie sighed contentedly. It was at times like this that she felt the relief of finally being an adult without all the hang-ups and put-downs
that had dominated almost every conversation on dates in her twenties. So her dates were further and fewer between these days—at least they had some potential when they did happen. A complete contrast to the grab-any-guy-to-prove-I’m-still-attractive approach that had kicked in after her last serious relationship crashed and burned. No one was going to tell her who she was and what she wanted any more. Love me, love my CD collection. Gone were the days of hiding
The Best of Erasure
in the depths of her underwear drawer. It might have taken a while, but it seemed she had finally learnt her lessons well.