I consider pressing the bell for a second time but decide to
count to ten and see what happens. Nothing. This is obviously a wind-up. God, how
embarrassing. I polish my shoes behind my trouser legs and, in the process, nearly
fall backwards down the steps. I steady myself on the railings and look round discreetly
to see if anyone has seen this ridiculous manoeuvre. Fortunately they haven't.

Come on. It can't take that long to get to the door. Unless she's
on crutches. Or in a wheelchair. Or she's 105 but with the mind and libido of a
twenty-year-old. What the hell am I doing?

It's still warm outside and the last rays of the sun are playing
gently on the back of my neck. The smell of my hair gel begins to blend with my
Chanel Gentleman's Cologne. Oh, Christ! Perhaps it's all a bit too much - less is
more in these situations. She'll probably think I'm a poof. Probably thinks we all
are. The smell will probably put her off. She'll be totally freaked by the whole
thing and say 'Er, listen, I've been thinking. Thanks but no thanks. Hope you understand.'
Course I do. Don't blame you. I've got dressed up, spent seven quid on a taxi because
I was terrified of being late and all for nothing. Course I understand.

Oh, come on. I do a quick nose and fly check and push my tie
up again. Another ten seconds and I'm out of here. Forget this ever happened. Ring
Jonathan when I get home and tell him.

Call it thirty seconds. I've decided to be conservative in my
dress and go for dark grey trousers, blue blazer (without gold buttons - that would
be too much), a pale blue shirt and a dark maroon spotted tie.

Forget it. I'll just wander casually back along the road. Suddenly
the door is opened by a woman with a mass of thick, back-combed hair. She has a
drink in one hand and a phone in the other, the receiver clamped under her chin.
She looks at me for a second through dark eye make-up while the person on the other
end is talking and then she walks back down the hallway leaving the door open.

That's it. I'm definitely out of here.

Oh, Christ! What if she rings Jonathan and complains? I follow
her in. The house smells of her perfume and her dog. I hear it barking madly at
the back of the house and wonder whether it's on its way out to savage me and prevent
its mistress from making a fool of herself with a younger man, but then the noise
stops.

We go into what people living round here would call a drawing
room. Bookcases either side of a huge fireplace. A portrait of a woman above it.
I do a double-take - is it her? No, the woman looks slightly different. Mother?
Sister? I sit down on a hard leather Chesterfield settee. In front of me is a very
seventies brass and smoked-glass coffee table. I look around the room. It's an odd
mixture of posh and naff: an antique wooden sideboard with silver picture frames
and candlesticks next to a plastic garden chair stacked up with old copies of Tatler
and Harpers & Queen. Across the room is a highly polished grand piano and underneath
it a dog basket littered with chewed toys. I look back, not wanting to seem nosy.

She is still on the phone. The person on the other end is giving
her some strong advice.

'OK, OK,' she says. 'Look, I must go, Mummy. OK, OK. I must go
but I'll see you at Susie's. Yup, lots of love. Bye.'

She puts the receiver down and starts on at me. She looks like
an actress - strong cheekbones and a large, sensual mouth. Have I seen her somewhere
before? One of those three-part miniseries on ITV, perhaps? The ones my mum watches
and then says, 'How silly. I was really only waiting for the news.' Her face is
lined with tension and her eyes dart around the room. The small wrinkles round her
mouth are like streams flowing into a large dark lake. I realise I'm staring.

'I just want to talk, OK? Just talk.' She shrugs her shoulders
and I nod, not sure what to say. She is obviously quite pissed already. 'I don't
want anything else, OK? I don't even want to know what kind of things you get up
to with some of the women you see. I just want to talk, OK? I just want to go out
and have a drink and a chat and leave it at that.'

'I know, you told me.' She looks at me blankly. 'You said when
we spoke on the phone, earlier.'

'Exactly,' she says quickly. She told me that she was very embarrassed
about doing this and she had never done this kind of thing before but she'd read
about this service in the papers and suddenly thought this evening that it might
be a good thing to check it out or 'give it a whirl', as she had put it. So here
we are - me and Diana. On a date.

She flops onto the sofa, kicks off her shoes and runs her hands
through her hair, staring at the ceiling. She looks tired but psyched about something.
I get the feeling she spends a lot of time like this. 'I just want to relax a bit,
go to a nice restaurant and have a night off. You do understand, don't you, er,
Andrew? It is Andrew, isn't it? I'm sure you understand what I'm saying. We're not
talking at cross purposes, are we?' She avoids looking me in the eye or, for that
matter, having a conversation with me. I put it down to shyness. Or coke. Or madness.

'No,' I say. 'I know what you mean. That's fine with me.' Is
that right? I wish I felt as confident as I sound.

She gets up and is off again. 'I've never done this sort of thing
before. I don't know what kind of women usually do this. Probably sad old things,'
she laughs nervously, a deep, forced, humourless laugh that shakes her shoulders.
'I expect you're gasping for a drink. God knows I could do with another.'

I ask for a Scotch because that is what she is drinking and she
puts it down in front of me, spilling it slightly on the coffee table. Then she
looks at me again.

'You're a bit young, I must say. I would have thought they'd
have sent someone older.' I'm about to say something - God knows what - when she
starts again. 'Look, I'm going to get changed. There's the phone - you book somewhere.
I don't know where, I really don't care. Where do people eat these days? We used
to go to the Mirabelle. Is that still going?' She walks out without waiting for
a reply.

I turn round and pick up the phone. I ring directory enquiries
and ask for the Mirabelle. Thank God they've got a table for two in half an hour.
Perhaps I'll tell her that it was tricky but I know the maitre d'. Would she believe
that? Unlikely. Anyway, the Mirabelle. Should be fun. Except that I've got to entertain
her for two hours. Think of something witty to say. Like what? Oh, fuck! Never mind.
Better than sitting at home watching telly.

'This place has changed,' she says as she sits down. I suppose
I should have known where she'd like to go from the extensive database of restaurants
filed in my brain.

'When were you last here?' I ask her, suddenly realizing that
this is not a tactful question.

Sure enough she looks at me for a moment and then says: 'Probably
before you were born.'

I try and think of something charming to say like, 'Oh, I can't
believe that', but I'm not quick enough off the mark so I have to let that one go
rather ungallantly.

'Well, this all looks delicious, doesn't it?' she says, holding
the menu at a distance. 'Yeah-What on earth is arugula? You see it everywhere these
days, don't you? Is it a type of fish?'

'I think it's rocket, isn't it? Type of salad or something?'
I say, glad to be able to explain it to her as if I know a lot about food and restaurants
and what to eat.

'Oh, good. I love fish. I can never be bothered to cook at home.
It's hardly worth it for one, is it? Do you live on your own? Well, I suppose you
must in your line of work. I just live on toast and Marmite unless I'm having lunch
with someone ...'

I nod and smile. Well, if nothing else happens, at least I got
here.

We have quite a giggle even though I can't really follow a word
she says - something about her husband having an affair with some 'Euro trash totty'
he met when he was working in Frankfurt but she isn't that bothered - two months
after they had got married, she took up with a painter they had employed.

'What? While he was painting your house?' I ask. She looks surprised.

'He was painting my portrait.'

She also tells me about her mother having something done to her
conservatory in Herefordshire as well, I think. She drinks two bottles of red wine
on her own. I give up when I begin to feel my lips go numb. I have to stay sober
for obvious reasons. I make her laugh a bit towards the end of the evening and we
are almost the last to leave.

Outside I successfully hail a cab (thank God!) and we go back
to hers.

'That was fun,' says Diana, as if to confirm it. She flops down
on the settee and I stand for a moment, wondering whether I should make some sort
of move on her. I know this isn't necessarily part of the deal and I can't say it
feels right, but somehow I feel I should offer it.

So I wonder whether to sit next to her, which would mean twisting
my neck round to talk to her but would be better for the Next Move, or whether to
sit opposite her, which would make conversation easier but would mean I would have
to cross the room at the appropriate time should the situation arise.

'Yeah,' I say as casually as any man caught in this dreadful
dilemma can. Fortunately she gets up and walks over to the drinks cabinet.

'Now, how about another whisky?'

'Thanks,' I say, still standing. 'I mean brandy would be great'.

'Sit down,' she says and gestures to an armchair. Phew. That's
that decided, then. I think.

As she chatters away about a holiday she had a few years ago
in Mustique or somewhere like that where there was absolutely nothing to do but
fortunately a girl she was at school with had the hut next to hers, I find myself
waiting anxiously for some indication in her manner that she wants something else,
whatever that might be. But - thank God just before midnight she yawns and says
she has to get up early the next day to walk the dog. She signs the credit card
slip once she has found her glasses, slips me ten quid for my cab home and says
we should do it again some time. I ring Jonathan when I get home and he sounds very
pleased.

But then he always does.

That was the first one I did, I think. I can't remember now.
It all seems a long time ago.

As usual, I'm the last one in at work. Sami, who sits opposite
me, is already on the phone. She winks and smiles. I give her an exaggerated, goofy
'Hi'. She giggles. I hang up my jacket and cast an eye over the no-hopers I share
an office with. They too have taken the bait. 'Media Sales' said a siren voice from
the Media, Creative and Marketing bit of the Guardian. 'Move into advertising. Starting
salary up to £25k+. If you're a self-starter with a good telephone manner and work
well under pressure in a small team then Media Sales is for you. Clock-watchers
should not apply.'

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