And it didn’t help, either, that my phone kept pinging with notifications from Tinder. I tried to be methodical about it, checking in every morning, swiping left on lots of people and right on a few, responding to the messages that came in (unless they had pictures of penises in them, which many did – by the time I’d been doing this a couple of months, I reckoned, I’d have quite the collection, enough to open a gallery or maybe publish a glossy coffee-table book) and sending a few new messages of my own.
But the process took ages. I mean, like, ages. Looking at guys’ profiles and trying to think of interested-sounding questions to ask them, weeding out the ones who appeared normal but within a couple of messages revealed themselves to be pervs. (‘Do you do that thing where you cross your legs and dangle your shoe off your toes?’ asked one. I mean, come on. I’m as broad-minded as the next person, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t in the market for a foot fetishist.) Then trying not to keep checking over and over again and not feel hurt when ones who seemed normal and nice descended into total radio silence when I suggested actually meeting up. Not to mention that, under my self-imposed rules, I had to rule out all the ones whose star sign wasn’t right.
So I was relieved when schools went back, a week of solid rain was forecast, Robbie was able to return to his usual post in the kitchen and the daily rhythm of the pub, from opening time to Maurice and his friends, the local retiree regulars, arriving at eleven for their daily dominoes game, to lunch and on through the afternoon and evening, was able to resume. And, one evening, I stuck my head around the door to check that Robbie had everything under control, because I had the evening off and I was going out.
His eyes widened when he saw me. ‘You’ve got a date! Oh my God, Zoë, you’ve actually got a date! Your first one!’
‘What makes you think that? I could just be meeting a mate for a pizza.’
‘Yeah, right. Dressed like that? I don’t think so.’
‘Dressed like what? Is it too much?’
‘Course not. You look stunning. Just, date-stunning, not meeting-a-mate-for-pizza stunning.’
I paused, tempted to ask if he was sure, and whether my green midi dress, denim jacket and gingham Converse were too girly, too frumpy, too try-hard or too something else, and whether my hair looked okay or had managed to explode into frizz in the time it had taken me to walk down the stairs.
But as I was trying to find a way to do that without sounding pathetically needy, Robbie demanded, ‘So who is he? Go on, spill.’
‘Just a guy off Tinder.’
‘Just a guy off Tinder! Come on, Zoë. That’s not good enough and you know it. Details, please.’
‘Okay, okay. His name’s Dominic. He’s thirty-one and he works for a construction company – I don’t know what doing, he could be the MD or a scaffolder or anything in between. Plays football on weekends, has a dog called Rufus, is a Virgo and is decent-looking.’
‘Ooooh, I shagged a Rufus once; he was lovely. And a Dominic, now I come to think of it. Let me see his piccy.’
Reluctantly, I handed him my phone with Dominic’s profile on the screen. I’d looked at his photos often enough to know what Robbie was seeing as he swiped through them: Dominic drinking beer out of a plastic pint glass at a festival, Dominic pressing his face up to his chocolate Labrador’s, Dominic holding his phone up to his bathroom mirror to take a shirtless selfie. Okay, that last one suggested that he might have a bit of a high opinion of himself, but I’d told myself I needed to be open-minded. And besides, anyone with pecs like that was entitled to want to show them off just a bit.
‘Hmmm. Bit hairy, isn’t he?’
‘I don’t mind hairy. Better than a man who waxes his chest, right?’
Robbie’s face fell. ‘I wax my chest.’
Oops. ‘It’s just personal taste,’ I soothed. ‘But I’d better get going or I’ll be late. Full report tomorrow, I promise. Sure you’ll be okay here?’
Robbie nodded, wished me luck and turned back to the stove, and I hurried out to the station. The evening was cool and fresh after yet another rain shower, and I glanced anxiously up at the sky, wondering if I should have brought an umbrella. But it was a clear, washed-looking blue, with just a few clouds receding to the horizon. A good omen, I told myself.
Half an hour later, I was perched on a bar stool in a packed central London pub, nervously sipping a glass of white wine and trying not to jump out of my skin every time the door opened, which was often.
Seven o’clock came, then five past. I glanced at my phone. My Stargazer app had told me that Virgos were meticulously punctual – clearly Dominic hadn’t got that memo. To pass the time, I flicked the app open and turned again to the entry that was meant to tell me what to expect from my date.
As steady as the earth element that governs this sign, your Virgo fella is hard-working, meticulous, patient and kind. He’s a perfectionist and good with his hands – so maybe a scaffolder, then, not the MD of a construction company. And good with his hands? I could get behind that, depending on where said hands were at the time. The downside? Picky Virgo can be critical and stubborn, prone to overthinking. Well, he was fifteen minutes late already. I’ll give him some bloody criticism when he turns up and let him overthink that, I thought.
When it comes to intimacy, your virile Virgo is a slow-burner. He waits for love before rushing into a physical relationship, and as a lover he’s caring, romantic and skilful. And did we mention good with his hands?
That was all very well, but it didn’t mean a row of beans if Mr Meticulous wasn’t going to show up. I checked WhatsApp, my text messages and the Tinder app, but – apart from a couple of new ‘Hey girl’ messages, which I always ignored, and a new dick pic to add to my growing collection – there was nothing. I double-checked the messages we’d exchanged; I was definitely in the right place. And it wasn’t like the pub was called the King’s Head or something, and there might be another half a mile away with the same name. The Horse and Feathers was about as uncommon as pub names got, possibly even better than the Ginger Cat. It was a pub-name googlewhack.
My wine glass was empty and I was starting to feel that toe-curling awkwardness you get sitting alone in a bar, like everyone there knows you’re single and your date’s stood you up.
Maybe, I thought, Dominic was sitting somewhere at a table just a few feet away, waiting for me. Maybe, even though the photos on my profile were all less than eighteen months old, he’d somehow failed to recognise me. Maybe – I died a bit inside at the thought – he’d actually turned up, seen me, and turned right around again and left. I scanned the room again, but there was no stocky dark man sitting alone looking out of place and anxious. No stocky dark man sitting alone at all, in fact.
Enough, I decided, was enough. It was seven twenty-five. I was done here. I was going to get the train home and see if Robbie could use any help, and if he couldn’t I was going to go up to my flat and get into bed with Frazzle like the sad loser I was.
No – I wasn’t, I told myself. I was going to pull up my big-girl pants and go to Din Tai Fung, a restaurant right round the corner, and order their famous soup dumplings and eat them by myself, with my head held high, like the strong, independent woman I was. Or the strong independent woman I wished I was. There wouldn’t even be a wait for a table, since there was only one of me. And I was a chef – it was basically research, as opposed to having a meal alone like a saddo.