Thursday, 12 March 2020

"Ah, is that Soph17 who may or may not be the woman of me dreams! Did you churn out more world-changing students at the university today?!"

Tom had left it three days until he called once more, me veering between two stances. "I'll call him! It's the 21st century, women do that!" and "Oh, has he changed his mind... met someone else in the meantime and that's it?"

When my phone buzzed on the Tuesday, I pounced. "And is that tight T-shirt Tom, who may or may not have heeded the warnings of his saintly Irish mother about forward British girls...? Did you single-handedly deliver letters to every person who lives in Glasgow today?"

"Ah, no. But at least the lifts in one of the tower blocks on me patch were working. Makes a big difference to your day when you don't need to go up 20 flights of stairs. You do some talking. I'm a sucker for a posh voice. Tell me about the fascinating tings that happened to you today?"

Truly? This, and this only... I curled my feet underneath me on the armchair and settled back, smiling at the ceiling. Tom's accent rendered ordinary words cute—tings for things, dat for that and dey for they.

"I woke up early and spotted a hedgehog in the garden underneath the bird feeder. He was there for ages and when he left, he ran off so fast it made me laugh. They run soooooooooo quickly. Oh, and when I went out to buy myself lunch, I spotted one of the stars of River City on Byres Road."

River City was a BBC Scotland soap, a devoted audience of... what, two or three hundred?

"Oh my God, I'll never match that! My best ting was when..."

We kept it light—Tom entertaining me with his observations on life in Glasgow as a recent émigré. If this was getting to know you, it was small scale. Our jobs and what they involved. Who we admired in public life. Our box-set binge choices. What we choose on the Wagamama's menu every time.

(Me—the sea bream curry, him the chicken katsu. Both of us, crispy fried squid topped with flakes of bonito on the side.)

I'd never connected with a... what, Sophie, working class man?, before. No investments or house price value chats, for a start. Nor did he ask where I'd gone to school/university, the latter subject one I wanted to steer clear of for the foreseeable future.

When he cried off two hours later, apologising but saying that if he didn't go to bed that second, he'd never get up in time, I floated upstairs hugging happiness to me. After that first time, I called the next evening surer of myself. Another two-hour chat which felt like gossipy nothingness, Tom the easiest person in the world to talk to.

On the Thursday, when he called once more during a working day I was only too glad to interrupt, I left ten minutes of general conversation drift by before taking a deep breath.

"If this isn't too shocking for your sainted Irish mother, d'you want to meet up on Saturday?"

When the answer wasn't immediate, I swallowed hard. Oops, I thought I'd read the—

"Sorry. Me mate popped into the room to ask me something there. That would be grand."

Phew.

"Where d'ye think we should meet?" he asked. "A public place so you feel safe just in case I'm a mad axe murderer who has a chest freezer full of body parts?"

I burst out laughing. "Okay, a public place it is. How about Kemble & Jones on Byres Road? They do amazing wraps and their coffee is the proper Italian stuff."

"Sure, why not? Good idea to meet at lunchtime, eh? If I bore you to tears, you can pretend you've got something on for de rest of de afternoon."

More laughter on my part. I'd borrowed the lunchtime meet-up trick from Darla, who promised me dating apps pros always suggested a mid-day rendezvous for the first date for that reason.

"One o'clock it is. See you tomorrow, Sophie. Time to find out if we like each other as much in person, eh?"

Too right. Date confirmed, I said goodbye and punched the air. Then another quick phone call.

"Lisa, it's Sophie. Look, I know it's so last minute, but can you squeeze me in for a facial, an inch-loss wrap and a blow dry tomorrow afternoon?"

"Woah! A micro-filler facial? You're mad!" Darla said the next day when I phoned her with my news, me sitting under the drier, my hair wrapped up in giant Velcro rollers. Lisa had grumbled, but as I was a long-standing client who'd spent thousands in her west end hair and beauty salon over the years, she agreed to fit me in.

"Lisa says the downtime is minimal," I said, pressing fingers to reddened skin and hoping that was the case. "Anyway, this is all your fault. You made me younger than I am. I've had to put in extra effort so Tom doesn't realise how ancient I am. This means I won't wake up shaking with nerves tomorrow."

By the time I woke up on Saturday morning—dewy skin, sleekly straight hair—that was still true. I checked my phone for last-minute advice from the dating guru aka my niece and spotted an email that sent my heart plunging to the floor.

"Sophie—how are you? I've been meaning to get in touch for a long time. I was so sorry about your—

I flung my phone across the room. How had Richard... after all this time, and that question I'd always longed to ask him. He picked now to email me. The thought of that conversation—the one I'd once been desperate for—made my stomach pitch and roil. I fled to the bathroom, retching into the toilet basin.

Cleaning it all up afterwards—toilet duck, sanitiser, repeated flushes—I toyed with the idea of cancelling Tom. Say you're ill... There was a deadly virus doing the rounds. A fantastic inbuilt excuse, right? And the unwelcome email wasn't something I could run past anyone for reassurance.

"So... there's this guy from my past who's connected to a period of my life that was a huge, huge mistake and led to appalling consequences that I"—no. No.

And 'no' to standing Tom up. I stood up and cleaned the sink in the ensuite, scrubbing, polishing, mopping and vacuuming a distraction technique I'd used since my 20s.

Mind made up, I picked an outfit that said, 'sexy but not trying too hard' (designer jeans, a silk V-necked jumper in light pink and block-heeled ankle boots) and left the house at twenty to one jittery with nerves.

Please let him be wonderful and that this works out, and that I can figure out how to make a relationship work when there are so many things I don't want to tell anyone...

AUTHOR'S NOTE - sorry if you've read this story before and are now getting updates. I do a lot of tweaking behind the scenes and fretting about commas, word choice and if I've repeated anything or info-dumped anywhere, so I fiddle with chapters all the time...