6. SPECIALITY OF THE DAY
SIX
SPECIALITY OF THE DAY
Someone called James fancied meeting her. Not Jim, or Jimmy, but James. And James was a solicitor, which was all very respectable, and he lived in Chalfont St Giles, which was even more respectable.
‘I bet he’ll bore the socks off you,’ Orla predicted.
‘Just as long as he leaves my knickers on,’ Tess replied, wondering what sort of outfit she should wear this time. What was appropriate for lunching with a solicitor in a country pub near Windsor? She’d try for the smart ‘county’ look. She only possessed one cashmere sweater so she’d better wear that, with her new wool trousers and sensible loafers. And pearls. A discreet double row of pearls round her neck and studs in her ears.
Deciding what she should wear on special occasions had always been a minor trauma for Tess.
Not for the first time, she wondered if she’d spent most of her life trying to fit in; not to stand out in the crowd, always to wear the right thing and say the right thing, not to upset anyone. Was that her fairly strict Scottish Presbyterian upbringing or her own eager-to-please nature? Heaven knows, but she’d always tried to please Gerry and look where that had got her. David, though, had loved her just as she was. So perhaps now it was time to stop trying to please other people and start trying to please herself.
‘I’ve seen the Queen look more exciting,’ Orla commented when Tess popped into the shop en route to her date.
‘Off you go then to meet your plumber, or whatever he is, in your tatty jeans,’ Tess said.
‘I’ll have you know he runs a sanitation company.’
‘So, he’s a plumber.’
‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with that.’
‘I didn’t say there was.’ But I’d rather be meeting my solicitor, Tess thought. What a boost to my confidence this would be! I could do with coming up in the world, and he’s bound to go to nice places; I bet this pub is really something.
And so Tess got into her car and headed towards Windsor. It was a cold, wet late February morning and, as she peered through the overworked windscreen wipers, she dreamed of a country pub with a huge inglenook and a blazing fire. She was to meet James at midday, and she arrived in the pub car park five minutes early, so she sat in the car and wondered which of the smart vehicles parked alongside might belong to James. The Porsche, perhaps? Or the Merc, or the Alfa Sport?
Just then an enormous motorbike snarled into the car park and a black-leathered giant dismounted. Tess watched as he removed his helmet, exposing a bald head adorned only with one large silver earring. This was no youthful rocker, more like an elderly thug. Where did these people come from ?
She watched him go into the pub and consulted her watch. She’d give it another five minutes and then she’d go in. James had said he’d be waiting for her at the bar, at the far end, next to the board advertising ‘Speciality of the Day’. ‘Let’s hope you’ll consider me the speciality of the day!’ he’d quipped, so at least the man appeared to have some sense of humour.
But Tess felt nervous. What if he hadn’t arrived? Was she going to have to stand next to ‘Speciality of the Day’ and wait for him? She supposed she’d better get used to this sort of thing, because it was most likely to be the only way she was going to meet up with these ‘hearts’. She certainly wasn’t going to have any of them come to pick her up from home. In fact, even MMM advised against that . Meet on neutral territory , they advised. We can’t guarantee you’re going to love all your ‘hearts’ and, if you found a persistent or obsessive one, you certainly wouldn’t want him knowing where you live. Persistent? Obsessive? That hadn’t featured in their marketing blurb.
Tess pushed the door open to an already crowded bar. It was well supplied with artificial beams, and on every wall were pictures of motorbikes and detailed diagrams of engines. Not exactly what she’d envisaged. She peered past the chatting customers, looking for today’s ‘Specials’ sign. No one likely to be James was standing by the blackboard, only Motorbike Man, still clutching his helmet. It was just as she feared; she must have got there before him. Surely he should have made a point of getting there first if he was any kind of gentleman? Well, there was nothing for it but to share the space with Motorbike Man so that James could spot her when he finally arrived.
She reached the sign and wondered if she should order a drink, when Motorbike Man said, ‘Tess? ’
Tess jumped. ‘Yes?’
He held out his hand. ‘James.’
For a split second she stared at him in astonishment, then remembered her manners.
‘Well, this is a surprise,’ she said lamely.
‘Let’s find a table,’ said James. ‘Then I’ll pop into the loo and remove these leathers.’
They squeezed past table after table before finally finding a vacant one next to a mock fireplace, minus the roaring fire. Or any kind of fire. It was bitterly cold.
‘I’ll just get these off,’ he said, ‘and then I’ll get us a drink.’ And with that he disappeared round the corner. Tess decided to keep her coat on but unbuttoned it to expose her cashmered bosom. Everyone in here was clad in jeans and trainers and leather jackets. When James reappeared, he too was wearing faded jeans and a less than pristine grey fleece. He reminded her very slightly of Grant Mitchell in EastEnders .
‘What’s your poison?’ he asked.
‘I’m driving,’ Tess replied. ‘So I’d better have a lime soda or something.’
‘Aw, live dangerously!’ he said. ‘One glass of something isn’t going to hurt.’
‘Just a small white wine then, please.’
He came back with a large glass of wine and a pint of beer for himself. ‘Pinot Grigio OK?’
‘Yes, fine.’ Tess cleared her throat. ‘Did you say you were a solicitor, James?’
‘Correct,’ he replied, raising his glass. ‘And you make dresses? ’
‘And other things. I run a little boutique with my friend.’
‘And what else do you like to do, Tess?’
‘Well, I enjoy a bit of gardening and?—’
‘You’re not into biking then?’ he interrupted.
‘Not really.’
‘Bikes are my passion. Did you see my Fat Boy out there?’
‘Fat boy?’ Tess was confused. ‘I didn’t see any fat boys.’
He roared with laughter. ‘No, no, that’s the name of the bike! You must have seen my Harley? You know what? Riding that’s the nearest I get to an orgasm these days!’ He poked her playfully on the arm, perilously close to her left breast. ‘But I’m open to offers!’
Tess was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable as well as somewhat overdressed. She twiddled nervously with her pearls. ‘Have you been on your own for long?’
‘Ever since my other half took off with her Spanish night-class teacher a year and a half ago. I ask you!’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Tess said. ‘Mine took off with a woman young enough to be his daughter eleven years ago.’
‘Eleven years!’ He regarded her with amazement. ‘You must be a bit short of orgasms too!’ He roared with laughter again.
‘I have had a relationship,’ Tess said, ‘with a lovely man who died in an accident a couple of years back.’ She didn’t like the way this conversation was going.
‘You’re so very ladylike!’ said James. ‘But I’m living in hope that there’s still some hot blood coursing around in these veins of yours, underneath that jumper!’ He gave her another playful poke.
Tess sipped her drink. ‘I’ve never met a solicitor like you before. ’
He laughed. ‘They all say that! Anyway, I specialise in company law, not all those messy divorces and stuff. I have a mate who does all that though, and he’ll sort me out when I divorce the bitch – make sure she gets next to nothing.’
Tess wondered how quickly she could escape. She gulped her wine. I wanted to like him, she thought, but I don’t. I want to go home.
‘Stay there while I get us another drink,’ he ordered, and with that he was up and heading towards the bar.
He returned with another glass of wine and another pint.
‘I can’t drink this,’ Tess said. ‘I’ll get arrested.’
‘Of course you won’t! Not enough police round here to catch a cold. If they can’t catch me with my Milwaukee-Eight engine, they aren’t going to catch you in your – let me guess – Micra? Focus?’
‘I still don’t think?—’
‘Thing is, you’ve got to out-race them. See, this Harley is so much lighter than the old softail. It’s 1,868cc.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘Did you see the movie Terminator 2 ? It featured in that. Great bike!’
Slowly Tess buttoned up her coat.
‘Aren’t you going to drink that? No? Never mind! Fancy coming back to my place?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Or I could come to yours? You’re somewhere near Kingston, aren’t you?’
‘No thanks, James.’ Tess was standing up. ‘I don’t think there’s much point. I’m not looking for instant sex, or motorbikes for that matter. And I really should be getting back. ’
‘Why? We’re supposed to be getting to know each other!’
She sighed. ‘Somehow I just don’t think we’re likely to be compatible. Sorry, James.’
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ James snapped. ‘And you could be quite attractive if you loosened up a little. Let your hair down.’
Tess picked up her shoulder bag.
‘Off you go then! Get into your little 1200cc or 1400cc Micra or Focus or whatever it is, and head back to your sewing machine! I bet the car’s silver and you listen to Classic FM when you’re driving.’
‘Thanks for the wine.’
Tess headed for the door, hoping he wouldn’t see her getting into her 1400cc silver Ford Focus. Not that she was ashamed of it; David had found it for her and it was a great car. But she knew James would have a self-satisfied smirk on his face; he was that type. As she turned the key in the ignition, Classic FM was playing some soothing Beethoven. She sat quietly for a moment and let the music drift over her. What was wrong with driving a Focus and listening to Classic FM? She didn’t like his sneering superiority and she didn’t like being typecast as some mediocre sort of woman. Perhaps the problem was his. Perhaps he wasn’t attracting the women he hoped he would, and it had made him bolshie and bitter. She was trying very hard to give him the benefit of the doubt. Or was the problem hers ? Did she need to loosen up, as he suggested? Had she become a narrow-minded old prune? As well as being wholesome ? Could you be both? But she had to be honest with herself; she did not like the insinuations he was making and his manner of speaking .
Damn the man! She’d spent one hundred and fifty hard-earned pounds to meet men like Benedict and James. She should never have listened to Orla. And, come to think of it, that bullish James looked nothing at all like the lovely Ross Kemp who played the part of Grant Mitchell.
But Tess knew it was partly her own fault. She’d probably felt self-conscious and vulnerable by wearing the wrong gear. But how was she to know it was a pub for motor enthusiasts? She’d given James an easy excuse to mock her. After all these years she still got it wrong. And she cringed as, yet again, she remembered Marilyn Ford’s birthday party…
It was the summer of her seventeenth year and Marilyn Ford was the most popular girl in Tess’s class. Everyone wanted to be in Marilyn’s select little group, including Tess, but she was not one of the chosen few. Marilyn was not only pretty but she also lived in a big house where, it was rumoured, they had a swimming pool . Nobody, but nobody in Strathcoy had a swimming pool. And she was greatly revered by her less fortunate classmates. Tess never knew why – having been ignored by this girl for years – she’d been invited to Marilyn’s birthday party. Perhaps it had been some sort of mistake, or perhaps it was because she’d recently won a dressmaking competition and had her photo in the local paper, thereby qualifying, however temporarily, to be included in the exalted circle. More likely it was because her sister, Barbara, who was three years older, had recently shocked Strathcoy to the core by eloping with an Egyptian . Barbara had spent most of her nineteen years scheming about how to get away from Strathcoy and see the world, and her passport had come in the shape of Omar, who was handsome but considered feckless by their parents. Not only was he a wheeler-dealer, her mother said, but who knew what sort of background he had? And worst of all, he was thirty - seven ! Their father had forbidden her to see him. So Barbara did what Tess suspected she’d do, and took off with him. Yes, that would be why she was invited; everyone loved a scandal and they’d want to know about Barbara.
It was August and Tess, as usual, panicked about what to wear. It was bound to be a posh do. There was no money, her mother said, to go buying party dresses. But Tess had a Saturday job in Woolworths and had saved just enough money to buy some material and make a dress: something summery and pretty and full-skirted. She eventually found some cotton, adorned with pretty pink roses against a background of honeysuckle. Tess loved it and wasted no time in shaping it into a party dress. It took four evenings, after school and homework, to get it exactly right. Finally, the day before the party, she could pirouette in front of the bedroom mirror in her finery.
On the afternoon of the party, which was due to start at 6p.m., she donned the dress, brushed her hair out of its usual ponytail, applied her one and only lipstick which, by chance, was an exact match for the roses, slipped her feet into her white sandals, and sprayed herself liberally with her mother’s L’Aimant perfume. She’d got a little box of bath salts and talcum powder from Woolworths and hoped it would make an acceptable present.
Tess set off on her bicycle for the ten-minute ride to Strathcoy’s poshest suburb, which was set high above the town and so required some energetic pedalling .
It was a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky. Tess felt increasingly nervous as she made her way up the Fords’ immaculate drive, since she was ten minutes late and could hear voices and laughter coming from somewhere at the back of the imposing double-fronted house. She hoped she could slip in unnoticed.
Marilyn’s mother answered the door. ‘Just go through, dear,’ she said to a breathless Tess. ‘They’re all in the back garden by the pool.’ By the pool ! Oh, wow , so the rumours were correct: they had a pool!
Anxiously Tess wandered across an enormous lounge and through the French windows to where she could hear the laughter and splashing outside. There were around ten girls and three boys, all either in swimsuits in the pool or in shorts, shirts tied at the waist, feet bare.
There was a moment’s silence as Tess came into sight.
‘Didn’t Marilyn tell you it was a pool party?’ one of the girls asked, emerging from the water, dripping and grabbing a towel.
‘No,’ Tess replied. ‘She didn’t.’
She felt overdressed and out of place. She wasn’t a great swimmer, but at least she could have worn a shirt and the shorts she’d remodelled from an old pair of jeans. Instead, she sat sipping lemonade, isolated in a sea of the rose-patterned fabric, the full skirt of which had bunched up all around her, while everyone else splashed and swam and danced to The Mamas people were still paying off Christmas, the main winter sales were over, and it was too early and too cold to contemplate spring.
‘You were just unlucky. Anyway, you’re not going to love them all, for God’s sake,’ Orla retorted from the cupboard-like office at the rear of the shop, where she was supposedly doing the monthly accounts.
‘He didn’t look or act like any solicitor I’ve ever met,’ Tess went on. ‘I got the impression that he was only interested in his precious motorbike. And sex, of course. He was quite blatant about that.’
‘Aw, never mind. Perhaps he was just trying to shock you out of your Conservative tea party look! ’
‘I don’t look anything like someone at a Conservative tea party,’ Tess snapped.
‘Well, you did yesterday. Now, ask me about Paul.’
‘Paul?’
‘The sanitation man. Lovely guy and loaded ! He bought me a fantastic meal and we never stopped talking. And then I asked him back for a coffee.’
‘Orla! You know you’re not supposed to do that !’
‘Maybe not, but he fixed that dripping tap in my bathroom. And he’s coming back tomorrow to check the kitchen waste disposal; you know I told you the water takes forever to drain away? Paul thinks it’s the U-bend.’
‘Apart from his plumbing skills, do you like him?’
‘Actually, I do. He makes me laugh. And I can just be myself with him. And he doesn’t mind a bit of excess flesh. He said, “the more there is of a woman, the more of a woman there is”. You can’t argue about that, can you?’
‘I suppose not.’