Chapter 5
Surely to goodness, the guy I’d just bumped into on my way out hadn’t been on the books of the dating agency? He’d looked like a fitness model. Not to mention lovely and polite and like a Greek God. I usually preferred a dark and grungy guy, and if he liked gaming even better. I’d put all that on my application form, so I was sure the computer’s algos would work their magic for me. Shelley had been quick to point out that I might not find my perfect match right away, and that even if I did hit it off with someone, it could take a few dates before I realised I saw long-term potential. She didn’t need to worry. I’d stopped expecting miracles a long time ago.
Pushing open my front door, I had to give it a good shove. Once more, I’d left a shoe in the way of the door. Actually, as I tried to step through the hallway, I’d left quite a few shoes near the door, along with mail I couldn’t be bothered to open, and a few handbags, scarves, an umbrella, and other bits and pieces that needed putting away.
Tidy I was not.
I threw my coat off onto the bottom of the stairs, kicked my shoes off to join the others, and then walked through to the living room where I threw my bag on the sofa. I was thirsty and a cuppa would go down a treat, so it was off to the kitchen next where I had to rinse through a cup before I could have a drink.
Finally, shoving my dressing gown and bag further up the sofa, I put my feet up and laid back thinking of what I’d need to do if Shelley rang me later with a date. Really, I ought to shave my legs and underarms, but it was unlikely I’d end up in bed with them on the first date, so nah, I’d leave it. If something did happen, I had a razor in the bathroom and could do a quick de-fuzz. Much better that I had a little nap so I could look fresh as a daisy. Yes, that was the best plan by far. I drank my hot cup of tea, laid back down using my handbag as a pillow, pulled the robe over me and went to sleep.
An alarm going off made me jump a foot.
“Where am I?” I muttered to myself looking around. Ah, the sofa. So where was the alarm then? I realised it wasn’t an alarm but my mobile phone ringing in the bag that had been under my head. Scrambling to get to it before it rang off, I looked like one of those people fighting for the reduced items in the supermarkets.
“Hello?”
“Hi. Is that Zara?”
“It is.”
“Hey, it’s Shelley from Withernsea Dating. We have a date for you tonight, if you’re still available to go?”
“Yes, yes, I am. Let me grab a pen and paper.”
“Sure thing.”
Shelley proceeded to tell me that I would be meeting Conran Nelson at the Captain Williams pub on the promenade at 8pm.
“He’s your type on paper. Dark hair, a little grown out. He works with cars and bikes. Says he’s looking to settle down. Good luck.”
“Thank you,” I said, and promising to let her know how I got on, I ended the call.
Now, what to wear on a first date? If I made too much effort, he’d think I was super keen, but if I put in too little, he’d think I wasn’t interested. Balls, did I actually have any clean, ironed clothes? The answer was simply that all that hung in my wardrobe were the clothes that didn’t fit or that I wouldn’t usually be seen dead in. Or my funeral suit which was for the dead. That would have to do. It was a black skirt and black jacket and would hide a multitude of sins. I picked up a black T-shirt from my bedroom floor. You couldn’t tell it was creased or dirty. I squirted it with perfume and slipped it on. Then I quickly went around the room, kicking the crap on the floor under my bed just in case we did come back to mine. I’d just have to make sure to keep the lights off.
I was well aware of the pigsty I lived in and vowed on at least a weekly basis to do something about it. But living on my own had made me develop bad habits and it wasn’t bothering anyone else. It certainly wasn’t bothering me. Last week when I’d run out of clothes, I’d just popped to the second-hand shop and bought a few more. It didn’t cost much, helped the charity, plus they clearly laundered everything. It had smelled so lovely in there of wash powder. The thought had crossed my mind to donate all my clothes and just buy them back again once they’d washed them. But, of course, that was a crazy idea, right?
I was still mulling it over, to be honest…
Yet wasn’t this why I’d moved out into my own home? At my parents’ house, I’d been in one small bedroom and had to clean and tidy up as I went along. Nag, nag, nag. Here, I had no one telling me what to do and that was blissful.
It was just also, well… lonely.
But tonight, that might all change!
* * *
Captain Williams was crowded. It was a lovely pub and looked out over the Withernsea coastline. I stood near the fireplace where Shelley had said Conran would meet me and I waited… and waited. Meeting someone I didn’t know was awkward because it meant I was checking out every dark-haired guy who came into the pub and that was earning me some evil side-eye from wives and girlfriends who’d followed them in. Finally, at twenty-past the hour, a small dark-haired guy appeared, smiling at me he walked towards me. My first impression was that he was too short. Yes, he was decent-looking. Yes, he had dark hair and some facial scruff. But I was five foot eight and wearing heels and he was five foot six at a push.
It mustn’t put you off, I told myself, you can’t afford to be choosy, and he might be the nicest guy in the whole world.
“Zara, yeah?” he shouted, so loudly that the whole bar turned around, despite the fact music was playing. For a small guy, Conran’s voice was like a foghorn. He was also clacking gum. I hated gum. I hated the clack and I hated the smell. He leaned in closer and kissed me on the cheek and then clacked it right in my ear. I was going to have to say something. Oh no… hang on… it was okay, he was now removing it and sticking it onto the side of the fireplace. Oh, we had a keeper here for sure. How long before I could escape did we reckon?
For a small guy, he certainly was strong as his hand moved to my lower back and began steering me forward, “Let’s grab a seat where the views are, yeah?”
Confused, I looked over to the tables in the window. Sure enough, they were all full. “Leave it with me, doll. I know how to clear a room.”
Do you just clack gum near everyone?I wanted to ask, but obviously, I kept my mouth shut. I wished Conran would do the same, but it wasn’t looking like a possibility anytime soon. We walked over to the busy tables, and I saw Conran go in his pocket and then he threw something to the floor. I tried not to retch as the odour of rotten eggs hit all around us. It was a stink bomb! Every single person at the tables nearby yelled, “Eurgh,” looked around at the surrounding seated people as if they’d got a case of sudden-onset diarrhoea and got up and moved. Conran smiled and sat down.
“I’m just visiting the ladies’ room,” I told him, wanting to get away from the smell.
“Yeah, think you ought to with that stench,” his foghorn voice bellowed out and every person in our vicinity swivelled their head around to me, looking in disgust at the woman who had now clearly made the worst smell in Withernsea.
“Ha ha ha. You need to admit that it was you,” I said to him as I walked off.
“Get us a pint of bitter, doll, while you’re walking past the bar on your way back. And maybe a whiskey for you to settle your stomach.” He guffawed.
By the time I entered the ladies’ bathroom, I was seething. How had Withernsea Dating got this so wrong? He wasn’t my match made in heaven. More like in hell. I was just thinking that thought when a ginger-haired woman with a bob entered the bathroom.
“You okay, hun?” She went into her bag and took out a box of tablets.
I sighed. “I’m fine. I don’t have an upset stomach. It’s my date. He dropped a stink bomb to clear the table. I think I’m going to become a nun.”
She laughed. “Oh, this isn’t for you, sweetpea. It’s for him.” She held out a hand. “I’m Lucy. You can call me your earth angel.”
I looked at what she’d handed to me, and I raised a brow. “Aren’t angels supposed to be good?”
She smiled. “Yes, but I’ve spent time over on the dark side and so sometimes my angel-ing can be a little, shall we say, on the periphery, but it’s all to create the greater good, so my boss can’t really say anything.” She winked upwards to the sky. Someone had had too many sherries. “And so ultimately this is for the greater good because Conran out there is not acting like a very nice person right now and needs some lessons in being a little less…” She cackled. “I was going to say of a shit, but he’s going to be a lot more of a shit first. Anyway, I can’t be seen to condone putting this, in say a pint of beer.” She nodded to the packet. “But my friend Ebony sent me here to tell you she’d received a message that you had to kiss some frogs before you found your prince. That you’d find the king of your heart, and that fate was working on your happy ever after.”
Now it was all beginning to make sense. This Lucy knew the weirdo from the coffee shop. But she had handed me a packet of laxatives, and Conran really did have this coming to him…
I smiled—a genuine beaming smile—feeling the happiest I’d felt all night. “Thank you, and please tell Ebony thank you for the message.”
“Sure, sweetie. Right, I must get back to my husband. Ciao.” Lucy walked back out of the bathroom.
* * *
At the bar, I ordered a triple vodka and coke, and a pint of beer. “I saw you’re with the small, loud dude. Give me a shout if you need me to get rid of him for you. It wouldn’t be the first time,” the barman told me.
“Really? Thanks for the offer, but I’m sure I’ll be okay. I’m definitely heading home alone after this,” I said. “Just need to get rid of the little shit.”
Pretending to duck down and mess with my shoe, I emptied the packet of laxative into the pint and then I made my way back to Conran.
“Here she is, my lovely new girlfriend. You all clear now, eh?” He winked, chortling and patting the seat next to him. I passed him his pint and held my glass out to chink against his. “Cheers, Conran. Let’s get this farty started.”
“You mean party?” He laughed. “Although, great Freudian slip there, given the state of your bowels.”
“Course.” I took a massive drink. “Drink up, and I’ll get you another.”
His mouth dropped open. “Oh, I think I might have just met my future wife. Let me send my prayers to God that your tits are as large as your generosity.” He laughed at his own joke.
I fake laughed along with him. You’ll be praying to God in a minute all right, I thought, picking up my drink and taking a large mouthful.
The place was starting to warm up and so after drinking my vodka and getting us another round, I decided to take my jacket off. I’d not been sat long before I was tapped on the shoulder.
“Do you know what time it is?” a guy asked me.
I nodded over towards the massive clock on the wall. “It’s five past nine, or maybe time for you to stop drinking if you can’t see that big clock.”
“Ta, love. Not ‘time of the month’ then?”
He guffawed as did the others with him. Ignoring him, I turned back around. What was happening tonight? Why was I the ‘butt’ of all jokes, pun intended.
Another tap came to my back. This time it was another one of them. “I need to write something down. You got a pad and pen?”
“No,” I said huffily. “Ask at the bar.”
“She’s dead moody, deffo on the blob,” he said to his friends. I drank more of my vodka down. I was starting to feel mellow, and I wasn’t leaving until Conran got what he deserved.
I didn’t have much longer to wait. Conran suddenly went pale and held his stomach. “Oh crikey. I’m not feeling so good.”
“In what way?” I asked, faking concern.
“My stomach. I think I need the toilet.” It was then an almighty smell emerged.
“Fuck, I thought you cleared that, babe?” he yelled loudly.
“Does she need an incontinence pad? Will this do?” One of the lads behind said and he touched my back and then passed me a sanitary pad. “Good that you carry one around just in case.”
My mouth fell open. “Was that on my back? All night?”
The guy nodded. “Now can you leave or go take a dump because that’s rank.”
“It’s him. My oh-so-charming date,” I corrected the man. “He’s blaming me, like a true gentleman.” I rolled my eyes.
The man at the side of me’s face softened. “Are you joking?”
I shook my head.
“What a dickhead.”
I nodded. “And now he’s going to go to the loo, and he’ll carry on making out it’s all my fault. My dating life is shit, literally. And if that’s not bad enough, I came out wearing a sanitary pad, so my love life stinks. Period.”
He started laughing. “You know what. Before I met my wife, I didn’t have the best dating experiences. Sorry, we took the piss out of you when you’re already having to put up with him. Me and my mates have you covered here. You go get yourself another drink. We’ll take care of him.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “What are you going to do? I don’t want him hurt, even if he is a tosser.”
“Let’s just say he’s going to feel blocked before he feels free.” The guy winked.
I made my excuses and went to the bar. Conran yelled after me for help, but I made out I couldn’t hear him, which was obviously a total lie because his booming bass meant most of the pub could hear him. I watched as he attempted to get up and leave, pausing as he kept clutching his stomach. But the guys who’d been at the side of me kept moving and blocking his path. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get past them, and then with an almighty. “Oh no,” that seemed to echo around the building, Conran’s date night turned to complete crap as it exploded out of his arse.
“Oh my god, dude shat himself,” my saviour yelled loudly, his mates joining in by pointing and laughing. The man winked at me, and I mouthed a, ‘Thank you’. Then I finished my drink and left. I’d certainly be having a word with Shelley tomorrow about the standard of dates I expected going forward. Conran had literally been added to my shit list.
* * *
The fresh air on the seafront made the alcohol I’d consumed go straight to my head, but boy was that fresh air welcome! My watch showed me that it was only nine thirty, but I was ready to forget the night’s events, call in for fish and chips on my way home, and then get myself to bed. Tomorrow was another day, and as I was working the evening shift tomorrow, I could have a lazy lie-in.
I kicked more things out of my way as I entered the house. The last thing I remembered was making myself a nice cup of tea. I left the milk bottle out as fuck it, it was almost empty anyway and I had another in the fridge. Then I shimmied out of my skirt, the jacket having been flung off the minute I entered the house. As I crawled under my duvet, I was out like a light.