Stella
I think I would probably claim that I wasn’t that into romance.
Maybe it’s an internalised misogyny, trying to be a cool girl kind of thing, but the idea of someone deliberately trying to woo me always struck me as a bit cringey.
If anything was going to change my mind about that, it was Richard’s take on a first date.
Every previous date I’ve been on has been drinks, or very occasionally dinner.
The only other offers I’ve got have been ‘come to mine and I’ll cook for you’, which even I, the most na?ve woman on the internet, understand to mean half a packet of tortellini and a shag.
Richard, on the other hand, has been scripted by a woman writing a man to seduce as many women as possible.
He opens my door, kisses me on each cheek and smiles. ‘You look great,’ he tells me.
Now, initially, I’ll be honest, this all feels a bit cloying. He’s even better-looking in person and the idea that he’s made this big effort to do something I’d like feels sort of queasy-making. Claustrophobic. What the fuck is wrong with me?
‘I thought we’d do a gallery late, and then perhaps a drink?
’ he says, as if he were offering something random and off-the-cuff rather than a date that he’s very clearly planned.
‘There’s an exhibition of works by female artists, and you mentioned that you liked art, so I thought you might like it,’ he pauses, sounding sort of hopeful.
Then his face falls. ‘Though I guess it might also be a bit samey, given that it’s what you do for a living? ’
‘Oh, no, don’t worry,’ I say, without thinking. ‘Interiors is miles away from figurative art, and anyway, I’m actually still on maternity leave.’
The words have fallen out of my mouth before I’ve given them a second thought. I’ve got so used to telling men about my ‘tiny housemate’ on dates that I’ve stopped being sensitive about it. He pauses, halfway up the steps to the gallery. ‘Maternity leave?’
I give him an embarrassed smile. ‘I usually buy the first round before I explain all this. But, yeah, I had a baby almost a year ago, I’m going back to work in a couple of months, I split with my husband just after she was born.’
Richard has a serious, furrowed expression, like he’s really considering all of this information.
‘I’m sorry,’ I add. ‘I would obviously have told you, I just don’t advertise it on the apps because of nonces.
Paedophiles. I mean paedophiles.’ I really need to stop saying paedophile.
‘Not that I think you’re a paedophile. I mean, you don’t really know if someone is, it’s hard to tell, you know, that’s sort of the main problem—’
Richard laughs. ‘I’m not.’
‘Sure.’ I laugh. ‘Though if you think about it, that’s probably what a paedophile would say.’
He looks deeply worried. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’
‘I’m joking!’ I say. ‘Sorry, bad joke. I make bad jokes when I’m nervous.
I’m going to stop talking about paedophiles.
Do you still want to go in? I’d really like to see the exhibition.
If the kid thing is a problem, I totally get it, I’m kind of new to the whole dating thing so I’m still working out when to mention it—’
Richard looks at me, completely bemused, and I think at this point if he does decide to bail on the date it will have more to do with my verbal diarrhoea and less to do with having a kid.
‘I would still very much like to spend the evening with you,’ he says.
He opens the door for me, and waiting in the entrance is a short, handsome guy wearing a polo neck.
He beams at us both. ‘I’m William,’ he says, in what is possibly the poshest voice I’ve ever heard. ‘Delighted to meet you.’
I look at Richard, confused. Is this a double date or something? Richard smiles. ‘I don’t know much about art, but William came highly recommended via my concierge. He’s an expert, so he’ll be taking us on a tour.’
Fuck me. I thought sending an Addison Lee was the most indulgent thing a person could do.
We follow William inside and he guides us through the exhibition, and then afterwards through some of the galleries in the permanent collection.
The galleries are quiet and the light is low, and it strikes me that I’ve never been here in the evening.
In fact, the only gallery I’ve been to at all in the past year was hosting a Baby Art class where I arrived with Rose, who immediately did a huge shit, fed for twenty minutes and then howled until I took us home.
A very long way from wandering through the marble halls following William as our heels click on the stone.
He teaches us how to read a painting – the significance of specific fruits, colours, fabrics, talking unabashedly loud in the hushed galleries, but often telling us such fascinating things that I forget to be embarrassed to be on such a bougie expedition and so clearly on a date.
Some of William’s tips I remember from studying history of art at school, but most of it is new to me.
Any time I bring up something I do already know, William acts like I’m a genius, even though he’s obviously just trying to be nice, and Richard looks at me sideways, smiling.
‘It’s very sexy that you’re so knowledgeable,’ he whispers to me at one point, while William is slightly ahead of me. I feel a prickle of tension. I’d like him to touch me. He doesn’t.
William finishes the tour in front of a self-portrait of Artemisia Gentileschi.
It’s a picture of her painting. I have a postcard of it on my fridge, half obscured by Rose’s ‘paintings’.
I bought it here, when I’d just found out that I was pregnant.
Gavin and I had expected it to take months and obviously, like most women, I’d convinced myself that I was infertile.
I’d spent the morning privately freaking out internally about what motherhood was going to mean, about whether I’d ever get to do anything creative ever again.
And I’d seen this picture, of a woman painting, and googled her in this total frenzy.
It turned out that she’d had five kids and painted through all the pregnancies and the babies.
Only one of them lived to adulthood, which didn’t totally fit the narrative I was searching for, but still. She did it. So I could too.
I stare at her for a while, thinking about her paintings and her dead children and her marriage, and then I realise I probably look like trying to look like I’m in a film about a woman who likes art, performatively staring at a picture. I break my gaze.
‘You were miles away.’ Richard smiles.
‘I was,’ I agree.
I turn to William. ‘Thank you so much for that – it really was magical.’
‘You’re very welcome,’ he says with a smile. Richard shakes his hand and I’m fairly sure he presses a wad of notes into the handshake as a tip, but somehow it feels a bit inappropriate to look.
Richard ushers me out into the street where the sun is setting over the river.
‘It’s a beautiful evening,’ I say. ‘We could walk down the embankment for a bit and see if we can get a table at Gordon’s?
’ Gordon’s is the wine bar by the river that you’re obliged to visit at least once a year if you live in London, there’s always a bonkers queue and the food is dreadful, but despite all that it’s sort of lovely on an evening like this.
‘Absolutely,’ Richard says. ‘Let me just tell the driver to head off.’
‘Driver?’ I follow his gaze towards the black people-carrier on the street, waiting somewhere that I’m absolutely sure you’re not allowed to wait. ‘Oh, did you have something in mind?’
‘There’s a spot I like a little further down. If you’re in no rush, I thought we could have dinner?’
Oh. I see. This is a date date. He’s expecting stuff.
Well. Okay. That’s fine, he’s obviously not buying me dinner because he just wants to hear me yap, but actually that’s probably a good thing.
Too much time to think about sex is a dangerous thing – this way I can have a couple of big glasses of wine and then rip the plaster off.
I showered, I moisturised, I’ve got those hideous wipes in my bag that make your vulva smell floral and completely destroy your healthy bacterial biome.
‘Dinner sounds lovely,’ I say.
We drive fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, making gentle conversation.
He tells me that he grew up on the outskirts of London and went to boarding school in Kent.
I don’t make any inappropriate jokes about boarding schools and urban legends about the weird sex games they play, and feel quietly proud of my maturity.
We arrive at the restaurant and we’re guided to a table on a heated terrace, overlooking the river.
The bottle of cava I’d been suggesting at Gordon’s, inevitably sandwiched between various gilet-wearing twenty-something stockbrokers, now seems a bit pedestrian. In the car, my phone buzzes.
My heart leaps when I see Dom’s name. I should save it to read for later, but I glance. Started watching original Pride and Prejudice and you’re right, it’s basically PORN.
I smile.
‘What’s that? asks Richard. I blush, realising that I’m being very rude.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Just a friend of mine has started watching Pride and Prejudice. The really old BBC one. And I’m always saying it’s sort of filthy.’
‘The period drama? I wouldn’t have thought that would have sex scenes?’
I nod. ‘I mean, not in a literal sense, obviously, but just like, the vibe.’
‘Right,’ says Richard. ‘I’ll give it a watch some time.’
The tablecloths are white linen, there are candles on every table and the waiter places a heavy napkin in my lap.
All around us are the clinking of glasses and happy, warm chatter.
Everyone here looks expensive and polished.
I feel a bit like I’ve won a competition and at the end of the evening I’ll be sent back to where I came from.
The waiter (French, snooty, exactly what you want in a place like this) hands me a menu that doesn’t have any prices on it. Jesus.
‘Is this okay?’ Richard asks, possibly misreading my expression for distaste. ‘I wasn’t sure what kind of food you liked so I thought this would be a good choice, as it sort of does a bit of everything.’
The waiter brings a silver basket of baguette to the table, and a slab of butter.
I almost have to smack my own hand away, forcing myself to wait politely to crack into it.
The bread is warm and if I had one wish in this moment it would be for everyone else in here to go temporarily deaf and blind so I could eat the entire basket, plus ideally several pats of butter.
Instead, I settle for taking one piece and delicately nibbling at it while Richard tells me about his work.
‘It’s not very creative, not like you,’ he says apologetically. ‘Honestly, when I left university, I realised that I didn’t have that vocation other people seemed to have, so I thought I might as well go into something lucrative, make as much money as I could and then perhaps retire early.’
‘Good plan,’ I say. ‘Pretty much the opposite of my system, which was to pick a terribly paid job in a dying industry, then really compound that decision by buying a house and then divorcing the person I bought it with.’
Richard looks sympathetic. ‘What did your ex do?’
‘Long story really, I think he sort of checked out when I was pregnant and he realised that it was never going to be properly about him any more. He had a difficult relationship with his dad and I wonder if maybe that was where it started, like he didn’t have a blueprint that he could follow.’
‘I meant for work,’ Richard says, after a brief pause.
‘Ah.’ I laugh. ‘Sorry. Though, that bit is actually equally awful. He used to work in insurance—’
‘That’s not a bad career.’
‘No, it’s not. But then he came home one night when I was pregnant and announced that he was quitting his job to become a full-time stand-up comedian.’
Richard winces like I’ve told him that Gavin lamped me or slept with my sister. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says earnestly.
Our food comes – he has the steak and I have the risotto.
We watch as boats sail down the river, lights blinking as the sky gets darker.
He tells me about his apartment, which is conveniently located mere minutes away.
I tell him about my half-finished house in Dulwich and he asks about the plans for the renovations.
He seems unsure whether or not he should ask about Rose, and skirts around the concept of her, which I get.
I think I’d prefer that, really. Eventually we have coffee, they bring us macarons and we get the bill.
Then we loiter outside the restaurant, standing in a pretty cobbled passage between the river and the city.
I look up at him, feeling like I’m in every 1990s romcom I’ve ever watched.
‘Thank you for dinner,’ I say. I made a half-hearted pretence of wanting to pay for half and was then deeply relieved that he turned me down because my half would have blown Rose’s winter clothing budget. ‘I had a lovely time.’
‘I did too.’ He smiles. ‘You’re very different from the other women I’ve dated. In a nice way.’
This strikes me as surprising because I’m, broadly speaking, the same as most other women of my demographic – a Diet Coke and Taylor Swift loving, slightly insecure woman with a mild anxiety disorder and too much screen time.
‘You know, I have the rest of the night free,’ I say, the third glass of wine emboldening me.
This is a good story, this is exactly how I want my first time post-Gavin to go.
And Richard is a gentleman, so I’m going to need to at least slightly take the lead.
‘I don’t have a change of clothes for the morning but I’m sure we could work something out. ’
Richard kisses me lightly on the lips, then pulls away and signals behind me. The same car that dropped us off is waiting.
‘That’s a very tempting suggestion,’ he says. ‘But I don’t like to rush things.’ The car draws up next to him and he opens the door. ‘I’ll be in touch this week. I’d very much like to do this again.’
I get into the car because I’m not sure what else to do, and before I can process what’s happening, the car is moving, Richard is still out on the pavement and I’m blinking at the street lights trying to work out if I just got rejected for sex.