‘Let’s have a look,’ says Shell, who is extremely good at making herself at home. ‘Ooh, it’s definitely Rusty for me,’ she says.
Fern agrees that he’s ‘adorable’.
‘Is he? Let me have a look.’ I take the phone back, feeling less silly now I know they’re not going to take the mick.
Rusty is pictured in a dark jumper, almost-white hair slicked back. He’s so good-looking I think there’s been some kind of mistake. He looks just like the model Countryside Cupids uses in its advertising, all white teeth and cheekbones. There’s another picture of him in shorts and a sporty hoodie like he’s on his way to the gym. He’s smiling in this one too.
‘Seems legit,’ Shell says to Fern.
‘What does that mean? Why wouldn’t he be legit?’ I ask.
Fern looks to Lucy like she’s uncertain what to say.
‘What does she mean?’ I turn to Lucy this time.
‘Well.’ My niece hesitates. ‘I read somewhere that around ten per cent of dating profiles are catfishing.’
I repeat the unfamiliar word, blinking.
Fern helps out. ‘Scammers, out to rip you off.’
‘They ask you for money, after you’ve been chatting for a bit,’ Shell adds. ‘Usually, they say it’s so they can come and visit you.’
I turn back to Lucy, outraged.
‘It’s true,’ she confirms. ‘You have to watch out for sob stories that end in someone asking you to transfer cash. Some of them just pretend to be someone else for fun, then they disappear.’
‘What? Don’t they vet these people?’
‘Did they vet you?’ Lucy shrugs.
I swallow hard and look again at Rusty, 62, and Kenneth, 69, and now I’m seeing them in a whole new light. A suspicious one. ‘How do I know for sure they’re real people?’
‘You get a feel for it,’ Lucy says like an old hand.
‘And, like, you should avoid the ones obviously using filters,’ says Fern.
‘Yep, and make sure you ask for recents,’ Shell adds.
Again, I look accusingly at Lucy. ‘Recents?’
‘Pictures taken recently, and not a decade ago when they were actually hot.’
‘Oh God.’ It’s not too late to get my money back.Fourteen-day cooling off period, it said. I’d made sure to read the small print.
‘Yeah, you need to suss them out a bit in the chat,’ Shell’s saying. ‘Or you just don’t know what you’re dealing with IRL.’
‘In real life,’ clarifies Lucy before I have to ask.
Shell seems to be enjoying herself, at least. She’s shovelling in a second slice of cake that she cut for herself and telling me, ‘Some of them will turn up at the date then leave without even approaching you.’
Fern gives her a wide-eyed warning.
‘What’d I say?’ she says, still munching.
‘Don’t worry,’ Lucy pitches in, trying to curb my panic. ‘You’ll meet them somewhere public, and we’ll make sure we know where you are the whole time. And I’ll be sure to ring you thirty minutes in with your get-out call, so if it’s awful you can just leave without looking rude. Say there’s a family emergency or something.’
I’m nodding, absorbing this madness. None of it sounds like the excitement of dating that I’ve been used to. I vividly remember doing my make-up and picking my outfit the first time Don called for me. It was all fresh and exciting, and I’d been chatting to him in The Salutation the night before, so I knew what I was getting. This Kenneth, whose surname remains a mystery, the air sign with an interest in travel and cooking, could literally be anybody. And now I have to worry about him turning up at a date, taking one look at me and hightailing it.
