‘Sorry. I’m not used to this. Do you… um… go on many dates?’ I ask, sitting myself down and lifting the menu card for something to do.
He hoicks up his trousers before he sits opposite me. ‘You’re the first in a while.’
I wonder if I should be flattered. ‘What made you pick me?’ I venture. Am I supposed to ask that? He’ll think I’m fishing for compliments.
‘I’ve met all the rest,’ he says. It takes me a beat to figure out what he means. He’s a serial dater, already exhausted the app’s stock of local women. ‘You popped up and I thought, I don’t know this one.’
He looks around for a waiter. Nobody’s come to meet us yet. The bar room’s getting busy but we’re the only ones through here in the dining room. Even with the tinsel strung around the walls there’s not much Christmas atmosphere.
‘Shall we go sit by the bar instead?’ I offer, but he speaks over me.
‘Drink?’
What was it Lucy told me? I should get the drinks in; that way I know they’re not spiked. God! To be a young woman on the dating scene today. It must be a nightmare.
‘I’ll get them,’ I say, but he’s waving this suggestion away like it’s ridiculous.
‘No, I will,’ he tells me. In this guy’s world the man buys the lady’s drinks and that’s that.
I have to relent or I’ll look paranoid. ‘Aperol Spritz?’ I say, not sure he’ll have heard of it.
He only nods and is gone. That’s when my phone rings.
‘Not now,’ I tell Lucy down the line. ‘He’s just gone to the bar. Try again in about half an hour.’
‘What’s he like?’ she asks.
‘Uh.’ I inhale, thinking hard. ‘Just a bloke, really.’
‘Not impressed?’
‘Haven’t had a chance to be impressed yet,’ I say, trying not to appear judgy, but I can admit to myself, I already know there’s nothing there, no magic spark. Because, as Izz said about her Alexi, when you know, you know.
‘Ring you back,’ she says and hangs up.
Noddy Holder’s singing from a jukebox through in the bar room. He’s wishing it could be Christmas every day and I’m wondering what on earth I’m doing here.
A couple, already a few drinks into a Christmas date, stumble past me and find their ‘reserved’ table in the corner by the sparkling artificial tree. They’re talking animatedly and knocking back a bottle of bubbly. She’s touching his arm and they keep their heads close together. Definitely newly in love. I’d say a few months in and still in the first giddy flush of it all.
I fix my eyes on the bar where Kenneth’s lifted our drinks and is turning back towards me with an impassive expression.
The contrast between us and the loved-up couple feels too much to bear. I think I’m going to accept Lucy’s call and make my excuses and dash home. It’s not Kenneth, though; it’s me. I want magic and connection when, realistically, I already know they’re in drastically short supply and aren’t things you can force. Still, I’ll give him thirty minutes and see if I can tease out some attraction.
‘Tell me, what sort of thing do you like doing?’ I ask as he drapes his jacket over the chair back and sits down.
‘I like a pub quiz, actually,’ he says, and I regret not arranging to meet him at The Salutation. It would be livelier than this, but that would mean people seeing us.
‘There’s one at my local tonight,’ I tell him. ‘I usually go with my friend Izz. We never win.’
He takes a sip from his pint and I realise he’s not saying anything. Hasn’t asked any questions either. I abandon sucking at my straw, forced to keep talking. ‘The Stubborn Greys,’ I say. ‘That’s our team name.’
He doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even seem to get it. I take a long drink.
The couple in the corner are kissing behind their menus. I’d think it was sweet if I wasn’t stuck here in stilted conversation with Kenneth.
I notice he’s looking at me, or specifically my hair. Has been ever since I made the Stubborn Greys quip.
‘What is it?’ I ask him, already feeling myself shrinking.
