I cheer up. Lesbian dating websites must be more honest. Or are women inherently more honest? I ponder.
‘The picture’s the vital ingredient,’ Christie goes on. ‘Just slap a photo up. That one from summer on the beach where she’s in the bikini. No man can resist tits.’
‘Tits? Really? Where has the romance gone?’ I demand, going into the kitchen and putting the kettle on to boil.
‘You got to find the guy first,’ says Shazz, ‘then work on the romance.’
I give in.
I let them scroll through my phone for photos, saying a clear no to said bikini shots.
One of Shazz’s boyfriends once said I had ‘a nice rack’ and I was mortally embarrassed about this, and have been heading for the minimiser section of the bra department ever since.
We finally settle on a picture of me – fully clothed – on the beach that same evening, a blanket wrapped around me, smiling because the children were all happily tired out and we were heading back to the house we’d rented in Wexford, hungry but full of cheer.
I look just like my mum: hair the colour of the russet apples that used to fall from the tree in our old garden, eyes that are amber in some lights, a honeyed pale gold in others. I know I can look cautious now, as if ready for the next blow.
Tragedy might teach you resilience but it also teaches you to beover-alert about the next pain coming down the tracks.
It’s a good photo of me because I’m smiling.
I might be the one faking it on this profile, I think: implying a happy inner world when, in reality, I often feel so lonely and worried about everything.
But still, Shazz and Christie are madly set on this. And I can’t let them down.
4
Sid
Vilma’s got tickets with all her friends to see some band I’ve never heard of who are doing aone-off gig in a small venue at the weekend.
‘You’ve got to come!’ she says and I can almost see her eyes sparkling with happiness telling me this.
I’m sitting at my desk staring at my inbox, which is full. Again. I’ve only been out of the office for two hours for a working lunch and despite the new directive from Adrienne that we are too busy to engage in the corporate world’sass-covering cc emails, everyone’s still at it.
I start deleting with a vengeance.
‘I got a pint of beer spilled on me at the last gig you dragged me to,’ I say mutinously, aware that I am sounding childish. ‘Plus, it’s freezing. Who wants to leave their fire to go out at night in bloody November?’
I do not have a fire, but still. Vilma, who is in college studying political science and seems to have about three lectures a week, laughs.
‘You are coming if we have to drag you out of the apartment,’ she announces. ‘You’ve had a year of barely ever going out at night, no matter what the weather. It’s either one gig every few months or myself and the girls kidnap you and drag you to our flat.’
As their flat is a hotbed of both men and women arriving and departing like a train station, I could not cope with it. I like my peace and not sharing the couch with various happy student types.
‘You’ve got to get over him,’ Vilma said as a parting word.
‘Fine,’ I said in resignation, before hanging up and crossly deleting a few more emails. She didn’t understand about Marc and I, but then, I’d never explained it to her. Marc and I were each other’s safe harbours in every sense, but I’d messed it up.
Still, his leaving had shocked me because I pride myself on being watchful – hell, I can read a room in seconds – and I hadn’t seen the signs.
People always thought we were perfect for each other and in our slender,fine-bonedness, we could almost be brother and sister, although he’s taller and his hair is darker than mine.
I’d once had long hair but I kept it in a short cut now: not a pixie but something with a hint ofavant-garde to it, half like I went at it with the kitchen scissors, half like some tricky hairdressing genius did it over three hours of aloof thoughtfulness. Nobody ever believes I get it cut in a tiny salon close to the office where most of the customers are lovely elderly ladies having their hair set. I love old ladies – there’s not a shred of romantic notions left in them. They’ve seen Life and know exactly what it brings.
Not that surprising, really, that my world is all safely contained within a couple of miles’ radius. Home, the office, the pub. ‘You could work anywhere,’ Marc would say to me in those early days.
‘I like what I do and it’s important work,’ I said.
