After the gig, all of us – happily undrugged by strangers – wander off for something sweet in acake-and-coffee shop Rilla suggests.
The Cake Shop Café is accessed through asecond-hand bookshop that I’ve been in before. With a mezzanine where books cover every square metre, it would take days to examine all the stock with your head sideways to read the spines before serious neck strain set in. At night, when the bookshop is closed, the café with its outside pergola seating area can be reached by a teeny lane. The pergola area with its trailing plants, fairy lights draping the overhang and tea lights in tiny jars on the tables is buzzing. Heaters keep it warm and there are cheap blankets for anyone who wants added cosiness. The girls slither into a small space and I take the tea and cake orders.
The café’s a lovely mix of people, from those retreating after nights in music venues to those having apost-prandial coffee and dessert.
I leave my girls chattering and laughing, exchanging photos and uploading social media things, and collide neatly with a tall man holding an empty tray and staring at the cakes andsugar-laden health balls behind the glass counter.
‘Sorry.’
‘Fine,’ I mutter.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he asks, staring down at me. I hate being stared down at. Being short is a definite disadvantage in life.
I shake my head. ‘Fine,’ I say again, about to move past. It was past my bedtime and, jacked up on the ‘strangers will putdate-rape drugs in your drink’ message, I wasn’t in the mood for random men talking to me.
‘Snap. You’ve been out with a gang of youngsters in Whelan’s,’ he says and I stare up, eyes narrowed. Stalker? Random nutter? Nice normal man? It’s so hard to tell, as anyone who has ever watched the crime channels will tell you.
‘I took my nephews and I saw your gang in there,’ he explains, pointing to two lanky youths with broad shoulders who are sitting at a table staring at their phones. ‘Actually, they took me,’ he adds,semi-bemused. ‘I felt like an ancient uncle.’
I can’t help myself and I laugh.
‘You too, huh?’
‘My sister and her friends,’ I say, making a snap decision that we were in a public place and my girls would attack him if he tried to slip anything dodgy into my tea.
‘Girls’ night out?’
‘Women,’ I say, hackles up. ‘We’re women.’
He holds up his hands. ‘Sorry! Women! No offence. I’m old school in some ways. My nephews seem like boys to me and everyone younger does too. So I say girls...’ He grimaces. ‘I’m making this worse. I suppose I’m saying that they’re girls and you, on the other hand, are a woman –’
Poor man is digging a hole so deep, he’ll only get out with crampons, some rope and a mountaineer shouting instructions.
I take pity on him. ‘It’s all right. I’m not going to hit you over the head with my copy ofFeminism Rules,’ I say, ‘so cut the cheese.’
He smiles. ‘Sounds like an old book title.Who Moved My Cheese?’
Against my better judgement, I laugh. ‘It’s a new title:Women Who Love Pinterest and Rabbits More Than Men, So Cut The Cheese.’
‘Catchy. I should read it. Shamefully, my own rabbit habit is getting out of hand...’ he deadpans and it’s inexplicably not cheesy. ‘I should point out that I am not hitting on you. I was making conversation, that’s all. If it helps, I don’t date. I’m appalling at it. I have decided to retire from the ring.’
My superpower is ahard-won,near-perfect analysis of people.Near-perfect. I am not counting Marc because just before he left, my superpower obviously left me.
But it’s back and I decide that the man beside me is not joking. He is over with dating. He’s right: why bother? I chance a look at him.
He’s handsome with a lean face, kind flinty grey eyes, aBorzoi-long nose, with short sandy hair going grey in narrow streaks. He could be anywhere from thirty to forty in the dim light of the café. His night out gear is the defiantly undressy: hiking jacket, jeans and an Aran sweater, and his long legs have the hint of someone who trains obsessively for marathons.
‘Runner?’ I ask.
‘Used to be.’ He sounds miserable.
‘Now you cycle because your knees are banjaxed.’
His turn to laugh. ‘Correct. I also swim but am not insane or young enough for triathlons. I like my joints and want to hang on to them. Meanwhile, you work in banking and your idea of a night out is entertaining clients in posh restaurants?’ he ventured, taking in my trench coat and trousers, which are from my work wardrobe. Sweatpants were too casual for tonight and my last acceptable pair of jeans have an inconvenient hole in the inner thigh. I am not a shopper.
‘Excellent guess,’ I lie. ‘I have an entire team at my disposal and I scream at them if they annoy me or if my coffee’s the wrong temperature. I have two assistants, one I throw my coat at and one who buys my lunch.’
‘They’d never have you in the intelligence world, what with being able to lie with ease,’ he says, grinning.
