I wish Nandy was here with me to laugh at Peach Jumpsuit. But then she might persuade me this isn’t a good idea. And it is a good idea. It has to be. Because the thought of just carrying on as before, with bad contour make-up, watching Cassia’s#cocktailsofinstagramreels until my life slips through my fingers, is so sad it makes me feel sick. I want young me back. I want another chance. And maybe this is it.
On the train home, I’m in such a good mood I allow myself to fantasise about Gabe, who will no doubt rapidly go off me once he sees my face in repose when we’re watchingThe West Wingand eating food from an excellent local Thai takeaway, which is what I picture people in committed relationships doing. Although we did have a great conversation in The Perch the other night, once I’d made sure he was looking at me face on and there were no angles involved. It also felt like we embarrassedourselves equally, with me talking about macabre cheeseboards and him showing me his hair-loss-related Google searches.
He kissed me goodbye on the cheek and, at the risk of sounding like Héloïse, I noticed that he smelt of beer and Head & Shoulders. I felt a kind of fizzing feeling in my chest, which I am assuming wasn’t just an early sign of fatty plaque build-up in my arteries (I’ve recently written an article calledFive Healthy Heart Breakfasts For Fifty Plus WomenforTop Healthmagazine). Is this what it feels like to be attracted to a real person rather than Paul Hollywood fromThe Great British Bake Off? As an example, obviously, not him specifically.
The following day, Josie sent me a message saying that Gabe had asked for my number, and was it okay to give it to him? I pretended that I hadn’t seen her message until later, not wanting to appear desperate and/or needy, but then caved after a medicinal Malbec at six p.m. I replied saying ‘yes’ with a smiley face emoji with hearts for eyes, one that Josie uses a lot and therefore must be The Emoji of Nice People.
Gabe messaged me within about half an hour, so he clearly wasn’t as worried as me about looking keen, but I like that. His message, which was charming and said all the right things about how lovely it had been to chat the night before, etc., etc., also asked me if I’d like to come with him to the deli in Devizes he’d mentioned – and maybe even call into the (newly reopened after significant renovation) Trowbridge Museum on the way back ‘if we had time’. I googled said museum, which I perhaps should have heard of as it’s only ten minutes away, and amongst many other exhibits it boasts a very rare complete Spinning Jenny, one of only a few in existence. Be still my beating bobbin.
I wanted to feel excited about this, as Gabe clearly was, but it all sounded a little bit middle-aged to me. However, as Mother Pells said to me recently, ‘beggars can’t be choosers,’ and I do rather like him. Maybe once I get my treatment, we can be amuch hotter and more interesting couple that people marvel at and say things about like, ‘He’s punching above his weight,’ rather than ‘Is that his mum?’ We could go to a party in London together and bump into Cassia, whose husband is ‘not all that’ according to Nandy, and rarely features on her Instagram for what we assume to be exactly that reason.
I replied – ‘sounds lovely!’ – and suddenly there was a plan to meet up the next day. I pretended I ‘had some work to do first thing’, which was, of course, just to ensure that there was adequate time for my face to de-crumple, and we met in Devizes at eleven a.m. I took Josie’s Kia Picanto, which she sometimes lets me borrow in exchange for collecting Héloïse from swimming on Wednesdays, feeling it was too early in the relationship to assume we’d share the same transport. After a coffee at the deli and a lengthy perusal of the cheese counter, Gabe bought some Royal Bassett Blue and I bought some Wiltshire Loaf, which might sound like bread but is actually a local cheese and bloody gorgeous. I have decided the same about Gabe, who today smelt slightly of wood smoke. I felt the fizzing feeling in my chest again.
‘How long have you lived in Wilshire?’ he asked me as we left the deli.
‘I erm… a while. I came here by accident,’ I said, realising immediately that this sounded both odd and like I don’t like Wiltshire, which is perhaps not the right thing to say to someone who is from, and chooses to remain in, Wiltshire.
‘Have you had any big…’ He paused long enough for me to wonder what the hell he was going to say. ‘…loves in your life? Relationships, I mean.’
It was the first time we’d talked about anything more serious than whey skimming. But I find it easy to chat to him: his face is so genuine; it doesn’t feel like he has any agenda. There’s anopenness that I want to breathe in, like when you stand on top of a big hill. Which, to be fair, I don’t do that often.
I didn’t know how to reply. My past boyfriends don’t make much of a relationship CV. So I said, trying to be funny, ‘To misquote Groucho Marx, I don’t want to date anyone who would want to date someone like me.’
He laughed, thankfully, and held the deli door open for me. As I walked out, he touched the small of my back, as though to guide me, or, it almost felt like, reassurance, a wordless acknowledgement that he got what I meant.
On the way back into town, I followed Gabe’s car (a really old Volvo, which he says is ‘nearly a classic’) and we went to see the Spinning Jenny, which was annoyingly really interesting and although I’ve now forgotten them, for a while I was in possession of some facts about the Industrial Revolution. Gabe bumped into someone he knew at the museum shop and introduced me as ‘my good friend Erica’. I must have been successful at my contouring/careful angles because when we parted in the museum car park, he kissed me, on the lips this time, and I could hear him sigh. I rather hoped this was a positive sort of sigh and not one of disappointment at spotting one of my neck worm segments, which I am really hoping will be a thing of the past soon.
