lead and giving him attitude emboldened her. A psychological layer of armour.
‘Thanks. This is brilliant advice.’
‘One tries one’s best.’ Patrick patted her arm again.
‘You’re my furry Pandarian hero,’ Anna said, grinning.
Patrick beamed.
Anna wasn’t confrontational by nature. While Patrick had the odd spluttering fit at idle students, Anna always tried to empathise. You never knew anyone’s full story. She played the ‘what if’ game.
What if they have money worries … what if they have an illness?
(‘Like Lazy Bones?’ Patrick said.)
But being unpleasant to James Fraser? She reckoned she was up to that.
19
At the end of a long week, Anna found herself, her coat, bag and her glass of red wine a seat in the basement café-bar of the Soho Curzon cinema. She didn’t want to do a meerkat at every man who walked in and hoped Grant would recognise her.
He was quarter of an hour late, although Anna didn’t mind. She knew some women were very concerned with the respect implied by strict punctuality and chairs being pulled out and generally Walter Raleighing about, but she really wasn’t. As long as he seemed respectful and didn’t swear at her for not getting all the drinks in, Anna was easy-going. Dating was difficult enough without sweating the detail.
She liked it in here and often ducked in, even when she wasn’t seeing a film, to people watch over a hot chocolate. It was a little oasis of cerebral calm when the city upstairs felt frenetic.
Unlike Anna, Michelle wasn’t from London, having moved here from the West Country when she went to catering college, and saw it with outsider’s eyes. She said London was one of the worst places to have a bad day and one of the best to have a good day.
Anna knew what she meant. She’d left for that meeting at the British Museum with a Beach Boys soundtrack in her head, and walked back to Joy Division.
When Anna had a particularly terrible time at school, she used to take a book to Mayesbrook Park and walk, and read, and walk some more. She learned that sitting in her bedroom, brooding on what the next day might bring, was unhealthy.
So she had intended to wait longer after the Pied Piper of Piss incident to go on another of these dates, but she recognised her need not to dwell. Plus Grant had messaged his extreme enthusiasm. Everyone on dating sites was available for a limited period only. If you turned them down, they went to the next on the list, a person who might take them out of circulation.
Anna could miss the love of her life if she hung back. Grant could be the one for her and she’d have let BDSM Neil and
James Fraser
ruin it for them. Imagine that! Yep, it was the lottery logic again. And what were your odds for winning that, and getting yourself the gated mansion and the bull mastiffs called Pucci and Gucci?
Her Granny Maude said anyone single after thirty had a ‘problem’. It was up to you to find out what that was. ‘And if you don’t see what the problem is at first,’ she said, pausing for effect, ‘you’ll find out what it is, soon enough.’
Aggy inhaled the anthrax spores of their gran’s wisdom with wide eyes. Late teenage Anna, in her CND symbol-Tippexed Doc Martens, with an aubergine streak in her hair, had started to question the older generation.
‘What if you’re a widower and that’s why you’re single? What if that’s the problem?’
‘Yes. And who’d want someone who wanted someone else and couldn’t have them? You’d always be second-best.’
What was Anna’s problem, in that case? Granny Maude had died, so, probably mercifully, she’d never get her opinion.
‘Hello, Anna?’
She’d been deep in thought, leafing through the Curzon’s programme of forthcoming events.
‘Hello! Grant?’
‘Are you OK for a drink?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Anna said.
‘Right, give me a sec …’ Grant said, shrugging a trench coat off and flinging a briefcase down by the chair legs.
Cor. Hang on. He
‘Thanks. This is brilliant advice.’
‘One tries one’s best.’ Patrick patted her arm again.
‘You’re my furry Pandarian hero,’ Anna said, grinning.
Patrick beamed.
Anna wasn’t confrontational by nature. While Patrick had the odd spluttering fit at idle students, Anna always tried to empathise. You never knew anyone’s full story. She played the ‘what if’ game.
What if they have money worries … what if they have an illness?
(‘Like Lazy Bones?’ Patrick said.)
But being unpleasant to James Fraser? She reckoned she was up to that.
19
At the end of a long week, Anna found herself, her coat, bag and her glass of red wine a seat in the basement café-bar of the Soho Curzon cinema. She didn’t want to do a meerkat at every man who walked in and hoped Grant would recognise her.
He was quarter of an hour late, although Anna didn’t mind. She knew some women were very concerned with the respect implied by strict punctuality and chairs being pulled out and generally Walter Raleighing about, but she really wasn’t. As long as he seemed respectful and didn’t swear at her for not getting all the drinks in, Anna was easy-going. Dating was difficult enough without sweating the detail.
She liked it in here and often ducked in, even when she wasn’t seeing a film, to people watch over a hot chocolate. It was a little oasis of cerebral calm when the city upstairs felt frenetic.
Unlike Anna, Michelle wasn’t from London, having moved here from the West Country when she went to catering college, and saw it with outsider’s eyes. She said London was one of the worst places to have a bad day and one of the best to have a good day.
Anna knew what she meant. She’d left for that meeting at the British Museum with a Beach Boys soundtrack in her head, and walked back to Joy Division.
When Anna had a particularly terrible time at school, she used to take a book to Mayesbrook Park and walk, and read, and walk some more. She learned that sitting in her bedroom, brooding on what the next day might bring, was unhealthy.
So she had intended to wait longer after the Pied Piper of Piss incident to go on another of these dates, but she recognised her need not to dwell. Plus Grant had messaged his extreme enthusiasm. Everyone on dating sites was available for a limited period only. If you turned them down, they went to the next on the list, a person who might take them out of circulation.
Anna could miss the love of her life if she hung back. Grant could be the one for her and she’d have let BDSM Neil and
James Fraser
ruin it for them. Imagine that! Yep, it was the lottery logic again. And what were your odds for winning that, and getting yourself the gated mansion and the bull mastiffs called Pucci and Gucci?
Her Granny Maude said anyone single after thirty had a ‘problem’. It was up to you to find out what that was. ‘And if you don’t see what the problem is at first,’ she said, pausing for effect, ‘you’ll find out what it is, soon enough.’
Aggy inhaled the anthrax spores of their gran’s wisdom with wide eyes. Late teenage Anna, in her CND symbol-Tippexed Doc Martens, with an aubergine streak in her hair, had started to question the older generation.
‘What if you’re a widower and that’s why you’re single? What if that’s the problem?’
‘Yes. And who’d want someone who wanted someone else and couldn’t have them? You’d always be second-best.’
What was Anna’s problem, in that case? Granny Maude had died, so, probably mercifully, she’d never get her opinion.
‘Hello, Anna?’
She’d been deep in thought, leafing through the Curzon’s programme of forthcoming events.
‘Hello! Grant?’
‘Are you OK for a drink?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Anna said.
‘Right, give me a sec …’ Grant said, shrugging a trench coat off and flinging a briefcase down by the chair legs.
Cor. Hang on. He
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