Page 32 of The Notecard
‘It fucking is…’
‘Fine,’ says Laura, and she smiles at me. An annoying, supercilious smile. ‘Let’s just enjoy your shitty party.’
She storms out. I take a deep breath.
Simon is talking on his phone. Simon is always talking on his phone. Business. Work. He’s a man in demand. I don’t know when they find the time to have sex. Between phone calls I imagine or maybe she just jumps onboard while he’s talking. He doesn’t even say hello to me. He just nods and smiles. He picks up a cracker and dips it in one of the hummus selections.
‘Hmm, nice hummus, Meg,’ says Simon. ‘Yes, yes, I’m still here. Right one moment. It’s hummus. Garlic, I think.’
It’s roasted red onion. Simon walks into the kitchen. Mum is sitting on the sofa next to Dad. It’s awkward. Laura walks in and sits opposite them on the chair. The chair I bought from Ikea. I love that chair. It has a pillow I got from Camden market. It has the Union Jack flag on. I saw something similar on Instagram and had to get it. The tension in the room is palpable. I don’t think you can use that word for anything else, can you? Palpable is only to do with tension. It’s really palpable. We sit in silence. I don’t know what to say. I want to mention the hummus. Palpable.
‘My date with Dave was a disaster,’ says Mum suddenly.
She just blurts it out. It’s out there. Mum’s dating debacles. On Dad’s birthday.
‘Mum, I don’t think this is the time,’ I say.
‘No, no, I want to hear more about Dave,’ says Dad suddenly perking up.
Dad’s wearing a truly awful cardigan today. It’s a sort of slate grey and it has fluffy white baubles all over it. I don’t know where he buys his cardigans from. I notice Dad look down at Mum’s cleavage for a second. To be fair, it’s more difficult not to look at it.
Once Dad gives her the green light, Mum goes on about her date with Dave. I’m hungry because I was waiting for everyone to come over before I started eating. I didn’t even nibble on the cheese while I was cutting it for the cheese board. I get myself a plate with a selection of hummus, cheese, crackers, posh crisps, and I pour myself a glass of wine. Apparently Dave was only after one thing. He wasn’t funny, interesting, or interested in Mum.
‘I mean, I’m no prude as you know, but he was brazen. When we texted before the date, he sounded so nice, but once I turned up at the pub, it was clear what he was after. Sex mad! When I confronted him about it, he said he was a sex addict. Do you know what I said to him? Oh, a man you mean. Sex addict. Dirty pervert more like. I won’t even tell you the things he wanted to do to me. Oh my days. I had to Google some of them.’
I keep eating my snacks. I’m still thinking about seeing James. I know I’m young, but I worry about being single into my late thirties. I don’t want to be like Mum, dating losers online who only want me for sex. I don’t want to be sweeping the internet for men aged forty, picking among the dregs because the best ones were picked off in their twenties, and the ones who are left are divorced with more baggage than I can handle or not marriage material. The thought terrifies me. I know I’m spiralling because I have all the time in the world, but hearing Mum’s tale of dating woes really hits home.
‘The worst part was the end of night,’ says Mum. ‘I left the pub and started going home, and he texted me a dick pic! I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t even a nice dick or a good pic. I mean, what man in their right mind thinks sending a photo of the ugliest part of their body because let’s face it, dicks aren’t attractive, will somehow magically get us into bed? It’s mind blowing.’
‘I warned you about the dangers of online dating,’ says Laura, as though she has all the experience in the world. I know for a fact that she has never dated anyone she met online.
‘A friend of mine,’ says Simon, walking in, finally off his phone. ‘He went on a date with a girl he met online. They ended up spending the night together. The next morning, he goes to leave for work, and she won’t go. She’s making him breakfast and says she’ll be gone by the time he’s home. He comes home from work at six o’clock and she’s making him dinner. It took him days to get rid of her. Completely crazy. Although she ironed all of his work shirts.’
‘My date with Maureen wasn’t much better,’ says Dad.
‘Why what happened?’ says Mum.
Mum pops a posh crisp in her mouth. I take a sip of wine.
‘Turns out Maureen was a bit of a nutter,’ says Dad. ‘She brought Tupperware to the pub.’
‘What was in the Tupperware?’ says Simon.
Simon dips another cracker in hummus and eats it.
‘An egg sandwich. The pub had a full menu. I had chicken in a basket with chips and coleslaw. I offered to buy her something, but instead she ate her egg sandwich like a maniac.’
‘That is weird,’ says Simon.
‘That wasn’t even the weirdest thing. She’s a dog masseuse. That’s what she does for a living. She massages dogs. I didn’t even know you could massage dogs.’
‘I think most people call it stroking,’ I say.
We all look at Dad, and then we start laughing.
‘Look at the state of us,’ says Mum. ‘A right pair of sad idiots.’
This is so strange. Simon gets another cracker and dips it in hummus. Dad looks at Mum's boobs again. I take another sip of wine. Is it me or are Mum and Dad getting along?
