Already late, I ran into Asda on the way to the rendezvous to pick up a little token for my blind date. Some mascara, I think.
I'd always been taken by James Purefoy in Rome, his love affair with Cleopatra, when he turned up, (I guess he was handsome - I was always smitten with Titus Pullo), wearing kohl eyeliner and an Egyptian sarong. Mascara seemed the best 21st century fix.
I've looked at James since, a curmudgeonly fisher in Fisherman's Friends, and the interesting charismatic Captain Troy in Pennyworth, the origin story for Alfred Pennyworth, Batman's butler. Bad boys, eh?
But nothing matched the allure of the kohl.
And that being late, what was that about? Leaving my house at the time I was supposed to be elsewhere. Back in Second Life, choosing my handle, last names included Tomorrow. Perfect.
He was waiting in a window seat in the nineteenth century coaching inn, a mess of papers in front of him and a listening device in one ear. He didn't stand up.
We chattered, laughed, I shared my little token, a throwback to a conversation we'd had. One by one, he showed me the artefacts he'd brought, the flyers and tiny booklets, their stories, told me about the earpiece, and here I am without a drink and, seemingly, likely to stay that way.
Later, telling my bestie, she started to laugh.
She told me she was going to interview any future blind dates, and in the next breath said, "No, what am I doing? I dine out for months on your escapades".
I went and got myself a drink.
There's that moment when the excitement and anticipation fades and you realise there's another hour or two before you can wrap up, go back to Asda on the way home and pick up a bottle of wine. The stories kept coming, I had no life of course. I felt myself fading under the relentless weight of it, Saturday afternoon ennui hitting me full force, and pulled the menu over. I always enjoyed eating there, they had a fabulous menu, lots of nice sharing plates, tasty little tidbits.
"We'll go Dutch, shall we? I think that's best," he said.
(My bestie in hysterics by this point).
The politics of first dates are always subtle. Depending on finances at the time, which career wildly from seventeen pounds to next payday, to just got an advance on the next job, "Drinks for everyone!", I often like to treat my date. They may have travelled some distance, put themselves out, set aside the time, spent some money getting here. It seems only right. The best ones fall into an easy rhythm, whoever arrives first offering a drink, this one offering to pay for dinner, the other saying, I'll get the puddings (like we're going to want them after stuffing our faces), or maybe the taxi back to the station, and it evens out between us. No one cheated or hard done by and generosity where you can.
There are of course the more traditional chaps who insist on paying for everything and then offer you a lift home in their car, "You can trust me," which immediately you can't and wouldn't, your Spidey senses tingling.
That subtle negotiating, apparently over who is paying the bill, lovely when it works well and it often does, but then, there's no funny story (that's the unspoken deal, a nice time or a funny story), but more it's testing out, who is this person, their boundaries, their values, their social grace? Can they negotiate a relationship, will there be that necessary ease and laughter, shared warmth in bed over the absurdity of ever trying to get it together with anyone.
My bestie waiting for the punchline. She's caught her breath, got another glass of wine. I know she's waiting. Do I sleep with this guy? See him off with a flea in his ear? Quietly subside in a coma on the bench seat? I remember Jamie contemplating whether he could break his leg in the shower to end the dreadful weekend he was facilitating. A high price for no.
I wish I could tell you I'd had a delicious meal. I don't remember what it was, but the joy had gone out of it. I didn't wear a watch at the time, so I was saved the embarrassment of being caught glancing at it. I looked at the little mascara barrel, forlorn on the table.
I asked, "Could you fetch me a pot of tea?" (so English in adversity), and handed him a twenty pound note. Off he went, and back he came with the tea. No sign of the change. He sat himself down.
I sat puzzled for a moment. Was this really happening? I thought, wrinkling my brow. I poured a cup of tea while I thought about it. Oblivious, he told another story. I wondered if he was as deflated as me.
Eventually I said, "Where's my change?" I wasn't smiling.
"Oh," he said, scrambling in a pocket, "here you are".
My bestie's screeching now. She knows that quiet voice. I'm laughing, too.
Back in the pub, I gather my things, wonder for a moment about the mascara, but leave it there, furious already that he has turned me into someone who is counting pennies, checking where the money is.
In the forensic post-mortem phone call - our last - he says,
"Oh yes, all my friends complain about that."
"I'm a Yorkshireman, you see."
I hear a muffled snort from my bestie.
Virile Ruthlessness and Redemptive Cross-Dressing in Rome, Season Two by Margaret M. Toscano