The Last Year of Being Single Read online

  ‘I’m driving down tomorrow and should arrive tomorrow evening. Where are you staying?’

  I was staying with a ‘friend’. Andreas Banyan. Fifty-five. Wrinkled, rich and worldly. Half-Egyptian. Half-American. Sounds so sleazy, and perhaps it was. I’d met him when I was in Monaco before and he had introduced me to some of the stars who waft in and out of Monte Carlo like feathers at the Pro Am Celebrity Tennis and Golf Tournaments held there annually. He was old enough to be my grandfather and I kept him at arm’s distance because I knew he wanted more than just a smiling companion.

  ‘Women should be treated like fabulous works of art. They should be put on display and appreciated, and if you can’t appreciate them any more they should be passed on to a collector who knows how to appreciate them.’

  He considered himself a collector and his logic made me sick. I wondered how many ingenues had been seduced by the money people. Andreas was surrounded by many other ‘collectors’ who made me aware they would be happy to appreciate me should Andreas ever fail to do so.

  Into this den of iniquity arrived Paul in his blue Golf GTI and his Quicksilver shorts. I wasn’t there to greet him, but arrived the next morning and told him I was so pleased to see him. He didn’t know how pleased.

  We ate at the same restaurants I’d visited with Andreas, but with Paul they were somehow so much more romantic. Most of the couples who were eating there weren’t looking at each other. They were looking at other couples. What they were wearing—their jewellery, the labels—but never who they were with. We only had eyes for each other. We only talked to each other. We held hands. We kissed in public. We made love in private. We slept very little. Ate very little. Drank very little. Danced a lot.

  On Day Two, we both made the decision to leave early. I introduced Andreas to Paul.

  Andreas pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, ‘Sarah, he’s only a boy.’

  I whispered back, ‘He may look like one, but he’s a man and I love him.’

  I didn’t say what I thought, which was, Anyone would look a boy to you. I thought this too cruel. And honest.

  We drove back slowly through France. We’d planned to stay in Monaco for a week, so hadn’t booked anything en route, but somehow every hotel we stopped at and asked had a room—only one—left. Admittedly usually at the top of the hotel. And there was never a lift. I spoke the French. Paul carried the suitcases. That was the deal. I got the better end of it, methinks.

  In Avignon we stayed for two nights. I danced along the river and we ate breakfast overlooking the medieval city. Mealtimes were spent gazing into each other’s eyes and talking and talking and talking. Complimenting and in turn being complimented. Needing to touch one another—even if it was only by the fingertips. The electricity was there. In Vienne, our hotel was near to the Cathedral. Perhaps too close for some, as the bells rang out on the hour every hour. But it didn’t matter. We didn’t sleep much anyway. In Versailles I danced down the steps of the palace and practised my best Singing in the Rain skit when it poured on us when we took a picnic in the gardens. It didn’t matter. Paul told me he used to row at school and rowed on the lakes in the Versailles grounds. He almost fell in while pushing the boat away from the side. Somehow he didn’t, but it was funny and we both smiled and I was so very happy and in love and he was so very happy and felt loved.

  By the time we arrived home we were totally smitten. In love as in not needing food or drink or sleep. Just needing each other. Nauseating bucket stuff. We ate at his favourite restaurant. Well, we didn’t eat. We just stared at each other for five hours. We emptied the restaurant, despite having been the first customers to arrive that day. The waiters got concerned that we didn’t like the food but we said it was fine. So he ate half the steak and I ate two potatoes. New. After our non-lunch, we meandered to the nearby cricket green, sat on the grass, and watched the local teams play abysmally on the sort of day that only exists in Miss Marple films. Sunny, balmy, no dog turds on the grass. Bees that don’t sting but just buzz happily. No mosquitoes to distract from the pleasure of furtive fumblings. No background noise of car radios or road-rage drivers wishing each other dead. Just hours of kissing and being held and holding and being wanted and wanting and being smug and happy, somehow both knowing we’d met the right person, and weren’t we very lucky, and Room with a View was right and I knew how Helena Bonham Carter felt in the last scene.

  Most weekends we would spend all Sunday in bed. Antisocial and not good for the back. Occasionally we would venture to our favourite restaurant by the cricket green. Remembering and creating new memories to tell our children. Making love and sleeping and making love. He was a wonderful, caring, considerate, sexy lover. He taught me ways to please and how to please myself and I became consumed in ways of how to please and tease him. Each Sunday we would get up at five p.m. and I would accompany him to his local Catholic church. We would sing hymns and pray for forgiveness for an hour, then return and make love again. Until we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  I didn’t want to see anyone just in case they took me aside and slapped me awake. I didn’t want to break the spell and perhaps discover it was a dream. A high I couldn’t maintain. I wanted to marry him and have his children and live happily ever after. And this had never been my dream before. I had never met anyone I would want to share an evening with, let alone a lifetime. But this man was good and kind and sexy and honest and made me feel special and told me I made him feel special. Neither of us was stupid. I had split from boyfriend, David, who’d kept disappearing off to Saudi Arabia to ‘find himself’ in an endless desert and strangely always returned a few months later more lost than ever. He had eventually moved out of our flat to Notting Hill, where everyone, it appeared, was as lost and nutty as he was.

  Paul had just split from his girlfriend, Gillian, who was still ‘hanging around’. He told me it wasn’t until he met me that he realised how unhappy he was with her. He said he’d continued to see her, but only for sex. Occasionally Paul would say something that would make me stop and think, That’s cruel or mean, but there were so many pluses, what of the negatives? Of the little snide comments about past girlfriends? How they had hurt him and weren’t quite up to his standards—which were high. I felt sorry for her. This pre-Sarah girlfriend called Gillian. She would stalk the house occasionally and ask to see him. He once returned to the house two hours later than he’d said. I’d cooked something simple. Steak. So it was about two hours over-done. And he explained that he had seen Gillian and that she had been very upset and wanted him back but that he had told her it was all over. That he had been very calm about it. That she had looked dreadful. Her nails were bitten and she had started to smoke, but he had moved on. This wasn’t for him. He then kissed me, told me he loved me, and allowed me to go down on him. Bless. And he wasn’t hungry—for food—so not to worry about the steak.

  Sometimes Paul came out with lines—as in well-rehearsed verging on the corny ‘I need space/must move on’ variety. I felt somehow he had probably told Gillian the same story when he had dumped his previous girlfriend for her. I occasionally got the feeling he used the same lines, because they came out as sing-song. I knew this because most men I knew did it and most women I knew did it. But, hey, I was guilty of that too. And I felt he was genuine when he looked into my eyes and said he loved me and called me his angel and little pixie and that I was wonderful. And I thought he was wonderful and special because he loved me. And deep down I didn’t want to believe him. And I did.

  We got on to the subject of past boy and girlfriends, as you do. And shouldn’t.

  Paul—‘What were yours like?’

  Sarah—‘I had one, really. David. Who kept buggering off to Saudi Arabia to find himself in the desert and always managed to find his way back home after a few months. But that was it. How about you?’

  Paul—‘Well, before Gillian there was Eve, and before that there was Isabel and a girl called Tracy, but she didn’t count, really. I was embarras
sed to be seen with her. I used her a bit. I liked Eve. She was short and plump. Sort of like a moped. Fun to ride but not for best. Gillian, who you know of—well, I just got tired of her coz she moaned a lot in the end and wanted to get married and I didn’t want that. And she did. Very mature for her age she was. So was Eve. Isabel was sort of a school romance. You’re breaking my criteria, really. You don’t have a chest, you’re not shorter than me—or really short, which is what I usually go for, for some reason, and you’re not the mature type.’

  Sarah—‘Sounds as though you want someone to look up to you and want to fuck your mother.’

  Think he was a bit shocked by me being so up-front, but, hey, I’d met the type before. In fact, methinks that most of the men I had met were hunting for their mums. They said they wanted independent-minded feisty women but bottom line is they didn’t. Not really. Problem with independent feisty women is that usually they also like their own space, want to move on and are capable of doing so—and don’t want to do anyone’s cooking, cleaning, ironing, washing. At a push, only their own.

  Paul—‘No, I’m not looking to marry my mother. But you have broken the criteria. Most men have a wish-list. Just depends when they decide to break it. Sometimes it’s tried and tested. Sometimes it evolves. Mark, my brother, always goes for townies. Girls who work in London, good job, must be beautiful and have a brain and humour and conversation. Do you have a wish-list of things to look for in a man?’

  Sarah—‘Kind, loving, intelligent, funny, nice hands, nice eyes, nice hair, over six foot. Handsome, if possible. Good dancer.’

  Paul—‘Well, I’m most of those things. Just six foot, though. And I think you can ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you I’m not a cruel person. As for the rest. You decide. I like a woman with her own mind.’

  Sarah—‘Really? Most men I know say that, but what they really mean is that as long as their opinions are the same as theirs, they’re welcome to have an opinion. If they’re not, well, they might as well not have one.’

  Paul—‘I’m not like that.’

  We’ll see, I thought. But as the weeks rolled on he proved himself to be kind and considerate and generous and loving, and occasionally boorish but a very good dancer and very sexy—in and out of bed. I remember him looking at me one evening and calling me his angel with tears in his eyes and me thinking, Hey, I would love to be your angel. Just yours. Just the two of us. As he would say to me, ‘Two of us against the world.’ I never really got that bit. I never thought the world was against me. I always felt I had to make it work for me. Somehow I had to work with this gritty, nasty world rather than against it. I had to be kind to it, and it would be kind to me. But Paul had other qualities which more than made up for some of his reasoning.

  For a start, he was romantic without trying. He never sent Valentine cards. Which miffed me as friends received bouquets and dinners at the Ivy or Samling in Windermere. Instead, on one February fourteenth, he wrote a card…

  Dear Sarah

  As you know, I don’t believe in celebrating Valentine’s Day. It always seems a pity that people need something as commercialised as VD to show each other they need each other. However, it would appear that you feel you need reminding.

  Well, let me take this opportunity to make sure you realise that you are the most important thing in my life. You cause such extremes of emotion. I love you so much sometimes I need to come up to the surface to breathe before I can dive again to be surrounded by your love.

  My feelings for you go beyond just affection. I think about everything that affects you. Sometimes you catch me just staring at you—it’s as though I don’t even have to touch you. Just looking at you I feel our love. You are the only person I have ever met who in the same minute can drag me to the edge of despair and desperation and as I’m about to fall grab me and hold me close. You should always know that even when I’m not with you you are in my thoughts and that I can’t experience love unless I’m in your presence, because only then do you release my heart from the prison you’ve built for it, to let me really feel what love is.

  You must never doubt me—because through all that has happened to us in the last two and a half years I’ve never really doubted you.

  Together, Sarah, we will be something very special. Like everything that’s good in life it has to be worth waiting for. Trust in me as I’ve trusted you. Let me into your world as I’ve let you into my heart. Words can only say so much. Just believe.

  Love, your Paul. xxxxx

  I desperately wanted to believe. At the beginning we would write notes to each other—at least three a week. My feelings would inspire poetry. Sounds naff, but I sent love poems and letters. Do people do that any more? The old-fashioned way. Handwritten in cards. I was always getting the length wrong and having to use the back cover to complete my work. E-mail and text messaging are so deletable and lazy and quick. Not as clever. Writing takes longer. Means more. Mistakes, smudged by tears, crossings-out and all.

  To Paul…

  Your name means strength and valour

  You come from noble stock

  You’ll travel like your father

  To find what others mock

  You’re a leader and a driver

  Leaving passengers behind

  You act when others wonder

  How quickly works your mind

  You understand the Game of Life

  As though you’ve played it all before

  Aching as each new morning breaks

  To improve upon your score

  You have few faults in my eyes

  But my eyes are blind to see

  All the faults and contradictions

  That you often find in me.

  I’ve never felt this hurt before

  I’ve never known this joy

  Echoing through my heart and mind

  Becoming as fragile as a toy.

  Love Sarah xxx

  First Christmas I wanted to spend with him. But his father didn’t think it right.

  ‘You haven’t known this girl long.’

  ‘I’ve known her for four months.’

  ‘Not long enough. Just our family should be here, Paul. Can’t she go with her own family?’

  ‘She doesn’t want to.’

  I didn’t want to. Mum was driving me nuts.

  So I didn’t spend Christmas Day with my love. I spent it with my ex. With David.

  David had returned from one of his Saudi I-will-find-my-focus trips, to discover his long-suffering girlfriend had found a focus of her own and he wasn’t in it. After taking all his furniture from the flat we’d shared (i.e. three-quarters of it) when I was away and leaving me with minimalist decor—which had up sides (less to clean and I didn’t like his stuff anyway)—he calmed down. Realised he was a prat. And asked to see me. To have dinner. I declined. But he called after Paul told me we wouldn’t be spending Christmas together. I said I was fine. David said I couldn’t spend it by myself. He said he’d take me out to dinner.

  He took me to Paris. By Eurostar. First Class. Montmartre and Sacre Coeur on Christmas Eve and top of Eiffel Tower on Christmas Day. At the top he proposed.

  David—‘Sarah, I have something to ask you.’

  Sarah—‘What?’

  David—taking little black box from his pocket—‘Will you…?’

  Sarah—realising what little black box contained and thinking on feet—‘Stop. No. Don’t. I’m not right for you. You know I’m not.’

  David—looking shocked and dejected—‘I understand.’ (He didn’t)

  Long hug. Saying nothing. Him in tears. Me trying to be.

  I said no. I said I was saving him from himself and myself and that in years to come he would thank me. He looked crestfallen, but I was adamant. Plus I didn’t love him. Not that way. We ate at the restaurant in Gare de Lyon. Ornate and grand and value for money—a rare combination. We then returned home, still friends. He dropped me at the bottom of Paul’s parents’ road. I walke
d up to be greeted by Paul and family as though I was one of them. Although obviously not on Christmas Day.

  Looking back, my relationship with Paul in those first years was innocent and special and wonderful and naïve and I wish it could have lasted for ever. But, like the ink on the cards and letters, over time it faded leaving only the impression of happiness rather than the reality of it.

  I keep a box of the letters and cards. They stopped about the fourth year. The last note I wrote was a contract of love. I’d applied to so many jobs over the years, I thought I could work the format. A request for a full-time position in his life.

  Dear Mr O’Brian

  RE: POSITION AS LIVE-IN SPOUSE

  I’m writing to express my interest in the position of best friend, lover, occasional domestic, gardener, sexual arouser, hostess, intelligent wit and sleeping partner to Mr Paul O’Brian. My relevant experience and learning points to date include:

  How to balance precariously on knees without using hands, and bending over at an angle. The only thing stopping me from toppling over is will-power.

  How to prove Paul wrong about women drivers.

  How to prove Paul wrong.

  How to sexually arouse myself.

  How to sexually arouse myself keeping Paul guessing as to whether I know he’s watching me.

  How to ring the same person over three times a day, having just seen them in the morning and about to see them that night, and still feel you miss the sound of their voice.

  How lucky I am to be as supple as I am.

  How lucky Paul is to have someone who is as supple as I am.

  How cuddles take on a new dimension when you’re with someone you love.