A Will and No Way - Part Three: the end

Will took my hand as we walked and I didn't mind. I was thinking how nice it felt, in fact, when I heard a voice say ‘Sorry’ followed by a deeper voice slurring 'Sorry', swiftly followed by 'Sorry'.  Three middle-class young men, very politely, were relieving themselves in the street. Will waved.

'No need to be sorry gentlemen, thank you for your consideration.'

'Sorry' they shouted at the back of our heads.

A homeless man carrying his weight in plastic bags approached, looking up at Will.

'Sorry - ' he started.

Will grinned.

'You're sorry too?’ What is it with this stretch of road, everyone is sorry. You're sorry? go and talk to those three guys having a piss. You can all be sorry.'

We passed a young couple on a bench in the late stages of physical communion – she was draped, supine, under him, her hands holding onto his collar for balance as much as in passion while he said ‘Baby? Baby? Baby?’ possibly trying to wake her up.

Will paused, a ripple running through him. He wore an expression I had last seen on the face of my neighbour, Mrs Waugh, the afternoon she turned her garden hose on copulating dogs.

The girl laughed and pulled herself up onto her elbows. The boy retreated and we walked on. Will scowled.

‘How old was she? Sixteen? She’s too young to be having sex. They don’t understand the dangers of pregnancy or worse, the dangers of falling in love with the wrong person.’

I didn’t know whether to argue or just enjoy the absurdity of his caring.

‘My sister, she was too young. And she was with that fucking idiot for years.’

It was less absurd. But I decided to argue. I shrugged, Gallic.

‘It's natural. We all want sex. You resist, you make it stronger, even at sixteen, especially at sixteen, and how can you possibly legislate who people fall in love with? you can control that?’ I looked at him. ’Have you always fallen in love with the right people Will?'

He thought about it.

'Yes. I think I have.'

As I remembered one of our kitchen exchanges included a story about a heroin-addicted ex-girlfriend that he referred to as 'the dragon' I wasn't entirely convinced.

We continued through this neighbourhood of contrasts, multi-million pound homes nestled next to council flats, past a famous and well-respected theatre to the tower block beside it.

I wasn’t prepared to let my moral high-ground go.

'How old were you when you fell off the wagon of virginity, Will?'

'Me? When I first had sex?' We walked up a flight of stairs. 'I had sex with my girlfriend's mother when I was 14.'

I gave up.  And just watched the movie of his 14-year old beauty, drawn into the bedroom of a bored and desperate single-mother of a teenage girl, initiating Will into what was obviously a life-time of female attention. I was the latest in a long line of admirers. I felt a silent communion with Mrs Robinson before I stopped myself. Not only was that slightly creepy, even if Will was now 42 -  I wasn’t bored. Or desperate. Obviously.

We emerged from the lift at the 16th floor. Will turned to me.

'Just to warn you, the old girl is probably still awake. She's very sweet, very lovely and she's probably drunk.'

I looked at him.

‘Who?’

‘My aunt. She won’t bother us.’

‘Bother us?’  Myaunt? Was this a dog’s name?

‘She’s friendly. She’ll want to chat.’

So it wasn’t a dog.

‘Just don’t let her talk about the Labour party. We’ll be fine.’

I fought a slow and poisonous understanding. I was devoid of conversation. I stared at Will like a cow being told a joke.

‘Your aunt?’ I repeated.

‘I live with her. You know that. Raj’s mum.’

Vague and unwelcome memories pooled in my brain. ‘The old girl this’ ‘the old girl that’ had punctuated his conversation. I was glancing at his biceps at the time, imagining a mother in a home. She wasn’t his mother. But she was in a home.

And it was his.

The film of my night unspooled, heaps of negative rising into a dark wall between Will and me. I grabbed him, my voice wild, afraid of what this Labour-party hating aunt would prevent.

'Would you - please - kiss me now?'  Aching. Hearing my tone. Obviously desperate.

He looked at me. And then he did.

Kiss me.

The way you give up your seat for an elderly person on the bus.

He opened the handsome, solid door of the very well-built flat. A loud voice said 'Welllcome, welllcome hoooooome...' and Will laughed.

A radio blared. He led me through a dark hallway into a brightly-lit sitting room, cluttered with curios, knick-knacks, black-velvet paintings, newspapers and walls of vinyl LPs. Plastic flowers, net curtains, porcelain figurines and doilies covered every available surface. A waist-high stack of HELLO! magazines teetered next to the television. A plump and pretty 60 year old blonde sat, like a bleary Liv Ullman, in a chair near the kitchen door. She beamed at us, without getting up.

Will looked at her, full of warmth.

‘This is Aunt Sofie’ he said. She didn’t extend her hand but shouted ‘She iiiiis ADOOOOORABLE!’ in a heavy Scandinavian accent and, leaning across an occasional table, offered her cheek for a kiss.

Will offered drinks. I requested tea and he glanced at Sofie, solicitous and hopeful. She was sure there was, if he looked, she was sure there was tea. And with the grace of a Maasai tribesman entertaining a 19^th century missionary, he looked for what would make me comfortable while having no idea why I would want it.

He drank a big tumbler of something green. Aunt Sofie was emptying a bottle at her feet.

She spoke non-stop and revealed herself as lovely, as sweet and, very quickly, as the drunkest person I have ever seen in three-dimensions. She was fictional-drunk, she was Hollywood-drunk. She was incomprehensible, except in small snatches. She rocked in her chair, her head lolled from time to time before it snapped up to emphasise a point she was keen to make.  Even if she hadn’t been Norwegian, the chances of me knowing what she was saying were one in a hundred. I looked at Will for clues but he just smiled, patted her arm and replenished his drink.

In a bolt of clarity, she launched into a monologue I had the impression she had been reciting even before we arrived, about her dying sister and the way her family treated her and how they were a bunch of c**ts before asking me if I liked Shakespeare.

Ah.

She was the wife of that Uncle.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I love Shakespeare.’

‘I KNEW it!’ she crowed. She levered herself up from her seat and threw her arms around me. She stayed there for a long moment, her heavy head on my shoulder. She was marinated in alcohol, she smelled highly combustible; she seemed to go limp in my arms. I shot a panicky glance at Will, wondering if she was unconscious or possibly dead, but eventually she roused and poured herself back into her chair.

‘He is a GENIUS, he is a fucking GENIUS. Strindberg and Bergman, they aaaare ruuuubbish on my feeeet compared to the greatness that is SHAKESPEEEARE.’

I gazed at the loops of blonde hair, un-dyed, piled on her head and saw, in a flash, the movie of her life. An educated youth, the pregnant bride of a London wide boy (virile, broad-shouldered ) she’d met on a summer holiday. The lure of criminality to offend her severe Scandinavian parents.

‘What’s your favourite, what’s your favourite?’ she said, passion clarifying her English.

‘Othello,’ I said, glancing at Will. We’d compared notes already. He winked.

‘Oh yes. Oh yes.’ She grew sad. ‘It’s coming up.’

I wondered if she was referring to her dinner and looked around, desperate, for a bucket or a bowl but saw her silent attention was turned to a huge, 1980’s-style speaker, set up beside the mattress where Will sat. (We were obviously in someone’s bedroom as well as sitting room. Was it hers? Was it Will’s? This was pertinent information.)  Voices were proclaiming and she nodded to Will who reached over to the hi-fi and yanked up the volume.

‘I would have been happy if the general camp,

Pioneers and all, had tasted her sweet body

So I had nothing known. Oh now forever,

Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content…’

It was Laurence Olivier. The unmistakable tone. Oceanic feeling, believably expressed - the hallmark of the greats. In my estimation anyway. And Sofie's, apparently.

‘Gielgud saaang the verse. A poncy poof. Olivier was a MAN.’

We listened to the despair of the self-deluded general and I looked at Will’s legs, long and strong-looking in his fitted jeans, I looked at the shape of his high-cheekbones and the almost-tilt of his brown eyes and the slight pull of his shirt across his chest as he leaned his elbows on somebody’s bed.

Whose bed?

How long before I found out? Would we have to wait for Sofie to fall asleep before we had sex on this mattress in the sitting room? Would we do it in front of her? like the dog I had imagined she was?

I felt like a teenager. The girl on the bench. Maybe I was too young for all this.

Will finished his drink. I hadn’t had a sip of my Tetley's before he stood up, took my hand and said 'Well, we've got to go and have a little lie down...'

'Oh, but I was enjoying - ' I think Sofie said. Opening her arms.

Thank God there was another room. And it was his.

Huge telly, a stack of CDs, prints of Portugal on the walls. A poster for an opera and a boxer making a famous winning blow. I wondered who it reminded me of in its unlived in, temporary way. And then I knew.

Me.

He put on music. Fabulously Neil Young.  We sat beside each other on the bed as he took off his socks.

'This is the best song in the world,’ he said. We sang along.

Only love can break your heart.

He turned off the overhead light, put on the telly. I was shocked for a moment then realised it was for the mood. Not so bright.  He began to unbutton his shirt. I stood and tried to stop him so I could do it. He paused then pulled away. I leaned against his cupboard, wondering what was going to happen next.

He lay down. I lay beside him. He kissed me, politely, again. Just polite.

He glanced up over me at the television. I saw and struck the sheets.

'NOT an option, Will,' I said, sitting up. 'Watching the television is not an option.'

He laughed. We tried again. I was a tinderbox, so the merest touch had me gasping but I was alone.  He paused and pulled away.

'We don't have to do this, you know, ' I said, sarcastic. 'We could just chat.'

He leaned up on one elbow and sighed.

'I think I would be safe in saying that all Englishmen - that every Englishman - would want to feel he was making the moves. I'm used to being the predator and that he wants - you know. The chase. He wants the chase. You know.' He looked down at me. 'A bit of hard to get.'

Hard to get. He wanted me to play hard to get. I had been his mildly-interested employer who hadn’t taken him seriously for months while he flirted and insinuated and offered himself and now he wanted me to play hard to get. My stomach turned.

I sat bolt up. I reached for my boots.

'Right. Okay. This is over. I'm not what you want.'

'Don't - '

I was looking forward to my bed. I was trying to remember how to get to my bike. I zipped up the first boot. Will grabbed it.

'You're not putting the boots back on.'

'Yes I am,' I said, cold and angry.

'No, you're not,' he said.

I pushed him away, found the other boot and put it on. I was looking for my coat when he reached for my knees, pulled them to him and started undoing the zip again.

'This is more like it!' he said. Wrestling with me now.

Holy fuck. I thought. It's 1950. I felt anything but coy. I was seething with fury.

But he was having fun. And suddenly he was into it. And I could - feel he was into it. In a way I hadn't felt earlier. Oh God, I thought. I have wanted this so much and for so long and look, here I can have it, with someone who wants me because I want to go home.

All his resources and well-tried skills came into play, stroking my face and my hair, undermining my resolve. And -  every time I evinced pleasure he fell back. He made no sound, whatsoever, and I kept losing him on the screen.

Until.

Until.

He took off his shirt.

And at that point, time, the invisible river on which all our lives career, stopped.

My breathing stopped. I think even the television stopped. Neil had certainly stopped (fifteen minutes ago).

He seemed to reveal himself in slow motion. As Michelangelo’s David must have appeared to the Florentines - no sooner unveiled than historic, immortal - Will’s torso was a thing of laughable beauty.

I've never before thought that God might hate me but now, I whisper to you, gentle reader, I think that God must hate me a little. Or like to see me suffer. Because God gave me, that night, what turned out to be probably - oh - 17 minutes - with the most perfect, beautiful, athletic, poetic, transcendent body I have ever had the honour to behold. Taut, landscaped with the hills of his biceps and the straight paths of his forearms, the waves of musculature under his ribs.

My veins flattened.  All my disaffection vanished. 

What defence did I have against this?  I thought Oh, I could just sit here and worship you for a while.

I asked if I could just gaze at him. He laughed. I still don’t know what that meant.

He nudged me down. We moved, disjointed, through the subsequent steps until I stopped and mentioned condoms. He paused.  He pulled back.  For the seventh, eighth time that night, he looked confused.

He just didn’t have any.

The impossibility of the whole evening, from the cinema-shouting, to the pub with Raj, to pissed Aunt Sofie rose up like hands around my throat.  I'd brought condoms (what is it with people and unsafe sex these days? and he's my age, he has no excuse, he lived through the 80s) but it was irrelevant because - he didn't like condoms.

The evening spasmed, fell into coma and died. We edged closer, lay in each other’s arms, not speaking and I kissed his face. He seemed to fall asleep.  I peered over his shoulder, looking for my clothes.

'You're going to go?' he said. Unsurprised. Again.

He didn't move.

I lay back down and traced the route to my bicycle on his back, trying to remember the unfamiliar streets. He dozed.  I pushed myself up on one elbow. He leaned over slightly and held me fast.

I felt unspeakably sad. And claustrophobic. I finally got up and got dressed on the side of the bed.

'Get out of the lift, take your first right then go right again along St Paul’s Road . At the s-bend, you'll see Richmond Crescent. Your bike is at the top of that road.'

Even though he spoke from face down on the mattress, I could hear worry in his voice. I couldn't understand a thing he was describing. He said it again, word for word. 'Get out of the lift, take your first right –‘

'Can't I just re-trace my steps?'

'No, I'm giving you a better route. Get out of the lift, take your first right - '.

I felt like a prisoner of war being told how to escape from the camp by someone who'd dug the tunnel himself. ' - then go right again along St Paul’s Road.'

I still couldn't map what he was saying, but he'd repeated the words so often that I was memorising them in spite of myself.

I was dressed. He got up. I felt a flicker of something like pleasure, was he going to walk me there, see me cycling safely home?

'Don't get up' I said, half-meaning it.

'I have to. To let you out.'

Which was fair enough.

Richard Burton was performing in the front room.

'That's nice. Hamlet, ' I said.

'Not until 4 in the morning it isn’t,' he said.

The door opened easily.  I frowned. 'I could have done that.'         

'I have to lock it behind you. Goodbye, Stephanie.'

Why is finality so recognisable? And why, after an evening like that, would I mind?

We kissed and he let me kiss him. We didn't look at each other. He closed the door. As I turned I heard him say 'Be careful'.

I thought 'Does he know something I don't know?' Two a.m., on a council estate. He probably did.

My contacts were stuck to my eyeballs and I was dizzy. Someone got into the lift at the 8th floor. I stared at the numbers lit up on the panel.

We reached the ground floor. I heard Will's voice. Get out of the lift, take your first right then go right again.

The directions were perfect. My bike was still there.

A pub was still open. I glanced in.

Looking for the handsome, quirky guy.

A Will And No Way - Part Two

Will put his arm under mine and kept me from walking into traffic I didn’t see hurtling towards us because I was too busy trying to imagine the night ahead. I was meeting his family – anyone else? Where were we going? Should I be leaving bread crumbs to re-trace my steps?

‘How long is this portion of the evening going to take?’ I didn’t want to sound ungracious but I hate surprises. I was jogging to keep up with his long stride.

‘Oh. Ten minutes.’

Ten minutes! Ten minutes. I could stand anything for ten minutes. He had to give his cousin a tenner or pick up a racing tip, then we’d be off.  I relaxed.  Will nodded at my bike as I wheeled it along the wet pavement.

‘It's like having a horse. You have to think about it all the time.' 

We dodged the swarming pedestrians. He glanced down and behind his right shoulder to talk to me.

'Normally what would follow would be a dissecting of the film but I can't dissect that film. Do you know why?'  

'No,’ I said, trotting.

'Because it's just too sad.'

‘Well, it’s beautiful as well as sad.’

'No. No, you're wrong. No beauty. It's just sad.'

'But he was full of love. For his children, for his imagination - ’

‘He was paralyzed and then he died. He lost everything. It was just sad.'

Water gushed up into the porous crepe soles of my wedge high-heels. Will didn’t seem to mind getting wet. I blinked up at him, glad I wasn’t wearing mascara.

‘Oh yeah, your philosophy. Life is a bitch and then you die. You told me. In the hallway. Between Othello and Macbeth.’

'What? me? My life's not a bitch. I have a great life.'

We turned a corner. I had a vague sense of hanging baskets and candles in the windows of a pub, a news agent. I didn’t know this part of town. Will strode as through his own back yard. We were obviously in his ‘hood.

'For instance. You took me for a walk onto Waterloo Bridge, after our dinner, to look at – the - the vista, never would have done that, and you took me to this movie. Lots of unexpected things.'

I felt touched, in a particular way. It took a moment then I realised – I felt important.

It was a nice feeling.

'You want the unexpected, don't you?' He seemed pleased.

We were approaching our destination. He slowed down and I looked for a place to park my bike as he chatted with passers-by who knew his name, some of them taking me in. He touched my elbow and steered me into a very noisy pub, bursting at the seams, overseen by a huge television playing a repeat of Match of the Day .  A series of women sat on the laps of men at the bar and loud techno-pop competed with Gary and Alan.

Will made a bee-line for a table where a young and very open-faced Scandinavian-looking man sat, two empty beer glasses already in front of him. He saw Will, leapt up nimbly, threw his arms around him then turned to me, his hand extended.

‘This is Raj,’ Will beamed.

Raj – who could not possibly have looked less like a name evoking Indian sands – grinned and pumped my hand enthusiastically.

‘Very nice to meet you, very nice indeed. Well done, cuz, well done.’

We sat at a table that began filling up with acquaintances and friends – a woman sat in Raj’s lap, de rigueur in this postal code it seemed – and I was only slightly surprised when Will went to the bar to buy a round. I’d seen him drink before, he put it away pretty fast. We could still make our ten minute ETD.

Raj and I chatted about Alan Shearer and ice hockey behind the back of the very attractive blonde who swung her legs on his knee while I, studying Raj, ruminated on how much he looked like my Uncle Harold. Who had bright blue eyes, was half-Swedish, barrel-chested and bald. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but these qualities came together nicely in Raj.  He was fresh and scrubbed-looking -  vital.  The perfect contrast to Will’s rangy, maybe-Cherokee looks.

Will returned with drinks, sat down and announced

‘Raj is half Norwegian’ as though confirming my thoughts.

‘I’m a quarter Swedish,’ I exclaimed. ‘We’re the Scandinavian portion of the bar.’

Will shook his head. ‘Not me. I’m related to his dad. Uncle Sid.’

I wondered if this was the Native American connection. All was revealed when Raj announced

‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless child.’

Ah. That uncle.

‘He dealt drugs for an Arab sheik. He denied it of course, but that’s what he did.’

‘He wouldn’t have done time for security,’ Raj shook his head.

‘He said he offered security.’

‘Not a chance.’

‘But this sheik had a son called Rashid and he liked the name.’

‘That’s my name.’

‘We call him Raj. We’re like brothers.’

Will put his arm easily around Raj who let his huge bulk be embraced. As much as I felt our very separate worlds – my family had made some criminal fashion choices, 1968-1977, but no one, as far as I knew, had ever actually done time – I liked the world of these men. Fond. Affectionate.

Raj turned to tend to the friendly girl on his lap. Will leaned forward and stroked my neck.

Ten thousand volts rushed through my capillaries and nerve ends. He watched his finger on my skin.

 'It must be boring to just sit in a pub and watch other people drink.'

I thought 'Not if you keep stroking me...'

And, obviously, he was right, it is excruciatingly dull to sit in a pub watching other people drink but I knew we’d be back outside and en route to the Third Date chapter of the evening very soon so for that I could withstand this detour. I wondered if he lived nearby.

It was too noisy to talk so I watched Match of the Day while Will drank in silence. I saw people necking in corners. I wished I were necking in a corner. I looked around to see if there were any quiet and unused portions of the pub to which I could quietly lead him but it had grown even more crowded since we’d sat down, so unless we were going to wedge ourselves under a table, Will and I would have to neck in the light of public scrutiny.

The way I was feeling, this did not seem like an unacceptable prospect.

Will waved at a few people, shouted to Raj and introduced me to someone on crutches called Messiah. I asked several times, thinking I’d misheard. I used his name, unnecessarily, just for the thrill. ‘Do you live around here, Messiah? Does your mother know where you are, Messiah? If you leave this pub, are you coming back? Messiah?’ He didn’t speak English so my ability to entertain – or offend him – was minimal.

Alan Hansen and Alan Shearer discussed the match.

Raj and I discussed more hockey – being half Scandinavian, he had a degree of expertise.

Will and I made eye contact now and then. Beautiful. Thrilling.

And that was it.

For forty minutes.

I went to the bathroom. Someone inspired by Amy Winehouse was shellacking her hair with spray in front of the mirror. I went into the loo then came back out and gazed into my reflection that was, at that moment, undergoing a dawning realisation.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten minutes didn’t mean how long we’d spend here. It meant how long it took us to get here. We’d walked for ten minutes.

We could be here all night.

I felt panic rise in my throat. I heard a desperate voice begin a chant in my head. 'I just want to get laid, I just want to get laid, can it be so hard to get LAID??'

I put a hand on my solar plexus, watched my breath to the count of ten and thought ‘I just need a bit more information.’ Then I could make a decision.

I returned and sat at the table, Will and Raj smiling at my return. At 11:30, as Match of the Day that Had Actually Happened on a Day Last Weekend wound down, I turned to Will and, in the spirit of research, shouted over the crowd. 'What sort of schedule do you have? What is your vision for the night?'

'Vision?'

'What do you want to do?'

He blinked, looked down at his watch.

'Well. I think a great deal more drinking.'

I inhaled sharply. From deep, inner reserves I found the strength not to shriek ‘What???’ I waited. Will looked around.

'Another - hour at least.'

As the rats leapt off the deck.

Because I knew, the way you know when your dog has died or you’ve failed chemistry or you’ve handed over your boarding pass at Stansted and they tell you your flight leaves from Luton – I knew what the evening was going to be. A continued application of alcohol then drunken congress. That I couldn’t face. I made my decision.

I looked at Will, gazing at me fondly and suddenly I was Harry in Harry meeting Sally. How long did I have to sit there before it was polite for me to get my things and say “I've just got to go?” I liked Will a lot, and I wanted him even more but there was no option.

It took thirty seconds.

'Will, I've got to go.'

He didn't look surprised.

'Do you?'

'I've - I've got to go. I'm going to go.'

He nodded and stood up with me. I put on my coat, shook hands with Messiah again, hoped his leg got better (suggesting he try healing himself and winking at his non-English speaking face), and we made our way out of the pub, looking for Raj.

'He's probably outside, having a spliff.'

I told Will not to follow me into the rain but he stepped out onto the pavement to stand in front of me. He put his arms around me and I thought 'Okay, well, I'm getting kissed good night I guess' trying not to weep in disappointment. 

He reached around to put his hands on my rear and yanked me up to him and kissed me and tried to put his hand under my shirt. My head spun. I couldn't figure it out. Why this interest now and why here?  I pushed him away. He reached for me again, pulling me back into the building and kissing me against the railing along the stairwell.

By this point we were blocking the very narrow passage into the bar. Large men said 'Excuse me', not looking at either of us. Will didn't notice, didn't care or thought it was perfectly right. I finally broke away and whispered 'Can't we go somewhere and do this horizontally?'

The idea seemed to confuse him. I turned to go.

'Thank you, thanks, really - I've just - ' and he reached for me again. This time he just held me, close, and my head was next to his ear and I thought ‘Oh God. What have I got to lose?’ I took a deep breath and said, quietly -

 'Will, I really really want to have sex with you but I'm not sure how we're going to make that happen.'

He pulled away, laughing. I could see I'd desperately wrong-footed him. I asked if he hadn't thought we might be having sex.  He said he was more of a spontaneous guy, things happened organically, there was a time and a point when you kind of decided that happened. Yes, he thought it might happen but it wasn't a plan.

'Well,’ I said. ‘I guess we just have different schedules. Because I'm not going to last another hour.'

He seemed content to grab me again and just sort of maul me on the sidewalk and I pulled away and took his hands and was about to say goodbye when Raj approached us from across the street.

'What's going on, why do you have your coat on, what are you doing?'

'I'm leaving.'

Raj looked at me.

'No, you most certainly are not. You're not leaving, what are you talking about? Will, she's leaving? You're not leaving. She's not leaving.'

I sighed. Will stood back, shoving his arms into his trouser pockets, looking cold.

I looked at Raj's friendly, Uncle Harold face. In for a penny, in for a pound. I shrugged.

'I would really really like to have sex with Will but I'm not sure how that's going to happen.'

Raj’s eyes went wide, huge with appreciation, and he turned to Will.

'And WHAT are you going to do about this?? Are you going to do something about this? Because if you aren't going to do something about this - I AM going to do something about this.'

Will threw his head back and laughed. 'I can't believe we are having this conversation. Why are there three of us, having this conversation?'

'Do you want privacy? Is this too intense?' Raj examined my face.  'No,’ he said, intrigued. ‘This isn't too intense.'

'No. Nothing's too intense for me.’ I said. Sadly.

'Will, what are you at? Look at her.' He looked at me. 'She's beautiful, I think you're beautiful, sweetheart, you're lovely, don't go - he doesn't want you to go.'

Will tried to defend himself. 'It's organic. I'm spontaneous. It can't be contrived.'

'I get it,' I said, trying to get it. 'There's an order, a step in between and that involves - '

'A great deal of heavy drinking.'

'You know, don't you, that I don't need to drink to be keen and available.'

'Doesn't matter. If half a dozen naked and nubile dancing girls were cavorting about me saying 'I want to have sex but I won't drink' - it wouldn't stop me.'

I couldn't figure out what was stopping him. Frustration was mounting.

'I can't believe it. I'm a woman trying to convince a man to have a one night-stand.'

Raj looked alarmed. 'Not a one night stand. Don't say that.'

Will left.

I looked up at Raj. I think my lower lip stuck out and trembled. He reached out and stroked my face and my chin. 'Ohhh...' he said, tenderly. ‘I would never walk down my cousin's road, but, darling, if you wanted, I wouldn't but if you wanted  – ‘ managing to sound gallant, not lecherous.

Will came back in his coat with his drink. Even through the haze of misunderstanding, I could see he was trying, he was really trying. I was touched. 

He saw a piece of ironmogery. He picked it up and showed Raj and me.

'That is a three-inch single-thread screw.'

'Just what I need, ' I said.  'Well. Maybe more than three inches.'

Raj laughed and, beaming, gazed at Will. Will put the screw down.

A figure materialised out of the evening mist, someone who looked far more media-type and familiar, and stood, for a moment, with the three of us. I could see that he wanted to get into the building but Raj was so big he was hard to navigate around.

 I said 'Hello.'

'Hello,' he said. We immediately had more in common than I did with anyone else on that stretch of pavement.

'It's raining, ' I said, noticing he had a really intelligent face, quirky and handsome.

'Yes, it is.'

We stood there. Four of us. In the rain.

'At least it isn't windy,' quirky handsome guy said.

'No, that is the truth, it isn't windy,’ I agreed.

'It could be rainy and windy. It's not.'

'Thank god for that.'

Will looked at us, his features bland. 'Scintillating conversation we're having.'

'I'm just saying,' handsome guy said. 'On Tuesday, if we'd been standing here in the rain, there would have been gale force winds. Very windy. Not tonight.'

'Where I come from it's snowing, ' I said.

'Where do you come from?' He looked at me. 'Lapland?'

'It doesn't snow in Lapland,' Raj offered. Being Norwegian.

'Too many reindeer,' I said, nodding. Somehow imagining a Jacob's ladder of reindeer that kept the snow on the ceiling of the sky so it couldn't fall out.

I took out my bike lights. Preparing to leave.

'Ah you cycle, very commendable,' said quirky guy.

'I come from Canada,' I said. For the second time Will left. I felt a spasm of fear that he was hurt and jealous of the quirky handsome guy with whom I had far more in common and I grabbed at his coat tails as he passed. He stood in the hallway of the pub.

'I'm just standing here to get warm, darling' he said. Now the two of them blocked the door.

Quirky guy seemed to pick up an unspoken signal and decided it was time to move on. He forced his way between them, turned to me and said

'Did you know Vancouver has more telescopes per capita than any other city in the world? People on one side of the island are always watching people on the other side.'

'It's absolutely true,' I said never having heard this before and sure it was a blatant falsehood. Nodding at Raj and Will. Who nodded back, interested.

'A lot of people spend a lot of time naked there,' handsome guy said.  And left.

Will downed his drink. 'Right. I've finished this, I'm going to take you back and give you a right good seeing to.'

Almost an hour a head of his time. Raj slapped him on the shoulder.

'I knew you'd come through! I knew it.' He took my hand and kissed it. 'He really likes you darling, I love you, you're a sweetheart, remember you have a back up in reserve.'

We waved and I wondered about this victory I'd scored.

Nothing was going as I'd hoped.

****

From next week's (final) instalment:

I was looking forward to my bed. I was trying to remember how to get to my bike. I zipped up the first boot. Will grabbed it.

'You're not putting the boots back on.'

'Yes I am,' I said, cold and angry.

'No, you're not,' he said.

I pushed him away, found the other boot and put it on. I was looking for my coat when he reached for my knees, pulled them to him and started undoing the zip again.

'This is more like it!' he said. Wrestling with me now.

Holy fuck I thought. It's 1950. And I'm not being coy. I'm furious.

But he  - he was having fun. And suddenly he was into it. And I could - feel that he was into it. In a way I hadn't felt earlier. Oh God, I thought. I have wanted this so much and for so long and look, here I can have it. 

With someone who wants me because I want to go home.

A Will and No Way

Chris and I are in the early stages of developing a web site of podcasts called LOVE BITES:  urban tales of men and music written by me. We have three scripts ready to record, and one that will never see the light of day.

Or so I’d thought.

It was about a man, and me, and I could, undoubtedly, have found music. But it was too excruciating. And I don’t mean excruciating as when you spend years married to someone who turns out to be dealing arms and beating up people at football games without telling you. I mean excruciating as when you’ve been stupid and you see glaring evidence. A year on.

However.

I can’t deny it’s bloody good material.

And perhaps my stupidity can inspire one dating soul not to go out with the good-looking, inappropriate guy when her head screams ‘Don’t touch!’ That perhaps she’ll remember values beyond simple aching sexual need are necessary for real communion. That maybe she’ll just buy a bar of chocolate and watch a George Clooney movie instead.

Read on, O curious human, to see just how catastrophic seven hours with a tall, dark and handsome man on a wet London Thursday night could possibly be.

Trust me.

I didn’t know either.

*********************

It was January. Will came to fix the boiler. I was house-sitting and the boiler was in the courtyard on the ground floor. There was no heat, which wasn’t debilitating because I’m Canadian, but God knows what damage could have been inflicted on the multi-million pound home if the temperature really dropped and the pipes exploded.

He came with an assistant and, after my assessment of Will's exotic good looks – someone told me later that Cherokee blood ran mildly in his veins – I was amused by his gallantry. “This was a beautiful home, I was a beautiful lady – he looked forward to a beautiful time.”  I enjoyed the flattery, didn’t take him seriously and gave him the job.

It was a good decision. He diagnosed the problem and in the process discovered most of the Victorian plumbing throughout the five-story house was in need of repair. He found a leak in a cupboard no one had bothered to open because it smelled so bad (because of the leak) and, bingo, brought three months’ worth of work into his life, and a cohort of plasterers, builders and painters into mine.

The mansion became a building site.

I spent a lot of time with Will.

I found out he loved ‘the dogs’ and Shakespeare. He had a rich uncle who made him memorise vast tracts of Hamlet before giving out pocket money.

Will would begin the trek to the attic from the ground floor, reciting en route the way some people sing, ancient profanity peppering the 17^th century verse.

‘O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew or that the oi, mind how you go, Dave, Dave, Dave, are you listening to me, you c***? Excuse my French, darling.’

I’d come out of my bedroom and find five men in paint-spattered jeans and t-shirts on a ladder, unhooking something from behind one wall and attaching it to another. Will would push them aside.

‘Make room, make room,’ he’d say, nodding at me. ‘All right, lovely?’ I’d squeeze past, eye-level with the tool belt slung on his hips as he balanced, expert, on a top step.

Once he put his hand under my elbow as I negotiated a stairway of open paint cans and brushes, and the charge between us nearly threw me over the railing onto the floor below.

I had to admit there was chemistry.

The months of nodding in hallways and chatting in bathrooms (Shakespeare, politics, ex-partners) culminated in going out with Will for a celebratory drink. The pipes had been fixed, the walls re-plastered and the boiler repaired for a shockingly good price, all under his watchful eye. He deserved congratulations.

The drink was casual and he was a perfect gentleman, only glancing down to look at the hem line of my rather short skirt once. We went out two weeks later, this time for dinner in town, where he was breathtakingly handsome in a long, wool coat that made him seem even taller and broader. I walked in front of him as we left the restaurant and had the unprecedented experience of seeing every woman look up as we passed – bang, bang, bang - staring just above and beyond my shoulder; like pinballs in a machine, their glances ricocheted off Will.

I felt a combination of offence – get your eyes off him, you hussy – and pride – I’m with him.

The third date loomed. The differences that had arisen between us – he was a right-wing Sun reader who oiled his social life with a lot of drink -  were offset by his intelligent curiosity, his attentive listening and, let’s face it, his decision that I was obviously Devastatingly Attractive.

I recommended a French film. My treat I insisted, and, very new-man for him, and very satisfying for me, he agreed.

It was a rainy night, so I got to the cinema early to dry out my cycling hair, and ten minutes later he walked in, right on time. He looked wonderful in his working London way; no media scruff -  all polish and a white fitted shirt, floppy brown hair. Almost old-fashioned.  I snaked through the French-speaking crowd to where he was looking for me, a head above everyone else. I moved very close and bumped his arm with my forehead. Then smiled up, broadly. Available. Keen.

My first mistake.

It's only a mistake in retrospect. In the moment he smiled and hugged me and said something disparaging about foreigners but how he’d try to cope without beer. He was repulsed by popcorn (a warning sign, how is it possible to sit in a public movie house and not eat popcorn? I am not capable of it, it is beyond me) (usually) so I forewent, as he’d done the alcohol, and when we got into the auditorium he spread his arms out in the dark.

 'You must know I'm prone to shouting things out in the cinema. Things that embarrass everybody!'

He said this in a shouting voice.

I thought Jesus. And tried to grab hold of the railings of the night as it began its imperceptibly slow tilt under my feet.

We sat down. He wanted to be at the back. I told him I liked the middle. 'My God', he said, ‘we are different in every possible way'’ but agreed to be much closer for my sake. I turned in my seat.

 'Will, you are a spiritual challenge for me.'

He laughed and said 'And so are you for me, ' but arranged himself so I could press my knees up against his, my arm against his arm.  As this was what I wanted.

He shouted things out during the trailers, like someone who has situation-specific Tourette’s. After the third comment I said, channeling my mother, 'Will, be quiet' and he said 'No! I'm not going to be quiet' and I thought

Fair enough. Why should you? Just because some poncy, uptight North American tells you to? I hate being told what to do.

It obviously wasn’t his problem.

But it did feel like mine.

The film started, intense and very French, and I heard him say 'Okay, I can do this.  I can gather all my intellect and do this.'

He crossed his legs and folded his arms. He put one hand on my knee and I ran my fingers up his white shirt. Then he removed his hand. And that was it. If I’d had adolescent images of necking through most of the feature, they were unrealized. I struggled with huge disappointment through the rest of the film.

Until, during the credits, when, finally, he took one of my fingers and rubbed its tip.

Which was more like it.

Music rose. Gaffer boy, second assistant to the catering manager, the star’s driver and dog handler, I watched them all. I watched every acknowledgement and disclaimer, oblivious to the screen, deliriously happy to be sitting in the dark with Will stroking my palm.

By the time we stood up, I was disoriented by the throbbing in my hands and kept making wrong turns trying to get out of the building. He switched on his mobile phone and I stood under the small awning outside the cinema, thinking  'Now would be a great time to kiss me.'

Instead he said 'That was a jolly little film.' Not put out, just commenting.

I asked what he wanted to do and he said 'Well, after that I think a great deal of drinking is in order.'

I grasped the railing tighter.

The descent began more quickly than I’d anticipated, the ship began its Titanic keeling when, walking to my bike, I overheard him on the phone say 'Yes, yes, fine. I'll see you in ten minutes.'

The blood dropped out of my chest.

I thought 'He's made another appointment? He's got some other date after this one? This is it? Goodbye at the bike?'

I unlocked. It was raining harder. He put his phone away.

'Are you meeting someone?' I said. Tight-lipped.

He nodded. 'My cousin.'

He waited for me. 

‘A boy cousin – or a girl cousin?’

‘I wouldn’t call him a boy.’

'Does he know - I'm coming? Should you warn him?'

He laughed.

‘I don’t think my cousin and I need to spend quality time alone.’

‘Oh.’

 A truck rumbled by and he didn't hear, couldn’t hear the tone of shock in my voice. The single syllable which I’d hope would say ‘Are you out of your fucking mind? We’re on a third date.  Don’t you know what this means? Where this is headed? Do we have to make small-talk with your cousin before we can have sex?’

He watched me unlock my bike. I turned and followed him. I spoke to myself, gently but firmly.  'Go with it,’ I said to me. ‘Go with it, Steph. Don’t resist. Allow.'

But I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking there are times, as when the oncoming train is heading indisputably towards you, that you should not allow the prevailing reality or go with the dominant flow – and that this was one of those moments. There are times when you should stop, look at the disaster catapulting towards you, and move to safer, quieter ground. Get the chocolate, go back to George. But when the train is very, very good looking and wants you and seems to promise an evening of unbridled pleasure – well.

You stand on the track, you whistle Dixie and you close your eyes. As the lights get brighter and the engine roars..

End of Part One

Excerpt from Part Two

His cousin was aghast.

'Will, what are you at? Look at her.' The cousin looked at me. 'She's beautiful, I think you're beautiful, sweetheart, you're lovely, don't go - he doesn't want you to go.'

Will kept his hands in the pockets of his long, wool coat.  'No, I don’t’, he agreed. ‘But. I want a great deal of heavy drinking first.'  He smiled.

I reached across the aching cultural divide that made the trans-Canada railway seem like a zebra crossing on Oxford Street.

'You know, don't you,’ I said slowly, ‘that I don't need to drink to be keen and available.'

'Doesn't matter,’ Will shrugged. ‘If half-a-dozen naked and nubile dancing girls were cavorting about me saying "I want to have sex but I won't drink"- it wouldn't stop me.'

And I just couldn't figure out what was.

Mad Woman

I wish I’d written Mad Men. I wish I were writing Mad Men. I think I can speak for Christine when I say it is the kind of television we aspire to create – complicated, hilarious, stylish, poignant. Smoky (automatic atmosphere).

If you’ve just emerged from living rough in a box under a bridge, I’ll tell you that Mad Men is the story of men and women making ads - making love, making trouble, making babies - in 1960s Manhattan. For anyone who spent time in North America that decade, it evokes the world with haunting precision.

Although writer and creator Matthew Weiner hasn’t been in touch to offer me a staff position, he cannot interfere with my fantasy that I’m not only writing for the show – I’M IN THE SHOW. And I don’t mean as an actor, acting in the show that is full of other actors.

I mean IN THE SHOW.

I mean I’M A FICTITIOUS CHARACTER in the show.

It’s 1965. My name is Marnie Stewart. I’m model-beautiful and I write ground-breaking novels about the claustrophobia of women's lives in suburban America, asking the question Can’t someone invent a vacuum cleaner that doesn’t topple over when you drag it around the corners? (Life may be claustrophobic, it doesn’t have to be inefficient.)

In this scene I wear a sinful-green, figure-hugging dress and sip a High Ball out of a thermos in Central Park. I’m in leopard skin gloves and hat. And coat. In fact I look a lot like a leopard. This confuses the ducks on the pond, who are alternately aggressive and fascinated.

This is also the effect I Have On Men.

I chew on a Cross pen between guzzles of High Ball, and write in a spiral notebook I balance on my lap. I am transcribing my thoughts on the tyranny of dusting when I notice the bench creak. I finish my sentence before I look up.

I see:

The handsome and enigmatic Don Draper (founding partner of innovative ad agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce), dark-suited, rain-coated. Opening a sandwich from a brown paper bag.

We barely smile. We are New Yorkers. I continue to write.

He is, however, intrigued by my gloves and the ducks, one of whom is attacking the back of my head with the persistence of a pneumatic drill.  Don raises an eyebrow:

Don:               Is that bird bothering you?

Me:                (not looking up) What bird?

He smiles, appreciating my concentration, and returns to his sandwich. The duck calls over a few of her friends who increase the assault beyond bearing. With a frustrated sigh I throw the exclusive, $500 hat into the pond. Don watches the birds try to kill it.

Don:                Your husband’s not going to like that.

I glance at him and keep writing. Don eats.

Don:                You’ve put me in an awkward position. If I were a gentleman, I’d wade into the pond and rescue that hat.

I put my pen down, cross my elegant, fur-booted legs (it’s January) and look at him.

Don:                Which would mean leaving you alone here on the bench, open to the advances of other demented wild fowl.

Me:                  Those aren’t the advances I worry about.

Pause.

Don:                You’re not worried.

We exchange eye contact of such intensity that all activity within half a mile of the bench ceases: nature and traffic are silenced. He offers me some of his lunch.

Don:                Are you writing a poem?

Me:                  Yes. (I look down) For another bite of your sandwich, I’ll read it.

He hands over the bag. I clear my throat.

Me:               (reading) Time present and time past
 Are both perhaps present in time future,
 And time future contained in time past.
 If all time is eternally present
 All time is unredeemable.

Long pause.

Don:                I’d like you to read that again.

He leans back and closes his eyes. I examine my French-polished nails.

Me:                  Now that you’ve fed me, I feel I should say – it’s not an original poem.

Don:                (eyes still closed) It’s original for somebody.

Me:                  Maybe you want to buy him lunch.

Don:                (opening one eye) If he shows up I’ll give him a dime.

I smile. I keep reading.

Cut to:

My office. Christine (yes, I’ve suckered her into my televisual fantasy too) is Francesca Ponti, editor extraordinaire, offering me encouragement in writing my novel. (Note to Matthew Weiner: aren’t these great ideas? Are you lovin’ me yet?)

She has stopped at my desk.  We look like this (i.e. women in very tight foundation garments):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nobodyssweetheart/2879216265/in/set-72157606178887453/

Francesca:       I’m sorry, do you mind if I lean? Here?

Me:                 No.

Francesca:       I can’t actually breathe.

Me:                 You look cold.

Francesca:       This dress has cut off circulation to my vital organs.

Me:                 I’m chilly too.

Francesca:       Really? Even with that snappy scarf?

Me:                 Francesca, I met a man in the park.

Francesca:       Another one?

Me:                 He was sober.

Francesca:       Where have you put him?

Me:                 He took a cab. Somewhere uptown.

Francesca:       Write him into the novel. He’ll show up.

Cut to:

Me walking swiftly down the hallway outside the ladies' powder room of the Algonquin Hotel. A hand reaches out from behind a potted fern and drags me into the foliage.

Me:                  Damn this coat, can’t anyone leave me alone?!

I find myself looking into the troubled and intelligent eyes of Don Draper. Again.

Don:                I found out where you work.

Me:                 (squirming) I’m nowhere near where I work.

Don:                I followed you from the office.

Me:                 (pulling away) I left the office hours ago. I went to my mother’s for tea.

Don:                I know. I stood outside and waited.

Me:                 It was raining.

Don:                I have this  - stylish  - hat.

Me:                 (touching his face) Oh you determined and troubled man, what do you want?

Don:                I want to hear more of your writing. I want to hear about the claustrophobic lives of women in suburban America.

Me:                 Really? (defiant) Why should you care?

Don:                I think my wife may have been the kind of woman you’re writing for.

Me:                 May have been? Is she dead?

Don:                No, but she hasn’t appeared as much in this season, that’s for sure.  (pulling me down amidst the planters) Read to me. I want to understand.

Me:                 I don’t believe you. I’m writing about dust. You want to sell furniture polish.

Don:                (kissing me while he shrugs) And this is wrong how?

I don’t know how Don Draper, from the mid-west, has suddenly developed the speech patterns of someone whose first language is Yiddish but if you’re looking for verisimilitude, I’m probably not your model-beautiful –leopard-skin-wearing girl.

But Matthew Weiner might be your man.