The Trials of Tiffany Trott. Isabel Wolff

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СКАЧАТЬ in fact. Because since Alex, or rather Al-ex dumped me, a whole month has gone by. Well, three weeks and five days to be precise. And during that time I’ve been turning everything over in my mind. Reviewing the situation. Mentally rewinding and then fast-forwarding the video of my romantic life. Pressing the pause button here and there, and scrutinising key frames. And I’ve made this momentous, life-changing decision. It wasn’t easy, but I’ve done it. I’ve given up the husband hunt. I’ve chewed it over, and I’m going to eschew chaps. Frances is right. It’s just not worth the pain and grief. Much better to face life alone. So I am now emphatically hors de combat. I have pulled up the drawbridge. The sign says ‘Do Not Disturb’. And I have started to like my hard little shell. The prospect of yet another Saturday night on my own at home in front of the TV no longer fills me with dread. Who needs the romantic darkness of the cinema and dinner tête-à-tête when there’s a Marks and Spencer easicook-lasagne-for-one and the National Lottery Live? My new-found neutrality suits me – no gain, of course, but no pain.

      Lizzie says it just won’t do. ‘You’ve got to get out there,’ she said again this morning, bossily, waving her fifth Marlboro Light at me. ‘You’re not doing anything to help yourself. You’ve got to forget about Alex, write him off completely, and get back on that horse.’ I often wonder why Lizzie talks in italics. Maybe it’s because she went to such a third-rate drama school. She paced up and down the kitchen and then flicked ash into the sink. ‘You know, Tiffany, you’re like … ’ I waited for some theatrical simile to encapsulate my predicament. What would I be today? A traveller thirsting in the Sahara? A mountaineer stuck at Base Camp? A promising Monopoly player resolutely refusing to pass ‘Go’? A brilliant artist without a brush? ‘You’re like someone falling asleep in the snow,’ she announced. ‘If you don’t wake up, you’ll freeze to death.’

      ‘I just haven’t the heart for it any more,’ I said. ‘It always leads to disaster. Anyway, I’m only thirty-seven.’

      ‘Only thirty-seven? Don’t be ridiculous, Tiffany. There’s nothing “only” about being thirty-seven. To all intents and purposes you are now forty, and then very, very quickly, you’ll be fifty, and then you’ll really be stuffed.’

      I sometimes suspect Lizzie’s only being cruel to be cruel. I don’t mind her nagging me. I nag her about her smoking. But I can’t quite see why my lack of a husband and progeny bothers her so much. Perhaps in her funny, crass, cack-handed way, she is trying to be of help. And of course she is thinking how delightful Alice and Amy would look in primrose-yellow bridesmaids’ dresses, or maybe ice-blue, or possibly pale-pink with apricot hairbands, matching satin slippers and coordinating posies – she hasn’t quite decided yet. Anyway, I know, I know that she is right. It’s just that I simply can’t be fagged any more. It’s all too much of an effort – because nice, interesting, decent men with diamond rings in their pockets don’t simply drop from the trees, you have to go out and pick one, or rather knock one down with a very large stick. There are plenty of windfalls of course, but they tend to be bruised and wasp-eaten and I’ve had my unfair share of bad apples over the past few years. But even if I really was pursuing men – the very idea! – I have to face the fact that, as Lizzie keeps telling me, it all gets harder with age. And that’s another thing. Whatever happened to that dewy look I used to have? And when exactly did that little line at the side of my mouth appear, not to mention the creeping crepiness in the texture of my eyelids and the tiny corrugations in my brow? NB: Get more expensive unguents PDQ.

      ‘I’m losing my looks,’ I said to Mum over the phone after Lizzie had gone. ‘I’m really going down the pan. In fact I’m quite ancient now. Basically, I’m almost fifty. I found my first grey hair this morning.’

      ‘Did you, darling?’ she replied.

      ‘Yes. Yes I did,’ I said. ‘Which is why I’m now firmly on the shelf. I’m going off. I’m the Concealer Queen. And this is why I’m being dumped all the time and why men never, ever, ever ask me out.’

      ‘What about that nice Jewish accountant?’ she said. ‘The one you met last year?’

      ‘I didn’t fancy him,’ I replied.

      ‘And that television producer – you said he was quite keen.’

      ‘Possibly, but his girlfriend wasn’t.’

      ‘Oh. Oh I see. Well what about that one … you know … whatsisname, the one who does something clever in computers?’

      ‘Dead boring.’

      ‘And what about that solicitor you told me you’d met at the tennis club? I’m sure you said he’d called you.’

      ‘Mummy – he’s got two heads.’

      ‘Oh. Well at least you can’t say that no-one asks you out.’

      ‘Yes I can. Because those ones don’t count.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because I’m not interested in them. In fact I’m not interested in men full stop. In any case I really don’t need a husband.’

      ‘Darling, don’t say that.’

      ‘No. I’m absolutely fine on my own.’

      ‘No you’re not. You’re miserable.’

      ‘Only because I’ve had the wrong attitude. The thing to do is to embrace aloneness. Take spinsterhood seriously.’

      ‘Darling, no-one will take you seriously if you say things like that.’

      ‘No, honestly, Mum, I’ll be brilliant at it. I’ll really apply myself. I’ll get a cat and knit blankets for the Red Cross. I’ll develop a passion for cricket and crosswords –’

      ‘You don’t do crosswords, darling.’

      ‘I’ll learn. And I’ll man cake stalls at bring-and-buys. And I’ll selflessly babysit for all my friends. I’ll be the most professional spinster there’s ever been – I’ll probably pick up an award for it. Spinster of the Year – Tiffany Trott, brackets “Miss”, close brackets.’

      ‘Darling, I’m afraid this negative and unhelpful attitude won’t get you anywhere.’

      ‘I’m just being realistic.’

      ‘Nihilistic, darling.’

      ‘But I’m unlikely to meet anyone new.’

      ‘Don’t be silly, darling, of course you are.’

      ‘No I’m not. Because I read in the paper the other day that forty-five per cent of us meet our partners through mutual friends and I’ve already met all my friends’ friends. And twenty-one per cent of us meet them through work.’

      ‘Darling, I do wish you could get a proper job again. All you do is sit on your own writing slogans all day.’

      ‘But Freelancers Have Freedom!’

      ‘Yes, but you’re not meeting any men. Except for Kit. Why didn’t you marry Kit, Tiffany?’

      ‘I don’t want to go through all that again, Mummy. Anyway, he loves Portia.’

      ‘Don’t СКАЧАТЬ