He’d shared so much of himself, but Margot still had so many questions left unanswered. There were still more layers to carefully peel back before she could get to the heart of this complex, contrary man. Margot knew all about the layers that kept you safe and the rest of the world at bay. People assumed that sometimes she was sad because her parents were dead. Those were the facts, the headlines, and no one really delved any deeper than that. But underneath the loss were emotions that were harder to talk about. Loneliness of course, and, even after all these years, a grief, which still had the power to hurt if Margot took it out of its box and held it up to the light. When Margot thought of her mother’s last year, there was also guilt, a corrosive shame that washed over her like acid. There was panic too; you could never know how life might turn out, how long you had left, which was all the more reason not to kiss handsome, conflicted men and to take a chance on Dale, forty-one.
‘He has a kind face,’ Margot said, squinting at her phone. ‘Don’t you think he has a kind face?’
‘A kind face for someone whose moaning, smoking wife cheated on him,’ Jacques agreed, but the pickings on the dating apps were slim (even though January was meant to be the month where traditionally everyone dumped their old loves and started looking for new ones) and Margot couldn’t afford to be that picky.
Hi Dale,
Congratulations! We’re a match! I’m Margot, a clothing designer who also loves long walks and snuggling on the sofa – so does my dog, Blossom. (She’s the pretty one in my profile picture.) I also like good food and wine, but I can’t always guarantee good conversation.
I see you’re North London based. Fancy a walk with me and Blossom?
Experience had taught Margot that there was no point in fannying about with endless messages. It was better to meet up with potential matches as soon as possible. Rather than being a many splendoured thing, love was a numbers game. The more men you met, the more chances you had of finding The One. Or more accurately, The One That Will Do. Lord knows, Margot had put the work in and was due her happy ever after as suitable recompense.
Done, Margot thought, pressing send on the message without even trace amounts of anticipation. It had barely gone into the ether when her phone chimed and her stomach clenched as she saw it was a message from Will. Not on the #TeamBlossom group chat either.
‘Oh God, now what?’ she muttered under her breath as she opened the app.
Should have probably consulted with you first, but Mum was adamant that Blossom was freezing so we went to Woof! and bought her a coat. I don’t think she likes it. W
There was also a video attached. A video of Blossom taking two steps in her new coat and then sitting down with a baleful glare at the phone, or rather at Will who was holding the phone and laughing.
‘Come on, Blossom, off we go!’ he said in a very jaunty manner. Blossom wasn’t having any of it.
Not that Margot could blame her. Blossom was wearing a padded black garment that was far too big and cumbersome for her and was secured at the waist with a Velcro belt so that the ends of the coat flapped behind her.
It was the dog equivalent of your mum buying a school coat two sizes too big ‘because you’ll grow into it’.
Why though? She messaged Will back. Of all the coats?
It was the only one large enough to get over her big, fat (but also completely loveable) head.
Send me her measurements. Neck, shoulders, fattest part of her ribcage, then lengthways from neck to tail.
A couple of years back, Derek and Tansy had considered doing a range of baby clothes, but focus groups had ixnayed the whole idea. Margot still had some prototype babygro designs on her hard disk and was pretty sure that they still had some of the fleece-lined jersey they’d used for last winter’s onesies.
She’d been looking for a project to work on during her off-weeks when she wasn’t attempting to throw herself back into dating with renewed enthusiasm and vigour.
And Margot had to concede that she did feel a tiny bit enthusiastic as she prepared for her first date with Dale, forty-one, a few days later.
Dale was still maintaining the story that he loved long walks (My ambition is to do the West Highland Way one summer) so on Margot’s work-from-home Wednesday, they’d planned a stroll on Hampstead Heath. (And of course, bring Blossom. I love dogs.)
It turned out that a daytime-date-cum-dog-walk had a completely different vibe to meeting-for-a-drink-after-work-and-hoping-that-it-might-lead-to-dinner-and-then-who-knows?
There was no frantic wrangling of an outfit that would take Margot from day to evening, make her look sexy but not slutty, that she could also sit down in.
It was January. It was cold. ‘Too cold to snow,’ people said, though surely it was colder in places like Norway and Sweden, yet it still managed to snow there. Margot was wearing jeans and a jumper, which proclaimed This Is What a Feminist Looks Like. Margot had thought that she might wear her Veja trainers, but it was too cold, too wet and too slippery underfoot for anything other than her sheepskin-lined hiking boots. Besides, Margot thought it unlikely any man was likely to fall in love with her at first sight just because she was wearing a pair of fashionable and over-priced trainers. Something that twenty-something Margot would never have believed.
But even scouring winds blowing in from Siberia weren’t enough to convince Margot to wear the Dog-Walking Anorak Of Doom. She wore her thick wool blue-and-red check coat and matched her hat, scarf and a dash of scarlet lipstick to it. She was ready to go.
She didn’t have any of the first date nerves that usually kicked in. Though, there was a brief moment of panic, but that was only because Margot thought that she’d forgotten to stash some poo bags in her coat’s capacious pockets. She was more preoccupied with how splendid Blossom looked in her new pink snowflake onesie, getting admiring glances from people hurrying past.
‘Cute dog,’ Dale, forty-one, said when Margot arrived at Whitestone Pond. ‘Also, hi!’
He waved woolly gloved fingers at Margot and she smiled while they both gave each other a fleeting once over. Dale was bundled up against the elements in a North Face anorak with fur-trimmed hood, face half-obscured by a grey scarf. He was wearing jeans and sensible walking boots and he was about half a head taller than Margot. So far, so good.
‘Shall we set off, then?’ Margot asked, gesturing across the road to Hampstead Heath, glittering with frost
‘Let’s do it,’ Dale agreed. ‘I thought about bringing my Nordic poles, but I was worried you’d think I was a total wanker.’
‘I probably would until I realised that they were doing a great job of keeping you upright,’ Margot said as they crossed the road.
Daytime-dating-cum-dog-walking was a complete revelation. There was no stilted conversation as they both sipped at a glass of something alcoholic and hoped desperately that it would lubricate the situation. There was no awkward meeting of eyes, or, even worse, not knowing where to look. And there was absolutely no question – not even the implication – that there was going to be any kind of hooking up afterwards.
Instead, they clomped slowly across the Heath, pausing to admire nature and all its frozen delights, from a crystallised spider’s web, the delicate splintering ice on the ponds and the crunching sound their feet made on the solid, spiky grass. They both complained about how cold it was and, when they’d exhausted that topic, Blossom could always be relied upon to do something hilarious. In this instance, she hunkered down to do a wee and went sliding across the path.