The Woman Who Met Her Match: The laugh out loud romantic comedy you need to read in 2018

We wrote to each other, declaring our love, and then from a couple of letters a week, his airmailed missives dwindled to perhaps one a fortnight, then monthly, followed by a gaping void, during which I felt hollow and tried to tell myself the postmen must be on strike. However, the rest of our mail – the endless bills and Freeman’s catalogues – seemed to be arriving without any problem. Maybe the French postmen were striking?

They weren’t, of course. Antoine’s life was simply continuing without me; I had faded to him, like a newsagent’s neglected window display. The occasional letter read more like an exercise in rudimentary English: We played good at football on Saturday. Our apartment is painted outside. How is the weather in Yorkshire?

Even at sixteen, I knew that asking about the weather suggested he was no longer obsessed with my creamy skin or mysterious eyes. Valérie had stopped writing too – my visit had been the death knoll to our ‘friendship’ – apart from to dash off a hasty note, informing me that Antoine was now ‘madly in love’ with Nicole, my make-up tutor. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I stared at her last flippant sentence (‘I just thought you should know!’). Well, of course he’d end up with her; she was stunning. Yet I’d believed him when he’d said he loved me, and convinced myself that he was oblivious to the charms of his sister’s friends. I could almost hear Valérie’s cruel laughter as I screwed up her letter and threw it into my bin.

As autumn slid into a cold, wet winter, another letter arrived from France. ‘Ooh, is it from that boy at long last?’ Mum cooed, as I charged upstairs to my room to read it in private.

Dear Lorrie,

I hope you are well.

Valérie learns karate but broke shoulder.

Quite busy next few weeks.

Antoine

And that was the last I ever heard from the beautiful boy from the Massif Central.

Chapter One

30 Years Later

He’s done that thing.

That thing of using a really old photo on his dating profile. How long ago was it taken? Ten years? Fifteen? This could be a fun guessing game. As if I wouldn’t notice that his hair isn’t in fact a lush chestnut brown as it appears in his picture but actually silver.

‘Lorrie? Hi!’

‘Ralph, hi!’ Force a smile. Don’t look shocked. Don’t stare at the hair.

‘Lovely to meet you.’

‘You too …’

‘Shall we go in then?’ he asks brightly.

‘Yes, of course!’

As the two of us stride into the Nutmeg Gallery, I try to reconcile the fact that the man I’ve had lodged in my head – with whom I’ve been corresponding via email all week – isn’t the eerily youthful-looking Ralph I’d expected to meet. Dressed in a crisp white shirt, new-looking jeans and a blue cotton jacket, he is a perfectly presentable man of forty-eight. He has striking blue eyes, his teeth are notably good – shiny and white, probably flossed – and he’s in pretty decent shape, suggesting that he does a bit of light jogging and goes easy on the booze. So why dig out a picture from something like 2002? When someone does that – and it contravenes the trade descriptions act really – it doesn’t matter how attractive they are, because it’s all you can think about.

And you feel sort of duped.

It was Ralph’s suggestion to meet here, outside the gallery tucked away by a pretty stretch of the canal in Islington. Ideal, I thought. The art bit would feel pleasingly grown-up. I know I shouldn’t still regard galleries in that way, being forty-six myself. I mean, I am mother to two teenagers, for goodness’ sake. I shouldn’t need to do certain things – like look at art – in order to feel like a bona fide adult. Then, after we’d sped through the gallery, we could get to the part I was really looking forward to: a chat in the cafe he’d mentioned, with tables overlooking the canal. ‘Amazing home baking,’ he’d said.

I’d had a good feeling about today, and not just due to the cake element. Ralph had been chatty and interesting in his emails: a solicitor – again, pleasingly grown-up – with hints of poshness and a warm, likeable face. After a couple of dud dates with other men I’d allowed myself a glimmer of hope. But now, well, he’s just not what I expected.

‘I didn’t even know this place existed,’ I tell him as we wander into the first gallery room.

‘Oh, I’ve been here a few times. It’s a charming little place.’

As we study the paintings – at least, I pretend to study them – a sense of awkwardness settles over us.

‘So, how’s it been so far?’ I ask lightly. ‘The whole, um, online thing, I mean?’ An older couple are perusing the artworks, and my voice sounds terribly amplified in here. Perhaps it wasn’t such a great choice of venue after all.

‘Oh, I’ve just started really,’ Ralph says. ‘In fact, you’re the first person I’ve met.’

‘Really? Well, I’m flattered.’ Silly thing to say, I know. He probably just hasn’t got around to meeting anyone else yet.

‘What d’you think of these?’ He indicates a row of small paintings, all in similar beigey hues. They are close-ups of various body parts – a forearm, a thigh, a rather septic-looking finger – each bearing a plaster.

‘Not crazy about them,’ I admit. ‘It’s all a bit medical, isn’t it?’

Ralph chuckles. ‘Yes, it is a bit. The permanent collection’s much better – let’s go take a look.’

We stroll through to an airier room filled with bright, splashy abstracts which are far more pleasing with their cheery colours. Ralph makes straight for a still life depicting a wobbly yolk-yellow circle on a sky blue background.

‘That’s quite striking, isn’t it?’ I remark.

He nods. ‘Yes, it was always Belinda’s favourite.’

‘Belinda?’ I give him a quizzical look.

‘My wife,’ he explains.

‘Oh, right.’ This floors me even more than the hair colour shock. From our email chats, I learnt that Ralph enjoys reading thrillers, cooking Asian food and jaunts to the south coast: reassuringly unremarkable stuff. One cat, no kids – ‘Just didn’t happen for me’. However, although a couple of relationships have been mentioned, no wife has popped up in our communications. I study the painting, wondering how I’m supposed to respond. Really? Well, I can see she has excellent taste … Or, How about showing me more paintings Belinda loves?

Now I can barely concentrate on the art at all as a terrible thought hits me. He said wife, not ex-wife. Surely, if they were separated or divorced, he’d refer to her as his ex. I mentally scroll back to the email where Ralph mentioned his situation, relationship-wise: ‘I’ve been on my own for just over a year …’ Not single, but on his own. Plus, the painting was Belinda’s favourite; past tense. Which can only mean one thing: Belinda is dead.

I throw Ralph a quick glance as he finally tears himself away from the yellow circle painting and moves on. Is this why he suggested meeting at the Nutmeg Gallery – because Belinda loved it here? It makes sense, too – the vintage profile photo, I mean. He’s still so deranged with grief, he couldn’t get it together to find a more recent one – or perhaps she was in all of them, hugging him. God, how tragic. This is probably the first date he’s been on since she died.

As we drift into the next room, I run through possible ways of broaching the subject sensitively: So, erm, if you don’t mind me asking, what happened with Belinda? Is Belinda still, er … ‘around’? Neither sounds quite right.

Ralph starts to stroll around, hands clasped behind his back as he gazes thoughtfully at the artworks. It’s not paintings in here, but a collection of grubby old baskets with bits of frayed rope attached, dotted around on the parquet floor. On closer inspection, because I’m trying to appear suitably fascinated – and not like some heathen who only likes paintings of thatched cottages or kittens – each of the baskets has a small item inside. Nothing precious or beautiful, but the kind of stuff you might have crammed in the cupboard under the sink: rubber gloves, a bottle of Cif, a pair of rusty Brillo pads sitting snugly together as if they might start mating.

Although I know I should be open-minded, just as I’m trying to be open-minded about Ralph, I’m starting to think we should wrap up the art bit now and head to the cafe. That unmentionable thing – Belinda, his dead wife – hovers between us, but right now, with the elderly couple still lurking close by, isn’t the right moment to bring it up.

‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ Ralph remarks.

‘Oh, er … yes, very.’ Be positive. It was his idea to come here and the poor man’s bereaved. ‘What d’you think it’s all about?’ I ask.

My stomach growls as he gazes around. I was too intent on getting ready – black and white spotty dress, patent heels, full face of make-up and a ruddy blow-dry – to think about lunch and now it’s gone 3 p.m.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘I think it could be interpreted in lots of ways.’ He pushes back his neatly cropped hair. ‘I don’t want to sound pretentious. You know how people can be about art …’

‘Oh, yes,’ I say, warming to Ralph a little now, but wary of over-warming to him out of pity. ‘It’s all cleaning stuff, isn’t it, trapped in baskets? So I think it’s about that terrible hemmed-in feeling you have when you’ve got the kitchen nice and shiny and then everyone storms in and messes it all up and you think, Christ, it’s like Groundhog Day – bloody endless.’ I smile, feeling pleased with myself.

‘Oh, I don’t think it’s quite that.’ He chuckles patronisingly.

I sense my cheeks reddening. ‘No, well, I was joking. To be honest, this kind of art isn’t really my—’

‘I think,’ Ralph interrupts, ‘what we’re seeing here is a comment on the permanence of the enclosed objects, juxtaposed with the impermanence of the lobster pots—’

‘Oh, is that what they are?’ I glance at a galvanised bucket in the corner with a mop propped beside it. Are they part of the art as well, or did the cleaner just dump them there?

‘Well, yes, what did you think they were?’

Rustic storage solutions? Quirky hats? As I’m not a fisherman I had no idea … ‘Um, I knew they were something nautical,’ I fib, not that it matters, as Ralph doesn’t appear to have heard me.

‘… And as you’d expect, they show distinct signs of weathering due to the erosive effects of the sea. And what the artist is alluding to here is …’ I phase out, ceasing to listen for a few moments. ‘… Then again,’ he chunters on, ‘it could be more about the concept of cleanliness, of sterility in a world literally milling with germs and bacteria …’ He stops and blinks at me. ‘Do you think?’

‘Yes, that could be it,’ I remark, wandering towards the small white card on the wall, hoping that’ll settle things once and for all. But all it says is:

I AM NOT A CRUSTACEAN by Thomas Trotter, 1991

Lobster pots and household objects

Which tells us nothing more, apart from the fact that the artist was born in the nineties, suggesting that he has never acquainted himself with a Brillo pad in any kind of useful way.

Now, close to the exit, Ralph is surveying a small pile of brownish tweed fabric lying on a wooden plinth. ‘Another Thomas Trotter piece,’ he observes. ‘Hmmm … what’s this one saying?’

I look at it dispassionately. It’s saying: What were you thinking, not even finding out if he’s a widower or not? And now, because you pity the man, you’re frittering away your precious Sunday afternoon with someone who insists on throwing around fancy words, which would be fine, maybe, in other circumstances. But who says ‘juxtaposed’ on a first date? Actually, I fancy going straight home and juxtaposing my arse with the sofa, thank you very much …

In fact, if it wasn’t for my kids, I wouldn’t be here at all. They’re the ones who forced me to join datemylovelymum.com in the first place. ‘Me and Cam were talking, Mum,’ ventured Amy, my fifteen-year-old, fixing her wavy dark hair into a no-nonsense ponytail. ‘We just thought you should … get out more. Do stuff. Enjoy yourself.’

Christ, they were worried about me. Didn’t they think I was managing, holding down my full-time job in the beauty hall of a department store, whilst keeping things ticking along at home? I wasn’t keen on the implication that I was anything less than a vision of contentment.

Cameron, who’s seventeen, pitched in. ‘We just thought you should, er, try one of those dating things …’

‘Like Tinder?’ I spluttered.

‘No! God no. Tinder’s for our age. There’s others – ones for older people. It’s what single women your age do. They have no way of meeting people any other way.’

‘But I meet people all day,’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s my job—’

‘Yeah, we know about that,’ he conceded. ‘It’s called traffic stopping …’

‘But actually,’ Amy cut in, smirking, ‘it’s taking innocent people hostage and forcing them to sit on your stool so you can plaster them in foundation.’

‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘I tie them up and gag them. I never told you that part.’

Cam tossed his choppily cut brown hair back from his handsome, angular face. ‘Stop changing the subject. We’re not talking about customers at a make-up counter. We mean, you know …’ He winced slightly. ‘Meeting a man.’

‘Oh.’

‘And we’ve already written your profile,’ Amy added, her dark eyes glinting with amusement.

‘What? All this plotting and scheming’s been going on behind my back?’

‘Yeah, it was fun,’ she said, grinning. ‘Stu helped us.’ So my oldest friend – currently our lodger – was in on this too? The traitor!

Cam fetched his laptop to show me their ‘work’:

Our mum is a lovely outgoing and attractive person who would like to meet someone special. She is kind, sociable and loves a laugh with her friends. She is incredibly thoughtful and has brought us up all by herself for the past seven years. In all that time she has been single, not because there is anything wrong with her but because she has always put us first. But we are older now and both feel it’s time for her to get out there, meet someone special and enjoy life to the full.

Mum is called Lorrie – short for Lorraine – and is forty-six (but looks younger). Why not meet her and find out how lovely she is?

Please get in touch,

Cam and Amy

Oh my God. It wasn’t perfect, I decided as I blotted my sudden hot tears on a tea towel. It certainly wasn’t what I would have written myself. But, like a child’s lumpen rock cake lovingly transported home from school, you have to give it a try.

Slowly, the idea started to grow on me. Not in a ‘finding a life partner’ way – I’d had that in David, my children’s father and lost him seven years ago – but the odd date now and again, just to liven things up. So I agreed to go with the profile my kids had so sweetly created, and see what happened. Perhaps I’d find a ‘companion’, like wealthy Victorian ladies used to have?

First of all I met the curiously named Beppie, a plummy ‘lifestyle consultant’ – whatever that meant – who charmingly remarked, ‘If you’re not looking for anything serious we might be able to have a bit of fun.’ As if he might deign to sleep with me when there wasn’t much on the telly. No thank you.

Marco, my date before Ralph, had perhaps three teeth in the whole of his head due to extensive oral decay, judging by the remaining examples (in his profile picture he’d had his mouth firmly closed). Was I being too fussy, hoping for something at least approaching a full set? Probably.

Yes, I get lonely, but for someone to hang out with there’s always Stu, who’s funny and kind and does possess teeth, and who I have known since we were school friends growing up in our beleaguered West Yorkshire town. We snogged just the once, under the stairs at a party in 1987 (my futile attempt to get Antoine Rousseau out of my head), and never mentioned it again. The unspoken message was that we knew each other too well as friends for anything else to happen, and the kiss had been a drunken accident. By our early twenties, when we drifted to London at around the same time, I’d almost forgotten it had ever happened.

I glance at Ralph now as he prowls around the gallery, reading all the little cards on the wall. Will this be a case of third time lucky with my online dates? I’m trying to remain positive.

He turns to me and indicates the bundle of brown fabric. ‘Ooh, it’s called “jacket for two”. The idea is, we both get in it and wear it together.’ He beams eagerly as I step back.

‘But surely we’re not supposed to touch it?’

Ralph shakes his head. ‘No, it’s an interactive piece. Look, it says over there on the wall, “Please wear me with a friend …”’

But we’re not friends! ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so …’

He holds up the grubby-looking garment. ‘Look, it’s enormous.’

‘It really is,’ I agree.

‘I think even we could fit into it!’ What, me with my ample chest and sizeable backside? He’s really not helping himself. ‘Must have been specially made,’ he adds.

‘Yes. Wow.’ I can smell coffee wafting through from the cafe. I’m starving now, to the point of light-headedness. Perhaps this, coupled with my pity for Ralph, is why I find myself standing there like some inert shop mannequin while he drapes half the jacket around me. It smells like an ancient sofa in a tawdry B&B as he feeds one of my arms into a sleeve whilst shimmying into the other half himself.

He buttons up the jacket with impressive speed. We are now both trapped in it, our bodies pressed awkwardly together. I can feel the thumping of Ralph’s heart as he grins at me. ‘We’re a living sculpture!’

‘Yes, lovely. Very good. What an amazing, er, concept.’ What the hell am I saying? If Amy told me she’d been cajoled into wearing a stinky jacket with a man, I’d be horrified. As a single parent, I hope I have raised her to have a darn sight more self-respect than I clearly possess. I’m sweating now, my special date pants clinging to my bottom (not that I was expecting to show them but, you know) as I fumble for the buttons.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ralph exclaims as I struggle out of the jacket.

‘Nothing. I’m just a bit hot, that’s all. Think I might be having a flush. Look, Ralph, I’d really like a coffee now if you don’t mind,’ i.e. enough of Thomas-bloody-Trotter and his so-called art!

‘Oh! Yes, of course …’ He pulls his arm from the sleeve and dumps the jacket back on its plinth, trooping rather sulkily beside me as we make our way to the cafe.

As we order lattes, my gaze skims the array of baking on offer. ‘A piece of carrot cake please,’ I tell the girl behind the counter before turning to Ralph. ‘Would you like something?’

‘No, no, you go ahead, though,’ he says.

We install ourselves at a table at the waterside. It’s a picturesque stretch of canal, with a row of brightly painted narrowboats moored on the opposite bank. A mallard duck bobs along on the water, and a young couple stroll hand-in-hand along the towpath.

‘Well, that was interesting,’ I remark.

‘Glad you thought so,’ he says with a smile.

Silence descends, and I focus instead on sampling the carrot cake which, I have to say, is perhaps the best I have ever tasted.

‘I’ve really enjoyed this afternoon,’ Ralph adds.

‘Oh, me too,’ I say through a mouthful of delicately spiced sponge and creamy icing. I swallow it down, soothed now by the delicious cake and the slight breeze, and decide Ralph’s not that bad really. This has become my marker of dating success: he’s not that bad really. I glance at him as he observes the bobbing boats. ‘I hope you don’t mind …’ I venture cautiously, poking at my cake with my fork. ‘I mean, I sort of need to ask you this really, but, of course, I completely understand if you don’t want to talk about it …’

He raises a brow. ‘Yes?’

‘Um, you know the painting with the big yellow sun? The one you said Belinda liked?’

‘Oh, yes, it’s called “Orb”.’ He sips his coffee.

I clear my throat. ‘Look, I hope this isn’t intrusive, but you said, “My wife”. So I’m sort of assuming – well, you know, otherwise you’d have said my ex …’ Hotness spreads up my cheeks. ‘Is she … I mean … what happened to—’

‘Oh, it was all very amicable. We married very young, silly mistake really. In fact, we’re still married—’

‘You’re married?’ I dump my fork on my plate.

‘Well, yes, technically, I suppose …’

‘Which means yes!’

‘No – we’re separated, split up over a year ago. Sorry, I really must stop saying my wife. I realise how confusing that sounds …’

‘No, no, it’s fine. So, where is she now?’

He shrugs. ‘Moved north, to Halifax.’

‘Oh, right!’ I glance towards the canal, wondering whether or not to feel relieved. A narrowboat is chugging by, a man with a white beard at the helm, an elderly woman in jeans and a faded rugby top primping a tub of Michaelmas daisies on the deck. They both wave, and I wave back, then glance down at my cake which, although I’ve made inroads, now seems huge and unwieldy. It’s not that I’m trying to appear feminine and dainty. It’s just, my appetite seems to have withered away. ‘Er, would you like some of this, Ralph? I’m not sure I can manage it all.’

‘Oh, no thanks, I stopped off for a sandwich before we met.’ His mouth flickers into a smile as he adds, ‘You tuck in, Lorrie. I can see you’re a girl who very much enjoys her cake.’

I blink at him. Well, that’s flipping charming, isn’t it? Fatty, is what he means. Porky lady, cramming in the carbs and cheesy topping. ‘I am actually,’ I say with a terseness he doesn’t seem to notice.

‘Well, that’s good,’ he says with a smirk. ‘A healthy appetite, that’s what I like to see in a lady. Not your picking-at-a-lettuce-leaf type!’

‘Okay, thank you, Ralph …’

He leans forward. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean—’

‘No, it’s fine, really.’ That’s it. I have to get out of here. I edge my plate aside and pull my phone from my bag, frowning as if something urgent might have happened at home. ‘Sorry, but I’d better be going …’ I slip my phone back into my bag and get up from my seat.

His face falls. ‘So soon? That’s a pity …’

‘Yes, um, I’ve enjoyed the gallery, it’s been a lovely afternoon but I really must dash …’ Then I’m off, turning briefly to wave goodbye as I leave the cafe by its wooden gate, and striding towards the tube station, feeling leaden inside, and not due to the Nutmeg Gallery’s home baking.

Chapter Two

Like a burglar, I creep into my house and dart upstairs before Stu and the kids can accost me. They know I’m back, of course. Stu has already called out ‘hi’, and I can sense them all waiting downstairs, keen to hear all about my date. That’s what my personal life amounts to these days: cheap entertainment for my lodger and kids.

In the bathroom now, I start to cleanse my face. Primer, base, blush, tawny lips. Eye shadow – three shades – plus liner and mascara: what a fat waste of make-up. Lovely make-up at that; La Beauté is a premium brand. ‘That just means expensive, Mum,’ Amy observed. ‘Why don’t they just admit it?’ She was right, and our gorgeous products are worth every penny – although of course, I would say that. I am La Beauté’s counter manager in a beautiful, old-fashioned department store – a little like Goldings in Bradford, to which I would accompany Mum as a child, fascinated as she had her face done by one of the scarily made-up ladies who worked there. While there are La Beauté counters in stores all over the country, ours was the UK’s first and remains the favourite among customers. Somehow, despite being a global brand, the company still retains a cosy, family feel, and I can’t imagine working for anyone else.