“You see the thing is, I’m worried I might not be clever enough for him.”
“Bollocks,” says Lorna.
“No, she’s got a point,” joshes Antoni. “What are seven eights?”
Daisy’s brow furrows and her mouth does something comical. “Okay. It’s not seventy-two.” A pause while cogs turn. “Fifty-eight! No! Sixty-eight! Oh, fuck. You see, I am useless. Forty-nine!”
Antoni is being wicked this evening. “What’s the capital of Liberia? Everyone knows that.”
“I do know that, actually. It’s. You know. It begins with a letter.”
“Even people who don’t know where Liberia is, know the capital.”
“You see! I’m not clever enough for him. Ouagadougou! No. That’s the other one. What is the effing capital?”
Antoni says, “Monrovia, darling.”
“Shit. I knew that.”
Lorna says, “He’s not going to set you a general knowledge test before he agrees to sleep with you.”
“I don’t know if I want to sleep with him.”
Antoni makes a face. Raises a skeptical eyebrow (no one is better than Antoni at raising a skeptical E).
“I don’t know if I like him. If I like him enough.”
“But he likes you, right enough?” says Lorna.
“He can’t take his eyes off me!” squeals Daisy.
Antoni does an accent, that of a cheesy American movie voiceover. “She’s one of the world’s most fascinating women…”
“But the freakish friends. And he threw the omelet away. And he howled, actually howled when he smashed that glass thingy. And his eyes kind of jump about behind his glasses. And he said, I happen to think small details matter very much. He’s not like us, Lorna. It’s like he’s on a higher plane.”
“But you snogged him.” Daisy nods wistfully. “And you told yourself you weren’t going to sleep with him that evening.”
“This is true.”
“So you must like him. You must fancy him at least.”
“I suppose I must do. I get confused, if I’m honest. If they fancy me then I think I probably fancy them.”
This remark is something I have long suspected about Daisy. It is pleasing to have it confirmed so directly at source.
Lorna rolls her eyes. “Has he got a shagger’s arse?” she inquires.
“A what?”
“Antoni knows what I mean.”
Antoni smiles a touch wistfully.
“I really wouldn’t know,” says Daisy. “Probably.”
“But you’re seeing him again?”
“Saturday. I don’t know what to wear.”
“What are you like?!” says Antoni. “You shouldn’t be allowed out!”
“I’m conflicted about the whole thing,” says Daisy. “I’m attracted to him because he’s unusual—but I’m worried he may be too unusual. Of course I like that he’s clever, but then I think I may be too stupid. And I think I do fancy him; well, I must do to have snogged him. And now I’m boring the pants off two of my favorite people in the world.”
“When you snogged him,” says Lorna speaking slowly, sounding a bit exasperated.
“Yes?”
“It was a positive experience?”
“His glasses steamed up.”
“And while you were doing it, did you want to continue, or were you thinking, if I leave now, I can get back in time for Realm of Kingdoms?”
“Not that. Not the Realm of Kingdoms thing.”
“So, here’s my advice. Saturday. Dress to kill. Wear your sexiest outfit. Not that you need to. But just to make it clear. What’s the plan anyway? Where are you going?”
“The new Bridget Jones film.”
Lorna and Antoni look at one another.
“What?” says Daisy. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” says Lorna.
“Well, it was that or a new print of a Japanese masterpiece at the NFT.”
And when the other two exchange glances again, she says, “You see! I am too stupid for him! I knew it!!”
Probably the Bridget Jones film is a mistake. As luck would have it, the pair sit close to the screen and the cinema’s internal security cameras are easily able to provide an acceptable two-shot of the couple—for which many thanks—nicely illuminated in the light spill from the unfolding movie.
Owen seems bored—she tickled—by the latest events in the life of the eponymous heroine. He crosses his legs. And uncrosses them. And recrosses. And… well, you can probably fill in the rest. He squirms in his seat. He conceals a yawn by rubbing his nose. His eyes droop shut during a longish sequence in which Bridget flirts comedically with a good-looking father at the school gates. At one point the digits on his right hand begin fingering what I feel certain are keys on an imaginary clarinet.
But he is gallant at the close about the 102 minutes he has clearly endured rather than enjoyed—“Bridget’s quite the klutz,” he says unconvincingly—and the pair swiftly transition to the Greek restaurant already made famous in this account, being the site of Daisy and Shittle’s last meal before the knuckleduster debacle.
Daisy has followed Lorna’s advice about dressing to kill and tonight positively radiates sexual content across the mixed mezze. When she leans toward Owen across the table to snaffle up the last whitebait, his eyeballs practically knock his spectacles off.
“She’s well up for it,” comments the TV morbidly.
“Look at his face!” says the microwave. “It’s bubbling like a macaroni cheese!”
And it’s true. The myopic muso has successfully decoded the signals and as well as his blink rate, which has gone through the roof, the rest of his features are also on maneuvers, twitching and spasming and generally larking about under the heading “Stuff going on beneath the surface.” He’s knocking back the Arsinoe (a dry white from Cyprus), which cannot be a good idea—in fact they both are hitting it so hard, a second bottle has to be whistled up from the cellar.
Even the toothbrush can’t find any doubts to entertain. “It’s going to happen!” it jabbers. “It’s actually going to happen!”
Daisy wipes lamb grease from her lips and gazes at her would-be paramour; if her expression were a firearm, you would say she was giving it both
