The Trials of Tiffany Trott. Isabel Wolff
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I suppose I’ll be the only single woman – as usual. And as usual they’ll have invited along some dreary, physiognomically-challenged, halitotic ex-army chap for me, who will have absolutely nothing to say. And seeing me struggle to extract conversation out of him over the curried avocado will make Alison and Angus think how lucky they are to be married, and thank God for that Young Conservatives do in Croydon in 1982, otherwise they’d never have met each other and they’d have ended up sad singles too, like poor, poor Tiffany.
Got that one completely wrong. On several counts. I wasn’t the only single woman – Catherine was there too, thank God. And my ‘date’ was OK-looking-bordering-on-the-almost-acceptable. A GP in his early forties. And he certainly wasn’t dreary. Oh no. He had plenty to say.
Hello, I thought to myself when we were introduced, you’re a bit of all right. A damn sight better than the usual pond life they dredge up on my behalf. He was very flirty. Very animated. He giggled a lot. He drank a lot. Though, like me, he politely declined Alison’s homemade cheese and peanut dip. But he looked incredibly fit and he had a lovely tan. I wasn’t too keen on his stubby little moustache or the gold bracelet on his left wrist, but I really liked his natty turquoise silk embroidered waistcoat. Very unusual. Though Catherine didn’t seem that impressed with him – she looked at him, then looked at me, and discreetly rolled her eyes. But personally, I rather liked the look of him.
Anyway, Angus and Alison ushered us all into the dining-room, and they sat Catherine next to this accountant – now he did look dreary – and they put me next to the GP, who was called Sebastian. And we started to make smalltalk over the macaroni-cheese-stuffed eggs, and he politely asked me about my interests. And when I said tennis, he said, ‘What do you play – singles?’ I found that awfully amusing. And then he kept going on, rather oddly I thought, about how gorgeous-looking Greg Rusedksi is and how much he’d like to be on Greg’s receiving end.
‘Now, there’s herby apple-glazed pork roast next,’ said Alison. ‘Or blue cheese chicken rolls if you’re vegetarian.’
Anyway, then, because Abigail whatsername was pregnant – smugly rubbing her vast stomach all evening – the conversation naturally turned to babies.
‘Are you hoping to have children?’ Sebastian asked me, passing me the bowl of cheesy-topped vegetables.
‘Well … yes … yes, I am actually,’ I replied, as I passed it on. I didn’t really want to discuss it, to be honest, but he didn’t seem to pick up on that at all.
And then he said, ‘How old are you?’ At this point everyone suddenly started listening.
‘I’m fifty-three,’ I quipped, to cover my annoyance at being asked.
‘Gosh, I’d never have thought it,’ he said with a sly grin. ‘I thought you were only – ooh – forty.’ And everyone laughed, except Catherine, who looked horrified. But all the others seemed to find it extremely funny, especially, it seemed to me, Abigail, who’s only twenty-nine. And while I sat there wondering if I have ever, ever in my life said anything so calculated to hurt, humiliate and demoralise another human being, he went on and on and on about the bloody biological clock.
‘I’m sick of seeing late thirty-something and early forty-something women come bleating to me for IVF because they’ve never got round to having babies before,’ he said, adding, to me, ‘so I wouldn’t hang around, Tiffany.’
‘Oh, I’m working on it,’ I said. ‘In fact I’m fairly confident of giving birth before I’m due to have my hips replaced.’
‘By the time women are over thirty-five it’s getting critical,’ he said expansively, pouring himself another glass of Bulgarian Cabernet. ‘Perhaps you should have your eggs frozen, Tiffany.’ And then he went into this really long, detailed spiel about how women are born with all their eggs – hundreds of them – but how they gradually start to go off as we age, and how by the time we’re thirty-seven plus we’re practically infertile and almost guaranteed to give birth to three-headed monsters – that is if we can get pregnant at all.
‘So I do advise you to get on with it,’ he finished, ‘because even if you were actively trying to start a family you might find that, at your age, it takes you ages to get pregnant.’
‘What about Jane Seymour?’ I said, taking a sliver of peach melba cheesecake. ‘Twins at forty-four.’
‘And Annabel Goldsmith had a baby at forty-five,’ interjected Catherine.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and Jerry Hall had another when she was forty-one. They were all absolutely fine.’
‘That’s different,’ he said. ‘They’re rich. And anyway, they’d had children before – it’s much harder having your first baby late.’
‘But Madonna was thirty-eight when she had her first child,’ said Catherine, with an indignant little laugh.
‘And Koo Stark was forty,’ I persisted, because, you see, I always pay close attention to stories like that in the newspapers. In fact Mum cuts them out and sends them to me – I’ve got quite a collection now in the ‘Late Motherhood’ section of my index file.
‘And that other woman, Liz Buttle, she was sixty,’ added Catherine vehemently. ‘Which means Tiffany and I have got loads of time left.’
But Sebastian didn’t seem impressed. ‘You know,’ he said, cutting into the Danish Blue, ‘all this talk about older motherhood being fashionable – it’s total baloney. This is what women like to say to make themselves feel good about it all. But the fact is that children don’t want geriatric parents. It’s embarrassing for them. But then the problem is,’ he added, ‘that if women don’t have babies, then they run an increased risk of getting breast cancer.’
Sometimes. Just sometimes, taxi drivers can be really, really nice. Especially mini-cab drivers. On the way back from Angus and Alison’s – my God, a fifteen-pound fare and I hadn’t even had a nice time! – I saw the driver rummaging in the glove box. Then he passed back a thick wadge of tissues.
‘Thank you,’ I said quietly.
‘Cheer up, darlin’,’ he said, as we sped past the Angel. ‘It may never happen.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know. That’s just the problem.’
Location. Location. Location. Where blokes live is critical, because the fact is – and I don’t know why this should be the case – that whenever I’m going out with someone I nearly always end up going over to their place. And that’s the big drawback about London, isn’t it? The trek across the capital when you’re romantically inclined. Take my ex-but-one Phil Anderer for example. He lived in Wimbledon! Not very convenient for me, but I didn’t like to complain.
‘Oh no, I don’t mind the journey over at all,’ I used to say. ‘It only takes two days on the number 93 and there are so many interesting things to look at along the way.’ And I didn’t resent the fact that he practically never came over to my place because I understood that he needed to be near the golf club and in any case, I quite agreed with him that the back end of Islington can be a very dangerous place. And as for Alex, well although he lived very centrally, in Fitzrovia, behind Tottenham Court Road, somehow I hardly ever went to his flat. Usually we met outside the theatre, or the opera, or the ICA or the National Gallery, or St John’s, Smith Square, or Sadler’s Wells, or the Jazz Café or the National Film Theatre or wherever. Anyway, I’ve given this issue quite a bit of thought, and I’ve decided that there’s no way romance is going to blossom if blokes do not possess at least one of the following postcodes: N1, N4, N5, N16, W1, W2, WC2, SW1 or – in exceptional circumstances – SW3. I do hope my Adventurous, Seriously Successful, Managing Director qualifies on that front. Actually, I haven’t heard a whisper. I don’t think he liked my reply to his ad. Lizzie didn’t like it either.
‘Why on earth did you tell