The Great Escape

The first place he took me was a Jewellers'. He asked me to help him pick out a cameo brooch for his mother's birthday. I don't wear much jewellery, mainly because no-one's ever bought me any but also because I'm not really very interested in shiny baubles. I ventured the opinion that jewellery was very much a matter of personal taste and as I had never met ( nor likely to meet) his mother I did not think I could be of much help. I hovered outside the shop instead, depriving him of his opportunity to wow me with his generosity and cunningly establishing my preference for diamonds ( I don't have one - it is a subject of which I have absolutely no experience).

Next he steered me into M&S. I was about to start a new job a week later and he offered to buy me a suit to mark the occasion. I politely rejected the offer and also refused to choose a tie for him whilst he picked up some work shirts, disclose my favourite perfume, list my 3 favourite contemporary artistes or try on shoes. By now I was beginning to wonder what sort of a woman he was used to; if they were favourably effected by his over-the-top generosity, they could only have been hookers or incredibly desperate women, perhaps even just ones he had met in porn movies.

20 minutes had passed at this point.

It seemed an age.

I bit my lip and resolved to make the best of it for as long as I could before blurting out that I really had to get back to relieve the babysitter.

" But we've only been here 22 minutes, look - it says so on my Rolex ( clearly fake, it was ticking) watch". I did feel a little shamed when I saw his shoulders droop but it didn't have the effect of curing his bouncy walk which was a far greater crime.

He let me drive home and I relaxed for the first time that morning, knowing normality was drawing ever closer. He turned his entire body towards me in the passenger seat, the merest hint of a bounce still evident. I kept my eyes straight ahead, focused on the road, thankful that I'd chosen to wear my long permed hair down on the left that day. It provided a perfect screen to hide behind as I responded to his incessant babbling.

" I get the impression you are not normally this quiet". No, no, I assured him, I'm really quite a shy girl.

" The thing I miss most about being in a relationship is the physical contact, waking up beside somebody, the touching, the holding, the sex in the kitchen, the conservatory, the bath." Give me Scrabble instead any day, I told him, not entirely without truth.

I managed to keep a straight face until he'd driven, somewhat jerkily and stalling once, away from the station. It was only then that I realised that he could not possible have been the chap I'd given directions to all those months ago. He'd been over 6' tall and had a Scottish accent!