"TRY NOT to think about elephants, and all you can think of is elephants. Two million dollars. Two million dollars!".
We saw Six Degrees of Separation at the Old Vic, a play about a wealthy (and somewhat superficial) middle-aged couple taken in by a flamboyant but curious confidence trickster who causes intrigue even after his lie is exposed. Frequently witty, sometimes hilarious, and undoubtedly touching, I should recommend it to anyone who has not seen it. We went on the opening night, the first production of preview week, and it was sold out.
I had briefly wondered whether planning an expedition to the theatre for somebody who works in the theatre was wise, whether Kate would appreciate my choice. I had not told Kate of our intended destination in advance. I had simply told her to meet me at seven-fifteen outside the main street entrance of Waterloo station. She had replied:
"This is pretty exciting, can't remember the last time somebody properly surprised me!
...
p.s. will you wear a hat for me?"
My last winter hat I had lost years ago when, on attending a jurisprudence discussion group at Trinity College, Oxford, I had left it by mistake in the lavatories, and, on my return, it was nowhere to be seen. The lost property department never had sight of it, so I can only assume that either the cleaners or a pilfering student had made off with it, to do what with, I know not. Perhaps there is a thriving black market in used black hats. Perhaps men on street corners the nation over are accosting strangers, with a furtive look in their eyes, and producing trilby hats form beneath their long raincoats, enquiring whether the strangers would want to buy one on the cheap. In any event, I had not replaced it because, frequently riding a bicycle, there was little opportunity to wear it.
I had gone into work yesterday to collect my papers for Monday and catch up on things that had lain undone whilst I was on festive leave. My case on Monday, I discovered, was in the same town in which Kate worked; I should have to walk past her place of work to get to the court from the station. At lunch' time, I took a brief trip to the shops, collecting a get well card for a colleague who has been suffering from pneumonia, and venturing into the only shop of which I could think near where I work that sells trilby hats. They had one black trilby left, on the sale, and, by chance, it was my size. Wearing it walking back to work, I was pleased at how much warmer that it kept me. Kate had sent me a text message earlier stating that, because of the snow, her last train would be at five to eleven in the evening.
I left work early, having been asked to deliver the get well card by hand, my colleague by coincidence living a short walk from the place where I had arranged to meet Kate. I realised when I was part of the way there that I had not ever walked that route to her house before, and that I did not know how long that it would take. Concerned not to be late, I walked more quickly, eventually finding familiar streets, and dropped the card through the door, before quickly turning to walk back to the appointed meeting place. I found a short-cut, and was pleased to note when I looked at my watch that there was plenty of time to spare.
As I walked along the back street towards the station, my telephone told me that I had a text message. In the chill night breeze, I stopped and took off my gloves to check the telephone. Was Kate telling me that the snow had cancelled all of her trains, or that she was going to be late? The message was from my colleague, thanking me for delivering the card. I did, however, send a message to Kate to clarify the location of our meeting, having realised earlier that my description could equally apply to at least two entrances to the sprawling terminus. She replied shortly indicating that she was already there - about ten minutes early. I hurried along.
Outside the station, people braced against the cold and hurried into and out of the entrance, a few lingering by the doors to smoke cigarettes or sell The Big Issue, even the tobacco smoke seeming too chilled to move away from the warmth, loitering lethargically by the doors. I glanced around for somebody appearing to recognise me, or matching the photographs that I had seen on her profile. Nobody was apparent; I kept wondering whether I had mistaken one of the people at whom I had glanced and concluded that it was not her, and that it actually was her, and that I'd seem terribly rude for having glanced away so soon. I walked up and down for a few minutes, and, seeing nobody, sent her a text message asking exactly where she was, and then another saying,
"Look out for the trilby".
A short while later, a tall woman with dark hair, wearing a long coat and a brown trilby emerged from the entrance. We glanced at each other and smiled hesitently.
"Are you...?"
"Are you...?"
we said. We evidently were.
"I thought I was here, but actually I wasn't," she explained, saying that she had gone to another entrance entirely. "Look out for the trilby! I like that."
Kate was tall and fairly slim, quite pretty with just above shoulder length dark hair, dyed a sort of dark chestnut colour. She wore a brown fabric trilby (from Accessorise, she later told me), a long patterned woollen coat, a cream cardigan, a long skirt with brown boots, a purple scarf and purple/brown leather gloves. She gave the appearance of having a kind and relaxed temperament.
In as much as was feasible given the cold, we talked as we walked the short distance to the Old Vic. It was only when we joined the queue that I told her that we had arrived.
"You have good taste!" she said when she knew what we were seeing.
I smiled and told her that it seemed interesting from the description of the website, but that there hadn't been any reviews yet, as this was the opening night.
"Ahh, yes, of course. The eighth - preview week", she said, evidently being aware already of the dates for which this particular production was set to run.
We got inside, into the warm and I realised that we were in the wrong queue, the queue for collecting the tickets: I had collected the tickets on the way into work that morning. We made our way over to the entrance to the stalls.
"You're very organised!" she said.
Once inside and seated, we discussed the theatre and the architecture, and how it compared to the more modern theatre at which she works. Kate noticed what appeared to be a work of art rotating at the top of the set, appearing to have a different abstract picture on each side, and we mused as to what it might be. Kate said that I had got us good seats (in the stalls), and that she was surprised that I had managed to get seats at all (although I rather suspect that the snow helped).
The music started playing, the lights dimmed, and we sat back and watched the play. After a short while, it became apparent that the rotating, two-sided artwork was a replica of a real famous painting that was actually two-sided, the protagonists being wealthy art dealers. We glanced at each other and smiled.
Surprisingly, there was no interval, although the play was good enough that there was no sense of it taking too long without a break. There was hearty applause at the curtain call.
"Shall we have something to eat?" I suggested. Kate agreed.
I had already garnered opinions as to suitable local restaurants on Facebook, cross-referenced them using Top Table, narrowed the possibilities to two, the foremost of which was an intriguing seeming Indian restaurant (she had noted on her profile that she liked Indian and Italian food), and printed out maps of the area for each one, showing the restaurants highlighted with arrows.
We wandered outside, still talking about the play; I had to pause to tie my shoelaces, and we joked that somebody needed to invent some sort of shoelace that did not come loose - "Staylaces" I called them. I looked at my map, and turned left.
"You planned this, didn't you?" She sounded impressed.
We should have turned right. About two hundred meters down the road, and approaching nothing appearing remotely similar to the restaurant in question, I asked two fellows standing smoking cigarettes outside a fish and chip shop whether they knew where the restaurant was. They said that they didn't know, but that it was probably in the opposite direction to that in which we had come. We went a little further just to check, but then, when the launderettes, off-licences and kebab shops gave way to low-rise flats, we turned back, past the fish and chip shop, and passed the theatre, into a place looking far more promising for restaurants. After a short while, I spotted it up ahead, and we went in.
We had to wait a few minutes to be seated, as the restaurant was busy, but it was warm inside, and the conversation flowed well. I wondered whether I should activate my backup restaurant plan, but Kate noticed that the queue was diminishing quickly.
"Do you like curry?" she said, as we entered.
I said that I did, and had noted that she had said on her profile that she liked Indian and Italian, and asked her whether she liked curry.
"Yes, I love curry!".
We were seated, and continued to talk. Kate ordered some sort of roast or fried duck affair in a crepe, and I had curried prawns. She explained that she had only ordered a small ("regular") portion because she had already had a duck wrap on her way, and that she normally eats heartily, joking that ducks had better watch out for her to-night. That was certainly encouraging. In fact, it transpired that her "regular" portion was rather large in itself, almost all of which she ate; we then had a kulfi ice-cream each. That was also encouraging. I do despair at the nibble on a lettuce leaf and skip dessert type; thin is enormously over-rated, I think.
The conversation flowed freely; we quite evidently got on rather well. She seemed relaxed and easygoing; the evening felt more like a good night out than a job interview. We talked about her allotment (and surplus of green beans and courgettes), my cake recipes, her hobby of potholing (and the episode of Father Ted where the guest star Graham Norton's character ends up trapped in the "really dark caves" and drives everybody mad), how we could make a fortune from Staylaces and selling Christmas crackers to the Dutch, her job, where we grew up, and all manner of other miscellany the details of which do not immediately come to mind. She struck me as a kind and genuine person, and was sometimes even almost too keen to reassure me when I apologised for minor problems, such as the turning left instead of right, or the queue in the restaurant.
When we finished the meal, the waiter brought us the bill (which was surprisingly little for two cooked main courses, with side orders, and two puddings), which I immediately grabbed.
"Now, I can tell you're not going to let me pay for the theatre tickets..."
She had mentioned it briefly earlier, and I had made my views clear then.
"No," I replied with a slightly playful conviction.
"So you should let me get dinner."
I smiled and shook my head, and looked around to find the waiter to tell him that I was ready to pay.
"I'm not going to be very happy", she said, in a good-natured way.
"I'll take that risk," I replied with a smile, as the waiter took my debit card from me and put it in the chip and PIN machine.
I forget her exact words, but she said something about having to do something in return.
"You could bake me a cake", I said.
And, so we resolved that she would bake me a cake.
We sat talking for a while after that, until the restaurant had nearly closed and there were few other patrons there. It was long past the time that Kate had earlier given as her last train, although she had told me before we went into the theatre that the railway company had revised their last train time to something past nine, which she knew that she wouldn't make anyway, and that she would work out how to deal with that when the time arose.
I suggested that we go for a walk along the South Bank, and Kate agreed. We walked out of the restaurant (I nearly forgot my hat, and had to go back for it), and talked about winter clothing, Kate expressing a preference for autumn clothing, and me complimenting Kate on her co-ordination. She seemed to be most amused that we were talking about "style", as she put it.
We strolled on to the South Bank, which was nearly deserted - very unusual, Kate remarked, for a Friday night, and pity the poor theatres suffering greatly diminished attendances in the snow. The South Bank is always beautiful at night, and the crispness of the freezing temperatures, combined with the eerie calm gave it a certain je ne sais quoi as we strolled beneath the trees adorned with blue and white lights next to the sprawling river.
"Look! People!" Kate remarked at a small group of thoroughly sober looking young men walking semi-purposefully in the opposite direction.
"Yes - three of them! We can hardly move with the bustle!"
Kate laughed. Those were the only other people that we saw by the river that night.
As we reached the Oxo tower, Kate was evidently thinking about how to get home. I asked her whether she wanted to go on or turn back, and she said that, actually, her night 'bus went from a 'bus stop considerably further in the direction that we were already going. I suggested that we walk to the next bridge and see whether her 'bus stopped at the 'bus stop near there, and she agreed.
We stopped at one point, and I pointed accross the river, showing her the Inns of Court, now dark and hidden behind tall trees. She told me that she had been on a heritage tour of the Inns and surrounding area a few years ago, and had been into Temple Church, which had been very interesting, although somewhat dominated by tourists' rather excessive interest in "The Da Vinci Code", which, she said, she had not read at the time. I was somewhat relieved when, on telling her that I had not read it, she said not to bother. I rather like somebody who dislikes the superficial and trendy and who thinks independently.
She confessed that she had rather discounted people on Match.com who had put "The Da Vinci Code" as their favourite book (of which, she said, there were an awful lot). I said that there were a great many opportunities for humour on Match.com, to which she said that she had liked the quirky sense of humour on my profile. I said that I had meant unintentional humour, and we laughed about the excessive tendency of people (both men and women, it seems, from having conferred on the point) to state that they like going out and staying in, and sitting on the sofa, watching a DVD whilst drinking a glass of wine.
We got to the 'bus stop, and found that Kate's 'bus didn't run from there. We studied the map for a few minutes, then Kate called the transport helpline on her mobile telephone, who told her that she could catch a 'bus one bridge further along. It was, by now, long past midnight. I resolved to walk her to her stop, from where I hoped that I, too, could get a 'bus home. Kate said that that was "very gentlemanly". I pointed out that I probably wouldn't have done it if it was four o'clock in the afternoon, but it was the middle of the night, and it was only reasonable.
Happily, on arrival at the 'bus stop, we found that night 'buses going to destinations good for both of us ran from there. We waited and continued to talk. Before long my 'bus arrived. I thought afterwards that I probably ought to have waited to see Kate onto her 'bus, but when one is tired, one tends not to react so quickly; in any event, the 'bus stop was in a well lit and well-trafficked area, there were a number of people around, and the 'buses seemed frequent.
As we went to part, there was a certain moment of awkwardness, a certain worry that I suspect was shared that, whatever we were doing, we ought be doing something else. We eventually alighted upon a kiss on the cheek, which seemed fitting; Kate certainly seemed happy enough. Just as she was waving me good-bye as I boarded the 'bus, Kate reminded me of her promise to bake the cake. After I had sat down and the 'bus began to move, I waved at Kate sitting under the 'bus shelter. She waved enthusiastically back.
As I travelled home, I sent her a text message thanking her for a lovely "outing of the Trilby Club", and saying that I was looking forward to the cake; I also asked her for her proper e-mail address (realising that I did not have it), and asked her whether she had managed to get the 'bus yet. She replied:
"It was a lovely eve, thanks [Coatman]. My e-mail is [her e-mail] but i'm really bad at answering so phone is best! I'll have to get the cook books out now.. K x"
Later, she sent another text, which I did not receive before turning off my telephone and going to bed:
"Yes i got the bus ok and its snowing in [her town]! How's [my locale]? K x"
I replied this afternoon, explaining that I had not got the message earlier, that my area was fine but snowy and that I was glad that she had caught the 'bus.
As I walked home from the 'bus stop, minding the ice on the pavement, I thought about Kate and how the evening had gone. We certainly got on well; she is most pleasant company. A more successful evening by far than my only previous date with somebody met online (Jane, about whom I 'blog below). I worry, however, that there is a certain lack of flirtatious frisson, an absence, to some extent even, of attraction. Kate is by no means unattractive (rather more good-looking, certainly, than Jane), and we get on well as people; I wonder whether, as I have long suspected, male attraction to women is driven to a greater extent than many realise by subtle expressions of interest by the woman (i.e., flirtation), which effect is largely subconscious, and that the absence of such signals, even for somebody who would not consciously notice them or even realise that the person was interested, can make a world of difference to attraction. I want to see her again because I enjoyed her company; but is the lack of a certain passion, a certain frisky je ne sais quoi, an elephant in the room; or might it come in time?
I contemplated this as I walked up the hill in the powdery snow and chill wind. She had certainly seemed to enjoy my company, and, indeed, to be keen to see me again (witness the repeated references to the cake); is Kate, perhaps, one of those people who does not by nature display those signals of interest? Is that, perhaps, why somebody who is clearly a lovely person (and the sort of level-headed, easy-going person, as far as I can tell, who would otherwise tend to be considered highly desirable by men looking for long-term relationships), and who is not in the least unattractive, is, at the age of twenty-nine, still unattached and using Internet dating services? Or was she, despite seeming to enjoy my company and being keen to see me again, actually not attracted to me?
I resolved not to give up on Kate. I like her - even if there is no romantic connexion, she is the sort of person that I'd want to have as a friend (which is a prerequisite for romantic interest in any event). I have often found that attraction can grow with time, when I get to know a person better; when she gets to know me better. There were moments when I did feel attraction (I liked the slightly frisky "will you wear a hat for me?" PS in the pre-date message, for example), and I wonder whether there was some element of it being rather hard to concentrate on anything else than having a good conversation and a pleasant night. After all, meeting over the internet is different - one does not start with direct contact. The date comes at an earlier stage. There is still room for things to grow - perhaps. I shall ask her out again - to-morrow. I shall suggest that we go to the "Turner and the Masters" exhibition at Tate Britain, which finishes at the end of the month, and in which we had both expressed an interest on our long walk from the restaurant to her 'bus.
In the meantime, I shall be intrigued to discover what she is going to bake for me: I do love a bit of home made cake.
