The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook Part 19

'In that case, nothing. I may notice her, but I'm certainly not going to do anything so rude as stare.'

'Worried about getting caught? Sensible.'

'No. Some of us just don't do that sort of thing.'

'Okay. So what if you weren't with Jane. Imagine you're at the vegetable aisle, for example, and you see this stunning woman, perhaps picking up a cuc.u.mber, inspecting it for size and firmness...'

'Dan, please.'

'Sorry, mate. So what would you do?'

'I'm not with Jane?'

'Nope.'

'Well then...Same thing. Nothing.'

'Nothing?'

'Because, what on earth would I have to gain by "doing" anything? I might allow myself to enjoy the sight for a few moments, but I'm hardly going to go and talk to her, am I?'

'Why ever not?'

'Because I've got a girlfriend I don't want to be unfaithful to, and besides, what on earth is she going to see in the likes of me anyway?'

'Aha,' says Dan. 'Now we're getting to the bottom of it.'

'What do you mean?'

'The reason you don't do anything isn't because you want to be faithful to Jane. It's because you don't think you'll get anywhere with Miss Cuc.u.mber.'

'Hang on. So what you're basically saying is that not-so-good-looking guys are only faithful because they don't get the opportunity to be unfaithful?'

Dan nods. 'Pretty much.'

'Not because they're actually decent human beings?'

'It's in the male programming, mate. We're genetically designed to sow our seeds. Look at cave paintings.'

'Cave paintings?'

'Yup. They're all "hunt the mammoth" and fighting and stuff. No pictures of weddings, or happy couples holding hands. You'd hardly find the word "monogamy" in any Neanderthal's vocabulary.'

'You don't find it in yours, either. What does that say about you, I wonder?'

'Ah, but you at least admit that you've looked?'

'Yes, but...I look at Porsches on the street every now and again. It doesn't mean that I want to buy one.'

'But you wouldn't mind a quick test drive?'

'Okay, bad example. But I'd feel guilty next time I tried to drive the Volvo.'

Dan raises one eyebrow archly. 'So you are worried about being caught?'

I shake my head. 'It's not about that.'

'Ha,' scoffs Dan. 'So you're telling me that if Claudia Schiffer turned up here one day...'

'Claudia Schiffer? In the Admiral Jim?'

Dan puts on a very bad effeminate German accent, managing to sound more like a camp Arnold Schwarzenegger '...and said "Come on Ed, fancy a kvickie? Jane vill never find out", you'd turn her down?'

'Yes.'

'Even if Jane would never know?'

'You're completely missing the point. I'd know.'

'And you'd tell your best friend what it was like, yes?'

'Dan, we're not all built like you.'

'Thanks very much.'

'I didn't mean it as a compliment. I meant having a gap in our DNA where the morals are supposed to be. Some of us enjoy fidelity, constancy, security. These things are benefits, not penalties. A good relationship can be like, well, a comfy pair of slippers.'

Dan makes a face. 'And you and Jane had a good relationship, did you?'

'Yes. Of course.'

'So why did she take off her slippers and change into running shoes?'

'Dan, the point I'm making is that some of us believe in loyalty. If I was ever unfaithful to Jane then I don't know that I'd be able to look her in the face again.'

'You don't have to stare at the fireplace when you're poking the hearth.'

'Christ, Dan. Where women are concerned you don't have a decent bone in your body, do you?'

Dan grins. 'It's my bone in their body I'm more concerned about. But seriously, how would you feel if the slipper, sorry, shoe, was on the other foot?'

'How do you mean?'

'What if Jane was unfaithful?'

I look at him suspiciously. 'Can we change the subject, please?'

'No, I'm curious. Supposing she was. Could you forgive her? Say she comes back from Tibet and falls head-over-heels with you again, but she tells you that while away she got drunk on fermented yak milk one night and joined the...how high is Everest again?'

'Five miles.'

'Five-mile-high club by s.h.a.gging one of the Sherpas. How would you feel then?'

'I'd...' I swallow hard, 'forgive her.'

'You sure? Even if you knew that someone else had roamed all over her Himalayas?'

'Well, she'd...obviously have had her reasons.'

'Aha. But you've just said to me that you could never do it to her. Why should you accept it if she does the same thing to you?'

He's got me there. And the reason he's got me, and it's something I haven't ever told Dan about, is that just before Christmas, Jane was unfaithful to me. Well, it was more just a snog with another guy really, but as far as I'm concerned that's still being unfaithful. Okay, so maybe she didn't actually sleep with anyone, but when lips meet lips, that line has most definitely been crossed.

We all look at members of the opposite s.e.x from time to time, perhaps fantasizing about what we might like to do with them, or even to them, or have them do to us. But as long as that's where it stays, as a fantasy, I guess that's about okay. I mean, where my diet's concerned, I might dream about eating pizza, for example, but until I actually take a bite, it doesn't count as cheating, does it?

And that's what Jane did. Took a bite. And with a guy from work, apparently. I say apparently because I wasn't there, so I'd had to take her word for it. Trust me, she'd said, unaware of the irony in her words. That's all that happened. A kiss.

Jane had been away at a work conference in Birmingham, of all places, hardly the most romantic of cities. A two-day event at the NEC, and they'd all been staying over in the Hilton Hotel. Anyway, as she tells it, they'd been out to dinner, her and her marketing team, and then headed to the bar, and then to the hotel's nightclub, and then back to raid one of their mini-bars-I can't remember whose room she said they were in now. But she and this Martin got chatting, and as everyone else drifted off to bed they were the only two left.

Martin had a girlfriend, she'd explained, so nothing was ever going to happen. And what about you? I'd wanted to ask. You had a boyfriend. Was that not relevant? Besides, she said, she couldn't remember who'd kissed who. And that made it all right?

It was the drink, she'd said. It wasn't that she fancied him or anything, apparently, it's just that alcohol makes her feel h.o.r.n.y-which was news to me-and he was there, and I wasn't...Anyway, they kissed, she felt guilty, they stopped. End of story. That's how she portrayed it, although she didn't really admit anything to me. Didn't give me a chance to feel angry with her. Just sort of told me in a matter-of-fact 'it happened, let's just move on' kind of way. In fact, she even made me feel guilty about getting angry about it. Jesus, Edward. It was only a drunken snog. Get over it. It's not as if it meant anything. And then she'd stormed out, and waited for me to go and apologize to her for getting angry because she'd been unfaithful to me. Women.

We'd never mentioned it again. But for weeks I couldn't look at her without thinking about it. How did they kiss? Where did they kiss? And with tongues? Did he touch her? Let's face it, you don't kiss someone in a drunken snog and not touch them anywhere else, do you? It would be like trying to drive a car without putting your hands on the steering wheel.

And do you know how I found out? Did she come straight home and tell me, clasping my hand as she tearfully confessed all? Did she b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. I found out by email. From her. Although not directly, and certainly not on purpose. She'd forwarded me an email that Martin had sent her regarding the Christmas party, not thinking that I'd scroll down and read the part about him looking forward to catching her underneath the mistletoe. Especially since Birmingham, he'd added.

I knew Martin. I'd even bought him a pint, the ungrateful git. And for a while, every time I kissed her, I kept thinking of his face, which isn't a good thing if you're a heteros.e.xual man.

Oh yes, and here's the best bit: It'll make us stronger, she'd said, as if what she'd done was a good thing. But tell me something-how do these things ever make a relationship stronger? It's not like a broken leg, where the bone actually grows back thicker, is it? If your car breaks down, you may get it fixed, but it doesn't suddenly become faster or safer as a result of the breakdown, does it? Quite the opposite; you're always slightly nervous that whenever you drive it, it'll let you down again. Or to take a more extreme example, if you'd had cancer, and beaten it once, you'd still always be worried that the cancer might come back, and worse than before.

Because that's what unfaithfulness is, isn't it? A cancer that's always there in the back of your mind, eating away at the foundations of the relationship. It's happened once, it could happen again, so you're always looking for telltale signs or symptoms to show that it's reappeared. Say you live in Tokyo, and your house gets demolished by an earthquake. Would you rebuild it, knowing that you were in an earthquake zone, confident it'd never happen again? I don't think so. And at the time, that's how I felt. Like our relationship had been rocked by an earthquake. And maybe I hadn't realized just how much damage had been done.

For a while I wondered whether I should try and get even; go out and snog someone to get my own back, but why stoop to her level? The truth is, I hadn't wanted to. And besides, I'm not the cheating kind. No-I'd just wanted things to go back to how they were between me and my beautiful girlfriend. Though as I think about it, sitting here on the moral high ground, I'm a little troubled by what Dan's implying: that it wasn't Jane's looks that kept me from straying.

It was mine.

7.55 p.m.

We're standing in the foyer at the Metropole Hotel, where tonight's speed-dating event is taking place. The organizer, Emily, a pretty brunette, barely glances at me as she hands me a little sticky label with my name written on it, but makes a great show of personally ensuring that Dan's is stuck on properly. Dan, of course, tenses his pectoral muscle as she does so.

We're ushered into a side room to join the other hopefuls: a rag-tag collection of last-ones-to-be-picked-at-games who make even me look relatively attractive. They're all trying to size each other up without making eye contact, and when they spot Dan, I'm sure one or two of them think about leaving.

Dan wrinkles his nose. 'G.o.d, will you look at this shower,' he says, a little too loudly. 'And a couple of them could do with taking one.'

'Keep your voice down.'

'Why? In case one of them bursts a pimple in my direction? I'm glad I'm not in the same boat as any of them.'

Same boat? Dan looks like he doesn't belong in the same gene pool.

We help ourselves to our 'free' gla.s.s of wine, generously included in our 25 entry price, which I down in one; probably not a good idea given my lack of food and the beer I've just drunk.

At eight o'clock precisely, Emily claps her hands to get our attention. 'Now, you bunch of hunks,' she begins.

'Bunch of what?' whispers Dan, looking around incredulously. 'Is she in the same room as me?'

'Waiting next door,' continues Emily, 'are twenty women, who are all very eager to meet you.'

Dan nudges me. 'Cue ma.s.sive disappointment.'

One nervous chap in the corner clears his throat. 'So, how does this work, exactly?' He must be about my age, but has the acned skin of a teenager, and speaks like his voice has just broken.

'Well,' says Emily, 'basically, once you get inside, the girls stay still while you move around.'

'No change there then!' interjects Dan, provoking a ripple of nervous laughter. Emily looks up sharply, angry at being interrupted, but when she sees who made the comment, her expression changes to a smile.

'And don't forget,' Emily adds, 'you've only got three minutes with each lady, so make every second count.'

She hands us all a clipboard and a pen, telling us we're to put a tick next to the names of any of the girls we like, and we're shown through into what I guess is the hotel's ballroom. True to Emily's word, there are twenty tables, at each of which sits a girl clutching an identical clipboard. They look up hopefully as we shuffle in, and it's all I can do not to turn back around as I see their faces fall.

I try and position myself away from Dan, so as not to suffer unfairly in the immediate comparison stakes, but instead he sidles up next to me.

'Happy hunting,' he whispers.

I walk towards the nearest vacant chair, the phrase 'Christians and lions' running through my mind, as Emily's shrill voice brings the proceedings to order.

'Okay, love-hunters. Time starts...now!' She rings a bell, then moves to stand guard by the door, more, I imagine, to keep us from escaping than in case any hotel guests walk in accidentally.

My allotted table is occupied by a not unattractive redhead whose name, her badge tells me, is Melanie. I'm a little bit nervous, not to mention a little bit drunk, and as I sit down in front of her, I don't know what the correct greeting procedure should be. When I look up from my clipboard, Melanie is pointedly holding her hand out towards me.

'h.e.l.lo, Edward,' she says, without a trace of a smile.

'Sorry,' I say, giving her a slightly sweaty handshake. 'I didn't know whether there was a "no touching" rule. Like in prison?'

Great. My opening line suggests I have some knowledge of jail procedures. As Melanie picks up her clipboard, locates my name, and uncaps her biro purposefully, I try and remember Dan's advice. Start with a compliment. Start with a compliment...

'Wow. You're gorgeous, Melanie. How come you're single?'

Melanie looks at me with disdain. 'I've just broken up with my boyfriend,' she says, flatly. 'My friends thought this would cheer me up.'

Ah. Big mistake. Change the subject? No-go for the jugular. 'Oh no. Why was that? The break up, I mean.'

'We wanted different things.'

'Such as?'

'Well, I wanted to settle down and have kids, whereas he wanted to s.h.a.g that little tart from accounts. All men are b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.' Melanie stares daggers at me, daring me to challenge her.