1939

The phone bleeps at me suddenly and I find it has a text message. Find perfect partners in your area now. There is a number to call and the name of some agency. I would normally ignore his kind of thing, but today I feel lucky and bright and take this as a chance to capitalize upon it. So I call them back and they speak to me and take some details and then say that they will call me back. Within five minutes they do so and give me a woman’s name, the name of a pub within five minutes’ walking from here, a time to meet and promise to send me a picture of her. Within a minute the picture arrives. She looks bright and cheerful, positive and yet not overbearing. A face that has made an effort but not one that is going to intimidate.

I bathe and change and set off for the pub, picking up fifty pounds from the bank as I go. The sun is out and the crowds in the street seem charged with delight, as though they are sharing in my fortune.

And then it all changes.

I get to the pub and find that she is there already, despite me being twenty minutes early. She does not see me for the crowds and sits in an off-colour pink overcoat with her hands in her lap, wearing wears the expression of a frightened animal that has suddenly found its way out of its pen and into the abattoir. She has an untouched glass in front of her and is edging away from part of the table she shares with some rowdies who are watching a game on the TV screen.

I walk to the bar and breathe in the noxious cigarette smoke. I make every effort to ignore her and

Dear god. No more.