The Trials of Tiffany Trott. Isabel Wolff

in Piccadilly – in Albany no less – with Alan Clark living practically next door!

      ‘So the Ritz is really your local,’ I said as our main course arrived.

      ‘Yes. And Fortnum and Mason’s is my corner shop,’ he replied. ‘These little stores are so useful.’ He grinned. I smiled back. How incredible to think that such a nice-looking, funny, generous, stylish, eligible man was still single! Amazing. What a piece of luck. Thank God I’d been brave enough to answer his ad, I thought, as I listened to the gentle clattering of silver cutlery. It was such a sensible thing to have done. We talked with startling ease about, well, lots of things – recent films and books, tennis technique and travel, birth signs, politics and paintings, love, life and death. And of course advertising, which he loves. In fact he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of slogans and straplines, including one or two of my own. This was highly gratifying. The evening was going brilliantly well. And then, as the waiters took away our plates after the main course, Seriously Successful removed his napkin from his lap and looked me straight in the eye. And I thought he was going to say, ‘Miss Trott. In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you!’ Instead, he leant forward and said, ‘Now Tiffany, I’ve got a little proposition for you.’

      What is wrong with men? Why do they always give me such a hard time? After all, it’s not as though I’ve failed to make any effort with them. Have I not cooked for them and ironed their shirts, including that rather tricky bit at the base of the collar? Have I not planted their gardens and watered their window boxes? Have I not posted their letters and picked up their prescriptions and collected swatches of carpet and curtain fabric when they were having their houses done up? Have I not changed my clothes when they told me they didn’t like them, and lost weight when they said I was too fat? Have I not – have I not trotted after them round the bloody golf course shouting, ‘MARVELLOUS SHOT!’ – even when the ball was clearly heading for the lake? So what, precisely, is the sodding problem? Why is there always some matrimony-murdering sting in the tail? Take Seriously Successful, for example. There I was at the Ritz, lost in love, mentally rehearsing his wedding speech, and naming our children (Heidi, Hildegarde, Lysander, Tarquin and Max) when Fate, with malice aforethought, sneezed in my ashtray again.

      ‘Now, I don’t want you to be shocked,’ said Seriously Successful, seriously. ‘But I’ve got this little proposition for you. For us, actually.’

      ‘Oh, what’s that, then?’ I asked airily, fiddling with my pudding fork and hoping that what he had actually meant to say was that he had in mind a little proposal for me. Propositions always sound vaguely dodgy, don’t they?

      He fiddled with the knot of his tie. ‘You see,’ he began hesitantly, ‘my wife and I … ’

      ‘Your wife?’

      ‘Yes.’ He looked at me. ‘Wife.’

      ‘Oh.’ My heart did a bungee jump.

      ‘You see she … Olivia. That’s her name. Olivia and I … ’ He took a sip of water. He appeared to be struggling. ‘ … well … we don’t really get on. In fact, we were never really very compatible in the first place,’ he continued. ‘We’ve soldiered on for years, but recently we’ve just found it pretty intolerable. There’s never been anyone else involved,’ he added quickly. ‘I wouldn’t like you to think that. But it’s just that our marriage is, well, a bit of a farce, really.’

      My hopes rose as swiftly on their elasticated rope as they had plummeted a moment before. In that case he could get divorced, couldn’t he, and it would all be OK? I could still have my dream man with his lovely voice and his smart suits and his exquisite neckwear and his jokes.

      ‘However,’ I heard him continue, ‘we are extremely unlikely to split up.’

      ‘Oh.’ Oh. ‘Why?’

      ‘Because her father is my main backer. He lent me a considerable amount of money when I set up my company fifteen years ago.’

      ‘I see.’

      ‘I had nothing then. Except my ideas, and my energy, and my ambition. And he enabled me to make a success of it. It would have been almost impossible otherwise. And it has been, well … ’

      ‘Seriously Successful?’ I suggested.

      ‘Yes,’ he said with a little shrug. ‘It has. That’s why I have the house in Sussex and the smart flat in town. That’s why I’m wearing a Savile Row suit and handmade shoes. That’s why my daughter goes to Benenden. All because Olivia’s father laid the foundations for my business success.’

      ‘But if the company’s done that well, couldn’t you just, well, pay him back?’ I ventured.

      ‘I have,’ he replied. ‘Of course I have. With interest. But it’s not as simple as that, because when he agreed to back me, he said he would only do it if I promised always to look after Olivia and never, ever leave her. That was the condition. He was very emphatic about it, and I said I would honour it. And I will. In any case,’ he carried on with a slight grimace, ‘divorce is so unpleasant, especially where children are involved. I really don’t want to inflict that on my daughter.’

      ‘Well personally I think adultery’s very unpleasant. I really don’t want to inflict that on myself.’

      ‘And the reason why I put in that ad is because I’m just, well, rather lonely and love-starved really, and I wanted to find someone I can care for and … ’

      ‘Spoil a little or even a lot,’ I said dismally.

      ‘Er. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Someone I can have fun with. And when I talked to you, and met you this evening, and was terribly attracted to you, which I am, then I knew that the person I could have fun with was you.’

      ‘What the hell makes you think I want to have fun?’ I said. ‘I don’t want any bloody fun. I want to get married.’

      ‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t actually offer you marriage,’ he said. ‘Not as such. But we could still have a wonderful relationship,’ he added enthusiastically. ‘Though of course it would have to be part-time.’

      ‘Part-time? Oh I see,’ I said, twisting the handle of my pudding spoon. ‘Well, perhaps you could tell me what that would involve. I mean, how many days off would I get? And would I have any union rights? Would I get the usual benefits and sick pay, and could you guarantee me a minimum wage? And if I were to sign a contract what would happen if Britain signed up to the Social Chapter? You see I’ve got to think about these things.’

      ‘Don’t be bitter,’ he said, as the waiter arrived with the pudding and cheese. ‘Why did you assume that I was single?’

      ‘Because you didn’t say that you weren’t,’ I said, throwing my eyes up in anguish to the clouded, trompe l’oeil ceiling. ‘Why didn’t you just be done with it and say, “Suave businessman in dead-as-dodo marriage WLTM curvy girl for fun legovers with absolutely no view to future”? Anyway, you could have told me over the phone.’

      ‘You didn’t ask.’

      ‘But you should have said. We talked for long enough.’

      ‘Well, OK, I didn’t say because I liked the sound of you so much and I was afraid that if you knew my situation you wouldn’t agree to meet me.’

      ‘Too bloody right. Being someone’s side-order wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.’

      ‘I don’t know why you’re so shocked,’ he said, with an air of exasperation as he buttered a Bath Oliver. ‘I’m offering something very … civilised. And let’s face it, Tiffany, lots of people have these sorts of arrangements.’

      ‘Well, lots of people aren’t me,’ I said. My throat was aching with a suppressed sob; tears pricked the back of my eyes. I glanced away from him, taking in the Marie Antoinette interior with its shining