The Cows. Dawn O’Porter

a few seconds later and shouts, ‘You don’t have to sleep with them all, Tara!’ down the street.

      Was that liberal or conservative? I can’t quite be sure.

      Back at home I have a quick shower, slip on a cute silk shirt with my faux-leather trousers, a bit of make-up, bouff my hair and I’m ready. I gave up making too much effort on dates ages ago. I always wonder what it must look like to guys, who just wear whatever they wore to work that day, when a woman arrives dressed to the nines in something fancy, with loads of make-up. It sets a precedent at the start that I really can’t be bothered to maintain, so I wear a mildly more uptempo version of my usual clothes. I think that’s right. Although I’m still single, so I guess that says something.

      Being single when you have a kid is weird. Not just because everyone you meet either judges or sympathises with you, but because you have to think about so much more than just fancying someone. It’s called being responsible, I suppose. I can’t allow fuck buddies into my home to meet my daughter, it would be too confusing for her, so I generally don’t have them at all. That’s good for Annie but it sucks for me.

      Annie has never known me to be in a relationship, so I need to handle the situation carefully. I introduced one guy to her last year because he was so completely awesome. I seemed to abandon all elements of fear when it came to Annie and invited him into our lives. Turns out he was so awesome that he was married. Because obviously, excellent men in their forties are never single. Why would they be? Fuckers.

      He spent a Saturday afternoon in my house making Annie laugh so hard she went to bed giddy with joy. When she was asleep he and I started having sex and halfway through, his phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Eventually, because it was really killing the mood, he answered it, then burst out crying. It was his wife letting him know that his dad had just had a heart attack and died. He was literally inside me as he took the call. I mean, it was possibly the worst thing to happen during sex since those two people in China were doing it up against a floor-to-ceiling window in their apartment and the window fell out. He was so devastated, I couldn’t even have a go at him about not telling me he was married. I had to comfort him, when what I really wanted to do was cut his penis off with some nail scissors and throw it in the road. I was also just really, really gutted.

      He left minutes later and I never heard from him again. Annie still asks for him; she refers to him as ‘Mr Giggles’. One day I’ll tell her that Mr Giggles ended up being about as funny as a dose of the clap. Which, along with the terrible memory of a horrible evening, he also left me with.

      Taking treatment for an STD when you have a little girl feels grim. I felt ridden and contagious and begged the bottle of antibiotics to be finished. When they were gone, I vowed never to introduce her to anyone ever again unless a) I was certain they didn’t have a wife and b) I hadn’t needed an STD test after sleeping with them.

      I now hold a lot of hope for my Friday night dates. I want someone good. Someone honest, safe and fun. You never know; tonight’s guy, Al, looks OK in his picture. But first, a quick drink with my best friend Sophie.

      ‘Sorry I’m late,’ says Sophie, walking slowly up to me at the bar. ‘I was getting my hair done, she was taking ages then I decided I didn’t like the colour so got her to go back to … anyway, heyyyy.’

      Sophie is always late, which is why I brought my Kindle.

      Sophie and I are both only children. This means that we have a relationship a lot like sisters and claimed each other around the age of ten, as the people who would play that role in each other’s lives. I questioned it loads, because she drove me so crazy half the time. Then another friend at school said that if her sister wasn’t family, they would never be friends, but she loved her anyway, because that is what sisters do. That really resonated with me because I realised that if Sophie was to be the sister I never had, it was OK and normal for us to not always see eye to eye. I just had to love her, which I did and still do, because we have history – and you can’t erase that, no matter how many times someone prioritises a blow dry over spending time with you.

      ‘Hair looks nice,’ I say, because it does. It always does, she’s gorgeous. Skinny, blonde, perfect skin. It’s annoying, but mostly natural. Other than the hair colour.

      ‘Thanks. OK, can we drink champagne? I feel like I need something fizzy.’

      I order two glasses but she shouts for a bottle. So there we are, sitting at a bar at 6.40 p.m. on a Friday, drinking champagne for no real reason.

      ‘I only have twenty minutes. I have a date with a guy called Al at seven.’ I smile a little, I have that pre-date hopeful buzz … maybe it will be a good one. But probably not.

      ‘God, I can’t believe you’re still dating, I can’t even imagine,’ she says. ‘Mind you, I never really dated like you do. Carl was my only ever formal date and I ended up marrying him, so it clearly works. Cheers to that!’

      I still can’t accept that Sophie is married; she was so wild, almost feral. I don’t think I have ever met anyone with such a hungry attitude towards sex and partying. Her stamina for both was always fascinating to me.

      ‘So how is Carl?’

      ‘He’s good, yeah. You know, same old. Marriage is fine most of the time, as long as I don’t mention my past.’

      ‘Still, really?’

      ‘Yup, it’s the big sexy elephant in the room. I mean he doesn’t know anything of course, I’d never tell him. But he’s made all these assumptions about me, and the kinds of things I used to get up to. Annoyingly, they’re all pretty accurate.’

      ‘But where’s he getting it all from?’ I ask.

      ‘He says he can’t understand how someone who looks like me didn’t get loads of sex when I was single.’

      ‘OK, you know that is actually quite insulting, right?’ I say, as I realise it is insulting, but that Carl is absolutely right. Sophie got a lot of sex.

      ‘Yesterday, Beth Taylor, remember her from school? She tagged me in an old photo on Facebook. It’s a picture of a load of us, we were about seventeen, and in the background I’m snogging some guy. She tagged me and wrote, “This is how I remember you, Sophie. Hope you’re well.” What a fucking idiot, why would she do that?’

      ‘Yeah, I saw that. I thought it was funny. And I suppose most people in their forties aren’t married to people who would give them a hard time for snogging someone when they were seventeen?’

      ‘True. Maybe, but still. I have to be so careful. He’s just so old fashioned and I need this to work. It’s just easier if I edit my past a little. The fucking Internet means I have to be on guard all the time. Anyone could tweet me, or post a picture of me from back then. Do you remember that time we went to Ibiza, the foam party? Thank God it was just before camera phones, but what if someone had one of those disposable cameras we all used to have and stumbles across me on Facebook? There’s probably pictures of me up to all bloody sorts. Jesus, I told Carl I’d never done drugs. He’d lose his shit if he knew the kind of stuff we used to do. As it is, every time a Facebook memory comes up I break into a cold sweat!’

      I drink some champagne. ‘Hey, we had fun though, didn’t we?’ I say, giving her a wink.

      ‘I’ll drink to that!’

      I don’t know how Sophie does it, being married to someone who won’t accept her for who she is. Playing a new role, with a new past. Watching Sophie coordinate her life around hiding who she was – is? – from her husband has been such a lesson to me, in terms of what I want. There is no way I want to find someone who won’t take me for what I am. I don’t want to have to lie, or hide, or deny anything. Sophie would never admit it, but she married Carl because she partied her entire life and isn’t qualified for anything she would enjoy, so a rich city guy was the only way she’d end up in a nice house and money to buy bottles of champagne when you only have twenty minutes to drink it in, and absolutely nothing to celebrate. I’d rather be poor