Free Cupid's Dart by David Nobbs Page A

him. We are taking your previous good character into account. Five years.
    Would she do such a thing? Could she do such a thing? How could I know? I didn't really know her. She had told me her name was Bedwell. How likely was that? I'd been duped. I will take a lenient view of this case, in view of your extraordinary naïvety. Three years.
    Yes, I did know her. I was shocked that I could even think such things. She was sweet. She was pure.
    No, she wasn't. She scored bulls' eyes with every darts player known to man. She had also hopped into bed with me on the first night after I'd picked her up on a train.
    That phrase – 'picked her up on a train' – shocked me. It shocked me that I could even have thought it. It hadn't been like that.
    She was sleeping like a child, so peacefully, so contentedly, so healthily. I wanted to wake her up and talk to her again.
    I had no idea what time it was. The curtains were the only things in the room that were of any quality. They were large and thick. It could be mid-morning and the room would still be in complete darkness. I hoped that I would hear noises, movements, which might give me some clue as to what time it was. I began to be convinced that we had missed breakfast, that I should be back in Oxford, that I would be late for supervisions with my students. All this was very disconcerting. I don't wear a watch. I don't need to. I could always tell, almost to the minute, what time it was. It was not a gift I relished. I didn't want to be a slave to the passage of time.
    But now, when my gift had deserted me, when a young woman had thrown me into confusion, I felt lost.
    Then I remembered that there was a digital clock at Ange's side of the bed. I levered myself up very carefully, not wishing to wake her. There was a red glow in the darkness, but the clock was facing away from me.
    I crept out of bed, felt my way round it warily, almost tripped over her shoes, recovered, and reached the clock . . . 3.57. It couldn't be so early. It couldn't. The clock must have stopped. Then it flicked on to 3.58.
    I went to the loo, aiming at the side of the bowl so as not to wake her with the noise of water on water. I crept back on to the bed. I knew that I wouldn't get another wink of sleep. Ange was too far over my side. I had no room to get comfortable. I longed to hear her voice, that cockney accent that was much too cheerful and warm and humorous to deserve the adjective 'estuarine'. It was no use. I had to wake her.
    I nudged her quite sharply, quite deliberately, with my elbow. She stirred.
    'Sorry,' I lied. 'Did I wake you?'
    'Bleedin' 'ell. What time is it?'
    'Four o clock.'
    'Bleedin' 'ell.'
    'Sorry. Ange? Talk some more.'
    'Twice in one night? Bleedin' 'ell.'
    'I love to hear your voice.'
    'Nobody ever said that before.'
    'Tell me more about your brothers.'
    'What is this, Alan? A relationship or an interview?'
    'That's well put, Ange. Very well put.'
    'Don't sound so surprised. Stop patronising me.'
    'That's a long word for an Essex girl.'
    Yes, that's what I said. I find it very difficult to admit it to you, such is my shame.
    'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I'm very, very sorry. That was very rude and very unfair. I just don't know how to talk to women. Will you forgive me?'
    'I don't know what I'm doing here.'
    Nor did I, but I couldn't admit that.
    'You're here because I asked you, because I think you're lovely, and because I'm a sad old man and I've suddenly realised that I'm very lonely.'
    'Don't say you're an old man, Alan, because half the time I forget you are.'
    But I'm not. I'm middle-aged. I'm only in the middle of middle age. My doctor told me that fifty-five is the new forty. But Ange thought of me as old. Oh God. There was no future here.
    I think she must have realised that she'd upset me, because, when she spoke again, it was with that lovely occasional gentleness of hers.
    'You're not an unattractive man, Alan. You must have . . . you know . . . had girlfriends. Haven't you?'
    I