Wednesday. I text MLP to confirm the new dinner arrangement for tonight to which he replies in the affirmative, and I drift happily through the day oblivious to the fact that at 8 p.m. my life will hurtle headlong off a cliff.
In the afternoon, I go to the re-opening party of a cigar emporium to whom I have supplied goods for a number of years. In fact, when I first began my antique humidor business in 1972, they were my first customers. Much to my surprise, I bump into the ex-Love Of My Life – a married zillionaire I’d had a wild and passionate affair with all through the 1980s. Our paths haven’t crossed for many a moon and although he’s grown older and lost most of his thick dark hair, the old charisma still oozes out of him like oil from a beached tanker.
I am rather surprised by how flirty he is, given that when I got divorced, he stayed married. The old magic is alive and well and when I leave to go home and get on with the unemployed labourer's dinner, he hugs and kisses me goodbye several times squeezing my arms tightly as he does so. As soon as I am in my car, I call him. We have an intimate conversation during which we re-visit the finer points of our unbridled sex life. I tell him I’d love to meet up with him again ‘even just for coffee’ and he promises to call. I doubt if he will. If his wife finds out again like she did the last time, all shades of shit will hit the fan and he certainly wouldn't want that at his time of life. As for me, I'd welcome him back in a New York minute.
I get home and finish preparing the meal we never ate last night and MLP arrives on time, in his not so usual way. I give him a huge hug on the doorstep, telling him how much I’ve missed him and he mumbles, after a heavily pregnant pause, that he’s missed me too. He helps me prepare the grilled halloumi and prosciutto-wrapped asparagus starter, then I realise we're low on vodka and send him down to the offie with a £20 note.
He takes my keys and when he lets himself back in, I say brightly: ‘I liked that!’ and he says: ‘What?’ and I say: ‘You coming in with my keys.’
He smiles enigmatically knowing all the time he’s about to dump me.
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