We Don't Die of Love by Stephen May

Author:Stephen May
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912240753
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
Published: 2019-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

14

PEBBLES AND FISH

The kids had been talking and, like Selena, they had decided that I needed to start dating again. I went to see Charlie play rugby and in the pub after the game he said, ‘You’ve got to get back out there, Dad. You’ve got to get back on the bike.’

I went down to Brighton to take Grace shopping, and over the world’s most expensive macaroni cheese she said, ‘Plenty more fish in the sea, Dad. Plenty more pebbles on the beach.’

I love my kids. They are kind, considerate and smart. It is true that they may not be the most original thinkers though.

Nevertheless, I endured a lecture from the dentist and another from the barber. I bought a new mustard-coloured jacket from M & S. I even invested in condoms. Viagra too. Those little blue coffins promising all the backup an ageing lover might need. Well, you never know. Pays to be prepared, though I nearly didn’t bother. No prescription for Viagra needed these days but – like the dentist, like the barber – the pharmacist also felt duty-bound to deliver a sermon before handing over the goods. A homily delivered in a room about the size of the toilet stall in Ernies. Him on one plastic chair, me on the other, so close that our knees were almost touching, so close I could smell his sweat and see the little clumps of bristles under his chin that he’d missed while shaving. These were the things I concentrated on while he gave me a finger-waggy list of warnings about thrombosis and renal failure and the need to make sure I had a full medical check-up in the next six months. A proper road test. He seemed very disapproving of the whole idea of people like me having sex at all. Nearly put me off the whole business before I had even started.

Nevertheless, every Thursday for the next few weeks I met up with strangers in a variety of city-centre café-bars. It was a bit like going on an evening course in a subject I had flunked at school. In fact, I’d have had more luck going on an actual evening course. Home maintenance for beginners. Website design 101. How to research your family history. I’d have got more action at any of these.

It did not go well, let’s put it like that.

I made every mistake going. I did learn a lot though. Mostly I learned that dating – always a dangerous sport – is way more brutal these days than it was in the past. That there were a lot of other things to worry about before you got to possible sildenafil citrate induced renal failure.

This is the modern world all over, isn’t it? Things are invented which seem to promise to make life easier before it turns out that we’ve just added a layer of complication to our lives. Thorny, almost insoluble, etiquette problems for a start.

Before I met Selena, my relationships had all begun in the pub with people I already knew.

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