Someone who’d actually picked as their username ‘Isthereanyoneout_there?’ had as their profile:
I’m a nice normal guy who just wants a nice normal woman. If your photo is from 15 years ago, then MOVE ON! If you’re fucked up, married, desperate, passive-aggressive, not a woman, shamelessly gold-digging, emotionally sadistic, superficial, self-obsessed, illiterate, just looking for quick sex, just looking to indulge in endless streams of messaging then not meet, just looking to get a date to massage your ego and stand me up because you can’t be bothered, then MOVE ON!
And then there were the profiles from married men quite openly saying they want uncomplicated sex.
‘Why don’t they just go on MarriedAffair.co.uk?’ sniffed Jude.
Wednesday 3 July 2013
8.30 a.m. Billy’s football comic just dropped through the letter box and I took it downstairs saying, ‘Billy! Your Match.com’s arrived!’
KBO
Wednesday 3 July 2013 (continued)
133lb, negative thoughts 5 million, positive thoughts 0, bottles of Fairy Liquid drunk 0 (you see? Could be worse).
9.15 p.m. Right. Super! Is school concert tomorrow and is going to be perfectly fine. Mabel is staying at Rebecca’s so I don’t have to worry about keeping tabs on both of them at the same time. Of course, many, many of the fathers will be away on business, or perhaps busy tapping away on MarriedAffair.co.uk! And even if Roxster was still around, he wouldn’t have come to the school concert, would he? He’d have felt ridiculous with all those people who have children and are so much older than him.
9.30 p.m. Just looked at news online. Whole royal baby frenzy is not helping: perfect young couple of Roxster’s age, starting life, doing everything perfectly, in the perfect way and at the perfect time.
9.45 p.m. Went up to check on Billy and Mabel.
‘Mummy,’ said Billy, ‘will Daddy know I’m doing the concert?’
‘I think so,’ I whispered.
‘Will I do it all right?’
‘Yes.’
I held his hand till he was asleep. There was a full moon again and I watched it over the rooftops. What would it be like now if I was going to the Summer Concert with Mark? He would have leaned over my shoulder the way he used to, whizzed through the mass picnic emails, deleted them and simply replied: ‘I will bring the hummus and the black bin liners.’
I would be one hundred per cent looking forward to it. It would be a one hundred per cent lovely thing. Oh, come on. Brace up. Keep Buggering On.
THE SUMMER CONCERT
Thursday 4 July 2013
We roared up through the landscaped parkland. We were late, because Billy was trying to map the route on the iPhone and we came off at the wrong junction. Clambered out to the smell of cut grass, the chestnut leaves hanging heavy and green, the light turning golden.
Staggering under the weight of the bassoon case, the rug, my handbag, the picnic basket and a second basket with Diet Cokes and oatmeal cookies that wouldn’t fit in the first basket, Billy and I headed towards the path marked: ‘CONCERT THIS WAY’.
We came out into the open and gasped. It looked like a painting: a gracious, wisteria-clad house, with an old stone terrace and lawns leading down to a lake. The terrace was laid out like a stage, with music stands and a grand piano, and rows of chairs below. Billy held my hand tightly as we stood wondering where to go.