Page 30 of Stella is Starting Over

Richard has a serious, furrowed expression, like he’s really considering all of this information.

‘I’m sorry,’ I add. ‘I would obviously have told you, I just don’t advertise it on the apps because of nonces. Paedophiles. I mean paedophiles.’ I really need to stop saying paedophile. ‘Not that I think you’re a paedophile. I mean, you don’t really know if someone is, it’s hard to tell, you know, that’s sort of the main problem—’

Richard laughs. ‘I’m not.’

‘Sure.’ I laugh. ‘Though if you think about it, that’s probably what a paedophile would say.’

He looks deeply worried. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’

‘I’m joking!’ I say. ‘Sorry, bad joke. I make bad jokes when I’m nervous. I’m going to stop talking about paedophiles. Do you still want to go in? I’d really like to see the exhibition. If the kid thing is a problem, I totally get it, I’m kind of new to the whole dating thing so I’m still working out when to mention it—’

Richard looks at me, completely bemused, and I think at this point if he does decide to bail on the date it will have more to do with my verbal diarrhoea and less to do with having a kid.

‘I would still very much like to spend the evening with you,’ he says.

He opens the door for me, and waiting in the entrance is a short, handsome guy wearing a polo neck.

He beams at us both. ‘I’m William,’ he says, in what is possibly the poshest voice I’ve ever heard. ‘Delighted to meet you.’

I look at Richard, confused. Is this a double date or something? Richard smiles. ‘I don’t know much about art, but William came highly recommended via my concierge. He’s an expert, so he’ll be taking us on a tour.’

Fuck me. I thought sending an Addison Lee was the most indulgent thing a person could do. We follow William inside and he guides us through the exhibition, and then afterwards through some of the galleries in the permanent collection. The galleries are quiet and the light is low, and it strikes me that I’ve never been here in the evening. In fact, the only gallery I’ve been to at all in the past year was hosting a Baby Art class where I arrived with Rose, who immediately did a huge shit, fed for twenty minutes and then howled until I took us home. A very long way from wandering through the marble halls following William as our heels click on the stone.

He teaches us how to read a painting – the significance of specific fruits, colours, fabrics, talking unabashedly loud in the hushed galleries, but often telling us such fascinating things that I forget to be embarrassed to be on such a bougie expedition and so clearly on a date. Some of William’s tips I remember from studying history of art at school, but most of it is new to me. Any time I bring up something I do already know, William acts like I’m a genius, even though he’s obviously just trying to be nice, and Richard looks at me sideways, smiling.

‘It’s very sexy that you’re so knowledgeable,’ he whispers to me at one point, while William is slightly ahead of me. I feel a prickle of tension. I’d like him to touch me. He doesn’t.

William finishes the tour in front of a self-portrait of Artemisia Gentileschi. It’s a picture of her painting. I have a postcard of it on my fridge, half obscured by Rose’s ‘paintings’. I bought it here, when I’d just found out that I was pregnant. Gavin and I had expected it to take months and obviously, like most women, I’d convinced myself that I was infertile. I’d spent the morning privately freaking out internally about what motherhood was going to mean, about whether I’d ever get to do anything creative ever again. And I’d seen this picture, of a woman painting, and googled her in this total frenzy. It turned out that she’d had five kids and painted through all the pregnancies and the babies. Only one of them lived to adulthood, which didn’t totally fit the narrative I was searching for, but still. She did it. So I could too.

I stare at her for a while, thinking about her paintings and her dead children and her marriage, and then I realise I probably look like trying to look like I’m in a film about a woman who likes art, performatively staring at a picture. I break my gaze.

‘You were miles away.’ Richard smiles.

‘I was,’ I agree.

I turn to William. ‘Thank you so much for that – it really was magical.’

‘You’re very welcome,’ he says with a smile. Richard shakes his hand and I’m fairly sure he presses a wad of notes into the handshake as a tip, but somehow it feels a bit inappropriate to look.

Richard ushers me out into the street where the sun is setting over the river.

‘It’s a beautiful evening,’ I say. ‘We could walk down the embankment for a bit and see if we can get a table at Gordon’s?’ Gordon’s is the wine bar by the river that you’re obliged to visit at least once a year if you live in London, there’s always a bonkers queue and the food is dreadful, but despite all that it’s sort of lovely on an evening like this.

‘Absolutely,’ Richard says. ‘Let me just tell the driver to head off.’

‘Driver?’ I follow his gaze towards the black people-carrier on the street, waiting somewhere that I’m absolutely sure you’re not allowed to wait. ‘Oh, did you have something in mind?’

‘There’s a spot I like a little further down. If you’re in no rush, I thought we could have dinner?’

Oh. I see. This is a date date. He’s expecting stuff. Well. Okay. That’s fine, he’s obviously not buying me dinner because he just wants to hear me yap, but actually that’s probably a good thing. Too much time to think about sex is a dangerous thing – this way I can have a couple of big glasses of wine and then rip the plaster off. I showered, I moisturised, I’ve got those hideous wipes in my bag that make your vulva smell floral and completely destroy your healthy bacterial biome.

‘Dinner sounds lovely,’ I say.

We drive fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, making gentle conversation. He tells me that he grew up on the outskirts of London and went to boarding school in Kent. I don’t make any inappropriate jokes about boarding schools and urban legends about the weird sex games they play, and feel quietly proud of my maturity. We arrive at the restaurant and we’re guided to a table on a heated terrace, overlooking the river. The bottle of cava I’d been suggesting at Gordon’s, inevitably sandwiched between various gilet-wearing twenty-something stockbrokers, now seems a bit pedestrian. In the car, my phone buzzes.

My heart leaps when I see Dom’s name. I should save it to read for later, but I glance. Started watching original Pride and Prejudice and you’re right, it’s basically PORN.

I smile.