It Started With A Tweet(9)

I think Dominic has to be the only person I’ve ever met who hasn’t acknowledged my dad’s passing with an ‘I’m sorry’, or who hasn’t asked how it happened. Instead he’s ploughed on as if he’d just retired.

‘Hampshire,’ he says, wrinkling up his nose as if I’ve told him that I’ve come from the back of beyond. ‘Is that a home county?’

‘No, but we border a few of them.’

He’s stopped pretending to hide his disappointment on his face and I get the impression that I’ve failed the interview.

‘Well, what do your parents do?’ I ask, thinking that my parental heritage has not been called into question before on a date.

‘My father is a hedge-fund manager and my mother was a barrister, but now she’s a high court judge.’

‘Right,’ I say. It figures. ‘And they live in the Home Counties?’

‘Yes, in Sevenoaks.’

‘Are they American?’ I say, testing the water about his dodgy accent.

‘No. Why?’ he says a little gruffly.

‘Oh, I thought I detected a little accent, I wondered if you’d lived there .?.?.’ My voice trails off as there’s a scowl descending over his brow.

‘I do spend a lot of time there for work. It’s always handy, I think, to get global work experience. I spent a year working in Hong Kong when I first graduated, and if I’d stayed with my company, I’m sure I would have been posted to a foreign office again. Have you worked abroad?’

‘No, but I once had a client meeting in Dubai which –’

‘Who hasn’t,’ he says, cutting me off as I was about to tell him a very amusing story about when I was nearly arrested for kissing Marvellous Marcus.

FYI – there was no actual kissing, just an eyelash stuck in my eye. Not that I have to clarify it to Dominic, as he’s started to drone on about when he was flown business class to Singapore for an hour-long meeting.

The weird thing about Internet dating is that you build up an idea about a person in your head based on a few carefully curated images and heavily crafted messages. Usually, I suggest meeting fairly quickly after I start messaging, as I’ve found that the longer that goes on, the greater is the expectation that the person is a perfect match. Yet, despite the fact that I haven’t built him up too much in my head, I’m still woefully disappointed that, in person, Dominic has failed to reach even the lowest of my expectations. We’ve already established that, in my head, he was a foot taller, but he wasn’t a complete arsehole who didn’t let me finish my sentences.

‘I’m just going to go and have a smoke,’ he says, getting up from the table as he finishes his story.

I’ve never been so thrilled to be on a date with a smoker. I’d usually be a bit offended that a date had sneaked off so quickly and left me alone, but, for once, I’m glad. I watch him walk onto South Bank to light up a cigarette, mentally wishing that he won’t return.

I reach into my bag to find my phone, to quickly snap the photo of my Martini which I’d been dying to do earlier, only my battery has gone flat. I rustle in my bag to find my phone charger, before realising that we’re sitting outside where there are no plugs. It makes me slightly panicky. What if there’s an emergency? Or, more importantly, what if I need to fake an emergency to get away from this awful date?

I glance over at Dominic to try and distract myself. It looks like he’s got no battery problems. I watch him on his phone and, if I’m not mistaken, he’s swiping, occasionally pausing and squinting his eyes as he does so. I recognise that squint; he’s blatantly checking people out on Tinder. He’s obviously made up his mind about me too. He could have at least got through the whole evening with me before he started to look elsewhere. Surely that’s common decency?

I take a sip of my Martini and it tastes pretty damn good. I start to drink more and more, bracing myself for the second onslaught of questions. Dominic comes back to the table and sits down. There’s an awkward silence that hangs in the air along with the smell of stale tobacco.

I’m about to suggest that we both throw in the towel, when he clicks his fingers at the waitress and begins to order some food.

‘Did you want anything, Daisy?’

The waitress has entered his order into her little machine and is looking expectantly at me, with a look that shows she doesn’t have time for this. On the one hand, it would probably make my life easier to say that I don’t want anything and to make my excuses and leave, but, unfortunately, I’m too British and polite and I can’t leave him to eat alone. Plus, I haven’t had anything to eat all day except a couple of stale Jaffa Cakes I found loitering at the bottom of my desk drawer. I barely have time to glance over the menu as the waitress taps her foot and looks over my shoulder at a new table that’s just arrived.

‘I’ll have the naked hot dog,’ I say, this time not even trying to be provocative; it’s just the first thing I saw.

She nods and hurries away.

‘So, do you like to travel other than for work?’ he says resuming his line of questioning.

‘Um, I do, but I haven’t had a whole lot of time over the last few years; things have been pretty busy.’

‘I recently went to Thailand,’ he says, sipping his drink.

‘I went there a few years ago,’ I say, trying to find some common ground. ‘To a little resort on Ko Samui and’