Blips

An excerpt from Rewilding (out June 4th!) about connection, confusion, and why it doesn't always lead to romance

Most of the time I feel omnipotent, striding around cities all over Europe, thunder and glamour, strong and single, great music in my ears, an Afghan coat flying out behind me. I feel so confident, so at peace in my skin, I think nothing can derail me.

I am wrong.

During the summer, I go back to Hastings to stay with Sam. It’s a town that hasn’t changed much since the fifties, still filled with kiss-me-quick hats and sticks of rock, a miniature railway that chuffs around, stuffed with eager-eyed children, fish and chips on every corner.

It is a town that I have come to love, even though it is probably not where I fully belong. And yet, the newspapers say it’s the new hotspot, that tons of media people are now moving out there.

I know a bunch of media people who live in that town, all of them great, which is probably the thing that constantly has me wondering whether I ought to move there. I would get so much more for my money! A house, even, one where I could start to build memories again.

We are invited to a party at the beach. I have met a handful of people who will be at the party; when we show up, it very quickly feels as if everyone there is someone who ought to be in my life.

It is a blustery day. The sun is shining when we arrive to help set up folding chairs around a beach hut. It is September so most of the huts are shuttered up, but ours is opened up as chairs and folding tables are carried out, glasses borrowed from the hut next door, the only other one open. Musicians arrive – it turns out Hastings is filled with musicians – carrying guitars.

Everyone is in a creative field – media publishing, music – most having relocated to Hastings or St Leonards years ago, all of them loving it, none with a hint of regret at leaving London.

I catch sight of a man chatting with someone. He is attractive, my height (perhaps a tad smaller), fair-haired, with a goatee and an air of intensity. I note all this with no attachment. I am not in a place where I am looking. I have spent over a year on dating apps, with little regularity given that I have been mostly in Marrakech, and the only thing that has become clear is that it is highly unlikely I will meet anyone via an app. Frankly, I am exhausted.

I am no longer looking. Even if I am open to receiving.

I am sitting on the beachfront with two friends, glass of prosecco in hand, a couple of empty chairs next to us, when he comes over, takes the empty chair next to mine and introduces himself. We find ourselves chatting, laughing.

I think he is younger than me. Much younger.

He is fifty-six.

‘How old are you?’ He scans my face.

‘Fifty-seven.’

‘Oh fuck you!’ he laughs. I think this is a compliment.

Before long the rest of the party falls away and the two of us share our stories, start to reveal the truth, the vulnerabilities, the insecurities, the fears, the hopes.

I don’t notice anyone else at the party. We move to separate ourselves, sitting by the edge of the beach, talking, talking, talking. It is intense and a little giddying. I have not had this kind of real chat with a man to whom I am starting to think I might be attracted in months, maybe years. I had it with Juan, but I wasn’t attracted to him. As we talk, it dawns on me that I feel a connection, an attraction, even though he is not what I would ever call my type. And yet he is sensitive, thoughtful, humble and clever, so perhaps he is.

Every now and then the rest of the party call for us to come back, but neither of us are willing to leave this conversation. He has a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label, and we sit quietly talking, heads close together in the darkness, downing whisky, sharing cigarettes, revealing and revealing.

We skip small talk. I am not used to talking to single men I meet at parties at this age and stage of life. When younger I knew how to flirt, but this is not flirting. But there is, for me at least, a growing . . . something. I feel seen and heard.

The topics get deeper, more real, more private. I find myself telling him things I do not tell people.

Perhaps he is doing the same – it certainly feels that way.

I am not thinking about sex. I am not wondering if he is the sort of man I could be with. Maybe . . . maybe . . . I am wondering what it would be like to kiss him. But that comes later, as we drain the bottle of whisky.

We are called back to the party. Someone picks up a guitar and plays, with everyone standing around singing, and we join them. I so like every single person I meet, but all I want to do is keep talking to this man.

The wind picks up. It is late and the party is packing up.

‘Do you want to go somewhere and keep talking?’ I ask, by now quite drunk. I hate whisky, particularly lukewarm whisky with no ice and no mixers, but I have somehow managed to polish off a significant amount of it, and I am less inhibited, and possibly . . . possibly . . . more flirty.

He shakes his head. ‘I’m staying with friends. You’re staying with friends. It’s too . . . complicated.’

‘I’m glad someone’s being the grown-up,’ I say, but that isn’t true. I don’t want to jump into bed with him. I just want to keep talking.

‘Can I give you my number?’ I ask confidently, assuming he will want it, assuming he feels the same connection, not really thinking about the fact that he is a man, is single and has declined the opportunity to keep talking. Or start kissing. Or whatever else might have happened had we continued to sit together on the beach.

We exchange numbers and I text myself from his phone: ‘I loved meeting you tonight.’ Perhaps I am attempting to lay the groundwork for . . . more.

He texts me an hour later: ‘I loved meeting you . . . it felt like a special evening . . . it was great to skip the small talk.’