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By Root 1552 0

table in my bathroom, her beautiful face – lips pursed, eyes half shut – a comfort to me in times of stress, although Seffy said she looked like she was straining a turd. And that day in Boulogne, I hadn’t hurried back to the brocante either. After all, there was another fair in Legele the following morning, and it was a long time since I’d been chatted up by a man at least ten years younger than me in the back room of a smoky bar, the low winter sun glancing off the tobacco-stained walls, our knees almost touching as coffee turned into a jug of wine, which turned into lunch, smiled on indulgently the while by knowing waiters, in a seduction scene that seemed to me, as I toyed winsomely with my tarte tatin and glanced at him under my lashes, to be straight out of a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, but may have had more to do with yet another sozzled, middle-aged woman being easy prey for a young, slightly down-at-heel Lothario. Certainly as I weaved to the ladies for a monumental and long overdue wee – had my waters broken? Surely one didn’t get pregnant toying with tarte tatin? – I clocked a few sly grins from the locals, as well as one or two dealers I knew.

Having picked my teeth clean in the loo – note to the older woman: ordering rocket salad might flag up fit, body-conscious babe, but it stays with you for three courses – I reapplied my lipstick and weaved unsteadily back through the restaurant. As I negotiated the tables, which seemed to have become a maze, and tried not to nudge too many elbows – ‘Sorry… oops, sorry,’ – I dimly registered that the sly smiles had turned into broad grins. No matter, this man was hot. Granted he wasn’t strictly my type, but where had my type got me in the past? He was also uncomplicated. Most men I met were either married, or divorced with small children, and most wanted to give you the works up front so as not to be accused of being a shit later. But this one had no baby photos to show me, no horror stories of an unfeeling, frigid wife who’d gone off the boil since she’d had them. In short, he was perfect. What he saw in me I’ve no idea, and see me he did that day, in broad daylight, for the first and only time. Ever since then I’ve worn sunglasses whatever the weather – yes, even in the rain, like Anna Wintour. Hats I like too, and then obviously there’s complete and utter darkness for the bedroom. In fact, these days, I’m not sure Ivan has any idea who I am at all.

He had a room above the restaurant, and my only excuse is that the attraction was immediate, and that two bottles of Sancerre made it even more immediate. We repaired after coffee, and I awoke the following morning entangled only in a sheet, a new man and a warm glow. I couldn’t wait to tell Maggie, who, happily, was minding the shop at the time.

That was five months ago and, astonishingly, here he still was, beside me on my sofa: huge, blond, gorgeous and raring to go. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I hadn’t fallen in love with him or anything inconvenient like that, nor he with me. No, this was a simple, straightforward relationship that suited us both, but I was surprised he was staying the course. Ivan had plenty of pretty female friends his own age, mostly from Camden Passage, where he worked, and whom I’d met, though through shaded glass, naturally. On one occasion I’d walked past a wine bar and seen him hand in hand with one of them, but pretended I hadn’t. So I wasn’t naïve. I think the truth was he was lazy, and I also suspect the young fillies wanted more from him than he was prepared to give, so this arrangement suited him. We had a laugh, we could witter on about antiques – he had a very good eye, I’d joke, that’s why it had rested on me – and Seffy liked him, which was a relief.

I’d never really foisted a boyfriend on Seffy before, and although I’d had one or two, had never brought them back: always played away. But Ivan lived flipping miles away, in Crouch End, with a couple of other lads, in what can only be described as a dive. On the odd occasion I’d stayed there, I’d woken up on a hideously uncomfortable futon,