4) RANDY

4) RANDY (not her real name but - hey)

Sit down and let me tell you a story.  It’s kinda sad and kinda funny but, most of all, it’s a bit puzzling - to me at any rate.

I met Randy in a bar, Pissarros, by the river.  I spend a lot of time by the river and a lot of time, but not a lot of money, in Pissarros.  I go in and Andreas or Milan says ‘Eh Pita?!’ and pours me a glass of Shiraz, a cappuccino and a tap water with ice and a slice of lime.

Often I’m alone, on the way to or from somewhere else, but today I was waiting to meet Alex and my new friend, Vasco, the jewellery designer from Milan, via Chiswick.

As I waited I watched as a very smartly dressed, very attractive women finally reached the end of her tether (not, it would seem, a very long one) with her daughter.  The daughter was 6 or 7, bright and full of energy.  Discarded toys lay strewn around the coffee table but the girl still had energy to burn.  The mother, it would appear, did not.

Now I have a drop dead phone and amongst its many features (most unused, many undiscovered) is a games section.  I don’t play these games; I don’t even know how to play these games.  But I know that if you show these games, and the one with disappearing blobs especially, to any child under the age of 12, you have their undivided attention.  And if you hand them the little black jabbing thing, and let them have a go, you have a friend for life.

I let her have a go, with prior parental approval of course.  She was captivated, and so was a very grateful mother.  She was Randy (I'm enjoying this) and we clicked at once.

Alex and Vasco arrive and the four of us chat and laugh like old friends.  Which we weren’t, but which it looked as if we were going to become.

Randy was off to Spain for a rest from her daughter.  We swapped numbers.  She’ll see me when she gets back. 

I call once she’s back. She’s rested, relaxed and good fun.  She’s off again for a few days with Alec, or Adrian, or Anthony – I get confused.  We’ll meet when she’s back.  We sit and chat.  Me outside a coffee bar in the sunshine, her in her flat near Kew Gardens, near where I used to live.  How ironic.  I know those cottages.  This is going to go well.

We talked once more on the phone before she left.  She was with her friend, Julie, who sounded horny. Randy and horny. They said they were 'predatory'. I said: 'What are you doing right now?' and Julie said 'Go for it' but Randy had to look after her daughter. Which was cool but, in retrospect, a shame and we laughed and flirted and fixed a date.

I called when she had told me to and she was in a flap.  Just back, in the office, very busy, still on for lunch today “once I’ve sorted things out”.  “Oh, and I’m a bit upset, split up with my boyfriend yesterday.”

First I’d heard of a boyfriend but at least he’s in the past tense.  This is going very well.

But she’s in a bit of a flap so I take control.  I’ll pick you up in a cab, I text, and I’ll take you to The Depot.

I buy some flowers and we meet at Richmond Station.  In the cab she’s firing on all cylinders on the phone:  sorting this, sorting that, organising the other.  Rapid fire but always reasonable, thinking on her feet, a brilliant operator. and she looks stunning.

I lean back and think, I’m going to enjoy this.

Lunch, or a lot of drinks with some food, starts well.  She loves the flowers, loves that I’ve looked after her, thinks I’m charming – and was so, so grateful for my looking after her daughter.

The chat is funny, bright, intuitive.  We discover our contact lists on our phones are all but identical: lots of Sams, Rachels, Alis, Mandys and Steves. She has rather more men's names on her list than I do.

She tries to explain the marriage/love life but I get confused.  Lots of men's names, all beginning with ‘A’, all with loads of money and all behaving like complete shits from the sound of it.  But we keep talking, we keep laughing and Randy keeps drinking.

She had been a PA in the city.  I bet she was brilliant.  Whenever she has to call she switches into ‘on’ mode and can charm the birds out of the trees or knock down brick walls.  But I’m getting ‘off’ mode.  She’s still drinking, getting tetchy, occasionally maudlin and breaks off now and then to burst into tears. I hug her, but not in the way I'd been hoping. Still, not bad for a first date.

Well, she has just broken up with her boyfriend.  It’s been a bad day.

It's getting worse - fast.

The tears/anger/vodka cycle continues to spiral downwards.

I can’t leave her, not like that, and she doesn’t seem to want to leave.  I’m getting sympathetic looks from the bar staff but there’s nothing I can do.  She’s called her friends, someone will come eventually.  Hey, sometimes you’ve just got to be there for a friend.  She’ll thank me for this tomorrow.

A friend, male - nice - arrives and I split the bill with Randy (she offers, she doesn’t want to be ‘beholden’) and I leave, relieved.

But she’s still beautiful, and bright and, when sober, magnificent.  And we fix a date for another lunch at The Depot.

I phone the next day.

I get a text by return.

‘I do not expect to be convinced 2 come out 4 lunch and pay half the bill.  I offered out of manners.  Don’t call me again.  I only have gentlemen friends. Ta’.

I stared at this text for some considerable time.  I didn’t understand it then, I still don’t understand it now.  If somebody can explain it to me I’ll gladly buy them lunch at The Depot.  I replied saying I was a gentleman, and I was trying to be a friend.  She said “piss off”.

Maybe there are some stories you’re not meant to understand.  And one of them is Randy.

peter hero 2006