Speed Dating London - At the Single Mingle by Kelly Robert

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I would run into Josh at some birthday or other for one of our college clique. He and Angela would be down in London, either kipping on a friend’s floor or as time went on staying in some slightly out of the way hotel. At the time they were very much a unit, he would have his hand placed possessively on her bum and whilst holding court with jokes and anecdotes that would have sounded far less witty if uttered by any of the rest of us.

His persuasiveness though was still very much in evidence and I would find myself in bars, restaurants and once on a skiing holiday that I really couldn’t afford and was ambivalent about going to in the first place. The accumulation of success and possessions had in no way dimmed the power of his personality.

It was with some surprise that I had heard six months previously that he had in effect walked out on much that I felt was defining about the post university Josh. He had left the shelter of his oversized employers and had taken a job as the accountant for a small film company in Soho. It was even greater surprise that I found myself agreeing to accompany on an evening that was as far removed from my idea of a good time as could be imagined.

I looked at my watch. It was about ten minutes past seven. The early summer sunlight streamed into the bar, reminding me I would have much rather been outside. Inside the rest of the thin crowd I presumed were going to be my fellow speed daters all seeming to have arrived in groups of two’s and three’s with a couple of other solitary looking blokes staring intently into wine or pint glasses.

I got myself another glass of wine, which would make two thirds of a bottle and escalate my credit card bill ever onwards towards its limit. The torment was due to start in another twenty minutes or so, and still no sign of Josh. I light another cigarette and turn another page in my old friend of a book.

I was lost in reverie as I contemplated Charles Ryder’s first days at Oxford when I felt two hands push down upon my shoulders. Stifling a small grunt I turned to see the smiling face of Josh.

“Sorry about cutting it a bit fine, had to get home and get into something a bit less informal. Been waiting long?”

“Only about ten minutes,” I lied

“You alright for a drink?”

“Another wouldn’t do any harm.” My second glass I was alarmed to notice was down to the dregs and I was feeling the need for more.

“Just be a sec,” and with that he marched off to the bar pausing our first face to face conversation for over a year.

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