I went to lunch with Trisha on Saturday afternoon. It’s this thing we do, something we’ve been doing for almost 3 years. Except for the last four months or so we’ve been unable to because Trisha’s been filming abroad. As i mentioned before she’s never really had a dry spell on the work front. Her agent is much better than mine, but more importantly Trisha is a much better actress than I could ever hope to be. Unlike me, when she first started out as a child it was something she actually wanted to do, whereas I was practically forced into it by my parents (who were still married at the time). As I got older I realised I didn’t really have any skills to speak of and so I’ve convinced myself that acting is all I know. That and being a receptionist.
When I meet Trisha she’s vibrant, smiley and has jokes and stories to tell about her time abroad. She’s been in Argentina filming this new Hollywood movie. The script is crap by the way, but that’s a small price to pay for the chance to be in a Hollywood movie, alongside a couple of well-known Hollywood actors. She’s sporting a very short hairstyle, veryshort, like a man’s. I haven’t seen her in months and all of a sudden all her hair’s gone. I don’t like the hairstyle but I tell her it looks nice anyway. She knows I’m lying straight away. She tells me it was for the part. She’s also much darker than she was the last time I saw her; Trisha’s Afro-Caribbean.
We eat at this restaurant in Stockport, away from the hustle and bustle of Manchester City Centre because it’s always too crowded. She tells me about her time on location and about the drug and drinking habits of her co-stars. None of it shocks me, however, I’ve seen it all before.
And then she moves swiftly on to the new date she wants me to go on. I knew it was coming because it always does.
“You’ll love this one. He’s a hottie and he’s smart. What more could you hope for?”
“Is this one straight?”
About 6 months ago – on the last date she sent me on – the guy spent the whole night eyeing up the male waiters. Even before we arrived at the restaurant I could tell he wasn’t interested in women; I been around enough gay men in my life to know when a guy isn’t interested in women. The “date” went well considering neither of us were interested in the other, but it was a complete waste of time when I thought about it. When I told Trisha he was gay she simply laughed and said she’d do better next time. I vowed I would never go on another one of her blind dates again. But I always did.
“Yes, he’s definitely straight. He’s a pharmacist; went to Cambridge. He is recently divorced, but you can work with that, I’m sure.”
I shook my head and sighed. Even though she was my best friend she spent most of the time depressing me, just like my sister Janette. I’m sure their intention wasn’t to depress me, but alas, that’s what they did.
“I don’t want to date a divorced pharmacist, Trisha.”
“Why not?” She asked this with genuine confusion.
“Because!”
She carried on eating her salad and just stared at me, and I knew what she was doing because she always did this. She was trying to guilt me into going on the date. She knew I’d give in eventually.
“How old is this guy?” I asked her.
“42.”
“Jesus, Trish, could he be any older?”
“He doesn’t look it, trust me. He looks 35 at the most. Don’t rule him out just yet, you’ll love him, I promise.”
She promised this every time, and every time I was disappointed. Disappointed in them and disappointed in her for thinking I could ever be interested in them. If they weren’t obnoxious chauvinists, they were stuck-up actors, writers or amateur producers who talked about themselves throughout the whole date. She said dating a man like that would humble me. I didn’t think I needed humbling that badly.
“Does he know what I look like? I don’t want to scare him away when I turn up.”
“Oh yes, he knows what you look like. I showed him the picture.”
The picture. You wouldn’t believe it but Trisha carried a passport-sized photo of me in her purse. It sounds extremely dodgy, I know, but I’m not the only one she does it to. You see, Trisha likes to think of herself as a matchmaker. Ever since she set her cousin up with a guy she later went on to marry, she’s taken on this role of cupid. She has no less than 6 pictures of her close friends in her purse, just in case she meets a guy she can pair them with. No one’s had the heart to tell her to get a life. I’m sure one day I’ll be the one, when I’ve had one bad date too many.
“What did he think?”
“He thinks you look like his ex-wife…before she started drinking.”
That can never be a good thing when your prospective date looks like your ex-wife. I could already see this being a disaster. I wanted to walk away from her that minute, and just leave her there eating her very unappetising salad – real people don’t even eat salad. Already the Hollywood lifestyle was washing off on her.
“When is this thing supposed to happen?”
Her face brightened up immensely. “You mean you’ll go?”
“I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” I said, knowing that I actually had agreed, impliedly.
“I’ve gotta give him your number then he’ll call you to arrange something.”
She was very excited. She gets more excited about setting me up on dates than she does going on them herself. She’s seeing someone now, anyway. An actor, even though she dislikes dating them. He’s a nice bloke, though. Bit of a would-be like me, but she believes he’ll make it big eventually.
The conversation moved on to my brief visit to London to talk with Bev Newman. Trisha keeps telling me to get shot of her and I keep telling her it’ll happen in due time. She’s glad I’ve found some TV work, even if I don’t have a speaking part. I reminded her I didn’t have the part yet, but she’s optimistic that I’ll get it.
That was my Saturday. On Sunday I did some cleaning in the house. My housemates are in Blackburn for a few days so I’ve got the place to myself. It’s quite disgusting at the moment, I’m the only one who does any cleaning. If I don’t move back to London in a year I’ll surely move in with Trisha; she has a two bedroom flat in a much nicer area of Manchester, where her car won’t get broken into every 5 minutes.
Janette called in the evening. She’s stressed. The kids are driving her up the wall, and the holidays have only just begun. She’s shipping them off to a summer camp for several weeks so she can breathe again. Her husband thinks she’s a negligent mother for trying to get rid of her children at the first opportunity. But if you knew what Janette’s kids were like, you’d wanna ship ‘em off at the first opportunity too. He’s never around to know what hard work they are; he’s a doctor.
But I’ll tell you about Janette and her family another time. For now though, I’m off to bed. G’night.
