The dry spell

‘Well, this is terrible,” I mutter as Phil finishes his stand-up routine with an uncomfortable anecdote about having to sponge-bath his neighbour. It was impossible not to laugh. Even if it was in horror.

The Pig & Fox’s open mic night is the social highlight of the month here in South Winterfield; a town of 700 residents and thrice as many sheep. My mother says small towns are like veg – something you learn to appreciate and even grow to love as you get older.

“Except fennel,” she says, her face meltingly sour. “What in the name of Delia would make you want to eat that?”

My mother comes every week. There is a new musician who plays everything from Cat Stevens to Mötley Crüe. “A handsome man,” she tells me excitedly, “an absolute riot.” And “freshly single”, my mother says, as though he’s just been laundered and folded for display.

“You’ll adore him, Saffy,” Mum whispers, straightening her back, as she cranes to see him. She’s slightly nervous, I notice, watching as she curls her locket chain between her elegant fingers. And so she should be, forcing me into yet another set-up with a man who sounds as ridiculous as the last. A microphone squeal pierces the murmur of jovial rural gossip and the clanging of frosted pints.

“I’m sure he’s nice,” I say, eyes rolling. My mother’s last great hook-up was the heir to a smallholding apple orchard and two tractors. He’d bored me to drink, talking about breeds of apple, their origins, and – suggestively – the delights of crossbreeding. Apples, it turns out, like to jumble up their genes for survival.

I glance at my mother. “You will like him, I promise,” she says, firmly, eyeing my outfit. “But you could have done your hair. Or put on a frock.” “Mum, it’s the Pig & Fox.”

“You could do worse than the Pig &

Fox,” she says, though I see the blossom of pink in her cheeks as she says it.

It was my dad who loved Norfolk originally, not Mum. She grew up in London, forging out a career in a Soho theatre. She married at 19 and had me at 20. I thought she’d move back there when he died, but she seems to be completely wedded to the country now.

“Well, go on,” I say. “Tell me more about him. This perfect man.”

She glances at me, searchingly.

I think she’s trying to figure out if I’m mocking her. “Roger, his name is Roger.” I bite my lip. Roger. Lord.

The third act of the night is a poet called Elaine. She swings side to side like a pendulum as she addresses the room wearing distracting purple linen slacks and a matching shirt.

“Good evening, everyone,” she says, in a smoke-ravaged hush, and the room falls silent. “I have six poems for you tonight, all my own work.”

I groan. Six poems? I have to suffer through six poems? Six poems and then Roger? I swiftly remind myself that as an aspiring author, I can collect these visits as anecdotes for future novels.

“My Lust For Love,” Elaine begins from the stage, and my eyes open wearily.

“Lord have mercy,” I mutter. Mum frowns at me.

“Saffy,” she whispers. “I can’t believe you’re 30 the way you carry on.”

“There hasn’t been a dry spell like it…” Elaine begins in the same staccato cadence as David Attenborough. I snort-laugh and am reprimanded by a nearby table of sheep shearers who glare at me in unison.

“Those are the performer’s brothers,” Mum whispers. “Saffy, please.”

“Sorry. I need a pee and a refill,” I reply. Outside, the air is misty. The potholed road slick with diesel and summer rainfall. I breathe it in deeply, before patting all my pockets in a frantic search for a lighter. Damn it. I flick through my phone, determined not to return until Elaine is on poem five. There’s a message from my brother: “Have fun with Mum.”

“She’s taken me to meet another man.” “Roger?”

“She told you already?”

“Of course! She did good.”

“She did?”

“She did.”

Wow. And my brother had suffered far worse matchmaking attempts than me.

I look up and I’m blinded by the headlights of a shiny black SUV. I raise my hand, shielding from the glare as the car passes before pulling in to park.

I watch as a broad, tall man emerges and pulls out an acoustic guitar in a hard leather case. It’s dark, so I can’t make out his face as he slips into the back entrance. Something about his shadowy figure was striking. The crowd inside bursts into applause and I pray Elaine has almost finished. And then I’m struck – was that… Roger?

When I head back in, my guess is confirmed. The shadowy figure is at my table talking to my mother. He’s so unlike anyone she would usually set me up with. He has sandy, tousled hair, the darkest brown eyes and the build of a person who is fit but not intimidatingly lean. I watch him laugh shyly and Mum blush. She always was a flirt.

“Saffy,” she says, her voice giddy as she waves. “Saffy, come meet Roger.”

I move towards him like I’ve been happily lassoed.

“Saffy, this is he. Roger, this is she,” Mum says, grinning.

“Nice to meet you,” I say, watching the side of his eyes crinkle in a smile that is both warm and sexy, his heavy eyebrows raised as he takes me in. He isn’t in the slightest bit sleazy with it, though. I find myself wishing I actually had worn a frock or done my hair.

“Your mum’s told me a lot about you,” he says.

“I bet she has,” I say, sighing, as Mum strategically slips to the bar leaving us to chat, offering me a suggestive eyebrow raise as she swans off.

“Playlist?” I say, looking down at the old guitar case.

“Bonnie Tyler. A bit of fun.” I snort-laugh and our eyes briefly connect. Whoa boy, he is sexy. “Your mum says you’re a writer?” “Yes.”

“Me too. Chris Cooper is my pen name,” he says, his cheeks reddening slightly.

“No way.”

“Way,” he replies, laughing. “Well, she’s done well here,” I say. “It’s great to have my mother properly road-test my future husband.” I elbow him, gently. Making a joke about being set up removes the elephant from the room, while blatantly flirting. Though Roger looks marginally mortified.

When Roger puts his lips close to the microphone and moves his fingers up and down the neck of the most beautiful black acoustic guitar, and as I allow myself to be truly wooed, Mum returns to the table with two more drinks.

“Mum, he’s like, really, not bad,” I whisper, as he begins to sing in a deep, buttery voice, briefly stopping to smile across at us. “Hot, even.”

“I know. He’s wonderful,” she says, reaching out to touch my arm.

“And a writer!” I say. “I mean, a Sunday Times best-selling author.” “I know,” she says.

“I’m not sure about the age difference,” I say. “He must be 40?”

“43,” she says, and shrugs slightly, looking coy.

I look back at him and I smile, biting my lip. Maybe I could do this. Maybe, just maybe he could be someone I could date. But then, as I glance over at my mother, I see she is also biting her lip. Her head bowed as she looks up through her long lashes, skin slightly pink. Glowing.

“Oh,” I say and then it dawns. “Ohhhhhh.”

And then, ”Oh no!”

She looks across at me, frowning, as I recall my comment about my mother roadtesting him for me.

“What is it, Saffy?” she says, “You didn’t think he was for you, did you?”

© Lizzy Dent 2022

The paperback of Lizzy Dent’s new novel, The Set-up (Penguin, £8.99) is out now