Will Harris gets to grips with a phantom dog

When Helen’s co-worker at the bookshop offered to set her up on a blind date, Helen dropped the Gok Wan she was holding and accepted immediately. Self-respect be damned. She’d never been the type to look a gift lesbian in the mouth, and besides, her confidence in her own dating decisions had hit an all-time low since she found out the last girl she’d been seeing had started a Raoul Moat tribute page online. “Great,” said the co-worker, “because I’ve already shown her your Facebook page and she really likes the look of you.”

This, Helen would later tell me, was a source of some consternation. Mainly because she has her Facebook privacy locked down so tight, the only photo this woman could possibly have seen of her was at a festival dressed as Uncle Albert from Only Fools And Horses. But this was a mere shot across the bows compared to the bombshell her colleague dropped next.
“It will have to be a Saturday,” said the co-worker, “because that’s the only day she doesn’t have the kids.”

“I also tweaked it into a doberman. Less child friendly,” she adds, by way of explanation”

Kids. This put Helen in a bit of a bind. On the one hand, she didn’t want to go down in staff-room history as the type of girl who refused to go on a date with someone just because they’d given birth. On the other, she had a suspicion that was exactly the type of girl she was, and her brain wasted no time in searching for an escape slide.

“You invented a dog”. I stare at my friend as she toys with her Valentine’s seafood platter. Around us the restaurant is full of happy couples, cheeks ablaze with love and Prosecco.

“No, no, it’s a real dog. Remember, I have to look after that King Charles spaniel for a couple of weeks? Well, I just tweaked the dates slightly.”

“Don’t tell me. To Saturday?”

Helen holds her wine glass up to the light. Motes of red dance across her eyes. “To every Saturday for the remainder of the year. I also tweaked it into a doberman. Less child friendly,” she adds, by way of explanation.

I’m unsure how this makes me feel. As someone raised by a hard-working single parent myself, I find it difficult to stomach any kind of discrimination in the pram-face oeuvre. However, I also understand how – at this stage of my friend’s life (and let’s face it, fabricating canine visitations is hardly the hallmark of someone who’s ready to play house) – the idea of getting involved with a single mother might be daunting. If anything, I conclude, Helen’s reluctance to step into a role she knows is beyond her might even be a sign of maturity.