A Cup Of Tea, A Fag, And A Cream Coloured Jumper.

Feeling quite pathetic.

I got some dry cleaning picked up today. I never do dry cleaning - I can never afford it, and I don't see the point. But I'd forgotten I had some stuff done a few months ago, and never collected it. Got home and opened it up to find a few dresses, and a large cream coloured jumper that I recognised immediately..

When Darcy took me to Wiltshire to stay in his country house for the weekend in February, I was so nervous and excited and clueless as to what people wear in the country, and so panicked that he should see the nightmare that is my face/hair combination first thing in the morning on only our 2nd date, that I filled my weekend bag with mainly makeup and hair product. The result being, I spent the weekend with perfect hair and impeccable makeup, but inappropriately dressed in every possible way. I brought a little cream dress, a pair of cream slacks, and a strap top. In my head I had the weekend planned out. I pictured us lunching, me in my pretty cream dress, him casual in a shirt and jeans, in a quaint little sunlit country pub, then walking through little country lanes hand-in-hand, then spending the night curled up by the fire, drinking wine and sharing secrets. Then we'd go for an early morning stroll around the grounds and maybe we'd take some horses and wander around til we stumble upon a little stream where we'd stop for a picnic, like a cross between a new-age Mr. Darcy and Eliza Bennett, and a Holland&Holland catalogue.

Obviously, we got there and I was immediately intimidated by his giant family house, marble columns and all, and I felt more out-of-place the more comfortable he seemed. Having not thought it through at all, I realised I'd only brought strappy sandals, which aren't particularly appropriate for walking through muddy fields, so I had to wear his mum's pink trainers (which sort of ruined my pretty white dress/headscarf ensemble) and I felt like an ignorant city retard, who didn't know how to dress herself. And we went for a little ride on his horses, which I'd forgotten are fucking massive. Seriously, up close, a horse is terrifying. Added to that, I remembered a latent childhood repressed experience where I'd gone for horse riding lessons at around 12yrs old, and my horse (named Whiskey) bolted from the field and galloped for miles, dragging me behind as I'd caught my foot in the stirrup.

Anyway, the whole day was a disaster, but we got home that evening and I had a shower while he made dinner, and I came down to discover he'd laid out the dinner table in the main room, with the best china, candles, and a perfectly cooked meal. At which I point couldn't take it - told him the one dress I'd brought was now covered in grass stains, I'd had enough of pretending to be elegant and poised, and just wanted to go to bed, with a cup of tea and a cigarette. At which we looked at each other, him in a shirt and jacket, me in a towel with a fag in hand, and we laughed. We spent a glorious hour watching telly on the sofa with some some tea and toast.

But then the door rang, at around 10pm, and about fifteen people came in, dressed to the nines, for a 'surprise' party as they'd heard he was in town. He greets them all, as they burst in chattering and pouring themselves drinks - I'm mortified, on the sofa in a strap top and pyjama bottoms, trying to sneak out unnoticed but a big burly posh chap notices me and booms "Aha! We've interrupted something have we, old boy?" I shit you not, he actually used the words 'old boy'. Although these belonged to the breed of people who probably called girls "fillies" and said "hurrah" without irony.

So, Darcy introduced me to everyone (including, may I add, his then ex - now current- girlfriend) and I had to shake all their never-done-a-real-days-work-in-my-life hands and pretend I wasn't wearing pyjamas. Then we all communed for drinks, and it was like a sick 50's parody that nobody but me had noticed - the girls sat in the study drinking white wine and tittering about some local gossip while the boys cracked open some port and went outside to play polo and talk about the stock market. I felt like an alien. Or like I'd stumbled onto a different planet where the people didn't realise they were aliens. I just wanted to run back to London, to the nearest bar to get drunk and chat shite with normal people, who say things because they mean them, not because it sounds clever and looks good with Burberry.

Anyway, I managed to escape by going to my room to change into my grass-stained dress, and grab my emergency stash of ciggies. I then went back downstairs and hid round the corner (in a huge country estate, 'round the corner' is equivalent to walking the breadth of Oxford Street) and chain smoked my way through the evening. It got to midnight and I was freezing, and annoyed at myself for not having the balls to go back in and be really witty and sarcastic and secretly smug whilst winning them over with my bohemian-ness, but instead sitting miserably on my own while Darcy was probably inside having lots of fun with her.

But just as I was contemplating dialling a cab, and pondering if my bank balance could take such a beating, and whether or not that would be wildly melodramatic, Darcy came out with a cup of tea and 2 glasses of wine, smiling at me apologetically.

"I'm sorry about this. They're all family friends and my brother accidentally told them I was here for the weekend and they took it as an open invitation. They're really not as bad as they seem.."

He sat down next to me and leaned back.

"I've given them a distraction now, though, so that should keep them busy for a while" He said, mysteriously.

"And what sort of distraction would that be?"

He smirked and put his arm around me. "That's I'm becoming romantically involved with someone who's never heard the phrase 'Stepford Wife'.."

I was thrilled.

"I think you'll find I was top of my Stepford Wife class at finishing school" I replied sarcastically, with a raised eyebrow, inwardly relieved and delighted.

We sat outside and talked for ages, and he suddenly noticed I was shivering a little, so he took off his jumper and wrapped it around me. I snuggled into its' softness, and we snuggled into each other, under the pretext of warmth, and we sat in comfortable silence, looking up at the stars.

I took that jumper home with me by mistake, and he wore it every time he stayed over at mine, and took it off for me every time I was cold. I used to love sleeping in it when it was chilly outside, feeling protected in a primal sort of way, but mostly I loved how when I took it off, my skin smelt of him for the rest of the day.

Picking it out of the bag of dry cleaning today it looked different to how I remember. It had that off-the-hanger impersonal newly washed feel to it. But as I brought it up to my face, I caught a faint but unmistakable scent. Darcy.

So here I sit, in all my pathetic glory, cup of tea and fag in hand, thinking about our 2nd date, and wearing his favourite cream wool/cashmere jumper, smelling him on me.

Don't worry. I know how tragic this is.