Well. Here’s a turn-up for the books. I was all set to stay at my host’s house, though feeling slightly nervous about being murdered as I have met him only once. And then, a few days before I am due to leave, I get David 2.0’s WhatsApp message.
‘Hi Liz. My house isn’t quite ready yet. No curtains for one thing. This is a better idea: I have booked you into Kilworth House. You can get there any time you like, have a rest after a long journey. Then I will pick you up at 4.15pm [in the white Ferrari. Ha!] and take you to the garden party. I thought on Saturday you could call at my house on your way back home. I have paid for the hotel and for breakfast. At least the weather looks good.’
I tell him I understand, having swiftly googled the hotel, as I don’t even have a kitchen, but that I don’t want him to pay for my accommodation. He replies it is a done deal. ‘We can compare war stories about tradesmen not turning up.’
I am literally gagging to see his house. I show Nic his messages. ‘Wow. He is rich and generous. He’s looking a very good option to me.’
I tell her I am not a common prostitute. I have never, ever, ever in a million bleeding years had a man pay for me to stay in a hotel before. My then husband did once promise to pay for our hotel in New York (the very one where Sex and the City’s Samantha cheats on Smith, with its vertical garden in the lobby; we went up in the same lift, a fact totally lost on my husband). It was his penance for yet another affair. But his card, a Santander Electron, wouldn’t work, so I ended up footing the bill.
David 1.0 took me to Ramsgate on my birthday, but at the reception of Albion House said he wasn’t completely sure he could pay, plus he had a head cold. My gift was a novelty Biro bought in the Turner gallery.
Every holiday – Jamaica, at Ian Fleming’s villa, Goldeneye; Puglia, at the Aveda spa; a honeymoon in Seville; Paris, at the Plaza Athenée in the Carrie Bradshaw suite with its view of the Eiffel Tower and Dior spa; Marrakesh, at the hotel where they filmed The Night Manager (we had the suite where Sophie Alekan was murdered, so glad it had been cleaned!); Claridge’s; The Connaught; The Rosewood with its view of the Shard; Babington House with its rooftop hot tub we never went in as he pronounced it ‘too windy’; a villa in St Tropez; Lime Wood in the New Forest; a pub on Dartmoor; a Georgian Airbnb in Edinburgh with its crusty fridge; Soho House; Kettner’s; The (dear, departed) Hospital Club in Covent Garden with its sex toys menu David 1.0 deemed ‘too expensive’ (I spent £800 buying Rebel Wilson and her entourage burgers in the hope she’d option my novel; she didn’t); the Mercer in New York’s SoHo, where I went up in a lift with Meg Ryan; Bono’s hotel in Dublin (noisy; honestly, I should be a travel writer); the Mandarin Oriental with its infinity pool overlooking Central Park; various Pigs, and on and on and on, have been paid for by yours truly.
And the men always, always make a beeline for the mini bar. While leaving a pile of receipts and dirty coins on a surface.
Of course, relationships aren’t all about money. But how touching is it if a man bothers to do something for you without whining and swearing, or necessitating written instructions and a pie chart?
How comforting, to be looked after. In my case, that is as rare as a snow leopard. Let me think. Hmm, nothing. Until now. Wow.
I feel slightly disloyal to David 1.0. Despite inviting him here, he hasn’t replied. Just have the balls to communicate. You are not 12. I wonder if I should tell him I have a date, if it is a date. In a Ferrari. And a country house hotel suite. He will be spitting tacks! Won’t he?
JONES MOANS… WHAT LIZ LOATHES THIS WEEK
- Why do workmen a) use your loo and b) leave the seat up? I ain’t your wife, b*tch.
- Sky Glass. You have to turn on subtitles every time you switch it on, or change channel. I’m not Lazarus.
- Royals who wear medals: my dad fought the actual Nazis in Italy and North Africa. He kept his medals in a drawer.
- Poo bags. When you only want one, but the roll unravels.
Contact Liz at lizjonesgoddess.com and find her @lizjonesgoddess
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