Page 31 of The Fallback

Rosie looked back down at her computer screen; in the time that her memories had transported her she had received eight notifications already. Five ‘likes’ on Hinge and three DMs on Match. She allowed herself to experience a small frission of excitement, maybe this would be good for her ego, she thought.

But her ego was quickly deflated as she clicked through the notifications; four of them were definitely from bots, the profile pictures didn’t even look real. And of the three messages, two of them asked when she was free to meet, with absolutely no introduction, one of these didn’t even say ‘Hey!’ and the third bypassed even that nicety and asked if she was up for sex.

She put her head down on her table and groaned. This was why she had deleted her profiles. The people out there were just too depressing to deal with, if they were even real people at all. She reached for her phone to message Mitch to complain to him about it all but stopped herself just in time. No, she needed to do this without Mitch’s input. There must be somebody out there who could take her mind off him.

She moved on to Tinder expecting the worst. But there was one profile which caught her eye. He actually looked OK, pretty normal. Averagely good-looking enough to be a real person. Encouraged, she read his profile. He was older than her, but not by much. He was in London, and said he was an academic. Rosie held her breath, allowing herself a small hope that she had found that elusive scientist before remembering that she was on Tinder and not LetsGetChemical.

So, it turned out he was an economist at LSE, which Rosie decided she could deal with. She had vague memories of macro/micro terminology but not much more. He also confessed to being a classical music buff. Rosie grimaced – she liked music although classical was definitely not her thing. But she wasn’t a complete philistine, she thought, straightening herself up as if her cultural cred might be about to be inspected. She could appreciate classical music; maybe if they got as far as a date she could brush up on her knowledge, play Classic FM for a few evenings. Or just google some useful facts to start the conversation before Graham, as was his name, decided she was a complete savage. And anyway, maybe he didn’t know everything about the complex genome classification of viruses. No one could be expected to be an expert on everything.

Rosie could feel her hopes rising even as she struggled with her inferior knowledge on the operas of Puccini. Now she just had to decide how to play it. Presumably he had liked her profile and that was why he was showing up on hers? Should she swipe right now? What if they matched? Should she message him immediately and start up a conversation? Would that be too keen? She checked her watch; it was starting to get late. If they matched and she messaged him now she knew what would happen, he might message back and then she would feel she needed to reply and before she knew it she’d be stuck in a late-night loop of perennial politeness, not daring to log out or send the final message for fear that he would simply move onto the next person on his list.

But then if he was going to be that fickle should she even care? If that was how he played the dating game then he wasn’t right for her, she could just feel it in her bones.

‘Rosie!’ she reprimanded herself. ‘Stop spiralling.’

Rosie picked up her now lukewarm cup of tea and downed it, before remembering it was tea and not a glass of wine. Right, this was what she would do: before she could change her mind and second guess herself she swiped right, logged out of Tinder, shut down her computer and slammed it shut. And then hoped she hadn’t done irreparable damage to the screen.

Hopefully he would be able to see she wasn’t online and wouldn’t automatically presume she was ignoring him should he decide to message her immediately.Ugh this is exhausting, she thought as she pushed her chair back and put her empty mug in the sink. Half an hour in and it was already taking up too much of her headspace.

As if to further torment her, her phone began to buzz. Rosie reached for it, seeing ‘Mum’ flashing on the screen. For a split second she considered rejecting the call but knew she would feel guilty all night if she did this.

‘Hey Mum,’ she said putting on her best upbeat tone, ‘Everything OK?’

‘Hi sweetheart,’ she heard her mother say down the line, ‘I wanted to check in and see how you are feeling?’

Rosie paused. ‘Erm, didn’t we just spend the day together?’ she replied, sounding confused.

‘Yes, I do remember,’ Susan said dryly, ‘but what with all the excitement we didn’t get a chance to talk.’

Rosie thought this sounded ominous; her mother’s definition of talking was almost always a version of Rosie listening while her mother gave her some unsolicited advice. It didn’t happen very often but when it did it was normally surgically accurate and painfully clear.

‘By the way, the cake was lovely darling, thank you, I hope you know I appreciate it,’ her mother said in a softer tone, and Rosie felt herself relaxing. It was impossible to keep anything from her mother when she played nicely like this. Rosie wondered just how long it would take for Susan to get the whole story out of her about her deal with Mitch. Perhaps if she gave her some of the story it would keep her off her back for a while? Rosie couldn’t imagine what her Mum would have to say once she learned the truth, probably something annoyingly supportive and encouraging, which would have Rosie gnashing her teeth in a teenage strop.

‘Have you and Mitch had a falling-out?’

‘What? No! Why would you think that?’ Rosie protested.

‘You seemed a bit cross when I mentioned him earlier.’

‘Did I?’

Rosie ran through the conversation earlier, perhaps she had sounded more exasperated than she had meant to? Or perhaps her mother was using those superpowers of deduction that mothers seemed to have. She wondered if she would get them, too, and then stopped herself from continuing that train of thought. How her mother had managed to work out something was up was beyond her, but it was obvious that she had. And now Rosie needed to deal with it before her mother worked anything else out.

She sighed. ‘Not a falling-out exactly.’ Her mother said nothing, irritatingly refusing to fill the silence. ‘He thinks I’m not putting enough effort into meeting someone,’ she finally said reluctantly.

‘Someone?’ her mother queried.

‘Yes,someone, Mother,’ snapped Rosie. ‘You know, like a boyfriend?’ Perhaps telling her mother wasn’t such a good idea, this whole conversation was already beyond irksome.

There was a long silence, eventually broken by Susan asking, ‘But what doyouthink, darling?’

Rosie felt a lump in her throat. Of course her mother would be kind and understanding; she would absolutely have opinions and good grief you would know about them, but Susan was always only ever interested in what was right for Rosie. It was really annoying at those times when Rosie just wanted to be cross at someone.

‘I think maybe he’s right,’ Rosie finally said in a small voice. ‘I don’t want to be left behind.’

‘What do you mean, darling?’ her mother asked softly.

‘I don’t want to be the last single person standing,’ Rosie said, the tightness in her throat growing, making her voice sound high and wobbly. ‘If Mitch wants to meet someone he will, he’s so great, girls will be queuing up.’

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