This Is Not An Exit

“So, we’ll just have drinks,” Richard Dawkins the Atheist says to our waitress. Or, as we’re going to call him, Dick.
“I thought we were eating?” I say. It’s 7.20pm and I’m hungry and…anyway…it’s not up to him to dictate whether or not I eat something.
“I have dinner plans,” Dick says.
“Oh,” I say, thinking that we haven’t got long then.
“I’ll have a red wine,” Dick says. “You want another one of those?” He points at my French 75.
“OK,” I say. “So, where are you going for dinner?”
“A New Zealand tapas place,” he says.
It is warm here and candlelit and I was looking forward to having something to eat. Booked a table and everything.
“What’s in New Zealand tapas?” I ask him, attempting to mask my irritation.
“Oh, you know, blackened cod with pesto. Asian influences,” he says. “It amazes me that there isn’t more molecular gastronomy in London: foams and so on.”
“Well that’s not what people want when they go out for dinner, is it?” I say. “They want big plates of food that’s good value.”. Or at least we do in my family, I think.
“Obviously I spend too much time with bankers,” he says. “They like to spend as much as possible and they don’t mind going home hungry as long as they’re being seen at the right place and…”
“But for those of us who don’t live in ‘American Psycho’, that’s not what we want from a restaurant,” I say. “We don’t want reservations at Dorsia or…”
“I preferred the film,” he says. “The book was boring: all that he-was-wearing-Oliver-Peoples-sunglasses and so on.”
Oh dear. He has missed the point of the book.
“It’s meant to be…you’re meant to find Patrick boring,” I say. “Apart from being or wanting to be a serial killer, he’s meant to be a bit dull.” Although I was a bit in love with him, when I first read the book as an eighteen year old, I think.
“Maybe I just preferred the film because I have a crush on Christian Bale,” he says.
“Excellent choice,” I say. “I just don’t think the film did the book justice at all. The play was great though. Did you see it?”
“No,” he says.
“It was excellent,” I say. “Sold out the whole time, I just happen to work in the theatre.”
“Look, I have to go,” Dick says.
So much for wanting to marry me, I think.

Better go and tidy up before MediaChap arrives…

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