15 April - Mixed Race & Jew Canoe

Preposterous statement of the week goes to ….Mick, an old friend who’s a top music biz agent. Doing very well, late thirties, very charming, always was, nothing scuzzy about him despite having to spend time in music venues. It seems men may travel down same routes as women when it comes to late thirties/turning of the biological screw. There they are working still too hard to achieve god knows what, but beginning to think about the work/life balance. They have the house, they have the car, the super holidays, the friends to watch sport and drink fine wines with but…. time to get a girlfriend instead of a collection of blondes. They don’t always make good choices (me… round that time I chose someone who was dependable and still ambitious, hadn’t bargained for the still insecure, pompous and scared) and Mick went for an easy choice, 24 year old secretary in his office. Groan! Not his own secretary he says in own defence. Cute as a button black girl – did see them together at Live8 last July, but he’s Jewish. I could write reams on the ‘Oh let’s go as far as we can from what my parents would like me to do, am still a rebel’ vein. After several months he even let her move in and says he must have loved her as gave her her own wardrobe and drawers. Wow! But … she didn’t understand how hard he had to work and how, frankly, when he’s on the other side of the world at some big festival shindig/hotel, he’s too tired to entertain other ladies and gave him a lot of pouting hassle over this. Uh, I get a flash to a time when aged 26 I rang the room where my then boyfriend was staying in hotel in Memphis or something and posing as a hotel receptionist asked him to confirm if it was room service breakfast for one or for two… so convinced was I that he would have picked up someone out there. His bewildered, sleepy voice when he said ‘One’ was a joy to hear.
But back to Mick. He also didn’t think she behaved appropriately when in company. Ah yes, that one…. We’re having a delicious dinner at E&O whilst he tells me all this and I’m definitely behaving appropriately especially as staff bow down to him. I display extreme flirting (or cock teasing according to him) and none of this menu is alien to me, but ask me about the first time I had Indian food aged 19, or first time I picked up some chopsticks…). Anway, and this is either his Jewish directness, which I’ve always appreciated or the champagne + wine … he comes out with this statement that has me splash sauce in his direction as my chopsticks swing uncontrollably ‘ Lisa, in the end….I didn’t see myself with mixed race kids’ Oh dear. ‘Did she know?’ I ask… but he just replies that he did love her. Ah well, all is good then. Actually am always suspicious of men who declare love for someone but manage an entire evening of conversation without uttering the lover's name. What's with the impersonal 'she' all the time?
‘So are you upset?’ (the break up dates back a fortnight). ‘Yes I cried a bit… but then I went and bought my new car’. I see it later when a nice man on mini motorbike comes to pick us up and drive to his house (am curious to see if it bears any traces of girlfriend’s presence). It’s an open top Mercedes 500, in other words a Jew canoe.
Back at the house he shows me the empty ‘hers’ wardrobe and drawers. Ahhhh, am very tempted to drop some of my stuff off that side of town, I have so much he could store it for me for a while and I’d have some excuse to visit. He makes a play at me on the chunky chocolate leather sofa as I wait for my taxi. Was a good kisser back in the days… I extricate and go. Next day mutual friend Molly tells me his profile is up on J-Date (Jewish dating site) and lo and behold I find him by narrowing down the search to up to 5’8”. Funnily enough there’s no mention of the white only subconscious specification. Am tempted to write in …. I also think back to another male friend who was shipped out of his relationship wiht a black woman and who has mentioned, in trying to rationalise his pain, how, yes he was worried about the prospects of raising mixed race kids in London. I think I said London has nothing to do with it and why not assume that maybe one day the whole family moves to Ghana where presumably the racism is still present but in the opposite direction?