Louisa, who is reluctantly single at the moment, is sitting with me in the corner of Carluccio's listening to Mina sing Se Telefonando, which, given our conversation is particularly apt. Some divot she's been seeing has the habit of making arrangements with her then cancelling them at the last minute with a supermarket own range of ridiculous excuses that make 'the dog ate my homework' look credible. The man has more migraines than a Victorian hysteric - and his latest coincided with a plan to come to her house for a meal that she had spent all day preparing.
'Why do you put up with it?' I ask, completely ignoring my own very poor form in the area of cancellitis.
'Well I like him when he does turn up,' she says, cutting the lemon tart that has been placed in front of her like a huge, friendly, yellow sun into four gooey quarters.
'He's using you to keep his options open,' I say ruthlessly. 'You should bin him.'
'I know. I just don't know why we let these losers toy with us,' she answers, spooning a sliver of golden custard into her mouth.
'Because nobody else wants to play with us, that's why?' I sigh, digging my own fork into my half. We're sharing. It's faintly pathetic that two grown, very grown, women can't even have a whole ruddy lemon tart to themselves.
I tell her that I've developed a new strategy that invokes an altar ego who is a cross between Marjorie Scardino and Mariella Frostrup - a sort of SUPERMARION.
SUPERMARION does not hide under the desk at Pedantic Press, but instead is a highly efficient executive who has been eagerly headhunted by a top city bank that still has some funds in the vault. (As opposed to real Marion who shops as Morrisons.)
SUPERMARION also drives a very expensive silver German car and always finds a parking place which beeps like a microwave when the M&S 'Count-on-us' cook chill is ready as she reverses seamlessly into the parking space that always appears miraculously just where she wants it, rather than driving to another postal district and simply waiting till she hears the clunk of the neighbouring car's fender before she brakes. She has toned upper arms and can wear sleeveless shift dresses without the need for a cardie. Her feet are moulded like Barbie's into high-heel shapes. She can probably ride horses (in stiletto riding boots). SUPERMARION is a natural sun-bleached blonde and always looks like she has just left the hairdressers and she never, ever has lipstick on her teeth or loses her sock in the legs of her jeans. She has read the entire Orange longlist. Already. She probably has a ruddy book on it as well. Her fingers self-manicure. She can speak in public without stammering and blushing. She can, actually, just speak in sodding public and she definitely doesn't have a Scottish accent, though if she did she would sound soothing and sleepily seductive like Kirsty Young. SUPERMARION thinks hips are something you make tea out of, and even if she had them, their only use would be to balance perfect sprog no 2 on as she straps no 1 into the Merc, who she had (without pain relief) when my youngest was starting secondary school.
'In short, SUPERMARION is absolutely nothing, nada, niente, ma shi like real Marion,' I say, looking at Louisa pointedly. 'And there is no way she would sit around at home at night with a pheasant in the oven and a plate of home-made pistachio meringues that she's cooked for a man who just cancelled ten minutes earlier by text because "his grandmother-in-law has been taken to hospital" . Nor does she simply shrug and say, "oh never mind, I like him," and give him another chance!'
Louisa looks unconvinced. 'But he's so interesting. I always feel I can tell him anything when I see him.'
'So why don't you start by telling him he's an unreliable prat [I called around the office for alternatives to the noun I had originally chosen that is more often used to describe something you hold to open a door, but twit and wally were the best we could come up with] when you see him, and that he's not fit to wipe your Le Creuset casserole with? Nobody should have to bother with this sort of nonsense.'
SUPERMARION, you see, she just wouldn't put up with that and you shouldn't either. Do you think people don't return Caroline Michel's text messages? Do you think people blow off Gail Rebuck for lunch without even calling on the basis that "well, she hadn't confirmed"? Tell me, really, really, really, would Sam Taylor-Wood do internet dating and let fat men who describe themselves as "athletic' and "someone interested in all that London has to offer" flick past her picture? Would Nigella sit for five minutes listening politely to a man who thinks listing his DVDs merits a conversation?'
'Yes, but I'm hardly...' she begins her own list of her perceived imperfections. I stop her.
'That's beside the point. You have to put more value on yourself.'
'So, does it work?'
'What?'
'The whole SUPERMARION thing?' She has the eager to hear the good news look on her face of a child who still believes that there are fairies who deliver coloured paper to your bedroom while you sleep (I know - it's odd, but nevertheless, my children were charmed by the paper elves until they were at least 19).
'Erm, well it's still in its infancy.' I confessed. 'It's a work in progress. I spent the other evening listening to a monologue about what a guy did over the weekend in real time. I put the phone down, poured a glass of wine and came back and he was still talking. And he didn't ask me a single question about myself. You know, it's only a theory as yet...'
'I wish I could wear sleeveless dresses,' she said wistfully, scraping the last drop of yellow custard from the plate. 'I'm thinking of going to a health farm. SUPERLOUISA would be the kind of woman who worked out and still buys her clothes in the children's department. I've been eating so much junk recently. Karl (her five year old son) only eats fishfingers and there isn't anyone to cook for.'
'I had half a packet of chocolate chip cookies for supper last night.' I confess. I'm in no position to judge.
'I had five pistachio meringues and a bar of chocolate.' She said ruefully.
'So what are you having tonight?' (We're scintillating conversationalists...Mariella watch your back).
'... oh leftover pheasant.' she sighed wearily. 'I bet you SUPERLOUISA never eats leftovers.'
Face it girls. SUPERLOUISA never eats. Full stop.
