They’d had a few tequilas and beers at the Sol y Sombra in Soho and danced a bit of Cumbia. When they left Tilda surprised Jack by generously offering to drive him home to West Hampstead in her mini clubman. Jack was only too delighted. Tilda was a laugh and it was a long way home. When they arrived, she’d surprised him again by asking him if she could come up. Sure he said and they climbed the stairs to the first-floor kitchen. Jack fixed some tea and sat at the kitchen table but Tilda remained standing, lounging imperiously against the hob. What’s going on here? -thought Jack– they’d been friends for several years now since they met at college, where Tilda briefly dated the plummy Nigerian “poet” Gabriel, who Jack considered a pretentious twat. Latterly, art imitating life as ever, Jack had played her slave in a very stylish, modern-day student production of the Comedy of Errors, which had been quite a hit and successfully transferred to a fashionable theatre in Islington. It was actually quite funny he recalled and he and Tilda quite a double act. She would read the latest edition of Vogue while waiting to go on, which Jack thought rather contradicted her fashionably lefty stance in support of the miners and Scottish Independence.
Suddenly there was a smell of burning, then smoke and Tilda was on fire. She’d leant against the gas hob and inadvertently ignited the ring. Jack jumped up from his seat, patted the flames then helped her remove her green silk and corduroy jacket, flung it in the sink and turned on the tap. The jacket hissed and emitted a vile smell. It was ruined but Tilda seemed unconcerned, laughed and maintained her elegant poise in a translucent, floral silk blouse so Jack gave her a supportive theatrical hug -you poor thing -you must’ve got quite a fright. The drama having rather interrupted the flow of their gossipy conversation, Tilda said she really must get going, so Jack showed her downstairs to the front door where they hammily air-kissed goodnight with the usual promises to see each other again soon.
Jack went back upstairs to his bedroom and straight to sleep.
Some months later he was having a pint with their mutual friend Jonathan, a lanky old Etonian with a dry, laconic wit and a gravelly Chelsea cum estuary clip.
-So I hear you were out and about with Tilda- he drawled
-Yeah-said Jack-we had a few at the SolySombra and she drove me back to Whamstead, wotta sweety! Then she set herself on fire, haha, quite a performance!
-Yeah…she told me…and then that you er…got a bit, er…fresh with her…haha…imagine!
-What? -said Jack- Who got fresh? She drove me home, she invited herself up, she set herself on fire…Tilda’s sweet but she’s not my type – too pale and lanky…sort of alien…and that voice…she sounds like Thatcher for god’s sake.
Hmm -said Jonathan- I know what you mean…she said it was hilarious.
Yeah-said Jack- it was.
So why had Tilda come up anyway – to set herself on fire or rather to see how the other half, funny little Jacky her pet slave from the North, lived in the nether suburbs of Northwest London? Haha – who did he think he was little Jacky – a suitor, a friend, a desirable creature? Hahaha - how hilarious!