25 February 2026

Hunting for a secret admirer and a scam artist

More than one part of my life was unbalanced

Illustration by Sergio Ingravalle / Ikon Images

An interesting week. By far the best thing about it was the Valentine’s Day card. Actually, that was the only good thing about it. It came in a red envelope addressed to “Nick” in white ink. The back flap was stuck with sealing wax, in the middle of which was a little gold heart. Inside were about half a dozen little heart-shaped pieces of paper, about a centimetre across, with type on them saying “ove you/romise to love/ing in my power/d to give you a/ing that will/ou can take/ive”. Naturally, I thought of Ezra Pound’s translation of one of Sappho’s fragments (“Spring…/ Too long…/Gongula…”), where he used the ellipses to indicate the incompleteness of the manuscript, and a quiet rebuke, literally, to those more contemporary poets who would have supplied the missing words and got them all wrong. In this case, though, I think I got a rough idea what the missing words were.

It was signed, but the problem with that is that while my friend D— (for it was she) has an unusual first name, it is also the second name of another correspondent of mine, and it was not outside the bounds of possibility that she had sent it and used her surname to fool me, for there seemed to be some disguise about the handwriting. There was also no franking on the stamp, which would have been a big clue. A series of comic misunderstandings ensued and I was able to conclude that it was First Name D— who had sent it. I had seen her the week before for a meal in Chinatown with my friend S— and she had come straight from work in a very smart pinstriped blazer and a skirt so short it made several diners drop their chopsticks. The small snag is that D— identifies as asexual, which is just my luck, ie a good thing with a very big but. Actually, that’s not too bad, really. She doesn’t want a relationship and, now I come to think of it, I don’t think I do either; it would just be one more thing that would go wrong eventually.

The week then took a turn for the worse. I got a call from a local number I didn’t recognise so naturally ignored it; when I listened to the voicemail a couple of days later it turned out to be from the landlord, asking me about my rent arrears. My what? Rent is the one thing I pay promptly and in full, for I have experienced homelessness and anyone who has experienced it once will almost have that down as their greatest fear, coming even before death in certain moods. I mean, death is inevitable and gets everyone in the end.

I looked at my banking app and I had £17 in it to last me about two weeks. I normally know pretty much what’s in what I laughingly call my balance and this came as a nasty shock. There were about half-a-dozen items I didn’t recognise. So I ran out to Waitrose to buy a bottle of their own-brand scotch at £16 before that money disappeared, then I had to call the bank to try to sort out what the hell was going on.

As anyone who has ever called a bank knows, finding out what the hell is going on involves jumping through quite a few AI hoops before you get to a human being. When the robot asks you to state clearly why you’re calling, you can’t say, “Some ****’s been nicking dosh from my ****ing bank account.” That won’t work; they might even hang up on you. I don’t know – I haven’t tried it.

Eventually I got through to a person. Now unfortunately this person had a very strong accent – one I had never heard before – and the line was bad to boot. A series of comic misunderstandings ensued as I tried to explain that I could not possibly have paid £45.39 at Victoria Wetherspoon’s but that I could very easily I have spent £5.39 on a large scotch before getting the train back to Brighton.

As we slowly went through the list, I began to have misgivings as to whether these sums leaving my account were in fact theft, and might instead be legitimate subscriptions to publications I arranged when drunk (the New Yorker, which I forget to read every week, and the Atlantic, which I subscribed to after Trump insulted it last year). I also began to have other misgivings about the state of my stomach. I will spare you the details because my editor is squeamish, but you try being sick while dealing with a barely comprehensible customer services person at the other end of a poor-quality phone line.

This nausea lasted for two days and left me unable to think or work during that time, which was unfortunate because I had deadlines the way some houses have mice. It was a surprise to learn that phoning a bank could make one sick like that, but I suppose it stands to reason when you think about it. I hope my editor appreciates the fact that the piece you are reading is the first one I have written since recovering. Maybe he, too, will love me though without any of the pressures of a romance involved. Meanwhile, a friend has tided me over with a loan, which means that when the day’s work is done, I can buy another bottle of scotch. Maybe even a decent one this time.

[Further reading: In Vegas, Elvis performed for himself alone]