A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger (15 page)

I slumped down opposite him, feeling exhausted and fairly despairing. I had just bought a six-hundred-pound dress for what? For a dinner that I was too uptight to eat, a forced conversation with Sam and Katy and, worst of all, an entire evening with my back to William and Shelley. This was ludicrous! It was shameful!

‘Charley?' Sam was watching me curiously. ‘Are you OK?'

Katy had gone off to the loo and I'd barely noticed. I nodded. ‘Yeah, just tired.'

‘Look,' he said, after a brief pause, ‘I'm not trying to get off with Katy, OK? She's a great girl and she's been really kind. I just wanted to take her out to dinner.'

‘Yes, yes,' I said. ‘Fine. How's it going with the old acting thing, anyway? How'd it go with the agent at FTP – whatever it's called?'

Sam began to smile. ‘PFD. I think it went well,' he said. ‘Talking to the woman there reminded me how much I love acting. I've got to give it another shot, Chas. She loves my showreel.'

I tried hard to rouse some enthusiasm. ‘Amazing, Bowes!'

Sam's smile had already faded and he was looking morose. This thing with Yvonne had obviously hit him very hard. But, as concerned I was, I had an overwhelming need to find out what was happening with the date. I looked over my shoulder as if to summon a waiter and saw William leaning forward, hands cupping his chin, listening to Shelley. He was smiling. Shelley, slightly flushed,
seemed to have loosened up. Both were drinking wine very quickly. She was using hand gestures now and – I caught my breath – she was stroking her collar bone in a fake-absent-minded way. The bitch! That was one of my moves! I saw William's eyes dart down to look at it, just as she wanted him to. Oh, he was lovely and, oh, she was good.

Suddenly I hated Shelley Cartwright more than any other person on earth. How dare she stroke her collar bone? How dare she actually possess a personality? How dare she be over there when he should be sitting opposite
me
? Damn her to hell!

‘Are you sure you don't know those people?' Sam asked, as Katy wove back towards us, grinning enthusiastically.

‘Quite sure.'

‘Well, stop staring at them, weirdo!'

‘Piss off.'

‘Piss off yourself, Charley. If you're going to sit there with a face like a slapped arse, go and sit in Burger King instead. They've got a Triple Whopper and fries for five twenty-nine today.'

‘Ha!' Katy said, sitting down. ‘I went on a detox last week and ended up getting a Whopper after two days. What kind of dick eats barley grass for breakfast?'

‘Charley does,' Sam said helpfully. I gritted my teeth. ‘Until the accident she kept huge packets of it in the fridge.'

Katy shrugged. ‘Well, you look a lot better than I do, Chas. Fair fucks.'

I heard a man laugh behind me and knew it was William.
The sound stabbed me right through the middle and I took a long, deep breath. It was going to be a difficult night.

By the time we were on dessert, I'd more or less stopped speaking. Sam and Katy were drunk; I had not progressed past tipsy and now had that horrible dead feeling that did not improve however much wine I poured on it. They were talking about a Thursday-night open-mic session that Katy and Ruben the bassist had started in Camberwell. Sam had offered to be master of ceremonies tomorrow – ‘I might try to get this PFD woman down to see my stuff' (
Stuff
? What stuff ? Was Sam a stand-up fucking comic now? An organic vegetable salesman?), and Katy was in raptures over the headline act, a bowler-hatted Oxford-educated dandy who MCd in Middle English.

William and Shelley, I could see when I checked unsubtly over my shoulder, were still there. They were now chatting animatedly and William kept giving lovely rumbly laughs. Each one killed me.

When I returned to the conversation, Sam was talking about something called touch improvisation that he'd done at drama school. It sounded so unspeakably ridiculous that I went off to the loo, taking a good look at their table before I went downstairs. Shelley was sitting back with her legs crossed seductively and William was leaning forward. They had nearly finished their second bottle of wine and both appeared to have eaten dessert. Shelley had left some of hers on the plate, just to prove that although she might be six feet tall she was also dainty and feminine. I caught a blast of her brisk, unfriendly voice.

Then, just as I gave up and turned to go downstairs, William caught my eye. And he smiled at me. Broadly. He stretched his face into a proper smile for me. It lasted all of a second but I was bewitched.

Suddenly I was back again. I danced downstairs, thrilled. There was hope! In the mirror I pinched my cheeks. Maybe, somehow, William had sensed something when we'd stared at each other earlier. If I could just catch his eye again …

Then what?
Fantasist
, my head muttered.
All you've had is a few seconds' eye contact.

‘Er, not to mention two days of intense online conversation,' I corrected myself. The fight came back. I had to do something. What was the harm in leaving my card, like I'd originally planned? Worst-case scenario, he wouldn't have the foggiest idea who it was from and would never call. But the best-case scenario would be that he'd noticed me eyeballing him and, after a so-so date with Shelley Cartwright, was curious enough to contact me.

I scribbled something on a business card about being the tall girl who'd smiled, then paused, remembering what Hailey had said about respecting others' relationships. Was this in any way justifiable?
But you owe nothing to Shelley Cartwright
, my head told me obstinately.
She'd do the same in your shoes.
Not entirely convinced, I rearranged my breasts so that they formed some sort of cleavage and strode out again with my business card tucked into my palm. It was party time.

It was not party time. William and Shelley had left. Where they had sat, two napkins were strewn unceremoniously
across their dessert plates. Their chairs were far from the table where they'd pushed them back in order to leave as soon as possible to …

I looked frantically out of the restaurant.

… to kiss.

William, the beautiful, perfect doctor, and Shelley, the snappy businesswoman, were standing in Beak Street kissing each other on the mouth. I walked slowly to the front of the restaurant. A deep, despairing jealousy washed over me. William pulled away and tucked a bit of hair behind Shelley's ear. She was flushed and excited, smiling like a teenage girl.

‘Charley,' Sam said, appearing at my side. I ignored him. William smiled right into Shelley's face and asked her something. She nodded voraciously. Another date? I couldn't bear it. Then she tipped her face up and kissed him once again – a tentative, snatched affair – and skipped off into an Addison Lee minicab that was waiting on the corner of Lexington Street. William put his hands into his pockets and smiled after her, watching as the car pulled off.

‘Chas?' Sam repeated. He was quite pissed off. ‘You've behaved like a complete weirdo all night. What's happening?'

I stared at him blankly. ‘Just a bad day,' I said eventually. ‘A really, really bad day.'

Sam scrutinized me, glanced outside at the now-empty street and nodded, unconvinced.

A little later I allowed myself to be propelled out of the restaurant by a buoyant and chatty Katy, who had insisted I come to the gig in Brixton. We hurtled south in the high-pitched roar of a Victoria Line train, Katy and Sam giggling on one side of the aisle and me slumped in silence on the other. I realized I was still holding my business card, ready to give to the waiter for William. Tears of shame welled in my eyes.

You utter fool
, I thought.
Running around after one man then the next, convincing yourself that they like you when of course they don't. Why would they? You're massive and unlovable!

I was in despair. I'd escaped the toxic atmosphere of work to limp down to London where the supposed answer to my problems – William – had turned out to be as much of a disaster as anything else in my life. And tomorrow I'd have to abandon this mess and – what? Go back to the toxic atmosphere of work? You bet! What a great life!

I wallowed.

But then at Victoria I suddenly sat up. A group of suited businessmen were chortling away at the other end of the carriage, smart but drunk. Watching them, I finally remembered something that seemed to have eluded me for the last week.

My work used to keep me happy.

Really happy. Even when times were hard. I used to spend time chortling in my suit, just like those dudes.

What on earth had gone wrong? Until three days ago I'd loved my job! Salutech had been my haven, not a toxic hole! Was it the job that had changed? No! The job had never been so exciting! Margot? Pah, small fry! No, the problem was
me
. Somewhere along the way I had stopped being Business Charley, the Scottish Amazon, and had started being Pathetic Charley Lambert the self-pitying Labrador.

The fact of the matter, I realized, watching the suits segue effortlessly from banter to business talk, was that I had been drifting since I'd got back to Salutech. I'd been so certain that Margot would make my life hell that I'd basically rolled over and allowed her to do just that. I'd fixated on the unfairness of it all and had also spent way too much time on First Date Aid, allowing myself in the process to plummet into mad fantasy about William.

As a result I'd given my precious job no more than about 30 per cent.
Why?
Years of experience had proved that unless I gave 100 per cent I might as well not bother turning up! And, more importantly, years of experience had proved that giving 100 per cent made me feel happy, purposeful and in control. It was disgraceful to be ten days from the biggest brand launch ever yet have only a vague grasp of what was going on.

My head started ticking over. If I was prepared to pull my socks up at work, I could drag myself out of this cloud of doom very quickly. It seemed like a clear choice. Get back to my old ways: lots of hard work, healthy food,
exercise and busyness – or carry on drifting around being sad and mad.

Enough of all this fantasy and time-wasting, Charley Lambert
, I thought, in the style of Mr Motivator.
You go back to Edinburgh tomorrow and get your life back on track!
OK
,
YEAH!

I experienced my first ray of hope in a long time. Here was a solution that
worked
. And I knew that because I'd been road-testing it with outstanding success for several years.

First Date Aid had helped me evade madness during my recuperation but it had also taken my eye off the ball at Salutech and led me into behaviour so embarrassing I could hardly bear to think of it. First Date Aid had to go. I hated the thought of folding my lovely little company but not as much as I hated the idea of continuing to wallow around being a crazy, self-pitying low-achiever. Salutech came first. It deserved 100 per cent. It
paid
me to give 100 per cent. And, hopefully, if I jacked in First Date Aid I'd be able to forget about my shameful indiscretion tonight and head up the most exciting brand launch in recent medical history.

Done. Agreed. Signed.

Charley Lambert had a plan.

I felt a tiny bit more hopeful and sat up to listen to Katy and Sam's conversation about the importance of creativity in their lives. I didn't even make a vomity face.

Katy hopped excitedly up to the entrance of what looked like a penal dungeon in an alleyway off Coldharbour Lane. The sound of shit music inside was not appealing and
I had to work hard to muster up a show of enthusiasm. ‘I'll pay the entrance fee!' Katy said, kissing a gigantic bouncer on the cheek. ‘All right, Garfield?'

He winked at her, the rest of his face unmoving. ‘Free for you and your friends, princess,' he growled.

We passed through, smiling dutifully. A vaulted room opened out in front of us, lit mostly by dim lights tacked on to the walls. The smoking ban didn't appear to exist here, and had there not been relentlessly thumping techno I might have fancied we were in a Harlem dive in the 1970s. Almost everyone looked fifteen years younger than me and absolutely everyone looked like they were taking drugs.

‘Shall I get some pills?' Katy asked Sam. She said it in a slightly-less-loud-than-normal shout, as if I wouldn't hear her. Sam nodded excitedly.

I felt older than ever. Katy took my smart jacket and deposited it on a pile, then disappeared into the crowd to find someone called Pork. ‘Since when did you take pills?' I asked Sam.

‘Since always.'

‘Bullshit! You haven't done drugs in years, Sam!'

‘Charley,' he shouted above the music, ‘butt out.' He looked pensive and fed up.

‘Why are YOU in such a bad mood?' I shouted. He shook his head infuriatingly.

‘
I
'm not!' He disappeared into the crowd too. I looked at my watch. Eleven forty-five. Perhaps if the band came on now we'd be able to leave in an hour. I went to the bar and ordered a glass of wine.

‘Only vodka or rum,' the man yelled.

I bought a vodka, and then, on second thoughts, bought two more, for Katy and Sam. I went and sat on a speaker to wait for them. The crowd around me heaved and shrieked, the music pounding. I felt incredibly stupid, sitting in my sad expensive dress bought for a man called William who had never even heard of me. But as of tomorrow, things were changing. No stupid, no sad.

A short while later, Sam and Katy emerged from the crowd with beautiful grins on their beautiful faces. It was fairly obvious that they'd found what they were looking for. I appraised them. ‘Are you two going to be mental all night?'

Sam giggled. ‘Maybe!' He took off his fashion cardigan and threw it on top of my coat, nodding – slightly confusedly – to the music. One of Sam's principal draws for women was that he was a brilliant dancer but I was intrigued to see how he'd fare amid all this techno nonsense.

I gave them their vodkas as a lanky Asian man with heavy black glasses shuffled on to a platform and announced the band. Katy and Sam whooped and cheered, and I had to conceal a snigger. Sam was quite at home in this crowd, with his exposed chest and embarrassing man jewellery, but he wasn't fooling me. As the band started and he punched the air, I got out my phone to video him for Hailey. It was like our child was visiting his first school disco.

The band sounded like too many bands, these days: fast, catchy electro-rock with strangled vocals and attempted wry humour. I tried my best but longed for a bit of Belinda Carlisle and a glass of Merlot. In the absence of either,
I made myself comfortable on the speaker – which, mercifully, did not appear to be connected to anything – and leaned against the wall.

With a start, I awoke from a dream in which I'd been following William and Shelley into a forest rave. I had no idea where I was. I stared, afraid, at a sea of waving arms and felt loud music pulse through me.

Ah, Brixton. Yes. I was with Sam and Katy, who were taking stupid, dangerous teenage drugs. I scanned the crowd for them and found them almost immediately, leaning against a pillar to my left. Katy had her back against the pillar and Sam was kissing her hard on the mouth.

For a few seconds I froze in horror. But eventually – slowly and quite matter-of-factly – I levered myself off the speaker and walked over to them. I tapped Katy on the shoulder and she sprang out from underneath Sam, wasted and ashamed. ‘House key,' I said to her.

‘Sorry, Chas, we're off our tits.' She tittered.

I held out my hand. ‘Key, please.'

Sam – I couldn't bring myself to look at him – grabbed my arm with the lack of respect for personal space that comes so easily to the inebriated. ‘Just a bit of fun,' he yelled in my ear. A fleck of spit landed on the lobe and I threw his arm off me, glaring at him furiously now.

‘You could have any girl in here,' I hissed at him. ‘Any girl in Brixton, in London, in the bloody United Kingdom. I asked you to leave my little sister alone and you couldn't even do that for me.'

‘Oh, fucking lighten up, Charley,' Sam slurred. ‘Everyone likes a little kiss when they're up. You should try it yourself, let go a bit.'

‘Charley, I'm seeing Ruben,' Katy squeaked. ‘We're just fucked – it doesn't mean anything!'

‘And I'm trying to get over a failed engagement, if you hadn't forgotten,' Sam added.

‘Fuck you,' I said to him, ignoring Katy. ‘She's twenty-two, Sam.'

‘She's fit and she's up for it,' he shouted back.

Rage almost blinded me. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up,' I yelled. ‘I'm going. Seriously, if you sleep with her tonight, I'll never speak to you again. Ever.'

‘Whatever.' He turned back to Katy.

Twenty minutes later I was slumped on Katy's sofa, still feeling stunned. I concluded, reasonably, that tonight had not gone my way.

I stared at the room around me, marvelling at my choice of accommodation on the worst night I'd had since breaking my leg. Hundreds of inexplicable pictures of Katy wearing a maroon catsuit and top hat were spread all over the table, which also contained the remains of a fried egg in which someone had stubbed out a fag, a half-drunk bottle of organic cider and a plastic marijuana plant with ‘Stuart' written on a label stuck to the side of the pot.

Enough.

I shuffled off upstairs to Katy's spare room – my temporary quarters – and discovered that Sam had dumped all of his things on the floor. Just looking at his stylish
leather holdall I felt cross. Had he bought that to impress Katy? ‘Fuck you,' I told his bag. And then: ‘You'd better be sleeping on the sofa tonight, Bowes. If you sleep with Katy, I'll fucking kill you.'

I got into bed and pulled the duvet over my head. My flight was at six thirty-five a.m., which meant I had precisely forty-five minutes before it was time to get up again, a prospect that would normally have horrified me. Right now, however, I didn't care. The sooner tomorrow started, the sooner I could get back to what I did best, which was being Business Charley. Business Charley could deal with anything. She was a fearless Amazon. The toughest ever to come out of Scotland. Neither Sam nor Shelley could fuck with her. And Margot had better watch out.

I rolled over to attempt some sleep but became quickly aware that the room was not dark. Sam's laptop was glowing, with freaky cyber light, on the floor. ‘Fuck off,' I told it crossly.

Nothing happened. I threw off my cover and stormed over to snap it shut.

But then something caught my eye. Something extraordinary.

On Sam's computer screen there was a brick-coloured webpage with CYBER LOVE ASSISTANTS emblazoned across the top.
Cyber Love Assistants?
And, taking up half of the page, the picture that had just caught my eye was of Shelley Cartwright.

Slowly, I sat down on my bed, my mind racing. A million explanations scrambled over each other but none made sense. I looked more closely. Not only was Shelley's photo there, so was her
love.com
dating profile. It
looked sort of like a screen grab. To the right of the screen grab there was some writing:

I sat back, dumbfounded. And as I did so, a notebook next to Sam's laptop caught my eye. ‘Polpo,' Sam had scrawled. ‘Down Regent Street, turn left at Beak St then about 200 yards on the left - 7.30 p.m.' He had underlined the time so savagely that his pen had scored through at least two pages.

I looked back at his screen. Shelley stared at me, cold, confident and businesslike. ‘What on earth is going on?' I whispered.

At the bottom of the screen I noticed a button marked ‘User Account: Sam Bowes'. Slowly, gently – as if trying to avoid waking a poisonous snake – I reached out and clicked on the button. My head felt fuzzy and confused. Sam had a Cyber Love Assistants user account. And some connection with Shelley and William. Did this mean … ?