A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger (32 page)

The day after I'd told Hailey about Matty and Margot she had followed him to work and had been amazed when he'd parked outside the offices of a debt-collection agency out towards Musselburgh. At five thirty p.m. he had driven back into town and met up with a woman he obviously didn't know in the lobby of a tatty hotel near the railway station. They had had two drinks each ‘and a plate of PRAWN SKEWERS, Chas. PRAWN FUCKING SKEWERS? What kind of a courtship is that?' and had then disappeared upstairs. He had returned home at eight forty-five and given Hailey her customary cuddle, eaten his dinner and then run a bath. ‘He took his fucking iPhone with him,' Hailey muttered darkly. ‘No doubt organizing the next slag.' Hailey had moved out the next day and was staying with her mother in Falkirk.

‘I just can't believe what I'm hearing,' I said. Malcolm galloped head-first into a flock of pigeons, barking excitedly as they took flight.

‘That's why I got so shitty with you,' Hailey said, ‘about William the Internet doctor. I'd been suspicious of Matty for ages and sort of convinced myself that all women were evil husband-stealers.'

She threw a stick for Malcolm. ‘You can only steal a husband when he wants to be stolen, though,' she said sadly. ‘I feel like such a fool.'

I grabbed her gloved hand. ‘You're nothing of the sort, Tits.'

After a short battle I persuaded Hailey to move into Sam's room. She resisted for a while, informing me that I needed peace and quiet, not another lodger, but once I'd filled her in about Salutech and the very scary uncertain future stretching ahead of me, she agreed. ‘I'll keep an eye on you,' she said affectionately. ‘Make sure you're not storming off, trying to take on the world.'

I smiled gratefully. ‘I may well need help with that.'

We walked round Smeaton Lake in contemplative silence, Hailey lost in thoughts about Matty and me lost in thoughts about Sam. I didn't want him to go. I wanted him to stay and hang around with me in the flat and take me to the Barony, to make me funny dinners and put on funny films.

I resolved not to talk about Sam for the rest of the day. There were bigger fish to fry.

‘Me and Sam had a kiss to make sure those emails meant nothing,' I heard myself remark. I could have slapped myself! Hadn't I just resolved
not to talk about him
again
? Could I rely on myself to do bloody
anything
any more?

With a visible effort, Hailey dragged herself out of wherever her head had been. I watched her process what I'd just said. ‘Oh, my God!' She looked like she was about to faint. ‘You WHAT? What was it
like
?'

I shrugged in what I hoped was a dispassionate manner. ‘Scientific. It was an experiment. Science.'

‘WHEN? WHERE?'

‘Late one night last week. We were drunk; it was nothing.' I thought I'd sounded reasonably off-hand.

Hailey stopped walking and stared at me. ‘Have you had sex with the Bowes?' she whispered.

‘Of course not!' Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut?

‘Thank holy God for that,' Hailey said eventually. ‘That would be absolutely disgusting. You and Bowes? Urgh! Worst couple ever!'

‘Too right.' I laughed, rather loudly. She was right. It would be awful, me and Sam.

There was a weird silence as we walked on, which Malcolm took the edge off by plopping into the near-freezing lake and thrashing around for a few seconds before exploding out again.

‘Actually, Charleypops,' Hailey said thoughtfully, ‘you should probably ignore me. I mean, what the fuck do I know about men? I moved in with someone who likes to be tied to the end of the bed with a dog collar.'

I snorted and, after a few seconds, Hailey joined in. A few minutes later we were doing what we did best: clinging to each other, howling with laughter.

When we arrived back home, the relatives had gone and there was a smell of eggs, bacon and change in the air. Dad was buzzing around in a way he hadn't done in weeks, toasting bread at the Aga, chatting to Ness and Katy and – for reasons that were unclear to me – wearing a fez. I raised my eyebrows inquisitively at Ness but she just shrugged, smiling. Dad was a law unto himself.

‘Piglet!' Dad exclaimed, as we came in. ‘And Hailey! Sit down and have some breakfast!' Malcolm leaped excitedly around the kitchen, a big wet monster who loved us madly. Dad gave him a piece of toast and tried to look remorseful when Mum told him off. ‘Here's to an exciting new chapter,' he announced, as we sat down to eat. Mum smiled secretively and we listened, now interested.

‘I've been suffering a bit of a malfunction in the happiness department,' Dad said reflectively. ‘But I woke up this morning and felt certain that my mother would be pelting me with kiwis if she knew I was moping around.' He sniggered. ‘She was an absolute bloody tyrant, my mother,' he admitted.

Everyone laughed and toasted Granny Helen.

‘So I've decided to have some fun,' he continued. ‘Those hippies have it sewn up with all their chanting and essential oils.'

Katy nodded knowledgeably; Ness and I exchanged confused glances.

Dad carried on: ‘We got up this morning and wrote letters of resignation,' he said proudly, putting his arm round Mum's shoulders. ‘East Linton clearly doesn't seem to need a surgery any more and we're feeling the call of the wild!'

‘Oh, God,' Hailey muttered.

‘We're off to India again!' Dad shouted. ‘But this time we're going for a long time! Until Christmas!'

I gasped and Ness clapped. ‘Fucking amazing!' Katy yelled.

‘Katherine …' Mum started, but Katy had enveloped her in a hug.

I began to say that I should probably pay for this holiday, given that my broken leg had ruined their last Indian adventure, but Dad interrupted, ‘No more four-star hotels for us, Piglet. We're going backpacking.'

‘Brilliant,' Hailey cried. ‘Oh, how I love the Lamberts.'

Dad went on to tell his gobsmacked audience that they wanted to start off in an ashram, for some ‘spiritual enlightenment', and then take on India's rusty old train network. ‘I want some curry,' Dad enthused. ‘And mangoes. And some God!'

As we ate breakfast, plotting, planning and laughing, I found myself thinking what a shame it was that Sam had had to leave so early. He'd have loved the atmosphere and the nonsense and the bacon. And Dad, too. That was the good thing about Sam. He thought my family were great.

‘What about you, Charlotte?' Dad asked gently. ‘What will you do next?'

I thought about it. The truth of the matter, of course, was that I had no idea. My life was stretching before me looking alarmingly empty – apart from First Date Aid – and while I was happy I'd escaped Salutech, I couldn't pretend I felt very confident.

Perhaps sensing my fear, Dad patted me on the back. ‘It doesn't matter what you do, my piglet. You're free!
Roam the country at leisure! Jump in a bog! Roll in a field! Dump on a tump!'

‘Dad, you're insane!'

I told my parents for the first time about First Date Aid and was surprised by the extent of their enthusiasm for it.

‘My, oh, my,' Dad exclaimed. ‘You cheeky little Cupid … If Jane leaves me for a handsome young Indian, I'll be sure to sign up.'

Mum ignored him. ‘Will you be able to earn a living from it, Charley?' she asked anxiously.

I told them about the huge boost that Sam had given the business since we'd become partners, getting us important media coverage, opening up our services to men and transforming the website from something nice and functional to something so fabulous you'd want to pay us just to look at it. ‘He's been absolutely incredible!' I enthused.

‘Charleypops's business is brilliant,' Hailey told my parents firmly. ‘You should be very proud. There was this woman who looked like a decomposing vegetable, and Charley got her a date with the best-looking man in Brighton! That's how good she is!'

‘Oh, Sonia,' I recalled. ‘Yeah, I worked really hard for her. When she wrote back the day after to tell me how it went, I nearly took the train to London to give her a hug! The poor girl had absolutely no confidence in herself and it was great to be able to help.'

‘You love this,' Ness said, watching my face. ‘You never talked about Salutech like that.'

Katy agreed. ‘Yeah, you just went all corporate and wankerish when you talked about work.'

‘Hear hear!' Dad shouted. ‘Our clever, brave little piglet, striking out on her own! Cheers!'

We all chinked orange juices and I beamed. But underneath the warmth of the moment sadness tugged insidiously at me. The sadness was called Sam. Sam Bowes – without whom First Date Aid would have been no more than a hobby – was probably letting himself out of my flat for what might be the last time. He was moving on to bigger, better things, his lazy green eyes now full of purpose and ambition. It was the end of an era. And that sucked.

Much later, once Ness, Katy and Hailey had left and I'd given Mum and Dad's house a good clean, rearranged the pictures in my old bedroom, walked Malcolm again and written a formal letter of resignation to Salutech, I lay on my bed and tried to chill.

I discovered within about thirty seconds that Taking It Easy was a very difficult business.

After a few minutes I went downstairs and made some herbal tea, forcing myself back to the sofa to drink it. I tried to breathe slowly and deeply, like enlightened people did.
In … and out. In … and out.

DO SOME FIRST DATE AID EMAILS
, my brain screeched.
OR GO AND BUY A NEWSPAPER. OR CLEAN THE OVEN. MAYBE DO ALL THREE. PREFERABLY NOW.

I opened an eye and saw Malcolm sitting in front of me, looking puzzled. ‘I'm trying to chill,' I told him. ‘Trying to just, you know, be.'

He looked doubtful.

When my phone rang a few minutes later, I jumped to it as if my life depended on it. Quite how I was going to maintain good mental health without work was a mystery.

It was Shelley, calling to tell me about another investors' event she'd got Sam and me into next week. Strangely, when I'd emailed her last week, thanking her for getting us into the Balmoral conference but explaining – honestly, I supposed – that we had been unable to secure funding, she hadn't seemed too bothered.
No problem, there'll be other opps
, she'd written back, her mind obviously elsewhere. Shelley didn't normally talk like this. Now she was back on it again. ‘It's another dinner,' she barked. ‘At the Kitchin. Private hire, the whole place will be closed for this event. You two MUST go. Great opportunity for the business.'

I smiled. Somewhere along the line I had grown to like Shelley Cartwright, in spite of her steam-train approach to communication. And I was very touched that she was so keen to help First Date Aid. ‘I'll go,' I said. ‘But it'll be just one person for the guest list. Sam's moved to London.'

There was a brief silence. ‘Oh,' Shelley said eventually, obviously disgruntled.

Immediately I felt insulted. Did she think I was incapable of doing it without Sam? ‘Shelley, I'll be absolutely fine on my own,' I said, probably a little too defensively. ‘I was running this company alone for quite a while before Sam joined me and I've been working in the corporate world for more than ten years.'

‘Have you now?' Shelley mused. She was clearly somewhere else.

‘Yes. I started –'

‘Right,' she interrupted. ‘Well, I will put you on the guest list. When will your partner return to Edinburgh?'

Did she fancy Sam or something? There was a lovely photo of him on the website (we had had more than a few emails asking if Sam was available for dates) and I was beginning to wonder if Shelley had seen it and wanted a piece of Bowes too. Trying not to sound huffy, I told her I had no idea when Sam was returning – if he returned at all – and then she went all vague and preoccupied and ended the call. It was obvious that she had lost interest in what I was saying.

I let it go. Our business was doing very well without her, thank you very much.

I decided to allow myself twenty minutes to do some First Date Aid emails, perhaps to prove to Shelley that we didn't need help. Chilling was rescheduled for later in the afternoon.

I powered up my laptop and logged on.

There were several emails, one of which was from a bile-spitting client about a date with a man who'd turned out to be married (this was my fault, apparently) but I was far more interested by the most recent, sent only fifteen minutes ago.

‘A message for Charley Lambert,' it said in the subject line. It was from Sam. I smiled, pleased. I liked the thought of him pausing to write to me before he left the flat. It was comforting.

I have a friend called Charley Lambert,
the email began.

Eh? Half frowning, half smiling, I read on.

She's a few hours into her new life of freedom. She's said goodbye to some harmful things from the past – and some harmful people, too – and is about to start out on her own.

Malcolm sat next to the sofa. ‘Sam's sent me a lovely email,' I informed him. I'd already stopped frowning and was now grinning.

She's afraid. She doesn't know if she'll make it, but I know she will. She has no idea how to just sit still (I would bet ten thousand pounds that she reads this within an hour of me sending it) but I know she'll learn. She's capable of anything, this girl. She's one of the most legendary legends in, well, legend. Life without her will be just that bit colder and crapper. I will miss Charley Lambert, a lot, and I'm sad I won't be there while she starts out on this new journey.

I hugged myself. It was lovely to hear this from Sam. Spine-tinglingly lovely. No, scrap that: it was thrilling. He just didn't say things like this to me in real life. It was like having William back again.