Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating (27 page)

‘So, you’re here first thing on a Saturday morning, and you’re holding those clematis as though your life depended on it,’ John continued lightly. ‘I take it you’re a gardener, then?’

‘Yes, yes! Very much so.’ Alice gave a quick laugh and relaxed her grip on the plants.

‘Good!’ he smiled. ‘I’ve never met a gardener I didn’t like.’

Alice looked at her feet, her cheeks flaming again.

‘What I mean is . . .’ he added hastily, ‘just that I think gardeners are easy-going, nurturing kind of people.’

Alice looked up and nodded dumbly. She knew what he meant but she didn’t know what to say. She hoped he wouldn’t come any nearer; she didn’t want him within smelling distance of her breath, just in case.

‘Look.’ John stepped closer towards her. ‘I know we didn’t get off to the best of starts. Thursday was . . . well, I’m sure we’ve both had better nights . . .’

Alice stared back at her feet. Yet again she could have kicked herself for her behaviour at the ball. And how embarrassing that John Cracknell had witnessed it all.

‘. . . but I’d really like to put it behind us, make a fresh start,’ she heard him say.

There was a long pause while Alice tried to think of a reply.

‘Look, Alice, do you have anywhere to go?’

‘Go?’

‘I mean, do you have to hurry off? I was wondering whether we could get a coffee. You know, chat about perennials and optimum pruning times.’ He gave a small, awkward laugh.

Alice took a sharp intake of breath.

‘No!’ she said quickly. ‘I don’t really think it would be appropriate, do you?’

‘Appropriate?’

Alice was surprised. He’d seemed like a thoughtful kind of man. Of course she couldn’t have coffee with him! What was he thinking?

‘
Audrey!
’ Alice said meaningfully.

He looked blank.

‘I just meant a coffee. And Audrey really isn’t an issue . . .’

Alice hugged her plants primly. She couldn’t believe he’d shrugged off his wife so casually! Did he really think it was OK to go for coffee with his wife’s employee, and that Audrey wouldn’t mind? Or maybe he was after something . . . ? Something else entirely. She’d obviously got him all wrong. She had a rare flash of anger. What kind of man dismisses his wife as not being ‘an issue’?

‘I’ve got to go!’ she blurted. She turned on her heel, put her head down and accelerated as fast as she could. She heard John call out her name, but she kept on going, hurtling towards the exit. As she neared the tills she realized she still had the clematis in her hands. She really
wanted them but couldn’t risk stopping to pay. What if John caught up and tried to carry on talking? She quickly thrust them into a display of garden gnomes and charged towards the doors.

‘Bye, Alice!’ Dudley called as she rocketed past. Alice raced towards her bike and pedalled home as fast as she could, kicking herself for not buying the clematis and wondering over and over how she’d got John and his gentlemanly kindness so wrong.

Kate laughed. She liked him.

In front of her sat Steve, and he’d just come to the end of a very funny story about a series of epic blunders he’d made at work, each gaffe more embarrassing than the last, that had ended with his boss branding him
the most useless turd ever to have floated past my desk
.

Kate’s face ached from laughing. He was certainly different from the other men Alice had matched her with. And the multiple gin-and-tonics helped. She felt relaxed, like she could kick back and be herself. It was a good feeling.

As her laughter faded Steve scooped up their glasses, loudly declared ‘my round’, and headed back to the bar.

Kate snuggled into her chair and watched him. He was great, but she didn’t fancy him.

It wasn’t that there was anything
wrong
with him. He ticked a lot of her boxes, like having a good job, and being close to his family. And unlike the other men Alice had matched her with, he was interesting and funny, and actually listened to what she had to say. So in many respects Steve was a great catch.

But he had two big minus points, and she couldn’t wait to phone Lou to analyse them.

The first was hard to put her finger on, but it was a definite feeling, and it was getting stronger as the night progressed. Something about him didn’t add up. There was something that Steve, for all his openness and self-deprecation, wasn’t saying. Like his funny stories. They were brilliant. But there was something about them that was just too slick. They felt . . . what was it?
Rehearsed!
Like he’d told them before. A lot.

But repetition’s not a crime, Kate reasoned. Everyone does it, women especially. Something hasn’t really happened until you’ve told at least ten of your friends all the gory details. No, it was more that Steve’s stories seemed
perfect
. He never got anything muddled or in the wrong order. It was like he was a comedian going through his set. Only it was for an audience of just one . . . her.

Kate saw Steve get the attention of the barman and order their drinks.

The second thing that stopped her fancying him was his face. She hated to admit it, but he just wasn’t good-looking enough. OK, so that sounded really bad – and it was something she’d only ever admit out loud to Lou, for fear of anyone else thinking she was being shallow – but she couldn’t help it. She wanted a drop-dead-handsome boyfriend, and Steve was more drop-dead than handsome. Besides, if she was looking for Mr Forever, then he had to have a face she’d want to look at . . . well,
forever
.

It was strange that Alice had put Steve forward, Kate
thought suddenly. After all, she knew what Kate wanted in a man, and looks had always been top of the list. And Harvey, who Kate had met last night, had been just as gorgeous as Sebastian and Michael, although slow on the uptake, and not very aware of the world around him. Kate had been surprised to discover that he never read newspapers or watched the news.

‘How do you know what’s happening in the world?’ she’d asked curiously.

‘What’s there to know?’ he’d replied with a slow smile.

Harvey knew everything about who’d won the latest reality TV show or which pair of Dolce & Gabbana jeans had the longest waiting list. But which political party was in power, which novelist was currently making waves or what topical scandal was dominating the papers totally escaped him.

So when Kate met Steve she’d found herself feeling relieved he wasn’t like her other Table For Two dates. He wasn’t self-obsessed, arrogant, rude, a workaholic, work-shy or an airhead. He didn’t take calls on his mobile in the middle of their date, and he didn’t make her feel stupid or fat. For the first time Kate began to wonder if she’d been barking up the wrong tree with the criteria she’d given Alice. But then she looked at Steve with his pale, shiny skin, barely there eyelashes and sticky-out ears and she knew it was a face she could never wake up next to.

Besides, there was still that funny feeling she just couldn’t shake . . .

Steve made his way back from the bar and placed a
jumbosized gin and tonic on the table with a flourish. Kate smiled. He was nice. But not boyfriend material. Or husband material. Or father material. He was a good laugh, nothing more. And after her recent dating disasters she was going to bloody well enjoy the moment.

She picked up her glass and drank.

There was a disgruntled sigh from the other end of the telephone.

‘I don’t see the point of these post-mortems,’ Maurice grumbled. ‘It either worked or it didn’t, and this one – just like all the other ones – didn’t.’

He was beginning to sound angry.

‘Anyway, even if I did answer your ridiculous questions, you’d still send me exactly the same kind of woman for my next date regardless; you lot always do. Where’s your imagination? I joined Table For Two to meet
different
women – not this tedious stream of bland, bottle-blonde divorcees.’

Alice opened her mouth to speak. Her clients were normally happy, so she didn’t know what to do when somebody wasn’t; and Maurice clearly wasn’t. All the girls had looked after him at some point over the years, and they’d all passed him on in exasperation. His diatribes were office legend. Even Audrey, who liked a good confrontation, only agreed to keep him on the books at all because he was a rare-as-gold-dust male client, and because Alice had promised to take him off everyone’s hands. Alice couldn’t bear
for Table For Two to fail him. Everyone deserved to find love – even Maurice.

‘So,’ she summarized carefully, ‘you’re after someone unusual – someone who doesn’t fit the mould.’

‘At last!’ he cried sarcastically.

‘Someone with an interesting job . . . with strong opinions or an unusual hobby . . . Someone who’s not shy of having a good debate?’

‘Well, that would make me feel like the exorbitant fees I’ve been paying for the last four years haven’t been completely wasted!’

‘I’m sorry for the questions, but I’ve only just taken over your case and I want to make sure I completely understand the kind of woman you’d like to meet.’

‘Yes, yes, but I’ve told so many of you Table For Two girls I feel like a parrot. Can’t you just talk to each other? Communicate?’

There didn’t seem much point in explaining that if all the others had got his ideal woman wrong, then getting a brief from them wasn’t a good idea.

‘I don’t see why Ms Cracknell can’t look after me,’ Maurice grumbled. ‘If her staff aren’t capable of finding me a match then she should do it.’

‘I’m sure she’d love to,’ Alice replied delicately. ‘But Audrey’s books are full at the moment.’

‘
Mauriced?
’ asked Hilary sympathetically when Alice finally managed to put down the phone.

Alice nodded wearily. The difficult conversation had made her mouth completely dry. She took a sip of water and
reached into her cardigan pocket for her lip balm. It was nestling against something soft and comforting: John’s handkerchief. Alice felt a rush of excitement as she brushed it with her fingers.

By the time she’d made it home from the garden centre she’d wondered if she’d jumped the gun a bit. He’d only suggested coffee, not a dirty weekend in Amsterdam. And he probably
had
wanted to talk about optimum pruning times: after all, it’s not often you get to meet a fellow gardener. And besides, he was a happily married man!