It Started With a Kiss (19 page)

In the break between the two sets, Wren and I wandered out into the grounds of the castle to cool down. The air was so fresh it almost hurt my lungs as I gazed out at the beautiful scenery. The last glow of sunset was beginning to dip beneath the shining waters of the loch, bright stars already appearing overhead.

‘This is quite an amazing place. Not a bad setting for your wedding.’

Wren nudged me. ‘Thinking about your mystery man, are you?’

I couldn’t deny it. In such unbelievably romantic surroundings, it was impossible not to think of the man who had burst into my life in such a romantic way. But what was strange was that in all the time I had been in love with Charlie, I had never even considered marrying him. Yet as soon as PK appeared, the thought had become a regular occurrence at our wedding gigs. Which was completely barmy in itself, but there it is. The memory of how he had looked at me had somehow made plausible the possibility of one day spending the rest of my life with him.

‘A-h-h-h-ha!’ boomed a throaty voice behind us. Wren and I turned to see the repulsive stepfather-of-the-bride wheeling his way across the lawn towards us. ‘So
this
is where you lovely ladies are h-h-hiding yourselves. Naughty, naughty!’

Wren groaned but granted him her brightest smile. ‘Actually, we were just going back inside for the next set.’

Unfortunately, the inebriated man wasn’t likely to be deterred so easily. ‘No h-h-hurry,’ he slurred, grabbing hold of Wren’s arm. ‘After all, you’re being
paid
to entertain us. So I was thinking of a little
private
show, if you get my meaning.’

‘I’m sorry. We really have to go …’ Wren balked at his breath as he leaned towards her, lips pursed, making the most gut-wrenching kissy-kissy noises.

‘I think you should let my friend go,’ I said with as much confidence as I could muster, but the tremor at the edge of my voice betrayed my mounting unease.

He didn’t take the hint, instead catching hold of my wrist with his other arm. ‘Two for the price of one, eh?’

‘With respect, I think you should let my artists go,’ said a voice to our right. Wren and I looked over and, to our surprise, saw D’Wayne standing with his arms folded across his chest, looking every inch the scary bouncer.

‘And what is it to you?’ sneered the stepfather.

‘I’m their manager,’ he replied, moving closer. ‘And dealing with dirty old men is not in their contract.’

‘Cost extra, does it?’ His grip on my wrist tightened as I tried to wrench it away.

‘Right, that does it.’

What happened next was so fast it was almost a blur. D’Wayne stepped forward in a single movement, thrusting his arm between the stepfather and me. Our unwelcome guest let go of us in surprise and D’Wayne flipped him over on his back. Wren and I stared down at the stunned man sprawled on the grass.

‘
Wow.
How on earth did you do that?’

D’Wayne shrugged. ‘I studied judo for a long time. You never forget.’ He looked down at the man at his feet. ‘Now, we’re going back to the reception, sir, and I suggest you do the same. Are we clear?’

Eyes wide with terror, the man nodded dumbly. D’Wayne led us quickly towards the castle doors.

‘Where have you guys been?’ Charlie asked when we rejoined them, his smile vanishing when he saw our expressions. ‘What happened?’

‘D’Wayne has just been a complete hero, that’s what happened,’ Wren replied. ‘Believe me, you don’t want to mess with this man!’

D’Wayne gave a nervous laugh. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘Yes, you did,’ she replied, a little too forcefully, making our manager stare at her. ‘He totally karate-chopped that sleazy stepfather of the bride! It was like something from a Kung Fu movie!’

‘It was
judo
,’ D’Wayne corrected, but Wren wasn’t listening, enthusiastically re-enacting her version of what had just happened as D’Wayne’s embarrassment increased.

The second set passed without further drama, the response from the guests soon removing any thoughts of the sleazy stepfather. When the last bars of the final song ended, our audience applauded and whistled until we gave in and performed ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’, much to their delight as they sang along with all the vigour of a football crowd.

‘Thank you so much,’ the flushed bride smiled as we began to pack away. ‘Everybody’s had the best time tonight.’

When the van was packed, Jack gave us the thumbs-up. ‘Job done. I vote we look for a chippy in that town we pass through on the way back to the hotel.’

D’Wayne pulled a face. ‘Greasy chips? Not my choice of late night food.’

‘Well, don’t feel you have to join us,’ Tom replied, a little too vehemently.

‘I think he
should
join us,’ Wren cut in, linking her arm around our manager’s considerable bicep – a move that terrified him as much as it amused the rest of us.

‘Um, yeah, I’m cool with that.’

As D’Wayne obediently followed Wren to his car, she looked over her shoulder at us and mouthed, ‘Putty in my hands!’

Tom slung an arm around my shoulder. ‘Now that’s one lady who never needs the Jim Bowen Effect. Just decides what she wants and goes for it. No man is safe, trust me.’ He ruffled my hair. ‘Watch and learn, Rom.’

I pondered this conundrum for most of the week following our return from Scotland, in the spare moments I stole between juggling work and rehearsals for our next wedding booking. Tom had obviously been alluding to something when he made that comment, but I could not for the life of me work out what it was. One thing I did conclude, however, was that when I found my man, I would hold on to him with a stubbornness that Wren – and Tom – would be proud of.

The late reply to Wren’s Encounters advert took both of us completely by surprise. Wren was so beside herself with excitement that she rushed over to the radio station after work, clutching a printout of the email, and blagged her way to the Bat Cave in order to personally deliver the news. Meanwhile, Uncle Dudley was thrilled when he heard about it – proof, as he put it, of ‘uppage being at work’.

The weekend after Mark’s email arrived, I found myself sitting on a bench on the canal towpath just outside my house, trying my hardest to stay calm as I listened to the ringing tone on the other end of the mobile line. It was Saturday afternoon and already Mark and I had exchanged several emails since his Encounters reply yesterday lunchtime. Unlike Sleazy Sebastian, I had high hopes for Mark: his emails, while brief, indicated that he remembered me and was keen for us to meet. All that remained now was to hear his voice.

The ringing ended and I held my breath.

‘Hello?’

It
sounded
deep enough, but was it
his
voice? ‘Hi, is that Mark?’

‘Yes it is. Romily, right?’

‘Yes. Hi.’

‘Hi.’

As conversations go, this one wasn’t likely to win any awards, but what we talked about was immaterial. I needed to hear his voice to be sure.

‘I think we should meet,’ I said finally, after a few more awkward minutes of stilted conversation. ‘Do you know George – the narrowboat café at Brindley Place?’

‘Yes, I know it well. Let’s say ten am tomorrow?’ The more I heard his voice, the more convinced I became.

‘Perfect. I’ll see you then.’

‘Great. Till tomorrow, beautiful.’

Everything within me froze in time, as Mark’s last word reverberated around my mind.
Beautiful
– that was the word I’d been longing to hear! There was no way he could have known the significance of the word unless he was my PK.

Shaking a little, I dialled Wren’s number.

‘Hey, this is Wren. I’m hopefully out doing
unspeakable
things to a gorgeous man right now, or maybe I’m wrangling a class of fourteen-year-old drama students – you decide. Anyway, I can’t answer my phone, so if you’re still listening, leave a message. Or, if you’re my boss, this answerphone message was recorded as part of a Stanislavskian improvisation exercise designed to investigate how close drama can be to reality before it actually becomes reality itself. Bye!’

I smiled. Only Wren could turn something as mundane as an answerphone message into a piece worthy of an Olivier Award.

‘Wren, it’s me. The voice fits, I repeat, the voice fits. I’m meeting him tomorrow morning in Brindley Place, so I’ll come straight to yours afterwards. I think this could be it!’

Next morning I caught the train into the city, reasoning that I would arrive calmer if I didn’t make the journey by car. Nerves had been steadily building within me since the early hours and now, as I walked through the city streets, the butterflies in my stomach were reaching a fluttery crescendo. Unfortunately for me, I had inadvertently chosen one of the wettest days of the year so far for this meeting, so my gorgeous red Monsoon dress was now spattered with raindrops and starting to crease.

My umbrella barely shielded me from the rain as I walked across Victoria Square, past the cascading water feature with the female statue known locally as ‘The Floosie in the Jacuzzi’. I paused for a moment at the place where PK had kissed me, feeling a cold rush of nerves as I gazed up at the ornate little fountain that as a child I thought was a princess’s castle. I’d believed in fairytale endings then: could this be the beginning of my own?

By the time I reached Brindley Place, my hair had transformed itself from sleek, dark-blonde straightness to mousey frizz.
Great
. I was quite possibly about to meet the future love of my life and he would probably take one look at me and jump straight into the BCN Mainline Canal …

I stopped for a moment outside George to try to catch my breath and straighten myself into some kind of presentable state. This was somewhat of a losing battle in the now torrential rain lashing the canal towpath, but it was the thought that counted, right?

When I could delay the inevitable no longer, I stepped into the narrowboat. Scanning the tables, my eyes fell on the figure seated at the far end. His back was to me, but his wavy hair and striped scarf were unmistakable.

Oh. My.
Life
. This was it: the moment I had been waiting for. Taking off my coat, I walked slowly towards my destiny …

‘Hi, Mark?’ I asked, placing my hand gently on his shoulder.

‘Yes,’ he said, turning to face me.

If, at that moment, a seven-tentacled alien had suddenly beamed itself into the cosy narrowboat café and started singing a Tom Jones medley, I couldn’t have been more surprised. Because while the voice, the scarf, the build and the hair matched the memory of the man who had stolen my heart, the face did not.

Maybe I’d remembered him wrong. After all, I’d only spent a few minutes in his company and five months had passed since then. Perhaps, in my rose-tinted recollections, I had subconsciously embellished his appearance, seeing the man I
wanted
to see, not the man he actually was. I had been in a bit of a state when I’d met him, so what if the shock of Charlie’s rebuttal and my collision with the toy stall had altered my perception of reality?

I realised I was staring at him like a crazy person, so I smiled my friendliest smile and sat down. I needed to accept reality and leave the dream image of him behind.

‘I’ve ordered coffee, I hope that was OK?’ he asked, and I tried my best not to notice how crooked his teeth were – yet another detail I’d failed to remember, probably.

‘That’s fine.’ Weren’t his eyes more of a hazel colour in the Christmas Market? But, now I came to think of it, I wasn’t altogether sure I remembered his exact eye colour at all. ‘Thanks for getting in touch.’

‘Well, my brother saw the advert and told me about it.’

‘Is that who you were with on the day we met?’

‘Yes.’ Was his eyebrow twitching?

‘Coffee for two?’ the young waitress asked, interrupting our conversation. As she placed cups, cafetière, milk jug and spoons on the table between us, I took the opportunity to regroup. Perhaps this was the Almighty’s way of reprimanding me for being so superficial about looks – to look deeper and find the beauty within.

We chatted vaguely for about ten minutes, my discomfort growing steadily all the time. Everything I thought I knew had been shaken; the allure of my quest was dimming a little as I sat opposite this man who didn’t quite fit the picture in my head. Finally, I decided to cut to the chase.

‘What I really want to know is why you had to leave so quickly?’ It was the question I had been toying with ever since it happened and, if Mark was my handsome(ish) stranger, he was the only one who could provide the answer.

His expression clouded a little. ‘I didn’t.’

Eh?
‘Yes, you did. That’s why I wanted to find you again.’

‘Ah …’

‘Not that I blame you – I mean, it was busy and I expect you had a lot of shopping to do, what with it being so close to Christmas and everything …’ Was I babbling? This was not how I’d envisaged this meeting and I felt like I was fast losing the plot.

‘Er, yeah.’ He busied himself with pouring a second cup of coffee.

Excellent
. Now I was boring him.

All the same, I needed to know. ‘So – um – what made you leave?’

He stared at me. ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘But I …’

‘No!’ I was silenced by Mark’s hand slapping the table. Running a hand through his hair, he took a minute to compose himself as I stared at him like a complete dummy. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t do this.’

‘Can’t do what?’

His eyes were wild as he spoke. ‘I never met you.’

‘Sorry? B-but you said …’

‘I know what I said. I lied. My brother saw the advert and the resemblance to me was startling. I’ve not had that much success with relationships lately and Phil – my brother – said this was too much of a coincidence to ignore.’

Hurt, confused and increasingly angry, I eyeballed him. ‘Well, you could have just
said
that in the first place. I’ve been sitting here like … like a
lunatic,
beating myself up over not being able to remember you properly and now you tell me you’re not
you
– I mean,
him
?’

‘I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt you.’

Fury raging within me, I picked up my coat and bag and rose to my feet. ‘Well, how did you expect to carry this off, hmm? Surely you knew that I’d work it out eventually?’

‘Look, you can’t blame me for trying. I mean, a beautiful woman like you searching for a bloke who looks just like me? I thought that maybe you might see something in me that you liked.’

‘And suppose I had, would you ever have told me the truth?’

He looked away – and that was enough of an answer for me. Without saying another word, I left.

I couldn’t face Wren, I decided, not yet. Still reeling from the experience, I wrapped my coat around myself, ran up the steps from the canalside and headed across the bridge back into the city centre. Buying a bottle of water in a department store atrium café, I found a seat away from other customers, under the slope of an escalator. Smooth jazz was oozing from the café sound system and the blankness of the space in the building gave my surroundings an anonymity that slowly calmed my now throbbing head.

I was relieved that Mark wasn’t my stranger, but meeting him had called into question my memories of PK. Before today I had been so completely sure of what he’d looked like, but after almost believing I had been mistaken, how sure could I be now? There could be any number of guys with striped scarves and wavy hair that looked like him – and, with a thudding blow, I realised that the man I had seen at the Valentine’s gig could well have been Mark, not the man I was looking for.

‘Rom? Hi, I thought it was you!’ I looked up to see Charlie’s smile. He had a copy of
The Times
tucked under one arm and a takeaway coffee cup in his hand. ‘Can I sit down?’

Great.
The absolute last person I needed to see at that moment was Charlie Wakeley. But I couldn’t very well refuse him, especially given that he seemed so pleased to see me. Gathering myself together, I smiled at him as he sat down.

‘I didn’t mean to make you jump, sorry.’

‘You didn’t. What brings you here today?’

‘Oh you know, it was a quiet Sunday and I fancied getting out of the house for a bit. My neighbour’s bought a lawn-mower that sounds like an aircraft engine so a lie-in was out of the question. How about you?’

‘I – er …’ The pain in my head was getting worse and a warm flush began to spread up the back of my neck. All of a sudden, I felt sick.

Concern washed over his face. ‘Hey, are you OK?’

I dismissed this with a wave of my hand. ‘I’m fine. Sorry. Bit of a late night last night.’

‘Liar.’

That was
so
annoying. Why couldn’t he – just for today –
forget
he was my best friend who knows me so well? Instead of sitting there, looking effortlessly relaxed with his tousled hair, jawline edged with weekend stubble and cool, sky blue sweater over jeans, when I knew I was doing my best impression of a half-drenched madwoman. The way I saw it, I had two options: make up an excuse and stick to it (unlikely to work, considering he had already rumbled one of my fibs), or tell him the truth. All things considered, the latter was the only one that made sense.

Screwing my eyes up – less because of the pain and more because of the impending embarrassment I was about to heap upon myself – I confessed all.

To be fair to Charlie, he listened impassively and didn’t once succumb to the temptation to mock me. ‘Wow. You’ve had an eventful morning, haven’t you?’

‘I certainly have.’ I took a long drink of water, my mouth inexplicably dry. ‘What’s worse is that I think it might have been Mark that I saw at the gig.’

He frowned. ‘And that’s a problem because?’

‘Because I thought it was the man I was looking for.’

He sipped his coffee. ‘Right.’

Discussing this with Charlie felt odd, especially given our recent history. I decided the best thing to do was to make my excuses.

‘Anyway, Wren’s expecting me, so …’

He sat forward. ‘Yes, absolutely. Good to bump into you, though.’

I stood. ‘You too.’

I was just about to leave when he touched my arm. ‘Look, Rom, if this mystery man is as into you as you believe he was when you met him, he’ll be trying to find you too. And if he isn’t, well, he’s an idiot.’

His words touched me more than I wanted him to see.

‘How could it
not
be him?’ Wren demanded, hands on hips, as she stood like a particularly miffed three-year-old in the middle of her ultra-modern living room.

‘It just wasn’t. But I thought it was and that was why it was so dreadful.’

‘You’re a gut-truster like me, Rom. You should have listened to your intuition.’

I slumped back into Wren’s sofa. ‘But what if my intuition is wrong? My memories of PK are so vague …’

She stomped over and sat down next to me. ‘Now listen, missy. I don’t want to hear any of this from you, OK? What you’re doing – what you’re believing is possible – is nothing short of inspirational. I looked at your blog today. Have you seen it lately? There are over fifty messages of support on there from men and women you’ve never even met! They believe in you. And they believe in your memories of the guy, too – however vague they might be. This is just a temporary wobble; you have to expect this. But the Romily Parker I know and adore isn’t the kind of person who gives up just because she’s found a couple of dead-ends. Time for some bridge building, I think.’