A Question of Love (15 page)

‘Really? Who was that then?’

‘Oh this stockbroker, Norman Scrivens. Felicity was trying to set me up with him.’

‘
Was
she now?’

‘Yes. But that was before she knew I’d seen you. Even so, I don’t know what she was thinking of! He’s at least fifteen years too old and totally unappealing. He’s thin and bald with glasses—and
tedious
. Felicity says he’s desperate to meet someone because his wife left him—I’m not surprised she did.’

‘Don’t be too hard, Laura. You can’t blame the poor guy for trying.’

‘I guess I
am
being a bit mean. But it’s because I’ve had
far
too much champagne…’ I closed my eyes again. ‘And because he’s been pestering me
all
afternoon and because he has
no
appreciation of Horace’s ninth ode which is one of the most beautiful poems I’ve ever read—I used to recite it to you, if you remember?—and oooh…I’ve got the whirlies—hang on!
Hic!
—oh blast. Now I’ve got the hiccups too. But he really was—
hic!
—
so
pushy, Luke—trying to make me agree to a date. He even—
hic!
—got his diary out! But then
- hic!
—thank God,
you
phoned; but anyway why the

-
hic!
—hell would he assume I’d be remotely interested. He was much too old, and, frankly, pretty hideous—plus he had bad breath!’

‘Oh dear.’

‘Exactly. Oh dear. Oh God—
hic!
—I’ve had
far
too much fizz. Think I’m gonna be sick. Wonder if Fliss’s got any water up here.’ Now I pushed myself up with one hand, and stared at her bedside table where, amongst the face-creams and books and baby wipes a tiny red light was steadily shining. ‘Whass tha?’ I muttered. I leaned forward, peering at its white casing. And then I realized what it was.

‘Oh.
Shit
.’

FIVE

‘It was
so
embarrassing!’ Felicity hissed twenty minutes later. The party was over, and I was slumped over the kitchen table, sipping my fifth pint of water. ‘Absolutely
everyone
heard.’

‘How many?’ I asked.

‘At least thirty. And it was
quite
clear, from your eloquent description, who you were talking about. They were
riveted.
I turned it off the second I realized, but by then it was too late. He was standing
right
by the monitor—which was on full volume—and he was
incredibly
offended. The look on his face as he left!’

‘Well I’m
sorry
, Fliss.’ I heaved an inebriated sigh. ‘I’d drunk
far
too much—largely because he’d been pestering me—and I had
no
idea the monitor was on. Why
was
it on anyway? It didn’t
need
to be did it—so actually this is all
your
fault.’

‘We always have it on,’ she explained crossly. ‘Plus it was hidden behind this christening card, otherwise I’d have noticed and turned it off.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I sighed again. ‘He’d been bugging me all afternoon and I was just letting off steam. I had no
idea
anyone was listening.’

‘It was
so
embarrassing,’ Felicity repeated, her nostrils flaring. I half-expected to see smoke shooting out of them.

‘Well,
I
thought it was rather funny,’ said Hugh, who’d also had a bit too much to drink. ‘More christening cake anyone? The icing’s lovely.’ For someone on the verge of bankruptcy he seemed very cheerful.

‘Hugh—it’s
not
funny to offend our guests!’

‘Oh come on, Fliss. We hardly knew the guy and you only invited him along to meet Laura—and frankly, I think Laura’s right. He
was
far too old for her—and yes, too unattractive. I don’t know what you were thinking of.’

‘Thanks for your support Hugh,’ she snapped, as I beamed at him.

‘You haven’t got it.’

‘It was just a bit unfortunate,’ said Dad.

‘And no real harm done,’ Hugh shrugged. ‘Scrivens works in the City so he’s not going to know anyone who knows Laura, even if he did want to talk about it, which
I
certainly wouldn’t do if I’d been in his shoes.’

‘Who are you talking about?’ said Hope. She had nipped out to the car to get Olivia’s present and had missed the conversation.

Fliss explained. ‘His name’s Norman Scrivens. I taught his daughter a few years ago. He’s a stockbroker.’

‘Norman Scrivens?’ Hope repeated. ‘Was
he
here? He isn’t a stockbroker.’

‘Isn’t he?’ said Fliss.

‘He used to be, but he was made redundant from Cazenove’s so he became a financial journalist. He’s now City Editor of the
Daily Post
.’

‘Is he?’ Fliss said. ‘Oh…’

I had a vague sense of unease.

‘He’s very close to the editor, Richard Sole—commonly known as R. Sole—king of the tabloids, and animal nut. Apparently Scrivens looks after his portfolio. I’ve never met him,’ Hope went on, ‘but he’s an utter toe rag.’

‘How do you know?’ said Hugh. ‘He seemed affable enough.’

‘Because last year he interviewed Carol Stokes, the most successful woman dealer on the Metal Exchange. She’s single and very attractive, but she wasn’t receptive to him, so he was vile about her in the piece. I’m not sorry that Laura offended him.’

‘Anyway, he can hardly write about
me
,’ I said. ‘I’m of zero interest to his readers.’

‘That’s true,’ Hope conceded.

‘And I’m sure he’ll just want to forget the whole thing—which is what I intend to do.’ A silence descended. ‘Good. So that’s that then. Incident closed. Any further comments on the subject from anyone?’ They all shrugged.

‘Aladadazagoyagoya,’ Olivia said.

The following morning I woke with a raging thirst, a blinding headache, and a sense of discomfort.

‘Ooh, I
do
hope I didn’t say anything silly and
embarrass
myself,’ I croaked as I staggered into the bathroom. ‘Oh well,’ I muttered as I ran my bath. ‘Too late to regret it—
forget
it.’ I looked in the mirror. My eyes felt like peanuts and were about the same size. I had three espressos on my way to work.

‘So
she
turned round to me…’ I heard as I pushed on the door. ‘And so
I
turned round to her and said…no, that’s
right
, Maureen, she did—she turned
right
round to me and
she
said…’

That’s another thing that drives me mad about Nerys. The fact that no one she knows ever just ‘says’ something. They have to ‘turn round’ first, for some strange reason, and then say it. All that twirling and spinning must be exhausting. Just hearing about it made me feel giddy, adding to my post-alcoholic distress.

‘You look peaky,’ Nerys said as she put down the phone. Her hair was the colour of ketchup. She dyes it a different shade of red every week.

‘I feel peaky,’ I replied. ‘Alcohol poisoning.’

‘You know what you need, don’t you?’

‘A blood transfusion, probably.’

‘No. Some sodium of bi-carb—
here
…’ She scrabbled in her drawer and plonked down her emergency tub. ‘Simple, but reliable,’ she added, tapping the top with a sharp, claret-coloured fingernail. ‘Take my advice—there’s no better cure.’

‘It’s okay, thanks. I’ll get Tom to trepan me—I’m sure there’s a tin-opener in the kitchen.’

‘Anyway, you’ve got some very nice mail today Laura,’ she added. ‘That’ll perk you up.’ She nodded conspiratorially at my pigeon-hole. ‘You’ve got
five
Valentine’s cards.’

‘Really? That makes up for having had none for the last three years.’

‘Tom’s got one too,’ Nerys added casually.

‘Has he?’ I remembered the conversation I’d overheard him having on Saturday. I peeped at the large, red envelope in his pigeonhole. The address was typed so there was no telltale handwriting, and the post-mark was smudged with rain.

‘I wonder who
that’s
from then,’ I said, hoping that Nerys would be unable to resist enlightening me, if she knew, which she probably did, because she would have spoken to his new woman on the phone—whoever she was.

‘Well Tom’s
very
popular,’ she teased. ‘But then he’s an attractive man. Clever with it.
Oh
yes—
very
clever, is Tom.’ You’d think he was her own son the way she boasts about him. ‘Don’t you think so Laura?’

‘Oh, well, yes. I do.’ My happiness at having five Valentines made me feel expansive. ‘Of course I do. Tom’s
very
attractive,
extremely
clever, and a
great
boss.’

‘A wonderful boss,’ she concurred happily. ‘He’s a marvellous man.’

‘He is.’

‘Plus he’s so reliable.’

‘Mm. That’s right.’ I thought of his poor wife and baby.

‘He’s a catch,’ Nerys added. ‘An absolute
catch
.’

‘He…is. And I’m sure whoever reels him in will be a very lucky woman, Nerys. Whoever she is.’

‘
Well
…’ she began. She was fiddling with the gold locket she often wears. I’ve sometimes wondered who she keeps in it.

‘Shall I tell you what
I
think?’

‘Yes, Nerys.’ There was a silence.

She gave me a sly sort of look, as though she had a particularly delicious piece of gossip. ‘Well, what
I
think—’ Suddenly the phone trilled out and she adjusted her headset. ‘Good
morn
-ing, Trident Tee-
veeee
.’ Oh well, I thought. ‘Oh
hello
, Joan…’ I’d get it out of her another time. ‘No, it’s okay. Yes.
Ye-es.
I
do
know her…
Really…
?’

The first of my Valentines was from an anonymous viewer with a number of suggested questions for the show—all of them concerning the dimensions of a particular part of his anatomy. I put it straight in the bin. The second and third were from two guys who were desperate to get on the quiz and thought I might be impressed by their egghead credentials.
I was Radio Wales’s Pub Quiz runner-up,
said the first.
I was ‘Britain’s Brainiest Estate Agent’
! declared the second. The fourth card was from the Merseyside Quiz League.
There aren’t 22 properties on the Monopoly board,
they’d written
. There are actually 28 if you include the four stations and the two utilities. But there are 22 property
squares
. But, apart from that glaring, and frankly surprising error, we love the show. Yours in quizzing, MQL
. The fifth card was from Luke. I opened it last because I recognized his hand-writing. It was a sketch of me, in red chalk, on brown paper, in the shape of a heart.
I’ll pick you up at seven thirty
, he’d written.
We’re going on a mystery date…

At six thirty I was at home trying to tame my hair with industrial quantities of de-frizzing mousse and my hair-straightening iron when I heard the buzz of the entryphone. I opened the door. A young, fit-looking man was standing there, with a large holdall.

‘Please Miss,’ he began, holding up a photocard, ‘I’m a prisoner on day-release from Wandsworth…’ My heart sank. ‘But
don’t
shut the door in my face;
don’t
send me away on a cold night without buying
something
from me, just a dishcloth, or a duster…’

And that’s another thing I don’t like—the lachrymose sales pitch these guys always give you. I ended up adding another tub of
Astonish
to my vast collection, then carried on trying to smooth my hair. At ten past seven, as I was putting on my mascara, I heard the entryphone buzz again. I heard Cynthia’s door open, then her descending footfall.

‘Ooh,
so
sorry,’ I heard her simper. ‘I thought you were my seven o’clock.
Laura
!’ I could hear her strings of pearls clicking against each other. I opened the door. ‘You’ve got a gentleman caller,’ she smirked. Luke was standing on the threshold, clutching a huge bunch of flowers.

‘Thanks, Cynthia,’ I said. I’d been avoiding her since last week so I decided to be friendly—not least because I was happy. As I ushered Luke inside, I noticed her scent—
Intuition
—and her sand-coloured cashmere cardigan; as usual, she wasexpensively dressed.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m a bit early.’ Suddenly his mobile phone rang and he winced as he looked at the screen.

‘You did say romance was in the air,’ I reminded Cynthia pleasantly as he stepped outside again.

‘Yes,’ she said, slightly smugly. ‘I
did
.’ I smiled at her. She was okay really. Just a bit odd. She nodded at Luke. ‘But not with him.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Not with
him
,’ Cynthia repeated patiently, as Luke walked wearily down the steps. I stared at her. Bloody cheek!

‘Yes, Magda’, we heard him say. ‘Well, no, it’s
not
a good moment actually. Okay—o-
kay
…’ He turned and rolled his eyes at me. ‘No Magda, you’ve got that
all
wrong…’

‘Thank you Cynthia,’ I said, ‘but I don’t need any more of your predictions. To be honest, I don’t find them very accurate.’ She was driving me mad. Okay, she’d identified that Nick was missing, but she could easily have got that from one of my neighbours. Knowing them, she probably did. Plus the stuff about the flowers was quite obviously crap.

‘Would you like me to video
University Challenge
for you?’ she enquired pleasantly, ignoring the slight.

‘No,’ I said, rather sharply. ‘No thanks.’

‘It’s the first semi-final—should be very exciting—Loughborough v. Leicester.’

‘It’s okay. I really don’t mind.’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Luke as he came in again. ‘It was my nightly ear-bashing.’