Love Is a Thief (36 page)

‘Enough said,’ she said, pulling me in for a big cuddle, planting a kiss firmly on my cheek. ‘Well, good luck on your travels. We are all very proud of you. And remember, come straight round to see me when you get back. I am sure we will have so much to tell each other!’ She patted me on the knee and got up to get another cup of non-breastbone-warming tea. I watched her walk off, one half of a pair, Len the other piece of her puzzle. Would I feel like a complete puzzle after six months devoted to the pursuit of my own happiness, or would a piece of my puzzle still be missing? And why did that piece feel more and more as if it belonged to Peter Parker?

Since that day in my office and the revelation of my impromptu plan to disappear for six months Peter had made
himself incredibly busy, with puppy day care, reinstating his penthouse to pristine condition, building a new water conservation plant in West Africa, which seemed plain old selfish seeing as I was going away for six months. And his preoccupation with his own life left me to deal with my own, which consisted of overwhelming anxieties about not seeing him. Did I like Peter too much to go away even though we weren’t a couple? Should I tell him? Should I seek out the advice of my friends and run the risk of them publicly shaming me like a fraudulent expense-claiming politician? I could already see Chad’s gleeful face.
‘Fall of the already fallen angel,’
he’d yell.
‘How to make the same twatting mistake time and time again to the financial gain of your magnificent twatting boss.’

Personal choice, honouring one’s own dreams and ambitions, choosing to do things that bring you joy in the absence of everything else; true, sustainable, healthy, freestanding happiness. I wanted to feel the contentment of reaching my true potential. These were some of the most basic lessons I’d learnt on my Love-Stolen Dreams journey yet they were proving to be the hardest to apply. I was choosing to take myself far away in order to fulfil personal ambitions. It should be easy. I knew it made sense. The maths added up. But the voice in my head kept saying over and over and over again, ‘If you go away Peter Parker will meet someone else.’ And by this point I didn’t want Peter Parker to meet anyone at all. I wanted him to be a piece in my puzzle.

‘What on earth are you doing out here?’ Grandma demanded, having burst out of the double doors of the floating restaurant. ‘Absolutely everyone is waiting for you inside!’
She tutted, then stomped off. I had no idea how
everyone
had managed to get inside without me noticing
any
of them walk past, or how my grandma could be annoyed at me for following her instructions to the letter and waiting exactly where I’d been told, which made it official. I was unable to interpret people or situations. When Peter Parker turned up I would definitely
not
tell him about my all-consuming thoughts about him, or about my inability to stop eating Quality Street Strawberry Creams, because it was very possible I had misinterpreted and misunderstood both.

inside the floating restaurant

‘Is
there a second bridge?’ I asked Federico after walking into the floating restaurant to find over 200 people waiting inside; 200 people who had miraculously managed to walk past me without me noticing a single one. How deep in thought had I been on the terrace? Had I gone into a Peter-Parker-induced thought coma? Federico looked confused.

‘Federico,’ I whispered again. ‘Is there another bridge, here? Is there another way?’

‘Is this a test?’ he whispered excitedly. ‘Is there another bridge?’ He opened his eyes so wide I thought they might pop out.

‘What?’ I said.

‘What?’ he said back. ‘You know, Kat-kins, I’ve always thought there were lots of
ways
and lots of
bridges
,’ he said, frantically nodding his head. ‘You are like a poet, Kat-kins,’ he said, kissing me on the cheek then wandering off, muttering to himself, ‘There is
always
another bridge, Federico Cagassi, you just remember that.’

‘We’re going global, darling,’ Grandma said, marching past me and locking the restaurant door so no one else could get in, or out. I didn’t know if Peter had arrived or if the Tupperware container of Strawberry Creams had safely found their way to the buffet table.

Grandma pressed a button on a remote control and I turned to see all the electric shutters on the windows close. It left us in total darkness. Bright lights suddenly burst on and my grandma seemed to be wearing a headset and carrying a small clicker. She pressed it and an enormous map of the world (once again with a headshot of me in the middle, early 1990s, after a disastrous perm) moved slowly through the air until it was behind her with spotlights on it. It was the first time I had ever looked at the ceiling of the floating restaurant. It had more cables, wires and lighting installations than the O2 arena. What on earth did they use this place for when they weren’t eating here?

‘Everybody, may I have your attention?’ All the lights went down, except a spotlight on Grandma. Dramatic music started playing. Who was coordinating all of this? ‘Can everyone please take a seat?’ Everyone did. All the hundreds of people who utilised an entirely different means of entry to me sat on seats, at my strange leaving party. I could see
Fat Campers
mixed up with pensioners, Julio and Edmundo and the LSD Dance Crew, Beatrice talking to Jane and James. Mary was hovering near a plate of sausage rolls. Leah had a sleeping Henry in her arms. Chad was standing close to Delaware, staring at her; Loosie was furiously scribbling notes. Even Jenny Sullivan was there with her very own camera crew filming goodness knows
what. I could see the faces of friends, family, colleagues, women whose lives had hopefully changed for the better. The only face I couldn’t see was Peter’s.

‘We have all watched and participated in this thing called Love-Stolen Dreams,’ Grandma began. ‘Looking closely at ourselves and our lives; reassessing our choices; taking back things we may have lost when we fell in love. Some of us have been changed by it,’ she said, looking to Mary. ‘Some of us have helped others,’ she said, looking to Federico. ‘All of us have been moved or affected by it in some way. Whether that be by the realisation that there was a part of ourselves we’d forgotten about, or the acknowledgement that love had not always brought us joy, or by having to stand up and say that we did the best we could do, under the circumstances, with the knowledge and experience we had at the time. I personally feel privileged to have met the women I have met.’ She looked around the room. ‘To have watched the experiences they have had.’ Everyone was nodding along, including the pensioners, and not in a sleep-fighting kind of way. ‘To have seen the challenges they faced and the obstacles they had to overcome. And I have faced my own challenges. Reassessing my own ideas about what love is, how powerful it can be, how negative and, conversely, how wonderfully positive it can be.’ Different faces across the room kept looking over to me and smiling. What would they think if they knew the real me, the founder of Love-Stolen Dreams, had learnt nothing at all and was desperate for her childhood friend, a man she wasn’t even romantically involved with, to burst in the room and ask her to stick around so they could continue to hang out, maybe from time
to time lie platonically next to each other in her bed, eventually, one would hope, rip each other’s clothes off and turn each other’s faces bright pink through non-conventional aerobic exercise. I was like Judas at the Last Supper, sipping from the Cup of Life when secretly I’d already had a Big Mac and Diet Coke with King Herod at the local drive-through. ‘So today marks the end of an era,’ Grandma continued. ‘The end of the first chapter.’ Chad was nodding along as she spoke. ‘We are beginning to make an impact in the UK, so now we are going global!’ Everyone started cheering. The pensioners were loudest of all. ‘And we are starting by sending Kate to Canada.’ Yet more whooping. I was starting to feel nauseous. ‘Kate, here is your phone, laptop and GPS so we can locate you
at all times
. Our job is to find women all across the globe, women who have lost themselves, whether in love, out of love or while they are waiting for love to arrive. With Chad’s help and the dedicated team of scouts here, we will locate and make contact with these women. The writers at
True Love
will capture the stories. We are going to make change through action. If every woman we help goes on to help another woman, the domino effect could be far-reaching. This is a movement. Welcome to Love-Stolen Dreams
Goes Global
.’

Everyone started cheering. I looked at the madness all around me. It was bigger than anything I could ever have imagined and somehow I no longer felt a part of it. All I could think about was Peter. Why wasn’t this quest, this thing I fought so hard to start, to maintain, to grow, why wasn’t it enough for me any more? Was I a giant void of a person, a black hole, continually sucking things into my
endless bottomless abyss? Is that why I couldn’t stop eating Quality Street? Because of the black hole in my soul that now wanted Peter Parker as well as everyone’s love-stolen dreams. Did I have an emotional, actual and metaphorical universe-devouring eating disorder?

I slipped away from the madness, out of the nearest door, back onto the decked terrace and the cool night air. Chad followed me a few moments later, lit a cigarette and hovered by my side, both of us staring out at the dark and peaceful lake.

‘First the pendulum swings one way. Then it swings back the other way. Eventually, you hope it stops somewhere in the middle.’ He rolled back and forwards on his heels and took a big drag on his cigarette. I had no idea what he was talking about.

‘Chad, is this about the second secret bridge and all the other access routes? Because I think Federico misunderstood me.’ Actually I didn’t think it, I knew it. He totally misunderstood me, as per normal.

‘There is always another side to a story. There is always the other side of the coin. Everyone goes to the dark side before going to the light.’ Oh, God, this was awkward. He was talking total and utter rubbish. ‘Nothing in life is without confusion and struggle. No man is an, oh, for twat’s sake, Kate—’ He flicked his half-finished cigarette in the lake and immediately lit another one, then he sighed heavily and turned to face me. ‘Did you really think this was going to be enough for you forever?’ He nodded to the door to the floating restaurant where the sounds of laughter and animated conversation were seeping out like beams of light around a door frame.

‘Chad, I have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘You’re not a fraud if you are worried about leaving this Peter Parker. I assume he is the cause of your sullen-looking face tonight? Personally I expected you to be high-fiving everyone and chest-bumping your grandma but he’s not here, and your face is like that.’ He waved his hand in front of my face.

‘My face isn’t sullen. It’s a look of concentration. It’s a … It’s … I don’t know what it is.’

‘Kate, there are very few certainties in life, and most of them you learn as a child. Sporting ability, good looks and even being very funny can get you some kudos but they are all to a degree God-given, dished out at birth, rarely to the most deserving. And if you don’t have those things when you are a young boy—and you are a young boy who already knows he’s gay—there is only one thing that helps you fit in, and that’s money. Money can buy you acceptance, respect, adoration. Money can protect you in all kinds of ways. And
True Love
has given me money, status, power. And that has always felt like it was enough for me. Until I started watching you do the exact same thing.’

‘I am the least money-orientated person I know.’

‘I’m not saying you are chasing money. But working as you do, taking back things that other people lost, you are controlling the controllables. And it’s been the best thing that’s ever happened to my magazine, and it might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to me, to watch people being brave and pushing themselves out of their comfort zone, everyone accepting each other even if those people have none of the twatting qualities I grew up believing were
important. Well, let’s just say it’s been more fulfilling than when our main feature was the percale content of bed sheets in honeymoon suites. Just don’t wait too long, Kate, to let the uncontrollables back into your life again. Don’t switch off your feelings and your emotions for too long, don’t try and control them, because, I promise you, it’s not like riding a bike. It gets harder and harder to open yourself back up to someone, to allow yourself to feel. And for some people, eventually, it becomes impossible.’ He took a heavy drag on his cigarette. ‘Everyone is scared of having feelings, Kate. Everyone is scared of being hurt, abandoned,
rejected
, but people need people. You must have seen that, throughout this whole journey, that one absolute constant. People need people. The pendulum swings one way. Then it swings back the other way. But eventually we hope it stops somewhere close to the centre.’ He flicked his cigarette in the lake and wandered back to the party.

I stood on the terrace for several minutes, breathing in the cold night air, listening to the laughter and joy coming from inside the floating restaurant. It was a million miles from the cold night in France when I had packed my bags and left Gabriel, a million miles and a million stories. Was I finally ready to start my own? And was it going to be the story I had imagined?

‘never apologise for showing feelings for when you do so you apologise for the truth’ (benjamin disraeli)

Two-fold plans. I’d learnt all about them watching
The A-Team
. Fold one normally requires many complicated things to happen, at exactly the right moment, against all odds, and those things then allow fold two to take place, which involves an explosion and driving through some kind of barrier. And then, when all the folds have been folded, the leader of the A-Team, who was called Hannibal long before that cannibal Hannibal was named as such, he says,
‘I love it when a plan comes together,’
and what he meant by that was,
‘Thank goodness my two-fold plan worked.’