Someone Like You (28 page)

To move on, to meet other people who understand just what it’s like out there on your own: the pain, the hurt, the sleepless nights. I can tell that you understand, Leonie,’

he added heatedly, eyes roving over the purple velvet tunic that made her look even more bosomy than usual. ‘You look like the sort of person who understands things.’

Nodding, Leonie wondered whether he assumed this type of understanding would involve her pulling his head towards her bosom and letting it rest there, comfortingly.

Probably, she decided. Colette had been cast in the role of the perfect partner, the one who’d got away, while Leonie was the Motherly Standin, who’d be good for a bit of affection to stave off pangs of loneliness.

‘Not many people understand what it’s like to be just dumped and left there, all because you’ve changed from the sort of person you were in the beginning,’ Bob said, staring at the remains of his dinner. ‘People change, I know that now, but you can change together. It’s a challenge, but you can do it. You just need the chance.’

‘You mean, Colette didn’t give you the chance?’ Leonie asked, abandoning the attempt to have a Colette-less conversation.

He

shook his head sadly.

Leonie sighed. It was perfectly obvious that Bob didn’t want a partner; he wanted a support group: the Been Dumped, Now Talk About It Group. He’d blindly assumed that a voluptuous blonde divorcee must fit into the same emotional category and that was why he’d answered her advert. He wasn’t looking for love. He was in love. With Colette.

The only positive side of Bob’s descent into emotional misery was that he stopped being so jumpy. Leonie realized that if she was a bit nervous about being seen on a blind date, Bob was positively phobic about it. Every time a waiter appeared within his range of vision, he jerked, as if expecting to see the parents’ committee’ descend upon him and mutter something about blind-dating teachers not being suitable role models for impressionable young minds.

What was he doing here, Leonie wondered, idly crunching up another prawn cracker. They did manage to talk about Bob’s supposed other hobbies: cinema and hill climbing.

‘I’m not much of a climber, although I walk Penny every day. But I love the cinema. I don’t really have anyone to go with because my mother prefers the theatre and the kids want to see James Bond or things with teenage actors I don’t recognize.’

‘We can go together,’ Bob said, sounding pleased. ‘How about this time next week? You pick the movie.’

At least she had a date of sorts for the following week, Leonie reflected as she drove home, stuffed to the gills with Chinese food yet feeling deflated. Bob certainly wasn’t suitable partner material, but he was a new friend and wasn’t that what agony aunts always advised: meet new people, new friends, and, when you’re least expecting it, a partner will appear. It looked good written down, anyhow.

What a strange evening. She realized she’d even talked about Ray. Well, when you were with somebody who was passionately interested in the concept of ex-relationships, you couldn’t help putting in your thruppenceha’penny worth. And Bob had been interested too, although astonished when he realized that she had instigated her marriage breakup. ‘You simply decided it was over?’ he said, shocked.

Leonie shrugged. ‘What was the point of staying married if we weren’t right together?’ she said. ‘Too many people do, purely for convenience, because the other person is there. I don’t understand that. It’s like you’re too scared to do anything different even though you’d secretly like to do it. That’s fear of the unknown, not real love. I couldn’t cope with a life like that. I believe there’s somebody perfect out there for all of us.’

Bob had looked at her so blankly that it was obvious he couldn’t comprehend what she was getting at. Mind you, Leonie thought as she parked outside the cottage, her mother had never been able to understand it either. Every once in a while, the normally orange-juice drinking Claire would have a couple of glasses of wine and start gently berating her daughter for divorcing Ray.

‘You’ll never find a man like Ray,’ she’d mumble sadly.

Leonie thanked the man above she hadn’t revealed anything about her blind date to Claire. Because Bob certainly wasn’t a man like Ray - husband material, in other words.

Mel’s good humour appeared to have evaporated when Leonie got home.

‘Danny’s a spannerhead,’ she said crossly, emerging from the sitting room before her mother had time to struggle out of her coat.

‘Don’t use that type of language, Melanie,’ Leonie said wearily. ‘What’s he done now?’

‘He was watching videos all evening and we couldn’t bring Liz and Susie in to see ER,’ sniffed Mel. ‘And he let them smoke in the house, too,’ she added triumphantly.

‘You can’t keep your mouth shut, can you?’ roared Danny, who could hear what was going on from the sitting room.

‘Well, you let them smoke,’ roared Mel back.

‘Oh yeah, and you’re Miss Goody Two Shoes who’d turn her nose up at a cigarette if she got the chance, right?’

Mel clammed up like a shot. She must have been smoking herself, Leonie realized. That’d have to stop. Mel could forget about ever getting pocket money again if she started smoking. But that was an argument for tomorrow. Leonie felt she’d had enough tonight.

‘Would the two of you stop this bickering,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not in the mood for it. Try and act your age for once.’

Abby was in the kitchen with Penny and her plain face lit up with a grin when Leonie went in.

‘Well done, Mum,’ she said. ‘They’ve been at it since you went out. I nearly rang Gran to ask could I go round to her house to escape. By the way, Hannah rang and asked you to give her a buzz when you got in.’ Abby’s eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘I never pointed out that you were supposed to be with her and Emma.’

Leonie grinned back. ‘I’ll let you in on my secret if you promise to keep it to yourself.’

‘Mum!’ Abby looked wounded. ‘You know I can keep a secret.’

‘Of course, I know you can.’ Abby would carry a secret to the grave, unlike her sister, who’d promise not to breathe a word to anyone but wouldn’t be able to keep it to herself for longer than a day. Leonie didn’t like asking Abby to keep something from her twin, but she knew that while Abby would be pleased her mother had had a date, Mel wouldn’t. Capricious and demanding, Mel liked to be the centre of her mother’s world and wouldn’t have coped well with news of a rival for her affection, even if it was Bob.

‘I was meeting a man for dinner. Hannah set me up with a friend of hers,’ Leonie improvised. ‘He’s very nice and she thought we’d get on. We did,’ Leonie paused delicately, ‘but as friends, really. We’re going to the cinema next week, but we’ll just be friends, nothing else.’

‘Do you still love Dad? Is that why you haven’t got a boyfriend?’ asked Abby suddenly.

Leonie felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach.

‘Is that what you think?’ she asked. ‘That I still love Dad like that, that I’m upset about Fliss?’

Lips clamped together as if she was scared she’d said the wrong thing, Abby nodded mutely.

‘It’s not like that at all, darling,’ Leonie said. ‘I’m happy for Dad, and I’m not in love with him in that way. I love him … but as a friend, as your father, not as anything else.’ God, she thought blankly, what else could she say to convince her daughter that she wasn’t in bits over Ray and Fliss’s nuptials?

‘I’m not upset about the wedding ….’

‘But you looked as if you were,’ blurted out Abby.

‘ ‘Did I?’

Abby nodded.

‘It was a shock, that’s all,’ Leonie said, floundering. She must have looked terrible the day the kids came back from America. She thought she’d hidden it well. Obviously she hadn’t. ‘I didn’t want to go out with anybody when you were younger,’ she said in a rush. ‘It was too hard to think about men when I wanted to look after you all.’ She reached out to touch Abby affectionately.

‘I want you to be happy,’ Abby said, her face crumpling.

‘If Dad is happy, I want you to be too. Is he nice, this man you met tonight?’

For the first time since the strained conversation had started, Leonie smiled genuinely. ‘He’s nice, but he’s not Brad Pitt.’

Abby giggled. ‘Mel would kill you if he was.’

‘He’s a teacher and he’s a lovely man, but I think going to the cinema is as far as we’re going to get. Still, it’s nice to have some new friends. It’s a bit boring going out with the people your father and I knew twenty years ago.’

‘Dad told me he’d love you to come to the wedding,’

Abby said.

Leonie was astonished. ‘That’s sweet of him but… I don’t think it would be a good idea.’

Abby wasn’t finished. Now that she’d broached the subject, she was determined to finish it. ‘We had a big talk one day when Fliss had taken Mel off shopping. He wanted to know how you are and if you’re happy. He says he’s happier than he’s ever been.’

‘Great,’ Leonie said faintly. ‘Of course I’m happy, Abby.

I have you three and Penny and Clover. I don’t need a man to make me happy, you know that. Granny lives alone and she’s happy, isn’t she?’

‘Granny’s different. She doesn’t need anybody.’

Which was true, Leonie reflected. Her mother was one of life’s loners, content with the company of her beloved cats and pleased to dip in and out of her daughter’s life every few days, staying for a cup of tea and then returning to the sanctuary of her own home. Her mother was a solitary woman. Leonie wished she’d inherited that trait.

‘I was thinking the other night about what happens when me and Danny and Mel are gone and you’re here on your own with Penny,’ Abby said. ‘You’ll be lonely. I know I would.’

‘Abby …’ Leonie kissed her daughter on the forehead.

‘That’s a long, long way away. Let’s not even think about a time when you’re not living here, OK? Now, you better hit the hay, love, it’s a school day tomorrow, although your sister seems to have forgotten.’

While Abby went off to tell Mel it was time for bed, Leonie sat down at the kitchen table and phoned Hannah, who was deeply apologetic for having rung while Leonie was still out.

‘It was eleven before I rang and I thought you were meeting him at half seven, I was sure you’d be home. It must have gone well,’ she added, a knowing tone to her voice.

‘Er …’ Leonie hesitated, ‘that depends entirely on your definition of “gone well”,’ she said.

‘Oh.’

‘Oh, is right. I would not expect a wedding invitation to land on your doormat any time soon, let’s put it that way.’

‘Well, I didn’t think you were angling for a white dress anyway, but I take it that Bob didn’t turn out to be the answer to any maiden’s prayers?’

‘Only if the maiden in question was a psychiatrist specializing in post-relationship trauma who needed a subject for her doctoral thesis.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I wish I was. He is a sweet, kind man, but he is obsessed with his ex-girlfriend. On our next date, I’m expecting to see a photo of her,’ Leonie joked.

‘You mean, you’re having a second date!’

‘Not really. We’re going to the cinema together. Probably to something black and white and Swedish,’ she shrugged, ‘but it’ll get me out of the house.’

‘Phone the next guy on your list,’ Hannah urged.

Leonie shook her head and then realized she was on the phone and that Hannah couldn’t see her. ‘I think I’ve had it with blind dates for a while,’ she said. ‘I’ve dipped my big toe in the water and I’m testing the temperature.’

‘Leonie,’ pleaded Hannah, ‘you can’t back out now.

Think of the other guys who answered your ad. They could be wonderful - Mr Wonderful,’ she corrected herself, ‘waiting to happen.’

‘Mr Wonderful can. wait,’ Leonie said firmly. ‘I need a chance to get over my first great date with Bob. And who knows,’ she said, even though she did know, ‘he could turn out to be Mr Wonderful. He may simply need time.’

‘Time in therapy, more like,’ declared Hannah. ‘OK, you win. I’ll keep shtoom about your next date, but there’s a time limit on my silence. I want the romance of the century happening’ soon and I’ll keep nagging you until you get it!’

Hannah got back into bed and began to flick through her copy of Understanding Property: Your Guide to Real Estate. David James had given it to her and she was halfway through it, consuming it greedily in order to know as much as possible about her new career. After talking to Leonie, she found she couldn’t concentrate.

Leonie was a wonderful raconteur. She could make the silliest stories utterly hilarious, especially when she was being self-deprecating. Her version of the date with Bob was a classic but, Hannah thought, it was a pity it hadn’t worked out. Leonie deserved a nice bloke. Like Felix. She dropped her book and hugged her knees to her chest. Felix, Felix, Felix … Even his name was thrilling. He was an incredible guy, dripping with charisma and talent. You name it, he had it. There weren’t words for all the qualities he possessed.

And he was so ambitious, like her. That was one of the things they shared.

‘You’re like the other half of me,’ he’d murmured only the night before. They’d been lying in her bed, Felix on the side where Hannah usually slept, sprawled carelessly on the newly changed sheet, his naked body inviting her to caress it. ‘We have this connection, Hannah: you want the whole world and so do I. It’s a dangerous obsession.’

He played with her hair, curling the strands with his long, sensitive fingers. ‘My career isn’t the only thing I’m obsessed with,’ he added. ‘I’m crazy about you, do you know that?’ he said suddenly, gazing at her, dark eyes brooding.

She was afraid to speak in case she broke the spell. It would be wrong to say she was crazy about him too, although it was true. She could think of nothing else. These last few days, it was a miracle she’d been able to do any work at all for losing herself in a daydream of Felix. She couldn’t understand it really. How she’d miraculously changed overnight from being wary and suspicious just because of him. If Emma or Leonie could see her now, they wouldn’t recognize her: this adoring woman who used to be so in control, who now quivered whenever Felix merely glanced in her direction. Ms Cojones of Steel had turned into a woman in love, and she adored the sensation.