The Love Market (12 page)

We resume walking. I remember kisses with Mike. There was niceness. There was certainly love. But there was never real fire.

‘Well as my dad once told me years ago, you don’t have to marry someone just because they want to marry you,’ I tell her.

‘I know, but it’s hard to walk away from someone who loves you. You worry that no one else will be along to love you in the same way.’

‘Well, Jacq, people marry for all kinds of reasons. But you don’t want that particular reason to be yours.’

Something dawns on me. ‘Rich isn’t unwell again is he?’ I have noticed that her usual sparkle has been missing for a while. I know that Rich has suffered from depression in the past, and it really got Jacqui down in the early days. But he changed his medication some time ago and seems fine now. Or, at least, she never brings it up any more.

‘No, he’s fine,’ she says flatly. ‘It’s not that. Not really. To coin a phrase, it’s me not him.’

‘So what happens when he whisks you away and proposes?’

She meets me full on and her eyes suddenly fill with tears. ‘I don’t know. Part of me wants to stop the holiday, and stop the birthday so it won’t happen. I’m dreading being on that precipice. Where whatever I say might be the wrong thing.’

‘Well, I’m sure that even if you tell him you don’t want to get married he’ll just accept it, and you’ll go on as is.’

‘But it’s not fair for me to make him compromise what he wants, is it? And I’m just not sure it’s what I want. Or that I want to marry anyone. Do I have to have a marriage contract dictating how I live the rest of my life? Just because everybody else seems to have one? Then we’ll end up having a baby and I’ll never get to do all the things I want to do.’

‘Like?’ We sit briefly on the steps of Grey’s Monument, the tall pillar erected in memory of the former Earl and British Prime Minister; the man who lent his name to an aromatic blend of tea.

‘I don’t know. But there are things. Just because I can’t think of them right now doesn’t mean I won’t the second I know for sure that I’m not going to be able to do any of them.’

She takes a foot out of her stiletto, and wiggles her toes. There is a red groove across the top of her foot. ‘Well if Rich isn’t the one, don’t marry him. That’s about the only advice I feel completely confident in giving you. That would be the unkindest thing you could do to him.’

‘I’ll take that as good advice coming from you,’ she says.

She forces her shoe back on and we cross the road and head into Fenwick’s department store, to scout out their designer floor for her party dress. ‘Imagine if he came here,’ she says. For a second I think she’s talking about lover boy at work.

‘Who?’

‘Patrick, of course.’ She heads straight to the Karen Millen section like a girl on a mission.

‘Patrick is not going to come here! Now we’re being ridiculous!’

She looks over her shoulder at me as she walks. ‘How can you be so certain? It’s wide open, Celine. Neither of you is married any more. You at least have to email him again.’ It comes off as a plea.

‘I never emailed him in the first place!’

She grins. ‘You have to. This is your once chance to have what you’ve always thought you wanted.’

‘Leave me alone!’ I playfully hide behind a mannequin.

‘I will never leave you alone on this. I’m not going to have your divorce be all for nothing.’

I think about what an odd remark that was. And something else I always wonder about: in believing that Patrick would have been right for me, did that automatically make Mike wrong? Can’t two people be right for you? Or five? Or forty? Did I sabotage my marriage’s chance for success by always holding onto four days I spent with someone else, when I was young and impressionable and I’d never experienced that kind of feeling?

‘Do you remember how I used to get rid of you as a kid, when you got on my nerves?’ I ask her.

Jacqui’s Achilles heel: I discovered it when we were watching the telly and an advert came on with a talking octopus trying to sell an anti-itch remedy. Jacqui took a screaming fit and locked herself in the loo for half an hour. I reckoned she couldn’t be afraid of a box of anti-itch cream, so it had to have been the octopus. So I thought, what happens if I draw a picture of one, just as an experiment, and show it to her? I was quite a good drawer. Although I didn’t have to be... For even a quick doodle of a hand with eight fingers was enough to send Jacqui into a spasm of screams. All I had to do was wag my pen when I saw her coming with her trying-to-befriend-me routine and she’d run for days and leave me in peace.

‘I’m about to pull out a pen and paper.’

She laughs, holds up both hands. ‘Okay. I won’t try to meddle in your life ever again! But promise me you’ll email him. Send him a picture of Aimee, or the cat. Anything. Or if you don’t…’ She flits off to another rack. ‘I will.’

James Halton Daly signs back my Love Market contract. I ring Trish to let her know. She squeals laughing when I tell her about the fake date.

‘What’s with all the issues all the ex-dates have got? I’m thinking he’s the one with issues. Issues issues,’ I tell her.

‘But it’s good that he’s picky, isn’t it? Once he’s written them off, he doesn’t mess around with them.’

‘You like him, don’t you?’ I pull up a photo of him on my laptop. His aristocratic good looks. The charm that oozes out of him.

She’s silent for a second. ‘Of course! We’re good mates. You know how we met, right? I told you? I was mates with his best friend Andy at Uni, who now lives in Newcastle. But since we graduated, whenever James comes up here to see Andy, he and I seem to spend more time together, because Andy’s girlfriend always wants to be in tow and that pisses James off. So now, James will tend to phone me and make plans with me, and invite Andy, and if Andy brings his girl, then it’s not so bad, since James has me to talk to.’

‘He’s very attractive, isn’t he?’ I ask her.

She falls silent then laughs. ‘Ergh? What? Attractive? God! I mean he is. In a way. His personality. But do I personally fancy him?’ She over-laughs. ‘Don’t you think he’s a little bit, you know? Gay?’

I bring him up in my mind, sitting across from me at the table. ‘He’s a bit of a Ra Ra Rupert. I particularly liked the popped collar of his tweed jacket.’

She howls. ‘Oh God, tell me he didn’t pop his collar?’

‘He did. Anyway, enough of James. The real reason I called, is that I have someone for you. A professional athlete. Football. Premier division. Retired. A knee injury.’

‘So he’ll be pissed off at life, and in chronic agony. My kind of man.’

‘I don’t think he’s either of those things. He’s cute, laid back, nice Irish accent… He’s heading up an initiative to send underprivileged kids to football camps in the summer. And he says he’s had it with WAG wannabes. He wants somebody interesting and he’s more into hiking than nightclubs.’

‘Okay. I’m in,’ she says.

‘But the catch is I want you to go on a real date with him.’

‘But I don’t do real dates. I told you.’

‘But he’s initially quite shy. I don’t see him doing great in the “hit and run” coffee shop atmosphere.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind and won’t hold it against him.’

When we ring off I stare for a moment or two at James’s signed contract. ‘
Find me someone as sexy as you, and you might be in for a bonus,
’ he scribbled on a yellow Post-It note.

Cheeky!

We have a spell of peaceful living. And then we have a flood.

Aimee is standing there with a towel around her, dark blue-varnished toe nails sinking into the rug. Water is climbing steadily up the side of the bathtub. ‘Turn the tap off!” I screech as it gets dangerously near the top.

‘Duh! I’ve tried that.’

She pulled out the plug but the water won’t drain. ‘It’s all your hair clogging it! I’ve told you about washing your hair in the bath.’

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I’ll wash it in the sink and clog up the sink next time.’

I realise we need to switch off the stop tap.

‘You’ll have to ring your dad,’ I tell her.

Pause. Glower. ‘Why can’t you ring him?’

‘Aimee, you’ll understand why I can’t ring him when you’re grown up. Now please, can you ring him and without telling him why you need the information, just casually ask him where the main water stop tap is?’ I can’t believe I don’t know this.

She tuts like I’m certifiable. Meanwhile, I start ladling water from the bathtub to the toilet with a bucket as water is now spilling onto the floor and in no time it’ll be through the ceiling. ‘Go on!’ I scream at her.

‘The bath’s overflowing and Mum doesn’t know where the stop tap is,’ I hear her say to her dad. Then a withering look in my direction. An outstretched hand, with the phone in it. ‘He wants to talk to you.’

I grab the phone off her. ‘Yes Mike.’

‘Have you given any more thought to my proposition?’

‘Your…? Can we talk about that later?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘I think we should talk about it now.’

‘My bath is overflowing.’

‘Then you better talk fast.’

‘And if I haven’t given any thought to your proposition?’

Pause. ‘Better get your wellies out then.’

I glance at Aimee. ‘Hang on. You mean, if I say no I’m not doing it, then you’re not going to tell me where the tap is?’

‘Yep.’

‘And I’m going to suffer water damage? And have to spend loads of money to correct it?’

Aimee rolls her eyes and walks out of the bathroom.

‘Yep.’

‘Mike,’ I say, patiently. ‘I’m going to ask you this nicely, because I know you are a kind person and you won’t do this to me. Please tell me where the stop tap is, before we flood our house.’

‘Are you agreeing to find me a girlfriend?’

I now have wet feet. ‘Fine!’ I scream.

‘Great. It’s in the cupboard under the stairs. You go in there every day to get your shoes. It’s got a red handle.’

On Saturday night, Aimee is staying with Mike, and I turn down a chance to go out for drinks with a female client, and decide instead, to phone Patrick.

I’m just creeping around the phone, as though it’s a sleeping wild beast, and thinking, Oh God, I can’t do this! I haven’t a clue what I’ll say! What if he’s home with a girlfriend? What if I look desperate?—when it rings.

I recognise the unusual number on my call display, and die a small death. When I recover, I pick it up and say, ‘I was just going to phone you!’

‘No you weren’t,’ he says.

I beam. ‘No, really, I was. I’m totally serious.’

‘So I’ve got you where I want you, have I? As keen to talk to me as I am to talk to you?’

I light up now, and plonk down in a chair, throwing my legs over the side. ‘I might have to learn to be less of a sure bet, then.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Don’t do that. Please. Just be who you are.’

Silence now, while I recover from that comment. While I try to picture him sitting across the Atlantic, having got up the courage to call me again.

‘Tell me about your life,’ he says.

I laugh. ‘What?’

‘Anything you like. Tell me about a day in the life of Celine Walker, from northern England?’ He calls me by my maiden name.

I fidget and have no idea what to say so I start to say nothing of any importance. ‘Well…. for example, today I went running. Well, no, I mean, I woke up early, had breakfast with my daughter, then Mike—my ex-husband picked her up—I went running through Tyne Valley park with my sister. Then we had lunch. Then I came home…’ I wonder if he’s died of boredom. ‘I rang my father to see how he was doing. Did two loads of laundry. Opened a bottle of wine and now I’m sitting here. Talking to you.’

I hear him moving around.

‘I know. It’s so thrilling, you’re speechless.’

‘No. I’m just enjoying listening to you.’

‘I didn’t think you’d ring again,’ I tell him.

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘I don’t believe that. You must have known I would.’

I am tongue-tied. I get up and go over to my laptop, and after a few clicks, have pulled up that latest picture of him. ‘And you?’ I say, gazing at his face. ‘What did you do today?’

He sounds like he’s moving papers around. ‘Well, I marked some assignments—I’ve been teaching a course at a local university. Then I spent a lot of time on the Internet,’ he says. ‘Booking a flight. I have to go away for business. Research, I suppose you would say.’

‘I suppose you travel a lot.’

‘I do. Yes.’

‘That’s interesting. I can’t begin to imagine your life, and actually, it doesn’t sound interesting, it sounds exhausting! Where are you off to this time? Anywhere nice?’

He stops shuffling things. ‘Well that’s the reason for my call actually. Other than the fact that since I last phoned you I’ve thought of nothing else except talking to you again and hearing your voice—I’m actually phoning because in two weeks time I’m going to be in London.’