The Love Market (24 page)

‘Ouch!’ Aimee chuckles from the floor where she’s sitting cross-legged. ‘Victory!’

‘That wasn’t fair! You were distracting me by talking!’

‘Oh that’s what it was!’ Mike says. ‘We just thought you were totally crap.’

Jennifer and Anthea protest, playfully: that kind of comment isn’t called for.

‘Look if you turn the Wiimote inward like this to cover your face…’ Mike comes to show me, but I suddenly think, oh! I know what he means now about a big uppercut! So I uppercut like there’s no tomorrow, and make contact high up on his cheek.

‘Ow!’ he says, as the others fold up laughing. ‘And then, ‘Bugger!’ and then, ‘All right. I think you’ve won. You play dirty.’

I instinctively go to touch him and stifle a laugh, thinking, heavens, maybe I have hurt him! ‘Oooh, are you all right?’ Anthea becomes animated. I feel bad for thinking unkind things about her, but I notice she has a manly way of sitting, with her knees flared, and I can’t help smiling. And because I’ve had three glasses of wine, it tickles my sense of humour more than it would normally do, so I have to stand there and hide my face with my hand.

When I look up again, Mike thinks it’s him I’m finding so amusing. But judging by the daggers I can feel in my back, my father is on to me. We hold eyes for a second. Mike makes a big play of touching his cheek. ‘I’ll survive. If you can fetch me a bucket for the blood, and a needle and thread.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him, feeling terrible for laughing at Anthea. I glance at my father again. He is still peering at me from narrowed eyes. Mike just goes on looking at me fondly, and when I catch his expression I can’t let go of it.

And I’m no longer laughing any more. I’m just standing looking at him like this.

As he is I.

And for a while neither of us can stop.

~ * * * ~

My dad and Anthea are the first to leave. As Anthea goes to the toilet and my dad waits for her at the door, he pulls out an envelope from the inner pocket of his blazer, and shoves it at me. ‘Now you’ve finished wetting yourself over my girlfriend, give this to Sandra for me please.’

It takes me a moment to think. Sandra? Sandra who?

Sandra my
client
!

‘Dad! I growl. ‘When is enough, enough?’

‘It’s never enough,’ he says, desperately. ‘Please,’ he implores. ‘I really need you to just give it to her.’ My dad’s eyes are combing my face in urgent, desperate strides, as though his life depends on my taking it. Then we are both aware that Anthea appears at the top of the staircase. I take the envelope off him and put it in my jeans pocket.

Anthea thanks me and says she’s had a lovely day. She gives me a hug, a rib-cracking grasp around my upper back that would register injury on an X-ray.

At the door, Jennifer unknots a creased pink cardigan that she’s had tied around the straps of her handbag, and slips it across her shoulders. As she reaches to pull it around herself, the fabric between the buttons of her shirt gapes and I get a private view of a canyon of cleavage.

Mike must see too, because his cheeks flush when we make eye contact.

‘Good heavens,’ I suddenly say. ‘Mike, I think you’ve got a bruise!’ I go to touch his cheek but stop myself. He touches his face. Jennifer zooms right in on him like she’s short-sighted. ‘Oh she’s right, you do!’ she cups her mouth, hiding a smile. ‘You walloped him one pretty good!’

‘Sorry,’ I tell him again. ‘How will you explain that at work?’

‘I’ll just tell people you punched me. What else?’

‘While we were playing Wii!’

‘I might selectively leave that bit out.’

‘Goodnight,’ I say, as they walk out. Mike and Jennifer thank me again. Jennifer gives me a snuggle, her big, pillowy chest buffering up against me.

~ * * * ~

Q: What made me love him?

A: Because Mike is the kind of man who loves you limitlessly. He’s not slick, isn’t a game-player, has no agenda, isn’t in competition with you, isn’t ever possessive. And yet you have a feeling he never quite lets you out of his sight. When he commits he goes all the way. Mike is in your corner, and he lets you know it all those times you need him to. Mike is guileless; he’s not vain, nor is he ashamed of himself.

Q: What do I admire about him?

A: All of the above. Plus, he won’t be broken. Mike has an inner resilience that comes out in subtle ways. And because you can’t break him, that strength rubs off on you. Mike doesn’t need to impress anyone. He’s had better job offers, chances to make more money, but sticks where he is happiest. Mike is not a patsy, nor is he afraid to stand up for a principle. He will throw a teenager off a train if the lad swears at him. He’ll report a bus driver for not waiting for the senior who was hurrying to the stop with her hand out. Mike is what you’d want your little boy to be, if you had a son.

Q: What does he do to make me feel good?

A: Makes me laugh. Forgives me. Doesn’t take me too seriously, especially when I’m taking myself too seriously. Will tickle me to sleep. Will push me to get out of the house on a day when I don’t feel like going anywhere. Will never let me feel sorry for myself unless it’s for a good reason. And then, only for five minutes. Encourages me always. Tells me I am beautiful. Often.

Q What do I miss most?

It was the last question. But the one I couldn’t pass on to Jennifer. I didn’t even commit the answer to paper, it just floats around somewhere in my mind:

How we had a fit. It may not have been perfect. I didn’t set out looking for perfect from him in the first place, so I don’t know why I was so disappointed. It certainly wasn’t the extreme of square peg in round hole. It was what it was.

A writer for
Hers
magazine wants to interview me. She contacts me through my website saying she’s doing a piece on “Modern Love” and plans to explore international online franchises like Match.com and DatingDirect, and then the smaller boutiques like myself. She says she was attracted to me initially because of the name The Love Market and wonders if she might phone me for a chat.

I Google the mag, and it’s got a circulation of 350,000. It would amount to the sort of advertising value that I could never start to quantify. If I ever sit here pouting over my significantly dwindled income since the divorce, and telling myself I have to find ways to grow my business, I might just have found it. Or, rather, it has found me.

No sooner do I type back, “Yes! I’d love to chat.” than she rings me.

~ * * * ~

‘We talked nearly an hour!’ I tell Jacqui, down my local pub, settling into an aged velvet corner seat, surrounded by low, oak-beamed walls, lined with brass horseshoes, and plaques that say things like Good Food. Good Fun. Good Friends. ‘Right off she wanted to know how I came up with the name the Love Market, so of course I told her all about the Love Market in Sa Pa, how I went there, how I met Patrick… She was fascinated. By the time we rang off, she knew the whole story of how you ended up playing matchmaker and bringing him back into my life. So she wants to interview us.’

‘Do you think Patrick will be up for it?’

I clutch my half pint of Guinness. ‘Not Patrick! You and me.’

‘Me?’ Jacqui glares at me.

‘She said that since we chatted the focus of her article was going to change. She was so intrigued that she wants to feature me and the story of how Patrick and I met, and reconnected. She loves the whole angle of how a successful matchmaker is unsuccessful in her own love life, until her sister does a bit of matchmaking and reunites her with her lost love.’

Jacqui looks stunned. ‘Well that sounds like a jolly story, but don’t you think it’s a bit personal? The whole of the country getting to read about how you had sex with a married man, then thought about him all the time you were married to Mike, then two minutes after you’re divorced, he’s back in your life again?’

I stare into the froth on my drink. ‘I didn’t see it that way.’ But of course now I do. ‘I don’t have to tell her all the intimate details…’ I look at her and see disappointment in her eyes. ‘Jacq, I’m doing it because I need to earn more money. I have to think of Aimee’s future.’

‘Sorry, I know. You’re right. It just seems odd, them writing all about you. As though you’re a big celebrity or something.’

‘This isn’t about me thinking I’m Cheryl Cole. It’s a business decision. Getting The Love Market out there, even if it’s via them writing about me, isn’t an opportunity I can afford to turn down.’

I peer at her for some sign of understanding, but she won’t look me in the eyes.

‘I just think when Mike reads it, it’s gong to be like rubbing his nose in the whole Patrick thing. How’s he going to feel?’

I open my mouth and stagger for an answer. ‘Well, he’s dating Jennifer now, isn’t he?’

‘That’s completely different. And… well, just because they’re going out together doesn’t mean anything. I don’t believe he’s crazy about her. Not for one minute.’

This stills me for a few seconds. ‘Look, Jacq, I realise I’m going to have to tell him, at some point. But it’s not as though I’m about to get married again! Patrick lives in another country. He’s just accepted a job that’s going to keep him there for ever more!’

‘But you are going to have to tell Mike about him if you end up going to Canada next month.’

‘I know.’ I turn and stare across the bar, my eyes falling on a group of attractive girls being hit on by decent-looking lads holding pints. Does she think I haven’t thought about this a hundred times?

She cocks her head. ‘Surely that’s not why you don’t seem excited about going?’

‘Who says I’m not excited?’

She studies me while I try not to look at her. ‘I don’t know. You don’t seem to be. Not massively.’

I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. I take a drink instead.

‘It’s just because I’ve not convinced Aimee yet. What’s the point of getting all built up about it if it’s not going to happen?’

‘You know she’ll want to go. Canada? It’s a huge adventure! She probably won’t be thinking much more than that.’

I remember when I went to Greece with my father and his new girlfriend—the one he had left my mother for. Marie. I was Aimee’s age. At first, the idea of going seemed morally repugnant. But a part of me thought: mmm I’ve never been to Greece before…

‘Maybe.’ When I look at her, she’s searching my eyes, as though wondering what distant place my mind has just been off to. ‘I will tell Mike,’ I eventually say. ‘About Patrick, about the article, about everything.’

Jacqui looks worried. ‘Well, just promise me you’ll tell him soon.’

Saturday morning, Trish rings me. ‘You matched me with my James! Not just any James, but MY James! You even told me you were matching me with James and I didn’t even realise! How stupid am I?’

‘If his name had been Jasper, I’d have said you should never have been a lawyer.’

She chuckles. ‘But how did you know?’

‘I just knew. Maybe because on the fake date he kept going on about how fantastic you were, and it was as though he compared every one else to you and found them lacking. And then there was the way you worked overtime to convince me that you weren’t attracted to him.’

‘Me?’ she chortles dirtily. ‘I did that?’

‘You did. And then there was something else. You seemed to really really care about him. Something about you lightened when you talked about him.’

She falls quiet. Then says, ‘Argh!’

‘So how did it go?’ I ask her. ‘Your date?’

‘Oh my God,’ she sounds emotional, ‘do you want to know how shocked I was? I mean, there I was, I arrive at the restaurant and I see James sitting at a table in the corner. And I’m like… hang on What’s he doing here? And he looks up and we both look at each other and then I think James? JAMES? And I say what are you doing here? And he says I’m meeting a girl called Patricia!’ She chortles. ‘The last time anyone has called me Patricia was when I was baptised. I’d almost forgotten that’s my real name.’

‘I had a feeling that if I told him he was meeting a girl called Trish, it would have given the game away.’

She chortles again. ‘Oh, Celine, it was lovely! We actually had a date! A real date! We … I don’t know, we didn’t even have to try, that’s what was so interesting. It just evolved quite naturally.’

I hear some background shuffling, and then, ‘Celine!’ James’s voice. Presumably James has spent the night. ‘Has anybody ever told you you’re quite crafty at your job? But the thing is, there are a few problems with her. One is, she’s a lawyer and, as you know, I never date lawyers, never have and never will, they’re absolutely despicable, argumentative, uncompromising people. Two she’s got issues about sleeping with one of her best friends, as well as some other foibles that I can see being quite problematic in the long term…. Ouch! She’s just bashed me with a feather pillow. See what I mean? And three, I’m really quite in love with her.’