Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating (22 page)

Alice took another sip of champagne and forced herself to smile, as though she was part of the general mood of merriment in the room and not just a bystander to it. Well, what had she expected? she asked herself harshly. Of course she was going to be ignored by most of the table; they were matchmaking heavyweights. She was disappointed with Matteus, though. He was the only other person who was neither a bureau chief nor a DIPS spouse, and she’d hoped for a bit of solidarity. But Matteus had arrived late for dinner, tossed a brief ‘hello’ in her direction, and then spent the rest of the meal either waxing lyrical about himself to Audrey, or heckling Ernie over-familiarly across the table.

So instead Alice had spent the meal feeling like a cross between a gatecrasher and a gooseberry. She looked around for a waitress to top up her glass. She needed a drink. But the waitresses were all busy elsewhere. So she looked at Audrey, who was staring at Matteus with fixed, glassy eyes as he loudly told her about his boundless professional achievements. But Alice knew all of Audrey’s expressions – especially the negative ones – and the look she was currently sporting told her that she wasn’t listening to a word he was saying. This was probably because, unless Alice was very much mistaken, Audrey was well on her way to being three sheets to the wind. Oh, the beautiful irony of it! Alice suppressed her first genuine smile of the night.

Her thoughts drifted to John. He seemed nice. Much nicer
than she’d expected Audrey’s husband to be. He was younger than she’d imagined too, and actually very handsome. She wondered what he saw in Audrey; they seemed such a mismatched couple. She tried to think nice, positive thoughts. Love was always perplexing. So many couples who shouldn’t match on paper fell wildly and permanently in love. That must have happened to Audrey and John. And Audrey must have plenty of good points – even if she did keep them hidden. Maybe she was a fantastic cook, or a kind and supportive partner, or even – the very thought made Alice feel queasy – an amazing lover. Maybe that was it! Maybe Audrey was red-hot between the sheets! How else could she explain handsome, polite, gentlemanly John being married to her bullish, diplomatically disastrous boss?

At that moment John looked up and caught Alice staring at him. He smiled. Alice buried her eyes in her plate, her cheeks burning. She tried to remember what her face had been doing whilst she’d been looking at him. What if she’d been imagining Audrey as a red-hot lover just as he’d looked over? What if he could tell?

She pretended to be lost in a minute examination of her plate. A few moments later Sheryl’s voice cut through the hubbub of the room.

‘Of course, we’re all so professionally remiss!’ she could hear Sheryl saying. ‘We pride ourselves on our ability to find people love, yet we happily sit here with a singleton in our midst!’

Alice felt an ominous sense of discomfort.

‘I mean, here we are –
at a ball
, for God’s sake – and we
have our very own real-life Cinderella at the table.’ Sheryl emitted a laugh that could cut glass. ‘How ironic that little Alice Brown finds love for everyone else, but can’t find it for herself! We should all make it our mission to sort out Alice’s love life and find her a man. It’s a matter of professional pride! We can’t have one of our own left on the shelf!’ She laughed cruelly, and several other voices chuckled along with her.

Alice felt herself burning from the tips of her ears to the ends of her fingers. She couldn’t believe Sheryl was saying these things! And how did she know she was single? Had Audrey told her? Alice felt so mortified it took her breath away. She could hear her heart thudding loudly in her ears.

‘Audrey!’ Sheryl called out. ‘Yes, earth to Audrey! Don’t you find it a business liability having a spinster on the staff? What must your clients think?’

Why was Sheryl doing this? Why was she being so nasty? Was
this
how she was going to get her revenge . . . by humiliating her and exposing her as a romantic failure? She was being vicious; a bully. But why wasn’t anyone stopping her? Alice peeked at Ernie. He’d always been so nice, going out of his way to compliment her on her matches. But tonight his face was ruddy with booze and he seemed too busy watching Sheryl’s chest as it heaved and sparkled and spilled over her dress to leap to Alice’s defence. Even Audrey didn’t have anything to say. Audrey always had a few cutting words to hand whenever Sheryl was around. But typically, when Alice really needed her, Audrey sat immobile, her face as red as a beetroot and her mouth firmly shut.

‘Still, at least we all know she’s a faithful employee,’ Sheryl continued bitchily. ‘Part of the Table For Two furniture, aren’t you, Alice? You know, Alice is actually in this for the love, everybody. She really believes in matchmaking, don’t you, sweetie? She thinks it’s her calling; her raison d’être! Every morning she gets up and pedals her little heart out on that funny old bike of hers, really believing it’s her role in life to shoot her arrows and make everyone fall under Cupid’s spell!’

Alice felt sick. She looked at her lap. Her red nail varnish looked ridiculous on her hands. What had she been thinking, dressing up like this? Who did she think she was, trying to pass herself off as a glamorous woman; as a professional, respected matchmaker? Everyone knew she was just plain old Alice Brown. Plain old,
single
Alice Brown. So pathetic she couldn’t even find herself a man.

She suddenly became aware of somebody else speaking – somebody who wasn’t Sheryl. It was John.

‘Well, I think that’s the best possible reason to be a matchmaker,’ he said calmly, his blue eyes evenly holding Sheryl’s. ‘If I was ever to join a dating agency, I’d want Alice as my matchmaker. I don’t know her very well, in fact I’ve only just met her tonight, but I can tell she’s a woman of honesty and integrity, with a good heart. And they sound to me like the very best qualifications for a matchmaker.’

The table had gone quiet. Even Sheryl had stopped in her tracks.

John continued quietly, brushing some crumbs from the table as he spoke.

‘And if she’s single, that’s nobody’s business but hers. Somebody out there will consider it his lucky day when he finally gets to meet Alice.’

John turned to Alice and gave her a reassuring smile.

‘Thank you,’ she silently mouthed to him, before scraping back her chair and excusing herself from the table. She blindly made her way as fast as she could towards the ladies’ toilets, barely caring how she was walking in her high heels. She didn‘t care if she fell over and broke her ankle, as long as she got far enough away from the table before she did it. As she hurtled through the great hall, she felt a tear slip down her cheek.

With a sob of relief she finally burst out of the great hall. The ladies’ loo was in sight, but so too was the cloakroom. Without a moment’s hesitation Alice collected her coat and shot out of the building.

There was a taxi rank at the bottom of the entrance steps, and Alice took several hurried gulps of air as she waited for the first taxi to move forward. Her muffled sobs hung like white clouds in the cold night air. The clamour of the ball continued behind her, its merriment suddenly sounding cruel.

‘Alice, wait!’ a voice called out.

She turned. John was hurrying down the steps towards her, his dinner jacket flapping open in the night air. She hastily smudged away a tear.

‘I want to apologize for everyone’s behaviour in there,’ he said hurriedly, concern etched on his face. ‘I’m ashamed to be sitting with them – all of them.’

Alice tried to meet his eye, but embarrassment and tears got the better of her, so she concentrated instead on his feet. Mortified, she saw a big fat tear roll down her face and splat onto his shoe. ‘Thanks for . . . you know . . .’ she mumbled, pointing vaguely in the direction of the great hall, hoping it would distract him from the wobble in her voice and the wet patch on his foot.

There was an awkward pause, and then he handed her his handkerchief. Without looking at him, Alice accepted it. Despite her best efforts, more tears were escaping; a particularly large one was wobbling precariously on the end of her nose.

‘Look, are you alright?’ he asked kindly. ‘Would you like me to take you home? My car’s just over there.’

‘No!’ she blurted in alarm. ‘I mean, yes! Yes, I’m alright, and no, thank you; I’ll be fine getting home.’ That would go down like a lead balloon with Audrey – her husband escorting her least favourite employee home. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting back to Audrey?’ she asked, briefly raising her eyes to the middle distance to show she was OK, and blinking heavily to try to keep everything in check. Her taxi was alongside now. She held out his handkerchief to him.

‘Yes, I suppose I should,’ he replied and pushed it gently back towards her. ‘Please, keep it.’

‘Thanks,’ she sniffed. And then she turned and bundled into the car. The sounds of John and the ball died around her. As the taxi pulled away, her body sagged with relief, and she gave in to her tears. Slowly, between gasps for breath, she wiped her make-up onto John’s handkerchief. The
cosmetics looked toxic on the pure white linen. More than anything in the world, she longed for a bar of soap, a facecloth and her pyjamas. And never to see anyone from DIPS again.

John sat down and tried to conceal his anger. Thankfully everyone was busy. Audrey was bombarding Barry Chambers with rosy statistics about Table For Two’s success, confidently predicting her own victory with the ‘Bureau of the Year’ award. Somehow John doubted she’d win. He didn’t know much about matchmaking, but he sure as hell knew Audrey didn’t have either the finesse to cut it as a successful businesswoman, or the empathy to be a matchmaker. He’d never met anyone who was less of a people person than Audrey. There couldn’t be a woman alive less likely to fulfil people’s romantic fantasies.

John frowned. Why hadn’t Audrey stood up for Alice? Why had she sat by and let her be mauled? What kind of woman was she? He’d always thought she was lacking in manners, but this lack of kindness was something else.

He looked up. On the other side of the table Sheryl was pretending to hang on Ernie’s every word, but it was clear to John what she was up to. He could recognize a player at three hundred paces. Sheryl was deliberately inclining her body towards Ernie at precisely the angle to give him a
perfect view of her cleavage. For his part, Ernie was enjoying the scenery. His poor wife, Patricia, was ignored and forgotten, staring miserably at the remnants of her crème brûlée. John considered striking up a conversation with her, but suddenly he felt very tired. He looked at his watch. He reckoned he had about another hour before he could drive Audrey home and forget about the whole sorry evening.

Suddenly a bright spotlight rolled onto their table, causing him to blink. The spotlight fixed on Sheryl, reflecting off her dress in a thousand shiny shards that fell across the great hall in a myriad of diamonds. She looked like a giant glitter-ball. Overacting her surprise and throwing kisses to the other tables, Sheryl rose to her feet.

‘Oh, for the love of God!’ exclaimed Audrey ungracefully, banging her champagne glass down onto the table as the room rose to its feet.

‘She’s only bloody won!’ shouted Barry Chambers. ‘Love Birds have won! Good on yer, girl!’ He put his fingers to his mouth and gave a piercing wolf whistle.

Sheryl headed towards the stage, directly behind John and Audrey. As she passed them he felt her run her finger suggestively across his back. Surprised, he looked at her, but her attention was set on the stage and an underdressed, undernourished blonde clutching a trophy and smiling a rigid showbiz smile. She had to be the celebrity actress, John thought. She had the air of someone being paid to be there. He recognized the expression; he was wearing it himself. Sheryl, on the other hand, looked as if she was
born to be under that spotlight, lapping up the attention like a dancer in a gentleman’s club.

‘For heaven’s sake!’ Audrey muttered loudly and rolled her eyes. She reached for the nearest champagne bottle and savagely refilled her glass before reluctantly joining the rest of the room in standing.

As Sheryl started her acceptance speech John looked at Audrey. Her face was pinched and her lips were small and bitten together. It wasn’t the face of a good loser. With her malevolent expression and her petrol-coloured dress she looked like an angry oil slick. Tonight had been one of the most unpleasant evenings of his working life, John thought. He was definitely calling Geraldine tomorrow to tell her that he would never escort Audrey again. Not even if his life depended on it.

Sheryl’s speech was coming to an end. John joined in the applause as she slowly sashayed off stage, eking out every last nanosecond of attention. With a start he realized she wasn’t heading back to her seat. Still illuminated in the outer reaches of her spotlight, she stopped right in front of him.

‘Aren’t you going to give me a congratulatory kiss?’ she demanded over the noise of the applause.

The prospect of kissing Sheryl was as appealing as putting his face into a nest of rats. And he certainly didn’t want to do it in front of Audrey who was, after all, his paying client. He quickly weighed up how to decline politely.