Greatest Love Story of All Time
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Authors: Lucy Robinson
The Greatest Love Story of All Time
And How it was Nearly Ruined by Evil Cats, Gin and Unsuitable Men
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
The Greatest Love Story of All Time
is Lucy Robinson’s debut novel. Prior to writing Lucy earned her crust in West End theatre production and then factual television, working on documentaries for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five. Her writing career began when she started a dating blog for
marieclaire.co.uk
where she entertained readers with frank tales from her laughably unsuccessful foray into the world of Internet dating.
Lucy was brought up in Gloucestershire surrounded by various stupid animals. She recently conducted an early mid-life crisis in South America where she met The Man who, while nice, did rather ruin the ‘dating’ part of her dating blog. Lucy now lives with him in South London. She is writing her next novel while working on various television projects and plotting a return to academia.
For Vince, who would have been secretly delighted.
My friends broke into my flat.
They stood scrutinizing me for a few seconds: Stefania, a vision in purple dungarees; Leonie in a massive fur coat with an inexplicable gin and tonic in one hand. Dave, wearing a patchy deerstalker, rolled a cigarette while my cat Duke Ellington sat next to them on the floor, watching me with open contempt.
Stefania spoke first. ‘Ve have decided to hold Gin Thursday here at your house.’
‘I love you, Franny,’ said Leonie, taking a sip of her gin. ‘But this has got to stop, darling. You stink.’
Dave merely laughed, shook his head and murmured, ‘Fuckin’ hell, Fran. We left Gin Thursday for
this
?’
Duke Ellington looked up at them as if to say, ‘See? See what I’ve been up against?’ He stood up and stalked delicately out of the room with his tail twitching. ‘Whatever, Duke Ellington,’ I muttered in his wake. He ignored me.
I looked up at my friends again and tried to organize my features into a calm, spiritual sort of expression. Something that said, ‘Dudes! Sorry I couldn’t answer the door! I was just too blissed out to
hear you knocking!’
Please make them go away,
I prayed.
I just want to live like a feral animal. Please.
‘Get out of bed,’ Stefania commanded, striding over to the window and opening my curtains. ‘You look like someseeng zat Duke Ellington has seecked up in ze flowerbed.’
Not having seen daylight in some time I shot back under the covers, swearing. Dave muttered something about me being a nasty little ferret.
I wriggled further down my bed and fumed. What the hell did Dave know about heartbreak anyway? He lived with the most beautiful woman in London. How dare he judge me? The injustice of it! I balled myself up into a foetal position and waited for them to leave, vowing to stay in the warm fug of my bed for ever.
But it was not to be. The duvet was swept from above me, the interior of my bed was exposed and all hell broke loose. Stefania shrieked, ‘YOU DISGUSTEENG ANIMAL!’ Leonie downed the gin and tonic and Dave, who was well known in war zones for dodging enemy fire without so much as a raised eyebrow, dropped his half-assembled roll-up and covered his face with his hands.
The sight that had greeted them wasn’t nice. Even I could see that. A half-eaten tub of ice-cream had welded itself to the sheet and was growing fur. My pillowcases were rigid and peaked where I had let snot dry on them, and photos of Michael lay under
an abandoned piece of rock-hard Cheddar. A small bottle of Morrison’s brandy was resting against my feet. Scattered everywhere were crumbs, crisps and knickers.
Stefania stormed out to the kitchen, shrieking over her shoulder, ‘Zis place needs to be decontaminated! Get OUT OF BED!’
I didn’t move.
Dave sat down at my dressing-table and stared at me, while Leonie climbed over to my bedside table and took my phone. ‘Give it back,’ I mumbled feebly. She ignored me and started pressing buttons.
‘Give it
back
,’ I said again.
‘Oh, bloody hell, Fran, what have you been doing?’ she asked, taking off her fur coat. She passed the phone to Dave, who looked at it and shook his head with a mixture of pity and amusement.
‘Fran, you can’t send him messages like this,’ he said, trying not to smile. ‘That’s just … it’s just fucking madness, love.’ He started chuckling. Leonie retrieved the phone and recommenced fiddling.
‘I’d like to know what you’re finding so funny, Dave,’ I said, pulling my hood up to keep the draught out.
‘Fran, where would I even start? Oh, love, you’re a fuckin’ basket case sometimes. Have you been sending him messages like this every day?’
I nodded as tears of shame formed in my eyes. Why was Dave laughing at me when my life was falling
apart? Did he really believe I needed to feel any more stupid than I already did? ‘Stop it,’ I whispered. Tears fell off the side of my nose and into my crusty sheets. Leonie was still fiddling with my phone and Dave sat back and roared with laughter, oblivious to my breakdown.
But when I started to sob he stopped laughing and jumped up from the dressing-table, arms outstretched. ‘Oh, no, Fannybaws, I was just joking …’ My sobs upgraded to roars in anticipation of one of his big hairy-bear hugs.
But just as he reached down to scoop me up, Stefania re-entered the room and yelled, ‘STAND BACK, DAVE! DO NOT TOUCH HER! SHE IS RADIOACTIVE!’
Through my tears I saw her standing in my doorway wearing long rubber gloves and one of my anti-dust face masks. She had even found the plastic goggles the plumber had left under the sink a couple of years ago. In one hand she held a bottle of antibacterial spray, in the other, a bin bag.
Leonie came and sat on my bed, ignoring Stefania. She took one of my grubby hands in hers. ‘Now listen here, Franny darling. We’ve come because we care about you. We want you to be happy, and that’s not going to happen if you’re drafting crazed messages to Michael and rotting in bed.’
I gulped and sniffed but the crying wouldn’t stop.
Happy?
Were they mad? My life was over. In thirty
years I had never felt more lonely and hopeless. How in the name of God was I going to achieve happiness without Michael? Dave sat down and stroked my greasy hair with one of his great big paws.
‘I just want my boy back,’ I cried.
Leonie squeezed my hand. ‘I know, darling. I know. And that might just happen!’
I howled.
‘Franny! Come on. It’s not like he’s said he never wants to see you again, he’s just asked for three months apart. It’s ninety days, Franny! You can get through ninety days, can’t you?’
I shook my head hard. I most certainly could not. Every part of me was in pain.
‘Well, from the sounds of it you don’t have any choice. But I can tell you right now, Franny, he’s not going to take you back if you die of malnutrition in your bed.’
More sobs, with snot this time.
Leonie sighed, then ploughed on: ‘So we’ve come up with a plan for you, Franny. A plan to help you get better. It’s a sort of dating rehab. And if at the end of it you still want to fight for Michael, you’ll be ready. We’ll even help you. OK?’
I made a snotty noise. Dave smiled and continued to stroke my hair. Stefania stood in the doorway, looking like a pest exterminator. Leonie gazed down at me in an uncharacteristically kindly fashion and squeezed my hand again.
I nodded. I’d do anything it took to stop feeling like this.
‘Great. Good girl! We’ll have you better in no time! Here’s the plan …’ Leonie began.
February 2008: two years earlier
I’d always wanted to be a journalist. In reception class at primary school, while all of the other children told Mrs Grattan that they wanted to be a fireman, a princess or a singer, I had announced coolly that I wanted to travel to war zones and do brave things on the telly. In retrospect I can see why Mrs Grattan told Mum and Dad at parents’ evening that she found me a precocious arse.
It had been a little disappointing when the only job I’d been able to get after my broadcast journalism master’s was a position as general gimp to the rugby union team at Sky News. For three years I spent every Saturday hunched in the corner of a broadcast truck parked up outside the nation’s rugby stadiums, transmitting live scores while the boys talked about anal.
After a particularly sordid Saturday in 2005, during which I was asked to judge a Largest Bollock competition during the Wales v. Ireland decider, I resigned and managed, against all odds, to get a job as a general gimp on the six thirty p.m. news at ITN. (I strongly suspect that I got it because Stella Sanderson, the senior
specialist producer who was responsible for hiring me, had also begun her career judging testicles for the Sky rugby team. ‘Is there still quite a strong crotch theme in those broadcast trucks?’ she asked in my interview. I went red and talked about my overwhelming passion for current affairs. She nodded sympathetically and scribbled in the margin of my CV.)
I was twenty-five when I finally got my break; the age when my friends were beginning to settle down and do grown-up things like having relationships and getting pregnant. I started a wild and passionate affair with my career and moved into a strange little converted car mechanic’s garage in a backstreet off Camden Road. It was affordable only because the conversion – involving ceilings that sloped down to the floor – had been designed solely with dwarfs in mind. But it had an
actual
wet room and a big yard where Duke Ellington could terrorize the local mice and birds, so I took it on the spot and convinced myself that Big Things were coming my way.
