The Impossible Search for the Perfect Man (2 page)

My stomach lurches and not about the
bloody grass.  And it’s not that I mind him being away, because I
don’t.  But today is Thursday.  He was supposed to be coming home
tonight.  
Two extra nights away.
 
Just
like last week.

What’s equally annoying is his excessive
need to socialise.  I see people all day – I enjoy the little time we
spend on our own, though of course I love seeing Pete and Leonie.  And
Arian’s with people all day too, of course, though for the most part, it’s a
smelly old co-pilot - or so he’d have me believe.

‘Maybe we could have an evening in
together, darling, just you and me?’ I suggest as we go inside, knowing Leo’s
going to visit her mother.

‘To make up for missing
our anniversary?’
I add wistfully, in my mind picturing a
romantic candle-lit dinner and chilled champagne, abandoned for all the right
reasons as we rip each other’s clothes off, unable to wait another second.

That does it. Now he
does
look
shifty.  My stomach ties itself in knots.  And still I don’t say
anything.

‘Um, let’s see when I get back?’ Arian
literally grabs his flight bag and runs out of the house without saying
goodbye, leaving me standing there, utterly perplexed. What about his
case?  He must have put it in the car earlier, I decide, more convinced
than ever something’s wrong.

But in spite of the apprehension growing
inside me, all I can do now is
wait
.  I don’t
have much choice.  I know I can’t go on like this,
not knowing
... 
So I decide.  When he gets back from this trip,
somehow
I have to
talk to him.

I still work in an office – and anywhere
else, it would be as dull as the job as Carpets-R -Us, but as it happens, it’s
one of my favourite places in the world, because it’s at the heart of a busy
veterinary practice in Lower
Shagford
, a little
village out of the back of beyond, about eight miles from Winchester and
connected to civilisation by miles of winding lane. 

It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of
village, with at its buzzing heart, a pub, a chippy, and an archaic village
stores, surrounded by a scattering of posh country houses, tatty old cottages
and of course, the ubiquitous barn conversions.  There are also the infamous
allotments, the setting of many a village battle. 

The drive to the practice twists and
winds through chocolate-box fields full of pretty cows, until you come to what
on first sight looks like a rather run down old farm.  On closer
inspection however, there’s a jolly expensively tarmacked parking area in front
of a stylishly converted cow shed, which has a big window and is my
office.  Then round in the yard, there are stables and barns deceptively
full of impressively high tech vet stuff, like scanners and x-ray machines, and
even a horse-sized operating theatre. 

The drive continues on for another half
a mile, ending in front of the rather imposing and grandly named
Offleigh
Manor, home to the awfully rich Mankly-Talbot
family.  Actually, they’re the only reason we’ve got such a posh drive as
they absolutely insist on it for their fleet of expensive cars.  Mr M-T
works in the city, and has a very tiny wife called Amanda, who has perfect
highlights and a
tinkly
laugh, and waves a hand
weighted with gold at us whenever she drives past in one of her Mercedes. 
However, the only one of them we tend to see is Paris – known as PM-T.  At
sixteen, she’s a sex maniac and rather prone to crushes.

Most of our patients are horses, though
the odd other animal crops up from time to time. And there’s never a dull
moment because as well as the lovely horses, there are the owners, who are
mostly a bit bonkers, because if you keep horses, you have to be.  I mean,
they cost a small fortune, half the year they’re caked in mud and their
designer wardrobes are more expensive than their owners’.  But if you love
your horse, such is your life.

The practice was started by Beamish, the
senior partner,
who’s
very old school and highly
respected for his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things equine.  I’d never
imagined that a vet’s life could ever be glamorous, but his client list is
phenomenal, from Sheikhs to racing yards and the most champion of show
jumpers.  Quite how such a fumbling, benign country gentleman has become
such a legend is to my mind, astonishing, but that, perhaps, is why he is.

Then there’s awfully nice Miles, who’s
very lanky and has worrying down to an art form.  His encyclopaedic
knowledge of legs and feet extends to equines only, because this is Miles and
his entire brain is devoted to his job.  He’s also unaware that he’s the
current unwitting subject of Paris’s attentions – she rotates them. Every time
his car pulls up, I glance at my watch, counting the seconds before she
appears, lolling around decoratively in skin tight jodhpurs and long leather
boots, batting Cheryl Cole eyelashes provocatively at him, which is a waste of
her time because Miles would only notice eyelashes on a horse.

Emma is the newest recruit, and
everybody loves her. She’s blonde, clever and gazelle-like.  Maybe not in
that order, but you get the picture and if she wasn’t so unassuming I would
most definitely have to hate her.  Then there’s Sam, the green-eyed vet
nurse, with his soft, lilting voice which has a hypnotic effect on both horses
and owners alike.  I’m convinced he’s secretly a horse-whisperer.
  

I share my office with Agnes, who has
been there since the beginning and knows absolutely everything about everybody.
Not that you’d ever know. She’s fabulously discrete.

Which leaves Mrs
Boggle, the cleaner.
  Poor Mrs Boggle is one of
life’s
hard-done-by.  She wears dreary clothes, has
whiskers on her chin and sighs a lot. Her favourite topics of conversation are
death, funerals and Benidorm, so it’s best not to get her started.  She
comes in three evenings a week on her ancient motorbike that’s like Nick
Berry’s out of Heartbeat, and she keeps the office nice and clean, in
particular the men’s loo, which personally I wouldn’t touch with a
bargepole.  She’s an absolute saint.

And what do I do?  Well, I help
Agnes in the office, answer phones, (
Good morning,
Anstruther
,
Morgan and Willis, how can I help you)
make coffee and am not averse to the
odd bit of mucking out as long as there’s a warm, velvety horse-nose breathing
in my ear.  

But I feel part of a strange little
family when I’m here, and rumour has it, we’re about to become extended.
 His name is Marcus.  Marcus Fitzpatrick, actually, which sounds posh
- and is far too long. 

Good morning,
Anstruther
,
Morgan, Willis and Fitzpatrick, how can I help you, every time the phone
rings?    

I don’t think so.  Rumour has it
that Marcus is a bit of a whizz kid.  
Posh and
brilliant?
 
Ego the size of a small planet
?
 A few days here will bring him down to earth.

Elmer comes to work with me, and barks
neurotically at the clients, so Agnes makes me shut her in a stable, which is
fine because Eric’s there too.  He’s Sam’s awesome, elderly terrier with
short legs and glinting eyes, who don’t take
no
shit
from no-one.  Elmer thinks he’s God.

Agonising over the choice between my
striped top
or
the plain black one, I plump for
black.  Infinitely more flattering, but boring, so I add my trademark long
patterned socks over my skinny jeans, and finish it all off with my
Uggs
.  My latest funky wellies are safely in the back
of my car. 

Today when I get to work, however,
there’s already a kerfuffle going on.

‘Good morning Louisa,’ says Beamish, his
eyebrows bristling as he peers over his glasses at me. He’s immaculately
dressed in his old tweed jacket and polished shoes.

‘Hi, Lou.’
 Lovely Emma’s there too, looking stunning as usual with blond wisps of
hair already escaping from her messy ponytail.  Even in her shapeless polo
shirt and navy
workwear
trousers, she still manages
to make me feel inadequate.

They’re studying the diary together.
 Even in this computer age, Beamish still insists that all appointments
are written down in the good old-fashioned way, and so we have this huge,
hard-backed tome, without which he is convinced the practice would fall apart.

‘Morning, all.’
 Then I hesitate, because there’s clearly something amiss.  ‘Is
everything okay?’

‘Um.
Fine.’
  Spoken slightly absently and
Beamish’s
stock answer to more or less anything.

‘Um
Beamish
,
could I possibly have the next two weeks off?  Um
Beamish
,
can I order more champagne for our coffee breaks?’  
Chances
are he’d probably still say
‘Um fine’…
 

‘Oh good,’ I say instead. 
‘Excellent.’

Why, then, is he so agitated?  Ah
ha, I can guess. It’s Sylvie.

It has to be – I’ve seen this happen
before.  Sylvie Williamson is a valued client with a grown-up
Barbie-princess home and a collection of priceless horses who are her
babies.  As well as extremely wealthy, Sylvie’s a widow, and for reasons
none of us can fathom, has the hots for Beamish. Yes, even the middle-aged can
get crushes, I’ve discovered.  And they’re just as embarrassing as teen
ones, because completely out of his depth, there are no
end
to the lengths Beamish will go to in his efforts to avoid her.  I earwig
shamelessly on their conversation.

‘Um, thing is, old girl,’ Beamish is
saying to Emma rather longingly, ‘she has this, er, mighty fine stallion. Pure
bred
arab
. 
By Indiana’s Dream...
Simply extraordinary he is.’

Beamish looks wistful.
 He’s rather partial to Arabs, especially when they’re pure bred like this
one.  He must be off his nut.  I knew one once and they’re loonies.

‘Point is, er, Sylvie says he’s a little
off colour.  Seemed perfectly fine last week, but she wants us, er, me,
um, to do some blood tests.  ‘I say...’ he looks apologetically at Emma,
‘would you mind awfully?’

Emma pats
Beamish’s
arm. ‘Of course not, it’s
no
trouble.  If you’re
quite sure, you wouldn’t rather go yourself?’  She can’t resist teasing
him slightly.

‘No.
Um.
Yes,’
  Beamish
stutters gratefully.

‘Louisa? Please get that phone?’ 
Agnes’s voice, sounding stern.
 

Once the vets are all out on their
rounds, things quieten down, though not for long.  We’ve a couple of
horses coming in for lameness assessments, and they might be sleeping over, so
I have two stables to prepare, just in case.

As there aren’t any clients for her to
terrorise, I let my lunatic dog out to help me.  Then feel a rush of shame
as it hits me.  I’ve hardly given Arian a thought. 

Agnes has the afternoon off, leaving me
alone in the office which I am positively ecstatic about, but with a list of
jobs as long as my arm to ensure I’m kept occupied.  She obviously doesn’t
think I have any initiative.  Mind you, she’s exactly the same with the
vets, giving them detailed itineraries, leaving absolutely nothing to
chance. 

Once she’s left, I go and ogle at the
clients’ horses when they duly arrive, in their all-singing, all-dancing horse
box, which I wouldn’t be surprised to find are kitted out with
jacuzzis
and cocktail bars and disco lights.  After
all you know what that show jumping lot are like.  Not exactly early to
bed with a hot water bottle and a mug of Horlicks.  No.  I’m sure
these big horse shows are just one gigantic party, with all sorts of
shenanigans going on once the horses are tucked up in bed. 

The only other noteworthy event of the
afternoon is a rather supercilious call from Marcus, the new vet-to-be,
who
in a most imperious manner leaves a message for Beamish
to call him.

‘I’d really rather talk to Beamish,’ he
says haughtily, sounding most put out when he discovers I’m the only person
there – and completely up his own arse.  ‘Oh, I suppose I’ll
have
to leave a message in that case…’ 

Well, very nice to talk to you too
…
I think to myself.  Simply splendid first impressions all round. 
Presumably I sound so ditsy that I can’t be entrusted with even a message.

And then, because I can’t stand
arrogance in any shape or form, I decide, most satisfyingly, exactly who his
first client will be. Well, I contemplate to myself, he deserves it. 
There’s a grumpy old sod called Henderson who never pays his bills, with a
filthy-tempered horse with rather persistent warts.  
On
its dick.
  Ha.  Perfect.

Elmer and I get home by six, and it’s
not until I’m back in my kitchen that I think back to my suspicions of this
morning, but almost instantly I reassure myself. 
This is Arian, for
goodness’ sake. We’re married…
 
Of course he’s not having an
affair…

I know I won’t hear from him before Saturday.
 We don’t text each other as a rule.  It’s never even occurred to me
that that’s odd.   Perhaps on this occasion, I should call him?
 He’s my husband after all.  But something stops me, because I’m not
sure what I’d say.  Then it occurs to me too, that these days, we’re
spending more time apart than together.

As all these thoughts resonate in my
head, it’s as though I’m digging my head out of the sand.  Uneasily, I go
upstairs to have a shower.  The house is stuffy and airless, and as I go
into our bedroom to open the window, something catches my eye.

 Now that
is
odd.
 Arian has left his nightstop case behind.  Something makes me go and
look inside it.  I find very niffy socks and boxers, which have obviously
been there much longer than just since his last nightstop, which okay, is still
not exactly conclusive - but my bad feeling is getting worse.

Even more uneasy by bedtime, I’ve
already resigned myself to another wakeful night. With Arian away, I switch on
the TV at the end of the bed, pile his pillows on top of mine and watch
‘Titanic’ for the umpteenth time.  Elmer’s lying beside me, which is
strictly against house rules, but if my hunch is right, it’s looking more and
more likely that Arian’s breaking a few house rules too.  Elmer’s suitably
smug, then her eyes close and in no time, she’s snoring noisily and letting out
the occasional fart, which isn’t that different to Arian.

An uneventful Friday comes and goes, and
it’s late when I eventually wake on Saturday morning, but at least I’ve managed
to catch up on some sleep.  Elmer doesn’t care. She’d fester in bed all
day if I let her. But as I contemplate Arian coming home, there are butterflies
in my stomach and I’m filled with a sense of trepidation.