The Love Market (31 page)

‘I know,’ he says, ‘and I love every last one of them.’ He kisses the side of her head. Then she turns her face to his, catching his lips while they’re still there. ‘But you still haven’t guessed what I am.’ He lifts up a foot to show me a pair of navy blue fuzzy socks.

‘You’re a person with no shoes,’ Jacqui says.

‘Close,’ he says.

Trish is grinning at me, besotted with him. Sometimes you see two people together who just look so right for one another. And they are it.

‘I’m a passenger on a British Airways flight,’ he tells us. ‘You know, socks, mask…’ He pulls a tiny toothbrush out of his pocket and waves it at me.

‘If you misbehave we’ll make you clean the toilets out with that,’ I tell him.

He laughs. ‘If I get drunk enough I’ll do it without being told.’

‘So are you going anywhere nice, Mr. BA Passenger?’ Jacqui asks him.

‘Actually, on Monday we’re off to Barbados for two weeks,’ Trish answers for him.

‘To get engaged,’ James adds, and Trish nudges him, spilling his martini.

‘We’re NOT going to get engaged!’ she says, as though the idea is unthinkable. James winks at me, secretively.

I laugh at her. ‘Still trying to convince me you don’t want him?’

‘I’ve given up on that,’ Trish says. ‘Given I’m clearly so crap at hiding how I feel.’

James pulls Trish toward the bar.

‘He’s quite tasty,’ Jacqui says. I think she’s talking about James, but then I see that she is indicating across the room. To a tall, masked, blond man in hospital scrubs.

‘That’s Dr. Michael Hill, a thirty-nine-year-old consultant heart specialist at the Freeman Hospital. He filled out my personality questionnaire. Contacted me after he saw the article in
Hers
. Remember that article that the journalist had to completely restructure because of you?’ I tease her.

‘He’s a doctor and he came dressed as one?’ She laughs. ‘Oh dear! But he looks very sexy. There’s something about him.’

‘So you want to meet him, then?’

She grins. ‘I don’t want to meet someone who reads women’s magazines.’

‘He doesn’t. His secretary showed him the article. Apparently they’ve all been trying to set him up since he got divorced. And he doesn’t want to date nurses.’

‘Interesting,’ she says. ‘How about architects?’

‘Oh come on,’ I drag her over there.

‘But you can’t let me like him!’ she says. ‘And you can’t let him be as good as he looks! Please! Not now that I live in London, and I’m just getting my life sorted! I can’t fall in love with a man back up in Newcastle!’

‘Of course not,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll try to guarantee it.’

The music changes to Earth Wind and Fire’s “Let’s Groove”, even though I specifically warned the DJ not to get into cheesy seventies music until everyone was seriously pissed. But somehow it has the effect of drawing everyone to the dance floor. After I introduce Jacqui to the doctor, I go and work the room, and I’m happy to see Sandra my spa owner, and father’s muse, chatting away animatedly to my wounded footballer Liam Docherty, and Liam looking happily ridiculous in a masked red devil costume. I’m just deciding not to bother interrupting them when she waves me over, excitedly. ‘Oh, Celine,’ she hugs me as Liam asks her what she’s drinking and walks over to the bar. ‘I’ve been meaning to phone you since before Christmas but I was so busy at the spa. I wanted to tell you how the sitting went with your dad.’

‘Oh! I didn’t know you’d actually done it. I thought you might have just been putting him off.’

‘No!’ she says. ‘I was very keen. I mean, obviously not at first.’ She laughs. With her enormous boobs spilling over her gown, she looks like one of the most pornographic Snow White’s I’ve ever seen. ‘I did it as a treat to myself for Christmas. Had my staff work a few miracles on me,’ she laughs again. ‘It was lovely. I never expected I’d feel so comfortable with all my clothes off, but he put me completely at ease.’

‘He did?’

‘Yes. And his drawing was wonderful. I couldn’t believe it was me. So when this all gets over and things settle down a bit, I want you to come over to the spa for a free massage and see it.’

‘It’s at the spa?’

She beams. ‘I had it framed and hung it in the powder room. If anyone asks me who did it, I’m going to give them his card.’

‘I don’t think my dad has a card.’

‘Apparently he’s getting them made.’

‘Oh!’ I hide my grin in my hand. ‘This is going to be a disaster for the entire spa-going female population!’

‘I was fat as a teenager. It took me years to lose the weight. Then I end up in the spa business, but somehow never lost the self-esteem hang-ups.’ She throws up her hands. ‘But your dad made me think that maybe I don’t have to be so hard on myself all the time.’

‘This music is SO cheesy,’ Aimee comes and pokes me in the back, right as Liam returns with Sandra’s drink. ‘And so is she…’ Aimee rolls her eyes at Sandra. ‘She didn’t realise she was beautiful and now she knows she is! Pu-leeese!’

I laugh. Then I cuddle my little Tinkerbell in her short green mini-dress, with her white footless tights with holes poked into them, and her silver mask on a stick.

‘Mind my wings,’ she says.

I look at her feet, in the same high silver stilettos as mine. ‘You’ll have bunions by the time you’re nineteen.’ I tell her.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to be dancing to this lame music.’

‘What are you drinking?’ I ask when she picks up a martini glass from a high table.

‘A martini of course,’ she says and takes a sip. ‘Without alcohol.’ She looks across at the cute young barman who always thinks I’m a prostitute, who I “hired” for the night, on loan from Karma restaurant where I went on my fake date with my ex-husband. ‘Mark made it for me.’

I take it off her, sniff it and give her it back. ‘I’m going to do random sniff tests, so you’d better be on your guard.’

But she’s too interested in watching Mark.

I survey the room. A great turn out, and most did bring a couple of guests. David Hall, dressed as Mr. Darcy, said that only Kim had guessed who he was. He’s a perfectly good sport about having his house taken over by about nearly two hundred people whom he’s never met before. Kim, otherwise known as Elizabeth 1, is here with Andrew Flemming, my client in the music business. When I go over and ask her how it’s going, her first words are, ‘Nice house,’ as she looks around.

‘It could have been yours,’ I say.

‘But it would need drawers full of underwear.’ She smiles. ‘And no, actually. It’s not “going” with Andy. You seem to think I’m here with him, but I’m here by myself. As is he. We just happen to be talking.’ She smiles. ‘We’ve been on four very good dates. He’s lovely. The first man you’ve introduced me to who has absolutely nothing wrong with him.’

Nothing hanging out of his nose? No patent lack of shoulders? He didn’t pick up his fork before she picked up hers? I’m floored. ‘What’s wrong then?’ I ask.

‘There’s just no chemistry,’ she says.

Finally. A real reason to not see him anymore. And, alas, one I cannot fix.

‘This is progress though, isn’t it? In a weird way?’ I hug her.

She chuckles. ‘I think.’

‘Who is this hunk?’ Jacqui comes up to me and whispers in my ear. When I look to where she’s pointing, a part of me dies. Over by the Christmas tree, a diminutive highwayman is talking to a leggy masked devil in a mini skirt, wearing horns.

‘How did he get in here?’

Jacqui chuckles.

The diminutive Dick Turpin has got his beige pants tucked into knee-high boots, and is wearing a long purple velvet cape. For a moment, his two masked eyes meet mine before looking away. He grins at me. I would recognise those teeth anywhere.

I notice, as we dance and chatter and drink, and swipe hors d’oeuvres from trays the second they come near us, that Jacqui and Michael the doctor seem quite engrossed in conversation. When we have to take our partners for our lesson in Viennese Waltz, Jacqui and Michael take the floor and Jacqui sends me a look that could contain pornographic content. At one point, when we meet in the middle of the floor, she says to me. ‘He’s fabulous! We totally hit it off! I think he’s really into me! But why does he have to live in Newcastle?’

Diminutive Dick Turpin dances his way over to me with the tall young thing in the red mini-dress. ‘She’s a horny devil,’ my dad says, touching the top of her head. ‘See… horns.’

‘Yes Dad, I think I get it.’

He dances his way back across the room.

As we approach midnight my mind briefly goes to wonder what Mike and Jennifer might be doing. A joylessness crosses over me as I stand there dancing in the middle of the crowd, a colourful moonflower pattern of lights spinning around my feet. But only for a second. As Slade brings in the New Year with “C’m On Feel the Noize”, everyone takes off their masks, and I hug and kiss my daughter, my sister, my father, I realise something. It is no longer the year I got divorced. We have moved on, technically only by minutes, but it feels like miles.

‘Can we phone Dad?’ Aimee comes and puts her arms around me, while I’m chatting to Jacqui.

I hug her back. ‘You know what, sweetie, I think we should let your dad have a good time and surprise him with a call in the morning.’ I adjust her wings.

‘But it is morning!’

‘I know. But we’ll wait until we’ve been to bed and woken up again. Then we’ll ring him. Okay?’

When Aimee flits off, Jacqui raises the tip of my chin so my eyes meet hers. ‘Sad thoughts are not allowed. Not tonight.’

‘I know.’

But the sad thought I’m thinking won’t go away.

I pick my moment and then I make my escape.

In one of David Hall’s many bathrooms, I take my mobile out of my clutch bag. Sitting on the toilet lid, I punch in the numbers. It’ll only be seven-thirty p.m. in Canada. He could easily be at work, as he’ll have started his job now, no doubt.

It rings and rings, as my heart beats and beats harder. Then I know he’s not going to answer, and I sink inside. It clicks over to his voice mail.

‘Hello,’ I say, a moment or two after his recorded voice stops speaking. I force myself to smile so I sound more cheerful.

‘Patrick… it’s New Year, and I just wanted to phone you and say…’ I put my head in a hand. ‘It’s supposed to be a new year and I’m supposed to feel happier than this. But I miss you.’ I leave the words there until I can get myself around other ones. ‘I actually didn’t mean to ring you and say that. But there it is. I really do. I don’t know what it means, any of it…’

Be happy
, I’m about to add, but it sounds so final.

I click my phone closed. Downstairs, Elvis Costello is singing, “Allison”
.

I go on sitting there, not wanting to face anyone just yet. Then I re-dial his number, just to listen to his voice again, giving myself a chance to add something else, then I hang up without saying anything.

Then I stand up, straighten out the skirt of my dress, and go back to my party.

When I go back into the room, my sister says, ‘Where have you been?’ She looks urgent, and a bit shaken up. ‘Go outside,’ she says.

I frown, scrutinizing her for more.

‘Just go!’ She gently pushes me.

My first thought is that it’s my father getting it on in the bushes. I prepare to be extremely embarrassed—and to murder him. But something tells me it’s not that.

When I step outside into the moonlight darkness, I see right away that there is a taxi at the door, not fifty feet ahead of me. There is a man getting out of the taxi. And I know this man, and my world becomes a surreal sort of still. It’s the stature that’s unmistakeably him. And even if he had been wearing a costume and a mask I would have still recognised him.

‘Patrick?’

My mouth has gone dry. My heart is a strange clash of disbelief and delirium.

‘Yes,’ he says. He puts his suitcase down on the path, and the taxi pulls off. And then we are standing there, in the gravelled grounds of a twilit stately home. In the year 2010. A year as yet untarnished with screw-ups and resolutions that we’ll fail to keep. He holds up a hand, with his mobile phone in it. ‘I think I might have just missed your call.’ He replays my message on speakerphone. I hear my anxious voice blurting out everything that I blurted out. Then a ring off, and then another call. This time nothing said, only the sound of Elvis Costello’s “Allison” playing in the background.

I breathe out, into my two hands clasped over my face. ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask him, when I recover myself.

He puts both hands in his pants pockets, tilts his head and looks at me. ‘Actually, I got invited. Aimee sent me an invitation.’ He smiles a bit when he sees my bemused expression. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late.’

‘You’ve come all this way to see me again?’ I shake my head in disbelief.

‘Yes.’ He takes a couple of steps toward me. Then he takes something out of the inside pocket of his jacket. The jacket he was wearing that time I thought I saw him in London. The same one he wore when he came to meet my train. He was right: he actually doesn’t own that many clothes.