A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger (7 page)

Trying not to pout or scowl – I often felt Granny Helen watching me long after we'd had a conversation – I pulled out a newspaper from halfway up the pile and scanned the open page blankly, as if this might help.

And, to my surprise, it did.

‘Oh, my God!' I whispered. I'd had a brainwave. ‘That's the solution!'

‘Shove yer solution up yer arse,' muttered the caveman from next door.

I froze until his oaf-like snores recommenced, then opened a notebook. Hope was coursing through my veins once more. Granny Helen had been right, as usual. All I needed was a hobby to keep me sane. And I had just the thing.

12 September 2012, ten weeks later

I had to leave my desk I was laughing so much, Iain wrote.

Why the hell have I been searching slutty bars for a girl like you?

Any chance we can meet tonight?

‘Ha ha!' I giggled. ‘Twonk!'

Sam looked round from the cooker. ‘Eh?'

‘Oh, nothing. Just a guy who's fallen for one of my clients. He's jizzing his pants trying to meet up with her. I LOVE it, Sam!'

Sam came over, stirring the wreckage of the world's worst omelette around a pan.

‘Oh, my love,' I said, looking at the mess inside. ‘Yvonne is a lucky girl marrying a talented chef like you.'

He grinned. ‘Fair fucks, Chas. But it's got protein and vegetables, just like you said. And, look, I've made some mashed potato for your healthy carbs or whatever it was,' he added, pointing towards a bowl of white purée flecked with shreds of potato skin.

I suddenly felt a great big surge of love for Sam, followed quickly by a surge of irritation that I couldn't just jump up and hug him. He had been an angel over the last couple of weeks since Mum had released me from home. He'd cooked endless meals, which, though consistently
terrible, had not once featured value bread or Nutella. He'd hauled me in and out of my wheelchair (‘The Tank', he'd named it), helped me swing around on my crutches once I was upright, and had thrown himself into helping with my fledgling company, First Date Aid, with heart-warming enthusiasm.

His contribution to the business had been unexpected. He'd spent August flyering the entire city and recently, completely unprompted, he'd spent a week on the phone negotiating with self-important sales executives for cheap ad space. I'd watched him, sprawled across my sofa in a pair of jogging bottoms, haggling away, and marvelled. Who would have known there was a businessman in Samuel Bowes? The jobs that Sam normally took to tide him over as a resting actor were as unchallenging as possible. Mostly he worked for promo companies as a host for posh events because he was gorgeous and made older ladies feel young and special. He regularly badgered me to get him on clinical trials at Salutech, which he viewed (alarmingly) as money for nothing. ‘I mean, basically I just take some drugs, answer some questions and then live or die,' he told me. ‘What's not to love?' Recently I'd managed to get him on a trial for a concentration-enhancing product and he'd been thrilled. ‘I'm being paid to take speed!' I'd heard him chuckle to Yvonne.

It was with good reason that I'd written off Sam as a potential businessman.

And yet, thanks to him, First Date Aid was now everywhere, even the
Scotsman
. He'd somehow got me a brilliant feature and the emails had flooded in ever since. I was now the proud manager of no less than sixty-eight
hopeless daters. Sixty-eight clients! Only three weeks after the business had been launched!

For what he'd done I was prepared to eat as many of Sam's mangled omelettes and potato slops as was necessary. The business was all that was keeping me from complete insanity. ‘Those look like perfect healthy carbs to me,' I told him. ‘Bowes, I don't think you'll ever know how grateful I am. For the food, the help with First Date Aid, everything.' I opened up a dialogue box to start my client Joanna's reply to poor old pant-jizzing Iain.

‘Feels like the least I can do,' Sam said, after a second. ‘I know I'm a bit of a thorn in your side, Chas. Messy, you know. All those girls. Crap with rent.'

I looked up at him, surprised. I'd had no idea that Sam possessed self-awareness.

‘And besides,' he added, ‘I'm enjoying it. It's been good to have something to do.'

He turned abruptly and I felt a little moment of melancholy on his behalf. Of
course
it was nice for him to have something to get his teeth into. The Fringe Festival had passed us by for yet another summer, with its shouty actors getting drunk all over the Royal Mile, and he hadn't had so much as an audition in two years. Had I not started up First Date Aid I would have gone completely, totally, utterly mad, so I could only imagine what it was like for him to have years pass without a whiff of acting work. As he scraped the omelette off the bottom of the pan, I willed some director out there to give him a break.

I turned back to my screen and, without thought or preparation, started writing Joanna's reply to Iain. It never
ceased to amaze me how easy the banter was: I just put hand to keyboard and out it came. Of course, it was years of email and messenger flirtation with John that had landed me with this talent, but I was trying my best to forget that John existed.

Oh, Iain. I do understand how urgently you want me. You're only human … Careful, though. I could have the physique of a Cornish pasty. How would you feel about that? If you're willing to take the chance, I can meet you next week on Wednesday. We can meet in a slutty bar if you like, so you feel at home. I'm looking forward to it. Jo X

‘Bang on,' Sam said, reading over my shoulder. ‘Cheeky. Doesn't take herself too seriously … Registers her interest but makes him wait for a date. Chas, my friend, you're the bomb.'

He went off to plate up tonight's atrocity and I looked in the mirror to see what a bomb was meant to look like. A smart and reasonably well-groomed girl looked back at me, her face framed by a neat brown bob, with ultra-straight fringe. She was tall, athletic and she could see (today, but by no means always) that she was reasonably attractive.

‘You're doing your weird mirror face!' Sam sniggered from the cooker.

I winced, knowing he was right. My mirror face was designed to make me look clever and interesting but it actually made me look frightening and constipated. I knew this because I'd tried it out in photos, repeatedly, without success. ‘Um, how's Yvonne?' I asked, keen to
deflect attention from myself. ‘I've not seen her in, what, three days?'

‘Here you go.' Sam slopped down a plate of multicoloured lumps in front of me. I got stuck straight in to avoid causing offence. ‘Yvonne is great,' he said, breaking into a cheesy grin. ‘And the reason you've not seen her is that she's just started a part-time degree.'

‘Oh, really? Good on her! What in?'

‘Communications, actually. Your gig is Yvonne's dream job.'

‘
Really?
'

‘Yes, Chas, really,' Sam said, clearly offended. ‘She might be a bit silly but she's fucking clever.'

There was an awkward silence.

‘Sam, I'm sorry. That sounded awful.' I put my fork down. ‘I didn't mean it like that. I'm quite sure Yvonne'll make a great comms person. I suppose I'm just a bit protective of my job just now. The situation with Margot … Eurgh.'

‘Margot's the slapper who's doing it at the moment?' Sam asked, squirting ketchup all over his meal.

‘I don't think she's an actual slapper – she just wears very short skirts and high heels.'

‘Slapper,' Sam confirmed. ‘Trust me, Chas, I've met a few in my time.'

But I was out of smiles already, back in the Margot-related anxiety that I'd been battling for weeks. The experience of having to hand over every single detail of my precious job to her had been even more humiliating than I'd imagined and – worse still – she seemed to be getting on absolutely fine without me. ‘Please just call me
any time of day,' I'd said to her, back in June, when she'd breezed into the hospital for a gloaty briefing. ‘There's no need to suffer in silence.' After all, I'd basically handed her the responsibility of getting the government and entire medical industry onside with our new drug. A huge job. A monumental job.
My
job. My chance to show the company what I could do.

‘Sure,' she'd said briskly. ‘Remember, though, I'm used to this. I ran the comms for a £3.5 billion brand launch in my last company.' And she'd walked out of the cubicle with the job I'd spent my entire career working for, positively radiating joy at my multiple fractures.

‘So, Chas. What're the latest stats?' Sam broke off from mashing ketchup into his potato to nod at my computer.

I was relieved that he hadn't taken offence about Yvonne. ‘The stats, Samuel Bowes, are good! I've got sixty-eight people signed up and sixteen active cases. Sixteen! Sixteen people glued to their screens waiting for messages from me
right now
! Can you imagine how exciting that feels?'

Sam grinned. ‘Ace … Any fitties in there?'

‘Bowes! Butt out!'

He shrugged. A leopard never lost its spots. I had another mouthful of eggy massacre (which was surprisingly good), then put my fork down again. ‘Look, Sam,' I said. ‘Without this project I would have gone mad. Proper raving loony. Thank you so much for all of your help and encouragement.'

‘It's in my interests to keep you busy, Chas. You being cooped up here with nothing to do … God.' He shuddered.

In spite of myself, I laughed. ‘I'm just a born doer. It's how I roll, man. I ain't no freak.'

‘I know. But when you're not doing you
are
a freak. A monster. One of the worst I've ever encountered.'

This was fair.

There was a companionable silence.

‘Um, Chas.'

‘Yes?' An awkward flush was spreading across his face.

‘I … we … have been wondering how you're feeling about, erm, stuff. Ness told me you were spouting shit in hospital about having wasted your life …' He was picking at a burnt onion. ‘I know you don't want to talk about it but … mffppfff …' He trailed off and it occurred to me that I'd probably never seen him look so uncomfortable.

And I felt suddenly ashamed. What kind of a monster was I? Poor, lovely, silly Sam had gone to war with a sack of potatoes and a box of eggs – all for me – but was afraid to ask how I
was
?

‘Sam, you can ask me how I am! The only reason I said, “I don't want to talk about it,” is that there
is
nothing to talk about. That stuff I said to Ness was just a load of self-pitying bollocks! I was still off my face.'

He raised an eyebrow, but failed to make eye contact with me. Instead he scooped up a very large piece of egg with his fingers, dipped it into a pool of sauce and shovelled it into his mouth.

‘Sam,' I tried again, determined that he should believe me, ‘things are great for me. I've started my own business, I'm managing to have Mandarin lessons and my physio
says I'm way ahead of schedule with the crutches. I should be going back to work soon! I'll definitely be there in time for the Simitol launch! My life is fine!'

Sam looked very relieved. ‘Excellent, Chas.'

I found myself hoping fiercely that he believed me. My life
was
fine. Not only was I continuing language classes and running a business, I was writing a blog and consistently meeting my reading target of one historical novel a week (anything low-brow had to be extra)
and
I'd started up an anonymous Twitter account, which had gained more than two hundred followers in five weeks. I might not be able to do as much as usual, but I'd not been anywhere near as bored as I'd predicted.

I rather prided myself on being so busy and creative even when bed-bound.

Later, after poor Sam had shovelled me sideways into bed from The Tank, I fired up my laptop. Pants-jizzing Iain had replied to Joanna already (of course) and was waiting, breathlessly, for ‘her' response. ‘Member online right now!!' screamed his profile. I felt a little bit sorry for poor old Iain, pacing around his bedroom in Tooting, refreshing his browser every few minutes ‘just to be sure'. He was definitely in Internet love, that one.

My younger sister, Katy, had tried Internet dating last year, not because she needed to, but simply because, in her words, it looked ‘fucking hilarious!'. But she had scrapped her profile two weeks later because she'd ‘fallen in Internet love three times in a fucking fortnight! Mental!' She had reported all-night email conversations and social situations where she'd been unable to listen to a
word that anyone was saying, so busy was she checking her phone. Apparently she had even spent an afternoon casually strolling up and down Columbia Road because some boy she had ‘fallen for' worked there and she couldn't wait three more days until their date.

Katy wasn't mad. Young, yes, irresponsible, definitely … but mad, no. Internet love must, therefore, be a phenomenon.

When I'd hauled Matty in for Hailey, I'd seen just how real this phenomenon was. In spite of the fact that he was a landscape gardener who was out in the wilds of Fife all day, he appeared to be online all the time and always responded in seconds. (Knowing Matty, he'd probably rustled up a Wi-Fi hotspot in the grounds of Falkland Palace using a coat-hanger and an egg box.)