Confessions of a Serial Dater (19 page)

“Actually, I can see why many women choose to do precisely that,” Rowan says. “It’s hard, sometimes, to find the right partners for all the functions we have to attend. On occasion when I’ve traveled to functions alone, which is a lot, you’d be surprised at the number of sharks who think I’m fair game.”

Oh, if only she knew what her cheating husband gets up to while she’s away,
I think.

“This is the twenty-first century, after all,” the cheating husband says. It’s the first time tonight that he’s engaged in a conversation in which I am involved, and I’m glad that he’s been keeping his distance.

“And even if Rosie did decide to hire an escort,” he says, looking across at me, “there shouldn’t be a stigma attached. As Rowan says, it’s sometimes a smart decision. Almost like
hiring a bodyguard. Frankly, I feel very sorry for poor Mitzy having such an awful sister.”

Oh, God, and his eyes are so sympathetic. In that moment, I know that he knows…

“Oh, well, yes, of course,” Elaine does an immediate about-face. “We all did feel very sorry for her. Agnes can be such a bitch, at times. But you know what they say—sometimes you have to laugh, else you’d cry. And,” she adds, patting Harry’s arm, “Harry and I are just good friends. I, too, am a vulnerable woman who felt the need for a partner at this function,” she sighs.

And before I can wonder at her complete two-faced gall, Granny Elsie arrives at the table, a flurry of worry and urgency.

“Rosie, love, I think we’d better get yer mum home,” she says a bit out of breath. “She’s not well.”

“What’s the matter?” I’m on my shoeless feet before the words are out of my mouth.

“I think she’s having, you know, a bit of a turn,” Gran tells me. “She’s with Auntie Lizzy in the ladies’ room.”

“Poor Auntie Sandra’s never been the same since Uncle John passed away,” Elaine announces to the table. “We’re all so
worried
about her. We think she needs to see a psychiatrist, in fact Mummy’s always
telling
her she needs to seek medical help,” she lies. “But she can be so
stubborn.
”

“Grief can be a serious issue,” Luke says, getting to his feet. “I’ll come, I might be able to help,” he tells me earnestly.

“It’s okay.” I shake my head. “I can manage.” At least I think I can. And the last person’s help I need is Luke’s.

“But you’re an obstetrician, not a psychiatrist,” Elaine jumps in, her face falling at losing one of her captive audience. “I’m sure she’ll be
fine
once Rosie gets her home.”

“I insist,” Luke says. “Depression can often manifest itself as a physical illness. Let’s go.”

“I’m such a drain on you,” Mum says sleepily as I tuck her into bed. “I don’t mean to be.”

“Not one bit,” I tell her, leaning over to kiss her forehead. “Now you get a good night’s sleep as per doctor’s orders. And don’t worry about a thing,” I add, worrying about her.

“Such a nice young man,” she tells me, sleepy from the sedative that Luke has given her.

In many ways he is,
I think as I switch off the light and close the bedroom door. He’s certainly been kind to Mum.

Mum started crying, you see. Well, more like sobbing and sobbing her heart out, and she couldn’t stop. It was the wedding, and seeing Flora and Ned together. It reminded her of her and Dad’s wedding. And that Dad was no longer with her. Her grief just caught up with her, and the floodgates opened.

Luke was so calm and assertive. He got her into a cab and insisted on coming home with Mum, Gran and me. He checked her out, then gave her the sedative to help her sleep.

And despite Clarke being a good sport and playing the devoted boyfriend right up to the end, I’m wishing that I’d let him come back with us, because now I have to talk to Luke, and I could do with a buffer.

I take a deep breath and walk into the kitchen, where Granny Elsie is plying him with tea-infused brandy.

“You should be careful,” I tell them. “Two mouthfuls of that and you’ll be on your back.”

“Good,” Luke says, drinking deeply. “I could use it after the day I’ve had.”

“Another of those days?” I say before I can stop the words from coming out of my mouth, and he raises a sardonic eyebrow at me as he takes another sip.

“I don’t know about you young people, but I’m all done in,” Gran says rather pointedly. “I’m taking my brandy to bed.
It was lovely to meet you, Luke,” she says. “You’ve been marvelous with Sandra.”

And I panic, because I don’t want her to leave me alone with him.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, too.” He smiles his lovely, charming smile, and my heartbeat picks up speed.

“I’ve made one for you, love. Drink it up, then you should do the same,” Gran tells me, giving me a meaningful wink before she trundles toward the stairs.

Ever one for seizing an opportunity, I know what that meaningful wink of Gran’s means. It means, “Take this one to bed with you.” Honestly, the woman has no shame!

“Goodnight, Gran.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she adds, and I scowl at her.

“I’ll be following you in a couple of minutes,” I say rather pointedly, then flush at the abruptness of my tone.

It sounds like I’m trying to get rid of Luke, and after all he’s done for Mum, this is not kind. But then, it’s not every Saturday night a girl finds herself in her mother’s kitchen with her married one-night stand, is it? What the hell am I going to say to him?

But before I can say a word, a horn honks outside the house.

“I should leave you in peace,” Luke says, finishing his tea and getting to his feet. “That’s my ride home.” He grabs his bag.

“Okay,” I say flatly. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

And as we get to the front door, he pauses, handing me a card.

“Stephen Miller is a good friend. We were at med school together for a while,” he says, and I’m confused, which is not an unusual occurrence these days. “He’s a top man. Great psychiatrist. Your mum should see him.”

Stephen Miller might be a great psychiatrist, but he also has an expensive Harley Street address. Which means expensive Harley Street medical bills.

“Thank you,” I say, concentrating on the card, because I don’t want to concentrate on Luke.

“He takes National Health Service patients, too, so no worries that he’ll be too, um, expensive.”

His kindness brings a lump to my throat, and I make the big mistake of looking up into his face. Huge mistake, because what I see there fills me with a longing to throw myself into his arms. Which is ridiculous.

“Rosie?” he says gently.

“Yes?”

“About that—night—”

“No,” I say, holding up a hand. Because I don’t want to think about that night, because if I think about that night I might do something rash. Like kiss him. “Thanks for everything, but you’d better leave,” I say in a rush, taking a step back. “Good-bye.”

“Well, then. Good-bye.”

I close the door before he’s barely over the doorstep.

“Miss Mayford, she just won’t do,” Mrs. Granville-Seymour booms down the telephone line at me.

I’m a bit cross about this because, as per New Year, I lined up a selection of perfectly good people with cat experience from whom Mrs. G-S could choose the perfect companion for dear Maxie while she and her companion head off to Paris for a few days.

They’re leaving on Monday. This gives me precisely today, Thursday and Friday to conjure up a replacement out of my magic hat.

“What, exactly, seems to be the problem?” I ask her, completely hiding my crossness as I wrack my brain for an alternative. Mrs. G-S has, after all, generated a lot of business for us in the rich-pet-carer business.

But Karen, a very nice English literature major in her final year, was all lined up to move in.

“I made it quite clear that dear Maxie needs twenty-four-hour companionship. I can’t have her tripping out whenever she feels like it, leaving him all on his own. I’ll be leaving adequate supplies. There will be no need for nipping to the corner shop for tea bags when I have a perfectly good tea caddy full of Earl Grey. And lemons in the refrigerator, naturally.”

“Naturally,” I say, but don’t mention the fact that some of us find the taste of the bergamot oil in Earl Grey too much for our palates.

Frankly, I don’t understand why Maxie
needs
twenty-four-hour supervision. He’s a
cat.
It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the poor girl might need to go out and buy, oh, I don’t know, luxury items such as milk and bread, is it?

I mean, it’s not like Maxie’s going to throw a secret party while she’s out and invite all the neighborhood felines for a mouse fest, is it? God, I can just see it now. The house will be trashed with cigarette butts and empty beer cans on account of all the carousing cats. The police will have to break it up, because the hip-hop music will be too loud….

But Mrs. G-S is paying very well. God, it’s only ten in the morning, and already I have a pounding headache.

There aren’t many people available with full degrees, or almost full degrees, like Karen, to cat-sit in June, and Grace, the other perfect candidate, the ex-fluffer, is already fixed up. Literally.

She and Clarke, apparently, took a real shine to each other at Ned and Flora’s wedding last month. Not that they showed it at the wedding, because they were attending with Philip and me, and therefore it would have been unkind on Grace’s part and unprofessional on Clarke’s, since I’d paid him.

It happened shortly after the wedding, when they bumped into each other in a supermarket in Islington, be
cause, it seems, they lived just around the corner from each other. And, according to Grace, who told me because she wanted to make sure she wasn’t stepping on my toes, whilst swapping special offer information, they also swapped telephone numbers.

Anyway, talk about thunderbolts of lightning—they decided to get married almost immediately. They’re currently honeymooning in Brighton. Which is why Grace can’t cat-sit dear Maxie.

Philip said not to bother finding him another “girlfriend” for the vicarage garden party he’s throwing in July, on account of not wanting to appear too flighty with the church hobnobs. Poor Philip. I think he was quite keen on Grace.

“Let me check through my files and get back to you,” I tell Mrs. G-S, envisioning me spending five days in her mansion. “If I can’t find anyone else, then, of course, I’ll be very happy to step in myself.” I make a mental note to pack tea bags.

“Thank you, Miss Mayford,” Mrs. G-S says, startling me, because she’s prudent with praise. “You did an excellent job with him over New Year. He really took to you.”

And then my phone rings again, immediately, and as I pick it up there’s a knock at my door, and I’m more than surprised when an unfamiliar brunette wearing glasses sticks her head around it. Actually, she looks familiar….

“Hello, hello, can I come in?” Jess asks, and I nod, smiling, although mentally sighing, because this probably means that the condom factory has let her go. I don’t know what else I’ve got that would suit her. Really, I’m drying up, here. On the bright side, there are only three more weeks to go before she gets the next installment of her trust fund, and therefore only three weeks until her life can go back to normal.

I wonder about the change of image, too, as she breezes across the room in her sensible, loose black pants and sensible, loose black shirt.

“Dr. Miller thinks it would be a good idea for me to get a job,” is Mum’s opening comment. “Just part time. Just two or three hours in the afternoons, I was thinking. That way I’ll have plenty of time to get ready, and such. Somewhere within walking distance, because you know how I hate traveling on the Underground, and taxis there and back every day just wouldn’t be cost effective.”

“Well—” It’s great that she’s improving. Luke was right about his doctor friend. And in the month since Mum started seeing him twice a week, she’s really come along. The nonaddictive prescription has also kicked in, which helps, too.

“And maybe not every afternoon,” Mum jumps right back into her soliloquy. Before I can tell her that job beggars cannot be choosers, and that sometimes one has to adapt oneself to whatever the company stipulates, she’s off again.

“Three or four afternoons would be good. But not Fridays, because I’ve joined a widow and widowers support group, and they meet on Friday evenings, and I need to get my hair done before I go. Dr. Miller says it’s good to have a schedule, see, so Friday afternoons I’ve scheduled a regular wash and blow-dry.”

“Right,” I say. “Got all that.”

“So what have you got?”

“I’ll check and get back to you later. Is that alright?”

“Well, shouldn’t you set up an interview for me?”

“But I haven’t checked what we’ve got yet,” I explain patiently.

“No, I meant with
you.
I’m supposed to come for an interview, aren’t I? How about now?”

But I
know
her, why on earth would I need to interview her?

“How about tomorrow morning?” I sigh, because it’s going to be one of those days. I can just tell.

“How about tomorrow afternoon?”

“Okay.”

And after I hang up with Mum, I turn to Jess, who has ensconced herself in the seat opposite me.

“Jess. Lovely to see you,” I say brightly. What I don’t say is,
Why are you not at work?

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here, and not at work,” she says, her smile failing. “I got fired. I’m just no good at anything. I can’t even test condoms. I’m unemployable. Completely unemployable,” she adds, shaking her newly brunette head.

“That’s a different look for you,” I say, trying for upbeat.

“I’m trying for pensive and intelligent,” she tells me from behind the clear, prescription-free lenses. “What do you think?” she asks, getting to her feet and holding out her arms as she rotates three hundred and sixty degrees.

“Well—” It’s a bit frumpy, but she’s so serious that I don’t have the heart to tell her.

“It’s a bit frumpy, but I thought it would make a nice change. Having everyone take me seriously. You know?”

“We do—”
take you seriously,
I begin, but she doesn’t give me the chance to finish.

“Grace is very attractive, isn’t she?” Jess utterly confounds me by changing the subject.

“Um, yes, yes she is.” Grace is a brunette who wears glasses, I think, as I try to follow Jess’s line of thought.

“I haven’t seen her or Philip since the wedding. I expect they’ve been too busy to come to the Saturday-night dinners. She seems just like the right kind of woman for Philip. She’ll make a great vicar’s wife.” Jess frowns and sits back in the chair.

And I have A Great Idea.

“She dumped Philip just after the wedding and married Clarke. Remember Clarke?”

“Really?” Jess asks, brightening. And then, “I expect
Philip’s suffering from a broken heart, then, which is why he hasn’t come to any of the Saturday-night dinners.”

This is ve-ry interesting.

“Actually, Philip’s not upset—he’s just been busy,” I tell her, channeling Amélie in my quest to help Philip and Jess. “And he and Grace were, and still are, I think, just good friends.” Which is not the full truth, but sometimes it’s good to be a bit judicious with it—no need for Jess to find out about the financial arrangement.

“Oh. Really?”

“Actually, I think he’s lonely,” I say, digging in my point just a bit deeper, because I’ve always thought he had a soft spot for Jess. “Such a shame,” I shake my head. “I think he’d love to find the right woman and settle down.”

“That’s nice,” Jess says brightly. And then, “I’m knitting him a sweater for his birthday. You are coming on Saturday night, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

I’m definitely not going to miss this Saturday night—partly because it is in honor of Philip’s birthday, and partly because if it involves Jess making a move on Philip, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

“Anyway, what have you got for me? It’s only for a few more weeks,” Jess reminds me.

I sigh, and Jess sighs with me. But defeat is not something we admit to at Odd Jobs. And I have Another Great Idea.

“How do you feel about cat-sitting?”

And after Jess goes off to meet dear Maxie and Mrs. G-S (who is delighted at the thought of Lady Etherington’s daughter as a companion for Maxie, plus she is also delighted that Jess has a degree in art), and as I am mentally congratulating myself for my triumph at having (a) rescued myself from five days of only Maxie for company, and (b) fanned the flames of young love, thereby possibly solving Philip’s
woman issue in more ways than one, I’m not expecting Colin’s news.

“Have you got five?” he asks me in his deadpan voice. “Only my mother’s moved into a nursing home and the house is in her name. It’s got to be sold to pay for the home.”

“Of course,” I say, because it’s a while since he’s had one of his depressions, and he sounds depressed.

“I’m not depressed, if that’s what you’re thinking. Mum really has gone into a home, and the house really does have to be sold. In fact, the contracts are being exchanged next Monday.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Colin,” I say, meaning it. How awful.

“It’s the bloody government I blame,” he tells me but then doesn’t say why. “I’m only telling you because I’ll need time off to go looking for some disgusting, poky bedsit in some terrible area, because that’s all I’ll be able to afford.”

“Of course, Colin. You must take as much time as you like,” I tell him, ignoring my ringing phone. “And if there’s anything I can help with, just let me know,” I add supportively.

“I shan’t be offended or anything if you want to ignore me for a few minutes and take that call,” Colin deadpans on.

So I pick up.

“Rosie, it’s me.” It’s Jonathan. “How are you?”

Well, knock me down with a feather. But I’m oddly happy to hear his voice.

“I’m great,” I tell him. “How about you?”

“Oh, I’m good, you know. How’s your mum?”

“Much better. Improving daily.” I’m a bit puzzled that he’s called me about Mum, though.

“Look,” he adds, without any preamble. “I told you I was no good at this stuff, so I’m just going to spit it out. Samantha and I broke up. Seeing you last month made me realize how much I miss your company, and I’d love to take you out to dinner. What do you say? No strings attached.”

“You’ve got a spare bedroom, haven’t you?” Colin pauses at my office door. “How do you feel about a lodger? Only, you did offer to help and I’m a bit stuck,” he says, and I’m barely listening to him. It’s hard to concentrate on two conversations at the same time.

“Yes, I’d love that,” I find myself saying, because, well, I would love that. I can’t remember the last time I was taken out to dinner by an attractive man. In fact, the last time was with Jonathan.

“Great,” Colin tells me. “I really appreciate it, Rosie. It won’t be for long. I hope. When can I move in?”

“Great,” Jonathan tells me. “Which night are you free?”

“Um, how about Sunday?”

“I thought that was your admin night?”

“I can be flexible.” See, this is the new me. I can bend my schedule a bit.

“Okay, I’ll pick you up at, say, seven-thirty?”

“I’ll need a spare key,” Colin says. “I’ll come around about six, if that’s alright.”

“Perfect,” I say.

“See you then,” Jonathan says, hanging up.

And then it hits me.

Oh, God. I can’t believe that I’ve just agreed to let Colin move in with me, however inadvertently. But in my good humor, I can afford to help my fellow men.

Today is turning out to be rather a good day, after all.

At least it is until six-thirty in the evening.

As I step out of Paddington Station and into the hustle and bustle of Praed Street, and wonder in which part of the cluster of buildings that constitutes St. Mary’s Hospital I might find the Lindo Wing, and also worrying that finding the Lindo Wing might also involve bumping into Luke, I’m
more than a bit surprised to see Charlie and Lewis coming out of one of the doors.

“Hey, you two.” I dash across to them, bouquet of flowers in hand. “Thank God. I had visions of trekking around forever. Did you find her?”

“Oh, Rosie, hi,” Lewis says, a baffled, horrified expression on his face.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Charlie says, equally baffled and horrified.

“Of course I’m here,” I say, waving the bouquet. “I might not like her, but she
is
my cousin, and although I’d rather be at cookery class because it’s chocolate mousse tonight, I thought I should pop by and pay a duty visit—” I break off.

Because I’ve just remembered something. Charlie wasn’t in the office when I got the call from Mum. He left early this afternoon because, so he said, he had to go to Vauxhall to see a drag queen about a gig.

So, therefore, Charlie doesn’t know that Elaine went into labor early this morning…

“Elaine had her baby three and a half weeks early. She had a little girl, five pounds two ounces, just before lunchtime. Baby and mother are fine, which is a relief, but they might keep her in hospital for a little while. But as I said, they’re both fine,” I babble cheerfully.