Greatest Love Story of All Time (31 page)

‘Vhatever,’ Stefania said, looking bored. ‘Anyone else?’

I smiled. ‘Well, actually, there’s this guy called Freddy. He’s away at the moment but we’re going to meet up when he gets back. Probably a week on Sunday.’

Leonie put down her drink with exaggerated precision. ‘Excuse me, Frances O’Callaghan, is that a smile?’ she asked incredulously.

I tried not to but somehow ended up with a broad grin. ‘Stop it! No!’

‘It damn well is,’ Dave said, amused. ‘Spill the beans.’

I told them all I knew. ‘He makes me laugh,’ I finished. ‘But he feels sort of safe. You know. Not one of those ones you die trying to keep up with.’

Stefania nodded furiously. ‘I know! I know! I know vhat you mean!’

I stared at her, surprised, and she blushed. ‘Freddy,’ she muttered, writing his name into her book.

‘Do you like
him
, then?’ Dave asked.

‘Well, yes … I mean, he’s good-looking, he doesn’t mind me saying “cunt” and he likes Dire Straits. But it’s all fantasy, meeting someone online. You can be anyone you want to be when you’ve got the protection of a computer,’ I said.

Stefania wrote down, ‘cunt/Dire Straits/fantasy’.

‘I’m going to say this one more time, though, guys. I’m getting back together with Michael and that is that.’ I downed my orange juice and went off to the loo, humming under my breath. The knowledge that Michael was out there, sad and jealous, torturing himself about my dating in the way that I had tortured myself over him and Nellie had completely turned things round for me. At work I’d suddenly been productive again and, although I said so myself, my afternoon helping Alex and the clever politics dudes yesterday had been nothing short of a gigantic triumph.

In the mirror I saw a scruffy girl staring back at me. But she had bright eyes and a whiff of hope and purpose about her. She wasn’t crammed into some ludicrous Chelsea outfit and she was not sitting in a bush stalking anyone with a pair of binoculars. Instead she had three infuriating but well-meaning friends trying to help her, and an amazing sort-of-ex-boyfriend waiting for her to take him back.

When I emerged a few minutes later, Leonie was at the bar, holding court with the men from the table next door. They were insisting on buying her a drink and she was toying with them in a friendly but disinterested manner. This really was going to take some getting used to. But, then again, if Michael and I
were
going to get back together, and if things continued to improve between me and Alex, we would be the
coolest foursome in the entire world! We would eat Sunday lunches in light and airy gastropubs and we would enjoy wintry trips to Brighton where we would take clever photographs with vintage cameras. We’d eat cupcakes in noisy cafés in the Lanes and discuss literature. It would be amazing. I would magically find myself to be as clever as Michael. I would finally be one of those Happy London People In Their Thirties!

As I turned towards our table I stopped. Dave and Stefania were talking intently about something and they were … well,
close
. They’d turned their chairs to face each other … and their knees were touching. Stefania’s over-dramatic irritation of five minutes ago had been replaced by something a lot more – I choked slightly on the word – tender.

As I came into their peripheral vision they sprang apart, looking shifty. I wasn’t sure I liked this. I picked up my glass and said, ‘Top up,’ before walking quickly back to the bar.

‘S’cuse me,’ I said to the men around Leonie. ‘Do you mind if I borrow my friend back a minute?’ One tried to give her his card.

‘Actually, I have a boyfriend,’ she said easily. They sidled off and I gawped.

‘Shut up,’ she said.

‘Tell me, straight up. Are you going to fall in love with Alex?’

She gazed down at her vintage boots. ‘Actually, I already have, Fran.’

It hung in the air between us, impossible to retract. And as her big brown eyes began to scan mine frantically for condemnation, I realized that I was truly, marvellously happy for her. Properly happy, in a way that even a week ago I couldn’t have imagined being. I flung my arms round her. ‘I frigging love you, Leonie,’ I said.

She squeezed me, relieved. ‘Mutual.’

‘An orange juice and lemonade for my old drunk of a friend,’ she said to the barman.

I thumped her leg. ‘Hey, talking of which, Mum’s been sober one whole week! Isn’t that awesome? I’m off to Cheam soon for a celebration dinner.’

Leonie beamed. ‘Yes, that is TRULY awesome. To Eve!’ She raised my drink in a toast.

‘Dave and Stefania are being really weird together,’ I whispered.

Leonie glanced at them. They were sitting normally again, talking as old friends. ‘How’d you mean “weird”?’

I thought about it. ‘Um … Well, I know this sounds mad but I think they were actually
flirting.
’

‘Don’t be absurd! That’s impossible!’ She giggled and pulled her hair into a ponytail. The men stared at her with sad and furtive longing.

She was right. ‘Yes, sorry. Moment of madness.
Dave’s been with Freya since the dawn of time and Stefania is very clearly asexual.’ Leonie smiled. I grabbed her hand. ‘I really am happy for you, you know,’ I said. ‘God knows what Alex’s problem was but he’s been really nice the last few days. And he
is
good-looking, in a sort of East-Londonish way.’

‘He’s gorgeous. Empirically gorgeous. And you know what? He’s not actually that skinny when you –’

‘NO! NOT YET!’

Leonie raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Hadn’t you better get off to your mum’s house, Fran?’ she asked pointedly. I kissed her on the cheek and left, glancing at Dave and Stefania one last time.

Everything looked normal again. ‘CIAO!’ I shouted at them as I sailed out of the Three Kings.

Ninety minutes later, I walked into the house of my childhood. The lamps were on, Weber’s Clarinet Concerto was tinkling merrily away from Mum’s archaic music system and there were unfeasibly delicious cooking smells wafting through from the kitchen. Mum was showered and dressed – progress from earlier in the week – but she wasn’t her usual self. There was no power suit, for starters, and her hair was pinned up roughly without so much as a whiff of hairspray. She was standing by the cooker, stirring something absently. When she saw me she looked simultaneously pleased and afraid.

‘Mum! This smells amazing!’

She gave the curry another stir, then sat at the table, patting the seat next to her. ‘One of the girls from the meetings came round and made it for us. She left about ten minutes ago. She did all this …’ Mum gestured vaguely towards the lamps, music and unnaturally harmonious surroundings. ‘I’m not up to much, Fran. I’ve been sleeping a lot. My head’s a bit of a whirlwind without all the alcohol washing around.’

‘Are you still craving a drink
?
’ I asked. I’d half expected her to be having a face-off with a bottle of gin.

She thought for a minute. ‘Right now, no. Earlier today? Yes. So badly I could hardly breathe. I’m a yo-yo at the moment. But I’ve got a sponsor and I call her whenever I feel bad. She’s wonderful. I have no idea why she wants to help me.’

I stared at her. ‘A what?’

‘A sponsor. When I’m going mad, I talk to her rather than having a drink. It’s hard to explain. Anyway, it’s been a week since I drank, Fran. I feel insane one minute, elated the next. But I’m sober. Isn’t that a miracle?’

‘Yes,’ I said, humbled. It was like talking to a fragile child. I’d never seen Mum so open or honest. She drifted off momentarily.

‘So what do you all actually do? How does it work?’ I asked, cursing myself for not having researched it first. I smiled encouragingly while Mum thought about her answer.

‘God, Fran, I don’t know how it works yet. I don’t know anything. I just know that everything those people say makes sense to me. We’re all so different and yet we seem to be the same person. They were talking about their families and it made me cry, Franny, thinking about you. I –’ her voice started to wobble ‘– I just want to be sober, for you. I don’t really care about me.’

‘Mum, no. You’re doing this for you. Not me. Not anyone else.’

Her eyes glazed. She was staring at the curry, which was beginning to bubble over. ‘Yes. That’s what my sponsor said earlier. I’m doing it for me. For sanity.’

I got up to stir the curry.

‘I’ve got a big journey ahead of me,’ Mum said steadily. ‘And I’m really scared. It feels … a bit overwhelming, to be quite honest. But I don’t think I have a choice.’ She leaned towards me and I came over to hug her.

I felt choked with emotion. I dug my fingers into her woolly jumper and tried not to cry.

‘I’m so proud of you, Mum,’ I whispered, into the side of her head.

Much later on, unable to sleep and reading a dog-eared
Mizz
from the box under my bed, I pondered how miraculous it was that Mum was asleep next door without the aid of a bottle of gin.

Literally, a miracle.

I sat up in bed and pulled my laptop out of my bag. I might as well make use of this dead time and try to tie down my last remaining date. I had Martin on Saturday, Freddy a week on Sunday and, hopefully, Michael in nineteen days. ‘Let’s rack up one more freak
,
’ I murmured as my dating site loaded.

Four messages had arrived in the past twenty-four hours. Four! I felt a little lift when I saw that one was from Freddy. It was a shame he was so cool, I thought fondly. Had things not done an about-turn with Michael I’d be really rather excited about meeting him.

Martin’s latest message read: I shall bring a picnic. May I presume that when you say that you, too, like cheese, your palate extends beyond the average Camembert and Stilton platter?

Of course, I lied. My palate did
not
extend beyond the average Camembert and Stilton platter. In fact, if all the cheeses in the world were swept up in a terrible tornado and Camembert was the only survivor, I’d be absolutely ecstatic. But I was open to suggestion.

The next message was from an aspiring rocker called Jolyon. He invited me to go and see him in a gig tomorrow. Invitations like that were only one stop away from straightforward masturbation: invite a girl you’ve never met to stand alone in the audience while you play the drums? Sweet Jesus!

The next message was from someone called ‘Benj’.

Hi, Fran. Liked your profile. It made me laugh out loud which is a rare thing on here. Was it written by some sort of Bratislavan convict? What do you do in telly then? I own a television; I hope that qualifies me sufficiently for a date with you. Oh, and I too am quite partial to a doughnut. Hope to hear back. Benj.

I sat back and inspected his profile. He wasn’t too bad, actually. Far too trendy for my liking – there weren’t just fitted jeans in his pictures but full-on drainpipe situations, rolled up with orange socks and old leather brogues, and a selection of hats that meant he could only possibly live in Hackney. Like Alex, he seemed partial to low-cut V-neck T-shirts and he was also of the fashion facial-hair school. In more than one picture he was working on a Mac in a postmodern tea-house somewhere in East London. But I needed to slot someone in between Martin and Freddy.

I stared at his photo, weighing it up. Benj looked dangerously meeja and I didn’t much like his Bratislavan joke, but he did have an otherwise reasonable sense of humour and a nice enough face.

Please tell me about the sort of doughnuts you like, I replied, knowing that this would inevitably become date six. I felt a bit flat. This sort of date lead-up was always the same: witty banter, followed by excitement and then bitter disappointment when the real-life version turned out to have a massive bottom or cowboy boots.

Like saving the tastiest bit of steak for the end of the meal, I finally clicked on Freddy’s message, ready for something delicious.

Date five: Martin

I rolled up my jeans to expose two ankles so white that they were practically see-through. They seemed almost fluorescent on the plastic-backed tartan rug that Mum had left in my flat after a horrible drunk picnic a few summers ago.

The weather had delivered. It was a beautiful spring day, warm, green and brisk. Perky daffodils circled the trees and the first birds of the year twittered uncertainly in the unexpected heat. I took my sunglasses out of my bag and pondered the date ahead.

After Martin’s last email – I look forward to our picnic with wild anticipation – I had realized I was in the hands of a man who possessed either a lot of irony or none at all. He would be either mad or magnificent. I prayed fervently for the former.

I glanced at Kenwood House rising up behind me, then turned back to appreciate the Arcadian bowl of grass, trees and lake that spread out calmly before me. It was a beautiful place to have a date. When I’d first moved to London I had often envisaged myself right here with a lover who would put a diamond on my
finger as we gambolled like lambs in the dappled light of a beech tree. In my vision the man had worn white linen and he’d laid out a beautiful champagne picnic to celebrate our engagement. He was a delicate yet masculine man of classical good looks.

Clearly, Martin – who was now stomping towards me with a gigantic wicker hamper – had had a similar dream. Unfortunately, he was an enormous tank of a man with classical bad looks. Like a perversion of my pastoral romantic dream, he was wearing a vast linen suit, which even had a canary yellow handkerchief frothing over in the breast pocket, and a straw fedora, which sat awkwardly, rather than jauntily, on his head. Where the hell was his coat? This was not the outfit for a picnic in the windy spring sunshine!

In spite of his lack of coat he was sweating profusely. And I wasn’t bloody surprised, given the size of the hamper: it was big enough to accommodate a string quartet.

Here we go again
, I thought sadly, wondering what would happen if I got up and ran. I was reasonably sure he wouldn’t catch me but I didn’t want to be struck off the dating website for being nasty so I sat still and rolled my jeans back down. ‘HI, MARTIN!’ I shouted enthusiastically.