It's Got to Be Perfect: the memoirs of a modern-day matchmaker (34 page)

‘Gosh. It’s almost like he’s been drugged,’ remarked Victoria as the crowd swarmed around him, Alice Cooper’s “Poison” infiltrating the airwaves.

Chapter Twenty Five

‘Tea, coffee, birth control anyone?’ The air steward patrolled the aisles, sneering at couples.

I couldn’t really blame him. Since we’d boarded the plane, he’d been required to conduct an extensive seat-swapping exercise in order to accommodate the newly-formed couples, then to service their incessant demands for slippery nipples from the drinks trolley. Then to tolerate hair-stroking, hand-holding, cooing, sighing, gasping and inappropriate fondling under blankets. However, from his current facial expression, and the tight grip he had on an open bottle of water, it seemed he was unwilling to overlook the squelchy noises coming from the seats behind me.

‘Come on guys. Give it a rest,’ I said, leaning round my seat to the row behind. Cassandra and Dr Stud’s lips and tongues were entwined. They glanced sideways at me without breaking contact.

‘Shhh,’ Mr Marbella said, sitting beside them with his arm around Emily. She was asleep, snuggled up on his chest. Mandi sat across the aisle with a furrowed brow and a pink notebook open on her lap. Her fluffy pink pen bobbed up and down, looking like some kind of exotic yet well-trained caterpillar.

‘Psst, Mandi,’ I whispered.

She lifted her hand without looking up. ‘One second.’ The pen bobbed up and down some more. ‘Okay done.’ She looked up, grinning. ‘Guess what?’

‘What?’

‘One hundred percent.’

‘No way.’

She clapped her hands. ‘For the first time ever, a one hundred percent hit rate.’

‘Shhh,’ Mr Marbella held a finger to his mouth.

I grinned, giving her a double thumbs-up.

When I turned back in my seat, Victoria, who was sitting beside me, prodded my arm.

‘So that means everyone on this trip met someone?’ she asked.

I nodded, still grinning.

‘What, even that heffalump in the other chalet?’ She scrunched up her nose. ‘And the skinny geeky guy?’

I pointed to the happy couple who were two rows up across the aisle. ‘How did you not notice them? They’ve been all over each other for days.’

She sniffed and then shook her head as if to clear the image. ‘I have a filter for ugly people.’

Mike leaned in from her other side and then squeezed her knee, flashing his knicker-dropping smile. ‘Don’t you ever change,’ he said.

‘Ever?’ she asked.

‘Never, ever, ever,’ he said, twirling her ponytail and gazing at her adoringly. I glanced at the sick bag, just to be sure of its location if the need arose.

When he leaned in to kiss her, I, along with the steward, decided my voyeurism quota had been filled for the day. I picked up my iPod
,
plugged in the earphones and closed my eyes. The music washed over me like the sea over sand, the rhythm and the lyrics triggering thoughts and emotions, rolling, crashing and then pulling back. My muscles tensed then relaxed. I let out a deep sigh and images floated through my mind. The faces of all those I’d known. The people I’d helped, the people I’d failed. Those who I’d loved and those who I’d lost. I knew now that without sadness, happiness was meaningless. That one was dependent on the other. As I let the acceptance flow through me, it felt as though I were floating in the ocean, surrendering to the peaks and troughs of the waves, letting the tide direct me. It was almost as though I could feel the spray from the sea, splashing on my face. Another splash. I opened my eyes to find the steward with a menacing glint in his eye and an empty bottle in his hand. Next to me, Victoria and Mike wore the contents with corresponding shocked expressions.

At baggage collection, the carousel chugged along with suitcases piled high, showcased to their audience. The passengers waited, eyes fixed on the conveyor, searching for their case. Occasionally, someone would identify the wrong one, then quickly toss it back, embarrassed by their misguided certainty. Others would fidget, shifting the weight from their feet, seemingly fretful their suitcase may never arrive. I supposed some cases would remain unclaimed, circulating the carousel like unwanted dogs in a pound, eyed up suspiciously by officials and ultimately destroyed.

‘There’s mine!’ squealed Cassandra, before springing onto the carousel and wrestling her suitcase as though it were a crocodile.

Meanwhile, Dr Stud was battling to balance his skis and an oddly shaped case on a trolley. Victoria stepped away from the scene, obviously keen to distance herself from any association, while Mike did his best to look unfazed by the weight of his suitcase, two pairs of skis and Victoria’s Louis Vuitton trunk. Clearly not wanting to be outdone, Mr Marbella, skis balanced across his shoulders, heaved his entire Burberry suitcase collection into his arms and then carefully placed Emily’s bag on top as though he were transporting a Faberge egg. I directed them to the trolley park and explained that my indemnity insurance didn’t include competitive lifting.

Trolleys loaded up, we loitered by the customs exit, waiting to say our goodbyes. Mandi broke the standoff first with her clients, initiating a seemingly well-rehearsed group hug, which also appeared to include a team mantra and custom handshake. When they’d concluded with a bottom-wiggle high-five combo, Minky launched into an Oscar-style speech, thanking each of her clients for their role in the trip that would have undoubtedly changed their lives.

Our group looked at each other with the awkwardness of teenagers at the end of a date. Despite good intentions, I knew that, for most of us, it was the end of a journey. As much as they felt like family, I knew that now was their time to move on, to begin their lives together. Some would update me, invite me to their wedding, their baby’s christening. Yet most would disappear, almost as though they were ashamed of any intervention. Ashamed that they had asked for help with something that was supposed to be easy and effortless.

Victoria broke the silence with uncharacteristic perkiness.

‘Righty ho, let’s go to Arrivals.’

Her tone and her choice of words seemed slightly bizarre: who says “let’s go to Arrivals”? She ushered us through customs, checking her watch.

After passing through, with only a moment’s concern when a sniffer dog took a liking to Mr Marbella, we walked into the vast white space that was the gateway to London. It was teeming with people, all rushing to greet their loved-ones.
There is no greater barometer for love than the arrivals area at an airport
, I thought as I watched some swamped by a deluge of hugs and kisses, while others were left to make their own way home.

Cassandra and Dr Stud skipped ahead laughing raucously. Mr Marbella stopped in front and threaded his fingers through Emily’s. She turned to him, pushed back the thick fringe from her eyes and smiled, just as a busty blonde in a sprayed on t-shirt wiggled past them. Mr Marbella didn’t flinch. He looked straight through her and then back at Emily with a smile that was worth more than all the diamond-encrusted watches in the world.

Moments later, standing alone at the edge of the concourse while the latest arrivals were announced via the Tannoy, I watched as each of our hundred-percent-hit-rate couples left the airport. I plopped down on my suitcase and wondered how many of them would last. If the statistics prevailed, then eighty-five percent would end up single again.

My thoughts flashed back to the day I’d decided to become a matchmaker. When I’d been focused solely on the end goal of finding love for my clients and myself. However, now I’d learned the truth: that love’s arrival wasn’t accompanied by a magnificent fanfare. It wasn’t the prelude to a dramatic conclusion or fading final scene alluding to a lifetime of happiness. I looked around me, at the people arriving only to depart again, and I realised that one journey’s end was nothing more than the start of another.

I tore the tag from my suitcase, screwed it up into a ball and tossed it in the bin beside me. Then I looked up to see Mandi bounding towards me, her luminous pink suitcase trundling behind her.

‘Fancy a victory drink?’ she said, pointing towards the bar next to us. Then she nodded at the sandwich board outside, which promised a foot of onion rings and a glass of wine for a fiver.

When we were wedged in a faux leather booth, with two warm glasses of chardonnay in hand, Mandi and I looked at each other across the table. She smiled and then let out a deep sigh as though she were exhaling five years’ of matchmaking accomplishments.

I lifted my glass. ‘Cheers.’

She raised hers to meet mine, bypassing the imposing stack of onion rings. ‘To us,’ she said. ‘Mission accomplished.’

I took a long slow sip and then put my glass back down on the table, wondering why I still felt a few residual stabs of dissatisfaction. Just as the chardonnay began to seep into my veins, it suddenly came to me: I wasn’t an altruist after all. All along, I had been secretly hoping fate might somehow reward me for my endeavours.

‘What’s up?’ Mandi asked, picking up an onion ring and inspecting it. ‘I thought this was what you wanted?’

I looked up to the airport ceiling, hoping that beyond, God might be in the midst of an emergency meeting, having summoned Eros or Cupid and the angels, to debate the best compensation plan for a selfless matchmaker.

I looked back down to see a giant onion ring disappear into Mandi’s mouth.

‘You know that proverb about the Doctor?’ I asked.

She wiped her mouth with a napkin. ‘Yes. I know it.’ She pointed her finger in the air. ‘The one where he tells the patient to pull himself together.’

I sniggered. ‘That’s a joke Mandi. Not a proverb. I meant the one about the physician healing himself.’

She shrugged her shoulders and then grabbed another onion ring.

‘But you’re healed. You’re happy. Aren’t you?’ she said.

I reached for the ketchup and squeezed an enormous blob onto my plate.

‘Just because I
can
live without him, doesn’t mean I want to.’ I replied.

Mandi shoved the onion ring into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed.

‘You’ll find the answers Ellie. You always do.’

I shrugged my shoulders and took another sip of wine. ‘And you? Do you still think Aristotle was right about the one soul, two bodies thing?’

She shook her head while mumbling something about Celine Dion. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘in Steve’s case, it was more like one soul inhabiting the entire female population.’

I smirked. ‘So what do you think now?’

She took a deep breath and then looked me directly in the eye. ‘Celine was wrong. There’s no soulmate, no one special person for everyone. Love is what you make it. It isn’t a feeling, or even a need.’ She looked down and swivelled her engagement ring around on her finger. ‘It’s a choice.’

An onion ring slipped from my grasp and sank into the ketchup. I pulled it out and started dabbing it with my napkin. Mandi watched for a moment and then her gaze drifted behind me. Suddenly, her eyes widened, she jumped off her seat and ducked down under the table.

‘Quick. Get down,’ she said, tugging my arm.

I dropped down next to her and we peered over the tabletop.

‘Over there. Look.’ she whispered, negating the subtlety of her tone with extravagant pointing.

A tall dark-haired man wearing white linen sauntered along the other side of the concourse. I noticed his shirt was unbuttoned, exposing a sculpted waxed chest.

‘Is that Mr Mills and Boon?’ I whispered to Mandi.

I turned to her to see her head nodding with the fervour of a pneumatic drill. When I looked back at Mr Mills and Boon, I noticed beside him, behind a curtain of dark hair was a tall slim girl. She had her hand tucked into his back pocket. They were wearing matching outfits. I couldn’t see her face but I recognised something about the way she walked. It reminded me somewhat of a military commander.

‘That’s not Mia is it?’ I said to Mandi.

Mandi nodded, even faster this time, to the point where I was concerned she might actually bore a hole in the concrete floor.

‘Looks like they’ve been on a mini-break,’ I said, admiring their stylish “his and hers” overnight bags.

Once Mr and Mrs Mills and Boon had exited the airport in the throws of a climactic snog, Mandi turned to me, her mouth twitching at the sides. My smile broke first, and then hers, and in less time than it would take us to attempt a Miastyle eye-roll, we both collapsed into a fit of giggles.

‘What on earth are you two doing?’

We looked up to see Victoria, peering down at us, her eyes narrowed, her mouth downturned.

Mandi and I jumped up and smoothed down our clothes.

‘I thought you’d already left,’ I said, feeling like a teenager who’d been caught smoking behind the bike sheds.

Victoria looked us up and down, glanced at the onion rings and then scrunched up her face.

‘If we’re going to be working together, then I’ll expect more professionalism than this,’ she said.

‘Working together?’ Mandi asked, looking startled.

‘I just bumped into Mia. She told me she’s left.’ Victoria swished her ponytail and her eyes narrowed further. ‘So you need a new matchmaker then, don’t you?’ She leaned forward and picked a piece of batter off my top, then flicked it onto the floor. ‘Obviously I’m staggeringly overqualified but now you’ve got a Venture Capitalist involved, it’s doubtful you’ll be able to manage without me.’

Mandi’s jaw dropped. Mine quickly followed.

‘What?’ I asked.

Victoria sniffed, ‘Mia just told me. She said some investor called her while she was away. Apparently he wants to take your agency international.’

I stepped back, turned to Mandi, then back to Victoria.

Victoria flicked her hand as though offers of global expansion were a routine occurrence. ‘She said she’d email you the details later.’

I stood still for a moment, wondering if the onion rings might have been laced with narcotics. At what point did tapping people on the shoulder and asking them if they were single become a business model viable enough for overseas replication? Immediately I imagined international variants of Mia and Mandi forcibly pairing couples in a myriad of locations across the globe.