The Cupid Effect (2 page)

‘Oh Ceri,' Jess said, she paused in the driver's open doorway, ‘that'll cost you a fortune.'

‘It won't cost
that
much, I'll get an Apex,' I said.

‘You'll be knackered though.'

‘Yes, Mum.'

‘Oi, watch it, Cockney.'

‘That's the sort of thing you'd say to your kids, isn't it? “You'll be knackered.”'

‘I don't know, you show a person a bit of concern and she just flings it back in your face.' Jess sounded hurt. ‘Well, if you don't want my concern . . .'

‘I'm surprised you ain't got fake tears to go with that fake upset.'

She laughed and started the car. ‘You're all heart, you.'

‘I learnt it from you, Teach.'

My life path had crossed with Jessica Breakfield's life path when I was a first year psychology and media student at college in Leeds and she was a psychology lecturer. So that should be,
Dr
Jessica Breakfield. She hated me calling her that, though. ‘You use it like mothers use middle names,' she'd once said. ‘It always sounds vaguely insulting or like I'm in trouble.'

She terrified me when I first met her. Jessica was the first woman doctor of psychology I met who looked and was under thirty-five. She had theories to her name, she was young and she made lectures interesting.

Jess remembered me as prone to hiding behind my waist-length hair and not talking very much. Probably something to do with me staring at her in wide-eyed, nineteen-year-old awe.

I'd done a comedy gulp when she was assigned as my personal tutor, but as I got to know her and began to relax around her, she began to see my face because my veil-like hair got shorter and shorter. (The shortest being the crop, and cleanly shaved at the back, which resulted in my parents not speaking to me till it grew back.)

It was at the end of college, though, when I decided to do a PhD that Jess and I became proper mates. She helped with my PhD proposal and the more time we spent together, the more we found that we had loads in common: a love of television, a worship of chocolate and an almost fanatical obsession with not getting out of our pyjamas on a Sunday unless we really,
really
needed to buy food. But these were only the tips of the icebergs floating in our sea of similarity.

Our connection went far deeper than was first visible to the naked eye. It was as if Jess and I were separated at birth – twelve years apart. She had a husband – Fred, teenage twin daughters Sharon and Colette – and grew up in Harrogate. I didn't. She was five foot ten, slenderish with waves and waves of auburn hair and a Yorkshire accent. I was five foot four-and-a-bit, nearly five foot five, actually, curvyish, with a shiny black bob and a posh Sarf London drawl. (Yes, that sounded like an oxymoron, but there I was, saying ‘scowns' (scones) and ‘cheeky caaa' (cheeky cow) in the same sentence. Well, I'm pretty sure I've said them in the same sentence.) We were definitely the odd couple on the outside. Had you to pick out the two partners in crime in a line-up you'd never put the two of us together. Age, height, looks, background, nothing went together. But when Jess and I were together we were one person. We thought alike, we argued alike, we were scathing on demand. Under it, though, was a deep understanding. Jess was the only person who hadn't said, ‘You're mad you' when I told her what I was doing. She'd been extremely supportive. Actually, what she said was, ‘Awww, honey, that's fantastic! I knew you could do it. But you can't live with me. And you can't live within walking distance of me. I'll never sleep if you do.'

I never did get on that PhD course, but I did get the most honest, caring, strangest best mate known to womankind.

Jessica parked Fred's metallic blue Mondeo outside the orange-brick house, slap bang in the middle of Stanmore Vale, Burley Park. I'd lived near here, in Burley Park, when I was a Leeds student the first time. This area was unofficially Student Country.

You had to leave your maturity, dress sense and need to keep regular hours at the various border checkpoints around here. Student Country was made up of Hyde Park, Headingley, Burley Park and Kirkstall; it was where most of the students who went to Leeds Uni, Leeds Met, All Souls and the other colleges in Leeds lived, loved and drank. It'd occurred to me more than once that you could wipe out at least seventy per cent of the student population by napalming that relatively small area of West Yorkshire.

Three streets over was the last student house I'd lived in. Now
that
was a student house. 98 Stanmore Avenue. I'd never forget that address. So much had happened to me in the year I lived in that house it was hard to believe it was only a year. I'd got pneumonia in that house. I'd met the love of my life when I lived in that house. I was dumped by the love of my life
in
that house. I had what turned out to be my last shag in Leeds in that house (and hadn't had another one for about two years after that). I got my finals results in that house. It was a very momentous house. I was hoping that 17 Stanmore Vale, the house I was about to move into, would be far less dramatic. I'd grown out of student dramatics.

I'd been clutching my
Leeds A to Z
and a borrowed copy of
The Itchy Guide To Leeds
when I first knocked on 17 Stanmore Vale. It was the first time I'd been back round these parts in well over six years and I'd needed a little help in finding my way around.

Jess, who taught at Leeds Metropolitan University (‘The Met' to most people), had seen the advert for a double room and thought it'd be perfect for me: I knew the area (ish) and it was living with two post-graduate students as averse to first-time-away-from-home, freedom-insane undergraduates who'd want to party all night and slob all day as I was. And it was a good twenty-minute drive from her home. So, she'd noted the details then went round taking down all the flyers she could find so I'd have a chance to look at it before anyone else did.

The front door had been opened about two seconds after my knock by a lad with messy, rust-coloured hair and a pierced eyebrow. He was casually clothed in baggy jeans and a plain white T-shirt. I say lad, he was more a bloke. But could pass for a lad because he was younger than me. (Not that I was old. He was twenty-five, twenty-six and I'd almost left my twenties. But only almost.) His light eyes sparkled as he said, ‘Hi, you must be Ceri,' and grinned. His whole face relaxed into that grin and I fell instantly in like with him. I was a relatively simple creature like that. You were nice to me, I liked you. Hell, I'd been out with blokes on the strength of them being nice to me as opposed to any kind of attraction.

‘And you're Jake?' I replied, grinning back.

‘Yup, that's me. You're right on time. Come in. Have you just come up from London?'

Is it that obvious?
I wondered. I glanced down at myself. I did indeed look like I'd just crawled away from a three-hour train journey. My jacket and jeans were travel-creased, my Walkman, crisp packets, spare jumper, notebook and reading material all bulged in my bag. ‘Yeah. I'm going back straight away as well,' I said, looking back up at Jake. ‘I could only get the afternoon off work. They're not too happy about me leaving so want to get every second out of me.'

‘Oh, right, better get on then. This way.'

My feet bounced slightly on the ruby red carpet of the hallway. Quality carpet, and from the cushioning effect, it probably had underlay.
Clever colour choice
, I thought, as I followed Jake. Subconsciously you felt important, like VIP material, because you'd come into a place where they'd laid out the red carpet, literally. Or it could be a way to get a murdered body out of the house without the worry of blood stains on the carpet (but that was the kind of thought that plagued my mind).

Opposite the stairs lay the living room. I stepped in after Jake and my mouth fell open. It was straight out of a homes magazine: porridge-coloured carpet, cream walls and two squashy, tan leather sofas. Standing guard over the fireplace was a professionally-framed Dali print –
The Metamorphosis of Narcissus
. At the other end of the room were two huge bay windows with net curtains and everything. This was a proper sitting room, not a hashed together, student job. I'd steeled myself when I knocked on the front door for threadbare carpets, limescale plumbing and tales of a nightmare landlord.

Jake explained that he was in fact that nightmare landlord, that he owned the house, as he showed me round. ‘My parents lent me the money for a deposit on this place and acted as guarantors when I first came to college here just over four years ago. I was a mature student, I mean, not that mature, but I couldn't stand the thought of a normal student house, so I talked them into it. They also lent me the cash to do it up properly. That's why I rent out the other two rooms, it covers the mortgage and pays back my parents.'

I was only half listening to him; I was far too busy falling in love. The red carpet and living room were like passing someone attractive in the street and glancing back to get a second look. The rest of the house was like getting to know someone, dating them, sharing with them and finding out that everything about them is wonderful. Finding no reason
not
to fall in love with them.

We wandered down the narrow corridor to the kitchen and my heart fluttered. It was another large space, this time with real wood flooring. A chrome and beechwood dream, white cabinets with real wood worktops that, Jake explained, needed special oil rubbing into them – ‘we take that in turns'. A breakfast bar divided the room, and around it stood four high, padded stools. The kitchen had stainless steel appliances, a blender, a real coffee machine, canisters that had ‘tea', ‘sugar', ‘coffee' and ‘biscuits' on them. (I had a sneaking suspicion that each jar was filled with what was written on the outside of it.)

‘There's a little bit of a garden-patio area that we sometimes sit on, but me and Ed don't use it that much,' Jake added as he nodded to the back door. ‘Do you want to see upstairs now?'

‘Oh yes,' I whispered.

The soft-pile redness of the corridor went all the way up the stairs, both flights of them. The room on offer was right at the top of the house.

I trailed behind Jake as he swung open the white painted door to the attic room, my heart pounding hard in my chest, my breath short with anticipation. I fell completely head over heels as the door revealed the mysteries of the attic.

Part of the ceiling was slanted, with two skylights set in it. The cream walls made the room seem even larger. It had a double bed, a grey metal-framed desk, an oak wardrobe, and rather thoughtfully, a window had been installed in one of the walls so you could look out at the treetops and into bedrooms of the opposite houses when you lay on the bed.

I was speechless with lust as I turned to Jake and said, ‘And you don't want to move in here now that it's free?'

Jake shrugged and shook his head. ‘It's too far to stumble if I come home drunk or stoned or both. Bill, that's the lad who lived in this room before, would often sleep on one of the sofas downstairs cos he couldn't make it up here when he was pissed. It's a long way.'

‘And what about the other lad?' I added, just as breathlessly. ‘Doesn't he want a bigger room?'

‘All the rooms are quite big. But Ed? Nah, he doesn't want it. He's a boy, and to him more space equals more to clean.'

‘I see,' I said in a small, small voice.
If I don't get this room, if I end up in a hovel in Hyde Park with bars on the windows and doors, then I was Attila the Hun in a former life
. ‘So, do you need references or something if I want to take it?'

‘Um, no. I mean, there's a standard six-month contract and I'd need a month's deposit and a month's rent in advance, but no references,' Jake said. ‘But you'd be interested in moving in?'

I almost nodded my head off. ‘Oh yes.'

‘Right. Well, there's no one else waiting to see it. It's weird, actually, no one else has rung up about it. I don't know why . . .' Jake went off into a stare. ‘I put up loads of flyers and no one's called.'

‘Really?' I replied, sympathetically.
It'll have absolutely nothing to do with Jess taking down the posters all round the college campus, I'm sure
. ‘That
is
weird.'

I reached into my bag, pulled out my cheque book, rummaged around for a pen. ‘So, that's £600, is it?'

‘What?' Jake said. ‘Oh, yeah. You can make the cheque out to Jake Halder. We can set up a standing order after that.'

I was already writing at the speed of light, just in case he changed his mind and decided to investigate the case of the disappearing flyers more closely.

‘You're not a psycho, are you?' he asked as he led the way back down to the ground floor, my HSBC cheque peeking out of the top of his jeans back pocket. ‘The lad who lived here before, Bill, turned out to be a bit of a nutter. Me and Ed were well pleased when he got chucked off his course and had to move. You're not one, are you?'

‘I've been told I'm a bit strange sometimes, but not a nutter.'

‘Cool,' Jake said. And there was me thinking
I
was easily pleased. ‘Anyway, let me know when you want to move in and either Ed or I will be here. Then I'll give you your own set of keys and you can sign the contract. Do you want a cup of tea before you go?'

And that was it. I'd got myself a place to live. The only bind I could see would be trailing down to the second floor to the bathroom or to use the loo. But that bathroom had floor-toceiling blue and white mosaic tiles, a power shower and squashy rubber floor tiles – it was the kind of suffering I could handle.

‘Hi,' I said to the stringy lad who answered the door of 17 Stanmore Vale this time around. He was about twenty-two, looked like he'd been elongated on a rack, had long blond hair and wasn't there when I'd looked around the house. And there ended the list of things I knew about him. I couldn't even remember his name. Eric or something.