The Cupid Effect (37 page)

Craig furnished the champagne bearer with small white plastic cups. Mel appeared to help Claudine open the bottles.

‘What are we celebrating?' Craig asked.

‘Oh, just the newest addition to my jewellery collection.' Claudine held out her left hand – flashing her engagement ring. ‘Actually, I didn't have a jewellery collection until yesterday,' she confessed.

Everyone crowded around, even the men oohed and awwwed at the gold ring with three sapphires glinting on her hand.

‘We're going to get married just before Christmas. It'll be a small service, but we'll have a big party, which I hope all of you will come to.'

The crowd murmured yes as plastic cups with champagne were handed out.

Claudine, looking radiant, grinned from ear to ear. Her skin was back to being vibrant, her cropped black hair was glossy again.

She'd put on enough weight to make her look healthy as well. ‘Three weeks ago I was plotting to be single, albeit unintentionally, and last night I got engaged. Who knew things could change so suddenly. Isn't life funny?' Claudine said. ‘Cheers.'

‘Cheers,' the room replied. People broke off into little groups, started chatting amongst themselves. Most of the women stayed where they were to admire Claudine's ring. I stayed in my seat, I'd look at the ring later. I was happy for her. She deserved this happiness with Kevin, but then, so did I. Not with Kevin, obviously. But with someone. And I wasn't likely to get it, was I?

Moments like this made me feel sorry for myself, again; dragged me back to my ‘what about me?' lamentations. Really though, what about me? When would I get a ring on my finger or even a declaration of love? Or have those bouts of loneliness abated?

I stared forlornly into my plastic cup of light, bubbly liquid.

Never, was the short reply.

‘Life
is
funny,' Mel said, flopping beside me. ‘I called my wife.'

I looked at Mel. It was because of things like this, people like this that I'd be alone for ever.
Come on, you do care
, a voice inside said.
Pretend all you like that you don't want to know, but you do. You're a nosy cow and you're going to spend the rest of your life doing it. Yer might as well enjoy it.
‘Oh?' I said.

‘I told her everything. Everything. She wasn't happy. In fact, she abused me quite a lot. She used language that would make a sailor blush. And she hung up a few times. But, I apologised, for everything and . . . we're having lunch on Saturday. Ostensibly to talk about our divorce. After the abuse, though, we had a laugh for the first time ever. A laugh, like I do with Clau. We could become mates after all.'

I nudged him. ‘I knew you could do it.'

‘Yeah, just needed that kick up the arse. Clau told me that she and Kevin had a really good chat. She told him that she thought she was heading towards something with me and that she wanted them to sort themselves out before it happened. He took it really well, apparently. So, they've managed to move on and,
voilà
, one engagement later.'

‘And you're all right with that?'

‘Yep. I am, actually. I thought it'd devastate me, but when she told me, I was so overwhelmed with happiness for her, I realised you were right. I wasn't in love with her. I was in love with the idea of her. Like you said, she needed attention. I needed to talk to Fran.'

I lowered my head onto Mel's shoulder, looked at Claudine being the centre of attention. ‘You and me, kidder, we're not so different. We should stick together,' I said to him. Mel tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. Jake and Ed would have a fit if they saw us. So would Staring Man.

‘Can I get a bit of champagne, please,' Trudy asked Craig. I'd begun to think that she didn't exist. I hadn't seen her at all since the loos.

‘You're looking unusually chipper these days, Trudy,' Craig said as he filled her plastic cup. ‘Anything we should know?'

An audience of expectant faces held their breaths and awaited her response. I stared into my plastic cup and started counting bubbles. I wondered if any of them had actually been on the receiving end of one of her outbursts.

‘The reason I look so “chipper” these days, you cheeky
get
, is that somebody inadvertently gave me a reality check. Made me face a lot of things I'd been hiding from.'

That was open.

‘And,' Trudy ploughed on. ‘I might as well tell you all now, I'm going to have a baby.'

Another collective sigh went around the room. This was celebration city today. As everyone crowded around her with questions about due dates and names, I chanced a look at her. Just to see what she looked like when she wasn't shaken up, crying or screaming abuse. Our eyes met, and, before I looked away, her face relaxed into the most beautiful smile, then she mouthed: ‘Thank you.'

After time had passed, and people had left the SCR to finish finishing off for the end of term, I caught Craig watching me with my head still on Mel's shoulder, us talking about nothing much. His face showed he was thinking hard, like he did when he ‘sat back' in a conversation. Then, he said, very loudly: ‘Has anyone noticed the vibe that's been going on around here since Ceri started?'

I stuck two fingers up at him. It was an automatic gesture though. I didn't actually care what he said. I'd be more surprised if he'd said: ‘
Have you noticed how nothing has changed since Ceri started?
'

‘We were all stuck in this rut of normality before, and then Ceri turns up and Claudine's engaged, Gwen's resigned and Trudy's up the duff. And I, well, I am back with my ex-girlfriend. And, all right, most of you have heard me say she was a psycho but once I got to know her, she really wasn't that bad. Or mad.'

‘I thought you went out with her for two years,' one of the women admiring Claudine's ring said.

‘Exactly. I only started to bother with her when Ceri started. And once I bothered, I found out there was goodness inside her. She's really sweet. I like this vibe around here, though,' Craig said. ‘It's like, anything's possible now.'

‘I know what you mean,' Claudine said. ‘It's like, the sky's the limit.'

‘Yeah,' Mel added. ‘It's like everything is good underneath even if it's bad on the surface. There are lots of good vibrations.' He sang: ‘Good vibrations are all around us.'

‘That's, love is all around us, duh brain,' Claudine said.

Craig's mouth dropped open as he swung round to gawp at me . . .

summer holidays

chapter thirty-nine

The Cupid Effect

Why I had to meet Gwen here, I didn't know. I wasn't a big fan of airports at the best of times. Mostly because you had to travel halfway across town to get to them. It'd taken me ages to get to Leeds Bradford airport by public transport. I'd tried to get Jess to drive me there and she'd told me where to go.

I wandered across the concourse, feeling lost and cross.
Meet me in the main bit
, Gwen had said. I'd not realised there was so much to the main bit. And there was every danger of me making eye contact with someone, seeing as I was looking for her. I was hot and bothered. I should be at home, in bed. I was going to London in two days, I needed all the sleep I could to handle sleeping on my parents' sofa for a while. The offer on my flat had been tempting, but I hadn't accepted it. I'd not known what I was going to do next February when my contract was up so I wasn't going to be selling owt until I decided.

Gwen had made sure I'd travel practically across the world to see her by saying she had my copy of my assessment with her and she'd give it to me if I met her. Crafty old woman.

‘Ceri!' a voice squeaked across the concourse. I looked around. No one who looked even vaguely like Gwen stood among the crowd. She waved. I double-took. A woman with long black hair stood where Gwen should have been. She wore a black vest, a denim overshirt and, whoa, shorts! Gwen was wearing shorts. I looked behind me to check this woman wasn't waving at someone else. No one behind me. Which meant, shorts woman was Gwen.

We sat on a bench, her rucksack on the seat between us, Gwen leant on the rucksack as she talked. She'd handed me a white envelope with my name on the front the moment we sat down.

‘It's your assessment,' she said. ‘Don't open it yet. Wait till I'm gone, then you can't tell me off.'

‘So this is your new job?' I asked, prodding the rucksack.

‘The Ancient Traveller? Yes.'

‘Hey, less of the traveller bit, you, you're only going on holiday,' I joked.

Gwen laughed. ‘No, I'm going away for at least a year. And if I come back, I'll be moving to London or Dublin. Or maybe even Paris. But not Leeds. Definitely not Leeds.'

‘Don't tell me, you've emotionally left Leeds.'

‘By Jove, I think you've finally got it.'

She was all right, Gwen, when she wasn't being her usual self. And she so wasn't looking her usual self. Shorts. I glanced at her shorts and then her legs. Double-took. Her podgy pins were a patchwork of scars. Some circular, others deep and long. The skin on her legs, which had obviously not seen the light of day in years, were bluish white, making the disfigurements more prominent.
That's
why she wore thick tights no matter what the weather.

My heart raced all of a sudden, sickness washed through my stomach. I wanted to tear my eyes away from her legs, wounded as they were.

Ouch, there it was again. An aching for someone. For Gwen. This really hurt though. My legs began to throb with the agony she'd endured. With whatever it was that caused her scars. I suddenly knew what it felt like to not be able to wear skirts or shorts. How much self-disgust went into bathing every day and seeing your skin marked like that. The nonphysical pain of knowing that if you went out without tights everyone would stare at you in horror and fascination. No one would skip over your legs, see it and accept it. There'd be pity or disgust, never indifference. I inhaled deeply. This was part of Gwen's problem. She never felt normal. She couldn't be. I felt that now. I understood that now. Probably why she latched onto me. I didn't know anything about her, so that made me an ideal friend.

‘It's going to take getting used to,' Gwen said, raising and straightening her legs, ‘showing off my legs. I haven't worn shorts in . . . years. Not since I got married. Actually, about a year after I got married.'

More pain shot through my legs, but this time the pain carried on travelling up to my heart, as everything finally, finally fell into place.

That day in my office when Gwen thought I'd been beaten up flashed through my mind. ‘
When one of my friends was being physically abused by her husband, it was virtually impossible for her to talk about. She had bruises all over and an excuse to match each one. I don't want you to feel you have to suffer in silence like that. I understand
.' At that time, she saw me in her. She thought I was suffering like she was and had tried to reach out to me. Tried to save me. I might've guessed if I hadn't been so consumed by the Angel/huge bruise on my face thing. Not that I would've been able to do anything. Except, possibly, not be so down on her when she resigned. Not given in to irritation when she ‘whinged'. I'd kind of guessed there was something behind her odd behaviour, her inability to be happy or to relax. But I hadn't cared enough to pursue it. Her problems weren't ‘sexy', literally, like Mel and Claudine's. How could I do that? I thought I was open to all callers at all hours, but no.

Gwen looked from her legs to my face. ‘But it's all right now,' she added, obviously seeing my concern. ‘I finally did it. That's why I quit, that's why I'm here.'

‘Finally did what?' I asked.

‘This is my escape, Ceri, from all the things that held me back.'

‘Your husband's not going with you?' I asked cautiously. I just wanted to double-check I'd decoded the speak about her legs correctly.

‘Vernon's gone on a business trip for a few days. I think he'll be surprised when he comes back to find me gone and our joint savings account and our investment account and the accounts he had in my name a few thousand pounds lighter. In fact, he'll only have £10 left in each of them.'

‘Where are you going?' I asked.

‘On the third flight out of here. Three's my lucky number, so I'm going to get on the third plane. Which means, I need to be going.'

She stood, hoisted her rucksack onto her back. She was truly transformed. Her black hair flowed down her back, instead of being pulled back into a bun, or straightened to hang around her face like slabs of dead meat. Her body was comfortable. Not slender, not tall, comfortable. At ease. Relaxed. She moved with elegance and ease. As though someone had finally given her permission to enjoy moving in her body. WHAM-BAM! It hit me. No cigarette. That's why she looked different. No cigarette. No look as though gagging for a cigarette. She looked about ten years younger with this comfortable persona.

‘I've told the college to offer you a permanent position. They might not, but I've told them. Your research supervisor is very impressed with what you've done so far, she thinks it's PhD material, so you could stay, do a PhD. You'd have to work on getting yourself funding and getting the title right, but you could do it. Although you might not want to stay, but I think you should.'

‘I might, I haven't decided what I want to do yet. February is a long time away.'

‘I know. But with all the changes in the department, this is probably the time to decide if you want to stay or not.'

‘Thanks, I'll think about it.'

‘You do that.'

‘OK, bye.'

‘Bye.' Gwen turned and went to walk away, then she suddenly spun on her trainered feet. ‘All this is thanks to you, Ceri. That's why I wanted to see you before I went.'