Wishful Thinking (29 page)

‘Have you told Cal?' I asked.

‘That I'm back? He knows.'

‘That you didn't sleep with Neville.'

‘Why should I?' Georgie said. ‘That's like saying I want to be faithful to him. I
don't
want to. I just can't help it. Besides, I think we've split up. All he said to me this morning was
hello
.'

‘
Hello
is a start.'

‘Not the way he said it,' she retorted.

‘Anyway,' I said, ‘if you've split up, you can't be faithful to him.'

‘Then I'm becoming frigid,' Georgie said miserably. ‘That's worse.'

At that juncture Cal himself walked in with another member of the Design Department, who was looking harassed. However, all the Design Department were looking harassed these days. He greeted me politely and Georgie coldly, and headed for the bar.

‘You could try talking to him,' I suggested. ‘You don't have to tell him about not shagging Neville.'

After a couple of drinks Georgie duly went over to join him. Ten minutes later she was back, her eyes more spark than sparkle. ‘He answered me in monosyllables!' she said. ‘
Me
! How dare he? And he's giving off enough bad vibes for a pneumatic drill.'

‘What did you say to him?' I demanded.

‘I said I'd had a great holiday.'

‘Georgie! Deliberate provocation. No wonder he was a bit abrupt.'

‘He doesn't care any more,' she insisted. ‘If he did, he'd try to get me back. He wouldn't just go all taciturn and brooding. That doesn't get you anywhere.'

‘You're always telling me men aren't logical,' I said. I was facing the bar; Georgie had her back to it. ‘If Cal doesn't care,' I went on, ‘how come he's just walked out, leaving half a pint of beer undrunk?'

‘
Has
he?' Georgie perked up.

‘Don't look round.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's too late: he's already gone. It would have been uncool if you
had
looked.'

‘I didn't,' Georgie said. ‘Still, I would've liked to see the expression on his face. Did he look heartbroken?'

‘No,' I said baldly. ‘He looked . . . bitter and angry and sort of cold, as if his face was a frozen crust on top of the bubbling depths of his emotions.'

‘You've been overdoing it,' said Georgie. ‘With imagery like that, even Jerry Beauman will never make number one.'

‘You just don't appreciate real talent,' I said.

Meanwhile, between museums and musicals, Lin was spending every available moment on her computer. Towards the end of the week she telephoned Georgie at work, asking for backup. Since she had yet to patch things up with Cal her Friday night was free, so we picked up bottles and takeaway and headed for Kensington. We found Lin looking lit up, as if the sheen of her youth and much-mourned purity had returned. ‘You're using a new shine spray,' said Georgie, gazing at the long ripples of her red-gold hair. ‘
And
light-reflecting foundation.'

‘I was experimenting,' Lin admitted. ‘But that isn't it. I've met someone.'

We asked the standard questions –
Quis? Quid? Quomodo? Quibus auxiliis?
etc. – and received more than usually vague answers. At intervals the children came in, interrupted, and were dispatched back to the distractions of computer and television. At length the truth came out.

‘I haven't exactly
met
him. We've been corresponding by e-mail. He's different from the others – special. You know, normal, definitely not weird, but special. He sent me a photo.'

She conjured the picture on screen, and we studied it accordingly. Even allowing for the fact that it was an obviously flattering snapshot, he looked far too attractive for Internet dating. ‘I don't remember him from the website,' Georgie said.

‘I didn't find him on the website. We met in a chatroom.'

‘I don't like that.' Georgie frowned. ‘On the websites people have to register, you can check back if there's anything suspect – at least I think so. But in a chatroom you could run into
anyone
. He could be an axe-murderer—'

‘
You
had the axe-murderer,' I said. ‘Anyway, his eyes seem quite far apart, and his mother-complex isn't showing.'

‘I thought you'd be pleased for me,' Lin said.

‘We are,' I assured her, nudging Georgie unseen. ‘We just want you to be a bit careful.'

‘Georgie wasn't particularly careful with her cardiac millionaires.'

‘Of course I—'

This time, I trod on her foot. ‘Where are you meeting him?' I asked Lin.

‘I haven't decided yet. I wanted your advice. He suggested dinner, but I thought that was too much, too soon. I don't want to rush into anything. Maybe lunch . . .'

‘Coffee,' Georgie said. ‘Somewhere
very
public. And we're coming with you.'

‘Don't be silly!' Lin almost snapped. ‘I can't turn up with a couple of bodyguards. That would look ridiculous.'

‘We'll be at an adjacent table,' Georgie said, warming to her theme. ‘In disguise.'

‘Hiding behind newspapers,' I embellished. ‘With eyeholes cut in them.'

‘You'll be
several
tables away,' Lin said. ‘I've got to decide on a location quickly. We're meeting tomorrow – Vee's taking the twins away, and Meredith's at a friend's house, so it's a good opportunity. I have to send Ivor an e-mail tonight.'

We settled on a coffee-shop near Harvey Nicks, and sat down to the takeaway, the wine, and a video of Lin's choice. Inevitably, it was
You've Got Mail
, which so disgusted the children they retreated to their rooms, if not to bed, disappearing into a world of virtual reality. ‘I don't like it,' Georgie reiterated, when Lin went out of the room.

‘I think it's sweet,' I said.

‘Not the film. Lin's fella. For one thing, he's got dimples.'

‘What's wrong with that?'

‘I hate men with dimples. They're like lifeboats on the
Titanic
, fine for women and children but only dishonourable men would go for them.'

‘He probably can't help having dimples,' I pointed out. ‘Anyhow, he's not your date.'

Lin's return put paid to the discussion, but Georgie's doubts were such that the next day, at her insistence, we arrived at the rendezvous fully three-quarters of an hour in advance. ‘It gives us time to check out the terrain,' Georgie said. ‘Like the SAS.'

‘Case the joint,' I retorted. ‘Like a burglar.'

About twenty minutes later my mobile rang. It was Lin. ‘I've changed my mind,' she said, in the hurried tone of someone who wants to give unpopular news as quickly as possible. ‘I e-mailed Ivor again this morning. I didn't think the atmosphere in the café was quite right. The tables are too close together.'

Like axe-murderer's eyes, I thought. ‘Where are you meeting him?'

‘Waitrose.'

‘
Waitrose
? The cafeteria? – If there is one.'

‘The fish counter.'

‘But
Lin
—'

‘It's a public place,' she said defensively. ‘Very public. I feel safe there. And you two won't be so obvious.'

‘We'll never get there,' I said.

‘I put it back till two.'

We fled the café, almost forgetting to pay the bill, and arrived at the nearest Waitrose at a sprint, three minutes before zero hour. I seized a trolley and threw in a few items at random in order to look like a shopper. Georgie, meanwhile, was asking the way to the fish counter. We did our best to set off at speed, but in the Saturday crowd it was impossible. ‘She did this deliberately!' Georgie hissed. I wasn't sure. Lin's motives, I suspected, had been mixed. She had evidently been discouraged by her unsuccessful evening with Derek. Here, if there was no instant rapport between her and Ivor, she could make a quick getaway without being trapped at a table for the duration of coffee. Equally, I thought – like Georgie – that she didn't really want us two trailing along. Perhaps she feared she might be making a fool of herself, and wanted to do so without an audience – even an audience of her friends. I could sympathise with that. I tried to explain this, but Georgie was too busy panicking. ‘She met him in a chatroom!' she kept repeating. ‘Everyone knows they're frequented solely by paedophiles—'

‘Lin's grown up.'

‘– and psychos and—'

‘There she is!'

Lin was standing beside a montage of whole salmon and tiger prawns, an unconvincingly empty basket on her arm. She seemed to be very still, as if frozen in a moment of time. A couple of yards away was the man in the photograph. Ivor. He was instantly recognisable although the dimples weren't in evidence, dark blond hair recently shorn, his gaze fixed on Lin. He, too, had an empty basket. In a film, the whole supermarket would have gone quiet, and the air between them would be glimmering with fairy dust. I remember thinking: Oh my God . . . It was the classic eyemeet across a crowded room. The bodyguards were redundant or forgotten. Presently, they moved a little closer. He spoke; she answered. Then he took her arm, leading her away. We tracked them to a nearby coffee-shop, saw them seated at a table, clearly absorbed in each other, oblivious to the rest of the universe. He smiled at something she said; the dimples danced and vanished.

‘I don't like him!' Georgie whispered.

‘Shut up,' I said. ‘Spoilsport. Just because we aren't having any luck with men doesn't mean Lin can't have any either.'

‘I'm
not
unlucky with men,' Georgie protested, punctured in the ego. ‘Things are just a little confused right now.'

We left them to it. Later that afternoon Lin telephoned, bubbled, sparkled – the verbal equivalent of champagne. She didn't want to get carried away, but he was wonderful. They were totally on the same wavelength. She'd got worried at the last minute – hence the change of venue – but her apprehension had been unnecessary. Their eyes had met and she'd known, somehow, deep inside, that this was her soulmate. It hadn't been that way with Sean, or even Garry – that miraculous instant magic. The pangs she had experienced for Andy, love or nostalgia or regret, were gone without trace. This was the Real Thing. ‘You promised you weren't going to rush it!' Georgie wailed from over my shoulder. ‘You met him in a
chatroom
.' You said the future of dating was on the Internet, Lin reminded her. Be happy for me – please. Don't rain on my parade.

‘Of course we're happy for you,' I said. ‘But . . . don't go too fast. Good relationships take time.' I'd rushed into things with Nigel, and learned my mistake the hard way.

Lin assured us that she had no intention of going too fast. They'd gone to lunch after Waitrose, then tea, but she wasn't seeing him on Sunday. They would merely swap e-mails every half-hour. He was going to print out all their correspondence for her; someday they might publish it. Like the epistolary romances written in the Victorian age. They would be having dinner together on Thursday: the twins were in the Isle of Wight and Meredith would be at a sleepover (an invitation plainly issued by parents who didn't know her well).

‘How does he feel about the kids?' I asked.

He was a teacher, he was great with kids, it went with his job.

When she rang off, I said to Georgie: ‘It does happen, you know. A friend of my sister's e-mailed some guy in Canada for six months, then she flew over, married him, and lived happily ever after.'

‘How long for?'

‘Nearly a year so far. Anyway . . .'

‘All right,' said Georgie. ‘I expect it's just sour grapes on my part. I want Lin to be happy – of course I do. I suppose – I'm not much of a believer in romance. I did it myself: remember? Me and Franco, that was romance. Our eyes met across a crowded ball –
and
we were masked, so it wasn't easy. I told you, I fell for him
because
it was romantic – Venice, the carnival, his panto-title, his amazing looks – and I'm afraid Lin's doing the same. Falling for the romance, not the man.'

‘In
Waitrose
?' I said.

‘Oh, yes. It's very trendy to start a relationship in a supermarket nowadays. Don't you see the ads? Mind you, I don't think it would work if it was Asda.'

We had returned to her house and, by unspoken consent, I went in for further confabulation. Over Earl Grey tea and lemon Georgie grew increasingly despondent.

‘I was mean about Lin and her Ivor,' she declared. ‘Mean and jealous and vile. Just because he's got dimples and she met him in a chatroom . . . I should be so lucky. He did look nice – and attractive – and genuine. I didn't meet anyone a millionth that dishy through my ad. He'd better have some faults or it really will be unbearable.'

‘Maybe he sucks his tea through his teeth,' I said, thinking of one of Nigel's less appealing habits. ‘Or tries to endear himself to his pupils by being into Eminem. Or eats brown rice and farts a lot.'

‘You can see he doesn't do that,' Georgie objected, and, lowering the tone as ever: ‘Perhaps he's just got a small dick.'

‘Lin might not mind. After all, Size Isn't Everything.' I managed to speak in capital letters.

‘Hmm. I've always thought she had a soul above such things.'

We considered Lin's soul for a minute.

‘It's time you told Cal about not sleeping with Neville,' I said. ‘Then you'd be happy too. Broke, but happy. Right now you're unhappy
and
broke.'