Just Haven't Met You Yet

by Sophie Cousens

  I’m fully aware I might be coming across as a little persistent right now, but if I give up the bag, I might never find Hot Suitcase Guy, and I’m not sure how many chances the universe gives you in situations like this.

  ‘You can’t just take someone else’s bag home.’ The woman shakes her head in bemusement.

  ‘Surely you can find his phone number or his address? What if it was a matter of life and death?’ I give the woman my best serious face, like maybe I’ve been injected with some kind of deadly serum, and the antidote is in my bag, but I can’t tell her about it because there’s a hit man watching my every move.

  ‘Is it a matter of life and death?’ the woman asks, narrowing her eyes. Clearly my ‘deadly serum’ face is not being conveyed effectively.

  I shift my eyes to the ceiling, trying to think of something more feasible.

  ‘Look, if I was an undercover cop,’ I give the woman a deliberate wink, ‘and my lost suitcase had important, urgent evidence in it, how would you go about getting it back? Who would you call? There must be someone who knows who J. Le Maistre is, and how I can track him down?’ OK, that definitely sounded more stalkery than I’d intended.

  The woman crosses her arms in front of her chest, peering at me over the top of her glasses.

  ‘Are you an undercover police officer?’

  ‘If I was, I wouldn’t be able to tell you because of the sensitive nature of the case, so let’s just say that I am not,’ I say, slowly nodding my head.

  ‘Madam, if that is not your bag, I cannot let you take it.’ She stands up and holds out her hand for the bag. ‘Airline policy.’

  ‘OK, OK, fine—’ I make as though to hand it over, then just as she’s reaching for it, I hug the bag back to my chest, turn, and run.

  ‘Madam, you can’t take that bag! MADAM!’ she calls after me.

  Outside the terminal, I look left and right for my cab. For a moment, I panic that the driver’s gone and Red Glasses is going to come out here and wrestle the bag away from me. Luckily, he’s just pulled forward a bit. I run towards the car and jump into the back seat, the suitcase still clasped in my arms.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ I shout at the driver.

  ‘What happened?’ he asks.

  ‘I stole this suitcase,’ I laugh, breathless. ‘Quick, you’re my getaway driver. Floor it!’

  Beardy McCastaway pulls the car away at a normal pace, making no effort to speed away from the crime scene with any kind of dramatic tyre screech. Seriously, do Jersey people not watch Law and Order? Do they not have crime dramas? This definitely feels like a tyre screech moment.

  ‘That’s not your bag then?’ the driver asks, squinting at me in the mirror.

  ‘No. They didn’t have it, and I don’t want to give this one back until I get mine.’

  The driver shakes his head.

  ‘What are you going to do, wear this person’s clothes until yours turn up?’

  ‘It’s a complicated situation,’ I say huffily, feeling deflated by my lacklustre getaway.

  The two of us travel in silence, out of the empty airport, left past the rugby club and the brightly lit showroom full of expensive, shiny cars. Little I’ve seen of Jersey so far makes me think of the idyllic island paradise my mum described. It feels modern and built-up, rather than rural and full of history; perhaps a lot has changed in thirty years. I pull out my phone to check my work emails, shooting off a few quick responses as I scroll, hoping to see a message from Aunt Monica. I’m keen to plan out the next few days, but her phone number is ex-directory, and I’m not sure I want to turn up unannounced on the doorstep of someone Mum nicknamed Mad Aunt Monica.

  ‘I wanted to, um, apologise about the comment I made earlier,’ says the cab driver suddenly. He clears his throat and adjusts his flat cap.

  ‘Which comment?’ I ask.

  ‘When I said, “Cheer up, it might never happen.”’ His eyes glance up at me in the mirror and then dart back to the road. ‘I don’t know why I said that. I hate that expression.’ He shifts awkwardly in his seat. ‘I thought it was the kind of thing a cab driver might say, I was trying it out. Which sounds ridiculous, sorry.’

  His voice is calm and deep, like the steady bass line in a song. I peer at the driver in the darkness of the car. I haven’t properly registered much about his appearance beyond the beard and the flat cap. Looking at him now, I realise his dark brown eyes and thick lashes are probably those of a man in his forties rather than fifties.

  ‘Are you just playing the part of a cab driver in some Truman Show experiment?’ I ask.

  He lets out a deep, staccato laugh, and his dark eyes glint back at me in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Something like that,’ he says.

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. The guy I sat next to on the plane said the same thing, and I’m afraid you were on the receiving end of the anger I was feeling towards him.’

  ‘I will erase it from my cab driver script notes,’ he says, his eyes smiling at me now.

  We settle into silence again.

  Maybe it’s because he’s being nice or the calm resonance of his voice, maybe it’s because I can talk to him without making eye contact, but I find myself saying, ‘Do you want to know why I held on to this case? It’s a bit nuts.’

  ‘Sure,’ he says.

  I lean forward to talk to him. ‘How much do you think you can tell about someone from what’s in their suitcase?’

  ‘Hmmm.’ He is quiet for a moment. ‘If the suitcase had a shovel, duct tape, body bag, and some chloroform in it, I might not be inviting that person in for a nightcap.’

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ I say with a laugh, ‘but what about contents that make you think you’re going to click with that person, that they might be someone you’re supposed to be with?’

  His eyes glint gold in the mirror, reflecting light from the headlamps of the car behind.

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Yes. This bag I picked up, the wrong case – everything in it makes me think this is the guy I’m meant to meet. He’s got my favourite book—’

  ‘What book?’ the driver cuts in.

  ‘To Kill a Mockingbird. It was one of my dad’s favourite books too – he left me the exact same edition that this man has in his bag.’ Beardy McCastaway is frowning. ‘What? You don’t like it?’ I ask.

  ‘Loads of people like that book. It’s like saying your favourite band is the Rolling Stones.’

  ‘Well, my favourite band is not the Rolling Stones, and that brings me on to the next clue. This guy plays the piano – I mean properly plays, there’s some seriously difficult sheet music in here. I’ve always loved men who are musical, but not only that – the music is for Phil Collins’ Greatest Hits. Phil Collins is my favourite musician of all time. That’s pretty freaky, no?’

  The driver starts to laugh.

  ‘What?’ I say, pushing the bag onto the seat next to me and hugging my arms across my chest.

  ‘OK, a Phil Collins-playing pianist who reads Harper Lee.’ His eyes in the rear-view mirror flash with amusement. ‘What else?’

  ‘He’s bought the perfume my mum used to wear as a present for his mother.’

  Seeing his sceptical smile, I now decide I don’t want to tell him about the sexy jumper, the bees, the cabin keys, or the perfect jeans.

  ‘Clearly you think I’m being ridiculous. Look, it’s a feeling more than any one specific object; I think fate brought me this bag so I could find the man it belongs to.’

  My eyes drift down to the steering wheel, and I notice a gold wedding band on the cab driver’s hand.

  ‘How did you meet your partner? Didn’t you have a moment when you just knew?’

  The man’s eyes dart back up to me in the mirror, clearly caught off guard. Then his eyes drop to the wheel and he twists the ring with his thumb.

  ‘My wife,’ he says, as though testing the word. ‘We met through work, then we were friends for a long time.’

  ‘She�
�s a cab driver too?’ I ask, confused.

  He makes a short humming noise, like a laugh caught in his throat, ‘No, I didn’t always drive a cab.’

  ‘Oh right, you said. Sorry.’ I lean forward between the seats until the belt clicks, stopping me from going any further. ‘So, it was more of a slow build than a kablammo moment?’

  ‘What’s “kablammo”?’

  ‘You know, KABLAMMO! When you’re just floored by how much you like someone. It’s like a sucker punch to the heart – KABLAMMO!’ I throw a punch into the space between the seats.

  He lets out another deep, throaty laugh, and I feel surprisingly pleased. He doesn’t look like someone who laughs a great deal.

  ‘I guess it was like that for me, maybe not for her, not at first.’ He looks thoughtful for a moment. ‘She has this magnetic quality that draws people’s attention wherever she goes.’ He thrums his fingers on the wheel. ‘You really think you can get that feeling from a suitcase?’

  The poetic way he talks about his wife makes me pause, then I shrug. ‘I don’t make the rules. I guess you either believe in fate and serendipity or you don’t. Listen, how big is Jersey? Maybe you know this guy?’

  He frowns.

  ‘I know you think I’m the only driver on the island, but a hundred thousand people live on this nine-by-five mile rock. It’s unlikely I’d know him.’ He pauses. ‘Though, come to think of it, there is this man – I’ve seen him at the library, very handsome, always has To Kill a Mockingbird under one arm. He plays the piano at Age Concern most weekends.’

  ‘Seriously?!’ I say, before realising he’s winding me up, then slowly, ‘Oh, ha ha.’

  The driver gives a satisfied grin.

  ‘Well, my mobile number is on my luggage. As soon as he realises he’s got the wrong bag he’ll call, and then, well—’

  ‘Kablammo?’

  ‘Exactly,’ I say, spreading my arms as though to take a bow.

  When we pull up at my hotel, I have a thought.

  ‘You’re local here, right?’

  ‘I grew up here,’ he says.

  ‘Can I show you some photos? You might be able to tell me where they were taken. You can keep the meter running if you like.’

  He gives me a single nod, turns the light above his head on and the meter off.

  I take the brown photo album from my handbag and pass it to him.

  ‘My mum met my dad here, in the summer of 1991. I’d like to try and find some of the places they went to together.’ He slowly opens the album to the first page. ‘They’ve both passed away, so this is all I have to go on.’

  He turns around, looking me straight in the eye for the first time.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  His tone is so earnest that the words momentarily fluster me. I give the smallest nod of acknowledgement then quickly lean forward to point at a picture in the album.

  ‘Do you know where that is?’

  ‘Hmm,’ he says, rubbing his beard. ‘I’d say from the look of the harbour wall in the background, it’s Rozel Bay. This is your mother?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She looks like you.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll take that as a compliment, but she was far prettier than I am, certainly more flexible.’

  In the picture Mum is balancing on a rock in a green swimsuit, her long brown hair covering her chest. She’s holding a dance pose, one long, toned leg jutting out at a ninety-degree angle. I’m tall like her, my hair equally straight, but blonde. We both have full lips and lightly freckled skin, but her nose is smaller, perter. In the picture she’s younger than I am now. It’s strange to think that by my age she was a widow – a single mum with a four-year-old child.

  He turns the page of the album.

  ‘This is Plémont headland, before they tore the holiday resort down. It looks completely different now.’ He flicks on through the pages to a picture of my mum standing in front of a hut by the sea. ‘This must be the Écréhous, these huts are still all there.’

  He tells me where each photo is taken. This is exactly the kind of intel I need if I’m to retrace their steps – take the same journey that the coin took my mother on.

  ‘Listen, how would you feel about being my island tour guide tomorrow? I want to go to all the places in these photographs.’

  He shuts the album and hands it back to me.

  ‘I’m afraid I only drive some evenings.’

  ‘Oh, right, never mind. It was just a thought.’ I can’t hide my disappointment. I guess there will be other cab drivers who know the island just as well as Beardy McCastaway. ‘Can I just write down some of the names you said in my phone? How do you spell Play Mont?’ I unlock my phone screen to make notes, my other hand reaching for my pendant, twisting the chain. When I look up, waiting for him to answer, he’s looking right at me with those intense eyes of his.

  He sighs. ‘I’ll take you. You won’t find half these places on your own.’

  ‘Are you sure? I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  ‘It’s not a problem. Shall we meet in the morning?’ He pulls out a card from the glove box and hands it back to me. It has ‘Gerald Palmerston, St Ouen’s Cabs’, and then a contact number printed on the front. ‘Wait, I’ll write my mobile number on there.’ He takes the card back, finds a pen in the driver’s door, and scribbles it down.

  ‘You’re Gerald, then?’ I ask, biting my lip. There shouldn’t be anything funny about the name Gerald, but I wouldn’t put Beardy McCastaway down as one.

  ‘Gerry’s my dad.’

  ‘Family business?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well, I’m Laura,’ I say.

  ‘Ted,’ he replies. Yes, Ted, that suits him much better.

  Back in my room, I order a club sandwich from room service and google ‘J. Le Maistre’ to see if I can find a likely candidate or a phone number. When I have no success, I call Vanya.

  ‘Hey, chick. How was the flight?’

  ‘Fine—’

  ‘Hey, I just remembered that literary and potato-peel pie film is set in Jersey, isn’t it? Maybe you should join a book club, meet some hot farmers. Worked for Lily James.’

  ‘That was Guernsey, different Channel Island, plus that was set eighty years ago. Listen, Vanya, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘If I told you I picked up the wrong suitcase from the airport, and the case’s contents made me feel like they belonged to the person I’m supposed to be with – would it be insane to try and track that person down?’

  ‘I knew it! I knew something like this would happen. Didn’t I tell you my Spidey senses were tingling? Oh Laura, you would be insane not to track him down!’ Her voice swoons down the phone.

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  I can always rely on Vanya.

  When my club sandwich arrives, I feel a sense of eager anticipation – mainly about the sandwich, because I’m ravenous – but also because somewhere on this small island is J. Le Maistre – my potential soulmate – and tomorrow I am going to find him, and the next chapter of my life can finally begin.

  JERSEY EVENING NEWS – 23 JUNE 1991

  TWO HALVES OF A COIN, REUNITED AFTER HALF A CENTURY

  A local pensioner has been reunited with her late husband’s love token, lost for half a century, after her grandson spotted an advertisement in the Jersey Evening News.

  Yesterday, an emotional Margorie Blampied held the precious keepsake in her hand for the first time since June 1940. She said, ‘Holding the whole coin brought back the day William left as though it were yesterday. He was such a romantic man, and an exceptional craftsman. I will miss him until my last breath.’

  Chapter 6

  I wake up confused as to where I am. The bed is too big, the room is too dark, and I’m surprised to find myself sleeping naked, until I remember why: I have no pyjamas. There was a vivid dream about drowning – sailing in a suitcase boat, trying to get to an i
sland where my parents were waving to me, but I didn’t have a sail and the boat was sinking, because, well, it was a suitcase. My mother’s face was still so clear and full of life in my dream. My father’s was static – since I only remember his face from photos, I’ve always found it hard to imagine what he looked like in motion.

  My phone is alive with messages and emails. It’s only 7 a.m. and I last checked my phone at ten. Dee has sent a link to an article from Statistics Weekly entitled, ‘Where People Meet Their Partners – The Facts’, and there are three emails from Suki. I click on the first one.

  From: Suki@lovelife.com

  To: Laura@lovelife.com

  Laura,

  Had a few list ideas, additional content you could pull together while you’re away.

  Most romantic skinny-dipping locations – Get your body skinny for dipping. We have a weight loss bar looking to sponsor an advertorial.

  Top Ten attractive men from the Channel Islands – Isn’t Henry Cavill, the Superman actor, from there? Can you research? Ideally, get photos of Superman skinny-dipping. (People engage 20% more with articles that have a celeb angle.)

  ‘Small Islands to suit your mood’ – feel silly in the Scilly Isles, flirty in Fetlar, merry in Mull … A hotel in the Outer Hebrides is keen to sponsor.

  Her next email says,

  We need your coin story for Tuesday. We’re short on uplifting content, so it needs to deliver; heart-warming, life-affirming etc. Try to find some long-lost relatives. Everyone likes stories about long-lost relatives.

  Then finally,

  And please plan to do an Insta live at twelve today. Somewhere beachy and beautiful to trail the ‘mini breaks’ piece.

  Suki

  I groan. It’s Friday today, and I’m leaving on Sunday night. I’m not sure how Suki thinks I’m going to stumble upon nudes of Henry Cavill just because he’s from Jersey. But it’s hard to push back on unreasonable requests with the pendulum of redundancy swinging over your head.

  Dee often asks why I stay at Love Life, with the long hours and Suki’s aggressive management style. But the truth is I enjoy my job, well, the part where I get to research and write stories – yes, it has its frustrations, but no job can be perfect. Work has been one of the few constants in my life when so much has been changing. I like being a part of the Love Life family because, besides Gran, it’s the only family I have left. The thought of losing it makes my skin itch. So over breakfast I get out my laptop and set about manically writing up notes for all Suki’s latest ideas.