And maybe there was even a fifth:
• Daniel seemed to quite like her too.
She based number five on all the eye contact they’d had over the noodles, and by the way he seemed very interested in her and what she did, and wanted to know what she thought of Brighton, apart from it being smaller than London. She couldn’t say it was in the style of flirtatious banter she was used to, but it was still exciting knowing she had the attention of this handsome man. And then over miso soup he asked a question which surely clinched it, ‘So are you living on your own down here?’
‘Yes, I separated from my husband about a year ago and I haven’t really seen anyone since.’ Oh God, why had she said that? It made her sound a complete saddo! Of course there had been the flirtation with Will, but it was probably best not to go there.
Daniel was about to reply when Jess finally walked in. She planted a kiss on Harry’s head then sat on the wooden bench next to Daniel, who put his arm round her and kissed her. Lucky, lucky Jess, to be the recipient of such a manly arm and a kiss.
‘So, did you enjoy the workshop, Carmen?’ Jess had a knowing smirk on her face. ‘I thought you might find it interesting.’
Carmen ignored the implication. ‘It was great, except for one thing.’ She slowly raised her left leg in the air, displaying the offending Croc in its full glory.
‘Uggh! Crocs! You’re wearing Crocs! I didn’t mean for this to happen!’ Jess loathed the plastic monstrosities nearly as much as Carmen.
‘Well, they’re very comfortable, aren’t they?’
Jess covered her eyes as if to protect them from the glare of the yellow. ‘It’s like the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers when Donald Sutherland is practically the only human left, and he stumbles across that woman who was a friend of his and he thinks that she’s still human too, but she’s been taken over and she betrays him. That’s how I feel about seeing you in Crocs. I think you’d better move back to London right now, the sea air is obviously affecting you. Quick, get on the train before it’s too late!’
Daniel smiled uncertainly at the two women’s banter – maybe, and please let this not be so, he was a lover of Crocs.
As the kids tucked into vanilla ice cream and mango sauce the three adults chatted, all small talk really, but Carmen was struggling to keep her eyes off Daniel. His beauty was mesmerising and every time he smiled at one of her jokes she felt as if she’d won the Nobel peace prize.
‘Oh look!’ Carmen exclaimed, waving. ‘It’s Marcus and Sadie.’ She turned to Jess. ‘Now play nice, please.’
‘Sadie shagged Sean,’ Jess couldn’t resist saying to Daniel, who looked rather taken aback by the comment.
‘They were on a break,’ Carmen clarified. Would Jess ever forgive and forget? But then again, would she in Jess’s position? It was a tough one.
‘Everyone’s done things they regret, I’m sure,’ Daniel said diplomatically.
There then followed a flurry of introductions, where Carmen was acutely aware of Marcus and Sadie appraising Daniel and of Jess giving Sadie the glacial treatment.
Before they could embark on a proper conversation, however, Daniel and Millie had to leave. ‘But you’re the best-looking man I’ve seen in Brighton, you can’t go!’ Marcus exclaimed. The best-looking man in Brighton looked rather mortified.
‘Just ignore Marcus, he says that to all the boys,’ Carmen jumped in to Daniel’s rescue.
‘Oh right,’ Daniel replied. He seemed unsure of how to react. ‘Anyway, I have to take Millie to a party.’ He got up and pulled on his battered brown leather jacket. ‘Tragically my seven-year-old daughter has a more exciting social life than me.’
Carmen liked his self-deprecating quality; she did so hate an uptight man. Now if he could just do something with the hair, which was actually longer than hers . . .
He turned to Carmen and said quietly, ‘So, I’ll get your boots from the hall tomorrow if you like, I’m working round there, and I could drop them at yours tomorrow afternoon.’
Oh yes. Carmen had a little frisson at the thought of being alone with Delicious Dan. Marcus caught her eye and winked. Carmen ignored him and quickly wrote down her address and mobile for Daniel.
Daniel and Millie were barely out of earshot before Marcus leaned forward and said excitedly, ‘Can I just say, fucking gorgeous, Jess! Madam here had led me to believe that there are no straight men left in Brighton. And here I am confronted by a magnificent specimen.’
‘Less of the F word, Marcus,’ Jess replied, looking over at Harry, who was fortunately engrossed in his Nintendo DS.
‘Shit, sorry,’ Marcus answered.
‘Or the S word!’ Jess again.
‘Bloody hell, it’s like a minefield being around children.’
Jess gave up. She looked at Carmen. ‘So what did you think? Don’t you love me for arranging the meeting? You’re going to owe me big time.’
‘He is gorgeous. Definitely not my type, though. You only have to look at the hair. And we come from such different worlds. He probably thinks I’m really shallow.’
‘You are really shallow,’ Jess shot back. ‘But loveable too, and I reckon Daniel would be very interested because you are different to him. Opposites attract and all that jazz.’
The two women did the finger-clicking thing they always did when one of them mentioned a line from a musical. It used to drive Sadie mad when she lived with them.
She rolled her eyes now but let it pass.
Then Carmen said, ‘Nothing’s going to happen.’
Jess leaned forward. ‘He’s very shy and can be hard to talk to, but there are compensations.’ She lowered her voice, ‘He’s supposed to be an amazing lover.’ Jess’s voice dropped a couple of octaves at ‘amazing’.
Carmen gave a snort of laughter. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because he had a brief fling with a friend of my friend’s, and she said it was the best sex of her life.’
Jess, Carmen, Sadie and Marcus all looked into the middle distance. Best sex of her life, versus no sex. Carmen knew which one she would rather have.
‘Oh Carmen,’ Marcus added wickedly, ‘you know you want to. And finally I can get to hear about something other than a man who can only climax to the shipping forecast.’
‘What!’ Jess exclaimed.
And Sadie was forced to recount the whole sorry saga of Dom’s sexual preference, which was big of her, seeing as how Jess was laughing at her rather than with her. But maybe, Carmen reflected later when she’d waved her friends off at the station, that was what it would take to get Jess and Sadie to be friends again.
10
After the encounter with Daniel, Carmen’s writing routine was shot to pieces. Remembering Harry’s comment about Jess’s drinking, she texted her friend the following morning asking her to phone her when she got the chance. Jess replied that she was teaching all day and had drama club that night. It would have to wait until tomorrow. Carmen then found every possible excuse not to sit down in front of her lovely MacBook. It sat on the table by the window, looking all sleek and reproachful, next to Basil, who definitely had a new spring to his spikes since the move, while she procrastinated.
First she performed fifty sit-ups, followed by twenty abductor lifts (the ones that made her want to cry) mindful of the lithe Violet who undoubtedly had her big brown eyes on Daniel and no doubt wanted her slender thighs round him as well. She then painted her nails, even though she had a feeling Daniel was a strictly natural nail man and she’d gone for a deep harlot red, she plucked her eyebrows and straightened her hair, but by eleven she had run out of excuses. She sat down and switched on the Mac and opened up her drama.
She had recently read an article where writers talked about their writing routine. They were all such swots! They started work at eight, often earlier, and wrote all day, sometimes so absorbed in their work that they forgot to eat. Or if they did break for a snack they’d have something simple like an oatcake and an apple. Not even a
Hobnob to get through that creative slump? The moment Carmen had finished a short scene she was ravenously hungry, even though she’d had porridge for breakfast, which should have meant slow release of energy and all that, and therefore no picking. She wrote a few more lines, but now the thought of a snack kept bobbing up to the surface. And surely she had burnt off some calories in the sit-up frenzy. Toast and coffee was what was called for. Toast and coffee was duly made and consumed while she googled Daniel’s gardening company.
The photographs of his gardens were stunning, all with strong, visually arresting designs, and reading the blurb it seemed as if wherever possible he tried to source local materials and always used sustainable timber. So he was ethical and sexy. Well, she was quite ethical, wasn’t she? She always bought Fairtrade coffee and chocolate and she recycled all her wine bottles. Ten further minutes were wasted by her having a quite involved fantasy of what exactly she would like to do to the ethical and sexy Daniel and what she would like him to do to her. Perhaps she could even tie him up in some S&M-inspired scenario and cut off his hair, but nicely, not in a Delilah I am trying to emasculate you Samson vibe, more of a I am trying to make you look even hotter . . . But then would ethical, sexy Daniel approve of S&M, and was there such a thing as ethical S&M? And what was she doing going down an S&M cul de sac? It had never interested her before.
To put a stop to the rampant thoughts she logged on to the Guardian online. There was bound to be some passion-killing story about the economy and how we were all going to hell in a handcart, or about some atrocity. But no, as she ploughed her way through the articles she realised she wasn’t taking in a single word; instead she was imagining what Daniel would look like with short hair. I really am shallow, she reflected, logging off. Shallow and desperate for sex.
It was now midday. She checked her emails. There was a flirty one from Will asking her what else she had imagined for him and if possible could she imagine him a new job because he was having a bloody hard time at Fox Nicholson. Carmen was all set to reply, then an image of Tash hurtling down the ski slope straight into Will’s arms and then on to a passionate embrace in front of an open fire, where Tash was deftly unzipped from her ski suit, popped into her head. He could bloody well get his girlfriend with her slender but firm thighs to imagine him something. She had been very stern with herself about Will and had given all the Wobbly Worms to Harry.
Marcus had also sent her an email wanting an update on Daniel. She might have guessed that he’d be on her case. Daniel was all Marcus could talk about on the walk back to the station last night. She reached for the phone.
Marcus answered on the first ring. ‘What news?’
‘Give me a chance!’ she exclaimed. ‘I haven’t seen him yet.’ And here she sighed, ‘It doesn’t matter anyway because I know I’m not his type. I bet you anything he likes his women au naturel – not a scrap of makeup on their tiny heart-shaped faces, their hair with that just-got-out-of bed look. You know I don’t do that. The last time I didn’t wear make-up I was twelve, and have I ever had tousled hair in my life?’
‘No,’ Marcus said drily. ‘In fact, I imagine you entered the world with a sharp bob. But I saw the looks he was giving you and I definitely think that gardener boy was interested.’
‘You think?’
‘I know. He is ripe for the plucking, and I’d love to talk more but I’ve got to go. I’ve got a t’ai chi session in twenty minutes, then I’m seeing my therapist at two, I’m doing an interview with Grazia straight after and then I start filming at four.’
‘Oh, you and your celebrity lifestyle,’ Carmen shot back in a voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘And you said fame would never change you.’
‘I never said that. Did you see that I was in Heat’s Spotted section? Bastards took it from my bad side. Laters.’
Carmen reread the last two scenes she’d written but her attention kept wandering. She really must learn to cultivate will power. And she absolutely must not think of words like cultivate, which only took her straight back to her hot gardener. She decided to go for a walk and clear her head to allow the creative thoughts in and the lustful ones out.
Several weeks into her new life in Brighton she still received a jolt of pleasure when she saw the sea stretching out in front of her. Today in the weak November sunlight it was a cheeky green like the inside of an old-fashioned glass marble, and there were white horses foaming across it whipped up by the jaunty wind. High above her head the gulls shot up on the breeze and then drifted nonchalantly, showing off, shrieking the equivalent of Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough. They were truly the skinhead bully boys of the avian world. If she’d seen one draped in a St George’s flag, swigging from a can of Special Brew, it would not have surprised her.
She took a deep breath of sea air to blow those cobwebs of procrastination away and started walking briskly towards town. She’d have a half-hour walk by the sea and then return and write with purpose, determination and vigour. She should be able to write at least four scenes. She was actually thinking about the sitcom and the interplay between the lead women when she remembered that she hadn’t decided what to wear when she saw Daniel later that day. She went through her clothes, mentally discarding the different combinations only to arrive at the crisis conclusion that she had absolutely nothing to wear! Immediately she made a sharp left into the Lanes. What she urgently required was a slouchy off-the-shoulder top in a tee-shirt material, which would be sexy but not in an obvious way, to wear with her skinny jeans.
Understated, that was the kind of thing someone like Daniel would go for. She found exactly the right top in a little boutique. However, she also found exactly the right midnight-blue silk dress. She really, really should not buy the dress, or in fact the top. Should not. Her savings were not going to last long at this rate. But the dress was perfect. It’s an investment piece, she reasoned. If I wear it ten times that means it will only have cost me fifteen pounds a time, hang on, that’s still a bit much, how about twenty times? She did a quick calculation, £7.50. What an absolute bargain! Carmen was always doing these calculations to justify purchases, neglecting to think that it only worked out if you didn’t buy anything else. But feeling as if she’d only spent £7.50 on the gorgeous dress and practically nothing on the top, she trotted back home, very pleased with herself. It’s important for me to experience life as a writer, she told herself. I can’t just sit at home, I have to embrace experiences, people, lovely dresses.
The MacBook was waiting patiently for her. God, the amount it cost her, she’d expect it at least to have written half the comedy! She really should sit down and get going. But first she had to check out the I’m not-making-much-of-an-effort-but-still-sexy top again.
It was just the look she had wanted – the charcoal top falling off the shoulder to reveal a hint of still-tanned skin from the summer and her red satin bra strap. She checked the time – half past three – Daniel wouldn’t finish work so early, she reckoned, and quickly put on her new dress. Its sexy temptress impact was slightly marred by her wearing red and black stripy socks, but nonetheless she slipped her feet into her black stilettos with the wickedly high heel and considered her reflection in the mirror. Oh yeah, baby! She thought, turning from side to side, it really was a dress with va-va-voom. She was just imagining going on a date with Daniel – she bet he scrubbed up well – when her doorbell went. She clattered across the wooden floorboards, thinking it was most probably her order from Amazon. Instead it was Daniel.
‘Delivery for Ms Miller.’ He held up the boots in one hand and a bouquet of vivid orange roses in the other. ‘The flowers are to make up for any emotional scarring caused by the Croc experience.’
It was so sweet, but Carmen was mortified by her appearance. Daniel must think she was a total loon trotting around in a cocktail dress at three-thirty in the afternoon. He looked as gorgeous as she’d remembered from the day before, even though his clothes were caked in mud and his hair was still long. He was wit
hout doubt one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen.
‘Thanks, come in,’ she mumbled. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Or isn’t it time for something more sophisticated?’ He took in the dress and then smiled. ‘Lovely dress, looks good with the socks, very Dennis the Menace.’
This was deeply embarrassing. No woman wants to be caught out trying on her new clothes like a teenage girl or be associated with Dennis the Menace. She could either fess up or pretend that she always dressed like this, but then he would think she was some freaky Miss Havisham type figure. And if she recalled her Dickens, Miss Havisham never got shagged.
‘I’ve just bought it and I admit that instead of working, I tried it on. It’s one of my many displacement activities. So, tea?’
‘You haven’t got a beer, have you?’
‘I’ll check.’ On the way to the kitchen Carmen nipped into her bedroom and took off the shoe-sock combination, then padded barefoot into the kitchen.
‘It’s a great place you’ve got here,’ Daniel said, coming in. He’d removed his work boots so she hadn’t heard him and she was checking her reflection in the shiny stainless-steel kettle, doing a highly unattractive gurn to make sure she didn’t have lipstick on her teeth. It just got worse. Why didn’t she wear a badge announcing the fact that she was a vain, shallow woman and be done with it?
‘I’m borrowing it from Marcus.’
‘I love the fact that it’s so minimalist. My house is so cluttered, but this is lovely.’ At this, he stretched up his arms causing his tee-shirt to ride up and show off some impressive abs. They must feel so good.
It was with some difficulty that she turned her mind to the conversation. ‘Yeah, I love the minimalist look myself,’ she lied. Carmen found it a form of torture to be so relentlessly tidy and had done her best to introduce some colour into Marcus’s ferociously white temple.
They settled in the living room, on each end of Marcus’s white leather sofa, which Carmen had covered with an indigo throw. Somehow the silk dress made the moment feel charged, as if they really were on a date.
A Funny Thing About Love Page 16
