Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers

by Marika Cobbold

‘And she has,’ Mother says. ‘She’s writing A Biography of a Happy Marriage. That’s the working title. Isn’t it charming?’

  ‘Ooh goodie,’ Hera says, ‘I do like a nice biography. Whose happy marriage is it?’

  Mother shifts in her chair and inspects her shell-pink nails.

  ‘She’s still researching, but a lovely couple, I’m sure.’

  In a corner Ate laughs. But Mother pays no attention, not today.

  ‘And once she has done this book I don’t think it will be long before she returns to writing her novels. I’ve been looking in on John and her this past year and when I tell you that …’

  I put my hands over my ears.

  ‘Don’t want to know, don’t want to know – they’re old.’

  ‘Oh Eros, don’t be such a baby. Now that you’re going to take your place up here’ – she smiles and gives my hand a little squeeze, then tries to look stern – ‘you really will have to do some growing up and …’

  I stare at her. Is she for real? Am I up here for good? Wow. I look around, grinning, and catch Ate’s eye. I stick my tongue out at her, really quickly, which is fine as everyone else is busy listening to Mother describing all this lovey-dovey stuff.

  ‘And it’s not just that side of things either,’ she continues. ‘No, there’s a real meeting of minds. Truly, if they had been brought together all those years ago when they were meant to be’ – here she turns to me but I don’t care: she’s said I’m moving up – ‘I think they would still be together today. She doesn’t try to change him. His somewhat serious –’

  ‘Pompous,’ I mutter.

  ‘… Side is balanced by her lighter personality. He in turn has brought kindness and security to her life and each of them has brought laughter to the other. Oh I remember their first proper date. There was an immediate sexual tension …’

  I start singing to myself. I wish she could do this without like totally grossing me out.

  ‘… But they also talked together with such ease. About diaries, as I recall.’

  ‘Diaries?’ Hera asked.

  ‘Yes, appointment diaries, personal organisers, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Wow, hot stuff,’ Ate titters. When is someone going to realise that she certainly isn’t supposed to be up here?

  ‘Nothing wrong with being organised,’ Athene says, surprising everyone by being almost nice.

  ‘Oh it was code, I expect,’ Mother says. ‘Or perhaps a cover for all the emotion. I can’t remember how they came to the topic but she told him how she never stops searching for the perfect system, as she called it. “It can’t be electronic,” she said. “I must have paper. I know a Filofax is really practical and you can transfer data from year to year but there’s something about the fact that the pages are on a ring-binder, disposable, that I don’t like.”

  ‘He said he completely agreed. He’d been using the really quite small Smythson featherweight diary for several years now and he’d saved them all so that he had a record of what he’d been doing on each day in each year. She got quite excited and asked if he filled in after the event. For example, if he’d made an entry in the diary that said, “whatever show and dinner” because at that stage he had not yet decided where he was going to eat, did he go back afterwards and fill in the name of the restaurant?

  ‘He said that sometimes he did but not always. So she told him, with such a sweet smile, that she did it sometimes too but that she felt that maybe that was cheating somehow and he said he knew exactly what she meant and then the conversation moved on to notes and “To Do” pages and if it was best to have them separately at the back or one alongside each …’

  ‘Shush,’ Harmonia says, ‘it’s starting.’

  As we wait for the bride to arrive I think back to how I did it. I do that quite often. I’m pretty proud of the way I sorted it out in the end although Mother behaves as if it was all thanks to her.

  You see, once I knew where Rebecca Finch was going to be that Saturday I arranged for Hermes to drop John Sterling the fake invitation. That way I would have them vaguely in the same place at the same time.

  I followed him to the lunch place. The diversions were a doddle: their roads are complete chaos anyway, signs and cones everywhere, especially in the summer when, ironically, they get used the most, so once I knew where he was heading I just moved some signs around.

  An arrow through the tread of the front-left tyre of Rebecca Finch’s car – and the plan was beginning to come together nicely. I was especially pleased with the symmetry of the whole thing. Them meeting on the road once more. The red hat was a nice touch too, though I say it myself, but it was pure luck that she was stupid enough to run out into the middle of the road – again. After that it was easy, one well-aimed arrow at her as she watched him change the tyre then one for him as he looked up at her: job done.

  And now they’re getting married.

  Here she comes, Rebecca Finch in a red dress and the hat I found for her. John Sterling had especially asked her to wear it again. She’s looking good. He is too, although he’s put on a bit of weight in the year they’ve been together. Harmonia says that’s a sign of a contented man. Athene pretends not to hear and Hera nods wisely as if she’d been backing this thing all along.

  The wedding is on the terrace of a hotel on the Amalfi coast. She walks down towards the celebrant, no father, no bridesmaids, just her in her red dress and hat. When John Sterling turns round and sees her coming towards him, he looks as if he’s glimpsed a piece of heaven.

  ‘Ahh,’ I hear Mother and Harmony sigh behind me.

  I have to say John and Rebecca do look kind of cute, for a couple of old guys, that is.

  After the ceremony they all sit down at this long table looking out across the Bay of Naples. They’ve brought over around twenty friends and relatives. Her mother is there, telling everyone how proud Rebecca’s father would have been. His mother is the faded-looking woman in pastel-blue, crying. She hasn’t stopped, actually. She must have about a hundred tissues stuffed up those sleeves. Next to her is his cousin Amy; his kid’s there too … She’s all right for a kid, although she seems to think she’s the main event.

  Then John Sterling gets to his feet.

  ‘My wife and I …’

  Of course they all whoop and cheer at that.

  And he goes on to tell everyone about when they first met (that is, when they think they first met).

  ‘What I most remember from that night in the bar in Primrose Hill is how we both agreed that we really enjoyed living on our own. Not for us, not any more, the mistake of putting a love affair at the centre of our existences.’ John’s grinning as if it’s the biggest joke rather than a sensible precaution. ‘There were so many important things other than relationships, we said.’ He turns and looks down at her and she looks back up at him. He takes her hand in his. ‘But I can safely say that in this instance we are so happy to be proven wrong. As you all know, Rebecca and I have done this before … separately, obviously.’

  ‘Yeah yeah, we get it,’ I say as the guests all laugh and now it’s Hera’s turn to tell me to shut up.

  He takes her hand again and she gets up to stand at his side, leaning lightly into his shoulder, her face raised to his.

  And then he says it.

  ‘But, Rebecca,’ he says, ‘my darling Rebecca, this time it will be different.’

  So she rubs at her eyes making a mess of her make-up and says, ‘Dearest John, I know it will be.’

  The sun sets over the sea. The party is over. The bride and groom walk hand in hand across the lawn back to their room.

  And that’s it, The End.

  Mortals – don’t they just crack you up?

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My warmest thanks to Alexandra Pringle, Marian McCarthy, Georgia Garrett and Linda Shaughnessy for their support and editorial advice throughout the writing of this novel. My heartfelt thanks also to Michael Patchett-Joyce, Jeremy and Rachael Cobbold, Harriet Cobbold Hielte
and Fabian Hielte for their generous and insightful input and constant support and encouragement. Also again to Michael for all the help with matters of law, and to Harriet also for her brilliant help in getting the final draft in shape.

  NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

  Marika Cobbold was born in Sweden and is the author of five previous novels: Guppies for Tea, selected for the WH Smith First Novels Promotion and shortlisted for the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award; The Purveyor of Enchantment; A Rival Creation; Frozen Music and Shooting Butterflies. She lives in London.

  First published in Great Britain 2009

  Copyright © 2008 Marika Cobbold

  This electronic edition published 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  The right of Marika Cobbold to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 4088 2182 4

  www.bloomsbury.com/marikacobbold

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