‘But you didn’t answer my question,’ Izzie insisted. ‘How do you know when you’re really in love? What do you think, TJ?’
‘Oh God. I don’t know. Ask me when I’m older. When I’ve had a bit more experience. I’ve only had one proper boyfriend.’
I’ve been dating Lucy’s brother, Steve, for just over three months and although I really like him, no way can I say that I’m in love. We like hanging out. Having a laugh. Lucy was looking at me curiously. Oh please don’t ask me what I think you’re going to ask me, I thought.
‘So. Do you love Steve?’ asked Nesta before Lucy could open her mouth.
‘Er . . . We get on really well and . . .’
I think Lucy sensed my discomfort. ‘Don’t embarrass her,’ she said.
‘OK, you then. Do you love Tony?’ asked Nesta.
Lucy blushed. Tony is Nesta’s elder brother and he and Lucy have been seeing a lot of each other lately, although both of them insist that it’s only casual.
‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘I . . . like him more than any other boy that I’ve ever been out with. And as you all know, that’s not many. Um. Two in fact. So it’s hard to tell. I like him a lot, but I always imagined that with true love, you’d really know it. Both of you. Not all this on off stuff Tony and I do. Neither of us can make up our minds what we want.’
‘Oh, I think Tony knows exactly what he wants,’ said Nesta.
‘Which is?’ asked Lucy.
‘To get you to do the horizontal shoe shuffle.’
‘Whadttt?’ asked Lucy.
‘You know, sex.’
Lucy blushed furiously. ‘You’re probably right,’ she said with a sigh. ‘But I’m sure if I did the, er . . . horizontal shoe shuffle, he’d lose interest in no time.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Nesta.
‘Oh he would. Anyway I’m not ready. I don’t want to be pressurised into it. I want to do it when the time feels right. It was enough worrying about whether I was a good kisser or not. I don’t want to get into worrying about whether I’m good at sex as well.’
‘I believe in soulmates,’ said Izzie. ‘That somewhere on the planet is someone who is perfect for you and if you meet him, then sex and all the rest of it will be perfect and you won’t have to worry.’
‘Somewhere on the planet?’ I asked. ‘What if your soulmate lives in Outer Mongolia and you never meet?’
‘I believe in soulmates as well,’ said Lucy, ‘and, if he lived somewhere remote, fate would bring you together, at an airport or somewhere, like two magnets drawn together irresistibly. You’d just be about to get on your plane to Paris and he would be dashing down an escalator and your eyes would meet . . .’
‘And he’d trip and fall over someone’s suitcase,’ said Izzie, ‘bang his head and when he woke up, you’d be standing over him . . .’
‘With choirs of heavenly angels singing hallelujah,’ I added laughing. ‘Oh, get real guys. You’ve all been watching way too many slushy films.’
‘Well maybe not like that,’ said Lucy. ‘But I reckon that if you met your soulmate, there would be some kind of recognition. You’d be on the same wavelength and maybe even know what each other was thinking without having to say anything.’
‘Maybe,’ said Nesta, ‘but who’s to say you only have one soulmate? You might have loads.’
‘You wish,’ said Lucy. ‘I read somewhere that soulmates have been together through many lifetimes. So I think that Izzie is right, there would be some kind of recognition. It would be like meeting a long lost friend and there would be something familiar about them, because actually you’ve been together time after time.
‘God, I hope not,’ said Nesta. ‘Sounds awful. I mean marriage to one person sounds bad enough, but a whole eternity with the same guy. You’d have to love him one heck of a lot. Whatever happened to having fun? Never mind finding Mr Right. I’ll settle for Mr Right Now.’
‘If it’s meant to be,’ said Izzie, ‘it’s meant to be.’
Nesta pulled a doubtful face. ‘Hhhmm. You’d have to believe in reincarnation and I’m not sure I do. Only way to know is die and find out. Then you’ll know for sure. Like with soulmates, if I meet one, I’ll let you know.’
‘I agree,’ I said. ‘I think the notion of soulmates is just a romantic way of saying that there are some boys you click with or fancy more than others. End of story.’
‘Well I hope you meet your soulmate in this life,’ said Izzie, ‘then you’ll be proved wrong.’
‘Yeah right,’ I replied with a grin.
‘But nobody has answered Izzie’s question,’ said Lucy. ‘How do you know if you’re really in love?’
‘Can’t sleep. Can’t eat. It’s like having a nasty virus and feeling insane,’ said Izzie. ‘That’s why I like being celibate. It’s nice. Peaceful. No having to worry about will he phone me. Is my bum too big and all that crapola.’
I cracked up. ‘How can you be celibate when you haven’t even had sex yet?’
‘Easy. Celibate means an unmarried person or someone who isn’t having sex,’ said Izzie. ‘So I’ve been celibate for fifteen years now. But going back to love, I reckon it does your head in. All the great love songs say so. Like having an itch that you can’t scratch. The love bug. I got a fever etc, etc. Count me out.’
Lucy nodded. ‘But it’s a nice itch.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Nesta. ‘Like you can’t stop thinking about him. Can’t wait to be with him. Time is slow when you’re apart, yet it passes quickly when you’re together. It’s like that with Luke.’
‘Bit of an old romantic yourself, hey Nesta,’ I teased. I hoped nobody would ask me about being in love with Steve again. I mean, I really liked him, but there was no way I thought about him all the time.
‘I think you know it’s love because you feel all tingly when you’re with him,’ said Lucy. ‘Like you’re really alive, energised.’
‘You can get that feeling from drinking a drink from the health shop,’ said Izzie. ‘Try one with ginseng in it.’
I laughed. ‘So who needs love?’
‘I think that if you meet The One then you’d be able to be your best self with him,’ said Lucy. ‘Talk to him. It would feel right, easy. You’d be able to be yourself without having to put on an act or feeling like you have to impress him.’
‘That sounds cool,’ I said. ‘I reckon Mojo must be The One then, because that’s how I feel around him. I can talk to him about anything and he always looks really interested.’
‘I said you were weird,’ said Izzie. ‘But seriously, this One. Would he be like you, with lots in common? Or would it be a case of opposites attract?’
‘Maybe it’s just chemical,’ I said, as I watched Mojo chasing a border collie then do the doggie ‘hi’ by smelling its rear end. ‘Pheromones. Purely animal. Like dogs. You like the way they smell.’
Nesta laughed as she watched the dogs. ‘Imagine if we did that! It would be hysterical. No way am I going round smelling bottoms. Not very romantic! There has to be a more dignified way to know if he’s The One.’
‘I guess we’ll know whether it’s love when the time comes,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ said Izzie. ‘Like when it’s hot or cold. You just know it.’
‘And in the meantime, we can have lots of fun along the way,’ said Nesta.
Around lunch-time, we rounded up the dogs and tied their leads to our bench. I stayed to keep an eye on them and make sure that they didn’t drag the bench down the hill while the others went to the Ladies.
‘So how was that?’ I asked Mojo, who was sitting at my feet looking up at me adoringly. ‘Did you make any new friends?’
‘First sign of madness, talking to yourself,’ said a male voice to my right.
I looked up to see Nesta’s boyfriend smiling down at me.
‘Er, nihi . . . I was talking to my dog,’ I blustered.
‘Oh. He speaks English does he?’
I laughed. ‘Do you know that had neve
r occurred to me. Maybe I ought to try French?’
‘Or Italian,’ added Luke, laughing, and leaned over to say something to Mojo in Italian. Mojo leaped up, put his paws on Luke’s shoulders and licked his face with great enthusiasm.
‘Ohmigod,’ I said. ‘I think you might be right. Mojo is clearly Italian. Oh no. Now I’ll have to learn how to speak it.’
Luke laughed again. ‘Hey, is Nesta with you? She called me on her mobile and asked me to meet her here.’
I jerked my thumb towards the Ladies. ‘She’ll be back in a mo.’
Luke sat down beside me and turned to look at the house on the right, behind us. ‘Did you go inside?’
‘Only for a minute,’ I said. ‘None of the others were too keen. I’m going to come back and do it properly another day. I love looking round places like this.’
‘Me too,’ said Luke. ‘It’s one of my favourite things. I like imagining what the people were like who lived here . . .’
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Like who were they? Were they happy?’
‘Yeah. Did they get on? Have kids? Is there a good vibe or a bad vibe in there. I like reading books about places like this, sometimes they have photos of the inhabitants and their families. As I look at their faces, I wonder, what were you thinking the day you were painted? Like what did you have for breakfast?’
‘Yeah. I like to sit and soak up the atmosphere, see if I can somehow be transported back . . .’
‘Yeah,’ said Luke. ‘And don’t you think it’s amazing that this place is here? Some people go all the way to Paris or Rome to see works of art and we have some amazing ones right on our doorstep.’
I turned and had a good look at him. I couldn’t believe he was saying exactly what I thought. I’d only met Luke once before and then it was only briefly with a crowd of others at his parents’ restaurant. They’re Italian and knew Nesta’s dad when they were younger and there was some drama going on about a falling out they had years ago and Nesta was told she couldn’t see Luke. All sorted now, but I hadn’t really talked to him as it was neither the time nor place. Or looked at him beyond a glance. And now that I did look, there was something about him that looked . . . sort of familiar. I felt myself flush as he looked back at me.
‘Have we met before?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘Yeah. With Nesta at your parents’ restaurant.’
He shook his head. ‘No. Before then. I remember that night No. It’s just . . . you look kind of familiar.’
I shook my head. ‘No I don’t think so.’ I would have remembered meeting someone as striking as Luke. He wasn’t your average tall, dark and handsome, although he was all of those things with a mane of black hair. It made him look like a poet from a bygone era. But there was something else about him. He looked interesting. Intelligent. He was still staring at me and I felt myself turning pink. I stood up and started playing with the dog’s lead. When I looked at Luke again, he was smiling, like he was amused. Was it because he’d felt my embarrassment and was laughing at me? He probably had this effect on loads of girls. Or was he amused because I’d got the dogs’ leads all tangled and almost tripped over Jerry? Oh hell. Whatever, I thought, Nesta’s lucky to have such a gorgeous boyfriend. I’d love to talk to him more about old houses and paintings. I glanced at him again as he kneeled on the ground by the bench and tried to untangle the leads.
‘I’d love to talk to you more some day about old houses,’ he said as he looked at me. ‘Not many people are that interested.’
I gulped. ‘Er nihi . . .’ I muttered, as Izzie, Nesta and Lucy came bouncing up the steps behind us and put an end to our conversation.
Meeting The One
Who says you get only one One? If you’re lucky, you will meet The One, The Two, The Three . . . and so on. Nesta
The One will be your soulmate for life. Lucy
If it’s meant to be, destiny will bring you together in this life as it has in past lives. Izzie
It’s all chemical. The One is just a way of saying you fancy someone and your pheromones are mutually attractive. TJ
Chapter 3
‘Typical Marie,’ Mum said as we drove down to Devon the following Saturday. ‘She always was a contrary one.’
‘I thought Paul was your difficult child, Mum,’ I teased from the back. My brother Paul freaked my parents out in the summer by dropping out of medical school to travel the world. He’s in Morocco at the moment and flying back on Christmas Eve for the wedding before going on to Ethiopia in the New Year. Dad calls him a drifter as he hasn’t decided what he wants to be yet.
‘You’re all difficult,’ said Dad as he steered our car down the A381 towards a place called Bigbury Bay in Devon.
‘But honestly, a sea tractor!’ said Mum. ‘What is the girl thinking of?’
‘Well, we’ll have a look and try and talk her out of it,’ said Dad. ‘You know, take the line of going along with it all, then try and make her see sense.’
I thought the location sounded fab and wondered if I should warn Marie about their ‘let’s go along with it’ strategy. Apparently Marie’s found this hotel on an island that caters for weddings and the only way to get to it, when the tide is in, is by sea tractor. Excellent, I thought, when I heard the news. Makes a change from arriving at a wedding in the usual boring limo.
Mum hadn’t finished her rant. ‘How on earth does she think she’s going to get all the guests across to the hotel? No. The idea is ridiculous.’
‘It was good enough for royalty,’ I said. I’d looked the place up on the Internet last night. It sounded just my kind of thing, an old hotel steeped in history. Apparently anyone who was anyone used to go there in the summers of the 1930s. Edward, Prince of Wales, Mrs Simpson, Noel Coward, Amy Johnson, Winston Churchill to name a few. According to the website, it was flapper heaven with an orchestra playing on a platform in a natural swimming pool called the Mermaid Pool.
But on they went, moan moan moan. I tried making them laugh with Lucy’s joke, our father who art in Devon, Harold be thy name, but they didn’t find it funny. No, they were having much more fun having a groan.
‘London would have been much more convenient for the guests from the North,’ said Mum.
‘And what if the weather’s bad? It will be a nightmare if no one can get there,’ said Dad. ‘No. It doesn’t bode well.’
‘And it’s not cheap either,’ said Mum.
I decided to close my eyes and try and sleep. Burgh Island Hotel sounded the business to me and, anyway, it was Marie’s wedding not Mum’s or Dad’s. As I drifted off, I found myself thinking about Luke. I wonder if he knows about this place. Sounds like his sort of thing too. He’s been popping into my head all week, on and off. I kept replaying the moment he turned and asked if we’d met before over and over in my head. It was amazing as usually when I meet a good-looking boy, my brain turns to mush and my vocal cords paralyse. I get taken over by this alien girl I call Noola who can’t say anything except uhyuh, yuneewee and nihingyah. But I’d managed to have a conversation with Luke. Actually spoken words that formed themselves into meaningful sentences. It was like I’d known him for ages. And the moment he talked to Mojo in Italian – it was so funny . . . But I mustn’t think about him. He’s Nesta’s boyfriend. Steve. Steve is my boyfriend. I ought to be daydreaming about telling him about Burgh Island, not Luke. He likes places with interesting histories too. So why didn’t you think of telling him about it first? asked a prissy voice in the back of my head. He’s not as good-looking as Luke, said another voice. Steve is cute in his own way. He looks like an eighteen-year-old Harry Potter, whereas Luke is a total babe with his wide mouth, thick eyelashes and . . . Oh shut up, I thought. Shut up, shut up, shut up. I made a resolution to tell Steve all about Burgh Island the moment I got back.
Mum and Dad’s moaning and groaning continued as we parked in the car park on the mainland opposite the hotel and unloaded our overnight bags from the boot. I looked across the bay and there was the hotel
, exactly as the website had described it: ‘A white art deco cruise liner beached on dry land.’ I couldn’t wait to get there.
The sea tractor was brilliant. I’d never seen anything like it. It was like travelling on an open-air bus with ginormous wheels and, before we knew it, we were across the bay and a man was taking our bags and loading them in a car to drive us the short distance up to the hotel.
‘All this palaver,’ Mum droned on as we passed a little pub called The Pilchard Inn. ‘And what if it snows?’
We’d been in the hotel about five minutes and I could see that Mum and Dad’s objections were fading fast.
‘Well I suppose it is rather nice when you get here,’ said Mum as she took in the fabulous art deco interior.
‘Hhmmm,’ said Dad approvingly as he strolled into a room called the Palm Court that had a stunning, domed, stained glass roof in vibrant peacock colours.
‘Nice? Mum, it’s awesome,’ I said as Marie came out from the Palm Court to meet us.
‘Awesome,’ she said. ‘I take it that you approve then?’
‘I do,’ I said.
‘What about the wrinklies?’ she whispered after hugs and enquiries about the journey, and Mum and Dad busied themselves with signing in and getting our room keys.
I laughed. Marie’s picked up on my nickname for Mum and Dad. I started calling them the wrinklies, because they’re so much older than most people’s parents. Probably not for Marie and Paul as they’re both in their twenties, but I came along later. A surprise baby I think I was. Probably was a surprise as both Mum and Dad are doctors and should know better about contraception and the like. It was funny when Mum gave me my first ‘sex’ talk and lectured me about, ‘How it can only take one time’ and, ‘Mistakes do happen’, I asked her if I was a mistake and she didn’t know where to look.
‘They’ll be OK,’ I said. ‘Just give them time.’
After a fabulous lunch in the Sun Lounge, Mum and Dad seemed to be doing a total about-turn.
‘Winston Churchill came here, you know,’ said Dad as he puffed on a cigar.
Mates, Dates and Tempting Trouble Page 2
