Man, I’d lost it.
It hadn’t helped that Hailey had immediately spied a Word document that I’d minimized, containing details of twelve ENT surgeons called William, which I had compiled using the GMC database. And a doodle relating to how I could somehow poison Shelley Cartwright.
‘CHAS.’
‘Sorry. I know. I have to let them go on a date.’
‘Damn bloody right you do, you psychopath! What’s happened to you? Don’t you turn into one of those stupid women who ruins her career over some juvenile obsession with a man,’ she commanded. Turkish techno music boomed out of the speakers behind us and Hailey, demolishing a battered sausage under the strange glow of the chippy’s pink neon lights, looked even more scary than usual. In spite of my best efforts not to be, I was feeling rather offended by her tone. Hailey had always been very bossy but this had begun to feel like a personal attack.
Seeing that I was upset, she softened a little. ‘Come on, my love. You’re a professional professional! Not a doorstep shitter-onner! Charley, look after this business of yours. It’s brilliant.’
I sat back in The Tank, sighing. She was right. It would be an atrocious error of professional judgement to try to get involved with William myself. Apart from anything else, how would I ever meet him without telling him who I was and what I’d done? Inject some horrible malady into my eardrum and hope I’d get referred to him?
But the prospect of just letting him go was quite devastating. Yes, I had an electric sexual connection with John, but with William I felt like I was making my first ever emotional one. A real emotional connection, which had helped me examine my life in a way I never had before. Surely this was significant!
Stop it, I begged myself. You had four hours of email. You have no emotional connection at all. You don’t even know each other! The merry-go-round tinkled on and on, going precisely nowhere.
‘CHARLOTTE,’ barked a voice I didn’t expect to hear in my local chippie. I looked up and there she was: Granny Helen, sitting regally in a wheelchair of her own with Sam, slightly out of breath, behind her. He was wearing a grubby tracksuit from his university days and had broken a sweat from the short walk up the hill. In spite of this, he still looked attractive.
‘Bowes? Granny Helen? I … What’s going on?’
‘I came to your flat to surprise you,’ Granny Helen announced. ‘Find out how this business of yours is going. I certainly did not expect to find you here eating sausage-shaped offal. Are you ill?’
‘Quite surprised by this little scene myself, Chas.’ Sam chuckled. ‘You don’t have a wholegrain wrap hidden under the table?’ He wheeled Granny Helen round so she was parked next to me.
I was temporarily silenced. I had not expected to sit next to my grandmother – both of us in wheelchairs – in my local chippie. Together we must have made for an unusual sight. Granny Helen looked neat and stylish, her hair knotted into a bun that was pinned into the nape of her neck. (Mum did Granny Helen’s hair for her every single morning.) Pearls hung from her earlobes and her make-up was immaculate. She smelt of powder and perfume and childhood. And, of course, I was dressed pretty smartly, as always. Yep. We looked odd.
Hailey, obviously of the same opinion, smiled. ‘Don’t you two look funny?’ She leaned over to kiss Granny Helen’s cheek, which had just been angled towards her. ‘How did you get here?’ she asked.
‘Christian brought me,’ Granny Helen replied. ‘He wanted to come and see Charlotte too, but I forbade it. I don’t get enough time with my granddaughter.’ She sniffed. ‘Even when she was recuperating at home in East Linton she was working on that dratted business of hers all the time!’
She peered ferociously at me over her glasses, inviting a challenge, but I offered none. Going to war with Granny Helen was absolutely pointless even when she was wrong. In this case, she was right. I sighed as Hailey smiled, clearly delighted to have found an ally. ‘Hear hear!’ she said as Sam wandered off to order a carton of orange juice, which was all Granny Helen was prepared to consume.
As Hailey and Granny Helen exchanged stories about how hard it was to get time with me, I watched him ordering his own meal – a deep-fried pie and chips, of course – while he jingled change in his jogging bottoms.
I was surprised he’d been physically capable of wheeling Granny Helen up the hill. He’d stumbled into the kitchen at lunchtime today, looking wrecked and muttering about an all-night shagathon with Yvonne, and had been in a state of dazed exhaustion ever since. While he’d sprawled on the sofa watching Dr Who, I’d tried to put Dr William out of my mind by writing some thirty client messages.
It hadn’t worked.
As Sam paid for his chips, I made a huge mental effort to file William away for now. Granny Helen had arranged to come all the way here to see me, and both of my friends had nearly broken their backs wheeling Lambert women up the hill. I owed them, at the very least, the courtesy of my attention.
Sam arrived back at the table, handed Granny Helen her orange juice and opened a can of Coke for himself. ‘Cheers,’ he said absently, sinking his teeth into his deep-fried pie. Watching Sam eat was not dissimilar to watching Malcolm at his bowl and I studied him with the usual mixture of fondness and despair.
‘You eat like Malcolm does,’ Granny Helen told him. She had a habit of saying things that other people thought but tended not to voice. Sam shrugged: he knew. ‘But you’re extremely attractive,’ she added. Sam blushed.
‘Isn’t he?’ Hailey agreed. ‘It’s such a waste. Think what a decent man could do with those looks.’
Sam blinked, totally unconcerned. ‘I am a decent man. Very decent. I’ve been faithful to Yvonne the whole time we’ve been together.’
‘Six months is not a world record,’ Hailey said. Granny Helen smiled slightly, watching Sam’s face. She enjoyed hearing about his normally disgraceful love life. She said it reminded her of how lucky she was to have been married to Granddad Jack.
‘No,’ Sam agreed, ‘but it’s a personal best.’ He cut a cheese-shaped wedge out of his bizarre pie and popped it into his mouth with comical delicacy.
There was a pause.
Then: ‘I’ll have one of these pies,’ Granny Helen shouted over at the man behind the fryers. ‘Enough,’ she snapped, as Sam, Hailey and I burst out laughing. ‘Now, Charlotte, how is the business going, my dear?’
I blushed, hoping Hailey wouldn’t tell her about my disgraceful emails with William last night. ‘It’s going well,’ I replied. ‘Sam’s been an amazing help with publicity and, thanks to his efforts, I’ve got nearly seventy clients! Isn’t that fantastic?’
Granny Helen shook her head. ‘I might have blasted-well known it would take off. Charlotte,’ she said, in her most forbidding voice, ‘I do hope you’re not proposing to carry on with this thing when you start back at Salutech. Because let me be clear, my girl, you cannot do both.’
My friends nodded their agreement and Hailey raised an enquiring eyebrow at my fish. Sick already of the grease, I pushed the rest over to her.
It was a question with which I’d been grappling a lot over recent weeks. I’d set up First Date Aid because I would otherwise have lost my mind, but now it was up and running – and doing really rather well – the idea of abandoning it or, worse still, selling it, was appalling. I loved it! When I was feeling flat and frustrated with my leg, restless and edgy about doing so little, it breathed life back into me. And I couldn’t deny that it thrilled me to see my business model rising out of nothing and giving Steve Sampson in Boston a serious run for his money. How could I hand that over to someone else? Just watch my hard work disappear in an online financial transaction?
But, equally, how could I carry on when I was back at Salutech? I’d absolutely caned it with my physio to make sure I was able to be back in time for the Simitol launch: I couldn’t just return to work and spend half my time writing dating emails. There wasn’t so much as a spare second in a Salutech day.
First Date Aid to
ok up a lot of time. It wasn’t just the flirting, it was the admin too. The money, the marketing, the client relationships, the website.
Yesterday morning I’d checked my Salutech contract to see if there was anything in it that prevented me running my own business on the side. Technically, as long as I didn’t use their computers or time, there was not. But my contract was kind of irrelevant. I’d be out the door if I was discovered; they’d find a way. Salutech loved me, right up to HQ level in Washington (although Bradley Chambers, the repulsive little man who was vice president of Salutech Global, probably loved me a bit too much), but only because they knew that they had my full and undivided attention.
I pondered. And then: Don’t care, I thought obstinately. I’m not letting go of my little company. I’ll find time. And that’s that.
I would find time. I always did. Somehow.
‘We’ll see,’ I told Granny Helen as her pie was delivered.
The chip-shop man, probably flummoxed by the presence of a pearl-earringed matriarch in his establishment, had found a little sprig of wilting parsley to lay on top and – with touching reverence – put down a plastic knife and fork for her with a piece of kitchen roll folded into a triangle. Granny Helen thanked him graciously, then turned back to me, eyes like bullets. ‘Oh, we’ll see all right,’ she muttered ominously.
I looked at the clock. Probably another two hours before I’d be free to email William. Just to arrange a date between him and Shelley, of course. Nothing more.
10.45 p.m.
Hello William,
I sat back, flexing my fingers. ‘Keep it brief,’ I told myself, realizing that my heart was thumping again. ‘He’s not yours to flirt with.’
Sorry it’s taken so long to reply to your last message. I had a difficult day at work and couldn’t get online.
I would like to go for a date, yes. How does the twenty-sixth of September work? Shelley
I pushed my chair back and got up to make some tea. I didn’t know what else to do with myself.
11.03 p.m.
Aha! Shelley! Evening greetings to you.
26th is fine, although I might die of anticipation between now and then.
Look, I wanted to say sorry if you feel that I came on a bit strong trying to get under your skin last night. The problem is that I like you just a bit too much for some bird from the bloody Internet. There’s something about you.
But I don’t want to frighten you so let’s leave it at Wednesday 26 Sept and in the meantime I’ll go and shag loads of slappers. x
Absolutely, categorically no, I told myself. Don’t you dare bite.
But I was powerless.
11.05
What do you mean there’s something about me?
Sx
I’d broken so many rules now that a kiss was neither here nor there. I felt quite insane.
11.12
AHA! Shelley is still ONLINE. Good. So, hmmm, what is it about you …
It’s not that I find you really attractive (although, for the record, I do), it’s more that I feel like there’s something incredibly sweet and girlish underneath this scary business exterior you have. Are you really this scary corporate ball-breaker? Or is there someone else underneath? I got the impression last night that there is.
Bugger. Sound like patronizing twat. We’ve never met. But … I dunno. I feel like I know you. I feel like I can hear the things that go on in your head. Even though we’ve never met, you just seem so familiar.
This is too much. I need to shut the hell up.
‘Oh no, oh no,’ I said, staring in anguish at my computer screen. ‘Stop seeing me. I hate this.’
11.29 p.m.
It is a bit too much, Dr William. But it’s strangely enjoyable.
Am I really this scary businesswoman?
Maybe not.
But I am! No, I’m not. I’m … argh, stop it.
I suppose what I know is this: I’ve recently had to take a break from my normal (ball-breaking) career and have ended up doing something a lot more jolly. And you know what? I’ve absolutely loved it. There hasn’t been so much as a whiff of corporate toughness and I’ve not been stressed or exhausted. At all.
So perhaps I’m not a scary businesswoman. (But if I’m not, I’m at a bit of a loss to know who I am.)
William, you can’t just make me say that and not tell me anything about you. You said last night you wished you’d made something more of yourself. What did you mean?
Sx
11.40
What did I mean? Bloody hell, I don’t know. I suppose I have a massive, overwhelming feeling of underachievement. Like life is passing me by and I’m not on board. Treading water. Wasting opportunities. Having a great time but never really engaging with anything or anyone. Girls come and go, meaning nothing – not that I get around, I mean relationships – and my dreams just get further and further away.
This is not a very romantic preamble to a date, is it? Sincere apologies. You and your profile got me at a bit of a vulnerable moment last night. And now I’ve opened a Pandora’s box that I’m having trouble closing. Worse still, I seem to have forced you to open yours.
Wow. I really do have all the moves, innit.
11.59
William. You may not have the classic moves, but I think you’re the most honest, open person I’ve talked to in years. You get me. I’m not sure I like it!
00.05
Hmmmm. Same. Let’s try something more pedestrian. Where are you from?
00.07
Small town outside the city [true for both me and Shelley. Different cities though. Different girls, I told myself firmly.]
Where are you from?
00:17
I’m a city boy. The countryside looks so beautiful on postcards but in real life it annoys me. I don’t know what to do with it.
00.22
I know what you mean! I plan ‘trips to the country’ and then have fuck-all idea what to do when I get there!
00.30
Maybe we could have a countryside date then. Exorcize some fears. Pretend we’re just some couple who’ve gone away for a dirty weekend. (If it went really well, we could always turn it into one of those.)
Er, sorry. Too much.
Ah, just caught sight of your profile picture again. Are you aware of being beautiful? X
I felt madly happy and then madly sad. William was looking at a picture of Shelley, not me.
00.31
Inside and out [he added]. Even if you look nothing like your photo I still reckon you’re beautiful.
I stopped feeling madly sad and felt madly happy again.
00.40
Why thank you, William.
Now. I like the sound of a countryside date but it will probably be impossible with my work schedule. It may have to be urban. Oh, and as the man it’s your job to come up with somewhere imaginative and fabulous. No pressure.
And for the record I think doctors are amazing. So quite what you’re on about with this feeling of not having achieved, of life passing you by, I have no idea. I’ve consistently overachieved and, as you appear to have worked out on my behalf, it’s left me completely adrift.
Our conversation has rather blown me apart, William …
Not convinced this is very good Internet dating etiquette. Oops.
*Giggles cheekily.*
Sx
00.53
I like that cheeky giggling. Oh, I like it very much, young lady. I think you would benefit from doing a lot of cheeky giggling, Shelley Businesswoman. I think you would benefit from running around the house without any clothes on, giggling and singing and whooping. And then maybe quitting your job for a bit and giggling off to, I don’t know, Berlin, where you’d go and get stoned and hang out at strange discos by the river at 7.30 a.m. eating hotdogs.
I looked wistfully at my plastered leg. It did indeed sound rather wonderful.
But again, it sounds like I’m trying to do amateur psychoanalysis on you. I’m not tryi
ng to say you’re some uptight woman who needs to set herself free … just that … I was just really touched by you saying that you’d probably enjoy life more if you could let go. It made so much sense to me.
And I don’t care about email etiquette. This conversation has rather blown me apart too, which is exactly what I needed to happen. See you in seven days. X William
Promise me you just fixed up a date and left it at that, Hailey texted me, just before midnight.
‘Yep, date sorted,’ I replied, staring at William’s face on my screen. That, at least, was true.
The date was in seven days. And as I turned my laptop off and lay in the dark tingling all over, I realized that I couldn’t let Shelley go on it. Something real was happening here. I’d learned more about myself in two evenings talking to William than I had in thirty-two years under my own steam. Wasn’t this the sort of stuff that happened when you fell in love?
I pulled the pillow out from underneath my head and started thumping myself with it. ‘You are forbidden EVER to use that word again,’ I hissed. ‘FORBIDDEN!’
Chapter Six
‘So, you see, it’s looking like I should be back really quite soon.’ I stuck a crutch up in the air to signal how mobile I was.
Margot looked unimpressed. ‘We’ll be delighted to have you with us, Charley,’ she said carefully – as if I was applying for a receptionist’s job after recently doing work experience, ‘but do you think you can cope here while you’re on crutches? Salutech isn’t particularly disability-friendly.’
‘Well, that sounds to me like something Carly might want to look into,’ I said smoothly. Carly from HR, delighted to have something to do, wrote down ‘DISABILITY ACCESS’ and underlined it twice, finishing off by circling the two words and adding an asterisk just to be certain. Margot looked at my crutches and shuddered.
A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger Page 9