A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger

by Lucy Robinson

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Katy cried, looking absolutely delighted. Sam, looking anything but delighted, arrived at the bar and kissed my cheek awkwardly. He was wearing a very Londonish cardigan and the buttons of his shirt were only half done up. A silver dog-tag hung round his neck, and although he looked yummy and trendy and young, I felt cross. Sam had always been a fashion victim but I couldn’t help wondering if he’d ramped things up a level for Katy.

  ‘What are you up to, Bowes?’ I asked him.

  ‘My agent meeting was just round the corner,’ he said, ‘and I wanted to take Katy for dinner to thank her for having me to stay.’ I regarded him suspiciously, but eventually softened, remembering his desolate sobbing over Yvonne the other night. Even I, witness to fifteen years of dirty Bowes action, had to admit that he was unlikely to be trying it on with Katy tonight. I gave him a quick smile and he looked relieved.

  ‘Oh, this is wiiiiicked,’ Katy cried, ecstatic. ‘We can all go out! After dinner! There’s a wicked gig on in Brixton tonight. I was going to take Sam!’

  I remembered my dress and heels, totally out of place here, and felt like a middle-aged woman on her way to the opera. ‘I’m not sure I’m dressed for a gig …’

  ‘Nonsense! No one gives a fuck what you’re wearing!’

  William, I could just about see, was laughing. Something inside me died. How could humourless Shelley possibly come up with a joke good enough to make him laugh? Sam shifted his weight on to his other leg and they were both obscured once more. I tried, slyly, to lean round him a bit.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Sam asked. Katy was taking off her coat to reveal a powder blue sixties shift dress in which she looked disgustingly young, slim and pretty. Sam’s eyes flickered over her before returning to me.

  ‘Nothing. Just hoping there’s a free table,’ I said.

  ‘We’ve got a ten-minute wait,’ Sam said. ‘You should join us.’ He sounded about as enthusiastic as a wet haddock.

  ‘YEAH!’ Katy agreed. ‘Oh, my God, Charley, that guy who was asleep in the kitchen this morning, Benoit, you’ve got to meet him properly. He’s just totally amazing at playing the hang drum – do you know what a hang drum is?’

  I glazed over, staring at William and Shelley. Shelley was sitting bolt upright, talking without smiling. William, to my surprise, had adopted an unexpectedly manly pose. He was angled sideways across his chair with his arm flung over the back, listening to Shelley in an extremely self-assured manner and occasionally running a hand over his stubble. While she let out what seemed to be an angry monologue he leaned forward casually, pouring white wine into her glass in the way men do when they want to appear masterful. I was slightly surprised by his self-assurance but I didn’t care too much. The fact of the matter was that he was absolutely gorgeous.

  I took my jacket off, even more hot and stressed than I had been when I arrived.

  ‘Do you know those people?’ Sam asked, following my gaze.

  ‘No,’ I said abruptly. ‘Just thought the girl looked familiar.’

  The main waiter came back. ‘You are three now?’ he asked, exasperated.

  ‘Yes!’ Katy said, breaking off her tale about Benoit the hang-drum player.

  The waiter gestured behind him. ‘We have a table here.’

  It was in a sort of alcove but fortunately one of the chairs directly faced William’s table. I’d be able to sit there, chat in a calm, adult way with my sister and housemate and spy in a mad, juvenile way on William and Shelley. And in so doing I’d make sure Sam and Katy weren’t sitting together. Just to be sure.

  But by the time I’d bent down to get my bag and blazer and hobbled over to the table, Sam had taken the chair. The little shit! He just wanted to sit next to Katy!

  I slumped down opposite him, feeling exhausted and fairly despairing. I had just bought a six-hundred-pound dress for what? For a dinner that I was too uptight to eat, a forced conversation with Sam and Katy and, worst of all, an entire evening with my back to William and Shelley. This was ludicrous! It was shameful!

  ‘Charley?’ Sam was watching me curiously. ‘Are you OK?’

  Katy had gone off to the loo and I’d barely noticed. I nodded. ‘Yeah, just tired.’

  ‘Look,’ he said, after a brief pause, ‘I’m not trying to get off with Katy, OK? She’s a great girl and she’s been really kind. I just wanted to take her out to dinner.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘Fine. How’s it going with the old acting thing, anyway? How’d it go with the agent at FTP – whatever it’s called?’

  Sam began to smile. ‘PFD. I think it went well,’ he said. ‘Talking to the woman there reminded me how much I love acting. I’ve got to give it another shot, Chas. She loves my showreel.’

  I tried hard to rouse some enthusiasm. ‘Amazing, Bowes!’

  Sam’s smile had already faded and he was looking morose. This thing with Yvonne had obviously hit him very hard. But, as concerned I was, I had an overwhelming need to find out what was happening with the date. I looked over my shoulder as if to summon a waiter and saw William leaning forward, hands cupping his chin, listening to Shelley. He was smiling. Shelley, slightly flushed, seemed to have loosened up. Both were drinking wine very quickly. She was using hand gestures now and – I caught my breath – she was stroking her collar bone in a fake-absent-minded way. The bitch! That was one of my moves! I saw William’s eyes dart down to look at it, just as she wanted him to. Oh, he was lovely and, oh, she was good.

  Suddenly I hated Shelley Cartwright more than any other person on earth. How dare she stroke her collar bone? How dare she actually possess a personality? How dare she be over there when he should be sitting opposite me? Damn her to hell!

  ‘Are you sure you don’t know those people?’ Sam asked, as Katy wove back towards us, grinning enthusiastically.

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Well, stop staring at them, weirdo!’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘Piss off yourself, Charley. If you’re going to sit there with a face like a slapped arse, go and sit in Burger King instead. They’ve got a Triple Whopper and fries for five twenty-nine today.’

  ‘Ha!’ Katy said, sitting down. ‘I went on a detox last week and ended up getting a Whopper after two days. What kind of dick eats barley grass for breakfast?’

  ‘Charley does,’ Sam said helpfully. I gritted my teeth. ‘Until the accident she kept huge packets of it in the fridge.’

  Katy shrugged. ‘Well, you look a lot better than I do, Chas. Fair fucks.’

  I heard a man laugh behind me and knew it was William. The sound stabbed me right through the middle and I took a long, deep breath. It was going to be a difficult night.

  By the time we were on dessert, I’d more or less stopped speaking. Sam and Katy were drunk; I had not progressed past tipsy and now had that horrible dead feeling that did not improve however much wine I poured on it. They were talking about a Thursday-night open-mic session that Katy and Ruben the bassist had started in Camberwell. Sam had offered to be master of ceremonies tomorrow – ‘I might try to get this PFD woman down to see my stuff’ (Stuff ? What stuff ? Was Sam a stand-up fucking comic now? An organic vegetable salesman?), and Katy was in raptures over the headline act, a bowler-hatted Oxford-educated dandy who MCd in Middle English.

  William and Shelley, I could see when I checked unsubtly over my shoulder, were still there. They were now chatting animatedly and William kept giving lovely rumbly laughs. Each one killed me.

  When I returned to the conversation, Sam was talking about something called touch improvisation that he’d done at drama school. It sounded so unspeakably ridiculous that I went off to the loo, taking a good look at their table before I went downstairs. Shelley was sitting back with her legs crossed seductively and William was leaning forward. They had nearly finished their second bottle of wine and both appeared to have eaten dessert. Shelley had left some of hers on the plate, just to prove that although she might be six feet tall she w
as also dainty and feminine. I caught a blast of her brisk, unfriendly voice.

  Then, just as I gave up and turned to go downstairs, William caught my eye. And he smiled at me. Broadly. He stretched his face into a proper smile for me. It lasted all of a second but I was bewitched.

  Suddenly I was back again. I danced downstairs, thrilled. There was hope! In the mirror I pinched my cheeks. Maybe, somehow, William had sensed something when we’d stared at each other earlier. If I could just catch his eye again …

  Then what? Fantasist, my head muttered. All you’ve had is a few seconds’ eye contact.

  ‘Er, not to mention two days of intense online conversation,’ I corrected myself. The fight came back. I had to do something. What was the harm in leaving my card, like I’d originally planned? Worst-case scenario, he wouldn’t have the foggiest idea who it was from and would never call. But the best-case scenario would be that he’d noticed me eyeballing him and, after a so-so date with Shelley Cartwright, was curious enough to contact me.

  I scribbled something on a business card about being the tall girl who’d smiled, then paused, remembering what Hailey had said about respecting others’ relationships. Was this in any way justifiable? But you owe nothing to Shelley Cartwright, my head told me obstinately. She’d do the same in your shoes. Not entirely convinced, I rearranged my breasts so that they formed some sort of cleavage and strode out again with my business card tucked into my palm. It was party time.

  It was not party time. William and Shelley had left. Where they had sat, two napkins were strewn unceremoniously across their dessert plates. Their chairs were far from the table where they’d pushed them back in order to leave as soon as possible to …

  I looked frantically out of the restaurant.

  … to kiss.

  William, the beautiful, perfect doctor, and Shelley, the snappy businesswoman, were standing in Beak Street kissing each other on the mouth. I walked slowly to the front of the restaurant. A deep, despairing jealousy washed over me. William pulled away and tucked a bit of hair behind Shelley’s ear. She was flushed and excited, smiling like a teenage girl.

  ‘Charley,’ Sam said, appearing at my side. I ignored him. William smiled right into Shelley’s face and asked her something. She nodded voraciously. Another date? I couldn’t bear it. Then she tipped her face up and kissed him once again – a tentative, snatched affair – and skipped off into an Addison Lee minicab that was waiting on the corner of Lexington Street. William put his hands into his pockets and smiled after her, watching as the car pulled off.

  ‘Chas?’ Sam repeated. He was quite pissed off. ‘You’ve behaved like a complete weirdo all night. What’s happening?’

  I stared at him blankly. ‘Just a bad day,’ I said eventually. ‘A really, really bad day.’

  Sam scrutinized me, glanced outside at the now-empty street and nodded, unconvinced.

  Chapter Eight

  A little later I allowed myself to be propelled out of the restaurant by a buoyant and chatty Katy, who had insisted I come to the gig in Brixton. We hurtled south in the high-pitched roar of a Victoria Line train, Katy and Sam giggling on one side of the aisle and me slumped in silence on the other. I realized I was still holding my business card, ready to give to the waiter for William. Tears of shame welled in my eyes.

  You utter fool, I thought. Running around after one man then the next, convincing yourself that they like you when of course they don’t. Why would they? You’re massive and unlovable!

  I was in despair. I’d escaped the toxic atmosphere of work to limp down to London where the supposed answer to my problems – William – had turned out to be as much of a disaster as anything else in my life. And tomorrow I’d have to abandon this mess and – what? Go back to the toxic atmosphere of work? You bet! What a great life!

  I wallowed.

  But then at Victoria I suddenly sat up. A group of suited businessmen were chortling away at the other end of the carriage, smart but drunk. Watching them, I finally remembered something that seemed to have eluded me for the last week.

  My work used to keep me happy.

  Really happy. Even when times were hard. I used to spend time chortling in my suit, just like those dudes.

  What on earth had gone wrong? Until three days ago I’d loved my job! Salutech had been my haven, not a toxic hole! Was it the job that had changed? No! The job had never been so exciting! Margot? Pah, small fry! No, the problem was me. Somewhere along the way I had stopped being Business Charley, the Scottish Amazon, and had started being Pathetic Charley Lambert the self-pitying Labrador.

  The fact of the matter, I realized, watching the suits segue effortlessly from banter to business talk, was that I had been drifting since I’d got back to Salutech. I’d been so certain that Margot would make my life hell that I’d basically rolled over and allowed her to do just that. I’d fixated on the unfairness of it all and had also spent way too much time on First Date Aid, allowing myself in the process to plummet into mad fantasy about William.

  As a result I’d given my precious job no more than about 30 per cent. Why? Years of experience had proved that unless I gave 100 per cent I might as well not bother turning up! And, more importantly, years of experience had proved that giving 100 per cent made me feel happy, purposeful and in control. It was disgraceful to be ten days from the biggest brand launch ever yet have only a vague grasp of what was going on.

  My head started ticking over. If I was prepared to pull my socks up at work, I could drag myself out of this cloud of doom very quickly. It seemed like a clear choice. Get back to my old ways: lots of hard work, healthy food, exercise and busyness – or carry on drifting around being sad and mad.

  Enough of all this fantasy and time-wasting, Charley Lambert, I thought, in the style of Mr Motivator. You go back to Edinburgh tomorrow and get your life back on track! OK, YEAH!

  I experienced my first ray of hope in a long time. Here was a solution that worked. And I knew that because I’d been road-testing it with outstanding success for several years.

  First Date Aid had helped me evade madness during my recuperation but it had also taken my eye off the ball at Salutech and led me into behaviour so embarrassing I could hardly bear to think of it. First Date Aid had to go. I hated the thought of folding my lovely little company but not as much as I hated the idea of continuing to wallow around being a crazy, self-pitying low-achiever. Salutech came first. It deserved 100 per cent. It paid me to give 100 per cent. And, hopefully, if I jacked in First Date Aid I’d be able to forget about my shameful indiscretion tonight and head up the most exciting brand launch in recent medical history.

  Done. Agreed. Signed.

  Charley Lambert had a plan.

  I felt a tiny bit more hopeful and sat up to listen to Katy and Sam’s conversation about the importance of creativity in their lives. I didn’t even make a vomity face.

  Katy hopped excitedly up to the entrance of what looked like a penal dungeon in an alleyway off Coldharbour Lane. The sound of shit music inside was not appealing and I had to work hard to muster up a show of enthusiasm. ‘I’ll pay the entrance fee!’ Katy said, kissing a gigantic bouncer on the cheek. ‘All right, Garfield?’

  He winked at her, the rest of his face unmoving. ‘Free for you and your friends, princess,’ he growled.

  We passed through, smiling dutifully. A vaulted room opened out in front of us, lit mostly by dim lights tacked on to the walls. The smoking ban didn’t appear to exist here, and had there not been relentlessly thumping techno I might have fancied we were in a Harlem dive in the 1970s. Almost everyone looked fifteen years younger than me and absolutely everyone looked like they were taking drugs.

  ‘Shall I get some pills?’ Katy asked Sam. She said it in a slightly-less-loud-than-normal shout, as if I wouldn’t hear her. Sam nodded excitedly.

  I felt older than ever. Katy took my smart jacket and deposited it on a pile, then disappeared into the crowd to find someone called Pork. ‘Since when did yo
u take pills?’ I asked Sam.

  ‘Since always.’

  ‘Bullshit! You haven’t done drugs in years, Sam!’

  ‘Charley,’ he shouted above the music, ‘butt out.’ He looked pensive and fed up.

  ‘Why are YOU in such a bad mood?’ I shouted. He shook his head infuriatingly.

  ‘I’m not!’ He disappeared into the crowd too. I looked at my watch. Eleven forty-five. Perhaps if the band came on now we’d be able to leave in an hour. I went to the bar and ordered a glass of wine.

  ‘Only vodka or rum,’ the man yelled.

  I bought a vodka, and then, on second thoughts, bought two more, for Katy and Sam. I went and sat on a speaker to wait for them. The crowd around me heaved and shrieked, the music pounding. I felt incredibly stupid, sitting in my sad expensive dress bought for a man called William who had never even heard of me. But as of tomorrow, things were changing. No stupid, no sad.

  A short while later, Sam and Katy emerged from the crowd with beautiful grins on their beautiful faces. It was fairly obvious that they’d found what they were looking for. I appraised them. ‘Are you two going to be mental all night?’

  Sam giggled. ‘Maybe!’ He took off his fashion cardigan and threw it on top of my coat, nodding – slightly confusedly – to the music. One of Sam’s principal draws for women was that he was a brilliant dancer but I was intrigued to see how he’d fare amid all this techno nonsense.

  I gave them their vodkas as a lanky Asian man with heavy black glasses shuffled on to a platform and announced the band. Katy and Sam whooped and cheered, and I had to conceal a snigger. Sam was quite at home in this crowd, with his exposed chest and embarrassing man jewellery, but he wasn’t fooling me. As the band started and he punched the air, I got out my phone to video him for Hailey. It was like our child was visiting his first school disco.

  The band sounded like too many bands, these days: fast, catchy electro-rock with strangled vocals and attempted wry humour. I tried my best but longed for a bit of Belinda Carlisle and a glass of Merlot. In the absence of either, I made myself comfortable on the speaker – which, mercifully, did not appear to be connected to anything – and leaned against the wall.