A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger

by Lucy Robinson

  ‘Oh, Hailey, you look amazing!’ I said, standing back to admire her.

  ‘You look terrible,’ she replied, frowning at my outfit. ‘Did you bring a pig and chickens down on your cart?’

  ‘I don’t think I can stay here. Maybe I could try and find something to wear …’

  ‘Like what? A “Mind the Gap” bikini from Leicester Square? I don’t bloody think so.’ Hailey took my hand. ‘Now, Chas. Are you … erm … are you sure you’re in love with Bowes? You’re not ill or anything?’

  ‘Not ill. I just love him. I know it’s mad, Hailey, but those emails … sort of changed everything.’

  Hailey studied me doubtfully, trying to make sense of what I was saying. For a few seconds she seemed faintly amused but then concern clouded her features. ‘I don’t want you getting hurt, Chas,’ she said quietly. ‘We both know what Sam’s like. And I couldn’t stand it if you had to go through what I’ve gone through with Matty.’ Her mask slipped and I got a brief glimpse into a fragile, still-broken heart.

  ‘I hear you, Hails,’ I said. ‘And I know it’s a risk. But, honestly, Sam’s changed. I think those emails sparked a massive change in him. In me too, for that matter.’

  Hailey looked unconvinced. ‘Well … Ness did say they were a bit special,’ she conceded.

  ‘They’ve changed my life,’ I said simply. ‘And Sam’s! Look how different things are now – for both of us.’ A nubile teenager stared at me like I was a piece of mad six-foot shit.

  Hailey pondered this for a minute and then shrugged. ‘Yeah. I can’t deny it, Chas. The two of you have done a big fat three hundred and sixty degrees recently.’

  ‘EXACTLY!’

  There was a loaded pause. ‘OK,’ Hailey said slowly. ‘But, Christ, this is about as weird as it gets.’

  ‘Tell me about it. Oh buggering hell, I’m scared, Hailey.’

  ‘Come on,’ she said, amused, walking off across the foyer. ‘Shelley paid about ten million pounds to get you a seat at the last minute. She’ll kill me if I don’t get you there on time.’

  ‘Shelley?’

  As we walked up the stairs, Hailey turned round and smiled. She looked rather guilty, which worried me for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on. ‘Mm, yes, Shelley. We’re sitting with her. She’s got us a royal box.’

  ‘Wow!’ I said. ‘Although it would be good if you could avoid talking about me and Sam in front of her? I think it’d be a bit weird for a client to know –’

  ‘OH, HOLY LORD,’ Shelley Cartwright roared, as we rounded the corner of the stairs and arrived on the first floor. She was clutching William’s arm for support. ‘She’s here, William! It’s happening!’

  ‘Charleeee!’ Ness cried, hopping over to hug me. She, too, was wearing a lovely dress and heels. I breathed in wafts of her delicate perfume and clean hair and felt part of me die inside. I must smell like a compost heap.

  I pulled away from her and looked back at a very excitable-looking Shelley. ‘What do you mean, “It’s happening”?’ I asked her.

  ‘I’m so glad you saw sense, Charlotte!’ she said, completely ignoring my question. She was rubbing her hands together with glee.

  Then her face fell and she shuddered in horror, as if I were covered with weeping medieval boils. ‘Oh, my God! What … What is this, Charlotte?’

  ‘Hi, William Thomas,’ William said, as if it were not completely obvious. He shook my hand very firmly and I smelt old-fashioned cologne.

  ‘Don’t touch her, William!’ Shelley hissed. ‘She’s filthy! Charlotte, your appearance is a disaster! It could ruin everything.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I was beginning to feel annoyed, more so because Ness was giggling cheekily into her hand and Hailey looked as guilty as Malcolm had when we’d found him in bed with the remains of our Christmas turkey in 2007. Something – involving me – was going on, but I was not party to any information as to what it might be.

  The five-minute bell sounded.

  ‘Please can someone tell me what’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘Ha ha!’ Shelley cackled, in a You’ve Been Framed sort of a way.

  ‘Ha ha!’ William guffawed. ‘Played you at your own game! And it worked! You’re here, Charlotte! Splendid!’

  Half-formed thoughts were flying around my head but I couldn’t quite pin them down. Fortunately, Shelley took the matter out of my hands. ‘It was all my idea!’ she foghorned. ‘You and Sam! It worked! Took enough bloody time but you got there eventually!’

  ‘What?’ I asked, totally confused. ‘Me and Sam what?’

  Shelley trumpeted with laughter. ‘William and I realized we’d both used First Date Aid as soon as we saw our testimonies online,’ she announced gleefully. ‘You put us next to each other on the website! I mean, come on!’

  William interrupted. ‘Not all Shelleys spell their name like mine does,’ he clarified.

  ‘Right,’ I said, still in the dark.

  ‘We worked out that you two had been colluding to get us together,’ Shelley barked. ‘The Pearl Fishers was bloody inspired. And those sympathetic messages when I was in New York … Oh, Charlotte, you bugger! But I’m afraid you didn’t cover your tracks perfectly, young lady, and we rumbled you. Ha ha!’

  Shelley was not speaking quietly. Theatregoers were staring at us as they made their way into the auditorium.

  ‘We’re grateful you went to such lengths to get us together,’ William said. ‘Some sly manoeuvres! But we were both struck by the messages you and Samuel wrote each other initially. Bit batty and over the top but a great big thumping connection going on there!’

  I blinked at them. They were the same person.

  ‘We couldn’t believe the two people who wrote the emails weren’t an item,’ Shelley explained loudly. ‘It was like reading a love story!’ The two-minute bell was sounding and an usher hovered, wanting to move us on but clearly terrified of the six-foot power truncheon in his midst. ‘So,’ she continued, ‘we decided to return the favour. Do some meddling of our own! Get you and Sam together!’

  I blanched. ‘What?’

  Shelley roared with excitable laughter. ‘HA HA! HA HA! Investment dinners, my rump!’ she yelled. ‘Remember the first one? In the Balmoral? The RBA event? That stood for Right Back Atcha! We played you at your own game! HA HA!’

  ‘She’s bloody clever, this woman,’ William said proudly.

  I stood, dumbfounded, as Shelley crowed about having set up the Balmoral, the Mandarin Oriental and even the bloody Sunday Times photo-shoot, all designed to get Sam and me together in romantic situations. ‘Was my idea to have you two all tangled up on that chaise-longue in the photo-shoot,’ she told me. ‘I had Kaveh all over it! Bloody triumph! And you kissed each other! Twice!’

  ‘How the hell do you know about that?’ I asked, quite shocked. Nobody knew!

  ‘Sam told me. I grilled him yesterday, with force. Ha ha!’

  ‘And?’ I asked her anxiously. ‘What else did he say?’

  Shelley looked uncomfortable for the first time. ‘Well, he wasn’t exactly forthcoming. He said it was a scientific experiment. But he must feel the same! How can he not after those bloody emails? I mean, my God!’

  William led Shelley to the door of our box as the final bell went. ‘Come on, darling,’ he said soothingly. ‘Your plan will work out, I’m sure of it.’ I shook my head in disbelief. How was this real?

  Shelley dragged me along behind them, her hand clasped round my wrist as if I were an errant toddler. She gloated noisily over how stupid Sam and I were for failing to rumble her. ‘I mean, really.’ She snorted. ‘What sort of investor just fails to turn up? In fact, what sort of an investor wants to take on a dating company? Ha HA! And as if I’d pay for you to have a room at the Mandarin bloody Oriental if I didn’t want you to seduce Samuel!’

  William put an affectionate hand on her back as he stepped into our box. ‘She pulled out all the stops, this one,’ he said, gazing lovingly at his mad girlfriend
.

  I was undeniably impressed. Shelley had not only played us but she’d played us very well. And of course she’d sent us to high-end hotels! Of course she’d paid for expensive dinners and champagne! It had Shelley Cartwright written all over it! How could I not have realized?

  I felt William looking me up and down. ‘We have to go and watch this silly play,’ he said reluctantly. ‘But don’t you worry, Charlotte. We’ve got tonight all taken care of. You’ll get your man this evening, mark my words! Although the outfit may be a problem,’ he added, disappearing into the box.

  ‘I’m on the outfit situation,’ Shelley told him. ‘I just need to make a quick call …’ She followed him inside without so much as a look in my direction, hissing into her BlackBerry.

  ‘She just sort of attacked me earlier,’ Hailey said awkwardly. ‘And I found myself telling her you’d fallen in love with Bowes. It was an error. Um, sorry, Chas.’

  ‘You will be,’ I told her.

  I didn’t know what Shelley still had in store for me but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like it.

  It took me a while to get into the action. I wasn’t a Shakespeare buff but I knew The Tempest well, of course: it was the play from which came Sam’s infamous chat-up line. Watching him knock that line out to girls in nightclubs and bars while we were at university, I’d become curious about it and asked Sam to lend me his copy. I’d read the play, failed to understand a word and had had to ask for a tutorial. Sam had talked about it with such enthusiasm that I’d ended up hooked and had read it again and again, declaring it my favourite Shakespeare play. (I skirted round the fact that it was the only one I could understand.)

  Sam and I had been to see The Tempest a few times over the years and I’d been very disappointed by the crappy, insipid Mirandas I’d seen. ‘But, Chas, it’s a shit part,’ Sam had argued. ‘Miranda’s got all those lines and yet almost no character. Only an amazing actress could bring her alive.’ Katia Slagface, it seemed, was that amazing actress. There was a delicate sexuality in her, a subtle strength and steeliness, and furthermore she really owned the stage. Thank God she’s married, I thought. Never mind Sam, I fancied her.

  And then Sam walked onstage and my stomach appeared in my mouth. He was laughing as he strolled on, chatting to two other men and looking more relaxed and natural than he did even in our sitting room. The director had set the play on an imaginary island off Egypt shortly before the Second World War and Sam was decked out in a beautiful cream safari suit. His hair was Vaselined off to the side and he carried a slim cigarette. A light somewhere above the stage was dappling him in the warm colours of a late afternoon and not even his dodgy moustache could detract from his beauty. I was expecting the Bowes Actor Voice but when he started to speak I barely recognized the soft, lyrical sound that came out.

  I started to smile.

  A few seconds later I realized the smile was enormous and I looked sideways to check that Shelley hadn’t noticed. But, of course, she had. ‘WELL NOW!’ she hissed, giving me an uncharacteristically silly thumbs-up. I shook my head.

  By the time the curtain fell two hours later, I was even more in love with Sam than I had been before. The audience went wild and a standing ovation started almost immediately. When the actors came back on for their curtain call they were jubilant, ecstatic, even, and Sam was grinning from ear to ear. When it was his turn to take a bow, he came forward quite bashfully but I could see that every cell in his body was happy. I clapped even harder. ‘Raaaarr!’ I yelled, grinning down at him.

  Then he looked up and saw me and his face changed. His eyes widened and, without any thought for etiquette, he waved excitedly at me, beaming like a child. ‘No fucking way!’ he mouthed, much to the delight of the audience. Following his eyeline, a theatreful of people stared at my grubby clothes and greasy pudding-bowl hair. But I didn’t care. I fixed my eyes on Sam and clapped even harder, grinning for all I was worth. I love you, I thought. I absolutely love you!

  Feral farmhand I might be, but I had to tell Samuel Bowes how I felt. And, like Frank, I had to do it my way. Not Shelley’s way or bloody anyone else’s way. I’d had enough of meddling with other people’s relationships. I’d had enough of other people meddling with mine. This was my story.

  ‘Sit,’ Shelley commanded, pointing to a seat in the corner of the bar a little while later.

  I sat, thinking it would be wise to play along with her for now. Our little party sank into chairs around me and an enthusiastic resting actor in a red waistcoat offered us champagne. I took three glasses.

  ‘Now, Charlotte, you don’t need to worry. I have a plan,’ Shelley said, in tones that were perhaps designed to be soothing. They were not soothing or even close to it. She pulled her chair in closer to me, checking her watch. ‘Ah, excellent. There will be a bag of clothes arriving by courier any minute,’ she said. ‘My friend Araminta is a buyer at Fenwick’s.’

  There was not even a trace of irony in her face. She was extraordinary.

  ‘Shelley, that’s lovely of you but I’m no longer in a position to buy expensive clothes,’ I began.

  ‘You aren’t buying them,’ she interrupted. ‘It’s taken care of.’ She giggled to herself, and William stroked her arm fondly. ‘In the interval I arranged for you to use a shower backstage,’ she told me. ‘We’ll have you looking human in no time at all.’

  She was mad. They both were.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ I asked her, doing my best to look as if I was eager to get cracking.

  Shelley tapped her nose. ‘You leave the planning to me.’ She cackled manically. ‘However … before I press the green button, Charlotte, I want to know why it’s taken you so long to get to this point. I suspect you’ve liked Samuel for a while.’

  I nodded grudgingly. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Well, then, what was stopping you?’ She looked at William for support. ‘Are you mentally retarded?’

  I tried to frown but couldn’t help smiling. This was vintage Cartwright. ‘Well, for starters, Shelley Cartwright, you told me he was going out with Katia!’ I reminded her. ‘I only found out today that it was a lie – that he’s single. And what did I do? I got straight on a plane! I don’t think I’m entirely to blame.’

  Shelley reddened. ‘Ah,’ she said spiritedly, staring at her expensive bracelet. ‘Yes. Was hoping to stir up a bit of jealousy. Make you fight for him. Possibly an error.’ She recovered from her embarrassment soon enough, though. ‘Well, you came round in the end, Charlotte! I suggest you sit back and let me take care of this. OH! AHOY THERE!’ A motorbike courier with four Fenwick’s bags stood in the doorway and Shelley strode over to him without so much as a glance in my direction.

  I watched her go and marvelled. It was touching, of course, that she was so desperate to get Sam and me together, but alarming to witness the extent to which the challenge had taken her over. Thank God I’m not like that any more, I thought, shuddering. Thanks to Sam, it had been nearly two months since I’d walked out of Salutech and the life that came with it.

  Sam. My palms prickled. I have to find Sam before Shelley gets to him. I watched her sign for the delivery while yelling into her BlackBerry, and knew that it was now or never.

  ‘Just going to the loo,’ I said to the others. Hailey waved me off and nicked one of my glasses of champagne.

  I ducked under the velvet rope which was across the entrance to the stairs and scampered up towards our box. If my plan was going to work, I had to act fast. I drew level with the door and then, checking no one was watching, snuck through the one next to it, a narrow, heavy door marked ‘Private’.

  It opened into a narrow corridor with black curtains on either side, lit softly by blue-painted bulbs, which I’d seen a technical person disappear down during the interval. For a moment I paused, weighing up the probability of being caught and thrown out. But I had a plan and I wasn’t afraid to use it. I wasn’t Charlotte Lambert the Scottish Amazon any more: I was Charley who wanted to do her best f
or herself.

  I followed the little corridor around a corner and down some stairs. And there it was. Bingo. Dimly lit and blissfully quiet: the empty stage.

  I wandered to the edge and stared out into the gloom of the auditorium.

  For a few minutes I breathed in and out, feeling strangely empowered by the silence and the stillness around me. But then my head started chattering. Your plan is stupid and mad, it told me. It’s about as romantic as a fish finger! I tried to ignore it but the volume just increased. Fear scrunched up my digestive system and I felt suddenly weighed down by the contents of my bag. You are a pillock, my head informed me. Sam’s probably drinking champagne with his luvvie friends right now – what are you going to do, barge into their dressing room, drag him off to a toilet and show him what’s inside your bag like a crazed gypsy?

  I sat down on the edge of the stage, dangling my legs into the orchestra pit, and wondered if it would be best to ditch my plan and sneak off. I looked like a tramp, I smelt like a dog and my hair looked like it had been attacked by a block of lard. I couldn’t talk to Sam like this.

  ‘Wow,’ said a voice behind me, causing me nearly to jump out of my skin.

  It was Sam, standing in the centre of the stage. He’d obviously just showered and was wearing a beautifully cut shirt with super-smart trousers, all ready for his big glittery party. He looked edible.

  ‘That’s a very special outfit,’ he said, appraising my attire with awe.

  I nodded. ‘I spent hours shopping.’

  Sam walked over and plopped down beside me, smelling clean and masculine and gorgeous. I was painfully aware of my canine aroma.

  ‘I did shower this morning,’ I blurted.

  Sam sniggered. ‘We have little monitors in our dressing rooms, showing what’s going on onstage,’ he told me. ‘I saw this bizarrely clad creature roaming round.’