by Jo Thomas
‘Sit back and relax. We’ll be at my parents’ in no time. Six minutes, in fact.’
‘Lovely,’ I say again, feeling suddenly very tired. If only I’d been able to have that afternoon nap. But instead I’ve been back in the market, taking over from Norman with the donkey, dressed as a shepherd in the living Nativity scene, while he visited the Christmas-jumper-maker to find out more about her knitting techniques. John has been to the church to listen to the choir rehearse. Ron is still the Christmas angel and Di and Graham are in the guesthouse, reading. But six minutes sitting in the quiet should be reviving, I think.
‘I enjoy spending time with my parents. So it’s good you’re going to meet them. Hopefully you will be spending time here with them too.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Connie?’
My eyes ping open. ‘Oh, yes!’ I sit bolt upright and look around.
‘What do you think?’
Was he talking to me and I fell asleep? I shake myself awake and tell myself off. Has six minutes gone?
‘Six minutes, on the dot!’ he says proudly, pointing to the clock on the dashboard.
‘Well, it hardly felt like it.’ I must feel relaxed with Heinrich if I was comfortable enough to drop off in the car while he was talking. Like a proper couple, I think. Connie and Heinrich. Like they’ve been together for years! I imagine friends and family saying, ‘Are Connie and Heinrich coming over today?’
I see a man outside a front door, looking at his watch. It has to be Heinrich’s father.
‘Come. We’re just on time. They’ll be happy to meet you.’
Or that we’re on time, I hear a little voice say devilishly, in the back of my mind. Connie and Heinrich, always on time! And I smile to myself as I go to push open the car door and find Heinrich is already there, opening it for me.
Walking down the path, I’m suddenly very nervous, but Heinrich’s parents greet me with outstretched hands to shake. After the formal introductions have been made I’m ushered into the house, removing my shoes where everyone else does. It reminds me of being at home with Sam. He would have friends round and I would know they were there when I got in from work by the line of huge trainers and shoes beside the front door, the milk left out of the fridge and the empty cake tin. Crumbs everywhere. There would be no crumbs in this tidy house, I think, looking around. There are clocks everywhere. Everything in its place and running on time.
‘Would you like a drink?’ his mother asks. She’s a slight woman, smartly dressed in beige trousers and a cream turtleneck jumper. Clearly not someone who eats a lot of cake. It doesn’t look as if any of them over-indulge in anything.
‘Heinrich, serve the drinks. Dinner will be in,’ she looks at a clock, ‘twenty-three minutes. We have time for a drink and to get to know each other.’ She gestures for me to sit. And I do, on the edge of the settee, and she looks down at my feet … my mismatched socks! As does Heinrich and his father. I stare at them too.
‘They come like that,’ I bluff, my toes curling with embarrassment as I try to cover one foot with the other.
‘Tell me about your son and his father,’ she says, and I’m taken aback, although no one else seems to be. I realize we’re on a schedule and she wants all the important information so she can assess whether I’m a suitable partner for her son. ‘And why did you choose a German man? Don’t you like the men in the UK?’
I’m tongue-tied. Heinrich looks at me, clearly hoping I’ll give all the right answers.
‘Well, my son is Sam. He’s at university.’
‘And he’s not with you now? In the run-up to Christmas?’
‘He’s with his girlfriend and her family this year, snowboarding.’
‘Being together as a family is very important to us,’ says Heinrich’s father. ‘Very important indeed. We need to know that anyone marrying Heinrich will be a part of his family.’
‘And what are your plans if you decide to stay together after this week? Where do you intend to live?’ his mother asks.
‘Well, I—’
‘Oh, it’s time to eat!’ says Heinrich, as at least two clocks strike the half-hour. It’s as if they’re calling time out in a boxing ring, and I retire to my corner for a moment to gather my strength.
‘Dinner. I hope you have a good appetite.’ His mother gets straight up and his father goes to the table and pulls out a chair for me.
‘Okay?’ says Heinrich, standing in front of me – my coach giving me pointers before the next round.
‘It’s a bit full-on,’ I try to joke.
He doesn’t smile. ‘They just want to know you’re right for me. Isn’t this why we’re both here? Looking for the right one?’
He’s right. No point in messing around. We have only a few days left to decide if we’re going to make a go of it. This is like extreme speed dating.
‘Talking of which, why did you go for a British woman, Heinrich?’ I ask. ‘I mean, I fell in love with a man from Germany when I was seventeen. I always thought he and I were meant to be together and …’
‘I’m like him?’
‘I suppose. But that was a long time ago. I guess I just have a thing about tall, blond German men.’ I laugh. He doesn’t. In fact, although we’ve smiled a lot, I don’t know that we’ve actually laughed together.
‘I think a British partner would suit me,’ says Heinrich, just before his mother comes in carrying two hot dishes.
‘As we have always told Heinrich, there is no such thing as luck. There is just good planning. That’s how you get what you want from life. Now tell me about your health.’
Talking and eating at the same time is an art form. Trying not to talk with your mouth full but answer all the questions being fired at you is not easy. The food is lovely, if simple, and the portions are surprisingly on the small side.
An hour and a half later, the clocks signal it’s nine p.m. and we move to the settees for coffee. I sit down and am overwhelmed by tiredness. I feel a yawn coming on and try to stifle it as coffee is poured.
I take the coffee, my hand shaking, as another yawn overtakes me. I tell them about Sam and his girlfriend Amy and they seem to like the idea that there may be grandchildren. Not yet! I assure them. They reiterate the importance of planning in life, and I have the impression they feel that Heinrich has let them down by not being married and producing grandchildren already.
I listen to Heinrich’s parents telling me about Heinrich’s academic achievements. I want to ask about their old partnership with William’s family, what their plans are for the bakery if they win on Sunday and if William decides to sell to them. It’s such an amazing little shop. It deserves to be taken on by someone who will love it as William and his father obviously have.
Heinrich’s mother puts down her coffee cup as I stifle another yawn. My eyes are red and sore. ‘Perhaps it’s time you took Connie home, Heinrich. She is clearly tired.’
I could hug her.
‘Either that or we bore her,’ says Heinrich’s father, and I’m suddenly embarrassed.
‘Oh, no, not at all!’ I exclaim.
‘Just joking.’ He laughs. I look at his face, which is just like Heinrich’s. This is it, I think. He is just like Heinrich and this could be me in twenty years’ time. It’s not a bad place to be in life, is it? A couple. Dinner on the table on the dot. Life organized, safe and happy. Everything I thought was ahead of me when I was in love with my German exchange student. Sam’s father liked life to be organized and wasn’t happy in the months after Sam was born: everything then was chaotic. But when someone you love more than life itself comes into your life, you’ll put up with the chaos and go with the flow, won’t you? He couldn’t. He wanted everything to go on as normal, and when it didn’t, and I became more and more tearful and anxious about being a good mother, he couldn’t cope. After that we were never really close. I didn’t think I’d find again the kind of happiness we’d had when we were first together. But maybe Heinrich, ordered, kind, obsessed with
time, is the one to make me happy again.
‘It was a lovely evening, thank you,’ I say, putting down my cup and glancing at the clock. Ten past nine. Brilliant. I can be in bed by nine thirty.
‘I hope we’ll see you again,’ says his mother. ‘When you are less tired.’
‘I hope so too. It was a long day and I had an early start.’ I say nothing about my trip to William’s bakery. Whatever has gone on between the two families, it’s best to stay out of it.
I thank them again, and this time they both embrace me in a tight hug. I have no idea if that means I’ve passed their test or good riddance.
‘I hope to meet you again,’ I say politely.
‘It is best to plan these things, though, rather than hope. Otherwise time can start to run out.’ She looks at Heinrich. ‘No one wants to be a single forty-year-old,’ she says.
TWENTY-FIVE
‘That went well,’ said Heinrich, sliding into the driver’s seat and starting the engine with a purr.
In the warmth of the car I feel even more exhausted than I did when we arrived.
‘They liked you.’ He beams.
I’m pretty sure they weren’t that taken with me or that I have a grown son and wasn’t spending Christmas with him. Or that I lived in the UK. They were worried that Heinrich would be spending less time in Germany. ‘We are a very close family,’ his father had insisted. I’m pretty sure they had a list like mine, and I’m not sure I ticked many boxes for them.
‘They did,’ Heinrich insists.
I’d hate to see how they’d interrogate someone they didn’t like.
‘You should see them when they meet someone they don’t like!’ He laughs loudly and naturally.
We must be totally in sync, I think. He reads my mind.
‘Have there been a lot of people they don’t like?’ I ask cautiously, but feeling I can, that the tension has gone between us.
‘A few. You know how it is. Internet dating is a precise science. It’s hard to find the one who is exactly right.’
‘And was there anyone before you started internet dating?’ I ask gently.
He pauses. ‘There was, once,’ he says. ‘But I have always found internet dating to be the best way of meeting someone you know you’ll get along with. Why leave these things to chance?’
I agree. I might be taking a chance on love, but not on who it’s going to be with. A sense of relief washes over me that we’re relaxing into each other’s company.
‘I … I had a brother,’ Heinrich says, and I feel the atmosphere changing. ‘An older brother. Maurice …’ He looks straight ahead.
I nod, encouraging him to go on.
‘He died,’ he says matter-of-factly. This is obviously his way of being able to pass on emotional information. ‘He had his life ahead of him, all mapped out. He went to college, met a girl. They planned to marry. He wanted to join the business and expand it, make it an international name. But then, out of nowhere, his girlfriend decided she wanted to go travelling before settling down. She wasn’t ready to fit into the plans. So, he said he had to take the chance and they went. He wanted an adventure. They were in Italy, exploring, a car crash.’
Neither of us says anything. I want to put my hand over his, but something tells me not to. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, a lump in my throat.
‘I think life is better if you don’t leave things to chance. Knowing the facts, you can make a decision.’
‘And so you followed him into the family business?’
He nods.
‘Did you always want to? Would you have liked to do anything else?’
He gives a little laugh, as if doing anything else would be impossible. ‘Maybe engineering,’ he says. ‘I like things that work as they should. I studied engineering, before joining the business. I like clocks. Maybe I would have been a clockmaker. Who knows? One day maybe I will, when we grow old together.’
I try to imagine him old. Him and me old together.
‘And what about you? What would you do differently?’ he asks.
‘Phffff!’ I let out a long sigh. ‘Honestly?’ I think about when I was seventeen. I had met my soulmate, or so I thought. We had it all planned out, college, spending the holidays together and then we, too, would travel. But I guess he had other ideas or maybe his parents did. I try to picture his face, but now, with Heinrich, I can’t see him at all. Was it love? Or was it just excitement at a time in my life when anything was possible? Was it that I loved being me, and nothing to do with the young man who had got away? Maybe it was me who got away and now it’s time to find myself again. To take a chance on discovering love and happiness. Only none of this is about chance. It’s about the list.
‘I probably wouldn’t change that much,’ I say honestly. ‘I love my job. I’d like it all to stay the same. That’s the problem.’
‘How so?’ he asks.
‘It’s my job.’
‘Delivering ready meals to old people?’ Heinrich asks, and his use of ‘old people’ rankles with me.
‘I bake, as you know.’
‘That was the first thing that brought us together.’
‘Well, I put the cakes I make into the boxes I deliver. I love meeting my customers, and many have become friends.’
‘Okay. So you want to stay in your job?’
‘Well, more than that, really. I’m not sure I’ll have a job for much longer.’
‘How so?’
‘My boss is retiring, selling the business.’
‘But that’s great, isn’t it?’
I’m a bit taken aback.
‘I had hoped to buy it. That was my plan,’ I say.
‘Ah, a good plan. With the right employees you can run it from anywhere.’
I shake my head. ‘I had the money saved, but now … I don’t.’ Because of my foolishness. Then I remember William’s words: ‘Anyone can make a mistake.’
‘You don’t?’ Heinrich says, surprised.
‘It’s complicated,’ I say and, for some reason, I don’t feel able to admit my mistake to him. How I was taken in by a conman. If it was a man. I was a complete fool. And I will never let myself take a risk like that again.
‘So, my plan may have changed.’ Maybe this will work out just right.
‘Like my parents say, there is no such thing as good luck, just good planning. I can’t help but think that if Maurice had stuck to the plan he’d still be with us.’
This is why Heinrich is as he is. He likes to know where life is going. Not leaving things to chance. And he’s right. We would never have found each other if it hadn’t been for the internet. I like the fact that he has chosen me and I have chosen him. He leans in and kisses me. It’s nice. He has soft lips. He smells lovely. As he pulls away, he leans back and looks at me.
‘So, would you like to stay with me tonight?’
TWENTY-SIX
‘That would be very nice,’ I say, tasting his lips on mine. I mean, we need to know if we get on in the bedroom as well as outside it. This is where we’ll know for sure. I feel a flutter of excitement.
‘We can go to my apartment.’ He pulls away from his parents’ house. ‘I live on the outskirts of the New Town, in an apartment block there. I think I told you.’
‘Yes.’ I remember our initial messages, getting all the basic information from each other. ‘Um, perhaps we can pick up some things from the guesthouse on the way,’ I ask, reminding myself to tick ‘own apartment’ on the list.
‘Of course.’ He speeds towards the old bridge and the castle, which is lit up, looking down on the town like a royal bride on her wedding day.
As we drive towards the guesthouse, I’m excited and nervous, like a teenager all over again. I can’t believe I’m doing this! I’m actually going to have … I can barely think the word, it’s been so long. And Heinrich is so good-looking. Just my type. I’m thrilled he thinks the same about me.
Heinrich gets as close to the guesthouse as he can, on the opposite corner of the
square to the bakery. I run into the lounge, where Pearl is sitting by the fire with Anja and some of the others, and quickly explain to her that I won’t be back this evening. She looks as pleased as Punch and gives me a quick thumbs-up.
‘We’re just back from seeing the choir sing in the church. John was there,’ she says. ‘Going to have a drop of glühwein as a nightcap. Enjoy yours!’ she says, with a wink.
This is it! I think, as we pull up in his designated parking space outside his apartment block. Finally, I’ve met a man I want to be with, after all that searching online, after all the let-downs and one in particular. I’m finally about to climb back into the saddle. Just a couple more ticks to collect. And this is a big one. How do we get on together in bed?
I’m feeling hot and excited and nervous. I really want this to be right. More than right, I want it to be perfect. And so does he, by the look of it. He pushes open the front door of the apartment and I step inside. It’s immaculate, new and modern, and everything is in its place. There are flowers on the table by the window at the far end of the living room.
‘I didn’t want to presume, but I had hoped,’ he says gently.
‘It’s fine. Me too,’ I say quickly. ‘Yellow roses! My favourite!’ I gasp.
He smiles at me. ‘I remembered from our conversations. For you.’
It has been years since anyone bought me flowers. Let alone yellow roses. Tom bought them for me when I found out I was pregnant with Sam. He said they weren’t as expensive as red ones. But I’ve loved them ever since. They remind me of one of the happiest days of my life, when I thought I’d got everything I wanted in life.
A bottle stands in an ice bucket beside two glasses and the flowers.
He takes off his coat, holds out his hand for mine, slips off his shoes and puts them into a cupboard.
Then he turns off the main light. There are small twinkling bulbs up a tall bunch of twisted willow in a big vase on the floor and more along the shelves, giving a beautiful white glow to the large open space. Then he lights candles on the glass dining table and on the coffee table. Outside, looking out of the big glass window, it’s snowing. Perfect.
