Chapter Five
At the end of the speed-date we were supposed to pop our scorecards into a special post box at the bottom of the stairs on our way out.
Amazingly, despite mine still being screwed up in my coat pocket, I received an email from Ned on Sunday evening.
All my foreboding about Barney’s business ethics was borne out.
Either that or he’d recruited a psychic speed-dater.
Apparently Ned had got his hands on a second-hand invisibility cloak and wondered if I fancied road-testing it with a trip to the pub. I was intrigued and after Friday night’s kitchen tête-à-tête, drastic measures were needed to show Daniel I wasn’t pining after him.
Emily was sprawled the length of the sofa half-heartedly watching Antiques Roadshow and flicking through Heat magazine.
‘What are you smiling about?’ she asked lazily, stretching and yawning, already in her pyjamas.
Sunday nights were sacrosanct in the flat — ironing, followed by hair washing in readiness for the onslaught of a week at work. All of which was always rounded off with rubbish Sunday telly and a nice bottle of cold Pinot Grigio or whatever was cheapest in Tesco that week.
‘Barney and his underhand tactics. Have you heard from anyone?’
‘What underhand tactics?’
‘I . . . didn’t actually hand my scorecard in.’ I pulled a rueful face. ‘Chickened out. At the last minute. Didn’t put it in the slot.’
‘Olivia. You are hopeless!’ Emily tutted.
‘Didn’t make much difference. Barney’s still passed my details on. I’ve got an email. Have you had any?’
‘What?’ Her left eyelid flickered before she said quickly, ‘No, of course not.’
The minx. Her sudden absorption in the television didn’t fool me.
* * *
I hadn’t seen or spoken properly to Kate since the speed-date and when she phoned on Monday morning with her glib claim that she was in London that afternoon and could meet me after work for a drink, she didn’t fool me.
She wanted gory details, I knew her too well.
She and Barney were close so he was bound to have filled her in.
In fact, she may have even put him up to giving Ned my email address.
I was still wondering, as I walked to the hip bar she’d chosen, whether I should go out with Ned. His email had made me laugh. I’d have to come up with an equally witty reply. I tried out various lines in my head. They were all way too corny.
As soon as I got to the wine bar, I spotted Kate perched on a high stool around an impossibly trendy stainless-steel pillar doubling as a table or a leaning post. She already had a bottle of wine at the ready with two glasses.
The cross-examination began before I’d even taken my first sip of wine.
‘How did Emily get on?’ asked Kate. ‘Has she had any emails?’
Since when the interest in my flatmate? What about me?
‘No . . . well, not that she’s admitting.’
‘I bet she has.’ My sister smirked, pausing dramatically and taking a large glug of wine before announcing, ‘She ticked three boxes.’
‘Three?’ I echoed. I stared at her open-mouthed for a second, my glass halting before my lips. ‘And how do you know that?’
She grinned and preened a little.
I shook my head and tutted. ‘Typical Barney. No concept of client confidentiality.’ I paused before asking idly, swirling the wine in my hand. ‘So do you know whose boxes she ticked?’
‘Not so worried about client confidentiality now?’ crowed Kate.
I pulled a face at her, wrinkling my nose and wriggling uncomfortably. The bar stools were designed for someone with more flesh on their backside than me. ‘Just spit it out, you old harpy.’
‘Some chap called Anthony. One of Barney’s mates, Charlie, and I can’t remember the name of the other one.’
Three!
‘Blimey. Poor Daniel,’ I said in disgust.
‘Olivia, what planet have you been on for the last few months? Surely you can see what she’s like. I don’t know what Daniel sees in her. He’s way too good for her.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘I always thought—’
I interrupted her. There was no way I wanted her going down that road. ‘Emily’s not that bad.’
‘Olivia. Yes she is. She’s one of those girls who are always on the lookout for their next victim. She’d be out on-the-pull the night before her wedding, just in case. Has she ever not had a boyfriend?’
Kate was being unnecessarily harsh. Although on reflection, in the time I’d been sharing with Emily, she’d always had someone in tow, some overlapping occasionally.
‘No,’ I said trying to be fair. ‘But that’s because of her mother’s disastrous marriages. She’s very insecure.’
‘Huh, she hides it well.’ Kate’s face said it all.
‘You don’t know her that well. Her mum’s had two husbands walk out!’
Kate sniffed with a marked lack of sympathy. ‘What was it Oscar Wilde said? “To lose one, may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two seems like carelessness.”’
‘Kate, you are so heartless.’ I pretended to be shocked. She grinned at me. Was it my imagination or was she spikier than usual these days?
‘Sorry,’ she said unrepentantly. ‘Tell me about your speed-date. Barney says you made quite an impression on one of the guys.’
‘Did he now? That would be the Barney that blatantly ignored the fact that I didn’t hand in my card.’
Kate grinned.
I wondered ever so fleetingly if she hadn’t put him up to it. Of course she bloody had.
‘Barney must mean Ned, the guy with ESP, who worked out my email address all by himself,’ I observed dryly. ‘He was quite nice.’
‘So, are you going to meet him?’
I shrugged. ‘I might meet him for a drink . . . but that’s all. So don’t get excited and start telling Mum or anyone.’
She looked at me over the rim of her glass. ‘You should go for it. It’s well past time you started seeing people properly again.’
‘Why?’ I held her gaze.
‘To prove you’re over Mike.’
‘I am,’ I said indignantly.
Mike! Give me a break. I hadn’t thought about him in years even though he had done the dirty thoroughly. She was dipping her toes in the wrong ocean. Mike, love of my life in my university days, had been well and truly eclipsed by someone else.
‘Olivia!’ she said crossly.
I pointedly avoided meeting her eyes. If she said another word I would start humming. Childish, I know, but I hated talking about Mike. Not because it still hurt, but because it was totally embarrassing. How could I have been so stupid?
In exasperation she slammed her glass down, the dregs of her drink splashing over my hand that was busily shredding a beer mat.
‘For God’s sake. You’re so stubborn. Don’t pretend. It still bothers you.’
‘I have to go,’ I said coolly, gathering up my mobile phone and purse, shoving them into my handbag.
‘Early start tomorrow. A meeting in Derby. I need to leave early. I’ll call.
’ After Daniel’s words the other night I was still feeling a bit raw.
I couldn’t handle a heart-to-heart session with Kate just now.
‘That is so typical. Just bury your head in the sand. You need to talk about it. You’re in denial,’ she snapped.
‘Denial, schmial . . . you’re not a bloody psychologist. There’s nothing to talk about.
You, Mum and Aunty Bren are the ones with the hang-up.
Having a boyfriend who drives a Porsche and gets a massive bonus every year, is not a marker of success,’ I said, having a little dig at Kate. ‘It doesn’t mean you’ve made it.’
With that I pulled on my jacket, swung my legs off the stool and left to her parting shot that I was a stubborn pain in the proverbial.
* * *
As I stomped down Long Acre heading for Leicester Square tube I felt pissed off. Thinking about Mike always left me feeling churned up. He’d made such a fool of me.
No one was going to do that to me again and, by the same token, I couldn’t do it to anyone else. Trust. Honesty. They made up my moral compass, but Mike had sent everything West.
Striding down the platform I glared at every man whose eye I happened to catch. When the train pulled in, I threw myself into a seat and brooded on the past.
In my second year at university I’d been swept off my feet, quite literally, by the Brad Pitt of the campus. Mike was the kind of guy that everyone went ‘phwoar’ about, even though none of us had ever spoken to him. He could have had serious halitosis or a major speech impediment for all we knew.
The memories flooded back as the train pulled out of Leicester Square, plunging into the tunnel and picking up speed.
I could still remember my first encounter with Mike.
I’d been waiting for a free table in the campus coffee bar and I dived in to bag one at the same moment as him.
He refused to move unless I went on a date with him.
I refused point blank on principle and also because he was far too good-looking to taking seriously.
What would a guy like him see in me. So we had an hour and a half standoff in the coffee bar where he subjected me to a barrage of charm — in hindsight, I don’t think anyone had ever turned him down before.
Looking around the carriage I caught the eye of a teenage girl opposite, who gave me a funny look. Had I been talking to myself while remembering all this? Even now the memories gave me goosebumps.
She must have thought I was a nutter. If only the rest of the memories were as nice.
At first I got the fairy-tale ending when Mike and I became a couple.
He was kind, attentive and did I mention it, very good looking.
And it was so easy, no niggles, no jealousies and no hidden agendas.
I should have known it was too good to be true.
Ironically at the same time, Daniel split up with his girlfriend, thus starting a pattern where he and I were never single at the same time until the evening he and Emily had got together. I’d been so hopeful that our relationship might finally change that night.