Читать книгу The Woman Who Met Her Match: The laugh out loud romantic comedy you need to read in 2018 - Fiona Gibson, Fiona Gibson - Страница 8

Like a burglar, I creep into my house and dart upstairs before Stu and the kids can accost me. They know I’m back, of course. Stu has already called out ‘hi’, and I can sense them all waiting downstairs, keen to hear all about my date. That’s what my personal life amounts to these days: cheap entertainment for my lodger and kids.

In the bathroom now, I start to cleanse my face. Primer, base, blush, tawny lips. Eye shadow – three shades – plus liner and mascara: what a fat waste of make-up. Lovely make-up at that; La Beauté is a premium brand. ‘That just means expensive, Mum,’ Amy observed. ‘Why don’t they just admit it?’ She was right, and our gorgeous products are worth every penny – although of course, I would say that. I am La Beauté’s counter manager in a beautiful, old-fashioned department store – a little like Goldings in Bradford, to which I would accompany Mum as a child, fascinated as she had her face done by one of the scarily made-up ladies who worked there. While there are La Beauté counters in stores all over the country, ours was the UK’s first and remains the favourite among customers. Somehow, despite being a global brand, the company still retains a cosy, family feel, and I can’t imagine working for anyone else.

Plus, I adore cosmetics and the magical things they can do. Just as when Nicole taught me the ways of make-up in France, I still love the way it can change how a woman feels about herself: with confidence all buffed up, as if given a brisk shimmy with a chamois leather cloth. That’s how I felt as I put on my face before setting out to meet Ralph. Now, though, I realise it was all wrong for a casual date at a gallery on a Sunday afternoon (and I’m supposed to be an expert on make-up!). I’m not a shined-up version of myself. I’m just a tired-looking middle-aged woman who’s too fond of her cake.

Laughter drifts up from the kitchen, where Stu and the kids are bantering away. I sniff my cardigan sleeve. It pongs of that arse-smelling tweed jacket. I whip it off and change into a T-shirt and jeans, tie back my shoulder-length dark brown hair – hair that I not only blow-dried but deep conditioned for my date – and head downstairs to greet my public.

‘So?’ Stu grins at me.

I shrug and start to make coffee. ‘Not good.’

‘What happened?’ Amy asks, still in her basketball kit from training this morning. ‘Was he weird?’

Was Ralph weird, or is it me? I tell them about the un-dead wife, Ralph’s arty pretensions (‘juxtaposed!’) and the fact that the photo he’d used was decades old. ‘It’s so much easier for men,’ I grumble. ‘They just come onto the site and write their own profiles, thinking they have the pick of all us desperate single mums …’

‘No one thinks you’re desperate,’ Stu says with an unconvincing smirk.

‘So what else happened?’ Amy asks eagerly, folding her slender arms. I describe the lobster pots and the outsized jacket while they all stare, agog, as if enjoying a thrillingly diabolical Eurovision performance.

‘What a twat,’ Cam exclaims, chuckling.

‘And he said,’ I add, indignation bubbling up in me again, ‘“You’re obviously a girl who very much enjoys her cake.”’

‘Girl?’ my son sniggers, missing the cake significance entirely.

‘Never mind the girl bit—’ I start.

‘Well, you do enjoy cake,’ Stu teases, his greeny-blue eyes glinting. ‘You’re a cake appreciator. You wolfed that lemon sponge I made last weekend …’

‘Oh, thanks—’

‘C’mon, you’re just a woman with a healthy appetite …’

‘That’s what Ralph said! Can we stop this? Please?’

Stu gives me a pained look as I slump onto a kitchen chair. ‘Hey, what does it matter what some idiot said? Forget all about it and move on to the next …’

‘There won’t be a next,’ I say firmly.

‘Aw, Mum, don’t be like that.’ Cam gets up from his seat, towering above me at well over six feet, pale arms dangling from the sleeves of his unironed grey T-shirt. He bends to give me a little squeeze.

‘No, I’ve decided, I’m coming off the site.’

‘But you’ve hardly met anyone yet,’ protests Amy.

‘I have, love. I’ve met three and that’s quite enough. I don’t think I can go through with this anymore—’

‘Oh, we’ll miss the reports,’ Stu says, pulling his trilling mobile from the back pocket of his scruffy jeans. Mercifully, this halts the interrogation. He snatches his ring-bound notepad from on top of the microwave and starts to scribble with his phone gripped to his ear. ‘Walnuts, cashews, agave nectar, medjool dates … yep, got all that …’

The kids amble off, and I load the washing machine as he falls into some light-hearted banter with the customer at the other end of the line.

Stu moved in with us last September, when his live-in relationship with Roz, an intimidating psychotherapist, finally fell apart. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, but he slotted in so easily that neither of us has seen any reason for him to move on – and of course the extra cash helps out. In fact, it was from a wine-fuelled chat around this very kitchen table that the idea for Parsley Force, Stu’s emergency forgotten ingredient delivery service, was launched. We’d had a craving for posh crisps, and I’d joked that it would be terribly handy if we could just call someone up and bark, ‘Salt and vinegar, please – 120 Pine Street!’ down the phone. Stu had remarked that, surely, people were always needing things: snacks, booze, a missing ingredient from a recipe. What they needed was a hero to deliver it to their door. He’d been working as a motorcycle courier but really wanted to set up something of his own. This, he decided, would be perfect.

‘But don’t people read a recipe right through before they start, to make sure they have everything?’ I asked. Apparently not, he declared with tipsy confidence. They just skim it and lurch right in and then … disaster! Dried mulberries are required! ‘So why wouldn’t they just run out to the shops? I mean, this is London, not the Shetlands. Shops are open all the time.’ Too busy, lazy or drunk, he reckoned. ‘Where will you buy the stuff?’ I asked.

Stu rubbed at his darkly-bristled chin. ‘Er, just in supermarkets, obviously, or delis, specialist shops, whatever. Basically, I’ll just be picking up all the annoying little things they’ve forgotten to buy.’

And so the business was born, with the aid of a hastily knocked-together Facebook page and some judicious advertising in local magazines. In partnership with his mate Bob, Stu took to zooming all over North London on his motorbike, giving me a fascinating insight into miniature dramas happening all over the city: ‘We crave cheese and we’re too drunk to drive!’ And – frequently – ‘Could you bring wine and cigarettes?’

‘But who’s Parsley Force for?’ I wanted to know, a few weeks into their venture.

‘People who call in help. The types who have cleaners, gardeners, all that.’

‘Not me, then.’

‘No, and you don’t need any of that because you have me.’

He’s right and, although I’d never imagined having a housemate at forty-six years old, I doubt if I could have found a better one. He leaves sauce bottles sitting on the table, lids off, but does loads of cooking and we never seem to run out of essentials anymore. He is incapable of grasping that bread doesn’t need to be stored in the fridge, but he can deal with a bird that’s flown in through the open kitchen window, catching it deftly in a tea towel before freeing it outside. He is not averse to running the hoover about, and on weekends, like an obedient Labrador, he goes out for the newspapers, which we lie about reading companionably.

He is handsome, certainly, in a mussed-up sort of way, and has been resolutely single since Roz called time on their relationship. Yet, when I suggested he tried online dating too, he gawped at me as if I had suggested colonic irrigation: ‘Christ, no thanks. Too many crackpots out there.’ Yet the meeting of crackpots is positively encouraged where I’m concerned.

He finishes the call now, shoving his phone into his pocket and beaming at me. ‘Ingredients for vegan cheesecake. She hadn’t realised her guests are vegan and she’s now having to rethink dessert. I mean, that’s not going to be a cheesecake, is it, by any stretch?’

And off he goes, just as my phone pings with a text: Would very much like to meet again, Ralph. What, to insult me some more about my fondness for baked goods?

Sorry, I reply, it was lovely to meet you, but I’m afraid there wasn’t any chemistry for me. Yep, that old line. Good luck with meeting someone, I add before deleting him from my phone.