The Impossible Search for the Perfect Man

by Martyn, Susie

  In turn, Marcus takes me down to Salcombe to meet his family, which is lovely but jolly scary. He says it’s okay to take Elmer and we leave Horace and Mavis in the capable hands of Emma. Salcombe is gorgeous, but I’m too nervous to enjoy myself, even though Marcus’s parents turn out to be lovely and his Mum says she’s so glad to see him happy after everything he’s been through.

  But we take Elmer for some lovely walks, and Marcus tells me how when he was a boy, his father was hideously strict.

  ‘You’d never know now,’ he says ruefully, ‘but I wouldn’t say it was the happiest time. I don’t want us to be like that with our children, Lou, I want them to have idyllic, carefree childhoods, if we’re able to give them that.’

  Gosh. So do I. In fact, I can’t wait to get started on the children part of things. I can see them already - an adorable little pink-cheeked baby sleeping in an old fashioned wooden cradle, wrapped in snuggly blankets like the one I bought for little Oscar. I can just see too, tangle-haired toddlers running around on the lawn with chocolate on their faces and an elderly, grizzle-faced Elmer as their nanny, and when they’re older, having all their friends round for tons of parties that Marcus and I’ll moan about, because ours will be the kind of house where everyone wants to be.

  ‘Louisa?’ Marcus is saying to me. ‘Louisa? Did you hear me? You were miles away again…’

  My state of bliss doesn’t alter. I honestly can’t believe how I feel and how incredibly, unbelievably lucky I am. Have I really found my happy ending? I have this wonderful man in my life who wants to marry me, all these fantastic friends and a job I absolutely love. It’s as though everything in my life that has gone before was simply building up to this.

  The past is just that – the past - and I don’t feel even a tiny bit smug or self-deserving. I’ve learned the hard way that you can afford to take nothing for granted and so I just feel quietly, gratefully incredulous, as I wonder at the way things have turned out. And very slowly, allow myself to get a little bit used to it too.

  It’s one of those rare, fairy-tale interludes and I bask in every single second of it. It lasts for a few blissful days. And then I get home from work to find a message on my answerphone. As I play it back, reality strikes with a vengeance and my bubble well and truly bursts.

  42

  It’s my mother, sounding very strained and odd, even for her. The first thing I do is call Marcus, but he’s out on a call so I leave him a tearful message.

  ‘My Dad’s in hospital…they think he’s had a heart attack. Oh Marcus, I’m terrified… He’s in intensive care…’

  I rush around my house in a blur, throwing some things into a bag, and leaving a message for Emma because she’s not answering either. Then as I’m walking out of the door, my phone rings and thank God, this time, its Marcus.

  ‘Can you hold on for ten minutes, Lou? I’ll be right over and I’ll drive you to the hospital,’ he says most decisively.

  So I sit down and wait, then get up and pace around because I’m desperate to be on my way. I can’t help thinking, what if just ten minutes means I’m too late. What if Dad dies before I get there… It’s the longest ten minutes of my life and all I can think of is that he’s my Dad and I don’t know what I’d do without him.

  Marcus is seven minutes, not ten. I know because I’ve had my eyes fixed on my clock watching every second tick by. He hugs me tight, then picks up my bag.

  ‘Come on, let’s get going. Elmer will be fine here,’ he says firmly. ‘Emma or someone will come and pick her up later.’

  The drive takes an hour and a half. Marcus drops me at the hospital entrance, then goes off to park, saying he’ll catch me up, so I belt along those corridors, plea-bargaining with God as I run. It feels like a race against time, to get to my Dad before it’s too late. Then I find intensive care and clatter through the swing doors, making all the nurses look up.

  One of them comes over and says very quietly, ‘Are you looking for someone?’

  ‘David Sparks,’ I say tearfully. ‘I’m his daughter.’

  ‘Follow me,’ she says. ‘Are you in the picture about what’s happened?’ she asks.

  I shake my head.

  ‘He’s had a major heart attack, but he’s responding well,’ she says. ‘He’s on medication to thin his blood, and we need to monitor him for a few days, to assess the damage to his heart. But we’re reasonably hopeful at this stage that he’s going to be okay.’

  I’m too relieved to speak, and in any case I can’t, because the tears are pouring down my face again.

  Dad’s lying in a bed wired up all these machines. He looks pale and tired, and Mum is sitting beside him looking worried to death.

  ‘What are you doing here poppet?’ he asks in a rather breathless voice.

  ‘Oh, Dad,’ I say and bend to kiss his stubbly cheek.

  ‘Hello Mum,’ I say and she actually kisses my cheek for once, rather than the air.

  ‘Your father’s given all of us a scare,’ she says, making a valiant effort at sounding bright. ‘But fortunately, the early signs are that he should be fine…’ She gives him a small smile and takes his hand. I can’t remember seeing her do that before.

  Then Marcus appears and I’m so glad to see him.

  ‘Oh goodness,’ says Dad, embarrassed now by the fuss he’s dared to cause by having a heart attack. ‘I’m not dying, you know…’

  ‘Well, for a moment there, I wasn’t sure,’ says Mum, her voice cracking slightly. She must have been petrified. I mean, what must it have been like? One minute Dad’s sitting there, right as rain, the next minute he has a crushing pain in his chest and he’s struggling to breathe. I squeeze Marcus’s hand.

  ‘Do you know how long you’ll be in here?’ asks Marcus. ‘Only I suppose they’ll want to keep an eye on you for a bit, won’t they?’

  ‘Two or three days,’ says Dad, looking less than delighted. ‘Bit of a bloody nuisance,’ he adds sounding much more like his old self.

  But I for one am glad to hear it, and Mum looks quite relieved too – I think if he came home any earlier, we’d both be worried sick.

  ‘Erm, can I get anyone a cup of tea or something?’ Marcus asks.

  ‘Oh,’ says Mum, ‘tea would be very welcome, thank you.’

  ‘Same please,’ I say and beam at him.

  I have to say, that tea or no tea, having Marcus here makes all the difference in the world.

  ‘I love you Dad,’ I tell him, when it’s time to leave, which I haven’t said to him since I was about thirteen.

  He looks a little teary. ‘I love you too, poppet.’

  As we leave, I glance back over my shoulder. Lying there all alone, he looks very old and worried, now that he thinks no-one’s watching. And just like Agnes when she was ill, for the first time ever, my Dad looks small.

  Marcus and I take Mum home. I scrub the carpet for her, where poor Dad was sick when he collapsed and Marcus makes a pot of tea and beans on toast for us all. He’s called both Will and Emma, who’ve agreed that he should take at least tomorrow morning off, so he’s staying here with me and Mum. And my fickle hound’s not the least put out – she’s snoring on Emma’s sofa.

  Mum is very subdued. I guess she’s just had a sneak preview of what it would be like to lose Dad for good. I think I can understand now, what Agnes said, about how her illness made her change the way she saw things, because this heart attack of Dad’s has certainly given all of us a reminder that not a single one of us is immortal.

  I’m amazed when Mum produces only one set of clean sheets, which are for the double bed in my old room. I’d fully expected Marcus to be shown to the guest room - it has a creaky old bed so everyone can hear what you’re up to – and she comes up with a new toothbrush and a clean shirt of Dad’s for the morning. Then she says she’s tired and trudges wearily off to bed.

  I rummage around in the drinks cabinet, and buried at the back behind the gin and Bacardi and whisky, I find it.

  ‘Aha,�
�� I say to Marcus with glee, pulling out the half full bottle of Remy Martin Louis XIII that I was sure was still lurking somewhere.

  ‘Shall we?’ I ask him wickedly. ‘I mean, strictly medicinal, as Agnes would say…’

  ‘Oh I think we ought to,’ he agrees. ‘If you’re sure your Dad won’t mind. This stuff costs a fortune, Lou.’

  ‘It was a present about five years ago,’ I explain. ‘So I think we can safely assume they won’t miss it.’ I pour us two large glasses.

  ‘Nectar,’ says Marcus after the first sip.

  ‘Thank you for coming with me tonight,’ I say, reaching to stroke his cheek with my spare hand.

  ‘That’s okay,’ says Marcus. ‘I could hardly let you drive over here on your own. It does make you think, though, doesn’t it? I mean we all just carry on with our lives as though we’ll go on forever.’

  I wriggle nearer and kiss him. ‘Even more reason to make the most of every bit of it,’ I say, before moving in for a full-on snog.

  The only problem is that as we already know with brandy, just one little glass doesn’t quite hit the spot and before we know it, we’ve finished the bottle.

  ‘I’ll never be able to drink brandy again,’ says Marcus sadly, gazing at the empty bottle. ‘Because it will never live up to what we’ve just drunk.’

  ‘I know, we could call our first baby Louis,’ I suggest, giggling, as we tiptoe up to my room so as not to wake my mother.

  ‘Have you ever done it in this bed before, Louisa?’ asks Marcus a little later, as his hands slide under my T-shirt to stroke my back in the most erotic way imaginable.

  ‘Absolutely no way,’ I say sternly. ‘This bed squeaks like billy-oh.’

  ‘Well then,’ says Marcus huskily, as he pulls me even nearer, ‘we’ll just have to be quiet…’

  ‘Darling, you didn’t give Marcus that ropey old brandy did you?’ says Mum the next morning when she finds the empty bottle. ‘Oh Louisa…’ she says crossly, sounding much more her usual self. ‘How could you? It’s been there for so long, I’ve been meaning to throw it away for ages. Didn’t you find the nice Bacardi and Cinzano?’

  ‘Oh, it’s okay, Mum, it wasn’t too bad,’ I say, giving Marcus an I-told-you look at the same time. ‘I think he found it quite reviving…’

  Marcus drives us to the hospital again after breakfast, and Auntie Lucy’s coming over to see Dad later, so she’ll give Mum a lift home. Apparently Dad has had a good night. He’s looking slightly less pallid this morning and his mood is definitely better.

  ‘I’ll be over at the weekend Dad,’ I tell him. ‘So just do what these nice nurses say, will you and hopefully you’ll be coming home.’

  ‘You don’t want to come all the way over here again, poppet,’ he protests weakly.

  ‘I do and I am,’ I say firmly.

  ‘I wouldn’t argue,’ says Marcus, with a wink at my Dad.

  I kiss my parents goodbye.

  Marcus kisses Mum’s cheek too, and then we transport ourselves back to the normality we left just yesterday, which now feels anything but.

  43

  There’s a message waiting for me on my desk. It’s from Karina. I call her straight away.

  ‘I’m so sorry about your father, Louisa. If you need me to cover the office at any time, I’m not flying much and I’m more than happy to fill in.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, touched at her concern. ‘But hopefully he’s out of the woods.’

  ‘I don’t want to frighten you, but I lost my father from a heart attack,’ she says soberly. ‘He had high blood pressure, smoked too much and drank too much too. His killed him outright. Your Dad’s lucky. Hopefully he can change his lifestyle so that it won’t happen again.’

  Oh my gosh. I knew Sylvie was a widow, but I’d no idea what the story was. Karina’s right, of course. Dad will have to make serious changes. I mean, he certainly drinks too much wine and I don’t think his blood pressure is exactly low, and he barely moves at all, except from his armchair to the dining table and back again.

  ‘Thanks Karina, that’s really kind,’ I say genuinely. Then it strikes me. I wonder if she’s missing her old job - or possibly Will.

  Then I notice an unfamiliar figure hanging around the yard. She looks about Paris’s age and build. In fact, just like Paris, except the hair is an unremarkable, light-ish brown colour and she isn’t wearing any makeup. And the jeans aren’t skin-tight and she’s wearing an everyday, unflattering kind of sweatshirt. I do a double take. Can it be? As I peer through the window at this girl, she walks over to the office and tentatively comes in.

  ‘Um, Paris?’ I say disbelievingly.

  ‘Could you give this to Emma for me, please?’ The girl hands me an envelope. Her eyes have only the slightest hint of mascara, and the hair’s in a messy Emma-style ponytail. ‘Only she was so brilliant the other day - she practically saved Chelsea’s life. I really love that horse – I was kind of hoping to see her to say thank you.’ A solitary tear trickles down her cheek.

  ‘I’m not at all sure when she’ll be back,’ I say gently. ‘But don’t worry, I’ll make sure she gets this later on.’

  ‘Okay. Thank you.’ Very quietly, Paris wanders out.

  And then I get it. I better warn her quick smart, because Emma is obviously the latest crush.

  Marcus has started moving his clothes and other bits into my place and it’s quickly becoming apparent that my cottage is a little bit on the small side for all our combined stuff. He’s decided to put his furniture into storage (well, it’s in a spare barn that Ben just happens to have knocking around) until we decide where our future lies. It’s hardly a problem though, because we are just enjoying inhabiting the same space – though there’s nothing wrong with one or two ground rules.

  ‘Now Marcus. On the subject of loos,’ I start firmly. ‘As well as leaving the seat up, it has come to my notice, and this is not specifically directed at you, that males in general have problems with their aim, and that frequently they miss - and I for one, am not a Mrs Boggle. I do not enjoy cleaning toilets,’ I add, waggling a finger at him.

  ‘I’ll have you know that there’s nothing wrong with my aim and I’m quite good at cleaning too,’ he says in injured tones.

  ‘And the other thing, Marcus, is shoes, which live in wardrobes or in the porch. Not under chairs and tables and scattered all over the floor.’

  ‘If I’d known you’d be such a nit-picky fusspot,’ he says woundedly, ‘I’d never have proposed. I’d have asked Rachel or someone instead. Maybe I better move back to my place…’ he adds, with a sideways look at me.

  ‘Oh no,’ I say alarmed. ‘You can’t. And I’m not giving you back my ring, buster, so you just stay right here.’

  ‘Well, I have only one rule,’ he says, coming and standing very close in front of me, then bending his head to kiss me on the mouth.

  ‘Mmmm?’ I say, grinning up into those gorgeous eyes.

  ‘Sex,’ he says, picking me up and carrying me up the stairs, as if I was tiny like Rachel. ‘And plenty of it. Starting now…’

  I’ve just realised that Agnes and Beamish’s wedding is only three weeks away. Rachel and I have lots of secretive conversations as we tie up even more loose ends and make sure that we haven’t forgotten anything. Emma and Karina are coming to decorate Ben’s with us the night before, because any sooner and Beamish would most definitely wonder where we all were and smell a rat.

  Beamish is frightfully impressed with Sam and Zac, who have been spring cleaning like you wouldn’t believe. It serves as an excellent distraction while the rest of us are being furtive and trying not to give the game away. Sam has an empty stable in which we can lock secret things and he’s told Beamish he can’t find the key. Karina’s been in a few mornings to help out in the office, so it’s been a bit like old times, except I no longer refer to Arian as my ex-husband; from now on, he’s her fiancé - and she’s more than welcome to him.

  Dad’s doing really well. Mum told
me that he’s got to start doing regular exercise. But first they’re going to Devon, and Dad’s going to eat more healthily and start walking, even on holiday. He has to start gradually, and she’s going to join him, she told me, because it would be good for her too. Oh my golly gosh. I can see it now…my parents morphing into a couple of power walkers, in matching shell suits, maps round their necks and those ski-pole things which for some reason power-walkers always seem to use, instead of just legs like normal people.

  Rachel and I go to Emma’s old place for a proper girls evening and because she likes to check up on it from time to time. When I get there, she’s scooting around unlocking all the windows.

  ‘I’m so happy at Ben’s,’ she says, her eyes shining with happiness. ‘I think I’m going to put this on the market.’

  ‘Weird, isn’t it,’ I say. ‘How even six months ago, neither of us could have imagined we’d be ever be anything other than single…’ I giggle, because you’d think, wouldn’t you, that after one disastrous marriage and a painful divorce, we’d have learned. And here’s Emma flinging herself willingly into life with Ben, and me getting married after I’d sworn off men for good.

  ‘Seen much of Paris?’ I ask innocently.

  Emma gives me one of her looks. ‘Believe it or not,’ she says, sounding rather impressed, ‘she’s asked if she can come out with me for work experience. She’s thinking she might want to be a vet.’

  I splutter with hilarity at the idea. ‘She just fancies being around hunky males all day, that’s all Em!’

  But Emma doesn’t laugh. ‘You are so immature at times, Louisa. She’s actually quite a smart girl. You wait and see.’

  When Rachel comes in, both of us quiz her mercilessly about Will.

  ‘He’s lovely,’ she looks at us. I can hear the but before she says it. ‘He’s completely different to Miles… funny, larks around, like having this big buffoon of a brother…’