Just Haven't Met You Yet

by Sophie Cousens

  ‘He doesn’t. Mine are eleven and a half.’

  We get back in the car, a strange giddy feeling in my stomach, and my cheeks feel flushed. Maybe I’m still feeling a bit carsick. I should probably stop looking at my phone on all these windy roads. Resting my cheek against the cool glass of the side window, I try to think of a good excuse for losing a shoe; what I will say when I finally track down Hot Suitcase Man.

  JERSEY EVENING NEWS – 24 AUGUST 1991

  A LOVE TOKEN RETURNED SPARKS LOVE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION

  The chance discovery of a lost wartime love token has kindled a new romance fifty years later. In June of this year, Bristol resident Annie Carter visited Jersey to return half of an engraved coin belonging to Alex Le Quesne’s late grandfather, William Blampied.

  ‘I came to Jersey to reunite the two halves of the coin,’ said Miss Carter. ‘Then I met Alex, and couldn’t bring myself to leave. It felt as though the coin had led me to him – like a fairy tale.’ It would seem that half a century on, romance still follows this coin around.

  Chapter 9

  The Trinity Community Fete turns out to be a small affair; in fact, just a few trestle tables set up in the car park next to the parish hall. The Women’s Institute is selling tea and coffee in disposable cups, a woman dressed in colourful knitwear sits behind a tower of homemade jam, someone is selling goat’s cheese, and a local author is hawking copies of her book next to a dreary tombola. Several charities have set up tables full of leaflets, and there is even someone dressed in a dog costume collecting money for guide dogs. It all looks decidedly underwhelming as far as country fetes go. I was imagining a field full of bunting, beautiful cream teas, merry-go-rounds, and maybe some kind of quaint ‘who’s grown the biggest carrot’ competition.

  As we survey the scene from the parked car, Ted says, ‘OK, what’s our strategy?’ He nods towards the man sitting behind the JBCS table, a stout-looking gentleman with a bald scalp, haloed by tufts of white hair. ‘That guy looks like the keeper of the contact details. We could kidnap him and smother him in honey until he gives up a name.’

  I let out a snort and cover my mouth in embarrassment.

  ‘I think I’ll just go and talk to him, no kidnapping required.’

  As we approach, the author and the jam lady eye us eagerly. Then the woman in a wax jacket behind the coffee urn at the WI table calls to Ted.

  ‘Ted Palmerston, is that you under there?’ she asks. ‘What’s all that hair? You shouldn’t hide your lovely face, boy. What would your mother have said?’

  I smile at the fact someone seems to know Ted everywhere we go. As he walks over to talk to the woman, I make a beeline for the JBCS stall, where I find honey for sale, leaflets about bee conservation and even a beekeeper’s hat to try on.

  ‘Hi!’ I beam. ‘I’m Laura, I wonder if you could help me?’

  ‘You’re interested in supporting the bees?’ asks the man, glancing down at my chocolate-stained dress.

  ‘Oh yes, big bee fan,’ I grin.

  ‘I’m Keith, Chairman of the JBCS. Can I give you a leaflet about membership?’

  ‘I would love a leaflet, Keith, and some honey. Hook me up with some of the sweet stuff, ha ha!’ I’m babbling. ‘But where you could really help me, Keith, is I’m trying to track down some people who may be members already. Do you know the Le Maistre family? I think Mr Le Maistre might have raised money for you running the marathon, and his mother has a particular interest in beehives?’ I look at the man hopefully. Now I’ve said it out loud it doesn’t feel like a lot to go on. I can’t imagine an episode of Luther starting with a lead like this.

  ‘Maude Le Maistre. I’ve just finished building a beehive for her birthday tomorrow,’ says Keith, pronouncing it ‘Le May-tch’, a broad smile creasing his round, ruddy cheeks.

  Yes! He knows her! He’s not looking at me like I’m a crazy stalker. I clench my fists in excitement. Then, just as I’m about to ask Keith for more details, an alarm goes off on my phone. Two minutes to twelve – what did I set that for? What does ‘IL’ mean? Then, as it dawns on me, my throat starts to feel as though I’ve swallowed a pint of wet cement – in two minutes, I’m supposed to be doing an Instagram live from a beautiful, scenic Jersey location.

  ‘Oh, Ted! You’ve got to help me,’ I call over to him. The WI woman is examining his beard from every angle, with a distinct look of disapproval. Ted looks grateful for the opportunity to escape. ‘I need to do a live broadcast for work, right now. Please could you just hold the camera for me?’ I ask, searching for a remotely scenic backdrop, but it’s literally a choice of the recycling bins or the road. ‘Just frame out the background as much as possible.’

  I quickly log on to the work account. Suki will kill me if I miss this.

  ‘What about your top?’ Ted nods towards the chocolate stain on my dress.

  He’s right; I can’t represent Love Life looking like this. I search frantically for something to cover me. All I can see is the beekeeping hat; perhaps I could make a kooky feature out of it?

  ‘Keith, would you mind if I borrowed this hat, just for two minutes?’

  He nods slowly, but his wispy eyebrows dip into a suspicious V.

  I quickly pull the large mesh sheath down over my head; it covers the top of my dress perfectly. Hopefully the hat part looks like a cool, wide-brimmed sun hat, the kind Audrey Hepburn might wear on a holiday in Rome – I try to own the look, taking the advice of Vanya’s book and channelling my inner tigress. Handing the phone to Ted, I flap my hands for him to point it at me and then press the button to go live.

  ‘Hello – I’m Laura Le Quesne from Love Life, and I’m coming to you live from Jersey – the land of milk and honey! Ha ha. There are beaches galore and much to explore’ – What is coming out of my mouth? It’s like a poem made up by a six-year-old – ‘and I’m here visiting some of the most romantic places on the island. It’s a personal story for me, as my parents met here – so I wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the island’s aphro … aphrodesy …’ memory blank, memory blank! What’s the word? ‘Ecclesiastical properties,’ damn, no, that’s churches, ‘I mean aphrodisiastical qualities – SEXY QUALITIES, nothing religious, ah! Though I’m sure some people here are religious.’

  I usually pride myself on my ability to wing interviews or presentations, but I’m not used to being centre stage; the focus is usually on the people I’m interviewing, and Ted’s sympathetic eyes and grimacing mouth are not instilling me with confidence – I turn frantically to Keith.

  ‘Keith – tell us, what is romantic about bees? Jersey is famous for its delicious honey, isn’t it?’

  Ted swings the camera around to Keith, who looks non-plussed.

  ‘Not really. I wouldn’t say it was famous for honey. Milk and potatoes, yes. Honey no.’

  ‘Well, I don’t bee-lieve you, Keith – he’s being modest. So, what got you into bees? You just love those little black and yellow buggers, hey?’

  Keith frowns, then looks back and forth between me and the camera phone with such a perplexed expression, you’d think I’d just asked him to yodel me the square root of eighty-seven.

  ‘I am interested in conservation and I have an experimental breeding programme that I devised with a specially constructed hive—’

  Oh wow, Keith is not helping me at all, he’s speaking at the pace of an asthmatic snail. I’m going to have to cut him off. ‘Oh, that sounds so romantic, Keith.’ Seeing he’s wearing a ring, I think on my feet; I need to divert this conversation away from bloody bees. ‘I see you’re married. How did you meet your partner?’

  Keith now looks at me as though I’ve propositioned him for sex. He frowns suspiciously, then says, ‘I met my wife through a mutual acquaintance. We had a shared interest in Ordnance Survey maps.’

  Possibly the most boring ‘How Did You Meet?’ I’ve ever heard.

  ‘So, she found the map to your heart, aw!’

  Ted winces. Keith looks as though he�
�s watching some kind of pagan goat sacrifice take place on his trestle table. I imagine the comments full of question marks flashing up on the screen. I need to save this somehow. Think, Laura, THINK!

  ‘Now, you might have been expecting to see me at a gorgeous beachside location, but at Love Life, we’re all about supporting local business, that’s why I thought I’d come to the community village fete and discover genuine Jersey.’ I walk over to the jam lady, a woman in her fifties, who is sitting behind a cardboard sign that reads ‘Jenny’s Jam’. She’s wearing a pale green cloche hat, with an eye-catching gold-and-green dragonfly hatpin. Ted follows me with the camera.

  ‘What are you selling here, Jenny?’

  ‘Homemade jam, all berries from my own garden. Farmhouse black butter, too,’ she says, pointing to a small dark brown pot, tied with a red ribbon.

  ‘Ah, my grandmother asked me to get her some of this, but I wasn’t sure what it was.’

  ‘It’s a medieval recipe for apple sauce, made from cider apples. Delicious on a bit of cheese,’ Jenny explains.

  ‘Well, I will take three!’ I say, filling my arms with jars. ‘How many customers have you had today, Jenny?’

  ‘Just two,’ she says mournfully. ‘Including you.’

  ‘Just two! Look at this stuff. Come on, Jersey – if you’re watching, come out and support local produce at the Trinity Community Fete. Love Life believes in the charm and importance of local businesses, so come and buy something from someone with a name – you’ll make their day. From Jenny—’ then I wave to the woman behind the goat’s cheese stall, ‘From …’

  ‘From Lou,’ says the cheese lady cheerily.

  ‘From Sophie,’ says the author.

  ‘Barclay,’ says the man dressed as a guide dog.

  Ted gives me a thumbs-up, and I try to wrap things up.

  ‘Well, there’s a hive of reasons to visit! Ciao for now.’

  Ciao for now? I do a little pirouette, and Ted stops recording as I yank off the beekeeper’s bonnet. Wow, it was hot as a witch’s armpit under there.

  ‘How bad was that?’ I ask Ted, whose face looks both genuinely impressed and bewildered at the same time.

  ‘I think you rescued it,’ he says.

  I’m not sure Suki is going to think so. Right on cue, my phone starts to ring.

  ‘Suki, hi!’ I say with forced excitement.

  ‘What was that, Laura? Why are you standing next to some bins, dressed as a lunatic, talking to some senile old man about bees and fucking jam?’ She’s shouting loud enough for Keith to hear, and he looks suitably offended. I back away, out of his earshot.

  ‘Well, I was going for something experimental,’ I say, the cement now set dry in my throat. ‘People love bees, they’re very on trend.’

  ‘I do not like bees, Laura, and we do not support local business, we support big business who have budgets for advertising. What the hell are you trying to pull here? I was expecting you in a bikini, on a beach, eating oysters – SEXY! ASPIRATIONAL! HOLIDAY! Not bee faeces in a car park.’

  ‘Honey isn’t actually bee faeces, Suki; they make it from—’

  ‘Thin ice, Laura – skinny Frappuccino thin.’

  She hangs up on me. My chest flutters with panic as I feel Suki’s faith in me vanishing like a rapidly retreating tide.

  ‘FUCK! Fuckity fuck, fuck pants,’ I scream at the phone.

  Then I turn to see everyone at the sad little fete watching me. Ted’s WI friend has a hand pressed to her mouth in horror. I swallow my work-related terror; I just need to finish the conversation with Keith, get the Le Maistres’ address, and get the hell out of here. I’ll worry about Suki later.

  ‘So, Keith, sorry about that. Um, as you’d started to say, Maude Le Maistre – any chance you could give us her son’s full name and contact details?’

  Keith is now looking at me as though I’ve admitted to being a serial killer who’s trying to hunt these people down in order to stuff both their decapitated corpses into one of his homemade beehives.

  ‘Maybe I should give your number to Maude, let her know you’re trying to get in touch with her son.’ His voice comes out at rather a high-pitched squeak. ‘The bee club takes data protection very seriously.’

  Ted tries to reason with him, we explain all about the suitcase, but Keith isn’t budging and then the guy dressed up for the guide dogs asks Keith ‘if these people are bothering him’. I end up leaving with a promise from Keith that he’ll call Maude with my number as soon as he gets home. Then I dole out the last of my cash on black butter and goat’s cheese, and compliment the author on the bluebell-shaped earrings she’s wearing, all in an attempt to make amends for my sweary outburst.

  Back in the car, Ted is biting his lip, trying not to laugh.

  ‘What?’ I snap. I am nowhere close to laughing about this yet. Interviewing people is the one thing I thought I was good at. I don’t understand how that went so badly wrong. ‘Sorry,’ I say. Ted is the last person I should be angry with.

  ‘We just don’t see a lot of “fuckity fuck fuck pants” at the community parish fetes.’

  ‘Gah! And we were so close. He was about to offer up Maude on a plate before I cocked it up.’

  I close my eyes, wondering why the universe is intent on making this so difficult. If I am destined to meet J. Le Maistre this weekend, it could just have been a very simple suitcase exchange.

  ‘Look, don’t worry. We have a name; she’ll be easy to find now,’ says Ted.

  He reaches out to put a consoling hand on my shoulder. Now we’re looking at each other face to face, I can better see Ted’s eyes again, his facial features beyond the beard. His honey brown irises contain flecks of gold, and maybe it’s because the rest of his face is hidden, but his eyes radiate real warmth. When his hand drops from my shoulder, I feel a strange coldness, like taking off a cosy coat in a cold foyer.

  ‘For the record, I thought your broadcast was excellent.’

  A phone starts to ring. I’m so used to it being mine, I start to root in my bag, but it’s Ted’s phone that’s ringing. His eyes flash with concern as he sees the caller ID.

  ‘Dad, what’s happened?’ he asks, answering the phone with one hand, the other gripping the steering wheel. I watch him as he listens, then says, ‘OK, stay there, I’m on my way.’

  Tiger Woman on Failure

  Tigers are expert hunters, yet only roughly one in twenty hunts ends in a kill. After an unsuccessful hunt, do tigers go home and lament how bad they are at hunting? Do they call their friends and wonder how they’ll ever eat again, because they are clearly such failures? They do not. They get back out there and hunt again.

  Chapter 10

  ‘Is everything OK?’ I ask Ted.

  ‘My dad had a fall.’ His face has clouded over, all levity from the fete gone. He pulls the car into gear with two sharp thrusts of his elbow.

  ‘I’m so sorry. Drop me anywhere, I don’t want to be in the way if you need to go to him.’

  ‘The neighbour is with him, but I should go.’ Ted clears his throat, then says quietly, ‘Dad has Parkinson’s.’

  We’re driving fast now, out of the village, onto another tree-lined country road.

  ‘Have you been looking after him?’ I ask, tentatively picking up the apple peel.

  ‘I came back to Jersey to help him move into assisted living,’ Ted says, his eyes on the road. ‘He can’t manage on his own any more. I’m packing up his house.’

  ‘I’m sorry, that must be hard.’ I pause before adding, ‘I had to pack up my mother’s house after she died and… Well, I know how difficult it can be.’

  ‘My father isn’t dead,’ Ted says sharply, then glancing across at me he shakes his head, as though shaking off his reaction. ‘I’m sorry. You were close to your mother.’

  It sounds like a statement rather than a question, but I reply with a single nod.

  ‘She was my best friend.’ I am surprised at myself, that I have willingly brought
Mum into this conversation. I would usually be too wary of the torrent of emotion, which I know flows so close beneath the surface.

  ‘How long ago was that?’ Ted asks.

  ‘Two years,’ I manage to say.

  ‘We lost my mother to breast cancer four years ago. Dad’s managed alone since then, but now he needs more support,’ says Ted.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I can’t think of any different words to say. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. How many times have those words been said to me? Maybe we don’t have enough words to express sympathy. We have fifty ways to describe a cup of coffee, but I can only think of one way to say, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

  ‘I don’t think he minds going,’ Ted says with a rueful smile. ‘He already has a girlfriend lined up at the place he’s chosen.’

  I look across at Ted and see the muddle of emotions dancing behind his eyes as he tries to make light of something dark.

  ‘He knows it’s time. Packing up the house is the part I’m finding difficult. My dad was born in that house, and Mum didn’t like to throw anything away. She was a hoarder, I suppose. Is it bad that I just want to bonfire the lot of it?’

  Ted gazes ahead, talking as though to himself.

  ‘Tough to do it alone. You don’t have any siblings?’

  ‘A sister in England. My nephew has special needs – it’s not easy for her to leave.’

  ‘I wouldn’t throw everything away. Keep the things that have meaning.’

  ‘Everything in the house just reminds me of how things used to be, a different life. Nothing I keep can bring that back.’ Ted massages his chin through his beard, his eyes still intently focused on the road. His voice is full of pain when he says, ‘Dad goes to bed early because he’s up half the night with his restless legs, and there’s something about being left alone at night with a task I don’t know how to start – picking through the rubble of my parents’ lives. That’s why I started driving the cab again.’