Cloudy with a Chance of Love

by Fiona Collins

  ‘Yes, I went speed dating,’ I sighed.

  ‘Did you meet anyone?’ Oh good girl; Freya hadn’t told her that bit.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘I wonder if you tried hard enough. Sometimes you can clam up – Dickens! Duh-brain! Everyone knows that!’ Mum’s other passion is TV quizzes. She loves all of them: The Chase, Tipping Point, Pointless, Eggheads, and adores nothing more than shouting at contestants who get things wrong or know absolutely nothing.

  ‘You mean I don’t talk nineteen to the dozen without drawing breath, like you.’

  ‘Cheeky mare! Did you hide your light under a bushel?’

  ‘My light was on, Mum. It really wasn’t me,’ I said. ‘It was them.’

  ‘Losers and ne’er-do-wells?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Just because she’d had a steady stream of boyfriends since 1989, a lot of them fitting that description (current, very casual, boyfriend: Malcolm, shifty allotment enthusiast and committer of the crime of Crocs…). ‘Look, Mum, I’ve got to go, I’m at work.’ I always said that. It had no effect whatsoever. None. She still rambled on. ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘What? Come on, dimbo! It’s magnesium! Magnesium. For god’s sake, some people are so thick!’ She was shouting at the telly again. She had one in the kitchen and nearly every other room in the house. ‘I know, dear. I’ve got to get on, too. Auntie Margaret’s just fired up the Kenwood and there’s meringue on my Delfts already. I’d better go sort her out.’ I could just imagine the scene. There would be lots of hooting and whipping of bottoms with tea towels. ‘Are you sure you didn’t meet anyone? You can tell me, you know.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Certain sure?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Okay, love. Right, I have to go; I’ve got things to do. I’m also bidding on a pair of bone china eBay doves.’

  ‘Bye, Mum,’ I said, wearily.

  ‘Bye dear.’

  I put the phone down. It immediately rang again.

  ‘Don’t tell me, Auntie Margaret’s blown up the kitchen and the doves have flown the coop.’

  ‘Er, no,’ said a voice. ‘Unless that’s some kind of spy code like the ducks fly east for the winter, or something. You told me you do the weather. You’re not actually M15, are you? Do we have to meet on a bench and swap briefcases?’

  Oh god, it was Ben. How embarrassing.

  ‘Oh. Ben. Hi. Sorry, I thought you were my mother.’

  ‘It’s a common mistake. Happens all the time. It’s the blue rinse and the curls.’

  I laughed. ‘How are you? You’ve called me on the office phone.’ Oh dear. Why did I say that? Did it matter?

  ‘Yeah, is that okay? Sometimes people don’t answer mobiles. And I’m good, thanks. I’ve just shaped an ash tree and done some trenching. You still up for tonight?’

  ‘I certainly am,’ I said, more confidently than I felt. I tried to take on Peony’s positivity and Sam’s airy-fairy yet practical view of fate.

  ‘Great. How would you like to go to a party?’

  ‘A party! On a Tuesday night?’ Oh god, I sounded more ancient than Richard the Third’s commode.

  ‘Yes, on a Tuesday night,’ Ben laughed. ‘My friends are quite bohemian. They don’t operate on normal people’s schedules. They’ve even been known to have a party on a Monday night!’

  ‘Wow. That’s impressive.’

  ‘So do you want to go?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’ I didn’t think I’d ever been to a party on a Tuesday night before, and I hadn’t been to any kind of party at all for yonks. ‘Okay, yes, I’d love to go!’’

  ‘Great! How about eight o’clock? Shall I text you later with the details? We can meet somewhere first for a quick drink.’

  ‘Can we please make it nine?’ I asked, hesitantly.

  ‘Sure. Awesome. I’ll text you later, then.’

  ‘Brilliant. Bye, Ben.’

  ‘Bye, Daryl.’

  I put the phone down and, despite myself, found it hard to suppress a grin. I was going out tonight. I had a date. I was hot to trot and in demand. And why not? I was fabulous.

  Sam had walked past my desk with a wholemeal breadstick during the call and had given me a random thumbs up. Now she appeared at my desk. She was munching on a celery stick smeared with cream cheese and Marmite.

  ‘Well? Was that him? Was that Ben?’

  ‘It certainly was. We’re going to a party tonight in Richmond.’

  ‘On a Tuesday night?’

  ‘Yes, on a Tuesday night! They’re trendy hippies or something. Apparently a party on a Tuesday night is normal for them.’

  ‘Like movie people,’ nodded Sam.

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said.

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? It’s really rather cool. Oh god, what am I going to wear?’

  Sam plonked herself down on my desk. A blob of cream cheese fell on my keyboard.

  ‘Do you want me to come home with you after work and help you get ready?’

  I grabbed one of my keyboard wipes and wiped the cream cheese blob off. ‘You can’t. Will’s coming over to help me do a bit of decorating.’

  Her eyebrows raised by about three foot. ‘Ooh! Hunky Will. And is ‘a bit of decorating’ a euphemism?’

  ‘No, of course it’s not. He’s just being friendly and helpful, that’s all. And I’m rubbish at decorating.’

  ‘I thought you’d just get a man in.’

  ‘You could argue I am getting a man in. And his name’s Will!’

  ‘Ha, very good. So there’s nothing going on, or potentially going on, between you two?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Okay.’ She stood up and popped the last piece of celery in her mouth. ‘Flipping heck, Daryl, it’s just wall to wall men for you at the moment.’

  I laughed. ‘Not really.

  ‘Two in one night says it is!’

  ‘Sam!’

  ‘Okay, I’m going, I’m going. Enjoy yourself tonight on the date. Do everything that I wouldn’t do.’

  ‘That doesn’t leave much, my friend.’ She grinned, I grinned back. ‘And I’ll probably come and talk to you about it approximately six more times before we leave the office, anyway.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Sam, as she walked away. ‘See you in about ten minutes.’

  Chapter Ten

  Sometimes, I missed being kissed. I missed a proper good old snog. It was not like Jeff and I were at it all the time, before we split up; there hadn’t been any real swoonsome snogging sessions between us for about ten years. If not twenty. But we used to have them, once upon a time.

  I put my indicator on and turned left down Sutton Road, making sure the cyclist behind me wasn’t going to do anything crazy. I’d just left work, it was drizzling, and I was having a good old think. ‘Relight my Fire’ was on the radio; it had set me off.

  I also missed cuddling. Not cuddling that leads to sex – Jeff’s swansong consisted of a rather pathetic four step approach: quick cuddle to bum squeeze to breast fondle to sex – but cuddling for cuddling’s sake. For its own wonderful, self-contained entity: a loving embrace. A warm squeeze. To be engulfed by somebody. To nuzzle in. In recent weeks, I’d found I’d been eyeing up men in the street checking out their cuddleability. Did they look like they would give Good Hug? Would I like to be given a nice big squeeze by them? Now and again, I’d think ‘yep, you’d do’. Can you imagine if I’d approached and asked for one? Mad, middle-aged woman accosts astonished passer-by on the street for hug. They’d think I was one of those strange people, like grown men who wear nappies or people who meet up in a park once a week and laugh. Wasn’t there a fad in America, some time ago, for group hugging? A group of people would get together and, under the instruction of a frizzy grey-haired woman wearing yoga pants and a vest top with no bra underneath, would hug each other for twenty minutes or something. Knowing my luck I’d get wedged up against Sweaty Mike, the big guy with the huge
heart but the sweatiest armpits. He’d step on my toes, wipe his armpit on my face, then badger me to join him for some frozen yo-ghurt at the local trendy café. Very California. I giggled to myself as I negotiated the one-way system. But this aint California, sister, it’s Wimbledon, and there are no bonkers group-hugging classes here, providing relief for the hug-less.

  But, I do have a date tonight.

  Since I’d spoken to Ben, I’d started thinking about kissing and cuddling a lot. A date offered the potential for both, especially kissing. People did still kiss on first dates, right? I’d been out of the dating game for so long, the rules may well have changed. There may now be some kind of dating protocol I was totally unaware of – no kissing until the third date; you can only touch elbows once you’ve exchanged full family histories and medical details; permission must be asked before looking at someone’s bum (oops, I’d massively flouted that one, with Will on the stairs that day. Never mind)… that sort of thing.

  Did I want Ben to kiss me? It was far too early to tell. There had been no thunderbolt when we met, no instant crackle or sparkle or sizzling frisson, but that could develop, couldn’t it? I knew only too well that a distant rumbling could soon turn into a tumultuous cracker of a storm – it could happen, and I loved a good thunderstorm; I loved the crashing and the drama and the passion of it. Would there be passion with Ben? It remained to be seen.

  I’d managed to leave work half an hour early so I could stock up on decorating essentials at B&Q. I pulled into the car park there now; it was rammed. What were all these people doing here? I wondered. Were they all preparing for an afternoon’s decorating session with their hunky next door neighbour, or was it just me? I must stop calling him that, I thought, and tell Sam to stop it, too. I had to not think of him like that. He was just Will, friendly neighbourhood hunk… No, try again. He was just Will, friendly neighbourhood neighbour who I could enjoy a friendly, neighbourhood relationship with. No way was I going back to square one, like a counter on a crazy snakes and ladders board, by having a lusty affair with an unsuitable and out-of-bounds man like him, which would only end in tears and a For Sale sign in somebody’s front garden… No way was I even going to entertain the idea of having designs on Will. I didn’t need to, anyway; I had a date tonight.

  Yes. Sorted. I was rather pleased with myself, as I flung paintbrushes and white spirit in my massive trolley and perused the paint charts for the perfect duck egg blue for my hall (a perfect place to start, I thought. Showcase for the home and all that). I was sensible and practical and (beyond) grown-up. I had a very grown-up date tonight and I could also be friends and neighbours with a very good looking man and be totally, totally level-headed about it.

  Then, as the paint mixer man mixed my perfect shade and I watched my tin of paint juddering in its little mixing machine, I realised I was kidding myself. I wasn’t particularly level-headed, in fact I was as shaky as that tin.

  I was almost as nervous at seeing Will as I was about my date with Ben.

  ‘I’m disappointed you’re not in overalls.’

  ‘Are you?’ I laughed, a little shakily. ‘I don’t have any.’ I didn’t have any cute dungarees, either. What I did have was an ancient pair of jeans and a long white t-shirt which had seen better days. And I’d made a concession to the movie cliché of ‘decorating woman’ and had a blue scarf thing tied round the front of my hair. I hoped it made me look cute and vaguely fifties-ish and not like a slightly wrong samurai warrior. Will didn’t comment on it, but at least he didn’t laugh. ‘And you’re not in overalls either.’

  ‘No.’ He was wearing jeans and a pale blue t-shirt that really made his brown eyes stand out. His hair looked lovely and he looked annoyingly gorgeous – I quickly checked out his biceps whilst pretending I wasn’t. ‘You don’t mind if you get paint on that?’ he said, looking at my t-shirt. Okay, it hadn’t seen better days, this was actually the first day it was seeing; it was brand new, straight out of the packet and pristine white. But it was quite flattering on me, so I was wearing it.

  ‘Nope. It’s really old. And I hope to be a careful painter.’

  ‘Hope to be? Have you actually done any decorating before?’

  ‘To be honest, no.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘That’s where you come in.’

  He laughed. I was hiding my feelings pretty well, I thought. I wasn’t coming across as nervous at all. I was super-cool, slightly cute painting woman, with the cool, blue scarf thingy.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Will, clapping his hands together. ‘We’d better get on with it. Where do you want me?’

  ‘I thought we could do here – the hall.’

  ‘Okay, as good a place as any,’ said Will, looking around him. I hadn’t had to clear it out; it was as bare as when I’d moved in. I didn’t even have a table or anything in here. Maybe I’d get a nice white, shabby chic one, when it was done… But at least the walls were painted and not wallpapered, like some of the rooms in the house; I’d seen those steamer wallpaper-stripper things and they didn’t look fun. ‘You’ve got me for the whole night, if you like. Well, not the whole night. I have to go to bed at some point, but I don’t mind working until then. We should be able to get it all done.’

  Oh dear. Here’s where I had to tell him about my date. I was so embarrassed. I felt like a teenager who has to tell her dad she can’t make Airfix models with him after tea because, well, there’s this boy, and he’s sort of going to be waiting for me, down the park… Yep, I was suddenly an awkward and embarrassed teenage girl. Just the look I was going for.

  ‘Erm… I’m sort of a bit embarrassed to tell you but I’ve got to go out at nine. I’ve got a date.’

  For a moment his face was unreadable, then he smiled and said brightly, ‘A date! Wow, okay. Good for you.’

  ‘Yes, you won’t believe it,’ I said, feeling slightly better now I’d told him, ‘but I took my life in my hands last night and went speed dating.’

  ‘Speed dating! Wow.’ Will said ‘wow’ rather a lot. He looked surprised and a little bit impressed, I thought, and for the first time I wondered about his own relationship status… okay, not for the first time – I’d wondered about it the moment I saw him on my doorstep that day. I wondered about it again. Was he single, married, other? What was his story?

  ‘I know,’ I smiled. ‘Apparently I’ve got a ninety-nine percent chance of falling in love by Friday so I thought I’d better go. In case I missed something.’ Too much information? Possibly. Although Will didn’t seem to think so; he looked intrigued.

  ‘Really? By Friday, eh? Have you been to see a lady with a headscarf and a crystal ball?’

  ‘Only figuratively. I had my online fortune read. Some app. Although it means absolutely nothing at all. It’s stupid. But, I met a man, at the end of the night, and he asked me on a date.’ I sounded quite proud of myself and I was. I’d met a man and I was going on a date with him tonight; I was a proud, confident woman. And I suddenly wasn’t nervous about being with Will, at all. I put my silly spell of nerves down to a middle-aged moment of (probably hormonal) madness and the thought of having a man in my house after such a long time. In fact, it probably wasn’t even that; it was probably just the anticipation of telling him I had to go out later, and now it was done, I felt fine.

  ‘Oh, right, this speed dating lark was a success then?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it was actually pretty awful, most of it, just the sort of thing you imagine – all no-hopers and people you wouldn’t give a second glance to at the bus stop – it was fancy dress, so you can imagine –’

  ‘– what theme?’

  ‘Pop icons.’

  ‘Oh, interesting. What did you go as?’

  ‘I didn’t. Sam and I didn’t read that bit on the flyer.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ He started laughing. It was the first time I’d seen him really laugh. He threw his head back and showed all his top teeth.

  ‘And… are you all right?’

&
nbsp; He was still laughing at the ceiling.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, bringing his head back to a level position. ‘That just tickled me, that’s all.’

  ‘… and I met this guy, at the end, and, as I said, he asked me out.’

  ‘Well, that’s great,’ said Will, smiling. ‘Wow. A date. That’s fantastic.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Well, I’d made him laugh. I was glad I’d brightened his evening. But, had I said too much? I’d (unnecessarily) told him about the speed dating, I’d (ridiculously) mentioned the ninety-nine percent love forecast. He thought I was one of those silly women who gabble on about their love lives all the time, didn’t he? Still, at least he was a nice man who didn’t seem to mind if I gabbled on to him. We could maybe be those sort of neighbours, after all. The sort that confide their dating disasters in each other – the sort that turn up with a bottle of wine on each other’s doorsteps and put the world to rights. It would be quite nice to have a close, platonic relationship like that with a man like Will; someone I could talk to and rely on, someone who could put up the odd picture and investigate my drains for me…

  He was still smiling at me quite intently – gosh his eyes were lovely and his eyelashes were really long. I really shouldn’t be thinking it, but he was probably the most handsome man I’d ever met (if you discounted the cardboard cut-out of Brad Pitt, at the local cinema, that was…). A handsome platonic neighbour friend. Just what the doctor ordered.