A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger

by Lucy Robinson

  Fluffy Jo 79: You don’t think he’ll lose interest if you wait till 2 moro to reply???

  I looked at poor Iain’s ‘Online Now!’ profile.

  First Date Aid Charlotte: No. I don’t think he’ll lose interest. Go to bed:)

  I closed the messenger window and went back to my inbox. A new client, Shelley Cartwright, had contacted me since dinner and I hovered the mouse over her name, toying with the idea of reading the message tomorrow. It was late and I was tired. But, of course, I clicked. Running First Date Aid might not be high-profile communications work for one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies but it was staving off the madness.

  I opened her email and groaned. It was like standing in front of an angry bear armed with a machine gun and a mallet and a knife.

  Hi.

  I saw the ad in the Evening Standard. (The Evening Standard had been Sam’s latest triumph; thanks to him I’d paid about a sixth of the going rate.) I’m far too busy to be fiddling around on the Internet so would like to contract you for two weeks. I’ve looked on love.com and have selected two suitable men, Stuart and William; links to their profiles are below. Please could you schedule dates with both if they are available. I have openings on 26 and 29 September and would prefer a meeting in either Canary Wharf, where I work, or London Bridge, where I live. I request that you do not use abbreviated text or swear words in any messages you send on my behalf. Please email an invoice and note that I accept your rates and terms. You can use the attached photo to create my online dating account and I have written a short summary of myself in addition, also attached.

  Regards,

  Shelley

  I chuckled. ‘I’m far too busy to be fiddling around on the Internet’? Why did so many clients need to let me know that they were above Internet dating? Who were they trying to fool? I had lost count of the number of emails I’d seen like this. Hey, you, Internet woman, I’ve failed completely to find someone, I can’t even get myself an Internet date and guess what? It’s YOUR fault. Write me some emails, you slave, and I shall throw you some pennies. P. S. I AM BETTER THAN YOU.

  But business was business. And Business Charley liked a challenge.

  Dear Shelley,

  Thanks for contacting us. We’d be delighted to work with you but I’m afraid we need a few more details first. If you could take a quick look at the ‘How it works’ page you’ll get an idea of the level of knowledge we require before we can send emails on a client’s behalf.

  Normally this knowledge can be gathered in a quick painless phone call. Although we are not a dating service we do aim for maximum success and therefore it’s important that we know our clients well enough to send messages which represent them faithfully.

  Please either indicate a time when we can speak or send us 600 words about yourself (there’s an online breakdown of the kind of info we need) and in the meantime we’ll start your profile and acquaint ourselves with the two men you like.

  All best,

  Charlotte Lambert

  Director

  First Date Aid

  I logged into love.com and opened up Shelley’s photo. Sighing, I got my notebook out and started scribbling. She was wearing a suit. ‘Educated; professional; salary above £100 K,’ she had written in the ‘searching for’ box. Again, never a good sign. As I had had to explain to an angry woman called Jenny, from Manchester, yesterday, the reason that Giles (also from Manchester) had not replied to the email I had written for her was not that I’d failed but rather that she had terrified the living shit out of him with the financial ‘requirements’ listed on her profile. Poor Giles was a shy millionaire and I was quite sure that write-ups like Jenny’s (‘I like to be taken out for expensive cocktails and can’t pretend that I don’t appreciate the odd Swarovski necklace!’) had filled him with fear.

  Shelley’s summary of herself was a disaster: I’m ambitious, successful and extremely hard-working: time-wasters need not apply.

  Great opening gambit, I thought grimly, scribbling some notes.

  I am not here to make friends and am looking for a man whose aim is to meet a like-minded professional female with the view to settling down. [I winced.]

  I’m single because I’m very busy with my job as an executive management consultant. However, I believe I have a lot to give and therefore am seizing the day with online dating! If you are based in London and like what you see on my profile please contact me to arrange a meet.

  Best, Shelley

  I sighed. If Shelley’s best shot at ‘warmth’ was an exclamation-marked line about seizing the day, then God save the educated professionals she was expecting to snare. I stared at her uncompromising face. She was very attractive and well presented – she had a well-kept, fringed bob and very expensive-looking glasses … And her suit was clearly a knock-out. But where was the warmth? What would a potential partner see in this face other than a cold career fiend who would never be available to have a glass of wine with him of an evening? Before Yvonne had arrived tonight, screaming about her communications course, Sam and I had sat by the window and shared a bottle of wine. Granted, we were not a couple, but the point was that this was what people did when they were together. Chilled. Chatted. Relaxed. I was going to have to completely rewrite her profile before I did anything else.

  Needs to calm the hell down, I wrote in my book as I logged on to love.com to view the first of her selected men.

  Then I stopped.

  Needs to calm the hell down? This was a phrase I had heard recently. I opened Shelley’s profile write-up again. I’m single because I’m too busy. I swallowed and clicked on her picture once more. I’m ambitious, successful and extremely hard-working, said Shelley, with her ultra-straight fringe and her glasses and her smart, well-made clothes. Shelley, whose profile men would delete from their search, knowing that she would never be home from work before ten p.m. Shelley, whose profile screamed **NIGHTMARE**.

  You’re a man who’s never seen me before. At first glance do you think I’m a nightmare? I texted Hailey and Ness.

  Yes, my love, Hailey responded.

  Of course not! Ness replied, which meant yes.

  Fuck it. Fuck me! I was a nightmare!

  ‘Was, Charley, was,’ I muttered, turning my phone off. You’ve changed since you broke your leg! You sit and have wine with your housemate. You chat to your friends on the phone. You hang out with your parents in the countryside. And you haven’t done any real work for weeks!

  Yes, only because you’re bloody immobile and have absolutely no other option, I admitted. In a part of my brain that I was trying hard to bury, a voice was suggesting that perhaps I hadn’t changed all that much. And that perhaps I was actually quite similar to this sharply fringed woman on the screen.

  I looked in the mirror. I saw a girl who also had short dark hair and a very straight fringe. Very similar glasses and, if not smart clothes, at least smart pyjamas.

  This was not a comfortable state of affairs. Shelley, whom I’d never even met, felt more like my twin sister than lovely laid-back arty Ness ever had.

  I popped Shelley’s two desired dates into her Favourites folder and opened one of their profiles to take my mind off the situation. Stuart was what I liked to describe as ‘meh’. There was nothing wrong with him at all – nice-looking, clearly wealthy, probably quite intelligent … but … meh. Just nothing there. Nothing silly or odd or out-of-the-ordinary. Nothing that distinguished him from the rest of humanity. He worked in finance and probably already lived in the redbrick detached house in Surrey that his woman of choice from love.com would one day move into.

  I didn’t understand why clients wanted me to compose emails to men like Stuart. What was the point? Men like him didn’t want imagination or humour; they didn’t want clever flirting and subtle affection. In fact, they probably responded a lot better to a message from some woman’s PA asking if they were available for a forty-five-minute lunch at Club Gascon.

  I yawned, suddenly exhauste
d. It was time for bed. I’d look at the other man (William?) tomorrow. Until Shelley allowed me further access to her inner workings, this was a waste of my time.

  I turned the light off and rolled over into the Beatles-crossing-Abbey-Road posture that seemed to be the only way of getting to sleep at the moment. It hadn’t been too bad a day, really: I had thought about John’s marriage only twice, the physio had said that I’d be off crutches soon and, best of all, my PA Cassie had sent me a text saying that everyone in the office was being driven mad by Margot.

  Forty minutes later, I still hadn’t slept. I was being tortured by Shelley too-busy-for-love Cartwright. I was not as bad as her. Surely! I’d had Dr Nathan Gillies after all! We’d gone out for four years!

  No, that didn’t help. Not once in those four years had we woken up on a Sunday morning, stretched, shagged, rolled back over and gone to sleep, only to surface hours later for some bacon and the newspaper. The truth was that Dr Nathan Gillies normally saw private patients on Sundays and I generally went running, had a power brunch with Hailey, did some work, then spent the rest of the day helping at the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home. And sometimes took charcoal sketching classes with a softly spoken transvestite in Bruntsfield when I felt my cultural life needed boosting.

  Dammit. No chilling at all, then. Just a load of engagements.

  But my face was warmer than Shelley’s! And I had a sense of humour! A warm, silly, self-deprecating sense of humour, according to my friends. Poor old Iain was in Internet love with Joanna because of my emails! Me! Nice! Warm!

  My leg began to itch unbearably and I turned the light on, reaching over for the straightened-out wire coat-hanger that Dad had given me so I could scratch underneath the plaster. (‘Ignore those silly doctors,’ he’d whispered. ‘No one’s leg ever fell off after they scratched it with a coat-hanger, my girl!’)

  As I retrieved it, I caught sight of my Salutech security pass, which was still on the peg next to my door. I took it down and studied it. Bugger, bugger and bugger. My face was not warmer than Shelley’s. I might have the sense of humour that she lacked, but you’d struggle to see it in my stern, self-important pose.

  ‘Damn you, Shelley Cartwright,’ I said, shoving the coat-hanger down my plaster. It felt horrible down there, like my skin was covered with melted toffee. I winced.

  I turned the light off and wriggled down again, then turned it back on and wriggled up. ‘Cocking Cartwright,’ I muttered, firing up my laptop. I was wide awake and very pissed off, and I knew there was only one thing that would help. When in doubt: work. I logged back on to love.com and knocked out a profile for Shelley in ten minutes. As I sat back to admire my handiwork I saw, to my amusement, that Mervyn from West Glamorgan, aged twenty-two, had already added her to his Favourites. ‘Good luck, young man.’

  Good grief! Mervyn had sent her a message too! Knowing it was probably a bit naughty to go into Shelley’s mailbox before she and I had spoken on the phone, I clicked. After all, I was stuck in bed with a toffee leg while my deputy stole my job and my housemate created strange concoctions in pans. Surely I was allowed some merriment.

  Hi Shelli [I smirked]

  I’m Mervyn, your Welsh lover, a woman like you needs a man in every port, right, so I reckon you should pick me for your Welsh port love, ive just finished reading psychology at Bangor and I got a first [You stinking liar! I sniggered] and just in case your wondering i got a massive cock and baby i just want to put it up your tight frustrated little –

  ‘MERVYN!’ I yelled. ‘GOOD GOD!’

  I heard Sam get out of bed and held my breath, hoping he would just ignore me.

  He didn’t. ‘Chas? What the hell’s going on? Are you OK?’ he asked, walking into my room without knocking. Apart from his reading glasses he was naked, his manhood cradled in his hands.

  ‘Oh, my God! Get out! You horrible boy!’

  Sam didn’t move. My eyes were carefully averted but I could see that he was doing a little rearranging while he waited for an answer. Yuk.

  I sighed. ‘Sorry for the yelling, Bowes. I couldn’t sleep so I logged on to love.com and this kid just sent my new client a message about taking her up the … and then … urgh, I don’t think I can even bring myself to repeat it.’

  Sam was chuckling. ‘I like his style.’

  ‘You’re disgusting. I’m sorry I woke you up, Sam, but please feel free to go back to bed. And take your privates with you.’

  Sam shuffled off and I covered my face with a pillow to avoid having to look at his naked backside as he left. He had been wonderfully kind looking after me, but there were limits. Perhaps he’d move in with Yvonne soon. After all, they were engaged …

  Aha! See? You are nice. You’re not like Shelley! You’re niiiice. You can’t throw Sam out even though he’s disgusting and wrong and rearranges his balls in front of you! Nice Charley! Soft! Kind!

  Pathetic, said another voice. I chose to ignore it.

  ‘Well, I think I won’t reply to Mervyn,’ I muttered briskly. Was this what it was like on the Internet dating scene if you were twenty-two? Cocks and bums at first approach?

  I clicked on to Shelley’s next victim, William, thirty-six, London. On the photo alone, I was far more impressed by this choice. William was really very handsome. He was wearing a sort of rolled-over thick-ribbed jumper, which, on a fashion victim like Sam, would have seemed unbearably pretentious but on classically handsome William, who wore it with a strong chin of dark, noble stubble, was rather dashing. It made him look like a Farringdon architect with large hands and not a … Oh dear, a doctor.

  William was a doctor. An ENT surgeon at that. I had an unhealthy love for doctors. Now interested, I began to scroll through his profile.

  Shelley Cartwright certainly wasn’t wrong with this one. He had written:

  Oh blooming heck, an entire box looms ahead of me. Did anyone else find this horribly difficult? I feel like I should write something extremely clever and pepper in references to the Balzac novel I’m reading and the eclectic collection of music I own but really I haven’t got the energy. Is it OK to be honest? Because, really, I’m not here to spend months being all clever and dating a million women, I’m just looking for the rhubarb to my crumble. The jelly to my ice-cream. The spotted to my dick.

  Sorry. Knob gags probably aren’t going to impress anyone, if they even get through the love.com filter. But you get the general idea.

  As for what I’m looking for … just a nice girl. That’s the long and short of it.

  After a few seconds I realized I was smiling at William’s profile. Actually grinning, childishly, into his eyes. I often wrote to attractive men on behalf of clients but there was something about William that was just … lovely.

  Briefly I entertained the idea of joining love.com myself in the hope of maybe scoring a date with him. I liked this stubbly doctor. His eyes (calm, brown), his smile (lips slightly upturned as if someone had just made a knob gag in a silent library) and his hair (classic man style but with just the tiniest hint of disorder) – mmm. He was rather divine, I thought, in a Sean Connery accent. He even looked like a grown-up. But a fun one.

  I imagined what it would be like to wake up on a Sunday morning with William. The stubble would be there; the jumper would not. He’d be tall and warm and calm, and would wake up, then drift out for a while, to return with organic wholegrain bread and poached eggs. He would have a bottom like two perfectly baked muffins. He would not go off to work and I would not run off to the dog shelter. We’d probably roast a guinea fowl later on.

  I frowned and pinched myself hard on the boob. This, Charlotte Lambert, is not how one gets started with a new client. But within seconds I was back with William, grinning helplessly at his face.

  Fancy a client’s love interest, I texted Hailey. It was Wednesday night, one thirty a.m. They’d had a big dinner at Hibs tonight and I knew she’d be striding around a sea of stripped-down chipboard tables, throwing wine-splattered tablecloths into a huge
pile and having the craic with the bar staff. Knowing Hailey she would probably have deactivated the smoke detectors so they could puff their way through clear-up.

  No, she replied immediately. Leave him alone.

  Good advice.

  I looked back at the screen. A glowing blue bubble had popped up in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. ‘Someone has added you to their Favourites!’ it said. I clicked through.

  It was William, Favouriting me back. William thought I was hot! He was interested!

  Just as quickly, I remembered. William did not think I was hot. He thought Shelley was hot. I bristled. Why? Shelley was hard and cold! I was warm and funny! Or at least it was my ambition to become warm and funny! Was it her ambition? No! Damn Shelley cocking Cartwright! Damn her!

  Another bubble popped up. ‘Someone has sent you a message!’

  To my astonishment, I registered my pulse speeding up. I looked across the room at the mirror. ‘Are you actually hoping this is William?’ I asked myself.

  ‘Yes. What of it?’ I snapped.

  I clicked through. It was William.

  Hello! Thanks for favouriting me. Are you sure? I just spent the day with my hand up an elderly man’s nose. Understand if you wish to withdraw the interest now. I liked your capable businessy photo, though, so thought I’d hit you up.

  (Hit you up? Apparently I am eighteen years old. Are we in fact on Facebook?)

  I tried not to smile but it was hopeless. William wasn’t just handsome, he was funny. And maybe even quite sweet. I couldn’t let him go on a date with brisk Shelley! He was right up my street! Good looks, sense of humour, doctor … Boom! My holy trinity! He didn’t have that utterly devilish sexuality that John had, but, realistically, that had got me all of nowhere. And in fairness I didn’t actually know him: there was nothing to say that beneath the sheets he wasn’t hotter than … My mind drew a blank. Than a hot dog, or something.