A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger

by Lucy Robinson

  With a start, I awoke from a dream in which I’d been following William and Shelley into a forest rave. I had no idea where I was. I stared, afraid, at a sea of waving arms and felt loud music pulse through me.

  Ah, Brixton. Yes. I was with Sam and Katy, who were taking stupid, dangerous teenage drugs. I scanned the crowd for them and found them almost immediately, leaning against a pillar to my left. Katy had her back against the pillar and Sam was kissing her hard on the mouth.

  For a few seconds I froze in horror. But eventually – slowly and quite matter-of-factly – I levered myself off the speaker and walked over to them. I tapped Katy on the shoulder and she sprang out from underneath Sam, wasted and ashamed. ‘House key,’ I said to her.

  ‘Sorry, Chas, we’re off our tits.’ She tittered.

  I held out my hand. ‘Key, please.’

  Sam – I couldn’t bring myself to look at him – grabbed my arm with the lack of respect for personal space that comes so easily to the inebriated. ‘Just a bit of fun,’ he yelled in my ear. A fleck of spit landed on the lobe and I threw his arm off me, glaring at him furiously now.

  ‘You could have any girl in here,’ I hissed at him. ‘Any girl in Brixton, in London, in the bloody United Kingdom. I asked you to leave my little sister alone and you couldn’t even do that for me.’

  ‘Oh, fucking lighten up, Charley,’ Sam slurred. ‘Everyone likes a little kiss when they’re up. You should try it yourself, let go a bit.’

  ‘Charley, I’m seeing Ruben,’ Katy squeaked. ‘We’re just fucked – it doesn’t mean anything!’

  ‘And I’m trying to get over a failed engagement, if you hadn’t forgotten,’ Sam added.

  ‘Fuck you,’ I said to him, ignoring Katy. ‘She’s twenty-two, Sam.’

  ‘She’s fit and she’s up for it,’ he shouted back.

  Rage almost blinded me. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up,’ I yelled. ‘I’m going. Seriously, if you sleep with her tonight, I’ll never speak to you again. Ever.’

  ‘Whatever.’ He turned back to Katy.

  Twenty minutes later I was slumped on Katy’s sofa, still feeling stunned. I concluded, reasonably, that tonight had not gone my way.

  I stared at the room around me, marvelling at my choice of accommodation on the worst night I’d had since breaking my leg. Hundreds of inexplicable pictures of Katy wearing a maroon catsuit and top hat were spread all over the table, which also contained the remains of a fried egg in which someone had stubbed out a fag, a half-drunk bottle of organic cider and a plastic marijuana plant with ‘Stuart’ written on a label stuck to the side of the pot.

  Enough.

  I shuffled off upstairs to Katy’s spare room – my temporary quarters – and discovered that Sam had dumped all of his things on the floor. Just looking at his stylish leather holdall I felt cross. Had he bought that to impress Katy? ‘Fuck you,’ I told his bag. And then: ‘You’d better be sleeping on the sofa tonight, Bowes. If you sleep with Katy, I’ll fucking kill you.’

  I got into bed and pulled the duvet over my head. My flight was at six thirty-five a.m., which meant I had precisely forty-five minutes before it was time to get up again, a prospect that would normally have horrified me. Right now, however, I didn’t care. The sooner tomorrow started, the sooner I could get back to what I did best, which was being Business Charley. Business Charley could deal with anything. She was a fearless Amazon. The toughest ever to come out of Scotland. Neither Sam nor Shelley could fuck with her. And Margot had better watch out.

  I rolled over to attempt some sleep but became quickly aware that the room was not dark. Sam’s laptop was glowing, with freaky cyber light, on the floor. ‘Fuck off,’ I told it crossly.

  Nothing happened. I threw off my cover and stormed over to snap it shut.

  But then something caught my eye. Something extraordinary.

  On Sam’s computer screen there was a brick-coloured webpage with CYBER LOVE ASSISTANTS emblazoned across the top. Cyber Love Assistants? And, taking up half of the page, the picture that had just caught my eye was of Shelley Cartwright.

  Slowly, I sat down on my bed, my mind racing. A million explanations scrambled over each other but none made sense. I looked more closely. Not only was Shelley’s photo there, so was her love.com dating profile. It looked sort of like a screen grab. To the right of the screen grab there was some writing:

  Client: Dr William Thomas

  Candidate: ‘Shelley’

  Candidate’s dating website: www.love.com

  Client’s ranking for this candidate: *****

  Emails to date with this candidate: 11.

  I sat back, dumbfounded. And as I did so, a notebook next to Sam’s laptop caught my eye. ‘Polpo,’ Sam had scrawled. ‘Down Regent Street, turn left at Beak St then about 200 yards on the left - 7.30 p.m.’ He had underlined the time so savagely that his pen had scored through at least two pages.

  I looked back at his screen. Shelley stared at me, cold, confident and businesslike. ‘What on earth is going on?’ I whispered.

  At the bottom of the screen I noticed a button marked ‘User Account: Sam Bowes’. Slowly, gently – as if trying to avoid waking a poisonous snake – I reached out and clicked on the button. My head felt fuzzy and confused. Sam had a Cyber Love Assistants user account. And some connection with Shelley and William. Did this mean … ?

  It did. There was a control panel, complete with a message from ‘Cyber Love Assistants HQ’.

  Sam, I’ve had an email from William Thomas saying he’s not happy about the emails you’ve sent on his behalf to someone called Shelley. Far too intimate and personal apparently. Can you call me tomorrow, please. Regards, Steve Sampson

  I snatched my hand back from Sam’s computer. There was a clamouring in my head as I tried to process what I was seeing. Sam had written William’s emails? Sam was a ghost-writer just like me? And of all the people in the universe he could be writing for … he was writing for William?

  No! Sam was a bread-munching womanizing rotter, with the romantic capabilities of a chicken Kiev! There was no way! William had pulled me apart! Sam would never be capable of that!

  I decided I must be hallucinating. Apart from anything else, Cyber Love Assistants was an American company. If they’d opened up for business in the UK, I’d have known.

  At a loss, I clicked back to the previous page and stared at Shelley’s picture again. Above the photo there was a button saying ‘messages’. Too bewildered to remember about things like other people’s privacy I clicked on through and gasped, for there it was: the entire chain of correspondence between Shelley and William.

  I like you just a bit too much for some bird from the bloody Internet, William had written last Friday. There’s something about you.

  Then, at the end of the chain, I saw something that floored me.

  Five days ago I’d messaged William on Shelley’s behalf to finalize the date and explain why no further contact would be possible before they met. Here, in Sam Bowes’s drafts folder, was a response he’d never sent. I read it with a hand clamped firmly over my mouth as if to prevent myself shouting.

  Dear Shelley,

  This is the strangest email you’ll ever receive, probably. I begin it with an apology as the contents may be upsetting or offensive to you. Please be aware that this is absolutely not my wish.

  My name is Sam and I am a dating ghost-writer. A company called Cyber Love Assistants pays me to write messages on behalf of clients who for whatever reason can’t do it themselves. William, who you’ve been writing to, is one of their clients and it’s me who’s been writing his messages. It turns out that he’s alarmed by how personal our exchange has become and I don’t blame him. I would never normally enter into correspondence like this on behalf of someone else.

  But I found myself unable to stop. I don’t know what it is about you but I’ve been absolutely hooked on our exchange. I realize that it is incredibly unprofessional to break anonymity and contact you like this – pa
rticularly using the dating service – but having thought about it long and hard I decided I had no choice.

  Shelley, given that it’s me you’ve been talking to, I wondered if there was any way you’d consider

  FUCK NO BALLS SHIT COCK

  The email ended and with it any hope I had of pretending this wasn’t happening.

  Sam, my flatmate, had written William’s emails. Sam had got under my skin so badly that I’d turned into a lovestruck fool and tried – in a hideously embarrassing, immoral way – to intervene on the date. Furthermore it appeared that the exchange had made Sam go as mad as I had: we must have been in Polpo for exactly the same reason.

  I put my head in my hands. What did this mean? Had I actually fallen in love with Sam? PLEASE, GOD, NO!

  I tried to think about it calmly. I imagined Sam standing in front of me right now. He’d be wearing silly trendy clothes and he’d have the boldness and confidence that only the very attractive among us naturally possess. He would probably be munching a Nutella sandwich and apologizing, with a slightly frightened look on his face, for getting messed up on drugs and snogging my little sister.

  No. I was not in love with Sam. If I was sure of anything, it was that. Absolutely, categorically no way.

  But he’s William! my head yelled.

  I shut my eyes. This was a mess.

  I had known within minutes of meeting Sam that I would never be interested in him, regardless of his looks. He was amusing, sweet and talented at acting, but he also embodied the type of man that left me cold: he was slovenly and childish and he organized his existence around sex, food and sport.

  Yet the fact that he had written such honest, brave emails – which, I couldn’t deny, had given me a hefty dose of self-awareness – made things very confusing.

  But then: No no NO! I thought. He just writes a good email! There’s nothing there!

  My bipolar thoughts were interrupted by the front door banging.

  ‘Night, then,’ I heard Katy say. She sounded quite awkward and a few seconds later I heard her brogues scurrying past my door en route to her attic bedroom. Somewhere among the scattergun thoughts in my head I registered relief that she was going to bed alone. Which was lucky, because if he had slept with her I would have ended his life.

  I could hear Sam shuffling around in the sitting room below me and tried to imagine him lurching as he turned the sofa into a bed. Did I have feelings for this drunk, pill-popping man?

  No, came the instinctive response. It was pleasingly firm. No, I don’t. I never have done and I never will do. The emails can stay in cyberworld where they belong. They’re nothing more than a fantasy! And I promised myself, no more fantasy. Ever again.

  And there it was. The answer. No more fantasy, ever again. Love and the Internet were too messy, period. I was getting out.

  Satisfied, I rolled over and slept until my alarm clock went off thirty minutes later. Then, exhausted but hopeful at the prospect of a fresh start, I crept out of Katy’s house into a cold, dripping street where I flagged down a taxi and fled for the airport. It was only a matter of hours until I could be back at my desk, ready to inject some order and control into my life.

  Chapter Nine

  I glanced over at Margot’s desk. It was nine thirty-two a.m. and she still wasn’t there. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, trying to manage the vague sense of foreboding that was brewing inside me. I didn’t want to delay The Conversation any longer. I wanted Margot to be listening to the speech I’d planned on the plane. And then I wanted her to give me my bloody job back. And, ideally, to stop wearing skirts that showed off her muff. But small steps.

  I’d been at my desk just an hour but already I was feeling better. My inbox had been organized and prioritized and I was working steadily through the surplus that I’d been unable to address in the past few days. I was ready to take control again. Once I’d dealt with Margot, nothing could stop me. ‘Raaaaaarrr,’ I whispered to encourage myself. ‘Raaaarrr!’

  I glanced out of the window at the long, snaking driveway but there was still no sign of her. In spite of my frustration at Margot’s absence I felt a growing sense of peace. It was a really beautiful autumn morning and a soft, low light played with the yellow leaves still clinging to the sycamores. Last night’s painful events were locked away in a filing cabinet until further notice.

  I buzzed through to Cassie. ‘Have you heard from Margot?’

  ‘She’s out at BBC Radio Scotland,’ Cassie replied. ‘Remember?’

  ‘Er, no?’

  Cassie got up from her desk and came through. ‘She told me she’d email you … They called asking for an interview so she’s doing it. She should be on air in about ten minutes … Perhaps the email got lost.’ There was a pause. ‘She didn’t email you, did she?’ Cassie said.

  I couldn’t help but smile. Cassie was not only an awesome PA but she disliked Margot as much as I did. ‘Right,’ I said briskly. ‘I’ll call her now. In the meantime, can you tell John that Margot is about to do an interview for the BBC without my knowledge or consent?’

  ‘Little slag,’ John shouted, a few minutes later. ‘She didn’t even tell me!’

  ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of her. Her phone’s off but I’ve got a number for the breakfast-show producer, Chris.’

  ‘What do they want her to talk about? Fuck, Lambert, she must not be seen to be promoting Simitol! We could end up having to withdraw the bloody product from the market before it’s even launched!’

  ‘I know. Look, I have to go.’

  ‘Don’t let her shaft us,’ John said. He sounded very nervous.

  Finally, on my fifth call, I got through to Chris the producer. Margot came on sounding extremely irritated. ‘We’re on air in two minutes,’ she said officiously. ‘It’ll have to be quick.’

  ‘I’ll take as long as I need,’ I said in a steely voice. ‘We are not at liberty to do any media interviews until the launch next Friday. I need to know exactly what they –’

  ‘You went to London,’ Margot butted in curtly. ‘What was I supposed to do? They needed a breakfast interview and, as your deputy, I had no option but to step in.’

  ‘You had a million other options, such as calling me, or asking Cassie to get hold of me, or even talking to John. I won’t tolerate any more of this sort of behaviour,’ I added stoutly. She gasped but I held firm, surprising even myself. No more fucking around. This is MY job! ‘For now, though, Margot, I need to know exactly what’s going on at Radio Scotland.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go and do this interview,’ she said tightly. ‘Perhaps you’d forgotten, during your jaunt to London, that we’re in the middle of a really critical time right now.’

  ‘I can assure you that I have forgotten nothing,’ I replied. ‘Now kindly stop talking in that pissy tone and tell me what the interview is about.’

  I listened for a few seconds, then interrupted. ‘No. Out of the question. The interview’s pulled. You can’t answer questions like that. You work in brand comms, Margot. You know that’s out of the question.’

  ‘What? The interview starts in thirty seconds – I simply cannot and will not –’

  ‘You will. I am the director of communications and I am telling you right now to stand down. Conducting this interview would be a complete breach of protocol. It flies in the face of just about every regulation we’re bound by.’

  I put the phone down and breathed out. My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding. As I swung my chair round to face my desk, someone started clapping slowly. ‘And she’s back,’ John said, from my doorway. He strode in, beaming at me in a way that still roasted my loins just a little bit. Rather than taking a chair, he sat on my desk, right in front of me.

  ‘Yes. Lambert’s back,’ I confirmed, trying not to grin.

  No more fantasizing over unsuitable men, I reminded myself. I cut short the half-grin and turned back to my screen as if to dismiss him. Unfortunately my mouse was right next to John’s b
ottom so I was a bit stuck.

  ‘How’s that leg?’ he asked, eyes pinned to my thigh.

  ‘Painful.’ I used a pen to get my mouse back and opened a document.

  John was undeterred. ‘Would a massage help? Or some reiki. I’m a reiki master in my spare time. I could bewitch your leg.’

  I tried hard to control my smile. John still knew how to work me. ‘No, John, I do not want you to perform reiki on my leg.’

  ‘Could I maybe just run my hand along it, then? Solely for medical-research purposes.’

  I felt the old urge to play the outraged schoolmistress and marvelled at how quickly it had come back now that I knew William was not real. But I had to resist any sort of flirting. No more fantasy. ‘I don’t think you’d enjoy my leg, John,’ I said neutrally. ‘It’s full of metal pins.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ He jumped off the desk and crouched, placing his hand firmly on my ankle. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘John! What are you doing?!’ I said, less forcefully. He was a nightmare. And I wasn’t much better.

  His large hand ran slowly up my shin, fingers feeling gently around the bones. ‘Blimey, Lambert, you’ve got a full-on toolkit in here.’ His hand kept moving up but after a stern look from me he stopped at my knee.

  ‘Off,’ I said, quietly.

  John stood up, feigning hurt. ‘You’re wearing stockings,’ he remarked, as he walked back over to the doorway. ‘Delightfully Victorian and sexy, Lambert. Makes up for the bionic leg. Keep it up.’

  ‘I’ll let you know how it goes with Margot after I’ve spoken to her,’ I told him. I wanted him out of my office before I started enjoying his company too much.

  ‘Margot’s a pain in the arse,’ John said. ‘You can deal with her, no problem. Power-crazy little seahorse. She did well to hold the fort when you –’

  ‘What did you just call her?’ I asked, starting to laugh.