A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger

by Lucy Robinson

  ‘Just sizing it up,’ I told him. ‘Thought I might give the acting thing a go some time …’

  Sam smiled indulgently. I couldn’t bear how handsome he was.

  ‘Where’s your colonial moustache?’ I honked, into the ensuing silence.

  ‘It’s a fake,’ he replied. ‘I spent six weeks trying to grow a moustache – or any sort of facial hair, really – and just ended up with patchy bum-fluff. The wigs mistress designed it especially for me. You like?’

  I nodded, unable to think of anything to say.

  And here we go again, my head said. It doesn’t work in the real world. It only works when we’re emailing. WE CAN’T COMMUNICATE. IT’S DOOMED.

  For once, my head had a point. I was sitting alone with Sam, bursting with things I wanted to say, yet I was mute.

  Which meant – another scrunch of fear in my stomach – that I was going to have to put my plan into action.

  In slow motion, I put my hand into my bag and pulled out my laptop, which I handed to Sam. It was all ready to go.

  He took it, clearly confused, as I dragged out the gigantic black spaceship that my parents called a laptop on to my own knee. I opened it up and there on the screen was an instant messenger dialogue box with a cursor flashing patiently. Charley says, it read.

  ‘Er … ?’ Sam said. I nodded to indicate that he should open up the laptop on his knee. Which he did, with a slightly bemused smile.

  ‘Chas … ?’ he said, peering at the screen, which looked very similar to mine. ‘What’s going on?’

  I ignored him and started typing.

  Charley: Hello

  I screwed up my eyes, praying he’d jump on board. And a few seconds later, I heard the sound of fingers typing.

  Sam: I repeat. What the fuck’s going on, homie?

  What the fuck was ‘going on’ was that I was going to tell him how I felt. Using a very romantic mode of communication known as instant messaging. I didn’t care if it was the most soulless expression of love in the universe: the fact was our lives had changed for ever because of our online conversations.

  Email worked for us. Talking didn’t. Not yet.

  As the Heathrow Express had powered towards Paddington earlier, I had created instant-messenger accounts in anticipation of this chat. And the lovely thing was that I felt no compulsion to plan what I was going to say. I knew that, when the time came, my fingers would start typing, just like they had during those spine-tingling hours in October when ‘William’ and ‘Shelley’ had been emailing each other. It had been as effortless as breathing.

  So here I was, facing a darkened sea of seats, ready to send a message of sweet love on Dad’s gigantic boulder of a laptop. Shelley probably had a search party out by now and I had to move quickly.

  I took a deep breath.

  Charley: So, I wanted to talk to you about us.

  Charley: don’t seem to be able to do it face to face

  Charley: and, erm, I devised this little plan.

  There was an excruciating pause.

  Sam: I’m listening.

  Charley: Bowes, I

  Charley: sorry. SAM.

  Charley: Sam, I’m afraid our emails back in October have turned my head.

  Sam: Oh come on Chas, me too! You know it wasn’t just you! Look at all the changes we’ve made!

  Charley: hang on. I’m not just talking jobs ’n’ lifestyle ’n’ shit. I’m talking

  Charley: erm

  Charley: feelings.

  Charley: specifically, feelings towards you.

  There it was. I couldn’t turn back now.

  Sam removed his hands from the keyboard, which threw me. Was he about to run? Or was he just ready to listen?

  He picked up his hands again and put me out of my misery.

  Sam: I’m still listening. X

  Charley: I sort of fell a bit in love with Willia,

  Charley: sorry, Williannm

  Charley: ARRGH! WILLIAM

  Charley: fucking messenger

  Sam: it’s ok Chas. I’m right here dude, you don’t need to stress

  Charley: thanks.

  Charley: William. And when I realized it was you, I thought Oh well that’s over then

  I inhaled slowly. I knew it was going to be nerve-racking. I just had to do it.

  Charley: but it seems that it’s not over

  Charley: and that it sort of doesn’t matter who wrote those emails

  Charley: I feel the same way about the writer whoever he is.

  Sam didn’t move or say anything. Turning ever so slightly I could see there was a blush on his neck, spreading out underneath the soft downy hairs where his hairline ended and his neck started. I longed to throw my laptop into the orchestra pit and hug this soft downy neck.

  However, my more pressing concern was that Sam wasn’t saying anything. And so I took things up a level. A substantial level.

  Charley: basically Sam I’m saying that I’ve come to realize that I’m in love with you.

  Still nothing.

  Charley: I know you don’t feel the same, that’s ok.

  Charley: and I don’t expect anything from this conversation other than

  Charley: I dunno. Confirmation that you don’t feel the same. Just for my records, you know …

  I stopped typing, even though I wanted to add two thousand more sentences persuading Sam to love me. But I’d promised myself: keep it simple. Say what you need to say, and if he’s not forthcoming, get the hell out. Put a few hundred miles between you. Get back to Malcolm.

  After what seemed like several lifetimes, Sam began to write. I felt like I was having a heart attack.

  Sam: you smell of Malcolm.

  Charley: You are jealous.

  Sam sniggered.

  How the fuck can you be sitting there cracking jokes? I thought desperately. Are you mad? Blind? Did you not just see what I wrote?

  Sam started writing again.

  ‘THERE THEY ARE,’ hissed a loud voice.

  Sam stopped writing.

  The voice had been a full-on pantomime whisper and it had come from somewhere above me. With a sinking feeling, I looked up and saw two heads poking out from the box we’d sat in tonight, staring furtively down at me. Of course it was Shelley and William. And of course they were goggling at us.

  I looked back at my computer, which had just pinged a message in.

  Sam: We have company

  Charley: Permit me to deal with this

  Sam: Actually Chas, I don’t think I can do this.

  Sam: this conversation.

  Sam: I think I have to stop it here, I’m really sorry.

  NO! I thought desperately. No! Shelley is not ruining this for me!

  I put the computer down and stood up.

  ‘Shelley, bugger off,’ I shouted. ‘And William too.’

  There was a stunned silence as the two protruding heads looked at each other, then back down at me in astonishment. ‘Us?’ Shelley barked.

  ‘Yes, you. Bugger off.’

  Nothing happened.

  ‘ARE YOU DEAF?’ I was getting angry now. ‘BUGGER OFF. I don’t want or need your help. Or your interference. Just leave us alone, OK?’

  ‘Of all the ungrateful …’ Shelley began, in outraged tones.

  ‘Pah,’ William added helpfully.

  They went, shaking their expensively coiffured heads.

  I closed my eyes for a split second before turning back to Sam. I needed to be calm while we had this conversation.

  But when I turned round, Sam had gone.

  My laptop sat silently on the floor, abandoned.

  My insides plummeted out of me and down through the stage, landing in a stricken pile in some dank underground wardrobe store. I had just told Sam I was in love with him and he’d fled. I felt my face go red. And then it crashed down on me, an awful, terrible shame.

  It took me over. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have believed, for one millisecond, that Sam would be in
terested? I passed my hand over my face. I had to leave this place, fast.

  I hauled the laptops into my satchel and slid off into the wings, checking one last time that I hadn’t left anything. Satisfied, I turned to go, but something caught my eye.

  It was Sam, walking back onstage. ‘No, wait, Chas!’ He laughed, as if we’d just been giggling over some sherry and shortbread together.

  ‘I have to go,’ I said tightly. ‘Forget what I said. Bye.’

  I turned and left.

  I heard Sam begin to trot after me and, accordingly, I broke into a run. I was not going to allow him to embarrass me any more than he had done. I shot off up the stairs I’d arrived down and made it almost to the top before he managed to grab one of my mud-caked walking shoes. I pulled against him and the shoe came off; I scrambled up the rest of the stairs towards the door.

  ‘STOP!’ I carried on without my shoe. ‘Oi! Cinderella! Get a grip!’

  I sprinted on up but, just as I got to the door, Sam rugby-tackled me. ‘Chas!’ he yelled, half laughing, as I crashed to the floor with him wrapped round my middle.

  ‘Get the fuck off me,’ I hissed. I wriggled hard but he wouldn’t let go.

  ‘Fucking stay still!’ He was properly laughing now.

  How dare he? Did he think this was funny?

  ‘Charley,’ he said, struggling to contain me, ‘when I said I couldn’t do it, I meant I couldn’t have this conversation with you online. I wanted to have it face to face!’

  ‘Bullshit,’ I replied angrily. ‘You got up and walked off.’

  ‘FUCKING STOP WRIGGLING!’ Sam yelled. ‘FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!’

  I stopped. I had very little fight left in me anyway, plus I couldn’t guarantee that the crotch of my dog-walking jeans wouldn’t split open if I carried on in this manner. They’d been wearing thin for a very long time.

  ‘Thank you,’ Sam said. ‘If I let you go, do you promise not to run?’

  ‘S’pose.’ I sounded so sullen that Sam burst out laughing again. He let me go and pulled himself up, holding out a hand to pull me up too. I ignored it and stood up under my own steam, eyes fixed on the black wall opposite me. This was far too narrow a corridor to be trapped in with Sam.

  There was a pause while he waited – in vain – for me to meet his eye.

  ‘Chasmonger,’ he said quietly. He took my hand and I flinched. ‘Please stop being angry. I went to turn off the little camera onstage. Otherwise all of the cast would be watching and listening to us from the dressing-room monitors. Look.’ He led me to another private box that overlooked the stage. It was full of screens and dials and switches, and there was a large microphone sticking out of the desk.

  ‘This is where the deputy stage manager sits,’ Sam explained. ‘She tells everyone when to change the scene and the lights and the music and stuff. And look, here’s the monitor where everyone’d be able to watch us and listen to us.’

  Grudgingly, I looked. There was indeed a monitor, showing the empty stage. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Well, please tell me what you wanted to tell me and then I’ll be off. I need to shower.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ he said. ‘I feel like Malcolm’s here with us.’

  I tried very hard to keep a straight face but it was difficult. Sam was still clutching my muddy shoe, I was covered with dog hair and both of us had broken a sweat from our wrestle.

  And once I’d started laughing, I couldn’t stop. I sat down, rested my head against the deputy stage manager’s desk and shook with mirth. ‘I came down and told you I was in love with you using Dad’s spaceship,’ I cried. ‘And then you rugby-tackled me. And I smell. And we had a shouting match. Bowes, I’m so sorry. Of course we’re not meant to be together.’

  Sam laughed, but then stopped. Without warning he stuck a finger out and trailed it down the back of my hand.

  It was like receiving an electric shock.

  He withdrew it but I continued to stare at my hand, enchanted, as if waiting for a silver line to appear where his finger had been.

  Sam was leaning back in his chair, watching me. I tried to look at him but I couldn’t. I had no idea what was going to happen.

  ‘You don’t need to say anything,’ I said, after a charged pause. ‘I understand.’

  Sam smiled kindly at me.

  ‘And no kindly smiles,’ I added. ‘I’ll survive this. I’ve survived worse.’

  There was another electric shock, this time on my left hand. I looked at it and saw that Sam had put his over it. He looked nervous but also quite happy. ‘Charley,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve changed my life.’

  ‘Yes yes yes. But you only like small girls. We’ve been friends too long. Rah rah rah WHATEVER.’

  There was a pause. ‘Have you quite finished?’ Sam asked.

  I thought about it, shrugged and nodded. Yes, that seemed about enough.

  ‘And – Chas, will you look at me, you freak?’

  I looked at him.

  ‘And stop looking like you couldn’t care less what I was saying?’

  In spite of myself I was smiling again.

  ‘Your emails made me realize I was wasting my life. Job-wise,’ he added hastily. ‘I’m not taking any shit from you about my Nutella.’

  I waved him on.

  ‘But the rest,’ he continued, ‘the rest had to change. All because of you. And the thing is, bruv, I did try to fight it, when I found out it was you. No offence but it’s not convenient to be in love with someone like The Chasmonger.’

  Before I even processed what he’d just said, I was taken back to the letter I’d read this morning from Jack to Granny Helen: It’s not very convenient to love you, I can’t deny it. If I were to dream up my perfect girl she probably wouldn’t be you. She’d be a bit more bloody respectful for a start!

  And then my mouth dropped open as I realized what Sam had said. I looked up at his face, which was suddenly vulnerable. I hadn’t known he had a vulnerable face.

  I had to be certain. ‘Sorry, Sam. Did you just say it wasn’t convenient –’

  ‘To love you,’ Sam said quietly. ‘Yes, you knob. That’s what I said.’

  I felt a delicious tingling somewhere inside me. Not somewhere rude: somewhere pure and lovely, where cherubs romped. Sam sensed it and relaxed. He gave my hand a squeeze.

  ‘Could you just confirm precisely what you’re getting at?’ I asked him. My smile was getting a bit out of control.

  Sam sighed. ‘Oh, you’re a knobber,’ he remarked. ‘But a funny one. A challenging one, a clever one. The kind of knobber that people can’t take their eyes off. You have no idea how much you brighten up a room just by being in it, Chas.’ As well as pleasure, I felt relief at his words. Of course Sam and I could talk to each other face to face. Of course we didn’t need emails to communicate. We just needed honesty.

  Sam sat forward on his chair again so that he was closer to me. He slid his hands to my forearms, which went a bit barmy. ‘To confirm, Chasmonger, I’ve gone and fallen in love with you. My poor innocent heart has been stolen. By a bloody Lambert!’

  Somewhere in the distance, a great cheer went up, followed by the sound of clinking glasses and excitable laughter.

  ‘You’re missing your party,’ I heard myself say. I was so happy I might explode. Sam ignored me.

  ‘I think we should do one third scientific experiment,’ he announced. ‘We’ve kissed twice already, how’s about best of three?’

  My insides somersaulted. ‘Good idea. Although I was pretty sure after experiment number one,’ I admitted.

  ‘Me too. What’s wrong with us? Why the hell didn’t we just say?’

  Further cheers erupted in the bar downstairs, followed by the rather unexpected sound of running feet. I looked nervously into the still-empty auditorium but Sam reached over and turned my face back towards his. ‘No one can find us here,’ he said confidently. ‘This is our secret science lab. Where we conduct important experiments.’

  I shivered as he touched the s
ide of my neck.

  There was a long pause, during which I felt as if I was fizzing over like champagne.

  ‘Are we having another standoff?’ I asked eventually.

  Sam grinned. ‘No.’ And then he kissed me properly.

  It felt right. More than right. I slid my arms round his neck and we leaned in closer, kissing even more deeply. It was the nicest kiss I’d ever, ever had. It was full to bursting with loveliness, with kindness, understanding, humour. It was a little bit beautiful. No, it was extremely, supremely beautiful.

  Sam stopped kissing me and hugged me tightly. His head was buried in my not-very-lovely hair, and I could feel his warm breath on my neck, which meant he must be getting whiffs of Malcolm but it didn’t matter.

  I pulled back to kiss him again, just as I heard a door smash open and a familiar foghorn of a voice yell, ‘THERE THEY ARE!’

  Sam and I sprang apart, peering over the edge of the box at the auditorium. Shelley was standing at the door, jumping up and down, pointing at us, and pouring in through the doors to her left and right were champagne-wielding audience members. All cheering, whooping and pointing at us.

  Hailey came thundering down the central aisle, shouting, ‘That was like the fucking Archers on acid! Amazing!’

  I looked at Sam, bewildered, as someone started doing three cheers. For a few seconds he seemed as confused as I was but then, finally, something dawned on him. He moved my elbow, which was resting on the stage manager’s desk, and grimaced. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Oh dear, dear me.’

  ‘What?’

  The whooping downstairs was continuing unabated. ‘HAVE ANOTHER SNOG!’ someone yelled. How the hell did they know we’d been kissing?

  Sam pointed to a switch with a red light glowing under it. ‘You flicked the switch when you did your dramatic collapse on this desk a few minutes ago. That’s what the deputy stage manager uses to talk to the audience when they’re in the bar. That switch and this microphone.’

  I stared in horror at the microphone, which was inches away from where our mouths had been during the preceding conversation. ‘So we just broadcast everything across the bar?’