by Neal Doran
‘Just checking it was still working. It gets a bit temperamental. I really should get a new one.’
‘I thought you’d had to buy a new one, after it was stolen on Monday?’
I kicked myself for not having checked those damned index cards one last time. To address the problem that Rachel thought Rob was me, and his mobile number, which they’d been speaking on, was mine, Hannah and Rob emailed Rachel to tell her that my phone had been nicked from the gym while I was taking a class, and I had a new phone and number — mine.
‘Of course, yes, it’s new,’ I stumbled, covering as best I could, ‘but you know how quickly technology moves these days. Out of date by the time they put it in a bag for you.’
‘It’s too bad the robbers got away, but it was very brave of you to give chase anyway.’
‘Give chase?’ I asked. Sod learning the index cards, this was something that hadn’t been mentioned by my dating interlocutors.
‘I imagine if you hadn’t just finished the advanced Tai Chi class you’d have caught up with them before they disappeared into the warren of back streets.’
‘It’s a physically demanding discipline,’ I agreed, while making a mental note to karate chop Rob for making stuff up. ‘Sometimes I’m moving so slowly it almost looks like I’m not doing it at all.’
‘It’s a shame because catching them would have provided a chance to get the poor unfortunates the help and support they obviously need.’
My heckles rose a bit as I thought about the toerags who nicked my phone getting off with a hug and a prescription for extra methadone. Until I remembered that they were imaginary.
‘And you seem to have got over your cold really quickly,’ Rachel added.
Ah, yes, the cold. I knew about this. It was the one that was responsible for changing my voice from a booming baritone on Monday to an increasingly strangled tenor on a Thursday.
‘That? Oh, yes, vanished. Almost miraculously.’
‘It may seem miraculous to you, but I told you the Echinacea powder and figwort and bark tea would have you right as rain instantly. Much better than those drug company “cures” that keep your energy low so you have to keep buying them.’
‘And it was so moreish!’
We sat there looking at each other for a few awkward moments, smiling and nodding. I was kind of transfixed by a face that didn’t seem to match figwort and conspiracy theories. Rachel looked down and absently ran a finger back and forth on the bar in front of her.
‘Sorry, where are my manners — would you like a drink?’
‘I don’t suppose they have ylang-ylang-infused green tea blends here, do they?’
‘I’ll ask,’ I said.
The barman standing across from us had overheard us and looked at me with a smirk, before shaking his head no.
‘A shame,’ Rachel told the barman. ‘They’re getting very popular and effective for providing a feeling of centred well-being. I’ll have an organic pineapple juice with freshly squeezed lime with ice, but only if the ice is from sustainably distilled water.’
‘And make sure it’s fair-trade,’ I barked, feeling as if I ought to be adding something. The barman strolled off to surreptitiously pour some Rose’s lime cordial into a glass of Britvic before picking up an ice cube to examine it, shrugging and dropping it in the glass.
‘Alcohol is a real obstacle to aligning the body’s centres of spiritual wellness,’ she said, turning back to me, ‘but we all have our weaknesses, I suppose.’
I nodded my head understandingly, and took a big swig of my chakra-sapping beer.
‘So have you ever tried urine therapy?’
The barman gave me a dirty look as a mouthful of my drink was sprayed across the bar he’d just wiped clean in front of me.
‘It’s not a great lager, but honestly it’s not that bad.’
‘Yes, that’s funny,’ she said, smiling, while upping the eye contact from earnest to intense momentarily. Her eyes really were dazzling, but I couldn’t hold her gaze, afraid she’d see into the shallows of my soul and find it wanting.
‘I was asking because I’ve just been reading a book, and was thinking it might be something I could add to my practice,’ she continued.
‘You’re a healthcare professional, right?’ I asked, slightly confused and wondering if the NHS had come up with a great new scheme to keep malingerers out of GP surgeries.
‘I prefer the term natural life enhancement therapist, but, in conventional terms, I suppose you could say that. I offer light therapy, reiki, energy-field analysis…’
The intense eye contact went up another level, and I shifted uncomfortably on my seat as I felt her undressing my aura with her eyes. While I tried to count the freckles on her nose, I told myself the great thing about meeting new people was you learnt about new things.
Things that, if you weren’t being open-minded and non-judgmental, you might have dismissed as loony quackery of the first degree.
‘So, uh, how did you get into that sort of…healing?’ I asked.
‘It’s the usual story, I suppose,’ she said. ‘When I was a child I was a sickly little thing. Conventional medicine didn’t really help at all. My parents — Dad was a medical research professor, Mum a surgeon, very successful — kept sending me off by myself to be looked at by all these different doctors, all supposedly at the top of their field. But all they did was attach a load of labels to me, that I was asthmatic, that I had nut and wheat allergies, was lactose intolerant… None of the treatments they prescribed did me any good and I was still called Rachel Fartypants at school.’
There you are, I thought to myself, there’s a person under there, vulnerable and scared just like everyone else.
‘Then when I was a teenager I discovered for myself the conspiracies at the centre of drug-centred treatment, and after catching onto reflexology and the power of crystals I’ve not had a day’s ill health.’
Oooookayyyy, I thought, maybe not quite like everybody else.
Rachel went on to tell me how everything I knew about conventional medicine was wrong, that the conditions that had been assigned to her were based on lies. I mumbled incoherent platitudes about how it was all OK as long as youhad your health, and tried to shift the conversation onto less controversial topics. But even this seemed impossible.
I tried biscuits, as we’d already chatted about biscuits. Turned out she thought there was a clear link between your favourite biscuit and areas of spiritual emptiness. My choice of Jaffa Cake pointed to a fundamental disconnect between my life in the city and the simpler, purer life of the humble fruit picker. It also suggested that I was a Gemini — annoyingly, that bit was right. She then told me it was a cake, not a biscuit.
I tried talking about football. She was currently approaching every major club in London to offer her services as a colour therapist, and thought teams could be much more effective if they let each individual player wear a coloured shirt that enhanced their particular molecular vibrations. It was around the point that she was explaining that Wayne Rooney would be happier if he was allowed to wear a kit in peach that I gave up on the evening.
She asked me about my job, and if I was really working in research into the benefits of coca leaves and other natural ingredients. I told her I mainly tried to find out how much refined sugar you’d have to add to a drink before people would be willing to buy a can of fizzy banana-flavoured water. She asked about my hobbies; I said I watched television. Rachel wouldn’t even have one in her house as apparently the radiation was enough to make even the best feng shui worthless. ‘Not that most people who watch the cursed thing would have the spiritual intelligence to understand that,’ she explained.
I said I guessed she hadn’t seen what was supposed to be happening in EastEnders this week.
She said she had an intuition I might be a great candidate for the experience of reliving the moment of delivery into the world through rebirthing. There was a bit of a lull then, mercifully broken as she got up
to go to the toilet. As soon as she was out of view, I whipped my phone out, and stabbed the speed dial for Rob and Hannah.
‘Ahoy-hoy,’ Rob answered.
‘What have you done to me? What have you done?’
‘Hey, sport! How are things going? However it is, it’s better than being at home watching soap operas, right?’
‘Did you know what kind of loon she is before you sent me out here?’
‘You’re not getting on with some of the spiritual bollocks, then?’
‘When she gets back from the bogs she’s going to tell me all about her rebirthing experience and plans for a new practice. I’m going to be on a date discussing the prospect of going back up my mum’s fanny. This is not what I signed up for!’
‘We did think she looked quirky and interesting.’
‘She looks down her nose at my choice of beer, but she’s into drinking wee!’
‘Well, your choice of beer isn’t the best,’ Rob conceded, ‘but it’s not as bad as that.’
‘That’s not the point!’ I yelled, bringing the topic back to the present. ‘The point is how did you let me get here? What was it that I did in the last ten years of sitting on my arse eating Pringles® and drinking supermarket pop made you think an alternative health guru was the woman for me?’
‘She looks like the profile pics, right? I have one word for you: hubba. It works best if you say it twice.’
‘Never mind how she looks. I thought I was meeting someone interesting and with a job that makes a real difference in people’s lives, like a surgeon, or cancer researcher or chiropodist. Now, I’m just scared what she’s going to bring back from the loos — it’s her round.’
‘We’ll just chalk this one up to experience, bud. But on the bright side, you did it! You’ve popped your blind-date cherry. Hey, date cherry, that’s a new drink for you to do some research into too — the evening’s a triumph. Anyway she’s probably already on the phone to her homeopath or whatever arranging her getaway. She’ll be going home soon.’
‘What? You think she’ll bail on me?’
‘I suspect she might be worried about the effects of your cynicism on her karma. But it’s all good practice. This will set you in good stead for Sunday afternoon.’
‘Sunday afternoon?’
‘Sunday afternoon.’
‘What’s happening Sunday afternoon?’
‘Did H not tell you what’s happening Sunday afternoon?’
‘No one’s mentioned anything about Sunday afternoon.’
‘Sunday afternoon you’ll have a great time. All you need to know.’
‘What’s Sunday afternoon?’
‘Gotta go. But well done, sport, you did us proud.’
‘What is happ…?’ I didn’t bother asking the dial tone about the plans for the weekend after Rob hastily hung up. Hand on my chin, I slumped forward at the bar and nodded towards the barman for another lager. Twenty past eight and I was about to be dumped by a stranger. Assuming I hadn’t been already — she could’ve levitated herself out of the Ladies for all I knew. The silent barman sympathetically slid the bar snacks my way as I wondered if there was a name for this feeling of being rejected by somebody you never wanted to see again in your life anyway.
I stretched across the bar and grabbed a handful of nuts and ruminated on whether one day I would be able to laugh at this evening, perhaps sitting in a restaurant with friends and my wife. Telling the story of the terrible time I had before we got together, while she laughed at an anecdote she’d heard many times before. I wondered what Hannah had made of what Rob was telling her about the evening. I should have told Rob to tell her that, if nothing else, I was pretty sure my new clothes looked good.
I grabbed another handful of nuts, but this time, easing back into my seat, I felt one drop from my hand, and into Rachel’s drink.
Didn’t she say something about childhood nut allergies?
I ducked down to peer into her grapefruit juice and lime, tipping it slightly to try and see if I really did land something in there. Too murky to tell. Then I caught a glimpse of blonde hair in the mirror heading my way, and sat back trying to look casual.
‘Daniel,’ Rachel said as she slipped back onto her stool, ‘I’m going to have to go now, but I felt there were some things I ought to tell you.’
‘Oh, righto, OK. But can I just say first that you might not want to—?’
She put her hand on my knee. ‘I think you know that this hasn’t worked out how we expected. It’s not your fault, it’s just I’m living on an emotional plane I think that you’re still on the journey towards reaching. But I’m sure you will get there…’
‘Well, y’know, I’m shocked to hear that, but before you go on, I really think you should leave that—’
‘Honestly, I’m surprised as you are. I sensed you were someone with a real empathy for the feminine side of your id when we chatted online, but maybe you can work on bringing that out. Or maybe I misdiagnosed your preparedness for a meaningful spiritual relationship. I’m human—we all make mistakes.’
‘I’ll meditate on that but honestly, just don’t—’
‘Recognising your limitations is the first step to overcoming them, so that’s wonderful. And to say thank you for being a thread in the tapestry of my life journey, I’ve given your details to a very dear friend of mine, Lars, who specialises in primal scream therapy for emotionally stunted men, so he’ll be in touch. And I also think you should consider removing processed meats and cheeses from your diet. In my professional opinion it’s causing the alarming spikes in your astral presence, and that unusual blushing I’m sure you felt conscious of when we first said hello. Of course, there’s no charge for that advice. Now was there something you felt you wanted to say to me?’
She picked up her bag and put on her coat, not really paying attention to me any more.
And as she stood up she moved to take a sip from her glass.
‘Well, I just wanted to say…cheers.’
Chapter Nine
The doors to the ambulance slammed open and I was bumped to one side by a luminously jacketed paramedic as they lowered the gurney Rachel was lying on to the pavement. The ambulance medic talked the nurses through the details of the case.
‘Twenty-six-year-old female, Rachel Evans, anaphylactic shock. Received the call from dispatch at 2017 on site 2030, intubated to clear airways and administered oxygen. Patient had no allergy warnings on person but shock thought to be brought on by reaction to a peanut. This is the boyfriend.’
‘Well, you know, technically, I’m not really her—’
‘Has she remained conscious?’ asked the nurse as Rachel wheezed into an oxygen mask.
‘Conscious, but disorientated. Blood pressure and heart rate stable,’ answered the paramedic.
‘She was just leaving, it was a blind date, and we didn’t quite hit it off—’
‘Talking?’ asked the nurse.
‘Talking, but incoherent and rambling. She kept asking for her aromatherapist.’
‘Don’t worry, Rachel, you’re in good hands now. We’ll have you right as rain in no time,’ the nurse told the increasingly puffy-looking patient as we headed inside to the A and E department, ‘and don’t you worry, sir, we’ll look after her for you.’
‘Great,’ I said, ‘but I’m not her partner or anything. It was just a date. She was leaving, and I might have dropped something in her drink. By accident.’
The nurse looked at me, and tapped a button on her beeper as Rachel was wheeled into a ward and had peach and green plastic curtains pulled around her.
‘Do you know if she’s allergic to penicillin?’
‘Sorry, I don’t know. She finds the colour tangerine quite hostile if that’s any help…’
‘If you just take a seat over there in the waiting room, we’ll come and get you if there’s any news,’ she said.
I did as I was told and found a seat within view of the nurses’ station. It was the first time I’d
been in a casualty department since I fractured my little finger when I was eight, and I was a bit disappointed that there was no child with a saucepan stuck on his head anywhere to be seen. Then I remembered that, despite the publication dates of the magazines lying around, I wasn’t actually in the nineteen fifties. There was, even at this fairly early hour, an impressive number of drink-related injuries, although they were outnumbered by pairs of anxious-looking parents waving rattling fuzzy bees into car seats. All the parents were giving dirty looks to the staggering old homeless guy whenever he came too close singing ‘coochy coochy coo’ and laughing to himself. A not quite audible TV on the wall was showing the news of a natural disaster somewhere, which helped give the A and E a suitably post-apocalyptic feel.
This was not in any of the scenarios I’d imagined for how my night out with Rachel would end. Jesus, it had been scary when she’d started choking and grabbing at her throat after her tiny sip of grapefruit juice, with its teeny bit of peanut. It had been like a movie where you saw the star react suddenly after they’d been made to take a drink by a sneaky villain and started acting as if they’d been poisoned before smiling and pointing out that they’d swapped drinks and were fine actually, thanks for asking. But this time, the acting out hadn’t stopped, and I’d shouted to the barman for help as she’d slumped to the floor. Thankfully he’d known enough about first aid to get her comfortable while I called 999 for an ambulance.
After a few minutes of standing around and me repeatedly saying, ‘We’ve got to give her air. Make sure she’s getting air,’ to a crowd that wasn’t actually there, the ambulance crew had arrived and stridden in and taken charge of the situation. Worried as I was, I couldn’t help but feel better as they calmly assumed control, gave her some kind of injection and got her on a trolley and ready for the ambulance. While we pushed our way through the London traffic and the paramedics talked to each other using lots of jargon I didn’t understand I felt as I always do whenever faced with people doing one of these important and useful jobs — that maybe I should jack in the market research, and retrain to do something that could make a difference in people’s lives. Then I saw how much they got paid, and that they had to get up early for shifts, and decided that in my own way I made a contribution to society, and vowed to go large with my next donation to the lifeboats box instead.