The Love Market

by Carol Mason

‘Well, there’s not much more to say. We just clicked. We only had four days together but it wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other: there was this tremendous connection between us.’

  ‘Only four days! What happened then?’

  ‘Well, Patrick had to leave.’ It feels so odd being plunged back into the memory. ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘He had to go back to Hong Kong. And he had to go back to his life.’

  I don’t tell her that he was married. That he’d just got married that year. That my impression was that he’d somehow found himself in his marriage a bit by accident. Meeting me seemed to confirm a doubt in him that was already there.

  She looks as though I’ve lost her again.

  ‘I remember thinking I’d never get over him. That this was what having your heart broken was about. And then I met your dad.’

  And Mike was Federal Express to forgetting. He was so easy compared to Patrick. And much as I loved him for his guilelessness and his gentleness, it wasn’t a rip-me-open sort of love. But I’d already decided I didn’t want that ever again. ‘And obviously I fell in love with your dad...’

  Aimee falls silent for a moment or two, then says, ‘Do you wish you’d been married to Patrick rather than to Dad?’ Her voice sounds sleepy now, and I love her so much in this artless little second where her attention is slipping.

  ‘No. But you never forget your first love. That’s just the way life is. So when you meet yours one day, recognise him for what he is: someone you will probably think of many times, and wonder about, over the course of your life.’

  ‘Did you always want to set people up after that?’

  ‘Not consciously. But maybe my choices in life that came after were all secretly leading me to it. Who knows?’

  She seems to think about this. ‘Maybe I could go into the Love Market business with you when I grow up. I hardly think I’m going to have to know all about Peter the Great to know about a few men and a few women and whether they might like each other.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I tell her. She yawns and reaches to stroke Molly. I trace a finger over the part of her ear that’s curled in like a dry leaf.

  ‘Maybe you can tell me more about it tomorrow.’ She moves her head just slightly, to look at me. ‘Oh, and, erm, Rachel invited me to the party.’

  ‘Did she?’ I ask, a little surprised. ‘And you’re going to go?’

  ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

  When I walk out of her room, I go straight into mine, to my jewellery box. From underneath a tangle of beads and baubles, I pull out the folded piece of paper he sent me, and read.

  Eight

  From the top of Ham Rong Mountain, a grey mist hovers over the village of Sa Pa, north Vietnam, like an exhalation of breath on a cold day. The red roofed settlements of hill tribe life sparkle through the mist like a handful of rubies beneath a transparent, floating scarf. Little stirs across the never-ending paddy fields from this great height, just a feeling in you, that you are somehow standing alone at the moment when a part of you grows up, something inside you changes forever.

  I don’t know why I’ve come here, or why I now feel a part of me will always be unable to leave. I don’t really believe in the concept of one true love. Or that there is one person in this world that is meant for us, and we either find them or we find something inferior. But I do believe that the more unusual the way you meet somebody the higher significance you’d give it.

  For the Red Dao tribe, easily identified by the red coin headdresses worn by the women, marriage is a commodity that can be bartered for in the price of a song. The Saturday night ritual of the Sa Pa Love Market isn’t what it used to be before it fascinated tour operators and travellers worldwide—bringing me there and bringing her there. And now hundreds are drawn here, to The Love Market. The Red Dao are private people. Few will accept your American dollars in exchange for your right to take their photograph. On Saturday nights, Red Dao hill tribe youths of both sexes gather in a weekly courting ritual. The males strut around doing a sort of tribal version of Harry Connick Jnr, in the hope of attracting a pretty young female. The songs are rarely romantic. What does any fifteen-year-old boy know about romance anyway? Mostly it’s a bragging rite chronicling the boy’s physical prowess, or their strong work ethic and ability to be head of a family. But it’s well known that the men can usually be found sleeping off opium in the shade of a lethargic water buffalo, while it is the women who do the work. But in the Red Dao culture, everyone is meant to find a mate, so on that one Saturday night at the Love Market, when they walk off into the sunset with a faith in each other that’s built on nothing more than a melody sung in harmony, you can’t help but wish that finding a soul mate was as simple as that in your own village square.

  It definitely wasn’t as simple as that for me. I met her there. She was drawn there for reasons not unlike my own. I won’t give her a name. By not giving her a name, I am pretending now that she never really existed. I won’t say I fell in love. That would complicate things more than they already are. If a marriage is wrong, you can end it. But only a noble coward soldiers on. Best to ruin three lives rather than have two people be happy. Because, as I’ve said, I don’t believe that there is one person for us, and we either find them or we don’t.

  I didn’t have to sing to her. Fortunately Western mating practices conspired and I didn’t have to work that hard. Being a journalist, you’d think the most natural thing for me to do would be to have taken her photograph. But I had a sophisticated camera I’d bought in Hong Kong and I hadn’t quite figured out how to work it. All the photos I took of her came out in shadow. But that shadow follows me now wherever I go. Maybe one day it won’t.

  Six months after I returned to England, this came in the post. He didn’t even write a letter, just put: A piece I wrote on spec for National Geographic, which they rejected.

  ~ * * * ~

  Years later, Mike found it when we were Spring cleaning. We ended up having a huge argument. Probably because I got so defensive about why I’d kept it. I remember tearing it up in front of him, and throwing it in the bin, out of anger, not capitulation, to prove something more to myself really, than to him. Then I went to bed devastated that I’d destroyed something that had been so meaningful to me. I felt like I was relinquishing a part of myself to Mike that he had no right to own, and what’s more, he hadn’t even asked me to; I’d done it to spite someone—probably myself.

  A while later he came into the room, holding out a piece of paper. It was Patrick’s crumpled letter. He’d dug it out of the bin and taped it back up.

  ‘I don’t want you to think you can’t keep something because I’m going to feel threatened by it,’ he said. ‘Because I’m not.’

  I should have said throw it away. Instead, taking it from him seemed like an acknowledgement of Mike’s insufficiency and my conflict. He looked at me for a while as though establishing a truce. Then he got into bed. It was clearly just one of many glitches to me that he was used to now. I lifted my head off the pillow and looked at him lying on his back staring at the ceiling. He turned his face toward me, smiled. Then he leaned over and kissed my cheek. It was over, for him. Our marriage wasn’t going to end over a letter.

  But in a strange way, it did.

  Nine

  ‘Special delivery.’ I am surprised to find Mike standing at my door, with Aimee.

  I am half dressed to go out with Jacqui for a drink. Mike was going to pick up Aimee and take her back to his place, as he gets her every second weekend.

  ‘I don’t understand…’ Aimee slinks past me into the house, leaving Mike and me facing one another on our doorstep. It must be so odd to have to knock at the door of your old home, and not be able to just walk in.

  Since Mike left, I can only imagine that our relationship has been as civilised as break-ups get. Mike is fair. I am fair. And we both have Aimee’s best interests at heart. Because of Mike’s night-owl hours at the radio station, and Aimee
being in school all day, he doesn’t get to see her as much as he’d like. We made a deal that, in addition to every second weekend, he can see her as much as is convenient for everyone during the week. He just has to give us a little bit of warning so we don’t trample each other’s plans.

  ‘She’s fine. She just wanted me to come and get her. Said she’d had enough. Then she said she wanted to come home. Sorry to sabotage your night out on the town.’

  ‘It wasn’t really a night on the town,’ I say. ‘Only a drink down the pub.’

  He leans casually against the doorframe. We hold gazes. It’s so odd to find him standing here on the threshold of his up-until-recent life. It’s like one of us is visiting the other in prison, and even if we both put our palms against the glass it still wouldn’t feel like we were touching. A boundary has gone up because we’ve moved from the intimate thing of being married to the hostile thing of being divorced. Or we’re supposed to be hostile, but neither of us can even manage to get that right.

  He continues to stand there, in no hurry to leave, looking at me as though he’s drinking every bit of me in, instead of just seeing a face he knows as well as his own. And in an attempt to look everywhere but into his sad eyes I see him more objectively than normal: as Mike this human being who I happen to know quite well, yet he’s once or twice removed from me, as though we’re an impossible form of related strangers. He’s wearing a jacket I’ve not seen before. A dark brown leather three-quarter length thing that, because he’s short, comes almost to his knees, instead of, probably to his bum, where it should. Mike has always had a distinct style. There’s something 1970s about his oversized jackets, his skinny jeans, winklepicker shoes, and the prematurely grey Fonz hair. Rather than not being a follower of fashion, Mike is his own fashion. He’s comfortable with himself. And there was always something very attractive about that.

  Mike looks me over. My form-fitting black dress with the capped sleeves. My hair swept up and secured with a chunky tortoiseshell clip, bits straggling around my face. I had made an effort to look excited-to-be-single. For a moment, staring at my unusually over-made-up face in the mirror, I thought I’d pulled it off.

  He shrugs the one shoulder that’s not leaning against the doorframe. ‘I’ll have her next Saturday if you want to change your plans and go out then instead.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I tell him. Then, ‘Why do you suppose she didn’t just want to go back to yours?’

  ‘It’s not home, is it?’ he says, and holds my eyes.

  ‘She did rubbish on her history test,’ I change the subject. ‘I even helped her study for it.’

  ‘Maybe that was the problem,’ he jokes.

  I smile. ‘I was thinking maybe we need to get her a private tutor. Just for the main subjects.’

  ‘I think maybe we should back off pressuring her. She’s only twelve. Don’t you think she’s had enough to deal with these last few months?’

  I nod. ‘You’re probably right.’

  I’ve missed our conversations. Even our arguments had a certain comfort value, and I miss them too. Not that we had many, Mike tending to be more passive aggressive than full-on confrontational. ‘You look really nice by the way. You got your hair cut? How was your business trip?’

  My hand goes to the straggly bits of hair around my face. My divorce cut, as Jacqui calls it. ‘It was only down to Manchester. I left Aimee in good hands. She loves Jacqui staying with her.’

  ‘I know. Why do you sound like you’re apologising?’

  ‘I’m not. I’m only saying…’ What am I saying?

  ‘I took them both out for a pizza. Did Jacqui tell you?’

  He must see my surprise. ‘No! Actually.’ Why does it bother me that he went out with my sister? A divorce shouldn’t mean families have to take sides, yet Jacqui’s my sister and I don’t really want to share her with my ex-husband. ‘You’re allowed to take people out. You don’t have to give me reports.’ I realize I’m being childish about him inviting Jacqui.

  He looks down at my feet, diverting a potential argument, perhaps. ‘You’ve only got three toes done,’ he says, of my nail polish.

  ‘And they’re smudged and have bits of carpet sticking to them,’ I smile. My heart wasn’t really in going out; I was just fighting my inner tendency to be a hermit on weekends.

  ‘I think they look great. For three toes.’ This is Mike. Always tries to make you feel good about yourself.

  He continues to stare at them, as though my feet are an emotional stop sign he’s trying to get past but can’t. I think of my unprovoked outbursts about why I wasn’t happy. My feeling that marriage had become some kind of stopping place, some destination we’d reached only to find that I’d hoped for more when I got there. The strange thing is, what was it that I felt he stopped me from being, doing, that I want to run out and be and do now?

  When he finally looks up, he stares somewhat unseeingly into my eyes and it’s as if he’s just quickly re-read his Coles Notes on the section that deals with how you learn not to care. ‘Anyway, while I have you here,’ he says. He briefly looks past me inside our house and his face is a snapshot of sadness and regret. I can hardly bear to look. ‘Before you shut the door on me—’

  ‘—I wasn’t going to shut the door on you.’

  ‘Yes you were.’

  ‘I wasn’t. Why would I do that, Mike?’ It hurts me he’d think this.

  ‘Because, finally, you can.’

  I don’t answer this. He moves closer, his eyes going fleetingly to my mouth. ‘I’ve given a lot of thought to this business of being alone, and I have a proposition for you.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea of any of your propositions.’

  ‘You won’t. No. But I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.’

  ‘You’re going to put a horse’s head in my bed? I suppose I deserve it.’

  ‘Actually, that was going to be my last resort.’

  We smile at my lame attempt at a joke. I’ve missed his smile; its kindness draws you like a moth to light. ‘What I mean is, given that we are now officially divorced, and given that I for one am ready to take some giant step to move my life forward, I thought you might be able to help me out.’

  ‘Doing?’

  ‘I want to employ you. To help me meet somebody else. My soul-mate.’

  He scrutinises my presumably stunned-looking face. ‘It makes sense. You know me better than anyone. You’d know who would be good for me, probably better than I would. And I’m obviously going to pay you. I’m not asking for favours.’ His eyes settle where they’ve been buzzing, at the base of my throat.

  Mike always looks at me in shades of conflicting emotions. But I always sensed that while I might have doubted him, he never doubted me. Another thing—Mike never looks at you as though he’s seen it all before. I’ve never been made to feel that he’d fancy me more if I put lipstick on for him, or had bigger boobs. I know this is rare, from many of my SADs (Sane Attractive Divorcees, who are grounded, healthy, normal, and just want a second chance at happiness), as opposed to the SAFs (Spinster Attractive Females who have never been married, are getting more desperate and more inflexible the older they’re getting). Mike may not be a six-feet, wheeling dealing hulk of testosterone, but he knows how to appreciate a woman. Which makes me picture him appreciating someone else.

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Hear me out.’

  ‘No. I’m not doing it.’ I fold my arms under my breasts.

  He extracts his eyes from my throat. ‘I’m an opportunity for you to make another two thousand pounds. I’ll be a good client. I want the full service, though. The fake date. The whole works. Just like I was any client. Just because you were married to me you can’t hold it against me. No assumed prior knowledge.’

  ‘You don’t meet the MIS.’

  ‘What’s the MIS?’

  ‘You know what it is.’ Minimum Income Standard of sixty thousand pounds that the men have to meet to qualify.


  He wags a finger in front of my face. ‘No prior knowledge, remember?’

  ‘Okay. Mike, you’re not well off enough. You won’t qualify.’

  He shrugs. ‘So this is the one time when you can bend the rules a bit. And I’m not asking you to set me up with Angelina Jolie. One of your dodgiest eights will be fine.’

  Mike knows that the women have to at least rank an eight on the attractiveness scale. Because research still shows that men are into looks, and women are into money. I hate saying it. I’d hoped we’d all somehow got sensible over time. But we haven’t.

  ‘I don’t need a pin up. After all, I’m more into personalities than I am looks. I mean, I was married to a gorgeous woman and see what happened there.’

  We hold eyes, in the aftershock that follows such a remark. ‘I’m not doing it, Mike.’

  ‘Will you at least think about it?’

  ‘No. And I can’t believe you’re even suggesting it. What normal person would do this?’

  ‘But we know you’re not normal,’ he barbs, in his passive-aggressive way that’s meant to hurt you but he can’t quite pull the punch. ‘And who cares what others think? Most people don’t have an ex in the business, do they? And you’re so good at what you do; why wouldn’t I want to try to benefit from that? I could meet someone else still. Maybe even have another family—not that any other child would ever replace my first.’

  ‘You know what? I’ve changed my mind. I am going to shut the door on you.’

  He cocks his head, trying to win me over. ‘Come on Celine. Is it too much to want to see me happy? Do you hate me that much?’

  ‘I don’t hate you!’ A pain blazes in me. ‘Why would I hate you? I’m just...’

  Puzzled. Why would he insist on the fake date?

  Then a thought comes to me. ‘Mike… I hope this isn’t some strategy to get me back.’

  I regret saying it the instant it’s out. All the good humour slides right off his face. Then his gaze travels quickly up and down me. ‘You know what, Celine? Even in my darkest moments—because I still get them, far more than I would wish—I would never want to go back to being married to you.’