The Soulmate Agency

by Ivan B

  He trailed off into silence. She bit her lip again, “It was the kiss wasn’t it? Sort of brought it home, we’re now responsible for each other.”

  His blond eyebrows furrowed and his brow wrinkled, “Not responsible.” He sort for the right word, “beholden, we’re beholden to each other.”

  She licked her front teeth, “Regret that.”

  He looked into her eyes, “Not at all; feels kind of satisfying.”

  He swallowed so hard she could see his Adam’s apple bob up an down, “But I meant what I said, I won’t force myself on you, if you want it platonic then it’s platonic.”

  She suddenly let go of his hands and retreated into the safety of her own armchair. Cameron realized that she was unexpectedly distraught, almost to the point of anguish. She sat with shoulder slumped and eyes downcast, she muttered waveringly, “I should have said, but I didn’t think that…”

  Cameron murmured gently, “Said what?”

  Her deep blue eyes fixed on him with a painfully sad expression, “I’m not too good at physical contact.” She sort of shuddered, Cameron waited.

  She chewed on her bottom lip and some meagre edge of defiance crept into her voice. “I was bullied at school OK?”

  Cameron maintained eye contact, “Badly?”

  Riona looked away, “Constantly until I teamed up with Harriet at the school in Suffolk.”

  She suddenly looked back at Cameron, “You’ve no idea what it’s like, you’re scared of walking around every corner, night-time becomes a nightmare, crowded staircases become a place of fear.”

  She shuddered again, “So please don’t approach me from behind without making a noise so I know that you’re there and please please don’t expect me to sleep in the dark.”

  Tears trickled down her face, Cameron replied gently, “Then I’ll take my cues from you and if I get out of line…”

  She gave a half sob, “I don’t know, I don’t know – even being examined by a nurse gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

  She suddenly gave a sheepish grin, “This isn’t quite what you expected is it? I’m sorry, sort of false pretences.”

  Cameron shook his head, “Nothing to be sorry about, marriage is about starting where we are and wherever we are we’re nowhere near anything really physical.” He held out his hands, she grasped them and he whispered, “But you’re my wife and I’ve promised to look after you and I will.”

  They smiled at each other, she let go and pulled a large white handkerchief out of the pocket of her voluminous skirt and wiped her eyes after blowing her nose like an express train emerging from a tunnel. Cameron watched her carefully, whatever he had expected it was not this. “Didn’t your parents or the teachers stop it?”

  Riona gave a bitter half-laugh, “Some of the teachers were just as bad and my glorious step-mother told me that it would be character building and she wasn’t interested in my whining and that I shouldn’t be ungrateful for the money that was being lavished on my education.”

  Cameron understood and he didn’t understand; his schooldays had been bully-free and a time of happiness not fear. He said as tenderly as he could manage, “You must talk to me about it, I need to understand and it might help you to tell someone the truth.”

  She nodded but didn’t speak. Cameron rubbed her fingers with his thumbs, “I might not be what you expect either. Chaplain at the university said that one of my problems is that I become too absorbed in my work.”

  He glanced away, “It’s when I’m writing a difficult piece of software, it sort of preys on your mind. I’ve even been known to go into work at two in the morning when I think I’ve had a bright idea.”

  She frowned, she was missing something. She backtracked on what he’d told her. “Chaplain? Knew you well did he?”

  Cameron smiled, “He provided me with an oasis, he gave me the key to the chapel. I could creep away from the crowds and get some peace.”

  They sat gazing at one another for a few minutes. Cameron did not let go of her hands. Eventually he spoke, quietly and respectfully, “Excuse me asking, but your front teeth, why gold?”

  Riona responded by flicking her tongue over them, Cameron was beginning to like that involuntary movement as he found it somehow slightly erotic. “Another legacy from my step-mother. Had my mouth banged against a hand-basin when I was nearly sixteen.”

  She saw the amazement in Cameron’s eyes and shrugged, “Some hockey teams are bad losers and I’d scored ten goals against one of them. Anyway my precious step-mother visited me in the A&E department and then whisked me off to a private dentist. He talked about fitting crowns rather than wearing a plate, in any case step-mother thought that removable false teeth were downright common. I suppose I was naïve, I just assumed that he’d fit standard crowns, I’ve got two others on my bottom teeth here.”

  She opened her mouth and pointed to two pre-molars. “That wasn’t hockey, that was horse-riding.”

  She closed her mouth, “I turned up about a fortnight later, in raving agony I might add, and he fitted the crowns. It wasn’t until he showed me my teeth in a mirror that I realised that they were gold. By then they could have been made out of pink plastic, I hate dentists and I certainly wasn’t going to object and have them taken off.”

  She sighed, “I tackled my step-mother about it later, she’ told me that it would build my character and make me distinctive. It did that all-right.”

  Carson rolled his eyes, “The ASVB5, it’s got ‘A gold tooth design,’ engraved behind the power transformer!”

  She nodded, “Quite so.”

  She became timid and unconfident, “Do they bother you, I mean if they do…”

  He grasped her hands again, “Not at all, you keep them.” He felt her relax.

  They would have talked all afternoon, except that they were interrupted by a harassed Angela. She gazed at them briefly, “If you’re not walking, would you mind driving the minibus round to the picnic site?” She asked. “We’ve included an iced date and walnut cake.”

  Riona licked her lips and Cameron knew that he was doomed; he hated date and walnut cake. However, this was his wedding day so he resolved to put on a brave face, especially as it meant so much to Riona.

  Treasa pushed her plate away. “You’re right about this place, haven’t had a fish curry in years.”

  She watched him down the second half of his pint of beer and took a sip of her orange juice. She tried to look casual. “So what will you wife think about you bringing me here?”

  He looked momentarily phased and then looked at his left hand. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, I’m not married, I’m a widower.”

  She waited and eventually he shrugged. “We weren’t married long, just eight months.”

  He fidgeted, “Seven months actually. Seven months one week three days and five hours. She died in childbirth.”

  He looked over her shoulder at nothing in particular. “And yes, she was pregnant when I married her and yes it was a mistake. We got drunk at a Christmas party and I sort of let things get out of hand.” He swallowed nervously. “We decided to try and make a go of it and I’ve no idea if it would have worked out. She was nearly three weeks overdue when she went into labour and spent over a day in the maternity unit getting nowhere before she let them go for an emergency caesarean. She died of shock, he was already dead by the time they cut her open.”

  His voice was all matter of fact, his eyes were telling a different story. He appeared to come to and said flatly, “It was all years ago, twelve years ago, we were very young.”

  He raised a black eyebrow, “You married?”

  She gave a false laugh, “No. Men find small women erotic on occasions, but they’d rather court someone their own size.”

  She took a sip of orange juice, there was one matter she had to broach and broach swiftly for both of their sakes. “Do you still want children?” She tried to ask casually.

  He gripped the side of the table so hard his knuckles turned white. “Not sure,”
he grunted.

  “Not sure?” She echoed.

  She waited for a reply; anxiety crossed his face followed by hesitancy. “I know most women want children,” he said carefully, “but I’m not sure I could go though it all again. Having your wife die in your arms with you dead son lying next door is not an experience I want to repeat.”

  His voice dropped an octave. “She had the caesarean; they delivered my dead son and then sewed her up and told me she’d be alright. She died in my arms before I could tell her the child was dead.”

  Treasa tried to imagine the scene. She took a large breath through her nose before saying quietly, “I don’t have that option. Doctors say I’m small because that’s the way some people are, what didn’t help was that I never went to a GP until I was sixteen and by then it was too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “For my ovaries, by then they’d shrunk to the size of peanuts, so no glorious flood of hormones, no growth spurt and no chance of ever having a child. I’m not a true midget, I’m too tall for that anyway, it’s not a genetic abortion it was a physiological failure.”

  He gazed at her, “I wouldn’t call you a physiological failure. You’re all woman. Not as big as some I admit, but all woman.”

  He finished his pint. He indicated a path on the other side of the country lane. “That little tarmac path leads to a boating lake of sorts, fancy a stroll?”

  She didn’t need to be asked twice and he didn’t hesitate to lead her down to his very favourite spot. They’d started to talk and now he didn’t want to let the moment pass.

  Chapter 22

  Cinema

  Supper was in the Library twenty minutes early, so was Riona. She was examining the various heated containers when Roberta arrived. “Curry, rice, goulash and sautéed potatoes. Plus some salad.” She announced.

  Roberta gave a broad smile and flopped into an armchair. “How can you? That picnic was enormous.”

  Riona grinned, “So was the gingham cloth we all sat on, well most of us. You and Ben seemed to have hit it off.”

  Roberta gave a shy smile, “Do you think he’s a good man?”

  Riona thought that he’d be a bloody marvellous man to take on an alcoholic, even if she was as beautiful as the sirens of old. “He looks it,” she said diplomatically.

  Roberta sat in the chair with her head back against the top and closed her eyes, “Then I must be dreaming.”

  Riona sat on the arm of her chair. “I think we all must. You know I thought that this Soulmate agency was a load of codswallop, but it seems to have worked for us.”

  Roberta opened her eyes and grinned, “And Willow, least I think it has. I passed her and Henry a few moments ago, not that they noticed as they were kissing so hard they might end up stuck together for life.”

  Riona grinned, “I thought that that was the idea of this place, ending up stuck together for life.”

  Roberta looked blank for a few seconds and then a slow smile spread over her face, “Oh, yes.”

  Willow and Henry duly arrived looking like a pair of love-struck teenagers. ““Curry, rice, goulash and sautéed potatoes. Plus some salad.” She announced again.

  “Where’s your husband?” Cooed Willow

  Riona blinked, assimilated the statement, processed it, and came up with Cameron; it sent a shiver down her spine. “Having a shower, I think.”

  She was saved from further embarrassment by the arrival of Gwen. She breezed in wearing a pale pink chiffon designer dress that looked like it had been attacked by a seamstress with a scissors complex. For all the money it must have cost it made her look like a pantomime dame without the appropriate wig.

  By the time they reached coffee conversation had turned to families and siblings in particular. Gwen rolled her tiny brown eyes, “Brothers! Don’t talk to me about brothers! I’ve got three and I don’t think any of them know how to turn on a vacuum cleaner, but my they know how to lift a pint of bitter.”

  Roberta, unwise to the ways of brothers, looked shocked. “They can’t be that bad.”

  Gwen rolled her eyes again and used her full amateur dramatic expertise as she did so. “Oh no? Rang out her Welsh tones. “Let me tell you they are slobs of the first order. When I arrived from India to look after mother I found out that the next-door neighbour, who is 70 if she’s a day, was doing all their laundry and the dustbin was full to overflowing with take-away wrappers. I cooked and cleaned for them while I nursed mother through her last dying weeks and did any of them lift a finger? Of course not. Demeaning it is you see for a man to wash up a few dishes. The day after the funeral I told them I wasn’t staying as there was more to life than looking after them. And you know what my father said?”

  Her eyes swept the room like a storyteller, “He said that the only way I’d get a life was to wear a veil and marry an Arab or start visiting a home for the blind. Did I get any thanks for seventeen weeks hard labour – no. Did my father thank me for easing the dying moments of his wife – no. Slobs they are and slobs they’ll remain.”

  Willow stopped smiling at Henry and looked at Gwen. “So what are they doing now?”

  Gwen gave a mischievous grin, “According to Mrs Jones, she lives next door but one, their house is a pigs-sty and the pub has refused to serve them anymore on account of their tally; mum used to pay it for them you see. So now they have to go down to the labour club, stick in the throat that will as they’re all staunch Conservatives since Labour put up the price of booze to include policing costs.”

  She picked up small plate of goulash and started eating. Derek sat and watched. There was no doubt in his mind. She was ugly, ungainly, unnaturally proportioned, unenglish and definitely for him.

  After eating they drifted to the cinema room. It proved to be full of high-tech equipment, four small two-seat settees and two armchairs. They stood in a row and gazed at the shelves containing DVDs and videos; nobody knew what to choose. Eventually Henry clapped his hands. “I propose,” he said as if a judge, “That we get Willow to choose for us, after all she is the expert!”

  There were choruses of approval as Willow shot him a black look. She liked choosing for herself, not others. Her eyes flicked along the shelves and then stopped. “Right,” she announced, “if we’re going to see a film we’ll se a real film.”

  She pulled a reel of 16mm film from the top shelf, opened up the side of the forlorn looking film projector and expertly threaded the film. She surveyed the sound equipment coupled up to the projector, set the right hand knob to the appropriate input, flicked all the switches to ‘mono’ and looked at Henry. “Lights!” She barked.

  There was a rush for the settees and Henry turned out the lights. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” Willow announced. “You are about to see a classic Ealing comedy. She turned the projector feed on, waited about thirty seconds and turned on the projector bulb and sound. The title page filled the screen proclaiming Kind Hearts and Coronets as the scratchy music filled the room. She crept to the back settee, slipped in next to Henry and bit his ear before she gave him a long lingering kiss. It must have been years since they had both canoodled in the back seat of a cinema, but they weren’t out of practise.

  Roberta, on the other hand, was mesmerised. Yes she held Ben’s right hand with a passion and enjoyed his left arm behind her, but she had never seen the film, let alone seen it as a 16mm movie. So the experience was new. Ben, fortunately, was quite content to just sit squashed up against his beauty and enjoy her proximity.

  Derek and Gwen sat in the other rear settee that they had moved slightly sideways so that Gwen could see the screen. It took five minutes before Derek put his arm around her and three milliseconds after that for Gwen to snuggle up against him and rest her head against his chest. She smelt of a delicate perfume and baby shampoo. They both actually watched the film, and enjoyed it, but they enjoyed each other’s presence more

  Riona and Cameron sat in the left hand front settee and just held hands as they watched the film, n
either of them taking much in as their thoughts were beginning to turn elsewhere. What on earth were they going to do when the film ended?

  Treasa and George sat in a cinema of a different kind, his home cinema. After talking beside the small lake he’d taken her for a cream tea in a hotel and they’d talked about what they enjoyed. Somewhat sheepishly he’d told her of his home cinema and now she was sitting in it having swiftly explored the rest of his tiny house on the pretext of going to the toilet. As she watched the old faithful Calendar Girls being projected onto the wall before her, and audibly transferred to here on Dolby 7.1 sound, her thoughts were racing. The house spoke to her of loneliness, just a single bed with a single wardrobe and a single bedside cabinet in the bedroom. A kitchen that was both clean and devoid of any major food items except breakfast cereal. A tiny lounge that had just two armchairs and a coffee table and the ambience of a display rather than a lived-in room and this room with the home cinema. This was in a different category. This was where George really lived. Originally it had probably been designed to be the living room so it was the largest room in the house, it was dominated by two things, technical equipment and bookcases. The technical equipment consisted of the home cinema system, satellite TV and a coupled Hi-fi. The bookcases were full of DVDs, some personally recorded, most distributed films. She’d glanced along the shelves and he had a wide range of films from 1940s classics to current blockbusters and from Shakespearean theatre to animated cartoons. All this, and the drinks cabinet in the corner, told her that when he was off-duty this was all he did. Her thoughts turned to the film, he’d chosen it, but why choose such a picture? Yes it was funny and well acted, but did it subconsciously mean that he wanted her to pose nude?

  After Kind Hearts and Coronets, which everybody agreed was a good choice, they all drifted away. Riona took Cameron to her suite and closed the door. “How many rooms you got in your suite?” She asked pensively.